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diff --git a/9393.txt b/9393.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23522fa --- /dev/null +++ b/9393.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8915 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Dish Of Orts, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Dish Of Orts + +Author: George MacDonald + + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9393] +This file was first posted on September 29, 2003 +Last Updated: April 17, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DISH OF ORTS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sandra Brown, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + +A DISH OF ORTS + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Since printing throughout the title _Orts_, a doubt has arisen in my +mind as to its fitting the nature of the volume. It could hardly, +however, be imagined that I associate the idea of _worthlessness_ with +the work contained in it. No one would insult his readers by offering +them what he counted valueless scraps, and telling them they were such. +These papers, those two even which were caught in the net of the +ready-writer from extempore utterance, whatever their merits in +themselves; are the results of by no means trifling labour. So much a +man _ought_ to be able to say for his work. And hence I might defend, if +not quite justify my title--for they are but fragmentary presentments of +larger meditation. My friends at least will accept them as such, whether +they like their collective title or not. + +The title of the last is not quite suitable. It is that of the religious +newspaper which reported the sermon. I noted the fact too late for +correction. It ought to be _True Greatness_. + +The paper on _The Fantastic Imagination_ had its origin in the repeated +request of readers for an explanation of things in certain shorter +stories I had written. It forms the preface to an American edition of my +so-called Fairy Tales. + +GEORGE MACDONALD. + +EDENBRIDGE, KENT. _August 5, 1893._ + + + + + +CONTENTS. + +THE IMAGINATION: ITS FUNCTIONS AND ITS CULTURE + +A SKETCH OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT + +ST. GEORGE'S DAY, 1564 + +THE ART OF SHAKSPERE, AS REVEALED BY HIMSELF + +THE ELDER HAMLET + +ON POLISH + +BROWNING'S "CHRISTMAS EVE" + +"ESSAYS ON SOME OF THE FORMS OF LITERATURE" + +"THE HISTORY AND HEROES OF MEDICINE" + +WORDSWORTH'S POETRY + +SHELLEY + +A SERMON + +TRUE CHRISTIAN MINISTERING + +THE FANTASTIC IMAGINATION + + + + +THE IMAGINATION: ITS FUNCTIONS AND ITS CULTURE. + + +[Footnote: 1867.] + +There are in whose notion education would seem to consist in the +production of a certain repose through the development of this and that +faculty, and the depression, if not eradication, of this and that other +faculty. But if mere repose were the end in view, an unsparing +depression of all the faculties would be the surest means of approaching +it, provided always the animal instincts could be depressed likewise, +or, better still, kept in a state of constant repletion. Happily, +however, for the human race, it possesses in the passion of hunger even, +a more immediate saviour than in the wisest selection and treatment of +its faculties. For repose is not the end of education; its end is a +noble unrest, an ever renewed awaking from the dead, a ceaseless +questioning of the past for the interpretation of the future, an urging +on of the motions of life, which had better far be accelerated into +fever, than retarded into lethargy. + +By those who consider a balanced repose the end of culture, the +imagination must necessarily be regarded as the one faculty before all +others to be suppressed. "Are there not facts?" say they. "Why forsake +them for fancies? Is there not that which, may be _known_? Why forsake +it for inventions? What God hath made, into that let man inquire." + +We answer: To inquire into what God has made is the main function of the +imagination. It is aroused by facts, is nourished by facts; seeks for +higher and yet higher laws in those facts; but refuses to regard science +as the sole interpreter of nature, or the laws of science as the only +region of discovery. + +We must begin with a definition of the word _imagination_, or rather +some description of the faculty to which we give the name. + +The word itself means an _imaging_ or a making of likenesses. The +imagination is that faculty which gives form to thought--not necessarily +uttered form, but form capable of being uttered in shape or in sound, or +in any mode upon which the senses can lay hold. It is, therefore, that +faculty in man which is likest to the prime operation of the power of +God, and has, therefore, been called the _creative_ faculty, and its +exercise _creation_. _Poet_ means _maker_. We must not forget, however, +that between creator and poet lies the one unpassable gulf which +distinguishes--far be it from us to say _divides_--all that is God's +from all that is man's; a gulf teeming with infinite revelations, but a +gulf over which no man can pass to find out God, although God needs not +to pass over it to find man; the gulf between that which calls, and that +which is thus called into being; between that which makes in its own +image and that which is made in that image. It is better to keep the +word _creation_ for that calling out of nothing which is the imagination +of God; except it be as an occasional symbolic expression, whose daring +is fully recognized, of the likeness of man's work to the work of his +maker. The necessary unlikeness between the creator and the created +holds within it the equally necessary likeness of the thing made to him +who makes it, and so of the work of the made to the work of the maker. +When therefore, refusing to employ the word _creation_ of the work of +man, we yet use the word _imagination_ of the work of God, we cannot be +said to dare at all. It is only to give the name of man's faculty to +that power after which and by which it was fashioned. The imagination of +man is made in the image of the imagination of God. Everything of man +must have been of God first; and it will help much towards our +understanding of the imagination and its functions in man if we first +succeed in regarding aright the imagination of God, in which the +imagination of man lives and moves and has its being. + +As to _what_ thought is in the mind of God ere it takes form, or what +the form is to him ere he utters it; in a word, what the consciousness +of God is in either case, all we can say is, that our consciousness in +the resembling conditions must, afar off, resemble his. But when we come +to consider the acts embodying the Divine thought (if indeed thought and +act be not with him one and the same), then we enter a region of large +difference. We discover at once, for instance, that where a man would +make a machine, or a picture, or a book, God makes the man that makes +the book, or the picture, or the machine. Would God give us a drama? He +makes a Shakespere. Or would he construct a drama more immediately his +own? He begins with the building of the stage itself, and that stage is +a world--a universe of worlds. He makes the actors, and they do not +act,--they _are_ their part. He utters them into the visible to work out +their life--his drama. When he would have an epic, he sends a thinking +hero into his drama, and the epic is the soliloquy of his Hamlet. +Instead of writing his lyrics, he sets his birds and his maidens +a-singing. All the processes of the ages are God's science; all the flow +of history is his poetry. His sculpture is not in marble, but in living +and speech-giving forms, which pass away, not to yield place to those +that come after, but to be perfected in a nobler studio. What he has +done remains, although it vanishes; and he never either forgets what he +has once done, or does it even once again. As the thoughts move in the +mind of a man, so move the worlds of men and women in the mind of God, +and make no confusion there, for there they had their birth, the +offspring of his imagination. Man is but a thought of God. + +If we now consider the so-called creative faculty in man, we shall find +that in no _primary_ sense is this faculty creative. Indeed, a man is +rather _being thought_ than _thinking_, when a new thought arises in his +mind. He knew it not till he found it there, therefore he could not even +have sent for it. He did not create it, else how could it be the +surprise that it was when it arose? He may, indeed, in rare instances +foresee that something is coming, and make ready the place for its +birth; but that is the utmost relation of consciousness and will he can +bear to the dawning idea. Leaving this aside, however, and turning to +the _embodiment_ or revelation of thought, we shall find that a man no +more _creates_ the forms by which he would reveal his thoughts, than he +creates those thoughts themselves. + +For what are the forms by means of which a man may reveal his thoughts? +Are they not those of nature? But although he is created in the closest +sympathy with these forms, yet even these forms are not born in his +mind. What springs there is the perception that this or that form is +already an expression of this or that phase of thought or of feeling. +For the world around him is an outward figuration of the condition of +his mind; an inexhaustible storehouse of forms whence he may choose +exponents--the crystal pitchers that shall protect his thought and not +need to be broken that the light may break forth. The meanings are in +those forms already, else they could be no garment of unveiling. God has +made the world that it should thus serve his creature, developing in the +service that imagination whose necessity it meets. The man has but to +light the lamp within the form: his imagination is the light, it is not +the form. Straightway the shining thought makes the form visible, and +becomes itself visible through the form. [Footnote: We would not be +understood to say that the man works consciously even in this. +Oftentimes, if not always, the vision arises in the mind, thought and +form together.] + +In illustration of what we mean, take a passage from the poet Shelley. + +In his poem _Adonais_, written upon the death of Keats, representing +death as the revealer of secrets, he says:-- + + "The one remains; the many change and pass; + Heaven's light for ever shines; earth's shadows fly; + Life, like a dome of many coloured glass, + Stains the white radiance of eternity, + Until death tramples it to fragments." + +This is a new embodiment, certainly, whence he who gains not, for the +moment at least, a loftier feeling of death, must be dull either of +heart or of understanding. But has Shelley created this figure, or only +put together its parts according to the harmony of truths already +embodied in each of the parts? For first he takes the inventions of his +fellow-men, in glass, in colour, in dome: with these he represents life +as finite though elevated, and as an analysis although a lovely one. +Next he presents eternity as the dome of the sky above this dome of +coloured glass--the sky having ever been regarded as the true symbol of +eternity. This portion of the figure he enriches by the attribution of +whiteness, or unity and radiance. And last, he shows us Death as the +destroying revealer, walking aloft through, the upper region, treading +out this life-bubble of colours, that the man may look beyond it and +behold the true, the uncoloured, the all-coloured. + +But although the human imagination has no choice but to make use of the +forms already prepared for it, its operation is the same as that of the +divine inasmuch as it does put thought into form. And if it be to man +what creation is to God, we must expect to find it operative in every +sphere of human activity. Such is, indeed, the fact, and that to a far +greater extent than is commonly supposed. + +The sovereignty of the imagination, for instance, over the region of +poetry will hardly, in the present day at least, be questioned; but not +every one is prepared to be told that the imagination has had nearly as +much to do with the making of our language as with "Macbeth" or the +"Paradise Lost." The half of our language is the work of the +imagination. + +For how shall two agree together what name they shall give to a thought +or a feeling. How shall the one show the other that which is invisible? +True, he can unveil the mind's construction in the face--that living +eternally changeful symbol which God has hung in front of the unseen +spirit--but that without words reaches only to the expression of present +feeling. To attempt to employ it alone for the conveyance of the +intellectual or the historical would constantly mislead; while the +expression of feeling itself would be misinterpreted, especially with +regard to cause and object: the dumb show would be worse than dumb. + +But let a man become aware of some new movement within him. Loneliness +comes with it, for he would share his mind with his friend, and he +cannot; he is shut up in speechlessness. Thus + + He _may_ live a man forbid + Weary seven nights nine times nine, + +or the first moment of his perplexity may be that of his release. Gazing +about him in pain, he suddenly beholds the material form of his +immaterial condition. There stands his thought! God thought it before +him, and put its picture there ready for him when he wanted it. Or, to +express the thing more prosaically, the man cannot look around him long +without perceiving some form, aspect, or movement of nature, some +relation between its forms, or between such and himself which resembles +the state or motion within him. This he seizes as the symbol, as the +garment or body of his invisible thought, presents it to his friend, and +his friend understands him. Every word so employed with a new meaning is +henceforth, in its new character, born of the spirit and not of the +flesh, born of the imagination and not of the understanding, and is +henceforth submitted to new laws of growth and modification. + +"Thinkest thou," says Carlyle in "Past and Present," "there were no +poets till Dan Chaucer? No heart burning with a thought which it could +not hold, and had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word +for--what thou callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we +have there was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing +new metaphor and bold questionable originality. Thy very ATTENTION, does +it not mean an _attentio_, a STRETCHING-TO? Fancy that act of the mind, +which all were conscious of, which none had yet named,--when this new +poet first felt bound and driven to name it. His questionable +originality and new glowing metaphor was found adoptable, intelligible, +and remains our name for it to this day." + +All words, then, belonging to the inner world of the mind, are of the +imagination, are originally poetic words. The better, however, any such +word is fitted for the needs of humanity, the sooner it loses its poetic +aspect by commonness of use. It ceases to be heard as a symbol, and +appears only as a sign. Thus thousands of words which were originally +poetic words owing their existence to the imagination, lose their +vitality, and harden into mummies of prose. Not merely in literature +does poetry come first, and prose afterwards, but poetry is the source +of all the language that belongs to the inner world, whether it be of +passion or of metaphysics, of psychology or of aspiration. No poetry +comes by the elevation of prose; but the half of prose comes by the +"massing into the common clay" of thousands of winged words, whence, +like the lovely shells of by-gone ages, one is occasionally disinterred +by some lover of speech, and held up to the light to show the play of +colour in its manifold laminations. + +For the world is--allow us the homely figure--the human being turned +inside out. All that moves in the mind is symbolized in Nature. Or, to +use another more philosophical, and certainly not less poetic figure, +the world is a sensuous analysis of humanity, and hence an inexhaustible +wardrobe for the clothing of human thought. Take any word expressive of +emotion--take the word _emotion_ itself--and you will find that its +primary meaning is of the outer world. In the swaying of the woods, in +the unrest of the "wavy plain," the imagination saw the picture of a +well-known condition of the human mind; and hence the word _emotion_. +[Footnote: This passage contains only a repetition of what is far better +said in the preceding extract from Carlyle, but it was written before we +had read (if reviewers may be allowed to confess such ignorance) the +book from which that extract is taken.] + +But while the imagination of man has thus the divine function of putting +thought into form, it has a duty altogether human, which is paramount to +that function--the duty, namely, which springs from his immediate +relation to the Father, that of following and finding out the divine +imagination in whose image it was made. To do this, the man must watch +its signs, its manifestations. He must contemplate what the Hebrew poets +call the works of His hands. + +"But to follow those is the province of the intellect, not of the +imagination."--We will leave out of the question at present that poetic +interpretation of the works of Nature with which the intellect has +almost nothing, and the imagination almost everything, to do. It is +unnecessary to insist that the higher being of a flower even is +dependent for its reception upon the human imagination; that science may +pull the snowdrop to shreds, but cannot find out the idea of suffering +hope and pale confident submission, for the sake of which that darling +of the spring looks out of heaven, namely, God's heart, upon us his +wiser and more sinful children; for if there be any truth in this region +of things acknowledged at all, it will be at the same time acknowledged +that that region belongs to the imagination. We confine ourselves to +that questioning of the works of God which is called the province of +science. + +"Shall, then, the human intellect," we ask, "come into readier contact +with the divine imagination than that human imagination?" The work of +the Higher must be discovered by the search of the Lower in degree which +is yet similar in kind. Let us not be supposed to exclude the intellect +from a share in every highest office. Man is not divided when the +manifestations of his life are distinguished. The intellect "is all in +every part." There were no imagination without intellect, however much +it may appear that intellect can exist without imagination. What we mean +to insist upon is, that in finding out the works of God, the Intellect +must labour, workman-like, under the direction of the architect, +Imagination. Herein, too, we proceed in the hope to show how much more +than is commonly supposed the imagination has to do with human +endeavour; how large a share it has in the work that is done under the +sun. + +"But how can the imagination have anything to do with science? That +region, at least, is governed by fixed laws." + +"True," we answer. "But how much do we know of these laws? How much of +science already belongs to the region of the ascertained--in other +words, has been conquered by the intellect? We will not now dispute, +your vindication of the _ascertained_ from the intrusion of the +imagination; but we do claim for it all the undiscovered, all the +unexplored." "Ah, well! There it can do little harm. There let it run +riot if you will." "No," we reply. "Licence is not what we claim when we +assert the duty of the imagination to be that of following and finding +out the work that God maketh. Her part is to understand God ere she +attempts to utter man. Where is the room for being fanciful or riotous +here? It is only the ill-bred, that is, the uncultivated imagination +that will amuse itself where it ought to worship and work." + +"But the facts of Nature are to be discovered only by observation and +experiment." True. But how does the man of science come to think of his +experiments? Does observation reach to the non-present, the possible, +the yet unconceived? Even if it showed you the experiments which _ought_ +to be made, will observation reveal to you the experiments which _might_ +be made? And who can tell of which kind is the one that carries in its +bosom the secret of the law you seek? We yield you your facts. The laws +we claim for the prophetic imagination. "He hath set the world _in_ +man's heart," not in his understanding. And the heart must open the door +to the understanding. It is the far-seeing imagination which beholds +what might be a form of things, and says to the intellect: "Try whether +that may not be the form of these things;" which beholds or invents _a_ +harmonious relation of parts and operations, and sends the intellect to +find out whether that be not _the_ harmonious relation of them--that is, +the law of the phenomenon it contemplates. Nay, the poetic relations +themselves in the phenomenon may suggest to the imagination the law that +rules its scientific life. Yea, more than this: we dare to claim for the +true, childlike, humble imagination, such an inward oneness with the +laws of the universe that it possesses in itself an insight into the +very nature of things. + +Lord Bacon tells us that a prudent question is the half of knowledge. +Whence comes this prudent question? we repeat. And we answer, From the +imagination. It is the imagination that suggests in what direction to +make the new inquiry--which, should it cast no immediate light on the +answer sought, can yet hardly fail to be a step towards final discovery. +Every experiment has its origin in hypothesis; without the scaffolding +of hypothesis, the house of science could never arise. And the +construction of any hypothesis whatever is the work of the imagination. +The man who cannot invent will never discover. The imagination often +gets a glimpse of the law itself long before it is or can be +_ascertained_ to be a law. [Footnote: This paper was already written +when, happening to mention the present subject to a mathematical friend, +a lecturer at one of the universities, he gave us a corroborative +instance. He had lately _guessed_ that a certain algebraic process could +be shortened exceedingly if the method which his imagination suggested +should prove to be a true one--that is, an algebraic law. He put it to +the test of experiment--committed the verification, that is, into the +hands of his intellect--and found the method true. It has since been +accepted by the Royal Society. + +Noteworthy illustration we have lately found in the record of the +experiences of an Edinburgh detective, an Irishman of the name of +McLevy. That the service of the imagination in the solution of the +problems peculiar to his calling is well known to him, we could adduce +many proofs. He recognizes its function in the construction of the +theory which shall unite this and that hint into an organic whole, and +he expressly sets forth the need of a theory before facts can be +serviceable:-- + +"I would wait for my 'idea'.... I never did any good without mine.... +Chance never smiled on me unless I poked her some way; so that my +'notion,' after all, has been in the getting of it my own work only +perfected by a higher hand." + +"On leaving the shop I went direct to Prince's Street,--of course with +an idea in my mind; and somehow I have always been contented with one +idea when I could not get another; and the advantage of sticking by one +is, that the other don't jostle it and turn you about in a circle when +you should go in a straight line." (Footnote: Since quoting the above I +have learned that the book referred to is unworthy of confidence. But +let it stand as illustration where it cannot be proof.)] + +The region belonging to the pure intellect is straitened: the +imagination labours to extend its territories, to give it room. She +sweeps across the borders, searching out new lands into which she may +guide her plodding brother. The imagination is the light which redeems +from the darkness for the eyes of the understanding. Novalis says, "The +imagination is the stuff of the intellect"--affords, that is, the +material upon which the intellect works. And Bacon, in his "Advancement +of Learning," fully recognizes this its office, corresponding to the +foresight of God in this, that it beholds afar off. And he says: +"Imagination is much akin to miracle-working faith." [Footnote: We are +sorry we cannot verify this quotation, for which we are indebted to Mr. +Oldbuck the Antiquary, in the novel of that ilk. There is, however, +little room for doubt that it is sufficiently correct.] + +In the scientific region of her duty of which we speak, the Imagination +cannot have her perfect work; this belongs to another and higher sphere +than that of intellectual truth--that, namely, of full-globed humanity, +operating in which she gives birth to poetry--truth in beauty. But her +function in the complete sphere of our nature, will, at the same time, +influence her more limited operation in the sections that belong to +science. Coleridge says that no one but a poet will make any further +_great_ discoveries in mathematics; and Bacon says that "wonder," that +faculty of the mind especially attendant on the child-like imagination, +"is the seed of knowledge." The influence of the poetic upon the +scientific imagination is, for instance, especially present in the +construction of an invisible whole from the hints afforded by a visible +part; where the needs of the part, its uselessness, its broken +relations, are the only guides to a multiplex harmony, completeness, and +end, which is the whole. From a little bone, worn with ages of death, +older than the man can think, his scientific imagination dashed with the +poetic, calls up the form, size, habits, periods, belonging to an animal +never beheld by human eyes, even to the mingling contrasts of scales and +wings, of feathers and hair. Through the combined lenses of science and +imagination, we look back into ancient times, so dreadful in their +incompleteness, that it may well have been the task of seraphic faith, +as well as of cherubic imagination, to behold in the wallowing +monstrosities of the terror-teeming earth, the prospective, quiet, +age-long labour of God preparing the world with all its humble, graceful +service for his unborn Man. The imagination of the poet, on the other +hand, dashed with the imagination of the man of science, revealed to +Goethe the prophecy of the flower in the leaf. No other than an artistic +imagination, however, fulfilled of science, could have attained to the +discovery of the fact that the leaf is the imperfect flower. + +When we turn to history, however, we find probably the greatest +operative sphere of the intellectuo-constructive imagination. To +discover its laws; the cycles in which events return, with the reasons +of their return, recognizing them notwithstanding metamorphosis; to +perceive the vital motions of this spiritual body of mankind; to learn +from its facts the rule of God; to construct from a succession of broken +indications a whole accordant with human nature; to approach a scheme of +the forces at work, the passions overwhelming or upheaving, the +aspirations securely upraising, the selfishnesses debasing and +crumbling, with the vital interworking of the whole; to illuminate all +from the analogy with individual life, and from the predominant phases +of individual character which are taken as the mind of the people--this +is the province of the imagination. Without her influence no process of +recording events can develop into a history. As truly might that be +called the description of a volcano which occupied itself with a +delineation of the shapes assumed by the smoke expelled from the +mountain's burning bosom. What history becomes under the full sway of +the imagination may be seen in the "History of the French Revolution," +by Thomas Carlyle, at once a true picture, a philosophical revelation, a +noble poem. + +There is a wonderful passage about _Time_ in Shakespere's "Rape of +Lucrece," which shows how he understood history. The passage is really +about history, and not about time; for time itself does nothing--not +even "blot old books and alter their contents." It is the forces at work +in time that produce all the changes; and they are history. We quote for +the sake of one line chiefly, but the whole stanza is pertinent. + + "Time's glory is to calm contending kings, + To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, + To stamp the seal of time in aged things, + To wake the morn and sentinel the night, + _To wrong the wronger till he render right;_ + To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, + And smear with dust their glittering golden towers." + +_To wrong the wronger till he render right._ Here is a historical cycle +worthy of the imagination of Shakespere, yea, worthy of the creative +imagination of our God--the God who made the Shakespere with the +imagination, as well as evolved the history from the laws which that +imagination followed and found out. + +In full instance we would refer our readers to Shakespere's historical +plays; and, as a side-illustration, to the fact that he repeatedly +represents his greatest characters, when at the point of death, as +relieving their overcharged minds by prophecy. Such prophecy is the +result of the light of imagination, cleared of all distorting dimness by +the vanishing of earthly hopes and desires, cast upon the facts of +experience. Such prophecy is the perfect working of the historical +imagination. + +In the interpretation of individual life, the same principles hold; and +nowhere can the imagination be more healthily and rewardingly occupied +than in endeavouring to construct the life of an individual out of the +fragments which are all that can reach us of the history of even the +noblest of our race. How this will apply to the reading of the gospel +story we leave to the earnest thought of our readers. + +We now pass to one more sphere in which the student imagination works in +glad freedom--the sphere which is understood to belong more immediately +to the poet. + +We have already said that the forms of Nature (by which word _forms_ we +mean any of those conditions of Nature which affect the senses of man) +are so many approximate representations of the mental conditions of +humanity. The outward, commonly called the material, is _informed_ by, +or has form in virtue of, the inward or immaterial--in a word, the +thought. The forms of Nature are the representations of human thought in +virtue of their being the embodiment of God's thought. As such, +therefore, they can be read and used to any depth, shallow or profound. +Men of all ages and all developments have discovered in them the means +of expression; and the men of ages to come, before us in every path +along which we are now striving, must likewise find such means in those +forms, unfolding with their unfolding necessities. The man, then, who, +in harmony with nature, attempts the discovery of more of her meanings, +is just searching out the things of God. The deepest of these are far +too simple for us to understand as yet. But let our imagination +interpretive reveal to us one severed significance of one of her parts, +and such is the harmony of the whole, that all the realm of Nature is +open to us henceforth--not without labour--and in time. Upon the man who +can understand the human meaning of the snowdrop, of the primrose, or of +the daisy, the life of the earth blossoming into the cosmical flower of +a perfect moment will one day seize, possessing him with its prophetic +hope, arousing his conscience with the vision of the "rest that +remaineth," and stirring up the aspiration to enter into that rest: + + "Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve! + But long as godlike wish, or hope divine, + Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe + That this magnificence is wholly thine! + --From worlds not quickened by the sun + A portion of the gift is won; + An intermingling of Heaven's pomp is spread + On ground which British shepherds tread!" + +Even the careless curve of a frozen cloud across the blue will calm some +troubled thoughts, may slay some selfish thoughts. And what shall be +said of such gorgeous shows as the scarlet poppies in the green corn, +the likest we have to those lilies of the field which spoke to the +Saviour himself of the care of God, and rejoiced His eyes with the glory +of their God-devised array? From such visions as these the imagination +reaps the best fruits of the earth, for the sake of which all the +science involved in its construction, is the inferior, yet willing and +beautiful support. + +From what we have now advanced, will it not then appear that, on the +whole, the name given by our Norman ancestors is more fitting for the +man who moves in these regions than the name given by the Greeks? Is not +the _Poet_, the _Maker_, a less suitable name for him than the +_Trouvere_, the _Finder_? At least, must not the faculty that finds +precede the faculty that utters? + +But is there nothing to be said of the function of the imagination from +the Greek side of the question? Does it possess no creative faculty? Has +it no originating power? + +Certainly it would be a poor description of the Imagination which +omitted the one element especially present to the mind that invented the +word _Poet_.--It can present us with new thought-forms--new, that is, as +revelations of thought. It has created none of the material that goes to +make these forms. Nor does it work upon raw material. But it takes forms +already existing, and gathers them about a thought so much higher than +they, that it can group and subordinate and harmonize them into a whole +which shall represent, unveil that thought. [Footnote: Just so Spenser +describes the process of the embodiment of a human soul in his Platonic +"Hymn in Honour of Beauty." + + "She frames her house in which she will be placed + Fit for herself.... + And the gross matter by a sovereign might + Tempers so trim.... + For of the soul the body form doth take; + For soul is form, and doth the body make."] + +The nature of this process we will illustrate by an examination of the +well-known _Bugle Song_ in Tennyson's "Princess." + +First of all, there is the new music of the song, which does not even +remind one of the music of any other. The rhythm, rhyme, melody, harmony +are all an embodiment in sound, as distinguished from word, of what can +be so embodied--the _feeling_ of the poem, which goes before, and +prepares the way for the following thought--tunes the heart into a +receptive harmony. Then comes the new arrangement of thought and figure +whereby the meaning contained is presented as it never was before. We +give a sort of paraphrastical synopsis of the poem, which, partly in +virtue of its disagreeableness, will enable the lovers of the song to +return to it with an increase of pleasure. + +The glory of midsummer mid-day upon mountain, lake, and ruin. Give +nature a voice for her gladness. Blow, bugle. + +Nature answers with dying echoes, sinking in the midst of her splendour +into a sad silence. + +Not so with human nature. The echoes of the word of truth gather volume +and richness from every soul that re-echoes it to brother and sister +souls. + +With poets the _fashion_ has been to contrast the stability and +rejuvenescence of nature with the evanescence and unreturning decay of +humanity:-- + + "Yet soon reviving plants and flowers, anew shall deck the plain; + The woods shall hear the voice of Spring, and flourish green again. + But man forsakes this earthly scene, ah! never to return: + Shall any following Spring revive the ashes of the urn?" + +But our poet vindicates the eternal in humanity:-- + + "O Love, they die in yon rich sky, + They faint on hill or field or river: + Our echoes roll from soul to soul, + And grow for ever and for ever. + Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; + And answer, echoes, answer, Dying, dying, dying." + +Is not this a new form to the thought--a form which makes us feel the +truth of it afresh? And every new embodiment of a known truth must be a +new and wider revelation. No man is capable of seeing for himself the +whole of any truth: he needs it echoed back to him from every soul in +the universe; and still its centre is hid in the Father of Lights. In so +far, then, as either form or thought is new, we may grant the use of the +word Creation, modified according to our previous definitions. + +This operation of the imagination in choosing, gathering, and vitally +combining the material of a new revelation, may be well illustrated from +a certain employment of the poetic faculty in which our greatest poets +have delighted. Perceiving truth half hidden and half revealed in the +slow speech and stammering tongue of men who have gone before them, they +have taken up the unfinished form and completed it; they have, as it +were, rescued the soul of meaning from its prison of uninformed crudity, +where it sat like the Prince in the "Arabian Nights," half man, half +marble; they have set it free in its own form, in a shape, namely, which +it could "through every part impress." Shakespere's keen eye suggested +many such a rescue from the tomb--of a tale drearily told--a tale which +no one now would read save for the glorified form in which he has +re-embodied its true contents. And from Tennyson we can produce one +specimen small enough for our use, which, a mere chip from the great +marble re-embodying the old legend of Arthur's death, may, like the hand +of Achilles holding his spear in the crowded picture, + + "Stand for the whole to be imagined." + +In the "History of Prince Arthur," when Sir Bedivere returns after +hiding Excalibur the first time, the king asks him what he has seen, and +he answers-- + + "Sir, I saw nothing but waves and wind." + +The second time, to the same question, he answers-- + + "Sir, I saw nothing but the water[1] wap, and the waves wan." + +[Footnote 1: The word _wap_ is plain enough; the word _wan_ we cannot +satisfy ourselves about. Had it been used with regard to the water, it +might have been worth remarking that _wan_, meaning dark, gloomy, +turbid, is a common adjective to a river in the old Scotch ballad. And +it might be an adjective here; but that is not likely, seeing it is +conjoined with the verb _wap_. The Anglo-Saxon _wanian_, to decrease, +might be the root-word, perhaps, (in the sense of _to ebb_,) if this +water had been the sea and not a lake. But possibly the meaning is, "I +heard the water _whoop_ or _wail aloud_" (from _Wopan_); and "the waves +_whine_ or _bewail_" (from _Wanian_ to lament). But even then the two +verbs would seem to predicate of transposed subjects.] + +This answer Tennyson has expanded into the well-known lines-- + + "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, + And the wild water lapping on the crag;" + +slightly varied, for the other occasion, into-- + + "I heard the water lapping on the crag, + And the long ripple washing in the reeds." + +But, as to this matter of _creation_, is there, after all, I ask yet, +any genuine sense in which a man may be said to create his own +thought-forms? Allowing that a new combination of forms already existing +might be called creation, is the man, after all, the author of this new +combination? Did he, with his will and his knowledge, proceed wittingly, +consciously, to construct a form which should embody his thought? Or did +this form arise within him without will or effort of his--vivid if not +clear--certain if not outlined? Ruskin (and better authority we do not +know) will assert the latter, and we think he is right: though perhaps +he would insist more upon the absolute perfection of the vision than we +are quite prepared to do. Such embodiments are not the result of the +man's intention, or of the operation of his conscious nature. His +feeling is that they are given to him; that from the vast unknown, where +time and space are not, they suddenly appear in luminous writing upon +the wall of his consciousness. Can it be correct, then, to say that he +created them? Nothing less so, as it seems to us. But can we not say +that they are the creation of the unconscious portion of his nature? +Yes, provided we can understand that that which is the individual, the +man, can know, and not know that it knows, can create and yet be +ignorant that virtue has gone out of it. From that unknown region we +grant they come, but not by its own blind working. Nor, even were it so, +could any amount of such production, where no will was concerned, be +dignified with the name of creation. But God sits in that chamber of our +being in which the candle of our consciousness goes out in darkness, and +sends forth from thence wonderful gifts into the light of that +understanding which is His candle. Our hope lies in no most perfect +mechanism even of the spirit, but in the wisdom wherein we live and move +and have our being. Thence we hope for endless forms of beauty informed +of truth. If the dark portion of our own being were the origin of our +imaginations, we might well fear the apparition of such monsters as +would be generated in the sickness of a decay which could never +feel--only declare--a slow return towards primeval chaos. But the Maker +is our Light. + +One word more, ere we turn to consider the culture of this noblest +faculty, which we might well call the creative, did we not see a +something in God for which we would humbly keep our mighty word:--the +fact that there is always more in a work of art--which is the highest +human result of the embodying imagination--than the producer himself +perceived while he produced it, seems to us a strong reason for +attributing to it a larger origin than the man alone--for saying at the +last, that the inspiration of the Almighty shaped its ends. + +We return now to the class which, from the first, we supposed hostile to +the imagination and its functions generally. Those belonging to it will +now say: "It was to no imagination such as you have been setting forth +that we were opposed, but to those wild fancies and vague reveries in +which young people indulge, to the damage and loss of the real in the +world around them." + +"And," we insist, "you would rectify the matter by smothering the young +monster at once--because he has wings, and, young to their use, flutters +them about in a way discomposing to your nerves, and destructive to +those notions of propriety of which this creature--you stop not to +inquire whether angel or pterodactyle--has not yet learned even the +existence. Or, if it is only the creature's vagaries of which you +disapprove, why speak of them as _the_ exercise of the imagination? As +well speak of religion as the mother of cruelty because religion has +given more occasion of cruelty, as of all dishonesty and devilry, than +any other object of human interest. Are we not to worship, because our +forefathers burned and stabbed for religion? It is more religion we +want. It is more imagination we need. Be assured that these are but the +first vital motions of that whose results, at least in the region of +science, you are more than willing to accept." That evil may spring from +the imagination, as from everything except the perfect love of God, +cannot be denied. But infinitely worse evils would be the result of its +absence. Selfishness, avarice, sensuality, cruelty, would flourish +tenfold; and the power of Satan would be well established ere some +children had begun to choose. Those who would quell the apparently +lawless tossing of the spirit, called the youthful imagination, would +suppress all that is to grow out of it. They fear the enthusiasm they +never felt; and instead of cherishing this divine thing, instead of +giving it room and air for healthful growth, they would crush +and confine it--with but one result of their victorious +endeavours--imposthume, fever, and corruption. And the disastrous +consequences would soon appear in the intellect likewise which they +worship. Kill that whence spring the crude fancies and wild day-dreams +of the young, and you will never lead them beyond dull facts--dull +because their relations to each other, and the one life that works in +them all, must remain undiscovered. Whoever would have his children +avoid this arid region will do well to allow no teacher to approach +them--not even of mathematics--who has no imagination. + +"But although good results may appear in a few from the indulgence of +the imagination, how will it be with the many?" + +We answer that the antidote to indulgence is development, not restraint, +and that such is the duty of the wise servant of Him who made the +imagination. + +"But will most girls, for instance, rise to those useful uses of the +imagination? Are they not more likely to exercise it in building castles +in the air to the neglect of houses on the earth? And as the world +affords such poor scope for the ideal, will not this habit breed vain +desires and vain regrets? Is it not better, therefore, to keep to that +which is known, and leave the rest?" + +"Is the world so poor?" we ask in return. The less reason, then, to be +satisfied with it; the more reason to rise above it, into the region of +the true, of the eternal, of things as God thinks them. This outward +world is but a passing vision of the persistent true. We shall not live +in it always. We are dwellers in a divine universe where no desires are +in vain, if only they be large enough. Not even in this world do all +disappointments breed only vain regrets. [Footnote: + "We will grieve not, rather find + Strength in what remains behind; + In the primal sympathy + Which, having been, must ever be; + In the soothing thoughts that spring + Out of human suffering; + In the faith that looks through death, + In years that bring the philosophic mind."] + +And as to keeping to that which is known and leaving the rest--how many +affairs of this world are so well-defined, so capable of being clearly +understood, as not to leave large spaces of uncertainty, whose very +correlate faculty is the imagination? Indeed it must, in most things, +work after some fashion, filling the gaps after some possible plan, +before action can even begin. In very truth, a wise imagination, which +is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide that man or +woman can have; for it is not the things we see the most clearly that +influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of +something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have +far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things +may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not +the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation. We live by +faith, and not by sight. Put the question to our mathematicians--only be +sure the question reaches them--whether they would part with the +well-defined perfection of their diagrams, or the dim, strange, possibly +half-obliterated characters woven in the web of their being; their +science, in short, or their poetry; their certainties, or their hopes; +their consciousness of knowledge, or their vague sense of that which +cannot be known absolutely: will they hold by their craft or by their +inspirations, by their intellects or their imaginations? If they say the +former in each alternative, I shall yet doubt whether the objects of the +choice are actually before them, and with equal presentation. + +What can be known must be known severely; but is there, therefore, no +faculty for those infinite lands of uncertainty lying all about the +sphere hollowed out of the dark by the glimmering lamp of our knowledge? +Are they not the natural property of the imagination? there, _for_ it, +that it may have room to grow? there, that the man may learn to imagine +greatly like God who made him, himself discovering their mysteries, in +virtue of his following and worshipping imagination? + +All that has been said, then, tends to enforce the culture of the +imagination. But the strongest argument of all remains behind. For, if +the whole power of pedantry should rise against her, the imagination +will yet work; and if not for good, then for evil; if not for truth, +then for falsehood; if not for life, then for death; the evil +alternative becoming the more likely from the unnatural treatment she +has experienced from those who ought to have fostered her. The power +that might have gone forth in conceiving the noblest forms of action, in +realizing the lives of the true-hearted, the self-forgetting, will go +forth in building airy castles of vain ambition, of boundless riches, of +unearned admiration. The imagination that might be devising how to make +home blessed or to help the poor neighbour, will be absorbed in the +invention of the new dress, or worse, in devising the means of procuring +it. For, if she be not occupied with the beautiful, she will be occupied +by the pleasant; that which goes not out to worship, will remain at home +to be sensual. Cultivate the mere intellect as you may, it will never +reduce the passions: the imagination, seeking the ideal in everything, +will elevate them to their true and noble service. Seek not that your +sons and your daughters should not see visions, should not dream dreams; +seek that they should see true visions, that they should dream noble +dreams. Such out-going of the imagination is one with aspiration, and +will do more to elevate above what is low and vile than all possible +inculcations of morality. Nor can religion herself ever rise up into her +own calm home, her crystal shrine, when one of her wings, one of the +twain with which she flies, is thus broken or paralyzed. + + "The universe is infinitely wide, + And conquering Reason, if self-glorified, + Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall + Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone, + Imaginative Faith! canst overleap, + In progress towards the fount of love." + +The danger that lies in the repression of the imagination may be well +illustrated from the play of "Macbeth." The imagination of the hero (in +him a powerful faculty), representing how the deed would appear to +others, and so representing its true nature to himself, was his great +impediment on the path to crime. Nor would he have succeeded in reaching +it, had he not gone to his wife for help--sought refuge from his +troublesome imagination with her. She, possessing far less of the +faculty, and having dealt more destructively with what she had, took his +hand, and led him to the deed. From her imagination, again, she for her +part takes refuge in unbelief and denial, declaring to herself and her +husband that there is no reality in its representations; that there is +no reality in anything beyond the present effect it produces on the mind +upon which it operates; that intellect and courage are equal to any, +even an evil emergency; and that no harm will come to those who can rule +themselves according to their own will. Still, however, finding her +imagination, and yet more that of her husband, troublesome, she effects +a marvellous combination of materialism and idealism, and asserts that +things are not, cannot be, and shall not be more or other than people +choose to think them. She says,-- + + "These deeds must not be thought + After these ways; so, it will make us mad." + + "The sleeping and the dead + Are but as pictures." + +But she had over-estimated the power of her will, and under-estimated +that of her imagination. Her will was the one thing in her that was bad, +without root or support in the universe, while her imagination was the +voice of God himself out of her own unknown being. The choice of no man +or woman can long determine how or what he or she shall think of things. +Lady Macbeth's imagination would not be repressed beyond its appointed +period--a time determined by laws of her being over which she had no +control. It arose, at length, as from the dead, overshadowing her with +all the blackness of her crime. The woman who drank strong drink that +she might murder, dared not sleep without a light by her bed; rose and +walked in the night, a sleepless spirit in a sleeping body, rubbing the +spotted hand of her dreams, which, often as water had cleared it of the +deed, yet smelt so in her sleeping nostrils, that all the perfumes of +Arabia would not sweeten it. Thus her long down-trodden imagination rose +and took vengeance, even through those senses which she had thought to +subordinate to her wicked will. + +But all this is of the imagination itself, and fitter, therefore, for +illustration than for argument. Let us come to facts.--Dr. Pritchard, +lately executed for murder, had no lack of that invention, which is, as +it were, the intellect of the imagination--its lowest form. One of the +clergymen who, at his own request, attended the prisoner, went through +indescribable horrors in the vain endeavour to induce the man simply to +cease from lying: one invention after another followed the most earnest +asseverations of truth. The effect produced upon us by this clergyman's +report of his experience was a moral dismay, such as we had never felt +with regard to human being, and drew from us the exclamation, "The man +could have had no imagination." The reply was, "None whatever." Never +seeking true or high things, caring only for appearances, and, +therefore, for inventions, he had left his imagination all undeveloped, +and when it represented his own inner condition to him, had repressed it +until it was nearly destroyed, and what remained of it was set on fire +of hell. [Footnote: One of the best weekly papers in London, evidently +as much in ignorance of the man as of the facts of the case, spoke of +Dr. MacLeod as having been engaged in "white-washing the murderer for +heaven." So far is this from a true representation, that Dr. MacLeod +actually refused to pray with him, telling him that if there was a hell +to go to, he must go to it.] + +Man is "the roof and crown of things." He is the world, and more. +Therefore the chief scope of his imagination, next to God who made him, +will he the world in relation to his own life therein. Will he do better +or worse in it if this imagination, touched to fine issues and having +free scope, present him with noble pictures of relationship and duty, of +possible elevation of character and attainable justice of behaviour, of +friendship and of love; and, above all, of all these in that life to +understand which as a whole, must ever be the loftiest aspiration of +this noblest power of humanity? Will a woman lead a more or a less +troubled life that the sights and sounds of nature break through the +crust of gathering anxiety, and remind her of the peace of the lilies +and the well-being of the birds of the air? Or will life be less +interesting to her, that the lives of her neighbours, instead of passing +like shadows upon a wall, assume a consistent wholeness, forming +themselves into stories and phases of life? Will she not hereby love +more and talk less? Or will she be more unlikely to make a good +match----? But here we arrest ourselves in bewilderment over the word +_good_, and seek to re-arrange our thoughts. If what mothers mean by a +_good_ match, is the alliance of a man of position and means--or let +them throw intellect, manners, and personal advantages into the same +scale--if this be all, then we grant the daughter of cultivated +imagination may not be manageable, will probably be obstinate. "We hope +she will be obstinate enough. [Footnote: Let women who feel the wrongs +of their kind teach women to be high-minded in their relation to men, +and they will do more for the social elevation of women, and the +establishment of their rights, whatever those rights may be, than by any +amount of intellectual development or assertion of equality. Nor, if +they are other than mere partisans, will they refuse the attempt because +in its success men will, after all, be equal, if not greater gainers, if +only thereby they should be "feelingly persuaded" what they are.] But +will the girl be less likely to marry a _gentleman_, in the grand old +meaning of the sixteenth century? when it was no irreverence to call our +Lord + + "The first true gentleman that ever breathed;" + +or in that of the fourteenth?--when Chaucer teaching "whom is worthy to +be called gentill," writes thus:-- + + "The first stocke was full of rightwisnes, + Trewe of his worde, sober, pitous and free, + Clene of his goste, and loved besinesse, + Against the vice of slouth in honeste; + And but his heire love vertue as did he, + He is not gentill though he rich seme, + All weare he miter, crowne, or diademe." + +Will she be less likely to marry one who honours women, and for their +sakes, as well as his own, honours himself? Or to speak from what many +would regard as the mother's side of the question--will the girl be more +likely, because of such a culture of her imagination, to refuse the +wise, true-hearted, generous rich man, and fall in love with the +talking, verse-making fool, _because_ he is poor, as if that were a +virtue for which he had striven? The highest imagination and the +lowliest common sense are always on one side. + +For the end of imagination is _harmony_. A right imagination, being the +reflex of the creation, will fall in with the divine order of things as +the highest form of its own operation; "will tune its instrument here at +the door" to the divine harmonies within; will be content alone with +growth towards the divine idea, which includes all that is beautiful in +the imperfect imaginations of men; will know that every deviation from +that growth is downward; and will therefore send the man forth from its +loftiest representations to do the commonest duty of the most wearisome +calling in a hearty and hopeful spirit. This is the work of the right +imagination; and towards this work every imagination, in proportion to +the rightness that is in it, will tend. The reveries even of the wise +man will make him stronger for his work; his dreaming as well as his +thinking will render him sorry for past failure, and hopeful of future +success. + +To come now to the culture of the imagination. Its development is one of +the main ends of the divine education of life with all its efforts and +experiences. Therefore the first and essential means for its culture +must be an ordering of our life towards harmony with its ideal in the +mind of God. As he that is willing to do the will of the Father, shall +know of the doctrine, so, we doubt not, he that will do the will of THE +POET, shall behold the Beautiful. For all is God's; and the man who is +growing into harmony with His will, is growing into harmony with +himself; all the hidden glories of his being are coming out into the +light of humble consciousness; so that at the last he shall be a pure +microcosm, faithfully reflecting, after his manner, the mighty +macrocosm. We believe, therefore, that nothing will do so much for the +intellect or the imagination as _being good_--we do not mean after any +formula or any creed, but simply after the faith of Him who did the will +of his Father in heaven. + +But if we speak of direct means for the culture of the imagination, the +whole is comprised in two words--food and exercise. If you want strong +arms, take animal food, and row. Feed your imagination with food +convenient for it, and exercise it, not in the contortions of the +acrobat, but in the movements of the gymnast. And first for the food. + +Goethe has told us that the way to develop the aesthetic faculty is to +have constantly before our eyes, that is, in the room we most frequent, +some work of the best attainable art. This will teach us to refuse the +evil and choose the good. It will plant itself in our minds and become +our counsellor. Involuntarily, unconsciously, we shall compare with its +perfection everything that comes before us for judgment. Now, although +no better advice could be given, it involves one danger, that of +narrowness. And not easily, in dread of this danger, would one change +his tutor, and so procure variety of instruction. But in the culture of +the imagination, books, although not the only, are the readiest means of +supplying the food convenient for it, and a hundred books may be had +where even one work of art of the right sort is unattainable, seeing +such must be of some size as well as of thorough excellence. And in +variety alone is safety from the danger of the convenient food becoming +the inconvenient model. + +Let us suppose, then, that one who himself justly estimates the +imagination is anxious to develop its operation in his child. No doubt +the best beginning, especially if the child be young, is an acquaintance +with nature, in which let him be encouraged to observe vital phenomena, +to put things together, to speculate from what he sees to what he does +not see. But let earnest care be taken that upon no matter shall he go +on talking foolishly. Let him be as fanciful as he may, but let him not, +even in his fancy, sin against fancy's sense; for fancy has its laws as +certainly as the most ordinary business of life. When he is silly, let +him know it and be ashamed. + +But where this association with nature is but occasionally possible, +recourse must be had to literature. In books, we not only have store of +all results of the imagination, but in them, as in her workshop, we may +behold her embodying before our very eyes, in music of speech, in wonder +of words, till her work, like a golden dish set with shining jewels, and +adorned by the hands of the cunning workmen, stands finished before us. +In this kind, then, the best must be set before the learner, that he may +eat and not be satisfied; for the finest products of the imagination are +of the best nourishment for the beginnings of that imagination. And the +mind of the teacher must mediate between the work of art and the mind of +the pupil, bringing them together in the vital contact of intelligence; +directing the observation to the lines of expression, the points of +force; and helping the mind to repose upon the whole, so that no +separable beauties shall lead to a neglect of the scope--that is the +shape or form complete. And ever he must seek to _show_ excellence +rather than talk about it, giving the thing itself, that it may grow +into the mind, and not a eulogy of his own upon the thing; isolating the +point worthy of remark rather than making many remarks upon the point. + +Especially must he endeavour to show the spiritual scaffolding or +skeleton of any work of art; those main ideas upon which the shape is +constructed, and around which the rest group as ministering +dependencies. + +But he will not, therefore, pass over that intellectual structure +without which the other could not be manifested. He will not forget the +builder while he admires the architect. While he dwells with delight on +the relation of the peculiar arch to the meaning of the whole cathedral, +he will not think it needless to explain the principles on which it is +constructed, or even how those principles are carried out in actual +process. Neither yet will the tracery of its windows, the foliage of its +crockets, or the fretting of its mouldings be forgotten. Every beauty +will have its word, only all beauties will be subordinated to the final +beauty--that is, the unity of the whole. + +Thus doing, he shall perform the true office of friendship. He will +introduce his pupil into the society which he himself prizes most, +surrounding him with the genial presence of the high-minded, that this +good company may work its own kind in him who frequents it. + +But he will likewise seek to turn him aside from such company, whether +of books or of men, as might tend to lower his reverence, his choice, or +his standard. He will, therefore, discourage indiscriminate reading, and +that worse than waste which consists in skimming the books of a +circulating library. He knows that if a book is worth reading at all, it +is worth reading well; and that, if it is not worth reading, it is only +to the most accomplished reader that it _can_ be worth skimming. He will +seek to make him discern, not merely between the good and the evil, but +between the good and the not so good. And this not for the sake of +sharpening the intellect, still less of generating that +self-satisfaction which is the closest attendant upon criticism, but for +the sake of choosing the best path and the best companions upon it. A +spirit of criticism for the sake of distinguishing only, or, far worse, +for the sake of having one's opinion ready upon demand, is not merely +repulsive to all true thinkers, but is, in itself, destructive of all +thinking. A spirit of criticism for the sake of the truth--a spirit that +does not start from its chamber at every noise, but waits till its +presence is desired--cannot, indeed, garnish the house, but can sweep it +clean. Were there enough of such wise criticism, there would be ten +times the study of the best writers of the past, and perhaps one-tenth +of the admiration for the ephemeral productions of the day. A gathered +mountain of misplaced worships would be swept into the sea by the study +of one good book; and while what was good in an inferior book would +still be admired, the relative position of the book would be altered and +its influence lessened. + +Speaking of true learning, Lord Bacon says: "It taketh away vain +admiration of anything, _which is the root of all weakness_." + +The right teacher would have his pupil easy to please, but ill to +satisfy; ready to enjoy, unready to embrace; keen to discover beauty, +slow to say, "Here I will dwell." + +But he will not confine his instructions to the region of art. He will +encourage him to read history with an eye eager for the dawning figure +of the past. He will especially show him that a great part of the Bible +is only thus to be understood; and that the constant and consistent way +of God, to be discovered in it, is in fact the key to all history. + +In the history of individuals, as well, he will try to show him how to +put sign and token together, constructing not indeed a whole, but a +probable suggestion of the whole. + +And, again, while showing him the reflex of nature in the poets, he will +not be satisfied without sending him to Nature herself; urging him in +country rambles to keep open eyes for the sweet fashionings and +blendings of her operation around him; and in city walks to watch the +"human face divine." + +Once more: he will point out to him the essential difference between +reverie and thought; between dreaming and imagining. He will teach him +not to mistake fancy, either in himself or in others for imagination, +and to beware of hunting after resemblances that carry with them no +interpretation. + +Such training is not solely fitted for the possible development of +artistic faculty. Few, in this world, will ever be able to utter what +they feel. Fewer still will be able to utter it in forms of their own. +Nor is it necessary that there should be many such. But it is necessary +that all should feel. It is necessary that all should understand and +imagine the good; that all should begin, at least, to follow and find +out God. + +"The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to +find it out," says Solomon. "As if," remarks Bacon on the passage, +"according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took +delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out; and as if +kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows in +that game." + +One more quotation from the book of Ecclesiastes, setting forth both the +necessity we are under to imagine, and the comfort that our imagining +cannot outstrip God's making. + +"I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be +exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his time; also he +hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work +that God maketh from the beginning to the end." + +Thus to be playfellows with God in this game, the little ones may gather +their daisies and follow their painted moths; the child of the kingdom +may pore upon the lilies of the field, and gather faith as the birds of +the air their food from the leafless hawthorn, ruddy with the stores God +has laid up for them; and the man of science + + "May sit and rightly spell + Of every star that heaven doth shew, + And every herb that sips the dew; + Till old experience do attain + To something like prophetic strain." + + + + +A SKETCH OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT. + + +[Footnote: 1880.] + +"I wish I had thought to watch when God was making me!" said a child +once to his mother. "Only," he added, "I was not made till I was +finished, so I couldn't." We cannot recall whence we came, nor tell how +we began to be. We know approximately how far back we can remember, but +have no idea how far back we may not have forgotten. Certainly we knew +once much that we have forgotten now. My own earliest definable memory +is of a great funeral of one of the Dukes of Gordon, when I was between +two and three years of age. Surely my first knowledge was not of death. +I must have known much and many things before, although that seems my +earliest memory. As in what we foolishly call maturity, so in the dawn +of consciousness, both before and after it has begun to be buttressed +with _self_-consciousness, each succeeding consciousness dims--often +obliterates--that which went before, and with regard to our past as well +as our future, imagination and faith must step into the place vacated of +knowledge. We are aware, and we know that we are aware, but when or how +we began to be aware, is wrapt in a mist that deepens on the one side +into deepest night, and on the other brightens into the full assurance +of existence. Looking back we can but dream, looking forward we lose +ourselves in speculation; but we may both speculate and dream, for all +speculation is not false, and all dreaming is not of the unreal. What +may we fairly imagine as to the inward condition of the child before the +first moment of which his memory affords him testimony? + +It is one, I venture to say, of absolute, though, no doubt, largely +negative faith. Neither memory of pain that is past, nor apprehension of +pain to come, once arises to give him the smallest concern. In some way, +doubtless very vague, for his being itself is a border-land of awful +mystery, he is aware of being surrounded, enfolded with an atmosphere of +love; the sky over him is his mother's face; the earth that nourishes +him is his mother's bosom. The source, the sustentation, the defence of +his being, the endless mediation betwixt his needs and the things that +supply them, are all one. There is no type so near the highest idea of +relation to a God, as that of the child to his mother. Her face is God, +her bosom Nature, her arms are Providence--all love--one love--to him an +undivided bliss. + +The region beyond him he regards from this vantage-ground of +unquestioned security. There things may come and go, rise and vanish--he +neither desires nor bemoans them. Change may grow swift, its swiftness +grow fierce, and pass into storm: to him storm is calm; his haven is +secure; his rest cannot be broken: he is accountable for nothing, knows +no responsibility. Conscience is not yet awake, and there is no +conflict. His waking is full of sleep, yet his very being is enough for +him. + +But all the time his mother lives in the hope of his growth. In the +present babe, her heart broods over the coming boy--the unknown marvel +closed in the visible germ. Let mothers lament as they will over the +change from childhood to maturity, which of them would not grow weary of +nursing for ever a child in whom no live law of growth kept unfolding an +infinite change! The child knows nothing of growth--desires none--but +grows. Within him is the force of a power he can no more resist than the +peach can refuse to swell and grow ruddy in the sun. By slow, +inappreciable, indivisible accretion and outfolding, he is lifted, +floated, drifted on towards the face of the awful mirror in which he +must encounter his first foe--must front himself. + +By degrees he has learned that the world is around, and not within +him--that he is apart, and that is apart; from consciousness he passes +to self-consciousness. This is a second birth, for now a higher life +begins. When a man not only lives, but knows that he lives, then first +the possibility of a real life commences. By _real life_, I mean life +which has a share in its own existence. + +For now, towards the world around him--the world that is not his mother, +and, actively at least, neither loves him nor ministers to him, reveal +themselves certain relations, initiated by fancies, desires, +preferences, that arise within himself--reasonable or not matters +little:--founded in reason, they can in no case be _devoid_ of reason. +Every object concerned in these relations presents itself to the man as +lovely, desirable, good, or ugly, hateful, bad; and through these +relations, obscure and imperfect, and to a being weighted with a strong +faculty for mistake, begins to be revealed the existence and force of +Being other and higher than his own, recognized as _Will_, and first of +all in its opposition to his desires. Thereupon begins the strife +without which there never was, and, I presume, never can be, any growth, +any progress; and the first result is what I may call the third birth of +the human being. + +The first opposing glance of the mother wakes in the child not only +answering opposition, which is as the rudimentary sac of his own coming +will, but a new something, to which for long he needs no name, so +natural does it seem, so entirely a portion of his being, even when most +he refuses to listen to and obey it. This new something--we call it +_Conscience_--sides with his mother, and causes its presence and +judgment to be felt not only before but after the event, so that he soon +comes to know that it is well with him or ill with him as he obeys or +disobeys it. And now he not only knows, not only knows that he knows, +but knows he knows that he knows--knows that he is self-conscious--that +he has a conscience. With the first sense of resistance to it, the power +above him has drawn nearer, and the deepest within him has declared +itself on the side of the highest without him. At one and the same +moment, the heaven of his childhood has, as it were, receded and come +nigher. He has run from under it, but it claims him. It is farther, yet +closer--immeasurably closer: he feels on his being the grasp and hold of +his mother's. Through the higher individuality he becomes aware of his +own. Through the assertion of his mother's will, his own begins to +awake. He becomes conscious of himself as capable of action--of doing or +of not doing; his responsibility has begun. + +He slips from her lap; he travels from chair to chair; he puts his +circle round the room; he dares to cross the threshold; he braves the +precipice of the stair; he takes the greatest step that, according to +George Herbert, is possible to man--that out of doors, changing the +house for the universe; he runs from flower to flower in the garden; +crosses the road; wanders, is lost, is found again. His powers expand, +his activity increases; he goes to school, and meets other boys like +himself; new objects of strife are discovered, new elements of strife +developed; new desires are born, fresh impulses urge. The old heaven, +the face and will of his mother, recede farther and farther; a world of +men, which he foolishly thinks a nobler as it is a larger world, draws +him, claims him. More or less he yields. The example and influence of +such as seem to him more than his mother like himself, grow strong upon +him. His conscience speaks louder. And here, even at this early point in +his history, what I might call his fourth birth _may_ begin to take +place: I mean the birth in him of the Will--the real Will--not the +pseudo-will, which is the mere Desire, swayed of impulse, selfishness, +or one of many a miserable motive. When the man, listening to his +conscience, wills and does the right, irrespective of inclination as of +consequence, then is the man free, the universe open before him. He is +born from above. To him conscience needs never speak aloud, needs never +speak twice; to him her voice never grows less powerful, for he never +neglects what she commands. And when he becomes aware that he can will +his will, that God has given him a share in essential life, in the +causation of his own being, then is he a man indeed. I say, even here +this birth may begin; but with most it takes years not a few to complete +it. For, the power of the mother having waned, the power of the +neighbour is waxing. If the boy be of common clay, that is, of clay +willing to accept dishonour, this power of the neighbour over him will +increase and increase, till individuality shall have vanished from him, +and what his friends, what society, what the trade or the profession +say, will be to him the rule of life. With such, however, I have to do +no more than with the deaf dead, who sleep too deep for words to reach +them. + +My typical child of man is not of such. He is capable not of being +influenced merely, but of influencing--and first of all of influencing +himself; of taking a share in his own making; of determining actively, +not by mere passivity, what he shall be and become; for he never ceases +to pay at least a little heed, however poor and intermittent, to the +voice of his conscience, and to-day he pays more heed than he did +yesterday. + +Long ere now the joy of space, of room, has laid hold upon him--the more +powerfully if he inhabit a wild and broken region. The human animal +delights in motion and change, motions of his members even violent, and +swiftest changes of place. It is as if he would lay hold of the infinite +by ceaseless abandonment and choice of a never-abiding stand-point, as +if he would lay hold of strength by the consciousness of the strength he +has. He is full of unrest. He must know what lies on the farther shore +of every river, see how the world looks from every hill: _What is +behind? What is beyond?_ is his constant cry. To learn, to gather into +himself, is his longing. Nor do many years pass thus, it may be not many +months, ere the world begins to come alive around him. He begins to feel +that the stars are strange, that the moon is sad, that the sunrise is +mighty. He begins to see in them all the something men call beauty. He +will lie on the sunny bank and gaze into the blue heaven till his soul +seems to float abroad and mingle with the infinite made visible, with +the boundless condensed into colour and shape. The rush of the water +through the still twilight, under the faint gleam of the exhausted west, +makes in his ears a melody he is almost aware he cannot understand. +Dissatisfied with his emotions he desires a deeper waking, longs for a +greater beauty, is troubled with the stirring in his bosom of an unknown +ideal of Nature. Nor is it an ideal of Nature alone that is forming +within him. A far more precious thing, a human ideal namely, is in his +soul, gathering to itself shape and consistency. The wind that at night +fills him with sadness--he cannot tell why, in the daytime haunts him +like a wild consciousness of strength which has neither difficulty nor +danger enough to spend itself upon. He would be a champion of the weak, +a friend to the great; for both he would fight--a merciless foe to every +oppressor of his kind. He would be rich that he might help, strong that +he might rescue, brave--that he counts himself already, for he has not +proved his own weakness. In the first encounter he fails, and the bitter +cup of shame and confusion of face, wholesome and saving, is handed him +from the well of life. He is not yet capable of understanding that one +such as he, filled with the glory and not the duty of victory, could not +but fail, and therefore ought to fail; but his dismay and chagrin are +soothed by the forgetfulness the days and nights bring, gently wiping +out the sins that are past, that the young life may have a fresh chance, +as we say, and begin again unburdened by the weight of a too much +present failure. + +And now, probably at school, or in the first months of his college-life, +a new phase of experience begins. He has wandered over the border of +what is commonly called science, and the marvel of facts multitudinous, +strung upon the golden threads of law, has laid hold upon him. His +intellect is seized and possessed by a new spirit. For a time knowledge +is pride; the mere consciousness of knowing is the reward of its labour; +the ever recurring, ever passing contact of mind with a new fact is a +joy full of excitement, and promises an endless delight. But ever the +thing that is known sinks into insignificance, save as a step of the +endless stair on which he is climbing--whither he knows not; the unknown +draws him; the new fact touches his mind, flames up in the contact, and +drops dark, a mere fact, on the heap below. Even the grandeur of law as +law, so far from adding fresh consciousness to his life, causes it no +small suffering and loss. For at the entrance of Science, nobly and +gracefully as she bears herself, young Poetry shrinks back startled, +dismayed. Poetry is true as Science, and Science is holy as Poetry; but +young Poetry is timid and Science is fearless, and bears with her a +colder atmosphere than the other has yet learned to brave. It is not +that Madam Science shows any antagonism to Lady Poetry; but the +atmosphere and plane on which alone they can meet as friends who +understand each other, is the mind and heart of the sage, not of the +boy. The youth gazes on the face of Science, cold, clear, beautiful; +then, turning, looks for his friend--but, alas! Poetry has fled. With a +great pang at the heart he rushes abroad to find her, but descries only +the rainbow glimmer of her skirt on the far horizon. At night, in his +dreams, she returns, but never for a season may he look on her face of +loveliness. What, alas! have evaporation, caloric, atmosphere, +refraction, the prism, and the second planet of our system, to do with +"sad Hesper o'er the buried sun?" From quantitative analysis how shall +he turn again to "the rime of the ancient mariner," and "the moving +moon" that "went up the sky, and nowhere did abide"? From his window he +gazes across the sands to the mightily troubled ocean: "What is the +storm to me any more!" he cries; "it is but the clashing of countless +water-drops!" He finds relief in the discovery that, the moment you +place man in the midst of it, the clashing of water-drops becomes a +storm, terrible to heart and brain: human thought and feeling, hope, +fear, love, sacrifice, make the motions of nature alive with mystery and +the shadows of destiny. The relief, however, is but partial, and may be +but temporary; for what if this mingling of man and Nature in the mind +of man be but the casting of a coloured shadow over her cold +indifference? What if she means nothing--never was meant to mean +anything! What if in truth "we receive but what we give, and in our life +alone doth Nature live!" What if the language of metaphysics as well as +of poetry be drawn, not from Nature at all, but from human fancy +concerning her! + +At length, from the unknown, whence himself he came, appears an angel to +deliver him from this horror--this stony look--ah, God! of soulless law. +The woman is on her way whose part it is to meet him with a life other +than his own, at once the complement of his, and the visible presentment +of that in it which is beyond his own understanding. The enchantment of +what we specially call _love_ is upon him--a deceiving glamour, say +some, showing what is not, an opening of the eyes, say others, revealing +that of which a man had not been aware: men will still be divided into +those who believe that the horses of fire and the chariots of fire are +ever present at their need of them, and those who class the prophet and +the drunkard in the same category as the fools of their own fancies. But +what this love is, he who thinks he knows least understands. Let foolish +maidens and vulgar youths simper and jest over it as they please, it is +one of the most potent mysteries of the living God. The man who can love +a woman and remain a lover of his wretched self, is fit only to be cast +out with the broken potsherds of the city, as one in whom the very salt +has lost its savour. With this love in his heart, a man puts on at least +the vision robes of the seer, if not the singing robes of the poet. Be +he the paltriest human animal that ever breathed, for the time, and in +his degree, he rises above himself. His nature so far clarifies itself, +that here and there a truth of the great world will penetrate, sorely +dimmed, through the fog-laden, self-shadowed atmosphere of his +microcosm. For the time, I repeat, he is not a lover only, but something +of a friend, with a reflex touch of his own far-off childhood. To the +youth of my history, in the light of his love--a light that passes +outward from the eyes of the lover--the world grows alive again, yea +radiant as an infinite face. He sees the flowers as he saw them in +boyhood, recovering from an illness of all the winter, only they have a +yet deeper glow, a yet fresher delight, a yet more unspeakable soul. He +becomes pitiful over them, and not willingly breaks their stems, to hurt +the life he more than half believes they share with him. He cannot think +anything created only for him, any more than only for itself. Nature is +no longer a mere contention of forces, whose heaven and whose hell in +one is the dull peace of an equilibrium; but a struggle, through +splendour of colour, graciousness of form, and evasive vitality of +motion and sound, after an utterance hard to find, and never found but +marred by the imperfection of the small and weak that would embody and +set forth the great and mighty. The waving of the tree-tops is the +billowy movement of a hidden delight. The sun lifts his head with intent +to be glorious. No day lasts too long, no night comes too soon: the +twilight is woven of shadowy arms that draw the loving to the bosom of +the Night. In the woman, the infinite after which he thirsts is given +him for his own. + +Man's occupation with himself turns his eyes from the great life beyond +his threshold: when love awakes, he forgets himself for a time, and many +a glimpse of strange truth finds its way through his windows, blocked no +longer by the shadow of himself. He may now catch even a glimpse of the +possibilities of his own being--may dimly perceive for a moment the +image after which he was made. But alas! too soon, self, radiant of +darkness, awakes; every window becomes opaque with shadow, and the man +is again a prisoner. For it is not the highest word alone that the cares +of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things +entering in, choke, and render unfruitful. Waking from the divine +vision, if that can be called waking which is indeed dying into the +common day, the common man regards it straightway as a foolish dream; +the wise man believes in it still, holds fast by the memory of the +vanished glory, and looks to have it one day again a present portion of +the light of his life. He knows that, because of the imperfection and +dulness and weakness of his nature, after every vision follow the +inclosing clouds, with the threat of an ever during dark; knows that, +even if the vision could tarry, it were not well, for the sake of that +which must yet be done with him, yet be made of him, that it should +tarry. But the youth whose history I am following is not like the +former, nor as yet like the latter. + +From whatever cause, then, whether of fault, of natural law, or of +supernal will, the flush that seemed to promise the dawn of an eternal +day, shrinks and fades, though, with him, like the lagging skirt of the +sunset in the northern west, it does not vanish, but travels on, a +withered pilgrim, all the night, at the long last to rise the aureole of +the eternal Aurora. And now new paths entice him--or old paths opening +fresh horizons. With stronger thews and keener nerves he turns again to +the visible around him. The changelessness amid change, the law amid +seeming disorder, the unity amid units, draws him again. He begins to +descry the indwelling poetry of science. The untiring forces at work in +measurable yet inconceivable spaces of time and room, fill his soul with +an awe that threatens to uncreate him with a sense of littleness; while, +on the other side, the grandeur of their operations fills him with such +an informing glory, the mere presence of the mighty facts, that he no +more thinks of himself, but in humility is great, and knows it not. Rapt +spectator, seer entranced under the magic wand of Science, he beholds +the billions of billions of miles of incandescent vapour begin a slow, +scarce perceptible revolution, gradually grow swift, and gather an awful +speed. He sees the vapour, as it whirls, condensing through slow +eternities to a plastic fluidity. He notes ring after ring part from the +circumference of the mass, break, rush together into a globe, and the +glowing ball keep on through space with the speed of its parent bulk. It +cools and still cools and condenses, but still fiercely glows. +Presently--after tens of thousands of years is the creative +_presently_--arises fierce contention betwixt the glowing heart and its +accompanying atmosphere. The latter invades the former with antagonistic +element. He listens in his soul, and hears the rush of ever descending +torrent rains, with the continuous roaring shock of their evanishment in +vapour--to turn again to water in the higher regions, and again rush to +the attack upon the citadel of fire. He beholds the slow victory of the +water at last, and the great globe, now glooming in a cloak of darkness, +covered with a wildly boiling sea--not boiling by figure of speech, +under contending forces of wind and tide, but boiling high as the hills +to come, with veritable heat. He sees the rise of the wrinkles we call +hills and mountains, and from their sides the avalanches of water to the +lower levels. He sees race after race of living things appear, as the +earth becomes, for each new and higher kind, a passing home; and he +watches the succession of terrible convulsions dividing kind from kind, +until at length the kind he calls his own arrives. Endless are the +visions of material grandeur unfathomable, awaked in his soul by the +bare facts of external existence. + +But soon comes a change. So far as he can see or learn, all the motion, +all the seeming dance, is but a rush for death, a panic flight into the +moveless silence. The summer wind, the tropic tornado, the softest tide, +the fiercest storm, are alike the tumultuous conflict of forces, +rushing, and fighting as they rush, into the arms of eternal negation. +On and on they hurry--down and down, to a cold stirless solidity, where +wind blows not, water flows not, where the seas are not merely tideless +and beat no shores, but frozen cleave with frozen roots to their gulfy +basin. All things are on the steep-sloping path to final evanishment, +uncreation, non-existence. He is filled with horror--not so much of the +dreary end, as at the weary hopelessness of the path thitherward. Then a +dim light breaks upon him, and with it a faint hope revives, for he +seems to see in all the forms of life, innumerably varied, a spirit +rushing upward from death--a something in escape from the terror of the +downward cataract, of the rest that knows not peace. "Is it not," he +asks, "the soaring of the silver dove of life from its potsherd-bed--the +heavenward flight of some higher and incorruptible thing? Is not +vitality, revealed in growth, itself an unending resurrection?" + +The vision also of the oneness of the universe, ever reappearing through +the vapours of question, helps to keep hope alive in him. To find, for +instance, the law of the relation of the arrangements of the leaves on +differing plants, correspond to the law of the relative distances of the +planets in approach to their central sun, wakes in him that hope of a +central Will, which alone can justify one ecstatic throb at any seeming +loveliness of the universe. For without the hope of such a centre, +delight is unreason--a mockery not such as the skeleton at the Egyptian +feast, but such rather as a crowned corpse at a feast of skeletons. Life +without the higher glory of the unspeakable, the atmosphere of a God, is +not life, is not worth living. He would rather cease to be, than walk +the dull level of the commonplace--than live the unideal of men in whose +company he can take no pleasure--men who are as of a lower race, whom he +fain would lift, who will not rise, but for whom as for himself he would +cherish the hope they do their best to kill. Those who seem to him +great, recognize the unseen--believe the roots of science to be therein +hid--regard the bringing forth into sight of the things that are +invisible as the end of all Art and every art--judge the true leader of +men to be him who leads them closer to the essential facts of their +being. Alas for his love and his hope, alas for himself, if the visible +should exist for its own sake only!--if the face of a flower means +nothing--appeals to no region beyond the scope of the science that would +unveil its growth. He cannot believe that its structure exists for the +sake of its laws; that would be to build for the sake of its joints a +scaffold where no house was to stand. Those who put their faith in +Science are trying to live in the scaffold of the house invisible. + +He finds harbour and comfort at times in the written poetry of his +fellows. He delights in analyzing and grasping the thought that informs +the utterance. For a moment, the fine figure, the delicate phrase, make +him jubilant and strong; but the jubilation and the strength soon pass, +for it is not any of the _forms_, even of the thought-forms of truth +that can give rest to his soul. + +History attracts him little, for he is not able to discover by its +records the operation of principles yielding hope for his race. Such +there may be, but he does not find them. What hope for the rising wave +that knows in its rise only its doom to sink, and at length be dashed on +the low shore of annihilation? + +But the time would fail me to follow the doubling of the soul coursed by +the hounds of Death, or to set down the forms innumerable in which the +golden Haemony springs in its path, + + Of sovran use + 'Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast, or damp. + +And now the shadows are beginning to lengthen towards the night, which, +whether there be a following morn or no, is the night, and spreads out +the wings of darkness. And still as it approaches the more aware grows +the man of a want that differs from any feeling I have already sought to +describe--a sense of insecurity, in no wise the same as the doubt of +life beyond the grave--a need more profound even than that which cries +for a living Nature. And now he plainly knows, that, all his life, like +a conscious duty unfulfilled, this sense has haunted his path, ever and +anon descending and clinging, a cold mist, about his heart. What if this +lack was indeed the root of every other anxiety! Now freshly revived, +this sense of not having, of something, he knows not what, for lack of +which his being is in pain at its own incompleteness, never leaves him +more. And with it the terror has returned and grows, lest there should +be no Unseen Power, as his fathers believed, and his mother taught him, +filling all things and _meaning_ all things,--no Power with whom, in his +last extremity, awaits him a final refuge. With the quickening doubt +falls a tenfold blight on the world of poetry, both that in Nature and +that in books. Far worse than that early chill which the assertions of +science concerning what it knows, cast upon his inexperienced soul, is +now the shivering death which its pretended denials concerning what it +knows not, send through all his vital frame. The soul departs from the +face of beauty, when the eye begins to doubt if there be any soul behind +it; and now the man feels like one I knew, affected with a strange +disease, who saw in the living face always the face of a corpse. What +can the world be to him who lives for thought, if there be no supreme +and perfect Thought,--none but such poor struggles after thought as he +finds in himself? Take the eternal thought from the heart of things, no +longer can any beauty be real, no more can shape, motion, aspect of +nature have significance in itself, or sympathy with human soul. At best +and most the beauty he thought he saw was but the projected perfection +of his own being, and from himself as the crown and summit of things, +the soul of the man shrinks with horror: it is the more imperfect being +who knows the least his incompleteness, and for whom, seeing so little +beyond himself, it is easiest to imagine himself the heart and apex of +things, and rejoice in the fancy. The killing power of a godless science +returns upon him with tenfold force. The ocean-tempest is once more a +mere clashing of innumerable water-drops; the green and amber sadness of +the evening sky is a mockery of sorrow; his own soul and its sadness is +a mockery of himself. There is nothing in the sadness, nothing in the +mockery. To tell him as comfort, that in his own thought lives the +meaning if nowhere else, is mockery worst of all; for if there be no +truth in them, if these things be no embodiment, to make them serve as +such is to put a candle in a death's-head to light the dying through the +place of tombs. To his former foolish fancy a primrose might preach a +childlike trust; the untoiling lilies might from their field cast seeds +of a higher growth into his troubled heart; now they are no better than +the colour the painter leaves behind him on the doorpost of his +workshop, when, the day's labour over, he wipes his brush on it ere he +depart for the night. The look in the eyes of his dog, happy in that he +is short-lived, is one of infinite sadness. All graciousness must +henceforth be a sorrow: it has to go with the sunsets. That a thing must +cease takes from it the joy of even an aeonian endurance--for its _kind_ +is mortal; it belongs to the nature of things that cannot live. The +sorrow is not so much that it shall perish as that it could not +live--that it is not in its nature a real, that is, an eternal thing. +His children are shadows--their life a dance, a sickness, a corruption. +The very element of unselfishness, which, however feeble and beclouded +it may be, yet exists in all love, in giving life its only dignity adds +to its sorrow. Nowhere at the root of things is love--it is only a +something that came after, some sort of fungous excrescence in the +hearts of men grown helplessly superior to their origin. Law, nothing +but cold, impassive, material law, is the root of things--lifeless +happily, so not knowing itself, else were it a demon instead of a +creative nothing. Endeavour is paralyzed in him. "Work for posterity," +says he of the skyless philosophy; answers the man, "How can I work +without hope? Little heart have I to labour, where labour is so little +help. What can I do for my children that would render their life less +hopeless than my own! Give me all you would secure for them, and my life +would be to me but the worse mockery. The true end of labour would be, +to lessen the number doomed to breathe the breath of this despair." + +Straightway he developes another and a deeper mood. He turns and regards +himself. Suspicion or sudden insight has directed the look. And there, +in himself, he discovers such imperfection, such wrong, such shame, such +weakness, as cause him to cry out, "It were well I should cease! Why +should I mourn after life? Where were the good of prolonging it in a +being like me? 'What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven +and earth!'" Such insights, when they come, the seers do their best, in +general, to obscure; suspicion of themselves they regard as a monster, +and would stifle. They resent the waking of such doubt. Any attempt at +the raising in them of their buried best they regard as an offence +against intercourse. A man takes his social life in his hand who dares +it. Few therefore understand the judgment of Hamlet upon himself; the +common reader is so incapable of imagining he could mean it of his own +general character as a man, that he attributes the utterance to shame +for the postponement of a vengeance, which indeed he must have been such +as his critic to be capable of performing upon no better proof than he +had yet had. When the man whose unfolding I would now represent, regards +even his dearest love, he finds it such a poor, selfish, low-lived +thing, that in his heart he shames himself before his children and his +friends. How little labour, how little watching, how little pain has he +endured for their sakes! He reads of great things in this kind, but in +himself he does not find them. How often has he not been wrongfully +displeased--wrathful with the innocent! How often has he not hurt a +heart more tender than his own! Has he ever once been faithful to the +height of his ideal? Is his life on the whole a thing to regard with +complacency, or to be troubled exceedingly concerning? Beyond him rise +and spread infinite seeming possibilities--height beyond height, glory +beyond glory, each rooted in and rising from his conscious being, but +alas! where is any hope of ascending them? These hills of peace, "in a +season of calm weather," seem to surround and infold him, as a land in +which he could dwell at ease and at home: surely among them lies the +place of his birth!--while against their purity and grandeur the being +of his consciousness shows miserable--dark, weak, and undefined--a +shadow that would fain be substance--a dream that would gladly be born +into the light of reality. But alas if the whole thing be only in +himself--if the vision be a dream of nothing, a revelation of lies, the +outcome of that which, helplessly existent, is yet not created, +therefore cannot create--if not the whole thing only be a dream of the +impotent, but the impotent be himself but a dream--a dream of his own--a +self-dreamed dream--with no master of dreams to whom to cry! Where then +the cherished hope of one day atoning for his wrongs to those who loved +him!--they are nowhere--vanished for ever, upmingled and dissolved in +the primeval darkness! If truth be but the hollow of a sphere, ah, never +shall he cast himself before them, to tell them that now at last, after +long years of revealing separation, he knows himself and them, and that +now the love of them is a part of his very being--to implore their +forgiveness on the ground that he hates, despises, contemns, and scorns +the self that showed them less than absolute love and devotion! Never +thus shall he lay his being bare to their eyes of love! They do not even +rest, for they do not and will not know it. There is no voice nor +hearing in them, and how can there be in him any heart to live! The one +comfort left him is, that, unable to follow them, he shall yet die and +cease, and fare as they--go also nowhither! + +To a man under the dismay of existence dissociated from power, unrooted +in, unshadowed by a creating Will, who is Love, the Father of Man--to +him who knows not being and God together, the idea of death--a death +that knows no reviving, must be, and ought to be the blessedest thought +left him. "O land of shadows!" well may such a one cry! "land where the +shadows love to ecstatic self-loss, yet forget, and love no more! land +of sorrows and despairs, that sink the soul into a deeper Tophet than +death has ever sounded! broken kaleidoscope! shaken camera! promiser, +speaking truth to the ear, but lying to the sense! land where the heart +of my friend is sorrowful as my heart--the more sorrowful that I have +been but a poor and far-off friend! land where sin is strong and +righteousness faint! where love dreams mightily and walks abroad so +feeble! land where the face of my father is dust, and the hand of my +mother will never more caress! where my children will spend a few years +of like trouble to mine, and then drop from the dream into the no-dream! +gladly, O land of sickliest shadows--gladly, that is, with what power of +gladness is in me, I take my leave of thee! Welcome the cold, +pain-soothing embrace of immortal Death! Hideous are his looks, but I +love him better than Life: he is true, and will not deceive us. Nay, he +only is our saviour, setting us free from the tyranny of the false that +ought to be true, and sets us longing in vain." + +But through all the man's doubts, fears, and perplexities, a certain +whisper, say rather, an uncertain rumour, a vague legendary murmur, has +been at the same time about, rather than in, his ears--never ceasing to +haunt his air, although hitherto he has hardly heeded it. He knows it +has come down the ages, and that some in every age have been more or +less influenced by a varied acceptance of it. Upon those, however, with +whom he has chiefly associated, it has made no impression beyond that of +a remarkable legend. It is the story of a man, represented as at least +greater, stronger, and better than any other man. With the hero of this +tale he has had a constantly recurring, though altogether undefined +suspicion that he has something to do. It is strongest, though not even +then strong, at such times when he is most aware of evil and +imperfection in himself. Betwixt the two, the idea of this man and his +knowledge of himself, seems to lie, dim-shadowy, some imperative duty. +He knows that the whole matter concerning the man is commemorated in +many of the oldest institutions of his country, but up to this time he +has shrunk from the demands which, by a kind of spiritual insight, he +foresaw would follow, were he once to admit certain things to be true. +He has, however, known some and read of more who by their faith in the +man conquered all anxiety, doubt, and fear, lived pure, and died in +gladsome hope. On the other hand, it seems to him that the faith which +was once easy has now become almost an impossibility. And what is it he +is called upon to believe? One says one thing, another another. Much +that is asserted is simply unworthy of belief, and the foundation of the +whole has in his eyes something of the look of a cunningly devised +fable. Even should it be true, it cannot help him, he thinks, for it +does not even touch the things that make his woe: the God the tale +presents is not the being whose very existence can alone be his cure. + +But he meets one who says to him, "Have you then come to your time of +life, and not yet ceased to accept hearsay as ground of action--for +there is action in abstaining as well as in doing? Suppose the man in +question to have taken all possible pains to be understood, does it +follow of necessity that he is now or ever was fairly represented by the +bulk of his followers? With such a moral distance between him and them, +is it possible?" + +"But the whole thing has from first to last a strange aspect!" our +thinker replies. + +"As to the _last_ that is not yet come. And as to its _aspect_, its +reality must be such as human eye could never convey to reading heart. +Every human idea of it _must_ be more or less wrong. And yet perhaps the +truer the aspect the stranger it would be. But is it not just with +ordinary things you are dissatisfied? And should not therefore the very +strangeness of these to you little better than rumours incline you to +examine the object of them? Will you assert that nothing strange can +have to do with human affairs? Much that was once scarce credible is now +so ordinary that men have grown stupid to the wonder inherent in it. +Nothing around you serves your need: try what is at least of another +class of phenomena. What if the things rumoured belong to a _more_ +natural order than these, lie nearer the roots of your dissatisfied +existence, and look strange only because you have hitherto been living +in the outer court, not in the _penetralia_ of life? The rumour has been +vital enough to float down the ages, emerging from every storm: why not +see for yourself what may be in it? So powerful an influence on human +history, surely there will be found in it signs by which to determine +whether the man understood himself and his message, or owed his apparent +greatness to the deluded worship of his followers! That he has always +had foolish followers none will deny, and none but a fool would judge +any leader from such a fact. Wisdom as well as folly will serve a fool's +purpose; he turns all into folly. I say nothing now of my own +conclusions, because what you imagine my opinions are as hateful to me +as to you disagreeable and foolish." + +So says the friend; the man hears, takes up the old story, and says to +himself, "Let me see then what I can see!" + +I will not follow him through the many shadows and slow dawns by which +at length he arrives at this much: A man claiming to be the Son of God +says he has come to be the light of men; says, "Come to me, and I will +give you rest;" says, "Follow me, and you shall find my Father; to know +him is the one thing you cannot do without, for it is eternal life." He +has learned from the reported words of the man, and from the man himself +as in the tale presented, that the bliss of his conscious being is his +Father; that his one delight is to do the will of that Father--the only +thing in his eyes worthy of being done, or worth having done; that he +would make men blessed with his own blessedness; that the cry of +creation, the cry of humanity shall be answered into the deepest soul of +desire; that less than the divine mode of existence, the godlike way of +being, can satisfy no man, that is, make him content with his +consciousness; that not this world only, but the whole universe is the +inheritance of those who consent to be the children of their Father in +heaven, who put forth the power of their will to be of the same sort as +he; that to as many as receive him he gives power to become the sons of +God; that they shall be partakers of the divine nature, of the divine +joy, of the divine power--shall have whatever they desire, shall know no +fear, shall love perfectly, and shall never die; that these things are +beyond the grasp of the knowing ones of the world, and to them the +message will be a scorn; but that the time will come when its truth +shall be apparent, to some in confusion of face, to others in joy +unspeakable; only that we must beware of judging, for many that are +first shall be last, and there are last that shall be first. + +To find himself in such conscious as well as vital relation with the +source of his being, with a Will by which his own will exists, with a +Consciousness by and through which he is conscious, would indeed be the +end of all the man's ills! nor can he imagine any other, not to say +better way, in which his sorrows could be met, understood and +annihilated. For the ills that oppress him are both within him and +without, and over each kind he is powerless. If the message were but a +true one! If indeed this man knew what he talked of! But if there should +be help for man from anywhere beyond him, some _one_ might know it +first, and may not this be the one? And if the message be so great, so +perfect as this man asserts, then only a perfect, an eternal man, at +home in the bosom of the Father, could know, or bring, or tell it. +According to the tale, it had been from the first the intent of the +Father to reveal himself to man as man, for without the knowledge of the +Father after man's own modes of being, he could not grow to real +manhood. The grander the whole idea, the more likely is it to be what it +claims to be! and if not high as the heavens above the earth, beyond us +yet within our reach, it is not for us, it cannot be true. Fact or not, +the existence of a God such as Christ, a God who is a good man +infinitely, is the only idea containing hope enough for man! If such a +God has come to be known, marvel must surround the first news at least +of the revelation of him. Because of its marvel, shall men find it in +reason to turn from the gracious rumour of what, if it be true, must be +the event of all events? And could marvel be lovelier than the marvel +reported? But the humble men of heart alone can believe in the +high--they alone can perceive, they alone can embrace grandeur. Humility +is essential greatness, the inside of grandeur. + +Something of such truths the man glimmeringly sees. But in his mind +awake, thereupon, endless doubts and questions. What if the whole idea +of his mission was a deception born of the very goodness of the man? +What if the whole matter was the invention of men pretending themselves +the followers of such a man? What if it was a little truth greatly +exaggerated? Only, be it what it may, less than its full idea would not +be enough for the wants and sorrows that weaken and weigh him down! + +He passes through many a thorny thicket of inquiry; gathers evidence +upon evidence; reasons upon the goodness of the men who wrote: they +might be deceived, but they dared not invent; holds with himself a +thousand arguments, historical, psychical, metaphysical--which for their +setting-forth would require volumes; hears many an opposing, many a +scoffing word from men "who surely know, else would they speak?" and +finds himself much where he was before. But at least he is haunting the +possible borders of discovery, while those who turn their backs upon the +idea are divided from him by a great gulf--it may be of moral +difference. To him there is still a grand auroral hope about the idea, +and it still draws him; the others, taking the thing from merest report +of opinion, look anywhere but thitherward. He who would not trust his +best friend to set forth his views of life, accepts the random +judgements of unknown others for a sufficing disposal of what the +highest of the race have regarded as a veritable revelation from the +Father of men. He sees in it therefore nothing but folly; for what he +takes for the thing nowhere meets his nature. Our searcher at least +holds open the door for the hearing of what voice may come to him from +the region invisible: if there be truth there, he is where it will find +him. + +As he continues to read and reflect, the perception gradually grows +clear in him, that, if there be truth in the matter, he must, first of +all, and beyond all things else, give his best heed to the reported +words of the man himself--to what he says, not what is said about him, +valuable as that may afterwards prove to be. And he finds that +concerning these words of his, the man says, or at least plainly +implies, that only the obedient, childlike soul can understand them. It +follows that the judgement of no man who does not obey can be received +concerning them or the speaker of them--that, for instance, a man who +hates his enemy, who tells lies, who thinks to serve God and Mammon, +whether he call himself a Christian or no, has not the right of an +opinion concerning the Master or his words--at least in the eyes of the +Master, however it may be in his own. This is in the very nature of +things: obedience alone places a man in the position in which he can see +so as to judge that which is above him. In respect of great truths +investigation goes for little, speculation for nothing; if a man would +know them, he must obey them. Their nature is such that the only door +into them is obedience. And the truth-seeker perceives--which allows +him no loophole of escape from life--that what things the Son of Man +requires of him, are either such as his conscience backs for just, or +such as seem too great, too high for any man. But if there be help for +him, it must be a help that recognizes the highest in him, and urges him +to its use. Help cannot come to one made in the image of God, save in +the obedient effort of what life and power are in him, for God is +action. In such effort alone is it possible for need to encounter help. +It is the upstretched that meets the downstretched hand. He alone who +obeys can with confidence pray--to him alone does an answer seem a thing +that may come. And should anything spoken by the Son of Man seem to the +seeker unreasonable, he feels in the rest such a majesty of duty as +compels him to judge with regard to the other, that he has not yet +perceived its true nature, or its true relation to life. + +And now comes the crisis: if here the man sets himself honestly to do +the thing the Son of Man tells him, he so, and so first, sets out +positively upon the path which, if there be truth in these things, will +conduct him to a knowledge of the whole matter; not until then is he a +disciple. If the message be a true one, the condition of the knowledge +of its truth is not only reasonable but an unavoidable necessity. If +there be help for him, how otherways should it draw nigh? He has to be +assured of the highest truth of his being: there can be no other +assurance than that to be gained thus, and thus alone; for not only by +obedience does a man come into such contact with truth as to know what +it is, and in regard to truth knowledge and belief are one. That things +which cannot appear save to the eye capable of seeing them, that things +which cannot be recognized save by the mind of a certain development, +should be examined by eye incapable, and pronounced upon by mind +undeveloped, is absurd. The deliverance the message offers is a change +such that the man shall _be_ the rightness of which he talked: while his +soul is not a hungered, athirst, aglow, a groaning after +righteousness--that is, longing to be himself honest and upright, it is +an absurdity that he should judge concerning the way to this rightness, +seeing that, while he walks not in it, he is and shall be a dishonest +man: he knows not whither it leads and how can he know the way! What he +_can_ judge of is, his duty at a given moment--and that not in the +abstract, but as something to be by him _done_, neither more, nor less, +nor other than _done_. Thus judging and doing, he makes the only +possible step nearer to righteousness and righteous judgement; doing +otherwise, he becomes the more unrighteous, the more blind. For the man +who knows not God, whether he believes there is a God or not, there can +be, I repeat, no judgement of things pertaining to God. To our supposed +searcher, then, the crowning word of the Son of Man is this, "If any man +is willing to do the will of the Father, he shall know of the doctrine, +whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." + +Having thus accompanied my type to the borders of liberty, my task for +the present is over. The rest let him who reads prove for himself. +Obedience alone can convince. To convince without obedience I would take +no bootless labour; it would be but a gain for hell. If any man call +these things foolishness, his judgement is to me insignificant. If any +man say he is open to conviction, I answer him he can have none but on +the condition, by the means of obedience. If a man say, "The thing is +not interesting to me," I ask him, "Are you following your conscience? +By that, and not by the interest you take or do not take in a thing, +shall you be judged. Nor will anything be said to you, or of you, in +that day, whatever _that day_ mean, of which your conscience will not +echo every syllable." + +Oneness with God is the sole truth of humanity. Life parted from its +causative life would be no life; it would at best be but a barrack of +corruption, an outpost of annihilation. In proportion as the union is +incomplete, the derived life is imperfect. And no man can be one with +neighbour, child, dearest, except as he is one with his origin; and he +fails of his perfection so long as there is one being in the universe he +could not love. + +Of all men he is bound to hold his face like a flint in witness of this +truth who owes everything that makes for eternal good, to the belief +that at the heart of things and causing them to be, at the centre of +monad, of world, of protoplastic mass, of loving dog, and of man most +cruel, is an absolute, perfect love; and that in the man Christ Jesus +this love is with us men to take us home. To nothing else do I for one +owe any grasp upon life. In this I see the setting right of all things. +To the man who believes in the Son of God, poetry returns in a mighty +wave; history unrolls itself in harmony; science shows crowned with its +own aureole of holiness. There is no enlivener of the imagination, no +enabler of the judgment, no strengthener of the intellect, to compare +with the belief in a live Ideal, at the heart of all personality, as of +every law. If there be no such live Ideal, then a falsehood can do more +for the race than the facts of its being; then an unreality is needful +for the development of the man in all that is real, in all that is in +the highest sense true; then falsehood is greater than fact, and an idol +necessary for lack of a God. They who deny cannot, in the nature of +things, know what they deny. When one sees a chaos begin to put on the +shape of an ordered world, he will hardly be persuaded it is by the +power of a foolish notion bred in a diseased fancy. + +Let the man then who would rise to the height of his being, be persuaded +to test the Truth by the deed--the highest and only test that can be +applied to the loftiest of all assertions. To every man I say, "Do the +truth you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know." + + + + +ST. GEORGE'S DAY, 1564. + + +[Footnote: 1864.] + +All England knows that this year (1864) is the three hundredth since +Shakspere was born. The strong probability is likewise that this month +of April is that in which he first saw the earthly light. On the +twenty-sixth of April he was baptized. Whether he was born on the +twenty-third, to which effect there may once have been a tradition, we +do not know; but though there is nothing to corroborate that statement, +there are two facts which would incline us to believe it if we could: +the one that he _died_ on the twenty-third of April, thus, as it were, +completing a cycle; and the other that the twenty-third of April is St. +George's Day. If there is no harm in indulging in a little fanciful +sentiment about such a grand fact, we should say that certainly it was +_St. George for merry England_ when Shakspere was born. But had St. +George been the best saint in the calendar--which we have little enough +ground for supposing he was--it would better suit our subject to say +that the Highest was thinking of his England when he sent Shakspere into +it, to be a strength, a wonder, and a gladness to the nations of his +earth. + +But if we write thus about Shakspere, influenced only by the fashion of +the day, we shall be much in the condition of those _fashionable_ +architects who with their vain praises built the tombs of the prophets, +while they had no regard to the lessons they taught. We hope to be able +to show that we have good grounds for our rejoicing in the birth of that +child whom after-years placed highest on the rocky steep of Art, up +which so many of those who combine feeling and thought are always +striving. + +First, however, let us look at some of the more powerful of the +influences into the midst of which he was born. For a child is born into +the womb of the time, which indeed enclosed and fed him before he was +born. Not the least subtle and potent of those influences which tend to +the education of the child (in the true sense of the word _education_) +are those which are brought to bear upon him _through_ the mind, heart, +judgement of his parents. We mean that those powers which have operated +strongly upon them, have a certain concentrated operation, both +antenatal and psychological, as well as educational and spiritual, upon +the child. Now Shakspere was born in the sixth year of Queen Elizabeth. +He was the eldest son, but the third child. His father and mother must +have been married not later than the year 1557, two years after Cranmer +was burned at the stake, one of the two hundred who thus perished in +that time of pain, resulting in the firm establishment of a reformation +which, like all other changes for the better, could not be verified and +secured without some form or other of the _trial by fire_. Events such +as then took place in every part of the country could not fail to make a +strong impression upon all thinking people, especially as it was not +those of high position only who were thus called upon to bear witness to +their beliefs. John Shakspere and Mary Arden were in all likelihood +themselves of the Protestant party; and although, as far as we know, +they were never in any especial danger of being denounced, the whole of +the circumstances must have tended to produce in them individually, what +seems to have been characteristic of the age in which they lived, +earnestness. In times such as those, people are compelled to think. + +And here an interesting question occurs: Was it in part to his mother +that Shakspere was indebted for that profound knowledge of the Bible +which is so evident in his writings? A good many copies of the +Scriptures must have been by this time, in one translation or another, +scattered over the country. [Footnote: And it seems to us probable that +this diffusion of the Bible, did more to rouse the slumbering literary +power of England, than any influences of foreign literature whatever.] +No doubt the word was precious in those days, and hard to buy; but there +might have been a copy, notwithstanding, in the house of John Shakspere, +and it is possible that it was from his mother's lips that the boy first +heard the Scripture tales. We have called his acquaintance with +Scripture _profound_, and one peculiar way in which it manifests itself +will bear out the assertion; for frequently it is the very spirit and +essential aroma of the passage that he reproduces, without making any +use of the words themselves. There are passages in his writings which we +could not have understood but for some acquaintance with the New +Testament. We will produce a few specimens of the kind we mean, +confining ourselves to one play, "Macbeth." + +Just mentioning the phrase, "temple-haunting martlet" (act i. scene 6), +as including in it a reference to the verse, "Yea, the sparrow hath +found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay +her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts," we pass to the following +passage, for which we do not believe there is any explanation but that +suggested to us by the passage of Scripture to be cited. + +Macbeth, on his way to murder Duncan, says,-- + + "Thou sure and firm-set earth, + Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear + Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, + And take the present horror from the time + Which now suits with it." + +What is meant by the last two lines? It seems to us to be just another +form of the words, "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be +revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye +have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye +have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the +house-tops." Of course we do not mean that Macbeth is represented as +having this passage in his mind, but that Shakspere had the feeling of +it when he wrote thus. What Macbeth means is, "Earth, do not hear me in +the dark, which is suitable to the present horror, lest the very stones +prate about it in the daylight, which is not suitable to such things; +thus taking 'the present horror _from_ the time which now suits with +it.'" + +Again, in the only piece of humour in the play--if that should be called +humour which, taken in its relation to the consciousness of the +principal characters, is as terrible as anything in the piece--the +porter ends off his fantastic soliloquy, in which he personates the +porter of hell-gate, with the words, "But this place is too cold for +hell: I'll devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some +of all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting +bonfire." Now what else had the writer in his mind but the verse from +the Sermon on the Mount, "For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, +that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat"? + +It may be objected that such passages as these, being of the most +commonly quoted, imply no profound acquaintance with Scripture, such as +we have said Shakspere possessed. But no amount of knowledge of the +_words_ of the Bible would be sufficient to justify the use of the word +_profound_. What is remarkable in the employment of these passages, is +not merely that they are so present to his mind that they come up for +use in the most exciting moments of composition, but that he embodies +the spirit of them in such a new form as reveals to minds saturated and +deadened with the _sound_ of the words, the very visual image and +spiritual meaning involved in them. "_The primrose way!_" And to what? + +We will confine ourselves to one passage more:-- + + "Macbeth + Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above + Put on their instruments." + +In the end of the 14th chapter of the Revelation we have the words, +"Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; +for the harvest of the earth is ripe." We suspect that Shakspere wrote, +ripe _to_ shaking. + +The instances to which we have confined ourselves do not by any means +belong to the most evident kind of proof that might be adduced of +Shakspere's acquaintance with Scripture. The subject, in its ordinary +aspect, has been elsewhere treated with far more fulness than our design +would permit us to indulge in, even if it had not been done already. Our +object has been to bring forward a few passages which seem to us to +breathe the very spirit of individual passages in sacred writ, without +direct use of the words themselves; and, of course, in such a case we +can only appeal to the (no doubt) very various degrees of conviction +which they may rouse in the minds of our readers. + +But there is one singular correspondence in another _almost_ literal +quotation from the Gospel, which is to us wonderfully interesting. We +are told that the words "eye of a needle," in the passage about a rich +man entering the kingdom of heaven, mean the small side entrance in a +city gate. Now, in "Richard II," act v. scene 5, _Richard_ quotes the +passage thus:-- + + "It is as hard to come as for a camel + To thread the postern of a needle's eye;" + +showing that either the imagination of Shakspere suggested the real +explanation, or he had taken pains to acquaint himself with the +significance of the simile. We can hardly say that the correspondence +might be _merely_ fortuitous; because, at the least, Shakspere looked +for and found a suitable figure to associate with the words _eye of a +needle_, and so fell upon the real explanation; except, indeed, he had +no particular significance in using the word that meant a _little_ gate, +instead of a word meaning any kind of entrance, which, with him, seems +unlikely. + +We have not by any means proven that Shakspere's acquaintance with the +Scriptures had an early date in his history; but certainly the Bible +must have had a great influence upon him who was the highest +representative mind of the time, its influence on the general +development of the nation being unquestionable. This, therefore, seeing +the Bible itself was just dawning full upon the country while Shakspere +was becoming capable of understanding it, seems the suitable sequence in +which to take notice of that influence, and of some of those passages in +his works which testify to it. + +But, besides _the_ Bible, every nation has _a_ Bible, or at least _an_ +Old Testament, in its own history; and that Shakspere paid especial +attention to this, is no matter of conjecture. We suspect his mode of +writing historical plays is more after the fashion of the Bible +histories than that of most writers of history. Indeed, the development +and consequences of character and conduct are clear to those that read +his histories with open eyes. Now, in his childhood Shakspere may have +had some special incentive to the study of history springing out of the +fact that his mother's grandfather had been "groom of the chamber to +Henry VII.," while there is sufficient testimony that a further removed +ancestor of his father, as well, had stood high in the favour of the +same monarch. Therefore the history of the troublous times of the +preceding century, which were brought to a close by the usurpation of +Henry VII., would naturally be a subject of talk in the quiet household, +where books and amusements such as now occupy our boys, were scarce or +wanting altogether. The proximity of such a past of strife and +commotion, crowded with eventful change, must have formed a background +full of the material of excitement to an age which lived in the midst of +a peculiarly exciting history of its own. + +Perhaps the chief intellectual characteristic of the age of Elizabeth +was _activity_; this activity accounting even for much that is +objectionable in its literature. Now this activity must have been +growing in the people throughout the fifteenth century; the wars of the +Roses, although they stifled literature, so that it had, as it were, to +be born again in the beginning of the following century, being, after +all, but as the "eager strife" of the shadow-leaves above the "genuine +life" of the grass,-- + + "And the mute repose + Of sweetly breathing flowers." + +But when peace had fallen on the land, it would seem as if the impulse +to action springing from strife still operated, as the waves will go on +raving upon the shore after the wind has ceased, and found one outlet, +amongst others, in literature, and peculiarly in dramatic literature. +Peace, rendered yet more intense by the cessation of the cries of the +tormentors, and the groans of the noble army of suffering martyrs, made, +as it were, a kind of vacuum; and into that vacuum burst up the +torrent-springs of a thousand souls--the thoughts that were no longer +repressed--in the history of the past and the Utopian speculation on the +future; in noble theology, capable statesmanship, and science at once +brilliant and profound; in the voyage of discovery, and the change of +the swan-like merchantman into a very fire-drake of war for the defence +of the threatened shores; in the first brave speech of the Puritan in +Elizabeth's Parliament, the first murmurs of the voice of liberty, soon +to thunder throughout the land; in the naturalizing of foreign genius by +translation, and the invention, or at least adoption, of a new and +transcendent rhythm; in the song, in the epic, in the drama. + +So much for the general. Let us now, following the course of his life, +recall, in a few sentences, some of the chief events which must have +impressed the all-open mind of Shakspere in the earlier portion of his +history. + +Perhaps it would not be going back too far to begin with the Massacre of +Paris, which took place when he was eight years old. It caused so much +horror in England, that it is not absurd to suppose that some black rays +from the deed of darkness may have fallen on the mind of such a child as +Shakspere. + +In strong contrast with the foregoing is the next event to which we +shall refer. + +When he was eleven years old, Leicester gave the Queen that magnificent +reception at Kenilworth which is so well known from its memorials in our +literature. It has been suggested as probable, with quite enough of +likelihood to justify a conjecture, that Shakspere may have been present +at the dramatic representations then so gorgeously accumulated before +her Majesty. If such was the fact, it is easy to imagine what an +influence the shows must have had on the mind of the young dramatic +genius, at a time when, happily, the critical faculty is not by any +means so fully awake as are the receptive and exultant faculties, and +when what the nature chiefly needs is excitement to growth, without +which all pruning, the most artistic, is useless, as having nothing to +operate upon. + +When he was fifteen years old, Sir Thomas North's translation of +Plutarch (through the French) was first published. Any reader who has +compared one of Shakspere's Roman plays with the corresponding life in +Plutarch, will not be surprised that we should mention this as one of +those events which must have been of paramount influence upon Shakspere. +It is not likely that he became acquainted with the large folio with its +medallion portraits first placed singly, and then repeated side by side +for comparison, as soon as it made its appearance, but as we cannot tell +when he began to read it, it seems as well to place it in the order its +publication would assign to it. Besides, it evidently took such a hold +of the man, that it is most probable his acquaintance with it began at a +very early period of his history. Indeed, it seems to us to have been +one of the most powerful aids to the development of that perception and +discrimination of character with which he was gifted to such a +remarkable degree. Nor would it be any derogation from the originality +of his genius to say, that in a very pregnant sense he must have been a +disciple of Plutarch. In those plays founded on Plutarch's stories he +picked out every dramatic point, and occasionally employed the very +phrases of North's nervous, graphic, and characteristic English. He +seems to have felt that it was an honour to his work to embody in it the +words of Plutarch himself, as he knew them first. From him he seems +especially to have learned how to bring out the points of a character, +by putting one man over against another, and remarking wherein they +resembled each other and wherein they differed; after which fashion, in +other plays as well as those, he partly arranged his dramatic +characters. + +Not long after he went to London, when he was twenty-two, the death of +Sir Philip Sidney at the age of thirty-two, must have had its +unavoidable influence on him, seeing all Europe was in mourning for the +death of its model, almost ideal man. In England the general mourning, +both in the court and the city, which lasted for months, is supposed by +Dr. Zouch to have been the first instance of the kind; that is, for the +death of a private person. Renowned over the civilized world for +everything for which a man could be renowned, his literary fame must +have had a considerable share in the impression his death would make on +such a man as Shakspere. For although none of his works were published +till after his death, the first within a few months of that event, his +fame as a writer was widely spread in private, and report of the same +could hardly fail to reach one who, although he had probably no friends +of rank as yet, kept such keen open ears for all that was going on +around him. But whether or not he had heard of the literary greatness of +Sir Philip before his death, the "Arcadia," which was first published +four years after his death (1590), and which in eight years had reached +the third edition--with another still in Scotland the following +year--must have been full of interest to Shakspere. This book is very +different indeed from the ordinary impression of it which most minds +have received through the confident incapacity of the critics of last +century. Few books have been published more fruitful in the results and +causes of thought, more sparkling with fancy, more evidently the outcome +of rich and noble habit, than this "Arcadia" of Philip Sidney. That +Shakspere read it, is sufficiently evident from the fact that from it he +has taken the secondary but still important plots in two of his plays. + +Although we are anticipating, it is better to mention here another book, +published in the same year, namely, 1590, when Shakspere was +six-and-twenty: the first three books of Spenser's "Faery Queen." Of its +reception and character it is needless here to say anything further +than, of the latter, that nowadays the depths of its teaching, heartily +prized as that was by no less a man than Milton, are seldom explored. +But it would be a labour of months to set out the known and imagined +sources of the knowledge and spiritual pabulum of the man who laid every +mental region so under contribution, that he has been claimed by almost +every profession as having been at one time or another a student of its +peculiar science, so marvellously in him was the power of assimilation +combined with that of reproduction. + +To go back a little: in 1587, when he was three-and-twenty, Mary Queen +of Scots was executed. In the following year came that mighty victory of +England, and her allies the winds and the waters, over the towering +pride of the Spanish Armada. Out from the coasts, like the birds from +their cliffs to defend their young, flew the little navy, many of the +vessels only able to carry a few guns; and fighting, fire-ships and +tempest left this island,-- + + "This precious stone set in the silver sea," + +still a "blessed plot," with an accumulated obligation to liberty which +can only be paid by helping others to be free; and when she utterly +forgets which, her doom is sealed, as surely as that of the old empires +which passed away in their self-indulgence and wickedness. + +When Shakspere was about thirty-two, Sir Walter Raleigh published his +glowing account of Guiana, which instantly provided the English mind +with an earthly paradise or fairy-land. Raleigh himself seems to have +been too full of his own reports for us to be able to suppose that he +either invented or disbelieved them; especially when he represents the +heavenly country to which, in expectation of his execution, he is +looking forward, after the fashion of those regions of the wonderful +West:-- + + "Then the blessed Paths wee'l travel, + Strow'd with Rubies thick as gravel; + Sealings of Diamonds, Saphire floors, + High walls of Coral, and Pearly Bowers." + +Such were some of the influences which widened the region of thought, +and excited the productive power, in the minds of the time. After this +period there were fewer of such in Shakspere's life; and if there had +been more of them they would have been of less import as to their +operation on a mind more fully formed and more capable of choosing its +own influences. Let us now give a backward glance at the history of the +art which Shakspere chose as the means of easing his own mind of that +wealth which, like the gold and the silver, has a moth and rust of its +own, except it be kept in use by being sent out for the good of our +neighbours. + +It was a mighty gain for the language and the people when, in the middle +of the fourteenth century, by permission of the Pope, the miracle-plays, +most probably hitherto represented in Norman-French, as Mr. Collier +supposes, began to be represented in English. Most likely there had been +dramatic representations of a sort from the very earliest period of the +nation's history; for, to begin with the lowest form, at what time would +there not, for the delight of listeners, have been the imitation of +animal sounds, such as the drama of the conversation between an +attacking poodle and a fiercely repellent puss? Through innumerable +gradations of childhood would the art grow before it attained the first +formal embodiment in such plays as those, so-called, of miracles, +consisting just of Scripture stories, both canonical and apocryphal, +dramatized after the rudest fashion. Regarded from the height which the +art had reached two hundred and fifty years after, "how dwarfed a growth +of cold and night" do these miracle-plays show themselves! But at a time +when there was no printing, little preaching, and Latin prayers, we +cannot help thinking that, grotesque and ill-imagined as they are, they +must have been of unspeakable value for the instruction of a people +whose spiritual digestion was not of a sort to be injured by the +presence of a quite abnormal quantity of husk and saw-dust in their +food. And occasionally we find verses of true poetic feeling, such as +the following, in "The Fall of Man:"-- + + _Deus._ Adam, that with myn handys I made, + Where art thou now? What hast thou wrought? + + _Adam._ A! lord, for synne oure floures do ffade, + I here thi voys, but I se the nought; + +implying that the separation between God and man, although it had +destroyed the beatific vision, was not yet so complete as to make the +creature deaf to the voice of his Maker. Nor are the words of Eve, with +which she begs her husband, in her shame and remorse, to strangle her, +odd and quaint as they are, without an almost overpowering pathos:-- + + "Now stomble we on stalk and ston; + My wyt awey is fro me gon: + Wrythe on to my necke bon + With, hardnesse of thin honde." + +To this Adam commences his reply with the verses,-- + + "Wyff, thi wytt is not wurthe a rosche. + Leve woman, turn thi thought." + +And this portion of the general representation ends with these verses, +spoken by Eve:-- + + "Alas! that ever we wrought this synne. + Oure bodely sustenauns for to wynne, + Ye must delve and I xal spynne, + In care to ledyn oure lyff." + +In connexion with these plays, one of the contemplations most +interesting to us is, the contrast between them and the places in which +they were occasionally represented. For though the scaffolds on which +they were shown were usually erected in market-places or churchyards, +sometimes they rose in the great churches, and the plays were +represented with the aid of ecclesiastics. Here, then, we have the rude +beginnings of the dramatic art, in which the devil is the unfortunate +buffoon, giving occasion to the most exuberant laughter of the +people--here is this rude boyhood, if we may so say, of the one art, +roofed in with the perfection of another, of architecture; a perfection +which now we can only imitate at our best: below, the clumsy contrivance +and the vulgar jest; above, the solemn heaven of uplifted arches, their +mysterious glooms ringing with the delight of the multitude: the play of +children enclosed in the heart of prayer aspiring in stone. But it was +not by any means all laughter; and so much, nearer than architecture is +the drama to the ordinary human heart, that we cannot help thinking +these grotesque representations did far more to arouse the inward life +and conscience of the people than all the glory into which the +out-working spirit of the monks had compelled the stubborn stone to +bourgeon and blossom. + +But although, no doubt, there was some kind of growth going on in the +drama even during the dreary fifteenth century, we must not suppose that +it was by any regular and steady progression that it arrived at the +grandeur of the Elizabethan perfection. It was rather as if a dry, +knotty, uncouth, but vigorous plant suddenly opened out its inward life +in a flower of surpassing splendour and loveliness. When the +representation of real historical persons in the miracle-plays gave way +before the introduction of unreal allegorical personages, and the +miracle-play was almost driven from the stage by the "play of morals" as +it was called, there was certainly no great advance made in dramatic +representation. The chief advantage gained was room for more variety; +while in some important respects these plays fell off from the merits of +the preceding kind. Indeed, any attempt to teach morals allegorically +must lack that vivifying fire of faith working in the poorest +representations of a history which the people heartily believed and +loved. Nor when we come to examine the favourite amusement of later +royalty, do we find that the interludes brought forward in the pauses of +the banquets of Henry VIII. have a claim to any refinement upon those +old miracle-plays. They have gained in facility and wit; they have lost +in poetry. They have lost pathos too, and have gathered grossness. In +the comedies which soon appear, there is far more of fun than of art; +and although the historical play had existed for some time, and the +streams of learning from the inns of court had flowed in to swell that +of the drama, it is not before the appearance of Shakspere that we find +any _whole_ of artistic or poetic value. And this brings us to another +branch of the subject, of which it seems to us that the importance has +never been duly acknowledged. We refer to the use, if not invention, of +_blank verse_ in England, and its application to the purposes of the +drama. It seems to us that in any contemplation of Shakspere and his +times, the consideration of these points ought not to be omitted. + +We have in the present day one grand master of blank verse, the Poet +Laureate. But where would he have been if Milton had not gone before +him; or if the verse amidst which he works like an informing spirit had +not existed at all? No doubt he might have invented it himself; but how +different would the result have been from the verse which he will now +leave behind him to lie side by side for comparison with that of the +master of the epic! All thanks then to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey! +who, if, dying on the scaffold at the early age of thirty, he has left +no poetry in itself of much value, yet so wrote that he refined the +poetic usages of the language, and, above all, was the first who ever +made blank verse in English. He used it in translating the second and +fourth books of Virgil's "Aeneid." This translation he probably wrote +not long before his execution, which took place in 1547, seventeen years +before the birth of Shakspere. There are passages of excellence in the +work, and very rarely does a verse quite fail. But, as might be +expected, it is somewhat stiff, and, as it were, stunted in sound; +partly from the fact that the lines are too much divided, where +_distinction_ would have been sufficient. It would have been strange, +indeed, if he had at once made a free use of a rhythm which every +boy-poet now thinks he can do what he pleases with, but of which only a +few ever learn the real scope and capabilities. Besides, the difficulty +was increased by the fact that the nearest approach to it in measure was +the heroic couplet, so well known in our language, although scarce one +who has used it has come up to the variousness of its modelling in the +hands of Chaucer, with whose writings Surrey was of course familiar. But +various as is its melody in Chaucer, the fact of there being always an +anticipation of the perfecting of a rhyme at the end of the couplet +would make one accustomed to heroic verse ready to introduce a +rhythmical fall and kind of close at the end of every blank verse in +trying to write that measure for the first time. Still, as we say, there +is good verse in Surrey's translation. Take the following lines for a +specimen, in which the fault just mentioned is scarcely perceptible. +Mercury is the subject of them. + + "His golden wings he knits, which him transport, + With a light wind above the earth and seas; + And then with him his wand he took, whereby + He calls from hell pale ghosts. + * * * * * + "By power whereof he drives the winds away, + And passeth eke amid the troubled clouds, + Till in his flight he 'gan descry the top + And the steep flanks of rocky Atlas' hill + That with his crown sustains the welkin up; + Whose head, forgrown with pine, circled alway + With misty clouds, is beaten with wind and storm; + His shoulders spread with snow; and from his chin + The springs descend; his beard frozen with ice. + Here Mercury with equal shining wings + First touched." + +In all comparative criticism justice demands that he who began any mode +should not be compared with those who follow only on the ground of +absolute merit in the productions themselves; for while he may be +inferior in regard to quality, he stands on a height, as the inventor, +to which they, as imitators, can never ascend, although they may climb +other and loftier heights, through the example he has set them. It is +doubtful, however, whether Surrey himself invented this verse, or only +followed the lead of some poet of Italy or Spain; in both which +countries it is said that blank verse had been used before Surrey wrote +English in that measure. + +Here then we have the low beginnings of blank verse. It was nearly a +hundred and twenty years before Milton took it up, and, while it served +him well, glorified it; nor are we aware of any poem of worth written in +that measure between. Here, of course, we speak of the epic form of the +verse, which, as being uttered _ore rotundo_, is necessarily of +considerable difference from the form it assumes in the drama. + +Let us now glance for a moment at the forms of composition in use for +dramatic purposes before blank verse came into favour with play-writers. +The nature of the verse employed in the miracle-plays will be +sufficiently seen from the short specimens already given. These plays +were made up of carefully measured and varied lines, with correct and +superabundant rhymes, and no marked lack of melody or rhythm. But as far +as we have made acquaintance with the moral and other rhymed plays which +followed, there was a great falling off in these respects. They are in +great measure composed of long, irregular lines, with a kind of +rhythmical progress rather than rhythm in them. They are exceedingly +difficult to read musically, at least to one of our day. Here are a few +verses of the sort, from the dramatic poem, rather than drama, called +somewhat improperly "The Moral Play of God's Promises," by John Bale, +who died the year before Shakspere was born. It is the first in +Dodsley's collection. The verses have some poetic merit. The rhythm will +be allowed to be difficult at least. The verses are arranged in stanzas, +of which we give two. In most plays the verses are arranged in rhyming +couplets only. + + _Pater Coelestis._ + + I have with fearcenesse mankynde oft tymes corrected, + And agayne, I have allured hym by swete promes. + I have sent sore plages, when he hath me neglected, + And then by and by, most comfortable swetnes. + To wynne hym to grace, bothe mercye and ryghteousnes + I have exercysed, yet wyll he not amende. + Shall I now lose hym, or shall I him defende? + + In hys most myschefe, most hygh grace will I sende, + To overcome hym by favoure, if it may be. + With hys abusyons no longar wyll I contende, + But now accomplysh my first wyll and decre. + My worde beynge flesh, from hens shall set hym fre, + Hym teachynge a waye of perfyght ryhteousnesse, + That he shall not nede to perysh in hys weaknesse. + +To our ears, at least, the older miracle-plays were greatly superior. It +is interesting to find, however, in this apparently popular mode of +"building the rhyme"--certainly not the _lofty_ rhyme, for no such +crumbling foundation could carry any height of superstructure--the +elements of the most popular rhythm of the present day; a rhythm +admitting of any number of syllables in the line, from four up to +twelve, or even more, and demanding only that there shall be not more +than four accented syllables in the line. A song written with any spirit +in this measure has, other things _not_ being quite equal, yet almost a +certainty of becoming more popular than one written in any other +measure. Most of Barry Cornwall's and Mrs. Heman's songs are written in +it. Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," Coleridge's "Christabel," +Byron's "Siege of Corinth," Shelley's "Sensitive Plant," are examples of +the rhythm. Spenser is the first who has made good use of it. One of the +months in the "Shepherd's Calendar" is composed in it. We quote a few +lines from this poem, to show at once the kind we mean:-- + + "No marvel, Thenot, if thou can bear + Cheerfully the winter's wrathful cheer; + For age and winter accord full nigh; + This chill, that cold; this crooked, that wry; + And as the lowering weather looks down, + So seemest thou like Good Friday to frown: + But my flowering youth is foe to frost; + My ship unwont in storms to be tost." + +We can trace it slightly in Sir Thomas Wyatt, and we think in others who +preceded Spenser. There is no sign of it in Chaucer. But we judge it to +be the essential rhythm of Anglo-Saxon poetry, which will quite +harmonize with, if it cannot explain, the fact of its being the most +popular measure still. Shakspere makes a little use of it in one, if not +in more, of his plays, though it there partakes of the irregular +character of that of the older plays which he is imitating. But we +suspect the clowns of the authorship of some of the rhymes, "speaking +more than was set down for them," evidently no uncommon offence. + +Prose was likewise in use for the drama at an early period. + +But we must now regard the application of blank verse to the use of the +drama. And in this part of our subject we owe most to the investigations +of Mr. Collier, than whom no one has done more to merit our gratitude +for such aids. It is universally acknowledged that "Ferrex and Porrex" +was the first drama in blank verse. But it was never represented on the +public stage. It was the joint production of Thomas Sackville, +afterwards Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset, and Thomas Norton, both +gentlemen of the Inner Temple, by the members of which it was played +before the Queen at Whitehall in 1561, three years before Shakspere was +born. As to its merits, the impression left by it upon our minds is such +that, although the verse is decent, and in some respects irreproachable, +we think the time spent in reading it must be all but lost to any but +those who must verify to themselves their literary profession; a +profession which, like all other professions, involves a good deal of +disagreeable duty. We spare our readers all quotation, there being no +occasion to show what blank verse of the commonest description is. But +we beg to be allowed to state that this drama by no means represents the +poetic powers of Thomas Sackville. For although we cannot agree with +Hallam's general criticism, either for or against Sackville, and +although we admire Spenser, we hope, as much as that writer could have +admired him, we yet venture to say that not only may some of Sackville's +personifications "fairly be compared with some of the most poetical +passages in Spenser," but that there is in this kind in Sackville a +strength and simplicity of representation which surpasses that of +Spenser in passages in which the latter probably imitated the former. We +refer to the allegorical personages in Sackville's "Induction to the +Mirrour of Magistrates," and in Spenser's description of the "House of +Pride." + +Mr. Collier judges that the play in blank verse first represented on the +public stage was the "Tamburlaine" of Christopher Marlowe, and that it +was acted before 1587, at which date Shakspere would be twenty-three. +This was followed by other and better plays by the same author. Although +we cannot say much for the dramatic art of Marlowe, he has far surpassed +every one that went before him in dramatic _poetry_. The passages that +might worthily be quoted from Marlowe's writings for the sake of their +poetry are innumerable, notwithstanding that there are many others which +occupy a border land between poetry and bombast, and are such that it is +to us impossible to say to which class they rather belong. Of course it +is easy for a critic to gain the credit of common-sense at the same time +that he saves himself the trouble of doing what he too frequently shows +himself incapable of doing to any good purpose--we mean _thinking_--by +classing all such passages together as bombastical nonsense; but even in +the matter of poetry and bombast, a wise reader will recognize that +extremes so entirely meet, without being in the least identical, that +they are capable of a sort of chemico-literary admixture, if not of +combination. Goethe himself need not have been ashamed to have written +one or two of the scenes in Marlowe's "Faust;" not that we mean to imply +that they in the least resemble Goethe's handiwork. His verse is, for +dramatic purposes, far inferior to Shakspere's; but it was a great +matter for Shakspere that Marlowe preceded him, and helped to prepare to +his hand the tools and fashions he needed. The provision of blank verse +for Shakspere's use seems to us worthy of being called providential, +even in a system in which we cannot believe that there is any chance. +For as the stage itself is elevated a few feet above the ordinary level, +because it is the scene of a _representation_, just so the speech of the +drama, dealing not with unreal but with ideal persons, the fool being a +worthy fool, and the villain a worthy villain, needs to be elevated some +tones above that of ordinary life, which is generally flavoured with so +much of the _commonplace_. Now the commonplace has no place at all in +the drama of Shakspere, which fact at once elevates it above the tone of +ordinary life. And so the mode of the speech must be elevated as well; +therefore from prose into blank verse. If we go beyond this, we cease to +be natural for the stage as well as life; and the result is that kind of +composition well enough known in Shakspere's time, which he ridicules in +the recitations of the player in "Hamlet," about _Priam_ and _Hecuba_. +We could show the very passages of the play-writer Nash which Shakspere +imitates in these. To use another figure, Shakspere, in the same play, +instructs the players "to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature." Now +every one must have felt that somehow there is a difference between the +appearance of any object or group of objects immediately presented to +the eye, and the appearance of the same object or objects in a mirror. +Nature herself is not the same in the mirror held up to her. Everything +changes sides in this representation; and the room which is an ordinary, +well-known, homely room, gains something of the strange and poetic when +regarded in the mirror over the fire. Now for this representation, for +this mirror-reflection on the stage, blank verse is just the suitable +glass to receive the silvering of the genius-mind behind it. + +But if Shakspere had had to sit down and make his tools first, and then +quarry his stone and fell his timber for the building of his house, +instead of finding everything ready to his hand for dressing his stone +already hewn, for sawing and carving the timber already in logs and +planks beside him, no doubt his house would have been built; but can we +with any reason suppose that it would have proved such "a lordly +pleasure-house"? Not even Shakspere could do without his poor little +brothers who preceded him, and, like the goblins and gnomes of the +drama, got everything out of the bowels of the dark earth, ready for the +master, whom it would have been a shame to see working in the gloom and +the dust instead of in the open eye of the day. Nor is anything so +helpful to the true development of power as the possibility of free +action for as much of the power as is already operative. This room for +free action was provided by blank verse. + +Yet when Shakspere came first upon the scene of dramatic labour, he had +to serve his private apprenticeship, to which the apprenticeship of the +age in the drama, had led up. He had to act first of all. Driven to +London and the drama by an irresistible impulse, when the choice of some +profession was necessary to make him independent of his father, seeing +he was himself, though very young, a married man, the first form in +which the impulse to the drama would naturally show itself in him would +be the desire to act; for the outside relations would first operate. As +to the degree of merit he possessed as an actor we have but scanty means +of judging; for afterwards, in his own plays, he never took the best +characters, having written them for his friend Richard Burbage. Possibly +the dramatic impulse was sufficiently appeased by the writing of the +play, and he desired no further satisfaction from personal +representation; although the amount of study spent upon the higher +department of the art might have been more than sufficient to render him +unrivalled as well in the presentation of his own conceptions. But the +dramatic spring, having once broken the upper surface, would scoop out a +deeper and deeper well for itself to play in, and the actor would soon +begin to work upon the parts he had himself to study for presentation. +It being found that he greatly bettered his own parts, those of others +would be submitted to him, and at length whole plays committed to his +revision, of which kind there may be several in the collection of his +works. If the feather-end of his pen is just traceable in "Titus +Andronicus," the point of it is much more evident, and to as good +purpose as Beaumont or Fletcher could have used his to, at the best, in +"Pericles, Prince of Tyre." Nor would it be long before he would submit +one of his own plays for approbation; and then the whole of his dramatic +career lies open before him, with every possible advantage for +perfecting the work, for the undertaking of which he was better +qualified by nature than probably any other man whosoever; for he knew +everything about acting, practically--about the play-house and its +capabilities, about stage necessities, about the personal endowments and +individual qualifications of each of the company--so that, when he was +writing a play, he could distribute the parts before they even appeared +upon paper, and write for each actor with the very living form of the +ideal person present "in his mind's eye," and often to his bodily sight; +so that the actual came in aid of the ideal, as it always does if the +ideal be genuine, and the loftiest conceptions proved the truest to +visible nature. + +This close relation of Shakspere to the actual leads us to a general and +remarkable fact, which again will lead us back to Shakspere. All the +great writers of Queen Elizabeth's time were men of affairs; they were +not literary men merely, in the general acceptation of the word at +present. Hooker was a hard-working, sheep-keeping, cradle-rocking pastor +of a country parish. Bacon's legal duties were innumerable before he +became Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor. Raleigh was soldier, sailor, +adventurer, courtier, politician, discoverer: indeed, it is to his +imprisonment that we are indebted for much the most ambitious of his +literary undertakings, "The History of the World," a work which for +simple majesty of subject and style is hardly to be surpassed in prose. +Sidney, at the age of three-and-twenty, received the highest praise for +the management of a secret embassy to the Emperor of Germany; took the +deepest and most active interest in the political affairs of his +country; would have sailed with Sir Francis Drake for South American +discovery; and might probably have been king of poor Poland, if the +queen had not been too selfish or wise to spare him. The whole of his +literary productions was the work of his spare hours. Spenser himself, +who was, except Shakspere, the most purely a literary man of them all, +was at one time Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and, later in +life, Sheriff of Cork. Nor is the remark true only of the writers of +Elizabeth's period, or of the country of England. + +It seems to us one of the greatest advantages that can befall a poet, to +be drawn out of his study, and still more out of the chamber of imagery +in his own thoughts, to behold and speculate upon the embodiment of +Divine thoughts and purposes in men and their affairs around him. Now +Shakspere had no public appointment, but he reaped all the advantage +which such could have given him, and more, from the perfection of his +dramatic position. It was not with making plays alone that he had to do; +but, himself an actor, himself in a great measure the owner of more than +one theatre, with a little realm far more difficult to rule than many a +kingdom--a company, namely, of actors--although possibly less difficult +from the fact that they were only men and boys; with the pecuniary +affairs of the management likewise under his supervision--he must have +found, in the relations and necessities of his own profession, not +merely enough of the actual to keep him real in his representations, but +almost sufficient opportunity for his one great study, that of mankind, +independently of social and friendly relations, which in his case were +of the widest and deepest. + +But Shakspere had not business relations merely: he was a man of +business. There is a common blunder manifested, both in theory on the +one side, and in practice on the other, which the life of Shakspere sets +full in the light. The theory is, that genius is a sort of abnormal +development of the imagination, to the detriment and loss of the +practical powers, and that a genius is therefore a kind of incapable, +incompetent being, as far as worldly matters are concerned. The most +complete refutation of this notion lies in the fact that the greatest +genius the world has known was a successful man in common affairs. While +his genius grew in strength, fervour, and executive power, his worldly +condition rose as well; he became a man of importance in the eyes of his +townspeople, by whom he would not have been honoured if he had not made +money; and he purchased landed property in his native place with the +results of his management of his theatres. + +The practical blunder lies in the notion cherished occasionally by young +people ambitious of literary distinction, that in the pursuit of such +things they must be content with the poverty to which the world dooms +its greatest men; accepting their very poverty as an additional proof of +their own genius. If this means that the poet is not to make money his +object, it means well: no man should. But if it means either that the +world is unkind, or that the poet is not to "gather up the fragments, +that nothing be lost," it means ill. Shakspere did not make haste to be +rich. He neither blamed, courted, nor neglected the world: he was +friendly with it. He _could_ not have pinched and scraped; but neither +did he waste or neglect his worldly substance, which is God's gift too. +Many immense fortunes have been made, not by absolute dishonesty, but in +ways to which a man of genius ought to be yet more ashamed than another +to condescend; but it does not therefore follow that if a man of genius +will do honest work he will not make a fair livelihood by it, which for +all good results of intellect and heart is better than a great fortune. +But then Shakspere began with doing what he could. He did not consent to +starve until the world should recognize his genius, or grumble against +the blindness of the nation in not seeing what it was impossible it +should see before it was fairly set forth. He began at once to supply +something which the world wanted; for it wants many an honest thing. He +went on the stage and acted, and so gained power to reveal the genius +which he possessed; and the world, in its possible measure, was not slow +to recognize it. Many a young fellow who has entered life with the one +ambition of being a poet, has failed because he did not perceive that it +is better to be a man than to be a poet, that it is his first duty to +get an honest living by doing some honest work that he can do, and for +which there is a demand, although it may not be the most pleasant +employment. Time would have shown whether he was meant to be a poet or +not; and if he had been no poet he would have been no beggar; and if he +had turned out a poet, it would have been partly in virtue of that +experience of life and truth, gained in his case in the struggle for +bread, without which, gained somehow, a man may be a sweet dreamer, but +can be no strong maker, no poet. In a word, here is _the_ Englishman of +genius, beginning life with nothing, and dying, not rich, but easy and +honoured; and this by doing what no one else could do, writing dramas in +which the outward grandeur or beauty is but an exponent of the inward +worth; hiding pearls for the wise even within the jewelled play of the +variegated bubbles of fancy, which he blew while he wrought, for the +innocent delight of his thoughtless brothers and sisters. Wherever the +rainbow of Shakspere's genius stands, there lies, indeed, at the foot of +its glorious arch, a golden key, which will open the secret doors of +truth, and admit the humble seeker into the presence of Wisdom, who, +having cried in the streets in vain, sits at home and waits for him who +will come to find her. And Shakspere had cakes and ale, although he was +virtuous. + +But what do we know about the character of Shakspere? How can we tell +the inner life of a man who has uttered himself in dramas, in which of +course it is impossible that he should ever speak in his own person? No +doubt he may speak his own sentiments through the mouths of many of his +persons; but how are we to know in what cases he does so?--At least we +may assert, as a self-evident negative, that a passage treating of a +wide question put into the mouth of a person despised and rebuked by the +best characters in the play, is not likely to contain any cautiously +formed and cherished opinion of the dramatist. At first sight this may +seem almost a truism; but we have only to remind our readers that one of +the passages oftenest quoted with admiration, and indeed separately +printed and illuminated, is "The Seven Ages of Man," a passage full of +inhuman contempt for humanity and unbelief in its destiny, in which not +one of the seven ages is allowed to pass over its poor sad stage without +a sneer; and that this passage is given by Shakspere to the _blase_ +sensualist _Jaques_ in "As You Like it," a man who, the good and wise +_Duke_ says, has been as vile as it is possible for man to be, so vile +that it would be an additional sin in him to rebuke sin; a man who never +was capable of seeing what is good in any man, and hates men's vices +_because_ he hates themselves, seeing in them only the reflex of his own +disgust. Shakspere knew better than to say that all the world is a +stage, and all the men and women merely players. He had been a player +himself, but only on the stage: _Jaques_ had been a player where he +ought to have been a true man. The whole of his account of human life is +contradicted and exposed at once by the entrance, the very moment when +he has finished his wicked burlesque, of _Orlando_, the young master, +carrying _Adam_, the old servant, upon his back. The song that +immediately follows, sings true: "Most friendship is feigning, most +loving mere folly." But between the _all_ of _Jaques_ and the _most_ of +the song, there is just the difference between earth and hell.--Of +course, both from a literary and dramatic point of view, "The Seven +Ages" is perfect. + +Now let us make one positive statement to balance the other: that +wherever we find, in the mouth of a noble character, not stock +sentiments of stage virtue, but appreciation of a truth which it needs +deep thought and experience united with love of truth, to discover or +verify for one's self, especially if the truth be of a sort which most +men will fail not merely to recognize as a truth, but to understand at +all, because the understanding of it depends on the foregoing spiritual +perception--then we think we may receive the passage as an expression of +the inner soul of the writer. He must have seen it before he could have +said it; and to see such a truth is to love it; or rather, love of truth +in the general must have preceded and enabled to the discovery of it. +Such a passage is the speech of the _Duke_, opening the second act of +the play just referred to, "As You Like it." The lesson it contains is, +that the well-being of a man cannot be secured except he partakes of the +ills of life, "the penalty of Adam." And it seems to us strange that the +excellent editors of the Cambridge edition, now in the course of +publication--a great boon to all students of Shakspere--should not have +perceived that the original reading, that of the folios, is the right +one,-- + + "Here feel we _not_ the penalty of Adam?" + +which, with the point of interrogation supplied, furnishes the true +meaning of the whole passage; namely, that the penalty of Adam is just +what makes the "wood more free from peril than the envious court," +teaching each "not to think of himself more highly than he ought to +think." + +But Shakspere, although everywhere felt, is nowhere seen in his plays. +He is too true an artist to show his own face from behind the play of +life with which he fills his stage. What we can find of him there we +must find by regarding the whole, and allowing the spiritual essence of +the whole to find its way to our brain, and thence to our heart. The +student of Shakspere becomes imbued with the idea of his character. It +exhales from his writings. And when we have found the main drift of any +play--the grand rounding of the whole--then by that we may interpret +individual passages. It is alone in their relation to the whole that we +can do them full justice, and in their relation to the whole that we +discover the mind of the master. + +But we have another source of more direct enlightenment as to Shakspere +himself. We only say more _direct_, not more certain or extended +enlightenment. We have one collection of poems in which he speaks in his +own person and of himself. Of course we refer to his sonnets. Though +these occupy, with their presentation of himself, such a small relative +space, they yet admirably round and complete, to our eyes, the circle of +his individuality. In them and the plays the common saying--one of the +truest--that extremes meet, is verified. No man is complete in whom +there are no extremes, or in whom those extremes do not meet. Now the +very individuality of Shakspere, judged by his dramas alone, has been +declared nonexistent; while in the sonnets he manifests some of the +deepest phases of a healthy self-consciousness. We do not intend to +enter into the still unsettled question as to whether these sonnets were +addressed to a man or a woman. We have scarcely a doubt left on the +question ourselves, as will be seen from the argument we found on our +conviction. We cannot say we feel much interest in the other question, +_If a man, what man?_ A few placed at the end, arranged as they have +come down to us, are beyond doubt addressed to a woman. But the +difference in tone between these and the others we think very +remarkable. Possibly at the time they were written--most of them early +in his life, as it appears to us, although they were not published till +the year 1609, when he was forty-five years of age, Meres referring to +them in the year 1598, eleven years before, as known "among his private +friends"--he had not known such women as he knew afterwards, and hence +the true devotion of his soul is given to a friend of his own sex. +Gervinus, whose lectures on Shakspere, profound and lofty to a degree +unattempted by any other interpreter, we are glad to find have been done +into a suitable English translation, under the superintendence of the +author himself--Gervinus says somewhere in them that, as Shakspere lived +and wrote, his ideal of womanhood grew nobler and purer. Certainly the +woman to whom the last few of these sonnets are addressed was neither +noble nor pure. We think, in this matter at least, they record one of +his early experiences. + +We shall briefly indicate what we find in these sonnets about the man +himself, and shall commence with what is least pleasing and of least +value. + +We must confess, then, that, probably soon after he came first to +London, he, then a married man, had an intrigue with a married woman, of +which there are indications that he was afterwards deeply ashamed. One +little incident seems curiously traceable: that he had given her a set +of tablets which his friend had given him; and the sonnet in which he +excuses himself to his friend for having done so, seems to us the only +piece of special pleading, and therefore ungenuine expression, in the +whole. This friend, to whom the rest of the sonnets are addressed, made +the acquaintance of this woman, and both were false to Shakspere. Even +Shakspere could not keep the love of a worthless woman. So much the +better for him; but it is a sad story at best. Yet even in this +environment of evil we see the nobility of the man, and his real self. +The sonnets in which he mourns his friend's falsehood, forgives him, and +even finds excuses for him, that he may not lose his own love of him, +are, to our minds, amongst the most beautiful, as they are the most +profound. Of these are the 33rd and 34th. Nor does he stop here, but +proceeds in the following, the 35th, to comfort his friend in his grief +for his offence, even accusing himself of offence in having made more +excuse for his fault than the fault needed! But to leave this part of +his history, which, as far as we know, stands alone, and yet cannot with +truth be passed by, any more than the story of the crime of David, +though in this case there is no comparison to be made between the two +further than the primary fact, let us look at the one reality which, +from a spiritual point of view, independently of the literary beauties +of these poems, causes them to stand all but alone in literature. We +mean what has been unavoidably touched upon already, the devotion of his +friendship. We have said this makes the poems stand _all but alone_; for +we ought to be better able to understand these poems of Shakspere, from +the fact that in our day has appeared the only other poem which is like +these, and which casts back a light upon them. + + "Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, + Where thy first form was made a man: + I loved thee, spirit, and love; nor can + The soul of Shakspeare love thee more." + +So sings the Poet of our day, in the loftiest of his poems--"In +Memoriam"--addressing the spirit of his vanished friend. In the midst of +his song arises the thought of _the Poet_ of all time, who loved his +friend too, and would have lost him in a way far worse than death, had +not his love been too strong even for that death, alone ghastly, which +threatened to cut the golden chain that bound them, and part them by the +gulf impassable. Tennyson's friend had never wronged him; and to the +divineness of Shakspere's love is added that of forgiveness. Such love +as this between man and man is rare, and therefore to the mind which is +in itself no way rare, incredible, because unintelligible. But though +all the commonest things are very divine, yet divine individuality is +and will be a rare thing at any given period on the earth. Faith, in its +ideal sense, will always be hard to find on the earth. But perhaps this +kind of affection between man and man may, as Coleridge indicates in his +"Table Talk," have been more common in the reigns of Elizabeth and James +than it is now. There is a certain dread of the demonstrative in the +present day, which may, perhaps, be carried into regions where it is out +of place, and hinder the development of a devotion which must be real, +and grand, and divine, if one man such as Shakspere or Tennyson has ever +felt it. If one has felt it, humanity may claim it. And surely He who is +_the_ Son of man has verified the claim. We believe there are indeed few +of us who know what _to love our neighbour as ourselves_ means; but when +we find a man here and there in the course of centuries who does, we may +take this man as the prophet of coming good for his race, his prophecy +being himself. + +But next to the interest of knowing that a man could love so well, comes +the association of this fact with his art. He who could look abroad upon +men, and understand them all--who stood, as it were, in the wide-open +gates of his palace, and admitted with welcome every one who came in +sight--had in the inner places of that palace one chamber in which he +met his friend, and in which his whole soul went forth to understand the +soul of his friend. The man to whom nothing in humanity was common or +unclean; in whom the most remarkable of his artistic morals is +fair-play; who fills our hearts with a saintly love for _Cordelia_ and +an admiration of _Sir John Falstaff_ the lost gentleman, mournful even +in the height of our laughter; who could make an _Autolycus_ and a +_Macbeth_ both human, and an _Ariel_ and a _Puck_ neither human--this is +the man who loved best. And we believe that this depth of capacity for +loving lay at the root of all his knowledge of men and women, and all +his dramatic pre-eminence. The heart is more intelligent than the +intellect. Well says the poet Matthew Raydon, who has hardly left +anything behind him but the lamentation over Sir Philip Sidney in which +the lines occur,-- + + "He that hath love and judgment too + Sees more than any other do." + +Simply, we believe that this, not this only, but this more than any +other endowment, made Shakspere the artist he was, in providing him all +the material of humanity to work upon, and keeping him to the true +spirit of its use. Love looking forth upon strife, understood it all. +Love is the true revealer of secrets, because it makes one with the +object regarded. + +"But," say some impatient readers, "when shall we have done with +Shakspere? There is no end to this writing about him." It will be a bad +day for England when we have done with Shakspere; for that will imply, +along with the loss of him, that we are no longer capable of +understanding him. Should that time ever come, Heaven grant the +generation which does not understand him at least the grace to keep its +pens off him, which will by no means follow as a necessary consequence +of the non-intelligence! But the writing about Shakspere which has been +hitherto so plentiful must do good just in proportion as it directs +attention to him and gives aid to the understanding of him. And while +the utterances of to-day pass away, the children of to-morrow are born, +and require a new utterance for their fresh need from those who, having +gone before, have already tasted life and Shakspere, and can give some +little help to further progress than their own, by telling the following +generation what they have found. Suppose that this cry had been raised +last century, after good Dr. Johnson had ceased to produce to the eyes +of men the facts about his own incapacity which he presumed to be +criticisms of Shakspere, where would our aids be now to the +understanding of the dramatist? Our own conviction is, when we reflect +with how much labour we have deepened our knowledge of him, and thereby +found in him _the best_--for the best lies not on the surface for the +careless reader--our own conviction is, that not half has been done that +ought to be done to help young people at least to understand the master +mind of their country. Few among them can ever give the attention or +work to it that we have given; but much may be done with judicious aid. +And a profound knowledge of their greatest writer would do more than +almost anything else to bind together as Englishmen, in a true and +unselfish way, the hearts of the coming generations; for his works are +our country in a convex magic mirror. + +When a man finds that every time he reads a book not only does some +obscurity melt away, but deeper depths, which he had not before seen, +dawn upon him, he is not likely to think that the time for ceasing to +write about the book has come. And certainly in Shakspere, as in all +true artistic work, as in nature herself, the depths are not to be +revealed utterly; while every new generation needs a new aid towards +discovering itself and its own thoughts in these forms of the past. And +of all that read about Shakspere there are few whom more than one or two +utterances have reached. The speech or the writing must go forth to find +the soil for the growth of its kernel of truth. We shall, therefore, +with the full consciousness that perhaps more has been already said and +written about Shakspere than about any other writer, yet venture to add +to the mass by a few general remarks. + +And first we would remind our readers of the marvel of the combination +in Shakspere of such a high degree of two faculties, one of which is +generally altogether inferior to the other: the faculties of reception +and production. Rarely do we find that great receptive power, brought +into operation either by reading or by observation, is combined with +originality of thought. Some hungers are quite satisfied by taking in +what others have thought and felt and done. By the assimilation of this +food many minds grow and prosper; but other minds feed far more upon +what rises from their own depths; in the answers they are compelled to +provide to the questions that come unsought; in the theories they cannot +help constructing for the inclusion in one whole of the various facts +around them, which seem at first sight to strive with each other like +the atoms of a chaos; in the examination of those impulses of hidden +origin which at one time indicate a height of being far above the +thinker's present condition, at another a gulf of evil into which he may +possibly fall. But in Shakspere the two powers of beholding and +originating meet like the rejoining halves of a sphere. A man who thinks +his own thoughts much, will often walk through London streets and see +nothing. In the man who observes only, every passing object mirrors +itself in its prominent peculiarities, having a kind of harmony with all +the rest, but arouses no magician from the inner chamber to charm and +chain its image to his purpose. In Shakspere, on the contrary, every +outer form of humanity and nature spoke to that ever-moving, +self-vindicating--we had almost said, and in a sense it would be true, +self-generating--humanity within him. The sound of any action without +him, struck in him just the chord which, in motion in him, would have +produced a similar action. When anything was done, he felt as if he were +doing it--perception and origination conjoining in one consciousness. + +But to this gift was united the gift of utterance, or representation. +Many a man both receives and generates who, somehow, cannot represent. +Nothing is more disappointing sometimes than our first experience of the +artistic attempts of a man who has roused our expectations by a social +display of familiarity with, and command over, the subjects of +conversation. Have we not sometimes found that when such a one sought to +give vital or artistic form to these thoughts, so that they might not be +born and die in the same moment upon his lips, but might _exist_, a +poor, weak, faded _simulacrum_ alone was the result? Now Shakspere was a +great talker, who enraptured the listeners, and was himself so rapt in +his speech that he could scarcely come to a close; but when he was alone +with his art, then and then only did he rise to the height of his great +argument, and all the talk was but as the fallen mortar and stony chips +lying about the walls of the great temple of his drama. + +But, along with all this wealth of artistic speech, an artistic virtue +of an opposite nature becomes remarkable: his reticence. How often might +he not say fine things, particularly poetic things, when he does not, +because it would not suit the character or the time! How many delicate +points are there not in his plays which we only discover after many +readings, because he will not put a single tone of success into the flow +of natural utterance, to draw our attention to the triumph of the +author, and jar with the all-important reality of his production! +Wherever an author obtrudes his own self-importance, an unreality is the +consequence, of a nature similar to that which we feel in the old moral +plays, when historical and allegorical personages, such as _Julius +Caesar_ and _Charity_, for instance, are introduced at the same time on +the same stage, acting in the same story. Shakspere never points to any +stroke of his own wit or art. We may find it or not: there it is, and no +matter if no one see it! + +Much has been disputed about the degree of consciousness of his own art +possessed by Shakspere: whether he did it by a grand yet blind impulse, +or whether he knew what he wanted to do, and knowingly used the means to +arrive at that end. Now we cannot here enter upon the question; but we +would recommend any of our readers who are interested in it not to +attempt to make up their minds upon it before considering a passage in +another of his poems, which may throw some light on the subject for +them. It is the description of a painting, contained in "The Rape of +Lucrece," towards the end of the poem. Its very minuteness involves the +expression of principles, and reveals that, in relation to an art not +his own, he could hold principles of execution, and indicate perfection +of finish, which, to say the least, must proceed from a general capacity +for art, and therefore might find an equally conscious operation in his +own peculiar province of it. For our own part, we think that his results +are a perfect combination of the results of consciousness and +unconsciousness; consciousness where the arrangements of the play, +outside the region of inspiration, required the care of the wakeful +intellect; unconsciousness where the subject itself bore him aloft on +the wings of its own creative delight. + +There is another manifestation of his power which will astonish those +who consider it. It is this: that, while he was able to go down to the +simple and grand realities of human nature, which are all tragic; and +while, therefore, he must rejoice most in such contemplations of human +nature as find fit outlet in a "Hamlet," a "Lear," a "Timon," or an +"Othello," the tragedies of Doubt, Ingratitude, and Love, he can yet, +when he chooses, float on the very surface of human nature, as in +"Love's Labour's Lost," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "The Comedy of +Errors," "The Taming of the Shrew;" or he can descend half way as it +were, and there remain suspended in the characters and feelings of +ordinary nice people, who, interesting enough to meet in society, have +neither received that development, nor are placed in those +circumstances, which admit of the highest and simplest poetic treatment. +In these he will bring out the ordinary noble or the ordinary vicious. +Of this nature are most of his comedies, in which he gives an ideal +representation of common social life, and steers perfectly clear of what +in such relations and surroundings would be _heroics_. Look how steadily +he keeps the noble-minded youth _Orlando_ in this middle region; and +look how the best comes out at last in the wayward and _recalcitrant_ +and _bizarre_, but honest and true natures of _Beatrice_ and _Benedick_; +and this without any untruth to the nature of comedy, although the +circumstances border on the tragic. When he wants to give the deeper +affairs of the heart, he throws the whole at once out of the social +circle with its multiform restraints. As in "Hamlet" the stage on which +the whole is acted is really the heart of _Hamlet_, so he makes his +visible stage as it were, slope off into the misty infinite, with a +grey, starless heaven overhead, and Hades open beneath his feet. Hence +young people brought up in the country understand the tragedies far +sooner than they can comprehend the comedies. It needs acquaintance with +society and social ways to clear up the latter. + +The remarks we have made on "Hamlet" by way of illustration, lead us to +point out how Shakspere prepares, in some of his plays, a stage suitable +for all the representation. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream" the place +which gives tone to the whole is a midnight wood in the first flush and +youthful delight of summer. In "As You Like it" it is a daylight wood in +spring, full of morning freshness, with a cold wind now and then blowing +through the half-clothed boughs. In "The Tempest" it is a solitary +island, circled by the mysterious sea-horizon, over which what may come +who can tell?--a place where the magician may work his will, and have +all nature at the beck of his superior knowledge. + +The only writer who would have had a chance of rivalling Shakspere in +his own walk, if he had been born in the same period of English history, +is Chaucer. He has the same gift of individualizing the general, and +idealizing the portrait. But the best of the dramatic writers of +Shakspere's time, in their desire of dramatic individualization, forget +the modifying multiformity belonging to individual humanity. In their +anxiety to present a _character_, they take, as it were, a human mould, +label it with a certain peculiarity, and then fill in speeches and forms +according to the label. Thus the indications of character, of +peculiarity, so predominate, the whole is so much of one colour, that +the result resembles one of those allegorical personifications in which, +as much as possible, everything human is eliminated except what belongs +to the peculiarity, the personification. How different is it with +Shakspere's representations! He knows that no human being ever was like +that. He makes his most peculiar characters speak very much like other +people; and it is only over the whole that their peculiarities manifest +themselves with indubitable plainness. The one apparent exception is +_Jaques_, in "As You Like it." But there we must remember that Shakspere +is representing a man who so chooses to represent himself. He is a man +_in his humour_, or his own peculiar and chosen affectation. _Jaques_ is +the writer of his own part; for with him "all the world's a stage, and +all the men and women," himself first, "merely players." We have his +own presentation of himself, not, first of all, as he is, but as he +chooses to be taken. Of course his real self does come out in it, for no +man can seem altogether other than he is; and besides, the _Duke_, who +sees quite through him, rebukes him in the manner already referred to; +but it is his affectation that gives him the unnatural peculiarity of +his modes and speeches. He wishes them to be such. + +There is, then, for every one of Shakspere's characters the firm ground +of humanity, upon which the weeds, as well as the flowers, glorious or +fantastic, as the case may be, show themselves. His more heroic persons +are the most profoundly human. Nor are his villains unhuman, although +inhuman enough. Compared with Marlowe's Jew, _Shylock_ is a terrible +_man_ beside a dreary _monster_, and, as far as logic and the _lex +talionis_ go, has the best of the argument. It is the strength of human +nature itself that makes crime strong. Wickedness could have no power of +itself: it lives by the perverted powers of good. And so great is +Shakspere's sympathy with _Shylock_ even, in the hard and unjust doom +that overtakes him, that he dismisses him with some of the spare +sympathies of the more tender-hearted of his spectators. Nowhere is the +justice of genius more plain than in Shakspere's utter freedom from +party-spirit, even with regard to his own creations. Each character +shall set itself forth from its own point of view, and only in the +choice and scope of the whole shall the judgment of the poet be beheld. +He never allows his opinion to come out to the damaging of the +individual's own self-presentation. He knows well that for the worst +something can be said, and that a feeling of justice and his own right +will be strong in the mind of a man who is yet swayed by perfect +selfishness. Therefore the false man is not discoverable in his speech, +not merely because the villain will talk as like a true man as he may, +but because seldom is the villainy clear to the villain's own mind. It +is impossible for us to determine whether, in their fierce bandying of +the lie, _Bolingbroke_ or _Norfolk_ spoke the truth. Doubtless each +believed the other to be the villain that he called him. And Shakspere +has no desire or need to act the historian in the decision of that +question. He leaves his reader in full sympathy with the perplexity of +_Richard_; as puzzled, in fact, as if he had been present at the +interrupted combat. + +If every writer could write up to his own best, we should have far less +to marvel at in Shakspere. It is in great measure the wealth of +Shakspere's suggestions, giving him abundance of the best to choose +from, that lifts him so high above those who, having felt the +inspiration of a good idea, are forced to go on writing, constructing, +carpentering, with dreary handicraft, before the exhausted faculty has +recovered sufficiently to generate another. And then comes in the +unerring choice of the best of those suggestions. Yet if any one wishes +to see what variety of the same kind of thoughts he could produce, let +him examine the treatment of the same business in different plays; as, +for instance, the way in which instigation to a crime is managed in +"Macbeth," where _Macbeth_ tempts the two murderers to kill _Banquo_; in +"King John," when _the King_ tempts _Hubert_ to kill _Arthur_; in "The +Tempest," when _Antonio_ tempts _Sebastian_ to kill _Alonzo_; in "As You +Like it," when _Oliver_ instigates _Charles_ to kill _Orlando_; and in +"Hamlet," where _Claudius_ urges _Laertes_ to the murder of _Hamlet_. + +He shows no anxiety about being original. When a man is full of his work +he forgets himself. In his desire to produce a good play he lays hold +upon any material that offers itself. He will even take a bad play and +make a good one of it. One of the most remarkable discoveries to the +student of Shakspere is the hide-bound poverty of some of the stories, +which, informed by his life-power; become forms of strength, richness, +and grace. He does what the _Spirit_ in "Comus" says the music he heard +might do,-- + + "create a soul + Under the ribs of death;" + +and then death is straightway "clothed upon." And nowhere is the +refining operation of his genius more evident than in the purification +of these stories. Characters and incidents which would have been honey +and nuts to Beaumont and Fletcher are, notwithstanding their dramatic +recommendations, entirely remodelled by him. The fair _Ophelia_ is, in +the old tale, a common woman, and _Hamlet's_ mistress; while the policy +of the _Lady of Belmont_, who in the old story occupies the place for +which he invented the lovely _Portia_, upon which policy the whole story +turns, is such that it is as unfit to set forth in our pages as it was +unfit for Shakspere's purposes of art. His noble art refuses to work +upon base matter. He sees at once the capabilities of a tale, but he +will not use it except he may do with it what he pleases. + +If we might here offer some assistance to the young student who wants to +help himself, we would suggest that to follow, in a measure, Plutarch's +fashion of comparison, will be the most helpful guide to the +understanding of the poet. Let the reader take any two characters, and +putting them side by side, look first for differences, and then for +resemblances between them, with the causes of each; or let him make a +wider attempt, and setting two plays one over against the other, compare +or contrast them, and see what will be the result. Let him, for +instance, take the two characters _Hamlet_ and _Brutus_, and compare +their beginnings and endings, the resemblances in their characters, the +differences in their conduct, the likeness and unlikeness of what was +required of them, the circumstances in which action was demanded of +each, the helps or hindrances each had to the working out of the problem +of his life, the way in which each encounters the supernatural, or any +other question that may suggest itself in reading either of the plays, +ending off with the main lesson taught in each; and he will be +astonished to find, if he has not already discovered it, what a rich +mine of intellectual and spiritual wealth is laid open to his delighted +eyes. Perhaps not the least valuable end to be so gained is, that the +young Englishman, who wants to be delivered from any temptation to think +himself the centre around which the universe revolves, will be aided in +his endeavours after honourable humility by looking up to the man who +towers, like Saul, head and shoulders above his brethren, and seeing +that he is humble, may learn to leave it to the pismire to be angry, to +the earwig to be conceited, and to the spider to insist on his own +importance. + +But to return to the main course of our observations. The dramas of +Shakspere are so natural, that this, the greatest praise that can be +given them, is the ground of one of the difficulties felt by the young +student in estimating them. The very simplicity of Shakspere's art seems +to throw him out of any known groove of judgment. When he hears one say, +"_Look at this, and admire_," he feels inclined to rejoin, "Why, he only +says in the simplest way what the thing must have been. It is as plain +as daylight." Yes, to the reader; and because Shakspere wrote it. But +there were a thousand wrong ways of doing it: Shakspere took the one +right way. It is he who has made it plain in art, whatever it was before +in nature; and most likely the very simplicity of it in nature was +scarcely observed before he saw it and represented it. And is it not the +glory of art to attain this simplicity? for simplicity is the end of all +things--all manners, all morals, all religion. To say that the thing +could not have been done otherwise, is just to say that you forget the +art in beholding its object, that you forget the mirror because you see +nature reflected in the mirror. Any one can see the moon in Lord Rosse's +telescope; but who made the reflector? And let the student try to +express anything in prose or in verse, in painting or in modelling, just +as it is. No man knows till he has made many attempts, how hard to reach +is this simplicity of art. And the greater the success, the fewer are +the signs of the labour expended. Simplicity is art's perfection. + +But so natural are all his plays, and the great tragedies to which we +would now refer in particular, amongst the rest, that it may appear to +some, at first sight, that Shakspere could not have constructed them +after any moral plan, could have had no lesson of his own to teach in +them, seeing they bear no marks of individual intent, in that they +depart nowhere from, nature, the construction of the play itself going +straight on like a history. The directness of his plays springs in part +from the fact that it is humanity and not circumstance that Shakspere +respects. Circumstance he uses only for the setting forth of humanity; +and for the plot of circumstance, so much in favour with Ben Jonson, and +others of his contemporaries, he cares nothing. As to their looking too +natural to have any design in them, we are not of those who believe that +it is unlike nature to have a design and a result. If the proof of a +high aim is to be what the critics used to call _poetic justice_, a kind +of justice that one would gladly find more of in grocers' and +linen-drapers' shops, but can as well spare from a poem, then we must +say that he has not always a high end: the wicked man is not tortured, +nor is the good man smothered in bank-notes and rose-leaves. Even when +he shows the outward ruin and death that comes upon Macbeth at last, it +is only as an unavoidable little consequence, following in the wake of +the mighty vengeance of nature, even of God, that Macbeth cannot say +_Amen_; that Macbeth can sleep no more; that Macbeth is "cabined +cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears;" that his very +brain is a charnel-house, whence arise the ghosts of his own murders, +till he envies the very dead the rest to which his hand has sent them. +That immediate and eternal vengeance upon crime, and that inner reward +of well-doing, never fail in nature or in Shakspere, appear as such a +matter of course that they hardly look like design either in nature or +in the mirror which he holds up to her. The secret is that, in the +ideal, habit and design are one. + +Most authors seem anxious to round off and finish everything in full +sight. Most of Shakspere's tragedies compel our thoughts to follow their +_persons_ across the bourn. They need, as Jean Paul says, a piece of the +next world painted in to complete the picture, And this is surely +nature: but it need not therefore be no design. What could be done with +Hamlet, but send him into a region where he has some chance of finding +his difficulties solved; where he will know that his reverence for God, +which was the sole stay left him in the flood of human worthlessness, +has not been in vain; that the skies are not "a foul and pestilent +congregation of vapours;" that there are noble women, though his mother +was false and Ophelia weak; and that there are noble men, although his +uncle and Laertes were villains and his old companions traitors? If +Hamlet is not to die, the whole of the play must perish under the +accusation that the hero of it is left at last with only a superadded +misery, a fresh demand for action, namely, to rule a worthless people, +as they seem to him, when action has for him become impossible; that he +has to live on, forsaken even of death, which will not come though the +cup of misery is at the brim. + +But a high end may be gained in this world, and the vision into the +world beyond so justified, as in King Lear. The passionate, impulsive, +unreasoning old king certainly must have given his wicked daughters +occasion enough of making the charges to which their avarice urged them. +He had learned very little by his life of kingship. He was but a boy +with grey hair. He had had no inner experiences. And so all the +development of manhood and age has to be crowded into the few remaining +weeks of his life. His own folly and blindness supply the occasion. And +before the few weeks are gone, he has passed through all the stages of a +fever of indignation and wrath, ending in a madness from which love +redeems him; he has learned that a king is nothing if the man is +nothing; that a king ought to care for those who cannot help themselves; +that love has not its origin or grounds in favours flowing from royal +resource and munificence, and yet that love is the one thing worth +living for, which gained, it is time to die. And now that he has the +experience that life can give, has become a child in simplicity of heart +and judgment, he cannot lose his daughter again; who, likewise, has +learned the one thing she needed, as far as her father was concerned, a +little more excusing tenderness. In the same play it cannot be by chance +that at its commencement Gloucester speaks with the utmost carelessness +and _off-hand_ wit about the parentage of his natural son Edmund, but +finds at last that this son is his ruin. + +Edgar, the true son, says to Edmund, after having righteously dealt him +his death-wound,-- + + "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices + Make instruments to scourge us: + The dark and vicious place where thee he got + Cost him his eyes." + +To which the dying and convicted villain replies,-- + + "Thou hast spoken right; 'tis true: + The wheel is come full circle; I am here." + +Could anything be put more plainly than the moral lesson in this? + +It would be easy to produce examples of fine design from his comedies as +well; as for instance, from "Much Ado about Nothing:" the two who are +made to fall in love with each other, by being each severally assured of +possessing the love of the other, Beatrice and Benedick, are shown +beforehand to have a strong inclination towards each other, manifested +in their continual squabbling after a good-humoured fashion; but not all +this is sufficient to make them heartily in love, until they find out +the nobility of each other's character in their behaviour about the +calumniated Hero; and the author takes care they shall not be married +without a previous acquaintance with the trick that has been played upon +them. Indeed we think the remark, that Shakspere never leaves any of his +characters the same at the end of a play as he took them up at the +beginning, will be found to be true. They are better or worse, wiser or +more irretrievably foolish. The historical plays would illustrate the +remark as well as any. + +But of all the terrible plays we are inclined to think "Timon" the most +terrible, and to doubt whether justice has been done to the finish and +completeness of it. At the same time we are inclined to think that it +was printed (first in the first folio, 1623, seven years after +Shakspere's death) from a copy, corrected by the author, but not +_written fair_, and containing consequent mistakes. The same account +might belong to others of the plays, but more evidently perhaps belongs +to the "Timon." The idea of making the generous spendthrift, whose old +idolaters had forsaken him because the idol had no more to give, into +the high-priest of the Temple of Mammon, dispensing the gold which he +hated and despised, that it might be a curse to the race which he had +learned to hate and despise as well; and the way in which Shakspere +discloses the depths of Timon's wound, by bringing him into comparison +with one who hates men by profession and humour--are as powerful as +anything to be found even in Shakspere. + +We are very willing to believe that "Julius Caesar" was one of his +latest plays; for certainly it is the play in which he has represented a +hero in the high and true sense. _Brutus_ is this hero, of course; a +hero because he will do what he sees to be right, independently of +personal feeling or personal advantage. Nor does his attempt fail from +any overweening or blindness, in himself. Had he known that the various +papers thrown in his way, were the concoctions of _Cassius_, he would +not have made the mistake of supposing that the Romans longed for +freedom, and therefore would be ready to defend it. As it was, he +attempted to liberate a people which did not feel its slavery. He failed +for others, but not for himself; for his truth was such that everybody +was true to him. Unlike Jaques with his seven acts of the burlesque of +human life, Brutus says at the last,-- + + "Countrymen, + My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life, + I found no man but he was true to me." + +Of course all this is in Plutarch. But it is easy to see with what +relish Shakspere takes it up, setting forth all the aids in himself and +in others which Brutus had to being a hero, and thus making the +representation as credible as possible. + +We must heartily confess that no amount of genius alone will make a man +a good man; that genius only shows the right way--drives no man to walk +in it. But there is surely some moral scent in us to let us know whether +a man only cares for good from an artistic point of view, or whether he +admires and loves good. This admiration and love cannot be _prominently_ +set forth by any dramatist true to his art; but it must come out over +the whole. His predilections must show themselves in the scope of his +artistic life, in the things and subjects he chooses, and the way in +which he represents them. Notwithstanding Uncle Toby and Maria, who will +venture to say that Sterne was noble or virtuous, when he looks over the +whole that he has written? But in Shakspere there is no suspicion of a +cloven foot. Everywhere he is on the side of virtue and of truth. Many +small arguments, with great cumulative force, might be adduced to this +effect. + +For ourselves we cannot easily believe that the calmness of his art +could be so unvarying except he exercised it with a good conscience; +that he could have kept looking out upon the world around him with the +untroubled regard necessary for seeing all things as they are, except +there had been peace in his house at home; that he could have known all +men as he did, and failed to know himself. We can understand the +co-existence of any degree of partial or excited genius with evil ways, +but we cannot understand the existence of such calm and universal +genius, wrought out in his works, except in association with all that is +noblest in human nature. Nor is it other than on the side of the +argument for his rectitude that he never forces rectitude upon the +attention of others. The strong impression left upon our minds is, that +however Shakspere may have strayed in the early portion of his life in +London, he was not only an upright and noble man for the main part, but +a repentant man, and a man whose life was influenced by the truths of +Christianity. + +Much is now said about a memorial to Shakspere. The best and only true +memorial is no doubt that described in Milton's poem on this very +subject: the living and ever-changing monument of human admiration, +expressed in the faces and forms of those absorbed in the reading of his +works. But if the external monument might be such as to foster the +constant reproduction of the inward monument of love and admiration, +then, indeed, it might be well to raise one; and with this object in +view let us venture to propose one mode which we think would favour the +attainment of it. + +Let a Gothic hall of the fourteenth century be built; such a hall as +would be more in the imagination of Shakspere than any of the +architecture of his own time. Let all the copies that can be procured of +every early edition of his works, singly or collectively, be stored in +this hall. Let a copy of every other edition ever printed be procured +and deposited. Let every book or treatise that can be found, good, bad, +or indifferent, written about Shakspere or any of his works, be likewise +collected for the Shakspere library. Let a special place be allotted to +the shameless corruptions of his plays that have been produced as +improvements upon them, some of which, to the disgrace of England, still +partially occupy the stage instead of what Shakspere wrote. Let one +department contain every work of whatever sort that tends to direct +elucidation of his meaning, chiefly those of the dramatic writers who +preceded him and closely followed him. Let the windows be filled with +stained glass, representing the popular sports of his own time and the +times of his English histories. Let a small museum be attached, +containing all procurable antiquities that are referred to in his plays, +along with first editions, if possible, of the best books that came out +in his time, and were probably read by him. Let the whole thus as much +as possible represent his time. Let a marble statue in the midst do the +best that English art can accomplish for the representation of the +vanished man; and let copies, if not the originals, of the several +portraits be safely shrined for the occasional beholding of the +multitude. Let the perpetuity of care necessary for this monument be +secured by endowment; and let it be for the use of the public, by means +of a reading-room fitted for the comfort of all who choose to avail +themselves of these facilities for a true acquaintance with our greatest +artist. Let there likewise be a simple and moderately-sized theatre +attached, not for regular, but occasional use; to be employed for the +representation of Shakspere's plays _only_, and allowed free of expense +for amateur or other representations of them for charitable purposes. +But within a certain cycle of years--if, indeed, it would be too much to +expect that out of the London play-goers a sufficient number would be +found to justify the representation of all the plays of Shakspere once +in the season--let the whole of Shakspere's plays be acted in the best +manner possible to the managers for the time being. + +The very existence of such a theatre would be a noble protest of the +highest kind against the sort of play, chiefly translated and adapted +from the French, which infests our boards, the low tone of which, even +where it is not decidedly immoral, does more harm than any amount of the +rough, honest plain-spokenness of Shakspere, as judged by our more +fastidious, if not always purer manners. The representation of such +plays forms the real ground of objection to theatre-going. We believe +that other objections, which may be equally urged against large +assemblies of any sort, are not really grounded upon such an amount of +objectionable fact as good people often suppose. At all events it is not +against the drama itself, but its concomitants, its avoidable +concomitants, that such objections are, or ought to be, felt and +directed. The dramatic impulse, as well as all other impulses of our +nature, are from the Maker. + +A monument like this would help to change a blind enthusiasm and a +_dilettante_-talk into knowledge, reverence, and study; and surely this +would be the true way to honour the memory of the man who appeals to +posterity by no mighty deeds of worldly prowess, but has left behind him +food for heart, brain, and conscience, on which the generations will +feed till the end of time. It would be the one true and natural mode of +perpetuating his fame in kind; helping him to do more of that for which +he was born, and because of which we humbly desire to do him honour, as +the years flow farther away from the time when, at the age of fifty-two, +he left the world a richer legacy of the results of intellectual labour +than any other labourer in literature has ever done. It would be to +raise a monument to his mind more than to his person. + +But to honour Shakspere in the best way we must not gaze upon some grand +memorial of his fame, we must not talk largely of his wonderful doings, +we must not even behold the representation of his works on the stage, +invaluable aid as that is to the right understanding of what he has +written; but we must, by close, silent, patient study, enter into an +understanding with the spirit of the departed poet-sage, and thus let +his own words be the necromantic spell that raises the dead, and brings +us into communion with that man who knew what was in men more than any +other mere man ever did. Well was it for Shakspere that he was humble; +else on what a desolate pinnacle of companionless solitude must he have +stood! Where was he to find his peers? To most thoughtful minds it is a +terrible fancy to suppose that there were no greater human being than +themselves. From the terror of such a _truth_ Shakspere's love for men +preserved him. He did not think about himself so much as he thought +about them. Had he been a self-student alone, or chiefly, could he ever +have written those dramas? We close with the repetition of this truth: +that the love of our kind is the one key to the knowledge of humanity +and of ourselves. And have we not sacred authority for concluding that +he who loves his brother is the more able and the more likely to love +Him who made him and his brother also, and then told them that love is +the fulfilling of the law? + + + + +THE ART OF SHAKSPERE, AS REVEALED BY HIMSELF. + + +[Footnote: 1863.] + + + Who taught you this? + I learn'd it out of women's faces. + +_Winter's Tale_, Act ii. scene 1. + + +One occasionally hears the remark, that the commentators upon Shakspere +find far more in Shakspere than Shakspere ever intended to express. +Taking this assertion as it stands, it may be freely granted, not only +of Shakspere, but of every writer of genius. But if it be intended by +it, that nothing can _exist_ in any work of art beyond what the writer +was conscious of while in the act of producing it, so much of its scope +is false. + +No artist can have such a claim to the high title of _creator_, as that +he invents for himself the forms, by means of which he produces his new +result; and all the forms of man and nature which he modifies and +combines to make a new region in his world of art, have their own +original life and meaning. The laws likewise of their various +combinations are natural laws, harmonious with each other. While, +therefore, the artist employs many or few of their original aspects for +his immediate purpose, he does not and cannot thereby deprive them of +the many more which are essential to their vitality, and the vitality +likewise of his presentation of them, although they form only the +background from which his peculiar use of them stands out. The objects +presented must therefore fall, to the eye of the observant reader, into +many different combinations and harmonies of operation and result, which +are indubitably there, whether the writer saw them or not. These latent +combinations and relations will be numerous and true, in proportion to +the scope and the truth of the representation; and the greater the +number of meanings, harmonious with each other, which any work of art +presents, the greater claim it has to be considered a work of genius. It +must, therefore, be granted, and that joyfully, that there may be +meanings in Shakspere's writings which Shakspere himself did not see, +and to which therefore his art, as art, does not point. + +But the probability, notwithstanding, must surely be allowed as well, +that, in great artists, the amount of conscious art will bear some +proportion to the amount of unconscious truth: the visible volcanic +light will bear a true relation to the hidden fire of the globe; so that +it will not seem likely that, in such a writer as Shakspere, we should +find many indications of present and operative _art_, of which he was +himself unaware. Some truths may be revealed through him, which he +himself knew only potentially; but it is not likely that marks of work, +bearing upon the results of the play, should be fortuitous, or that the +work thus indicated should be unconscious work. A stroke of the mallet +may be more effective than the sculptor had hoped; but it was intended. +In the drama it is easier to discover individual marks of the chisel, +than in the marble whence all signs of such are removed: in the drama +the lines themselves fall into the general finish, without necessary +obliteration as lines: Still, the reader cannot help being fearful, +lest, not as regards truth only, but as regards art as well, he be +sometimes clothing the idol of his intellect with the weavings of his +fancy. My conviction is, that it is the very consummateness of +Shakspere's art, that exposes his work to the doubt that springs from +loving anxiety for his honour; the dramatist, like the sculptor, +avoiding every avoidable hint of the process, in order to render the +result a vital whole. But, fortunately, we are not left to argue +entirely from probabilities. He has himself given us a peep into his +studio--let me call it _workshop_, as more comprehensive. + +It is not, of course, in the shape of _literary_ criticism, that we +should expect to meet such a revelation; for to use art even +consciously, and to regard it as an object of contemplation, or to +theorize about it, are two very different mental operations. The +productive and critical faculties are rarely found in equal combination; +and even where they are, they cannot operate equally in regard to the +same object. There is a perfect satisfaction in producing, which does +not demand a re-presentation to the critical faculty. In other words, +the criticism which a great writer brings to bear upon his own work, is +from within, regarding it upon the hidden side, namely, in relation to +his own idea; whereas criticism, commonly understood, has reference to +the side turned to the public gaze. Neither could we expect one so +prolific as Shakspere to find time for the criticism of the works of +other men, except in such moments of relaxation as those in which the +friends at the Mermaid Tavern sat silent beneath the flow of his wisdom +and humour, or made the street ring with the overflow of their own +enjoyment. + +But if the artist proceed to speculate upon the nature or productions of +another art than his own, we may then expect the principles upon which +he operates in his own, to take outward and visible form--a form +modified by the difference of the art to which he now applies them. In +one of Shakspere's poems, we have the description of an imagined +production of a sister-art--that of Painting--a description so brilliant +that the light reflected from the poet-picture illumines the art of the +Poet himself, revealing the principles which he held with regard to +representative art generally, and suggesting many thoughts with regard +to detail and harmony, finish, pregnancy, and scope. This description is +found in "The Rape of Lucrece." Apology will hardly be necessary for +making a long quotation, seeing that, besides the convenience it will +afford of easy reference to the ground of my argument, one of the +greatest helps which even the artist can give to us, is to isolate +peculiar beauties, and so compel us to perceive them. + +Lucrece has sent a messenger to beg the immediate presence of her +husband. Awaiting his return, and worn out with weeping, she looks about +for some variation of her misery. + + 1. + + At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece + Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy; + Before the which is drawn the power of Greece, + For Helen's rape the city to destroy, + Threatening cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy; + Which the conceited painter drew so proud, + As heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets, bowed. + + 2. + + A thousand lamentable objects there, + In scorn of Nature, Art gave lifeless life: + Many a dry drop seemed a weeping tear, + Shed for the slaughtered husband by the wife; + The red blood reeked, to show the painter's strife. + And dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights, + Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights. + + 3. + + There might you see the labouring pioneer + Begrimed with sweat, and smeared all with dust; + And, from the towers of Troy there would appear + The very eyes of men through loopholes thrust, + Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust: + Such sweet observance in this work was had, + That one might see those far-off eyes look sad. + + 4. + + In great commanders, grace and majesty + You might behold, triumphing in their faces; + In youth, quick bearing and dexterity; + And here and there the painter interlaces + Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces, + Which heartless peasants did so well resemble, + That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble. + + 5. + + In Ajax and Ulysses, O what art + Of physiognomy might one behold! + The face of either ciphered either's heart; + Their face their manners most expressly told: + In Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigour rolled; + But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent + Showed deep regard, and smiling government. + + 6. + + There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand, + As 'twere encouraging the Greeks to fight; + Making such sober action with his hand, + That it beguiled attention, charmed the sight; + In speech, it seemed his beard, all silver-white, + Wagged up and down, and from his lips did fly + Thin winding breath, which purled up to the sky. + + 7. + + About him were a press of gaping faces, + Which seemed to swallow up his sound advice; + All jointly listening, but with several graces, + As if some mermaid did their ears entice; + Some high, some low, the painter was so nice. + The scalps of many, almost hid behind, + To jump up higher seemed, to mock the mind. + + 8. + + Here one man's hand leaned on another's head, + His nose being shadowed by his neighbour's ear; + Here one, being thronged, bears back, all bollen and red; + Another, smothered, seems to pelt and swear; + And in their rage such signs of rage they bear, + As, but for loss of Nestor's golden words, + It seemed they would debate with angry swords. + + 9. + + For much imaginary work was there; + Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, + That for Achilles' image stood his spear, + Griped in an armed hand; himself behind + Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: + A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, + Stood for the whole to be imagined. + + 10. + + And, from the walls of strong-besieged Troy, + When their brave hope, bold Hector, marched to field, + Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy + To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield, + And to their hope they such odd action yield; + That through their light joy seemed to appear, + Like bright things stained, a kind of heavy fear. + + 11. + + And from the strond of Dardan, where they fought, + To Simois' reedy banks, the red blood ran; + Whose waves to imitate the battle sought, + With swelling ridges; and their ranks began + To break upon the galled shore, and then + Retire again, till, meeting greater ranks, + They join, and shoot their foam at Simois' banks. + +The oftener I read these verses, amongst the very earliest compositions +of Shakspere, I am the more impressed with the carefulness with which he +represents the _work_ of the picture--"shows the strife of the painter." +The most natural thought to follow in sequence is: How like his own art! + +The scope and variety of the whole picture, in which mass is effected by +the accumulation of individuality; in which, on the one hand, Troy +stands as the impersonation of the aim and object of the whole; and on +the other, the Simois flows in foaming rivalry of the strife of +men,--the pictorial form of that sympathy of nature with human effort +and passion, which he so often introduces in his plays,--is like nothing +else so much as one of the works of his own art. But to take a portion +as a more condensed representation of his art in combining all varieties +into one harmonious whole: his genius is like the oratory of Nestor as +described by its effects in the seventh and eighth stanzas. Every +variety of attitude and countenance and action is harmonized by the +influence which is at once the occasion of debate, and the charm which +restrains by the fear of its own loss: the eloquence and the listening +form the one bond of the unruly mass. So the dramatic genius that +harmonizes his play, is visible only in its effects; so ethereal in its +own essence that it refuses to be submitted to the analysis of the ruder +intellect, it is like the words of Nestor, for which in the picture +there stands but "thin winding breath which purled up to the sky." Take, +for an instance of this, the reconciling power by which, in the +mysterious midnight of the summer-wood, he brings together in one +harmony the graceful passions of childish elves, and the fierce passions +of men and women, with the ludicrous reflection of those passions in the +little convex mirror of the artisan's drama; while the mischievous Puck +revels in things that fall out preposterously, and the Elf-Queen is in +love with ass-headed Bottom, from the hollows of whose long hairy +ears--strange bouquet-holders--bloom and breathe the musk-roses, the +characteristic odour-founts of the play; and the philosophy of the +unbelieving Theseus, with the candour of Hippolyta, lifts the whole into +relation with the realities of human life. Or take, as another instance, +the pretended madman Edgar, the court-fool, and the rugged old king +going grandly mad, sheltered in one hut, and lapped in the roar of a +thunderstorm. + +My object, then, in respect to this poem, is to produce, from many +instances, a few examples of the metamorphosis of such excellences as he +describes in the picture, into the corresponding forms of the drama; in +the hope that it will not then be necessary to urge the probability that +the presence of those artistic virtues in his own practice, upon which +he expatiates in his representation of another man's art, were +accompanied by the corresponding consciousness--that, namely, of the +artist as differing from that of the critic, its objects being regarded +from the concave side of the hammered relief. If this probability be +granted, I would, from it, advance to a higher and far more important +conclusion--how unlikely it is that if the writer was conscious of such +fitnesses, he should be unconscious of those grand embodiments of truth, +which are indubitably present in his plays, whether he knew it or not. +This portion of my argument will be strengthened by an instance to show +that Shakspere was himself quite at home in the contemplation of such +truths. + +Let me adduce, then, some of those corresponding embodiments in words +instead of in forms; in which colours yield to tones, lines to phrases. +I will begin with the lowest kind, in which the art has to do with +matters so small, that it is difficult to believe that _unconscious_ art +could have any relation to them. They can hardly have proceeded directly +from the great inspiration of the whole. Their very minuteness is an +argument for their presence to the poet's consciousness; while +belonging, as they do, only to the _construction_ of the play, no such +independent existence can be accorded to them, as to _truths_, which, +being in themselves realities, _are_ there, whether Shakspere saw them +or not. If he did not intend them, the most that can be said for them +is, that such is the naturalness of Shakspere's representations, that +there is room in his plays, as in life, for those wonderful coincidences +which are reducible to no law. + +Perhaps every one of the examples I adduce will be found open to +dispute. This is a kind in which direct proof can have no share; nor +should I have dared thus to combine them in argument, but for the ninth +stanza of those quoted above, to which I beg my readers to revert. Its +_imaginary work_ means--work hinted at, and then left to the imagination +of the reader. Of course, in dramatic representation, such work must +exist on a great scale; but the minute particularization of the "conceit +deceitful" in the rest of the stanza, will surely justify us in thinking +it possible that Shakspere intended many, if not all, of the _little_ +fitnesses which a careful reader discovers in his plays. That such are +not oftener discovered comes from this: that, like life itself, he so +blends into vital beauty, that there are no salient points. To use a +homely simile: he is not like the barn-door fowl, that always runs out +cackling when she has laid an egg; and often when she has not. In the +tone of an ordinary drama, you may know when something is coming; and +the tone itself declares--_I have done it_. But Shakspere will not spoil +his art to show his art. It is there, and does its part: that is enough. +If you can discover it, good and well; if not, pass on, and take what +you can find. He can afford not to be fathomed for every little pearl +that lies at the bottom of his ocean. If I succeed in showing that such +art may exist where it is not readily discovered, this may give some +additional probability to its existence in places where it is harder to +isolate and define. + +To produce a few instances, then: + +In "Much Ado about Nothing," seeing the very nature of the play is +expressed in its name, is it not likely that Shakspere named the two +constables, Dogberry (_a poisonous berry_) and Verjuice (_the juice of +crab-apples_); those names having absolutely nothing to do with the +stupid innocuousness of their characters, and so corresponding to their +way of turning things upside down, and saying the very opposite of what +they mean? + +In the same play we find Margaret objecting to her mistress's wearing a +certain rebato (_a large plaited ruff_), on the morning of her wedding: +may not this be intended to relate to the fact that Margaret had dressed +in her mistress's clothes the night before? She might have rumpled or +soiled it, and so feared discovery. + +In "King Henry IV.," Part I., we find, in the last scene, that the +Prince kills Hotspur. This is not recorded in history: the conqueror of +Percy is unknown. Had it been a fact, history would certainly have +recorded it; and the silence of history in regard to a deed of such +mark, is equivalent to its contradiction. But Shakspere requires, for +his play's sake, to identify the slayer of Hotspur with his rival the +Prince. Yet Shakspere will not contradict history, even in its silence. +What is he to do? He will account for history _not knowing_ the +fact.--Falstaff claiming the honour, the Prince says to him: + + "For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, + I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have;" + +revealing thus the magnificence of his own character, in his readiness, +for the sake of his friend, to part with his chief renown. But the +Historic Muse could not believe that fat Jack Falstaff had killed +Hotspur, and therefore she would not record the claim. + +In the second part of the same play, act i. scene 2, we find Falstaff +toweringly indignant with Mr. Dombledon, the silk mercer, that he will +stand upon security with a gentleman for a short cloak and slops of +satin. In the first scene of the second act, the hostess mentions that +Sir John is going to dine with Master Smooth, the silkman. Foiled with +Mr. Dombledon, he has already made himself so agreeable to Master +Smooth, that he is "indited to dinner" with him. This is, by the bye, as +to the action of the play; but as to the character of Sir John, is it +not + + "Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind"--_kinned--natural_? + +The _conceit deceitful_ in the painting, is the imagination that means +more than its says. So the words of the speakers in the play, stand for +more than the speakers mean. They are _Shakspere's_ in their relation to +his whole. To Achilles, his spear is but his spear: to the painter and +his company, the spear of Achilles stands for Achilles himself. + +Coleridge remarks upon _James Gurney_, in "King John:" "How individual +and comical he is with the four words allowed to his dramatic life!" +These words are those with which he answers the Bastard's request to +leave the room. He has been lingering with all the inquisitiveness and +privilege of an old servant; when Faulconbridge says: "James Gurney, +wilt thou give us leave a while?" with strained politeness. With marked +condescension to the request of the second son, whom he has known and +served from infancy, James Gurney replies: "Good leave, good Philip;" +giving occasion to Faulconbridge to show his ambition, and scorn of his +present standing, in the contempt with which he treats even the +Christian name he is so soon to exchange with his surname for _Sir +Richard_ and _Plantagenet; Philip_ being the name for a sparrow in those +days, when ladies made pets of them. Surely in these words of the +serving-man, we have an outcome of the same art by which + + "A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, + Stood for the whole to be imagined." + +In the "Winter's Tale," act iv. scene 3, Perdita, dressed with unwonted +gaiety at the festival of the sheep-shearing, is astonished at finding +herself talking in full strains of poetic verse. She says, half-ashamed: + + "Methinks I play as I have seen them do + In Whitsun pastorals: sure, this robe of mine + Does change my disposition!" + +She does not mean this seriously. But the robe has more to do with it +than she thinks. Her passion for Florizel is the warmth that sets the +springs of her thoughts free, and they flow with the grace belonging to +a princess-nature; but it is the robe that opens the door of her speech, +and, by elevating her consciousness of herself, betrays her into what is +only natural to her, but seems to her, on reflection, inconsistent with +her low birth and poor education. This instance, however, involves far +higher elements than any of the examples I have given before, and +naturally leads to a much more important class of illustrations. + +In "Macbeth," act ii. scene 4, why is the old man, who has nothing to do +with the conduct of the play, introduced?--That, in conversation with +Rosse, he may, as an old man, bear testimony to the exceptionally +terrific nature of that storm, which, we find--from the words of Banquo: + + "There's husbandry in heaven: + Their candles are all out,"-- + +had begun to gather, before supper was over in the castle. This storm is +the sympathetic horror of Nature at the breaking open of the Lord's +anointed temple--horror in which the animal creation partakes, for the +horses of Duncan, "the minions of their race," and therefore the most +sensitive of their sensitive race, tear each other to pieces in the +wildness of their horror. Consider along with this a foregoing portion +of the second scene in the same act. Macbeth, having joined his wife +after the murder, says: + + "Who lies i' the second chamber? + + "_Lady M._ Donalbain. + * * * * * + "There are two lodged together." + +These two, Macbeth says, woke each other--the one laughing, the other +crying _murder_. Then they said their prayers and went to sleep +again.--I used to think that the natural companion of Donalbain would be +Malcolm, his brother; and that the two brothers woke in horror from the +proximity of their father's murderer who was just passing the door. A +friend objected to this, that, had they been together, Malcolm, being +the elder, would have been mentioned rather than Donalbain. Accept this +objection, and we find a yet more delicate significance: the _presence_ +operated differently on the two, one bursting out in a laugh, the other +crying _murder_; but both were in terror when they awoke, and dared not +sleep till they had said their prayers. His sons, his horses, the +elements themselves, are shaken by one unconscious sympathy with the +murdered king. + +Associate with this the end of the third scene of the fourth act of +"Julius Caesar;" where we find that the attendants of Brutus all cry out +in their sleep, as the ghost of Caesar leaves their master's tent. This +outcry is not given in Plutarch. + +To return to "Macbeth:" Why is the doctor of medicine introduced in the +scene at the English court? He has nothing to do with the progress of +the play itself, any more than the old man already alluded to.--He is +introduced for a precisely similar reason.--As a doctor, he is the best +testimony that could be adduced to the fact, that the English King +Edward the Confessor, is a fountain of health to his people, gifted for +his goodness with the sacred privilege of curing _The King's Evil_, by +the touch of his holy hands. The English King himself is thus +introduced, for the sake of contrast with the Scotch King, who is a +raging bear amongst his subjects. + +In the "Winter's Tale," to which he gives the name because of the +altogether extraordinary character of the occurrences (referring to it +in the play itself, in the words: "_a sad tale's best for winter: I have +one of sprites and goblins_") Antigonus has a remarkable dream or +vision, in which Hermione appears to him, and commands the exposure of +her child in a place to all appearance the most unsuitable and +dangerous. Convinced of the reality of the vision, Antigonus obeys; and +the whole marvellous result depends upon this obedience. Therefore the +vision must be intended for a genuine one. But how could it be such, if +Hermione was not dead, as, from her appearance to him, Antigonus firmly +believed she was? I should feel this to be an objection to the art of +the play, but for the following answer:--At the time she appeared to +him, she was still lying in that deathlike swoon, into which she fell +when the news of the loss of her son reached her as she stood before the +judgment-seat of her husband, at a time when she ought not to have been +out of her chamber. + +Note likewise, in the first scene of the second act of the same play, +the changefulness of Hermione's mood with regard to her boy, as +indicative of her condition at the time. If we do not regard this fact, +we shall think the words introduced only for the sake of filling up the +business of the play. + +In "Twelfth Night," both ladies make the first advances in love. Is it +not worthy of notice that one of them has lost her brother, and that the +other believes she has lost hers? In this respect, they may be placed +with Phoebe, in "As You Like It," who, having suddenly lost her love by +the discovery that its object was a woman, immediately and heartily +accepts the devotion of her rejected lover, Silvius. Along with these +may be classed Romeo, who, rejected and, as he believes, inconsolable, +falls in love with Juliet the moment he sees her. That his love for +Rosaline, however, was but a kind of _calf-love_ compared with his love +for Juliet, may be found indicated in the differing tones of his speech +under the differing conditions. Compare what he says in his conversation +with Benvolio, in the first scene of the first act, with any of his many +speeches afterwards, and, while _conceit_ will be found prominent enough +in both, the one will be found to be ruled by the fancy, the other by +the imagination. + +In this same play, there is another similar point which I should like to +notice. In Arthur Brook's story, from which Shakspere took his, there is +no mention of any communication from Lady Capulet to Juliet of their +intention of marrying her to Count Paris. Why does Shakspere insert +this?--to explain her falling in love with Romeo so suddenly. Her mother +has set her mind moving in that direction. She has never seen Paris. She +is looking about her, wondering which may be he, and whether she shall +be able to like him, when she meets the love-filled eyes of Romeo fixed +upon her, and is at once overcome. What a significant speech is that +given to Paulina in the "Winter's Tale," act v. scene 1: "How? Not +women?" Paulina is a thorough partisan, siding with women against men, +and strengthened in this by the treatment her mistress has received from +her husband. One has just said to her, that, if Perdita would begin a +sect, she might "make proselytes of who she bid but follow." "How? Not +women?" Paulina rejoins. Having received assurance that "women will love +her," she has no more to say. + +I had the following explanation of a line in "Twelfth Night" from a +stranger I met in an old book-shop:--Malvolio, having built his castle +in the air, proceeds to inhabit it. Describing his own behaviour in a +supposed case, he says (act ii. scene 5): "I frown the while; and +perchance, wind up my watch, or play with my some rich jewel"--A dash +ought to come after _my_. Malvolio was about to say _chain_; but +remembering that his chain was the badge of his office of steward, and +therefore of his servitude, he alters the word to "_some rich jewel_" +uttered with pretended carelessness. + +In "Hamlet," act iii. scene 1, did not Shakspere intend the passionate +soliloquy of Ophelia--a soliloquy which no maiden knowing that she was +overheard would have uttered,--coupled with the words of her father: + + "How now, Ophelia? + You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said, + We heard it all;"-- + +to indicate that, weak as Ophelia was, she was not false enough to be +accomplice in any plot for betraying Hamlet to her father and the King? +They had remained behind the arras, and had not gone out as she must +have supposed. + +Next, let me request my reader to refer once more to the poem; and +having considered the physiognomy of Ajax and Ulysses, as described in +the fifth stanza, to turn then to the play of "Troilus and Cressida," +and there contemplate that description as metamorphosed into the higher +form of revelation in speech. Then, if he will associate the general +principles in that stanza with the third, especially the last two lines, +I will apply this to the character of Lady Macbeth. + +Of course, Shakspere does not mean that one regarding that portion of +the picture alone, could see the eyes looking sad; but that the _sweet +observance_ of the whole so roused the imagination that it supplied what +distance had concealed, keeping the far-off likewise in sweet observance +with the whole: the rest pointed that way.--In a manner something like +this are we conducted to a right understanding of the character of Lady +Macbeth. First put together these her utterances: + + "You do unbend your noble strength, to think + So brainsickly of things." + + "Get some water, + And wash this filthy witness from your hands." + + "The sleeping and the dead + Are but as pictures." + + "A little water clears us of this deed." + + "When all's done, + You look but on a stool." + + "You lack the season of all natures, sleep."-- + +Had these passages stood in the play unmodified by others, we might have +judged from them that Shakspere intended to represent Lady Macbeth as an +utter materialist, believing in nothing beyond the immediate +communications of the senses. But when we find them associated with such +passages as these-- + + "Memory, the warder of the brain, + Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason + A limbeck only;" + + "Had he not resembled + My father as he slept, I had done't; + + "These deeds must not be thought + After these ways; so, it will make us mad;"-- + +then we find that our former theory will not do, for here are deeper and +broader foundations to build upon. We discover that Lady Macbeth was an +unbeliever _morally_, and so found it necessary to keep down all +imagination, which is the upheaving of that inward world whose very +being she would have annihilated. Yet out of this world arose at last +the phantom of her slain self, and possessing her sleeping frame, sent +it out to wander in the night, and rub its distressed and blood-stained +hands in vain. For, as in this same "Rape of Lucrece," + + "the soul's fair temple is defaced; + To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, + To ask the spotted princess how she fares." + +But when so many lines of delineation meet, and run into, and correct +one another, assuming such a natural and vital form, that there is no +_making of a point_ anywhere; and the woman is shown after no theory, +but according to the natural laws of human declension, we feel that the +only way to account for the perfection of the representation is to say +that, given a shadow, Shakspere had the power to place himself so, that +that shadow became his own--was the correct representation as shadow, of +his form coming between it and the sunlight. And this is the highest +dramatic gift that a man can possess. But we feel at the same time, that +this is, in the main, not so much art as inspiration. There would be, in +all probability, a great mingling of conscious art with the inspiration; +but the lines of the former being lost in the general glow of the +latter, we may be left where we were as to any certainty about the +artistic consciousness of Shakspere. I will now therefore attempt to +give a few plainer instances of such _sweet observance_ in his own work +as he would have admired in a painting. + +First, then, I would request my reader to think how comparatively seldom +Shakspere uses poetry in his plays. The whole play is a poem in the +highest sense; but truth forbids him to make it the rule for his +characters to speak poetically. Their speech is poetic in relation to +the whole and the end, not in relation to the speaker, or in the +immediate utterance. And even although their speech is immediately +poetic, in this sense, that every character is idealized; yet it is +idealized _after its kind_; and poetry certainly would not be the ideal +speech of most of the characters. This granted, let us look at the +exceptions: we shall find that such passages not only glow with poetic +loveliness and fervour, but are very jewels of _sweet observance_, whose +setting allows them their force as lawful, and their prominence as +natural. I will mention a few of such. + +In "Julius Caesar," act i. scene 3, we are inclined to think the way +_Casca_ speaks, quite inconsistent with the "sour fashion" which +_Cassius_ very justly attributes to him; till we remember that he is +speaking in the midst of an almost supernatural thunder-storm: the +hidden electricity of the man's nature comes out in poetic forms and +words, in response to the wild outburst of the overcharged heavens and +earth. + +Shakspere invariably makes the dying speak poetically, and generally +prophetically, recognizing the identity of the poetic and prophetic +moods, in their highest development, and the justice that gives them the +same name. Even _Sir John_, poor ruined gentleman, _babbles of green +fields_. Every one knows that the passage is disputed: I believe that if +this be not the restoration of the original reading, Shakspere himself +would justify it, and wish that he had so written it. + +_Romeo_ and _Juliet_ talk poetry as a matter of course. + +In "King John," act v. scenes 4 and 5, see how differently the dying +_Melun_ and the living and victorious _Lewis_ regard the same sunset: + + _Melun_. + + . . . . . this night, whose black contagious breath + Already smokes about the burning crest + Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun. + + _Lewis_. + + The sun in heaven, methought, was loath to set; + But stayed, and made the western welkin blush, + When the English measured backward their own ground. + +The exquisite duet between _Lorenzo_ and _Jessica_, in the opening of +the fifth act of "The Merchant of Venice," finds for its subject the +circumstances that produce the mood--the lovely night and the crescent +moon--which first make them talk poetry, then call for music, and next +speculate upon its nature. + +Let us turn now to some instances of sweet observance in other kinds. + +There is observance, more true than sweet, in the character of +_Jacques_, in "As You Like It:" the fault-finder in age was the +fault-doer in youth and manhood. _Jacques_ patronizing the fool, is one +of the rarest shows of self-ignorance. + +In the same play, when _Rosalind_ hears that _Orlando_ is in the wood, +she cries out, "Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?" +And when _Orlando_ asks her, "Where dwell you, pretty youth?" she +answers, tripping in her role, "Here in the skirts of the forest, like +fringe upon a petticoat." + +In the second part of "King Henry IV.," act iv. scene 3, _Falstaff_ says +of _Prince John_: "Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth +not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;--but that's no marvel: he +drinks no wine." This is the _Prince John_ who betrays the insurgents +afterwards by the falsest of quibbles, and gains his revenge through +their good faith. + +In "King Henry IV," act i. scene 2, _Poins_ does not say _Falstaff_ is a +coward like the other two; but only--"If he fight longer than he sees +reason, I'll forswear arms." Associate this with _Falstaff's_ soliloquy +about _honour_ in the same play, act v. scene 1, and the true character +of his courage or cowardice--for it may bear either name--comes out. + +Is there not conscious art in representing the hospitable face of the +castle of _Macbeth_, bearing on it a homely welcome in the multitude of +the nests of _the temple-haunting martlet_ (Psalm lxxxiv. 3), just as +_Lady Macbeth_, the fiend-soul of the house, steps from the door, like +the speech of the building, with her falsely smiled welcome? Is there +not _observance_ in it? + +But the production of such instances might be endless, as the work of +Shakspere is infinite. I confine myself to two more, taken from "The +Merchant of Venice." + +Shakspere requires a character capable of the magnificent devotion of +friendship which the old story attributes to _Antonio_. He therefore +introduces us to a man sober even to sadness, thoughtful even to +melancholy. The first words of the play unveil this characteristic. He +holds "the world but as the world,"-- + + "A stage where every man must play a part, + And mine a sad one." + +The cause of this sadness we are left to conjecture. _Antonio_ himself +professes not to know. But such a disposition, even if it be not +occasioned by any definite event or object, will generally associate +itself with one; and when _Antonio_ is accused of being in love, he +repels the accusation with only a sad "Fie! fie!" This, and his whole +character, seem to me to point to an old but ever cherished grief. + +Into the original story upon which this play is founded, Shakspere has, +among other variations, introduced the story of _Jessica_ and _Lorenzo_, +apparently altogether of his own invention. What was his object in doing +so? Surely there were characters and interests enough already!--It seems +to me that Shakspere doubted whether the Jew would have actually +proceeded to carry out his fell design against _Antonio_, upon the +original ground of his hatred, without the further incitement to revenge +afforded by another passion, second only to his love of gold--his +affection for his daughter; for in the Jew having reference to his own +property, it had risen to a passion. Shakspere therefore invents her, +that he may send a dog of a Christian to steal her, and, yet worse, to +tempt her to steal her father's stones and ducats. I suspect Shakspere +sends the old villain off the stage at the last with more of the pity of +the audience than any of the other dramatists of the time would have +ventured to rouse, had they been capable of doing so. I suspect he is +the only human Jew of the English drama up to that time. + +I have now arrived at the last and most important stage of my argument. +It is this: If Shakspere was so well aware of the artistic relations of +the parts of his drama, is it likely that the grand meanings involved in +the whole were unperceived by him, and conveyed to us without any +intention on his part--had their origin only in the fact that he dealt +with human nature so truly, that his representations must involve +whatever lessons human life itself involves? + +Is there no intention, for instance, in placing _Prospero_, who forsook +the duties of his dukedom for the study of magic, in a desert island, +with just three subjects; one, a monster below humanity; the second, a +creature etherealized beyond it; and the third a complete embodiment of +human perfection? Is it not that he may learn how to rule, and, having +learned, return, by the aid of his magic wisely directed, to the home +and duties from which exclusive devotion to that magic had driven him? + +In "Julius Caesar," the death of _Brutus_, while following as the +consequence of his murder of _Caesar_, is yet as much distinguished in +character from that death, as the character of _Brutus_ is different +from that of _Caesar_. _Caesar's_ last words were _Et tu Brute? Brutus_, +when resolved to lay violent hands on himself, takes leave of his +friends with these words: + + "Countrymen, + My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life, + I found no man, but he was true to me." + +Here Shakspere did not invent. He found both speeches in Plutarch. But +how unerring his choice! + +Is the final catastrophe in "Hamlet" such, because Shakspere could do no +better?--It is: he could do no better than the best. Where but in the +regions beyond could such questionings as _Hamlet's_ be put to rest? It +would have been a fine thing indeed for the most nobly perplexed of +thinkers to be left--his love in the grave; the memory of his father a +torment, of his mother a blot; with innocent blood on his innocent +hands, and but half understood by his best friend--to ascend in desolate +dreariness the contemptible height of the degraded throne, and shine the +first in a drunken court! + +Before bringing forward my last instance, I will direct the attention of +my readers to a passage, in another play, in which the lesson of the +play I am about to speak of, is _directly_ taught: the first speech in +the second act of "As You Like It," might be made a text for the +exposition of the whole play of "King Lear." + +The banished duke is seeking to bring his courtiers to regard their +exile as a part of their moral training. I am aware that I point the +passage differently, while I revert to the old text. + + "Are not these woods + More free from peril than the envious court? + Here feel we not the penalty of Adam-- + The season's difference, as the icy fang, + And churlish chiding of the winter's wind? + Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, + Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say-- + This is no flattery; these are counsellors + That feelingly persuade me what I am. + Sweet are the uses of adversity." + +The line _Here feel we not the penalty of Adam?_ has given rise to much +perplexity. The expounders of Shakspere do not believe he can mean that +the uses of adversity are really sweet. But the duke sees that _the +penalty_ of Adam is what makes the _woods more free from peril than the +envious court;_ that this penalty is in fact the best blessing, for it +_feelingly persuades_ man _what_ he is; and to know what we are, to have +no false judgments of ourselves, he considers so sweet, that to be thus +taught, the _churlish chiding of the winter's wind_ is well endured. + +Now let us turn to _Lear_. We find in him an old man with a large +heart, hungry for love, and yet not knowing what love is; an old man as +ignorant as a child in all matters of high import; with a temper so +unsubdued, and therefore so unkingly, that he storms because his dinner +is not ready by the clock of his hunger; a child, in short, in +everything but his grey hairs and wrinkled face, but his failing, +instead of growing, strength. If a life end so, let the success of that +life be otherwise what it may, it is a wretched and unworthy end. But +let _Lear_ be blown by the winds and beaten by the rains of heaven, till +he pities "poor naked wretches;" till he feels that he has "ta'en too +little care of" such; till pomp no longer conceals from him what "a +poor, bare, forked animal" he is; and the old king has risen higher in +the real social scale--the scale of that country to which he is +bound--far higher than he stood while he still held his kingdom +undivided to his thankless daughters. Then let him learn at last that +"love is the only good in the world;" let him find his _Cordelia_, and +plot with her how they will in their dungeon _singing like birds i' the +cage_, and, dwelling in the secret place of peace, look abroad on the +world like _God's spies_; and then let the generous great old heart +swell till it breaks at last--not with rage and hate and vengeance, but +with love; and all is well: it is time the man should go to overtake his +daughter; henceforth to dwell with her in the home of the true, the +eternal, the unchangeable. All his suffering came from his own fault; +but from the suffering has sprung another crop, not of evil but of good; +the seeds of which had lain unfruitful in the soil, but were brought +within the blessed influences of the air of heaven by the sharp tortures +of the ploughshare of ill. + + + + +THE ELDER HAMLET. + + +[Footnote: 1875] + + 'Tis bitter cold, + And I am sick at heart. + +The ghost in "Hamlet" is as faithfully treated as any character in the +play. Next to Hamlet himself, he is to me the most interesting person of +the drama. The rumour of his appearance is wrapped in the larger rumour +of war. Loud preparations for uncertain attack fill the ears of "the +subject of the land." The state is troubled. The new king has hardly +compassed his election before his marriage with his brother's widow +swathes the court in the dust-cloud of shame, which the merriment of its +forced revelry can do little to dispel. A feeling is in the moral air to +which the words of Francisco, the only words of significance he utters, +give the key: "'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart." Into the +frosty air, the pallid moonlight, the drunken shouts of Claudius and his +court, the bellowing of the cannon from the rampart for the enlargement +of the insane clamour that it may beat the drum of its own disgrace at +the portals of heaven, glides the silent prisoner of hell, no longer a +king of the day walking about his halls, "the observed of all +observers," but a thrall of the night, wandering between the bell and +the cock, like a jailer on each side of him. A poet tells the tale of +the king who lost his garments and ceased to be a king: here is the king +who has lost his body, and in the eyes of his court has ceased to be a +man. Is the cold of the earth's night pleasant to him after the purging +fire? What crimes had the honest ghost committed in his days of nature? +He calls them foul crimes! Could such be his? Only who can tell how a +ghost, with his doubled experience, may think of this thing or that? The +ghost and the fire may between them distinctly recognize that as a foul +crime which the man and the court regarded as a weakness at worst, and +indeed in a king laudable. + +Alas, poor ghost! Around the house he flits, shifting and shadowy, over +the ground he once paced in ringing armour--armed still, but his very +armour a shadow! It cannot keep out the arrow of the cock's cry, and the +heart that pierces is no shadow. Where now is the loaded axe with which, +in angry dispute, he smote the ice at his feet that cracked to the blow? +Where is the arm that heaved the axe? Wasting in the marble maw of the +sepulchre, and the arm he carries now--I know not what it can do, but it +cannot slay his murderer. For that he seeks his son's. Doubtless his new +ethereal form has its capacities and privileges. It can shift its garb +at will; can appear in mail or night-gown, unaided of armourer or +tailor; can pass through Hades-gates or chamber-door with equal ease; +can work in the ground like mole or pioneer, and let its voice be heard +from the cellarage. But there is one to whom it cannot appear, one whom +the ghost can see, but to whom he cannot show himself. She has built a +doorless, windowless wall between them, and sees the husband of her +youth no more. Outside her heart--that is the night in which he wanders, +while the palace-windows are flaring, and the low wind throbs to the +wassail shouts: within, his murderer sits by the wife of his bosom, and +in the orchard the spilt poison is yet gnawing at the roots of the +daisies. + +Twice has the ghost grown out of the night upon the eyes of the +sentinels. With solemn march, slow and stately, three times each night, +has he walked by them; they, jellied with fear, have uttered no +challenge. They seek Horatio, who the third night speaks to him as a +scholar can. To the first challenge he makes no answer, but stalks away; +to the second, + + It lifted up its head, and did address + Itself to motion, like as it would speak; + +but the gaoler cock calls him, and the kingly shape + + started like a guilty thing + Upon a fearful summons; + +and then + + shrunk in haste away, + And vanished from our sight. + +Ah, that summons! at which majesty welks and shrivels, the king and +soldier starts and cowers, and, armour and all, withers from the air! + +But why has he not spoken before? why not now ere the cock could claim +him? He cannot trust the men. His court has forsaken his memory--crowds +with as eager discontent about the mildewed ear as ever about his +wholesome brother, and how should he trust mere sentinels? There is but +one who will heed his tale. A word to any other would but defeat his +intent. Out of the multitude of courtiers and subjects, in all the land +of Denmark, there is but one whom he can trust--his student-son. Him he +has not yet found--the condition of a ghost involving strange +difficulties. + +Or did the horror of the men at the sight of him wound and repel him? +Does the sense of regal dignity, not yet exhausted for all the fasting +in fires, unite with that of grievous humiliation to make him shun their +speech? + +But Horatio--why does the ghost not answer him ere the time of the cock +is come? Does he fold the cloak of indignation around him because his +son's friend has addressed him as an intruder on the night, an usurper +of the form that is his own? The companions of the speaker take note +that he is offended and stalks away. + +Much has the kingly ghost to endure in his attempt to re-open relations +with the world he has left: when he has overcome his wrath and returns, +that moment Horatio again insults him, calling him an illusion. But this +time he will bear it, and opens his mouth to speak. It is too late; the +cock is awake, and he must go. Then alas for the buried majesty of +Denmark! with upheaved halberts they strike at the shadow, and would +stop it if they might--usage so grossly unfitting that they are +instantly ashamed of it themselves, recognizing the offence in the +majesty of the offended. But he is already gone. The proud, angry king +has found himself but a thing of nothing to his body-guard--for he has +lost the body which was their guard. Still, not even yet has he learned +how little it lies in the power of an honest ghost to gain credit for +himself or his tale! His very privileges are against him. + +All this time his son is consuming his heart in the knowledge of a +mother capable of so soon and so utterly forgetting such a husband, and +in pity and sorrow for the dead father who has had such a wife. He is +thirty years of age, an obedient, honourable son--a man of thought, of +faith, of aspiration. Him now the ghost seeks, his heart burning like a +coal with the sense of unendurable wrong. He is seeking the one drop +that can fall cooling on that heart--the sympathy, the answering rage +and grief of his boy. But when at length he finds him, the generous, +loving father has to see that son tremble like an aspen-leaf in his +doubtful presence. He has exposed himself to the shame of eyes and the +indignities of dullness, that he may pour the pent torrent of his wrongs +into his ears, but his disfranchisement from the flesh tells against him +even with his son: the young Hamlet is doubtful of the identity of the +apparition with his father. After all the burning words of the phantom, +the spirit he has seen may yet be a devil; the devil has power to assume +a pleasing shape, and is perhaps taking advantage of his melancholy to +damn him. + +Armed in the complete steel of a suit well known to the eyes of the +sentinels, visionary none the less, with useless truncheon in hand, +resuming the memory of old martial habits, but with quiet countenance, +more in sorrow than in anger, troubled--not now with the thought of the +hell-day to which he must sleepless return, but with that unceasing ache +at the heart, which ever, as often as he is released into the cooling +air of the upper world, draws him back to the region of his +wrongs--where having fallen asleep in his orchard, in sacred security +and old custom, suddenly, by cruel assault, he was flung into Hades, +where horror upon horror awaited him--worst horror of all, the knowledge +of his wife!--armed he comes, in shadowy armour but how real sorrow! +Still it is not pity he seeks from his son: he needs it not--he can +endure. There is no weakness in the ghost. It is but to the imperfect +human sense that he is shadowy. To himself he knows his doom his +deliverance; that the hell in which he finds himself shall endure but +until it has burnt up the hell he has found within him--until the evil +he was and is capable of shall have dropped from him into the lake of +fire; he nerves himself to bear. And the cry of revenge that comes from +the sorrowful lips is the cry of a king and a Dane rather than of a +wronged man. It is for public justice and not individual vengeance he +calls. He cannot endure that the royal bed of Denmark should be a couch +for luxury and damned incest. To stay this he would bring the murderer +to justice. There is a worse wrong, for which he seeks no revenge: it +involves his wife; and there comes in love, and love knows no amends but +amendment, seeks only the repentance tenfold more needful to the wronger +than the wronged. It is not alone the father's care for the human nature +of his son that warns him to take no measures against his mother; it is +the husband's tenderness also for her who once lay in his bosom. The +murdered brother, the dethroned king, the dishonoured husband, the +tormented sinner, is yet a gentle ghost. Has suffering already begun to +make him, like Prometheus, wise? + +But to measure the gentleness, the forgiveness, the tenderness of the +ghost, we must well understand his wrongs. The murder is plain; but +there is that which went before and is worse, yet is not so plain to +every eye that reads the story. There is that without which the murder +had never been, and which, therefore, is a cause of all the wrong. For +listen to what the ghost reveals when at length he has withdrawn his son +that he may speak with him alone, and Hamlet has forestalled the +disclosure of the murderer: + + "Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, + With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, + (O wicked wit and gifts that have the power + So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust + The will of my most seeming virtuous queen: + Oh, Hamlet, what a falling off was there! + From me, whose love was of that dignity + That it went hand in hand even with the vow + I made to her in marriage, and to decline + Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor + To those of mine! + But virtue--as it never will be moved + Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, + So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, + Will sate itself in a celestial bed, + And prey on garbage." + +Reading this passage, can any one doubt that the ghost charges his late +wife with adultery, as the root of all his woes? It is true that, +obedient to the ghost's injunctions, as well as his own filial +instincts, Hamlet accuses his mother of no more than was patent to all +the world; but unless we suppose the ghost misinformed or mistaken, we +must accept this charge. And had Gertrude not yielded to the witchcraft +of Claudius' wit, Claudius would never have murdered Hamlet. Through her +his life was dishonoured, and his death violent and premature: unhuzled, +disappointed, unaneled, he woke to the air--not of his orchard-blossoms, +but of a prison-house, the lightest word of whose terrors would freeze +the blood of the listener. What few men can say, he could--that his love +to his wife had kept even step with the vow he made to her in marriage; +and his son says of him-- + + "so loving to my mother + That he might not beteem the winds of heaven + Visit her face too roughly;" + +and this was her return! Yet is it thus he charges his son concerning +her: + + "But howsoever thou pursu'st this act, + Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive + Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven, + And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, + To prick and sting her." + +And may we not suppose it to be for her sake in part that the ghost +insists, with fourfold repetition, upon a sword-sworn oath to silence +from Horatio and Marcellus? + +Only once again does he show himself--not now in armour upon the walls, +but in his gown and in his wife's closet. + +Ever since his first appearance, that is, all the time filling the +interval between the first and second acts, we may presume him to have +haunted the palace unseen, waiting what his son would do. But the task +has been more difficult than either had supposed. The ambassadors have +gone to Norway and returned; but Hamlet has done nothing. Probably he +has had no opportunity; certainly he has had no clear vision of duty. +But now all through the second and third acts, together occupying, it +must be remembered, only one day, something seems imminent. The play has +been acted, and Hamlet has gained some assurance, yet the one chance +presented of killing the king--at his prayers--he has refused. He is now +in his mother's closet, whose eyes he has turned into her very soul. +There, and then, the ghost once more appears--come, he says, to whet his +son's almost blunted purpose. But, as I have said, he does not know all +the disadvantages of one who, having forsaken the world, has yet +business therein to which he would persuade; he does not know how hard +it is for a man to give credence to a ghost; how thoroughly he is +justified in delay, and the demand for more perfect proof. He does not +know what good reasons his son has had for uncertainty, or how much +natural and righteous doubt has had to do with what he takes for the +blunting of his purpose. Neither does he know how much more tender his +son's conscience is than his own, or how necessary it is to him to be +sure before he acts. As little perhaps does he understand how hateful to +Hamlet is the task laid upon him--the killing of one wretched villain in +the midst of a corrupt and contemptible court, one of a world of whose +women his mother may be the type! + +Whatever the main object of the ghost's appearance, he has spoken but a +few words concerning the matter between him and Hamlet, when he turns +abruptly from it to plead with his son for his wife. The ghost sees and +mistakes the terror of her looks; imagines that, either from some +feeling of his presence, or from the power of Hamlet's words, her +conscience is thoroughly roused, and that her vision, her conception of +the facts, is now more than she can bear. She and her fighting soul are +at odds. She is a kingdom divided against itself. He fears the +consequences. He would not have her go mad. He would not have her die +yet. Even while ready to start at the summons of that hell to which she +has sold him, he forgets his vengeance on her seducer in his desire to +comfort her. He dares not, if he could, manifest himself to her: what +word of consolation could she hear from his lips? Is not the thought of +him her one despair? He turns to his son for help: he cannot console his +wife; his son must take his place. Alas! even now he thinks better of +her than she deserves; for it is only the fancy of her son's madness +that is terrifying her: he gazes on the apparition of which she sees +nothing, and from his looks she anticipates an ungovernable outbreak. + + "But look; amazement on thy mother sits! + Oh; step between her and her fighting soul + Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. + Speak to her, Hamlet." + +The call to his son to soothe his wicked mother is the ghost's last +utterance. For a few moments, sadly regardful of the two, he +stands--while his son seeks in vain to reveal to his mother the presence +of his father--a few moments of piteous action, all but ruining the +remnant of his son's sorely-harassed self-possession--his whole concern +his wife's distress, and neither his own doom nor his son's duty; then, +as if lost in despair at the impassable gulf betwixt them, revealed by +her utter incapacity for even the imagination of his proximity, he turns +away, and steals out at the portal. Or perhaps he has heard the black +cock crow, and is wanted beneath: his turn has come. + +Will the fires ever cleanse _her_? Will his love ever lift him above the +pain of its loss? Will eternity ever be bliss, ever be endurable to poor +_King Hamlet?_ + +Alas! even the memory of the poor ghost is insulted. Night after night +on the stage his effigy appears--cadaverous, sepulchral--no longer as +Shakspere must have represented him, aerial, shadowy, gracious, the thin +corporeal husk of an eternal--shall I say ineffaceable?--sorrow! It is +no hollow monotone that can rightly upbear such words as his, but a +sound mingled of distance and wind in the pine-tops, of agony and love, +of horror and hope and loss and judgment--a voice of endless and +sweetest inflection, yet with a shuddering echo in it as from the caves +of memory, on whose walls, are written the eternal blazon that must not +be to ears of flesh and blood. The spirit that can assume form at will +must surely be able to bend that form to completest and most delicate +expression, and the part of the ghost in the play offers work worthy of +the highest artist. The would-be actor takes from it vitality and +motion, endowing it instead with the rigidity of death, as if the soul +had resumed its cast-off garment, the stiffened and mouldy corpse--whose +frozen deadness it could ill model to the utterance of its lively will! + + + + +ON POLISH. + + +[Footnote: 1865] + +By Polish I mean a certain well-known and immediately recognizable +condition of surface. But I must request my reader to consider well what +this condition really is. For the definition of it appears to us to be, +that condition of surface which allows the inner structure of the +material to manifest itself. Polish is, as it were, a translucent skin, +in which the life of the inorganic comes to the surface, as in the +animal skin the animal life. Once clothed in this, the inner glories of +the marble rock, of the jasper, of the porphyry, leave the darkness +behind, and glow into the day. From the heart of the agate the mossy +landscape comes dreaming out. From the depth of the green chrysolite +looks up the eye of its gold. The "goings on of life" hidden for ages +under the rough bark of the patient forest-trees, are brought to light; +the rings of lovely shadow which the creature went on making in the +dark, as the oyster its opaline laminations, and its tree-pearls of +beautiful knots, where a beneficent disease has broken the geometrical +perfection of its structure, gloom out in their infinite variousness. + +Nor are the revelations of polish confined to things having variety in +their internal construction; they operate equally in things of +homogeneous structure. It is the polished ebony or jet which gives the +true blank, the material darkness. It is the polished steel that shines +keen and remorseless and cold, like that human justice whose symbol it +is. And in the polished diamond the distinctive purity is most evident; +while from it, I presume, will the light absorbed from the sun gleam +forth on the dark most plentifully. + +But the mere fact that the end of polish is revelation, can hardly be +worth setting forth except for some ulterior object, some further +revelation in the fact itself.--I wish to show that in the symbolic use +of the word the same truth is involved, or, if not involved, at least +suggested. But let me first make another remark on the preceding +definition of the word. + +There is no denying that the first notion suggested by the word polish +is that of smoothness, which will indeed be the sole idea associated +with it before we begin to contemplate the matter. But when we consider +what things are chosen to be "clothed upon" with this smoothness, then +we find that the smoothness is scarcely desired for its own sake, and +remember besides that in many materials and situations it is elaborately +avoided. We find that here it is sought because of its faculty of +enabling other things to show themselves--to come to the surface. + +I proceed then to examine how far my pregnant interpretation of the word +will apply to its figurative use in two cases--_Polish of Style_, and +_Polish of Manners_. The two might be treated together, seeing that +_Style_ may be called the manners of intellectual utterance, and +_Manners_ the style of social utterance; but it is more convenient to +treat them separately. + +I will begin with the Polish of Style. + +It will be seen at once that if the notion of polish be limited to that +of smoothness, there can be little to say on the matter, and nothing +worthy of being said. For mere smoothness is no more a desirable quality +in a style than it is in a country or a countenance; and its pursuit +will result at length in the gain of the monotonous and the loss of the +melodious and harmonious. But it is only upon worthless material that +polish can be _mere_ smoothness; and where the material is not valuable, +polish can be nothing but smoothness. No amount of polish in a style can +render the production of value, except there be in it embodied thought +thereby revealed; and the labour of the polish is lost. Let us then take +the fuller meaning of polish, and see how it will apply to style. + +If it applies, then Polish of Style will imply the approximately +complete revelation of the thought. It will be the removal of everything +that can interfere between the thought of the speaker and the mind of +the hearer. True polish in marble or in speech reveals inlying +realities, and, in the latter at least, mere smoothness, either of sound +or of meaning, is not worthy of the name. The most polished style will +be that which most immediately and most truly flashes the meaning +embodied in the utterance upon the mind of the listener or reader. + +"Will you then," I imagine a reader objecting, "admit of no ornament in +style?" + +"Assuredly," I answer, "I would admit of no ornament whatever." + +But let me explain what I mean by ornament. I mean anything stuck in or +on, like a spangle, because it is pretty in itself, although it reveals +nothing. Not one such ornament can belong to a polished style. It is +paint, not polish. And if this is not what my questioner means by +_ornament_, my answer must then be read according to the differences in +his definition of the word. What I have said has not the least +application to the natural forms of beauty which thought assumes in +speech. Between such beauty and such ornament there lies the same +difference as between the overflow of life in the hair, and the dressing +of that loveliest of utterances in grease and gold. + +For, when I say that polish is the removal of everything that comes +between thought and thinking, it must not be supposed that in my idea +thought is only of the intellect, and therefore that all forms but bare +intellectual forms are of the nature of ornament. As well might one say +that the only essential portion of the human form is the bones. And +every human thought is in a sense a human being, has as necessarily its +muscles of motion, its skin of beauty, its blood of feeling, as its +skeleton of logic. For complete utterance, music itself in its right +proportions, sometimes clear and strong, as in rhymed harmonies, +sometimes veiled and dim, as in the prose compositions of the masters of +speech, is as necessary as correctness of logic, and common sense in +construction. I should have said _conveyance_ rather than utterance; for +there may be utterance such as to relieve the mind of the speaker with +more or less of fancied communication, while the conveyance of thought +may be little or none; as in the speaking with tongues of the infant +Church, to which the lovely babblement of our children has probably more +than a figurative resemblance, relieving their own minds, but, the +interpreter not yet at his post, neither instructing nor misleading any +one. But as the object of grown-up speech must in the main be the +conveyance of thought, and not the mere utterance, everything in the +style of that speech which interposes between the mental eyes and the +thought embodied in the speech, must be polished away, that the +indwelling life may manifest itself. + +What, then (for now we must come to the practical), is the kind of thing +to be polished away in order that the hidden may be revealed? + +All words that can be dismissed without loss; for all such more or less +obscure the meaning upon which they gather. The first step towards the +polishing of most styles is to strike out--polish off--the useless words +and phrases. It is wonderful with how many fewer words most things could +be said that are said; while the degree of certainty and rapidity with +which an idea is conveyed would generally be found to be in an inverse +ratio to the number of words employed. + +All ornaments so called--the nose and lip jewels of style--the tattooing +of the speech; all similes that, although true, give no additional +insight into the meaning; everything that is only pretty and not +beautiful; all mere sparkle as of jewels that lose their own beauty by +being set in the grandeur of statues or the dignity of monumental stone, +must be ruthlessly polished away. + +All utterances which, however they may add to the amount of thought, +distract the mind, and confuse its observation of the main idea, the +essence or life of the book or paper, must be diligently refused. In the +manuscript of _Comus_ there exists, cancelled but legible, a passage of +which I have the best authority for saying that it would have made the +poetic fame of any writer. But the grand old self-denier struck it out +of the opening speech because that would be more polished without +it--because the _Attendant Spirit_ would say more immediately and +exclusively, and therefore more completely, what he had to say, without +it.--All this applies much more widely and deeply in the region of art; +but I am at present dealing with the surface of style, not with the +round of result. + +I have one instance at hand, however, belonging to this region, than +which I could scarcely produce a more apt illustration of my thesis. One +of the greatest of living painters, walking with a friend through the +late Exhibition of Art-Treasures at Manchester, came upon Albert Duerer's +_Melancholia_. After looking at it for a moment, he told his friend that +now for the first time he understood it, and proceeded to set forth what +he saw in it. It was a very early impression, and the delicacy of the +lines was so much the greater. He had never seen such a perfect +impression before, and had never perceived the intent and scope of the +engraving. The mere removal of accidental thickness and furriness in the +lines of the drawing enabled him to see into the meaning of that +wonderful production. The polish brought it to the surface. Or, what +amounts to the same thing for my argument, the dulling of the surface +had concealed it even from his experienced eyes. + +In fine, and more generally, all cause whatever of obscurity must be +polished away. There may lie in the matter itself a darkness of colour +and texture which no amount of polishing can render clear or even vivid; +the thoughts themselves may be hard to think, and difficulty must not be +confounded with obscurity. The former belongs to the thoughts +themselves; the latter to the mode of their embodiment. All cause of +obscurity in this must, I say, be removed. Such may lie even in the +region of grammar, or in the mere arrangement of a sentence. And while, +as I have said, no ornament is to be allowed, so all roughnesses, which +irritate the mental ear, and so far incapacitate it for receiving a true +impression of the meaning from the words, must be carefully reduced. For +the true music of a sentence, belonging as it does to the essence of the +thought itself, is the herald which goes before to prepare the mind for +the following thought, calming the surface of the intellect to a +mirror-like reflection of the image about to fall upon it. But syllables +that hang heavy on the tongue and grate harsh upon the ear are the +trumpet of discord rousing to unconscious opposition and conscious +rejection. + +And now the consideration of the Polish of Manners will lead us to some +yet more important reflections. Here again I must admit that the +ordinary use of the phrase is analogous to that of the preceding; but +its relations lead us deep into realities. For as diamond alone can +polish diamond, so men alone can polish men; and hence it is that it was +first by living in a city ([Greek: polis], _polis_) that men-- + + "rubbed each other's angles down," + +and became _polished_. And while a certain amount of ease with regard to +ourselves and of consideration with regard to others is everywhere +necessary to a man's passing as a gentleman--all unevenness of behaviour +resulting either from shyness or self-consciousness (in the shape of +awkwardness), or from overweening or selfishness (in the shape of +rudeness), having to be polished away--true human polish must go further +than this. Its respects are not confined to the manners of the ball-room +or the dinner-table, of the club or the exchange, but wherever a man may +rejoice with them that rejoice or weep with them that weep, he must +remain one and the same, as polished to the tiller of the soil as to the +leader of the fashion. + +But how will the figure of material polish aid us any further? How can +it be said that Polish of Manners is a revelation of that which is +within, a calling up to the surface of the hidden loveliness of the +material? For do we not know that courtesy may cover contempt; that +smiles themselves may hide hate; that one who will place you at his +right hand when in want of your inferior aid, may scarce acknowledge +your presence when his necessity has gone by? And how then can polished +manners be a revelation of what is within? Are they not the result of +putting on rather than of taking off? Are they not paint and varnish +rather than polish? + +I must yield the answer to each of these questions; protesting, however, +that with such polish I have nothing to do; for these manners are +confessedly false. But even where least able to mislead, they are, with +corresponding courtesy, accepted as outward signs of an inward grace. +Hence even such, by the nature of their falsehood, support my position. +For in what forms are the colours of the paint laid upon the surface of +the material? Is it not in as near imitations of the real right human +feelings about oneself and others as the necessarily imperfect knowledge +of such an artist can produce? He will not encounter the labour of +polishing, for he does not believe in the divine depths of his own +nature: he paints, and calls the varnish polish. + +"But why talk of polish with reference to such a character, seeing that +no amount of polishing can bring to the surface what is not there? No +polishing of sandstone will reveal the mottling of marble. For it is +sandstone, crumbling and gritty--not noble in any way." + +Is it so then? Can such be the real nature of the man? And can polish +reach nothing deeper in him than such? May not this selfishness be +polished away, revealing true colour and harmony beneath? Was not the +man made in the image of God? Or, if you say that man lost that image, +did not a new process of creation begin from the point of that loss, a +process of re-creation in him in whom all shall be made alive, which, +although so far from being completed yet, can never be checked? If we +cut away deep enough at the rough block of our nature, shall we not +arrive at some likeness of that true man who, the apostle says, dwells +in us--the hope of glory? He informs us--that is, forms us from within. + +Dr. Donne (who knew less than any other writer in the English language +what Polish of Style means) recognizes this divine polishing to the +full. He says in a poem called "The Cross:"-- + + As perchance carvers do not faces make, + But that away, which hid them there, do take, + Let Crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, + And be his Image, or not his, but He. + +This is no doubt a higher figure than that of _polish_, but it is of the +same kind, revealing the same truth. It recognizes the fact that the +divine nature lies at the root of the human nature, and that the polish +which lets that spiritual nature shine out in the simplicity of heavenly +childhood, is the true Polish of Manners of which all merely social +refinements are a poor imitation.--Whence Coleridge says that nothing +but religion can make a man a gentleman.--And when these harmonies of +our nature come to the surface, we shall be indeed "lively stones," fit +for building into the great temple of the universe, and echoing the +music of creation. Dr. Donne recognizes, besides, the notable fact that +_crosses_ or afflictions are the polishing powers by means of which the +beautiful realities of human nature are brought to the surface. One can +tell at once by the peculiar loveliness of certain persons that they +have suffered. + +But, to look for a moment less profoundly into the matter, have we not +known those whose best never could get to the surface just from the lack +of polish?--persons who, if they could only reveal the kindness of +their nature, would make men believe in human nature, but in whom some +roughness of awkwardness or of shyness prevents the true self from +appearing? Even the dread of seeming to claim a good deed or to +patronize a fellow-man will sometimes spoil the last touch of tenderness +which would have been the final polish of the act of giving, and would +have revealed infinite depths of human devotion. For let the truth out, +and it will be seen to be true. + +Simplicity is the end of all Polish, as of all Art, Culture, Morals, +Religion, and Life. The Lord our God is one Lord, and we and our +brothers and sisters are one Humanity, one Body of the Head. + +Now to the practical: what are we to do for the polish of our manners? + +Just what I have said we must do for the polish of our style. Take off; +do not put on. Polish away this rudeness, that awkwardness. Correct +everything self-assertive, which includes nine tenths of all vulgarity. +Imitate no one's behaviour; that is to paint. Do not think about +yourself; that is to varnish. Put what is wrong right, and what is in +you will show itself in harmonious behaviour. + +But no one can go far in this track without discovering that true polish +reaches much deeper; that the outward exists but for the sake of the +inward; and that the manners, as they depend on the morals, must be +forgotten in the morals of which they are but the revelation. Look at +the high-shouldered, ungainly child in the corner: his mother tells him +to go to his book, and he wants to go to his play. Regard the swollen +lips, the skin tightened over the nose, the distortion of his shape, the +angularity of his whole appearance. Yet he is not an awkward child by +nature. Look at him again the moment after he has given in and kissed +his mother. His shoulders have dropped to their place; his limbs are +free from the fetters that bound them; his motions are graceful, and the +one blends harmoniously with the other. He is no longer thinking of +himself. He has given up his own way. The true childhood comes to the +surface, and you see what the boy is meant to be always. Look at the +jerkiness of the conceited man. Look at the quiet _fluency_ of motion in +the modest man. Look how anger itself which forgets self, which is +unhating and righteous, will elevate the carriage and ennoble the +movements. + +But how far can the same rule of _omission_ or _rejection_ be applied +with safety to this deeper character--the manners of the spirit? + +It seems to me that in morals too the main thing is to avoid doing +wrong; for then the active spirit of life in us will drive us on to the +right. But on such a momentous question I would not be dogmatic. Only as +far as regards the feelings I would say: it is of no use to try to make +ourselves feel thus or thus. Let us fight with our wrong feelings; let +us polish away the rough ugly distortions of feeling. Then the real and +the good will come of themselves. Or rather, to keep to my figure, they +will then show themselves of themselves as the natural home-produce, the +indwelling facts of our deepest--that is, our divine nature. + +Here I find that I am sinking through my subject into another and +deeper--a truth, namely, which should, however, be the foundation of all +our building, the background of all our representations: that Life is at +work in us--the sacred Spirit of God travailing in us. That Spirit has +gained one end of his labour--at which he can begin to do yet more for +us--when he has brought us to beg for the help which he has been giving +us all the time. + +I have been regarding infinite things through the medium of one limited +figure, knowing that figures with all their suggestions and relations +could not reveal them utterly. But so far as they go, these thoughts +raised by the word Polish and its figurative uses appear to me to be +most true. + + + + +BROWNING'S "CHRISTMAS EVE" + + +[Footnote: 1853.] + + +Goethe says:-- + + "Poems are painted window panes. + If one looks from the square into the church, + Dusk and dimness are his gains-- + Sir Philistine is left in the lurch! + The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, + Nor anything henceforth assuage him. + + "But come just inside what conceals; + Cross the holy threshold quite-- + All at once 'tis rainbow-bright, + Device and story flash to light, + A gracious splendour truth reveals. + This to God's children is full measure, + It edifies and gives you pleasure!" + +This is true concerning every form in which truth is embodied, whether +it be sight or sound, geometric diagram or scientific formula. +Unintelligible, it may be dismal enough, regarded from the outside; +prismatic in its revelation of truth from within. Such is the world +itself, as beheld by the speculative eye; a thing of disorder, +obscurity, and sadness: only the child-like heart, to which the door +into the divine idea is thrown open, can understand somewhat the secret +of the Almighty. In human things it is particularly true of art, in +which the fundamental idea seems to be the revelation of the true +through the beautiful. But of all the arts it is most applicable to +poetry; for the others have more that is beautiful on the outside; can +give pleasure to the senses by the form of the marble, the hues of the +painting, or the sweet sounds of the music, although the heart may never +perceive the meaning that lies within. But poetry, except its rhythmic +melody, and its scattered gleams of material imagery, for which few care +that love it not for its own sake, has no attraction on the outside to +entice the passer to enter and partake of its truth. It is inwards that +its colours shine, within that its forms move, and the sound of its holy +organ cannot be heard from without. + +Now, if one has been able to reach the heart of a poem, answering to +Goethe's parabolic description; or even to discover a loop-hole, through +which, from an opposite point, the glories of its stained windows are +visible; it is well that he should seek to make others partakers in his +pleasure and profit. Some who might not find out for themselves, would +yet be evermore grateful to him who led them to the point of vision. +Surely if a man would help his fellow-men, he can do so far more +effectually by exhibiting truth than exposing error, by unveiling beauty +than by a critical dissection of deformity. From the very nature of the +things it must be so. Let the true and good destroy their opposites. It +is only by the good and beautiful that the evil and ugly are known. It +is the light that makes manifest. + +The poem "Christmas Eve," by Robert Browning, with the accompanying poem +"Easter Day," seems not to have attracted much notice from the readers +of poetry, although highly prized by a few. This is, perhaps, to be +attributed, in a great measure, to what many would call a considerable +degree of obscurity. But obscurity is the appearance which to a first +glance may be presented either by profundity or carelessness of thought. +To some, obscurity itself is attractive, from the hope that worthiness +is the cause of it. To apply a test similar to that by which Pascal +tries the Koran and the Scriptures: what is the character of those +portions, the meaning of which is plain? Are they wise or foolish? If +the former, the presumption is that the obscurity of other parts is +caused not by opacity, but profundity. But some will object, +notwithstanding, that a writer ought to make himself plain to his +readers; nay, that if he has a clear idea himself, he must be able to +express that idea clearly. But for communion of thought, two minds, not +one, are necessary. The fault may lie in him that receives or in him +that gives, or it may be in neither. For how can the result of much +thought, the idea which for mouths has been shaping itself in the mind +of one man, be at once received by another mind to which it comes a +stranger and unexpected? The reader has no right to complain of so +caused obscurity. Nor is that form of expression, which is most easily +understood at first sight, necessarily the best. It will not, therefore, +continue to move; nor will it gather force and influence with more +intimate acquaintance. Here Goethe's little parable, as he calls it, is +peculiarly applicable. But, indeed, if after all a writer is obscure, +the man who has spent most labour in seeking to enter into his thoughts, +will be the least likely to complain of his obscurity; and they who have +the least difficulty in understanding a writer, are frequently those who +understand him the least. + +To those to whom the religion of Christ has been the law of liberty; who +by that door have entered into the universe of God, and have begun to +feel a growing delight in all the manifestations of God, it is cause of +much joy to find that, whatever may be the position taken by men of +science, or by those in whom the intellect predominates, with regard to +the Christian religion, men of genius, at least, in virtue of what is +child-like in their nature, are, in the present time, plainly +manifesting deep devotion to Christ. There are exceptions, certainly; +but even in those, there are symptoms of feelings which, one can hardly +help thinking, tend towards him, and will one day flame forth in +conscious worship. A mind that recognizes any of the multitudinous +meanings of the revelation of God, in the world of sounds, and forms, +and colours, cannot be blind to the higher manifestation of God in +common humanity; nor to him in whom is hid the key to the whole, the +First-born of the creation of God, in whose heart lies, as yet but +partially developed, the kingdom of heaven, which is the redemption of +the earth. The mind that delights in that which is lofty and great, +which feels there is something higher than self, will undoubtedly be +drawn towards Christ; and they, who at first looked on him as a great +prophet, came at length to perceive that he was the radiation of the +Father's glory, the likeness of his unseen being. + +A description of the poem may, perhaps, both induce to the reading of +it, and contribute to its easier comprehension while being perused. On a +stormy Christmas Eve, the poet, or rather the seer (for the whole must +be regarded as a poetic vision), is compelled to take refuge in the +"lath and plaster entry" of a little chapel, belonging to a congregation +of Calvinistic Methodists, who are at the time assembling for worship. +Wonderful in its reality is the description of various of the flock that +pass him as they enter the chapel, from + + "the many-tattered + Little old-faced, peaking sister-turned-mother + Of the sickly babe she tried to smother + Somehow up, with its spotted face, + From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place:" + +to the "shoemaker's lad;" whom he follows, determined not to endure the +inquisition of their looks any longer, into the chapel. The humour of +the whole scene within is excellent. The stifling closeness, both of the +atmosphere and of the sermon, the wonderful content of the audience, the +"old fat woman," who + + "purred with pleasure, + And thumb round thumb went twirling faster, + While she, to his periods keeping measure, + Maternally devoured the pastor;" + +are represented by a few rapid touches that bring certain points of the +reality almost unpleasantly near. At length, unable to endure it longer, +he rushes out into the air. Objection may, probably, be made to the +mingling of the humorous, even the ridiculous, with the serious; at +least, in a work of art like this, where they must be brought into such +close proximity. But are not these things as closely connected in the +world as they can be in any representation of it? Surely there are few +who have never had occasion to attempt to reconcile the thought of the +two in their own minds. Nor can there be anything human that is not, in +some connexion or other, admissible into art. The widest idea of art +must comprehend all things. A work of this kind must, like God's world, +in which he sends rain on the just and on the unjust, be taken as a +whole and in regard to its design. The requisition is, that everything +introduced have a relation to the adjacent parts and to the whole +suitable to the design. Here the thing is real, is true, is human; a +thing to be thought about. It has its place amongst other phenomena, +with which, however apparently incongruous, it is yet vitally connected +within. + +A coolness and delight visit us, on turning over the page and commencing +to read the description of sky, and moon, and clouds, which greet him +outside the chapel. It is as a vision of the vision-bearing world +itself, in one of its fine, though not, at first, one of its rarest +moods. And here a short digression to notice like feelings in unlike +dresses, one thought differently expressed will, perhaps, be pardoned. +The moon is prevented from shining out by the "blocks" of cloud "built +up in the west:"-- + + "And the empty other half of the sky + Seemed in its silence as if it knew + What, any moment, might look through + A chance-gap in that fortress massy." + +Old Henry Vaughan says of the "Dawning:"-- + + "The whole Creation shakes off night, + And for thy shadow looks the Light; + Stars now vanish without number, + Sleepie Planets set and slumber, + The pursie Clouds disband and scatter, + _All expect some sudden matter_." + +Calmness settles down on his mind. He walks on, thinking of the scene he +had left, and the sermon he had heard. In the latter he sees the good +and the bad intimately mingled; and is convinced that the chief benefit +derived from it is a reproducing of former impressions. The thought +crosses him, in how many places and how many different forms the same +thing takes place, "a convincing" of the "convinced;" and he rejoices in +the contrast which his church presents to these; for in the church of +Nature his love to God, assurance of God's love to him, and confidence +in the design of God regarding him, commenced. While exulting in God and +the knowledge of Him to be attained hereafter, he is favoured with a +sight of a glorious moon-rainbow, which elevates his worship to ecstasy. +During which-- + + "All at once I looked up with terror-- + He was there. + He himself with His human air, + On the narrow pathway, just before: + I saw the back of Him, no more-- + He had left the chapel, then, as I. + I forgot all about the sky. + No face: only the sight + Of a sweepy garment, vast and white, + With a hem that I could recognize. + I felt terror, no surprise: + My mind filled with the cataract, + At one bound, of the mighty fact. + I remembered, He did say + Doubtless, that, to this world's end, + Where two or three should meet and pray, + He would be in the midst, their friend: + Certainly He was there with them. + And my pulses leaped for joy + Of the golden thought without alloy, + That I saw His very vesture's hem. + Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear, + With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear." + +Praying for forgiveness wherein he has sinned, and prostrate in +adoration before the form of Christ, he is "caught up in the whirl and +drift" of his vesture, and carried along with him over the earth. + +Stopping at length at the entrance of St. Peter's in Rome, he remains +outside, while the form disappears within. He is able, however, to see +all that goes on, in the crowded, hushed interior. It is high mass. He +has been carried at once from the little chapel to the opposite +aesthetic pole. From the entry, where-- + + "The flame of the single tallow candle + In the cracked square lanthorn I stood under + Shot its blue lip at me," + +to-- + "This miraculous dome of God-- + This colonnade + With arms wide open to embrace + The entry of the human race + To the breast of.... what is it, yon building, + Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding, + With marble for brick, and stones of price + For garniture of the edifice?" + +to "those fountains"-- + + "Growing up eternally + Each to a musical water-tree, + Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon, + Before my eyes, in the light of the moon, + To the granite lavers underneath;" + +from the singing of the chapel to the organ self-restrained, that "holds +his breath and grovels latent," while expecting the elevation of the +Host. Christ is within; he is left without. Reflecting on the matter, he +thinks his Lord would not require him to go in, though he himself +entered, because there was a way to reach him there. By-and-by, however, +his heart awakes and declares that Love goes beyond error with them, and +if the Intellect be kept down, yet Love is the oppressor; so next time +he resolves to enter and praise along with them. The passage commencing, +"Oh, love of those first Christian days!" describing Love's victory over +Intellect, is very fine. + +Again he is caught up and carried along as before. This time halt is +made at the door of a college in a German town, in which the class-room +of one of the professors is open for lecture this Christmas Eve. It is, +intellectually considered, the opposite pole to both the Methodist +chapel and the Roman Basilica. The poet enters, fearful of losing the +society of "any that call themselves his friends." He describes the +assembled company, and the entrance of "the hawk-nosed, high-cheek-boned +professor," of part of whose Christmas Eve's discourse he proceeds to +give the substance. The professor takes it for granted that "plainly no +such life was liveable," and goes on to inquire what explanation of the +phenomena of the life of Christ it were best to adopt. Not that it +mattered much, "so the idea be left the same." Taking the popular story, +for convenience sake, and separating all extraneous matter from it, he +found that Christ was simply a good man, with an honest, true heart; +whose disciples thought him divine; and whose doctrine, though quite +mistaken by those who received and published it, "had yet a meaning +quite as respectable." Here the poet takes advantage of a pause to leave +him; reflecting that though the air may be poisoned by the sects, yet +here "the critic leaves no air to poison." His meditations and arguments +following, are among the most valuable passages in the book. The +professor, notwithstanding the idea of Christ has by him been exhausted +of all that is peculiar to it, yet recommends him to the veneration and +worship of his hearers, "rather than all who went before him, and all +who ever followed after." But why? says the poet. For his intellect, + + "Which tells me simply what was told + (If mere morality, bereft + Of the God in Christ, be all that's left) + Elsewhere by voices manifold?" + +with which must be combined the fact that this intellect of his did not +save him from making the "important stumble," of saying that he and God +were one. "But his followers misunderstood him," says the objector. +Perhaps so; but "the stumbling-block, his speech, who laid it?" Well +then, is it on the score of his goodness that he should rule his race? + + "You pledge + Your fealty to such rule? What, all-- + From Heavenly John and Attic Paul, + And that brave weather-battered Peter, + Whose stout faith only stood completer + For buffets, sinning to be pardoned, + As the more his hands hauled nets, they hardened-- + All, down to you, the man of men, + Professing here at Goettingen, + Compose Christ's flock! So, you and I + Are sheep of a good man! And why?" + +Did Christ _invent_ goodness? or did he only demonstrate that of which +the common conscience was judge? + + "I would decree + Worship for such mere demonstration + And simple work of nomenclature, + Only the day I praised, not Nature, + But Harvey, for the circulation." + +The worst man, says the poet, _knows_ more than the best man _does_. God +in Christ appeared to men to help them to _do_, to awaken the life +within them. + + "Morality to the uttermost, + Supreme in Christ as we all confess, + Why need _we_ prove would avail no jot + To make Him God, if God he were not? + What is the point where Himself lays stress? + Does the precept run, 'Believe in good, + In justice, truth, now understood + For the first time?'--or, 'Believe in ME, + Who lived and died, yet essentially + Am Lord of life'? Whoever can take + The same to his heart, and for mere love's sake + Conceive of the love,--that man obtains + A new truth; no conviction gains + Of an old one only, made intense + By a fresh appeal to his faded sense." + +In this lies the most direct practical argument with regard to what is +commonly called the Divinity of Christ. Here is a man whom those that +magnify him the least confess to be a good man, the best of men. He +_says_, "I and the Father are one." Will an earnest heart, knowing this, +be likely to draw back, or will it draw nearer to behold the great +sight? Will not such a heart feel: "A good man like this would not have +said so, were it not so. In all probability the great truth of God lies +behind this veil." The reality of Christ's nature is not to be proved by +argument. He must be beheld. The manifestation of Him must "gravitate +inwards" on the soul. It is by looking that one can know. As a +mathematical theorem is to be proved only by the demonstration of that +theorem itself, not by talking _about_ it; so Christ must prove himself +to the human soul through being beheld. The only proof of Christ's +divinity is his humanity. Because his humanity is not comprehended, his +divinity is doubted; and while the former is uncomprehended, an assent +to the latter is of little avail. For a man to theorize theologically in +any form, while he has not so apprehended Christ, or to neglect the +gazing on him for the attempt to substantiate to himself any form of +belief respecting him, is to bring on himself, in a matter of divine +import, such errors as the expounders of nature in old time brought on +themselves, when they speculated on what a thing must be, instead of +observing what it was; this _must be_ having for its foundation not +self-evident truth, but notions whose chief strength lay in their +preconception. There are thoughts and feelings that cannot be called up +in the mind by any power of will or force of imagination; which, being +spiritual, must arise in the soul when in its highest spiritual +condition; when the mind, indeed, like a smooth lake, reflects only +heavenly images. A steadfast regarding of Him will produce this calm, +and His will be the heavenly form reflected from the mental depth. + +But to return to the poem. The fact that Christ remains inside, leads +the poet to reflect, in the spirit of Him who found all the good in men +he could, neglecting no point of contact which presented itself, whether +there was anything at this lecture with which he could sympathize; and +he finds that the heart of the professor does something to rescue him +from the error of his brain. In his brain, even, "if Love's dead there, +it has left a ghost." For when the natural deduction from his argument +would be that our faith + + "Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,-- + He bids us, when we least expect it, + Take back our faith--if it be not just whole, + Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it, + Which fact pays the damage done rewardingly, + So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!" + +Love as well as learning being necessary to the understanding of the New +Testament, it is to the poet matter of regret that "loveless learning" +should leave its proper work, and make such havoc in that which belongs +not to it. But while he sits "talking with his mind," his mood begins to +degenerate from sympathy with that which is good to indifference towards +all forms, and he feels inclined to rest quietly in the enjoyment of his +own religious confidence, and trouble himself in no wise about the faith +of his neighbours; for doubtless all are partakers of the central light, +though variously refracted by the varied translucency of the mental +prism.... + + "'Twas the horrible storm began afresh! + The black night caught me in his mesh, + Whirled me up, and flung me prone! + I was left on the college-step alone. + I looked, and far there, ever fleeting + Far, far away, the receding gesture, + And looming of the lessening vesture, + Swept forward from my stupid hand, + While I watched my foolish heart expand + In the lazy glow of benevolence + O'er the various modes of man's belief. + I sprang up with fear's vehemence. + --Needs must there be one way, our chief + Best way of worship: let me strive + To find it, and when found, contrive + My fellows also take their share. + This constitutes my earthly care: + God's is above it and distinct!" + +The symbolism in the former part of this extract is grand. As soon as he +ceases to look practically on the phenomena with which he is surrounded, +he is enveloped in storm and darkness, and sees only in the far distance +the disappearing skirt of his Lord's garment. God's care is over all, he +goes on to say; I must do _my part_. If I look speculatively on the +world, there is nothing but dimness and mystery. If I look practically +on it, + + "No mere mote's-breadth, but teems immense + With witnessings of Providence." + +And whether the world which I seek to help censures or praises me--that +is nothing to me. My life--how is it with me? + + "Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held + By the hem of the vesture.... + And I caught + At the flying robe, and, unrepelled, + Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught + With warmth and wonder and delight, + God's mercy being infinite. + And scarce had the words escaped my tongue, + When, at a passionate bound, I sprung + Out of the wandering world of rain, + Into the little chapel again." + +Had he dreamed? how then could he report of the sermon and the preacher? +of which and of whom he proceeds to give a very external account. But +correcting himself-- + + "Ha! Is God mocked, as He asks? + Shall I take on me to change his tasks, + And dare, despatched to a river-head + For a simple draught of the element, + Neglect the thing for which He sent, + And return with another thing instead! + Saying .... 'Because the water found + Welling up from underground, + Is mingled with the taints of earth, + While Thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth, + And couldest, at a word, convulse + The world with the leap of its river-pulse,-- + Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy, + And bring thee a chalice I found, instead. + See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy! + One would suppose that the marble bled. + What matters the water? A hope I have nursed, + That the waterless cup will quench my thirst.' + --Better have knelt at the poorest stream + That trickles in pain from the straitest rift! + For the less or the more is all God's gift, + Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite seam. + And here, is there water or not, to drink?" + +He comes to the conclusion, that the best for him is that mode of +worship which partakes the least of human forms, and brings him nearest +to the spiritual; and, while expressing good wishes for the Pope and the +professor-- + + "Meantime, in the still recurring fear + Lest myself, at unawares, be found, + While attacking the choice of my neighbours round, + Without my own made--I choose here!" + +He therefore joins heartily in the hymn which is sung by the +congregation of the little chapel at the close of their worship. And +this concludes the poem. + +What is the central point from which this poem can be regarded? It does +not seem to be very hard to find. Novalis has said: "Die Philosophie ist +eigentlich Heimweh, ein Trieb ueberall zu Hause zu sein." (Philosophy is +really home-sickness, an impulse to be at home everywhere.) The life of +a man here, if life it be, and not the vain image of what might be a +life, is a continual attempt to find his place, his centre of +recipiency, and active agency. He wants to know where he is, and where +he ought to be and can be; for, rightly considered, the position a man +ought to occupy is the only one he truly _can_ occupy. It is a climbing +and striving to reach that point of vision where the multiplex crossings +and apparent intertwistings of the lines of fact and feeling and duty +shall manifest themselves as a regular and symmetrical design. A +contradiction, or a thing unrelated, is foreign and painful to him, even +as the rocky particle in the gelatinous substance of the oyster; and, +like the latter, he can only rid himself of it by encasing it in the +pearl-like enclosure of faith; believing that hidden there lies the +necessity for a higher theory of the universe than has yet been +generated in his soul. The quest for this home-centre, in the man who +has faith, is calm and ceaseless; in the man whose faith is weak, it is +stormy and intermittent. Unhappy is that man, of necessity, whose +perceptions are keener than his faith is strong. Everywhere Nature +herself is putting strange questions to him; the human world is full of +dismay and confusion; his own conscience is bewildered by contradictory +appearances; all which may well happen to the man whose eye is not yet +single, whose heart is not yet pure. He is not at home; his soul is +astray amid people of a strange speech and a stammering tongue. But the +faithful man is led onward; in the stillness that his confidence +produces arise the bright images of truth; and visions of God, which are +only beheld in solitary places, are granted to his soul. + + "O struggling with the darkness all the night, + And visited all night by troops of stars!" + +What is true of the whole, is true of its parts. In all the relations of +life, in all the parts of the great whole of existence, the true man is +ever seeking his home. This poem seems to show us such a quest. "Here I +am in the midst of many who belong to the same family. They differ in +education, in habits, in forms of thought; but they are called by the +same name. What position with regard to them am I to assume? I am a +Christian; how am I to live in relation to Christians?" Such seems to be +something like the poet's thought. What central position can he gain, +which, while it answers best the necessities of his own soul with regard +to God, will enable him to feel himself connected with the whole +Christian world, and to sympathize with all; so that he may not be +alone, but one of the whole. Certainly the position necessary for both +requirements is one and the same. He that is isolated from his brethren, +loses one of the greatest helps to draw near to God. Now, in this time, +which is so peculiarly transitional, this is a question of no little +import for all who, while they gladly forsake old, or rather _modern_, +theories, for what is to them a more full development of Christianity as +well as a return to the fountain-head, yet seek to be saved from the +danger of losing sympathy with those who are content with what they are +compelled to abandon. Seeing much in the common modes of thought and +belief that is inconsistent with Christianity, and even opposed to it, +they yet cannot but see likewise in many of them a power of spiritual +good; which, though not dependent on the peculiar mode, is yet +enveloped, if not embodied, in that mode. + + "Ask, else, these ruins of humanity, + This flesh worn out to rags and tatters, + This soul at struggle with insanity, + Who thence take comfort, can I doubt, + Which an empire gained, were a loss without." + +The love of God is the soul of Christianity. Christ is the body of that +truth. The love of God is the creating and redeeming, the forming and +satisfying power of the universe. The love of God is that which kills +evil and glorifies goodness. It is the safety of the great whole. It is +the home-atmosphere of all life. Well does the poet of the "Christmas +Eve" say:-- + + "The loving worm within its clod, + Were diviner than a loveless God + Amid his worlds, I will dare to say." + +Surely then, inasmuch as man is made in the image of God nothing less +than a love in the image of God's love, all-embracing, quietly excusing, +heartily commending, can constitute the blessedness of man; a love not +insensible to that which is foreign to it, but overcoming it with good. +Where man loves in his kind, even as God loves in His kind, then man is +saved, then he has reached the unseen and eternal. But if, besides the +necessity to love that lies in a man, there be likewise in the man whom +he ought to love something in common with him, then the law of love has +increased force. If that point of sympathy lies at the centre of the +being of each, and if these centres are brought into contact, then the +circles of their being will be, if not coincident, yet concentric. We +must wait patiently for the completion of God's great harmony, and +meantime love everywhere and as we can. + +But the great lesson which this poem teaches, and which is taught more +directly in the "Easter Day" (forming part of the same volume), is that +the business of a man's life is to be a Christian. A man has to do with +God first; in Him only can he find the unity and harmony he seeks. To be +one with Him is to be at the centre of things. If one acknowledges that +God has revealed himself in Christ; that God has recognized man as his +family, by appearing among them in their form; surely that very +acknowledgment carries with it the admission that man's chief concern is +with this revelation. What does God say and mean, teach and manifest, +herein? If this world is God's making, and he is present in all nature; +if he rules all things and is present in all history; if the soul of man +is in his image, with all its circles of thought and multiplicity of +forms; and if for man it be not enough to be rooted in God, but he must +likewise lay hold on God; then surely no question, in whatever +direction, can be truly answered, save by him who stands at the side of +Christ. The doings of God cannot be understood, save by him who has the +mind of Christ, which is the mind of God. All things must be strange to +one who sympathizes not with the thought of the Maker, who understands +not the design of the Artist. Where is he to begin? What light has he by +which to classify? How will he bring order out of this apparent +confusion, when the order is higher than his thought; when the confusion +to him is _caused_ by the order's being greater than he can comprehend? +Because he stands outside and not within, he sees an entangled maze of +forces, where there is in truth an intertwining dance of harmony. There +is for no one any solution of the world's mystery, or of any part of its +mystery, except he be able to say with our poet:-- + + "I have looked to Thee from the beginning, + Straight up to Thee through all the world, + Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled + To nothingness on either side: + And since the time Thou wast descried, + Spite of the weak heart, so have I + Lived ever, and so fain would die, + Living and dying, Thee before!" + +Christianity is not the ornament, or even complement, of life; it is its +necessity; it is life itself glorified into God's ideal. + +Dr. Chalmers, from considering the minuteness of the directions given to +Moses for the making of the tabernacle, was led to think that he himself +was wrong in attending too little to the "_petite morale_" of dress. +Will this be excuse enough for occupying a few sentences with the +rhyming of this poem? Certainly the rhymes of a poem form no small part +of its artistic existence. Probably there is a deeper meaning in this +part of the poetic art than has yet been made clear to poet's mind. In +this poem the rhymes have their share in its humorous charm. The +writer's power of using double and triple rhymes is remarkable, and the +effect is often pleasing, even where they are used in the more solemn +parts of the poem. Take the lines:-- + + "No! love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it, + Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it, + The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it, + Shall arise, made perfect, from death's repose of it." + +A poem is a thing not for the understanding or heart only, but likewise +for the ear; or, rather, for the understanding and heart through the +ear. The best poem is best set forth when best read. If, then, there be +rhymes which, when read aloud, do, by their composition of words, +prevent the understanding from laying hold on the separate words, while +the ear lays hold on the rhymes, the perfection of the art must here be +lost sight of, notwithstanding the completeness which the rhyming +manifests on close examination. For instance, in "_equipt yours," +"Scriptures;" "Manchester," "haunches stir_;" or "_affirm any," +"Germany_;" where two words rhyme with one word. But there are very few +of them that are objectionable on account of this difficulty and +necessity of rapid analysis. + +One of the most wonderful things in the poem is, that so much of +argument is expressed in a species of verse, which one might be +inclined, at first sight, to think the least fitted for embodying it. +But, in fact, the same amount of argument in any other kind of verse +would, in all likelihood, have been intolerably dull as a work of art. +Here the verse is full of life and vigour, flagging never. Where, in +several parts, the exact meaning is difficult to reach, this results +chiefly from the dramatic rapidity and condensation of the thoughts. The +argumentative power is indeed wonderful; the arguments themselves +powerful in their simplicity, and embodied in words of admirable force. +The poem is full of pathos and humour; full of beauty and grandeur, +earnestness and truth. + + + + +ESSAYS ON SOME OF THE FORMS OF LITERATURE + + +[Footnote: "Essays on some of +the Forms of Literature." By T.T. Lynch, Author of "Theophilus Trinal." +Longmans.] + + +Schoppe, the satiric chorus of Jean Paul's romance of Titan, makes his +appearance at a certain masked ball, carrying in front of him a glass +case, in which the ball is remasked, repeated, and again reflected in a +mirror behind, by a set of puppets, ludicrously aping the apery of the +courtiers, whose whole life and outward manifestation was but a +body-mask mechanically moved with the semblance of real life and action. +The court simulates reality. The masks are a multiform mockery at their +own unreality, and as such are regarded by Schoppe, who takes them off +with the utmost ridicule in his masked puppet-show, which, with its +reflection in the mirror, is again indefinitely multiplied in the +many-sided reflector of Schoppe's, or of Richter's, or of the reader's +own imagination. The successive retreating and beholding in this scene +is suggested to the reviewer by the fact that the last of these essays +by Mr. Lynch is devoted in part to reviews. So that the reviews review +books,--Mr. Lynch reviews the reviews, and the present Reviewer finds +himself (somewhat presumptuously, it may be) attempting to review Mr. +Lynch. In this, however, his office must be very different from that of +Schoppe (for there is a deeper and more real correspondence between the +position of the showman and the reviewer than that outward resemblance +which first caused the one to suggest the other). The latter's office, +in the present instance, was, by mockery, to destroy the false, the very +involution of the satire adding to the strength of the ridicule. His +glass case was simply a review uttered by shapes and wires instead of +words and handwriting. And the work of the true critic must sometimes be +to condemn, and, as far as his strength can reach, utterly to destroy +the false,--scorching and withering its seeming beauty, till it is +reduced to its essence and original groundwork of dust and ashes. It is +only, however, when it wears the form of beauty which is the garment of +truth, and so, like the Erl-maidens, has power to bewitch, that it is +worth the notice and attack of the critic. Many forms of error, perhaps +most, are better left alone to die of their own weakness, for the +galvanic battery of criticism only helps to perpetuate their ghastly +life. The highest work of the critic, however, must surely be to direct +attention to the true, in whatever form it may have found utterance. But +on this let us hear Mr. Lynch himself in the last of these four lectures +which were delivered by him at the Royal Institution, Manchester, and +are now before us in the form of a book:-- + +"The kritikos, the discerner, if he is ever saying to us, This is not +gold; and never, This is; is either very humbly useful, or very +perverse, or very unfortunate. This is not gold, he says. Thank you, we +reply, we perceived as much. And this is not, he adds. True, we answer, +but we see gold grains glittering out of its rude, dark mass. Well, at +least, this is not, he proceeds. Perverse man! we retort, are you +seeking what is not gold? We are inquiring for what is, and unfortunate +indeed are we if, born into a world of Nature, and of Spirit once so +rich, we are born but to find that it has spent or has lost all its +wealth. Unhappy man would he be, who, walking his garden, should scent +only the earthy savour of leaves dead or dying, never perceiving, and +that afar off, the heavenly odour of roses fresh to-day from the Maker's +hands. The discerning by spiritual aroma may lead to discernment by the +eye, and to that careful scrutiny, and thence greater knowledge, of +which the eye is instrument and minister." + +And again:-- + +"The critic criticized, if dealt with in the worst fashion of his own +class, must be pronounced a mere monster, 'seeking whom he may devour;' +and, therefore, to be hunted and slain as speedily as possible, and +stuffed for the museum, where he may be regarded with due horror, but in +safety. But if dealt with after the best fashion of his class, a very +honourable and beneficent office is assigned him, and he is warned +only--though zealously--against its perversions. A judicial chair in the +kingdom of human thought, filled by a man of true integrity, +comprehensiveness, and delicacy of spirit, is a seat of terror and +praise, whose powers are at once most fostering to whatever is good, +most repressive of whatever is evil.... The critic, in his office of +censurer, has need so much to controvert, expose, and punish, because of +the abundance of literary faults; and as there is a right and a wrong +side in warfare, so there will be in criticism. And as when soldiers are +numerous, there will be not a few who are only tolerable, if even that, +so of critics. But then the critic is more than the censurer; and in his +higher and happier aspect appears before us and serves us, as the +discoverer, the vindicator, and the eulogist of excellence." + +But resisting the temptation to quote further from Mr. Lynch's book on +this matter of Criticism, which seemed the natural point of contact by +which the Reviewer could lay hold on the book, he would pass on with the +remark that his duty in the present instance is of the nobler and better +sort--nobler and better, that is, with regard to the object, for duty in +the man remains ever the same--namely, the exposition of excellence, and +not of its opposite. Mr. Lynch is a man of true insight and large heart, +who has already done good in the world, and will do more; although, +possibly, he belongs rather to the last class of writers described by +himself, in the extract I am about to give from this same essay, than to +any of the preceding:-- + +"Some of the best books are written avowedly, or with evident +consciousness of the fact, for the select public that is constituted by +minds of the deeper class, or minds the more advanced of their time. +Such books may have but a restricted circulation and limited esteem in +their own day, and may afterwards extend both their fame and the circle +of their readers. Others of the best books, written with a pathos and a +power that may be universally felt, appeal at once to the common +humanity of the world, and get a response marvellously strong and +immediate. An ordinary human eye and heart, whose glances are true, +whose pulses healthy, will fit us to say of much that we read--This is +good, that is poor. But only the educated eye and the experienced heart +will fit us to judge of what relates to matters veiled from ordinary +observation, and belonging to the profounder region of human thought and +emotion. Powers, however, that the few only possess, may be required to +paint what everybody can see, so that everybody shall say, How +beautiful! how like! And powers adequate to do this in the finest manner +will be often adequate to do much more--may produce, indeed, books or +pictures, whose singular merit only the few shall perceive, and the many +for awhile deny, and books or pictures which, while they give an +immediate and pure pleasure to the common eye, shall give a far fuller +and finer pleasure to that eye that is the organ of a deeper and more +cultivated soul. There are, too, men of _peculiar_ powers, rare and +fine, who can never hope to please the large public, at least of their +own age, but whose writings are a heart's ease and heart's joy to the +select few, and serve such as a cup of heavenly comfort for the earth's +journey, and a lamp of heavenly light for the shadows of the way." + +One other extract from the general remarks on Books in this essay, and +we will turn to another:-- + +"In all our estimation of the various qualities of books, if it be true +that our reading assists our life, it is true also that our life assists +our reading. If we let our spirit talk to us in undistracted moments--if +we commune with friendly, serious Nature, face to face, often--if we +pursue honourable aims in a steady progress--if we learn how a man's +best work falls below his thought, yet how still his failure prompts a +tenderer love of his thought--if we live in sincere, frank relations +with some few friends, joying in their joy, hearing the tale and sharing +the pain of their grief, and in frequent interchange of honest, +household sensibility--if we look about us on character, marking +distinctly what we can see, and feeling the prompting of a hundred +questions concerning what is out of our ken:--if we live thus, we shall +be good readers and critics of books, and improving ones." + +The second and third of these essays are on Biography and Fiction +respectively and principally; treating, however, of collateral subjects +as well. Deep is the relation between the life shadowed forth in a +biography, and the life in a man's brain which he shadows forth in a +fiction--when that fiction is of the highest order, and written in love, +is beheld even by the writer himself with reverence. Delightful, surely, +it must be; yes, awful too, to read to-day the embodiment of a man's +noblest thought, to follow the hero of his creation through his +temptations, contests, and victories, in a world which likewise is-- + + "All made out of the carver's brain;" + +and to-morrow to read the biography of this same writer. What of his own +ideal has he realized? Where can the life-fountain be detected within +him which found issue to the world's light and air, in this ideal self? +Shall God's fiction, which is man's reality, fall short of man's +fiction? Shall a man be less than what he can conceive and utter? Surely +it will not, cannot end thus. If a man live at all in harmony with the +great laws of being--if he will permit the working out of God's idea in +him, he must one day arrive at something greater than what now he can +project and behold. Yet, in biography, we do not so often find traces of +those struggles depicted in the loftier fiction. One reason may be that +the contest is often entirely within, and so a man may have won his +spiritual freedom without any outward token directly significant of the +victory; except, if he be an artist, such expression as it finds in +fiction, whether the fiction be in marble, or in sweet harmonies, or in +ink. Nor can we determine the true significance of any living act; for +being ourselves within the compass of the life-mystery, we cannot hold +it at arm's length from us and look at its lines of configuration. Nor +of a life can we in any measure determine the success by what we behold +of it. It is to us at best but a truncated spire, whose want of +completion may be the greater because of the breadth of its base, and +its slow taper, indicating the lofty height to which it is intended to +aspire. The idea of our own life is more than we can embrace. It is not +ours, but God's, and fades away into the infinite. Our comprehension is +finite; we ourselves infinite. We can only trust in God and do the +truth; then, and then only, is our life safe, and sure both of +continuance and development. + +But the reviewer perhaps too often merely steals his author's text and +writes upon it; or, like a man who lies in bed thinking about a dream +till its folds enwrap him and he sinks into the midst of its visions, he +forgets his position of beholding, and passes from observation into +spontaneous utterance. What says our author about "biography, +autobiography, and history?" This lecture has pleased the reviewer most +of the four. Reading it in a lonely place, under a tree, with wide +fields and slopes around, it produced on his mind the two effects which +perhaps Mr. Lynch would most wish it should produce--namely, first, a +longing to lead a more true and noble life; and, secondly, a desire to +read more biography. Nor can he but hope that it must produce the same +effect on every earnest reader, on every one whose own biography would +not be altogether a blank in what regards the individual will and +spiritual aim. + +"In meditative hours, when we blend despair of ourself with complaint of +the world, the biography of a man successful in this great business of +living is as the visit of an angel sent to strengthen us. Give the +soldier his sword, the farmer his plough, the carpenter his hammer and +nails, the manufacturer his machines, the merchant his stores, and the +scholar his books; these are but implements; the man is more than his +work or tools. How far has he fulfilled the law of his being, and +attained its desire? Is his life a whole; the days as threads and as +touches; the life, the well-woven garment, the well-painted picture? +Which of two sacrifices has he offered--the one so acceptable to the +powers of dark worlds, the other so acceptable to powers of bright +ones--that of soul to body, or that of body to soul? Has he slain what +was holiest in him to obtain gifts from Fashion or Mammon? Or has he, in +days so arduous, so assiduous, that they are like a noble army of +martyrs, made burnt-offering of what was secondary, throwing into the +flames the salt of true moral energy and the incense of cordial +affections? We want the work to show us by its parts, its mass, its +form, the qualities of the man, and to see that the man is perfected +through his work as well as the work finished by his effort." + +Perhaps the highest moral height which a man can reach, and at the same +time the most difficult of attainment, is the willingness to be +_nothing_ relatively, so that he attain that positive excellence which +the original conditions of his being render not merely possible, but +imperative. It is nothing to a man to be greater or less than +another--to be esteemed or otherwise by the public or private world in +which he moves. Does he, or does he not, behold, and love, and live, the +unchangeable, the essential, the divine? This he can only do according +as God hath made him. He can behold and understand God in the least +degree, as well as in the greatest, only by the godlike within him; and +he that loves thus the good and great, has no room, no thought, no +necessity for comparison and difference. The truth satisfies him. He +lives in its absoluteness. God makes the glow-worm as well as the star; +the light in both is divine. If mine be an earth-star to gladden the +wayside, I must cultivate humbly and rejoicingly its green earth-glow, +and not seek to blanch it to the whiteness of the stars that lie in the +fields of blue. For to deny God in my own being is to cease to behold +him in any. God and man can meet only by the man's becoming that which +God meant him to be. Then he enters into the house of life, which is +greater than the house of fame. It is better to be a child in a green +field than a knight of many orders in a state ceremonial. + +"One biography may help conjecture or satisfy reason concerning the +story of a thousand unrecorded lives. And how few even of the deserving +among the multitude can deserve, as 'dear sons of memory,' to be shrined +in the public heart. Few of us die unwept, but most of us unwritten. We +shall find a grave--less certainly a tombstone--and with much less +likelihood a biographer. Those 'bright particular' stars that at evening +look towards us from afar, yet still are individual in the distance, are +at clearest times but about a thousand; but the milky lustre that runs +through mid heaven is composed of a million million lights, which are +not the less separate because seen undistinguishably. Absorbed, not +lost, in the multitude of the unrecorded, our private dear ones make +part in this mild, blissful shining of the 'general assembly,' the great +congregation of the skies. Thus the past is aglow with the unwritten, +the nameless. The leaders, sons of fame, conspicuous in lustre, eminent +in place; these are the few, whose great individuality burns with +distinct, starry light through the dark of ages. Such stars, without the +starry way, would not teach us the vastness of heaven; and the 'way,' +without these, were not sufficient to gladden and glorify the night with +pomp of Hierarchical Ascents of Domination." + +There are many passages in this essay with which the reviewer would be +glad to enrich his notice of the book, but limitation of space, and +perhaps justice to the essay itself, which ought to be read in its own +completeness, forbid. Mr. Lynch looks to the heart of the matter, and +makes one put the question--"Would not a biography written by Mr. Lynch +himself be a valuable addition to this kind of literature?" His would +not be an interesting account of outward events and relationships and +progress, nor even a succession of revelations of inward conditions, but +we should expect to find ourselves elevated by him to a point of view +from which the life of the man would assume an artistic individuality, +as it were an isolation of existence; for the supposed author could not +choose for his regard any biography for which this would be impossible; +or in which the reticulated nerves of purpose did not combine the whole, +with more or less of success, into a true and remarkable unity. One +passage more from this essay,-- + +"Biography, then, makes life known to us as more wealthy in character, +and much more remarkable in its every-day stories, than we had deemed +it. Another good it does us is this. It introduces us to some of our +most agreeable and stimulative friendships. People may be more +beneficially intimate with one they never saw than even with a neighbour +or brother. Many a solitary, puzzled, incommunicative person, has found +society provided, his riddle read, and his heart's secret, that longed +and strove for utterance, outspoken for him in a biography. And both a +love purer than any yet entertained may be originated, and a pure but +ungratified love already existing, find an object, by the visit of a +biography. In actual life you see your friend to-day, and will see him +again to-morrow or next year; but in the dear book, you have your friend +and all his experiences at once and ever. He is with you wholly, and may +be with you at any time. He lives for you, and has already died for you, +to give finish to the meaning, fulness, and sanctity, to the comfort of +his days. He is mysteriously above as well as before you, by this fact, +that he has died. Thus your intimate is your superior, your solace, but +your support, too, and an example of the victory to which he calls you. +His end, or her end, is our own in view, and the flagging spirit +revives. We see the goal, and gird our loins anew for the race. Or, +speaking of things minor, there is fresh prospect of the game, there is +companionship in the hunt, and spirit for the winning. Such biography, +too, is a mirror in which we see ourselves; and we see that we may trim +or adorn, or that the plain signs of our deficient health or ill-ruled +temper may set us to look for, and to use the means of improvement. But +such a mirror is as a water one; in which first you may see your face, +and which then becomes for you a bath to wash away the stains you see, +and to offer its pure, cool stream as a restorative and cosmetic for +your wrinkles and pallors. And what a pleasure there will be sometimes +as we peruse a biography, in finding another who is so like +ourself--saying the same things, feeling the same dreads, and shames, and +flutterings; hampered and harassed much as poor self is. Then, the +escapes of such a friend give us hope of deliverance for ourself; and +his better, or if not better, yet rewarded, patience, freshens our eye +and sinews, and puts a staff into our hand. And certain seals of +impossibility that we had put on this stone, and on that, beneath which +our hopes lay buried, are by this biography, as by a visiting angel, +effectually broken, and our hopes arise again. Our view of life becomes +more complete because we see the whole of his, or of hers. We view life, +too, in a more composed, tender way. Wavering faith, in its chosen +determining principles, is confirmed. In quiet comparison of ourselves +with one of our own class, or one who has made the mark for which we are +striving, we are shamed to have done no better, and stirred to attempt +former things again, or fresh ones in a stronger and more patient +spirit." + +It is, indeed, well with him who has found a friend whose spirit touches +his own and illuminates it. + + "I missed him when the sun began to bend; + I found him not when I had lost his rim; + With many tears I went in search of him, + Climbing high mountains which did still ascend, + And gave me echoes when I called my friend; + Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim, + And high cathedrals where the light was dim; + Through books, and arts, and works without an end-- + But found him not, the friend whom I had lost. + And yet I found him, as I found the lark, + A sound in fields I heard but could not mark; + I found him nearest when I missed him most, + I found him in my heart, a life in frost, + A light I knew not till my soul was dark." + +Next to possessing a true, wise, and victorious friend seated by your +fireside, it is blessed to have the spirit of such a friend +embodied--for spirit can assume any embodiment--on your bookshelves. But +in the latter case the friendship is all on one side. For full +friendship your friend must love you, and know that you love him. Surely +these biographies are not merely spiritual links connecting us in the +truest manner with past times and vanished minds, and thus producing +strong half friendships. Are they not likewise links connecting us with +a future, wherein these souls shall dawn upon ours, rising again from +the death of the past into the life of our knowledge and love? Are not +these biographies letters of introduction, forwarded, but not yet +followed by him whom they introduce, for whose step we listen, and whose +voice we long to hear; and whom we shall yet meet somewhere in the +Infinite? Shall I not one day, "somewhere, somehow," clasp the large +hand of Novalis, and, gazing on his face, compare his features with +those of Saint John? + +The essay on light literature must be left to the spontaneous +appreciation of those who are already acquainted with this book, or who +may be induced, by the representations here made, to become acquainted +with it. Before proceeding to notice the first essay in the little +volume, namely, that on Poetry, its subject suggests the fact of the +publication of a second edition of the Memorials of Theophilus Trinal, +by the same author, a portion of which consists of interspersed poems. +These are of true poetic worth; and although in some cases wanting in +rhythmic melody, yet in most of these cases they possess a wild and +peculiar rhythm of their own. The reviewer knows of some whose hearts +this book has made glad, and doubtless there are many such. + +The essay on Poetry is itself poetic throughout in its expression. And +how else shall Poetry be described than by Poetry? What form shall +embrace and define the highest? Must it not be self-descriptive as +self-existent? For what man is to this planet, what the eye is to man +himself, Poetry is to Literature. Yet one can hardly help wishing that +the poetic forms in this Essay were fewer and less minute, and the whole +a little more scientific; though it is a question how far we have a +right to ask for this. As you open it, however, the pages seem +absolutely to sparkle, as if strewn with diamond sparks. It is no dull, +metallic, surface lustre, but a shining from within, as well as from the +superficies. Still one cannot deny that fancy is too prominent in Mr. +Lynch's writings. It is true that his Fancy is the fairy attendant on +his Imagination, which latter uses the former for her own higher ends; +and that there is little or no _mere_ fancy to be found in his books; +for if you look below the surface-form you find a truth. But it were to +be desired that the Truth clothed herself always in the living forms of +Imagination, and thus walked forth amongst her worshippers, looking on +them from living eyes, rather than that she should show herself through +the windows of fancy. Sometimes there may be an offence against taste, +as in page 20; sometimes an image may be expanded too much, and +sometimes the very exuberance of imaginative fancy (if the combination +be correct) may lead to an association of images that suggests +incongruity. Still the essay is abundantly beautiful and true. The +poetical quotations are not isolated, or exposed to view as specimens, +but are worked into the web of the prose like the flowers in the damask, +and do their part in the evolution of the continuous thought. + +"If poetry, as light from the heart of God, is for our heart, that we +may brighten and distinguish individual things; if it is to transfigure +for us the round, dusk world as by an inner radiance; if it is to +present human life and history as Rembrandt pictures, in which darkness +serves and glorifies light; if, like light, formless in its essence, all +things shapen towards the perfection of their forms under its influence; +if, entering as through crevices in single beams, it makes dimmest +places cheerful and sacred with its golden touch: then must the heart of +the Poet in which this true light shineth be as a hospice on the +mountain pathways of the world, and his verse must be the lamp seen from +far that burns to tell us where bread and shelter, drink, fire, and +companionship, may be found; and he himself should have the +mountaineer's hardiness and resolution. From the heart as source, to the +heart in influence, Poetry comes. The inward, the upward, and the +onward, whether we speak of an individual or a nation, may not be +separated in our consideration. Deep and sacred imaginative meditations +are needed for the true earthward as well as for the heavenward progress +of men and peoples. And Poetry, whether old or new, streaming from the +heart moved by the powerful spirit of love, has influence on the heart +public and individual, and thence on the manners, laws, and institutions +of nations. If Poesy visit the length and breadth of a country after +years unfruitfully dull, coming like a showery fertilizing wind after +drought, the corners and the valley-hidings are visited too, and these +perhaps she now visits first, as these sometimes she has visited only. +For miles and for miles, the public corn, the bread of the nation's +life, is bettered; and in our own endeared spot, the roses, delight of +our individual eye and sense, yield us more prosperingly their colour +and their fragrance. For the universal sunshine which brightens a +thousand cities, beautifies ten thousand homesteads, and rejoices ten +times ten thousand hearts. And as rains in the mid season renew for +awhile the faded greenness of spring; and trees in fervent summers, when +their foliage has deepened or fully fixed its hue, bedeck themselves +through the fervency with bright midsummer shoots; so, by Poetry are the +youthful hues of the soul renewed, and truths that have long stood +full-foliaged in our minds, are by its fine influences empowered to put +forth fresh shoots. Thus age, which is a necessity for the body, may be +warded off as a disease from the soul, and we may be like the old man in +Chaucer, who had nothing hoary about him but his hairs-- + + "'Though I be hoor I fare as doth a tree + That blosmeth er the fruit ywoxen be, + The blosmy tree n' is neither drie ne ded: + I feel me nowhere hoor, but on my head. + Min herte and all my limmes ben as grene + As laurel through the yere is for to sene.'" + +Hear our author again as to the calling of the poet:-- + +"To unite earthly love and celestial--'true to the kindred points of +heaven and home;' to reconcile time and eternity; to draw presage of +joy's victory from the delight of the secret honey dropping from the +clefts of rocky sorrow; _to harmonize our instinctive longings for the +definite and the infinite, in the ideal Perfect_; to read creation as a +human book of the heart, both plain and mystical, and divinely written: +such is the office fulfilled by best-loved poets. Their ladder of +celestial ascent must be fixed on its base, earth, if its top is to +securely rest on heaven." + +Beautifully, too, does he describe the birth of Poetry; though one may +doubt its correctness, at least if attributed to the highest kind of +poetry. + +"When words of felt truth were first spoken by the first pair, in love +of their garden, their God, and one another, and these words were with +joyful surprise felt to be in their form and glow answerable to the +happy thought uttered; then Poetry sprang. And when the first Father and +first Mother, settling their soul upon its thought, found that thought +brighten; and when from it, as thus they mused, like branchlets from a +branch, or flowerets from their bud, other thoughts came, ranging +themselves by the exerted, yet painlessly exerted, power of the soul, in +an order felt to be beautiful, and of a sound pleasant in utterance to +ear and soul; being withal, through the sweetness of their impression on +the heart, fixed for memory's frequentest recurrence; then was the +world's first poem composed, and in the joyful flutter of a heart that +had thus become a maker, the maker of a 'thing of beauty,' like in +beauty even unto God's heaven, and trees, and flowers, the secret of +Poesy shone tremulously forth." + +Whether this be so or not, the highest poetic feeling of which we are +now conscious springs not from the beholding of perfected beauty, but +from the mute sympathy which the creation with all its children +manifests with us in the groaning and travailing which looketh for the +sonship. Because of our need and aspiration, the snowdrop gives birth in +our hearts to a loftier spiritual and poetic feeling, than the rose most +complete in form, colour, and odour. The rose is of Paradise--the +snowdrop is of the striving, hoping, longing Earth. Perhaps our highest +poetry is the expression of our aspirations in the sympathetic forms of +visible nature. Nor is this merely a longing for a restored Paradise; +for even in the ordinary history of men, no man or woman that has fallen +can be restored to the position formerly occupied. Such must rise to a +yet higher place, whence they can behold their former standing far +beneath their feet. They must be restored by attaining something better +than they ever possessed before, or not at all. If the law be a +weariness, we must escape it by being filled with the spirit, for not +otherwise can we fulfil the law than by being above the law. There is +for us no escape, save as the Poet counsels us:-- + + "Is thy strait horizon dreary? + Is thy foolish fancy chill? + Change the feet that have grown weary, + For the wings that never will. + Burst the flesh and live the spirit; + Haunt the beautiful and far; + Thou hast all things to inherit, + And a soul for every star." + +But the Reviewer must hasten to take leave, though unwillingly, of this +pleasing, earnest, and profitable book. Perhaps it could be wished that +the writer helped his readers a little more into the channel of his +thought; made it easier for them to see the direction in which he is +leading them; called out to them, "Come up hither," before he said, "I +will show you a thing." But the Reviewer says this with deference; and +takes his leave with the hope that Mr. Lynch will be listened to for two +good reasons: first, that he speaks the truth; last, that he has already +suffered for the Truth's sake. + + + + +THE HISTORY AND HEROES OF MEDICINE. + + +[Footnote: By J. Rutherfurd Russell, M.D.] + +In this volume, Dr. Russell has not merely aimed at the production of a +book that might be serviceable to the Faculty, by which the history of +its own art is not at all sufficiently studied, but has aspired to the +far more difficult success of writing a history of medicine which shall +be readable to all who care for true history--that history, namely, in +which not merely growth and change are represented, but the secret +supplies and influences as well, which minister to the one and occasion +the other. If the difficulty has been greater (although with his +evidently wide sympathies and keen insight into humanity we doubt if it +has), the success is the more honourable; for a success it certainly is. +The partially biographical plan on which he has constructed his work has +no doubt aided in the accomplishment of this purpose; for it is much +easier to present the subject in its human relations, when its history +is given in connexion with the lives of those who were most immediately +associated with it. But it would be a great mistake to conclude from +this, that it is the less a history of the art itself; for no art or +science has life in itself, apart from the minds which foresee, +discover, and verify it. Whatever point in its progress it may have +reached, it will there remain until a new man appears, whose new +questions shall illicit new replies from nature--replies which are the +essential food of the science, by which it lives, grows, and makes +itself a history. + +Nor must our readers suppose that because the book is readable, it is +therefore slight, either in material or construction. Much reading and +research have provided the material, while real thought and argument +have superintended the construction. Nor is it by any means without the +adornment that a poetic temperament and a keen sense of humour can +supply. + +Naturally, the central life in the book is that of Lord Bacon, the man +who brought out of his treasures things both new and old. Up to him the +story gradually leads from the prehistoric times of Aesculapius, the +pathway first becoming plainly visible in the life and labours of +Hippocrates. His fine intellect and powers of acute observation afforded +the material necessary for the making of a true physician. The Greek +mind, partly, perhaps, from its artistic tendencies, seems to have been +peculiarly impatient of incomplete forms, and therefore, to have much +preferred the construction of a theory from the most shadowy material, +to the patient experiment and investigation necessary for the procuring +of the real substance; and Hippocrates, not knowing how to advance to a +theory by rational experiment, and too honest to invent one, assumes the +traditional theories, founded on the vaguest and most obtrusive +generalizations. Those which his experience taught him to reject, were +adopted and maintained by Galen and all who followed him for centuries, +the chief instance of progress being only the substitution by the +Arabians of some of the milder medicines now in use, for the terrible +and often fatal drugs employed by the Greek and Roman physicians. The +fanciful classification of diseases into four kinds--hot, cold, moist +and dry, with the corresponding arbitrary classification of remedies to +be administered by contraries, continued to be the only recognized +theory of medicine for many centuries after the Christian era. + +But Lord Bacon, amongst other branches of knowledge which he considers +ill-followed, makes especial mention of medicine, which he would submit +to the same rules of observation and experiment laid down by him for the +advancement of learning in general. With regard to it, as with regard to +the discovery of all the higher laws of nature, he considers "that men +have made too untimely a departure, and too remote a recess from +particulars." Men have hurried to conclusions, and then argued from them +as from facts. Therefore let us have no traditional theories, and make +none for ourselves but such as are revealed in the form of laws to the +patient investigator, who has "straightened and held fast Proteus, that +he might be compelled to change his shapes," and so reveal his nature. +Hence one of the aspects in which Lord Bacon was compelled to appear was +that of a destroyer of what preceded. In this he resembled Cardan and +Paracelsus who went before him, and who like him pulled down, but could +not, like him, build up. He resembled them, however, in the possession +of another element of character, namely, that poetic imagination which +looks abroad into the regions of possibilities, and foresees or invents. +But in the case of the charlatan, the vaguest suggestions of his mind in +its favourite mood, is adopted as a theory all but proved, if not as a +direct revelation to the favoured individual; while the true thinker +seeks but an hypothesis corresponding in some measure to facts already +discovered, in order that he may have the suggestion of new experiments +and investigations in the course of his attempts to verify or disprove +the hypothesis. Lord Bacon considered hypothesis invaluable in the +discovery of truth, but he only used it as a board upon which to write +his questions to nature; or, to use another figure, hypothesis with him +is as the next stepping-stone in the swollen river, which he supposes to +be here or there, and so feels for with his staff. But it must be proved +before it be regarded as a law, and greatly corroborated before it be +even adopted as a theory. Cardan and Paracelsus were destroyers and +mystics only; they destroyed on the earth that they might build in the +air: Lord Bacon united both characters in the philosopher. He looked +abroad into the regions of the unknown, whence all knowledge comes; he +called wonder the seed of knowledge; but he would build nowhere but on +the earth--on the firm land of ascertained truth. That which kept him +right was his practical humanity. It was for the sake of delivering men +from the ills of life, by discovering the laws of the elements amidst +which that life must be led, that he laboured and thought. This object +kept him true, made him able to discover the very laws of discovery; +brought him so far into _rapport_ with the heart of nature herself, +that, like a physical prophet, his seeing could outspeed his knowing, +and behold a law--dimly, it is true, but yet behold it--long before his +intellect, which had to build bridges and find straw to make the bricks, +could dare to affirm its approach to the same conclusion. Truth to +humanity made him true to fact; and truth to fact made him true in +theory. + +It was in this spirit of devotion to his kind that he said, "Therefore +here is the deficience which I find, that physicians have not ... set +down and delivered over certain experimental medicines for the cure of +particular diseases." + +Dr. Russell's true insight into the relation of Lord Bacon to the +medical as well as to all science, has suggested the above remarks. What +our author chiefly desires is, that the same principles which made +medicine what it is, should be allowed to carry it yet further, and make +it what it ought to be, and must become. As he goes on to show, through +succeeding lives and theories, that just in proportion as these +principles have been followed--the principles of careful observation, +hypothesis, and experiment--have men made discoveries that have been +helpful to their fellow-men; while, on the other hand, the most +elaborate theories of the most popular physicians, which have owed their +birth to premature generalization and invention, have passed away, like +the crackling of thorns under a pot. Belonging to the latter class of +men, we have Stahl, Hoffman, Boerhaave, Cullen, and Brown; while to the +former belong Harvey, Sydenham, Jenner, and Hahnemann. + +After the last name, there is no need to say that our author is a +homoeopath. Whatever may be our private opinion of the system, justice +requires that we should say at least that books such as these are quite +as open to refutation as to ridicule; for it is only a good argument +that is worth refuting by a better. But we fear there are few books on +this subject that treat of it with the calmness and fairness which would +incline an honest homoeopath to put them into the hands of one of the +opposite party as an exposition of his opinions. There is no excitement +in these pages. They are the work of a man of liberal education, of +refinement, and of truthfulness, with power to understand, and facility +to express; one of whose main objects is to vindicate for homoeopathy, +on the most rightful of all grounds--those on which alone science can +stand--on the ground, that is, of laws discovered by observation and +experiment--the place not only of a fact in the history of medicine, but +the right to be considered as one of the greatest advances towards the +establishment of a science of curing. Certainly if he and the rest of +its advocates should fail utterly in this, the heresy will yet have +established for itself a memorial in history, as one of the most +powerful illusions that have ever deceived both priests and people. But +the chief advantage which the system will derive from Dr. Russell's book +will spring, it seems to us, from his attempt--a successful one it must +be confessed--to prove _that homoeopathy is a development, and not a +mere reaction_; that it has its roots far down in the history of +science. The first mention of it in the book, however, is made for the +purpose of disavowing the claim, advanced by many homoeopathists, to +Hippocrates as one of their order. Not to mention the curious story +about Galen and the patient ill from an overdose of theriacum, who was +cured by another dose of the same substance, nor the ridicule of the +doctrine of contraries by Paracelsus and Van Helmont, nor the fact that +the _contraries_ of Boerhaave, by his own explanation, merely signify +whatever substances prove their contrariety to the disease by curing +it--to pass by these, we find one of the main objects of homoeopathy, +the discovery of specifics, insisted upon by Lord Bacon in his words +already quoted. Not that homoeopaths, while they depend upon specifics, +believe that there is any such thing as a specific for a disease--a +disease being as various as the individuality of the human beings whom +it may attack; but that an approximate specific may be found for every +well-defined stage in every individual disease; a disease having its +process of change, development, and decline, like a vegetable or animal +life. Besides an equally strong desire for specifics, and a determined +opposition to compound medicines, Boyle, who was born the year of +Bacon's death, and inherited the mantle of the great philosopher, +manifests a strong belief in the power of the infinitesimal dose. +Neither Bacon nor Boyle, however, were medical men by profession. But +Sydenham followed them, according to Dr. Russell, in their tendency +towards specifics. It is almost needless to mention Jenner's victory +over the small-pox as, in the eyes of the homoeopaths, a grand step in +the development of their system. It gives Dr. Russell an opportunity of +showing in a strong instance that the best discoveries for delivering +mankind from those ills even of which they are most sensible have been +received with derision, with more than bare unbelief. This is one of his +objects in the book, and while it is no proof whatever of the truth of +homoepathy, it shows at least that the opposition manifested to it is no +proof of its falsehood. This is enough; for it seeks to be tried on its +own merits; and its foes are bound to accord it this when it is +advocated in such an honest and dignified manner as in the book before +us. + +The need of man, in physics as well as in higher things, is the guide to +truth. With evils of any sort we need no further acquaintance than may +be gained in the endeavour to combat them. The discovery of what will +cure diseases seems the only natural mode of rising by generalization to +the discovery of the laws of cure and the nature of disease. + +Those portions of the volume which discuss the influence of Christianity +on the healing art, likewise those relating to the different feelings +with which at different times in different countries physicians have +been regarded, are especially interesting. + +The only portion of the book we should be inclined to find fault with, +as to the quality of the thought expended upon it, is the dissertation +in the second chapter on the [Greek: psuchae] and [Greek: pneuma]. We +doubt likewise whether the author gives the Archaeus of Van Helmont +quite fair play; but these are questions so purely theoretical that they +scarcely admit of discussion here. We rise from the perusal of the +book, whatever may be our feelings with regard to the truth or falsehood +of the system it advocates, with increased respect for the profession of +medicine, with enlarged hope for its future, and with a strong feeling +of the nobility conferred by the art upon every one of its practitioners +who is aware of the dignity of his calling. + + + + +WORDSWORTH'S POETRY + + +[Footnote: Delivered extempore at Manchester.] + +The history of the poetry of Wordsworth is a true reflex of the man +himself. The life of Wordsworth was not outwardly eventful, but his +inner life was full of conflict, discovery, and progress. His outward +life seems to have been so ordered by Providence as to favour the +development of the poetic life within. Educated in the country, and +spending most of his life in the society of nature, he was not subjected +to those violent external changes which have been the lot of some poets. +Perfectly fitted as he was to cope with the world, and to fight his way +to any desired position, he chose to retire from it, and in solitude to +work out what appeared to him to be the true destiny of his life. + +The very element in which the mind of Wordsworth lived and moved was a +Christian pantheism. Allow me to explain the word. The poets of the Old +Testament speak of everything as being the work of God's hand:--We are +the "work of his hand;" "The world was made by him." But in the New +Testament there is a higher form used to express the relation in which +we stand to him--"We are his offspring;" not the work of his hand, but +the children that came forth from his heart. Our own poet Goldsmith, +with the high instinct of genius, speaks of God as having "loved us into +being." Now I think this is not only true with regard to man, but true +likewise with regard to the world in which we live. This world is not +merely a thing which God hath made, subjecting it to laws; but it is an +expression of the thought, the feeling, the heart of God himself. And so +it must be; because, if man be the child of God, would he not feel to be +out of his element if he lived in a world which came, not from the heart +of God, but only from his hand? This Christian pantheism, this belief +that God is in everything, and showing himself in everything, has been +much brought to the light by the poets of the past generation, and has +its influence still, I hope, upon the poets of the present. We are not +satisfied that the world should be a proof and varying indication of the +intellect of God. That was how Paley viewed it. He taught us to believe +there is a God from the mechanism of the world. But, allowing all the +argument to be quite correct, what does it prove? A mechanical God, and +nothing more. + +Let us go further; and, looking at beauty, believe that God is the first +of artists; that he has put beauty into nature, knowing how it will +affect us, and intending that it should so affect us; that he has +embodied his own grand thoughts thus that we might see them and be glad. +Then, let us go further still, and believe that whatever we feel in the +highest moments of truth shining through beauty, whatever comes to our +souls as a power of life, is meant to be seen and felt by us, and to be +regarded not as the work of his hand, but as the flowing forth of his +heart, the flowing forth of his love of us, making us blessed in the +union of his heart and ours. + +Now, Wordsworth is the high priest of nature thus regarded. He saw God +present everywhere; not always immediately, in his own form, it is true; +but whether he looked upon the awful mountain-peak, sky-encompassed with +loveliness, or upon the face of a little child, which is as it were eyes +in the face of nature--in all things he felt the solemn presence of the +Divine Spirit. By Keats this presence was recognized only as the spirit +of beauty; to Wordsworth, God, as the Spirit of Truth, was manifested +through the forms of the external world. + +I have said that the life of Wordsworth was so ordered as to bring this +out of him, in the forms of _his_ art, to the ears of men. In childhood +even his conscience was partly developed through the influences of +nature upon him. He thus retrospectively describes this special +influence of nature:-- + + One summer evening (led by her) I found + A little boat, tied to a willow tree, + Within a rocky cave, its usual home. + Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in, + Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth, + And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice + Of mountain echoes did my boat move on, + Leaving behind her still, on either side, + Small circles glittering idly in the moon, + Until they melted all into one track + Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows + Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point + With an unswerving line, I fixed my view + Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, + The horizon's utmost boundary; far above + Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. + She was an elfin pinnace; lustily + I dipped my oars into the silent lake, + And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat + Went heaving through the water like a swan; + When, from behind that craggy steep, till then + The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, + As if with voluntary power instinct, + Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, + And, growing still in stature, the grim shape + Towered up between me and the stars, and still + For so it seemed, with purpose of its own, + And measured motion like a living thing, + Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, + And through the silent water stole my way + Back to the covert of the willow tree; + There in her mooring place I left my bark, + And through the meadows homeward went, in grave + And serious mood; but after I had seen + That spectacle, for many days, my brain + Worked with a dim and undetermined sense + Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts + There hung a darkness, call it solitude, + Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes + Remained, no pleasant images of trees, + Of sea, or sky, no colours of green fields; + But huge and mighty forms, that do not live + Like living men, moved slowly through the mind + By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. + +Here we see that a fresh impulse was given to his life even in boyhood, +by the influence of nature. If we have had any similar experience, we +shall be able to enter into this feeling of Wordsworth's; if not, the +tale will be almost incredible. + +One passage more I would refer to, as showing what Wordsworth felt with +regard to nature, in his youth; and the growth that took place in him in +consequence. Nature laid up in the storehouse of his mind and heart her +most beautiful and grand forms, whence they might be brought, +afterwards, to be put to the highest human service. I quote only a few +lines from that poem, deservedly a favourite with all the lovers of +Wordsworth, "Lines written above Tintern Abbey:"-- + + I cannot paint + What then I was. The sounding cataract + Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, + The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, + Their colours and their forms, were then to me + An appetite; a feeling and a love, + That had no need of a remoter charm + By thought supplied, nor any interest + Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past, + And all its aching joys are now no more, + And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this + Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts + Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, + Abundant recompense. For I have learned + To look on nature, not as in the hour + Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes + The still, sad music of humanity, + Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power + To chasten and subdue. And I have felt + A presence that disturbs me with the joy + Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime + Of something far more deeply interfused, + Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, + And the round ocean, and the living air + And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; + A motion and a spirit, that impels + All thinking things, all objects of all thought, + And rolls through all things. + +In this little passage you see the growth of the influence of nature on +the mind of the poet. You observe, too, that nature passes into poetry; +that form is sublimed into speech. You see the result of the conjunction +of the mind of man, and the mind of God manifested in His works; spirit +coming to know the speech of spirit. The outflowing of spirit in nature +is received by the poet, and he utters again, in his form, what God has +already uttered in His. Wordsworth wished to give to man what he found +in nature. It was to him a power of good, a world of teaching, a +strength of life. He knew that nature was not his, and that his +enjoyment of nature was given to him that he might give it to man. It +was the birthright of man. + +But what did Wordsworth find in nature? To begin with the lowest; he +found amusement in nature. Right amusement is a part of teaching; it is +the childish form of teaching, and if we can get this in nature, we get +something that lies near the root of good. In proof that Wordsworth +found this, I refer to a poem which you probably know well, "The Daisy." +The poet sits playing with the flower, and listening to the suggestions +that come to him of odd resemblances that this flower bears to other +things. He likens the daisy to-- + + A little cyclops, with one eye + Staring to threaten and defy, + That thought comes next--and instantly + The freak is over, + The shape will vanish--and behold + A silver shield with boss of gold, + That spreads itself, some faery bold + In fight to cover! + +Look at the last stanza, too, and you will see how close amusement may +lie to deep and earnest thought:-- + + Bright _Flower_! for by that name at last + When all my reveries are past, + I call thee, and to that cleave fast, + Sweet silent creature! + That breath'st with me in sun and air, + Do thou, as thou art wont, repair + My heart with gladness, and a share + Of thy meek nature! + +But Wordsworth found also joy in nature, which is a better thing than +amusement, and consequently easier to be found. We can often have joy +where we can have no amusement,-- + + I wandered lonely as a cloud + That floats on high o'er vales and hills + When all at once I saw a crowd, + A host, of golden daffodils; + Beside the lake, beneath the trees, + Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. + + * * * * * + + The waves beside them danced; but they + Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: + A poet could not but be gay, + In such a jocund company: + I gazed--and gazed--but little thought + What Health the show to me had brought. + + "For oft, when on my couch I lie + In vacant or in pensive mood, + They flash upon that inward eye + Which is the bliss of solitude; + And then my heart with pleasure fills, + And dances with the daffodils." + +This is the joy of the eye, as far as that can be separated from the joy +of the whole nature; for his whole nature rejoiced in the joy of the +eye; but it was simply joy; there was no further teaching, no attempt to +go through this beauty and find the truth below it. We are not always to +be in that hungry, restless condition, even after truth itself. If we +keep our minds quiet and ready to receive truth, and _sometimes_ are +hungry for it, that is enough. + +Going a step higher, you will find that he sometimes _draws_ a lesson +from nature, seeming almost to force a meaning from her. I do not object +to this, if he does not make too much of it as _existing_ in nature. It +is rather finding a meaning in nature that he brought to it. The meaning +exists, if not _there_. For illustration I refer to another poem. +Observe that Wordsworth found the lesson because he looked for it, and +_would_ find it. + + This Lawn, a carpet all alive + With shadows flung from leaves--to strive + In dance, amid a press + Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields + Of Worldlings revelling in the fields + Of strenuous idleness. + + * * * * * + + Yet, spite of all this eager strife, + This ceaseless play, the genuine life + That serves the steadfast hours, + Is in the grass beneath, that grows + Unheeded, and the mute repose + Of sweetly-breathing flowers. + +Whether he forced this lesson from nature, or not, it is a good lesson, +teaching a great many things with regard to life and work. + +Again, nature sometimes flashes a lesson on his mind; _gives_ it to +him--and when nature gives, we cannot but receive. As in this sonnet +composed during a storm,-- + + One who was suffering tumult in his soul + Yet failed to seek the sure relief of prayer, + Went forth; his course surrendering to the care + Of the fierce wind, while mid-day lightnings prowl + Insiduously, untimely thunders growl; + While trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers tear + The lingering remnant of their yellow hair, + And shivering wolves, surprised with darkness, howl + As if the sun were not. He raised his eye + Soul-smitten; for, that instant, did appear + Large space (mid dreadful clouds) of purest sky, + An azure disc--shield of Tranquillity; + Invisible, unlooked-for, minister + Of providential goodness ever nigh! + +Observe that he was not looking for this; he had not thought of praying; +he was in such distress that it had benumbed the out-goings of his +spirit towards the source whence alone sure comfort comes. He went out +into the storm; and the uproar in the outer world was in harmony with +the tumult within his soul. Suddenly a clear space in the sky makes him +feel--he has no time to think about it--that there is a shield of +tranquillity spread over him. For was it not as it were an opening up +into that region where there are no storms; the regions of peace, +because the regions of love, and truth, and purity,--the home of God +himself? + +There is yet a higher and more sustained influence exercised by nature, +and that takes effect when she puts a man into that mood or condition in +which thoughts come of themselves. That is perhaps the best thing that +can be done for us, the best at least that nature can do. It is +certainly higher than mere intellectual teaching. That nature did this +for Wordsworth is very clear; and it is easily intelligible. If the +world proceeded from the imagination of God, and man proceeded from the +love of God, it is easy to believe that that which proceeded from the +imagination of God should rouse the best thoughts in the mind of a being +who proceeded from the love of God. This I think is the relation between +man and the world. As an instance of what I mean, I refer to one of +Wordsworth's finest poems, which he classes under the head of "Evening +Voluntaries." It was composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendour +and beauty:-- + + "Had this effulgence disappeared + With flying haste, I might have sent, + Among the speechless clouds, a look + Of blank astonishment; + But 'tis endued with power to stay, + And sanctify one closing day, + That frail Mortality may see-- + What is?--ah no, but what _can_, be! + Time was when field and watery cove + With modulated echoes rang, + While choirs of fervent Angels sang + Their vespers in the grove; + Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, + Warbled, for heaven above and earth below, + Strains suitable to both. Such holy rite, + Methinks, if audibly repeated now + From hill or valley, could not move + Sublimer transport, purer love, + Than doth this silent spectacle--the gleam-- + The shadow--and the peace supreme! + + "No sound is uttered,--but a deep + And solemn harmony pervades + The hollow vale from steep to steep, + And penetrates the glades. + + * * * * * + + "Wings at my shoulders seem to play; + But, rooted here, I stand and gaze + On those bright steps that heaven-ward raise + Their practicable way. + Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, + And see to what fair countries ye are bound! + + * * * * * + + "Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve + No less than Nature's threatening voice, + From THEE, if I would swerve, + Oh, let Thy grace remind me of the light + Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; + Which, at this moment, on my waking sight + Appears to shine, by miracle restored; + My soul, though yet confined to earth, + Rejoices in a second birth!" + +Picture the scene for yourselves; and observe how it moves in him the +sense of responsibility, and the prayer, that if he has in any matter +wandered from the right road, if he has forgotten the simplicity of +childhood in the toil of life, he may, from this time, remember the vow +that he now records--from this time to press on towards the things that +are unseen, but which are manifested through the things that are seen. I +refer you likewise to the poem "Resolution and Independence," commonly +called "The Leech Gatherer;" also to that grandest ode that has ever +been written, the "Ode on Immortality." You will find there, whatever +you may think of his theory, in the latter, sufficient proof that nature +was to him a divine teaching power. Do not suppose that I mean that man +can do without more teaching than nature's, or that a man with only +nature's teaching would have seen these things in nature. No, the soul +must be tuned to such things. Wordsworth could not have found such +things, had he not known something that was more definite and helpful to +him; but this known, then nature was full of teaching. When we +understand the Word of God, then we understand the works of God; when we +know the nature of an artist, we know his pictures; when we have known +and talked with the poet, we understand his poetry far better. To the +man of God, all nature will be but changeful reflections of the face of +God. + +Loving man as Wordsworth did, he was most anxious to give him this +teaching. How was he to do it? By poetry. Nature put into the crucible +of a loving heart becomes poetry. We cannot explain poetry +scientifically; because poetry is something beyond science. The poet may +be man of science, and the man of science may be a poet; but poetry +includes science, and the man who will advance science most, is the man +who, other qualifications being equal, has most of the poetic faculty in +him. Wordsworth defines poetry to be "the impassioned expression which +is on the face of science." Science has to do with the construction of +things. The casting of the granite ribs of the mighty earth, and all the +thousand operations that result in the manifestations on its surface, +this is the domain of science. But when there come the grass-bearing +meadows, the heaven-reared hills, the great streams that go ever +downward, the bubbling fountains that ever arise, the wind that wanders +amongst the leaves, and the odours that are wafted upon its wings; when +we have colour, and shape, and sound, then we have the material with +which poetry has to do. Science has to do with the underwork. For what +does this great central world exist, with its hidden winds and waters, +its upheavings and its downsinkings, its strong frame of rock, and its +heart of fire? What do they all exist for? Not for themselves surely, +but for the sake of this out-spreading world of beauty, that floats up, +as it were, to the surface of the shapeless region of force. Science has +to do with the one, and poetry with the other: poetry is "the +impassioned expression that is on the face of science." To illustrate it +still further. You are walking in the woods, and you find the first +primrose of the year. You feel almost as if you had found a child. You +know in yourself that you have found a new beauty and a new joy, though +you have seen it a thousand times before. It is a primrose. A little +flower that looks at me, thinks itself into my heart, and gives me a +pleasure distinct in itself, and which I feel as if I could not do +without. The impassioned expression on the face of this little outspread +flower is its childhood; it means trust, consciousness of protection, +faith, and hope. Science, in the person of the botanist, comes after +you, and pulls it to pieces to see its construction, and delights the +intellect; but the science itself is dead, and kills what it touches. +The flower exists not for it, but for the expression on its face, which +is its poetry,--that expression which you feel to mean a living thing; +that expression which makes you feel that this flower is, as it were, +just growing out of the heart of God. The intellect itself is but the +scaffolding for the uprearing of the spiritual nature. + +It will make all this yet plainer, if you can suppose a human form to be +created without a soul in it. Divine science _has_ put it together, but +only for the sake of the outshining soul that shall cause it to live, +and move, and have a being of its own in God. When you see the face +lighted up with soul, when you recognize in it thought and feeling, joy +and love, then you know that here is the end for which it was made. Thus +you see the relation that poetry has to science; and you find that, to +speak in an apparent paradox, the surface is the deepest after all; for, +through the surface, for the sake of which all this building went on, we +have, as it were, a window into the depths of truth. There is not a form +that lives in the world, but is a window cloven through the blank +darkness of nothingness, to let us look into the heart, and feeling, and +nature of God. So the surface of things is the best and the deepest, +provided it is not mere surface, but the impassioned expression, for the +sake of which the science of God has thought and laboured. + +Satisfied that this was the nature of poetry, and wanting to convey this +to the minds of his fellow-men, "What vehicle," Wordsworth may be +supposed to have asked himself, "shall I use? How shall I decide what +form of words to employ? Where am I to find the right language for +speaking such great things to men?" He saw that the poetry of the +eighteenth century (he was born in 1770) was not like nature at all, but +was an artificial thing, with no more originality in it than there would +be in a picture a hundred times copied, the copyists never reverting to +the original. You cannot look into this eighteenth century poetry, +excepting, of course, a great proportion of the poetry of Cowper and +Thompson, without being struck with the sort of agreement that nothing +should be said naturally. A certain set form and mode was employed for +saying things that ought never to have been said twice in the same way. +Wordsworth resolved to go back to the root of the thing, to the natural +simplicity of speech; he would have none of these stereotyped forms of +expression. "Where shall I find," said he, "the language that will be +simple and powerful?" And he came to the conclusion that the language of +the common people was the only language suitable for his purpose. Your +experience of the everyday language of the common people may be that it +is not poetical. True, but not even a poet can speak poetically in his +stupid moments. Wordsworth's idea was to take the language of the common +people in their uncommon moods, in their high and, consequently, simple +moods, when their minds are influenced by grief, hope, reverence, +worship, love; for then he believed he could get just the language +suitable for the poet. As far as that language will go, I think he was +right, if I may venture to give an opinion in support of Wordsworth. Of +course, there will occur necessities to the poet which would not be +comprehended in the language of a man whose thoughts had never moved in +the same directions, but the kind of language will be the right thing, +and I have heard such amongst the common people myself--language which +they did not know to be poetic, but which fell upon my ear and heart as +profoundly poetic both in its feeling and its form. + +In attempting to carry out this theory, I am not prepared to say that +Wordsworth never transgressed his own self-imposed laws. But he adhered +to his theory to the last. A friend of the poet's told me that +Wordsworth had to him expressed his belief that he would be remembered +longest, not by his sonnets, as his friend thought, but by his lyrical +ballads, those for which he had been reviled and laughed at; the most by +critics who could not understand him, and who were unworthy to read what +he had written. As a proof of this let me read to you three verses, +composing a poem that was especially marked for derision:-- + + She dwelt among the untrodden ways, + Beside the springs of Dove; + A maid whom there were none to praise, + And very few to love. + + A violet by a mossy stone. + Half hidden from the eye; + Fair as a star, when only one + Is shining in the sky. + + She lived unknown, and few could know + When Lucy ceased to be; + But she is in her grave, and Oh! + The difference to me. + +The last line was especially chosen as the object of ridicule; but I +think with most of us the feeling will be, that its very simplicity of +expression is overflowing in suggestion, it throws us back upon our own +experience; for, instead of trying to utter what he felt, he says in +those simple and common words, "You who have known anything of the kind, +will know what the difference to me is, and only you can know." "My +intention and desire," he says in one of his essays, "are that the +interest of the poem shall owe nothing to the circumstances; but that +the circumstances shall be made interesting by the thing itself." In +most novels, for instance, the attempt is made to interest us in +worthless, commonplace people, whom, if we had our choice, we would far +rather not meet at all, by surrounding them with peculiar and +extraordinary circumstances; but this is a low source of interest. +Wordsworth was determined to owe nothing to such an adventitious cause. +For illustration allow me to read that well-known little ballad, "The +Reverie of Poor Susan," and you will see how entirely it bears out what +he lays down as his theory. The scene is in London:-- + + At the corner of Wood-street, when daylight appears, + Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years; + Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard, + In the silence of morning, the song of the Bird. + + 'Tis a note of enchantment: what ails her? She sees + A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; + Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, + And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. + + Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, + Down which she so often has tripped with her pail; + And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, + The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. + + She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade, + The mist and the river, the hill and the shade: + The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, + And the colours have all passed away from her eyes! + +Is any of the interest here owing to the circumstances? Is it not a very +common incident? But has he not treated it so that it is not +_commonplace_ in the least? We recognize in this girl just the feelings +we discover in ourselves, and acknowledge almost with tears her +sisterhood to us all. + +I have tried to make you feel something of what Wordsworth attempts to +do, but I have not given you the best of his poems. Allow me to finish +by reading the closing portion of the _Prelude_, the poem that was +published after his death. It is addressed to Coleridge:-- + + Oh! yet a few short years of useful life, + And all will be complete, thy race be run, + Thy monument of glory will be raised; + Then, though (too weak to head the ways of truth) + This age fall back to old idolatry, + Though men return to servitude as fast + As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame + By nations sink together, we shall still + Find solace--knowing what we have learnt to know-- + Rich in true happiness, if allowed to be + Faithful alike in forwarding a day + Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work + (Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe) + Of their deliverance, surely yet to come. + Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak + A lasting inspiration, sanctified + By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved, + Others will love, and we will teach them how; + Instruct them how the mind of man becomes + A thousand times more beautiful than the earth + On which he dwells, above this frame of things + (Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes + And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged) + In beauty exalted, as it is itself + Of quality and fabric more divine. + + + + +SHELLEY. + + +Whatever opinion may be held with regard to the relative position +occupied by Shelley as a poet, it will be granted by most of those who +have studied his writings, that they are of such an individual and +original kind, that he can neither be hidden in the shade, nor lost in +the brightness, of any other poet. No idea of his works could be +conveyed by instituting a comparison, for he does not sufficiently +resemble any other among English writers to make such a comparison +possible. + +Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, near Horsham, in the +county of Sussex, on the 4th of August, 1792. He was the son of Timothy +Shelley, Esq., and grandson of Sir Bysshe Shelley, the first baronet. +His ancestors had long been large landed proprietors in Sussex. + +As a child his habits were noticeable. He was especially fond of +rambling by moonlight, of inventing wonderful tales, of occupying +himself with strange, and sometimes dangerous, amusements. At the age of +thirteen he went to Eton. In this little world, that determined +opposition to whatever appeared to him an invasion of human rights and +liberty, which was afterwards the animating principle of most of his +writings, was first roused in the mind of Shelley. Were we not aware of +far keener distress which he afterwards endured from yet greater +injustice, we might suppose that the sufferings he had to bear from +placing himself in opposition to the custom of the school, by refusing +to fag, had made him morbidly sensitive on the point of liberty. At a +time, however, when freedom of speech, as indicating freedom of thought, +was especially obnoxious to established authorities; when no allowance +could be made on the score of youth, still less on that of individual +peculiarity, Shelley became a student at Oxford. He was then eighteen. +Devoted to metaphysical speculation, and especially fond of logical +discussion, he, in his first year, printed and distributed among the +authorities and members of his college a pamphlet, if that can be called +a pamphlet which consisted only of two pages, in which he opposed the +usual arguments for the existence of a Deity; arguments which, perhaps, +the most ardent believers have equally considered inconclusive. Whether +Shelley wrote this pamphlet as an embodiment of his own opinions, or +merely as a logical confutation of certain arguments, the mode of +procedure adopted with him was certainly not one which necessarily +resulted from the position of those to whose care the education of his +opinions was entrusted. Without waiting to be assured that he was the +author, and satisfying themselves with his refusal to answer when +questioned as to the authorship, they handed him his sentence of +expulsion, which had been already drawn up in due form. + +About this time Shelley wrote, or commenced writing, _Queen Mab_, a poem +which he never published, although he distributed copies among his +friends. In after years he had such a low opinion of it in every +respect, that he regretted having printed it at all; and when an edition +of it was published without his consent, he applied to the Court of +Chancery for an injunction to suppress it. + +Shelley's opinions in politics and theology, which he appears to have +been far more anxious to maintain than was consistent with the peace of +the household, were peculiarly obnoxious to his father, a man as +different from his son as it is possible to conceive; and his expulsion +from Oxford was soon followed by exile from his home. He went to London, +where, through his sisters, who were at school in the neighbourhood, he +made the acquaintence of Harriet West brook, whom he eloped with and +married, when he was nineteen and she sixteen years of age. It seems +doubtful whether the attachment between them was more than the result of +the reception accorded by the enthusiasm of the girl to the enthusiasm +of the youth, manifesting itself in wild talk about human rights, and +equally wild plans for their recovery and security. However this may be, +the result was unfortunate. They wandered about England, Scotland, and +Ireland, with frequent and sudden change of residence, for rather more +than two years. During this time Shelley gained the friendship of some +of the most eminent men of the age, of whom the one who exercised the +most influence upon his character and future history was William Godwin, +whose instructions and expostulations tended to reduce to solidity and +form the vague and extravagant opinions and projects of the youthful +reformer. Shortly after the commencement of the third year of their +married life, an estrangement of feeling, which had been gradually +widening between them, resulted in the final separation of the poet and +his wife. We are not informed as to the causes of this estrangement, +further than that it seems to have been owing, in a considerable degree, +to the influence of an elder sister of Mrs. Shelley, who domineered over +her, and whose presence became at last absolutely hateful to Shelley. +His wife returned to her father's house; where, apparently about three +years after, she committed suicide. There seems to have been no +immediate connection between this act and any conduct of Shelley. One of +his biographers informs us, that while they were living happily +together, suicide was with Mrs. Shelley a favourite subject of +speculation and conversation. + +Shortly after his first wife's death, Shelley married the daughter of +William Godwin. He had lived with her almost from the date of the +separation, during which time they had twice visited Switzerland. In the +following year (1817), it was decreed in Chancery that Shelley was not a +proper person to take charge of his two children by his first wife, who +had lived with her till her death. The bill was filed in Chancery by +their grandfather, Mr. Westbrook. The effects of this proceeding upon +Shelley may be easily imagined. Perhaps he never recovered from them, +for they were not of a nature to pass away. During this year he resided +at Marlow, and wrote _The Revolt of Islam_, besides portions of other +poems; and the next year he left England, not to return. The state of +his health, for he had appeared to be in a consumption for some time, +and the fear lest his son, by his second wife, should be taken from him, +combined to induce him to take refuge in Italy from both impending +evils. At Lucca he began his _Prometheus_, and wrote _Julian and +Maddalo_. He moved from place to place in Italy, as he had done in his +own country. Their two children dying, they were for a time left +childless; but the loss of these grieved Shelley less than that of his +eldest two, who were taken from him by the hand of man. In 1819, Shelley +finished his _Prometheus Unbound_, writing the greater part at Rome, and +completing it at Florence. In this year also he wrote his tragedy, _The +Cenci_, which attracted more attention during his lifetime than any +other of his works. The _Ode to a Skylark_ was written at Leghorn in the +spring of 1820; and in August of the same year, the _Witch of Atlas_ was +written, near Pisa. In the following year Shelley and Byron met at Pisa. +They were a good deal together; but their friendship, although real, +does not appear to have been of a very profound nature; for though +unlikeness be one of the necessary elements of friendship, there are +kinds of unlikeness which will not harmonize. During all this time, he +was not only maligned by unknown enemies, and abused by anonymous +writers, but attempts of other kinds are said to have been made to +render his life as uncomfortable as possible. There are grounds, +however, for doubting whether Shelley was not subject to a kind of +monomania upon this and similar points. In 1821, he wrote his _Adonais_, +a monody on the death of Keats. Part of this poem had its origin in the +mistaken notion, that the illness and death of Keats were caused by a +brutal criticism of his _Endymion_, which appeared in the _Quarterly +Review_. The last verse of the _Adonais_ seems almost prophetic of his +own end. Passionately fond of boating, he and a friend of his, Mr. +Williams, united in constructing a boat of a peculiar build, a very fast +sailer, but difficult to manage. On the 8th of July, 1822, Shelley and +his friend Williams sailed from Leghorn for Lerici, on the Bay of +Spezia, near which lay his home for the time. A sudden squall came on, +and their boat disappeared. The bodies of the two friends were cast on +shore; and, according to quarantine regulations, were burned to ashes. +Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Mr. Trelawney were present when the body of +Shelley was burned; so that his ashes were saved, and buried in the +Protestant burial-ground at Rome, near the grave of Keats, whose body +had been laid there in the spring of the preceding year. _Cor Cordium_ +were the words inscribed by his widow on the tomb of the poet. + +The character of Shelley has been sadly maligned. Whatever faults he may +have committed against society, they were not the result of sensuality. +One of his biographers, who was his companion at Oxford, and who does +not seem inclined to do him _more_ than justice, asserts that while +there his conduct was immaculate. The whole picture he gives of the +youth, makes it easy to believe this. To discuss the moral question +involved in one part of his history would be out of place here; but even +on the supposition that a man's conduct is altogether inexcusable in +individual instances, there is the more need that nothing but the truth +should be said concerning that, and other portions thereof. And whatever +society may have thought itself justified in making subject of +reprobation, it must be remembered that Shelley was under less +obligation to society than most men. Yet his heart seemed full of love +to his kind; and the distress which the oppression of others caused him, +was the source of much of that wild denunciation which exposed him to +the contempt and hatred of those who were rendered uncomfortable by his +unsparing and indiscriminate anathemas. In private, he was beloved by +all who knew him; a steady, generous, self-denying friend, not only to +those who moved in his own circle, but to all who were brought within +the reach of any aid he could bestow. To the poor he was a true and +laborious benefactor. That man must have been good to whom the heart of +his widow returns with such earnest devotion and thankfulness in the +recollection of the past, and such fond hope for the future, as are +manifested by Mrs. Shelley in those extracts from her private journal +given us by Lady Shelley. + +As regards his religious opinions, one of the thoughts which most +strongly suggest themselves is,--how ill he must have been instructed in +the principles of Christianity! He says himself in a letter to Godwin, +"I have known no tutor or adviser (_not excepting my father_) from whose +lessons and suggestions I have not recoiled with disgust." So far is he +from being an opponent of Christianity properly so called, that one can +hardly help feeling what a Christian he would have been, could he but +have seen Christianity in any other way than through the traditional and +practical misrepresentations of it which surrounded him. All his attacks +on Christianity are, in reality, directed against evils to which the +true doctrines of Christianity are more opposed than those of Shelley +could possibly be. How far he was excusable in giving the name of +Christianity to what he might have seen to be only a miserable +perversion of it, is another question, and one which hardly admits of +discussion here. It was in the _name_ of Christianity, however, that the +worst injuries of which he had to complain were inflicted upon him. +Coming out of the cathedral at Pisa one day, [Footnote: From _Shelley +Memorials_, edited by Lady Shelley, which the writer of this paper has +principally followed in regard to the external facts of Shelley's +history.] Shelley warmly assented to a remark of Leigh Hunt, "that a +divine religion might be found out, if charity were really made the +principle of it instead of faith." Surely the founders of Christianity, +even when they magnified faith, intended thereby a spiritual condition, +of which the central principle is coincident with charity. Shelley's own +feelings towards others, as judged from his poetry, seem to be tinctured +with the very essence of Christianity. [Footnote: His _Essay on +Christianity_ is full of noble views, some of which are held at the +present day by some of the most earnest believers. At what time of his +life it was written we are not informed; but it seems such as would +insure his acceptance with any company of intelligent and devout +Unitarians.] He did not, at one time at least, believe that we could +know the source of our being; and seemed to take it as a self-evident +truth, that the Creator could not be like the creature. But it is unjust +to fix upon any utterance of opinion, and regard it as the religion of a +man who died in his thirtieth year, and whose habits of thinking were +such, that his opinions must have been in a state of constant change. +Coleridge says in a letter: "His (Shelley's) discussions, tending +towards atheism of a certain sort, would not have scared _me;_ for _me_ +it would have been a semitransparent larva, soon to be sloughed, and +through which I should have seen the true _image_--the final +metamorphosis. Besides, I have ever thought that sort of atheism the +next best religion to Christianity; nor does the better faith I have +learned from Paul and John interfere with the cordial reverence I feel +for Benedict Spinoza." + +Shelley's favourite study was metaphysics. The more impulse there is in +any direction, the more education and experience are necessary to +balance that impulse: one cannot help thinking that Shelley's _taste_ +for exercises of this kind was developed more rapidly than the +corresponding _power_. His favourite physical studies were chemistry and +electricity. With these he occupied himself from his childhood; +apparently, however, with more delight in the experiments themselves, +than interest in the general conclusions to be arrived at by means of +them. In the embodiment of his metaphysical ideas in poetry, the +influence of these studies seems to show itself; for he uses forms which +appeal more to the outer senses than to the inward eye; and his similes +belong to the realm of the fancy, rather than the imagination: they lack +_vital_ resemblance. Logic had considerable attractions for him. To +geometry and mathematics he was quite indifferent. One of his +biographers states that "he was neglectful of flowers," because he had +no interest in botany; but one who derived such full delight from the +contemplation of their external forms, could hardly be expected to feel +very strongly the impulse to dissect them. He derived exceeding pleasure +from Greek literature, especially from the works of Plato. + +Several little peculiarities in Shelley's tastes are worth mentioning, +because, although in themselves insignificant, they seem to correspond +with the nature of his poetry. Perhaps the most prominent of these was +his passion for boat-sailing. He could not pass any piece of water +without launching upon it a number of boats, constructed from what paper +he could find in his pockets. The fly-leaves of the books he was in the +way of carrying with him, for he was constantly reading, often went to +this end. He would watch the fate of these boats with the utmost +interest, till they sank or reached the opposite side. He was just as +fond of real boating, and that frequently of a dangerous kind; but it is +characteristic of him, that all the boats he describes in his poems are +of a fairy, fantastic sort, barely related to the boats which battle +with earthly winds and waves. Pistol-shooting was also a favourite +amusement. Fireworks, too, gave him great delight. Some of his habits +were likewise peculiar. He was remarkably abstemious, preferring bread +and raisins to anything else in the way of eating, and very seldom +drinking anything stronger than water. Honey was a favourite luxury with +him. While at college, his biographer Hogg says he was in the habit, +during the evening, of going to sleep on the rug, close to a blazing +fire, heat seeming never to have other than a beneficial effect upon +him. After sleeping some hours, he would awake perfectly restored, and +continue actively occupied till far into the morning. His whole +movements are represented as rapid, hurried, and uncertain. He would +appear and disappear suddenly and unexpectedly; forget appointments; +burst into wild laughter, heedless of his situation, whenever anything +struck him as peculiarly ludicrous. His changes of residence were most +numerous, and frequently made with so much haste that whole little +libraries were left behind, and often lost. He was very fond of +children, and used to make humorous efforts to induce them to disclose +to him the still-remembered secrets of their pre-existence. He seemed to +have a peculiar attraction towards mystery, and was ready to believe in +a hidden secret, where no one else would have thought of one. His room, +while he was at college, was in a state of indescribable confusion. Not +only were all sorts of personal necessaries mingled with books and +philosophical instruments, but things belonging to one department of +service were not unfrequently pressed into the slavery of another. He +dressed well but carelessly. In person he was tall, slender, and +stooping; awkward in gait, but in manners a thorough gentleman. His +complexion was delicate; his head, face, and features, remarkably small; +the last not very regular, but in expression, both intellectual and +moral, wonderfully beautiful. His eyes were deep blue, "of a wild, +strange beauty;" his forehead high and white; his hair dark brown, +curling, long, and bushy. His appearance in later life is described as +singularly combining the appearances of premature age and prolonged +youth. + +The only art in which his taste appears to have been developed was +poetry. Even in his poetry, taken as a whole, the artistic element is +not generally very manifest. His earliest verses (none of which are +included in his collected works) can hardly be said to be good in any +sense. He seems in these to have chosen poetry as a fitting material for +the embodiment of his ardent, hopeful, indignant thoughts and feelings, +but, provided he can say what he wants to say, does not seem to +care much about _how_ he says it. Indeed, there is too much of +this throughout his works; for if the _utterance_, instead of +the _conveyance_ of thought, were the object pursued in art, of +course not merely imperfection of language, but absolute external +unintelligibility, would be admissible. But his art constantly increases +with his sense of its necessity; so that the _Cenci_, which is the last +work of any pretension that he wrote, is decidedly the most artistic of +all. There are beautiful passages in _Queen Mab_, but it is the work of +a boy-poet; and as it was all but repudiated by himself, it is not +necessary to remark further upon it. _The Revolt of Islam_ is a poem of +twelve cantos, in the Spenserian stanza; but in all respects except the +arrangement of lines and rimes, his stanza, in common with all other +imitations of the Spenserian, has little or nothing of the spirit or +individuality of the original. The poem is dedicated to the cause of +freedom, and records the efforts, successes, defeats, and final +triumphant death of two inspired champions of liberty--a youth and +maiden. The adventures are marvellous, not intended to be within the +bounds of probability, scarcely of possibility. There are very noble +sentiments and fine passages throughout the poem. Now and then there is +grandeur. But the absence of art is too evident in the fact that the +meaning is often obscure; an obscurity not unfrequently occasioned by +the difficulty of the stanza, which is the most difficult mode of +composition in English, except the rigid sonnet. The words and forms he +employs to express thought seem sometimes mechanical devices for that +purpose, rather than an utterance which suggested itself naturally to a +mind where the thought was vitally present. The words are more a +_clothing_ for the thought than an _embodiment_ of it. They do not lie +near enough to the thing which is intended to be represented by them. It +is, however, but just to remark, that some of the obscurity is owing to +the fact, that, even with Mrs. Shelley's superintendence, the works have +not yet been satisfactorily edited, or at least not conducted through +the press with sufficient care. [Footnote: This statement is no longer +true.] + +_The Cenci_ is a very powerful tragedy, but unfitted for public +representation by the horrible nature of the historical facts upon which +it is founded. In the execution of it, however, Shelley has kept very +much nearer to nature than in any other of his works. He has rigidly +adhered to his perception of artistic propriety in respect to the +dramatic utterance. It may be doubted whether there is sufficient +difference between the modes of speech of the different actors in the +tragedy, but it is quite possible to individualize speech far too +minutely for probable nature; and in this respect, at least, Shelley has +not erred. Perhaps the action of the whole is a little hurried, and a +central moment of awful repose and fearful anticipation might add to the +force of the tragedy. The scenes also might, perhaps, have been +constructed so as to suggest more of evolution; but the central point of +horror is most powerfully and delicately handled. You see a possible +spiritual horror yet behind, more frightful than all that has gone +before. The whole drama, indeed, is constructed around, not a prominent +point, but a dim, infinitely-withdrawn, underground perspective of +dismay and agony. Perhaps it detracts a little from our interest in the +Lady Beatrice, that after all she should wish to live, and should seek +to preserve her life by a denial of her crime. She, however, evidently +justifies the denial to herself on the ground that, the deed being +absolutely right, although regarded as most criminal by her judges, the +only way to get true justice is to deny the fact, which, there being no +guilt, she might consider as only a verbal lie. Her very purity of +conscience enables her to utter this with the most absolute innocence of +look, and word, and tone. This is probably a historical fact, and +Shelley had to make the best of it. In the drama there is great +tenderness, as well as terror; but for a full effect, one feels it +desirable to be brought better acquainted with the individuals than the +drama, from its want of graduation, permits. Shelley, however, was only +six-and-twenty when he wrote it. He must have been attracted to the +subject by its embodying the concentration of tyranny, lawlessness, and +brutality in old Cenci, as opposed to, and exercised upon, an ideal +loveliness and nobleness in the person of Beatrice. + +But of all Shelley's works, the _Prometheus Unbound_ is that which +combines the greatest amount of individual power and peculiarity. There +is an airy grandeur about it, reminding one of the vast masses of cloud +scattered about in broken, yet magnificently suggestive forms, all over +the summer sky, after a thunderstorm. The fundamental ideas are grand; +the superstructure, in many parts, so ethereal, that one hardly knows +whether he is gazing on towers of solid masonry rendered dim and +unsubstantial by intervening vapour, or upon the golden turrets of +cloudland, themselves born of the mist which surrounds them with a halo +of glory. The beings of Greek, mythology are idealized and etherealized +by the new souls which he puts into them, making them think his thoughts +and say his words. In reading this, as in reading most of his poetry, we +feel that, unable to cope with the evils and wrongs of the world as it +and they are, he constructs a new universe, wherein he may rule +according to his will; and a good will in the main it is--good always in +intent, good generally in form and utterance. Of the wrongs which +Shelley endured from the collision and resulting conflict between his +lawless goodness and the lawful wickedness of those in authority, this +is one of the greatest,--that during the right period of pupillage, he +was driven from the place of learning, cast on his own mental resources +long before those resources were sufficient for his support, and +irritated against the purest embodiment of good by the harsh treatment +he received under its name. If that reverence which was far from wanting +to his nature, had been but presented, in the person of some guide to +his spiritual being, with an object worthy of its homage and trust, it +is probable that the yet free and noble result of Shelley's +individuality would have been presented to the world in a form which, +while it attracted still only the few, would not have repelled the many; +at least, not by such things as were merely accidental in their +association with his earnest desires and efforts for the well-being of +humanity. + +That which chiefly distinguishes Shelley from other writers is the +unequalled exuberance of his fancy. The reader, say for instance of that +fantastically brilliant poem, _The Witch of Atlas_, the work of three +days, is overwhelmed in a storm, as it were, of rainbow snow-flakes and +many-coloured lightnings, accompanied ever by "a low melodious thunder." +The evidences of pure imagination in his writings are unfrequent as +compared with those of fancy: there are not half the instances of the +direct embodiment of idea in form, that there are of the presentation of +strange resemblances between external things. + +One of the finest short specimens of Shelley's peculiar mode is his _Ode +to the West Wind_, full of mysterious melody of thought and sound. But +of all his poems, the most popular, and deservedly so, is the _Skylark_. +Perhaps the _Cloud_ may contest it with the _Skylark_ in regard to +popular favour; but the _Cloud_, although full of beautiful words and +fantastic cloud-like images, is, after all, principally a work of the +fancy; while the _Skylark_, though even in it fancy predominates over +imagination in the visual images, forms, as a whole, a lovely, true, +individual work of art; a _lyric_ not unworthy of the _lark_, which +Mason apostrophizes as "sweet feathered lyric." The strain of sadness +which pervades it is only enough to make the song of the lark human. + +In _The Sensitive Plant_, a poem full of the peculiarities of his +genius, tending through a wilderness of fanciful beauties to a thicket +of mystical speculation, one curious idiosyncrasy is more prominent than +in any other--curious, as belonging to the poet of beauty and +loveliness: it is the tendency to be fascinated by what is ugly and +revolting, so that he cannot withdraw his thoughts from it till he has +described it in language, powerful, it is true, and poetic, when +considered as to its fitness for the desired end, but, in force of these +very excellences in the means, nearly as revolting as the objects +themselves. Associated with this is the tendency to discover strangely +unpleasant likenesses between things; which likenesses he is not content +with seeing, but seems compelled, perhaps in order to get rid of them +himself, to force upon the observation of his reader. But the admirer of +Shelley is not pleased to find that one or two passages of this nature +have been omitted in some editions of his works. + +Few men have been more misunderstood or misrepresented than Shelley. +Doubtless this has in part been his own fault, as Coleridge implies when +he writes to this effect of him: that his horror of hypocrisy made him +speak in such a wild way, that Southey (who was so much a man of forms +and proprieties) was quite misled, not merely in his estimate of his +worth, but in his judgment of his character. But setting aside this +consideration altogether, and regarding him merely as a poet, Shelley +has written verse which will last as long as English literature lasts; +valuable not only from its excellence, but from the peculiarity of its +excellence. To say nothing of his noble aims and hopes, Shelley will +always be admired for his sweet melodies, lovely pictures, and wild +prophetic imaginings. His indignant remonstrances, intermingled with +grand imprecations, burst in thunder from a heart overcharged with the +love of his kind, and roused to a keener sense of all oppression by the +wrongs which sought to overwhelm himself. But as he recedes further in +time, and men are able to see more truly the proportions of the man, +they will judge, that without having gained the rank of a great +reformer, Shelley had in him that element of wide sympathy and lofty +hope for his kind which is essential both to the _birth_ and the +subsequent _making_ of the greatest of poets. + + + + +A SERMON. + + +[Footnote: Read in the Unitarian chapel, Essex-street, London, 1879.] + +PHILIPPIANS iii. 15, 16.--Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be +thus minded; and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal +even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let +us walk by that same. + + +This is the reading of the oldest manuscripts. The rest of the verse is +pretty clearly a not overwise marginal gloss that has crept into the +text. + +In its origin, opinion is the intellectual body, taken for utterance and +presentation by something necessarily larger than any intellect can +afford stuff sufficient for the embodiment of. To the man himself, +therefore, in whose mind it arose, an opinion will always represent and +recall the spirit whose form it is,--so long, at least, as the man +remains true to his better self. Hence, a man's opinion may be for him +invaluable, the needle of his moral compass, always pointing to the +truth whence it issued, and whose form it is. Nor is the man's opinion +of the less value to him that it may change. Nay, to be of true value, +it must have in it not only the possibility, but the necessity of +change: it must change in every man who is alive with that life which, +in the New Testament, is alone treated as life at all. For, if a man's +opinion be in no process of change whatever, it must be dead, valueless, +hurtful Opinion is the offspring of that which is itself born to grow; +which, being imperfect, must grow or die. Where opinion is growing, its +imperfections, however many and serious, will do but little hurt; where +it is not growing, these imperfections will further the decay and +corruption which must already have laid hold of the very heart of the +man. But it is plain in the world's history that what, at some given +stage of the same, was the embodiment in intellectual form of the +highest and deepest of which it was then spiritually capable, has often +and speedily become the source of the most frightful outrages upon +humanity. How is this? Because it has passed from the mind in which it +grew into another in which it did not grow, and has of necessity altered +its nature. Itself sprung from that which was deepest in the man, it +casts seeds which take root only in the intellectual understanding of +his neighbour; and these, springing up, produce flowers indeed which +look much the same to the eye, but fruit which is poison and +bitterness,--worst of it all, the false and arrogant notion that it is +duty to force the opinion upon the acceptance of others. But it is +because such men themselves hold with so poor a grasp the truth +underlying their forms that they are, in their self-sufficiency, so +ambitious of propagating the forms, making of themselves the worst +enemies of the truth of which they fancy themselves the champions. How +truly, in the case of all genuine teachers of men, shall a man's foes be +they of his own household! For of all the destroyers of the truth which +any man has preached, none have done it so effectually or so grievously +as his own followers. So many of them have received but the forms, and +know nothing of the truth which gave him those forms! They lay hold but +of the non-essential, the specially perishing in those forms; and these +aspects, doubly false and misleading in their crumbling disjunction, +they proceed to force upon the attention and reception of men, calling +that the truth which is at best but the draggled and useless fringe of +its earth-made garment. Opinions so held belong to the theology of +hell,--not necessarily altogether false in form, but false utterly in +heart and spirit. The opinion then that is hurtful is not that which is +formed in the depths, and from the honest necessities of a man's own +nature, but that which he has taken up at second hand, the study of +which has pleased his intellect; has perhaps subdued fears and mollified +distresses which ought rather to have grown and increased until they had +driven the man to the true physician; has puffed him up with a sense of +superiority as false as foolish, and placed in his hand a club with +which to subjugate his neighbour to his spiritual dictation. The true +man even, who aims at the perpetuation of his opinion, is rather +obstructing than aiding the course of that truth for the love of which +he holds his opinion; for truth is a living thing, opinion is a dead +thing, and transmitted opinion a deadening thing. + +Let us look at St. Paul's feeling in this regard. And, in order that we +may deprive it of none of its force, let us note first the nature of the +truth which he had just been presenting to his disciples, when he +follows it with the words of my text:-- + + +But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. + +Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the +knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of +all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, + +And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the +law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness +which is of God by faith: + +That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the +fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; + +If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. + +Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I +follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am +apprehended of Christ Jesus. + +Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I +do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto +those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of +the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. + + +St. Paul, then, had been declaring to the Philippians the idea upon +which, so far as it lay with him, his life was constructed, the thing +for which he lived, to which the whole conscious effort of his being was +directed,--namely, to be in his very nature one with Christ, to become +righteous as he is righteous; to die into his death, so that he should +no more hold the slightest personal relation to evil, but be alive in +every fibre to all that is pure, lovely, loving, beautiful, perfect. He +had been telling them that he spent himself in continuous effort to lay +hold upon that for the sake of which Christ had laid hold on him. This +he declares the sole thing worth living for: the hope of this, the hope +of becoming one with the living God, is that which keeps a glorious +consciousness awake in him, amidst all the unrest of a being not yet at +harmony with itself, and a laborious and persecuted life. It cannot +therefore be any shadow of indifference to the truth to which he has +borne this witness, that causes him to add, "If in anything ye be +otherwise minded." It is to him even the test of perfection, whether +they be thus minded or not; for, although a moment before, he has +declared himself short of the desired perfection, he now says, "Let as +many of us as are perfect be thus minded." There is here no room for +that unprofitable thing, bare logic: we must look through the shifting +rainbow of his words,--rather, we must gather all their tints together, +then turn our backs upon the rainbow, that we may see the glorious light +which is the soul of it. St. Paul is not that which he would be, which +he must be; but he, and all they who with him believe that the +perfection of Christ is the sole worthy effort of a man's life, are in +the region, though not yet at the centre, of perfection. They are, even +now, not indeed grasping, but in the grasp of, that perfection. He tells +them this is the one thing to mind, the one thing to go on desiring and +labouring for, with all the earnestness of a God-born existence; but, if +any one be at all otherwise minded,--that is, of a different +opinion,--what then? That it is of little or no consequence? No, verily; +but of such endless consequence that God will himself unveil to them the +truth of the matter. This is Paul's faith, not his opinion. Faith is +that by which a man lives inwardly, and orders his way outwardly. Faith +is the root, belief the tree, and opinion the foliage that falls and is +renewed with the seasons. Opinion is, at best, even the opinion of a +true man, but the cloak of his belief, which he may indeed cast to his +neighbour, but not with the truth inside it: that remains in his own +bosom, the oneness between him and his God. St. Paul knows well--who +better?--that by no argument, the best that logic itself can afford, can +a man be set right with the truth; that the spiritual perception which +comes of hungering contact with the living truth--a perception which is +in itself a being born again--can alone be the mediator between a man +and the truth. He knows that, even if he could pass his opinion over +bodily into the understanding of his neighbour, there would be little or +nothing gained thereby, for the man's spiritual condition would be just +what it was before. God must reveal, or nothing is known. And this, +through thousands of difficulties occasioned by the man himself, God is +ever and always doing his mighty best to effect. + +See the grandeur of redeeming liberality in the Apostle. In his heart of +hearts he knows that salvation consists in nothing else than being one +with Christ; that the only life of every man is hid with Christ in God, +and to be found by no search anywhere else. He believes that for this +cause was he born into the world,--that he should give himself, heart +and soul, body and spirit, to him who came into the world that he might +bear witness to the truth. He believes that for the sake of this, and +nothing less,--anything more there cannot be,--was the world, with its +endless glories, created. Nay, more than all, he believes that for this +did the Lord, in whose cross, type and triumph of his self-abnegation, +he glories, come into the world, and live and die there. And yet, and +yet, he says, and says plainly, that a man thinking differently from all +this or at least, quite unprepared to make this whole-hearted profession +of faith, is yet his brother in Christ, in whom the knowledge of Christ +that he has will work and work, the new leaven casting out the old +leaven until he, too, in the revelation of the Father, shall come to the +perfect stature of the fulness of Christ. Meantime, Paul, the Apostle, +must show due reverence to the halting and dull disciple. He must and +will make no demand upon him on the grounds of what he, Paul, believes. +He is where he is, and God is his teacher. To his own Master,--that is, +Paul's Master, and not Paul,--he stands. He leaves him to the company of +his Master. "Leaves him?" No: that he does not; that he will never do, +any more than God will leave him. Still and ever will he hold him and +help him. But how help him, if he is not to press upon him his own +larger and deeper and wiser insights? The answer is ready: he will +press, not his opinion, not even the man's opinion, but the man's own +faith upon him. "O brother, beloved of the Father, walk in the +light,--in the light, that is, which is thine, not which is mine; in the +light which is given to thee, not to me: thou canst not walk by my +light, I cannot walk by thine: how should either walk except by the +light which is in him? O brother, what thou seest, that do; and what +thou seest not, that thou shalt see: God himself, the Father of Lights, +will show it to you." This, this is the condition of all growth,--that +whereto we have attained, we mind that same; for such, following the +manuscripts, at least the oldest, seems to me the Apostle's meaning. +Obedience is the one condition of progress, and he entreats them to +obey. If a man will but work that which is in him, will but make the +power of God his own, then is it well with him for evermore. Like his +Master, Paul urges to action, to the highest operation, therefore to the +highest condition of humanity. As Christ was the Son of his Father +because he did the will of the Father, so the Apostle would have them +the sons of the Father by doing the will of the Father. Whereto ye have +attained, walk by _that_. + +But there is more involved in this utterance than the words themselves +will expressly carry. Next to his love to the Father and the Elder +Brother, the passion of Paul's life--I cannot call it less--is love to +all his brothers and sisters. Everything human is dear to him: he can +part with none of it. Division, separation, the breaking of the body of +Christ, is that which he cannot endure. The body of his flesh had once +been broken, that a grander body might be prepared for him: was it for +that body itself to tear itself asunder? With the whole energy of his +great heart, Paul clung to unity. He could clasp together with might and +main the body of his Master--the body that Master loved because it was a +spiritual body, with the life of his Father in it. And he knew well that +only by walking in the truth to which they had attained, could they ever +draw near to each other. Whereto we have attained, let us walk by that. + +My honoured friends, if we are not practical, we are nothing. Now, the +one main fault in the Christian Church is separation, repulsion, recoil +between the component particles of the Lord's body. I will not, I do not +care to inquire who is more to blame than another in the evil fact. I +only care to insist that it is the duty of every individual man to be +innocent of the same. One main cause, perhaps I should say _the one_ +cause of this deathly condition, is that whereto we had, we did not, +whereto we have attained, we do not walk by that. Ah, friend! do not now +think of thy neighbour. Do not applaud my opinion as just from what thou +hast seen around thee, but answer it from thy own being, thy own +behaviour. Dost thou ever feel thus toward thy neighbour,--"Yes, of +course, every man is my brother; but how can I be a brother to him so +long as he thinks me wrong in what I believe, and so long as I think he +wrongs in his opinions the dignity of the truth?" What, I return, has +the man no hand to grasp, no eyes into which yours may gaze far deeper +than your vaunted intellect can follow? Is there not, I ask, anything in +him to love? Who asks you to be of one opinion? It is the Lord who asks +you to be of one heart. Does the Lord love the man? Can the Lord love, +where there is nothing to love? Are you wiser than he, inasmuch as you +perceive impossibility where he has failed to discover it? Or will you +say, "Let the Lord love where he pleases: I will love where I please"? +or say, and imagine you yield, "Well, I suppose I must, and therefore I +will,--but with certain reservations, politely quiet in my own heart"? +Or wilt thou say none of all these things, but do them all, one after +the other, in the secret chambers of thy proud spirit? If you delight to +condemn, you are a wounder, a divider of the oneness of Christ. If you +pride yourself on your loftier vision, and are haughty to your +neighbour, you are yourself a division and have reason to ask: "Am I a +particle of the body at all?" The Master will deal with thee upon the +score. Let it humble thee to know that thy dearest opinion, the one thou +dost worship as if it, and not God, were thy Saviour, this very opinion +thou art doomed to change, for it cannot possibly be right, if it work +in thee for death and not for life. + +Friends, you have done me the honour and the kindness to ask me to speak +to you. I will speak plainly. I come before you neither hiding anything +of my belief, nor foolishly imagining I can transfer my opinions into +your bosoms. If there is one role I hate, it is that of the +proselytizer. But shall I not come to you as a brother to brethren? +Shall I not use the privilege of your invitation and of the place in +which I stand, nay, must I not myself be obedient to the heavenly +vision, in urging you with all the power of my persuasion to set +yourselves afresh to _walk_ according to that to which you have +attained. So doing, whatever yet there is to learn, you shall learn it. +Thus doing, and thus only, can you draw nigh to the centre truth; thus +doing, and thus only, shall we draw nigh to each other, and become +brothers and sisters in Christ, caring for each other's honour and +righteousness and true well-being. It is to them that keep his +commandments that he and his Father will come to take up their abode +with them. Whether you or I have the larger share of the truth in that +which we hold, of this I am sure, that it is to them that keep his +commandments that it shall be given to eat of the Tree of Life. I +believe that Jesus is the eternal son of the eternal Father; that in him +the ideal humanity sat enthroned from all eternity; that as he is the +divine man, so is he the human God; that there was no taking of our +nature upon himself, but the showing of himself as he really was, and +that from evermore: these things, friends, I believe, though never would +I be guilty of what in me would be the irreverence of opening my mouth +in dispute upon them. Not for a moment would I endeavour by argument to +convince another of this, my opinion. If it be true, it is God's work to +show it, for logic cannot. But the more, and not the less, do I believe +that he, who is no respecter of persons, will, least of all, respect the +person of him who thinks to please him by respecting his person, calling +him, "Lord, Lord," and not doing the things that he tells him. Even if I +be right, friend, and thou wrong, to thee who doest his commandments +more faithfully than I, will the more abundant entrance be administered. +God grant that, when thou art admitted first, I may not be cast out, but +admitted to learn of thee that it is truth in the inward parts that he +requireth, and they that have that truth, and they alone, shall ever +know wisdom. Bear with me, friends, for I love and honour you. I seek +but to stir up your hearts, as I would daily stir up my own, to be true +to that which is deepest in us,--the voice and the will of the Father of +our spirits. + +Friends, I have not said we are not to utter our opinions. I have only +said we are not to make those opinions the point of a fresh start, the +foundation of a new building, the groundwork of anything. They are not +to occupy us in our dealings with our brethren. Opinion is often the +very death of love. Love aright, and you will come to think aright; and +those who think aright must think the same. In the meantime, it matters +nothing. The thing that does matter is, that whereto we have attained, +by that we should walk. But, while we are not to insist upon our +opinions, which is only one way of insisting upon ourselves, however we +may cloak the fact from ourselves in the vain imagination of thereby +spreading the truth, we are bound by loftiest duty to spread the truth; +for that is the saving of men. Do you ask, How spread it, if we are not +to talk about it? Friends, I never said, Do not talk about the truth, +although I insist upon a better and the only indispensable way: let your +light shine. What I said before, and say again, is, Do not talk about +the lantern that holds the lamp, but make haste, uncover the light, and +let it shine. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your +good works,--I incline to the Vatican reading of _good things_,--and +glorify your Father who is in heaven. It is not, Let your good works +shine, but, Let your light shine. Let it be the genuine love of your +hearts, taking form in true deeds; not the doing of good deeds to prove +that your opinions are right. If ye are thus true, your very talk about +the truth will be a good work, a shining of the light that is in you. A +true smile is a good work, and may do much to reveal the Father who is +in heaven; but the smile that is put on for the sake of looking right, +or even for the sake of being right, will hardly reveal him, not being +like him. Men say that you are cold: if you fear it may be so, do not +think to make yourselves warm by putting on the cloak of this or that +fresh opinion; draw nearer to the central heat, the living humanity of +the Son of Man, that ye may have life in yourselves, so heat in +yourselves, so light in yourselves; understand him, obey him, then your +light will shine, and your warmth will warm. There is an infection, as +in evil, so in good. The better we are, the more will men glorify God. +If we trim our lamps so that we have light in our house, that light will +shine through our windows, and give light to those that are not in the +house. But remember, love of the light alone can trim the lamp. Had Love +trimmed Psyche's lamp, it had never dropped the scalding oil that scared +him from her. + +The man who holds his opinion the most honestly ought to see the most +plainly that his opinion must change. It is impossible a man should hold +anything aright. How shall the created embrace the self-existent +Creator? That Creator, and he alone, is _the truth_: how, then, shall a +man embrace the truth? But to him who will live it,--to him, that is, +who walks by that to which he has attained,--the truth will reach down a +thousand true hands for his to grasp. We would not wish to enclose that +which we can do more than enclose,--live in, namely, as our home, +inherit, exult in,--the presence of the infinitely higher and better, +the heart of the living one. And, if we know that God himself is our +inheritance, why should we tremble even with hatred at the suggestion +that we may, that we must, change our opinions? If we held them aright, +we should know that nothing in them that is good can ever be lost; for +that is the true, whatever in them may be the false. It is only as they +help us toward God, that our opinions are worth a straw; and every +necessary change in them must be to more truth, to greater uplifting +power. Lord, change me as thou wilt, only do not send me away. That in +my opinions for which I really hold them, if I be a true man, will never +pass away; that which my evils and imperfections have, in the process of +embodying it, associated with the truth, must, thank God, perish and +fall. My opinions, as my life, as my love, I leave in the hands of him +who is my being. I commend my spirit to him of whom it came. Why, then, +that dislike to the very idea of such change, that dread of having to +accept the thing offered by those whom we count our opponents, which is +such a stumbling-block in the way in which we have to walk, such an +obstruction to our yet inevitable growth? It may be objected that no man +will hold his opinions with the needful earnestness, who can entertain +the idea of having to change them. But the very objection speaks +powerfully against such an overvaluing of opinion. For what is it but to +say that, in order to be wise, a man must consent to be a fool. Whatever +must be, a man must be able to look in the face. It is because we cleave +to our opinions rather than to the living God, because self and pride +interest themselves for their own vile sakes with that which belongs +only to the truth, that we become such fools of logic and temper that we +lie in the prison-houses of our own fancies, ideas, and experiences, +shut the doors and windows against the entrance of the free spirit, and +will not inherit the love of the Father. + +Yet, for the help and comfort of even such a refuser as this, I would +say: Nothing which you reject can be such as it seems to you. For a +thing is either true or untrue: if it be untrue, it looks, so far like +itself that you reject it, and with it we have nothing more to do; but, +if it be true, the very fact that you reject it shows that to you it has +not appeared true,--has not appeared itself. The truth can never be even +beheld but by the man who accepts it: the thing, therefore, which you +reject, is not that which it seems to you, but a thing good, and +altogether beautiful, altogether fit for your gladsome embrace,--a thing +from which you would not turn away, did you see it as it is, but rush to +it, as Dante says, like the wild beast to his den,--so eager for the +refuge of home. No honest man holds a truth for the sake of that because +of which another honest man rejects it: how it may be with the +dishonest, I have no confidence in my judgment, and hope I am not bound +to understand. + +Let us then, my friends, beware lest our opinions come between us and +our God, between us and our neighbour, between us and our better selves. +Let us be jealous that the human shall not obscure the divine. For we +are not _mere_ human: we, too, are divine; and there is no such +obliterator of the divine as the human that acts undivinely. The one +security against our opinions is to walk according to the truth which +they contain. + +And if men seem to us unreasonable, opposers of that which to us is +plainly true, let us remember that we are not here to convince men, but +to let our light shine. Knowledge is not necessarily light; and it is +light, not knowledge, that we have to diffuse. The best thing we can do, +infinitely the best, indeed the only thing, that men may receive the +truth, is to be ourselves true. Beyond all doing of good is the being +good; for he that is good not only does good things, but all that he +does is good. Above all, let us be humble before the God of truth, +faithfully desiring of him that truth in the inward parts which alone +can enable us to walk according to that which we have attained. May the +God of peace give you his peace; may the love of Christ constrain you; +may the gift of the Holy Spirit be yours. Amen. + + + + +TRUE CHRISTIAN MINISTERING. + + +[Footnote: A spoken sermon.] + +MATT. xx. 25--28--But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that +the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that +are great exercise authority upon them. But it should not be so among +you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; +and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as +the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to +give his life a ransom for many. + + +How little this is believed! People think, if they think about it at +all, that this is very well in the church, but, as things go in the +world, it won't do. At least, their actions imply this, for every man is +struggling to get above the other. Every man would make his neighbour +his footstool that he may climb upon him to some throne of glory which +he has in his own mind. There is a continual jostling, and crowding, and +buzzing, and striving to get promotion. Of course there are known and +noble exceptions; but still, there it is. And yet we call ourselves +"Christians," and we are Christians, all of us, thus far, that the truth +is within reach of us all, that it has come nigh to us, talking to us at +our door, and even speaking in our hearts, and yet this is the way in +which we go on! The Lord said, "It shall not be so among you." Did he +mean only his twelve disciples? This was all that he had to say to them, +but--thanks be to him!--he says the same to every one of us now. "It +shall not be so among you: that is not the way in my kingdom." The +people of the world--the people who live in the world--will always think +it best to get up, to have less and less of service to do, more and more +of service done to them. The notion of rank in the world is like a +pyramid; the higher you go up, the fewer are there who have to serve +those above them, and who are served more than those underneath them. +All who are under serve those who are above, until you come to the apex, +and there stands some one who has to do no service, but whom all the +others have to serve. Something like that is the notion of position--of +social standing and rank. And if it be so in an intellectual way +even--to say nothing of mere bodily service--if any man works to a +position that others shall all look up to him and that he may have to +look up to nobody, he has just put himself precisely into the same +condition as the people of whom our Lord speaks--as those who exercise +dominion and authority, and really he thinks it a fine thing to be +served. + +But it is not so in the kingdom of heaven. The figure there is entirely +reversed. As you may see a pyramid reflected in the water, just so, in a +reversed way altogether, is the thing to be found in the kingdom of God. +It is in this way: the Son of Man lies at the inverted apex of the +pyramid; he upholds, and serves, and ministers unto all, and they who +would be high in his kingdom must go near to him at the bottom, to +uphold and minister to all that they may or can uphold and minister +unto. There is no other law of precedence, no other law of rank and +position in God's kingdom. And mind, that is _the_ kingdom. The other +kingdom passes away--it is a transitory, ephemeral, passing, bad thing, +and away it must go. It is only there on sufferance, because in the mind +of God even that which is bad ministers to that which is good; and when +the new kingdom is built the old kingdom shall pass away. + +But the man who seeks this rank of which I have spoken, must be honest +to follow it. It will not do to say, "I want to be great, and therefore +I will serve." A man will not get at it so. He may begin so, but he will +soon find that that will not do. He must seek it for the truth's sake, +for the love of his fellows, for the worship of God, for the delight in +what is good. In the kingdom of heaven people do not think whether I am +promoted, or whether you are promoted. They are so absorbed in the +delight and glory of the goodness that is round about them, that they +learn not to think much about themselves. It is the bad that is in us +that makes us think about ourselves. It is necessary for us, because +there is bad in us, to think about ourselves, but as we go on we think +less and less about ourselves, until at last we are possessed with the +spirit of the truth, the spirit of the kingdom, and live in gladness and +in peace. We are prouder of our brothers and sisters than of ourselves; +we delight to look at them. God looks at us, and makes us what he +pleases, and this is what we must come to; there is no escape from it. + +But the Lord says, that "the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto." +Was he not ministered unto then? Ah! he was ministered unto as never man +was, but he did not come for that. Even now we bring to him the +burnt-offerings of our very spirits, but he did not come for that. It +was to help us that he came. We are told, likewise, that he is the +express image of the Father. Then what he does, the Father must do; and +he says himself, when he is accused of breaking the Sabbath by doing +work on it, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Then this must be +God's way too, or else it could not have been Jesus's way. It is God's +way. Oh! do not think that God made us with his hands, and then turned +us out to find out our own way. Do not think of him as being always over +our heads, merely throwing over us a wide-spread benevolence. You can +imagine the tenderness of a mother's heart who takes her child even from +its beloved nurse to soothe and to minister to it, and that is like God; +that is God. His hand is not only over us, but recollect what David +said--"His hand was upon me." I wish we were all as good Christians as +David was. "Wherever I go," he said, "God is there--beneath me, before +me, his hand is upon me; if I go to sleep he is there; when I go down to +the dead he is there." Everywhere is God. The earth underneath us is his +hand upholding us. [Footnote: The waters are in the hollow of it.] Every +spring-fountain of gladness about us is his making and his delight. He +tends us and cares for us; he is close to us, breathing into our +nostrils the breath of life, and breathing into our spirit this thought +and that thought to make us look up and recognize the love and the care +around us. What a poor thing for the little baby would it be if it were +to be constantly tended thus tenderly and preciously by its mother, but +if it were never to open its eyes to look up and see her mother's face +bending over it. A poor thing all its tending would be without that. It +is for that that the other exists; it is by that that the other comes. +To recognize and know this loving-kindness, and to stand up in it strong +and glad; this is the ministration of God unto us. Do you ever think "I +could worship God if he was so-and-so?" Do you imagine that God is not +as good, as perfect, as absolutely all-in-all as your thoughts can +imagine? Aye, you cannot come up to it; do what you will you never will +come up to it. Use all the symbols that we have in nature, in human +relations, in the family--all our symbols of grace and tenderness, and +loving-kindness between man and man, and between man and woman, and +between woman and woman, but you can never come up to the thought of +what God's ministration is. When our Lord came he just let us see how +his Father was doing this always, he "came to give his life a ransom for +many." It was in giving his life a ransom for us that he died; that was +the consummation and crown of it all, but it was his life that he gave +for us--his whole being, his whole strength, his whole energy--not alone +his days of trouble and of toil, but deeper than that, he gave his whole +being for us; yea, he even went down to death for us. + +But how are we to learn this ministration? I will tell you where it +begins. The most of us are forced to work; if you do not see that the +commonest things in life belong to the Christian scheme, the plan of +God, you have got to learn it. I say this is at the beginning. Most of +us have to work, and infinitely better is that for us than if we were +not forced to work, but not a very fine thing unless it goes to +something farther. We are forced to work; and what is our work? It is +doing something for other people always. It is doing; it is ministration +in some shape or other. All kind of work is a serving, but it may not be +always Christian service. No. Some of us only work for our wages; we +must have them. We starve, and deserve to starve, if we do not work to +get them. But we must go a little beyond that; yes, a very great way +beyond that. There is no honest work that one man does for another which +he may not do as unto the Lord and not unto men; in which he cannot do +right as he ought to do right. Thus, I say that the man who sees the +commonest thing in the world, recognizing it as part of the divine order +of things, the law by which the world goes, being the intention of God +that one man should be serviceable and useful to another--the man, I +say, who does a thing well because of this, and who tries to do it +better, is doing God service. + +We talk of "divine service." It is a miserable name for a great thing. +It is not service, properly speaking, at all. When a boy comes to his +father and says, "May I do so and so for you?" or, rather, comes and +breaks out in some way, showing his love to his father--says, "May I +come and sit beside you? May I have some of your books? May I come and +be quiet a little in your room?" what would you think of that boy if he +went and said, "I have been doing my father a service." So with praying +to and thanking God, do you call that serving God? If it is not serving +yourselves it is worth nothing; if it is not the best condition you can +find yourselves in, you have to learn what it is yet. Not so; the work +you have to do to-morrow in the counting-house, in the shop, or wherever +you may be, is that by which you are to serve God. Do it with a high +regard, and then there is nothing mean in it; but there is everything +mean in it if you are pretending to please people when you only look for +your wages. It is mean then; but if you have regard to doing a thing +nobly, greatly, and truly, because it is the work that God has given you +to do, then you are doing the divine service. + +Of course, this goes a great deal farther. We have endless opportunities +of showing ourselves neighbours to the man who comes near us. That is +the divine service; that is the reality of serving God. The others ought +to be your reward, if "reward" is a word that can be used in such a +relation at all. Go home and speak to God; nay, hold your tongue, and +quietly go to him in the secret recesses of your own heart, and know +that God is there. Say, "God has given me this work to do, and I am +doing it;" and that is your joy, that is your refuge, that is your going +to heaven. It is not service. The words "divine service," as they are +used, always move me to something of indignation. It is perfect +paganism; it is looking to please God by gathering together your +services,--something that is supposed to be service to him. He is +serving us for ever, and our Lord says, "If I have washed your feet, so +you ought to wash one another's feet." This will be the way in which to +minister for some. + +But still, when we are beginning to learn this, some of us are looking +about us in a blind kind of way, thinking, "I wish I could serve God; I +do not know what to do! How is it to be begun? What is it at the root of +it? What shall I find out to do? Where is there something to do?" + +Now, first of all, service is obedience, or it is nothing. This is what +I would gladly impress upon you; upon every young man who has come to +the point to be able to receive it. There is a tendency in us to think +that there is something degrading in obedience, something degrading in +service. According to the social judgment there is; according to the +judgment of the earth there is. Not so according to the judgment of +heaven, for God would only have us do the very thing he is doing +himself. You may see the tendency of this nowadays. There is scarcely a +young man who will speak of his "master." He feels as if there is +something that hurts his dignity in doing so. He does just what so many +theologians have done about God, who, instead of taking what our Lord +has given us, talk about God as "the Governor of the Universe." So a +young man talks about his master as "the governor;" nay, he even talks +of his own father in that way, and then you come in another region +altogether, and a worse one. I take these things as symptoms, mind. I +know habits may be picked up, when they get common, without any great +corresponding feeling; but a wrong habit tends always to a wrong +feeling, and if a man cannot learn to honour his father, so as to be +able to call him "father," I think one or the other of them is greatly +to blame, whether the father or the son I cannot say. I know there are +such parents that to tell their children that God is their "Father" is +no help to them, but the contrary. I heard of a lady just the other day +to whom, in trying to comfort her, some one said, "Remember God is your +Father." "Do not mention the name 'father' to me," she said. Ah! that +kind of fault does not lie in God, but in those who, not being like him, +cannot use the names aright which belong to him. + +But now, as to this service, this obedience. Our Lord came to give his +life a ransom for the many, and to minister unto all in obedience to his +Father's will. We call him equal with God--at least, most of us here, I +suppose, do; of course we do not pretend to explain; we know that God is +greater than he, because he said so; but somehow, we can worship him +with our God, and we need not try to distinguish more than is necessary +about it. But do you think that he was less divine than the Father when +he was obedient? Observe his obedience to the will of his Father. He was +not the ruler there. He did not give the commands; he obeyed them. And +yet we say He is God! Ah, that is no difficulty to me. Obedience is as +divine in its essence as command; nay, it may be more divine in the +human being far; it cannot be more divine in God, but obedience is far +more divine in its essence with regard to humanity than command is. It +is not the ruling being who is most like God; it is the man who +ministers to his fellow, who is like God; and the man who will just +sternly and rigidly do what his master tells him--be that master what he +may--who is likest Christ in that one particular matter. Obedience is +the grandest thing in the world to begin with. Yes, and we shall end +with it too. I do not think the time will ever come when we shall not +have something to do, because we are told to do it without knowing why. +Those parents act most foolishly who wish to explain everything to their +children--most foolishly. No; teach your child to obey, and you give him +the most precious lesson that can be given to a child. Let him come to +that before you have had him long, to do what he is told, and you have +given him the plainest, first, and best lesson that you can give him. If +he never goes to school at all he had better have that lesson than all +the schooling in the world. Hence, when some people are accustomed to +glorify this age of ours as being so much better in everything than +those which went before, I look back to the times of chivalry, which we +regard now, almost, as a thing to laugh at, or a merry thing to make +jokes about; but I find that the one essential of chivalry was +obedience. It is recognized in our army still, but in those times it was +carried much farther. When a boy was seven years old he was sent into +another family, and put with another boy there to do what? To wait with +him upon the master and the mistress of the house, and to be taught, as +well, what few things they knew in those times in the way of +intellectual cultivation. But he also learned stern, strict obedience, +such as it was impossible for him to forget. Then, when he had been +there seven years, hard at work, standing behind the chair, and +ministering, he was advanced a step; and what was that step? He was made +an esquire. He had his armour given him; he had to watch his armour in +the chapel all night, laying it on the altar in silent devotion to God. +I do not say that all these things were carried out afterwards, but this +was the idea of them. He was an esquire, and what was the duty of an +esquire? More service; more important service. He still had to attend to +his master, the knight. He had to watch him; he had to groom his horse +for him; he had to see that his horse was sound; he had to clean his +armour for him; to see that every bolt, every rivet, every strap, every +buckle was sound, for the life of his master was in his hands. The +master, having to fight, must not be troubled with these things, and +therefore the squire had to attend to them. Then seven years after that +a more solemn ceremony is gone through, and the squire is made a knight; +but is he free of service then? No; he makes a solemn oath to help +everybody who needs help, especially women and children, and so he rides +out into the world to do the work of a true man. There was a grand and +essential idea of Christianity in that--no doubt wonderfully broken and +shattered, but not more so than the Christian church has been; +wonderfully broken and shattered, but still the essence of obedience; +and I say it is recognized in our army still, and in every army; and +where it is lost it is a terrible loss, and an army is worth nothing +without it. You remember that terrible story from the East, that fearful +death-charge, one of the grandest things in our history, although one of +the most blundering:-- + + "Theirs not to make reply, + Theirs not to reason why, + Theirs but to do and die; + Into the valley of death + Rode the Six Hundred." + +So with the Christian man; whatever meets him, obedience is the thing. +If he is told by his conscience, which is the candle of God within him, +that he must do a thing, why he must do it. He may tremble from head to +foot at having to do it, but he will tremble more if he turns his back. +You recollect how our old poet Spenser shows us the Knight of the Red +Cross, who is the knight of holiness, ill in body, diseased in mind, +without any of his armour on, attacked by a fearful giant. What does he +do? Run away? No, he has but time to catch up his sword, and, trembling +in every limb, he goes on to meet the giant; and that is the thing that +every Christian man must do. I cannot put it too strongly; it is +impossible. There is no escape from it. If death itself lies before us, +and we know it, there is nothing to be said; it is all to be done, and +then there is no loss; everything else is all lost unto God. Look at our +Lord. He gave his life to do the will of his Father, and on he went and +did it. Do you think it was easy for him--easier for him than it would +have been for us? Ah! the greater the man the more delicate and tender +his nature, and the more he shrinks from the opposition even of his +fellowmen, because he loves them. It was a terrible thing for Christ. +Even now and then, even in the little touches that come to us in the +scanty story (though enough) this breaks out. "We are told by John that +at the Last Supper He was troubled in spirit, and testified." And then +how he tries to comfort himself as soon as Judas has gone out to do the +thing which was to finish his great work: "Now is the Son of Man +glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God +shall also glorify him in himself." Then he adds,--just gathering up his +strength,--"I shall straightway glorify him." This was said to his +disciples, but I seem to see in it that some of it was said for himself. +This is the grand obedience! Oh, friends, this is a hard lesson to +learn. We find every day that it is a hard thing to teach. We are +continually grumbling because we cannot get the people about us, our +servants, our tradespeople, or whoever they may be, to do just what we +tell them. It makes half the misery in the world because they will have +something of their own in it against what they are told. But are we not +always doing the same thing? and ought we not to learn something of +forgiveness for them, and very much from the fact that we are just in +the same position? We only recognize in part that we are put here in +this world precisely to learn to be obedient. He who is our Lord and our +God went on being obedient all the time, and was obedient always; and I +say it is as divine for us to obey as it is for God to rule. As I have +said already, God is ministering the whole time. Now, do you want to +know how to minister? Begin by obeying. Obey every one who has a right +to command you; but above all, look to what our Lord has said, and find +out what he wants you to do out of what he left behind, and try whether +obedience to that will not give a consciousness of use, of ministering, +of being a part of the grand scheme and way of God in this world. In +fact, take your place in it as a vital portion of the divine kingdom, +or--to use a better figure than that--a vital portion of the Godhead. +Try it, and see whether obedience is not salvation; whether service is +not dignity; whether you will not feel in yourselves that you have begun +to be cleansed from your plague when you begin to say, "I will seek no +more to be above my fellows, but I will seek to minister to them, doing +my work in God's name for them." + + "Who sweeps a room as for Thy law, + Makes that and the action fine." + +Both the room and the action are good when done for God's sake. That is +dear old George Herbert's way of saying the same truth, for every man +has his own way of saying it. The gift of the Spirit of God to make you +think as God thinks, feel as God feels, judge as God judges, is just the +one thing that is promised. I do not know anything else that is promised +positively but that, and who dares pray for anything else with perfect +confidence? God will not give us what we pray for except it be good for +us, but that is one thing that we must have or perish. Therefore, let us +pray for that, and with the name of God dwelling in us--if this is not +true, the whole world is a heap of ruins--let us go forth and do this +service of God in ministering to our fellows, and so helping him in his +work of upholding, and glorifying and saving all. + + + + +THE FANTASTIC IMAGINATION + + +That we have in English no word corresponding to the German _Maehrchen_, +drives us to use the word _Fairytale_, regardless of the fact that the +tale may have nothing to do with any sort of fairy. The old use of the +word _Fairy_, by Spenser at least, might, however, well be adduced, were +justification or excuse necessary where _need must_. + +Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, _Read Undine: that +is a fairytale; then read this and that as well, and you will see what +is a fairytale_. Were I further begged to describe the _fairytale_, or +define what it is, I would make answer, that I should as soon think of +describing the abstract human face, or stating what must go to +constitute a human being. A fairytale is just a fairytale, as a face is +just a face; and of all fairytales I know, I think _Undine_ the most +beautiful. + +Many a man, however, who would not attempt to define _a man_, might +venture to say something as to what a man ought to be: even so much I +will not in this place venture with regard to the fairytale, for my long +past work in that kind might but poorly instance or illustrate my now +more matured judgment. I will but say some things helpful to the +reading, in right-minded fashion, of such fairytales as I would wish to +write, or care to read. + +Some thinkers would feel sorely hampered if at liberty to use no forms +but such as existed in nature, or to invent nothing save in accordance +with the laws of the world of the senses; but it must not therefore be +imagined that they desire escape from the region of law. Nothing lawless +can show the least reason why it should exist, or could at best have +more than an appearance of life. + +The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in +the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they +themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, +invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that +in him which delights in calling up new forms--which is the nearest, +perhaps, he can come to creation. When such forms are new embodiments of +old truths, we call them products of the Imagination; when they are mere +inventions, however lovely, I should call them the work of the Fancy: in +either case, Law has been diligently at work. + +His world once invented, the highest law that comes next into play is, +that there shall be harmony between the laws by which the new world has +begun to exist; and in the process of his creation, the inventor must +hold by those laws. The moment he forgets one of them, he makes the +story, by its own postulates, incredible. To be able to live a moment in +an imagined world, we must see the laws of its existence obeyed. Those +broken, we fall out of it. The imagination in us, whose exercise is +essential to the most temporary submission to the imagination of +another, immediately, with the disappearance, of Law, ceases to act. +Suppose the gracious creatures of some childlike region of Fairyland +talking either cockney or Gascon! Would not the tale, however lovelily +begun, sink at once to the level of the Burlesque--of all forms of +literature the least worthy? A man's inventions may be stupid or clever, +but if he do not hold by the laws of them, or if he make one law jar +with another, he contradicts himself as an inventor, he is no artist. He +does not rightly consort his instruments, or he tunes them in different +keys. The mind of man is the product of live Law; it thinks by law, it +dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law, +therefore, can it alone work to any result. Inharmonious, unconsorting +ideas will come to a man, but if he try to use one of such, his work +will grow dull, and he will drop it from mere lack of interest. Law is +the soil in which alone beauty will grow; beauty is the only stuff in +which Truth can be clothed; and you may, if you will, call Imagination +the tailor that cuts her garments to fit her, and Fancy his journeyman +that puts the pieces of them together, or perhaps at most embroiders +their button-holes. Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not +obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a +church. + +In the moral world it is different: there a man may clothe in new forms, +and for this employ his imagination freely, but he must invent nothing. +He may not, for any purpose, turn its laws upside down. He must not +meddle with the relations of live souls. The laws of the spirit of man +must hold, alike in this world and in any world he may invent. It were +no offence to suppose a world in which everything repelled instead of +attracted the things around it; it would be wicked to write a tale +representing a man it called good as always doing bad things, or a man +it called bad as always doing good things: the notion itself is +absolutely lawless. In physical things a man may invent; in moral things +he must obey--and take their laws with him into his invented world as +well. + +"You write as if a fairytale were a thing of importance: must it have a +meaning?" + +It cannot help having some meaning; if it have proportion and harmony it +has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it +than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the +fairytale would give no delight. Everyone, however, who feels the story, +will read its meaning after his own nature and development: one man will +read one meaning in it, another will read another. + +"If so, how am I to assure myself that I am not reading my own meaning +into it, but yours out of it?" + +Why should you be so assured? It may be better that you should read your +meaning into it. That may be a higher operation of your intellect than +the mere reading of mine out of it: your meaning may be superior to +mine. + +"Suppose my child ask me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?" + +If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you +do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work +of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will +mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of +art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter +that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there +not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even +wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not +for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name +written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of +the painter is not to teach zoology. + +But indeed your children are not likely to trouble you about the +meaning. They find what they are capable of finding, and more would be +too much. For my part, I do not write for children, but for the +childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five. + +A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it is +not an allegory. He must be an artist indeed who can, in any mode, +produce a strict allegory that is not a weariness to the spirit. An +allegory must be Mastery or Moorditch. + +A fairytale, like a butterfly or a bee, helps itself on all sides, sips +at every wholesome flower, and spoils not one. The true fairytale is, to +my mind, very like the sonata. We all know that a sonata means +something; and where there is the faculty of talking with suitable +vagueness, and choosing metaphor sufficiently loose, mind may approach +mind, in the interpretation of a sonata, with the result of a more or +less contenting consciousness of sympathy. But if two or three men sat +down to write each what the sonata meant to him, what approximation to +definite idea would be the result? Little enough--and that little more +than needful. We should find it had roused related, if not identical, +feelings, but probably not one common thought. Has the sonata therefore +failed? Had it undertaken to convey, or ought it to be expected to +impart anything defined, anything notionally recognizable? + +"But words are not music; words at least are meant and fitted to carry a +precise meaning!" + +It is very seldom indeed that they carry the exact meaning of any user +of them! And if they can be so used as to convey definite meaning, it +does not follow that they ought never to carry anything else. Words are +live things that may be variously employed to various ends. They can +convey a scientific fact, or throw a shadow of her child's dream on the +heart of a mother. They are things to put together like the pieces of a +dissected map, or to arrange like the notes on a stave. Is the music in +them to go for nothing? It can hardly help the definiteness of a +meaning: is it therefore to be disregarded? They have length, and +breadth, and outline: have they nothing to do with depth? Have they only +to describe, never to impress? Has nothing any claim to their use but +the definite? The cause of a child's tears may be altogether +undefinable: has the mother therefore no antidote for his vague misery? +That may be strong in colour which has no evident outline. A fairytale, +a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps +you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its +power over you, whither it is carrying you? The law of each is in the +mind of its composer; that law makes one man feel this way, another man +feel that way. To one the sonata is a world of odour and beauty, to +another of soothing only and sweetness. To one, the cloudy rendezvous is +a wild dance, with a terror at its heart; to another, a majestic march +of heavenly hosts, with Truth in their centre pointing their course, but +as yet restraining her voice. The greatest forces lie in the region of +the uncomprehended. + +I will go farther.--The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to +rousing his conscience, is--not to give him things to think about, but +to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for +himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in +which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but +one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she +make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same +thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it +nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding--the +power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking +at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not +after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such +ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be. + +"But a man may then imagine in your work what he pleases, what you never +meant!" + +Not what he pleases, but what he can. If he be not a true man, he will +draw evil out of the best; we need not mind how he treats any work of +art! If he be a true man, he will imagine true things; what matter +whether I meant them or not? They are there none the less that I cannot +claim putting them there! One difference between God's work and man's +is, that, while God's work cannot mean more than he meant, man's must +mean more than he meant. For in everything that God has made, there is +layer upon layer of ascending significance; also he expresses the same +thought in higher and higher kinds of that thought: it is God's things, +his embodied thoughts, which alone a man has to use, modified and +adapted to his own purposes, for the expression of his thoughts; +therefore he cannot help his words and figures falling into such +combinations in the mind of another as he had himself not foreseen, so +many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the +relations involved in every figure, so many the facts hinted in every +symbol. A man may well himself discover truth in what he wrote; for he +was dealing all the time with things that came from thoughts beyond his +own. + +"But surely you would explain your idea to one who asked you?" + +I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE +under what I foolishly meant for one. Any key to a work of imagination +would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd. The tale is there, not to +hide, but to show: if it show nothing at your window, do not open your +door to it; leave it out in the cold. To ask me to explain, is to say, +"Roses! Boil them, or we won't have them!" My tales may not be roses, +but I will not boil them. + +So long as I think my dog can bark, I will not sit up to bark for him. + +If a writer's aim be logical conviction, he must spare no logical pains, +not merely to be understood, but to escape being misunderstood; where +his object is to move by suggestion, to cause to imagine, then let him +assail the soul of his reader as the wind assails an aeolian harp. If +there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it. Let fairytale of +mine go for a firefly that now flashes, now is dark, but may flash +again. Caught in a hand which does not love its kind, it will turn to an +insignificant, ugly thing, that can neither flash nor fly. + +The best way with music, I imagine, is not to bring the forces of our +intellect to bear upon it, but to be still and let it work on that part +of us for whose sake it exists. We spoil countless precious things by +intellectual greed. He who will be a man, and will not be a child, +must--he cannot help himself--become a little man, that is, a dwarf. He +will, however, need no consolation, for he is sure to think himself a +very large creature indeed. + +If any strain of my "broken music" make a child's eyes flash, or his +mother's grow for a moment dim, my labour will not have been in vain. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Dish Of Orts, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DISH OF ORTS *** + +***** This file should be named 9393.txt or 9393.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/9/9393/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sandra Brown, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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