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THE DUBLIN
REVIEW

Ecited by Wilfrid Ward

Volume CUII

J rterly N°« 306, 307; July y Odober 19 13

BURNS &> GATES
2 8 Orchard Street London W

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/dublinreview153londuoft

THE CONTENTS

July and 06lober 1 9 1 3

Blessed Thomas More and the Arrest of Humanism

in England. By Professor J. S. Phillimore Page i

Science and Philosophy at Louvain. By the Rev.

J. G. Vance, D.D. 27

Some Oxford Essays. By the Editor 53

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry^ By Alfred Perceval Graves 65
The Napoleon of San Domingo. By Harry Graham 86
Sonnet. By the Rev. Joseph M. Plunkett 1 1 1

The Chinese Republic and YUan Shih-k*ai. By
Stephen Harding 1 1 2

The Belgian Strike. By F. McCuUagh 127
"Et in Vitam Aeternam." By the Rev. C. C. Martin-
dale, S.J. 148
George Wyndham. By the Editor 160
Some Recent Books 166

The Mystic Way. By Miss Evelyn Underbill — Sermon Notes
of Cardinal Newman — Study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great
Britain and Ireland and its Associated Grave-Goods. By the Hon.
John Abercromby — Childhood of Art. By H. G. Spearing —
Dr Johnson and his Circle. By John Bailey — The Victorian Age
in Literature. By G. K. Chesterton — Glimpses of the Past. By
Miss WordsviTorth — Verses and Reverses. By Wilfrid Meynell —
The Tariff Reformers, ^y George Peel — Fouquier Tinville. By
M. Dunoyer — Bride Ele6t. By A. M. Champneys — Homileticand
Catechetic Studies. By Meyenberg-Brossart — Betrothment and
Marriage. By Canon de Smet. Translated by the Rev. W. Dobell
— Catholic Encyclopaedia. Vols. XIV and XV — Problems of Life
and Reproduction. By Professor Marcus Hartog — The Theory of
Evolution in the Light of Fads. By Fr Karl Frank, S.J. Trans-
lated by Charles T. Druery — Heaven's Recent Wonders. By Dr
Boissarie. Translated by the Rev. C. Van der Donckt — ^The Apo-
calypse of St John. By Lt..Col. James J. L. Ratton, M.D.

The Contents

Franciscan Influences in Art. By Mrs Crawford Page 209

The Court at Berlin in 1888. From the Diary of

Princess Ouroussoff. 222

The Lighting of Churches. By Edwin de Lisle 242

If Home Rule is Defeated. By Charles Bewley 255

Papal Dispensation for Polygamy. By Norman Hardy 266

Poem: Not for Me 275

Sir Nicholas O'Conor. By Sir Mark Sykes, Bt., M.P. 276

Richard Wagner: A Centenarial Sketch. By Donald
Davidson 282

The Present Religious Situation in France. By George
Fonsegrive 30c

An Indian Mystic: Rabindranath Tagore. By the
Rev. C. C. Martindale, S.J. 332

Charles P^guy. By Lady Ashbourne 353

Foreign Politics of the Day. By Lancelot Lawton 365

Some Recent Books 386

Poems. By Mrs Alice Meynell — An Average Man. By Mgr R. H.
Benson — Dante and the Mystics. By Edmund Gardner — Memoir
of Father Gallwey. By Fr. Gavin — ^The Story of Mary Dunne.
By M. E. Francis — ^The Works of Francis Thompson — Father
Ralph. By Gerald O'Donovan—The New France. By W. S. Lilly
— Poems of Henrietta A. Huxley, with Three of Thomas Henry
Huxley — Portuguese Political Prisoners. A British National Pro-
test— Chronicle of Biblical Works.

BLESSED THOMAS MORE
AND THE ARREST OF

HUMANISM in ENGLAND

THE thesis which I have to propose in this paper is
that the Humanist Movement in England was
arrested at the middle of the sixteenth century and did
not mature till more than a century later; that the move-
ment was typically personified in More; and that his
death was the blow which paralysed it.

The main part of this is neither novelty nor paradox.
I can cite from Mr Herbert Fisher a sentence where he
says, " The torch, once lit, burned briUiantly for a genera-
tion, until it was quenched by the bitter waters of reli-
gious strife."*

And there is a sentence of More's own in which he be-
trays that premonition of anarchy which haunted him. He
saw clearly the two possible policies by which a civilization
can be maintained; if homogeneous, by persecution of a
dissident f radlion ; if once grown motley, by mutual tolera-
tion. He recommended first the one, because he was con-
vinced that heresy was an infinitesimal fra6lion of the
nation; and then, when he saw how Government had sold
the pass and procured the corruption of the south-east
counties, by conniving at heretical propaganda, he fell
back on the other — in a famous saying to Wm. Roper.
Did any other statesman of the time conceive of Tolera-
tion as a policy?

But in either case it was his strong sense that Christen-
dom was one side of a medal which had civilization on the
reverse, and his besetting fear that civilization was in
danger of shipwreck by wars of religion, that prompted
him. ''After it were once come to that pinV (viz. of
anarchy) " ani the world once ruffled and fallen in a wild-
• History of Henry VII and Fllly p. 143. (Longmans.)
Vol. 153 I I

Blessed Thomas More and the

ness^ how long would it he and what heaps of heavy mis-
chiefs would there fall ere the way were found to set the world
in order and "peace again.''^*

The Reformation may be regarded from more than one
point of view. It has an economic side: perhaps some of
us may hve to see that it is not only when concentrated in
ecclesiastical hands, that great accumulations of wealth
invite redistribution. I have nothing to do with that side.
What concerns us to remember is that the dissolution of
Christendom was wrought chiefly by the violent escape,
in several direftions, of several forces which the Church,
vitiated by the ever-increasing intrusions of the civil
power and the secular spirit, was no longer able to hold in
equilibrium: Nationalism, Judaism and Paganism. One
prevailed here, one there. Paganism throve in the Mediter-
ranean countries, and in the north the old Druidical
heathenism arose and joined hands with Judaism. The
heavens in Scotland were darkened for two hundred
years, and there yet remains a broken flying wrack of
Calvinism which only the outburst of full democracy is
likely to disperse. But in Italy to make a convert to any
Judaic Protestantism is about as rare and costly a process
as the acclimatizing of a Polar bear at Naples.

Nationalism in religion has proved — except in Eng-
land— a passing disorder. Any self-willed autocrat can start
his Gallicanism or his Josephism; but the masterpiece of
English ecclesiastical policy was not merely in putting a
toad under a harrow, but contriving that the toad should be
an integral part of the harrow, happy and even conceited.

Nationalism, Judaism, Paganism. Humanism is none of
these three. True, from an abuse of Humanism much of
the Italian Paganism did proceed, and this Italian
Paganism {inglese italianato, diavolo incarnato) was about
all that the Elizabethans got from Humanism. But
Humanism itself was a neutral force. It developed under
the dire6l approval and patronage of the Papacy. It might
be found as well in Ulrich von Hutten as in the Blessed
Baptista Mantuan. Even critical historians do not escape
• Works, p. 274 G.

Arrest of Humanism in England

from an equivoque which puzzled the poor loyal rebels of
the Pilgrimage of Grace: they still talk as if the " New
Learning" always meant culture and enlightenment;
whereas most often it means the new theological opinions,
the Modernism of the day. A man might be of the so-
called " New Learning " who was no learned man at all,
rudimentary in scholarship and criticism; and the only
great Humanist in England was in perpetual controversy
with the pioneers of the new religion. It is not learning
that makes the trouble, but half learning. " Never was
there heretic that said ^^ false ^^^ said More himself.*

There is no better instance than the great dispute
about idols and idolatry, so hotly fought between More
and Tyndale, for the case carries with it pra6lically the
whole of religious symbolism, all that had made the
Church the mother and fautrix of beauty for so many
centuries. What is the meaning of the Greek word
ulbiKovt Is it rightly translated "a false god," or
does the New Testament under this term condemn the
images of saints? A momentous question for artists as
well as theologians. Ruin and desecration followed on the
answer which the Tudor government pra6lically adopted
and enforced. The Judaic forces in the Reformation
movement were impelled by the fanatical horror of
plastic art, which we see at its highest in Mohammedanism.
Once persuade the looting mobs that every carved or
painted image of a saint was what St Paul meant by the
word idol, and the wholesale wreck of painted glass and
sculpture which took place at the Dissolution is nothing
to be wondered at. Yet nowadays every competent
scholar knows better; and the excavation of the Roman
Catacombs has added an archaeological proof to More's
contention against Tyndale. Arch?eology was then in its
infancy, but logic was not, and it is good to hear More's
reasoning on this matter: He argues that if you condemn
images, you condemn writing, for all words written or
spoken are images, and " there were not in this world so
effectual writing as were to express everything in imagery y-\
• JVorksy^. 109. t P. 117^

3 ^«

Blessed Thomas More and the

The Egyptian and Chinese scripts are added proof of a
dodrine which is already self-evident, and the new
idolatry of the printed word has come in to clinch the
point.

But though Humanism is largely composed of learning,
and learning is essential to it, yet we must not take the two
words for synonyms.

What, then, do we understand by Humanism?

It means particularly the advent of the learned lay-
man, a general agreement among lay folks to emerge from
pupilage and be civilized; to go back and recover much
that was good and desirable, but for which Europe had
found no room in the scanty scrip that was all she could
venture to shoulder when she set out on her travels
through the Dark Ages; to live in a larger scope of time
than the present merely, to enjoy again the wealth of
ancient literature as fully as did St Augustine or Sidonius
Apollinaris and yet with as entire a Catholicism in
religion as theirs. It was an aesthetic movement towards
finer forms of expression ; an intelleftual movement
of expatiating curiosity, and a stirring of moral restless-
ness.

One thing is to be noted: the whole movement was
intensely aristocratic and self-conscious — not a blind
tidal sweep of passion like Nationalism, not the kind of
revolution which throws up its own leaders as it goes
along. It was an affair of a few great personalities forming
schools of disciples and building up a tradition; for a
Tradition is to Art and Letters what capital is to eco-
nomic man. The permanence and value of the Humanist
movement were determined by what those leaders, inspi-
rers and masters, could found. Personalities pass; institu-
tions endure. In literature the great new thing which arose
wherever Humanism had its full effeft was scholarship.
Scholarship eventually means criticism, the discipline of
exad thinking within a certain field; and what began with
merely a daintier appreciation of classical style ended in
an instrument for the discovery and extraftion of truth
»n other forms than in beauty alone.

Arrest of Humanism in England

Whatever phase you consider, Italy compared with
other countries is an adult among infants in the history of
Humanism. Barbarism increases in the ratio of distance
froni the centre. Take any one art — painting, sculpture,
architedure — in Italy each follows its regular beautiful
development from stage to stage, and at last runs to seed.
And now look in the half-baked north and see what a dif-
ference. In England we only reach the classic stage of
architedure with the later seventeenth century— Gibb
and Inigo Jones and Wren; we have no serious place in
the annals of painting till the eighteenth century; sculp-
ture . . .? Has it begun yet? Printing, gloriously begun
by Caxton and Wynkyn, made no progress for about two
centuries. And yet, had all gone well, there was not such
total dearth of talent in England at the end of the fifteenth
century but that the flicker of miniature painting and
frescoes (which the rare surviving scraps attest), and the
flicker of Tudor archite6lure might have grown into a
flame. There was stained glass, there was smithwork,
there was wood-carving, there was stone-carving in
England. All these arts were proceeding in due train.
What became of them?

Watch the same phenomenon in Humanist literature.
There were two kinds: the exquisite mastery of Latin,
its verse-forms and prose-forms : a mastery which for more
than a hundred years elevated Latin to a real means of
expressing thoughts and feelings. Wolsey's biographer,
Fiddes, says the reason why the Cardinal often introduces
sentences of Latin into his letters and despatches is not
vanity nor even predile6lion but the poverty of English,
as he could command it. The example of Petrarch — to be
a poet in Latin, and not merely to write Latin exercises
in verse — ^was emulated by Poliziano, Sannazaro, Baptista
and many others in Italy; so, too, was it with such masters
of prose as Bembo.*

But besides this elegance of scholar poets who were

* Scotland produced in George Buchanan a poet of first-rate excel-
lence, in whom a searching criticism hardly detects more lapses from
strict classical rule than can be found even in Poliziano himself.

Blessed Thomas More and the

seeking after virtuosity in Latin as an artistic medium —
and, much more important than they, for posterity—-
were the scholar critics. One may still delight in Poli-
ziano's Amhra or Sannazaro's Elegies; but it is not these
which put all the world in debt to Italian Humanism:
it is the Italian work in critical scholarship. In scarcely
two generations they had discovered, revived and edited
pradically the whole body of Greek and Latin Classics,
and laid the foundations of criticism. When Italian
effort began to relax after this heroic achievement, the
torch was passed on to France. There, too, the Renaissance
had done its work : the men were ready. And they showed
that the task of bringing the garden of antiquity into full
cultivation again was yet only begun. As early as 1556
Muretus dared to call Humanist verses a slight and
ephemeral pastime compared with textual criticism and
elucidation. So the Scaligers, the Pithous, a Tournebe,
a Lambin, a de Thou advanced scholarship to a more
scientific plane of exadlness; and Ivrance had no sooner
done the work than Holland succeeded to the primacy of
learning. In the seventeenth century, wherever the Jesuit
Order was strong, learning throve. But England — barring
a few negligible contributions, such as Selden, Gatacre,
Stanley and Steevens, you can wipe out the name for
England — before Bentley — ^from the annals of classical
scholarship, and leave no void. When you look into the
vaunted learning of a Ben Jonson, what provincial smat-
tering it is! He is still at about the level which Italy had
reached 200 years before.

But another great funftion of Humanism was the
enrichment and improvement of the vernaculars. As
Dante happily resisted the temptation to write his great
poem in Latin; and Petrarch, though he valued his Africa
supremely, yet served his native language by the Sonnets
znd Triumphs; so do we see in Boccaccio and Chaucer how
Latin learning was employed to fertilize, civilize and
harmonize a rudimentary vernacular. And for the most
part, so it continued to be with the fifteenth century Hu-
manists. Poliziano lives as much by the honour of writing

Arrest of Humanism in England

the first opera, his Orfeo, and by his contributions to the
Canti Carnascialeschi, as by his scholarship. And while
the great masters, like him, translated Greek books into
Latin (as More translated Lucian), lesser men in turn
translated Latin into the vernaculars. Every young lan-
guage feeds and forms itself by translations, acquiring
range, resource, and dexterity, by measuring its young
powers of expression with the thought and knowledge
of a maturer civilization. " There is no way," says
Bishop Burnet (in his Preface to Utopia), " of writing, so
proper for the refining and polishing a language, as the
translating of books into it; if he that undertakes it has a
competent skill of the one tongue and is a master of the
other." The rule applies universally, whether in Ancient
Rome, or in Italy, in France, in Russia. But to translate
is the lowest of scholarly fundions, as Mark Pattison
bitterly remarked to the Oxford of his days; you will
always find dozens of competent translators for one who
is competent to make a critical edition : dozens of Jowetts
for one Burnet. The much vaunted (and little read)
Elizabethan and Jacobean translations are a proof that
Humanism in England remained marking time at the
primary stage for three generations or more. The case is
analogous to that charaderistically English creature, the
hobbledehoy at twenty-two. If England had not been cut
off and provinciaHzed, we ought by the end of the six-
teenth century to have been making somewhat of a figure
in scholarship. Half a century behind France is our place,
as Queen Elizabeth remarked. Whatever the language
was when More found it — and since the Bible had all been
translated into EngHsh before Wyclif, the age of rudi-
ments at least was past: Chaucer's prose is not rudimen-
tary—as More left it, it had nothing to learn from
further translations. But in fad where he left it, there it
remained until Dryden definitely civilized it. If this
assertion be challenged, one may ask which of the EHza-
bethan prose-writers can be proposed as superior to More?
Not Hooker; certainly not the Euphuists. Francis Bacon
among the Jacobeans improved one talent only: brevity,

Blessed Thomas More and the

and that by diredl imitation of his master, Montaigne.
With Clarendon we reach More's equal; but Clarendon
himseK is no advance in the qualities of good prose. The
earth still clings about his armour as about Milton's.
Perfe6l agility and dexterity comes only with Dryden.

The semi-barbaric splendour of the Elizabethan age —
a little like the Grand Parade of a provincial nouvedu-
riche who has " cultured " ambitions — must not blind
us to the historical fadl. The Elizabethan age produced one
supreme and many good poets. Poetry is a wind that
bloweth where it listeth: a barbaric people may have
great poetry, they cannot have great prose. Prose is an
institution, part of the equipment of a civilization, part
of its heritable wealth, like its laws or its system of school-
ing or its tradition of skilled craftsmanship. It shared
the fate of the other civilized institutions in England.
When we look back from the age of Milton we survey a
century of arrest, of suspended animation.*

If, then, the Humanist Renaissance began normally
in England, which is admitted; ran its first stage norm-
ally, which is admitted, with Duke Humphrey, " a great
wise man and very learned," as More calls him (p. 135),
how is it we must jump more than 150 years before we
reach any adequate and mature achievement in art, archi-
tedure, learning or English prose writing? How is it that
we have no sculptors like Jean Goujon, no scholars like
Lambin and Tournebe? It is not the mere effeft of Pro-

• And at this point let me suggest a theory o£ the literary history of
English for this epoch: namely, that there was a bifurcation: a main-
stream dammed, and a new cut opened; and after the new cut had carried
off^ most of the water, the old stream reopened. Dryden is the meeting-
point of the two channels. The true main-stream of English tradition in
prose was in the Hne of Parsons, Campion, Allen and the translators of the
Douai and Rheims Bible. These are the inheritors of More. But these
admirable writings, proscribed and destroyed by the Government of EHza-
beth, have remained (such is the obscurantist force of ancient prejudice)
unknown not merely to the blinkered schoolboy but even to many pro-
fessors and students of literature in our own time. A critical comparison
of the prose rhythms in the Catholic and the Government Bible would be
a most interesting study.

Arrest of Humanism in England

testantism, because the religious discords which tore
France and Germany in two did not paralyse French
scholarship or German painting. The differentia is that
stupid, wilful insularism of which Tudor pride and vanity
made its accomplice. When Thomas Coryat travelled in
Italy in 1611 he found that nobody could understand his
Latin. Elizabeth's Government had wantonly barbarized
the pronunciation in schools in order to deepen the gulf
between the new religion and the old. The na'ive confes-
sion of this coxcomb's chagrin is illuminating. But that
is not all. Humanism was everywhere an affair of great
personalities, the light spread by individual example. It
was because men recognized in a Pico, or an Erasmus, some
quality larger, sweeter, riper, nobler than their own minds
that they wished to go to school to them. Had some Ita-
lian tyrant killed a Valla, a Politian, a Beroaldus, a Domitius
Calderinus, an Aldus Manutius; had Erasmus, instead of
being an honoured guest at Rome, at Paris or in the States
of the Empire, been beheaded by Charles V or Francis I,
all learning would have felt the blow and shrunk. Now in
Henry VIII's reign there were just three men among a
good many lesser lights, such as Grocyn, Fox, Linacre,
Stokesley, Colet (Erasmus enumerates them to von
Hutten), who by position, by chara6ler and by predi-
ledlion were qualified to secure that England should take
full benefit of the revival of learning; they were Wolsey,
Fisher and More. Local piety and Erasmus' civilities
make much of the small fry; but only three men counted.
Now it is tragically suitable, it gives grim complete-
ness and consistency to the record of that hideous time,
that Henry's reign should not end before Surrey was put
to death : for does not the very extremity of the wrong
comfort our mind with a kind of bitter satisfaction when
we read the more atrocious parts of history? I am glad to
think that Henry murdered Surrey, as I am glad to know
that to Thomas Cromwell of all men fell the plunder of
More's library. Boni dant, mali auferunt was a favourite
motto of his. But the murder of the greatest living
English poet did not hinder the flight of poetry in the

Blessed Thomas More and the

next generation. Only with these three it was quite
otherwise. Wolsey stood for a true ecclesiastical reforma-
tion—by some sharp handling, no doubt, yet not by that
too simple way the Wolf went about to reform the Lamb
in the fable; Fisher, like him, stood for enlightenment in
education without the moral anarchy of the Macchiavel-
Cromwell school;* and More stood for Humanism,
the unique instance of an Englishman who had made his
own the full measure of contemporary culture, and could
meet the finest minds in Europe as an acknowledged equal.
In Colet's words, " There was but one wit in England
and that was Thomas More " (Cresacre, More, p. 25). He
is our first Humanist; the second is John Milton, born
a hundred years out of due time.

What remains is to exhibit More as the typical Hu-
manist, with some incidental touches on his life and cha-
ra6ler.

In the narrower sense of the word. More qualified as a
Humanist by his Utopia and his Epigrams. His translation
of Pico MirandoWs Life shows the bent of his tastes: it
was his tribute to one whose intimacy with the New
Learning was like his own, pra6lical and far averse from
pedantry. Pico had anticipated Erasmus' design for a
critical edition of the Scriptures; but, dying at thirty-
three, had no time to add that to the amazing bulk of
his Hterary, philosophical and theological work. The

* Look on this picture and on that. Wolsey when he founded Christ
Church meant to have copies from the Vatican library MSS. made for_the
College Library; Cox of the New Learning, who was Dean under Ed-
ward VI, made a bonfire of MSS.

What happened to those " twenty well-stocked libraries of ancient
books " which Grynaeus the Lutheran Platonist admired when he visited
Oxford with letters of commendation from More? (Stapleton, Vita^ p. 24.)

Or to the collection of MSS., Greek and Latin, which our proto-
Hellenist Prior Selling, brought to Canterbury in 1467? (Gasquet, The Eve
of the Reformation, p. 25,) One might ask dozens more such questions. They
are not allowed, much less answered, in the great traditional myth of an
EHzabethan Renaissance.

Arrestof Humanism in England

translation was printed in 1510. The Utopia belongs to
15 16. It is a strange misfortune that More should be
known to many readers only by this not very charaderistic
book; but the reason is easy enough to recognize. Those
who wished to make out that More was at heart unortho-
dox have adroitly commended their thesis by giving out
for his serious opinion some of the more freakish whimsies
of his imaginary Islanders. It is, in fa6l, said that some
of the unhappy rascals who perished by tens of thousands
in the Peasant Revolts, which arose from the outbreak
of Lutheranism in Germany, adlually appealed to the
Communism of the Utopians in support of their anar-
chism. But many modern writers who cite the commu-
nism of Utopia forget to add that More makes the
Utopians willingly disposed towards Christianity because
of the communism which the monastic system comports.
This did not suit Seebohm's brief. Then the Utopians
cremate their dead, they worship a god Mithra, and
their priests marry; but there is no more reason for saying,
as Seebohm and company say, that More favoured the
breach of clerical celibacy than there is for calling him a
pioneer of cremation or the apostle of a new Unitarian
religion called Mithraism.

Sir James Mackintosh's judgment is admirably pene-
trating :

The true notion of Utopia is that it intimates a variety of doc-
trines and exhibits a multiplicity of projects, which the writer
regards with almost every possible degree of approbation and shade
of assent; from the frontiers of serious and earnest belief, through
gradations of descending plausibility, where the lowest are scarcely
more than the exercises of ingenuity; and to which some wild
paradoxes are appended, either as a vehicle, or as an easy means
(if necessary) of disavowing the serious intention of the whole
Platonic fiction.

In fa6l, to disengage More's own views from the quaint
visionary speculations is no easier than it is to get Swift's
real beliefs from Gulliver'' s 1^ ravels. For More, S less of an
ironist and sceptic than Swift, was an irrepresssible wag :

Blessed Thomas More and the

he confesses to it again and again, and even in his last
months, long imprisoned, and writing of " as earnest sad
matter as men can devise," he must be joking. " Of
truth, cousin, as you know very well, myself am of
nature even half a gigglot and more. I would I could 35-
easily mend my fault as I well know it." This merriment
infuriated his puritan antagonists. That unblushing
Gnatho, Ed. Hall, the panegyrist of Henry VHI, who
goes into ecstasies describing the royal Thraso's wardrobe,
girds bitterly at More for his habit of jesting. But the
gift was hereditary; his father. Sir John More, the judge,
was author of the saying that matrimony was like putting
your hand in a blind bag full of snakes and eels together,
seven snakes for one eel.

That he regarded his Utopia as a youthful fancy and no
serious dodlrine is proved firstly by the f aft that he never
put it into English. The life of Richard HI, which he
wrote in a Latin that well shows his studies of Sallust and
Tacitus, he himself translated into admirable English. An
instrudive comment on his leaving the Utopia in the
Latin is a passage* where he reminds Tyndale that if
you have to tell a man of his faults, you should do it
secretly, as Gerson wrote, in Latin. But there is a passage
where he evidently refers direft to Utopia in connexion
with Erasmus' Encomium Moriae,

But in these days, in which men by their own default miscon-
strue and take harm from the very scripture of God, until men
better amend, if any man would now translate (Encomium) Moriae
into EngHsh, or some other work either that I have myself written ere
this, albeit there be no harm therein, folks being, as they be, given
to take harm of what is good, I would, not only my darling's books
but my own also, help to burn them both with my own hands,
rather than folk should (though through their own fault) take any
harm of them.f

To write in EngHsh was to offer more stuff to be mis-

♦ Works, 873 G.

^ Works, pp. 422-3, quoted by Gasquet {The Eve of the Reformation,
p. 203), but not for this particular inference.

Arrest of Humanism in England

understood by the amateur theologians who swarmed
and babbled in the pothouses round London. To write
in Latin was to address his peers, in cipher, without risk
of their mistaking his jest for earnest or misconceiving his
drift.

It is aftually a question whether he ever intended
to publish Utopia at all. Stapleton says he did not, but
merely non nisi paucis amicis quasi lepidum commentum
communicari. Yet we hear also that More had originally
a notion of dedicating it to Wolsey (Stapleton, Vita,
pp. 31-2). What is certain is that he never took Utopia
seriously, and it was no affe6lation in him to say that the
book " might deservedly have been left in Utopia."*

The Utopia was as it were More's diploma work, as
member of the European Humanist Academy to which
Erasmus' friendship had long since been his passport.
It was soon followed by his volume of Latin occasional
poems.t It must be frankly admitted that More in Latin
verse falls far short of the almost perfedl metrical accom-
pHshment and scholarship of even George Buchanan. He
knew it. Yet many of the Epigrams can be read with plea-
sure for their point as well as for curiosity or historical
interest. Now he satirizes a Lady Riding Astride, now an
ignorant Bishop — ^in whom research has identified one of
the grossest cases of that intrusion of lay influences into
the sandluary which the Reformation was so soon destined
to legalize and confirm; now a young fop who affeds a
French style in all things and a French accent in EngHsh,
in Latin, in Spanish, in all languages . . . but French.
Many, by the choice of sub j eft, betray his deHght in
painting; many are taken from the eleventh book (the

*It was first translated by Robinson in 1 551, with a dedication to Wm

Cecil, in which, courtier-like, he echoes the astonishment of Ed. Hall at
the obstinacy of a man who with all his learning could not see the plain
Scripture truth that the British throne was the seat of reHgious infaUi-
biUty,

t Printed at Bale in 15 18. These have been studied by J. H. Marsden
under the title Philomorus (ed. 2, 1878): a proHx and somewhat insipid
piece of writing, but useful, though the donnish Protestantism of the 'six-
ties makes it irritating to read. It is virtually a Life of More.

Blessed Thomas More and the

Jest Book) of the Greek Anthology. May I translate one
specimen of his lighter wit ?

To A Lady — much made up
You buy your teeth, your hair and your complexion :

Madam, and might I ask
Why do you not combine the whole colle£tion

More cheaply in a mask ?

One other has a curious prophetic interest. He takes a
subjedl which has often attradled poets and painters too —
St John Baptist, Herod, Herodias and Salome: after
reciting some of the hideous precedents from pagan
mythology (Thyestes, etc.), he concludes that human
heads were a luxury beyond the reach of plain men's
tables.

Such dainty dishes grace the board of Kings :
Believe me poor men do not eat such things.

Did anybody recall this epigram when seventeen years
later the saintly epigrammatist's head fell on Tower
Hill ? Stapleton, of course, makes the comparison of More
and St John. And if we may believe George Buchanan,
his Latin tragedy of the BaptisteSy written in 1535, was
inspired by his horror of Henry's pretensions, by the fate
of More and by his disgust at the tyranny. This eloquent,
dignified, but lengthy play was only printed forty years
later; certainly beyond the resemblance in their fate
there is nothing of More's character in the Baptist. But
Buchanan makes Salome proclaim the Henrician dodrine
that the King's will is the supreme law. The parallel was
only imperfedl in one point. Anne Boleyn was Herodias
and Salome in one. More resigned the office of Lord
Chancellor a fortnight before her coronation. After this
it was only a matter of time. When the royal animal, after
sampling an elder sister, decided that Anne was the one
among the daughters of his old flame. Lady Rochford,
whom he could not live without, More knew that his days
were numbered. " Queen Anne by her unfortunate

Arrest of Humanism in England

clamour did so exasperate the king against him."* Tu
huius viri necis causa he is reported to have said to her,
when the news of More's execution was brought to him.
The theme long haunted More. But he was probably-
thinking not of himself but of the Bishop of Rochester, his
fellow prisoner, when he wrote in Dial, of Comfort in
TribuLf

St John the Baptist was, you know well, in prison, while Herod
and Herodias sat full merry at the feast, and the daughter of
Herodias delighted him with her dancing, till with her dancing
she danced off St John's head. And now sitteth he with great feast
in Heaven at God's Board while Herod and Herodias full heavily
sit in Hell, burning both twain, and to make them sport withal
the devil with the damsel dances before them.

But it was not only Stapleton and George Buchanan
who saw an analogy to the Gospel story. For it is said that
within a few months of the martyrdom, when a masque of
Herod and St John was played before the King and
Queen, the Baptist's head was made up to represent
Thomas More: which was thought a very pretty conceit.
Who can wonder at Froude's enthusiasm for such a
sovereign?

But to return. His Latin works, both "the Utopia, the
controversies against Luther, the Epigrams and the
Letters, all approved him for the first, virtually the only,
Humanist in England. There is a f a6l which testifies this :
Etienne Dolet, scholar and printer, in his Dialogue on
Ciceronianism (1536) brings in More as a typical Eras-
mian. There was no other Englishman whose name would
be recognized all over Europe as a savant if, for example,
the question, " Who is the English Humanist? " had been
put to Erasmus, Beroaldus or Budaeus. The testimony is
extended by Erasmus dedicating his Aristotle, and
Grynaeus his Plato to young John More; Erasmus dedi-
cated to Margaret Roper his Commentary on the Nux of

* Hoddesdon, p. 124.
\ Works, 1248 c.

Blessed Thomas More and the

Ovid and on a part of Prudentius. She is, by the way,
one of very fev^ women who have convincingly emended
a corrupt classical text.*

But he answers to the type of Renaissance man also in
his large, cultivated curiosity; his love of art, his patronage
of Holbein, his delight in coins and other antiquities
which is especially evidenced in his friendship with
Busleiden at Louvain, a magnificent coUeftor of all such
things. Charaderistic not only of the man but of the
enlarged intelledual alertness of the time was a trait
which Erasmus records of him : he loved to colled every
kind of tame bird and beast and observe its ways. This
linking of the literary interest with the interest of natural
science reminds us that Linacre was not only a scholar but
a father of English medicine, and that among the great
things which Wolsey realized and bequeathed to posterity
was the foundation of the Royal CoUege of Physicians in
London.

Ill

I HAVE reserved till now the greatest of all More's
achievements : his English works.

We have seen that most of the great Italian Humanists
did good service also to their mother tongue. It is a just
reproach against Erasmus that he was so thoroughly
Latinized and Graecized that he scorned his Low-Dutch
and never printed a word in it. The Magyar and Russian
aristocracies were sunk in a similar pedantry almost
within living memory. And there was a danger of
pedantry attaching to Humanism. It dawned on the
Humanists, beginning with Petrarch, that on aesthetic
grounds Cicero was greater than St Jerome, Claudian
than Sedulius. That is a truism: and the worst of tru-
isms— the truism of a half-truth: a thing very vicious.f

* Stapleton, p. 40.

t But England is to this day labouring under an opposite extreme of
pedantry which decrees that only the narrowest classical period deserves
any study. Men pass for educated and for good Latinists who have never
read St Augustine or Prudentius, and for whom 1,200 y^ars of their own

Arrest of Humanism in England

But the greatest of the Humanists, Erasmus excepted,
were sound on this point. They bored their artesian wells
into the depths of antiquity to get water for the irrigation
of a modern soil. Humanism at its best never lost sight of
the enrichment and improvement of the vernacular:
Rabelais and Amyot are instances, but there is no better
instance than More. The negled: of his English works
is all of a piece with the prejudice which has been handed
down from the parasites of Henry and Elizabeth. One of
Sir Geoffrey Pole's crimes for which he, with as many
more of the family as Henry could lay hands upon, was
murdered was " that he possessed and delighted in Sir T.
More's works."

Even Roper's life of his father-in-law could not be
printed for nearly a century. The colledfed works were
first brought out by his nephew Rastell in 1557, whose
dedication to Queen Mary deserves to be cited.

When I considered with myself what great eloquence, excellent
learning and moral virtues were to be contained in the works and
books that the wise and godly man, Sir Thos. More, Kt., sometime
Lord Chancellor of England (my dear uncle), wrote in the English
tongue, so many and so well as no Englishman, I suppose, ever
wrote the like ; whereby his works he worthy to he had and read oj every
Englishman that is studious and desirous to know and learn not only
the eloquence and property oj the English tongue, but also the true
do£b:ine of Christ's Catholic Faith, the confutation of detestable
heresies, or the godly moral virtues that appertain to the framing

ignorance are tabooed as the " Dark Ages." Shut your eyes and call it the
Dark Ages! This is a darker state of mind than those who though they had
the bad taste to prefer St Jerome to Cicero as a stylist had at least read
both. In this matter Classicism has shrunk and narrowed since Petrarch
500 years ago. Ciceronianism was a pedantry: but the EngHsh PubUc
Schools traditions supported by their dutiful adjuncts the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, is a narrower pedantry still. Latin must be a
closed book after Hadrian's reign. Or, if we venture to take a look into
regions where no curriculum runs and no guide helps us, let us confine
ourselves to the pretty pastiche of Claudian, a good old heathen, and not
attempt the dangerous Prudentius who scans id^la a dactyl (as it was pro-
nounced !) and attests so many unscriptural corruptions in religion.

Vol. 153 17 ^

Blessed Thomas More and the

and forming of men's manners and consciences, to live a virtuous
and devout Christian life; and when I further considered that these
works of his were not yet all imprinted, and those that were im-
printed were in several volumes and books : whereby it were likely
that, as well those books of his that were already abroad in print,
as those that were yet unprinted, should in time percase perish and
utterly vanish away — to the great loss and detriment of many —
unless they were gathered together and printed in one whole
volume: — ^for these causes, my most gracious liege lady, I did dili-
gently coUedl and gather together as many of those his works, books,
letters and other writings printed and unprinted, in the English
tongue, as I could come by; and the same (certain years in the evil
world past), keeping in my hands very surely and safely, now
lately have caused to be imprinted in this one volume, to the
intent not only that every man that will, now in our days, may have
and take commodity by them, but also that they may be preserved
for the profit likewise of our posterity.

This rare and costly book (1,458 pages of double-
column folio in black letter) has never since been re-
printed. Some pieces have appeared separately: T^he
Life and Death of Richard III^ and the Dialogue of Com-
fort against Tribulation. But unhappily these reprints
preserve v^ith a facile antiquarianism the uncouth
original orthography v^hich is enough by itself to make a
book seem quaintly remote and unreal. If they were put
out in modernized spelling and pundluation, every one
v^^ould be astonished to see hov^ near to the best EngHsh
of our own day the style remains. More himself says " the
Brethren find it for a special fault that my hooks he too
long " (895 h). They are long: his usual prose has the easy
elastic abundance of Boccaccio, and a lawyer's love of
proving a point exhaustively in controversy. But he
has all the qualities of a great prose style: sonorous elo-
quence, less cumbersome than Milton: simpHcity and
lucidity of argument, with unfaiHng sense of the rhythms
and harmonies of EngHsh sound. He is a master of Dia-
logue, the favourite vehicle of that age; neither too
curiously dramatic in the ethopoia of the persons, nor
yet allowing the form to become a hollow convention:

Arrest of Humanism in England

the obje6lor in his great Dialogue (the Quod he and
Quod I) is anything but a man of straw. We can see that
if Lucian was his early love, he had not negledled Plato
either. Elizabethan prose is tawdry and mannered com-
pared with his : at his death Chaucer's thread is dropped,
which none picked up till Clarendon and Dryden. With
his colloquial, well-bred, unaffe6led ease he is the ancestor
of Swift. His style — so Erasmus tells us — ^was gained by
long and careful studies and exercises; he took a discipline
in Latin of which the fruits were to appear in English
when the increasing gravity of the times warned him
that it would be well to speak to a larger public than
Latin could reach. Even where he is prolix — and that
may seem prolix in black-letter folio which reads easy and
pleasant enough in modern form — his merry humour
is not long silent. For his controversies are enlivened
with humorous stories, illustrations and recolledlions —
such as Mother Maud's Parable of the Beasts at Confession
(1183-5), and " the servant who was married and yet a
merry fellow" (195 d), or ^' the good man Gryme^ a
mustard-maker in Cambridge^ that was wont to fray for
himself and his wife and his child, and grace to make good
mustard and no more^^ (933"4)> or ^^^ satiric account of
Wolsey and his flatterers (122 1-2). The man who joked on
the scaffold till the very moment when he laid his head
on the block, so much to Ed. Hall's scandal, was not
likely to forget the great truth that wit is another mode
of thinking, and piety need not wear a sour face.

His greatness as an influence in making the language
has not always been negledled. Samuel Johnson in the
History of the English Language prefixed to his Di6lionary
devotes nearly one-third of his whole space to More, say-
ing: " It is necessary to give a larger specimen both because
the language was then in a great degree formed and settled
and because it appears from Ben Jonson that his works were
considered as models of pure and elegant style P

But though the Do6lor goes on to say that " his works
are carefully and corre6lly printed and may therefore be
better trusted than any other edition of the English

19 ^a

Blessed Thomas More and the

books of that or the preceding ages," he quotes none of
More's prose but a bit from Richard III and a single
letter. All else is from his verse. One can hardly suppose
that he had read the Dialogues, unless he suppressed
them for the same reason that he suppressed Whig
eloquence in Parliament.

I wish space permitted me to give specimens at large,
both of his verse and his prose. Great lav^yers are not
great poets, yet More was no mean master of EngHsh
verse, as a stanza can show. It is taken from a poem, 7o
Those that Trust in Fortune:

But, an thou wilt needs meddle with her treasure,

Trust not therein, and spend it liberally;
Bear thee not proud, nor take not out of measure;
Build not thine house on height up in the sky :
None falleth far but he that climbeth high.
Remember Nature sent thee hither bare:
The gifts of Fortune, count them borrowed ware.*

It is impossible to give any notion of his prose in short
extradls, any more than you could present Milton or
Burke in scraps. Yet I cannot forbear from a few quota-
tions, chosen partly to show his pleasant humour in argu-
ment, and partly to illustrate afresh his Humanist ideal of
culture.

* That he practised what he preached in these Hnes is proved by his Ufe,
and the fact is enshrined in the dehghtful play Sir Thos. More [it is re-
printed in the volume called The Shakespeare Apocrypha, published by the
Clarendon Press], published about 1596, of which the best critics are agreed
that Shakespeare wrote some part. It celebrates More as the loyal subject,
the poor man's friend (his action as Sheriff of London in the Prentice Riots
of Evil May Day seems to have left a deep memory on London), the liberal
master of an hospitable house where visitors were admitted to the intimacy
of a family circle of which Erasmus also has eloquently and f eehngly de-
scribed the charm and simple refinement. " Now, as he did not regard
proud and vain men, so was he an entire and special good friend to all the
learned men in Christendom, with whom almost he had continual inter-
course of Letters; but of all strangers Erasmus challengeth unto himself
his love most especially, which had long continued between them by
mutual letters, expressing great affection, and it increased so much that he
took a journey on purpose into England to see and enjoy his personal
acquaintance." (Hoddesdon, chap. V.)

Arrest of Humanism in England

The first is taken from the great Dialogue.

Let us consider if there were a good old idolater, that never had
heard in all his life anything of our belief, or of any other god than
only the Man in the Moone, whom he had watched and wor-
shipped every frosty night; if this man might suddenly have that
whole Bible turned into his own tongue and read it over — think
you that he 'should thereby learn all the articles of the Faith? ♦

We need not now be troubling ourselves with the
matter of the argument — though that is excellent —
but is not the form a literary delight? Is it not racy with
the best virtues of English?

This shall be the next :

As the hand is more nimble by the use of some feats, and the
legs and feet more swift and sure by custom of going and running,
and the whole body the more wieldy and lusty by some kind of
exercise, so is it no doubt but that Reason is by study, labour, and
exercise of Logic, Philosophy and other liberal arts, corroborated
and quickened; and the judgment both in them and also in
Orators, Laws, and Stories, much ripened. And albeit Poets be
with many men even taken but for painted words, yet do they
much help the judgment and make a man, among other things,
well-furnished of one especial thing without which all learning
is half lame.

What is that ? quoth he.

Marry, quoth I, a good mother- wit. And therefore are in mine
opinion these Lutherans in a mad mind that would now have all
learning save Scripture only, clean cast away. (153.)

Who will not now say ditto to Sir Thomas in this much
at least of his plea, for the necessity of Reason to Faith?

Or take this for an example of thought and language
inseparably interpenetrating, as they do in the finest
literature. It is on T^he Growth of Heresy.

For as the sea shall never surround and overwhelm the land,
and yet hath it eaten many places in and swallowed whole countries

* Works, p. 154 F.
21

Blessed Thomas More and the

up, and made many places now sea that sometime were well-
inhabited lands, and hath lost part of his own possession in other
parts again; so, though the faith of Christ shall never be over-
flowed with heresies nor the gates of Hell prevail against Christ's
church, yet as in some places it winneth in new people, so may
there in some places by negligence be lost the old.*

This vast folio is a storehouse of verbal idioms as v^ell
as of little touches of description and allusion which
serve to give fullness and reality of life to the background
of our pidlure of the sixteenth century — e.g. the popular
remedy for the toothache " to go thrice round a church-
yard and never think of a fox tail." One may quote and
quote for many different purposes. But since writers
like Sir S. Lee make so much of it that brevity and point
were gifts wholly denied to More's copious pen, let mc
quote a couple of phrases which happen to anticipate two
famous eighteenth-century epigrams. " If you wish to
know what Almighty God thinks of riches^'' said Swift,
" you have only to look at those on whom he bestows themP
More had shaped the same thought : " What should a
good man greatly rejoice in that he daily seeth most
abound in the hands of many that be nought? "t Dr
Johnson was once provoked to say, " Madam, I have given
you a reason hut I cannot give you an understanding.^'^ And
More had long ago said of Tyndale (or Fish, or Frith, no
matter which), " If he have read it and think himself not
satisfied, I cannot make him perceive more than his wit will
serve himP Admitting freely an inferiority to both Swift
and Johnson, in point of caustic scorn, one may yet
maintain that More's studies in Sallust, Seneca and
Tacitus had not left him unfurnished with dagger as
well as broadsword in his armoury. But now, to have
done with detail, one famous page from the devo-
tional treatise De Quatuor Novissimis shall exhibit him in
the full stride of his grand manner.J

* Works, g2l E.
t Works, 1218 H.
t Works, p. 83.

Arrest of Humanism in England

We shall leave the example of plays and players which be too
merry for this matter. I shall put thee a more earnest image of our
condition and that not a feigned similitude but a very true fashion
and figure of our worshipful estate. Mark this well, for of this thing
we be very sure: that old and young, man and woman, rich and
poor, prince and page, all the while we live in this world, we be but
prisoners and be within a strong prison, out of which there can no
man escape. And in worse case be we than those that be taken and
imprisoned for theft. For they albeit their heart heavily hearkeneth
after the sessions, yet have they some hope either to break prison
the while, or to escape there by favour, or after condemnation
some hope of pardon. But we stand all in other plight, we be very
sure that we be already condemned to death, some one, some other,
none of us can tell what death we be doomed to, but surely can we
all tell that die we shall. And clearly know we that of this death we
get no manner pardon. For the king by whose high sentence we be
condemned to die would not of this death pardon his own son. As
for escaping, no man can look for [it]. The prison is large and many
prisoners in it, but the gaoler can lose none, he is so present in every
place that we can creep into no corner out of his sight. For as holy
David saith to this gaoler Whither shall I go from thy spirit and
whither shall I flee from thy face? As who saith nowhither. There is
no remedy therefore, but as condemned folk and remediless in this
prison of the earth we drive forth awhile, some bounde to a post,
some wandering abroad, some in the dungeon, some in the upper
ward, some building them bowers and making palaces in the prison,
some weeping, some laughing, some labouring, some playing, some
singing, some chiding, some fighting, no man almost remembering
in what case he standeth, till suddenly, nothing less looking for,
young, old, poor and rich, merry and sad, prince and page. Pope
and poor soulpriest, now one, now other, some time a great rabble
at once, without order, without resped of age or estate, all stript
stark naked and shifted out in a sheet, be put to death in divers
wise in some corner of the same p ison, and even there thrown in an
hole and either worms eat him underground or crows above. Now
come forth ye proud prisoner, for I wis ye be no better, look ye
never so high, when ye build in your prison a palace for your blood,
is it not a great royalty if it be well considered? Ye build the Tower
of Babylon in a corner of the prison and be very proud thereof: and
sometime the gaoler beateth it down again with shame. Ye leave
your lodging for your own blood : and the gaoler when ye be dead,
setteth a strange prisoner in your building and thrusteth your blood

Blessed Thomas More and the

into some other cabin. Ye be proud of the arms of your ancestors
set up in the prison : and all your pride is because ye forget that it is
a prison. For if ye took the matter aright — the place a prison, your-
self a prisoner condemned to death, from which ye cannot escape,
— ye would reckon this gear as worshipful as if a gentleman thief
when he should go to Tyburn would leave for a memorial the arms
of his ancestors painted on a post in Newgate. Surely I suppose
that if we took not true figure for a fantasy, but reckoned it as it is
indeed, the very express fashion and manner of all our estate, men
would bear themself not much higher in their hearts for any rule
or authority that they bear in this world — which they may well
perceive to be indeed no better but one prisoner bearing rule
among the remnant, as the tapster doth in the Marshalsea; or at
the utmost one so put in trust with the gaoler that he is half an un-
dergaoler over his fellows till the sheriff and the cart come for him.

It is not stridlly part of my present purpose to describe
More's life and death. For why repeat an oft-told tale
which has been endeared to so many readers by Cresacre
More, or by Hoddesdon, in Stapletoii's sweet and ample
Latin or in Roper's Life — the shortest and most perfedl
of biographies? The conclusion is a short matter.

After fifteen months' imprisonment, during which he
wrote several of his longer devotional treatises, his murder
was decided on. On June 25, 1535, the preachers were
ordered to set forth to the people the treasons of Fisher
and More. Blessed John Fisher had been beheaded three
days before; More had not yet been tried. These minutiae
did not trouble Henrician justice. Even Edward Hall
permits himseH a regret that when his master married
Anne Boleyn, the little formality of pronouncing a divorce
from Queen Catherine was overlooked for some months.
At the trial, which took place on July i, the ex-Chancellor
at the Bar had to remind the presiding judge gently that
under English law it was usual, before pronouncing sen-
tence— as he was beginning to do — to ask a prisoner if he
had anything to say in his defence. Bluff King Hal and
his merry men were in a hurry. The jury took fifteen
minutes to arrive at a verdict of guilty, which, if we may
believe Erasmus' letter written from Paris on infor-

Arrest of Humanism in England

mation received from London, only a fortnight later,
they expressed with simple eloquence in the words,
"Kill 'im." The six letters of English grin strangely from
amongst the elegant Latinity in which they are en-
shrined. His martyrdom followed on the day of his par-
ticular desire, July 6, the Odave of SS Peter and Paul,
and the Eve of St Thomas of Canterbury.

Henry VHI's Welsh blood gave him the insight which
is so keen in hybrid observers of national charader, and
Elizabeth learned to perceive exaftly the two besetting
sins of the English — intelledual sloth and poHtical
servility. On these two defeds they played with an
adroitly tempered combination of bullying and sophistry.
More's loyalty to his tyrant seems to us excessive, almost
degrading; but we must remember that the progress of
the Reformation in Germany, and in particular the sack
of Rome, had given him a lively horror of anarchy. He
went to the very limits of concession, but his intellect
was not to be debauched by sophistry, nor his resolve
broken. He saw that the Supremacy meant everything.
In the third book of his Dialogue of Comfort in Tribulation^
where he inquires what is the Christian's duty in case the
great Turk should conquer Europe, the allegory is plain
enough, even did Stapleton not expound it. England had
her own great Turk within her doors: the question of
conformity or martyrdom under his persecution was
a6lual.

How Europe took these two executions, the ex-Lord
Chancellor and the Cardinal of Rochester, is well known.
A shudder went through the civiHzed world. The Em-
peror Charles V, not a warm-hearted or quixotic temper
of a man, said to Sir Thomas Ehot he would rather have
lost the best city in his Empire than two such counsellors
if they had been his. Pole records the horror of the Vene-
tians. We have a long description in the Latin letter
(which has already been mentioned) written from Paris a
fortnight afterwards, by Stapleton unhesitatingly attri-
buted to Erasmus himself, but professing to be by " Couri-
nus Nucerinus." Years ago Erasmus had praised More's

Blessed Thomas More

genius for friendship, saying that to be friends with him
was the perfeft ideal of friendship. And now after his
death he repeats the testimony:

More's death is deplored even by those whose dodrines he
stoutly opposed: such was his frankness, his courtesy, his kindness
to all men. No one that had any pretensions to scholarship went
away from him empty-handed. No stranger was so strange but
More would endeavour to do him a service. Many patrons only
help their own sort — a Frenchman the French, the Germans the
German, a Scot the Scots ; but he was friendly and kind to Irish,
Germans, French, Scythians and Indians. His good-nature had
made such deep impression on them all that they weep his loss, as
it were a father or a brother. I myself have seen many in tears who
had never seen him or had any experience of his kindness. Do as I
may, I cannot myself refrain from weeping as I write these words.
How will Erasmus take the news? I fear the end of such an intimacy
will be the end of his life.*

Erasmus survived his friend a twelvemonth. If to die
timely is a blessing, as Tacitus said, then both Erasmus
and More may be congratulated on not living to see the
last ten years of Henry VIIPs reign, the " emulator of
Phalaris," as Paulus Jovius called him.

By the end of that reign such good blood had been
spilled and the patrimony of our civilization so foully
squandered that it was a full century before England re-
entered the intelleftual comity of nations.

Tantae molis erat Romanam . . . abscondere lucem.

J. S. PHILLIMORE

• Mori Opera Lattna, 1689, p. 350,

SCIENCE (£5^ PHILOSOPHY

AT LOUVAIN

THE Renaissance is almost without parallel even
among historical periods of exceptional interest. It
is remarkable for the rise of critical scholarship in the
persons of Valla and Erasmus; for the cult of Plato and
the disparagement of Aristotle, which alone would arrest
the attention of philosophers; for a real love of the
beautiful expressed in a hundred ways in art and letters;
and, as the truth must be told, for a tradition of paganism
and hatred of Christianity. It gave us the works of
Guicciardini, and in the " Prince " of Machiavelli may
be almost said to have fixed the type of successful states-
manship in the days of the growth of nations. In the
sphere of knowledge it is noteworthy not for the rise of
its few philosophers, nor for their unenduring systems, but
for the birth of modern science, the search for fadl and
law and unifying principle, based upon accurate observa-
tion, checked by experiment. The leader of the new
scientific movement was Copernicus, whose challenging
discoveries, linked with those of Kepler and Galileo at the
opening of the seventeenth century, have completely
transformed our outlook on the physical universe. The
discovery of America had led to the shattering of many an
old idol of knowledge. With the new scientific discoveries,
the astronomy and physics of the ancients, of Greece and
Egypt and Babylonia, were past, and the future lay with
the heroes of the new learning. Strangely enough, the
historian can trace no gradual development in philosophic
thought, for the chains which we make count at best but
few Hnks. We read simply of the rise and fall of schools,
whose life and success depend upon the presence of a
master-mind. The progress of philosophy, in fa6l, could
it be graphed, would be represented by a curve of few
summits, of many slopes and undulating plains. With the
sciences the record is very different. They have never lost

Science and Philosophy

the intensity of the first inspiration, and in every century
since the dawn of modern history the physical and later
the biological sciences can appeal to many names of great
merit. With a domain ever v^idening, with a study of
detail growing ever more intense, the scientists of to-day
can quote a succession of almost unparalleled vidlories.
Each of the older branches of knowledge has been split
up into a vast group of special studies, each claiming its
own experimenters and specialists; each, in turn, opening
up long vistas of research work. The watchwords have
been " experiment," " induction," divide et imfera, and
the record is one long triumph.

Side by side with their startling developments in
experimental studies, we have seen a still greater increase
in the range and scope of mathematical science. New
and wide-flung frontiers have been gained ; whole mathe-
matical continents have been discovered and subdued by
Descartes and Leibnitz, to mention but two pioneers;
old territories such as geometry have been set in order
and granted new constitutions; and all the lands, thus
bravely ruled have been federated in one imposing
Empire. And mathematics, fused with the multiple
sciences of physics, have given us all the later-day
developments in mechanical and ele&ical engineering;
all the revolutions in transport, locomotion and means of
communication, which partly transfigure the world, and
partly change our manner of living, and which dazzle us
by their rapid succession. Then, too, the biological
sciences have progressed enormously, and now yield an
imposing array of fads and laws, undreamed of but a few
decades ago. In their pradical applications, surgery and
niedicine, they touch us nearer even than all the physical
discoveries, by their prevention of suffering and death. A
small discovery in our physical laboratories, involving
nothing more complicated than iron-filings, an eledric
current, and an eleftric wave, has led diredlly to the
whole scheme of wireless telegraphy. An almost insigni-
ficant observation made by Lord Lister as to the anti-
septic treatment of wounds has led to a great extension of

at Lou vain

the possibilities of surgery and an extraordinary redudion
in the mortahty of our surgical wards. Thus our scientists
are not only successful in discovering new laws and in
systematizing whole tradls of knowledge; they are, above
all, eminently pradlical.

And by their success and pradlical bent they have
captivated both the mind and the soul of the men of our
time. Knowledge of every kind tends to become more and
more fadlual, more induftive, more scientific. We think
concretely, and ours is a passion for fa6ls. We may just
refer very briefly, as an instance of this, to the recent
developments in the writing of political history. Those
who are most competent to judge say that we have had
scarcely fifty years of scientific, historical thinking, while
during that time whole periods have been recharted and
explored. History, as now understood, is " a science, no
more, no less "; a science, that is, of documents involving
research not in laboratories, but in archives. In the hands
of our best historians it has become rather a marshalling
of fadls than a tossing of ideas; a critical survey and
systematization of papers drawn from a hundred different
sources, rather than a light-hearted, uncritical statement
of one tradition. Briefly, the cry of our day, echoed in all
the laboratories, and re-echoed in the libraries and
archives is " Research."

Now, it is clear that this passionate bent of the Western
people must have had a readion on the nature, method
and scope of philosophy. In this paper, then, we shall
endeavour to trace, in broad outline, the changes that
philosophy has undergone, particularly in its relation to
science, since the days of the Renaissance. In that relation,
which is so fundamental and far-reaching, we shall find
the key to many questions as to the scope of philosophy.
We shall next pass to consider the outstanding problems
in contemporary thought, and to estimate how far the
changes in method and angle of vision may be due to the
success of the natural sciences. We shall say a word about

Science and Philosophy

the modern discoveries in philosophy, and show, partly
by the argument from silence, how they have aff e6led the
rank and importance of the older disciplines. All that we
shall say, with regard to prevailing tendencies, will be
intimately connedled with the growth of the sciences and
the extension of their methods, and will lead us to
consider a notable experiment in philosophy — that of the
school of Louvain. There philosophy is understood in a
different, and, as we hope to indicate, fuller sense than at
most of our Universities. The difference turns on the
relations of science to philosophy, and the fullness is in
large measure due to the practical inclusion of the
physical and biological sciences within the pale of the
philosophic studies. In a word, we shall, by a brief
criticism and appreciation of current methods and
tendencies, lead to an appreciation of the philosophic
ideal of the Louvain school.

But before it is possible to grasp even the main outline
of the relation of science to philosophy we must have a
standard of comparison. The old ideal of Greece suggests
itself immediately, and as the school to which we wish to
call attention only professes to give a new scope and a
new rhythm to some old ways of thinking, we shall do well
to begin by casting a brief, retrospedfive glance at the
thought of Greece and of the greater schoolmen.

The serious student who traces what we may call not
the development but the outbursts of Greek thought, is
led with Edward Caird to the convidion that " a man
looks outwards before he looks inwards, and finally
upwards." The Greek mind, impressed by the order of
the world, began by looking outward, and by wondering
and speculating as to the nature of the cosmic principle
which brought order out of all the scattered sequences
and isolated phenomena. The result was a mass of specula-
tion both physical and philosophical. In fa6f, philosophy
was, in the beginning, eminently scientific in spirit —
the early philosophers were the pioneers of science. And,
in the main, Greece may be said to have remained true
to the first impulse or ideal, that science and philosophy

at Lou vain

should be regarded as inseparable elements of one com-
plete study. We have from the earhest days, both before
and after Democritus, the long Hne of philosophers who
traced, with no lack of definiteness, the guiding lines of
the modern mechanical theory of the universe, which
explains all the world and its changes by an appeal to
matter and motion. The theory, re-stated with mathe-
matical incisiveness by Descartes, and soHdified by the
research of Dalton, has taken the scientific world by
storm. Passing on a little further, we find that one branch
of Plato's philosophy — the analysis is Aristotle's — ^was
called Physics, and was, in reality, a curious medley of
philosophy, geometry and mechanics. But it is very
remarkable that Plato, the greatest artist in the history of
philosophy, whose natural impulse was " to slip through
the iron gate and play in the fields of Heaven," should
have, we shall not say, restrained his wonderful imagina-
tion, but diredled it to the solution of physical problems.
With the towering genius of Aristotle, science becomes
inseparably fused with philosophy. His mind, the most
curious, fertile and penetrating of ancient Greece, knew
and acknowledged no confines. He praised the thought
that could pass from the contemplation of being and
cause, justice and truth to the discussion of questions
of minute detail. Stranger still, he practised what he
praised, and, besides being the most original and sys-
tematic of our Western metaphysicians, he must be
counted a leader of the sciences of observation. Physics,
with him, became the science and philosophy of all things
that move, in so far as they are capable of motion or
change. It is, in his system, the first branch of speculative
Philosophy. On the death of Aristotle, Greek philosophy
entered — ^we are not forgetful of Socrates — on a new
phase, and men began to seek a moral ideal that should
guide their lives. How should they learn to avoid trouble
and anxiety, and to attain the serenity of mind that
wisdom grants to her children in a world of wars and
cataclysms? How should they learn, in such a world, to
" realize " themselves to the full? These are the problems

Science and Philosophy

of Stoics and Epicureans, who cared little for speculation
in their desire to face the world and to gain happiness.
But each system has its well-defined branch of physics.
Epicurus even thought it necessary to modify Democritus'
theory of atoms and matter, in order to leave a place for
human freedom in his psychology. We may conclude,
then, that the world was lighted for many centuries by
speculative thought, which knew of no essential difference
or rivalry between science and philosophy. Like the red
and violet rays that border the solar spe6lrum, they
were blended in the one white light. Even the Neo-
Platonists, the last of the Greeks, were not untrue to the
old tradition. In their description of the journey of the
soul on its way towards the contemplation of the One
Eternal, face to face, they dallied to think of matter, its
nature and causes and origin. And so the Greeks, even
when they looked upward, with all possible intensity,
were not unmindful of the earlier days when Thales
Anaxagoras and " the fathers " had looked outward.

It would be little to the purpose to rush from century
to century, or from one great name to another, to show
that this happy nexus of science and philosophy persisted
in the varied school of mediaeval thought. Judged by our
later standards, the science was often enough weak, but
it represented the knowledge of that day, and was pursued
v^th no little enthusiasm in the quadrivium and other
introdudory scientific studies of the monastic, cathedral,
and Palatine schools. When the period of formation was
over, and when many problems had received their
definitive setting and solution, Western thought was once
again fired by contaft with the works of Aristotle. This is
the thirteenth century Renaissance of Greek thought and
of Aristotelian philosophy, in comparison with which the
philosophical revival of the fifteenth century — to be just,
philosophy was not the strong point of the Renaissance —
seems peculiarly evanescent and unsubstantial. In the
thirteenth century, Aristotle is once more lord of the
schools, and we find the real continuation of his tradition
in the works of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and

at Louvain

Dun Scotus, "the princes of scholasticism." The sciences
are once more given a place among the branches of
theoretical philosophy, as in the earher system. Like
Aristotle and many modern philosophers, the men of the
" golden age " of mediaeval thought had an extraordinary
interest in all knowledge. They have left us lengthy
volumes and commentaries to assure us of their zeal for
the sciences of observation.

With the passing of the intelleftual giants, scholastic-
ism loses its sureness of thought and expression. This is the
period of decadence, in which riotous logic and not a little
philosophical incompetence and ignorance brought the
work of the mediaeval men into disrepute. But decadent
philosophers represent nobody. They usually endeavour
to repeat the thoughts of other men, which they mis-
understand and misrepresent. They are at best un-
interesting, and often exasperating. We may, then, allow
their thoughts on science or philosophy to rest undis-
turbed.

So much for the period known vaguely as " the past."
Modern philosophy undoubtedly began well. It claimed
to be storming the old beleaguered fortresses with the new
artillery and engines of war. Scientific fadl was to be
studied; the old " a priorism'^and futile distindlions of the
decadent scholastics, the " cymini sectores^'* were to be dis-
sipated, and philosophy was to undergo an unparalleled
revival. In England, Francis Bacon was prepared to raze
to the ground every older system in his zeal for the
" Novum Organon," and to rebuild the whole temple of
knowledge on the observation of Nature. But philosophy
was not to be negledled, for my Lord of Verulam was
wont to say that " those who studied the particular
sciences and negle6led philosophy were like to Penelope's
wooers, who fell in love with the waiting-maid." And
while Bacon was thus heralding the empirical school, and
giving English thought its charaderistic bent, philosophy
was being remodelled in an altogether different fashion,
across the Channel by Rene Descartes. The French
philosopher, one of the most brilHant and creative of
Vol. 153 33 3

Science and Philosophy

mathematicians, had won his spurs for scientific know-
ledge at the Jesuit college of La Fleche. He " meditated "
with equal facility on mathematics, physics, cosmology,
psychology or natural theology, and applied the same
geometrical temper of mind to the discussion of all their
problems. Nothing in philosophy has ever been clearer,
or more frankly a priori than the work of Descartes, the
" prinzipien-reiter," but his ideal was, without question,
the fusion of science and philosophy. The initial impetus
of modern philosophy, armed with a " nouvelle methode "
and a " Novum Organon," was magnificent, but the
successors were not true to the ideals of the two great
leaders. The sciences began to multiply indefinitely, and
each branch was found to be enough to occupy a lifetime
of thought and industry, either in the laying of founda-
tions, the designing of plans, or in the a6lual work of
building. And so the sciences and philosophy, after a long
connexion, dating back to centuries before the coming
of Christ, dissolved partnership. The fa£l casts no re-
fleftion on either scientist or philosopher. Often enough
in the history of modern philosophy we find men of
genius, a Leibnitz or a Kant, who combine the two
disciplines with wonderful skill in their own thought, and
many of the scientists, Newton, Herbert Spencer and a
number of his contemporaries, left their own studies to
think of philosophy. But these are questions of biography ;
of the students rather than the studies. The fa6l remains
that science and philosophy have drifted apart. Men who
study philosophy, nowadays, at our Universities, for in-
stance, do not think of taking introdu6lory ledlures on
chemistry, physics, biology and other empirical sciences.
There is one great exception, as we shall see later, in the
Louvain school, where the sciences of our own day and
the philosophy of Aristotle and St Thomas are fused
together in one system of knowledge. Where, for instance,
in contemporary schools can be found an adequate
philosophic treatment founded on the sciences, of those
problems of the inorganic world, of the intimate constitu-
tive causes of matter and change, which the special

at Louvain

sciences are by their scope and method unable to treat?
Such studies are unknown in the philosophic schools of
Berhn and Munich, and Paris, and at Oxford and Cam-
bridge.^ The mechanical theory of the universe, explain-
ing all in terms of matter and motion, the various systems
of dynamism, and the most recent theory of energy, all
these are theories of the inorganic v^orld, but all of them
are taught by scientists in their official capacity. Such
studies, to judge from the programmes of most of the
Universities of Europe, are deemed foreign to the scope
of pure philosophy, and are passed over to the men who
deal, ex professo^ with atoms, energy and forces.

" But," it may be urged, " in the study of modern
psychology, we find the old fusion of science and
philosophy." " We have, in fa6l," it will be said, " taken
up the old ideal with such earnestness that psychology,
formerly a group of casual observations and metaphysical
dedu6tions, has become a science, more exa6l than many,
and yielding to none in rigour of experimental method.
A science itself, therefore, psychology claims intimate
connexions with physics and with the sciences that
discuss the stru6lure and fundlion of all the parts of the
human body. What was in the past a philosophic study
is now a branch of experimental science."

The fads alleged are undoubtedly true. Experimental
psychology is the youngest, and in Germany, at least, the
most flourishing of the sciences. In a short period of fifty
years or less the German psychologists, led by Fechner,
Wundt, Ktilpe, Ebbinghaus and Miiller, have treated
with astonishing fullness all the varied questions of
sensation, attention and memory. Laboratories and
institutes have been founded at many German Univer-
sities, and later in America and England, which must, as
Professor Kalpe suggested at the recent congress at
Berlin, be considered the psychological colonies of the
Fatherland. Wonderful strides have been made in method
and technique, and the experimental men, flushed with
their success in the fields of sensation and memory, are pro-
ceeding to submit many of the problems of thought and

35 3«

Science and Philosophy

will — old metaphysical preserves — to the test of experi-
ment. Now, granted all this, does it show that science
and philosophy are growing again to be one?

Unfortunately, such is not the case. Psychologists have,
in fadl, owing to these later developments, been split up
into two antagonistic se6lions. One deals exclusively with
the sciences of physics and physiology and experimental
psychology proper; the other considers analytically and
metaphysically a group of questions which either have
not or cannot be treated empirically. The experimental
men have two and only two beUs-noires, Logic and
" Metaphysic." Logic they have treated like the scape-
goat in Israel, and " Metaphysic " they regard, one might
almost say define, as the art of treating serious questions
cavalierly. Yet it must be obvious to the real philosopher
that many questions fall within the range of psychology,
such as the freedom of the will, the immateriality of the
spirit and its persistence after death, which must, by
their nature, admit only of philosophical discussion.
There is, then, perhaps no sub j eft-matter which requires
to the same extent the harmony of science and philo-
sophy. In point of fad, the breach is here, more than
ever, accentuated, and cannot be made to disappear
until the experimenters become philosophers and the
philosophers experimenters. To find the land where such
people dwell, had we not better take our coracles down to
the shore, and set out in search for the Platonic republic ?
Or, shall we find the beginnings at least of this happy
fusion of the scientific and philosophic tempers at the
Catholic University of Louvain ?

This parting of the ways, which we have indicated in
broad outline, has had many important consequences.
Above all, philosophy, as taught at most of our Uni-
versities at home and abroad, can no longer claim to be
the guardian and glory of all the sciences. Although a
stupor mundi^ qui scihile discutit omne may now and
again arise, philosophy has ceased to be a systematization
and unification of all knowledge relating to the world of
men and things.

at Louvain

III

While the protagonists of the two leading branches o£
knowledge have thus quietly been defining frontiers and
prote6lorates, philosophy has been vastly influenced by
the methods and constitution of the sciences. The
thoughtful man of our day is captivated by fads and
mathematical certainties, and it is this temper of mind,
undoubtedly, that has given the charaderistic trend to
our courses of philosophy. We propose, then, to answer
our remaining questions as to the changes in philosophy
itself by briefly considering the studies which prepon-
derate in contemporary schools, and by offering some
critique, in passing, of their relative emphasis and
importance. We shall find, both on the evidence of those
studies and of the omissions, that philosophy, separated
from the sciences, has yielded to their pressure and is
tending to grow purely empirical. It is difficult, however,
to gauge tendencies. They cannot be grasped and ex-
pressed in theses against which we can point fads and
logical artillery. The reader will, we trust, therefore, be
prepared for a series of skirmishes rather than a fixed
battle.

There are some points over which we may pass briefly
as they are matter of common knowledge and discussion.
The modern treatment of logic is a case in point. Here
the growth of the sciences has opened up the most
interesting questions of the canons and limits of in-
dudion, and has tended to overshadow the earlier,
dedudive branch of the subjed. The syllogism has fallen
on bad, or at least unappreciative days. Then, too, the
science of method and the laws of evidence, which guide
our critical studies, have assumed a position in keeping
with our indudive bias.

But the sciences have done far more in giving rise to the
typically modern study of the theory of knowledge. In
it we seek, after defining as far as may be, the nature of
reality, to discover the charaderistics of our knowledge
of what is real. We then turn to question the possibiHties
and conditions of true knowledge, passing finally to the

Science and Philosophy

theory of truth and its criteria. Solutions to these in-
quiries were given incidentally by the princes o£ ancient
and mediaeval philosophy, but the questions were not
grouped together under a special discipline until Kant,
fired, perhaps, by the thought of Locke and Hume, gave
us his critiques. These problems of epistemology, left to
us in the Kantian tradition, may be said literally to have
obsessed the minds of philosophers for the last century.
They tend to become what King Charles' head was to
Mr Dick, or, better, what the question of universals was
for three long centuries to the mediaeval schools.

Now, while conceding that the problems of knowledge,
truth and certitude are of untold importance, we hold
that they should not be allowed to monopolize all our
speculative energies. Nor is this seemingly obvious
refle6lion without its utility, as we may see from Mr
Bertrand Russell's little volume on " the problems of
philosophy." He confines himself in his short sketch, as he
says, " in the main to those problems of philosophy in re-
gard to which it seemed to me possible to say something
positive and construftive," and, in point of fa6l, the
whole is an admirable statement of his theory of know-
ledge. Metaphysics — the only other branch of philosophy
which he discusses — is dismissed somewhat briefly as its
proofs " are not capable of survey and critical scrutiny."
Nor is Mr Russell alone, for his is the liehlings-frage,
the characteristic frame of mind of many of our own
time. In the hands of William James, for instance
Pragmatism is defined — if we may speak of his random
flashes as definitions — as " a method " and a " genetic
theory of truth." Has speculative thought, we may ask,
lost all its old " elan " and constru6live power to be
confined to a criticism of knowledge or to the problems
of method and truth? We ask the question and pass on
before giving a statement of philosophic possibilities,
which are sometimes overlooked by even the more
thoughtful men of to-day.
\ Logic, the science of method, and epistemology, then,
have all been changed to a very large extent by the force

at Louvain

of modern scientific studies. Nor is this all. Psychology, as
we have already suggested, has become an experimental
science. The wheel has come round full circle, and
psychology is now to philosophy what physics is to
natural science. Like physics and biology, it has pradical
bearings of great importance in general paedagogics, and
in the discussion of the nature and types of memory. It
may even come into greater prominence if it succeeds in
its research work on criminal mentality. In Germany the
study is exciting most careful consideration, and begins
more and more to form with the history of philosophy
and logic, the -piece de resistance of the philosophic
curriculum. Here at least in psychology we find the un-
contested influence of scientific studies. It is almost the
capture of a citadel.

Now, if there is a parallel between experimental
psychology and physics, the connexion of the history of
philosophy with the later scientific study of political
history is even more obvious. The science of documents
has become, in philosophy, the textual and higher
criticism of the leading authors. The history of philosophy
has, moreover, assumed a position of extraordinary
importance in the schools, where a century of criticism
and empirical bias has somewhat checked the con-
struftive play of thought. The programmes of all our
English, French and German Universities abound in
historical studies of philosophic authors. As in the case of
general history, much pioneer work has been done,
which has led to important discoveries and r edifications.
The discovery of not a few currents of mediaeval philo-
sophy, for instance, has caused considerable revision of
older impressions, while the thought of Kant, to take but
one other example, has been interpreted so differently
that angels might well fear nowadays to lefture on his
philosophy.

But this historical treatment, indispensable for the
student of systems who wishes to see a given catena of
ideas in its true perspe6live, should be only allowed the
place of a subordinate discipline. In our commerce with

Science and Philosophy

great minds we may, it is true, catch something o£ the
philosophers' spirit and something of their desire to track
all things to their origins. But this is not the professed
objedl of the historical studies. We are in the hands, not
of a philosopher, but of an historian whose business it is to
state analytically the tenets of the leading authors; to
discuss their theses, in the light of their avowed principles
as well as of their unconscious " axioms " and prejudices;
to trace connexions in the gradual unfolding of ideas;
and to do it all historically, scientifically. Criticism is,
of course,, out of place in a history of this kind, and is
only betrayed by an occasional epithet. In its whole
temper, briefly, the history of philosophy is no more
philosophical than the history of music.

Further, the great danger is that we may forget to
think in busying ourselves with the thought of others.
Dead men's thoughts do not move the world unless they
are taught by those who are convinced of their truth.
And the quiet generation of convidlion requires more
time and personal refledlion than historians, busy in
amassing fa6ls and opinions, sometimes dream. Above all,
history fails to answer the main question. Granted that
Leibnitz believed that everything was made up of a
cohort of simple, inextended entities, that Kant believed
in the existence of synthetic a priori judgments, and that
Mr Bradley dismisses change as a self-contradi6lory ap-
pearance, the question remains : Are these theses defen-
sible, and why? If history does not lead in this way to
philosophy, to the discussion of reasons, and the building
up of one coherent system, it is almost useless and may
even be pernicious, as minds may be crushed by the mass
of fafts and ideas. Philosophy may, in a word, become a
" burden on the memory " rather than " an illumination
of the soul." Worse than all else, minds may grow sceptical
in confronting long and imposing lists of unassimilated,
contradidory dodrines. Will our age, perhaps, be known
to the future, on account of its f orgetfulness of philosophy
and of its devotion of the history of the subjedl, as the
period of *' the Repentance of Philosophy "?

at Louvain

Over and above the branches which we have mentioned,
there is one other study which is pursued vigorously in
contemporary schools, viz., ethics and politics. Here
again, had we time, we might trace the extraordinary
influence o£ science, as ethics has at not a few centres, and
notably at Paris under MM. Diirkheim and Levy-Briihl,
given way to sociology, while analytic politics tends
more and more to take on the indu6live aspedl of a com-
parative study and criticism of existing constitutions.
Ethics, in particular, stands condemned by the sociolo-
gists for its audacity in making dedu6lions from certain
supposed psychological data as to men's nature. All this
psychological "a priorism" should be abandoned, and we
should give ourselves up to the task of coUeding fads
about the individual in human society, and of discovering
indudlive laws in condud as we do in chemistry. It would
seem that one other branch of philosophy is in imminent
danger.

We are justified, therefore, in our contention that
philosophic studies have been largely influenced by the
onward march, by the methods and constitution of the
sciences. Fa£l and observation are in favour, and there is
at the same time a tendency to abandon the study of
principles. A few words about contemporary omissions
will make the point still clearer.

We have already indicated that we find in our philo-
sophic curricula little or no study of the inorganic world,
and few inquiries, based upon fa6l, into the questions of
life and its origin. These themes have become the
acknowledged spheres of influence of the physicists and
biologists.

But what shall we say of metaphysic ? The very name
is foreign to several lists of University leftures, and where
it is found it is treated rather as a chapter in the history
of philosophy than as the real and enduring science of
being. The whole study has been killed partly by the
concrete bias of our thought, which finds its extreme
expression in Positivism, and partly by the slings and
arrows of the men of letters who for the most part follow

Science and Philosophy

Michelet's definition — la metafhysique c^est Vart de
s^egarer methodiquement. Perhaps, too, many have tried
to understand the HegeHan and neo-Hegelian out-
look on being and reaHty, and have found it wonderful,
consistent, but most unreal. An enemy once said that it
was all " mental pirouetting." Some have been dazzled
and afterwards captivated by this "Modern Logic";
others, failing to understand both the typical questions
and answers, have concluded that metaphysic is impos-
sible.

With the absence of ontology, in the Aristotelian
sense, and of any adequate discussion on the vital prin-
ciple of causality, it is not surprising that natural
theology has gone by the board. As conceived by
Aristotle, and developed by Thomas Aquinas, the study
of the existence and nature of God, formed, not a
separate science, but an obvious appendix to the branches
of theoretical philosophy. The study of being and cause
led naturally to a discussion of necessary being and first
cause. As most of our philosophy to-day has little
ontological stiffening, the critical survey of the proofs of
God's existence has been replaced by a group of re-
fle6lions, entitled " the philosophy of religion." Interest-
ing as this study undoubtedly is, it resolves itself, on
analysis, into the history of religions, a number of
biographical studies, some discussion of the meaning and
aim of religion, and of its relation to philosophy and the
sciences. That is to say, the last chapter of the speculative
thought has, obeying the sterner stress of our time, been
replaced by a number of studies in history and literary
psychology, and by a group of semi-theological questions.
The faft is important, and will serve to close this rapid
summary.

We saw when we were discussing the separation of
science from philosophy that we could no longer maintain
our old definition of the mistress of the sciences. From
our further analysis we see the viftory of the scientific
temper and the gradual diminution of purely philosophic
discussion. This second fadl is even bigger with conse-

at Louvain

quences, as another and greater definition must disappear.
Philosophy no longer corresponds to the AristoteHan
conception of the search for the primal cause and origin
of things, nor to that of St Thomas — " sapientia est
scientia quae considerat primas et universales causas "
quia " certum judicium de aliqua re maxime datur ex sua
causa." We confess that after reviewing these conceptions
and the systems to which they gave rise, we begin to long
for the days when philosophy had a greater " error."
There is undoubtedly something of the old comprehen-
siveness to be found in some of the English and contin-
ental schools, but, after much thought and many in-
quiries, we are led to ask the question : Has any school of
philosophy grasped the spirit and matter of the great
masters with the same fullness as that of Leo XIII and
Cardinal Mercier, Vecole S, Thomas d^Aquin at the Uni-
versity of Louvain?

Before we consider this last school in some little detail,
a few words about its history may not be out of place. In
the now famous encyclical, '^ Aeterni Patris," of 1879,
Leo XIII, seeing the disorder and incoherence of the
schools, exhorted the Catholic world to revert to the
philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas. This was our
rtickkehr zu Thomas, The moment was well chosen, and
enthusiasm for St Thomas grew, as his thought was
studied more intimately and consistently. The Pope had,
himself, been Nuncio at Brussels, and was well acquainted
with the aspirations and achievements of the University
of Louvain. He therefore wrote to Cardinal Dechamps,
Archbishop of Mechlin in December, 1880, asking his
Eminence, in company with the Bishop of Belgium, to
found a special chair of Thomistic Philosophy at the
University. The foundation was made and the professor-
ship conferred in 1882 upon Monseigneur Mercier, the
present Cardinal Archbishop of Mechlin. The new pro-
fessor, who knew well how to make St Thomas attractive
and inspiring to the undergraduates, carried on the work

Science and Philosophy

with such success that in a second letter, dated July, 1888,
Leo XIII called upon the Bishop of the province to found
several new chairs, which would together form a special
school or " Institut de Philosophic." The whole execution
of the scheme was left to Mgr Mercier, who became the
first president of the new " Institut."

The scope of the whole movement was expounded by
the president at an assembly of the Catholics of Belgium,
held at Mechlin in 1891. In this rapport sur les etudes
superieures de philosophie d Louvain* Mgr Mercier
heralded the work of his school. Science was to be culti-
vated for its own sake, without any dire6l apologetic
interest. The new school was not to be content with
assimilating the science of our day; it was, above all, to
possess the vision of things in motion, of science in the
making. It was to be a centre of research, and its pro-
fessors were to be, if possible, leaders, and not only
disciples, in matters scientific. Immense fields lay open
to scientific observation. The framework of the old
philosophy had become too narrow, and would need to
be enlarged. The particular sciences did not give us an
exa6l representation of reality. The particular sciences
abstrafted or isolated one aspeft. But the relations which
they isolated in thought were united in reality. These
relations-were linked one to another, and on that account
the special sciences called for a Scientia Scientiarum,
a general synthesis — in a word, for philosophy.

The " Institut " has remained true to the ideal of its
founder, Leo XIII, and to the spirit of its first president.
While granting willingly the precedence of other Uni-
versities for this or that particular branch of philosophy,
we submit that for completeness and thoroughness there
is not a philosophical course at any University in Europe
which compares in all respedls with that at Louvain.
There the vision of philosophy has all the breadth and

* Some of the more important passages from this rapport will be
found in the Notice sur V Institut Superieur de Philosophies which may be
had on application to the Secretary, Institut Superieur, Rue des Flamands,
Louvain.

at Louvain

grasp of the mind of Aristotle, and of St Thomas Aquinas;
it has all the completeness of our modern scientific and
comparative studies.

With each of the leading branches of philosophy there
is a train of special scientific studies, which no student
can evade. As a preparation for cosmology, a fairly
complete resume of inorganic and organic chemistry is
given, and the usual work is done by the students in the
laboratory. Further, to provide a general equipment for
all the philosophic studies, and especially for cosmology,
physics is studied by all for one year. The course com-
prises a general survey of all the leading fads and laws,
and a discussion of all those physical theories which most
interest the philosopher. The preparation completed,
cosmology is attacked. No theory of any importance is
omitted from the historical survey, whether it be the
mechanical theory of Democritus or Maxwell, the
dynamism of Leibnitz and Kant, or the theories of energy
which are at present being taught by Professors Ostwald,
Mach and Le Bon. Most of these philosophies are stated
in the words of their authors, and all are examined, first,
as to their coherence with their own avowed principles,
and secondly as to their ability to interpret the uncon-
tested fadls of chemistry and physics. The whole leads to a
discussion of the theory of matter and form, which has
passed through so many vicissitudes of meaning, and
which, purified from misunderstanding, and here and
there modified, is submitted as the most coherent, the
most scientific, and perhaps the most philosophic of them
all. Thus a study which, as we have already stated, is
overlooked in the philosophic courses at nearly all our
greater English and continental Universities, is given a
place of not inconsiderable importance at Louvain.

The studies introdudory to psychology are even more
thorough. At Louvain, in fa6l, psychology becomes once
more, as it was for Aristotle, the philosophy of the
organic world, of all things endowed with vital principles,
and chief among them, of the human soul. But besides
being the philosophy of biology, it is also — as at all our

Science and Philosophy

Universities — the study of human experience, viewed
from a standpoint other than that of physics. General
biology, anatomy and physiology are read for one year
even by those students who care least for concrete studies.
The le£lures are given by professors of the Medical
Faculty, who reveal no particular metaphysical bias, and
who show no appreciation of generalities at the public
oral examinations. Further, a course of optics and
acoustics, considered mainly in their relations to the
sensations of light and sound, and a second course on
the methods, laws and discoveries of psycho-physics, lead
to a most careful study of experimental psychology. No
effort is made by the professor, who stands in the front
rank of experimental psychologists, to cover the whole
ground in his ledlures, which extend over a year and a
half. The result would be, at best, only an unsatisfadlory
sketch. He therefore singles out the great typical prob-
lems about which it is possible to give a body of definite
and coherent doftrine. Thus the definition, scope and
methods of experimental psychology, attention and its
laws, memory, thought and vsdll are discussed with
great care and skill. All the students are at least shown
what work in a psychological laboratory means, and not a
few write their do6loral theses on research studies, in-
volving some hundreds or thousands of experiments. At
Berlin and Paris, experimental psychology is studied very
carefully — we all draw our inspiration from Germany —
and there are at least laboratories and some ledlures on
the subje6l at Oxford and Cambridge.* But Louvain, as
far as we know, stands almost alone as a school in en-
deavouring to unite the new, empirical work with the
older studies of material and rational psychology. Any
permanent misunderstanding between the experimenters
and the metaphysicians is here praftically impossible, for
each has learnt the nature and, more important still, the

* We hear with much interest that there is a movement at Cambridge
to make experimental psychology obligatory for all " mental and moral
science " students. The course taken by those who study psychology for
" the special " at Cambridge is in every sense admirable.

at Louvain

limits of these two methods of inquiry, which are so
indispensable one to another.

The whole branch of la morale is split up into
ethics and natural law, including social philosophy.
In the consideration of ethics there is an exhaustive
treatment of the historical differences on all questions of
greater moment. St Thomas's dodrine is finally upheld
because his positive arguments are found to be, if not
invincible, at least very cogent, and because they can
stand satisfaftorily the test of three centuries of theory
and criticism.

As at Oxford, it is thought essential at Louvain that
the elements of political economy should be studied as an
introduction to the multiple economic problems which
find their way into natural law and social philosophy.
It gives point and meaning, for instance, to the history
and philosophy of property, and in general to all the
thorny questions raised by socialists and syndicalists. Of
the many other problems which are treated by the
president of the " Institut Superieur " in these le6lures,
we can single out the debate between himself and the
sociologists of Paris, to whom we have already referred.*
The position of the Louvain school is here, once again,
clear and well defined. Apart from difference in definition
and criticism of postulates, we are, they say, as eager in
amassing sociological fa6ls as Comte or Westermarck or
Professor Levy-Brilhl himself. But we can admit of no
exclusive empiricism. Just as we are endeavouring to
bring harmony out of the discords of experimental and
rational psychology, so here we are trying to fuse the
study of sociological fa6l with rational ethics, to make
of the two one compa6f and harmonious whole.

We need not stay to consider the courses of logic or of
the introduction to philosophy, which are common to the
programmes of nearly all Universities. A word, however,
must be said about the history of philosophy. The system
taught at the " Institut " is styled " neo-Thomism."
* See Le Confltt de la Morale et de la Sociologie. By S. Deploige.
Second edition. Paris: AJcan.

Science and Philosophy

That is to say, the principles which are applied and
defended in all the varied branches of philosophy form
one corpus; they are the principles of St Thomas Aquinas,
though they may have ramifications undreamed of by
their author, or by the mind of Aristotle, whence they
sprang.

It is, therefore, above all things necessary for the men
of this school to know the history and vicissitudes, the
sources and misconceptions of their guiding principles.
Whence it is easy to understand that the philosophic
history which most interests the Thomists of Louvain is
that of Greece, " where old wisdom sprang," and of
mediaeval Europe, where Greek thought was often mis-
understood, sometimes played with, and sometimes de-
veloped with extraordinary acumen. The whole study is
conduced by a professor who has won for himself a
European reputation as an historian of mediaeval philo-
sophy, and who, to use Lord Afton's vigorous phrase,
does not " overlook the strength of the bad cause, or the
weakness of the good." Again, the philosophy of Aristotle
is far from being treated casually. In fa6l, an excellent
scheme has been formed of translating, with commentary
and notes, all his leading works in the light of the chief
ancient, mediaeval and modern interpretations,* and a
chair has just been founded for the discussion of the exa6l
rapport between Aristotle and St Thomas. Nor are
modern philosophies or contemporary systems ignored.

Each of the leading moderns is discussed somewhat
fully in the study of the separate branches of philosophy;
it only remains, in the history, to group together the
scattered fragments. Thus, at Louvain, the historical
studies, while preserving their scientific spirit, are really
subordinated to philosophy proper. They are planned to
tell the student all that research has, so far, brought to
light touching the history Ox his own philosophy, and of

* The first volume, La Metafhysique, Livre I, Traduction et Com-
mentaire, par Gaston CoUe, appeared in 1912. The second, entitled
Introduction a la Physique aristotelicienne, par Auguste Mansion, has
just been published.

at Louvain

the controversies which it has raised. He thus learns what
his philosophy is: the discussion of the leading antagon-
istic systems tells him what it is not. The history of
philosophy can surely do no more.

Not less satisfadory is the Louvain treatment of the
theory of knowledge, which is, in all schools, a most
exhilarating study, as nearly all the possible differences in
principle and system have been exhausted. All the main
theories are stated, once again, with the fairness which
charadlerizes the school, while those of Descartes and
Kant, in addition, of course, to the scholastic treatment,
are studied textually with some considerable care. The
young do6lor of Thomistic philosophy need fear few sur-
prises. He knows why he holds a certain group of theses
and why he differs from the majority of his opponents.
We are, obviously, far from dogmatism.

Metaphysic, or ontology, scarcely recognized, for
instance, at the Universities of Berlin and Paris, and
included with psychology in an extension of the subje6l-
matter of logic at Oxford, is justly regarded at Louvain
as the culmination of the philosophic course. They yield
to no school, as we have seen, in their zeal for the par-
ticular sciences; they are superior to not a few for the
precision and clarte of their science of being. True,
they admit, with all who profess this subje6l, that
ontology is the result of the highest and last process of
abstra&on, but the students are made to realize that the
abstradion is made from the concrete things which sur-
round them — that the being, discussed in ontology, is
the being of chairs and tables, men and animals. Again,
the old problems are thrashed out with a wealth of exad
quotation from the leading authors, who are never treated
either unsympathetically or summarily. And ontology
leads to two admirable courses, which deal with the last
construdive effort of the human reason to discover the
existence, and, as far as may be — that is, as far as the pro-
cesses of analogy and negation allow — ^the nature of God.

Thus the student at the " Institut Superieur " begins
with the study of atoms, elements and forces, and is led
Vol. 153 49 +

Science and Philosophy

by imperceptible stages to face all the great problems of
life and philosophy. The questions are put, the difficul-
ties faced, and solutions are given which, somewhat like
the propositions in geometry, depend not upon any great
name or tradition, but upon a chain of arguments and
proofs.*

We cannot delay to pass in review the numerous clubs
and societies which help to keep the students' minds fresh
and vigorous, as they continually face the problems of our
own time. Nor can we speak of the " Seminar " system,
which, as in all continental Universities, means almost
as much to the individual student as the custom of
writing essays at Oxford and Cambridge. But there is
one feature of the school which we cannot pass over in
silence. If the philosopher of Louvain is devoted to
science, he leaves a place of honour for aesthetics and art,
for the study of the beautiful in its manifold forms.
Organized conferences on art have existed for many
years, and although not obligatory on the students, they
are attended by large numbers with interest. Nihil
humanum might indeed be the device of men who not
only desire to know the philosophy of Kant, the logic
of Aristotle, and the system of St Thomas, but also to
understand and appreciate the beauty in the paintings of
Fra Angelico and Leonardo da Vinci, or in the cathedrals

• It scarcely falls within the scope of this short summary to deal with
the creative work of the Louvain Thomists. Suffice it to say that their
collection of philosophic works is very extensive. Cardinal Mercier's
manuals are already well known to the philosophic world. There are
several important studies in experimental psychology by Professor
Michotte to be found for the most part in his periodical Etudes Psycho-
logiques. A series of monographs on his leaders of mediaeval thought is
edited by Professor de Wulf. A number of more recent studies in socio-
logy such as M. Harmignie's Vetat et ses Agents (a study in administrative
syndicalism), as well as many critiques of modern systems, such as Pro-
fessor Neve's La Philosofhie de Taine are also noteworthy. One may add
that they publish a quarterly review La Revue Neo-Scolastique de Philo-
sophies and each year a periodical entitled Les Annates de Vlnstitut
Suferieur de Philosophie. In the latter will be found more lengthy
articles, embodying original research on all questions of philosophic
interest, and on all problems, ancient and modern.

at Louvain

and buildings of Greece and Rome and Gothic Europe.
So successful, indeed, have these lecflures proved that the
council of the " Institut " has, this year, organized a
course of about forty introdudory ledures on art and its
history, v^hich will be similar to those given at " I'Ecole
du Louvre."

One objedion may be met in passing. We can easily
imagine the surprise of a student of medicine or law
on being suddenly confronted with this extensive and
somewhat imposing programme. " Impossible," he may
remark, " for any man to grasp it all in a course of three
years. And even if he did gather a few ideas, he would at
best be a dilettante, without specialized knowledge of
anything. If we call a spade a spade, why call a man who
dabbles in everything for a few years a philosopher? "
Our answer is easy. A course such as we have described
turns out men who are, not dabblers in universal know-
ledge, but specialists in pure philosophy. True, they know
how to use scientific results, and how to appreciate the
value of an argument in physics or biology, but they are
far from being specialists in science. They have, however,
one convidion that is denied to many research students,
namely, that every branch of knowledge and every line
of inquiry converges to a point. This, indeed, is the great
significance of the Louvain experiment, that philosophy
is there a real synthesis which forms one compadl body of
the disjecta membra of the particular sciences. It is the
vindication of the unity of all knowledge.

When we were making our general survey of the
modern schools we found that science and philosophy
had been separated owing to the force of circumstances
and the stress of multiplying studies. At Louvain such a
separation is as inconceivable as it was to the minds of the
leaders of Greek philosophy. Again, we found that
philosophy, on being separated from the sciences, had
been largely influenced by their method and constitu-
tion; that, to use the energetic words of William James,
philosophy was " looking away from first things, princi-
ples, categories, and looking towards last things, fruits,

51 4^

Science and Philosophy

consequences, fafts." At Louvain all the relevant em-
pirical studies are grasped, as far as may be, in one system
with philosophy, whose quest is still the primal cause and
origin of things and which is still the scientia qu^e consider at
frimas et universales causas.

Such is the philosophy which is noiselessly captivating
much good-will abroad. If clearness of thought and ex-
pression, an almost unrivalled comprehensiveness of
study, a real love of truth, and a stri6l impartiality be the
marks of the true philosopher, the school of Louvain may
yet take a prominent place in the march of European
thought.

JOHN G. VANCE

52:

SOME OXFORD ESSAYS

Foundations : A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of
Modern Thought. By Seven Oxford Men. London : Mac-
millan. 1912.

The Confessions of a Convert. By Robert Hugh Benson. London :
Longmans. 1912.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY is said once to have made
a joke to the effect that the great discoveries of
science were generally " attended by the groans of a
strangled theological dogma." Mr Streeter, v^riting in
the volume of Oxford Essays entitled Foundations, in
an essay v^hich I cannot but account a very frank and
very remarkable one, widely though I disagree v^rith much
of it, bestows careful attention on the situation which
Huxley caricatured.

A caricature brings out, by its very extravagance
and falseness, the general character of the features,
whether of a face or of a moral situation. Huxley rejoiced
with over-confidence in his own craft in the situation
Newman has contemplated from the other side and
has stated in pathetic words in the Apologia — the con-
fusion into which modern discussions and modern know-
ledge have thrown many thoughtful minds as to some
of the religious ideas of their youth. This confusion of
mind comes to those who are by force of circumstances
thrown into the vortex of contemporary discussion.
It is outside the experience of many Catholics. Yet it
has to be dealt with and faced. And the more Catholics
mix with the world the more they will appreciate its
urgency and reality. Mr Streeter calls attention to a very
practical difficulty which the situation raises for this
same class of thoughtful minds who look it frankly in the
face. For a century past, he remarks, " orthodox theology
has been on the defensive — obliged to concede this,
but still holding to that, surrendering X, but cHnging
desperately to Y." " A more hopeless position," he adds,
" can hardly be imagined for a religion of which the very
life and essence consists in its being an attack and a

Some Oxford Essays

challenge to the world." The typical Hberal theologians,
on the other hand, as Mr Streeter explains, throwing
traditional theology simply aside, have toned down the
central figure of the Gospels in fad (though not in theory)
to suit the ideals of our own age, and lost the essence of
His message and of His charafter ahke. They have invented
the Christ of " cultured respectabihty." Mr Streeter's
way out of the difficulty is to emphasize the features
in the charafter of Christ which the liberals have ex-
plained away, to show — on the lines indicated by the
so-called eschatological school — that a candid and faith-
ful criticism of the Gospels leaves standing, quite beyond
the assaults of detailed criticism, the great unique figure
which inspired the early Christians. " And this por-
trait," he adds, " is none other than that which the
ordinary reader, once given the clue, can find for himself
in the Gospels."

Another writer in the same volume, Mr Talbot, looks,
like Mr Streeter, to a true understanding of the historic
Christ as the great hope of the future. But he looks for
its attainment by a psychological, rather than a critical,
path. He sees in the very completeness of the present
separation of the thinking world in its ideals from the
old Christian world ground for hope that Christ's
message and Person may now appeal once again to men
in all the original force of their unearthly beauty. The
worst time for religion, in his opinion, was the period
when a remnant of Christianity still permeated society,
in the lifeless and merely conventional form which long
custom is apt to develop. " Because God was taken for
granted. He was almost forgotten," he writes. And
again, " The foundations once newly laid in Jesus were
buried so deep that men came to look on [Christianity]
as part of the natural structure of existence." And
familiarity breeds contempt or negledl. " But the original
conditions are coming round to-day. The times of the
impotence of Jesus Christ are passing. He was ever
powerless with those who did not need Him. A know-
ledge of darkness is needed to urge indolent men upon

Some Oxford Essays

the quest for light. Once there was a bonfire Ht in the
world, of which the new Testament is still a fiery brand.
Once men were darkness, and once they became light
in the Lord. Since then the Hght has been diffused into
twiHght, and in half Christianized Europe generations
have had no knowledge either of light or of the darkness.
But to-day all changes."

Both these writers then look for the antidote to modern
unbeUef and unrest in a new reahzation of the Christ
who came to save the world. Mr Streeter would con-
stru6l by criticism a figure which is the very Christ,
whose image is apparent to the unsophisticated on reading
the Gospels, but which has been obscured by obscuran-
tists and modernists alike. Mr Talbot looks to the very
moral decay and the very unbelief of the age as our hope
— as awakening anew the need for religion, and that genuine
spiritual perception which only the need can bring.

The difficulty Mr Streeter raises needs somewhat
closer analysis than he gives it. The mere fadl that theo-
logians, under pressure from criticism and in the light
of new fadls, have to alternate between abandoning
some traditional positions on the borderland between
theology and science and holding fast to others, is not
in itself liable to his objeftion. Our whole conta6l with
the physical world involves a similar process — the sub-
stitution of the fa6ls of science, gradually ascertained
by testing and perfecting various hypotheses, for the
simpler ideas to which imagination, uncorrefted by
science, is apt to lead in interpreting appearances. In
itself this process has no sceptical or paralysing result.
Two conditions prevent the process from being un-
settling— first our unshaken fundamental belief in the
reality of the visible world which we are investigating:
and secondly, the growing coherence of the view which
science gradually yields. And so with theological
analysis. So long as the process of acceptance of
new fads or theories does not touch the mainsprings ^ of
faith, and so long as it has that cautious charafter which
ensures that every definite step made is a real advance,

Some Oxford Essays

making our outlook intelledlually more coherent, the
paralysing results deplored by Mr Streeter will not
ensue. He is perf e6ti7 justified in saying that we cannot
make a firm stand from an ever yielding quicksand. We
cannot rest the martyr's attitude of confident defiance
on beliefs which we feel may to-morrow prove uncertain.
But there is nothing paralysing in the gradual transforma-
tion, in theology as in all our knowledge, of the keen
and inaccurate or undefined ideas of a boy into the
mature knowledge of a grown man. No mainspring of
a6lion is touched or broken by this process. To take
simple and acknowledged instances: a child who reads
Genesis takes the days of creation to be twenty-four
hours each. Theological education leads him to regard
them as periods — or with Father Pianciani as visions.
The child has no doubt that the Deluge was universal,
the student of theology and history finds good authority
for questioning it. This is the A B C of a process of which
modern criticism demands the continuance in respe6l
of anxious and new problems.

In view of this faft, I think, then, that a better way
may be found than either Mr Streeter's or Mr Talbot's.
Recognition of new knowledge is a necessity. Unsettle-
ment means ineffeftiveness. To avoid the latter without
shutting out the former is possible, I think, to an or-
ganized body even where it is difficult for an individual.
And it is possible for the individual whose mental and
moral life shares that of the organism. The proteftion
afforded to the imagination by a conservatism in the
Catholic body as a whole, which would be excessive in
a mere student of critical problems, may preclude the
destru6lion of nerve deplored by Mr Streeter. Moreover,
it preserves many defences of Christian faith which have
been raised by the experience of centuries of Christian
life. And these keep the faith for many for whom it would
be unwise to trust to Mr Talbot's sanguine hope that
a general reversion to irreHgion and unbehef may be a
blessing in disguise, because it restores to Christ's message
the power and freshness of its earhest delivery. Doubt-

Some Oxford Essays

less there are those for whom Mr Talbot's hopes might be
realized. The need of religion might come with fresh
force after its complete destrudion. Its beauty might
stand out as against a black background, whereas the shreds
and tatters of a surviving conventional Christianity
might obscure it. But, considering the power of the old
Adam, and the allurements of the world and of our evil
nature, a dispensing with the protedlive ordinances of
traditional religion would probably lose the many while
it gained a sele6l few.

The advance, slow and cautious, of criticism amid
all the forceful embodiments of an organized Christi-
anity, militant in the best sense — militant against the
world, the flesh and the devil — largely avoids Mr
Streeter's difficulty. The corporate body includes repre-
sentatives of Christian zeal in its simplest form, with
an intelledlual outlook which is untainted and uncor-
redled by criticism. This outlook is not relatively false,
any more than a child's idea of the rising sun and the
stars above the earth is false. The mariner who steered
his ship by the stars in the year 1400 did not base his
calculations on falsehood, but on truth insufficiently
analysed. A corporate spirit which represents the com-
bined strength of those whose apprehension is keen and
real, but not intelledlual, and those who may have lost
some freshness in the toil and anxiety of a deeper in-
telledual analysis, still keeps that quahty which can defy
the world. The traditional spirit and life remains as^ an
esprit de corps, and it still communicates itself to indivi-
duals who without it might simply have that temper,
so uninspiring for great deeds, which Mr Streeter derides
— that attitude of panic which yields here and desperately
clings there, yet with a half suspicion that its foothold
is insecure. The sense of sharing the larger life of the
corporate Church, the trust that the Church will, in
the long run, carry out Christ's work, has^ a marked
psychological effed on those who entertain it. Doubt-
less many details remain unsolved for them, .but the
attitude of confidence remains. And the very checks on

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free criticism which result from official caution, however
unsatisfadlory at the moment to the merely intelle6lual,
keep out errors from the body corporate even if they
delay the amendments demanded by scientific exactness.
And this is all important. The body corporate might be
mortally wounded by unchecked prevalence of natural-
istic discussions, whose trend Mr Streeter reje6ls as much
as we do, and which might yet unsettle weak minds —
not necessarily exceptionally weak minds — by views
which, even when they have been ultimately dismissed
as exaggerated, have during their discussion insisted
on the serene unity of the Christain consciousness, wounds
which cannot be healed, and weakness which cannot
be thrown off.

I do not design here to follow Mr Streeter's Essay in
detail. Catholic critics will read it, none with assent,
but some with more sympathy, some with less. My
desire in the above remarks is to emphasize a very real
difference in the spirit in which a Catholic, even where
he agrees, will approach the subjedl. And I want to do
this not in a controversial spirit, but as showing the pecu-
liar help which the CathoHc conception of a visible Church
may afford in dealing with the difficulty in the present
situation to which Mr Streeter calls attention. I am not
for a moment implying that Catholics have some magic
power to solve the difficult problems raised by modern
critics. But the difficulty which inspires Mr Street er's
effort, that theological analysis which is in constant pro-
cess of change is in a hopeless position as the organ of the
Christian challenge to the world, does seem to me to
be largely met by allegiance to a corporate Church
as the " concrete representative of things invisible "
— to use Newman's famous phrase. The mere develop-
ment of theology which, as Newman points out in his
famous Essay, has ever consisted in assimilation and re-
jedfion of the intelleftual ideas and theories which arise
in successive ages, is in itself no more incompatible with
a firm stand than growth in a man is incompatible with
strength. It is when the surrender and the desperate

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clinging savour of a forlorn hope, and concern the very
sources of strength, that the attitude is weak and futile.
This may v^ell be the attitude of an unsupported and
solitary individual. But in one whose intellectual efforts
and researches minister to the intelleftual development
of a corporate organic body of which he is only a part,
something larger claims his confidence. He can work
as a scientist and not as an alarmist — developing a general
system in which he trusts, and not resting for nerve and
strength on each separate phase of a long inquiry. The
framework of the Christian tradition is preserved, and
within it our detailed work is done, and the very division
of parts prevents the grotesque paradox of an individual
thinker whose theological outlook is for the nonce
chaotic, who is confused by the multiplicity and diffi-
culty of new questions, professing to challenge the world
with confidence in the name of Christianity. The Church
challenges the world. The portrait in the Gospels,
instead of being first obliterated by Strauss and Renan,
and then replaced by the arguments of the eschato-
logical school — a method as inferior in security to tradi-
tion as the artificial ever is to the natural — has been kept
by the Church through the ages in which the critics
denounced it as obscurantist, until the day of its re-
habilitation in the courts of criticism. Doubtless this
involves some slowness to accept the theories of con-
temporary criticism — probably some slowness even to
do them full justice. But if we keep the tares we do not
lose or corrupt the wheat. The challenge of Christianity
to the world is never in abeyance, and criticism and
revision is effedled too slowly to be paralysing.

Mr Streeter's general conclusion, that the historic
Christ of careful criticism is substantially the Christ
which the careful reader finds in the Gospels, is very
valuable even though we join issue with him in many
particulars of his analysis. But good and useful arguments
on behalf of this conclusion, without the protedive
aftion of the Church, do not avoid the danger which Mr
Streeter deplores. Too much is staked on argument.

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The suspicion of its possible unsoundness is too serious
to enable it to give by itself all the strength he claims for
it. The very imperfeftion of the Catholic method on
its merely intelle6lual side is part of its strength. It
almost inevitably keeps dominant an intelledlual posi-
tion which is not abreast of the best criticism, yet the
more critical minds can profit by solidarity with those
which keep untarnished a bold zeal, which fine distinc-
tions are apt to dim, without being confronted with the
dilemma that what they believe to be intelleftually
inadequate is finally ruled or must be promptly swept
away. They may possess their souls in patience, pro-
fiting by the spiritual force which is allied with un-
developed science, believing that the Church will last
long enough to take her time in saying her last word.
In the great cataclysm of the seventeenth century which
Mr Streeter, like others, quotes as the type of the modern
pressure on theology from men of science, Bellarmine
expressly said that if Copernicanism was proved the
apparently anti-Copernican texts of Scripture would
be re-interpreted by the Church. But at the very time
that he said this the decree of the Holy Office was in
force which denounced the system as heretical. These
two fadls represented two aspe£ls of Catholic life ever
co-existing — ^the official protest against insufficiently
proved novelty, and the readiness of the best theo-
logians to accept and assimilate fads when they have
been proved beyond doubt.

One further word. The above observations may be
met with a mere counter attack. It may be maintained
that a Catholic is not allowed such freedom as is simply
necessary to adjust his mind to fafts which are certain
to thoughtful students who are alive to the trend of
criticism. Such an objeftion would be to raise an entirely
different question from what I am contemplating. A
system may be worked better in one year than in another.
Again, to work it well with a view to the necessities of
one class of people may be to work it badly with a view
to the necessities of another. My point here is that the

Some Oxford Essays

conception and reality of the organic oneness of the
Church, which the Church of England lost at the Re-
formation, can meet the special difficulty raised by Mr
Streeter, and that it is hard without it to combine heat
and light, which are found in a corporate body, but
rarely, if ever, in individuals. As to the defefts in the
pradical working of the resulting system here and there,
I should probably defend much that Mr Streeter would
attack, and I might agree with him in other points of
criticism. But the discussion would be a different one
from what I have here attempted.

But this question does suggest one that is very
pertinent to the present inquiry. Objedors may assume
that this trust in the Church means a belief that the
theologians, or the episcopate, or the Pope can meet the
difficulties raised by the new sciences and new discussions,
though the individual cannot do so. And they may con-
centrate their guns on pages in Church history which
show such confidence to be misplaced, and therefore
impossible to a candid inquirer. I do not think the
hypothesis on which such an attack is based is psycho-
logically accurate. Our national sentiment towards
England is not identical with our trust in the generals
or statesmen of a particular time. We trust in the
national character and the national genius on the whole
and in the long run. And something resembling that
trust in the natural order is our trust (to use a meta-
phorical phrase) in the supernatural genius of the
Church. We believe that the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of
Wisdom, dwells in her, and that she will ever preserve,
undiluted, the original Christian faith. Nor is our con-
fidence or the sense of being part of the Divinely guided
organization which carries on the struggle of Christianity
against the world hke mercury in a barometer, which
rises or falls, according as theologians, or Bishops, or
even Popes appear to be, or really are, adequate, from a
special point of view, to a given situation at a given
moment. No one ever defended Pope Honorius as wise,
or as having so aded as to check the spread of Monothe-

Some Oxford Essays

lite dodrine. But his aftion was a drop in the ocean.
In Nature much incidental waste attends on absolutely
assured and far-reaching developments. In history the
purposes of Divine justice are achieved amid the apparent
failures mourned by Ecclesiastes. " Though he slay me
yet will I trust him," says Job. So too our trust in the
Divine Power in the Church must rise above the mis-
takes of individual rulers in detail. Trust in their words
and a6ls is measured by and limited by the teaching of
theologians in the subje6l. Our trust in the divine in-
dwelling spirit has no defined limitation.

Far then from f eehng with Mr Streeter that our own
changing analysis of theological dodlrine is the foot-
hold from which, as Christians, we challenge the world,
it is rather as privates in a large army that we fight,
the corporate trust in God's guidance which inspires
the whole being independent of the personal analysis
which few thoughtful persons can fail to attempt.

To pass from Foundations to Mgr Benson's Con-
fessions of a Convert is indeed to travel far. Throughout
Mgr Benson's eloquent and often brilliant pages we see
no sign that he has ever, either as an Anglican or as a
Catholic, been touched by the intellecSlual difficulties
which are to these Anglican writers so absorbing. The
present reviewer was too early influenced by those mem-
bers of the old Oxford school to whom the negative posi-
tion in religion was very real wholly to share Mgr Benson's
attitude. But that sentiment concerning the Church,
which in Cardinal Newman came as an immense power
against unbelief, stands out with equal vividness in
Mgr Benson's pages. It is a sentiment and a conviftion
which bridges the gulf between more speculative minds
and more pra6lical minds: which avoids the feature
which Mr Streeter rightly deplores, of a Christian
challenging the world on the strength of intelledlual
positions, which must shift and become partially modi-
fied as new points of view become apparent. I could
wish to linger on Mgr Benson's vivid pages, but this
appears to me the point of most pradlical importance

Some Oxford Essays

which emerges from them. Contrasting his feeHng with
respe6l to the CathoHc Church and the Communion
which he left, he writes :

" The CathoHc Church may be undecided and permit
divergent views on purely speculative points. . . . But
in things that diredly and pradically affedl souls — with
regard to the fad of grace, its channels, those things
necessary to salvation and the rest — she must not only
know her mind, but must be constantly declaring it,
and no less constantly silencing those who would obscure
and misinterpret it." And these strong bold outlines
of concurrence visible to all and untouched by the subtle-
ties of learning correspond to the obvious common-sense
of religion : " it was impossible that the finding of the
way of salvation should be a matter of shrewdness or
scholarship, otherwise salvation would be easier for the
clever and leisured than for the dull and busy."

The Church guarantees Christianity for simple and
learned alike. Each can be in a measure the mouthpiece
of a Divine Wisdom which far transcends the percep-
tions of either. " She knows, if we do not : she knows, even
if she does not say that she knows : far within her some-
where, far down in her great heart, there lies hid the very
wisdom of God Himself."

In this confidence we have a truer antidote to in-
effe6liveness than in Mr Streeter's interesting theory.
True enough Mr Streeter holds that the unlearned may
find in the Gospel the very figure his own subtler mind
analyses. But while attempts at analysis are necessary,
they can never supply as a psychological fa61: the firmness
of foothold which belief in the Church gives. Physical
and metaphysical theories will never give us that con-
fidence in the reahty of the outer world that constant
experience gives even to the simple and unintelle6lual.
And theological analysis can never take the place of che
Church, the great outlines of which are visible to all
alike.

I could wish to dwell on some of the other Essays in
Foundations — notably on Mr Moberly's masterly analysis

Some Oxford Essays

of the fadls in human nature which correspond to the
do6lrine of the Atonement. But for the present, at all
events, I must content myself with this attempt to point
out the psychological bearing of the idea of the visible
Church on the attitude of that steadily increasing number
of Catholics to whom the difficulties raised by modern
conditions and modern science are as evident as they are
to their fellows in other communions.

WILFRID WARD

IRISH GAELIC NATURE

POETRY IN ENGLISH VERSE

TRANSLATION

IRISH Gaelic poetry, whether it be the poetry of love
or battle, or patriotism, or religion, or philosophy, is
drenched through and through with that love of nature
for which Matthew Arnold has coined his delightful
phrase, " Natural magic." It is not intended to elaborate
this theme direftly in what follows, but to show in-
diredly by these translations, chiefly from the early
Irish, how true is the above contention.

It may, however, be well simply to state that whereas
Wordsworth's love for nature, which Mr Ruskin somewhat
contemptuously designates " the pathetic fallacy," is an
immersion in nature in all its moods, an identification of
man's spirit with the spirit of nature, almost on the
assumption that everything that lives and breathes is
animated by an inter-communicable soul — the Gaelic
bard or saint or scholar treated woods and hills and sea,
not so much as mere illustrators of passing events, as the
classical writers treated them, but rather as companions
and friends, the sharers of joy, soothers of sorrow.

And what is true of inanimate nature, if indeed any-
thing growing and breathing like plant and flower and
tree can now be called inanimate, is as true of bird and
beast, and fish and inseft in their relation more especially
to the cheerful hermits and monks, who delighted in the
companionship of dumb creatures as keenly as St Francis
of Assisi himself.

The earliest of these Irish nature poems are of a gnomic
charafter. The earliest of all— "The Song of Amergan"—
has recently been re-translated by Professor John Mac-
Neil, on whose readings, first translated into English by
Miss Eleanor Hull in her very striking volume, T^he Poem
Book of the Gael, the following verse translation is closely
founded. It may be stated that " Tethra's kine " is a
Vol. 153 65 5

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

poetic expression for fish, and that this poem is generally
followed by an incantation for good fishing, to which the
phrase, " Oh folk of the waves " doubtless refers.

THE SONG OF AMERGAN

By Amergan, a pre-historic Bard

{From the Books of Lee can and Ballymote)

I am the wind on the sea for might ;

I am a wave of the deep for length;

I am the sound of the sea for fright ;

I am a stag of seven points for strength.

I am a hawk on a cliff for lightness ;

I am a tear of the sun for brightness ;

I am a salmon in wisdom's fountain ;

I am a lake that afar expands ;

I am knowledge and poesy's mountain ;

I am a spear in a spoiler's hands.

I am a God who fashions smoke from magic fire for a Druid to slay

with.
Who but I will make clear each question the mind of man still goes

astray with?
Who but myself the assemblies knows of the house of the sages on

high Slieve Mis ?

Who but the poet knows where in the ocean the going down of the

great sun is ?
Who seven times sought the Fairy Forts without or fear or injury?
And who declareth the moon's past ages and the ages thereof that

have yet to be?
Who out of the shadowy haunts of Tethra hitherward draweth his

herds of kine?
Who segregated them from each other to browse the plains of the

watery brine?
For whom will the fish of the laughing ocean be making welcome if

not for me?
Who shapeth as I can the spell of letters, a weapon to win them out

of the sea?
Invoke, a satirist fit incantations to weave for you, O folk of the

waves.
Even me, the Druid forth furnishing Ogham letters on oaken staves,

in English Verse Translation

Even me, the parter of combatants, even me who the Fairy Height
Enter to find a cunning enchanter to lure with me your shoals to
light!

I am the Wind of the Sea for might.

Dr Sigerson makes this interesting comment on the
above poem in his Bards of the Gael and Gaul:

When Amergan of the Fair Knee as the poet Druid and Judge
of the Milesians first planted his right foot on the land of Erin, he
composed this song in the Rosg metre, whose short lines end as
blank verse ends, but the first words of whose short verses consti-
tute what may be called " an entrance rhyme."

We leap from this poem over a wide gap of time to the
Cuchulainn period. Internal evidence clearly shows this
literature to be pagan. Recent Irish poets, Mr W. B.
Yeats, Mr George Russell {M) and Mr Synge, have all
dealt with the wonderful tragedy of the Three Sons of
Usnach, of whom Deirdre is the heroine. It will there-
fore interest modern readers to see how this nature love
of the Gaels suffuses Deirdre's " Great Lamentation." I
have already, in a recent number of The Contemporary
Review, shown how her heart throbs with joyful recol-
leftions of Scotch scenery in her beautiful " Farewell to
Alba," the early Irish name for Scotland.

THE GREAT LAMENTATION OF DEIRDRE FOR THE
SONS OF USNA

As to Deirdre, she was a year in the household of Conchobar,
after the death of the Sons of Usna. And though it might be a
little thing to raise her head or to bring a smile over her Hp, never
once did she do it through all that space of time . . . She took not
sufficiency of food or sleep, nor Hfted her head from her knee.
When people of amusement were sent to her, she would break out
into lamentation : ^

Splendid in your sight though the champions be
Into Eman's Court flocking from the foray,

Far more proudly bright showed my Heroes Three
Facing home from sport out of copse and corrie.
^ 67 5^

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

Mighty casks of mead Naisi bent before ;

At the crackling fire then with joy I bathed him;
Ardan for our need bare an ox or boar,

Ainle what a pyre of the faggots swathed him!

Pleasant though the food, though the mead be luscious
For the Son of Ness of Mighty Feats prepared.

In our solitude viands more delicious
From a Border Chase I have often shared.

For the cooking hearth when my Naisi noble
Faggot-hands released on the hero-boards.

Wondrous — yea ! for worth, still of all the double.
Was the spoilful feast spread by my Three Lords.

Aye and howsoever musical may be

Pipe and horn uniting for Emania's throng,

Never I assever could their melody
Cause me such delighting as my hero's song.

Here with Conchobar, lord of Ulla's land.

Sweet the music breathed forth from pipe and horn.

More alluring far over Alba's strand
Usna's sons' en wreathed voices, night and morn !

Like a wave of wonder, Naisi's noble voice,
Music, tiring never, clarion sweet and smooth;

Ardan's rich notes under made my heart rejoice,
Ainle's deep chant ever thrilled our hunting booth!

Naisi in the tomb we, alas 1 have laid you.

Woeful now to think of our convoy's rout.
They who from your doom struggled still to aid you.

Drank the venomed drink by their a6l poured out.

Heart's beloved, thou of the beard well- trimmed.
Shapely one, although through time their glory runs,

I'll ne'er waken now to welcome, joyful-limbed.
The going to and fro of Usna's mighty sons.

Prudent were thy ponderings, champion over all !

Modest was thy grace, mighty though thy power !
After all our wanderings through the woods of Fal,

Blest was thy embrace at the midnight hour I
68

in English Verse Translation

Eyes of glamour grey no woman could resist,

Though with fury fearful on our foes ye lightened !

Ah! and on our way to the woodland tryst
How thy deep notes cheerful all the darkness brightened!

I can sleep no more ! Out among the hosts,
A ghost among the ghosts, all night my spirit strays.

When the dark is o'er, I cannot eat or smile.

Nothing can beguile the long, long desolate days.

I can sleep no more ! I no more can sleep !

Nor my fine and fair finger nails dye red.
Dumbly at the door still my watch I keep.

Usna's Sons, oh where from me are ye fled?

When Laegh, Cuchulainn's charioteer, rouses him
from the inglorious love-sickness into which he has fallen
through the love of Fand, to face the enemies of Ulster,
he makes use of a splendid simile drawn from the book of
nature, as will be seen in the fourth verse of this noble
invocation, an invocation with all the Homeric spirit
pulsing through it.

LAEGH'S SUMMONS TO CUCHULAINN

Rise, champion of Ultonia's need.
From sickness freed to strength awake !

All miss thee from King Conor's levy ;
For him thy heavy slumber break.

Behold ! his steel-clad shoulders glare.

His trumpets blare for battle press;
Behold his chariots sweep the glen,

He marshals men as though for chess,

His Red Branch Knights, with spear on loop,

His maiden troop, tall and serene.
His vassal kings — a battle storm —

By each the form of his fair queen !

Look forth ! the winter hath begun;

Now one by one its marvels mark.
Behold, for it beseems thee well.

Its long, cold spell, its hueless dark.

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

This rest inglorious is not good —
Weak lassitude from wanton strife —

Such long repose is drunkenness,
Such sleep no less than death in life.

This trance, as of a toping churl,

With mighty ardour hurl away !
Forth, from thy bed of impotence,

Leap, Champion Prince, to front the fray.

We pass to the second pagan period of Irish Gaelic
literature, that of the Fenian cycle, called after Fionn
MacCumhall (Finn MacCool).

Fionn, according to the tradition, had eaten of one of
the salmon of knowledge so-called because the salmon
itself had swallowed some of the nuts of knowledge which
had fallen from the magic hazel trees guarding Connla's
well. The communication through these magical nuts of
poetic inspiration to all who ate of them, led Fionn to
break forth into his "Lays of Summer and Winter," which
are nature poems, pure and simple, and in no way related
to themes of love and war, though here and there filled
with the cry of the hounds in pursuit of the high-step-
ping deer. There is a stark beauty about the original of
this winter poem that is extraordinarily striking.

THE FIRST WINTER SONG

From the early ninth or tenth century Irish

Take my tidings !
Stags contend,
Snows descend —
Summers end !

A chill wind raging;
The sun low keeping,
Swift to set
O'er seas high sweeping.

Dull red the fern ;
Shapes are shadows;
Wild geese mourn
O'er misty meadows.
70

in English Verse Translation

Keen cold limes each weaker wing.
Icy times —
Such I sing!
Take my tidings !

More expansive as a winter landscape is the following
" Song of Winter " from " The Hiding of the HiU of
Howth," attributed to Fionn MacCumhall, though the
Irish of the poem is probably of the tenth century :

Cold, cold and cold again,
Cold o'er broad Moylurg's domain,
The snow is heaped a mountain height,
The stags are starved for food to-night.

Cold, cold, cold, till Doom
The storm outspreads her wings of gloom ;
With streams each furrowed slope is charged,
Each ford to a full pool enlarged.

For seas the lochs you might mistake,
Each pond is swollen to a lake. ^

If steeds are stayed by foaming Ross,
Can two feet hope to fare across?

The fish of Erin roam the land;
Great waves to pieces pound her strand.
No town is left through all her Cooms,
Where creaks one crane or one bell booms.

Not even in Cuan's forest deep
To-night the shaggy wolves can sleep,
Nor can the httle wren keep warm
On Lon's wild side against the storm.

The fluttering feathered company
Fall struck by frost from every tree,
In vain the blackbird up and down
Seeks shelter for her body brown.

Cosy our pot its hook upon
Crazy the hut on sloping Lon.

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

The wood down here lies crushed by snow.
Toilsome, for more, to climb Ben-bo.

The ancient eagle of Glen Rye
Gets grief from out the storm-swept sky;
Great her misery, dire her drouth,
Famished, frozen — craw and mouth.

From flock and down to-day to rise,

Be warned by me, were all unwise;

On every ford is ice heaped high.

And therefore, " Cold! Cold! Cold! " I cry.

And here is Fionn's first lay of all, his "Lay of
Beltane " or Midsummer's Day, the day on which the
Baal fire was lit, as it is still Kt on St John's Eve throughout
Ireland.

Oh, mild May Day, in Fodla's clime

Of fairy colour, the laughing prime

Of leafy summer from year to year,

I would that Leagha were with me here

To lie and listen down in a dell

To Banba's blackbird warbling well.

And her cuckoos crying with constant strain

Welcome, welcome the bright Beltane !

When the swallows are skimming the shore,

And the swift steed stoops to the fountain,
And the weak, fair bog-down grows on the moor.

And the heath spreads her hair on the mountain.
And the signs of heaven are in consternation.

And the rushing planets such radiance pour.
That the sea lies lulled, and the generation

Of flowers awakes once more.

In the poem known as "The Colloquy of Oiseen (Ossian)
and Patrick," an extraordinary discussion takes place
between the Saint and the old hero who must perforce
become a Christian at the end of a long pagan life.
This disputation is curiously typical of the naturahstic
attitude of the bards towards the clerics right down to

in English Verse Translation

the time of Brian Merriman, whose famous " Midnight
Court " was written in 1781. This latter-day poem, in-
deed, opens with a description of nature, which is one of
the most beautiful in Irish literature. "The Colloquy of
Oiseen and Patrick " abounds in beautiful descriptions of
nature, from which the following two verses, translated
by Mr T. W, RoUeston, may be quoted:

DEAR TO FINN
These are the things that were dear to Finn —

The din of battle, the banquet's glee,
The bay of his hounds through the rough glen ringing,

And the blackbird singing in Letter Lee.

The shingle grinding along the shore,

When they dragged his war-boats down to sea;

The dawn- wind whistling his spears among;
And the magic song of his minstrels three.

From the Colloquy may also be quoted the hymn of
Caeilte MacRonan to the Island of Arran in Scotland.
" It would seem," writes Miss Hull, " that from Lammas-
tide (called in Ireland Lughnasadh, or the feast of the god
Lugh) until the call of the cuckoo from the tree-tops
in Ireland " the Fenian battalions were accustomed to
repair to the Isle of Arran for hunting. Caeilte in describ-
ing this island to St Patrick becomes eloquent of its
delights. " More melodious than all music ever heard
were the voices of the birds as they rose from the billows,
and from the coast-line of the island thrice fifty flocks of
winged fowl encircled her, clad in gay brilliance of every
colour."

I give my own rendering into verse of the praises of
Arran from Professor Kuno Meyer's translation of the
thirteenth century prose tale, " Agallamh na Sendrach."

Arran, of the mighty stags,

Whose shouldering crags the billow smites !
Within her companies are fed.

Blue spears are reddened on her heights.

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

Deer dance along her mountain tops ;

Luscious fruit crown copse and scaur ;
Cold and pure her streams leap past,

Rich with mast her dun oaks are.

From her wood-set bothie's bound

Wiry hound and beagle staunch
Still through buried briar and thorn

Urge the horned quarry's haunch.

Plumes of purple tuft her rocks,

Faultless flocks of grass her lawns ;
O'er each fair and shapely knoll

Caracole her dappled fawns.

Smooth her lowlands, sleek with swine;

With flowers ashine her upland vale;
Nuts her nodding hazels throng,

Galleys long beside her sail.

Delightful, too, when red trout play,
And melts to May her season barren,

While gulls around her white cliffs call ;
Delightful at all times is Arran!

There is a remarkable poem, the original o£ which
appears in " Silva Gadelica," edited by Mr Standish Hayes
O'Grady, entitled " The Lay of the Forest Trees," con-
taining much folk lore which will be most interesting to
all forest lovers.

The poem arises in the course of a prose tale out of
the careless gathering of wood for a fire in the open air
by a servant or " man of smoke," as he is called. Into this
he pitches a log of wood, around which honeysuckle had
twined. A poetic protest is at once raised by the observers
on the ground that the burning of the woodbine would
undoubtedly bring ill-fortune with it.

THE SONG OF THE FOREST TREES

Man of Fires with logs providing

Fergus of the banquet-halls,
When thine arm the axe is guiding,

Be thou ware what timber falls.

in English Verse Translation

Spare the woodbine from debasement —

Forest King of Innisfail;
Since against his grim embracement

Not the toughest trees prevail.

Flexile woodbine if thou firest,
Loud laments shall soon abound —

War's extremities, the direst —
Men in mighty billows drowned.

Neither burn the apple branches,
Leaning low yet spreading far;
Whereon sweetest blossom blanches,
Sweetest fruits at hand-reach are.

Nor destroy the blackthorn surly,

Burnt not of artificers,
Through whose gauntness, late and early,

Flock the small, sweet choristers.

Let alone the noble willow.

Sacred to the bardic page:
Bees to suck his bloomlets yellow

Haunt with joy his hanging cage.

Burn the rowan's berried timber.

Burn the Druid's graceful tree!
Let the hazel, slight and limber,

Full of nodding nuts, go free.

Burn the ash- wood darkly burnished.
Wood that makes the wheels go light,

Horsemen's rods therefrom are furnished.
After combat speeding flight.

Tenterhook in every forest,

Burn the keen, green, spiteful briar.

He that wounds the foot the sorest.
Forward drags who would retire.

Fiercest wood for faggot-making
Is the green, injurious oak;
75

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

He who courts him, courts headaching,
Blears his eyes with bitter smoke.

Alder, war-fiend by confession,

Hottest tree on battle morn,
Surely, burn, at thy discretion,

Both the alder and white-thorn.

Holly, burn it in the green wood

Holly, burn it in the dry !
Through the forest who has seen wood

Finer for the hearth's supply?

Elder, tough his bark and coarse is —
Tree whose splinters leave us scarred —

Tree that fairy foemen horses —
Let him into dust be charred.

Burn the birch, good hap shall follow
All who burn him branch and root ;

Let the flaming furnace swallow
Even his smallest seedling shoot.

Then the russet aspen — spurn him,
Spurn him headlong from thee, now!

Be it late or early, burn him.
Burn the tree of palsied bough!

Patriarch yew, of woods long lasting

For the banquet blessed of old,
Dark-red vats of him be casting.

Mead and wine and ale to hold,

Ferdedh, faithful one and ready,

Heed this counsel that I give,
So shalt thou, in soul and body.

Henceforth prosperously live.

An instance has already been given of the pathetic
power with which the love of nature is woven into the
love laments of Deirdre. "The Lament of Crede"for Gael,
who, after success in his suit for her, fell in desperate

in English Verse Translation

conflid on the sea shore with a foreign invader, is even
in more poignant sympathy with nature in losses akin to
her own.

CREDHE'S LAMENT FOR GAEL

From a Bodleian manuscript of the Jour teenth century

O'er thy chief, thy rushing chief, Loch da Conn

Loud the haven is roaring;
All too late, her deadly hate for Chrimtha's son
Yonder deep is deploring.
Shall comfort, I trow, to Credhe is her wail,

Slender solace now. Oh, my Gael!
Ochone ! och, wirrasthrue ! can she who slew

Bid thee back, Spirit soaring !

Hark, the thrush from out Drumqueen lifts his keen

Through the choir of the thrushes ;
With his mate, his screaming mate, o'er the green

See! the red weasel rushes.
Grushed on the crag lies Glensilen's doe,

O'er her yon stag tells his woe.
Thus, Gael, och, ochonee ! for thee, for thee

My soul's sorrow gushes.

O, the thrush, the mourning thrush, mating shall sing,

When the furze bloom is yellow;
O, the stag, the grieving stag, in the spring

With a fresh doe shall fellow;
But love for me, 'neath the ever-moving mound

Of the scowling sea, lieth drowned;
While och, och, ollagone ; the sea-fowl moan

And the sea beasts bellow.

I have already dealt in my article on " The Preter-
natural in Early Irish Poetry," published in a previous
issue of this Quarterly, with fairy visions of unearthly
beauty such as are to be found in Bran's Voyage to " The
Isle of Delight," but it might be well here to emphasize
by illustration, as Mr Stopford Brooke has sq finely
pointed out in his introduftory essay to T. W. RoUeston's

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

"High Deeds o£ Finn," what a love for colour, amounting
to extravagance, the early Irish bard possessed.

And not only is there a love for exaggerating colour,
but even imagining it. Not only do the winds receive their
distind hues but, as Miss Hull indicates, " there are red,
white and green martyrdoms in ecclesiastical literature,
and by these different kinds and degrees of self-sacrifice
are designated."

Here are some of these highly-coloured fancies ex-
tracted from " Laegh's Description of Fairy Land,"
whither he is advising Cuchulainn to go, at the request of
Fand.

At the palace door, that its pearly face
Turns toward the place of the setting sun,

Stands a herd of palfreys, grey and dapple-maned,
Hard beside then reined, bides a herd blue-dun.

At the radiant door that the sun-rise sees

Tower three ancient trees, purple pure is each ;

Thence to charm our princelings, sweet immortal birds
Pour the warbled words of their formless speech.

At the great south door grows a graceful tree,
Music fresh and free thence in waves is rolled;

Silver is its stem shining in the sun.
All its leaves are spun of a splendid gold.

Thrice a twenty trees in one swaying copse
Mix their magic tops, mix but ne'er enwind,

Each a full three hundred every day is feasting
With its many-tasting fruitage free from rind.

In the beautiful dirge for King Niall of the Nine
Hostages (a.d. 405) some descriptive passages full of
natural magic may be noted.

^uirn Son of Torna

When we hosted forth afar
With Echu's son of valour,

in English Verse Translation

Yellow as the primrose star,
I saw his tresses shine.

'Torna
For the fancy that compares

The crown of golden pallor,
The primrose wears, with Niall's hairs

A bond-maid should be thine !

luirn Son of Torna
Brows and lashes dusky soft

Of equal arch and cluster;
Eyes, as woad-flowers in a croft,

Of hyacinthine blue ;
Then the carmine of his cheeks,
'^ Unchanging in their lustre ;
Not the fairy fox-glove streaks
May woods with such a hue.

Lastly, we come to the open air, nature-loving life of
saint and hermit. Here, therefore, is that beautiful
colloquy of " The King and the Hermit," first trans-
lated by Professor Kuno Meyer into his stately prose and
published by Messrs. D. Nutt, 1901. The original Irish
is that of the tenth century.

KING AND HERMIT

Marvan, brother of King Guare of Connaught, in the seventh
century, had renounced the life of a warrior prince for that of a
hermit. The King endeavoured to persuade his brother to return
to his Court, when the following colloquy took place between
them.

Guau

Now, Marvan, hermit of the grot.

Why sleepest thou not on quilted feathers?

Why on a pitch-pine floor instead

At night make head against all weathers

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

Marvan

I have a shieling in the wood,
None save my God has knowledge of it,

An ash tree and a hazel nut

Its two sides shut, great oak-boughs roof it.

Two heath-clad posts beneath a buckle
Of honeysuckle its frame are propping,

The woods around its narrow bound

Swine-fattening mast are richly dropping.

From out my shieling not too small,

Familiar all, fair paths invite me.
While, blackbird, from my gable end.

Sweet sable friend, thy notes delight me.

With joys the stags of Oakridge leap
Into their clear and deep- banked river,

Far off red Roiny glows with joy
Muckraw, Moinmoy in sunshine quiver.

With mighty mane a green-barked yew
Upholds the blue ; his fortress green

An oak uprears against the storms.
Tremendous forms, stupendous scene 1

Mine apple-tree is full of fruit

From crown to root — a hostel's store ;

My bonny nut-ful hazel bush
Leans branching lush against my door.

A choice pure spring of cooling draught
Is mine, what prince has quaffed a rarer;

Around it cresses keen, O King,
Invite the famishing wayfarer.

Tame swine and wild and goat and deer

Assemble here upon its brink,
Yea ! even the badger's brood draws near

And without fear lie down to drink.
80

in English Verse Translation

A peaceful troop of creatures strange,
They hither range from wood and height,

To meet them slender foxes steal
At vesper peal, O my delight I

These visitants, as to a Court,

Frequent resort to seek me out —
Pure water, Brother Guare, are they

The salmon grey, the speckled trout.

Red rowans, dusky sloes and mast —

O unsurpassed and God-sent dish,
Blackberries, whortleberries blue.

Red strawberries to my taste and wish.

Sweet apples, honey of wild bees,

And, after them, of eggs a clutch.
Haws, berries of the juniper.

Who, King, could cast a slur on such?

A cup with mead of hazel-nut

Outside my hut in summer shine.
Or ale with herbs from wood and spring

Are worth, O King, thy costliest wine.

Bright bluebells o'er my board I throw —
A lovely show my feast to spangle —

The rushes' radiance, oaklets gray.
Briar tresses gay, sweet, goodly tangle.

When brilliant summer casts once more
Her cloak of colour o'er the fields.

Sweet-tasting marjoram, pignut, leek,
To all who seek, her verdure yields.

Her bright red-breasted little men
Their lovely music then outpour,

The thrush exults, the cuckoos all
Around her call and call once more.
Vol. 153 81

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

The bees, earth's small musicians, hum,
No longer dumb, in gentle chorus ;

Like echoes faint of that long plaint
The fleeing wild-fowl murmur o'er us.

The wren an a£live songster now

From off the hazel-bough pipes shrill,

Woodpeckers flock in multitudes.

With beauteous hoods and beating bill.

With fair white birds, the crane and gull —
The fields are full, while cuckoos cry

No mournful music ! Heath poults dun
Through russet heather sunward fly.

The heifers now with loud delight,
Summer bright, salute thy reign ;

Smooth delight for toilsome loss
'Tis now to cross the fertile plain.

The warblings of the wind that sweep
From branchy wood to sapphire sky.

The river falls, the swan's far note
Delicious music floating by.

Earth's bravest band, because unhired.
All day, untired, make cheer for me.

In Christ's own eyes of endless youth
Can this same truth be said of thee?

What though in Kingly pleasures now
Beyond all riches thou rejoice.

Content am I my Saviour good

Should on this wood have set my choice.

Without one hour of war or strife
Through all my hfe at peace I fare.

Where better can I keep my tryst
With our Lord Christ, O brother Guare?
82

in English Verse Translation

Guare

My glorious Kingship, yea ! and all

My sire's estates that fall to me,
My Marvan, I would gladly give,

So I might live my life with thee.

A typical poem by St Columba, giving a vivid pidlure
of his work as a scribe in the open air, is now presented. It
is in the language of the eleventh century, modernized
from Columcille's earlier Gaelic.

THE SCRIBE
For weariness my hand writes ill;

My small, sharp quill runs rough and slow;
Its slender beak with failing craft

Puts forth its draught of dark, blue flow.

And yet God's blessed wisdom gleams

And streams beneath my fair-brown palm,

The while quick jets of holly ink
The letters link of prayer or psalm.

So, still my dripping pen is fain
To cross the plain of parchment white;

Unceasing at some rich man's call.
Till wearied all I am to-night.

My final effort as a translator from the Irish on this
occasion must be the presentation of a version of St
Columba in lona. The circumstances under which it was
made were somewhat remarkable. I was in Brussels last
Christmas, and on the I2th of January, a Sunday, was
occupied upon the translation of a secular poem, when,
for some occult reason or other, I felt impelled to rehn-
quish my task and address myself to this version of St
Columba in lona. The words came to me with unusual
freedom, and when I had come to the end of my trans-
lation I found from a footnote at the end of the printed
page on which I had been engaged that the original Irish

83 6tf

Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry

manuscript upon which my version was founded lay but
a stone's throw away from me in the Burgundian Library
of Brussels.

ST COLUMBA IN lONA

(From an Irish manuscript in the Burgundian Library,
Brussels)

Delightful would it be to me

From a rock pinnacle to trace
Continually

The ocean's face :
That I might watch the heaving waves

Of noble force
To God the Father chant their staves

Of the earth's course ;
That I might mark its level strand.

To me no lone distress,
That I might hark the sea-bird's wondrous band —

Sweet source of happiness ;
That I might hear the clamorous billows thunder

On the rude beach.
That by my blessed church side I might ponder

Their mighty speech ;
Or watch surf -flying gulls the dark shoal follow

With joyous scream,
Or mighty ocean monsters spout and wallow —

Wonder supreme !

That I might well observe of ebb and flood

All cycles therein ;
And that my mystic name might be for good

But "Cul-ri Erin;"
That gazing toward her on my heart might fall

A full contrition.
That I might then bewail my evils all,

Though hard the addition;
That I might bless the Lord who all things orders

For their great good,
The countless hierarchies through Heaven's bright
borders —

Land, strand and flood;

in English Verse Translation

That I might search all books and from their chart

Find my soul's calm ;
Now kned before the heaven of my heart,

Now chant a psalm ;
Now meditate upon the King of Heaven,

Chief of the Holy Three ;
Now ply my work by no compulsion driven.

What greater joy could be?
Now plucking dulse upon the rocky shore,

Now fishing eager on ;
Now furnishing food unto the famished poor;

In hermitage anon ;
The guidance of the King of Kings

Has been vouchsafed unto me.
If I keep watch beneath His wings.

No evil shall undo me !

ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES.

THE NAPOLEON OF
SAN DOMINGO

'' A GREAT career,'' says Disraeli, "although baulked
jiX^oi its end, is still a landmark of human energy.
Failure, when sublime, is not without its purpose." And
when we study the history of the negro, Toussaint
L'Ouverture, who rose by sheer force of charadler to the
rank of Di6lator, only to perish in lonely exile, a prisoner
in one of Napoleon's gloomiest dungeons, we cannot
fail to acknowledge the truth of the great statesman's
epigram, to admit the sublimity of such failure, and
appreciate the value of a career so baulked and blighted.

Born in bondage in 1743, and for over fifty years a serf
on an obscure West Indian plantation, Toussaint never
ceased to cherish within his bosom the deathless spark of
Liberty. Armed with this sacred torch he was destined
to kindle those flaming pyres which presently flashed
forth their message of Freedom from every hill-top in
the Antilles, and were finally reflefted in the answering
bonfires lighted on the distant continent of America to
celebrate the emancipation of the negro slave. Finding
his country in a state of internal anarchy, and the major-
ity of his fellows in a condition of intense misery, he
bestowed upon the one peace and prosperity, upon the
other independence and those rights of citizenship which
had for centuries been denied to " men of colour." And
though his triumph was short-lived, and he died in cruel
confinement, broken, betrayed, deserted, he never gave
way to despair or embitterment, and his career is still one
of those " landmarks of human energy " by which we may
trace the upward path of the world's progress. His name
has indeed been deemed worthy to rank with those of the
five hundred heroes, illustrious in all departments of
thought and power, who figure in that famous Positivist
Calendar by which Comte sought to illustrate his general
theory of historical development. Here, for all time, he
takes his place, side by side with Cromwell, Washington,

The Napoleon of San Domingo

Algernon Sidney and Bolivar, among that handful of the
world's most prominent revolutionary leaders to whose
virtues and example mankind owes so much. His talents
and achievements as legislator, philosopher and general
have proved him not undeserving of such an honour; they
amply justify the assertion of the Abbe Gregoire that,
given the same education and liberty as their white
fellow-mortals, negroes would not be found deficient
in hearts pregnant with heroic energies, in hands capable
of wielding the sword of war or swaying the rod of
empire.

It was in the island of Hispaniola, otherwise known as
Hayti (or San Domingo), the scene of Toussaint's
a6livities, that Christopher Columbus established his
first transatlantic settlement, in the year 1492. As usually
happened in such circumstances, the Spanish colonists,
flushed with vidlory, proceeded to enslave the conquered
aborigines, treating them with such severity that in the
fifteen years subsequent to the discovery of the West
Indies the native population was reduced from a million
to some sixty thousand souls. In order to save the wretched
serfs from total extinftion, the good Bishop Bartolome de
las Casas, of Chiapa, commonly known as "the Protec-
tor of the Indians," suggested the introdudion of negro
labour from South Africa. Thus, with the best intentions
in the world, was sown the seed of that terrible African
slave trade — designed to supplement what Gibbon calls
the " milder but more tedious method of propagation " —
which, though it failed to prevent the extermination of
the natives, was fated to supply the weapon for their
ultimate avenging.

At the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, France acquired
the western portion of the island, leaving the eastern
half in the hands of the Spaniards. Nearly a hundred
years later, the popular idea of human equality engen-
dered by the French Revolution spread with amazing
rapidity throughout the whole of France's oversea pos-
sessions, and in the far " Queen of the Antilles " the germ
of emancipation found the conditions eminently favour-

The Napoleon of San Domingo

able to its growth. The inhabitants of the colony were
divided into three distinft classes — of which 40,000 were
white men, 30,000 free mulattoes, and 500,000 negro slaves
— each ripe for revolt against the existing state of affairs.
The white population consisted for the most part of
wealthy planters and of the managers of estates belonging
to absentee proprietors, who preferred to spend in France
their time and the incomes derived from their West
Indian properties. These were further supplemented
by a numerous rabble of adventurers, hangers-on and
needy ne'er-do-wells, who sponged upon their brother
whites and plundered their coloured fellow countrymen.

The whites had long grown restive under the unsym-
pathetic government administered from the distant
Mother Country; they resented the control of a Governor
in whose eleftion they had no voice, and viewed with
increasing disfavour and irritation the filling of all public
offices by unsuccessful politicians or Court favourites
from Paris. The American War of Secession direfted
their thoughts towards independence, and the French
Revolution seemed to them to be a step in the right
diredion. They lost no time, therefore, in expressing their
desire for self-administration by constituting for them-
selves a military form of government, after the fashion
of the National Guard, and eledled Assemblies in the
various big towns, in which they nevertheless declined
to allow a single man of colour to sit. In May, 1790, the
General Assembly of St Mark, in the West, published its
independent constitution. The General Assembly of the
North, however, sided with the French Government, and
thenceforward the country was divided into two antagon-
istic parties, the one desiring to maintain its allegiance to
France, the other wishing for complete autonomy. Of
these the former were satirically entitled " Aristocrats,"
and decorated their hats with white cockades, while the
latter wore red cockades and contented themselves with
the more modest name of " Patriots."

The mulattoes, many of them rich and prosperous
and the owners of large plantations, had always cherished

The Napoleon of San Domingo

a bitter grievance against the whites, who openly despised
and constantly affronted them in pubhc, refusing to eat
at the same table and absolutely denying the justice of
their claims to be considered fellow-citizens. When in
1790 a mulatto named Lacombe had the audacity to pre-
sent a petition to the authorities, urging upon them the
advisability of granting to men of colour those rights to
which they deemed themselves entitled, he was treated as
an incendiary and hanged, the whites declaring that they
would rather die than share their political privileges
with men of " a bastard and degenerate race."

At the outbreak of the French Revolution the mulat-
toes had conceived the brilliant notion of sending a depu-
tation to France with a present of twelve hundred thous-
and dollars, and the offer of a further annual subsidy
if the home government would consent to redress their
wrongs. The coloured delegates were favourably received
by the National Assembly, and told that their prayers
would not fall upon deaf ears. This message was joyfully
transmitted to San Domingo, where it gladdened the
hearts of the mulattoes^ but so enraged the whites that
they seized the bearer of the news and put him to death.

Realizing the futility of attempting to obtain justice
by legal means, a number of mulattoes, under the leader-
ship of a youth named Vincent Oge, who had been edu-
cated in Paris, planned an armed revolt, and landed a
small invading force at Cape Frangois, in the north-west,
where, however, they were easily defeated and dispersed.
Oge, forced to flee to Spanish territory, was finally deli-
vered up to the French authorities on condition that his
life should be spared. His captors, nevertheless, did not
consider themselves bound by their promise, and the
wretched man was cruelly tortured and broken on the
wheel, while twenty-one of his companions were hanged
and thirteen others condemned to the galleys for life.
The barbarity of this sentence sent a thrill of horror
through the ranks of the mulattoes, and helped to in-
crease the rapidly widening rift that separated the whites
from men of colour. In Paris, too, the news of the punish-

The Napoleon of San Domingo

ment inflidled upon Oge and his fellow conspirators
caused many eminent persons to interest themselves in
the cause to which he had fallen a vidlim. The " Societe
des Amis des Noirs," founded in 1738, under the presi-
dency of Condorcet, numbered such men as La Roche-
foucauld, Brissot, La Fayette, Robespierre and the Abbe
Gregoire among its members, while Mirabeau and other
leading statesmen were in aftive sympathy with its ob-
je6ls. Gregoire, therefore, found little difficulty in success-
fully pleading the cause of the mulattoes in the National
Assembly, a task in which he was ably supported by
Robespierre, who in a now famous passage exclaimed:
" Let the colonies perish rather than we should sacrifice
one iota of our principles ! " To these two men was
chiefly due the passing of a decree on May 15, 1791,
whereby it was enabled that men of colour, born of free
parents, in the French colonies, should be entitled to the
enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of French citi-
zenship.

News of the passing of this decree reached Cape
Frangois in June, and was acclaimed by the mulattoes
with every expression of delight. The white Assemblies,
nevertheless, declined to accept the edift of the French
Government, and adopted an attitude of frank anta-
gonism, trampling the national cockade under foot in
the streets, and even (it is said) going so far in their
hostility to France as to offer their island to King
George III as a British colony. The difficulties of the
Governor, General Blanchelande, were increased, and
the issues still further confused, when the Spaniards
seized this opportunity to attack the French troops;
and the troubles of France reached their culminating
point when the negroes, hitherto passive spectators
of the dispute, but now infeded by the prevalent spirit
of unrest, rose in revolt and started setting fire to their
masters' plantations. The subsequent repeal of the A61 of
May 15, at the earnest instigation of the absentee
planters in Paris, only served, as may well be imagined,
to infuriate the mulattoes, who at once threw in their

The Napoleon of San Domingo

lot with the negroes, and assisted them to ravage the land
and lay waste the property of the whites.

On the night of August 22, 1791, the negroes began to
burn the plantations, and in a very short while had in-
flided an enormous amount of damage upon property,
and had massacred some two thousand whites. The sur-
vivors, however, were better organized and equipped
than their black opponents and, having succeeded in
capturing no less than ten thousand negroes, put them
to death by every conceivable method of slow and subtle
torture. Unmentionable barbarities were pra6lised on
both sides in the course of the conflict, and it is not
easy to decide which party deserves credit for the com-
mission of the most flagrant atrocities. Claudian says
somewhere that there is no monster more hateful than
the savage serf wreaking his vengeance on the backs of
freemen; but it must be admitted that in this instance
the freemen seemed well able to vie with their slaves
in the invention of exquisite forms of torture wherewith
to spread terror in the hearts of their antagonists.

After their first repulse the blacks formed a camp
at a place called Pleasance, in the north-west, under the
leadership of two negro generals, the cowardly Jean
Frangois and the drunken and dissolute Biassou. These
hastily set to work to organize their forces into some
sort of military formation, and to acquire that sense of
discipline in which they were sadly lacking. Here, nearly
a month after the outbreak of hostilities, they were joined
by Toussaint, and from that moment the blacks were
informed with a new and nobler spirit, and the tide of
viftory gradually turned in their favour.

Toussaint had been born in the island of San Domingo,
half a century earlier, on a plantation called Breda,
belonging to the Comte de Noe, an absentee land-owner,
who left the control of his estates in the hands of a
kindly and capable manager, M. Bayou de Libertat.
Toussaint's father, Gaou Guinou by name, the son of
an African chief, was originally captured in a war with
a neighbouring tribe and sold to a slave-trader, who

The Napoleon of San Domingo

carried him over the sea to Hayti. Here he married
a fellow slave, by v^hom he had several children, Tous-
saint being the eldest.

From his earliest years the boy displayed unusual
intelligence and fidelity, and v^as quickly promoted from
the humble position of shepherd to that of coachman,
being eventually appointed overseer or foreman of his
master's plantation. In due course he married a young
negress, Suzanne Simon, v^hose son Placide he adopted
and regarded with the same degree of affe6lion that he
afterwards displayed towards his own son Isaac. His do-
mestic life was singularly happy and uneventful. " We
went to work in the fields, my wife and I, hand in hand,"
he says in his Memoirs, and his devotion to his family is
not the least laudable trait of his charafter.

Toussaint early evinced a love of reading uncommon
in a man of his colour and condition, and during brief
intervals of repose, when the day's work was over, found
time to study the writings of Epiftetus — that still more
famous slave — as well as Plutarch's " Lives " and several
technical military works of which he was later to appre-
ciate the value. He also became acquainted with that
philosophical and political history of the East and West
Indies in which Diderot, as the " Abbe Raynal," pub-
lished one of the earliest and most famous indidlments
of slavery. " Nations of Europe," wrote the historian,
in a passage which Toussaint interpreted as containing
a prophecy of his own personal destiny, " your slaves
need neither your generosity nor your advice to break the
sacrilegious yoke which oppresses them. They only need a
chief sufl^iciently courageous to lead them to vengeance
and slaughter. Where is this great man to be found?
Where is this new Spartacus? He will appear, we cannot
doubt it ; he will show himself, to raise the sacred standard
of Liberty and assemble round him his companions in
misfortune. More impetuous than the mountain torrents,
they will leave behind them on all sides the ineffaceable
signs of their just resentment! "

Toussaint was firmly convinced that he was the

The Napoleon of San Domingo

Spartacus who should arise to deHver the slaves from
their fetters. Like Joan of Arc or Charlotte Corday, he
deemed himself a predestined weapon in the hand of
God. "At the beginning of the troubles of San Domingo,"
he once wrote, " I felt that I was fated to accomplish
great things. When I received the divine intimation I
was fifty-four years of age. A necessity was laid upon me
to commence my career. A secret voice said to me, * Since
the blacks are free they need a chief, and it is I who must
be that leader predided by the Abbe Raynal.' " He
waited, however, to ensure the safety of his employer,
Bayou de Libertat, whom he assisted to escape with his
wife and family across the sea. Having satisfied himself
that these were out of danger he hastened to the negro
camp at Pleasance and offered his services as surgeon,
some primitive knowledge of drugs and simples that
he had acquired from his father standing him in good
stead in the office he had selected.

The insurgent slaves had by this time decided to appeal
for help to the neighbouring Spaniards. These, it may well
be supposed, were only too ready to welcome them, and
stimulated their hatred of the Republic by telling them
that the sufferings of Louis XVI were entirely due to his
determination to grant to the blacks that freedom which
they so desired. Their feeling of resentment towards the
French Government was thus intensified, and the negro
troops were to be seen marching to battle flying royal
standards which bore the legends " Vive Le Roi! " and
"L'Ancien Regime!"

When Toussaint reached Pleasance he found the camp
in confusion and little if any discipHne prevaiHng. He
soon realized that he would be of infinitely more use as an
a6live soldier than as a non-combatant, and, renouncing
his position of surgeon, set himself the task of drilling
and training the negro troops until they acquired a rough
and ready martial efficiency. In this he was assisted by
recolle6lions of his past studies of military strategy, as well
as by those natural talents as a tadlician which he so soon
displayed. These, indeed, found an early opportunity

The Napoleon of San Domingo

of expression, and it was at his suggestion and under his
leadership that by a clever piece of manoeuvring the
northern province was cut off from the rest of the island
and much discomfiture thereby caused to the French.

Toussaint possessed all those mental and physical
qualities which make for military success. He was a man
of simple tastes ; his daily diet consisted of a few oatmeal
cakes and bananas, while water was his only drink. The
one luxury that he deemed not only permissible but even
essential was the possession of that stud of fast thorough-
bred " trotting " horses which he rode so skilfully as to
to earn for himself the title of " the Centaur of the
Savannahs." On the feather bolster which it was his
curious habit to place upon the saddle, he would often
ride fifty or sixty miles without drawing rein, leaving
far behind him all save the two trumpeters who invariably
attended him and were as well mounted as he. Insus-
ceptible to fatigue as to fear, he never allowed himself
nor seemed to require more than two hours of nightly
slumber. During the seven years in which he was engaged
in a6live fighting he was wounded nineteen times, but
never dangerously, and it is not therefore to be wondered
at that his superstitious followers should at last have come
to believe in his almost superhuman immunity from serious
harm. His was the magnetic personality of the born leader
of men. It was rightly said of him by one of his subor-
dinates that none dared to approach him without awe,
and none quitted his presence without a feeling of in-
creased respeft. He inspired his rough generals — Rigaud
the mulatto, Dessalines the brutal and bloodthirsty,
Christophe the brave but ultimately treacherous — with
a warm devotion tempered with fear, and though he
relied upon their loyalty he ever remained wholly inde-
pendent of their advice. " No one less than I deserves
the reproach of having allowed himself to be governed,"
he once boasted, with that sublime self-confidence which
is so powerful a fadlor in the fulfilment of human ambi-
tion.

In one very vital respeft Toussaint differed from all his

The Napoleon of San Domingo

colleagues, and thus no doubt earned the right to that
pre-eminence which none of them was ever to challenge
successfully. At a time when the passions of men were
peculiarly inflamed, when excesses were being ruthlessly
committed by all parties engaged in warfare, Toussaint
was never guilty of infliding unnecessary cruelty or
indulging in reprisals of a purely vindidive charader.
He had always been a deeply religious man, imbued with
the true Christian spirit of tolerance, and he practised
as well as preached the dodrine of mutual forgiveness.
Unlike other negro commanders, he realized the value of
conciliation; his ultimate aim was peace rather than ven-
geance, and though his hand was often heavy upon his
enemies his heart was never pitiless or implacable. He
studied to maintain perfed self-control, and thus by the
force of his example established and strengthened that
discipline which was to become so marked a characteristic
of his black troops. " I know Rigaud," he once declared;
" he gallops with a loose rein, and shows his arm when he
strikes. / gallop too, but I know where to stop, and when
I strike I am felt, but not seen. Rigaud can only rouse
men to rebellion by bloodshed and massacre; I, too,
know how to stir them to adion, but I allow no excesses,
and when I appear peace must prevail." Under his bril-
liant leadership the negroes advanced from vidory to
vidory, and it was in no idle spirit of boasting that
Toussaint took the name of " L'Ouverture," thus
announcing his intention of opening to his followers the
door to that brighter future which seemed already within
sight.

Meanwhile, in consequence of the representations
made by English planters in the island, the British
Government had despatched an expedition from Jamaica
to San Domingo for the purpose of proteding British
interests. General Maitland, the officer in command,
landed on the south-west coast on September 19, 1793,
and captured Port au Prince. His advance, however, was
blocked by Rigaud, who with but a small force at his dis-
posal, withstood the English with as much success as courage.

The Napoleon of San Domingo

The French Government, alarmed at the turn of
events, had already sent three commissioners to the
island with an armed force to regulate the affairs of the
colony. These, in the hope of winning the negroes to their
side, publicly proclaimed the abolition of slavery, thus
depriving the blacks of their grievances and at the same
time shattering the hopes of England and Spain. Tous-
saint, seeing that his dreams of negro emancipation were
at last being fulfilled, deserted the Spanish cause and
effedled a friendly alliance with the French Governor,
the Comte de Laveaux. The latter was delighted to wel-
come so valuable an ally, and his pleasure was enhanced
by gratitude when the negro general released him from
the hands of a mulatto chief, by whom he had been taken
prisoner. He marked his appreciation by appointing his
deliverer to the post of Lieutenant-Governor, and de-
clared that he would always thenceforward be prepared
to accept Toussaint's advice upon all questions of strategy
or administration.

The territory seized by Spain was thus gradually
recaptured, and the British were forced to beat a hasty
retreat. It is said that before General Maitland sur-
rendered his last fortress he offered the crown of Hayti to
Toussaint; but the latter declined to be bribed, express-
ing his determination to remain faithful to France, and
his reluftance to accept a favour from the hands of the
slave-holders of Jamaica. The relations that existed
between Toussaint and the English were, however, of the
friendliest charadler. When the former visited the British
lines to sign the final treaty under which General Mait-
land agreed to evacuate his positions, he was received with
fuUmilitaryhonoursandpresentedjOn behalf of George III,
with a handsome service of plate and the Government
House which had been built and furnished for the use of
the English general. According to the historian, Lacroix,
Toussaint was no less charmed than surprised by his
reception and would often afterwards contrast his treat-
ment at the hands of the French Republic with the
honours he received from the King of England.

The Napoleon of San Domingo

General Maitland returned his visit a few days later,
and, although warned of the risk he ran in riding through
the enemy's country without a sufficient escort, made
his way to the negro camp with only three attendants.
Here he was kept waiting for half an hour, at the end of
which Toussaint appeared and showed him two letters,
the first from one of the French commissioners sug-
gesting that Maitland's visit would provide the negroes
with an admirable opportunity for taking him prisoner,
and the second Toussaint's indignant reply. " I could not
see you," Toussaint explained to his visitor, " until I had
written my answer, that you might be satisfied how safe
you were with me and how incapable I am of baseness."
If, indeed, there was one trait in Toussaint's charafter
more conspicuous than any other, it was his unsullied
integrity. " That he never broke his word," says a con-
temporary writer, " was a proverbial expression, common
in the mouths of the white inhabitants of the island and of
the English officers who were employed in hostilities
against him."

Soon after this, in 1797, Laveaux left for Paris, appoint-
ing Toussaint as commander-in-chief of the forces in his
absence, much to the annoyance of Rochambeau, a
French general who had just arrived from France for the
purpose of filhng that particular post, and was now
forced to return dissatisfied. In the following year
another general, Hedouville by name, was sent out by
the French Government to take charge of affairs and keep
his eye upon Toussaint. Hedouville, however, only suc-
ceeded in making himself so unpopular that he was driven
out of the island by a band of revolting negroes, and went
home to join Rochambeau and make an unfavourable
report of the colony's condition.

Toussaint was now left in supreme control, though
Rigaud and another mulatto chief, envious of their
superior's triumphs, refused at first to acknowledge his
supremacy, and claimed that the southern province
which they had successfully held against the British
should form a separate state under its own government.
Vol. 153 97 7

The Napoleon of San Domingo

This revolt Toussaint determined to suppress with a
firm hand, before it spread any further. Calling together
all the mulattoes of Port au Prince, many of whom were
\ none too well disposed towards him, he told them that
he proposed to punish Rigaud with the severity that his
treachery deserved, and warned them of the consequences
of any disloyalty on their part. " I see to the bottom of
your hearts," he said. " You are ready to rise against me.
But though all my troops are quitting the west, I leave
my eye and my arm behind: my eye will know how to
watch you, my arm how to reach you ! "

Rigaud fully intended to offer a strenuous opposition,
but when news reached him that Buonaparte, who was
now First Consul, had sent out to confirm the appoint-
ment of Toussaint as commander-in-chief, he deemed it
wise to surrender. Toussaint was able therefore to enter
La Cayes, the chief town of the western province, in
triumph, and here once again he assembled Rigaud's
followers and those who had secretly sympathized with
him, in order that sentence might be passed upon them.
The mulattoes were herded together under a strong
negro guard, and awaited their doom with gloomy anti-
cipation. Great, therefore, was their astonishment and
no less great their delight when Toussaint declared that
they would all be pardoned, giving them permits to
rejoin their families and allowing Rigaud himself to leave
the country and retire to France unmolested.

Under the wise administration of its negro diftator
the colony now settled down to enjoy that prosperity and
peace with which it had long been unfamiliar. It is, how-
ever, curious to note that so little did the whites believe
in the permanence of negro freedom that somewhere
about this time a mulatto planter secretly signed a con-
tra 61 for the purchase of Toussaint, supreme though he
was, from his original owner for a sum of 4,080 francs.

In 1798 a general amnesty had been proclaimed, all
the refugee proprietors being invited to return to their
plantations where they were assured of safety and pro-
teftion. Though the blacks were now free men, Toussaint

The Napoleon of San Domingo

foresaw that the sudden enjoyment o£ such unaccustomed
liberty might easily exercise a corrupting influence upon
them and pave the way to habits of indolence and vice.
He therefore decreed that emancipated slaves must con-
tinue to work for their old masters for five years, receiving
in payment a quarter of the produce of their toil during
the term of their apprenticeship. From this moment the
condu6l and condition of the blacks were sensibly im-
proved. The discipline of the negroes was Toussaint's
greatest triumph, says a French historian who was not
otherwise inclined to flatter him. " It was extraordinary
to see how well the niggers behaved, and how thoroughly
under control they were. After an arduous campaign,
during which they lived frugally upon maize, they estab-
lished themselves peacefully in the towns and never
dreamt of touching the food exposed for sale in the shops.
Indeed, one had to press them to take anything to eat."
An Englishman who was present at Cape Frangois after
the cessation of hostilities was much impressed by a
review of the black troops whicH he witnessed. He
describes them as being " hardened into an orderly
ferocity," but declares that the only punishment ever
inflifted for military misdemeanours was " the sense of
shame produced by slight confinement." He was sur-
prised, too, to notice that whistles took the place of the
usual words of command at manoeuvres, thereby proving
that Tous saint was so far in advance of his age as to
anticipate the methods now in vogue in every civilized
army.

Besides estabHshing military discipline, inducing the
planters to return to their estates, and reconciling the
negro cultivators to that scheme of co-proprietorship
by which they were enabled to enjoy the somewhat
over-estimated pleasures of honest toil in conjundHon
with the delights of liberty, Toussaint succeeded in
restoring pubHc confidence and reorganizing the finance
of the island. Under his guidance the colony prospered
prodigiously, and if San Domingo still carried the. colours
of France it was generally admitted to be solely due to

99 7^

The Napoleon of San Domingo

" an old negro who seemed to bear a commission from
heaven to reunite its dilacerated members."

Perhaps the most graphic account of Toussaint's
rule is to be found in the memoirs of a certain Captain
Rainsf ord, an English officer who was wrecked under the
walls of Cape Frangois in the spring of 1799, and spent
some three weeks in the neighbourhood of the negro
general's headquarters. Rainsf ord tried at first to pass
himself off as an American trader, but his disguise was
eventuall)^ pierced and he was sentenced to death as a
spy, only to be released a fortnight later by General
Toussaint's orders. He has left an interesting description
of the curious mixture of pomp and simplicity which
prevailed at the negro's court. The general, so he tells us,
" a perfeft black, of venerable appearance and great
suavity of manner," wore a uniform consisting of a kind
of " blue spencer, with a large red cape falling over his
shoulders, red cuffs, large gold epaulettes, a scarlet
waistcoat, pantaloons and boots, a round hat vnth a red
feather and the national cockade, and a huge sword." He
was always preceded by two trumpeters in silver helmets
and red tunics, and was attended by four aides-de-camp
and an escort of his guards. He held formal levees at
stated intervals, when all those present were expedled
to rise at his entrance and to maintain a respedful atti-
tude while he made a slow tour of the room, speaking to
each in turn, after the fashion of royal personages. When
this solemn progress was concluded he would bow to the
assembled guests with dignity and, after saluting " with
both hands," retire with his staff into an inner chamber.
All white women had the right of attending these func-
tions, but only those black women who happened to be
the wives of officials were admitted.

As time went on Toussaint's popularity increased. It
was said that no one ever left his presence dissatisfied. If
he could not grant a petitioner what the latter desired
he was tadlful enough to send him away contented. When,
for example, a negro applied to him for a magistracy,
" Certainly," Toussaint would say, with an engaging

100

The Napoleon of San Domingo

smile, "but of course you know Latin? " " No, general."
" What I You wish to be made a magistrate and don't
know Latin! O jamdudum. Magnificat, confitebor tibi,
Nunc Dimittis ! " and Toussaint would reel off a number
of meaningless Latin phrases which he had learnt from
the Psalter in so impressive a fashion as to cause the
applicant to retire under the impression that, if only
his classical education had not unfortunately been
negle6led, he would certainly have obtained his wish.

Although in his public life Toussaint felt constrained
to maintain a certain amount of state, in private he was
averse to anything of the kind. Rainsf ord found him, one
evening, dining with his subordinates, " officers and
privates, the general and the fifer at the same table," and
afterwards enjoyed the privilege of playing a game of
billiards with him at the local hotel. His tastes, as we
have already noted, were of the simplest; but he loved
music and flowers, and might often be seen walking
about the streets with a bunch of roses in his hand. He
has, indeed, been justly accused of vanity, a failing common
to men of his race. " I am the Buonaparte of San Do-
mingo," he is reported to have said on one occasion,
" and the colony could not exist without me! " Again,
when the captain of the frigate that had conveyed Hedou-
ville from France thought to please him by saying how
flattered he would be if, after bringing General Hedou-
ville out to San Domingo, he might be allowed to carry
General Toussaint back, " Your ship, sir," said the negro,
scornfully, " is not big enough for a man like me! " He
evidently thought that, as Maurice of Saxony said of
Charles V, there was no cage large enough for such a bird
as he. But the high opinion of his own importance that he
undoubtedly held can scarcely be condemned in one so
situated.

In July, 1 80 1, the plan of a constitution for San
Domingo, drawn up by Toussaint L'Ouverture with the
assistance of several Europeans — among others Pascal
and the Abbe MoHere — ^was adopted by a General
Assembly of Representatives convened from every dis-

lOI

The Napoleon of San Domingo

trifl: in the colony, and sent to France for official con-
firmation. By the terms of this constitution the island
was declared independent, Toussaint was proclaimed
governor for life, with power to name a successor, who
should reign for five years — a plan afterwards adopted in
Peru by the Liberator Bolivar — and an administrative
council was proposed, formed of nine members, of whom
eight were white men and one a mulatto. It was further
decreed that all religious disqualifications should be
abolished and — most remarkable of all — that the ports
of San Domingo should be thrown open to the com-
merce of the world. It may, therefore, be not unfairly
claimed for Toussaint that he was the first practical Free
Trader!

When the draft of this constitution reached Paris
for ratification it was received with the utmost suspicion
and apprehension. The absentee planters who lived there
were naturally opposed to any revolutionary changes;
Hedouville, Rochambeau, and the mulatto Rigaud, each
cherished his own particular grudge against Toussaint,
while Josephine, the First Consul's wife, was a native
of Martinique, and instinftively prejudiced against all
negroes.

The signing of the Peace of Amiens allowed Buona-
parte to turn his attention to San Domingo and its black
governor. To the latter he referred as " the brigand
chief," professing to regard him as a revolting slave who
must be suitably punished and brought to his senses.
With this obje6t in view he caused a decree to be passed
which placed the colony in exa6tly the same position that
it had held prior to the revolution, reinstated all the
former proprietors on their plantations and, though it
exempted the negroes of the island from slavery, re-
established the hated slave-trade with all its concomitant
barbarities. In order to ensure that the provisions of
this enadlment should be properly carried out a great
military expedition was made ready in France and
despatched to the West Indies under the command of
General Le Clerc, Buonaparte's brother-in-law. With

102

The Napoleon of San Domingo

him also sailed Toussaint's two sons, Isaac and Placide,
who had been sent to France to complete their educa-
tion, and were now perfidiously instrudled by Napoleon
to assure their father of the honesty of his intentions,

Toussaint was at his home at Gonaives, in the interior
of the island, when the news of the arrival of the French
fleet reached him, and he hastened at once to the coast.
" We must all perish," he mournfully exclaimed, as the
huge squadron came to anchor in the bay; " the whole of
France is coming to San Domingo to take vengeance
upon us and enslave us ! " Realizing that serious resistance
would be useless, he rode as quickly as possible to Cape
Francois to try to prevent the negroes from offering
any opposition to the French troops.

A small military force had in the meantime landed at
Fort Dauphin, in the north-west, under General Roch-
ambeau, and massacred a number of harmless blacks
who had been attradled to the shore by curiosity. When,
however, the main body tried to effeft a landing at Cape
Frangois they found a large negro force prepared to with-
stand them, under General Christophe, who was awaiting
orders from his superior officer and declared that no one
should be suffered to set foot on shore without Toussaint
L'Ouverture's permission. Fighting had already com-
menced between the two opposing parties when Tous-
saint reached Cape Francois, too late to a6l as peacemaker,
and from a sense of loyalty to Christophe he felt bound
to join in the fray.

Le Clerc had provided himself with a number of
proclamations, drawn up by Buonaparte, in which the
inhabitants were called upon to rally round the French
flag as loyal patriots. These he now proceeded to distribute
broadcast throughout the island. " Whoever shall dare
to separate himself will be deemed a traitor to his coun-
try," they threatened, " and the indignation of the
Republic shall devour him as the fire devours your dried
canes ! " By this means the allegiance of many^ of the
whites who had been ready to support Toussaint was
shaken, and Christophe, after setting fire to Cape' Francois,

103

The Napoleon of San Domingo

was soon compelled to beat a hasty retreat into the
mountains.

The French general now bethought himself of Tous-
saint's sons, whom he despatched with their tutor to
the house of their father, hoping thus to seduce the
negro leader from his loyalty towards his fellow blacks.
With them he also sent a letter from Napoleon which,
had he received it a few days earlier, might possibly have
persuaded Toussaint to reconsider his determination to
commit himself to the cause of the insurgents. " We have
conceived a high regard for you," wrote the First Consul,
(to the man he had recently stigmatized as a brigand!)
"and are pleased to recognize and proclaim the great ser-
vices you have rendered to the French nation. That her
standard floats over San Domingo is due to you and your
brave blacks." This letter did not reach Toussaint until
February 8, 1802, by which time aftive warfare had
begun and it was too late for him honourably to draw
back and leave his comrades in the lurch.

The interview between the negro general and his sons
was fraught with unusual pathos; the boys fully appre-
ciated the difficulty by which their father was faced, and
he in his turn realized that he could not expect them to
range themselves on the side of a losing cause. In a few
simple words he bade them choose between France and
their father. " Whatever you decide," he assured them,
" I will love you still." " Well," replied Isaac, after a
moment's thought, " in me you see a faithful servant of
France, who could never agree to take up arms against
her." Placide, on the other hand, though attached to
Toussaint by no ties save those of affedlion, regarded these
as more binding than the claims of patriotism. " I am
yours, father," he declared, with emotion, " I fear the
future; I fear slavery. I am ready to fight to oppose it.
I know France no more! " Isaac, therefore, returned to
Le Clerc to report the failure of his mission, while
Placide remained with his step-father, and for two months
fought well and bravely at the head of a negro battalion.

It soon became evident that such resistance as Tous-

104

The Napoleon of San Domingo

saint could offer to the overwhelming forces arrayed
against him was not likely to prove of much avail. His
two brothers forsook him, as did Christophe and Dessa-
lines, and joined the French. Le Clerc, however, made
the foolish mistake of restoring their ancient authority to
the planters. Instantly the blacks became alarmed and
seemed about to desert him. He realized the error in
time, and saved the situation by hurriedly proclaiming
" Liberty and Equality to all the inhabitants of San
Domingo, irrespe6live of colour." The blacks once more
rallied to the French flag, and Toussaint, seeing the
uselessness of further opposition, prudently decided to
capitulate.

When the negro general arrived at Cape Frangois to
surrender himself to Le Clerc he was hissed by the fickle
mob which but a short time before had cheered him so
enthusiastically. " That is what men are like," he said
contemptuously to the French commander. " I have
seen them at my feet, these people who now insult me.
But it will not be long," he added, with true prophetic
insight, " before they regret me! " He treated the jeers
of the populace with the scorn which Sir Walter Scott
afterwards expressed when he assured the " Reformers "
of Jedburgh that he cared no more for their hooting than
for the hissing of geese. While he was deHvering up his
sword to Le Clerc the latter asked him how he had ever
imagined that he could procure sufficient arms and
ammunition to carry on so hopeless a struggle. " I should
have taken yours," said Toussaint, simply.

Peace was now declared, and Toussaint sought and was
accorded permission to retire to his country estate at
Gonaives. Here, but for the hatred of Buonaparte and
the treachery of his emissaries, he might have been
allowed to end his days in peace. But the First Consul
could not rest until he had punished the slave who had
the effrontery to compare himself with the great Napo-
leon. A6ling on instruftions received from Paris, the
French general, Brunet, wrote and asked Toussaint .to pay
him a private visit, in order that plans might be devised

105

The Napoleon of San Domingo

for the complete pacification of the colony. Little sus-
pefting mischief, Toussaint arrived at Brunet's house,
unarmed and alone. He was at once seized and put in
irons, and that night was taken on board the "Heros," a
French man-of-war, under cover of darkness, and con-
fined in one of the officer's cabins. Next morning his wife
and children were also brought on board, the vessel
weighed anchor, and soon the shores of that island which
he was never again to set eyes on were rapidly receding
into the distance. Though treated with much roughness
by his captors Toussaint maintained his usual self-
possession. " In overthrowing me," he said to those
who kept guard over him, " you have only cut down the
trunk of the tree of negro liberty. Its roots will sprout
again, for they are many in number and deeply planted! "

The fulfilment of this prophecy was not long delayed,
for on hearing of the treacherous abduftion of their former
chief, Dessalines and Christophe roused the blacks to
revolt, and a sanguinary war ensued in which all the old
horrors and enormities that had sullied the annals of the
earlier conflift were revived with redoubled fury and
cruelty. Harmless planters and their families were
butchered in cold blood whenever captured, and the
whites in revenge practised the most abominable bar-
barities upon any negroes who fell into their hands.
Prisoners were chained together and thrown into the sea
in batches, after the fashion of the French " Noyades,"
and bloodhounds were specially imported from Cuba to
bait the negro captives. One wretched black general,
Maurepas by name, who had deserted to the side of the
French, was rewarded by being taken on board a vessel
at Port au Paix and bound to the mast ; a cocked hat and
epaulettes were then nailed to his head and shoulders,
and he and his wife and children were thrown into the
sea.

There were, however, forces at work on the side of
the blacks against which the French were powerless to
struggle. The climate of San Domingo was little suited
to European troops, and presently fever of a particularly

io6

The Napoleon of San Domingo

virulent type broke out in the white camp and decimated
the ranks of the invading army. It is estimated that by
the end of the year 1802 between forty and fifty thousand
French soldiers had perished, and when Le Clerc himself
died, and war between France and England broke out
in the following May, so that no further support could
be sent out from home, General Rochambeau, now in
command, deemed it discreet to capitulate. The colony
was thus lost to France for ever, and Dessalines pro-
ceeded to proclaim the independence of San Domingo,
which the French Government was eventually forced
to recognize in the year 1825.

Toussaint, meanwhile, had been carried to Brest on
board the "Heros," being kept a close prisoner in his cabin
throughout the lengthy voyage. He was only permitted
to bid his wife and family a brief farewell when the French
port was reached, and was at once hurried ashore and shut
up in the castle.*

From Brest Toussaint was secretly removed to the Fort
of Joux, situated on the edge of the Jura Mountains in the
department of Doubs, three miles south-west of Pont-
arHer. Here he was immured in a damp, underground
dungeon, his sole companion being Mars Plaisir, a faithful
mulatto servant who was for a short time permitted to
share his master's imprisonment.

A fortnight before he arrived at Joux two Vendean
generals who had been shut up there contrived to effedl
their escape. This furnished the French^ authorities
with a good excuse for keeping their negro prisoner in the
closest possible confinement, and he was allowed no more
exercise than was to be obtained within the Umits of his
cell, and no Hght other than the few faint rays that fil-
tered through a narrow window, too often darkened by

• His family was sent first to Bayonne, then to Agen, where his
sons attempted to elude the vigilance of their guards and were conse-
quently despatched to Belle-isle-sur-mer, to be imprisoned more
rigorously in the citadel. On the restoration of the Bourbons they were
eventually released, and a pension was settled on Toussaint's wife until
her death in the South of France in 18 16.

107

The Napoleon of San Domingo

drifting snow. His wretched plight and the secrecy that
shrouded his fate evoked much interest and curiosity
in the outside world. Many famous pens, then and later,
found inspiration in the theme of his rise and fall.
Wordsworth was but one of a number of poets who
addressed Toussaint in verse; Lamartine made him the
hero of a drama; Miss Harriet Martineau founded a
novel upon his career.

In his chilly cell at Joux, " ce nid de hiboux egaye par
quelques invalides," as a French historian has described
it, which had been occupied by many distinguished
prisoners of s'tate, including Mirabeau, Toussaint bore
his sufferings with exemplary patience and fortitude.
Most of his time he spent in the composition of pathetic
appeals addressed to Napoleon — ^^ from the First of the
Blacks to the First of the Whites " — begging that he
should be granted a fair trial. " First Consul," he wrote
in one of these, "father of all soldiers, upright judge,
defender of the innocent, decide upon my fate! My
wounds are very deep; but you can heal them. I count
entirely upon your justice! " Upon such a broken reed
poor Toussaint leant in vain. Buonaparte's only reply
was to send his aide-de-camp. General Caffarelli, to try
to wring from the prisoner the secret of that buried
treasure which he was supposed to have hidden some-
where in San Domingo before the end of the war. A
legend existed to the effe6l that Toussaint had caused no
less a sum than forty million dollars to be buried in the
island, and had afterwards shot the men who executed the
work. No evidence has ever been adduced to prove the
truth of this story, and Toussaint himself resolutely
denied it. "I have lost other things more valuable than
treasure ! " he bitterly exclaimed when the visitor pressed
him to disclose the whereabouts of his secret hoard.

Caffarelli found the prisoner shivering with cold in
a dark cell, the walls of which were running with water.
To a man accustomed to the sunshine and warmth of the
tropics such surroundings meant a speedy and painful
death, and since nothing was to be gained by keeping

io8

The Napoleon of San Domingo

Toussaint alive, the authorities had evidently decided to
hasten his end by every possible means. His general's
uniform had been replaced by a ragged suit of clothes,
and he was deprived of his watch and razor. " I have been
much misjudged," he said, when the latter article was
taken from him, "if I am thought to be lacking in
courage to support my sorrow." His daily ration of food
was diminished, and the servant, in whose society he found
much of comfort and happiness, was removed to a prison
at Nantes, whence he ultimately returned to die in his
native land. But although his hair became snow white
and all his teeth fell out, while he suffered severely from
constant attacks of asthma induced by the chilly atmo-
sphere of his cell, Toussaint still managed to linger on in
prison for eighteen months, until it was apparently
realized that more drastic measures must be taken if
an end was to be put to his sufferings. Then it was that
the governor of the fortress. General Bailie, ading no
doubt under orders from Paris, took two short holi-
days. During the first of these he left the key of Tous-
saint's dungeon with his deputy. Captain Colonier, to
whom he perhaps hinted that he would not be surprised
if the prisoner were to succumb in his absence. Colonier
however was as obtuse as he was humane. He pitied the
unfortunate negro, and seized the opportunity of being
in charge of the fortress to better Toussaint's condition
by supplying him with the coffee for which he had long
begged in vain. General Bailie was therefore compelled
to enjoy another brief holiday, and this time he took the
precaution of carrying the keys away with him. On his
return to Joux, on April 7, 1803, he hastened expedantly
to Toussaint's cell, and expressed himself as greatly aston-
ished to find the prisoner lying dead, his white head resting
on the iron stove in which a few dying embers still glowed.
It must, however, have reheved him of an unpleasant
responsibility when the prison dodlor ta6lfully attri-
buted the negro's death to apoplexy.

Thus miserably perished the man of whom the Spanish
Marquis Hermona said that in all the world God had

109

The Napoleon of San Domingo

never inspired a purer soul than his; the negro who justly
boasted that the colour of his skin had never interfered
with his integrity or courage, nor prevented him from
serving his country with zeal and fidelity. But though he
sleeps beneath an alien sky, " the most unhappy man of
men," as Wordsworth calls him, Toussaint has left
behind

Powers that will work for him — air, earth, and skies ;
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget him ; he hath great allies ;
His friends are exultations, agonies,

And love, and man's unconquerable mind !

HARRY GRAHAM

110

SONNET

1SAW the sun at midnight, rising red,
Deep-hued yet glowing, heavy with the stain
Of blood-compassion, and I saw It gain
Swiftly in size and growing till It spread
Over the stars; the heavens bowed their head
As from Its heart slow dripped a crimson rain.
Then a great tremor shook It, as of pain —
The night fell, moaning, as It hung there dead.

O Sun, O Christ, O bleeding Heart of flame!
Thou giv'st Thine agony as our life's worth,
And mak'st it infinite, lest we have dearth

Of rights wherewith to call upon Thy Name;
Thou pawnest Heaven as a pledge for Earth,

And for our glory sufFerest all shame.

JOSEPH M. PLUNKETT

III

THE CHINESE REPUBLIC
AND YUAN SHIH-K'AI

Recent Events and Present Policies in China. By J. O. P. Bland.

London: Wm. Heinemann. 191 2.
Empires of the Far East. By Lancelot Lawton. London : Grant

Richards. 191 2.
A Wayfarer in China. By Elizabeth Kendall. London: Constable.

GENERAL satisfaction has hailed Mr Acland's
statement that Great Britain, in union with the
rest of the Powers, has no wish to delay the recognition of
the new Government of China. Nor is this surprising,
for the Republic has not only replaced one of the worst
Governments in the world, but it has shown an en-
couraging desire for reform and progress on Western
lines. Its zeal for Representative Government, its pro-
fessed intention of adopting the best of Western customs
and institutions, and, most of all, its petition for the
prayers of the Christian Churches, have gained it the
sincere sympathy of the British people.

A knowledge of the previous history of a country
and of its leading statesmen is indispensable to forming
a true estimate of a great political crisis, and in the
present instance this is admirably given in Mr Bland's
Recent Events and Present Policies in China.

To begin with the author lays stress on one funda-
mental fact. This is that throughout the course of
Chinese history " the movement of large masses of the
people in arms against constituted authority has always
synchronized with a period in which, as the direct result
of prolonged peace and prosperity, the problem of
population versus good supply had become acute."
From the death of K'ang Hsi in 1680, the population
steadily increased, until in 1842 it had risen to 431
millions. The wastage and slaughter of the Taiping re-
bellion have been computed at close on a hundred

112

The Chinese RepubHc

millions, and through the famines and floods of the
following years the whole population of the country was
reduced to 261 millions. Now the figure stands at 330
millions, and is rapidly growing. The principal cause of
this astounding increase is the philosophy of Mencius
which teaches that the first duty which man owes to Heaven
and to his ancestors is to have posterity. As Mr Bland says :

A nation which unanimously acts on this belief inevitably
condemns vast masses of its people to the lowest depths of poverty,
and condemns the body politic to regularly recurring cataclysms
. . . (Moreover) the traditions of the race have decreed, with the
force of a religion, that it is the duty of every man to sacrifice
at stated intervals at his ancestral tombs, and to be buried in due
season with his fathers. Thus the great bulk of the population have
for centuries been rigidly localized, and the people . . . have been
deprived of the outlets which general emigration and territorial
expansion northwards might otherwise have provided.

Nowhere in China is the overcrowding more terrible
than in and around Canton, and as the inhabitants of
the mountainous seaboard provinces of the south-east
are far more daring and adventurous than those of the
alluvial plains of the centre and north, it is not surprising
that the first signs of disorder have almost invariably
shown themselves in that region. The seat of the central
government being at Peking, there has thus been con-
stantly recurring strife between South and North.

Yiian Shih-k'ai was long known as the friend of
the South, and so late as 1909, the men of those parts
were furious at his banishment. He is a Chinese, educated
in China, but he has always had the reputation of
being enlightened and progressive, and he is on the
most friendly terms with the Foreign Powers. He started
his career as the protege of Li Hung-chang, and the
patronage of the great Viceroy gained him rapid pro-
motion. Nevertheless he was accused by many of having
brought about the disastrous war with Japan of
1894, by his arbitrary conduct of affairs as Imperial
Resident in Korea, and there seems to be' little
Vol. 153 113 ^

The Chinese Repubhc

doubt that his reports and advice from Seoul
precipitated, if they did not cause, the crisis. Readers of
Messrs Bland and Backhouse's book, China under the
Emfress Dowager, will remember the part that he played
in the ill-starred attempt of the Emperor Kuang Hsii
to introduce an era of reform. Yuan was summoned to
Court and informed of the Emperor's intentions. When
asked whether he would be loyal to his sovereign if
placed in command of a large body of troops, he answered
" your servant will endeavour to recompense the Im-
perial favour even though his merit be only as a drop of
water in the ocean, or a grain of sand in the desert; he
will faithfully perform the service of a dog or a horse,
while there remains breath in his body." The Emperor
straightway wrote a decree placing him " in special charge
of the business of army reform," but Yiian on leaving
the Benevolent Old Age Palace Hall went direct to the
apartments of the Dowager Empress and repeated the
conversation to her. On the morning of the day fixed
for the cowp d^ Hat he had a final audience, and was
given command of the troops who were to put Jung Lu
to death, and seize the person of Tzii Hsi. As before, he
told the plan to Jung Lu, who at once handed it on to his
Imperial mistress.

To the end of his life Kuang Hsii blamed Yuan Shih-k'ai, and
him alone, for having betrayed him. ... Of Jung Lu he said that
it was but natural that he should consider first his duty to the
Empress Dowager and seek to warn her ; and, after all, as he had
planned Jung Lu's death, he could hardly expect from him either
devotion or loyalty. The old Buddha's resentment was also natural;
he had plotted against her and failed. But Yuan Shih-k'ai had
sworn loyalty and obedience. . . . [The night before the unfortu-
nate Kuang Hsu died], he wrote out his last testament in a hand
almost illegible, prefacing the same with these significant words:
" We were the second son of Prince Ch'un when the Empress
Dowager selected us for the Throne. She has always hated us, but
for Our misery of the past ten years Yuan Shih-k'ai is responsible
and one other. . . . When the time comes I desire that Yilan be
summarily beheaded."

114

and Yuan Shih-k'ai

As the favourite minister of the Dowager Empress,
Yiian did his best to dissuade her from her insensate
encouragement of the Boxers, and he was her principal
helper in the carrying out of the reforms which she was
herself obliged to concede after that time of disaster.
The abolition of the old system of classical examinations,
the introduction of Western learning, and the reor-
ganization of the army were mainly his work. He was the
first man to create a Chinese army efficient in the modern
sense of the word, and it is to his popularity with the
soldiers that he has owed, and still does owe, his principal
strength. With the death of Tzii Hsi his power came to an
end, but when the Royal Family found itself threatened
by the Revolution, it had no choice but to kow-tow to the
man whom it had banished two years before. Yiian was
recalled and made Prime Minister and practically Dic-
tator. He fought hard to save the Manchu dynasty, and
had he possessed sufficient funds, or received the support
that he expected from the Great Powers, it is possible
that he would have succeeded.

But his attempt failed, and then a curious position
arose. The contending parties were not animated by the
violent antagonism that is usual in a civil war. Each
merely wished the other to accede to its own views for
the government of the whole country. Hence, although
Yiian Shih-k'ai was the leader of the Royalists, it was
early recognized that even if a Republican Government
were set up he would have to be given some share in it.
Some accounts state that it was Yiian himself who sug-
gested that he should give his consent to the abolition of
the Monarchy, on the condition that within forty-eight
hours of the abdication of P'u Yi, the Republican Govern-
ment should dissolve, and he himself should form a
Provisional Government at Peking, and when the edicts of
abdication w^ere pubHshed they did indeed confer this
power on the Premier. Truly a strange state of affairs
that the dethroned monarch should appoint the first
President! The Republicans were naturally suspicious,
but they had to acquiesce because they were in such a

115 8tf

The Chinese Repubhc

state of hopeless confusion themselves, and it was generally
felt that Yiian Shih-k'ai was the only man who would
be capable of handling the situation. Yiian sent a dispatch
to the acting President beginning " A Republic is the
best form of Government, all the world admits it," and
Sun Yat Sen resigned in his favour.

In spite of his past record, Mr Bland considers the
ex-Royalist leader to have striven loyally to secure what he
believes really to be best for China — a Limited Monarchy,
and Mr Lawton, although he says in his careful account
of the Revolution that Yiian definitely asked for the
Presidency, is sweeping in his praises. Both writers hold
that he submitted to force majeure, and, so as to save his
country from anarchy, consented at the cost of being
looked upon as a renegade, to serve under the Republic
in which he does not believe. Mr Bland says :

It is significant of the deep distrust that underlies the relations
of all classes of Chinese officials, that it should have been fre-
quently asserted and believed in China that Yuan was privy to
T'ang Shao-yi's defection from the Imperialist cause, and that
his own acceptance of the Premiership at the hands of the Regent
was part of a deep laid plot for the betrayal of the Manchus. It
is impossible to entertain the suggestion of such treachery: on
the contrary, everything in his attitude and actions confirms the
opinion that throughout the crisis he pursued a consistent
and statesmanlike course, sincerely anxious for the ultimate
good of his country. In consenting to take service under the
Republic he could not hope to escape the charge of inconsistency:
but here again, everything points to patriotism, rather than to the
gratification of personal ambitions. In professing, as he has done,
sincere belief in the Republican form of government, he has un-
doubtedly followed the traditional fines of Oriental statecraft,
instinct with opportunism and guile.

Possibly. But it is difficult to see what are the objec-
tions to the opposite view — that Yiian is a self-seeker
first and a patriot afterwards. If his position, as President
of the Republic, is " one of greater difficulty and danger
than under the Monarchy," this does but confirm it, for

ii6

and Yuan Shih-k'ai

lie tried his hardest to preserve the latter until he saw
that the Monarchy was doomed, whereupon he accepted
(i£ he did not ask for) the Presidency, which must cer-
tainly " gratify his personal ambitions " more highly
than the position of adherent of a fallen House. Besides,
if he has always had the patriotic desire for his country's
reform with which he is nowadays credited, why did he
betray his Emperor in 1898? Kuang Hsii's schemes were
not reckless and impossible, for almost every one of them
was adopted later by Tzii Hsi and Yiian Shih-k'ai them-
selves. The reason can only have been that the Minister
thought it safer to side with the formidable Empress
than with her untried nephew. In his present book, Mr
Bland does not once refer to this disgraceful treachery,
and Mr Lawton does not seem to have heard of it, for he
pities Yiian deeply for having had his services to the
Empire rewarded by being cashiered by the Regent
(Kuang Hsii's brother), immediately on the death of
Tzii Hsi. The English Press displays the same lapse of
memory, ^he Times hails Yiian Shih-k'ai as a disinterested
patriot, and insists on how Young China cannot forget
that after the Dowager Empress' resumption of power
it was he more than any other who " consistently advo-
cated the introduction of modern methods of education
and administration," etc., etc., but of his action in the
coup d^etat itself, there is not a word. Perhaps Young
China's memory is slightly longer.

In fact, in his own country, Yiian has never been
trusted. He is a Mazarin rather than a Richelieu, and
his successes have been gained not by force so much as
by intrigue. During Kuang Hsii's lifetime he was already
accused of conspiring for the Throne, for among the
complimentary scrolls hanging on his walls on the
occasion of his fiftieth birthday, was one which read
" May the Emperor live ten thousand years ! May your
excellency live ten thousand years ! " The words wan
sui, meaning " ten thousand years " are not appHcable
to any but the Sovereign, so the inner meaning of the
greeting was obvious.

117

The Chinese RepubHc

At the present day there are many men who fear
the same thing. The Kuo Min-t'ang (or NationaHst
Party) are uneasy at the President's autocratic rule. They
were indignant at his execution of Generals Chang
Chen-wu and Fang Wei^ and now they are convinced
that he was responsible for the murder in last April of
their Shanghai leader, Sung Chiao-jen.

Their feeling may be gauged by their bitter opposition
to the Five Power Loan. The weak spot in Yuan's posi-
tion has hitherto been lack of funds, and for a long time
he tried — as Chinese rulers have ever done — to obtain
these without giving any guarantee as to how they
should be spent. While negotiating with the Five Power
group he made back-door agreements such as the Birch
Crisp Loan, and the curious transaction which has just
come to light with the German firm of Karberg. But
when his position became so critical that money was
absolutely necessary to him, he made the best of a bad job
and consented to the appointment of the Advisers that
the Powers demanded. He abandoned at the same time
his attempt to obtain the money constitutionally, and
forced his Finance Minister to sign the Loan without
waiting for the consent of Parliament. Actually, when
the House of Representatives met it passed a resolution
against the fulfilling of the agreement. This has enabled
the Nationalists to take up high constitutional ground,
but it has been pointed out that this is not worth much,
as China does not yet possess a Constitution, and the
present Parliament would probably find it difficult to
prove its own right to existence.

Of course, the real objection of the Kuo Min-t'ang is
not due to their regard for constitutional propriety, but
to the fact that they know well that the President means
to use the money so as to strengthen his own power and
enable him to crush their opposition. Sun Yat Sen sent
through his friend Dr Cantlie an urgent appeal to the
foreign Banks not to supply the Government with money
which would be used against the people in the interests
of despotism. He declared that the South would insist

ii8

and Yuan Shih-k'ai

upon Yiian's retirement even at the cost of civil war.
But Dr Sun has said many sensational things in the
past two years and he is constantly shifting his ground.
Of much greater significance is the compromise suggested
by the more responsible members of the Kuo Min-t'ang
that the President should be confirmed in office for five
years, but that he should undertake not to consent to re-
election under any conditions. They could not have
expressed their feelings more clearly. They are ready to
support Yuan Shih-k'ai in his attempt to restore order,
because they know that he is the only man who has any
chance of succeeding. But they wish to guard, in so
far as they can, against the continuance in power of a man
whose aims they so deeply distrust.

There would be no reason for surprise if Yiian were to
consent to these terms. He is a true Oriental and is
liberal with his promises. In a manifesto published about
the same time he told the " plotters " — that is to say the
followers of Sun Yat Sen — in the plainest of language
that he was not going to allow them to stir up trouble
during his tenure of power, but he concluded with a
reference to the coming Presidential election, after which
he piously hoped that he might be reheved of the cares of
office. More lately still it was reported that he had agreed
to the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee to
supervise the expenditure of the money raised by the
Loan. But even should this be true he knows, of course,
that a committee sitting at Peking will easily be " in-
fluenced " in any direction that he may wish. At any rate
if he is allowed to consoHdate his power by five years'
rule, it is certain that he will not then reHnquish it
except of his own free will.

Time will show. Of Yiian Shih-k'ai's abiHty there can
be no question; the testimony of his enemies is even
stronger than that of his friends. He is only fifty-four
years of age, and if he intends to make himself Emperor
he is not likely to fail.

His greatest danger will be that of assassination. The
President is not protected by the semi-divine character

119

The Chinese RepubHc

of the Son of Heaven, nor will his modern democratic
role allow him to live in the same deep and carefully
guarded seclusion. The Southern extremists tried a year
ago to blow him up with, a bomb, and this spring they
have been discussing the death of the " autocratic
Demon King " in open council.

For the present the future must be left to take care of
itself. China's only chance of escaping anarchy and dis-
ruption appears to lie in the success of the Provisional
President. It is not likely that the South are really con-
templating a war of secession, and now that he has the
necessary funds at his disposal, Yiian Shih-k'ai should be
strong enough to cope with them successfully. Hence the
importance of the Powers not delaying in their recogni-
tion of the Republic. The sooner they help the President
with the weight of their influence the sooner will he be
able to restore tranquillity and order.

But supposing that the estimate of Yiian Shih-k'ai
suggested in this article is correct, and that he should one
day proclaim himself Emperor, need it be regarded as a
misfortune? It is possible to combine ambition with
statesmanship, and he has given abundant evidence that
he will be no narrow-minded reactionary.

China has had many revolutions in the past, but
she has always had an emperor. It is a cardinal
principle that if the reigning family betrays its trust it
may be deposed, for did not Mencius teach two thousand
years ago " the people are of the highest importance, the
gods come next, the Sovereign is of lesser weight "?
But the Chinese have an immense respect for the monar-
chical idea; whatever may be his antecedents and per-
sonal qualifications, the occupant of the Dragon Throne
is the Son of Heaven, the appointed centre and crown of
the family system. Moreover, in China autocratic rule
is rendered almost a necessity by two causes. The first
is that economic factor already mentioned, the fierce-
ness of the struggle for bare existence. A country in
which the population is chronically in excess of the
normal food supply demands a strong central authority

120

and Yuan Shih-k'ai

ruling a Porientale, Without it the criminal elements
that are ever in wait to prey upon the peasantry and
labouring classes must increase and multiply with
fearful rapidity — as they did during the year of disorder
that succeeded the outbreak of the Revolution. The
second cause arises from the hopelessly inert and apathetic
character of the Chinese race. The saying of Mill that
a people are " unfitted for representative government
by extreme passiveness and ready submission to tyranny "
is applicable to them above all other peoples. They
can be stirred to violence for a brief moment, but they
very soon subside into listlessness. The firebrands of
Canton were loud in their outcry at the summary execu-
tion, by fiat of the President, of the Republican generals
accused of conspiracy at Wuchang, but did not the
Advisory Committee and the nation as a whole acquiesce
in that exercise of dictatorial power with a ruthlessness
at which Tzii Hsi herself would have shrunk?

The country is in the state which is usually associated
with revolutions — a lower class accustomed for centuries
to be treated as the " stupid people," and an upper class
complacent in the self-sufficiency of ignorance. There
is no honesty anywhere in public life. The whole energies
of every official are openly devoted to the application of
" squeeze " and the saving of " face." In fact it is not an
exaggeration to say that at the present time the Chinese
have scarcely one quality which would fit them for
representative government. Of course, the Republic
believes, like all new Governments, that it is going to
change all this; lift up and educate the masses, and purify
the political system. But unless the national character
becomes modified under the influence of new customs
and ideas, it is Hkely to oppose a dead weight of inertia
too great to- be overcome.

K'ang Yu-wei and the orthodox Young China of
Western learning and constitutional reform which sup-
ported the Emperor Kuang Hsii in 1898 still stoutly
maintain that republicanism is opposed to the common
sense and needs of the Chinese people. This hasalways

121

The Chinese Republic

been preached by consistent and patriotic reformers like
the scholarly Liang Ch'i-ch'ao; it is unquestionably the
real opinion of Yiian Shih-k'ai, and probably also, in
spite of his recent declarations to European Press cor-
respondents, of the Vice-President, Li Yuan-hung. The
tone of the recent manifesto in which the Chinese Cham-
ber of Commerce at Shanghai rebukes the plottings of
the extreme Republicans, makes it appear as if the busi-
ness community were prepared to support the restora-
tion of the autocratic regime as the only means of putting
an end to chaos and crime.

It is impossible to argue that there was any general
desire throughout the country for the institution of a
republic. It has been pointed out in this Review that
" This revolution is not a social revolution, affecting a
social change. It is only a change of directors." * That
the people wished to change their directors, as they have
so often done before, there can be no doubt, but it was
only a small and violent section that wished to change
anything further. The late Prince Ito, the man who
was the ruling spirit of the great change in Japan,
concurred in a widely held opinion that England blun-
dered politically in helping the Manchus to suppress the
Taiping Rebellion. " By preventing the overthrow of the
Manchu dynasty," he said in 1909, " Gordon and his
* ever victorious army' arrested a normal and healthy pro-
cess of nature. Nothing that the Manchus have done since
then affords the slightest evidence that they deserved
to be saved; and when they fall, as fall they must and will
before very long, the upheaval will be all the more pro-
tracted from having been so long postponed."

He also emphasized the vital difference between the
reform movement in China and that which originated
in his own country in 1856. Of the latter he said " There
was already in the air a great national idea, around which
the new, and, if you like, revolutionary aspirations of the

* January, 191 3. Foreign Politics oj the Day^ by Lancelot
Lawton.

122

and Yuan Shih-k'ai

country were able to crystallize, In such a shape as to
secure, together with all the benefits o£ a real revolution,
the unbroken continuity of ancient traditions." In the
same way even the Young Turks were wise enough not to
attack the monarchical principle and religious beliefs
with which their national existence has been bound up
for so many centuries.

On the other hand, in China, the country where the
reverence for antiquity is stronger than anywhere else
in the world, the revolutionaries have been doing their
best to shatter every tradition that they can reach. The
ancient ways and institutions may have had many faults,
but such as they were they gave to China a political
longevity greater than that of any other nation. The
spirit of Confucianism is essentially peaceful and con-
servative, and even the much ridiculed system of classical
examinations was a powerful source of national cohesion
and stability. It ensured that all public servants should
possess an intimate knowledge of the philosophy and
literature containing the principles which form the
basis of Chinese history. Furthermore its democratic
impartiality constrained a man to say, if his lot was a
low one, that it was so in virtue of the " will of Heaven,"
and not in consequence of the arbitrary action of his
fellow men.

All these the reformers would sweep away. The
Throne has gone, the public-service examinations have
been abolished, and the national religion is in the melting-
pot.

Religion is being made use of in the most barefaced
manner for utilitarian ends. The day before he resigned
the Presidential office Sun Yat Sen went in state to the
tomb of Hung-wu, the founder of the Ming dynasty,
and offering sacrifices, declared to the spirit of the great
Chinese hero that " the nation had again recovered her
freedom, and that now that the curse of Manchu domina-
tion was removed, the free peoples of a United Repubhc
could pursue unhampered their rightful aspirations."
But later, when the position of the RepubHc was better

123

The Chinese RepubHc

assured, the mask was torn off. The Radicals of Canton
decided to render no more official homage to Confucius,
and at the same time the Advisory Council at Peking
resolved to eliminate the religious clauses from the
programme of the Ministry of Education on the ground
that the State is not concerned with religious matters;
but most violent of all, and shocking to the susceptibilities
of the nation, was the proposal of the Ministry of Agri-
culture to turn the Temple of Heaven into a model
farm.

In view of such proceedings it is difficult to believe
that the Christian sympathies of Young China are, like
those of the Taipings, anything more than a device to
secure the good opinion of Europe, and in fact the adop-
tion of Christianity by Sun Yat Sen and other Cantonese
politicians has been aptly described as " part of the intel-
lectual equipment of the modern progressive." Th^re are
over a million sincere Christians in China, but it is idle
to suppose that the Government is being " converted."
The Chinese people are at bottom passive agnostics, and
if their rulers have any real idea of turning towards
Christianity it is so as to obtain what material advantages
they can by so doing. Fears have already been expressed
in responsible quarters that China, like Japan, may
attempt to manufacture a special brand of Christianity,
which she thinks will be best suited to her purposes.

Up to the present the Republic has done little but
destroy, and it is difficult to see whence it is to derive the
materials to build up again. It has no new moral ideas,
nothing better to offer for the Canons of the Sages
which it is uprooting so violently. The students who
form such a noisy revolutionary element have returned
from England, America or Japan with shoals of new ideas,
but at the same time so much estranged from the old
Chinese conceptions that they have almost entirely
lost contact with the Chinese point of view. Hence the
violence, and crudity of their doctrines.

Nor have China's first efforts in popular government
been encouraging. The members of the National Council

124

and Yuan Shih-k'ai

cared so little about their duties that although fifty-nine
were necessary to form a quorum, the usual attendance was
eight or ten. And ParHament is no better. The sittings
have been characterized by childish exhibitions of
temper and unreasonableness, and they frequently end in
deadlock owing to the retirement in a body of the ob-
structing side.

Young China, however, must not be taken as repre-
sentative of the whole country. It has been raised, greatly
by the force of circumstance, into a prominent position,
but it forms a very small section of the nation. The real
struggle to come will be fought out between the old Con-
servatives and the Constitutional Reformers of the school
of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and K'ang Yu-wei.

The Sons of Han may well have a great future still
before them. If they have not the particular virtues
needed for representative government they have many
others. While it may take generations to arouse a strong
public opinion against the corruption and " squeezing "
which seem to them so natural, they are stamping out
the vice of opium-smoking with a resolution of which no
Western nation has ever shown itself capable. The mer-
chants bear a good name for fairness and honesty, and the
thrift of the people is amazing. In fact it is these very
economic virtues which make Chinamen so much feared
in foreign countries. The settlers in Peru, for instance,
were able to contribute a miUion sterling to the Revolu-
tionary war-chest, so it is not surprising to find that to-day
the Chinese practically own the British colonies of Hong
Kong and Singapore, nor difficult to beHeve that it will
not take them long to become the owners of any country
in which they may establish themselves.

To those who are accustomed to the old idea
of the barbarism of the " Heathen Chinee " it will be a
revelation to read Miss Kendall's account of her jouiney
across China from South to North. She travelled by road
through Yunnan and Szechuan, and the picture that she
gives is one of Chinese civihzation steadily pushing its
way through the wild hill-tribes of the western border.

125

The Chinese RepubHc

One might imagine oneself in Nigeria or Northern
India, with the smart British or British-trained soldiers
giving a comforting sense of security and discipline, only
that here " British " is replaced by " Chinese." And as
the civilizing race has advanced, cultivation, order and
prosperity have foUov^ed. Miss Kendall's is not a social
or political treatise, but her bright and intimate sketches
of John Chinaman as she met him, cannot but make one
feel, that for all his queer ways, he is in most essentials
very much like oneself — much more so in fact than the
Japanese or the Hindoo.

Those who are to regenerate China will therefore have
good material to work upon in the commercial and
agricultural classes; and even among the high officials
there are magnificent exceptions — men whose self-
devotion does not stop short at death, or even at suicide.
But administrative reform can do little good until a real
change takes place in the general standard of honesty
which prevails in public life. It is not probable that the
present Government will last long enough to effect this.
The Chinese are such a matter of fact race that no ques-
tions of sentiment will deter them from accepting any
form of government which can offer them solid advan-
tages, but the Republic has undoubtedly added to the
difficulties inseparable from the patriarchal character of
the nation and its unique economic circumstances, by
its methods of reckless violence. Nor has it yet proved
that it has advantages to offer. The problem would
certainly be much simplified, by the restoration of the
Empire, and only those who have a prejudice in favour
of Republicanism need be unhappy if this should
cbme to pass. The claims of Marquis Chu, a lineal de-
scendant of the Mings, may some day command a fol-
lowing, but, taking all things into account, the most likely
solution is that Yuan Shih-k*ai should realize his crowning
ambition and place himself upon the Dragon Throne.

STEPHEN HARDING

126

THE BELGIAN STRIKE

BELGIUM is a land of infinite gestes. Never in my life
before did I hear so much about gestes d" apaisement
and other kinds of gestes as I heard in Brussels during the
last fortnight of April. The Socialists, having got them-
selves into an impossible position, were feverishly anxious
for the Premier to help them out of it. They wanted him
to make a geste d* afaisement — a conciliatory gesture. They
signified that anything would do. Whatever it was, they
would accept it as indicative of good will and would at
once end the strike. What they finally got contained the
very minimum of comfort and concession, and it was only
a repetition of a geste which had been made by the
Premier before the strike but rejected by the Socialists as
insufficient, yet the Socialist leader accepted it eagerly
and declared the strike at an end.

The strike was for the abolition of plural voting. As
plural voting has not been abolished, the strike cannot be
regarded as a viftory for the workers. Mr Vandervelde, the
SociaHst leader, claims that it is, at all events, a half vi6lory.
But it is not even that. The Socialist workmen have lost
tens of thousands of pounds on this great demonstration
and they now stand almost exadly where they stood
before.

From the beginning of the strike, M. de Broqueville,
the Premier, took up a very strong logical position. He
said in substance: " I am not a fanatic on the subjed of
plural voting, but it would be undignified for me to con-
sider the subjeft or to make any concessions in the matter
so long as a blunderbuss is held to my head in the shape
of a general strike. This external pressure on the pro-
ceedings in ParHament must be removed before I speak."

This position was approved of by all the leading papers
in Europe, including several anti-clerical organs. The
Temps denounced the strike as

A menace before which no Government, whatever its responsi-
bilities, could give way.

127

The Belgian Strike

The Journal desDebats said that

The Government and the Catholic Party could not, without
weakening the principle of authority, do more than they have
done.

The British Press was to a large extent opposed to the
strike.

Not that the present system is a bad one [said The Times,
apropos of the eledloral system against which the strike was
direded]. It is absurdly misrepresented as though all the Socialist
and Liberal voters had one vote and all the Conservatives two.
The single and plural voters are really distributed among all the
parties. A large number of working men have two votes and many
Socialists have three. What they really want is to bring in the
young men under twenty-five and put them on an equality with
the older ones. The outcry against the present voting system is an
admission that the discontented parties rely on the youngest,
most ignorant, least experienced, and least responsible se6lion of
the community for success in their campaign.

More important, however, was the faft that some Bel-
gian Liberal papers also opposed the strike.

From this it will be seen that the Premier had not only
a strong case but also powerful support behind him. In
front of him he had a divided enemy, for not only the
Liberals but even the Socialist leader Vandervelde were
at heart opposed to the strike. There was some danger,
therefore, that De Broqueville, who is Minister for War
as well as Premier, would aft with perhaps too much
vigour. But he avoided that danger entirely, and in the
Chamber, as well as outside, he showed himself to be
extremely urbane and ta6lf ul.

On April i6 the SociaHsts in the Chamber tried to
provoke him into saying something strong, but the
attempt failed. " I shall not, at the present jundlure,"
said De Broqueville, " let fall a single word that might
give offence." ..." Let us all return to calm," he said on
the same occasion, " and all will be well."

In England we are rather proud of the gentle but

128

The Belgian Strike

efficient manner in which our police handle great crowds
of strikers and demonstrators, and are apt to contrast
their efficiency with the brutahty and the dragooning
which prevails in some parts of the Continent. But during
the month of April I travelled over Belgium from
Antwerp to Charleroi, and I must say that in the handling
of great crowds the Belgian police and soldiers have noth-
ing whatever to learn from us. As a matter of fa 61, the
orderliness of a crowd depends more on the charader of
its own intentions than on the efforts of the police.
Few police or soldiers were visible in Belgium throughout
this strike. There was a greater display of both in England
during the coal strike of a year ago.

The Socialists must, therefore, be congratulated on the
order which they maintained, but that order was rather a
matter of national temperament than a chara6teristic of
Socialism. There were certainly many complaints about
intimidation, and, if the stories which I heard were true,
this pradtice will be difficult to deal with because it is
very difficult to discover.

In a real strike, however, intimidation would probably
assume an acuter form than it did on this occasion. For
this was not a real strike, it was only a geste. The aspe6l of
Brussels and the other great cities remained unchanged.
The mock processions of the demonstrators consisted
mostly of well-dressed boys and of matronly women who
did not look as if they were in any difficulty, unless it
were the difficulty of refraining from laughter. Another
unreal and theatrical feature of the geste was the cere-
monial exodus of the children. Presumably, in order to
indicate that the obstinacy of the Government would lead
to scenes of blood unmeet for children's eyes to see, great
numbers of the Socialists sent their little ones to Germany,
France and Holland. The children were welcomed by
Socialist processions at all the Belgian towns through
which they passed. On the other side of the frontier they
were received into the households of foreign " comrades."

This was all part of the geste. A curious feature.of the
strike, however, was the extent to which some Liberals
Vol. 153 129 9

The Belgian Strike

supported it. M. Waricque, a great colliery owner,
paid for the upkeep of 15,000 children in the province
of Hainault — not that charity was needed, but only
because this strong anti-clerical capitalist wished to
annoy the priests. Thus we find Liberals on both sides.
Some of them helped the Catholics to win at the general
eleftions in June last. Others, or perhaps the same ones,
supported the strikers in April. Apparently they swing from
one side to the other like the great non-party mass of
moderate men in the EngHsh general ele6lions. This
serves at one moment to keep the Government from be-
coming too arrogant and at the next moment to prevent
the Socialists getting into power. Consequently, though
the Socialists have never been in office and the Catholics
have never been out of office for the last thirty years, the
country enjoys all the advantages of party government.
The Catholics find themselves compelled to steal the
Socialist thunder, as the Liberals have done in England
for the last eight years. In faft, there is a considerable
resemblance between the wealthy and bourgeois Liberal-
ism of England and the Catholic party in Belgium. Despite
its name, the latter body is not confessional — Protestants
and Jews might belong to it. Its most suitable name, how-
ever, would be the Christian party, for in Belgium
it is not a question of Catholicity against Pro-
testantism, it is a question of Christian principles against
a distinftly anti-Christian movement. Not that this anti-
Christian movement is wholly evil. It has its good points,
which the Catholics have imitated, and which the Chris-
tian party has carried into law.

" The Socialists," M. Woeste, the Catholic leader, once
confessed, " have obHged the Catholics to follow them.
Had it not been for the propaganda of the labour party,
Christian syndicalism would not have been born."

Thanks, partly, to this Christian Syndicalist move-
ment, of which I shall say more hereafter, the " general "
strike of April was far from being general. The highest
number of strikers was 325,000. On the third day of the
strike the number had fallen to 307,000. Counting the

130

The Belgian Strike

Catholic agricultural labourers, only one-fifth of the
Belgian workmen had come out. It is true that the Socialist
figures of April show an advance on those of 1902, when
only 270,000 men went on strike. But there is every reason
to beHeve that many of the 325,000 were (i) Catholics who
were intimidated into leaving work with their Socialist
fellow- workmen, and (2) men who were willing to continue
at work, but whose employers could not keep them. The
large desertions left those employers so short-handed that
they could not go on with the minority who were willing
to remain, and consequently had to close their works.
80,000 Catholic Syndicalists remained at work, however,
and prevented the strike from becoming general. Out of
7,000 Catholic Syndicalists in Brussels only 25 had invol-
untarily to stop work.

A curious feature of the strike, as I have already pointed
out, was the support which it received from sundry
wealthy Liberals, who would not, presumably, care to see
a Socialist Government establishing a community of
goods. A not less curious feature was the support given
by all sorts of visionaries, native and foreign. Many of
those visionaries would have approved of any kind of social
cataclysm, and the bigger the cataclysm the warmer
would be their approval. This circumstance alone showed
that the movement was merely a demonstration. Had it
gone further than a mere demonstration it would cer-
tainly not have carried all its initial supporters with it.
The Daily Mail correspondent truly says that it refrained
from interfering with the transport or the street lighting
services as by so doing it would at once have lost all its
capitalist backers.

From the very outset, therefore, the Socialists were
naturally anxious to bring their geste de guerre to an end,
while M. De Broqueville declined, so long as the strike
lasted, to make ^inj geste d'apaisement. Finally, M. Masson,
a Liberal deputy, found an ingenious way out of the
difficulty. He discovered some conciHatory phrases which
the Premier had pronounced on March 12, that is before
the strike began, and which he had repeated on April 16

131 9^

The Belgian Strike

and 17. Those vague phrases were to the effeft that an
extra-Parliamentary Commission would consider the
provincial and communal eledoral laws. If this Commis-
sion discovered during its discussions

a formula superior to the present system even in regard to the
eledions for the Legislative Chambers, that discovery would
evidently lead all the members who were subje6l to re-eledion
to speak of it to their constituents and to say to them : " We have
found a formula which seems to us reasonable. The different
pohtical parties have shown by their attitude that an agreement
is possible." Then who amongst us will oppose such a revision
being made? It would be contrary to the good sense and to the
general interest of the country and it is thus that the Government
has always regarded the question.

The Order of the Day ended by "repudiating and
condemning the general strike."

The Socialists at once declared with rapture that this
was what they had wanted all along. M. Vandervelde
shook the Premier warmly by the hand. Le geste a etc
fait. Thus an end was made of " the Strike of the
Folded Arms " about which even Socialist poets wrote
warlike poetry, of " la bonne greve," as M. Maurice
Maeterlinck called it when he sent in his little contribu-
tion of a thousand francs.

The less diplomatic of the Socialists themselves
acknowledge their defeat. At the general meeting of the
Labour party which finally declared the strike " off,"
the Parliamentary leaders of the Socialists were subje6led
to a severe heckling and were frankly told by some of the
workmen that they had not done what was expelled of
them. Before the strike began, its organizers declared
that it would be " general, formidable and irresistible."
When it came to an end M. Vandervelde said that " in
this battle there are neither viftors nor vanquished."
He would hardly have said that to a Labour assembly
if he had won. Writing in the Socialist Journal de
Charleroi M. Destree, another Labour Leader, admitted
that " the Socialists have not obtained a real promise on
the subjeft of revision."

132

The Belgian Strike

But at all events the Socialists had made their geste
de guerre and the Right had made its geste d'apaisement
and the country in general was satisfied. The whole matter
seems a trifle ludicrous, and yet behind it lie serious
issues. The Socialists aim at the eventual control of the
Belgian Government in order that they may eventually
put into pradlice their Socialist theories, and this appa-
rently harmless strike was like one of those bloodless general
manoeuvres which, both in Bulgaria and in Turkey, pre-
ceded by a few months the outbreak of the recent Balkan
war.

This strike and the general situation in Belgium at the
present moment are well worthy, therefore, of our con-
sideration in this country. Turkey has filled the English
reviews for the last eight months, though Turkey does not
do one-tenth as much business with these islands as
Belgium and has not a millionth part the influence of
Belgium on our social legislation. The disappearance
of the Osmanli from Europe would be much less impor-
tant from the Enghsh point of view than the disappear-
ance of the petite bourgeoisie from Flanders. Napoleon
called Belgium " le champ de bataille de TEurope," and
Elisee Reclus called it " le champ d' experience d'Europe."
It is a land of experience, a laboratory where the most
advanced social questions are first worked out. We are all
liable to follow its lead, hence the study of social develop-
ments there is more important to EngHshmen than the
study of developments in, say, Mesopotamia.^

For a Catholic periodical, moreover, there is something
pecuHarly interesting in the progress of Belgium. There
the Catholics rule, and rule well. There the CathoHc
Church shows that even amid the most modern indus-
trial conditions it does not find itself out of place. There
the Catholic associations, the CathoHc co-operative
movements and the success of the peasantry in remainmg
on the land and in prospering on it are full of hopeful
example to Ireland. The spread of Christian organizations
among the miners and fa dory hands is an example to the
English, Scotch and Welsh.

133

The Belgian Strike

While remaining good Catholics, the Belgians enjoy
a larger measure of liberty than any other people in
Europe and are at the same time in the forefront of the
world's industrial progress. What makes the position of
CathoHcism in Belgium still more interesting is its atti-
tude towards Socialism. Thanks to its magnificent
organization, it shows no symptoms of succumbing in that
struggle as French Catholicism has for the moment suc-
cumbed through disunion and through apathy in poli-
tical matters. Flanders shall never see a disunited Catholic
majority ruled by an organized Socialist minority. Strong,
armed, ready, on horseback, the banner of the Faith in
one hand, the sword of union in the other, Belgian
CathoUcity faces the enemies of Christianity as its own
Godfrey de Bouillon is represented in Brussels as facing
the Saracen.

Belgium has been described as a " terre d'experi-
ence," and such it certainly is. It is the headquarters of
international Socialism. At the Maison du Peuple in
Brussels I have seen departments labelled with the names
of " Russia," " Spain," " Portugal," and the other coun-
tries in which the Socialist party has a footing. When the
strike was declared the Parliamentary Se6lion of the
Russian Social Democrats voted an address of congratu-
lation to their brethren in Belgium and even opened a
subscription for them.

On the other hand, Belgium is to some extent the
headquarters of international Clericalism. The Catholics
have more power there than they have in Rome. The
Jesuits, who have been expelled from France, have a
college there, on the banks of the Meuse, and the visitor
who traverses its dormitory and reads the names of the
boys outside the cubicles wonders if he is back in the
times of St Louis, for the names are those of the oldest
and noblest families in France. In another part of Bel-
gium the Portuguese Jesuits have a Portuguese College
wherein one meets with the young sons of the exiled
Portuguese nobility.

To some extent, however, the lie of the land in this terre

13+

The Belgian Strike

d'' experience is in favour of the Socialists. It is an artificial
kingdom without a language of its own. Royalty is not
very popular, and has no roots in the past. The nobility
does not count and there is really no Conservative party,
only a Socialist party and a CathoHc party which is
nearly as advanced as the English Liberals.

The recent strike had for its objeft the capture of uni-
versal suffrage: the capture of universal suffrage has for
its objefl: the imposition on Belgium of SociaHst legisla-
tion. On this point there is no room for doubt.

Addressing on Sunday, April 20, at Seraing, a meeting
organized by " Citizen " De Brouck^re, President of
the last Socialist Congress, " Citizen " Demblon, chief
of the Socialist deputation of Liege, said (I quote from the
Express^ a Radical paper) :

We know well that by universal suffrage we are not going to be
all at once the masters, but they say that appetite comes with
eating.

Belgium is better placed than France for marching quickly
because Belgium possesses the greatest industrial development in
Europe, and if we fight on terms of equality at the Communal
and Provincial councils, as well as in Parliament, we shall make
immense progress. The more we become the masters, the more
we shall apply the theory of colledtivity to the sources of wealth
which our country contains.

That the Belgian Catholic workmen should also make
themselves accomplices in this good work was the ardent
desire of the Socialists, who were displeased with their
Christian confreres for refusing to join the strike. But the
Catholics cannot be blamed for holding aloof, inasmuch
as the Socialists are frankly anti-Christian and aim at
nothing less than the complete overthrow of the Church.

On April 26 the SociaHstic Journal de Charleroi de-
clared that

It is the Church which provoked the general strike, it is she
who rendered it necessary, it is she who made it last two weeks, it
is she, doubtless, who will be the cause of its recommencing if the

The Belgian Strike

eledors do not put matters right by overthrowing at the first
opportunity the Catholic Government. And if the economic
general strike must come to an end, there is a strike which must

continue and become even more general — the religious strike

There is only one way of escaping them [i.e. continual strikes and
economic crises] and that is by repudiating all that comes from the
Church.

I might here remark that when the Church was not
blamed for causing the strike, M. de Broqueville was
blamed. During the early Parliamentary debates on the
sub j eft, the Socialists reproached the Premier for
plunging the country into chaos. But this deceived no-
body.

Writing in the Gazette^ a Socialist says :

It is not for the suffrage that the strike is made, it is against the
clerical power. The suffrage is only a means.

The Socialist leaders sometimes try, it is true, to
conceal their anti-clericalism from the CathoHc workman
lest he should take fright at the onset and avoid them
altogether; hence many foreign observers are misled
into thinking that the Belgian Socialists are not anti-
Christian. An English newspaper correspondent who saw
a good deal of M. Vandervelde assured me once that this
leader was no more " advanced " than the average
English Liberal. Many f afts seem to bear out this view. I
shall give a few of them.

At a sitting of the Communal Council of Brussels in
which the laicization of the hospitals was discussed, M.
Max, a Socialist sheriff, said:

To laicize the hospitals, as a measure of anti-clerical se£larian-
ism, would be to accomplish a tailless and deplorable work. . . . To
drive out the nuns, from hostility to religion, would deeply wound
public opinion.

This attitude of the Belgian Socialists contrasts favour-
ably with that of the French Socialists, but it must not

136

The Belgian Strike

be forgotten that in Belgium Socialism is still the under-
dog, and that it is therefore disposed to talk feeHnglyto the
top-dog about toleration, magnanimity and the sacred
rights of the minority.

M. Emile Vandervelde in particular has never ceased to
preach respeftfor the reHgious idea. He once accompanied
me to the famous Maison du Peuple, that extraordinary
and most prosperous seat of Belgian Socialism, and
pointed out to me, in the hall, an enormous picture of
Christ — a melancholy unusual Christ, with the great eyes
of a visionary — " le premier socialiste! "

In a speech to working men he once cited a blasphe-
mous couplet of a popular song in which Christ and the
Blessed Virgin were both insulted. He added that he had
never heard that verse without disgust, and he could not
understand that there were still to be found Socialists
ignorant enough to blaspheme the Crucified, the vi6lim
of Pharisees and Priests, and to insult the Virgin, the
subhme image of maternal grief. Did any SociaHst think
that by forbidding religious processions and prohibiting
priests from wearing soutanes they advanced the cause
of the Revolution and prepared the way for a better
Society? He [M. Vandervelde] knew very good priests,
and he bowed his head before the sincere convidions of
others, bearing in mind as he did that it is faith or, in
other words, strong conviftions, which among the
Socialists of to-day, as among the Christians of the past,
have accomplished the greatest things.

Theoretically, then, the Belgian Socialists are not
anti-clerical. In pradlice, however, they are anti-clerical.
After quoting the Motu Proprio of Pius X, M. Vander-
velde himself recognizes, in his Le Socialisme et la
Religion, that " no doubt can be possible: to be at the
same time CathoHc and SociaHst constitutes not only
a logical contradidlion but a pradical impossibihty." He
elsewhere admits that " to struggle efficaciously against
clericalism, it is not enough to rest on the defensive, it is
necessary to work at the ehmination of the beliefs on
which^lericaHsm stands." In another place he says that

137

The Belgian Strike

" it 18 the duty of the Socialists who are at the same time
freethinkers to contribute towards labour emancipation by
working to liberate the minds of the people from the re-
ligious and philosophic points of view."

M. Vandervelde condemns as " at the same time
futile and hateful " " easy pleasantries on religion, buf-
foon and vulgar attacks on beliefs which have the right
to tolerance."

If all who do not believe [says he] broke openly with the official
cults, refused systematically to participate in ceremonies which
are in their eyes nothing but idle shows, it is not doubtful that this
propaganda by fa6l would replace with advantage the anti-clerical
declamations of those Freemasons, of those Voltairian bourgeois,
of those " priest-eaters " who send their children to clerical schools
and who, in aU the solemn circumstances of their lives, do not
hesitate to solicit the help or the co-operation of religion.

It all comes, then, to this : that this polished and gifted
man hates coarse frontal attacks on Christianity, not only
because they are inartistic but also because he thinks
that insidious sapping of the foundations is far more
efficacious. Indeed he quotes Liebknecht with approval
as saying that " in my long political career I have learnt
that neither outrages nor attacks on religion have ever
succeeded in shaking the faith of a single believer."

In other words, he is more dangerous to Christianity
than any of those anti-clerical Freemasons or Voltairian
bourgeois whose loud jokes about priests he so much
detests. If he had his way he would asphyxiate Chris-
tianity in the most graceful and painless manner, and
finally pronounce over its tomb a funeral oration of
poignant sympathy and exquisite eloquence. He once
deplored to me with real disgust the foolish violence
of the Portuguese Republicans and their ill-treatment of
Royalist prisoners, but could he himself prevent foolish
violence on the part of his followers ? We know from our
own experiences in England that no sort of party leader
has to humour his followers more, has to follow them
oftener, instead of leading them, than the leader of a

«38

The Belgian Strike

Labour party or a Trade Union out on strike. Even on the
occasion of the present strike M. Vandervelde had to
give v^ay to his foUow^ers. He knew that the strike v^as
a mistake and he said so, nevertheless he had to follow the
strikers.

Even in the campaign against the Church, the rank
and file of the Socialist army do not imitate the artistic
and tolerant methods of their leader. They are frankly
anti-Christian. It is impossible to enter into any economic
group affiliated to the Belgian Socialist party without
at once coming under the influence of that party's chiefs
and newspapers. And those chiefs and newspapers con-
stantly attack not only the clergy and the clerical schools
but the Catholic do6lrine itself. I could produce not only
hundreds but thousands of quotations establishing this
point.

On April 24 M. Vandervelde said :

Citizens, in a few days we shall have the First of May, which will
coincide with Ascension Thursday. On that day the Christiani
celebrate the ascension of a man become God. We will celebrate
the ascension of a class towards a better future, of a humanity
towards more justice.

I quote this passage from M. Vandervelde's own
paper, the Peuple, which adds that this parallel was
greeted with a *' double ovation. The bravos burst forth,
echoed and re-echoed. There was a movement of pro-
longed emotion." This contrast between Christians and
Socialists clearly implies, however, that they are in dif-
ferent camps.

According to Father Rutten, M. Vandervelde can be
even more anti- Christian than this. Father Rutten men-
tions an occasion on which this SociaHst chief " grossly
insulted in his speech at Charleroi the most august of
our Sacraments." . . . . " One fad," adds Pere Rutten,
"dominates all: There is not a single leader of the
Belgian Socialists who dares to pradlise his religion
openly, and there is not a single distrid where the pro-

139

The Belgian Strike

gress of Socialism is not inevitably accompanied by a
decline of religious pradlices."

In Belgium, accordingly, we find Christianity and anti-
Christianity face to face as they are nowhere else, save
perhaps in Portugal. Let us see what are their comparative
chances of success.

In the first place Socialism is aided, unfortunately,
by the tendency of the times. The increase of luxury,
the feverish thirst for sensationalism and for pleasure,
weaken the hold of Catholicity, and whenever a Belgian
drops away from the national religion he very often
supports the only organized force which is at war with it,
namely Socialism. Thus we find even capitalists sup-
porting the Socialists. M. Marquet, a violent anti-
clerical, who made an enormous fortune out of his gam-
bling saloons at Ostend, contributed ;£4,ooo a week to the
strikers.

The propaganda of Socialism among industrial workers
is also assisted by the tendency, which is becoming more
and more accentuated, of large industrial establishments
to become larger and small industrial establishments to
disappear. The majority of the Christian Socialists whom
Father Rutten has enlisted in his Christian Syndicates
belong to small Flemish establishments. On the farms
and on board the fishing-boats, where only a few men
work together, there is hardly a single anti-clerical. If we
go, on the other hand, to the mines, and ironworks, and
blast-furnaces and glass-works of Wallonia, Liege, Hain-
ault, and the Borinage, where great numbers of men labour
side by side, we find Socialism very strong.

Indeed the recent strike was to some extent a conflift
between industrial Wallonia and agricultural Flanders,
between the vivacious, GalUc and sceptical Walloon and
the slow, Germanic, believing Fleming. In Belgium
the Germanic race, so associated elsewhere with Pro-
testantism, has become the bulwark of Catholicism. The
Latin race, so associated with Catholicism, tends to be-
come Rome's most dangerous enemy.

To some extent the conflifl: between the conservative

140

The Belgian Strike

agriculturist and the radical mechanic exists, latent
or adlive, in every country. During the revolutionary
ferment in Russia seven years ago the bulk of the revo-
lutionists v^ere people who had to do with big machinery
— ^fortress artillerymen, bluejackets, miners and fadory
hands. The peasants were, on the whole, loyal; and at
Kronstadt, Sveaborg and Moscow, the soldiers from the
agricultural distrids saved the Empire. Russian Liberals
explained this difference to me by saying that men
who had to do with complicated machinery and to run
great risks had had their wits sharpened, while peasants
who hibernated all winter and had never made use of any
nearer approach to machinery than a wagon or a
primitive wooden plough were likely to be mentally
stagnant.

One of the Catholic leaders in Charleroi gave me a dif-
ferent explanation. The farmer, the shepherd, the
fisherman, the small shopkeeper, were, he said, men of a
much higher charadler than the miner or the f a6lory hand.
The former class, he maintained, lived under more
natural conditions. Their minds seemed to refledl
something of the majestic simplicity of the sea and the
sky and the beautiful landscapes which were ever before
them as they worked. They dwelt among relatives and
neighbours, who had known them from infancy and
perhaps known their fathers and grandfathers before
them. The miner and the fadlory hand, on the contrary,
came very often from no one knew where. Many of them
were French deserters or escaped criminals, but, if they
were physically strong enough, no questions were asked
when they presented themselves at the mine and the
f a6lory and they were immediately set to work. In great
agglomerations of men thus thrown together haphazard
there are always, said my informant, undesirable
charadlers, and one such chara6ler is more likely to
corrupt a dozen good chara6lers than to be himself
reformed by them.

If this reasoning is true, the tendency towards the
replacement of many small industrial establishments

141

The Belgian Strike

by a few great ones, which is so very pronounced in
Belgium, will tell in favour of Socialism, but, happily,
there are fa6lors at work on the other side. Socialism
began its propaganda in the mines and faftories at a
time when there was no competing association. The
Christian Syndicalist movement only began quite re-
cently— to be accurate, in the year 1904. It began with
10,000 members. In 1905 it had 14,000; in 1906 20,000;
in 1907 30,000; in 1910 it had 40,000 grouped in 485
syndicates; in 191 2, the date of the last report, it had
over 82,761, and M. Vandervelde himself admitted to me
that he regards the movement as a serious rival. Its pro-
gress has been much more rapid than that of the So-
cialists.

And now is the time for me to introduce to the reader
the remarkable Dominican who has worked this miracle,
and whose name I have already mentioned several times
in the course of this paper.

Father Rutten seems to be about thirty or thirty-
five years of age. Tall, powerfully built, adtive, with a
frank, cheerful face and an optimistic outlook on life,
he strongly resembles an athletic English undergraduate.
I found him at Ghent in his bureau, or rather in the
centre of a network of bureaux. Connefted by telephone
with all his subordinate offices and surrounded by card-
index cabinets and office furniture of the most modern
type, he looked like an able young American business man
at work, or a busy editor controlling the complex organiza-
tion of a great newspaper. His attentive, well-paid
and efficient assistants are in strong contrast with the
personnel of similar semi-religious popular associations
in other lands.

" In such work," said Father Rutten, " it is a mistake
to accept the services either of the charitable but un-
punftual rich dilettanti or of the underpaid poor. Such
offices must be established on a stridlly businesslike
basis. You must have well-paid employees, and this work
must be their life-work."

All over Belgium it is the same. The network of

142

The Belgian Strike

prosperous Catholic associations which covers the land has
produced a new profession, that of the paid secretary-
organizer. Of course, it is the same on the Socialist side.

After a brilliant University career. Father Rutten
joined the Order of Friars Preachers and became, soon
after his ordination, exceedingly interested in the labour
question. In order to study it close at hand, he worked in
a mine with the miners for three years. This gave him an
insight into the miner's life which no amount of study
could have given him. He understands the technical
language and the slang of the miner. Even the Socialist
miners admit that Father Rutten is one of themselves.
The Catholics are, of course, enthusiastic about their
" White General," as they call him on account of his
white Dominican habit.

Father Rutten, who is strongly supported by his Bishop
and by all the ecclesiastical authorities, thinks that some
Christians, among the employers as well as among the
employed, have a wrong idea about Christianity. Some
Catholic capitalists are inclined to imagine that the
Church disapproves of any sort of league among labourers.
All authority comes from God, therefore the employer
should be obeyed by his workmen as a father is obeyed by
his children.

In Father Rutten's opinion this is manifestly wrong.
Before entering into a contradl with an employer work-
men have a perf e6l right to bargain for as much as they
can get, and in order to bargain effeftively they must
first band themselves into some kind of league. The
Encyclical " Rerum Novarum " approves of such leagues
among workmen.

Workmen are entirely wrong in thinking that
Christianity is a soporific, and that the good Christian
workman should bear patiently the ills of the world
without any attempt to improve his lot. Some workmen
are of this persuasion, and the Socialists never cease
confirming them in it and preaching that Christianity is
only a league between the priests and the capitalists.
The truth is, however, that Christianity is a stimulant,

143

The Belgian Strike

not a soporific. A Christian is bound to advance, to
improve himself, to better as much as possible his posi-
tion. I quote the ipsissima verba of the great Dominican
democrat.

I cannot say, however [he added] that all priests should throw
in their lot with the workmen as I am doing. As a rule the cure in
this country has to preach the word of God not only to the men
but also to the masters. He must hold the balance even, and it
would therefore be wrong for him to take sides.

Father Rutten himself has thrown in his lot v^ith the
v^orkers.

Whatever improvement in your position is possible, [he has said
to them] that we shall together try to obtain. Whatever is impos-
sible it would be a waste of time to strive for.

This view appeals strongly to the Belgian workman,
who has in his composition a strong fund of common
sense and who places little faith in the ultimate Socialist
Utopia. Hence the gratifying success which has crowned
the new Christian-Democrat propaganda.

Curiously enough, we find the Church helping to
keep in existence not only the small fa6lory proprietor
but also the small farmer and the small shopkeeper, two
classes of the population which are detested by the
Socialists because they are the main support of the
Catholic party.

The petite bourgeoisie of the towns was, a few years
ago, in danger of being crushed by " trusts," great shops,
and co-operative societies when union saved it. For the
small shopkeepers and the small farmers, this hard fight
for life was in the end good. It raised them to a higher
plane of efficiency in their respe6live callings. It increased
their industry and it taught them the necessity of
method, study and co-operation. I cannot help regretting,
however, that the Belgian Government does not better
protect the small farmer and the small shopkeeper

144

The Belgian Strike

and the middle classes in general against the
whether that " trust " be Capitalist or Socialist.

The middle class is the logical and necessary bond of
union between capital and labour. Jan Breydel and Pieter
de Coninck and the old Flemish burghers have left to
their successors traditions of liberty and of sturdy
independence which Belgium should not willingly
.let die. For a long time past the shopkeepers have asked
the Government to take energetic measures against the
abuses pradlised by the Socialist co-operatives, but up to
the present their campaign has been ineffeftual. Meet-
ings and petitions have been of no avail. ParHament does
not wish to interfere.

As a matter of f aft there is too little interference with
the liberty of the sub j eft on the part of the Belgian
Government. The people have too much liberty, — much
more than we have in England. Parents are not compelled
to send their children to school, with the result that the
percentage of illiterates is loi in every thousand conscripts
against -2 m Denmark and -7 in Prussia. At Antwerp the
Socialists were allowed, during the recent strike, to dis-
tribute manifestoes among the soldiers, and over the
entrance door of the Maison du Peufle in Brussels hung,
in gigantic letters, an appeal to the troops not to fire on
the strikers.

The same excessive delicacy about doing anything which
might look like an infringement of the freedom of the
people prevents the Government from curbing the
" trusts." It should be reassured, however, by the example
of free America. Besides, there is a frequent interference
with Hberty for the benefit of the miners, whose compaft,
organized, largely Socialistic mass was more to be feared
in the past than the unorganized farmer and shopkeeper
class. Thus the Government has up to the present
neglefted its own supporters because they are not orga-
nized, suspicious and exafting, and loaded its^ enemies
with favours because they have all those quahties in a
pre-eminent degree. It is the old story of the violent,
masterful boy in a family who is coaxed into being barely
Vol. 153 14s ^o

The Belgian Strike

supportable while his brother who is habitually "good "
is left unnoticed.

As for the small farmers, we in England know how
much we have lost by the disappearance of the yeoman
class.

With its traditions of order, of economy, of work [says M.
Henri Charriault] the small bourgeoisie condenses and epitomizes
all the history and all the genius of the Belgian people. It has often
been said, but perhaps it is as well to repeat it — Each time that, by
the play of economic forces, a small bourgeois closes his store or
his workshop in order to enter, he and his family, into the service
of the State, or to become a salaried employee, it is not only a cell
of national wealth which disappears, it is a cell of independence.

M. Charriault might have added that it is also a supporter
of the Church which disappears. For the " petite bour-
geoisie " and the farmer class are the two bulwarks of
CathoHcity, hence the undisguised hatred with which the
Socialists regard them. The Peuple, itself the organ
of a huge co-operative concern which is more capitalist
than Socialist in its nature, sneers daily at " les petits
bourgeois " whom the vast business organizations of the
Socialists have done so much to crush. A long article could
be written on this one question alone. "The small
shopkeepers are a useless charge," wrote the Peuple of
September 4, 1912, "intermediaries and retailers are a
social nuisance."

As to the immediate prospedls of Catholicism in Bel-
gium, they are universally admitted to be bright. The
Christian party is likely to get stronger rather than weaker.
The Left have little chance of driving it from power
in 1 9 14. If they drive it from power afterwards, the
Church has nothing to fear. For the Socialists can only
govern in conjunftion with the Liberals, and the Liberals
will not stand any attacks on religion or any Socialistic
experiments with regard to property. Moreover, the
temper of the Belgian people would not tolerate any
legislation of an extremist charafter. And, lastly, the
Socialist leaders themselves might be sobered, as M.

146

The Belgian Strike

Briand was sobered, by the responsibiHties of office. But
the younger school of Belgian Catholics are convinced
that Socialism has now reached its apogee, and that from
henceforth it will decline.

Even if the plural vote is abolished, the Catholics will
suffer less from its abolition than the Liberals, who will
almost be wiped out. In any case, there is no future for the
Belgian Liberals. They do nothing but theorize, and, ac-
cordingto all appearances, they will eventually be absorbed
by the two principal parties. Thus will be fulfilled the
prophecy made as far back as 1851 by Donoso Cortes:

" The days of Liberalism are numbered. On one point
of the horizon is to be seen the star which announces God.
At the opposite point forms the cloud, precursor of the
popular fury. In the terrible day of battle, when the
entire arena will be occupied by the phalanxes of the
Catholics and the phalanxes of the Socialists, nobody
will any longer know where Liberalism is to be found."

When that day arrives, and if the worst comes to the
worst, the Catholics will have it in their power to play a
winning card by giving the vote to women. As practically
all the women in Belgium are Conservative and religious,
this step would certainly not be to the advantage of the
Socialists, who are therefore strongly opposed to it.
Catholics generally, and even Belgian Catholics, dislike
the idea of women's suffrage, but there can be no doubt
that if the women of France had had the vote for the last
twenty years the French Church would have been spared
the anti-clerical attacks which have been made on her
during that time. As it is, however, there is a remarkable
revival of Catholicism in France, and if this revival
makes any lasting impression on the composition of the
French Chambers, its effed will be strongly felt in Bel-
gium as well. Belgian anti-clericalism is largely due to the
example of Paris on the Gallic and French-speaking
Walloons. If Paris ceases to be anti-clerical, Charleroi
will also cease to be anti-clerical.

FRANCIS McCULLAGH
147 10^

"ET IN VITAM
AETERNAM"

The Belief in Immortality and The Worship of the Dead. By

J. G. Frazer, D.C.L., etc. Vol. 1. 191 3.
Eternal Life: A Study of its Implications and Applications. By

Baron Fr. von Hugel. 191 2.

THERE is a point, presumably, in which the argu-
ment of these two books might coincide; and their
subjed matter might, to a greater extent than it does,
prove identical. But the names of their respeftive authors
assure us that the treatment of their theme will follow
methods so divergent as to impose, almost of necessity,
dissimilar conclusions.

It is true that Dr Frazer almost deprecates " conclu-
sions," at least of any ultimate sort. He will not, he says,
treat his sub j eft " dogmatically," nor even " philosophi-
cally," but historically and indeed by way of sheer
description. For even history should be no mere accu-
mulation of fafts, but will trace the " origin and evolu-
tion " of the various views which have been held upon the
subjeft under discussion.* Such treatment " simply
ignores," however, " the truth of natural theology; " it
must indeed precede any estimate of the " ethical value "
of its material : yet it will leave in great measure, though
not wholly, unaffefted the validity or " truth " of any
creed which may be founded upon the ideas whose
historical origin is under discussion. Thus, should Dr
Frazer's fafts make " the belief in immortality look ex-
ceedingly foolish," that need not deprive beHevers of all
consolation. t

It will be seen that from the outset a strong element
of " philosophy " is compatible with the author's
effort after detachment ; and, in f aft, the strufture of his
whole work is governed by philosophy.

At first sight nothing can be more purely " descrip-

• Page I. t Page 4.

148

"Et in Vitam Aeternam''

tive " than the bulk of his book. It consists of juxtaposed
stories capable, indeed, of causing the most ghoulish joys
to a schoolboy, yet, since they are used as " evidence,"
produ6live of anxiety in the lay mind certainly, and in
that too, we surmise, of the expert ethnologist. For
these rich groups of tales, taken from missionaries,
Catholic and Protestant; from sailor and government
official; from learned treatise and told by theorists, or
culled from the hearsay jottings of some traveller's
journal, and dating, often, from periods separate by whole
centuries, are set out in Dr Frazer's entertaining style
(for he is a capital story-teller), without (it would seem)
any indication of their relative value or evidential utility.
It is, perhaps, upon the thoughtful layman that this sort
of compilation exercises the most disagreeable effed.
He begins by being enormously impressed, and to the
end Dr Frazer's industry remains impressive. But as
page follows page, he becomes hopeless, because he feels
himself quite incapable, and in no way helped, to judge
of this great mass of mixed material. He knows it cannot
all be equally true. And hopelessness is the precursor of
scepticism. Out of all this, he feels, anything might be
made, or nothing.

But it is possible for him to translate this vague and
rather negative apprehension into positive distrust.

For, enormous as has been Dr Frazer's contribution
both to the material and theory of comparative anthro-
pology, he has his critics, too, laborious no less and acute.
And they have not always been content with his manage-
ment of sheer evidence. There is an excellent little
bulletin called the Recherches de Science Religieuse, and in
the number for March, 191 3, is to be found an article
of the very valuable kind which we are now accustomed
to exped from M. Frederic Bouvier.* In Religion et
Magief he makes mention of much which shows how
careful we should be, on purely objedive and evidential

• Who, with Fr. Schmidt, S.V.D., is responsible for the establishment
of the yearly Semaine d'Ethnohgie Religieuse at Louvain.

t Of. c, p. 109; and cf. Recherches, 19 12, No. 5, p. 393 /^^.

149

'^ Et in Vitam Aeternam

grounds, from trusting too readily the " radicalisme
magique " of Dr Frazer.

It would be unfair, to Dr Frazer as to M. Bouvier,
were we to rely overmuch upon these pages especially as
they refer immediately to the earlier work, Totemism^
etc., published in 1905. Yet in them it is made clear
that with all the good will in the world its author is
governed first in his choice of evidence (from the irre-
producible mass) by the exigencies (not consciously felt,
no doubt) of his theory, and then in the interpretation
of that evidence. Thus in Totemism (I., pp. 141, 142),
Dr Frazer appears to rely upon the testimony of
Messrs Curr, Mathew, and A. W. Howitt to establish
his contention that magic, not religion, reigns supreme
over the Australian aborigines. But we observe that
Mr Curr not only differs from the local missionary
authorities in the interpretation of fa6ls, but does so
only by the help of a theory, namely, the loan theory
popularized by Tylor, ascribing the higher ideas of the
natives to a borrowing from missionary lore. And in any
case Mr Curr's magic is shot with animism. As for Mr
Mathew, after sharing Mr Curr's opinion, he has been
forced (it appears) by seventeen years of observation to shift
his view, and to decide against the existence of any Aus-
tralian " atheist " race, the theist element not, however,
being ascribed to missionary influence. Finally, it is pre-
cisely from Mr Howitt that we gain most of our know-
ledge of Australian " supreme beings," to whom, in some
cases, their very magic owes its eflicacy. Philosophy alone
causes Dr Frazer to conclude to the late and evolutionary
character of these supreme beings, and pressure of fa6ls
to restrict, gradually, his argument to the Arunta tribe.
Yet if these are to be adduced because of their " primi-
tivity," as an argument for the priority of magic to reli-
gion, that primitivity should not be proved merely by
reference to the grossness and absurdity of their notions,
their ignorance (is this verifiable?) of sexual causality, and
by the universal priority of magic to religion. . . .

M. Bouvier, quoting Totemism, L, 160, 161, 167, says:

150

" Et in Vitam Aeternam "

" L'argumentation de M. Frazer fait de tels detours qu' a
la fin on se trouve emprisonne dans un cercle d'ou il n'est
pas aise de sortir. C'est nous mettre I'esprit au rouet."
Independently of this, the elaborate research of Fr
Schmidt, editor of Jnthropos, tends to Hnk the Aruntas
not with primitive folks, but with " les races les plus
evoluees, specialement avec le civilisation compliquee,
contournee, vieillotte de la Nouvelle Guinee.* With
regard, then, to the sheer fads, we ask nothing better
than that genuine specialists should discuss and evaluate
each of Mr Frazer's groups.

With regard to the general system we are impressed to
find that " historiens et ethnologues de toute ecole ont
ete d'accord a y signaler des fautes assez evidentes de
methode et de logique. Qu'il suffise de renvoyer ici aux
critiques parfois sipenetrantesdeMM. Marett, Hartland,
Goblet d'Alviella, Wundt, Hubert et Mauss, Jevons,
Loisy, A. Lang, etc.f Full references accompany these
general allusions.

It is true that in Immortality there are few fafts, or
none, to disconcert a Catholic student, and little to
annoy him; yet he will deprecate the serene application
(however verbally guarded it may be) of the customary
presuppositions. The hypothesis of an Age of Magic
solidifies into a major premiss. The evolution of mankind
from an utterly low level is assumed, and his possible
degeneration denied, at least in the important cases.
Above all, the mentality of present-day savages is taken
as genuine evidence of the condition of primitive mankind. X

* Rechgrches, p. 117. Cf. Schmidt, Zeitschrift fUr Ethnologic, 1908,
pp. 866, 900; 1909, p. 328-377-

t " Cela n'empeche du reste personne," adds M. Bouvier (with more
than une pinte de malice?) " de reconnaitre I'immense erudition et
I'incontestable talent, surtout oratoire,de M. Frazer": o/>. c. pp. 110,111.

t See especially pp. 5, 6, 7, 87, 88 ; and how interesting are the transi-
tions in these few lines: "... indeed, we may with some probability
conjecture that the magical intention of these ceremonies is the primary
and original one, and that the commemorative intention is secondary
and derivative. If this could be proved to be so (which is hardly to be
expected), we should be obliged to conclude that in this as in so many

" Et in Vitam Aeternam "

It is seen round how solid a philosophic skeleton this
descriptive essay is fashioned, and how firmly governed is
the arrangement of the evidence by the dogmatic pre-
supposition.

Shall we mention the deductions ? In but a few words.
Here it is that Dr Frazer's talent " surtout oratoire "
displays itself, so much so that the homiletic conclusions
to his chapters, or his se6tions, or his book seem written
almost by a different hand from that which wrote his
narratives. (If these are J, those are most distin 6tiy
D...).

This excessive preoccupation with a problematical future has
been a fruitful source of the most fatal aberrations, both for
nations and individuals. In pursuit of these visionary aims the
few short years of life have been frittered away; wealth has been
squandered; blood has been poured out in torrents; the natural
affeftions have been stifled ; and the cheerful serenity of reason has
been exchanged for the melancholy gloom of madness [and
Omar's " O Threats of Hell," etc. is quoted] (p. 33).

Doubtless magic in this sphere has done worse than
natural religion, which has but slain its thousands, magic
its tens of thousands (p. 58); the Age of religion doubtless
improved vastly on its predecessor : yet when the economic
disasters consequent upon the old praftice of destroying
the property of the dead are detailed, it is hard to repress
a smile :

When we pass from the custom in this its feeble source and
follow it as it swells in volume through the nations of the world
till it attains the dimensions of a mighty river of wasted labour,
squandered treasure and spilt blood, we cannot but wonder at
the strange mixture of good and evil in the affairs of mankind,
seeing in what we justly call progress so much hardly-earned gain
side by side with so much gratuitous loss, such immense additions
to the substantial value of life to be set off against such enormous
sacrifices to the shadow of a shade, (p. 249).

inquiries into the remote human past we detect evidence of an Age of
Magic preceding anything that deserves to be dignified hy the name of
religion." (p. 126.)

152

" Et in Vitam Aeternam

Apparently it is again the Mass that matters.

The good results of his belief upon the life of the Central
Melanesian savage are indeed emphasized (pp. 391, 392),
but we are reminded that it is based on ignorance and
indeed on a theory of causation so different from ours
that probably the gulf fixed between us and him is
impassable.

And as for the pra6lical results of a belief in immor-
tality, the truth of which he does not discuss, Dr Frazer
reminds us that it

has not merely coloured the outlook of the individual upon the
world; it has deeply affefted the social and political relations of
humanity in all ages ; for the religious wars and persecutions which
distraded and devastated Europe for ages, were only the civilized
equivalents of the battles and murders which the fear of ghosts
has instigated in almost all the races of savages of whom we possess
a record. Regarded from this point of view the faith in a life here-
after has been sown, like dragon's teeth, on the earth and has
brought forth crop after crop of armed men, who have turned their
swords against each other. [Here recurs the economic-loss motif.']
It is not for me to estimate the extent and the gravity of the con-
sequences, moral, social, political, and economic, which flow
diredly from the beUef in immortality, (p. 469.)

To pass from these heated periods to Eternal Life is like
leaving the market-place with its schools and raconteurs
for a mosque. No one can mistake the hush that waits on
worship. Or rather, for a Cathedral. For everywhere,
Christianity is descried, though Eternal Life is recognized
to be still dislocated upon the cross of time.

We do not of course ask Dr Frazer why he left to
others to find that which himself he never set out to
seek: yet we cannot help feehng that the really important
points, and in fa6l the only reahty, are reached in this
second book.

Emphatically we are not discussing it as a whole, nor
even in detail. It is our very circumscribed intention to
allude to one element in it, and only one,^ namely, that
which reveals the notion of Eternal Life, in its inipHcation

153

"Et in Vitam Aeternam"

of Immortality, as cohesive, stru6lural, and vivifying; in
fadl, to indicate that although the notion of personal
survival v^hen coupled as a major premiss with narrower
and false propositions may produce, as Dr Frazer shows,
disruptive and anti-social conclusions, yet it is precisely
this idea which, in a true scheme, makes at once for per-
manence and development. In fa 61:, what else is Life than
identity in change?

For in this volume Eternal Life is considered rather as
an ultimate Platonic idea or force, plunging itself into
various forms of matter (and in this resped it is allowable
to consider even human reasoning as material, and an
incarnational vehicle for the animating Reality), and
giving to them the unity, permanence, meaning, driving
power, and derivative life, of which each is patient.
Socially, this will mean the state; politically, governments;
religiously (it may be), the Church; philosophically,
a system; for the soul, immortality. In everything where
human contaft is estabhshed, an anthropomorphism will
result which, so far from being deplored and mere stuff
for elimination, must be, in a " purified but firm " mode,
" maintained throughout as essential to the full vigour
and articulation of Religion." This is what necessitates
the author's discussion of Social Forms and of Institu-
tions in religion. It is " plain that Subje6Hvism has had
its day for a good long while to come " : and even Episte-
mology, if it be " sane and full," and also

all the more complete, characteristic and fruitful religious experi-
ences and personalities imperatively demand, in the writer's judg-
ment, some genuine institution alism. ... If man's spirit is
awakened by contact with things of sense, and if his consciousness
of the Eternal and Omnipresent is aroused and (in the long run)
sustained only by the aid of Happenings in Time and in Space,
then the Historical, Institutional, Sacramental must be allowed a
necessary position and function in the full religious life. Only the
proper location, the heroic use, the wise integration of the Insti-
tutional within the full spiritual life are really sufficient. The
writer is no Quaker, but a convinced Roman Catholic; hence, do

154

" Et in Vitam Aeternam

what he will, he cannot avoid, he cannot even minimize, these for
himself utterly intrinsic questions (p. xv.).

Though, we repeat, we are not criticizing even what we
here use, we are anxious to point out that among the
" implications " of this view are, first, a denial of all
Pantheism or Monadism of any sort (and this the writer
explicitly, and often, does deny); an assertion of the dis-
tindlion of the two orders, supernatural and natural, of
which the former yet interenergizes with the second, and
indeed, so far from annihilating it, gives it its higher
reality and existence: and, finally, that his study of the
working of this idea in mankind is objeftive and his-
torical, and not abstra6live and hypothetical.

In the " historical retrospeft " which fills Part I of
Eternal Life the author observes what he takes as his major
premiss working together with the subordinate (na-
tional, temperamental, and accidental) contributions
of the Oriental, Israelitish, Hellenic and Jewish-Hellenic
peoples and periods. After this the history of Primitive
Christianity and Christian Hellenistic times (in which
Neo-Platonism made its despairing effort and in which
St Augustine triumphed) leads, through the Middle
Ages, to " modern times," represented by Spinoza and
Kant.

With regard to all the pre-Christian religions we can
only repeat what we have so often noticed, that the stronger
the dose of other- worldliness, encouraging spiritual
emancipation, asceticism and ecstasy, that pagan religion
contained, the more certainly it seems to have fared towards
disaster. Thus India, Syria, and in Orphism, as against
early Rome and Persia. And, further, the more outstand-
ing does the solitary true example of "religious evolution,"
namely the Jewish, reveal itself to be, culminating in that
Christian fa6l which alone discovered the secret of a
spiritual equilibrium and supplied a force adequate for
its preservation and more constant re-establishment. Here
it would seem that an alliance with Dr Frazer might

155

"Et in Vitam Aeternam"

be struck on the assertion that the more true, and there-
fore powerful, a do6lrine, the more disastrous it is likely
to be if illegitimately applied.

And with regard to the Christian period, we shall but
quote what the contemplation of St Augustine's colossal
Civitas forces from its student :

. . . We once more cannot but recognize that it is Jesus Our Lord
Himself who alone gives us the quite full and costingly balanced
statement within which the experiences and do£lrines as to the
social organism and as to sin have to find their place and level.
And yet a deep sense of the need of such an organism and of the
reality of sin will constantly be necessary to a sane and soHd
conception and pradlice of Eternal Life; and such a sense is ever,
even excessively, though not uniformly, operative within the vast
scheme of St. Augustine, (p. 94.)

And observe how, pragmatically, this discredits, as the
determinism of Spinoza, so the subjedlivity of Kant.*

But we wish entirely to omit the long chapter on philoso-
phies derivative from Kant, and even that on Biology
and Epigenesis, though here a kind of appendix-seftion
on Bergson welcomes his distindion of Duration from
clock-time. But Bergson, while removing the mechanical
obstacles " to Liberty," has not discovered its *' spiritual
conditions," and even less are these revealed by the
harsh systems of Socialism to which transition is here
indicated.

And the ** new " world — that of the West European
and North American workman is genuinely new — is of a
markedly anti-transcendent kind. The author studies,
with very great acumen, the causes of this. Really have we
not here a test-case — one of the two test-cases (the

* Page 94. We find it here our duty to note, if we can do so without
impertinence, a definite return (in topics here subordinate and not affect-
ing the movement of the book and still less our circumscribed utilization
of its argument) to positions designated as more " orthodox." There is
still a certain rigidity in the drawing of conclusions due to a loyalty which,
when it is in favour of a system, may seem academic; when of a person, a
self -regardless chivalry.

156

" Et in Vitam Aeternam

" scientific " schools who build naturalistic hypotheses
upon foundations sapped in reality by analytical criticism
supply the other) for deciding whether a genuinely con-
strudive movement, excluding the spiritual ultimate
co-efficient of " Eternal Life " be possible? The Baron
discerns, in the very welter of confusion caused by the
disruptive principles underlying the remodelling work
of Socialism, and still more in the classes awakened, but
not infected, by these, tendencies making to a desire of
" Eternal Life " and a recognition of its relation to cer-
tain social and physical conditions. This, after all, is
Leo XI IPs dodlrine. SociaHsm is here a parody of
Christian social adtion. So while religion is forced thus to
be " more than ever temporal, spatial, immanental," yet
more than ever, too, must it be Eternal, Omnipresent,
and Transcendent : alone " the two movements together
of the real durational soul supported by the real Eternal
God " are here adequate.* And even in the pronounce-
ments of the recent leaders — M. Sorel, for example, —
is discerned such hopefulness, that of him it may be said
that we are here " not far from the experience and con-
ception of Eternal Life."

And the mention of this prominent Frenchman
reminds us of a movement whose literature would have
furnished the Baron with unnumbered illustrations. It is
that rea6lion against the destru6live tendency of criti-
cism, pessimism and agnosticism — which is more visible
perhaps in France than anywhere else, though the Vita
Vera of Johannes Joergensen is as striking a work from
Denmark, and the Constructive Review (in scope and
intention) from America, as the Jeunes Gens d^ Auj our d^hui
which " Agathon " has compiled. Yet this last book shows
not only tendencies, nor individual activities, but the
accomplished movement of masses, and a " revival " of
positive religion, precisely round about this very notion

* We confess to quoting here from the full analytical table of
Contents prefixed to the volume, so clear is it, and so much the more
sure are we of thus genuinely relating the author's opinion. .

" Et in Vitam Aeternam "

of an Eternal Life expressing itself for perfe6lion in
visible forms — or a visible form — namely, that Church,
which is Christianity, which is the Christ. All this is far
more symptomatic than churches once more crowded,
men back upon their knees, and enthusiastic mass-meet-
ings. It means a modification of intelle6lual outlook, of
will-change, of historical interpretation, even of social
and political ideal. Above all, a pulsation in the vital
current. We have no space to dwell on this, which would
rather demand a volume, developing and transcending
Mr Bodley's essay, T^he Decay of Idealism in France. If it
decays, it is in favour of a realism which contains all that
was substantial in the older dream.

In the brief Part III, " Prospe6ls and Conclusions "
are attempted, and a synthesis of a uniquely powerful
description is offered us. Every element we have wanted,
and sought in vain — not in Dr Frazer's book, for, of
course, he would not put it there, but in his presupposi-
tions and the conclusions he leaves us to deduce,- — ^is here
utilized. Every notion too is stated, and in a language
stately and rich and, we emphatically argue, not intrin-
sically obscure.

" Eternal Life " is the explanation of the human past,
and of the human destiny. This is why man can live, and
does live, as history shows him to have lived; and this is
how he must live for his full development as man — meant
to be more than man.

And Religion, in its fullest development, essentially requires,
not only their own little span of earthly years, but a life beyond.
Neither an Eternal Life that is already fully achieved here below,
nor an Eternal Life to be begun and known solely in the beyond
satisfies these requirements. But only an Eternal Life already begun
and truly known in part here, though fully to be achieved and
completely to be understood hereafter, corresponds to the deepest
longings of man's spirit as touched by the prevenient Spirit, God,
And hence, again, a peace and a simplification. For that doubly
Social Life I try to lead here (though most real, and though itself
already its own exceeding great reward) constitutes, after all,

158

" Et in Vitam Aeternam "

but the preliminary praftice, the getting ready, for ampler, more
expansive, more utterly blissful energizings in and for man^ the
essentially durational, quasi- eternal, and God, the utterly Abiding,
the pure Eternal Life.

What have we here but a clear statement of that
Catholic do£lrine of grace, the grace of glory, substanti-
ally initiated upon earth, destined to be perfeded when
"death dawns"; and that, by way of a union (trans-
cendent ally vital and real, yet not destru6live of each
several personality) with the eternal source of absolute
Life ? Here is all St Paul and here St John.

C. C. MARTINDALE

159

GEORGE WYNDHAM

JUST as our American edition is going to press comes
the news of the sudden death of Mr George Wynd-
ham. I shall not attempt with the short time at my dis-
posal any estimate of one who was certainly among the
most remarkable figures of our generation. Such an esti-
mate must be reserved for our next number, but a few
words may here be set down suggested by the event
which has given such a shock to the English political
world, and a sense of irreparable loss to a large circle of
personal friends.

The Press has done ample justice to Mr Wyndham's
winning personaHty and to his achievements in the worlds
of politics and literature, notably to the great measure
of Land Purchase in Ireland, which was a landmark in the
history of the country and will ever remain associated with
Mr Wyndham's name. But there is one fad which forms
a chief element in the tragedy of his early death which has
not perhaps received adequate attention. The keynote
was struck by Mr Balfour's words in the House of Com-
mons. After speaking of " the width of his accomplish-
ments and his great Hterary and imaginative powers," Mr
Balfour added, " they never received, I think, their full
expansion and their full meed of praise, or perhaps their
full theatre in which to show themselves. Though many of
us heard speeches made by Mr Wyndham which they will
not readily forget yet all I think must feel that he has been
cut off at a time of life when there was still before him the
hope and the promise of greater things in the future than
he had ever done in the past. These," added Mr Balfour,
" are the great tragedies of life."

The fadl is that Mr Wyndham's extraordinary gifts of
imagination and intelle6l led him to take wide and com-
prehensive views, to go to the very heart of the philosophy
of politics and the philosophy of life. And to bring out
such views effedlively in detail in the practical world of
politics needed time and opportunity. They might have
been represented in some great work on political and

i6o

George Wyndham

social philosophy. But Mr Wyndham was a statesman who
meant in the first instance to exhibit his theories in praftice.
And to do this he had to await the suitable hour.

When he was made Chief Secretary for Ireland his
moment seemed to have arrived. He took up his task not as
a party politician with a conventional programme, but as
a philosophic statesman and an observer of men. He made
a profound study of the country, of its social and economic
conditions, and also of its history and of the racial pecu-
liarities of its people. The drama of Irish history and of
his own position and work appealed to him. " I feel like
a Ghibelline Duke in the land of the Guelphs," he said to
the present writer. He had great schemes for Ireland
founded on the views he rapidly formed of the require-
ments of the country. He carried through the first part of
his programme, showing a power and grasp of a compli-
cated situation which was new to him which made an ex-
perienced Irish land agent say to the present writer, " If
he had lived all his life in Ireland he could not have
worked out the details of his scheme with closer pradtical
knowledge or greater perfedlion." Circumstances cut
short his Irish career; and his great schemes for the
country, the fruit of so much thought and study, were
never executed or even made known to the public. The
blow dealt him by this check can only be appreciated by
those who realize how infinitely beyond the purview of
the normal Chief Secretary his studies and his schemes
had extended. He had equipped himself for a ten years'
campaign. He had to be satisfied with three.

His position in Ireland was the only one which gave
him the authority necessary for reahzing his statesmanHke
views in pra6lice. But Ireland was only one subje6l on
which such views were thought out in a pradical form.
At the War Office he had already shown his power of com-
bining insight into the necessities of our army with extra-
ordinary grasp of detail. And he continued this work after
his official connexion with the department was over. It
was the same in other fields to which the poHtical' situa-
tion from time to time drew his attention. It may be said
Vol. 153 161 II

George Wyndham

without an atom of rhetorical exaggeration that he pos-
sessed in a very high degree one of the greatest endow-
ments of Mr Gladstone combined with one of the chief
chara6leristics of Lord Beaconsfield. In grasp of detail he
resembled the great Liberal minister. In the cast of his
political imagination he resembled Disraeli, though in
neither case did the resemblance extend further.

This latter attribute gave a vividness and a theoretic
quality to his views on politics which are very rare in an
Englishman. At times it gave him, as it did Disraeli, a
very sure prescience as to the necessary consequences of
events whose causes he recognized so clearly, but even
when it led only to impromptu and irresponsible sug-
gestions it made his views intensely stimulating. The fol-
lowing comment by him on an article which appeared in
this Review two years ago on the subje6l of the English
Democracy will bring this quality of his mind before the
reader better than any words of my own, and his con-
cluding sentence suggests the wealth of thought and
labour he expended on this and kindred topics.

My knowledge — such as it is — informs me that " Democracy "
has never lasted a whole generation. Ferrero's new history of Rome
demonstrates this. When an oligarchy, based on war and farming,
perishes, you get a good two generations, or three generations of
" Roman Equites." The prudent and thoughtful oust the political
militia. But they always invoke Democracy after thirty or sixty
years. Then Democracy develops the " cry " and the " caucus,"
and so dies, giving place to Bureaucracy, or Caesarism, or a com-
bination of the two. My " little knowledge " teUs me that this is
our disease. But my astonishing — at forty-seven years of age —
credulity and buoyant animal spirits say to me "Tush! The
English will do something that no one else has done."

If it were possible to tell one's friends all that one thinks and
writes and does, I should like to show you all the memoranda I
have written during the last year. But that would take as long
as it has taken to play my part in this obscure drama.

There were very many who had the opportunity of
knowing from his conversation what the powers of the

162

George Wyndham

man were, and they had a profound confidence that gifts
and acquirements so extraordinary must eventually find
their opportunity for full exhibition to the world at
large in memorable achievements. That in a life of fifty
years he did much cannot be questioned. That he left
a great mark on poHtics, notably on Irish politics, cannot
be denied. But an immense amount of that full life was
spent in thinking out problems and amassing knowledge
great in itself but far more valuable from the retentive
memory which made it so ready for use, and the powers
of generalization which could apply its lessons so fully.
All this equipped him for a career which was yet to come,
and which would, I believe, have left a far greater mark
on English history than he was allowed to leave. That
career was denied to him. This is the thought that is
making so many at the present moment repeat the words,
" sunt lacrimae rerum."

His great literary gifts, too, though they have been
visible in a few memorable works — the Introdudion
to Shakespeare's Sonnets, the Preface to North's Trans-
lation of Plutarch's Lives, the Essay on the Poetry of
Ronsard, the Addresses on the Springs of Romance Litera-
ture and on Sir Walter Scott, and some very perfedl trans-
lations— never found expression in the magnum opus that
so great a master of thought and style alike could and
would some day have given us. What he accomplished
was of the first order in quality, and readers of this
Review will remember a remarkable article by so great
an authority as Mr Eccles on Mr Wyndham's mastery of
French Romanceliterature,* but the full reach of his mind
and knowledge was never represented in his published
works. The very richness of his mind made him need time
to make his thoughts " marketable," to reduce them to
the form which the praftical requirements of Hterature
and life demand. Thoughts which crowded his own ex-
ceptional intelledl and imagination as one whole needed
to be broken up and subdivided for others.

I remember one address of his as Lord Re6lor of Glas-
* Dublin Review, Jan. 1911, p. 155.

163 ll«

George Wyndham

gow University which was so packed with thought that it
would have formed the subjedl of a great work. As it
stood, while careful readers and thinkers saw how pregnant
were its suggestions, it inevitably passed over the heads of
an audience which needed for its comprehension sub-
division, explication, and illustration for which the oppor-
tunity gave him no time or scope. And this instance is
typical of many another. Those who had the best oppor-
tunity of knowing his mind felt that his work hitherto
had been an elaborate preparation for the day when
complete and unmistakable public achievement should
bring home to the world the full extent of gifts which
were known to many friends. That day never came. He
was cut off at the very season at which his powers were
attaining their full ripeness for practical use, and when
experience was making him more fully alive to the neces-
sary conditions for conveying to others effeftively the
stores of his own mind.

Catholics lose in Mr Wyndham one who had a special
sympathy with the ideals of their religion. It was known
to many that he thought it a happy omen that his great
Land A£l was introduced by him in the Commons on
Lady Day. The present writer once visited Maynooth in
his company and his interest in the work of the Church
in Ireland was keen. He was especially eager to secure
adequate University education for Irish Catholics, but
this desire of his it was left to others to fulfil in their own
way and not in his.

In the last twelve years of his life he took great interest in
the development of Catholic devotions and doftrines
within the Church of England; and those who stayed
with him at Chief Secretary's Lodge would be astonished
to learn that after a strenuous day of hard work and after
eager conversation at night with his friends which had
lasted until 2 a.m. he had said prayers for his servants
at 8 o'clock in the morning in his private oratory.

I shall not (as I have already said) attempt any detailed
estimate of Mr Wyndham's powers and work here and
now. The outHne of what he adually achieved in poH-

164

George Wyndham

tics and in literature has been before all the world in the
last few weeks in the newspapers. Time and thought are
needed for any satisfadlory analysis of a mind so far-
reaching and gifts so various. Mr Wyndham was a poet*
as well as a prose writer, and one cannot but hope that
some of his poems will now be published as a volume.
He had the poet's imaginative temperament in a very
high degree, and it threw a halo round all his under-
takings even where they involved dry details. They
became poems in his own mind and in his presentation of
them to others. He was also a wonderful letter writer. If I
mistake not much that is unsuspe6led by the world at large
will be revealed when a representative sele6lion from his
correspondence is made public. High as he stands now in
the popular estimation, I venture to predict that he will
stand far higher when such a revelation has been made of
the reach of his powers and interests.

WILFRID WARD

• One of his poems appeared in the present series of the Dublin
Review, in which he took great interest. I have letters from him on
several of the more interesting articles we have published. One of the
most remarkable was on Francis Thompson's essay on Shelley, which
aroused his enthusiasm. Thompson's literary executors asked Mr
Wyndham's permission to publish this letter as a preface to the memor-
able essay when it appeared as a separate volume — a proposal to which
its writer consented. — Editor.

i6s

SOME RECENT BOOKS

fl Under this heading will be noticed a limited number of books to
which the Editor is unable to devote one of the longer articles^
but desires^ for one reason or another^ to call attention,

MISS EVELYN UNDERHILL has followed up her
general study of " Mysticism " by a book entitled
l^he Mystic Way (Dent, 191 3. Pp. xi, 395. 12s. 6d. net).
In it she applies to the early history of Christianity, and
to the life-story of its Founder, the principles which
appeared to her to be at the back of all mystical pheno-
mena generally, and the laws of the mystical life as they
might be deduced from a wide study of these phenomena.
That is to say, she has studied all sorts of cases in which a
life in some measure " transcendent " has been lived; she
has arrived at certain generalizations to which she attaches
value, and which she regards as '' canons " of judgment;
she applies these to what we know of Our Lord, St Paul,
the author of the fourth Gospel, to certain notable per-
sonalities in the early Church (notably the little remem-
bered Saint Macarius), and to the Roman liturgy of the
Mass ; and she decides that Christian mysticism is not the
produ6l of its pagan precursors taken singly or in com-
bination, but that '' its emergence as a definite type of
spiritual life coincides with the emergence of Chris-
tianity itself, in the person of its Founder." No one can
question the legitimacy of this method in itself, par-
ticularly if applied by an independent student. Thus it
is legitimate even for a Catholic to assume any hypo-
thesis, as a hypothesis, he chooses, and to see whether
the ascertainable fafts support it. It is legitimate to try
whether, on the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth was
an hallucine^ or an impostor, or a revolutionary, the
records remain explicable, or are satisfa6lorily explicable.
But diredly one has to manipulate the records to suit the
theory, suspicion falls upon the theory fro tanto; and this
in itself is a valuable result. Therefore Miss Under-
hill's method is legitimate. It is also recommended by
her great industry and by her obvious sincerity. Her

166

The Mystic Way

illustrations are supplied by genuine erudition; her
fervour is sincere, and, indeed, such as to render her style
distindly redundant, nor can she say anything once when
three times (as some one said) will suffice.

When, however, we observe that she considers the
Founder of Christianity to have passed accurately through
the stages of mystical growth which she believes can be
laid down (with all the scientific exaftness of a kind of
higher-plane biology) in consequence of a comparative
study of expert mystics — St Teresa, Fox, St Ignatius,
Tauler, Eckhart, and the rest — we begin to wonder
whether the evidence — silent hitherto — be not suddenly
witnessing to this strange fad with but an uncertain, or a
venal, voice. Not that Catholic theology will a priori
decide that Christ can not so have humbled Himself as
to pass by the same path as must be trodden by His
disciples — those steps only excluded which might imply
sin. Nor shall we say that certain questions are definitely
answered, as, for instance, the problems which Greeks and
Latins solved differently — the mystery, to mention one
only, of the God-man's knowledge. But we shall anxiously
ask ourselves whether indeed the documents are being
fairly treated, when we hear that Christ's baptism im-
ported a mystical experience in any way to be set parallel
with the " conversion " phase; when His a6live life is to
be regarded as His " illuminative way," and His agony,
His " dark night." We cannot be quite appeased when
Miss Underbill, while admitting, in some sense, His
unique identification with "reality," yet seems to diagnose
in Him what we can only call a kind of " progressive in-
carnation"; and, in short, seems to suggest, despite a
confusing confession of belief in a real " resurredion,"
that His mystical life was, throughout, specifically identical
(though intensively so superior as to be unique) with that
of St Teresa or St John of the Cross. And we are not
astonished that Miss Underbill acknowledges that the
" witnesses did not know the bearing of the fads which
they have reported, or the significance of the sequence
in which they are set." " Adequate materials for a bio-

167

Some Recent Books

graphy of Jesus do not (it well may be) exist ; but materials
for a history of His psychological development do un-
doubtedly exist." Alas! but failing historical certainty
with regard to the objedlive fadls, how be certain of
the subjective interpretation of the evidence? Simply
because it can be fitted into the theoretic framework, I
suppose? But how much harder has not Miss Underhill
made her task, by assuming (and in all courtesy we ask:
In consequence of her personal investigation? or in con-
sequence of a schooling proper to what is, after all, but a
seft among scholars?) a critical position which really
destroys all that she seeks to establish, save for those who
admit as proven her whole " mystical " position. Thus
from the Synoptists little can be gleaned — even the Re-
surredlion is a " confused poem," intrinsically contra-
dictory. Paul got his knowledge of Jesus during his long
" brooding " in Arabia over the mystic experience on
the Damascus road; the " Johannine mystic " (frankly, a
pedantic phrase) was so penetrated with Christ's spirit,
that clairvoyance and clairaudience (though not of the
vulgar type) enabled him to write with a wealth of
detail and a ** truth " of language best paralleled from
Catherine Emmerich; but, as for history, go neither to
him nor to her . . . Miss Underhill trusts Harnack, not
realizing how far from borne out are too many of his
generalizations by his data; and Loisy, not noticing that
the eclipse of that professor shows how he too achieved
notoriety mainly by saying what he said as a Catholic
priest professing to be orthodox, and not by really original
or substantial contributions to knowledge. Miss Under-
hill is erudite, reverent, imaginative, and to some extent
original and impressive; but she speaks about her " con-
clusions," both positive (in the sphere of " mystical
science ") and negative (in that of criticism), with a
serenity which, while confined to general topics, could
leave a Catholic interested, polite, and perhaps sceptical;
but, when applied to the Person and interior life of Our
Lord, in almost every line appear unwarranted, untrue,
and even galling.

i68

Sermon Notes of Newman

Dare we then invite her to burn some of her note-books
and to close the rest ; even to cease reading for a space
and to beware lest learning should block the path of
wisdom, and lest even the appearance of mere " clever-
ness" disguise it? D. T.

IN one respe6l the recently pubHshed Sermon Notes of
Cardinal Newman (Longmans. Price 5/.) have quite
unique interest. They show us Newman's thought with-
out the magical clothing of his style. He tells us in one
of these notes that it is the Oratorian way to converse,
not to preach. His writing was ever an address inspired
by the particular audience to which he desired to convey
his meaning. The style differs as the hearers differ — ^wide,
indeed, is the difference between the austerity of the
Oxford sermons and the rich imagery and broad effe6ls
of the " Sermons to Mixed Congregations." Here we
have bare notes which record the substance of what he
would say, or had said. His thought is simply in undress.

Apart from this the interest of the sermons naturally
varies very greatly. Their very simplicity is a reminder
of the simple aim of the man to do the day's duty without
ostentation or pretension, of the absence in him of all
straining after originality.

To the present writer those notes are most interesting
which give the Cardinal's refleftions on human life. Some
of them are notes for what were probably prose poems of
great beauty.

Here is one — belonging to 1874 — on the New Year:

1. Difference of feelings of young and old towards a new
year.

2. The young with hope and expedation; the mature with
anxiety.

--^. The young look forward first for a change— each year brings
changes. And to them they are changes, as they think, for the
better; they are older, stronger, more their own masters, etc.

4. And secondly, the future is unknown, and excites their
curiosity and expedation. .

5. It is different with those who have some experience of hfe.

169

Some Recent Books

They look (i) on change as no great good; they get attached to
things as they are, etc.

6. But (secondly) the ignorance of the future, so far from being
good, is painful — in truth it is one of our four wounds. Ignorance
of all things, especially of the future — of what a day may bring
forth — of suffering, bereavement, etc.

7. Thus, like railway train, bowling away into the darkness.

8. Ignorance what sufferings and bereavements are in store —
of death — of the day of death. We walk over our own dying day^
yesLT by year, little thinking.

9. It may be a work-day, or hoHday, or a * many happy re-
turns ' [day].

10. All things make us serious. This we know, that death is
certain ; and then the time comes when there will be no change —
for time is change — and no ignorance.

More remarkable than this is an earlier one for the
first Sunday of Lent, 1851, on "the accepted time." It
is one of those singularly faithful delineations of the
course of human nature which gained for him such power
in his Oxford days.

1. Introd. — Lent an apostolical observance.

2. And well did it become the Divine Mercy to appoint a time
for repentance, who had in the fullness of time died for our re-
demption. For what is every one's business is no one's ; what is for
all times is for no time.

3. And even those who will not take God's time, feel a time there
must be. They always profess a time; they quiet their conscience
by naming a time; but when?

4. * Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season,*
etc., Ads xxiv. 24-25.* When the present temptation is out of the
way. When the present business or trouble is got through. When
they have enjoyed life a little more.

5. When * a little more,' for there is no satisfadion in sin, each
sin is the last. But the thirst comes again; there is no term at which
we can quit it ; it is like drinking salt water — horizon recedes.

* " And after some days Felix coming with Drusilla his wife, who was a
Jewess, sent for Paul, and heard of him the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
And as he treated of justice and chastity and of the judgment to come,
Felix being terrified, answered, For this time go thy way, but when I
have a convenient time I will send for thee."

170

Study of Bronze Age Pottery

6. End of life, time of retirement. The seriousness will come
as a matter of course; passions will naturally burn out — otium cum
dignitate — alas, the change of Nature is not the coming of grace.
We may change, but we shall not be nearer heaven. To near
heaven is not a natural change, but a specific work, as much as
building a house. It is not a growth till there is something to grow
from.

7. Feeling then there must be a time, and having the conscience
of men on this point with her, the Church appoints a time and
says, * Now is the appointed time.' She blows the trumpet; pro-
claims forgiveness; an indulgence — scattering gifts — inviting all
to come and claim. Not sternly, but most lovingly and persuasively
she does it.

8. Oh for those who have neglected the summons hitherto,
year after year, conscience pleading!

9. Or perhaps we have repented just through Lent and then
relapsed and undone, and more than undone all.

10. And so we get older, older, and farther from heaven every
year, till we come to our last Lent, and we do not keep it a bit the
better.

11. Then we come near death, yet won't believe that death is
near. Set thy house in order — packing up, and how many things
left out. We cannot realize it. All hurry and confusion. Between
illness, delirium, weakness, relations, worldly affairs, etc., we shall
be able to recolledl nothing — all in disorder. No real contrition.
And so we die.

12. Ah! then in that very moment of death we shall recoUeft
everything; all things will come before us. We shall wish to speak;
it will be too late. We shall have passed from this life; the accepted
time will have passed by.

The volume is prefaced by some very valuable and
interesting notes by the Fathers of the Oratory, recalling
the Cardinal's manner as a preacher. W. W.

IT is not often that a reviewer is confronted with so
complete and beautiful a work as that which the Hon.
John Abercromby has given to the learned world in his
Study of the Bronze Age Pottery oj Great Britain and
Ireland and its Associated Grave-Goods (Oxford: at the
Clarendon Press. 1912. Two vols. Price ^3 3s. od.).

171

Some Recent Books

Certain it is that this magistral work, the first attempt to
deal comprehensively with its subjedl since the paper of
Thurnam, must long remain the standard treatise on
the subje6l for, though later discoveries may lead to
modifications in the dedudions at which the author has
arrived, the careful and exhaustive coUeftion of instances
and the manner in which they are illustrated leave little
or nothing to be done by future writers for some genera-
tions to come. How extensively the work is illustrated may
be gathered from the fa6l that there are i,6ii figures of
pottery, 155 examples of grave-goods (that is, the objedls
of flint, gold, amber, or the like, deposited with the
remains of the dead, whether buried by inhumation or
after cremation) and ten plates showing the charadler
of the ornamentation of the vessels described.

It is, of course, quite impossible to follow the author
into the details of his work, but some slight — very
slight it must needs be — sketch of some of the conclusions
at which he has arrived will give readers a general idea
of the archaeological and ethnological value of the book
wholly apart from the technical and museum worth
which it possesses. The bell-beaker or beaker, as the
author prefers to call it, the " drinking-cup " of Hoare's
classification, may be looked upon as having originated
in the Iberian Peninsula somewhere about 2500 B.C.
It seems to have been introduced into Britain about
2000 B.C. by a band of brachycephalic invaders, who
found the country occupied by the dolichocephalic race
of neolithic times, a people of comparatively refined
appearance, with oval faces and regular features.

Their invaders were a sharp contrast to the race in-
vaded for the former had short, square skulls with faces
rendered rugged and forbidding by the great develop-
ment of the superciliary ridges and of the eyebrows.
" Many of these invaders must have presented the appear-
ance of great ferocity and brutality, in a degree which
far surpasses our modern conventional representation of
the criminal of the type of Bill Sykes " (i, 64). These
invaders came from somewhere East of the Rhine,

172

Study of Bronze Age Pottery

perhaps from the confines of Helvetia, whence they may
have followed the river, leaving their chara6leristic
beakers as traces of their passage at Mainz, Urmitz,
Andernach and other places. Perhaps the dolichocephalic
invaders who were about that time taking possession of
the Swiss Lake-Villages may have driven the brachy-
cephals from their homes in the first instance, perhaps
still later they may have been impelled to migrate by
mere love of adventure. It may be assumed that they
knew something about the cultivation of the soil; they
may, in fa6l, have been on a par with the warlike and
pastoral Zulus and Masai, who also cultivate a little
maize and know how to forge iron assegais. It is possible
that they had cannibalistic habits, and they were,
there is some reason to think, polyandrous. It will be
remembered that, according to Caesar, some of the
British tribes were in that stage of civilization at the time
of his invasion of the island. They probably had animistic
ideas and may possibly have had some notion of higher
divinities such as a Sky-God and an Earth-Mother or
goddess. It is probable that they spoke an Aryan language.
Arrived at the shores of the Channel they must have
made their perilous passage to Britain in coracles or in
dug-out boats or on rafts. The number of invaders was
probably small, Mr Abercromby thinks that 300 or
400 persons, including women and children, may have
been enough, and they may have brought with them
some of the animals, cattle, sheep, goats and domestic
swine which it was their custom to rear. After their
landing, probably somewhere on the coast of Kent,
some took a northerly course, others made for the west
to the downs of Wilts, where is now that celebrated
monument Stonehenge. Not the least interesting portion
of the book is that which deals with that much-discussed
edifice. The author thinks that the year 1700 B.C., that
is, 300 years after the invasion of the brachycephals,
may be assigned as the approximate date of its eredion.
That it was " primarily ereded to represent a sepulchral
edifice pure and simple " (ii, 94) is his conclusion, but he

173

Some Recent Books

does not, therefore, shut his eyes to the significance of its
orientation. It is not, according to his view, the summer
solstice which is primarily concerned, for he believes
that it " was erecfted after enormous labour to com-
memorate annually at midwinter the death of some great
divinity, one who supplied grass for the cattle, who
rendered the earth fecund, who multiplied the herds,
and on whom the people depended for all supplies of
food. As grass in particular, as growth and reprodudlion
in general, all seem connedled with the earth, they would
be regarded as gifts of the Earth-Mother. But the influence
of a Sky-God, who sends sunshine as well as storm, rain
and frost, must also have been felt, and his good-will was
also needed by a pastoral people. As his power in the
matter of sunshine decreases visibly in winter and often
vanishes, he became associated in this respeft with the
Earth-Mother " (ii, 95). It is only limited to this extent
that Stonehenge can primarily be looked upon as a sun-
temple, though in later days true solar worship may have
superseded the earlier cult.

From this we may turn once more to trace the course
of the invaders through the island. By the end of the
nineteenth century the band facing north had reached
the Nen and begun to occupy the Peak distridl. A little
later, in or about 1880 b.c, they had crossed the Humber
and were colonizing the East Riding of Yorkshire. About
1790 B.C. they crossed the Tweed and by 1700 b.c. had
arrived as far north as the Dee. The south coast of the
Moray Firth was colonized about 1600 b.c. The rate of
their progress seems to have been about fifty miles for a
generation. It is not possible in a short notice such as this
is to follow the further developments of the invaders, save
that it may be mentioned that the earliest beaker found in
Ireland would seem to be datable to before 1800 b.c. The
end of the Bronze period may be set down at 400 b.c.
in Yorkshire and in the more accessible parts of the
island, though in the remoter portions, such as Dorset
and Ross-shire, it certainly lasted later, as late indeed as
about 200 B.C.

174

Childhood of Art

Enough has been said to show something of the im-
portance of this truly magnificent work, and to make it
evident that it is one which no hbrary of the sHghtest
pretensions can possibly be without.

B.C.A.W.

THE extraordinary discoveries in the region of pre-
historic art which have been made of recent years,
especially in caves in Spain and elsewhere, are gradually
beginning to penetrate to the knowledge of the reading
pubHc, and it was a happy thought of Mr H. G. Spearing
in his Childhood oj Art (London: Kegan Paul. 1912. Price
2is. net), to give some of the most important of these
discoveries to the public in an accessible form. Mr Spear-
ing's idea for his book was, however, of a more ambitious
character. He desired to trace one particular line of
human development, that of art. Now art, pure or appHed,
denotes a certain relief from constant strain, a certain
amelioration of circumstances and therefore a stage in any
particular era of history or pre-history, when there was
leisure for something more than the constant and severe
struggle for life and food. Commencing with the evi-
dences, now most abundant, for the art of prehistoric
man, Mr Spearing works his way through the earlier civi-
lizations of semi-historic times, Egyptian, Chaldean, Cre-
tan, down to Greek Art. His work is profusely illustrated
and brings together in that manner a number of instances
which must otherwise be sought in the pages of scientific
journals or of out-of-the-way and costly works. It is a very
interesting book and would be certainly not less readable
if it were pruned of some of the rather too numerous
moral refledlions — the unkind would call them platitudes
— which find a place in its pages. Still, as one of the first
attempts, if not adually the first attempt, to deal with a
most fascinating subjed, and if only for the sake of its
illustrations — though it has many other claims to respedl
— this book is well worthy of a place on the shelves of any
Hbrary. B. C. A. W.

175

Some Recent Books

IT is rare enough to-day to find a casual reader with a
wide knowledge of the works of '' the great lexicogra-
pher," and the diftum of Miss Jenkyns in Cranf ord. "I pre-
fer Dr Johnson to Mr Boz as a writer of fi6lion," is read,
as it was written, with a smile. But any well-written book
about Dr Johnson, any colledion of his sayings, is read,
like Boswell's Life, with widespread enjoyment, almost
equal to that awakened by the best fi6lion.

A most admirable and living study is Dr Johnson and
his Circle, which the Home University Library has
lately issued (By John Bailey. Williams and Norgate.
IS,). In a small frame Mr Bailey has drawn a wonderfully
complete and vivid pidlure not only of Johnson's own
chara6ler, works and position, but also of James Boswell,
to whom he has shown a rare justice, and whom he has
pi6lured as delightful as, from his book, we have always
suspefted him to be. Mr Bailey replies in an admirable
passage to Macaulay's attack on the man whom Dr
Johnson held '' in his heart of hearts " :

*'[Macaulay] seems always to have been one of those aftive, hurry-
ing, useful persons who

* Fancy that they put forth all their life
And never know how with the soul it fares.'

Whatever can be said against Boswell, that cannot be said. Of
this inner wisdom, this quietness of thought, this * folic des
grandeurs ' of the soul, he had a thousand times as much as
Macaulay. He could not cling to it to the end, he could not
vidloriously live by it and make it himself; but he had seen the
vision which Macaulay never saw, and he never altogether forgot
it. Every man is partly a lost soul. So far as Boswell was that he
knew it in all the bitter certainty of tears. So far as Macaulay was,
he was as unconscious of it as the beasts that perish. And the
kingdom of wisdom, like the Kingdom of Heaven, is more easily
entered by those who know that they are outside it, than by
those who do not know that there is such a place and are quite
content where they are."

The book is so full of good and wise things it is hard
not to quote at great length. And the quotations them-

176

Dr Johnson and his Circle

selves, in which it abounds, are chosen with wisdom
and skill to show the quality alike of Johnson's conversa-
tion and of his writings, both on his serious side and on
that which made Miss Burney say that he " has more
fun and comical humour and love of nonsense about him
than almost anybody I ever met." Garrick, too, said of
him: " Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared
with him. You may be diverted by them; but Johnson
gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you
whether you will or no." Humour and common sense
are both indeed to be found in abundance even in the
carefully elaborate sentences of his written works. Is
not Nekayah's reply to Rasselas excellent when he says:

" * Whenever I shall seek a wife, it shall be my first question,
whether she be willing to be led by reason.

" 'Thus it is,' said Nekayah, < that philosophers are deceived

Wretched would be th^ pair above all names of wretchedness, who
should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the
minute detail of a domestic day/ "

How good, too, is the description of Nekayah's feelings
a little while after the loss of her favourite :

" She rejoiced, without her own consent, at the suspension of her
sorrows, and sometimes caught herself with indignation in the a6l
of turning away her mind from the remembrance of her, whom
yet she resolved never to forget.

" She then appointed a certain hour of the day for meditation
on the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and for some weeks retired
constantly at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes swollen
and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew less scrupulous
and suffered any important and pressing avocation to delay the
tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less occasions, sometimes
forgot what she was indeed afraid to remember, and at last wholly
released herself from the duty of periodical afflidion.'*

The only chapter in which Mr Bailey has not fully
succeeded is the last : " The Friends of Johnson." There
is not in this chapter the same life and energy as in the
rest of the book; we do not feel, on finishing it, that
we have talked with the other friends of Johnson as we
Vol. 153 177 ^^

Some Recent Books

have talked with " Bozzy " and with the do£lor himself.
Perhaps if it were expanded a little, and written in more
detail, it might gain what it, alone of all the book, lacks
of vividness.

The style of Dr Johnson and his Circle has all the grace,
ease and charm of Mr Bailey's best work. " Whoever
wishes," in Dr Johnson's own words, " to attain an
English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but
not ostentatious," would do well indeed to " give his
days and nights to the volumes " of Mr Bailey's prose.

M.W.

IN reading The Victorian Age in Literature (By G. K.
Chesterton. Williams & Norgate. is.) we feel we
are sitting amid a little group of intimate friends : Mr
Chesterton is the central figure. He is, in Dr Johnson's
words, " folding his legs and having his talk out."
Extraordinarily brilliant, wonderfu. 'y true sayings fall
from him; he forms vivid pictures of one writer or
another :

"John Stuart Mill was the final flower of that growth (rationalism
and Bentham's science of self-interests). He was himself fresh and
delicate and pure; but that is the business of a flower. Though he
had to preach a hard rationalism in religion, a hard competition
in economics, a hard egoism in ethics, his own soul had all that
silvery sensitiveness that can be seen in his fine portrait by Watts.
He boasted none of that brutal optimism with which his friends
and followers of the Manchester School expounded their cheery
negations. There was about Mill even a sort of embarrassment;
he exhibited all the wheels of his iron universe rather relu6lantly,
like a gentleman in trade showing ladies over his fadlory. There
shone in him a beautiful reverence for women, which is all the
more touching because, in his department, as it were, he could
only offer them so dry a gift as the Vidlorian Parliamentary
Franchise.

"[Browning] concentrated on the special souls of men; seeking
God in a series of private interviews.

« Ruskin had a strong right hand that wrote of the great mediaeval
minsters in tall harmonies and traceries as splendid as their own;
and also, so to speak, a weak and feverish left hand that was always

178

Vi6lorian Age in Literature

fidgetting and trying to take the pen away and write an evangelical
trad: about the immorality of foreigners ... he set up and wor-
shipped all the arts and trophies of the Catholic Church as a rival
to the Church itself. . . . This does not alter, as a merely artistic
faft, the strange air of ill-ease and irritation with which Ruskin
seems to tear down the gargoyles of Amiens or the marbles of
Venice, as things of which Europe is not worthy; and take them
away with him to a really careful museum, situated dangerously
near Clapham.

<*Jane Austen was born before those bonds which (we are told)
protedled women from truth, were burst by the Brontes or elabor-
ately untied by George Eliot. Yet the faft remains that Jane
Austen knew much more about men than either of them. Jane
Austen may have been proteded from truth : but it was precious
little of truth that was protedled from her.

"But while EmilyBronte was as unsociable as a storm at midnight,
and while Charlotte Bronte was at best like that warmer and more
domestic thing, a house on fire — they do conneft themselves with
the calm of George Eliot, as the forerunners of many later develop-
ments of the feminine advance. Many forerunners (if it comes to
that) would have felt rather ill if they had seen the things they
foreran."

How great a loss It would be to miss these good things
and a hundred more as good and true. Yet there are other
sayings which rather startle us, and do not bring the
peculiar and happy feeling of true discovery. Some of
these might, in adual conversation, be softened by the
hearty laugh with which the speaker must, we feel, follow
up their utterance; others need explanation and elabora-
tion; some need at least defence. But Mr Chesterton
never stops to explain or defend : he hurries on without
drawing breath and is in the midst of a fresh and suggestive
passage almost before we are ready with an obje6lion
to the last remark but one.

" By Morris's time," he says, we hope not too seriously,
" and ever since England has been divided into three
classes, Knaves, Fools and Revolutionists." " Of the
Vidorian age as a whole it is true to say that it did dis-
cover a new thing; a thing called Nonsense." New forms
of nonsense perhaps it did discover, but Mr Chesterton

179 12a

Some Recent Books

seems to forget that he said himself, in an earlier page,
*' Shakespeare seems rather proud of talking nonsense."
Another evident lapse of memory is shown in the assertion
that Cardinal Newman was " the one great literary man "
of the Oxford Movement. Does not Mr Chesterton forget
Dean Church, John Keble and James Mozley, even if
for intelligible reasons, he is justified in not here speaking
of J. A. Froude or Frederick Faber?

An inconsistency that needs more explanation than
any other in this brilliant sketch is that while Mr Chester-
ton allows in one place, that English literature has always
had about it a certain original bent, he seems further on
to maintain that the whole originality of the Vidlorian
era was simply a result of the French Revolution, which
he calls " the most important event in English history."

" This trend," he says, " of the English romantics to carry out
the revolutionary idea not savagely in works but very wildly
indeed in words . . . started English literature, after the Revolution,
with a sort of bent towards independence and eccentricity, which
in the brighter wits became individuality and in the duller ones
individualism.

A most chara6leristic bit of literary criticism must be
our last quotation. In commenting on Swinburne's
Before a Crucifix Mr Chesterton says :

It imagines that the French or Italian peasants who fell on their
knees before the Crucifix did so because they were slaves. They
did so because they were free men, probably owning their own farms.
Swinburne could have found round about Putney plenty of slaves
who had no crucifixes, but only crucifixions.

The italics are our own. We sometimes wonder if Mr
Chesterton has got the ideas of Christianity and small
ownership so inextricably united in his mind that he
really believes that only a peasant proprietor can be a
good Christian.

Much of this, in a long book, might be seriously vexing
to a thoughtful reader wishing for explanations he never
gets, but in such a small compass we feel we ought to be

1 80

Glimpses of the Past

grateful for so much that is brilliant, thoughtful and true,
and not cavil where we are puzzled. Remembering always
that we are listening to talk, the best we ever heard since
Dr Johnson's, we can say nothing but a hearty " thank
you " for a most delightful night of it.

A. de H.

IN Glimpses of the Past (Mowbray. 5s. net.) the late
Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, gives us
a delightful volume of reminiscences, extending back
beyond the middle of the last century. The eldest
daughter of Dr Christopher Wordsworth, Canon of
Westminster and later Bishop of Lincoln, and grand-
niece of the poet, Elizabeth Wordsworth led a refined
and useful life, fruitful in good works and happy in a
circle of friends which included Samuel Wilberforce,
Whewell (whom she " shows in a somewhat different light
from that in which the world generally regarded him,"
and to whom indeed one of the most interesting chapters
of the book is devoted), Conington, Dean Merivale, and
Archbishop Benson and his family. It was in 1878 that
she received the offer of the position with which her
name will always be associated; the first committee for
Lady Margaret Hall met early in the following year :

I believe I may fairly claim the credit of the suggestion of
" Lady Margaret,'' as I had become, in my younger days, familiar
with her beautiful monument in Westminster Abbey. She was a
gentlewoman, a scholar, and a saint, and, after having been three
times married, she took a vow of celibacy. What more could be
expefted of any woman?

It was in Oftober, 1879, that Miss Wordsworth took
up her residence at the Hall, five days before its formal
opening by Dr Mackarness, then Bishop of Oxford, on the
sixteenth of that month. The difficulties which are
inseparable from the beginnings of such schemes, and the
anxieties, financial and other, are amusingly told-: " The
modest sum of ^^ 10 or thereabouts " for the weekly house

181

Some Recent Books

account "seemed a terrible amount of money"; the
library consisted of two books — " a quite unintelligible
treatise on sound and colour, and a well-worn copy of
The Nezucomesy There is an excellent account of a visit
from Ruskin in 1884. In its initial stages the Hall was
heavily handicapped by "the old Oxford Conservatives,
who disliked any change," and " by some of the High
Anglican party, with Dr Liddon at their head " :

The old-fashioned Anglican view was once expressed to me by a
cousin of my own, when he said to me, years before this date, that
he " did not see how any woman could do any public work for
God except joining a sisterhood."

Curiously enough, another seftion of the clerical world
regarded the Hall as " a hot-bed of ritualism," apparently
because, although always restrained and moderate, its
tone was distin6tly Anglican, as opposed to the broader
attitude of Somerville towards religious matters.

From this time until Miss Wordsworth's retirement at
the age of seventy, in 1909 — a period of thirty academic
years — the progress of the Hall was steady. It began with
eight students, and at the date mentioned sixty-four
were in residence. How far she was responsible for its
success must be inferred from her modest narrative, or
ascertained from others, for her own personality is care-
fully kept in the background.

The volume contains a number of interesting letters,
written by Miss Wordsworth to members of her family,
as well as extrafts from her diary. One of the most
interesting is a description of Queen Vidloria's first
jubilee:

I never saw her look so nice. Her smile is charming, and her
manner (with few physical advantages except a certain solidity)
quite wonderful. . . . Her voice was quite inaudible; but she has
got the art of looking and moving to perfedlion.

Among the letters of others are some from Charlotte
Yonge, one of which contains a reference to Cardinal

182

Verses and Reverses

Manning which we regret should have been published.
But little glimpses here and there show that Miss Words-
worth herself is not in sympathy with Catholic faith or
practice; thus, of an invalid French lad she says:

He is very good, an earnest Roman Catholic, delights in going
to church, and always asks the cur6 to let him have the stupidest
boys to prepare for first Communion. It was very pathetic to hear
that he had been taken to Lourdes and had prayed most earnestly
for recovery there, but had to come home just as he went, poor
fellow! It seems most cruel to encourage people in such jalse hopes.

Such passages as this, however, are few, and do not
detradl from the pleasant impression conveyed by the
book as a whole. J. B.

MR WILFRID MEYNELL tells us, in his tiny
preface, the quaint genesis of the title Verses and
Reverses which he prefixes to his little book of poems
[Herbert and Daniel, pp. 78. is. 191 3]. It is sometimes
of Herrick and Herbert, and oftener of Fr Tabb that
these remind us, and we will say immediately that some
of them we have found charming with the highly spe-
ciahzed and disincarnate charm proper to these writers.
It is not nature, nor incident, nor (dire6lly) persons that
inspire Mr Meynell, but at most notions about persons,
and even verbal conceits— for " I find," confesses the
writer of La Petite Culture, " pleasure in— a pun." Now
this is all very well when his literary acrobatics are as
successful as in this poem, " The United States ":

It really is a little odd,

If Marriage has been set by God

Above our human Fates,
To see Divorces, all the same.
In that great Continent whose name

Affirms United States.

America, dear Continent,
If continent you be,

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Some Recent Books

Why let a knot that's tied in Heaven

Be loosed in Tennessee?
Be careful lest in mock you're given

The title of " the Free."

Here is a quaint not unamiable thought, though ex-
pressed with the suspicion of a grin. But when the poet
calls St Frideswide the Oxford Donna (" not her dons ")
he is out for a holiday; and when he declares " Not she
alone who's labelled ' fast,' But every woman has a Past,"
he merely winks. Frankly, we do not like his exclaiming,
through her mother's lips, of a small First Communicant,
" O what a hostess for the Host," and we remember a close
relative of this in, we think, Faith Found in London,

Now we may say that of singular beauty, in these
poems, is the strain of human affeftion, san6lified and
sandlifying, which runs through them. " The Folded
Flock," indeed, is worthy of the lyre of " The Shepher-
dess of the Sheep," whose white poem beautified the
earlier book we quoted. " To One who Hastened Heaven-
ward " ends exquisitely; "Christ is the Way: and so
Saints even Have lingered on the road to Heaven."
" Their Best " is something which even the hard-worked
servant girls — ^who did theirs — can understand and love.
We wish we had space to quote " A Christian Com-
forted." The slender notes of Mr Meynell's chosen music
hold here an echo of his greatest master and client,
Francis Thompson. N. K.

A SENSE of humour, like a touch of nature, is apt to
make all the world akin, and Mr George Peel's account
of The Tariff Reformers (Methuen. 2s. 6d.) can hardly
fail to delight very many people who are far from sharing
its author's uncompromising advocacy of Free Trade.
The book is a history of the memorable ten years during
which the Tariff Reform campaign has sapped the
strength of the Unionist Party. The only people who are
too hard hit by it to be likely to laugh good-humouredly
are the extreme Chamberlainites. Much of Mr Peel's

184

The Tariff Reformers

banter is expended on Mr Balfour's attitude in the long-
drawn-out campaign. Here I think he quite misses his mark.
To anyone who takes in quite clearly Mr Balfour's view
of the situation, as revealed in the extrads Mr Peel
himself quotes from his speeches, his fundamental con-
sistency is apparent throughout. Mr Peel's thesis is that
while Mr Balfour ostensibly favoured Mr Chamberlain's
poHcy he never meant to " adopt for execution a definite
economic plan worked out up to the point of fads and
figures " (p. 12). With this as his thesis he contrives to
make a most amusing pidlure of Mr Balfour eluding with
incredible ingenuity all attempts to make him pra6lical,
and yet professing repeatedly that he adhered with
ardour to a creed on which he could not be prevailed upon
to a6l. But in point of fa£l, both Mr Peel's statements are
inaccurate. It is not true without reservation that Mr
Balfour approved of Mr Chamberlain, and there is no
evidence whatever that he had no definite plan of
adlion. True enough, Mr Balfour and Mr Chamberlain
were both in favour of Tariff Reform : but Tariff Reform
— like a watchword with which this Review has long been
familiar, " Liberal Catholicism " — may mean many very
different things in its positive connotation, though all who
advocate it may agree in general terms as to the extremes
they oppose. Lacordaire and Professor Friedrich were
both " Liberal Catholics." Mr Balfour and Mr Chamber-
lain were both " Tariff Reformers." But Lacordaire was
a devoted henchman of Rome, while Friedrich needed
very little provocation to break with Rome altogether.
Mr Balfour and Mr Chamberlain aHke rejedled the
dogmas of extreme Cobdenism. But they were never
agreed on a pradlical programme — and on this all turned
in the last resort. Again, as I have said, there is no evidence
that Mr Balfour was not ready with a definite scheme.
But from the first he pointed out that the concurrence of
pubhc opinion was indispensable to proposing it formally.
A party cannot carry out a poHcy against the will of the
constituencies. What Mr Balfour said at the outset at
Sheffield — that pubhc opinion was not ripe for any

185

Some Recent Books

scheme involving the taxation of food — was precisely the
rock on which the whole movement was ultimately
wrecked. Had the rest of the party been as wise as he, and
never lost sight of this essential condition, the ridiculous
debdcle we have witnessed would have been avoided.
For an inherently impradlicable policy would never have
been authoritatively put forward. The question of food
taxation could have been discussed calmly had it been
kept as it was kept in the Sheffield speech outside the
sphere of immediately praftical politics.

But if Tariff Reform of a mild kind was speculatively
favoured by Mr Balfour, Tariif Reform of a very drastic
kind was praftically formulated by the Chamberlainites
in a form which was vehemently opposed in the north.
The label " Tariif Reform " took its colour in the
popular mind from the definite programme of the in-
temperate apostles of the movement; and just as Pius IX,
in view of the excesses of Afton and Friedrich re-
marked that a Liberal Catholic was only half a Catholic,
so the people who rule our destinies in Lancashire
identified Tariff Reform with the disastrous fiscal
revolution which was outlined in Birmingham. Hinc ilU
lacrimde.

Mr Balfour's evolutions, therefore, were not in the
least as Mr Peel represents the extraordinarily adroit
efforts to avoid putting into pra6lice his avowed con-
viftions, but the efforts of a subtle and thoughtful mind
to hold back zealots whose zeal outran their discretion
from imprafticable excesses. He had to keep his influence
over the Tariff Reformers by emphasizing to the utmost
his points of agreement with them. And at one moment,
perhaps, he carried this policy too far. But his course was
one long-continued effort to keep to the pradlicable, and
not to attempt the absurdity of defying public opinion in
a democracy. In the end he failed, but his justification
came in dramatic form after he handed the reins over to
another. Mr Bonar Law, a pronounced Tariff Reformer,
succeeded him as leader, and great were the hopes of the
enthusiasts. Yet direftly he was in the position which

i86

Fouquier Tinville

made it essential to be pra6lical he had to draw in his
horns. The attempt to withdraw Mr Balfour's referendum
pledge brought forthwith such ominous signs that he at
once had to retrace his steps — but the retreat was not
complete enough or prompt enough, and the whole party
drove the leader back with insistence to the very position
which had been taken up by Mr Balfour. A more thorough
justification of Mr Balfour's praftical judgment cannot
be imagined. It abundantly proved that his successive
moves were not those of a clever shuffler, but of a very
astute tadlician and statesman, who had read public
opinion with perf e6l accuracy. The appearance of shuffling
is ever the necessary consequence of thought struggling
with brute strength. He could no more go straight in the
teeth of the Tariff Reform agitation at its strongest than
he could face the constituencies with a policy they
condemned. By a fine rhetorical tour de force in which he
declared that he had no fear of submitting Tariff Reform
to the Referendum, he kept the extremists to the realities
of the situation without wounding their amour propre. If
they were, as they said, winning popular opinion to their
side, the Referendum would issue in their favour. If not,
it was clearly folly to court defeat at the polls by putting
a scheme of Tariff Reform including food taxes in the
forefront as an election cry.

But all this will be visible to the careful reader of Mr
Peel's briUiantly witty pages when once he is put on his
guard against accepting the author's initial assumptions.

MDUNOYER'S book on Fouquier Tinville (Perrin.
^ Pan s) , the dreaded Public Prosecutor of the Revolu-
tionary Government during the sixteen months w^hich
ended with the fall of Robespierre, is a work which bears
the mark of the most painstaking research in the wealth of
fads and details which it presents, and also of the most
scrupulous fairness of temper in his appreciation of them.
But it may well be that for these very reasons, which in
themselves are such high merits, the book will be found

187

Some Recent Books

acceptable reading chiefly by those to whom the general
trend of events during the Revolution and the outlines of
its chief figures are already familiar. It is, in f a6l, so little
a book for beginners that even more expert readers are
bewildered by the whirling currents which sway rather
than dire6l the rival f anions, and although this bewilder-
ment is perhaps of the period, the author might have
enlarged the circle of his readers without being enticed
into a general historical survey of the Revolution, or
diminishing the prestige of learning which dignifies his
work, by including in his pages some explanation of such
designations as " Dantoniste " and " Hebertiste," and of
the scope and tendency of the various committees which
succeeded each other at the head of affairs. To the average
reader the French Revolution, in its violent phase, is
simply an indiscriminate massacre of priests and nobles by
an enraged mob. In reality it was other than this. The
bloodshed of the Terror was due, not so much to class
hatred as to the jealousy of rival fa 6lions, equally enslaved
and f anaticized by irreconcilable theories as to the correct
interpretation of the rights of man. But the real interest
of the book lies in the psychological and moral problem of
Fouquier's charadler.

A man of perf edlly respe6lable though decidedly modest
origin, of sufficient education to retain in middle life a
capacity for classical quotation, of sufficient standing to
procure a legal appointment under the old French
judicial system; finally, of sufficient ability to maintain a
tolerable pradlice involving knowledge of legal and
equitable principles, if not necessarily a taste for them.
Such a man became within the space of a few years the
eager instrument of upstart masters for daily committing
scores of judicial murders. How did such antecedents lead
to such results ? That is the first part of the problem raised
by M. Dunoyer, the solution of which is hinted at, but
not positively declared. It is suggested with apparent
plausibility that about 1788 some personal disaster
transformed the hitherto respedlable lawyer into the
hungry and obsequious place-hunter which Fouquier had

188

Fouquier Tinville

become by 1791, begging for the support of Camille
Desmoulins' interest in obtaining an appointment from
Danton. The second, and possibly more interesting,
problem is to find the key to the contradi6lions in his
public attitude after he had become one of the salient
figures of the Reign of Terror. On the one hand, he was
cynically lax in observing even such forms as the Revolu-
tionary Tribunal had retained for the protedlion of the
accused. On several occasions he obtained a death sentence
knov^ing that the person convi£led v^as. not the person
charged. He frequently used language proving that he
had made up his mind beforehand as to the number of
vi6lims v^hich the scaffold v^ould require on a given day.
When the condemnation of Danton and Desmoulins
seemed doubtful, he initiated the manoeuvre by v^hich a
decree of the Convention was obtained incorporating the
charges against them, sometime his benefadlors, under
the head of conspiracy, which the law of 22nd Prairial
had made cognizable only by the Convention, punishable
only by death. He introduced the system by which
rewards were offered to prisoners who would denounce
their companions as organizers of conspiracies within the
prison walls so that they might be brought to trial in
batches and convidled under the law of Prairial. Against
all this must be set some mitigating fads. As many
witnesses at his own trial testified, he often amongst
intimates lamented the terrible work in which he was a
principal agent. He occasionally intervened in the pro-
ceedings in Court in order that the accused or his witnesses
might be given time to speak. But though this seeming
impartiality was due as much to hatred of the presiding
judge, Dumas, as to any remnant of lenity, he often
refused or ignored the petitions of prisoners to be brought
to trial, for he knew that trial meant convi6lion. Lastly, he
refused, apparently from no motive of gain or policy, to
proceed against the ninety-four citizens of Nantes on the
flimsy evidence of the local revolutionary committee. It
is not easy to summarize so much confli6ling matter. Was
Fouquier simply a bloodthirsty bully who revelled in the

189

Some Recent Books

submission of helpless vi£lims while cunningly expressing
disgust at his work in order to prepare for a possible
rea6lion? It is more probable he was, like other men, full
of inconsistencies which the early disaster already alluded
to made inexorable. The Revolution found him a starving
declasse with a wife and seven children to whom he was
tenderly devoted. He and they must live. It was a time
when a man must need take sides, and one side only
worked the guillotine. The combined force of necessity
and domestic tenderness, rather than native cruelty,
induced him to identify himself with the odious work of
decimation. Being essentially a mean man, he sacrificed
every principle of honesty and justice to serve his own
interest. He knew that it was the aim of his employers not
to administer justice, but to strike terror; he knew that
those whom he arraigned were free from crime, and he
was therefore indifferent as to identity of person or
adequacy of proof, provided the number of condemned
were equal to expectations. He never realized that there
is a higher law than expediency or a higher duty than
family affedlion.

Although the lenient view of Fouquier's career to
which M. Dunoyer inclines seems tenable, it must be
remembered that his contemporaries did not share it. He
was execrated even in Revolutionary Paris for his brutal
callousness; he was valued by Robespierre for the same
reason. He was the too faithful servant of a fallen fadlion,
and himself perished by the guillotine, leaving the family,
for whom on the best hypothesis he staked everything, to
starvation. T. B.

WE have it on the authority of Browning that
" A man's reach should exceed his grasp." And
though he did not perhaps intend this counsel primarily
for young authors it may be applied to them, and especi-
ally to writers of first novels. A. M. Champneys in Bride
Elect (Arnold. 6s.) has certainly followed it. She has
attempted an enormous reach and her grasp has not
fully attained it. But she has done enough to mark her

190

Homiletic £5^ Catechetic Studies

as a writer of very real promise. The early part of the
book is quite excellent, particularly in the description
and analysis of Audrey's child feelings. Audrey is always
charming and convincing, but, in the later scenes between
her guardian and the actress Eve Dufour, there is much
more conscious effort, and the impression produced is
that Miss Champneys is no longer writing of the things
she knows and so fails in perfect truth.

To write from experience, to pidlure life simply as
most of us live it, is becoming less and less usual with
the more ambitious modern novelists. Miss Champneys
is in the fashion when she introduces several situations
not often to be met with, as a child's attempted suicide,
a father's vehement dislike of his only son, and Audrey's
strange betrothal to her guardian. She deals so skilfully
with her plot as to make one wish she would write again
without fearing to describe the usual, for she will not
easily become commonplace. Even if the story as a whole
were less interesting than it is the good style and descrip-
tive power would carry the reader happily from the first
page to the last. M. W.

HOMILETIC and Catechetic Studies. (Meyenberg-
Brossart. Translated from the seventh German
edition. 14s. net. Pustet. In England, B. Herder). In the
book before us the English preacher is given every oppor-
tunity of drinking deep from the well of German pulpit
wisdom. Germans are great orators, and the German
Catholic clergy are not behind any other body of men in
the art of speaking well. The volume we are reviewing is
ponderous enough, but in sacred eloquence the man with
the greatest amount of ballast usually soars highest.

There is nothing concerning the art and matter of
preaching that cannot be found in this volume. It is a
monument of German thoroughness. The book comes to
the EngHsh clergy through an American translator. But
though it went as far as Kentucky to be made English
it has lost none of its German idiosyncrasies of. speech,
and it comes to the English pubHc across the Atlantic with

191

Some Recent Books

all its native depth of thought and involution of sentences.
A Fatherlander who has just crossed the North Sea could
not be more original in his use of the King's English.

In the introdu6lion, page 15, the German v^riter is
made responsible for the foUov^ing, by his American
translator :

For the homiletic consideration it is wonderfully surprising how
the final accounts of the four Gospels and the beginning of the
A6ls of the Apostles point out to the decisive creation and the
assertion of the life of such a teaching office and of the school of
faith combined therewith.

Page 48 has the f oUov/ing encomium of love, as a power
in the preacher's heart :

Love is also the teacher of all methods, the guide for all old and
new ways, the guard against self-sufficiency, against routine and
rut, against exasperation and deje6Hon, against all deadly foes of
true eloquence. Love is never discouraged either by the presence
of great throngs or small audiences.

We have tried most earnestly to gain some profit from
the following praise of St Augustine's method, page 575,
but have given it up in despair :

Again, many of his written elaborations are hastily planned
and indirect preparations, drawn from the superabundant treasury
of the speaker; they are crutches and instruments which the
rhetorician threw away in the triumph of his speech, which, like
an eagle, raised itself and playfully formed into unity what
indireft and dire6l preparation had long ago assumed into the plan
like building stones.

On page 757 we notice the following sentence : " Death,
however, to genuine sacred eloquence is a miserable con-
fidence in routine."

It is certainly one of the most trying results of the
confusion of tongues at Babel, that what in one language
looks most decorous when it stands first should be last
according to the perverse genius of another tongue.

102

Betrothment and Marriage

We recommend, therefore, the book wholeheartedly
to preachers, not only for the completeness with which
it treats of the art of preaching (there are over 800 pages
of matter), but also as a gentle warning as to style, by
way of " a contrary method."

We are convinced that this excellent and most mannerly
of German standard works on preaching has lost a good
deal of its native courtesy by emigrating to the Republic
of dollars. Thus, in a sketch for a sermon, page 545, it
says :

Unnecessary disputation, crafty litigiousness, purse-proud and
sordid boast of money bags and gold chests even in legitimate
legal demands and transadlions, etc. ... are to be severely con-
demned. On the background of the vividly perceived and sanguin-
ary love on Calvary, and manifested through the Confessional, by
the Son of God, who longs to remit our entire and immeasurable
guilt, every kind of unfeeling severity is strongly condemned.

A.V.

BETROTHMENT and Marriage (By Canon de Smet.
Translated by the Rev. W. Dobell. Vol. i. Bruges;
Charles Bayaert. 13s.).

We have long felt the need of a handbook in English,
suitable for the clergy, on the subjeft of marriage. We
had hoped that the editors of the Westminster Library
would see their way to include such a book in their list.
Meanwhile Canon de Smet's well-known treatise has
made its appearance in English translation. It does not
attain the ideal we should like to see realized, but it does
substantially meet all urgent requirements.

The moral theology asped of the question is, of course,
the predominant note. This, too, requires a certain
amount of dogmatic treatment, which is given with no
unstinted hand. But over and above all this the book is
enriched with numerous sidelights showing up the various
points in their historical, sociological, ascetical, and scien-
tific settings.

First and foremost, the parish priest wants to know
all about the subjed with resped to controlling the
institution in his parish and amongst his own people.
Vol. 153 193 ^3

Some Recent Books

Complications, involving impediments, are always arising.
The priest wants to know whether or not it is a case for
the bishop, and if for the bishop, how the details must be
set out. For this purpose the book leaves nothing to be
desired.

But then we are living in a country where marriage is
not generally believed to be a sacrament, where there is
an ever-growing tendency to weaken the marriage bond,
and where the authority of the Church is not regarded
as the final court of appeal. Hence the parish priest has
the duty of explaining the institution to those who are
not of the fold. There is the apologetic as well as the pas-
toral aspedl of the question. It is this apologetic aspeft
which calls for further development. We want to know the
intrinsic reasons of things as well as the extrinsic.

For instance, the author has a very illuminative chapter
on the properties of the marriage bond, in the course of
which he has to treat of the derogations from the law of
indissolubility. He has to show that the Sovereign Pontiff
has the power to dissolve a marriage ratum sed non
consummatum. He first distinguishes between primary
and secondary natural law, and then shows that God
can dispense from the secondary natural law and can
delegate the power to His Church, who uses it only
ministerially. Then he gives the history of the develop-
ment of this doftrine, beginning with the famous con-
troversy between the schools of Bologna and Paris. And
there he leaves the question. What the outside world
wants to know is the reason why divorce should be per-
mitted in this case and not in others. For us it is enough
to say that God says so and the Church says so. But faith
seeks to understand. There must be many advantages,
spiritual and temporal, attached to this legislation. A
modern book on marriage, intended to be a handbook for
the clergy, should have an abundance of suggestions to
help the priest-apologist in this dire6lion.

The se6tion on " The Regulation of Marriage " is par-
ticularly apt and pertinent to the present-day situation.
First the right of the Church to institute both diriment

194

Catholic Encyclopaedia

and impedient impediments is clearly established. Then
the question is discussed as to how far the State has similar
rights. There is much vagueness of view about this point,
even amongst Catholics. Canon de Smet, with a few
master distindions, clears the air. The distindion between
baptized and unbaptized persons makes the first great
difference. With regard to the baptized, the civil autho-
rity has right only over the purely civil effedls of marriage.
But nevertheless it can take cognizance of offences against
public order committed by Christians in their married
life, and vindicate the law by the punishment of such
crimes as adultery, etc. Also " the State has the right of
recourse to the Churchy and of demanding that it should,
in its matrimonial legislation, and especially in the estab-
lishment or abrogation of impediments, take into con-
sideration the circumstances and requirements of the
faithful among those who are subje6l to its laws." The
Church on her part is always willing to do what she can
to meet the demands of the State provided it does not
involve a compromise of divine laws.

With regard to the unbaptized the author holds the
opinion that the State has the power of regulating the
marriages and of instituting even diriment impediments.

Under the same heading there is a very clear statement
of the question of vesedtomy and falledlomy. An exceed-
ingly rich colle6lion of references is also given.

The book must be regarded as a gold-mine of informa-
tion. But there is hardly a single literary grace about it.

j.c.

THE first volume of the Catholic Encyclopaedia ap-
peared in 1907; the fifteenth and last volume has
just reached the hands of the subscribers. And, viewing
generally this remarkable produ6lion, we may feel a
satisfadion that it was not undertaken earlier. We are
now sufficiently acquainted with the mind of the twentieth
century to pass a judgment upon the issues of thought in
science, philosophy and theology during the Vidlorian era.
The expedlations of the scientist, the higher critic, and

195 i3«

Some Recent Books

the modernist have not been realized, and we see in'what
diredion the Church and the world are likely to move in
the immediate future. Historical research, accuracy and
achievement, the new birth of philosophy, advanced
studies in scripture, the restoration of the chant on
scientific lines, the reconstruftion of canon law, a new
office in preparation, a new biblical text in prospe6l, and
the positive treatment of theology, furnish us with a
presentation of Catholic science and its future promise,
which a few years ago would have been impossible.

This Encyclopaedia, we do not hesitate to say, is the
greatest triumph of Christian science in the English
tongue. Probably no encyclopaedia has succeeded so com-
pletely in securing the best talent for its articles. It may
be doubted whether any other has broken up so much
new ground. Its writers, " representing as they do Catholic
scholarship in every part of the world, give the work an
international charadler." (Preface to Vol. I.) It addresses
itself to its readers in the most widespread language of
the world. Its preparation has given rise to a printing
house which may yet be as celebrated in history as the
houses of Antwerp, Paris and Venice in days gone by.

We have now under review Vol. XIV {Simony -7 our),
July, 191 2. pp. XV, 800 and Vol. XV (Tourn-Zzoirner)
October, 191 2. pp. xv, 800+464A — 464H. (Robert Apple-
ton Company, New York.) The last volume includes
25 pages o:*^ Errata and additions for the fifteen volumes.
If, after the fuUness of previous volumes, the reader
experience a sense of regret at the evident reduftion in
the length of articles, he must be mindful of the exigencies
of space. He cannot, however, fail to admire the perse-
verance of those regular contributors who maintain their
activity to the last. Besides the ordinary staff (among
whom we may single out for special mention Mgr.
Baumgarten, Rome; G. Gietmann, Holland; G. Goyau,
Paris; W. H. Grattan- Flood, Enniscorthy; H. T. Henry,
Overbrook, Pennsylvania; K. Loffler, Munster; F. Mersh-
man, O.S.B., CoUegeville, Minnesota; M. Ott, O.S.B.
ib. ; A. MacErlean, Fordham, N.Y.) we have E. Burton

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Catholic Encyclopaedia

for English worthies; D. O. Hunter-Blair, O.S.B., on
English abbeys; Mgr. Kirsch on biographical and his-
torical subjeds; H. Mann on the Popes; S. Petrides on
Eastern Sees; W. Turner on the biographies of philo-
sophers; H. Thurston, S.J., on various rites and cere-
monies, to mention only a few.

Taking the needs of the hour as a standard of arrange-
ment, the writer feels, after perusing the^e two volumes,
that certain articles will captivate the attention of a large
number of readers. We refer especially to the articles on
Woman, Socialism, the Union of Christendom, the Virgin
Birth, the Temperance Movement, the Society of Jesus,
Spiritism and Witchcraft, Totemism and Statistics. At
all events they may be recommended to all whom they
concern. The article on Woman (eleven pages) by A.
Rosier (Austria) is complete in its survey, profound in
its refledtions, human in spirit though never sentimental,
courageous and decided. It sets up ideals which the
ordinary feminist too often fails to appreciate, and
should be read carefully by every member of the C.W.L.

Equal in importance and value is the much more
extensive article on Socialism by L. A. Toke, where we
have a minute and condensed study of the theory and
the movement. Socialism is presented as it is in itself,
and as inevitably contrasted with definite Christian
beliefs, when these are consciously and consistently main-
tained. The concluding sedlion is a fine analysis of the
contention that a Catholic, as such, may be a Socialist,
and should prove a serviceable and indeed a decisive
contribution to the solution of a problem, which has
troubled not a few of our young men. The Union of
Christendom is a rich and timely essay of twenty-two
pages from the experienced hand of Sydney Smith, S.J.
The Science of Theology, so constantly misunderstood,
or not understood at all by outsiders, receives, in forty-
two pages, massive treatment under its numerous aspeds
by writers of the first rank, such as J. Pohle, A. Lehmkuhl
and A. J. Maas, S.J. As prominent in recent discussion
the Virgin Birth is clearly treated, and is followed by

197

Some Recent Books

sedlions on the Blessed Virgin, and on devotion to her in
the light of scriptural and patristic teaching. As affedling
a social need of oppressive greatness, the Temperance
Movement gives in its eleven pages an almost v^orld-wide
survey, and is minutely documented. This study portrays
in calm language both the extent of the drink plague and
the encouraging progress that has been effedled by in-
numerable v^orkers. A topic of ever-recurring misappre-
hension and misrepresentation is the Society of Jesus.
The article on this subjeft, by J. H. Pollen, S.J., is not
an apology in the ordinary meaning of the term, but a
simple statement of the truth extending over sixty closely-
packed columns. Along M^ith this ought to be read the
article on the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. With the
aid of these two articles the curious or suspicious will find
their queries anticipated and their doubts removed. The
article on Spiritism lays before the reader the Catholic
mind on this difficult and perilous subjedl. A subsequent
article on Witchcraft will introduce many to one of the
most extraordinary delusions and exaggerations of history.
It is sad reading. Totemism, a subje6l that is little under-
stood by most people and confused by others, is here
presented in an intelligible manner by J. DriscoU. Our
final leading article is that on Statistics, not merely as
concerned with parochial or national estimates, but more
especially with the survey of the religions of the world.
Interesting and satisfying as the article appears to be, its
real value will be rather diredlive and suggestive than
conclusive. It points out what we still require, and sets an
example of scientific method and exa6l calculation.

As is usual in books of this description, countries and
buildings have absorbed a good deal of space. Syria has
twenty pages. A copiously illustrated article on Spain
has thirty-two, including history and literature. The
United States occupies only twenty-two. A lengthy article
deals with the Slavs. Mention must be made of the thirty-
two pages on the Vatican Palace, Council and Observa-
tory, of which twenty-six, by Mgr. Baumgarten, are
devoted to the Palace, where the reader will find the

198

Catholic Encyclopaedia

Vatican described not as a mere mediaeval antique, or an
art treasury, but as a place where men live and v^^ork.

Scripture holds a place of less significance in these than
in former volumes; still we have Testaments, Old and
New, Synoptics by G. Gigot, Versions of the Bible by
A. J. Maas, and the Revision of the Vulgate by Abbot
Gasquet, the head of the Commission. He supplies us
with an informing account of the objedl and progress of
the undertaking, which will hold the reader's attention
to the end. Theology also is less conspicuous than pre-
viously. A short article, yet very necessary in these times
of increasing indifference, on the nature and sense of Sin,
others on Tradition and Trinity (ten pages), and another
on the Syllabus and we have done. The article on the
Syllabus tells of the long preparation for this notable
document and states the various opinions as to its binding
force, and concludes appropriately with a reference to
the modernist syllabus of Pius X. S to Z do not seem
favourable to moral theology. Father Slater informs us
about Sunday observance, the word Synderesis, and deals
gently with the pradlice of Speculation. We have also a
very important contribution from A. Vermeersch on the
sub j eft of Vocation, in which, after discussing the subjedl
at large, he refers to the recent controversy on the matter.
He writes also on Vows and Religious, in which sub j efts
he is a recognized authority, and contributes a valuable
and lucid treatment of Usury.

Philosophy has no lengthy article; but such articles as
we find are im.portant — Soul, Spirit, Spiritualism, by
M. Maher. M. P. de Munnynck (Fribourg) deals admir-
ably with Space and Substance; D. Nys (Reftor of the
Institut de S. Thomas, Louvain) treats of Time. The
article on Teleology will dissipate the difficulties of many.
Truth and Transcendentalism are for those who will not
refuse to take the trouble of thinking. Telepathy, on the
other hand, is for everybody to read; but after all it is
shown to remain an unproven hypothesis and more fafts
are called for. Viviseftion will, no doubt, be read eagerly
by many, who will find that its writer does not shrink

199

Some Recent Books

from the issues involved. The article on Thomism has an
air of novelty, for it groups and explains the peculiar
tenets of the system known by that name in a way which
will materially help the student of philosophy.

Among the innumerable biographical articles, St
Thomas Aquinas, by D. J. Kennedy, O.P. (Washington),
holds a prominent place, being a first-rate and many-sided
study. It closes with a testimony to the quality of the
translation of the Summa by the Fathers of the English
Province. A specimen of an article is reproduced with
the English version in parallel columns. The rendering
is so concise as to occupy rather less space than the Latin
original. A Kempis is appropriately written by Dom V.
Scully. The notices of Stradivari, Suarez, Surin and J.
Stephenson are all excellent; that of F. Witt is by a
sympathetic hand. Tissot and E. Taunton are very inter-
esting, as also are Van Beethoven, Verdi and Jules Verne.
Charles Waterton, Cardinal Wiseman, by D. O. Hunter-
Blair, and Cardinal Vaughan, by J. G. Snead-Cox, are all
models in this style of literary work.

In conclusion we may point out a few minor matters
for emendation. The names Rosier and Bolland are spelt
one way in the list of contributors and another in the body
of the volume. Some of the biographies, as for example,
Taparelli and Ubaghs, lack altogether the personal element
of the subje6t noticed. The account of the Ven. A. M.
Taigi omits to mention the singular phenomenon of the
sun from which she was accustomed to receive her
prophetical illumination. The article on the Sistine Choir
says nothing of its technique, and that on SyndicaHsm
omits from its bibliography the recent work of L. Garri-
guet on UEvolution actuelle du socialisme en France,
(Bloud. 191 2.) In the article on Woman, page 691, we are
referred to the expression " Woman belongs at home! "

H.P.

IN his Problems oj Life and Reproduction (London : John
Murray. 191 3. Price 7s. 6d.) Professor Marcus Hartog
has presented to the reading public a very interesting and

200

Problems of Life

a very readable work, the result of wide study, careful
personal experiment, abundant thought and a just
refusal, where unconvinced, jurare in verba magistri.

As its title tells us, it deals, in large part, with the
problems of Reprodudion which involve so many re-
markable fa6ls, all of them, one may almost say, of quite
recent discovery, and most at least of them interpretable
and interpreted in varying manners by varying writers.
Professor Hartog has his own explanations of such matters
as the so-called " polar bodies," his very common-sense
view as to which much commends itself to us, and the
curious series of changes which take place in connexion
with the dividing cell, mitotic or karyokinetic. It has been
too hastily assumed by some that these happenings,
which certainly exhibit at least a strong superficial re-
semblance to the behaviour of iron-filings between the
poles of two magnets, were adually referable to magnetic
or ele&ical forces. Professor Hartog seems to have
proved conclusively that this is not the case and with
every respedf — more than once expressed — ^for " Occam's
razor," he postulates a " new force " which he calls
mitokinesis. His argument in connexion with this matter
is one of the most novel and not the least interesting
features of this work. Attention may also be dire6ted to
the discussion on the much- vexed question of the Heredity
of Acquired Conditions in which, as in other parts of the
book. Professor Hartog enters the field of scientific
polemics and wields therein a doughty blade. In this
connexion his re-statement of the old question of
Mechanism versus Vitalism (though he does not seem
much enamoured of the old name " vital force ") will
be of special interest to philosophical readers as he takes
up a frankly " vitahstic " position like so many biologists
— as opposed to physiologists, in the narrower sense of
that term, many of whom seem to be unable to see be-
yond their chemico-physical noses. Professor Hartog
reprints in this volume the very interesting introdudion
to the works of a somewhat negle6led writer, the late
Samuel Butler, which appeared in a reprint of that

201

Some Recent Books

author's Unconscious Memory some two or three years
ago. Perhaps we may be permitted to comment on one
passage in what is an extremely interesting sketch of the
rise and progress of the Darwinian theory. It is stated
that the late Dr Mivart's criticism of Darwin's views was
disregarded because " he evidently held a brief for a
party standing outside the scientific world," i.e., because
he was a Cathohc (p. 246). Considering that Mivart's
most prominent criticisms were diredled against the
adequacy of " small variations " and the abounding
influence of Natural Seleftion, both of which points are
being vehemently debated at this very moment, it is
a sorry confession for a scientific man to have to make
that these criticisms were disregarded for so very inade-
quate a cause. Perhaps the reason may be found in another
quotation from the same chapter, which reveals the fadl
to those ignorant of it — ^if such there be — that the odium
scientificum is not wholly unknown. " Such views " —
our author remarks in dealing with some of Weismann's
" fantastic hypotheses " — " have so enchanted many dis-
tinguished biologists, that in dealing with the subje6l
they have aftually ignored the existence of equally able
workers who hesitate to share the extremest of their
views. The phenomenon is one well known in hypnotic
praftice. So long as the non-Weismannians deal with
matters outside this discussion, their existence and their
work are rated at their just value; but any work of theirs
on this point so affefts the orthodox Weismannite
(whether he accepts this label or rejeft it does not matter),
that for the time being their existence and the good work
they have done are alike non-existent " (p. 261).

The last two essays on " Interpolation in Memory "
and on " The Teaching of Nature-Study " hardly seem
to come within the scope of the title, but assuredly no one
who reads them will grudge them their place. The latter
especially may be commended to the attention of every
teacher, whether biological or not, for it is packed with
wise, suggestive and witty (in all senses of the word)

202

The Theory of Evolution

ideas. The book is adequately illustrated and endowed
with one of the most complete indexes which it has ever
been our lot to examine. B. C. A. W.

FATHER WASMANN, S.J., has long been known
to men of science as the foremost living authority
on ants and termites and their inquilines, and his special
books on science in its relation to religion have been
noticed in this Review as they appeared both in their
German and their English dress. He has not merely
contributed of his own work to science but has achieved
the even greater end of forming a school of scientific
observers and writers amongst German members of his
society. Fr Assmuth, now we believe in India, is well
known for his observations in the same field of knowledge
as that of his teacher, and now we have from the pen of
Fr Karl Frank, S.J., a most interesting work {The Theory
of Evolution in the Light of Facts, Trans, by Charles T.
Druery. London: Kegan Paul. 191 3. Price ss. net)
containing a chapter by Fr Wasmann on the subjedl
which has formed the work of his life.

The various theories which have been put forward by
Lamarck, by Darwin and by the " neo " followers of
either of these authorities are very fully considered by
Fr Frank, who points out the many difficulties which
arise when one tries to square the results of observation
with any of the explanations at present before the
scientific world.

One of the most interesting sedions of the work is that
which deals with the common origin of plants and
animals. Nearly all modern theories of evolution assume
a common low form of life from which branched off in
the one dire6lion protozoa and in the other protophyta,
the simplest forms of animal and of vegetable life.
Fr Frank entirely differs from this view, and, as the result
of a philosophical argument of great cogency and interest,
concludes that " animals and plants cannot be brought
into genetic connexion," and this because, the entire

203

Some Recent Books

'*idea" of the two being wholly different, it would be
impossible for the one to become the other without a
total alteration of its own being.

Fr Frank in this and in other points embraces the
polyphyletic view of evolution, which has been set forward
as an explanation by more than one writer, an explanation
which, whilst believing in transformism within great
groups, does not think that it can be shown to account
for the groups themselves. The book is one which will
interest all philosophical biologists. B. C. A. W.

IT has long been our opinion that a really satisfaflory
book on Lourdes and its phenomena, written from a
thoroughly scientific standpoint and in English, is one of
the desiderata of modern Catholicism. If anyone doubts
whether such a book would meet with a sympathetic
reception we may refer him amongst recently published
books to Medicine and the Church (sc. of England) and to
the chapter on Lourdes in that truly delightful work,
The Corner of Harley Street, There (and elsewhere) he will
find evidence of the change of opinion that has come over
thoughtful minds, no longer mere sneerers at Lourdes as
a centre of imposture, fraud and hysteria.

In spite of its not very attraftive exterior we hoped that
Heaven's Recent Wonders (By Dr Boissarie. Translated by
the Rev. C. Van der Donckt. Frederick Pustet and Co. B.
Herder, London, agents. Price 6s. net) might be the book
we were looking for. Well, most emphatically, it is not.
First of all, as a piece of translation and editing it is about
as slipshod a performance as ever came under our notice.
It is translated not into English, but into American, and
we submit that phrases like " the nun was through with
her prayers " — " the day he quit pra£lising " — " way
down in my heart " — " I did not understand the first
thing of it " — " Say, Father, did you bring a lamp along "
— " shivered quite a while," and many others which we
refrain from quoting, whilst quite in place in an American
novel, especially of the humorous type, are wholly inad-
missible in what purports to be a religious and a scientific

204

The Apocalypse of St John

work. But worse than this are the constant errors in the
spelling of medical words and in medical terminology,
showing that no medical man has been asked to read the
proofs. The most glaring instance of this kind of thing is
to be found in the (quite inadequate) account of the
really remarkable case of Pierre Rudder. On p. 35 is a
figure entitled " Bones of de Rudder," to which is added,
" It can be seen that the broken bone is just as long as the
other," etc., etc. Will it be believed that the bones shown
— ^the only bones shown — are those of the right leg, which
was never broken ? It was the left leg which was broken
and united, eight years afterwards (as we are convinced by
a miracle), and the pictures of the bones of both legs — the
right is given for purposes of comparison — ^will be found
in the little work on de Rudder published by the Catholic
Truth Society of Scotland {A Modern Miracle, 1906). So
much for the translation, now what about the book
itself? This, again, is not at all satisfactory. It is neither
a truly scientific work nor a truly popular one. There are
excellent cases in it; for example, the cure of Mme
Rouchel is one which, so it seems to us, is quite inexpli-
cable on any hypothesis of a non-miraculous charadler.
But they are reported in so confusing a manner that they
will not, we are convinced, appeal to a scientific non-
Catholic man as they might be made to appeal. We do not
desire to labour the case further, but we do venture to say
that it is unfortunate that the real case for Lourdes
should not be presented in a manner likely to make a
serious appeal for a hearing to the scientific opinion of
English-speaking countries. B. C. A. W.

THE Apocalypse of St John, a Commentary on the
Greek Version. By James J. L. Ratton, M.D., M.Ch.,
Q.U.I. Pp. XV, 417. Washbourne. 12s. net).

Colonel Ratton is to be congratulated on the care
with which he presents the preterist interpretation of
the Apocalypse. In our day, when the revival of interest
in the book is bearing exegetical fruit, it is wejl that
each school should be represented as thoroughly as

205

Some Recent Books

possible. We do not suppose for one moment that the final
explanation will be completely attained by any one
method of interpretation, or by composing an ecleftic
mosaic from them all. But each school is of value in
emphasizing an aspe6l of the work and in throwing out
certain features in bold relief.

The form in which Colonel Ratton presents his work
is excellent. The thesis is clearly stated in the preface.
The introdu6lion contains a life of St John, notes on
the canonicity and interpretation of the book, and on
the Roman Empire, an essay on the date of the Apocalypse,
an account of the Seven Churches, an analysis of the
scheme and symbolism, and a brief account of the Greek
text. In his commentary. Colonel Ratton very wisely
takes the book verse by verse. He prints the Greek from
Brandscheid's text with the variations of Swete's, adds
the English from the Douay version, and then makes his
own comments.

He regards the Seven Churches as illustrating the
Seven Ages of the Catholic Church. Chapters IV-XI, are
treated in Alcazar's fashion as " the Jewish theme,"
describing the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70 a.d.
Chapters XH-XIX are named " the Roman theme," and
are referred to the fall of Rome, which is dated " about
the beginning of the sixth century." The Millennium
of Chapter XX is identified with the " thousand years
of peace for the Church," from that event to the outbreak
of Caesarism in the Protestant Reformation. And the
commentary concludes with expositions of the General
Judgment, the New Jerusalem and the Epilogue.

We have nothing but praise for the author's labour and
zeal, and for the publisher's care and good taste.

We agree with Colonel Ratton that " the date of the
Book of Revelation is of paramount importance as regards
its exegesis." But when he tells us that " Catholic writers,
almost alone, support the theory that the Book was
written in Domitian's reign," and adds not only that
they do so " as a matter of tradition," but also that such
a date " rests entirely on a casual remark of S. Irenaeus,"

206

The Apocalypse of St John

we bow in wondering awe before the cosmic audacity of
the utterance. What has Weizacker to do with the Catholic
religion? Yet in his work on the Apostolic Age he dates
the Apocalypse about thirty years after the fall of
Jerusalem. Zahn, in his Introduction^ iii, 412, holds " the
tradition, in itself unassailable, that Revelation was
written about 95 a.d.," to be corroborated by the condi-
tions of the Asiatic churches. Milligan is emphatic as
to that Domitian date. Hort says that, if external evidence
alone could decide, there would be a clear preponderance
for Domitian; and Peake urges that the external evidence
is confirmed by the internal. No one who knew Dr
Salmon, will suppose that he had any Catholic leanings;
yet he declared that the two principal grounds for assert-
ing a Neronic date had collapsed. He indicated the true
date in a way which Ramsay has finely developed by
analyzing the phase of provincial Rome-worship implied
in the book. To deal fully with this matter would require
many pages. So we merely ask the author of this com-
mentary to read at least Moffat's introdu6lion to the
book in the Expositor's Greek Testament^ and to withdraw
his implied censure on Catholic writers.

As to the explanation of the number 666 by Nero's
name and title, we are at one with many students of the
book in arguing that nothing is more unlikely. The
Hebrew letters, partly misprinted in Colonel Ratton's
work, would not be implied in a book for the Christians
of Roman Asia. Both the Sibylline Oracles, i, 326, in a
passage written about 200 a.d., and the Epistle of Barnabas
ix, 8, written between 70 and 79 a.d., use the Greek
alphabet, the former in computing the sacred name of
" Jesus " at 888, and the latter in interpreting the 318 of
Genesis, xiv, 14, as the first two letters of that name
and the sign of the Cross. St Irenseus, the pupil of St
John's friend, St Polycarp, confesses himself ignorant
of the true solution; but he has no idea of employing any
other alphabet than the Greek. And the Apocalypse
itself plainly has regard to the Greek alphabet, for our
Lord is described in it as " the Alpha and the Omega."

207

Some Recent Books

It does not, of course, follow that any name which can
be equated to 666 must be that intended. An old writer
refused to count his own name, lest it should amount to the
fatal number. Indeed, an Irish Unionist pointed out that
" Parnell," in Greek form and lettering, amounts to 666^ and
is connected with boycotting. And no doubt, by judicious
manipulation of name and title, an Irish Nationalist could
as easily identify Mr Balfour with the political monster.

There are many such points with which we should
quarrel. For example, there is a repetition of St Augus-
tine's error in describing St John's First Epistle as the
Epistle to the Parthians, But we have no desire to dwell
on minor features of the work. We think it much more
serious when the author identifies Daniel's " Fourth
Beast " with the Roman Empire. Now the Sibylline
Oracles, iii, 397, in a passage written between 145 and
117 B.C., is in accord with modern scholarship in explain-
ing that " Fourth Beast " as the Grecian Empire of
Alexander, the first being the Chaldean Empire of
Nebuchadnezzar, the second the Median Empire of
Astyages, and the third the Persian Empire of Cyrus.
The Roman Empire is represented in the Apocalypse,
liii, I, 2, by a fifth " Wildbeast," which possesses char-
adleristics of Daniel's four.

Although in such matters as well as in his general
position, we are not in agreement with the author, yet
we are glad that his preterist view should have been stated
so clearly and definitely. At the same time we note that
he has not been consistently preterist, as his explanation
of the Millennium by the Middle Ages and that of the
Seven Epistles by the history of the Church are clearly
presentist. In this respe6l the work has its own lesson to
teach, as it shows plainly enough that no one point of
view is adequa- e. It may be frankly said that we are to-day
only at the threshold of a sufficient explanation; and
it will be to the lasting credit of Colonel Ratton that he
has faced the difficulties himself, and encouraged others
to toil with him in a mine too long exploited by speculators.

G.S.H.
ao8

FRANCISCAN
INFLUENCES IN ART

Franz von Assisi und die Anfange der Kunst der Renaissance in

Italien. By H. Thode. Berlin. 1885 and 1904.
Les poetes franciscains en Italie. By A. F. Ozanam. 1852.
A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. By Bernard Berenson.

Dent.
Francia's Masterpiece. By Montgomery Carmichael. Kegan Paul.

IN the vast literature that has grown up — and that still
grows — round the personality of Francis of Assisi there
would seem to be no place left for the meditations of the
unlearned. So much has been investigated for us by men
who have given a lifelong allegiance to this fascinating
subje6l that it might well be assumed that no aspedl of the
Saint's life could have been left unexplored. It is, however,
the theological and historical significance of the life of
St Francis and the growth of his order that, as a rule,
arrest the attention of the student, and I venture to
think that in regard to the wide domain of Art, of its
origins and its relation to the great Franciscan movement,
there is still something to be revealed, certain significant
developments to be noted.

It would, of course, be quite inaccurate to suggest that
this aspe6l of the subject, of such profound Franciscan
import, has been left wholly unconsidered by Franciscan
scholars, but certainly the recognition of its value has not
yet passed into the domain of common knowlege. More
than sixty years ago Frederic Ozanam, writing with rare
spiritual insight of Jacopone da Todi, was, perhaps, the
first of modern disciples of St Francis to note the con-
neffing link between the spiritual songs of the early
friars, the altar-pieces of the Umbrian masters and the
evolution of the great mendicant churches of Central and
Northern Italy. His Franciscan studies opened his eyes to
the f aft that Christian art had sprung up in the footprints
of the great saints of Tuscany and Umbria. Renan, in his
Vol. 153 209 14

Franciscan Influences in Art

well-known essay on St Francis, turns aside for an instant
to remark, with his charadleristic love of dramatic anti-
thesis, that this " sordide mendiant," this miserable
beggar, was the father of Italian art. It was reserved,
however, for the German scholar and historian, Heinrich
Thode, to attempt to present a synthetic view of the
Franciscan movement in its relations to the various
branches of religious art — architefture, sculpture, paint-
ing, poetry, music. Yet, strange to say, this important
book attraded for years but little attention; published
over a quarter of a century ago, before M. Sabatier had
set the fashion in Franciscan studies, it has only recently
been translated into French and never into English. Thus,
with a full recognition of the hundreds of books on
Italian art that have poured from the press in the last half
century, and with the scarcely less remarkable output
of literature dealing with St Francis, it is safe to assert
that on the one hand the Franciscan students have been
absorbed in other issues than those of art, and on the
other that the modern art critics have sought elsewhere
for the origins of painting than in the chapel of the
Porziuncula.

If hitherto the importance of the Franciscan move-
ment as the fountain head of religious art has escaped the
student, it has been in a measure because he has not
grasped the need for ascertaining a first cause. For long
years art critics had been in the habit of attributing
everything great in Italian art to the effedls of the Renais-
sance, and of judging all art by the canons imposed by
Renaissance artists. For three whole centuries the glories
of the Renaissance period blinded men's eyes to all that
had preceded it. At the Vatican itself, the chapel of
Nicholas V, decorated by Fra Angelico with frescoes of
an incomparable charm, had fallen into such disrepute
that the entrance had been blocked up, and the very
existence of the chapel forgotten. Scarcely any one in
England, before Ruskin, troubled themselves about the
pre-Raphaelite painters. Colledlors paid high prices for
the decadent religious paintings of the seventeenth cen-

210

Franciscan Influences in Art

tuiy, and the smirking sentimentality of a Carlo Dolci
was valued far above the sweet gravity of a Madonna
by a Sienese or Umbrian artist. Even when the wonders of
trecento art became revealed to us, with their vivid appeal
to the religious sense, the non-CathoHc critic still clung
to the prejudices of his youth — ^the conviftion that Chris-
tianity, somehow, has always been antagonistic to art — ^and
in default of any better explanation of artistic merits he
could no longer deny, has been wont to fall back on the
assumption that the influences of the Renaissance had made
themselves felt much earlier than it was customary to
suppose. Moreover, many art critics are so absorbed in
questions of technique that they rarely inquire into
motives at all, still less do they seek to discover what
influences may have lain behind the imagination of the
painter. In point of f aft, the whole wonderful efflorescence
of art in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has to
be accounted for quite independently of the Renaissance.
As yet no universally accepted explanation of its origin
holds the field. To a few lovers of St Francis, who are also
lovers of art, it seems clear that the impulse came from
Assisi. Throughout the thirteenth century the most real
and potent influence on the people of Italy is now recog-
nized on many sides to have been the Franciscan move-
ment. The personality of St Francis operated far beyond
those with whom he himself was able to come in contaft.
That it should have been so will surprise none of us. As
has been well said of him, " Of all men his conscience
was the most limpid, his simplicity the most absolute,
his sense of his filial relation to his heavenly Father the
most intense," and his influence on his fellow-men was
commensurate with his spiritual gifts. In the ferment of
ideas throughout Western Europe which had already pro-
duced a number of heretical seels, and in the sudden up-
growth of a strong bourgeois class as the cities of Italy
sprang into prosperity, Herr Thode points out how
Francis of Assisi was to prove the divinely inspired pro-
moter of peace. Thanks to him, and to the organization
of the Franciscan order, the torrent of popular life was

211 H^

Franciscan Influences in Art

curbed and guided and kept within orthodox channels.
The fad that Innocent III granted to Francis and his
wandering friars the right to preach, freely and publicly,
not in Latin, but in the young half -formed ItaHan lan-
guage spoken of the people, a right which had been
denied to all his predecessors, was an event of incalculable
significance. It meant the popularization and deepening
of religious faith, the purifying of morals, the develop-
ment of an individual and evangelical Christianity. And
as the first friars, spiritualized by personal intercourse
with their founder, spread themselves over the land,
preaching in burning words the inexhaustible love of
Our Lord for all men, there followed an extraordinary re-
vival of personal piety, of the sense of sin, of the individual
striving after holiness. History tells us of the marvellous
effefts of the preaching of a St Antony, a St Bernardine,
a St John Capistran, healing bitter feuds and bringing
whole cities to repentance, but in some measure the same
effefts were produced by a host of unknown brethren,
bearing the words of the Gospel into obscure hamlets and
remote mountain villages. Moreover, the pradlical effeft
of the friars' preaching was enormously enhanced by the
vow of apostolic poverty followed with absolute literalness
by the first disciples of St Francis. That men should give
all to God in His poor and keep nothing back for them-
selves, nay, should rejoice openly in humiliation and pain
and want, touched the imagination of the people as
nothing else could have done.

So strong a spiritual impulse, moving and vivifying a
whole people, was bound to create for itself a mode of
popular expression. The mere preaching in the vulgar
tongue gave to the language a suppleness and richness of
vocabulary that it had not possessed before. The next gift
of the order to the people was the laudi^ or divine praises,
popular religious songs which were taken up with extra-
ordinary enthusiasm. They quickly spread from the
plains of Umbria to the valleys of Tuscany, passing from
mouth to mouth, a natural expression of simple joyous
faith. Francis himself, as we know, in the ecstasies of

212

Franciscan Influences in Art

divine love and gratitude, would break into song — one
remembers a charming description of him given by
Celano, singing in French and making believe to accom-
pany himself on the viol — and his example was followed
by not a few among his first brethren. There was Brother
Pacificus, known before he hid his identity under the
friar's habit as the king of verse, and Fra Jacomino of
Verona, and St Bonaventure, poet as well as do6lor and
historian, and finally, most amazing of all the followers of
Francis, there was the poet-mystic, Jacopone da Todi.
Apart from one or two Latin poems, among which, of
course, the Stabat Mater stands supreme, Jacopone wrote
in the dialed of the Umbrian hills, the language of the
peasant and the goat-herd, never before turned to literary
use. Thus were laid the foundations of Italian poetry, the
canons of which were soon to be established for all time
by the author of the Divina Comedia. And when we
remember that Dante began to write the Inferno in Latin
hexameters, and then breaking off, turned, like Jacopone,
before him, to the vulgar tongue, it is, as Ozanam points
out, not fanciful to assume that the example of the friar,
whose poems, sometimes tender, sometimes satirical,
enjoyed so unquestioned a popularity in his day, may not
have had due weight with him.

It has been observed that a great popular movement
finds expression in song and verse far more quickly than
in painting or sculpture. Mr Berenson, in his essay on
Sassetta — perhaps the happiest of all the interpretations of
the Franciscan legend— suggests that '' it is only when
literature has translated an epoch into a series of splendid
myths, that the figure arts can be called in to give the
ideals of that epoch visual form." The delay is likely to be
still more prolonged, when, as in the instance before us,
the very means of giving plastic expression to the legends
had to be evolved. Painting, as a method of interpreting
life, did not exist in the days of St Francis — else surely
we had had a more authentic portrait of the pverello
than any that exist — and sculpture, dead for centuries,
had to be born anew. Yet the need for visual representa-

213

Franciscan Influences in Art

tion of events burnt deep into the consciousness of the
people. It was imperative that a more popular and visible
record than tradition and word of mouth should be avail-
able of all they held so dear. It is not to detrad from the
genius of Giotto to assert that, in a sense, he was the in-
strument of the will of the people when he recorded the
life of St Francis in that marvellous series of frescoes on
the walls of the great church that had sprung up to his
memory at Assisi. Never before on a large scale had a series
of historical events been related in fresco: the method
of composition, the art of posing the human figure, the
very perspe6Hve had to be, if not discovered, at least
developed and perfefted to a degree undreamt of until
then. No more glorious theme could have been presented
to a trecento painter, and presented in the very cradle of
the Franciscan family. It was a unique opportunity for
a great creative artist. No tradition existed to shackle
or distraft him, and, daring naturalist as he was, to
borrow a Ruskinian phrase, Giotto turned to Nature
and boldly used the life around him as the vehicle of the
Franciscan story. Thus, he became, to quote Ruskin once
more, '* the undisputed interpreter of religious truth,
by means of painting, over the whole of Italy." As a
result Giotto's rendering has lived to this day, influencing
all our conceptions of the Franciscan legend, not less
surely than, two centuries later, the Raphael cartoons
moulded the popular interpretation of the life of Our
Lord.

The Franciscan influence over painting was, as we
know, far from being restrifted to the Franciscan legend.
In Giotto's own case his life of St Francis at Assisi
pointed the way to his life of our Lady in the Arena
Chapel at Padua. By treating the Gospel story in a series
of scenes with a vigour and freshness and naturalism
even more marked than at Assisi, he broke down for all
time the cramping traditions of the Byzantine school.
This much is admitted on all sides. It has been left, how-
ever, for Herr Thode to point out for us, what has wholly
escaped the art-critic, that in the various renderings at

214

Franciscan Influences in Art

Padua and elsewhere of scenes from the New Testament
that we owe to Giotto and his school, the adhial repre-
sentation of each incident is not due, as has been assumed,
to the imagination of the painter, but follows with re-
markable fidehty the famous Meditations on the Life of
Christ, long attributed to St Bonaventure, and certainly
of Franciscan authorship. The Meditations contained
many naive and tender details of the life of Our Lord,
more especially in all that concerned His Blessed Mother,
beyond what is contained in the Gospels, and enjoying
a wide popularity, they became the source from which
both poets and painters freely drew their inspiration. Herr
Thode devotes a fascinating chapter to this important
aspedl of his sub j eft, and demonstrates beyond question
an indebtedness on the part of Giotto, as regards his New
Testament frescoes, almost as marked as for the Franciscan
legend itself.

This indebtedness was specially great in reference to
the important position to oe accorded henceforward in
art to the Madonna. As the human aspeft of the life of
Our Lord became emphasized in the preaching of the
friars, the figure of His Mother became more individual-
ized and, above all, Jmore maternal. Her sorrows, preached
so eloquently by St Bonaventure and sung by Jacopone
da Todi in the Stab at Mater ^ brought home the reaHty
of the sufferings of her divine Son in His Passion as
nothing else had done. In a measure the Crucifixion came
to be seen through her eyes, and in all the piftorial repre-
sentations of it, in every Pieta, in every Deposition from
the Cross, the figure of Mary is symboHcal of maternal
grief, and brings to the artist a welcome note of feminine
beauty and tenderness into a scene of woe and pain. It is
easy to understand how gladly painters would respond
to the popular devotion fostered by the Franciscans, and
indeed we know that, from Cimabue to Raphael, the
figure of the Madonna progresses in every attribute of
feminine perf edlion.

All through the fourteenth and the early fifteenth cen-
tury the art student may, if he will, trace the influence

215

Franciscan Influences in Art

of the Franciscan ideal. Every lover of the work of the della
Robbia must have realized how strong the Franciscan
influence was upon Andrea. His reliefs at Franciscan
shrines, giving prominence to the saints of the order — at
Santa Croce, at the Osservanza outside Siena and, above
all, at La Verna — are distinguished by a beauty and a
tenderness that he has not attained to elsewhere. It is
to Andrea too that we owe what many have felt to be the
most satisfying representation of St Francis that has come
down to us: the terra cotta figure at Santa Maria degli
Angeli, with the sensitive suffering face and the beautiful
slender hands.

Again, the intimate appreciation of Nature revealed
in the flowers and plants and birds that the pre-Raphaelite
masters, led by Giotto, loved to introduce as accessories
alike into fresco and altar-piece, may surely have re-
ceived its first impetus from Francis's love of the beauti-
ful and his vivid sense of the divine immanence in all
created things. In this and in other ways his spirit per-
meates the school that sprang up within sight of Assisi.
It is true the Umbrian artists learned their sense of form
and movement — as far as they ever acquired it — ^from
Florentine masters, but their real individual charm, their
pure loveliness, their atmosphere of aloofness from the
world and their unrivalled space-composition, inducing
in the onlooker an extraordinarily vivid sense of religious
peace, they acquired in their own province, amid those
exquisite undulating plains on which the pink almond
blossom mingles with the olive-trees in the springtime,
where St Francis lived and preached and stirred men's
souls.

Not less marked was his influence in Siena, whose
inhabitants were admittedly of an emotional and mystic
temperament. There St Bernardine, greatest of revivalist
preachers, renewed the first fervour of early Franciscan
days, and exercised an authority over his townspeople
no less potent than that wielded in earlier years by
Catherine herself. Even to-day, with the great rival
churches of St Francis and St Dominic rising up on

2X6

Franciscan Influences in Art

either hand, this loveliest of Tuscan cities seems divided
in allegiance between the two mighty saints it has the
honour to claim. In all Christian art no saint is more
familiar to us than St Bernardine, a beautiful austere
figure with glowing eyes and toothless jaw, holding aloft
the mystic symbol of the Holy Name. Would that we
could have inherited so vivid, so unquestioned a portrait
of St Francis. We find him in countless altar-pieces of the
Sienese school, a living testimony to the power of his
spoken word, and it is to him and to the religious fervour
he kindled, that the school owes much of its exquisite
spirituality. Even Pinturicchio, so often a gay raconteur
rather than a religious painter, is stirred to spiritual
heights when commissioned to paint the Glorification of
St Bernardine in his little chapel in Ara Coeli. Never was
Pinturicchio so tender, so instinft with piety as in these
lovely, luminous frescoes, illustrating a Franciscan legend
for a Franciscan church.

The most perf eft Franciscan fruit of the Sienese school
is, however, due to a younger contemporary of the saint,
who has bequeathed us what has been described as " the
most adequate rendering of the Franciscan soul that we
possess in the entire range of painting." Thanks to Mr
Berenson, who, as is well known, reconstrufted the altar-
piece of which the nine panels are now scattered among
various coUeftions, this masterpiece by Stefano Sassetta
has been rendered familiar to many of us in reproduc-
tions. In the little scenes, faultlessly grouped, we discover
sHm ethereal figures that might have stepped from the
pages of the Fioretti,2ind^ closely examined, the symbolism
is found to be wholly drawn from Franciscan sources.
The happiest use has been made of the luminous Umbrian
landscape, and the personality of Francis himself is almost
wholly satisfying, whether passing through the flames
before the Soldan, or receiving the Stigmata, or as a
slender youth, having cast off his garments, sheltering
beneath the cloak of the Bishop of Assisi. The series closes
with a " Glory of St Francis," which has but to be com-
pared with the similar theme by the Giottesque school in

217

Franciscan Influences in Art

the lower church at Assisi, for us to realize its superiority
in spiritual significance. With outstretched arms and
upward gaze, the saint, poised between sea and sky —
" the great cloister which his Lady Poverty brought as
dower to her faithful knight " — is transfigured in ecstasy
amid a circle of winged cherubim. All the accessories
of this delightful panel add to its value, and even allowing
for the pardonable partiality of an owner, Mr Berenson
is surely justified in his enthusiastic encomium of a com-
position which, as he rightly says, bears the true Fran-
ciscan perfume of soul.

I think, too, there is no unfairness in claiming Fra
Angelico, faithful Dominican as he was, as a produft, in
part at least, of the Franciscan spirit. We know how ten
long years of his early manhood were spent in Umbria, in
the very midst of the Franciscan tradition, sometimes at
Foligno, sometimes at Cortana, so that it is impossible
to assume that Assisi and its wonderful church were un-
known to him. We know how receptive his gentle, beauty-
loving nature must have been to the loveliness of the
Umbrian landscape, and indeed how the Franciscan
gaiety of soul permeates his piftures. Visitors to San
Marco will remember, too, how prominent a place is
accorded to St Francis in some of his frescoes. Finally
we may take it as a fa6l — it has been clearly demon-
strated by Henri Cochin, the most discriminating of his
biographers — that when, in his celebrated "Last Judg-
ment," Fra Angelico painted the souls in Paradise dancing
hand in hand in a flowery meadow in the ecstasy of their
celestial joy, he was not reproducing, as has often been
assumed, a vision of bliss that had come to him in his
monastic cell, but he was simply illustrating, with
accurate precision, a well-known laude by the Franciscan
poet, Jacopone da Todi.

An instru6live example of direft pidorial inspiration
by the Franciscan Order has been established by that
Franciscan enthusiast, Mr Montgomery Carmichael, in
his singularly interesting volume on Francia's great
masterpiece at Lucca. This pifture, described indif-

218

Franciscan Influences in Art

ferently by bewildered art-critics either as an Assump-
tion or a Coronation of Our Lady, Mr Carmichael
demonstrates beyond argument to represent the Immacu-
late Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Not only does he
show how every detail of the composition was inspired
" at the pure fountains of Franciscan symbolism," but he
is able to establish that all other pidlures of the Immacu-
late Conception of the same type in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries were painted for Franciscan churches
or for chapels dedicated to the Conception. In other
words, it was the Franciscan preaching of the dogma of
the Immaculate Conception which created a demand
for the pi6lure and suggested the type the representation
should take. Yet, as Mr Carmichael complains, in the face
of fafts of this nature, there are still art-critics who do not
trouble to inquire into the provenienza of a religious
pidure, whence it comes, or on what theological dogma
it is based.

I have spoken so far only of painting, but the influence
of the order on the development of architedlure was
scarcely less noteworthy. Nothing could have been further
from the ideals of St Francis, or even of that minister in
the early history of the friars in England, who was so
enamoured of poverty that he ordered the stone walls of
the friary at Shrewsbury to be pulled down and re-
placed by walls of clay, than that his spiritual sons should
come to be associated with a type of very spacious and very
sumptuous church. Yet this development came about
almost inevitably, partly through the needs of their
apostolate, but mainly perhaps through the goodwill of
the inhabitants of the towns in which the friars settled.
It must be remembered that up to the foundation of the
mendicant orders the Benedi6lines and other religious
communities had been in the habit of building them-
selves monasteries in retired spots, and of dehberately
shutting themselves of! from the world. The friars,
equally dehberately planted themselves down in the
crowded city, usually in the poorest quarter, sharing in
the life and privations of the people around them,

219

Franciscan Influences in Art

espousing their cause, reproving their vices, instrudling
their children. And the citizens gladly lavished of their
best on the friars in return. In the big cities, such as
Venice, Bologna, Milan, Florence, where the bourgeois
class was rapidly rising to wealth and power, large sums
were forthcoming, and with quaint inconsistency men
showed their appreciation of evangelical poverty by
thrusting wealth upon it. The greatest architefts of the
day were employed in building the friars' churches — we
know that Arnolfo di Cambio himself designed Santa
Croce — and within their walls every rich family that
founded a chapel added something to the accumulation
of treasure.

The friars' churches were needed for a twofold pur-
pose: to shelter the congregations that thronged to the
preaching — even to-day the Italians have a marvellous
appetite for sermons — and to provide a sufficiency of
altars for a large community of priests celebrating daily
Mass. From that point of view the type of Franciscan
and Dominican churches represented by Santa Croce
and Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the Franciscan
and Dominican churches at Siena and San Francesco
at Pisa, great edifices with long naves unencumbered
by pillars and a number of small chapels in a row on either
side of the high altar, admirably fulfilled their double
purpose, and I venture to think this was the primary con-
sideration. Artistically they possess the merit of a simple
and stately spaciousness, of offering interesting problems
in roof construction and, with their vast wall spaces, of
lending themselves well to fresco decoration. Herr Thode
draws a detailed comparison between the varying types
of Lombard, Venetian and Umbro-Tuscan church built
for the Franciscans, and traces them all back to the
French Gothic type of church originally evolved by the
Cistercians. It was the merit of the friars to have popu-
larized this type in Italy. Mr Berenson, on the other hand,
sees in the Franciscan churches merely that " perfed
effeft of space " after which every Italian architeft strove,
and notes incidentally that the Renaissance, even in

220

Franciscan Influences in Art

church building, marks no such break with the past as is
often supposed.*

Thus, in architecture, scarcely less than in painting and
in poetry, the Franciscan influence made itself felt, a crea-
tive impulse which preceded by two centuries that revival
of Greek learning, which, we used to be taught, dispelled
the darkness of the Middle Ages. If the value of the
Franciscan movement in the progress of European civili-
zation is once conceded, it is noteworthy how many de-
velopments it explains and problems it helps to solve.
Supplied with this key, we can trace the upgrowth of
poetry and the fine arts dire6l from the free religious life
that had its cradle in the Porziuncula chapel, and that,
allying itself with the remarkable technical gifts of the
Tuscan people, produced that marvellous wealth of
trecento and quattrocento produ6liveness which now draws
us to Italy far more potently than the creations
of later centuries. The triumph of the Renaissance
has been long and complete: to-day some of us turn
with a wistful yearning to the simpler, graver forms,
instinct with Christian feeling, bequeathed to us by the
centuries when the spirit of Francis of Assisi was still a
compelling power among men.

VIRGINIA M. CRAWFORD.

• See The Study and Criticism of Italian Art, pp. 65-6.

221

THE COURT AT BERLIN

in 1888*

FROM THE DIARY OF PRINCESS OUROUSSOFF.

Berlin, Sunday, 17-29 April, 1888.

THE other evening at the Koutouzoif's we were
saying how useful it is to write down everything one
hears that is going on around one. For we are living in
such an interesting epoch that everything relating to
this time will one day be of value. The main thing is
to be absolutely truthful and conscientious in such
memoranda and not to try for any style.

Count Koutouzoff told us how one day, shortly before
Emperor William Fs death, he presented to him a deputa-
tion of the Kalouga regiment. The old emperor was in
Russian uniform; while he was receiving the deputation
the soldiers of the guard passed, as usual, at noon, before his
window. The Emperor turned to Koutouzoff with the
words : " I must show myself to the people, because for
several years now they expect me at this hour and ab-
solutely insist upon seeing me." This " I must show
myself " was rather curious, and he added: " I like this
much better than the contrary."

Koutouzoff, standing at the side of the Emperor
William at the historic window, did not grasp what he
meant by his last words and looked at the Emperor
in astonishment. The Emperor explained : " In the year
'48 this same place was filled with a furious, menacing
crowd glaring at me with hatred; and now they will wait
for hours in order to cheer me with enthusiasm and do
not know how to express their love sufficiently."

What reverses there are in the histories of peoples!

How amazing it is, for instance, to think that this very
Friedberg whom the Emperor Frederick has just en-

* This interesting extract from the private diary of Princess Ouroussoff
has been placed at our disposal for publication by Mr Maurice Magnus,
with the consent of its author. [Editor, D.R.]

222

The Court at Berlin in 1888

nobled, giving him the title of " von " and the Black
Eagle, v^as one of those who during the days of the
Revolution in May, 1848, carried the socialistic flag and
was at the head of the set who insisted that the King
should bow before the victims of these terrible days
who were carried in triumph before the palace.
Count Doenhoff who told us this added in parenthesis
that this Herr Friedberg was really a man of great merit
and " in '48 everybody was Revolutionary."

While we were with the Countess Koutouzoff, Grand
Duke Vladimir passed through Berlin on his way from
Paris to St Petersburg. The gentlemen of the Embassy
went to see him. On their return they told us that the
Boulangistic movement had taken on immense pro-
portions and was paving the way for the monarchists.
I told the Military Agent that the admirable disciphne of
the German troops filled me with fear. He replied:
'' Nevertheless they have their weak points, you must not
forget that in the year '70 the French were only prepared
to fight with Prussia alone and unexpectedly found them-
selves faced with all Germany." This reminded me of
what my dear friend. Baroness Wolff (who at that time
lived in Stuttgart and did not believe in a united Germany)
used to say to the French Minister, of whom she saw a
great deal: "Their friendship only goes as far as the
' Bierkneipen ' — no further. They drink together, that
is all." Events have indeed proved her wrong.

I regretted very much I was unable to be present at
the funeral of the old Emperor, but I have heard it said
that it was very difficult to recognize the different princes.
The princes all wore Prussian uniform which rather
spoiled the spectacle.

Prince William walked alone behind the coffin with head
erect. He is not one of those whom sorrow humbles. His
8tep was as firm and military as if he were on parade. . . .
Many people criticized this haughty attitude, and yet
I have heard from three persons who were present at
the death of his grandfather that immediately after the
end he threw himself into an armchair and wept like a child.

223

The Court at Berlin in 1888

The Emperor William had asked that his body should
be decorated with the Russian Cross of St George which
he loved so much that he wished to carry it with him to
the grave.

Countess Shouwaloff, our ambassadress, showed the
delicate attention of placing upon his coffin a gigantic
Cross of St George in flowers. It is said that the funeral
procession of the princes was not at all impressive and
that the cortege followed Prince WiUiam in great dis-
order. This is very characteristic of stolid Germany,
always so rigorously correct and yet which, when the one
who knew so well how to keep it in step, so to speak, was
no longer there to guide, became troubled and confused.

The town with its black decorations and catafalques
was indeed a dismal sight.

The Princess AmeHa of Schleswig-Holstein (the aunt of
the Princess Imperial) stayed here for one day. We saw
a great deal of her, were with her up to the very hour of
her departure, and accompanied her to her railway
carriage.

She had been staying in Charlottenburg and said that
the Empress is wonderful. She is always strong and never
shows the least weakness. She never forgets the part which
she has set herself to carry out. Before her husband she
is ever courageous and brave. When she leaves him she
opens all the windows in order to breathe. She forbids
all tender emotions, anything that might weaken her,
all allusions to the state of the Emperor. It is very
difficult for the children, especially for the Crown Prince,
who has much heart and is demonstrative. Always to
speak of indifferent matters is very difficult, and it
seems to them very unnatural to avoid the subject with
which every one is preoccupied. This situation, which is
so abnormal and strained, unnerves the Crown Prince
to such a degree that when he is with his parents he
becomes paler and paler until, as his wife says, he turns
almost green. The Empress never leaves him alone with
his father.

This great difference of character between mother and

224

The Court at Berlin in 1888

son is bound to react upon their relations to each other.
Goltz (Count von der Goltz, aide de camp in chief of
Emperor William I) told us that when the Crown
Prince arrived at San Remo he was very coldly received
by his mother who did not even embrace him. Just now
the situation seems to be especially strained, for the
Countess Brockdorff (Grand Mistress to the Crown
Princess) who is very devoted to her Princess, could not
help crying the other day. But the Crown Princess
herself takes everything with the greatest tranquillity,
and if anyone expresses any surprise at this, she says
with the greatest simplicity: "William does not like
excitable women."

While we were visiting Princess Amelia, a servant of
the Court came to bring from the '' Frau Kronprinzessin"
a bottle of milk and a box of English biscuits for her aunt's
journey. The great simplicity of this Court again struck me.

The Crown Prince does not at all like the Princess
Amelia going regularly to Pau in the South of France.
He thinks it out of place for a German princess who is
so closely related to the reigning family.

He has the idea that everywhere in France the Germans
are detested and insulted, and the Princess Amelia said
sadly to us : " It is quite dreadful to hear William talk
in this manner; these good Bearnais do not dream of war
nor of hating anyone. One is so safe and quiet in their
mountains."

April 20.

" Where was Bismarck in '47?" I asked Goltz the other
day, " what was he doing then?"

" He was in the country," Goltz replied, " and only
came to town for a few days; he stayed with me and
the only luggage that he brought with him was a tooth-
brush. He was young and modest then. Nobody could
have foreseen what he was to become one day!"

Every one here is very indignant that the Polish

ladies in Posen talk in French. They say that no Qther

language but German should be used in speaking to a

German Empress. We let them talk and then retort

Vol. 153 225 15

The Court at Berlin in 1888

that they make a great ado because in our Baltic Provinces
the Government enforced the use of the Russian language !
Where then is their sense of justice? But it is useless to
look for that in this world. The v^hole affair of this trip
to Posen is much criticized; it would have been better to
begin with a visit to a German Province it is said, besides
the expenses of the reception were enormous. Above all,
wherever one goes the Empress Frederick is much
criticized. The wife of Professor Helmholtz, the wife of
Privy Councillor Leyden and another lady of the same
circle have got up a sort of complimentary address to
the Empress, full of eulogies, which all German ladies were
to sign. But none of the ladies of the aristocracy would
put their names to it. The document was sent away from
all the houses to which it was taken. There were hardly
six thousand ladies in all, mostly from the middle classes,
who were willing to sign it. Princess Radziwill-Sapieha
told me that she considered the whole thing a gross
impertinence, one does not give certificates to sovereigns !
If the possibility of a vote of praise be admitted, that of a
vote of blame is also implied and all that kind of thing
rests on a purely democratic basis.

Many other ladies refused to sign for other reasons.
They are so bitterly prejudiced against the Empress
Victoria that they will not even credit her with nursing
her husband well. They actually accuse her of tormenting
the Emperor Frederick in order to satisfy her ambition,
insisting on his showing himself to his people and forcing
him to drive out. Even the quiet of the Palace at Charlot-
tenburg, they say, is disturbed by English workmen and
English architects, making preparations for the arrival
of Queen Victoria, who is to occupy the apartments of
Queen Louise. These rooms, so full of memories which
have been sacredly venerated, are all changed now and
restored. This is looked uTpon almost as a sacrilege. Every-
thing is turned upside down, the bed of Queen Louise,
being very old, actually fell to pieces when it was moved.
The Berliners and all the people of the old regime are
furious about it all.

226

The Court at Berlin in 1888

April 23.

The engagement of the Prince of Battenberg is making
a great deal of talk; it is the struggle of one man against
two women: mother and daughter. For it is said that
Queen Victoria has washed her hands of the matter. I
remember last year in Potsdam how the present Crown
Prince, at that time Prince William, told me with his
sympathetic and charming frankness : " Prince Batten-
berg is an ipipossible individual. His politics are feminine
politics, founded on intrigues; it is unbelievable that this
little atom of a prince should have come near to embroil-
ing two great Powers like Russia and Germany in a
quarrel." I answered: " A microbe is only a little thing,
but it is big enough to poison a man much bigger than
itself." He laughed and replied: " Yes, and it took a great
surgeon like our Chancellor to rid Europe of the microbes
by which she was infected and make her well again."

Upheld by his future sovereign Bismarck might well
conquer again. We saw him leave the Palace at Charlot-
tenburg the day that this question was to be debated.
The people cheered him. He makes an immense impression;
he is such a veritable colossus physically that from the
first moment he imposes himself by sheer strength.
His stature is so powerful that it seems greater than
nature, almost like the giants of Michel Angelo.

While the Empress was at Posen, the Crown Prince rode
in the Tiergarten for an airing, and from there he went,
as if by chance, to the Palace at Charlottenburg, where he
stayed alone with his father for a long time. It is said
that the Emperor, who could not speak, wrote on a
piece of paper, which he handed to the Crown Prince,
the following words : " Learn from your father to suffer
without complaining." This is the sole message of this
reign; from a Christian standpoint, it is worth many
others.

April 24.
An individual, while out walking was taken for Mac-
kenzie (the English physician who was treating the

227 15^

The Court at Berlin in 1888

Emperor and who had been sent by Queen Victoria) by
the furious mob which threatened to tear him to pieces.
The police had to interfere in order to save the poor
man, who cried out : " I am not Mackenzie, and if I were
I would have killed myself before this."

Upon which the crowd let him go. Every day brings
new proofs of the unpopularity of the Empress. A
caricature of her together with Mackenzie was found
at Potsdam and underneath was written this cruel
inscription : " The murderers of the Emperor."

A story is told that a gentleman who was buying some
apples in the street, asked for only good ones, and the
woman who sold them replied : " Don't you worry, sir,
all the spoilt ones are put aside for the Crown Princess "
(this being during the lifetime of the old Emperor).
This story, and many others of the same kind, may be
inventions, but the fact that they are current and are
invented show the tendency of the people's feeling.

Every day for hours the people await their Emperor.
They realize that they will not have " unseren Fritz "
for very much longer. His terrible sufferings so heroically
borne call forth universal admiration and respect.

The sister of Mr van der Hoeven, the Baroness Schilling,
the other day was among the crowd which waited
before the Palace at Charlottenburg, when a lady had
the happy idea of making a collection in order to offer
the Emperor all the violets which could be bought in the
neighbourhood. This lady went to take them to the
Palace and was received by the Emperor himself. She
brought away as a precious souvenir the little piece of
paper on which the poor sufferer had expressed his
thanks.

Count Perponcher (the Marshal of the Court of the
Emperor) says that the Emperor now writes with extra-
ordinary rapidity, but so illegibly that it is only deciphered
with the greatest difhculty. In fact, sometimes, it is
impossible to do so. Often he is understood from the
movements of his lips. Prince Anton Radziwill, the other
day, was fortunate enough to grasp in this manner what

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The Court at Berlin in 1 888

he wanted, and the poor Emperor looked so pleased
at having been understood. How dreadful it must be
for him not to be able to speak.

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, the Emperor has
not the unlimited confidence in Mackenzie with which he
is credited. When Count von der Goltz said to him:
" Now that the weather is getting finer, the physicians
hope for an improvement," the Emperor shook his head
and signed that he did not believe that the physicians
knew so very much.

The appointment of General von Blumenthal to the
rank of Field-Marshal took place so soon after the
death of Emperor William that the new Emperor sent
him his own Field-Marshal's baton in order that he
might carry it at the funeral ceremonies. This seemed
like a lack of respect for the wishes of the deceased, and
a criticism of his actions; but the reason for it is very
touching.

Here is the story which throws a new light on the
incident. During the Austrian war, the Crown Prince
Frederick served under the orders of General Blumenthal
who had merited and was to have received the Field-
Marshal baton. But instead, it was given to the Crown
Prince. Now the moment that it was in his power he
made him this noble restitution. In a letter to his wife
in 1866 Blumenthal had criticized the Crown Prince and
complained of the difficulties provoked in the army by
his presence, and that, thanks to the Prince, he, the
General, could not do his duty properly. This letter
was intercepted by the enemy and was published in the
Austrian papers. After that the Emperor William could
not send him the baton which he had fully earned, so
left his son this opportunity of showing his greatness of
soul and generosity.

The Emperor is in a very critical condition. Pneumonia
due to a cold is feared. He has been very unwell for
several days and Doctor Bergmann suggested to the
Empress the necessity of issuing a bulletin.

The Empress was so annoyed about it that she tore up

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The Court at Berlin in 1 888

the bulletin written by the doctors and said : " I shall issue
a better bulletin by driving with the Emperor to town."
She then took a two hours' drive with him in a cold biting
wind.

The Emperor, stimulated by the enthusiasm of the
people who lined the way cheering him, sat straight up
without leaning back upon his cushions and smiled in
response to their greetings. Hardly however had he
left Charlottenburg than he sank back exhausted and
pale into his carriage as if a spring had broken in him.
That was the reason of the great difference in the im-
pression he made on those who saw him drive out of the
Palace at Charlottenburg, and on those who only saw him
in the neighbourhood of the castle at Berlin. This long
drive had fatigued the Emperor to such a degree that
Professor Leyden, usually very cautious, who had been
called to him, told us : " It was altogether too much, the
Emperor could not possibly stand such a long drive. But
the Empress always thinks that he needs to be encouraged,
and not to be allowed to give way to his illness. Some-
times she goes too far without taking into consideration
the weakness of the invalid."

The patience and serenity of the Emperor are splendid,
says Leyden. Not a moment of weakness; one is never sure
if he is hiding his uneasiness or if he is really not disquiet.
He is always affable and playful with his physicians and
never betrays the real state of his mind.

April 25.

We have just seen Queen Victoria driving in an open
carriage with the Empress. She bowed very sulkily.
The Empress, although she resembles her mother very
much, still has a winning expression and bows with a degree
of dignity and amiability.

The Berlin people, always greedy for spectacles of this
kind, came in large crowds to see and greet the two
sovereigns. But in order to get an idea of real popular
enthusiasm, one must have heard how differently the
Crown Prince, who passed a moment later, was received
and cheered.

330

The Court at Berlin in 1888

One must also see the latter in the morning when he
returns from the parade at the head of his regiment,
standing aside in order to let the troops file before him.
He usually stands at the corner of the Friedrichstrasse,
which has thus already become historic, almost like the
window of Emperor William I. Every morning you see
the crowds gathering there.

The Crown Prince has a serious expression of a man who
has a mission to fulfil, and to this look of destiny he adds
a most penetrating glance.

He is the embodiment of strength, youth and hope.
He is acclaimed every day anew as if he had just gained
a victory. Hats fly into the air, and from all balconies and
windows there is a waving of handkerchiefs. The crowds
cheer, they throw him flowers, and the air vibrates with
excitement and enthusiasm.

The fact that a dinner was given at this time of mourn-
ing for sixty persons in honour of Queen Victoria is
sharply criticized.

It seems, too, that the parade also held in her honour,
proved to be anything but briUiant from a military
standpoint. Both men and horses were new to the work
and had not been sufficiently trained. It is said that it was
impossible to really hold a parade before the first of May.
Until then the recruits are being drilled.

Taken all in all, it was a poor parade at a badly chosen
time.

April 27, 1888 (May 9, 1888).

We have been to the studio of the sculptor, Begas. It
was very interesting. The artist is very sympathetic;
he has a beautiful face, a real artist's face. We saw the
gigantic fountain which he is preparing for Berlin and
which will certainly be an ornament to the town.

On the subject of this really splendid fountain, a very
characteristic discussion took place with the Prince. The
latter wanted the fountain executed in granite and bronze.
Begas assured him in vain that this was impossible,^ but
the Prince would not give in. He allows no contradictions.
When Begas tried to prove to him the absolute impossi-

231

The Court at Berlin in 1888

bility of his idea, Crown Prince William said impatiently :
" How obstinate these artists are!"

He is a real autocrat in his utter inflexibility, and I
recall on this occasion his words of last winter when he
told me he thought that the Emperor of Russia was to be
envied for his power and that it is a fine thing to govern
without a Parliament, without impediments, without
being hindered on all sides, and in his young, energetic,
manly face glowed a will strong enough to impose itself at
all times and everywhere.

My sister made an observation with which Begas fully
agreed — that in the face of the Chancellor (Bismarck)
the whole force, the character is expressed in the develop-
ment of his forehead, the upper part of the face. Whereas
with the Crown Prince on the contrary, the character
is to be seen around the mouth and in the lines of the chin,
which is the salient point of his face, despite the penetra-
ting force of his glance.

The first thing that the new Empress busied herself
about on her return from San Remo was to arrange for
the dowry of her daughters; she went as far as she could.
Now the Princesses will have what no Princess of Prussia
has had up to the present time.

Last Sunday we went to the Russian opera. A fairly
sympathetic reception was accorded to the work, which is
really very beautiful. When the director of the company
appeared, the public cried: "There is Glinka," and yet
this same opera was written by GHnka at Berlin! The
success did not continue. The Germans are never able
to judge objectively, from a purely artistic standpoint;
their judgment is always influenced by their national
likes and dislikes. When some months ago Tschaikowsky
wanted to present his superb work to the Berlin people,
the symphony entitled " The Year 12," at the first note
of the Marseillaise a great number of people left the
hall ! If they could only forget their politics in the domain
of art !

May 6, (18) Friday.

We dined at the Leydens' with Mackenzie. He is a tall

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The Court at Berlin in 1888

thin man with the face of a Jesuit. He looks very worn out,
and he talks about the Emperor immediately, without
being asked, and of the general dislike which is shown to-
ward himself. One sees immediately that this subject
dominates all others in his mind and that he cannot banish
it from his thoughts. He is tactless, for it is a lack of taste
and education to criticize the Germans in a German
house. Nervous irritability characterizes all he says. After
dinner he talked with us for a long time. He told us that
the Germans are the least courteous people in the world,
that they had more prejudices than anybody else. German
physicians, he said, were not half as good as the English,
who have far surpassed them in every way. For instance,
they use surgical instruments which the English have
discarded for the last fifteen years, replacing them by
much better ones. They do not want to learn anything
from foreigners and will only admit their own inventions.
They have lagged behind in all scientific discoveries in
the domain of hygiene and comfort. They are devoured
by hatred and mistrust of everything that comes from
any other country.

" If the Empress did not uphold me I could not open
a window in Charlottenburg," he said to us.

One really hopes for the death of the Emperor! We
asked Mackenzie whether he could possibly last a few
more weeks. " Weeks!" he repeated, " if nothing special
happens, he will live another full year, and there is one
chance in a thousand that he might recover entirely."
He then reverted to the dislike shown by the Germans
for everything that is foreign. " Look at this Russian
opera," he said, and added " we English love the Russians
much more than they. They are convinced that they can
vanquish everything even with the French against them.
They are devoured by hatred for all other nations."

Saturday, May 7-19.
There was an evening party at the Shouwaloffs' with
Russian singers. The attitude of German society confirms
the words of Mackenzie. The voices of the singers were

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The Court at Berlin in 1888

immense, but they lacked scliooling, and the absence
of sufficient knowledge to direct and control their strength
called forth very malicious remarks. We heard some one
say: "This would be a good way of getting rid of the
Bulgarian Prince — one would only have to send the
Russian singers to him and he would fly before them, for
they do not sing, they bellow. It is a deafening row."
There was a certain amount of truth in these criticisms.
It is a great pity that these pioneers of an art which is
so little known here should not have been equal in quality
to the music of which they are the exponents.

Sunday, May 8-20.

When we were about to make an after-dinner visit
at Madame Leyden's we saw a Court carriage approach
the porch a little in front of ours, and oddly enough the
coachman, who was in Court livery, turned round to us as
if to answer an inquiry we never should have thought
making, and told us he had brought " Mackenzie."
Sure enough there he really was in Madame Leyden's
reception room. After the usual preliminary greetings
he began again to speak of the Emperor : " I am accused
now " he said, " of exhibiting a wax doll to the public
in place of the Emperor."

" How is the Emperor?" I asked him.

" Oh, well enough," said he, " if he were less awkward
he would be able to speak quite nicely, but he does not
yet know how to find the opening of the tube although
he has carried it now for several months. I have never
seen anyone so awkward."

It is evident that he is very unsympathetic in speaking
of his august patient. He complains of the difficulty of
making the Emperor eat. He has only eaten to live and
has no favourite dishes by which his appetite could be
tempted.

May 24.

To-day is the wedding day of Prince Henry of Prussia,
brother of Crown Prince (in 1888 he married Princess
Irene, of Hessia). The weather was magnificent. We saw

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The Court at Berlin in 1888

all the princes on the way to church, the bridegroom at
the side of his brother. The Emperor looked so very ill and
it was so painful to see how changed he is, breathing with
such difficulty that everybody was touched; many wept,
especially our Grand Duchess Sergius and the Princess
of Meiningen (Hereditary Princess of Meiningen, elder
sister of the Crown Prince). The Emperor stood upright
and at one part of the ceremony he signed to the young
pair to kneel down. They say that it was most touching
to see the Emperor bless his children.

It seems that Prince Henry is very much in the good
gi:aces of the Queen of England because at the death of
the celebrated John Brown he said very naturally and
without the least malice : " Poor Grandmamma ! How
sad for her to lose such a faithful servant." This touched
the heart of the old Queen and since then she has adored
the young prince. I tell this little anecdote as it was told
to me, without believing it.

May 14-26.

Yesterday we passed the evening at the Crown Prince's.
It was very interesting. We were invited for half-past
eight. Countess Brockdorif, Mistress of the Court of the
Princess, Fraulein von Gersdorff, Lady of Honour to the
Princess and the Aide-de-camp on duty, Herr von
Pfuel, were in the salon when we arrived. A moment
later, the Princess entered with her husband. Their
reception was most cordial and amiable. There is some-
thing so good and manly and candid in the manner of the
Crown Prince that one is drawn towards him from the
first. He is very natural and at once one feels at ease with
him, all sense of stiffness and constraint is immediately
banished. When he looks at you with his clear, profoundly
penetrating eyes, you feel the greatest confidence^ in
him and that it is useless to try to hide anything from him.

With the exception of ourselves there was only General
von Werder and a very sympathetic personality, a Herr
von Billow. I sat between the Crown Prince and this- Herr
von Biilow. The Prince asked the Princess that we should
pass into the other salon and be seated there because Herr

235

The Court at Berlin in 1 888

von Werder suffered from rheumatism and could not
stand for very long. Accordingly we went into the other
room at the side, which was very large and sumptuous.
It was a mauve salon elegantly furnished. We took our
places at a round tea-table decorated with superb
Potsdam roses. We talked about Carl Schurtz and America
— also of the ovations that the Prince received every
morning. The Prince said jokingly: " Some of the news-
papers say that I pay the public to cheer me like
that."

" That must be very expensive for your Imperial
Highness," I replied, " for the crowd of enthusiasts is
very large."

Whereupon the Crown Princess expressed her fears
lest the Prince's horse should take fright because of all the
flowers that are thrown to him. " It is to be hoped that by
this time the horse is well trained not to be afraid of
such ovations," I said to her.

The Crown Prince looks much younger than he is. One
is tempted to make him laugh if for nothing else but to
see his face light up and lose for a moment the serious
expression which the present circumstances have stamped
on his features. The Prince asked me where we were
going to spend the summer. I replied : " In Livland on
our estate."

" Are you much bothered there?" he asked me.

According to Court etiquette I probably should have
said : " Yes," and I fear that the conversation which
followed has compromised me for the rest of my
life.

" No," I had the audacity to answer, " it is compulsory
that the Russian language should be learnt and the
barons make a terrible row about it and pose as martyrs,
but since I have been in Trient and have observed the
situation created by the German officials and officers
there, in consequence of the weakness of the Austrian
Government, I have realized the necessity of Russi-
fication. If you want to insult anybody at ArcOj all you
have to do is to call him a ' Tedesco.' "

236

The Court at Berlin in 1 888

The Crown Prince immediately grasped the idea that
there might be reasons of State which demand certain
measures and even severe measures.

" You are right," he said, " no Government could
tolerate such a state of affairs."

Then the Crown Prince questioned me about the
measures which had been taken to introduce the Russian
language. After quietly listening to me, he said : " Oh, is
that the situation? Matters have always been presented
to me quite differently. It is difHcult, of course, to judge
things at such a distance without prejudice." He was
very moderate; very tolerant, very sincere.

" And how is it with regard to religion?"

I explained to him as well as I could that in this nothing
had been changed.

" And about marriages?"

" The old law remains," I said, " only an end has been
made of the exceptions which from a legal point of
view were not judicially regular and from which no good
has come."

The Crown Princess listened to us the whole time most
attentively. I must confess that this worried me. To
begin with, it is difficult to carry on a conversation in
a language which one does not speak very well with a third
person listening: we were speaking in German, and while
the Crown Prince was serious and had a calm, pleasant
air, the Crown Princess was all passion. Nothing hinders
sane judgment as much as passion. The Crown Princess
did not judge matters as did the Crown Prince, with his
statesmanlike reason, in an objective manner, but with her
heart, with her strong Lutheran sentiment.

The Crown Princess spoke of religious persecutions.

" How can this be?" she said. " A lady whom I know
very well told me personally that she had been forced
to christen her child in the Greek church, although she
had married before the publication of the new laws.
Therefore, she really had the right to have the child
christened according to her own religion." The Princess

^37

The Court at Berlin in 1 888

spoke with rancour, with fanaticism, trembUng with
emotion.

** Pardon me, madam," I replied, " this lady has erred
from the truth. We have no law which has a retrospective
force; the children of mixed marriages contracted before
the publication of this law can be brought up in the
Lutheran faith, although it is no longer allowed where
the marriage has taken place since the promulgation of
the law. However, I regret this law very much, since it
seems to arouse so much anger."

" But how can that be the case — the lady I speak of
told me this herself?"

" Madam, there is no pose more interesting nor
easier than that of a martyr. Many people exaggerate in
order to make themselves more interesting."

" Yes, but I have seen pastors who came here and were
sent back within twenty-four hours because they were
Lutheran ministers."

" No, madam, not one was sent back for that reason,
but because they had acted against the law. We Russians
are much too lenient to be oppressors."

" Yes," said Werder, for the conversation which had
been begun by the Prince with myself, had become
general; " but where hatred against the Germans com-
mences, all leniency ceases." Was this the same Werder
who was spoiled, flattered, yes, even adored in Petersburg,
taking part against me ! How much I could and should have
said keeps coming into my mind now, but at the time
I was paralyzed by the difficulty of defending myself in a
foreign language.

The Prince tried to turn off the conversation into a
joke — with much tact, I must say. Werder accused the
Ministers Tolstoi, Pobedonostzeff, Mansseine, of being
German haters.

" I am quite ready," I said, " to admit you may be
right in some things, but for heaven's sake do not say
that we oppress religion."

The Countess Brockdorff was beside herself. " I really

238

The Court at Berlin in 1888

cannot eat," she said; " I am a descendant of a Huguenot
family, so that I understand quite well what our poor
co-religionists have to endure. They are the Huguenots
of the North. Thank heaven we are not living any more
in the time of the St Bartholomew night ! You certainly
made war in ^"j"] for your co-religionists, and now you
expect us to see ours oppressed and tormented 1" It was
very painful and I was glad to close a conversation which,
while little courteous to us, was certainly amusing for
no one. I came out quite vexed. In addition to the
wounds which had been inflicted upon my national
feelings, I felt sure that I had not been understood and
was a sort of a weather-cock in the eyes of the Crown
Princess, who, deeply honest and intransigeant herself, can-
not understand any sort of compromise. She seems to be
firmly caught in a net of all kinds of Germanic prejudices
into which also are imprisoned Countess Brockdorff,
the Court preacher Stoerker, and the Evangelical
Missionaries. Her influence on the Crown Prince will be
like that of a drop of water that persistently falls on the
same place so that finally even the stone is worn away.

Primkenau (the Castle of Duke Ernst
Guenther of Schleswig-Holstein,
brother of the Crown Princess).

We spent five days at Primkenau; it was simply
charming. The country is pretty, the Duke most amiable.
We took delightful walks and had most interesting
conversations on the history of Schleswig-Holstein, the
marriages of the Princess Victoria and the Princess Kalma,
on family relations and the Castle's ghosts. Besides the
young Misses Cerrini and the other neighbours on the
estates, we made the acquaintance of a Herr von Marschall
of the Guard du Corps, beligerent and anti-Russian. He
spoke of the war with much assurance. How in three
months they would finish with France, then would aid
the Austrians to finish with us and how they would 'then

239

The Court at Berlin in 1888

occupy the Baltic Provinces, in the meantime ruining
us entirely. All this is to be done at lightning speed.

The castle is most picturesque, but not large. We lived
in an annex which has been built for the reception of
guests. Dinner was very early at Primkenau, but in spite
of that one had to appear in evening dress. A change four
times a day was inevitable. The meals were almost too
ceremonious, in fact they bordered on stiffness. One
morning we visited the small church at Primkenau in
which the Princesses were brought up in great piety, so
much so that the Princess Kalma refused to marry a
charming Prince lest she should have children who would
not be purely Protestants. When the Princesses went to
France for the first time, their guardian. Prince Christian
of Schleswig-Holstein, made them promise never to enter
a Catholic church, even for a moment. I remember very
well how Princess Louise on one occasion, while we were
making an excursion in the neighbourhood of Pau, insisted
on waiting outside the church while we visited it. She
was not to be persuaded to enter. " If you do not visit any
churches in Italy," we said to her, " you will be deprived
of the pleasure of seeing the finest monuments of art, the
statues of Michel Angelo and the most beautiful paint-
ings." But she remained inflexible, and only replied that
her uncle had forbidden her to do so.

The grandmother of Duke Ernst Guenther was not of
royal blood; she was a Countess Danebrook, I believe.
In that way they are related to Count Stolck Winterfeld,
whom we met at Pau.

Marienbad, June, 1888.

The Emperor Frederick is dead! We telegraphed to
the Countess Brockdorff and have received a most kind
telegram in reply. We could not venture to address the
young Emperor directly, as we did a year ago, when,
on the 22nd of March, the occasion of the birthday of the
old Emperor, his grandfather, I sent him the following
telegram :

" We beg your Royal Highness to accept the sincere

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The Court at Berlin in 1888

congratulations of the Russians staying at Arco, and to
place them at the feet of His Majesty the Emperor."

To which I received this following answer : " I am
directed by my grandfather to thank you sincerely for the
good wishes which you have expressed on the part of your
compatriots, and beg you to express his thanks to them.
He is well. A thousand greetings from me.

" William, Prince of Prussia."

We devour the newspapers. The proclamation is superb
and the speech also. May God aid the young Emperor
and spare us a war.

Vol. 153 241 i^

THE LIGHTING OF
CHURCHES

Repelle tu caliginem
Intrinsecus quam maxime,
Ut in beato gaudeat
Se coUocari lumine.

— Hymn for Matins, Fer. V,

THERE is an ancient anthem which is occasionally-
sung by Cistercian monks after Benedidion : " Mane
nobiscum Domine, quoniam advesperascit, ut per Te,
nostrum Viaticum, perducamur ad diem claritatis
seternse." A sunset look, with a sense of the divine pre-
sence, the harbinger of the sunrise glory of the eternal
day — these ideas seem to me to afford the keynote, the
poetry, the inspiration, which should guide those who
would rightly design and carry out the illumination of
churches. The lighting of churches is twofold : that by day,
which is natural, and that by night, which is artificial. Of
the liturgical or ceremonial lights, as such, I do not pro-
pose to treat, except incidentally. So often, however, is
the day in London as dark as night, that the normal con-
ditions of nature have to be overlooked, for day and night
are almost one. But this is no reason for intensifying the
evil, as so many architefts have done.

It was in contemplating the appalling darkness of our
cathedral in Westminster, early morning, midday and
afternoon, during nearly one-half of the year, that I was
led to consider and examine the true principles of lighting
churches, in the hope of arriving at some acceptable and
praftical conclusions. Whether I have in any sense suc-
ceeded my readers must judge. To criticize, without sug-
gesting a remedy, is a very unprofitable and often a very
provoking proceeding. To become conscious of the justice
of a criticism, and yet to refuse the remedy, is equally
unprofitable, not to say still more provoking. Neverthe-
less, it is easy to err, for some love darkness and some love

242

The Lighting of Churches

light, and some cannot even agree as to which is which,
for light has this marvellous property, that it blinds you
when it stares you in the face, and most beautifully and
bountifully illuminates, when the source from whence it
proceeds is concealed.

Now the lighting of Westminster Cathedral, which is of
necessity the most interesting church in the country for
Catholics, leaves, I venture to say, much to be desired.
The principal cause of its shortcomings is that it exag-
gerates and emphasizes the evils of the normal London
atmosphere. The centre of the building, the crossing
between the san6luary and nave, at the junction of the
quasi-transepts (for they are not real transepts but rather
lateral chapels), which according to true and traditional
design should be the most lightsome, is the darkest and
gloomiest portion of the cathedral, so that the great Rood
is adlually invisible during several months of the year,
except for occasional and exceptional bursts of sunlight.
On the other hand the apse behind the high altar,
which should be comparatively darksome, is always the
lightest part of the church, sometimes so bright that it
makes the high altar invisible, and this, curiously enough,
just when there is the greatest amount of daylight out-
side. It is sometimes even too bright for the singers, and a
dark blue blind is drawn down to soften the light. Al-
though the downdrawn blind improves the general
appearance of the church, and enables one to see the
high altar again and the ministers thereat, a blind never
looks well in a church. It is too domestic, and suggests
stained glass which is not there, but ought to be. I believe
the real reason why Cardinal Vaughan's great Rood is so
little appreciated and admired is that it is never properly
lighted, the greater light being behind instead of in
front. I am judging from the congregation's point of
view. No doubt if you go into the apse, where stand the
organ and choristers, and look up at the mighty Rood,
the effeft is very fine and solemn, I might almost say awe-
inspiring. To reverse, therefore, the " light conditions " of
the nave and sanftuary would more than double the

243 i6<i

The Lighting of Churches

beauty and solemnity of the cathedral; in fa6l, it would
carry out Bentley's idea, for in none of his drawings has
he pi£lured an invisible Rood, and an impalpable nave!
How indeed could he, unless he had made artistic as
opposed to architedlural drawings ?

The mosaic pidhires also of the side chapels are
generally almost invisible, and never really effedlive, for
want of proper light, more especially those on the north
side of the church. Here the mediaeval aphorism comes in
appropriate : " De non apparentibus et de non existentibus
eadem est ratio." The mosaics might almost as well not be
thereat all.

^ In the elaborate Gothic church in Farm Street a similar
fault must be found. The clerestory, which ought to be
the most lightsome part of the church, is the darkest, and
the aisle chapels, which ought to be comparatively dark,
are the most lightsome, because they have no stained
glass at all, while the clerestory windows are filled with
coloured and somewhat opaque glass. At St George's,
Southwark, the aisles look handsome, being sufficiently
lighted, notwithstanding their stained windows ; but the
central nave,having no clerestory, is depressing and gloomy
in the extreme. I have seen this church pitch dark at noon
on a winter's day. The Carmelite church in Kensington
would be well lighted if all the clerestory windows had not
been filled with hot red glass. The result in all these
churches, which I have mentioned as typical exemplars,
is not the " dim religious light " dreamt by the poet, but
rather the melancholy, murky gloom suggestive of Dante's
antechamber of Hades. Occasionally when the sun shines
out bright — and this is rare in London except in August
when every one is out of town — then for a brief space
there is a refreshing and lightsome glow about them.
When there is no light outside how can the interior
be dim or reHgious? It is darkness pure and simpl-e,
which is nothing.

I once heard a very Roman Archbishop complain:
" You Goths build churches with high walls and flying
buttresses and clustered columns to destroy what you can

244

The Lighting of Churches

of daylight. Then you put in long narrow windows to
let a little light in. Then you fill these windows with
carved traceries and stained-glass pidures to keep the
light out again. Then you multiply your lighted candles,
or gas or electric burners to overcome this darkness,
and last of all there is the bill to pay! " This is often
done, it is true, but the folly may be committed in any
style. Gothic architedlure is, after all, the most lightsome
of all styles, for its fault, if it has a fault, is that its very
walls may be, if the architeft is so minded, all traceried
windows. Witness the countless windows of Cologne
Cathedral, windows all round and about; or take York
Minster, great perpendicular windows reaching from the
vaulted roof to within 20 feet of the ground, at the east
and west ends, north and south double transepts; or
Gloucester Abbey or Bath; or Norfolk churches in-
numerable.

In the early ages churches had to be built like fortresses,
and glass was almost impossible to obtain, hence the small
apertures to keep out robbers and the cold. But in later
and more civilized days walls of windows took the place
of solid brick or stone ; the art of painting stained glass was
brought to perfeftion, which in a clean and bright atmo-
sphere produces the dim religious light, which was all glow
and colour — anything but murky darkness.

The conclusion, then, to be drawn from these and
similar considerations, is that in England, and more espe-
cially in our smoky and fog-laden towns, churches^ cannot
be too well windowed, especially if the light comes from
above and behind. I would give as an example of what
ought to be, and can be, the Oratory, Brompton. It is
without a doubt the best lighted church in London,
except perhaps St Paul's; but Wren's glorious master-
piece has of late years been very much darkened by heavy,
opaque stained glass of Byzantine type. I do not com-
plain of the east end, or of the west end, or even of the
north and south transept windows. The effed is de-
lightful, for no church should have east end windows at
all except for stained glass display. But surely the clere-

245

The Lighting of Churches

stories of the choir should never have been glazed in
colour, for the result is to make the magnificent new
mosaics pra6lically invisible during half the year. These
windov^s should have been placed by preference in the
nave aisles, v^hich have a flood of light v^here it is not
particularly wanted. The clear translucent glass of the
dome ensures, however, a stream of light from above,
and so the due proportion and distribution of light and
shade is on the whole preserved, the maximum of light
being at the centre, with all the diverging vistas toning off
into twilight as they recede from the gaze of the spec-
tator.

This cardinal feature of successful design is above all
things resplendent in St Peter's gigantic dome in Rome.
It is the one part of Michael Angelo's noble design which
is universally admired and appreciated, in which
he is acknowledged to have excelled in beauty
the great domes of Florence, Venice and Constantinople.
But unfortunately it is, as I have already pointed out,
completely absent from Bentley's design at Westminster.
The simplest way to remedy the defe6l would be to cut
out a large lunette from the top of the central dome next
to the san6luary, like the great hole in the roof of the
Pantheon at Rome — the first great effort in dome archi-
tecture. There the aperture, or eye, which has always
been open to the sky, is twenty-eight feet across, whereas
the dome itself is one hundred and twenty feet in
diameter. In the same proportion the opening at West-
minster should have a diameter of not less than fourteen
feet, and by reason of fog and rain, and dirt and dust, it
could not be left open, as in Rome, but would require
glazing with a great single concave sheet of glass, unless it
were thought advisable to break up and divide the aper-
ture into latticed segments, similar to those in the upper
windows, right and left of the sanduary. Around, on the
side of the dome, might be written in letters of gold upon
an azure ground, this legend in sparkling mosaic, " Dixit
que Deus : Fiat lux, et fa6la est lux." Eventually, if this
arrangement proved disappointing, a dome somewhat

246

The Lighting of Churches

loftier than that over the san6tuary, and as stri6tiy
Byzantine in chara6ler, might be ereded, but the
windows would have to be doubled in number, halving
the intermediate spaces, as in St Sophia's.

These considerations are, no doubt, chiefly aesthetic,
and might perhaps be ignored if they did not also happen
to be pradtical and economical. I am sure Mr Bentley,
if he were alive, would not like to have to pay the bill for
lighting up his cathedral for daily Office, High Mass, and
Benedidion, which must run into something like four
figures before the year is out. The narthex is always dark,
and this could be remedied at once by inserting a vnndow
in the south wall on the right-hand side, similar to the
very handsome window which is already found in the west
wall of the Baptistery, and also by inserting another
semi-circular window over the north door on the left-hand
side of the narthex, thus producing a double stream of
light right through. How often do archite6ls forget that
light only travels in straight lines, and does not run
round corners at right angles to the windows, as water
would do if once admitted.

I have referred to the excess of light behind the high
altar, and the lack of it in front. Now the quasi-east
windows (which really look south) stare you in the face
from under the arch of the great baldachino and blind
your eyesight on a really sunny day. The two central ones
might be closed, and I believe it has been seriously contem-
plated; but then the choir would be in semi-darkness.
Or they might be filled with rich stained-glass as it has
been done with the east end windows of St Paul's. This
would be a decided improvement; but again the choir
would lose some much-needed light. There remains the
plan which commends itself most to me of adding an
apse immediately at the back of the baldachino similar
to the apses which already flank it on either side, appa-
rently serving the purpose of buttresses. This third apse
should be open, with the four beautiful marble columns
now standing in St George's Chapel, to support the
plinth and cornice; the upper part, that is the conch or

247

The Lighting of Churches

semi-dome, being solid, closed and decorated with
mosaic and mother-of-pearl. The whole baldachino might
with great advantage be surmounted with a dome of
mother-of-pearl, and each of the side apses also with
similar semi-domes. This would give that dignity which
is now wanting, owing to there being no sufficient
superincumbent mass above the arch and pillars, and
would look thoroughly eastern.

Before leaving the subje6l of the ideal lighting of
churches — i.e. from above and at their centre — I would
recall to mind that it is this feature which predominates in
most of the great Byzantine and Romanesque churches
of the Continent, as well as in our Norman and Early-
English Cathedrals and Abbeys. Witness the celebrated
lanterns at Burgos, Ely, Toulouse, Old St Paul's, and the
original designs for Milan and Cologne. Later on, the
central tower or lantern was very generally abandoned in
Gothic churches, because of the danger of the subsidence
of the foundations caused by the enormous weight of
stone which this construftion required in order to make
it completely effedlive. Indeed, the reason St Maclou at
Rouen is so much more beautiful than either of the other
larger and more marvellous churches of that city, the
Cathedral and St Ouen, is without a doubt because
of its pierced central tower, and the slanting rays which
descend from its high traceried clerestory windows. It will
be remembered that to make up for the want of overhead
light falling from a central dome or tower the clerestory
windows were in later Gothic times very generally
enlarged; and in England more than half the parish
churches were stripped of their old pointed timber
roofs in order to add wide perpendicular clerestory
windows, and the roofs, thus raised, were flattened so as
not altogether to obliterate the dwarfed towers. This
treatment could be applied to St George's, Southwark;
or, next best, a number of dormer windows might be cut
into the central roof of the nave, as many on either side
as there are arches beneath.

In concluding this portion of the subjedl I will only add

248

The Lighting of Churches

that it is impossible to carry out the ideals of sound
ecclesiological tradition, if due orientation is not observed.
The orientation of churches, with their reredos windows
towards the east, to catch the glory of the morning sun,
and their principal entrance to the south, so that their
porches may be warmed and dried all the year round, is
based on the laws of Nature, no less than in the symbolism
of Grace. Whoso departs therefrom enlarges not the
bounds of freedom, but wanders like a dissenter into the
wilds of Nonconformity. Let us, therefore (to paraphrase
the words of a great and devout v^iter), eschew the twin
evils of modernism and foreignism, and cultivate in
architedlure a healthy sentiment of patriotism and anti-
quarianism. Why should we cease to be English, French
or German because we are Catholic? or less Greek, Latin,
or Goth because we are reasonable, and give the first place
to the requirements of health and comfort, knowing full
well that true Art is a humble and accommodating
maiden, not a haughty, domineering virago? It is impos-
sible to disperse the fogs and darkness of the great indus-
trial cities of England. We must, therefore, take the
circumstances as we find them, and not being able to
abolish, circumvent them.

I now come to the second part of my theme, the light-
ing of churches by night, or, for the sake of our smoky,
fog-ridden towns, by day-darkness.

There was a time, even in my own lifetime, when this
problem was simple, and the result always beautiful,
because there was no other light in dark churches than
that shed by single or clustered candles. We still speak of
candle-power as the measure of artificial light, but the
soft, soothing effed of that light is lost in the multiplying
power generated by gas and eledlricity. The age of gas is,
we may hope, passing away; the age of eledbricity has come
to stay; but the adaptation of both is much the same. In
Catholic churches the problem is more complicated than
in Protestant churches, because of our symbolical lights
upon the altar, because of our lamps suspended in honour
of the Blessed Sacrament, around the tombs of saints,

249

The Lighting of Churches

and in front of relics and holy images, pidlorial or statuary.
We not only require light to read by and to follow the
services intelligently, but we also wish to maintain the
serenity and symbolism attached to the requirements of
the sacred liturgy. From this mystic need I deduce the
fundamental principle that the lighting of the sandhiary
should be such that the symbolical lights should not
appear to be dimmed, or their significance diminished.
Now these lights are, stri6tiy speaking, all regulated as to
number and position by the rubrics, and the illumination
of altars by gas-jets or eleftric sparks, such as may be
seen here and there, especially in America and Canada,
is undoubtedly an abuse. A light shining in a dark place is
a symbol of Faith. Multiply lights excessively, and you
obtain a bonfire, which in England is rather symbolical
of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot than of the
visions of Ezechiel and the Apocalypse. Innumerable
jets of gas or countless clusters of eledtric lights, staring
one out of countenance, seem more appropriate to the
ball-room, or concert hall, than to the mysteries enafted
in a Catholic sanftuary.

The lights which illuminate the san6luary, therefore,
in so far as they are not stri6lly liturgical, should be as
much as possible out of sight or altogether invisible. Light
should be there in bright and joyful abundance, but
whence it comes and whither it goes should not appear.
" Mane nobiscum Domine quoniam advesperascit " is the
keynote. We wish for the long solemn shadows cast by the
setting sun. This effedl may be achieved in many ways. It
has been brought to marvellous perfedHon in many a
country house and pifture gallery, and in many a town
mansion, where the eleftrified wires appear not, nor their
burners : nothing but the resultant light.

No invention of modern times has done so much to
diminish the beauty and devotion of Catholic worship as
the invention of gas and eledbricity, nor so little to damage
the dignity and reverence of Protestant worship ; and the
reason is that Protestants only require light for pradical
purposes, whereas Catholics use light for symbolical and

250

The Lighting of Churches

worshipping purposes, and too often the lights which are
useful annul the lights which are mystical and ornamental.
Perhaps the best (or the worst, according as we view it)
example of this detriment to the sandluary is in the old
pro-Cathedral at Kensington, now Our Lady of Vidories.
I know of no church where the candles are better arranged
for Benediftion: the six tall candles on the chief
candlesticks, four more intervening a little below, and
then two seven-branched candlesticks. Not too many,
and sufficient space between each to set forth the symbol
of Faith, '' a light shining in a dark place." But just as
Benediftion is about to begin horrible gasflarers are turned
on inside and on standards in front of the sandluary. The
liturgical lights are reduced to insignificance, and the
garish glare of the street takes their place. " Fortis ut
mors diledlio, dura sicut infernus oemulatio: lampades
ejus lampades ignis atque flammarum." The one light
is soft and beautiful like love which is heavenly, the other
like love which is jealousy, hard as hell.

In churches which have a Rood-screen, or even a Rood-
beam only, the concealment of the source of gas or ele6b:ic
light can be most eifedlively arranged by placing a row of
ele&ic lights along the inside of the beam, as I have seen
it done in several Anglican churches. The light, thus
hidden, glows soft and radiant. The altar is bathed in
glory. The source of light is invisible. In churches which
have no Rood-beam there is, generally speaking, a chancel
arch, and this, if it stands out a little from the flat
surface of the walls could be utilized instead.

This brings me back to Westminster Cathedral. A
column of lights on either side and within the projedlion
of the chancel piers would throw a magnificent light
upon the marble columns of the baldachino, and the
frontal, Cross, and candlesticks of the high altar; nor
would it reduce to insignificance the lights which burn
upon the six great candlesticks. Moreover, from an archi-
tedural point of view there is not sufficient room for the
six clusters of lights which at present hang from the
gilded rods, sticking out upon the marble arcades which

251

The Lighting of Churches

screen the recessed walls of the north and south choir
galleries. Who is it that fishes over the chapter's heads
with ele6lric bait? Not Saint Peter, I trow. Last All
Souls' day the service was beautifully appointed. The
day was by no means gloomy, and at the appointed time
the tapers were lighted and duly distributed among the
clergy. For a moment the solemnity of the scene was most
striking, and in complete harmony with the plaintive
chant of the solemn commemoration. Then suddenly the
dangling lights were switched on, the air of Requiem
departed, and the spirit of Bond Street seemed to take
possession. I hope I am not incorrigibly perverse, but my
thoughts were turned to jewellers' shops and motor-cars
speeding to destruftion, when they should have been
devoted to the poor souls in Purgatory, to be refreshed
by the prayers of Holy Church.

The pendants in the cathedral nave are decidedly
happy and appropriate because they appear to hang
straight down from the vaulted domes. In reality they
hang from brackets; but these brackets, not being gilded,
and being raised high above the clerestory windows, are
scarcely visible. Moreover, they hang well away from the
arched recesses on either side, and do not look cramped
or crowded. On the contrary, they furnish as with
pendant pearls the empty vastness of the nave, and seem
to afford some respe6lful sense of companionship to the
otherwise solitary, awe-inspiring Rood.

The lighting of the side-chapels, especially the Lady
Chapel and the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, both by
daylight and eleftric, is most unsatisfactory, yet a trifling
change would make it very effedlive. The little east win-
dows in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament should
undoubtedly be both blocked up, unless they have
stained glass of the richest and deepest colour put into
them. The Lady Chapel was designed by Bentley for the
Sacrament Chapel, and of course he left out any east
windows. The north chapel, therefore, requires this
alteration, and both chapels would be immensely

252

The Lighting of Churches

improved by having lunettes, two in each, inserted in the
roofs. They should have drums to raise them some two
or three feet above the vaults, and then they would be
invisible, and having a single saucer of glass to cover them
would admit the maximum of daylight, as may be proved
by observing the effeft in some of the side chapels at the
Oratory, or in the side chambers of the Tate Museum.
As for the ele6lric pendants of these chapels, they are
pretty enough and quite Byzantine so long as they are not
lighted. But dire6tiy the light is switched on they hide
everything about the altars — candlesticks, mosaics, marbles
and all, and reduce the symbolic lights to insignificance.
Nothing however would be easier than to conceal these
devotion-destroying lights by placing them behind the
mosaic pendants, instead of below and above; and if it is
thought desirable to have some pendant lights to show
that are seen of the people, and at the same time not to
kill outright the altar candles, the burners should be so
arranged as not to give much more than a two or three
candle-power, so that they would supplement without
supplanting the symbolic lights.

On looking over what I have written, I feel that it
almost seems as if I were too ready to criticize Westminster
Cathedral; but this is not really so, for no one I think more
sincerely appreciates our Constantinopolitan Cathedral
than I do, nor values higher its capability of being made
a monumental example of Catholic architecture in its
sanftity, solemnity and sublimity. It is in a style which is
neither English, nor Roman, nor Greek, but has some-
thing in it of that cosmopolitanism which is akin to true
Catholicism, and which to-day is growing in popularity
with the educated classes of all nations. And if I have
taken it as at present furnishing an example of much
which should be avoided in the lighting of churches, it is
only because I believe that with a slight turn, so to speak,
of the cathedral kaleidoscope, it might be made one of
the most perfe6l san6luaries in Christendom. Its ^ daily
round of worship, both in music and mise en scene, is

. 253

The Lighting of Churches

second to none, and if the defers of the lighting were set
right on principles at once common to utility and beauty,
Westminster Cathedral would be an example of reverent
worship in stately surroundings worthy to be copied by
those who live at home, or come to us from the dominions
beyond the seas. It would fulfil in its architectural way
the prayer of the Thursday Hymn, " Do Thou repel the
darkness which blinds us all within, that one day, filled
with light, we may rejoice in Heaven."

EDWIN DE LISLE.

Note. — The Editor has printed Mr de Lisle's remarks on an interest-
ing subject, although personally he dissents widely from some of the
criticisms on the lighting of Westminster Cathedral which the article
contains. — Editor D.R.

254

IF HOME RULE IS
DEFEATED*

FEW critics of the present Home Rule Bill, whether
favourable or unfavourable, have had the strength of
mind to refrain from prophecies of the future of Ireland
under Home Rule. From the Unionist camp have
come prognostications of intolerance and persecution,
whether by means of discriminatory legislation or a
biased executive, of a complete shattering of credit in
the industrial North and of that general exodus of the
upper classes which was predicted after the legislation of
1869 and of 1 88 1, but has been unaccountably postponed.
On the other side. Liberal and Nationalist speakers
and writers have been equally prodigal of speculations
on a future in which the general couleur de rose is to be
formed from orange and green blended in due proportions
into an eternal harmony.

I do not intend here to discuss the possible effects
of establishing a subordinate Parliament in Dublin. The
most that can be said is that they could scarcely prove
either so good or so bad as they have been painted. A
subject better worth discussion is the possible course
which events will take if the present Bill is defeated and
Nationalist Ireland in consequence loses all hope of
obtaining a measure of self-government within the
next few years. Unionists, both Irish and English, have
discreetly avoided all mention of the hypothesis, because
it is their professed belief that the Home Rule movement
is an artificial one, engineered by agitators, lay and clerical,
for their own ends. At the same time, they are ready to
maintain, if the argument should appear relevant, that
the clergy, with the awful example of Portugal before
their eyes, are secretly averse to Home Rule, and that
the Nationalist M.P.'s and organizers care less for a

* The Editor inserts this article written by an advocate of Homie Rule
in accordance with the tradition of the Dublin Review that on such
topics both sides should have a hearing. — Editor D.R.

If Home Rule is Defeated

visionary scheme of constitutional reform than for the
salaries which must come to an end if that reform is
carried out. Hence, Professor Mahaify and critics of
his type are at pains to explain the persistence of the
demand for a measure which scarcely any considerable
class in the country sincerely desires.

Nor is it surprising that Nationalists should have been
chary of surmise on the effects of the defeat of the Bill.
They are well aware that the electorate of Great Britain
is not amenable to threats, from whatever quarter they
may be delivered. Certainly the reception given by the
man in the street to the menaces of civil war which have
reached him from North-East Ulster has not been so
encouraging as to induce the Nationalist Irishman to
follow the example of his northern compatriot. Moreover,
the reputation of the Irish Parliamentary Party has been
staked on the passing of the present Bill; the rejection of
the Bill must mean the ruin of the Party: so that it is
scarcely to be expected that any member of the Party
should dwell overmuch on a contingency so fraught with
disaster.

It is, however, a contingency that must be faced if, as still
seems possible, the Government appeals to the country
before Home Rule actually comes into effect and is
rejected on that appeal. The Unionist Party will doubtless
repeal the Act ; it will probably bring in measures for the
expediting of land purchase and for the promotion of
trade, provided always that the trade so encouraged does
not injure any English industry by its competition. It
may even, as suggested in the official statement of the case
" Against Home Rule,"* encourage Irish agriculture by
imposing a tax on imported foreign wheat and flour,
though that seems less likely than it did a year ago.
It has been generally taken for granted that the Irish
people will accept such reforms with gratitude or at least
with acquiescence, and that the Nationalist Party in the
House of Commons will be debarred from effective action

*p. 277. Mr A, W. Samuels, K.C., on "Possible Irish Financial
Reforms.''

256

If Home Rule is Defeated

by the simple mechanical fact of a large Unionist
majority.

That all such dreams of a quiescent and apathetic
Ireland must inevitably lead to a rude awakening, will be
admitted by all who are familiar with the temper of the
Irish people. The effect of a rejection by the British
electorate of the present Bill will be far-reaching in two
directions — firstly, on Irish poHtical parties as at present
constituted, and, secondly, on the relation between the
peoples of Ireland and England.

The reputation, the very existence of the Irish Parlia-
mentary Party is, as I have said, staked on the present
Home Rule Bill. During the past ten years, the question
has been constantly discussed in Ireland whether the
Parliamentary tactics invented by Biggar and perfected
by Parnell have not been rendered obsolete by revised
methods of Parliamentary procedure and the increasing
interdependence of EngHsh political parties. All the
tendencies of the time are against Parliamentary methods
and in favour of direct action. The fight for the Union
is to be conducted by rifles in Belfast rather than by words
at Westminster. The Conservative leader has declared
that there is no act which would not be justified in the
struggle against Home Rule. The Ulster Unionists have
ostentatiously quitted the House of Commons during the
second passage of the Bill, and are attempting to persuade
the electorate of Great Britain and Ulster that there is
no moral force behind a measure which has been twice
deliberately passed by a majority of the Parliamentary
representatives of the United Kingdom. Sir Edward
Carson has reiterated his determination never to submit
to a Dublin Parliament, however many general elections
may go against him. It is not surprising, then, that Irish
Nationalists sometimes ask themselves whether they, too,
should not desert the tedium of tactics for some alterna-
tive more in harmony with the ideas of the present day.

The opposition to Mr Redmond's poHcy has come
in the main from two sources. Mr William O'Brien has
pleaded, on the one hand, for a policy of conciHation
Vol.153 257 17

If Home Rule is Defeated

towards landlords, towards devolutionists, towards moder-
ate Unionists, and still refuses to admit that Home Rule
can come without their co-operation. The Sinn Fein
Party, on the other hand, stands for a more extreme
policy, in which Parliamentary agitation is to have no
part and members are not even to be sent to Westminster.
To all criticism from either quarter, Mr Redmond has
replied in effect that his policy must be judged by its
result, and that that result can only be the passing of a
satisfactory scheme of Home Rule by a Liberal govern-
ment. Accordingly, the Irish constituencies have with few
exceptions determined to give Mr Redmond the chance
of fulfilling his promises. But, should he prove unable to
fulfil them it is improbable that Nationalist Ireland will
continue to support a leader whose tactics have resulted
in failure.

Already the Irish elector has had to make sacrifices for
his belief in the Party. The Lloyd-George Budget of
1909 was by no means universally popular in Ireland: the
Insurance Act is in some districts excessively unpopular :
the restrictions on the exportation of cattle in 191 2 were
only endured with passive resignation from the fear of em-
barrassing the Party and so jeopardizing the passage of the
Bill. If it is found that these sacrifices have been made in
vain, the Nationalist Party which was primarily responsible
for them cannot hope to maintain its influence over the
Irish people.

Nor should it be assumed that Mr Redmond's loss
will necessarily mean a corresponding gain to Mr William
O'Brien. The latter stands first and foremost for a policy
of conciliation towards moderate Unionists, and is under-
stood to expect Home Rule under another name as a gift
from the Tories. But it is unlikely that the Irish people
will regard with Mr O'Brien's incredible optimism the
Party whose present watchword is " We will not have
Home Rule under any shape or form." Moreover, con-
ciliation is a hard game to play when the other side
resolutely refuses to be conciliated; and the reception
given to Nationalist overtures by the Unionists both

258

If Home Rule is Defeated

of Ulster and the South at the present time is not cal-
culated to incline Nationalist Ireland to conciliation in
the hour of defeat, when the natural impulse must always
be to rush into extreme measures.

The third course which lies before the Irish people is
to support some party more extreme in its objects and
methods than either the official or the independent
Nationalists. The nucleus of such a Party already exists
in the National Council of Sinn Fein together with its
provincial branches. It possesses a weekly organ in the
Press under the editorship of Mr Arthur Griffiths. Some
years ago the Sinn Fein movement appeared to be making
considerable progress in the country. It captured a large
number of seats in the Dublin Corporation. Sinn Fein
branches sprang up in the country tovms. A Nationalist
member of Parliament resigned his seat, and fought (and
lost) it on the Sinn Fein programme. But Ireland as a
whole was not ready for the policy. She was still resolved
to give Mr Redmond his opportunity. As long as a vote
in the House of Commons could be of any service, she
was unwilling to elect members whose place was to be
in Ireland and not at Westminster. The Sinn Fein
leaders themselves have expressed their willingness to
give Parliamentarianism one last chance, and have
deliberately refrained from action during the past few
years.

Obviously, if Home Rule is defeated at a general election
and the Unionists come back in a large majority, the
situation will have completely altered. Votes in the
House of Commons will be valueless against a solid
Unionist phalanx. Once more the fight will shift from
Westminster to the hill-sides of Ireland. Even if the Sinn
Fein leaders show themselves unequal to the situation,
leaders of the extreme party will arise as they have always
arisen in the past after the failure of constitutional
agitation. In the closing days of Mr Balfour's government,
when it seemed for a while possible that the representation
of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament would be
numerically reduced, Mr John Dillon suggested as a

259 17^

If Home Rule is Defeated

possible course of action the withdrawal of the entire
Party from Westminster. If a leader for the extremists
should be wanting, it is conceivable that one may yet be
found within the ranks of the present Parliamentary
Party.

It may be taken as inevitable that there will be
a renewal of agitation. The only question is in
what form the new agitation will present itself. The
Sinn Fein Party has outlined many of the steps which
might be taken by an Ireland tired of expending her
energies at Westminster — some of them manifestly
impracticable, others both feasible and beneficial. First
of all, there is the systematic survey of Ireland with a
view to the profitable development of its natural resources
and the collection of " American dollars " not for the
upkeep of a party but for the promotion of industries in
Ireland — as an investment instead of a charity. Then
there is the organization of an efficient Irish mercantile
marine, and the restoration of Ireland to that place in
the world's carrying trade which she occupied from
1782 till the Act of Union. Another favourite project
of the Sinn Feiners is the creation of a body of Irish
consuls who will, acting without official recognition,
promote Irish trade in the chief towns of Europe and
America.

The schemes which I have mentioned might, of course,
be carried out under any system of government and are
practically independent of politics. Others, however,
would entail the establishment of an independent executive
somewhat of the type, one would imagine, that the
Northern Unionists propose to establish for Ulster.
Mr Griffiths suggests, for instance, the setting up of
National Courts of Law which would act independently
of the official bench and bar, on the analogy of the
Courts of Papineau in Canada, of Deak in Hungary, and
of O'Connell's Repeal Courts. Other projects are a general
strike against paying taxes and a widely prosecuted
campaign against enlistment in the British army.

It is obvious that ideas of this kind could scarcely be
carried successfully into the sphere of reality, even if

260

If Home Rule is Defeated

public opinion were unanimous in their favour, and that
insuperable difficulties are bound to beset the path of
Provisional Governments in whatever quarter of Ireland
they may be set up. I have mentioned them only with
the object of showing what methods of agitation are
Hkely to be suggested if the need for agitation should arise.

The most practical methods are still, as they have been
in the past, closely connected with the land question.
They have not been touched on by Sinn Feiners, because
the Sinn Fein Party stands ostentatiously for the ideal
of a united Ireland as opposed to the agrarian war of
class against class. The aim of Sinn Fein is to bring the
question of national independence back to the position
which it held before Parnell and Davitt yoked it with the
land question. Nevertheless, there is a strong likelihood
that, if Home Rule is not granted, the agrarian agitation
will break out once more. In the congested districts it is
often the case that one farmer holds for purposes of
grazing as much land as would more than support a whole
townland if broken up into agricultural holdings: in the
fertile counties of Leinster, cattle have long since taken
the place of men, and the number of acres under tillage
is infinitesimal compared with the number under grass.
Hence, even now there are isolated and sporadic outbursts
of " cattle driving." They are entirely unorganized,
and are not encouraged by the Nationalist leaders for fear
of embarrassing the Government. In the event of the
present Bill being defeated, it is much to be feared that
" cattle driving " will become increasingly frequent.
The landless man, the possessor of a few barren acres,
has a legitimate grievance when he sees the most fertile
land in the country held by graziers on the " eleven
months' system." Moreover, he has on his side some
measure of economic justice; for, though the individual
landowner may make a larger profit by letting his land
for grazing purposes, the actual product of the soil under
tillage would often be greater and would support more
families, though the profits would be more widely
distributed.

Another weapon in the hands of the Nationalist farmers

261

If Home Rule is Defeated

would be a refusal hy purchasers under the Land Acts
to pay their purchase annuities. Many of them have had
great difficulty in paying them of late owing
to the outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease and the
consequent disaster to the cattle trade. If disappoint-
ment at the indefinite postponement of Home Rule is to
be added to their resentment of the restrictions imposed
by the British Government upon the export of cattle,
there is every fear that a large proportion of the purchase
annuities will not be paid. It would be unnecessary to enter
in detail upon the difficulties which such a course would
entail upon the responsible Government : for it is difficult
to see how substitutes could possibly be found for the
present occupants of the land by means short of another
" plantation."

Nor under such circumstances would Ulster itself be
free from considerable danger of reprisals. Travellers for
Belfast firms find some of their best markets in the other
provinces of Ireland and in those parts of America which
are most strongly imbued with Nationalist ideas. Money
from Leinster and Munster finds its way into the Belfast
banks. An organized refusal by the rest of Ireland and
Irish America to patronize Northern banks and firms
might induce the business men of Belfast to look on even
hypothetical ruin under a Dublin Parliament as a
preferable alternative.

Opponents of Home Rule will, no doubt, reply that we
need have no fear of such an eventuality. Ireland, they say,
is becoming prosperous : witness the ever-increasing sums
of money in her savings banks. The farmer who has
purchased his holding is not going to give up the substance
for the mere shadow of political reform. Co-operation
will teach the people to cease from meddling in politics.
Now that the land hunger has been in some degree
satisfied, agitation can never flourish as it flourished
thirty years ago.

To all who genuinely hold such opinions I can only
say that similar opinions were held by their grand-
fathers before them, whenever an interval occurred in

262

If Home Rule is Defeated

the long course of Irish agitation. It was asserted as
authoritatively in 1829 that Catholic emancipation had
taken the heart out of the movement for repeal, as it is
to-day, that the desire for Home Rule has been killed
by the Land Act of 1903, and the bestowal of old-age
pensions. O'Connell conducted his followers by legal and
constitutional methods for a while: when these failed,
Ireland broke into the armed insurrection of 1848. I do
not maintain that open rebellion is conceivable at the
present time. I would, however, point out that through-
out the nineteenth century calm has invariably been the
prelude to a storm.

The great fault of English politicians has always been
that they have ignored what Professor Kettle has called
" the open secret of Ireland," her craving for the re-
cognition of her nationality. They have persisted in
prescribing material panaceas for a spiritual need and
in asking her whether she is not really cured at last. Such
remedies as Land Acts can never be accepted as a sub-
stitute for self-government. As Mr Winston Churchill
well said, Ireland will never barter her soul for a tax on
imported butter.

How is it, then, that Ireland has for some years past
been peaceful, passive, apparently apathetic? The answer
is in reality a simple one. The Irish NationaHst is not such
a fool as to embark on a course of reckless agitation when
there is nothing to be gained by it. At present he has
definitely committed his fortunes to the care of the
Parliamentary Party, and his whole interest Hes ^ in
keeping quiet. Agitation is not an end in itself, nor is it a
form of pastime to the agitator. There is no Irishman
who would not prefer peace to hostility, provided only
that it be peace with honour. There is no district where
the Nationalist would not live in complete harmony
with his Unionist neighbours, once his inextinguishable
craving for self-government is satisfied. But until that
satisfaction is granted, there can never be permanent
peace. Ireland is not, and does not seem likely to become,
West Britain.

263

If Home Rule is Defeated

And if Unionist critics point to the deficiency in
Nationalist Ireland of that emotional, almost hysterical
devotion to the catchwords of a party, which has of late
been so much in evidence in North-East Ulster, they
should remember that Home Rule is no new issue. It has
been before the people for more than one hundred
years. The enthusiasm of a day may flare into sudden
violence : the considered ideal of generations has no need
of such demonstrations of its stability. Past misfortune
has taught Ireland to possess her soul in patience: it has
not taught her to forget the cause which has inspired
a century's labours.

On the question whether there might possibly be an
outbreak of religious persecution on the part of Irish
Catholics I have not touched, because in the history of
Ireland there has never been any instance of the perse-
cution of non-Catholics on account of their religion. At
the present time it is utterly impossible, even though some
of the language uttered by Protestant speakers and the
treatment accorded to Catholics in Belfast have been of a
nature well calculated to invite reprisals.

So much, then, for the result, so far as Ireland is
concerned, of a defeat of the Home Rule Bill. The effects
will be mainly sensible in Ireland, though they may
easily prove a thorn in the side of any English Government.
Of greater importance to England and to the Empire
generally will be the altered moral relation of the Irish
Nationalist towards England.

One of the most striking phenomena of Irish life in
recent years has been the dying down of anti-English
feeling since the Boer war. Irish Nationalists recognize
that it was not so much the English people as the House
of Lords that was responsible for many of Ireland's
grievances during the nineteenth century. Now, the
Irish democracy looks to English democratic feeling as
its natural friend and ally. It believes, rightly or wrongly,
that the people of England are in favour of permitting
Ireland to manage her own affairs. It is willing to let
bygones be bygones, and by accepting the present Bill

264

If Home Rule is Defeated

to turn its eyes from memories of the dead past. It re-
cognizes that England is freely offering compensation for
injustices which she committed more through ignorance
than through maUce, and as freely proclaims its acceptance
of her terms. If Home Rule should come into effect in the
course of the next two years, there is every prospect that
the eternal Irish question will attain a satisfactory con-
clusion by common consent of England and Ireland.

If, however, the present Government dissolves Parlia-
ment before a subordinate legislature is actually established
in Dublin, and if the British electorate by returning a
majority of Unionists at the polls declares against any
scheme of Home Rule for Ireland, incalculable harm will be
done to the relations between the two countries. Ireland
will conceive herself to be deserted by the British demo-
cracy in which she had put her faith. The growing
feelings of trust and confidence will be rudely shattered.
The suspicion and veiled hostility which had so nearly
died away will revive as vigorously as in former years.
Ireland will once more be the danger spot of the British
Empire.

And though Irish Nationalists are willing to-day to
take their places in that Empire in all loyalty and affection
as citizens of a self-governing Ireland, it does not follow
that they will be equally ready to do so on a future
occasion. When confidence has once been betrayed it can
never be restored in full, and a measure extorted by years
of unremitting agitation can never carry with it the
same power of healing old wounds as if it had been a free
gift. England has an opportunity to-day which may
never present itself a second time: it is for her to decide
whether she will let it slip as she has let slip so many
opportunities in the past. But, before she commits herself
irrevocably, she should remember that, though the passion-
ate desire of more than a century may not proclaim itself
in violent acts, yet it is not easily extinguished, and that,
though Ireland is wrapt in profound peace, it is not the
peace of apathy, but the anxious silence of expectation.

CHARLES BEWLEY.
265

PAPAL DISPENSATION
FOR POLYGAMY

THE Church's approval of celibacy and stri6l main-
tenance of the Christian ideal of marriage have
always seemed to Protestants to be her most vulnerable
points of attack; in fa 61, the history of Protestantism
shows from the beginning a continual anticipation of the
great day when the Catholic pretensions will be un-
masked; when the great discovery about the Church's
real machinery for marriage will be made, and Catholics
will be seen to be " no better than other people." At
any rate, such is the inference to be drawn from the num-
berless misrepresentations, of fa6ls as well as of prin-
ciples, that are to be found in the works of Protestant
historians — misrepresentations due for the most part to
ignorance, and to the honest conviction that the Catholic
theory of the absolute indissolubility of marriage is mere
hypocrisy, and therefore is secretly and freely evaded in
practice. The ignorance is passing, in consequence partly
of striker historical methods, partly of the way in which
Catholics have begun to fend for themselves (one of
the best examples is not inappropriate — Father Bridgett's
account of the Vicar of Mundford and his " two wives ") ;
the statement of St Thomas that Pope Lucius gave a
dispensation to the Bishop of Palermo, qui erat bigamus,
would not now arouse the same interest as of old. The
ignorance is passing; but the prejudice remains, still
leading historians to accept evidence on which they would
be the first to pour scorn, were it brought up to maintain
a point that told against them.

Such a striking example of this prejudice and its working
occurs in Professor A. F. Pollard's Henry VIII (London.
1905. p. 207) that the present writer has taken some
pains to examine the original documents which bear on
the fafts in question. The passage runs thus :

Besides the " great reasons and precedents, especially in the
Old Testament,"! to which Henry referred, he might have pro-

1 Letters and Pafers of the Reign of Henry VIII, iv, 4,977.

266

Papal Dispensation

duced a precedent more pertinent, more recent, and better calcu-
lated to appeal to Clement VII. In 1521 Charles V's Spanish
council drew up a memorial on the subjeft of his marriage, in
which they pointed out that his ancestor, Henry IV of Castile,
had, in 1437, married Dofia Blanca, by whom he had no children;
and that the Pope thereupon granted him a dispensation to marry
a second wife on condition that if within a fixed time he had no
issue by her, he should return to his first. ^ A licence for bigamy,
modelled after this precedent, would have suited Henry admirably,
but apparently he was unaware of this useful example, and was
induced to countermand Knight's commission before it had
been communicated to Clement. The demand would not, how-
ever, have shocked the Pope so much as his modern defenders, for
on September 18, 1530, Casale writes to Henry: "A few days
since the Pope secretly proposed to me the following condition:
that your Majesty might be allowed to have two wives. I told him
I could not undertake to make any such proposition, because I did
not know whether it would satisfy your Majesty's conscience. I
made this answer because I know that the ImperiaHsts have this
in view, and are urging it ; but why, I know not."^

Ghinucci and Benet were equally cautious, and thought the
Pope's suggestion was only a ruse; whether a ruse or not, it is a
curious illustration of the moral influence Popes were then likely
to exert on their flock.

Professor Pollard's general contention is clearly that
the Papacy was prepared to play fast and loose with
marriage laws and dispensations, according to political
exigency, and he brings to support this contention two
particular cases. One has to do with a Pope who is not
specified, but proves from the dates to be Nicholas V;
the other with Clement VII, and such is Professor Pol-
lard's authority that a writer in the English Historical
Review feels himself justified in quoting them without
qualification of any sort :'

The Pope had recently allowed the King of Castile to take two

1 Calendar of State Papers (Spanish), 11, 379.

2 Letters and Papers, iv, 6,627, 6,705, App. 261.

3 " German Opinion of the Divorce of Henry VIII," by 'Preseroed
Smith {English Historical Review, vol. xxvii. No. 108, Oct. 191 2, p. 673.)
The writer gives a reference to the Spanish State Papers, and another to
PoUard.

267

Papal Dispensation

wives. Clement VII at one time proposed this solution of the
difficulty to the English ambassador.

To take first the case of Nicholas V and Henry IV of
Castile. Professor Pollard quotes in evidence one docu-
ment, w^hich he dates 1521. Since, then, the events to
which it refers occurred two generations earlier, in 1455,
we have a right to demand one of three things : (i) cor-
roboration in the contemporary evidence, (2) failing this
clear proof that the document is of sufficient historical
value to outweigh all contemporary evidence, (3) a 'priori
probability that the contemporary accounts are wrong,
and the later document right.

Of corroboration in contemporary evidence there is
none, and it must be borne in mind that the crucial point
of the whole reign was the impugned legitimacy of the
King's daughter Juana — known as la Beltraneja^ from her
supposed father, Beltran de la Cueva. Fernando del
Pulgar, who was secretary to Henry IV, and Alonso de
Palencia, also a contemporary, both wrote histories, and
both know nothing of this remarkable bull of dispensation.^
Mariana, writing in the time of Philip II, knows nothing
of it;^ and, to come to later times, Lafuente^ and
Colmeiro,* de Nervo,^ Prescott,' and Watts' have no
mention of it. In fa ft, the only history of Spain in which
it appears is that of Burke,® who alludes to it with some
misgiving, in a footnote, on precisely the same evidence
as Professor Pollard — the document of 1521.

1 Pulgar, Cronica de los Reyes Catolicos (Valencia, 1780), ch. ii; Alonso
de Palencia, Cronica (MS.), pt I, ch. iv (quoted in W. H. Prescott's
Ferdinand and Isabella (ed. Kirk), pt I, ch. iii, p. 80).

2 General History of Spain (tr. Capt. John Stevens, London, 1699).
8 Historia General de Espana, torn, ix (Madrid, 1842).

* Cortes de Leon y de Castilla, parte 2da (Madrid, 1884).

5 Isabella the Catholic (tr. Lieut.-Col. Temple- West, London, 1 897).

* loc. cit. Also on p. 117 Prescott gives a careful account of the circum-
stances upon which the popular belief of Juana's illegitimacy was founded.

' Spain (711-1492 A.D.), in the " Story of the Nations " series.

8 History of Spain, to the Death of Ferdinand the Catholic (ed. Hume),
vol. II, p. 31. On p. 37 he mentions Henry's divorce on the ground of
impotence as an accepted fact.

268

for Polygamy

This argument from silence is not all. The later docu-
ment asserts that there was no divorce (the old word for
declaration of nullity), but a Bull of dispensation for
bigamy; yet all the other evidence makes the divorce
as certain as any faft in history.

The marriage between Blanche and Henry was publicly declared
void by the Bishop of Segovia, confirmed by the Archbishop of
Toledo, "_por impotencia respectiva, owing to some malign influence."
(Prescottji on the authority of Pulgar, Palencia and Aleson.)

The divorce was first granted by Luis de Acuna, administrator
of the Church of Segovia for the Cardinal D. John de Cervantes,
and afterwards confirmed by the Archbishop of Toledo, commis-
sioned by Pope Nicholas (Mariana).^

Colmeiro (" anulado su primer matrimonio ") says
the same,^ and all the other historians are in agreement.
Professor Pollard does not even mention, much less
attempt to discredit, this irreproachable tradition.

It is clear, then, that those who drew up the document
upon which Professor Pollard bases his statement must
have been in exclusive possession of information that had
been kept absolutely secret during the troublous times
of the previous seventy years, and that the secret would
have died with them, had it not been preserved in
obscurity to be published among State Papers in England
more than three hundred years later. It will be necessary,
therefore, now to examine this document, by which
Professor Pollard lays store so great that he does not
even think it worth while to mention the existence of
other evidence. The relevant passage of this " Memoir
(of the Privy Council of Castile) on the Opportunity of
a Marriage between the Emperor and a Princess of Por-
tugal " is as follows :

. . . The right of succession belonged to King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella, since Queen Isabella was the daughter and heiress

1 loc. cit.

2 Op. cit. Book XXII, cap. vii, p. 380.

3 op cit. p. 3.

269

Papal Dispensation

of King Juan II of Castile, father of King Henry IV of Castile,
and Dofia Juana was generally believed not to be the daughter of
King Henry IV, but of Beltran de la Cueva, Duke of Albuquerque,
on which account she was publicly called " La Beltraneja."

Even if she had been the daughter of King Henry IV of Castile,
she would not have been his legitimate child, on account of the
following reasons. King Henry IV married, in the year 1437,
Dona Blanca, a princess of Aragon, and sister of King Ferdinand
the Catholic. He had no issue by her, and some people pretended
that it was the fault of the Queen, whilst others thought that the
King was impotent. After having been married some years
King Henry IV wished to take another wife, and the Pope gave
him a Bull of dispensation, permitting him to contra6l another
marriage, on condition that he should return to the first wife if
vnthin a fixed time he should not have issue by his second Queen.
King Henry IV accordingly married Dofia Juana, the sister of King
Alonso of Portugal, his first wife, Dona Blanca, being still alive.

It is generally believed that King Henry IV had no children
by his second wife during the period of time fixed in the BuU of
dispensation, and, in faft, not even afterwards. Supposing, there-
fore, that Dofia Juana the Excellent, who now lives in Portugal,
is the daughter of King Henry IV of Castile, she would not be his
legitimate child, since she was the offspring of a mother whose
marriage had become, after the time fixed in the Bull of dis-
pensation, null and void.

King Henry IV wished to take another wife, and the
Pope gave him a Bull of dispensation, permitting him to
contra6l another marriage, on condition that he should
return to the first wife if within a fixed time he should
not have issue by his second Queen! No evidence is
brought forward in support of this bald and amazing
statement; and this in spite of the fa6l that previously, as
we have seen, it had been unknown. No attempt is made
to account for this concealment, or for the existence of
the universally accepted account of a decree of nullity.

The document then does not appear to be intrinsically
authoritative. Does it reflect authority from the integrity
of those who drew it up? Unfortunately, no one knows
who they were ! There is no trace of the document in the
Spanish records of the Cortes held at this time, and yet

270

for Polygamy

these records show^ that the Emperor Charles V was
being urged by his Spanish subjedls to marry as early as
1 518 in the Cortes of Valladolid, that he was urged again
by another Cortes of Valladolid in 1523, and that only
in 1525 did the Cortes of Toledo begin to hint at Dona
Isabel of Portugal, for an admirable reason, as being
una de las personas excelentas que hoy hay en la
cristiandad. However, granting even that the document
is not the draft of some motion that was never
put, but was adhially passed by the Cortes, it is none the
less valueless as evidence for the reign of Henry IV. The
Cortes was made up of men who were no more accurate
historians than profound theologians, and what history
or theology they had would weigh for nothing against
immediate political necessities. There is one paragraph
in the document that rings true; it is this :

Dona Juana the Excellent is still alive, and in the power of the
King of Portugal. The war with the King of France is not over,
Castile is not quiet or contented. Thus, the King of France has it
in his power to conclude an alliance with the King of Portugal,
and to make use of the pretended rights of Dona Juana, who is
called the Excellent, in order to raise up serious difficulties for
the Emperor in Spain.

This paragraph in 1521 rings true, and is not its truth
sufficient alone to discredit unsupported assertions made
elsewhere in the document with reference to any dis-
abilities of Dona Juana, " who is called the Excellent "?

There is, however, still further evidence contained in
the document, that bears upon its historical value. The
Bull of dispensation for bigamy is only the first of three
stories which are to prove Juana's illegitimacy. The second
is, that when the Princess was born, " certain taps were
administered to her on the nose, in order to give it the
form of the nose of King Henry IV "; the third is, that
attempts were made to exchange the Princess on the
day of her birth for the son of a lady who was delivered

1 Colmeiro, O'p. cit. pp. 1 18 sqq.

271

Papal Dispensation

on the same day; she, however, refused to part with her
child. Both of these stories, of course, owe their point
to the supposed paternity of Beltran de la Cueva.

Dona Juana was born in 1462; the document con-
taining this chronique scandaleuse was drawn up sixty-
years later: and this is the valuable authority on which
Professor Pollard and his unwary follower in the English
Historical Review are prepared to flout all other evidence,
contemporary and subsequent !

It remains to examine the third ground — the a priori
probability of Professor Pollard's story. It should not be
necessary to point out that the attitude of the Church
towards polygamy was neither ignored nor disputed.
There was not a canonist or a theologian to whom it
would have occurred to qualify in any way such a passage
as this, from the Profession of Faith required of Michael
Palaeologus by Gregory X at the Second Council of
Lyons, in 1274:^

. . . The same Holy Roman Church holds also and teaches . . .
that neither is one man allowed to have several wives at the same
time, nor one woman several husbands.

It would be absurd to quote any one of the canonists
in support of a statement which none of them attempts to
deny, and the complete consensus theologorum may be
illustrated from St Thomas^ and Duns Scotus,^ who agree
in maintaining that in such a matter, of which the law
is not of human institution and tradition, but divinely
printed upon the heart, dispensation could come only
from God by internal inspiration (St Thomas), or by a
special revelation to the Church (Duns Scotus).

In short, then. Professor Pollard is willing to believe
that Nicholas V, the Pope of moderation and learning,
in spite of canon law, in spite of previous theologians,
great and small, without consulting those of his own

^ Dcnzinger, Enchiridion, 465.

2 Summ. Theolog., Suppl., qu. lxv, De pluritate uxorum.
^ QuastiongSy lib, iv, diet, xxxiii, qu. i.

272

for Polygamy

time, gave to Henry IV of Castile out of sheer caprice^
in flace oj the decree oj nullity that Henry^ owing to the
special circumstances^ had the right to expct^ a Bull of
dispensation which is without parallel in the whole
history of the Church.

So much for Nicholas V and Henry IV of Castile. Pro-
fessor Pollard has based his assertion of what is all but
inconceivable on a document of no historical value, in the
face of irresistible contemporary evidence. With regard
to Clement VII and Henry VIII there is less to be said.
It is clear from the letters of Henry's agents in Rome,
Casale, Benet and Ghinucci,' that there was a short
period (September — October, 1530) during which the
Pope discussed the possibility of granting the dispensation
for two wives, which Henry had sent Knight in 1527,^
and Briant and Vannes in 1528,^ to obtain. Professor Pol-
lard quotes Casale's letter; then, passing lightly over
Benet's suggestion of a ruse, he proceeds to a comment on
the evil moral influence of such Popes as Clement —
presumably upon the upright and innocent Henry and
his accomplices. Had Casale's been the only letter bearing
on the subje6l, all might have been well, but there is an
excellent fendant to it in a letter of Benet's, dated
Odober 27, 1530,* for which Professor Pollard has not
found space, although he refers to it. The account of it,
as given in the Letters and Papers oJ the Reign oj
Henry VIII by the Editor, is as follows :

The Pope will proceed only according to law. . . . Shortly after
Benet's coming there, the Pope spoke to him of a dispensation for
two wives, but so doubtfully, that Benet suspeds he spoke it for
two purposes ; one was that he should break it to the King, and see
if it would be accepted, " thereby he should have gotten a mean
to bring your Highness to grant that if he might dispense in this
case, which is of no less force than your case is, consequently he
might dispense in your Highness' -case."

1 Letters and Papers, iv, 6,627, 6,705, App. 261.

2 Letter of Henry VIII to Knight, in MSS. of Corpus Christi Gollege,
Oxford, No. 318, f. 3 (published in The Academy, vol. xv, p. 239).

3 Letters and Papers, iv, 4,977. * t^J*<^.> iv, 6,705.

Vol. 153 273 18

Dispensation for Polygamy

This, if it was so, was as pretty a move as ever astute
diplomatist planned. If Henry took the bait, and pressed
eagerly for a dispensation to have two wives, he would
ruin if so j ado his main legal case, which turned on the
contention that Pope Julius had afted ultra vires in
granting him the far more admissible dispensation to
marry Katharine, his brother's wife. However, the rest
of the letter does not go to support this. The document
continues :

The other (purpose) was to entertain the King, and defer the
cause. Benet asked the Pope whether he was resolved that he could
dispense in that case. He said " iVo," hut he had been told by a great
doctor he might, for the avoidance of a greater scandal; hut he would
advise further with his Council. Lately he has said plainly, that he
cannot do it,

Casale's letter was certainly shorter and more con-
venient for quotation, but in preferring it to this letter
of Benet's, when it was his intention to reveal the mental
and moral attitude of the Pope, Professor Pollard surely is
not behaving fairly to Clement, to his readers, or to
himself.

In 1724 there was published in London a Life oj Car-
dinal Wolsey, by a certain Dr Richard Fiddes. It contains
a comment upon the method of Bishop Burnet, which it
is impossible not to present for the consideration of
Professor Pollard — the more so, since, by a coincidence,
it was evoked by Burnet's attack upon Clement (on evi-
dence flimsier than his modern successor's) as instigator
of Henry to bigamy. This is Dr Fiddes' comment :

That the excess of of his zeal against Popery should sometimes
transport him beyond his usual Temper and Moderation, may
more easily be accounted for; but that he should so far forget, or
rather appear to forget himself, as to shew no Regard to known
Fadls . . . discovers a Negligence, to say no worse, by no means
reconcileable with the charader of an exadl Historian.

NORMAN EVANS HARDY,

^74

NOT FOR ME !

DEAR Love, when thou art gone
Will the sun still shine on,
And stars gleam one by one?
Not for me!

Will the grass still be green.
And the daisies laugh between,
To the splashing of the stream?
Not for me!

Will there still be pause and rest,
While the birds within their nest
Twit of home which is the best?
Not for me!

Will there be full pulsM life.
Ambition, love and strife,
With fame and glory rife?
Not for me! ,

Will there still be morning calm.
And midday's perfumed balm.
And twilight's dusky charm?
Not for me!

Love — when thou art away,
Will there still be night and day.
And song, and mirth and play?
Not for me!

Then, BelovM, wait for me —
Till the shadows kiss the lea.
And the sun dies o'er the sea.
Wait for me!

Love — I beseech thee stay
Just one more human day —
Till God calls both away —
Thee and me!
Carlsruhe, August 1909.

275 iSa

SIR NICHOLAS O'GONOR

Dictionary of National Biography. Second Supplement, Vol. iii.
Smith, Elder and Co.

IT is now five years since I saw the subje6l of this
brief notice, yet though five eventful years have gone
his memory is still to me a thing sharp and definite. Sir
Nicholas O'Conor was not one of those people whom one
forgets in this drab age of efficient earnest mediocrities,
his figure flits before one as something of a day long past —
the day of Grand Seigneurs, of aristocracy, of leisure —
of men who quietly rose to great positions because it was
obviously proper that they should do so.

Sir Nicholas always seemed to me, somehow, to have
stepped out of the pages of one of Thackeray's eighteenth
century novels, or the memoirs of Horace Walpole. His
tall frail figure, his languid, almost weary, movements, his
charm of manner, his soft and gentle voice all served as a
singular setting for his eyes which once seen were never
to be forgotten, they were of a deep intense blue, and
seemed indeed to have an almost hypnotic quality — pene-
trating yet kindly, they compelled truth yet disarmed fear
or suspicion — at times they danced with the humour
which must necessarily be the heritance of those who bear
his name — at others they showed that strange sympathy
with pathos and suffering which in an EngHshman would
be sentimentality but in Irishmen comes of understand-

The story of the main struggles and oppositions of
O'Conor's tempestuous diplomatic career before he was
appointed to Constantinople is admirably condensed by
Lord Sanderson in the Dictionary of National Biography.

O'Conor had given little promise of his ultimate
eminence before 1883, when, being secretary of Legation
in Peking at the time of the death of the British Minister,
Sir Harry Parkes, he showed such capacity as charge
(Tajf aires that his career was thenceforth assured.

Of the time immediately following this first attain-

276

Sir Nicholas O'Conor

ment of a prominent position, Lord Sanderson writes as
follows:

After a brief tenure of the post of secretary of legation at
Washington, O' Conor in January, 1887, succeeded (Sir) Frank
Lascelles as agent and consul-general in Bulgaria. The principality
was at the time in a critical situation. Prince Alexander, whose
nerve had been shaken by his forcible abdudion, having failed to
obtain the Czar's approval of his resumption of power, had ab-
dicated in September, 1886, and the government was left in the
hands of three regents, of whom the principal was the former prime
minster, Stambuloff. For the next few months, in the face of
manoeuvres on the part of Russia to prolong the interregnum or
procure the seledion of a nominee who would be a mere vassal of
Russia, vigorous endeavours were made by the regency to
obtain a candidate of greater independence, and on July 7, 1887,
Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg was elefted, and Stambuloff
again became prime minister. O'Conor who united great shrewd-
ness with a blunt dire6lness of speech, which, although not gen-
erally regarded as a diplomatic trait, had the effeft of inspiring
confidence, exercised a steadying influence on the energetic pre-
mier. Excellent relations were maintained between them in the
course of five years' residence. Among other results was the con-
clusion in 1889 of a provisional commercial agreement between
Great Britain and Bulgaria.

In April, 1 892, O'Conor was again appointed to Peking, this time
in the position of envoy to the Emperor of China, and to the King
of Korea. A notable change in the etiquette towards foreign re-
presentatives was made by the court in his reception at Peking;
he was formally received with the staff of the legation at the
principal entrance by the court officials and conduced to a personal
audience with the Emperor in the Cheng Kuan Tien Palace.
In July, 1894, the disputes between China and Japan as to the
introdu(Slion of reforms in the administration of Korea led to
open war between the two countries, and O'Conor's responsibilities
were heavy. The Chinese forces were routed by land and sea, and
in April, 1895, the veteran statesman Li-Hung-Chang concluded
the treaty of Shimonoseki, by which the Liao-Tung Peninsula,
the island of Formosa, and the Pescadores group were ceded to
Japan, China agreeing further to pay an indemnity of 200 millions
of taels. Popular excitement in China ran high during these
events. The Chinese Government provided the foreign legations

277

Sir Nicholas O'Conor

with guards of native soldiers, who, though perfedly well behaved,
did not inspire complete confidence as efficient prote6lors. The
British admiral gave the British legation the additional safeguard
of a party of marines. Almost immediately after the ratification of
the treaty of Shimonoseki a fresh complication occurred. The
French, German, and Russian governments presented to Japan a
coUedive note, urging the restoration to China of the Liao-Tung
Peninsula on the ground that its possession, with Port Arthur, by
a foreign Power would be a permanent menace to the Chinese
capital. The course pursued by the British government was not
calculated to earn the gratitude of either of the parties principally
interested. They declined to join in the representation of the
three European Powers, but they did not conceal from Japan their
opinion that she might do v^dsely to give way. Japan with much
wisdom assented to the retrocession in consideration of an addi-
tional indemnity of 30 millions of taels. In recognition of O'Conor's
arduous labours he received the honour of K.C.B. in May, 1895.
Meanwhile the signature of peace was followed by anti-foreign
outbreaks in several provinces of China, in one of which, at Kucheng,
British missionaries were massacred. The Chinese government,
as usual, while ready to pay compensation and to execute a
number of men arrested as having taken part in the riot, interposed
every kind of obstacle to investigation of the real origin of the out-
breaks and to the condign punishment of the officials who secretly
instigated or connived at them. In the end, after exhausting all
other arguments, O'Conor plainly intimated to the Tseng-li-
Yamen that unless his demands were conceded within two days
the British admiral would be compelled to resort to naval measures,
and a decree was issued censuring and degrading the ex- viceroy of
Szechuen.

In Oftober, 1895, O'Connor left China to become ambassador
at St Petersburg. In the following year he attended the corona-
tion of the Emperor Nicholas II, who had succeeded to the throne
in November, 1894. He received the grand cross of St Michael
and St George and was sworn a privy councillor in the same year.
He was as popular at St Petersburg as at his previous posts, but
towards the close of his residence our relations vdth Russia were
seriously complicated by the course taken by the Russian govern-
ment in obtaining from China a lease of Port Arthur and the Liao-
Tung Peninsula. The discussions, which at one time became some-
what acute, were carried on by O'Conor with his usual tadl.

An awkward passage at arms with that not very

278

Sir Nicholas O'Conor

scrupulous diplomatist, Count Muravieff, raised a some-
what dijEicult situation for O'Conor at this time; but in
1898 he was promoted to the position of Ambassador in
Constantinople, in which he left so considerable a mark.
It was at this period of his career that I first knew him.

Sir Nicholas O'Conor commanded respeft and goodwill
before he spoke, and while never swerving from any task,
no matter how unpleasant or dangerous, could maintain a
personal hold over the aff eftion of those to whom he might
be opposed right through either a negotiation or an
argument.

One of the most striking examples of this peculiar
charaSeristic lay in his personal relations with Abdul
Hamid. Though perhaps no ambassador had more
frequent cause to vex and thwart the policy of that
strange being — though the whole of Sir Nicholas's term of
office was one long series of inevitable conflidls between
the Palace of Yildiz and the British Foreign Office —
yet if there was one person whom Abdul Hamid cared
about, whose word he trusted, and whose conversation he
enjoyed, it was the British Ambassador's.

Surrounded by spies and blackguards of every de-
scription, feeling that his failing health and intelleftual
vigour must sooner or later put a period not only to his
policy but perhaps his dynasty and his empire, seeing his
authority undermined both from within and without —
holding the Powers at arm's length with bribes and con-
cessions, crushing the corrupt bureaucracy which even-
tually overthrew him by means of espionage, collusion and
terrorism — fending off the Balkan States by a hundred
subtle turns and devices — keeping the tottering fabric
of Asia together by every kind of ridiculous or criminal
expedient — this weary, harassed, tragic soul turned in
relief to the one personality who, though it represented an
odious and fatal policy, yet was direft, honest, sym-
pathetic, and understanding.

I cannot myself imagine a more remarkable evidence of
the natural qualities of diplomacy innate in Sir Nicholas
O'Conor than the fa£l that through the whole of the

279

Sir Nicholas O'Conor

period of his office at Constantinople there was never a
day when British policy was in doubt, nor yet ever one
when it's representative was disliked.

England then had no favourites, and was openly hostile
to the whole of the Yildiz policy — yet the Ambassador
himself was the only person in Constantinople who was
on good terms with the autocratic ruler whom he did
not fail to check, restrain, and admonish diredtly or
indiredly every day in the year.

It was only a few weeks after Sir Nicholas O'Conor's
death that the storm burst and the Hamidian regime
came to its end; it is something of a tribute to the work
which he had done — that the whole of Turkey, Christian
and Moslem alike, turned naturally and unceremoniously
to England as the one Power which through all the
years of horror and terrorism, had stood aloof from base
intrigue or countenance of wrong, and was believed to be
the true friend of the Ottoman race and its subjefts.

There was another charafteristic of Sir Nicholas
O'Conor, known perhaps to only a few — and that was his
heroic devotion to duty and his absolute indifference to
physical suffering.

His do6lors warned him month by month that his
health demanded home and permanent rest — but his own
bent was rather to work and die than to live and be idle.

Week by week I saw him lavishly expend the last re-
serves of energy and vitality which he might have used to
recuperate his exhausted constitution but which he
preferred to give to his country.

He grew weaker in body, but his mind remained as
clear as ever, his temper unruffled, his calm unmoved.
Twice he descended into the valley of death, twice he
stood on the brink of the grave, twice devoted nursing
and medical skill drew him back to life. To have sought
honourable retirement meant many years of pleasure, for
no man had keener enjoyment in literature, conversation
and companionship — but deliberately he abandoned life
and took up his fatal task with full knowledge of what its
inevitable end must be, but without for one moment

280

Sir Nicholas O'Conor

considering any other course as either possible or hon*
ourable.

With an heroism as quiet and gentle as his nature he
worked on until the last moment and then with a smile
paid the price.

It is given to many men to die for their country in
different ways, yet assuredly no man ever did so with a
better grace and less regret than Nicholas O'Conor.
It was with something of that instin6live sense of the
fitness of things which is given to Orientals that the
ex-Sultan decreed that the British Ambassador should
have a soldier's funeral. All the morning the guns
thundered across the Bosphorus and the streets of
Pera echoed to the shuffling tramp of Turkish soldiers,
the throbbing of drums, and the wild plaintive notes
of military music. Those paynim strangers honoured
our Christian knight's burial as might the wild fol-
lowers of some Atabey of the twelfth century have done
for a crusading baron who died vnthin their gates during
a truce.

Five years have gone by since he passed away — the
scenes of his labours in the Balkan Peninsula, in the Far
East and in Turkey have changed beyond recognition.
China a Republic, Turkey stript of Palace and Sultan,
Bulgaria in six short months passed from the zenith to the
nadir of Fortune. Yet one thing has not changed and
that is that, in all those places, there are men who cherish
with affedion and goodwill the memory of the devout,
heroic Irish gentleman who sleeps among the cypress
trees of Haidwr Pasha.

MARK SYKES

281

RICHARD WAGNER : A
CENTENARIAL SKETCH

I. HIS LIFE.

A HUNDRED years ago, on May 22, 18 13, as the
sun pierced the early morning mists which shrouded
the sleepy old town of Leipzig, Richard Wagner was
given to the world. His father was an actor and his child-
hood was spent in an atmosphere of the stage. It was
therefore natural that he should develop a love for music
and poetry. In the latter direction, particularly, his
talents early distinguished him from his playmates.

One day at school the boys were told to write a poem
on the death of a fellow-pupil. Richard's effort was so good
that it was printed. Whereupon he was seized with a
desire to become a poet. The Greek tragedians and
Shakespeare he studied enthusiastically, to the sad
neglect of the rest of his work; and he completed a great
tragedy, in the course of which forty-two characters met
their deaths! Not long after this he heard a Beethoven
symphony. " I got a fever, was ill, and when I recovered
was a musician" {A Pilgrimage to Beethoven), The
tragedy must now be put to music. Harmony was learnt
in secret terror lest the great work should be discovered.
Needless to say, it was, and as he was destined to be an
artist, a "family row" ensued. But eventually he was
allowed to follow his inclinations and an excellent master
was found for him.

From that moment he began to enlarge and unfold his
powers, ever developing his music, his poetry and his
philosophy, until his last great work, Parsifal, burst upon
the world. He was destined to hear it but once.

This advancement, however, was not to be entirely
unrestrained. And one of the most serious checks occurred
when he was a student at Leipzig. Wagner with his
artistic temperament was just the character to be
seized by the lure of the green table. Starting one night

282

Richard Wagner

at a gambling house with the desire of winning six
shillings to pay for a piano score, Richard nearly ruined
himself for life. At last one night came the climax.

It suddenly struck me that only by dint of big stakes could
I make big profits. To this end I decided to make use of my mother's
pension, of which I was trustee of a fairly large sum. That night
I lost everything I had with me except one thaler; the excitement
with which I staked the last coin on a card was an experience
hitherto quite strange to my young life. As I had had nothing
to eat, I was obliged repeatedly to leave the gambling table owing
to sickness. With this last thaler I staked my life, for my return
to home was of course out of the question. Already I saw myself
in the grey dawn, a prodigal son, fleeing from all I held dear,
through forest and field towards the unknown. My mood of
despair had gained so strong a hold upon me that, when mycard won,
I immediately placed all the money on a fresh stake, and repeated
this experiment until I had won quite a considerable amount.
From that moment my luck grew continuously. I gained such
confidence that I risked the most hazardous stakes: for suddenly
it dawned on me that this was destined to be my last day with the
cards. My good fortune now became so obvious that the bank
thought it wise to close. Not only had I won back all the money
I had lost, but I had won enough to pay off all my debts as well.
My sensations during the whole of the process were of a most
sacred nature : I felt as if God and his angels were standing by my
side and were whispering words of warning and of consolation
into my ears.

Once more I climbed over the gate of my home in the early
hours of the morning, this time to sleep peacefully and soundly
and to awake very late, strengthened, and as though born again.

Richard Wagner's My Life.

Gambling lost its fascination for him as quickly as it
had seized him.

In his twenty-first year he became Musical Director
at the Magdeburg Theatre and there met Minna Planer,
an actress whom he afterwards married. She never
understood him. She was young and pretty but had no
strength of character. Wagner's love for her soon died
and he was saddled with her throughout his trying

283

Richard Wagner:

years of poverty. This for the man who wrote " The
Need of Needs for the Human Being is the Need of Love."
Next he wandered to Riga, to London and so to Paris,
where he felt that at last he was to become famous.
Bitterly his hopes were shattered. Articles, criticisms,
short stories, arrangements of works for various instru-
ments, he was compelled to write, to keep himself and
his unloving wife from starvation. He was forced into
selling his sketch for Der Fliegende Hollander to a French
opera writer, but in the spring of 1842 determined that
he also would work it out.

Nine months had passed since he had been in an
atmosphere of music. He hired a piano.

After it came I was in an agony of terror. I feared that I
should find I was no longer a musician. I began with the Sailors'
Chorus and the Spinning Song; everything went splendidly and
I shouted aloud for joy. I was still a composer! In seven weeks
the opera was finished.

Autobiographical Sketch,

Again a few months of suspense and idle correspondence.
Then at last came relief. The news arrived that Der
Fliegende Hollander was accepted for Berlin; Rienzi,
a previous work, was to be produced at Dresden. With a
light heart he made preparations for his return to his
native land. On the journey home he saw for the first
time the glistening waters of the Rhine, the most beloved
and the most fought-over of German rivers. Hot tears
chased one another down his cheeks as he stood upon the
banks and swore eternal loyalty to his glorious Father-
land. Little did he think that seven years later he would
flee its borders as a political refugee, to drag out eleven
long years of exile. Such, however, was to be his fate.

At Dresden he was made " Kapellmeister." His regime,
which began so hopefully, after an enthusiastic reception
of Rienzi, developed into a series of misunderstandings
with the authorities. He was too advanced for his times.
Der Fliegende Hollander was coldly received; Tannhduser
frankly voted " too epic." Then came the trouble of 1848,

284

A Centenarial Sketch

his determined support of the Revolutionaries and his
flight, aided by his faithful friend Franz Liszt.

His years of exile were busy ones. During this time he
accomplished his most important literary work, setting
forth his views, answering his opponents, paving the way
for his Ring des Nibelungen, the text of which he also wrote
and published. It remained unnoticed in Germany. He
completed several operas and another was begun. In 1859
he said: " It cuts me to the quick that I should have to
remain any longer perhaps the only German who has
not heard my Lohengriny With the following summer,
however, came freedom ; and now but four years separated
him from the greatest event of his life. In 1864 Ludwig II
of Bavaria offered him his protection.

Wagner writes to Frau Wille, who had seen him but a
few days before a broken man, a man without a prospect —

I would be the most ungrateful wretch did I not immediately
let you know of my boundless good fortune ! You know that the
young King of Bavaria sent for me. To-day I was taken to see him.
Unfortunately he is so handsome and talented, soulful and manly,
that I fear his life must, like a fleeting, heavenly dream, melt
away in this vulgar world. He loves me with the warmth and fer-
vour of a first love. He knows everything about me and under-
stands me like my own soul. He wishes me to remain by him for
ever, there to labour, rest and produce my works; he will give
me everything I need for this ; I am to finish the Ring and to produce
it as I will Can this be aught but a dream?

It was, indeed, a little too good to be true. He had not
been long in Munich before the trouble began. The King
of Bavaria was housing a Revolutionary! Actually having
his meals with him ! Making no secret that he was support-
ing him on the Civil List ! This was too much. The storm
in a teacup spread until Ludwig could not disregard it.
Wagner's life was not safe. So he was packed away —
with money enough in his pocket — to Switzerland, where
he worked on and on, a veritable fountain of genius^. The
Meister singer was produced in 1868, and Wagner himself
came to hear it. He received, from the royal box, an

285

Richard Wagner:

ovation rivalling that which had greeted him on the
production of Rienzi twenty-six years before.

So steigst du denn, Erfiillung, schonste Tochter
Des grossen Vaters, endlich zu mir nieder.

Goethe.

Two years went by, and he had ceased to mourn the
death of his first wife. He now married Liszt's daughter,
Frau Cosima von Btilow, who was separated from her
husband. His " Need of Needs " was fulfilled. Meanwhile
the composition of the Ring continued and in 1874 was
finished.

Wagner required for his Nihelung work a proper Gala House, far
from the hurry and scurry of the world, not to give amusement and
sensation, but for people who felt the impulse towards musical
absorption and who sympathized with the Master in his great
reformatory ideas, and especially for those who did not oppose his
instruction and advice.

Thus speaks Max Chop in his " Erlauterung " to Das
Rheingold, of the need which was eventually fulfilled by
the BayreuthTheatre. Would that we had here space to give
the history of that unique undertaking! But we must
content ourselves with saying that, in spite of the strenuous
efforts of Wagner and of those who had at last recognized
his magical genius, the whole undertaking was upon the
point of falling through, when King Ludwig once more
stepped into the breach. Bayreuth Theatre was com-
pleted and close by was built a house for Wagner. There
during the glorious summer of 1876, in the midst of a
crowd of enthusiasts, was the Ring for the first time
completely performed. Even Joseph Bennett, one of the
Master's most bitter enemies, felt bound to say: " For
more than twenty years has Wagner been an object of
derision, and the answer to all these attacks is — Bayreuth 1"

His work was nearly achieved. One more opera was
still to come, the gem of his whole life. Parsifal was
written at and for Bayreuth and Bayreuth alone. Never

286

A Centenarial Sketch

did he wish it to be heard outside the walls of the theatre
designed by him and built for him. In 1882 it was pro-
duced. And now he wished only for death.

J'ai march^ devant vous, triste et seul dans ma gloire,
O! Seigneur I j'ai v6cu puissant et solitaire.
Laissez-moi m'endormir du sommeil de la terre.

Alfred de Vigny.

He had not long to wait. At Venice in February, 1883,
Wagner was in the best of spirits. His heart, nevertheless,
was in a dangerous condition. He fought bravely the
attacks which now came frequently upon him ; but on the
1 8th he died suddenly in his study. The news flashed
across the world. Not only the greatest opera writer was
dead, but a mighty man. He was buried at Bayreuth.
The aged Abb6 Liszt, his greatest and oldest friend, was
at his burial.

H. THE MAN.

WAGNER had a system of art to give to the world.
To carry out this mission, he suffered hardship
and poverty, criticism and enmity. Herein lies his
greatness as a man. Had he been ready to disregard his
artistic scruples, to write opera as the public wanted and
not as his conscience and genius demanded, he might
have led a rich and comfortable life. During his time he
was outshone by Meyerbeer and Spontini, Mendelssohn
and Schumann, but in reward his name is inscribed in
golden letters in the annals of fame. In the sense that he
suffered patiently his trials, he proved that Carlyle was
right in defining genius as " an infinite capacity for taking
pains.'' But in another sense the definition does not hold
good. Perseverance in dry study, for instance, is not easily
coupled with such artistic impetuosity as his. We know
from his own lips that he was incapable of pursuing
studies which did not interest him, and that his greatest
struggle was in the mastery of those dull mechanical
subjects, harmony and counterpoint.

287

Richard Wagner:

It was his impetuosity which caused his high spirits
and his violent, though fleeting, outbursts of temper.

His imagination was so vivid that at times it was a
veritable torture to him. He was once obliged to spend a
night alone at BrUnn:

I went through agonies of fear of the cholera which, as I
unexpectedly heard, had broken out in this place. There I was,
all alone in a strange place, my faithful friend just departed, and
on hearing of the epidemic I felt as if a malicious demon had
caught me in his snare in order to annihilate me. I did not betray
my terror to the people in the hotel, but when I was shown into a
very lonely wing of the house and left by myself in this wilderness,
I hid myself in bed with my clothes on, and lived once again through
all the horrors of ghost stories as I had done in my boyhood.
The cholera stood before me as a living thing; I could see and
touch it; it lay in my bed and embraced me. My limbs turned to
ice; I felt frozen to the very marrow. Whether I was awake or
asleep I never knew; I only remember how astonished I was when,
on awakening, I felt thoroughly well and healthy.

My Lije.

One of his most salient characteristics was optimism.
Hardly once during his whole lifetime did he doubt that
he would eventually be recognized at his true worth by
the world. Already at Magdeburg, before he had completed
his first opera, he tells us that he kept copious notes
" for his future biography " ! And writing with approval
of a sketch which Kietz, an artist, was making of him in
Paris, he says :

No evening ever passed during which I did not succeed in
shaking off the depression caused by my vain endeavours and by
the many worries I had gone through during the day, and in
regaining my natural cheerfulness, and Kietz was anxious to re-
present me to the world as a man who, in spite of the hard times
he had to face, had confidence in his success, and rose smiling above
the troubles of life. My Life.

From the point of view of his character, a perusal of
the short stories he wrote when in Paris well repays the

288

A Centenarial Sketch

trouble. They make delightful reading, these tales
which, while full of pathos, ever breathe the subtle
humour which never deserted him even in the most
trying moments of his life. Nietzsche, the philosopher,
wrote to Professor Rohde of his first meeting with Wagner :

Wagner played to us before and after supper and got through
every one of the more important passages of the Meistersinger.
He imitated all the voices and was in very high spirits. He is, by
the by, an extraordinarily active and fiery man. He speaks very
quickly, shows considerable wit and can make a private company
of the sort assembled on that evening quite jolly.

His first marriage was the greatest mistake of his life.
That wonderful love, the " love which is stronger than
death," was with him almost a religion. It made a void
in his life, which was only filled when he married Cosima
at nearly sixty years of age. Meanwhile, he satisfied his
craving by means of " Platonic friendships," which,
innocent though they might be, were often the cause of
his wife's easily-roused jealousy.

It Is a notable fact that, numerous as were the enemies
of Wagner, he did not often know them personally. The
reason is not far to seek. His personality was such that he
made friends with almost every one with whom he came
in contact. He stood upon a higher level than other men,
and impressed his friends with his Ideals by sheer force
of the man in him. We quote another of Nietzsche's
letters in which he speaks of Wagner. This one was
written to Baron Gersdorff.

No one can know him or judge him, because the whole world
stands upon a basis different from his, and is not familiar with his
atmosphere. He is ruled by such an absolute kind of ideality, by
such profound and touching humanity, and by such a lofty and
serious interest in life, that at his side I feel in the presence of the
divine.

At the same time, Wagner was very far from the
" perfect man." In spite of his magnificent brain and his
Vol. 153 289 19

Richard Wagner:

wealth of knowledge, he was decidedly narrow minded.
He rivalled Spontini as a megalomaniac. Owing to his
inordinate pride, when it came to a question of art, he
knew what was right, and if the world did not agree with
him — ^well, the world was wrong! True, sometimes the
world was wrong; often, it was right. It was from this
conviction of his own infallibility that most of his writings
drew their inspiration.

III. THE AUTHOR AND PHILOSOPHER.

IT was not willingly that Wagner turned from com-
position and poetry to enter the realm of prose. It was
always under the goad of necessity of one kind or another.
In Paris, it was a case of writing or starving; at Dresden,
it was the blundering methods that were injuring the
sacred cause of Art, which compelled him to take up his
pen again; and at Zurich it was the need of a concise
statement of his system of artistic philosophy. Years before
Wagner was born, Wieland had written a phrase which
might well have been coined for the Master.

The arts are regarded by the masses as mere instruments
of sensual pleasure; to restore them to their first dignity, and
place them once more upon the throne so long usurped by fashion,
luxury and rank sensuality, is indeed a great and bold undertaking.

Yet superficially many of his writings had little to do
with art.

What perplexes most is the fact that Wagner's writings do
not fit into any known category. The artist finds them too philo-
sophical, the philosopher too artistic; the historian does not realize
that the cognitions of a great poet are " compressed facts " ;
he despises them as dreams; the educated aesthetic dreamer beats
a timid retreat before the energetic will of the revolutionist, who
desires anything but " Vart four les artistes^"* and wishes to re-
model the whole world with the help of art. In short, these
writings deserve in some respects Nietzsche's title " For all and
no oneP Richard Wagner^ by H. S. Chamberlain.

290

A Centenarial Sketch

Certain at least it is that politics and philosophy came
largely into the foreground. But Wagner wrote to
Liszt: "I am in everything which I do and meditate
only an artist, solely and entirely an artist." And it was
true.

Where the statesman despairs and the politician is helpless,
where the Socialist torments himself with impracticable systems,
and even the philosopher can only interpret, never foretell, because
the phenomena before us can only display themselves in an
unconventional form, not to be brought evidently before the
senses, the clear eye of the artist will discern the forms by which
his desire for what alone is true, his desire for humanity, will be
fulfilled. Opera und Drama.

Let us briefly scan his philosophy. In his early years
Wagner erroneously imagined himself to be a disciple
of Feuerbach. He read Uber Tod und Sterblichkeit, and
was fired with enthusiasm for the philosopher as mani-
fested therein. In feverish haste, he wrote for other
volumes by the same author. He could not obtain them.
But even as he wrote, Feuerbach had changed the
opinions he had held in this work of his youth. Later,
Wagner himself realized that even what little he had read
of him had contributed to sow confusion in his earlier
writings.

In 1854, Schopenhauer came to him " as a gift from
heaven in his solitude." At last he held in his hands the
expression of a philosophy which had long lain in embryo
in his own mind. Indeed, much of what he wrote under
the apparent influence of Schopenhauer was completed
before he ever heard of Die Welt als Wille und Vors-
tellung. But he had been groping in the dark. Now his
path was defined by the light of this famous book. This
gave a wonderful impetus to his productive powers.

Kunst und Revolution was written under the disguise
of a political pamphlet. Das Kunstzuerk der Zukunft
H. S. Chamberlain has called an " affirmation in .terms
of general philosophy." These were followed by his
main thesis. Of era und Drama^ and its supplement Eine

291 19a

Richard Wagner:

Mittheilung an meine Freunde, wherein he expounded
his theory of art. " The drama is the highest art, and the
most perfect drama is the purely human drama." By
the drama, he meant the union of several arts, so combined
that what was left unexpressed by one would be effected
by another. He was not the first to have had this idea,
but he was the first to carry it into effect. Goethe,
speaking of poetry, painting, song, music and acting,
said that " if all these arts were made to work together,
with the charms of youth and beauty, in a single evening,
and all of a high degree of excellence, there would be a
feast such as no other could compare with." Other
poets had said much the same.

Completing each other in changeful play, the sister arts will
disport themselves together, in pairs or singly, as is required by the
dramatic action, which alone prescribes the measure and intention.
Now the plastic movements of the actors pause to follow the
passionless musing of the thought — now the thought comes forth
to life, and finds direct form in the gesture; now the stream of
feeling, the thrill of wonder, will be rendered by music alone ; now
all three in common embrace will carry out the will of the drama
in direct and puissant action. For there is but one thing which all
the arts here united must desire, if they would freely exert their
powers, that is, the drama; their only concern must be to fill
its intention. If they are conscious of their purpose, and direct all
their efforts to its fulfilment, they will have the strength to cut
away the egoistic offshoots of their own special being, and the
tree will grow, not sideways to a ragged deformity, but upwards,
spreading its branches, leaves and twigs proudly aloft to its
crown. Das Kunstwerk der Zukunfu

IV. THE POET-MUSICIAN.

RIENZI and Der Fliegende Hollander were Wagner's
first works of importance. Despite the fact that he
wrote them almost simultaneously there is a world of diff-
erence between the loud, pretentious but fine opera on the
" Last of the Barons " and the shorter, simpler more
poetic ballad of the ever-roaming Dutch sailor who was

292

A Centenarial Sketch

released from the curse under which he wandered by
the beautiful Senta.

As far as my knowledge goes there is no parallel case in the
life of any artist, of such an astonishing change in so short a space
of time, as that shown by the author of these two operas, of
which the one was hardly finished before the other lay completed
on his desk. Collected Works, Vol. i.

The great divergence between Rienzi and the Hollander
lies in the poetry. Some people say that Wagner was a
musician become poet; others maintain that he was a
poet who became a musician. A critic once wrote of a
Wagner opera that the text was a proof of his real aptitude
as a librettist, and that it was a mistake for him to devote
himself to composition! As regards Tannhduser Laube
used to declare it was a misfortune that he had not
found an able dramatist to supply him with a decent
book of words! Those who think that his original genius
lay in composing see a confirmation of their view in the
marked improvement in the poetic qualities of the
Hollander. Those who regard him as a Poet-Musician,
on the other hand, point to it as an argument on their
side. Wagner wrote that '' the indispensable fountain
of artistic expression is language." In his first opera the
music was not pliant enough to interweave the poetry
without a certain amount of distortion of the latter.
When he came to the Hollander^ however, he felt more
confidence in himself as a composer and was therefore
enabled to adhere more closely to poetic form.

An amusing story is told of Wagner in relation to
Rienzi.

On his return by train to Dresden from Berlin, where
he had conducted a thoroughly unsatisfactory pro-
duction of that work, he and his wife chanced to get into
a carriage with but one other passenger. Wagner, full
of the unpleasant recollection of his experiences, retired
to a corner and remained buried in thought. He was
presently roused from his meditations by the high-
pitched voice of his wife, hurUng imprecations at her

293

Richard Wagner:

fellow-traveller. It transpired that the two had, in the
course of conversation, touched upon the new opera
Rienzi^ and that the stranger, though he had not seen it
himself, had permitted himself to criticize it severely.
Frau Minna, without disclosing her identity, had then
pitched forth into such a panegyric, pointing out to him
that he " did not know whom he might injure by such idle
nonsense," that the stranger, the perspiration streaming
down his face, beat a hasty retreat at the next station.
Whereat Wagner philosophically treated himself to a
hearty laugh.

With Tannhauser Wagner entered the realm of German
myth, of which he was so learned a student. It was
perhaps a part of that burning patriotism which comes
only to those who have lived abroad and which had seized
upon Wagner in its most virile form, that he now longed
for everything German. At least from this moment he
never forsook the field of German legend in his search
after subjects for his works. But in Tannhiluser^ as in
all his later dramas, he did not keep strictly to the myth
as related. A salient point was selected and round it he
weaved his art. All unnecessary matter was omitted;
all by-play eliminated. The " purely human " alone was
dealt with. " Few incidents, thoroughly treated " was
his motto. With Tannhctuser too, and even to a greater
extent with Lohengrin, he broke away once and for all
from operatic convention. What he termed the Word-
tone-drama was evolved. The place of the unmeaning
melodies, which, interspersed with dry recitative, follow
one another throughout the Franco-Italian operas, was
taken by his system of thematic phrasing with all its
poetic fragrance. By means of his themes and their
infinite variations, Wagner not only paints to perfection
the characters in all their moods, but directs the whole
current of our thoughts. It was the network formed by these
themes that inspired Franz Liszt to write of Lohengrin :

The distinguishing feature of this opera is its unity of con-
ception and style; there is not a single melodic phrase, still less

294

A Centenarial Sketch

an ensemble, nor indeed a passage of any kind, the peculiar nature
and true meaning of which would be understood if it were
separated from its connexion with the whole work. Every part
connects, binds together and enhances the rest. All is of a piece,
and so united that the parts cannot be torn asunder.

Liszt: Collected Works, Vol. m.

Up to the time when Wagner had finished Lohengrin
he was feeling his way in the new field of art which he
was creating for himself. Now comes the great point of
division in his works. He had matured. His own experience
had taught him. His writings, his " setting of his system
on paper," had cleared his brain. Schopenhauer had
confirmed him.

All the dramas yet to come had taken shape in his mind.
He awaited only the occasion to bring them forth.
Rheingold and Walkure, the first two evenings of his
Trilogy, were begun but broken off because he saw no
chance of their ever being performed. At the request
of the Emperor of Brazil he set to work on Tristan und
Isolde. The King of Bavaria wanted a work, and Die
Meistersinger was produced. Although all these works
were elaborated side by side during the course of many
years, their variety once again bears witness to the
amazing fertility of Wagner's brain.

Each of the four^reat works of this period has its own style
of orchestration, from the simplicity of Die Meistersinger to the
lavish splendour of the Nibelungen ; its own peculiar polyphonic
texture, from the finished and intricate count rpoint of Die
Meistersinger to the compact harmonic progressions of Parsifal;
its own manner of employing modulation, from the chromatic
changes of Tristan to the almost Mozartian colouring of Siegfried,
etc., etc.; just the same characteristic contrasts are observable
in the poems, in the verse metre, in the use of assonance, alHtera-
tion and rime, from the weighty alliterative verses of the Ring
to the flowing diction of Die Meistersinger, with the astonishing
art of its rimes; in their psychic character, from the ecstatic
mysticism of Tristan to the directness of the Nibelungen ; in their
thoughts, from the symbolic conciseness of Parsifal^ embracing

295

Richard Wagner:

a whole world within itself, to the simple depths of Die Meister-
singer. H. S. Chamberlain : Richard Wagner.

Die Meistersinger has been compared to Goethe's
Faust in that it was a work protracted over a very con-
siderable portion of the author's life. Twenty-four years
passed between the writing of the first sketch and the
completion of its poetry and music. It is remarkable among
his works in more than one way. It is his only comic
opera. From the deep, mythical, significant, heroic
drama, Wagner turned, and with a hand just as deft set
down his wonderful character study of Hans Sachs,
which overflows with good humour from start to finish.
It is essentially the work of the musician. To read the
poetry gives one little notion of the real Hans Sachs.
But the mi 1: portrays to perfection the melancholy
which underlies the merry exterior of this powerful
man. We can understand Wagner's sympathy for him.
He also was a Hans Sachs. He also knew how to conceal
his sorrows beneath a veil of gaiety.

Der Ring des Nibelungen is the most wonderful trilogy
ever written. It first took shape in the Master's mind as
Siegfrieds Tod, a drama comprising almost everything
which is now contained in the four parts of the cycle.
But though this might have succeeded as an Italian
opera, it did not satisfy Wagner's critical sense. Too
much of what had gone before had to be related. There
was too much introduction before he could arrive at the
" purely human." So he altered it and wrote an intro-
ductory drama Der Junge Siegfried, This necessitated
the others which now form the first two evenings of the
Ring, Das Rheingold, the introduction showing how the
ring came to exist, and Die Walkure, Siegfrieds Tod in
its new form was called Gotterdammerung y its forerunner
simplified to Siegfried. But the poetry completed and
the music begun, Wagner's heart failed him for once.
The work was far beyond the scope of any German
stage, even in its lengthened though simplified form.
How simplified it is compared to the legend as written

296

A Centenarial Sketch

can be seen at the first glance. It was the great German
epic. Its fame had caused many attempts at dramatization,
with no conspicuous success. Then came Wagner. He was
too much of a poet not to perceive that it was too un-
wieldy for dramatic treatment as it stood. He therefore
selected the death of Siegfried, a minor event, and around
and upon it built this wonderful monument. When at
last he did complete it for the Bayreuth festival, painting
it and filling in the crevices with his glorious music, what
wonder that the heart of every German was thrilled with
pride? It is of course in Gotterdammerung that Siegfried
meets his end. There the poetry and the music, in which
we recognize again the themes and thoughts we have
foUov ed throughout the previous scenes, rise to heights
sublime. Wotan, the god, the real hero of this final
form of the original Siegfrieds Tod, pervades the whole
atmosphere. Ever-present in spirit, he watches and
comments upon every event through the medium of
the music, yet never once figures upon the stage — the
only case in the history of drama in which the hero does
not appear. We will only make one quotation from the
poetry, and this merely to illustrate the power Wagner
could put into the words where it is the words rather than
their accompaniment to which he would direct our
attention. It is a masterpiece of alliteration.

Nicht Gut, nicht Gold, noch gottliche Pracht ;
Nicht Haus, nicht Hof, noch herrischer Prunk;
Nicht triiber Vertrage triigender Bund,
Nicht heuchelnder Sitte hartes Gesetz:
Selig in Lust und Leid lasst — die Liebe nur sein.

In the Hollander the prevailing sentiment was the
ardent desire for death. In Lohengrin the longing for
love was the chief motive. In Tristan und Isolde these two
sentiments are united. " Longing, longing unquenchable;
desire always renewed — languishing and thirsting; only
release — death, destruction, never waking again.". Thus
Chamberlain quotes Wagner as describing it. It is not
death in its negative form for which they pine, however.

297

Richard Wagner:

Max Chop describes it as the desire for death " in order
to fulfil in the everlasting night of eternity spiritual and
absolute possession and the welding of their souls."
Briefly the story may be told. Tristan, the faithful friend
of King Marke, is sent across the sea to fetch Isolde, the
royal bride. From the instant their eyes meet mutual
love springs into being, and Tristan's honour bids him
shun Isolde. But just before their arrival at the port, the
latter, resolving rather to die than v^ed another, summons
the hero to her presence and challenges him to drink
with her the draught of death. Brangane, however, to
whom the mixing of the potion has been entrusted, has
prepared a love-draught instead of the poison, with the
result that instead of dying in one another's arms, to
meet again in eternity, they merely lose all consciousness
of passing events and Isolde falls upon his breast just as
their arrival and the coming of King Marke are heralded.
As the curtain is raised upon the second act the King has
just departed for the chase, and Isolde joyfully gives the
signal that Tristan may come to her apartments. Once
more they prepare to die together. King Marke, warned
by Melot, returns to find the heroine in the arms of
Tristan. Hardly can he believe his eyes. Can this be his
faithful friend, Tristan? The latter has no defence.
Gently he kisses Isolde and turns — to throw himself upon
the sword of the treacherous Melot. Again they are
foiled. Tristan is but wounded. In the third act we find
him awaiting Isolde, who has been sent for by Kurwenal,
Tristan's bosom friend. In the delirium of his joy at her
arrival the hero tears open his wound and dies in her
arms. But their fate is fulfilled. Isolde cannot live without
him and, summoned by his spirit, she sinks dead to earth.
According to the legend, " the ivy and the vine have
grown up in eternal embrace on Tristan und holders
grave." CatuUe Mendes wrote: " C'est le plus miraculeux
drame d'amour qui a ete ecrit par un ^tre humain."
" Longing for love and longing for death in his own
breast; that is the source of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde ^^
says Chamberlain.

298

A Centenarial Sketch

This opera is a change from his other works in two ways.
It is the only one with a small cast. It is even smaller
than it appears on the programme, for all the characters
beside the two principals are but very secondary. The
application of the thematic system is also varied. Tristan
and Isolde are love personified. Consequently no parti-
cular personal themes are allotted to them as to the
characters in the Ring^ for example. The themes are
constructed upon their moods and sentiments.

Space — that relentless enemy of critic or biographer —
prevents us from entering into any details concerning
Parsifal. Tristan has been and will always remain Wagner's
chef (Tceuvre to the outside world. Only to the audiences
which flock to Bayreuth is it given to know Parsifal
as it really is. The copyright laws, by which it is next year
given to the world, to be buffeted about upon the waves
of possibly unfeeling criticism, can make no difference
to this. Parsifal is Wagner's gift to Bayreuth; Tristan
his gift to the world.

DONALD DAVIDSON

299

THE PRESENT RELIGIOUS
SITUATION IN FRANCE*

ON the 9th of December, 1905, the law was promul-
gated in France which by decreeing the separation
between Church and State broke the compaft which a
little more than a hundred years ago had united by a
solemn concordat the Catholic Church represented by
Pius VII and the French State represented by Bonaparte,
the first Consul. Beginning from December, 1906, a
year after the passing of the law, the French State ab-
solved itself from the obligation of paying to the ministers
of Catholic worship, bishops of dioceses, vicars.and curates
of parishes, the emoluments which they had in 1807
bound themselves to pay to compensate for the revolu-
tionary spoliation of ecclesiastical goods. The figures of
these emoluments amounted to 35 million francs a year.
On the other hand the Church gave up all interference
in the nomination of bishops and of parish priests. This
violent rupture of the contraft which joined Church and
State, effefted with a contempt of all rights and con-
ventions by one alone of the two contra6ling parties,
had been preceded by various measures calculated to
diminish the influence of the Church in France. In 1886
a law had ordained that all the State schools should be
gradually laicized. In 1904 a new law forbade private as
well as public teaching to all the members of religious
congregations, and next year, 19 14, the delay fixed for
the complete execution of this last law expires. In 1901
the law concerning the associations had the desired result
of suppressing all the teaching congregations and only
allowed the survival of nursing orders and of a few con-
vents of contemplatives.
These last laws attained their full and entire effedt.

• In writing this article I have made use of information given by
V Action Sociale de Reims, by the Bureau de Renseignements et d^ Informa-
tions, by the reports of various conferences and by an article by Georges
Goyau published in he Dictionnaire de T^hiologie Catholigue. — G.F.

30Q

Religious Situation in France

The law of separation has now been working seven years,
and the moment seems a favourable one for examining
the religious situation of France under the new regime,

Under the concordat the French Government nominated
the bishops and the Pope gave them their canonical
institution.

Hence it was necessary that a bishop in governing his
diocese should please both the Pope and the French
Government. This situation sometimes led to conflids,
sometimes to mutual concessions which later caused the
complaint that only men of mediocre worth were raised
to the Episcopate. It cannot, however, be said that a
system which gave to the Church of France such prelates
as Mgr Parisis, Cardinal Pie, or Mgr. Dupauloup, was an
irremediably defeftive one. Immediately after the separa-
tion Pius X filled up from information given him by various
superiors, in particular by the diredors of Saint Sulpice,
the fourteen sees which the difficulties pending between
the Holy See and France had left vacant. After this
first series of nominations the Roman Curia asked the
bishops of any province of France to which a vacant see
might belong, to suggest three candidates from among
whom the Pope would seleft, and several were chosen in
this manner. But since the nomination in 1907 of the
coadjutor of Mgr Fiard, Bishop of Montauban, who was
appointed by the Curia and who was not among the three
candidates suggested by the bishops of the province,
Rome has no longer asked for any official suggestions. The
French bishops are appointed at Rome like those of mis-
sionary countries without the French Church being
consulted, on the information direftly coUefted by the
Curia. There is no episcopacy in the world which is
more in the Pope's hands.

In their turn the bishops appoint the cures as they
please. Already under the concordat they could appoint all
the cures of small rural parishes and of the subordinate
urban parishes. But for their nominations to the more

301

The Present Religious

important parishes, called cures de canton or doyen-
nes, they had needed the government assent. The ap-
pointments to these last parishes were for life. To-day
the bishops have complete liberty of nomination; they
depend only on the Pope and on canon law.

In the same way the bishop is free to name his vicars-
general and all the members of the Curie episcopale.
Formerly, the vicars-general could not be appointed
without the assent of the government. The chapters of
canons attached to the Cathedral Churches have long
been reduced to a purely honorary position, so that the
bishop is absolute ruler in his diocese. Ecclesiastics who
believe themselves wronged by an a6l of episcopal juris-
didlion can have recourse to Rome.

The French priests are recruited almost entirely in the
seminaries. The petits seminaires are establishments of
secondary education where praftically the programme of
the State universities is followed, so that at the end of the
course the students can if they will enter for the first part
of the bachelor of arts degree.

Elementary science is studied there, English or German,
and above all the humanities. The students are thus pre-
pared to enter the grand seminaire^ where they will study
philosophy and theology.

These students pay very small pensions and are for
the most part recruited from the lower ranks of society.
Catholics in easy circumstances prefer to send their chil-
dren to the colleges libres, and if they have a vocation
they mostly enter religious orders; there are very few
secular priests belonging to middle-class families. The
obligation of military service had already at the end of
the last century diminished the number of vocations. M.
Paul Dudon estimates that in i9o6-'there were wanted
3,199 priests in order to fill every post. The separation
law which removed the state guarantee for ecclesiastical
revenues still further diminished the numbers recruited.
In 1 9 10 the Bureau de F Alliance des Seminaires stated
that the number of seminarists had been lowered by one-
half. The buildings of both grands and petits seminaires

302

Situation in France

being part of the episcopal revenues have since 1907
returned to the State, and the bishops have been forced
to find for their pupils, the candidates for the priesthood,
chance shelters, generally indifferent, small, and badly
managed. Hence there has been since 1907 a sudden
falling off in the population of the seminaries. This
diminution has spread from the petits to the grands
seminaires. The consequences of this diminution will be
felt for some years yet, and although it seems from cer-
tain indications that there is again an upward tendency,
it is improbable that the numbers should again reach their
former level. It has indeed been possible during these
last years to build, adapt or procure new establishments.
The financial position of parish priests has been regu-
lated. There is no longer the same uncertainty; the future
may be foreseen. Those families who hesitated, not in
the face of difficulties, but in the face of the unknown, are
regaining confidence, and no longer refuse to trust their
children in a vessel which is still poor and even poorer
than it was, but which at any rate appears to them sea-
worthy.

Philosophical and theological studies are carried on at
the grand seminaire and last on the average fully five
years. They comprise at least one year of scholastic philo-
sophy and rather more than three years of theology. The
professors of the grand seminaire^ who formerly were
often Lazarists and Sulpicians, that is to say, specialists,
are now, since the congregations were dispersed, priests
of the diocese, chosen by the bishop. Once ordained about
the age of twenty-five or twenty-six, the young priest
is attached as vicaire to an important parish. Under the
diredfion of the cure with whom he lives he is initiated
into the work of the ministry. He is still obliged to pass
four annual examinations to show that he has kept up
during the year with the most important questions of
ecclesiastical science. Then at the end of some years,
averaging from four to eight, the vicaire is appointed
parish priest. In France the majority are country parishes
where nearly the whole population is agricultural.

303

The Present Religious

Let us now see what is the condition of the cures and
of the parishes.

The Law of Separation ordered that all edifices used
for worship, as well as all ecclesiastical property should
be put in the hands of associations cultuelles, " drawn
up," said the fourth article of the law, " according to the
regulations of the general organization of worship."
For Catholics this evidently meant (for the general terms
of the law included also Protestants and Jews) associa-
tions approved by the bishops and by bishops in com-
munion with the Pope. Since then the Conseil (TEtat
has always interpreted the law in this sense. For reasons
of which he alone is the judge, Pius X forbade Catholics
to form such associations. The French Church obeyed
promptly and generously. As a matter of f a6l the religious
edifices have remained at the disposal of the faithful, and
in consequence of the priests, but the Catholics have no
official organization which can enter into communication
with the proprietors of the edifices, the State, the depart-
ment, or the commune. The cure has the free use of the
church and of its furniture, he can keep the keys, regulate
the ringing of the bells, the hours of opening and closing,
but, if the edifice is in need of repairs, the proprietor, the
State, the department or the commune, can refuse even
to discuss the matter with the cure. He has no rights, he
has no title to attention. He is not the proprietor, he is
not the tenant, he is not even the usufruft, he is the
occupier. The law gives him the right of occupying the
buildings, of making use of them and of their furniture
so long as they remain in existence. The Conseil d^Etat
has up to the present always safeguarded the rights of
the cure and of the Catholic cure^ whether against a tru-
culent and usurping mayor or even against a schismatic
or dismissed priest. Three such cases have occurred, one
in the Lot-et-Garonne, one in L'Yonne, and a third at
Lyon. Although these intruders had formed associations
cultuelles in accordance with the law, the Conseil d'Etat,

304

Situation in France

on the complaint of the rightful cures, dispossessed them
and ordered the surrender of the place of worship to the
cure in communion with his bishop and with the Pope.
All the same the difficulties are obvious; many minds are
preoccupied with them. In order to prevent ecclesiastical
buildings from falling into ruin through the carelessness
of negligent or seftarian municipalities many churches
have been classed as historical monuments. Thanks to
the skilful and eloquent campaign carried on by M.
Maurice Barres, a Paris deputy as well as a member of the
French Academy, it seems that we may hope soon to see
estabHshed legal conditions which will secure the preser-
vation of the churches, however humble, and by the same
a6l secure to the cure the definitive occupation of them.

The presbyteries belonged in general to the communes.
The Law of Separation left this unchanged, and put them
at the disposal of the associations cultuelles for the cure
to live in them. Failing an association cultuelle the
presbytery has no longer any legal destination. The ques-
tion of lodging the cure has become a sorrowful problem.
Rome removed many difficulties by allowing a rent to be
paid for the presbyteries. This rent is almost everywhere
below the real value, but low as it is it is still a burden
on the cure's slender pittance.

Before the separation the country clergy received a
stipend of 900 francs, which might rise to 1,100 francs in
the country parishes, and rarely to 1,500 in the urban
parishes. Since the separation the bishops have hardly
anywhere been able to keep up this stipend. In many
dioceses it has gone down to two-thirds, that is 600
francs, and in some cases even lower. It is the bishop who
is responsible for these stipends drawn from the offerings
of the faithful, who have in fa6l consented to pay a vol-
untary tax for the support of their clergy. This ta:^ is
without any fixed basis and depends only on good-will
and a sense of duty. The most important subscriptions
are sent in dire6l by the subscribers. But it is the cdlec-
tions that chiefly make up the church funds, colledions
made in the churches or from house to house : in the towns
Vol. 153 305 20

The Present Religious

the clergy have lay help in the house-to-house collec-
tions; in the country it is the cure who must himself beg
from door to door, and it is not without alarm that
most of them see the date of their annual rounds ap-
proach.

Certain bishops have attempted to levy a tax on every
parish; it is an attempt that only partially succeeded;
for instance, in the diocese of Bayonne 224 parishes pro-
vide the full voluntary assessment that the bishop asks
of them, but 277 only provide a portion of it. The Arch-
bishop of Chambery announces that he must have
another 60,000 francs; the Archbishop of Auch is short
by 40,000; the Bishop of Puy calculated that he must have
75,000 francs — he announced this to the faithful, but
obtained no more than 26,936 francs. And sorrowful
emotions are justified when it has to be stated that in
several dioceses the generosity of the faithful is inclined
to diminish rather than to increase. The diocesan coffers
are far off, the people do not understand the organiza-
tion. A certain sloth of mind prevents their refledling.
They see the Church still alive, and influenced by the
spirit of economy they begin to think that in order to
live she does not really need all they had at first intended
to put on one side for her.

The Church of France sees the danger and points it
out without too much insisting on it. As a matter of fa6l,
the cures and vicaires^ whom a hostile press during the
time of the concordat had represented as money-loving,
have taken a singular revenge on their detraftors. Without
saying a word they have given up the immense fortune
which the acceptance of the associations cultuelles would
have allowed the Church to keep, and they wait from
day to day for a little casual help from the faithful, a
few subsidies from the bishop's house. The vestry boards
and the episcopal funds possessed before the separation
real estate and capital. These goods may be valued at
332,609,000 francs. In the absence of associations cul-
tuelles^ which had been made by law the only organism
qualified to receive funds, all this property had become

306

Situation in France

legally without owners and in consequence reverted to
the State. It was the same with the 19,123,000 francs of the
ecclesiastical superannuation fund, as well as with the
foundations for Masses amounting to 50,000,000 francs.
Parliament in both these last cases agreed to confide the
management of these funds to approved ecclesiastical
representatives, but Rome was afraid that such com-
mittees would prove to be associations cultuelles dis-
guised, and the old priests and the dead were thus
despoiled in their turn.

It may be said truly that the country parish priest
in France is in a miserable position. The average extent
of his resources, including casual help, does not amount to
more than from 1,000 to 1,100 francs, that is, from ^^40
to j^44 a year ! Most of their budgets do not rise as high
as the figures quoted. And yet they do not complain.
They see the prejudice against them diminishing. They
feel that the people are getting nearer to them. Nearly
everywhere they organize associations for the boys to meet
on Sundays and Thursdays, and they urge devout women
to undertake the care of the little girls. The priest is no
longer an official, he has more freedom of movement, he
excites less envy, less jealousy. He does his military ser-
vice like every one else. He is nearer to the people and the
people draw nearer to him. That is all that can be said
at present, after seven years of the new regime. It will
be impossible to judge of the real results until twenty
years have passed.

Ill

In the towns and in Paris, in particular, other problems
present themselves. But it must never be forgotten, if
French affairs are to be judged truly, that the towns
represent but a small part of the whole, that Paris in its
turn is a sort of monstrous exception, and that in the end
it is rural France that is the very substance of the nation.

Paris under the concordat lacked churches: a parish
such as Notre-Dame-de-Clignancourt included 121,000
souls; 96,000 were included in the limits of Sainte

307 20fl

The Present Religious

Marguerite ; 90,000 in those of Saint Ambroise; 83,000 in
those of Saint-Pierre de Montrouge. In thirty-eight
parishes in Paris the proportion of the priests to the in-
habitants was notoriously insufficient, as there was but
one priest to 5,000 of the faithful. Also those on the watch
testified that there was an almost complete absence of
religious pradlices in the suburbs of Paris; and a priest
of the suburbs in 1889 urged Catholics to interest them-
selves in that " China surrounding Paris which counts
nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants." M. L'Abbe Raffin drew
up the statistics of religious and civic funerals from 1883
to 1903. He proved that during those twenty years
the number of civil obsequies had totalled 225,395 ; that is,
there were on an average 10,000 such funerals in a year
from among those of the 53,000 Parisians who die
annually. He observed that it was chiefly among the poor
that civil burials were so numerous, for instance, in 1888,
in the five more expensive classes of funerals, the number
of purely civil ceremonies did not rise above 4 or 5 per
cent, and on the contrary in the workmen's world it
rose to from 25 to 30 per cent. It became necessary there-
fore to increase the number of parishes and the places of
worship as well as the number of the priests. But too
often ministers had to be treated with, who applied and
handled the concordat in a sense hostile to the interests
of the religious apostolate. Where there was everything
to be done it was often very difficult to begin doing any-
thing, and the projedl of the erection of a church, and
even more so of a parish, was met with administrative
difficulties that were often invincible.

The Law of Separation has freed the Church from all
these shackles. There are in the Paris of 191 3 nine more
parishes than in 1905: these nine parishes include 250,000
inhabitants. In the suburbs of Paris in 191 3 there are fifteen
more parishes than at the time of the separation; they
include 215,000 souls. Also in Paris itself and its suburbs
there have been opened twenty-four chapels of ease, to
respond to the religious needs of 166,500 souls. Putting
these figures together we conclude that more than

308

Situation in France

630,000 souls, condemned seven years ago by the dis-
tance from places of worship to an almost incurable
religious famine, have seen in a short time God drsLW
nearer to them and take up His place close to them.
630,000 souls are more than are to be found in the town
of Marseille.

The task is not finished: forty other parochial boun-
daries are by now planned out on the vast surface of the
diocese, and the Archbishop counts on having these forty
parishes in a state of adivity in five years from now.

These churches not only serve the convenience of the
former numbers of the faithful; they attradl and group
new ones. Twenty years ago in a whole suburb of Paris,
where now stands Notre Dame de Rosaire, there was but
one family who attended the services of the parish church
at a distance of nearly two miles. To-day on the same
ground 4,000 hosts are needed for distribution in the
Paschal season. In one such case in the suburbs in four
years time, thanks to the ereftion of a chapel of ease, the
number of dying who receive a priest has been mul-
tiplied by five, and the number of first communions
multiplied by six.

Even when priestly ministrations only touch the mino-
rity, and even a very small minority among the crowds of
the suburbs of Paris, the presence of the priest is bene-
ficial. The ignorant crowds who see the priest come among
them accustom themselves to him little by little; Mass
may not yet attraft them, nor sermons; but if the priest
displays in his church magic-lantern pidlures intended to
reveal to the spe6lators the history of Christ, the people
come in crowds to this new form of service, which they
call in a rather pidluresque phrase La Messe du Cinema,
and for the first time the name of Jesus sounds in their
ears.

Similar troubles existed, and exist, in many large
provincial towns; in most places the episcopate has set to
work to remedy them. And since the Church, as we have
said, has no legal existence, as she cannot be the pro-
prietor of even the edifices that she builds, the cure is

309

The Present Religious

only the tenant of the churches. The property generally
belongs to shareholders. In the diocese of Paris these
shareholders are grouped in two joint stock companies
which have rendered to the Church the valuable service
of acquiring and preparing suitable plots of land, and
who claim from her as a rent for the funds they have sunk
in these undertakings an interest of 4 per cent.

Everywhere, in the country as in the towns, the clergy
have always clung to catechism classes as the means of
securing the religious instrudlion of the children. The law
of 1 88 1 which forbade the elementary schoolmaster to
teach the catechism in school made the work of religious
instruftion a still more urgent duty for the clergy. But
in the towns, in industrial centres, the priest cannot
suffice for the work. Helpers have come to him from
various quarters. In Paris in the first place there is the
(Euvre des Faubourgs which visits and looks after 250
families and more than 10,000 children, and sees that
they regularly frequent the schools and catechism classes
of their distrift. Next there comes, in Paris and in the
provinces, the great (Euvre des Catechismes : this work,
which was founded in 1885 by Cardinal Richard with
200 ladies who catechized 2,000 children, was ere6ted
by Leo XIII on May 31, 1893, into an archconfra-
ternity to which all the French societies of catechists
may be affiliated. This confraternity includes voluntary
catechists and members who pay a subscription; at the
present time it numbers in Paris 4,300 ladies, who cate-
chize more than 44,000 children, and in the provinces
33,000 ladies who catechize 150,000 children. In the
department of the Lozere alone 750 women, mostly
peasants, catechize 7,200 children; nearly 500 of them
make every year a retreat of five days in order to maintain
in themselves this spirit of the apostolate. A Catholic
Congress such as that which was assembled at Paray-le-
Monial in 06lober, 1909, at the initiative of Mgr Villars,
Bishop of Autun, witnesses to the present anxiety of the

310

Situation in France

French Church to adapt its methods of religious in-
stru6lion to the spiritual needs of the populace or to
perfedl what may be called the pedagogy of the cate-
chism. Examinations of religious instru6lion, such as the
Bishop of Paris has lately established, are a highly original
institution. A year after his solemn first Communion the
candidate may by means of an examination obtain the
elementary certificate of religious instru6lion; then, the
following year, after two months of new studies, of which
a committee estimates the results, he may aspire to the
higher certificate. These are the first two degrees of tests.
In 191 2 the first was undergone by 1,623 boys, of whom
1,121 came through successful. In the second there were
596 candidates, of whom 404 were passed. At the same
session 1,126 little girls obtained the elementary certi-
ficate and 493 the higher one. The judges demand more
and more; indeed the zeal of the candidates and the good
will of their families make it possible to raise the level of
the examination. Wuereas in 191 1 the percentage of
candidates passed was 80, in 191 2 it was no more than
67. The two final examinations, the concours inferieur
and the concours cThonneur, must be passed by those who
wish to enter the ranks of voluntary catechists.

The Church at the same time, profiting by still existing
clauses of the law of 1850, keeps up in the measure which
the law and her own resources permit, organizations of
primary and secondary education. She had at the opening
of the twentieth century, 1,600,000 children in her
elementary schools, and she educated in her secondary
schools 91,140 pupils, while those in the State institutions
numbered only 84,742. The law of July 7, 1904,
which forbade all teaching work to the religious con-
gregations, singularly hampered the Church's aftivity
in this diredlion. Out of the 16,904 elementary schools
in the hands of congregations which existed in 1904,
14,404 were immediately closed; they could not all be re-
opened with a new staff, and the free elementary teaching

311

The Present Religious

in 1907 had 318,310 pupils less than in 1900. As regards
secondary education the colleges governed by congre-
gations had at once either to disappear or to be confided
to another staff. There were in 1906, 104 free colleges
less than there were in 1898 — and the clients for free
instruction had between these two dates diminished by
22,223 pupils.

But all the time the Church fights on and holds her
place. The congregationalists became secularized lay-
men and placed themselves at her service.

The dispersion of the congregations was a very heavy
blow. In these wonderful organisms built up with fore-
sight by the ancient spirit of Christian charity, each may
count upon all and all upon each. Mutual assistance in
case of accident, illness or old age — all this in the congre-
gations worked spontaneously by the very aft of leading a
community life. Needs were reduced and expenses re-
strained, preoccupations concerning the individual future,
or the bread of the day after to-morrow, did not arise to
abate or foil the transport of devotion.

To-day the Church in France has to do with separate
individuals who, under control, are always ready to give
free teaching, but what these individuals lack for their
future is the personal security which the enrolling in a
congregation insured, the satisfaftion of belonging to a
body by which they might feel themselves upheld, sup-
ported and protefted. Moreover, these new teachers,
both men and women, may have the charge of families,
whom it is their duty to care for, and to the level of
whose support they must try to raise the remuneration of
their work. This causes a very notable increase in the
expenses of parishes and dioceses.

Ecoles normales have been founded: those which the
association of the distrift for elementary free teaching
has organized in the diocese of Lyon are particularly
remarkable. In Paris the Ecoles normales superieures
train both women professors for the Ecoles normales pri-
maires libres and professors for the houses of secondary
teaching for girls. In the diocese of Paris since Odlober i,

312

Situation in France

19 10, the career of free teacher, male or female, has
its status, the salaries are fixed, the conditions of ad-
vancement defined, even a system of retiring pensions is
being organized. It is desired that there should be no risk
of condemning those who embrace these offices to the
miseries of a forsaken old age.

Thus that free education, which seemed wounded to
death, can face the future with confidence. In some dio-
ceses, by the initiative of the priest who has charge of the
general dire6lion of the free teaching, teachers' con-
ferences are organized between all the priests holding
educational fundfions.

The law of 1875 on the liberty of higher education
{enseignement suferieur) continues, in spite of the menaces
that threaten it, to be used by the Church at Paris, Lyon,
Angers, Lille, Toulouse, and the establishments of higher
education which she possesses in these various towns have
during the last few years started certain new branches of
teaching. At the Catholic Institute of Paris a Professor's
chair has been founded which disputes with the psycho-
physiological materialist the monopoly of studies relating
to the nature and formation of the child; and in this
Institut Catholiqve, which since the Law of Separation
has only been able to continue in its buildings by burden-
ing itself v^th a very heavy rent, we have seen created
three years ago a methodical teaching of the history of
religions confided to chosen specialists. Finally the
teaching of the Semitic languages, which seems in the
State professorships to be more and more consigned to 2
secondary place, finds in the Institut Catholique of Paris a
centre of expansion. The works of University Extension
started by the Catholic faculties of Lille and Angers and
the appendant schools of industry and of agriculture
founded under their auspices, show how much of the
free teaching is given to training for the great duties of
society. It must, however, be realized that the number of
the pupils of the Catholic higher education is out of all
proportion to the number of the pupils of secondary

313

The Present Religious

education. While the Church in its colleges gives this
latter teaching to half the school-going population, its
faculties of higher education have only an exceedingly low
number of scholars, probably less than one-tenth of all
the French students. This difference may be attributed
to three causes: (i) To the superior organization of the
scientific implements provided by the Government; (2)
to greater hopes of success in examinations and in life;
(3) to there being less reason to fear for the young
people's faith.

By the side of the elementary education, properly so
called, the Church has more and more created and de-
veloped a professional education. The great Societe de
Saint Nicholas^ founded in 1827 by M. de Bervanger
and Comte Vi6tor de Noailles and diredled by a Catholic
lay committee, gives in four houses (at Paris, Issy, Igny and
Bezenval) a professional education to children whom it
adopts from the age of eight. The Societe des Amis de
VEnfance^ also Catholic, founded in 1828; the (Euvre
des Orphelins apprentis d'Auteuil^ founded by the Abbe
Roussel; the (Euvre du Berceau de Saint Vincent de Paul,
established near Dax, are occupied with the edu-
cation and apprenticing of their young pupils. The
Ecole Commerciale des Francs Bourgeois, created in Paris
in 1823 by the brothers of the Christian school, prepares
its pupils for the commercial, industrial and official pro-
fessions. The Societe des orphelinats agricoles, established
in Paris by Catholic initiative, has opened in the provinces
a certain number of orphanages especially destined to
prepare their pupils for rural life. The recent foundations
of the workshop for apprentices to locksmiths and mech-
anics at Notre Dame du Rosaire, of the workshop direfted
by the Abbe Rudinsky at La Chapelle, of the workshop
of apprenticeship to carpentry and cabinet-making of
Kremlin-Bicetre, of the workshop of mechanics at St
Hippolyte, of the workshops of carpentry, cabinet-
making and carving founded by the Abbe de Miramom

Situation in France

in the eleventh arrondissement, and the workshop of pre-
paration for apprenticeship of Javel, founded by the Abbe
Blain des Cormiers: all these witness that the clergy of
Paris are occupied with the apprenticeship crisis and
anxious to find a remedy for it. It was on account of this
anxiety that at the diocesan congress of 191 2 the Abbe
Chaptal proposed that a course of manual labour should
be instituted among Catholic works for schoolboys from
II to 13 years of age, and that the greatest possible num-
ber of workshops of apprenticeship should be founded
under Catholic patronage.

The CEuvre des ecoles professionnelles des jeunes Jllles,
founded in 1 871 under the direftion of the future
Cardinal Langenieux, subsidizes at the present time
fifteen professional schools for girls, of which fourteen
are dire6led by the sisters of St Vincent de Paul.

In another department. Catholic initiative at the in-
stigation of Mme de Diesbach has, since 1902, gone ahead
of the State as concerns domestic training. The Ecole
menagere normale, founded in Paris in 1902, by the
Sisters of St Vincent de Paul of the Rue de I'Abbaye,
has organized, from 1902 to 1912, 143 centres of domestic
training, of which thirty-six are in Paris and the suburbs.
A cours normal of Catholic domestic training, destined to
mould mistresses of domestic training for Catholic schools
and other works, has been working since 1910 under the
auspices of the archdiocese.

VII

Following on the parochial courses of catechism, to
complete them and make a success of their fruits the
Church has instituted clubs (patronages). The promoters
of these good works do not content themselves only with
preserving the young man from the dangers and attrac-
tions of the streets, they pursue also a double training —
the apostolic and the social. The Church accustoms
these young men on the one hand to defend among their
fellows the honour and interests of the faith, and on the
other hand to defend in the name of their faith, with

The Present Religious

whomever it may concern, the economic and social
claims of their brethren. Thus is the horizon of the young
Christian enlarged in the clubs of to-day. " You will
become a good fellow," his father and mother have said,
when sending him there, " and your future will gain by
it." But in the long run we see that the young Christian
is won by the attraction of interests exterior and superior
even to those of his own future, by a certain taste for
religious adivity, and by a certain taste for social a6livity.

In the clubs vocations to the priesthood come to light
and certain children of the club take an interest in pro-
fessional questions which foreshadows their becoming
excellent " ringleaders " in the good sense of the word for
future Christian syndicates. Understood in this fashion,
pradlised in this fashion, the club is not merely an in-
stitution of moral health, it is one of the tools for the
adtive spread of the Kingdom of God.

The diocese of Paris alone numbers at present 212
clubs for boys and 254 for girls, which aft respedlively on
45,000 and 60,000 souls. Holiday colonies are joined
to them by means of which the priests have the oppor-
tunity of a long contaft with their young souls. All this
is new and all this is profusely developing.

All the " after-school " attempts by which the State
tries to enter into rivalry obtain only very mediocre
results. M. Edouard Petit, an insfecteur general de
P instruction publique, publishes every year reports on
these attempts, in which the very optimism that in-
spires him is sometimes pierced by great uneasiness.
Children whom certain " lay " masters flattered them-
selves that they had removed from the influence of the
priests come to the parochial club in order to seek the
priest's counsel.

The creation and administration of the clubs, for the
last fifteen years, have given rise to a whole series of
studies and numerous discussions in congress. We have
had jour nee s de patronage, on which the direftors of
the chief works for the young exchanged their experiences
and their views. We have had exhibitions where the

316

Situation in France

installation, the tools and the progress of clubs might be
examined near at hand by means of schemas and statistics.
A review has just been started called the Revue des
Patronages, Thanks to this initiative the art of starting a
club and of organizing it; of rightly diredling, while re-
spedling, the responsibilities of the young men, the art
of preparing them for civic life and of strengthening the
germs of religious life are on the road to constituting a
regular science.

Finally the Federations gymnastiques et sportives des
patronages de France, started in 1898 by Dr Michaud,
assembled in 191 1 one thousand gymnasts for the Fetes de
Nancy, and number in 191 2, with local branches, more
than 1,300 adive societies and nearly 130,000 adlive
members.

It does not enter into our scheme to describe, or even
to mention, the relief works which make Catholic charity
live and prosper. There are more than 4,000 of these
works and the number of persons they help is, failing
statistics, impossible to estimate. Georges Goyau remarks
that the great originality in the efforts of Catholic help
in these later years has been the multiplication of works
of social education. Hence has grown more and more a
" patriarchal " conception of good works. The workers
aspire and incline to-day to associate the sufferer with
his own uplifting, to give to him a share of collaboration,
or even of direftion, in the effort that is made to assist
and restore him. The works of charity most in favour
among Catholics are henceforward what I shall call
preventive works. To anticipate distress by a healthy
domestic and professional education, such is the aim of the
founders of the relief works of to-day. They do not face
only the fight against the results of distress but the fight
against all that produces it.

VIII

Since 1867 there has existed in Paris an association of
bricklayers and stone-cutters having as its end the in-
stru6lion of its members, natives mostly of Limousin,

317

The Present Religious

and the amelioration of their lot. The oldest Catholic
social work was the (Euvre des Cerdes catholiques
d^ouvriers, founded in 1871 by Count Albert de Mun and
the Marquis de la Tour du Pin la Charce; this owes its
importance less even to the 400 clubs of workmen scat-
tered through France, of which eight are in Paris, than
to the movement of economic and social studies under-
taken by the commissions of the (Euvre des Cerdes, To
this O euvre were due the projefts for social laws that
have been presented in Parliament by certain Catholic
deputies even before the State purposed to work out a
scheme of social legislation.

The Union catholique du personnel des chemins de jer^
founded in 1898 to "keep all its members Christians"
and to " better their lot " by assisting charitable, econo-
mic and social institutions, was, at its commencement,
at the moment when its first nights of Adoration took
place in the basilica of Montmartre, solely composed
of a few hundred railwaymen of Paris. Following on a
pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1899 ^^ spread little by little
over the whole of France. It comprised in 191 2, 418
branches with about 50,000 members. The Sisters of the
'Presentation de lours direft the Association et Societe de
secours mutuel pour les demoiselles de commerce. The Catho-
lics of Paris have taken part in the syndicalist movement
by several important creations. First of all should be
quoted the initiation of seventeen old pupils of the
Christian Brothers which blossomed in 1887 into the
creation of the Syndic at des Employes du Commerce et de
V Industrie; this syndicate numbered at the end of 191 2,
7,132 members; it had its two candidates elefted in 1904
on the reconstrudlion of the Conseil superieur du travail^
and its secretary-general, M. Viennet, became in 191 1
conseiller prud^homme^"^ defeating one of the leaders of the
Confederation generale du travail. This syndicate is em-
ployed in promoting in the provinces the existence of

♦The Conseil des Frud'hommes is a counsel of experts of the most
experienced masters and workmen of a calling or trade whose task it is
to decide all disputes.

318

Situation in France

branches or of national syndicates fit to be the nucleus
of a federation of syndicates of Catholic employes.

The organization called de V Aiguille, an association
of needlewomen and their employers, was first in opening
certain restaurants for working women.

The syndicates of workwomen, of employes, of teachers,
of nurses, and the Syndicat du Menage, of which
the three first date from 1902, form together the Union
Centrale des Syndicats professionnels feminins of the
Rue de I'Abbaye; they unite, according to the report of
January 19, 1913, 5,514 working women; the union has
founded forty-four syndicalist se6lions, of which twenty-
five are in Paris ; it has an organ which is called La Ruche
Syndicale, The female syndicates founded in November,
1908, in the Rue Gomboust in Paris, number already 400
syndicalists, and have organized a public stove for the use
of fifty young workwomen. The attempts at Catholic
syndicalism for women tried at Lyon by Mile Roche-
billard, at Grenoble by Mile Poncet, have spread widely.
Finally a quite recent attempt, made in Paris under
Catholic initiative, to form home workers into a syndicate
seems likely to be thoroughly eif edlive.

Since the opening of the twentieth century two in-
stitutions have been organized in which French Catholics
find light and strength for their social a6lion. On the one
hand the Action Populaire of Reims, founded at the
beginning of 1903, circulates widely pamphlets on econo-
mic questions; it publishes annually a Guide social and,
since 1910, an Annee sociale internationale ; it edits a
Manuel social pratique; collections of monographs on
various branches of social work; it started in 1907 Feuilles
sociales destined for popular propaganda; it publishes
leaflets. Plans et Documents, destined for study circles,
popular reviews called Revue de Faction populaire, Peuple
de France, La Vie Syndicale, and finally a do6lrinal re-
view: the Mouvement Sociale, It sends emissaries to the
different diocesan congresses to speak to their hearers of

319

The Present Religious

the social and religious tasks that need accomplishing,
and constitutes a very keen, very rich centre of initiative,
whence all manner of ideas swarm, and where people of
goodwill are prepared to devote themselves to Catholic
good works. It was calculated in 191 1 that the repre-
sentatives of the Action fopulaire had already appeared at
nearly 200 congresses. Then, since 1907, the directors of
this work have themselves organized congresses ; a general
congress of the work in 1907 and 191 1, and at different
dates special days for ecclesiastical sub j efts, for questions
dealing with women's interests, and for syndicalist work-
men. In 19 1 2 came a week for direftors of diocesan works,
and this was attended by priests of twenty-seven dioceses,
who for the space of eight days mutually enlightened
and strengthened one another. It may indeed be said that
it is in reunions of this nature, prudent but fruitful, that
the hidden life of the Church of France is wrought out
and ripened and that future social aftion is concerted.

On another side the Semaines sociales which, since 1904,
are held annually in some corner of France, carry from one
end of the country to the other the teaching of Catholic
doftrine on the social problem, the teaching of Catholic
methods of raising the masses and a more praftical, more
local teaching, destined to apply to the needs and dis-
tresses of the region where the week is held the principles
of social Catholicism. We have seen inaugurated in 191 1
in the distrift of Lyon agricultural social weeks, where
sixty young men, destined to be in their villages the
leaders of social aftion and the representatives of the
Catholic idea, came for instruftion and training. The
annual congresses of the Association Catholique de la
jeunesse franfaise^ which numbers 12,000 members, al-
ways sets a social question for study; in 191 2 it was that of
professional organization. Certain diocesan congresses,
especially in Paris, sometimes set themselves a social pro-
gramme; the question of workmen's dwellings, for
instance, occupied the congress of 191 2. And the Societe
immobiliere de la region parisienne^ a great society for
building^churches, shortly after this congress decided to

320

Situation in France

add to its capital with a view to constructing some work-
men's dwellings near two of the churches that belonged to
it. The parochial committees already instituted in a
great number of Parisian parishes are invited by the Arch-
bishop to make a study of the social conditions of their
distrid:, and thus to colle6l for their priest the elements
of a social map of Paris.

Then a most important institution, the Social Bureau,
initiated in Belgium, was in 1908 inaugurated in Paris.
To the Social Bureau of Paris other bureaux working at
Angers, Lyon, Toulouse, La Roche sur Yon, Rennes,
Marseille, Besangon, may be affiliated. The Social Bureau
of Paris is an Intelligence Office, a centre of documenta-
tion, and at the same time an incentive to initiative at the
disposal of Catholic works and organizations in the dis-
trift of Paris.

The sedlion of Enseignement So dale gave ninety con-
ferences in 1 910, 150 in 191 1 and thirty-five in the first
half-year of 191 2. It organized three social days at Plais-
ance, Menilmontant and Grandes Carrieres; two other
social days were especially reserved for women's works and
organizations. It has drawn up and spread propagandist
tra6ls on Sunday rest, cheap dwellings and syndicalist
organization. Every month it publishes a Correspondance
which procures for journals, bulletins and reviews of
Catholic works and associations, articles on social and
economic questions and also information on the various
social movements and the different se£lions.

Finally, the Social Bureau, in agreement with the exist-
ing women's organizations, has created an Office du
travail feminin^ a. special centre of information concern-
ing these professional organizations.

Suitable publications set forth fully all Catholic teach-
ing and sometimes in a slight measure supplement it.
The creation of organs stripped of all political chara6ler,
giving at once news of the life of religion and information
for religious adlivities, is a quite recent phenomenon in
Vol. 153 321 21

The Present Religious

the Catholic life of France. The first thing in the dioceses
was the Semaines religieuses^ of which the first, that of
Paris, dates from 1853. The attempt was imitated in 1861
at Orleans and at Toulouse, in 1862 at Marseille and at
Montauban, in 1863 at La Lorraine, Limoges, Bourges
and Angers. Nearly every diocese to-day has a Semaine
religieuse.

Then less than twenty years ago the idea of a parochial
press arose and the success of this idea is one of the most
decisive episodes in the Catholic revival of to-day. The
first parish magazines made their appearance in France
towards the year 1895. Little by little the bishops realized
the happy results effefted by these periodicals, and
founded Unions Diocesaines of magazines which now exist
in almost all the dioceses.

The political press which professes (and has proved
these professions) to submit in all things to Catholic
teaching is represented in France by La Croix (in-
different on the constitutional question) ; Le Soldi (roya-
list); La Democratie (republican); UVnivers (royalist);
La Libre Parole (constitutional). Other journals are very
favourable to Catholicism, but as their editors do not
submit to the laws of the Church, and in particular to that
against duelling, they cannot be given the title of Catholics.
Of all these journals La Croix alone, thanks to the various
industries invented by its founders, the Assumptionist
Fathers (1883), has a wide connexion and a very important
circulation. It is read by Catholics, more zealous and con-
vinced than influential, and by a good part of the clergy.
It is, moreover, a well edited paper, and can bear com-
parison with all the others.

Around La Croix has been organized the institution
which the Assumptionists call the Maison de la Bonne
Presse^ which has taken for its mission the organization of
pilgrimages in France and also to Rome and Palestine,
and of issuing all sorts of publications, useful for Catholic
defence and propaganda.

The Maison de la Bonne Presse, in spite of its rather
exclusive title, is not the only firm which publishes good

322

Situation in France

books. The Action Populaire of Reims, of which we spoke
above, and which is diredled by priests who had, and still
have, ties with the Society of Jesus, has issued during the
last ten years a considerable number of volumes, of trafe,
of pamphlets which form a precious storehouse for
those, whether priests or laymen, who desire to devote
themselves to the social apostolate.

The great Catholic publishers keep up their traditions;
the Letouzey firm publishes the Revue du Clerge FranfaiSy
a Dictionnaire du Bible, a Dictionnaire de Theologie
Catholique ; the firm of Beauchesne publishes the Reviie
pratique d^Apologetique and a Dictionnaire d'^Apolo-
getique ; the old firm of Gabalda-Lecoft're publishes the
Revue hiblique, the series Les Saints, diredled by M.
H. Joly, Member of the Institute a much-esteemed library
of religious history; the young firm of Bloud publishes
under the title Science et Religion a series of pamphlets
touching on the most various subjects, and of which some
are little masterpieces of concentrated science, good
quality and clear exposition; under the title of the
Pensee Chretienne we have texts and commentaries; the
same firm calls on learned specialists to put within reach
of the great public the leading manifestations of religious
thought from the times of the apostles to our own days,
from St Paul to Moehler and to Newman. M. FAbbe
Hemmer has also begun with Alphone Picard a colle6lion
of the principal writings of the Fathers. All these publica-
tions have prospered. It seems, however, that the more
scientific publications have for the last few years found an
increasing difficulty in spreading and in finding readers.
At the same time associations of artists, the Societe de
Saint Jean, the Rosace, les Catholiques des Beaux-Arts,
are striving to renew all branches of Christian art, and
among them are to be found masters like Maurice Denis,
Desvallieres, Pinta, Aman Jean, Brother Engel, Vincent
D'Indy. A literary association, the Societe de Saint Augus-
tin, gathers around the Cahiers de V Amitie de France,
while poets such as Robert Vallery Radot, Ffanfois
Mauriac, Andr6 Lafon, Peguy, Le Cordonnel, Francis

323 2Itf

The Present Religious

Jammes and Claudel revive French poetry by steeping
it anew in the well-springs of Catholic inspiration.

What is lacking in the Catholic press is neither zeal
nor talent, nor science, it is rather objeftivity and com-
plete documentation. An author has the right, even
the duty, of expressing and defending his own ideas,
he has not the right of choosing arbitrarily his documents
and his quotations ; the reader should have all the evidence
under his eyes. We have too many advocates, not enough
reporters.

The Journee Documentaire organized in 191 3 by the
Bureau d'' Informations religieuses et sociales showed, how-
ever, a more and more scrupulous anxiety on the part of
Catholics for a setting forth of substantial documentary
evidence.

Finally, •special notice must be given to a means of
popular apologetic inaugurated with great success during
the last fifteen years, that is, magic-lantern leftures.
The Ruvue des Conferences and the review entitled Le
Fascinateur^ published respedlively since 1897 and 1902
by the Maison de la Bonne Presse^ are valuable guides in this
matter. Entire coUedlions of slides have for their end the
seconding of the catechism teaching. At a clerical congress
held at Poitiers in 1906, 250 to 300 priests of the diocese
expressed the wish to have the help of lantern slides in
teaching the catechism; the winter of this very year, in
the diocese of Beauvais alone, eight diocesan societies cir-
culated among themselves about 70,000 views. The Con-
gress of this work held in 191 2 showed that in a diocese
such as Marseille the figures of the leftures rose in one
year from 219 to 420. A diocesan work for the preparation
of slides was organized in November, 191 2, in the diocese
of Paris. In July, 1906, a Protestant writer, M. P. Don-
mergue, declared, on the occasion of the general congress
of the work of lantern slides held at the Maison de la
Bonne Presse^ that this is one of the " boldest and most
modern forms of the Catholic propaganda in France."

324

Situation in France

A framework is needed for each of these undertakings;
all need to come in contadl with the society of the French
community. For this lay co-operation is indispensable,
and it has been necessary to invent a regular organization.
The general tendency of the French episcopate seems to be
to organize Catholics into associations — of the parish, of
the canton, of the diocese, absolutely dissociated from
any party and from any political point of view; solely
occupied with the development of Catholic life and the
defence of Catholic interests. In this respedt, as in many
others, the Archdiocese of Paris possesses organizations
which may serve as a type.

According to the plan designed by the Archbishop of
Paris each parish should have a parochial lay committee,
recruited by the cure and charged with seconding the
w^ork of the clergy and of promoting, under the diredlion
of the hierarchy, all undertakings useful to the religious,
moral and social welfare of the parish. It remains dis-
sociated from political a6lion, and the organization and
exercise of religious worship are outside its province.
This committee is concerned only with religious a6tivi-
ties. It may be divided into several se6lions occupied
respeftively with works of religion and piety, works of
instrudion and education, works for the young and for
their perseverance after school-days, charitable and social
works, publications and works of propaganda. Programmes
drawn up for the moral observation and social study of the
distri6l, programmes aspiring to social aftivities are pro-
posed to the members of the parochial committees.

The report presented to the diocesan congress of 191 2
pointed out the existence of ninety-two parochial com-
mittees, the congress of 191 3 learnt that the figures had
risen to 108, representing two-thirds of the parishes of the
diocese. Out of these 108 committees, seventy-six had
sent to the organizers of the congress a report of their
works. In certain parishes these committees state with
great precision the religious statistics and list of parochial

325

The Present Religious

undertakings : it is a labour to which the archbishop urges
them and should serve, according to M. PAbbe Couget's
expression, " to establish methodical and scientific con-
ditions in which to exercise the apostolate."

Among the undertakings begun by certain parochial
committees of Paris may be quoted the creation of
after-school institutions, the opening of professional
workshops, the creation of workmen's gardens, the search
for practical measures for putting an end to night work
in the bakeries, and the affixing in hotels frequented by-
foreigners of notices in different languages announcing
the hours of services.

At the diocesan congress of 191 3 particular mention
was made of the initiative taken by the parochial com-
mittee of SainU Genevieve des Grande s CarriereSy which
was working at forming syndicalist associations of em-
floyes and workmen; of that of the committee of Notre
Dame de Plaisance, which was studying the question of
apprenticeship; of that of Notre Dame d^Auteuil, which
was concerned with the housing of families burdened with
children. Other committees had, during the year 191 2,
organized a struggle against pornography, and against the
immorality of the cinematograph. The observance
of Sunday rest and the means of facilitating this observ-
ance for butchers, grocers, dairymen, and pork-butchers,
occupied several of these committees; parochial leagues
of customers have been formed. The parochial com-
mittee, as Mgr Gibier, Bishop of Versailles, remarked, thus
forms a regular syndicate of initiative.

Above the parochial committees works the diocesan
committee, which meets about four or five times a year.
Every year some member of the diocesan committee
visits the parochial committees of one distrift of Paris, and
a general annual meeting calls together all the members of
the diocesan committee and a delegate from each paro-
chial committee. It was decided in February, 191 3, that
every three months all the members of the parochial com-
mittees of one of the three archdiaconates of the diocese

326

Situation in France

should meet among themselves. Thus are assured at once
both freedom of initiative and unity of inspiration;
every year in Paris a great diocesan congress sets for study
the most urgent questions, and concentrates during three
days the energies of Catholics. Such congresses are
equally frequent in most of the provincial dioceses.

The men's parochial clubs {Unions) develop with
success in a certain number of parishes in the diocese of
Paris: the objedlive assigned by Cardinal Amette for the
parochial committees is above everything the creation and
development of these clubs. All the pradtising Catholics
of the parish are admitted, and even those who v^thout
fulfilling all the duties of religious praftice make, never-
theless, a public profession of Catholicism, for instance,
by choosing for their children a Catholic school or club.
" In such a suburban parish," writes M. L'Abbe Yves
dc la Bricre, " the parochial club has as many subdivisions,
with a head responsible for each one, as the parish itself
has distrifts, seAions and streets. It is the rough draft of
what will be one day the general organization of Parisian
Catholics."

In the dioceses of the departments they are endeavour-
ing to organize in the same manner, on the one hand
parochial societies, on the other a central bureau, to
which they are all attached, and sometimes, as interme-
diary organs, cantonal committees. The diocesan clubs
tend to bring together on religious grounds (and in cer-
tain dioceses with a view to political adlion) the Catholics of
all shades of political opinion.

It may be seen from this resume that Catholicism in
France is passing through a crisis from which it may and
should emerge strengthened and rejuvenated. It is not
true, as some are pleased to say, that the Separation has
of itself strengthened the Church. It must on the contrary
be recognized that in despoiling her it has taken from her
many means of a6lion. The Church no longer exists in the
eyes of the French State; she can no longer possess any-
thing or perform any a6t denoting existence. In refusing

327

The Present Religious

to organize associations cultuelles the Church of France
not only renounced all her goods, she renounced the legal
status which the State was arranging for her. Pius X
judged that the conditions imposed by the State on these
associations were unacceptable, in opposition to the
laws of the canonical hierarchy; the bishops, the priests,
all the French Catholics obeyed at once. But the Church
of France remains with no legal status whatever. Clearly
this situation cannot continue. By force of circumstances
combinations must be formed, intermediaries between
Church and State, intermediaries accepted by both parties,
must be found. The Church commands the consciences of
Catholics, the State allows to Catholic citizens freedom of
worship. It is clearly in this dire6lion that the recon-
ciliation will be made — and perhaps the welding together.
Already the societes immohilieres which build churches and
afterwards let them to the clergy have opened up one path.
Others will be opened, until the day when Catholic citi-
zens will compel the State to speak with the Church. In
choosing to ignore Rome, France loses more than Rome.
So many interests of every sort are linked with our
Catholic past in Assyria, in Turkey, in Morocco, even to
the Far East, that one day or another when the present
political 'personnel is altered, when fresh men may change
their predecessors' tadics without seeming to blame
their own past adions, official relations, temporary or
permanent, will be renewed with the Holy See and these
relations will in the end bear fruit.

The Church, not only set free from all tie with the
State, but even deprived of all legal status, remains living
and very free — but very poor, and dependent on the alms
of the faithful. In return the faithful are attached to her
all the more because they keep her alive. And the better
they fulfil their task as faithful Christians the better they
will understand their duties as citizens. They will apply
themselves to regaining in their towns the influence they
have lost and the position which is their due. Up to the
present, attached for the most part to political systems

328

Situation in France

barred by limitations, more capable of criticizing and of
opposing than of effeftive a6lion, they have groped about
and sought in various systems their political instrument.
They will find it not by forming a separate political party,
but by entering, each one according to his temperament
and his convictions, the various parties already formed,
and impressing on them a respeA for their convi6lions,
and by all uniting at the eledtions on questions of interest
to their Church. It seems indeed as though this were the
very course recommended by Pius X. A Catholic party
indifferent to political forms would only isolate Catholics
and make them suspedl by all. This indifference, this civic
scepticism, pra6fised for example by Louis Veuillot,
contributed not a little to dismiss Catholics as such from
the handling of public affairs and to take away from them
all influence. Our religious dogmatism has no need of a
lining of political scepticism.

Bishops, priests and faithful are absolutely devoted
to Rome and obedient to the Pope. It has been sometimes
asked in Rome whether we want a national Church. I
ventured as early as 1901, in reply to Brunetiere, to assert
that such a thing could not exist.* A schism in France has
become impossible. Neither bishops nor priests would be
found to attempt it, nor faithful to follow it. The event
has confirmed these previsions. After the Separation all
that the Pope ordered was immediately executed. At one
word from him our bishops and priests gave up their
palaces and their presbyteries and abandoned all their
goods. Nowhere else has there been such docility and such
unanimity. In France, too, there has been the greatest
intelleftual docility. Apart from the case of the Abbe
Loisy after the encyclical on Modernism and the recent
condemnations every one has submitted. And this has been
done with a good will and without any reserves. Modern-
ism does not consist in such and such a boldness of

* " Voulons-nous une Eglise Nationale " ? par F. Brunetiere {Revue
des Deux Mondes, November, 1901). " Pouvons-nous avoir une. Eglise
Nationale" ? par G. Fonsegrive {Quinzaine, December, 1901). — G.¥,

329

The Present Religious

thought, the Modernist is he who prefers his own thought
to the thought of the body corporate, to the thought
of the Church. Modernists of this kind, apart from Abbe
Loisy, there have not been in France even among the
priests and laymen who may have been condemned.
Perhaps there has been some diminution in the ardour
for study and zeal for religious research of the scientific
order, but even in this slackening one may see a mani-
festation of docility.

Our episcopate might also be reproached vdth not
having manifested sufficiently its cohesion and the unity
of its views. In every diocese the particular bishop guides
his flock without troubling himself greatly as to the
adlions of his neighbours. Thus we have seen institutions,
like the daily attendance at the lycees, condemned by one
Archbishop, sandlioned by all the others, a particular
journal condemned by some, silently absolved by others.
Diredlly after the Separation the convocation of two
plenary assemblies of the episcopate led people to hope
that in the future our bishops meant to reunite and to
understand each other. People said that it was with the
objeft of obeying a wish expressed at Rome that they
have not again met, so that this absence of national
cohesion arose only from their attachment to the centre
of unity. There is no reason to fear any more the Galli-
canism of the Church. Our Church is truly and absolutely
Roman. Therefore every attack on its members attaches
them more strongly to the source and centre of their life.
The religious life is everywhere increasing in depth
and intensity. Unbelief will no doubt make still further
progress among the people, but not among the upper
classes of the nation. Catholics are numerous in the
learned assemblies at the Institut de France. They have
regained in the higher official education some posts which
they ought never to have lost. The unpopularity of the
priest in the towns is grovdng less ; cultivated young men
welcome him and even seek him out of their own free
will. The human mind has found the limits of science and

330

Situation in France

has felt that they are narrow and hard, all men of culture
recognize to-day that our whole life is, as it were, bathed in
mystery. Faith is no longer a suspedl but a friend. Those
who have it not are seeking it, and those who have found it
treasure it. Those even who despair of finding it respedl
it. And all, or nearly all, recognize that truth can only be
where she declares herself, where she is supplied with all
she needs to make her accessible to man — that is to say, in
Catholicism, and finally in Rome.

G. FONSEGRIVE

331

AN INDIAN MYSTIC:
RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Gitanjali (Song-Offerings). By Rabindranath Tagore. A CoUeftion
of Prose Translations made by the Author from the original
Bengali. Macmillan and Co. 191 3.

IT has been my bad fortune to hit upon few trans-
lations or imitations of Eastern, and particularly of
Indian, literature which have at all appealed to me. I have
striven to assimilate such ancient scriptures as duty
diftated, and I have carefully read the modern examples
of spiritual compositions which connoisseurs commend
to us. The Bahai literature has seemed to me incom-
parably banal; the great quantities of Indian and Chinese
adaptations poured forth by Theosophical or Buddhistic
societies have appeared to me dull or false in spirit, and
translated into English which I perceive to be bad and
am told is inaccurate; beautiftil poems like Sir Edwin
Arnold's or Fitzgerald's are in scarcely any sense (experts
assure us) true interpretations of genuine Indian or
Persian sentiment, and are in less close psychological
or literary relation to any Oriental original than, say,
Mr Gilbert Murray's " translations " are to Euripides —
whose inability to write as beautifully as his English
disciple we so often regret.

When, therefore, I am shown prose poems of a beauty
so supreme, so magical as are Mr Tagore's, and observe
on the title-page that they profess to be his own trans-
lations from the Bengali, my pleasure is obviously intense
and double. The material is lovely in itself, and it is also
what it professes to be, namely, an Indian expression of
Indian thought and emotion.

Of course, the brief statement, " Prose Translations
made by the Author," does not quite satisfy one, and does
so the less in proportion as the English into which the
Bengali has been translated is perfe6l. And this English
is very perfeft, almost too much so. " Thy awful white

332

Rabindranath Tagore

light with its pathetic shadows " (p. 64). Is " pathetic "
not a purely Western appreciation, and modern at that?
Has then the translation been worked over by an Occi-
dental litterateur? If not, how much excellent Western
work must not have been assimilated by an Eastern for
him to write, unaided, so modern an English (and we
are reminded of the modern highly anglicized Krishna
literature) ? How far is genuine Indian thought, in these
poems, enriched, or diluted, by European ideal? And we
find ourselves asking, how can we, the non-expert in that
"genuine Indian thought" appreciate the presupposi-
tions, the implications of these pages? how judge to what
extent the racial categories, which we are led to believe are
so different from ours — those of personality, individuality;
causality, sequence; nothingness, origin, becoming — ^have
been deserted or modified or transcended?

Mr W. B. Yeats, in his extremely interesting Intro-
ductiofty leads us to suppose that whatever Mr Tagore
may or may not have assimilated, we have here genuine
development, a true vital uninterrupted process, and no
artificial mosaic-work of ideas or phrases. Mr Tagore's
thought has a " history " : its evolution leads it through
the love of " nature " to that of woman, and thence,
through sorrow, into the love of philosophy and of God.
The environment of childhood guarded it; long medita-
tions deepened it; a real popular cult has further estab-
lished and (who knows?) modified and localized it. Its
very " innocence and simplicity " Mr Yeats finds plea-
sure in thinking hereditary (p. xxi), and believes that
behind the contemporary influences stretch those genera-
tions of convergent forces, which have helped to make
greatness, as it were, innate in certain Indian families and
in Mr Tagore's in particular.

For its full power to reveal itself, especially as a popular
and racial asset, Mr Yeats demands that Bengal civiliza-
tion should remain unbroken, that a " common mind "
may make the common assimilation of Tagore's poetry
possible. Here all will be wholly in accord with him; but
I am uneasy diredly he begins to talk about Renaissance.

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An Indian Mystic:

A " new Renaissance," he surmises, has been born in
India (p. viii). This is what is frightening. A thoughtful
article in the British Review"^ recently deplored the
artificial revival — as sterile as that of English Gothic —
of mediaeval Indian art. Let there be fallow years, the
author prayed; slow assimilation of new elements; rich
harvest (the richer because long-deferred) of a new, yet
indigenous art. Were Mr Tagore's work a conscious
reproduction (this it is not, however) of the old, or even
its dehberate " reinterpretation," it were but a futile
modernism. But it is, I honestly believe, spontaneous.
It is the mark of genius that it is unaware of much —
perhaps of most — of its own meaning when it speaks,
or when it yearns ; it is taught, by its own utterances, how
far greater was the reality to which it aspired and of which
it caught the fleeting intuition, than it was consciously
aware. Mr Tagore, with all inspired seers, shares this
divine ignorance, and is rewarded with this rich astonish-
ment. " Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs.
It was they who led me from door to door . , . It was my
songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they
showed me secret paths, they brought before my sight many
a star on the horizon of my heart. They guided me all the day
long, . . . and, at last, to what palace-gate have they
brought me in the evening at the end of my journey? "
" I boasted among men that I had known you . . . They
come and ask me, * Who is he? ' I know not how to
answer them. I say, ' Indeed, I cannot tell.' ... I put my
tales of you into lasting songs. They come and ask me,' Tell
me all your meanings.' I know not how to answer them.
I say, ' Ah, who knows what they mean! ' " (pp. 92-3).!

" And you sit there smiling." Omnia exeunt in mys-
teriumP and that the seer too should realize this is the best
proof, and safeguard, of his revelation.

* 7heNewDelhiy Sept., 191 3.
t Send me no more

A messenger

Who cannot tell me what I wish.

Spiritual Canticle : St John of the Cross.

334

Rabindranath Tagore

But it is precisely what Mr Yeats means by " Renais-
sance " which frightens mc. He declares (p. xvii) : " Since
the Renaissance the writing of European saints . . . has
ceased to hold our attention." At first I thought that he
meant the writings of post-Renaissance European saints.
This would have been an extremely interesting fa6l of
observation, worthy of much study, and probably almost
entirely true, though suffering manifold exceptions. St
Francis of Sales and Francis Thompson have supplied ex-
ceptions. But on second thoughts I believe Mr Yeats implies
that since the new light and " humanity " introduced by
the Renaissance, the peculiarly European school of
san6Hty — Catholicism, in fa6l, as such — indeed, Chris-
tianity— ^has ceased to govern our ideals and interests;
for forthwith he instances St Bernard, who was not post-
Renaissance, and St John of the Cross, who, spiritually
speaking, is not so, either, in the very least; and again,
a Kempis, and even the Book of Revelation, which is not
even European. " What," he asks (p. xviii), " have we in
common with its violent rhetoric? " Well, we take leave
still to find in the Apocalypse some of the most thrilling,
most sensitive, most delicately mystical literature that
ever has blossomed in our desert; and there is nothing,
scarcely, save the Canticle^ of which Mr Tagore reminds
us more frequently than the tremulous passion of the
Carmelite's love lyrics,* and the triumphant paeans of
the Imitation.^ This implies that the Renaissance has
exercised that sterilizing effe6l in Mr Yeats's own case —
since he is now precluded from " attending to " some of
the most marvellous and creative literature discoverable —

* Writing as I am at a distance from all books, I shall be unable to
illustrate this point as fullj as I should like, or even adequately to verify
my references.

t Would that Mr Yeats had not mentioned St Bernard's refusal to look
at the Swiss lakes. I need not dispute the accuracy of his yersion of
the story; but I have long been convinced that the saint, wearied to death
by the daily enthusiasm of his companions, ended by professing he had not
noticed the view at all. Exactly thus, at the close of Mr Yeats's introduc-
tory panegyric, which I mistakenly read first, I v»ry ntarly nevar went on
to the poems themselves.

335

An Indian Mystic:

which it did in a true sense exercise in European art, litera-
ture and religion. Oscar Wilde saw that perfe6lly well, and
said as much in one or two pages of, I imagine, De Pro-
fundis, Aubrey Beardsley p-ot at the same thing in a differ-
ent way, when he declared that the Oratory was the only
place in London where you could forget it was Sunday.
. . . Alas! true as it may be that we are now no more
creative (whether or no that be because we have " so much
to do ") (p. xii), our " violent history " has contained
much besides a " sanftity " born " of the cell and of the
scourge "; to find St Francis and Blake " alien " in that
history implies that it has been not read, or misread;
and in Tagore's mystical intuitions we shall find those
elements which are ascetic and renunciatory as truly as in
our European saints we should recognize all that is
positive, inclusive, and creative.

I have no notion how far Mr Tagore's background is
likely to be Buddhist; still, since Mr Yeats's informant
equivalently said of him, " He is the first among our saints
who has not refused to live " (p. ix), and since the poet
himself cries aloud: " Deliverance is not for me in re-
nunciation. . . . No, I will never shut the doors of my
senses," we are tempted to think he is at least rea6ling
against the Buddhist inter-connexion of Life, Desire and
Pain, and to that extent proves himself touched by the
spell of the Negative, of Abdication. We do not set out to
deny save what we are half tempted to believe.

And there is, in faft, a strong preliminary note of pessi-
mism in his words upon Desire.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou
holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder

(p. 31)- .

All desires that distraft me, day and night, are false and empty
to the core (p. 29).

I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instru-
ment.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly
set ; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart (p. 11).

Rabindranath Tagore

This implies that, to gain the oupreme and Ultimate,
much that is immediate and fragmentary must be aban-
doned; the relatively worthless does exist, and not every-
thing is equally a vehicle for the All. Partly a stern personal
discipline v^ill achieve this " mortification," but partly the
Divine of its own accord co-operates.

My desires are many and my cry is pitiful, but ever didst thou
save me by hard refusals ; and this strong mercy has been wrought
into my life through and through.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great
gifts that thou gavest to me unasked, . . . saving me from perils of
overmuch desire . . .

Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance
by refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak,
uncertain desire (p. 14).

" Nostras etiam rebelles ad te compelle uoluntateSy^*
prayed Augustine, " Save me from myself."

But, as I said, Self too must aft, and Self is afraid.

I shrink to give up my life, and thus do not plunge into the great
waters of life (p. 72). I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my
accustomed shelter (p. 58).

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to
break them.

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee . . . but I have not
the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death ; I hate
it, yet hug it in love (p. 22).

So Catullus :

Odi et amo; quare id faciam fortasse requiris,
Nescio : sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Still, Catullus too rose to the resolve: hoc est tihi feruincen-
dum. And so Tagore : " I come to ask for my good, I
quake in fear lest my prayer be granted " (p. 23).

And the granting begins. The Lover-King comes
Vol. 153 337 22

An Indian Mystic:

suddenly in the night, and brings, not a rose-wreath, but
a sword — " thy dreadful sword."

I sit and muse in wonder ... I am ashamed to wear it ... It
hurts me . . . Yet shall I bear in my heart this honour of the burden oj
fain* . . , Thy sword is with me to cut asunder my bonds. . . .
From now I leave off all petty decorations .... No more doll's
decorations for me ! (pp. 46-7).

My soul has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress
and decoration. Ornaments would mar our vision ; they would come
between thee and me ; their jingling would drown thy whispers . . .

The child who is decked vnth prince's robes and who has jewelled
charms round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress ham-
pers him at every step (p. 6).

Hence Pain is realized to be not honour only, but a
" sweet music " (p. 51), an " open red lotus " whereon
joy sits still (p. 53) ; there is such a thing as an " ecstasy of
pain," experienced at the final stroke of death to self
(p. 48) ; separation and pain are recognized as fruitful :

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world
and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.

It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night from
star to star ... It is this overspreading pain that deepens into
loves and desires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; that
melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart (p. 78).

" This my sorrow is absolutely mine own " : the poet
gives it to Him to whose giving all other gifts belong

Hence desire can kindle light (p. 21), for even while
" I know thee as my God and stand apart ... I stand not
where thou comest down and ownest thyself mine "
(p. 71) ; nor dare to vaunt a vision wherein " I do not
think of thee; I am too near thee,"t yet " in the depth of
my unconsciousness rings the cry — I want thee, only
thee . . . My rebellion strikes against thy love, and still its
cry is — I want thee, only thee " (p. 30).

* Cf . p. 5, " Pluck this little flower and take it. . . . Honour it with a touch
of fain from thy hand and 'pluck it,**
t Cf . Mrs Browning.

338

Rabindranath Tagore

Thus we have been brought to the complete trans-
figuration, or rather interpretation, of Desire :

" All my illusions will burn into illumination of joy,
and all my desires ripen into fruits of love " (p. 68).

The soul has therefore abandoned itself and found its
home among the poor and weak things of the world.
" O fool, to try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders!
O beggar, to come to beg at thy own door " (p. 7). But
stern self-rebuke softens (else it were a nascent root of
bitterness) into a gentler sense of brotherhood:

Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet where live the
poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down
to the depth where thy feet rest among the poorest, and lowliest,
and lost ... to where thou walkest in the clothes of the humble
among the poorest, and lowliest and lost.

My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest company
with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and lost
(p. 8).*

Still, once there, the soul is met by the divine Cophetua.

They see thee come down from thy seat to raise me from the
dust, and set at thy side this ragged beggar-girl a -tremble with
shame and pride, like a creeper in a summer breeze (p. 33).
Masters are many in your hall, and songs are sung there at all
hours. But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One
little plaintive strain mingled with the great music of the world.
. . . You came down; you stopped at my cottage door (p. 42).t

Even so came Solomon to the Shulamite, long ago.

*This systematic refrain is a notable feature in Mr Tagore's longs,
cf . XVII : " I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his
hands." XLIX: "You came down and stood at my cottage door."
LIII: " Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with stars." LX: " On the sea-
shore of endless worlds children meet . . . On the seashore of endless
worlds is the great meeting of children." This is as poignant as Dowson's
" I have been faithful to thee, Cinyra, in my fashion."

"f This image of the beggar-maid is frequent. It holds, though, a double
doctrine. The King himself comes a-begging. " * What hast thou to give
me? ' Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open thy palm to a beggar to beg."
She gives him from her wallet " the least little grain of corn." And at night,
in that same wallet she finds " the least little grain of gold." " I bitterly
wept and wished I had had the heart to give thee my all " (p. 43).

339 ^^^2

An Indian Mystic:

The Lover-King is splendid in gifts, and the beggar-
maid — unHkc the mendicant grown suddenly rich in
middle-life, and helpless to use his wealth — finds herself
fit to take. " Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these
very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest,
and still there is room to fill " (p. i).

And the only return asked is, Love and self-oblation,
and this, since the recipient is a poet, expressed in song.
Nor, because of his felt finitude, need he fear a swift
exhaustion of song's source in him. Better than Apollo,
of whom Plutarch told how he adapted cunningly his
inspiration to the scale of his human lyre, and made his
Prophet sing higher themes, yet in no higher manner,
than were suited to her woman's powers, this Spirit has

made me endless ... at the immortal touch of thy hands my little
heart loses its limits (p. i) ... I thought that my voyage had come
to its end at the last limit of my power . . . but I find that thy will
knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart (p. 29).

Thus the singer's oflBce is, just to ling.

I am here to sing thee songs.

In thy world I have no work to do; my useless life can only
break out in tunes without a purpose ... It was my part at this
feast to play upon my instrument, and I have done all I could
(p. 13). I know thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only
as a singer I come before thy presence.

I touch by the edge of the far spreading wing of my song thy
feet which I could never aspire to reach.

Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself and call thee friend
who art my lord.

lam non dixi seruos. And since worship both of
friend and of God ends best in silence, he will cry:
" My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O
master-poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me
make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for
thee to fill with music " (p. 6). And at the sound of his

340

Rabindranath Tagore

music, " Speech breaks not into song," " I ever listen in
silent amazement " (p. 3).

Factum est silentium in caelo.

" Now, I ask, has the time come at last when I may-
offer thee my silent salutation? " (p. 14). " I will ... lay
down my silent harp at the feet of the silent " (p. 92).

What, meanwhile, is the theme of his song? Clearly,
the One : but, first, the One in the many. " Oh, grant me
my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch
of the One in the play of the many" (p. 59). How
curious is this invasion of pure Plato ! Yet all the wonted
imagery recurs ; and, for the Indian too, " life, like a
dome of many-coloured glass stains the white radiance
of eternity."

O thou beautiful, there in the nest it is thy love that encloses
the soul with colours and sounds and odours* . . . [and after a
pifture unexampled in delicacy and radiance of touch, of golden,
silent dawn, and of the lonely peace of evening, he concludes :]
But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her
flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance (Xeffc^ 5'
eTriSeSpofiev atyXiy). There is no day nor night, nor form
nor colour, and never, never a word (p. 63). f

But the white radiance, often aspired to, is distant. Na-
ture, daedala rerum^ must first be realized.

When I bring to you coloured toys, my child, I understand why
there is such a play of colour on clouds, or water, and why flowers
are painted in tints — when I give coloured toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance I know why there is music in
leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart
of the listening earth — when I sing to make you dance. When I kiss
your face to make you smile, my darling ... (p. 58).

* In how different a spirit Arthur Symonds wrote, in Amends to Nature:

I have loved colours, and not flowers;

Their motion, not the swallows' wings;

And wasted more than half my hours

Without the comradeship of things,
t Here, then, are Odysseus and the Elysian calm; and Shelley; and
Plutarch's supreme vision of Osiris.

An Indian Mystic:

Torquatum nolo paruulum — but what vision had Catullus,
of^alljthe sweet sights he saw, and among them the baby
with his'tiny hands and little laughing lips — to equal this
mystic's|intuition? Theocritus loved children, and scarce
a lullaby can surpass his crooning Sicilian song, EuSet'
tfia (3pi<l)ea, . . . Yet it witnesses to no more tender an
ecstasy than does the whole of Song LXI — " The sleep
that flits on baby's eyes — the smile that flickers on baby's
lips when he sleeps — does anybody know where it was
born? " And there is never a hint, in those European poets,
of the mystery behind the childish brow. The whole
strange hymn we have already alluded to tells again
and again how " Children have their play on the seashore
of worlds : on the seashore of endless worlds the children
meet with shouts and dances " (pp. 54-5).*

Yet, on the whole, these few simple allusions to children
stand out among poems where the personal touches are
immediately transfigured and pass into the mystical. For
the most part, the travellers and the companions and the
priests misunderstand the singer and pass him by. His
true communing is with the world we call inanimate.
Not that companionship need hide God. But creeds do,
he feels, and codes.f

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads ! Whom
dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors
all shut ? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee.

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and
where the path-maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun
and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy
holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil . . .
Our master has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation ; he
is bound with us all for ever.

• So, too, Wordsworth was glad to have sight " of the immortal sea
which brought us hither. And see the children sporting on the shore, And
hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."

t Yet Mr Tagore has an ethic. " Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep
my body pure, knowing that thy Hving touch is upon all my limbs. — I shall
ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts ... to reveal thee in all
my actions, etc." (p. 4, and cf. p. z8).

Rabindranath Tagore

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and
incense ! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and
stained ? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy
brow (p. 9).

When the hour strikes for thy silent worship at the dark temple
of midnight . . . when in the morning air the golden harp is tuned,
honour me, commanding my presence (p. 1 3).

Yet this human fellowship is rarely made much of:
" domestic walls " seem " narrow " (page 27) ; nations
suffer the " clear stream of reason " to lose its way in " the
dreary desert sand of dead habit " (p. 28). He will be
an acolyte of a cosmic worship, perhaps too little mindful
of how happily Ion sang at his task in the Delphic shrine;
and how divinely Samuel's slumbers were attended " or
ever the Lamp of God was extinguished " in Jahveh's
house. " There was no Ark " in his worship; the world and
himself were sufficient shrine.

Mine eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said,
" Here art thou."

The question and the cry, " Oh, where? " melt into tears of a
thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the
assurance, " I am! " (p. 10).

" Ah me," wrote the European, "Ah me; lo here, lo
there; lo, everywhere! " " The Angels keep their wonted
places " in West and East alike. " Lift but a stone . . ." says
Thompson. " Lift the stone, and thou shalt find me :
cleave the wood, and there am I," spoke the Papyrus.
Listen to the words of the Indian poet when he dete&s in
all he cares to contemplate " the many-splendoured
thing."

Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light !

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life ; . . .
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and
jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

343

An Indian Mystic:

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion . . .

The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy
is abroad (p. 52).

Is not this the Vet Nouum, the Peruigilium Veneris?

When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their
first splendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang,
" Oh, the picture of perfedion! the joy unalloyed! " (p. 72).

How better did Job hear the morning stars sing to-
gether, and the sons of God shout for joy?

But we will not linger over the mere maya^ the exqui-
site illusion and the mirage. All that seems does but convey
and cloak him who Is ; yet is there no need to be " sore
adread, Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside " ;
for, though " thy gifts . . . run back to thee undiminished
. . . thy worship does not impoverish the world " (p. 70).
We have both Him, and all of it.

Yes, I know, this is nothing but thy love, O beloved of my
heart — ^this golden light that dances upon the leaves, these idle
clouds sailing across the sky, this passing breeze . . .

The morning light has flooded my eyes — ^this is thy message to
my heart. Thy face is bent down from above, thy eyes look down
on my eyes, and my heart has touched thy feet " (p. 54).*

But not only are these things his message and his gift;
he is present in them :

He it is, the innermost core, who awakens my being vAth his deep
hidden touches . . .

He it is who weaves the web of this maya in evanescent hues of
gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the
folds his feet, at whose touch I forget myself (p. 6j),

• He passed through the groves in haste,
And merely regarding them
As He passed
Clothed them with His beauty.

Spiritual Canticle.

344

Rabindranath Tagore

Earth is der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid, and man may
be " caught up in the whirl and drift of the Vesture's
amplitude." But better still, He lives in all these things,
and every joy of mine in them, is a meeting of myself
with him.

Thou settest a barrier in thine own being, and thou callest
thy severed self in myriad notes. This thy self -separation has taken
body in me.

That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides, thus
casting coloured shadows on thy radiance — such is thy maya.

The fragrant song is echoed through all the sky in many-
coloured tears and smiles . . . waves rise up and sink again, dreams
break and form. In me is thine own defeat of self.*

The great pageant of thee and me has overspread the sky. With
the tune of thee and me all the air is vibrant, and all ages pass with
the hiding and seeking of thee and me (p. 6y).

Dare I say of what this vision of God, generous in
gifts, present with and a6tive in his gifts, most reminds me?
Of the Contemplatio ad Amor em, in the Spiritual Exercises
of Ignatius of Loyola. But the yearning of the soul, and its
fear, and flight, and the wooing of the divine lover — these
carry us once more to the Hound of Heaven and to St John
of the Cross.

The soul in one mood wakes and wants: messengers
greet her and speed on their way: by the door she sits
smiling and singing, " and the air is filling with the per-
fume of promise " (p. 36).

Have you not heard his silent steps ?
He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment, and every age, every day and every night,
He comes, comes, ever comes . . .
(In every song) in the fragrant days of sunny April through the
forest path ... in the rainy gloom of July nights. ... In sorrow

* Here is a marvellous Indian conception " The screen that thou hast
raised is painted with innumerable figures with the brush of the night and
the day. Behind it thv seat is woven in wondrous mysteries of curves, cast-
ing away all barren lines of straightness " (p. 66).

345

An Indian Mystic:

after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the
golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine (p. 37).

Oh, my only friend, the gates arc open in my house — do not pass
me by like a dream (p. 18).

But there are times too when the soul, licitly or
illicitly, is asleep.

The whole of the wonderful poem XLVII is instin6l
with the sleep-motif (m^Ly I call it?) and of the CanficU,
except that here it is not the Lover who must noc be
awakened, but the Beloved, wearied with watching, begs
to be allowed to sleep until He come, that " my return
to myself be immediate return to him." The way must
be left open to him ; not birds, not winds, must arouse the
soul; his touch alone must banish sleep; his smile must
shine out and unseal the closed eyes; the first thrill come
from his glance (p. 39). And easily he comes, a solitary
wayfarer through the scornful crowds who laugh at the
tired girl. She has given up effort, simply trusting to his
advent. " I fought for what I had travelled, and I sur-
rendered my mind without struggle to the maze of
shadows and songs." Yet not the inmost of the mind, only
its surface of self-willed agitation, and diredlly the attempt
to force the divine advent is abandoned, " I saw thee stand-
ing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile " (p. 41).
" In the morning I woke up, and found my garden full
with wonders of flowers " (p. 76). So is the coming of the
Kingdom, in St Mark's sublime intuition. The seed is
sown; the farmer wakes, and sleeps, and dawn and night
follow one another, and lo! on a sudden the miracle is
accomplished and the seed has sprung up, the delicate
blades glamorous over the red earth, " he knoweth not
how."

Such is the lover's goodness, that he will forgive even
the sleep of indolence. " On the day when the lotus
bloomed, alas ! my mind was straying, and I knew it not "
(p. 16). " He came and sat by my side, but I woke not "
(p. 20). And yet sleep can be trusted, for even sleep itself
he gives to his beloved : In pace in idipsum ..." Let me

346

Rabindranath Tagore

give myself up to sleep without struggle, resting my
trust upon thee. It is thou who drawest the veil of night
upon the tired eyes of the day.* Let menot force my flag-
ging spirit into a poor preparation j or thy worship'''' (p. 20).

Entering my heart unhidden even as one of the common crowd^
unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet of eternity upon
many a fleeting moment of life. [Thus suddenly the soul wakes to the
Logos of the world : so suddenly our tavern becomes Emmaus . . .]
Thou didst not turn in contempt from my childish play among
dust, and the steps that I heard in my playroom are the same that
are echoing from star to star (p. 35).

But this mystic perceives more than that the soul is
ever the beggar-maiden made into a queen. The King
himself is come to minister; to toil even. He on his side
asks, " Give me to drink," and to the very end cries out,
" I thirst."

Thine eyes were sad when they fell on me ; thy voice was tired
as thou spokest low. " Ah, I am a thirsty traveller." I started up
from my day dreams and poured water from my jar on thy joined
palms. . . . The memory that I could give water to thee to allay
thy thirst will cling to my heart and enfold it in sweetness (p. 49).
And although " I gave (my time) to every querulous man who
claims it, and thine altar is empty of offerings to the last, at the
end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut ; but I find
that yet there is time " (p. 76) . Nee clausa est ianua.

Thus it is that thy joy in me is so full . . . O thou lord of all
heavens, where would be thy love if I were not ?\ In my life thy will is
ever taking shape. Thy love loses itself in the love of thy loves, and
there art thou seen in the perfe6l union of two (p. 57).

What divine drink wouldst thou have, my God, from this over-
flowing cup of my life ? X

* Elsewhere he speaks of the " coverlet of sleep." Are these metaphors
as new to Indian ears as Propertius's " curtain of darkness," nox obductis
tenebris, was to Roman?

t Compare Mrs MeynelFs triumphant homage " to the Body," with-
out which all colours were dark, all music dumb.
X Look not thou down, but up,
To uses of a cup
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal;

347

An Indian Mystic:

My pet* is it thy delight to see thy creation through my eyes
and to stand at the portals of my ears silently to listen to thine
own eternal harmony?

Thy world is weaving words in my mind and thy joy is adding
music to them. Thou givest thyself to me in love and then feelest
thine own entire sweetness in me (p. 6i).

But I need, now as then,

Thee, God, who mouldest men ;
And since, not even when the whirl was worst,

Did I — to the wheel of life

With shapes and colours rife
Bound dizzily — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst,

So take and use Thy work, &c.

It would be absurd to suggest that I can properly
set out Mr Tagore's metaphysics in these pages. I do not
suppose I have any adequate understanding of it, and I
hope he has not himself. He has, however, magnificently
the mystic's intuition of his divine union of soul with the
Ultimate. It is especially enshrined in the series of poems,
XXIX to XXXIV. He begins by recognizing the real, yet
still human self, prisoned with the false self of selfishness.
" He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this
dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around and
I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust
and sand lest a hole should be left in this name."t
He goes forth to his tryst, dogged by this shadow-self.
" He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame;
but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company."
" Prisoner, tell me who it was that bound you? " " It was
I," said the prisoner, " who forged this chain very care-

The red wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips aglow :

Thou, Heaven's consummate cup, what wouldst thou with
earth's wheel? Rabbi ben Ezra,
• A subtle article was written not long ago in the British Review on
the Poetry of God.

t And here he is linked, irrefragably, with the whole Gnostic lore of
names, and the white tessera of the Apocalypse, with its new secret
name.

348

Rabindranath Tagore

fully." World-loves capture him, sentinel, and leave him
no peace. " But thou keepest me free," and even " if I call
not thee in my prayers, thy love for me still v^aits for my
love." Is not all this a Kempis; and is it not St Paul, and
He who, w^hen we are faithless, is faithful still?

When it was day they came into my house and said, " We shall
only take the smallest room there . . . We shall help you in the
worship of your God and humbly accept only our own share of his
grace," and then they took their seat in a corner and sat quiet and
meek . . . But in the darkness of night I find they break into my
sacred shrine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed
the offerings from God's altar."

" Ah," sighs the soul, " let only that little be left of me whereby
I may name thee my all . . . Let only that little be left of me
whereby I may never hide thee. . . .*

The cloudlet shall be melted by the sun, and made one
with its light (p. 74) ; cupio dissolui.

We are not careful (nor indeed skilled) to discern in
what this language differs from true Pantheism. Viderint
Indi, Whatever their ultimate thought, mystics have but
one tongue in all the world and in all ages.

Yet Mr Tagore's concluding poems (CXXXVI on-
wards) on death do not fully satisfy the claims of a
Christianized conscience, exquisite though they be.
Doubtless he welcomes death, God's messenger, for
whom he watches, with whom he weds. For Death he
has reserved the " full vessel of my life " (p. 83), more
as a courtesy due to a guest, than because he, " uit^e plenus
conniucB^'* must retire, leaving all, and left by all, especially
by that dear eternal illusion, Nature, which will con-
tinue its tireless process (p. 86), " and I not there, and I
not there. "t Yet that melancholy is not absent in his

* He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all sensation left me.
I continued in oblivion lost, &c.

The Dark Night. St John of the Cross,
t Cory, in his lonica, gives more poignant expression than any I know
to this sense of helpless exile.

349

An Indian Mystic:

courteous, quiet farewells — delicately reticent and un-
distressing as any epitaph in the Greek Anthology. Yet,
if his hands, as he goes, are empty, his heart is expeftant
(p. 86) ; " when I give up the helm, I know that the time
has come for thee to take it: these my little lamps are
blown out at every little puff of wind, and trying to light
them I forget all else again and again. But I shall be wise
this time and wait in the dark, spreading my mat on the
floor; and whenever it is thy pleasure, my lord, come
silently and take thy seat here" (p. 90). For the power
which made him blossom forth into the forest of life
is that which shall "turn again home"; and, because
he loved life, he will be able to love death (p. 87).

For in life he holds himself to have touched God: so
much so, that he will be satisfied with that. Here he
is wrong. Without revelation none can tell what further
forms of consciousness await the soul when death has
dawned. The less we believe in a revealed heaven, the
less we dare to dogmatize what can or does not or cannot
exist. For scepticism should look to right and left. How-
ever, Mr Tagore can write:

" If it is not my portion to meet thee in this my life,
then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight "
(p. 73), and the poem waxes melancholy. Here is an
exclusion of faith, even of hope. But on experience he can
stand, and recover himself:

When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I
have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted of the hidden honey of the lotus that expands on
the ocean of light ... In this playhouse of infinite forms I have
had my play and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who
is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come — let this
be my parting word (p. 88).

[And he goes forth into the lovely evening lane ; the wind is up ;
the river is a -ripple . . .]

And there at the fording in the little boat the unknown man plays
upon his lute (p. 69).

350

Rabindranath Tagore

Has that line, for mystic intensity, been surpassed in
any language?

I have made these many extracts, that I might be
dispensed from comments that need must laud the poet,
and humiliate myself. For it is humiliating to praise
what is obviously supreme, and in doing so to reveal how
little one has grasped of what is so great.

I have, too, arranged these citations somewhat schemati-
cally. I have placed first the musings on the nothingness
of things: on desire and its delusion; on the mayaoi life and
on renunciation. Then I have indicated what, in this
Indian, answers to the Dark Night of the soul, and the
worship of the sharp kiss of pain. Then, what implies the
gradual discovery of the One in the many, of God in con-
templation of created loveliness, and in the companion-
ship of his chief image, man. Finally, I have shown how
here, too, the soul is gathered towards a more immediate
intuition in a wedlock with the Ultimate even in this
life, to be consummated, however, in the " light of
death." Miss Underbill, in her Mysticism^ or more cer-
tainly, her Mystic Way, will doubtless have placed these
fa6ts, thus ordered, in their relation to similar fafts else-
where verified. I have not meant to hint at anything of
this.

But to one in whom the " Renaissance " has not steri-
lized the impulses set going by that Vita Nuova which is
Christianity, there will be noticeable in these exquisite
poems a lack of that illuminative, stabilizing, virilizing
" sense of sin," adlual, and perhaps especially " original,"
which is an enriching Christian asset. Mr Tagore's philo-
sophy is for those few souls who seem to sing their way
straight to the stars, unfettered, and from whose vdngs
the dust seems to fall as by itself. Noticeable, too, is
the lack of adequate emphasis upon that self-realiza-
tion which is only properly achieved by self-sacrifice
for fellow-men, by self-immersion into the greater
Whole made by brotherhood. Above all that .Name

351

An Indian Mystic

is lacking without which the sweetest and strongest
literature of Rome seemed insipid to Augustine. There-
fore, too, for Mr Tagore the world is less living, less
sacramental than to the Christian: history is praftically
meaningless; progress is without definite goal. The wean-
ing of the soul from things is, in the long run, an emptying
of them away; its tabernacHng amid men, consequently,
is its abdication of its best Kingdom. So many ideals,
so many fa6ls, so much force, above all, such a Person,
does Christianity possess, which Mr Tagore does not.
Yet will we be careful, remembering " There is no
expeditious road To pack and label men for God And save
them by the barrel-load." Often enough when we deem
them " lost in dusk of life abroad," errant from God, we
know not " the circle that they trod. Death dawned —
Heaven lay in prospe6l wide — Lo, they were standing at
His side." Mr Tagore has grasped that to whomso of
mankind wills " He gave power to become Sons of God,"
but not that " unless the grain of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth all alone." For the Christian,
all life may be, increasingly, one long Holy Communion;
yet must it be, no less, one long and solemn Mass.

C. C. MARTINDALE

352

CHARLES PEGUY

DES " Cahiers de la Quinzaine " un auteur, Remain
RoUand a conquis le public en Angleterre; mais en
void un autre, bien special, bien rare, bien extraordinaire
qui, s'il gagne moins de public en etendue creera un
enthousiasme plus intense chez ceux qui le gouteront.
Les captives par Taimant de la pensee juste, large, pro-
fonde de Charles Peguy ne se fatigueront pas de ses
repetitions posees comme des tonalites d'ou sortent
chaque fois de nouveaux developpements.

Peguy " voit " sa pensee, et il en voit tellement toutes
les faces qu'il les exprime toutes et nous ne voulons en
perdre aucune dans les oeuvres ou il s'eleve le plus haut
— ou I'Inspiration coule comme la lave et a besoin de tous
ses mots, de toutes ses redites pour s'exprimer entiere ; ces
ceuvres sont :

Le Porche du mystere de la deuiieme rertu.
Le mystere des Saints Innocents.

et un ou deux Sonnets de la " tapisserie de Ste Genevieve."
Par contre dans des oeuvres pleines de verve, mais d'une
inspiration moins haute, le dessin renforce qui accuse
admirablement cette pensee, qui coule en refletant sa
vision, devient trop accuse des qu'il descend de ses
hautes et admirables envolees, et nous trouvons dans la
reponse a M. Laudet des pensees justes et raisonnables,
mais non sublimes, et trop dessinees et trop emphatiques.
De meme dans *' Notre Jeunesse," dans T^Argent,"
un peu noyes sont des joyaux qui nous font fremir d'aise;
c'est que Peguy, venerateur du labeur sans ambition, de la
pauvrete, de I'enfant, de I'ouvrier, donne un son plein,
simple, ses poemes sont des fresques, ses lignes nous font
penser a Puvis de Chavannes. Avec lui nous sommes dans
la nature et dans le naturel; s'il lui vient I'expression la
plus familiere il la mettra telle que dans la bouche meme
de Dieu. — Nous plongeons dans des pensees de I'Eternite,
dans les profonds mysteres de I'ame et nous voila sur
Vol. 153 353 23

Charles Peguy

nos pieds, et Dieu se fait familier et joue avec nous — et
nous prend ou nous sommes, et nous nous retrouvons aux
jours des patriarches quand I'Eternel jouait avec les
hommes et s'interessait a leurs serviteurs et a leurs
troupeaux — et la verite est qu'il en est toujours ainsi et
que si nos yeux sont ouverts, si nos ames sont ouvertes, le
familier est grandiose et le sublime est a notre portee.

Nous voila loin des artificialites de pensee et de style,
du convenu et du classique d'auteurs a bruyante renom-
mee adluelle.

II semble quelquefois avec ces auteurs que nous assistions
aux ebats perilleux d'un acrobate sur la corde raide. — Ici
point de ces tensions artificielles — nous sommes dans
I'eternel humain et nous pourrions employer ces paroles
avec lesquelles Peguy decrit la Ste Vierge pour definir son
genre:

A celle qui est infiniment haute

Parce qu'elle est infiniment descendante

A celle qui est infiniment grande

Parce qu'elle est aussi infiniment petite

A celle qui est infiniment touchante

Parce qu'elle est aussiinfiniment touch6e.

Nous avons ici I'antique au lieu du classique, le bizarre
au lieu de I'artifice.

Dans cette exaltation de I'humble travail, de I'enfant
de la nature et de la religion, nous trouvons le detail
infime et le point de vue eternel; ces sujets humains et
eternels nous font respirer I'atmosphere des poemes
epiques, les farniliarites grandioses de I'ancien testament.
Fame du peuple, le reflet de la nature et I'essence de la
religion.

Ce qu'il exprime d'une fagon interessante c'est I'etat re-
ligieux latent inarticule dans la nature; I'hommage
inconscient que la creation rend a Dieu; le service qu'il
tire de I'innocence et meme de I'ignorance et surtout
de I'enfant; de I'enfance qui Lui a fourni les premices
de ses martyrs et les premiers entre ses Saints.

354

Charles Peguy

Car les enfants sont plus mes creatures que les hommes.

lis n'ont pas encore ete defaits par la vie de la terrc.

Et entre tous ils sont mes serviteurs.

Avant tous.

Et la voix des enfants est plus pure que la voix du vent

Dans la vall6e r^coite.

Ignorance de I'enfant, innocence pres de qui la saintete m8me,
la puret6 des Saints n'est qu'ordure et decrepitude.

Enfants vous etes les maitres. . . .

Un regard, un mot de vous fait plier les plus dures tStes,

Vous etes les maitres et nous le savons bien —

Nous savons bien pourquoi. Vous etes tous des enfants J6sus. —

Les objets inanimes prennent une signification sacra-
mentelle de leur office simple ou auguste :

Dans la pierre du seuil et dans la pierre du foyer et dans la
pierre de Pautel.

Nous retrouvons un peu le sentiment de St Frangois
dans ce regne de Dieu dans toute la nature:

Dans Taigle ma creature, qui vole sur les sommets.
Et dans la fourmi ma creature qui rampe et qui amasse petite -
ment

Dans la terre.

Dans cette hommage universel Dieu admet meme (avec
difficulte) les riches. —

Les riches
Qui ne veulent pas etre mes cr^tures
Et qui se mettent a I'abri
D'etre mes serviteurs.

Et II se trouve aussi :

Dans le travail simple et dans la lumiere et dans les t^nebres.
Et dans le coeur de I'homme qui est ce qu'il y a de plus profond
dans le monde.

355 23«

Charles Peguy

Mais au dela de toutes ces choses, au dessus de la
creation brute et du labeur voulu et de I'innocence in-
consciente, au dela de la Foi et de la Charite ce qui domine,
ce qui fait marcher le monde, ce qui gagne le ciel ce qui
mene a la Vie: c'est I'Esperance, une toute petite fille:

La Foi est une epouse fidele,

La Charit6 est une mere ardente

Mais I'Esperance est une toute petite fille.

La Foi est celle qui tient bon dans les siecles des si^cles,
La Charite est celle qui donne dans les siecles des siecles.
Mais ma petite Esperance est celle
Qui se leve tous les matins.

La Foi est celle qui est tendue dans les siecles des siecles.
La Charite est celle qui se detend dans les siecles des siecles.
Mais ma petite Esp6rance.
Est celle qui tous les matins
Nous donne le bonjour.

Dieu ne s'6tonne pas de la foi des hommes . . .

La foi ga ne m'etonne pas.

Qk n'est pas 6tonnant

J'^clate tellement dans ma creation.

Ni de la Charite :

" Ces pauvres creatures sont si malheureuses qu'a moins
d'avoir un coeur de pierre, comment n'auraient elles point charite
les unes des autres."

Mais I'esp^rance, dit Dieu, voila ce qui m'etonne.

Moi-meme

Qk c'est etonnant . . .

Que ces pauvres enfants voient comme tout 9a se passe et qu'ils
croient que demain 9a ira mieux. Qu'ils voient comme 9a se passe
aujourd'hui et qu'ils croient que ga ira mieux demain matin.

Qk c'est etonnant et c'est bien la plus grande merveille de notre
grace.

Et j'en suis etonne moi-meme.

Et il faut que ma grace soit en effet d'une force incroyable.

Et qu'elle coule d'une source et comme un fleuve in^puisable.

356

Charles Peguy

Depuls cette premiere fois qu'elle coula et depuis toujours
qu'elle coule.

Dans ma creation naturelle et surnaturelle.

Dans ma creation spirituelle et charnelle et encore spirituelle.

Dans ma creation eternelle et temporelle et encore eternelle.

Mortelle et immortelle.

Et cette fois, oh cette fois, depuis cette fois qu'elle coula, comme
un fleuve de sang du flanc perce de mon fils.

Quelle ne faut-il pas que soit ma grice et la force de ma grace,
pour que cette petite esperance, vacillante au souffle du pechc,
tremblante a tons les vents, anxieuse au moindre souffle, soit aussi
invariable, se tienne aussi fidele, aussi droite, aussi pure, et in-
vincible, et immortelle, et impossible a eteindre ; que cette petite
flamme du san6luaire.

Qui brille eternellement dans la lampe fidele.

Une flamme tremblotante a traverse I'epaisseur des mondes.

Une flamme vacillante a traverse I'epaisseur des temps.

Une flamme anxieuse a traverse I'epaisseur des nuits.

Depuis cette premiere fois que ma grice a coule pour la creation
du monde.

Depuis toujours que ma grace coule pour la conservation du
monde.

Depuis cette fois que le sang de mon fils a coule pour le salut du
monde.

Une flamme impossible a attcindre, impossible i eteindre au
souffle de la mort.

La petite esperance s'avance entre ses deux grandes soeurs. . . .

Perdue dans les jupes de ses soeurs

Et on croit volontiers que ce sont les deux grandes

Qui trainent la petite par la main.

Et en realite c'est elle qui fait marcher les deux autres et qui les
traine.

Et qui fait marcher tout le monde.

Et qui le traine.

Car on ne travaille jamais que pour les enfants.

Si PEsperance tient au coeur de Dieu, si elle souleve
le monde, si elle mene Phomme, si pour ainsi dire, elle

357

Charles Peguy

va vers Dieu; de Dieu vers I'homme descend un baume,
un bienfait, un don inestimable: la nuit. — Dieu aime la
nuit car c'est elle seule qui peut apaiser toutes les angoisses
de Fhomme, ses troubles et ses tortures, — c'est encore la
nuit qui fut la seule suite possible a la plus grande tragedie
du monde. Le silence est I'expression la plus intense et la
seule adequate de la douleur d'une mere, et la nuit
est le seul terme possible aux tragedies humaines et
surhumaines ; aussi Peguy ne se lasse-t-il pas de chanter la
nuit et le silence.

Une mere devant son enfant malade.

Avait le regard fixe et en dedans et le front barre et elle ne disait
pas un mot comme une bete qui a mal, qui se tait.

Un pere ne craint pas le temps ou il ne sera plus, son
travail exempt d'ambition, exempt d'agitation, ressemble
au travail patient de la nature, il prepare I'avenir de ses
enf ants, qui sera le meme que celui de leur pere :

Et il pense avec tendresse a ce temps oil il ne sera plus et ou ses
enfants tiendront sa place.

Dans le silence Dieu entend ce qui souleve le coeur de
I'homme; le silence est I'expression d'une multitude in-
nombrable de prieres inarticulees, que Dieu connait.

Apres, le tableau saisissant de I'armee des prieres qui
fendent le flot de la colere divine, armees, comme un
vaisseau de son eperon, de ces mots: — "Notre Pere,"cette
barriere inventee par le Fils, cette fine pointe d'avant d'un
navire; ces deux mains jointes invincibles derriere lequel
tout le flot de prieres, tout le flot des pecheurs s'avance.

II a bien su ce jour la ce qu'il faisait mon fils qui les aime tant.

Quand il a mis cette barriere entre eux et moi ; Notre Pere qui
etes aux cieux, ces trois ou quatre mots.

Cecte barriere que ma colere et peut-etre ma justice ne franchira
jamais. ...

Je m'egare dans les citations, mais comment faire,

358

Charles Peguy

comment laisser de cote ces pages saisissantes decrivant
toutes les miseres de I'homme, non sans une question
implicite qui laisse une petite place a I'esperance? Tout
n'est pas ferme par un mur d'aneantissement et d'irreme-
diable misere et cependant les pauvres hommes sont si
las, si fatigues de la vie, si courbes, si rompus, si voiltes, si
rides, si fanes, si tannes, si noyes de sanglots, si noyes de
travail que Dieu s'adressant a la nuit :

O nuit sera-t-il dit que tout ce que je pourrai leur offrir et que
mon

Paradis ce sera cela. — Ce que toi :

O nuit, quelquefois tu obtiens,

Qu'ils tombent dans un lit perdus de lassitude.

II faut bien encore citer quelques pages sur la nuit
entre toutes les nuits. La nuit que Dieu n'oubliera
jamais;

O jour, 6 soir, 6 nuit de Pensevelissement.

Tombee de cette nuit que je ne reverrai jamais, ik

O nuit si douce au coeur par ce que tu accomplis.

Et que tu calmes comme un baume.

Nuit sur cette montagne et dans cette vallee.

O nuit j'avais tant dit que je ne te verrai plus.

O nuit, je te verrai dans mon eternite.

Que ma volonte soit faite. O ce fut cette nuit la

Que ma volonte fut faite.

Nuit je te vois encore, trois grands gibets montaient

Et mon fils au milieu.

Une coUine, une vallee. lis etaient partis de cette ville

Que j'avais donn^e a mon peuple. lis etaient montes

Mon fils entre ces deux voleurs. Une plaie au flanc

Deux plaies aux mains. Deux plaies aux pieds. Des plaies au
front.

Des femmes qui pleuraient tout debout. Et cette tete penchee
qui retombait sur le haut de la poitrine

Et cette pauvre barbe sale, toute souillee de poussiere et de sang.

Cette barbe rousse a deux pointes.

Et ces cheveux souilles, en quel desordre, que j'eusse tant
baises.

159

Charles Peguy

Ces beaux cheveux roux, encore tout ensanglantes de la couronne
d'epines.

Tout souill6s, tout colles de caillots. Tout etait accompli.

II en avait trop supporte.

Cette tete qui penchait que j'eusse appuyee sur mon sein.

Cette epaule que j'eusse appuyee a mon epaule.

Et ce coeur ne battait plus, qui avait tant battu d'amour. Trois
ou quatre femmes qui pleuraient tout debout. Des hommes je ne
me rappelle pas, je crois qu'il n'y en avait plus.

lis avaient peut-etre trouve que ga montait trop. Tout etait
fini, tout 6tait consomm6. C'etait fini.

Les soldats s'en retournaient, et dans leurs epaules rondes ils
emportaient la force romaine.

C'est alors, 6 nuit que tu vins. O nuit, la m^me

La meme qui viens tous les soirs et qui etais venue tant

De fois depuis les tenebres premieres.

La meme qui etais venue sur I'autel fumant d'Abel ct sur le
cadavre d'Abel, sur ce corps dechire, sur le premier assassinat du
monde ;

O nuit, la meme tu vins sur le corps lac^re, sur le premier, sur le
plus grand assassinat du monde.

C'est alors, 6 nuit, que tu vins.

La meme qui etais venue sur tant de crimes

Depuis le commencement du monde ;

Et sur tant de souillures et sur tant d'amertumes ;

Et sur cette mer d'ingratitude, la meme tu vins sur mon deuil ;

Et sur cette colline^ et sur cette vallee de ma desolation

C'est alors, 6 nuit, que tu vins.

O nuit, faudra-t-il done, faudra-t-il que mon paradis

Ne soit qu'une grande nuit de clarte qui tombera sur les peches
du monde ?

Sera-t-il alors, 6 nuit, que tu viendras ?

C'est alors, 6 nuit, que tu vins ; et seule tu pus finir,

Seule tu pus accomplir ce jour entre les jours.

Comme tu accomplis ce jour, 6 nuit accompliras-tu le monde ?

Et mon paradis sera-t-il une grande nuit de lumiere ?

Et tout ce que je pourrai offrir.

Dans mon offrande et moi aussi dans mon offertoire.

A tant de martyrs et a tant de bourreaux,

A tant de purs et a tant d'impurs,

A tant de pecheurs et a tant de saints,

360

Charles Peguy

A tant de fideles et a tant de penitents,

Et a tant de peines, et a tant de deuils, et a tant de larmes et a
tant de plaies,
Et a tant de sang,

Et a tant de coeurs qui auront tant battu
D'amour, de haine,

Et a tant de coeurs qui auront tant saigne
D'amour, de haine,
Sera-t-il dit qu'il faut que ce soit,

Qu'il faudra que je leur offre, ^

Et qu'ils ne demanderont que cela,
Et qu'ils ne voudront que de ceU,
Qu'ils n'auront de goAt que pour cela,
Sur ces souillures et sur tant d'amertumes,
Et sur cette mer immense d'ingratitude
La longue rctombee d'une nuit eternelle ?

Je voudrais encore suivre Peguy dans les pages char-
mantes ou il chante la Sainte-Vierge, dans les vaillantes
paroles consacrees aux Frangais; au loyal service d'un
seigneur frangais; d'un St Louis, d'un Joinville; aux
merveilleux jar dins, aux tres douloureux jardins d'ames
. . . . a un beau jardin frangais. . . .

C'est la que j'ai cueilli mes plus belles ames silencieuscs. . . .
Enfin dans un chant saisissant ou I'enfant rcparait.

Quand un mot d'enfant tombe
Comme une source, comme un rire,
Comme une larme dans un lac.

O hommes et femmes assis 4 cette table soudain courbant le
front, I'oeil fixe, et les doigts immobiles ct arretes, legerement
tremblants sur le morceau de pain,

Les doigts agites d'unleger tremblement.

La respiration arretee,

Vous ecoutez passer

Votre ancienne ame.

Mais il faudralt le lire puisque je ne puis citer toutes

361

Charles Peguy

ses beautes, ni une multitude de reflexions pleines de
bon sens et de verite qui touchent a tous coups a notre
vie, a nos besoins quotidiens spirituels ; nous y trouverons
le bon sens, le sens juste, et le pittoresque et la beaute, et
un renfort spirituel et un soulevement et abreuvement.
Peguy est-il I'initiateur spirituel dont chaque epagne a
besoin? Celui qui sait parler a son temps des choses
eternelles que chaque generation a soif de s' entendre dire
par un homme a elle? Certes ceux qui boiront de cette
source, et se nourriront de ce pain trouveront un fleuve,
une eau vivant*^; ils auront I'horizon elarge, et cette
profonde satisfa6lion et enchantement qui vient d'une
reponse pleine et forte a nos besoins et aspirations.

Cette voix a-t-elle deja une influence? II serait pre-
mature de le dire. Peguy est le centre d'un groupe litte-
raire. De nombreuses voix s'elevent catholiques a divers
degres ; les uns ou vivant du catholicisme, ou s'en servant
comme terreplain de succes en art; peinture, musique,
litterature; des peintres d'un talent aussi divers que
Maurice Denis ou le frere Angel, des litterateurs — tels que
Pierre Claudel, Francis Jammes, des musiciens, la schola
cantorum, la manecanterie des petits chanteurs de la
croix de Bois; des groupes religieux ou politiques tels que
I'ex-Sillon, la Jeunesse Catholique, FAftion frangaise,
I'Amitie de France — pour ne parler que des plus jeunes
et laisser de cote les plus anciens renoms, — les Cesar Frank,
Barres, Bazin, Jules Lemaitre, et les pionniers depuis
longtemps sur la breche tels que Fonsegrive et Laber-
thonniere.

Les uns catholiques de la plus grande ferveur, les autres
attires par cette Eglise qui leur semble etre la seule base de
force et de solidite aussi bien pour la pensee que pour la
stabilite sociale; les autres s'en servant uniquement comme
d'un moyen a succes: tous au moins indiquent une pre-
occupation generale et nous feraient craindre que la
mode ne se mette du cote de la religion. Ainsi nous
voyons d'horribles caricatures de talent de la religion
mystique, telle la " Cite des Lampes." Nous voyons un
essai d'accaparement de la religion par la politique essaye

362

Charles Peguy

par rA6lion frangaise, et avec un certain succes. Ce
groupe, defiant au besoin les lois de I'Eglise, eprouve
la necessite d'essayer de sc servir d'elle pour assommer
— j'allais dire leurs freres en la foi; mais ce groupe, a-t-il
une foi? a-t-il des freres? — pour faire assommer en haut
lieu tout catholique qui ne partage pas sa dodlrine
politico-sociale.

Nous voyons le mysticisme servir de theme a des
auteurs plus ou moins catholiques; ici sans doute on pent
reconnaitre I'influence de Huysmans. II a mis en branle
tout un gout du mysticisme et des hautes expressions du
culte et de Tart religieux. Combien par exemple sont
ceux qui ecoeures par la laideur, ont pu, guides par les
indications de Huysmans, trouver a la chapelle des Bene-
di6lines de la rue Monsieur — dans I'expression simple
d'un beau culte liturgique, si pur, si parfait — un acces
au culte de I'Esprit. lis n'avaient pu le demeler au milieu
des ecoeurements produits par les chantres d'Opera, les
ornements baroques, les distradlions et les exhibitions de
modes dans tant d'Eglises.

Parmi les plus pures et completes manifestations catho-
liques de tous ces artistes et auteurs, le fils de St Frangois,
le frere Angel et Peguy me semblent les plus veritable-
ment impregnes de convidlion et de vie religieuse. Sans
doute Peguy n'est pas encore arrive a Fhumilite ni a la
charite chretiennes (qu'il lui semble si naturel que
I'homme ait) ; mais il connait son catholicisme a fond, et sa
voix d'un noble desinteressement qui a su lutter; — avant
ou apres son retour a la foi, peu importe — a su lutter con-
tre ce qu'il considerait comme une iniquite sociale, ne
s'interessant nuUement au personnage (de Dreyfus).
Cette voix, noble instance de haute recherche de purete
politique et intelle6luelle ne pent dans sa vaillance que
trouver des echos. Mais est-ce a tel ou tel homme qu'il
faut attribuer cet eclatement et ce renouveau de foi, ou
n'est-ce pas plutot, sous I'aftion divine, a la nature
meme de la foi f rangaise, indestru6lible, refoulee d'un cote,
surgissant de I'autre. Les uns voudraient la soutenir a
I'aide de supports uses: royalisme, conservatisme, cen-
sus

Charles Peguy

cordats, et tous leurs instruments s'cffondrent dans
leurs mains. EUc surgit neuvc et vivace dans d'autres
milieux.

Les autres veulent I'aneantir; ils n'arrivent qu'a la
rejetter dans une concentration nouvelle, sur d'autres
instruments; une jeunesse I'acclame et la pratique.

Tout un regiment ayant a la chambree ses emblemes
religieux; plusieurs casernes de soldats disant le rosaire
perpetuel et medite — soit au poste, soit a la corvee, soit
au repos: voila des indices d'une jeunesse qui prend la
Foi au serieux — et qui I'ayant pratique aux moments
les plus orageux et indisciplines de la vie saura sans doute
la porter par toute la France et continuer la tradition
apostolique de leur pays.

M. ASHBOURNE

364

FOREIGN POLITICS OF
THE DAY

AT last the curtain has rung down upon the wretched
Balkan drama, and for a decade at least, there is
reasonable hope to believe that the peoples of Europe
will be able to pursue their ordinary avocations free
from the nightmare that a conflagration originating
in this quarter, spreading afar, might draw them within
its devastating embrace. The calm that has followed
upon the Treaty of Bucharest affords welcome oppor-
tunity for the student of Near Eastern affairs to attempt
a judicial survey of the situation as it exists to-day in
all its changed aspects. Impartial opinion cannot other-
wise than agree that there is little profit to be gained
by dwelling at length upon the sordid intrigue and
savage strife which has blotted the pages of Balkan history
during the past ten months. Indeed, were one disposed
to undertake so stupendous a task as to apportion in a
proper degree blame and credit upon the several States
involved, it is certainly open to doubt whether, as yet,
there is available sufficient data of a reliable nature to
enable one to search the truth. Recrimination and
counter recrimination, accompanied by a wealth of ugly
detail, are forthcoming in abundance. If they have
achieved no other purpose these charges have at least
convinced Europe of one thing — that the time-worn
prophecy as to the unspeakable horrors that would
inevitably distinguish hostiHties in the Near East, has
been more than fulfilled. It cannot be forgotten that in
lending the columns of a journal to recitals of atrocities,
there are limits of decency beyond which no editor will
go. Bearing that fact in mind, we have still before us a
crimson stream of stories, considered to be printable,
describing massacre and rapine, and these sufficient in
bulk and circumstantial enough in detail to have be-
numbed the humane senses of a world in which tenderness
is not the uppermost characteristic. Not a single State,

365

Foreign Politics of the Day

as far as can be judged at present, is entitled to escape
some measure of censure. It is true that the evidence
available up to now shoves that in the committal of
actual atrocities the Bulgarians were the worst oifenders,
and for that reason there is a disposition to discount the
counter-charges which they have launched against their
former allies. Nevertheless, if independent testimony as
to acts which may be said to come within the category
of atrocities is lacking in the case of the Greeks, Servians
and Montenegrins, inhuman treatment of a glaring
nature has not infrequently been laid to their charge.
No Commission of Inquiry, such as has been suggested
in many quarters, can possibly ascertain the truth at
this juncture. Veracity as it is known in the West is
a rare virtue in the East, if indeed it is looked upon at
all as a virtue in this region. Apart from such circumstance,
sufficient in itself to obstruct impartial investigation,
doubtless in the disturbed areas no time was lost in
obliterating all traces of past crimes. On the whole, then,
the subject is one which may well be consigned to
oblivion, and none will deny that the Great Powers have
been wise in declining the responsibility of fixing the
blame. The French Minister for Foreign Affairs certainly
voiced the opinion of Europe when he declared, " all the
belligerents alike have only too frequently infringed the
laws of humanity by cruelties for which neither the desire
for victory nor the despair of defeat can furnish any
excuse." Sir Edward Grey, it will be recalled, utterec*
sentiments of similar purport, and, moreover, in pursu-
ance of his non-committal policy declined to publish
reports from Consuls, and complaints from belligerents,
such as might be likely to convey the impression that any
one nation was more culpable than another. We cannot
assume that responsible statesmen speaking in this strain
on behalf of Great Powers are without evidence to
support their words. That they refrain from producing
such evidence merely indicates that they have decided
not to prolong a discussion from which they believe
no one of the Balkan Kingdoms can emerge with clean

366

Foreign Politics of the Day

reputation. When Ministers in office are compelled
to pursue this course of indiscriminate condemnation,
armed as they presumably must be with facts supplied
by authorized agents on the spot, then it is comparatively
easy to gauge the state of public feeling in its relation
to the misdeeds of the communities of south-eastern
Europe. If we mistake not, the opinion is universal in
all Western countries that the Balkan Peninsula is
outside the pale of civilization. The second struggle —
the struggle among the Allies — ^was clearly conducted
under those conditions of barbarism which belong to the
darkest periods of the Middle Ages, and was rendered
all the more hideous and destructive by reason of the
fact that the ingenious strategy and effective weapons
of the twentieth century were employed. Thus with re-
luctance we come to the inevitable and unhappy conclu-
sion that the protracted conflicts so recently closed in the
Near East are without a single redeeming feature. The
victors' gain against the Turk is to be measured only in
a material sense; in a moral sense, they are in a far worse
position than ever they were before they swept the plains
of Macedonia and Thrace. It would be erring on the side
of mildness to characterize the fratricidal strife which
produced all these evil consequences as a blunder due to
swollen-headed diplomacy. For so furious and purposeless
a war was infinitely worse than a grievous mistake; it
was a demented crime deliberate in its affront to civil-
ization— whole nations of armed madmen running amok^
heedless of the spectacle that they were making of them-
selves and caring nothing for the world's censure. While
it is difficult to sift conflicting accounts and apportion
blame for the savage conduct of the campaign, there
seems little doubt as to Bulgaria's culpability for the
outbreak of hostilities. Indeed, Europe accepted as correct
the Greek and Servian version that Bulgaria made the
first serious military move. Recklessly she staked her
national existence in the hope of winning the hegemony
of the Balkans. It is difficult for any detached student of
recent events to comprehend the mental attitude of a

367

Foreign Politics of the Day

Government that, having emerged vnth the major share
of honour and glory from one victorious v^ar, should so
lightly plunge into a second conflict against its former
allies. Was it seriously believed that Rumania, w^ho had
not concealed her discontent with the compromise arrived
at in regard to territorial compensation, v^ould continue
quiescent? Apparently the Sofia Government was fully
prepared to take the risk of invasion from this side.
For all available troops were concentrated to meet the
Greeks and Servians, and no military preparations were
made as against the probability of a Rumanian advance
across the Danube. Likewise Bulgaria deluded herself
into the belief that the Treaty of London and the
restraining influence of the Great Powers would induce
the Turks to remain passive spectators. Accounts settled,
so she thought, with Constantinople and Bucharest,
the field was left clear for her definitely to impose her
will and authority upon Greece and Servia. To have so
gravely miscalculated the peril of the moment would seem
to argue that the nation had completely taken leave of
its senses. As a matter of fact, all circumstances combined
against the Bulgarians as a people. To begin with, th*ey
were particularly ill-served in the matter of their leaders.
It is notorious that the personal ambitions of King
Ferdinand, encouraged as they were by a strong military
party, knew no reasonable bounds. Having, in deference
to the desires of Russia, consented to abandon the project
that he had long cherished of a triumphal entry into
Constantinople, he was anxious to extend his domains
in other directions at the expense of his neighbours and
allies. When he called Dr Daneff to power the last hope
of a peaceful settlement vanished. It was this statesman
whose truculent, though doubtless well-meaning, diplo-
macy rendered difficult in the recent past the negotiations
both with Turkey and Rumania. Immediately all moderate
influences in the land were suppressed, and before many
hours had elapsed the nation took its headlong leap
to disaster. The Bulgarian people themselves do not
appear to have had much voice in the fateful decision.

368

Foreign Politics of the Day

At the time, the country was chiefly populated by old
men, women, and children. All able-bodied males were
mustered at the front, awaiting the order to advance
against the Greeks and Servians. Inured to military
discipline and to war with all its hardships, and finding
their hatred revive against old enemies who had been
merely temporary allies for expediency's sake, they
turned their faces towards their new foes not sullenly,
as some writers would have us believe, but confidently.
Within ten days the Bulgarian armies, whose glorious
deeds in Thrace had deservedly evoked the admiration of
the world, were in full retreat; Sofia, the capital, was
menaced from all sides; and the national existence
trembled in the balance. That the Bulgarian soldiery
maintained their reputation for dogged fighting is
apparent in all accounts of hostilities. Although their
debacle was accomplished in about half the time that
it took the Alhes to bring about the rout of the Ottoman
forces, and the numbers engaged were considerably
less, it is estimated that the total casualties were somewhat
in excess of those sustained in the latter campaign.
Obviously in certain important respects, the Bulgarians
were at a disadvantage. No one denies that they had
borne the brunt of the fighting against Turkey. Further-
more, the bulk of their forces had been rapidly transported
from Bulair and Chataldja; positions on fresh ground
were quickly taken up opposite the Servian and Greek
armies; and a plan of campaign to meet new conditions
hastily devised. Certainly the enemy was not hampered
to the same extent by like drawbacks. It is plain that the
morale of the Bulgarian people, subjected as it was to a
strain which might well have terminated the existence of
any nation, came through the ordeal not without credit.
History will, the writer ventures to think, say of them that
in the hour of their supreme crisis they exhibited a
stoicism which has few parallels, even among Oriental
races. The fears expressed in the capitals of Europe that
military disaster would be followed by internal revolution
were wholly falsified by subsequent events. Dr Daneff
Vol. 153 369 24

Foreign Politics of the Day

resigned; that was all. For the rest, the nation appears to
have been united in its calm sorrows. " The Near East,"
a well-edited review that gives impartial accounts of
the march of affairs in this region, records " that King
Ferdinand after attending a requiem for the officers and
men killed in the war returned on foot to his palace. The
streets were crowded with loyal people who rent the air
with cries of * Long live King Ferdinand!' and 'Long
live Bulgaria!' " and the eye-witness who describes the
occasion gained the impression that their patriotic
feelings had, if anything, been intensified by the mis-
fortunes of the war. Nothing will persuade the Bulgarians
that, had the issue been left a straight one as between
themselv.^s and the Servians and the Greeks, then they
would have triumphed; and in his address to the troops at
the front, after the conclusion of peace, the King himself
declared that " the struggle would have been crowned
with success but for unfortunate political conditions
which paralysed our forces." When, however, we recall
that Bulgaria mobilized no armies against Rumania
and Turkey and that the disastrous nature of the defeats
inflicted upon her by Greece and Servia were beyond
question, we find it hard to accept the theory thus
advanced.

In dealing somewhat lengthily as I have done with the
attitude of the Bulgarian people, I am concerned not so
much with speculation directly relating to the campaign
itself, as I am with the deductions that may reasonably
be drawn as to what the future holds for them. That
they are totally eclipsed at present is painfully evident.
But the sterling qualities which they have displayed both
in peace and war must ultimately serve them in good stead.
One may with safety hazard the prophecy that their
recovery will be swift, and that, as in the past, they will
play a prominent part in deciding the destiny of the
Balkans. To-day, they are an immature people with all
the vices and, as we have seen, not a few of the virtues
attaching to the backward state to which they belong.
The former, time will correct or modify; and the latter

370

Foreign Politics of the Day

will surely expand and mould a stable national character.
Bulgaria's bold attempt to constitute herself the " Prussia
of the Near East " was clearly premature. Neither her
cultural development nor her constructive capacity
warranted so grandiose an ambition. At the critical
moment she lacked the rulers gifted with the courage
to direct the will of the nation in the path of wise
restraint; but the masses remain as before, industrious,
patient, and honest in time of peace, brave, dogged,
and determined in time of war. That she merited a
check, and in her plight is deserving of but little sympathy,
is not to be gainsaid. Servia and Greece certainly could
claim good cause in embarking upon another war.
Bulgaria failed to accomplish the obligations that she had
undertaken in the Treaty of Alliance. Her partners,
therefore, were called upon to put forth greater efforts
in the Macedonian theatre of operations than they had
bargained for, and, in addition, Servia lent valuable aid
to the Bulgarians outside Adrianople. As events unfolded
themselves, it was not surprising that situations arose for
which provision had not been fully made in the formal
agreement between the Allies. For example, the action
of the Great Powers at the instigation of Austria-
Hungary, and Italy deprived Servia of a proper outlet on
the Adriatic; and when at one time matters were acute
between Belgrade and Vienna, indignation was rife in
the former capital, because Bulgaria showed no willingness
to join forces in repelling the expected Austrian attack
upon the Sanjak of Novibazar, a contingency not then
deemed to be so remote. Servia and Greece naturally
looked for compensation as a result of services required
of them outside treaty obligations, no less than for
territory taken from their portion of the spoils by the
exigencies of higher political conditions over which they
could exercise no control. To Bulgaria's assertion that
the lion's share of the fighting had fallen to her, they
replied that she had, as contemplated from the outset,
secured the lion's share of the reward. If the lion had found
the work tougher than he expected, then that was due

371 24«

Foreign Politics of the Day

to original miscalculation of his own capacity, and
the lesser lights in this political menagerie could not
possibly give him part of what they considered to be their
already insufficient meal. Events have substantially proved
that the association of the Balkan States in war against
the Ottoman Empire was not, in the strict sense of the
term, an alliance. It was a military league which ceased
automatically to exist so soon as its main purpose, the
overthrow of Turkey in Europe, was accomplished.
From that moment old-time feuds began to assert
themselves and individual ambitions were placed before
every other consideration. It may be urged that as
Bulgaria was the aggressor no blame should attach to other
States, and that, leaving altogether on one side this
aspect of the question, the Great Powers, because of their
own dubious methods on occasions, are not entitled to
adopt a censorious attitude towards the little States.
But it must not be forgotten that long before the second
outbreak of war, the world was exasperated with the
tortuous and grasping diplomacy of the Allies, and, that
when, after the manner of thieves, they fell out over the
booty, the savagery of the fighting again and again
outraged humanity. As time went on, the sheer hypocrisy
of the whole episode dawned upon the minds of men. It
was recalled how the Christian allies entered the field with
a fanfare of trumpets, proclaiming that at last they were
about to relieve their brothers in Macedonia from the
Turkish yoke, and avenge the wrongs of centuries. " The
Cross against the Crescent!" was the war cry of these
modern crusaders, shouted from the mountain tops so
that all the world could hear. And what has been the
sequel? Christianity, as it is popularly misunderstood,
has received a set-back from which it will take generations
to recover. Intelligent public opinion long divided on
the subject is unanimous in one belief — that the despised
Turk is no worse than the so-called Christian communities
of south-eastern Europe. It is indeed no exaggeration to
say that the disgusting conduct that characterized the
war among the little States has led to a pronounced

372

Foreign Politics of the Day

reaction in favour of the whole Moslem world, and
particularly of Osmanism. All honest, no less than all
religious people deeply resent that Christianity should
have been employed as the cloak for so coUossal a piece of
cant, and so cynical a process of despoliation as we have
just seen exhibited in the Balkans. -i

Let us picture what course events might have taken
had selfishness not been allowed to dominate the policy
of the Allies. When they embarked upon hostilities against
Turkey, they commanded a large share of sympathy
in all countries throughout Europe. From Russia, they
enjoyed support of a positive kind. Altogether, the moment
was singularly opportune for them to demonstrate to the
world that a strong Federation of States which must in
future be reckoned as a Power, had been called into being.
The political divisions in Europe actually favoured their
policy inasmuch as it ensured them a period free from
intervention, in which they might consolidate their
strength and position. The Great Powers, without
exception, were sincerely anxious to avoid war. In other
words, Europe was plainly unprepared for an Armageddon.
With Russia acting as a check upon Austrian diplomacy,
the Allies were given a clear course. The former Power,
as we have said, assumed the role of principal adviser and
friend. It was the aim of M. Sazonoif to unify the Slavs
of the South. That Austria-Hungary should resent such
policy was perfectly natural and accorded with historical
precedent as well as with her own racial and geographical
exigencies. The prowess displayed by the Allies in the
field surprised Europe and called forth the enthusiasm
of their admirers. Russia saw that her daring diplomacy
had been crowned with success and that her long-
cherished dream of a stable Federation of Slav States
had been realized, as it were, in a single night. In the face
of this great fact accomplished the diplomacy of Austria
was bankrupt, and her ally, Germany, perceiving that the
balance of power had undergone a dramatic change in
favour of the Triple Entente, immediately prepared for
a large increase in her military forces. And then swiftly

373

Foreign Politics of the Day

came the transition. Suddenly the edifice of the Balkan
Alliance collapsed like a box of bricks. The new Power in
south-eastern Europe vanished as quickly as it had ap-
peared. Thus the Balkan Peninsula reverted very much to
its former state and significance. Pan-Slavists who had
paraded the streets of St Petersburg cheering wildly after
each victory over the Turks, openly confessed their bitter
disappointment, and to-day " brother Slav " is an object
of contempt among all intelligent Russians. It must not
be supposed, however, that chagrin in St Petersburg was
necessarily to be followed by rejoicing in Vienna. For
while Russia did not see realized her grand scheme of a
Balkan Federation under Slav domination, the net results
of the prolonged turmoil in the Near East favour her
interests more than they do those of Austria. To appreciate
the truth of this statement it is desirable to go back to
events that preceded the conclusion of the Treaty of
Bucharest. It was without doubt opposed to Russian
policy that Bulgaria should become all-powerful in the
Near East. Russia herself looks forward some day to taking
over the last remnant of Ottoman dominion in Europe and
with it the valuable prize of Constantinople. On more than
one occasion the ambitions of King Ferdinand clashed
with the policy of the St Petersburg Government. That
pressure was brought to bear upon him from this quarter
to forego an attack upon Chataldja and abandon the idea
of a triumphal entry into Constantinople, is an historically
accurate fact. When, later, he withdrew his armies into
Macedonia to menace the Servians and the Greeks, the
opinion was generally rife that in the event of war the
all-conquering Bulgarians would crush their enemies.
Again Russia became alarmed. Servia was her favourite
protege in the Balkans and, moreover, offered a convenient
barrier to Austrian aggression. In the nature of things the
new development could not have been otherwise than
pleasing to Vienna. But the possibility of Rumania
becoming a deciding factor in the situation does not
appear to have been sufficiently taken into account.
Russia, anxious to save Servia, having withdrawn her

374

Foreign Politics of the Day

veto upon an invasion of Bulgaria, the Bucharest Govern-
ment seized the golden opportunity, and, v^ithout paying
heed to the behests of Austria w^ho was naturally anxious
to see the defeat of Servia brought about, alone pursued
a line of action consistent with national interests. As to
the lack of ethical justification alleged against Rumania
little comment need be offered here. It may be remarked,
however, that of all communities in the world the
nations of the Near East have shown themselves to be
least conspicuous in that almost unknown quality —
political morality, and not one among them is entitled
to cast a stone at his neighbour. Rumania claimed
that in return for her priceless neutrality she had been
shamefully treated by Bulgaria, and that, moreover, the
memory of 1878 should preclude harsh judgment upon
her subsequent conduct. Bulgaria, replied that she had
settled the bill once and, as before, she viewed the demand
for territorial compensation in the light of blackmail.
Whatever opinion may ultimately prevail as to the
justice or otherwise of the case, there can be no doubt as
to the efficacy of the action. In striking contrast with
former negotiations among the disputants the process
of Oriental bargaining was cut short, and Bulgaria with
wry face drank the cup of sorrow down to the last dregs.

Without losing so much as. a single soldier, Rumania
at one stroke secured for herself a dominant position in
the Near East. While the other States are recuperating
from their heavy losses she finds herself in possession of
a fresh army composed of 350,000 men with 500 guns,
while her finances are prosperous, and her people thriving.
No effort of imagination is required therefore to see that
Rumania is destined to exercise an important influence
upon international affairs during the next decade.

In attempting to analyse the new factors that now
constitute the situation in the Near East, it should be
borne in mind that the leaning of Bulgaria to the side of
Austria, and what might be termed Rumania's slight
inclination to that of Russia were merely temporary
developments due to the requirements of the moment.

375

Foreign Politics of the Day

Expediency alone governs the relations of the Balkan
States towards each other, and of the Great Powers
towards the Balkan States. In this connexion we may
surmise that had Russia known with certainty that Servia
and Greece would defeat Bulgaria then she would never
have given her consent to the Rumanian advance.
Also we may be sure that Austria's desire to see Servia
crushed was responsible for her belated amiability to
Bulgaria. Neither Russia nor Austria succeeded in gaining
her own way; but, as we have pointed out, if anything
the balance of advantage rests with the former Power.
For, in spite of all threats and obstruction from Vienna,
Servia has expanded her frontiers to no small extent and
will enjoy restricted access to the Adriatic and, through
Greek territory, to Salonika — the one-time goal of Austrian
aspirations. The exact place of Bulgaria in the new setting
of the Near East must of necessity remain obscure until,
so to speak, she can recover her breath. Russia, when at
the eleventh hour she saw the mischief that had been
wrought, vainly endeavoured to render her some service
and thus entice her back to the Slav fold. But Greece,
obdurate to the last, forced Bulgaria to surrender all
save a small section of the -^gean coast. In regard to
this issue, the interests of Russia clashed somewhat
with those of her ally, France. Here once again, the
complexity of the Near Eastern situation manifested
itself.

Greece has undergone a thorough process of national
rejuvenation. Led by a young and enterprising soldier-
king whose exploits on the battle-field have earned
for him a military reputation of no little renown, and
possessing a Premier like M. Venizelos whose ripe
experience and constructive capacity have placed him
in the front rank of European statesmen, the people
are confident that they are marching towards the time
when the taunt that the modern race disgraces its glorious
tradition can no longer be lightly flung at them. Greece
has secured one of the richest areas of Macedonia, and she
is losing not a moment in taking cultural measures for

Foreign Politics of the Day

its development. She is credited with the policy of seeking
by energetic means to withdraw all the Greeks residing
in the Balkan Peninsula within her new borders, a policy
that might well be described as " the Greeks for Greece,
and Greece for the Greeks." And finally, she is about to
expand her forces both on land and sea. The nation is
greatly impressed with the value of sea-power and is
particularly proud of the part played by its navy during
the recent war. As a friend, and conceivably as an ally,
France has not been slow to estimate the naval poten-
tialities of Greece in the Mediterranean, a region in which
she is obliged to keep constant watch upon the growing
forces of the Triple Alliance. Nor is the latter country
otherwise than responsive to such a relationship with
France, for she has good reason for suspecting the
intentions of Italy. The possession of Crete and ultimately
of the majority of the JEgean Islands, upheld as it doubt-
less will be by a navy of no mean order, trained and
organized according to British methods of seamanship,
is bound to render Greece a factor of no little account
in the Eastern Mediterranean, and one that cannot other-
wise than be welcomed by France and Great Britain.
And here it may be remarked that King Constantine's
" indiscretion " on the occasion of his recent visit to
Germany — an innocent and spontaneous expression devoid
of the least trace of arriere pemee — which at the moment
of writing appears to have caused a good deal of heart-
burning in Paris, cannot be allowed to stand in the way of
an entente based on mutual necessities. France, therefore,
realizing the true sentiment of the Greeks, will un-
doubtedly come to an advantageous arrangement in
regard to naval affairs. At the same time, she will not refuse
to open her coif ers to the Goyernment of a country which,
if it is to prove of real service as a friend or ally, must be
assisted to develop its resources and consolidate its
strength.

It has been abundantly proved that the recent conflicts,
far from solving the complex problems of the Near East,
have only served in many important respects to intensify

377

Foreign Politics of the Day

them. From within, discord is bound to continue.
As of old, Bulgarian bands will roam Macedonia and the
conditions will only be slightly changed in that these
Komitajis will have as foes Servians and Greeks instead
of Turks. The existence of the new Albania under the
tutelage of Austria and Italy and pressed on all land
frontiers by Greek, Servian, and Montenegrin, will prove
precarious in the extreme. While the enmity and malice
arising out of the fratricidal struggle remains unabated,
and it is plain that many years must elapse before the
memory of past events loses its vividness, no one can
foretell with any degree of accuracy the course of diplo-
macy. On the one hand, we hear of a commercial entente
between Rumania and Servia, of projects to construct
a new bridge across the Danube and link up communica-
tion between the two countries. On the other hand, we
are told that Austria is aiming at the creation of an
alliance between Bulgaria and Rumania. As for the latter,
there is, furthermore, every reason to believe that the
Kaiser is alive to her potential value as an annex of the
Triple Alliance. It is now admitted that the Kaiser's
influence contributed largely to bringing about peace on
terms desired by Rumania. Furthermore, German
subjects have recently acquired some valuable oil interests
in the country, a move that is obviously connected
with the efforts of the Government to combat the
monopoly of the Standard Oil Group in Germany.
Taking all these significant circumstances into considera-
tion, it may therefore be assumed that, as before, Ru-
mania will lean to the side of the Triple AlHance. For the
time being, as already remarked, the position of Bulgaria is
uncertain. No doubt, Russia will strive to bring once more
into close relationship that country and Servia. The task
before her is a hard one. The Servians are now more than
ever convinced that if they wish to preserve their nation-
ality, they must pursue a separate poHcy from that of
their neighbour. In short, the Slav ideal has been rudely
shattered and perhaps destroyed altogether. Finally,
the Ottoman Empire presents in itself a problem of first

378

Foreign Politics of the Day

magnitude. That, owing to the quarrel among the Allies,
the Turks were able to recover some of that which they
had lost will avail them nothing. The additional burden
thus entailed can only render more serious the plight in
which they find themselves. The Committee of Union
and Progress has revived the worst methods of Abdul
Hamid, the Treasury is empty, and the Government
unstable. By common agreement the future of Turkey
lies in the Middle East. But what do we find there? —
the existence of problems no less acute than those which
in bygone days troubled Ottoman rule in Macedonia,
the problems raised by the discontent of the Armenian
and Arab communities. Not without its irony is the
circumstance that while advising the Porte to forget the
past and turn with light heart to the rich and fertile
plains across the Bosphorus, the Powers are engaged in
marking out for themselves spheres of influence in this
region. Germany will be permitted to construct the
Baghdad Railway to a point where British interests in
their relation to the Persian Gulf intrude ; the opposition
of France may be bought out by recognition of her special
rights in Anatolia. But let us not hasten inconsiderately
to condemn the action of the Powers in regard to this
and other matters relating to Eastern policy. Rather let
us share the broad and common-sense view of Sir Edward
Grey when he declared " The first business of the Con-
cert of Europe is to preserve itself and to preserve
harmony among its component parts."

THE FAR EAST

AS we have seen, interest in international politics
has been almost wholly concentrated upon the rapid
march of events in the Balkans. Because, however, public
attention is, for the time being, restricted to one sphere
that happens to be in close relation with Europe, and the
scene of dramatic incidents such as afford newspapers
ample scope for their enterprise, it must not be imagined
that the rest of the world and its affairs are at a standstill.

379

Foreign Politics of the Day

In the remote East, where the problems to be met with are
on a scale commensurate with the vastness of the region
to which this designation applies and with the enormous
populations that constitute its inhabitants, develop-
ments of tremendous significance have been shaping
themselves. It is no exaggeration to say that to-day we are
on the eve of the completion of several great projects,
the ultimate effect of which will be to revolutionize
the relations between East and West. On the one hand,
we hear of the last engineering obstruction to communi-
cation between the Atlantic and the Pacific having been
removed, and before long water will be flowing through
the Panama Canal from one ocean to the other. On
the other hand there is news of the progress of Russia's
gigantic scheme — a railway along the course of the Amur
River that is to establish all-Russian communication with
the Far East and lead to the development of the incalcul-
able wealth of Siberia. The Panama Canal and the Amur
Railway will be completed about the same time. Other
important projects, advanced beyond the paper stage,
will quicken the journey between East and West. For
example, the Chinese capital is to be linked up with the
Trans-Siberian Railway by means of a line running
through the heart of Mongolia. It will then be possible
to travel from Paris to Peking within eight and a half days.
These expansive activities are in themselves sufficient to
render contemporary history remarkable from the point
of view of sheer human achievement. But the influence
that they are bound to exercise upon the world's destiny
will supply many eventful episodes to the story of the
nations. As communication spreads between East and
West, with all that this implies, it is becoming increasingly
hard to maintain the barrier between the Asiatic and
the white races. Hence, we see in both spheres enormous
legions preparing for the coming struggle. The con-
venience of the Panama Canal will enable the United
States to become a great Power in the Pacific. Russia,
with a haste that almost amounts to panic, is sending
train-loads of peasants eastwards. At last, she has come

380

Foreign Politics of the Day

to the reaHzation that she cannot hold territories that
are not populated and developed. After the experience
of 1904-5 she is bent upon having on the spot an efficient
army composed of settlers rooted to the Siberian soil.
Then, if we glance in another direction, we find that the
British Colonies are again exhibiting a restlessness that
is quite natural in regard to their interests in the Pacific;
and the day when a strong British squadron is to be seen
in these waters cannot long be postponed. Japan, on her
side, is in the fortunate position of possession. At her
disposal is an army of a million men for employment on
the Asiatic Continent, while on sea she holds more than
a two-Power standard advantage. Not content with her
present margin of superiority she is elaborating pro-
grammes of military and naval expansion. In spite of the
circumstances that her people are groaning beneath the
weight of heavy taxation her fixed and determined
policy is to maintain the predominance that she enjoys
in the Pacific. Thus in Asia, as in Europe, we see the
nations concerned with feverish competition in the matter
of armaments. The problem around which this com-
petition centres is no new one. But it is undeniable that
the events of recent years have complicated and enlarged
the difficulties of the situation. In former times, Russia
was the sole barrier against the aggression of Asia. For
it was upon Russia that the Mongol hordes spent their
force. When certain critics, unmindful of the many
charming attributes of the Russian people, dwell unduly
upon the defects of their character, they are apt to forget
the truth of history. Sufficient allowance is not made for
the circumstance that Russian character is not wholly
emancipated from the oppression of Mongol influences;
that, in short, it is hardly as yet nationalized in the
strict sense of the term. The flaws that survive, however,
are small compared with the composition as a whole,
the outstanding features in which are generosity, and
kindliness. When we reflect how much the rest of^^the
world owes to Russia, we cannot but deplore the harsh and
ignorant criticism that is not infrequently heard in

381

Foreign Politics of the Day

regard to the minor defects of her people. Owing to her
geographical situation athwart Asia Russia has suffered
much. Too often it is forgotten that the present-day
prosperity of the rest of Europe is due to the circum-
stance that we have been able to pursue our activities,
while Russia alone kept watch and ward on the distant
frontiers of east and west.

This slight digression in discussing the debt we owe
to Russia at least serves to draw attention to one im-
portant aspect relative to the main theme. The situation
as it is now unfolding in the region of the Far East is
creating an entirely new set of political conditions.
No longer does Russia stand alone. Maritime development
has brought close together the sea-frontiers of remote Asia
and of Anglo-Saxon communities occupying territories
in the Pacific. Broadly speaking, the interests of the
United States, of the British Empire, and of Russia are
to-day identical. Policies may differ in detail according
to the requirements of the moment, but in the main all
three nations are bound together in that they are ani-
mated by a common and natural motive — the motive of
self-preservation. In speaking in this strain, the writer
is anxious to avoid creating the impression that he is
subscribing to the beHef in a Yellow Peril, as such is
generally understood. What is to be feared, however, is
aggressive diplomacy on the part of Japan; and certainly
her military preparations lend colour to the idea
that she is preparing as against the day when she will
step out from among the Asiatic nations and will demand
for her own people the right to enter the white man's
domains without let or hindrance. As to whether we
have moral warrant for resisting her claim is a question
which, owing to the limitation of space, we cannot
discuss here. Nevertheless, in passing, it is opportune to
remark that when the issue does become acute, as it inevit-
ably must, considerations of expediency will alone decide.
In saying this, we must not be taken to imply that on
ethical grounds the white races are not justified in
excluding Asiatics from their midst, for abundant reasons

382

Foreign Politics of the Day

of a convincing nature exist to the contrary. That which
the Japanese may require to-day will ultimately be
demanded by the Chinese so soon as they, too, become
strong in military force. For this question of racial dis-
crimination may be said to afford the Yellow peoples
ground for common cause. But in that sense it cannot be-
come ripe for decision until many years have passed. Nor,
if Western Powers maintain their strength in the Pacific
and exhibit unity of purpose, need the problem ever be
settled in a manner contrary to their fundamental in-
terests. Therefore statesmen who owe a duty to posterity
no less than to the present generation should not fail to
take note of Japan's military and naval preparations ; for
obviously these are part of a prearranged plan for the
initiation one day of vigorous methods of diplomacy.

In the meantime, it is highly instructive to examine the
relations existing between China and her island neighbour.
The idea prevalent in some quarters that these two nations
would before long ally themselves against Western
countries, thus constituting in fact a real Yellow Peril, fails
to take into account many important circumstances. To
begin with, the Japanese regard themselves as an altogether
superior race. That view is not shared by Western ob-
servers who have come into contact with both peoples.
Invariably the impression left on the mind of the visitor to
the Far East is that the Chinese are in every respect
preferable to the Japanese. It was the Chinese, not the
Japanese who in bygone times spread enlightenment far
and wide; and when due allowance has been made for
Japanese talent in the direction of adaptability the fact
remains that nearly every praiseworthy feature in their
national life which they would have the world believe is
peculiarly Japanese in character, has its basis in the
ancient culture of the Middle Kingdom. Yet forgetting
this historical fact, the average Japanese shows not a
little of umbrage when, as is not infrequently the case,
he is looked upon as having much in common with the
Chinese. To be strictly truthful, it is the latter whom
the comparison offends. It would seem then that if Western

383

Foreign Politics of the Day

progress is to permeate China and restore her to the
forefront of nations, it were better that reform be intro-
duced direct from the West, and not through the medium
of Japan, the one-time pupil of the master whom she
now seeks to instruct. For, as we have seen, the Japanese
hold the Chinese in contempt ; while there is no denying
that on their side the Chinese, conscious of an illustrious
past and irritated beyond endurance by the pompous
behaviour of Japan whom they regard as a hobbledehoy
among the nations, prefer to receive enlightenment, not
from their neighbour, but from its true source in the
West. The cleavage between Japan and China is, there-
fore, at present very wide, and not one but several
generations must pass before it can be bridged. The
spectre of a Yellow Peril, as such is popularly conceived,
consequently fades far into the future. In the meantime,
Japan is seeking to work out an Imperial destiny and this
aim she can only accomplish at the expense of China who
now Hterally lies helpless at her feet. Fortunately, Yuan
Shih-kai is under no illusion as to the danger that lurks
at the very portals of the Republic. It was he who
so strenuously opposed Japanese intrigues in Korea as far
back as 1894, and who later, on the eve of his banishment,
obstructed their aggressive policy in Manchuria. Left
to herself China under his guidance is capable of taking
the place that is rightly hers among the great countries
of the earth. But so long as Japan is determined to prey
upon her weakness, always employing an underhand
means to a selfish end, so long will China's fate tremble
in the balance. That the Japanese fomented and aided
the rebellion in the south is now proved beyond shadow
of doubt. For their authorities to explain, as they have
done, that the officers who fought in the ranks of the
rebels were on the reserve list, acting entirely of their own
accord, is hardly convincing to anyone acquainted with the
ways of Japanese diplomacy. During the rising in the
Philippines, after the American occupation, the Washing-
ton Government complained officially that Japanese
officers were giving their services to the insurgents, and

384

Foreign Politics of the Day

received an explanation similar to that now tendered in
the case of the Chinese disturbance. The writer is not
endeavouring in any way to excuse the outrages committed
at Nanking; but it is quite clear that the Japanese by
their meddlesome intrusion were provocative in the
extreme. China at the present moment is passing through
a crisis the gravity of which it is impossible to exaggerate.
If, as all her friends sincerely wish may happen, she is to
emerge from the ordeal successfully, care must be taken
to see that she is accorded some measure of fair play.
I repeat that Japan is anxious to profit by the plight
of China and at the same time to obstruct her progress.
To assist her in this sinister plan would be unworthy of
Great Britain. Let us not forget that the main purpose
of the alliance as expressed in the Treaty is to maintain
unimpaired the status quo in the Far East. For our part,
we have everything to gain in extending a friendly hand
to China. As a market she presents illimitable possibilities.
Allow her to become strong within reasonable limits and
she will prove of inestimable value in maintaining the
political equilibrium in the remote East. As far as Japan is
concerned, plain speaking will lose us nothing. For many
a year to come she will require the continued support of
British financiers, and this circumstance alone will effec-
tually induce her to pay heed to counsels of moderation,
should such be forthcoming at the right moment.

LANCELOT LAWTON

Vol. 153 " 385 25

SOME RECENT BOOKS

f Under this heading will he noticed a limited number of books to
which the Editor is unable to devote one of the longer articles^
but desires^ for one reason or another^ to call attention,

A poet of one mood in all my lays,

Ranging all life to sing one only love . . .
The countries change, but not the west-wind days

Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above,

And on all seas the colours of a dove,
And on all fields a flash of silver greys.

I make the whole world answer to my art
And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears

I change not ever, bearing, for my part,

One thought that is the treasure of my years,

A small cloud full of rain upon my heart

And in mine arms, clasped, Hke a child in tears.

Mrs Meynell's sonnet, A Poet of One Mood {Poems.
By Alice Meynell. Burns and Oates. 191 3. 5s. net)
reveals how completely is hers that self-awareness,
self-valuation, which is the privilege and often the tor-
. ment of true poets. For even the " nature-poets " must
surely, at their hours, realize, like Mrs Meynell's " Nar-
cissus," that the Face they see in Nature is their own.
And often enough it is a stern face, or exhausted, or
horror-struck, and more than often sad. Thus it is that
Mrs Meynell appraises in herself a certain continuity of
mood, to be expressed in the silver-grey embroidery of
" sweet monotonous meanings." It would be curious to
note how often the word " grey " recurs in this small
volume. " I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey,"
sings her unawakened Neophyte; " A poet's face
asleep is this grey morn " of February, with its
" colourless sky of folded showers, And folded winds."
The Moon tells the Sun how she makes " Pensive
thy delight And thy strong gold, silver-white " ; the
" Spring " has but " promises," " hints," " dim hopes "^

386

Poems by Alice Meynell

of the summer she yields to and prepares. There are but
faint " tones " of its coming glory in her seas. And essen-
tial " greyness " permeates, more than any mere word
can state it, such poems as Twilight^ The Day to the
Night, the wonderful Song of the Night at Daybreak
(pure inspiration this, issuing at once into a song and a
philosophy), and is in all this exquisite pifture:

. . . The stony fields, where clear
Through the thin trees the skies appear.
In delicate spare soil and fen.
And slender landscape and austere.

Needless to say, we do not deprecate this greyness. We
love it. We have loved, too, the sharp relentless horizons
of Provence, the unmitigated colouring of its stones,
its sky, its flaming Junes. But we have returned to feel
how grateful were the veiled contours and half -tints and
tones and elusive distances of England. One of the gladdest
discoveries of our boyhood was that page in Stevenson's
Sire de Maletroifs Door, where he lingers over the clear,
essential dawnlight, flooding the colourless valley. There-
fore we do homage to Mrs Meyn ell's grey poems, and we
observe how utterly different is their tint from the
wanness, say, of Matthew Arnold's verses, which so many
nickname silver-cold in their perfe6lion; and how, if it
abolishes the flamboyance of an Omar even when the
theme is treated (as in the poem To Any Poet) so
similarly to one of his, the vitality survives.

Moreover, Mrs Meynell has, of course, no programme.
She does not set out to write grey poems of malice
prepense. Genius cannot work with programmes. It does
not want to schedule ideas, nor to carry through business
coup. It expresses as best it can the contents of its soul,
never expecSting to exhaust in words a meaning of which
it ought itself to be not fully conscious, and of which we,
the readers, may sometimes grasp more, though often
less, than does the poet. The poet hints; and grey is, of
course, a colour in which hints flicker best. Hints may be

387 25^

Some Recent Books

deliberately given to the malicious, because they deserve
nothing better; to the complacent, because it is pleasant
to see them flounder; to the spiritual, because they not
only quite understand, but objeft to their sympathy being
expefted to need laborious explanations.

We ought, hov^ever, at once to say that this grey mood
is not v^hoUy undifferentiated. To start with, the quite
earlier poems are less sombre than the midmost, but (I
suggest) less profound, and naturally less experienced. A
real note of gaiety appears in the later poems, a robuster
optimism: so the " Watershed," the " Unto Us a Son is
Given"; so "Manchester Square," and the poem with
which this last coUeftion opens is (we delightedly remem-
ber), all the way through, white.

Besides, a quite masculine sense of humour is strong
in the new Publican and Pharisee parable (p. 105),
and the poem To the Body shows a fine use of
scientific categories. Already in the Unmarked Festival
there was a definitely common-sense frankness — " Who
knows, was earth cold or sunny, sweet. At the coming of
your feet? " — the lovers have forgotten. Perhaps a truest
mark of greatness is in that power of " inclusive vision "
which leads the soul rapidly to universal implications.
This is responsible for the recognition of Christ hidden in
ripening field and vineyard, but also for the lines, " My
shroud was in the flocks ; the hill Within its quarry locked
my stone. My bier grew in the woods . . ." (a stern
poem).

But most of all is this real " greatness " (and Aristotle
wisely willed all beauty to have a /nijeOog n were
it to be perfedl) seen in that poem Christ in the Uni-
verse, which places upon its author's head no fading
bay-leaves.

But dear too are the tiny meditations, / am the Way
and Via Veritas et Vita, C. C. M.

IT is a common experience that after an arduous and
difficult effort to -produce a great pidfure the artist's
hand gains peculiar ease and freedom for lighter work.

388

An Average Man

Never has Father Benson had a freer, easier movement
of his amazingly facile brush than in An Average Man
(Hutchinson, 6s.), the sketch that has succeeded the dark
rich pidure entitled Come Rack, Come Rope, An Average
Man must have been delightfully smooth going after the
historical v^ork. And it is not the kind of easy writing that
makes hard reading; it is so extremely witty, especially
in the second part. The Brandreth Smiths grown rich are
amazingly good, their attitude towards their neighbours,
their servants, their duties, is most delicately presented.
But perhaps the servants' ball is the climax of de-
scription, the speeches at supper are perfecEl. Under-
hill, the old butler, and the new valet become almost
subHme. Percy Brandreth Smith's last view that night of
Underhill, who has hitherto preserved an almost Episcopal
attitude, must be quoted :

In spite of the heaviness that lay on his eyes almost like a
physical external pressure, he jumped straight out of bed and ran
to the window, so soon as he heard the sound of wheels and under-
stood what it meant. Romance gilded the thought even of servants
driving away in the chilly dawning, back again to duty.

The back door was just within range of his window, where
the brakes were drawn up; and in spite of the cold he watched
with absorbed interest the cloaked and hooded figures climb up
into the carriages. Underhill was there, presiding, resembling a
very dissipated host. Percy could see his crumpled shirt-front, and
made out, with immense delight, a large pink paper cap, obviously
from a cracker, which crowned that austere and venerable head.
Once, as the second brake drove off, the butler gravely executed a
few Highland steps on the cobble-stones, flinging up a large hand
in the proper manner, in farewell to the waving, jolting figures in
the brake.

If this were all ! If wit and irony and clear presentation
of pleasant scenes were the only objeft of An Average
Man it would not leave the heartache in its reader that it
undoubtedly does. For underneath the smug suburban
surroundings of the earlier part and the larger but equally
conventional life of the county there have been simmering

389

Some Recent Books

the elements of a spiritual tragedy. The Conventional-
ists is the story of the triumph of the soul called to
come up higher, to escape from the limits of the average
man. An Average Man is the story of the failure of the
soul to be faithful to its vocation. This living, busy, fussy,
pleasant, tyrannical world stifles the poor, eager thin soul
of Percy Brandreth Smith. The story of the process is
wonderfully skilful and exceedingly painful. The very wit
and irony of the book makes the pain of it the greater.
Sometimes that wit and irony give a sense of hardness, a
want of sympathy with the sorely, insidiously tempted
youth. And Father Hilary is of so little use, his spiritual
gifts somehow do not carry convi6lion, he is a mere outline
in the background of a brilliantly suggestive sketch.

That An Average Man has the unavoidable limitations
of a sketch or a series of sketches cannot be denied,
one impression succeeds another, each full of life, but
except in the scenes that are almost purely ironical,
there is a sense of the absence of substance, there is too
much reliance on rapid suggestion, on broken sentences,
even on spaces, hyphens and dots! This defedl is much
more obvious if the book is read aloud. The whole story
is an impression to be received at one glance if possible
by an undisturbed reader. S.

IN Dante and the Mystics (Dent & Sons, 7s. 6d.) Mr
Gardner has added a volume more to the credit side of
his account with the lovers and students of Dante. There
are books on the Commedia which we could not do with-
out, but which savour too much of the class-room to be
anything but a necessary evil. And there are others, ex-
cellently written, which we are weak-minded enough to
read in the hours which should be given to the master.
But there is happily a third class welcome at all times for
the insight that they give us into the mind and purpose
of the poet.

For if it is true that the reward of the artist is " joy "
as distindl from " pleasure," it is also a matter of experi-
ence that that joy is shared in some degree by those who

390

Dante and the Mystics

understand his work and make his aim their own. And
this in the present case is not the study of Florentine or
Roman history or even of Catholic eschatology, but
" the end of the whole and of the part is to remove those
living in this life from their state of misery and to lead
them to the state of felicity." And so the author of Dante
and the Mystics puts the Commedia and especially the
Paradiso in its right setting, and traces the influence on
Dante of the great mystical writers from St Augustine
to his own time.

It is not necessary either for Mr Gardner's purpose or
our own to be assured that Dante is diredUy indebted to
his predecessors in any particular passage; nor need we be
anxious to determine what should be classed as suggestion
and what as illustration. Indeed the final chapter on the
Science of Love, in which passages are cited from St
John of the Cross, helps to bring home to us that we are
dealing with a spiritual and not a mere verbal tradition,
a real human experience, belonging no doubt in its rich-
ness to few, as the gift of musical expression belongs to
few, but shared in some degree by a sufficient number to
satisfy us that it is not a folly or a disease or a pretence.
We find in writers who worked independently the same
thoughts expressed often by the same symbols, because
the thoughts stand for a real experience common to all
who attain to it, and because the symbolism is largely
drawn from that Divine Word which has ever been the
inspiration of the mystic. The illustrations from St John
of the Cross of the restraint of glory as the poet enters the
sphere of Contemplation, and of the ladder leading to the
Starry Heaven, which the feet of men no longer trod, are
both apt and beautiful.

The book as a whole is avowedly an attempt " to inter-
pret the mysticism and allegory of the Divina Commedia
in the light of the letter to Can Grande," in which the
poet refers his readers to the writings of Richard of St
Vi6lor, Bernard and Augustine. The genuineness of the
letter is disputed, but Mr Gardner wisely spares us the
arguments on either side. Instead of discussing the

391

Some Recent Books

evidence he puts the matter to the proof by taking this
hint as a guide to the interpretation of the Paradiso. And
the result is a dehghtful book, and the praftical verifi-
cation of his theory.

There remains the question whether and how far we
may follow the letter in its suggestion that Dante claims
for himself " some ineffable spiritual experience " as is
implied in the last canto of the Paradiso, Is he a mystic
in the higher sense, or merely a gifted retailer of the ex-
periences of holier men? The answer will depend in part
on our estimate of the man. And if we cannot forget that
he is the friend of Forese Donati, he is none the less the
author of the Paradiso, The contrast is not sharper than
that between the student of Carthage and the Bishop
of Hippo. And on the whole we are inclined to agree
with Mr Gardner that Dante had some first-hand know-
ledge of the regno santo.

On the other hand we are bound to say that Mr
Gardner has left the problem of Matelda, as he found it,
unsolved. We cannot identify her with both the Mech-
thilds, and we see no reason for preferring either. But in
truth Mr Gardner only wanted an excuse to add another
delightful chapter to this fascinating book. A.H.N.

THAT a Memoir of the late Father Gallwey has now
been published is matter for rejoicing to his many
friends, and we owe Father Gavin a deep debt of grati-
tude for his delightful book (Burns and Gates. 3s. 6d.),
the more so that there were many difficulties in the way.
Father Gallwey himself seems to have done his very best
to prevent his holy and most hidden interior life from
being known, and even the history of his dealings with
other souls, as nearly all the letters received by him appear
to have been lost, or destroyed, including those from, and
to. Lady Georgiana Fullerton, which would have been
doubly precious to so many of us. In f aft, he a6led upon his
own words to a friend who remarked, " They will be
writing your life some day." " I shall take good care that
they don't," was the reply. Under these circumstances it

392

The Story of Mary Dunne

was not possible to write a full memoir of the saintly
Father, but Father Gavin has given us a most interesting
and graphic description of that long life, so heroic in its
> holiness, in its constant war on self and a strong natural
charafter, so tender in its piety, in its care for the sick and
dying, and so fine in its unceasing work for souls and for
the Church. Father Gavin gives us his recolledlions of
twenty-four years passed in the same house with Father
Gallwey, to which are added those of several other
fathers who had been in close touch with him. As we
should expeft, all speak of his heroic obedience, his
fidelity to rule, his love of prayer. One touching sentence
in particular helps us to realize the meaning of the last-
named characteristic, " He would find his way back to the
Chapel, like a bird to its nest, after every call to the par-
lour or to the Church."

Of what might be called Father Gallwey's ruling pas-
sion, his love for the poor — a passion to which all who
knew him could bear affedionate witness — Father Gavin
gives many interesting anecdotes. In this short notice we
can but draw attention to a few points of special interest
in the memoir, while we heartily commend it to our
readers' notice. M.M.M. S.

THE Story of Mary Dunne^ by M. E. Francis (John
Murray. 6s.), is a thing of wonderful beauty — a poem
telling of the independence of the soul — the triumph of the
spiritual element over all others. It would be difficult to find
in fidlion a more exquisite pi6lure of the greatness of purity
than that given in the story of Mary Dunne. Mary, the
vi6lim of the vice of a great city, cannot tell even her
mother what has befallen her. M. E. Francis cannot tell
the story for her. The so-called " candour " of the present
day that loves to touch pitch and vaunt its " healthy "
immunity from stain is absent from this book. Is it in
consequence an uncandid, unreal story? It seems to us to
have a clear realism of its own. Mary in her happy youth,
in her despair, in her exquisite healing, in her 'gradual
realization of her own innocence, in her sympathy with

393

Some Recent Books

the agony in which Mat repudiates her, in the courage
that for his sake breaks through the reserve of her maiden
soul in the scene of the trial — all this is the very realism
of virtue.

All through the author shrinks visibly from the task
she has undertaken, she clings to the sweet home life on the
mountain side, to her exquisite delineations of nature, to
the humorous aspeft of her creations, to the study of the
Irish charader, which she has penetrated very deeply. And
this very shrinking helps the pidlure, helps the glow and
warmth and life on the one side to make a more powerful
contrast to the half-perceived devilish underworld of vice,
claiming as its viftim the fairest and most innocent
chara6ler in the book. Mary's mother is a literary triumph;
every word she says has the quality of absolute truth. The
finest chapter in the book is the one in which Mrs Dunne
brings Mary home. It has qualities that recall pages in
The Heart of Midlothian. The girl is in the hospital in black
despair, refusing to go home, refusing to go anywhere else,
defeating the good intentions of doftor and nurse. Then
the unexpedled mother arrives.

The scene that follows is poignant in its anguish, great in
its simplicity, finer than the more ambitious scene of the
trial at the end of the book. The intensity of the mother's
suppressed emotion, the taft, the absolute faith in her child,
" the authoritative tone with its wholesome sharpness,"
" the mingled gratitude and dignity " of the attitude
towards the nurse and do6lor, even the insidious smell
of the peat-smoke in the coarse clean clothes that she has
brought for the poor child to wear; every word down to
the " Don't be forgettin' your petticoat, Mary," all help
to make the pi6lure intensely real and definite. Nor is
Mary herself, gradually unwilHngly responding, yielding,
and at last conquered, less successful.

M. E. Francis, in attempting from a sense of duty, to
deal with a most painful question, has not lost the dehcate
and exquisite qualities which distinguish her usual work:
they are intensified and ennobled in The Story of Mary
Dunne, S.

394

Works of Francis Thompson

So much has been written in the past few months on
Francis Thompson that a further individual analysis
of his work would probably be so unwelcome as to be
left unread. It is better, therefore, to take stock of the
general situation, and review his immediate position.
The day longed for, yet dreaded, at last has come — it
dawned, in fa6l, when Mr Wilfrid Meynell gave to the
world the three volumes lying before us: The Works of
Francis Thompson (Vols. I and II, Poems. Vol. Ill,
Prose. Burns and Gates. Each vol. 6s. net).

It has been said that Ushaw in these latter years has
given two stars to the literary firmament — Lafcadio
Hearn and Francis Thompson, and the juxtaposition of
those two names was a rude jar on those who know. True
Lafcadio Hearn was at Ushaw. So Renan was at St
Sulpice. And the comparison goes deeper still, for what
each Alma Mater had peculiarly to give, precisely that
was debased by Lafcadio Hearn and Renan. It is enough
that Thompson and Hearn went forth from Ushaw with
faces set respedlively North and South. So much,
indeed, was Thompson the produdl of Ushaw that
it is difficult to understand how his work has been so
subtly divined and comprehended. We, who " knew of
what he sang " by our very birthright as sons of the same
mother, trembled in those early days at the thought of
what might be said when the " song-bowed Scythian "
should be swept, as one day we knew he must, into the
sphere of lay criticism: when his poet's soul should be
spitted on point of journalist pen; when his " music of
skiey-gendered rain " should be eledlrically charged, and
the analysis set forth in dull formulae.

And yet the day we dreaded we longed for too, with
pride of possession, for we knew that there must be some
to say he had not " sung ill." And so it has turned out.
Ampler far than his friends and admirers dared expe6l
has been the praise bestowed on the body of his prose and
poetry, here gathered together for the first time, and
heaped up in noble profusion. The edition itself bears
that cachet of elegance which we are being led to expedl

395

Some Recent Books

habitually from its publishers. In this Thompson has been
fortunate, as he was fortunate in his editor. That this
definitive edition of his poems and scattered prose (a
large amount of both being here published for the first
time) should provoke and challenge the literary world
was to be expeded. That Thompson should undergo
from critics like that of l^he Times, and Mr Lascelles
Abercrombie in the Manchester Guardian, something
in the nature of a poet's apotheosis was, from reasons
already given, less to be expe6led. If the vision of a
leading literary Catholic weekly, with its hesitant praise
and apologetic depreciation, was hopelessly dulled as to
Thompson's true significance, how should they, who knew
not Sion, understand the songs he sang? Even his friends,
fulfilling the poet's own words, have said " Of what is
this he sings? " How then shall they of alien thought and
faith understand his " alien tongue " telling of " alien
things? "

For, be it said at the outset of all criticism, Thompson
was first and last a Catholic, and one segregatus a populo
at that. He happened also to be a poet. Herein lies no
disparagement of his art, but a truth that is the key to all
understanding of him. That he might have been a really
great national poet had he not deliberately set his feet
out of the popular track is proved, we think, in his occas-
ional ocies, the "Jubilee," "Peace," "Cecil Rhodes,"
for instance. " Few laureates," says Mr Lascelles Aber-
crombie, " can compare with Thompson for success in
deliberate celebrations." Moreover, the pagan strain,
showing wildly at times, in riotous image and sentiment,
might have led him to rival Keats and Swinburne. He
chose to:

Teach us how the crucifix may be,

Carven from the laurel tree.

That was his way. "Ah! fettered then," the secularist
exclaims. Even so, fettered — as Raphael was, as iEschylus
even was. Critics, notably Mr Austin Harrison in the
English Review, have taken it amiss that his song was

Father Ralph

bashful of earthly love. Well, Botticelli was not a Boucher,
and is the twentieth century so decadent as to withhold
admiration from ascetic restraint which springs not from
art, but from the very innocence of one impollutus in
via P If so, let us back to pagan Augustus for our canons.

That, we repeat, was his way, and it is a critic's primary
business to appraise a poet's orientation before ap-
praising his vision. The necessity in the case of Thompson
is particularly imperative, or his lines will wander
unhealthily, his colours glow garish, his at times over-
wrought imagery take on an air of bombast. To Mr
Harrison it is all a " wordy hugger-mugger " " sheer
word-chaos," " over gargoyled," a " cacophony," a
" diarrhoetic flux which shrieks and hisses by its turgidity
(sic), its linguistic nodes and rugosities." To a critic in
The Times these horrifying experiences of Mr Harrison
are caused by nothing more alarming than the " whole
outer form of things flowering with the radiance of the
inner beauty " of the poet's vision. To Mrs Meynell, in
The Sphere, it is " resplendently-coloured art " with
" riches heaped too close." To many a devout lover they
are blemishes loved, in their setting, for their own sake,
like the human lapses of genius, or flaws in Nature and
beauty.

A writer of fine appreciation in the Ecdesiastica
Review asserts that Taine's critical tests — race, milieu,
moment — break down utterly in Thompson's case. To the
present writer they were never so brilliantly apt, for his
Lancashire Catholicity was the very spring of his muse;
the vision of the Son and the Mother, enthroned through-
out his pages, was the unfading imprint of his early,
almost mediaeval view, which was Ushaw's; and the
moment — Ah! that was the In hoc signo blazing across
the " watches of the dark " when London's pagan flood
swept round him. F. G.

MR GERALD O'DONOVAN'S story of Father
Ralph (Macmillan. 1913. 6s.) puzzled us 'by its
simultaneous creation in us of contradictory impressions ;

397

Some Recent Books

one of its extreme verisimilitude and one of the complete
impossibility of life being anywhere at all like that.
Afterwards we perceived that this was due to the fact
that each event and every phrase might quite well
be, phonographically or photographically, the repro-
duction of an historical fact, but that it was quite certain
that no section of reality could be composed entirely,
or even chiefly, of these. To begin with, it could not
hold together for an hour. Next, it would be quite
unlike any other part of the world's behaviour where,
however, similar forces operate. We then observed
in this story of the religious initiation, development and
apostasy of an ordinary Irish boy, two special foci of
unreality. These were, first, the hero himself; and then the
pages in which the writer is speaking well of those satis-
factory exceptions (as he deems them) in the system he
is attacking. The hero never " lives " for a moment,
except when he is just a boy, and except where he
momentarily jars on us, as revealing himself priggish
when surrounded by the coarse and stupid, and narrow
when confronted by the pietistic. Thus he permits
himself to tell his mother that her devotional practices
are " rather footling." The kindlier references to the
Irish clergy — thus, the picture of Fr. Sheldon, the
gentle Modernist, is meant to be attractive; the Jesuits
are spoken of as relatively " brilliant," as " scholars,"
and the like — are too obviously put in by the perfunctory
care for " balance " of a writer who foresees the criticism
that his work is too monochrome; or even who is trying
so laboriously to be fair, that we feel no equity can be
genuine which is not more spontaneous.

Descriptively, then, we are sure that this book may
be true in detail — for everything happens somewhere
sometime — but untrue as a picture: it were as easy and
as untrue to picture Oxford just as obscurantist, public
schools as " sinks " or " dens " of iniquity (we have seen
it done), or London society as composed entirely of
divorcees. As for the intellectual thesis, with which the
novel is involved, it professes to be that of Modernism,

398

Father Ralph

and despite certain rare references to Leroy, Loisy,
Blondel and the Syllabus, we will permit ourselves to
say quite frankly that granting to the uttermost the
accuracy in description and comment of all the rest
of the book, here the author has not a notion what he is
talking about. Modernists, we have constantly had to
think, defend Modernism quite uncannily ill; but here,
really the author writes about it much as novelettes do,
we imagine, about duchesses.

What we have said in no way implies that the novel
is worthless, even to those it attacks. Caricatures are
of constant value to those whose faults they exaggerate.
Thus correction becomes possible. Too often, almost
any Christian must lament he is but the caricature of
Christ. Too often, her representatives must feel that they
do but disguise the Church. Out of a great mass of
material we choose the relation between the ecclesiastical
authorities and the large shopkeepers and publicans;
between the cathedral, seminary or convent, and the
emporium, and in general the question of finance, as
connoting a problem which not we are wise to solve.
In the name of Christianity, however, we long to see it
studied by all, and solved, both in theory and practice, by
the different categories involved. This question, and that
of ecclesiastical education, which is very rapidly solving
itself, are really those which in this book bulk largest.
Against unpleasant ecclesiastical portraits, exquisite studies
like Mrs Fahy and Jack Devine are to be set : against the
ideal Maynooth, whether Mr Donovan's, who hates it,
or the Bishop's, who delightfully describes it as the
" greatest seat of learning in the whole world," is that
reality so discernible to the tutored eye — discernible
even in these pages of this melancholy volume, and much
more so to those whose privilege it has been to spend
a space of years or even months in that strange country
where the supernatural is an element so unusually strong
in the medley of good or ill which makes a world or
a Church.

R. N.
399

Some Recent Books

MR W. S. LILLY, in The New France (Chapman
and Hall. I2s. 6d.) gives a substantial and vigorous
account of the relations between the Church and
the Revolution, reviev^s once more the careers of Fouche,
Talleyrand and Chateaubriand, and discusses the ethical
import of certain novels of Paul Bourget. It is a leisurely
but a profitable volume, and even if one disagrees (as we
happen to do) with some of Mr Lilly's judgments on
men, events and political theories, there can only be one
opinion about his conspicuous thoughtfulness and the
breadth of his information. But we wish he had chosen
another title, or that he had justified this by an additional
chapter defining the sharp antagonism between the rising
generation of Frenchmen and the last. If the new France
does not mean contemporary France exclusively, it ought
surely to include it. The recrudescence of Parliamentary
Jacobinism, to be sure, is a recent phase which Mr Lilly
does not hesitate to connect with the vital principles of
the Revolution; and no doubt a Brisson, a Combes, a
Pelletan figured as the depository of the purest Republican
tradition. But then the new France, in the sense in which
we should prefer to use the phrase, thinks Combes and
Brisson vieux jeu. This is as true of the younger Syndical-
ists, who are tired of seeing anticlericalism mask the well-
fed selfishness of the Radical oligarchy, as of the young
lions of I'Action Frangaise. And perhaps, it is even truer
of the great mass of moderate Frenchmen — definitely if
somewhat lethargically Republican — who are more and
more dissatisfied with the normal play of representative
institutions in France. The policy of the bloc (and we are
not thinking only of its religious policy) does not and did
not express the general will. If a personnel essentially
unchanged still directs a creaking machinery, that only
shows how hard it is to make the general will effective
or, if you like, how easily a democracy is corrupted. But
no one knew this better than Rousseau himself.

We need not say how heartily we agree with Mr Lilly
in detesting Rousseau's conception of the relations
between society and the spiritual beliefs of its members,

400

The New France

or the dangerous sophistries which support his projected
state-theism. At the same time, Mr Lilly seems to us, in
his attack upon the Contrat Social, to have forgotten,
like most English critics, that this wonderful tract was not
intended for an account of historical fact, but of what an
organized society implies. Nor is it an exposition of the
benefits of democracy. We venture to add that the
dogmas of liberty and equality cannot be disposed of
by a mere appeal to the most obvious facts of life, which
remind us at every turn of our subserviency and our
differences.

Two extremely interesting chapters of this book are
devoted to the history of the Church of France in the
Revolutionary period. Mr Lilly's vivid account of the
state of religion just before the great upheaval, the schism
of the assermentes^ the various parodies of public worship
which enjoyed the brief patronage of the men in power,
above all of the heroism of Catholic martyrs in the years
of persecution, is supported by copious references to
contemporary testimony, as well as to the most authori-
tative recent literature on the subject, from Edmond
Eire's well-known work to the researches of the Abbe
Delarc and a number of other local historians. It is,
we own, a pleasure to see M. de Pressense so often quoted:
surely no living publicist has served such irreconcilable
ideals in succession!

Guided by M. Louis Madelin's recent biography, Mr
Lilly resumes the chief stages of Fouche's astonishing
career in a most instructive chapter. We are not quite
sure if he can fairly be called a typical Jacobin; for does not
the adjective suggest that a peculiar degree of pliancy and
indifferentism is characteristic of the sect? The estimate
of Talleyrand is not a whit too severe. On Chateaubriand
Mr Lilly writes of course in a far more sympathetic vein,
and the protest with which that chapter begins was well
worth making. Conclure des mceurs aux croyances is a
tendency of the Protestant mind from which Chateau-
briand's reputation has suffered greatly, especially in
this country. It is quite true that in his own certain
Vol. 153 401 26

Some Recent Books

weaknesses of his character have received no more
attention than they deserved; but though Sainte-Beuve's
spiteful judgment upon the man is no longer considered
as authoritative, the glory of the great w^riter has not
escaped untarnished from the effects of that general
reaction against the romantic ideal v^hich is gathering
strength every day in French criticism ; and we should have
been glad to know what Mr Lilly makes for instance of
the damaging indictment of Jules Lemaitre. As for
Chateaubriand's politics, his honour is quite safe, but his
constitutionalism probably commends itself more natur-
ally to British Whiggism than to Frenchmen of any
political complexion whatever. The new royalism heartily
repudiates Chateaubriand.

The book ends with reflections on Paul Bourget's
fiction in its sociological significance, and a resume of
two or three of his works which ought to be still better
known than they are in England. Mr Lilly somewhat
confidently takes M. Bourget's supremacy among living
French novelists for granted. If we are not greatly mistaken,
though his admirable intelligence is universally appreci-
ated, good French critics do not usually regard him as
unrivalled, whether as a master of language or as a
creative artist. Few of his contemporaries have dealt so
consistently with the exceptional or have dissected curious
cases with greater fluency. But for that reason, and
because after all M. Bourget's intellectual training is
that of an older school, he is hardly the novelist whose
creations throw most light upon the new — or let us say
the newest — France. F.Y.E.

THERE has appeared among the large output of
verse this summer a little volume of poems very dif-
ferent from those of the " Georgians " as the younger
school are pleased to call themselves, both in its qualities
and in its defefts. Some of these verses date back
as far as nearly forty years ago. Poems of Henrietta A,
Huxley^ with 'Three of Thomas Henry Huxley (Duckworth
and Co.) is the title, and it at once gives the keynote to

402

Poems of Henrietta A. Huxley

the little book. It is the record of a great married love and
a terrible enduring loss. Other things may come, glinting
in and out, light and humorous, but they are merely
incidental. In March, 1887, the great scientist wrote the
first poem in the book beginning:

Dear wife, for more than thirty years . . .

In 1892 there are three poems on the death of Tennyson,
one by Thomas and two by Henrietta Huxley, showing the
deep sympathy of real understanding with Lady Tenny-
son— they had instin6live foreknowledge of their own
great parting then. In " A Wish " the dread that must
attend on the great human affe6tions is finely expressed,
opening with the line :

If Death would but forget him for some years . . .

Only two pages further on we come to " A Question "
which seems to us one of the happiest of the valediftory
poems in the book.

If you were here, — and I were where you lie,

Would you, Beloved, give your little span

Of life remaining unto tear and sigh ?

No — setting every tender memory

Within your breast, as faded roses kept

For giver's sake, of giver when bereft.

Still to the last the lamp of work you'd burn

For purpose high, nor any moment spurn.

So, as you would have done, I fain would do

In poorer fashion. Ah, how oft I try.

Try to fulfil your wishes, till at length

The scent of those dead roses steals my strength.

Beautiful as these verses are they are not, perhaps,
as original as some of the others dealing with the same
subjefi. There is a quality of absolute simplicity and
truth in them all, the often unconscious revelation of a
great deep heart. There is nothing little in the book,
nothing decadent, almost nothing of the spirit of modern

403 26^

Some Recent Books

life. It is the work of a nature that needs heights, is impa-
tient of fetters and must go out from shelter into the
wind and rain. There is much said in the present day as
to the cultivation of individuality; it is open to doubt
whether women especially were not more strongly indi-
vidual when under old world domestic conditions they
were nearer to a natural life and less self-conscious. Here
is the record of a great self-devotion and in it may be seen
the growth and energy and the struggles of a strong per-
sonality. For to lose self is to find it, to cultivate self is to
lose it.

It is not improbable that at a moment when the
science of versification has attained a high standard of
perfeftion the critics will be severe to the metrical defe6ls
of some of these verses, but if the purists are incapable of
appreciating the high thoughts of this exquisite record
of human love and pain the loss is their own. Catholics
may recognize that their own sorrows have a fuller mea-
sure of consolation than is breathed in these verses (and
there are lines among them that are painful to the be-
liever), but they will recognize the deep dominant note
of submission to God's will, and feel that the heart of the
writer is in the hollow of His Hand. S.

THE articles which have appeared in this Review de-
scribing the foundation and subsequent proceedings
of the Portuguese Republic will not have led our readers to
expe6l much good of Senhor Affonso Costa and his friends.
But happily their countrymen are not all like them. The
pamphlet entitled Portuguese Political Prisoners, A British
National Protest (with Preface by the Earl of Lytton,
Adeline Duchess of Bedford, and the Hon. Aubrey
Herbert, M.P. L. Upcott Gill. 6d.) is not written
in any spirit hostile to Portugal. Nor is it anti-Republican.
Lord Lytton in opening the protest meeting at the
iEolian Hall said:

We are not concerned with the question of what kind of govern-
ment the people of Portugal may choose to live under. We are

404

Portuguese Political Prisoners

asking for nothing in the resolution which will be submitted which
is not asked for equally by moderate Republicans in Portugal
itself. Our objeft is not to protest in any way against the political
state of Portugal . . . We are merely protesting against certain
a6ls of injustice and persecution which cannot fail to arouse in-
dignation in the minds of all those who are made acquainted with
them.

It must be borne in mind that Revolutionary Govern-
ments are almost invariably accused of persecution, and in
the present instance some of the accounts v^hich have
aroused the strongest feeling in England have been proved
to be exaggerated and inaccurate. But the Duchess of
Bedford went to Lisbon and personally inspefted the
prisons, and her fine speech describes only what she saw
herself and what she heard from the lips of the prisoners.
For details we must refer our readers to the pamphlet,
but we may here mention cases of men arrested on sus-
picion, kept for two years in the criminal convi6l prison
without trial, and then condemned to six years' solitary
confinement and ten years' deportation to West Africa ;
of others left for four days without food; of prisoners
sleeping in verminous cells on boards with their hands
handcuffed behind them. It is said, moreover, that even
in the accounts of trials which have ended in convi6lions
it is sometimes written " there are no proofs." As to the
effe6l of a British protest, it is interesting to learn that
ever since the year 1373 we have had an alliance with
Portugal more close than with any other nation, and it is
well known that the Portuguese people are extremely
sensitive of British opinion. There have been many pro-
tests on similar lines in Portugal itself, and the Moderate
Republican Party of Machado dos Santos has constantly-
exerted itself to obtain fair treatment for its political
adversaries. The charges, therefore, must not be laid at
the door of the Portuguese nation, but at that of the
particular group of politicians who at present wield an
almost despotic power. It is always permissible to hope
that the adlual state of affairs is not quite as bad as it
appears, but the evidence of this pamphlet — much of

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which is first hand, and borne by responsible public
persons — cannot be dismissed lightly. If a British protest
can succeed in bringing about a thorough investigation of
the fa6ls — a thing from which no honest government
should shrink — it will do a great service to our oldest ally
and to humanity. E. S. H.

CHRONICLE OF BIBLICAL WORKS

THE well-known division of the Pentateuch into its sources E.J.P.D.
and others attempted by the Higher Critics depends in great meas-
ure on the correctness of the Hebrew Massoretic Text. During the last
dozen years a strong tendency has arisen to acknowledge that the Mas-
soretic Text is in many instances unrehable and that the witness of the
LXX and of the Syriac Version is to be preferred to that of the present
Hebrew. As the great Cambridge Septuagint proceeds this tendency
becomes stronger. The conservative school of Biblical Scholars has not
been slow to urge this point on their advanced brethren. As the use of
the divine Names in Genesis is one great weapon in the armoury of the
Higher Critics, the many variations from the Massoretic Text in the
Greek have been pointed out to show that the argument based on this
use in Hebrew is really worthless. Scholars of repute have entered the
ring. Professor Eerdmans at Leiden, the successor of Kuenen, the great
Radical leader. Professor Schlogl at Vienna, Dr Dahse, a German Luth-
eran pastor of painstaking erudition, H. A. Redpath of Concordance
fame, and finally a Jewish barrister, Harold Wiener, have recently at-
tacked the trustworthiness of the Massoretic Text. Dr John Skinner,
Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge, and author of Genesis in
The International Critical Commentary, has been the main object of this
attack, and he writes a rejoinder in the Expositor of April, May and June
of this year.

There has been some very hard hitting on both sides. Dr Skinner
speaks of the *' war-whoops " of Mr Wiener, and the word is not unaptly
chosen. He also speaks of " the hastily improvised scholarship " of the
same antagonist, which he contrasts with the temperate tone of Redpath,
and the " coolness " of Eerdmans. One might indeed regret the violence
of Wiener's onslaught but none the less in his Pentateuchal Studies there
is a great deal which merits sober consideration ; nor will every one simply
dismiss SchlOgl, Eerdman, Dahse and Redpath with the final sentence of
Dr Skinner's first reply: " a textual criticism which is divorced alike from
exegetical intelligence and historical and rehgious insight." His taunt
that he cannot be expected to invest the opinions of Dr Schlogl and his

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Chronicle of Biblical Works

Catholic fellow-students " with a Papal infaUibility " is a mere piece of
irritability, and we can forgive a man who must have been sorely tried by
the aggressiveness of Wiener, Dahse's thesis that the use of the divine
names is influenced by the ancient Jewish lectionary system, may not
be enforceable with mathematical precision, and must allow for some ex-
ceptions, still one remembers the almost endless modifications and excep-
tions that are required by the documentary hypothesis, and one wonders
why the pot should call the kettle black. On the other hand, Dr Skinner
seems to make out a good case for the retention of the Hebrew reading of
Exod. vi, 2, 3.

H. Wiener's studies, where they do not consist in invective, cover a
wider ground than the use of the divine names, and here and there
throw quite a fresh light on interesting passages. It may be " hastily im-
provised scholarship," but it is the outcome of an exceptionally keen mind.
The essay in which he compares the legislations of Israel and Babylonia,
and in which his lawyer's training serves him well, is quite a brilliant
piece of work. His Jewish racial pride has a true and noble cause to glory,
when comparing Moses with Hammurabi. He says : " The fate of the
legislations has corresponded to their respective characters. (Moses
furthering ' holiness,' Hammurabi ' prosperity.') A generation or two
after the death of Hammurabi, no man could have doubted that his
work had been successful; probably few would have said as much of the
work of Moses at a corresponding interval after he was gathered to his
fathers. . . . But to-day the verdict is different. The code of the Baby-
lonian had its period of utility, and was then flung aside like an old shoe.
For thousands of years its very name was forgotten, and to-day, when the
bulk of it has been exhumed from the dust of centuries, we find that it is
without value for our life and its problems. The people to whom it was
given have passed away after doing their part for the material and intel-
lectual advancement of the world, but without contributing one iota to its
higher life. The work of the Israehte, on the other hand, has given to his
own people the quality of immortality, and has borne mighty fruit among
other peoples in both hemispheres ; and, so far as human wisdom can see, it
will continue to do so in ever-growing measure; and throughout a
century of generations, the work of him, who was powerless to create
machinery that would maintain public security in the national territory
for a single generation, has remained for millions of people all over the
world, par excellence the Law."

The Sapiential Literature of the Old Testament his received remarkable
attention of late from commentators in all lands. An imposing new vol-
ume of the Etudes Bibliques gives us an exhaustive study on Ecclesiastes
by E. Podechard. As this series undoubtedly gives us the best productions
of CathoHc BibHcal scholarship in this century, it is sufficient praise to
say that this volume is a worthy companion to such monumental works
as Van Hoonacker's Les douze Petits Prophetes or Dhorme's Les Livres de
Samuel. Half of the book is introduction, the other half commentary. In

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212 pages the author treats of the canonicitv, the history of interpre-
tation, the language, Hterary and historical affinities, author and date,
composition, doctrine and finally the history of its text and versions.
Specially interesting is the treatment of its literary and historical affinities.
He investigates with admirable thoroughness and perfect knowledge of the
work of previous scholars, the relation of Ecclesiastes to Ecclesiasticus,
and Wisdom, to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and Greek Philosophies,
The last essay, surveying its possible connexion with the philosophy of
Aristotle, the Stoa, Epicurus, Heraclitus and Hellenism is particularly
interesting. Although his ultimate decision in almost every case (except
Ben Sira) is against a direct connexion, his investigations retain their
interest and value. In discussing the diflterent historical backgrounds that
have been suggested by different recent scholars, his conclusion is again
almost entirely negative, but, judging from all available indications, he
places the book at c. 250 B.C. The most valuable are perhaps his
remarks on the doctrine of the book. No book bears more plainly the marks
of the imperfections of the Old Testament revelation. In modern days
Ecclesiastes has been called the Schopenhauer of the Jews, and his book
a few pages of Voltaire lost in a theological work. Podechard shows how
shallow such appreciations in reality are, and that however imperfect
from a Gospel standpoint his teaching may be, it was worthy to be con-
tained in the record of a progressive revelation. Quoheleth was not a
Sceptic or an Epicurean or an Agnostic, or a Pessimist in the usual ac-
ceptation of the word; he certainly did not possess a certain and definite
knowledge of God's punishments and rewards in the life after death — life
of the soul in Sheol was all vague and dark to him — but he is nobly dis-
satisfied with all that this life can give, and blindly trusts God who, not-
withstanding all the inequalities of this life, is still to be worshipped and
thanked and trusted by the children of men. The author sums up the
book very well : " Tout est vain, sauf la vertu ; car Dieu la recompensera
a son heure. En attendant, I'homme peut jouir des biens de ce monde,
mais seulement dans la mesure permise par la loi morale, et en se sou-
venant qu'il devra rendre compte de tous ses actes a son Createur. Le
livre qui contenait une pareille doctrine meritait d'entrer dans le recueil
des scriptures, et tout depasse qu'il soit par la revelation evangelique, il
peut etre utile encore aux chretiens."

It is a sign of the times that in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and
Colleges, the Deuterocanonica not only are included but published in
perfect outward uniformity with the other books of the Bible, which are
received by Protestants as Holy Scripture. The Book of Wisdom and the
First Book of the Maccabees were the first to be treated, the former by
J. xA.. F. Gregg, the latter by W. Fairweather and J. S. Black; the latest
addition is Ecclesiasticus which has received a scholarly and sympathetic
commentator in Dr W. O. E. Oesterley. The period of Jesus Ben Sira,
and the centuries immediately following have long been the favourite
field of this painstaking Cambridge scholar, and one can think of but

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Chronicle of Biblical Works

few in England better qualified to deal with this book than he. Ever
since 1896 when the first fragments of the Hebrew texts were recovered,
a vast amount of labour on the Continent and in England has been be-
stowed on this attractive collection of sayings from the lips of a Jewish
sage, and Dr Oesterley sums up the results of manifold research with
great sobriety and clearness. It is refreshing to find in the list of important
hterature referring to Ecclesiasticus the names of two Catholics, Peters
and Fuchs : Catholic research is so often overlooked and ignored that one
feels grateful for the acknowledgment. Naturally Smend's Commentary
is continually referred to throughout the book, both on questions of text
and of exegesis; but Dr Oesterley retains his independence of judgment.
A great part of the commentary is occupied with questions of readings, and
their direct translation and value. The Symbols H, L, G, S occur Hterarily
a thousand times, signifying the Hebrew, Latin, Greek and Syriac. As
heavy Gothic type is used for these letters, they seem like irregular dark
spots on the page, and make the text a little unsightly and the reading
painful. The ample prolegomena of 104 pages are very thorough, and yet
set out with simple clearness. In describing the doctrine of Ecclesiasticus,
the author reviews in detail its teaching on God, Wisdom, The Law, Sin
and Atonement, Grace and Free Will, Work, Worship, Messianic Hope
and the Future Life. In the thirty pages devoted to these points, the
reader finds a very clear and sympathetic exposition of Jewish religious
thought about 200 B.C., though the CathoHc student has to remember
that to Dr Oesterley the book possesses no inspired character as being
non-canonical. The chapter on the Canonicity of Ecclesiasticus is too
brief and superficial for so important a subject. Thomas Aquinas p. lxxxiii.
" regards Ecclesiasticus with favour, but recognizes the doubts thrown
upon its canonicity in the early Church," — " The opinion of Notker
Abbot of St Gall, may be taken as the expression of the judgment of the
ancient Irish Church." These and similar phrases, somewhat perfunctory
and general, indicate that this part of the prolegomena had slight attrac-
tions for him.

Mr James Strahan gives us an excellent commentary on the Book of
Job. A noble volume worthy of a scholar, and so attractive that no one
who takes it in hand, will easily set it aside without the real pleasure
of having gained a deeper understanding of one of the grandest poems it
pleased God to inspire. Mr Strahan uses the Revised Version as basis
for his interpretation, and is particularly happy in the headings which he
gives to the different chapters of the book, and the readable and pleasing
way in which the notes on the text are set out. The use made of the
Ancient Versions and especially of the Septuagint throughout the book
is judicious and careful. There is a freshness and ease about the book
which makes one forget the study where it must have been elaborate.
The prolegomena are but slight, so slight in fact that they leave a sense of
incompleteness. Some problems much to the fore recently ought at least
to have been touched upon. Some reference to the Babylonian Job of

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Some Recent Books

M. Jastrow was expected. Some discussion of the attempt to restore the
system of Strophes and Antistrophes of the original, or at least the correct
metre of the hnes could be asked for. One gets the impression that,
apart from half a dozen names, the author has trusted to very restricted
reading of other people's labours on this book. The Elihu speeches are
rejected as not a part of the original poem, and this rather lightly and airily,
without reference to two recent studies of importance, one by a Catholic,
W. Posselt, Der Verjasser der Eliu Reden (Bibl. Stud, xiv, 3, Freib., 1910)
the other by H. H. Nichols, 7 he Composition of the Elihu Speeches (Am.
Journ., Sem. Lit., 191 1). The reader does not quite realize why such
first-class studies as F. Delitzsch, Das Buck Hiob neu uhersetz.t and kurz,
erklart (Leipzig, 1902), is not extensively used, whereas F. Delitzsch, Das
Buch Hiob, 1864 (Eng. tr., 1866), is referred to in the list of literature con-
sulted. Surprising too is the omission of the monumental Catholic Com-
mentary byJosephHontheim(Freib.,i904), and such studies as F.de Moor's
Etude sur le livre de Job (Science Cath., 1904). One noticed also the same
omission of Hontheim's name in A. S. Peake's Commentary, but knew
this must be due to the fact that the two commentaries were published
in the same year. It must be obvious to any impartial judge that Barden-
hewer's series of Biblische Studien are of the same standard of scholarship
as Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen, yet the appearance of a work in
the latter series is sufficient to introduce it to the English-speaking world ;
the other is passed over. As in matter of clothing, Paris fashion sets
the tone, have we to say that in matter of scholarship, Berlin fashion
rules England? The one series is Catholic, the other is not, can this have
something to do with the matter? Would it not be useful even in Scot-
land to remember that Germany and France possess Catholic scholars?

The book rings untrue to the ear of a Catholic in many ways. The
writer is evidently a sound dogma-hater. His horror of orthodoxy is
apparent in numberless passages. In fact " dogma " is King Charles's head
to him. " Job differs from his friends in that he is not the possessor of a
formal theological creed, but a seeker after truth." Zophar's speech in
Ch. XX is *' the natural outcome of the dogmatic rabies which devours the
innocent with the guilty, the fanatical perversity which changes the truth
of God into a lie." Job's comforters " become so enmeshed in scholastic
jargon that they cease to be conscious of the poignant realities with
which they trifle." Job utters an " impressive protest against absolutism
in theology," and suffering from " the cruelty inflicted in the name of
orthodoxy," he is pathetically interrogated: " Will his creed or his con-
science win the day? " " Whatever rests on authority remains only sup-
position. You have an opinion when you think what others think. You
know, when you feel." And so up and down the book till the anti-dogmatic
rabies gets a little on the reader's nerves. The reader moreover guesses
what the great obnoxious dogma in the eyes of Mr Strahan is when
(on p. 155) he approvingly quotes a stanza of Tennyson's Despair: " The
God of Love and of Hell together — they cannot be thought, if there be

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Chronicle of Biblical Works

such a God, may the Great God curse him and bring him to nought! "
Mr Strahan credits Job with the " strange and paradoxical idea, that God
who manifests himself on earth is against him, the God, who reigns on
high is on his side, witnessing and ready to vouch for his innocence,"
he ascribes to Job " the idea of vengeance upon God." But Ch. xvi, 19, is
an all too slender support for such an unusual interpretation. The
author quotes with approval the words of R. H. Charles : " It was a
momentous step when the soul in its relations to God ventured to take its
stand upon itself and to trust itself," and he sees this attitude exempHfied
in the Book of Job; no doubt Job is convinced of his integrity, but the
older interpretation rings truer, namely, that the thought of the book cul-
minates in such sentences as: "though He slay me, yet will I wait on Him";
" I know that my Redeemer hveth." The Book of Job is the triumph of
man's trust in God, not of man's trust in himself. Mr Strahan starts with
convictions which he will find it hard to prove, first, that it had been
agelong orthodox dogma, that all divine retribution comes during this
lifetime; secondly that the Jews had not the remotest thought of im-
mortality. Even in commenting on the sublime passage, Ch. xix, 26, he
makes Smend's words his own: "Of an eternal Hfe after death he says
nothing." If the Jews in 450 B.C. possessed not a glimpse of the hope of
immortality, one begins to wonder when indeed the thought began to
dawn upon their minds. The Maccabean martyrs, Eleazar and the mother
with her seven sons, died, I suppose, in hope of immortahty. When, during
the intervening centuries, did this interesting behef first arise in a Jewish
mind? After all only 200 years and less lie between Elihu's speeches and
the days of the Maccabees. What indeed can a Jew have meant by the
last two verses of Psalm xvi if he knew nothing of immortality? Or must
this Psalm be written long after 450 B.C. just because it contains the hope
of immortality? That the Jews had but a dim and vague knowledge of the
life after death, which life only became clear through the Resurrec-
tion of Christ, is granted on all hands, but this is different from an agelong
dogma and fanatical orthodoxy asserting that there was no retribution
after death.

Der aluestamentliche Prophetismus. (Drei Studien von D. Ernst SeUin.
Leipzig, A. Deichert, 191 2. M. 4.80, geb, 5.80.) These three studies mark
an important development in German research on the character of the
Old Testament prophets. Perhaps I should not have said development
for they rather constitute a return to the ancient and true understanding of
these prophets, which believing Jews and Christians have possessed for over
two thousand years. It is a remarkable and most refreshing book, though
full of technicalities; even its style strikes you with its noble force, and
carries you with it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these studies were
in substance once orally delivered lectures. They try to show that
the Old Testament prophets really prophesied, and that not merely
some immediately immanent political events, but some great far-off
event: the coming of the God of Israel, His Judgment on His apostate

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people, the Salvation of a Remnant, the Enthronement of His Divine
yet Human Majesty in the Kingdom of Everlasting Righteousness.
In fact, they, being somehow inspired by God, foreknew and foretold the
broad outline of Messianic history. The book contains a great deal which
no Cathohc could readily endorse; on the other hand it is a bold thing
for a scholar of SelHn's world-wide repute boldly to go counter to the
seemingly overwhelming tendency of present-day German research, and
of which we have in England a warning instance in The International
Critical Commentary. Dr SeUin brings out well how the great Messianic
hope of Israel was not a thing of later growth, extraneous and adventi-
tious to the original religion of the Chosen People, a thing which grew
mostly out of Israel's misfortunes when all true patriots naturally looked
out for a restoration, and for some great future king, who should crush
their enemies. He shows how through divine revelation, Israel knew that
the God who had been manifested on Mount Sinai was to come again to
be the Judge of all the earth. This revelation was the given point from
which all further prophetic activity took its rise. The prophets were not
merely righteous, far-seeing and noble poHticians, who by a sort of clair-
voyance, providentially guessed the development of the immediate political
horizon in Western Asia for a few years. They on the contrary, preached
the one great definite future event of which Israel knew, and through
some supernatural intervention obtained knowledge of some of its more pre-
cise details. He points out how all attempts to show that similar expecta-
tions existed in neighbouring nations have really failed ; and he goes through
a number of parallels usually suggested, and shows their unsatisfactory
character. The interesting question is discussed how God bestowed this
supernatural knowledge on His chosen servants; what, as it were, were
their instruments and apparatus for divination ; how did God speak to
the prophets ? One is somewhat disappointed when quite at the end of the
book in answer to the query, whether or not there are unfulfilled prophe-
cies in the Old Testament, whether, in other words, Israel's true prophets
ever falsely prophesied, mistaking their own human guesses for divine
inspiration, the author dehberately answers : yes. He instances : Ezechiel's
temple vision, the return of the Ten Tribes, the conversion of Cyrus and
the destruction of Babylon by him, the prophecies to Zerubbabel, and the
carrying of earth's treasures to the temple at Jerusalem. He comforts
himself with the thought that these are only minor points, and do not
really affect the main outline of Old Testament prophecy, which remains
divinely revealed truth. The arbitrary admission of such a mixture of
truth and error in the sacred writings of Israel's prophets, however low
the percentage of error, seems disastrous to the whole thesis of the book.
A man of such keen insight in the spirit of Old Testament prophecy as
Dr Sellin should either have proposed some solution of these so-called
unfulfilled prophecies, or the very strength of his own argumentation
throughout the book have caused him to suspend his judgment on
points so destructive of the truth he champions.

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Chronicle of Biblical Works

A Critical and, Exegetical Commentary on Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
and Jonah, by Hinckley G. Mitchell, D.D., John MerUn Powis Smith,
Ph.D., Julius A. Brewer, Ph.D.

The International Critical Commentary (T. T. Clark, Edinburgh,
1912, los. 6d.) typifies the apphcation of principles concerning Old
Testament prophecy, directly opposed to those of Dr Sellin. Aggeus,
Zachary and Malachy receive from their commentators indeed a more mild
and merciful treatment than Amos and Osee in this same series received
from Dr Harper. Nor is the text treated with such arbitrariness and
utter disregard for literary realities, but of the ancient historic concept of
prophecy not a vestige remains. This is perhaps not so noticeable in the
commentary on Aggeus, as this prophet does indeed limit himself to
the immediate future, but it is especially remarkable in the so-called Deu-
tero-Zachariah (Zach. Chs. ix-xiv), a compilation ascribed to the time
shortly preceding the Maccabean rising. The careless shepherd of Ch. xi
is Ptolemy HI, 247-222 B.C., " they that buy " the people are the tax-
gatherers employed by Egypt; the three shepherds cut off in one month
are Antiochus III, Seleucus IV and Heliodorus, rulers of Syria; the foolish
shepherd is Ptolemy IV, Philopator. The great sufferer (Ch. xii, 9-14)
to whom refers the famous text : " They shall look on Him, whom they
pierced," is some unknown personality already then belonging to some
historic past, or " perhaps the author of this difficult passage took the
servant of Yahweh in Second Isaiah for an historical figure, otherwise name-
less, who had died a martyr's death," or the most attractive suggestion
is that the object of consideration in the clause quoted is not a single
unfortunate individual, but a considerable number of godly persons,
who have perished by violence. The possibihty of a reference to Christ
crucified, endorsed by the New Testament and the whole of Christendom,
is at once ruled out because " pierced " stands in the Hebrew perfect not
in the imperfect. If this " piercing " was thought as still future in the
days of Deutero-Zachary, the writer ought to have written, so thinks
Dr Smith, " they shall look on him, whom they shall pierce." One would
have thought that the victim must first have been pierced before he could
become the object of the mocking or repenting gaze of his enemies, and
that thus " pierced " was past in relation to the " looking," though
the " looking " is in the future. As the Hebrew possesses no futurum exac-
tum Dr Smith will find it difficult to prove that the Hebrew perfect cannot
be used for this tense.

Samson. Eine Untersuchung des Historischen Charakters von Richt.
XIII-XVI von Dr Edmund Kalt. (Freiburg, i. B. Herder, 2s. 6d.)

Few figures in Old Testament history have received more strange and
wonderful explanations during the last dozen years or so than Samson and
Dalilah. The mere enumerations of the various attempts at exegesis of
these few chapters of the Book of Judges is significant and instructive.
Samson is the Egyptian Ra, Dahlah Tafenet, the PhiHstines the Sons of
Setis. The story of Samson and Dahlah dates from the time that the sun

Some Recent Books

went through the Sign of Leo in the heavens, during the Honeymonth May,
i.e., c. 4000 B.C. Samson is a Cyclopean Man-eater mythologically repre-
sented as a fox. Samson is the Greek Hercules, the Babylonian Gilgamesh,
the Indian Firegod Kalas, the immortal Kashtshy of Russian folklore. The
ass's jawbone is an archaic word for " strength," it is a place-name in
Palestine, a mythological cryptogram for divination, a ray of light of
Chem-hor the rejuvenated Ra; it is a mountain ridge, it is a deep cleft
in the earth, the abyss of Nun, etc., etc. Dr Kalt's sobriety and common
sense in dealing with this matter is refreshing, and one rejoices to get away
from the obsession of astral myths to plain history and sanity of judg-
ment. The hundred pages of this thorough and painstaking study are a
real furtherance to the understanding of the Book of Judges.

The Government of the Church in the First Century. An essay on the
beginnings of the Christian Ministry. Presented to the Theological Faculty
of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, as a thesis for the Degree of Doctor.
Rev. W. Moran. (Dublin, Gill and Son, 191 3. 6s.)

This excellent study on a much discussed problem is a cheering sign
of the times. First, because it augurates well of the Theological Faculty of
Maynooth. The bestowal of its divinity degrees is thus shown to depend
not merely on the passing of an examination, but also on the exhibition
of such scholarship as is required for the writing of a dissertation. Without
reflecting on the practice of the Roman schools, which grant their degrees
on examinations or " Defence " only, one cannot but rejoice that this
additional test is required at Maynooth, as it is at Louvain and at the
Catholic Faculties of German Universities. Many a brilliant mind,
trained in the Roman schools in that lucidity and acumen of reasoning,
which is their great characteristic, none the less remains less fruitful in
after life, because it has not gone through the first agony and labour of
" authorship." Secondly, the dissertation is one of such sobriety and
thoroughness that it forms a lasting and real acquisition to English
scholarship on this difficult problem. As our sources of information as
to the government of the Church in the first century are mainly to be
found in the inspired writings, the book is principally one of exegesis of
such New Testament passages as throw light on the problem of juris-
diction and orders in apostolic times. On the other hand sub-apostoHc
writings are abundantly and carefully investigated, and all available
sources are drawn upon. The question of the Papacy is not touched upon ;
the special position of St Peter in the New Testament and of Linus,
Anencletus, Clement and Evaristus in the first century, except in so far
as was necessary to show a monarchical episcopate at Rome, is not referred
to. This omission was clearly necessitated by circumstances, as the ques-
tion of the Primacy of Rome is one of such importance and extent as to
have necessitated another volume. Yet it would have been well, had this
been more definitely stated; one almost gets the impression as if there
were no Papacy in the first century. The author's conclusions may be
summarized as follows: The churches founded by St Paul received a

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Chronicle of Biblical Works

collegiate and not a monarchical episcopate from the great Apostle of the
Gentiles. Whether, however, this " College of Overseers " in the Pauline
missionary foundations possessed what we now call bishop's, or only priest's
Orders must remain an open question ; though on the whole the writer
seems to incHne to the view that they were only priests, and that St Paul
ordained to the episcopate proper only those apostolic delegates such as
Timothy, Titus, Cresceus, Luke or Archippus. Even if the members of
the College of Presbyters possessed the power to transmit orders, St Paul
evidently excludes the exercise of such powers, and gives the necessary
jurisdiction only to a few specially trusted disciples. He wisely judged
that it was unsafe to leave the authority to make bishops in missionary
centres of only a few months standing. Such Pauline churches governed
by a " Presbytery " continued to exist, say at Thessalonika, till well in
the second century. On the other hand, the great Sees, such as Rome,
Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, certainly possessed a monarchical epis-
copate long before the end of the first century. St John the Apostle seems
to have created the monarchical episcopate in the churches of Asia
Minor. Thus from Asia and from the great Sees this mode of Church
government quickly spread, till, by the end of the second century, the
quondam existence of a collegiate episcopate had sunk in oblivion. The
standing of " prophets and doctors " in the early Church, and their
respective functions is also admirably discussed. The book is a model of
lucidity and, with all its thoroughness, pleasant to read.

The Epistle to the Ephesians. An Encyclical of St Paul. Translated from a
revised Greek text and explained for English readers. Rev. G. S. Hitchcock,
D.D. (London. Burns and Oates, ys. 6d.)

The unconventionality of this commentary is so striking that the
reader may well be excused if at first he feel somewhat alarmed and un-
comfortable in perusing the substantial volume. On the other hand
its brilliancy and freshness, and, withal, its erudition are so attractive that
those who overcome their first surprise are not likely to lay the book aside
till they have gone quite through it.

The book is not one elaborated merely by a scholar in his study, it is
more that of an experienced preacher discoursing leisuredly, yet learnedly,
on the words of St Paul, and bringing in illustrations, explanations,
parallels and similitudes from every field of knowledge and experience.
An index of names, were it added, would read like a list of celebrities at
the end of a volume on universal history. The single page of General Index
(533) is useless and meaningless. It is a pity that the author deems it
necessary to add to every sigil of a manuscript, some adjective descriptive
of its character or provenance, as follows Sinaitic Aleph, Vatican B,
Claromontanus D, Sangerman E, Muscovian K, Angelic L, Augien F,
Boernerian G, Demidovianus of Cent XII, and so on usque ad infinitum,
and this not only on the first occurrence of the MS., but whensoever it is
mentioned. This may be a good experiment to teach students the origin of
the MSS., and to imprint the lesson on their memory, but is somewhat

Some Recent Books

wearisome for the usual reader. The author sets himself the task to trans-
late from the Greek not merely closely, but so mechanically as to add
the article in square brackets whenever English idiom requires it, though
absent in the Greek, or to add " ones " in brackets, to express the plural
of a Greek adjective used as a noun, such as: "holy [ones]." The system of
Hebrew parallelism is also applied throughout, so as to divide almost
every sentence in two parellel sections. Though doubtless St Paul was
largely influenced in his style by this Hebrew mode of speech, it seems
very unlikely that he should have been influenced to that extent as to
be unable to utter a sentence not divisible in parallel sections, and thus
Dr Hitchcock introduces an element of artificiality, which mars the
smoothness of the text. One never gets the impression of the Epistle as a
whole, nor even of some important part thereof viewed as a paragraph
in its entirety. Pages of commentary follow a few words, till another
dozen words are given followed by as many pages of discussion. One some-
times gets the impression as if the author wished to cram as much infor-
mation of all kinds together as possible, as for instance when explaining
the word " buying out " he refers to " the Martyrdom of Polycarp " H,
3, and at once adds the date : Saturday the 23rd of February, 155.

The commentary evidently presupposes a layman as reader, who needs
every, even the most elementary information. The author is clearly
at his best when applying St Paul's words to our modern circumstances,
when he can quote Pythagoras and Bradley, Meredith and Browning,
Marx and Bakunin, Gore, and the Rev. John Newton delivering a sermon
"in St Paul's Deptford on Sunday, May 7, 1786, after the death of
Richard Conyers, LL.D., late Rector of that Parish." The book keeps its
quaint attractiveness throughout, and when one has finished one may be
somewhat tired of following the author in so many by-paths, and of reading
so many Greek words transliterated in Latin characters, and seeing so
many parentheses, and hyphens and brackets, yet St Paul and his times
and his great Encyclical are nearer and dearer as reward for one's per-
severance.

St Paul and Justification. Being an exposition of the teaching in the
Epistle to Rome and Galatia. Frederick Brooke Westcott. (Macmillan,
London, 191 3.)

In the Prefatory Notes the author states that " this little work is put
forth with great hesitation, and serious searching of heart." " Of erudition
in these pages very little will be found." " May the little book be found of
use by some one." Unfortunately the style and the price of the book is
somewhat ambitious for so modest a preface. Its contents are indeed but
slight, and its 400 pages might easily have been compressed into less than
200, if less lavishly printed. The tone is almost conversational ; the author
tells us that he was very happy as a schoolmaster (p. 392), and he ends the
book with the phrase claudite jam rivos pueri. The book does indeed
impress one as free and easy and somewhat fatherly talk about Romans and
Galatians to a class of youthful Greek scholars.

J. P. ARENDZEN.
416

THE INDEX TO VOL. 1 5 3

Ihe Titles of Articles are printed in Italics.

ABERCROMBY, Hon. John, A Study of Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and
Ireland, and its Associated Grave-Goods, revtetcfd, 171.
An Average Man, by Robert Hugh Benson, reviewed, 388.
Apocalypse of St John, The, by Col. J. J. L. Ratton, reviewed, 205.
Ashbourne, Lady, Charles Piguy, 353.

jyELGIAN Strike, The, by Francis McCuUagh, 127.
•*^ Benson, Robert Hugh, An Average Man, reviewed, 388.
Betrothment and Marriage, by Canon de Smet, reviewed, 193.
Bewley, Charles, // Home Rule is Defeated, 255.

Blessed Thomas More and the Arrest of Humanism in England, by Prof. J. S. Phiilimore, !.
Boissarie, Dr, Heaven's Recent Wonders, reviewed, 204.
Bride Elect, by A. M. Champneys, reviewed, 190.

Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland, and it* Associated GraTC-Goods, by
Hon. John Aber cromby , reviewed^ 171.

CATHOLIC Encyclopedia, Vols XIV and XV, reviewed, 195.
Champneys, A. M., Bride Elect, reviewed, 190.
Charles Piguy, by Lady Ashbourne, 353.

Chesterton, G. K., The Victorian Age in Literature, reviewed, 178.
Childhood of Art, The, by H. G. Spearing, reviewed, 175.
Chinese Republic and Yiian Shib-k'ai, The, by Stephen Harding, 112.
Court at Berlin in 1888, The, from the Diary of Princess Ouroutoff, 212.
Crawford, Mrs, Franciscan Influences in Art, 209. ip

DANTE and the Mystics, by Edmund Gardner, reviewed, 390.
Davidson, Donald, Richard Wagner: A Centenar id Sketch, 282.
De Lisle, Edwin, The Lighting of Churches, 242.

Der Alttestamentlichc Prophetismus, von Dr Ernst Sellin, reviewed, 411.
De Smet, Canon, Betrothment and Marriage, reviewed, 193.
Dunoyer, Alphonse, Fouquier Tinville, reviewed, 187.

ECCLESIASTES, par E. Podechard, reviewed, 407.
Ecclesiasticus, by Dr W. O. E. Osterley, reviewed, 408.
Epistle to the Ephesians, The, by the Rev. G. S. Hitchcock, D.D., revieioed, 415.
" Et in Vitam JEternam," by the Rev. C. C. Martindale, S.J., 14^.

FATHER Ralph, by Gerald O'Donovan, reviewed, 397.
Fonsegrive, George, The Present Religious Situation in France, 300.
Foreign Politics of the Day, by Lancelot Lawton, 365.
Fouquier Tinville, par Alphonse Dunoyer, reviewed, 187.
Franciscan Influences in Art, by Mrs Crawford, 209.
Francis, M. E., The Story of Mary Dunne, reviewed, 393.
Francis Thompson, The Works of, reviewed, 395.
Frank, Fr. Karl, S,J., The Theory of Evolution in the Light of Facts, reviewed, 203.

GALLWEY, Fr., S.J., A Memoir of, by Fr Gavin, S.J., reviewed, 392.
Gardner, Edmund, Dante and the Mystics, reviewed, 390.
Gavin, Fr., S.J., A Memoir of Fr. Gallwey, S.J., reviewed, 392.
Glimpses of the Past, by Miss Wordsworth, reviewed, 181.

Government of the Church in the First Century, by the Rev. W. Moran, reviewed. 414.
Graham, Harry, The Napoleon of San Domingo, 86.
Graves, Alfred Perceval, Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry, 65.

Vol. 153 417 27

The Index

HAGGAI, Zechariah, Malachi and Jonah, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on, by H. G. MitcheU, D.D., J. M. P. Smith, Ph.D., and J. A. Brewer, Ph.D.,
reviewed^ 413.
Harding, Stephen, The Chinese Republic and Tuan Shib-k'ai, 1 12.
Hardy, Norman, Papal Dispensation for Polygamy , 266.
Hartog, Professor, Problems of Life and Reproduction, reviewed, 200.
Heaven's Recent Wonders, by Dr Boissarie, reviewed, 204.
Hitchcock, The Rev G. S., D.D., The Epistle to the Ephesians, reviewed, 415.
Homiletic and Catechetic Studies, Meyenberg-Brossart, reviewed, 191.

7F Home Rule is Defeated, by Charles Bewley, 255.
Indian Mystic, An, Rabindranatb Tagore, by the Rev C. C. Martindale, S.J., 332.
Irish Gaelic Nature Poetry, by Alfred Perceval Graves, 65.

JOB, The Book of, by James Strahan, reviewed, 409.
Johnson and his circle, Dr, by John Bailey, reviewed, 176.

ALT, Dr Edmund, "^mson, Eine Untersuchung des Historischen Charakter von
Richt. XIII-XVI, revib^ed, 413.

LAWTON, Lancelot, Foreign Politics of the Day, 365.
Lighting of Churches, The, by Edwin de Lisle, 242.
Lilly, W. S., The New France, reviewed, 400.

Martindale, The Rev C. C, S.J., An Indian Mystic: Rabindranatb Tagore, 332.

" Et in Vitam Mternam" 148.

McCULLAGH, F., The Belgian Strike, 127.
Meyenberg-Brossart, Homiletic and Catechetic Studies, reviewed, 191.
Meynell, Alice, Poems by, reviewed, 386.
Meynell, Wilfrid, Verses and Reverses, reviewed, 183.

Moran, the Rev W., The Government of the Church in the First Century, reviewed, 414.
Mystic Way, The, by Evelyn Underbill, reviewed, 166.

J^APOLEON of San Domingo, The, by Harry Graham, 86.
■* ^ New France, The, by W. S. Lilly, reviewed, 400.
Newman, Cardinal, Sermon Notes of, reviewed, 169.

/y CONOR, Sir Nicholas, by Sir Mark Sykes, 276.

'^O'Donovan, Gerald, Father Ralph, reviewed, 397.

Osterley, Dr W. O. E., Ecclesiasticus, reviewed, 408.

Ourousoff, Princess, From the Diary of. The Court at Berlin in 1888, zog.

TyAPAL Dispensation for Polygamy, by Norman Hardy, 266.
"» Paul and Justification, St, by F. B. Westcott, reviewed, 416.
Peel, George, The Tariff Reformers, reviewed, 184.
Pentateuchal Studies, by Harold Wiener, reviewed, 406.

Phillimore, Professor J. S., Blessed Thomas More and the Arrest of Humanism in England, i.
Plunkett, Joseph M., Sonnet, 1 1 1.
Podechard, E., Ecclesiastes, reviewed, 407.
Poems by Alice Meynell, reviewed, 386.

Poems of Henrietta A. Huxley, with Three of Thomas Henry Huxley, The, reviewed, 402.
Portuguese Political Prisoners : A British National Protest, reviewed, 404.
Present Religious Situation in France, The, by George Fonsegrive, 300.
Problems of Life and Reproduction by Professor Hartog, reviewed, 200.

ATTON, Colonel J. J. L,, The Apocalypse of St John, reviewed, 205.

418

The Index

SAMSON, Eine Untersuchung des Historischen Charaktcrs von Richt. XIII-XV'I,
von Dr Edmund Kalt, reviewed., 413.
Science and Philosophy at Louvain, by the Rev. J. G. Vance, Ph.D., 27.
Sellin, D. Ernst, Der Alttestamentliche Prophetismus, revietved, 411.
Some Oxford Essays, by Wilfrid Ward, 53.
Spearing, H. G., The Childhood of Art, revievjed, 175.
Strahan, James, The Book of Job, reviewed, 409.
Sykes, Sir Mark, Sir Nicholas O^Cofior, 276.

TARIFF Reformers, The, by George Peel, reviewed, 184.
Theory of Evolution in the Light of Facts, The, by Fr Karl Frank, S.J., revierved
203. ' .

The Story of Mary Dunne, by M. E. Francis, reviewed, 393.

VANCE, The Rev J. G., Ph.D., Science and Philosophy at Louvain, 27.
Verses and Reverses, by Wilfrid Meynell, reviewed, 183.
Victorian Age in Literature, The, by G. K. Chesterton, reviewed, 178.

JT^AGNER, Richard^ A Centenarial Sketch, by Donald Davidson, 282.
'^ Ward, Wilfrid, George Wyndham, 160.
Some Oxford Essays, 53.
Westcott, F. B., St Paul and Justification, reviewed, 416.
Wiener, Harold, Pentateuchal Studies, reviewed, 406.
Wordsworth, Miss, Glimpses of the Past, reviewed, rSr.
Wyndbam, George, by Wilfrid Ward, 160.

419

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