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HANDBOUND 
AT  THE 


VOLUME  16 
MACAULAY-MICKIEWICZ 

UNIVERSITY  EDITION 

THE  WARNER  LIBRARY 

IN  THIRTY  VOLUMES 


VOLS.  1-26 
THE  WORLD'S  BEST  LITERATURE 

VOL.  27 

THE    BOOK   OF   SONGS   AND   LYRICS 

VOL.  28 
THE  READER'S  DICTIONARY  OF  AUTHORS 

VOL.  29 
THE  READER'S  DIGEST  OF  BOOKS 

VOL.  30 
THE  STUDENT'S  COURSE  IN  LITERATURE 

GENERAL   INDEX 


t« 


NEW  STEAD  ABBEY- 

The  ancestral  home  of  the  family  of  Lord  Byron. 
Original  Etching  from  an  Old  Engraving. 


PRU 


bioJ  lo 
gni'/£-r§nH  blO  nr,  mcnl  5; 


UNIVERSITY  EDITION 

THE  WARNER  LIBRARY 

IN  THIRTY  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  16 


THE 

WORLD'S  BEST 

LITERATURE 

EDITORS 

JOHN  W.  CUNLIFFE 
ASHLEY  H.  THORNDIKE 

PROFESSORS  OF  ENGLISH  IN  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

' 

FOUNDED  BY 

CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 


NEW  YORK 

PRINTED  AT  THE  KNICKERBOCKER 

PRESS  FOR  THE  WARNER  LIBRARY  COMPANY 

TORONTO:  GLASGOW,  BROOK  &  COMPANY 

1917 


PM 


V  tl 


Copyright,  1896,  by  R.  S.  Peak  and  J.  A.  Hill 

Copyright,  1902,  by  J.  A.  Hitt 

Copyright,  1913,  by  Warner  Library  Company 

Copyright,  1917,  by  United  States  Publishers  Association,  Inc. 

All  Rights  Reserved 


.it 


ADVISORY  COUNCIL 


EDWIN  A.  ALDERMAN 

President  of  the  University  of  Virginia 

RICHARD  BURTON 

Professor  of  English  in  the  University  of  Minnesota 

MAURICE  FRANCIS  EGAN 

American  Ambassador  to  Denmark;  Formerly  Professor  of  Literature 
.    in  the  Catholic  University  of  America 

BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

Professor  of  Dramatic  Literature  in  Columbia  University 

WILLIAM  LYON  PHELPS 

Professor  of  English  in  Yale  University 

PAUL  SHOREY 

Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Chicago 

WILLIAM  M.  SLOANE 

Seth  Low  Professor  of  History  in  Columbia  University 

CRAWFORD  H.  TOY 

Professor  Emeritus  of  Hebrew  in  Harvard  University 

WILLIAM  P.  TRENT 

Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Columbia  University 

BENJAMIN  IDE  WHEELER 

President  of  the  University  of  California 

GEORGE  M.  WRONG 

Professor  of  History  in  the  University  of  Toronto 


vu 


CONTENTS 


THOMAS   BABIXGTON   MACAULAY,    1800-1859  PAGE 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  John  Bach  McMaster          .         .         .                   .  '  9381 

The  (Coffee-House               9386 

The  Difficulty  of  Travel  in  England,  1685 9388 

The  Highwayman     ..........  9395 

The  Delusion  of  Overrating  the  Happiness  of  our  Ancestors            .          .  9397 

The  Puritan 9399 

Spain  under  Philip  II.        .........  9402 

The  Character  of  Charles  II.  of  England 9406 

The  Church  of  Rome 9408 

Loyola  and  the  Jesuits      .........  9411 

The  Reign  of  Terror 9415 

The  Trial  of  Warren  Hastings   ........  9419 

Horatius 9422 

The  Battle  of  Ivry 9437 

JUSTIN  MCCARTHY,  1830-1912 

CRITICAL  ESSAY         .....                          9440 

The  King  Is  Dead — Long  Live  the  Queen 9441 

A  Modern  English  Statesman 9450 

GEORGE   MACDOXALD,    1824-1905 

CRITICAL  ESSAY                      9455 

The  Flood 9456 

The  Hay-Loft 9464 

JEAN    MACE,    1815-1894 

CRITICAL  ESSAY                      9473 

The  Necklace  of  Truth 9474 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI,    1469-1527 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Charles  P.  Nefll        .          .          .          .          .         .         .  9479 

The  Conspiracy  against  Carlo  Galeazzo,  Duke  of  Milan  .  .  .  94^8 

How  a  Prince  Ought  to  Avoid  Flatterers 9492 

Exhortation  to  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  .......  9493 


Vlll  CONTENTS 


PERCY  MACKAYE,    1875-  PAGE 

CRITICAL  ESSAY         .             .             .             .  .             .                          .             .            .  9494  a 

From '  The  Canterbury  Pilgrims '  .          .          .          .          .          .  9494  b 

The  Scarecrow,  Act.  iv                                   9494  g 


NORMAN   MACLEOD,    1812-1872 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         ...........  9495 

The  Home-Coming  ..........  9497 

Highland  Scenery     ..........  9500 

My  Little  May         ..........  9501 

JOHN   BACH   McMASTER,    1852- 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         ...........  9503 

Town  and  Country  Life  in  1800          .......  9504 

Effects  of  the  Embargo  of  1807  .          .          .          .          .          .          .9513 


ANDREW   MACPHAIL,    1864- 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Archibald  MacMechan         .          .          .          .          .  9514  a 

Psychology  of  the  Suffragette     .          .          .         .         .         .         .  9514  c 

EMERICH   MADACH,    1823-1864 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  George  Alexander  Kohut     .          .          .          .          .          .9515 

From  the  '  Tragedy  of  Man '      ........     9517 

JAMES   MADISON,    1751-1836 

CRITICAL   ESSAY 9531 

From  '  The  Federalist '.........     9534 

Interference  to  Quell  Domestic  Insurrection         .....     9539 

MAURICE   MAETERLINCK,    1864- 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  William  Sharp    ........     9541 

EDITORIAL    NOTE        ..........  9546  a 

From '  The  Death  of  Tintagiles '         .          .          .    '      .          .          .          .     9547 

The  Inner  Beauty     ..........     9552 

From  '  The  Tragical  in  Daily  Life' 9562 

DR.   WILLIAM   MAGINN,    1793-1842 

CRITICAL  ESSAY 9564 

Saint  Patrick   .          .          .          .          . 9565 

Song  of  the  Sea 9567 


CONTENTS  ix 

JOHN    PENTLAND    MAHAFFY,    1839-  PAGE 

CRITICAL    ESSAY          .             .             .             .             .             .             i             .             *                           .  9569 

Childhood  in  Ancient  Life           .....                  .  9571 

. 

ALFRED   THAYER   MAHAN,    1840-1914 

CRITICAL    ESSAY          .              .              .             .              .              .             .             .             .      '       .             .  9580 

The  Importance  of  Cruisers  and  of  Strong  Fleets  in  War       .          .          .  9581 

MOSES   MAIMONIDES,    1135-1204 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Rabbi  Gottheil  ........  9589 

Extract  from  Maimonides's  Will          .          ...          .          .          .          .  9594 

From  the '  Guide  of  the  Perplexed '     .          .          .          .                    .          .  9595 

SIR  HENRY   MAINE,    1822-1888 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  D.  MacG.  Means        .......  9605 

The  Beginnings  of  the  Modern  Laws  of  Real  Property ....  9607 

Importance  of  a  Knowledge  of  Roman  Law:  and  the  Effect  of  the  Code 

Napoleon      .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  9610 


XAVIER   DE   MAISTRE,    1764-1852 


The  Traveling-Coat            
A  Friend           

9*"-l 

.        96l8 
Q62O 

The  Library     

.        9621 

WILLIAM   HURRELL  MALLOCK,    1849- 

CRITICAL  ESSAY         ......... 

•        9623 

An  Evening's  Table-Talk  at  the  Villa          . 

.        9626 

SIR  THOMAS  MALORY,   FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Ernest  Rhys       .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  9645 

The  Finding  of  the  Sword  Excalibur  ......  9648 

The  White  Hart  at  the  Wedding  of  King  Arthur  and  Queen  Guenever  .  9650 

The  Maid  of  Astolat .  9651 

The  Death  of  Sir  Launcelot        .  9653 


SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE,   FOURTEENTH  CENTURY 

CRITICAL  ESSAY         ...........  9655 

The  Marvelous  Riches  of  Prester  John 9658 

From  Hebron  to  Bethlehem        ....  ...  9660 


X  CONTENTS 

JAMES  CLARENCE   MANGAN,    1803-1849  PAGE 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         ...........  9664 

The  Dawning  of  the  Day            ........  9665 

The  Nameless  One 9666 

St.  Patrick's  Hymn  before  Tarah        .......  9668 

ALESSANDRO   MANZONI,   1785-1873 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Maurice  Francis  Egan         ......  9671 

An  Unwilling  Priest            .........  9674 

A  Late  Repentance  ..........  9686 

An  Episode  of  the  Plague  in  Milan     .......  9693 

Chorus  from  '  The  Count  of  Carmagnola  '             .....  9695 

The  Fifth  of  May 9698 

MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME  (MARGARET  OF  NAVARRE),  1492- 
1549 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         ...........  9702 

A  Fragment     ...........  9706 

Dixains   ............  9707 

From  the '  Heptameron '  .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  9708 

CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE,    1564-1593 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .  9714 

The  Passionate  Shepherd  to  his  Love           .          .          .          .          .  97 17 

From  '  Tamburlaine  '         .........  9718 

Invocation  to  Helen .                             .......  9722 

From  '  Edward  the  Second '                 .         .          .          .         .          .  9725 

From  '  The  Jew  of  Malta ' 9727 

CLEMENT   MAROT,   1497-1544 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         .                          .........  9729 

Old-Time  Love                   .........  9732 

Epigram 9732 

To  a  Lady  who  Wished  to  Behold  Marot    ......  9732 

The  Laugh  of  Madame  D'Albret        .......  9733 

From  an  Elegy 9733 

The  Duchess  D'Alengon    .........  9734 

To  the  Queen  of  Navarre            ........  9734 

From  a  Letter  to  the  King;  after  being  Robbed  .          .          .          .          -9735 

From  a  Rhymed  Letter  to  the  King   .          .          .         .         .         .         .  9736 

FREDERICK   MARRYAT,    1792-1848 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         ...........  9737 

Perils  of  the  Sea        ..........  9740 

Mrs.  Easy  Has  her  own  Way     ........  9747 


CONTENTS  XI 

MARTIAL  (MARCUS  VALERIUS  MARTIALIS)   ?5O-?iO2  PAGE 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Caskie  Harrison          .......  9750 

The  Unkindest  Cut 9753 

Evolution         ...........  9754 

Vale  of  Tears  ...........  9754 

Sic  Vos  Non  Vobis   ..........  9754 

Silence  is  Golden       ..........  9754 

So  Near  and  Yet  So  Far '        .          .          .  9754 

The  Least  of  Evils    ..........  9755 

Thou  Reason'st  Well 9755 

Never  Is,  but  Always  to  Be       .         .          .         .         .          .          .          .  9755 

Learning  by  Doing 9755 

Tertium  Quid            .         .         . 9755 

Similia  Similibus       ..........  9756 

Cannibalism     .          .          .          .                    .          .          .          .          .          .  9756 

Equals  Added  to  Equals    .........  9756 

The  Cook  Well  Done 9756 

A  Diverting  Scrape  .          .          .          .  •        .          .          .          .          .          .  9756 

Diamond  Cut  Diamond     .........  9757 

The  Cobbler's  Last 9757 

But  Little  Here  Below      .........  9757 

E  Pluribus  Unus 9757 

Fine  Frenzy     ...........  9757 

Live  without  Dining          .........  9758 

The  Two  Things  Needful 9758 

JAMES   MARTINEAU,    1805-1900 

CRITICAL   ESSAY          ...........  9759 

The  Transient  and  the  Real  in  Life     .          .          .                    .          .          .  9762 

ANDREW   MARVELL,    1621-1678 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .  977O 

The  Garden 9771 

The  Emigrants  in  Bermudas      ........  9773 

The  Mower  to  the  Glow- Worms 9774 

The  Mower's  Song 9774 

The  Picture  of  T.  C 9775 

• 

KARL   MARX,    1809-1883 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  William  English  Walling 9776  a 

Bourgeois  and  Proletarians         .......  9776  i 


JOHN    MASEFIELD,    1874- 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Joyce  Kilmer     .          .          .          .         .         .          .          .     9777 

From  '  The  Everlasting  Mercy '  ......  9777  e 


Xll  CONTENTS 

John  Masefield Continued  PAGE 

The  Yarn  of  the  '  Loch  Achray  '......  9777  j 

Sea-Fever         ..........  9777 1 

D'Avalos'  Prayer      .........  9777  1 

Sonnets            ..........  9777  m 

MASQUES 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Ernest  Rhys       .....  .  9777  p 

JEAN  BAPTISTE  MASSILLON,  1663-1742 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  J.  F.  Bingham    ....  .  .  9780 

Picture  of  the  Death-Bed  of  a  Sinner  ......  9784 

Fasting 9785 

Hypocritical  Humility  in  Charity        .......  9787 

The  Blessedness  of  the  Righteous        .          .          .          .          .          .          .  9789 

One  of  His  Celebrated  Pictures  of  General  Society        ....  9791 

Prayer     ............  9792 

PHILIP   MASSINGER,    1583-1640 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Anna  McClure  Sholl  ......     9797 

From  '  The  Maid  of  Honour  '........     9799 

From  '  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts  ' 9801 

BRANDER   MATTHEWS,    1852- 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Ernest  Hunter  Wright         .....  9802  a 

American  Character  .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  9802  d 

Shakspere's  Actors   .  ........  9802  s 

GUY  DE   MAUPASSANT,    1850-1893 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Firmin  Roz         ......  9803  d 

The  Last  Years  of  Madame  Jeanne    .......     9809 

A  Normandy  Outing:  Jean  Roland's  Love-Making        .          .          .          .9815 

The  Piece  of  String 9821 

FREDERICK   DENISON   MAURICE,    1805-1872 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         ...........       9828 

From  a  Letter  to  Rev.  J.  de  La  Touche       .          .          .          .          .          .     9830 

From  a  Letter  to  Rev.  Charles  Kingsley      ......     9832 

The  Subjects  and  Laws  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven       ....     9832 

JOSEPH  MAZZINI,    1805-1872 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Frank  Sewall      ........  9843 

Faith  and  the  Future        .........  9845 

Thoughts  Addressed  to  the  Poets  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  .  .  9848 

On  Carlyle .  .  .  9849 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

JOHANN   WILHELM   MEINHOLD,    1797-1851  PAGE 

CRITICAL    ESSAY .  9853 

The  Rescue  on  the  Road  to  the  Stake 9855 


HERMAN   MELVILLE,    1819-1891 

CRITICAL   ESSAY .  9867 

A  Typee  Household ...  9870 

Fayaway  in  the  Canoe      ....  .  9877 

The  General  Character  of  the  Typees          .  .          .  9879 

Taboo                        ....  9881 


:)FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY,    1809-1847 

CRITICAL   ESSAY          .....                                                                                   .  9886 

From  a  Letter  to  F.  Killer          ........  9888 

From  a  Letter  to  Herr  Advocat  Conrad  Schleinitz         ....  9888 

Hours  with  Goethe,  1830  ......                   .  9889 

A  Coronation  in  Presburg  .          .....                              .  9891 

First  Impressions  of  Venice        ........  9892 

In  Rome:  St.  Peter's          ....                                                 .  9894 

A  Sunday  at  Foria             .........  9895 

A  Vaudois  Walking  Trip:  Pauline       .......  9896 

A  Criticism  .......... 


'.CATULLE   MENDES,    1843-1909 

CRITICAL  ESSAY         ......                                                                  .  99OO 

The  Foolish  Wish     ..........  9901 

The  Sleeping  Beauty          .....                                        .  9904 

The  Charity  of  Sympathy           ........  9908 

The  Mirror       ............  9908 

The  Man  of  Letters            .........  9912 


MARCELINO   MENENDEZ  Y   PELAYO,  1856-1912 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Federico  de  Onis          ...  9914  a 

Calderon  ..........  9914  d 

GEORGE   MEREDITH,    1828-1909 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Anna  McClure  Sholl  .         .          .         .          .  99*5 

CRITICAL  ESSAY  on  MEREDITH'S  POETRY  by  Gertrude  E.  T.  Slaughter    .          .     9920 
Richard  and  Lucy:  An  Idyl        ........     9921 

Richard's  Ordeal  Is  Over  ........     9930 

Aminta  Takes  a  Morning  Sea-Swim:  A  Marine  Duet  .          .          .     9934 

Love  in  the  Valley    .........  9939  a 

The  Lark  Ascending  ........  9939  c 


XIV  CONTENTS 

Meredith's  Poetry — Continued  PAGE 

From  '  The  Woods  of  Westermain '     .          .          .          .          .          .  9939  f 

From  '  France,  1870'          ........  9939  g 

From  '  Modern  Love  ' : 

IV      . 9940 

XVI 9940 

XLIII 9940  a 

XLVII 9940  a 

L  ..........  9940 b 

PROSPER  MERIMEE',  1803-1870 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Grace  King         ........     9941 

From  '  Arsene  Guillot '.........     9946 

THE  MEXICAN   NUN   QUANA  YNEZ  DE  LA  CRUZ),  1651-1695 
CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  John  Malone      ........     9956 

On  the  Contrarieties  of  Love      .          .          .          .          .          .          .          -9959 

Learning  and  Riches          .........     9959 

Death  in  Youth        ..........     9960 

The  Divine  Narcissus        .........     9960 

KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER,    1825-1898 

CRITICAL   ESSAY 9965 

From  the  '  Monk's  Wedding '........     9966 

7 
MICHEL  ANGELO,    1475-1564 

CRITICAL   ESSAY         . 9977 

A  Prayer  for  Strength        .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .9979 

The  Impeachment  of  Night        ........     9980 

Love,  the  Life-Giver          .........     9980 

Irreparable  Loss        ..........     9981 

JULES   MICHELET,    1798-1874 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Grace  King         .          .          .          .          .  .  9982 

The  Death  of  Jeanne  D'Arc       ........  9985 

Michel  Angelo.          ..........  9990 

Summary  of  the  Introduction  to  '  The  Renaissance  '    .          .          .          .  9993 

ADAM   MICKIEWICZ,    1798-1855 

CRITICAL  ESSAY,  by  Charles  Harvey  Genung       .          .          .          . ' '       • .          .  9995 

Sonnet    ............  9999 

Father's  Return        ..........  10000 

Primrose           ........          ...  10002 

New  Year's  Wishes  .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  10004 

To  M 10005 

From  '  The  Ancestors  '.......,.  10006 

From  '  Fans  '                                                                                                    .  10006 


XV 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

NFEWSTEAD  ABBEY 

Photogravure        . 

I 

THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

Portrait  from  wood 

PURITANS   GOING   TO   CHURCH 

Photogravure        .  

NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 

Portrait  from  wood 

MONGOLIAN   BUDDHISTIC   WRITING 

Facsimile  manuscript     .         »         .         .         .         . 

,|JAMES   MADISON 

Portrait  from  wood 

SLAVONIC  WRITING  OF  Xlra  CENTURY 

Half  tone 


Frontispiece 

Facing  page  9381 

".     "  9398 

«      "  9479 

"      "  9501 

"      "  9531 

"      "  '  9753 


THOMAS   BABINGTON    MACAULAY 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

(1800-1859) 

BY  JOHN   BACH   MCMASTER 

IHOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY,  the  most  widely  read  of  English 
essayists  and  historians,  was  born  near  London  on  the  25th 
of  October,  1800.  His  early  education  was  received  at 
private  schools;  but  in  1818  he  went  into  residence  at  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  graduated  with  honor,  and  was  elected  a  fellow  in  1824. 
Out  of  deference  to  the  wishes  of  his  father  he  thought  for  a  while 
of  becoming  an  attorney,  read  law,  and  was  called  to  the  bar  in  1826. 
But  the  labors  of  the  profession  were  little  to  his  liking;  no  business 
of  consequence  came  to  him,  and  he  was  soon  deep  in  literature  and 
politics,  for  the  pursuit  of  which  his  tastes,  his  habits,  and  his  parts 
pre-eminently  fitted  him. 

His  nephew  and  biographer  has  gathered  a  mass  of  anecdotes  and 
reminiscences,  which  go  far  to  show  that  while  still  a  lad  Macaulay 
displayed  in  a  high  degree  many  of  the  mental  characteristics  which 
later  in  life  made  him  famous.  The  eagerness  with  which  he  de- 
voured books  of  every  sort;  the  marvelous  memory  which  enabled 
him  to  recall  for  years  whole  pages  and  poems,  read  but  once;  the 
quickness  of  perception  by  the  aid  of  which  he  could  at  a  glance 
extract  the  contents  of  a  printed  page;  his  love  of  novels  and  poetry; 
his  volubility,  his  positiveness  of  assertion,  and  the  astonishing  amount 
of  information  he  could  pour  out  on  matters  of  even  trivial  import- 
ance,—  were  as  characteristic  of  the  boy  as  of  the  man. 

As  might  have  been  expected  from  one  so  gifted,  Macaulay  began 
to  write  while  a  mere  child;  but  his  first  printed  piece  was  an  anony- 
mous letter  defending  novel-reading  and  lauding  Fielding  and  Smol- 
lett. It  was  written  at  the  age  of  sixteen;  was  addressed  to  his  father, 
then  editor  of  the  Christian  Observer,  was  inserted  in  utter  ignorance 
of  the  author,  and  brought  down  on  the  periodical  the  wrath  of  a 
host  of  subscribers.  One  declared  that  he  had  given  the  obnoxious 
number  to  the  flames,  and  should  never  again  read  the  magazine. 
At  twenty-three  Macaulay  began  to  write  for  Knight's  Quarterly  Maga- 
zine, and  contributed  to  it  articles  some  of  which  —  as  <The  Conver- 
sation between  Mr.  Abraham  Cowley  and  Mr.  John  Milton  touching 
the  Great  Civil  War>;  his  criticism  of  Dante  and  Petrarch;  that  on 
Athenian  Orators ;  and  the  (  Fragments  of  a  Roman  Tale  *  —  are  still 


9382 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 


given  a  place,  in  his  collected  writings.  In  themselves  these  pieces 
are  of  small  value;  but  they  served  to  draw  attention  to  the  author 
just  at  the  time  when  Jeffrey,  the  editor  of  the  great  Whig  Edin- 
burgh Review,  was  eagerly  and  anxiously  searching  for  <(  some  clever 
young  man  **  to  write  for  it.  Macaulay  was  such  a  clever  young  man. 
Overtures  were  therefore  made  to  him;  and  in  1825,  in  the  August 
number  of  the  Review,  appeared  his  essay  on  John  Milton.  The 
effect  was  immediate.  Like  Byron,  he  awoke  one  morning  to  find 
himself  famous;  was  praised  and  complimented  on  every  hand,  and 
day  after  day  saw  his  table  covered  with  cards  of  invitation  to  dinner 
from  every  part  of  London.  And  well  he  might  be  praised;  for  no 
English  magazine  had  ever  before  published  so  readable,  so  eloquent, 
so  entertaining  an  essay.  Its  very  faults  are  pleasing.  Its  merits 
are  of  a  high  order;  but  the  passage  which  will  best  bear  selection 
as  a  specimen  of  the  writing  of  Macaulay  at  twenty-five  is  the  de- 
scription of  the  Puritan. 

Macaulay  had  now  found  his  true  vocation,  and  entered  on  it 
eagerly  and  with  delight.  In  March  1827  came  the  essay  on  Machia- 
velli;  and  during  1828  those  on  John  Dryden,  on  History,  and  on  Hal- 
lam's  'Constitutional  History.*  During  1829  he  wrote  and  published 
reviews  of  James  Mill's  ( Essay  on  Government*  (which  involved  him 
in  an  unseemly  wrangle  with  the  Westminster  Review,  and  called 
forth  two  more  essays  on  the  Utilitarian  Theory  of  Government), 
Southey's  Colloquies  on  Society,*  Sadler's  <  Law  of  Population,*  and 
the  reviews  of  Robert  Montgomery's  Poems.  The  reviews  of  Moore's 
*  Life  of  Byron  *  and  of  Southey's  edition  of  the  ( Pilgrim's  Progress  * 
appeared  during  1830.  In  that  same  year  Macaulay  entered  Parlia- 
ment, and  for  a  time  the  essays  came  forth  less  frequently.  A  reply 
to  a  pamphlet  by  Mr.  Sadler  written  in  reply  to  Macaulay 's  review, 
the  famous  article  in  which  Croker's  edition  of  Boswell's  Johnson 
was  pilloried,  and  the  essay  on  John  Hampden,  were  all  he  wrote  in 
1831.  In  1832  came  Burleigh  and  his  Times,  and  Mirabeau;  in  1833 
The  War  of  the  Succession  in  Spain,  and  Horace  Walpole;  in  1834 
William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham;  in  1835  Sir  James  Mackintosh;  in  1837 
Lord  Bacon,  the  finest  yet  produced;  in  1838  Sir  William  Temple;  in 
1839  Gladstone  on  Church  and  State;  and  in  1840  the  greatest  of  all 
his  essays,  those  on  Von  Ranke's  (  History  of  the  Popes*  and  on  Lord 
Clive.  The  Comic  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration,  Warren  Hastings, 
and  a  short  sketch  of  Lord  Holland,  were  written  in  1841 ;  Frederic 
the  Great  in  1842;  Madame  D'Arblay  and  Addison  in  1843;  Barere 
and  The  Earl  of  Chatham  in  1844:  and  with  these  the  long  list 
closes. 

Never  before  in  any  period  of  twenty  years  had  the  British  read- 
ing public  been  instructed  and  amused  by  so  splendid  a  series  of 


THOMAS  BABINGTO.F  MACAULAY  9383 

essays.  Taken  as  a  whole  the  series  falls  naturally  into  three  classes: 
the  critical,  the  biographical,  and  the  historical.  Each  has  merits  and 
peculiarities  of  its  own;  but  all  have  certain  characteristics  in  com- 
mon which  enable  us  to  treat  them  in  a  group. 

Whoever  will  take  the  pains  to  read  the  six-and-thirty  essays  we 
have  mentioned,  —  and  he  will  be  richly  repaid  for  his  pains, — can- 
not fail  to  perceive  that  sympathy  with  the  past  is  Macaulay's  ruling 
passion.  Concerning  the  present  he  knew  little  and  cared  less.  The 
range  of  topics  covered  by  him  was  enormous;  art,  science,  theology, 
history,  literature,  poetry,  the  drama,  philosophy  —  all  were  passed 
in  review.  Yet  he  has  never  once  failed  to  treat  his  subject  histori- 
cally. We  look  in  vain  for  the  faintest  approach  to  a  philosophical 
or  analytical  treatment.  He  reviewed  Mill's  essay  on  Government, 
and  Hallam's  ( Constitutional  History > ;  but  he  made  no  observations 
on  government  in  the  abstract,  nor  expressed  any  opinions  as  to 
what  sort  of  government  is  best  suited  for  civilized  communities  in 
general.  He  wrote  about  Bacon;  yet  he  never  attempted  to  expound 
the  principles  or  describe  the  influence  of  the  Baconian  philosophy. 
He  wrote  about  Addison  and  Johnson,  Hastings  and  Clive,  Machia- 
velli  and  Horace  Walpole  and  Madame  D'Arblay;  yet  in  no  case  did 
he  analyze  the  works;  or  fully  examine  the  characteristics,  or  set  forth 
exhaustively  the  ideas,  of  one  of  them.  They  are  to  him  mere  pegs 
on  which  to  hang  a  splendid  historical  picture  of  the  times  in  which 
these  people  lived.  Thus  the  essay  on  Milton  is  a  review  of  the 
Cromwellian  period;  Machiavelli,  of  Italian  morals  in  the  sixteenth 
century;  that  on  Dryden,  of  the  state  of  poetry  and  the  drama  in  the 
days  of  Charles  the  Second;  that  on.  Johnson,  of  the  state  of  English 
literature  in  the  days  of  Walpole.  In  the  essays  on  Clive  and  Hast- 
ings, we  find  little  of  the  founders  of  British  India  beyond  the  enu- 
meration of  their  acts.  But  the  Mogul  empire,  and  the  rivalries  and 
struggles  which  overthrew  it,  are  all  depicted  in  gorgeous  detail.  No 
other  writer  has  ever  given  so  fine  an  account  of  the  foreign  policy 
of  Charles  the  Second  as  Macaulay  has  done  in  the  essay  on  Sir  Will- 
iam Temple ;  nor  of  the  Parliamentary  history  of  England  for  the  forty 
years  preceding  our  Revolution,  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  essays  on 
Lord  Chatham.  In  each  case  the  image  of  the  man  whose  name 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  essay  is  blurred  and  indistinct.  We  are 
told  of  the  trial  of  John  Hampden;  but  we  do  not  see  the  fearless 
.champion  of  popular  liberty  as  he  stood  before  the  judges  of  King 
Charles.  We  are  introduced  to  Frederic  the  Great,  and  are  given  a 
summary  of  his  characteristics  and  a  glowing  narrative  of  the  wars 
in  which  he  won  fame;  but  the  real  Frederic,  the  man  contending 
« against  the  greatest  superiority  of  power  and  the  utmost  spite  of 
fortune, »  is  lost  in  the  mass  of  accessories.  He  describes  the  out- 
ward man  admirably:  the  inner  man  is  never  touched. 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

But  however  faulty  the  Essays  may  be  in  respect  to  the  treatment 
accorded  to  individual  men,  they  display  a  prodigious  knowledge  of 
the  facts  and  events  of  the  periods  they  cover.  His  wonderful  mem- 
ory, stored  with  information  gathered  from  a  thousand  sources,  his 
astonishing  power  of  arranging  facts  and  bringing  them  to  bear  on 
any  subject,  whether  it  called  for  description  or  illustration,  joined 
with  a  clear  and  vigorous  style,  enabled  him  to  produce  historical 
scenes  with  a  grouping,  a  finish,  and  a  splendor  to  which  no  other 
writer  can  approach.  His  picture  of  the  Puritan  in  the  essay  on 
Milton,  and  of  Loyola  and  the  Jesuits  in  the  essay  on  the  Popes;  his 
description  of  the  trial  of  Warren  Hastings;  of  the  power  and  mag- 
nificence of  Spain  under  Philip  the  Second;  of  the  destiny  of  the 
Church  of  Rome;  of  the  character  of  Charles  the  Second  in  the  essay 
on  Sir  James  Mackintosh, — are  but  a  few  of  many  of  his  bits  of  word- 
painting  which  cannot  be  surpassed.  What  is  thus  true  of  particular 
scenes  and  incidents  in  the  Essays  is  equally  true  of  many  of  them 
in  the  whole.  Long  periods  of  time,  great  political  movements,  com- 
plicated policies,  fluctuations  of  ministries,  are  sketched  with  an  accu- 
racy, animation,  and  clearness  not  to  be  met  with  in  any  elaborate 
treatise  covering  the  same  period. 

While  Macaulay  was  writing  two  and  three  essays  a  year,  he  won 
renown  in  a  new  field  by  the  publication  of  (The  Lays  of  Ancient 
Rome.*  They  consist  of  four  ballads  —  <Horatius);  (The  Battle  of 
the  Lake  Regillus*;  <  Virginius';  and  <  The  Prophecy  of  Capys* — which 
are  supposed  to  have  been  sung  by  Roman  minstrels,  and  to  belong 
to  a  very  early  period  in  the  history  of  the  city.  In  them  are  re- 
peated all  the  merits  and  all  the  defects  of  the  Essays.  The  men 
and  women  are  mere  enumerations  of  qualities;  the  battle  pieces  are 
masses  of  uncombined  incidents:  but  the  characteristics  of  the  periods 
treated  have  been  caught  and  reproduced  with  perfect  accuracy.  The 
setting  of  Horatius,  which  belongs  to  the  earliest  days  of  Rome, 
is  totally  different  from  the  setting  of  the  Prophecy  of  Capys,  which 
belongs  to  the  time  when  Rome  was  fast  acquiring  the  mastery  over 
Italy ;  and  in  each  case  the  setting  is  studiously  and  remarkably  exact. 
In  these  poems,  again,  there  is  the  same  prodigious  learning,  the  same 
richness  of  illustration,  which  distinguish  the  essays;  and  they  are 
adorned  with  a  profusion  of  metaphor  and  aptness  of  epithets  which 
is  most  admirable. 

The  'Lays*  appeared  in  1842,  and  at  once  found  their  way  into 
popular  favor.  Macaulay's  biographer  assures  us  that  in  ten  years 
18,000  copies  were  sold  in  Great  Britain;  40,000  copies  in  twenty 
years;  and  before  1875  nearly  100,000  had  passed  into  the  hands  of 
readers. 

Meantime  the  same  popularity  attended  the  ( Essays. y  Again  and 
again  Macaulay  had  been  urged  to  collect  and  publish  them  in  book 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9385 

form,  and  had  stoutly  refused.  But  when  an  enterprising  publisher 
in  Philadelphia  not  only  reprinted  them  but  shipped  copies  to  Eng- 
land, Macaulay  gave  way;  and  in  the  early  months  of  1843  a  volume 
was  issued.  Like  the  Lays,  the  Essays  rose  at  once  into  popular 
favor,  and  in  the  course  of  thirty  years  120,000  copies  were  sold  in 
the  United  Kingdom  by  one  publisher. 

But  the  work  on  which  he  was  now  intent  was  the  ( History  of 
England  from  the  accession  of  King  James  the  Second  down  to  a 
time  which  is  within  the  memory  of  men  still  living.*  The  idea  of 
such  a  narrative  had  long  been  in  his  mind;  but  it  was  not  till  1841 
that  he  began  seriously  to  write,  and  not  till  1848  that  he  published 
the  first  and  second  volumes.  Again  his  success  was  instant.  Nothing 
like  it  had  been  known  since  the  days  of  Waverley.  Of  <Marmion) 
2,000  were  sold  in  the  first  month;  of  Macaulay's  History  3,000 
copies  were  sold  in  ten  days.  Of  the  < Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  > 
2,250  copies  were  disposed  of  in  course  of  the  first  year;  but  the 
publishers  sold  13,000  copies  of  Macaulay  in  four  months.  In  the 
United  States  the  success  was  greater  yet. 

«We  beg  you  to  accept  herewith  a  copy  of  our  cheap  edition  of  your 
work,»  wrote  Harper  &  Brothers  in  1849.  (<  There  have  been  three  other 
editions  published  by  different  houses,  and  another  is  now  in  preparation;  so 
there  will  be  six  different  editions  in  the  market.  We  have  already  sold 
40,000  copies,  and  we  presume  that  over  60,000  copies  have  been  disposed  of. 
Probably  within  three  months  of  this  time  the  sale  will  amount  to  200,000 
copies.  No  work  of  any  kind  has  ever  so  completely  taken  our  whole  coun- 
try by  storm. w 

Astonishing  as  was  the  success,  it  never  flagged;  and  year  after 
year  the  London  publisher  disposed  of  the  work  at  the  rate  of 
seventy  sets  a  week.  In  November  1855  the  third  and  fourth  vol- 
umes were  issued.  Confident  of  an  immense  sale,  25,000  copies  were 
printed  as  a  first  edition,  and  were  taken  by  the  trade  before  a  copy 
was  bound.  In  the  United  States  the  sale,  he  was  assured  by  Everett, 
was  greater  than  that  of  any  book  ever  printed,  save  the  Bible  and 
a  few  school-books  in  universal  use.  Prior  to  1875,  his  biographer 
states,  140,000  copies  of  the  History  were  sold  in  the  United  King- 
dom. In  ten  weeks  from  the  day  of  the  issue  26,500  copies  were 
taken,  and  in  March  1856  $100,000  was  paid  him  as  a  part  of  the 
royalty  due  in  December. 

Honors  of  every  sort  were  now  showered  on  him.  He  was  raised 
to  the  peerage;  he  was  rich,  famous,  and  great.  But  the  enjoyment 
of  his  honors  was  short-lived;  for  in  December  1859  he  was  found  in 
his  library,  seated  in  his  easy-chair,  dead.  Before  him  on  the  table 
lay  a  copy  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  open  at  the  first  page  of 
Thackeray's  story  of  <  Lovel  the  Widower.  > 


9386 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY 


All  that  has  been  said  regarding  the  Essays  and  the  Lays  applies 
with  equal  force  to  the  (  History  of  England.  >  No  historian  who  has 
yet  written  has  shown  such  familiarity  with  the  facts  of  English 
history,  no  matter  what  the  subject  in  hand  may  be  :  the  extinction 
of  villeinage,  the  Bloody  Assizes,  the  appearance  of  the  newspaper, 
the  origin  of  the  national  debt,  or  the  state  of  England  in  1685. 
Macaulay  is  absolutely  unrivaled  in  the  art  of  arranging  and  com- 
bining his  facts,  and  of  presenting  in  a  clear  and  vigorous  narrative 
the  spirit  of  the  epoch  he  treats.  Nor  should  we  fail  to  mention  that 
both  Essays  and  History  abound  in  remarks,  general  observations,  and 
comment  always  clear,  vigorous,  and  shrewd,  and  in  the  main  very 
just. 


£7 


THE  COFFEE-HOUSE 

From  the  <  History  of  England  > 

coffee-house  must  not  be  dismissed  with  a  cursory  men- 
tion.     It    might    indeed    at    that    time    have    been    not    im- 
properly called  a   most   important   political   institution.     No 
Parliament  had  sat  for  years.     The  municipal  council  of  the  City 
had  ceased  to  speak  the  sense  of  the  citizens.     Public  meetings, 
harangues,  resolutions,  and  the  rest  of  the  modern  machinery  of 
agitation  had   not   yet   come    into   fashion.      Nothing   resembling 
the  modern  newspaper  existed.     In  such  circumstances  the  coffee- 
houses were  the  chief  organs  through  which  the  public  opinion 
of  the  metropolis  vented  itself. 

The  first  of  these  establishments  had  been  set  up  by  a  Tur- 
key merchant,  who  had  acquired  among  the  Mahometans  a  taste 
for  their  favorite  beverage.  The  convenience  of  being  able  to 
make  appointments  in  any  part  of  the  town,  and  of  being  able 
to  pass  evenings  socially  at  a  very  small  charge,  was  so  great 
that  the  fashion  spread  fast.  Every  man  of  the  upper  or  middle 
class  went  daily  to  his  coffee-house  to  learn  the  news  and  to  dis- 
cuss it.  Every  coffee-house  had  one  or  more  orators  to  whose 
eloquence  the  crowd  listened  with  admiration,  and  who  soon 
became  what  the  journalists  of  our  time  have  been  called,  a 
Fourth  Estate  of  the  realm.  The  court  had  long  seen  with  un- 
easiness the  growth  of  this  new  power  in  the  State.  An  attempt 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9387 

had  been  made,  during  Danby's  administration,  to  close  the  coffee- 
houses. But  men  of  all  parties  missed  their  usual  places  of 
resort  so  much  that  there  was  an  unusual  outcry.  The  govern- 
ment did  not  venture,  in  opposition  to  a  feeling  so  strong  and 
general,  to  enforce  a  regulation  of  which  the  legality  might  well 
be  questioned.  Since  that  time  ten  years  had  elapsed,  and  during 
those  years  the  number  and  influence  of  the  coffee-houses  had 
been  constantly  increasing.  Foreigners  remarked  that  the  coffee- 
house was  that  which  especially  distinguished  London  from  all 
other  cities;  that  the  coffee-house  was  the  Londoner's  home,  and 
that  those  who  wished  to  find  a  gentleman  commonly  asked,  not 
whether  he  lived  in  Fleet  Street  or  Chancery  Lane,  but  whether 
he  frequented  the  Grecian  or  the  Rainbow,  Nobody  was  excluded 
from  these  places  who  laid  down  his  penny  at  the  bar.  Yet 
every  rank  and  profession,  and  every  shade  of  religious  and  polit- 
ical opinion,  had  its  own  headquarters.  There  were  houses  near 
Saint  James's  Park  where  fops  congregated,  their  heads  and  shoul- 
ders covered  with  black  or  flaxen  wigs,  not  less  ample  than  those 
which  are  worn  by  the  Chancellor  and  by  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  wig  came  from  Paris,  and  so  did  the 
rest  of  the  fine  gentleman's  ornaments, —  his  embroidered  coat,  his 
fringed  gloves,  and  the  tassel  which  upheld  his  pantaloons.  The 
conversation  was  in  that  dialect  which,  long  after  it  had  ceased 
to  be  spoken  in  fashionable  circles,  continued  in  the  mouth  of 
Lord  Foppington  to  excite  the  mirth  of  theatres.  The  atmo- 
sphere was  like  that  of  a  perfumer's  shop.  Tobacco  in  any  other 
form  than  that  of  richly  scented  snuff  was  held  in  abomination. 
If  any  clown,  ignorant  of  the  usages  of  the  house,  called  for  a 
pipe,  the  sneers  of  the  whole  assembly  and  the  short  answers  of 
the  waiters  soon  convinced  him  that  he  had  better  go  somewhere 
else.  Nor  indeed  would  he  have  had  far  to  go.  For  in  gen- 
eral, the  coffee-rooms  reeked  with  tobacco  like  a  guard-room;  and 
strangers  sometimes  expressed  their  surprise  that  so  many  peo- 
ple should  leave  their  own  firesides  to  sit  in  the  midst  of  eternal 
fog  and  stench.  Nowhere  was  the  smoking  more  constant  than 
at  Will's.  That  celebrated  house,  situated  between  Covent  Gar- 
den and  Bow  Street,  was  sacred  to  polite  letters.  There  the  talk 
was  about  poetical  justice  and  the  unities  of  place  and  time. 
There  was  a  faction  for  Perrault  and  the  moderns,  a  faction  for 
Boileau  and  the  ancients.  One  group  debated  whether  <  Paradise 
Lost*  ought  not  to  have  been  in  rhyme.  To  another  an  envious 


9388 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 


poetaster  demonstrated  that  ( Venice  Preserved J  ought  to  have 
been  hooted  from  the  stage.  Under  no  roof  was  a  greater  vari- 
ety of  figures  to  be  seen.  There  were  earls  in  stars  and  garters, 
clergymen  in  cassocks  and  bands,  pert  Templars,  sheepish  lads 
from  the  universities,  translators  and  index-makers  in  ragged 
coats  of  frieze.  The  great  press  was  to  get  near  the  chair  where 
John  Dryden  sat.  In  winter  that  chair  was  always  in  the  warm- 
est nook  by  the  fire;  in  summer  it  stood  in  the  balcony.  To  bow 
to  the  Laureate,  and  to  hear  his  opinion  of  Racine's  last  tragedy 
or  of  Bossu's  treatise  on  epic  poetry,  was  thought  a  privilege. 
A  pinch  'from  his  snuff-box  was  an  honor  sufficient  to  turn  the 
head  of  a  young  enthusiast.  There  were  coffee-houses  where  the 
first  medical  men  might  be  consulted.  Dr.  John  -Radcliffe,  who  in 
the  year  1685  rose  to  the  largest  practice  in  London,  came  daily, 
at  the  hour  when  the  Exchange  was  full,  from  his  house  in 
Bow  Street,  then  a  fashionable  part  of  the  capital,  to  Garraway's; 
and  was  to  be  found,  surrounded  by  surgeons  and  apothecaries, 
at  a  particular  table.  There  were  Puritan  coffee-houses  where  no 
oath  was  heard,  and  where  lank -haired  men  discussed  election 
and  reprobation  through  their  noses;  Jew  coffee-houses  where 
dark  eyed  money-changers  from  Venice  and  Amsterdam  greeted 
each  other;  and  Popish  coffee-houses  where,  as  good  Protestants 
believed,  Jesuits  planned  over  their  cups  another  great  fire,  and 
cast  silver  bullets  to  shoot  the  King. 


THE  DIFFICULTY  OF  TRAVEL   IN   ENGLAND,    1685 
From  the  <  History  of  England  > 

THE  chief  cause  which  made  the  fusion  of  the  different  ele- 
ments of  society  so  imperfect  was  the  extreme  difficulty 
which  our  ancestors  found  in  passing  from  place  to  place. 
Of  all  inventions,  the  alphabet  and  the  printing-press  alone  ex- 
cepted,  those  inventions  which  abridge  distance  have  done  most 
for  the  civilization  of  our  species.  Every  improvement  of  the 
means  of  locomotion  benefits  mankind  morally  and  intellectually 
as  well  as  materially;  and  not  only  facilitates  the  interchange  of 
the  various  productions  of  nature  and  art,  but  tends  to  remove 
national  and  provincial  antipathies,  and  to  bind  together  all  the 
branches  of  the  great  human  family.  In  the  seventeenth  century 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9389 

the  inhabitants  of  London  were,  for  almost  every  practical  pur- 
pose, farther  from  Reading  than  they  now  are  from  Edinburgh, 
and  farther  from  Edinburgh  than  they  now  are  from  Vienna. 

The  subjects  of  Charles  the  Second  were  not,  it  is  true,  quite 
unacquainted  with  that  principle  which  has,  in  our  own  time, 
produced  an  unprecedented  revolution  in  human  affairs;  which 
has  enabled  navies  to  advance  in  face  of  wind  and  tide,  and 
brigades  of  troops,  attended  by  all  their  baggage  and  artillery,  to 
traverse  kingdoms  at  a  pace  equal  to  that  of  the  fleetest  race- 
horse. The  Marquess  of  Worcester  had  recently  observed  the 
expansive  power  of  moisture  rarefied  by  heat.  After  many  ex- 
periments he  had  succeeded  in  constructing  a  rude  steam-engine, 
which  he  called  a  fire-water  work,  and  which  he  pronounced  to 
be  an  admirable  and  most  forcible  instrument  of  propulsion. 
But  the  Marquess  was  suspected  to  be  a  madman,  and  known  to 
be  a  Papist.  His  inventions  therefore  found  no  favorable  recep- 
tion. His  fire-water  work  might  perhaps  furnish  matter  for 
conversation  at  a  meeting  of  the  Royal  Society,  but  was  not 
applied  to  any  practical  purpose.  There  were  no  railways,  except 
a  few  made  of  timber,  on  which  coals  were  carried  from  the 
mouths  of  the  Northumbrian  pits  to  the  banks  of  the  Tyne. 
There  was  very  little  internal  communication  by  water.  A  few 
attempts  had  been  made  to  deepen  and  embank  the  natural 
streams,  but  with  slender  success.  Hardly  a  single  navigable 
canal  had  been  even  projected.  The  English  of  that  day  were 
in  the  habit  of  talking  with  mingled  admiration  and  despair  of 
the  immense  trench  by  which  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  had  made  a 
junction  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean.  They  lit- 
tle thought  that  their  country  would,  in  the  course  of  a  few  gen- 
erations,  be  intersected,  at  the  cost  of  private  adventurers,  by 
artificial  rivers  making  up  more  than  four  times  the  length  of 
the  Thames,  the  Severn,  and  the  Trent  together. 

It  was  by  the  highways  that  both  travelers  and  goods  gener- 
ally passed  from  place  to  place;  and  those  highways  appear  to 
have  been  far  worse  than  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
degree  of  wealth  and  civilization  which  the  nation  had  even  then 
attained.  On  the  best  lines  of  communication  the  ruts  were 
deep,  the  descents  precipitous,  and  the  way  often  such  as  it  was 
hardly  possible  to  distinguish,  in  the  dusk,  from  the  uninclosed 
heath  and  fen  which  lay  on  both  sides.  Ralph  Thoresby  the 
antiquary  was  in  danger  of  losing  his  way  on  the  Great  North 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

Road,  between  Barnby  Moor  and  Tuxford,  and  actually  lost  his 
way  between  Doncaster  and  York.  Pepys  and  his  wife,  traveling 
in  their  own  coach,  lost  their  way  between  Newbury  and  Read- 
ing. In  the  course  of  the  same  tour  they  lost  their  way  near 
Salisbury,  and  were  in  danger  of  having  to  pass  the  night  on  the 
plain.  It  was  only  in  fine  weather  that  the  whole  breadth  of  the 
road  was  available  for  wheeled  vehicles.  Often  the  mud  lay 
deep  on  the  right  and  the  left;  and  only  a  narrow  track  of  firm 
ground  rose  above  the  quagmire.  At  such  times  obstructions  and 
quarrels  were  frequent,  and  the  path  was  sometimes  blocked  up 
during  a  long  time  by  carriers,  neither  of  whom  would  break  the 
way.  It  happened,  almost  every  day,  that  coaches  stuck  fast, 
until  a  team  of  cattle  could  be  procured  from  some  neighbor- 
ing farm,  to  tug  them  out  of  the  slough.  But  in  bad  seasons 
the  traveler  had  to  encounter  inconveniences  still  more  serious. 
Thoresby,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  traveling  between  Leeds  and 
the  capital,  has  recorded,  in  his  Diary,  such  a  series  of  perils  and 
disasters  as  might  suffice  for  a  journey  to  the  Frozen  Ocean  or 
to  the  Desert  of  Sahara.  On  one  occasion  he  learned  that  the 
floods  were  out  between  Ware  and  London,  that  passengers  had 
to  swim  for  their  lives,  and  that  a  higgler  had  perished  in  the 
attempt  to  cross.  In  consequence  of  these  tidings  he  turned  out 
of  the  high-road,  and  was  conducted  across  some  meadows,  where 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  ride  to  the  saddle  skirts  in  water. 
In  the  course  of  another  journey  he  narrowly  escaped  being 
swept  away  by  an  inundation  of  the  Trent.  He  was  afterwards 
detained  at  Stamford  four  days,  on  account  of  the  state  of  the 
roads;  and  then  ventured  to  proceed  only  because  fourteen  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons,  who  were  going  up  in  a  body  to 
Parliament  with  guides  and  numerous  attendants,  took  him  into 
their  company.  On  the  roads  of  Derbyshire,  travelers  were  in 
constant  fear  for  their  necks,  and  were  frequently  compelled  to 
alight  and  lead  their  beasts.  The  great  route  through  Wales 
to  Holyhead  was  in  such  a  state  that  in  1685,  a  viceroy  going 
to  Ireland  was  five  hours  in  traveling  fourteen  miles,  from  St. 
Asaph  to  Conway.  Between  Conway  and  Beaumaris  he  was 
forced  to  walk  a  great  part  of  the  way;  and  his  lady  was  car- 
ried in  a  litter.  His  coach  was,  with  much  difficulty  and  by  the 
help  of  many  hands,  brought  after  him  entire.  In  general,  car- 
riages were  taken  to  pieces  at  Conway,  and  borne  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  stout  Welsh  peasants  to  the  Menai  Straits.  In  some 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  939  r 

parts  of  Kent  and  Sussex,  none  but  the  strongest  horses  could 
in  winter  get  through  the  bog,  in  which  at  every  step  they 
sank  deep.  The  markets  were  often  inaccessible  during  several 
months.  It  is  said  that  the  fruits  of  the  earth  were  sometimes 
suffered  to  rot  in  one  place,  while  in  another  place,  distant  only 
a  few  miles,  the  supply  fell  far  short  of  the  demand.  The 
wheeled  carriages  were  in  this  district  generally  pulled  by  oxen. 
When  Prince  George  of  Denmark  visited  the  stately  mansion  of 
Petworth  in  wet  weather,  he  was  six  hours  in  going  nine  miles; 
and  it  was  necessary  that  a  body  of  sturdy  hinds  should  be  on 
each  side  of  his  coach,  in  order  to  prop  it.  Of  the  carriages 
which  conveyed  his  retinue,  several  were  upset  and  injured. 
A  letter  from  one  of  the  party  has  been  preserved,  in  which 
the  unfortunate  courtier  complains  that  during  fourteen  hours 
he  never  once  alighted,  except  when  his  coach  was  overturned 
or  stuck  fast  in  the  mud. 

One  chief  cause  of  the  badness  of  the  roads  seems  to  have 
been  the  defective  state  of  the  law.  Every  parish  was  bound 
to  repair  the  highways  which  passed  through  it.  The  peasantry 
were  forced  to  give  their  gratuitous  labor  six  days  in  the  year. 
If  this  was  not  sufficient,  hired  labor  was  employed,  and  the 
expense  was  met  by  a  parochial  rate.  That  a  route  connecting 
two  great  towns,  which  have  a  large  and  thriving  trade  with 
each  other,  should  be  maintained  at  the  cost  of  the  rural  popu- 
lation scattered  between  them,  is  obviously  unjust;  and  this 
injustice  was  peculiarly  glaring  in  the  case  of  the  Great  North 
Road,  which  traversed  very  poor  and  thinly  inhabited  districts, 
and  joined  very  rich  and  populous  districts.  Indeed,  it  was  not 
in  the  power  of  the  parishes  of  Huntingdonshire  to  mend  a  high- 
way worn  by  the  constant  traffic  between  the  West  Riding  of 
Yorkshire  and  London.  Soon  after  the  Restoration  this  griev- 
ance attracted  the  notice  of  Parliament;  and  an  act,  the  first  of 
our  many  turnpike  acts?  was  passed,  imposing  a  small  toll  on 
travelers  and  goods,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  some  parts  of 
this  important  line  of  communication  in  good  Tepair.  This  inno- 
vation, however,  excited  many  murmurs;  and  the  other  great 
avenues  to  the  capital  were  long  left  under  the  old  system.  A 
change  was  at  length  effected,  but  not  without  much  difficulty. 
For  unjust  and  absurd  taxation  to  which  men  are  accustomed  is 
often  borne  far  more  willingly  than  the  most  reasonable  impost 
which  is  new.  It  was  not  till  many  toll-bars  had  been  violently 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

pulled  down,  till  the  troops  had  in  many  districts  been  forced  to 
act  against  the  people,  and  till  much  blood  had  been  shed,  that  a 
good  system  was  introduced.  By  slow  degrees  reason  triumphed 
over  prejudice;  and  our  island  is  now  crossed  in  every  direction 
by  near  thirty  thousand  miles  of  turnpike  road. 

On  the  best  highways  heavy  articles  were,  in  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Second,  generally  conveyed  from  place  to  place  by 
stage-wagons.  In  the  straw  of  these  vehicles  nestled  a  crowd 
of  passengers,  who  could  not  afford  to  travel  by  coach  or  on 
horseback,  and  who  were  prevented  by  infirmity,  or  by  the  weight 
of  their  luggage,  from  going  on  foot.  Trie  expense  of  transmit- 
ting heavy  goods  in  this  way  was  enormous.  From  London  to 
Birmingham  the  charge  was  seven  pounds  a  ton;  from  London 
to  Exeter  twelve  pounds  a  ton.  This  was  about  fifteen  pence  a 
ton  for  every  mile;  more  by  a  third  than  was  afterwards  charged 
on  turnpike  roads,  and  fifteen  times  what  is  now  demanded 
by  railway  companies.  The  cost  of  conveyance  amounted  to  a 
prohibitory  tax  on  many  useful  articles.  Coal  in  particular  was 
never  seen  except  in  the  districts  wh6re  it  was  produced,  or  in 
the  districts  to  which  it  could  be  carried  by  sea;  and  was  indeed 
always  known  in  the  south  of  England  by  the  name  of  sea-coal. 

On  by-roads,  and  generally  throughout  the  country  north  of 
York  and  west  of  Exeter,  goods  were  carried  by  long  trains  of 
pack-horses.  These  strong  and  patient  beasts,  the  breed  of  which 
is  now  extinct,  were  attended  by  a  class  of  men  who  seem  to 
have  borne  much  resemblance  to  the  Spanish  muleteers.  A  trav- 
eler of  humble  condition  often  found  it  convenient  to  perform  a 
journey  mounted  on  a  pack-saddle  between  two  baskets,  under  the 
care  of  these  hardy  guides.  The  expense  of  this  mode  of  con- 
veyance was  small.  But  the  caravan  moved  at  a  foot's  pace;  and 
in  winter  the  cold  was  often  insupportable. 

The  rich  commonly  traveled  in  their  own  carriages,  with  at 
least  four  horses.  Cotton,  the  facetious  poet,  attempted  to  go 
from  London  to  the  Peak  with  a  single  pair;  but  found  at  St. 
Albans  that  the  journey  would  be  insupportably  tedious,  and 
altered  his  plan.  -A  coach-and-six  is  in  our  time  never  seen, 
except  as  part  of  some  pageant.  The  frequent  mention  there- 
fore of  such  equipages  in  old  books  is  likely  to  mislead  us.  We 
attribute  to  magnificence  what  was  really  the  effect  of  a  very 
disagreeable  necessity.  People  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Sec- 
ond traveled  with  six  horses,  because  with  a  smaller  number 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 


9393 


there  was  great  danger  of  sticking  fast  in  the  mire.  Nor  were 
even  six  horses  always  sufficient.  Vanbrugh,  in  the  succeeding 
generation,  described  with  great  humor  the  way  in  which  a 
country  gentleman,  newly  chosen  a  member  of  Parliament,  went 
up  to  London.  On  that  occasion  all  the  exertions  of  six  beasts, 
two  of  which  had  been  taken-  from  the  plow,  could  not  save  the 
family  coach  from  being  imbedded  in  a  quagmire. 

Public  carriages  had  recently  been  much  improved.  During 
the  years  which  immediately  followed  the  Restoration,  a  dili- 
gence ran  between  London  and  Oxford  in  two  days.  The  pas- 
sengers slept  at  Beaconsfield.  At  length,  in  the  spring  of.  1669, 
a  great  and  daring  innovation  was  attempted.  It  was  announced 
that  a  vehicle,  described  as  the  Flying  Coach,  would  perform  the 
whole  journey  between  sunrise  and  sunset.  This  spirited  under- 
taking was  solemnly  considered  and  sanctioned  by  the  Heads  of 
the  University,  and  appears  to  have  excited  the  same  sort  of  in- 
terest which  is  excited  in  our  own  time  by  the  opening  of  a  new 
railway.  The  Vice-Chancellor,  by  a  notice  affixed  in  all  public 
places,  prescribed  the  hour  and  place  of  departure.  The  success 
of  the  experiment  was  complete.  At  six  in  the  morning  the  car- 
riage began  to  move  from  before  the  ancient  front  of  All  Souls 
College;  and  at  seven  in  the  evening  the  adventurous  gentlemen 
who  had  run  the  first  risk  were  safely  deposited  at  their  inn  in 
London.  The  emulation  of  the  sister  university  was  moved; 
and  soon  a  diligence  was  set  up  which  in  one  day  carried  passen- 
gers from  Cambridge  to  the  capital.  At  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  flying  carriages  ran  thrice  a  week  from 
London  to  the  chief  towns.  But  no  stage-coach,  indeed  no  stage- 
wagon,  appears  to  have  proceeded  further  north  than  York,  or 
further  west  than  Exeter.  The  ordinary  day's  journey  of  a  flying 
coach  was  about  fifty  miles  in  the  summer;  but  in  winter,  when 
the  ways  were  bad  and  the  nights  long,  little  more  than  thirty. 
The  Chester  coach,  the  York  coach,  and  the  Exeter  coach  gen- 
erally  reached  London  in  four  days  during  the  fine  season,  but  at 
Christmas  not  till  the  sixth  day.  The  passengers,  six  in  number, 
were  all  seated  in  the  carriage;  for  accidents  were  so  frequent 
that  it  would  have  been  most  perilous  to  mount  the  roof.  The 
ordinary  fare  was  about  twopence  halfpenny  a  mile  in  summer, 
and  somewhat  more  in  winter. 

This  mode  of  traveling,  which  by  Englishmen  of  the  pres- 
ent day  would  be  regarded  as  insufferably  slow,  seemed  to  our 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

ancestors  wonderfully  and  indeed  alarmingly  rapid.  In  a  work 
published  a  few  months  before  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second, 
the  flying  coaches  are  extolled  as  far  superior  to  any  similar 
vehicles  ever  known  in  the  world.  Their  velocity  is  the  subject 
of  special  commendation,  and  is  triumphantly  contrasted  with 
the  sluggish  pace  of  the  Continental  posts.  But  with  boasts  like 
these  was  mingled  the  sound  of  complaint  and  invective.  The 
interests  of  large  classes  had  been  unfavorably  affected  by  the 
establishment  of  the  new  diligences;  and  as  usual,  many  per- 
sons were,  from  mere  stupidity  and  obstinacy,  disposed  to  clamor 
against  the  innovation  simply  because  it  was  an  innovation.  It 
was  vehemently  argued  that  this  mode  of  conveyance  would  be 
fatal  to  the  breed  of  horses  and  to  the  noble  art  of  horseman- 
ship; that  the  Thames,  which  had  long  been  an  important  nursery 
of  seamen,  would  cease  to  be  the  chief  thoroughfare  from  London 
up  to  Windsor  and  down  to  Gravesend;  that  saddlers  and  spur- 
riers would  be  ruined  by  hundreds;  that  numerous  inns,  at  which 
mounted  travelers  had  been  in  the  habit  of  stopping,  would  be 
deserted,  and  would  no  longer  pay  any  rent;  that  the  new  car- 
riages were  too  hot  in  summer  and  too  cold  in  winter;  that  the 
passengers  were  grievously  annoyed  by  invalids  and  crying  child- 
ren; that  the  coach  sometimes  reached  the  inn  so  late  that  it 
was  impossible  to  get  supper,  and  sometimes  started  so  early  that 
it  was  impossible  to  get  breakfast.  On  these  grounds  it  was 
gravely  recommended  that  no  public  coach  should  be  permitted 
to  have  more  than  four  horses,  to  start  oftener  than  once  a  week, 
or  to  go  more  than  thirty  miles  a  day.  It  was  hoped  that  if 
this  regulation  were  adopted,  all  except  the  sick  and  the  lame 
would  return  to  the  old  mode  of  traveling.  Petitions  embodying 
such  opinions  as  these  were  presented  to  the  King  in  council 
from  several  companies  of  the  City  of  London,  from  several  pro- 
vincial towns,  and  from  the  justices  of  several  counties.  We 
smile  at  these  things.  It  is  not  impossible  that  our  descendants, 
when  they  read  the  history  of  the  opposition  offered  by  cupidity 
and  prejudice  to  the  improvements  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
may  smile  in  their  turn. 

In  spite  of  the  attractions  of  the  flying  coaches,  it  was  still 
usual  for  men  who  enjoyed  health  and  vigor,  and  who  were  not 
incumbered  by  much  baggage,  to  perform  long  journeys  on 
horseback.  If  a  traveler  wished  to  move  expeditiously,  he  rode 
post.  Fresh  saddle-horses  and  guides  were  to  be  procured  afc 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

convenient  distances  along  all  the  great  lines  of  road.  The  charge 
was  threepence  a  mile  for  each  horse,  and  fourpence  a  stage  for 
the  guide.  In  this  manner,  when  the  ways  were  good,  it  was 
possible  to  travel,  for  a  considerable  time,  as  rapidly  as  by  any 
conveyance  known  in  England,  till  vehicles  were  propelled  by 
steam.  There  were  as  yet  no  post-chaises;  nor  could  those  who 
rode  in  their  own  coaches  ordinarily  procure  a  change  of  horses. 
The  King,  however,  and  the  great  officers  of  State,  were  able 
to  command'  relays.  Thus,  Charles  commonly  went  in  one  day 
from  Whitehall  to  Newmarket,  a  distance  of  about  fifty-five  miles, 
through  a  level  country;  and  this  was  thought  by  his  subjects  a 
proof  of  great  activity.  Evelyn  performed  the  same  journey  in 
company  with  the  Lord  Treasurer  Clifford.  The  coach  was  drawn 
by  six  horses,  which  were  changed  at  Bishop  Stortford  and  again 
at  Chesterford.  The  travelers  reached  Newmarket  at  night.  Such 
a  mode  of  conveyance  seems  to  have  been  considered  as  a  rare 
luxury,  confined  to  princes  and  ministers. 


THE  HIGHWAYMAN 
From  the  <  History  of  England  > 

WHATEVER  might  be  the  way  in  which  a  journey  was  per- 
formed, the  travelers,  unless  they  were  numerous  and 
well  armed,  ran  considerable  risk  of  being  stopped  and 
plundered.  The  mounted  highwayman,  a  marauder  known  to  ouf 
generation  only  from  books,  was  to  be  found  on  every  main  road. 
The  waste  tracts  which  lay  on  the  great  routes  near  London  were 
especially  haunted  by  plunderers  of  this  class.  Hounslow  Heath 
on  the  Great  Western  Road,  and  Finchley  Common  on  the  Great 
Northern  Road,  were  perhaps  the  most  celebrated  of  these  spots. 
The  Cambridge  scholars  trembled  when  they  approached  Epping 
Forest,  even  in  broad  daylight.  Seamen  who  had  just  been  paid 
off  at  Chatham  were  often  compelled  to  deliver  their  purses  on 
Gadshill,  celebrated  near  a  hundred  years  earlier  by  the  greatest 
of  poets  as  the  scene  of  the  depredations  of  Falstaff.  The  public 
authorities  seem  to  have  been  often  at  a  loss  how  to  deal  with 
the  plunderers.  At  one  time  it  was  announced  in  the  Gazette 
that  several  persons,  who  were  strongly  suspected  of  being  high- 
waymen, but  against  wrhom  there  was  not  sufficient  evidence, 
would  be  paraded  at  Newgate  in  riding  dresses:  their  horses 


0396  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

would  also  be  shown;  and  all  gentlemen  who  had  been  robbed 
were  invited  to  inspect  this  singular  exhibition.  On  another 
occasion  a  pardon  was  publicly  offered  to  a  robber  if  he  would 
give  up  some  rough  diamonds,  of  immense  value,  which  he  had 
taken  when  he  stopped  the  Harwich  mail.  A  short  time  after 
appeared  another  proclamation,  warning  the  innkeepers  that  the 
eye  of  the  government  was  upon  them.  Their  criminal  conniv- 
ance, it  was  affirmed,  enabled  banditti  to  infest  the  roads  with 
impunity.  That  these  suspicions  were  not  without  foundation,  is 
proved  by  the  dying  speeches  of  some  penitent  robbers  of  that 
age,  who  appear  to  have  received  from  the  innkeepers  services 
much  resembling  those  which  Farquhar's  Boniface  rendered  to 
Gibbet. 

It  was  necessary  to  the  success  and  even  to  the  safety  of  the 
highwayman  that  he  should  be  a  bold  and  skillful  rider,  and  that 
his  manners  and  appearance  should  be  such  as  suited  the  mastel 
of  a  fine  horse.  He  therefore  held  an  aristocratical  position  in 
the  community  of  thieves,  appeared  at  fashionable  coffee-houses 
and  gaming-houses,  and  betted  with  men  of  quality  on  the  race 
ground.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  was  a  man  of  good  family  and 
education.  A  romantic  interest  therefore  attached,  and  perhaps 
still  attaches,  to  the  names  of  freebooters  of  this  class.  The  vul- 
gar eagerly  drank  in  tales  of  their  ferocity  and  audacity,  of  their 
occasional  acts  of  generosity  and  good-nature,  of  their  amours,  of 
their  miraculous  escapes,  of  their  desperate  struggles,  and  of  their 
manly  bearing  at  the  bar  and  in  the  cart.  Thus  it  was  related 
of  William  Nevison,  the  great  robber  of  Yorkshire,  that  he  levied 
a  quarterly  tribute  on  all  the  northern  drovers,  and,  in  return, 
not  only  spared  them  himself,  but  protected  them  against  all 
other  thieves;  that  he  demanded  purses  in  the  most  courteous 
manner;  that  he  gave  largely  to  the  poor  what  he  had  taken 
from  the  rich;  that  his  life  was  once  spared  by  the  royal  clem- 
ency, but  that  he  again  tempted  his  fate,  and  at  length  died,  in 
1685,  on  the  gallows  of  York.  It  was  related  how  Claude  Duval, 
the  French  page  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  took  to  the  road, 
became  captain  of  a  formidable  gang,  and  had  the  honor  to  be 
named  first  in  a  royal  proclamation  against  notorious  offenders; 
how  at  the  head  of  his  troop  he  stopped  a  lady's  coach,  in  which 
there  was  a  booty  of  four  hundred  pounds ;  how  he  took  only  one 
hundred,  and  suffered  the  fair  cwner  to  ransom  the  rest  by  dan- 
cing a  coranto  with  him  on  the  heath;  how  his  vivacious  gallantry 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9397 

stole  away  the  hearts  of  all  women;  how  his  dexterity  at  sword 
and  pistol  made  him  a  terror  to  all  men:  how  at  length,  in  the 
year  1670,  he  was  seized  when  overcome  by  wine;  how  dames  of 
high  rank  visited  him  in  prison,  and  with  tears  interceded  for  his 
life;  how  the  King  would  have  granted  a  pardon,  but  for  the 
interference  of  Judge  Morton,  the  terror  of  highwaymen,  who 
threatened  to  resign  his  office  unless  the  law  were  carried  into 
full  effect;  and  how,  after  the  execution,  the  corpse  lay  in  state 
with  all  the  pomp  of  scutcheons,  wax-lights,  black  hangings,  and 
mutes,  till  the  same  cruel  judge,  who  had  intercepted  the  mercy 
of  the  Crown,  sent  officers  to  disturb  the  obsequies.  In  these 
anecdotes  there  is  doubtless  a  large  mixture  of  fable:  but  they 
are  not  on  that  account  unworthy  of  being  recorded;  for  it  is 
both  an  authentic  and  an  important  fact  that  such  tales,  whether 
false  or  true,  were  heard  by  our  ancestors  with  eagerness  and 
faith. 


THE    DELUSION     OF    OVERRATING    THE    HAPPINESS    OF    OUR 

ANCESTORS 

From  the  ( History  of  England  > 

THE  general  effect  of  the  evidence  which  has  been  submitted 
to  the  reader  seems  hardly  to  admit  of  doubt.  Yet  in  spite 
of  evidence,  many  will  still  image  to  themselves  the  Eng- 
land of  the  Stuarts  as  a  more  pleasant  country  than  the  England 
in  which  we  live.  It  may  at  first  sight  seem  strange  that  society, 
while  constantly  moving  forward  with  eager  speed,  should  be  con- 
stantly looking  backward  with  tender  regret.  But  these  two  pro- 
pensities, inconsistent  as  they  may  appear,  can  easily  be  resolved 
into  the  same  principle.  Both  spring  from  our  impatience  of  the 
state  in  which  we  actually  are.  That  impatience,  while  it  stimu- 
lates us  to  surpass  preceding  generations,  disposes  us  to  overrate 
their  happiness.  It  is,  in  some  sense,  unreasonable  and  ungrate- 
ful in  us  to  be  constantly  discontented  with  a  condition  which  is 
constantly  improving.  But  in  truth,  there  is  constant  improve- 
ment precisely  because  there  is  constant  discontent.  If  we  were 
perfectly  satisfied  with  the  present,  we  should  cease  to  contrive,  to 
labor,  and  to  save  with  a  view  to  the  future.  And  it  is  natural 
that  being  dissatisfied  with  the  present,  we  should  form  a  too 
favorable  estimate  of  the  past. 


9398 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 


In  truth,  we  are  tirider  a  deception  similar  to  that  which  mis- 
leads the  traveler  in  the  Arabian  desert.  Beneath  the  caravan 
all  is  dry  and  bare;  but  far  in  advance,  and  far  in  the  rear,  is 
the  semblance  of  refreshing  waters.  The  pilgrims  hasten  forward 
and  find  nothing  but  sand  where  an  hour  before  they  had  seen  a 
lake.  They  turn  their  eyes  and  see  a  lake  where,  an  hour  before, 
they  were  toiling  through  sand.  A  similar  illusion  seems  to  haunt 
nations  through  every  stage  of  the  long  progress  from  poverty 
and  barbarism  to  the  highest  degrees  of  opulence  and  civiliza- 
tion. But  if  we  resolutely  chase  the  mirage  backward,  we  shall 
find  it  recede  before  us  into  the  regions  of  fabulous  antiquity.  It 
is  now  the  fashion  to  place  the  golden  age  of  England  in  times 
when  noblemen  were  destitute  of  comforts  the  want  of  which 
would  be  intolerable  to  a  modern  footman,  when  farmers  and 
shopkeepers  breakfasted  on  loaves  the  very  sight  of  which  would 
raise  a  riot  in  a  modern  workhouse,  when  to  have  a  clean  shirt 
once  a  week  was  a  privilege  reserved  for  the  higher  class  of  gen- 
try, when  men  died  faster  in  the  purest  country  air  than  they 
now  die  in  the  most  pestilential  lanes  of  our  towns,  and  when 
men  died  faster  in  the  lanes  of  our  towns  than  they  now  die  on 
the  coast  of  Guiana.  We  too  shall  in  our  turn  be  outstripped, 
and  in  our  turn  be  envied.  It  may  well  be,  in  the  twentieth 
century,  that  the  peasant  of  Dorsetshire  may  think  himself  miser- 
ably paid  with  twenty  shillings  a  week;  that  the  carpenter  at 
Greenwich  may  receive  ten  shillings  a  day;  that  laboring  men 
may  be  as  little  used  to  dine  without  meat  as  they  are  now  to 
eat  rye  bread;  that  sanitary  police  and  medical  discoveries  may 
have  added  several  more  years  to  the  average  length  of  human 
life;  that  numerous  comforts  and  luxuries  which  are  now  un- 
known, or  confined  to  a  few,  may  be  within  the  reach  of  every 
diligent  and  thrifty  workingman.  And  yet  it  may  then  be  the 
mode  to  assert  that  the  increase  of  wealth  and  the  progress  of 
science  have  benefited  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  and 
to  talk  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  as  the  time  when  England 
was  truly  merry  England,  when  all  classes  were  bound  together 
by  brotherly  sympathy,  when  the  rich  did  not  grind  the  faces  of 
the  poor,  and  when  the  poor  did  not  envy  the  splendor  of  the 
rich. 


v 


m 


PURITANS  GOING  TO  CHURCH 

Photogravure  from  a  painting  by  Boughton. 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9399 

THE  PURITAN 
From  the  Essay  on  <John  Milton  * 

WE  WOULD  speak  first  cf  the  Puritans;  the  most  remarkable 
body  of  men,  perhaps,  which  the  world  has  ever  produced. 
The  odious  and  ridiculous  parts  of  their  character  lie  on 
the  surface.  He  that  runs  may  read  them;  nor  have  there  been 
wanting  attentive  and  malicious  observers  to  point  them  out. 
For  many  years  after  the  Restoration  they  were  the  theme  of 
unmeasured  invective  and  derision.  They  were  exposed  to  the 
utmost  licentiousness  of  the  press  and  of  the  stage,  at  the  time 
when  the  press  and  the  stage  were  most  licentious.  They  were 
not  men  of  letters;  they  were  as  a  body  unpopular;  they  could 
not  defend  themselves,  and  the  public  would  not  take  them 
under  its  protection.  They  were  therefore  abandoned,  without 
reserve,  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  satirists  and  dramatists. 
The  ostentatious  simplicity  of  their  dress,  their  sour  aspect,  their 
nasal  twang,  their  stiff  posture,  their  long  graces,  their  Hebrew 
names,  the  Scriptural  phrases  which  they  introduced  on  every 
occasion,  their  contempt  of  human  learning,  their  detestation  of 
polite  amusements,  were  indeed  fair  game  for  the  laughers.  But 
it  is  not  from  the  laughers  alone  that  the  philosophy  of  history 
is  to  be  learnt.  And  he  who  approaches  this  subject  should  care- 
fully guard  against  the  influence  of  that  potent  ridicule  which  has 
already  misled  so  many  excellent  writers. 

(<Ecco  il  fonte  del  riso,  ed  ecco  il  rio 

Che  mortali  perigli  in  se  contiene; 
Hor  qui  tener  a  fren  nostro  desio, 

Ed  esser  cauti  molto  a  noi  conviene.** 

Those  who  roused  the  people  to  resistance,  who  directed  their 
measures  through  a  long  series  of  eventful  years,  who  formed 
out  of  the  most  unpromising  materials  the  finest  army  that 
Europe  had  ever  seen,  who  trampled  down  King,  Church,  and 
Aristocracy,  who,  in  the  short  intervals  of  domestic  sedition  and 
rebellion,  made  the  name  of  England  terrible  to  every  nation 
on  the  face  of  the  earth, — were  no  vulgar  fanatics.  Most  of  their 

*  «  Behold  the  fount  of  mirth,  behold  the  rill 
Containing  mortal  perils  in  itself; 
And  therefore  here  to  bridle  our  desires, 
And  to  be  cautious  well  doth  us  befit. )J 


94oo  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

absurdities  were  mere  external  badges,  like  the  signs  of  free- 
masonry or  the  dresses  of  friars.  We  regret  that  these  badges 
were  not  more  attractive.  We  regret  that  a  body  to  whose  cour- 
age and  talents  mankind  has  owed  inestimable  obligations  had 
not  the  lofty  elegance  which  distinguished  some  of  the  adherents 
of  Charles  the  First,  or  the  easy  good-breeding  for  which  the  court 
of  Charles  the  Second  was  celebrated.  But  if  we  must  make  our 
choice,  we  shall,  like  Bassanio  in  the  play,  turn  from  the  specious 
caskets  which  contain  only  the  Death's-head  and  the  Fool's-head, 
and  fix  on  the  plain  leaden  chest  which  conceals  the  treasure. 

The  Puritans  were  men  whose  minds  had  derived  a  peculiar 
character  from  the  daily  contemplation  of  superior  beings  and 
eternal  interests.  Not  content  with  acknowledging,  in  general 
terms,  an  overruling  Providence,  they  habitually  ascribed  every 
event  to  the  will  of  the  Great  Being  for  whose  power  nothing 
was  too  vast,  for  whose  inspection  nothing  was  too  minute.  To 
know  him,  to  serve  him,  to  enjoy  him,  was  with  them  the  great 
end  of  existence.  They  rejected  with  contempt  the  ceremoni- 
ous homage  which  other  sects  substituted  for  the  pure  worship  of 
the  soul.  Instead  of  catching  occasional  glimpses  of  the  Deity 
through  an  obscuring  veil,  they  aspired  to  gaze  full  on  his  intol- 
erable brightness,  and  to  commune  with  him  face  to  face.  Hence 
originated  their  contempt  for  terrestrial  distinctions.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  greatest  and  the  meanest  of  mankind  seemed 
to  vanish,  when  compared  with  the  boundless  interval  which  sep- 
arated the  whole  race  from  Him  on  whom  their  own  eyes  w.ere 
constantly  fixed.  They  recognized  no  title  to  superiority  but  his 
favor;  and,  confident  of  that  favor,  they  despised  all  the  accom- 
plishments and  all  the  dignities  of  the  world.  If  they  were  un- 
acquainted  with  the  works  of  philosophers  and  poets,  they  were 
deeply  read  in  the  oracles  of  God.  If  their  names  were  not 
found  in  the  registers  of  heralds,  they  were  recorded  in  the  Book 
of  Life.  If  their  steps  were  not  accompanied  by  a  splendid  train 
of  menials,  legions  of  ministering  angels  had  charge  over  them. 
Their  palaces  were  houses  not  made  with  hands,  their  diadems 
crowns  of  glory  which  should  never  fade  away.  On  the  rich 
and  the  eloquent,  on  nobles  and  priests,  they  looked  down  with 
contempt;  for  they  esteemed  themselves  rich  in  a  more  precious 
treasure  and  eloquent  in  a  more  sublime  language,  nobles  "by 
the  right  of  an  earlier  creation  and  priests  by  the  imposition  oi 
a  mightier  hand.  The  very  meanest  of  them  was  a  being 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 


9401 


whose  fate  a  mysterious  and  terrible  importance  belonged;  on 
whose  slightest  action  the  spirits  of  light  and  darkness  looked 
with  anxious  interest;  who  had  been  destined,  before  heaven  and 
earth  were  created,  to  enjoy  a  felicity  which  should  continue  when 
heaven  and  earth  should  have  passed  away.  Events  which  short- 
sighted politicians  ascribed  to  earthly  causes,  had  been  ordained 
on  his  account.  For  his  sake  empires  had  risen,  and  flourished, 
and  decayed.  For  his  sake  the  Almighty  had  proclaimed  his 
will  by  the  pen  of  the  Evangelist  and  the  harp  of  the  prophet 
He  had  been  wrested  by  no  common  deliverer  from  the  grasp 
of  no  common  foe.  He  had  been  ransomed  by  the  sweat  of  no 
vulgar  agony,  by  the  blood  of  no  earthly  sacrifice.  It  was  for 
him  that  the  sun  had  been  darkened,  that  the  rocks  had  been 
rent,  that  the  dead  had  risen,  that  all  nature  had  shuddered  at 
the  sufferings  of  her  expiring  God. 

Thus  the  Puritan  was  made  up  of  two  different  men:  the  one 
all  self-abasement,  penitence,  gratitude,  passion;  the  other  proud, 
calm,  inflexible,  sagacious.  He  prostrated  himself  in  the  dust  be- 
fore his  Maker;  but  he  set  his  foot  on  the  neck  of  his  king.  In 
his  devotional  retirement  he  prayed  with  convulsions,  and  groans, 
and  tears.  He  was  half  maddened  by  glorious  or  terrible  illus- 
ions. He  heard  the  lyres  of  angels  or  the  tempting  whispers 
of  fiends.  He  caught  a  gleam  of  the  Beatific  Vision,  or  woke 
screaming  from  dreams  of  everlasting  fire.  Like  Vane,  he  thought 
himself  intrusted  with  the  sceptre  of  the  millennial  year.  Like 
Fleetwood,  he  cried  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul  that  God  had 
hid  his 'face  from  him.  But  when  he  took  his  seat  in  the  coun- 
cil, or  girt  on  his  sword  for  war,  these  tempestuous  workings  of 
the  soul  had  left  no  perceptible  trace  behind  them.  People  who 
saw  nothing  of  the  godly  but  their  uncouth  visages,  and  heard 
nothing  from  them  but  their  groans  and  their  whining  hymns, 
might  laugh  at  them.  But  those  had  little  reason  to  laugh  who 
encountered  them  in  the  hall  of  debate  or  on  the  field  of  battle. 
These  fanatics  brought  to  civil  and  military  affairs  a  coolness 
of  judgment  and  an  immutability  of  purpose  which  some  writers 
have  thought  inconsistent  with  their  religious  zeal,  but  which 
were  in  fact  the  necessary  effects  of  it.  The  intensity  of  their 
feelings  on  one  subject  made  them  tranquil  on  every  other.  One 
overpowering  sentiment  had  subjected  to  itself  pity  and  hatred, 
ambition  and  fear.  Death  had  lost  its  terrors,  and  pleasure  its 
charms.  Thev  had  their  smiles  and  their  tears,  their  raptures 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

and  their  sorrows;  but  not  for  the  things  of  this  world.  Enthu. 
siasm  had  made  them  Stoics;  had  cleared  their  minds  from  every 
vulgar  passion  and  prejudice,  and  raised  them  above  the  influ- 
ence of  danger  and  of  corruption.  It  sometimes  might  lead  them 
to  pursue  unwise  ends,  but  never  to  choose  unwise  means.  They 
went  through  the  world,  like  Sir  Artegal's  iron  man  Talus  with 
his  flail,  crushing  and  trampling  down  oppressors,  mingling  with 
human  beings,  but  having  neither  part  nor  lot  in  human  infirm- 
ities; insensible  to  fatigue,  to  pleasure,  and  to  pain;  not  to  be 
pierced  by  any  weapon,  not  to  be  withstood  by  any  barrier. 

Such  we  believe  to  have  been  the  character  of  the  Puritans. 
We  perceive  the  absurdity  of  their  manners.  We  dislike  the  sul- 
len gloom  of  their  domestic  habits.  We  acknowledge  that  the 
tone  of  their  minds  was  often  injured  by  straining  after  things 
too  high  for  mortal  reach:  and  we  know  that  in  spite  of  their 
hatred  of  Popery,  they  too  often  fell  into  the  worst  vices  of  that 
bad  system, — intolerance  and  extravagant  austerity;  that  they  had 
their  anchorites  and  their  crusades,  their  Dunstans  and  their  De 
Montforts,  their  Dominies  and  their  Escobars.  Yet,  when  all  cir- 
cumstances are  taken  into  consideration,  we  do  not  hesitate  to 
pronounce  them  a  brave,  a  wise,  an  honest,  and  a  useful  body. 


SPAIN  UNDER  PHILIP  IL 

Prom  the  Essay  on  Lord  Mahon's  <  History  of  the  War  of  the  Succession  in 

Spain  * 

WHOEVER  wishes  to  be  well  acquainted  with  the  morbid  anat- 
omy of  governments,  whoever  wishes  to  know  how  great 
States  may  be  made  feeble  and  wretched,  should  study 
the  history  of  Spain.  The  empire  of  Philip  the  Second  was 
undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  splendid  that  ever 
existed  in  the  world.  In  Europe,  he  ruled  Spain,  Portugal,  the 
Netherlands  on  both  sides  of  the  Rhine,  Tranche  Comte,  Rous- 
sillon,  the  Milanese,  and  the  Two  Sicilies.  Tuscany,  Parma, 
and  the  other  small  States  of  Italy,  were  as  completely  dependent 
on  him  as  the  Nizam  and  the  Rajah  of  Berar  now  are  on  the 
East  India  Company.  In  Asia,  the  King  of  Spain  was  master  of 
the  Philippines,  and  of  all  those  rich  settlements  which  the  Por- 
tuguese had  made  on  the  coasts  of  Malabar  and  Coromandel,  in 
the  Peninsula  of  Malacca,  and  in  the  spice  islands  of  the  Eastern 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9403 

Archipelago.  In  America,  his  dominions  extended  on  each  side 
of  the  equator  into  the  temperate  zone.  There  is  reason  to 
believe  that  his  annual  revenue  amounted,  in  the  season  of  his 
greatest  power,  to  a  sum  near  ten  times  as  large  as  that  which 
England  yielded  to  Elizabeth.  He  had  a  standing  army  of  fifty 
thousand  excellent .  troops,  at  a  time  when  England  had  not  a 
single  battalion  in  constant  pay.  His  ordinary  naval  force  con- 
sisted of  a  hundred  and  forty  galleys.  He  held,  what  no  other 
prince  in  modern  times  has  held,  the  dominion  both  of  the  land 
and  of  the  sea.  During  the  greater  part  of  his  reign,  he  was 
supreme  on  both  elements.  His  soldiers  marched  up  to  the  capi- 
tal of  France;  his  ships  menaced  the  shores  of  England. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  during  several  years,  his 
power  over  Europe  was  greater  than  even  that  of  Napoleon. 
The  influence  of  the  French  conqueror  never  extended  beyond 
low-water  mark.  The  narrowest  strait  was  to  his  power  what  it 
was  of  old  believed  that  a  running  stream  was  to  the  sorceries 
of  a  witch.  While  his  army  entered  every  metropolis  from 
Moscow  to  Lisbon,  the  English  fleets  blockaded  every  port  from 
Dantzic  to  Trieste.  Sicily,  Sardinia,  Majorca,  Guernsey,  enjoyed 
security  through  the  whole  course  of  a  war  which  endangered 
every  throne  on  the  Continent.  The  victorious  and  imperial 
nation  which  had  filled  its  museums  with  the  spoils  of  Antwerp, 
of  Florence,  and  of  Rome,  was  suffering  painfully  from  the  want 
of  luxuries  which  use  had  made  necessaries.  While  pillars  and 
arches  were  rising  to  commemorate  the  French  conquests,  the 
conquerors  were  trying  to  manufacture  coffee  out  of  succory  and 
sugar  out  of  beet-root.  The  influence  of  Philip  on  the  Continent 
was  as  great  as  that  of  Napoleon.  The  Emperor  of  Germany 
was  his  kinsman.  France,  torn  by  religious  dissensions,  was 
never  a  formidable  opponent,  and  was  sometimes  a  dependent 
ally.  At  the  same  time,  Spain  had  what  Napoleon  desired  in 
vain, —  ships,  colonies,  and  commerce.  She  long  monopolized  the 
trade  of  America  and  of  the  Indian  Ocean.  All  the  gold  of  the 
West,  and  all  the  spices  of  the  East,  were  received  and  distributed 
by  her.  During  many  years  of  war,  her  commerce  was  inter- 
rupted only  by  the  predatory  enterprises  of  a  few  roving  pri- 
vateers. Even  after  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  English  statesmen 
continued  to  look  with  great  dread  on  the  maritime  power  of 
Philip.  «  The  King  of  Spain, »  said  the  Lord  Keeper  to  the  two 
Houses  in  1593,  <(  since  he  hath  usurped  upon  the  kingdom  of 


9404  THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

Portugal,  hath  thereby  grown  mighty  by  gaining  the  East  Indies; 
so  as,  how  great  soever  he  was  before,  he  is  now  thereby  mani- 
festly more  great.  .  .  .  He  keepeth  a  navy  armed  to  impeach 
all  trade  of  merchandise  from  England  to  Gascoigne  and  Guienne, 
which  he  attempted  to  do  this  last  vintage;  so  as  he  is  now 
become  as  a  frontier  enemy  to  all  the  west  of  England,  as  well 
as  all  the  south  parts,  as  Sussex,  Hampshire,  and  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  Yea,  by  means  of  his  interest  in  St.  Maloes,  a  port  full  of 
shipping  for  the  war,  he  is  a  dangerous  neighbor  to  the  Queen's 
isles  of  Jersey  and  Guernsey,  ancient  possessions  of  this  crown, 
and  never  conquered  in  the  greatest  wars  with  France. » 

The  ascendency  which  Spain  then  had  in  Europe  was  in 
one  sense  well  deserved.  It  was  an  ascendency  which  had  been 
gained  by  unquestioned  superiority  in  all  the  arts  of  policy  and 
of  war.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  Italy  was  not  more  decidedly 
the  land  of  the  fine  arts,  Germany  was  not  more  decidedly  the 
land  of  bold  theological  speculation,  than  Spain  was  the  land 
of  statesmen  and  of  soldiers.  The  character  which  Virgil  has 
ascribed  to  his  countrymen  might  have  been  claimed  by  the 
grave  and  haughty  chiefs  who  surrounded  the  throne  of  Ferdi- 
nand the  Catholic,  and  of  his  immediate  successors.  That  majes- 
tic art,  "regere  imperio  populos,"  was  not  better  understood 
by  the  Romans  in  the  proudest  days  of  their  republic  than 
by  Gonsalvo  and  Ximenes,  Cortez  and  Alva.  The  skill  of  the 
Spanish  diplomatists  was  renowned  throughout  Europe.  In  Eng- 
land the  name  of  Gondomar  is  still  remembered.  The  sovereign 
nation  was  unrivaled  both  in  regular  and  irregular  warfare. 
The  impetuous  chivalry  of  France,  the  serried  phalanx  of  Switz- 
erland, were  alike  found  wanting  when  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  Spanish  infantry.  In  the  wars  of  the  New  World,  where 
something  different  from  ordinary  strategy  was  required  in  the 
general  and  something  different  from  ordinary  discipline  in  the 
soldier,  where  it  was  every  day  necessary  to  meet  by  some  new 
expedient  the  varying  tactics  of  a  barbarous  enemy,  the  Spanish 
adventurers,  sprung  from  the  common  people,  displayed  a  fertility 
of  resource,  and  a  talent  for  negotiation  and  command,  to  which 
history  scarcely  affords  a  parallel. 

The  Castilian  of  those  times  was  to  the  Italian  what  the  Ro- 
man, in  the  days  of  the  greatness  of  Rome,  was  to  the  Greek. 
The  conqueror  had  less  ingenuity,  less  taste,  less  delicacy  of 
perception,  than  the  conquered;  but  far  more  pride,  firmness,  and 


1 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9405 

courage,  a  more  solemn  demeanor,  a  stronger  sense  of  honor. 
The  subject  had  more  subtlety  in  speculation,  the  ruler  more 
energy  in  action.  The  vices  of  the  former  were  those  of  a 
coward;  the  vices  of  the  latter  were  those  of  a  tyrant.  It  may 
be  added,  that  the  Spaniard,  like  the  Roman,  did  not  disdain  to 
study  the  arts  and  the  language  of  those  whom  he  oppressed.  A 
revolution  took  place  in  the  literature  of  Spain,  not  unlike  that 
revolution  which,  as  Horace  tells  us,  took  place  in  the  poetry  of 
Latium:  <(  Capta  ferum  victorem  cepit.):>  The  slave  took  prisoner 
the  enslaver.  The  old  Castilian  ballads  gave  place  to  sonnets 
in  the  style  of  Petrarch,  and  to  heroic  poems  in  the  stanza  of 
Ariosto,  as  the  national  songs  of  Rome  were  driven  out  by  imi- 
tations of  Theocritus  and  translations  from  Menander. 

In  no  modern  society,  not  even  in  England  during  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth,  has  there  been  so  great  a  number  of  men  eminent 
at  once  in  literature  and  in  the  pursuits  of  active  life,  as  Spain 
produced  during  the  sixteenth  century.  Almost  every  distin- 
guished writer  was  also  distinguished  as  a  soldier  and  a  politi- 
cian. Boscan  bore  arms  with  high  reputation.  Garcilaso  de  Vega, 
the  author  of  the  sweetest  and  most  graceful  pastoral  poem  of 
modern  times,  after  a  short  but  splendid  military  career,  fell 
sword  in  hand  at  the  head  of  a  storming  party.  Alonzo  de 
Ercilla  bore  a  conspicuous  part  in  that  war  of  Arauco  which  he 
afterwards  celebrated  in  one  of  the  best  heroic  poems  that  Spain 
has  produced.  Hurtado  de  Mendoza,  whose  poems  have  been 
compared  to  those  of  Horace,  and  whose  charming  little  novel  is 
evidently  the  model  of  Gil  Bias,  has  been  handed  down  to  us  by 
history  as  one  of  the  sternest  of  those  iron  proconsuls  who  were 
employed  by  the  House  of  Austria  to  crush  the  lingering  pub- 
lic spirit  of  Italy.  Lope  sailed  in  the  Armada;  Cervantes  was 
wounded  at  Lepanto. 

It  is  curious  to  consider  with  how  much  awe  our  ancestors  in 
those  times  regarded  a  Spaniard.  He  was  in  their  apprehension 
a  kind  of  daemon;  horribly  malevolent,  but  withal  most  sagacious 
and  powerful.  (<  They  be  verye  wyse  and  politicke,^  says  an 
honest  Englishman,  in  a  memorial  addressed  to -Mary,  <(and  can> 
thorowe  ther  wysdome,  reform  and  brydell  theyr  owne  natures 
for  a  tyme,  and  applye  their  conditions  to  the  manners  of  those 
men  with  whom  they  meddell  gladlye  by  friendshippe :  whose 
mischievous  manners  a  man  shall  never  knowe  untyll  he  come 
under  ther  subjection:  but  then  shall  he  parfectlye  parceyve  and 


9406 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 


fele  them;  which  thynge  I  praye  God  England  never  do:  for 
in  dissimulations  tin tyll  they  have  ther  purposes,  and  afterwards 
in  oppression  and  tyrannye  when  they  can  obtayne  them,  they 
do  exceed  all  other  nations  upon  the  earthe. >}  This  is  just  such 
language  as  Arminius  would  have  used  about  the  Romans,  or  as 
an  Indian  statesman  of  our  times  might  use  about  the  English. 
It  is  the  language  of  a  man  burning  with  hatred,  but  cowed  by 
those  whom  he  hates;  and  painfully  sensible  of  their  superiority, 
not  only  in  power,  but  in  intelligence. 


THE   CHARACTER  OF   CHARLES   II.   OF   ENGLAND 
From  the  Essay  on  Mackintosh's  <  History  of  the  Revolution  in  England  > 

SUCH  was  England  in  1660.  In  1678  the  whole  face  of  things 
had  changed.  At  the  former  of  those  epochs  eighteen  years 
of  commotion  had  made  the  majority  of  the  people  ready  to 
buy  repose  at  any  price.  At  the  latter  epoch  eighteen  years  of 
misgovernment  had  made  the  same  majority  desirous  to  obtain 
security  for  their  liberties  at  any  risk.  The  fury  of  their  return- 
ing loyalty  had  spent  itself  in  its  first  outbreak.  In  a  very  few 
months  they  had  hanged  and  half -hanged,  quartered  and  embow- 
eled, enough  to  satisfy  them.  The  Roundhead  party  seemed  to 
be  not  merely  overcome,  but  too  much  broken  and  scattered  ever 
to  rally  again.  Then  -commenced  the  reflux  of  public  opinion. 
The  nation  began  to  find  out  to  what  a  man  it  had  intrusted 
without  conditions  all  its  dearest  interests,  on  what  a  man  it  had 
lavished  all  its  fondest  affection. 

On  the  ignoble  nature  of  the  restored  exile,  adversity  had 
exhausted  all  her  discipline  in  vain.  He  had  one  immense 
advantage  over  most  other  princes.  Though  born  in  the  purple, 
he  was  far  better  acquainted  with  the  vicissitudes  of  life  and  the 
diversities  of  character  than  most  of  his  subjects.  He  had  known 
restraint,  danger,  penury,  and  dependence.  He  had  often  suffered 
from  ingratitude,  insolence,  and  treachery.  He  had  received  many 
signal  proofs  of  faithful  and  heroic  attachment.  He  had  seen,  if 
ever  man  saw,  both  sides  of  human  nature.  But  only  one  side 
remained  in  his  memory.  He  had  learned  only  to  despise  and 
to  distrust  his  species;  to  consider  integrity  in  men,  and  modesty 
in  women,  as  mere  acting:  nor  did  he  think  it  worth  while  to 
keep  his  opinion  to  himself.  He  was  incapable  of  friendship;  yet 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9407 

he  was  perpetually  led  by  favorites,  without  being  in  the  small- 
est degree  duped  by  them.  He  knew  that  their  regard  to  his 
interests  was  all  simulated;  but  from  a  certain  easiness  which  had 
no  connection  with  humanity,  he  submitted,  half  laughing  at  him- 
self, to  be  made  the  tool  of  any  woman  whose  person  attracted 
him  or  of  any  man  whose  tattle  diverted  him.  He  thought 
little  and  cared  less  about  religion.  He  seems  to  have  passed 
his  life  in  dawdling  suspense  between  Hobbism  and  Popery. 
He  was  crowned  in  his  youth  with  the  Covenant  in  his  hand; 
he  died  at  last  with  the  Host  sticking  in  his  throat;  and  dur- 
ing most  of  the  intermediate  years  was  occupied  in  persecuting 
both  Covenanters  and  Catholics.  He  was  not  a  tyrant  from 
the  ordinary  motiveSo  He  valued  power  for  its  own  sake  little, 
and  fame  still  less.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  been  vindictive, 
or  to  have  found  any  pleasing  excitement  in  cruelty.  What  he 
wanted  was  to  be  amused,  to  get  through  the  twenty-four  hours 
pleasantly  without  sitting  down  to  dry  business.  Sauntering 
was,  as  Sheffield  expresses  it,  the-  true  Sultana  Queen  of  his 
Majesty's  affections.  A  sitting  in  council  would  have  been  insup- 
portable to  him  if  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  had  not  been  there 
to  make  mouths  at  the  Chancellor.  It  has  been  said,  and  is 
highly  probable,  that  in  his  exile  he  was  quite  disposed  to  sell 
his  rights  to  Cromwell  for  a  good  round  sum.  To  the  last,  his 
only  quarrel  with  his  Parliaments  was  that  they  often  gave  him 
trouble  and  would  not  always  give  him  money.  If  there  was  a 
person  for  whom  he  felt  a  real  regard,  that  person  was  his 
brother.  If  there  was  a  point  about  which  he  really  entertained 
a  scruple  of  conscience  or  of  honor,  that  point  was  the  descent 
of  the  crown.  Yet  he  was  willing  to  consent  to  the  Exclusion 
Bill  for  six  hundred  thousand  pounds;  and  the  negotiation  was 
broken  off  only  because  he  insisted  on  being  paid  beforehand. 
To  do  him  justice,  his  temper  was  good;  his  manners  agreeable; 
his  natural  talents  above  mediocrity.  But  he  was  sensual,  frivo- 
lous, false,  and  cold-hearted,  beyond  almost  any  prince  of  whom 
history  makes  mention. 

Under   the    government   of    such   a  man,  the    English   people 
could  not  be  long  in  recovering  from  the  intoxication  of  loyalty. 


9408 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

THE  CHURCH   OF  ROME 

From  the  Essay  on  Ranke's  <  History  of  the  Popes  > 


THERE  is  not,  and  there  never  was  on  the  earth,  a  work  of 
human  policy  so  well  deserving  of  examination  as  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  history  of  that  Church  joins 
together  the  two  great  ages  of  human  civilization.  No  other  in- 
stitution is  left  standing  which  carries  the  mind  back  to  the  times 
when  the  smoke  of  sacrifice  rose  from  the  Pantheon,  and  when 
camelopards  and  tigers  bounded  in  the  Flavian  amphitheatre.  The 
proudest  royal  houses  are  but  of  yesterday,  when  compared  with 
the  line  of  the  Supreme  Pontiffs.  That  line  we  trace  back  in  an 
unbroken  series  from  the  pope  who  crowned  Napoleon  in  the 
nineteenth  century  to  the  pope  who  crowned  Pepin  in  the  eighth; 
and  far  beyond  the  time  of  Pepin  the  august  dynasty  extends,  till 
it  is  lost  in  the  twilight  of  fable.  The  republic  of  Venice  came 
next  in  antiquity.  But  the  republic  of  Venice  was  modern  when 
compared  with  the  Papacy;  and  the  republic  of  Venice  is  gone, 
and  the  Papacy  remains.  The  Papacy  remains,  not  in  decay,  not 
a  mere  antique,  but  full  of  life  and  useful  vigor.  The  Catholic 
Church  is  still  sending  forth  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  world 
missionaries  as  zealous  as  those  who  landed  in  Kent  with  Augus- 
tin,  and  still  confronting  hostile  kings  with  the  same  spirit  with 
which  she  confronted  Attila.  The  number  of  her  children  is 
greater  than  in  any  former  age.  Her  acquisitions  in  the  New 
World  have  more  than  compensated  for  what  she  has  lost  in  the 
Old.  Her  spiritual  ascendency  extends  over  the  vast  countries 
which  lie  between  the  plains  of  the  Missouri  and  Cape  Horn, 
countries  which,  a  century  hence,  may  not  improbably  contain 
a  population  as  large  as  that  which  now  inhabits  Europe.  The 
members  of  her  communion  are  certainly  not  fewer  than  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions;  and  it  will  be  difficult  to  show  that  all 
other  Christian  sects  united  amount  to  a  hundred  and  twenty 
millions.  Nor  do  we  see  any  sign  which  indicates  that  the  term 
of  her  long  dominion  is  approaching.  She  saw  the  commence- 
ment of  all  the  governments  and  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishments that  now  exist  in  the  world ;  and  we  feel  no  assurance 
that  she  is  not  destined  to  see  the  end  of  them  all.  She  was 
great  and  respected  before  the  Saxon  had  set  foot  on  Britain, 
before  the  Frank  had  passed  the  Rhine,  when  Grecian  eloquence 
still  flourished  in  Antioch,  when  idcls  were  still  worshiped  in  the 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9409 

temple  of  Mecca.  And  she  may  still  exist  in  undiminished  vigor 
when  some  traveler  from  New  Zealand  shall,  in  the  midst  of  a 
vast  solitude,  take  his  stand  on  a  broken  arch  of  London  Bridge 
to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's. 

We  often  hear  it  said  that  the  world  is  constantly  becoming 
more  and  more  enlightened,  and  that  this  enlightening  must  be 
favorable  to  Protestantism  and  unfavorable  to  Catholicism.  We 
wish  that  we  could  think  so.  But  we  see  great  reason  to  doubt 
whether  this  be  a  well-founded  expectation.  We  see  that  during 
the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  human  mind  has  been 
in  the  highest  degree  active;  that  it  has  made  great  advances  in 
every  branch  of  natural  philosophy;  that  it  has  produced  innu- 
merable inventions  tending  to  promote  the  convenience  of  life; 
that  medicine,  surgery,  chemistry,  engineering,  have  been  very 
greatly  improved;  that  government,  police,  and  law  have  been 
improved,  though  not  to  so  great  an  extent  as  the  physical  sci- 
ences. But  we  see  that  during  these  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  Protestantism  has  made  no  conquests  worth  speaking  of. 
Nay,  we  believe  that  as  far  as  there  has  been  a  change,  that 
change  has  on  the  whole  been  in  favor  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
We  cannot,  therefore,  feel  confident  that  the  progress  of  knowl- 
edge will  necessarily  be  fatal  to  a  system  which  has,  to  say  the 
least,  stood  its  ground  in  spite  of  the  immense  progress  made  by 
the  human  race  in  knowledge  since  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Indeed,  the  argument  which  we  are  considering  seems  to  us 
to  be  founded  on  an  entire  mistake.  There  are  branches  of 
knowledge  with  respect  to  which  the  law  of  the  human  mind 
is  progress.  In  mathematics,  when  once  a  proposition  has  been 
demonstrated,  it  is  never  afterwards  contested.  Every  fresh  story 
is  as  solid  a  basis  for  a  new  superstructure  as  the  original 
foundation  was.  Here,  therefore,  there  is  a  constant  addition  to 
the  stock  of  truth.  In  the  inductive  sciences,  again,  the  law  is 
progress.  Every  day  furnishes  new  facts,  and  thus  brings  theory 
nearer  and  nearer  to  perfection.  There  is  no  chance  that  either 
in  the  purely  demonstrative  or  in  the  purely  experimental  sci- 
ences, the  world  will  ever  go  back  or  even  remain  stationary. 
Nobody  ever  heard  of  a  reaction  against  Taylor's  theorem,  or 
of  a  reaction  against  Harvey's  doctrine  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood. 

But  with  theology  the  case  is  very  different.  As  respects  nat- 
ural religion, —  revelation  being  for  the  present  altogether  left  ont 


9410  THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

of  the  question, —  it  is  not  easy  to  see  that  a  philosopher  of  the 
present  day  is  more  favorably  situated  than  Thales  or  Simonides. 
He  has  before  him  just  the  same  evidences  of  design  in  the 
structure  of  the  universe  which  the  early  Greek  had.  We  say 
just  the  same;  for  the  discoveries  of  modern  astronomers  and 
anatomists  have  really  added  nothing  to  the  force  of  that  argu- 
ment which  a  reflecting  mind  finds  in  every  beast,  bird,  insect, 
fish,  leaf,  flower,  and  shell.  The  reasoning  by  which  Socrates, 
in  Xenophon's  hearing,  confuted  the  little  atheist  Aristodemus, 
is  exactly  the  reasoning  'of  Paley's  Natural  Theology.  Socrates 
makes  precisely  the  same  use  of  the  statues  of  Polycletus  and  the 
pictures  of  Zeuxis  which  Paley  makes  of  the  watch.  As  to  the 
other  great  question,  the  question  what  becomes  of  man  after 
death,  we  do  not  see  that  a  highly  educated  European,  left  to 
his  unassisted  reason,  is  more  likely  to  be  in  the  right  than  a 
Blackfoot  Indian.  Not  a  single  one  of  the  many  sciences  in 
which  we  surpass  the  Blackfoot  Indians  throws  the  smallest  light 
on  the  state  of  the  soul  after  the  animal  life  is  extinct.  In  truth, 
all  the  philosophers,  ancient  and  modern,  who  have  attempted 
without  the  help  of  revelation  to  prove  the  immortality  of  man, 
from  Plato  down  to  Franklin,  appear  to  us  to  have  failed  de- 
plorably. .  .  . 

Of  the  dealings  of  God  with  man,  no  more  has  been  revealed 
to  the  nineteenth  century  than  to  the  first,  or  to  London  than  to 
the  wildest  parish  in  the  Hebrides.  It  is  true  that  in  those 
things  which  concern  this  life  and  this  world,  man  constantly 
becomes  wiser  and  wiser.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that,  as  respects 
a  higher  power  and  a  future  state,  man,  in  the  language  of 
Goethe's  scoffing  fiend, 

«bleibt  stets  von  gleichem  Schlag, 
Und  ist  so  wunderlich  als  wie  am  ersten  Tag.w* 

The  history  of  Catholicism  strikingly  illustrates  these  observa- 
tions. During  the  last  seven  centuries  the  public  mind  of  Europe 
has  made  constant  progress  in  every  department  of  secular  knowl- 
edge. But  in  religion  we  can  trace  no  constant  progress.  The 
ecclesiastical  history  of  that  long  period  is  a  history  of  movement 
to  and  fro.  Four  times,  since  the  authority  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  was  established  in  Western  Christendom,  has  the  human 

*  « —  remains  always  of  the  same  stamp, 
And  is  as  unaccountable  as  on  the  first  day.» 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  941 ! 

intellect  •  risen  up  against  her  yoke.  Twice  that  Church  remained 
completely  victorious.  Twice  she  came  forth  from  the  conflict 
bearing  the  marks  of  cruel  wounds,  but  with  the  principle  of  life 
still  strong  within  her.  When  we  reflect  on  the  tremendous 
assaults  which  she  has  survived,  we  find  it  difficult  to  conceive  in 
what  way  she  is  to  perish. 


LOYOLA  AND   THE    JESUITS 
From  the  Essay  on  Ranke's  <  History  of  the  Popes  > 

IT  is  not,  therefore,  strange  that  the  effect  of  the  great  outbreak 
of  Protestantism  in  one  part  of  Christendom  should  have 

been  to  produce  an  equally  violent  outbreak  of  Catholic  zeal 
in  another.  Two  reformations  were  pushed  on  at  once  with 
equal  energy  and  effect:  a  reformation  of  doctrine  in  the  North, 
a  reformation  of  manners  and  discipline  in  the  South.  In  the 
course  of  a  single  generation,  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  underwent  a  change.  From  the  halls  of  the  Vatican  to 
the  most  secluded  hermitage  of  the  Apennines,  the  great  revival 
was  everywhere  felt  and  seen.  All  the  institutions  anciently 
devised  for  the  propagation  and  defense  of  the  faith  were 
furbished  up  and  made  efficient.  Fresh  engines  of  still  more 
formidable  power  were  constructed.  Everywhere  old  religious 
communities  were  remodeled  and  new  religious  communities 
called  into  existence.  Within  a  year  after  the  death  of  Leo,  the 
order  of  Camaldoli  was  purified.  The  Capuchins  restored  the  old 
Franciscan  discipline,  the  midnight  prayer  and  the  life  of  silence. 
The  Barnabites  and  the  society  of  Somasca  devoted  themselves. 
to  the  relief  and  education  of  the  poor.  To  the  Theatine  order 
a  still  higher  interest  belongs.  Its  great  object  was  the  same, 
with  that  of  our  early  Methodists;  namely,  to  supply  the  defi- 
ciencies of  the  parochial  clergy.  The  Church  of  Rome,  wiser  than 
the  Church  of  England,  gave  every  countenance  to  the  good 
work.  The  members  of  the  new  brotherhood  preached  to  great 
multitudes  in  the  streets  and  in  the  fields,  prayed  by  the  beds 
of  the  sick,  and  administered  the  last  sacraments  to  the  dying. 
Foremost  among  them  in  zeal  and  devotion  was  Gian  Pietro 
Caraffa,  afterwards  Pope  Paul  the  Fourth. 

In  the  convent  of  the  Theatines  at  Venice,  under  the  eye 
of  Caraffa,  a  Spanish  gentleman  took  up  his  abode,  tended  the 
poor  in  the  hospitals,  went  about  in  rags,  starved  himself  almost 


94I2  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

to  death,  and  often  sallied  into  the  streets,  mounted  on  stones, 
and  waving  his  hat  to  invite  the  passers-by,  began  to  preach  in 
a  strange  jargon  of  mingled  Castilian  and  Tuscan.  The  Thea* 
tines  were  among  the  most  zealous  and  rigid  of  men:  but  to 
this  enthusiastic  neophyte  their  discipline  seemed  lax,  and  their 
movements  sluggish;  for  his  own  mind,  naturally  passionate  and 
imaginative,  had  passed  through  a  training  which  had  given  to 
all  its  peculiarities  a  morbid  intensity  and  energy.  In  his  early 
life  he  had  been  the  very  prototype  of  the  hero  of  Cervantes. 
The  single  study  of  the  young  Hidalgo  had  been  chivalrous  ro- 
mance; and  his  existence  had  been  one  gorgeous  day-dream  of 
princesses  rescued  and  infidels  subdued.  He  had  chosen  a  Dul- 
cinea,  <(no  countess,  no  duchess, >} — these  are  his  own  words,— 
<(  but  one  of  far  higher  station ; w  and  he  flattered  himself  with 
the  hope  of  laying  at  her  feet  the  keys  of  Moorish  castles  and 
the  jeweled  turbans  of  Asiatic  kings. 

In  the  midst  of  these  visions  of  martial  glory  and  prosper- 
ous love,  a  severe  wound  stretched  him  on  a  bed  of  sickness. 
His  constitution  was  shattered,  and  he  was  doomed  to  be  a  crip- 
ple for  life.  The  palm  of  strength,  grace,  and  skill  in  knightly 
exercises,  was  no  longer  for  him.  He  could  no  longer  hope  to 
strike  down  gigantic  soldans,  or  to  find  favor  in  the  sight  of 
beautiful  women.  A  new  vision  then  arose  in  his  mind,  and 
mingled  itself  with  his  own  delusions  in  a  manner  which  to  most 
Englishmen  must  seem  singular,  but  which  those  who  know  how 
close  was  the  union  between  religion  and  chivalry  in  Spain  will 
be  at  no  loss  to  understand.  He  would  still  be  a  soldier;  he 
would  still  be  a  knight-errant:  but  the  soldier  and  knight-errant 
of  the  spouse  of  Christ.  He  would  smite  the  Great  Red  Dragon. 
He  would  be  the  champion  of  the  Woman  clothed  with  the  Sun. 
He  would  break  the  charm  under  which  false  prophets  held 
the  souls  of  men  in  bondage.  His  restless  spirit  led  him  to  the 
Syrian  deserts  and  to  the  chapel  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  Thence 
he  wandered  back  to  the  farthest  West,  and  astonished  the  con- 
vents of  Spain  and  the  schools  of  France  by  his  penances  and 
vigils.  The  same  lively  imagination  which  had  been  employed  in 
picturing  the  tumult  of  unreal  battles  and  the  charms  of  unreal 
queens,  now  peopled  his  solitude  with  saints  and  angels.  The 
Holy  Virgin  descended  to  commune  with  him.  He  saw  the 
Savior  face  to  face  with  the  eye  of  flesh.  Even  those  mysteries 
of  religion  which  are  the  hardest  trial  of  faith  were  in  his  case 
palpable  to  sight.  It  is  difficult  to  relate  without  a  pitying  smile 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

that  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  he  saw  transubstantiation  take 
place;  and  that  as  he  stood  praying  on  the  steps  of  the  Church 
of  St.  Dominic,  he  saw  the  Trinity  in  Unity,  and  wept  aloud 
with  joy  and  wonder.  Such  was  the  celebrated  Ignatius  Loyola, 
who  in  the  great  Catholic  reaction  bore  the  same  part  which 
Luther  bore  in  the  great  Protestant  movement. 

Dissatisfied  with  the  system  of  the  Theatines,  the  enthusiastic 
Spaniard  turned  his  face  towards  Rome.  Poor,  obscure,  without 
a  patron,  without  recommendations,  he  entered  the  city  where 
now  two  princely  temples,  rich  with  painting  and  many-colored 
marble,  commemorate  his  great  services  to  the  Church;  where 
his  form  stands  sculptured  in  massive  silver;  where  his  bones, 
enshrined  amidst  jewels,  are  placed  beneath  the  altar  of  God. 
His  activity  and  zeal  bore  down  all  opposition;  and  under  his 
rule  the  order  of  Jesuits  began  to  exist,  and  grew  rapidly  to 
the  full  measure  of  his  gigantic  powers.  With  what  vehemence, 
with  what  policy,  with  what  exact  discipline,  with  what  dauntless 
courage,  with  what  self-denial,  with  what  forgetfulness  of  the 
dearest  private  ties,  with  what  intense  and  stubborn  devotion  to 
a  single  end,  with  what  unscrupulous  laxity  and  versatility  in  the 
choice  of  means,  the  Jesuits  fought  the  battle  of  their  church, 
is  written  in  every  page  of  the  annals  of  Europe  during  several 
generations.  In  the  Order  of  Jesus  was  concentrated  the  quint- 
essence of  the  Catholic  spirit;  and  the  history  of  the  Order  of 
Jesus  is  the  history  of  the  great  Catholic  reaction.  That  order 
possessed  itself  at  once  of  all  the  strongholds  which  command  the 
public  mind:  of  the  pulpit,  of  the  press,  of  the  confessional,  of 
the  academies.  Wherever  the  Jesuit  preached,  the  church  was 
too  small  for  the  audience.  The  name  of  Jesuit  on  a  title-page 
secured  the  circulation  of  a  book.  It  was  in  the  ears  of  the 
Jesuit  that  the  powerful,  the  noble,  and  the  beautiful  breathed 
the  secret  history  of  their  lives.  It  was  at  the  feet  of  the  Jesuit 
that  the  youth  of  the  higher  and  middle  classes  were  brought 
up  from  childhood  to  manhood,  from  the  first  rudiments  to  the 
courses  of  rhetoric  and  philosophy.  Literature  and  science,  lately 
associated  with  infidelity  or  with  heresy,  now  became  the  allies 
of  orthodoxy. 

Dominant  in  the  South  of  Europe,  the  great  order  soon  went 
forth  conquering  and  to  conquer.  In  spite  of  oceans  and  deserts, 
of  hunger  and  pestilence,  of  spies  and  penal  laws,  of  dungeons 
and  racks,  of  gibbets  and  quartering-blocks,  Jesuits  were  to  be 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

found  under  every  disguise  and  in  every  country;  scholars,  phy 
sicians,  merchants,  serving-men;  in  the  hostile  court  of  Sweden, 
in  the  old  manor-house  of  Cheshire,  among  the  hovels  of  Con- 
naught;  arguing,  instructing,  consoling,  stealing  away  the  hearts 
of  the  young,  animating  the  courage  of  the  timid,  holding  up 
the  crucifix  before  the  eyes  of  the  dying.  Nor  was  it  less  their 
office  to  plot  against  the  thrones  and  lives  of  the  apostate  kings, 
to  spread  evil  rumors,  to  raise  tumults,  to  inflame  civil  wars, 
to  arm  the  hand  of  the  assassin.  Inflexible  in  nothing  but  in 
their  fidelity  to  the  Church,  they  were  equally  ready  to  appeal 
in  her  cause  to  the  spirit  of  loyalty  and  to  the  spirit  of  freedom. 
Extreme  doctrines  of  obedience  and  extreme  doctrines  of  liberty; 
the  right  of  rulers  to  misgovern  the  people,  the  right  of  every 
one  of  the  people  to  plunge  his  knife  in  the  heart  of  a  bad  ruler, 
were  inculcated  by  the  same  man,  according  as  he  addressed 
nimself  to  the  subject  of  Philip  or  to  the  subject  of  Elizabeth. 
Some  described  these  divines  as  the  most  rigid,  others  as  the 
most  indulgent  of  spiritual  directors;  and  both  descriptions  were 
correct.  The  truly  devout  listened  with  awe  to  the  high  and 
saintly  morality  of  the  Jesuit.  The  gay  cavalier  who  had  run  his 
rival  through  the  body,  the  frail  beauty  who  had  forgotten  her 
marriage  vow,  found  in  the  Jesuit  an  easy  well-bred  man  of  the 
world,  who  knew  how  to  make  allowance  for  the  little  irregu- 
larities of  people  of  fashion.  The  confessor  was  strict  or  lax, 
according  to  the  temper  of  the  penitent.  The  first  object  was  to 
drive  no  person  out  of  the  pale  of  the  Church.  Since  there  were 
bad  people,  it  was  better  that  they  should  be  bad  Catholics  than 
bad  Protestants.  If  a  person  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  a 
bravo,  a  libertine,  or  a  gambler,  that  was  no  reason  for  making 
him  a  heretic  too. 

The  Old  World  was  not  wide  enough  for  this  strange  activ- 
ity. The  Jesuits  invaded  all  the  countries  which  the  great  mari- 
time discoveries  of  the  preceding  age  had  laid  open  to  European 
enterprise.  They  were  to  be  found  in  the  depths  of  the  Peru- 
vian mines,  at  the  marts  of  the  African  slave-caravans,  on  the 
shores  of  the  Spice  Islands,  in  the  observatories  of  China.  They 
made  converts  in  regions  which  neither  avarice  nor  curiosity  had 
tempted  any  of  their  countrymen  to  enter;  and  preached  and  dis- 
puted in  tongues  of  which  no  other  native  of  the  West  understood 
a  word. 

• 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY  94!  5 

THE   REIGN   OF  TERROR 

From  the  Essay  on  <Barere> 

No  GREAT  party  can  be  composed  of  such  materials  as  these 
[disinterested  enthusiasts].  It  is  the  inevitable  law  that 
such  zealots  as  we  have  described  shall  collect  around  them 
a  multitude  of  slaves,  of  cowards,  and  of  libertines,  whose  savage 
tempers  and  licentious  appetites,  withheld  only  by  the  dread  of 
Jaw  and  magistracy  from  the  worst  excesses,  are  called  into  full 
activity  by  the  hope  of  impunity.  A  faction  which,  from  what- 
ever motive,  relaxes  the  great  laws  of  morality,  is  certain  to  be 
joined  by  the  most  immoral  part  of  the  community.  This  has 
been  repeatedly  proved  in  religious  wars.  The  war  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  the  Albigensian  war,  the  Huguenot  war,  the  Thirty 
Years'  war,  all  originated  in  pious  zeal.  That  zeal  inflamed  the 
champions  of  the  Church  to  such  a  point  that  they  regarded  all 
generosity  to  the  vanquished  as  a  sinful  weakness.  The  infidel, 
the  heretic,  was  to  be  run  down  like  a  mad  dog.  No  outrage 
committed  by  the  Catholic  warrior  on  the  miscreant  enemy  could 
deserve  punishment,,  As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  boundless 
license  was  thus  given  to  barbarity  and  dissoluteness,  thousands 
of  wretches  who  cared  nothing  for  the  sacred  cause,  but  who 
were  eager  to  be  exempted  from  the  police  of  peaceful  cities  and 
the  discipline  of  well-governed  camps,  flocked  to  the  standard  of 
the  faith.  The  men  who  had  set  up  that  standard  were  sincere, 
chaste,  regardless  of  lucre,  and  perhaps,  where  only  themselves 
were  concerned,  not  unforgiving;  but  round  that  standard  were 
assembled  such  gangs  of  rogues,  ravishers,  plunderers,  and  fero- 
cious bravoes,  as  were  scarcely  ever  found  under  the  flag  of  any 
State  engaged  in  a  mere  temporal  quarrel.  In  a  very  similar 
way  was  the  Jacobin  party  composed.  There  was  a  small  nucleus 
of  enthusiasts;  round  that  nucleus  was  gathered  a  vast  mass 
of  ignoble  depravity;  and  in  all  that  mass  there  was  nothing  so 
depraved  and  so  ignoble  as  Barere. 

Then  came  those  days  when  the  most  barbarous  of  all 
codes  was  administered  by  the  most  barbarous  of  all  tribunals; 
when  no  man  could  greet  his  neighbors,  or  say  his  prayers,  or 
dress  his  hair,  without  danger  of  committing  a  capital  crime; 
when  spies  lurked  in  every  corner;  when  the  guillotine  was  long 
and  hard  at  work  every  morning;  when  the  jails  were  filled  as 


9416 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 


close  as  the  hold  of  a  slave-ship;  when  the  gutters  ran  foaming 
with  blood  into  the  Seine;  when  it  was  death  to  be  great-niece 
of  a  captain  of  the  royal  guards,  or  half-brother  of  a  doctor  of 
the  Sorbonne,  to  express  a  doubt  whether  assignats  would  not 
fall,  to  hint  that  the  English  had  been  victorious  in  the  action 
of  the  first  of  June,  to  have  a  copy  of  one  of  Burke's  pamphlets 
locked  up  in  a  desk,  to  laugh  at  a  Jacobin  for  taking  the  name 
of  Cassius  or  Timoleon,  or  to  call  the  Fifth  Sans-culottide  by  its 
old  superstitious  name  of  St.  Matthew's  Day.  While  the  daily 
wagon-loads  of  victims  were  carried  to  their  doom  through  the 
streets  of  Paris,  the  proconsuls  whom  the  sovereign  committee 
had  sent  forth  to  the  departments  reveled  in  an  extravagance  of 
cruelty  unknown  even  in  the  capital.  The  knife  of  the  deadly 
machine  rose  and  fell  too  slow  for  their  work  of  slaughter.  Long 
rows  of  captives  were  mowed  down  with  grape-shot.  Holes  were 
made  in  the  bottom  of  crowded  barges.  Lyons  was  turned  into 
a  desert.  At  Arras  even  the  cruel  mercy  of  a  speedy  death  was 
denied  to  the  prisoners.  All  down  the  Loire,  from  Saumur  to 
the  sea,  great  flocks  of  crows  and  kites  feasted  on  naked  corpses, 
twined  together  in  hideous  embraces.  No  mercy  was  shown  to 
sex  or  age.  The  number  of  young  lads  and  of  girls  of  seven- 
teen who  were  murdered  by  that  execrable  government  is  to  be 
reckoned  by  hundreds.  Babies  torn  from  the  breast  were  tossed 
from  pike  to  pike  along  the  Jacobin  ranks.  One  champion  of 
liberty  had  his  pockets  well  stuffed  with  ears.  Another  swag- 
gered about  with  the  finger  of  a  little  child  in  his  hat.  A  few 
months  had  sufficed  to  degrade  France  below  the  level  of  New 
Zealand. 

It  is  absurd  to  say  that  "any  amount  of  public  danger  can 
justify  a  system  like  this,  we  do  not  say  on  Christian  principles, 
we  do  not  say  on  the  principles  of  a  high  morality,  but  even  on 
principles  of  Machiavellian  policy.  It  is  true  that  great  emer- 
gencies call  for  activity  and  vigilance;  it  is  true  that  they  justify 
severity  which,  in  ordinary  times,  would  deserve  the  name  of 
cruelty.  But  indiscriminate  severity  can  never,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, be  useful.  It  is  plain  that  the  whole  efficacy  of 
punishment  depends  on  the  care  with  which  the  guilty  are  dis- 
tinguished. Punishment  which  strikes  the  guilty  and  the  innocent 
promiscuously  operates  merely  like  a  pestilence  or  a  great  con- 
vulsion of  nature,  and  has  no  more  tendency  to  prevent  offenses 
than  the  cholera,  or  an  earthquake  like  that  of  Lisbon,  would 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

have.  The  energy  for  which  the  Jacobin  administration  is  praised 
was  merely  the  energy  of  the  Malay  who  maddens  himself  with 
opium,  draws  his  knife,  and  runs  a-muck  through  the  streets, 
slashing  right  and  left  at  friends  and  foes.  Such  has  never  been 
the  energy  of  truly  great  rulers;  of  Elizabeth,  for  example,  of 
Oliver,  or  of  Frederick.  They  were  not,  indeed,  scrupulous.  But 
had  they  been  less  scrupulous  than  they  were,  the  strength  and 
amplitude  of  their  minds  would  have  preserved  them  from  crimes 
such  as  those  which  the  small  men  of  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  took  for  daring  strokes  of  policy.  The  great  Queen  who 
so  long  held  her  own  against  foreign  and  domestic  enemies, 
against  temporal  and  spiritual  arms;  the  great  Protector  who  gov- 
erned with  more  than  regal  power,  in  despite  both  of  royalists 
and  republicans;  the  great  King  who,  with  a  beaten  army  and 
an  exhausted  treasury,  defended  his  little  dominions  to  the  last 
against  the  united  efforts  of  Russia,  Austria,  and  France, —  with 
what  scorn  would  they  have  heard  that  it  was  impossible  for 
them  to  strike  a  salutary  terror  into  the  disaffected  without  send- 
ing schoolboys  and  schoolgirls  to  death  by  cart-loads  and  boat- 
loads ! 

The  popular  notion  is,  we  believe,  that  the  leading  Terrorists 
were  wicked  men,  but  at  the  same  time  great  men.  We  can  see 
nothing  great  about  them  but  their  wickedness.  That  their  policy 
was  daringly  original  is  a  vulgar  error.  Their  policy  is  as  old 
as  the  oldest  accounts  which  we  have  of  human  misgovernment. 
It  seemed  new  in  France  and  in  the  eighteenth  century  only 
because  it  had  been  long  disused,  for  excellent  reasons,  by  the 
enlightened  part  of  mankind.  But  it  has  always  prevailed,  and 
still  prevails,  in  savage  and  half-savage  nations,  and  is  the  chief 
cause  which  prevents  such  nations  from  making  advances  towards 
civilization.  Thousands  of  deys,  of  beys,  of  pachas,  of  rajahs,  of 
nabobs,  have  shown  themselves  as  great  masters  of  statecraft  as 
the  members  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety.  Djezzar,  we 
imagine,  was  superior  to  any  of  them  in  their  new  line.  In  fact, 
there  is  not  a  petty  tyrant  in  Asia  or  Africa  so  dull  or  so  un- 
learned as  not  to  be  fully  qualified  for  the  business  of  Jacobin 
police  and  Jacobin  finance.  To  behead  people  by  scores  without 
caring  whether  they  are  guilty  or  innocent,  to  wring  money 
out  of  the  rich  by  the  help  of  jailers  and  executioners;  to  rob 
the  public  creditor,  and  to  put  him  to  death  if  he  remonstrates; 
to  take  loaves  by  force  out  of  the  bakers'  shops;  to  clothe  and 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

mount  soldiers  by  seizing  on  one  man's  wool  and  linen,  and  on 
another  man's  horses  and  saddles,  without  compensation, —  is  of 
all  modes  of  governing  the  simplest  and  most  obvious.  Of  its 
morality  we  at  present  say  nothing.  But  surely  it  requires  no 
capacity  beyond  that  of  a  barbarian  or  a  child. 

By  means  like  those  which  we  have  described,  the  Commit- 
tee of  Public  Safety  undoubtedly  succeeded,  for  a  short  time,  in 
enforcing  profound  submission  and  in  raising  immense  funds. 
But  to  enforce  submission  by  butchery,  and  to  raise  funds  by  spo- 
liation, is  not  statesmanship.  The  real  statesman  is  he  who, 
in  troubled  times,  keeps  down  the  turbulent  without  unnecessa- 
rily harassing  the  well-affected;  and  who,  when  great  pecuniary 
resources  are  needed,  provides  for  the  public  exigencies  without 
violating  the  security  of  property  and  drying  up  the  sources  of 
future  prosperity.  Such  a  statesman,  we  are  confident,  might  in 
1793  have  preserved  the  independence  of  France  without  shed- 
ding a  drop  of  innocent  blood,  without  plundering  a  single  ware- 
house. Unhappily,  the  republic  was  subject  to  men  who  were 
mere  demagogues  and  in  no  sense  statesmen.  They  could  declaim 
at  a  club.  They  could  lead  a  rabble  to  mischief.  But  they  had 
no  skill  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  an  empire.  The  want  of  skill 
they  supplied  for  a  time  by  atrocity  and  blind  violence.  For 
legislative  ability,  fiscal  ability,  military  ability,  diplomatic  ability, 
they  had  one  substitute, —  the  guillotine.  Indeed,  their  exceeding 
ignorance  and  the  barrenness  of  their  invention  are  the  best 
excuse  for  their  murders  and  robberies.  We  really  believe  that 
they  would  not  have  cut  so  many  throats  and  picked  so  many 
pockets,  if  they  had  known  how  to  govern  in  any  other  way. 

That  under  their  administration  the  war  against  the  European 
coalition  was  successfully  conducted,  is  true.  But  that  war  had 
been  successfully  conducted  before  their  elevation,  and  continued 
to  be  successfully  conducted  after  their  fall.  Terror  was  not  the 
order  of  the  day  when  Brussels  opened  its  gates  to  Dumourier. 
Terror  had  ceased  to  be  the  order  of  the  day  when  Piedmont 
and  Lombardy  were  conquered  by  Bonaparte.  The  truth  is,  that 
France  was  saved,  not  by  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  but  by 
the  energy,  patriotism,  and  valor  of  the  French  people.  Those 
high  qualities  were  victorious  in  spite  of  the  incapacity  of  rulers 
whose  administration  was  a  tissue,  not  merely  of  crimes,  but  of 
blunders. 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY 


9419 


THE   TRIAL  OF  WARREN   HASTINGS 
From  the  Essay  on  Gleig's  <  Memoirs  of  Warren  Hastings  > 

IN  THE  mean  time,  the  preparations  for  the  trial  had  proceeded 
rapidly;  and  on  the  thirteenth  of  February,  1788, 'the  sittings 
of  the  Court  commenced.  There  have  been  spectacles  more 
dazzling  to  the  eye,  more  gorgeous  with  jewelry  and  cloth  of 
gold,  more  attractive  to  grown-up  children,  than  that  which  was 
then  exhibited  at  Westminster;  but  perhaps  there  never  was  a 
spectacle  so  well  calculated  to  strike  a  highly  cultivated,  a  reflect- 
ing, an  imaginative  mind.  All  the  various  kinds  of  interest  which 
belong  to  the  near  and  to  the  distant,  to  the  present  and  to  the 
past,  were  collected  on  one  spot  and  in  one  hour.  All  the  talents 
and  all  the  accomplishments  which  are  developed  by  liberty  and 
civilization  were  now  displayed,  with  every  advantage  that  could 
be  derived  both  from  co-operation  and  from  contrast.  Every  step 
in  the  proceedings  carried  the  mind  either  backward,  through 
many  troubled  centuries,  to  the  days  when  the  foundations  of 
our  constitution  were  laid;  or  far  away,  over  boundless  seas  and 
deserts,  to  dusky  nations  living  under  strange  stars,  worshiping 
strange  gods,  and  writing  strange  characters  from  right  to  left, 
The  High  Court  of  Parliament  was  to  sit,  according  to  forms 
handed  down  from  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets,  on  an  English- 
man accused  of  exercising  tyranny  over  the  lord  of  the  holy  city 
of  Benares,  and  over  the  ladies  of  the  princely  house  of  Oude. 

The  place  was  worthy  of  such  a  trial.  It  was  the  great  hall 
of  William  Rufus,  the  hall  which  had  resounded  with  acclamations 
at  the  inauguration  of  thirty  kings,  the  hall  which  had  witnessed 
the  just  sentence  of  Bacon  and  the  just  absolution  of  Somers, 
the  hall  where  the  eloquence  of  Stafford  had  for  a  moment  awed 
and  melted  a  victorious  party  inflamed  with  just  resentment,  the 
hall  where  Charles  had  confronted  the  High  Court  of  Justice 
with  the  placid  courage  which  has  half  redeemed  his  fame. 
Neither  military  nor  civil  pomp  was  wanting.  The  avenues  were 
lined  with  grenadiers.  The  streets  were  kept  clear  by  cavalry. 
The  peers,  robed  in  gold  and  ermine,  were  marshaled  by  the 
heralds  under  Garter  King-at-arms.  The  judges  in  their  vest- 
ments of  state  attended  to  give  advice  on  points  of  law.  Near  a 
hundred  and  seventy  lords,  three-fourths  of  the  Upper  House  as 
the  Upper  House  then  was,  walked  in  solemn  order  from  their 


p420  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

usual  place  of  assembling  to  the  tribunal.  The  junior  baron 
present  led  the  way, —  George  Elliot,  Lord  Heathfield,  recently 
ennobled  for  his  memorable  defense  of  Gibraltar  against  the  fleets 
and  armies  of  France  and  Spain.  The  long  procession  was  closed 
by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Earl  Marshal  of  the  realm,  by  the  great 
dignitaries,  and  by  the  brothers  and  sons  of  the  King.  Last  of 
all  came  the  Prince  of  Wales,  conspicuous  by  his  fine  person  and 
noble  bearing.  The  gray  old  walls  were  hung  with  scarlet.  The 
long  galleries  were  crowded  by  an  audience  such  as  has  rarely 
excited  the  fears  or  the  emulations  of  an  orator.  There  were 
gathered  together,  from  all  parts  of  a  great,  free,  enlightened,  and 
prosperous  empire,  grace  and  female  loveliness,  wit  and  learning, 
the  representatives  of  every  science  and  of  every  art.  There 
were  seated  round  the  Queen  the  fair-haired  young  daughters  of 
the  House  of  Brunswick.  There  the  ambassadors  of  great  kings 
and  commonwealths  gazed  with  admiration  on  a  spectacle  which 
no  other  country  in  the  world  could  present.  There  Siddons,  in 
the  prime  of  her  majestic  beauty,  looked  with  emotion  on  a  scene 
surpassing  all  the  imitations  of  the  stage.  There  the  historian  of 
the  Roman  Empire  thought  of  the  days  when  Cicero  pleaded  the 
cause  of  Sicily  against  Verres,  and  when,  before  a  Senate  which 
still  retained  some  show  of  freedom,  Tacitus  thundered  against 
the  oppressor  of  Africa.  There  were  seen  side  by  side  the  great- 
est painter  and  the  greatest  scholar  of  the  age.  The  spectacle 
had  allured  Reynolds  from  that  easel  which  has  preserved  to  us 
the  thoughtful  foreheads  of  so  many  writers  and  statesmen,  and 
the  sweet  smiles  of  so  many  noble  matrons.  It  had  induced 
Parr  to  suspend  his  labors  in  that  dark  and  profound  mine  from 
which  he  had  extracted  a  vast  treasure  of  erudition;  a  treasure 
too  often  buried  in  the  earth,  too  often  paraded  with  injudicious 
and  inelegant  ostentation,  but  still  precious,  massive,  and  splen- 
did. There  appeared  the  voluptuous  charms  of  her  to  whom  the 
heir  of  the  throne  had  in  secret  plighted  his  faith.  There  too 
was  she,  the  beautiful  mother  of  a  beautiful  race,  the  St.  Cecilia 
whose  delicate  features,  lighted  up  by  love  and  music,  art  has 
rescued  from  the  common  decay.  There  were  the  members  of 
that  brilliant  society  which  quoted,  criticized,  and  exchanged  rep- 
artees, under  the  rich  peacock  hangings  of  Mrs.  Montague.  And 
there  the  ladies  whose  lips,  more  persuasive  than  those  of  Fox 
himself,  had  carried  the  Westminster  election  against  palace  and 
treasury,  shone  around  Georgiana,  Duchess  of  Devonshire. 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9421 

The  Serjeants  made  proclamation.  Hastings  advanced  to  the 
bar,  and  bent  his  knee.  The  culprit  was  indeed  not  unworthy  of 
that  great  presence.  He  had  ruled  an  extensive  and  populous 
country,  had  made  laws. and  treaties,  had  sent  forth  armies,  had 
set  up  and  pulled  down  princes.  And  in  his  high  place  he  had 
so  borne  himself  that  all  had  feared  him,  that  most  had  loved 
him,  and  that  hatred  itself  could  deny  him  no  title  to  glory 
except  virtue.  He  looked  like  a  great  man,  and  not  like  a  bad 
man.  A  person  small  and  emaciated,  yet  deriving  dignity  from  a 
carriage  which  while  it  indicated  deference  to  the  court,  indicated 
also  habitual  self-possession  and  self-respect,  a  high  and  intellect- 
ual forehead,  a  brow  pensive  but  not  gloomy,  a  mouth  of  inflex- 
ible decision,  a  face  pale  and  worn  but  serene,  on  which  was 
written,  as  legibly  as  under  the  picture  in  the  council  chamber  at 
Calcutta,  Mens  <zqua  in  arduis:  such  was  the  aspect  with  which 
the  great  proconsul  presented  himself  to  his  judges. 

His  counsel  accompanied  him, —  men  all  of  whom  were  after-, 
wards  raised  by  their  talents  and  learning  to  the  highest  posts  in 
their  profession:  the  bold  and  strong-minded  Law,  afterwards 
Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench;  the  more  humane  and  elo- 
quent Dallas,  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas;  and 
Plomer,  who  near  twenty  years  later  successfully  conducted  in 
the  same  high  court  the  defense  of  Lord  Melville,  and  subse- 
quently became  Vice-Chancellor  and  Master  of  the  Rolls. 

But  neither  the'  culprit  nor  his  advocates  attracted  so  much 
notice  as  the  accusers.  In  the  midst  of  the  blaze  of  red  drapery, 
a  space  had  been  fitted  up  with  green  benches  and  tables  for  the 
Commons.  The  managers,  with  Burke  at  their  head,  appeared  in 
full  dress.  The  collectors  of  gossip  did  not  fail  to  remark  that 
even  Fox,  generally  so  regardless  of  his  appearance,  had  paid 
to  the  illustrious  tribunal  the  compliment  of  wearing  a  bag  and 
sword.  Pitt  had  refused  to  be  one  of  the  conductors  of  the 
impeachment;  and  his  commanding,  copious,  and  sonorous  elo- 
quence was  wanting  to  that  great  muster  of  various  talents.  Age 
and  blindness  had  unfitted  Lord  North  for  the  duties  of  a  public 
prosecutor;  and  his  friends  were  left  without  the  help  of  his 
excellent  sense,  his  tact,  and  his  urbanity.  But  in  spite  of  the 
absence  of  these  two  distinguished  members  of  the  lower  House, 
the  box  in  which  the  managers  stood  contained  an  array  of  speak- 
ers such  as  perhaps  had  not  appeared  together  since  the  great 


THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

age  of  Athenian  eloquence.  There  were  Fox  and  Sheridan,  the 
English  Demosthenes  and  the  English  Hyperides,  There  was 
Burke, — ignorant  indeed,  or  negligent,  of  the  art  of  adapting  his 
reasonings  and  his  style  to  the  capacity  and  taste  of  his  hearers, 
but  in  amplitude  of  comprehension  and  richness  of  imagination 
superior  to  every  orator,  ancient  or  modern.  There, '  with  eyes 
reverentially  fixed  on  Burke,  appeared  the  finest  gentleman  of  the 
age,  his  form  developed  by  every  manly  exercise,  his  face  beam- 
ing with  intelligence  and  spirit, —  the  ingenious,  the  chivalrous, 
the  high-souled  Windham.  Nor,  though  surrounded  by  such  men, 
did  the  youngest  manager  pass  unnoticed.  At  an  age  when  most 
of  those  who  distinguish  themselves  in  life  are  still  contending 
for  prizes  and  fellowships  at  college,  he  had  won  for  himself  a 
conspicuous  place  in  Parliament.  No  advantage  of  fortune  or 
connection  was  wanting  that  could  set  off  to  the  height  his  splen- 
did talents  and  his  unblemished  honor.  At  twenty-three  he  had 
been  thought  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  the  veteran  statesmen  who 
appeared  as  the  delegates  of  the  British  Commons,  at  the  bar  of 
the  British  nobility.  All  who  stood  at  that  bar,  save  him  alone, 
are  gone, —  culprit,  advocates,  accusers.  To  the  generation  which  is 
now  in  the  vigor  of  life,  he  is  the  sole  representative  of  a  great 
age  which  has  passed  away.  But  those  who  within  the  last  ten 
years  have  listened  with  delight,  till  the  morning  sun  shone  on 
the  tapestries  of  the  House  of  Lords,  to  the  lofty  and  animated 
eloquence  of  Charles,  Earl  Grey,  are  able  to  'form  some  estimate 
of  the  powers  of  a  race  of  men  among  whom  he  was  not  the 
foremost. 


HORATIUS 
A  LAY  MADE  ABOUT  THE  YEAR  OF  THE  CITY  CCCLX 


LARS   PORSENA    of 
By  the  Nine  Gods  he  swore 
That  the  great  house  of  Tarquin 
Should  suffer  wrong  no  more. 
By  the  Nine  Gods  he  swore  it, 
And  named  a  trysting  day, 

And  bade  his  messengers  ride  forth, 
East  and  west  and  south  and  north. 
To  summon  his  array. 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9423 

East  and  west  and  south  and  north 

The  messengers  ride  fast, 
And  tower  and  town  and  cottage 

Have  heard  the  trumpet's  blast. 
Shame  on  the  false  Etruscan 

Who  lingers  in  his  home, 
When  Porsena  of  Clusium 

Is  on  the  march  for  Rome. 

The  horsemen  and  the  footmen 

Are  pouring  in  amain 
From  many  a  stately  market-place, 

From  many  a  fruitful  plain; 
From  many  a  lonely  hamlet, 

Which,  hid  by  beech  and  pine, 
Like  an  eagle's  nest  hangs  on  the  crest 

Of  purple  Apennine; 

From  lordly  Volaterrae, 

Where  scowls  the  far-famed  hold 
Piled  by  the  hands  of  giants 

For  godlike  kings  of  old; 
From  seagirt  Populonia, 

Whose  sentinels  descry 
Sardinia's  snowy  mountain-tops 

Fringing  the  southern  sky; 

From  the  proud  mart  of  Pisee, 

Queen  of  the  western  waves, 
Where  ride  Massilia's  triremes, 

Heavy  with  fair-haired  slaves; 
From  where  sweet  Clanis  wanders 

Through  corn  and  vines  and  flowers; 
From  where  Cortona  lifts  to  heaven 

Her  diadem  of  towers. 

Tall  are  the  oaks  whose  acorns 

Drop  in  dark  Auser's  rill; 
Fat  are  the  stags  that  champ  the  boughs 

Of  the  Ciminian  hill; 
Beyond  all  streams  Clitumnus 

Is  to  the  herdsman  dear; 
Best  of  all  pools  the  fowler  loves 

The  great  Volsinian  mere. 


9424  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

But  now  no  stroke  of  woodman 

Is  heard  by  Auser's  rill; 
No  hunter  tracks  the  stag's  green  path 

Up  the  Ciminian  hill; 
Unwatched  along  Clitumnus 

Grazes  the  milk-white  steer; 
Unharmed  the  water-fowl  may  dip 

In  the  Volsinian  mere. 

The  harvests  of  Arretium, 

This  year,  old  men  shall  reap; 
This  year,  young  boys  in  Umbro 

Shall  plunge  the  struggling  sheep; 
And  in  the  vats  of  Luna, 

This  year,  the  must  shall  foam 
Round  the  white  feet  of  laughing  girls 

Whose  sires  have  marched  to. Rome, 

There  be  thirty  chosen  prophets, 

The  wisest  of  the  land, 
Who  alway  by  Lars  Porsena 

Both  morn  and  evening  stand; 
Evening  and  morn  the  Thirty 

Have  turned  the  verses  o'er, 
Traced  from  the  right  on  linen  white 

By  mighty  seers  of  yore. 

And  with  one  voice  the  Thirty 

Have  their  glad  answer  given: — 
wGo  forth,  go  forth,  Lars  Porsena  j 

Go  forth,  beloved  of  Heaven; 
Go,  and  return  in  glory 

To  Clusium's  royal  dome; 
And  hang  round  Nurscia's  altars 

The  golden  shields  of  Rome.)} 

And  now  hath  every  city 

Sent  up  her  tale  of  men; 
The  foot  are  fourscore  thousand, 

The  horse  are  thousands  ten. 
Before  the  gates  of  Sutrium 

Is  met  the  great  array: 
A  proud  man  was  Lars  Porsena 

Upon  the  trysting  day. 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9425 

For  all  the  Etruscan  armies 

Were  ranged  beneath  his  eye 
And  many  a  banished  Roman, 

And  many  a  stout  ally; 
And  with  a  mighty  following 

To  join  the  muster  came 
The  Tusculan  Mamilius, 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name. 

But  by  the  yellow  Tiber 

Was  tumult  and  affright: 
From  all  the  spacious  champaign 

To  Rome  men  took  their  flight. 
A  mile  around  the  city, 

The  throng  stopped  up  the  ways; 
A  fearful  sight  it  was  to  see 

Through  two  long  nights  and  days. 

For  aged  folks  on  crutches, 

And  women  great  with  child, 
And  mothers  sobbing  over  babes 

That  clung  to  them  and  smiled, 
And  sick  men  borne  in  litters 

High  on  the  necks  of  slaves. 
And  troops  of  sunburned  husbandmen 

With  reaping-hooks  and  staves,    . 

And  droves  of  mules  and  asses 

Laden  with  skins  of  wine, 
And  endless  flocks  of  goats  and  sheep, 

And  endless  herds  of  kine, 
And  endless  trains  of  wagons 

That  creaked  beneath  the  weight 
Of  corn  sacks  and  of  household  goods, 

Choked  every  roaring  gate. 

Now,  from  the  rock  Tarpeian, 

Could  the  wan  burghers  spy 
The  line  of  blazing  villages 

Red  in  the  midnight  sky. 
The  Fathers  of  the  City, 

They  sat  all  night  and  day, 
For  every  hour  some  horseman  came 

With  tidings  of  dismay. 


9426  THOMAS  BABINGTON   MACAULAY 

To  eastward  and  to  westward 

Have  spread  the  Tuscan  bands; 
Nor  house,  nor  fence,  nor  dovecote 

In  Crustumerium  stands. 
Verbenna  down  to  Ostia 

Hath  wasted  all  the  plain; 
Astur  hath  stormed  Janiculum, 

And  the  stout  guards  are  slain. 

Iwis,  in  all  the  Senate, 

There  was  no  heart  so  bold, 

But  sore  it  ached  and  fast  it  beat, 
When  that  ill  news  was  told. 

Forthwith  up  rose  the  Consul, 
Up  rose  the  Fathers  all; 

In  haste  they  girded  up  their  gowns, 
And  hied  them  to  the  wall. 

They  held  a  council  standing 

Before  the  River-Gate: 
Short  time  was  there,  ye  well  may  guess, 

For  musing  or  debate. 
Out  spake  the  Consul  roundly:  — 

<(  The  bridge  must  straight  go  down ; 
For  since  Janiculum  is  lost, 

Naught  else  can  save  the  town." 

Just  then  a  scout  came  flying, 

All  wild  with  haste  and  fear:  — 
<(To  arms!   to  arms!   Sir  Consul: 

Lars  Porsena  is  here." 
On  the  low  hills  to  westward 

The  Consul  fixed  his  eye, 
And  saw  the  swarthy  storm   of  dust 

Rise  fast  along  the  sky. 

And  nearer  fast  and  nearer 

Doth  the  red  whirlwind  come; 
And  louder  still  and  still  more  loud, 
From  underneath  that  rolling  cloud, 
Is  heard  the  trumpet's  war-note  proud, 

The  trampling  and  the  hum. 
And  plainly  and  more  plainly 

Now  through  the  gloom  appears, 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9427 

Far  to  left  and  far  to  right, 
In  broken  gleams  of  dark-blue  light, 
The  long  array  of  helmets  bright, 
The  long  array  of  spears. 

And  plainly  and  more  plainly, 

Above  that  glimmering  line, 
Now  might  ye  see  the  banners 

Of  twelve  fair  cities  shine; 
But  the  banner  of  proud  Clusium 

Was  highest  of  them  all, 
The  terror  of  the  Umbrian, 

The  terror  of  the  Gaul. 

And  plainly  and  more  plainly 

Now  might  the  burghers  know, 
By  port  and  vest,  by  horse  and  crest, 

Each  warlike  Lucumo. 
There  Cilnius  of  Arretium 

On  his  fleet  roan  was  seen; 
And  Astur  of  the  fourfold  shield, 
Girt  with  the  brand  none  else  may  wield, 
Tolumnius  with  the  belt  of  gold, 
And  dark  Verbenna  from  the  hold 

By  reedy  Thrasymene. 

Fast  by  the  royal  standard, 

O'erlooking  all  the  war, 
Lars  Porsena  of  Clusium 

Sat  in  his  ivory  car. 
By  the  right  wheel  rode  Mamilius, 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name; 
And  by  the  left  false  Sextus, 

That  wrought  the  deed  of  shame. 

But  when  the  face  of  Sextus 

Was  seen  among  the  foes, 
A  yell  that  rent  the  firmament 

From  all  the  town  arose. 
On  the  housetops  was  no  woman 

But  spat  towards  him  and  hissed; 
No  child  but  screamed  out  curses, 

And  shook  its  little  fist. 

But  the  Consul's  brow  was  sad, 

And  the  Consul's  speech  was  low. 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

And  darkly  looked  he  at  the  wall, 

And  darkly  at  the  foe. 
ft  Their  van  will  be  upon  us 

Before  the  bridge  goes  down; 
And  if  they  once  may  win  the  bridge, 

What  hope  to  save  the  town?" 

Then  out  spake  brave  Horatius, 

The  captain  of  the  gate:  — 
«To  every  man  upon  this  earth 

Death  cometh  soon  or  late. 
And  how  can  man  die  better 

Than  facing  fearful  odds, 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers, 

And  the  temples  of  his  gods; 

(<And  for  the  tender  mother 

Who  dandled  him  to  rest; 
And  for  the  wife  who  nurses 

His  baby  at  her  breast; 
And  for  the  holy  maidens 

Who  feed  the  eternal  flame, 
To  save  them  from  false  Sextus 

That  wrought  the  deed  of  shame? 

aHew  down  the  bridge,  Sir  Consul, 

With  all  the  speed  ye  may; 
1,  with  two  more  to  help  me, 

Will  hold  the  foe  in  play. 
In  yon  strait  path  a  thousand 

May  well  be  stopped  by  three: 
Now  who  will  stand  on  either  hand, 

And  keep  the  bridge  with  me  ? w 

Then  out  spake  Spurius  Lartius  — 

A  Ramnian  proud  was  he: 
*Lo,  I  will  stand  at  thy  right  hand. 

And  keep  the  bridge  with  thee.° 
And  out  spake  strong  Herminius  — 

Of  Titian  blood  was  he: 
<*I  will  abide  on  thy  left  side, 

And  keep  the  bridge  with  thee." 

*  Horatius, w  quoth  the  Consul, 
<(  As  thou  sayest,  so  let  it  be.w 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9429 

And  straight  against  that  great  array 

Forth  went  the  dauntless  Three. 
For  Romans  in  Rome's  quarrel 

Spared  neither  land  nor  gold, 
Nor  son  nor  wife,  nor  limb  nor  life, 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

Then  none  was  for  a  party; 

Then  all  were  for  the  State; 
Then  the  great  man  helped  the  poor, 

And  the  poor  man  loved  the  great: 
Then  lands  were  fairly  portioned; 

Then  spoils  were  fairly  sold: 
The  Romans  were  like  brothers 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

Now  Roman  is  to  Roman 

More  hateful  than  a  foe, 
And  the.  Tribunes  beard  the  high, 

And  the  Fathers  grind  the  low. 
As  we  wax  hot  in  faction, 

In  battle  we  wax  cold; 
Wherefore  men  fight  not  as  they  fought 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

Now  while  the  Three  were  tightening 

Their  harness  on  their  backs, 
The  Consul  was  the  foremost  man 

To  take  in  hand  an  axe ; 
And  Fathers  mixed  with  Commons 

Seized  hatchet,  bar,  and  crow, 
And  smote  upon  the  planks  above, 

And  loosed  the  props  below. 

Meanwhile  the  Tuscan  army, 

Right  glorious  to  behold, 
Came  flashing  back  the  noonday  light, 
Rank  behind  rank,  like  surges  bright 

Of  a  broad  sea  of  gold. 
Four  hundred  trumpets  sounded 

A  peal  of  warlike  glee, 
As  that  great  host,  with  measured  tread, 
And  spears  advanced,  and  ensigns  spread, 
Rolled  slowly  towards  the  bridge's  head, 

Where  stood  the  dauntless  Three. 


9430  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

The  Three  stood  calm  and  silent, 

And  looked  upon  the  foes, 
And  a  great  shout  of  laughter 

From  all  the  vanguard  rose: 
And  forth  three  chiefs  came  spurring 

Before  that  deep  array; 

To  earth  they  sprang,  their  swords  they  drew, 
And  lifted  high  their  shields,  and  flew 

To  win  the  narrow  way: 

Aunus  from  green  Tifernum, 

Lord  of  the  Hill  of  Vines; 
And  Seius,  whose  eight  hundred  slaves 

Sicken  in  Ilva's  mines; 
And  Picus,  long  to  Clusium 

Vassal  in  peace  and  war, 
Who  led  to  fight  his  Umbrian  powers 
From  that  gray  crag  where,  girt  with  towers, 
The  fortress  of  Nequinum  lowers 

O'er  the  pale  waves  of  Nar. 

Stout  Lartius  hurled  down  Aunus 

Into  the  stream  beneath; 
Herminius  struck  at  Seius, 

And  clove  him  to  the  teeth; 
At  Picus  brave  Horatius 

Darted  one  fiery  thrust, 
And  the  proud  Umbrian's  gilded  arms 

Clashed  in  the  bloody  dust. 

Then  Ocnus  of  Falerii 

Rushed  on  the  Roman  Three; 
And  Lausulus  of  Urgo, 

The  rover  of  the  sea; 
And  Aruns  of  Volsinium, 

Who  slew  the  great  wild  boar — 
The  great  wild  boar  that  had  his  den 
Amidst  the  reeds  of  Cosa's  fen, 
And  wasted  fields,  and  slaughtered  men, 

Along  Albinia's  shore. 

Herminius  smote  down  Aruns; 

Lartius  laid  Ocnus  low: 
Right  to  the  heart  of  Lausulus 

Horatius  sent  a  blow. 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  943  * 

aLie  there,"  he  cried,  "fell  pirate! 

No  more,  aghast  and  pale, 
From  Ostia's  walls  the  crowd  shall  mark 
The  track  of  thy  destroying  bark. 
No  more  Campania's  hinds  shall  fly 
To  woods  and  caverns  when  they  spy 

Thy  thrice  accursed  sail.® 

But  now  no  sound  of  laughter, 

Was  heard  among  the  foes; 
A  wild  and  wrathful  clamor 

From  all  the  vanguard  rose. 
Six  spears'-lengths  from  the  entrance 

Halted  that  deep  array, 
And  for  a  space  no  man  came  forth 

To  win  the  narrow  way. 

But  hark!   the  cry  is  "Astur!" 

And  lo!   the  ranks  divide; 
And  the  great  Lord  of  Luna 

Comes  with  his  stately  stride. 
Upon  his  ample  shoulders 

Clangs  loud  the  fourfold  shield, 
And  in  his  hand  he  shakes  the  brand 

Which  none  but  he  can  wield. 

He  smiled  on  those  bold  Romans 

A  smile  serene  and  high; 
He  eyed  the  flinching  Tuscans, 

And  scorn  was  in  his  eye. 
Quoth  he,  (<The  she-wolf's  litter 

Stand  savagely  at  bay; 
But  will  ye  dare  to  follow, 

If  Astur  clears  the  way?w 

Then,  whirling  up  his  broadsword 

With  both  hands  to  the  height, 
He  rushed  against  Horatius, 

And  smote  with  all  his  might. 
With  shield  and  blade  Horatius 

Right  deftly  turned  the  blow. 
The  blow,  though  turned,  came  yet  too  nigh: 
It  missed  his  helm,  but  gashed  his  thigh; 
The  Tuscans  raised  a  joyful  cry 

To  see  the  red  blood  flow. 


9432  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

He  reeled,  and  on  Herminius 

He  leaned  one  breathing-space: 
Then,  like  a  wild-cat  mad  with  wounds, 

Sprang  right  at  Astur's  face; 
Through  teeth,  and  skull,  and  helmet, 

So  fierce  a  thrust  he  sped, 
The  good  sword  stood  a  hand-breadth  out 

Behind  the  Tuscan's  head. 

And  the  great  Lord  of  Luna 

Fell  at  that  deadly  stroke, 
As  falls  on  Mount  Alvernus 

A  thunder-smitten  oak. 
Far  o'er  the  crashing  forest 

The  giant  arms  lie  spread; 
And  the  pale  augurs,  muttering  low, 

Gaze  on  the  blasted  head. 

On  Astur's  throat  Horatius 

Right  firmly  pressed  his  heel, 
And  thrice  and  four  times  tugged  amain, 

Ere  he  wrenched  out  the  steel. 
<(And  see,**  he  cried,  (<the  welcome, 

Fair  guests,  that  waits  you  here! 
What  noble  Lucumo  comes  next 

To  taste  our  Roman  cheer  ?w 

But  at  his  haughty  challenge 

A  sullen  murmur  ran, 
Mingled  of  wrath,  and  shame,  and  dread, 

Along  that  glittering  van. 
There  lacked  not  men  of  prowess, 

Nor  men  of  lordly  race; 
For  all  Etruria's  noblest 

Were  round  the  fatal  place. 

But  all  Etruria's  noblest 

Felt  their  hearts  sink  to  see 
On  the  earth  the  bloody  corpses, 

In  the  path  the  dauntless  Three: 
And  from  the  ghastly  entrance 

Where  those  bold  Romans  stood, 
All  shrank,  like  boys  who  unaware, 
Ranging  the  woods  to  start  a  hare, 
Come  to  the  mouth  of  the  dark  lair 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY  9433 

Where,   growling  low,   a  fierce  old  bear 
Lies  amidst  bones  and  blood. 

Was  none  who  would  be  foremost 

To  lead  such  dire  attack; 
But  those  behind  cried  ((  Forward ! » 

And  those  before  cried  «  Back !  » 
And  backward  now  and  forward 

Wavers  the  deep  array; 
And  on  the  tossing  sea  of  steel, 
To  and  fro  the  standards  reel; 
And  the  victorious  trumpet-peal 

Dies  fitfully  away. 

Yet  one  man  for  one  moment 

Stood  out  before  the  crowd; 
Well  known  was  he  to  all  the  Three, 

And  they  gave  him  greeting  loud: — 
<(  Now  welcome,  welcome,   Sextus! 

Now  welcome  to  thy  home ! 
"Why  dost  thou  stay,  and  turn  away? 

Here  lies  the  road  to  Rome." 

Thrice  looked  he  at  the  city; 

Thrice  looked  he  at  the  dead; 
And  thrice  came  on  in  fury, 

And  thrice  turned  back  in  dread; 
And,  white  with  fear  and  hatred, 

Scowled  at  the  narrow  way 
Where,  wallowing  in  a  pool  of  blood, 

The  bravest  Tuscans  lay. 

But  meanwhile  axe  and  lever 

Have  manfully  been  plied; 
And  now  the  bridge  hangs  tottering 

Above  the  boiling  tide. 
<(  Come  back,   come  back,   Horatius !  w 

Loud  cried  the  Fathers  all. 
(<  Back,   Lartius !  back,   Herminius ! 

Back,  ere  the  ruin  fall!" 

Back  darted  Spurius  Lartius; 

Herminius  darted  back: 
And  as  they  passed,   beneath  their  feet 

They  felt  the  timbers  crack. 


9434  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

But  when  they  turned  their  faces, 
And  on  the  farther  shore 

Saw  brave  Horatius  stand  alone, 

They  would  have  crossed  once  more 

But  with  a  crash  like  thunder 

Fell  every  loosened  beam, 
And  like  a  dam,  the  mighty  wreck 

Lay  right  athwart  the  stream: 
And  a  long  shout  of  triumph 

Rose  from  the  walls  of  Rome, 
As  to  the  highest  turret-tops 

Was  splashed  the  yellow  foam. 

And  like  a  horse  unbroken 

When  first  he  feels  the  rein, 
The  furious  river  struggled  hard, 

And  tossed  his  tawny  mane, 
And  burst  the  curb,  and  bounded, 

Rejoicing  to  be  free, 
And  whirling  down,  in  fierce  career, 

Battlement  and  plank  and  pier, 
Rushed  headlong  to  the  sea, 

Alone  stood  brave  Horatius, 

But  constant  still  in  mind; 
Thrice  thirty  thousand  foes  before, 

And  the  broad  flood  behind. 
(<  Down  with  him ! >}  cried  false  Sextus, 

With  a  smile  on  his  pale  face. 
<(Now  yield  thee,"  cried  Lars  Porsena, 

ttNow  yield  thee  to  our  grace. >J 

Round  turned  he,  as  not  deigning 

Those  craven  ranks  to  see; 
Naught  spake  he  to  Lars  Porsena, 

To  Sextus  naught  spake  he: 
But  he  saw  on  Palatinus 

The  white  porch  of  his  home; 
And  he  spake  to  the  noble  river 

That  rolls  by  the  towers  of  Rome. 

«O  Tiber!   father  Tiber! 

To  whom  the  Romans  pray; 
A  Roman's  life,  a  Roman's  arms 

Take  thou  in  charge  this  day!w 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY  9435 

So  he  spake,  and  speaking  sheathed 

The  good  sword  by  his  side, 
And  with  his  harness  on  his  back, 

Plunged  headlong  in  the  tide. 

No  sound  of  joy  or  sorrow 

Was  heard  from  either  bank; 
But  friends  and  foes,  in  dumb  surprise, 
With  parted  lips  and  straining  eyes, 

Stood  gazing  where  he  sank; 
And  when  above  the  surges 

They  saw  his  crest  appear, 
All  Rome  sent  forth  a  rapturous  cry, 
And  even  the  ranks  of  Tuscany 

Could  scarce  forbear  to  cheer. 

But  fiercely  ran  the  current, 

Swollen  high  by  months  of  rain: 
And  fast  his  blood  was  flowing; 

And  he  was  sore  in  pain, 
And  heavy  with  his  armor, 

And  spent  with  changing  blows: 
And  oft  they  thought  him  sinking, 

But  still  again  he  rose. 

Never,  I  ween,  did  swimmer, 

In  such  an  evil  case, 
Struggle  through  such  a  raging  flood 

Safe  to  the  landing-place; 
But  his  limbs  were  borne  up  bravely 

By  the  brave  heart  within, 
And  our  good  father  Tiber 

Bore  bravely  up  his  chin. 

"Curse  on  him!"  quoth  false  Sextus; 

(<  Will  not  the  villain  drown  ? 
But  for  this  stay;  ere  close  of  day 

We  should  have  sacked  the  town !  * 
(<  Heaven  help  him ! }>  quoth  Lars  Porsena, 

<(And  bring  him  safe  to  shore; 
For  such  a  gallant  feat  of  arms 

Was  never  seen  before." 

And  now  he  feels  the  bottom; 

Now  on  dry  earth  he  stands; 
Now  round  him  throng  the  Fathers 

To  press  his  gory  hands; 


9436  THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAT 

And  now,  with  shouts  and  clapping, 
And  noise  of  weeping  loud, 

He  enters  through  the  River-Gate, 
Borne  by  the  joyous  crowd. 

They  gave  him  of  the  corn-land, 

That  was  of  public  right, 
As  much  as  two  strong  oxen 

Could  plow  from  morn  till  night; 
And  they  made  a  molten  image, 

And  set  it  up  on  high, 
And  there  it  stands  unto  this  day 

To  witness  if  I  lie. 

It  stands  in  the  Comitium, 

Plain  for  all  folk  to  see, —  • 

Horatius  in  his  harness, 

Halting  upon  one  knee; 
And  underneath  is  written, 

In  letters  all  of  gold, 
How  valiantly  he  kept  the  bridge 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

And  still  his  name  sounds  stirring 

Unto  the  men  of  Rome, 
As  the  trumpet-blast  that  cries  to  them 

To  charge  the  Volscian  home; 
And  wives  still  pray  to  Juno 

For  boys  with  hearts  as  bold 
As  his  who  kept  the  bridge  so  well 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

And  in  the  nights  of  winter, 

When  the  cold  north  winds  blow, 
And  the  long  howling  of  the  wolves 

Is  heard  amidst  the  snow; 
When  round  the  lonely  cottage 

Roars  loud  the  tempest's  din, 
And  the  good  logs  of  Algidus 

Roar  louder  yet  within; 

When  the  oldest  cask  is  opened, 
And  the  largest  lamp  is  lit; 

When  the  chestnuts  glow  in  the  embers, 
And  the  kid  turns  on  the  spit; 

When  young  and  old  in  circle 
Around  the  firebrands  close; 


THOMAS  BABINGTCJN  MACAULAY  9437 

When  the  girls  are  weaving  baskets, 
And  the  lads  are  shaping  bows; 

When  the  goodman  mends  his  armor, 

And  trims  his  helmet's  plume; 
When  the  goodwife's  shuttle  merrily 

Goes  flashing  through  the  loom; — 
With  weeping  and  with  laughter 

Still  is  the  story  told, 
How  well  Horatius  kept  the  bridge 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 


THE   BATTLE   OF  IVRY 

[Henry  the  Fourth,  on  his  accession  to  the  French  crown,  was  opposed  by 
a  large  part  of  his  subjects  under  the  Duke  of  Mayenne,  with  the  assistance 
of  Spain  and  Savoy.  In  March  1590  he  gained  a  decisive  victory  over  that 
party  at  Ivry.  Before  the  battle,  he  addressed  his  troops  —  «My  children,  if 
you  lose  sight  of  your  colors,  rally  to  my  white  plume:  you  will  always  find 
it  in  the  path  to  honor  and  glory. w  His  conduct  was  answerable  to  his  prom- 
ise. Nothing  could  resist  his  impetuous  valor,  and  the  Leaguers  underwent  a 
total  and  bloody  defeat.  In  the  midst  of  the  rout,  Henry  followed,  crying, 
«Save  the  French !»  and  his  clemency  added  a  number  of  the  enemies  to  his 
own  army.] 

Now  glory  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  from  whom  all  glories  are! 
And  glory  to  our  Sovereign  liege,  King  Henry  of  Navarre! 
Now  let  there  be  the  merry  sound  of  music  and  the  dance, 
Through   thy  cornfields  green    and    sunny   vines,  O   pleasant   land   of 

France ! 

And  thou,  Rochelle,  our  own  Rochelle,  proud  city  of  the  waters, 
Again  let  rapture  light  the  eyes  of  all  thy  mourning  daughters. 
As  thou  wert  constant  in  our  ills,  be  joyous  in  our  joy, 
For  cold,  and  stiff,  and  still  are  they  who  wrought  thy  walls  annoy. 
Hurrah!  hurrah!   a  single  field  hath  turned  the  chance  of  war; 
Hurrah!  hurrah!   for  Ivry,  and  King  Henry  of  Navarre! 

Oh,  how  our  hearts  were  beating,  when,  at  the  dawn  of  day, 
We  saw  the  army  of  the  League  drawn  out  in  long  array, 
With  all  its  priest-led  citizens,  and  all  its  rebel  peers, 
And  Appenzell's  stout  infantry,  and  Egmont's  Flemish  spears. 
There  rode  the  brood  of  false  Lorraine,  the  curses  of  our  land ; 
And  dark  Mayenne  was  in  the  midst,  a  truncheon  in  his  hand: 
And  as  we  looked  on  them,  we  thought  of  Seine's  empurpled  flood, 
And  good  Coligny's  hoary  hair  all  dabbled  with  his  blood; 


9438 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY 


And  we  cried  unto  the  living  God,  who  rules  the  fate  of  war, 
To  fight  for  his  own  holy  name  and  Henry  of  Navarre. 

The  King  is  come  to  marshal  us,  in  all  his  armor  drest, 

And  he  has  bound  a  snow-white  plume  upon  his  gallant  crest; 

He  looked  upon  his  people,  and  a  tear  was  in  his  eye; 

He  looked  upon  the  traitors,  and  his  glance  was  stern  and  high. 

Right  graciously  he  smiled  on  us,  as  rolled  from  wing  to  wing, 

Down  all  our  line,  in  deafening  shout,  <(  God  save  our  lord,  the  King!* 

(<And  if  my  standard-bearer  fall,  as  fall  full  well  he  may, — 

For  never  saw  I  promise  yet  of  such  a  bloody  fray, — 

Press  where  ye  see  my  white  plume  shine,  amidst  the  ranks  of  war. 

And  be  your  oriflamme  to-day  the  helmet  of  Navarre. w 

Hurrah!  the  foes  are  moving.     Hark  to  the  mingled  din 

Of  fife,  and  steed,  and  trump,  and  drum,  and  roaring  culverin! 

The  fiery  Duke  is  pricking  fast  across  St.  Andre's  plain, 

With  all  the  hireling  chivalry  of  Guelders  and  Almayne. 

Now  by  the  lips  of  those  ye  love,  fair  gentlemen  of  France. 

Charge  for  the  golden  lilies  now — upon  them  with  the  lance! 

A  thousand  spurs  are  striking  deep,  a  thousand  spears  in  rest, 

A  thousand  knights  are  pressing  close  behind  the  snow-white  crest; 

And  in  they  burst,  and  on  they  rushed,  while,  like  a  guiding  star, 

Amidst  the  thickest  carnage  blazed  the  helmet  of  Navarre. 

Now,  God  be  praised,  the  day  is  ours !    Mayenne  hath  turned  his  rein , 
D'Aumale  hath  cried  for  quarter;  the  Flemish  Count  is  slain; 
Their  ranks  are  breaking  like,  thin  clouds  before  a  Biscay  gale; 
The  field  is  heaped  with  bleeding  steeds,  and  flags  and  cloven  mail. 
And  then  we  thought  on  vengeance,  and  all  along  our  van, 
« Remember  St.  Bartholomew, »  was  passed  from  man  to  man: 
But  out  spake  gentle  Henry  then,  (<No  Frenchman  is  my  foe; 
Down,  down  with  every  foreigner,  but  let  your  brethren  go.* 
Oh!   was  there  ever  such  a  knight  in  friendship  or  in  war, 
As  our  sovereign  lord,  King  Henry,  the  soldier  of  Navarre! 

Right  well   fought  all  the   Frenchmen   who   fought   for  France   that 

day; 

And  many  a  lordly  banner  God  gave  them  for  a  prey. 
But  we  of  the  Religion  have  borne  us  best  in  fight, 
And  our  good  lord  of  Rosny  hath  ta'en  the  cornet  white. 
Our  own  true  Maximilian  the  cornet  white  hath  ta'en  — 
The  cornet  white  with  crosses  black,  the  flag  of  false  Lorraine. 
Up  with  it  high;   unfurl  it  wide,  that  all  the  world  may  know 
How  God  hath   humbled   the   proud   house   that  wrought  his  Church 

such  woe. 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 

Then  on  the  ground,  while  trumpets  peal  their  loudest  point  of  war, 
Fling  the  red  shreds,  a  foot-cloth  meet  for  Henry  of  Navarre. 

Ho,  maidens  of  Vienna!  ho,  matrons  of  Luzerne! 

Weep,  weep,  and  rend  your  hair  for  those  who  never  shall  return. 

Ho!   Philip,  send  for  charity  thy  Mexican  pistoles, 

That  Antwerp  monks  may  sing  a  mass  for  thy  poor  spearmen's  souls. 

Ho!  gallant  nobles  of  the  League,  look  that  your  arms  be  bright; 

Ho!  burghers  of  St.  Genevieve,  keep  watch  and  ward  to-night: 

For  our  God  hath  crushed  the  tyrant,  our  God  hath  raised  the  slave. 

And  mocked  the  counsel  of  the  wise  and  valor  of  the  brave. 

Then  glory  to  his  holy  name,  from  whom  all  glories  are; 

And  glory  to  our  sovereign  lord,  King  Henry  of  Navarre! 


944° 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

( 1830-1912) 

JLTHOUGH  Justin  McCarthy  was  not  without  reputation  as  a  Home 
Rule  politician,  he  was  primarily  a  literary  man ;  his  adventures 
into  the  fields  of  history  and  fiction  having  preceded  his 
Parliamentary  career.  He  was  perhaps  a  novel  writer  rather  than  a 
historian  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  His  histories  are  clever 
and  astute  accounts  of  comparatively  recent  events,  but  bear  little 
evidence  of  the  patient  scholarship,  the  critical  research,  which  are 
characteristic  of  modern  historical  scholarship.  Yet  the  ( History  of 

Our     Own-   Times,)     (The    Story    of    Glad- 
stone's  Life,)    (The  Reign  of  Queen  Anne,) 
the    <Four    Georges,*    and    the    <  Epoch    of 
Reform,  >    are    not    without    the    value    and 
interest  attached  to  the  writings  of  a  man 
of  affairs  whose  dramatic-  sense  is  well  de- 
veloped.     Mr.   McCarthy  wrote  of  the   first 
Reform  Bill,   of  Lord  Grey,   of  Lord   Palm- 
erston,   of  Disraeli,  of  Gladstone,    of  Home 
Rule  politics,  in  the  spirit  of  one  who  had 
been  in  the  swing  of  the  movements  which 
he  described,  and  who  had  known  his  heroes 
in  person  or  by    near    repute.     Mr.   McCar- 
thy's talents  as  a  novelist  were  of  use  to  him 
as  a  historian.     He  was  quick  to  grasp  the 
salient   features   of   character,  and   he   was   sensitive   to   the  dramatic 
elements   in   individuality.      His  <Leo  XIII., >  and  his  ( Modern    Lead- 
ers, y    a    series    of   biographical    sketches,   are    successful    portraits    of 
their  kind.      That   Mr.  McCarthy   did   not  always   see   below  the  sur- 
face in  his  estimates  of  famous  contemporaries  detracts  little  from  the 
picturesque  character  of  his  biographies.     He  is  capable  of  giving  to 
his  reader  in  a  sentence   or  two  a  vivid   if  general   impression   of  a 
personality  or  of  a  literary  work ;   as  when  he  says   that   « Charlotte 
Bronte  was  all  genius  and  ignorance,  and  George  Eliot  is  all  genius 
and  culture }) ;  or  when  he  says  of  Carlyle's  ( French  Revolution  >  that 
it  is  <(  history  read  by  lightning. » 

Justin  McCarthy  was  a  clever  journalist  as  well  as  a  writer  of  fic- 
tion and  history.  Born  at  Cork  in  1830,  he  connected  himself  with 
the  Liverpool  press  in  1853,  and  in  1860  became  a  member  of  the 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY  9441 

staff  of  the  Morning  Star.  In  1864  he  became  chief  editor.  His 
newspaper  experience  had  more  than  a  little  influence  upon  his  style 
and  methods  of  literary  composition,  as  his  political  knowledge  aided 
him  in  his  treatment  of  historical  subjects.  For  twenty  years  he 
was  a  Home  Rule  M.P.,  being  first  elected  in  1879.  After  that  year, 
many  of  his  novels  were  produced.  They  show  the  quick  observa- 
tion of  the  man'  of  newspaper  training,  and  his  talents  as  a  ready 
and  clever  writer.  Mr.  McCarthy's  novels,  like  his  histories  and 
biographies,  are  concerned  mainly  with  the  England  of  his  own  day. 
Occasionally  the  plot  is  worked  out  against  the  background  of  Par- 
liamentary life,  as  in  (The  Ladies'  Gallery  >  and  <The  Right  Honor- 
able^ Among  his  other  novels  —  for  he  wrote  a  great  number — 
are  (Miss  Misanthrope,*  (A  Fair  Saxon,*  <Lady  Judith,'  'Dear  Lady 
Disdain, }  <The  Maid  of  Athens, J  and  <Paul  Massie.*  Mr.  McCarthy's 
style  is  crisp,  straightforward,  and  for  the  most  part  entertaining.  His 
last  years  were  given  to  a  series  of  autobiographical  works — (Re- 
miniscences) (1899),  (The  Story  of  An  Irishman)  (1904),  (Irish  Recollec- 
tions) (1911) —  containing  valuable  information  about  contemporary 
political  history. 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD  — LONG  LIVE  THE  QUEEN 
From  (A  History  of  Our  Own  Times  * 

BEFORE  half-past  two  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  June  2oth, 
1837,  William  IV.  was  lying  dead  in  Windsor  Castle,  while 
the  messengers  were  already  hurrying  off  to  Kensington 
Palace  to  bear  to  his  successor  her  summons  to  the  throne.  The 
illness  of  the  King  had  been  but  short,  and  at  one  time,  even 
after  it  had  been  pronounced  alarming,  it  seemed  to  take  so 
hopeful  a  turn  that  the  physicians  began  to  think  it  would  pass 
harmlessly  away.  But  the  King  was  an  old  man — was  an  old 
man  even  when  he  came  to  the  throne;  and  when  the  dangerous 
symptoms  again  exhibited  themselves,  their  warning-  was  very 
soon  followed  by  fulfillment.  The  death  of  King  William  may 
be  fairly  regarded  as  having  closed  an  era  of  our  history.  With 
him,  we  may  believe,  ended  the  reign  of  personal  government 
in  England.  William  was  indeed  a  constitutional  king  in  more 
than  mere  name.  He  was  to  the  best  of  his  lights  a  faithful 
representative  of  the  constitutional  principle.  He  was  as  far  in 
advance  of  his  two  predecessors  in  understanding  and  acceptance 
of  the  principle  as  his  successor  has  proved  herself  beyond  him. 
Constitutional  government  has  developed  itself  gradually,  as 


9442  JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

everything  else  has  done  in  English  politics.  The  written  prin- 
ciple and  code  of  its  system  it  would  be  as  vain  to  look  for  as 
for  the  British  Constitution  itself.  King  William  still  held  to 
and  exercised  the  right  to  dismiss  his  ministers  ^hen  he  pleased, 
and  because  he  pleased.  His  father  had  held  to  the  right  of 
maintaining  favorite  ministers  in  defiance  of  repeated  votes  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  any 
written  rule  or  declaration  of  constitutional  law  pronouncing  deci- 
sively that  either  was  in  the  wrong.  But  in  our  day  we  should 
believe  that  the  constitutional  freedom  of  England  was  outraged, 
or  at  least  put  in  the  extremest  danger,  if  a  sovereign  were  to 
dismiss  a  ministry  at  mere  pleasure,  or  to  retain  it  in  despite  of 
the  expressed  wish  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Virtually  there- 
fore there  was  still  personal  government  in  the  reign  of  William 
IV.  With  his  death  the  long  chapter  of  its  history  came  to  an 
end.  We  find  it  difficult  now  to  believe  that  it  was  a  living 
principle,  openly  at  work  among  us,  if  not  openly  acknowledged, 
so  lately  as  in  the  reign  of  King  William. 

The  closing  scenes  of  King  William's  life  were  undoubtedly 
characterized  by  some  personal  dignity.  As  a  rule,  sovereigns 
show  that  they  know  how  to  die.  Perhaps  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  their  training,  by  virtue  of  which  they  come  to  regard 
themselves  always  as  the  central  figures  in  great  State  pageantry, 
is  to  make  them  assume  a  manner  of  dignity  on  all  occasions 
when  the  eyes  of  their  subjects  may  be  supposed  to  be  on 
them,  even  if  dignity  of  bearing  is  not  the  free  gift  of  nature. 
The  manners  of  William  IV.  had. been,  like  those  of  most  of  his 
brothers,  somewhat  rough  and  overbearing.  He  had  been  an 
unmanageable  naval  officer.  He  had  again  and  again  disregarded 
or  disobeyed  orders;  and  at  last  it  had  been  found  convenient  to 
withdraw  him  from  active  service  altogether,  and  allow  him  to 
rise  through  the  successive  ranks  of  his  profession  by  a  merely 
formal  and  technical  process  of  ascent.  In  his  more  private 
capacity  he  had,  when  younger,  indulged  more  than  once  in  un- 
seemly and  insufferable  freaks  of  temper.  He  had  made  himself 
unpopular,  while  Duke  of  Clarence,  by  his  strenuous  opposition 
to  some  of  the  measures  which  were  especially  desired  by  all  the 
enlightenment  of  the  country.  He  was,  for  example,  a  deter- 
mined opponent  of  the  measures  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade.  He  had  wrangled  publicly  in  open  debate  with  some  ot 
his  brothers  in  the  House  of  Lords;  and  words  had  been  inter- 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY  9443 

changed  among  the  royal  princes  which  could  not  be  heard  in 
our  day  even  in  the  hottest  debates  of  the  more  turbulent  House 
of  Commons.  But  William  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  men 
whom  increased  responsibility  improves.  He  was  far  better  as  a 
king  than  as  a  prince.  He  proved  that  he  was  able  at  least  to 
understand  that  first  duty  of  a  constitutional  sovereign,  which  to 
the  last  day  of  his  active  life  his  father,  George  III.,  never  could 
be  brought  to  comprehend, — that  the  personal  predilections  and 
prejudices  of  the  king  must  sometimes  give  way  to  the  public 
interest. 

Nothing  perhaps  in  life  became  him  like  the  leaving  of  it. 
His  closing  days  were  marked  by  gentleness  and  kindly  consid* 
eration  for  the  feelings  of  those  around  him.  When,  he  awoke 
on  June  i8th  he  remembered  that  it  was  the  anniversary  of  the 
Battle  of  Waterloo.  He  expressed  a  strong,  pathetic  wish  to  live 
over  that  day,  even  if  he  were  never  to  see  another  sunset.  He 
called  for  the  flag  which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  always  sent  him 
on  that  anniversary;  and  he  laid  his  hand  upon  the  eagle  which 
adorned  it,  and  said  he  felt  revived  by  the  touch.  He  had  him- 
self attended  since  his  accession  the  Waterloo  banquet;  but  this 
time  the  Duke  of  Wellington  thought  it  would  perhaps  be  more 
seemly  to  have  the  dinner  put  off,  and  sent  accordingly  to  take 
the  wishes  of  his  Majesty.  The  King  declared  that  the  dinner 
must  go  on  as  usual;  and  sent  to  the  Duke  a  friendly,  simple 
message,  expressing  his  hope  that  the  guests  might  have  a  pleas- 
ant day.  He  talked  in  his  homely  way  to  those  about  him,  his 
direct  language  seeming  to  acquire  a  sort  of  tragic  dignity  from 
the  approach  of  the  death  that  was  so  near.  He  had  prayers 
read  to  him  again  and  again,  and  called  those  near  him  to  wit- 
ness that  he  had  always  been  a  faithful  believer  in  the  truths  of 
religion.  He  had  his  dispatch-boxes  brought  to  him,  and  tried 
to  get  through  some  business  with  his  private  secretary.  It  was 
remarked  with  some  interest  that  the  last  official  act  he  ever 
performed  was  to  sign  with  his  trembling  hand  the  pardon  of  a 
condemned  criminal.  Even  a  far  nobler  reign  than  his  would 
have  received  new  dignity  if  it  closed  with  a  deed  of  mercy. 
When  some  of  those  around  him  endeavored  to  encourage  him 
with  the  idea  that  he  might  recover  and  live  many  years  yet,  he 
declared  with  a  simplicity  which  had  something  oddly  pathetic  in 
it  that  he  would  be  willing  to  live  ten  years  yet  for  the  sake  of 
the  country.  The  poor  King  was  evidently  under  the  sincere 


9444  JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

conviction  that  England  could  hardly  get  on  without  him.  His 
consideration  for  his  country,  whatever  whimsical  thoughts  it 
may  suggest,  is  entitled  to  some  at  least  of  the  respect  which 
we  give  to  the  dying  groan  of  a  Pitt  or  a  Mirabeau,  who  fears 
with  too  much  reason  that  he  leaves  a  blank  not  easily  to  be 
filled.  (<  Young  royal  tarry-breeks, w  William  had  been  jocularly 
called  by  Robert  Burns  fifty  years  before,  when  there  was  yet  a 
popular  belief  that  he  would  come  all  right  and  do  brilliant  and 
gallant  things,  and  become  a  stout  sailor  in  whom  a  seafaring 
nation  might  feel  pride.  He  disappointed  all  such  expectations; 
but  it  must  be  owned  that  when  responsibility  came  upon  hirr* 
he  disappointed  expectation  anew  in  a  different  way,  and  'was  a 
better  sovereign,  more  deserving  of  the  complimentary  title  of 
patriot-king,  than  even  his  friends  would  have  ventured  to  antici- 
pate. 

There  were  eulogies  pronounced  upon  him  after  his  death, 
in  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  not 
necessary,  however,  to  set  down  to  mere  court  homage  or  parlia- 
mentary form  some  of  the  praises  that  were  bestowed  upon  the 
dead  King  by  Lord  Melbourne  and  Lord  Brougham  and  Lord 
Grey.  A  certain  tone  of  sincerity,  not  quite  free  perhaps  from 
surprise,  appears  to  run  through  some  of  these  expressions  of 
admiration.  They  seem  to  say  that  the  speakers  were  at  one 
time  or  another  considerably  surprised  to  find  that  after  all,  Will- 
iam really  was  able  and  willing-  on  grave  occasions  to  subordi- 
nate his  personal  likings  and  dislikings  to  considerations  of  State 
policy,  and  to  what  was  shown  to  him  to  be  for  the  good  of  the 
nation.  In  this  sense  at  least  he  may  be  called  a  patriot-king. 
We  have  advanced  a  good  deal  since  that  time,  and  we  require 
somewhat  higher  and  more  positive  qualities  in  a  sovereign  now 
to  excite  our  political  wonder.  But  we  must  judge  William  by 
the  reigns  that  went  before,  and  not  the  reign  that  came  after 
him;  and  with  that  consideration  borne  in  mind,  we  may  accept 
the  panegyric  of  Lord  Melbourne  and  of  Lord  Grey,  and  admit 
that  on  the  whole  he  was  better  than  his  education,  his  early 
opportunities,  and  his  early  promise. 

William  IV.  (third  son  of  George  III.)  had  left  no  children 
who  could  have  succeeded  to  the  throne;  and  the  crown  passed 
therefore  to  the  daughter  of  his  brother  (fourth  son  of  George), 
the  Duke  of  Kent.  This  was  the  Princess  Alexandrina  Victoria, 
who  was  born  at  Kensington  Palace  on  May  24th,  1819.  The 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

princess  was  therefore  at  this  time  little  more  than  eighteen  years 
of  age.  The  Duke  of  Kent  died  a  few  months  after  the  birth  of 
his  daughter,  and  the  child  was  brought  up  under  the  care  of 
his  widow.  She  was  well  brought  up:  both  as  regards  her  intel- 
lect and  her  character  her  training  was  excellent.  She  was  taught 
to  be  self-reliant,  brave,  and  systematical.  Prudence  and  economy 
were  inculcated  on  her  as  though  she  had  been  born  to  be  poor. 
One  is  not  generally  inclined  to  attach  much  importance  to  what 
historians  tell  us  of  the  education  of  contemporary  princes  or 
princesses;  but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  Princess  Victoria 
was  trained  for  intelligence  and  goodness. 

<(  The  death  of  the  King  of  England  has  everywhere  caused  the 
greatest  sensation.  ...  Cousin  Victoria  is  said  to  have  shown 
'astonishing  self-possession.  She  undertakes  a  heavy  responsi- 
bility, especially  at  the  present  moment,  when  parties  are  so 
excited,  and  all  rest  their  hopes  on  her."  These  words  are  an 
extract  from  a  letter  written  on  July  4th,  1837,  by  the  late  Prince 
Albert,  the  Prince  Consort  of  so  many  happy  years.  The  letter 
was  written  to  the  Prince's  father,  from  Bonn.  The  young  Queen 
had  indeed  behaved  with  remarkable  self-possession.  There  is  a 
pretty  description,  which  has  been  often  quoted,  but  will  bear 
citing  once  more,  given  by  Miss  Wynn,  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  young  sovereign  received  the  news  of  her  accession  to  a 
throne.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Dr.  Howley,  and  the 
Lord  Chamberlain,  the  Marquis  of  Conyngham,  left  Windsor  for 
Kensington  Palace,  where  the  Princess  Victoria  had  been  resid- 
ing, to  inform  her  of  the  King's  death.  It  was  two  hours  after 
midnight  when  they  started,  and  they  did  not  reach  Kensington 
until  five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  (<They  knocked,  they  rang> 
they  thumped  for  a  considerable  time  before  they  could  rouse  the 
porter  at  the  gate;  they  were  again  kept  waiting  in  the  court- 
yard, then  turned  into  one  of  the  lower  rooms,  where  they  seemed 
forgotten  by  everybody.  They  rang  the  bell,  and  desired  that 
the  attendant  of  the  Princess  Victoria  might  be  sent  to  inform 
her  Royal  Highness  that  they  requested  an  audience  on  busi- 
ness of  importance.  After  another  delay,  and  another  ringing  to 
inquire  the  cause,  the  attendant-  was  summoned,  who  stated  that 
the  princess  was  in  such  a  sweet  sleep  that  she  could  not  venture 
to  disturb  her.  Then  they  said,  <  We  are  come  on  business  of 
State  to  the  Queen,  and  even  her  sleep  must  give  way  to  that.' 
It  did;  and  to  prove  that  she  did  not  keep  them  waiting,  in  a 


9446  JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

few  minutes  she  came  into  the  room  in  a  loose  white  nightgown 
and  shawl,  her  nightcap  thrown  off,  and  her  hair  falling  upon  her 
shoulders,  her  feet  in  slippers,  tears  in  her  eyes,  but  perfectly 
collected  and  dignified."  The  Prime  Minister,  Lord  Melbourne, 
was  presently  sent  for,  and  a  meeting  of  the  Privy  Council  sum- 
moned for  eleven  o'clock;  when  the  Lord  Chancellor  administered 
the  usual  oaths  to  the  Queen,  and  Her  Majesty  received  in  re- 
turn the  oaths  of  allegiance  of  the  Cabinet  ministers  and  other 
privy  councillors  present.  Mr.  Greville,  who  was  usually  as  little 
disposed  to  record  any  enthusiastic  admiration  of  royalty  and 
royal  personages  as  Humboldt  or  Varnhagen  von  Ense  could  have 
been,  has  described  the  scene  in  words  well  worthy  of  quotation. 

<(The  King  died  at  twenty  minutes  after  two  yesterday  morning, 
and  the  young  Queen  met  the  Council  at  Kensington  Palace  at 
eleven.  Never  was  anything  like  the  first  impression  she.  produced, 
or  the  chorus  of  praise  and  admiration  which  is  raised  about  her 
manner  and  behavior,  and  certainly  not  without  justice.  It  was 
very  extraordinary,  and  something  far  beyond  what  was  looked  for. 
Her  extreme  youth  and  inexperience,  and  the  ignorance  of  the  world 
concerning  her,  naturally  excited  intense  curiosity  to  see  how  she 
would  act  on  this  trying  occasion,  and  there  was  a  considerable 
assemblage  at  the  palace,  notwithstanding  the  short  notice  which 
was  given.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  teach  her  her  lesson, 
which,  for  this  purpose,  Melbourne  had  himself  to  learn.  .  .  .  She 
bowed  to  the  lords,  took  her  seat,  and  then  read  her  speech  in  a 
clear,  distinct,  and  audible  voice,  and  without  any  appearance  of  fear 
or  embarrassment.  She  was  quite  plainly  dressed,  arid  in  mourning. 
After  she  had  read  her  speech,  and  taken  and  signed  the  oath  for 
the  security  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  the  privy  councillors  were 
sworn,  the  two  royal  dukes  first  by  themselves;  and  as  these  two 
old  men,  her  uncles,  knelt  before  her,  swearing  allegiance  and  kissing 
her  hand,  I  saw  her  blush  up  to  the  eyes,  as  if  she  felt  the  contrast 
between  their  civil  and  their  natural  relations, — and  this  was  the  only 
sign  of  emotion  which  she  evinced.  Her  manner  to  them  was  very 
graceful  and  engaging;  she  kissed  them  both,  and  rose  from  her 
chair  and  moved  towards  the  Duke  of  Sussex,  who  was  farthest  from 
her,  and  too  infirm  to  reach  her.  She  seemed  rather  bewildered 
at  the  multitude  of  men  who  were  sworn,  and  who  came,  one  after 
another,  to  kiss  her  hand,  but  she  did  not  speak  to  anybody,  nor  did 
she  make  the  slightest  difference  in  her  manner,  or  show  any  in 
her  countenance,  to  any  individual  of  any  rank,  station,  or  party.  1 
particularly  watched  her  when  Melbourne  and  the  ministers,  and  tha 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY  9447 

Duke  of  Wellington  and  Peel,  approached  her.  She  went  through 
the  whole  ceremony,  occasionally  looking  at  Melbourne  for  instruction 
when  she  had  any  doubt  what  to  do, — which  hardly  ever  occurred, — 
and  with  perfect  calmness  and  self-possession,  but  at  the  same  time 
with  a  graceful  modesty  and  propriety  particularly  interesting  and 
ingratiating." 

Sir  Robert  Peel  told  Mr.  Greville  that  he  was  amazed  ((at  her 
manner  and  behavior,  at  her  apparent  deep  sense  of  her  situa- 
tion, and  at  the  same  time  her  firmness."  The  Duke  of  Welling, 
ton  said  in  his  blunt  way  that  if  she  had  been  his  own  daughter 
he  could  not  have  desired  to  see  her  perform  her  part  better, 
<(At  twelve,"  says  Mr,  Greville,  <(  she  held  a  Council,  at  which 
she  presided  with  as  much  ease  as  if  she  had  been  doing  nothing 
else  all  her  life;  and  though  Lord  Lansdowne  and  my  colleague 
had  contrived  between  them  to  make  some  confusion  with  the 
Council  papers,  she  was  not  put  out  by  it.  She  looked  very  well ; 
and  though  so  small  in  stature,  and  without  much  pretension  to 
beauty,  the  gracefulness  of  her  manner  and  the  good  expression 
of  her  countenance  give  her  on  the  whole  a  very  agreeable  ap- 
pearance, and  with  her  youth  inspire  an  excessive  interest  in  all 
who  approach  her,  and  which  I  can't  help  feeling  myself.  .  .  . 
In  short,  she  appears  to  act  with  every  sort  of  good  taste  and 
good  feeling,  as  well  as  good  sense;  and  as  far  as  it  has  gone, 
nothing  can  be  more  favorable  than  the  impression  she  has 
made,  and  nothing  can  promise  better  than  her  manner  and  con- 
duct do;  though,"  Mr.  Greville  somewhat  superfluously  adds,  ((it 
would  be  rash  to  count  too  confidently  upon  her  judgment  and 
discretion  in  more  weighty  matters." 

The  interest  or  curiosity  with  which  the  demeanor  of  the 
young  Queen  was  watched  was  all  the  keener  because  the  world 
in  general  knew  so  little  about  her.  Not  merely  was  the  world 
in  general  thus  ignorant,  but  even  the  statesmen  and  officials  in 
closest  communication  with  court  circles  were  in  almost  absolute 
ignorance.  According  to  Mr.  Greville  (whose  authority,  however, 
is  not  to  be  taken  too  implicitly  except  as  to  matters  which  he 
actually  saw),  the  young  Queen  had  been  previously  kept  in  such 
seclusion  by  her  mother — "never,"  he  says,  ft having  slept  out 
of  her  bedroom,  nor  been  alone  with  anybody  but  herself  and 
the  Baroness  Lehzen" —  that  (<not  one  of  her  acquaintances,  none 
of  the  attendants  at  Kensington,  not  even  the  Duchess  of  North- 
umberland, her  governess,  have  any  idea  what  she  is  or  what 


9443  JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

she  promises  to  be."  There  was  enough  in  the  court  of  the  two 
sovereigns  who  went  before  Queen  Victoria  to  justify  any  strict- 
ness of  seclusion  which  the  Duchess  of  Kent  might  desire  for 
her  daughter.  George  IV.  was  a  Charles  II.  without  the  edu- 
cation or  the  talents;  William  IV.  was  a  Frederick  William  of 
Prussia  without  the  genius.  The  ordinary  manners  of  the  society 
at  the  court  of  either  had  a  full  flavor,  to  put  it  in  the  softest 
way,  such  as  a  decent  tap-room  would  hardly  exhibit  in  a  time 
like  the  present.  No  one  can  read  even  the  most  favorable 
descriptions  given  by  contemporaries  of  the  manners  of  those 
two  courts,  without  feeling  grateful  to  the  Duchess  of  Kent  for 
resolving  that  her  daughter  should  see  as  little  as  possible  of 
their  ways  and  their  company. 

It  was  remarked  with  some  interest  that  the  Queen  sub- 
scribed herself  simply  "Victoria,"  and  not,  as  had  been  expected, 
C( Alexandrina  Victoria. })  Mr.  Greville  mentions  in '  his  diary  of 
December  24th,  1819,  that  <(the  Duke  of  Kent  gave  the  name 
of  Alexandrina  to  his  daughter  in  compliment  to  the  Emperor  of 
Russia.  She  was  to  have  had  the  name  of  Georgiana,  but  the 
duke  insisted  upon  Alexandrina  being  her  first  name.  The  Regent 
sent  for  Lieven  [the  Russian  ambassador,  husband  of  the  famous 
Princess  de  Lieven],  and  made  him  a  great  many  compliments, 
en  le  persiflant,  on  the  Emperor's  being  godfather;  but  informed 
him  that  the  name  of  Georgiana  could  be  second  to  no  other  in 
this  country,  and  therefore  she  could  not  bear  it  at  all.®  It  was 
a  very  wise  choice  to  employ  simply  the  name  Victoria,  around 
which  no  tmgenial  associations  of  any  kind  hung  at  that  time, 
and  which  can  have  only  grateful  associations  in  the  history  of 
this  country  for  the  future. 

It 'is  not  necessary  to  go  into  any  formal  description  of  the 
various  ceremonials  and  pageantries  which  celebrated  the  acces- 
sion of  the  new  sovereign.  The  proclamation  -  of  the  Queen, 
her  appearance  for  the  first  time  on  the  throne  in  the  House  of 
Lords  when  she  prorogued  Parliament  in  person,  and  even  the 
gorgeous  festival  of  her  coronation, —  which  took  place  on  June 
28th,  in  the  following  year,  1838, — may  be  passed  over  with  a 
mere  word  of  record.  It  is  worth  mentioning,  however,  that  at 
the  coronation  procession  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  figures 
was  that  of  Marshal  Soult,  Duke  of  Dalmatia,  the  opponent  of 
Moore  and  Wellington  in  the  Peninsula,  the  commander  of  the 
Old  Guard  at  Llitzen,  and  one  of  the  strong  arms  of  Napoleon  at 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

Waterloo.  Soult  had  been  sent  as  ambassador  extraordinary  to 
represent  the  French  government  and  people  at  the  coronation 
of  Queen  Victoria;  and  nothing  could  exceed  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  was  received  by  the  crowds  in  the  streets  of  London 
on  that  day.  The  white-haired  soldier  was  cheered  wherever  a 
glimpse  of  his  face  or  figure  could  be  caught.  He  appeared  in 
the  procession  in  a  carriage  the  frame  of  which  had  been  used 
on  occasions  of  state  by  some  of  the  princes  of  the  House  of 
Conde,  and  which  Soult  had  had  splendidly  decorated  for  the 
ceremony  of  the  coronation.  Even  the  Austrian  ambassador, 
says  an  eye-witness,  attracted  less  attention  than  Soult,  although 
the  dress  of  the  Austrian,  Prince  Esterhazy,  <(down  to  his  very 
boot-heels  sparkled  with  diamonds. })  The  comparison  savors  now 
of  the  ridiculous,  but  is  remarkably  expressive  and  effective. 
Prince  Esterhazy's  name  in  those  days  suggested  nothing  but 
diamonds.  His  diamonds  may  be  said  to  glitter  through  all  the 
light  literature  of  the  time..  When  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu 
wanted  a  comparison  with  which  to  illustrate  excessive  splendor 
and  brightness,  she  found  it  in  (<  Mr.  Pitt's  diamonds. }>  Prince 
Esterhazy's  served  the  same  purpose  for  the  writers  of  the  early 
years  of  the  present  reign.  It  was  therefore,  perhaps,  no  very 
poor  tribute  to  the  stout  old  moustache  of  the  Republic  and  the 
Empire  to  say  that  at  a  London  pageant  his  war-worn  face  drew 
attention  away  from  Prince  Esterhazy's  diamonds.  Soult  himself 
felt  very  warmly  the  genuine  kindness  of  the  reception  given  to 
him.  Years  after,  in  a  debate  in  the  French  Chamber,  when  M. 
Guizot  was  accused  of  too  much  partiality  for  the  English  alliance, 
Marshal  Soult  declared  himself  a  warm  champion  of  that  alliance. 
<(I  fought  the  English  down  to  Toulouse, }>  he  said,  "when  I 
fired  the  last  cannon  in  defense  of  the  national  independence: 
in  the  mean  time  I  have  been  in  London;  and  France  knows 
the  reception  which  I  had  there.  The  English  themselves  cried 
*Vive  Soult  !> — they  cried,  <  Soult  forever  !>  I  had  learned  to 
estimate  the  English  on  the  field  of  battle;  I  have  learned  to  esti- 
mate them  in  peace:  and  I  repeat  that  I  am  a  warm  partisan  of 
the  English  alliance. »  History  is  not  exclusively  made  by  cab- 
inets and  professional  diplomatists.  It  is  highly  probable  that 
the  cheers  of  a  London  crowd  on  the  day  of  the  Queen's  corona- 
tion did  something  genuine  and  substantial  to  restore  the  good 
feeling  between  this  country  and  France,  and  efface  the  bitter 
memories  of  Waterloo, 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

It  is  a  fact  well  worthy  of  note,  amid  whatever  records  of 
court  ceremonial  and  of  political  change,  that  a  few  days  after 
the  accession  of  the  Queen,  Mr.  Montefiore  was  elected  Sheriff 
of  London  (the  first  Jew  who  had  ever  been  chosen  for  that 
office),  and  that  he  received  knighthood  at  the  hands  of  her 
Majesty  when  she  visited  the  City  on  the  following  Lord  Mayor's 
day.  He  was  the  first  Jew  whom  royalty  had  honored  in  this 
country  since  the  good  old  times  when  royalty  was  pleased  to 
borrow  the  Jew's  money,  or  order  instead  the  extraction  of  his 
teeth.  The  expansion  of  the  principle  of  religious  liberty  and 
equality,  which  has  been  one  of  the  most  remarkable  characteris- 
tics of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  could  hardly  have  been  more 
becomingly  inaugurated  than  by  the  compliment  which  sovereign 
and  city  paid  to  Sir  Moses  Montefiore. 


A  MODERN   ENGLISH   STATESMAN 
From  <A  History  of  Our  Own  Times  > 

«T  TN-ARM,  Eros:  the  long  day's  task  is  done,  and  we  must 
|^J  sleep!"  A  long,  very  long  day's  task  was  nearly  done. 
A  marvelous  career  was  fast  drawing  to  its  close.  Down 
in  Hertfordshire  Lord  Palmerston  was  dying.  As  Mirabeau  said 
of  himself,  so  Palmerston  might  have  said:  he  could  already  hear 
the  preparations  for  the  funeral  of  Achilles.  He  had  enjoyed  life 
to  the  last  as  fully  as  ever  Churchill  did,  although  in  a  different 
sense.  Long  as  his  life  was,  if  counted  by  mere  years,  it  seems 
much  longer  still  when  we  consider  what  it  had  compassed,  and 
how  active  it  had  been  from  the  earliest  to  the  very  end.  Many 
men  were  older  than  Lord  Palmerston;  he  left  more  than  one 
senior  behind  him.  But  they  were  for  the  most  part  men  whose 
work  had  long  been  done, —  men  who  had  been  consigned  to  the 
arm-chair  of  complete  inactivity.  Palmerston  was  a  hard-working 
statesman  until  within  a  very  few  days  of  his  death.  He  had 
been  a  member  of  Parliament  for  nearly  sixty  years.  He  entered 
Parliament  for  the  first  time  in  the  year  when  Byron,  like  him- 
self a  Harrow  boy,  published  his  first  poems.  .He  had  been  in 
the  House  of  Commons  for  thirty  years  when  the  Queen  came  to 
the  throne.  He  used  to  play  chess  with  the  unfortunate  Caroline 
of  Brunswick,  wife  of  the  Prince  Regent,  when  she  lived  at 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

Kensington  as  Princess  of  Wales.  In  1808,  being  then  one  of 
the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty,  he  had  defended  the  Copenhagen 
expedition  of  the  year  before,  and  insisted  that  it  was  a  stroke 
indispensable  to  the  defeat  of  the  designs  of  Napoleon.  During 
all  his  political  career  he  was  only  out  of  office  for  rare  and  brief 
seasons.  To  be  a  private  member  of  Parliament  was  a  short 
occasional  episode  in  his  successful  life.  In  the  words  of  Sadi, 
the  Persian  poet,  he  had  obtained  an  ear  of  corn  from  every 
harvest. 

No  man  since  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  had  filled 
so  conspicuous  a  place  in  the  public  mind.  No  man  had  enjoyed 
anything  like  the  same  amount  of  popularity.  He  died  at  the 
moment  when  that  popularity  had  reached  its  very  zenith.  It 
hajd  become  the  fashion  of  the  day  to  praise  all  he  said  and  all 
he  did.  It  was  the  settled  canon  of  the  ordinary  Englishman's 
faith,  that  what  Palmerston  said  England  must  feel.  .  . 

Privately,  he  can  hardly  have  had  any  enemies.  He  had  a 
kindly  heart,  which  won  on  all  people  who  came  near  him.  He 
had  no  enduring  enmities  or  capricious  dislikes;  and  it  was  there- 
fore very  hard  for  ill-feeling  to  live  in  his  beaming,  friendly 
presence.  He  never  disliked  men  merely  because  he  had  often  to 
encounter  them  in  political  war.  He  tried  his  best  to  give  them 
as  good  as  they  brought,  and  he  bore  no  malice.  There  were 
some  men  whom  he  disliked,  as  we  have  already  mentioned  in 
these  volumes;  but  they  were  men  who  for  one  reason  or  another 
stood  persistently  in  his  way,  and  who,  he  fancied  he  had  reason 
to  believe,  had  acted  treacherously  towards  him.  He  liked  a  man 
to  be  "English,"  and  he  liked  him  to  be  what  he  considered  a 
gentleman;  but  he  did  not  restrict  his  definition  of  the  word 
<(  gentleman })  to  the  mere  qualifications  of  birth  or  social  rank. 
His  manners  were  frank  and  genial  rather  than  polished;  and  his 
is  one  of  the  rare  instances  in  which  a  man  contrived  always 
to  keep  up  his  personal  dignity  without  any  stateliness  of  bearing 
and  tone.  He  was  a  model  combatant:  when  the  combat  was 
over,  he  was  ready  to  sit  down  by  his  antagonist's  side  and  be 
his  friend,  and  talk  over  their  experiences  and  exploits.  He  was 
absolutely  free  from  affectation.  This  very  fact  gave  sometimes 
an  air  almost  of  roughness  to  his  manners,  he  could  be  so  plain- 
spoken  and  downright  when  suddenly  called  on  to  express  his 
mind.  He  was  not,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  a  truthful 
man;  that  is  to  say,  ijiere  were  episodes  of  his  career  in  which 


9452  JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

for  purposes  of  statecraft  he  allowed  the  House  of  Commons  and 
the  country  to  become  the  dupes  of  an  erroneous  impression. 
Personally  truthful  and  honorable  of  course  it  would  be  super- 
fluous to  pronounce  him.  A  man  of  Palmerston's  bringing-up  is 
as  certain  to  be  personally  truthful  as  he  is  to  be  brave,  and  to 
be  fond  of  open-air  exercise  and  the  cold  bath.  But  Palmerston 
was  too  often  willing-  to  distinguish  between  the  personal  and  the 
political  integrity  of  a  statesman.  The  distinction  is  common  to 
the  majority  of  statesmen:  so  much  the  worse  for  statesmanship. 
But  the  gravest  errors  of  this  kind  which  Palmerston  had  com- 
mitted were  committed  for  an  earlier  generation.  .  .  . 

His  greatest  praise  with  Englishmen  must  be  that  he  loved 
England  with  a  sincere  love  that  never  abated.  He  had  no  pre- 
dilection, no  prejudice,  that  did  not  give  way  where  the  welfare 
of  England  was  concerned.  He  ought  to  have  gone  one  step 
higher  in  the  path  of  public  duty:  he  ought  to  have  loved  justice 
and  right  even  more  than  he  loved  England.  He  ought  to  have 
felt  more  tranquilly  convinced  that  the  cause  of  justice  and  of 
right  must  be  the  best  thing  which  an  English  minister  could 
advance  even  for  England's  sake  in  the  end.  Lord  Palmerston 
was  not  a  statesman  who  took  any  lofty  view  of  a  minister's 
duties.  His  statesmanship  never  stood  on  any  high  moral  eleva- 
tion. He  sometimes  did  things  in  the  cause  of  England  which 
we  may  well  believe  he  would  not  have  done  for  any  considera- 
tion in  any  cause  of  his  own.  His  policy  was  necessarily  shift- 
ing, uncertain,  and  inconsistent;  for  he  molded  it  always  on  the 
supposed  interests  of  England  as  they  showed  themselves  to  his 
eyes  at  the  time.  His  sympathies  with  liberty  were  capricious 
guides.  Sympathies  with  liberty  must  be  so  always  where  there 
is  no  clear  principle  defining  objects  and  guiding  conduct.  Lord 
Palmerston  was  not  prevented  by  his  liberal  sympathies  from 
sustaining  the  policy  of  the  Coup  d'Etat;  nor  did  his  hatred  of 
slavery,  one  of  his  few  strong  and  genuine  emotions  apart  from 
English  interests,  inspire  him  with  any  repugnance  for  the  cause 
of  the  Southern  slaveholders.  But  it  cannot  be.  doubted  that  his 
very  defects  were  a  main  cause  of  his  popularity  and  his  success. 
He  was  able  always  with  a  good  conscience  to  assure  the  English 
people  that  they  were  the  greatest  and  the  best  —  the  only  good 
and  great  —  people  in  the  world,  because  he  had  long  taught  him- 
self to  believe  this,  and  had  come  to  believe  it.  He  was  always 
popular,  because  his  speeches  invariably  conveyed  this  impression 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

to  the  English  crowd  whom  he  addressed  in  or  out  of  Parliament. 
Other  public  men  spoke  for  the  most  part  to  tell  English  peo- 
ple of  something  they  ought  to  do  which  they  were  not  doing, 
something  which  they  had  done  and  ought  not  to  have  done.  It 
is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  such  men  should  be  as  popular 
as  those  who  told  England  that  whatever  she  did  must  be  right. 
Nor  did  Palmerston  lay  on  his  praise  with  coarse  and  palpable 
artifice.  He  had  no  artifice  in  the  matter.  He  believed  what  he 
said;  and  his  very  sincerity  made  it  the  more  captivating  and  the 
more  dangerous. 

A  phrase  sprang  up  in  Palmerston's  days  which  was  employed 
to  stigmatize  certain  political  conduct  beyond  all  ordinary  re- 
proach. It  was  meant  to  stamp  such  conduct  as  outside  the 
pale  of  reasonable  argument  or  patriotic  consideration.  That  was 
the  word  "un-English."  It  was  enough  with  certain  classes  to 
say  that  anything  was  (<  un-English w  in  order  to  put  it  utterly 
out  of  court.  No  matter  to  what  principles,  higher,  more  uni- 
versal, and  more  abiding  than  those  that  are  merely  English,  it 
might  happen  to  appeal,  the  one  word  of  condemnation  was  held 
to  be  enough  for  it.  Some  of  the  noblest  and  the  wisest  men 
of  our  day  were  denounced  as  "un-English."  A  stranger  might 
have  asked  in  wonder,  at  one  time,  whether  it  was  un-English 
to  be  just,  to  be  merciful,  to  have  consideration  for  the  claims 
and  the  rights  of  others,  to  admit  that  there  was  any  higher 
object  in  a  nation's  life  than  a  diplomatic  success.  All  that 
would  have  made  a  man  odious  and  insufferable  in  private  life 
was  apparently  held  up  as  belonging  to  the  virtues  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation.  Rude  self-assertion,  blunt  disregard  for  the  feelings 
and  the  claims  of  others,  a  self-sufficiency  which  would  regard 
all  earth's  interests  as  made  for  England's  special  use  alone, — • 
the  yet  more  outrageous  form  of  egotism  which  would  fancy  that 
the  moral  code  as  it  applies  to  others  does  not  apply  to  us, —  all 
this  seemed  to  be  considered  the  becoming  national  character- 
istic of  the  English  people.  It  would  be  almost  superfluous  to 
say  that  this  did  not  show  its  worst  in  Lord  Palmerston  himself. 
As  in  art,  so  in  politics,  we  never  see  how  bad  some  peculiar 
defect  is  until  we  see  it  in  the  imitators  of  a  great  man's  style. 
A  school  of  Palmerstons,  had  it  been  powerful  and  lasting,  would 
have  made  England  a  nuisance  to  other  nations.  .  .  .  We 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  Lord  Palmerston's  statesman- 
ship on  the  whole  lowered  the  moral  tone  of  English  politics  for 


JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 

a  time.  This  consideration  alone,  if  there  were  nothing  else,  for- 
bids us  to  regard  him  as  a  statesman  whose  deeds  were  equal  to 
his  opportunities  and  to  his  genius.  To  serve  the  purpose  of  the 
hour  was  his  policy.  To  succeed  in  serving  it  was  his  triumph. 
It  is  not  thus  that  a  great  fame  is  built  up,  unless  indeed  where 
the  genius  of  the  man  is  like  that  of  some  Caesar  or  Napoleon, 
which  can  convert  its  very  ruins  into  monumental  records.  Lord 
Palmerston  is  hardly  to  be  called  a  great  man.  Perhaps  he  may 
be  called  a  great  "man  of  the  time.* 


9455 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 

(1824-1905) 

EORGE  MACDONALD  has  been  characterized  as  a  Across  between 
a  poet  and  a  spiritual  teacher. })  His  powers  as  a  novelist, 
however,  are  not  taken  into  account  by  this  description. 
Added  to  his  genuine  poetical  feeling,  and  to  his  refined  moral  sense, 
are  the  qualities  of  a  good  story-teller.  He  knows  how  to  handle  an 
elaborate  plot;  he  understands  the  dramatic  values  of  situations;  he 
can  put  life  into  his  characters.  Yet  the  dominant  impression  left 
by  his  novels  is  their  essential  moral  nobility.  The  ideal  which  Mr. 
Macdonald  sets  before  himself  as  a  writer 
of  fiction  is  summed  up  in  this  passage 
from  <Sir  Gibbie*:  — 

<*But  whatever  the  demand  of  the  age,  I 
insist  that  that  which  ought  to  be  presented  to 
its  beholding  is  the  common  good,  uncommonly 
developed:  and  that  not  because  of  its  rarity,  but 
because  it  is  truer  to  humanity.  It  is  the  noble, 
not  the  failure  from  the  noble,  that  is  the  true 
human:  and  if  I  must  show  the  failure,  let  it 
ever  be  with  an  eye  to  the  final  possible,  yea, 
imperative  success.  But  in  our  day  a  man  who 
will  accept  any  oddity  of  idiosyncratic  develop- 
ment in  manners,  tastes,  and  habits,  will  refuse 
not  only  as  improbable,  but  as  inconsistent  with 

human  nature,  the  representation  of  a  man  trying  to  be  merely  as  noble  as  is 
absolutely  essential  to  his  being. » 

This  quaint  realism  of  Mr.  Macdonald's  in  a  literary  age,  when 
many  believe  that  only  the  evil  in  man's  nature  is  real,  dominates 
his  novels,  from  <  David  Elginbrod  >  to  <The  Elect  Lady.'  They  are 
wholesome  stories  of  pure  men  and  women.  The  author  is  at  his 
strongest  when  drawing  a  character  like  that  of  Sir  Gibbie,  com- 
pelled forever  to  follow  the  highest  law  of  his  nature.  With  villains 
and  with  mean  folk,  Mr.  Macdonald  can  do  nothing.  He  cannot  un- 
derstand them,  neither  can  he  understand  complexity  of  character. 
He  is  too  dogmatic  ever  to  see  the  « shadowy  third »  between  the 
and  one.  He  is  too  much  of  a  preacher  to  be  altogether  a 
lovelist. 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


9456  GEORGE   MACDONALD 

His  training  increased  his  dogmatic  faculty.  Born  at  Huntly, 
Aberdeenshire,  in  1824,  he  was  graduated  at  King's  College,  Aber- 
deen, and  then  entered  upon  the  study  of  theology  at  the  Independ- 
ent College,  Highbury,  London.  He  was  for  a  time  a  preacher  in 
the  Scottish  Congregational  Church,  but  afterwards  became  a  layman 
in  the  Church  of  England.  He  then  assumed  the  principalship  of  a 
seminary  in  London.  His  novels  witness  to  his  Scotch  origin  and 
training.  The  scenes  of  many  of  them  are  laid  in  Scotland,  and  not 
a  few  of  the  characters  speak  the  North-Scottish  dialect.  But  the 
spirit  which  informs  them  is  even  more  Scotch  than  their  setting. 
The  strong  moral  convictions  of  George  Macdonald  infuse  them  with 
the  sermonizing  element.  The  novelist  is  of  the  spiritual  kindred  of 
the  Covenanters.  Yet  they  are  full  of  a  kindly  humanity,  and  where 
the  moralist  is  merged  in  the  writer  of  fiction  they  attain  a  high 
degree  of  charm. 

His  pure  and  tender  spirit  made  him  peculiarly  fitted  to  under- 
stand children  and  child  life.  ((Gibbie  had  never  been  kissed,))  he 
writes;  ((and  how  is  any  child  £o  thrive  without  kisses?))  His  stories 
for  children,  (At  the  Back  of  the  North  Wind)  and  (The  Princess 
and  Curdie,)  are  full  of  beauty  in  their  'fine  sympathy  for  the  moods 
of  a  child. 

George  Macdonald  wrote  a  great  number  of  novels.  They  in- 
clude (David  Elginbrod,)  (Alec  Forbes  of  How  Glen,)  (Annals  of  a 
Quiet  Neighborhood,)  (The  Seaboard  Parish)  (sequel  to  the  foregoing), 
(Robert  Falconer,)  ( Wilfrid  Cumbermede,)  (Malcolm,)  (The  Marquis 
of  Lossie,)  (St.  George  and  St.  Michael,)  (Sir  Gibbie,)  (What's  Mine's 
Mine,)  (The  Elect  Lady,)  and  such  fanciful  stories  as  his  well-known 
(Phantastes.)  He  also  published  (Miracles  of  Our  Lord)  and  (Un- 
spoken Sermons.)  His  sermons,  as  might  be  expected,  are  vigorous, 
and  exhibit  his  peculiar  sensitiveness  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  elements 
in  man's  existence.  This  same  sensitiveness  pervades  his  verse. 
George  Macdonald's  death  occurred  in  London  on  September  i8th, 
1905. 


THE   FLOOD 

From  <Sir  Gibbie  > 

STILL  the  rain  fell  and  the  wind  blew;  the  torrents  came  tear- 
ing- down  from  the  hills,  and  shot  madly  into  the  rivers;  the 
rivers  ran  into  the  valleys,  and  deepened  the  lakes  that  filled 
them.     On  every  side  of  the  Mains,  from  the  foot  of  Glashgar  to 
Gormdrm,  all  was  one  yellow  and  red  sea,  with  roaring  currents 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


9457 


and  vortices  numberless.  It  burrowed  holes,  it  opened  long- 
deserted  channels  and  water-courses;  here  it  deposited  inches  of 
rich  mold,  there  yards  of  sand  and  gravel;  here  it  was  carrying 
away  fertile  ground,  leaving  behind  only  bare  rock  or  shingle 
where  the  corn  had  been  waving;  there  it  was  scooping  out  the 
bed  of  a  new  lake.  Many  a  thick  soft  lawn  of  loveliest  grass, 
dotted  with  fragrant  shrubs  and  rare  trees,  vanished,  and  nothing 
was  there  when  the  waters  subsided  but  a  stony  waste,  or  a  grav- 
elly precipice.  Woods  and  copses  were  undermined,  and  trees  and 
soil  together  swept  into  the  vast;  sometimes  the  very  place  was 
hardly  there  to  say  it  knew  its  children  no  more.  Houses  were 
torn  to  pieces;  and  their  contents,  as  from  broken  boxes,  sent 
wandering  on  the  brown  waste  through  the  gray  air  to  the  dis- 
colored sea,  whose  saltness  for  a  long  way  out  had  vanished  with 
its  hue.  Hay-mows  were  buried  to  the  very  top  in  sand;  others 
went  sailing  bodily  down  the  mighty  stream  —  some  of  them  fol- 
lowed or  surrounded,  like  big  ducks,  by  a  great  brood  off  ricks  for 
their  ducklings.  Huge  trees  went  past  as  if  shot  down  an  Alpine 
slide — cottages  and  bridges  of  stone  giving  way  before  them. 
Wooden  mills,  thatched  roofs,  great  mill-wheels,  went  dipping 
and  swaying  and  hobbling  down.  From  the  upper  windows  of 
the  Mains,  looking  towards  the  chief  current,  they  saw  a  drift  of 
everything  belonging  to  farms  and  dwelling-houses  that  would 
float.  Chairs  and  tables,  chests,  carts,  saddles,  chests  of  drawers, 
tubs  of  linen,  beds  and  blankets,  work-benches,  harrows,  girnels, 
planes,  cheeses,  churns,  spinning-wheels,  cradles,  iron  pots,  wheel- 
barrows—  all  these  and  many  other  things  hurried  past  as  they 
gazed.  Everybody  was  looking,  and  for  a  time  all  had  been 
silent.  .  .  . 

Just  as  Mr.  Duff  entered  the  stable  from  the  nearer  end,  the 
opposite  gable  fell  out  with  a  great  splash,  letting  in  the  wide 
level  vision  of  turbidly  raging  waters,  fading  into  the  obscurity 
of  the  wind-driven  rain.  While  he  stared  aghast,  a  great  tree 
struck  the  wall  like  a  battering-ram,  so  that  the  stable  shook. 
The  horses,  which  had  been  for  some  time  moving  uneasily,  were 
now  quite  scared.  There  was  not  a  moment  to  be  lost.  Duff 
shouted  for  his  men;  one  or  two  came  running;  and  in  less 
than  a  minute  more,  those  in  the  house  heard  the  iron-shod  feet 
splashing  and  stamping  through  the  water,  as  one  after  another 
the  horses  were  brought  across  the  yard  to  the  door  of  the  house. 
Mr.  Duff  led  by  the  halter  his  favorite  Snowball,  who  was  a  good 


9458 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


deal  excited,  plunging  and  rearing  so  that  it  was  all  he  could  do 
to  hold  him.  He  had  ordered  the  men  to  take  the  others  first, 
thinking  he  would  follow  more  quietly.  But  the  moment  Snow- 
ball heard  the  first  thundering  of  hoofs  on  the  stair,  he  went  out 
of  his  senses  with  terror,  broke  from  his  master,  and  went  plun- 
ging back  to  the  stable.  Duff  started  after  him,  but  was  only  in 
time  to  see  him  rush  from  the  further  end  into  the  swift  cur- 
rent, where  he  was  at  once  out  of  his  depth,  and  was  instantly 
caught  and  hurried,  rolling  over  and  over,  from  his  master's 
sight.  He  ran  back  into  the  house,  and  up  to  the  highest  win- 
dow. From  that  he  caught  sight  of  him  a  long  way  down, 
swimming.  Once  or  twice  he  saw  him  turned  heels  over  head — 
only  to  get  his  neck  up  again  presently,  and  swim  as  well  as 
before.  But  alas!  it  was  in  the  direction  of  the  Daur,  which 
would  soon,  his  master  did  not  doubt,  sweep  his  carcass  into  the 
North  Sea.  With  troubled  heart  he  strained  his  sight  after  him 
as  long  as  he  could  distinguish  his  lessening  head,  but  it  got 
amongst  some  wreck;  and,  unable  to  tell  any  more  whether  he 
saw  it  or  not,  he  returned  to  his  men  with  his  eyes  full  of  tears. 

Gibbie  woke  with  the  first  of  the  dawn.  The  rain  still  fell — 
descending  in  spoonfuls  rather  than  drops;  the  wind  kept  shaping 
itself  into  long  hopeless  howls,  rising  to  shrill  yells  that  went 
drifting  away  over  the  land;  and  then  the  howling  rose  again. 
Nature  seemed  in  despair.  There  must  be  more  for  Gibbie  to 
do!  He  must  go  again  to  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  and  see  if 
there  was  anybody  to  help.  They  might  even  be  in  trouble  at 
the  Mains:  who  could  tell!  .  .  . 

Gibbie  sped  down  the  hill  through  a  worse  rain  than  ever. 
The  morning  was  close,  and  the  vapors  that  filled  it  were  like 
smoke  burned  to  the  hue  of  the  flames  whence  it  issued.  Many 
a  man  that  morning  believed  another  great  deluge  begun,  and  all 
measures  relating  to  things  of  this  world  lost  labor.  Going  down 
his  own  side  of  the  Glashburn,  the  nearest  path  to  the  valley, 
the  gamekeeper's  cottage  was  the  first  dwelling  on  his  way.  It 
stood  a  little  distance  from  the  bank  of  the  burn,  opposite  the 
bridge  and  gate,  while  such  things  were. 

It  had  been  with  great  difficulty  —  for  even  Angus  did  not 
know  the  mountain  so  well  as  Gibbie . —  that  the  gamekeeper 
reached  it  with  the  housekeeper  the  night  before.  It  was  within 
two  gun-shots  of  the  house  of  Glashruach,  yet  to  get  to  it  they 


GEORGE   MACDONALD 

had  to  walk  miles  up  and  down  Glashgar.  A  mountain  in  storm 
is  as  hard  to  cross  as  a  sea.  Arrived,  they  did  not  therefore 
feel  safe.  The  tendency  of  the  Glashburn  was  indeed  away  from 
the  cottage,  as  the  grounds  of  Glashruach  sadly  witnessed;  but 
a  torrent  is  double-edged,  and  who  could  tell?  The  yielding  of 
one  stone  in  its  channel  might  send  it  to  them.  All  night  Angus 
watched,  peering  out  ever  again  into  the'  darkness,  but  seeing 
nothing  save  three  lights  that  burned  above  the  water — one  of 
them,  he  thought,  at  the  Mains.  The  other  two  went  out  in  the 
darkness,  but  that  only  in  the  dawn.  When  the  morning  came, 
there  was  the  Glashburn  meeting  the  Lorrie  in  his  garden.  But 
the  cottage  was  well  built,  and  fit  to  stand  a  good  siege,  while 
any  moment  the  waters  might  have  reached  their  height.  By 
breakfast-time,  however,  they  were  round  it  from  behind.  There 
is  nothing  like  a  flood  for  revealing  the  variations  of  surface,  the 
dips  and  swells  of  a  country.  In  a  few  minutes  they  were  iso- 
lated, with  the  current  of  the  Glashburn  on  one  side  and  that 
of  the  Lorrie  in  front.  When  he  saw  the  water  come  in  at  front 
and  back  doors  at  once,  Angus  ordered  his  family  up  the  stair: 
the  cottage  had  a  large  attic,  with  dormer  windows,  where  they 
slept.  He  himself  remained  below  for  some  time  longer,  in  that 
end  of  the  house  where  he  kept  his  guns  and  fishing-tackle ;  there 
he  sat  on  a  table,  preparing  nets  for  the  fish  that  would  be  left 
in  the  pools;  and  not  until  he  found  himself  afloat  did  he  take 
his  work  to  the  attic. 

There  the  room  was  hot,  and  they  had  the  window  open. 
Mistress  MacPholp  stood  at  it,  looking  out  on  the  awful  prospect, 
with  her  youngest  child,  a  sickly  boy,  in  her  arms.  He  had  in 
his  a  little  terrier  pup,  greatly  valued  of  the  gamekeeper.  In  a 
sudden  outbreak  of  peevish  willfulness,  he  threw  the  creature  out 
of  the  window.  It  fell  on  the  sloping  roof,  and  before  it  could 
recover  itself,  being  too  young  to  have  the  full  command  of  four 
legs,  rolled  off. 

<(Eh!  the  doggie's  i'  the  watter!"  cried  Mistress  MacPholp  in 
dismay. 

Angus  threw  down  everything  with  an  ugly  oath, —  for  he  had 
given  strict  orders  not  one  of  the  children  should  handle  the 
whelp, — jumped  up,  and  got  out  on  the  roof.  From  there  he 
might  have  managed  to  reach  it.  so  high  now  was  the  water,  had 
the  little  thing  remained  where  it  fell;  but  already  it  had  swum 
a  yard  or  two  from  the  house.  Angus,  who  was  a  fair  swimmer 


9460 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


and  an  angry  man,  threw  off  his  coat,  and  plunging-  after  it, 
greatly  to  the  delight  of  the  little  one,  caught  the  pup.  with  his 
teeth  by  the  back  of  .the  neck,  and  turned  to  make  for  the  house. 
Just  then  a  shrub  swept  from  the  hill  caught  him  in  the  face, 
and  so  bewildered  him  that  before  he  got  rid  of  it  he  had  blun- 
dered into  the  edge  of  the  current,  which  seized  and  bore  him 
rapidly  away.  He  dropped  the  pup  and  struck  out  for  home 
with  all  his  strength.  But  he  soon  found  the  most  he  could  do 
was  to  keep  his  head  above  water,  and  gave  himself  up  for  lost. 
His  wife  screamed  in  agony.  Gibbie  heard  her  as  he  came  down 
the  hill,  and  ran  at  full  speed  towards  the  cottage. 

About  a  hundred  yards  from  the  house,  the  current  bore 
Angus  straight  into  a  large  elder-tree.  He  got  into  the  middle 
of  it,  and  there  remained  trembling, — the  weak  branches  break- 
ing with  every  motion  he  made,  while  the  stream  worked  at  the 
roots,  and  the  wind  laid  hold  of  him  with  fierce  leverage.  In 
terror,  seeming  still  to  sink  as  he  sat,  he  watched  the  trees  dart 
by  like  battering-rams  in  the  swiftest  of  the  current ;  the  least  of 
them  diverging  would  tear  the  elder-tree  with  it.  Brave  enough 
in  dealing  with  poachers,  Angus  was  not  the  man  to  gaze  with 
composure  in  the  face  of  a  sure  slow  death,  against  which  no 
assault  could  be  made.  Many  a  man  is  courageous  because  he 
has  not  conscience  enough  to  make  a  coward  of  him,  but  Angus 
had  not  quite  reached  that  condition;  and  from  the  branches  of 
the  elder-tree  showed  a  pale,  terror-stricken  visage.  Amidst  the 
many  objects  in  the  face  of  the  water,  Gibbie,  however,  did  not 
distinguish  it;  and  plunging  in,  swam  round  to  the  front  of  the 
cottage  to  learn  what  was  the  matter.  There  the  wife's  gesticu- 
lations directed  his  eyes  to  her  drowning  husband. 

But  what  was  he  to  do?  He  could  swim  to  the  tree  well 
enough,  and,  he  thought,  back  again;  but  how  was  that  to  be 
made  of  service  to  Angus  ?  He  could  not  save  him  by  main 
force:  there  was  not  enough  of  that  between  them.  If  he  had 
a  line  —  and  there  must  be  plenty  of  lines  in  the  cottage  —  he 
could  carry  him  the  end  of  it  to  haul  upon:  that  would  do.  If 
he  could  send  it  to  him,  that  would  be  better  still;  for  then  he 
could  help  at  the  other  end,  and  would  be  in  the  right  position 
up-stream  to  help  further  if  necessary,  for  down  the  current 
alone  was  the  path  of  communication  open.  He  caught  hold  of 
the  eaves  and  scrambled  on  to  the  roof.  But  in  the  folly  and 
faithlessness  of  her  despair,  the  woman  would  not  let  him  enter. 


GEORGE  MACDONALD  946  x 

With  a  curse  caught  from  her  husband,  she  struck  him  from  the 
window,  crying  — 

(<Ye  s'  no  come  in  here,  an'  my  man  droonin'  yon'er!  Gang 
till  'im,  ye  cooard!}> 

Never  had  poor  Gibbie  so  much  missed  the  use  of  speech. 
On  the  slope  of  the  roof  he  could  do  little  to  force  an  entrance, 
therefore  threw  himself  off  it  to  seek  another,  and  betook  him- 
self to  the  windows  below.  Through  that  of  Angus's  room,  he 
caught  sight  of  a  floating  anker  cask.  It  was  the  very  thing!  — 
and  there  on  the  walls  hung  a  quantity  of  nets  and  cordage! 
But  how  to  get  in  ?  It  was  a  sash  window,  and  of  course  swol- 
len with  the  wet,  and  therefore  not  to  be  opened;  and  there  was 
not  a  square  in  it  large  enough  to  let  him  through.  He  swam 
to  the  other  side,  and  crept  softly  on  to  the  roof  and  over  the 
ridge.  But  a  broken  slate  betrayed  him.  The  woman  saw  him, 
rushed  to  the  fireplace,  caught  up  the  poker,  and  darted  back  to 
defend  the  window. 

«Ye  s'  no  come  in  here,  I  tell  ye,"  she  screeched,  <(  an'  my 
man  stickin'  i'  yon  boortree  buss ! w 

Gibbie  advanced.  She  made  a  blow  at  him  with  the  poker. 
He  caught  it,  wrenched  it  from  her  grasp,  and  threw  himself 
from  the  roof.  The  next  moment  they 'heard  the  poker  at  work 
smashing  the  window. 

"He'll  be  in  an'  murder  's  a'!"  cried  the  mother,  and  ran  to 
the  stair,  while  the  children  screamed  and  danced  with  terror. 

But  the  water  was  far  too  deep  for  her.  She  returned  to  the 
attic,  barricaded  the  door,  and  went  again  to  the  window  to 
watch  her  drowning  husband. 

Gibbie  was  inside  in  a  moment;  and  seizing  the  cask,  pro- 
ceeded to  attach  to  it  a  strong  line.  He  broke  a  bit  from  a 
fishing-rod,  secured  the  line  round  the  middle  of  it  with  a  notch, 
put  the  stick  through  the  bunghole  in  the  bilge,  and  corked  up 
the  whole  with  a  net-float.  Happily  he  had  a  knife  in  his  pocket. 
He  then  joined  strong  lines  together  until  he  thought  he  had 
length  enough,  secured  the  last  end  to  a  bar  of  the  grate,  and 
knocked  out  both  sashes  of  the  ^window  with  an  axe.  A  passage 
thus  cleared,  he  floated  out  first  a  chair,  then  a  creepie,  and  one 
thing  after  another,  to  learn  from  what  part  to  start  the  bar- 
rel. Seeing  and  recognizing  them  from  above,  Mistress  MacPholp 
raised  a  terrible  outcry.  In  the  very  presence  of  her  drowning 
husband,  such  a  wanton  dissipation  of  her  property  roused  her  to 


9462 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


fiercest  wrath;  for  she  imagined  Gibbie  was  emptying  her  house 
with  leisurely  revenge.  Satisfied  at  length,  he  floated  out  his 
barrel,  and  followed  with  the  line  in  his  hand,  to  aid  its  direction 
if  necessary.  It  struck  the  tree.  With  a  yell  of  joy  Angus  laid 
hold  of  it,  and  hauling  the  line  taut,  and  feeling  it  secure,  com- 
mitted himself  at  once  to  the  water,  holding  by  the  barrel  and 
swimming  with  his  legs,  while  Gibbie,  away  to  the  side  with  a 
hold  of  the  rope,  was  swimming  his  hardest  to  draw  him  out  of 
the  current.  But  a  weary  man  was  Angus  when  at  length  he 
reached  the  house.  It  was  all  he  could  do  to  get  himself  in 
at  the  window  and  crawl  up  the  stair.  At  the  top  of  it  he  fell 
benumbed  on  the  floor. 

By  the  time  that,  repentant  and  grateful,  Mistress  MacPholp 
bethought  herself  of  Gibbie,  not  a  trace  of  him  was  to  be  seen. 
While  they  looked  for  him  in  the  water  and  on  the  land,  Gib- 
bie was  again  in  the  room  below,  carrying  out  a  fresh  thought. 
With  the  help  of  the  table  he  emptied  the  cask,  into  which  a 
good  deal  of  water  had  got.  Then  he  took  out  the  stick,  corked 
the  bunghole  tight,  laced  the  cask  up  in  a  piece  of  net,  attached 
the  line  to  the  net  and  wound  it  about  the  cask  by  rolling  the 
latter  round  and  round,  took  the  cask  between  his  hands,  and 
pushed  from  the  window  straight  into  the  current  of  the  Glash- 
burn.  In  a  moment  it  had  swept  him  to  the  Lorrie.  By  the 
greater  rapidity  of  the  former  he  got  easily  across  the  heavier 
current  of  the  latter,  and  was  presently  in  water  comparatively 
still,  swimming  quietly  towards  the  Mains,  and  enjoying  his  trip 
none  the  less  that  he  had  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout:  if  he  should 
have  to  dive  to  avoid  any  drifting  object,  he  might  lose  his 
barrel.  Quickly  now,  had  he  been  so  minded,  he  could  have 
returned  to  the  city, —  changing  vessel  for  vessel,  as  one  after 
another  went  to  pieces.  Many  a  house  roof  offered  itself  for  the 
voyage;  now  and  then  a  great  water-wheel,  horizontal  and  help- 
less, devoured  of  its  element.  Once  he  saw  a  cradle  come  gyrat- 
ing along,  and  urging  all  his  might,  intercepted  it;  but  hardly 
knew  whether  he  was  more  sorry  or  relieved  to  find  it  empty. 
When  he  was  about  half-way  to  the  Mains,  a  whole  fleet  of  ricks 
bore  down  upon  him.  He  boarded  one,  and  scrambled  to  the  top 
of  it,  keeping  fast  hold  of  the  end  of  his  Hne,  which  unrolled 
from  the  barrel  as  he  ascended.  From  its  peak  he  surveyed  the 
wild  scene.  All  was  running  water.  Not  a  human  being  was 
visible,  and  but  a  few  house  roofs;  of  which  for  a  moment  it  was 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


9463 


hard  to  say  whether  or  not  they  were  of  those  that  were  afloat. 
Here  and  there  were  the  tops  of  trees,  showing  like  low  bushes. 
Nothing  was  uplifted  except  the  mountains.  He  drew  near  the 
Mains.  All  the  ricks  in  the  yard  were  bobbing  about,  as  if 
amusing  themselves  with  a  slow  contra-dance ;  but  they  were  as 
yet  kept  in  by  the  barn  and  a  huge  old  hedge  of  hawthorn. 
What  was  that  cry  from  far  away  ?  Surely  it  was  that  of  a  horse 
in  danger!  It  brought  a  lusty  equine  response  from  the  farm. 
Where  could  horses  be,  with  such  a  depth  of  water  about  the 
place  ?  Then  began  a  great  lowing  of  cattle.  But  again  came 
the  cry  of  the  horse  from  afar,  and  Gibbie,  this  time  recognizing 
the  voice  as  Snowball's,  forgot  the  rest.  He  stood  up  on  the 
very  top  of  the  rick,  and  sent  his  keen  glance  round  on  all  sides. 
The  cry  came  again  and  again,  so  that  he  was  soon  satisfied  in 
what  direction  he  must  look.  The  rain  had  abated  a  little;  but 
the  air  was  so  thick  with  vapor  that  he  could  not  tell  whether  it 
was  really  an  object  he  seemed  to  see  white  against  the  brown 
water,  far  away  to  the  left,  or  a  fancy  of  his  excited  hope;  it 
might  be  Snowball  on  the  turnpike  road,  which  thereabout  ran 
along  the  top  of  a  high  embankment.  He  tumbled  from  the  rick, 
rolled  the  line  about  the  barrel,  and  pushed  vigorously  for  what 
might  be  the  horse. 

It  took  him  a  weary  hour- — -in  so  many  currents  was  he 
caught,  one  after  the  other,  all  straining  to  carry  him  far  below 
the  object  he  wanted  to  reach:  an  object  it  plainly  was,  before 
he  had  got  half-way  across;  and  by-and-by  as  plainly  it  was 
Snowball,  testified  to  ears  and  eyes  together.  When  at  length 
he  scrambled  on  the  embankment  beside  him,  the  poor  shivering, 
perishing  creature  gave  a  low  neigh  of  delight:  he  did  not  know 
Gibbie,  but  he  was  a  human  being.  He  was  quite  cowed  and 
submissive,  and  Gibbie  at  once  set  about  his  rescue.  He  had 
reasoned  as  he  came  along,  that  if  there  were  beasts  at  the 
Mains  there  must  be  room  for  Snowball,  and  thither  he  would 
endeavor  to  take  him.  He  tied  the  end  of  the  line  to  the  rem- 
nant of  the  halter  on  his  head,  the  other  end  being  still  fast  to 
the  barrel,  and  took  to  the  water  again.  Encouraged  by  the  power 
upon  his  head, —  the  pressure,  namely,  of  the  halter, — the  horse 
followed,  and  they  made  for  the  Mains.  It  was  a  long  journey, 
and  Gibbie  had  not  breath  enough  to  sing  to  Snowball,  but  he 
made  what  noises  he  could,  and  they  got  slowly  along.  He  found 
the  difficulties  far  greater  now  that  he  had  to  look  out  for  the 


9464 


•  GEORGE   MACDONALD 


horse  as  well  as  for  himself.  None  but  one  much  used  to  the 
water  could  have  succeeded  in  the  attempt,  or  could  indeed  have 
stood  out  against  its  weakening  influence  and  the  strain  of  the 
continued  exertion  together  so  long.  At  length  his  barrel  got 
waterlogged,  and  he  sent  it  adrift.  .  .  . 

When  they  arrived  at  the  door,  they  found  a  difficulty  await- 
ing them:  the  water  was  now  so  high  that  Snowball's  head  rose 
above  the  lintel;  and  though  all  animals  can  swim,  they  do  not 
all  know  how  to  dive.  A  tumult  of  suggestions  immediately  broke 
out.  But  Donal  had  already  thrown  himself  from  a  window  with 
a  rope,  and  swum  to  Gibbie's  assistance;  the  two  understood  each 
other,  and  heeding  nothing  the  rest  were  saying,  held  their  own 
communications.  In  a  minute  the  rope  was  fastened  round  Snow- 
ball's body,  and  the  end  of  it  drawn  between  his  forelegs  and 
through  the  ring  of  his  head-stall,  when  Donal  swam  with  it  to 
his  mother  who  stood  on  the  stair,  with  the  request  that  as  soon 
as  she  saw  Snowball's  head  under  the  water,  she  would  pull  with 
all  her  might,  and  draw  him  in  at  the  door.  Donal  then  swam 
back,  and  threw  his  arms  around  Snowball's  neck  from  below, 
while  the  same  moment  Gibbie  cast  his  whole  weight  on  it  from 
above:  the  horse  was  over  head  and  ears  in  an  instant,  and 
through  the  door  in  another.  With  snorting  nostrils  and  blazing 
eyes  his  head  rose  in  the  passage,  and  in  terror  he  struck  out 
for  the  stair.  As  he  scrambled  heavily  up  from  the  water,  his 
master  and  Robert  seized  him,  and  with  much  petting  and  patting 
and  gentling,  though  there  was  little  enough  difficulty  in  man- 
aging him  now,  conducted  him  into  the  bedroom  to  the  rest  of  the 
horses.  There  he  was  welcomed  by  his  companions,  and  immedi- 
ately began  devouring  the  hay  upon  his  master's  bedstead.  Gib- 
bie came  close  behind  him,  was  seized  by  Janet  at  the  top  of  the 
stair,  embraced  like  one  come  alive  from  the  grave,  and  led,  all 
dripping  as  he  was,  into  the  room  where  the  women  were. 


THE   HAY-LOFT 
From  <At  the  Back  of  the  North  Wind  > 

I   HAVE    been   asked    to   tell   you    about   the   back    of   the   North 
Wind.      An   old    Greek   writer   mentions   a   people   who   lived 
there,   and  were  so   comfortable   that   they  could   not   bear  it 
any  longer,  and  drowned  themselves.      My  story  is  not  the  same 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 

as  his.  I  do  not  think  Herodotus  had  got  the  right  account  of 
the  place.  I  am  going  to  tell  you  how  it  fared  with  a  boy  who 
went  there. 

He  lived  in  a  low  room  over  a  coach-house;  and  that  was  not 
by  any  means  at  the  back  of  the  North  Wind,  as  his  mother  very 
well  knew.  For  one  side  of  the  room  was  built  only  of  boards, 
and  the  boards  .were  so  old  that  you  might  run  a  penknife 
through  into  the  North  Wind.  And  then  let  them  settle  between 
them  which  was  the  sharper!  I  know  that  when  you  pulled  it 
out  again,  the  wind  would  be  after  it  like  a  cat  after  a  mouse, 
and  you  would  know  soon  enough  you  were  not  at  the  back  of 
the  North  Wind.  Still,  this  room  was  not  very  cold,  except  when 
the  north  wind  blew  stronger  than  usual:  the  room  I  have  to  do 
with  now  was  always  cold,  except  in  summer,  when  the  sun  took 
the  matter  into  his  own  hands.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  whether 
I  ought  to  call  it  a  room  at  all;  for  it  was  just  a  loft  where  they 
kept  hay  and  straw  and  oats  for  the  horses.  And  when  little 
Diamond  —  but  stop:  I  must  tell  you  that  his  father,  who  was  a 
coachman,  had  named  him  after  a  favorite  horse,  and  his  mother 
had  had  no  objection — when  little  Diamond,  then,  lay  there  in  bed, 
he  could  hear  the  horses  under  him  munching  away  in  the  dark, 
or  moving  sleepily  in  their  dreams.  For  Diamond's  father  had 
built  him  a  bed  in  the  loft  with  boards  all  round  it,  because  they 
had  so  little  room  in  their  own  end  over  the  coach-house;  and 
Diamond's  father  put  old  Diamond  in  the  stall  under  the  bed, 
because  he  was  a  quiet  •  horse,  and  did  not  go  to  sleep  standing, 
but  lay  down  like  a  reasonable  creature.  But  although  he  was  a 
surprisingly  reasonable  creature,  yet  when  young  Diamond  woke 
in  the  middle  of  the  night  and  felt  the  bed  shaking  in  the  blasts 
of  the  North  Wind,  he  could  not  help  wondering  whether,  if  the 
wind  should  blow  the  house  down,  and  he  were  to  fall  through 
into  the  manger,  old  Diamond  mightn't  eat  him  up  before  he 
knew  him  in  his  night-gown.  And  although  old  Diamond  was 
very  quiet  all  night  long,  yet  when  he  woke  he  got  up  like  an 
earthquake;  and  then  young  Diamond  knew  what  o'clock  it  was, 
or  at  least  what  was  to  be  done  next,  which  was  —  to  go  to  sleep 
again  as  fast  as  he  could. 

There  was  hay  at  his  feet  and  hay  at  his  head,  piled  up  in 
great  trusses  to  the  very  roof.  Indeed,  it  was  sometimes  only 
through  a  little  lane  with  several  turnings,  which  looked  as  if  it 
had  been  sawn  out  for  him,  that  he  could  reach  his  bed  at  all. 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 

For  the  stock  of  hay  was  of  course  always  in  a  state  either  of 
slow  ebb  or  of  sudden  flow.  Sometimes  the  whole  space  of  the 
loft,  with  the  little  panes  in  the  roof  for  the  stars  to  look  in, 
would  lie  open  before  his  open  eyes  as  he  lay  in  bed;  sometimes 
a  yellow  wall  of  sweet-smelling  fibres  closed  up  his  view  at 
the  distance  of  half  a  yard.  Sometimes  when  his  mother  had 
undressed  him  in  her  room,  and  told  him  to  trot  away  to  bed  by 
himself,  he  would  creep  into  the  heart  of  the  hay,  and  lie  there 
thinking  how  cold  it  was  outside  in  the  wind,  and  how  warm  it 
was  inside  there  in  his  bed,  and  how  he  could  go  to  it  when  he 
pleased,  only  he  wouldn't  just  yet:  he  would  get  a  little  colder 
first.  And  ever  as  he  grew  colder,  his  bed  would  grow  warmer, 
till  at  last  he  would  scramble  out  of  the  hay,  shoot  like  an  arrow 
into  his  bed,  cover  himself  up,  and  snuggle  down,  thinking  what 
a  happy  boy  he  was.  He  had  not  the  least  idea  that  the  wind 
got  in  at  a  chink  in  the  wall,  and  blew  about  him  all  night.  For 
the  back  of  his  bed  was  only  of  boards  an  inch  thick,  and  on  the 
other  side  of  them  was  the  North  Wind. 

Now,  as  I  have  already  said,  these  boards  were  soft  and 
crumbly.  To  be  sure,  they  were  tarred  on  the  outside,  yet  in 
many  places  they  were  more  like  tinder  than  timber.  Hence  it 
happened  that  the  soft  part  having  worn  away  from  about  it, 
little  Diamond  found  one  night  after  he  lay  down,  that  a  knot 
had  come  out  of  one  of  them,  and  that  the  wind  was  blowing  in 
upon  him  in  a  cold  and  rather  imperious  fashion.  Now  he  had 
no  fancy  for  leaving  things  wrong  that  might  be  set  right ;  so  he 
jumped  out  of  bed  again,  got  a  little  strike  of  hay,  twisted  it  up, 
folded  it  in  the  middle,  and  having  thus  made  it  into  a  cork, 
stuck  it  into  the  hole  in  the  wall.  But  the  wind  began  to  blow 
loud  and  angrily;  and  as  Diamond  was  'falling  asleep,  out  blew 
his  cork  and  hit  him  on  the  nose,  just  hard  enough  to  wake  him 
up  quite,  and  let  him  hear  the  wind  whistling  shrill  in  the  hole. 
He  searched  for  his  hay-cork,  found  it,  stuck  it  in  harder,  and 
was  just  dropping  off  once  more,  when,  pop!  with  an  angry 
whistle  behind  it,  the  cork  struck  him  again,  this  time  on  the 
cheek.  Up  he  rose  once  more,  made  a  fresh  stopple  of  hay,  and 
corked  the  hole  severely.  But  he  was  hardly  down  again  before 
—  pop!  it  came  on  his  forehead.  He  gave  it  up,  drew  the  clothes 
above  his  head,  and  was  soon  fast  asleep. 

Although  the  next  day  was  very  stormy,  Diamond  forgot  all 
about  the  hole;  for  he  was  busy  making  a  cave  by  the  side  of 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


9467 


his  mother's  fire, — with  a  broken  chair,  a  three-legged  stool,  and 
a  blanket, —  and  sitting  in  it.  His  mother,  however,  discovered  it 
and  pasted  a  bit  of  brown  paper  over  it;  so  that  when  Diamond 
had  snuggled  down  for  the  next  night,  he  had  no  occasion !  to 
think  of  it. 

Presently,  however,  he  lifted  his  head  and  listened.  Who  could 
that  be  talking  to  him?  The  wind  was  rising  again,  and  getting 
very  loud,  and  full  of  rushes  and  whistles.  He  was  sure  some 
one  was  talking  —  and  very  near  him  too  it  was.  But  he  was 
not  frightened,  for  he  had  not  yet  learned  how  to  be;  so  he  sat 
up  and  hearkened.  At  last  the  voice,  which  though  quite  gentle 
sounded  a  little  angry,  appeared  to  come  from  the  back  of  the 
bed.  He  crept  nearer  to  it,  and  laid  his  ear  against  the  wall. 
Then  he  heard  nothing  but  the  wind,  which  sounded  very  loud 
indeed.  The  moment,  however,  that  he  moved  his  head  from  the 
wall  he  heard  the  voice  again,  close  to  his  •  ear.  He  felt  about 
with  his  hand,  and  came  upon  the  piece  of  paper  his  mother  had 
pasted  over  the  hole.  Against  this  he  laid  his  ear,  and  then  he 
heard  the  voice  quite  distinctly.  There  was  in  fact  a  little  cor- 
ner of  the  paper  loose ;  and  through  that,  as  from  a  mouth  in 
the  wall,  the  voice  came. 

<(What  do  you  mean,  little  boy  —  closing  up  my  window  ? " 

(<  What  window  ? "  asked  Diamond. 

<(You  stuffed  hay  into  it  three  times  last  night.  I  had  to 
blow  it  out  again  three  times." 

<(You  can't  mean  this  little  hole!  It  isn't  a  window;  it's  a 
hole  in  my  bed." 

<(  I  did  not  say  it  was  a  window :    I   said  it  was  my  window. " 

<(  But  it  can't  be  a  window,  because  windows  are  holes  to  see 
out  of." 

<(Well,  that's  just  what  I  made  this  window  for." 

(<  But  you  are  outside:    you  can't  want  a  window." 

(<You  are  quite  mistaken.  Windows  are  to  see  out  of,  you 
say.  Well,  I'm  in  my  house,  and  I  want  ,  windows  to  see  out 
of  it.» 

"But  you've  made  a  window  into  my  bed." 

(<  Well,  your  mother  has  got  three  windows  into  my  dancing- 
room,  and  you  have  three  into  my  garret." 

<(  But  I  heard  father  say,  when  my  mother  wanted  him  to 
make  a  window  through  the  wall,  that  it  was  against  the  law,, 
for  it  would  look  into  Mr.  Dyves's  garden." 


9468 


GEORGE   MACDONALD 


The  voice  laughed. 

"  The  law  would  have  some  trouble  to  catch  me !  "  it  said. 

"But  if  it's  not  right,  you  know,*  said  Diamond,  <(  that's  no 
matter.  You  shouldn't  do  it.® 

<(  I  am  so  tall  I  am  above  that  law, "  said  the  voice. 

"You  must  have  a  tall  house,  then,"  said  Diamond. 

<(Yes,  a  tall  house:  the  clouds  are  inside  it." 

<(Dear  me!"  said  Diamond,  and  thought  a  minute.  " I  think, 
then,  you  can  hardly  expect  me  to  keep  a  window  in  my  bed  for 
you.  Why  don't  you  make  a  window  into  Mr.  Dyves's  bed  ? " 

"Nobody  makes  a  window  into  an  ash-pit,"  said  the  voice 
rather  sadly :  <(  I  like  to  see  nice  things  out  of  my  windows. " 

"  But  he  must  have  a  nicer  bed  than  I  have ;  though  mine  is 
very  nice  —  so  nice  that  I  couldn't  wish  a  better." 

<( It's  not  the  bed  I  care  about:  it's  what  is  in  it.  —  But  you 
just  open  that  window." 

"Well,  mother  says  I  shouldn't  be  disobliging;  but  it's  rather 
hard.  You  see  the  north  wind  will  blow  right  in  my  face  if  I 
do." 

«I  am  the  North  Wind." 

<(  O-o-oh !  "  said  Diamond  thoughtfully.  "  Then  will  you  prom- 
ise not  to  blow  on  my  face  if  I  open  your  window  ? " 

<(  I  can't  promise  that. " 

"But  you'll  give  me  the  toothache.     Mother's  got  it  already." 

"  But  what's  to  become  of  me  without  a  window  ? " 

"  I'm  sure  I  don't  know.  All  I  say  is,  it  will  be  worse  fol 
me  than  for  you." 

"No,  it  will  not.  You  shall  not  be  the  worse  for  it  —  I  prom- 
ise you  that.  You  will  be  much  the  better  for  it.  Just  you 
believe  what  I  say,  and  do  as  I  tell  you." 

"Well,  I  can  pull  the  clothes  over  my  head,"  said  Diamond; 
and  feeling  with  his  little  sharp  nails,  he  got  hold  of  the  open 
edge  of  the  paper  and  tore  it  off  at  once. 

In  came  a  long  whistling  spear  of  cold,  and  struck  his  little 
naked  chest.  He  scrambled  and  tumbled  in  under  the  bed-clothes, 
and  covered  himself  up:  there  was  no  paper  now  between  him 
and  the  voice,  and  he  felt  a  little  —  not  frightened  exactly,  I  told 
you  he  had  not  learned  that  yet  —  but  rather  queer;  for  what  a 
strange  person  this  North  Wind  must  be  that  lived  in  the  great 
house — "called  Out-of-Doors,  I  suppose,"  thought  Diamond  —  and 
made  windows  into  people's  beds!  But  the  voice  began  again; 


GEORGE   MACDONALD 


9469 


and  he  could  hear  it  quite  plainly,  even  with  his  head  under  the 
bedclothes.  It  was  a  still  more  gentle  voice  now,  although  six 
times  as  large  and  loud  as  it  had  been,  and  he  thought  it  sounded 
a  little  like  his  mother's. 

<(  What  is  your  name,  little  boy  ? "  it  asked. 

"Diamond,"  answered  Diamond  under  the  bedclothes. 

"  What  a  funny  name ! " 

"It's  a  very  nice  name,"  returned  its  owner. 

"I  don't  know  that,"  said  the  voice. 

<(Well,  I  do,"  retorted  Diamond,  a  little  rudely. 

"  Do  you  know  to  whom  you  are  speaking  ? " 

"No,"  said  Diamond. 

And  indeed  he  did  not.  For  to  know  a  person's  name  is  not 
always  to  know  the  person's  self. 

"Then  I  must  not  be  angry  with  you. — You  had  better  look 
and  see,  though." 

(<  Diamond  is  a  very  pretty  name, "  persisted  the  boy,  vexed 
that  it  should  not  give  satisfaction. 

((  Diamond  is  a  useless  thing,  rather,"  said  the  voice. 

<(  That's  not  true.  Diamond  is  very  nice  —  as  big  as  two  —  and 
so  quiet  all  night!  And  doesn't  he  make  a  jolly  row  in  the  morn- 
ing, getting  up  on  his  four  great  legs!  It's  like  thunder." 

"You  don't  seem  to  know  what  a  diamond  is." 

(<  Oh,  don't  I  just!  Diamond  is  a  great  and  good  horse;  and 
he  sleeps  right  under  me.  He  is  Old  Diamond,  and  I  am  Young 
Diamond;  or  if  you  like  it  better, — for  you're  very  particular, 
Mr.  North  Wind, — he's  Big  Diamond,  and  I'm  Little  Diamond: 
and  I  don't  know  which  of  us  my  father  likes  best." 

A  beautiful  laugh,  large  but  very  soft  and  musical,  sounded 
somewhere  beside  him;  but  Diamond  kept  his  head  under  the 
clothes. 

<(I'm  not  Mr.   North  Wind,"  said  the  voice. 

<(  You  told  me  that  you  were  the  North  Wind,  *  insisted  Dia- 
mond. 

"I  did  not  say  Mister  North  Wind,"  said  the  voice. 

"Well  then,  I  do;    for  mother  tells  me  I  ought  to  be  polite." 

"Then  let  me  tell  you  I  don't  think  it  at  all  polite  of  you  to 
say  Mister  to  me." 

"Well,  I  didn't  know  better.     I'm  very  sorry.0 

"But  you  .ought  to  know  better." 

"  I  don't  know  that." 


9470 


GEORGE  MACDONALD 


<(  I  do.  You  can't  say  it's  polite  to  lie  there  talking,  with 
your  head  under  the  bedclothes,  and  never  look  up  to  see  what 
kind  of  person  you  are  talking  to.  I  want  you  to  come  out  with 
me." 

<(  I  want  to  go  to  sleep, "  said  Diamond,  very  nearly  crying; 
for  he  did  not  like  to  be  scolded,  even  when  he  deserved  it. 

<(You  shall  sleep  all  the  better  to-morrow  night." 

<(  Besides, "  said  Diamond,  (<  you  are  out  in  Mr.  Dyves's  gar- 
den, and  I  can't  get  there.  I  can  only  get  into  our  own  yard." 

<(  Will  you  take  your  head  out  of  the  bedclothes  ? "  said  the 
voice,  just  a  little  angrily. 

"No!"  answered  Diamond,  half  .peevish,  half  frightened. 

The  instant  he  said  the  word,  a  tremendous  blast  of  wind 
crashed  in  a  board  of  the  wall,  and  swept  the  clothes  off  Dia- 
mond. He  started  up  in  terror.  Leaning  over  him  was  the  large, 
beautiful,  pale  face  of  a  woman.  Her  dark  eyes  looked  a  little 
angry,  for  they  had  just  begun  to  flash;  but  a  quivering  in  her 
sweet  upper  lip  made  her  look  as  if  she  were  going  to  cry. 
What  was  most  strange  was  that  away  from  her  head  streamed 
out  her  black  hair  in  every  direction,  so  that  the  darkness  in  the 
hay-loft  looked  as  if  it  were  made  of  her  hair;  but  as  Diamond 
gazed  at  her  in  speechless  amazement,  mingled  with  confidence, 
—  for  the  boy  was  entranced  with  her  mighty  beauty, — her  hair 
began  to  gather  itself  out  of  the  darkness,  and  fell  down  all 
about  her  again,  till  her  face  looked  'out  of  the  midst  of  it  like  a 
moon  out  of  a  cloud.  From  her  eyes  came  all  the  light  by  which 
Diamond  saw  her  face  and  her  hair;  and  that  was  all  he  did  see 
of  her  yet.  The  wind  was  over  and  gone. 

<(  Will  you  go  with  me  now,  you  little  Diamond  ?  I  am  sorry 
I  was  forced  to  be  so  rough  with  you,"  said  the  lady. 

"  I  will ;  yes,  I  will, "  answered  Diamond,  holding  out  both  his 
arms.  "But,"  he  added,  dropping  them,  <(how  shall  I  get  my 
clothes?  They  are  in  mother's  room,  and  the  door  is  locked." 

"Oh,  never  mind  your  clothes.  You  will  not  be  cold.  I  shall 
take  care  of  that.  Nobody  is  cold  with  the  North  Wind." 

(( I  thought  everybody  was, "  said  Diamond. 

"That  is  a  great  mistake.  Most  people  make  it,  however. 
They  are  cold  because  they  are  not  with  the  North  Wind,  but 
without  it." 

If  Diamond  had  been  a  little  older,  and  had  supposed  himself 
a  good  deal  wiser,  he  would  have  thought  the  lady  was  joking. 


GEORGE   MACDONALD 


9471 


But  he  was  not  older,  and  did  not  fancy  himself  wiser,  and  there- 
fore understood  her  well  enough.  Again  he  stretched  out  his 
arms.  The  lady's  face  drew  back  a  little. 

(<  Follow  me,  Diamond,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  said  Diamond,  only  a  little  ruefully. 

(<  You're  not  afraid  ? "    said  the  North  Wind. 

<(No,  ma'am:  but  mother  never  would  let  me  go  without 
shoes;  she  never  said  anything  about  clothes,  so  I  daresay  she 
wouldn't  mind  that." 

(<  I  know  your  mother  very  well, "  said  the  lady.  <(  She  is  a 
good  woman.  I  have  visited  her  often.  I  was  with  her  when 
you  were  born.  I  saw  her  laugh  and  cry  both  at  once.  I  love 
your  mother,  Diamond." 

(<  How  was  it  you  did  not  know  my  name,  then,  ma'am  ? 
Please,  am  I  to  say  ma'am  to  you,  ma'am  ? " 

<(One  question  at  a  time,  dear  boy.  I  knew  your  name  quite 
well,  but  I  wanted  to  hear  what  you  would  say  for  it.  Don't 
you  remember  that  day  when  the  man  was  rinding  fault  with 
your  name  —  how  I  blew  the  window  in  ? " 

<(  Yes,  yes, "  answered  Diamond  eagerly.  <(  Our  window  opens 
like  a  door,  right  over  the  coach-house  door.  And  the  wind  — 
you,  ma'am  —  came  in,  and  blew  the  Bible  out  of  the  man's 
hands,  and  the  leaves  went  all  flutter-flutter  on  the  floor,  and 
my  mother  picked  it  up  and  gave  it  back  to  him  open,  and 
there  —  " 

(<Was  your  name  in  the  Bible  —  the  sixth  stone  in  the  high- 
priest's  breast-plate. " 

<(Oh!  a  stone,  was  it?"  said  Diamond.  <(  I  thought  it  had 
been  a  horse  —  I  did." 

"Never  mind.  A  horse  is  better  than  a  stone  any  day.  Well, 
you  see,  I  know  all  about  you  and  your  mother." 

"  Yes.     I  will  go  with  you. " 

(<Now  for  the  next  question:  you're  not  to  call  me  ma'am. 
You  must  call  me  just  my  own  name  —  respectfully,  you  know  — 
just  North  Wind." 

"Well,  please,  North  Wind,  you  are  so  beautiful,  I  am  quite 
ready  to  go  with  you." 

<(You  must  not  be  ready  to  go  with  everything  beautiful  all 
at  once,  Diamond." 

"But  what's  beautiful  can't  be  bad.  You're  not  bad,  North 
Wind  ? » 


GEORGE   MACDONALP 

<(No;  I'm  not  bad.  But  sometimes  beautiful  things  grow  bad 
by  doing  bad,  and  it  takes  some  time  for  their  badness  to  spoil 
their  beauty.  So  little  boys  may  be  mistaken  if  they  go  after 
things  because  they  are  beautiful. >} 

<(Well,  I  will  go  with  you  because  you  are  beautiful  and  good 
too. }) 

(<Ah,  but  there's  another  thing,  Diamond:  What  if  I  should 
look  ugly  without  being  bad  —  look  ugly  myself  because  I  am 
making  ugly  things  beautiful  ?  —  what  then  ? }) 

a  I  don't  quite  understand  you,  North  Wind.  You  tell  me 
what  then." 

<(Well,  I  will  tell  you.  If  you  see  me  with  my  face  all  black, 
don't  be  frightened.  If  you  see  me  flapping  wings  like  a  bat's, 
as  big  as  the  whole  sky,  don't  be  frightened.  If  you  hear  me 
raging  ten  times  worse  than  Mrs.  Bill,  the  blacksmith's  wife, — 
even  if  you  see  me  looking  in  at  people's  windows  like  Mrs.  Eve 
Dropper,  the  gardener's  wife, —  you  must  believe  that  I  am  doing 
my  work.  Nay,  Diamond,  if  I  change  into  a  serpent  or  a  tiger, 
you  must  not  let  go  your  hold  of  me,  for  my  hand  will  never 
change  in  yours  if  you  keep  a  good  hold.  If  you  keep  a  hold, 
you  will  know  who  I  am  all  the  time,  even  when  you  look  at 
me  and  can't  see  me  the  least  like  the  North  Wind.  I  may 
look  something  very  awful.  Do  you  understand  ?  w 

"Quite  well,0  said  little  Diamond. 

"Come  along  then,"  said  North  Wind,  and  disappeared  behind 
the  mountain  of  hay. 

Diamond  crept  out  of  bed  and  followed  her. 


9473 


JEAN   MACE 

(1815-1894) 

JEAN  MACE  was  a  benign  child-lover,  and  never  lost  the 
childlike  simplicity  and  zest  in  life  which  characterize  his 
style.  He  was  born  in  Paris  in  1815;  and  his  parents,  plain 
working-people  who  were  ambitious  for  their  boy,  gave  him  unusual 
advantages  for  one  of  his  class.  His  course  at  the  College  Stanilaus 
was  not  completed  without  self-sacrifice  at  home  which  made  him 
prize  and  improve  his  opportunities.  At 
twenty-one  he  became  instructor  in  history 
in  the  same  college,  and  he  was  teaching 
in  the  College  Henri  IV.,  when  he  was 
drafted  as  a  soldier.  After  three  years' 
service  he  was  bought  out  by  his  friend 
and  former  professor  M.  Burette,  whose  pri- 
vate secretary  he  became.  Always  inter- 
ested in  politics,  and  an  ardent  republican, 
he  welcomed  the  revolution  of  1848  with 
an  enthusiasm  which  involved  him  in  diffi- 
culties a  few  years  later.  With  the  restor- 
ation of  the  Empire  under  Louis  Napoleon 
he  was  banished;  and  in  exile,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-seven,  he  discovered  his  true  vocation. 

The  (<  Little  Chateau, })  at  Beblenheim  in  Alsace,  was  a  private 
school  for  girls,  kept  by  his  friend  Mademoiselle  Verenet,  who  now 
offered  Mace  a  position  as  teacher  of  natural  science  and  literature. 
He  loved  to  teach,  loved  to  impart  fact  so  that  it  might  exercise  a 
moral  influence  upon  character;  and  he  was  very  happy  in  the  calmly 
busy  life  at  Beblenheim,  where,  as  he  says,  <(I  was  at  last  in  my 
true  calling. }> 

In  1 86 1  he  published  the  (Histoire  d'une  Bouchee  de  Pain,' —  a 
simple  yet  comprehensive  work  on  physiology,  made  as  delightful  as 
a  story-book  to  child  readers.  Its  wide  popularity  both  in  French, 
and  in  an  English  translation  as  (  The  Story  of  a  Mouthful  of  Bread,  > 
prompted  a  sequel,  < Les  Serviteurs  de  1'Estomac  >  (The  Servants  of 
the  Stomach),  also  very  successful.  But  the  <  Contes  du  Petit  Cha- 
teau, >  a  collection  of  charming  fairy  tales  written  for  his  little  pupils, 
is  Mace's  masterpiece.  These  stories  are  simple  lessons  in  thrift, 


JEAN  MAC£ 


9474  JEAN  MACfi 

truth,  and  generosity,  inculcated  with  dramatic  force  and  imaginat- 
ive vigor.  Translated  as  ( Home  Fairy  Tales,  y  they  have  long  been 
familiar  to  English  and  American  children. 

After  ten  years  at  Beblenheim,  Mace  returned  to  Paris,  where  in 
company  with  Stahl  he  established  the  popular  Magasin  d'Education 
et  de  Recreation.  One  of  his  strongest  desires  had  always  been  to 
extend  educational  influences;  and  for  this  purpose  he  established  in 
1863  the  Societe  des  Bibliotheques  Communales  du  Haut  Rhin,  and 
later  organized  a  League  of  Instruction  for  increasing  the  number  of 
schools  and  libraries.  He  died  in  1894. 


THE  NECKLACE   OF  TRUTH 

From  <  Mace's  Fairy  Book.*     Translated  by  Mary  L.  Booth,  and  published  by 

Harper  &  Brothers 

THERE  was  once  a  little  girl  by  the  name  of  Coralie,  who  took 
pleasure  in  telling  falsehoods.  Some  children  think  very 
little  of  not  speaking  the  truth;  and  a  small  falsehood,  or  a 
great  one  in  case  of  necessity,  that  saves  them  from  a  duty  or 
a  punishment,  procures  them  a  pleasure,  or  gratifies  their  self-love, 
seems  to  them  the  most  allowable  thing  in  the  world.  Now 
Coralie  was  one  of  this  sort.  The  truth  was  a  thing  of  which 
she  had  no  idea;  and  any  excuse  was  good  to  her,  provided  that  it 
was  believed.  Her  parents  were  for  a  long  time  deceived  by  her 
stories;  but  they  saw  at  last  that  she  was  telling  them  what  was 
not  true,  and  from  that  moment  they  had  not  the  least  confidence 
in  anything  that  she  said. 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  for  parents  not  to  be  able  to  believe 
their  children's  words.  It  would  be  better  almost  to  have  no 
children;  for  the  habit  of  lying,  early  acquired,  may  lead  them 
in  after  years  to  the  most  shameful  crimes:  and  what  parent  can 
help  trembling  at  the  thought  that  he  may  be  bringing  up  his 
children  to  dishonor  ? 

After  vainly  trying  every  means  to  reform  her,  Coralie's  par- 
ents resolved  to  take  her  to  the  enchanter  Merlin,  who  was  cele- 
brated at  that  time  over  all  the  globe,  and  who  was  the  greatest 
friend  of  truth  that  ever  lived.  For  this  reason,  little  children 
that  were  in  the  habit  of  telling  falsehoods  were  brought  to  him 
from  all  directions,  in  order  that  he  might  cure  them. 

The  enchanter  Merlin  lived  in  a  glass  palace,  the  walls  of 
which  were  transparent;  and  never  in  his  whole  life  had  the 


JEAN  MACE  9475 

idea  crossed  his  mind  of  disguising  one  of  his  actions,  of  causing 
others  to  believe  what  was  not  true,  or  even  of  suffering  them 
to  believe  it  by  being  silent  when  he  might  have  spoken.  He 
knew  liars  by  their  odor  a  league  off;  and  when  Coralie  ap- 
proached the  palace,  he  was  obliged  to  burn  vinegar  to  prevent 
himself  from  being  ill. 

Coralie 's  mother,  with  a  beating  heart,  undertook  to  explain 
the  vile  disease  which  had  attacked  her  daughter;  and  blushingly 
commenced  a  confused  speech,  rendered  misty  by  shame,  when 
Merlin  stopped  her  short. 

(<  I  know  what  is  the  matter,  my  good  lady,"  said  he.  <(  I  felt 
your  daughter's  approach  long  ago.  She  is  one  of  the  greatest 
liars  in  the  world,  and  she  has  made  me  very  uncomfortable. }) 

The  parents  perceived  that  fame  had  not  deceived  them  in 
praising  the  skill  of  the  enchanter;  and  Coralie,  covered  with 
confusion,  knew  not  where  to  hide  her  head.  She  took  refuge 
under  the  apron  of  her  mother,  who  sheltered  her  as  well  as  she 
could,  terrified  at  the  turn  affairs  were  taking,  while  her  father 
stood  before  her  to  protect  her  at  all  risks.  They  were  very 
anxious  that  their  child  should  be  cured,  but  they  wished  her 
cured  gently  and  without  hurting  her. 

(<  Don't  be  afraid, >}  said  Merlin,  seeing  their  terror:  (<  I  do  not 
employ  violence  in  curing  these  diseases.  I  am  only  going  to 
make  Coralie  a  beautiful  present,  which  I  think  will  not  displease 
her.» 

He  opened  a  drawer,  and  took  from  it  a  magnificent  amethyst 
necklace,  beautifully  set,  with  a  diamond  clasp  of  dazzling  lustre. 
He  put  it  on  Coralie's  neck,  and  dismissing  the  parents  with  a 
friendly  gesture,  <(  Go,  good  people, >}  said  he,  <(  and  have  no  more 
anxiety.  Your  daughter  carries  with  her  a  sure  guardian  of  the 
truth. » 

Coralie,  flushed  with  pleasure,  was  hastily  retreating,  delighted 
at  having  escaped  so  easily,  when  Merlin  called  her  back. 

(<  In  a  year, })  said  he,  looking  at  her  sternly,  <(  I  shall  come 
for  my  necklace.  Till  that  time  I  forbid  you  to  take  it  off  for  a 
single  instant :  if  you  dare  to  do  so,  woe  be  unto  you ! w 

<(Oh,  I  ask  nothing  better  than  always  to  wear  it, — it  is  so 
beautiful. » 

In  order  that  you  may  know,  I  will  tell  you  that  this  neck- 
lace was  none  other  than  the  famous  Necklace  of  Truth,  so  much 
talked  of  in  ancient  books,  which  unveiled  every  species  of  false- 
hood. 


9476  JEAN   MACE 

The  day  after  Coralie  returned  home  she  was  sent  to  school. 
As  she  had  long  been  absent,  all  the  little  girls  crowded  round 
her,  as  always  happens  in  such 'cases.  There  was  a  general  cry 
of  admiration  at  the  sight  of  the  necklace. 

"Where  did  it  come  from?"  and  "where  did  you  get  it  ?"  was 
asked  on  all  sides. 

In  thos  »  days,  for  any  one  to  say  that  he  had  been  to  the 
enchanter  Merlin's  was  to  tell  the  whole  story,  Coralie  took 
good  care  not  to  betray  herself  in  this  way. 

"I  was  sick  for  a  long  time,"  said  she,  boldly;  "and  on  my 
recovery  my  parents  gave  me  this  beautiful  necklace." 

A  loud- cry  rose  from  all  at  once.  The  diamonds  of  the  clasp, 
which  had  shot  forth  so  brilliant  a  light,  had  suddenly  become  dim, 
and  were  turned  to  coarse  glass. 

"Well,  yes,  I  have  been  sick!  What  are  you  making  such  a  fuss 
about?" 

At  this  second  falsehood,  the  amethysts  in  turn  changed  to  ugly 
yellow  stones.  A  new  cry  arose.  Coralie,  seeing  all  eyes  fixed 
on  her  necklace,  looked  that  way  herself,  and  was  struck  with 
terror. 

"  I  have  been  to  the  enchanter  Merlin's,"  said  she,  humbly, 
understanding  from  what  direction  the  blow  came,  and  not  daring 
to  persist  in  her  falsehood. 

Scarcely  had  she  confessed  the  truth  when  the  necklace  recov- 
ered all  its  beauty;  but  the  loud  bursts  of  laughter  that  sounded 
around  her  mortified  her  to  such  a  degree  that  she  felt  the  need 
of  saying  something  to  retrieve  her  reputation. 

"You  do  very  wrong  to  laugh,"  said  she,  "for  he  treated  us 
with  the  greatest  possible  respect.  He  sent  his  carriage  to  meet 
us  at  the  next  town,  and  you  have  no  idea  what  a  splendid  car- 
riage it  was, — six  white  horses,  pink  satin  cushions  with  gold 
tassels,  to  say  nothing  of  the  negro  coachman  with  his  hair  pow- 
dered, and  the  three  tall  footmen  behind!  When  we  reached  his 
palace,  which  is  all  of  jasper  and  porphyry,  he  came  to  meet  us 
at  the  vestibule,  and  led  us  to  the  dining-room,  where  stood  a 
table  covered  with  things  that  I  will  not  name  to  you,  because 
you  never  even  heard  speak  of  them.  There  was,  in  the  first 
place—" 

The  laughter,  which  had  been  suppressed  with  great  difficulty 
ever  since  she  commenced  this  fine  story,  became  at  that  mo- 
ment so  boisterous  that  she  stopped  in  amazement;  and  casting 
her  eyes  once  more  on  the  unlucky  necklace,  she  shuddered 


JEAN    MACE  9477 

anew.  At  each  detail  that  she  had  invented,  the  necklace  had 
become  longer  and  longer,  until  it  already  dragged  on  the  ground. 

(<You  are  stretching  the  truth, yy  cried  the  little  girls. 

"Well,  I  confess  it:  we  went  on  foot,  and  only  stayed  five 
minutes. " 

The  necklace  instantly  shrunk  to  its  proper  size. 

"And  the  necklace  —  the  necklace  —  where  did  it  come  from?* 

"He  gave  it  to  me  without  saying  a  word;  probabl — " 

She  had  not  time  to  finish.  -The  fatal  necklace  grew  shorter 
and  shorter  till  it  choked  her  terribly,  and  she  gasped  for  want 
of  breath. 

<(  You  are  keeping  back  part  of  the  truth, "  cried  her  school- 
fellows. 

She  hastened  to  alter  the  broken  words  while  she  could  still 
speak. 

((  He  said  —  that  I  was  —  one  of  the  greatest  —  liars  —  in  the 
world. " 

Instantly  freed  from  the  pressure  that  was  strangling  her,  she 
continued  to  cry  with  pain  and  mortification. 

<(  That  was  why  he  gave  me  the  necklace.  He  said  that  it 
was  a  guardian  of  the  truth,  and  I  have  been  a  great  fool  to  be 
proud  of  it.  Now  I  am  in  a  fine  position ! " 

Her  little  companions  had  compassion  on  her  grief;  for  they 
were  good  girls,  and  they  reflected  how  they  should  feel  in  her 
place.  You  can  imagine,  indeed,  that  it  was  somewhat  embar- 
rassing for  a  girl  to  know  that  she  could  never  more  pervert  the 
truth. 

"You  are  very  good,"  said  one  of  them.  "If  I  were  in  your 
place,  I  should  soon  send  back  the  necklace:  handsome  as  it  is, 
it  is  a  great  deal  too  troublesome.  What  hinders  you  from  tak- 
ing it  off?" 

Poor  Coralie  was  silent;  but  the  stones  began  to  dance  up  and 
down,  and  to  make  a  terrible  clatter. 

<c  There  is  something  that  you  have  not  told  us,"  said  the  little 
girls,  their  merriment  restored  by  this  extraordinary  dance. 

"  I  like  to  wear  it.  " 

The  diamonds  and  amethysts  danced  and  clattered  worse  than 
ever. 

"There  is  a  reason  which  you  are  hiding  from  us." 

"Well,  since  I  can  conceal  nothing  from  you,  he  forbade  me 
to  take  it  off,  under  penalty  of  some  great  calamity." 


9478  JEAN 

You  can  imagine  that  with  a  companion  of  this  kind,  which 
turned  dull  whenever  the  wearer  did  not  tell  the  truth,  which 
grew  longer  whenever  she  added  to  it,  which  shrunk  whenever 
she  subtracted  from  it,  and  which  danced  and  clattered  whenever 
she  was  silent, —  a  companion,  moreover,  of  which  she  could  not 
rid  herself, —  it  was  impossible  even  for  the  most  hardened  liar 
not  to  keep  closely  to  the  truth.  When  Coralie  once  was  fully 
convinced  that  falsehood  was  useless,  and  that  it  would  be  in- 
stantly discovered,  it  was  not  difficult  for  her  to  abandon  it.  The 
consequence  was,  that  when  she  became  accustomed  always  to 
tell  the  truth,  she  found  herself  so  happy  in  it  —  she  felt  her 
conscience  so  light  and  her  mind  so  calm  —  that  she  began  to 
abhor  falsehood  for  its  own  sake,  and  the  necklace  had  nothing 
more  to  do.  Long  before  the  year  had  passed,  therefore,  Merlin 
came  for  his  necklace,  which  he  needed  for  another  child  that 
was  addicted  to  lying,  and  whioh,  thanks  to  his  art,  he  knew 
was  of  no  more  use  to  Coralie. 

No  one  can  tell  me  what  has  become  of  this  wonderful  Neck- 
lace of  Truth;  but  it  is  thought  that  'Merlin's  heirs  hid  it  after 
his  death,  for  fear  of  the  ravages  that  it  might  cause  on  earth. 
You  can  imagine  what  a  calamity  it  would  be  to  many  people  — 
I  do  not  speak  only  of  children  —  if  they  were  forced  to  wear  it. 
Some  travelers  who  have  returned  from  Central  Africa  declare 
that  they  have  seen  it  on  the  neck  of  a  negro  king,  who  knew 
not  how  to  lie;  but  they  have  never  been  able  to  prove  their 
words.  Search  is  still  being  made  for  it,  however;  and  if  I  were 
a  little  child  in  the  habit  of  telling  falsehoods,  I  should  not  feel 
quite  sure  that  it  might  not  some  day  be  found  again. 


MACHIAVELLI 


9479 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 

(1469-1527) 

BY   CHARLES   P.  NEILL 

IICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI,  perhaps  the  greatest  prose  writer  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  was  born  in  Florence  May  3d,  1469,  and 
died  there  June  22d,  1527.  He  was  of  ancient  and  distin- 
guished lineage  on  both  his  father's  and  his  mother's  side,  and  many 
of  his  more  immediate  ancestors  had  been  honored  by  republican 
Florence  with  high  offices  of  State.  His  father  Bernardo  was  a  re- 
spectable jurist,  who  to  a  moderate  income  from  his  profession  added 
a  small  revenue  from  some  landed  possessions.  His  mother  was  a 
woman  of  culture,  and  a  poet  of  some  ability. 

Of  Niccolo's  early  life  and  education  we  know  nothing.  No  trace 
of  him  remains  previous  to  his  twenty-sixth  year.  But  of  his  times 
and  the  scenes  amid  which  he  grew  up,  we  know  much.  It  was  the 
calm  but  demoralizing  era  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  when  the 
sturdy  Florentine  burghers  rested  satisfied  with  magnificence  in  lieu 
of  freedom,  and,  intoxicated  with  the  spirit  of  a  pagan  renaissance, 
abandoned  themselves  to  the  refinements  of  pleasure  and  luxury;  — 
when  their  streets  had  ceased  for  a  while  to  re-echo  with  the  clash 
of  steel  and  the  fierce  shouts  of  contending  factions,  and  resounded 
with  the  productions  of  Lorenzo's  melodious  but  indecent  Muse. 
Machiavelli  was  a  true  child  of  his  time.  He  too  was  thoroughly 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance;  and  looked  back,  fasci- 
nated, on  the  ideals  of  that  ancient  world  that  was  being  revivified 
for  the  men  of  his  day.  But  philosophy,  letters,  and  art  were  not  the 
only  heritage  that  the  bygone  age  had  handed  down;  politics  —  the 
building  of  States  and  of  empire  —  this  also  had  engaged  the  minds 
of  the  men  of  that  age,  and  it  was  this  aspect  of  their  activity  that 
fired  the  imagination  of  the  young  Florentine.  From  his  writings  we 
know  he  was  widely  read  in  the  Latin  and  Italian  classics.  But  Vir- 
gil and  Horace  appealed  to  him  less  than  Livy,  and  Dante  the  poet 
was  less  to  him  than  Dante  the  politician;  for  he  read  his  classics, 
not  as  others,  to  drink  in  their  music  or  be  led  captive  by  their 
beauty,  but  to  derive  lessons  in  statecraft,  and  penetrate  into  the 
secrets  of  the  successful  empire-builders  of  the  past.  It  is  equally 


9480 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 


certain,  from  a  study  of  his  works,  that  he  had  not  mastered  Greek. 
Like  Ariosto,  Machiavelli  was  indebted  for  his  superb  literary  tech- 
nique solely  to  the  study  of  the  literature  of  his  own  nation. 

With  the  expulsion  of  the  Medici  from  Florence,  Machiavelli,  at 
the  age  of  thirty,  emerged  from  obscurity  to  play  a  most  important 
role  in  the  Florentine  politics  of  the  succeeding  decade  and  a  half. 
In  1498  he  was  elected  secretary  to  the  Ten  of  War  and  Peace, —  a 
commission  performing  the  functions  of  a  ministry  of  war  and  of 
home  affairs,  and  having  in  addition  control  of  the  Florentine  diplo- 
matic service.  From  1498  to  1512  Machiavelli  was  a  zealous,  patriotic, 
and  indefatigable  servant  of  the  republic.  His  energy  was  untiring, 
his  activity  ceaseless  and  many-sided.  He  conducted  the  voluminous 
diplomatic  correspondence  devolving  upon  his  bureau,  drew  up  me- 
morials and  plans  in  affairs  of  State  for  the  use  and  guidance  of  the 
Ten,  undertook  the  reorganization  of  the  Florentine  troops,  and  went 
himself  on  a  constant  succession  of  embassies,  ranging  in  importance 
from  those  to  petty  Italian  States  up  to  those  to  the  court  of  France 
and  of  the  Emperor.  He  was  by  nature  well  adapted  to  the  peculiar 
needs  of  the  diplomacy  of  that  day;  and  the  training  he  received  in 
that  school  must  in  turn  have  reacted  on  him  to  confirm  his  native 
bent,  and  accentuate  it  until  it  became  the  distinguishing  character- 
istic of  the  man.  His  first  lessons  in  politics  and  statecraft  were 
derived  from  Livy's  history  of  the  not  over-scrupulous  Romans;  and 
when  he  comes  to  take  his  lessons  at  first  hand,  it  is  in  the  midst 
of  the  intrigues  of  republican  Florence,  or  at  the  court  of  a  Caterina 
Sforza,  or  in  the  camp  of  a  Cesare  Borgia.  Small  wonder  that  his 
conception  of  politics  should  have  omitted  to  take  account  of  hon- 
esty and  the  moral  law;  and  that  he  conceived  <(the  idea  of  giving 
to  politics  an  assured  and  scientific  basis,  treating  them  as  having 
a  proper  and  distinct  value  of  their  own,  entirely  apart  from  their 
moral  value. }> 

During  this  period  of  his  political  activity,  we  have  a  large  num- 
ber of  State  papers  and  private  letters  from  his  pen;  and  two  works 
of  literary  cast  have  also  come  down  to  us.  These  are  his  ( Decen- 
nale  * :  historic  narratives,  cast  into  poetic  form,  of  Italian  events. 
The  first  treats  of  the  decade  beginning  1494;  and  the  second,  an 
unfinished  fragment,  of  the  decade  beginning  1504.  They  are  written 
in  easy  terzine;  and  unfeigned  sorrow  for  the  miseries  of  Italy,  torn 
by  internal  discord,  alternates  with  cynical  mockery  and  stinging  wit. 
They  are  noteworthy  as  expressing  the  sentiment  for  a  united  Italy. 
A  third  literary  work  of  this  period  has  been  lost:  (Le  Maschere,*  a 
satire  modeled  upon  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes. 

When  in  1512,  after  their  long  exile,  the  Medici  returned  to  Flor- 
ence in  the  train  of  her  invader,  Machiavelli,  though  not  unwilling 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 

to  serve  the  restored  rulers,  was  dismissed  from  his  office  and  ban- 
ished for  a  year  from  the  confines  of  the  city.  Later,  on  suspicion 
of  being  concerned  in  a  plot  against  the  Medici,  he  was  thrown  into 
prison  and  tortured.  He  was  soon  afterward  included  in  a  gen- 
eral pardon  granted  by  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici,  then  become  Leo 
X.  But  notwithstanding  Machiavelli's  earnest  and  persistent  efforts 
to  win  the  good  graces  of  the  ruling  family,  he  did  not  return  to 
public  life  until  1525;  and  this  interval  of  enforced  leisure  from 
affairs  of  State  was  the  period  of  his  literary  activity.  A  number  of 
comedies,  minor  poems,  and  short  prose  compositions  did  not  rise 
above  mediocrity.  They  were  for  the  most  part  translations  from 
the  classics,  or  imitations;  and  the  names  are  hardly  worth  recount- 
ing. But  in  one  dramatic  effort  he  rose  to  the  stature  of  genius. 
His  ( Mandragola  >  achieved  a  flattering  success  both  at  Rome  and  in 
Florence.  It  has  been  pronounced  the  finest  comedy  of  the  Italian 
stage,  and  Macaulay  rated  it  as  inferior  only  to  the  greatest  of 
Moliere's.  In  its  form,  its  spontaneity,  vivacity,  and  wit,  it  is  not 
surpassed  by  Shakespeare;  but  it  is  a  biting  satire  on  religion  and 
morality,  with  not  even  a  hint  of  a  moral  to  redeem  it.  Vice  is 
made  humorous,  and  virtue  silly ;  its  satire  is  (<  deep  and  murderous >} ; 
and  its  plot  too  obscene  to  be  narrated.  In  it  Machiavelli  has  har- 
nessed Pegasus  to  a  garbage  cart. 

His  lesser  prose  works  are  —  the  (Life  of  Castruccio  Castracani,' 
a  <(  politico-military  romance  })  made  up  partly  from  incidents  in  the 
life  of  that  hero,  and  partly  from  incidents  taken  from  Diodorus  Sicu- 
lus's  life  of  Agathocles,  and  concluding  with  a  series  of  memorable 
sayings  attributed  to  Castruccio,  but  taken  from  the  apophthegms  of 
Plutarch  and  Diogenes  Laertius;  and  the  (Art  of  War,*  a  treatise 
anticipating  much  of  our  modern  tactics,  and  inveighing  against  the 
mediaeval  system  of  mercenary  troops  of  mail-clad  men  and  horses. 
A  more  ambitious  undertaking,  and  in  fact  his  largest  work,  is  the 
<  History  of  Florence.*  At  the  suggestion  of  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici, 
the  directors  of  the  studio  of  Florence  commissioned  Machiavelli  to 
employ  himself  in  writing  a  history  of  Florence,  (( from  whatever 
period  he  might  think  fit  to  select,  and  either  in  the  Latin  or  the 
Tuscan  tongue,  according  to  his  taste. »  He  was  to  receive  one  hun- 
dred florins  a  year  for  two  years  to  enable  him  to  pursue  the  work. 
He  chose  his  native  tongue;  and  revised  and  polished  his  work  until 
it  became  a  model  of  style,  and  in  its  best  passages  justifies  his  claim 
to  the  title  of  the  best  and  most  finished  of  Italian  prose  writers. 
He  thus  describes  the  luring  of  Giuliano  de'  Medici  to  his  place  of 
assassination:  — 

<(This  arrangement  having  been  determined  upon,  they  went  into  the 
church,  where  the  Cardinal  had  already  arrived  with  Lorenzo  de'  Medici.  The 


9482 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 


church  was  crowded  with  people,  and  divine  service  had  already  commenced; 
but  Giuliano  had  not  yet  come.  Francesco  dei  Pazzi,  therefore,  together  with 
Bernardo,  who  had  been  designated  to  kill  Giuliano,  went  to  his  house,  and  by 
artful  persuasion  induced  him  to  go  to  the  church.  It  is  really  a  noteworthy 
fact  that  so  much  hatred  and  the  thoughts  of  so  great  an  outrage  could  be 
concealed  under  so  much  resoluteness  of  heart,  as  was  the  case  with  Francesco 
and  Bernardo;  for  on  the  way  to  church,  and  even  after  having  entered  it,  they 
entertained  him  with  merry  jests  and  youthful  chatter.  And  Francesco,  even, 
under  pretense  of  caressing  him,  felt  him  with  his  hands  and  pressed  him  in 
his  arms,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  he  wore  a  cuirass  or  any 
other  means  of  protection  under  his  garments. }) 

But  though  Machiavelli  had  the  historical  style,  he  lacked  histori- 
cal perspective;  he  arranged  his  matter  not  according  to  objective 
value,  but  placed  in  the  boldest  relief  those  events  that  best  lent 
support  to  his  own  theories  of  politics  and  statecraft.  He  makes  his 
facts  to  be  as  he  wishes  them,  rather  than  as  he  knows  them  to  be. 
He  wishes  to  throw  .contempt  on  mercenary  troops,  and  though  he 
knows  an  engagement  to  have  been  bloody,  prefers  for  his  descrip- 
tion such  a  conclusion  as  this: — <(In  the  tremendous  defeat  that  was 
noised  throughout  Italy,  no  one  perished  excepting  Ludovico  degli 
Obizzi  and  two  of  his  men,  who  being  thrown  from  their  horses  were 
smothered  in  the  mud."  To  Machiavelli  history  was  largely  to  be 
written  as  a  tendenz  roman, — manufactured  to  point  a  preconceived 
moral. 

Though  Machiavelli  wrote  history,  poetry,  and  comedy,  it  is  not 
by  these  he  is  remembered.  The  works  that  have  made  his  name  a 
synonym,  and  given  it  a  place  in  every  tongue,  are  the  two  works 
written  almost  in  the  first  year  of  his  retirement  from  political 
life.  These  are  <  The  Prince )  and  the  < Discourses  on  the  First  Ten 
Books  of  Titus  Livius.'  Each  is  a  treatise  on  statecraft;  together  they 
form  a  complete  and  unified  treatise,  and  represent  an  attempt  to  for- 
mulate inductively  a  science  of  politics.  The  ( Discourses )  study 
republican  institutions,  <The  Prince*  monarchical  ones.  The  first  is 
the  more  elementary,  and  would  come  first  in  logical  arrangement. 
But  in  the  writing  of  them  Machiavelli  had  in  view  more  than  the 
foundation  of  a  science  of  politics.  He  was  anxious  to  win  the 
favor  of  the  Medici;  and  as  these  were  not  so  much  interested  in 
how  republics  are  best  built  up,  he  completed  c  The  Prince  )  first,  and 
sent  it  forth  dedicated  <(to  the  magnificent  Lorenzo,  son  of  Piero  de* 
Medici. » 

In  the  <  Discourses,  >  the  author  essays  <(a  new  science  of  states- 
manship, based  on  the  experience  of  human  events  and  history. w  In 
that  day  of  worship  of  the  ancient  world,  Machiavelli  endeavors  to 
draw  men  to  a  study  of  its  politics  as  well  as  its  art.  In  Livy  he 
finds  the  field  for  this  study. 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI  9483 

«When  we  consider  the  general  respect  for  antiquity,  and  how  often  —  to 
say  nothing  of  other  examples  —  a  great  price  is  paid  for  some  fragments  of 
an  antique  statue  which  we  are  anxious  to  possess  to  ornament  our  houses 
with,  or  to  give  to  artists  who  strive  to  imitate  them  in  their  own  works; 
and  when  we  see,  on  the  other  hand,  the  wonderful  examples  which  the  his- 
tory of  ancient  kingdoms  and  republics  presents  to  us,  the  prodigies  of  virtue 
and  of  wisdom  displayed  by  the  kings,  captains,  citizens,  and  legislators  who 
have  sacrificed  themselves  for  their  country:  when  we  see  these,  I  say,  more 
admired  than  imitated,  or  so  much  neglected  that  not  the  least  trace  of  this 
ancient  virtue  remains, —  we  cannot  but  be  at  the  same  time  as  much  sur- 
prised as  afflicted;  the  more  so  as  in  the  differences  which  arise  between 
citizens,  or  in  the  maladies  to  which  they  are  subjected,  we  see  these  same 
people  have  recourse  to  the  judgments  and  the  remedies  prescribed  by  the 
ancients.  The  civil  laws  are  in  fact  nothing  but  the  decisions  given  by  their 
jurisconsults,  and  which,  reduced  to  a  system,  direct  our  modern  jurists  in 
their  decisions.  And  what  is  the  science  of  medicine  but  the  experience  of 
ancient  physicians,  which  their  successors  have  taken  for  a  guide  ?  And  yet 
to  found  a  republic,  maintain  States,  to  govern  a  kingdom,  organize  an  army, 
conduct  a  war,  dispense  justice,  and  extend  empires,  you  will  find  neither 
prince  nor  republic,  nor  captain,  nor  citizen,  who  has  recourse  to  the  exam- 
ples of  antiquity !» 

In  his  commentary  on  the  course  of  Romulus  in  the  founding 
of  Rome,  we  find  the  keynote  of  Machiavelli's  system  of  political 
science.  His  one  aim  is  the  building  of  a  State;  his  one  thought, 
how  best  to  accomplish  his  aim.  Means  are  therefore  to  be  selected, 
and  to  be  judged,  solely  as  regards  their  effectiveness  to  trie  business 
in  hand.  Ordinary  means  are  of  course  to  be  preferred ;  but  extraor- 
dinary must  be  used  when  needed. 

« Many  will  perhaps  consider  it  an  evil  example  that  the  founder  of  a  civil 
society,  as  Romulus  was,  should  first  have  killed  his  brother,  and  then  have 
consented  to  the  death  of  Titus  Tatius,  who  had  been  elected  to  share  the 
royal  authority  with  him;  from  which  it  might  be  concluded  that  the  citizens, 
according  to  the  example  of  their  prince,  might,  from  ambition  and  the  desire 
to  rule,  destroy  those  who  attempt  to  oppose  their  authority.  This  opinion 
would  be  correct,  if  we  do  not  take  into  consideration  the  object  which  Rom- 
ulus had  in  view  in  committing  that  homicide.  But  we  must  assume,  as  a 
general  rule,  that  it  never  or  rarely  happens  that  a  republic  or  monarchy  is 
well  constituted,  or  its  old  institutions  entirely  reformed,  unless  it  is  done  by 
only  one  individual;  it  is  even  necessary  that  he  whose  mind  has  conceived 
such  a  constitution  should  be  alone  in  carrying  it  into  effect.  A  sagacious 
legislator  of  a  republic,  therefore,  whose  object  is  to  promote  the  public  good 
and  not  his  private  interests,  and  who  prefers  his  country  to  his  own  succes- 
sors, should  concentrate  all  authority  in  himself;  and  a  wise  mind  will  never 
censure  any  one  for  having  employed  any  extraordinary  means  for  the  purpose 
of  establishing  a  kingdom  or  constituting  a  republic.  It  is  well  that  when  the 
act  accuses  him,  the  result  should  excuse ;  and  when  the  result  is  good,  as  in 
the  case  of  Romulus,  it  will  always  absolve  him  from  blame. w 


9484 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 


In  an  equally  scientific  and  concise  manner  he  analyzes  the  meth- 
ods of  preventing  factions  in  a  republic. 

«We  observe,  from  the  example  of  the  Roman  consuls  in  restoring  harmony 
between  the  patricians  and  plebeians  of  Ardea,  the  means  for  obtaining  that 
object,  which  is  none  other  than  to  kill  the  chiefs  of  the  opposing  factions.  In 
fact,  there  are  only  three  ways  of  accomplishing  it:  the  one  is  to  put  the 
leaders  to  death,  as  the  Romans  did;  or  to  banish  them  from  the  city;  or  to 
reconcile  them  to  each  other  under  a  pledge  not  to  offend  again.  Of  these 
three  ways,  the  last  is  the  worst,  being  the  least  certain  and  effective. » 

In  (The  Prince, }  a  short  treatise  of  twenty-six  chapters,  and  mak- 
ing little  more  than  a  hundred  octavo  pages,  Machiavelli  gives  more 
succinct  and  emphatic  expression  to  the  principles  of  his  new  polit- 
ical science.  (  The  Prince  >  is  the  best  known  of  all  his  works.  It  is 
the  one  always  connected  with  his  name,  and  which  has  made  his 
name  famous.  It  was  said  of  the  poet  Gray  that  no  other  man  had 
walked  down  the  aisle  of  fame  with  so  small  a  book  under  his  arm. 
It  might  be  repeated  as  truly  of  Machiavelli.  Men,  he  has  said, 
(<  preferred  infamy  to  oblivion,  for  at  least  infamy  served  to  transmit 
their  names  to  posterity. w  Had  he  written  (The  Prince }  to  escape 
oblivion,  the  fullest  measure  of  his  desire  would  have  been  attained. 
For  the  model  of  his  prince,  Machiavelli  took  Cesare  Borgia,  and  cites 
him  as  an  example  worthy  of  imitation;  and  he  has  shared  in  the 
execration  *hat  posterity  has  heaped  upon  Borgia. 

The  fifteenth  and  eighteenth  chapters  of  <The  Prince  >  contain  a 
formulation  of  the  principles  that  have  brought  down  condemnation 
on  their  author. 

«The  manner  in  which  men  live  is  so  different  from  the  way  in  which 
they  ought  to  live,  that  he  who  leaves  the  common  course  for  that  which  he 
ought  to  follow  will  find  that  it  leads  him  to  ruin  rather  than  to  safety.  For 
a  man  who  in  all  respects  will  carry  out  only  his  professions  of  good,  will  be 
apt  to  be  ruined  amongst  so  many  who  are  evil.  A  prince  therefore  who 
desires  to  maintain  himself,  must  learn  to  be  not  always  good,  but  to  be  so 
or  not  as  necessity  may  require.  .  .  .  For,  all  things  considered,  it  will  be 
found  that  some  things  that  seem  like  virtue  will  lead  you  to  ruin  if  you  fol- 
low them;  whilst  others  that  apparently  are  vices  will,  if  followed,  result  in 
your  safety  and  well-being. » 

And  again:  — 

<(  It  must  be  evident  to  every  one  that  it  is  more  praiseworthy  for  a  prince 
always  to  maintain  good  faith,  and  practice  integrity  rather  than  craft  and  de- 
ceit. And  yet  the  experience  of  our  own  times  has  shown  that  those  princes 
have  achieved  great  things  who  made  small  account  of  good  faith,  and  who 
understood  by  cunning  to  circumvent  the  intelligence  of  others;  and  that  in 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELL1 


9485 


the  end  they  got  the  better  of  those  -whose  actions  were  dictated  by  loyalty 
and  good  faith.  You  must  know,  therefore,  that  there  are  two  ways  of  carry- 
ing on  a  contest:  the  one  by  law,  and  the  other  by  force.  The  first  is  prac- 
ticed by  men,  and  the  other  by  animals;  and  as  the  first  is  often  insufficient, 
it  becomes  necessary  to  resort  to  the  second. 

«A  prince  then  should  know  how  to  employ  the  nature  of  man,  and  that 
of  the  beast  as  well.  ...  A  prince  should  be  a  fox,  to  know  the  traps 
and  snares ;  and  a  lion,  to  be  able  to  frighten  the  wolves :  for  those  who  simply 
hold  to  the  nature  of  the  lion  do  not  understand  their  business. 

<(A  sagacious  prince,  then,  cannot  and  should  not  fulfill  his  pledges  when 
their  observance  is  contrary  to  his  interest,  and  when  the  causes  that  induced 
him  to  pledge  his  faith  rfo  longer  exist.  If  men  were  all  good,  then  indeed 
this  precept  would  be  bad;  but  as  men  are  naturally  bad,  and  will  not  observe 
their  faith  towards  you,  you  must  in  the  same  way  not  observe  yours  towards 
them:  and  no  prince  ever  yet  lacked  legitimate  reasons  with  which  to  color 
his  want  of  good  faith.  .  .  . 

«It  is  not  necessary,  however,  for  a  prince  to  possess  all  the  above-men- 
tioned qualities;  but  it  is  essential  that  he  should  at  least  seem  to  have  them. 
I  will  even  venture  to  say,  that  to  have  and  to  practice  them  constantly  is 
pernicious,  but  to  seem  to  have  them  is  useful.  For  instance,  a  prince  should 
seem  to  be  merciful,  faithful,  humane,  religious,  and  upright,  and  should  even 
be  so  in  reality;  but  he  should  have  his  mind  so  trained  that,  when  occasion 
requires  it,  he  may  know  how  to  change  to  the  opposite.  And  it  must  be 
understood  that  a  prince,  and  especially  one  who  has  but  recently  acquired 
his  state,  cannot  perform  all  those  things  which  cause  men  to  be  esteemed  as 
good;  he  being  often  obliged,  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  his  state*,  to  act  con- 
trary to  humanity,  charity,  and  religion.  And  therefore  it  is  necessary  that  he 
should  have  a  versatile  mind,  capable  of  changing  readily,  according  as  the 
winds  and  changes  bid  him;  and  as  has  been  said  above,  not  to  swerve  from 
the  good  if  possible,  but  to  know  how  to  resort  to  evil  if  necessity  demands  it.>J 

And  yet  in  these  same  books  we  find  expressions  worthy  of  a 
moralist. 

(<  All  enterprises  to  be  undertaken  should  be  for  the  honor  of  God  and  the 
general  good  of  the  country. » 

«In  well-constituted  governments,  the  citizens  fear  more  to  break  their 
oaths  than  the  laws;  because  they  esteem  the  power  of  God  more  than  that 
of  men.)> 

«  Even  in  war,  but  little  glory  is  derived  from  any  fraud  that  involves  the 
breaking  of  a  given  pledge  and  of  agreements  made.** 

« It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  either  valor  or  anything  praiseworthy  can 
result  from  a  dishonest  education,  or  an  impure  and  immodest  mmd.» 

The  strangest  moral  contradictions  abound  throughout  (The  Prince,' 
as  they  do  in  all  Machiavelli's  writings.  He  is  saint  or  devil  accord- 
ing as  you  select  your  extracts  from  his  writings.  Macaulay  has 
given  us  a  perfect  characterization  of  the  man  and  his  works. 


9486 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 


«  In  all  the  writings  which  he  gave  to  the  public,  and  in  all  those  which 
the  research  of  editors  has  in  the  course  of  three  centuries  discovered:  in 
his  comedies,  designed  for  the  entertainment  of  the' multitude;  in  his  com- 
ments on  Livy,  intended  for  the  perusal  of  the  most  enthusiastic  patriots  of 
Florence;  in  his  <  History, >  inscribed  to  one  of  the  most  amiable  and  esti- 
mable of  the  popes;  in  his  public  dispatches;  in  his  private  memoranda, — 
the  same  obliquity  of  moral  principle  for  which  <The  Prince  >  is  so  severely 
censured,  is  more  or  less  discernible.  We  doubt  whether  it  would  be  possi- 
ble to  find,  in  all  the  many  volumes  of  his  compositions,  a  single  expression 
indicating  that  dissimulation  and  treachery  had  ever  struck  him  as  discredit- 
able. 

« After  this,  it  may  seem  ridiculous  to  say  that  we  are  acquainted  with 
few  writings  which  exhibit  so  much  elevation  of  sentiment,  so  pure  and 
warm  a  zeal  for  the  public  good,  or  so  just  a  view  of  the  duties  and  rights 
of  citizens,  as  those  of  Machiavelli.  Yet  so  it  is.  And  even  from  <The  Prince  > 
itself,  we  could  select  many  passages  in  support  of  this  remark.  To  a  reader 
of  our  age  and  country,  this  inconsistency  is  at  first  perfectly  bewildering. 
The  whole  man  seems  to  be  an  enigma;  a  grotesque  assemblage  of  incongru- 
ous qualities ;  selfishness  and  generosity,  cruelty  and  benevolence,  craft  and 
simplicity,  abject  villainy  and  romantic  heroism.  One  sentence  is  such  as  a 
veteran  diplomatist  would  scarcely  write  in  cipher  for  the  direction  of  his 
most  confidential  spy;  the  next  seems  to  be  extracted  from  a  theme  composed 
by  an  ardent  schoolboy  on  the  death  of  Leonidas.  An  act  of  dexterous  per- 
fidy, and  an  act  of  patriotic  self-devotion,  call  forth  the  same  kind  and  the 
same  degree  of  respectful  admiration.  The  moral  sensibility  of  the  writer 
seems  at  once  to  be  morbidly  obtuse  and  morbidly  acute.  Two  characters 
altogether  dissimilar  are  united  in  him.  They  are  not  merely  joined,  but  in- 
terwoven. They  are  the  warp  and  the  woof  of  his  mind.** 

In  consequence  of  this,  no  writer  has  been  more  condemned  or 
more  praised  than  Machiavelli.  Shakespeare,  reflecting  English 
thought,  uses  his  name  as  the  superlative  for  craft  and  murderous 
treachery.  But  later  years  have  raised  up  defenders  for  him,  and  his 
rehabilitation  is  still  going  on.  He  has  been  lauded  as  <(  the  noblest 
and  purest  of  patriots }) ;  and  more  ardent  admirers  could  <(  even  praise 
his  generosity,  nobility,  and  exquisite  delicacy  of  mind,  and  go  so  far 
as  to  declare  him  an  incomparable  model  of  public  and  private  vir- 
tue.w  In  1787,  after  his  dust  had  lain  for  nearly  three  centuries  in  an 
obscure  tomb  beside  that  of  Michelangelo,  a  monument  was  erected 
above  him,  with  the  inscription  given  below, 

TANTO  NOMINI  NULLUM  PAR  EULOGIUM 
NICOLANO  MACHIAVELLUS 

[No  eulogy  could  add  aught  to  so  great  a  name  as  that  of  Niccolo 
Machiavelli.] 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI  9487 

In  1859  the  government  of  his  native  Tuscany  itself  gave  his  works 
to  the  public  in  a  complete  edition.  And  in  1869  the  Italian  govern- 
ment enrolled  him  in  its  calendar  of  great  ones;  and  placed  above 
the  door  of  the  house  in  Florence  in  which  he  lived  and  died,  a  mar- 
ble tablet,  inscribed  — 

A  NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 

Dell'  Unita  Nazionale  Precursore  audace  e  indovino 

E  d'Armi  proprie  e  non  aventizie  primo  Institutore  e  Maestro 

L'ltalia  Una  e  Armata  pose  il  3  Maggio  1869 

IL  QUARTO  DI  Lui  CENTENNARIO 

[To  Niccolo  Machiavelli  —  the  intrepid  and  prophetic  Precursor  of  National 
Unity,  and  the  first  Institutor  and  Master  of  her  own  Armies  in  place 
of  adventitious  ones  —  United  and  Armed  Italy  places  this  on  May  3ds 
1869,  his  Fourth  Centenary.] 

His  rehabilitation  proceeds  from  two  causes.  Later  research  has 
shown  that  perhaps  he  only  reflected  his  time;  and  his  works  breathe 
a  passionate  longing  for  that  Italian  unity  which  in  our  day  has  been 
realized.  He  may  be  worthy  canonization  as  a  national  saint;  but 
those  who  are  more  interested  in  the  integrity  of  moral  standards 
than  in  Italian  unity  will  doubtless  continue  to  refuse  beatification  to 
one  who  indeed  knew  the  Roman  virtus,  but  was  insensible  to  the 
nature  of  virtue  as  understood  by  the  followers  of  Christ.  And  no 
amount  of  research  into  the  history  of  his  age  can  make  his  princi- 
ples less  vicious  in  themselves.  A  better  understanding  of  his  day 
can  only  lessen  the  boldness  of  the  relief  in  which  he  has  heretofore 
stood  out  in  history.  He  was  probably  no  worse  than  many  of  his 
fellows.  He  only  gave  a  scientific  formulation  to  their  practices.  He 
dared  openly  to  avow  and  justify  the  principles  that  their  actions 
implied.  They  paid  to  virtue  the  court  of  hypocrisy,  and  like  the 
Pharisee  of  the  earlier  time,  preached  righteousness  and  did  evil;  but 
Machiavelli  was  more  daring,  and  when  he  served  the  devil,  disdained 
to  go  about  his  business  in  the  livery  of  heaven. 


9488  NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 

THE  CONSPIRACY  AGAINST  CARLO   GALEAZZO,   DUKE 
OF  MILAN,  1476 

From  the  ( History  of  Florence  > 

WHILST  the-  transactions  between  the  King  and  the  Pope 
were  in  progress,  and  those  in  Tuscany,  in  the  manner 
we  have  related,  an  event  of  greater  importance  occurred 
in  Lombardy.  Cola  Montana,  a  learned  and  ambitious  man,  taught 
the  Latin  language  to  the  youth  of  the  principal  families  in  Mi- 
lan. Either  out  of  hatred  to  the  character  and  manners  of  the 
duke,  or  from  some  other  cause,  he  constantly  deprecated  the 
condition  of  those  who  live  under  a  bad  prince;  calling  those 
glorious  and  happy  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  born  and 
live  in  a  republic.  He  endeavored  to  show  that  the  most  cele- 
brated men  had  been  produced  in  republics,  and  not  reared 
under  princes;  that  the  former  cherish  virtue,  whilst  the  latter 
destroy  it;  the  one  deriving  advantage  from  virtuous  men,  whilst 
the  latter  naturally  fear  them.  The  youths  with  whom  he  was 
most  intimate  were  Giovanni  Andrea  Lampognano,  Carlo  Vis- 
conti,  and  Girolamo  Olgiato.  He  frequently  discussed  with 
them  the  faults  of  their  prince,  and  the  wretched  condition  of 
those  who  were  subject  to  him ;  and  by  constantly  inculcating  his 
principles,  acquired  such  an  ascendency  over  their  minds  as  to 
induce  them  to  bind  themselves  by  oath  to  effect  the  duke's  de- 
struction, as  soon  as  they  became  old  enough  to  attempt  it. 
Their  minds  being  fully  occupied  with  this  design,  which  grew 
with  their  years,  the  duke's  conduct  and  their  own  private  inju- 
ries served  to  hasten  its  execution.  Galeazzo  was  licentious  and 
cruel;  of  .both  which  vices  he  had  given  such  repeated  proofs 
that  he  became  odious  to  all.  .  .  .  These  private  injuries 
increased  the  young  men's  desire  for  vengeance,  and  the  deliv- 
erance of  their  country  from  so  many  evils;  trusting  that  when- 
ever they  should  succeed  in  destroying  the  duke,  many  of  the 
nobility  and  all  the  people  would  rise  in  their  defense.  Being 
resolved  upon  their  undertaking,  they  were  often  together;  which, 
on  account  of  their  long  intimacy,  did  not  excite  any  suspicion. 
They  frequently  discussed  the  subject;  and  in  order  to  familiar- 
ize their  minds  with  the  deed  itself,  they  practiced  striking  each 
other  in  the  breast  and  in  the  side  with  the  sheathed  daggers 
intended  to  be  used  for  the  purpose.  On  considering  the  most 
suitable  time  and  place,  the  castle  seemed  insecure;  during  the 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 


9489 


chase,  uncertain  and  dangerous;  whilst  going  about  the  city  for 
his  own  amusement,  difficult  if  not  impracticable;  and  at  a  ban- 
quet, of  doubtful  result.  They  therefore  determined  to  kill  him 
upon  the  occasion  of  some  procession  or  public  festivity,  when 
there  would  be  no  doubt  of  his  presence,  and  where  they  might 
under  various  pretexts  assemble  their  friends.  It  was  also  re- 
solved that  if  one  of  their  number  were  prevented  from  attend- 
ing, on  any  account  whatever,  the  rest  should  put  him  to  death 
in  the  midst  of  their  armed  enemies. 

It  was  now  the  close  of  the  year  1476, —  near  Christmas;  and 
as  it  was  customary  for  the  duke  to  go  upon  St.  Stephen's  day, 
in  great  solemnity,  to  the  church  of  that  martyr,  they  considered 
this  the  most  suitable  opportunity  for  the  execution  of  their  de-  • 
sign.  Upon  the  morning  of  that  day  they  ordered  some  of  their 
most  trusty  friends  and  servants  to  arm,  telling  them  they  wished 
to  go  to  the  assistance  of  Giovanandrea,  who,  contrary  to  the  wish 
of  some  of  his  neighbors,  intended  to  turn  a  water-course  into 
his  estate;  but  that  before  they  went  they  wished  to  take  leave 
of  the  prince.  They  also  assembled,  under  various  pretenses, 
other  friends  and  relatives;  trusting  that  when  the  deed  was  ac- 
complished, every  one  would  join  them  in  the  completion  of  their 
enterprise.  It  was  their  intention,  after  the  duke's  death,  to  col- 
lect their  followers  together  and  proceed  to  those  parts  of  the 
city  where  they  imagined  the  plebeians  would  be  most  disposed 
to  take  arms  against  the  duchess  and  the  principal  ministers  of 
State:  and  they  thought  the  people,  on  account  of  the  famine 
which  then  prevailed,  would  easily  be  induced  to  follow  them; 
for  it  was  their  design  to  give  up  the  houses  of  Cecco  Simonetta, 
Giovanni  Botti,  and  Francesco  Lucani, —  all  leading  men  in  the 
government, —  to  be  plundered,  and  by  this  means  gain  over  the 
populace  and  restore  liberty  to  the  community.  With  these  ideas, 
and  with  minds  resolved  upon  their  execution,  Giovanandrea  and 
the  rest  were  early  at  the  church,  and  heard  mass  together;  after 
which  Giovanandrea,  turning  to  a  statue  of  St.  Ambrose,  said, 
<(O  patron  of  our  city!  thou  knowest  our  intention,  and  the  end  , 
we  would  attain  by  so  many  dangers:  favor  our  enterprise,  and 
prove,  by  protecting  the  oppressed,  that  tyranny  is  offensive  to 
thee.» 

To  the  duke,  on  the  other  hand,  when  intending  to  go  to  the 
church,  many  omens  occurred  of  his  approaching  death ;  for  in  the 
morning,  having  put  on  a  cuirass,  as  was  his  frequent  custom,  he 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 

immediately  took  it  off  again,  either  because  it  inconvenienced 
him  or  that  he  did  not  like  its  appearance.  He  then  wished  to 
hear  mass  in  the  castle;  but  found  that  the  priest  who  officiated 
in  the  chapel  had  gone  to  St.  Stephen's,  and  taken  with  him  the 
sacred  utensils.  On  this  he  desired  the  service  to  be  performed 
by  the  Bishop  of  Como,  '  who  acquainted  him  with  preventing 
circumstances.  Thus,  almost  compelled,  he  determined  to  go  to 
the  church;  but  before  his  departure  he  caused  his  sons,  Giovan 
Galeazzo  and  Ermes,  to  be  brought  to  him,  and  embraced  and 
kissed  them  several  times,  seeming  reluctant  to  part  with  them. 
He  then  left  the  castle,  and  with  the  ambassadors  of  Ferrara  and 
Mantua  on  either  hand,  proceeded  to  St.  Stephen's. 

The  conspirators,  to  avoid  exciting  suspicion,  and  to  escape 
the  cold,  which  was  very  severe,  had  withdrawn  to  an  apart- 
ment of  the  arch-priest,  who  was  a  friend  of  theirs;  but  hearing 
the  duke's  approach,  they  came  into  the  church,  Giovanandrea 
and  Girolamo  placing  themselves  upon  the  right  hand  of  the  en- 
trance and  Carlo  on  the  left.  Those  who  led  the  procession 
had  already  entered,  and  were  followed  by  the  duke,  surrounded 
by  such  a  multitude  as  is  usual  on  similar  occasions.  The  first 
attack  was  made  by  Lampognano  and  Girolamo;  who,  pretending 
to  clear  the  way  for  the  prince,  came  close  to  him,  and  grasping 
their  daggers,  which  being  short  and  sharp  were  concealed  in  the 
sleeves  of  their  vests,  struck  at  him.  Lampognano  gave  him 
two  wounds,  one  in  the  belly,  the  other  in  the  throat.  Girolamo 
struck  him  in  the  throat  and  breast.  Carlo  Visconti,  being  nearer 
the  door,  and  the  duke  having  passed,  could  not  wound  him  in 
front;  but  with  two  strokes  transpierced  his  shoulder  and  spine. 
These  six  wounds  were  inflicted  so  instantaneously  that  the  duke 
had  fallen  before  any  one  was  aware  of  what  had  happened;  and 
he  expired,  having  only  once  ejaculated  the  name  of  the  Virgin, 
as  if  imploring  her  assistance. 

A  great  tumult  immediately  ensued;  several  swords  were 
drawn;  and  as  often  happens  in  sudden  emergencies,  some  fled 
from  the  church  and  others  ran  towards  the  scene  of  tumult, 
both  without  any  definite  motive  or  knowledge  of  what  had  oc- 
curred. Those,  however,  who  were  nearest  the  duke  and  had 
seen  him  slain,  recognizing  the  murderers,  pursued  them.  Gio- 
vanandrea, endeavoring  to  make  his  way  out  of  the  church,  had 
to  pass  among  the  women,  who  being  numerous,  and  according 
to  their  custom  seated  upon  the  ground,  impeded  his  progress 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 


949 1 


by  their  apparel;  and  being  overtaken,  he  was  killed  by  a  Moor, 
one  of  the  duke's  footmen.  Carlo  was  slain  by  those  who  were 
immediately  around  him.  Girolamo  Olgiato  passed  through  the 
crowd,  and  got  out  of  the  church;  but  seeing  his  companions 
dead,  and  not  knowing  where  else  to  go,  he  went  home,  where 
his  father  and  brothers  refused  to  receive  him;  his  mother  only, 
having  compassion  on  her  son,  recommended  him  to  a  priest, 
an  old  friend  of  the  family,  who,  disguising  him  in  his  own  ap- 
parel, led  him  to  his  house.  Here  he  remained  two  days,  not 
without  hope  that  some  disturbance  might  arise  in  Milan  which 
would  contribute  to  his  safety.  This  not  occurring,  and  appre- 
hensive that  his  hiding-place  would  be  discovered,  he  endeavored 
to  escape  in  disguise;  but  being  observed,  he  was  given  over  to 
justice,  and  disclosed  all  the  particulars  of  the  conspiracy.  Giro- 
lamo was  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and  exhibited  no  less  com- 
posure at  his  death  than  resolution  in  his  previous  conduct;  for 
being  stripped  of  his  garments,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  execu- 
tioner, who  stood  by  with  the  sword  unsheathed  ready  to  deprive 
him  of  life,  he  repeated  the  following  words  in  the  Latin  tongue, 
in  which  he  was  well  versed:  «  Mors  acerba,  fama  perpetua,  stabit 
vetus  memoria  facti.^* 

The  enterprise  of  these  unfortunate  young  men  was  conducted 
with  secrecy  and  executed  with  resolution;  and  they  failed  for 
want  of  the  support  of  those  whom  they  expected  to  rise  in 
their  defense.  Let  princes  therefore  learn  to  live  so  as  to  ren- 
der themselves  beloved  and  respected  by  their  subjects,  that  none 
may  have  hope  of  safety  after  having  destroyed  them ;  and  let 
others  see  how  vain  is  the  expectation  which  induces  them  to 
trust  so  much  to  the  multitude  as  to  believe  that  even  when 
discontented,  they  will  either  embrace  their  cause  or  ward  off 
their  dangers.  This  event  spread  consternation  all  over  Italy; 
but  those  which  shortly  afterwards  occurred  in  Florence  caused 
much  more  alarm,  and  terminated  a  peace  of  twelve  years'  con- 
tinuance. Having  commenced  with  blood  and  horror,  they  will 
have  a  melancholy  and  tearful  conclusion. 

* «  Death  is  bitter,  but  fame  is  eternal,  and  the  memory  of  this  deed  shall 
long  endure. w 


9492  NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 

HOW  A  PRINCE  OUGHT  TO  AVOID   FLATTERERS 
From  <The  Prince  > 

I  MUST  not  forget  to  mention  one  evil  against  which  princes 
should  ever  be  upon  their  guard,  and  which  they  cannot 
avoid  except  by  the  greatest  prudence;  and  this  evil  is  the 
flattery  which  reigns  in  every  court.  Men  have  so  much  self' 
love,  and  so  good  an  opinion  of  themselves,  that  it  is  very  diffi' 
cult  to  steer  clear  of  such  contagion;  and  besides,  in  endeavoring 
to  avoid  it,  they  run  the  risk  of  being  despised. 

For  princes  have  no  other  way  of  expelling  flatterers  than  by 
showing  that  the  truth  will  not  offend.  Yet  if  every  one  had  the 
privilege  of  uttering  his  sentiments  with  impunity,  what  would 
become  of  the  respect  due  to  the  majesty  of  the  sovereign  ?  A 
prudent  prince  should  take  a  middle  course,  and  make  choice  of 
some  discreet  men  in  his  State,  to  whom  alone  he  may  give  the 
liberty  of  telling  him  the  truth  on  such  subjects  as  he  shall 
request  information  upon  from  them.  '  He  ought  undoubtedly  to 
interrogate  them  and  "hear  their  opinions  upon  every  subject  of 
importance,  and  determine  afterwards  according  to  his  own 
judgment;  conducting  himself  at  all  times  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  convince  every  one  that  the  more  freely  they  speak  the  more 
acceptable  they  will  be.  After  which  he  should  listen  to  nobody 
else,  but  proceed  firmly  and  steadily  in  the  execution  of  what  he 
has  determined. 

A  prince  who  acts  otherwise  is  either  bewildered  by  the  adu- 
lation of  flatterers,  or  loses  all  respect  and  consideration  by  the 
uncertain  and  wavering  conduct  he  is  obliged  to  pursue.  This 
doctrine  can  be  supported  by  an  instance  from  the  history  of  our 
own  times.  Father  Luke  said  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  his 
master,  now  on  the  throne,  that  ((he  never  took  counsel  of  any 
person,  and  notwithstanding  he  never  acted  from  an  opinion  of 
his  own  }> ;  and  in  this  he  adopted  a  method  diametrically  opposite 
to  that  which  I  have  proposed.  For  as  this  prince  never  in- 
trusted his  designs  to  any  of  his  ministers,  their  suggestions  were 
not  made  till  the  very  moment  when  they  should  be  executed;  so 
that,  pressed  by  the  exigencies  of  the  moment,  and  overwhelmed 
with  obstacles  and  unforeseen  difficulties,  he  was  obliged  to  yield 
to  whatever  opinions  his  ministers  might  offer.  Hence  it  hap- 
pens, that  what  he  does  one  day  he  is  obliged  to  cancel  the  next; 


NICCOLO   MACHIAVELLI 

and  thus  nobody  can  depend  on  his  decisions,  for  it  is  impossible 
to  know  what  will  be  his  ultimate  determination. 

A  prince  ought  to  take  the  opinions  of  others  in  everything, 
but  only  at  such  times  as  it  pleases  himself,  and  not  whenever 
they  are  obtruded  upon  him;  so  that  no  one  shall  presume  to 
give  him  advice  when  he  does  not  request  it.  He  ought  to  be 
inquisitive,  and  listen  with  attention;  and  when  he  sees  any  one 
hesitate  to  tell  him  the  full  truth,  he  ought  to  evince  the  utmost 
displeasure  at  such  conduct. 

Those  are  much  mistaken  who  imagine  that  a  prince  who 
listens  to  the  counsel  of  others  will  be  but  little  esteemed,  and 
thought  incapable  of  acting  on  his  own  judgment.  It  is  an  infal- 
lible rule  that  a  prince  who  does  not  possess  an  intelligent  mind 
of  his  own  can  never  be  well  advised,  unless  he  is  entirely  gov- 
erned by  the  advice  of  an  able  minister,  on  whom  he  may  repose 
the  whole  cares  of  government;  but  in  this  case  he  runs  a  great 
risk  of  being  stripped  of  his  authority  by  the  very  person  to  whom 
he  has  so  indiscreetly  confided  his  power.  And  if  instead  of  one 
counselor  he  has  several,  how  can  he,  ignorant  and  uninformed 
as  he  is,  conciliate  the  various  and  opposite  opinions  of  those 
ministers, —  who  are  probably  more  intent  on  their  own  interests 
than  those  of  the  State,  and  that  without  his  suspecting  it  ? 

Besides,  men  who  are  naturally  wicked  incline  to  good  only 
when  they  are  compelled  to  it;  whence  we  may  conclude  that 
good  counsel,  come  from  what  quarter  it  may,  is  owing  entirely 
to  the  wisdom  of  the  prince,  and  the  wisdom  of  the  prince  does 
not  arise  from  the  goodness  of  the  counsel. 


EXHORTATION   TO   LORENZO   DE'   MEDICI   TO   DELIVER    ITALY 
FROM    FOREIGN   DOMINATION 

From  closing  chapter  of  ( The  Prince  > 

IF  IT  was  needful  that  Israel   should  be   in   bondage   to    Egypt, 
to  display  the  quality  of  Moses;   that  the   Persians  should  be 
overwhelmed   by  the  Medes,  to  bring  out   the   greatness   and 
the  valor   of  Cyrus;    that   the  Athenians  should  be   dispersed,  to 
make  plain  the  superiority  of  Theseus, —  so  at  present,  to  illumi- 
nate the  grandeur  of  one   Italian   spirit,  it  was  Doubtless  needful 
that  Italy  should  be  sunk  to  her  present  state, —  a  worse  slavery 
than  that  of  the  Jews,  more  thoroughly  trampled  down  than  the 


NICCOLO  MACHIAVELLI 

Persians,  more  scattered  than  the  Athenians;  without  a  head, 
without  public  order,  conquered  and  stripped,  lacerated,  overrun 
by  her  foes,  subjected  to  every  form  of  spoliation. 

And  though  from  time  to  time  there  has  emanated  from 
some  one  a  ray  of  hope  that  he  was  the  one  ordained  by  God 
to  redeem  Italy,  yet  we  have  seen  how  he  was  so  brought  to  a 
standstill  at  the  very  height  of  his  success  that  poor  Italy  still 
remained  lifeless,  so  to  speak,  and  waiting  to  see  who  might  be 
sent  to  bind  up  her  wounds,  to  end  her  despoilment, —  the  dev- 
astation of  Lombardy,  the  plunder  and  ruinous  taxation  of  the 
kingdom  of  Naples  and  of  Tuscany, —  and  to  heal  the  sores  that 
have  festered  so  long.  You  see  how  she  prays  to  God  that  he 
may  send  her  a  champion  to  defend  her  from  this  cruelty,  bar- 
barity, and  insolence.  You  see  her  eager  to  follow  any  standard, 
if  only  there  is  some  one  to  uprear  it.  But  there  is  no  one 
at  this  time  to  whom  she  could  look  more  hopefully  than  to 
your  illustrious  house,  O  magnificent  Lorenzo!  which,  with  its 
excellence  and  prudence,  favored  by  God  and  the  Church, —  of 
which  it  is  now  the  head, —  could  effectively  begin  her  deliver- 
ance. .  .  . 

You  must  not  allow  this  opportunity  to  pass.  Let  Italy, 
after  waiting  so  long,  see  her  deliverer  appear  at  last.  And  I 
cannot  put  in  words  with  what  affection  he  would  be  received  in 
all  the  States  which  have  suffered  so'  long  from  this  inundation 
of  foreign  enemies!  with  what  thirst  for  vengeance,  with  what 
unwavering  loyalty,  with  what  devotion,  and  with  what  tears! 
What  door  would  be  closed  to  him  ?  Who  would  refuse  to  obey 
him  ?  What  envy  would  dare  to  contest  his  place  ?  What  Italian 
would  refuse  him  homage  ?  This  supremacy  of  foreign  barbari- 
ans is  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  all! 


9494a 


PERCY  MACKAYE 

(1875-) 

modern  drama  since  Ibsen  has  been  in  large  measure  realistic 
and  propagandist.  The  theatre  has  been  crowded  with 
problems,  sermons,  and  reforms.  Yet  during  this  period, 
Romance  has  refused  to  leave  the  stage,  and  Fancy  and  Poetry  have 
piped  for  many  a  dance.  Ibsen  himself  wrote  (Peer  Gynt)  as  well  as 
(Ghosts);  France  has  Rostand  as  well  as  Brieux;  and  the  new  Irish 
drama  is  essentially  poetic  and  romantic.  In  England,  not  to  speak 
of  the  blank-verse  plays  of  Stephen  Phillips  and  others,  the  most 
popular  playwright  has  been  Mr.  Barrie  who  welds  sentiment, 
whimsy,  fantasy,  and  nonsense  into  a  kind  of  comedy  scarcely 
seen  since  the  days  of  Bottom  and  Titania.  We  may  leave  it 
to  a  future  historian  to  decide  where  the  balance  lies  between  the 
realistic  and  the  romantic  proclivities  of  our  drama,  and  to  deter- 
mine whether  Mr.  Shaw  throws  his  weight  with  the  serious  preacher 
or  with  the  ((high  fantastical.))  Our  concern  is  merely  to  note 
that  our  stage  has  been  large  enough  to  afford  room  for  many  a  flight 
of  fancy. 

In  the  United  States,  Mr.  Percy  Mackaye  has  been  the  chief  poet 
of  the  theatre,  and  whether  he  has  written  in  verse  or  in  prose  he  has 
always  contrived  to  give  fancy  wing.  Sometimes  he  has  gone  to  the 
past  for  his  themes.  Chaucer  provided  his  first  comedy,  (The  Canter- 
bury Pilgrims)  (1903),  which  after  many  open-air  performances  grad- 
uated into  opera.  (Jeanne  d'Arc)  (1906)  and  (Sappho  and  Phaon) 

(1907)  are  two  of  his  early  tragedies  that  won  the  services  of  distinguished 
actors.     But  his  fancy  has  not  been  confined  to  the  great  stories  of 
the  past  or  to  the  traditional  forms  of  the  drama.      (The  Scarecrow) 

(1908)  was  sub-titled  ((a  tragedy  of  the  ludicrous));  and  a  series  of  one- 
act  plays   was  brought  together  under  the  title    (Yankee   Fantasies) 
(1912).     (Eeny  Meeny)   has  the  still  more  attractive  label  ((a  moon- 
shine fantasy,))  and  when  Mr.  Mackaye  came  to  write  of  (The  Immi- 
grants)   (1915),    the   result   was   denominated   a   ((lyric    drama.))     The 
mixture  of  species  indicated  by  these  titles  is  significant  of  Mr.  Mack- 
aye's  invention,  which  while  variable  in  purpose,  is  always  seeking  to 
escape  from  the  stricter  limitations  of  the  theatre.      He  has  found  a 
congenial    opportunity    in    the    more    spacious    stage    afforded    by    the 
masques,  pageants,  and  out-of-door  performances  of  civic  celebrations. 
His  (Sanctuary,  a  Bird  Masque)  was  produced  before  President  Wilson 
in  1913;  his   (St.  Louis,)   a  civic  masque,  was  given  in   1914;  and  his 


9494b  PERCY   MACKAYE 

(Caliban,)  for  the  Shakespearian  tercentenary,  received  a  stupendous 
presentation  in  New  York  in  1916. 

It  would  be  easy  to  criticize  any  of  Mr.  Mackaye's  productions 
from  the  point  of  view  of  dramaturgy;  but  the  remarkable  fact  is  that 
in  so  many  ways  he  has  succeeded  in  bringing  so  varied  and  so  fresh 
an  invention  to  the  service  of  the  stage.  Within  the  same  period, 
other  men  have  written  more  successful  plays,  and  other  men  have 
sustained  their  fancy  in  more  certain  nights.  No  other  man,  however, 
has  so  persistently  and  ingeniously  wooed  the  stage  with  poetry  and 
fantasy. 

Percy  Mackaye,  dramatist,  son  of  Steele  Mackaye,  dramatist,  was 
born  in  New  York  in  1875.  Since  his  graduation  from  Harvard  and 
the  succeeding  years  of  study  and  travel  abroad,  he  has  practised 
assiduously  at  his  high  calling.  In  addition  to  a  large  number  of 
dramatic  productions,  some  of  which  have  been  mentioned,  he  has 
written  many  non-dramatic  poems,  so  that  his  collected  works  now 
consist  of  one  volume  of  plays  and  one  of  poems.  Among  the  latter 
are  several  read  on.  special  occasions,  as  (Ticonderoga)  (1909),  (Ellen 
Terry)  (1910),  (Commodore  Peary  and  his  Men)  (1910).  He  has 
also  published  a  memoir  of  his  father,  several  volumes  of  essays,  as 
(The  Playhouse  and  the  Play)  (1909),  and'  (The  Civic  Theatre)  (1912), 
and  (with  Professor  Tatlock)  has  written  (The  Modern  Reader's 
Chaucer)  (1912). 


FROM  (THE  CANTERBURY  PILGRIMS) 
Copyright  by  the  Macmillan  Co.,  and  reprinted  by  their  permission. 

[The  scene  is  at  the  Tabard  Inn;  the  persons  are  the  pilgrims  well  known  to  us 
from  Chaucer's  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales.] 

KNIGHT  —  I  am  returning  from  the  Holy  Land 
And  go  to  pay  my  vows  at  Canterbury. 
This  is  my  son. 

Chaucer  —  Go  you  to  Canterbury 

As  well,  Sir  Squire? 

[The  Squire,  putting  down  his  flute,  sighs  deeply.] 

Knight  —  My  son,  the  gentleman 

Accosts  thee! 
Squire  —  Noble  gentleman  —  Ah  me! 

[He  turns  away.] 


PERCY   MACKAYE 


9494  c 


Chaucer  [follows  him]  — 

My  dearest  heart  and  best  beloved  foe, 

Why  liketh  you  to  do  me  all  this  woe? 

What  have  I  done  that  grieveth  you,  or  said, 

Save  that  I  love  and  serve  you,  high  and  low? 

And  whilst  I  1'ive  I  will  do  ever  so. 

Wherefore,  my  sweet,  do  not  that  I  be  dead; 

For  good  and  fair  and  gentle  as  ye  be, 

It  were  great  wonder  if  but  that  ye  had 

A  thousand  thousand  servants,  good  and  bad: 

The  most  unworthiest  servant  —  I  am  he! 
Squire  —          Sir,  by  my  lady's  grace,  you  are  a  poet 

And  lover,  like  myself.     We  shall  be  brothers. 

But  pardon,  sir,  those  verses  are  not  yours. 

Dan  Chaucer  wrote,  them.     Ah,  sir,  know  you  Chaucer? 
Chaucer  —       Twelve  stone  of  him! 
Squire  —  Would  /  did!     Is  he  not 

An  amorous  divinity?     Looks  he 

Like  pale  Leander,  or  some  ancient  god? 

Chaucer  —        Sooth,  he  is  like  old  Bacchus  round  the  middle. 
Squire  —  How  acts  he  when  in  love?      What  feathers  wears  he? 

Doth  he  sigh  oft?     What  lady  doth  he  serve? 

Oh! 

[At  a  smile  from  Chaucer,  he  starts  back  and  looks  at 
him  in  awe:  then  hurries  to  the  Knight.  Chaucer  walks 
among  the  pilgrims,  talking  with  them  severally.} 

Miller  [to  Franklin]  — 

Ten  gallon  ale?     God's  arms!     I  take  thee. 
Man  of  Law  —  What's 

The  wager? 
Franklin  —  Yonder  door;  this  miller  here 

Shall  break  it,  at  a  running,  with  his  head. 

The  door  is  oak.     The  stakes  ten  gallon  ale. 
Shipman  —      Ho,  then,  I  bet  the  miller  shall  be  drunk. 
Merchant  -      What  bet? 

Shipman  —  Twelve  crown  upon  the  miller. 

Merchant  —   '  Done. 

[At  the  door  appears  the  Prioress,  accompanied  by  a  Nun 
and  her  three  priests,  one  of  whom,  Joannes,  carries  a  little 
pup.  The  Host  hurries  up  with  a  reverence.} 


Host  —  Welcome,  my  lady  dear. 

Poor  Harry  Bailey's  inn. 


Vouchsafe  to  enter 


9494  d  PERCY  MACKAYE 

Progress  —  Merci. 

Host  [to  a  serving-boy]  —  Knave,  show 

My  lady  Prioress  to  the  blue  chamber 

Where  His  Majesty,  King  Richard,  slept. 
Prioress  —  Joannes, 

Mark,  Paulus,  stay!  have  you  the  little  hound 

Safe? 

Joannes  —  Yes,  my  lady. 

Prioress  —  Carry  him  before, 

But  carefully. 
Miller  [to.  Yeoman]  — 

Here,  nut-head,  hold  my  hood. 
Yeoman —       Wilt  try  bareheaded? 
Friar  —  'Mass! 

Franklin  —  Ha,  for  a  skull! 

Miller,  thou  art  as  tough  a  knot  as  e'er 

The  Devil  tied.     By  God,  mine  ale  is  spilled. 

[The  priests  and  Prioress  have  just  reached  the  door  left 
front,  which  the  Miller  is  preparing  to  ram.} 

Ploughman  —  The  door  is  locked. 

Joannes  —  But,  sir,  the  Prioress  — 

Shipman  —      Heigh!     Clear  the  decks! 

[The  Miller,  with  clenched  fists  and  head  doubled  over, 
runs  for  the  door.] 

Yeoman  —  Harrow! 

Parson  -  Run,     Robin. 

Guild-Men  [rise  from  their  dice]  —  Ho! 

[With  a  crash,  the  Miller's  head  strikes  the  door  and  splits 
it.  At  the  shock,  he  rebounds  against  Joannes,  and  reaching 
to  save  himself  from  falling,  seizes  the  puppy.] 

Miller  -  A  twenty  devils! 

Guild- Men  [all  but  the  Weaver,  clambering  over  the  table]  - 

Come  on! 

Ploughman  [to  the  Miller]  -  What  aileth  thee? 

Miller  —  The  priest  hath  bit  my  hand. 

Joannes  -  Sweet  sir,  the  puppy  - 

It  was  the  puppy,  sir. 

Miller  -  Wring  me  its  neck. 

Prioress  —       Alas,  Joannes  —  help! 


PERCY   MACKAYE  9494e 

Miller  —  By  Corpus  bones! 

Give  me  the  cur. 

Prioress  —  St.  Loy!      Will  no  one  help? 

Chaucer  —        Madame,  what  may  I  do? 
Prioress  —  My  little  hound  — 

The  churl  —  My  little  hound!     The  churl  will  hurt  it. 

If  you  would  fetch  to  me  my  little  hound  — 
Chaucer  -• —  Madame,  I'd  fetch  you  Cerberus  from  hell. 
Miller  —  Lo,  masters!  See  a  dog's  neck  wrung! 

Chaucer  [breaking  through  the  crowd,  seizes  the  Miller  by  the  throat]  — 

Which  dog's? 

Miller  — -  Leave  go!  —  'Sdeath!     Take  the  whelp,  a  devil's  name.- 

Chaucer  —        Kneel!     Ask  grace  of  this  lady  here. 
Miller  [sullenly]  —  What  lady? 

Chaucer —         Of  her  whom  gentles  call  St.  Charity 

In  every  place  and  time.  — 

[Turns  then  towards  Prioress.] 

What  other  name 

This  lady  bears,  I  have  not  yet  been  honored 
With  knowing.  = —  Kneel! 

Miller  [morosely;  kneels]  —  Lady,  I  axe  your  pardon. 

Chaucer  —        Madame,  your  little  hound  is  safe. 

Prioress  [nestles  the  little  hound  with  tender  effusiveness;  then  turns  shyly 
to  Chaucer  — 

Merci! 
My  name  is  Madame  Eglantine. 

[Hurries  out,  left.] 


Chaucer  [aside]  —  Hold,  Geoffrey! 

Yon  beastie's  quaking  side  thumped  not  as  thine 
Thumps  now.     And  wilt  thou  ape  a  little  hound? 
Ah,  Madame  Eglantine,  unless  ye  be 
To  me,  as  well  as  him,  St.  Charity! 

Franklin  —      Who  is  the  man? 

Miller  -  The  Devil,  by  his  eye. 

They  say  King  Richard  hath  to  court  a  wrastler 
Can  grip  ten  men.      I  guess  that  he  be  him. 

Cook  —  Ho!  milksop  of  a  miller! 

Miller  [seizing  him]  —  Say  it  twice; 

What? 

Cook  -  Nay,  thou  art  a  bull  at  bucking  doors. 

Franklin  —      Let  ribs  be  hoops  for  twenty  gallon  ale 
And  stop  your  wind-bags.      Come. 


9494f  PERCY  MACKAYE 

Miller  [with  a  grin,  follows  the  Franklin]  — 
Ship  man  —     Twelve  crown. 


By  Corpus  bones! 
Twelve,  say  you?     See  my  man  of  law. 


Merchant  — 

Weaver  [springs  to  his  feet]  — 

The  throw  is  mine!     • 
Dyer  —  A  lie!     When  we  were  away 

You  changed  the  dice! 

Weaver  —  My  throw  was  cinq  and  three. 

Dyer  —  A  lie!     Have  it  in  your  gullet! 

[Draws  his  knife.     They  fight.} 

Carpenter  —  Part  them! 

Tapicer  —  Back! 

Host  —  Harrow!     Dick  Weaver,  hold!     Fie,  Master  Dyer, 

Here's  not  a  dyeing  stablishment;  we  want 
No  crimson  cloth  —  Clap  hands  now:  Knave,  more  ale. 

Chaucer  [to  the  Doctor]  — 

If  then,  as  by  hypothesis,  this  cook 

Hath  broke  his  nose,  it  follpws  first  that  we 

Must  calculate  the  ascendent  of  his  image.  . 

Doctor  —  Precisely!     Pray  proceed.     I  am  fortunate 

To  have  met  a  fellow-doctor  at  this  inn. 

Chaucer  —        Next,  treating  him  by  magic  natural, 
Provide  him  well  with  old  authorities, 
As  Esculapius,  Diescorides, 
Damascien,  Constantinus,  Averrois, 
Hippocrates,  Serapion,  Razis, 
Bernardus,  Galienus,  Gilbertinus  — 

Doctor  —          But,  sir,  the  fellow  cannot  read  — 

Chaucer  —  Why,  true; 

Then  there  remains  but  one  sure  remedy, 
Thus:  bid  him,  fasting,  when  the  moon  is  wane, 
And  Venus  rises  in  the  house  of  Pisces, 
To  rub  it  nine  times  with  a  herring's  tail. 

Doctor  —          Yea,  Pisces  is  a  fish.  —  I  thank  you,  sir. 

[He  hurries  of  to  the  Cook,  whose  nose  he  has  patched.} 

Host  [to  the  Reeve,  who  enters}  — 

God  save  thee,  Osewold!     What's  o'clock?     Thou  looks't 

As  puckered  as  a  pear  at  Candlemas. 
Reeve  —  There  be  too  many  fold  i'  the  world;  and  none 

Is  ripe  till  he  be  rotten. 


PERCY    MACKAYE  9494  g 

[Sits  at  table.] 

Penny 'orth  ale! 

Squire  —          My  lord,  father! 

Knight  —  Well,  son? 

Squire  [looking  at  Chaucer]  —  Sir,  saw  you  ever 

So  knightly,  sweet,  and  sovereign  a  man, 
With  eyes  so  glad  and  shrewdly  innocent? 
O,  when  I  laid  my  hand  in  his,  and  looked 
Into  his  eyes,  meseemed  I  rode  on  horse 
Into  the  April  open  fields,  and  heard 
The  larks  upsinging  in  the  sun.     Sir,  have 
You  guessed  who  'tis? 

Knight  —  To  judge  him  by  his  speech, 

Some  valiant  officer. 

Squire  —  Nay,  I  have  guessed. 


THE  SCARECROW 
Copyright  by  the  Macmillan  Co.,  and  reprinted  by  their  permission. 

Act  IV. 

[Night.  The  moon,  shining  in  broadly  at  the  window,  discovers  Ravens- 
bane  alone,  prostrate  before  the  mirror.  Raised  on  one  arm  to  a 
half-sitting  posture,  he  gazes  fixedly  at  the  -vaguely  seen  image  of  the 
scarecrow  prostrate  in  the  glass.] 

RAVENSBANE  —  All   have   left    me  —  but   not   thou.     Rachel   has 
left  me;  her  eyes   have   turned   away   from   me;  she  is  gone. 
And  with  her,  the  great   light    itself   from  heaven  has  drawn 
her   glorious   skirts,   contemptuous,   from  me  —  and   they   are   gone 
together.     Dickon,  he  too  has  left  me  —  but  not  thou.     All  that  I 
loved,  all  that  loved  me,  have  left  me.     A  thousand  ages  —  a  thousand 
ages  ago,  they  went  away;  and  thou  and  I  have  gazed  upon  each  other's 
desert edness.     Speak!    and   be   pitiful!     If   thou   art    I,    inscrutable 
image,  if  thou  dost  feel  these  pangs  thine  own,  show  then  self -mercy; 
speak!     What  art  thou?     What  am  I?     Why  are  we  here?     How 
comes  it  that  we  feel  and  guess  and  suffer?     Nay,  though  thou  answer 
not  these  doubts,  yet  mock  them,  mock  them  aloud,  even  as  there, 
monstrous,  thou  counterfeitest  mine  actions.-     Speak,  abject  enigma! 
—  Ah !  with  what  vacant  horror  it  looks  out  and  yearns  toward  me. 
Peace  to  thee!     Thou   poor   delirious  mute,   prisoned  in  glass   and 


9494  h  PERCY  MACKAYE 

moonlight,  peace!     Thou  canst  not  escape  thy  gaol,  nor  I  break  in  to 
thee.     Poor  shadow,  thou  — 

[Recoiling  wildly.] 

Stand  back,  inanity!  Thrust  not  thy  mawkish  face  in  pity  toward 
me.  Ape  and  idiot !  Scarecrow !  —  to  console  me !  Haha !  - 
A  flail  and  broomstick!  a  cob,  a  gourd  and  pumpkin,  to  fuse  and 
sublimate  themselves  into  a  mage-philosopher,  who  puffeth  meta- 
physics from  a  pipe  and  discourseth  sweet  philanthropy  to  itself  — 
itself,  God!  Dost  Thou  hear?  Itself!  For  even  such  am  I  —  I 
whom  Thou  madest  to  love  Rachel.  Why,  God  —  haha !  dost  Thou 
dwell  in  this  thing?  Is  it  Thou  that  peerest  forth  at  me  — from  me? 
Why,  hark  then;  Thou  shalt  listen,  and  answer  —  if  Thou  canst. 
Hark  then,  Spirit  of  life!  Between  the  rise  and  setting  of  a  sun,  I 
have  walked  in  this  world  of  Thine.  I  have  gazed  upon  it,  I  have 
peered  within  it,  I  have  grown  enamored,  enamored  of  it.  I  have 
been  thrilled  with  wonder,  I  have  been  calmed  with  knowledge,  I 
have  been  exalted  with  sympathy.  I  have  trembled  with  joy  and 
passion.  Power,  beauty,  love  have  ravished  me.  Infinity  itself, 
like  a  dream,  has  blazed  before  me  with  the  certitude  of  prophecy; 
and  I  have  cried,  ((This  world,  the  heavens,  time  itself,  are  mine  to 
conquer,))  and  I  have  thrust  forth  mine  arm  to  wear  Thy  shield  forever 
—  and  lo !  for  my  shield  Thou  reachest  me  a  mirror  —  and  whisperest 
((Know  thyself!  Thou  art  —  a  scarecrow:  a  tinkling  clod,  a  rigmarole 
of  dust,  a  lump  of  ordure,  contemptible,  superfluous,  inane!))  Haha! 
Hahaha!  And  with  such  scarecrows  Thou  dost  people  a  planet! 
O  ludicrous!  Monstrous!  Ludicrous!  At  least,  I  thank  Thee, 
God !  at  least,  this  breathing  bathos  can  laugh  at  itself.  At  least  this 
hotch-potch  nobleman  of  stubble  is  enough  of  an  epicure  to  turn  his  own 
gorge.  Thou  hast  vouchsafed  to  me,  Spirit,  —  hahaha !  —  to  know  my- 
self. Mine,  mine  is  the  consummation  of  man  —  even  self -contempt ! 

[Pointing  in  the  glass  with  an  agony  of  derision.] 

Scarecrow !     Scarecrow !     Scarecrow ! 

The   Image  in   the   Glass   [more  and  more  faintly]  —  Scarecrow ! 
Scarecrow !     Scarecrow ! 

[Ravensbane  throws  himself  prone  upon  the  floor,  beneath  the  window, 
sobbing.  There  is  a  pause  of  silence,  and  the  moon  shines  brighter. 
Slowly  then  Ravensbane,  getting  to  his  knees,  looks  out  into  the 
night.} 


PERCY   MACKAYE  94941 

Ravensbane  —  What  face  are  you,  high  up  through  the  twinkling 
leaves?  Why  do  you  smile  upon  me  with  such  white  beneficence? 
Or  why  do  you  place  your  viewless  hand  upon  my  brow,  and  say, 
«Be  comforted))?  Do  you  not,  like  all  the  rest,  turn,  aghast,  your 
eyes  away  from  me  —  me,  abject  enormity,  groveling  at  your  feet? 
Gracious  being,  do  you  not  fear  —  despise  me  ?  To  you  alone  am  I 
not  hateful  —  unredeemed  ?  0  white  peace  of  the  world,  beneath 
your  gaze  the  clouds  glow  silver,  and  the  herded  cattle,  slumbering 
far  afield,  crouch  —  beautiful.  The  slough  shines  lustrous  as  a 
bridal  veil.  Beautiful  face,  you  are  Rachel's,  and  you  have  changed 
the  world.  Nothing  is  mean,  but  you  have  made  it  miraculous; 
nothing  is  loathsome,  nothing  ludicrous,  but  you  have  converted  it  to 
loveliness,  that  even  this  shadow  of  a  mockery  myself,  cast  by  your 
light,  gives  me  the  dear  assurance  I  am  a  man.  Yea,  more,  that  I 
too,  steeped  in  your  universal  light,  am  beautiful.  For  you  are 
Rachel,  and  you  love  me.  You  are  Rachel  in  the  sky,  and  the  might 
of  your  serene  loveliness  has  transformed  me.  Rachel,  mistress, 
mother,  beautiful  spirit,  out  of  my  suffering  you  have  brought  forth 
my  soul.  I  am  saved! 

The  Image  in  the  Glass  —  A  very  pretty  sophistry. 

[The  moonlight  grows  dimmer,  as  at  the  passing  of  a  cloud.} 

Ravensbane  —  Ah !  what  voice  has  snatched  you  from  me  ? 
The  Image  —  A  most  poetified  pumpkin ! 

Ravensbane  —  Thing !  dost  thou  speak  at  last  ?  My  soul  abhors 
thee. 

The  Image  —  I  am  thy  soul. 
Ravensbane  —  Thou  liest. 

The  Image  —  Our  Daddy  Dickon  and  our  mother  Rickby  begot 
and  conceived  us  at  sunrise,  in  a  Jack-o'-lantern. 

Ravensbane  —  Thou  liest,  torturing  illusion.  Thou  art  but  a 
phantom  in  a  glass. 

The  Image  —  Why,  very  true.  So  art  thou.  We  are  a  pretty 
phantom  in  a  glass. 

Ravensbane  —  It  is  a  lie.  I  am  no  longer  thou.  I  feel  it ;  I  am  a 
man. 

The  Image  —  And  prithee,  -what's  a  man?     Man's  but  a  mirror, 
Wherein  the  imps  and  angels  play  charades, 
Make  faces,  mope,  and  pull  each  other's  hair  — 
Till  crack!  the  sly  urchin  Death  shivers  the  glass, 
And  the  bare  coffin  boards  show  underneath. 


9494J  PERCY  MACKAYE 

Ravensbane  —  Yea!  if  it  be  so,  thou  coggery !  if  both  of  us  be  indeed 
but  illusions,  why,  now  let  us  end  together.  But  if  it  be  not  so,  then 
let  me  for  evermore  be  free  of  thee.  Now  is  the  test  —  the  glass ! 

[Springing  to  the  fireplace,  he  seizes  an  iron  cross-piece  from  the  andirons.] 

I'll  play  your  urchin  Death  and  shatter  it.     Let's  see  what  shall 
survive ! 

[He  rushes  to  strike  the  glass  with  the  iron.     Dickon  steps  out  of  the  mirrort 
closing  the  curtain.] 

Dickon  —  I  wouldn't  really! 

Ravensbane  —  Dickon !  dear  Dickon !  is  it  you  ? 

Dickon  —  Yes,  Jacky !  it's  dear  Dickon,  and  I  really  wouldn't. 

Ravensbane  —  Wouldn't  what,  Dickon? 

Dickon  —  Sweep  the  cobwebs  off  the  sky  with  thine  aspiring 
broomstick.  When  a  man  questions  fate,  'tis  bad  digestion.  When 
a  scarecrow  does  it,  'tis  bad  taste. 

Ravensbane  —  At  last,  you  will  tell  me  the  truth,  Dickon!  Am  I 
then  —  that  thing? 

Dickon  —  You  mustn't  be  so  skeptical.  Of  course  you're  that 
thing. 

Ravensbane  —  Ah  me  despicable !  Rachel,  why  didst  thou  ever 
look  upon  me? 


9495 


NORMAN  MACLEOD 

(i8i2-i872)> 

!N  THE  present  century  the  Scottish  Church  has  given  to  the 
world  two  sons  of  pre-eminent  importance  and  influence:  Dr. 
Chalmers  and  Dr.  Norman  Macleod.  The  names  of  these 
two  men,  simple  clergymen  of  the  simple  Scottish  Church,  are  familiar 
not  only  in  Scotland  and  among  Scotsmen  all  the  world  over,  but 
among  thousands  also  of  English  and  Americans.  With  one  only  we 
have  to  do  here:  the  famous  Scottish  minister  and  Queen's  Chaplain 
who  became  so  universally  known  and  beloved  in  Scotland  that  he 
was  rarely  if  ever  alluded  to  by  his  full  name,  but  simply  as  «  Dr.  Nor- 
man » —  and  even,  in  many  localities,  merely  as  (<  Norman. »  Norman 
Macleod  was  a  notable  man  on  account  of  his  writings;  a  still  more 
notable  man  on  account  of  his  preaching  and  influence ;  possibly  more 
notable  still  as  an  ideal  type  of  the  Highlander  from  the  Highland 
point  of  view;  and  above  all,  notable  for  his  dominant  and  striking 
personality.  It  has  been  said,  and  perhaps  truly,  that  no  one  has 
taken  so  strong  a  hold  of  the  affections  of  his  countrymen  since 
Burns.  Fine  as  are  Dr.  Macleod's  writings, — notably  (  The  Reminis- 
cences of  a  Highland  Parish,*  <The  Old  Lieutenant,'  <  The  Starling,  > 
and  < Wee  Davie,  *  —  we  may  look  there  in  vain  for  adequate  sources 
of  this  wide-spread  and  still  sustained  popularity.  Fine  as  his  literary 
gifts  are,  his  supreme  gift  was  that  of  an  over-welling  human  sym- 
pathy, by  which  he  made  himself  loved,  from  the  poorest  Highland 
crofters  or  the  roughest  Glasgow  artisans  to  the  Queen  herself.  This 
is  fully  brought  out  in  the  admirable  Memoir  written  by  his  brother, 
Dr.  Donald  Macleod,  the  present  editor  of  that  well-known  magazine, 
Good  Words,  which  Dr.  Norman  began.  The  name  of  his  childhood 
and  his  family,  says  Dr.  Donald, — 

•<was  to  all  Scotland  his  title,  as  distinct  as  a  Duke's, —  Norman  Macleod; 
sometimes  the  <  Norman  >  alone  was  enough.  He  was  a  Scottish  minister,  noth- 
ing more ;  incapable  of  any  elevation  to  rank,  bound  to  mediocrity  of  means 
by  the  mere  fact  of  his  profession,  never  to  be  bishop  of  anywhere,  dean 
of  anywhere,  lord  of  anything,  so  long  as  life  held  him,  yet  everybody's  fel- 
low wherever  he  went:  dear  brother  of  the  Glasgow  workingmen  in  their 
grimy  fustians ;  of  the  Ayrshire  weavers  in  their  cottages ;  dear  friend  of  the 
sovereign  on  the  throne.  He  had  great  eloquence,  great  talent,  and  many  of 
the  characteristics  of  genius ;  but  above  all,  he  was  the  most  brotherly  of  men. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  his  works  will  live  an  independent  life  after  him: 


949^ 


NORMAN  MACLEOD 


rather,  perhaps,  it  may  be  found  that  their  popularity  depended  upon  him 
and  not  upon  them ;  and  his  personal  claims  must  fade,  as  those  who  knew  him 
follow  him  into  the  Unknown." 

And  indeed  there  could  be  no  better  summary  of  Norman  Macleod 
than  this  at  once  pious  and  just  estimate  by  his  brother. 

He  came  not  only  of  one  of  the  most  famous  Highland  clans,  but 
of  a  branch  noted  throughout  the  West  of  Scotland  for  the  stalwart 
and  ever  militant  sons  of  the  church  which  it  has  contributed  from 
generation  to  generation.  It  is  to  this  perpetuity  of  vocation,  as  well 
as  to  the  transmission  of  family  names,  that  a  good  deal  of  natural 
confusion  is  due  in  the  instance  of  writers  bearing  Highland  names, 
and  of  the  Macleods  in  particular.  <(  They're  a'  thieves,  fishermen,  or 
ministers, }>  as  is  said  in  the  West;  and  however  much  or  little  truth 
there  may  be  in  the  first,  there  is  a  certain  obvious  truth  in  the 
second,  and  a  still  more  obvious  truth  in  the  third.  Again  and  again 
it  is  stated  that  Dr.  Norman  Macleod  —  meaning  this  Norman  —  is  the 
author  of  what  is  now  the  most  famous  song  among  the  Highlanders, 
the  farewell  to  Fiunary*;  a  song  which  has  become  a  Highland 
national  lament.  But  this  song  was  really  written  by  Dr.  Norman 
Macleod  the  elder;  that  is,  the  father  of 'the  Dr.  Norman  Macleod  of 
whom  we  are  now  writing. 

Norman  Macleod  was  born  on  June  3d,  1812,  in  Campbelltown  of 
Argyll.  After  his  education  for  the  church  at  Glasgow  and  Edin- 
burgh Universities,  he  traveled  for  some  time  in  Germany  as  private 
tutor.  Some  years  after  his  ordainment  to  an  Ayrshire  parish,  he 
visited  Canada  on  ecclesiastical  business.  It  was  not  till  1851  that  he 
was  translated  to  the  church  with  which  his  name  is  so  closely  asso- 
ciated; namely,  the  Barony  Charge  in  Glasgow.'  Three  years  after 
this,  in  1854,  he  became  one  of  her  Majesty's  Chaplains  for  Scotland, 
and  Dean  of  the  Order  of  the  Thistle.  In  1860  he  undertook  the 
editorship  of  Good  Words;  and  made  this  magazine,  partly  by  his 
own  writings  and  still  more  by  his  catholic  and  wise  editorship,  one 
of  the  greatest  successes  in  periodical  literature.  Long  before  his 
death  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  sixty,  he  had  become  famous 
as  the  most  eloquent  and  influential  of  the  Scottish  ministry;  indeed, 
so  great  was  his  repute  that  hundreds  of  loyal  Scots  from  America 
and  Australia  came  yearly  to  Scotland,  primarily  with  the  desire  to 
see  and  hear  one  whom  many  of  them  looked  to  as  the  most  emi- 
nent Scot  of  his  day.  It  was  in  his  shrewdness  of  judgment,  his 
swift  and  kindly  tact,  his  endless  fund  of  humor,  and  his  sweet 
human  sympathy,  that  the  secret  of  his  immense  influence  lay.  But 
while  it  is  by  virtue  of  his  personal  qualities  that  even  now  he  sur- 
vives in  the  memory  of  his  countrymen,  there  is  in  his  writings  much 
that  is  distinctive  and  beautiful.  Probably  *  The  Reminiscences  of  a 


NORMAN    MACLEOD 


9497 


Highland  Parish  >  will  long  be  read  for  their  broad  and  fine  sense  of 
human  life  in  all  its  ordinary  aspects.  This  book,  without  any  par- 
ticular pretensions  to  style,  is  full  of  such  kindly  insight,  such  swift 
humor,  and  such  broad  sympathy,  that  it  is  unquestionably  the  most 
characteristic  literary  work  of  its  author.  Probably,  among  his  few 
efforts  in  fiction,  the  story  known  as  < The  Old  Lieutenant  and  his 
Son >  (unless  it  be  ( The  Starling  > )  still  remains  the  most  popular. 
Curiously  enough,  although  his  sermons  stirred  all  Scotland,  there 
are  few  of  them  which  in  perusal  at  this  late  date  have  any  specially 
moving  quality,  apart  from  their  earnestness  and  native  spiritual 
beauty.  There  is  however  one  which  stands  out  above  the  others, 
and  is  to  this  day  familiar  to  thousands:  the  splendid  sermon  on 
(War  and  Judgment, J  which,  at  a  crucial  moment  in  the  history  of 
his  country,  Dr.  Norman  Macleod  preached  before  the  Queen  at  the 
little  Highland  church  of  Crathie. 

The  three  extracts  which  follow  adequately  represent  Dr.  Macleod. 
The  first  exemplifies  his  narrative  style.  The  second  depicts  those 
West  Highlands  which  he  loved  so  well  and  helped  to  make  others 
love.  The  third  is  one  of  those  little  lyrics  in  lowland  Scottish  which 
live  to  this  day  in  the  memories  of  the  people. 


THE   HOME-COMING 
From  ( The  Old  Lieutenant  and  his  Son > 

THERE  lived  in  the  old  burgh  one  of  that  class  termed  (<  fools w 
to  whom  I  have  already  alluded,  who  was  called  "daft 
Jock."  Jock  was  lame,  walked  by  the  aid  of  a  long  staff, 
and  generally  had  his  head  and  shoulders  covered  up  with  an  old 
coat.  Babby  had  a  peculiar  aversion  to  Jock;  why,  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  discover,  as  her  woman's  heart  was  kindly  disposed  to  all 
living  things.  Her  regard  was  supposed  to  have  been  partially 
alienated  from  Jock  from  his  always  calling  her  <(Wee  Babbity,}> 
accompanying  the  designation  with  a  loud  and  joyous  laugh. 
Now,  I  have  never  yet  met  a  human  being  who  was  not  weak 
on  a  point  of  personal  peculiarity  which  did  not  natter  them.  It 
has  been  said  that  a  woman  will  bear  any  amount  of  abuse  that 
does  not  involve  a  slight  upon  her  appearance.  Men  are  equally 
susceptible  of  similar  pain.  A  very  tall  or  very  fat  hero  will  be 
calm  while  his  deeds  are  criticized  or  his  fame  disparaged,  but 
will  resent  with  bitterness  any  marked  allusion  to  his  great  longi- 
tude  or  latitude.  Babby  never  could  refuse  charity  to  the  needy, 
and  Jock  was  sure  of  receiving  something  from  her  as  the  result 


949^ 


NORMAN   MACLEOD 


of  his  weekly  calls;  but  he  never  consigned  a  scrap  of  meat  to 
his  wallet  without  a  preliminary  battle.  On  the  evening  of  the 
commemoration  of  the  <(  Melampus "  engagement,  Babby  was  sit- 
ting by  the  fire  watching  a  fowl  which  twirled  from  the  string 
roasting  for  supper,  and  which  dropped  its  unctuous  lard  on  a 
number  of  potatoes  that  lay  basking  in  the  tin  receiver  below. 
A  loud  rap  was  heard  at  the  back  door;  and  to  the  question, 
(<  Who's  there  ? "  the  reply  was  heard  of  (<  Babbity,  open !  Open, 
wee  Babbity !  Hee,  hee,  hee ! " 

(<  Gae  wa  wi'  ye,  ye  daft  cratur, "  said  Babby.  <(  What  right 
hae  ye  to  disturb  folk  at  this  time  o'  nicht  ?  I'll  let  loose  the 
dog  on  you." 

Babby  knew  that  Skye  shared  her  dislike  to  Jock;  as  was 
evident  from  his  bark  when  he  rose,  and  with  curled  tail  began 
snuffing  at  the  foot  of  the  door.  Another  knock,  louder  than 
before,  made  Babby  start. 

<(  My  word,"  she  exclaimed,  (<but  ye  hae  learned  impudence ! " 
And  afraid  of  disturbing  <(the  company,"  she  opened  as  much  of 
the  door  as  enabled  her  to  see  and  rebuke  Jock.  <(  Hoo  daur  ye, 
Jock,  to  rap  sae  loud  as  that  ? " 

<(  Open,  wee,  wee,  wee  Babbity ! "  said  Jock. 

<(Ye  big,  big,  big  blackguard,  I'll  dae  naething  o'  the  kind," 
said  Babby  as  she  shut  the  door.  But  the  stick  of  the  fool  was 
suddenly  interposed.  <(  That  beats  a' !  "  said  Babby :  (<  what  the 
sorrow  d'ye  want,  Jock,  to  daur  to  presume  — " 

But  to  Babby's  horror  the  door  was  forced  open  in  the  mid- 
dle of  her  threat,  and  the  fool  entered,  exclaiming,  <(  I  want  a 
kiss,  my  wee,  wee,  bonnie  Babbity !  " 

<(  Preserve  us  a' ! "  exclaimed  Babby,  questioning  whether  she 
should  scream  or  fly,  while  the  fool,  turning  his  back  to  the 
light,  seized  her  by  both  her  wrists,  and  imprinted  a  kiss  on  her 
forehead. 

"Skye!"  half  screamed  Babby;  but  Skye  was  springing  up, 
as  if  anxious  to  kiss  Jock.  Babby  fell  back  on  a  chair,  and 
catching  a  glimpse  of  the  fool's  face,  she  exclaimed,  <(O  my 
darling,  my  darling !  O  Neddy,  Neddy,  Neddy ! "  Flinging  off 
her  cap,  as  che  always  did  on  occasions  of  great  perplexity,  she 
seized  him  by  the  hands,  and  then  sunk  back,  almost  fainting,  in 
the  chair. 

<(  Silence,  dear  Babby!"  said  Ned,  speaking  in  a  whisper;  "for 
I  want  to  astonish  the  old  couple.  How  glad  I  aw  to  see  yon[ 


NORMAN  MACLEOD 

and  they  are  all  well,  I  know;  and  Freeman  here,  too!"  Then 
seizing  the  dog,  he  clasped  him  to  his  heart,  while  the  brute 
struggled  with  many  an  eager  cry  to  kiss  his  old  master's  face. 

Ned's  impulse  from  the  first  was  to  rush  into  the  parlor;  but 
he  was  restrained  by  that  strange  desire  which  all  have  experi- 
enced in  the  immediate  anticipation  of  some  great  joy, —  to  hold 
it  from  us,  as  a  parent  does  a  child,  before  we  seize  it  and  clasp 
it  to  our  breast. 

The  small  party,  consisting  of  the  captain,  his  wife,  and  Free- 
.man,  were  sitting  round  the  parlor  fire;  Mrs.  Fleming  sewing, 
and  the  others  keeping  up  rather  a  dull  conversation,  as  those 
who  felt,  though  they  did  not  acknowledge,  the  presence  of  some- 
thing at  their  hearts  which  hindered  their  usual  freedom  and 
genial  hilarity. 

<(  Supper  should  be  ready  by  this  time,"  suggested  the  captain, 
just  as  the  scene  between  Ned  and  Babby  was  taking  place  in 
the  kitchen.  (<  Babby  and  Skye  seem  busy:  I  shall  ring,  may  I 
not  ? " 

<(  If  you  please,"  said  Mrs.  Fleming;  (( but  depend  upon  it, 
Babby  will  cause  no  unnecessary  delays.  * 

Babby  speedily  responded  to  the  captain's  ring.  On  entering 
the  room  she  burst  into  a  fit  of  laughing.  Mrs.  Fleming  put 
down  her  work  and  looked  at  her  servant  as  if  she  was  mad. 

<(  What  do  you  mean,  woman  ?  "  asked  the  captain  with  knit 
brows:  (<  I  never  saw  you  behave  so  before." 

«  Maybe  no.  Ha!  ha!  ha!"  said  Babby;  «  but  there's  a  queer 
man  wishing  to  speak  wi'  ye."  At  this  moment  a  violent  ring 
was  heard  from  the  door-bell. 

<(A  queer  man  —  wishing  to  speak  with  me  —  at  this  hour," 
muttered  the  captain,  as  if  in  utter  perplexity. 

Babby  had  retired  to  the  lobby,  and  was  ensconced,  with  her 
apron  in  her  mouth,  in  a  corner  near  the  kitchen.  <(You  had 
better  open  the  door  yersel',"  cried  Babby,  smothering  her  laugh- 
ter. 

The  captain,  more  puzzled  than  ever,  went  to  the  door,  and 
opening  it  was  saluted  with  a  gruff  voice,  saying,  « I'm  a  poor 
sailor,  sir, —  and  knows  you're  an  old  salt, —  and  have  come  to 
see  you,  sir." 

(<  See  me,  sir !  What  do  you  want  ? "  replied  the  captain 
gruffly,  as  one  whose  kindness  some  impostor  hoped  to  bene- 
fit by. 


9500  NORMAN  MACLEOD 

(<  Wants  nothing,  sir,  *  said  the  sailor,  stepping  near  the  captain. 

A  half -scream,  half-laugh  from  Babby  drew  Mrs.  Fleming  and 
Freeman  to  the  lobby. 

((You  want  nothing?  What  brings  you  to  disturb  me  at  this 
hour  of  the  night  ?  Keep  back,  sir ! " 

<(Well,  sir,  seeing  as  how  I  sailed  with  Old  Cairney,  I  thought 
you  would  not  refuse  me  a  favor, "  replied  the  sailor  in  a  hoarse 
voice. 

"Don't  dare,  sir,"  said  the  captain,  (<to  come  into  my  house 
one  step  farther,  till  I  know  more  about  you." 

<(  Now,  captain,  don't  be  angry;  you  know  as  how  that  great 
man  Nelson  expected  every  man  to  do  his  duty:  all  I  want  is 
just  to  shake  Mrs.  Fleming  by  the  hand,  and  then  I  go;  that  is, 
if  after  that  you  want  me  for  to  go." 

(<  Mrs.  Fleming ! "  exclaimed  the  captain,  with  the  indignation 
of  a  man  who  feels  that  the  time  has  come  for  open  war  as 
against  a  house-breaker.  (<  If  you  dare  —  " 

But  Mrs.  Fleming,  seeing  the  rising  storm,  passed  her  husband 
rapidly,  and  said  to  the  supposed  intruder,  whom  she  assumed  to 
be  a  tipsy  sailor,  <( There  is  my  hand,  if  that's  all  you  want:  go 
away  now  as  you  said,  and  don't  breed  any  disturbance." 

But  the  sailor  threw  his  arms  around  his  mother,  and  Babby 
rushed  forward  with  a  light;  and  then  followed  muffled  cries 
of  « Mother!"  « Father!"  <(Ned!»  «My  own  boy!"  «God  be 
praised ! "  until  the  lobby  was  emptied,  and  the  parlor  once  more 
alive  with  as  joyous  and  thankful  hearts  as  ever  met  in  (<  hamlet 
or  in  baron's  ha'!" 


HIGHLAND   SCENERY 

HER  great  delight  was  in  the  scenery  of  that  West   Highland 
country.      Italy  has  its  gorgeous  beauty,  and  is  a  magnifi- 
cent volume  of  poetry    history,  and  art,  superb  within  and 
without,  read  by  the  light  of  golden  sunsets.      Switzerland  is  the 
most  perfect  combination  of  beauty  and   grandeur;   from  its  up- 
lands—  with  grass  more  green  and  closely  shaven  than  an  English 
park;   umbrageous  with  orchards;   musical  with  rivulets;    tinkling 
with  the  bells  of  wandering  cattle  and  flocks  of  goats;  social  with 
picturesque  villages  gathered  round  the  chapel  spires  —  up  to  the 
bare  rocks  and  mighty  cataracts  of  ice;  until  the  eye  rests  on  the 


NOR1N 


95°* 


,rp  in  the  intense  blue  of 
<wn  the  whole  marvelous  picture  with 
Torway  its    peculiar   glory   of    fiords 

ling  their  v  tmong  gigantic  mount- 

lofty  precipices,  or  primeval  forests.     But  the  scenery  of  the 
:.ern   Highlands  -ctive  character  of  its  own.      It  is 

not  beauty,  in   spit-  ;h   and   oak   copse   that 

e  the  :  lochs  and  the  innumerable  bights  and  bays 

of  pearly  sand.     Nor  is  it  grandeur  —  although  there  is  a  wonder- 
ful i  tr-stretching  landscapes  of  ocean  meeting  the 
on,  or  of  h  ridges,  mingling  afar 
upper  sky.      But                                coloring  of  its  mount- 
ains; in  the  silence  of  its  untrodden  valleys;    in  the  extent  of  its 

A  undulating  moors;   in  the  sweep  of  its  rocky  corr: 
in  the  shifting  mists  and   clouds  that  hang  over  its  dark  preci- 
:   in  all  this  kind  of  s  ith  the  wild  tradii 

which   ghost-like   float  around  he 

MONGOLIAN  BUDDHISTIC  WRITING 

"    tO     the     im;  Facsimile  of  part  of  fragment  of  a  Mongolian  manuscript  of  the   XVIth 
century.     It  was  discovered  by  the  Russians  in  the  ruins  of  the 

Buddhist   monastery    of   Ablai-Kied,    a    desert  spot    near 
from   the    rest  -Of  tfle  s<>urce   of  the   river  Irtiscu. 

rocky  fastnesses,  before  they  (<  a  their  dun 

wings  from  Morven." 


MY  LITTLE  MAY 

MY  LITTLE  May  was  like  a  lintie 
Glintin'  'mang  the  flowers  o*  spring; 
Like  a  lintie  she  was  cantie, 

Like  a  lintie  she  could  sing;  — 
Singing,  milking  in  the  gloamin', 
Singing,  herding  in  the  morn, 
Singing  'mang  the  brackens  roaming, 
Singing  shearing  yellow  corn ! 
Oh  the  bonnie  dell  and  dingle, 

Oh  the  bor:  -,f  glen, 

Oh  the  bonnie  bleezin'  ingle, 
Oh  the  bonnie  but  and  ben! 

Ilka  body  smiled  that  met  her, 

Nane  were,  glad  1  f areweel ; " 


3V 

dJlVX   adjno  JqhDaunsavnBifognoM 


NORMAN   MACLEOD 

peaks  of  alabaster  snow,  clear  and  sharp  in  the  intense  blue  of 
the  cloudless  sky,  which  crown  the  whole  marvelous  picture  with 
awful  grandeur!  Norway  too  has  its  peculiar  glory  of  fiords 
worming  their  way  like  black  water-snakes  among  gigantic  mount- 
ains, lofty  precipices,  or  primeval  forests.  But  the  scenery  of  the 
Western  Highlands  has  a  distinctive  character  of  its  own.  It  is 
not  beauty,  in  spite  of  its  knolls  of  birch  and  oak  copse  that 
fringe  the  mountain  lochs  and  the  innumerable  bights  and  bays 
of  pearly  sand.  Nor  is  it  grandeur  —  although  there  is  a  wonder- 
ful vastness  in  its  far-stretching  landscapes  of  ocean  meeting  the 
horizon,  or  of  hills  beyond  hills,  in  endless  ridges,  mingling  afar 
with  the  upper  sky.  But  in  the  sombre  coloring  of  its  mount- 
ains; in  the  silence  of  its  untrodden  valleys;  in  the  extent  of  its 
bleak  and  undulating  moors;  in  the  sweep  of  its  rocky  corries; 
in  the  shifting  mists  and  clouds  that  hang  over  its  dark  preci- 
pices: in  all  this  kind  of  scenery,  along  with  the  wild  traditions 
which  ghost-like  float  around  its  ancient  keeps,  and  live  in  the 
tales  of  its  inhabitants,  there  is  a  glory  and  a  sadness,  most  affect- 
ing to  the  imagination,  and  suggestive  of  a  period  of  romance 
and  song,  of  clanships  and  of  feudal  attachments,  which,  banished 
from  the  rest  of  Europe,  took  refuge  and  lingered  long  in  those 
rocky  fastnesses,  before  they  (<  passed  away  forever  on  their  dun 
wings  from  Morven." 


MY  LITTLE  MAY 

MY  LITTLE  May  was  like  a  lintie 
Glintin'  'mang  the  flowers  o*  spring; 
Like  a  lintie  she  was  cantie, 

Like  a  lintie  she  could  sing;  — 
Singing,  milking  in  the  gloamin', 
Singing,  herding  in  the  morn, 
Singing  'mang  the  brackens  roaming, 
Singing  shearing  yellow  corn! 
Oh  the  bonnie  dell  and  dingle, 

Oh  the  bonnie  flowering  glen, 
Oh  the  bonnie  bleezin'  ingle, 
Oh  the  bonnie  but  and  ben! 

Ilka  body  smiled  that  met  her, 

Nane  were  glad  that  said  fareweel; 


NORMAN   MACLEOD 

Never  was  a  blyther,  better, 

Bonnier  bairn,  frae  croon  to  heel! 
Oh  the  bonnie  dell  and  dingle, 

Oh  the  bonnie  flowering  glen, 
Oh  the  bonnie  bleezin'  ingle, 
Oh  the  bonnie  but  and  ben! 

Blaw,  wintry  winds,  blaw  cauld  and  eerie, 

Drive  the  .sleet  and  drift  the  snaw; 
May  is  sleeping,  she  was  weary, 
For  her  heart  was  broke  in  twa! 
Oh  wae  the  dell  and  dingle, 

Oh  wae  the  flowering  glen; 
Oh  wae  aboot  the  ingle, 

Wae's  me  baith  but  and  ben! 


M 


95°3 


JOHN  BACH  MCMASTER 


IHE  change  in  aim  and  method  of  the  modern  historian  has 
kept  pace  with  the  development  of  the  democratic  idea. 
Where  before,  in  the  study  and  writing  of  history,  the  do- 
ings of  rulers  and  courts  and  the  working  of  governmental  machinery 
have  been  the  chief  points  of  interest,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  every- 
day deeds  and  needs  of  the  nation,  the  tendency  to-day  is  to  lay 
emphasis  on  the  life  of  the  people  broadly  viewed,  —  the  development 
of  the  social  organism  in  all  its  parts.  The  feeling  behind  this 
tendency  is  based  on  a  conviction  that  the 
true  vitality  of  a  country  depends  upon  the 
healthy  growth  and  general  welfare  of  the 
great  mass  of  plain  folk,  —  the  working, 
struggling,  wealth-producing  people  who 
make  it  up.  The  modern  historian,  in  a 
word,  makes  man  in  the  State,  irrespective 
of  class  or  position,  his  subject  for  sympa- 
thetic portrayal. 

This  type  of  historian  is  represented  by 
John  Bach  McMaster,  whose  <  History  of 
the  People  of  the  United  States  J  strives  to 
give  a  picture  of  social  rather  than  consti- 
tutional and  political  growth:  those  phases  JOHN  BACH  McMASTER 
of  American  history  have  been  treated  ably 

by  Adams,  Schouler,  and  others.  Professor  McMaster,  with  admirable 
lucidity  and  simplicity  of  style,  and  always  with  an  appeal  to  fact 
precluding  the  danger  of  the  subjective  writing  of  history  to  fit  a 
theory,  tells  this  vital  story  of  the  national  evolution,  and  tells  it  as 
it  has  not  been  told  before.  The  very  title  of  his  work  defines  its 
purpose.  It  is  a  history  not  of  the  United  States,  but  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  —  like  Green's  great  (  History  of  the  English 
People,'  another  work  having  the  same  ideal,  the  modern  attitude. 
The  period  covered  in  Professor  McMaster's  plan  is  that  reaching 
from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  1789  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War,  —  less  than  one  hundred  years,  but  a  crucial  time  for 
the  shaping  of  the  country.  The  depiction  of  the  formative  time, 
the  day  of  the  pioneer  and  the  settler,  —  of  the  crude  beginnings  of 


9504  JOHN  BACH   MCMASTER 

civilization, —  engages  his  particular  attention  and  receives  his  most 
careful  treatment.  An  example  is  given  in  the  selection  chosen  from 
his  work,  which  gains  warmth  and  picturesqueness  in  this  way.  The 
first  volume  of  his  work  appeared  in  1883;  the  sixth  in  1908.  It  pro- 
vides an  invaluable  storehouse  of  information  on  the  life  and  manners 
of  our  growing  nation.  Professor  McMaster  has  allowed  himself 
space  and  leisure  in  order  to  make  an  exhaustive  survey  of  the  field, 
and  a  synthetic  presentation  of  the  material.  His  history  when  fin- 
ished will  be  of  very  great  value.  His  preparation  for  it  began  in 
1870,  when  he  was  a  young  student,  and  it  will  be  his  life  work  and 
monument. 

John  Bach  McMaster  was  born  in  Brooklyn,  June  29th,  1852;  and 
received  his  education  at  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  his 
graduation  year  being  1872.  He  taught  a  little,  studied  civil  engi- 
neering, and  in  1877  became  instructor  in  that  branch  at  Princeton. 
Thence  he  was  called  in  1883  to  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  to 
take  the  chair  of  American  history,  which  he  still  holds.  Professor 
McMaster  is  also  an  attractive  essayist.  His  'Benjamin  Franklin  as 
a  Man  of  Letters'  (1887)  is  an  excellent  piece  of  biography;  and 
the  volume  of  papers  called  'With  the  Fathers >  (1896)  contains  a 
series  of  historical  portraits  sound  in  scholarship  and  very  readable 
in  manner.  In  his  insistence  on  the  presenting  of  the  unadorned 
truth,  his  dislike  of  pseudo-hero  worship,  Professor  McMaster  seems  at 
times  iconoclastic.  But  while  he  is  not  entirely  free  from  prejudice, 
his  intention  is  to  give  no  false  lights  to  the  picture,  and  few  his- 
torians have  been  broader  minded  and  fairer. 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  LIFE   IN    1800 

From  <A  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States  from  the  Revolution  to 
the  Civil  War.>  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1885.  Copyright  1885,  by  John  Bach 
McMaster. 

WHAT  was  then  known  as  the  far  West  was  Kentucky,  Ohio, 
and    central    New    York.       Into    it    the    emigrants    came 
streaming  along  either  of  two   routes.      Men  from  New 
England   took  the  most  northern,  and  went  out  by  Albany  and 
Troy  to  the  great  wilderness  which  lay  along  the   Mohawk  and 
the  lakes.     They  came  by  tens  of  thousands  from  farms  and  vil- 
lages,  and  represented  every  trade,  every  occupation,  every  walk 
in  life,  save  one:  none  were  seafarers.     No  whaler  left  his  vessel; 
no   seaman   deserted    his   mess;    no   fisherman   of    Marblehead  or 
Gloucester  exchanged  the  dangers  of  a  life  on  the  ocean  for  the 


JOHN  BACH  MCMASTER 

privations  of  a  life  in  the  West.  Their  fathers  and  their  uncles 
had  been  fishermen  before  them,  and  their  sons  were  to  follow 
in  their  steps.  Long  before  a  lad  could  nib  a  quill,  or  make  a 
pot-hook,  or  read  half  the  precepts  his  primer  contained,  he  knew 
the  name  of  every  brace  and  stay,  every  sail  and  part  of  a  Grand 
Banker  and  a  Chebacco,  all  the  nautical  terms,  what  line  and 
hook  should  be  used  for  catching  halibut  and  what  for  mackerel 
and  cod.  If  he  ever  learned  to  write,  he  did  so  at  (<  writing- 
school, })  which,  like  singing-school,  was  held  at  night,  and  to 
which  he  came  bringing  his  own  dipped  candle,  his  own  paper, 
and  his  own  pen.  The  candlestick  was  a  scooped-out  turnip,  or 
a  piece  of  board  with  a  nail  driven  through  it.  His  paper  he 
ruled  with  a  piece  of  lead,  for  the  graphite  lead-pencil  was  un- 
known. All  he  knew  of  theology,  and  much  of  his  knowledge  of 
reading  and  spelling,  was  gained  with  the  help  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Primer.  There  is  not,  and  there  never  was,  a  text-book  so 
richly  deserving  a  history  as  the  Primer.  The  earliest  mention 
of  it  in  print  now  known  is  to  be  found  in  an  almanac  for  the 
year  1691.  The  public  are  there  informed  that  a  second  impres- 
sion is  (<in  press,  and  will  suddenly  be  extant w;  and  will  con- 
tain, among  much  else  that  is  new,  the  verses  John  Rogers  the 
Martyr  made  and  left  as  a  legacy  to  his  children.  When  the 
second  impression  became  extant,  a  rude  cut  of  Rogers  lashed  to 
the  stake,  and  while  the  flames  burned  fiercely,  discoursing  to  his 
wife  and  nine  small  children,  embellished  the  verses,  as  it  has 
done  in  every  one  of  the  innumerable  editions  since  struck  off. 
The  tone  of  the  Primer  is  deeply  religious.  Two  thirds  of .  the 
four-and-twenty  pictures  placed  before  the  couplets  and  triplets 
in  rhyme,  from 

«In  Adam's  fall 
We  sinned  all,* 
to 

<(Zaccheus,  he 

Did  climb  a  tree 
Our  Lord  to  see,** 

represent  Biblical  incidents.  Twelve  <(  words  of  six  syllables >J  are 
given  in  the  spelling  lesson.  Five  of  them  are  —  abomination,  edi- 
fication, humiliation,  mortification,  purification.  More  than  half 
the  book  is  made  up  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Creed,  some 
of  Watts's  hymns,  and  the  whole  of  that  great  Catechism  which 
one  hundred  and  twenty  divines  spent  five  years  in  preparing. 


JOHN  BACH  MCMASTER 

There  too  are  Mr.  Rogers's  verses,  and  John  Cotton's  ( Spiritual 
Milk  for  American  Babes*;  exhortations  not  to  cheat  at  play, 
not  to  lie,  not  to  use  ill  words,  not  to  call  ill  names,  not  to  be  a 
dunce,  and  to  love  school.  The  Primer  ends  with  the  famous 
dialogue  between  Christ,  Youth,  and  the  Devil. 

Moved  by  pity  and  a  wish  to  make  smooth  the  rough  path  to 
learning,  some  kind  soul  prepared  <A  Lottery-Book  for  Children.1 
The  only  difficulty  in  teaching  children  to  read  was,  he  thought, 
the  difficulty  of  keeping  their  minds  from  roaming;  and  to  (<pre^ 
vent  this  precipitancy }>  was  the  object  of  the  (  Lottery-Book. }  On 
one  side  of  each  leaf  was  a  letter  of  the  alphabet;  on  the  other 
two  pictures.  As  soon,  he  explained,  as  the  child  could  speak,  it 
should  thrust  a  pin  through  the  leaf  from  the  side  whereon  the 
pictures  were,  at  the  letter  on  the  other,  and  should  continue  to 
do  this  till  at  last  the  letter  was  pierced.  Turning  the  leaf  after 
each  trial,  the  mind  of  the  child  would  be  fixed  so  often  and  so 
long  on  the  letter  that  it  would  ever  after  be  remembered. 

.  The  illustrations  in  the  book  are  beneath  those  of  a  patent- 
medicine  almanac,  but  are  quite  as  good  as  any  that  can  be  found 
in  children's  books  of  that  day.  No  child  had  then  ever  seen 
such  specimens  of  the  wood-engraver's  and  the  printer's  and  the 
binder's  arts  as  now,  at  the  approach  of  every  Christmas,  issue 
from  hundreds  of  presses.  The  covers  of  such  chap-books  were 
bits  of  wood,  and  the  backs  coarse  leather.  On  the  covers  was 
sometimes  a  common  blue  paper,  and  sometimes  a  hideous  wall- 
paper, adorned  with  horses  and  dogs,  roosters  and  eagles,  standing 
in  marvelous  attitudes  on  gilt  or  copper  scrolls.  The  letterpress 
of  none  was  specially  illustrated,  but  the  same  cut  was  used 
again  and  again  to  express  the  most  opposite  ideas.  A  woman 
with  a  dog  holding  her  train  is  now  Vanity,  and  now  Miss  All- 
worthy  going  abroad  to  buy  books  for  her  brother  and  sister. 
A  huge  vessel  with  three  masts  is  now  a  yacht,  and  now  the 
ship  in  which  Robinson  Crusoe  sailed  from  Hull.  The  virtuous 
woman  that  is  a  crown  to  her  husband,  and  naughty  Miss  Kitty 
Bland,  are  one  and  'the  same.  Master  Friendly  listening  to  the 
minister  at  church  now  heads  a  catechism,  and  now  figures  as 
Tommy  Careless  in  the  (Adventures  of  a  Week.*  A  man  and 
woman  feeding  beggars  become,  in  time,  transformed  into  a 
servant  introducing  two  misers  to  his  mistress.  But  no  creature 
played  so  many  parts  as  a  bird,  which  after  being  named  an 
eagle,  a  cuckoo,  and  a  kite,  is  called  finally  Noah's  dove. 


JOHN   BACH   MCMASTER 

Mean  and  cheap  as  such  chap-books  were,  the  peddler  who 
hawked  them  sold  not  one  to  the  good  wives  of  a  fishing  village. 
The  women  had  not  the  money  to  buy  with;  the  boys  had  not 
the  disposition  to  read.  Till  he  was  nine,  a  lad  did  little  more 
than  watch  the  men  pitch  pennies  in  the  road,  listen  to  sea 
stories,  and  hurry,  at  the  cry  of  ((  Rock  him,"  <(  Squail  him,"  to 
help  his  playmates  pelt  with  stones  some  unoffending  boy  from  a 
neighboring  village.  By  the  time  he  had  seen  his  tenth  birth- 
day he  was  old  enough  not  to  be  seasick,  not  to  cry  during  a 
storm  at  sea,  and  to  be  of  some  use  about  a  ship;  and  went  on 
his  first  trip  to  the  Banks.  The  skipper  and  the  crew  called  him 
'( cut-tail " ;  for  he  received  no  money  save  for  the  fish  he  caught, 
and  each  one  he  caught  was  marked  by  snipping  a  piece  from 
the  tail.  After  an  apprenticeship  of  three  or  four  years  the 
r< cut-tail"  became  a  <( header,"  stood  upon  the  same  footing  as 
the  <(sharesmen,"  and  learned  all  the  duties  which  a  <(  splitter" 
and  a  (<salter"  must  perform.  A  crew  numbered  eight;  four  were 
"sharesmen"  and  four  were  apprentices;  went  twice  a  year  to 
the  Banks,  and  stayed  each  time  from  three  to  five  months. 

Men  who  had  passed  through  such  a  training  were  under  no 
temptation  to  travel  westward.  They  took  no  interest,  they  bore 
no  part  in  the  great  exodus.  They  still  continued  to  make  their 
trips  and  bring  home  their  <( fares";  while  hosts  of  New-England- 
ers  poured  into  New  York,  opening  the  valleys,  founding  cities, 
and  turning  struggling  hamlets  into  villages  of  no  mean  kind. 
Catskill,  in  1792,  numbered  ten  dwellings  and  owned  one  vessel 
of  sixty  tons.  In  1800  there  were  in  the  place  one  hundred 
and  fifty-six  houses,  two  ships,  a  schooner,  and  eight  sloops  of 
one  hundred  tons  each,  all  owned  there  and  employed  in  carry- 
ing produce  to  New  York.  Six  hundred  and  twenty-four  bushels 
of  wheat  were  brought  to  the  Catskill  market  in  1792.  Forty- 
six  thousand  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  bushels  came  in  1800. 
On  a  single  day  in  1801  the  merchants  bought  four  thousand 
one  hundred  and  eight  bushels  of  wheat,  and  the  same  day 
eight  hundred  loaded  sleighs  came  into  the  village  by  the  west- 
ern road.  In  1790  a  fringe  of  clearings  ran  along  the  western 
shore  of  Lake  Champlain  to  the  northern  border,  and  pushed 
out  through  the  broad  valley  between  the  Adirondacks  and  the 
Catskills  to  Seneca  and  Cayuga  Lakes.  In  1800  the  Adirondack 
region  was  wholly  surrounded.  The  emigrants  had  passed  Oneida 
Lake,  had  passed  Oswego,  and  skirting  the  shores  of  Ontario 


JOHN   BACH  MCMASTER 

and  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  had  joined  with  those  on 
Lake  Champlain.  Some  had  gone  down  the  valleys  of  the 
Delaware  and  Siisquehanna  to  the  southern  border  of  the  State. 
The  front  of  emigration  was  far  beyond  Elmira  and  Bath.  Just 
before  it  went  the  speculators,  the  land-jobbers,  the  men  afflicted 
with  what  in  derision  was  called  <(  terraphobia. }>  They  formed 
companies  and  bought  millions  of  acres.  They  went  singly  and 
purchased  whole  townships  as  fast  as  the  surveyors  could  locate; 
buying  on  trust  and  selling  for  wheat,  for  lumber,  for  whatever 
the  land  could  yield  or  the  settler  give.  Nor  was  the  pioneer 
less  infatuated.  An  irresistible  longing  drove  him  westward,  and 
still  westward,  till  some  Indian  scalped  him,  or  till  hunger,  want, 
bad  food,  and  exposure  broke  him  down,  and  the  dreaded  Genesee 
fever  swept  him  away.  The  moment  such  a  man  had  built  a 
log  cabin,  cleared  an  acre,  girdled  the  trees,  and  sowed  a  hand- 
ful of  grain,  he  was  impatient  to  be  once  more  moving.  He  had 
no  peace  till  his  little  farm  was  sold,  and  he  had  plunged  into 
the  forest  to  seek  a  new  and  temporary  home.  The  purchaser 
in  time  would  make  a  few  improvements,  clear  a  few  more  acres, 
plant  a  little  more  grain,  and  then  in  turn  sell  and  hurry  west- 
ward. After  him  came  the  founders  of  villages  and  towns,  who, 
when  the  cabins  about  them  numbered  ten,  felt  crowded  and 
likewise  moved  away.  Travelers  through  the  Genesee  valley  tell 
us  they  could  find  no  man  who  had  not  in  this  way  changed 
his  abode  at  least  six  times.  The  hardships  which  these  people 
endured  is  beyond  description.  Their  poverty  was  extreme. 
Nothing  was  so  scarce  as  food;  many  a  wayfarer  was  turned 
from  their  doors  with  the  solemn  assurance  that  they  had  not 
enough  for  themselves.  The  only  window  in  many  a  cabin  was 
a  hole  in  the  roof  for  the  smoke  to  pass  through.  In  the  win- 
ter the  snow  beat  through  the  chinks  and  sifted  under  the  door, 
till  it  was  heaped  up  about  the  sleepers  on  the  floor  before  the 
fire.  .  .  . 

Beyond  the  Blue  Ridge  everything  was  most  primitive.  Half 
the  roads  were  <(  traces  }>  and  blazed.  More  than  half  the  houses, 
even  in  the  settlements,  were  log  cabins.  When  a  stranger  came 
to  such  a  place  to  stay,  the  men  built  him  a  cabin  and  made 
the  building  an  occasion  for  sport.  The  trees  felled,  four  corner- 
men were  elected  to  notch  the  logs;  and  while  they  were  busy 
the  others  ran  races,  wrestled,  played  leap-frog,  kicked  the  hat, 
fought,  gouged,  gambled,  drank,  did  everything  then  considered 


JOHN  BACH  MCMASTER 

an  amusement.  After  the  notching  was  finished  the  raising  took 
but  a  few  hours.  Many  a  time  the  cabin  was  built,  roofed,  the 
door  and  window  cut  out,  and  the  owner  moved  in,  before  sun- 
down. The  chinks  were  stopped  with  chips  and  smeared  with 
mud.  The  chimney  was  of  logs,  coated  with  mud  six  inches 
thick.  The  table  and  the  benches,  the  bedstead  and  the  door, 
were  such  as  could  be  made  with  an  axe,  an  auger,  and  a  saw. 
A  rest  for  the  rifle  and  some  pegs  for  clothes  completed  the 
fittings. 

The  clothing  of  a  man  was  in  summer  a  wool  hat,  a  blue 
linsey  hunting-shirt  with  a  cape,  a  belt  with  a  gayly  colored 
fringe,  deerskin  or  linsey  pantaloons,  and  moccasins  and  shoe- 
packs  of  tanned  leather.  Fur  hats  were  not  common.  A  boot 
was  rarely  to  be  seen.  In  winter,  a  striped  linsey  vest  and  a 
white  blanket  coat  were  added.  If  the  coat  had  buttons  —  and  it 
seldom  had  —  they  were  made  by  covering  slices  of  a  cork  with 
bits  of  blanket.  Food  which  he  did  not  obtain  by  his  rifle  and 
his  traps  he  purchased  by  barter.  Corn  was  the  staple;  and  no 
mills  being  near,  it  was  pounded  between  two  stones  or  rubbed 
on  a  grater.  Pork  cost  him  twelve  cents  a  pound,  and  salt 
four.  Dry  fish  was  a  luxury,  and  brought  twenty  cents  a  pound. 
Sugar  was  often  as  high  as  forty.  When  he  went  to  a  settle- 
ment he  spent  his  time  at  the  billiard-table,  or  in  the  <(  keg 
grocery  J>  playing  Loo  or  (<  Finger  in  Danger, w  to  determine  who 
should  pay  for  the  whisky  consumed.  Pious  men  were  terrified 
at  the  drunkenness,  the  vice,  the  gambling,  the  brutal  fights, 
the  gouging,  the  needless  duels  they  beheld  on  every  hand. 
Already  the  Kentucky  boatmen  had  become  more  dreaded  than 
the  Indians.  <(A  Kentuc0  in  1800  had  much  the  same  meaning 
that  (<  a  cowboy  w  has  now.  He  was  the  most  reckless,  fearless, 
law-despising  of  men.  A  common  description  of  him  was  half 
horse,  half  alligator,  tipped  with  snapping-turtle. 

On  a  sudden  this  community,  which  the  preachers  had  often 
called  Satan's  stronghold,  underwent  a  moral  awakening  such  as 
this  world  had  never  beheld. 

Two  young  men  began  the  great  work  in  the  summer  of  1799. 
They  were  brothers,  preachers,  and  on  their  way  across  the 
pine  barrens  to  Ohio,  but  turned  aside  to  be  present  at  a  sacra- 
mental solemnity  on  Red  River.  The  people  were  accustomed 
to  gather  at  such  times  on  a  Friday,  and  by  praying,  singing, 
and  hearing  sermons,  prepare  themselves  for  the  reception  of  the 


95IO  JOHN  BACH  MCMASTER 

sacrament  on  Sunday.  At  the  Red  River  meeting  the  brothers 
were  asked  to  preach,  and  one  did  so  with  astonishing  fervor. 
As  he  spoke,  the  people  were  deeply  moved;  tears  ran  streaming 
down  their  faces,  and  one,  a  woman  far  in  the  rear  of  the  house, 
broke  through  order  and  began  to  shout.  For  two  hours  after 
the  regular  preachers  had  gone,  the  crowd  lingered  and  were 
loath  to  depart.  While  they  tarried,  one  of  the  brothers  was 
irresistibly  impelled  to  speak.  He  rose  and  told  them  that  he 
felt  called  to  preach,  that  he  could  not  be  silent.  The  words 
which  then  fell  from  his  lips  roused  the  people  before  him  <(  to  a 
pungent  sense  of  sin.'0  Again  and  again  the  woman  shouted, 
and  would  not  be  silent.  He  started  to  go  to  her.  The  crowd 
begged  him  to  turn  back.  Something  within  him  urged  him  on, 
and  he  went  through  the  house  shouting  and  exhorting  and 
praising  God.  In  a  moment  the  floor,  to  use  his  own  words, 
(<was  covered  with  the  slain. "  Their  cries  for  mercy  were 
terrible  to  hear.  Some  found  forgiveness,  but  many  went  away 
(<  spiritually  wounded )J  and  suffering  unutterable  agony  of  soul. 
Nothing  could  allay  the  excitement.  Every  settlement  along  the 
Green  River  and  the  Cumberland  was  full  of  religious  fervor. 
Men  fitted  their  wagons  with  beds  and  provisions,  and  traveled 
fifty  miles  to  camp  upon  the  ground  and  hear  him  preach. 
The  idea  was  new;  hundreds  adopted  it,  and  camp-meetings 
began.  There  was  now  no  longer  any  excuse  to  stay  away 
from  preaching.  Neither  distance,  nor  lack  of  houses,  nor  scar- 
city of  food,  nor  daily  occupations  prevailed.  Led  by  curiosity, 
by  excitement,  by  religious  zeal,  families  of  every  Protestant 
denomination — Baptists,  Methodists,  Presbyterians,  Episcopalians 
—  hurried  to  the  camp-ground.  Crops  were  left  half  gathered; 
every  kind  of  work  was  left  undone;  cabins  were  deserted;  in 
large  settlements  there  did  not  remain  one  soul.  The  first 
regular  general  camp-meeting  was  held  at  the  Gasper  River 
Church,  in  July,  1800;  but  the  rage  spread,  and  a  dozen  encamp- 
ments followed  in  quick  succession.  Camp-meeting  was  always 
in  the  forest  near  some  little  church,  which  served  as  the  preach- 
ers' lodge.  At  one  end  of  a  clearing  was  a  rude  stage,  and 
before  it  the  stumps  and  trunks  of  hewn  trees,  on  which  the 
listeners  sat.  About  the  clearing  were  the  tents  and  wagons 
ranged  in  rows  like  streets.  The  praying,  the  preaching,  the 
exhorting  would  sometimes  last  for  seven  days,  and  be  prolonged 
every  day  until  darkness  had  begun  to  give  way  to  light.  Nor 


JOHN   BACH   MCM ASTER  95II 

were  the  ministers  the  only  exhorters.  Men  and  women,  nay, 
even  children  took  part.  At  Cane  Ridge  a  little  girl  of  seven 
sat  upon  the  shoulder  of  a  man  and  preached  to  the  multitude 
till  she  sank  exhausted  on  her  bearer's  head.  At  Indian  Creek  a 
lad  of  twelve  mounted  a  stump  and  exhorted  till  he  grew  weak, 
whereupon  two  men  upheld  him,  and  he  continued  till  speech 
was  impossible.  A  score  of  sinners  fell  prostrate  before  him. 

At  no  time  was  the  (<  falling  exercise  }>  so  prevalent  as  at  night. 
Nothing  was  then  wanting  that  could  strike  terror  into  minds 
weak,  timid,  and  harassed.  The  red  glare  of  the  camp-fires  re- 
flected from  hundreds  of  tents  and  wagons;  the  dense  blackness 
of  the  flickering  shadows,  the  darkness  of  the  surrounding  forest, 
made  still  more  terrible  by  the  groans  and  screams  of  the  <(  spir- 
itually wounded, }>  who  had  fled  to  it  for  comfort;  the  entreaty 
of  the  preachers;  the  sobs  and  shrieks  of  the  downcast  still  walk- 
ing through  the  dark  valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death;  the  shouts 
and  songs  of  praise  from  the  happy  ones  who  had  crossed  the 
Delectable  Mountains,  had^gone  on  through  the  fogs  of  the  En- 
chanted Ground,  and  entered  the  land  of  Beulah,  were  too  much 
for  those  over  whose  minds  and  bodies  lively  imaginations  held 
full  sway.  The  heart  swelled,  the  nerves  gave  way,  the  hands 
and  feet  grew  cold,  and  motionless  and  speechless  they  fell  head- 
long to  the  ground.  In  a  moment  crowds  gathered  about  them 
to  pray  and  shout.  Some  lay  still  as  death.  Some  passed 
through  frightful  twitchings  of  face  and  limb.  At  Cabin  Creek 
so  many  fell,  that  lest  the  multitude  should  tread  on  them,  they 
were  carried  to  the  meeting-house  and  laid  in  rows  on  the  floor. 
At  Cane  Ridge  the  number  was  three  thousand. 

The  recollection  of  that  famous  meeting  is  still  preserved  in 
Kentucky,  where,  not  many  years  since,  old  men  could  be  found 
whose  mothers  had  carried  them  to  the  camp-ground  as  infants, 
and  had  left  them  at  the  roots  of  trees  and  behind  logs  while 
the  preaching  and  exhorting  continued.  Cane  Ridge  meeting- 
house stood  on  a  well-shaded,  well-watered  spot,  seven  miles  from 
the  town  of  Paris.  There  a  great  space  had  been  cleared,  a 
preacher's  stand  put  up,  and  a  huge  tent  stretched  to  shelter  the 
crowd  from  the  sun  and  rain.  But  it  did  not  cover  the  twen- 
tieth  part  of  the  people  who  came.  Every  road  that  led  to  the 
ground  is  described  to  have  presented  for  several  days  an  almost 
unbroken  line  of  wagons,  horses,  and  men.  One  who  saw  the 
meeting  when  it  had  just  begun  wrote  home  to  Philadelphia  that 


JOHN  BACH  McM  ASTER 

wagons  covered  an  area  as  large  as  that  between  Market  Street 
and  Chestnut,  Second  and  Third.  Another,  who  counted  them, 
declared  they  numbered  eleven  hundred  and  forty-five.  Seven 
hundred  and  fifty  lead  tokens,  stamped  with  the  letters  A  or  B, 
were  given  by  the  Baptists  to  communicants;  and  there  were  still 
upward  of  four  hundred  who  received  none.  Old  soldiers  who 
were  present,  and  claimed  to  know  something  of  the  art  of  esti- 
mating the  numbers  of  masses  of  men,  put  down  those  encamped 
at  the  Cane  Ridge  meeting  as  twenty  thousand  souls.  The  ex- 
citement surpassed  anything  that  had  been  known.  Men  who 
came  to  scoff  remained  to  preach.  All  day  and  all  night  the 
crowd  swarmed  to  and  fro  from  preacher  to  preacher,  singing, 
shouting,  laughing,  now  rushing  off  to  listen  to  some  new  ex- 
horter  who  had  climbed  upon  a  stump,  now  gathering  around 
some  unfortunate,  who  in  their  peculiar  language  was  <(  spiritu- 
ally slain. w  Soon  men  and  women  fell  in  such  numbers  that  it 
became  impossible  for  the  multitude  to  move  about  without 
trampling  them,  and  they  were  hurried  to  the  meeting-house. 
At  no  time  was  the  floor  less  than  half  covered.  Some  lay  quiet, 
unable  to  move  or  speak.  Some  talked  but  could  not  move. 
Some  beat  the  floor  with  their  heels.  Some,  shrieking  in  agony, 
bounded  about,  it  is  said,  like  a  live  fish  out  of  water.  Many 
lay  down  and  rolled  over  and  over  for  hours  at  a  time.  Others 
rushed  wildly  over  the  stumps  and  benches,  and  then  plunged, 
shouting  (<  Lost !  Lost !  w  into  the  forest. 

As  the  meetings  grew  more  and  more  frequent,  this  nervous 
excitement  assumed  new  and  more  terrible  forms.  One  was 
known  as  jerking;  another,  as  the  barking  exercise;  a  third,  as 
the  Holy  Laugh.  <(The  jerks*  began  in  the  head  and  spread 
rapidly  to  the  feet.  The  head  would  be  thrown  from  side  to  side 
so  swiftly  that  the  features  would  be  blotted  out  and  the  hair 
made  to  snap.  When  the  body  was  affected,  the  sufferer  was 
hurled  over  hindrances  that  came  in  his  way,  and  finally  dashed 
on  the  ground  to  bounce  about  like  a  ball.  At  camp-meetings  in 
the  far  South,  saplings  were  cut  off  breast-high  and  left  <(for  the 
people  to  jerk  by."  One  who  visited  such  a  camp-ground  declares 
that  about  the  roots  of  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  saplings  the 
earth  was  kicked  up  (<  as  by  a  horse  stamping  flies. >}  There  only 
the  lukewarm,  the  lazy,  the  half-hearted,  the  indolent  professor 
was  afflicted.  Pious  men,  and  scoffing  physicians  who  sought  to 
get  the  jerks  that  they  might  speculate  upon  them,  were  not 


JOHN   BACH  MCMASTER 

touched.  But  the  scoffer  did  not  always  escape.  Not  a  professor 
of  religion  within  the  region  of  the  great  revival  but  had  heard 
or  could  tell  of  some  great  conversion  by  special  act  of  God. 
One  disbeliever,  it  was  reported,  while  cursing  and  swearing,  had 
been  crushed  by  a  tree  falling  on  him  at  the  Cane  Ridge  meet- 
ing. Another  was  said  to  have  mounted  his  horse  to  ride  away, 
when  the  jerks  seized  him,  pulled  his  feet  from  the  stirrups, 
and  flung  him  on  the  ground,  whence  he  rose  a  Christian  man. 
A  lad  who  feigned  sickness,  kept  from  church,  and  lay  abed,  was 
dragged  out  and  dashed  against  the  wall  till  he  betook  himself 
to  prayer.  When  peace  was  restored  to  him,  he  passed  out  into 
his  father's  tan-yard  to  unhair  a  hide.  Instantly  the  knife  left  his 
hand,  and  he  was  drawn  over  logs  and  hurled  against  trees  and 
fences  till  he  began  to  pray  in  serious  earnest.  A  foolish  woman 
who  went  to  see  the  jerks  was  herself  soon  rolling  in  the  mud. 
Scores  of  such  stories  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  may  now 
be  read  in  the  lives  and  narratives  of  the  preachers.  The  com- 
munity seemed  demented.  From  the  nerves  and  muscles  the  dis- 
order passed  to  the  mind.  Men  dreamed  dreams  and  saw  visions, 
nay,  fancied  themselves  dogs,  went  down  on  all  fours,  and  barked 
till  they  grew  hoarse.  It  was  no  uncommon  sight  to  behold 
numbers  of  them  gathered  about  a  tree,  barking,  yelping,  ft  treeing 
the  Devil."  Two  years  later,  when  much  of  the  excitement  of  the 
great  revival  had  gone  down,  falling  and  jerking  gave  way  to 
hysterics.  During  the  most  earnest  preaching  and  exhorting, 
even  sincere  professors  of  religion  would  on  a  sudden  burst  into 
loud  laughter;  others,  unable  to  resist,  would  follow,  and  soon  the 
assembled  multitude  would  join  in.  This  was  the  <(  Holy  Laugh, }) 
and  became,  after  1803,  a  recognized  part  of  worship. 


EFFECTS   OF   THE   EMBARGO   OF    1807 

From  a  < History  of  the  People  of  the  United 'States  from  the  Revolution  to 
the  Civil  War.>  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1885.  Copyright  1885,  by  John  Bach 
McMaster./ 

PARALYSIS  seized  on  the  business  of  the  coast  towns  and  began 
to    spread    inward.      Ships    were    dismantled    and    left    half 
loaded  at  the  wharves.     Crews  were  discharged.     The  sound 
of  the  caulking-hammer  was  no  longer  heard  in  the  ship-yards. 
The    sail-lofts    were    deserted,    the    rope-walks   were    closed;    the 


95  r  4  JOHN  BACH  MCMASTER 

cartmen  had  nothing  to  do.  In  a  twinkling-  the  price  of  every 
domestic  commodity  went  down,  and  the  price  of  every  foreign 
commodity  went  up.  But  no  wages  were  earned,  no  business 
was  done,^  and  money  almost  ceased  to  circulate.  .  .  . 

The  federal  revenues  fell  from  sixteen  millions  to  a  few 
thousands.  .  .  .  The  value  of  the  shipping  embargoed  has 
been  estimated  at  fifty  millions;  and  as  the  net  earnings  were 
twenty-five  per  cent.,  twelve  and  a  half  millions  more  were 
lost  to  the  country  through  the  enforced  idleness  of  the  vessels. 
From  an  estimate  made  at  the  time,  it  appears  that  one  hundred 
thousand  men  were  believed  to  have  been  out  of  work  for  one 
year.  They  earned  from  forty  cents  to  one  dollar  and  thirty- 
three  cents  per  day.  Assuming  a  dollar  as  the  average  rate  of 
daily  wages,  the  loss  to  the  laboring  class  was  in  round  numbers 
thirty-six  millions  of  dollars.  On  an  average,  thirty  millions  had 
been  invested  annually  in  the  purchase  of  foreign  and  domestic 
produce.  As  this  great  sum  was  now  seeking  investment  which 
could,  not  be  found,  its  owners  were  deprived  not  only  of  their 
profits,  but  of  two  millions  of  interest  besides. 

Unable  to  bear  the  strain,  thousands  on  thousands  went  to 
the  wall.  The  newspapers  were  full  of  insolvent-debtor  notices. 
All  over  the  country  the  court-house  doors,  the  tavern  doors, 
the  post-offices,  the  cross-road  posts,  were  covered  with  advertise- 
ments of  sheriffs'  sales.  In  the  cities  the  jails  were  not  large 
enough  to  hold  the  debtors.  At  New  York  during  1809  thirteen 
hundred  men  were  imprisoned  for  no  other  crime  than  being 
ruined  by  the  embargo.  A  traveler  who  saw  the  city  in  this 
day  of  distress  assures  us  that  it  looked  like  a  town  ravaged  by 
pestilence.  The  counting-houses  were  shut  or  advertised  to  let. 
The  coffee-houses  were  almost  empty.  The  streets  along  the 
water-side  were  almost  deserted.  The  ships  were  dismantled; 
their  decks  were  cleared,  their  hatches  were  battened  down/  Not 
a  box,  not  a  cask,  not  a  barrel,  not  a  bale  was  to  be  seen  on 
the  wharves,  where  the  grass  had  begun  to  grow  luxuriantly.  A 
year  later,  in  this  same  city,  eleven  hundred  and  fifty  men  were 
confined  for  debts  under  twenty-five  dollars,  and  were  clothed  by 
the  Humane  Society. 


ANDREW  MACPHAIL 

(1864-) 

BY   ARCHIBALD   MACMECHAN 

IHE  tiny  province  of  Prince  Edward  Island  is  noted  for  the 
pastoral  beauty  of  its  landscape  and  well  deserves  its  by-name, 
the  Garden  of  the  Gulf.  Here,  in  the  Highland  settlement 
of  Orwell,  a  rich  farming  district,  Andrew  Macphail  was  born  on  Novem- 
ber 24th,  1864.  His  father,  William  Macphail  (who  had  been  ship- 
wrecked on  the  voyage  out  from  Scotland  and  had  lost  all  he  possessed 
except  his  copy  of  (Horace))  was  first  a  farmer-schoolmaster  at  Orwell, 
afterwards  inspector  or  ((visitor))  of  schools,  and  ultimately  superinten- 
dent of  the  provincial  asylum  for  the  insane. 

Andrew  Macphail  attended  Prince  of  Wales  College  in  Charlotte- 
town,  the  chief  educational  institution  of  the  province,  and  in  1883 
became  principal  of  the  Fanning  Gramma  School,  a  post  he  held  for 
two  years.  In  1885  he  began  his  studies  at  McGill  University,  supple- 
menting his  means  by  writing  for  various  local  papers  and  by  acting 
as  tutor,  and  was  graduated  in  both  arts  and  medicine  within  six 
years.  He  then  went  to  London  to  continue  his  medical  studies  after 
graduation.  He  also  visited  the  East  in  the  interests  of  a  newspaper 
syndicate. 

In  1893,  he  married  Georgina  Burland,  a  lady  of  rare  endowments, 
who  died  in  1902,  leaving  a  son  and  a  daughter. 

Up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  Macphail  practised  medicine 
in  Montreal,  spending  his  summers  on  the  paternal  acres  at  Orwell, 
engaged  in  his  favorite  recreation  of  farming.  He  was  Professor  of 
Pathology  in  the  University  of  Bishop's  College,  Lennoxville,  Patholo- 
gist to  the  Western  Hospital,  and  to  Verdun  Hospital  for  the  Insane, 
and  Professor  of  the  History  of  Medicine  in  McGill  University.  In 
1915,  as  a  captain  in  No.  6  Field  Ambulance  of  the  Canadian  Expedi- 
tionary Force,  he  followed  his  brother  Alexander  and  his  son  Jeffrey 
overseas.  He  obtained  the  post,  he  said,  not  on  account  of  his  medical 
knowledge,  but  because,  forty  years  before,  he  had  learned  to  ride  a  horse. 

Macphail's  literary  work  is  notable  for  its  variety.  Countless 
articles,  a  novel,  some  verse,  an  unpublished  play,  three  volumes  of 
essays,  stand  to  the  credit  of  his  untiring  pen.  He  has  managed  two 
important  publications  with  conspicuous  success,  The  Canadian  Medical 
Journal  and  The  University  Magazine.  During  the  war,  he  has  found 
time  to  complete  and  see  through  the  press  his  remarkable  anthology, 
(The  Book  of  Sorrow.)  He  has  assisted  generously  in  other  literary 


95l4b  ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

undertakings  such  as  the  publication  of  Miss  Marjorie  Pickthall's 
exquisite  poems. 

His  first  book,  (Essays  in  Puritanism)  (1905),  consists  of  five 
critical  studies  of  such  diverse  personalities  as  Jonathan  Edwards,  who 
manifested  the  spirit  of  Puritanism  in  the  pulpit,  John  Winthrop,  who 
showed  that  spirit  at  work  in  the  world,  Margaret  Fuller,  who  reacted 
against  that  spirit  in  one  way,  and  Walt  Whitman,  who  rebelled  against 
it  in  another.  The  fifth  essay  is  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the 
character  and  work  of  John  Wesley.  The  essays  were  prepared  first 
for  the  Pen  and  Pencil  Club  of  Montreal.  They  set  all  the  five  charac- 
ters studied  in  a  new  light.  The  style  is  masculine  and  distinguished 
by  quiet  irony,  caustic  wit,  and  incisive  vigor  of  phrase. 

With  the  by-products,  apparently,  of  the  research  involved  in  these 
studies,  he  constructed  his  second  book,  (The  Vine  of  Sibmah)  (1906). 
This  is  an  historical  romance  of  Puritan  New  England  shortly  after  the 
Restoration.  It  recounts  in  the  first  person  the  adventures  of  a  young 
Roundhead  captain  by  sea  and  land,  and  reproduces  skillfully  the 
((jargon -of  enthusiasm))  in  which  the  Puritans  expressed  themselves. 
Though  a  strong  piece  of  work,  it  was  but  coldly  received. 

In  1907  Macphail  launched  The  University  Magazine,  a  quarterly 
review.  It  had  its  origin  in  McGill  University  but  Toronto  and  Dal- 
housie  also  associated  themselves  in  the  enterprise.  Macphail  adopted 
the  principle  (new  in  Canada)  of  paying  contributors  a  living  wage  and 
he  proved  himself  an  editor  of  tact  and  sound  judgment.  The  policy  of 
paying  for  contributions  brought  out  unsuspected  strength  of  native 
talent.  It  was  even  a  commercial  success.  Not  a  little  of  the  success, 
however,  was  due  to  the  editor's  own  vigorous  articles.  While  offering 
an  open  forum  for  the  discussion  of  all  problems  in  literature,  art, 
philosophy,  and  religion,  the  chief  concern  was  Canadian  and  Imperial 
politics. 

In  1909,  Macphail  published  a  collection  of  his  papers  which  had 
already  appeared  in  magazines,  under  the  title  (Essays  in  Politics.) 
No  more  able  or  impartial  political  criticism  had  appeared  in  Canada. 
It  was  free  from  partisan  bias  and  the  point  of  view  was  fresh. 

In  1910  appeared  the  (Essays  in  Fallacy,)  containing  perhaps 
MacphaiPs  most  serious  and  valuable  criticism. 

No  other  Canadian  writer  has  exercised  the  critical  faculty  as  widely 
as  Macphail,  or  presents  such  a  mass  of  reasoned  opinion  upon  so  many 
themes  of  perennial  human  interest.  At  times,  the  full  force  of  his 
judgments  is  not  felt  through  the  subtlety  of  his  irony  and  his  Scottish 
preference  for  the  understatement.  Generally  destructive,  as  criticism 
must  in  its  nature  be,  his  discussions,  especially  in  the  domain  of  Cana- 
dian politics,  tend  to  build  up  sound  national  sentiment  and  to  encourage 
clear  thinking. 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL  95I4C 

PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE 

From    (Essays    in    Fallacy)    Longmans,    Green   &    Co.      Copyright   by   Andrew 

Macphail. 

To  get  at  the  root  of  the  matter,  we  must  understand  the  essential 
character  of  the  feminine  nature,  and  if  we  discover  that  it  is 
good,  neutral,  or  bad,  we  must  remember  that  man  has  made 
it  so.  The  praise  or  blame  is  to  us.  Therefore  we  are  in  reality 
investigating  ourselves.  There  is  a  German  saying:  From  a  woman 
you  can  learn  nothing  of  a  woman.  As  Immanuel  Kant  explains  it: 
woman  does  not  betray  her  secret.  And  yet,  the  only  secret  which  is 
well  kept  is  that  which  is  no  secret  at  all.  Possibly  this  is  the  reason 
why  women  and  Freemasons  have  been  so  successful  in  guarding 
theirs.  The  revelation  which  women  in  their  writings  make  of  them- 
selves is  incomplete  because  they  are  incapable  of  that  intellectual 
effort  by  which  complete  detachment  is  obtained.  All  the  ((Con- 
fessions)) have  been  done  by  men,  St.  Augustine,  Montaigne,  Pepys, 
Rousseau,  Amiel,  and  by  those  immodest  writers  of  the  past  ten  years 
whose  confessions  are  so  tiresome  because  they  have  so  little  to  confess, 
and  therefore  experience  none  of  that  reminiscitory  pleasure  which 
makes  the  confessional  so  popular. 

It  was  a  reflection  of  Joseph  de  Maistre:  ((I  do  not  know  what  the 
heart  of  a  rascal  may  be;  I  know  what  is  in  the  heart  of  an  honest 
man:  it  is  horrible.))  Only  a  man  is  capable  of  making  this  true 
reflection  and  of  confessing  not  alone  faults  which  do  not  dishonor, 
but  secrets  which  are  ridiculous  and  mortal  sins  which  are  without 
extenuation.  One  may  well  believe  that  Chateaubriand  in  his 
(Memoires  d'Outre-tombe,)  Lamartine  in  his  (Confidences,)  Renan 
in  his  ( Souvenirs, )  even  without  being  consciously  insincere  or  lacking 
in  veracity,  refrained  from  mentioning  those  cruelly  painful  reminis- 
cences with  which  Rousseau  scourged  himself;  but  one  is  considered 
simple-minded  indeed  who  believes  that  George  Sand  tells  us  as  much 
as  she  can  remember  in  ( L'Histoire  de  ma  Vie. )  This  charge  which 
Mr.  Jules  Lemaitre  brings  against  George  Sand  finds  its  explanation 
in  the  fact  that  women  really  do  forget.  A  man  will  deliberately 
revive  the  remembrance  of  past  sins  for  his  present  amendment,  and 
evil  being  turned  into  good,  the  sin  is  forgiven.  A  woman  forgets 
an  act  of  meanness  because  it  made  no  impression  upon  her  mind 
when  she  committed  it.  She  does  not  understand  the  nature  of  it. 
She  forgives  an  act  of  meanness  which  a  woman  commits  against  her 
because  they  understand  each  other  so  well. 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

To  arrive  at  an  apprehension  of  this  condition  of  non-morality, 
we  must  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  created  beings,  when  the  prob- 
lems of  physiology  were  reduced  to  their  simplest  forms,  and  the 
problems  of  psychology  and  ethics  had  not  yet  made  their  appearance ; 
when  the  presence  of  life  was  revealed  only  by  the  appearance  of 
movement.  As  we  see  the  living  being  in  its  lowest  form,  it  merely 
moves,  eats,  grows,  reproduces  itself,  and  dies.  It  is  contractile, 
irritable,  receptive,  assimilative,  metabolic,  secretory,  respiratory, 
and  reproductive,  as  the  books  on  science  say.  This  seems  a  great 
deal,  but  in  reality  it  is  very  little,  for  it  does  not  differentiate  an 
amoeba  from  a  man. 

The  evolution  of  the  animal  kingdom  began  with  the  acquirement 
of  the  first  rudiments  of  a  morality.  The  original  amoeba  was  content 
to  wait  until  its  food  arrived  in  a  faint  swirl  of  water.  We  can  well 
imagine  that,  by  some  circumstance  which  was  apparently  fortuitous 
but  in  reality  due  to  the  operation  of  the  law  of  gravity  and  of  those 
principles  which  underlie  the  distribution  of  air,  the  food  was  brought 
in  unusual  quantity  or  at  an  unnecessary  moment.  The  creature, 
being  already  surfeited,  was  quite  willing,  that  the  nutriment  should 
go  to  a  rival.  The  satisfaction  which  was  experienced  as  a  result  of 
comfortable  physical  distention  was  attributed  to  an  act  of  self- 
abnegation,  and  so  the  foundation  of  morality  was  laid. 

This  illustration  may  be  made  more  obvious,  and  perhaps  less 
absurd,  if  we  consider  the  situation  of  the  savage  reclining  before*  the 
fire  with  his  family  in  the  sanctity  of  his  cave  after  a  successful  day's 
chase,  and  a  surfeit  upon  the  rude  but  efficient  cookery  of  those  days. 
We  shall  not  be  wrong  if  we  surmise  that  an  emotion  of  gratitude 
might  arise  in  his  breast  towards  the  giver  of  so  much  good  and  of 
commiseration  of  a  less  fortunate  neighbor.  This  laudable  sentiment 
might  induce  him  to  share  the  food  which  was  yet  uneaten,  especially 
if  —  not  to  credit  him  with  too  high  and  disinterested  a  morality  — 
he  recalled  that  on  previous  occasions  his  surplus  store  had  perished 
by  decay.  Certainly  he  would  not  feel  disposed  to  interfere  with  his 
neighbor's  chase,  and  so  the  principles  of  justice  would  be  established. 
It  is  not  improbable  that  his  neighbor  at  some  future  time  would  do 
as  he  had  been  done  by,  and  accordingly  the  growth  of  morality  and 
the  bonds  of  amity  would  be  strengthened.  In  due  course  game  laws 
would  make  their  appearance,  and  out  of  that  would  arise  a  system 
of  jurisprudence  to  cover  the  various  problems  which  must  have 
faced  a  growing,  though  simple,  civilization. 

If  now  it  be  true  that  morality  had  its  origin  in  the  mental  and 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL  95146 

physical  activities  attendant  upon  the  procuring  of  food,  and  since 
these  activities  were  exercised  chiefly  by  the  male,  it  follows  that  the 
female  who  was  not  brought  under  the  influence  of  a  favorable  environ- 
ment would  remain  non-moral.  She  did  not  come  in  contact  with  the 
world,  as  the  saying  is,  and  continued  unlearned,  wanting  the  hard 
lesson  of  experience.  Something  of  a  similar  nature  is  still  witnessed 
in  the  case  of  those  clerics  who  deal  habitually  with  women,  of  school- 
masters and  professors  whose  world  is  merely  that  which  is  encountered 
within  the  walls  of  a  class-room,  and  of  writers  whose  observation 
does  not  extend  beyond  their  closets.  The  characteristics  of  the 
feminine  nature  are  found  in  them.  They  are  considered  virtuous 
because  the  problems  of  morality  have  never  presented  themselves. 

Shut  out  from  the  world,  the  primitive  woman  was  not  free  to 
develop  an  independent  life.  She  adapted  herself  to  the  man.  His 
views  were  her  views ;  his  dislikes  were  shared  by  her,  and  she  adopted 
his  opinions  ready-made.  She  preferred  to  be  dependent,  and  agreed 
that  the  man  should  continue  to  mold  her  mentality.  This"  destruc- 
tion of  her  personality  and  departure  from  her  line  of  life  became  so 
permanent  that  she  enjoyed  it.  Her  sense  of  personal  value  was  lost. 
It  was  found  in  external  things,  her  beauty,  her  adornment,  her 
children,  or  her  husband.  This  lightness  of  regard  for  their  own 
personality  still  persists,  as  we  may  see  in  the  readiness  with  which  a 
woman  exchanges  her  own  name  for  another,  not  once,  but  under 
certain  circumstances  —  after  a  period  of  half -luxurious  sorrow  and 
self-conscious  demureness  —  twice,  or  yet  again,  and  each  time  with 
the  greater  alacrity.  Without  freedom  there  can  be  no  free  will, 
and  without  free  will  there  can  be  no  character. 

The  primitive  man  in  the  contest  with  his  environment  developed 
an  ethic,  a  logic,  and  a  morality,  because  he  was  free.  Deprived  of 
freedom,  the  primitive  woman  remained  servile  in  disposition;  tyran- 
nical when  occasion  offered,  because  the  servant  ever  makes  the  worst 
master;  unjust,  since  she  was  protected  against  the  penalty  of  injustice; 
unsympathetic  and  heartless,  because  there  was  no  occasion  for  a 
wide  and  disinterested  charity;  mindless, because  there  was  another 
to  think  for  her.  Trained  to  accept  the  conventions  which  the  man 
imposed  upon  her,  she  easily  submitted  to  the  conventions  devised 
by  her  own  sex,  and  became  imitative  even  in  the  clothes  which  she 
wore,  in  the  method  of  adornment  which  she  adopted,  in  the  sentiments 
which  she  entertained,  and  in  the  opinions  which  she  expressed.  In 
time,  "however,  she  adapted  herself  to  her  environment,  and  developed 
a  kind  of  ethic,  of  her  own,  which  was  entirely  adequate  for  the  cir- 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

cumstances  in  which  she  was  placed,  but  breaks  down  hopelessly  in  a 
wider  sphere  of  activity. 

As  if  it  were  not  enough  that  the  woman  was  deprived  of  these 
incentives  to  the  acquisition  of  a  morality,  she  was  made  the  victim 
of  man's  unconscious  egoism  and  his  conscious  duplicity.  Men  in 
common  with  other  males  are  subject  at  times  to  a  curious  psychical 
and  physical  condition  which  is  familiarly  known  as  ((being  in  love.)) 
The  first  symptom  of  this  mental  disorder  is  an  entire  incapacity  to 
perceive  the  truth.  He  creates  an  ideal  woman,  the  woman  of  poetry 
and  other  romantical  writings.  He  attributes  to  her,  or  rather 
projects  into  the  ideal,  his  own  qualities  of  truthfulness,  modesty, 
justice,  charity,  sympathy,  fortitude,  and  beauty.  To  employ  the 
jargon  of  the  theologians,  this  ideal  woman  is  anthropomorphic. 
A  man  who  is  in  love  with  a  woman  is  really  in  love  with  himself,  but 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  aware  of  the  fact.  He  begins  by 
deceiving  himself  and  ends  by  deceiving  her,  for  a  time  at  least,  and 
her  futuVe  life  consists  in  the  employment  of  every  resource  to  en- 
courage and  maintain  the  fiction.  It  is  not  the  real  woman  whom  he 
loves,  but  a  spurious  personality.  To  succeed  in  retaining  this  love, 
she  is  obliged  to  live  the  life  of  the  image  which  he  has  created,  and 
ends  by  destroying  her  inner  self.  And  yet,  under  present  conditions, 
that  woman  succeeds  best  who  is  most  successful  in  maintaining  this 
illusion  in  the  minds  of  both. 

This  practice  of  loving  and  believing  a  lie  is,  I  suspect,  the  fons  et 
origo  of  all  that  is  evil  in  our  civilization.  Few  men  and  no  women  are 
free  from  the  vice.  Even  the  intelligent  fall  into  the  easy  habit.  In 
an  important  city  the  editing  of  a  newspaper  was  entrusted  to  ten  of 
the  most  righteous  women  to  be  found  therein,  and  yet  they  assigned 
the  prize  which  had  been  offered  for  the  best  expression  of  appreciation 
of  their  labors  to  a  man  who  affirmed  that  their  literary  product 
would  overwhelm  the  city  ((with  a  deluge  of  sweetness  and  light.)) 
The  second  prize  went  to  a  woman  who  predicted  that  much  good 
would  be  effected  ((by  their  wisdom,  their  wit,  and  their  might.)) 

And  this  leads  one  to  the  observation  that  nearly  all  writing  is  an 
endeavor  to  minister  to  this  desire  for  self-deception.  Comparatively 
few  men  who  have  attained  to  the  great  age  of  forty  years  indulge  in 
the  pastime  of  reading.  Their  experience  has  taught  them  that  the 
motive  of  nearly  all  writing  is  the  desire  for  notoriety,  either  in  this 
life  or  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are  to  come.  They  are  wise  enough 
to  write  their  own  books ;  but  being  wise,  they  abstain.  They  regard 
it  as  a  delusion  that  all  who  are  capable  of  reading  are  also  capable 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL  95I4g 

of  writing.  As  well  might  a  man  believe  that  he  had  a  peculiar 
aptitude  for  herding  sheep  and  playing  the  bagpipes,  because  he  was 
born  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  This  desire  of  women  to  be  de- 
ceived accounts  for  that  insincere  writing  which  is  found  in  nearly  all 
novels,  and  in  all  of  those  she-papers  which  fatten  upon  their  credulity. 
Reading,  then,  becomes  a  vapid  and  frivolous  amusement  for  dazing 
the  mind,  and  a  book  no  better  than  a  lap-dog. 

Nor  does  art  thrive  any  better  than  literature  in  this  atmosphere 
of  feminism.  Art  has  to  do  with  the  beauty  of  utility,  of  truth.  A 
woman  learns  by  instinct,  possibly  by  experience,  that  personal 
beauty  does  not  imply  morality,  and  as  it  is  with  her  own  personality 
she  is  most  concerned,  a  secret  distrust  in  all  beauty,  even  the  beauty 
of  art,  is  instilled  into  her  mind.  Accordingly  the  pictures  which  are 
painted  to  please  her  must  have  a  superficial  prettiness,  and  the 
houses  which  are  erected  for  her  use  will  best  serve  her  purpose  if, 
instead  of  simplicity,  they  display  a  decorated  cosiness  and  'have 
sufficient  cupboards  for  the  accommodation  of  her  cast-off  finery. 

The  superfluous  top-hamper  of  civilisation,  which  makes  living 
difficult  for  the  rich  and  impossible  for  the  poor,  continues  to  burden 
humanity  because  women  will  have  it  so.  A  world  of  iniquity  is 
created  out  of  their  desire  for  change.  It  is  not  love  of  beauty  which 
suddenly  reveals  to  a  woman  that  last  year's  adornment  is  hideous, 
but  the  desire  to  change  one  form  of  ugliness  for  another.  If  she 
possessed  that  sense  of  beauty  which  comes  from  sincerity,  and  that 
in  turn  from  freedom,  she  would  once  and  for  all  agree  upon  some 
practice  of  adornment  combined  with  utility,  which  would  have  a 
reasonable  degree  of  permanency,  rather  than  submit  to  the  tyranny 
of  an  organized  band  of  mercenaries,  who  exist  for  the  purpose  of 
exploiting  her  femininity.  This  passion  in  women  for  splendid 
apparel  arises  from  their  suspicion  that  they  are  not  in  reality  beautiful, 
but  have  only  been  told  so  by  men  whose  senses  they  suspect  are 
dulled  by  passion. 

The  value  of  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage  by  a  woman  is  that  it  will 
serve  to  emancipate  her  from  herself  in  so  far  as  it  emancipates  her 
from  men.  In  the  present  state  of  affairs,  which  is  based  on  the  Orien- 
tal conception  that  a  woman  is  a  chattel,  a  private  possession,  born  to 
serve  and  be  dependent  upon  man,  she  has  no  complete  existence  in 
herself.  She  obtains  the  sense  of  full  existence  only  through  her 
husband  and  children,  just  as  the  Mussulman  woman  attains  to  the 
chief  desire  of  her  heart  if  she  is  chosen  to  give  a  son  to  the  Pattisah. 
She  stands  ready  to  be  made  wife  or  mother,  that  she  may  acquire 


9514k  ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

that  gift;  and  her  love  is  the  mental  sense  of  satisfaction  that  she  is 
about  to  be  redeemed. 

Looked  at  narrowly,  this  attempt  on  the  part  of  women  to  emanci- 
pate themselves  would  appear  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  expression 
of  a  desire  to  enlarge  the  range  of  their  caprice,  for  which  not  even 
marriage,  the  old  and  sovereign  remedy,  is  any  longer  efficacious.  In 
reality  the  reason  lies  much  deeper.  It  is  a  blind  striving  for  the  pure 
air  of  freedom,  for  escape  from  a  bondage  in  which  only  the  qualities 
of  the  servile  have  had  room  for  development.  Until  women  cease 
to  believe  the  pretty  lies  which  men  tell  them,  that  they  are  only  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels,  and  discover  the  real  bondage,  their  own 
nature,  from  which  they  must  emancipate  themselves,  they  will  not 
proceed  with  any  degree  of  seriousness.  They  will  not  convince  the 
world  until  they  themselves  are  convinced.  Analysis  they  consider 
detraction,  and  fly  from  investigation  in  wild  alarm.  Upon  this 
subject  there  is  a  considerable  body  of  information  in  the  writings  of 
satirists,  dramatists,  and  theologians,  ancient  and  modern;  but  it  is 
decried  as  slander,  whether  uttered  by  St.  Paul,  Origen,  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  or  Otto  Weininger. 

This  violent  effort  to  attain  to  freedom  is  bound  to  be  associated 
with  a  form  of  disorderliness  which  the  common  mind  describes  as 
hysterical.  All  disorder  in  itself  is  bad.  It  is  intolerable  only  when  it 
is  meaningless.  It  is  decried  because  it  is  misunderstood.  Any  con- 
sideration of  the  mind  of  the  suffragette  would  be  quite  inadequate 
without  some  mention  of  those  complex  manifestations  which  are 
known  as  hysteria.  Of  this  too  I  shall  offer  an  explanation  in  support 
of  my  argument.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  striving  after  a  higher  morality, 
of  an  attempt  to  ((convert  nothing  into  something,))  to  put  on  a  new 
nature,  to  acquire  personality,  distinction,  character,  and  mind.  Up 
to  a  certain  point  the  woman  accepts  her  femininity  and  all  that  is 
implied  thereby  with  unquestioning  obedience,  taking  it  at  its  mascu- 
line value.  In  the  absence  of  an  external  controlling  influence  there 
comes  a  divine  discontent  with  that  negative  condition  of  existence, 
and  she  becomes  imbued  with  moral  ideas  which  are  foreign  to  her 
normal  mind  and  opposed  to  her  real  nature.  In  reality  she  puts  on  a 
superficial,  sham  self,  and  yet  is  incapable  of  perceiving  the  spurious- 
ness  of  it.  This  new  personality  shows  itself  in  self-confidence, 
independence,  assertiveness,  a  punctilious  sincerity,  and  painful 
candor  in  speech  and  action.  This  artificial  imitation  of  the  masculine 
morality  with  which  she  has  overlaid  her  femininity,  at  the  touch  of 
some  rough  reality  flies  in  pieces,  and  the  conflict  between  her  real 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL  95141 

nature  and  this  unnatural  self  produces  those  phenomena  which  are 
known  as  hysteria.  It  is  a  contest  between  what  she  knows  to  be 
true  and  what  she  suspects  is  false. 

A  woman  in  this  condition  is  a  piteous  and  degrading  spectacle, 
exposing  her  femininity  naked  yet  unashamed,  and  revealing  the 
whole  record  of  development  in  its  continuous  progress  through  those 
stages  which  we  designate  as  plant,  beast,  and  savage  life.  To  the 
psychologist  the  phenomenon  is  full  of  interest  and  fruitful  of  instruc- 
tion, but  it  recalls  the  fearful  image  conjured  up  by  the  words : 

((And  Satan  yawning  on  his  brazen  seat, 
Toys  with  the  screaming  thing  his  fiends  have  flayed.)) 

This  demand  for  the  suffrage  is  in  reality  an  attempt  to  arrive  at  a 
higher  morality,  to  attain  to  consideration  in  virtue  of  goodness  and 
not  of  charm.  The  real  opponents  are  the  women  who  master  men 
by  that  easy  device,  and  all  men  who  find  it  so  comfortable  to  succumb, 
because  they  find  it  so  alluring.  There  is  an  active  and  a  passive 
conspiracy  working  to  the  same  end  that  women  shall  not  be  free. 
There  is  no  creature  in  the  world  who  is  so  irritating  to  the  woman  who 
is  merely  good  as  the  woman  who  is  merely  charming,  and  therefore 
in  a  condition  of  negative  morality.  The  most  efficient  means  to 
destroy  the  force  of  any  charm  is  to  investigate  its  origin,  a  task  to 
which  those  who  are  striving  for  emancipation  would  do  well  to  apply 
themselves.  It  is  not  enough  that  they  have  relinquished  this  quality 
in  themselves.  They  can  succeed  only  when  they  have  removed  its 
possession  from  others. 

The  struggle  for  freedom  from  their  own  nature  will  not  be  easy. 
The  habits  acquired  during  countless  ages  are  all  but  ineradicable; 
yet  progress  may  appear  in  the  exchange  of  one  bondage  for  another. 
One  would  say  that  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  who  have  attacked  the 
inner  sanctuary  of  the  British  Constitution  had  emancipated  them- 
selves from  every  restraint  and  destroyed  the  last  attraction  between 
themselves  and  living  men;  and  yet  their  next  act  was  to  bind  them- 
selves with  physical  chains  to  those  stone  images  of  male  humanity 
which  stand  in  the  Hall  of  St.  Stephen.  This  thing  is  an  allegory. 

I  am  not  blind  to  certain  perils  which  lie  in  the  way;  but  I  think 
they  have  been  exaggerated  and  will  tend  to  cure  themselves.  Voting 
implies  being  voted  for,  and  men  are  so  fatuous  that  they  will  vote  for 
the  woman  who  has  a  pleasing  personality  and  skill  in  the  adornment 
of  her  person,  rather  than  for  a  candidate  of  commanding  intellect 


9514]  ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

and  skill  in  the  public  use  of  her  tongue.  Then  will  arise  another 
noble  band  of  martyrs  after  the  discovery  of  how  little  men's  votes  for 
women  are  influenced  by  reason  and  how  much  by  charm.  They 
will  declare  that  man  shall  no  longer  have  the  opportunity  of  being 
silly,  and  they  will  banish  their  charming  sisters  from  public  life. 

There  is  nothing  which  a  man  who  is  left  to  himself  desires  so 
ardently  as  he  desires  the  feminine.  To  attain  to  it  he  will  commit 
the  last  infamy,  descending  to  the  level  of  the  beast  from  which  he  has 
arisen,  even  whilst  he  despises  himself  for  the  surrender  of  that  morality 
which  he  has  so  laboriously  acquired.  This  interdependence  of  good 
and  evil  constitutes  the  riddle  of  the  universe ;  and  yet  it  is  out  of  this 
conflict  between  the  lower  and  the  higher  that  our  civilization,  as  we 
know  it,  has  arisen.  The  woman  exercises  her  power  by  means  of  a 
charm,  by  which  she  allures  and  then  captivates.  The  ((fountain)) 
of  this  charm  is  love,  and  its  essence  ((pleasant  to  the  eyes))  like  that 
fruit  which  first  attracted  the  Universal  Dame  herself. 

If  the  power  of  this  charm  were  unchecked,  it  would  reabsorb  the 
masculine  idea  into  the  feminine,  so  earnestly  is  it  desired  by  men. 
It  is  the  business  of  women  to  see  to  it  that  this  charm  is  exercised 
with  due  restraint.  Every  child  knows  that  a  charm  is  broken  by 
speech,  and  if  the  injunction  taceat  mulier  were  observed,  the  masculine 
would  be  delivered  into  an  eternal  bondage.  If  all  women  at  all  times 
behaved  themselves  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  eternal 
feminine,  which  are  those  of  appearance  and  beauty,  men  would 
become  so  enamored  of  it  that  they  would  mold  their  lives  by  it  and 
eventually  transform  themselves  into  women. 

Compare  the  power  of  the  woman  who  sits,  and  looks,  and  exercises 
her  charm  in  silence  and  mystery  with  her  who  says  an  inane  thing 
three  times  over  with  the  intention  of  being  interesting  and  vivacious, 
or  a  foolish  thing  rather  than  remain  silent;  with  her  who  votes  and 
speaks  in  the  councils,  even  though  she  speak  with  the  tongue  of  a 
man  and  reveal  all  knowledge;  with  her  who  brawls  in  public  places, 
and  even  gives  her  body  to  the  Holloway  gaol,  and  we  shall  discover 
the  essential  reason  why  women  should  be  encouraged  to  do  these 
things,  namely,  that  they  shall  be  induced  to  tell  the  truth  about 
themselves  and  so  liberate  men  in  some  degree  from  the  power  of  their 
charm,  that  reason  may  govern  life. 

The  women  who  are  not  satisfied  with  the  status  of  wife  and 
mother  and  are  striving  to  educate  themselves  into  fitting  ((com- 
panions)) for  their  husbands  and  sons  by  attending  lectures  and 
reading  magazines  are  unaware  of  the  power  of  this  charm,  and  are 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL  9514k 

suffering  from  an  exaggerated  notion  of  the  kind  of  companionship 
for  which  men  are  capable.  They  magnify  the  masculine  intelligence 
unduly.  What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man!  they  exclaim  in  rhapsody, 
how  noble  in  reason,  how  infinite  in  faculty,  in  form  and  moving  how 
express  and  admirable,  in  action  how  like  an  angel,  in  apprehension 
how  like  a  god,  the  beauty  of  the  world !  In  reality  this  ((paragon  of 
animals))  desires  a  woman  more  ardently  than  he  desires  a  talking 
book,  agreeing,  if  he  is  sensible,  with  that  eminent  divine,  John  Calvin, 
when  he  declared,  ((The  only  beauty  that  can  please  my  heart  is  one 
that  is  gentle,  chaste,  modest,  economical,  patient,  and,  finally,  careful 
of  her  husband's  health.)) 

The  real  grievance  from  which  women  suffer  is  that  their  authority 
and  claim  to  consideration  is  based  upon  a  principle  which  is  non- 
ethical  and  of  no  inherent  value  in  their  eyes.  Their  way  of  escape 
lies  in  convincing  men  that  they  also  should  arrive  at  a  like  estimate  of 
its  fallibility.  This  can  best  be  done  by  setting  up  truth  in  opposition 
to  falsehood,  which  is  the  most  subtle  method  of  iconoclasm,  the  most 
powerful  for  breaking  down  an  eidolon  in  which  the  affections  are 
inordinately  fixed,  since  the  deity  and  the  devotee  can  then  make 
mutual  inferences.  To  keep  the  matter  scientific  and  impersonal, 
they  might  begin  by  an  investigation  into  the  nature  of  the  trog- 
lodytic  woman,  disclosing  her  characteristics,  assigning  them  to 
their  proper  cause,  and  estimating  what  proportion  still  remains. 
The  opinion  requires  corroboration  that  women  have  been  more 
successful  than  men  in  purging  away  those  qualities  which  were  in- 
herent in  the  primitive  nature.  Indeed  to  the  most  careful  observer 
there  is  some  evidence  that  jealousy  has  not  entirely  given  way  to 
justice,  heartlessness  to  charity,  pride  to  dignity,  shamelessness  to 
modesty,  selfishness  to  sympathy,  and  the  desire  of  provoking  com- 
passion to  a  self-reliant  fortitude. 

This  investigation  might  properly  be  undertaken  by  the  various 
Councils  of  Women,  even  at  the  risk  of  excluding  those  subjects  upon 
which  they  possess  no  especial  information,  such  as  the  effect  of 
narcotics  and  intoxicants  upon  the  masculine  frame.  A  frank  pro- 
nouncement from  this  high  quarter  would  be  free  from  the  taunt  that 
it  was  merely  slander,  diatribe,  or  vituperation.  To  make  the  inquiry 
sufficiently  extensive,  it  might  be  well  to  appoint  a  committee  of  men 
to  prepare  an  agendum  for  the  meeting,  a  labor  in  which  I  would 
willingly  bear  a  part,  having  a  desire  for  specific  information  upon 
certain  points,  namely:  why  up  to  a  certain  age  a  younger  sister 
dislikes  the  elder,  and  between  certain  ages  a  mother  is  averse  to  her 


95141-  ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

daughter;  why  the  law  of  modesty  in  apparel  is  not  constant  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  evening  and  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning;  why  it  is 
painful  for  a  woman  to  witness  another  advancing  in  social  status; 
why  female  beauty  and  an  adornment  which  heightens  it  does  not 
excite  an  emotion  of  universal  pleasure;  why  women  make  good 
nurses,  if  it  is  not  because  they  are  lacking  in  sympathy. 

For  women,  then,  there  are  two  lines  of  conduct  open,  and  only 
two.  Either  they  must  remain  within  the  cave,  as  ((sisters  to  the 
flowers,))  in  an  environment  suitable  for  the  development  of  such 
qualities  as  may  be  developed  from  the  essentially  feminine  nature,  an 
easy  docility,  a  pleasurable  obedience,  meekness,  forbearance,  long- 
suffering,  patience,  silence;  as  objects  upon  which  men  may  lavish 
protection,  kindness,  benevolence,  affection,  and  so  stimulate  their 
own  masculine  morality,  and  redeem  themselves  in  virtue  of  the  love 
which  is  created  thereby:  or  they  must  aspire  to  a  perfect  freedom; 
casting  aside  the  curb  of  sex  and  freeing  themselves  from  the  tyranny 
of  kith  and  kin,  they  must  come  out  into  the  world  and  remain  out  in 
the  full  glare  of  the  sun,  ruthlessly  exposing  their  nature  to  the  rough 
environment  whereby  its  imperfections  will  be  scourged  and  chastened 
away.  Possibly  that  nature  might  perish  in  the  process  before  a  new 
one  was  created,  and  in  any  event  it  might  be  nothing  more  than  a 
close  approximation  to  the  male. 

There  is  no  middle  station,  half  in  and  half  out,  exposing  the  evil 
and  doing  nothing  for  its  amendment.  This  tentative  standing- 
ground  merely  permits  of  a  sudden  release  of  the  nature  of  the 
primitive  woman  in  all  its  nakedness  unchecked  from  within  and 
uncontrolled  from  without.  The  spectacle  is  so  revolting,  I  fear,  that 
most  women  would  turn  back  with  grief  and  hatred  of  it  to  their  old 
rule,  rather  than  strive  with  a  full  purpose  and  endeavor  after  a  new 
obedience.  That  is  the  essential  difficulty  with  which  those  women 
have  to  contend,  who  would  lead  their  sisters  out  of  bondage.  Their 
real  enemies  are  of  their  own  household,  who  hate  to  see  this  revelation 
that  women  make  of  themselves,  which  affords  to  vulgar  satirists 
congenial  exercise  of  their  irony  and  scoff,  for  the  torment  or  amuse- 
ment of  those  who,  like  themselves,  by  continually  regarding  humanity 
as  it  is,  have  developed  a  capacity  for  analysis  at  the  expense  of  a 
certain  dryness  and  hardness  of  heart. 

These  satirists  smile  and  whisper  in  our  ear  that  the  emancipation 
of  women  is  intended  only  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  their  caprice; 
that  their  performance  is  of  no  immediate  interest  to  the  man,  and 
only  of  very  remote  benefit  to  the  woman;  that,  when  he  grows  tired 


ANDREW    MACPHAIL  9514 in 

of  the  farce,  he  will  cast  her  out  of  the  cave  and  leave  her  to  her  own 
device  as  he  was  left  in  the  day  of  his  creation.  From  this  they  con- 
clude that  a  race  which  allows  itself  to  be  brought  to  such  an  impasse 
is  not  worth  reproducing,  and  we  cannot  blame  them  too  severely. 
It  is  on  account  of  their  perception  of  this  fact  that  the  women  of 
primitive  communities  deal  faithfully  with  their  unruly  sisters  lest  a 
worse  thing  befall  themselves.  There  is  a  choice  between  the  good  and 
the  best  as  there  is  between  the  evil  and  the  good;  and  women  must 
find  in  freedom  compensation  for  having  cast  out  the  imputed  sacred- 
ness  from  their  lives;  and,  in  watching  the  gyrations  of  their  souls, 
some  recompense  for  that  calm  leisure  in  which  they  were  wont  to 
dream. 

This  then  is  the  end  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  the  suffragette, 
which  is  developed  out  of  her  own  psychology.  Women  have  ob- 
tained their  places  in  the'  world  because  they  are  desired  by  men  on 
grounds  which  are  not  of  the  highest  ethical  quality;  but  these  are  the 
only  grounds  upon  which  men  will  consent  to  endure  the  burden  of 
carrying  on  a  society,  about  whose  invention  they  were  not  consulted. 
We  are  now  —  men  and  women,  not  as  opponents  but  as  companions 
in  a  misery  which  we  should  do  our  best  to  assuage  by  mutual  help  — - 
face  to  face  with  the  real  problem:  Shall  we  allow  the  evil  to  endure, 
or  even  suffer  the  good  to  remain  as  the  enemy  of  the  best,  saying 
with  the  sluggard,  a  little  more  sleep,  a  little  more  slumber;  or  shall  we 
strive  after  the  higher  morality,  even  losing  our  life  that  we  may  save 
it? 

It  is  no  bar  to  the  argument  that  it  faces  the  extinction  of  the 
species  to  which  we  belong.  In  a  question  of  morality  consequences 
do  not  count.  We  did  not  create  ourselves.  The  responsibility  of 
ceasing  to  exist  does  not  rest  upon  us.  It  is  in  reality  a  question  of 
conduct,  and  upon  that  we  can  always  get  information  if  we  inquire 
of  Him  whose  genius  for  right  living  was  such  that  a  large  proportion 
of  mankind  have  agreed  upon  Him  as  the  chief  exemplar  and  pat- 
tern of  pure  right eousness.  The  problem  presented  itself  to  Him.  He 
answered  it  in  specific  terms.  Three  times  and  in  separate  places  are 
the  question  and  answer  recorded  in  words  which  are  almost  identical : 
What  good  thing  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal  life;  what  lack  I 
yet?  What  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal  life?  What  shall  I 
do  to  inherit  eternal  life?  To  convince  us  that  the  answer  is  not  pne 
of  special  application,  the  question  is  repeated  thrice  in  general  terms 
and  so  recorded:  Who  then  can  be  saved?  Who  then  can  be  saved? 
Who  then  can  be  saved?  The  answer  invariably  is  that  those  who  t 


95I4H  ANDREW    MACPHAIL 

would  inherit  everlasting  life  must  first  forsake  certain  things  which 
are  specifically  set  forth,  and  the  enumeration  ends  in  all  cases  with 
((woman.))  One  is  quite  prepared  to  be  told  that  Paul  was  ill-informed 
or  ill-natured,  when  he  declared  that  even  the  intimacy  with  a  woman 
which  is  implied  by  marriage  is  a  drag  in  the  attempt  after  a  higher 
life,  and  yet  protest,  in  face  of  that  exegetic  feat  which  attributes  the 
insertion  of  the  fatal  word  to  a  monkish  hand,  that  Jesus  really  meant 
something  when  He  said  that  she  must  be  forsaken. 

All  things  are  working  toward  this  divine  end  by  making  it  easy 
to  forsake  the  woman.  As  that  kind  of  intelligence  is  developed  by 
higher  education,  as  it  is  called  with  a  certain  degree  of  assumption, 
which  consists  in  an  increased  capacity  for  the  recollection  of  unrelated 
statements,  a  measure  of  value  is  created  which  men  can  understand. 
The}7"  are  dealing  in  their  own  currency.  Pedantry  they  have  already 
witnessed,  and  the  instructed  woman  is  even  less  adorable  than  a 
professor.  An  imitation  of  the  garb  which  is  customary  in  the  male 
at  once  suggests  the  form  which  it  is  intended  to  conceal  and  a  com- 
parison with  the  standards  of  abstract  beauty.  When  women  place 
themselves  in  situations  for  which  they,  are  not  qualified  by  their 
nature  to  fill  with  obvious  advantage  they  become  a  ridiculous  carica- 
ture of  themselves.  The  mind  of  the  suffragette  appears  to  possess  a 
peculiar  aptitude  for  that  absurdity  which  makes  a  man  impatient  and 
finally  contemptuous  of  all  femininity,  and  resolute  to  adhere  to  his 
own  ideal.  A  woman  may  be  foolish  and  yet  be  charming.  She 
emancipates  herself  when  she  becomes  an  object  of  aversion. 


95^5 


EMERICH   MADACH 

(1823-1864) 

BY  GEORGE  ALEXANDER  KOHUT 

[UNGARY  is  a  favorite  land  of  the  Muses.  Romance,  ardent 
sentiment,  and  a  certain  mystic  fervor  give  to  her  poetry  an 
exquisite  charm.  A  thrill  of  fire  and  passion  vibrates  in  her 
songs  and  melodies.  Her  folk-lore  and  ancient  traditions  teem  with 
rich  Oriental  imagery  and  beautiful  conceptions.  These  ancient  gems 
have  in  the  present  century  received  a  fresh  setting  at  the  hands  of 
the  literary  artists,  who  have  borne  witness 
to  the  unabated  vigor  of  this  people  <(  barbar- 
ously grand. »  Of  the  modern  school,  Petofi 
the  lyric  poet  and  Madach  the  dramatic  are 
the  most  popular  poets  of  Hungary. 

Madach  Imre  (for  the  family  name  comes 
first  in  Hungarian)  was  born  in  Also  Sztre- 
gova,  Hungary,  January  2ist,  1823;  and  died 
in  his  native  town  October  5th,  1864.  Of 
his  life  little  need  be  told.  He  was  notary, 
orator,  and  journalist;  at  an  early  age  he 
wrote  a  number  of  essays  on  natural  science, 
archaeology,  and  aesthetics.  He  wrote  lyric 
as  well  as  dramatic  poetry;  .but  it  is  chiefly 
through  his  two  dramatic  poems,  < Moses > 

and  <The  Tragedy  of  Man,>  written  almost  simultaneously  in  1860, 
that  he  is  best  known.  An  edition  of  his  collected  writings,  in  three 
volumes,  was  issued  by  Paul  Gyulai  in  Budapest,  1880.  His  master- 
piece, <The  Tragedy  of  Man,>  has  been  rendered  into  German  no  less 
than  five  times;  the  latest  version,  by  Julius  Lechner  von  der  Lech 
(Leipzig,  1888,  with  a  preface  by  Maurice  Jokai),  being  the  most  feli- 
citous. Alexander  Fischer  gave  a  splendid  re'sumt  of  this  powerful 
drama  in  Sacher-Masoch's  periodical,  Auf  der  Hohe  (Vol.  xvi.,  1885), 
—  the  only  analysis  of  it  in  any  language  except  Hungarian.  Though 
it  is  too  philosophical  and  contemplative  in  character,  and  not  in- 
tended for  the  stage,  its  first  production,  which  took  place  in  Septem- 
ber 1883,  created  an  immense  sensation  both  in  Austria  and  Hungary. 
To  English  readers,  Madach  is  a  total  stranger.  His  name  is 
scarcely  ever  found  in  -any  encyclopaedia  or  biographical  dictionary; 


EMERICH  MADACH 


95 1<>  EMERICH   MADACH 

and  strangely  enough,  no  attempt  has  been  thus  far  made  to  give 
even  a  selection  from  this  latter-day  Milton  of  Hungary. 

It  is  not  here  intended  to  explain  the  origin  and  inner  development 
of  this  fascinating  jlrama,  nor  to  draw  elaborate  parallels  between 
its  author  and  his  predecessors  in  other  lands.  Such  a  comparative 
critical  study  would  be  interesting  as  showing  the  spiritual  kinship 
between  master  minds,  centuries  distant  from  one  another,  whose 
sympathies  are  in  direct  touch  with  our  own  ideals  and  life  problems. 

Madach  will  plead  his  own  cause  effectively  enough.  To  him,  how- 
ever, who  in  reading  the  ( Tragedy  of  Man *  involuntarily  makes  such 
comparisons,  and  might  be  led  unjustly  to  question  the  author's  ori- 
ginality, the  graceful  adage  Grosse  Geister  treffen  sick  (Great  minds 
meetj  will  serve  as  an  answer.  He  should  rather  say,  with  true 
artistic  estimate,  that  the  shading  in  the  one  landscape  of  a  higher 
life  helps  to  set  off  the  vivid  and  brilliant  coloring  in  the  other;  so 
that  the  whole,  viewed  side  by  side,  presents  a  series  of  wondrous 
harmonies.  Madach  imbibed,  no  doubt,  from  foreign  sources.  He 
was  familiar  with  c Paradise  Lost,*  and  with  the  now  obsolete  but 
once  much-lauded  epic,  <  La  Semaine  >  (The  Week),  of  Milton's  French 
predecessor  Du  Bartas;  Alfieri's  tramelogedia,  'Abele,*  and  Gesner's 
<  Death  of  Abel,*  as  well  as  Byron's  ( Mystery  of  Cain,*  may  also  have 
come  to  his  notice ;  Goethe's  ( Faust  *  appears  more  than  once,  and  may 
be  recognized  in  any  incognito.  Yet  we  cannot  say  with  certainty 
that  any  one  of  these  masterpieces  influenced  his  own  work,  any  more 
than  Milton  inspired  the  great  German  bard.  We  might  as  justly 
tax  him  with  drawing  upon  Hebrew  tradition  for  the  entire  plot  of 
his  drama,  beginning  with  the  fourth  scene;  for  strangely  enough, 
Adam's  expe'riences  with  his  mentor  and  Nemesis,  Lucifer,  are  fore- 
shadowed in  the  very  same  manner  in  a  quaint  legend  of  the  Jewish 
Rabbis,  told  nearly  twenty  centuries  ago.  The  comparative  study 
of  literature  will  reveal  other  facts  equally  amazing.  It  is  of  course 
self-evident  that  the  morbid  pessimism  which  rings  its  vague  alarms 
throughout  the  book  is  that  of  Ecclesiastes,  whose  vanitas  vanitatum 
is  the  key  to  his  doleful  plaint. 

ttl  applied  my  heart  to  seek  and  to  search  out  by  wisdom  concerning  all 
that  is  done  under  heaven:  it  is  a  sore  travail  that  God  hath  given  to  the 
sons  of  men  to  be  exercised  therewith.  I  have  seen  all  the  works  that  are 
done  under  the  sun ;  and  behold,  all  is  vanity  and  a  striving  after  wind.  .  .  . 
And  I  applied  my  heart  to  know  wisdom,  and  to  know  madness  and  folly;  I 
perceived  that  this  also  was  a  striving  after  wind.  For  in  much  wisdom  is 
much  grief;  and  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow. w  (Eccl.  i. 
12-18.) 

This  is  the  leading  theme,  and  Lessing's  soulful  simile  of  the 
ideal,  the  grand  morale:  —  (<If  God  held  trutn^in  his  right  hand,"  says 
he,  <(  and  in  his  left  the  mere  striving  after  truth,  bidding  me  choose 


EMERICH   MADACH 

between  the  two,  I  would  reverently  bow  to  his  left  and  say,  (Give 
but  the  impulse ;  truth  is  for  thee  alone ! )  }> 

Thus,  after  traversing  many  lands  the  world  over;  after  plunging 
Into  every  pleasure  and  being  steeped  in  every  vice;  after  passions 
human  and  divine  have  had  their  sway  over  his  spirit,  —  Adam  con- 
cedes to  Lucifer  that  the  world  of  ideals  is  illusory,  existing  only  in 
fancy,  thriving  but  in  our  own  souls,  nourished  by  sentiment,  and 
supersensitive  to  the  touch  of  grosser  things.  And  yet  the  echo 
which  answers  his  sad  pleadings,  as  he  cries  out  disheartened  — 

<(  O  sacred  poetry,  hast  thou  then 
Quite  forsaken  this  prosy  world  of  our»? }> 

is  a  wholly  unexpected  one  in  the  grand  finale.  It  teaches  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  hope,  as  the  great  Hebrew  pessimist  Koheleth 
summed  it  up,  when  only  the  Hellenic  intellect  reigned  supreme  and 
the  Hellenic  heart  was  cold:  — 

(<  I  have  decreed,  O  man  —  strive  ye  and  trust  P* 

The  ideal  conquers  in  the  end,  should  life  and  love  not  fail.  Poetry 
and  sentiment  transform  even  this  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  into 
a  Paradise  regained.  It  is  a  song  of  the  ideals  in  which  salvation 
lies;  and  the  words  of  the  Lord  with  which  the  poem  closes  are, 
(<  Struggle  and  trust. }> 


FROM    THE   <  TRAGEDY   OF  MAN> 
SEVENTH  SCENE 

Scene:  An  open  square  in  Constantinople.  A  few  citizens  lounging  about. 
In  the  centre  the  palace  of  the  Patriarch;  to  the  right  a  cloister;  to  the 
left  a  grove.  Adam  as  Tancred,  in  the  prime  of  life,  is  seen  advan- 
cing at  the  head  of  returning  Crusaders,  accompanied  by  other  knights,  • 
with  colors  flying  and  drums  beating;  Lucifer  as  his  armor-bearer. 
Evening,  then  night. 

FIRST  CITIZEN —  Behold,  there  comes  another  horde  of  heathen; 
Oh,  flee  and  double-bar  the  doors,   lest  they 
Again  the  whim  to  plunder  feel! 
Second  Citizen  —  Hide  ye  the  women:   but  too  well 

Knows  this  rebel  the  joys  of  the  seraglio. 


EMERICH   MADACH 


First  Citizen —  And  our  wives  the  rights  of  the  conqueror. 
Adam  —  Hold !   hold  !    why  scatter  in  such  haste  ? 

Do  ye  not  see  the  holy  sign  aloft 

That  makes  us  brothers  in  humanity 

And  companions  to  one  goal  ?  — 

We  bore  the  light  of  our  faith,  the  law 

Of  love,  into  Asia's  wilds, 

That  the  savage  millions  there 

Where  our  Savior's  cradle  stood  • 

Might  share  sweet  salvation's  boon. 

Kjiow  ye  not  this  brotherly  love  ? 
First  Citizen —  Full  many  a  time  through  honeyed  words 

Swift  harm  befell  our  homes. 

[They  disperse.} 

Adam  [to  the  knights}  — 

Behold,  this  is  the  accursed  result 

When  scheming  vagabonds 

The  sacred  symbol  flaunt, 

And  flattering  the  passions,  of  the  mob, 

Presume  unasked  to  lead. — 

Fellow  knights!     Until  our  swords 

To  honor  fair,  to  praise  of  God, 

To  women's  guard,  to  bravery, 

Be  sanctified, — are  we  in  duty  bound 

This  demon  foul  in  constant  check  to  hold, 

That  in  spite  of  godless  inclination, 

He  great  and  noble  deeds  may  do. 
Lucifer —  That  sounds  well.     But,  Tancred,  what  if  the  people 

Do  but  spurn  thy  leadership  ? 
Adam —  Where  spirit  is,  is  also  victory. 

I'll  crush  them  to  the  earth! 
Lucifer —  And  should  spirit  with  them  alike  abide, 

Wilt  thou  descend  to  them  ? 
Adam —    .  Why  descend? 

Is  it  not  nobler  to  lift  them  up  to  me  ? 

To  yield  for  lack  of  fighters 

The  foremost  place  in  battle,  were 

As  unworthy  as  to  reject  a  comrade 

In  envy  of  his  share  of  victory. 
Lucifer —  Alack!  how  the  grand  idea  has  come  to  naught 

For  which  the  martyrs  of  the  circus  fought! 

Is  this  the  freedom  of  equality  ? 

A  wondrous  brotherhood  were  that! 


EMERICH  MADACH  9519 

Adam —    Oh,  cease  thy  scorn!  Think  not  that  I  misprize 

Christianity's  exalted  precepts. 

My  being  yearns  for  them  alone! 
Whoever  hath  the  spark  divine  may  strive; 

And  him  who  upward  toils  to  us 

With  joy  we  surely  will  receive. 

A  sword-cut  lifts  him  to  our  ranks. 
But  guard  we  must  our  ranks  with  jealous  eye 
Against  the  still  fermenting  chaos  here. 
Would  that  our  time  were  already  near! 
For  only  then  can  we  be  quite  redeemed 
When  every  barrier  falls  —  when  all  is  pure. 
And  were  he  who  set  this  universe  in  motion 
Not  himself  the  great  and  mighty  God, 
I  must  needs  doubt  the  dawn  of  such  a  day. 
Ye  have  seen,  O  friends,  how  we  have  been  received: 
Orphaned  amidst  the  tumult  of  the  town, 
Naught  now  remains  save  in  yonder  grove 
A  tent  to  pitch,   as  we  were  wont  among  the  infidels, 
Till  better  times  shall  come.     Go;  I  follow  soon. 
Every  knight  stands  sponsor  for  his  men. 

[The  Crusaders  pitch  their  tent.} 

Lucifer — What  a  pity  that  thy  spirit's  lofty  flight 
Even  now  begets  such  sorry  fruit; 
Red  without,   within  already  rotten! 
Adam  —  Stop ! 

Hast  thou  no  longer  faith  in  lofty  thought? 
Lucifer —  What  boots  it  thee  if  I  believe, 

When  thine  own  race  doth  doubt  ? 
This  knighthood  which  thou  hast  placed 
As  lighthouse  amid  ocean's  waves, 
Will  yet  die  out,   or  half  collapse, 
And  make  the  sailor's  course  even  more  fearful 
Than  before,  when  no  light  shone  before  his  way. 
What  lives  to-day  and  blessing  works, 
Dies  with  time;  the  spirit  takes  wing 
And  the  carcass  but  remains,  to  breathe 
Murderous  miasmas  into  the  fresher  life 
Which  round  him  buds.     Behold,  thus 
Survive  from  bygone  times  our  old  ideals. 
Adam —        Until  our  ranks  dissolve,  its  sacred  teachings 
Will  have  had  effect  upon  the  public  mind. 
I  fear  no  danger  then. 


9520 


EMERICH   MADACH 


Lucifer —      The  holy  teachings!     They  are  your  curse  indeed, 
When  ye  approach  them  unawares, 
For  ye  turn,  sharpen,  split,  and  smooth 
Them  o'er  so  long,  till  they  your  phantoms 
Or  your  chains  become. 

And  though  reason  cannot  grasp  exact  ideas, 
Yet  ye  presumptuous  men  do  always  seek 
To  forge  them  —  to  your  harm. 

Look  thou  upon  this  sword!     It  may  by  a  hair's-breadth 
Longer  be  or  shorter,  and  yet  remains  the  same 
In  substance.      The  door  is  opened  thus  to  endless  specula- 
tion; 

For  where  is  there  limit  pre-imposed? 
'Tis  true  your  feelings  soon  perceive  the  right 
When  change  in  greater  things  sets  in. — 
But  why  speak  and  myself  exert  ?     Speech 
Is  wearisome.     Turn  thou,  survey  the  field  thyself. 
Adam —         Friends,  my  troops  are  tired  and  shelter  crave. 
In  the  Capital  of  Christendom  they  will 
Perchance  not  crave  in  vain., 
Third  Citizen  — 

The  question  is,  whether  as  heretics 
Ye're  not  worse  than  infidels!     .     .     . 
Adam —  I  stand  aghast!     But  see  —  what  prince 

Approaches  from  afar,  so  haughtily  defiant? 
Lucifer —  The  Patriarch  —  successor  to  the  Apostles. 

Adam —  And  this  barefoot,  dirty  mob 

Which  follows  with  malicious  joy 
In  the  captive's  wake, 
Feigning  humility  ? 

Lucifer —  They  are  monks,  Christian  cynics. 

Adam —  I  saw  not  such  among  my  native  hills. 

Lucifer —  You'll  see  them  yet.     Slowly,  slowly 

Spreads  the  curse  of  leprosy; 
But  beware  how  you  dare  insult 
This  people,  so  absolute  in  virtue  and 
Hence  so  hard  to  reconcile. 

Adam  —  What  virtue  could  adorn  such  folk  as  this  ? 

Lucifer —  Their  worth  is  abnegation,  poverty, 

As  practiced  first  by  the  Master  on  the  Cross. 
Adam —  He  saved  a  world  by  such  humility; 

While  these  cowards,  like  rebels, 
Do  but  blaspheme  tne  name  of  God, 
In  that  they  despise  his  gift. 


EMERICH  MADACH  95  2  T 

Who  'gainst  gnats  the  weapons  same  would  draw 
That  in  the  bear  hunt  he  is  wont  to  use 
Is  a  fool. 

Lucifer —  But  if  they  in  pious  zeal,  perchance, 

Mistake  the  gnats  for  monstrous  bears, 
Have  they  then  not  the  right  to  drive 
To  the  very  gates  of  hell 
Those  who  life  enjoy  ?    .     .     . 
Adam  {facing  the  Patriarch}  — 

Father,  we're  battling  for  the  Holy  Grave, 
And  wearied  from  the  way  which  we  have  come, 
To  rest  within  these  walls  we  are  denied. 
Thou  hast  power  here :  help  thou  our  cause. 
Patriarch  — 

My  son,  I  have  just  now  no  time  for  petty  things. 
God's  glory  and  my  people's  weal 
Call  higher  aims  now  forth.     I  must  away 
To  judge  the  heretics;  who,  like  poisonous  weeds, 
Do  grow  and  multiply,  and  whom  hell 
With  force  renewed  upon  us  throws, 
Even  though  we  constant  try  with  fire  and  sword 
To  root  them  out. 

But  if  indeed  ye  be  true  Christian  knights, 
Why  seek  the  Moor  so  far  remote  ? 
Here  lurks  a  yet  more  dangerous-  foe. 
Scale  ye  their  walls,  level  them  to  the  ground, 
And  spare  ye  neither  woman,  child,  nor  hoary  head. 
Adam —    The  innocent!     O  father,  this  cannot  be  thy  wish! 
Patriarch  — 

Innocent  is  the  serpent,  too,  while  yet  of  tender  growth 
Or  after  its  fangs  are  shed. 
Yet  sparest  thou  the  snake  ? 
Adam —  It  must,  in  faith,  have  been  a  grievous  sin 

Which  could  such  wrath  from  Christian  love  evoke. 
Patriarch  — 

O  my  son!  not  he  shows  love  who  feeds  the  flesh, 
But  he  who  leadeth  back  the  erring  soul, 
At  point  of  sword, —  or  e'en  through  leaping  flames 
If  needs  must  be,- to  Him  who  said: 
Not  peace  but  war  do  I  proclaim ! 
That  wicked  sect  interprets  false 
The  mystic  Trinity.     .     .     . 
Monks —  Death  upon  them  all! 

There  burns  the  funeral  pile. 


EMERICH  MADACH 

Adam —  My  friend,  give  up  the  iota,  pray: 

Your  inspired  valor  in  fighting 
For  the  Savior's  grave  will  be 
More  fitting  sacrifice  than  this. 
An  Old  Heretic— 

Satan,  tempt  us  not!     We'll  bleed 
For  our  true  faith  where  God  ordains. 
One  of  the  Monks  — 

Ha,  renegade !  thou  boastest  of  true  faith  ?    .     . 
Patriarch  — 

Too  long  have  we  tarried  here:   away  with  them 
To  the  funeral  pyre,  in  honor  of  God! 
The  Old  Heretic— 

In  honor  of  God  ?    Thou  spakest  well,  O  knave ! 
In  honor  of  God  are  we  indeed  your  prey. 
Ye  are  strong,  and  can  enforce  your  will 
As  ye  may  please.     But  whether  ye  have  acted  rightly 
Heaven  alone  will  judge.     Even  now  is  weighed, 
At  every  hour,  your  vile  career  of  crime. 
New  champions  shall  from  our  blood  arise; 
The  idea  lives  triumphant  on;   and  coming  centuries 
Shall  the  light  reflect  of  flames  that  blaze  to-day. 
Friends,  go  we  to  our  glorious  martyrdom! 
The  Heretics  {chanting  in  chorus}  — 

My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? 

Why  art  thou  so  far  from  helping  me 

And  from  the  words  of  my  roaring  ? 

O  my  God,  I  cry  in  the  daytime,  but  thou 

Hearest  not;   and  in  the  night  season, 

And  am  not  silent.     But  thou  art  holy! 

(Psalm  xxii.) 
Monks  [breaking  in]  — 

Plead  my  cause,  O  Lord,  with  them  that  strive  with  me; 

Fight  against  them  that  fight  against  me; 

Take  hold  of  shield  and  buckler  and  stand  up  for  mine  help; 

Draw  out  also  the  spear,  and  stop  the  way 

Against  them  that  persecute  me. 

(Psalm  xxxv.) 

[In  the  interim  the  Patriarch  and  the  procession  go  by.     The  monks  with 
tracts  mingle  among  the  Crusaders} 

Lucifer —  Why  silent  thus  and  horrified? 

Dost  hold  this  to  be  a  tragedy? 
Consider  it  a  comedy,  and  'twill  make  thee  laugh. 


EMERICH  MADACH 


9523 


Adam —  Nay,  spare  thy  banter  now!     Can  one 

For  a  mere  iota  go  firmly  thus  to  death? 
What  then  is  the  lofty  and  sublime? 
Lucifer — •  That  which  to  others  may  seem  droll. 

Only  a  hair  divides  these  two  ideas; 
A  voice  in  the  heart  alone  may  judge  betwixt  them, 
And  the  mysterious  judge  is  sympathy, 
Which,  blindly,  at  one  time  deifies, 
Then  with  brutal  scorn  condemns  to  death. 

Adam —       Why  must  my  eyes  be  witness  of  these  varied  sins? 
The  subtleties  of  proud  science,  and  of  sophistry! 
That  deadly  poison  wondrously  so  sipped 
From  the  sweetest,  gayest,  freshest  flowers? 
I  knew  this  flower  once  in  the  budding  time 
Of  our  oppressed  faith.     Where  is  the  wanton  hand 

That  ruthlessly  destroyed  it? 
Lucifer —  The  wanton  hand  is  victory, 

Which  wide-spread  once,  a  thousand  wishes  wakes, 
Danger  allies,  and  martyrs  makes, 
And  strength  endues; 
'Tis  there  among  the  heretics. 

Adam —  Verily,  I'd  cast  away  my  sword  and  turn  me 

To  my  northern  home,  where,  in  the  glades 
Of  the  shadowy  woods  primeval, 
Stern  manliness,  true  artlessness  yet  dwell, 
And  the  rancor  of  this  smooth-tongued  age  defy. 
I  would  return  but  for  a  voice  that  lisps 
The  constant  message  in  my  ears, 
That  I  alone  am  called  to  re-create  this  world. 
Lucifer—        Love's  labor  lost;   for  unaided  thou  canst 

Ne'er  prevail  against  the  ruling  spirit  of  the  age. 
The  course  of  time  is  a  mighty  stream, — 
It  buries  thee  or  bears  thee; 
Nor  canst  thou  hope  to  guide  it, 
But  only  swim  adrift  the  tide. 
Who  in  history  immortal  shine, 
And  wield  uncommon  power, 
Knew  well  the  time  in  which  they  lived, 
Yet  did  not  themselves  the  thought  create. 
Not  because  the  cock  crows  does  day  dawn, 
But  the  cock  crows  with  the  dawn  of  day; 
Yonder  those  who,  fettered,  fly  to  face 
The  terrors  of  a  death  of  martyrdom, 
See  scarce  a  step  ahead. 


EMERICH   MADACH 

The  thought  but  just  conceived  dawns  in  their  midst 

In  the  throes  of  death  they  hail  so  joyfully,— 

The  thought  which  by  a  care-free  posterity 

Will  be  inhaled  with  the  air  they  breathe. 

But  leave  thou  this  theme!     Glance  toward  thy  tent: 

What  unclean  monks  stroll  about  there? 

What  trade  they  drive,  what  speeches  make 

And  gestures  wild,  insane  ? 

Let's  nearer  draw,  and  hearken  ! 
A  Monk  in  the  centre  of  a  crowd  of  Crusaders  — 

Buy  ye,  brave  warriors;  neglect  ye  not 

This  manual  of  penance: 

'Twill  clear  all  doubt  of  conscience; 

You'll  learn  therein  much  weighty  mystery: 

How  many  years  in  hell  will  burn* 

Each  murderer,  thief,  and  ravisher, 

And  he  who  doth  our  doctrines  spurn; 

It  tells  ye  what  the  rich  may  buy 

For  a  score  or  more  of  solidi; 

And  the  poor  for  three  alone 

May  swift  obtain  salvation's  boon; 

Whilst  even  he,  to  be  quite  fair, 

Who  such  a  sum  cannot  well  spare, 

May  for  a  thousand  lashes,  mind, 

Salvation  bring  upon  his  kind. 

Buy  ye,  buy  ye,  this  precious  book! 
The  Crusaders  — 

Here,  father,  here,  give  us  a  copy  too! 
Adam —       Infamous  trader,  and  still  more  wicked  patrons, 

Draw  ye  the  sword  and  end  this  foul  traffic! 
Lucifer  {confused}  — 

I  beg  your  pardon.     This  monk  has  long  my  partner  been. 

Not  so  deeply  do  I  this  world  despise; 

When  praise  of  God  soared  high, 

My  homage  also  rose  aloft, 

Whilst  thine  remained  becalmed.     .     .  ' . 
Adam —      Help  me,  O  Lucifer!     Away,  away  from  here! 

Lead  back  my  future  into  past, 

That  I  my  fate  no  longer  see, 
Nor  view  a  fruitless  strife.     Pray  let  me  think 

If  wisdom  is  to  thwart  my  destiny! 
Lucifer —         Awake  then,  Adam, — thy  dream  is  o'er. 


EMERICH  MADACH 


FIFTEENTH  SCENE 

Scene:  A  garden  of  palms.  Adam,  young  again,  enters  from  his  bower; 
still  half  asleep,  he  looks  about  in  astonishment.  Lucifer  stands  in 
the  middle  of  the  scene.  It  is  a  radiant  day. 

ADAM —          Ye  weird  scenes  and  haggard  forms, 
How  have  ye  left  me  lone! 
Joys  and  smiles  greet  now  my  path, 
As  once  of  yore  before  my  heart  was  broken. 
Lucifer — O  boastful  man,  is  it  thy  wish,  perchance, 

That  Nature  for  thy  sake  her  law  should  change, — 
A  star  appoint  to  mark  thy  loss, 
Or  shake  the  earth  because  a  worm  has  died? 
Adam —    Have  I  dreamed,  or  am  I  dreaming  still? 
And  is  our  life  aught  but  a  dream  at  last 
Which  makes  an  inanimate  mass  to  live 
But  for  a  moment,  then  lets  it  fade  forever? 
Oh  why,  why  this  brief  glimpse  of  consciousness, 
Only  to  view  the  terrors  of  annihilation  ? 
Lucifer —  Thou  mournest  ?     Only  cowards  bend 

Their  necks  to  yoke,  and  unresisting  stand 
When  yet  the  blow  may  be  averted. 
But  unmurmuring  doth  the  strong  man 
Decipher  the  mystic  runes  eternal 
Of  his  destiny,  caring  but  to  know 
If  he  himself  can  thrive  beneath  their  doom. 
The  might  of  Fate  controls  the  world's  great  course; 
Thou  art  but  a  tool  and  blindly  onward  driven. 
Adam —    Nay,  nay,  thou  liest!   for  the  will  of  man  is  free; 
That  at  least  I've  well  deserved, 
And  for  it  have  resigned  my  Paradise! 
My  phantom  dreams  have  taught  me  much; 
Full  many  a  madness  have  I  left  behind, 
And  now  'tis  mine  to  choose  another  path. 
Lucifer —     Ay,  if  forgetting  and  eternal  hope 
Were  not  to  destiny  so  closely  wed. 
The  one  doth  heal  thy  bleeding  wounds, 
The  other  closely  screens  abysmal  depths, 
And  gives  new  courage,  saying, — 
Rash  hundreds  found  a  grave  therein, 
Thou  shalt  be  the  first  safely  to  leap  it  o'er. 
Hast  thou  not,  scholar,  full  oft  beheld 
The  many  freaks  and  whims  among 


EMERICH  MADACH 

The  parasites  that  brood  and  breed 
In  cats  and  owls  only, 
But  must  pass  in  mice  their  earliest  stage 
Of  slow  development? 
Not  just  the  one  or  other  mouse 
Predestined  is  the  claw  to  feel 
Of  cat  or  owl;   who  cautious  is 
May  even  both  avoid,  and  keep 
In  ripe  old  age  his  nest  and  house. 
A  relentless  hand  doth  yet  provide 
Just  such  a  number  for  his  foes 
As  its  presence  here  on  earth 
Ages  hence  insures. 
Nor  is  the  human  being  bound, 
And  yet  the  race  wears  chains. 
Zeal  carries  thee  like  a  flood  along: 
To-day  for  this,  for  that  to-morrow, 
The  funeral  pyres  will  their  victims  claim, 
And  of  scoffers  there  will  be  no  lack; 
While  he  who  registers  the  count 
Will  be  in  wonder  lost,  that  wanton  fate 
Should  have  maintained  such  rare  consistency 
In  making,  matching,  marring, 
In  virtue,  faith,  and  sin  and  death, 
In  suicide  and  lunacy. 
Adam —      Hold!    An  inspiration  fires  my  brain; 

I  may  then  thee,  Almighty  God,  defy. 

Should  fate  but  cry  to  life  a  thousand  halts, 

I'd  laugh  serene  and  die,  should  I  so  please. 

Am  I  not  lone  and  single  in  this  world  ? 

Before  me  frowns  that  cliff,  beneath  whose  base 

Yawns  the  dark  abysmal  gulf. 

One  leap,  the  final  scene,  and  I  shall  cry — 

Farewell,  the  farce  at  last  is  ended! 

[Adam  approaches  the  cliff,  as  Eve  appears.'} 

Lucifer —   Ended!    What  simple-minded  phrases! 
Is  not  each  moment  end  and 
Beginning  too  ?    Alas !  and  but  for  this 
Hast  thou  surveyed  millennial  years  to  come  ? 
Eve —          I  pray  thee,  Adam,  why  didst  steal  off  from  me? 
Thy  last  cold  kiss  still  chills  my  heart; 
And  even  now,  sorrow  or  anger  sits 
Upon  thy  brow;  I  shrink  from  thee! 


EMERICH   MADACH  9537 

Adam  [going  ori\  — 

Why  follow  me  ?    Why  dog  my  footsteps  ? 
The  ruler  of  creation,  man, 
Has  weightier  things  to  do 
Than  waste  in  sportive  love  his  days. 
Woman  understands  not;  is  a  burden  only. 
[Softening}  — 

Oh,  why  didst  thou  not  longer  slumber? 
Far  harder  now  the  sacrifice  will  be 
.     That  I  for  future  ages  offer  must. 
Eve —  Shouldst  hear  me,  lord,  'twill  easier  be: 

What  doubtful  was,  is  now  assured, — 
The  future. 

Adam —  How  now? 

Eve —  The  hope  my  lips  thus  fain  would  lisp 

Will  lift  the  cloud  and  clear  thy  brow. 
Come  then  a  little  nearer,  pray! 
O  Adam,  hear:  I  am  a  mother. 
Adam  [sinking  upon  his  knee}  — 

Thou  hast  conquered  me,  O  Lord! 
Behold,  in  the  dust  I  lie. 

Without  thee  as  against  thee  I  strive  in  vain; 
Thou  mayest  raise  me  up  or  strike  me  down, — 
I  bare  my  heart  and  soul  before  thee. 
God  {appearing,  surrounded  by  angels}  — 

Adam,  rise,  and  be  thou  not  cast  down. 
Behold,  I  take  thee  back  to  me, 
Reconciled  by  my  saving  grace. 
Lucifer  [aside]  — 

Family  scenes  are  not  my  specialty. 
They  may  affect  the  heart, 
But  the  mind  shrinks  from  such  monotony; 
Methinks  I'll  slink  away.  [About  to  go. 

God —          Lucifer!   I'll  have  a  word  with  thee, —  remain! 
And  thou,  my  son,  confess  what  troubles  thee. 
Adam —  Fearful  images  haunted  me,  O  Lord, 

And  what  was  true  therein  I  cannot  tell; 
Intrust  to  me,  I  beg,  I  supplicate, 
The  mystery  of  all  my  future  state. 
Is  there  naught  else  besides  this  narrow  life 
Which,  becoming  clarified  like  wine, 
Thou  mayest  spill  with  every  whim  of  thine, 
And  dust  may  drink  it  ? 
Or  didst  thou  mean  the  soul  for  higher  things  ? 


95*3 


EMERICH  MADACH 


Will  further  toil  and  forward  stride  my  kind, 
Still  growing  nobler,  till  we  perfection  find 
Near  thine  almighty  Throne  ? 

Or  drudge  to  death  like  some  blind  treadmill-horse 
Without  the  hope  of  ever  changing  course  ? 
Doth  noble  striving  meet  with  just  reward, 
When  he  who  for  ideals  gives  his  blood 

Is  mocked  at  by  a  soulless  throng  ? 
Enlighten  me;  grateful  will  I  bear  my  lot: 

I  can  but  win  by  such  exchange, 

For  this  suspense  is  hell. 
God —  Seek  not  to  solve  the  mystery 

Which  Godly  grace  and  sense  benign 

Hath  screened  from  human  sight. 

If  thou  couldst  see  that  transient  is 

The  soul's  sojourn  upon  this  world, 

And  that  it  upward  soars 

To  life  unending,  in  the  great  beyond, — 

Sorrow  would  no  virtue  be. 

If  dust  absorbed  thy  soul  alike, 

What  would  spur  thee  on  to  thought? 

Who  would  prompt  thee  to  resign 

Thy  grosser  joys  for  virtue  fine  ? 

Whilst  now,  though  burdened  with  life, 

Thy  future  beckons  from  afar, 
.    Shimmering  through  the  clouds 

And  lifting  thee  to  higher  spheres. 
And  should,  at  times,  this  pride  thy  heart  inflame, 
Thy  span  of  life  will  soon  control  thy  pace, 
And  nobleness  and  virtue  reign  supreme. 
Lucifer  \laughing  derisively}  — 

Verily,  glory  floods  the  paths  you  tread, 
Since  greatness,  virtue,  are  to  lead  thee  on. 
Two  words  which  only  pass  in.  blessed  deed 
When  superstition,  ignorance,  and  prejudice 

Keep  constant  guard  and  company. — 
Why  did  I  ever  seek  to  work  out  great  ideas 
Through  man,  of  dust  and  sunbeams  formed, 
So  dwarfed  in  knowledge,  in  blind  error  so  gigantic  ? 
Adam —         Cease  thy  scorn,  O  Lucifer!  cease  thy  scorn! 
I  saw  full  well  thy  wisdom's  edifice, 

Wherein  my  heart  felt  only  chilled; 
But,  gracious  God,  who  shall  sustain  me  now 
And  lead  me  onward  in  the  paths  of  right, 


EMERICH   MADACH 

Since  thou  didst  withdraw  the  hand  that  guided  me, 
Before  I  tasted  fruit  of  idle  knowledge  ? 

God —      Strong  is  thine  arm,  full  thy  heart  of  lofty  thoughts; 
The  field  is  boundless  where  thou  seed  shouldst  sow. 
Give  thou  but  heed!     A  voice  shall  ceaseless  call  thee  back. 
Or  constant  speed  thee  on: 
Follow  its  lead.     And  if  at  times 
This  heavenly  sound  be  hushed  in  midst  the  whirl 
Of  thine  eventful  years,  the  purer  soul 
Of  woman,  unselfish,  pure,  and  gentle, 
Will  surely  hear  it,  and  thrilled  by  woman's  love, 
Thy  soul  shall  soar  in  Poetry  and  Song! 
And  by  thy  side  she   loyally  will  watch, 
Mounted  on  these  cherubim, 
In  sorrow  pale  or  rosy  joy, 
A  cheering,  soothing  genius. 
Thou  too,  O  Lucifer,  a  link  but  art 
In  my  wide  universe;   so  labor  on! 
Thy  frosty  knowledge  and  thy  mad  denial 
Will  cause,  like  yeast,  the  mind  to  effervesce. 
E'en  though  it  turns  him  from  the  beaten  track, 
It  matters  not.     He'll  soon  return; 
But  endless  shall  thy  penance  be, 
Since  thou  art  ever  doomed  to  see 
How  beauty  buds  and  virtue  sprouts 
From  the  seed  thou  wouldst  have  spoiled. 

Chorus  of  Angels 

Choice  between  the  good  and  evil, 

Wondrous  thought,  sublime  decision! 

Still  to  know  that  thou  art  shielded 
By  a  gracious  God's  provision. 

For  the  right,  then,  be  thou  steadfast, 
Though  thou  labor  without  meed; 

Thy  reward  shall  be  the  knowledge 
Thou  hast  done  a  noble  deed. 

Greatness  grows  in  goodness  only; 

Shame  will  keep  the  good  man  just, 
And  the  fear  of  shame  uplifts  him, 

While  the  mean  man  crawls  in  dust. 

But  when  treading  paths  exalted, 
This  blind  error  cherish  not, — 


9530  EMERICH  MADACH 

That  the  glory  thou  achievest 
Adds  to  God's  a  single  jot: 

For  he  needs  not  thy  assistance 

To  accomplish  his  designs; 
Be  thou  thankful  if  he  calls  thee 

And  a  task  to  thee  assigns. 

Eve —     Praise  be  to  God,  I  understand  thife  song. 
Adam  —  I  divine  the  message  and  submit  to  its  decree. 

Ah,  could  I  only  the  distant  end  foresee! 
God —  I  have  ordained,  O  man, — 

Struggle  thou  and  trust! 

Translated  for  <A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature  >  by  G.  A.  Kotnat 


JAMES    MADISON 


JAMES  MADISON 

(1751-1836) 

|HE  writings  of  James  Madison  were  designed  to  serve  the 
ends  of  practical  politics.  Yet,  despite  the  absence  of  a  lit- 
erary motive,  they  possess  qualities  which  entitle  them  to 
a  permanent  place  in  American  literature.  Madison's  papers  in  the 
Federalist,  for  example,  are  models  of  political  essay-writing. 

James  Madison  was  the  son  of  a  wealthy  planter  of  Orange 
County,  Virginia,  and  was  born  at  Port  Con  way,  March  i6th,  1751. 
He  was  graduated  at  Princeton  in  1772.  Two  years  later,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three,  he  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety  for  Orange  County;  and  thenceforward,  .with  a  few 
unimportant  interruptions,  took  an  active  part  in  politics  until  1817, 
when,  at  the  close  of  his  second  term  as  President  of  the  United 
States,  he  retired  permanently  from  public  life. 

His  first  notable  publication  was  a  paper  entitled  <A  Memorial 
and  Remonstrance,  >  addressed  to  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia. 
It  appeared  in  1785,  and  was  directed  against  a  bill  providing  for  a 
tax  "for  the  support  of  teachers  of  the  Christian  religion, »  the  vote 
on  which  in  the  Legislature  he  had  with  difficulty  been  able  to  post- 
pone. Copies  of  the  paper  were  distributed  throughout  the  State,  with 
the  result  that  in  the  next  election  religious  freedom  was  made  a  test 
question.  In  the  session  of  the  Legislature  which  followed  the  elec- 
tion the  obnoxious  bill  was  defeated,  and  in  place  thereof  was  enacted 
the  bill  establishing  religious  freedom  offered  by  Jefferson  seven  years 
before.  The  Religious  Freedom  Act  disestablished  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Virginia,  and  abolished  religious  tests  for  public  office. 

Madison's  chief  work  both  as  a  constructive  statesman  and  as  a 
publicist  was  done  in  connection  with  the  Constitutional  Convention 
of  1787.  The  epithet  <(  Father  of  the  Constitution, })  sometimes  applied 
to  him,  is  not  undeserved,  inasmuch  as  he  was  the  author  of  the 
leading  features  of  that  instrument.  In  common  with  others,  he 
had  for  some  time  seen  the  impossibility  of  maintaining  an  effective 
government  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  With  the  thorough- 
ness characteristic  of  his  nature,  he  had  made  a  study  of  ancient  and 
modern  confederacies, — including,  as  his  notes  show,  the  Lycian,  the 
Amphictyonic,  the  Achaean,  the  Helvetic,  the  Belgic,  and  the  Ger- 
man,—  with  a  view  to  discovering  the  proper  remedy  for  the  defects 


9532 


JAMES  MADISON 


in  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  Before  the  convention  met,  he  laid 
before  his  colleagues  of  the  Virginia  delegation  the  outlines  of  the 
scheme  of  government  that  was  presented  to  the  convention  as  the 
<( Virginia  plan."  .This  plan  was  introduced  at  the  beginning  of 
the  convention  by  Edmund  Randolph,  who,  by  virtue  of  his  office  as 
governor  of  Virginia,  was  regarded  as  the  member  most  fit  to  speak 
for  the  delegation;  but  its  chief  supporter  in  the  debate  which  fol- 
lowed was  Madison.  The  fundamental  defect  of  the  government 
created  by  the  Articles  of  Confederation  was  that  it  operated  on 
States  only,  not  upon  individuals.  The  delegates  to  the  Continental 
Congress  were  envoys  from  sovereign  States  rather  than  members 
of  a  legislative  body.  They  might  deliberate  and  advise,  but  had 
no  means  of  enforcing  their  decisions.  Thus  they  were  empowered 
to  determine  the  share  of  the  expenses  of  the  general  government 
which  each  State  should  pay,  but  were  unable  to  coerce  a  delinquent 
State.  The  Virginia  plan  contemplated  a  government  essentially  the 
same  as  that  created  by  the  Constitution;  with  this  difference,  that  it 
provided  for  representation  according  to  population,  both  in  the  upper 
and  in  the  lower  house  of  the  legislature.  The  hand  of  Madison  is 
also  seen  in  some  of  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  which  were 
not  contained  in  the  Virginia  plan.  Thus,  for  instance,  he  was  the 
author  of  the  famous  compromise  in  accordance  with  which,  for 
purposes  of  direct  taxation  and  of  representation,  five  slaves  were 
counted  as  three  persons. 

During  the  convention  Madison  kept  a  journal  of  its  debates,  which 
forms  the  chief  authority  for  the  deliberations  of  that  historic  body. 
This  journal,  together  with  his  notes  on  the  proceedings  of  the  Con-( 
tinental  Congress  from  November  1782  to  February  1783,  was  pur- 
chased by  the  government  after  his  death;  both  have  been  published 
by  order  of  Congress  under  the  title  of  <The  Madison  Papers.  >  It 
may  here  be  noted  also  that  the  remainder  of  his  writings,  including 
his  correspondence,  speeches,  etc.,  from  1769  to  1836,  have  been  pub- 
lished by  the  government  in  a  separate  work,  entitled  ( Writings  of 
James  Madison. J 

After  the  adjournment  of  the  convention  Madison  devoted  his 
energies  toward  securing  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution.  He  not 
only  successfully  opposed  the  eloquence  and  prestige  of  Patrick  Henry 
and  Richard  Henry  Lee  in  the  Virginia  ratifying  convention,  but  also 
wrote  with  Hamilton  and  Jay  that  series  of  essays,  appearing  origi- 
nally in  certain  New  York  newspapers,  which  has  been  preserved  in 
book  form  under  the  title  of  <The  Federalist';  and  which,  though 
intended  primarily  to  influence  the  action  of  the  extremely  doubtful 
State  of  New  York,  served  to  reinforce  the  arguments  of  the  advo- 
cates of  ratification  in  other  States  also. 


JAMES   MADISON 

'The  Federalist y  is  composed  of  eighty-five  essays;  of  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  memorandum  made  by  Madison,  he  wrote  twenty-nine, 
Hamilton  fifty-one,  and  Jay  five, — one  or  two  being  written  jointly. 
It  discussed  the  utility  of  the  proposed  union,  the  inefficiency  of  the 
existing  Confederation,  the  necessity  of  a  government  at  least  equally 
energetic  with  the  one  proposed,  the  conformity  of  the  Constitution  to 
the  true  principles  of  republican  government,  its  analogy  to  the  State 
constitutions,  and  the  additional  security  which  its  adoption  would  give 
to  liberty  and  property.  Madison's  papers  defined  republican  govern- 
ment, and  surveyed  the  powers  vested  in  the  Union,  the  relations 
between  the  Federal  and  State  governments,  the  distribution  of  power 
among  the  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  branches  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  the  structure  of  the  legislative  department;  taking  up  in 
conjunction  with  the  last-mentioned  subject  most  of  the  vital  ques- 
tions, both  theoretical  and  practical,  connected  with  representative 
institutions. 

Madison  wrote  in  the  style  that  prevailed  at  the  close  of  •  the 
eighteenth  century.  His  language,  while  occasionally  involved  and 
heavy  with  orotund  Latin  derivatives,  is  rhythmical,  dignified,  and 
impressive.  His  writings  have  no  imagination,  wit,  or  humor;  but 
the  absence  of  these  qualities  is  atoned  for  by  clearness,  sincerity, 
and  aptness  of  illustration.  Possessed  of  depth  and  genuineness  of 
feeling  coupled  with  an  extraordinary  power  of  logical  exposition,  he 
was  considered  by  Jefferson,  some  years  after  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  to  be  the  only  writer  in  the  Republican  party  capable  of 
opposing  Alexander  Hamilton,  the  Federalist  <(  colossus  of  debate." 

At  the  opening  of  the  First  Congress,  Madison  took  his  seat  in 
the  House  of  Representatives, — the  influence  of  Henry  and  the  Anti- 
Federalists  in  the  Virginia  State  Legislature  having  prevented  his 
election  to  the  Senate.  In  the  differentiation  of  parties  occasioned  by 
Hamilton's  nationalizing  financial  policy,  Madison  allied  himself  with 
the  Republicans  and  became  the  leader  of  the  opposition  in  the 
House.  His  change  of  attitude  from  that  of  an  extreme  nationalist 
to  that  of  an  extreme  States-rights  man  was  no  doubt  due  in  large 
part  to  the  influence  of  his  friend  and  intimate  Thomas  Jefferson. 
No  two  documents  can  be  more  dissimilar  than  the  Virginia  plan, 
which  would  have  invested  Congress  with  a  veto  on  State  legislation, 
and  the  famous  Virginia  Resolutions  of  1789  and  1799,  of  which  Mad- 
ison was  the  author.  However,  his  inconsistency  was  perhaps  more 
apparent  than  real;  for  having  once  given  in  his  adhesion  to  the 
Constitution,  it  was  perfectly  logical  to  desire  a  strict  construction  of 
that  instrument  to  preserve  the  balance  struck  in  it  between  the 
State  and  Federal  governments. 

On  the  inauguration  of  Jefferson  as  President  in  1801,  Madison 
accepted  the  Secretaryship  of  State.  It  was  while  holding  this  office 


JAMES  MADISON 

that  he  wrote  the  pamphlet  (An  Examination  of  the  British  Doctrine 
which  Subjects  to  Capture  a  Neutral  Trade  not  Open  in  Time  of 
Peace.  >  At  the  close  of  Jefferson's  second  term,  March  4th,  1809, 
Madison  became  President.  He  had  been  to  his  predecessor  an  able 
and  efficient  lieutenant.  He  was,  however,  a  scholar  rather  than  a 
man  of  action;  and  it  was  his  misfortune  that  his  administration  fell 
in  a  period  which  required  more  than  ordinary  talents  of  leadership, 
and  those  of  a  different  stamp  from  his  own.  His  conduct  of  the 
War  of  1812  was  weak  and  hesitating,  and  added  nothing  to  the  glory 
of  his  previous  career.  He  retired  at  the  expiration  of  his  second 
term  in  1817  to  Montpelier,  his  country  seat  in  Virginia,  where  he 
died  June  28th,  1836. 


FROM   <THE  FEDERALIST  > 
AN  OBJECTION  DRAWN  FROM  THE  EXTENT  OF  COUNTRY  ANSWERED 

WE  HAVE  seen  the  necessity  of  the  Union,  as  our  bulwark 
against  foreign  danger;  as  the  conservator  of  peace  among 
ourselves;  as  the  guardian  of  our  commerce,  and  other 
common  interests;  as  the  only  substitute  for  those  military  estab- 
lishments which  have  subverted  the  liberties  of  the  Old  World; 
and  as  the  proper  antidote  for  the  diseases  of  faction,  which  have 
proved  fatal  to  other  popular  governments,  and  of  which  alarm- 
ing symptoms  have  been  betrayed  by  our  own.  All  that  remains, 
within  this  branch  of  our  inquiries,  is  to  take  notice  of  an  objec- 
tion that  may  be  drawn  from  the  great  extent  of  country  which 
the  Union  embraces.  A  few  observations  on  this  subject  will  be 
the  more  proper,  as  it  is  perceived  that  the  adversaries  of  the 
new  Constitution  are  availing  themselves  of  a  prevailing  prejudice 
with  regard  to  the  practicable  sphere  of  republican  administra- 
tion, in  order  to  supply,  by  imaginary  difficulties,  the  want  of 
those  solid  objections  which  they  endeavor  in  vain  to  find. 

The  error  which  limits  republican  government  to  a  narrow 
district  has  been  unfolded  and  refuted  in  preceding  papers.  I 
remark  here  only,  that  it  seems  to  owe  its  rise  and  prevalence 
chiefly  to  the  confounding  of  a  republic  with  a  democracy,  and 
applying  to  the  former,  reasonings  drawn  from  the  nature  of 
the  latter.  The  true  distinction  between  these  forms  was  also 
adverted  to  on  a  former  occasion.  It  is,  that  in  a  democracy  the 
people  meet  and  exercise  the  government  in  person;  in  a  repub- 
lic they  assemble  and  administer  it  by  their  representatives  and 


JAMES   MADISON 

agents.  A  democracy,  consequently,  must  be  confliiecl  to  a  Small 
spot.  A  republic  may  be  extended  over  a  large  region. 

To  this  accidental  source  of  the  error  may  be  added  the 
artifice  of  some  celebrated  authors  whose  writings  have  had  a 
great  share  in  forming  the  modern  standard  of  political  opinions. 
Being  subjects  either  of  an  absolute  or  limited  monarchy,  they 
have  endeavored  to  heighten  the  advantages  or  palliate  the  evils 
of  those  forms,  by  placing  in  comparison  with  them  the  vices 
and  defects  of  the  republican;  and  by  citing,  as  specimens  of  the 
latter,  the  turbulent  democracies  of  ancient  Greece  and  modern 
Italy.  Under  the  confusion  of  names,  it  has  been  an  easy  task 
to  transfer  to  a  republic,  observations  applicable  to  a  democracy 
only;  and  among  others,  the  observation  that  it  can  never  be 
established  but  among  a  small  number  of  people,  living  within  a 
small  compass  of  territory. 

Such  a  fallacy  may  have  been  the  less  perceived,  as  most 
of  the  popular  governments  of  antiquity  were  of  the  democratic 
species;  and  even  in  modern  Europe,  to  which  we  owe  the  great 
principle  of  representation,  no  example  is  seen  of  a  government 
wholly  popular  and  founded  at  the  same  time  wholly  on  that 
principle.  If  Europe  has  the  merit  of  discovering  this  great 
mechanical  power  in  government,  by  the  simple  agency  of  which 
the  will  of  the  largest  political  body  may  be  concentred,  and  its 
force  directed  to  any  object  which  the  public  good  requires, 
America  can  claim  the  merit  of  making  the  discovery  the  basis 
of  unmixed  and  extensive  republics.  It  is  only  to  be  lamented, 
that  any  of  her  citizens  should  wish  to  deprive  her  of  the  addi- 
tional merit  of  displaying  its  full  efficacy  in  the  establishment  of 
the  comprehensive  system  now  under  her  consideration. 

As  the  natural  limit  of  a  democracy  is  that  distance  from  the 
central  point  which  will  just  permit  the  most  remote  citizens  to 
assemble  as  often  as  their  public  functions  demand,  and  will 
include  no  greater  number  than  can  join  in  those  functions,  so 
the  natural  limit  of  a  republic  is  that  distance  from  the  centre 
which  will  barely  allow  the  representatives  of  the  people  to  meet 
as  often  as  may  be  necessary  for  the  administration  of  public 
affairs.  Can  it  be  said  that  the  limits  of  the  United  States  ex- 
ceed this  distance  ?  It  will  not  be  said  by  those  who  recollect 
that  the  Atlantic  coast  is  the  longest  side  of  the  Union ;  that  dur- 
ing the  term  of  thirteen  years,  the  representatives  of  the  States 
have  been  almost  continually  assembled;  and  that  the  members 


JAMES   MADISON 

from  the  most  distant  States  are  not  chargeable  with  greater 
intermissions  of  attendance  than  those  from  the  States  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Congress. 

That  we  may  form  a  juster  estimate  with  regard  to  this  inter- 
esting subject,  let  us  resort  to  the  actual  dimensions  of  the 
Union.  The  limits,  as  fixed  by  the  treaty  of  peace,  are  —  on  the 
east  the  Atlantic,  on  the  south  the  latitude  of  thirty-one  degrees, 
on  the  west  the  Mississippi,  and  on  the  north  an  irregular  line 
running  in  some  instances  beyond  the  forty-fifth  degree,  in  oth- 
ers falling  as  low  as  the  forty-second.  The  southern  shore  of 
Lake  Erie  lies  below  that  latitude.  Computing  the  distance  be- 
tween the  thirty-first  and  forty-fifth  degrees,  it  amounts  to  nine 
hundred  and  seventy-three  common  miles;  computing  it  from 
thirty-one  to  forty-two  degrees,  to  seven  hundred  and  sixty-four 
miles  and  a  half.  Taking  the  mean  for  the  distance,  the  amount 
will  be  eight  hundred  and  sixty-eight  miles  and  three  fourths. 
The  mean  distance  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi  does  not 
probably  exceed  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  On  a  comparison 
of  this  extent  with  that  of  several  countries  in  Europe,  the  prac- 
ticability of  rendering  our  system  commensurate  to  it  appears 
to  be  demonstrable.  It  is  not  a  great  deal  larger  than  Ger 
many,  where  a  diet  representing  the  whole  empire  is  continually 
assembled;  or  than  Poland  before  the  late  dismemberment,  where 
another  national  diet  was  the  depository  of  the  supreme  power. 
Passing  by  France  and  Spain,  we  find  that  in  Great  Britain, 
inferior  as  it  may  be  in  size,  the  representatives  of  the  northern 
extremity  of  the  island  have  as  far  to  travel  to  the  national 
council  as  will  be  required  of  those  of  the  most  remote  parts  of 
the  Union. 

Favorable  as  this  view  of  the  subject  may  be,  some  observa- 
tions remain  which  will  place  it  in  a  light  still  more  satisfactory. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  general 
government  is  not  to  be  charged  with  the  whole  power  of  mak- 
ing and  administering  laws:  its  jurisdiction  is  limited  to  cer- 
tain enumerated  objects,  which  concern  all  the  members  of  the 
republic,  but  which  are  not  to  be  attained  by  the  separate  pro- 
visions of  any.  The  subordinate  governments,  which  can  extend 
their  care  to  all  those  other  objects  which  can  be  separately  pro- 
vided for,  will  retain  their  due  authority  and  activity.  Were  it 
proposed  by  the  plan  of  the  convention  to  abolish  the  govern- 
ments of  the  particular  States,  its  adversaries  would  have  soms 


JAMES  MADISON 

ground  for  their  objection;  though  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
show  that  if  they  were  abolished,  the  general  government  would 
be  compelled,  by  the  principle  of  self-preservation,  to  reinstate 
them  in  their  proper  jurisdiction. 

A  second  observation  to  be  made  is,  that  the  immediate  ob- 
ject of  the  Federal  Constitution  is  to  secure  the  union  of  the 
thirteen  primitive  States,  which  we  know  to  be  practicable;  and 
to  add  to  them  such  other  States  as  may  arise  in  their  own 
bosoms,  or  in  their  neighborhoods,  which  we  cannot  doubt  to 
be  equally  practicable.  The  arrangements  that  may  be  neces- 
sary for  those  angles  and  fractions  of  our  territory  which  lie  on 
our  northwestern  frontier  must  be  left  to  those  whom  further 
discoveries  and  experience  will  render  more  equal  to  the  task. 

Let  it  be  remarked,  in  the  third  place,  that  the  intercourse 
throughout  the  Union  will  be  daily  facilitated  -by  new  improve- 
ments. Roads  will  everywhere  be  shortened,  and  kept  in  bet- 
ter order;  accommodations  for  travelers  will  be  multiplied  and 
meliorated;  an  interior  navigation  on  our  eastern  side  will  be 
opened  throughout,  or  nearly  throughout,  the  whole  extent  of  the 
thirteen  States.  The  communication  between  the  western  and 
Atlantic  districts,  and  between  different  parts  of  each,  will  be 
rendered  more  and  more  easy  by  those  numerous  canals  with 
which  the  beneficence  of  nature  has  intersected  our  country,  and 
which  art  finds  it  so  little  difficult  to  connect  and  complete. 

A  fourth  and  still  more  important  consideration  is,  that  as 
almost  every  State  will  on  one  side  or  other  be  a  frontier, 
and  will  thus  find,  in  a  regard  to  its  safety,  an  inducement  to 
make  some  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  general  protection,  so  the 
States  which  lie  at  the  greatest  distance  from  the  heart  of  the 
union,  and  which  of  course  may  partake  least  of  the  ordinary 
circulation  of  its  benefits,  will  be  at  the  same  time  immediately 
contiguous  to  foreign  nations,  and  will  consequently  stand,  on  par- 
.ticular  occasions,  in  greatest  need  of  its  strength  and  resources. 
It  may  be  inconvenient  for  Georgia,  or  the  States  forming  our 
western  or  northeastern  borders,  to  send  their  representatives  to 
the  seat  of  government;  but  they  would  find  it  more  so  to  strug- 
gle alone  against  an  invading  enemy,  or  even  to  support  alone 
the  whole  expense  of  those  precautions  which  may  be  dictated 
by  the  neighborhood  of  continual  danger.  If  they  should  derive 
less  benefit  therefore  from  the  union,  in  some  respects,  than  the 
less  distant  States,  they  will  derive  greater  benefit  from  it  in 


JAMES  MADISON 

other  respects;  and  thus  the  proper  equilibrium  will  be  main- 
tained throughout. 

I  submit  to  you,  my  fellow-citizens,  these  considerations,  in  full 
confidence  that  the  good  sense  which  has  so  often  marked  your 
decisions  will  allow  them  their  due  weight  and  effect;  and  that 
you  will  never  suffer  difficulties,  however  formidable  in  appear- 
ance, or  however  fashionable  the  error  on  which  they  may  be 
founded,  to  drive  you  into  the  gloomy  and  perilous  scenes  into 
which  the  advocates  for  disunion  would  conduct  you.  Hearken 
not  to  the  unnatural  voice  which  tells  you  that  the  people  of 
America,  knit  together  as  they  are  by  so  many  chords  of  affec- 
tion, can  no  longer  live  together  as  members  of  the  same  fam- 
ily; can  no  longer  continue  the  mutual  guardians  of  their  mutual 
happiness;  can  no  longer  be  fellow-citizens  of  one  great,  respect- 
able, and  flourishing  empire.  Hearken  not  to  the  .  voice  which 
petulantly  tells  you  that  the  form  of  government  recommended 
for  your  adoption  is  a  novelty  in  the  political  world;  that  it  has 
never  yet  had  a  place  in  the  theories  of  the  wildest  projectors; 
that  it  rashly  attempts  what  it  is  impossible  to  accomplish.  No, 
my  countrymen:  shut  your  ears  against  this  unhallowed  language. 
Shut  your  hearts  against  the  poison  which  it  conveys.  The  kin- 
dred blood  which  flows  in  the  veins  of  American  citizens,  the 
mingled  blood  which  they  have  shed  in  defense  of  their  sacred 
rights,  consecrate  their  union,  and  excite  horror  at  the  idea  of 
their  becoming  aliens,  rivals,  enemies.  And  if  novelties  are  to 
be  shunned,  believe  me,  the  most  alarming  of  all  novelties,  the 
most  wild  of  all  projects,  the  most  rash  of  all  attempts,  is  that 
of  rending  us  in  pieces  in  order  to  preserve  our  liberties  and 
promote  our  happiness. 

But  why  is  the  experiment  of  an  extended  republic  to  be 
rejected,  merely  because  it  may  comprise  what  is  new  ?  Is  it  not 
the  glory  of  the  people  of  America,  that  whilst  they  have  paid  a 
decent  regard  to  the  opinions  of  former  times  and  other  nations, 
they  have  not  suffered  a  blind  veneration  for  antiquity,  for  cus- 
tom, or  for  names,  to  overrule  the  suggestions  of  their  own 
good  sense,  the  knowledge  of  their  own  situation,  and  the  les- 
sons of  their  own  experience?  To  this  manly  spirit,  posterity  will 
be  indebted  for  the  possession,  and  the  world  for  the  example, 
of  the  numerous,  innovations  displayed  on  the  American  thea- 
tre in  favor  of  private  rights  and  public  happiness.  Had  no 
important  step  been  taken  by  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution  for 


JAMES  MADISON 

which  a  precedent  could-  not  be  discovered, —  no  government 
established  of  which  an  exact  model  did  not  present  itself, — the 
people  of  the  United  States  might  at  this  moment  have  been 
numbered  among  the  melancholy  victims  of  misguided  councils; 
must  at  best  have  been  laboring  under  the  weight  of  some  of 
those  forms  which  have  crushed  the  liberties  of  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. Happily  for  America, — happily,  we  trust,  for  the  whole 
human  race, —  they  pursued  a  new  and  more  noble  course.  They 
accomplished  a  revolution  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  annals  of 
human  society.  They  reared  the  fabrics  of  governments  which 
have  no  model  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  They  formed  the 
design  of  a  great  confederacy,  which  it  is  incumbent  on  their  suc- 
cessors to  improve  and  perpetuate.  If  their  works  betray  imper- 
fections, we  wonder  at  the  fewness  of  them.  If  they  erred  most 
in  the  structure  of  the  union,  this  was  the  work  most  difficult  to 
be  executed;  this  is  the  work  which  has  been  new  modeled  by 
the  act  of  your  convention,  and  it  is  that  act  on  which  you  are 
now  to  deliberate  and  to  decide. 


INTERFERENCE   TO   QUELL   DOMESTIC   INSURRECTION 
From  <The  Federalist  > 

AT  FIRST  view,  it  might  seem  not  to  square  with  the  repub- 
lican theory  to  suppose  either  that  a  majority  have  not  the 
right,  or  that  a  minority  will  have  the  force,  to  subvert  a 
government;  and  consequently,  that  the  federal  interposition  can 
never  be  required  but  when  it  would  be  improper.  But  theoretic 
reasoning,  in  this  as  in  most  other  cases,  must  be  qualified  by 
the  lessons-  of  practice.  Why  may  not  illicit  combinations,  for 
purposes  of  violence,  be  formed  as  well  by  a  majority  of  a  State, 
especially  a  small  State,  as  by  a  majority  of  a  county  or  a  dis- 
trict of  the  same  State;  and  if  the  authority  of  the  State  ought 
in  the  latter  case  to  protect  the  local  magistracy,  ought  not  the 
Federal  authority,  in  the  former,  to  support  the  State  authority? 
Besides,  there  are  certain  parts  of  the  State  constitutions  which 
are  so  interwoven  with  the  federal  Constitution,  that  a  violent 
blow  cannot  be  given  to  the  one  without  communicating  the  • 
wound  to  the  other.  Insurrections  in  a  State  will  rarely  induce 
a  federal  interposition,  unless  the  number  concerned  in  them 
bear  some  proportion  to  the  friends  of  government.  It  will  be 


JAMES  MADISON 

much  better  that  the  violence  in  such  cases  should  be  repressed 
by  the  superintending  power,  than  that  the  majority  should  be 
left  to  maintain  their  cause  by  a  bloody  and  obstinate  contest. 
The  existence  of  a  right  to  interpose  will  generally  prevent  the 
necessity  of  exerting  it. 

Is  it  true  that  force  and  right  are  necessarily  on  the  same  side 
in  republican  governments  ?  May  not  the  minor  party  possess 
such  a  superiority  of  pecuniary  resources,  of  military  talents  and 
experience,  or  of  secret  succors  from  foreign  powers,  as  will  ren- 
der it  superior  also  in  an  appeal  to  the  sword?  May  not  a  more 
compact  and  advantageous  position  turn  the  scale  on  the  same 
side,  against  a  superior  number  so  situated  as  to  be  less  capable 
of  a  prompt  and  collected  exertion  of  its  strength  ?  Nothing  can 
be  more  chimerical  thrn  to  imagine  that  in  a  trial  of  actual  force, 
victory  may  be  calculated  by  the  rules  which  prevail  in  a  census 
of  the  inhabitants,  or  which  determine  the  event  of  an  election ! 
May  it  not  happen,  in  fine,  that  the  minority  of  citizens  may 
become  a  majority  of  persons,  by  the  accession  of  alien  residents, 
of  a  casual  concourse  of  adventurers,  or  of  those  whom  the  con- 
stitution of  the  State  has  not  admitted  to  the  rights  of  suffrage  ? 
I  take  no  notice  of  an  unhappy  species  of  population  abounding  in 
some  of  the  States,  who,  during  the  calm  of  regular  government, 
are  sunk  below  the  level  of  men;  but  who,  in  the  tempestuous 
scenes  of  civil  violence,  may  emerge  into  the  human  character, 
and  give  a  superiority  of  strength  to  any  party  with  which  they 
may  associate  themselves. 

In  cases  where  it  may  be  doubtful  on  which  side  justice  lies, 
what  better  umpires  could  be  desired  by  two  violent  factions,  fly- 
ing to  arms  and  tearing  a  State  to  pieces,  than  the  representatives 
of  confederate  States  not  heated  by  the  local  flame?  To  the 
impartiality  of  judges  they  would  unite  the  affection  of  friends. 
Happy  would  it  be  if  such  a  remedy  for  its  infirmities  could  be 
enjoyed  by  all  free  governments;  if  a  project  equally  effectual 
could  be  established  for  the  universal  peace  of  mankind! 

Should  it  be  asked,  what  is  to  be  the  redress  for  an  insurrec- 
tion pervading  all  the  States,  and  comprising  a  superiority  of  the 
entire  force,  though  not  a  constitutional  right, — the  answer  must 
be  that  such  a  case,  as  it  would  be  without  the  compass  of  human 
remedies,  so  it  is  fortunately  not  within  the  compass  of  human 
probability;  and  that  it  is  a  sufficient  recommendation  of  the 
federal  Constitution,  that  it  diminishes  the  risk  of  a  calamity  for 
which  no  possible  constitution  can  provide  a  cure. 


954i 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

(1864-) 

BY   WILLIAM   SHARP 

iNE  of  the  most  remarkable,  one  of  the  most  widely  known  of 
the  younger  writers  of  the  day,  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  is  still 
little  more  than  a  name  to  the  majority  of  people,  even 
among  those  who  nominally  follow  closely  every  new  expression  of 
the  contemporary  spirit.  Some,  following  the  example  of  his  ultra- 
enthusiastic  French  pioneer,  M.  Octave  Mirbeau,  have  made  for  him 
the  high  claim  of  genius;  others  have  gone 
to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  denied  his  pos- 
session of  any  qualities  save  a  morbid  fan- 
tasy in  drama,  or  of  a  mystical  intensity  in 
spiritual  philosophy. 

That  Maurice  Maeterlinck  is  in  every 
sense  of  the  word  a  most  notable  person- 
ality in  contemporary  literature  is  net  to 
be  denied;  whether  we  like  or  dislike  his 
peculiar  methods  in  the  dramatic  presenta- 
tion of  his  vision  of  life,  or  understand  or 
sympathize  with  his  uncompromising  posi- 
tion as  a  mystic  of  the  kindred  of  Sweden- 
borg,  Jakob  Boehme,  or  that  Ruysbroeck  of 
•whom  he  has  been  the  modern  interpreter. 

It  is  undeniable,  now,  that  the  great  vogue  prophesied  for  the  Maeter- 
linckian  drama  has  not  been  fulfilled.  Possibly  the  day  may  come 
when  the  Drame  Intime  may  have  a  public  following  to  justify  the 
hopes  of  those  who  believe  in  it;  but  that  time  has  not  come  yet. 
Meanwhile,  we  have  to  be  content  with  dramas  of  the  mind  enacted 
against  mental  tapestries,  so  to  say,  or  with  shifting  backgrounds 
among  the  dream  vistas  and  perspectives  of  the  mind.  For  although 
several  of  M.  Maeterlinck's  poetic  plays  have  been  set  upon  the 
stage, — rather  as  puppet  plays  than  in  the  sense  commonly  meant, — 
their  success  has  been  one  of  curiosity  rather  than  of  conviction. 
Even  the  most  impressive  has  seemed  much  less  so  when  subjected 
to  the  conditions  of  stage  representation;  and  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  understand  how  certain  of  them  could  avoid  exciting  that  sense 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


9542  MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

of  incongruity  which  is  fatal  to  a  keen  impression  of  verisimilitude. 
Even  compositions  so  decorative  as  (The  Seven  Princesses,*  or  that 
strange  drama  'The  Blind,*  are  infinitely  more  impressive  when  read 
than  when  seen;  and  this  because  they  are,  like  all  else  of  Mae- 
terlinck's, merely  the  embodiment  in  words,  and  in  a  pseudo-dramatic 
formula,  of  spiritual  allegories  or  dreams.  There  were  many  who 
thought  that  his  short  drama  <The  Intruder*  more  than  stood  the 
test  of  stage  representation.  I  have  seen  <L'Intruse)  twice,  and 
given  with  all  the  skill  and  interpretative  sympathy  possible,  both 
in  Paris  and  London;  and  yet  I  have  not  for  a  moment  found  in  its 
stage  representation  anything  to  approach  the  convincing  and  inti- 
mate appeal,  so  simple  and  yet  so  subtle  and  weird,  afforded  in  the 
perusal  of  the  original. 

We  have,  however,  no  longer  to  consider  Maurice  Maeterlinck 
merely  as  a  dramatist,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  as  a  writer  in  dra- 
matic form.  He  began  as  a  poet,  and  as  a  writer  of  a  very  strange 
piece  of  fiction;  and  now,  and  for  some  time  past,  his  work  has  been 
that  of  a  spiritual  interpreter,  of  an  essayist,  and  of  a  mystic. 

Mooris  Materlinck  —  for  it  was  not  till  he  was  of  age  that  he 
adopted  the  Gallicized  <(  Maurice  Maeterlinck  ** —  was  born  in  Flanders, 
and  is  himself  racially  as  well  as  mentally  and  spiritually  a  Fleming 
of  the  Flemings.  He  has  all  the  physical  endurance,  the  rough  bod- 
ily type,  of  his  countrymen;  but  he  has  also  their  quiet  intensity  of 
feeling,  their  sense  of  dream  and  mystery.  His  earliest  influences  in 
literature  were  French  and  English:  the  French  of  writers  such  as 
Villiers  de  L'Isle-Adam,  the  English  of  writers  such  as  Shakespeare 
and  the  Elizabethan  dramatists.  When,  as  little  more  than  a  youth, 
he  went  to  Paris,  it  was  mainly  in  the  hope  of  discipleship  to  the 
great  Villiers.  It  was  while  in  Paris  that  he  wrote  one  of  his  earliest 
and  to  this  day  one  of  his  most  remarkable  productions,  the  short 
story  entitled  <The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,  >  —  a  study  so  remark- 
able that  it  at  once  attracted  the  attention  of  the  few  who  closely 
follow  every  new  manifestation  of  literary  talent.  In  this  strange 
tale,  Maeterlinck  has  attempted  to  depict  the  Biblical  story  after  the 
manner  of  those  Dutch  and  Flemish  painters  who  represented  with 
unflinching  contemporary  realism  all  their  scenes  based  upon  Script- 
ural episodes  —  that  is  to  say,  who  represented  every  scene,  however 
Oriental  or  remote,  in  accordance  with  Dutch  or  Flemish  customs, 
habits,  dress,  etc.  This  short  story,  however,  appeared  in  an  obscure 
and  long  since  defunct  French  periodical;  and  little  notice  was  taken 
of  it  till  some  years  later,  when  the  present  writer  drew  attention  'to 
it  as  the  first  production  of  its  by  that  time  distinguished  author. 
Since  then  it  has  been  admirably  translated,  and  has  appeared  in  an 
American  edition. 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

But  the  first  actual  book  which  Maurice  Maeterlinck  published  was 
a  volume  of  poems  entitled  c  Serres  Chaudes,' —  a  title  which  we 
might  idiomatically  render  as  (  Hot-house  Blooms. }  These  poems  are 
interesting,  and  we  can  clearly  discern  in  them  the  same  mental 
outlook  and  habit  of  mind  the  author  exhibits  in  his  maturer  prose 
writings;  but  they  have  not  in  any  marked  degree  the  lyric  quality, 
as  a  poet's  work  must  have;  and  for  all  that  there  are  poetical  and 
imaginative  lines  and  verses,  they  suggest  rather  the  work  of  a  rare 
and  imaginative  mind  controlling  itself  to  expression  in  this  manner, 
than  of  one  who  yields  to  it  out  of  imperious  and  impulsive  need. 
In  some  respects  we  find  a  curious  return  to  this  first  book  in  Maeter- 
linck's later  work,  ( Le  Tresor  des  Humbles,)  for  although  it  is  a 
vohime  of  mystical  essays,  and  deals  with  other  themes  than  those 
chiefly  broached  in  (  Serres  Chaudes,'  there  is  a  remarkable  spiritual 
affinity  between  them.  It  is  impossible  to  understand  this  strange 
and  powerful  writer  if  one  does  not  approach  him  on  his  mystical 
side.  It  is  not  necessary  for  the  reader  to  follow  him  in  his  brooding 
hours  with  Ruysbroeck,  or  even  to  listen  to  what  he  has  to  say 
on  the  subject  of  Novalis  and  other  German  mystics;  but  his  subtle 
analytical  study  of  Emerson,  and  above  all,  those  spiritual  essays  of 
his  (entitled  in  English  <  The  Treasure  of  the  Humble )),  should  be 
carefully  studied.  This  last-named  book  has  shared  the  fate  of  all 
works  of  the  kind;  that  is  to  say,  it  has  been  ignored  by  the  great 
majority  of  the  reading  public,  it  has  been  sneered  at  by  an  ever  fret- 
ful and  supercilious  band  of  critics,  and  has  been  received  with  deep 
gladness  and  gratitude  by  the  few  who  welcome  with  joy  any  true 
glad  tidings  of  the  spiritual  life.  Among  these  essays,  two  should  in 
particular  be  read :  those  entitled  ( The  Deeper  Life >  and  (  The  Inner 
Beauty.'  The  last-named,  indeed,  is  really  a  quintessential  essay. 
Just  as  a  certain  monotony  of  detail  characterizes  Maeterlinck's  dra- 
mas, so  a  repetitive  diffuseness  mars  these  prose  essays  of  his. 
Beautiful  thoughts  and  phrases  are  to  be  found  throughout  the  whole 
of  <The  Treasure  of  the  Humble  >;  but  after  all,  the  essay  entitled 
( The  Inner  Beauty  >  comprises  his  whole  spiritual  philosophy.  When 
we  turn  to  Maurice  Maeterlinck  the  dramatist,  we  find  him  the 
supreme  voice  in  modern  Belgian  literature.  As  a  poet  he  is  far  sur- 
passed by  Emile  Verhaeren  —  who  is  indeed  one  of  the  finest  poets 
now  living  in  any  country;  and  as  a  writer  of  prose  he  has  many 
rivals,  and  some  who  have  a  distinction,  grace,  and  power  altogether 
beyond  what  he  has  himself  displayed.  But  as  a  dramatist  —  that  is, 
an  imaginative  artist  working  in  dramatic  form  —  he  holds  a  unique 
and  altogether  remarkable  place. 

In  one  of  his  early  poems  he  exclaims:  (<Mon  ame!  —  Oh,  mon 
ante  vraiment  trop  a  1'abri!"  —  (My  soul!  —  Oh,  truly  my  soul  dwells 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

too*  much  in  the  shadow!)  And  it  is  this  dwelling  in  the  shadow 
which  is  the  dominant  characteristic  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck.  In 
(The  Princess  Maleine,'  in  ( The  Seven  Princesses,  >  in  ( Pelleas  and 
Melisande,>  in  <The  Intruder,  >  and  <  The  Blind,  >— in  one  and  all 
of  these,  to  his  latest  production,  he  hardly  ever  moves  out  of  the 
shadow  of  a  strange  and  affecting  imaginative  gloom.  He  too  might 
with  the  Spanish  writer,  Emilia  Pardo  Bazan,  exclaim :  (<  Enter  with 
me  into  the  dark  zone  of  the  human  soul ! })  It  is  rather,  with 
him,  the  twilight  zone.  He  loves  to  haunt  the  shadowy  ways  where 
night  and  day  concur, — those  shadowy  ways  wherein  human  actions 
and  thoughts  are  still  real,  but  are  invested  with  a  light  or  a  shadow 
either  strange  or  fantastic.  His  method  is  a  simple  one;  but  it  is 
that  kind  of  simplicity  which  involves  a  subtle  and  artistic  mind. 
Often  he  relies  upon  words  as  abstractions,  in  order  to  convey  the 
impression  that  is  in  his  own  mind;  and  this  accounts  for  the  bewil- 
derment which  some  of  his  characteristic  mannerisms  cause  to  many 
readers.  Where  they  see  simple  repetition,  a  vain  and  perhaps  child- 
ish monotony,  Maeterlinck  is  really  endeavoring  to  emphasize  the 
impression  he  seeks  to  convey,  by  dwelling  upon  certain  images, 
accentuating  certain  words,  evoking  certain ,  mental  melodies  or 
rhythms  full  of  a  certain  subtle  suggestion  of  their  own. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  about  this  new  form  in  con- 
temporary dramatic  literature.  It  is  a  form  strangely  seductive,  if 
obviously  perilous.  It  has  possibly  a  remarkable  future  —  coming,  as 
it  has  done,  at  a  time  when  our  most  eager  spirits  are  solicitous  of  a 
wider  scope  in  expression,  for  a  further  opening-up  of  alluring  vis- 
tas through  the  ever  blossoming  wilderness  of  art.  It  may  well  be 
that  Maeterlinck's  chief  service  here  will  prove  rather  to  be  that  of 
a  pioneer — of  a  pioneer  who  has  directed  into  new  channels  the 
stream  which  threatened  to  stagnate  in  the  shallows  of  insincere  con- 
vention. 

Maeterlinck  was  guided  to  the  formula  with  which  his  name  has 
become  so  identified,  primarily  through  the  influence  of  his  friend 
Charles  van  Lerberghe,  the  author  of  <Les  Flaireurs.*  The  short 
dramatic  episode  entitled  <  Les  Flaireurs >  occupies  itself  with  a  single 
incident:  the  death  of  an  old  peasant  woman,  by  night,  in  a  lonely 
cottage  in  a  remote  district,  with  no  companion  save  her  girlish 
grandchild.  Almost  from  the  outset  the  reader  guesses  what  the 
nocturnal  voices  indicate.  The  ruse  of  the  dramatist  is  almost  child- 
ishly simple,  if  its  process  of  development  be  regarded  in  detail. 
The  impressiveness  lies  greatly  in  the  cumulative  effect.  A  night  of 
storm,  the  rain  lashing  at  the  windows,  the  appalling  darkness  with- 
out, the  wan  candle-glow  within,  a  terrified  and-  bewildered  child,  a 
dying  and  delirious  old  woman,  an  ominous  oft-repeated  knocking  at 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


9545 


the  door,  a  hoarse  voice  without,  changeful  but  always  menacing, 
mocking  or  muttering  an  obscure  and  horrible  message:  this  inter- 
wrought,  again  and  again  represented,  austerely  tragic  by-play  —  from 
one  point  of  view,  merely  the  material  for  tragedy  —  is  a  profoundly 
impressive  work  of  art.  It*  is  perhaps  all  the  more  so  from  the  fact 
that  it  relies  to  some  extent  upon  certain  venerable  and  even  out- 
worn conventionalities.  The  midnight  hour,  storm,  mysterious  sounds, 
the  howl  of  a  dog  —  we  are  familiar  with  all  these  (<  properties. }> 
They  do  not  now  move  us.  Sheridan  Le  Fanu,  or  Fitzjames  O'Brien, 
or  R.  L.  Stevenson,  can  create  for  us  an  inward  terror  far  beyond 
the  half-simulated  creep  with  which  we  read  the  conventional  bogy- 
story.  That  Charles  van  Lerberghe  should  so  impress  us  by  the 
simplest  and  most  familiar  stage  tricks  points  to  his  genuine  artistry, 
to  his  essential  masterhood.  The  literary  conjurer  would  fain  deceive 
us  by  sleight  of  hand;  the  literary  artist  persuades  us  by  sleight  of 
mind. 

Van  Lerberghe  is  neither  romanticist  nor  realist,  as  these  vague 
and  often  identical  terms  are  understood  abroad.  He  works  realisti- 
cally in  the  sphere  of  the  imaginary.  If  it  were  not  that  his  aim,  as 
that  of  Maeterlinck,  is  to  bring  into  literature  a  new  form  of  the  drame 
intime,  with  meanwhile  the  adventitious  aid  of  nominal  stage  acces- 
sories, one  might  almost  think  that  ( Les  Flaireurs  >  was  meant  for 
stage  representation.  It  would  be  impossible,  however,  thus.  Imagine 
the  incongruity  of  the  opening  of  this  drama  with  its  subject:  — 

<(  Orchestral  music.  Funeral  march.  Roll  of  muffled  drums.  A  blast  of  a 
horn  in  the  distance.  Roll  of  drums.  A  short  psalmodic  motive  for 
the  organ.  REPEATED  KNOCKS,  HEAVY  AND  DULL.  Curtain.^ 

What  have  orchestral  music  and  rolling  of  drums,  and  a  psalmodic 
motive  for  the  organ,  to  do  with  an  old  peasant  woman  dying  in  a 
cottage  ?  For  that  stage  of  the  imagination  from  which  many  of  us 
derive  a  keener  pleasure  than  from  that  of  any  theatre,  there  is  per- 
haps nothing  incongruous  here.  The  effect  sought  to  be  produced  is 
a  psychic  one;  and  if  produced,  the  end  is  gained,  and  the  means  of 
no  moment.  It  is  only  from  this  standpoint  that  we  can  view  aright 
the  work  of  Van  Lerberghe,  Maeterlinck,  and  Auguste  Jenart.  <Les 
Flaireurs }  is  wholly  unsuitable  for  the  actual  stage, — as  unsuitable  as 
(L'Intruse,>  or  <Les  Aveugles,>  or  <Les  Sept  Princesses,'  or  <  Le  Bar- 
bare. }  Each  needs  to  be  enacted  in  the  shadow-haunted  glade  of  the 
imagination,  in  order  to  be  understood  aright.  Under  the  lime-light 
•  their  terror  becomes  folly,  their  poetry  rhetoric,  their  tragic  signifi- 
cance impotent  commonplace;  their  atmosphere  of  mystery,  the  com- 
mon air  of  the  squalidly  apparent;  their  impressiveness  a  cause  of 
mocking. 


954<5 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


While  in  Maurice  Maeterlinck  we  certainly  encounter  one  of  the 
most  interesting  figures  in  contemporary  letters,  it  is  not  so  easy  to 
arrive  at  a  definite  opinion  as  to  whether  he  is  really  a  dominant 
force. 

There  are  many  who  believe  that  trie  author  of  <La  Princesse 
Maleine> — and  of  many  striking  productions  which  have  succeeded  it 
—  will  attain  to  that  high  mastery  which  makes  a  writer  a  voice  for 
all  men,  and  not  merely  an  arresting  echo  for  his  own  hour,  his  own 
time,  among  his  own  people.  Certainly  his  debut  was  significant, 
remarkable.  Yet  in  France,  where  his  reputation  was  made,  he  is 
already  looked  upon  as  a  waning  force.  Any  new  work  by  him  is 
regarded  with  interest,  with  appreciation  and  sympathy  perhaps,  but 
not  with  that  excited  anticipation  with  which  formerly  it  was  greeted. 
For  ourselves,  we  cannot  estimate  him  otherwise  than  by  his  actual 
achievement.  Has  the  author  of  (La  Princesse  Maleine,*  'L'Intruse,' 
and  < Les  Aveugles y — his  earliest  and  most  discussed  works  —  fulfilled 
himself  in  <Pelleas  et  Melisande  >  and  the  successors  of  that  mov- 
ing drama?  His  admirers  declared  that  in  this  last-named  play  we 
should  find  him  at  his  best  and  most  mature.  But  (Pelleas  and  Meli- 
sande)  has  not  stood  the  test. 

Yet  I  do  not  think  (Pelleas  et  Melisande*  is  —  what  so  many  claim 
for  it  —  Maeterlinck's  Sedan.  All  the  same  it  is,  at  best,  «a  faithful 
failure. w  I  believe  he  will  give  us  still  better  work;  work  as  dis- 
tinctive as  his  two  masterpieces,  <L'Intruse>  and  <Les  Aveugles, } 
but  with  a  wider  range  of  sympathy,  more  genial  an  insight,  an 
apprehension  and  technical  achievement  more  masterly  still.  Indeed, 
in  <Tintagiles)  and  his  latest  productions,  he  has  to  a  large  extent 
fulfilled  the  wonderful  imaginative  beauty  with  which  he  charmed 
us  in  (  Les  Sept  Princesses. }  Still,  even  here  it  is  rather  the  dream- 
record  of  a  dreamer  than  the  actual  outlook  on  life  of  a  creative 
mind. 

Finally,  what  we  have  to  bear  in  mind  meanwhile  is  that  Maurice 
Maeterlinck  is  possibly  the  pioneer  of  a  new  method  coming  into 
literature.  We  must  not  look  too  closely,  whether  in  praise  or  blame, 
to  those  treasured  formulas  of  his,  of  which  so  much  has  been  said. 
What  is  inessential  in  these  he  will  doubtless  unlearn;  what  is  essen- 
tial he  will  probably  develop.  For  it  is  not  in  the  accidents  of  his 
dramatic  expression  that  so  fine  an  artist  as  Maeterlinck  is  an  origi- 
nal writer,  but  in  that  quality  of  insight  which  is  his  own,  that  phras- 
ing, that  atmosphere. 


CjUcCu.^ 


MAURICE    MAETERLINCK  9546  a 

EDITORIAL  NOTE.  —  As  William  Sharp's  death  excluded  the  possi- 
bility of  the  revision  of  the  foregoing  article  by  his  own  hand,  it  seemed 
best  to  the  Editors  to  leave  it  untouched,  for  it  is  an  admirable  presen- 
tation of  Maeterlinck's  work  up  to  the  time  that  it  was  written.  Sharp's 
distrust  of  the  permanent  success  of  the  mystical  dramas,  expressed 
with-  so  much  sympathy  and  insight,  was  later  confirmed  by  the  drama- 
tist himself.  Indeed  Maeterlinck  confounded  some  of  his  more  en- 
thusiastic disciples  by  speaking  in  tones  of  decided  depreciation  of 
these  earlier  plays,  and  his  dramatic  work  took  an  entirely  new  turn. 
The  change  has  been  ascribed  to  his  desire  to  write  a  play  suited  to  the 
talent  of  the  charming  and  gifted  actress,  Georgette  Leblanc,  whom 
he  married  in  1901,  but  it  should  doubtless  be  attributed  to  more 
profound  developments  in  his  artistic  and  intellectual  life.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  ( Mona  Vanna)  (1902)  offered  a  complete 
contrast  to  his  earlier  dramatic  work;  instead  of  the  vague  background 
of  legendary  northern  forests,  we  have  a  definite  scene  —  Pisa  at  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  —  and  instead  of  the  drame  intime  of 
humble  souls  or  mystic  princesses,  we  have  the  stirring  incidents  of  a 
siege  and  the  clash  of  contending  politicians.  All  this,  it  is  true,  is 
interwoven  with  the  spiritual  struggles  that  take  place  in  the  hearts  of 
Mona  Vanna,  her  husband,  and  her  lover,  but  the  drama  in  its  tone 
and  atmosphere  is  much  closer  to  Browning's  (Luria,)  to  which  it  was 
obviously  indebted,  than  to  anything  its  author  had  done  before.  As 
a  historical  melodrama  it  was  made  effective  enough  on  the  American 
stage  by  a  talented  emotional  actress  of  the  day,  but  it  was  necessary 
for  the  critics  to  point  out  its  spiritual  significance,  which  was  pre- 
sumably the  dramatist's  chief  aim,  but  which  somehow  disappeared 
in  the  representation.  » 

Maeterlinck  was  hardly  more  successful  in  dealing  with  a  subject 
from  Christian  tradition,  in  (Sister  Beatrice)  (1901)  or  from  Arthurian 
legend  in  (Joyzelle)  (1903),  but  in  (The  Blue  Bird)  (1908)  he  at  last 
found  material  exactly  suited  for  dramatic  treatment  by  him  from  the 
point  of  view  at  which  he  had  now  arrived  —  that  of  the  agnostic 
mystic  —  who  accepts  the  facts  of  science,  but  sees  beyond  them  a 
vast  field  for  poetic  imagination.  First  acted  in  Moscow,  (The  Blue 
Bird)  made  its  triumphant  way  all  over  Europe  and  across  the  Atlantic; 
it  is  still  perhaps  the  most  popular  of  fairy  plays,  both  with  children, 
who  are  delighted  by  its  romantic  treatment  of  matters  of  everyday 
experience,  and  by  adult  critics,  who  find  in  it  suggestions  of  deep 
spiritual  significance. 

Before  (The  Blue  Bird)  achieved  its  world  wide  dramatic  success 
Maeterlinck  had  firmly  established  his  reputation  as  a  writer  of  prose 
in  (La  Vie  des  Abeilles)  (The  Life  of  the  Bee,  1901).  It  was  not  that 
like  Fabre  he  discovered  new  facts,  but  he  gave  to  what  was  already 
known  a  romantic  charm  due  to  an  imaginative  insight  and  a  peculiarly 


9546b  MAURICE     MAETERLINCK 

attractive  style,  of  which  the  following  description  of  the  queen  bee's 
nuptial  flight  may  serve  as  an  example: 

((She  starts  her  flight  backwards;  returns  twice  or  thrice  to  the  alighting-board; 
and  then,  having  definitely  fixed  in  her  mind  the  exact  situation  and  aspect  of  the 
kingdom  she  has  never  yet  seen  from  without,  she  departs  like  an  arrow  to  the 
zenith  of  the  blue.  She  soars  to  a  height,  a  luminous  zone,  that  other  bees  attain 
at  no  period  of  their  life.  Far  away,  caressing  their  idleness  in  the  midst  of  the 
flowers,  the  males  have  beheld  the  apparition,  have  breathed  the  magnetic  perfume 
that  spreads  from  group  to  group  till  every  apiary  near  is  instinct  with  it.  Immedi- 
ately crowds  collect,  and  follow  her  into  the  sea  of  gladness,  whose  limpid  boundaries 
ever  recede.  She,  drunk  with  her  wings,  obeying  the  magnificent  law  of  the  race 
that  chooses  jier  lover,  and  enacts  that  the  strongest  alone  shall  attain  her  in  the 
solitude  of  the  ether,  she  rises  still;  and,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  the  blue  morning 
air  rushes  into  her  stigmata,  singing  its  song,  like  the  blood  of  heaven,  in  the  myriad 
tubes  of  the  tracheal  sacs,  nourished  on  space,  that  fill  the  centre  of  her  body.  She 
rises  still.  A  region  must  be  found  unhaunted  by  birds,  that  else  might  profane  the 
mystery.  She  rises  still;  and  already  the  ill-assorted  troop  below  are  dwindling  and 
falling  asunder.  The  feeble,  infirm,  the  aged,  unwelcome,  ill-fed,  who  have  flown 
from  inactive  or  impoverished  cities,  these  renounce  the  pursuit  and  disappear  in 
the  void.  Only  a  small,  indefatigable  cluster  remain,  suspended  in  infinite  opal. 
She  summons  her  wings  for  one  final  effort;  and  now  the  chosen  of  incomprehensible 
forces  has  reached  her,  has  seized  her,  and  bounding  aloft  with  united  impetus,  the 
ascending  spiral  of  their  intertwined  flight  whirls  for  one  second  in  the  hostile  madness 
of  love.)) 

Maeterlinck's  genius  next  sought  an  outlet  in  discussions  of  psychical 
phenomena,  more  especially  in  connection  with  the  problem  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  His  essays  on  the  subject  have  his  unfailing 
charm  of  style,  but  are  less  readable  on  account  of  the  uncongenial 
material  he  has  undertaken  to  handle.  His  philosophic  discussions  of 
the  general  problem  of  immortality  are  marked  by  scientific  reserve, 
curiously  combined  with  the  native  cheerfulness  which  goes  with  his 
Flemish  temperament  and  robust  physique.  He  cannot  be  said  to  have 
added  anything  to  our  knowledge  of  life  beyond  the  grave,  but  he  writes 
about  it  sympathetically  and  courageously. 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  interrupted  Maeterlinck's  literary  and 
philosophic  interest.  Although  he  had  long  resided  at  the  beautiful 
Abbey  of  Ste.  Wandrille  in  France  he  remained  thoroughly  Belgian  at 
heart,  and  he  plunged  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  passionate  temperament 
and  the  eloquence  of  his  moving  style  into  protests  and  pleas  on  behalf 
of  his  unhappy  compatriots.  These  belong  perhaps  rather  to  history 
than  to  literature,  but  the  unsparing  devotion  with  which  Maeter- 
linck gave  himself  to  the  cause  of  his  unfortunate  country  cannot  but 
command  our  admiration. 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


FROM   <THE   DEATH   OF  TINTAGILES> 


9547 


The    Plays    of  Maurice   Maeterlinck,    Second    Series.      Translated   by   Richard 
Hovey.     Copyright  1896,  by  Stone  &  Kimball. 

Scene:   At  the  top  of  a  hill  overlooking  the  castle.     Enter  Ygraine,  holding 
Tintagiles  by  the  hand. 

YGRAINE  —  Thy  first  night  will  be  troubled,  Tintagiles.  Already 
the  sea  howls  about  us;  and  the  trees  are  moaning.  It  is 
late.  The  moon  is  just  setting  behind  the  poplars  that  stifle 
the  palace.  We  are  alone,  perhaps,  for  all  that  here  we  have  to 
live  on  guard.  There  seems  to  be  a  watch  set  for  the  approach 
of  the  slightest  happiness.  I  said  to  myself  one  day,  in  the  very 
depths  of  my  soul, —  and  God  himself  could  hardly  hear  it, —  I 
said  to  myself  one  day  I  should  be  happy.  There  needed  noth- 
ing further:  in  a  little  while  our  old  father  died,  and  both  our 
brothers  vanished  without  a  single  human  being  able  since  to  tell 
us  where  they  are.  Now  I  am  all  alone,  with  my  poor  sister  and 
thee,  my  little  Tintagiles;  and  I  have  no  faith  in  the  future. 
Come  here;  sit  on  my  knee.  Kiss  me  first:  and  put  thy  little 
arms  there,  all  the  way  around  my  neck;  perhaps  they  will  not 
be  able  to  undo  them.  Rememberest  thou  the  time  when  it  was 
I  that  carried  thee  at  night  when  bedtime  came;  and  when  thou 
fearedst  the  shadows  of  my  lamp  in  the  long  windowless  corri- 
dors ? —  I  felt  my  soul  tremble  upon  my  lips  when  I  saw  thee, 
suddenly,  this  morning.  I  thought  thee  so  far  away,  and  so 
secure.  Who  was  it  made  thee  come  here  ? 

Tintagiles  —  I  do  not  know,  little  sister. 

Ygraine  —  Thou  dost  not  know  any  longer  what  was  said  ? 

Tintagiles  —  They  said  I  had  to  leave. 

Ygraine  —  But  why  hadst  thou  to  leave? 

Tintagiles  —  Because  it  was  the  Queen's  will. 

Ygraine  —  They  did  not  say  why  it  was  her  will?  —  I  am  sure 
they  said  many  things. 

Tintagiles — I  heard  nothing,  little  sister. 

Ygraine  —  When  they  spoke  among  themselves,  what  did  they 
say  ? 

Tintagiles  —  They  spoke  in  a  low  voice,  little  sister. 

Ygraine  —  All  the  time? 

Tintagiles  —  All  the  time,  sister  Ygraine;  except  when  they 
looked  at  me. 

Ygraine — They  did  not  speak  of  the  Queen? 


9548 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


Tintagiles — They  said  she  was  never  seen,  sister  Ygraine. 

Ygraine — And  those  who  were  with  thee,  on  the  bridge  of 
the  ship,  said  nothing? 

Tintagiles  —  They  minded  nothing  but  the  wind  and  the  sails, 
sister  Ygraine. 

Ygraine — Ah!   that  does  not  astonish  me,  my  child. 

Tintagiles — They  left  me  all  alone,  little  sister. 

Ygraine — Listen,  Tintagiles,  I  will  tell  thee  what  I  know. 

Tintagiles  —  What  dost  thou  know,  sister  Ygraine? 

Ygraine  —  Not  much,  my  child.  My  sister  and  I  have  crept 
along  here,  since  our  birth,  without  daring  to  understand  a  whit 
of  all  that  happens.  For  a  long  while,  indeed,  I  lived  like  a  blind 
woman  on  this  island;  and  it  all  seemed  natural  to  me.  I  saw 
no  other  events  than  the  flying  of  a  bird,  the  trembling  of  a  leaf, 
the  opening  of  a  rose.  There  reigned  such  a  silence  that  the 
falling  of  a  ripe  fruit  in  the  park  called  faces  to  the  windows. 
And  no  one  seemed  to  have  the  least  suspicion;  but  one  night 
I  learned  there  must  be  something  else.  I  would  have  fled,  and 
could  not.  Hast  thou  understood  what  I  have  said  ? 

Tintagiles  —  Yes,  yes,  little  sister:  I  understand  whatever  you 
will. 

Ygraine — Well,  then,  let  us  speak  no  more  of  things  that  are 
not  known.  Thou  seest  yonder,  behind  the  dead  trees  that  poison 
the  horizon  —  thou  seest  the  castle  yonder,  in  the  depth  of  the 
valley  ? 

Tintagiles — That  which  is  so  black,  sister  Ygraine? 

Ygraine  —  It  is  black  indeed.  It  is  at  the  very  depth  of  an 
amphitheatre  of  shadows.  We  have  to  live  there.  It  might  have 
been  built  on  the  summit  of  the  great  mountains  that  surround 
it.  The  mountains  are  blue  all  day.  We  should  have  breathed. 
We  should  have  seen  the  sea  and  the  meadows  on  the  other  side 
of  the*  rocks.  But  they  preferred  to  put  it  in  the  depth  of  the 
valley;  and  the  very  air  does  not  go  down  .so  low.  It  is  falling 
in  ruins,  and  nobody  bewares.  The  walls  are  cracking;  you 
would  say  it  was  dissolving  in  the  shadows.  There  is  only  one 
tower  unassailed  by  the  weather.  It  is  enormous;  and  the  house 
never  comes  out  of  its  shadow. 

Tintagiles  —  There  is  something  shining,  sister  Ygraine.  See, 
see,  the  great  red  windows! 

Ygraine — They  are  those  of  the  tower,  Tintagiles:  they  are 
the  only  ones  where  you  will  see  light;  it  is  there  the  throne  of 
the  Queen  is  set. 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


9549 


Tintagiles — I  shall  not  see  the  Queen? 

Ygraine — No  one  can  see  her. 

Tintagiles — Why  can't  one  see  her? 

Ygraine  —  Come  nearer,  Tintagiles.  Not  a  bird  nor  a  blade  of 
grass  must  hear  us. 

Tintagiles  —  There  is  no  grass,  little  sister.  [A  silence.']  — 
What  does  the  Queen  do  ? 

Ygraine — No  one  knows,  my  child.  She  does  not  show  her- 
self. She  lives  there,  all  alone  in  her  tower;  and  they  that  serve 
her  do  not  go  out  by  day.  She  is  very  old;  she  is  the  mother 
of  our  mother;  and  she  would  reign  alone.  She  is  jealous  and 
.suspicious,  and  they  say  that  she  is  mad.  She  fears  lest  some  one 
rise  into  her  place,  and  it  was  doubtless  because  of  that  fear  that 
she  had  thee  brought  hither.  Her  orders  are  carried  out  no  one 
knows  how.  She  never  comes  down;  and  all  the  doors  of  the 
tower  are  closed  night  and  day.  I  aever  caught  a  glimpse  of 
her;  but  others  have  seen  her,  it  seems,  in  the  past,  when  she 
was  young. 

Tintagiles  —  Is  she  very  ugly,  sister  Ygraine? 

Ygraine  —  They  say  she  is  not  beautiful,  and  that  she  is  grow- 
ing huge.  But  they  that  have  seen  her  dare  never  speak  of  it. 
Who  knows,  indeed,  if  they  have  seen  her?  She  has  a  power  not 
to  be  understood ;  and  we  live  here  with  a  great  unpitying  weight 
upon  our  souls.  Thou  must  not  be  frightened  beyond  measure, 
nor  have  bad  dreams;  we  shall  watch  over  thee,  my  little  Tinta- 
giles, and  no  evil  will  be  able  to  reach  thee:  but  do  not  go  far 
from  me,  your  sister  Bellangere,  nor  our  old  master  Aglovale. 

Tintagiles  —  Not  from  Aglovale  either,  sister  Ygraine? 

Ygraine  —  Not  from  Aglovale  either.     He  loves  us. 

Tintagiles — He  is  so  old,  little  sister! 

Ygraine — He  is  old,  but  very  wise.  He  is  the  only  friend 
we  have  left;  and  he  knows  many  things.  It  is  strange;  she  has 
made  thee  come  hither  without  letting  any  one  know.  I  do  not 
know  what  there  is  in  my  heart.  I  was  sorry  and  glad  to  know 
thou  wert  so  far  away,  beyond  the  sea.  And  now  —  I  was  aston- 
ished. I  went  out  this  morning  to  see  if  the  sun  was  rising  over 
the  mountains;  and  it  is  thou  I  see  upon  the  threshold.  I  knew 
thee  at  once. 

Tintagiles  — No,  no,  little  sister:  it  was  I  that  laughed  first. 

Ygraine — I  could  not  laugh  at  once.  Thou  wilt  understand. 
It  is  time,  Tintagiles,  and  the  wind  is  growing  black  upon  the 


9550  MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

sea.  Kiss  me  harder,  again,  again,  before  thou  standest  upright. 
Thou  knowest  not  how  we  love.  Give  me  thy  little  hand.  I 
shall  guard  it  well;  and  we  will  go  back  into  the  sickening  castle. 

\Exeunt. 

Scene:   An   apartment  in   the   castle.      Agio  vale    and  Ygraine    discovered. 
Enter  Bellangere. 

Be  Hanger  e — Where  is  Tintagiles  ? 

Ygraine — Here;  do  not  speak  too  loud.  He  sleeps  in  the 
other  room.  He  seems  a  little  pale,  a  little  ailing  too.  He  was 
tired  by  the  journey  and  the  long  sea-voyage.  Or  else  the  atmo-, 
sphere  of  the  castle  has  startled  his  little  soul.  He  cried  for  no 
cause.  I  rocked  him  to  sleep  on  my  knees;  come,  see.  He  sleeps 
in  our  bed.  He  sleeps  very  gravely,  with  one  hand  on  his  fore- 
head, like  a  little  sad  king. 

Bellangere  [bursting  suddenly  into  tears\  —  My  sister !  my  sis- 
ter !  my  poor  sister ! 

Ygraine  —  What  is  the  matter? 

Bellangere — I  dare  not  say  what  I  know,  and  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  know  anything,  and  yet  I  heard  that  which  one  could  not 
hear  — 

Ygraine  —  What  didst  thou  hear? 

Bellangere  —  I  was  passing  near  the  corridors  of  the  tower  — 

Ygraine  —  Ah ! 

Bellangere  —  A  door  there  was  ajar.  I  pushed  it  very  softly. 
I  went  in. 

Ygraine  —  In  where  ? 

Bellangere — I  had  never  seen  the  place.  There  were  other 
corridors  lighted  with  lamps;  then  low  galleries  that  had  no  out- 
let. I  knew  it  was  forbidden  to  go  on.  I  was  afraid,  and  I  was 
going  to  return  upon  my  steps,  when  I  heard  a  sound  of  voices 
one  could  hardly  hear. 

Ygraine — It  must  have  been  the  handmaids  of  the  Queen: 
they  dwell  at  the  foot  of  the  tower. 

Bellangere  —  I  do  not  know  just  what  it  was.  There  must 
have  been  more  than  one  door  between  us;  and  the  voices  came 
to  me  like  the  voice  of  some  one  who  was  being  smothered.  I 
drew  as  near  as  I  could.  I  am  not  sure  of  anything,  but  I  think 
they  spoke  of  a  child  that  came  t;o-day  and  of  a  crown  of  gold. 
They  seemed  to  be  laughing. 


MAURICE' MAETERLINCK 

Ygraine  —  They  laughed  > 

Bellangere — Yes,  I  think  they  laughed,  unless  they  were 
weeping,  or  unless  it  was  something  I  did  not  understand;  for  it 
was  hard  to  hear,  and  their  voices  were  sweet.  They  seemed  to 
echo  in  a  crowd  under  the  arches.  They  spoke  of  the  child  the 
Queen  would  see.  They  will  probably  come  up  this  evening. 

Ygraine  —  What  ?   this  evening? 

Bellangere  —  Yes,  yes,  I  think  so. 

Ygraine  —  They  spoke  no  one's  name? 

Bellangere  —  They 'spoke  of  a  child,  of  a  very  little  child. 

Ygraine — There  is  no  other  child. 

Bellangere  —  They  raised  their  voices  a  little  at  that  moment, 
because  one  of  them  had  said  the  day  seemed  not  yet  come. 

Ygraine — I  know  what  that  means;  it  is  not  the  first  time 
they  have  issued  from  the  tower.  I  knew  well  why  she  made 
him  come ;  but  I  could  not  believe  she  would  hasten  so !  We 
shall  see;  we  are  three,  and  we  have  time. 

Bellangere  —  What  wilt  thou  do  ? 

Ygraine — I  do  not  know  yet  what  I  shall  do,  but  I  will  aston- 
ish her.  Do  you  know  how  you  tremble  ?  I  will  tell  you  — 

Bellangere  —  What  ? 

Ygraine — She  shall  not  take  him  without  trouble. 

Bellangere  —  We  are  alone,  sister  Ygraine. 

Ygraine  —  Ah!  it  is  true,  we  are  alone!  There  is  but  one 
remedy,  the  one  with  which  we  have  always  succeeded!  Let  us 
wait  upon  our  knees  as  the  other  times.  Perhaps  she  will  have 
pity!  She  allows  herself  to  be  disarmed  by  tears.  We  must 
grant  her  all  she  asks  us;  haply  she  will  smile;  and  she  is  wont 
to  spare  all  those  who  kneel.  She  has  been  there  for  years  in 
her  huge  tower,  devouring  our  beloved,  and  none,  not  one,  has 
dared  to  strike  her  in  •  the  face.  She  is  there,  upon  our  souls, 
like  the  stone  of  a  tomb,  and  no  one  dare  put  forth  his  arm.  In 
the  time  when  there  were  men  here,  they  feared  too,  and  fell 
upon  their  faces.  To-day  it  is  the  woman's  turn:  we  shall  see. 
It  is  time  to  rise  at  last.  We  know  not  upon  what  her  power 
rests,  and  I  will  live  no  longer  in  the  shadow  of  her  tower.  Go  — 
go,  both  of  you,  and  leave  me  more  alone  still,  if  you  tremble 
too.  I  shall  await  her. 

Bellangere — Sister,  I  do  not  know  what  must  be  done;  but  I 
stay  with  thee. 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

Aglovale  —  I  too  stay,  my  daughter.  For  a  long-  time  my  soul 
has  been  restless.  You  are  going  to  try.  We  have  tried  more 
than  once. 

Ygraine  —  You  have  tried  —  you  too? 

Aglovale  —  They  have  all  tried.  But  at  the  last  moment  they 
have  lost  their  strength.  You  will  see,  you  too.  Should  she  order 
me  to  come  up  to  her  this  very  night,  I  should  clasp  both  my 
hands  without  a  word;  and  my  tired  feet  would  climb  the  stair, 
without  delay  and  without  haste,  well  as  I  know  no  one  comes 
down  again  with  open  eyes.  I  have  no  more  courage  against 
her.  Our  hands  are  of  no  use  and  reach  no  one.  They  are  not 
the  hands  we  need,  and  all  is  useless.  But  I  would  help  you, 
because  you  hope.  Shut  the  doors,  my  child.  Wake  Tintagiles; 
encircle  him  with  your  little  naked  arms  and  take  him  on  your 
knees.  We  have  no  other  defense. 


THE   INNER   BEAUTY 
From  <The  Treasure  of  the  Humble  > 

THERE  is  nothing  in  the  whole  world  that  can  vie  with  the 
soul  in  its  eagerness  for  beauty,  or  in  the  ready  power 
wherewith  it  adopts  beauty  unto  itself.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  world  capable  of  such  spontaneous  uplifting,  of  such 
speedy  ennoblement;  nothing  that  offers  more  scrupulous  obedi- 
ence to  the  pure  and  noble  commands  it  receives.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  world  that  yields  deeper  submission  to  the  empire 
of  a  thought  that  is  loftier  than  other  thoughts.  And  on  this 
earth  of  ours  there  are  but  few  souls  that  can  withstand  the 
dominion  of  the  soul  that  has  suffered  itself  to  become  beautiful. 
In  all  truth  might  it  be  said  that  beauty  is  the  unique  ali- 
ment of  our  soul;  for  in  all  places  does  it  search  for  beauty,  and 
it  perishes  not  of  hunger  even  in  the  most  degraded  of  .lives. 
For  indeed  nothing  of  beauty  can  pass  by  and  be  altogether 
unperceived.  Perhaps  does  it  never  pass  by  save  only  in  our 
unconsciousness:  but  its  action  is  no  less  puissant  in  gloom  of 
night  than  by  light  of  day;  the  joy  it  procures  may  be  less  tan- 
gible, but  other  difference  there  is  none.  Look  at  the  most  ordi- 
nary of  men,  at  a  time  when  a  little  beauty  has  contrived  to 
steal  into  their  darkness.  They  have  come  together,  it  matters 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

not  where,  and  for  no  special  reason;  but  no  sooner  are  they 
assembled  than  their  very  first  thought  would  seem  to  be  to 
close  the  great  doors  of  life.  Yet  has  each  one  of  them,  when 
alone,  more  than  once  lived  in  accord  with  his  soul.  He  has 
loved  perhaps,  of  a  surety  he  has  suffered.  Inevitably  must  he 
too  have  heard  the  (<  sounds  that  come  from  the  distant  country 
of  Splendor  and  Terror }>  ;  and  many  an  evening  has  he  bowed 
down  in  silence  before  laws  that  are  deeper  than  the  sea.  And 
yet  when  these  men  are  assembled,  it  is  with  the  basest  of 
things  that  they  love  to  debauch  themselves.  They  have  a  strange 
indescribable  fear  of  beauty;  and  as  their  number  increases,  so 
does  this  fear  become  greater,  resembling  indeed  their  dread  of 
silence  or  of  a  verity  that  is  too  pure.  And  so  true  is  this,  that 
were  one  of  them  to  have  done  something  heroic  in  the  course 
of  the  day,  he  would  ascribe  wretched  motives  to  his  conduct, 
thereby  endeavoring  to  find  excuses  for  it,  and  these  motives 
would  lie  readily  to  his  hand  in  that  lower  region  where  he  and 
his  fellows  were  assembled.  And  yet  listen:  a  proud  and  lofty 
word  has  been  spoken,  a  word  that  has  in  a  measure  undammed 
the  springs  of  life.  For  one  instant  has  a  soul  dared  to  reveal 
itself,  even  such  as  it  is  in  love  and  sorrow,  such  as  it  is  in  face 
of  death  and  in  the  solitude  that  dwells  around  the  stars  of 
night.  Disquiet  prevails;  on  some  faces  there  is  astonishment, 
others  smile.  But  have  you  never  felt  at  moments  such  as  those 
how  unanimous  is  the  fervor  wherewith  every  soul  admires, 
and  how  unspeakably  even  the  very  feeblest,  from  the  remotest 
depths  of  its  dungeon,  approves  the  word  it  has  recognized  as 
akin  to  itself  ?  For  they  have  all  suddenly  sprung  to  life  again  in 
the  primitive  and  normal  atmosphere  that  is  their  own ;  and  could 
you  but  hearken  with  angels'  ears,  I  doubt  not  but  you  would 
hear  mightiest  applause  in  that  kingdom  of  amazing  radiance 
wherein  the  souls  do  dwell.  Do  you  not  think  that  even  the 
most  timid  of  them  would  take  courage  unto  themselves  were 
but  similar  words  to  be  spoken  every  evening  ?  Do  you  not 
think  that  men  would  live  purer  lives  ?  And  yet  though  the 
word  come  not  again,  still  will  something  momentous  have  hap- 
pened, that  must  leave  still  more  momentous  trace  behind. 
Every  evening  will  its  sisters  recognize  the  soul  that  pronounced 
the  word;  and  henceforth,  be  the  conversation  never  so  trivial, 
its  mere  presence  will,  I  know  not  how,  add  thereto  something  of 
majesty.  Whatever  else  betide,  there  has  been  a  change  that  we 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

cannot  determine.  No  longer  will  such  absolute  power  be  vested 
in  the  baser  side  of  things,  and  henceforth  even  the  most  terror- 
stricken  of  souls  will  know  that  there  is  somewhere  a  place  of 
refuge. 

Certain  it  is  that  the  natural  and  primitive  relationship  of 
soul  to  soul  is  a  relationship  of  beauty.  For  beauty  is  the  only 
language  of  our  soul;  none  other  is  known  to  it.  It  has  no  other 
life,  it  can  produce  nothing  else,  in  nothing  else  can  it  take  in- 
terest. And  therefore  it  is  that  the  most  oppressed,  nay,  the 
most  degraded  of  souls, — if  it  may  truly  be  said  that  a  soul  can 
be  degraded, — immediately  hail  with  acclamation  every  thought, 
every  word  or  deed,  that  is  great  and  beautiful.  Beauty  is  the 
only  element  wherewith  the  soul  is  organically  connected,  and  it 
has  no  other  standard  or  judgment.  This  is  brought  home  to  us 
at  every  moment  of  our  life,  and  is  no  less  evident  to  the  man  by 
whom  beauty  may  more  than  once  have  been  denied,  than  to  him 
who  is  ever  seeking  it  in  his  heart.  Should  a  day  come  when 
you  stand  in  profoundest  need  of  another's  sympathy,  would  you 
go  to  him  who  was  wont  to  greet  the  .passage  of  beauty  with  a 
sneering  smile  ?  Would  you  go  to  him  whose  shake  of  the  head 
had  sullied  a  generous  action  or  a  mere  impulse  that  was  pure  ? 
Even  though  perhaps  you  had  been  of  those  who  commended  him, 
you  would  none  the  less,  when  it  was  truth  that  knocked  at  your 
door,  turn  to  the  man  who  had  known  how  to  prostrate  himself 
and  love.  In  its  very  depths  had  your  soul  passed  its  judgment; 
and  it  is  this  silent  and  unerring  judgment  that  will  rise  to  the 
surface,  after  thirty  years  perhaps,  and  send  you  towards  a  sister 
who  shall  be  more  truly  you  than  you  are  yourself,  for  that  she 
has  been  nearer  to  beauty. 

There  needs  but  so  little  to  encourage  beauty  in  our  soul;  so 
little  to  awaken  the  slumbering  angels;  or  perhaps  is  there  no 
need  of  awakening, — it  is  enough  that  we  lull  them  not  to  sleep. 
It  requires  more  effort  to  fall,  perhaps,  than  to  rise.  Can  we, 
without  putting  constraint  upon  ourselves,  confine  our  thoughts 
to  every-day  things  at  times  when  the  sea  stretches  before  us  and 
we  are  face  to  face  with  the  night  ?  And  what  soul  is  there  but 
knows  that  it  is  ever  confronting  the  sea,  ever  in  presence  of  an 
eternal  night  ?  Did  we  but  dread  beauty  less,  it  would  come 
about  that  naught  else  in  life  would  be  visible;  for  in  reality  it 
is  beauty  that  underlies  everything,  it  is  beauty  alone  that  exists. 
There  is  no  soul  but  is  conscious  of  this;  none  that  is  not  in 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


9555 


readiness;  but  where  are  those  that  hide  not  their  beauty?  And 
yet  must  one  of  them  (<  begin."  Why  not  dare  to  be  the  one  to 
(<  begin }>  ?  The  others  are  all  watching  eagerly  around  us  like 
little  children  in  front  of  a  marvelous  palace..  They  press  upon 
the  threshold,  whispering  to  each  other  and  peering  through 
every  crevice;  but  there  is  not  one  who  dares  put  his  shoulder 
to  the  door.  They  are  all  waiting  for  some  grown-up  person 
to  come  and  fling  it  open.  But  hardly  ever  does  such  a  one 
pass  by. 

And  yet  what  is  needed  to  become  the  grown-up  person  for 
whom  they  lie  in  wait  ?  So  little !  The  soul  is  not  exacting.  A 
thought  that  is  almost  beautiful  —  a  thought  that  you  speak  not, 
but  that  you  cherish  within  you  at  this  moment  —  will  irradiate 
you  as  though  you  were  a  transparent  vase.  They  will  see  it, 
and  their  greeting  to  you  will  be  very  different  than  had  you 
been  meditating  how  best  to  deceive  your  brother.  We  are  sur- 
prised when  certain  men  tell  us  that  they  have  never  come 
across  real  ugliness,  that  they  cannot  conceive  that  a  soul  can  be 
base.  Yet  need  there  be  no  cause  for  surprise.  These  men  had 
"begun."  They  themselves  had  been  the  first  to  be  beautiful, 
and  had  therefore  attracted  all  the  beauty  that  passed  by,  as  a 
light-house  attracts  the  vessels  from  the  four  corners  of  the  hori- 
zon. Some  there  are  who  complain  of  women,  lor  instance; 
never  dreaming  that  the  first  time  a  man  meets  a  woman,  a  sin- 
gle word  or  thought  that  denies  tfce  beautiful  or  profound  will 
be  enough  to  poison  forever  his  existence  in  her  soul.  (<  For  my 
part, )}  said  a  sage  to  me  one  day,  <(  I  have  never  come  across 
a  single  woman  who  did  not  bring  to  me  something  that  was 
great. }>  He  was  great  himself  first  of  all;  therein  lay  his  secret. 
There  is  one  thing  only  that  the  soul  can  never  forgive:  it  is  to 
have  been  compelled  to  behold,  or  share,  or  pass  close  to  an  ugly 
action,  word,  or  thought.  It  cannot  forgive,  for  forgiveness  here 
were  but  the  denial  of  itself.  And  yet  with  the  generality  of 
men,  ingenuity,  strength,  and  skill  do  but  imply  that  the  soul 
must  first  of  all  be  banished  from  their  life,  and  that  every  im- 
pulse that  lies  too  deep  must  be  carefully  brushed  aside.  Even 
in  love  do  they  act  thus;  and  therefore  it  is  that  the  woman, 
who  is  so  much  nearer  the  truth,  can  scarcely  ever  live  a  mo- 
ment of  the  true  life  with  them.  It  is  as  though  men  dreaded 
the  contact  of  their  soul,  and  were  anxious  to  keep  its  beauty 
at  immeasurable  distance.  Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  we  should 


9556 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


endeavor  to  move  in  advance  of  ourselves.  If  at  this  moment 
you  think  or  say  something  that  is  too  beautiful  to  be  true  in 
you — if  you  have  but  endeavored  to  think  or  say  it  to-day,  on 
the  morrow  it  will  be  true.  We  must  try  to  be  more  beautiful 
than  ourselves;  we  shall  never  distance  our  soul.  We  can  never 
err  when  it  is  question  of  silent  or  hidden  beauty.  Besides, 
so  long-  as  the  spring  within  us  be  limpid,  it  matters  but  little 
whether  error  there  be  or  not.  But  do  any  of  us  ever  dream 
of  making  the  slightest  unseen  effort?  And  yet  in  the  domain 
where  we  are,  everything  is  effective;  for  that,  everything  is 
waiting.  All  the  doors  are  unlocked;  we  have  but  to  push  them 
open,  and  the  palace  is  full  of  manacled  queens.  A  single  word 
will  very  often  suffice  to  clear  the  mountain  of  refuse.  Why  not 
have  the  courage  to  meet  a  base  question  with  a  noble  answer  ? 
Do  you  imagine  it  would  pass  quite  unnoticed,  or  merely  arouse 
surprise  ?  Do  you  not  think  it  would  be  more  akin  to  the  dis- 
course that  would  naturally  be  held  between  two  souls  ?  We 
know  not  where  it  may  give  encouragement,  where  freedom. 
Even  he  who  rejects  your  words  will  in  spite  of  himself  have 
taken  a  step  towards  the  beauty  that  is  within  him.  Nothing  of 
beauty  dies  without  having  purified  something,  nor  can  aught  of 
beauty  be  lost.  Let  us  not  be  afraid  of  sowing  it  along  the 
road.  It  may  remain  there  for  weeks  or  years:  but  like  the  dia- 
mond, it  cannot  dissolve,  and  finally  there  will  pass  by  some  one 
whom  its  glitter  will  attract ;  .he  will  pick  it  up  and  go  his  way 
rejoicing.  Then  why  keep  back  a  lofty,  beautiful  word,  for  that 
you  doubt  whether  others  will  understand  ?  An  instant  of  higher 
goodness  was  impending  over  you:  why  hinder  its  coming,  even 
though  you  believe  not  that  those  about  you  will  profit  thereby  ? 
What  if  you  are  among  men  of  the  valley:  is  that  sufficient  rea- 
son for  checking  the  instinctive  movement  of  your  soul  towards 
the  mountain  peaks?  Does  darkness  rob  deep  feeling  of  its 
power  ?  Have  the  blind  naught  but  their  eyes  wherewith  to  dis- 
tinguish those  who  love  them  from  those  who  love  them  not? 
Can  the  beauty  not  exist  that  is  not  understood  ?  and  is  there  not 
in  every  man  something  that  does  understand,  in  regions  far 
beyond  what  he  seems  to  understand, — far  beyond,  too,  what  he 
believes  he  understands  ?  <(  Even  to  the  very  wretchedest  of  all, >} 
said  to  me  one  day  the  loftiest-minded  creature  it  has  ever  been 
my  happiness  to  know, — <(  even  to  the  Very  wretchedest  of  all,  I 
never  have  the  courage  to  say  anything  in  reply  that  is  ugly  or 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


9557 


mediocre. }>  I  have  for  a  long  time  followed  that  man's  life, 
and  have  seen  the  inexplicable  power  he  exercised  over  the  most 
obscure,  the  most  unapproachable,  the  blindest,  even  the  most 
rebellious  of  souls.  For  no  tongue  can  tell  the  power  of  a  soul 
that  strives  to  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  beauty,  and  is  actively 
beautiful  in  itself.  And  indeed,  is  it  not  the  quality  of  this  activ- 
ity that  renders  a  life  either  miserable  or  divine  ? 

If  we  could  but  probe  to  the  root  of  things,  it  might  well 
be  discovered  that  it  is  by  the  strength  of  some  souls  that  are 
beautiful  that  others  are  sustained  in  life.  Is  it  not  the  idea  we 
each  form  of  certain  chosen  ones  that  constitutes  the  only  living, 
effective  morality  ?  But  in  this  idea  how  much  is  there  of  the 
soul  that  is  chosen,  how  much  of  him  who  chooses  ?  Do  not 
these  things  blend  very  mysteriously,  and  does  not  this  ideal 
morality  lie  infinitely  deeper  than  the  morality  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful books  ?  A  far-reaching  influence  exists  therein  whose  limits 
it  is  indeed  difficult  to  define,  and  a  fountain  of  strength  whereat 
we  all  of  us  drink  many  times  a  day.  Would  not  any  weakness 
in  one  of  those  creatures  whom  you  thought  perfect,  and  loved  in 
the  region  of  beauty,  at  once  lessen  your  confidence  in  the  uni- 
versal greatness  of  things,  and  would  your  admiration  for  them 
not  suffer? 

And  again,  I  doubt  whether  anything  in  the  world  can  beau- 
tify a  soul  more  spontaneously,  more  naturally,  than  the  knowl- 
edge that  somewhere  in  its  neighborhood  there  exists  a  pure  and 
noble  being  whom  it  can  unreservedly  love.  When  the  soul  has 
veritably  drawn  near  to  such  a  being,  beauty  is  no  longer  a 
lovely,  lifeless  thing  that  one  exhibits  to  the  stranger;  for  it  sud- 
denly takes  unto  itself  an  imperious  existence,  and  its  activity 
becomes  so  natural  as  to  be  henceforth  irresistible.  Wherefore 
you  will  do  well  to  think  it  over;  for  none  are  alone,  and  those 
who  are  good  must  watch. 

Plotinus,  in  the  eighth  book  of  the  fifth  'Ennead,*  after 
speaking  of  the  beauty  that  is  <(  intelligible, >J — /.  ^.,  Divine, — 
concludes  thus:  (<As  regards  ourselves,  we  are  beautiful  when  we 
belong  to  ourselves,  and  ugly  when  we  lower  ourselves  to  our 
inferior  nature.  Also  are  we  beautiful  when  we  know  ourselves, 
and  ugly  when  we  have  no  such  knowledge. >}  Bear  it  in  mind, 
however,  that  here  we  are  on  the  mountains,  where  not  to  know 
oneself  means  far  more  than  mere  ignorance  of  what  takes  place 
within  us  at  moments  of  jealousy  or  love,  fear  or  envy,  happiness 


9558 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


or  unhappiness.  Here  not  to  know  oneself  means  to  be  uncon- 
scious of  all  the  divine  that  throbs  in  man.  As  we  wander  from 
the  gods  within  us,  so  does  ugliness  enwrap  us;  as  we  discover 
them,  so  do  we  become  more  beautiful.  But  it  is  only  by  re- 
vealing the  divine  that  is  in  us  that  we  may  discover  the  divine 
in  others.  Needs  must  one  god  beckon  to  another;  and  no  signal 
is  so  imperceptible  but  they  will  every  one  of  them  respond.  It 
cannot  be  said  too  often,  that  be  the  crevice  never  so  small,  it 
will  yet  suffice  for  all  the  waters  of  heaven  to  pour  into  our 
soul.  Every  cup  is  stretched  out  to  the  unknown  spring,  and  we 
are  in  a  region  where  none  think  of  aught  but  beauty.  If  we 
could  ask  of  an  angel  what  it  is  that  our  souls  do  in  the  shadow, 
I  believe  the  angel  would  answer,  after  having  looked  for  many 
years  perhaps,  and  seen  far  more  than  the  things  the  soul  seems 
to  do  in  the  eyes  of  men,  <(They  transform  into  beauty  all  the 
little  things  that  are  given  to  them."  AhJ  we  must  admit  that 
the  human  soul  is  possessed  of  singular  courage!  Resignedly 
does  it  labor,  its  whole  life  long,  in  the  darkness  whither  most 
of  us  relegate  it,  where  it  is  spoken  to  by  none.  There,  never 
complaining,  does  it  do  all  that  in  its  power  lies,  striving  to  tear 
from  out  the  pebbles  we  fling  to  it  the  nucleus  of  eternal  light 
that  perad venture  they  contain.  And  in  the  midst  of  its  work  it 
is  ever  lying  in  wait  for  the  moment  when  it  may  show  to  a  sis- 
ter who  is  more  tenderly  cared  for,  or  who  chances  to  be  nearer, 
the  treasures  it  has  so  toilfully  amassed.  But  thousands  of  exist- 
ences there  are  that  no  sister  visits;  thousands  of  existences 
wherein  life  has  infused  such  timidity  into  the  soul  that  it  de- 
parts without  saying  a  word,  without  even  once  having  been  able 
to  deck  itself  with  the  humblest  jewels  of  its  humble  crown. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  all,  does  it  watch  over  everything  from 
out  its  invisible  heaven.  It  warns  and  loves,  it  admires,  attracts, 
repels.  At  every  fresh  event  does  it  rise  to  the  surface,  where  it 
lingers  till  it  be  thrust  down  again,  being  looked  upon  as  weari- 
some and  insane.  It  wanders  to  and  fro,  like  Cassandra  at  the 
gates  of  the  Atrides.  It  is  ever  giving  utterance  to  words  of 
shadowy  truth,  but  there  are  none  to  listen.  When  we  raise  our 
eyes,  it  yearns  for  a  ray  of  sun  or  star  that  it  may  weave  into  a 
thought,  or  haply  an  impulse,  which  shall  be  unconscious  and 
very  pure.  And  if  our  eyes  bring  it  nothing,  still  will  it  know 
how  to  turn  its  pitiful  disillusion  into  something  ineffable,  that 
it  will  conceal  even  till  its  death.  When  we  love,  how  eagerly 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

does  it  drink  in  the  light  from  behind  the  closed  door!  —  keen 
with  expectation,  it  yet  wastes  not  a  minute,  and  the  light  that 
steals  through  the  apertures  becomes  beauty  and  truth  to  the 
soul.  But  if  the  door  open  not,  (and  how  many  lives  are  there 
wherein  it  does  open  ?)  it  will  go  back  into  its  prison,  and  its 
regret  will  perhaps  be  a  loftier  verity  that  shall  never  be -seen;  — 
for  we  are  now  in  the  region  of  transformations  whereof  none 
may  speak;  and  though  nothing  born  this  side  of  the  door  can 
be  lost,  yet  does  it  never  mingle  with  our  life. 

I  said  just  now  that  the  soul  changed  into  beauty  the  little 
things  we  gave  to  it.  It  would  even  seem,  the  more  we  think  of 
it,  that  the  soul  has  no  other  reason  for  existence,  and  that  all  its 
activity  is  consumed  in  amassing,  at  the  depths  of  us,  a  treasure 
of  indescribable  beauty.  Might  not  everything  naturally  turn  into 
beauty  were  we  not  unceasingly  interrupting  the  arduous  labors 
of  our  soul  ?  Does  not  evil  itself  become  precious  so  soon  as  it 
has  gathered  therefrom  the  deep-lying  diamond  of  repentance  ? 
The  acts  of  injustice  whereof  you  have  been  guilty,  the  tears  you 
have  caused  to  flow,  will  not  these  end  too  by  becoming  so  much 
radiance  and  love  in  your  soul  ?  Have  you  ever  cast  your  eyes 
into  this  kingdom  of  purifying  flame  that  is  within  you  ?  Per- 
haps a  great  wrong  may  have  been  done  you  to-day,  the  act 
itself  being  mean  and  disheartening,  the  mode  of  action  of  the 
basest,  and  ugliness  wrapped  you  round  as  your  tears  fell.  But 
let  some  years  elapse, —  then  give  one  look  into  your  soul,  and 
tell  me  whether,  beneath  the  recollection  of  that  act,  you  see  not 
something  that  is  already  purer  than  thought:  an  indescribable, 
unnamable  force  that  has  naught  in  common  with  the  forces  of 
this  world;  a  mysterious  inexhaustible  spring  of  the  other  life, 
whereat  you  may  drink  for  the  rest  of  your  days.  And  yet  will 
you  have  rendered  no  assistance  to  the  untiring  queen;  other 
thoughts  will  have  filled  your  mind,  and  it  will  be  without  your 
knowledge  that  the  act  will  have  been  purified  in  the  silence  of 
your  being,  and  will  have  flown  into  the  precious  waters  that  lie 
in  the  great  reservoir  of  truth  and  beauty,  which,  unlike  the 
shallower  reservoir  of  true  or  beautiful  thoughts,  has  an  ever 
ruffled  surface,  and  remains  for  all  time  out  of  reach  of  the 
breath  of  life.  Emerson  tells  us  that  there  is  not  an  act  or 
event  in  our  life  but  sooner  or  later  casts  off  its  outer  shell,  and 
bewilders  us  by  its  sudden  flight,  from  the  very  depths  of  us,  on 
high  into  the  empyrean.  And  this  is  true  to  a  far  greater  extent 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

than  Emerson  had  foreseen;  for  the  further  we  advance  in  these 
regions,  the  diviner  are  the  spheres  we  discover. 

We  can  form  no  adequate  conception  of  what  this  silent  activ- 
ity of  the  souls  that  surround  us  may  really  mean.  Perhaps  yov 
have  spoken  a  pure  word  to  one  of  your  fellows,  by  whom  it  has 
not  been  understood.  You  look  upon  it  as  lost,  and  dismiss  it 
from  your  mind.  But  one  day,  peradventure,  the  word  comes  up 
again  extraordinarily  transformed,  and  revealing  the  unexpected 
fruit  it  has  borne  in  the  darkness;  then  silence  once  more  falls 
over  all.  But  it  matters  not;  we  have  learned  that  nothing  can 
be  lost  in  the  soul,  and  that  even  to  the  very  pettiest  there 
come  moments  of  splendor.  It  is  unmistakably  borne  home  to 
us  that  even  the  unhappiest  and  the  most  destitute  of  men 
have  at  the  depths  of  their  being,  and  in  spite  of  themselves,  a 
treasure  of  beauty  that  they  cannot  despoil.  They  have  but  to 
acquire  the  habit  of  dipping  into  this  treasure.  It  suffices  not 
that  beauty  should  keep  solitary  festival  in  life;  it  has  to  become 
a  festival  of  every  day.  There  needs  no  great  effort  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  ranks  of  those  <(  whose,  eyes  no  longer  behold 
earth  in  flower,  and  sky  in  glory,  in  infinitesimal  fragments,  but 
indeed  in  sublime  masses w;  —  and  I  speak  here  of  flowers  and 
sky  that  are  purer  and  more  lasting  than  those  that  we  behold. 
Thousands  of  channels  there  are  through  which  the  beauty  of 
our  soul  may  sail  even  unto  our  thoughts.  Above  all  is  there 
the  wonderful  central  channel  of  love. 

Is  it  not  in  love  that  are  found  the  purest  elements  of  beauty 
that  we  can  offer  to  the  soul  ?  Some  there  are  who  do  thus  in 
beauty  love  each  other.  And  to  love  thus  means  that,  little  by 
little,  the  sense  of  ugliness  is  lost;  that  one's  eyes  are  closed  to 
all  the  littlenesses  of  life,  to  all  but  the  freshness  and  virginity 
of  the  very  humblest  of  souls.  Loving  thus,  we  have  no  longer 
even  the  need  to  forgive.  Loving  thus,  we  can  no  longer  have 
anything  to  conceal,  for  that  the  ever  present  soul  transforms  all 
things  into  beauty.  It  is  to  behold  evil  in  so  far  only  as  it  puri- 
fies indulgence,  and  teaches  us  no  longer  to  confound  the  sinner 
with  his  sin.  Loving  thus,  do  we  raise  on  high  within  ourselves 
all  those  about  us  who  have  attained  an  eminence  where  failure 
has  become  impossible;  heights  whence  a  paltry  action  has  so 
far  to  fall,  that  touching  earth  it  is  compelled  to  yield  up  its 
diamond  soul.  It  is  to  transform,  though  all  unconsciously,  the 
feeblest  intention  that  hovers  about  us  into  illimitable  movement 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK  956r 

It  is  to  summon  all  that  is  beautiful  in  earth,  heaven,  or  soul, 
to  the  banquet  of  love.  Loving  thus,  we  do  indeed  exist  before 
our  fellows  as  we  exist  before  God.  It  means  that  the  least 
gesture  will  call  forth  the  presence  of  the  soul  with  all  its  treas- 
ure. No  longer  is  there  need  of  death,  disaster,  or  tears,  for  that 
the  soul  shall  appear:  a  smile  suffices.  Loving  thus,  we  perceive 
truth  in  happiness  as  profoundly  as  some  of  the  heroes  perceived 
it  in  the  radiance  of  greatest  sorrow.  It  means  that  the  beauty 
that  turns  into  love  is  undistinguishable  from  the  love  that  turns 
into  beauty.  It  means  to  be  able  no  longer  to  tell  where  the 
ray  of  a  star  leaves  off  and  the  kiss  of  an  ordinary  thought  be- 
gins. It  means  to  have  come  so  near  to  God  that  the  angels 
possess  us.  Loving  thus,  the  same  soul  -will  have  been  so  beau- 
tified by  us  all  that  it  will  become  little  by  little  the  <(  unique 
angel >}  mentioned  by  Swedenborg.  It  means  that  each  day  will 
reveal  to  us  a  new  beauty  in  that  mysterious  angel,  and  that  we 
shall  walk  together  in  a  goodness  that  shall  ever  become  more 
and  more  living,  loftier  and  loftier.  For  there  exists  also  a  life- 
less beauty  made  up  of  the  past  alone;  but  the  veritable  love 
renders  the  past  useless,  and  its  approach  creates  a  boundless 
future  of  goodness,  without  disaster  and  without  tears.  To  love 
thus  is  but  to  free  one's  soul,  and  to  become  as  beautiful  as  the 
soul  thus  freed.  (( If,  in  the  emotion  that  this  spectacle  cannot 
fail  to  awaken  in  thee,"  says  the  great  Plotinus,  when  dealing 
with  kindred  matters, —  and  of  all  the  intellects  known  to  me, 
that  of  Plotinus  draws  the  nearest  to  the  divine, —  <(if,  in  the 
emotion  that  this  spectacle  cannot  fail  to  awaken  in  thee,  thou 
proclaimest  not  that  it  is  beautiful ;  and  if,  plunging  thine  eyes 
into  thyself,  thou  dost  not  then  feel  the  charm  of  beauty, —  it 
is  in  vain  that,  thy  disposition  being  such,  thou  shouldst  seek 
the  intelligible  beauty;  for  thou  wouldst  seek  it  only  with  that 
which  is  ugly  and  impure.  Therefore  it  is  that  the  discourse  we 
hold  here  is  not  addressed  to  all  men.  But  if  thou  hast  recog- 
nized beauty  within  thyself,  see  that  thou  rise  to  the  recollection 
of  the  intelligible  beauty. }> 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

FROM   <THE   TRAGICAL   IN   DAILY  LIFE> 
In  <The  Treasure  of  the  Humble  > 

THERE  is  a  tragic  element  in  the  life  of  every  day  that  is  far 
more  real,  far  more  penetrating,  far  more  akin  to  the  true 
self  that  is  in  us  than  the  tragedy  that  lies  in  great  ad- 
venture. .  .  . 

Is  it  beyond  the  mark  to  say  that  the  true  tragic  element,  nor- 
mal, deep-rooted,  and  universal, — that  the  true  tragic  element  of 
life  only  begins  at  the  moment  when  so-called  adventures,  sor- 
rows, and  dangers  have  disappeared  ?  Is  the  arm  of  happiness 
not  longer  than  that  of  sorrow,  and  do  not  certain  of  its  attri- 
butes draw  nearer  to  the  soul  ?  Must  we  indeed  roar  like  the 
Atridae,  before  the  Eternal  God  will  reveal  himself  in  our  life  ? 
and  is  he  never  by  our  side  at  times  when  the  air  is  calm,  and 
the  lamp  burns  on  unflickering?  .  .  .  Are  there  not  ele- 
ments of  deeper  gravity  and  stability  in  happiness,  in  a  single 
moment  of  repose,  than  in  the  whirlwind  of  passion  ?  Is  it  not 
then  that  we  at  last  behold  the  march  of  time  —  ay,  and  of  many 
another  on-stealing  besides,  more  secret  still  —  is  it  not  then  that 
the  hours  rush  forward  ?  Are  not  deeper  chords  set  vibrating 
by  all  these  things  than  by  the  dagger-stroke  of  conventional 
drama  ?  Is  it  not  at  the  very  moment  when  a  man  believes  him- 
self secure  from  bodily  death  that  the  strange  and  silent  tragedy 
of  the  being  and  the  immensities  does  indeed  raise  its  curtain  on 
the  stage  ?  Is  it  while  I  flee  before  a  naked  sword  that  my 
existence  touches  its  most  interesting  point  ?  Is  life  always  at 
its  sublimest  in  a  kiss  ?  Are  there  not  other  moments,  when  one 
hears  purer  voices  that  do  not  fade  away  so  soon  ?  Does  the 
soul  only  flower  on  nights  of  storm  ?  Hitherto,  doubtless,  this 
belief  has  prevailed.  It  is  only  the  life  of  violence,  the  life  of 
bygone  days,  that  is  perceived  by  nearly  all  our  tragic  writers; 
and  truly  may  one  say  that  anachronism  dominates  the  stage, 
and  that  dramatic  art  dates  back  as  many  years  as  the  art  of 
sculpture.  .  .  . 

To  the  tragic  author,  as  to  the  mediocre  painter  who  still 
lingers  over  historical  pictures,  it  is  only  the 'violence  of  the 
anecdote  that  appeals;  and  in  his  representation  thereof  does  the 
entire  interest  of  his  work  consist.  And  he  imagines,  forsooth, 
that  we  shall  delight  in  witnessing  the  very  same  acts  that 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


9563 


brought  joy  to  the  hearts  of  the  barbarians,  with  whom  murder, 
outrage,  and  treachery  were  matters  of  daily  occurrence.  Where- 
as it  is  far  away  from  bloodshed,  battle-cry,  and  sword-thrust 
that  the  lives  of  most  of  us  flow  on;  and  men's  tears  are  silent 
to-day,  and  invisible,  and  almost  spiritual. 

Indeed,  when  I  go  to  a  theatre,  I  feel  as  though  I  were 
spending  a  few  hours  with  my  ancestors,  who  conceived  life  as 
something  that  was  primitive,  arid,  and  brutal;  but  this  concep- 
tion of  theirs  scarcely  even  lingers  in  my  memory,  and  surely  it 
is  not  one  that  I  can  share.  I  am  shown  a  deceived  husband 
killing  his  wife,  a  woman  poisoning  her  lover,  a  son  avenging 
his  father,  a  father  slaughtering  his  children,  children  putting 
their  father  to  death,  murdered  kings,  ravished  virgins,  impris- 
oned citizens  —  in  a  word,  all  the  sublimity  of  tradition,  but  alas, 
how  superficial  and  material !  Blood,  surface-tears,  and  death ! 
What  can  I '  learn  from  creatures  who  have  but  one  fixed  idea, 
and  who  have  no  time  to  live,  for  that  there  is  a  rival,  or  a 
mistress,  whom  it  behoves  them  to  put  to  death  ?  .  .  . 

I  admire  Othello,  but  he  does  not  appear  to  me  to  live  the 
august  daily  life  of  a  Hamlet,  who  has  the  time  to  live,  inasmuch 
as  he  does  not  act.  Othello  is  admirably  jealous.  But  is  it  not 
perhaps  an  ancient  error  to  imagine  that  it  is  at  the  moments 
when  this  passion,  or  others  of  equal  violence,  possesses  us,  that 
we  live  our  truest  lives  ?  I  have  grown  to  believe  that  an  old 
man,  seated  in  his  arm-chair,  waiting  patiently,  with  his  lamp 
beside  him;  giving  unconscious  ear  to  all  the  eternal  laws  that 
reign  about  his  house  ;*  interpreting,  without  comprehending,  the 
silence  of  doors  and  windows  and  the  quivering  voice  of  the 
light;  submitting  with  bent  head  to  the  presence  of  his  soul  and 
his  destiny, —  an  old  man,  who  conceives  not  that  all  the  powers 
of  this  world,  like  so  many  heedful  servants,  are  mingling  and 
keeping  vigil  in  his  room,  who  suspects  not  that  the  very  sun 
itself  is  supporting  in  space  the  little  table  against  which  he 
leans,  or  that  every  star  in  heaven  and  every  fibre  of  the  soul 
are  directly  concerned  in  the  movement  of  an  eyelid  that  closes, 
or  a  thought  that  springs  to  birth, —  I  have  grown  to  believe  that 
he,  motionless  as  he  is,  does  yet  live  in  reality  a  deeper,  more 
human,  and  more  universal  life  than  the  lover  who  strangles  his 
mistress,  the  captain  who  conquers  in  battle,  or  <(the  husband 
who  avenges  his  honor. }> 


9564 


DR.   WILLIAM  MAGINN 

(1793-1842) 

JLACKWOOD  was  astonished  one  day  by  the  intrusion  of  a  wild 
Irishman  from  Cork  into  the  publishing  house  of  the  staid 
Scotch  magazine.  With  much  warmth  and  an  exaggerated 
brogue  the  stranger  demanded  to  know  the  identity  of  one  Ralph 
Tuckett  Scott,  who  had  been  printing  things  in  the  periodical.  Of 
course  he  was  not  told,  and  was  very  coldly  treated;  but  Mr.  Black- 
wood  was  much  delighted  at  last  to  find  in  the  person  of  his  guest 
the  original  of  his  valued  and  popular  Irish  contributor,  who  taking 

this  odd  method  disclosed  the  personality 
and  name  of  William  Maginn,  a  young 
schoolmaster  who  had  begun  to  write  over 
the  name  of  Grossman,  and  afterwards  as- 
sumed several  other  pseudonyms  before  he 
settled  upon  the  famous  <(Sir  Morgan  O'Do- 
herty.» 

Born  in  the  city  of  Cork,  July  loth,  1793, 
William  Maginn  may  be  said  to  have  taken 
in  learning  with  his  mother's  milk.  His 
father  conducted  an  academy  for  boys  in 
the  Irish  Athens,  as  Cork  was  then  called; 
and  the  future  editor  of  Eraser's  Magazine 
was  prepared  for  *and  entered  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin,  at  the  age  of  ten.  He  was 

graduated  at  fourteen;  and  so  extraordinary  was  his  mind  that  he 
was  master  not  only  of  the  classics  but  of  most  of  the  languages  of 
modern  Europe,  including  of  course  his  own  ancestral  Gaelic.  When 
his  father  died,  William,  then  twenty  years  of  age,  took  charge  of 
the  academy  in  Marlborough  Street,  and  in  1817  took  his  degree  of 
LL.  D.  at  Trinity  College.  In  the  following  year  he  made  his  way 
into  the  field  of  letters.  When  he  went  to  London  in  1824,  his  repu- 
tation as  a  brilliant  writer  was  well  established  and  enduring.  He 
had  married  in  1817  the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bullen,  rector  of 
Kanturk. 

Immediately  upon  his  removal  to  London,  he  was  engaged  by 
Theodore  Hook  as  editor  of  John  Bull.  In  1827  he  boldly  published 
a  broad  and  witty  satire  on  Scott's  historical  novels.  He  was  assist- 
ant editor  of  the  Evening  Standard  upon  its  institution,  a  position 


f 


DR.  WILLIAM  MAGINN 


DR.  WILLIAM  MAGINN  9565 

which  he  held  for  years  at  a  salary  of  ^400.  These  years  he  said 
afterwards  were  the  happiest  of  his  life.  He  was  a  sturdy  Irishman, 
and  proud  of  his  country;  and  he  had  what  is  often  an  Irishman's 
Strongest  weakness, — he  was  a  spendthrift.  His  appreciation  of  his 
relations  toward  creditors  was  embodied  in  the  phrase  (<  They  put 
something  in  a  book.*  Little  wonder  then  that  his  last  years  were 
wretched  and  bailiff-haunted.  The  sketch  of  Captain  Brandon  in  the 
debtors'  prison,  in  'Pendennis,'  is  said  to  have  been  taken  from  this 
period  of  Maginn's  life. 

Before  this  sad  time,  though,  came  a  long  era  of  prosperity,  and 
the  days  of  the  uncrowned  sovereignty  of  letters  as  editor  of  Eraser's 
Magazine.  This  periodical  was  started  as  a  rival  to  Blackwood's 
because  Maginn  had  fallen  out  with  the  publishers  of  that  magazine. 
The  first  number  appeared  February  ist,  1830;  and  before  the  year 
was  out  it  was  not  only  a  great  financial  success,  but  had  upon  its 
staff  the  best  of  all  the  English  writers.  The  attachment  between 
Dr.  Maginn  and  Letitia  E.  Landon  began  in  this  time;  and  was, 
though  innocent  enough,  a  sad  experience  for  them  both, — torturing 
Maginn  through  the  jealousy  of  his  wife,  and  sending  (<  L.  E.  L.w  to  an 
uncongenial  marriage,  and  death  by  prussic  acid  in  the  exile  of  the 
West  Coast  of  Africa.  Released  from  the  Fleet  by  the  Insolvency 
Act  in  1842,  broken  in  health  and  spirit,  Maginn  went  to  the  vil- 
lage of  Walton-on-Thames,  where  he  died  from  consumption,  penniless 
and  almost  starving,  on  the  2ist  of  August  of  that  year.  Sir  Robert 
Peel  had  procured  for  him  from  the  Crown  a  gift  of  ^100;  but  he 
died  without  knowledge  of  the  scanty  gratuity. 


SAINT  PATRICK 

A  FIG  for  St.  Denis  of  France, 
He's  a  trumpery  fellow  to  brag  on; 
A  fig  for  St.  George  and  his  lance, 

Which  spitted  a  heathenish  dragon ; 
And  the  saints  of  the  Welshman  or  Scot 

Are  a  couple  of  pitiful  pipers, 
Both  of  whom  may  just  travel  to  pot, 
Compared  with  the  patron  of  swipers, 
St.  Patrick  of  Ireland,  my  dear! 

He  came  to  the  Emerald  Isle 

On  a  lump  of  a  paving-stone  mounted; 
The  steamboat  he  beat  to  a  mile, 

Which  mighty  good  sailing  was  counted: 


9566  DR.  WILLIAM  MAGINN 

Says  he,  «The  salt  water,  I  think, 

Has  made  me  most  bloodily  thirsty; 

So  bring  me  a  flagon  of  drink, 

To  keep  down  the  mulligrubs,  burst  ye, — 
Of  drink  that  is  fit  for  a  saint. » 

He  preached  then  with  wonderful  force, 

The  ignorant  natives  a-teaching; 
With  a  pint  he  washed  down  his  discourse, 

"For,"  says  he,  «I  detest  your  dry  preaching.15 
The  people,  with  wonderment  struck 

At  a  pastor  so  pious  and  civil, 
Exclaimed,  (<  We're  for  you,  my  old  buck, 

And  we  pitch  our  blind  gods  to  the  Devil, 
Who  dwells  in  hot  water  below. w 

This  ended,  our  worshipful  spoon 

Went  to  visit  an  elegant  fellow, 
Whose  practice  each  cool  afternoon 

Was  to  get  most  delightfully  mellow. 
That  day,  with  a  black-jack  of  beer, 

It  chanced  he  was  treating  a  party:.    . 
Says  the  saint,   <(This  good  day,  do  you  hear, 

I  drank  nothing  to  speak  of,  my  hearty, 
So  give  me  a  pull  at  the  pot." 

The  pewter  he  lifted  in  sport 

(Believe  me,  I  tell  you  no  fable); 
A  gallon  he  drank  from  the  quart, 

And  then  planted  it  full  on  the  table. 
<(A  miracle ! w   every  one  said, 

And  they  all  took  a  haul  at  the  stingo: 
They  were  capital  hands  at  the  trade, 

And  drank  till  they  fell;    yet,  by  jingo! 
The  pot  still  frothed  over  the  brim. 

Next  day  quoth  his  host,  <(  'Tis  a  fast, 

But  I've  naught  in  my  larder  but  mutton; 
And  on  Fridays  who'd  make  such  repast, 

Except  an  unchristian-like  glutton  ? w 
Says  Pat,  <( Cease  your  nonsense,  I  beg; 

What  you  tell  me  is  nothing  but  gammon: 
Take  my  compliments  down  to  the  leg, 

And  bid  it  come  hither  a  salmon ! w 
And  the  leg  most  politely  complied. 


DR.  WILLIAM  MAGINN  9567 

You've  heard,  I  suppose,  long  ago, 

How  the  snakes  in  a  manner  most  antic 
He  marched  to  the  County  Mayo, 

And  trundled  them  into  th'  Atlantic. 
Hence  not  to  use  water  for  drink 

The  people  of  Ireland  determine; 
With  mighty  good  reason,  I  think, 

Since  St.  Patrick  had  filled  it  with  vermin, 
And  vipers,  and  other  such  stuff. 

Oh,  he  was  an  elegant  blade 

As  you'd  meet  from  Fair  Head  to  Kilcrumper; 
And  though  under  the  sod  he  is  laid, 

Yet  here  goes  his  health  in  a  bumper! 
I  wish  he  was  here,  that  my  glass 

He  might  by  art  magic  replenish; 
But  as  he  is  not,  why,  alas! 

My  ditty  must  come  to  a  finish  — 
Because  all  the  liquor  is  out! 


SONG  OF  THE  SEA 
«Woe  to  us  when  we  lose  the  watery  wall!))  —  TIMOTHY  TICKLER. 

IF  E'ER  that  dreadful  hour  should  come  —  but  God  avert  the  day!  — 
When   England's  glorious   flag  must  bend,  and  yield  old  Ocean's 

sway ; 

When  foreign  ships  shall  o'er  that  deep,  where  she  is  empress,  lord; 
When  the  cross  of  red  from  boltsprit-head  is  hewn  by  foreign  sword; 
When  foreign  foot  her  quarter-deck  with  proud  stride  treads  along; 
When  her  peaceful   ships  meet  haughty  check  from  hail  of  foreign 

tongue : 

One  prayer,  one  only  prayer  is  mine, —  that  ere  is  seen  that  sight, 
Ere  there  be  warning  of  that  woe,  I  may  be  whelmed  in  night  ! 

If  ever  other  prince  than  ours  wield  sceptre  o'er  that  main, 
Where  Howard,  Blake,  and  Frobisher  the  Armada  smote  of  Spain; 
Where  Blake,  in  Cromwell's  iron  sway,  swept  tempest-like  the  seas,    - 
From  North  to  South,  from  East  to  West,  resistless  as  the  breeze; 
Where  Russell  bent  great  Louis's  power,  which  bent  before  to  none, 
And  crushed  his  arm  of  naval  strength,  and  dimmed  his  Rising  Sun: 
One  prayer,  one  only  prayer  is  mine, — that  ere  is  seen  that  sight, 
Ere  there  be  warning  of  that  woe,  I  may  be  whelmed  in  night! 


9568 


DR.  WILLIAM   MAGINN 


If  ever  other  keel  than  ours  triumphant  plow  that  brine,  [line; 

Where  Rodney  met  the  Count  de  Grasse,  and  broke  the  Frenchman's 
Where  Howe  upon  the  first  of  June  met  the  Jacobins  in  fight, 
And  with  old  England's  loud  huzzas  broke  down  their  godless  might; 
Where  Jervis  at  St.  Vincent's  felled  the  Spaniards'  lofty  tiers, 
Where  Duncan  won  at  Camperdown,  and  Exmouth  at  Algiers: 
One  prayer,  one  only  prayer  is  mine, — that  ere  is  seen  that  sight, 
Ere  there  be  warning  of  that  woe,  I  may  be  whelmed  in  night! 

But  oh!   what  agony  it  were,  when  we  should  think  on  thee, 

The  flower  of  all  the  Admirals  that  ever  trod  the  sea! 

I  shall  not  name  thy  honored  name;  but  if  the  white-cliffed  Isle 

Which  reared  the  Lion  of  the  deep,  the  Hero  of  the  Nile, — 

Him  who  'neath  Copenhagen's  self  o'erthrew  the  faithless  Dane, 

Who  died  at  glorious  Trafalgar,  o'ervanquished  France  and  Spain, — 

Should   yield   her  power,   one  prayer  is  mine, — that  ere  is  seen  that 

sight, 
Ere  there  be  warning  of  that  woe,  I  may  be  whelmed  in  night! 


9569 


JOHN   PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

(1839-) 

JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY  is  conspicuous  among  contemporary 
Greek  scholars  and  historians  for  devoting  himself  less  to 
the  study  of  the  golden  age  of  the  Greek  intellect  than  to 
the  post-Alexandrian  period,  when  the  union  of  Greece  with  the 
Orient  produced  the  Hellenistic  world.  It  is  in  this  highly  colored, 
essentially  modern  world  of  decadent  Greek  energy  that  Professor 
Mahaffy  is  most  at  home,  and  in  which  he  finds  the  greatest  number 
of  parallels  to  the  civilization  of  his  own  day.  He  is  disposed  indeed 
to  link  England  and  Ireland,  through  their 
political  life,  to  the  Athens  and  Sparta  of 
the  third  century  before  Christ,  and  to  find 
precedents  in  the  Grecian  republics  for 
democratic  conditions  in  the  United  States. 
In  the  opening  chapter  of  his  ( Greek  Life 
and  Thought,*  after  dwelling  upon  the  hos- 
tile attitude  of  Sparta  and  Athens  towards 
the  Macedonian  government,  he  adds,  <(  But 
we  are  quite  accustomed  in  our  own  day  to 
this  Home-Rule  and  Separatist  spirit. }> 

It  is  this  intimate  manner  of  approach- 
ing a  far-off  theme  that  gives  to  Professor 
Mahaffy's  work  much  of  its  interest.  He  is 
continually  translating  ancient  history  into 
the  terms  of  modern  life.  <(  Let  us  save  ancient  history, »  he  writes, 
<(from  its  dreary  fate  in  the  hands  of  the  dry  antiquarian,  the  nar- 
row scholar;  and  while  we  utilize  all  his  research  and  all  his  learn- 
ing, let  us  make  the  acts  and  lives  of  older  men  speak  across  the 
chasm  of  centuries  and  claim  kindred  with  the  men  and  motives  of 
to-day.  For  this  and  this  only  is  to  write  history  in  the  full  and  real 
sense. » 

Whatever  the  merits  of  his  scholarship,  Professor  Mahaffy  has 
adhered  closely  to  his  ideal  of  a  historian.  He  has  a  thorough  grasp 
upon  the  spirit  of  that  period  for  which  he  has  the  keenest  appre- 
ciation, and  which  he  is  able  to  present  to  his  readers  with  the  great- 
est clearness  and  vividness  of  color  and  outline.  It  is  true,  doubtless, 
as  he  says,  that  the  exclusive  attention  paid  by  modern  scholars  to  the 


J.  P.  MAHAFFY 


JOHN  PENTLAND   MAHAFFY 

age  of  spotless  Atticism  has  overshadowed  that  Oriental-Hellenistic 
world  which  rose  after  Alexander  sank.  The  majority  of  persons 
know  little  of  that  rich  life  of  decaying  arts  and  flourishing  philoso- 
phies, and  strangely  modern  political  and  social  conditions,  which  had 
its  centres  in  Alexandria  and  Antioch.  It  is  of  this  that  Professor 
Mahaffy  writes  familiarly  in  his  <  Greek  Life  and  Thought,'  and  in 
his  (  Greek  World  under  Roman  Sway.*  He  succeeds  in  throwing  a 
great  deal  of  light  upon  this  period  of  history;  less  perhaps  through 
sheer  force  of  scholarship  than  through  his  happy  faculty  of  finding 
a  family  relationship  in  the  poets,  philosophers,  statesmen,  and  kings 
of  a  long-dead  world.  What  he  may  lose  as  a  <(pure  scholar w  he 
thus  gains  as  a  historian. 

In  his  classical  researches,  he  has  profited  greatly  by  his  acquaint- 
ance with  German  investigations  in  this  field.  Although  of  Irish 
parentage,  he  was  born  in  Switzerland  in  1839,  and  the  roots  of  his 
education  were  fixed  in  the  soil  of  German  scholarship.  His  subse- 
quent residence  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  as  professor  of  ancient 
history,  has  by  no  means  weaned  him  from  his  earlier  educational 
influences.  He  attaches  the  utmost  importance  to  the  thorough-going 
spirit  of  the  German  Grecians.  He  makes  constant  use  of  their  discov- 
eries. Nevertheless  Professor  Mahaffy  is  more  of  a  sympathetic  Irish 
historian  or  historical  essayist  than  a  strict  Greek  scholar  after  the 
German  pattern.  He  is  at  his  best  when  he  is  writing  of  the  social 
side  of  Hellenistic  life.  His  <  Greek  Life  and  Thought,  >  his  <  Greek 
World  under  Roman  Sway,  *  his  <  Survey  of  Greek  Civilization,  *  his 
<  Social  Life  in  Greece, y  show  keen  insight  into  the  conditions  which 
governed  the  surface  appearances  of  a  world  whose  colors  have  not 
yet  faded.  This  world  of  Oriental  sensuousness  wedded  to  Greek 
intelligence,  this  world  which  began  with  Demosthenes  and  Alexan- 
der and  ended  with  Nero  and  St.  John,  seems  to  Professor  Mahaffy 
a  more  perfect  prototype  of  the  modern  world  than  the  purer  Attic 
civilization  which  preceded  it,  or  the  civilization  of  Imperial  Rome 
which  followed  it. 

Like  the  majority  of  modern  Greek  scholars,  Professor  Mahaffy  has 
engaged  in  antiquarian  research  upon  the  soil  of  Greece  itself.  His 
( Rambles  and  Studies  in  Greece,  >  a  work  of  conversational  charm, 
shows  not  a  little  poetical  feeling  for  the  memories  that  haunt  the 
living  sepulchre  of  a  great  dead  race. 

Other  works  of  Professor  Mahaffy  include  < Problems  in  Greek 
History,  >  ( Prolegomena  to  Ancient  History,  >  <  Lectures  on  Primitive 
Civilization, }  <The  Story  of  Alexander's  Empire,  >  (Old  Greek  Life,' 
and  the  <  History  of  Classical  Greek  Literature. }  His  value  as  a 
historian  and  student  of  Greek  life  lies  mainly  in  his  power  of  sug- 
gestion, and  in  his  original  and  fearless  treatment  of  subjects  usually 


JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

approached  with  the  dreary  deference  of  self-conscious  scholarship. 
His  revelation  of  the  same  human  nature  linking  the  world  of  two 
thousand  years  ago  to  the  world  of  the  present  day,  has  earned  for 
his  Greek  studies  deserved  popularity. 

: 

CHILDHOOD   IN  ANCIENT  LIFE 

From  <Old  Greek  Education  > 

WE  FIND  in  Homer,  especially  in  the  Iliad,  indications  of  the 
plainest  kind  that  Greek  babies  were  like  the  babies  of 
modern  Europe:  equally  troublesome,  equally  delightful  to 
their  parents,  equally  uninteresting  to  the  rest  of  society.  The 
famous  scene  in  the  sixth  book  of  the  Iliad,  when  Hector's  infant, 
Astyanax,  screams  at  the  sight  of  his  father's  waving  crest,  and 
the  hero  lays  his  helmet  on  the  ground  that  he  may  laugh  and 
weep  over  the  child;  the  love  and  tenderness  of  Andromache, 
and  her  pathetic  laments  in  the  twenty-second  book, —  are  famil- 
iar to  all.  She  foresees  the  hardships  and  unkindnesses  to  her 
orphan  boy,  <(  who  was  wont  upon  his  father's  knees  to  eat  the 
purest  marrow  and  the  rich  fat  of  sheep,  and  when  sleep  came 
upon  him,  and  he  ceased  his  childish  play,  he  would  lie  in  the 
arms  of  his  nurse,  on  a  soft  cushion,  satisfied  with  every  comfort. J> 
So  again,  a  protecting  goddess  is  compared  to  a  mother  keeping 
the  flies  from  her  sleeping  infant;  and  a  pertinacious  friend,  to 
a  little  girl  who,  running  beside  her  mother,  begs  to  be  taken 
up,  holding  her  mother's  dress  and  delaying  her,  and  with  tear- 
ful eyes  keeps  looking  up  till  the  mother  denies  her  no  longer. 
These  are  only  stray  references,  and  yet  they  speak  no  less  clearly 
than  if  we  had  asked  for  an  express  answer  to  a  direct  inquiry. 
So  we  have  the  hesitation  of  the  murderers  sent  to  make  away 
with  the  infant  Cypselus,  who  had  been  foretold  to  portend  dan- 
ger to  the  Corinthian  Herods  of  that  day.  The  smile  of  the 
baby  unmans  —  or  should  we  rather  say  unbrutes  ?  —  the  first  ruf- 
fian, and  so  the  task  is  passed  on  from  man  to  man.  This  story 
in  Herodotus  is  a  sort  of  natural  Greek  parallel  to  the  great 
Shakespearean  scene,  where  another  child  sways  his  intended  tor- 
turer with  an  eloquence  more  conscious  and  explicit,  but  not  per- 
haps more  powerful,  than  the  radiant  smile  of  the  Greek  baby. 
Thus  Euripides,  the  great  master  of  pathos,  represents  Iphigenia 
bringing  her  infant  brother  Orestes  to  plead  for  her.  with  that 


9572  JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

unconsciousness  of  sorrow  which  pierces  us  to  the  heart  more 
than  the  most  affecting  rhetoric.  In  modern  art  a  little  child 
playing  about  its  dead  mother,  and  waiting  with  contentment  for 
her  awaking,  is  perhaps  the  most  powerful  appeal  to  human  com- 
passion which  we  are  able  to  conceive. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  troubles  of  infancy  were  then  as  now 
very  great.  We  do  not  indeed  hear  of  croup,  or  teething,  or 
measles,  or  whooping-cough.  But  these  are  occasional  matters, 
and  count  as  nothing  beside  the  inexorable  tyranny  of  a  sleepless 
baby.  For  then  as  now,  mothers  and  nurses  had  a  strong  preju- 
dice in  favor  of  carrying  about  restless  children,  and  so  soothing 
them  to  sleep.  The  unpractical  Plato  requires  that  in  his  fabu- 
lous Republic  two  or  three  stout  nurses  shall  be  in  readiness  to 
carry  about  each  child;  because  children,  like  gamecocks,  gain 
spirit  and  endurance  by  this  treatment!  What  they  really  gain 
is  a  gigantic  power  of  torturing  their  mothers.  Most  children 
can  readily  be  taught  to  sleep  in  a  bed,  or  even  in  an  arm-chair, 
but  an  infant  once  accustomed  to  being  carried  about  will  insist 
upon  it;  and  so  it  came  that  Greek  husbands  were  obliged  to 
relegate  their  wives  to  another  sleeping-room,  where  the  nightly 
squalling  of  the  furious  infant  might  not  disturb  the  master  as 
well  as  the  mistress  of  the  house.  But  the  Greek  gentleman 
was  able  to  make  good  his  damaged  rest  by  a  midday  siesta,  and 
so  required  but  little  sleep  at  night.  The  modern  father  in 
northern  Europe,  with  his  whole  day's  work  and  waking,  is 
therefore  in  a  more  disadvantageous  position. 

Of  course  very  fashionable  people  kept  nurses;  and  it  was  the 
highest  tone  at  Athens  to  have  a  Spartan  nurse  for  the  infant, 
just  as  an  English  nurse  is  sought  out  among  foreign  noblesse. 
We  are  told  that  these  women  made  the  child  hardier,  that  they 
used  less  swathing  and  bandaging,  and  allowed  free  play  for  the 
limbs;  and  this,  like  all  the  Spartan  physical  training,  was  ap- 
proved of  and  admired  by  the  rest  of  the  Greek  public,  though 
its  imitation  was  never  suggested  save  in  the  unpractical  specula- 
tions of  Plato. 

Whether  they  also  approved  of  a  diet  of  marrow  and  mutton 
suet,  which  Homer,  in  the  passage  just  cited,  considers  the  lux- 
ury of  princes,  does  not  appear.  As  Homer  was  the  Greek 
Bible, —  an  inspired  book  containing  perfect  wisdom  on  all  things, 
human  and  divine, —  there  must  have  been  many  orthodox  par- 
ents who  followed  his  prescription.  But  we  hear  no  approval  or 


JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

censure  of  such  diet.  Possibly  marrow  may  have  represented 
our  cod-liver  oil  in  strengthening  delicate  infants.  But  as  the 
Homeric  men  fed  far  more  exclusively  on  meat  than  their  his- 
torical successors,  some  vegetable  substitute,  such  as  olive  oil, 
inust  have  been  in  use  later  on.  Even  within  our  memory, 
mutton  suet  boiled  in  milk  was  commonly  recommended  by  phy- 
sicians for  the  delicacy  now  treated  by  cod-liver  oil.  The  sup- 
posed strengthening  of  children  by  air  and  exposure,  or  by  early 
neglect  of  their  comforts,  was  as  fashionable  at  Sparta  as  it  is 
with  many  modern  theorists;  and  it  probably  led  in  both  cases 
to  the  same  result, —  the  extinction  of  the  weak  and  delicate. 
These  theorists  parade  the  cases  of  survival  of  stout  children  — 
that  is,  their  exceptional  soundness  —  as  the  effect  of  this  harsh 
treatment,  and  so  satisfy  themselves  that  experience  confirms 
their  views.  Now  with  the  Spartans  this  was  logical  enough; 
for  as  they  professed  and  desired  nothing  but  physical  results,  as 
they  despised  intellectual  qualities  and  esteemed  obedience  to  be 
the  highest  of  moral  ones,  they  were  perhaps  justified  in  their 
proceeding.  So  thoroughly  did  they  advocate  the  production  of 
healthy  citizens  for  military  purposes,  that  they  were  quite  con- 
tent that  the  sickly  should  die.  In  fact,  in  the  case  of  obviously 
weak  and  deformed  infants,  they  did  not  hesitate  to  expose  them 
in  the  most  brutal  sense, —  not  to  cold  and  draughts,  but  to  the 
wild  beasts  in  the  mountains. 

This  brings  us  to  the  first  shocking  contrast  between  the 
Greek  treatment  of  children  and  ours.  We  cannot  really  doubt, 
from  the  free  use  of  the  idea  in  Greek  tragedies,  in  the  comedies 
of  ordinary  life,  and  in  theories  of  political  economy,  that  the 
exposing  of  new-born  children  was  not  only  sanctioned  by  public 
feeling,  but  actually  practiced  throughout  Greece.  Various  mo- 
tives combined  to  justify  or  to  extenuate  this  practice.  In  the 
first  place,  the  infant  was  regarded  as  the  property  of  its  parents, 
indeed  of  its  father,  to  an  extent  inconceivable  to  most  modern 
Europeans.  The  State  only,  whose  claim  overrode  all  other  con- 
siderations, had  a  right  for  public  reasons  to  interfere  with  the 
dispositions  of  a  father.  Individual  human  life  had  not  attained 
what  may  be  called  the  exaggerated  value  derived  from  sundry 
superstitions,  which  remains  even  after  those  superstitions  have 
decayed.  And  moreover,  in  many  Greek  States,  the  contempt 
for  commercial  pursuits,  and  the  want  of  outlet  for  practical  en- 
ergy, made  the  supporting  of  large  families  cumbersome,  or  the 


JOHN  PENTLAND   MAHAFFY 

subdivision  of  patrimonies  excessive.  Hence  the  prudence  or  the 
selfishness  of  parents  did  not  hesitate  to  use  an  escape  which 
modern  civilization  condemns  as  not  only  criminal  but  as  horribly 
cruel.  How  little  even  the  noblest  Greek  theorists  felt  this  ob- 
jection appears  from  the  fact  that  Plato,  the  Attic  Moses,  sanc- 
tions infanticide  under  certain  circumstances  or  in  another  form, 
in  his  ideal  State.  In  the  genteel  comedy  it  is  often  mentioned 
as  a  somewhat  painful  necessity,  but  enjoined  by  prudence.  No- 
where does  the  agony  of  the  mother's  heart  reach  us  through 
their  literature,  save  in  one  illustration  used  by  the  Platonic 
Socrates,  where  he  compares  the  anger  of  his  pupils,  when  first 
confuted  out  of  their  prejudices,  to  the  fury  of  a  young  mother 
deprived  of  her  first  infant.  There  is  something  horrible  in  the 
very  allusion,  as  if  in  after  life  Attic  mothers  became  hardened 
to  this  treatment.  We  must  suppose  the  exposing  of  female 
infants  to  have  been  not  uncommon,  until  the  just  retribution 
of  barrenness  fell  upon  the  nation,  and  the  population  dwindled 
away  by  a  strange  atrophy. 

In  the  many  family  suits  argued  by  the  Attic  orators,  we  do 
not  (I  believe)  find  a  case  in  wrhich  a  large  family  of  children 
is  concerned.  Four  appears  a  larger  number  than  the  average. 
Marriages  between  relations  as  close  as  uncle  and  niece,  and  even 
half-brothers  and  sisters,  were  not  uncommon;  but  the  researches 
of  modern  science  have  removed  the  grounds  for  believing  that 
this  practice  would  tend  to  diminish  the  race.  It  would  certainly 
increase  any  pre-existing  tendency  to  hereditary  disease;  yet  we 
do  not  hear  of  infantile  diseases  any  more  than  we  hear  of  deli- 
cate infants.  Plagues  and  epidemics  were  common  enough;  but 
as  already  observed,  we  do  not  hear  of  measles,  or  whooping- 
cough,  or  scarlatina,  or  any  of  the  other  constant  persecutors  of 
our  nurseries. 

As  the  learning  of  foreign  languages  was  quite  beneath  the 
notions  of  the  Greek  gentleman,  who  rather  expected  all  barba- 
rians to  learn  his  language,  the  habit  of  employing  foreign  nurses, 
so  useful  and  even  necessary  to  good  modern  education,  was  well- 
nigh  unknown.  It  would  have  been  thought  a  great  misfortune 
to  any  Hellenic  child  to  be  brought  up  speaking  Thracian  or 
Egyptian.  Accordingly  foreign  slave  attendants,  with  their  strange 
accent  and  rude  manners,  were  not  allowed  to  take  charge  of 
children  till  they  were  able  to  go  to  school  and  had  learned  their 
m  other  tongue  perfectly. 


JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

But  the  women's  apartments,  in  which  children  were  kept  for 
the  first  few  years,  are  closed  so  completely  to  us  that  we  can 
but  conjecture  'a  few  things  about  the  life  and  care  of  Greek 
babies.  A  few  late  epigrams  tell  the  grief -of  parents  bereaved 
of  their  infants.  Beyond  this,  classical  literature  affords  us  no 
light.  The  backwardness  in  culture  of  Greek  women  leads  us  to 
suspect  that  then,  as  now,  Greek  babies  were  more  often  spoilt 
than  is  the  case  among  the  serious  northern  nations.  The  term 
<(  Spartan  mother }>  is,  however,  still  proverbial ;  and  no  doubt  in 
that  exceptional  State,  discipline  was  so  universal  and  so  highly 
esteemed  that  it  penetrated  even  to  the  nursery.  But  in  the 
rest  of  Greece,  we  may  conceive  the  young  child  arriving  at  his 
schoolboy  age  more  willful  and  headstrong  than  most  of  our 
more  watched  and  worried  infants.  Archytas  the  philosopher 
earned  special  credit  for  inventing  the  rattle,  and  saving  much 
damage  to  household  furniture  by  occupying  children  with  this 
toy. 

The  .external  circumstances  determining  a  Greek  boy's  educa- 
tion were  somewhat  different  from  ours.  We  must  remember  that 
all  old  Greek  life  —  except  in  rare  cases,  such  as  that  of  Elis,  of 
which  we  know  nothing  —  was  distinctly  town  life;  and  so,  nat- 
urally, Greek  schooling  was  day-schooling,  from  which  the  child- 
ren returned  to  the  care  of  their  parents.  To  hand  over  boys,  far 
less  girls,  to  the  charge  of  a  boarding-school,  was  perfectly  un- 
known, and  would  no  doubt  have  been  gravely  censured.  Orphans 
were  placed  under  the  care  of  their  nearest  male  relative,  even 
when  their  education  was  provided  (as  it  was  in  some  cases)  by 
the  State.  Again,  as  regards  the  age  of  going  to  school,  it  would 
naturally  be  early,  seeing  that  the  day-schools  may  well  include 
infants  of  tender  age,  and  that  in  Greek  households  neither  father 
nor  mother  was  often  able  or  disposed  to  undertake  the  educa- 
tion of  the  children.  Indeed,  we  find  it  universal  that  even 
the  knowledge  of  the  letters  and  reading  were  obtained  from  a 
schoolmaster.  All  these  circumstances  would  point  to  an  early 
beginning  of  Greek  school  life;  whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
small  number  of  subjects  required  in  those  days,  the  absence  from 
the  programme  of  various  languages,  of  most  exact  sciences,  and 
of  general  history  and  geography,  made  it  unnecessary  to  begin 
so  early,  or  work  so  hard,  as  our  unfortunate  children  have  to 
do.  Above  all,  there  were  no  competitive  examinations,  except  in 
athletics  and  music.  The  Greeks  never  thought  of  promoting  a 


JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

man  for  <(dead  knowledge, J>  but  for  his  living  grasp  of  science 
or  of  life. 

Owing  to  these  causes,  we  find  the  theorists  discussing,  as  they 
now  do,  the  expediency  of  waiting  till  the  age  of  seven  before 
beginning  serious  education:  some  advising  it,  others  recommend- 
ing easy  and  half-playing  lessons  from  an  earlier  period.  And 
then,  as  now,  we  find  the  same  curious  silence  on  the  really 
important  fact  that  the  exact  number  of  years  a  child  has  lived 
is  nothing  to  the  point  in  question;  and  that  while  one  child 
may  be  too  young  at  seven  to  commence  work,  many  more  may 
be  distinctively  too  old. 

At  all  events,  we  may  assume  in  parents  the  same  varieties 
of  over-anxiety,  of  over-indulgence,  of  nervousness,  and  of  care- 
lessness, about  their  children;  and  so  it  doubtless  came  to  pass 
that  there  was  in  many  cases  a  gap  between  infancy  and  school 
life  which  was  spent  in  playing  and  doing  mischief.  This  may 
be  fairly  inferred,  not  only  from  such  anecdotes  as  that  of  Alci- 
biades  playing  with  his  fellows  in  the  street,  evidently  without 
the  protection  of  any  pedagogue,  but  also  from  the  large  nomen- 
clature of  boys'  games  preserved  to  us  in  the  glossaries  of  later 
grammarians. 

These  games  are  quite  distinct  from  the  regular  exercises  in 
the  palaestra.  We  have  only  general  descriptions  of  them,  and 
these  either  by  Greek  scholiasts  or  by  modern  philologists.  But 
in  spite  of  the  sad  want  of  practical  knowledge  of  games  shown 
by  both,  the  instincts  of  boyhood  are  so  uniform  that  we  can 
often  frame  a  very  distinct  idea  of  the  sort  of  amusement  popu- 
lar among  Greek  children.  For  young  boys,  games  can  hardly 
consist  of  anything  else  than  either  the  practicing  of  some  bodily 
dexterity,  such  as  hopping  on  one  foot  higher  or  longer  than 
is  easy,  or  throwing  further  with  a  stone;  or  else  some  imitation 
of  war,  such  as  snowballing,  or  pulling  a  rope  across  a  line,  or 
pursuing  under  fixed  conditions;  or  lastly,  the  practice  of  some 
mechanical  ingenuity,  such  as  whipping  a  top  or.  shooting  with 
marbles.  So  far  as  climate  or  mechanical  inventions  have  not 
altered  our  little  boys'  games,  we  find  all  these  principles  rep- 
resented in  Greek  games.  There  was  the  hobby  or  cock  horse 
(kdlamon,  parab$nai);  standing  or  hopping  on  one  leg  (askolidzeiri), 
which,  as  the  word  askos  implies,  was  attempted  on  a  skin  bottle 
filled  with  liquid  and  greased;  blindman's  buff  (chalke  muia,  lit- 
erally <(  brazen  fly"),  in  which  the  boy  cried,  (<  I  am  hunting  a 


JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

brazen  fly, )J  and  the  rest  answered,  <(  You  will  not  catch  it ; }) 
games  of  hide-and-seek,  of  taking-  and  releasing  prisoners,  of  fool 
in  the  middle,  of  playing  at  king:  in  fact,  there  is  probably  no 
simple  child's  game  now  known  which  was  not  then  in  use. 

A  few  more  details  may,  however,  be  interesting.  There  was 
a  game  called  kyndalismos  [Drive  the  peg],  in  which  the  kyndalon 
was  a  peg  of  wood  with  a  heavy  end  sharpened,  which  boys 
sought  to  strike  into  a  softened  place  in  the  earth  so  that  it  stood 
upright  and  knocked  out  the  peg  of  a  rival.  This  reminds  us  of 
the  peg-top  splitting  which  still  goes  on  in  our  streets.  Another, 
called  ostrakinda,  consisted  of  tossing  an  oyster  shell  in  the  air, 
of  which  one  side  was  blackened  or  moistened  and  called  night, 
the  other,  day, —  or  sun  and  rain.  The  boys  were  divided  into 
two  sides  with  these  names;  and  according  as  their  side  of  the 
shell  turned  up,  they  pursued  and  took  prisoners  their  adversaries. 
On  the  other  hand,  epostrakismos  was  making  a  shell  skip  along 
the  surface  of  water  by  a  horizontal  throw,  and  winning  by  the 
greatest  number  of  skips.  Eis  omillan  [At  strife],  though  a  gen- 
eral expression  for  any  contest,  was  specially  applied  to  tossing 
a  knuckle-bone  or  smooth  stone  so  as  to  lie  in  the  centre  of  a 
fixed  circle,  and  to  disturb  those  which  were  already  in  good 
positions.  This  was  also  done  into  a  small  hole  (tropd).  They 
seem  to  have  shot  dried  beans  from  their  fingers  as  we  do  mar- 
bles. They  spun  coins  on  their  edge  (chalkismds)  [game  of  cop- 
pers]. 

Here  are  two  games  not  perhaps  so  universal  nowadays: 
pentalithizein  [Fives,  Jackstones]  was  a  technical  word  for  toss- 
ing up  five  pebbles  or  astragali,  and  receiving  them  so  as  to 
make  them  lie  on  the  back  of  the  hand.  Meloldnthe,  or  the 
beetle  game,  consists  in  flying  a  beetle  by  a  long  thread,  and 
guiding  him  like  a  kite;  but  by  way  of  improvement  they  at- 
tached a  waxed  splinter,  lighted,  to  his  tail, —  and  this  cruelty  is 
now  practiced,  according  to  a  good  authority  (Papasliotis) ,  in 
Greece,  and  has  even  been  known  to  cause  serious  fires.  Tops 
were  known  under  various  names  (bembix,  strdmbos,  strobilos), 
one  of  them  certainly  a  humming-top.  So  were  hoops  (trochoi). 

Ball-playing  was  ancient  and  diffused,  even  among  the  Ho- 
meric heroes.  But  as  it  was  found  very  fashionable  and  care- 
fully practiced  by  both  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  at  the  time  of 
the  conquest,  it  is  probably  common  to  all  civilized  races.  We 
have  no  details  left  us  of  complicated  games  with  balls;  and  the 


JOHN  PENTLAND  MAHAFFY 

mere  throwing  them  up  and  catching  them  one  from  the  other, 
with  some  rhythmic  motion,  is  hardly  worth  all  the  poetic  fervor 
shown  about  this  game  by  the  Greeks.  But  possibly  the  musical 
and  dancing  accompaniments  were  very  important,  in  the  case  of 
grown  people  and  in  historical  times.  Pollux,  however, —  our 
main  authority  for  most  of  these  games, —  in  one  place  distinctly 
describes  both  football  and  hand-ball.  <(  The  names, w  he  says,  (<  of 
games  with  balls  are  —  episkyros,  phaininda,  aporraxis,  ourania. 
The  first  is  played  by  two  even  sides,  who  draw  a  line  in  the 
centre  which  they  call  skyros,  on  which  they  place  the  ball. 
They  draw  two  other  lines  behind  each  side;  and  those  who  first 
reach  the  ball  throw  it  (rhiptousiri)  over  the  opponents,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  catch  it  and  return  it,  until  one  side  drives  the 
other  back  over  their  goal  line."  Though  Pollux  makes  no  men- 
tion of  kicking,  this  game  is  evidently  our  football  in  substance. 
He  proceeds:  * Phaininda  was  called  either  from  Phainindes,  the 
first  discoverer,  or  from  pkenakizein  [to  play  tricks], w  etc., —  we 
need  not  follow  his  etymologies;  ((  and  aporraxis  consists  of  mak- 
ing a  ball  bound  off  the  ground,  and  sending  it  against  a  wall, 
counting  the  number  of  hops  according  as  it  was  returned.  *'  And 
as  if  to  make  the  anticipations  of  our  games  more  curiously  com- 
plete, there  is  cited  from  the  history  of  Manuel,  by  the  Byzantine 
Cinnamus  (A.  D.  1200),  a  clear  description  of  the  Canadian  la- 
crosse, a  sort  of  hockey  played  with  racquets:  — 

(C  Certain  youths,  divided  equally,  leave  in  a  level  place,  which 
they  have  before  prepared  and  measured,  a  ball  made  of  leather, 
about  the  size  of  an  apple,  and  rush  at  it,  as  if  it  were  a  prize  lying 
in  the  middle,  from  their  fixed  starting-point  [a  goal].  Each  of  them 
has  in  his  right  hand  a  racquet  (rhdbdon)  [wand,  staff]  of  suitable 
length,  ending  in  a  sort  of  flat  bend,  the  middle  of  which  is  occupied 
by  gut  strings  dried  by  seasoning,  and  plaited  together  in  net  fash- 
ion. Each  side  strives  to  be  the  first  to  bring  it  to  ttie  opposite  end 
of  the  ground  from  that  allotted  to  them.  Whenever  the  ball  is 
driven  by  the  racquets  (rhdbdoi}  to  the  end  of  the  ground,  it  counts 
as  a  victory. >J 

Two  games  which  were  not  confined  to  children  —  and  which 
are  not  widely  diffused,  though  they  exist  among  us  —  are  the  use 
of  astragali,  or  knuckle-bones  of  animals,  cut  so  nearly  square  as 
to  serve  for  dice;  and  with  these  children  threw  for  luck,  the 
highest  throw  (sixes)  being  accounted  the  best.  In  later  Greek 
art,  representations  of  Eros  and  other  youthful  figures  engaged 


JOHN   PENTLAND   MAHAFFY 

with  astragali  are  frequent.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  this  game 
was  an  introduction  to  dice-playing,  which  was  so  common,  and 
so  often  abused  that  among  the  few  specimens  of  ancient  dice 
remaining,  there  are  some  false  and  some  which  were  evidently 
loaded.  The  other  game  to  which  I  allude  is  the  Italian  morra, 
the  guessing  instantaneously  how  many  fingers  are  thrown  up  by 
the  player  and  his  adversary.  It  is  surprising  how  fond  southern 
men  and  boys  still  are  of  this  simple  game,  chiefly  however  for 
gambling  purposes. 

There  was  tossing  in  a  blanket,  walking  on  stilts,  swinging, 
leap-frog,  and  many  other  similar  plays,  which  are  ill  understood 
and  worse  explained  by  the  learned,  and  of  no  importance  to 
us,  save  as  proving  the  general  similarity  of  the  life  of  little  boys 
then  and  now. 

We  know  nothing  about  the  condition  of  little  girls  of  the 
same  age,  except  that  they  specially  indulged  in  ball-playing. 
Like  our  own  children,  the  girls  probably  joined  to  a  lesser 
degree  in  the  boys'  games,  and  only  so  far  as  they  could  be 
carried  on  within  doors,  in  the  court  of  the  house.  There  are 
graceful  representations  of  their  swinging  and  practicing  our  see- 
saw. Dolls  they  had  in  plenty,  and  doll-making  (of  clay)  was 
quite  a  special  trade  at  Athens.  In  more  than  one  instance  we 
have  found  in  children's  graves  their  favorite  dolls,  which  sorrow- 
ing parents  laid  with  them  as  a  S':>rt  of  keepsake  in  the  tomb. 

Most  unfortunately  there  is  hardly  a  word  left  of  the  nursery 
rhymes,  and  of  the  folk-lore,  which  are  very  much  more  inter- 
esting than  the  physical  amusements  of  children.  Yet  we  know 
that  such  popular  songs  existed  in  plenty;  we  know  too,  from 
the  early  fame  of  ^Esop's  fables,  from  the  myths  so  readily 
invented  and  exquisitely  told  by  Plato,  that  here  we  have  lost  a 
real  fund  of  beautiful  and  stimulating  children's  stories.  And  of 
course,  here  too  the  general  character  of  such  stories  throughout 
the  human  race  was  preserved. 


ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN 

(1840-1914) 

[HE  power  of  genius  to  discover  new  relations  between  famil- 
iar facts  is  strikingly  exemplified  in  Admiral  Alfred  Thayer 
Mahan's  studies  of  the  influence  of  sea  power  upon  history. 
The  data  cited  in  his  works  are  common  literary  property;  but  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  them  are  a  distinct  contribution  to  historical 
science.  Admiral  Mahan  was  the  first  writer  to  demonstrate  the  deter- 
mining force  which  maritime  strength  has  exercised  upon  the  fortunes  of 
individual  nations,  and  consequently  upon  the  course  of  general  history. 

Technically,  one  of  his  representative  works,  the  (Influence  of  Sea 
Power  upon  History,)  is  but  a  naval  history  of  Europe  from  the  re- 
storation of  the  Stuarts  to  the  end  of  the  American  Revolution.  But 
the  freedom  with  which  it  digresses  on  general  questions  of  naval  policy 
and  strategy,  the  attention  which  it  pays  to  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect  between  maritime  events  and  international  politics,  and  the 
author's  literary  method  of  treatment,  place  this  work  outside  the  class 
of  strictly  professional  writings,  and  entitle  it  already  to  be  regarded 
as  an  American  classic.  In  Europe  as  well  as  in  America,  it  has  been 
recognized  as  an  epoch-making  work  in  the  field  of  naval  history. 

The  contents  of  Admiral  Mahan's  great  studies  of  naval  history 
were  originally  given  forth  in  a  course  of  lectures  delivered  before 
the  Naval  War  College  at  Newport,  Rhode  Island;  and  Admiral  Ma- 
han's prime  object,  in  establishing  the  thesis  that  maritime  strength 
is  a  determining  factor  in  the  prosperity  of  nations,  was  to  reinforce 
his  argument  that  the  future  interests  of  the  United  States  require  a 
departure  from  the  traditional  American  policy  of  neglect  of  naval- 
military  affairs.  Admiral  Mahan  has  maintained  that,  as  openings  to 
immigration  and  enterprise  in  North  America  and  Australia  diminish, 
a  demand  will  arise  for  a  more  settled  government  in  the  disordered 
semi-barbarous  states  of  Central  and  South  America.  He  lays  down 
the  proposition  that  stability  of  institutions  is  necessary  to  commer- 
cial intercourse;  and  that  a  demand  for  such  stability  can  hardly 
be  met  without  the  intervention  of  interested  civilized  nations.  Thus 
international  complications  may  be  fairly  anticipated;  and  the  date 
of  their  advent  will  be  precipitated  by  the  completion  of  a  canal 
through  the  Central-American  isthmus.  The  strategic  conditions  of 
the  Mediterranean  will  be  reproduced  in  the  Caribbean  Sea,  and  in 
the'  international  struggle  for  the  control  of  the  new  highway  of 
commerce  the  United  States  will  have  the  advantage  of  geographical 


ALFRED    THAYER    MAHAN  9581 

position.  He  points  out  that  the  carrying  trade  of  the  United  States 
is  at  present  insignificant,  only  because  the  opening  of  the  West 
since  the  Civil  War  has  made  maritime  undertakings  less  profitable 
than  the  development  of  the  internal  resources  of  the  country.  It  is 
thus  shown  to  be  merely  a  question  of  time  when  American  capital 
will  again  seek  the  ocean;  and  Admiral  Mahan  urges  that  the  United 
States  should  seek  to  guard  the  interests  of  the  future  by  building 
up  a  strong  military  navy,  and  fortifying  harbors  commanding  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean  Sea. 

Admiral  Mahan's  biography  was  simple  and  professional.  He  was 
born  September  27th,  1840.  A  graduate  of  the  U.  S.  Naval  Academy, 
he  served  in  the  Union  navy  as  a  lieutenant  throughout  the  Civil 
War,  and  was  president  of  the  Naval  War  College  from  1886  to  1889 
and  from  1890  to  1893.  In  1896  he  retired  from  active  service  but  was 
a  member  of  the  Naval  Board  of  Strategy  during  the  war  between 
Spain  and  the  United  States.  He  was  made  rear-admiral  in  1906.  He 
became  a  voluminous  writer  on  his  peculiar  subject  or  its  closely  kindred 
topics.  Besides  the  work  already  mentioned,  his  writings  include 
(The  Gulf  and  Inland  Waters)  (1883);  (Life  of  Admiral  Farragut) 
(1892);  (Influence  of  Sea  Power  upon  the  French  Revolution  and 
Empire)  (1892),  a  continuation  of  the  (Influence  of  Sea  Power  upon 
History);  (The  Life  of  Nelson,  the  Embodiment  of  the  Sea  Power  of 
Great  Britain)  (1897);  (Sea  Power  in  its  Relation  to  the  War  of  1812) 
(1905);  (From  Sail  to  Steam)  (1907);  (The  Interest  of  America  in  Inter- 
national Conditions)  (1910);  (Naval  Strategy)  (1911);  and  (Arma- 
ments and  Arbitration)  (1912).  His  other  books  may  be  regarded  as 
supplements  and  continuations  of  the  new  interpretation  of  history 
set  forth  in  his  (Influence  of  Sea  Power  upon  History.)  He  died  in 
1914  before  he  could  witness  for  himself  the  supreme  test  to  which  the 
Great  War  was  to  put  his  theories  and  prophecies. 


THE   IMPORTANCE   OF  CRUISERS  AND  OF  STRONG   FLEETS 

IN  WAR 

From  <The  Influence  of  Sea  Power  upon  History,  1660-1783. >  Copyright  1890, 
by  Captain  A.  T.  Mahan.  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  author,  and 
of  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  publishers. 

THE    English,   notwithstanding    their    heavy   loss    in    the    Four 
Days'    Battle,  were   at   sea  again   within  two  months,  much 
to    the    surprise    of   the    Dutch;   and   on    the  4th  of  August 
another   severe  fight  was  fought  off  the   North   Foreland,   ending 
in   the   complete    defeat   of   the   latter,  who   retired   to  their  own 
coasts.      The    English    followed,    and    effected    an    entrance    into 


9582 


ALFRED   THAYER   MAHAN 


one  of  the  Dutch  harbors,  where  they  destroyed  a  large  fleet 
of  merchantmen  as  well  as  a  town  of  some  importance.  Toward 
the  end  of  1666  both  sides  [England  and  Holland]  were  tired 
of  the  war,  which  was  doing  great  harm  to  trade,  and  weaken- 
ing both  navies  to  the  advantage  of  the  growing  sea  power  of 
France.  Negotiations  looking  toward  peace  were  opened;  but 
Charles  II.,  ill  disposed  to  the  United  Provinces,  confident  that 
the  growing  pretensions  of  Louis  XIV.  to  the  Spanish  Nether- 
lands would  break  up  the  existing  alliance  between  Holland  and 
France,  and  relying  also  upon  the  severe  reverses  suffered  at  sea 
by  the  Dutch,  was  exacting  and  haughty  in  his  demands.  To 
justify  and  maintain  this  line  of  conduct  he  should  have  kept 
up  his  fleet,  the  prestige  of  which  had  been  so  advanced  by  its 
victories.  Instead  of  that,  poverty,  the  result  of  extravagance 
and  of  his  home  policy,  led  him  to  permit  it  to  decline ;  ships  in 
large  numbers  were  laid  up;  and  he  readily  adopted  an  opinion 
which  chimed  in  with  his  penury,  and  which,  as  it  has  had  advo- 
cates at  all  periods  of  sea  history,  should  be  noted  and  con- 
demned here.  This  opinion,  warmly  opposed  by  Monk,  was:  — 

(<That  as  the  Dutch  were  chiefly  supported  by  trade,  as  the  sup 
ply  of  their  navy  depended  upon  trade,  and  as  experience  showed, 
nothing  provoked  the  people  so  much  as  injuring  their  trade,  his 
Majesty  should  therefore  apply  himself  to  this,  which  would  effectu- 
ally humble  them,  at  the  same  time  that  it  would  less  exhaust  the 
English  than  fitting  out  such  mighty  fleets  as  had  hitherto  kept  the 
sea  every  summer.  .  .  .  Upon  these  motives  the  King  took  a 
fatal  resolution  of  laying  up  his  great  ships,  and  keeping  only  a  few 
frigates  on  the  cruise. » 

In  consequence  of  this  economical  theory  of  carrying  on  a 
war,  the  Grand  Pensionary  of  Holland,  De  Witt,  who  had  the 
year  before  caused  soundings  of  the  Thames  to  be  made,  sent 
into  the  river,  under  De  Ruyter,  a  force  of  sixty  or  seventy  ships 
of  the  line,  which  on  the  i4th  of  June,  1667,  went  up  as  high 
as  Gravesend,  destroying  ships  at  Chatham  and  in  the  Medway, 
and  taking  possession  of  Sheerness.  The  light  of  the  fires  could 
be  seen  from  London;  and  the  Dutch  fleet  remained  in  possession 
of  the  mouth  of  the  river  until  the  end  of  the  month.  Under 
this  blow,  following  as  it  did  upon  the  great  plague  and  the 
great  fire  of  London,  Charles  consented  to  peace,  which  was 
signed  July  3ist,  1667,  and  is  known  as  the  Peace  of  Breda.  The 
most  lasting  result  of  the  war  was  the  transfer  of  New  York  and 


ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN  9583 

New  Jersey  to  England,  thus  joining  her  northern  and  southern 
colonies  in  North  America. 

Before  going  on  again  with  the  general  course  of  the  history 
of  the  times,  it  will  be  well  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  theory 
which  worked  so  disastrously  for  England  in  1667;  that,  namely, 
of  maintaining  a  sea  war  mainly  by  preying  upon  the  enemy's 
commerce.  This  plan,  which  involves  only  the  maintenance  of  a 
few  swift  cruisers  and  can  be  backed  by  the  spirit  of  greed  in  a 
nation,  fitting  out  privateers  without  direct  expense  to  the  State, 
possesses  the  specious  attractions  which  economy  always  presents. 
The  great  injury  done  to  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  enemy 
is  also  undeniable ;  and  although '  to  some  extent  his  merchant 
ships  can  shelter  themselves  ignobly  under  a  foreign  flag  while 
the  war  lasts,  this  guerre  de  course,  as  the  French  call  it, — this 
commerce-destroying,  to  use  our  own  phrase, —  must,  if  in  itself 
successful,  greatly  embarrass  the  foreign  government  and  distress 
its  people.  Such  a  war,  however,  cannot  stand  alone:  it  must  be 
supported,  to  use  the  military  phrase;  unsubstantial  and  evanes- 
cent in  itself,  it  cannot  reach  far  from  its  base.  That  base  must 
be  either  home  ports  or  else  some  solid  outpost  of  the  national 
power  on  the  shore  or  the  sea;  a  distant  dependency  or  a 
powerful  fleet.  Failing  such  support,  the  cruiser  can  only  dash 
out  hurriedly  a  short  distance  from  home;  and  its  blows,  though 
painful,  cannot  be  fatal.  It  was  not  the  policy  of  1667,  but 
Cromwell's  powerful  fleets  of  ships  of  the  line  in  1652,  that  shut 
the  Dutch  merchantmen  in  their  ports  and  caused  the  grass  to 
grow  in  the  streets  of  Amsterdam.  When,  instructed  by  the  suffer- 
ing of  that  time,  the  Dutch  kept  large  fleets  afloat  through  two 
exhausting  wars,  though  their  commerce  suffered  greatly,  they 
bore  up  the  burden  of  the  strife  against  England  and  France 
united.  Forty  years  later,  Louis  XIV.  was  driven  by  exhaustion 
to  the  policy  adopted  by  Charles  II.  through  parsimony.  Then 
were  the  days  of  the  great  French  privateers, —  Jean  Bart,  For- 
bin,  Duguay-Trouin,  Du  Casse,  and  others.  The  regular  fleets  of 
the  French  navy  were  practically  withdrawn  from  the  ocean  dur- 
ing the  great  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  (1702-1712).  The 
French  naval  historian  says:  — 

(<  Unable  to  renew  the  naval  armaments,  Louis  XIV.  increased  the 
number  of  cruisers  lipon  the  more  frequented  seas,  especially  the 
Channel  and  the  German  Ocean  [not  far  from  home,  it  will  be  noticed]. 


95^4 


ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN 


In  these  different  spots  the  cruisers  were  always  in  a  position  to  inter- 
cept or  hinder  the  movements  of  transports  laden  with  troops,  and  of 
the  numerous  convoys  carrying  supplies  of  all  kinds.  In  these  seas, 
in  the  centre  of  the  commercial  and  political  world,  there  is  always 
work  for  cruisers.  Notwithstanding  the  difficulties  they  met,  owing 
to  the  absence  of  large  friendly  fleets,  they  served  advantageously  the 
cause  of  the  two  peoples  [French  and  Spanish].  These  cruisers,  in 
the  face  of  the  Anglo-Dutch  power,  needed  good  luck,  boldness,  and 
skill.  These  three  conditions  were  not  lacking  to  our  seamen;  but 
then,  what  chiefs  and  what  captains  they  had ! }> 

The  English  historian,  on  the  other  hand,  while  admitting 
how  severely  the  people  and  commerce  of  England  suffered  from 
the  cruisers,  bitterly  reflecting  at  times  upon  the  administration, 
yet  refers  over  and  over  again  to  the  increasing  prosperity  of 
the  whole  country,  and  especially  of  its  commercial  part.  In  the 
preceding  war,  on  the  contrary,  from  1689  to  1697,  when  France 
sent  great  fleets  to  sea  and  disputed  the  supremacy  of  the  ocean, 
how  different  the  result!  The  same  English  writer  says  of  that 
time :  — 

(<With  respect  to  our  trade,  it  is  certain  that  we  suffered  infinitely 
more,  not  merely  than  the  French,  for  that  was  to  be  expected  from 
the  greater  number  of  our  merchant  ships,  but  than  we  ever  did  in 
any  former  war.  .  .  .  This  proceeded  in  great  measure  from  the 
vigilance  of  the  French,  who  carried  on  the  war  in  a  piratical  way. 
It  is  out  of  all  doubt  that,  taking  all  together,  our  traffic  suffered 
excessively;  our  merchants  were  many  of  them  ruined. » 

Macaulay  says  of  this  period:  (<  During  many  months  of  1693 
the  English  trade  with  the  Mediterranean  had  been  interrupted 
almost  entirely.  There  was  no  chance  that  a  merchantman 
from  London  or  Amsterdam  would,  if  unprotected,  reach  the  Pil- 
lars of  Hercules  without  being  boarded  by  a  French  privateer; 
and  the  protection  of  armed  vessels  was  not  easily  obtained. }) 
Why?  Because  the  vessels  of  England's  navy  were  occupied 
watching  the  French  navy,  and  this  diversion  of  them  from  the 
cruisers  and  privateers  constituted  the  support  which  a  commerce- 
destroying  war  must  have.  A  French  historian,  speaking  of  the 
same  period  in  England  (1696),  says:  <(  The  state  of  the  finances 
was  deplorable:  money  was  scarce,  maritime  insurance  thirty 
per  cent.,  the  Navigation  Act  was  virtually  suspended,  and  the 
English  shipping  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  sailing  under  the 
Swedish  and  Danish  flags. w  Half  a  century  later  the  French 


ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN 


9585 


government  was  again  reduced,  by  long  neglect  of  the  navy,  to 
a  cruising  warfare.  With  what  results?  First,  the  French  his- 
torian says:  <(  From  June  1756  to  June  1760,  French  privateers 
captured  from  the  English  more  than  twenty-five  hundred  mer- 
chantmen. In  1761,  though  France  had  not,  so  to  speak,  a  single 
ship  of  the  line  at  sea,  and  though  the  English  had  taken  two 
hundred  and  forty  of  our  privateers,  their  comrades  still  took 
eight  hundred  and  twelve  vessels.  But,"  he  goes  on  to  say, 
(<the  prodigious  growth  of  the  English  shipping  explains  the 
number  of  these  prizes. })  In  other  words,  the  suffering  involved 
to  England  in  such  numerous  captures,  which  must  have  caused 
great  individual  injury  and  discontent,  did  not  really  prevent  the 
growing  prosperity  of  the  State  and  of  the  community  at  large. 
The  English  naval  historian,  speaking  of  the  same  period,  says: 
<(  While  the  commerce  of  France  was  nearly  destroyed,  the  trad- 
ing fleet  of  England  covered  the  seas.  Every  year  her  com- 
merce was  increasing;  the  money  which  the  war  carried  out  was 
returned  by  the  produce  of  her  industry.  Eight  thousand  mer- 
chant vessels  were  employed  by  the  English  merchants. }>  And 
again,  summing  up  the  results  of  the  war,  after  stating  the 
immense  amount  of  specie  brought  into  the  kingdom  by  foreign 
conquests,  he  says:  <(The  trade  of  England  increased  gradually 
every  year;  and  such  a  scene  of  national  prosperity,  while  waging 
a  long,  bloody,  and  costly  war,  was  never  before  shown  by  any 
people  in  the  world. w 

On  the  other  hand,  the  historian  of  the  French  navy,  speaking 
of  an  earlier  phase  of  the  same  wars,  says:  (<The  English  fleets, 
having  nothing  to  resist  them,  swept  the  seas.  Our  privateers 
and  single  cruisers,  having  no  fleet  to  keep  down  the  abundance 
of  their  enemies,  ran  short  careers.  Twenty  thousand  French 
seamen  lay  in  English  prisons.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
the  War  of  the  American  Revolution,  France  resumed  the  policy 
of  Colbert  and  of  the  early  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  kept  large 
battle  fleets  afloat,  the  same  result  again  followed  as  in  the  days 
of  Tourville."  (<  For  the  first  time,"  says  the  Annual  Register,  for- 
getting or  ignorant  of  the  experience  of  1693,  and  remembering 
only  the  glories  of  the  later  wars,  <(  English  merchant  ships  were 
driven  to  take  refuge  under  foreign  flags. })  Finally,  in  quitting 
this  part  of  the  subject,  it  may  be  remarked  that  in  the  Island  of 
Martinique  the  French  had  a  powerful  distant  dependency  upon 
which  to  base  a  cruising  warfare;  and  during  the  Seven  Years' 


95 86  ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN 

War,  as  afterward  during  the  First  Empire,  it,  with  Guadaloupe, 
was  the  refuge  of  numerous  privateers.  <(The  records  of  the 
English  admiralty  raise  the  losses  of  the  English  in  the  West 
Indies  during  the  first  years  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  to  four- 
teen hundred  merchantmen  taken  or  destroyed. })  The  English 
fleet  was  therefore  directed  against  the  islands,  both  of  which 
fell,  involving  a  loss  to  the  trade  of  France  greater  than  all  the 
depredations  of  her  cruisers  on  the  English  commerce,  besides 
breaking  up  the  system;  but  in  the  war  of  1778  the  great  fleets 
protected  the  islands,  which  were  not  even  threatened  at  any 
time. 

So  far  we  have  been  viewing  the  effect  of  a  purely  cruis- 
ing warfare,  not  based  upon  powerful  squadrons,  only  upon  that 
particular  part  of  the  enemy's  strength  against  which  it  is  theo- 
retically directed, — upon  his  commerce  and  general  wealth,  upon 
the  sinews  of  war.  The  evidence  seems  to  show  that  even  for  its 
own  special  ends  such  a  mode  of  war  is  inconclusive, —  worrying 
but  not  deadly;  it  might  almost  be  said  that  it  causes  needless 
suffering.  What,  however,  is  the  effect  of  this  policy  upon  the 
general  ends  of  the  war,  to  which  it  is  one  of  the  means  and  to 
which  it  is  subsidiary  ?  How,  again,  does  it  react  upon  the  people 
that  practice  it  ?  As  the  historical  evidences  will  come  up  in 
detail  from  time  to  time,  it  need  here  only  be  summarized. 

The  result  to  England  in  the  days  of  Charles  II.  has  been 
seen, —  her  coast  insulted,  her  shipping  burned  almost  within 
sight  of  her  capital.  In  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession, 
when  the  control  of  Spain  was  the  military  object,  while  the 
French  depended  upon  a  cruising  war  against  commerce,  the 
navies  of  England  and  Holland,  unopposed,  guarded  the  coasts 
of  the  peninsula,  blocked  the  port  of  Toulon,  forced  the  French 
succors  to  cross  the  Pyrenees,  and  by  keeping  open  the  sea  high- 
way, neutralized  the  geographical  nearness  of  France  to  the  seat 
of  war.  Their  fleets  seized  Gibraltar,  Barcelona,  and  Minorca; 
and  co-operating  with  the  Austrian  army,  failed  by  little  of  .redu- 
cing Toulon.  In  the  Seven  Years'  War  the  English  fleets  seized, 
or  aided  in  seizing,  all  the  most  valuable  colonies  of  France  and 
Spain,  and  made  frequent  descents  on  the  French  coast. 

The  War  of  the  American  Revolution  affords  no  lesson,  the 
fleets  being  nearly  equal.  The  next  most  striking  instance  to 
Americans  is  the  War  of  1812.  Everybody  knows  how  our  pri- 
vateers swarmed  over  the  seas;  and  that  from  the  smallness  of 


ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN  9587 

our  navy  the  war  was  essentially,  indeed  solely,  a  cruising-  war. 
Except  upon  the  lakes,  it  is  doubtful  if  more  than  two  of  our 
ships  at  any  time  acted  together.  The  injury  done  to  English 
commerce,  thus  unexpectedly  attacked  by  a  distant  foe  which  had 
been  undervalued,  may  be  fully  conceded;  but  on  the  one  hand, 
the  American  cruisers  were  powerfully  supported  by  the  French 
fleet,  which,  being  assembled  in  larger  or  smaller  bodies  in  the 
many  ports  under  the  Emperor's  control  from  Antwerp  to  Venice, 
tied  the  fleets  of  England  to  blockade  duty;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  when-  the  fall  of  the  Emperor  released  them,  our  coasts 
were  insulted  in  every  direction,  the  Chesapeake  entered  and  con- 
trolled, its  shores  wasted,  the  Potomac  ascended,  and  Washington 
burned.  The  Northern  frontier  was  kept  in  a  state  of  alarm, 
though  there,  squadrons  absolutely  weak  but  relatively  strong 
sustained  the  general  defense;  while  in  the  South  the  Mississippi 
was  entered  unopposed,  and  New  Orleans  barely  saved.  When 
negotiations  for  peace  were  opened,  the  bearing  of  the  English 
toward  the  American  envoys  was  not  that  of  men  who  felt  their 
country  to  be  threatened  with  an  unbearable  evil. 

The  late  Civil  War,  with  the  cruises  of  the  Alabama  and 
Sumter  and  their  consorts,  revived  the  tradition  of  commerce- 
destroying.  In  so  far  as  this  is  one  means  to  a  general  end,  and 
is  based  upon  a  navy  otherwise  powerful,  it  is  well;  but  we  need 
not  expect  to  see  the  feats  of  those  ships  repeated  in  the  face  of 
a  great  sea  power.  In  the  first  place,  those  cruises  were  power- 
fully supported  by  the  determination  of  the  United  States  to 
blockade,  not  only  the  chief  centres  of  Southern  trade,  but  every 
inlet  of  the  coast,  thus  leaving  few  ships  available  for  pursuit; 
in  the  second  place,  had  there  been  ten  of  those  cruisers  where 
there  was  one,  they  would  not  have  stopped  the  incursion  in 
Southern  waters  of  the  Union  fleet,  which  penetrated  to  every 
point  accessible  from  the  sea;  and  in  the  third  place,  the  un- 
deniable injury,  direct  and  indirect,  inflicted  upon  individuals 
and  upon  one  branch  of  the  nation's  industry  (and  how  high  that 
shipping  industry  stands  in  the  writer's  estimation  need  not  be 
repeated),  did  not  in  the  least  influence  or  retard  the  event  of 
the  war.  Such  injuries,  unaccompanied  by  others,  are  more  irri- 
tating than  weakening.  On  the  other  hand,  will  any  refuse  to 
admit  that  the  work  of  the  great  Union  fleets  powerfully  modified 
and  hastened  an  end  which  was  probably  inevitable  in  any  case  ? 
As  a  sea  power  the  South  then  occupied  the  place  of  France  in 


9588 


ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN 


the  wars  we  have  been  considering1,  while  the  situation  of  the 
North  resembled  that  of  England;  and  as  in  France,  the  suffer- 
ers in  the  Confederacy  were  not  a  class,  but  the  government  and 
the  nation  at  large. 

It  is  not  the  taking  of  individual  ships  or  convoys,  be  they 
few  or  many,  that  strikes  down  the  money  power  of  a  nation:  it 
is  the  possession  of  that  overbearing  power  on  the  sea  which 
drives  the  enemy's  flag  from  it,  or  allows  it  to  appear  only  as  a 
fugitive;  and  which,  by  controlling  the  great  common,  closes  the 
highways  by  which  commerce  moves  to  and  from  the  enemy's 
shores.  This  overbearing  power  can  only  be  exercised  by  great 
navies;  and  by  them  (on  the  broad  sea)  less  efficiently  now  than 
in  the  days  when  the  neutral  flag  had  not  its  present  immunity. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  in  the  event  of  a  war  between  maritime 
nations,  an  attempt  may  be  made  by  the  one  having  a  great 
sea  power,  and  wishing  to  break  down  its  enemy's  commerce,  to 
interpret  the  phrase  <(  effective  blockade w  in  the  manner  that 
best  suits  its  interests  at  the  time;  to  assert  that  the  speed  and 
disposal  of  its  ships  make  the  blockade  .effective  at  much  greater 
distances  and  with  fewer  ships  than  formerly.  The  determination 
of  such  a  question  will  depend,  not  upon  the  weaker  belligerent, 
but  upon  neutral  powers:  it  will  raise  the  issue  between  bel- 
ligerent and  neutral  rights;  and  if  the  belligerent  have  a  vastly 
overpowering  navy  he  may  carry  his  point, — just  as  England, 
when  possessing  the  mastery  of  the  seas,  long  refused  to  admit 
the  doctrine  of  the  neutral  flag  covering  the  goods. 


95^9 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES 

(1135-1204) 

BY.  RABBI  GOTTHEIL 

IHE  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  Go  either  to  the  right, 
my  heart,  or  go  to  the  left;  but  believe  all  that  Rabbi  Moses 
ben  Maimon  has  believed, —  the  last  of  the  Gaonim  [religious 
teachers]  in  time,  but  the  first  in  rank.*'  In  such  manner  did  the 
most  celebrated  Jewish  poet  in  Provence  voice  in  his  quaint  way  the 
veneration  with  which  the  Jewish  Aristotle  of  Cordova  was  regarded. 
For  well-nigh  four  hundred  years,  the  descendants  of  Isaac  had  lived 
in  the  Spanish  Peninsula  the  larger  life  opened  up  to  them  by  the 
sons  of  Ishmael.  They  had  with  ardor  cultivated  their  spiritual  pos- 
sessions—  the  only  ones  they  had  been  able  to  save  —  as  they  passed 
through  shipwreck  and  all  manner  of  ill  fortune  from  the  fair  lands 
of  the  East.  The  height  of  their  spiritual  fortune  was  manifested  in 
this  second  Moses,  whom  they  did  not  scruple  to  compare  with  the 
first  bearer  of  that  name. 

Abu  Amram  Musa  ibn  Ibrahim  Ubeid  Allah,  as  his  full  Arabic 
name  ran,  was  born  in  the  city  of  Cordova,  <(the  Mecca  of  the  West,* 
on  March  3oth,  1135.  His  father  was  learned  in  Talmudic  lore;  and 
from  him  the  young  student  must  have  gotten  his  strong  love  of 
knowledge.  At  an  early  period  he  developed  a  taste  for  the  exact 
sciences  and  for  philosophy.  He  read  with  zeal  not  only  the  works 
of  the  Mohammedan  scholastics,  but  also  those  of  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers in  such  dress  as  they  had  been  made  accessible  by  their 
Arabian  translators.  In  this  way  his  mind,  which  by  nature  ran  in 
logical  and  systematic  grooves,  was  strengthened  in  its  bent;  and  he 
acquired  that  distaste  for  mysticism  and  vagueness  which  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  his  literary  labors.  He  went  so  far  as  to  abhor  poetry, 
the  best  of  which  he  declared  to  be  false,  since  it  was  founded  upon 
pure  invention  —  and  this  too  in  a  land  which  had  produced  such 
noble  expressions  of  the  Hebrew  and  Arab  Muse. 

It  is  strange  that  this  man,  whose  character  was  that  of  a  sage, 
and  who  was  revered  for  his  person  as  well  as  for  his  books,  should 
have  led  such  an  unquiet  life,  and  have  written  his  works  so  full 
of  erudition  with  the  staff  of  the  wanderer  in  his  hand.  For  his 
peaceful  studies  were  rudely  disturbed  in  his  thirteenth  year  by  the 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES 

invasion  of  the  Almohades,  or  Mohammedan  Unitarians,  from  Africa. 
They  not  only  captured  Cordova,  but  set  up  a  form  of  religious  per- 
secution which  happily  is  not  always  characteristic  of  Islamic  piety. 
Maimonides's  father  wandered  to  Almeria  on  the  coast;  and  then 
(1159)  straight  into  the  lion's  jaws  at  Fez  in  Africa, — a  line  of  conduct 
hardly  intelligible  in  one  who  had  fled  for  the  better  exercise  of  the 
dictates  of  conscience.  So  pressing  did  the  importunities  of  the  Almo- 
had  fanatics  become,  that  together  with  his  family  Maimonides  was 
compelled  to  don  the  turban,  and  to  live  for  several  years  the  life  of 
an  Arabic  Marrano.  This  blot  upon  his  fair  fame  —  if  blot  it  be — he 
tried  to  excuse  in  two  treatises,  which  may  be  looked  upon  as  his 
<(  apologia  pro  vita  sua":  one  on  the  subject  of  conversion  in  general 
(1160),  and  another  addressed  to  his  co-religionists  in  Southern  Arabia 
on  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  But  the  position  was  an-  untenable 
one;  and  in  1165  we  find  Maimonides  again  on  the  road,  reaching 
Accho,  Jerusalem,  Hebron,  and  finally  Egypt.  Under  the  milder  rule 
of  the  Ayyubite  Caliphs,  no  suppression  of  his  belief  was  necessary. 
Maimonides  settled  with  his  brother  in  old  Cairo  or  Fostat;  gaining 
his  daily  pittance,  first  as  a  jeweler,  and  then  in  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine ;  the  while  he  continued  in  the  study  of  philosophy  and  the  elab- 
oration of  the  great  works  upon  which  his  fame  reposes.  In  1177  he 
was  recognized  as  the  head  of  the  Jewish  community  of  Egypt,  and 
soon  afterwards  was  placed  upon  the  list  of  court  physicians  to  Sala- 
din.  He  breathed  his  last  on  December  13th,  1204,  and  his  body  was 
taken  to  Tiberias  for  burial. 

Perhaps  no  fairer  presentation  of  the  principles  and  practices  of 
Rabbinical  Judaism  can  be  cited  than  that  contained  in  the  three 
chief  works  of  Maimonides.  His  clear-cut  mind  gathered  the  various 
threads  which  Jewish  theology  and  life  had  spun  since  the  closing  of 
the  Biblical  canon,  and  wove  them  into  such  a  fabric  that  a  new 
period  may  fitly  be  said  to  have  been  ushered  in.  The  Mishnah  had 
become  the  law-book  of  the  Diaspora:  in  it  was  to  be  found  the  sys- 
tem of  ordinances  and  practices  which  had  been  developed  up  to  the 
second  century  A.  D.  In  the  scholastic  discussions  in  which  the  Jew- 
ish schoolmen  had  indulged  their  wit  and  their  ingenuity,  much  of 
its  plain  meaning  had  become  obscured.  At  the  age  of  twenty-three 
Maimonides  commenced  to  work  upon  a  commentary  to  this  Mishnah, 
which  took  him  seven  years  to  complete.  It  was  written  in  Arabic, 
and  very  fitly  called  ( The  Illumination > ;  for  here  the  philosophic 
training  of  its  author  was  brought  to  bear  upon  the  dry  legal  mass, 
and  to  give  it  life  as  well  as  light.  The  induction  of  philosophy  into 
law  is  seen  to  even  more  peculiar  advantage  in  his  Mishnah  Torah 
(Repeated  Law).  The  scholastic  discussions  upon  the  Mishnah  had  in 
the  sixth  century  been  put  into  writing,  and  had  become  that  vast 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 


9591 


medley  of  thought,  that  kaleidoscope  of  schoolroom  life,  which  is 
known  by  the  name  of  Talmud.  Based  upon  the  slender  framework 
of  the  Mishnah,  the  vast  edifice  had  been  built  up  with  so  little  plan 
and  symmetry  that  its  various  ramifications  could  only  be  followed 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  and  with  infinite  exertion.  In  turn,  the 
Talmud  had  supplanted  the  Mishnah  as  the  rule  of  life  and  the  direct- 
ive of  religious  observance.  Even  before  the  time  of  Maimonides- 
scholars  had  tried  their  hand  at  putting  order  into  this  great  chaos; 
but  none  of  their  efforts  had  proved  satisfactory.  For  ten  years 
Maimonides  worked  and  produced  this  digest,  in  which  he  arranged 
in  scientific  order  all  the  material  which  a  Jewish  jurist  and  theo- 
logian might  be  called  upon  to  use.  Though  this  digest  was  received 
with  delight  by  the  Jews  of  Spain,  many  were  found  who  looked  upon 
Maimonides's  work  as  an  attempt  to  crystallize  into  unchangeable  law 
the  fluctuating  streams  of  tradition.  The  same  objection  was  made 
to  his  attempt  to  formulate  into  a  creed 'the  purely  theological  ideas 
of  the  Judaism  of  his  day.  His  ( Thirteen  Articles y  brought  on  a  war 
of  strong  opposition;  and  though  in  the  end,  the  fame  of  their  author 
conquered  a  place  for  them  even  in  the  Synagogue .  Ritual,  they  were 
never  accepted  by  the  entire  Jewry.  They  remained  the  presentation 
of  an  individual  scholar. 

But  his  chief  philosophical  work,  his  ( Guide  of  the  Perplexed  > 
(Dalalat  al  Hai'rin),  carried  him  still  further;  and  for  centuries  fairly 
divided  the  Jewish  camp  into  two  parties.  The  battle  between  the 
Maimonists  and  anti-Maimonists  waged  fiercely  in  Spain  and  Provence. 
The  bitterness  of  the  strife  is  represented  in  the  two  inscriptions 
which  were  placed  upon  his  tombstone.  The  first  read:  — 

<(Here  lies  a  man,  and  still  a  man; 
If  thou  wert  a  man,  angels  of  heaven 
Must  have  overshadowed  thy  mother. w 

This  was  effaced  and  a  second  one  placed  in  its  stead:  — 

<(Here  lies  Moses  Maimuni,  the  excommunicated  heretic. }) 

In  the  ( Guide  of  the  Perplexed y  Maimonides  has  also  produced  a 
work  which  was  (<  epoch-making  w  in  Jewish  philosophy.  It  is  the  best 
attempt  ever  made  by  a  Jew  to  combine  philosophy  with  theology. 
Aristotle  was  known  to  Maimonides  through  Al-Farabi  and  Ibn  Sina 
(Avicenna);  and  he  is  convinced  that  the  Stagyrite  is  to  be  followed 
in  certain  things,  as  he  is  that  the  Bible  must  be  followed  in  others. 
In  fact,  there  can  be  no  divergence  between  the  two;  for  both  have 
the  same  end  in  view, — to  prove  the  existence  of  God.  The  aim  of 
metaphysics  is  to  perfect  man  intellectually;  the  same  aim  is  at  the 
core  of  Talmudic  Judaism.  Reason  and  revelation  must  speak  th» 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 

same  language ;  and  by  a  peculiar  kind  of  subtle  exegesis  —  which 
provoked  much  opposition,  as  it  seemed  to  do  violence  to  the  plain 
wording  —  he  is  able  to  find  his  philosophical  ideas  in  the  text  oi 
the  Bible.  But  he  is  careful  to  limit  his  acquiescence  in  Aristotle's 
teaching  to  things  which  occur  below  the  sphere  of  the  moon.  He 
was  afraid  of  coming  into  contact  with  the  foundations  of  religious 
belief,  and  of  having  to  deny  the  existence  of  wonders.  The  Bible 
teaches  that  matter  was  created,  and  the  arguments  advanced  in  favoi 
of  both  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  views  he  looks  upon  as  insuffi- 
cient. The  Jewish  belief  that  God  brought  into  existence  not  only  the 
form  but  also  the  matter  of  the  world,  Maimonides  looks  upon  much 
as  an  article  of  faith.  The  same  is  true  of  the  belief  in  a  resurrec- 
tion. He  adduces  so  little  proof  for  this  dogma  that  the  people  of 
his  day  were  ready  to  charge  him  with  heresy. 

Maimonides  is  able  to  present  twenty-five  ontological  arguments 
for  his  belief  in  the  existence,  unity,  and  incorporeality  of  God.  What 
strikes  one  most  is  the  almost  colorless  conception  of  the  Deity  at 
which  he  arrives.  In  his  endeavor  to  remove  the  slightest  shadow  of 
corporeality  in  this  conception,  he  is  finally  led  to  deny  that  any 
positive  attributes  can  be  posited  of  God.  Such  attributes  would  only 
be  "accidentia";  and  any  such  <(  acciden'tia >}  would  limit  the  idea 
of  oneness.  Even  attributes  which  would  merely  show  the  relation  of 
the  Divine  Being  to  other  beings  are  excluded;  because  he  is  so  far 
removed  from  things  non-Divine,  as  to  make  all  comparison  impossi- 
ble. Even  existence,  when  spoken  of  in  regard  to  him,  is  not  an 
attribute.  In  his  school  language,  the  "essentia"  of  God  involves 
his  <(  existentia. »  We  have  therefore  to  rely  entirely  upon  negative 
attributes  in  trying  to  get  a  clear  concept  of  the  Deity. 

If  the  Deity  is  so  far  removed,  how  then  is  he  to  act  upon  the 
world  ?  Maimonides  supposes  that  this  medium  is  to  be  found  in  the 
world  of  the  spheres.  Of  these  spheres  there  are  nine:  "the  all- 
encompassing  sphere,  that  of  the  fixed  stars,  and  those  of  the  seven 
planets. >J  Each  sphere  is  presided  over  by  an  intelligence  which  is 
its  motive  power.  These  intelligences  are  called  angels,  in  the  Bible. 
The  highest  intelligence  is  immaterial.  It  is  the  nods  poietikos,  the 
ever-active  intellect.  It  is  the  power  which  gives  form  to  all  things, 
and  makes  that  which  was  potential  really  existent.  (<  Prophecy  is 
an  emanation  sent  forth  by  the  Divine  Being  through  the  medium  of 
the  active  intellect,  in  the  first  instance  to  man's  rational  faculty  and 
then  to  his  imaginative  faculty.  The  lower  grade  of  prophecy  comes 
by  means  of  dreams,  the  higher  through  visions  accorded  the  prophet 
in  a  waking  condition.  The  symbolical  actions  of  the  prophets  are 
nothing  more  than  states  of  the  soul.®  High  above  all  the  prophets 
Maimonides  places  Moses,  to  whom  he  attributes  a  special  power,  by 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 

means  of  which  the  active  intellect  worked  upon  him  without  the 
mediation  of  the  imagination. 

The  psychological  parts  of  the  c  Guide  *  present  in  a  Jewish  garb 
the  Peripatetic  philosophy  as  expounded  by  Alexander  of  Aphrodisia. 
Reason  exists  in  the  powers  of  the  soul,  but  only  potentially  as  latent 
reason  (notis  htilikos).  It  has  the  power  to  assimilate  immaterial  forms 
which  come  from  the  active  reason.  It  thus  becomes  acquired  or 
developed  reason  (nods  epiktetos)\  and  by  still  further  assimilation  it 
becomes  gradually  an  entity  separable  from  the  body,  so  that  at 
death  it  can  live  on  unattached  to  the  body. 

In  ethics  Maimonides  is  a  strong  partisan  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
freedom  of  the  will.  No  one  moves  him,  no  one  drives  him  to  cer- 
tain actions.  He  can  choose,  according  to  his  own  inner  vision,  the 
way  on  which  he  wishes  to  walk.  Nor  does  this  doctrine  involve  any 
limitation  of  the  Divine  power,  as  this  freedom  is  fully  predetermined 
by  the  Deity.  But  Maimonides  must  have  felt  the  difficulty  of  squar- 
ing the  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  with  that  of  the  omnis- 
cience of  God;  for  he  intrenches  himself  behind  the  statement  that 
the  knowledge. of  God  is  so  far  removed  from  human  knowledge  as 
to  make  all  comparison  impossible.  Again,  in  true  Aristotelian  style, 
Maimonides  holds  that  those  actions  are  to  be  considered  virtuous 
which  follow  the  golden  mean  between  the  extremes  of  too  much 
and  too  little.  The  really  wise  man  will  always  choose  this  road; 
and  such  wisdom  can  be  learned;  by  continued  practice  it  can  become 
part  of  man's  nature.  He  is  most  truly  virtuous  who  has  reached 
this  eminence,  and  who  has  eliminated  from  his  own  being  even  the 
desire  to  do  wrong. 

The  daring  with  which  Maimonides  treated  many  portions  of 
Jewish  theology  did  not  fail  to  show  its  effect  immediately  after  the 
publication  of  the  c  Guided  His  rationalistic  notions  about  revela- 
tion, his  allegorizing  interpretation  of  Scripture,  his  apparent  want  of 
complete  faith  in  the  doctrine  of  resurrection,  produced  among  the 
Jews  a  .violent  reaction  against  all  philosophical  inquiry,  which  lasted 
down  to  the  times  of  the  French  Revolution.  Even  non-Jews  looked 
askance  at  his  system.  Abd  al-Latif,  an  orthodox  Mohammedan,  con- 
sidered the  ( Guide >  «  a  bad  book,  which  is  calculated  to  undermine  the 
principles  of  religion  through  the  very  means  which  are  apparently 
designed  to  strengthen  them";  and  in  Catholic  Spain  the  writings  of 
(<Moyses  hijo  de  Maymon  Egipnachus"  were  ordered  to  be  burned. 
In  Montpellier  and  in  Paris,  his  own  Jewish  opponents,  not  content 
with  having  gotten  an  edict  against  the  use  of  the  master's  writings, 
obtained  the  aid  of  the  Church  (for  the  < Guide >  had  been  translated 
into  Latin  in  the  thirteenth  century),  and  had  it  publicly  consigned 
to  the  flames.  But  all  this  was  only  further  evidence  of  the  power 


0594  MOSES  MAIMONIDES 

which  Maimonides  wielded.  The  Karaites  copied  it;  the  Kabbalah 
even  tried  to  claim  it  as  its  own.  Many  who  were  not  of  the  House 
of  Israel,  as  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Albertus  Magnus,  acknowledged  the 
debt  they  owed  the  Spanish  Rabbi;  and  Spinoza,  though  in  many 
places  an  opponent,  shows  clearly  how  carefully  he  had  studied  the 
<  Guide  of  the  Perplexed.* 


EXTRACT  FROM   MAIMONIDES'S  WILL 

FEAR  the  Lord,  but  love  him  also;  for  fear  only  restrains  a 
man  from  sin,  while  love  stimulates  him  to  good. 
Accustom  yourselves  to  habitual  goodness ;.  for  a  man's 
character  is  what  habit  makes  it.  ...  The  perfection  of  the 
body  is  a  necessary  antecedent  to  the  perfection  of  the  soul;  for 
health  is  the  key  that  unlocks  the  inner  chamber.  When  I  bid 
you  attend  to  your  bodily  and  moral  welfare,  my  object  is  to 
open  for  you  the  gates  of  heaven.  .  .  .  Measure  your  words; 
for  the  more  your  words,  the  more  your  errors.  Ask  for  expla- 
nations of  what  you  do  not  understand;  but  let  it  be  done  at  a 
fitting  moment  and  in  fitting  language.  .  .  .  Speak  in  refined 
language,  in  clear  utterance  and  gentle  voice.  Speak  aptly  to 
the  subject,  as  one  who  wishes  to  learn  and  to  find  the  truth,  not 
as  one  whose  aim  is  to  quarrel  and  to  conquer.  .  .  .  Learn 
in  your  youth,  when  your  food  is  prepared  by  others,  while  heart 
is  still  free  and  unincumbered  with  cares,  ere  the  memory  is 
weakened.  .  For  the  time  will  come  when  you  will  be  willing  to 
learn  but  will  be  unable.  Even  if  you  be  able,  you  will  labor 
much  for  little  result;  for  your  heart  will  lag  behind  your  lips, 
and  when  it  does  keep  pace,  it  will  soon  forget.  ...  If  you 
find  in  the  Law  or  the  Prophets  or  the  Sages  a  hard  saying 
which  you  cannot  understand,  which  appears  subversive  of  some 
principle  of  the  religion,  or  altogether  absurd,  stand  fast  by  your 
faith,  and  attribute  the  fault  to  your  own  want  of  intelligence. 
Despise  not  your  religion  because  you  are  unable  to  understand 
one  difficult  matter.  .  .  .  Love  truth  and  uprightness, —  the 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 

ornaments  of  the  soul, — and  cleave  to  them;  prosperity  so  ob- 
tained is  built  on  a  sure  rock.  Keep  firmly  to  your  word;  let 
riot  a  legal  contract  or  witness  be  more  binding  than  your  verbal 
promise  even  privately  made.  Disdain  reservation  and  subter- 
fuges, sharp  practices  and  evasions.  Woe  to  him  who  builds 
his  house  thereon!  .  .  .  Bring  near  those  fhat  are  far  off; 
humble  yourselves  to  the  lowly  and  show  them  the  light  of  your 
countenance.  In  your  joys  make  the  desolate  share,  but  put  no 
one  to  the  blush  by  your  gifts.  ...  I  have  seen  the  white 
become  black,  the  low  brought  still  lower,  families  driven  into 
exile,  princes  deposed  from  their  high  estate,  cities  ruined,  as- 
semblies dispersed,  all  on  account  of  quarrelsomeness.  Glory  in 
forbearance,  for  in  that  is  true  strength  and  victory. 
Speech,  which  distinguishes  man  from  beasts,  was  a  loving  gift, 
which  man  uses  best  in  thinking,  and  thanking  and  praising  God. 
Ungraceful  should  we  be  to  return  evil  for  good,  and  to  utter 
slanders  or  falsehoods.  .  .  .  Eat  not  excessively  or  raven- 
ously. Work  before  you  eat,  and  rest  afterwards.  From  a  man's 
behavior  at  a  public  meal  you  can  discern  his  character.  Often 
have  I  returned  hungry  and  thirsty  to  my  house,  because  I  was 
afraid  when  I  saw  the  disgraceful  conduct  of  those  around 
me.  .  .  .  The  total  abstinence  from  wine  is  good,  but  I  will 
not  lay  this  on  you  as  an  injunction.  Yet  break  wine's  power 
with  water,  and  drink  it  for  nourishment,  not  for  mere  enjoy- 
ment. ...  At  gambling  the  player  always  loses.  Even  if 
he  wins  money,  he  is  weaving  a  spider's  web  round  himself. 
.  .  .  Dress  as  well  as  your  means  will  allow,  but  spend  on 
your  food  less  than  you  can  afford.  .  .  .  Honor  your  wives, 
for  they  are  your  honor.  Withhold  not  discipline  from  them,  and 
let  them  not  rule  over  you. 


FROM  THE   <  GUIDE   OF  THE   PERPLEXED  > 
A  PROOF  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

IT    HAS   been    demonstrated    by    proof    that    the    whole    existing 
world  is  one  organic  body,  all   parts  of  which   are  connected 
together;   also,  that  the  influences  of  the  spheres  above  per- 
vade the  earthly  substance  and  prepare  it  for  its  forms.     Hence 
it  is  impossible  to  assume  that  one  deity  be  engaged  in  forming 


9596 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 


one  part,  and  another  deity  in  forming  another  part,  of  that 
organic  body  of  which  all  parts  are  closely  connected  together. 
A  duality  could  only  be  imagined  in  this  way:  either  that  at 
one  time  the  one  deity  is  active,  the  other  at  another  time;  or 
that  both  act  simultaneously,  nothing  being  done  except  by  both 
together.  The  lirst  hypothesis  is  certainly  absurd,  for  many 
reasons:  if  at  the  time  the  one  deity  be  active  the  other  could 
also  be  active,  there  is  no  reason  why  one  deity  should  then  act 
and  the  other  not;  if  on  the  other  hand  it  be  impossible  for  the 
one  deity  to  act  when  the  other  is  at  work,  there  must  be  some 
other  cause  [besides  these  deities]  which  [at  a  certain  time] 
enables  the  one  to  act  and  disables  the  other.  [Such  differ- 
ence would  not  be  caused  by  time,]  since  time  is  without  change, 
and  the  object  of  the  action  likewise  remains  one  and  the  same 
organic  whole.  Besides,  if  two  deities  existed  in  this  way,  both 
would  be  subject  to  the  relations  of  time,  since  their  actions 
would  depend  on  time;  they  would  also  in  the  moment  of  act- 
ing pass  from  potentiality  to  actuality,  and  require  an  agent  for 
such  transition;  their  essence  would  besides  include  possibility 
[of  existence].  It  is  equally  absurd  to  assume  that  both  together 
produce  everything  in  existence,  and  that  neither  of  them  does 
anything  alone;  for  when  a  number  of  forces  must  be  united  for 
a  certain  result,  none  of  these  forces  acts  of  its  own  accord,  and 
none  is  by  itself  the  immediate  cause  of  that  result,  but  their 
union  is  the  immediate  cause.  It  has  furthermore  been  proved 
that  the  action  of  the  Absolute  cannot  be  due  to  a  [an  external] 
cause.  The  union  is  also  an  act  which  presupposes  a  cause 
effecting  that  union,  and  if  that  cause  be  one,  it  is  undoubtedly 
God;  but  if  it  also  consists  of  a  number  of  separate  forces,  a 
cause  is  required  for  the  combination  of  these  forces,  as  in  the 
first  case.  Finally,  one  simple  being  must  be  arrived  at,  that  is 
the  cause  of  the  existence  of  the  universe,  which  is  one  whole; 
it  would  make  no  difference  whether  we  assumed  that  the  First 
Cause  had  produced  the  universe  by  creatio  ex  nihilo,  or  whether 
the  universe  co-existed'  with  the  First  Cause.  It  is  thus  clear 
how  we  can  prove  the  Unity  of  God  from  the  fact  that  this 
universe  is  one  whole. 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES 


AN  ARGUMENT  CONCERNING  THE  INCORPOREALITY  OF  GOD 


9597 


EVERY  corporeal  object  is  composed  of  matter  and  form  (Prop, 
xxii.);  every  compound  of  these  two  elements  requires  an  agent 
for  effecting  their  combination.  Besides,  it  is  evident  that  a  body 
is  divisible  and  has  dimensions;  a  body  is  thus  undoubtedly  sub' 
ject  to  accidents.  Consequently  nothing  corporeal  can  be  a  unity, 
because  everything  corporeal  is  either  divisible  or  a  compound, 
—  that  is  to  say,  it  can  logically  be  analyzed  into  two  elements; 
for  a  body  can  only  be  said  to  be  a  certain  body  when  the  dis- 
tinguishing element  is  added  to  the  corporeal  substratum,  and 
must  therefore  include  two  elements:  but  it  has  been  proved 
that  the  Absolute  admits  of  no  dualism  whatever. 

Among  those  who  believe  in  the  existence  of  God,  there  are 
found  three  different  theories  as  regards  the  question  whether 
the  universe  is  eternal  or  not. 

First  Theory. —  Those  who  follow  the  Law  of  Moses  our 
teacher  hold  that  the  whole  universe  (i.  e.,  everything  except  God) 
has  been  brought  by  him  into  existence  out  of  non-existence. 
In  the  beginning  God  alone  existed,  and  nothing  else;  neither 
angels,  nor  spheres,  nor  the  things  that  are  contained  within  the 
spheres  existed.  He  then  produced  from  nothing  all  existing 
things  such  as  they  are,  by  his  will  and  desire.  Even  time  itself 
is  among  the  things  created;  for  time  depends  on  motion, — 
i.  e.,  on  an  accident  in  things  which  move, — and  the  things  upon 
whose  motion  time  depends  are  themselves  created  beings,  which 
have  passed  from  non-existence  into  existence.  We  say  that  God 
existed  before  the  creation  of  the  universe,  although  the  verb 
(<  existed })  appears  to  imply  the  notion  of  time ;  we  also  believe 
that  he  existed  an  infinite  space  of  time  before  the  universe  was 
created;  but  in  these  cases  we  do  not  mean  time  in  its  true  sense. 
We  only  use  the  term  to  signify  something  analogous  or  similar 
to  time.  For  time  is  undoubtedly  an  accident,  and  according  to 
our  opinion,  one  of  the  created  accidents,  like  blackness  and 
whiteness;  it  is  not  a  quality,  but  an  accident  connected  with 
motion.  This  must  be  clear  to  all  who  imderstand  what  Aris- 
totle has  said  on  time  and  its  real  existence. 

Second  Theory. —  The  theory  of  all  philosophers  whose  opin- 
ions and  works  are  known  to  us  is  this:  It  is  impossible  to 
assume  that  God  produced  anything  from  nothing,  or  that  he 
reduces  anything1  to  nothing;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  impossible  that 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 

an  object  consisting  of  matter  and  form  should  be  produced 
when  that  matter  is  absolutely  absent,  or  that  it  should  be 
destroyed  in  such  a  manner  that  that  matter  be  absolutely  no 
longer  in  existence.  To  say  of  God  that  he  can  produce  a  thing 
from  nothing  or  reduce  a  thing  to  nothing  is,  according  to 
the  opinion  of  these  philosophers,  the  same  as  if  we  were  to  say 
that  he  could  cause  one  substance  to  have  at  the  same  time 
two  opposite  properties,  or  produce  another  being  like  himself,  or 
change  himself  into  a  body,  or  produce  a  square  the  diagonal  of 
which  should  be  equal  to  its  side,  or  similar  impossibilities.  The 
philosophers  thus  believe  that  it  is  no  defect  in  the  Supreme 
Being  that  he  does  not  produce  impossibilities,  for  the  nature  of 
that  which  is  impossible  is  constant;  it  does  not  depend  on  the 
action  of  an  agent,  and  for  this  reason  it  cannot  be  changed. 
Similarly  there  is,  according  to  them,  no  defect  in  the  greatness 
of  God  when  he  is  unable  to  produce  a  thing  from  nothing, 
because  they  consider  this  as  one  of  the  impossibilities.  They 
therefore  assume  that  a  certain  substance  has  coexisted  with 
God  from  eternity,  in  such  a  manner  that  neither  God  existed 
without  that  substance  nor  the  latter  without  G.od.  But  they  do 
not  hold  that  the  existence  of  that  substance  equals  in  rank  that 
of  God;  for  God  is  the  cause  of  that  existence,  and  the  substance 
is  in  the  same  relation  to  God  as  the  clay  is  to  the  potter,  or 
the  iron  to  the  smith:  God  can  do  with  it  what  he  pleases;  at 
one  time  he  forms  of  it  heaven  and  earth,  at  another  time  he 
forms  some  other  thing.  Those  who  hold  this  view  also  assume 
that  the  heavens  are  transient ;  that  they  came  into  existence 
though  not  from  nothing,  and  may  cease  to  exist  although  they 
cannot  be  reduced  to  nothing.  They  are  transient  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  individuals  among  living  beings,  which  are  pro- 
duced from  some  existing  substance  that  remains  in  existence. 
The  process  of  genesis  and  destruction  is,  in  the  case  of  the 
heavens,  the  same  as  in  that  of  earthly  beings. 

Third  Theory. — Viz.,  that  of  Aristotle,  his  followers  and  com- 
mentators. Aristotle  maintains,  like  the  adherents  of  the  second 
theory,  that  a  corporeal  object  cannot  be  produced  without  a  cor- 
poreal  substance.  He  goes  further,  however,  and  contends  that 
the  heavens  are  indestructible.  For  he  holds  that  the  universe 
in  its  totality  has  never  been  different,  nor  will  it  ever  change: 
the  heavens,  which  form  the  permanent  element  in  the  universe, 
and  are  not  subject  to  genesis  and  destruction,  have  always  been 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES 


9599 


so;  time  and  motion  are  eternal,  permanent,  and  have  neither 
beginning  nor  end;  the  sublunary  world,  which  includes  the  tran- 
sient elements,  has  always  been  the  same,  because  the  materia 
prima  is  itself  eternal,  and  merely  combines  successively  with 
different  forms,  —  when  one  form  is  removed  another  is  assumed. 
This  whole  arrangement,  therefore,  both  above  and  here  below,  is 
never  disturbed  or  interrupted;  and  nothing  is  produced  contrary 
to  the  laws  or  the  ordinary  course  of  Nature.  He  further  says  — 
though  not  in  the  same  terms  —  that  he  considers  it  impossible 
for  God  to  change  his  will  or  conceive  a  new  desire;  that  God 
produced  this  universe  in  its  totality  by  his  will,  but  not  from 
nothing.  Aristotle  finds  it  as  impossible  to  assume  that  God 
changes  his  will  or  conceives  a  new  desire  as  to  believe  that 
he  is  non-existing  or  that  his  essence  is  changeable.  Hence  it 
follows  that  this  universe  has  always  been  the  same  in  the  past, 
and  will  be  the  same  eternally. 

THE  OBJECT  OF  LAW 

THE  general  object  of  the  Law  is  twofold:  the  well-being  of 
the  soul  and  the  well-being  of  the  body.  The  well-being  of  the 
soul  is  promoted  by  correct  opinions  communicated  to  the  people 
according  to  their  capacity.  Some  of  these  opinions  are  there- 
fore imparted  in  a  plain  form,  others  allegorically ;  because  certain 
opinions  are  in  their  plain  form  too  strong  for  the  capacity  of 
the  common  people.  The  well-being  of  the  body  is  established 
by  a  proper  management  of  the  relations  in  which  we  live  one 
to  another.  This  we  can  attain  in  two  ways:  first  by  removing 
all  violence  from  our  midst;  that  is  to  say,  that  we  do  not  do 
every  one  as  he  pleases,  desires,  and  is  able  to  do,  but  every  one 
of  us  does  that  which  contributes  towards  the  common  welfare. 
Secondly,  by  teaching  every  one  of  us  such  good  morals  as  must 
produce  a  good  social  state. 

Of  these  two  objects,  the  former  —  the  well-being  of  the  soul, 
or  the  communication  of  correct  opinions  —  comes  undoubtedly 
first  in  rank;  but  the  other  —  the  well-being  of  the  body,  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  State,  and  the  establishment  of  the  best  possible 
relations  among  men  —  is  anterior  in  nature  and  time.  The  lat- 
ter object  is  required  first;  it  is  also  treated  [in  the  Law]  most 
carefully  and  most  minutely,  because  the  well-being  of  the  soul 
can  only  be  obtained  after  that  of  the  body  has  been  secured. 


9600 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 


For  it  has  always  been  found  that  man  has  a  double  perfection: 
the  first  perfection  is  that  of  the  body,  and  the  second  perfec- 
tion is  that  of  the  soul.  The  first  consists  in  >  the  most  healthy 
condition  of  his  material  relations,  and  this  is  only  possible 
when  man  has  all  his  wants  supplied  as  they  arise:  if  he  has 
his  food  and  other  things  needful  for  his  body, —  e.  g.,  shelter, 
bath,  and  the  like.  But  one  man  alone  cannot  procure  all  this; 
it  is  impossible  for  a  single  man  to  obtain  this  comfort;  it  is  only 
possible  in  society,  since  man,  as  is  well  known,  is  by  nature 
social. 

The  second  perfection  of  man  consists  in  his  becoming  an 
actually  intelligent  being ;  i.  e. ,  when  he  knows  about  the  things 
in  existence  all  that  a  person  perfectly  developed  is  capable  of 
knowing.  This  second  perfection  certainly  does  not  include  any 
action  or  good  conduct,  but  only  knowledge,  which  is  arrived  at 
by  speculation  or  established  by  research. 

It  is  clear  that  the  second  and  superior  kind  of  perfection  can 
only  be  attained  when  the  first  perfection  has  been  acquired;  for 
a  person  that  is  suffering  from  great  hunger,  thirst,  heat,  or  cold, 
cannot  grasp  an  idea  even  if  communicated  by  others,  much  less 
can  he  arrive  at  it  by  his  own  reasoning.  But  when  a  person  is 
in  possession  of  the  first  perfection,  then  he  may  possibly  acquire 
the  second  perfection,  which  is  undoubtedly  of  a  superior  kind, 
and  is  alone  the  source  of  eternal  life.  The  true  Law,  which  as 
we  said  is  one,  and  beside  which  there  is  no  other  Law, — viz., 
the  Law  of  our  teacher  Moses, — has  for  its  purpose  to  give  us 
the  twofold  perfection.  It  aims  first  at  the  establishment  of  good 
mutual  relations  among  men,  by  removing  injustice  and  creating 
the  noblest  feelings.  In  this  way  the  people  in  every  land  are 
enabled  to  stay  and  continue  in  one  condition,  and  every  one  can 
acquire  his  first  perfection.  Secondly,  it  seeks  to  train  us  in 
faith,  and  to  impart  correct  and  true  opinions  when  the  intellect 
is  sufficiently  developed.  Scripture  clearly  mentions  the  twofold 
perfection,  and  tells  us  that  its  acquisition  is  the  object  of  all 
Divine  commandments.  Cf.  <(And  the  Lord  commanded  us  to 
do  all  these  statutes,  to  fear  the  Lord  our  God,  for  our  good 
always,  that  he  might  preserve  us  alive  this  day w  (Deut.  vi.  24). 
Here  the  second  perfection  is  first  mentioned  because  it  is  of 
greater  importance;  being,  as  we  have  shown,  the  ultimate  aim 
of  man's  existence.  This  perfection  is  expressed  in  the  phrase 
<(for  our  good  always."  You  know  the  interpretation  of  our 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 


9601 


sages:  <(<that  it  may  be  well  with  thee '  (ibid.,  xxii.  7), — 
namely,  in  the  world  that  is  all  good;  <and  thou  mayest  prolong 
thy  days*  (ibid.), —  i.  e.,  in  the  world  that  is  all  eternal. }>  In  the 
same  sense  I  explain  the  words  (( for  our  good  always w  to  mean 
<(that  we  may  come  into  the  world  that  is  all  good  and  eternal, 
where  we  may  live  permanently }> ;  and  the  words  (( that  he  might 
preserve  us  alive  this  day}>  I  explain  as  referring  to  our  first  and 
temporal  existence,  to  that  of  our  body,'  which  cannot  be  in  a 
perfect  and  good  condition  except  by  the  co-operation  of  society, 
as  has  been  shown  by  us. 

TRUE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD 

AFTER  a  man  has  acquired  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  it 
must  be  his  aim  to  surrender  his  whole  being  to  him  and  to  have 
his  heart  constantly  filled  with  longing  after  him.  Our  intellect- 
ual power,  which  emanates  directly  from  God,  joins  us  to  him. 
You  have  it  in  your  power  to  strengthen  that  bond,  or  to  weaken 
it  until  it  breaks.  It  will  be  strengthened  if  you  love  God  above 
all  other  things"  and  weakened  if  you  prefer  other  things  to  him. 
All  religious  acts,  such  as  the  reading  of  Scripture,  praying,  and 
performing  of  ordinances,  are  only  means  to  fill  our  mind  with 
the  thought  of  God  and  free  it  from  worldliness.  If  however 
we  pray  with  the  motion  of  our  lips  and  our  face  toward  the 
wall,  but  think  all  the  while  of  our  business;  read  the  Law,  and 
think  of  the  building  of  our  house;  perform  ceremonies  with  our 
limbs  only,  whilst  our  hearts  are  far  from  God, —  then  there  is 
no  difference  between  these  acts  and  the  digging  of  the  ground 
or  the  hewing  of  wood. 

SUPERFLUOUS  THINGS 

THE  soul,  when  accustomed  to  superfluous  things,  acquires  a 
strong  habit  of  desiring  others  which  are  neither  necessary  for 
the  preservation  of  the  individual  nor  for  that  of  the  species. 
This  desire  is  without  limit;  whilst  things  which  are  necessary 
are  few  and  restricted  within  certain  bounds.  Lay  this  well  to 
heart,  reflect  on  it  again  and  again:  that  which  is  superfluous  is 
without  end,  and  therefore  the  desire  for  it  also  without  limit. 
Thus  you  desire  to  have  your  vessels  of  silver,  but  gold  vessels 
are  still  better;  others  have  even  vessels  studded  with  sapphires, 
emeralds,  or  rubies.  Those  therefore  who  are  ignorant  of  this 
xvi — 601 


9602 


MOSES   MAIMONIDES 


truth,  that  the  desire  for  superfluous  things  is  without  limit,  are 
constantly  in  trouble  and  pain.  They  expose  themselves  to  great 
dangers  by  sea  voyages  or  in  the  service  of  kings.  When  they 
thus  meet  with  the  consequences  of  their  course,  they  complain  of 
the  judgments  of  God;  they  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  God's  power 
is  insufficient,  because  he  has  given  to  this  universe  the  proper- 
ties which  they  imagine  cause  these  evils. 

EVIL  THINGS  CONTRASTED  WITH  GOOD  THINGS 

MEN  frequently  think  that  the  evils  in  the  world  are  more 
numerous  than  the  good  things;  many  sayings  and  songs  of  the 
nations  dwell  on  this  idea.  They  say  that  the  good  is  found  only 
exceptionally,  whilst  evil  things  are  numerous  and  lasting.  The 
origin  of  this  error  is  to  be  found  in  the  circumstance  that  men 
judge  of  the  whole  universe  by  examining  one  single  person, 
believing  that  the  world  exists  for  that  one  person  only.  If 
anything  happens  to  him  contrary  to  his  expectation,  forthwith 
they  conclude  that  the  whole  universe  •  is  evil.  'All  mankind  at 
present  in  existence  form  only  an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the  per- 
manent universe.  It  is  of  great  advantage  that  man  should  know 
his  station.  Numerous  evils  to  which  persons  are  exposed  are 
due  to  the  defects  existing  in  the  persons  themselves.  We  seek 
relief  from  our  own  faults;  we  suffer  from  evils  which  we  inflict 
on  ourselves;  and  we  ascribe  them  to  God,  who  is  far  from  con- 
nected with  them.  As  Solomon  explained  it,  (<  The  foolishness  of 
man  perverteth  his  way,  and  his  heart  fretteth  against  the  Lord" 
(Prov.  xix.  3). 

THOUGHT  OF  SINS 

THERE  is  a  well-known  saying  of  our  sages :  <(  The  thoughts 
about  committing  a  sin  are  a  greater  evil  than  the  sin  itself.0 
I  can  offer  a  good  explanation  of  this  strange  dictum.  When  a 
person  is  disobedient,  this  is  due  to  certain  accidents  connected 
with  the  corporal  element  in  his  constitution;  for  man  sins  only 
by  his  animal  nature,  whereas  thinking  is  a  faculty  connected 
with  his  higher  and  essential  being.  A  person  who  thinks  sinful 
thoughts,  sins  therefore  by  means  of  the  nobler  portion  of  his 
self ;  just  as  he  who  causes  an  ignorant  slave  to  work  unjustly, 
commits  a  lesser  wrong  than  he  who  forces  a  free  man  or  a 
prince  to  do  menial  labor.  That  which  forms  the  true  nature  of 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 


9603 


man,  with  all  its  properties  and  powers,  should  only  be  employed 
in  suitable  work, —  in  endeavoring  to  join  higher  beings, —  and 
not  to  sink  to  the  condition  of  lower  creatures. 


Low  SPEECH  CONDEMNED 


You  know  we  condemn  lowness  of  speech,  and  justly  so;  for 
the  gift  of  speech  is  peculiar  to  man,  and  a  boon  which  God 
granted  to  him,  that  he  may  be  distinguished  from  the  rest  of 
living  creatures.  This  gift,  therefore,  which  God  gave  us  in 
order  to  enable  us  to  perfect  ourselves,  to  learn  and  to ,  teach, 
must  not  be  employed  in  doing  that  which  is  for  us  most  degrad- 
ing and  disgraceful.  We  must  not  imitate  the  songs  and  tales  of 
ignorant  and  lascivious  people.  It  may  be  suitable  to  them,  but 
it  is  "not  fit  for  those  who  are  told — <(And  ye  shall  be  unto  me 
a  kingdom  of  priests,  and  a  holy  nation  ®  (Ex.  xix.  6). 

CONTROL  BODILY  DESIRES 

MAN  must  have  control  over  all  bodily  desires.  He  must 
reduce  them  as  much  as  possible,  and  only  retain  of  them  as 
much  as  is  indispensable.  His  aim  must  be  the  aim  of  man,  as 
man ;  viz. ,  the  formation  and  perfection  of  ideas,  and  nothing  else. 
The  best  and  the  sublimest  among  them  is  the  idea  which  man 
forms  of  God,  angels,  and  the  rest  of  the  creation,  according  to 
his  capacity.  Such  men  are  always  with  God,  and  of  them  it  is 
said:  <(Ye  are  princes,  and  all  of  you  are  children  of  the  Most 
High."  When  man  possesses  a  good  sound  body,  that  does  not 
overpower  nor  disturb  the  equilibrium  within  him,  he  possesses 
a  Divine  gift.  A  good  constitution  facilitates  the  rule  of  the 
soul  over  the  body;  but  it  is  not  impossible  to  conquer  a  bad 
constitution  by  training,  and  make  it  subservient  to  man's  ulti- 
mate destiny. 

THE  MORAL  EQUIPOISE 

IT  is  true  that  many  pious  men  in  ages  gone  by  have  broken 
the  universal  rule,  to  select  the  just  mean  in  all  the  actions  of 
life;  at  times  they  went  to  extremes.  Thus  they  fasted  often, 
watched  through  the  nights,  abstained  from  flesh  and  wine,  wore 
sackcloth,  lived  among  the  rocks,  and  wandered  in  the  deserts. 
They  did  this,  however,  only  when  they  considered  it  necessary 
to  restore  their  disturbed  moral  equipoise;  or  to  avoid,  in  the 


9604 


MOSES  MAIMONIDES 


midst  of  men,  temptations  which  at  times  were  too  strong  for 
them.  These  abnegations  were  for  them  means  to  an  end,  and 
they  forsook  them  as  soon  as  that  end  was  attained.  Thought- 
less men,  however,  regarded  castigations  as  holy  in  themselves, 
and  imitated  them  without  thinking  of  the  intentions  of  their 
examples.  They  thought  thereby  to  reach  perfection  and  to 
approach  to  God.  The  fools!  as  if  God  hated  the  body  and  took 
pleasure  in  its  destruction.  They  did  not  consider  how  many 
sicknesses  of  soul  their  actions  caused.  They  are  to  be  compared 
to  such  as  take  dangerous  medicines  because  they  have  seen 
that  experienced  physicians  have  saved  many  a  one  from  death 
with  them;  so  they  ruin  themselves.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the 
cry  of  the  Prophet  Jeremiah:  <(Oh  that  I  had  in  the  wilderness 
a  lodging-place  of  wayfaring  men,  that  I  might  leave  my  people 
and  go  from  them." 


9605 


SIR   HENRY   MAINE 

(1822-1888) 

BY   D.  MACQ.  MEANS 

[ENRY  JAMES  SUMNER  MAINE  was  born  near  Leighton  on  August 
1 5th,  1822,  and  passed  his  first  years  in  Jersey;  afterward 
removing. to  England,  where  he  was  brought  up  exclusively 
by  his  mother,  a  woman  of  superior  talents.  In  1829  he  was  entered 
by  his  godfather  —  Dr.  Sunnier,  afterward  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
—  at  Christ's  Hospital,  and  in  1840  went  as  one  of  its  exhibitioners  to 
Pembroke  College,  Cambridge.  From  the 
very  beginning  his  career  was  brilliant;  and 
after  carrying  off  nearly  all  the  academic 
honors,  he  was  made  Regius  Professor  of 
Civil  Law  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-five. 
In  spite  of  a  feeble  constitution,  which 
made  his  life  a  prolonged  struggle  with  ill- 
ness, his  voice  was  always  notably  strong, 
and  is  described  by  one  of  his  early  hearers 
as  like  a  silver  bell.  His  appearance  was 
striking,  indicating  the  sensitive  nervous 
energy  of  which  he  was  full.  Such  were 
his  spirits  and  disposition  that  he  was  a 
charming  companion,  but  it  was  hard  to 
draw  him  away  from  his  reading.  This 

became  eventually  prodigious  in  extent,  his  power  of  seizing  on  the 
essence  of  books  and  passing  over  what  was  immaterial  being  very 
remarkable. 

In  1847  he  married  his  cousin,  Jane  Maine;  and  as  it  became 
necessary  to  provide  for  new  responsibilities,  he  took  up  the  law  as 
a  profession,  and  was  called  to  the  bar  in  1850.  Like  so  many  other 
great  Englishmen  of  modern  times,  he  devoted  much  time  to  writing 
for  the  press,  his  first  efforts  appearing  in  the  Morning  Chronicle. 
He  wrote  for  the  first  number  of  the  Saturday  Review,  and  is  said 
to  have  suggested  its  name.  His  contributions  were  very  numer- 
ous; and  were  especially  valued  by  the  editor,  John  Douglas  Cook, 
although  the  present  Lord  Salisbury,  Sir  William  Ha'jourt,  Goldwin 
Smith,  Sir  James  Stephen,  Walter  Bagehot,  and  otner  able  writers 


SIR  HENRY  MAINE 


9606 


SIR  HENRY  MAINE 


were  coadjutors.  He  practiced  a  little  at  the  common-law  bar;  but 
his  health  did  not  "permit  him  to  go  regularly  on  circuit,  and  he 
soon  went  over  to  the  equity  branch  of  the  profession.  In  1852  the 
Inns  of  Court  appointed  him  reader  in  Roman  law;  and  in  1861  the 
results  of  this  lectureship  were  given  to  the  world  in  the  publication 
of  ( Ancient  Law.* 

This  splendid  work  made  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  study  of 
law.  It  is  the  finest  example  of  the  comparative  method  which  the 
present  generation  has  seen.  Some  of  its  conclusions  have  been 
proved  erroneous  by  later  scholars,  but  the  value  of  the  book  remains 
unimpaired.  Apart  from  its  graces  of  style,  its  peculiar  success  was 
due  to  the  author's  power  of  re-creating  the  past;  of  introducing 
the  reader,  as  it  were,  to  his  own  ancestors  many  centuries  removed, 
engaged  in  the  actual  transaction  of  legal  business.  It  was  altogether 
fitting  that  one  who  had  shown  such  distinguished  capacity  for  under- 
standing the  thoughts  and  customs  of  primitive  peoples  should  be 
chosen  as  an  administrator  of  the  Indian  Empire;  and  in  1862  Maine 
accepted  the  law  membership  in  the  council  of  the  Governor-General 
— the  office  previously  filled  by  Macaulay.  Perhaps  nowhere  in  the 
world  is  so  good  work  done  with  so  little  publicity  as  in  such  posi- 
tions as  this.  It  is  inconceivable  that  any 'one  except  a  historian  or  a 
specialist  should  read  Maine's  Indian  papers,  and  yet  no  one  can  take 
them  up  without  being  struck  with  their  high  quality.  So  far  as  intel- 
ligent government  is  concerned,  there  is  no  comparison  between  a 
benevolent  despot  like  Maine  and  a  representative  chosen  by  popular 
suffrage. 

On  his  return  from  India  in  1869,  Maine  became  professor  of 
jurisprudence  at  Oxford;  and  showed  the  results  of  his  Indian  expe- 
riences in  the  lectures  published  in  1871,  under  the  title  <  Village 
Communities.*  In  1875  he  brought  out  the  ( Early  History  of  Institu- 
tions. '  He  became  a  member  of  the  Indian  Council,  and  resigning  his 
Oxford  professorship,  was  chosen  master  of  Trinity  Hall,  Cambridge; 
numberless  other  honors  being  showered  on  him.  In  1883  tne  last  of 
the  series  of  works  begun  with  'Ancient  Law*  appeared, — Disser- 
tations on  Early  Law  and  Custom.*  This  was  followed  in  1885  by 
Popular  Government,*  a  work  especially  interesting  to  Americans  as 
criticizing  their  form  of  government  from  the  aristocratical  point  of 
view.  In  1887  Maine  succeeded  Sir  William  Harcourt  as  professor 
of  international  law  at  Cambridge;  but  delivered  only  one  course  of 
lectures,  which  were  published  after  his  death  without  his  final  revis- 
ion. He  died  February  3d,  1888,  of  apoplexy,  leaving  a  widow  and 
two  sons,  one  of  whom  died  soon  after  his  father.  A  memoir  of 
his  life  was  prepared  by  Sir  M.  E.  Grant  Duff,  with  a  selection  of  his 
Indian  speeches  and  minutes,  and  published  in  this  country  in  1892 


SIR   HENRY   MAINE  9607 

by  Henry  Holt  &  Co.  It  contains  a  fine  photograph  from  Dickinson's 
portrait, —  enough  evidence  of  itself  to  explain  the  mastery  which 
the  English  race  has  come  to  exercise  over  so  large  a  part  of  the 
earth. 

Maine's  style  was  distinguished  by  lucidity  and  elegance.  He  has 
been  justly  compared  with  Montesquieu;  but  the  progress  of  knowl- 
edge gave  him  the  advantage  of  more  accurate  scholarship.  He 
applied  the  theory  of  evolution  to  the  development  of  human  institu- 
tions; yet  no  sentence  ever  written  by  him  has  been  so  often  quoted 
as  that  which  recognized  the  immobility  of  the  masses  of  mankind: 
<(  Except  the  blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  in  this  world 
which  is  not  Greek  in  its  origin. }>  In  spite  of  his  wonderful  powers 
of  almost  intuitive  generalization,  and  of  brilliant  expression,  he  had 
not  the  temperament  of  a  poetical  enthusiast.  He  was  noted  for  his 
caution  in  his  career  as  a  statesman,  and  the  same  quality  marked 
all  his  work.  As  Sir  F.  Pollock  said,  he  forged  a  new  and  lasting 
bond  between  jurisprudence  and  anthropology,  and  made  jurispru- 
dence a  study  of  the  living  growth  of  human  society  through  all  its 
stages.  But  those  who  are  capable  of  appreciating  his  work  in  India 
will  perhaps  consider  it  his  greatest  achievement;  for  no  man  has 
done  so  much  to  determine  what  Indian  law  should  be,  and  thus  to 
shape  the  institutions  of  untold  millions  of  human  beings. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  MODERN  LAWS  OF   REAL  PROPERTY 

From   Essay  on  <  The   Effects  of  Observation  of  India  on  Modern  European 
Th ought,  >  in  <  Village  Communities  in  the  East  and  West* 

WHENEVER  a  corner  is  lifted  up  of  the  veil  which  hides  from 
us  the  primitive  condition  of  mankind,  even  of  such  parts 
of  it  as  we  know  to   have   been   destined   to  civilization, 
there  are  two  positions,  now  very  familiar  to  us,  which  seem  to 
be  signally  falsified  by  all  we  are  permitted  to  see:    All  men  are 
brothers,  and  All  men  are  equal.     The  scene  before  us  is  rather 
that  which  the  animal  world  presents  to  the  mental  eye  of  those 
who   have    the    courage    to   bring    home   to   themselves   the    facts 
answering  to  the  memorable  theory  of  Natural  Selection.      Each 


9608 


SIR  HENRY  MAINE 


fierce  little  community  is  perpetually  at  war  with  its  neighbor, 
tribe  with  tribe,  village  with  village.  The  never-ceasing  attacks 
of  the  strong  on  the  weak  end  in  the  manner  expressed  by  the 
monotonous  formula  which  so  often  recurs  in  the  pages  of  Thu- 
cydides, —  "They  put  the  men  to  the  sword;  the  women  and 
children  they  sold  into  slavery.  »  Yet  even  amid  all  this  cruelty 
and  carnage,  we  find  the  germs  of  ideas  which  have  spread  over 
the  world.  There  is  still  a  place  and  a  sense  in  which  men  are 
brothers  and  equals.  The  universal  belligerency  is  the  belliger- 
ency of  one  total  group,  tribe,  or  village,  with  another;  but  in 
the  interior  of  the  groups  the  regimen  is  one  not  of  conflict  and 
confusion,  but  rather  of  ultra-legality.  The  men  who  composed 
the  primitive  communities  believed  themselves  to  be  kinsmen 
in  the  most  literal  sense  of  the  word;  and  surprising  as  it  may 
seem,  there  are  a  multitude  of  indications  that  in  one  stage  of 
thought  they  must  have  regarded  themselves  as  equals.  When 
these  primitive  bodies  first  make  their  appearance  as  land-owners, 
as  claiming  an  exclusive  enjoyment  in  a  definite  area  of  land, 
not  only  do  their  shares  of  the  soil  appear  to  have  been  ori- 
ginally equal,  but  a  number  of  contrivances  survive  for  preserv- 
ing the  equality,  of  which  the  most  frequent  is  the  periodical 
redistribution  of  the  tribal  domain.  The  facts  collected  suggest 
one  conclusion,  which  may  be  now  considered  as  almost  proved 
to  demonstration.  Property  in  land,  as  we  understand  it, —  that 
is,  several  ownership,  ownership  by  individuals  or  by  groups  not 
larger  than  families, —  is  a  more  modern  institution  than  joint 
property  or  co-ownership;  that  is,  ownership  in  common  by  large 
groups  of  men  originally  kinsmen,  and  still,  wherever  they  are 
found  (and  they  are  still  found  over  a  great  part  of  the  world), 
believing  or  assuming  themselves  to  be,  in  some  sense,  of  kin  to 
one  another.  Gradually,  and  probably  under  the  influence  of  a 
great  variety  of  causes,  the  institution  familiar  to  us,  individual 
property  in  land,  has  arisen  from  the  dissolution  of  the  ancient 
co-ownership. 

There  are  other  conclusions  from  modern  inquiry  which  ought 
to  be  stated  less  confidently,  and  several  of  them  only  in  nega- 
tive form.  Thus,  wherever  we  can  observe  the  primitive  groups 
still  surviving  to  our  day,  we  find  that  competition  has  very  fee- 
ble play  in  their  domestic  transactions;  competition,  that  is,  in 
exchange  and  in  the  acquisition  of  property.  This  phenomenon, 
with  several  others,  suggests  that  competition,  that  prodigious 


SIR  HENRY  MAINE 


9609 


social  force  of  which  the  action  is  measured  by  political  econ- 
omy, is  of  relatively  modern  origin.  Just  as  the  conceptions 
of  human  brotherhood,  and  in  a  less  degree  of  human  equality, 
appear  to  have  passed  beyond  the  limits  of  the  primitive  com- 
munities and  to  have  spread  themselves  in  a  highly  diluted  form 
over  the  mass  of  mankind, —  so,  on  the  other  hand,  competition 
in  exchange  seems  to  be  the  universal  belligerency  of  the  ancient 
world  which  has  penetrated  into  the  interior  of  the  ancient  groups 
of  blood  relatives.  It  is  the  regulated  private  war  of  ancient 
society  gradually  broken  up  into  indistinguishable  atoms.  So  far 
as  property  in  land  is  concerned,  unrestricted  competition  in  pur- 
chase and  exchange  has  a  far  more  limited  field  of  action,  even 
at  this  moment,  than  an  Englishman  or  an  American  would  sup- 
pose. The  view  of  land  as  merchantable  property,  exchangeable 
like  a  horse  or  an  ox,  seems  to  be  not  only  modern  but  even 
now  distinctively  Western.  It  is  most  unreservedly  accepted  in 
the  United  States;  with  little  less  reserve  in  England  and  France; 
but  as  we  proceed  through  Eastern  Europe  it  fades  gradually 
away,  until  in  Asia  it  is  wholly  lost. 

I  cannot  do  more  than  hint  at  other  conclusions  which  are 
suggested  by  recent  investigation.  We  may  lay  down,  I  think  at 
least  provisionally,  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  history  of  owner- 
ship there  was  no  such  broad  distinction  as  we  now  commonly 
draw  between  political  and  proprietary  power,  —  between  the 
power  which  gives  the  right  to  tax  and  the  power  which  confers 
the  right  to  exact  rent.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  greater  forms 
of  landed  property  now  existing  represented  political  sovereignty 
in  a  condition  of  decay,  while  the  small  property  of  most  of  the 
world  has  grown  —  not  exclusively,  as  has  been  vulgarly  supposed 
hitherto,  out  of  the  precarious  possessions  of  servile  classes,  but — 
out  of  the  indissoluble  association  of  the  status  of  freeman  with 
a  share  in  the  land  of  the  community  to  which  he  belonged.  I 
think,  again,  that  it  is  possible  we  may  have  to  revise  our  ideas 
of  the  relative  antiquity  of  the  objects  of  enjoyment  which  we 
call  movables  and  immovables,  real  property  and  personal  prop- 
erty. Doubtless  the  great  bulk,  of  movables  came  into  existence 
after  land  had  begun  to  be  appropriated  by  groups  of  men;  but 
there  is  now  much  reason  for  suspecting  that  some  of  these  com- 
modities were  severally  owned  before  this  appropriation,  and  that 
they  exercised  great  influence  in  dissolving  the  primitive  collect- 
ive ownership. 


9610 


SIR   HENRY   MAINE 


It  is  unavoidable  that  positions  like  these,  stated  as  they  can 
cnly  be  stated  here,  should  appear  to  some  paradoxical,  to  others 
unimportant.  There  are  a  few,  perhaps,  who  may  conceive  a  sus- 
picion that  if  property  as  we  now  understand  it  —  that  is,  several 
property  —  be  shown  to  be  more  modern  not  only  than  the  human 
race  (which  was  long  ago  assumed),  but  than  ownership  in  com- 
mon (which  is  only  beginning  to  be  suspected),  some  advantage 
may  be  gained  by  those  assailants  of  the  institution  itself  whose 
doctrines  from  time  to  time  cause  a  panic  in  modern  Continental 
society.  I  do  not  myself  think  so,  It  is  not  the  business  of  the 
scientific  historical  inquirer  to  assert  good  or  evil  of  any  particu- 
lar institution.  He  deals  with  its  existence  and  development,  not 
with  its  expediency.  But  one  conclusion  he  may  properly  draw 
from  the  facts  bearing  on  the  subject  before  us.  Nobody  is  at 
liberty  to  attack  several  property  and  to  say  at  the  same  time 
that  he  values  civilization.  The  history  of  the  two  cannot  be  dis- 
entangled. Civilization  is  nothing  more  than  a  name  for  the  old 
order  of  the  Aryan  world,  dissolved  but  perpetually  reconstituting 
itself  under  a  vast  variety  of  solvent  influences,  of  which  infi- 
nitely the  most  powerful  have  been  those  which  have  slowly, 
and  in  some  parts  of  the  world  much  less  perfectly  than  others, 
substituted  several  property  for  collective  ownership. 


IMPORTANCE    OF    A    KNOWLEDGE    OF    ROMAN    LAW:    AND    THE 
EFFECT  OF  THE  CODE  NAPOLEON 

From   ( Roman  Law  and   Legal   Education,*  in   ( Village  Communities  in  the 

East  and  West> 

IF  IT  were  worth  our  while  to  inquire  narrowly  into  the  causes 
which  have  led  of  late  years  to  the  revival  of  interest  in  the 
Roman  civil  law,  we  should  probably  end  in  attributing  its 
increasing  popularity  rather  to  some  incidental  glimpses  of  its 
value,  which  have  been  gained  by  the  English  practitioner  in  the 
course  of  legal  business,  than  to  any  widely  diffused  or  far  reach- 
ing appreciation  of  its  importance  as  an  instrument  of  knowledge. 
It  is  most  certain  that  the  higher  the  point  of  jurisprudence 
which  has  to  be  dealt  with,  the  more  signal  is  always  the  assist- 
ance derived  by  the  English  lawyer  from  Roman  law;  and  the 
higher  the  mind  employed  upon  the  question,  the  more  unquali- 
fied is  its  admiration  of  the  system  by  which  its  perplexities  have 


SIR  HENRY  MAINE  96n 

been  disentangled.  But  the  grounds  upon  which  the  study  of 
Roman  jurisprudence  is  to  be  defended  are  by  no  means  such  as 
to  be  intelligible  only  to  the  subtlest  intellects,  nor  do  they  await 
the  occurrence  of  recondite  points  of  law  in  order  to  disclose 
themselves.  It  is  believed  that  the  soundness  of  many  of  them 
will  be  recognized  as  soon  as  they  are  stated;  and  to  these  it  is 
proposed  to  call  attention  in  the  present  essay. 

The  historical  connection  between  the'  Roman  jurisprudence 
and  our  own  appears  to  be  now  looked  upon  as  furnishing  one 
very  strong  reason  for  increased  attention  to  the  civil  law  of 
Rome.  The  fact,  of  course,  is  not  now  to  be  questioned.  The 
vulgar  belief  that  the  English  common  law  was  indigenous  in  all 
its  parts  was  always  so  easily  refuted,  by  the  most  superficial 
comparison  of  the  text  of  Bracton  and  Fleta  with  the  Corpus 
Juris^  that  the  honesty  of  the  historians  who  countenanced  it 
can  only  be  defended  by  alleging  the  violence  of  their  preju- 
dices; and  now  that  the  great  accumulation  of  fragments  of  ante- 
Justinianean  compendia,  and  the  discovery  of  the  MS.  of  Gaius, 
have  increased  our  acquaintance  with  the  Roman  law  in  the  only 
form  in  which  it  can  have  penetrated  into  Britain,  the  suspicion 
of  a  partial  earlier  filiation  amounts  almost  to  a  certainty.  The 
fact  of  such  a  filiation  has  necessarily  the  highest  interest  for  the 
legal  antiquarian,  and  it  is  of  value  besides  for  its  effect  on  some 
of  the  coarser  prepossessions  of  English  lawyers.  But  too  much 
importance  should  not  be  attached  to  it.  It  has  ever  been  the 
case  in  England  that  every  intellectual  importation  we  have 
received  has  been  instantly  colored  by  the  peculiarities  of  our 
national  habits  and  spirit.  A  foreign  jurisprudence  interpreted 
by  the  old  English  common-lawyers  would  soon  cease  to  be  for- 
eign, and  the  Roman  law  would  lose  its  distinctive  character  with 
even  greater  rapidity  than  any  other  set  of  institutions.  It  will 
be  easily  understood  that  a  system  like  the  laws  of  Rome,  distin- 
guished above  all  others  for  its  symmetry  and  its  close  correspond- 
ence with  fundamental  rules,  would  be  effectually  metamorphosed 
by  a  very  slight  distortion  of  its  parts,  or  by  the  omission  of  one 
or  two  governing  principles.  Even  though,  therefore,  it  be  true  — 
and  true  it  certainly  is  —  that  texts  of  Roman  law  have  been 
worked  at  all  points  into  the  foundations  of  our  jurisprudence,  it 
does  not  follow  from  that  fact  that  our  knowledge  of  English 
law  would  be  materially  improved  by  the  study  of  the  ( Corpus 
Juris*;  and  besides,  if  too  much  stress  be  laid  on  the  historical 


9612 


SIR  HENRY  MAINE 


connection  between  the  systems,  it  will  be  apt  to  encourage  one 
of  the  most  serious  errors  into  which  the  inquirer  into  the  phi- 
losophy of  law  can  fall.  It  is  not  because  our  own  jurisprudence 
and  that  of  Rome  were  once  alike  that  they  ought  to  be  studied 
together;  it  is  because  they  will  be  alike.  It  is  because  all  laws, 
however  dissimilar  in  their  infancy,  tend  to  resemble  each  other 
in  their  maturity;  and  because  we  in  England  are  slowly,  and 
perhaps  unconsciously  or  unwillingly,  but  still  steadily  and  cer- 
tainly, accustoming  ourselves  to  the  same  modes  of  legal  thought, 
and  to  the  same  conceptions  of  legal  principle,  to  which  the 
Roman  jurisconsults  had  attained  after  centuries  of  accumulated 
experience  and  unwearied  cultivation. 

The  attempt,  however,  to  explain  at  length  why  the  flux  and 
change  which  our  law  is  visibly  undergoing  furnish  the  strongest 
reasons  for  studying  a  body  of  rules  so  mature  and  so  highly 
refined  as  that  contained  in  the  ( Corpus  Juris, y  would  be  nearly 
the  same  thing  as  endeavoring  to  settle  the  relation  of  the  Roman 
law  to  the  science  of  jurisprudence;  and  that  inquiry,  from  its 
great  length  and  difficulty,  it  would  be  obviously  absurd  to  prose- 
cute within  the  limits  of  an  essay  like  the  present.  But  there  is 
a  set  of  considerations  of  a  different  nature,  and  equally  forcible 
in  their  way,  which  cannot  be  too  strongly  impressed  on  all  who 
have  the  control  of  legal  or  general  education.  The  point  which 
they  tend  to  establish  is  this:  the  immensity  of  the  ignorance  to 
which  we  are  condemned  by  ignorance  of  Roman  law.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  even  the  best  educated  men  in  England  can 
fully  realize  how  vastly  important  an  element  is  Roman  law  in 
the  general  mass  of  human  knowledge,  and  how  largely  it  enters 
into  and  pervades  and  modifies  all  products  of  human  thought 
which  are  not  exclusively  English.  Before  we  endeavor  to  give 
some  distant  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  this  is  true,  we  must 
remind  the  reader  that  the  Roman  law  is  not  a  system  of  cases, 
like  our  own.  It  is  a  system  of  which  the  nature  may,  for  prac- 
tical purposes  though  inadequately,  be  described  by  saying  that 
it  consists  of  principles,  and  of  express  written  rules.  In  Eng- 
land, the  labor  of  the  lawyer  is  to  extract  from  the  precedents  a 
formula,  which  while  covering  them  will  also  cover  the  state-  of 
facts  to  be  adjudicated  upon;  and  the  task  of  rival  advocates  is, 
from  the  same  precedents  or  others  to  elicit  different  formulas 
of  equal  apparent  applicability.  Now,  in  Roman  law  no  such  use 
is  made  of  precedents.  The  Corpus  Juris,  >  as  may  be  seen  at  a 


SIR   HENRY   MAINE 


9613 


glance,  contains  a  great  number  of  what  our  English  lawyers 
would  term  cases;  but  then  they  are  in  no  respect  sources  of 
rules  —  they  are  instances  of  their  application.  They  are,  as  it 
were,  problems  solved  by  authority  in  order  to  throw  light  on  the 
rule,  and  to  point  out  how  it  should  be  manipulated  and  applied. 
How  it  was  that  the  Roman  law  came  to  assume  this  form  so 
much  sooner  and  more  completely  than  our  own,  is  a  question 
full  of  interest,  and  it  is  one  of  the  first  to  which  the  student 
should  address  himself;  but  though  the  prejudices  of  an  English- 
man will  probably  figure  to  him  a  jurisprudence  thus  constituted 
as,  to  say  the  least,  anomalous,  it  is  nevertheless  quite  as  readily 
conceived,  and  quite  as  natural  to  the  constitution  of  our  own 
system.  In  proof  of  this,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  English 
common  law  was  clearly  conceived  by  its  earliest  expositors  as 
wearing  something  of  this  character.  It  was  regarded  as  existing 
somewhere  in  the  form  of  a  symmetrical  body  of  express  rules, 
adjusted  to  definite  principles*  The  knowledge  of  the  system, 
however,  in  its  full  amplitude  and  proportions,  was  supposed  to  be 
confined  to  the  breasts  of  the  judges  and  the  lay  public,  and  the 
mass  of  the  legal  profession  were  only  permitted  to  discern  its 
canons  intertwined  with  the  facts  of  adjudged  cases.  Many  traces 
of  this  ancient  theory  remain  in  the  language  of  our  judgments 
and  forensic  arguments;  and  among  them  we  may  perhaps  place 
the  singular  use  of  the  word  (<  principle }>  in  the  sense  of  a  legal 
proposition  elicited  from  the  precedents  by  comparison  and  induc- 
tion. 

The  proper  business  of  a  Roman  jurisconsult  was  therefore 
confined  to  the  interpretation  and  application  of  express  written 
rules;  processes  which  must  of  course  be  to  some  extent  em- 
ployed by  the  professors  of  every  system  of  laws — of  our  own 
among  others,  when  we  attempt  to  deal  with  statute  law.  But 
the  great  space  which  they  filled  at  Rome  has  no  counterpart 
in  English  practice;  and  becoming,  as  they  did,  the  principal 
exercise  of  a  class  of  men  characterized  as  a  whole  by  extraordi- 
nary subtlety  and  patience,  and  in  individual  cases  by  extraor- 
dinary genius,  they  were  the  means  of  producing  results  which 
the  English  practitioner  wants  centuries  of  attaining.  We  who 
speak  without  shame  —  occasionally  with  something  like  pride  —  of 
our  ill  success  in  construing  statutes,  have  at  our  hand  nothing 
distantly  resembling  the  appliances  which  the  Roman  jurispru- 
dence supplies,  partly  by  definite  canons  and  partly  by  appropriate 


9614  SIR   HENRY   MAINE 

examples,  for  the  understanding  and  management  of  written  law. 
It  would  not  be  doing  more  than  justice  to  the  methods  of  inter- 
pretation invented  by  the  Roman  lawyers,  if  we  were  to  com- 
pare the  power  which  they  give  over  their  subject-matter  to 
the  advantage  which  the  geometrician  derives  from  mathematical 
analysis  in  discussing  the  relations  of  space.  By  each  of  these 
helps,  difficulties  almost  insuperable  become  insignificant,  and  pro- 
cesses nearly  interminable  are  shortened  to  a  tolerable  compass. 
The  parallel  might  be  carried  still  further,  and  we  might  insist  on 
the  special  habit  of  mind  which  either  class  of  mental  exercise 
induces.  Most  certainly  nothing  can  be  more  peculiar,  special,  and 
distinct  than  the  bias  of  thought,  the  modes  of  reasoning,  and 
the  habits  of  illustration,  which  are  given  by  a  training  in  the 
Roman  law.  No  tension  of  mind  or  length  of  study  which  even 
distantly  resembles  the  labor  of  mastering  English  jurisprudence 
is  necessary  to  enable  the  student  to  realize  these  peculiarities 
of  mental  view;  but  still  they  cannot  be  acquired  without  some 
effort,  and  the  question  is,  whether  the  effort  which  they  demand 
brings  with  it  sufficient  reward.  We  can  only  answer  by  endeav- 
oring to  point  out  that  they  pervade  whole  departments  of  thought 
and  inquiry  of  which  some  knowledge  is  essential  to  every  law- 
yer, and  to  every  man  of  decent  cultivation.  .  .  . 

It  may  be  confidently  asserted,  that  if  the  English  lawyer  only 
attached  himself  to  the  study  of  Roman  law  long  enough  to  mas- 
ter the  technical  phraseology  and  to  realize  the  leading  legal  con- 
ceptions of  the  <  Corpus  Juris, y  he  would  approach  those  questions 
of  foreign  law  to  which  our  courts  have  repeatedly  to  address 
themselves,  with  an  advantage  which  no  mere  professional  acumen 
acquired  by  the  exclusive  practice  of  our  own  jurisprudence  could 
ever  confer  on  him.  The  steady  multiplication  of  legal  systems 
borrowing  the  entire  phraseology,  adopting  the  principles,  and 
appropriating  the  greater  part  of  the  rules,  of  Roman  jurispru- 
dence, is  one  of  the  most  singular  phenomena  of  our  day,  and  far 
more  worthy  of  attention  than  the  most  showy  manifestations  of 
social  progress.  This  gradual  approach  of  Continental  Europe  to 
a  uniformity  of  municipal  law  dates  unquestionably  from  the  first 
French  Revolution,  Although  Europe,  as  is  well  known,  formerly 
comprised  a  number  of  countries  and  provinces  which  governed 
themselves  by  the  written  Roman  law,  interpolated  with  feudal 
observances,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  evidence  that  the 
institutions  of  these  localities  enjoyed  any  vogue  or  favor  beyond 


SIR   HENRY   MAINE 


9615 


their  boundaries.  Indeed,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  last  century, 
there  may  be  traced  among  the  educated  men  of  the  Continent 
something  of  a  feeling  in  favor  of  English  law;  a  feeling  pro- 
ceeding, it  is  to  be  feared,  rather  from  the  general  enthusiasm 
for  English  political  institutions  which  was  then  prevalent,  than 
founded  on  any  very  accurate  acquaintance  with  the  rules  of  our 
jurisprudence.  Certainly,,  as  respects  France  in  particular,  there 
were  no  visible  symptoms  of  any  general  preference  for  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  pays  de  droit  tcrit  as  'opposed  to  the  provinces  in 
which  customary  law  was  observed.  But  then  came  the  French 
Revolution,  and  brought  with  it  the  necessity  of  preparing  a  gen- 
eral code  for  France  one  and  indivisible.  Little  is  known  of  the 
special  training  through  which  the  true  authors  of  this  work  had 
passed;  but  in  the  form  which  it  ultimately  assumed,  when  pub- 
lished as  the  Code  Napoleon,  it  may  be  described  without  great 
inaccuracy  as  a  compendium  of  the  rules  of  Roman  law  then 
practiced  in  France,  cleared  of  all  feudal  admixture;  such  rules, 
however,  being  in  all  cases  taken  with  the  extensions  given  to 
them  and  the  interpretations  put  upon  them  by  one  or  two  emi- 
nent French  jurists,  and  particularly  by  Pothier.  The  French 
conquests  planted  this  body  of  laws  over  the  whole  extent  of  the 
French  empire,  and  the  kingdoms  immediately  dependent  upon  it; 
and  it  is  incontestable  that  it  took  root  with  extraordinary  quick- 
ness and  tenacity.  The  highest  tribute  to  the  French  codes  is 
their  great  and  lasting  popularity  with  the  people,  the  .lay  public, 
of  the  countries  into  which  they  have  been  introduced.  How 
much  weight  ought  to  be  attached  to  this  symptom,  our  own  ex- 
perience should  teach  us;  which  surely  shows  us  how  thoroughly 
indifferent  in  general  is  the  mass  of  the  public  to  the  particu- 
lar rules  of  civil  life  by  which  it  may  be  governed,  and  how 
extremely  superficial  are  even  the  most  energetic  movements  in 
favor  of  the  amendment  of  the  law.  At  the  fall  of  the  Bona- 
partist  empire  in  1815,  most  of  the  restored  governments  had 
the  strongest  desire  to  expel  the  intrusive  jurisprudence  which 
had  substituted  itself  for  the  ancient  customs  of  the  land.  It  was 
found,  however,  that  the  people  prized  it  as  the  most  precious  of 
possessions:  the  attempt  to  subvert  it  was  persevered  in  in  very 
few  instances,  and  in  most  of  them  the  French  codes  were 
restored  after  a  brief  abeyance.  And  not  only  has  the  observance 
of  these  laws  been  confirmed  in  almost  all  the  countries  which 
ever  enjoyed  them,  but  they  have  made  their  way  into  numerous 


9616 


SIR  HENRY   MAINE 


other  communities,  and  occasionally  in  the  teeth  of  the  most  for- 
midable political  obstacles.  So  steady,  indeed,  and  so  resistless 
has  been  the  diffusion  of  this  Romanized  jurisprudence,  either  in 
its  original  or  in  a  slightly  modified  form,  that  the  civil  law  of 
the  whole  Continent  is  clearly  destined  to  be  absorbed  and  lost 
in  it.  It  is,  too,  we  should  add,  a  very  vulgar  error  to  suppose 
that  the  civil  part  of  the  codes  has  only  been  found  suited  to  a 
society  so  peculiarly  constituted  as  that  of  France.  With  alter- 
ations and  additions,  mostly  directed  to  the  enlargement  of  the 
testamentary  power  on  one  side  and  to  the  conservation  of  en- 
tails and  primogeniture  on  the  other,  they  have  been  admitted 
into  countries  whose  social  condition  is  as  unlike  that  of  France 
as  is  possible  to  conceive. 


9617 


XAVIER   DE  MAISTRE 

(1764-1852) 

lo  STUDENTS  of  French  literature  the  name  De  Maistre  suggests 
first,  Joseph  Marie  de  Maistre, — brilliant  philosopher,  stern 
and  eloquent  critic,  vain  opponent  of  revolutionary  ideas; 
but  the  general  reader  is  far  better  acquainted  with  his  younger 
brother  Xavier.  He  was  a  somewhat  da'shing  military  personage, 
a  striking  contrast  to  his  austere  senior,  loving  the  aesthetic  side  of 
life:  an  amateur  artist,  a  reader  of  many  books,  who  on  occasion 
could  write  charmingly. 

Born  in  Chambery  in  1764,  of  French 
descent,  he  entered  the  Sardinian  army, 
where  he  remained  until  the  annexation  of 
Savoy  to  France;  when,  finding  himself  an 
exile,  he  joined  his  brother,  then  envoy  to 
St.  Petersburg.  Later  he  entered  the  Rus- 
sian army;  married  in  Russia,  and  lived 
there  to  the  good  old  age  of  eighty-eight. 

Perhaps  the  idea  of  authorship  would 
never  have  occurred  to  the  active  soldier 
but  for  a  little  mishap.  A  love  affair  led 
to  a  duel;  and  he  was  arrested  and  impris- 
oned at  Turin  for  forty-two  days.  A  result 
of  this  leisure  was  the  ( Voyage  autour  de 

ma  Chambre >  (Journey  round  my  Room) ;  a  series  of  half  playful,  half 
philosophic  sketches,  whose  delicate  humor  and  sentiment  suggest  the 
influence  of  Laurence  Sterne.  Later  on,  he  submitted  the  manuscript 
to  his  much-admired  elder  brother,  who  liked  it  so  well  that  he  had 
it  published  by  way  of  pleasant  surprise.  He  was  less  complimentary 
to  a  second  and  somewhat  similar  work,  ( L'Expedition  Nocturne > 
(The  Nocturnal  Expedition),  and  his  advice  delayed  its  publication 
for  several  years. 

Xavier  de  Maistre  was  not  a  prolific  writer,  and  all  his  work  is 
included  in  one  small  volume.  Literature  was  merely  his  occasional 
pastime,  indulged  in  as  a  result  of  some  chance  stimulus.  A  conver- 
sation with  fellow-officers  suggests  an  old  experience,  and  he  goes 
home  and  writes  ( Le  Lepreux  de  la  Cite  d'Aoste }  (The  Leper  of 
Aoste),  a  pathetic  story,  strong  in  its  unstudied  sincerity  of  expression. 


XAVIER  DE  MAISTRE 


9618 


XAVIER  DE   MAISTRE 


Four  years  later  he  tells  another  little  tale,  <Les  Prisonniers  du 
Caucase  y  (The  Prisoners  of  the  Caucasus),  a  stirring  bit  of  adventure. 

His  last  story,  < La  Jeune  Siberienne >  (The  Siberian  Girl),  best 
known  as  retold  and  weakened  by  Madame  Cottin,  is  a  striking  pre- 
monition of  later  realism.  There  is  no  forcing  the  pathetic  effect 
in  the  history  of  the  heroic  young  daughter  who  braves  a  long  and 
terrible  journey  to  petition  the  Czar  for  her  father's  release  from 
Siberian  exile. 

The  charm  of  De  Maistre's  style  is  always  in  the  ease  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  telling.  In  his  own  time  he  was  very  popular;  and  his 
work  survives  with  little  loss  of  interest  to-day. 

THE  TRAVELING-COAT 
From  the  <Journey  round  My  Room.>     Copyright  1871,  by  Hurd  &  Houghton 

I  PUT  on  my  traveling-coat,  after  having  examined  it  with  a 
complacent  eye;  and  forthwith  resolved  to  write  a  chapter 

ad  hoc,  that   I  might  make  it  known  to  the  reader. 

The  form  and  usefulness  of  these  garments  being  pretty  gen- 
erally known,  I  will  treat  specially  of  their  influence  upon  the 
minds  of  travelers. 

My  winter  traveling-coat  is  made  of  the  warmest  and  softest 
stuff  I  could  meet  with.  It  envelops  me  entirely  from  head  to 
foot;  and  when  I  am  in  my  arm-chair,  with  my  hands  in  my 
pockets,  I  am  very  like  the  statue  of  Vishnu  one  sees  in  the 
pagodas  of  India. 

You  may,  if  you  will,  tax  me  with  prejudice  when  I  assert 
the  influence  a  traveler's  costume  exercises  upon  its  wearer.  At 
any  rate,  I  can  confidently  affirm  with  regard  to  this  matter  that 
it  would  appear  to  me  as  ridiculous  to  take  a  single  step  of  my 
journey  round  my  room  in  uniform,  with  my  sword  at  my  side, 
as  it  would  to  go  forth  into  the  world  in  my  dressing-gown. 
Were  I  to  find  myself  in  full  military  dress,  not  only  should 
I  be  unable  to  proceed  with  my  journey,  but  I  really  believe  I 
should  not  be  able  to  read  what  I  have  written  about  my  travels, 
still  less  to  understand  it. 

Does  this  surprise  you  ?  Do  we  not  every  day  meet  with  peo- 
ple who  fancy  they  are  ill  because  they  are  unshaven,  or  because 
some  one  has  thought  they  have  looked  poorly  and  told  them 
so  ?  Dress  has  such  influence  upon  men's  minds  that  there  are 
valetudinarians  who  think  themselves  in  better  health  than  usual 


XAVIER   DE   MAISTRE 


9619 


when  they  have  on  a  new  coat  and  well-powdered  wig.  They 
deceive  the  public  and  themselves  by  their  nicety  about  dress, 
until  one  finds  some  fine  morning  they  have  died  in  full  fig,  and 
their  death  startle?  everybody. 

And  in  the  class  of  men  among  whom  I  live,  how  many  there 
are  who,  finding  themselves  clothed  in  uniform,  firmly  believe 
they  are  officers,  until  the  unexpected  appearance  of  the  enemy 
shows  them  their  mistake.  And  more  than  this,  if  it  be  the 
king's  good  pleasure  to  allow  one  of  them  to  add  to  his  coat  a 
certain  trimming,  he  straightway  believes  himself  to  be  a  general; 
and  the  whole  army  gives  him  the  title  without  any  notion  of 
making  fun  of  him!  So  great  an  influence  has  a  coat  upon  the 
human  imagination! 

The  following  illustration  will  show  still  further  the  truth  of 
my  assertion:  — 

It  sometimes  happened  that  they  forgot  to  inform  the  Count 

de  some  days  beforehand  of  the  approach  of  his  turn  to 

mount  guard.  Early  one  morning,  on  the  very  day  on  which  this 
duty  fell  to  the  Count,  a  corporal  awoke  him  and  announced  the 
disagreeable  news.  But  the  idea  of  getting  up  there  and  then, 
putting  on  his  gaiters,  and  turning  out  without  having  thought 
about  it  the  evening  before,  so  disturbed  him  that  he  preferred 
reporting  himself  sick  and  staying  at  home  all  day.  So  he  put 
on  his  dressing-gown  and  sent  away  his  barber.  This  made  him 
look  pale  and  ill,  and  frightened  his  wife  and  family.  He  really 
did  feel  a  little  poorly. 

He  told  every  one  .he  was  not  very  well, —  partly  for  the  sake 
Z)f  appearances,  and  partly  because  he  positively  believed  himself 
to  be  indisposed.  Gradually  the  influence  of  the  dressing-gown 
began  to  work.  The  slops  he  was  obliged  to  take  upset  his 
stomach.  His  relations  and  friends  sent  to  ask  after  him.  He 
was  soon  quite  ill  enough  to  take  to  his  bed. 

In  the  evening  Dr.  Ranson  found  his  pulse  hard  and  feverish, 
and  ordered  him  to  be  bled  next  day. 

If  the  campaign  had  lasted  a  month  longer,  the  sick  man's 
case  would  have  been  past  cure. 

Now,  who  can  doubt  about  the  influence  of  traveling-coats 

upon  travelers,  if  he  reflect  that  poor  Count  de  thought 

more  than  once  that  he  was  about  to  perform  a  journey  to  the 
other  world  for  having  inopportunely  donned  his  dressing-gown 
in  this  ? 


9626  XAVIER  DE  MAISTRE 

A   FRIEND 
From  the  <  Journey  round  My  Room.*    Copyright  1871,  by  Kurd  &  Houghton 

I  HAD  a  friend.  Death  took  him  from  me.  He  was  snatched 
away  at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  at  the  moment  when 

his  friendship  had  become  a  pressing  need  to  my  heart.  We 
supported  one  another  in  the  hard  toil  of  war.  We  had  but 
one  pipe  between  us.  We  drank  out  of  the  same  cup.  We  slept 
beneath  the  same  tent.  And  amid  our  sad  trials,  the  spot  where 
we  lived  together  became  to  us  a  new  fatherland.  I  had  seen 
him  exposed  to  all  the  perils  of  a  disastrous  war.  Death  seemed 
to  spare  us  to  each  other.  His  deadly  missiles  were  exhausted 
around  my  friend  a  thousand  times  over  without  reaching  him. 
but  this  was  but  to  make  his  loss  more  painful  to  me.  The 
tumult  of  war,  and  the  enthusiasm  which  possesses  the  soul  at 
the  sight  of  danger,  might  have  prevented  his  sighs  from  pier- 
cing my  heart,  while  his  death  would  have  been  useful  to  his 
country  and  damaging  to  the  enemy.  Had  he  died  thus,  I  should 
have  mourned  him  less.  But  to  lose  him  amid  the  joys  of  our 
winter-quarters;  to  see  him  die  at  the  moment  when  he  seemed 
full  of  health,  and  when  our  intimacy  was  rendered  closer  by 
rest  and  tranquillity, —  ah,  this  was  a  blow  from  which  I  can 
never  recover! 

But  his  memory  lives  in  my  heart,  and  there  alone.  He  is 
forgotten  by  those  who  surrounded  him  and  who  have  replaced 
him.  And  this  makes  his  loss  the  more  sad  to  me. 

Nature,  in  like  manner  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  individuals^ 
dons  her  green  spring  robe,  and  decks  herself  in  all  her  beauty 
near  the  cemetery  where  he  rests.  The  trees  cover  themselves 
with  foliage,  and  intertwine  their  branches;  the  birds  warble  under 
the  leafy  sprays;  the  insects  hum  among  the  blossoms:  every- 
thing breathes  joy  in  this  abode  of  death. 

And  in  the  evening,  when  the  moon  shines  in  the  sky,  and  I 
am  meditating  in  this  sad  place,  I  hear  the  grasshopper,  hidden 
in  the  grass  that  covers  the  silent  grave  of  my  friend,  merrily 
pursuing  his  unwearied  song.  The  unobserved  destruction  of 
human  beings,  as  well  as  all  their  misfortunes,  are  counted  for 
nothing  in  the  grand  total  of  events. 

The  death  of  an  affectionate  man  who  breathes  his  last  sur- 
rounded by  his  afflicted  friends,  and  that  of  a  butterfly  killed  in 
a  flower's  cup  by  the  chill  air  of  morning,  are  but  two  similar 


XAVIER   DE   MAISTRE 

epochs  in  the  course  of  nature.  Man  is  but  a  phantom,  a 
shadow,  a  mere  'vapor  that  melts  into  the  air. 

But  daybreak  begins  to  whiten  the  sky.  The  gloomy  thoughts 
that  troubled  me  vanish  with  the  darkness,  and  hope  awakens 
again  in  my  heart.  No!  He  who  thus  suffuses  the  east  with 
light  has  not  made  it  to  shine  upon  my  eyes  only  to  plunge  me 
into  the  night  of  annihilation.  He  who  has  spread  out  that  vast 
horizon,  who  raised  those  lofty  mountains  whose  icy  tops  the  sun 
is  even  now  gilding,  is  also  he  who  made  my  heart  to  beat  and 
my  mind  to  think. 

No!  My  friend  is  not  annihilated.  Whatever  may  be  the 
barrier  that  separates  us,  I  shall  see  him  again.  My  hopes  are 
based  on  no  mere  syllogism.  The  flight  of  an  insect  suffices  to 
persuade  me.  And  often  the  prospect  of  the  surrounding  coun- 
try, the  perfume  of  the  air,  and  an  indescribable  charm  which 
is  spread  around  me,  so  raise  my  thoughts,  that  an  invincible 
proof  of  immortality  forces  itself  upon  my  soul,  and  fills  it  to  the 
full. 


THE   LIBRARY 
From  the  ( Journey  round  My  Room*:  Copyright  1871,  by  Hurd  &  Houghton 

I  PROMISED  to  give  a  dialogue  between  my  soul  and  the  OTHER. 
But  there  are  some  chapters  which  elude  me,  as  it  were;  or 

rather,  there  are  others  which  flow  from  my  pen  nolens  volens, 
and  derange  my  plans.  Among  these  is  one  about  my  library; 
and  I  will  make  it  as  short  as  I  can.  Our  forty-two  days  will 
soon  be  ended ;  and  even  were  it  not  so,  a  similar  period  would 
not  suffice  to  complete  the  description  of  the  rich  country  in 
which  I  travel  so  pleasantly. 

My  library,  then,  is  composed  of  novels,  if  I  must  make  the 
confession  —  of  novels  and  a  few  choice  poets. 

As  if  I  had  not  troubles  enough  of  my  own,  I  share  those  of 
a  thousand  imaginary  personages,  and  I  feel  them  as  acutely  as 
my  own.  How  many  tears  have  I  shed  for  that  poor  Clarissa, 
and  for  Charlotte's  lover! 

But  if  I  go  out  of  my  way  in  .search  of  unreal  afflictions,  I 
find  in  return  such  virtue,  kindness,  and  disinterestedness  in  this 
imaginary  world,  as  I  have  never  yet  found  united  in  the  real 
world  around  me.  I  meet  with  a  woman  after  my  heart's  desire, 


9622 


XAVIER   DE   MAISTRE 


free  from  whim,  lightness,  and  affectation.  I  say  nothing  about 
beauty:  this  I  can  leave  to  my  imagination,  and  picture  her  fault- 
lessly beautiful.  And  then  closing  the  book,  which  no  longer 
keeps  pace  with  my  ideas,  I  take  the  fair  one  by  the  hand,  and 
we  travel  together  over  a  country  a  thousand  times  more  delight- 
ful than  Eden  itself.  What  painter  could  represent  the  fairyland 
in  which  I  have  placed  the  goddess  of  my  heart?  What  poet 
could  ever  describe  the  lively  and  manifold  sensations  I  experi- 
ence in  those  enchanted  regions  ? 

How  often  have  I  cursed  that  Cleveland,  who  is  always  em- 
barking upon  new  troubles  which  he  might  very  well  avoid!  I 
cannot  endure  that  book,  with  its  long  list  of  calamities.  But  if 
I  open  it  by  way  of  distraction,  I  cannot  help  devouring  it  to 
the  end. 

For  how  could  I  leave  that  poor  man  among  the  Abaquis  ? 
What  would  become  of  him  in  the  hands  of  those  savages  ?  Still 
less  dare  I  leave  him  in  his  attempt  to  escape  from  captivity. 

Indeed,  I  so  enter  into  his  sorrows,  I  am  so  interested  in  him 
and  in  his  unfortunate  family,  that  the  sudden  appearance  of  the 
ferocious  Ruintons  makes  my  hair  stand  on  end.  When  I  read 
that  passage  a  cold  perspiration  covers  me;  and  my  fright  is  as 
lively  and  real  as  if  I  were  going  to  be  roasted  and  eaten  by  the 
monsters  myself. 

When  I  have  had  enough  of  tears  and  love,  I  turn  to  some 
poet,  and  set  out  again  for  a  new  world. 


9623 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 

(i849-) 

IILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK  is  the  interesting  product  of  the 
interesting  period  in  which  he  was  educated  and  the  inter- 
esting conditions  of  his  social  life.  Well  born,  well  bred, 
well  fed,  well  read,  well  supplied  with  luxuries,  well  disciplined  at  the 
wicket  and  the  oar,  the  son  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England 
(Rev.  Roger  Mallock)  and  the  nephew  of  James  Anthony  and  Richard 
Hurrell  Froude,  he  was  educated  at  home  by  private  tutors  till  he 
entered  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  There  he  took  a  second  class  in  final 
classicals,  and  in  1871  the  Newdigate  poet- 
ical prize,  the  subject  of  his  poem  being 
<The  Isthmus  of  Suez.' 

In  1876  he  published  <The  New  Repub- 
lic, *  which  first  appeared  in  a  magazine. 
The  first  impression  of  the  book  is  its 
audacity,  the  second  its  cleverness;  but 
when  one  has  gotten  well  into  its  leisurely 
pages,  and  has  found  himself  in  what  seems 
to  be  the  veritable  company  of  Huxley, 
Matthew  Arnold,  Ruskin,  Professor  Clifford, 
Walter  Pater,  Professor  Jowett,  and  Mr. 
Tyndall,  he  is  penetrated  with  the  convic- 
tion that  the  work  is  the  perfected  flower 
of  the  art  of  delicate  characterization.  The 

parodies  are  so  good  that  they  read  like  reminiscences  enlivened  with 
the  lightest  touch  of  extravaganza. 

The  sub-title  of  <  The  New  Republic  >  —  <  Culture,  Faith,  and  Phi- 
losophy in  an  English  Country-House  > — indicates  its  plan.  A  young 
man  of  fortune  and  distinction  assembles  at  his  villa  a  party  of  vis- 
itors, who  under  thin  disguises  represent  the  leading  thinkers  of  the 
day.  The  company  plays  at  constructing  an  ideal  republic,  which 
is  to  be  the  latest  improvement  on  Plato's  commonwealth.  To  facil- 
itate the  discussion,  the  host  writes  the  titles  of  the  subjects  to  be 
talked  about  on  the  back  of  the  menus  of  their  first  dinner:  they 
prove  to  be  such  seductive  themes  as  <The  Aim  of  Life,*  ( Society, 
Art,  and  Literature,*  ( Riches  and  Civilization, y  and  (The  Present  and 
the  Future. J 

In  the  expression  of  opinion  that  follows,  the  peculiarities  and 
inconsistencies  of  the  famous  personages  are  hit  off  with  delicious 


1 


WILLIAM   H.   MALLOCK 


9624  WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 

appositeness.  The  first  principle  of  the  proposed  New  Republic  is  to 
destroy  all  previous  republics.  Mr.  Storks  ( Professor  Huxley )  elimi- 
nates a  conscious  directing  intelligence  from  the  world  of  matter. 
Mr.  Stockton  (Professor  Tyndall)  eliminates  the  poetry  and  romance 
of  the  imagination,  substituting  those  of  the  wonders  of  science. 
The  materialist,  Mr.  Saunders  (Professor  Clifford),  eliminates  the  <(foul 
superstition >}  of  the  existence  of  God  and  the  scheme  of  salvation 
through  the  merits  of  Christ.  Mr.  Luke  (Matthew  Arnold)  who  is 
represented  as  mournfully  strolling  about  the  lawn  in  the  moonlight, 
reciting  his  own  poems, — poems  which  puzzle  us  in  their  oscillation 
between  mirth  and  moralizing,  till  an  italicized  line  warns  us  to  be 
wary, — Mr.  Luke  eliminates  the  middle  classes.  Mr.  Rose  (Walter 
Pater)  eliminates  religious  belief  as  a  serious  verity,  but  retains  it 
as  an  artistic  finish  and  decorative  element  in  life.  Dr.  Jenkinson 
(Professor  Jowett)  in  a  sermon  which  he  might  have  preached  in 
Balliol  Chapel,  and  his  habitual  audience  have  heard  without  the 
lifting  of  an  eyebrow,  eliminates  the  <(bad  taste w  of  conviction  on 
any  subject.  Finally  Mr.  Herbert  (Mr.  Ruskin),  descending  upon  the 
reformers  in  a  burst  of  vituperation,  eliminates  the  upper  classes, 
because  they  neither  have  themselves  nor  furnish  the  lower  orders 
any  object  to  live  for.  The  outcome  of  the  discussion  is  predicted  on 
the  title-page:  — 

«A11  is  jest  and  ashes  and  nothingness;  for  all  things  that  are,  are  of 
folly.» 

So  much  space  has  been  given  to  Mr.  Mallock's  first  book  because 
it  is  representative  of  his  quality,  and  discloses  the  line  of  his  sub- 
sequent thinking.  Only  once  again  does  he  permit  himself  the 
relaxation  of  an  irresponsible  and  clever  parody, — that  on  Positivism 
in  *The  New  Paul  and  Virginia  *;  wherein  the  germ  revealed  in  the 
sketches  of  Huxley  and  his  fellow  scientists  is  more  fully  developed, 
to  the  disedification  of  the  serious-minded,  who  complain  that  the 
representatives  of  Prometheus  are  dragged  down  to  earth. 

But  the  shades  of  the  mighty  whom  he  ridiculed  have  played  a 
curious  trick  on  Mr.  Mallock.  As  Emerson  says  of  the  soul  of  the 
dead  warrior,  which,  entering  the  breast  of  the  conqueror,  takes  up 
its  abode  there, —  so  the  wraiths  of  doubt,  materialism,  discontent, 
Philistinism,  and  the  many  upsetting  emotions  which  the  clever  satir- 
ist disposed  of  with  a  jest,  entered  his  own  hypersensitive  organism, 
and,  for  all  the  years  succeeding,  sent  him  about  among  the  men 
of  his  generation  sharing  with  Ruskin  the  burden  of  their  salvation. 
Nor  does  he  propose  to  let  any  sense  of  his  own  limitations  as  a 
prophet  interfere  with  the  delivery  of  his  message.  In  a  volume  of 
several  hundred  pages  he  asks  a  nineteenth-century  audience,  <  Is 
Life  Worth  Living  ? J  Can  we,  he  demands  in  substance,  like  his  own 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


9625 


Mr.  Herbert,  go  on  buying  blue  china  and  enjoying  the  horse-show 
and  the  ><(  season,  *  and  our  little  trips  to  Paris,  and  first  editions  in 
rare  bindings,  if  we  are  not  sure  that  these  tastes  will  be  gratified 
in  another  world  ?  In  his  mind,  the  reply  to  this  question  resolves 
itself  into  the  necessity  for  a  final  authority, — an  authority  which  he 
himself  discovers  in  the  voice  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

He  is  an  indefatigable  worker.  As  a  novelist  he  belongs  to  the 
sentimental  school,  in  which  a  craving  for  sympathy  and  a  marked 
tendency  to  reject  conventional  standards  characterizes  all  his  men 
and  many  of  his  women.  Because  he  has  written  them,  his  stories 
are  never  dull;  they  abound  in  epigram,  sketches  of  character,  and 
wise  reflections:  but  the  plots  are  slightly  woven  and  hang  at  loose 
ends,  while  a  denouement  is  as  deliberately  ignored  as  if  the  author 
were  a  pupil  of  Zola.  His  novels  or  romances  are  <A  Romance  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century,)  (The  Old  Order  Changeth,)  (A  Human  Doc- 
ument,) (The  Heart  of  Life,)  and  (The  Veil  of  the  Temple)  (1904). 

As  an  essayist  he  is  widely  read.  He  was  one  of  the  famous 
five  who  took  part  in  the  Christianity  vs.  Agnosticism  controversy,  in 
which  Bishop  Wace  and  Mr.  Huxley  were  the  champions.  He  has 
written  two  volumes  of  poems,  translated  Lucretius;  and  his  varied 
magazine  articles,  collected  in  book  form,  have  been  published  under 
the  titles  of  ( Social  Equality >  (London,  1882),  ( Property,  Progress, 
and  Poverty)  (1884),  (Classes  and  Masses;  or,  Wealth  and  Wages 
in  the  United  Kingdom)  (1896),  (Aristocracy  and  Evolution)  (1898), 
(Doctrine  and  Doctrinal  Disruption)  (1900),  ( Critical  Examinations  of 
Socialism)  (1907),  (The  Nation  as  a  Business  Firm)  (1910),  etc. 

In  these  volumes,  mostly  on  social  topics,  Mr.  Mallock  presents 
himself  as  a  sedate  Conservative,  committed  to  hereditary  legisla- 
tion, the  sacredness  of  the  game  laws,  the  Doomsday  Book,  and  the 
rest  of  medisevalism.  Against  democratic  theories  concerning  social 
equality,  labor,  and  property,  he  sets  up  the  counter  proposition  that 
labor  is  not  the  cause  of  wealth,  and  of  itself  would  be  powerless  to 
produce  it.  As  for  social  equality,  he  sees  that  diversity  of  station  is 
a  part  of  the  framework  that  holds  society  together. 

These  books  are  written  in  a  serious  manner.  But  it  is  an  axiom  that 
the  successful  advocate  must  give  the  impression  that  he  himself  has 
no  doubt  of  his  cause.  This  Mr.  Mallock  almost  never  does.  The 
more  positive  his  plea,  the  more  visible  between  the  lines  is  the 
mocking,  unconvinced  expression  of  the  author's  other  self.  More- 
over, his  fastidious  discontent,  and  the  subtlety  of  mind  which  is  the 
greatest  perhaps  of  his  many  charms,  point  him  toward  some  un- 
explored quarter,  where,  as  he  has  not  investigated  it,  he  fancies  the 
truth  may  lie.  The  reader  of  Mallock  goes  to  him  for  witty  com- 
ment, satire,  suggestion;  and  to  get  into  a  certain  high-bred  society 


9626  WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 

where  the  scholar  is  at  home  and  the  gospel  of  good-breeding  is 
preached.  But  that  reader  will  never  know  in  what  social  system  of 
the  past  —  in  slavery,  feudalism,  or  absolutism  —  Mallock's  Utopia  is 
to  be  sought. 


AN   EVENING'S  TABLE-TALK  AT  THE  VILLA 
From  <The  New  Republic  > 

No  PROPOSAL  could  have  been  happier  than  Lady  Grace's,  of 
the  garden  banquet  in  the  pavilion.  It  seemed  to  the 
guests,  when  they  were  all  assembled  there,  that  the  lovely 
summer's  day  was  going  to  close  with  a  scene  from  fairy-land. 
The  table  itself,  with  its  flowers  and  glowing  fruit,  and  its  many- 
colored  Venetian  glass,  shone  and  gleamed  and  sparkled  in  the 
evening  light,  that  was  turning  outside  to  a  cool  mellow  amber; 
and  above,  from  the  roof,  in  which  the  dusk  was  already  dark- 
ness, hung  china  lamps  in  the  shape  of  green  and  purple  grape 
clusters,  looking  like  luminous  fruit  stolen  from  Aladdin's  garden. 
The  pavilion,  open  on  all  sides,  was  supported  on  marble  pillars 
that  were  almost  hidden  in  red  and  white  roses.  Behind,  the  eye 
rested  on  great  tree  trunks  and  glades  of  rich  foliage ;  and  before, 
it  would  pass  over  turf  and  flowers,  till  it  reached  the  sea  be- 
yond, on  which  in  another  hour  the  faint  silver  of  the  moonlight 
would  begin  to  tremble. 

There  was  something  in  the  whole  scene  that  was  at  once 
calming  and  exhilarating;  and  nearly  all  present  seemed  to  feel 
in  some  measure  this  double  effect  of  it.  Dr.  Jenkinson  had 
been  quite . restored  by  an  afternoon's  nap;  and  his  face  was  now 
all  a-twinkle  with  a  fresh  benignity, —  that  had,  however,  like  an 
early  spring  morning,  just  a  faint  suspicion  of  frost  in  it.  Mr. 
Storks  even  was  less  severe  than  usual;  and  as  he  raised  his 
champagne  to  his  lips,  he  would  at  times  look  very  nearly  con- 
versational. 

<(  My  dear  Laurence, y>  exclaimed  Mr.  Herbert,  <(  it  really 
almost  seems  as  if  your  visions  of  the  afternoon  had  come  true, 
and  that  we  actually  were  in  your  New  Republic  already.  I  can 
only  say  that  if  it  is  at  all  like  this,  it  will  be  an  entirely  charm- 
ing place  —  too  charming,  perhaps.  But  now  remember  this: 
you  have  but  half  got  through  the  business  to  which  you  first 
addressed  yourselves, —  that  of  forming  a  picture  of  a  perfect 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK  9627 

aristocracy,  an  aristocracy  in  the  true  and  genuine  sense  of  the 
word.  You  are  all  to  have  culture,  or  taste.  Very  good:  you 
have  talked  a  great  deal  about  that,  and  you  have  seen  what  you 
mean  by  it;  and  you  have  recognized,  above  all,  that  it  includes 
a  discrimination  between  right  and  wrong.  But  now  you,  with 
all  this  taste  and  culture, —  you  gifted  men  and  women  of  the 
nineteenth  century, —  what  sort  of  things  does  your  taste  teach 
you  to  reach  out  towards  ?  In  what  actions  and  aims,  in  what 
affections  and  emotions,  would  you  place  your  happiness  ?  That 
is  what  I  want  to  hear, —  the  practical  manifestations  of  this 
culture. 9 

<(Ah, w  said  Mr.  Rose,  <(  I  have  at  this  moment  a  series  of 
essays  in  the  press,  which  would  go  far  towards  answering  these 
questions  of  yours.  They  do  indeed  deal  with  just  this:  the 
effect  of  the  choicer  culture  of  this  century  on  the  soul  of  man; 
the  ways  in  which  it  endows  him  with  new  perceptions;  how  it 
has  made  him,  in  fact,  a  being  altogether  more  highly  organ- 
ized. All  I  regret  is  that  these  choicer  souls,  these  Xapievres,  are 
as  yet  like  flowers  that  have  not  found  a  climate  in  which  they 
can  thrive  properly.  That  mental  climate  will  doubtless  come 
with  time.  What  we  have  been  trying  to  do  this  afternoon  is,  I 
imagine,  nothing  more  than  to  anticipate  it  in  imagination. }) 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Herbert,  with  a  little  the  tone  of  an  Inquis- 
itor, "that  is  just  what  I  have  been  asking.  What  will  this 
climate  be  like,  and  what  will  these  flowers  be  like  in  this  cli- 
mate ?  How  would  your  culture  alter  and  better  the  present,  if 
its  powers  were  equal  to  its  wishes  ? w 

Mr.  Rose's  soft  lulling  tone  harmonized  well  with  the  scene 
and  hour,  and  the  whole  party  seemed  willing  to  listen  to  him; 
or  at  any  rate,  no  one  felt  any  prompting  to  interrupt  him. 

<(  I  can  show  you  an  example,  Mr.  Herbert, >}  he  said,  <(  of 
culture  demanding  a  finer  climate,  in  —  if  you  will  excuse  my 
seeming  egoism  —  in  myself.  For  instance  (to  take  the  widest 
matter  i  can  fix  upon,  the  general  outward  surroundings  of  our 
lives), —  often,  when  I  walk  about  London,  and  see  how  hideous 
its  whole  external  aspect  is,  and  what  a  dissonant  population 
throng  it,  a  chill  feeling  of  despair  comes  over  me.  Consider 
how  the  human  eye  delights  in  form  and  color,  and  the  ear  in 
tempered  and  harmonious  sounds;  and  then  think  for  a  moment 
of  a  London  street!  Think  of  the  shapeless  houses,  the  forest  of 
ghastly  chimney-pots,  of  the  hell  of  distracting  noises  made  by 


9628 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


the  carts,  the  cabs,  the  carriages;  think  of  the  bustling-,  common- 
place, careworn  crowds  that  jostle  you;  think  of  an  omnibus, 
think  of  a  four-wheeler — )} 

<(  I  often  ride  in  an  omnibus, w  said  Lord  Allen,  with  a  slight 
smile,  to  Miss  Merton. 

<(  It  is  true, >J  replied  Mr.  Rose,  only  overhearing  the  tone  in 
which  these  words  were  said,  (<  that  one  may  ever  and  again 
catch  some  touch  of  sunlight  that  will  for  a  moment  make  the 
meanest  object  beautiful  with  its  furtive  alchemy.  But  that  is 
Nature's  work,  not  man's;  and  we  must  never  confound  the 
accidental  beauty  that  Nature  will  bestow  on  man's  work,  even 
at  its  worst,  with  the  rational  and  designed  beauty  of  man's 
work  at  its  best.  It  is  this  rational  human  beauty  that  I  say 
our  modern  city  life  is  so  completely  wanting  in;  nay,  the  look 
of  out-of-door  London  seems  literally  to  stifle  the  very  power  of 
imagining  such  beauty  possible.  Indeed,  as  I  wander  along  our 
streets,  pushing  my  way  among  the  throngs  of  faces, — faces 
puckered  with  misdirected  thought  or  expressionless  with  none; 
barbarous  faces  set  towards  Parliament,'  or  church,  or  scientific 
lecture-rooms,  or  government  offices,  or  counting-houses, —  I  say, 
as  I  push  my  way  amongst  all  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the 
streets  of  our  great  city,  only  one  thing  ever  catches  my  eye 
that  breaks  in  upon  my  mood  and  warns  me  I  need  not  de- 
spair. M 

(<And  what  is  that  ? "  asked  Allen  with  some  curiosity. 

(<The  shops,"  Mr.  Rose  answered,  <(  of  certain  of  our  uphol- 
sterers and  dealers  in  works  of  art.  Their  windows,  as  I  look 
into  them,  act  like  a  sudden  charm  on  me;  like  a  splash  of  cold 
water  dashed  on  my  forehead  when  I  am  fainting.  For  I  seem 
there  to  have  got  a  glimpse  of  the  real  heart  of  things ;  and  as 
my  eyes  rest  on  the  perfect  pattern  (many  of  which  are  really 
quite  delicious;  indeed,  when  I  go  to  ugly  houses,  I  often  take 
a  scrap  of  some  artistic  cretonne  with  me  in  my  pocket  as  a 
kind  of  aesthetic  smelling-salts) ,  —  I  say,  when  I  look  in  at  their 
windows,  and  my  eyes  rest  on  the  perfect  pattern  of  some  new 
fabric  for  a  chair  or  for  a  window  curtain,  or  on  some  new  de- 
sign for  a  wall  paper,  or  on  some  old  china  vase,  I  become  at 
once  sharply  conscious,  Mr.  Herbert,  that  despite  the  ungenial 
mental  climate  of  the  present  age,  strange  yearnings  for  and 
knowledge  of  true  beauty  are  beginning  to  show  themselves  like 
flowers  above  the  weedy  soil;  and  I  remember,  amidst  the  roar 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK  9629 

and  clatter  of  our  streets,  and  the  mad  noises  of  our  own  times, 
that  there  is  amongst  us  a  growing  number  who  have  deliber- 
ately turned  their  backs  on  all  these  things,  and  have  thrown 
their  whole  souls  and  sympathies  into  the  happier  art  ages  of  the 
past.  They  have  gone  back,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  raising  his  voice  a 
little,  <(to  Athens  and  to  Italy;  to  the  Italy  of  Leo  and  to  the 
Athens  of  Pericles.  To  such  men  the  clamor,  the  interests,  the 
struggles  of  our  own  times  become  as  meaningless  as  they  really 
are.  To  them  the  boyhood  of  Bathyllus  is  of  more  moment  than 
the  manhood  of  Napoleon.  Borgia  is  a  more  familiar  name  than 
Bismarck.  I  know,  indeed,  —  and  I  really  do  not  blame  them,  — 
several  distinguished  artists  who,  resolving  to  make  their  whole 
lives  consistently  perfect,  will  on  principle  never  admit  a .  news- 
paper into  their  houses  that  is  of  later  date  than  the  times  of 
Addison:  and  I  have  good  trust  that  the  number  of  such  men 
is  on  the  increase;  men,  I  mean,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  toying-  tenderly 
with  an  exquisite  wine-glass  of  Salviati's,  "who  with  a  steady 
and  set  purpose  follow  art  for  the  sake  of  art,  beauty  for  the 
sake  of  beauty,  love  for  the  sake  of  love,  life  for  the  sake  of 
life." 

Mr.  Rose's  slow  gentle  voice,  which  was  apt  at  certain  times 
to  become  peculiarly  irritating,  sounded  now  like  the-  evening  air 
grown  articulate;  and  had  secured  him  hitherto  a  tranquil  hear- 
ing, as  if  by  a  kind  of  spell.  This,  however,  seemed  here  in 
sudden  danger  of  snapping. 

<(  What,  Mr.  Rose ! "  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose,  (<  do  you  mean 
to  say,  then,  that  the  number  of  people  is  on  the  increase  who 
won't  read  the  newspapers  ?  " 

<(Why,  the  men  must  be  absolute  idiots  !*  said  Lady  Grace, 
shaking  her  gray  curls,  and  putting  on  her  spectacles  to  look  at 
Mr.  Rose. 

Mr,   Rose,  however,  was  imperturbable. 

<(  Of  course,"  he  said,  <(you  may  have  newspapers  if  you  will; 
I  myself  always  have  them :  though  in  general  they  are  too  full 
of  public  events  to  be  of  much  interest.  I  was  merely  speaking 
just  now  of  the  spirit  of  the  movement.  And  of  that  we  must 
all  of  us  here  have  some  knowledge.  We  must  all  of  us  have 
friends  whose  houses  more  or  less  embody  it.  And  even  if  we 
had  not,  we  could  not  help  seeing  signs  of  it  —  signs  of  how  true 
and  earnest  it  is,  in  the  enormous  sums  that  are  now  given  for 
really  good  objects. J> 


9630 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


"That,"  said  Lady  Grace,  with  some  tartness,  (<is  true  enough, 
thank  God!" 

<(But  I  can't  see,"  said  Lady  Ambrose,  whose  name  often 
figured  in  the  Times,  in  the  subscription  lists  of  advertised  chari- 
ties,— <(  I  can't  see,  Mr.  Rose,  any  reason  in  that  why  we  should 
not  read  the  newspapers." 

<(The  other  day,  for  instance,"  said  Mr.  Rose  reflectively, 
al  heard  of  eight  Chelsea  shepherdesses  picked  up  by  a  dealer, 
I  really  forget  where, —  in  some  common  cottage,  if  I  recollect 
aright,  covered  with  dirt,  giving  no  pleasure  to  any  one, —  and 
these  were  all  sold  in  a  single  day,  and  not  one  of  them  fetched 
Jess  than  two  hundred  and  twenty  pounds." 

(</  can't  help  thinking  they  must  have  come  from  Cremorne," 
said  Mrs.  Sinclair  softly. 

(<  But  why,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  (<  should  I  speak  of  particular 
instances  ?  We  must  all  of  us  have  friends  whose  houses  are 
full  of  priceless  treasures  such  as  these;  the  whole  atmosphere  of 
whose  rooms  really  seems  impregnated  with  art, —  seems,  in  fact, 
Mr.  Herbert,  such  an  atmosphere  as  we  should  dream  of  for  our 
New  Republic.  " 

<(  To  be  sure, "  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose,  feeling  that  she 
had  at  last  got  upon  solid  ground.  <(By  the  way,  Mr.  Rose," 
she  said  with  her  most  gracious  of  smiles,  <(  I  suppose  you  have 
hardly  seen  Lady  Julia  Hayman's  new  house  in  Belgrave  Square  ? 
I'm  sure  that  would  delight  you.  I  should  like  to  take  you  there 
some  day  and  show  it  to  you." 

<(I  have  seen  it,"  said  Mr.  Rose  with  languid  condescension. 
<(  It  was  very  pretty,  I  thought, —  some  of  it  really  quite  nice." 

This,  and  the  slight  rudeness  of  manner  it  was  said  with, 
raised  Mr.  Rose  greatly  in  Lady  Ambrose's  estimation,  and  she 
began  to  think  with  respect  of  his  late  utterances. 

<(Well,  Mr.  Herbert,"  Mr.  Rose  went  on,  (<what  I  want  to 
say  is  this:  We  have  here  in  the  present  age,  as  it  is,  fragments 
of  the  right  thing.  We  have  a  number  of  isolated  right  interiors; 
we  have  a  few,  very  few,  right  exteriors.  But  in  our  ideal  State, 
our  entire  city  —  our  London,  the  metropolis  of  our  society  — 
would  be  as  a  whole  perfect  as  these  fragments.  Taste  would 
not  there  be  merely  an  indoor  thing.  It  would  be  written  visi- 
bly for  all  to  look  upon,  in  our  streets,  our  squares,  our  gardens. 
Could  we  only  mold  England  to  our  wishes,  the  thing  to  do,  I 
am  persuaded,  would  be  to  remove  London  to  some  kindlier  site, 


WILLIAM   HURRELL   MALLOCK 


9631 


that  it  might  there  be  altogether  horn  anew.  I  myself  would 
have  it  taken  to  the  southwest,  and  to  the  sea-coast,  where  the 
waves  are  blue,  and  where  the  air  is  calm  and  fine,  and  there  — " 

(<  Ah  me ! }>  sighed  Mr.  Luke  with  a  lofty  sadness,  (<  coelum  non 
animam  mutant.^ 

(<  Pardon  me,"  said  Mr.  Rose:  <(few  paradoxes  —  and  most  para- 
doxes are  false  —  are,  I  think,  so  false  as  that.  This  much  at 
least  of  sea-like  man's  mind  has:  that  scarcely  anything  so  dis- 
tinctly gives  a  tone  to  it  as  the  color  of  the  skies  he  lives  under. 
And  I  was  going  to  say, w  he  went  on,  looking  out  dreamily 
towards  the  evening  waves,  "that  as  the  imagination  is  a  quick 
workman,  I  can  at  this  moment  see  our  metropolis  already  trans- 
planted and  rebuilt.  I  seem  to  see  it  now  as  it  were  from  a 
distance,  with  its  palaces,  its  museums,  its  churches,  its  convents, 
its  gardens,  its  picture  galleries, —  a  cluster  of  domed  and  pillared 
marble,  sparkling  on  a  gray  headland.  It  is  Rome,  it  is  Athens, 
it  is  Florence,  arisen  and  come  to  life  again,  in  these  modern 
days.  The  aloe-tree  of  beauty  again  blossoms  there,  under  the 
azure  stainless  sky." 

<(  Do  you  know,  Mr.  Rose, }>  said  Lady  Ambrose  in  her  most 
cordial  manner,  (<all  this  is  very  beautiful;  and  certainly  no  one 
can  think  London  as  it  is  more  ugly  than  I  do.  That's  natural 
in  me,  isn't  it,  being  a  denizen  of  poor  prosaic  South  Audley 
Street  as  I  am  ?  But  don't  you  think  that  your  notion  is — • 
it's  very  beautiful,  I  quite  feel  that  —  but  don't  you  think  it  is 
perhaps  a  little  too  dream -like  —  too  unreal,  if  you  know  what  I 
mean  ? }) 

*  Such  a  city,  *  said  Mr.  Rose  earnestly,  (<  is  indeed  a  dream ; 
but  it  is  a  dream  which  we  might  make  a  reality,  would  circum- 
stances only  permit  of  it.  We  have  many  amongst  us  who  know 
what  is  beautiful,  and  who  passionately  desire  it;  and  would 
others  only  be  led  by  these,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  we  might 
some  day  have  a  capital,  the  entire  aspect  of  which  should  be 
the  visible  embodiment  of  our  finest  and  most  varied  culture,  oui 
most  sensitive  taste,  and  our  deepest  aesthetic  measure  of  things. 
This  is  what  this  capital  of  our  New  Republic  must  be,  this 
dwelling-place  of  our  ideal  society.  We  shall  have  houses,  gal- 
leries, streets,  theatres,  such  as  Giulio  Romano  or  Giorgio  Vasari 
or  Giulio  Campi  would  have  rejoiced  to  look  at;  we  shall  have 
metal-work  worthy  of  the  hand  of  Ghiberti  and  the  praise  of 
Michel  Angelo;  we  shall  rival  Domenico  Beccafumi  with  our 
pavements.  As  you  wander  through  our  thoroughfares  and  our 


9632  WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 

gardens,  your  feelings  will  not  be  jarred  by  the  presence  of 
human  vulgarity,  or  the  desolating  noise  of  traffic;  nor  in  every 
spare  space  will  your  eyes  be  caught  by  abominable  advertise- 
ments of  excursion  trains  to  Brighton,  or  of  Horniman's  cheap 
tea.  They  will  rest  instead,  here  on  an  exquisite  fountain,  here 
on  a  statue,  here  on  a  bust  of  Zeus  or  Hermes  or  Aphrodite, 
glimmering  in  a  laureled  nook;  or  on  a  Mater  Dolor osa  looking 
down  on  you  from  her  holy  shrine;  or  on  the  carved  marble 
gate-posts  of  our  palace  gardens,  or  on  their  wrought-iron  or 
wrought-bronze  gates;  or  perhaps  on  such  triumphal  arches  as 
that  which  Antonio  San  Gallo  constructed  in  honor  of  Charles  V., 
and  of  which  you  must  all  remember  the  description  given  by 
Vasari.  Such  a  city,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  ((  would  be  the  externaliza- 
tion  of  the  human  spirit  in  the  highest  state  of  development  that 
we  can  conceive  for  it.  We  should  there  see  expressed  openly 
all  our  appreciations  of  all  the  beauty  that  we  can  detect  in  the 
world's  whole  history.  The  wind  of  the  spirit  that  breathed 
there  would  blow  to  us  from  all  the  places  of  the  past,  and  be 
charged  with  infinite  odors.  Every  frieze  on  our  walls,  every 
clustered  capital  of  a  marble  column,  would  be  a  garland  or  nose- 
gay of  associations.  Indeed,  our  whole  city,  as  compared  with 
the  London  that  is  now,  would  be  itself  a  nosegay  as  compared 
with  a  faggot;  and  as  related  to  the  life  that  I  would  see  lived 
in  it,  it  would  be  like  a  shell  murmuring  with  all  the  world's 
memories,  and  held  to  the  ear  of  the  two  twins  Life  and  Love." 

Mr.  Rose  had  got  so  dreamy  by  this  time  that  he  felt  him- 
self  the  necessity  of  turning  a  little  more  matter-of-fact  again. 

(<You  will  see  what  I  mean,  plainly  enough,"  he  said,  (<if  you 
will  just  think  of  our  architecture,  and  consider  how  that  natur- 
ally will  be—  » 

<(  Yes, "  said  Mr.  Luke,  (<  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  about  our 
architecture." 

(<  —  how  that  naturally  will  be, "  Mr.  Rose  went  on,  (<of  no 
style  in  particular. " 

"The  deuce  it  won't  ! "   exclaimed  Mr.  Luke. 

"No,"  continued  Mr.  Rose  unmoved;  <(no  style  in  particular, 
but  a  renaissance  of  all  styles.  It  will  matter  nothing  to  us 
whether  they  be  pagan  or  Catholic,  classical  or  mediaeval.  We 
shall  be  quite  without  prejudice  or  bigotry.  To  the  eye  of  true 
taste,  an  Aquinas  in  his  cell  before  a  crucifix,  or  a  Narcissus 
gazing  at  himself  in  a  still  fountain,  are  —  in  their  own  ways, 
you  know  —  equally  beautiful." 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


9633 


<(  Well,  really, w  said  Miss  Merton,  <(  I  can  not  fancy  St.  Thomas 
being  a  very  taking"  object  to  people  who  don't  believe  in  him 
either  as  a  saint  or  a  philosopher.  I  always  think  that  except 
from  a  Christian  point  of  view,  a  saint  can  be  hardly  better  de- 
scribed than  by  Newman's  lines,  as  — 

<A  bundle  of  bones,  whose  breath 
Infects  the  world  before  his  death. >>># 

c<  I  remember  the  lines  well, w  said  Mr.  Rose  calmly,  <(  and  the 
writer  you  mention  puts  them  in  the  mouth  of  a  yelping  devil. 
But  devils,  as  far  as  I  know,  are  not  generally  —  except  perhaps 
Milton's  —  conspicuous  for  taste;  indeed,  if  we  may  trust  Goethe, 
the  very  touch  of  a  flower  is  torture  to  them." 

(<  Dante's  biggest  devil, )}  cried  Mr.  Saunders,  to  every  one's 
amazement,  ((  chewed  Judas  Iscariot  like  a  quid  of  tobacco,  to  all 
eternity.  He,  at  any  rate,  knew  what  he  liked. }> 

Mr.  Rose  started,  and  visited  Mr.  Saunders  with  a  rapid 
frown.  He  then  proceeded,  turning  again  to  Miss  Merton  as  if 
nothing  had  happened. 

<(  Let  me  rather, })  he  said,  (<  read  a  nice  sonnet  to  you,  which 
I  had  sent  to  me  this  morning,  and  which  was  in  my  mind 
just  now.  These  lines"  (Mr.  Rose  here  produced  a  paper  from 
his  pocket)  <(were  written  by  a  boy  of  eighteen, — a  youth  of 
extraordinary  promise,  I  think, —  whose  education  I  may  myself 
claim  to  have  had  some  share  in  directing.  Listen, }>  he  said, 
laying  the  verses  before  him  on  a  clean  plate. 

<(  Three  visions  in  the  watches  of  one  night 

Made  sweet  my  sleep  —  almost  too  sweet  to  tell. 

One  was  Narcissus  by  a  woodside  well, 
And  on  the  moss  his  limbs  and  feet  were  white; 
And  one,   Queen  Venus,  blown  for  my  delight 

Across  the  blue  sea  in  a  rosy  shell; 

And  one,  a  lean  Aquinas  in  his  cell, 
Kneeling,  his  pen  in  hand,  with  aching  sight 
Strained  towards  a  carven  Christ:   and  of  these  three 

I  knew  not  which  was  fairest.     First  I  turned 
Towards  that  soft  boy,  who  laughed  and  fled  from  me; 
Towards  Venus  then,  and  she  smiled  once,  and  she 

Fled  also.     Then  with  teeming  heart  I  yearned, 
O  Angel  of  the  Schools,  towards  Christ  with  theeP 

•  Vide  J.  H.  Newman's  <  Dream  of  Gerontius.> 


9634 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


(<  Yes, "  murmured  Mr.  Rose  to  himself,  folding  up  the  paper, 
<(they  are  dear  lines.  Now  there,"  he  said,  (<we  have  a  true  and 
tender  expression  of  the  really  catholic  spirit  of  modern  aestheti- 
cism,  which  holds  nothing  common  or  unclean.  It  is  in  this 
spirit,  I  say,  that  the  architects  of  our  State  will  set  to  work. 
And  thus  for  our  houses,,  for  our  picture  galleries,  for  our 
churches, —  I  trust  we  shall  have  many  churches, —  they  will 
select  and  combine  — " 

<(Do  you  seriously  mean,"  broke  in  Allen  a  little  impatiently, 
"that  it  is  a  thing  to  wish  for  and  to  look  forward  to,  that  we 
should  abandon  all  attempts  at  original  architecture,  and  content 
ourselves  with  simply  sponging  on  the  past  ? " 

<(  I  do, "  replied  Mr.  Rose  suavely ;  (( and  for  this  reason,  if 
for  no  other, — that  the  world  can  now  successfully  do  nothing 
else.  Nor  indeed  is  it  to  be  expected,  or  even  wished,  that  it 
should. » 

(<  You  say  we  have  no  good  architecture  now ! "  exclaimed 
Lady  Ambrose;  <(but,  Mr.  Rose,  have  you  forgotten  our  modern 
churches  ?  Don't  you  think  them  beautiful  ?  Perhaps  you  never 
go  to  All  Saints'  ? " 

<(I  every  now  and  then,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  <(when  I  am  in  the 
weary  mood  for  it,  attend  the  services  of  our  English  Ritualists, 
and  I  admire  their  churches  very  much  indeed.  In  some  places 
the  whole  thing  is  really  managed  with  surprising  skill.  The 
dim  religious  twilight,  fragrant  with  the  smoke  of  incense;  the 
tangled  roofs  that  the  music  seems  to  cling  to;  the  tapers,  the 
high  altar,  and  the  strange  intonation  of  the  priests, —  all  produce 
a  curious  old-world  effect,  and  seem  to  unite  one  with  things  that 
have  been  long  dead.  Indeed,  it  all  seems  to  me  far  more  a 
part  of  the  past  than  the  services  of  the  Catholics," 

Lady  Ambrose  did  not  express  her  approbation  of  the  last 
part  of  this  sentiment,  out  of  regard  for  Miss  Merton;  but  she 
gave  a  smile  and  a  nod  of  pleased  intelligence  to  Mr.  Rose. 

"Yes,"  Mr.  Rose  went  on,  "there  is  a  regretful  insincerity 
about  it  all,  that  is  very  nice,  and  that  at  once  appeals  to  me, 
'Gleich  einer  alten  halbverklungnen  Sage.'*  The  priests  are 
only  half  in  earnest;  the  congregations  even  — " 

"Then  I  am  quite  sure,"  interrupted  Lady  Ambrose  with 
vigor,  <(that  you  can  never  have  heard  Mr.  Cope  preach." 

*«Like  some  old  half -forgotten  legend. » 


WILLIAM   HURRELL   MALLOCK 


9635 


<(  I  don't  know,"  said  Mr.  Rose  languidly.  c<  I  never  inquired, 
nor  have  I  ever  heard  any  one  so  much  as  mention,  the  names 
of  any  of  them.  Now  all  that,  Lady  Ambrose,  were  life  really 
in  the  state  it  should  be,  you  would  be  able  to  keep.>J 

<(  Do  you  seriously,  and  in  sober  earnest,  mean, w  Allen  again 
broke  in,  <(that  you  think  it  a  good  thing  that  all  our  art  and 
architecture  should  be  borrowed  and  insincere,  and  that  our  very 
religion  should  be  nothing  but  a  dilettante  memory  ? >J 

<(The  opinion, })  said  Mr.  Rose, — "which  by  the  way  you 
slightly  misrepresent, — is  not  mine  only,  but  that  of  all  those 
of  our  own  day  who  are  really  devoting  themselves  to  art  for 
its  own  sake.  I  will  try  to  explain  the  reason  of  this.  In  the 
world's  life,  just  as  in  the  life  of  a  man,  there  are  certain  peri- 
ods of  eager  and  all-absorbing  action,  and  these  are  followed  by 
periods  of  memory  and  reflection.  We  then  look  back  upon 
our  past  and  become  for  the  first  time  conscious  of  what  we 
are,  and  of  what  we  have  done.  We  then  see  the  dignity  of 
toil,  and  the  grand  results  of  it;  the  beauty  and  the  strength 
of  faith,  and  the  fervent  power  of  patriotism:  which  whilst  we 
labored,  and  believed,  and  loved,  we  were  quite  blind  to.  Upon 
such  a  reflective  period  has  the  world  now  entered.  It  has  acted 
and  believed  already:  its  task  now  is  to  learn  to  value  action 
and  belief,  to  feel  and  to  be  thrilled  at  the  beauty  of  them.  And 
the  chief  means  by  which  it  can  learn  this  is  art;  the  art  of  a 
renaissance.  For  by  the  power  of  such  art,  all  that  was  beauti- 
ful, strong,  heroic,  or  tender  in  the  past, —  all  the  actions,  pas- 
sions, faiths,  aspirations  of  the  world,  that  lie  so  many  fathom 
deep  in  the  years, —  float  upward  to  the  tranquil  surface  of  the 
present,  and  make  our  lives  like  what  seems  to  me  one  of  the 
loveliest  things  in  nature,  the  iridescent  film  on  the  face  of  a 
stagnant  water.  Yes;  the  past  is  not  dead  unless  we  choose  that 
it  shall  be  so.  Christianity  itself  is  not  dead.  There  is  ( nothing 
of  it  that  doth  fade,'  but  turns  (into  something  rich  and  strange,* 
for  us  to  give  a  new  tone  to  our  lives  with.  And  believe  me, }> 
Mr.  Rose  went  on,  gathering  earnestness,  <(that  the  happiness 
possible  in  such  conscious  periods  is  the  only  true  happiness. 
Indeed,  the  active  periods  of  the  world  were  not  really  happy  at 
all.  We  only  fancy  them  to.  have  been  so  by  a  pathetic  fallacy. 
Is  the  hero  happy  during  his  heroism  ?  No,  but  after  it,  when 
he  sees  what  his  heroism  was,  and  reads  the  glory  of  it  in  the 
eyes  of  youth  or  maiden.  ® 


9636 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


<(A11  this  is  very  poor  stuff  —  very  poor  stuff,  "  murmured  Dr. 
Jenkinson,  whose  face  had  become  gradually  the  very  picture  of 
crossness. 

(<  Do  you  mean,  Mr.  Rose, "  said  Miss  Merton,  with  a  half 
humorous,  half  incredulous  smile,  <(that  we  never  value  religion 
till  we  have  come  to  think  it  nonsense  ? " 

(<  Not  nonsense  —  no, "  exclaimed  Mr.  Rose  in  gentle  horror; 
w  I  only  mean  that  it  never  lights  our  lives  so  beautifully  as 
when  it  is  leaving  them  like  the  evening  sun.  It  is  in  such 
periods  of  the  world's  life  that  art  springs  into  being  in  its 
greatest  splendor.  Your  Raphael,  Miss  Merton,  who  painted  you 
your  (dear  Madonnas,'  was  a  luminous  cloud  in  the  sunset  sky 
of  the  Renaissance, — a  cloud  that  took  its  fire  from  a  faith  that 
was  sunk  or  sinking. " 

(<  I'm  afraid  that  the  faith  is  not  quite  sunk  yet,"  said  Miss 
Merton,  with  a  slight  sudden  flush  in  her  cheeks,  and  with  just 
the  faintest  touch  of  suppressed  anger. 

Mr.  Saunders,  Mr.  Stockton,  Mr.  Storks,  and  Mr.  Luke  all 
raised  their  eyebrows. 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  "such  cyclic  sunsets  are  happily  apt  to 
linger. » 

<(  Mr.  Rose,"  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose,  with  her  most  gracious 
of  smiles,  ((  of  course  every  one  who  has  ears  must  know  that  all 
this  is  very  beautiful;  but  I  am  positively  so  stupid  that  I  haven't 
been  quite  able  to  follow  it  all." 

<(  I  will  try  to  make  my  meaning  clearer,"  he  said,  in  a 
brisker  tone.  (<  I  often  figure  to  myself  an  unconscious  period 
and  a  conscious  one, .  as  two  women :  one  an  untamed  creature 
with  embrowned  limbs,  native  to  the  air  and  the  sea;  the  other 
marble-white  and  swan-soft,  couched  delicately  on  cushions  be- 
fore a  mirror,  and  watching  her  own  supple  reflection  gleaming 
in  the  depths  of  it.  On  the  one  is  the  sunshine  and  the  sea 
spray.  The  wind  of  heaven  and  her  •  unbound  hair  are  play- 
mates. The  light  of  the  sky  is  in  her  eyes;  on  her  lips  is  a  free 
laughter.  We  look  at  her,  and  we  know  that  she  is  happy. 
We  know  it,  mark  me;  but  she  knows  it  not.  Turn,  however, 
to  the  other,  and  all  is  changed.  •  Outwardly,  there  is  no  gladness 
there.  Her  dark,  gleaming  eyes  open  depth  within  depth  upon 
us,  like  the  circles  of  a  new  Inferno,  There  is  a  clear,  shadowy 
pallor  on  her  cheek.  Only  her  lips  are  scarlet.  There  is  a  sad- 
ness, a  languor, —  even  in  the  grave  tendrils  of  her  heavy  hair, 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


9637 


and  %  in  each  changing  curve  of  her  bosom  as  she  breathes  or 
sighs. J> 

<(<  What  a  very  odd  man  Mr.  Rose  is ! }>  said  Lady  Ambrose  in 
a  loud  whisper.  <(  He  always  seems  to  talk  of  everybody  as  if 
they  had  no  clothes  on.  And  does  he  mean  by  this  that  we 
ought  to  be  always  in  the  dumps  ? >J 

"Yes,"  Mr.  Rose  was  meanwhile  proceeding,  his  voice  again 
growing  visionary,  (<  there  is  no  eagerness,  no  action  there :  and 
yet  all  eagerness,  all  action  is  known  to  her  as  the  writing  on 
an  open  scroll;  only,  as  she  reads,  even  in  the  reading  of  it, 
action  turns  into  emotion  and  eagerness  into  a  sighing  memory. 
Yet  such  a  woman  really  may  stand  symbolically  for  us  as  the 
patroness  and  the  lady  of  all  gladness,  who  makes  us  glad  in 
the  only  way  now  left  us.  And  not  only  in  the  only  way,  but  in 
the  best  way  —  the  way  of  ways.  Her  secret  is  self -consciousness. 
She  knows  that  she  is  fair;  she  knows,  too,  that  she  is  sad:  but 
she  sees  that  sadness  is  lovely,  and  so  sadness  turns  to  joy.  Such 
a  woman  may  be  taken  as  a  symbol,  not  of  our  architecture  only, 
but  of  all  the  aesthetic  surroundings  with  which  we  shall  shelter 
and  express  our  life.  Such  a  woman  do  I  see  whenever  I  enter 
a  ritualistic  church  —  }> 

<(  I  know, "  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  <(  that  very  peculiar  people  do  go 
to  such  places;  but,  Mr.  Rose,}>  she  said  with  a  look  of  appealing 
inquiry,  <(  I  thought  they  were  generally  rather  overdressed  than 
otherwise  ? w 

"The  im agination,  ®  said  Mr.  Rose,  opening  his  eyes  in  grave 
wonder  at  Mrs.  Sinclair,  (<  may  give  her  what  garb  it  chooses. 
Our  whole  city,  then  —  the  city  of  our  New  Republic  —  will  be  in 
keeping  with  this  spirit.  It  will  be  the  architectural  and  decorat- 
ive embodiment  of  the  most  educated  longings  of  our  own  times 
after  order  and  loveliness  and  delight,  whether  of  the  senses  or 
the  imagination.  It  will  be,  as  it  were,  a  resurrection  of  the 
past,  in  response  to  the  longing  and  the  passionate  regret  of 
the  present.  It  will  be  such  a  resurrection  as  took  place  in  Italy 
during  its  greatest  epoch,  only  with  this  difference  — w 

(<  You  seem  to  have  forgotten  trade  and  business  altogether, w 
said  Dr.  Jenkinson.  (<  I  think,  however  rich  you  intend  to  be, 
you  will  find  that  they  are  necessary. w 

<(Yes,  Mr.  Rose,  you're  not  going  to  deprive  us  of  all  our 
shops,  I  hope  ? »  said  Lady  Ambrose. 


9638 


WILLIAM   HURRELL   MALLOCK 


"Because,  you  know,"  said  Mrs.  Sinclair  with  a  soft  mali- 
ciousness, (<  we  can't  go  without  dresses  altogether,  Mr.  Rose. 
And  if  I  were  there,®  she  continued  plaintively,  <(  I  should  want 
a  bookseller  to  publish  the  scraps  of  verse  —  poetry,  as  I  am 
pleased  to  call  it  —  that  I  am  always  writing. ® 

<(  Pooh ! ®  said  Mr.  Rose,  a  little  annoyed,  (<  we  shall  have  all 
that  somewhere,  of  course;  but  it  will  be  out  of  the  way,  in  a 
sort  of  Piraeus,  where  the  necessary  xdxyhn  — ® 

WA  sort  of  what  ? ®    said  Lady  Ambrose. 

<(  Mr.  Rose  merely  means, ®  said  Donald  Gordon,  <(  that  there 
must  be  good  folding-doors  between  the  offices  and  the  house  of 
life,  and  that  the  servants  are  not  to  be  seen  walking  about  in 
the  pleasure-grounds. ® 

"Yes,*  said  Mr.   Rose,   (<  exactly  so.® 

<(Well,  then,®  said  Lady  Ambrose,  (<  I  quite  agree  with  you, 
Mr.  Rose;  and  if  wishing  were  only  having,  I've  not  the  least 
doubt  that  we  should  all  of  us  be  going  back  to  Mr.  Rose's 
city  to-morrow,  instead  of  to  London,  with  its  carts,  and  cabs, 
and  smoke,  and  all  its  thousand-and-one  drawbacks.  I'm  sure," 
she  said,  turning  to  Miss  Merton,  <(you  would,  my  dear,  with  all 
your  taste.® 

(( It  certainly, ®  said  Miss  Merton  smiling,  (<  all  sounds  very 
beautiful.  All  that  I  am  afraid  of  is,  that  we  should  not  be 
quite  worthy  of  it.® 

(<Nay,®  said  Mr.  Rose,  (<but  the  very  point  is  that  we  shall 
be  worthy  of  it,  and  that  it  will  be  worthy  of  us.  I  said,  if  you 
recollect,  just  now,  that  the  world's  ideal  of  the  future  must 
resemble  in  many  ways  its  memory  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 
But  don't  let  that  mislead  you.  It  may  resemble  that,  but  it 
will  be  something  far  in  advance  of  it.  During  the  last  three 
hundred  years  —  in  fact,  during  the  last  sixty  or  seventy  years  — 
the  soul  of  man  has  developed  strangely  in  its  sentiments  and  its 
powers  of  feeling;  in  its  powers,  in  fact,  of  enjoying  life.  As  I 
said,  I  have  a  work  in  the  press  devoted  entirely  to  a  description 
of  this  growth.  I  have  some  of  the  proof-sheets  with  me;  and 
if  you  will  let  me,  I  should  like  to  read  you  one  or  two  pas- 
sages. ® 

<(  I  don't  think  much  can  be  made  out  of  that,®  said  Dr.  Jen- 
kinson,  with  a  vindictive  sweetness.  (<  Human  sentiment  dresses 
itself  in  different  fashions,  as  human  ladies  do;  but  I  think 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


9639 


beneath  the  surface  it  is  much  the  same.  I  mean,*  he  added, 
suddenly  recollecting"  that  he  might  thois  seem  to  be  rooting  up 
the  wheat  of  his  own  opinions  along  with  the  tares  of  Mr. 
Rose's,  (<  I  mean  that  I  don't  think  in  seventy  years,  or  even  in 
three  hundred,  you  will  be  able  to  show  that  human  nature  has 
very  much  changed.  I  don't  think  so." 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  Doctor  found  that  instead  of  put- 
ting down  Mr.  Rose  by  this,  he  had  only  raised  up  Mr.  Luke. 

<(Ah,  Jenkinson,  I  think  you  are  wrong  there,"  said  Mr.  Luke. 
<(As  long  as  we  recognize  that  this  growth  is  at  present  confined 
to  a  very  small  minority,  the  fact  of  such  growth  is  the  most 
important,  the  most  significant  of  all  facts.  Indeed,  our  friend 
Mr.  Rose  is  quite  right  thus  far,  in  the  stress  he  lays  on  our 
appreciation  of  the  past:  that  we  have  certainly  in  these  modern 
times  acquired  a  new  sense,  by  which  alone  the  past  can  be 
appreciated  truly, —  the  sense  which,  if  I  may  invent  a  phrase 
for  it,  I  should  call  that  of  Historical  Perspective;  so  that  now 
really  for  the  first  time  the  landscape  of  history  is  beginning  to 
have  some  intelligible  charm  for  us.  And  this,  you  know,  is  not 
alL  Our  whole  views  of  things  (you,  Jenkinson,  must  know  this 
as  well  as  I  do) — the  Zeitgeist  breathes  upon  them,  and  they  do 
not  die;  but  they  are  changed,  they  are  enlightened." 

The  Doctor  was  too  much  annoyed  to  make  any  audible 
answer  to  this;  but  he  murmured  with  some  emphasis  to  him- 
self, (<  That's  not  what  Mr.  Rose  was  saying ;  that's  not  what  I 
was  contradicting." 

<(  You  take,  Luke,  a  rather  more  rose-colored  view  of  things 
than  you  did  last  night,"  said  Mr.  Storks. 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Luke  with  a  sigh,  (<far  from  it.  I  am  not 
denying  (pray,  Jenkinson,  remember  this)  that  the  majority  of 
us  are  at  present  either  Barbarians  or  Philistines;  and  the  ugli- 
ness of  these  is  more  glaring  now  than  at  any  former  time.  But 
that  any  of  us  are  able  to  see  them  thus  distinctly  in  their  true 
colors  itself  shows  that  there  must  be  a  deal  of  light  somewhere. 
Even  to  make  darkness  visible  some  light  is  needed.  We  should 
always  recollect  that.  We  are  only  discontented  with  ourselves 
when  we  are  struggling  to  be  better  than  ourselves." 

(< And  in  many  ways, "  said  Laurence,  <(  I  think  the  strug- 
gle has  been  successful.  Take  for  instance  the  pleasure  we  get 
now  from  the  aspects  of  external  nature,  and  the  way  in  which 
these  seem  to  mix  themselves  with  our  lives.  This  certainly  is 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK    ; 

something  distinctly  modern.  And  nearly  all  our  other  feel- 
ings, it  seems  to  me,  have  changed  just  like  this  one,  and  have 
become  more  sensitive  and  more  highly  organized.  If  we  mayv 
judge  by  its  expression  in  literature,  love  has,  certainly;  and  that, 
I  suppose,  is  the  most  important  and  comprehensive  feeling  in 
life.* 

<(  Does  Mr.  Laurence  only  suppose  that  ? "  sighed  Mrs.  Sinclair, 
casting  down  her  eyes. 

"Well,"  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  <(our  feelings  about  these  two 
things  —  about  love  and  external  nature  —  perhaps  have  changed 
somewhat.  Yes,  I  think  they  have.  I  think  you  might  make  an 
interesting  magazine  article  out  of  that  —  but  hardly  more." 

<(  I  rather,"  said  Laurence  apologetically,  <(  agree  with  Mr. 
Luke  and  Mr.  Rose,  that  all  our  feelings  have  developed  just  as 
these  two  have.  And  I  think  this  is  partly  owing  to  the  fusion 
in  our  minds  of  our  sacred  and  secular  ideas;  which  indeed 
you  were  speaking  of  this  morning  in  your  sermon.  Thus,  to 
find  some  rational  purpose  in  life  was  once  merely  enjoined  as  a 
supernatural  duty.  In  our  times  it  has  taken  our  common  nature 
upon  it,  and  become  a  natural  longing  —  though  I  fear,"  he  added 
softly,  <(a  fruitless  one." 

<(  Yes, "  suddenly  exclaimed  Lady  Grac -i,  who  had  been  listen- 
ing intently  to  her  nephew's  words;  <(and  if  you  are  speaking  of 
modern  progress,  Otho,  you  should  not  leave  out  the  diffusion  of 
those  grand  ideas  of  justice  and  right  and  freedom  and  humanity 
which  are  at  work  in  the  great  heart  of  the  nation.  We  are 
growing  cultivated  in  Mr.  Luke's  noble  sense  of  the  word;  and 
our  whole  hearts  revolt  against  the  way  in  which  women  have 
hitherto  been  treated,  and  against  the  cruelties  which  dogma 
asserts  the  good  God  can  practice,  and  the  cruelties  on  the 
poor  animals  which  wicked  men  do  practice.  And  war  too," 
Lady  Grace  went  on,  a  glow  mounting  into  her  soft  faded 
cheek:  "think  how  fast  we  are  outgrowing  that!  England  at 
any  rate  will  never  watch  the  outbreak  of  another  war,  with  all 
its  inevitable  cruelties,  without  giving  at  least  one  sob  that  shall 
make  all  Europe  pause  and  listen.  Indeed,  we  must  not  forget 
how  the  entire  substance  of  religion  is  ceasing  to  be  a  mass  of 
dogmas,  and  is  becoming  embodied  instead  in  practice  and  in 
action. }> 

<( Quite  true.  Lady  Grace,"  said  Mr.  Luke.  Lady  Grace  was 
just  about  to  have  given  a  sign  for  rising;  but  Mr.  Luke's  assent 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


9641 


detained  her.  (<As  to  war,"  he  went  on,  "there  may  of  course 
be  different  opinions, —  questions  of  policy  may  arise :  w  ((< As  if 
any  policy,"  murmured  Lady  Grace,  <(  could  justify  us  in  such  a 
thing !  ")  ((but  religion  —  yes,  that,  as  I  have  been  trying"  to  teach 
the  world,  is  the  great  and  important  point  on  which  culture  is 
beginning  to  cast  its  light;  and  with  just  the  effect  which  you 
describe.  It  is  true  that  culture  is  at  present  but  a  little  leaven 
hid  in  a  barrel  of  meal:  but  still  it  is  doing  its  work  slowly;  and 
in  the  matter  of  religion, —  indeed,  in  all  matters,  for  religion 
rightly  understood  embraces  all, —  "  (<(  I  do  like  to  hear  Mr.  Luke 
talk  sometimes,"  murmured  Lady  Grace,)  (<its  effect  is  just  this: 
to  show  us  that  religion  in  any  civilized,  any  reasonable,  any 
sweet  sense,  can  never  be  found  except  embodied  in  action;  that 
it  is  in  fact  nothing  but  right  action,  pointed  —  winged,  as  it 
were  —  by  right  emotion,  by  a  glow,  an  aspiration,  an  aspiration 
toward  God  — "  (Lady  Grace  sighed  with  feeling)  (<not,  of  course,  " 
Mr.  Luke  went  on  confidentially,  "that  petulant  Pedant  of  the 
theologians,  that  irritable  angry  Father  with  the  very  uncertain 
temper,  but  toward — " 

(<An  infinite,  inscrutable,  loving  Being,"  began  Lady  Grace, 
with  a  slight  moisture  in  her  eyes. 

(< Quite  so,"  said  Mr.  Luke,  not  waiting  to  listen:  <( towards 
that  great  Law,  that  great  verifiable  tendency  of  things,  that 
great  stream  whose  flowing1  such  of  us  as  are  able  are  now  so 
anxiously  trying  to  accelerate.  There  is  no  vain  speculation 
about  creation  and  first  causes  and  consciousness  here;  which  are 
matters  we  can  never  verify,  and  which  matter  nothing  to  us." 

<(  But, "  stammered  Lady  Grace  aghast,  <(  Mr.  Luke,  do  you 
mean  to  say  that  ?  But  it  surely  must  matter  something  whether 
God  can  hear  our  prayers,  and  will  help  us,  and  whether  we  owe 
him  any  duty,  and  whether  he  is  conscious  of  what  we  do,  and 
will  judge  us:  it  must  matter. " 

Mr.  Luke  leaned  forward  towards  Lady  Grace  and  spoke  to 
her  in  a  confidential  whisper. 

(<Not  two  straws — not  that,"  he  said,  with  a  smile,  and  a  very 
slight  fillip  of  his  finger  and  thumb. 

Lady  Grace  was  thunderstruck. 

(<  But, "  again  she  stammered  softly  and  eagerly,  <(  unless  you 
say  there  is  no  personal  — " 

Mr.  Luke  hated  the  word  personal:  it  was  so  much  mixed 
up  in  his  mind  with  theology,  that  he  even  winced  if  he  had  to 
speak  of  personal  talk. 


9642 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


<(  My  dear  Lady  Grace, "  he  said  in  a  tone  of  surprised  remon- 
strance, <(you  are  talking  like  a  bishop." 

<(Well,  certainly,"  said  Lady  Grace,  rising,  and  struggling  she 
hardly  knew  how  into  a  smile,  <(  nolo  episcopari.  You  see  I  do 
know  a  little  Latin,  Mr.  Luke." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Luke  with  a  bow,  as  he  pushed  back  a  chair 
for  her,  (<and  a  bit  that  has  more  wisdom  in  it  than  all  other 
ecclesiastical  Latin  put  together." 

((We're  going  to  leave  you  gentlemen  to  smoke  your  cigar- 
ettes, "  said  Lady  Grace.  <(We  think  of  going  down  on  the  beach 
for  a  little,  and  looking  at  the  sea,  which  is  getting  silvery;  and 
by-and-by,  I  daresay  you  will  not  expel  us  if  we  come  back  for 
a  little  tea  and  coffee." 

«Damn  it!" 

Scarcely  had  the  last  trailing  skirt  swept  glimmering  out  of 
the  pavilion  into  the  mellow  slowly  brightening  moonlight,  than 
the  gentlemen  were  astounded  by  this  sudden  and  terrible  excla- 
mation. It  was  soon  found  to  have  issued  from  Mr.  Saunders, 
who  had  hardly  spoken  more  than  a  few  sentences  during  the 
whole  of  dinner. 

<(  What  can  be  the  matter  ? "  was  inquired  by  several  voices. 

(<  My  fool  of  a  servant, "  said  Mr.  Saunders  sullenly,  <(  has,  I 
find,  in  packing,  wrapped  up  a  small  sponge  of  mine  in  my  dis- 
proof of  God's  existence." 

(<H'f,"  shuddered  Mr.  Rose,  shrinking  from  Mr.  Saunders's 
somewhat  piercing  tones,  and  resting  his  forehead  on  his  hand; 
<(my  head  aches  sadly.  I  think  I  will  go  down  to  the  sea,  and 
join  the  ladies." 

<(I,"  said  Mr.  Saunders,  (<if  you  will  excuse  me,  must  go  and 
see  in  what  state  the  document  is,  as  I  left  it  drying,  hung  on 
the  handle  of  my  jug. " 

No  sooner  had  Mr.  Saunders  and  Mr.  Rose  departed  than 
Dr.  Jenkinson  began  to  recover  his  equanimity  somewhat.  Seeing 
this,  Mr.  Storks,  who  had  himself  during  dinner  been  first  soothed 
and  then  ruffled  into  silence,  found  suddenly  the  strings  of  his 
tongue  loosed. 

(<  Now,  those  are  the  sort  of  young  fellows,"  he  said,  look- 
ing after  the  retreating  form  of  Mr.  Saunders,  (<that  really  do  a 
good  deal  to  bring  all  solid  knowledge  into  contempt  in  the  minds 
of  the  half -educated.  There's  a  certain  hall  in  London,  not  far 
from  the  top  of  Regent  Street,  where  I'm  told  he  gives  Sunday 
lectures. " 


WILLIAM   HURRELL   MALLOCK  9643 

"Yes,"  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  -sipping  his  claret,  "it's  all  very 
bad  taste  —  very  bad  taste.  » 

«And  the  worst  of  it  is,"  said  Mr.  Storks,  "that  these  young 
men  really  get  hold  of  a  fact  or  two,  and  then  push  them  on  to 
their  own  coarse  and  insane  conclusions, — which  have,  I  admit, 
to  the  vulgar  eye,  the  look  of  being  obvious. " 

"Yes/  said  Dr.  Jenkinson  with  a  seraphic  sweetness,  "we 
should  always  suspect  everything  that  seems  very  obvious.  Glar- 
ing inconsistencies  and  glaring  consistencies  are  both  sure  to  van- 
ish if  you  look  closely  into  them." 

"Now,  all  that  about  God,  for  instance,"  Mr.  Storks  went  on, 
(<  is  utterly  uncalled  for ;  and  as  young  Saunders  puts  it,  is  utterly 
misleading." 

<(Yes,"  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  <(  it  all  depends  upon  the  way  you 
say  it." 

<(  I  hardly  think, "  said  Mr.  Stockton  with  a  sublime  weariness, 
"that  we  need  waste  much  thought  upon  his  way.  It  is  a  very 
common  one, —  that  of  the  puppy  that  barks  at  the  heels  of  the 
master  whose  meat  it  steals." 

"May  I,"  said  Mr.  Herbert  gently,  after  a  moment's  pause, 
"ask  this —  for  I  am  a  little  puzzled  here:  Do  I  understand 
that  Mr.  Saunders's  arguments  may  be  held,  on  the  face  of  the 
thing,  to  disprove  the  existence  of  God  ? " 

Mr.  Storks  and  Mr.  Stockton  both  stared  gravely  on  Mr. 
Herbert,  and  said  nothing.  Dr.  Jenkinson  stared  at  him  too; 
but  the  Doctor's  eye  lit  up  into  a  little  sharp  twinkle  of  benign 
content  and  amusement,  and  he  said:  — 

"  No,  Mr.  Herbert,  I  don't  think  Mr.  Saunders  can  disprove 
that,  nor  any  one  else  either.  For  the  world  has  at  present  no 
adequate  definition  of  God;  and  I  think  we  should  be  able  to 
define  a  thing  before  we  can  satisfactorily  disprove  it.  I  think 
so.  I  have  no  doubt  Mr.  Saunders  can  disprove  the  existence  of 
God  as  he  would  define  him.  All  atheists  can  do  that." 

"Ah,"  murmured  Mr.  Stockton,  "nobly  said!" 

"But  that's  not  the  way,"  the  Doctor  went  on,  "to  set  to 
work, —  this  kind  of  rude  denial.  We  must  be  loyal  to  nature. 
We  must  do  nothing  per  saltum.  We  must  be  patient.  We 
mustn't  leap  at  Utopias,  either  religious  or  irreligious.  Let  us 
be  content  with  the  knowledge  that  all  dogmas  will  expand  in 
proportion  as  we  feel  they  need  expansion;  for  all  mere  forms 
are  transitory,  and  even  the  personality  of — " 


9644 


WILLIAM  HURRELL  MALLOCK 


Fatal  word!     It  was  like  a  match  to  a  cannon. 

<(Ah,  Jenkinson,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  and  Dr.  Jenkinson 
stopped  instantly,  <(  we  see  what  you  mean ;  and  capital  sense  it 
is  too.  But  you  do  yourself  as  much  as  any  one  else  a  great 
injustice,  in  not  seeing  that  the  age  is  composed  of  two  parts, 
and  that  the  cultured  minority  is  infinitely  in  advance  of  the  Phi- 
listine majority  —  which  alone  is,  properly  speaking,  the  present; 
the  minority  being  really  the  soul  of  the  future  waiting  for  its 
body,  which  at  present  can  exist  only  as  a  Utopia.  It  is  the 
wants  of  this  soul  that  we  have  been  talking  over  this  afternoon. 
When  the  ladies  come  back  to  us,  there  are  several  things  that 
I  should  like  to  say;  and  then  you  will  see  what  we  mean,  Jen- 
kinson, and  that  even  poor  Rose  has  really  some  right  on  his 
side. )} 

At  the  mention  of  Mr.  Rose's  name  the  Doctor's  face  again 
curdled  into  frost. 

<(  I  don't  think  so."     That  was  all  he  said. 


9^45 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY 

AND   THE    <MORTE   D' ARTHUR' 

(FIFTEENTH  CENTURY) 
BY  ERNEST   RHYS 

IHE  one  certain  thing  about  Sir  Thomas  Malory  is,  that  he 
wrote  the  first  and  finest  romance  of  chivalry  in  our  com- 
mon tongue,  —  the  (Morte  d' Arthur.'  Beyond  this,  and  the 
testimony  that  the  book  affords  as  to  its  author,  we  have  little 
record  of  him.  That  he  was  a  Welshman,  however,  seems  highly 
probable;  and  his  name  is  certainly  of  Welsh  origin,  derived  as  it  is 
from  Maelor.  That  he  was  a  clerk  in  holy  orders  is  likely  too.  It 
was  usual  to  distinguish  vicars  at  that  period  and  later  by  the  prefix 
(<  Sir }) ;  and  various  clergymen  of  the  same  Christian  name  and  sur- 
name as  his  may  be  traced  by  old  tombs,  at  Mobberley  in  Cheshire 
and  elsewhere.  Bale,  in  his  interesting  Latin  chronicle  of  1548,  on 
( Illustrious  Writers  of  Great  Britain,*  speaks  of  his  <cmany  cares  of 
State, })  it  is  true;  but  church  and  State  were  then  closely  enough  al- 
lied to  make  the  two  things  compatible  with  our  view  of  him.  Bale's 
further  account  is  brief  but  eloquent.  Our  romancer  was  a  man,  he 
tells  us,  <(of  heroic  spirit,  who  shone  from  his  youth  in  signal  gifts  of 
mind  and  body.**  Moreover,  a  true  scholar,  a  true  man  of  letters,  who 
never  interrupted  his  quest  <(  through  all  the  remnants  of  the  world's 
scattered  antiquity. })  So  it  was  that  Malory  was  led  to  gather,  from 
various  sources,  all  the  traditions  he  could  find  <(  concerning  the  valor 
and  the  victories  of  the  most  renowned  King  Arthur  of  the  Britons. w 
Out  of  many  materials,  in  French  and  Latin,  in  Welsh  and  Breton,  he 
shaped  the  book  <Morte  d' Arthur >  as  we  now  know  it;  working 
with  a  sense  of  style,  and  with  a  feeling  for  the  tale-teller's  and  the 
romancer's  art,  which  show  him  to  be  much  more  than  the  mere 
compiler  and  book-maker  that  some  critics  have  been  content  to  call 
him. 

A  word  now  as  to  the  dates  of  Malory's  writing,  and  Caxton's 
publishing,  the  <  Morte  d' Arthur, }  and  we  turn  from  the  history  of  the 
book  to  the  book  itself.  In  his  last  page, —  after  asking  his  readers 
to  pray  for  him, —  Malory  says  in  characteristic  words,  which  again 
may  be  thought  to  point  to  his  being  more  than  a  mere  layman: 
<(  This  book  was  finished  the  ninth  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Edward 


9646 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY 


the  Fourth,  ...  as  Jesu  help  me,  for  his  great  might;  as  he 
[/.  e.,  Malory]  is  the  servant  of  Jesu  both  day  and  night. »  The  period 
thus  fixed  brings  us  approximately  to  the  year  1469,  and  to  the  ten 
years  previous  as  the  probable  time  when  the  ( Morte  d'Arthur J  was 
being  written.  Caxton  published  it  in  1485,  and  then  referred  to 
Malory  as  still  living.  Hence  he  and  his  noble  romance  both  fall 
well  within  that  wonderful  fifteenth  century  which  saw  the  rise  of 
English  poetry,  with  Chaucer  as  its  morning  star,— 

« —  the  morning  star  of  song,  who  made 
His  music  heard  below, — )J 

and  the  revival  of  Greek  learning.  It  is  significant  enough,  seeing 
their  close  kinship,  that  romance  with  Malory,  and  poetry  with  Chau- 
cer, should  have  come  into  English  literature  in  the  same  period. 

As  for  Malory  and  his  romance,  there  is  hardly  a  more  difficult 
and  a  more  delightful  undertaking  in  all  the  history  of  literature 
than  that  of  the  quest  of  its  first  beginnings.  Principal  Rhys  has 
in  his  erudite  studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend  carried  us  far  back 
into  the  early  Celtic  twilight, — the  twilight  of  the  morning  of  man 
and  his  spiritual  awakening, —  and  shown  us  some  of  the  curious  par- 
allels between  certain  Aryan  myths  and  the  heroic  folk-tales  which 
lent  their  color  to  the  "culture-hero,"  Arthur. 

To  examine  these  with  the  critical  attention  they  require  is  be- 
yond the  scope  of  the  present  brief  essay;  but  we  may  gather  from 
their  threads  a  very  interesting  clue  to  the  <(  coming  of  Ring  Arthur, w 
in  another  sense  than  that  of  the  episode  so  finely  described  by  Ten- 
nyson. We  see  the  mythical  hero  carried  in  vague  folk-tales  of  the 
primitive  Celts,  in  their  journey  westward  across  Europe,  when  the 
traditions  were  attached  to  some  other  name.  Then  we  find  these 
folk-tales  given  a  local  habitation  and  a  name  in  early  Britain;  until 
at  last  the  appearance  of  a  worthy  historical  hero,  a  King  Arthur  of 
the  sixth  century,  provided  a  pivot  on  which  the  wheel  of  tradition 
could  turn  with  new  effect.  The  pivot  itself  might  be  small  and  in- 
significant enough,  but  the  rim  of  the  wheel  might  have  layer  after 
layer  of  legend,  and  accretion  after  accretion  of  mythical  matter, 
added  to  it,  till  at  last  the  pivot  might  well  threaten  to  give  way 
under  the  strain.  Not  to  work  the  metaphor  too  hard,  the  wheel 
may  be  said  to  go  to  pieces  at  last,  when  the  turn  of  the  romancers, 
as  distinct  from  the  folk-tale  tellers,  comes.  The  Welsh  romancers 
had  their  turn  first;  then  their  originals  were  turned  into  Latin 
by  quasi-historians  like  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth;  carried  into  France, 
given  all  manner  of  new  chivalric  additions  and  adornments,  out  of 
the  growing  European  stock,  by  writers  like  Robert  de  Borron;  and 
finally,  at  the  right  moment,  recaptured  by  our  later  Welsh  romancer, 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY  9647 

Malory,  working  in  the  interest  of  a  new  language  and  a  new  litera- 
ture, destined  to  play  so  extraordinary  a  part  in  both  the  New  World 
and  the  Old. 

The  art  of  fiction  and  romance  displayed  by  Malory  in  making 
this  transfer  of  his  French  materials,  is  best  to  be  gauged  by  com- 
paring his  (Morte  d'Arthur)  with  such  romances  as  those  in  the 
famous  Merlin  cycle  of  De  Borron  and  his  school.  To  all  students  of 
the  subject,  this  comparative  investigation  will  be  found  full  of  the 
most  curiously  interesting  results.  Besides  Malory,  we  have  English 
fourteenth-century  versions  of  these  French  romances ;  notably  ( The 
Romance  of 'Merlin,*  of  which  we  owe  to  the  Early  English  Text 
Society  an  excellent  reprint.  To  give  some  idea  of  the  effect  of  this 
translation,  let  us  cite  a  sentence  or  two  from  its  account  of  Merlin's 
imprisonment  in  the  Forest  of  Broceliande;  which  may  be  compared 
with  the  briefer  account  in  the  (Morte  d' Arthur.*  Sir  Gawain  hears 
the  voice  of  Merlin,  speaking  as  it  were  <(from  a  smoke  or  mist  in 
the  air,"  and  saying:  — 

((From  hence  may  I  not  come  out, —  for  in  all  the  world  is  not  so  strong  a 
close  as  is  this  whereas  I  am:  and  it  is  neither  of  iron,  nor  steel,  nor  timber, 
nor  of  stone;  but  it  is  of  the  air  without  any  other  thing,  [bound]  by  enchant- 
ment so  strong  that  it  may  never  be  undone  while  the  world  endureth." 

This  is  not  unlike  Malory;  but  a  little  further  study  of  the  two 
side  by  side  will  show  the  reader  curious  in  such  things  how  much 
he  has  improved  upon  these  earlier  legendary  romances,  by  his  pro- 
cess of  selection  and  concentration,  and  by  his  choice  of  persons  and 
episodes.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  concede  to  his  critics  that 
some  of  his  most  striking  passages,  full  of  gallant  adventure  gallantly 
described,  are  borrowed  very  closely.  But  then  the  great  poets  and 
romancers  have  so  often  been  great  borrowers.  Shakespeare  borrowed 
boldly  and  well;  so  did  Herrick;  so  did  Pope;  so  did  Burns.  And 
why  not  Malory  ? 

It  is  sufficient  if  we  remember  that  romance,  like  other  branches 
of  literature,  is  not  a  sudden  and  original  growth,  but  a  graft  from 
an  old  famous  stock.  To  set  this  graft  skillfully  in  a  new  tree  needed 
no  'prentice  hand;  in  doing  it,  Malory  proved  himself  beyond  question 
a  master  of  romance.  His  true  praise  is  best  to  be  summed  up  in 
the  long-continuing  tribute  paid  to  the  ( Morte  d'Arthur )  by  other 
poets  and  writers,  artists  and  musicians.  Milton,  let  us  remember 
hesitated  whether  he  should  not  choose  its  subject  for  his  magnum 
opus,  in  the  place  of  ( Paradise  Lost.*  Tennyson  elected  to  give  it 
an  idyllic  presentment  in  the  purple  pages  of  his  ( Idylls  of  the  King.* 
Still  later  poets  — Matthew  Arnold,  William  Morris,  and  Swinburne  — 
have  gone  to  the  same  fountain-head;  and  in  painting,  the  pictures 


9648  SIR  THOMAS  MALORY 

of  Rossetti,  Watts,  and  Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones  bear  a  like  tribute; 
while  in  music,  there  is  more  than  a  reflection  of  the  same  influence 
in  the  works  of  Wagner. 

In  all  this,  one  may  trace  the  vitality  of  the  early  Aryan  folk-tale 
out  of  which  the  Arthurian  legend  originally  took  its  rise.  Sun- 
hero  or  "culture-hero,"  Celtic  chieftain  or  British  king,  it  is  still  the 
radiant  figure  of  King  Arthur  that  emerges  from  the  gray  past,  in 
which  myth  is  dimly  merged  into  mediaeval  romance.  In  Malory's 
pages,  to  repeat,  the  historical  King  Arthur  goes  for  little ;  but  (<  the 
ideal  Arthur  lives  and  reigns  securely  in  that  kingdom  of  old  romance 
of  which  Camelot  is  the  capital, }) — his  beautiful  and  fatal  Guinevere 
at  his  side,  and  Sir  Galahad,  Sir  Launcelot,  and  his  Knights  of  the 
Round  .Table  gathered  about  him.  And  if  there  be,  as  Tennyson 
made  clear  in  his  *  Idylls, y  a  moral  to  this  noble  old  romance,  we» 
may  best  seek  it  in  the  spirit  of  these  words  in  Caxton's  prologue, 
which  make  the  best  and  simplest  induction  to  the  book:  — 

«  Herein  may  be  seen  noble  chivalry,  courtesy,  humanity,  friendliness, 
hardiness,  love,  friendship,  cowardice,  murder,  hate,  virtue,  and  sin.  Do 
after  the  good  and  leave  the  evil,  and  it  shall  bring  you  to  good  fame  and 
renown.  And  for  to  pass  the  time  this  book  shall  be  pleasant  to  read  in;  but 
for  to  give  faith  and  belief  that  all  is  true  that  is  contained  herein,  ye  be  at 
your  liberty.* 


THE  FINDING  OF  THE  SWORD   EXCALIBUR 

From  <Morte  d' Arthur  > 

AND  so  Merlin  and  he  departed,  and  as  they  rode  King  Arthur 
said,  <(I  have  no  sword. »    (<  No  matter, »  said  Merlin;  « here- 
by is  a  sword  that   shall  be  yours  and  I  may."     So  they 
rode  till  they   came   to   a   lake,   which   was    a   fair   water  and  a 
broad;    and  in  the  midst  of  the  lake  King-  Arthur  was  aware  of 
an  arm  clothed  in  white   samite,  that  held   a   fair   sword  in   the 
hand.     "Lo,"  said  Merlin  unto  the  King,  <(  yonder  is  the   sword 
that  I  spake  of." 

With  that  they  saw    a   damsel   going   upon    the  lake.     <(What 
damsel  is  that  ?})  said  the  King.     «  That  is  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,» 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY 


9649 


said  Merlin;  (<  and  within  that  lake  is  a  reach,  and  therein  is  as 
fair  a  place  as  any  is  on  earth,  and  richly  beseen;  and  this  dam- 
sel will  come  to  you  anon,  and  then  speak  fair  to  her  that  she 
will  give  you  that  sword."  Therewith  came  the  damsel  to  King 
Arthur  and  saluted  him,  and  he  her  again.  (<  Damsel, "  said  the 
King,  <(what  sword  is  that  which  the  arm  holdeth  yonder  above 
the  water?  I  would  it  were  mine,  for  I  have  no  sword."  «  Sir 
King, "  said  the  damsel  of  the  lake,  <(  that  sword  is  mine,  and  if 
ye  will  give  me  a  gift  when  I  ask  it  you,  ye  shall  have  it."  <(  By 
my  faith, "  said  King  Arthur,  (<  I  will  give  you  any  gift  that  you 
will  ask  or  desire."  (<  Well,"  said  the  damsel,  <(  go  ye  into  yon- 
der barge,  and  row  yourself  unto  the  sword,  and  take  it  and  the 
scabbard  with  you;  and  I  will  ask  my  gift  when  I  see  my  time.*' 

So  King  Arthur  and  Merlin  alighted,  tied  their  horses  to  two 
trees,  and  so  they  went  into  the  barge.  And  when  they  came 
to  the  sword  that  the  hand  held,  King  Arthur  took  it  up  by 
the  handles,  and  took  it  with  him;  and  the  arm  and  the  hand 
went  under  the  water,  and  so  came  to  the  land  and  rode  forth. 

Then  King  Arthur  saw  a  rich  pavilion.  (<  What  signifieth 
yonder  pavilion  ? "  <(  That  is  the  knight's  pavilion  that  ye  fought 
with  last  —  Sir  Pellinore;  but  he  is  out;  for  he  is  not  there: 
he  hath  had  to  do  with  a  knight  of  yours,  that  hight  Eglame, 
and  they  have  foughten  together  a  great  while,  but  at  the  last 
Eglame  fled,  and  else  he  had  been  dead;  and  Sir  Pellinore  hath 
chased  him  to  Carlion,  and  we  shall  anon  meet  with  him  in  the 
highway."  (<  It  is  well  said,"  quoth  King  Arthur;  <(now  have  I 
a  sword,  and  now  will  I  wage  battle  with  him  and  be  avenged 
on  him."  (<  Sir,  ye  shall  not  do  so,"  said  Merlin:  (<  for  the  knight 
is  weary  of  fighting  and  chasing;  so  that  ye  shall  have  no  wor- 
ship to  have  a  do  with  him.  Also  he  will  not  lightly  be  matched 
of  one  knight  living:  and  therefore  my  counsel  is,  that  ye  let 
him  pass;  for  he  shall  do  you  good  service  in  short  time,  and  his 
sons  after  his  days.  Also  ye  shall  see  that  day  in  short  space, 
that  ye  shall  be  right  glad  to  give  him  your  sister  to  wife." 
« When  I  see  him, "  said  King  Arthur,  «  I  will  do  as  ye  advise 
me." 

Then  King  Arthur  looked  upon  the  sword  and  liked  it  passing 
well.  (<  Whether  liketh  you  better,"  said  Merlin,  « the  sword  or 
the  scabbard?"  (<  Me  liketh  better  the  sword,"  said  King  Arthur. 
(<  Ye  are  more  unwise,"  said  Merlin;  (<for  the  scabbard  is  worth 
ten  of  the  sword:  for  while  ye  have  the  scabbard  upon  you,  ye 


9650 


SIR  THOMAS   MALORY 


shall  lose  no  blood,  be  ye  never  so  sore  wounded, —  therefore 
keep  well  the  scabbard  alway  with  you."  So  they  rode  on  to 
Carlion. 


THE  WHITE   HART  AT   THE  WEDDING    OF    KING  ARTHUR  AND 

QUEEN   GUENEVER 

From  <Morte  d' Arthur  >    9 

THEN  was  the  high  feast  made  ready,  and  the  King-  was  wed- 
ded at  Camelot  unto  Dame  Guenever,  in  the  Church  of  St. 
Stevens,  with  great  solemnity;  and  as  every  man  was  set 
after  his  degree,  Merlin  went  unto  all  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table,  and  bid  them  sit  still,  and  that  none  should  remove,  <(for 
ye  shall  see  a  marvelous  adventure."  Right  so  as  they  sat,  there 
came  running  in  a  white  hart  into  the  hall,  and  a  white  brachet 
next  him,  and  thirty  couple  of  black  running  hounds  came  after 
with  a  great  cry,  and  the  hart  went  about  the  Table  Round.  As 
he  went  by  the  other  tables,  the  white  brachet  caught  him  by 
the  flank,  and  pulled  out  a  piece,  wherethrough  the  hart  leapt  a 
great  leap,  and  overthrew  a  knight  that  sat  at  the  table's  side; 
and  therewith  the  knight  arose  and  took  up  the  brachet,  and  so 
went  forth  out  of  the  hall,  and  took  his  horse  and  rode  his  way 
with  the  brachet. 

Right  soon  anon  came  in  a  lady  on  a  white  palfrey,  and  cried 
aloud  to  King  Arthur,  <(  Sir,  suffer  me  not  to  have  this  despite, 
for  the  brachet  was  mine  that  the  knight  led  away. "  (<  I  may 
not  do  therewith,"  said  the  King.  With  this  there  came  a  knight 
riding  all  armed  on  a  great  horse,  and  took  the  lady  with  him 
by  force;  and  she  cried  and  made  great  moan.  When  she  was 
gone  the  King  was  glad,  because  she  made  such  a  noise.  "Nay," 
said  Merlin,  <(  ye  may  not  leave  these  adventures  so  lightly,  for 
these  adventures  must  be  brought  again,  or  else  it  would  be 
disworship  to  you,  and  to  your  feast."  (<  I  will,"  said  the  King, 
"that  all  be  done  by  your  advice."  "Then,"  said  Merlin,  «let 
call  Sir  Gawaine,  for  he  must  bring  again  the  white  hart;  also, 
sir,  ye  must  let  call  Sir  Tor,  for  he  must  bring  again  the  brachet 
and  the  knight,  or  else  slay  him;  also,  let  call  King  Pellinore,  for 
he  must  bring  again  the  lady  and  the  knight,  ©r  else  slay  him: 
and  these  three  knights  shall  do  marvelous  adventures  or  they 
come  again." 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY  965 T 

THE  MAID   OF  ASTOLAT 

From  <Morte  d'Arthur> 

Now  speak  we  of  the  fair  maid  of  Astolat,  which  made  such 
sorrow  day  and  night,  that  she  never  slept,  eat,  nor  drank; 
and  always  she  made  her  complaint  unto  Sir  Launcelot. 
So  when  she  had  thus  endured  about  ten  days,  that  she  felt 
that  she  must  needs  pass  out  of  this  world.  Then  she  shrove 
her  clean  and  received  her  Creator;  and  ever  she  complained  still 
upon  Sir  Launcelot.  Then  hej  ghostly  father  bade  her  leave  such 
thoughts.  Then  said  she,  <(  Why  should  I  leave  such  thoughts  ? 
am  I  not  an  earthly  woman  ?  and  all  the  while  the  breath  is  in 
my  body  I  may  complain.  For  my  belief  is  that  I  do  none 
offense,  though  I  love  an  earthly  man;  and  I  take  God  unto 
record,  I  never  loved  any  but  Sir  Launcelot  du  Lake,  nor  never 
shall;  and  a  maiden  I  am,  for  him  and  for  all  other.  And  sith 
it  is  the  sufferance  of  God  that  I  shall  die  for  the  love  of  so 
noble  a  knight,  I  beseech  the  high  Father  of  heaven  for  to  have 
mercy  upon  my  soul;  and  that  mine  innumerable  pains  which 
I  suffer  may  be  allegiance  of  part  of  my  sins.  For  our  sweet 
Savior  Jesu  Christ, }>  said  the  maiden,  (( I  take  thee  to  record,  I 
was  never  greater  offender  against  thy  laws,  but  that  I  loved  this 
noble  knight,  Sir  Launcelot,  out  of  all  measure;  and  of  myself, 
good  Lord!  I  might  not  withstand  the  fervent  love,  wherefore  I 
have  my  death. })  And  then  she  called  her  father,  Sir  Bernard, 
and  her  brother,  Sir  Tirre;  and  heartily  she  prayed  her  father 
that  her  brother  might  write  a  letter  like  as  she  would  indite  it 
And  so  her  father  granted  it  her. 

And  when*  the  letter  was  written,  word  by  word,  as  she  had 
devised,  then  she  prayed  her  father  that  she  might  be  watched 
until  she  were  dead.  <(And  while  my  body  is  whole  let  this 
letter  be  put  into  my  right  hand,  and  my  hand  bound  fast  with 
the  letter  until  that  I  be  cold;  and  let  me  be  put  in  a  fair  bed, 
with  all  the  richest  clothes  that  I  have  about  me.  And  so  let 
my  bed,  with  all'  my  rich  clothes,  be  laid  with  me  in  a  chariot 
to  the  next  place  whereas  the  Thames  is;  and  there  let  me  be 
put  in  a  barge,  and  but  one  man  with  me,  such  as  ye  trust,  to 
steer  me  thither,  and  that  my  barge  be  covered  with  black  sam- 
ite over  and  over.  Thus,  father,  I  beseech  you  let  be  done."  So 
her  father  granted  her  faithfully  that  all  this  thing  should  be 
done  like  as  she  had  devised.  Then  her  father  and  her  brothel 


9652  SIR  THOMAS  MALORY 

made  great  dole;  for  when  this  was  done,  anon  she  died.  And  so 
when  she  was  dead,  the  corpse,  and  the  bed,  and  all,  were  led 
the  next  way  unto  the  Thames;  and  there  a  man,  and  the  corpse 
and  all,  were  put  in  a  barge  on  the  Thames;  and  so  the  man 
steered  the  barge  to  Westminster,  and  there  he  rode  a  great 
while  to  and  fro  or  any  man  discovered  it. 

So,  by  fortune,  King  Arthur  and  Queen  Guenever  were  speak- 
ing together  at  a  window;  and  so  as  they  looked  into  the  Thames, 
they  espied  the  black  barge,  and  had  marvel  what  it  might  mean. 
Then  the  King  called  Sir  Kaye  and  showed  him  it.  "Sir,"  said 
Sir  Kaye,  <(wit  ye  well  that  there  is  some  new  tidings."  «Go 
ye  thither,"  said  the  King  unto  Sir  Kaye,  <(and  take  with  you 
Sir  Brandiles  and  Sir  Agravaine,  and  bring  me  ready  word  what 
is  there."  Then  these  three  knights  departed  and  came  to  the 
barge  and  went  in ;  and  there  they  found  the  fairest  corpse,  lying 
in  a  rich  bed,  that  ever  they  saw,  and  a  poor  man  sitting  in  the 
end  of  the  barge,  and  no  word  would  he  speak.  So  these  three 
knights  returned  unto  the  King  again,  and  told  him  what  they 
had  found.  (<  That  fair  corpse  will  I  see,"  said  King  Arthur. 
And  then  the  King  took  the  Queen  by  the  hand  and  went  thither. 
Then  the  King  made  the  barge  to  be  holden  fast;  and  then  the 
King  and  the  Queen  went  in  with  certain  knights  with  them ;  and 
there  they  saw  a  fair  gentlewoman,  lying  in  a  rich  bed,  covered 
unto  her  middle  with  many  rich  clothes,  and  all  was  cloth  of 
gold:  and  she  lay  as  though  she  had  smiled.  Then  the  Queen 
espied  the  letter  in  the  right  hand,  and  told  the  King  thereof. 
Then  the  King  took  it  in  his  hand  and  said,  <(Now  I  am  sure 
this  letter  will  tell  what  she  was  and  why  she  is  come  hither." 
Then  the  King  and  the  Queen  went  out  of  the  barge;  and  the 
King  commanded  certain  men  to  wait  v*~  on  the  barge.  And  so 
when  the  King  was  come  within  his  chamber,  he  called  many 
knights  about  him  and  said  (<  that  he  would  wit  openly  what  was 
written  within  that  letter."  Then  the  King  broke  it  open  and 
made  a  clerk  to  read  it.  And  this  was  the  intent  of  the  letter:  — 

<(  Most  noble  knight,  my  lord,  Sir  Launcelot  du  Lake,  now 
hath  death  made  us  two  at  debate  for  your  love.  I  was  your 
love,  that  men  called  the  Fair  Maiden  of  Astolat;  therefore  unco 
all  ladies  I  make  my  moan.  Yet  for  my  soul  that  ye  pray,  and 
bury  me  at  the  least,  and  offer  me  my  mass  penny.  This  is  my 
last  request;  and  a  clean  maid  I  died,  I  take  God  to  my  witness. 
Pray  for  my  soul,  Sir  Launcelot,  as  thou  art  a  knight  peerless.* 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY  9653 

This  was  all  the  substance  of  the  letter.  And  when  it  was 
read,  the  Queen  and  all  the  knights  wept  for  pity  of  the  doleful 
complaints.  Then  was  Sir  Launcelot  sent  for;  and  when  he 
was  come  King  Arthur  made  the  letter  to  be  read  to  him.  And 
when  Sir  Launcelot  had  heard  it,  word  by  word,  he  said,  <(  My 
lord,  King  Arthur,  wit  you  well  that  I  am  right  heavy  of  the 
death  of  this  fair  damsel.  God  knoweth  I  was  never  causer  of 
her  death  by  my  will;  and  that  I  will  report  me  unto  her  own 
brother  here, —  he  is  Sir  Lavaine.  I  will  not  say  nay/  said  Sir 
Launcelot,  <(but  that  she  was  both  fair  and  good;  and  much  was 
I  beholden  unto  her :  but  she  loved  me  out  of  measure. }>  <(  Yp 
might  have  showed  her/  said  the  Queen,  <(  some  bounty  and  gen- 
tleness, that  ye  might  have  preserved  her  life."  <(  Madam, }>  said 
Sir  Launcelot,  (<  she  would  none  other  way  be  answered,  but  that 
she  would  be  my  wife,  or  else  my  love;  and  of  these  two  I  would 
not  grant  her:  but  I  proffered  her  for  her  good  love,  which  she 
showed  me,  a  thousand  pounds  yearly  to  her  and  her  heirs,  and 
to  wed  any  manner  of  knight  that  she  could  find  best  to  love  in 
her  heart.  For  madam,"  said  Sir  Launcelot,  (<  I  love  not  to  be 
constrained  to  love;  for  love  must  arise  of  the  heart,  and  not  by 
constraint. w  <(  That  is  truth, }>  said  King  Arthur  and  many  knights : 
<(love  is  free  in  himself,  and  never  will  be  bound;  for  where  he 
is  bound  he  loseth  himself. >} 


THE  DEATH   OF  SIR   LAUNCELOT.* 
From  (Morte  d' Arthur.  > 

THEN  Sir  Launcelot,  ever  after,  eat  but  little  meat,  nor  drank, 
but   continually  mourned   until   he   was   dead;    and  then   he 
sickened   more    and    more,  and    dried    and    dwindled    away. 
For  the   bishop,  nor   none    of   his   fellows,  might   not   make   him 
to    eat,    and   little    he    drank,    that   he    was    soon    waxed    shorter 
by  a   cubit   than   he   was,  that   the   people    could   not   know  him. 
For  evermore  day  and  night  he  prayed,  but  "needfully,  as  nature 
required;    sometimes   he   slumbered   a   broken   sleep,    and   always 
he  was  lying  groveling  upon    King   Arthur's  and  Queen   Guene- 
ver's   tomb:    and  there  was  no  comfort   that  the  bishop,  nor  Sir 

*The  second  paragraph  of  this  eloquent  passage  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
first  edition  'of  the  <Morte  d' Arthur.  >  and  is  probably  by  some  other  writer 
than  Malory-  This,  however,  does  not  affect  its  eloquence. 


9654 


SIR  THOMAS  MALORY 


Bors,   nor   none    of    all   his    fellows   could  make  him;   it   availed 
nothing. 

O  ye  mighty  and  pompous  lords,  shining  in  the  glory  transi- 
tory of  this  unstable  life,  as  in  reigning  over  great  realms  and 
mighty  great  countries,  fortified  with  strong  castles  and  towers, 
edified  with  many  a  rich  city;  yea  also,  ye  fierce  and  mighty 
knights,  so  valiant  in  adventurous  deeds  of  arms, — behold!  be- 
hold! see  how  this  mighty  conqueror,  King  Arthur,  whom  in 
his  human  life  all  the  world  doubted;  see  also,  the  noble  Queen 
Guenever,  which  sometime  sat  in  her  chair,  adorned  with  gold, 
pearls,  and  precious  stones,  now  lie  full  low  in  obscure  foss,  or 
pit,  covered  with  clods  of  earth  and  clay.  Behold  also  this 
mighty  champion,  Sir  Launcelot,  peerless  of  all  knighthood;  see 
now  how  he  lieth  groveling  upon  the  cold  mold;  now  being 
so  feeble  and  faint,  that  sometime  was  so  terrible.  How,  and  in 
what  manner,  ought  ye  to  be  so  desirous  of  worldly  honor,  so 
dangerous.  Therefore,  methinketh  this  present  book  is  right 
necessary  often  to  be  read;  for  in  it  shall  ye  find  the  most  gra- 
cious, knightly,  and  virtuous  war  of  the  most  noble  knights  of 
the  world,  whereby  they  gat  a  praising  continually.  Also  me 
seemeth,  by  the  oft  reading  thereof,  ye  shall  greatly  desire  to 
accustom  yourself  in  following  of  those  gracious  knightly  deeds; 
that  is  to  say,  to  dread  God  and  to  love  righteousness, — faith- 
fully and  courageously  to  serve  your  sovereign  prince;  and  the 
more  that  God  hath  given  you  triumphal  honor,  the  meeker 
ought  ye  to  be,  ever  fearing  the  unstableness  of  this  deceitful 
world. 


9655 


SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE 

(FOURTEENTH  CENTURY) 

!HE  most  entertaining  book  in  early  English  prose  is  the  one 
entitled  ( The  Marvelous  Adventures  of  Sir  John  Maundevile 
[or  Mandeville],  Knight:  being  his  Voyage  and  Travel  which 
treateth  of  the  way  to  Jerusalem  and  of  the  Marvels  of  Ind  with 
other  Islands  and  Countries.'  Who  this  knight  was,  and  how  many 
of  the  wondrous  countries  and  sights  he  described  he  actually  saw, 
are  matters  of  grave  discussion.  Some  scholars  have  denied  his  very 
existence,  affirming  the  book  to  be  merely  a  compilation  from  other 
books  of  travel,  well  known  at  the  time,  and  made  by  a  French  physi- 
cian, Jehan  de  Bourgogne,  who  hid  his  identity  under  the  pseudonym 
of  the  English  knight  of  St.  Albans.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  asser- 
tion of  Sir  John  in  a  Latin  copy  notwithstanding,  research  has  proved 
beyond  doubt  that  the  book  was  first  written  in  French,  and  then 
translated  into  English,  Latin,  Italian,  German,  Flemish,  and  even 
into  Irish.  It  has  been  further  shown  that  the  author  drew  largely 
on  the  works  of  his  contemporaries.  The  chapters  on  Asiatic  history 
and  geography  are  from  a  book  dictated  in  French  at  Poitiers  in 
1307,  by  the  Armenian  monk  Hayton;  the  description  of  the  Tartars 
is  from  the  work  of  the  Franciscan  monk  John  de  Piano  Carpini; 
the  account  of  Prester  John  is  taken  from  the  Epistle  ascribed  to 
him,  and  from  stories  current  in  the  fourteenth  century.  There  are, 
furthermore,  large  borrowings  from  the  book  of  the  Lombard  Fran- 
ciscan friar  Odoric  of  Pordenone,  who  traveled  in  the  Orient  between 
1317  and  1330,  and  on  his  return  had  his  adventures  set  down  in  Latin 
by  a  brother  of  his  order.  The  itinerary  of  the  German  knight  Will- 
iam of  Boldensele,  about  1336,  is  also  laid  under  contribution.  What 
then  can  be  credited  to  Sir  John  ?  While  learned  men  are  waxing  hot 
over  conjectures  the  answers  to  which  seem  beyond  the  search-light 
of  exact  investigation,  the  unsophisticated  reader  holds  fast  by  the 
testimony  of  the  knight  himself  as  to  his  own  identity,  accepting  it 
along  with  the  marvels  narrated  in  the  book:  — 

<(  I  John  Maundevile,  Knight,  all  be  it  I  be  not  worthy,  that  was  born  in 
England,  in  the  town  of  St.  Albans,  passed  the  sea  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
Jesu  Christ,  1322,  in  the  day  of  St.  Michaelmas;  and  hitherto  have  been  long 
time  over  the  Sea.  and  have  seen  and  gone  through  many  diverse  Lands,  and 


5656  SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE 

many  Provinces  and  Kingdoms  and  Isles,  and  have  passed  through  Tartary, 
Persia,  Ermony  [Armenia]  the  Little  and  'the  Great ;  through  Lybia,  Chaldea, 
and  a  great  part  of  Ethiopia;  through  Amazonia,  Ind  the  Less  and  the  More,  a 
great  Part;  and  throughout  many  other  Isles,  that  be  about  Ind:  where  dwell 
many  diverse  Folks,  and  of  diverse  Manners  and  Laws,  and  of  diverse  Shapes 
of  Men.  Of  which  Lands  and  Isles  I  shall  speak  more  plainly  hereafter. 

«And  I  shall  advise  you  of  some  Part  of  things  that  there  be,  when  Time 
shall  be  hereafter,  as  it  may  best  come  to  my  Mind;  and  especially  for  them 
that  will  and  are  in  Purpose  to  visit  the  Holy  City  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
Holy  Places  that  are  thereabout.  And  I  shall  tell  the  way  that  they  shall 
hold  hither.  For  I  have  often  times  passed  and  ridden  the  Way,  with  good 
company  of  many  Lords.  God  be  thanked. » 

And  again  in  the  epilogue:  — 

<(And  ye  shall  understand,  if  it  like  you,  that  at  mine .  Home-coming,  1 
came  to  Rome,  and  showed  my  Life  to  our  Holy  Father  the  Pope,  .  .  . 
and  amongst  all  I  showed  him  this  treatise,  that  I  had  made  after  information 
of  Men  that  knew  of  things  that  I  had  not  seen  myself,  and  also  of  Marvels 
and  Customs  that  I  had  seen  myself,  as  far  as  God  would  give  me  grace; 
and  besought  his  Holy  Father-hood,  that  my  Book  might  be  examined  and 
corrected  by  Advice  of  his  wise  and  discreet  Council.  And  our  Holy  Father, 
of  his  special  Grace,  remitted  my  Book  to  be  examined  and  proved  by  the 
Advice  of  his  said  Council.  By  the  which  my  Book  was  proved  true.  .  .  . 
And  I  John  Maundevile,  Knight,  above  said,  although  I  be  unworthy,  that 
departed  from  our  Countries  and  passed  the  Sea  the  Year  of  Grace  1322,  that 
have  passed  many  Lands  and  many  Isles  and  Countries,  and  searched  many 
full  strange  Places,  and  have  been  in  many  a  full  good  honorable  Company, 
and  at  many  a  fair  Deed  of  Arms,  albeit  that  I  did  none  myself,  for  mine 
incapable  Insufficiency,  now  am  come  Home,  maugre  myself,  to  Rest.  For 
Gouts  and  Rheumatics,  that  distress  me  —  those  define  the  End  of  my  Labor 
against  my  Will,  God  knoweth. 

<(And  thus,  taking  solace  in  my  wretched  rest,  recording  the  Time  passed, 
I  have  fulfilled  these  Things,  and  put  them  written  in  this  Book,  as  it  would 
come  into  my  Mind,  the  Year  of  Grace  1356,  in  the  34th  year  that  I  departed 
from  our  countries. )J 

The  book  professes,  then,  to  be  primarily  a  guide  for  pilgrims  to 
Jerusalem  by  four  routes,  with  a  handbook  of  the  holy  places.  But 
Sir  John's  love  of  the  picturesque  and  the  marvelous,  and  his  delight 
in  a.  good  story,  lead  him  to  linger  along  the  way :  nay,  to  go  out  of 
his  way  in  order  to  pick  up  a  legend  or  a  tale  wherewith  to  enliven 
the  dry  facts  of  the  route ;  as  if  his  pilgrims,  weary  and  footsore  with 
long  day  journeys,  needed  a  bit  of  diversion  to  cheer  them  along  the 
way.  When,  after  many  a  detour,  he  is  finally  brought  into  Pales- 
tine, the  pilgrim  is  made  to  feel  that  every  inch  is  holy  ground. 
The  guide  scrupulously  locates  even  the  smallest  details  of  Bible 
history.  He  takes  it  all  on  faith.  He  knows  nothing  of  nineteenth- 


SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE  9657 

century  <(  higher  criticism,"  nor  does  he  believe  in  spiritual  interpre- 
tation. He  will  point  you  out  the 

«rock  where  Jacob  was  sleeping  when  he  saw  the  angels  go  up  and  down  a 
ladder.  .  .  .  And  upon  that  rock  sat  our  Lady,  and  learned  her  psalter. 
.  .  .  Also  at  the  right  side  of  that  Dead  Sea  dwelleth  yet  the  Wife  of  Lot 
in  Likeness  of  a  Salt  Stone.  .  .  .  And  in  that  Plain  is  the  Tomb  of  Job. 
.  .  .  And  there  is  the  Cistern  where  Joseph,  which  they  sold,  was  cast  in 
of  by  his  Brethren.  .  .  .  There  nigh  is  Gabriel's  Well  where  our  Lord 
was  wont  to  bathe  him,  when  He  was  young,  and  from  that  Well  bare  the 
Water  often-time  to  His  Mother.  And  in  that  Well  she  washed  often-time 
the  Clothes  of  her  Son  Jesu  Christ.  ...  On  that  Hill,  and  in  that  same 
Place,  at  the  Day  of  Doom,  4  Angels  with  4  Trumpets  shall 'blow  and  raise 
all  Men  that  have  suffered  Death. » 

He  touches  on  whatever  would  appeal  to  the  pious  imagination 
of  the  pilgrims,  and  helps  them  to  visualize  the  truths  of  their  reli- 
gion. When  he  leaves  Palestine, —  a  country  he  knew  perhaps  better 
than  ever  man  before  or  since  his  day, —  and  goes  into  the  more 
mythical  regions  of  Ind  the  Little  and  More,  Cathay  and  Persia,  his 
imagination  fairly  runs  riot.  With  an  Oriental  love  of  the  gorgeous 
he  describes  the  (<  Royalty  of  the  Palace  of  the  Great  Chan,^  or 
of  Prester  John's  abode, —  splendors  not  to  be  outdone  even  by  the 
genie  of  Aladdin's  wonderful  lamp.  He  takes  us  into  regions  lustrous 
with  gold  and  silver,  diamonds  and  other  precious  stones.  We  have 
indeed  in  the  latter  half  of  the  book  whole  chapters  rivaling  the 
'Arabian  Nights y  in  their  weird  luxurious  imaginings,  and  again  in 
their  grotesque  creations  of  men  and  beasts  and  plant  life.  What 
matter  where  Sir  John  got  his  material  for  his  marvels, — his  rich, 
monster-teeming  Eastern  world,  with  its  Amazons  and  pigmies;  its 
people  with  hound's  heads,  that  <(be  great  folk  and  well-fighting » ;  its 
wild  geese  with  two  heads,  and  lions  all  white  and  great  as  oxen; 
men  with  eyes  in  their  shoulders,  and  men  without  heads;  (<folk  that 
have  the  Face  all  flat,  all  plain,  without  Nose  and  without  Mouth w ; 
«  folk  that  have  great  Ears  and  long  that  hang  down  to  their  Knees » ; 
and  (<folk  that  run  marvelously  swift  with  one  foot  so  large  that  it 
serves  them  as  umbrella  against  the  sun  when  they  lie  down  to  rest }> ; 
the  Hippotaynes,  half  man  and  half  horse;  griffins  that  (<have  the 
Body  upwards  as  an  Eagle  and  beneath  as  a  Lion,  and  truly  they 
say  truth,  that  they  be  of  that  shape. }>  We  find  hints  of  many  old 
acquaintances  of  the  wonder-world  of  story-books,  and  fables  from 
classic  soil.  The  giants  with  one  eye  in  the  middle  of  the  forehead 
are  close  brothers  to  the  Cyclops  Polyphemus,  whom  Ulysses  outwit- 
ted. The  adamant  rocks  were  surely  washed  by  the  same  seas  that 
swirled  around  the  magnetic  mountain  whereon  Sindbad  the  Sailor 
was  wrecked.  Sir  John  was  in  truth  a  masterful  borrower,  levying 


9658  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE 

tribute  on  all  the  superstitions,  the  legends,  the  stories,  and  the 
fables  current  in  his  time,  a  time  when  the  distinction  between  meum 
and  tuum,  in  literature  as  well  as  in  other  matters,  was  not  as  finely 
drawn  as  it  is  now.  Whatever  a  man  could  use,  he  plagiarized  and 
considered  as  his  own.  Where  the  robber-baron  filched  by  means  of 
the  sword,  Sir  John  filched  by  means  of  the  pen.  He  took  his  mon- 
sters out  of  Pliny,  his  miracles  out  of  legends,  his  strange  stories  out 
of  romances.  He  meant  to  leave  no  rumor  or  invention  unchronicled ; 
and  he  prefaces  his  most  amazing  assertions  with  <(  They  say })  or 
<(Men  say,  but  I  have  not  seen  it.®  He  fed  the  gullibility  of  his  age 
to  the  top  of  its  bent,  and  compiled  a  book  so  popular  that  more 
copies  from  the  fourteenth-century  editions  remain  than  of  any  other 
book  except  the  Bible. 


THE  MARVELOUS  RICHES  OF  PRESTER  JOHN 
From  <The  Adventures  > 

IN  THE  Land  of  Prester  John  be  many  divers  Things  and 
many  precious  Stones,  so  great  and'  so  large,  that  Men  make 
of  them  Vessels,  as  Platters,  Dishes,  and  Cups.  And  many 
other  Marvels  be  there,  that  it  were  too  cumbrous  and  too  long 
to  put  in  Writing  of  Books;  but  of  the  principal  Isles  and  of  his 
Estate  and  of  his  Law,  I  shall  tell  you  some  Part.  .  .  . 

And  he  hath  under  him  72  Provinces,  and  in  every  Province 
is  a  King.  And  these  Kings  have  Kings  under  them,  and  all 
be  Tributaries  to  Prester  John.  And  he  hath  in  his  Lordships 
many  great  Marvels. 

For  in  his  Country  is  the  Sea  that  Men  call  the  Gravelly 
Sea,  that  is  all  Gravel  and  Sand,  without  any  Drop  of  W^ater,  and 
it  ebbeth  and  floweth  in  great  Waves  as  other  Seas  do,  and  it  is 
never  still  nor  at  Peace  in  any  manner  of  Season.  And  no  Man 
may  pass  that  Sea  by  Ship,  nor  by  any  manner  of  Craft,  and 
therefore  may  no  Man  know  what  Land  is  beyond  that  Sea. 
And  albeit  that  it  have  no  Water,  yet  Men  find  therein  and  on 
the  Banks  full  good  Fishes  of  other  manner  of  Nature  and  shape 
than  Men  find  in  any  other  Sea,  and  they  be  of  right  good 
Taste  and  delicious  for  Man's  Meat. 

And  a  3  Days'  Journey  long  from  that  Sea  be  great  Mount- 
ains, out  of  the  which  goeth  out  a  great  River  that  cometh  out 
of  Paradise.  And  it  is  full  of  precious  Stones,  without  any  Drop 
of  Water,  and  it  runneth  through  the  Desert  on  the  one  Side, 


SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE 

so  that  it  maketh  the  Sea  gravelly;  and  it  runneth  into  that  Sea, 
and  there  it  endeth.  And  that  River  runneth,  also,  3  Days  in 
the  Week  and  bringeth  with  him  great  Stones  and  the  Rocks 
also  therewith,  and  that  great  Plenty.  And  anon,  as  they  be 
entered  into  the  Gravelly  Sea,  they  be  seen  no  more,  but  lost 
for  evermore.  And  in  those  3  Days  that  that  River  runneth,  no 
Man  dare  enter  into  it;  but  on  other  Days  Men  dare  enter  well 
enough. 

Also  beyond  that  River,  more  upward  to  the  Deserts,  is  a 
great  Plain  all  gravelly,  between  the  Mountains.  And  in  that 
Plain,  every  Day  at  the  Sun-rising,  begin  to  grow  small  Trees, 
and  they  grow  till  Midday, .bearing  Fruit;  but  no  Man  dare  take 
of  that  Fruit,  for  it  is  a  Thing  of  Faerie.  And  after  Midday 
they  decrease  and  enter  again  into  the  Earth,  so  that  at  the 
going  down  of  the  Sun  they  appear  no  more.  And  so  they  do, 
every  Day.  And  that  is  a  great  Marvel. 

In  that  Desert  be  many  Wild  Men,  that  be  hideous  to  look 
on;  for  they  be  horned,  and  they  speak  naught,  but  they  grunt, 
as  Pigs.  And  there  is  also  great  Plenty  of  wild  Hounds.  And 
there  be  many  Popinjays  [or  Parrots]  that  they  call  Psittakes  in 
their  Language.  And  they  speak  of  their  own  Nature,  and  say 
( Salve!  *  [God  save  you !]  to  Men  that  go  through  the  Deserts, 
and  speak  to  them  as  freely  as  though  it  were  a  Man  that  spoke. 
And  they  that  speak  well  have  a  large  Tongue,  and  have  5  Toes 
upon  a  Foot.  And  there  be  also  some  of  another  Manner,  that 
have  but  3  Toes  upon  a  Foot;  and  they  speak  not,  or  but  little, 
for  they  cannot  but  cry. 

This  Emperor  Prester  John  when  he  goeth  into  Battle  against 
any  other  Lord,  he  hath  no  Banners  borne  before  him;  but  he 
hath  3  Crosses  of  Gold,  fine,  great,  and  high,  full  of  precious 
Stones,  and  every  one  of  the  Crosses  be  set  in  a  Chariot,  full 
richly  arrayed.  And  to  keep  every  Cross,  be  ordained  10,000 
Men  of  Arms  and  more  than  100,000  Men  on  Foot,  in  manner  as 
when  Men  would  keep  a  Standard  in  our  Countries,  when  that 
we  be  in  a  Land  of  War.  .  .  . 

He  dwelleth  commonly  in  the  City  of  Susa.  And  there  is 
his  principal  Palace,  that  is  so  rich  and  noble  that  no  Man  will 
believe  it  by  Estimation,  but  he  had  seen  it.  And  above  the 
chief  Tower  of  the  Palace  be  2  round  Pommels  or  Balls  of 
Gold,  and  in  each  of  them  be  2  Carbuncles  great  and  large,  that 
shine  full  bright  upon  the  Night.  And  the  principal  gates  of 


966o  SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE 

his  Palace  be  of  precious  Stone  that  Men  call  Sardonyx,  and  the 
Border  and  the  Bars  be  of  Ivory.  And  the  Windows  of  the  Halls 
and  Chambers  be  of  Crystal.  And  the  Tables  whereon  Men  eat, 
some  be  of  Emeralds,  some  of  Amethyst,  and  some  of  Gold,  full 
of  precious  Stones;  and  the  Pillars  that  bear  up  the  Tables  be 
of  the  same  precious  Stones.  And  of  the  Steps  to  go  up  to 
his  Throne,  where  he  sitteth  at  Meat,  one  is  of  Onyx,  another  is 
of  Crystal,  and  another  of  green  Jasper,  another  of  Amethyst, 
another  of  Sardine,  another  of  Cornelian,  and  the  yth,  that  he 
setteth  his  Feet  on,  is  of  Chrysolite.  And  all  these  Steps  be 
bordered  with  fine  Gold,  with  the  other  precious  Stones,  set  with 
great  orient  Pearls.  And  the  Sides  of  the  Seat  of  his  Throne 
be  of  Emeralds,  and  bordered  with  Gold  full  nobly,  and  dubbed 
with  other  precious  Stones  and  great  Pearls.  And  all  the  Pillars 
in  his  Chamber  be  of  fine  Gold  with  Precious  Stones,  and  with 
many  Carbuncles,  that  give  Light  upon  the  Night  to  all  People. 
And  albeit  that  the  Carbuncles  give  Light  right  enough,  never- 
theless, at  all  Times  burneth  a  Vessel  of  Crystal  full  of  Balm,  to 
give  good  Smell  and  Odor  to  the  Emperor,  and  to  void  away  all 
wicked  Eyes  and  Corruptions. >} 


FROM   HEBRON  TO   BETHLEHEM 
From  the  <  Adventures  > 

AND  in  Hebron  be  all  the  Sepultures  of  the  Patriarchs, — 
Adam,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob;  and  of  their  Wives, 
Eve,  Sarah  and  Rebecca  and  of  Leah;  the  which  Sepul- 
tures the  Saracens  keep  full  carefully,  and  have  the  Place  in 
great  Reverence  for  the  holy  Fathers,  the  Patriarchs  that  lie 
there.  And  they  suffer  no  Christian  Man  to  enter  into  the 
Place,  but  if  it  be  of  special  Grace  of  the  Sultan;  for  they  hold 
Christian  Men  and  Jews  as  Dogs,  and  they  say,  that  they  should 
not  enter  into  so  holy  a  Place.  And  Men  call  that  Place,  where 
they  lie,  Double  Splunk  (Spelunca  Duplex),  or  Double  Cave,  or 
Double  Ditch,  forasmuch  as  one  lieth  above  another.  And  the 
Saracens  call  that  Place  in  their  Language,  ^Karicarba*  that 
is  to  say  <(  The  Place  of  Patriarchs. w  And  the  Jews  call  that 
Place  ^Arboth?  And  in  that  same  Place  was  Abraham's  House, 
and  there  he  sat  and  saw  3  Persons,  and  worshiped  but  one;  as 
Holy  Writ  saith,  (<  Tres  vidit  et  unum  adoravit; }>  that  is  to  say, 


SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE  9661 

saw  3  and  worshiped  one:  w  and  those  same  were  the  Angels 
that  Abraham  received  ,into  his  House. 

And  right  fast  by  that  Place  is  a  Cave  in  the  Rock,  where 
Adam  and  Eve  dwelled  when  they  were  put  out  of  Paradise; 
and  there  got  they  their  Children.  And  in  that  same  Place  was 
Adam  formed  and  made,  after  that,  that  some  Men  say  (for  Men 
were  wont  to  call  that  Place  the  Field  of  Damascus,  because  that 
it  was  in  the  Lordship  of  Damascus),  and  from  thence  was  he 
translated  into  the  Paradise  of  Delights,  as  they  say;  and  after 
he  was  driven  out  of  Paradise  he  was  left  there.  And  the  same 
Day  that  he  was  put  in  Paradise,  the  same  Day  he  was  put  .out. 
for  anon,  he  sinned.  There  beginneth  the  Vale  of  Hebron,  that 
endureth  nigh  to  Jerusalem.  There  the  Angel  commanded  Adam 
that  he  should  dwell  with  his  Wife  Eve,  of  the  which  he  begat 
Seth;  of  the  which  Tribe,  that  is  to  say  Kindred,  Jesu  Christ 
was  born. 

In  that  Valley  is  a  Field,  where  Men  draw  out  of  the  Earth 
a  Thing  that  Men  call  Cambile,  and  they  eat  it  instead  of  Spice, 
and  they  bear  it  away  to  sell.  And  Men  may  not  make  the 
Hole  or  the  Cave,  where  it  is  taken  out  of  the  Earth,  so  deep  or 
so  wide,  but  that  it  is,  at  the  Year's  End,  full  again  up  to  the 
Sides,  through  the  Grace  of  God.  .  .  . 

From  Hebron  Men  go  to  Bethlehem  in  half  a  Day.  for  it  is 
but  5  Mile;  and  it  is  a  full  fair  Way,  by  Plains  and  Woods  full 
delectable.  Bethlehem  is  a  little  City,  long  and  narrow  and  well 
walled,  and  on  each  Side  enclosed  with  good  Ditches:  and  it  was 
wont  to  be  clept  Ephrata,  as  Holy  Writ  saith,  *Ecce,  andimus 
eum  in  Ephrata^  that  is  to  say,  (<  Lo,  we  heard  it  in  Ephrata.8 
And  toward  the  East  End  of  the  City  is  a  full  fair  Church  and 
a  gracious,  and  it  hath  many  Towers,  Pinnacles  and  Corners,  full 
strong  and  curiously  made;  and  within  that  Church  be  44  Pillars 
of  Marble,  great  and  fair.  .  .  . 

Also  besides  the  Choir  of  the  Church,  at  the  right  Side,  as 
Men  come  downward  16  Steps,  is  the  Place  where  our  Lord  was 
born,  that  is  full  well  adorned  with  Marble,  and  full  richly 
painted  with  Gold,  Silver,  Azure  and  other  Colours.  And  3 
Paces  beyond  is  the  Crib  of  the  Ox  and  the  Ass.  And  beside 
that  is  the  Place  where  the  Star  fell,  that  led  the  3  Kings,  Jas- 
per, Melchior  and  Balthazar  (but  Men  of  Greece  call  them  thus, 
<(  Galgalathe,  Malgalathe,  and  Seraphie,"  and  the  Jews  call  them 
in  this  manner,  in  Hebrew,  <(Appelius,  Amerrius,  and  Damasus*). 


SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE 

These  3  Kings  offered  to  our  Lord,  Gold,  Incense  and  Myrrh, 
and  they  met  together  through  Miracle .  of  God ;  for  they  met 
together  in  a  City  in  Ind,  that  Men  call  Cassak,  that  is  a  53 
Days'  Journey  from  Bethlehem;  and  they  were  at  Bethlehem 
the  1 3th  Day;  and  that  was  the  4th  Day  after  that  they  had 
seen  the  Star,  when  they  met  in  that  City,  and  thus  they  were 
in  9  days  from  that  City  at  Bethlehem,  and  that  was  a  great 
Miracle. 

Also,  under  the  Cloister  of  the  Church,  by  18  Steps  at  the 
right  Side,  is  the  Charnel-house  of  the  Innocents,  where  their 
Bodies  lie.  And  before  the  Place  where  our  Lord  was  born  is 
the  Tomb  of  St.  Jerome,  that  was  a  Priest  and  a  Cardinal,  that 
translated  the  Bible  and  the  Psalter  from  Hebrew  into  Latin: 
and  without  the  Minster  is  the  Chair  that  he  sat  in  when  he 
translated  it.  And  fast  beside  that  Church,  at  60  Fathom,  is  a 
Church  of  St.  Nicholas,  where  our  Lady  rested  her  after  she  was 
delivered  of  our  Lord;  and  forasmuch  as  she  had  too  much  Milk 
in  her  Paps,  that  grieved  her,  she  milked  them  on  the  red  Stones 
of  Marble,  so  that  the  Traces  may  yet  be  seen,  in  the  Stones,  all 
white. 

And  ye  shall  understand,  that 'all  that  dwell  in  Bethlehem  be 
Christian  Men. 

And  there  be  fair  Vines  about  the  City,  and  great  plenty  of 
Wine,  that  the  Christian  Men  have  made.  But  the  Saracens  till 
not  the  Vines,  neither  drink  they  any  Wine:  for  their  Books  of 
their  Law,  that  Mohammet  gave  them,  which  they  call  their  <(A1 
Koran w  (and  some  call  it  "Mesaph,"  and  in  another  language  it 
is  clept  "Harme,") — the  same  Book  forbiddeth  them  to  drink 
Wine.  For  in  that  Book,  Mohammet  cursed  all  those  that  drink 
Wine  and  all  them  that  sell  it:  for  some  Men  say,  that  he  slew 
once  an  Hermit  in  his  Drunkenness,  that  he  loved  full  well;  and 
therefore  he  cursed  Wine  and  them  that  drink  it.  But  his  Curse 
be  turned  onto  his  own  Head,  as  Holy  Writ  saith,  «Et  in  verticem 
ipsius  iniquitas  ejus  descendet; >J  that  is  to  say,  (<  His  Wickedness 
shall  turn  and  fall  onto  his  own  Head. w 

And  also  the  Saracens  breed  no  Pigs,  nor  eat  they  any 
Swine's  Flesh,  for  they  say  it  is  Brother  to  Man,  and"  it  was  for- 
bidden by  the  old  Law;  and  they  hold  him  accursed  that  eateth 
thereof.  Also  in  the  Land  of  Palestine  and  in  the  Land  of 
Egypt,  they  eat  but  little  or  none  of  Flesh  of  Veal  or  of  Beef, 
but  if  the  Beast  be  so  old,  that  he  may  no  more  work  for  old 


SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE 

Age;  for  it  is  forbidden,  because  they  have  but  few  of  them; 
therefore  they  nourish  them  to  till  their  Lands. 

In  this  City  of  Bethlehem  was  David  the  King  born;  and  he 
had  60  Wives,  and  the  first  wife  was  called  Michal;  and  also  he 
had  300  Lemans. 

And  from  Bethlehem  unto  Jerusalem  is  but  2  Mile;  and  in 
the  Way  to  Jerusalem  half  a  Mile  from  Bethlehem  is  a  Church, 
where  the  Angel  said  to  the  Shepherds  of  the  Birth  of  Christ. 
And  in  that  Way  is  the  Tomb  of  Rachel,  that  was  the  Mother 
of  Joseph  the  Patriarch;  and  she  died  anon  after  that  she  was 
delivered  of  her  Son  Benjamin.  And  there  she  was  buried  by 
Jacob  her  Husband;  and  he  made  set  12  great  Stones  on  her,  in 
Token  that  she  had  born  12  Children.  In  the  same  Way,  half  a 
Mile  from  Jerusalem,  appeared  the  Star  to  the  3  Kings.  In  that 
Way  also  be  many  Churches  of  Christian  Men,  by  the  which  Men 
go  towards  the  City  of  Jerusalem. 


9664 


JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN 

1803-1849 

,N  THE  summer  of  1894  some  workmen  engaged  in  removing  a 
mass  of  rubbish,  to  make  room  for  a  new  building  in  one  of 
the  poorer  quarters  of  Dublin,  came  upon  the  ruins  of  an 
old  cellar.  A  casual  passer-by  happened  to  notice  the  old  wall,  with 
its  low  window  looking  out  upon  a  level  with  the  narrow  and  squalid 
alley.  Moved  by  some  bookish  recollection,  he  realized  that  he  was 
standing  at  the  corner  of  Bride  Street  and  Myler's  Alley,  known  in 
the  older  days  as  Glendalough  Lane;  and  that  the  miserable  vestige 
of  human  habitation  into  which  the  rough  navvies  were  driving  their 
pickaxes  had  once  been  the  poor  shelter  of  him  who, — 

«Worn  by  weakness,  disease,  and  wrong, 

Had  fled  for  shelter  to  God,  who  mated 
His  soul  with  song.» 

From  this  spot  James  Clarence  Mangan,  wasted  with  famine  and 
already  delirious,  was  carried  by  the  Overseers  of  the  Poor  to  the 
sheds  of  Meath  Hospital  in  June  1849;  too  late,  alas!  to  save  the 
dying  man,  who  in  the  years  of  his  young  manhood  had  sung  and 
suffered  for  Ireland.  A  few  friends  gathered  about  him  to  comfort 
his  patient  and  gentle  soul,  and  to  lay  his  bones  in  the  cool  clay  of 
Glasnevin. 

The  life  of  Mangan  is  a  convincing  proof  that  differences  of  time 
and  place  have  no  influence  upon  the  poet's  power.  Poverty  and 
Want  were  the  foster-brothers  of  this  most  wonderful  of  Ireland's 
gifted  children.  His  patient  body  was  chained  to  daily  labor  for  the 
sordid  needs  of  an  unappreciating  kindred,  and  none  of  the  pleasant 
joys  of  travel  and  of  diversified  nature  were  his.  He  was  born  in 
Fishamble  Street,  Dublin,  in  1803,  and  never  passed  beyond  the  con- 
fines of  his  native  city;  but  his  spirit  was  not  jailed  by  the  misery 
which  oppressed  his  body.  His  wondrous  fancy  swept  with  a  con- 
queror's march  through  all  the  fair  broad  universe. 

Like  Poe  and  Chatterton,  Mangan  impaired  his  powers  by  the  use 
of  intoxicants.  He  was  very  sensitive  about  the  squalor  of  his  sur- 
roundings, and  was  reticent  and  shy  in  the  company  of  more  fortu- 
nate men  and  women:  but  with  admirable  unselfishness  he  devoted 
his  days,  his  toil,  and  the  meagre  rewards  which  came  to  him  from 
his  work,  to  the  care  and  sustenance  of  his  mean-spirited  kindred. 


JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN  9665 

For  years  he  labored  in  the  hopeless  position  of  a  scrivener's  clerk, 
from  which  he  was  rescued  by  the  interest  of  Dr.  Todd,  and  was 
made  an  assistant  librarian  of  Trinity  College.  There  it  was  his 
habit  to  spend  hours  of  rapt  and  speechless  labor  amid  the  dusty 
shelves,  to  earn  his  pittance.  Dr.  Petrie  subsequently  found  him  a 
place  in  the  office  of  the  Irish  Ordnance  Survey;  but  Mangan  was 
his  own  enemy  and  foredoomed  to  defeat.  He  wielded  a  vigorous 
pen  in  Ireland's  cause,  and  under  various  names  communicated  his 
own  glowing  spirit  to  his  countrymen  through  the  columns  of  several 
periodicals.  He  published  also  two  volumes  of  translations  from  the 
German  poets,  which  are  full  of  his  own  lyric  fire  but  have  no  claim 
to  fidelity.  It  was  in  his  gloomy  cellar-home  that  he  poured  out  the 
music  of  his  heart.  When  he  died,  a  volume  of  German  poetry  was 
found  in  his  pocket,  and  there  were  loose  papers  on  which  he  had 
feebly  traced  his  last  thoughts  in  verse.  Mangan  will  forever  remain 
a  cherished  comrade  of  all  gentle  lovers  of  the  Beautiful  and  True. 


THE  DAWNING  OF  THE  DAY 


T 


WAS  a  balmy  summer  morning 
Warm  and  early, 

Such  as  only  June  bestows; 


Everywhere  the  earth  adorning, 

Dews  lay  pearly 
In  the  lily-bell  and  rose. 
Up  from  each  green-leafy  bosk  and  hollow 

Rose  the  blackbird's  pleasant  lay; 
And  the  soft  cuckoo  was  sure  to  follow: 
'Twas  the  dawning  of  the  day! 

Through  the  perfumed  air  the  golden 

Bees  flew  round  me; 
Bright  fish  dazzled  from  the  sea, 
Till  medreamt  some  fairy  olden- 
World  spell  bound  me 
In  a  trance  of  witcherie. 
Steeds  pranced  round  anon  with  stateliest  housings, 

Bearing  riders  prankt  in  rich  array, 
Like  flushed  revelers  after  wine-carousings : 
'Twas  the  dawning  of  the  day! 

Then  a  strain  of  song  was  chanted, 

And  the  lightly 
Floating  sea-nymphs  drew  anear. 


0666  JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN 

Then  again  the  shore  seemed  haunted 

By  hosts  brightly 

Clad,  and  wielding  shield  and  spear! 
Then  came  battle  shouts  —  an  onward  rushing  — 

Swords,  and  chariots,  and  a  phantom  fray. 
Then  all  vanished:  the  warm  skies  were  blushing 
In  the  dawning  of  the  day! 

Cities  girt  with  glorious  gardens, 

Whose  immortal 
Habitants  in  robes  of  light 
Stood,  methought,  as  angel-wardens 

Nigh  each  portal, 
Now  arose  to  daze  my  sight. 
Eden  spread  around,  revived  and  blooming; 
When  —  lo!  as  I  gazed,  all  passed  away: 
I  saw  but  black  rocks  and  billows  looming 
In  the  dim  chill  dawn  of  day! 


R 


THE  NAMELESS  ONE 

OLL  forth,  my  song,  like  the  rushing  river 

That  sweeps  along  to  the  mighty  sea; 
God  will  inspire  me  while  I  deliver 
My  soul  of  thee! 


Tell  thou  the  world,  when  my  bones  lie  whitening 

Amid  the  last  homes  of  youth  and  eld, 
That  there  was  once  one  whose  veins  ran  lightning 
No  eye  beheld. 

Tell  how  his  boyhood  was  one  drear  night  hour; 

How  shone  for  him,  through  his  griefs  and  gloom, 
No  star  of  all  heaven  sends  to  light  our 
Path  to  the  tomb. 

Roll  on,  my  song,  and  to  after  ages 

Tell  how,  disdaining  all  earth  can  give, 
He  would  have  taught  men,  from  wisdom's  pages, 
The  way  to  live. 

And  tell  how,  trampled,  derided,  hated, 

And  worn  by  weakness,  disease,  and  wrong, 
He  fled  for  shelter  to  God,  who  mated 
His  soul  with  song — 


JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN  9657 

With  song  which  alway,  sublime  or  vapid, 

Flowed  like  a  rill  in  the  morning  beam, 
Perchance  not  deep,  but  intense  and  rapid  — 
A  mountain  stream. 

Tell  how  this  Nameless,  condemned  for  years  long 

To  herd  with  demons  from  hell  beneath, 
Saw  things  that  made  him,  with  groans  and  tears,  long 
For  even  death. 

Go  on  to  tell  how,  with  genius  wasted, 

Betrayed  in  friendship,  befooled  in  love, 
With  spirit  shipwrecked,  and  young  hopes  blasted, 
He  still,  still  strove. 

Till,  spent  with  toil,  dreeing  death  for  others, 

And  some  whose  hands  should  have  wrought  for  him 
(If  children  live  not  for  sires  and  mothers), 
His  mind  grew  dim. 

And  he  fell  far  through  that  pit  abysmal, — 

The  gulf  and  grave  of  Maginn  and  Burns, — 
And  pawned  his  soul  for  the  devil's  dismal 
Stock  of  returns. 

But  yet  redeemed  it  in  days  of  darkness, 

And  shapes  and  signs  of  the  final  wrath, 

When  death,  in  hideous  and  ghastly  starkness, 

Stood  on  his  path. 

And  tell  how  now,  amid  wreck  and  sorrow, 

And  want,  and  sickness,  and  houseless  nights, 
He  bides  in  calmness  the  silent  morrow, 
That  no  ray  lights. 

And  lives  he  still,  then  ?    Yes :   old  and  hoary 

At  thirty-nine,  from  despair  and  woe, 
He  lives,  enduring  what  future  story 
Will  never  know. 

Him  grant  a  grave  too,  ye  pitying  noble, 

Deep  in  your  bosoms!     There  let  him  dwell? 
He  too  had  tears  for  all  souls  in  trouble 
Here  and  in  hell. 


,9668  JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN 


ST.   PATRICKS  HYMN   BEFORE  TARAH 

AT  TARAH  to-day,  in  this  awful  hour, 
I  call  on  the  fcoly  Trinity: 
Glory  to  him  who  reigneth  in  power, 
The  God  of  the  elements,  Father  and  Son 
And  Paraclete  Spirit,  which  Three  are  the  One, 
The  ever-existing  Divinity! 

At  Tarah  to-day  I  call  on  the  Lord, 
On  Christ,  the  omnipotent  Word, 
Who  came  to  redeem  from  death  and  sin 

Our  fallen  race; 
And  I  put  and  I  place 
The  virtue  that  lieth  and  liveth  in 
His  incarnation  lowly. 
His  baptism  pure  and  holy, 
His  life  of  toil  and  tears  and  affliction, 
His  dolorous  death  —  his  crucifixion, 
His  burial,  sacred  and  sad  and, lone, 

His  resurrection  to  life  again, 
His  glorious  ascension  to  Heaven's  high  throne* 
And,  lastly,  his  future  dread 

And  terrible  coming  to  judge  all  men  — 
Both  the  living  and  dead.     .     .     . 

At  Tarah  to-day  I  put  and  I  place 

The  virtue  that  dwells  in  the  seraphim's  love, 
And  the  virtue  and  grace 

That  are  in  the  obedience 
And  unshaken  allegiance 
Of  all  the  archangels  and  angels  above, 
And  in  the  hope  of  the  resurrection 
To  everlasting  reward  and  election, 
And  in  the  prayers  of  the  fathers  of  old, 
And  in  the  truths  the  prophets  foretold, 
And  in  the  Apostles'  manifold  preachings, 
And  in  the  confessors'  faith  and  teachings; 
And  in  the  purity  ever  dwelling 

Within  the  immaculate  Virgin's  breast, 
And  in  the  actions  bright  and  excelling 

Of  all  good  men,  the  just  and  the  blest.     ,     , 

At  Tarah  to-day,  in  this  fateful  hour, 
I  place  all  heaven  with  its  power, 


JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN  9669 

And  the  sun  with  its  brightness, 

And  the  snow  with  its  whiteness, 

And  fire  with  all  the  strength  it  hath, 

And  lightning  with  its  rapid  wrath, 

And  the  winds  with  their  swiftness  along  their  path, 

And  the  sea  with  its  deepness, 

And  the  rocks  with  their  steepness, 

And  the  earth  with  its  starkness, — 

All  these  I  place, 

By  God's  almighty  help  and  grace, 
Between  myself  and  the  powers  of  darkness. 

At  Tarah  to-day 
May  God  be  my  stay!  • 
May  the  strength  of  God  now  nerve  me! 
May  the  power  of  God  preserve  me! 
May  God  the  Almighty  be  near  me! 
May  God  the  Almighty  espy  me! 
May  God  the  Almighty  hear  me! 

May  God  give  me  eloquent  speech! 
May  the  arm  of  God  protect  me! 
May  the  wisdom  of  God  direct  me! 
May  God  give  me  power  to  teach  and  to  preach! 

May  the  shield  of  God  defend  me! 

May  the  host  of  God  attend  me, 
And  ward  me, 
And  guard  me 

Against  the  wiles  of  demons  and  devils, 
Against  the  temptations  of  vices  and  evils, 
Against  the  bad  passions  and  wrathful  will 

Of  the  reckless  mind  and  the  wicked  heart,— 
Against  every  man  who  designs  me  ill, 

Whether  leagued  with  others  or  plotting  apart! 

In  this  hour  of  hours, 
I  place  all  those  powers 
Between  myself  and  every  foe 
Who  threaten  my  body  and  soul 

With  danger  or  dole, 

To  protect  me  against  the  evils  that  flow 
From  lying  soothsayers'  incantations, 
From  the  gloomy  laws  of  the  Gentile  nations, 
From  heresy's  hateful  innovations, 
From  idolatry's  rites  and  invocations. 


9670  JAMES  CLARENCE  MANGAN 

Be  those  my  defenders, 

My  guards  against  every  ban  — 

And  spell  of  smiths,  and  Druids,  and  women; 

In  fine,  against  every  knowledge  that  renders 

The  light  Heaven  sends  us  dim  in 

The  spirit  and  soul  of  man! 

May  Christ,  I  pray, 
Protect  me  to-day 
Against  poison  and  fire, 
Against  drowning  and  wounding; 
That  so,  in  His  grace  abounding, 
I  may  earn  the  preacher's  hire! 

Christ  as  a  light 

T11  J  -J  I 

Illumine  and  guide  me! 

Christ  as  a  shield  o'ershadow  and  cover  me! 

Christ  be  under  me!  —  Christ  be  over  me  I 
Christ  be  beside  me, 
On  left  hand  and  right! 

Christ  be  before  me,  behind  nie,  about  me, 

Christ  this  day  be  within  and  without  me! 

Christ,  the  lowly  and  meek. 

Christ  the  Ail-Powerful  be 
In  the  heart  of  each  to  whom  I  speak, 
In  the  mouth  of  each  who  speaks  to  me? 

In  all  who  draw  near  me, 

Or  see  me  or  hear  me! 

At  Tarah  to-day,  in  this  awful  hour, 

I  call  on  the  Holy  Trinity! 
Glory  to  Him  who  reigneth  in  power, 
The  God  of  the  elements,  Father  and  Son 
And  Paraclete  Spirit,  which  Three  are  the  One, 
The  ever-existing  Divinity! 

Salvation  dwells  with  the  Lord, 
With  Christ,  the  omnipotent  Word. 
From  generation  to  generation 
Grant  us,  O  Lord,  thy  grace  and  salvation; 


9671 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI 

(1785-1873) 

BY  MAURICE  FRANCIS  EGAN 

[LESSANDRO  MANZONI  was  looked  upon  during  his  life  as  a  man 
who  had  deserved  well  of  Heaven.  (<He  gazed, »  as  one  of 
his  countrymen  said,  <(at  Fortune  straight  in  the  eyes,  and 
Fortune  smiled. }>  And  Manzoni  might  well  have  looked  with  clear 
eyes,  for  there  was  nothing  in  his  heart  —  if  a  man's  heart  may  be 
judged  from  his  constant  utterances  —  that  was  base. 

He  lived  in  a  time  best  suited  to  his  genius  and  his  temperament. 
And  his  genius  and  his  time  made  an  epoch  in  Italian  history  worthy 
of  most  serious  study.  In  1815  Italy  was 
inarticulate;  she  had  to  speak  by  signs. 
She  dared  only  dream  of  a  future  which 
she  read  in  a  glorious  past.  The  Austrians 
ruled  the  present,  the  future  was  veiled, 
the  past  was  real  and  golden.  Manzoni, 
Pellico,  and  Grossi  were  romanticists  be- 
cause they  were  filled  with  aspiration;  and 
their  aspiration,  clothing  itself  in  the  form 
which  Goethe's  <  Gotz>  and  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
<Marmion)  had  given  to  the  world,  tried  to 
obliterate  the  present  and  find  relief  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross  in  the  shadow  of  old  Gothic 
cathedrals.  The  Comte  de  Mun,  Vicomte 
de  Vogue,  Sienkiewicz,  and  others  of  the 

modern  neo-Catholic  school,  represent  reaction  rather  than  aspiration. 
Manzoni,  Chateaubriand,  Montalembert,  Overbeck  in  art,  Lamartine 
and  Lamennais,  were  not  only  fiercely  reactionary,  but  fiercely  senti- 
mental, hopeful,  and  romantic. 

With  Austrian  bayonets  at  the  throat  of  Italy,  it  was  not  easy 
to  emit  loud  war-cries  for  liberty.  The  desire  of  the  people  must 
therefore  be  heard  through  the  voice  of  the  poet.  .  And  the  desire  of 
the  Italians  is  manifest  in  the  poetry  and  the  prose  of  the  author  of 
<The  Betrothed >  (I  Promessi  Sposi),  and  the  <  Sacred  Hymns.*  Only 
two  reproaches  were  made  against  Manzoni:  he  was  praised  by  Goe- 
the,—  which,  (( says  a  sneer  turned  proverb, w  as  Mr.  Howells  puts  it, 
<(is  a  brevet  of  mediocrity, w  —  and  he  was  not  persecuted.  <(  Goethe, x> 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


9672 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


Mr.  Howells  continues,  (< could  not  laud  Manzoni's  tragedies  too  highly; 
he  did  not  find  one  word  too  much  or  too  little  in  them;  the  style 
was  free,  noble,  full,  and  rich.  As  to  the  religious  lyrics,  the  manner 
of  their  treatment  was  fresh  and  individual  although  the  matter  and 
the  significance  were  not  new,  and  the  poet  was  (a  Christian  without 
fanaticism,  a  Roman  Catholic  without  bigotry,  a  zealot  without  hard- 
ness.>}) 

In  1815  the  Continental  revolt  against  the  doctrines  of  Rousseau 
and  Voltaire  was  at  its  highest.  The  period  that  produced  Cesare 
Cantu  was  likewise  the  period  when  Ossian  and  Byron  had  become 
the  favorite  poets  of  the  younger  men.  Classicism  and  infidelity  were 
both  detested.  The  last  king  was  not,  after  all,  to  be  strangled  with 
the  entrails  of  the  last  priest.  (<God  might  rest,*'  as  a  writer  on  the 
time  remarks  with  naivete.  It  was  the  fashion  to  be  respectful  to 
him.  Italy  was  willing  to  disown  the  paganism  of  the  Renaissance 
for  the  moral  teaching  of  the  ages  that  preceded  it.  Manzoni  and 
his  school  held  that  true  patriotism  must  be  accompanied  by  virtue; 
and  in  a  country  where  Machiavelli's  (  Prince  }  had  become  a  classic, 
this  seemed  a  new  doctrine.  The  movement  which  Manzoni  repre- 
sented was  above  all  religious;  the  pope  was  again  transfigured,  and 
in  his  case  by  a  man  who  had  begun  life  with  the  most  liberal  tenden- 
cies. As  it  was,  he  never  accepted  the  belief  that  the  pope  must 
necessarily  be  a  ruler  of  great  temporalities;  but  of  the  sincerity 
and  fervor  of  his  faith  in  the  Catholic  Church  one  finds  ample  proof 
in  his  ( Sacred  Hymns.' 

Born  at  Milan  in  1785,  he  married  Mademoiselle  Blondel  in  1808. 
Her  father  was  a  banker  of  Geneva;  and  tradition  says  that  he  was 
of  that  cultivated  group  of  financiers  to  whom  the  Neckers  belonged, 
and  that  his  daughter  was  of  a  most  dazzling  blonde  beauty.  The 
Blondels,  like  the  Neckers,  were  Protestants;  but  at  Milan,  Louise 
Blondel  entered  the  Catholic  Church  and  confirmed  the  wavering 
faith  of  her  young  husband,  who  began  at  once  the  (  Sacred  Hymns. } 
In  these  Mr.  Howells  praises  <(  the  irreproachable  taste  and  unaffected 
poetic  appreciation  of  the  grandeur  of  Christianity, w  One  may  go 
even  further;  for  they  have  the  fervor,  the  exultation,  the  knowledge 
that  the  Redeemer  liveth,  in  a  fullness  which  we  do  not  find  in  sacred 
song  outside  the  Psalms  of  David,  the  <  Dies  Irae,*  and  the  ( Stabat 
Mater.  > 

Manzoni's  poems  were  not  many,  but  they  all  have  the  element  of 
greatness  in  them.  We  can  understand  why  the  invading  Austrians 
desired  to  honor  him,  when  we  read  his  ode  (  The  Fifth  of  May*  (on 
the  death  of  Napoleon),  or  his  two  noble  tragedies  <The  Count  of 
Carmagnola*  and  <Adelchi,>  or  that  pride  of  all  Italians,  his  master- 
piece, <  The  Betrothed >  (< I  Promessi  Sposi  >X  We  can  understand  too 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


9673 


the  lofty  haughtiness  that  induced  him  to  refuse  these  honors,  and 
to  relinquish  his  hereditary  title  of  Count,  rather  than  submit  to  the 
order  that  he  must  register  himself  as  an  Austrian  subject.  The  gov- 
ernment, however,  did  not  cease  to  offer  honors  to  him;  all  of  which, 
except  the  Italian  senatorship  proffered  him  in  1860,  he  declined. 
Great  tragedies,  like  Shelley's  'Cenci,*  Sir  Henry  Taylor's  Philip  van 
Artevelde,'  and  Sir  Aubrey  De  Vere's  (Mary  Tudor,  }  may  be  unact- 
able; they  may  speak  best  to  the  heart  and  mind  only  through  the 
written  word.  Manzoni's  are  of  this  class.  They  have  elevation, 
dramatic  feeling,  the  power  of  making  emotion  vital  and  of  inspiring 
passionate  sympathy  with  the  intention  of  the  author;  but  even  Sal- 
vini,  Rossi,  or  Ristori  could  not  make  them  possible  for  the  stage. 
In  the  (  Count  of  Carmagnola,*  which  celebrated  the  physical  ruin  but 
moral  success  of  a  noble  man,  Manzoni  in  1820  shocked  the  classicists 
and  won  their  hatred.  They  loved  Aristotle  and  his  rules;  Manzoni 
broke  every  rule  as  thoroughly  as  Shakespeare  and  as  consciously  as 
Victor  Hugo.  He  was  looked  upon  as  a  literary,  artistic  apostate.  In 
his  explanation  of  his  reasons  for  this  assault  on  an  old  world,  he 
makes  an  audacious  apologia  which  Alfred  de  Musset  might  have  read 
with  profit  before  despairing  of  a  definition  of  romanticism,  ^delchi* 
followed  in  1822,  still  further  exasperating  the  fury  of  the  classicists, 
who  hated  Manzoni  and  romance ;  foreseeing  perhaps  by  intuition  that 
the  romantic  school  was  to  be  the  ancestor  of  the  realistic  school, 
whose  horrors  were  only  dimly  dreamed  of. 

The  < Sacred  Hymns,  >  <The  Count  of  Carmagnola,>  <Adelchi,>  <  The 
Betrothed,*  and  the  great  ( Fifth  of  May)  ode  on  the  death  of  Napo- 
leon, are  the  works  by  which  Manzoni's  fame  was  established.  The 
tragedies  —  c  Carmagnola  *  of  the  fifteenth  century,  ( Adelchi  y  of  the 
eighth  —  would  live  for  their  strong  lyrical  element,  even  were  the 
quality  of  eloquence  and  the  fire  that  must  underlie  eloquence  lack- 
ing. Pathos  is  exquisite  in  both  these  plays;  the  marble  hearts 
of  the  Italian  classic  tragedy  are  replaced  here  by  vital,  palpitating 
flesh.  When  Carmagnola  dies  for  his  act  of  humanity  in  releasing 
his  prisoners  of  war,  and  Ermengarda,  whose  loveliness  is  portrayed 
with  the  delicacy  of  the  hand  that  drew  Elaine,  passes  away  in  her 
convent,  one  feels  that  the  world  may  indeed  mourn.  And  when  a 
poet  can  force  us  to-  take  the  shades  of  the  Middle  Ages  for  real 
human  beings,  no  man  may  deny  his  gift. 

( The  Fifth  of  May,*  the  noblest  ode  in  the  Italian  language, 
almost  defies  translation.  Mr.  Howells  has  made  the  best  possible 
version  of  it.  Napoleon  had  wronged  Italy,  but  Italy  speaking 
through  its  poet  forgave  him. 

(<  Beautiful,  deathless,  beneficent, 
Faith !  used  to  triumphs  even 


9674  ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 

This  also  writes  exultingly; 

No  loftier  pride  'neath  heaven 
Unto  the  shame  of  Calvary 

Stooped  ever  yet  its  crest. 
Thou  from  his  weary  mortality 

Disperse  all  bitter  passions; 
The  God  that  humbleth  and  hearteneth, 

That  comforts  and  that  chastens. 
Upon  the  pillow  else  desolate 

To  his  pale  lips  lay  pressed !» 

<The  Betrothed }  is  one  of  the  classics  of  fiction.  It  appeared  in 
1825.  Since  that  time  it  has  been  translated  into  every  language  in 
the  civilized  world.  It  deserves  the  verdict  which  time  has  passed 
upon  it.  Don  Abbondio  and  Cardinal  Federigo  Borromeo,  Renzo  and 
Lucia,  and  Don  Rodrigo,  go  on  from  year  to  year  seeming  to  gain 
new  vitality.  It  will  bear  the  test  of  a  reading  in  youth  and  a  re- 
reading in  old  age;  and  there  are  few  books  of  fiction  of  which  this 
can  be  said, — it  is  a  standard  of  their  greatness. 

Manzoni  died  in  1873.  His  patriotic  dreams  had  not  been  entirely 
realized;  but  he  passed  away  content,  in  faith  and  hope.  His  career 
was  on  the  whole  happy  and  serene.  He  loved  the  simple  things  of 
life,  and  looked  on  life  itself  as  only  a  vestibule  —  to  be  nobly 
adorned,  however  —  to  a  place  of  absolute  peace. 

Arnaud's  (I  Poetti  Patriottica>  (1862);  (Storia  della  Litteratura 
Italiana,*  by  De  Sanctis  (1879);  and  William  Dean  Howells's  (  Modern 
Italian  Poets }  (Harper  &  Brothers:  1887), — are  valuable  books  of  ref- 
erence on  the  romantic  movement  in  Italy,  and  on  the  position  of 
Manzoni  in  that  movement.  The  best  translation  of  (  The  Betrothed  > 
is  included  in  the  Bonn  Library. 


Q 


AN   UNWILLING  PRIEST 
From  <The  Betrothed  > 

[The  following  amusing  scene  occurs  in  the  earlier  portion  of  Manzoni's 
novel.  Don  Abbondio,  a  cowardly  village  curate,  has  been  warned  by  Don 
Rodrigo,  his  lord  of  the  manor,  that  if  he  dares  to  unite  in  marriage  two 
young  peasants,  Renzo  and  Lucia  (the  « betrothed »  of  the  story),  vengeance 
will  follow.  The  priest  accordingly  shirks  his  duty;  and  cruelly  refusing  to 
set  any  marriage  date,  shuts  himself  up  in  his  house  and  even  barricades  him- 
self against  Renzo's  entreaties.  Donna  Agnese,  the  mother  of  Lucia,  hears 
that  if  a  betrothed  pair  can  but  reach  the  presence  of  their  parish  priest  and 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI  9675 

announce  that  they  take  each  other  as  man  and  wife,  the  marriage  is  as  bind- 
ing as  if  celebrated  with  all  formality.  Accordingly  Agnese  devises  a  sort  of 
attack  on  the  priest  by  stratagem,  to  be  managed  by  the  parties  to  the  con- 
tract and  two  witnesses  (the  brothers  Tonio  and  Gervase) ;  which  device  is  con- 
siderably endangered  by  the  wariness  of  the  curate's  housekeeper,  Perpetua.] 

IN  FRONT  of  Don  Abbondio's  door,  a  narrow  street  ran  between 
two  cottages;  but  only  continued  straight  the  length  of  the 

buildings,  and  then  turned  into  the  fields.  Agnese  went  for- 
ward along  this  street,  as  if  she  would  go  a  little  aside  to  speak 
more  freely,  and  Perpetua  followed.  When  they  had  turned  the 
corner,  and  reached  a  spot  whence  they  could  no  longer  see  what 
happened  before  Don  Abbondio's  house,  Agnese  coughed  Icudly. 
This  was  the  signal;  Renzo  heard  it,  and  re-animating  Lucia 
by  pressing  her  arm,  they  turned  the  corner  together  on  tiptoe, 
crept  very  softly  close  along  the  wall,  reached  the  door,  and 
gently  pushed  it  open :  quiet,  and  stooping  low,  they  were  quickly 
in  the  passage;  and  here  the  two  brothers  were  waiting  for  them. 
Renzo  very  gently  let  down  the  latch  of  the  door,  and  they  all 
four  ascended  the  stairs,  making  scarcely  noise  enough  for  two. 
On  reaching  the  landing,  the  two  brothers  advanced  towards 
the  door  of  the  room  at  the  side  of  the  staircase,  and  the  lovers 
stood  close  against  the  wall. 

^Deo  gratias*  said  Tonio  in  an  explanatory  tone. 

(<  Eh,  Tonio !   is  it  you  ?      Come  in ! })  replied  the  voice  within. 

Tonio  opened  the  door,  scarcely  wide  enough  to  admit  himself 
and  his  brother  one  at  a  time.  The  ray  of  light  that  suddenly 
shone  through  the  opening  and  crossed  the  dark  floor  of  the 
landing  made  Lucia  tremble,  as  if  she  were  discovered.  When 
the  brothers  had  entered,  Tonio  closed  the  door  inside:  the  lov- 
ers stood  motionless  in  the  dark,  their  ears  intently  on  the  alert, 
and  holding  their  breath;  the  loudest  noise  was  the  beating  of 
poor  Lucia's  heart. 

Don  Abbondio  was  seated,  as  we  have  said,  in  an  old  arm- 
chair, enveloped  in  an  antiquated  dressing-gown,  and  his  head 
buried  in  a  shabby  cap  of  the  shape  of  a  tiara,  which  by  the 
faint  light  of  a  small  lamp  formed  a  sort  of  cornice  all  around 
his  face.  Two  thick  locks  which  escaped  from  beneath  his  head- 
dress, two  thick  eyebrows,  two  thick  mustachios,  and  a  thick  tuft 
on  the  chin,  all  of  them  gray  and  scattered  over  his  dark  and 
wrinkled  visage,  might  be  compared  to  bushes  covered  with  snow, 
projecting  from  the  face  of  a  cliff,  as  seen  by  moonlight. 


9676 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI 


"Aha!"  was  his  salutation,  as  he  took  off  his  spectacles  and 
laid  them  on  his  book. 

(<  The  Signer  Curate  will  say  I  am  come  very  late, "  said  Tonio 
with  a  low  bow,  which  Gervase  awkwardly  imitated. 

(<  Certainly,  it  is  late  —  late  every  way.  Don't  you  know  I 
am  ill?» 

(<I'm  very  sorry  for  it." 

<(You  must  have  heard  I  was  ill,  and  didn't  know  when  I 
should  be  able  to  see  anybody.  .  .  .  But  why  have  you 
brought  this  —  this  boy  with  you  ? " 

"For  company,  Signor  Curate." 

<(Very  well,  let  us  see." 

<(Here  are  twenty- five  new  berlinghe,  with  the  figure  of  Saint 
Ambrose  on  horseback,"  said  Tonio,  drawing  a  little  parcel  out 
of  his  pocket. 

"  Let  us  see, "  said  Don  Abbondio ;  and  he  took  the  parcel,  put 
on  his  spectacles  again,  opened  it,  took  out  the  berlinghe,  turned 
them  over  and  over,  counted  them,  and  found  them  irreprehen- 
sible. 

"Now,   Signor  Curate,  you  will  give  me  Tecla's  necklace." 

"  You  are  right, "  replied  Don  Abbondio ;  and  going  to  a 
cupboard,  he  took  out  a  key,  looking  around  as  if  to  see  that  all 
prying  spectators  were  at  a  proper  distance,  opened  one  of  the 
doors,  and  filling  up  the  aperture  with  his  person,  introduced  his 
head  to  see  and  his  arm  to  reach  the  pledge;  then  drawing  it 
out,  he  shut  the  cupboard,  unwrapped  the  paper,  and  saying, 
"  Is  that  right  ? "  folded  it  up  again  and  handed  it  to  Tonio. 

C(  Now, "  said  Tonio,  (( will  you  please  to  put  it  in  black  and 
white  ? " 

(( Not  satisfied  yet ! "  said  Don  Abbondio.  <(  I  declare  they 
know  everything.  Eh !  how  suspicious  the  world  has  become ! 
Don't  you  trust  me  ? " 

"What,  Signor  Curate!  Don't  I  trust  you?  You  do  me 
wrong.  But  as  my  name  is  in  your  black  books,  on  the  debtor's 
side —  Then,  since  you  have  had  the  trouble  of  writing  once, 
so —  From  life  to  death — " 

"Well,  well,"  interrupted  Don  Abbondio;  and  muttering  be- 
tween his  teeth,  he  drew  out  one  of  the  table  drawers,  took  thence 
pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  began  to  write,  repeating  the  words 
aloud  as  they  proceeded  from  his  pen.  In  the  mean  time  Tonio, 
and  at  his  side  Gervase,  placed  themselves  standing  before  the 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9677 

table  in  such  a  manner  as  to  conceal  the  door  from  the  view  of 
the  writer,  and  began  to  shuffle  their  feet  about  on  the  floor,  as 
if  in  mere  idleness,  but  in  reality  as  a  signal  to  those  without 
to  enter,  and  at  the  same  time  to  drown  the  noise  of  their  foot- 
steps. Don  Abbondio,  intent  upon  his  writing,  noticed  nothing 
else.  At  the  noise  of  their  feet,  Renzo  took  Lucia's  arm,  pressing 
it  in  an  encouraging  manner,  and  went  forward,  almost  dragging 
her  along;  for  she  trembled  to  such  a  degree  that  without  his 
help  she  must  have  sunk  to  the  ground.  Entering  very  softly, 
on  tiptoe,  and  holding  their  breath,  they  placed  themselves  be- 
hind the  two  brothers.  In  the  mean  time,  Don  Abbondio,  having 
finished  writing,  read  over  the  paper  attentively,  without  raising 
his  eyes;  he  then  folded  it  up,  saying,  ((Are  you  content  now  ? » 
and  taking  off  his  spectacles  with  one  hand,  handed  the  paper  to 
Tonio  with  the  other,  and  looked  up.  Tonio,  extending  his  right 
hand  to  receive  it,  retired  on  one  side,  and  Gervase,  at  a  sign 
from  him,  on  the  other;  and  behold!  as  at  the  shifting  of  a  scene, 
Renzo  and  Lucia  stood  between  them.  Don  Abbondio  saw  indis- 
tinctly—  saw  clearly  —  was  terrified,  astonished,  enraged,  buried  in 
thought,  came  to  a  resolution;  and  all  this  while  Renzo  uttered 
the  words,  (( Signor  Curate,  in  the  presence  of  these  witnesses, 
this  is  my  wife."  Before,  however,  Lucia's  lips  could  form  the 
reply,  Don  Abbondio  dropped  the  receipt,  seized  the  lamp  with 
his  left  hand  and  raised  it  in  the  air,  caught  hold  of  the  cloth 
with  his  right,  and  dragged  it  furiously  off  the  table,  bringing 
to  the  ground  in  its  fall,  book,  paper,  inkstand,  and  sand-box; 
and  springing  between  the  chair  and  the  table,  advanced  towards 
Lucia.  The  poor  girl,  with  her  sweet  gentle  voice,  trembling 
violently,  had  scarcely  uttered  the  words,  <(And  this — w  when 
Don  Abbondio  threw  the  cloth  rudely  over  her  head  and  face,  to 
prevent  her  pronouncing  the  entire  formula.  Then,  letting  the 
light  fall  from  his  other  hand,  he  employed  both  to  wrap  the 
cloth  round  her  face,  till  she  was  well-nigh  smothered,  shouting 
in  the  mean  while,  at  the  stretch  of  his  voice,  like  a  wounded 
bull,  (<  Perpetual  Perpetual  —  treachery!  —  help!"  The  light,  just 
glimmering  on  the  ground,  threw  a  dim  and  flickering  ray  upon 
Lucia,  who,  in  utter  consternation,  made  no  attempt  to  disengage 
herself,  and  might  be  compared  to  a  statue  sculptured  in  chalk, 
over  which  the  artificer  had  thrown  a  wet  cloth.  When  the  light 
died  away,  Don  Abbondio  quitted  the  poor  girl,  and  went  grop- 
ing about  to  find  the  door  that  opened  into  an  inner  room:  and 


9678 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI 


having  reached  it,  he  entered  and  shut  himself  in,  unceasingly 
exclaiming,  (<  Perpetua !  treachery !  help !  Out  of  the  house !  Out 
of  the  house ! }) 

In  the  other  room  all  was  confusion:  Renzo,  seeking  to  lay 
hold  of  the  Curate,  and  feeling  with  his  hands,  as  if  playing  at 
blindman's  buff,  had  reached  the  door,  and  kicking  against  it, 
was  crying,  "Open,  open;  don't  make  such  a  noise !})  Lucia, 
calling  to  Renzo  in  a  feeble  voice,  said  beseechingly,  <(  Let  us  go, 
let  us  go,  for  God's  sakeo"  Tonio  was  crawling  on  his  knees, 
and  feeling  with  his  hands  on  the  ground  to  recover  his  lost 
receipt.  The  terrified  Gervase  was  crying  and  jumping  about, 
and  seeking  for  the  door  of  the  stairs,  so  as  to  make  his  escape 
in  safety. 

In  the  midst  of  this  uproar,  we  cannot  but  stop  a  moment  to 
make  a  reflection.  Renzo,  who  was  causing  disturbance  at  night 
in  another  person's  house,  who  had  effected  an  entrance  by 
stealth,  and  who  had  blockaded  the  master  himself  in  one  of  his 
own  rooms,  has  all  the  appearance  of  an  oppressor;  while  in  fact 
he  was  the  oppressed.  Don  Abbondio,  taken  by  surprise,  terrified 
and  put  to  flight,  while  peaceably  engaged  in  his  own  affairs, 
appears  the  victim;  when  in  reality  it  was  he  who  did  the  wrong. 
Thus  frequently  goes  the  world;  —  or  rather,  we  should  say,  thus 
it  went  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  besieged,  finding  that  the  enemy  gave  no  signs  of  aban- 
doning the  enterprise,  opened  a  window  that  looked  into  the 
church-yard,  and  shouted  out,  ((  Help !  help ! >}  There  was  a  most 
lovely  moon;  the  shadow  of  the  church,  and  a  little  farther  on 
the  long  sharp  shadow  of  the  bell-tower,  lay  dark,  still,  and  well 
defined,  on  the  bright  grassy  level  of  the  sacred  inclosure:  all 
objects  were  visible,  almost  as  by  day.  But  look  which  way  you 
would,  there  appeared  no  sign  of  living  person.  Adjoining  the 
lateral  wall  of  the  church,  on  the  side  next  the  parsonage,  was  a 
small  dwelling  where  the  sexton  slept  Aroused  by  this  unusual 
cry,  he  sprang  up  in  his  bed,  jumped  out  in  great  haste,  threw 
open  the  sa'sh  of  his  little  window,  put  his  head  out  with  his 
eyelids  glued  together  all  the  while,  and  cried  out,  (<  What's  the 
matter  ? » 

tt  Run,  Ambrogio  I  help !  people  in  the  house  i )}  answered  Don 
Abbondio.  a  Coming  directly, >J  replied  he?  as  he  drew  in  his 
head  and  shut  the  window;  and  although  half  asleep  and  more 
than  half  terrified,  an  expedient  quickly  occurred  to  him  that 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9679 

would  bring  more  aid  than  had  been  asked,  without  dragging  him 
into  the  affray,  whatever  it  might  be.  Seizing  his  breeches  that 
lay  upon  the  bed,  he  tucked  them  under  his  arm  like  a  gala  hat, 
and  bounding  down-stairs  by  a  little  wooden  ladder,  ran  to  the 
belfry,  caught  hold  of  the  rope  that  was  attached  to  the  larger 
of  the  two  bells,  and  pulled  vigorously. 

Ton,  ton,  ton,  ton:  the  peasant  sprang  up  in  his  bed;  the 
boy  stretched  in  the  hay-loft  listened  eagerly,  and  leapt  upon 
his  feet  «  What's  the  matter?  what's  the  matter?  The  bell  's 
ringing!  Fire?  Thieves?  Banditti?"  Many  of  the  women 
advised,  begged,  their  husbands  not  to  stir  —  to  let  others  run; 
some  got  up  and  went  to  the  window;  those  who  were  cowards, 
as  if  yielding  to  entreaty,  quietly  slipped  under  the  bedclothes 
again;  while  the  more  inquisitive  and  courageous  sprang  up  and 
armed  themselves  with  pitchforks  and  pistols,  to  run  to  the  up- 
roar; others  waited  to  see  the  end.  .  .  . 

Renzo,  who  had  more  of  his  senses  about  him  than  the  rest, 
remembered  that  they  had  better  make  their  escape  one  way 
or  another  before  the  crowds  assembled;  and  that  the  best  plan 
would  be  to  do  as  Menico  advised, — nay,  commanded,  with  the 
authority  of  one  in  terror.  When  once  on  their  way,  and  out  of 
the  tumult  and  danger,  he  could  ask  a  clearer  explanation  from 
the  boy.  (<  Lead  the  way,"  said  he  to  Menico;  and  addressing 
the  women,  said,  <(  Let  us  go  with  him."  They  therefore  quickly 
turned  their  steps  towards  the  church,  crossed  the  church -yard, 
• — where,  by  the  favor  of  Heaven,  there  was  not  yet  a  living 
creature, —  entered  a  little  street  that  ran  between  the  church 
and  Don  Abbondio's  house,  turned  into  the  first  alley  they  came 
to,  and  then  took  the  way  of  the  fields. 

They  had  not  perhaps  gone  fifty  yards,  when  the  crowd 
began  to  collect  in  the  church-yard,  and  rapidly  increased  every 
moment.  They  looked  inquiringly  in  each  other's  faces;  every 
one  had  a  question  to  ask,  but  no  one  could  return  an  answer. 
Those  who  arrived  first  ran  to  the  church  door:  it  was  locked. 
They  then  ran  to  the  belfry  outside;  and  one  of  them,  putting 
his  mouth  to  a  very  small  window,  a  sort  of  loophole,  cried, 
(<  What  ever  is  the  matter  ? "  As  soon  as  Ambrogio  recognized  a 
known  voice,  he  let  go  of  the  bell-rope,  and  being  assured  by 
the  buzz  that  many  people  had  assembled,  replied,  (( I'll  open 
the  door."  Hastily  slipping  on  the  apparel  he  had  carried  undet 
his  arm,  he  went  inside  the  church  and  opened  the  door. 


9680 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


«What  is  all  this  hubbub?  — What  is  it?  — Where  is  it?— 
Who  is  it?» 

<(  Why,  who  is  it  ? "  said  Ambrogio,  laying1  one  hand  on  the 
door-post,  and  with  the  other  holding  up  the  habiliment  he  had 
put  on  in  such  haste:  <(What!  don't  you  know?  People  in  the 
Signor  Curate's  house.  Up,  boys;  help!"  Hearing  this,  they  all 
turned  to  the  house,  looked  up,  approached  it  in  a  body,  looked 
up  again,  listened:  all  was  quiet.  Some  ran  to  the  street  door; 
it  was  shut  and  bolted:  they  glanced  upwards;  not  a  window  was 
open,  not  a  whisper  was  to  be  heard. 

(<  Who  is  within  ?  —  Ho !  Hey !  —  Signor  Curate !  —  Signor 
Curate !» 

Don  Abbondio,  who,  scarcely  aware  of  the  flight  of  the  in- 
vaders, had  retired  from  the  window  and  closed  it,  and  who  at 
this  moment  was  reproaching  Perpetua  in  a  low  voice  for  having 
left  him  alone  in  this  confusion,  was  obliged,  when  he  heard  him- 
self called  upon  by  the  voice  of  the  assembled  people,  to  show 
himself  again  at  the  window;  and  when  he  saw  the  crowds  that 
had  come  to  his  aid,  he  sorely  repented  having  called  them. 

<(  What  has  happened  ?  —  What  have  they  done  to  you  ? —  Who 
are  they?  — Where  are  they?"  burst  forth  from  fifty  voices  at 
once. 

(< There's  nobody  here  now:  thank  you;  go  home  again." 

(<  But  who  has  been  here  ?  —  Where  are  they  gone  ?  —  What 
has  happened  ? " 

<(  Bad  people,  people  who  go  about  by  night ;  but  they're  gone : 
go  home  again;  there  is  no  longer  anything;  another  time,  my 
children:  I  thank  you  for  your  kindness  to  me."  So  saying,  he 
drew  back  and  shut  the  window.  Some  of  the  crowd  began  to 
grumble,  some  to  joke,  others  to  curse;  some  shrugged  their 
shoulders  and  took  their  departure.  . 

The  melancholy  trio  continued  their  walk,  the  women  taking 
the  lead  and  Renzo  behind  to  act  as  guard.  Lucia  clung  closely 
to  her  mother's  arm,  kindly  and  dexterously  avoiding  the  prof- 
fered assistance  of  the  youth  at  the  difficult  passes  of  this  unfre- 
quented path;  feeling  ashamed  of  herself,  even  in  such  troubles, 
for  having  already  been  so  long  and  so  familiarly  alone  with 
him,  while  expecting  in  a  few  moments  to  be  his  wife.  Now 
that  this  vision  had  been  so  sorrowfully  dispelled,  she  repented 
having  proceeded  thus  far;  and  amidst  so  many  causes  of  fear, 
she  feared  even  for  her  modesty; — not  such  modesty  as  arises 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI  968l 

from  the  sad  knowledge  of  evil,  but  for  that  which  is  ignorant 
of  its  own  existence;  like  the  dread  of  a  child  who  trembles  in 
the  dark,  he  knows  not  why. 

"And  the  house  ? w  suddenly  exclaimed  Agnese.  But  however 
important  the  object  might  be  which  extorted  this  exclamation, 
no  one  replied,  because  no  one  could  do  so  satisfactorily.  They 
therefore  continued  their  walk  in  silence,  and  in  a  little  while 
reached  the  square  before  the  church  of  the  convent. 

Renzo  advanced  to  the  door  of  the  church,  and  gently'  pushed 
it  open.  The  moon  that  entered  through  the  aperture  fell  upon 
the  pale  face  and  silvery  beard  of  Father  Cristoforo,  who  was 
standing  here  expecting  them;  and  having  seen  that  no  one 
was  missing,  <(  God  be  praised ! >}  said  he,  beckoning  to  them  to 
enter.  By  his  side  stood  another  Capuchin,  the  lay  sexton,  whom 
he  had  persuaded  by  prayers  and  arguments  to  keep  vigil  with 
him,  to  leave  the  door  ajar,  and  to  remain  there  on  guttrd  to 
receive  these  poor  threatened  creatures;  and  it  required  nothing 
short  of  the  authority  of  the  Father,  and  of  his  fame  as  a  saint, 
to  persuade  the  layman  to  so  inconvenient,  perilous,  and  irregu- 
lar a  condescension.  When  they  were  inside,  Father  Cristoforo 
very  softly  shut  the  door.  Then  the  sexton  could  no  longer  con- 
tain himself,  and  taking  the  Father  aside,  whispered  in  his  ear. 
<(  But,  Father,  Father !  at  night  —  in  church  —  with  women  —  shut 
—  the  rule  —  but,  Father !  w  And  he  shook  his  head,  while  thus 
hesitatingly  pronouncing  these  words.  Just  see!  thought  Father 
Cristoforo:  if  it  were  a  pursued  robber,  Friar  Fazio  would  make 
no  difficulty  in  the  world;  but  a  poor  innocent  escaping  from 
the  jaws  of  a  wolf —  ^Omnia  munda  mundis**  added  he,  turn- 
ing suddenly  to  Friar  Fazio,  and  forgetting  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand Latin.  But  this  forgetfulness  was  exactly  what  produced 
the  right  effect.  If  the  Father  had  begun  to  dispute  and  reason, 
Friar  Fazio  would  not  have  failed  to  urge  opposing  arguments, 
and  no  one  knows  how  and  when  the  discussion  would  have  come 
to  an  end;  but  at  the  sound  of  these  weighty  words  of  a  mys- 
terious signification,  and  so  resolutely  uttered,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  in  them  must  be  contained  the  solution  of  all  his  doubts. 
He  acquiesced,  saying,  <(Very  well:  you  know  more  about  it  than 
1  do.» 

*Or  in  reverse,  <(To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure.» 


9682 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI 


<( Trust  me,  then,"  replied  Father  Cristoforo;  ana  by  the 
dim  light  of  the  lamp  burning  before  the  altar,  he  approached 
the  refugees,  who  stood  waiting  in  suspense,  and  said  to  them, 
(<  My  children,  thank  God,  who  has  delivered  you  from  so  great 
a  danger!  Perhaps  at  this  moment — M  And  here  he  began  to 
explain  more  fully  what  he  had  hinted  by  the  little  messen- 
ger; little  suspecting  that  they  knew  more  than  he,  and  sup- 
posing that  Menico  had  found  them  quiet  in  their  own  house, 
before  the  arrival  of  the  ruffians.  Nobody  undeceived  him,— 
not  even  Lucia,  whose  conscience,  however,  was  all  the  while 
secretly  reproaching  her  for  practicing  such  dissimulation  with  so 
good  a  man;  but  it  was  a  night  of  embarrassment  and  dissimula- 
tion. 

(( After  this, }>  continued  he,  <(  you  must  feel,  my  children,  that 
the  village  is  no  longer  safe  for  you.  It  is  yours,  who  were 
born  there,  and  you  have  done  no  wrong  to  any  one;  but  God 
wills  it  so.  It  is  a  trial,  my  children;  bear  it  with  patience  and 
faith,  without  indulging  in  rancor,  and  rest  assured  there  will 
come  a  day  when  you  will  think  yourselves  happy  that  this  has 
occurred.  I  have  thought  of  a  refuge  for  you,  for  the  present. 
Soon,  I  hope,  you  may  be  able  to  return  in  safety  to  your  own 
house;  at  any  rate;  God  will  provide  what  is  best  for  you;  and  I 
assure  you,  I  will  be  careful  not  to  prove  unworthy  of  the  favor 
he  has  bestowed  upon  me,  in  choosing  me  as  his  minister,  in 
the  service  of  you  his  poor  yet  loved  afflicted  ones.  You,)}  con- 
tinued he,  turning  to  the  two  women,  <(  can  stay  at  .  Here 

you  will  be  far  enough  from  every  danger,  and  at  the  same 
time  not  far  from  your  own  home.  There  seek  out  our  con- 
vent, ask  for  the  guardian,  and  give  him  this  letter:  he  will  be 
to  you  another  Father  Cristoforo.  And  you,  my  Renzo,  must 
put  yourself  in  safety  from  the  anger  of  others,  and  your  own. 
Carry  this  letter  to  Father  Bonaventura  da  Lodi,  in  our  convent 
of  the  Porta  Orientale,  at  Milan.  He  will  be  a  father  to  you, 
will  give  you  directions  and  find  you  work,  till  you  can  return 
and  live  more  peaceably.  Go  to  the  shore  of  the  lake,  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Bione,  a  river  not  far  from  this  monastery. 
Here  you  will  see  a  boat  waiting ;  say,  (  Boat ! >  It  will  be  asked 
you,  (  For  whom  ? >  And  you  must  reply,  (  San  Francesco.  }  The 
boat  will  receive^you  and  carry  you  to  the  other  side,  where  you 
will  find  a  cart  that  will  take  you  straight  to .* 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


9683 


If  any  one  asks  how  Father  Cristoforo  had  so  quickly  at  his 
disposal  these  means  of  transport  by  land  and  water,  it  will  show 
that  he  does  not  know  the  influence  and  power  of  a  Capuchin 
held  in  reputation  as  a  saint. 

It  still  remained  to  decide  about  the  care  of  the  houses. 
The  Father  received  the  keys,  pledging  himself  to  deliver  them 
to  whomsoever  Renzo  and  Agnese  should  name.  The  latter,  in 
delivering  up  hers,  heaved  a  deep  sigh,  remembering  that  at  that 
moment  the  house  was  open,  that  the  devil  had  been  there,  and 
who  knew  what  remained  to  be  taken  care  of  ! 

(<  Before  you  go,"  said  the  Father,  <(  let  us  pray  all  together 
that  the  Lord  may  be  with  you  in  this  your  'journey,  and  for 
ever;  and  above  all,  that  he  may  give  you  strength  and  a  spirit 
of  love,  to  enable  you  to  desire  whatever  he  has  willed. })  So 
saying,  he  knelt  down  in  the  middle  of  the  church,  and  they  all 
followed  his  example. 

After  praying  a  few  moments  in  silence,  with  a  low  but  dis- 
tinct voice  he  pronounced  these  words :  — <(  We  beseech  thee  also 
for  the  unhappy  person  who  has  brought  us  to  this  state.  We 
should  be  unworthy  of  thy  mercy  if  we  did  not  from  our  hearts 
implore  it  for  him;  he  needs  it,  O  Lord!  We,  in  our  sorrow, 
have  this  consolation,  that  we  are  in  the  path  where  thou  hast 
placed  us;  we  can  offer  thee  our  griefs  and  they  may  become 
our  gain.  But  he  is  thine  enemy!  Alas,  wretched  man,  he  is 
striving  with  thee !  Have  mercy  on  him,  O  Lord,  touch  his  heart ; 
reconcile  him  to  thyself,  and  give  him  all  those  good  things  we 
could  desire  for  ourselves." 

Rising  then  in  haste,  he  said,  <(  Come,  my  children,  you  have 
no  time  to  lose:  God  defend  you;  his  angel  go  with  you;  — 
farewell ! "  And  while  they  set  off  with  that  emotion  which 
cannot  find  words,  and  manifests  itself  without  them,  the  Father 
added  in  an  agitated  tone,  <(  My  heart  tells  me  we  shall  meet 
again  soon." 

Certainly  the  heart,  to  those  who  listen  to  it,  has  always  some- 
thing to  say  on  what  will  happen;  but  what  did  his  heart  know? 
Very  little,  truly,  of  what  had  already  happened. 

Without  waiting  a  reply,  Father  Cristoforo  retired  with  hasty 
steps;  the  travelers  took  their  departure,  and  Father  Fazio  shut 
the  door  after  them,  bidding  them  farewell  with  even  his  voice  a 
little  faltering. 


9684 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


The  trio  slowly  made  their  way  to  the  shore  they  had  been 
directed  to;  there  they  espied  the  boat,  and  exchanging  the  pass- 
word, stepped  in.  The  waterman,  planting  one  oar  on  the  land, 
pushed  off;  then  took  up  the  other  oar,  and  rowing  with  both 
hands,  pulled  out  and  made  towards  the  opposite  beach.  Not  a 
breath  of  wind  was  stirring;  the  lake  lay  bright  and  smooth,  and 
would  have  appeared  motionless  but  for  the  tremulous  and  gen- 
tle undulation  of  the  moonbeams,  which  gleamed  upon  it  from 
the  zenith.  No  sounds  were  heard  but  the  muffled  and  slowly 
measured  breaking  of  the  surge  upon  the  pebbly  shore,  the  more 
distant  gurgling  of  the  troubled  waters  dashing  among  the  .piles 
of  the  bridge,  arid  the  even  plash  of  the  light  sculls,  as,  rising 
with  the  sharp  sound  of  a  dripping  blade,  and  quickly  plunged 
again  beneath,  they  cut  the  azure  surface  of  the  lake.  The 
waves,  divided  by  the  prow,  and  reuniting  behind  the  little  bark, 
tracked  out  a  curling  line  which  extended  itself  to  the  shore.  The 
silent  travelers,  with  their  faces  turned  backwards,  gazed  upon 
the  mountains  and  the  country,  illumined  by  the  pale  light  of 
the  moon,  and  diversified  here  and  there  with  vast  shadows. 
They  could  distinguish  the  villages,  the  houses,  and  the  little 
cabins:  the  palace  of  Don  Rodrigo,  with  its  square  tower,  rising 
above  the  group  of  huts  at  the  base  of  the  promontory,  looked 
like  a  savage  standing  in  the  dark  and  meditating  some  evil 
deed  while  keeping  guard  over  a  company  of  reclining  sleepers. 
Lucia  saw  it  and  shuddered;  then  drawing  her  eye  along  the 
declivity  till  she  reached  her  native  village,  she  fixed  her  gaze  on 
its  extremity,  sought  for  her  own  cottage,  traced  out  the  thick 
head  of  the  fig-tree  which  towered  above  the  wall  of  the  court- 
yard, discovered  the  window  of  her  own  room, — and  being  seated 
in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  'she  leaned  her  elbow  on  the  edge, 
laid  her  forehead  on  her  arm  as  if  she  were  sleeping,  and  wept 
in  secret. 

Farewell,  ye  mountains,  rising  from  the  waters  and  pointing 
to  the  heavens!  ye  varied  summits,  familiar  to  him  who  has  been 
brought  up  among  you,  and  impressed  upon  his  mind  as  clearly 
as  the  countenance  of  his  dearest  friends!  ye  torrents,  whose 
murmur  he  recognizes  like  the  sound  of  the  voices  of  home!  ye 
villages,  scattered  and  glistening  on  the  declivity,  like  flocks  of 
grazing  sheep!  Farewell!  How  mournful  is  the  step  of  him 
who,  brought  up  amidst  your  scenes,  is  compelled  to  leave  you' 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9685 

Even  in  the  imagination  of  one  who  willingly  departs,  attracted  by 
the  hope  of  making  a  fortune  elsewhere,  the  dreams  of  wealth  at 
this  moment  lose  their  charms ;  he  wonders  he  could  form  such  a 
resolution,  and  would  even  now  turn  back  but  for  the  hope  of 
one  day  returning  with  a  rich  abundance.  As  he  advances  into 
the  plain,  his  eye  becomes  wearied  with  its  uniform  extent;  the 
atmosphere  feels  heavy  and  lifeless;  he  sadly  and  listlessly  enters 
the  busy  cities,  where  houses  crowded  upon  houses,  and  streets 
intersecting  streets,  seem  to  take  away  his  breath;  and  before 
edifices  admired  by  the  stranger,  he  recalls  with  restless  longing 
the  fields  of  his  own  country,  and  the  cottage  he  had  long  ago 
set  his  heart  upon,  and  which  he  resolves  to  purchase  when  he 
returns  enriched  to  his  own  mountains. 

But  what  must  he  feel  who  has  never  sent  a  passing  wish 
beyond  these  mountains,  who  has  arranged  among  them  all  his 
designs  for  the  future,  and  is  driven  far  away  by  an  adverse 
power!  who,  suddenly  snatched  away  from  his  dearest  habits,  and 
thwarted  in  his  dearest  hopes,  leaves  these  mountains  to  go  in 
search  of  strangers  whom  he  never  desired  to  know,  and  is  un- 
able to  look  forward  to  a  fixed  time  of  return! 

Farewell,  native  cottage  —  where,  indulging  in  unconscious 
fancy,  one  learnt  to  distinguish  from  the  noise  of  common  foot- 
steps the  approach  of  a  tread  expected  with  mysterious  timid- 
ity! Farewell,  thou  cottage, —  still  a  stranger,  but  so  often  hastily 
glanced  at,  not  without  a  blush,  in  passing  —  in  which  the  mind 
took  delight  to  figure  to  itself  the  tranquil  and  lasting  home 
of  a  wife !  Farewell,  my  church,  where  the  heart  was  so  often 
soothed  while  chanting  the  praises  of  the  Lord;  where  the  pre- 
paratory rite  of  betrothal  was  performed;  where  the  secret  sigh- 
ing of  the  heart  was  solemnly  blessed,  and  love  was  inspired, 
and  one  felt  a  hallowing  influence  around.  Farewell!  He  who 
imparted  to  you  such  gladness  is  everywhere ;  and  he  never  dis- 
turbs the  joy  of  his  children  but  to  prepare  them  for  one  more 
certain  and  durable. 

Of  such  a  nature,  if  not  exactly  these,  were  the  reflections  of 
Lucia;  and  not  very  dissimilar  were  those  of  the  two  other  wan- 
derers, while  the  little  bark  rapidly  approached  the  right  bank  of 
the  Adda. 


9686  ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 

A  LATE   REPENTANCE 
From  <The  Betrothed  > 

[In  several  chapters  preceding  the  following  affecting  extract  from  Man- 
zoni's  story  is  described  the  imprisonment  of  Lucia  Mondella,  the  heroine  of 
the  tale,  in  the  lonely  castle  of  an  outlaw.  The  latter  is  a  man  of  rank;  but 
guilty  of  such  a  succession  of  murders,  robberies,  and  other  villainies,'  during 
many  years,  that  he  —  in  the  story  he  is  called  only  <The  Unnamed* —  has 
become  a  terror  throughout  all  the  country-side.  A  sudden  repentance  and 
remorse  comes  to  this  monster  of  wickedness.  Hearing  that  the  great  Cardi- 
nal Federigo  Borromeo  of  Milan  is  arrived  in  the  neighborhood,  he  decides,  in 
great  hesitation  and  contrition,  to  visit  that  kindly  and  courageous  priest.] 

CARDINAL  FEDERIGO  was  employed  —  according  to  his  usual 
custom  in  every  leisure  interval  —  in  study,  until  the  hour 
arrived  for  repairing-  to  the  church  for  the  celebration  of 
Divine  service;  when  the  chaplain  and  cross-bearer  entered  with 
a  disturbed  and  gloomy  countenance. 

<(A  strange  visitor,  my  noble  lord  —  strange  indeed!" 

«Who?»  asked  the  Cardinal. 

tt  No  less  a  personage  than  the  Signer , )J  replied  the  chap- 
lain; and  pronouncing  the  syllables  with  a  very  significant  tone, 
he  uttered  the  name  which  we  cannot  give  to  our  readers.  He 
then  added,  (<  He  is  here  outside  in  person,  and  demands  noth- 
ing less  than  to  be  introduced  to  your  illustrious  Grace. >} 

"He!"  said  the  Cardinal  with  an  animated  look,  shutting  his 
book  and  rising  from  his  seat :  (<  let  him  come  in !  —  let  him 
come  in  directly ! w 

(<  But  — J>  rejoined  the  chaplain,  without  attempting  to  move, 
"your  illustrious  Lordship  must  surely  be  aware  who  he  is:  that 
outlaw,  that  famous — >J 

<(And  is  it  not  a  most  happy  circumstance  for  a  bishop,  that 
such  a  man  should  feel  a  wish  to  come  and  seek  an  interview 
with  him  ? » 

<(But — w  insisted  the  chaplain,  (<  we  may  never  speak  of  cer- 
tain things,  because  my  lord  says  it  is  all  nonsense :  but  when 
it  comes  to  the  point,  I  think  it  is  a  duty —  Zeal  makes  many 
enemies,  my  lord;  and  we  know  positively  that  more  than  one 
ruffian  has  dared  to  boast  that  some  day  or  other — w 

<(And  what  have  they  done  ? })  interrupted  the  Cardinal. 

<(  I  say  that  this  man  is  a  plotter  of  mischief,  a  desperate 
character,  who  holds  correspondence  with  the  most  violent  des- 
peradoes, and  who  may  be  sent — w 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9687 

<(Oh,  what  discipline  is  this,"  again  interrupted  Federigo,  smil- 
ing, "for  the  soldiers  to  exhort  their  general  to  cowardice  ?>} 
Then  resuming  a  grave  and  thoughtful  air,  he  continued :  <(  Saint 
Carlo  would  not  have  deliberated  whether  he  ought  to  receive 
such  a  man:  he  would  have  gone  to  seek  him.  Let  him  be 
admitted  directly:  he  has  already  waited  too  long." 

The  chaplain  moved  towards  the  door,  saying  in  his  heart, 
<(  There's  no  remedy:  these  saints  are  all  obstinate. }> 

Having  opened  the  door  and  surveyed  the  room  where  the 
Signor  and  his  companions  were,  he  saw  that  the  latter  had 
crowded  together  on  one  side,  where  they  sat  whispering  and 
cautiously  peeping  at  their  visitor,  while  he  was  left  alone  in  one 
corner.  The  chaplain  advanced  towards  him,  eying  him  guard- 
edly from  head  to  foot,  and  wondering  what  weapons  he  might 
have  hidden  under  that  great  coat:  thinking  at  the  same  time 
that  really,  before  admitting  him,  he  ought  at  least  to  have  pro- 
posed—  But  he  could  not  resolve  what  to  do.  He  approached 
him,  saying,  (<  His  Grace  waits  for  your  Lordships  Will  you 
be  good  enough  to  come  with  me  ? w  And  as  he  preceded  him 
through  the  little  crowd,  which  instantly  gave  way  for  him,  he 
kept  casting  glances  on  each  side,  which  meant  to  say,  "What 
could  I  do  ?  don't  you  know  yourselves  that  he  always  has  his 
own  way  ? w 

On  reaching  the  apartment,  the  chaplain  opened  the  door  and 
introduced  the  Unnamed.  Federigo  advanced  to  meet  him  with 
a  happy  and  serene  look,  and  his  hand  extended,  as  if  to  wel- 
come an  expected  guest;  at  the  same  time  making  a  sign  to 
the  chaplain  to  go  out,  which  was  immediately  obeyed. 

When  thus  left  alone,  they  both  stood  for  a  moment  silent 
and  in  suspense,  though  from  widely  different  feelings.  The 
Unnamed,  who  had  as  it  were  been  forcibly  carried  there  by  an 
inexplicable  compulsion,  rather  than  led  by  a  determinate  inten- 
tion, now  stood  there,  also  as  it  were  by  compulsion,  torn  by  two 
contending  feelings:  on  the  one  side,  a  desire  and  confused  hope 
of  meeting  with  some  alleviation  of  his  inward  torment;  on 
the  other,  a  feeling  of  self -rebuked  shame  at  having  come  hither, 
like  a  penitent,  subdued  and  wretched,  to  confess  himself  guilty 
and  to  make  supplication  to  a  man:  he  was  at  a  loss  for  words, 
and  indeed  scarcely  sought  for  them.  Raising  his  eyes,  however, 
to  the  Archbishop's  face,  he  became  gradually  filled  with  a  feel- 
ing of  veneration,  authoritative  and  at  the  same  time  soothing; 


9688 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


which,  while  it  increased  his  confidence,  gently  subdued  his 
haughtiness,  and  without  offending  his  pride,  compelled  it  to  give 
way,  and  imposed  silence. 

The  bearing  of  Federigo  was  in  fact  one  which  announced 
superiority,  and  at  the  same  time  excited  love.  It  was  natur- 
ally sedate,  and  almost  involuntarily  commanding,  his  figure  being 
not  in  the  least  bowed  or  wasted  by  age;  while  his  solemn 
yet  sparkling  eye,  his  open  and  thoughtful  forehead,  a  kind  of 
virginal  floridness,  which  might  be  distinguished  even  among 
gray  locks,  paleness,  and  the  traces  of  abstinence,  meditation,  and 
labor:  in  short,  all  his  features  indicated  that  they  had  once 
possessed  that  which  is  most  strictly  entitled  beauty.  The  habit 
of  serious  and  benevolent  thought,  the  inward  peace  of  a  long 
life,  the  love  that  he  felt  towards  his  fellow-creatures,  and  the 
uninterrupted  enjoyment  of  an  ineffable  hope,  had  now  substi- 
tuted the  beauty  (so  to  say)  of  old  age,  which  shone  forth  more 
attractively  from  the  magnificent  simplicity  of  the  purple. 

He  fixed  for  a  moment  on  the  countenance  of  the  Unnamed 
a  penetrating  look,  long  accustomed  to  ,  gather  from  this  index 
what  was  passing  in  the  mind;  and  imagining  he  discovered, 
under  that  dark  and  troubled  mien,  something  every  moment 
more  corresponding  with  the  hope  he  had  conceived  on  the  first 
announcement  of  such  a  visit.  <(  Oh ! >J  cried  he,  in  an  animated 
voice,  "what  a  welcome  visit  is  this!'  and  how  thankful  I  ought 
to  be  to  you  for  taking  such  a  step,  although  it  may  convey  to 
me  a  little  reproof ! }> 

<(  Reproof ! "  exclaimed  the  Signer,  much  surprised,  but  soothed 
by  his  words  and  manner,  and  glad  that  the  Cardinal  had  broken 
the  ice  and  started  some  sort  of  conversation. 

(<  Certainly  it  conveys  to  me  a  reproof, >}  replied  the  Arch- 
bishop, <(for  allowing  you  to  be  beforehand  with  me  when  so 
often,  and  for  so  long  a  time,  I  might  and  ought  to  have  come 
to  you  myself. )} 

<(  You  come  to  me !  Do  you  know  who  I  am  ?  Did  they  de- 
liver my  name  rightly  ? >J 

<(And  the  happiness  I  feel,  and  which  must  surely  be  evi- 
dent in  my  countenance, —  do  you  think  I  should  feel  it  at  the 
announcement  and  visit  of  a  stranger  ?  It  is  you  who  make  me 
experience  it;  you,  I  say,  whom  I  ought  to  have  sought;  you 
whom  I  have  at  least  loved  and  wept  over,  and  for  whom  I 
have  so  often  prayed;  you  among  all  my  children  —  for  each 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


9689 


one  I  love  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  —  whom  I  should  most 
have  desired  to  receive  and  embrace,  if  I  had  thought  I  might 
hope  for  such  a  thing.  But  God  alone  knows  how  to  work  won- 
ders, and  supplies  the  weakness  and  tardiness  of  his  unworthy 
servants. }> 

The. Unnamed  stood  astonished  at  this  warm  reception,  in  lan- 
guage which  corresponded  so  exactly  with  that  which  he  had  not 
yet  expressed,  nor  indeed  had  fully  determined  to  express;  and, 
affected  but  exceedingly  surprised,  he  remained  silent.  <(  Well ! * 
resumed  Federigo  still  more  affectionately,  <(  you  have  good  news 
to  tell  me ;  and  you  keep  me  so  long  expecting  it  ? " 

"Good  news!  I  have  hell  in  my  heart;  and  can  I  tell  you 
any  good  tidings  ?  Tell  me,  if  you  know,  what  good  news  you 
can  expect  from  such  as  I  am  ? " 

((That  God  has  touched  your  heart  and  would  make  you  his 
own,"  replied  the  Cardinal  calmly. 

«God!  God!  God!  If  I  could  see  him!  If  I  could  hear  him! 
Where  is  this  God  ?  » 

(<  Do  you  ask  this  ?  you  ?  And  who  has  him  nearer  than  you  ? 
Do  you  not  feel  him  in  your  heart,  overcoming,  agitating  you, 
never  leaving  you  at  ease,  and  at  the  same  time  drawing  you  for- 
ward, presenting  to  your  view  a  hope  of  tranquillity  and  conso- 
lation, a  consolation  which  shall  be  full  and  boundless,  as  soon 
as  you  recognize  him,  acknowledge  and  implore  him  ? " 

c<  Oh,  surely !  there  is  something  within  that  oppresses,  that 
consumes  me !  But  God !  If  this  be  Gods  if  he  be  such  as  they 
say,  what  do  you  suppose  he  can  do  with  me?" 

These  words  were  uttered  with  an  accent  of  despair;  but 
Federigo,  with  a  solemn  tone  as  of  calm  inspiration,  replied:  — 
<(  What  can  God  do  with  you  ?  What  would  he  wish  to  make  of 
you  ?  A  token  of  his  power  and  goodness :  he  would  acquire 
through  you  a  glory  such  as  others  could  not  give  him.  The 
world  has  long  cried  out  against  you;  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
voices  have  declared  their  detestation  of  your  deeds."  (The  Un- 
named shuddered,  and  felt  for  a  moment  surprised  at  hearing  such 
unusual  language  addressed  to  him  and  still  more  surprised  that 
he  felt  no  anger,  but  rather  almost  a  relief. )  (<  What  glory, }>  pur- 
sued Federigo/  (<will  thus  redound  to  God!  They  may  be  voices 
of  alarm,  of  self-interest;  of  justice,  perhaps  —  a  justice  so  easy! 
so  natural!  Some  perhaps  —  yea,  too  many  —  may  be  voices 
of  envy  of  your  wretched  power;  of  your  hitherto  deplorable 


9690 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


security  of  heart.  But  when  you  yourself  rise  up  to  condemn 
your  past  life,  to  become  your  own  accuser, —  then,  then  indeed, 
God  will  be  glorified!  And  you  ask  what  God  can  do  with  you. 
Who  am  I,  a  poor  mortal,  that  I  can  tell  you  what  use  such  a 
Being  may  choose  henceforth  to  make  of  you  ?  how  he  can  em- 
ploy your  impetuous  will,  your  unwavering  perseverance,  when  he 
shall  have  animated  and  invigorated  them  with  love,  with  hope, 
with  repentance  ?  Who  are  you,  weak  man,  that  you  should 
imagine  yourself  capable  of  devising  and  executing  greater  deeds 
of  evil,  than  God  can  make  you  will  and  accomplish  in  the  cause 
of  good  ?  What  can  God  do  with  you  ?  Pardon  you !  save  you ! 
finish  in  you  the  work  of  redemption!  Are  not  these  things  noble 
and  worthy  of  him?  Oh,  just  think!  if  I,  a  humble  and  feeble 
creature,  so  worthless  and  full  of  myself  —  I,  such  as  I  am,  long 
so  ardently  for  your  salvation,  that  for  its  sake  I  would  joyfully 
give  (and  he  is  my  witness!)  the  few  days  that  still  remain  to 
me, — oh,  think  what  and  how  great  must  be  the  love  of  Him 
who  inspires  me  with  this  imperfect  but  ardent  affection;  how 
must  He  love  you,  what  must  He  desire  for  you,  who  has  bid 
and  enabled  me  to  regard  you  with  a  charity  that  consumes 
me!» 

While  these  words  fell  from  his  lips,  his  face,  his  expression, 
his  whole  manner,  evinced  his  deep  feeling  of  what  he  uttered. 
The  countenance  of  his  auditor  changed  from  a  wild  and  con- 
vulsive look,  first  to  astonishment  and  attention,  and  then  gradu- 
ally yielded  to  deeper  and  less  painful  emotions;  his  eyes,  which 
from  infancy  had  been  unaccustomed  to  weep,  became  suffused; 
and  when  the  words  ceased,  he  covered  his  face  with  his  hands 
and  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.  It  was  the  only  and  most  evi' 
dent  reply. 

(<  Great  and  good  God!"  exclaimed  Federigo,  raising  his  hands 
and  eyes  to  heaven,  <(what  have  I  ever  done,  an  unprofitable 
servant,  an  idle  shepherd,  that  thou  shouldest  call  me  to  this 
banquet  of  grace!  that  thou  shouldest  make  me  worthy  of  being 
an  instrument  in  so  joyful  a  miracle ! >J  So  saying,  he  extended 
his  hand  to  take  that  of  the  Unnamed. 

(<  No !  w  cried  the  penitent  nobleman ;  (<  no !  keep  away  from 
me:  defile  not  that  innocent  and  beneficent  hand.  You  don't 
know  all  that  the  one  you  would  grasp  has  committed. }) 

<(  Suffer  me,"  said  Federigo,,  taking  it  with  affectionate  vio- 
lence, ft  suffer  me  to  press  the  hand  which  will  repair  so  many 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 

wrongs,  dispense  so  many  benefits,  comfort  so  many  afflicted,  and 
be  extended — -disarmed,  peacefully,  and  humbly  —  to  so  many 
enemies. }> 

(<  It  is  too  much ! w  said  the  Unnamed  sobbing :  <(  leave  me,  my 
lord;  good  Federigo,  leave  me!  A  crowded  assembly  awaits  you; 
so  many  good  people,  so  many  innocent  creatures,  so  many  come 
from  a  distance,  to  see  you  for  once,  to  hear  you:  and  you  are 
staying  to  talk  —  with  whom ! }> 

<(  We  will  leave  the  ninety-and-nine  sheep, w  replied  the  Cardi- 
nal: (<they  are  in  safety  upon  the  mountain;  I  wish  to  remain 
with  that  which  was  lost.  Their  minds  are  perhaps  now  more 
satisfied  than  if  they  were  seeing  their  poor  bishop.  Perhaps 
God,  who  has  wrought  in  you  this  miracle  of  mercy,  is  diffusing 
in  their  hearts  a  joy  of  which  they  know  not  yet-  the  reason. 
These  people  are  perhaps  united  to  us  without  being  awrare  of 
it;  perchance  the  Spirit  may  be  instilling  into  their  hearts  an 
undefined  feeling  of  charity,  a  petition  which  he  will  grant 
for  you,  an  offering  of  gratitude  of  which  you  are  as  yet  the 
unknown  object. J>  So  saying,  he  threw  his  arms  around  the  neck 
of  the  Unnamed;  who,  after  attempting  to  disengage  himself,  and 
making  a  momentary  resistance,  yielded,  completely  overcome  by 
this  vehement  expression  of  affection,  embraced  the  Cardinal  in 
his  turn,  and  buried  in  his  shoulder  his  trembling  and  altered 
face.  His  burning  tears  dropped  upon  the  stainless  purple  of 
Federigo,  while  the  guiltless  hands  of  the  holy  bishop  affection- 
ately pressed  those  members,  and  touched  that  garment,  which 
had  been  accustomed  to  hold  the  weapons  of  violence  and  treach- 
ery/ 

Disengaging  himself  at  length  from  this  embrace,  the  Un- 
named again  covered  his  eyes  with  his  hands,  and  raising  his  face 
to  heaven,  exclaimed :  — (<  God  is  indeed  great !  God  is  indeed 
good!  I  know  myself  now,  now  I  understand  what  I  am;  my 
sins  are  present  before  me,  and  I  shudder  at  the  thought  of 
myself;  yet! — yet  I  feel  an  alleviation,  a  joy  —  yes,  even  a  joy, 
such  as  I  have  never  before  known  during  the  whole  of  my  hor- 
rible life ! » 

(<It  is  a  little  taste, »  said  Federigo,  "which  God  gives  you,  to 
incline  you  to  his  service,  and  encourage  you  resolutely  to  entei 
upon  the  new  course  of  life  which  lies  before  you,  and  in  which 
you  will  have  so  much  to  undo,  so  much  to  repair,  so  much  to 
mourn  over!" 


9692 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


<(  Unhappy  man  that  I  am ! w  exclaimed  the  Signer :  <(  how 
many,  oh,  how  many  —  things  for  which  I  can  do  nothing  besides 
mourn!  But  at  least  I  have  undertakings  scarcely  set  on  foot 
which  I  can  break  off  in  the  midst,  if  nothing  more:  one  there 
is  which  I  can  quickly  arrest,  which  I  can  easily  undo  and  repair. w 

Federigo  listened  attentively  while  the  Unnamed  briefly 
related,  in  terms  of  perhaps  deeper  execration  than  we  have 
employed,  his  attempt  upon  Lucia,  the  sufferings  and  terrors 
Of  the  unhappy  girl,  her  importunate  entreaties,  the  frenzy  that 
these  entreaties  had  aroused  within  him,  and  how  she  was  still 
in  the  castle.  .  .  . 

(<Ah,  then  let  us  lose  no  time !  w  exclaimed  Federigo,  breath- 
less with  eagerness  and  compassion.  <(  You  are  indeed  blessed ! 
This  is  an  earnest  of  God's  forgiveness!  He  makes  you  capable 
of  becoming  the  instrument  of  safety  to  one  whom  you  intended 
to  ruin.  God  bless  you!  Nay,  he  has  blessed  you!  Do  you 
know  where  our  unhappy  protegee  comes  from  ? }) 

The  Signor  named  Lucia's  village. 

<(  It's  not  far  from  this,"  said  the  Cardinal,  <(  God  be  praised; 
and  probably — w  So  saying,  he  went  towards  a  little  table  and 
rang  a  bell.  The  cross-bearing  chaplain  immediately  attended  the 
summons  with  a  look  of  anxiety,  and  instantly  glanced  towards 
the  Unnamed.  At  the  sight  of  his  altered  countenance,  and  his 
eyes  still  red  with  weeping,  he  turned  an  inquiring  gaze  upon 
the  Cardinal;  and  perceiving,  amidst  the  invariable  composure 
of  his  countenance,  a  look  of  solemn  pleasure  and  unusual  solici- 
tude, he  would  have  stood  with  open  mouth  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy, 
had  not  the  Cardinal  quickly  aroused  him  from  his  contempla- 
tions by  asking  whether,  among  the  parish  priests  assembled  in 
the  next  room,  there  was  one  from  . 

<(  There  is,  your  illustrious  Grace,"  replied  the  chaplain. 

(<  Let  him  come  in  directly, yy  said  Federigo,  <(  and  with  him  the 
priest  of  this  parish. }> 

The  chaplain  quitted  the  room,  and  on  entering  the  hall  where 
the  clergy  were  assembled,  all  eyes  were  immediately  turned  upon 
him;  while,  with  a  look  of  blank  astonishment,  and  a  countenance 
in  which  was  still  depicted  the  rapture  he  had  felt,  he  lifted  up 
his  hands,  and  waving  them  in  the  air,  exclaimed,  "Signori! 
Signori!  Hcec  mutatio  dexter  cz  Excelsi^  [This  change  is  from 
the  right  hand  of  the  Almighty].  And  he  stood  for  a  moment 
without  uttering  another  word. 


ALESSANDRO   MANZONI 

AN   EPISODE   OF   THE   PLAGUE   IN    MILAN 
From  <The  Betrothed  > 

[The  hero  of  the  novel,  young  Renzo  Tramaglino,  enters  Milan  on  foot, 
seeking  his  lost  betrothed,  Lucia  Mondella.  Among  the  scenes  of  suffering 
and  horror  which  continually  meet  his  eyes  is  the  following.] 

RENZO  had  already  gone  some  distance  on  his  way  through  the 
midst  of  this  desolation,  when  he  heard,  proceeding  from 
a  street  a  few  yards  off,  into  which  he  had  been  directed 
to  turn,  a  confused  noise,  in  which  he  readily  distinguished  the 
usual  horrible  tinkling. 

At  the  entrance  of  the  street,  which  was  one  of  the  most 
spacious,  he  perceived  four  carts  standing  in  the  middle:  and  as 
in  a  corn  market  there  is  a  constant  hurrying  to  and  fro  of  people, 
and  an  emptying  and  filling  of  sacks,  such  was  the  bustle  here, 
—  monatti  intruding  into  houses,  monatti  coming  out,  bearing 
a  burden  upon  their  shoulders,  which  they  placed  upon  one  or 
other  of  the  carts;  some  in  red  livery,  others  without  that  distinc- 
tion; many  with  another  still  more  odious, — plumes  and  cloaks  of 
various  colors,  which  these  miserable  wretches  wore  in  the  midst 
of  the  general  mourning,  as  if  in  honor  of  a  festival.  From  time 
to  time  the  mournful  cry  resounded  from  one  of  the  windows, 
(<  Here,  monatti!*  And  with  a- still  more  wretched  sound,  a  harsh 
voice  rose  from  this  horrible  source  in  reply,  (<  Coming  directly ! y> 
Or  else  there  were  lamentations  nearer  at  hand,  or  entreaties  to 
make  haste;  to  which  the  monatti  responded  with  oaths. 

Having  entered  the  street,  Renzo  quickened  his  steps,  trying 
not  to  look  at  these  obstacles  further  than  was  necessary  to 
avoid  them:  his  attention,  however,  was  arrested  by  a  remarkable 
object  of  pity, —  such  pity  as  inclines  to  the  contemplation  of  its 
object;  so  that  he  came  to  a  pause  almost  without  determining 
to  do  so. 

Coming  down  the  steps  of  one  of  the  doorways,  and  advan- 
cing towards  the  convoy,  he  beheld  a  woman,  whose  appearance 
announced  still  remaining  though  somewhat  advanced  youthful- 
ness;  a  veiled  and  dimmed  but  not  destroyed  beauty  was  still 
apparent,  in  spite  of  much  suffering  and  a  fatal  languo'r, —  that 
delicate  and  at  the  same  time  majestic  beauty  which  is  con- 
spicuous in  the  Lombard  blood.  Her  gait  was  weary,  but  not 
tottering;  no  tears  fell  from  her  eyes,  though  they  bore  tokens  of 
having  shed  many;  there  was  something  peaceful  and  profound 


9*94 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 


in  her  sorrow,  which  indicated  a  mind  fully  conscious  and  sensi- 
tive enough  to  feel  it.  But  it  was  not  merely  her  own  appear- 
ance which  in  the  midst  of  so  much  misery  marked  her  out 
so  especially  as  an  object  of  commiseration,  and  revived  in  her 
behalf  a  feeling1  now  exhausted — extinguished  —  in  men's  hearts. 
She  carried  in  her  arms  ?.  little  child,  about  nine  years  old,  now. 
a  lifeless  body;  but  laid  out  and  arranged,  with  her  hair  parted 
on  her  forehead,  and  in  a  white  and  remarkably  clean  dress, 
as  if  those  hands  had  decked  her  out  for  a  long-promised  feast, 
granted  as  a  reward.  Nor  was  she  lying  there,  but  upheld  and 
adjusted  on  one  arm,  with  her  breast  reclining  against  her 
mother's,  like  a  living  creature;  save  that  a  delicate  little  hand, 
as  white  as  wax,  hung  from  one  side  with  a  kind  of  inanimate 
weight,  and  the  head  rested  upon  her  mother's  shoulder  with  an 
abandonment  deeper  than  that  of  sleep;  —  her  mother;  for  even 
if  their  likeness  to  each  other  had  not  given  assurance  of  the 
fact,  the  countenance  which  could  still  display  any  emotion  would 
have  clearly  revealed  it. 

A  horrible -looking  monatto  approached  the  woman,  and  at- 
tempted to  take  the  burden  from  her  arms;  with  a  kind  of  unusual 
respect,  however,  and  with  involuntary  hesitation.  But  she,  slightly 
drawing  back,  yet  with  the  air  of  one  who  shows  neither  scorn 
nor  displeasure,  said,  (<No!  don't  take  her  from  me  yet:  I  must 
place  her  myself  on  this  cart  —  here.*  So  saying,  she  opened  her 
hand,  displayed  a  purse  which  she  held  in  it,  and  dropped  it  into 
that  which  the  monatto  extended  towards  her.  She  then  con- 
tinued :  <(  Promise  me  not  to  take  a  thread  from  around  her,  nor 
to  let  any  one  else  do  so,  and  to  lay  her  in  the  ground  thus." 

The  monatto  laid  his  right  hand  on  his  heart;  and  then,  zeal- 
ously and  almost  obsequiously, —  rather  from  the  new  feeling 
by  which  he  was,  as  it  were,  subdued,  than  on  account  of  the 
unlooked-for  reward, — hastened  to  make  a  little  room  on  the  car 
for  the  infant  dead.  The  lady,  giving  it  a  kiss  on  the  forehead, 
laid  it  on  the  spot  prepared  for  it,  as  upon  a  bed,  arranged  it 
there,  covering  it  with  a  pure  white  linen  cloth,  and  pronounced 
these  parting  words:  — <(  Farewell,  Cecilia!  rest  in  peace!  This 
evening'  we  too  will  join  you,  to  rest  together  forever.  In  the 
mean  while  pray  for  us;  for  I  will  pray  for  you  and  the  others. " 
Then,  turning  again  to  the  monatto,  "You,"  said  she,  <(when  you 
pass  this  way  in  the  evening,  may  come  to  fetch  me  too;  and 
not  me  only." 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 

So  saying,  she  re-entered  the  house,  and  after  an  instant 
appeared  at  the  window,  holding  in  her  arms  another  more  dearly 
loved  one,  still  living,  but  with  the  marks  of  death  on  its  counte- 
nance. She  remained  to  contemplate  these  so  unworthy  obsequies 
of  the  first  child,  from  the  time  the  car  started  until  it  was  out 
of  sight,  and  then  disappeared.  And  what  remained  for  her  to 
do  but  to  lay  upon  the  bed  the  only  one  that  was  left  her,  and 
to  stretch  herself  beside  it,  that  they  might  die  together  ?  as  the 
flower  already  full  blown  upon  the  stem  falls  together  with  the 
bud  still  infolded  in  its  calyx,  under  the  scythe  which  levels  alike 
all  the  herbage  of  the  field. 

(<  O  Lord ! }>  exclaimed  Renzo,  <(  hear  her !  take  her  to  thyself, 
her  and  that  little  infant  one:  they  have  suffered  enough!  surely, 
they  have  suffered  enough ! }> 


CHORUS 
IN  THE  < COUNT  OF  CARMAGNOLA* 

From  <  Modern  Italian  Poets, >  by  W.  D.  Howells.     Copyright  1887,  by 
Harper  &  Brothers 

ON  THE  right  hand  a  trumpet  is  sounding, 
On  the  left  hand  a  trumpet  replying, 
The  field  upon  all  sides  resounding 
With  the  tramping  of  foot  and  of  horse. 
Yonder  flashes  a  flag;  yonder,  flying 
Through  the  still  air,  a  bannerol  glances; 
Here  a  squadron  embattled  advances, 

There  another  that  threatens  its  course. 

The  space  'twixt  the  foes  now  beneath  them 
Is  hid,  and  on  swords  the  sword  ringeth; 
In  the  hearts  of  each  other  they  sheathe  them; 

Blood  runs, —  they  redouble  their  blows. 
Who  are  these?    To  our  fair  fields  what  bringeth, 
To  make  war  upon  us,  this  stranger  ? 
Which  is  he  that  hath  sworn  to  avenge  her, 
The  land  of  his  birth,  on  her  foes  ? 

They  are  all  of  one  land  and  one  nation. 

One  speech;  and  the  foreigner  names  them 
All  brothers,  of  one  generation; 

In  each  visage  their  kindred  is  seen: 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 

This  land  is  the  mother  that  claims  them, 

This  land  that  their  life-blood  is  steeping, 
That  God,  from  all  other  lands  keeping, 

Set  the  seas  and  the  mountains  between. 

Ah,  which  drew  the  first  blade  among  them, 

To  strike  at  the  heart  of  his  brother  ? 
What  wrong  or  what  insult  hath  stung  them 

To  wipe  out  what  stain,  or  to  die  ? 
They  know  not:  to  slay  one  another 
They  come  in  a  course  none  hath  told  them; 
A  chief  that  was  purchased  hath  sold  them; 
They  combat  for  him,  nor  ask  why. 

Ah,  woe  for  the  mothers  that  bare  them, 

For  the  wives  of  the  warriors  maddened! 
Why  come  not  their  loved  ones  to  tear  them 

Away  from  the  infamous  field  ? 
Their  sires,  whom  long  years  have  saddened. 
And  thoughts  of  the  sepulchre  chastened, 
In  warning  why  have  they  not  hastened 
To  bid  them  to  hold  and  to  yield  ? 

As  under  the  vine  that  embowers 

His  own  happy  threshold,  the  smiling 
Clown  watches  the  tempest  that  lowers 

On  the  furrows  his  plow  has  not  turned,, 
So  each  waits  in  safety,  beguiling 
The  time  with  his  count  of  those  falling 
Afar  in  the  fight,  and  the  appalling 

Flames  of  towns  and  of  villages  burned. 

There,  intent  on  the  lips  of  their  mothers, 

Thou  shalt  hear  little  children  with  scorning, 
Learn  to  follow  and  flout  at  the  brothers 

Whose  blood  they  shall  go  forth  to  shed: 
Thou  shalt  see  wives  and  maidens  adorning 
Their  bosoms  and  hair  with  the  splendor 
Of  gems  but  now  torn  from  the  tender 

Hapless  daughters  and  wives  of  the  dead. 

Oh,  disaster,  disaster,  disaster! 

With  the  slain  the  earth's  hidden  already: 
With  blood  reeks  the  whole  plain,  and  vaster 
And  fiercer  the  strife  than  before! 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9697 

But  along  the  ranks,  rent  and  unsteady, 
Many  waver, —  they  yield, — they  are  flying! 
With  the  last  hope  of  victory  dying, 
The  love  of  life  rises  again. 

As  out  of  the  fan,  when  it  tosses 

The  grain  in  its  breath,  the  grain  flashes, 
So  over  the  field  of  their  losses 

Fly  the  vanquished.     But  now  in  their  course 
Starts  a  squadron  that  suddenly  dashes 
Athwart  their  wild  flight  and  that  stays  them, 
While  hard  on  the  hindmost  dismays  them 
The  pursuit  of  the  enemy's  horse. 

At  the  feet  of  the  foe  they  fall  trembling, 

And  yield  life  and  sword  to  his  keeping; 
In  the  shouts  of  the  victors  assembling, 

The  moans  of  the  dying  are  drowned. 
To  the  saddle  a  courier  leaping, 
Takes  a  missive,  and  through  all  resistance, 
Spurs,  lashes,  devours  the  distance; 

Every  hamlet  awake  at  the  sound. 

Ah,  why  from  their  rest  and  their  labor 

To  the  hoof-beaten  road  do  they  gather? 
Why  turns  every  one  to.  his  neighbor 

The  jubilant  tidings  to  hear  ? 

Thou  know'st  whence  he  comes,  wretched  father i 
And  thou  long'st  for  his  news,  hapless  mother! 
In  fight  brother  fell  upon  brother! 

These  terrible  tidings  /  bring. 

All  around  I  hear  cries  of  rejoicing; 

The  temples  are  decked;  the  song  swelleth 
From  the  hearts  of  the  fratricides,  voicing 

Praise  and  thanks  that  are  hateful  to  God. 
Meantime  from  the  Alps  where  he  dwelleth 
The  stranger  turns  hither  his  vision, 
And  numbers  with  cruel  derision 

The  brave  that  have  bitten  the  sod. 

Leave  your  games,  leave  your  songs  and  exulting; 

Fill  again  your  battalions,  and  rally 
Again  to  your  banner!    Insulting 

The  stranger  descends,  he  is  come! 


9698  ALESSANDRO  MANZONI 

Are  ye  feeble  and  few  in  your  sally, 
Ye  victors?    For  this  he  descendeth! 
Tis  for  this  that  his  challenge  he  sendeth 

From  the  fields  where  your  brothers  lie  dumb! 

Thou  that  strait  to  thy  children  appearedst, 

Thou  that  knew'st  not  in  peace  how  to  tend  them, 
Fatal  land!   now  the  stranger  thou  fearedst 

Receive,  with  the  judgment  he  brings! 
A  foe  unprovoked  to  offend  them 
At  thy  board  sitteth  down  and  derideth, 
The  spoil  of  thy  foolish  divideth, 

Strips  the  sword  from  the  hand  of  thy  kings. 

Foolish  he,  too!    What  people  was  ever 

For  the  bloodshedding  blest,  or  oppression  ? 
To  the  vanquished  alone  comes  harm  never; 

To  tears  turns  the  wrong-doer's  joy! 
Though  he  'scape  through  the  years'  long  progression 
Yet  the  vengeance  eternal  o'ertaketh 
Him  surely;  it  waiteth  and  waketh; 
It  seizes  him  at  the  last  sigh! 

We  are  all  made  in  one  likeness  holy, 

Ransomed  all  by  one  only  redemption 
Near  or  far,  rich  or  poor,  high  or  lowly, 
Wherever  we  breathe  in  life's  air; 
We  are  brothers  by  one  great  pre-emption 
.  Bound  all;  and  accursed  be  its  wronger, 
Who  would  ruin  by  right  of  the  stronger, 

Wring  the  hearts  of  the  weak  with  despair. 

Translation  of  William  D.  Howells 


THE   FIFTH   OF  MAY 

From  < Modern  Italian  Poets, >  by  W.  D.  Howells.     Copyright  1887,  by 
Harper  &  Brothers 

HE  PASSED:  and  as  immovable 
As,  with  the  last  sigh  given, 
Lay  his  own  clay,  oblivious, 

From  that  great  spirit  riven, 
So  the  world  stricken  and  wondering 
Stands  at  the  tidings  dread; 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9699 

Mutely  pondering  the  ultimate 

Hour  of  that  fateful  being, 
And  in  the  vast  futurity 

No  peer  of  his  foreseeing 
Among  the  countless  myriads 

Her  blood-stained  dust  that  tread. 

Him  on  his  throne  and  glorious 

Silent  saw  I,  that  never  — 
When  with  awful  vicissitude 

He  sank,  rose,  fell  forever  — 
Mixed  my  voice  with  the  numberless 

Voices  that  pealed  on  high; 
Guiltless  of  servile  flattery 

And  of  the  scorn  of  coward. 
Come  I  when  darkness  suddenly 

On  so  great  light  hath  lowered, 
And  offer  a  song  at  his  sepulchre 
That  haply  shall  not  die. 

From  the  Alps  unto  the  Pyramids, 

From  Rhine  to  Manzanares, 
Unfailingly  the  thunderstroke 

His  lightning  purpose  carries; 
Bursts  from  Scylla  to  Tanais, — 

From  one  to  the  other  sea. 
Was  it  true  glory? — Posterity, 

Thine  be  the  hard  decision; 
Bow  we  before  the  mightiest, 

Who  willed  in  him  the  vision 
Of  his  creative  majesty 

Most  grandly  traced  should  be. 

The  eager  and  tempestuous 

Joy  of  the  great  plan's  hour, 
The  throe  of  the  heart  that  controllessly 

Burns  with  a  dream  of  power, 
And  wins  it,  and  seizes  victory 

It  had  seemed  folly  to  hope, 
All  he  hath  known:  the  infinite 

Rapture  after  the  danger, 
The  flight,  the  throne  of  sovereignty, 

The  salt  bread  of  the  stranger; 
Twice  'neath  the  feet  of  the  worshipers, 
Twice  'neath  the  altar's  cope. 


9700 


ALESSANDRO  MAJSTZONI 

He  spoke  his  name;  two  centuries* 

Armed  and  threatening  either, 
Turned  unto  him  submissively, 

As  waiting  fate  together; 
He  made  a  silence,  and  arbiter 
He  sat  between  the  two. 
He  vanished;  his  days  in  the  idleness 

Of  his  island  prison  spending, 
Mark  of  immense  malignity, 

And  of  a  pity  unending, 
Of  hatred  inappeasable, 

Of  deathless  love  and  true. 

As  on  the  head  of  the  mariner, 

Its  weight  some  billow  heaping, 
Falls,  even  while  the  castaway, 

With  strained  sight  far  sweeping, 
Scanneth  the  empty  distances 

For  some  dim  sail  in  vain: 
So  over  his  soul  the  memories 

Billowed  and  gathered  ever; 
How  oft  to  tell  posterity 

Himself  he  did  endeavor, 
And  on  the  pages  helplessly 

Fell  his  weary  hand  again. 

How  many  times,  when  listlessly 

In  the  long  dull  day's  declining  — 
Downcast  those  glances  fulminant, 

His  arms  on  his  breast  entwining  — 
He  stood  assailed  by  the  memories 

Of  days  that  were  passed  away; 
He  thought  of  the  camps,  the  arduous 

Assaults,  the  shock  of  forces, 
The  lightning-flash  of  the  infantry, 

The  billowy  rush  of  horses, 
The  thrill  in  his  supremacy, 
The  eagerness  to  obey. 

Ah,  haply  in  so  great  agony 
His  panting  soul  had  ended 

Despairing,  but  that  potently 

A  hand,  from  heaven  extended. 

Into  a  clearer  atmosphere 
In  mercy  lifted  him. 


ALESSANDRO  MANZONI  9701 

And  led  him  on  by  blossoming 

Pathways  of  hope  ascending 
To  deathless  fields,  to  happiness 

All  earthly  dreams  transcending, 
Where  in  the  glory  celestial 

Earth's  fame  is  dumb  and  dim. 

Beautiful,  deathless,  beneficent 

Faith!   used  to  triumphs,  even 
This  also  write  exultantly: 

No  loftier  pride  'neath  Heaven 
Unto  the  shame  of  Calvary 

Stooped  ever  yet  its  crest. 
Thou  from  his  weary  mortality 

Disperse  all  bitter  passions: 
The  God  that  humbleth  and  hearteneth, 

That  comforts  and  that  chastens, 
Upon  the  pillow  else  desolate 

To  his  pale  lips  lay  pressed! 

Translation  of  William  D.  Howells. 


9702 


.es 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME 

(1492-1549) 

[ARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME,  or  as  she  is  often  styled,  Marguerite 
de  Navarre,  or  Marguerite  de  Valois,  is  chiefly  known  as  a 
writer  by  the  collection  of  stories  entitled  the  <Heptameron,> 
(in  imitation  of  the  ( Decameron J  of  Boccaccio,)  her  only  prose 
work.  But  a  considerable  number  of  poetic  writings  of  hers  remain: 
^moralities,*  pastorals,  sad  "comedies"  and  serious  "farces," —  in 
Polonius's  phrase,  "scenes  individable  and  poems  unlimited, }>  with 

epistles  in  verse,  and  many  dixains,  chan- 
sons, and  rondeaux.  There  are  also  two 
volumes  of  her  Letters. 

In  all  this  literary  production,  there  is 
but  little  that  can  now  or  could  ever  win 
much  applause ;  but  it  wins  the  better  meed 
of  sympathy.  Marguerite  was  no  artist;  she 
had  no  sense  of  form,  she  had  no  high 
aims  in  literature,  she  wrote  with  extraor- 
dinary carelessness  and  prolixity.  It  is  only 
at  moments  that  her  style  has  grace  and 
color,  and  still  more  rarely  that  it  has  force. 
But  the  feeling  that  moves  her  to  write  is 
MARGARET  OF  NAVARRE  always  sincere.  Her  thoughts  always  spring 

from    her    own    intelligence :    and    therefore 

while  her  writings  have  no  touch  of  egotism,  they  reveal  to  a  remark- 
able extent  her  inner  life;  and  it  is  a  life  of  peculiar  interest.  Her 
reader  listens  rather  than  reads  as  he  turns  her  pages,  and  what  he 
hears  comes  not  merely  from  the  printed  word. 

She  made  constant  use  of  the  dramatic  form, —  of -dialogue, —  and 
evidently  from  the  same  motive  that  Montaigne  ascribes  to  Plato:  "to 
utter  with  more  decorum,  through  diverse  mouths,  the  diversity  and 
variations  of  her  own  thpughts."  There  is  great  interest  in  discover- 
ing "her  own  thoughts »  amid  these  diverse  expressions,  and  this  can 
only  be  done  by  becoming  familiar  with  her  life.  The  events  in  which 
she  was  concerned  throw  an  important  and  touching  light  on  her 
writings, — the  only  light  by  which  they  can  be  read  intelligently. 
In  this  light  her  famous  book  <Heptameron>  completely  changes  its 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME  9703 

character,  and  instead  of  being  a  collection  of  somewhat  coarse  and 
somewhat  tedious  stories  set  in  a  mere  frame  of  dialogues,  it  becomes 
a  series  of  interesting  and  suggestive  conversations  circling  about 
historic  tales. 

A  sketch  of  her  life  is  therefore  the  proper  introduction  to  her 
writings. 

She  must  be  distinguished  from  her  great-niece,  the  daughter  of 
Henri  Deux,  with  whom  she  is  sometimes  confused, — another  Mar- 
guerite de  Valois,  and  a  later  Queen  of  Navarre, — who  also  was  a 
writer  of  some  importance.  The  first  Marguerite  was  the  sister  of 
Francis  the  First.  In  this  fact  lies  the  key  to  the  intimacies  of  her 
nature.  All  the  affections  the  human  heart  is  capable  of  centred  for 
her  in  Francis.  He  was  not  only  her  brother  and  her  friend,  but  he 
was  respected  by  her  like  a  father,  and  cared  for  by  her  like  a  son; 
he  was  (with  a  weight  of  meaning  difficult  of  conception  by  modern 
minds)  supremely  her  King;  he  was  at  moments  almost  her  God. 
He  repaid  this  fervor  of  devotion  with  a  brotherly  regard  that  satis- 
fied her;  but  her  content  was  a  proof  of  her  generosity. 

Their  youth  was  passed  together  in  the  pleasant  Chateau  d'Am- 
boise;  and  their  careful  education  —  the  education  of  the  Renais- 
sance—  happily  fostered  in  them  inherited  tastes  for  literature  and 
art. 

Marguerite  was  married  at  seventeen  (in  1509)  to  the  Duke  d'Alen- 
con,  the  first  prince  of  the  blood;  and  when,  six  years  later,  Francis 
became  king,  she  was  in  a  position  and  of  an  age  to  be  conspicuous 
at  court,  where  her  intellectual  vivacity  and  social  grace  made  her 
eminent.  Free  and  gay  in  speech,  eager  and  joyous  in  spirit,  she 
amused  herself  with  the  brilliant  life  and  with  her  would-be  lovers; 
and  at  other  hours  occupied  herself  with  her  books, — books  often  of 
divinity, —  studies  that  were  molding  her  character.  ((Elle  s'adonna 
fort  aux  lettres  en  son  jeune  aage,"  says  one  who  knew  her;  and  her 
interest  also  in  the  men  who  wrote  the  books  of  her  day  was  great 
even  then.  From  the  first,  she  discerned  and  divined  and  recognized 
the  most  remarkable  of  the  men  who  surrounded  her. 

But  the  startling  contrasts  that  marked  the  career  of  King  Francis 
all  found  their  reverberating  echo  in  the  heart  of  Margaret,  and  made 
her  something  very  different  from  a  merely  intellectual  woman.  In 
1520  came  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold;  in  1525  the  battle  of  Pavia 
and  Francis's  imprisonment  and  illness  at  Madrid.  Again,  1520 
brought  the  appearance  of  Luther,  and  the  next  year  the  beginning 
of  persecutions  in  France;  but  it  was  not  till  the  King  had  gone  to 
Italy  that  heretics  were  burned  at  the  stake.  That  this  comparative 
leniency  was  greatly  due  to  Margaret's  personal  influence  with  the 
King  is  as  unquestionable  as  that  it  is  an  error  to  consider  her  as 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME 

herself  belonging  to  the  party  of  the  Reformers.  Her  generous  nat- 
ure could  protect  the  Protestants  all  her  life  long,  and  sympathize 
with  them  so  keenly  as  to  cause  her  personal  anguish,  without  shar- 
ing their  beliefs.  This  exceptional  largeness  and  liberality  has  caused 
Margaret's  relation  to  the  Reformation  to  be  constantly  and  greatly 
misunderstood.  Her  personal  character — her  own  nature  —  was  less 
akin  to  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  than  to  that  of  the  Renaissance. 

The  year  1524  was  marked  by  domestic  sorrows.  Queen  Claude 
died,  truly  lamented  by  her  husband  and  his  mother  and  sister;  and 
two  months  later  one  of  her  little  motherless  girls  died  in  Margaret's 
arms.  It  was  probably  the  first  time  she  had  seen  death:  she  had 
been  summoned  to  the  Queen's  death-bed,  and  had  hurriedly  traveled 
thither,  but  had  arrived  too  late.  The  death  of  little  eight-year  old 
Madame  Charlotte  after  weeks  of  weary  illness,  spent  by  her  aunt 
in  tender  watching,  made  a  profound  impression  upon  Margaret,  and 
was  the  occasion  of  a  poetical  composition — the  earliest  in  date  of 
her  extant  writings — a  dialogue  (<en  forme  de  vision  nocturne })  be" 
tween  herself  and  "Tame  saincte  de  defuncte  Madame  Charlotte  de 
France })  concerning  the  happiness  of  the  blessed  dead. 

In  her  somewhat  mystical  mind  death  was  always  a  subject  ol 
meditation;  and  it  is  told  of  her  that  she  once  sat  long  by  the  bed* 
side  of  one  of  her  waiting-women  whom  she  loved,  who  was  neai 
death ;  and  she  gazed  upon  her  fixedly  till  the  last  breath  was  drawn. 
And  when  asked  why  she  had  thus  eagerly  watched,  it  appeared  that 
she  had  longed  to  catch  some  sight,  some  sound,  of  the  departing 
soul;  <(  and  she  added, w  says  the  contemporary  account,  (<  that  if  hei 
faith  were  not  very  firm,  she  should  not  know  what  to  think  of  this 
separation  of  the  soul  from  the  body;  but  that  she  would  believe 
what  God  and  his  Church  commanded  without  indulging  in  vain 
curiosity.  And  indeed  she  was  a  woman  as  devout  as  could  be  found, 
and  who  often  spoke  of  God  and  truly  feared  him." 

Within  three  months  of  the  death  of  the  Queen  and  Madame 
Charlotte,  the  King  was  a  prisoner.  Margaret's  religious  faith,  put  to 
the  utmost  test,  supported  her  through  days  of  measureless  misery,  of 
which  there  are  very  touching  outbreaks  and  outpourings  among  her 
poems.  Again  two  months,  and  her  husband,  the  Duke  d'Alengon, 
died.  Many  years  later  she -wrote  a  touching  and  affectionate  narra- 
tive in  verse  of  the  scenes  she  then  witnessed. 

The  agony  of  her  suffering  at  the  King's  defeat  and  imprisonment 
was  in  some  measure  lightened  by  being  sent  officially  to  him  at 
Madrid,  and  empowered  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  Charles  the 
Fifth  for  his  release.  Again  we  find  the  reflection  of  these  events  in 
her  verses.  Her  position  attracted  wide  interest,  and  a  letter  written 
to  her  by  Erasmus  expresses  the  general  feeling; —  . 


MARGUERITE   D'ANGOULEME 

«I  have  been  encouraged, »  he  says  (in  effect),  <(to  address  some  con- 
dolences to  you  in  the  midst  of  the  tempest  of  misfortune  which  now  assails 
you.  .  .  .  Long  have  I  admired  the  many  excellent  gifts  that  God  has 
endowed  you  with.  He  has  given  you  prudence,  chastity,  modesty,  piety, 
invincible  strength  of  mind,  and  a  marvelous  contempt  for  temporal  things. 
.  .  .  Therefore  I  am  inspired  with  the  desire  to  congratulate  you  rather 
than  offer  you  consolation.  Your  misfortune  is  great,  I  acknowledge;  but  no 
event  is  terrible  enough  to  overthrow  a  courage  founded  upon-  the  rock  of 
belief  in  Jesus  Christ. » 

This  letter,  written  in  Latin,  did  not  need  to  be  translated  to 
Margaret.  And  not  only  did  she  read  Latin  easily,  but  she  was 
familiar  with  the  Greek  dramatists  and  with  Plato  in  the  original. 

Another  period  of  Margaret's  life  opened  in  1527,  when  her  second 
marriage  took  place,  with  Henri  d'Albret,  the  young  King  of  Navarre 
(the  nominal  King),  eleven  years  younger  than  herself.  It  was  a 
marriage  of  passionate  affection  on  her  side,  inspired  in  part,  one  may 
be  sure,  by  the  misfortunes  of  this  valiant  youth,  who,  ta-ken  captive 
with  her  brother,  had  been  a  prisoner  like  him  for  many  months,  and 
who  had  then  presented  himself  at  the  French  court,  poor  and 
friendless,  but  famed  for  his  kindness  and  justice  to  his  Bearnais 
subjects.  He  cannot  but  have  been  easily  moved  to  ardent  admiration 
for  the  sweet,  attractive  widow  of  thirty-five,  whose  recent  remark- 
able sojourn  at  Madrid  had  made  her  famous;  still  more,  she  was 
the  sister  of  the  King  of  France,  his  liege  lord,  and  recognized  as 
"the  King's  constant  counselor.  No  question  his  wooing  was  vigorous. 
How  strong  Margaret's  wishes  must  have  been  is  shown  by  her  with- 
standing the  opposition  of  her  brother  for  the  only  time  in  her  life. 

From  the  moment  of  this  union  date  the  unspeakable  sorrows  of 
Margaret's  heart.  The  position  she  henceforth  occupied  as  the  queen 
of  an  outcast  and  mendicant  king,  a.nd  also  as  the  wife  of  a  soon 
alienated  husband,  was  one  burdened  with  tragic  perplexities  public 
and  private.  It  involved  among  other  bitter  trials  that  of  an  enforced 
separation  from  her  only  child,  Jeanne  d'Albret. 

The  court  Marguerite  created  at  Pau  and  at  Nerac,  in  the  impov- 
erished princedom  of  Beam,  was  the  meeting-ground  of  scholars  and 
of  poets,  of  charming  women  and  light-hearted  men.  Even  more,  it 
was  the  refuge  of  men  persecuted.  She  possessed  the  supreme 
womanly  power  that  when  herself  in  pain,  she  could  comfort;  when 
weak,  she  could  protect;  when  poor,  she  could  enrich.  Her  benevo- 
lence was  one  with  beneficence.  She  was  the  great  Consoler  of  her 
fellow  countrymen, —  and  not  of  them  alone.  Her  heart-beats  sent 
vital  force  to  all  the  numberless  unknown  suppliants  whose  eyes  were 
turned  toward  her,  as  well  as  to  her  oppressed  friends  who  safely  put 
their  trust  in  her. 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME 

This  exceptional  womanliness  is  to  be  felt  in  her  writings;  and  of 
them  as  of  her  life  it  may  be  said:  — 

« If  her  heart  at  high  flood  swamped  her  brain  now  and  then 
'Twas  but  richer  for  that  when  the  tide  ebbed  agen.» 

She  died  in  1549,  killed  by  her  brother's  death  two  years  before. 
It  was  in  those  last  years  that  Rabelais  addressed  her  as  — 

«  Abstracted  spirit,  rapt  in  ecstasies, 
Seeking  thy  birthplace,  the  familiar  skies ;» 

but  in  the  same  breath  he  solicited  her  to  listen  to  <(the  joyous 
deeds  of  good  Pantagruel. >}  Nothing  could  more  vividly  note  than 
this  the  various  qualities  that  met  in  Margaret, — of  sad  mysticism 
and  gay  humor,  of  constant  withdrawal  from  the  world's  vanities  and 
unfailing  interest  in  the  world's  intellectual  achievements. 

She  has  never  been  so  well  known,  so  intelligently  understood,  so 
carefully  judged,  and  never  so  highly  honored,  as  in  our  own  genera- 
tion. The  French  scholars  of  to-day  have  assigned  to  her  her  true 
place  in  history,  and  it  is  a  noble  one.  But  in  her  lifetime  she  was 
loved  even  more  than  she  was  honored :  and  still  and  always  she  will 
be  loved  by  those  who  shall  know  her. 


A  FRAGMENT 

GRIEF  has  given  me  such  a  wound 
By  an  unbearable  sorrow, 
That  almost  my  body  dies 
From  the  pain  it  feels  in  secret. 
My  spirit  is  in  torment, 
But  it  leans 

On  Him  who  gives  the  pain; 
Who,  causing  the  pain,  comforts  it. 
My  heart,  which  lived  on  love  alone, 
Is  by  sorrow  wasted. 
It  resisted  not  since  the  fatal  day 
That  it  felt  the  stroke  of  death; 
For  of  its  life 
From  it  was  ravished, 
The  more  than  half 
Joined  to  it  in  perfect  friendship.     . 
Lord,  who  knowest  me, 
I  have  no  voice  to  cry  to  Thee, 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME  9707 

Nor  can  find  words 

Worthy  to  pray  Thee  with. 

Thyself,  O  Lord, 

May  it  please  Thee  Thyself  to  say 

To  Thyself  what  I  would  say. 

Speak  Thou,  pray  Thou, 

And  answer  Thou  for  me. 


DIXAINS 


OR  NEAR,  so  near  that  in  one  bed  our  bodies  lie, 
And  our  wills  become  as  one, 
And  our  two  hearts,  if  may  be,  touch, 
And  all  is  common  to  us  both; 
Or  far,  so  far  that  importuning  Love 
May  never  tidings  of  you  tell  to  me, 
Who  see  you  not,  nor  hear  your  voice,  nor  write, 
So  that  for  you  my  heart  may  cease  to  ache; 
Thus  it  is  that  my  desire  is  toward  you, 
For  between  these  two,  save  dead,  I  cannot  be. 

[Ou  pres,  si  pres  que  en  un  lict  nos  corps  couchent, 

Et  nos  vouloirs  soyent  uniz  en  un, 

Et  nos  deux  coeurs,  si  possible  est,  se  touchent, 

Et  nostre  tout  soit  a  nous  deux  commun; 

Ou  loing,  si  loing  que  amour  tant  importun 

De  vos  nouvelles  a  moy  ne  puisse  dire, 

Povre  de  veoir,  de  parler,  et  d'escrire, 

Tant  que  de  vous  soit  mon  cceur  insensible; 

Voila  comment  vivre  avecq  vous  desire, 

Car  entre  deux,  sans  mort,  m'est  impossible.! 


NOT  near,  so  near  that  you  could  lie 

Within  my  bed,  shall  ever  be, 

Or  by  love  my  heart  or  body  touch, 

Nor  weight  my  honor  by  a  whit. 

If  far,  very  far  you  go,  I  promise  you 

To  hinder  nowise  your  long  wandering; 

For  neither  near  nor  far  have  I  the  heart  to  loye 

Save  with  that  love  we  all  are  fain  to  feel. 


97°8  MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME 

To  be  so  near  or  far  is  no  desire  of  a  sage: 
Please  you,  be  loved  between  the  two. 

[Ne  pres,  si  pres  que  vous  puissiez  coucher 
Dedans  mon  lict,  il  n'adviendra  jamais, 
Ou  par  amour  mon  corps  ou  coeur  toucher 
Ny  adj ouster  a  mon  honneur  un  mais. 
Si  loing,  bien  loing  allez,  je  vous  prometz 
De  n'empescher  en  rien  vostre  voyaige, 
Car  pres  ne  loing  d'aymer  je  n'ay  couraige 
Fors  d'un  amour  dont  chascun  aymer  veulx. 
Soit  pres  ou  loing  n'est  desir  d'homme  saige; 
Contentez  vous  d'estre  ayme  entre  deux.] 


FROM  THE  <HEPTAMERON> 


A    LITTLE  company  of  five  ladies   and  five  noble   gentlemen  have 
been    interrupted    in    their    travels   by    heavy    rains    and    great 
floods,    and    find    themselves    together    in    a    hospitable    abbey. 
They   while   away   the    time    as   best   they   can,   and   the   second   day 
Parlemente    says   to   the   old   Lady   Oisille,  <(  Madame,  I   wonder   that 
you  who    have    so   much    experience    ...     do  not   think   of   some 
pastime  to  sweeten  the  gloom  that  our  long  delay  here  causes  us.** 
The  other  ladies  echo  her  wishes,  and  all  the  gentlemen  agree  with 
them,  and  beg  the   Lady   Oisille   to  be  pleased  to   direct  how  they 
shall  amuse  themselves.     She  answers  them:  — 

<(  MY  CHILDREN,  you  ask  of  me  something  that  I  find  very 
difficult, —  to  teach  you  a  pastime  that  can  deliver  you  from  your 
sadness;  for  having  sought  some  such  remedy  all  my  life  I  have 
never  found  but  one  —  the  reading  of  Holy  Writ;  in  which  is 
found  the  true  and  perfect  joy  of  the  mind,  from  which  proceed 
the  comfort  and  health  of  the  body.  And  if  you  ask  me  what 
keeps  me  so  joyous  and  so  healthy  in  my  old  age,  it  is  that  as 
soon  as  I  rise  I  take  and  read  the  Holy  Scriptures,  seeing  and 
contemplating  the  will  of  God,  who  for  our  sakes  sent  his  Son  on 
earth  to  announce  this  holy  word  and  good  news,  by  which  he 
promises  remission  of  sins,  satisfaction  for  all  duties  by  the  gift 
he  makes  us  of  his  love,  Passion  and  merits.  This  consideration 
gives  me  so  much  joy  that  I  take  my  Psalter  and  as  humbly  as 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME  9709 

I  can  I  sing  with  my  heart  and  pronounce  with  my  tongue  the 
beautiful  psalms  and  canticles  that  the  Holy  Spirit  wrote  in  the 
heart  of  David  and  of  other  authors.  And  this  contentment  that 
I  have  in  them  does  me  so  much  good  that  the  ills  that  every 
day  may  happen  to  me  seem  to  me  to  be  blessings,  seeing  that 
I  have  in  my  heart,  by  faith,  Him  wno  has  borne  them  for  me. 
Likewise,  before  supper,  I  retire,  to  pasture  my  soul  in  read- 
ing; and  then,  in  the  evening,  I  call  to  mind  what  I  have  done 
in  the  past  day,  in  order  to  ask  pardon  for  my  faults,  and  to 
thank  Him  for  his  kindnesses,  and  in  His  love,  fear  and  peace 
I  repose,  assured  against  all  ills.  Wherefore,  my  children,  this  is 
the  pastime  in  which  I  have  long  stayed  my  steps,  after  having 
searched  all  things,  where  I  found  no  content  for  my  spirit.  It 
seems  to  me  that  if  every  morning  you  will  give  an  hour  to 
reading,  and  then,  during  mass,  devoutly  say  your  prayers,  you 
will  find  in  this  desert  the  same  beauty  as  in  cities;  for  he  who 
knows  God,  sees  all  beautiful  things  in  him,  and  without  him  all 
is  ugliness. y> 

Her  nine  companions  are  not  quite  of  this  pious  "mind,  and  pray 
her '  to  remember  that  when  they  are  at  home  the  men  have  hunt- 
ing and  hawking,  and  the  ladies  have  their  household  affairs  and 
needlework,  and  sometimes  dancing;  and  that  they  need  something  to 
take  the  place  of  all  these  things.  At  last  it  is  decided  that  in  the 
morning  the  Lady  Oisille  should  read  to  them  of  the  life  led  by  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ;  and  in  the  afternoon,  from  after  dinner  to  vespers, 
they  should  tell  tales  like  those  of  Boccaccio. 


One  of  the  tales  opens  thus:  — 

<(!N  THE  city  of  Saragossa  there  was  a  rich  merchant  who, 
seeing  his  death  draw  nigh,  and  that  he  could  no  longer  retain 
his  possessions,  which  perhaps  he  had  acquired  with  bad  faith, 
thought  that  by  making  some  little  present  to  God  he  might 
satisfy  in  part  for  his  sins,  after  his  death, — as  if  God  gave  his 
grace  for  money. w 

So  he  ordered  his  wife  to  sell  a  fine  Spanish  horse  he  had,  as 
soon  as  he  was  gone,  and  give  its  price  to  the  poor.  But  when  the 
burial  was  over,  the  wife,  <(who  was  as  little  of  a  simpleton  as  Span- 
ish women  are  wont  to  be,"  told  her  man-servant  to  sell  the  horse 
indeed,  but  to  sell  him  for  a  ducat,  while  the  purchaser  must  at 


9710  MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME 

the  same  time  buy  her  cat,  and  for  the  cat  must  be  paid  ninety-nine 
ducats.  So  said,  so  done;  and  the  Mendicant  Friars  received  one 
ducat,  and  she  and  her  children  ninety-and-nine. 

<(In  your  opinion, )}  asks  Namerfide  in  conclusion,  <(was  not 
this  woman  much  wiser  than  her  husband  ?  and  should  she  have 
cared  as  much  for  his  conscience  as  for  the  good  of  her  house- 
hold ? )} — (<  I  think, w  said  Parlamente,  (<  that  she  loved  her  husband 
well,  but  seeing  that  most  men  are  not  of  sound  mind  on  their 
death-beds,  she,  who  knew  his  intention,  chose  to  interpret  it  for 
the  profit  of  his  children,  which  I  think  very  wise." — "But,"  said 
Gebaron,  (<  don't  you  think  it  a  great  fault  to  fail  to  carry  out 
the  wills  of  dead  friends  ? "  — <(  Indeed  I  do, "  said  Parlamente, 
provided  the  testator  is  of  good  sense  and  of  sound  mind. " — 
(<  Do  you  call  it  not  being  of  sound  mind  to  give  our  goods  to 
the  Church  and  the  Mendicant  Friars  ? "  — (<  I  don't  call  it  want- 
ing in  sound-mindedness, "  said  Parlamente,  <(when  a  man  dis- 
tributes among  the  poor  what  God  has  put  in  his  power;  but  to 
give  alms  with  what  belongs  to  others  I  do  not  consider  high 
wisdom,  for  you  will  see  constantly  the  greatest  usurers  there 
are,  build  the  most  beautiful  and  sumptuous  chapels  that  can  be 
seen,  wishing  to  appease  God  for  a  hundred  thousand  ducats' 
worth  of  robbery  by  ten  thousand  ducats'  worth  of  buildings,  as 
if  God  did  not  know  how  to  count." 

"Truly  I  have  often  marveled  at  this,"  said  Oisille;  <(how  do 
they  think  to  appease  God  by  the  things  that  he  himself,  when 
on  earth,  reprobated,  such  as  great  buildings,  gildings,  decora- 
tions, and  paintings  ?  But,  if  they  rightly  understood  what  God 
has  said  in  one  passage,  that  for  all  sacrifice  he  asks  of  us  a  con- 
trite and  humble  heart,  and  in  another  St.  Paul  says  we  are  the 
temple  of  God  in  which  he  desires  to  dwell,  they  would  have 
taken  pains  to  adorn  their  consciences  while  they  were  alive;  not 
waiting  for  the  hour  when  a  man  can  no  longer  do  either  well 
or  ill,  and  even  what  is  worse,  burdening  those  who  survive  them 
with  giving  their  alms  to  those  they  would  not  have  deigned  to 
look  at  while  they  were  alive.  But  He  who  knows  the  heart  can- 
not be  deceived,  and  will  judge  them,  not  only  according  to  their 
works,  but  according  to  the  faith  and  charity  they  have  had  in 
Him.*  (<Why  is  it  then,"  said  Gebaron,  <(  that  these  Gray  Friars 
and  Mendicant  Friars  sing  no  other  song  to  us  on  our  death-beds 
save  that  we  should  give  much  wealth  to  their  monasteries, 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME  9711 

assuring  us  that  that  will  carry  us  to  Paradise,  willy-nilly  ? w 
((Ah!  Gebaron,"  said  Hircan,  (<have  you  forgotten  the  wickedness 
that  you  yourself  have  related  to  us  of  the  Gray  Friars,  that  you 
ask  how  it  is  possible  for  such  people  to  lie  ?  I  declare  to  you 
that  I  do  not  think  that  there  can  be  in  the  world  greater  lies 
than  theirs.  And  yet  those  men  cannot  be  blamed  who  speak 
for  the  good  of  the  whole  community,  but  there  are  those  who 
forget  their  vow  of  poverty  to  satisfy  their  avarice. "  (( It  seems 
to  me,  Hircan, })  said  Nomerfide,  "that  you  know  something  about 
such  a  one;  I  pray  you,  if  it  be  worthy  of  this  company,  that 
you  will  be  pleased  to  tell  it  to  us. "  <(  I  am  willing, "  said  Hir- 
can, <(  although  I  dislike  to  speak  of  this  sort  of  people,  for  it 
seems  to  me  that  they  are  of  the  same  kind  as  those  of  whom 
Virgil  said  to  Dante,  (Pass  on,  and  heed  them  not*  (( Passe  oul- 
tre  et  n'en  tiens  compte')." 

in 

THE  following  conversation  contains  the  comments  on  a  tale  told 
of  the  virtuous  young  wife  of  an  unfaithful  husband,  who  by  dint  of 
patience  and  discretion  regained  his  affection;  so  that  <(they  lived  to- 
gether in  such  great  friendship  that  even  his  just  faults  by  the  good 
they  had  brought  about  increased  their  contentment. " 

(<  I  BEG  you,  ladies,"  continues  the  narrator,  <(if  God  give  you 
such  husbands,  not  to  despair  till  you  have  long  tried  every 
means  to  reclaim  them;  for  there  are  twenty-four  hours  in  a  day 
in  which  a  man  may  change  his  way  of  thinking,  and  a  woman 
should  deem  herself  happier  to  have  won  her  husband  by  patience 
and  long  effort  than  if  fortune  and  her  parents  had  given  her  a 
more  perfect  one."  "Yes,"  said  Oisille,  "this  is  an  example  for 
all  married  women." — <(  Let  her  follow  this  example  who  will,* 
said  Parlamente :  (<  but  as  for  me,  it  would  not  be  possible  for  mo 
to  have  such  long  patience;  for,  however  true  it  may  be  that  in 
all  estates  patience  is  a  fine  virtue,  it's  my  opinion  that  in  mar- 
riage it  brings  about  at  last  unfriendliness;  because,  suffering  un-> 
kindness  from  a  fellow  being,  one  is  forced  to  separate  from  him 
as  far  as  possible,  and  from  this  separation  arises  a  contempt  for 
the  fault  of  the  disloyal  one,  and  in  this  contempt  little  by  little 
love  diminishes ;  for  it  is  what  is  valued  that  is  loved. "  — ((  But 
there  is  danger,"  said  Ennarsuite,  "that  the  impatient  wife  may 
find  a  furious  husband,  who  would  give  her  pain,  in  lieu  of 


9712  MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME 

patience, d — (<But  what  could  a  husband  do,"  said  Parlamente, 
<(  save  what  has  been  recounted  in  this  story  ? "  <(  What  could  he 
do  ? "  said  Ennarsuite :  <(  he  could  beat  his  wife. "  .  .  . 

<(-I  think, "  said  Parlamente,  <(that  a  good  woman  would  not 
be  so  grieved  in  being  beaten  out  of  anger,  as  in  being  con- 
temptuously treated  by  a  man  who  does  not  care  for  her,  and 
after  having  endured  the  suffering  of  the  loss  of  his  friendship, 
nothing  the  husband  might  do  would  cause  her  much  concern. 
And  besides,  the  story  says  that  the  trouble  she  took  to  draw 
him  back  to  her  was  because  of  liar  love  for  her  children,  and  I 
believe  it  "  — <( And  do  you  think  it  was  so  very  patient  of  her, " 
said  Nomerfide,  (<  to  set  fire  to  the  bed  in  which  her  husband  was 
sleeping  ? "  — <(  Yes,  "  said  Longarine,  <(  for  when  she  saw  the 
smoke  she  awoke  him;  and  that  was  just  the  thing  where  she 
was  most  in  fault,  for  of  such  husbands  as  those  the  ashes  are 
good  to  make  lye  for  the  washtub. "  — (( You  are  cruel,  Lon- 
garine,w  said  Oisille,  (<and  you  did  not  live  in  such  fashion  with 
your  husband. "  —  No,  "  said  Longarine,  (<  for,  God  be  thanked, 
he  never  gave  me  such  occasion,  but  'reason  to  regret  him  all 
my  life,  instead  of  to  complain  of  him."  —  <(And  if  he  had 
treated  you  in  this  way,  "said  Nomerfide,  (<what  would  you  have 
done  ? "  — » (<  I  loved  him  so  much, "  said  Longarine,  <(  that  I  think  I 
should  have  killed  him  and  then  killed  myself;  for  to  die  after 
such  vengeance  would  be  pleasanter  to  me  than  to  live  faithfully 
with  a  faithless  husband." 

(<As  far  as  I  see,"  said  Hircan,  <(you  love  your  husbands  only 
for  yourselves.  If  they  are  good  after  your  own  heart,  you  love 
them  well;  if  they  commit  towards  you  the  least  fault  in  the 
world,  they  have  lost  their  week's  work  by  a  Saturday.  The 
long  and  the  short  is  that  you  want  to  be  mistresses;  for  my 
part  I  am  of  your  mind,  provided  all  the  husbands  also  agree 
to  it."  —  (<It  is  reasonable,"  said  Parlamente,  "that  the  man  rrle 
us  as  our  head,  but  not  that  he*  desert  us  or  ill-treat  us.w — • 
"God,"  said  Oisille,  <(has  set  in  such  due  order  the  man  and  the 
woman  that  if  the  marriage  estate  is  not  abused,  I  hold  it  to  be 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  stable  conditions  in  the  world; 
and  I  am  sure  that  all  those  here  present,  whatever  air  they  as- 
sume, think  no  less  highly  of  it.  And  forasmuch  as  men  say 
they  are  wiser  than  women,  they  should  be  more  sharply  punished 
when  the  fault  is  on  their  side.  But  we  have  talked  enough  on 
this  subject." 


MARGUERITE  D'ANGOULEME  9713 

IV 

*!T  SEEMS  to  me,  since  the  passage  from  one  life  to  another 
is  inevitable,  that  the  shortest  death  is  the  best.  I  consider  for- 
tunate those  who  do  not  dwell  in  the  suburbs  of  death,  and  who 
from  that  felicity  which  alone  in  this  world  can  be  called  felicity" 
pass  suddenly  to  that  which  is  eternal. })  —  "What  do  you  call  the 
suburbs  of  death  ? >J  said  Simortault. — <(  I  mean  that  those  who 
have  many  tribulations,  and  those  also  who  have  long  been  sick, 
those  who  by  extremity  of  bodily  or  mental  pain,  have  come  to 
hold  death  in  contempt  and  to  find  its  hour  too  tardy, —  all  these 
have  wandered  in  the  suburbs  of  death,  and  will  tell  you  the  hos- 
telries  where  they  have  more  wept  than  slept, )} 


<(Do  YOU  count  as  nothing  the  shame  she  underwent,  and  her 
imprisonment  ? }> 

a  I  think  that  one  who  loves  perfectly,  with  a  love  in  harmony 
with  the  commands  of  God,  knows  neither  shame  nor  dishonor 
save  when  the  perfection  of  her  love  fails  or  is  diminished;  for 
the  glory  of  true  loves  knows  not  shame:  and  as  to  the  imprison- 
ment of  her  body,  I  believe  that  through  the  freedom  of  her 
heart  which  was  united  with  God  and  with  her  husband,  she  did 
not  feel  it,  but  considered  its  solitude  very  great  liberty;  for  to 
one  who  cannot  see  the  beloved,  there  is  no  greater  good  than 
to  think  incessantly  of  him,  and  the  prison  is  never  narrow  where 
the  thought  can  range  at  will.® 

VI 

<(!N  GOOD  faith  I  am  astonished  at  the  diversity  in  the  nature 
of  women's  love:  and  I  see  clearly  that  those  who  have  most 
love  have  most  virtue;  but  those  who  have  less  love,  dissimulate, 
wishing  to  feign  virtue. }) 

alt  is  true,®  said  Parlamente,  "that  a  heart  pure  towards  God 
and  man,  loves  more  strongly  than  one  that  is  vicious,  and  it 
fears  not  to  havt,  its  very  thoughts  known. a 


9714 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

(1564-1593) 

fwo  months  before  the  birth  of  William  Shakespeare,  on  Feb- 
ruary 26th,  1564,  John  Marlowe,  shoemaker  in  the  ancient 
town  of  Canterbury,  carried  a  baby  boy,  his  first  son,  to 
be  baptized  in  the  Church  of  St.  George  the  Martyr.  John  Marlowe 
was  a  «  clarke  of  Saint  Marie's  church, »  and  member  of  the  Shoe- 
makers' and  Tanners'  Guild.  He  may  have  been  a  man  of  sufficient 
means  to  give  his  son  a  liberal  education;  or  some  rich  gentleman, 
Sir  John  Manwood  perhaps,  may  have  interested  himself  in  the  gifted 
lad.  At  any  rate  Christopher  went  to  the  King's  School,  Canterbury, 
where  fifty  pupils  were  taught  gratuitously  and  allowed  £4  a  year 
each;  and  there  he  was  a  diligent  scholar,  for  it  is  recorded  that  in 
1579  he  received  an  allowance  of  £i  for  each  of  the  first  three  terms. 
From  school  he  was  sent  to  Benet — now  Corpus  Christi  —  College, 
Cambridge;  where  he  obtained  the  degree'  of  B.  A.  in  1583,  and  that 
of  M.  A.  in  1587.  His  translations  of  Ovid's  elegies  were  probably 
begun,  if  not  completed,  during  his  years  at  the  university.  There 
are  slight  indications  in  his  poems  that  he  may  have  been  a  soldier 
for  a  time,  and  served  during  the  Netherlands  campaign.  Probably, 
however,  he  went  at  once  to  London  from  Cambridge, — <(  a  boy  in 
years,  a  man  in  genius,  va  god  in  ambition, J>  as  Swinburne  says, —  and 
began  his  struggle  for  fame  and  fortune.  Like  many  another  young 
poet,  he  may  have  gone  on  the  stage;  but  it  is  said  that  he  was  soon 
after  incapacitated  for  acting,  by  an  accident  which  lamed  him.  He 
attached  himself  as  playwright  to  a  prominent  dramatic  company, — 
that  of  the  Earl  of  Nottingham,  the  Lord  Admiral. 

He  was  a  dashing  fellow,  witty  and  daring,  (<the  darling  of  the 
town,^  and  with  a  gift  for  making  friends.  He  was  a  protege  of 
Thomas  Walsingham,  and  gallant  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  found  him  q 
congenial  spirit.  He  knew  Kyd,  Nash,  Greene,  Chapman,  and  very 
likely  Shakespeare  too.  Of  all  the  brilliant  group  that  glorify  Eliza- 
bethan literature,  there  is  no  more  striking  or  typical  figure  than 
Marlowe's  own.  He  was  the  very  embodiment  of  the  Renascence 
spirit,  with  energies  all  vitalized  and  athirst  for  both  spiritual  and 
sensual  satisfactions.  His  gay-hearted,  passionate,  undisciplined  nature 
was  too  exorbitant  in  demand  to  find  content.  To  his  pagan  soul 
beauty  and  pleasure  were  ultimate  aims,  orthodox  faith  and  observ- 
ances impossible.  So  for  a  few  mad  years  he  dreamed  and  wrote, 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

loved  and  feasted,  starved  sometimes,  perhaps;  and  then  at  twenty- 
nine,  when  he  had  tried  all  possible  experiences,  his  wild,  brilliant 
young  life  suddenly  ended.  His  irreligious  scoffing,  doubtless  exag- 
gerated from  mouth  to  mouth,  led  finally  to  a  warrant  for  his  arrest. 
Evading  this,  he  had  gone  to  the  small  town  of  Deptford,  and  there, 
June  1593,  while  at  the  tavern,  he  became  engaged  in  a  drunken 
scuffle  in  which  he  was  fatally  stabbed. 

Marlowe's  first  play,  < Tamburlaine,  *  must  have  been  written  before 
he  was  twenty-four.  Like  many  of  his  contemporaries,  he  always  bor- 
rowed his  plots;  and  this  one  he  took  from  'Foreste,*  a  translation 
from  the  Spanish  made  by  Thomas  Fortescue.  His  treatment  of  it 
was  a  conscious  effort  to  revolutionize  dramatic  poetry;  for  <( jiggling 
veins  of  rhyming  mother  wits  »  to  substitute  ((high  astounding  terms  *; 
and  it  is  his  great  distinction  that  with  <  Tamburlaine  >  he  established 
blank  verse  in  the  English  drama.  From  the  appearance  of  (  Gorbo- 
duc>  in  1562  there  had  been  blank  or  rimeless  verse ;  but  the  customary 
form  of  dramatic  expression  was  in  tediously  monotonous  heroic  coup- 
lets, whether  they  suited  the  subject  or  not.  Marlowe  was  the  first 
of  the  English  dramatists  to  understand  that  thought  and  expression 
should  be  in  harmony.  His  original  spirit  refused  dictation;  and  he 
developed  a  rich  sonorous  line,  the  beauty  of  which  was  recognized 
at  once.  His  musical  ear  and  poetic  instinct  guided  him  to  hitherto 
forbidden  licenses, —  variety  in  the  management  of  the  caesura,  femi- 
nine rhymes,  run-on  lines,  the  introduction  of  other  than  iambic 
measures;  and  thus  he  secured  an  elasticity  of  metre  which  perma- 
nently enriched  English  poetry.  His  creative  daring  stifled  a  cold 
and  formal  classicism,  inaugurated  our  romantic  drama,  and  served  as 
guiding  indication  to  Shakespeare  himself.  But  although  certain 
verses  of  ( Tamburlaine >  cling  to  the  reader's  memory  as  perfect  in 
poetic  feeling  and  harmony,  the  greater  part  of  it  is  mere  «  bombast » 
to  modern  taste.  Even  in  Marlowe's  day  his  exaggerations  excited 
ridicule,  and  quotations  from  his  dramas  became  town  catchwords. 
But  the  spontaneous  passion  of  his  impossible  conceptions  gave  them 
a  force  which  impressed  the  public.  ( Tamburlaine >  was  immensely 
popular,  and  the  sequel  or  Part  Second  was  enthusiastically  received. 
Many  critics  since  Ben  Jonson  have  discussed  (t  Marlowe's  mighty 
line**  and  honored  its  influence;  and  his  fellow  writers  were  quick  to 
follow  his  example.  ~ 

The  Faust  legend,  traceable  back  to  the  sixth  century,  finally 
drifted  over  to,, England,  .where  in  ballad  form,  founded  upon  the 
<Volksbuch>  by  Spiess,  it  appeared  in  1587,  and  probably  soon  caught 
Marlowe's  attention.  His  play  of  ( Dr.  Faustus  y  was  given  in  1588, 
and  was  very  highly  praised.  It  is  said  that  Goethe,  who  thought  of 
translating  it,  exclaimed  admiringly,  (<How  greatly  it  is  all  planned  !}> 


9716 


CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE 


Compared  with  the  harmonic  unity  of  form  and  matter  in  Goethe's 
( Faust, >  Marlowe's  work  seems  childish  in  construction,  uneven  and 
faulty  in  expression.  But  there  are  certain  passages  —  for  example, 
the  thrilling  passion  of  the  invocation  to  Helen,  and  the  final  despair 
of  Faustus  —  of  positive  poetic  splendor. 

In  the  <Jew  of  Malta  >  there  are  fine  passages  which  show  Mar- 
lowe's increasing  mastery  of  his  line.  But  in  spite  of  its  descriptive 
color  and  force,  and  keen  touches  of  characterization,  it  was  less 
successful  than  ^amburlaine,*  and  is  perhaps  most  noteworthy  now 
for  the  obvious  parallelism  of  certain  scenes  with  those  of  the  later 
( Merchant  of  Venice.* 

( Edward  II.,*  founded  upon  Robert  Fabyan's  ( Chronicle >  or  Con- 
cordance of  Histories,*  is  structurally  the  best  of  Marlowe's  plays, 
and  contains  finely  pathetic  verse  which  bears  comparison  with  that 
of  Shakespeare's  historical  dramas.  The  poet  as  he  grows  older 
seems  to  take  a  broader,  more  sympathetic  view  of  life;  and  there- 
fore he  begins  to  understand  feelings  more  normal  than  the  infinite 
ambitions  of  Faustus  and  Tamburlaine,  and  becomes  more  skillful  in 
the  portrayal  of  character.  There  is  little  of  his  earlier  exaggeration. 

The  two  shorter  dramas  —  <The  Massacre  of  Paris, *  and  <Dido, 
Queen  of  Carthage  *  —  were  written  in  collaboration  with  other  play- 
wrights. 

No  one  can  read  Marlowe  carefully  without  feeling  that  the  social 
influences  of  his  time  made  him  a  dramatist,  and  that  he  was  by 
nature  a  lyric  poet.  He  was  intensely  subjective,  and  incapable  of 
taking  an  impersonal  and  comprehensive  point  of  view.  He  always 
expresses  his  own  aspiration  for  fame,  or  joy,  or  satisfaction,  tran- 
scending anything  earth  can  offer.  <(That  like  I  best  that  flies  be- 
yond my  reach. w  This  preoccupation  with  imaginative  ideals  ma<l« 
it  impossible  for  him  to  understand  every-day  human  nature.  Hence 
no  touch  of  humor  vitalizes  his  work;  and  hence  his  efforts  to  depict 
women  are  always  vague  and  unsatisfactory.  He  is  at  his  best  when 
expressing  his  own  passions, — his  adoration  of  light  and  color,  of  gold 
and  sparkling  gems,  of  milk-white  beauties  with  rippling  brilliant 
hair.  Like  the  other  men  of  his  time,  he  loved  nature:  delighted 
in  tinkling  waters,  wide  skies,  gay  velvety  blossoms.  He  is  a 
thorough  sensualist ;  frankly,  ardently  so  in  < Hero  and  Leander, y  — 
that  beautiful  love  poem,  a  paraphrase  of  Musach's  poem,  of  which 
he  wrote  the  first  two  sestiads,  and  which  after  his  death  was  fin- 
ished by  Chapman.  Every  one  knows  the  lines,  written  in  much  the 
same  spirit,  of  < The  Passionate  Shepherd  to  his  Love  > ;  « that  smooth 
song  which  was  made  by  Kit  Marlowe, )}  as  Izaak  Walton  says.  It 
had  many  imitations,  and  a  charming  response  from  the  pen  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh. 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  97!7 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Shakespeare  in  his  early  days  may  have 
looked  enviously  at  the  successful  young  Marlowe.  This  erring  ideal- 
ist aimed  high,  and  left  a  lasting  imprint  upon  English  literature. 
He  reached  fame  very  quickly;  made  more  friends  than  enemies; 
and  his  early  death  called  out  many  tributes  of  love  and  admiration. 
Michael  Drayton  wrote  of  him: —  • 

ttNext  Marlowe,  bathed  in  the  Thespian  Springs, 
Had  in  him  those  brave  transhmary  things 
That  the  first  poets  had:  his  raptures  were 
All  air  and  fire,  which  made  his  verses  clear; 
For  that  fine  madness  still  he  did  retain, 
Which  rightly  should  possess  a  poet's  brain. » 


THE  PASSIONATE  SHEPHERD  TO  HIS   LOVE 

COME  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love, 
And  we  will  all  the  pleasures  prove 
That  valleys,  groves,  and  hills,  and  fields, 
Woods  or  steepy  mountains  yields. 

And  we  will  sit  upon  the  rocks, 
Seeing  the  shepherds  feed  their  flocks 
By  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals.    . 

And  I  will  make  thee  beds  of  roses, 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies; 
A  cap  of  flowers,  and  a  kirtle 
Embroidered  all  with  leaves  of  myrtle; 

A  gown  made  of  the  finest  wool, 
Which  from  our  pretty  lambs  we  pull; 
Fair  lined  slippers  for  the  cold, 
With  buckles  of  the  purest  gold; 

A  belt  of  straw  and  ivy  buds, 
With  coral  clasps  and ,  amber  studs : 
And  if  these  pleasures  may  thee  move, 
Come  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 

The  shepherd  swains  shall  dance  and  sing 
For  thy  delight  each  May-morning: 
If  these  delights  thy  mind  may  move, 
Then  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

FROM   <TAMBURLAINE> 
Alarms  of  battle  within.     Enter  Cosroe,  wounded,  and  Tamburlaine 

COSROE  —  Barbarous  and  bloody  Tamburlaine, 
Thus  to  deprive  me  of  my  crown  and  life! 
Treacherous  and  false  Theridamas, 
Even  at  the  morning  of  my  .happy  state, 
Scarce  being  seated  in  my  royal  throne, 
To  work  my  downfall  and  untimely  end! 
An  uncouth  pain  torments  my  grieved  soul, 
And  death  arrests  the  organ  of  my  voice, 
Who,  entering  at  the  breach  thy  sword  hath  made, 
Sacks  every  vein  and  artier  of  my  heart.  — 
Bloody  and  insatiate  Tamburlaine! 
Tamburlaine  — 

The  thirst  of  reign  and  sweetness  of  a  crown 
That  caused  the  eldest  son  of  heavenly  Ops 
To  thrust  his  doting  father  from  his  chair, 
And  place  himself  in  the  empyreal  heaven, 
Moved  me  to  manage  arms  against  thy  state. 
What  better  precedent  than  mighty  Jove  ? 
Nature  that  framed  us  of  four  elements, 
Warring  within  our  breasts  for  regiment, 
Doth  teach  us  all  to  have  aspiring  minds. 
Our  souls,  whose  faculties  can  comprehend 
The  wondrous  architecture  of  the  world, 
And  measure  every  wandering  planet's  course, 
Still  climbing  after  knowledge  infinite, 
And  always  moving  as  the  restless  spheres, 
Will  us  to  wear  ourselves,  and  never  rest, 
Until  we  reach  the  ripest  fruit  of  all, — 
That  perfect  bliss  and  sole  delicity, 
The  sweet  fruition  of  an  earthly  crown. 


FROM   <  TAMBURLAINE> 

AH,  FAIR  Zenocrate!  —  divine  Zenocrate!  — 
Fair  is  too  foul  an  epithet  for  thee, 
That  in  thy  passion  for  thy  country's  love, 
And  fear  to  see  thy  kingly  father's  harm, 
With  hair  disheveled  wip'st  thy  watery  cheeks; 
And  like  to  Flora  in  her  morning  pride, 
Shaking  her  silver  tresses  in  the  air, 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  9719 

Rain'st  on  the  earth  resolved  pearl  in  showers, 

And  sprinklest  sapphires  on  thy  shining  face, 

Where  Beauty,  mother  to  the  Muses,  sits 

And  comments  volumes  with  her  ivory  pen, 

Taking  instructions  from  thy  flowing  eyes; 

Eyes  that,  when  Ebena  steps  to  heaven, 

In  silence  of  thy  solemn  evening's  walk, 

Make,  in  the  mantle  of  the  richest  night, 

The  moon,  the  planets,  and  the  meteors,  light 

There  angels  in  their  crystal  armors  fight 

A  doubtful  battle  writh  my  tempted  thoughts, 

For  Egypt's  freedom  and  the  Soldan's  life; 

His  life  that  so  consumes  Zenocrate, 

Whose  sorrows  lay  more  siege  unto  my  soul, 

Than  all  my  army  to  Damascus's  walls: 

And  neither  Persia's  sovereign,  nor  the  Turk, 

Troubled  my  senses  with  conceit  of  foil 

So  much  by  much  as  doth  Zenocrate. 

What  is  beauty,  saith  my  sufferings,  then  ? 

If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poets  held 

Had  fed  the  feeling  of  their  masters'  thoughts, 

And  every  sweetness  that  inspired  their  hearts, 

Their  minds,  and  muses  on  admired  themes; 

If  all  the  heavenly  quintessence  they  still 

From  their  immortal  flowers  of  poesy, 

Wherein,  as  in  a  mirror,  we  perceive 

The  highest  reaches  of  a  human  wit; 

If  these  had  made  one  poem's  period, 

And  all  combined  in  beauty's  worthiness, 

Yet  should  there  hover  in  their  restless  heads 

One  thought,  one  grace,  one  wonder,  at  the  least 

Which  into  words  no  virtue  can  digest. 

But  how  unseemly  is  it  for  my  sex, 

My  discipline  of  arms  and  chivalry, 

My  nature,  and  the  terror  of  my  name, 

To  harbor  thoughts  effeminate  and  faint! 

Save  only  that  in  beauty's  just  applause, 

With  whose  instinct  the  soul  of  man  is  touched; 

And  every  warrior  that  is  wrapt  with  love 

Of  fame,  of  valor,  and  of  victory, 

Must  needs  have  beauty  beat  on  his  conceits: 

I  thus  conceiving  and  subduing  both 

That  which  hath  stooped  the  chiefest  of  the  gods, 

Even  from  the  fiery-spangled  veil  of  heaven, 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

To  feel  the  lowly  warmth  of  shepherds'  flames, 
And  mask  in  cottages  of  strowed  reeds, 
Shall  give  the  world  to  note  for  all  my  birth, 
That  virtue  solely  is  the  sum  of  glory, 
And  fashions  men  with  true  nobility. 


FROM   <TAMBURLAINE> 

TAMBURLAINE  —  But   now,  my  boys,  leave   off  and    list 
to  me, 

That  mean  to  teach  you  rudiments  of  war: 
I'll  have  you  learn  to  sleep  upon  the  ground, 
March  in  your  armor  thorough  watery  fens, 
Sustain  the  scorching  heat  and  freezing  cold, 
Hunger  and  thirst,  right  adjuncts  of  the  war, 
And  after  this  to  scale  a  castle  wall, 
Besiege  a  fort,  to  undermine  a  town, 
And  make  whole  cities  caper  in  the  air. 
Then  next  the  way  to  fortify  your  men: 
In  champion  grounds,  what  figure  serves  you  best, 
For  which  the  quinque-angle  form  is  meet, 
Because  the  corners  there  may  fall  more  flat 
Whereas  the  fort  may  fittest  be  assailed, 
And  sharpest  where  the  assault  is  desperate. 
The  ditches  must  be  deep;  the  counterscarps 
Narrow  and  steep;  the  walls  made  high  and  broad; 
The  bulwarks  and  the  rampires  large  and  strong, 
With  cavalieros  and  thick  counterforts, 
And  room  within  to  lodge  six  thousand  men. 
It  must  have  privy  ditches,  countermines, 
And  secret  issuings  to  defend  the  ditch; 
It  must  have  high  argins  and  covered  ways, 
To  keep  the  bulwark  fronts  from  battery, 
And  parapets  to  hide  the  musketers; 
Casemates  to  place  the  great  artillery; 
And  store  of  ordnance,  that  from  every  flank 
May  scour  the  outward  curtains  of  the  fort, 
Dismount  the  cannon  of  the  adverse  part, 
Murder  the  foe,  and  save  the  walls  from  breach. 
When  this  is  learned  for  service  on  the  land, 
By  plain  and  easy  demonstration 
I'll  teach  you  how  to  make  the  water  mount, 
That  you  may  dry-foot  march  through  lakes  and  pools, 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  9721 

Deep  rivers,  havens,  creeks,  and  little  seas, 
And  make  a  fortress  in  the  raging  waves, 
Fenced  with  the  concave  of  monstrous  rock, 
Invincible  by  nature  of  the  place. 
When  this  is  done  then  are  ye  soldiers, 
And  worthy  sons  of  Tamburlaine  the  Great. 

Calyphas —      My  lord,  but  this  is  dangerous 'to  be  done: 
We  may  be  slain  or  wounded  ere  we  learn. 

Tamburlaine — 

Villain!    Art  thou  the  son  of  Tamburlaine, 

And  fear'st  to  die,  or  with  a  curtie-axe 

To  hew  thy  flesh,  and  make  a  gaping  wound? 

Hast  thou  beheld  a  peal  of  ordnance  strike 

A  ring  of  pikes,  mingled  with  shot  and  horse, 

Whose  shattered  limbs,  being  tossed  as  high  as  Heaven, 

Hang  in  the  air  as  thick  as  sunny  motes, 

And  canst  thou,  coward,  stand  in  fear  of  death  ? 

Hast  thou  not  seen  my  horsemen  charge  the  foe, 

Shot  through  the  arms,  cut  overthwart  the  hands, 

Dyeing  their  lances  with  their  streaming  blood, 

And  yet  at  night  carouse  within  my  tent, 

Filling  their  empty  veins  with  airy  wine, 

That,  being  concocted,  turns  to  crimson  blood, — 

And  wilt  thou  shun  the  field  for  fear  of  wounds? 

View  me,  thy  father,  that  hath  conquered  kings, 

A  1  •      l'       1      •  1  -1 

And  with  his  horse  marched  round  about  the  earth 
Quite  void  of  scars  and  clear  from  any  wound, 
That  by  the  wars  lost  not  a  drop  of  blood, — 

And  see  him  lance  his  flesh  to  teach  you  all. 
^^j> 

[He  cuts  his  arm. 

A  wound  is  nothing,  be  it  ne'er  so  deep; 

Blood  is  the  god  of  war's  rich  livery. 

Now  look  I  like  a  soldier,  and  this  wound 

As  great  a  grace  and  majesty  to  me, 

As  if  a  chain  of  gold,  enameled, 

Enchased  with  diamonds,  sapphires,  rubies. 

And  fairest  pearl  of  wealthy  India, 

Were  mounted  here  under  a  canopy, 

And  I  sate  down  clothed  with  a  massy  robe, 

That  late  adorned  the  Afric  potentate, 

Whom  I  brought  bound  unto  Damascus's  walls. 

Come,  boys,  and  with  your  fingers  search  my  wound, 

And  in  my  blood  wash  all  your  hands  at  once, 


9722  CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

While  I  sit  smiling  to  behold  the  sight. 
Now,  my  boys,  what  think  ye  of  a  wound  ? 

Calyphas —      I  know  not  what  I  should  think  of  it;  methinks  it  is  a 

pitiful  sight. 

Celebinus —      'Tis  nothing:  give  me  a  wound,  father. 

Amyras —       And  me  another,  my  lord. 

Tamburlaine — 

Come,  sirrah,  give  me  your  arm. 

Celebinus —     Here,  father,  cut  it  bravely,  as  you  did  your  own. 

Tamburlaine  — 

It  shall  suffice  thou  darest  abide  a  wound: 

My  boy,  thou  shalt  not  lose  a  drop  of  blood 

Before  we  meet  the  army  of  the  Turk; 

But  then  run  desperate  through  the  thickest  throngs, 

Dreadless  of  blows,  of  bloody  wounds,  and  death; 

And  let  the  burning  of  Larissa-walls, 

My  speech  of  war,  and  this  my  wound  you  see, 

Teach  you,  my  boys,  to  bear  courageous  minds 

Fit  for  the  followers  of  great  Tamburlaine! 


INVOCATION   TO  HELEN 
From  <  Doctor  Faustus> 

FAUSTUS  —  Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand 
ships 

And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium  ? 
Sweet  Helen,  make  me  immortal  with  a  kiss. 

[Kisses  her. 

Her  lips  suck  forth  my  soul;  see  where  it  flies! — 
Come,  Helen,  come,  give  me  my  soul  again. 
Here  will  I  dwell,  for  Heaven  is  in  these  lips, 
And  all  is  dross  that  is  not  Helena. 
I  will  be  Paris,  and  for  love  of  thee, 
Instead  of  Troy,  shall  Wertenberg  be  sacked; 
And  I  will  combat  with  weak  Menelaus, 
And  wear  thy  colors  on  my  plumed  crest; 
Yea,  I  will  wound  Achilles  in  the  heel, 
And  then  return  to  Helen  for  a  kiss. 
Oh,  thou  art  fairer  than  the  evening  air 
Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars; 
Brighter  art  thou  than  flaming  Jupiter 
When  he  appeared  to  hapless  Semele; 
More  lovely  than  the  monarch  of  the  sky 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  9723 

In  wanton  Arethusa's  azured  arms: 
And  none  but  thou  shalt  b>e  my  paramour. 
• 

Ah,  Faustus, 

Now  hast  thou  but  one  bare  hour  to  live, 
And  then  thou -must  be  damned  perpetually! 
Stand  still,  you  ever-moving  spheres  of  heaven, 
That  time  may  cease,  and  midnight  never  come; 
Fair  Nature's  eye,  rise,  rise  again  and  make 
Perpetual  day;  or  let  this  hour  be  but 
A  year,  a  month,  a  week,  a  natural  day, 
That  Faustus  may  repent  and  save  his  soul! 
O  lente,  lente,  cur  rite  noctis  equi! 

The  stars  move  still,  time  runs,  the  clock  will  strike, 
The  Devil  will  come,  and  Faustus  must  be  damned. 
Oh,  I'll  leap  up. to  my  God!     Who  pulls  me  down? 
See,  see,  where  Christ's  blood  streams  in  the  firmament! 
One   drop   would   save   my  soul!  —  half  a  drop;    ah,  my 

Christ ! 

Ah,  rend  not  my  heart  for  naming  of  my  Christ! 
Yet  will  I  call  on  him:  O  spare  me,  Lucifer!  — 
Where  is  it  now  ?  'tis  gone ;  and  see  where  God 
Stretcheth  out  his  arm,  and  bends  his  ireful  brows  I 
Mountain  and  hills  come,  come  and  fall  on  me, 
And  hide  me  from  the  heavy  wrath  of  God! 
No!  No! 

Then  will  I  headlong  run  into  the  earth; 
Earth  gape!     Oh,  no,  it  will  not  harbor  me! 
You  stars  that  reigned  at  my  nativity, 
Whose  influence  hath  allotted  death  and  hell, 
Now  draw  up  Faustus  like  a  foggy  mist 
Into  the  entrails  of  yon  laboring  clouds, 
That  when  they  vomit  forth  into  the  air, 
My  limbs  may  issue  from  their  smoky  mouths, 
So  that  my  soul  may  but  ascend  to  heaven. 

[The  dock  strikes  the  half -hour.'} 

Ah,  half  the  hour  is  past!  'twill  all  be  past  anon! 

O  God! 

If  thou  wilt  not  have  mercy  on  my  soul, 

Yet  for  Christ's  sake  whose  blood  hath  ransomed  me, 

Impose  some  end  to  my  incessant  pain; 

Let  Faustus  live  in  hell  a  thousand  years  — 

A  hundred  thousand,  and  —  at  last  —  be  saved! 


9724  CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

Oh,  no  end  is  limited  to  damned  souls! 

Why  wert  thou  not  a  creature  wanting  soul  ? 

Or  why  is  this  immortal  that  thou  hast  ? 

Ah,  Pythagoras's  metempsychosis!  were  that  true, 

This  soul  should  fly  from  me,  and  I  be  changed 

Unto  some  brutish  beast!   all  beasts  are  happy, 

For,  when  they  die, 

Their  souls  are  soon  dissolved  in  elements; 

But  mine  must  live,  still  to  be  plagued  in  hell, 

Curst  be  the  parents  that  engendered  me! 

No,  Faustus:  curse  thyself;  curse  Lucifer 

That  hath  deprived  thee  of  the  joys  of  heaven. 

[The  dock  strikes  twelve.} 

Oh,  it  strikes,  it  strikes!    Now,  body,  turn  to  air, 
Or  Lucifer  will  bear  thee  quick  to  hell. 

[  Thunder  and  lightning.  ] 

O  soul,  be  changed  into  little  water-drops, 
And  fall  into  the  ocean  —  ne'er  ,be  found. 

Enter  Devils 

My  God!  my  God!  look  not  so  fierce  on  me! 
Adders  and  serpents,  let  me  breathe  awhile! 
Ugly  hell,  gape  not!   come  not,  Lucifer! 
I'll  burn  my  books!  —  Ah,  Mephistophilis ! 

[J5xeu;if  Devils  with  Faustus.} 

Enter  Chorus 

Chorus  —  Cut  is  the  branch  that  might  have  grown  full  straight, 
And  burned  is  Apollo's  laurel  bough, 
That  sometime  grew  within  this  learned  man. 
Faustus  is  gone:  regard  his  hellish  fall, 
Whose  fiendful  fortune  may  exhort  the  wise 
Only  to  wonder  at  unlawful  things, 
Whose  deepness  doth  entice  such  forward  wits 
To  practice  more  than  heavenly  power  permits.     [Exit. 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 


FROM   <  EDWARD   THE   SECOND  > 


9725 


KING  EDWARD  — 
Who's  there  ?  what  light  is  that  ?  wherefore  com'st  thou  ? 
Lightborn  —  To  comfort  you,  and  bring  you  joyful  news. 

King  Edward — 

Small  comfort  finds  poor  Edward  in  thy  looks. 
Villain,  I  know  thou  com'st  to  murder  me. 

Lightborn —  To  murder  you,  my  most  gracious  lord! 
Far  is  it  from  my  heart  to  do  you  harm. 
The  Queen  sent  me  to  see  how  you  were  used, 
For  she  relents  at  this  your  misery; 
And  what  eyes  can  refrain  from  shedding  tears, 
To  see  a  king  in  this  most  piteous  state  ? 

King  Edward — 

Weep'st  thou  already  ?    List  awhile  to  me : 
And  then  thy  heart,  were  it  as  Gurney's  is, 
Or  as  Matrevis's,  hewn  from  the  Caucasus, 
Yet  will  it  melt,  ere  I  have  done  my  tale. 
This  dungeon  where  they  keep  me  is  the  sink 
Wherein  the  filth  of  all  the  castle  falls. 

Lightborn —  O  villains! 

King  Edward — 

And  there  in  mire  and  puddle  have  I  stood 

This  ten  days'  space;  and  lest  that  I  should  sleep, 

One  plays  continually  upon  a  drum; 

They  give  me  bread  and  water,  being  a  king: 

So  that,  for  want  of  sleep  and  sustenance, 

My  mind's  distempered,  and  my  body's  numbed; 

And  whether  I  have  limbs  or  no  I  know  not. 

Oh,  would  my  blood  dropped  out  from  every  vein, 

As  doth  this  water  from  my  tattered  robes. 

Tell  Isabel,  the  queen,  I  looked  not  thus 

When  for  her  sake  I  ran  at  tilt  in  France, 

And  there  unhorsed  the  Duke  of  Cleremont. 

Lightborn —  Oh,  speak  no  more,  my  lord!     This  breaks  my  heart. 
Lie  on  this  bed,  and  rest  yourself  awhile. 

King  Edward— 

These  looks  of  thine  can  harbor  naught  but  death: 
I  see  my  tragedy  written  in  thy  brows. 
Yet  stay:  awhile  forbear  thy  bloody  hand, 
And  let  me  see  the  stroke  before  it  comes, 
That  even  then,  when  I  shall  lose  my  life, 
My  mind  may  be  more  steadfast  on  my  God. 


9726 


CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE 


Lightborn  —  What  means  your  Highness  to  mistrust  me  thus  ? 
King  Edward — 

What  mean'st  thou  to  dissemble  with  me  thus? 
Lightborn — These  hands  were  never  stained  with  innocent  blood, 

Nor  shall  they  now  be  tainted  with  a  king's. 
King  Edward — 

Forgive  my  thought  for  having  such  a  thought. 

One  jewel  have  I  left;  receive  thou  this.       {Giving  jewel.} 

Still  fear  I,  and  I  know  not  what's  the  cause, 

But  every  joint  shakes  as  I  give  it  thee. 

Oh,  if  thou  harborest  murder  in  thy  heart, 

Let  this  gift  change  thy  mind,  and  save  thy  soul. 

Know  that  I  am  a  king  —  oh,  at  that  name 

I  feel  a  hell  of  grief!     Where  is  my  crown? 

Gone,  gone !   and  do  I  still  remain  alive  ? 

Lightborn  —  You're  overwatched,  my  lord :   lie  down  and  rest. 
King  Edward — 

But  that  grief  keeps  me  waking,  I  should  sleep; 

For  not  these  ten  days  have  these  eyelids  closed. 

Now  as  I  speak  they  fall;  and  yet  with  fear 

Open  again.     Oh,  wherefore  sitt'st  thou  here  ? 
Lightborn — If  you  mistrust  me,  I'll  begone,  my  lord. 
King  Edward — 

No,  no:  for  if  thou  mean'st  to  murder  me, 

Thou  wilt  return  again;   and  therefore  stay.     [Sleeps.] 
Lightborn  —  He  sleeps. 
King  Edward  [waking}  — 

Oh,  let  me  not  die  yet!     Oh,  stay  a  while! 
Lightborn  —  How  now,  my  lord  ? 
King  Edward — 

Something  still  buzzeth  in  mine  ears, 

And  tells  me  if  I  sleep  I  never  wake; 

This  fear  is  that  which  makes  me  tremble  thus. 

And  therefore  tell  me,  Wherefore  art  thou  comer 
Lightborn  —  To  rid  thee  of  thy  life.  —  Matrevis,  come ! 

Enter  Matrevis  and  Gurney 

King  Edward — 

I  am  too  weak  and  feeble  to  resist: 

Assist  me,  sweet  God,  and  receive  my  soul  I 

Lightborn — Run  for  the  table. 

King  Edward — 

Oh,  spare  me,  or  dispatch  me  in  a  trice. 

[Matrevis  brings  in  a  table.} 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  9727 

Lightborn — So,  lay  the  table  down,  and  stamp  on  it, 

But  not  too  hard,  lest  that  you  bruise  his  body. 

\King  Edward  is  murdered.'} 

Matrevis —   I  fear  me  that  this  cry  will  raise  the  town, 
And  therefore,  let  us  take  horse  and  away. 
Lightborn  —  Tell  me,  sirs,  was  it  not  bravely  done? 
Gurney —     Excellent  well:  take  this  for  thy  reward. 

{Gurney  stabs  Lightborn,  who  dies.} 

Come,  let  us  cast  the  body  in  the  moat, 

And  bear  the  King's  to  Mortimer  our  lord! 

Away  I  [Exeunt  with  the  bodies. 


FROM   <THE  JEW  OF  MALTA  > 

BARABAS — So  that  of  thus  much  that  return  was  made; 
And  of  the  third  part  of  the  Persian  ships, 
There  was  the  venture  summed  and  satisfied. 
As  for  those  Sabans,  and  the  men  of  Uz, 
That  bought  my  Spanish  oils  and  wines  of  Greece, 
Here  have  I  purst  their  paltry  silverlings. 
Fie;  what  a  trouble  'tis  to  count  this  trash! 
Well  fare  the  Arabians,  who  so  richly  pay 
The  things  they  traffic  for  with  wedge  of  gold, 
Whereof  a  man  may  easily  in  a  day 
Tell  that  which  may  maintain  him  all  his  life. 
The  needy  groom  that  never  fingered  groat 
Would  make  a  miracle  of  thus  much  coin; 
But  he  whose  steel-barred  coffers  are  crammed  full, 
And  all  his  lifetime  hath  been  tired, 
Wearying  his  fingers'  ends  with  telling  it, 
Would  in  his  age  be  loth  to  labor  so, 
And  for  a  pound  to  sweat  himself  to  death. 
Give  me  the  merchants  of  the  Indian  mines, 
That  trade  in  metal  of  the  purest  mold; 
The  wealthy  Moor,  that  in  the  eastern  rocks 
Without  control  can  pick  his  riches  up, 
Anid  in  his  house  heap  pearls  like  pebble-stonest 
Receive  them  free,  and  sell  them  by  the  weight; 
Bags  of  fiery  opals,  sapphires,  amethysts, 
Jacinths,  hard  topaz,  grass-green  emeralds, 


9728 


CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE 

Beauteous  rubies,  sparkling  diamonds, 

And  seld-seen  costly  stones  of  so  great  price. 

As  one  of  them  indifferently  rated, 

And  of  a  carat  of  this  quantity, 

May  serve  in  peril  of  calamity 

To  ransom  great  kings  from  captivity. 

This  is  the  ware  wherein  consists  my  wealth; 

And  thus  methinks  should  men  of  judgment  frame 

Their  means  of  traffic  from  the  vulgar  trade, 

And  as  their  wealth  increaseth,  so  inclose 

Infinite  riches  in  a  little  room.     .     . 

These  are  the  blessings  promised  to  the  Jews, 

And  herein  was  old  Abram's  happiness: 

What  more  may  Heaven  do  for  earthly  man 

Than  thus  to  pour  out  plenty  in  their  laps, 

Ripping  the  bowels  of  the  earth  for  them, 

Making  the  seas  their  servants,  and  the  winds 

To  drive  their  substance  with  successful  blasts? 

Who  hateth  me  but  for  my  happiness? 

Or  who  is  honored  now  but  for  his  wealth  ? 

Rather  had  I  a  Jew  be  hated  thus, 

Than  pitied  in  a  Christian  poverty: 

For  I  can  see  no  fruits  in  all  their  faith, 

But  malice,  falsehood,  and  excessive  pride, 

Which  methinks  fits  not  their  profession. 

Haply  some  hapless  man  hath  conscience, 

And  for  his  conscience  lives  in  beggary. 

They  say  we  are  a  scattered  nation; 

I  cannot  tell,  but  we  have  scambled  up 

More  wealth  by  far  than  those  that  brag  of  faith. 

There's  Kirriah  Jairim,  the  great  Jew  of  Greece, 

Obed  in  Bairseth,  Nones  in  Portugal, 

Myself  in  Malta,  some  in  Italy, 

Many  in  France,  and  wealthy  every  one; 

Ay,  wealthier  far  than  any  Christian. 

I  must  confess  we  come  not  to  be  kings: 

That's  not  our  fault;   alas,  our  number's  few, 

And  crowns  come  either  by  succession, 

Or  urged  by  force;   and  nothing  violent, 

Oft  have  I  heard  tell,  can  be  permanent. 

Give  us  a  peaceful  rule;  make  Christians  kings, 

That  thirst  so  much  for  principality. 


9729 


CLEMENT  MAROT 

(1497-1544) 

IHE  quality  that  gives  a  peculiar  charm  to  the  verses  of  Marot 
is  the  blending  of  gayety  and  gravity.  With  light  touches 
he  expresses  serious  feeling,  and  the  sincerity  of  his  senti- 
ment suffers  no  wrong  from  the 'fantastic  dress  of  the  period.  His 
Muse  wears  a  particolored  robe;  not  that  of  Folly,  but  a  garment  of 
rich  and  noble  patches,  in  which  velvets  and  brocades  oddly  harmon- 
ize with  the  homespun  they  strengthen  and  adorn.  It  is  because 
they  are  the  velvets  and  brocades  of  the  Renaissance,  any  scrap 
or  shred  of  which  had  a  decorative  value. 
And  still  another  material  is  to  be  observed: 
the  strong  linen  of  the  Reformation,  whose 
whiteness  endues  with  the  more  pictur- 
esqueness  the  brilliant  colors. 

The  poetic  life  of  Clement  Marot  opened 
on  the  plane  of  pedantry,  and  closed  on 
that  of  preaching;  but  between  these  two 
conditions  —  each  of  them  the  consequence 
of  the  influences  of  the  time  —  his  own  indi- 
viduality asserted  itself  in  countless  humor- 
ous, delicate,  charming,  exquisite  (<  epistles }> 
and  <(  elegies,"  (<  epitaphs w  and  "etrennes" 
and  (<  ballades, w  <(  dizains, }>  "rondeaux,"  and 
<(  chansons, w  and  in  (<  epigrammes, }) — some  of 

them  coarse  and  cynical,  and  some  to  be  counted  among  his  best  and 
most  original  work.  He  wrote  also  <(  eclogues » ;  and  one  on  the  death 
of  the  queen  mother,  Luise  of  Savoie,  is  considered  a  masterpiece. 
Two  other  kinds  of  composition  in  which  he  also  excelled  had  in  the 
sixteenth  century  a  great  vogue:  the  <( blazon })  and  the  (<coq  a  I'ane.® 
The  <(  blazons »  were  eulogistic  or  satirical  descriptions  of  different 
parts  of  an  object;  they  were  devoted  .by  the  gallantry  of  the  day 
to  the  description  of  a  woman's  eyebrow  or  eyes,  or  hand,  or  more 
intimate  parts  of  the  body.  The  two  «  blazons »  of  Marot  (<Du  Beau 
Tetin >  and  (  Du  Layd  Tetin >)  inspired  a  whole  series  of  productions  of 
the  same  kind  from  contemporary  versifiers.  The  pieces  called  ucoq 
a  1'ane }>  were,  before  Marot,  a  jeu  d' esprit  of  incoherent  verses.  Marot 
gave  them  a  new  character  by  making  able  use  of  this  apparent 
incoherency  to  veil  satirical  attacks  on  formidable  enemies. 


CLEMENT  MAROT 


CLEMENT   MAROT 

It  has  been  prettily  said  that  he  was  as  the  bee  among  poets,—* 
delicately  winged,  honey-making,  and  with  a  sting  for  self-defense. 

Born  in  1497,  the  son  of  a  secretary  of  Queen  Anne  of  Brittany, 
in  1515  the  youthful  poet  presented  to  the  youthful  King  (Francis 
the  First)  a  poetical  composition,  the  longest  he  ever  wrote,  entitled 
<Le  Temple  de  Cupido.*  In  1519  he  —  <(Le  Despourveu,"  as  he  styled 
himself — was  attached  to  the  court  of  Marguerite  (the  sister  of 
Francis),  then  the  Duchesse  d'Alencon.  Five  years  later  he  became 
one  of  her  pensioners,  and  through  all  his  after  life  he  was  cared 
for  and  protected  by  her.  In  1528  he  was  made  one  of  the  King's 
household,  and  at  this  moment  his  powers  attained  their  highest 
point.  The  court,  as  he  himself  says,  was  his  true  « schoolmistress. » 
In  1532  appeared  the  first  collection  of  his  verses. 

But  for  some  years  previously  his  half-heretical  opinions  had 
drawn  trouble  upon  him,  protest  as  he  might 

(<  Point  ne  suis  Lutheriste, 
Ne  Zuinglien,  et  moins  Anabaptiste; 
Je  suis  de  Dieu  par  son  fils  Jesuchrist.^ 

In  1526  he  suffered  imprisonment  for  a  few  weeks,  and  this  imprison- 
ment was  the  occasion  of  a  long  poem  entitled  <Hell,)  —  a  satire 
on  the  tribunal  and  prison  of  the  Chatelet.  This  <(si  gentil  ceuvre^ 
was  first  printed  at  Antwerp,  and  was  reprinted  some  years  later  by 
Estienne  Dolet,  <(in  the  most  beautiful  form,"  he  says,  (<and  with  the 
most  ornament  possible  to  me,  .  .  .  because  in  reading  it  I  have 
found  it  free  from  anything  scandalous  respecting  God  and  religion, 
and  not  containing  anything  against  the  majesty  of  princes. })  It  was 
of  such  crimes  that  Marot  had  been  accused. 

In  1531  he  was  again  brought  before  the  Parliament,  and  once 
more  he  was  summoned  in  1535.  The  matter  now  looked  so  serious 
that  he  thought  it  best  to  fly  to  Ferrara,  to  the  court  of  Renee  of 
France,  where  he  found  himself  in  company  with  Calvin.  The  per- 
sonal unhappiness  of  the  Princess  Renee  made  a  profound  impression 
on  Marot.  He  saw  this  ardent  protectress  of  the  Protestants  to  be 
sadly  in  need  herself  of  protection;  and  more  than  once,  at  this  time 
and  later,  he  addressed  to  her,  and  to  others  regarding  her,  strains  of 
heartfelt  compassion.  Her  ducal  husband  Ercole  d'Este  —  the  enemy 
of  her  friends  —  swept  out  of  the  city  as  with  a  besom  all  her  pro- 
teges as  often  as  he  could;  and  Marot  was  soon  obliged  to  make  his 
way  to  Venice.  Within  the  year,  however,  he  received  permission  to 
return  to  France,  and  was  once  more  high  in  the  King's  favor. 

But  the  immense,  wide-spread  success  of  a  translation  of  some  of 
the  Psalms  he  now  made  again  roused  the  Sorbonne;  and  he  was 
forced  to  take  refuge  at  Turin,  where  he  died  in  1544.  Two  years 
later  his  friend  Estienne  Dolet  was  burned  at  the  stake. 


CLEMENT  MAROT 

Such  was  the  outward  career  of  this  vivid,  eager  poet.  He  was 
perhaps,  in  his  relations  to  the  world,  audacious  rather  than  bold; 
in  his  relations  to  the  other  world,  a  lover  of  novelty  rather  than 
of  truth;  as  a  man,  somewhat  vain  and  boastful,  somewhat  licen- 
tious in  a  licentious  age, —  but  he  wrote  verses  that  disarm  'criticism. 
In  reading  the  best  of  them,  one  is  persuaded  for  the  moment  that 
nothing  is  so  enchanting  as  spontaneity,  gayety,  grace,  quickness, 
keenness,  unimpassioned  sentiment  and  natural  courtesy,  and  the 
philosophy  that  jests  at  personal  misfortunes,  flowing  from  a  heart 
of  tenderness.  Admiration  of  another  kind  also  is  excited  in  remem- 
bering that  this  poet,  whose  epistles  to  (<the  great w  —  to  the  King 
and  his  sister — are  almost  in  the  tone  of  equal  addressing  equal,  was 
after  all,  nominally  their  servant,  actually  their  dependent.  A  foolish 
legend  has  prevailed  that  the  relations  between  Marot  and  the  Queen 
of  Navarre  were  of  extreme  intimacy.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  to 
justify  such  a  belief.  The  attachment  between  them  —  respectful  on 
both  sides  —  was  only  one  of  the  illustrations  of  the  relations  brought 
about  by  the  Renaissance  between  crowned  heads  and  men  of  letters. 

The  long  Epistles  of  Marot  are  his  most  interesting  productions. 
He  was  the  creator  of  the  <(  epitre-badine,"  and  he  has  never  been 
surpassed  in  this  kind  of  writing.  The  Epistle  to  Lyon  Jamet,  con- 
taining the  fable  of  the  rat  and  the  lion,  is  the  most  famous;  but  its 
length  and  the  exquisite  quality  of  its  style  forbid  any  attempt  at 
its  reproduction  here.  In  his  Epistles,  as  elsewhere  in  his  work,  the 
best  and  most  characteristic  and  the  gayest  verses  of  Marot  are  of 
extreme  difficulty  to  translate.  Their  form  is  their  very  substance: 
change  even  the  mere  sound  of  a  word,  and  its  meaning  is  gone. 
He,  like  La  Fontaine, —  there  are  many  similarities  between  the  two, 
—  can  be  known  only  by  those  who  can  read  him  in  the  original. 
The  following  translations  can  scarcely  do  more  than  show  the  sub- 
jects of  the  verses  selected,  and  the  general  tone. 

Marot  exercised  no  durable  influence,  though  his  style  was  so 
marked  that  it  became  a  generic  designation  —  <(le  style  Marotique." 
But  <(le  style  Marotique"  means  different  things  according  to  the 
person  using  the  phrase.  Marmontel  defines  it  as  (<  a  medley  of 
phrases  vulgar  and  noble,  old-fashioned  and  modern. })  La  Harpe  said 
<(  a  ( style  Marotique >  is  one  that  has  the  gay,  agreeable,  simple, 
natural  manner  peculiar  to  Marot. w  La  Harpe's  definition  is  the  truer, 
that  of  Marmontel  the  one  most  generally  accepted. 


CLEMENT  MAROT 


OLD-TIME   LOVE 

IN  GOOD  old  days  such  sort  of  love  held  sway 
As  artlessly  and  simply  made  its  way, 
And  a  few  flowers,  the  gift  of  love  sincere, 
Than  all  the  round  earth's  riches  were  more  dear* 

For  to  the  heart  alone  did  they  address  their  lay. 
And  if  they  chanced  to  love  each  other,  pray 
Take  heed  how  well  they  then  knew  how  to  stay 
For  ages  faithful  —  twenty,  thirty  year  — 
In  good  old  days. 

But  now  is  lost  Lovers  rule  they  used  t'  obey; 
Only  false  tears  and  changes  fill  the  day. 

Who  would  have  me  a  lover  now  appear 

c* 

Must  love  make  over  in  the  olden  way, 
And  let  it  rule  as  once  it  held  its  sway 
In  good  old  days. 


EPIGRAM 

No  LONGER  am  I  what  I  have  been, 
Nor  again  can  ever  be; 
My  bright  Springtime  and  my  Summer 
Through  the  window  flew  from  me. 
Love,  thou  hast  ever  been  my  master, 
I'.ve  served  no  other  God  so  well;  — 
Oh,  were  I  born  a  second  time,  Love, 
Then  my  service  none  could  tell. 


TO  A   LADY  WHO  WISHED  TO   BEHOLD  MAROT 

BEFORE  she  saw  me,  reading  in  my  book, 
She  loved  me;  then  she  wished  to  see  my  face: 
Now  she  has  seen  me,  gray,  and  swart  of  look, 
Yet  none  the  less  remain  I  in  her  grace. 
O  gentle  heart,  maiden  of  worthy  race, 
You  do  not  err:  for  this  my  body  frail, 
It  is  not  I;   naught  is  it  but  my  jail: 

And  in  the  writings  that  you  once  did  read, 
Your  lovely  eyes  —  so  may  the  truth  avail  — 
Saw  me  more  truly  than  just  now,  indeed. 


CLEMENT  MAROT 


THE   LAUGH   OF  MADAME   D'ALBRET 

SHE  has  indeed  a  throat  of  lovely  whiteness, 
The  sweetest  speech,  and  fairest  cheeks  and  eyes 
But  in  good  sooth  her  little  laugh  of  lightness 

Is  where  her  chiefest  charm,  to  my  thought,  lies. 
.  With  its  gay  note  she  can  make  pleasure  rise, 
Where'er  she  hap  to  be,  withouten  fail; 
And  should  a  bitter  grief  me  e'er  assail, 

So  that  my  life  by  death  may  threatened  be, 
To  bring  me  back  to  health  will  then  avail 

To  hear  this  laugh  with  which  she  slayeth  me. 


FROM   AN   «  ELEGY  » 

THY  lofty  place,  thy  gentle  heart,    - 
Thy  wisdom  true  in  every  part, 
Thy  gracious  mien,  thy  noble  air, 
Thy  singing  sweet,  and  speech  so  fair, 
Thy  robe  that  does  so  well  conform 
To  the  nature  of  thy  lovely  form  : 
In  short,  these  gifts  and  charms  whose  grace 
Invests  thy  soul  and  thee  embrace, 
Are  not  what  has  constrained  me 
To  give  my  heart's  true  love  to  thee. 
'Twas  thy  sweet  smile  which  me  perturbed, 
And  from  thy  lips  a  gracious  word 
Which  from  afar  made  me  to  see 
Thou'd  not  refuse  to  hear  my  plea. 

Come,  let  us  make  one  heart  of  two! 

Better  work  we  cannot  do; 

For  'tis  plain  our  starry  guides, 

The  accord  of  our  lives  besides, 

Bid  this  be  done.     For  of  us  each 

Is  like  the  other  in  thought  and  speech: 

We  both  love  men  of  courtesy, 

We  both  love  honor  and  purity, 

We  both  love  never  to  speak  evil, 

We  both  love  pleasant  talk  that's  civil, 

We  both  love  being  in  those  places 

Where  rarely  venture  saddened  faces, 

We  both  love  merry  music's  measure, 

We  both  in  books  find  frequent  pleasure. 


9734  CLEMENT  MAROT 

What  more  is  there  ?    Just  this  to  sing 
I'll  dare:  in  almost  everything 
Alike  we  are,  save  hearts;  —  for  thine 
Is  much  more  hard,  alas!   than  mine. 
Beseech  thee  now  this  rock  demolish, 
Yet  not  thy  sweeter  parts  abolish. 


THE  DUCHESS   D'ALENQON 

SUCH  lofty  worth  has  she,  my  great  mistress, 
That  her  fair  body's  upright,  pure,  and  fine; 
Her  steadfast  heart,  when  Fortune's  star  doth  shine, 
Is  ne'er  too  light,  nor  elsetimes  in  distress. 
Her  spirit  rare  than  angels  is  no  less, 
The  subtlest  sure  that  e'er  the  heavens  bred. 

O  marvel  great!     Now  can  it  clear  be  seen 
That  I  the  slave  am  of  a  wonder  dread. — 

Wonder,  I  say,  for  sooth  she  has,  I  ween, 
A  woman's  form,  man's  heart,  and  angel's  head. 


M 


TO   THE   QUEEN   OF   NAVARRE 

OURN  for  the  dead,  let  who  will  for  them  mourn;- 
But  while  I  live,  my  heart  is  most  forlorn 
For  those  whose  night  of  sorrow  sees  no  dawn 
On  this  earth. 


O  Flower  of  France  whom  at  the  first  I  served, 
Those  thou  hast  freed  from  pain  that  them  unnerved 
Have  given  pain  to  thee,  ah!  undeserved, 
I'll  attest. 

Of  ingrates  thou  hast  sadly  made  full  test; 
But  since  I  left  thee  (bound  by  stern  behest), — 
Not  leaving  thee, — full  humbly  I've  addrest 
A  princess 

Who  has  a  heart  that  does  not  sorrow  less 
Than  thine.      Ah  God!  shall  I  ne'er  know  mistress, 
Before  I  die,  whose  eye  on  sad  distress 
Is  not  bent? 

Is  not  my  Muse  as  fit  and  apt  to  invent 
A  song  of  peace  that  would  bring  full  content 
As  chant  the  bitterness  of  this  torment 
Exceeding  ? 


CLEMENT   MAROT  9735 

Ah!  listen,  Margaret,  to  the  suffering 
That  in  the  heart  of  Renee  plants  its  sting; 
Then,  sister-like,  than  hope  more  comforting, 
Console  her.     . 


FROM   A   LETTER   TO   THE   KING;    AFTER   BEING  ROBBED 

I  HAD  of  late  a  Gascon  serving-man: 
A  monstrous  liar,  glutton,  drunkard,  both, 
A  trickster,  thief,  and  every  word  an  oath, — 
The  rope  almost  around  his  neck,  you  see, — 
But  otherwise  the  best  of  fellows  he. 

This  very  estimable  youngster  knew 

Of  certain  money  given  me  by  you: 

A  mighty  swelling  in  my  purse  he  spied; 

Rose  earlier  than  usual,  and  hied 

To  take  it  deftly,  giving  no  alarm, 

And  tucked  it  snugly  underneath  his  arm, — : 

Money  and  all,  of  course, — and  it  is  plain 

'Twas  not  to  give  it  back  to  me  again, 

For  never  have  I  seen  it,  to  this  day. 

But  still  the  rascal  would  not  run  away 
For  such  a  trifling  bagatelle  as  that, 
So  also  took  cloak,  trousers,  cape,  and  hat,— 
In  short,  of  all  my  clothes  the  very  best, — 
And  then  himself  so  finely  in  them  dressed 
That  to  behold  him,  e'en  by  light  of  day, 
It  was  his  master  surely,  you  would  say. 

He  left  my  chamber  finally,  and  flew 
Straight  to  the  stable,  where  were  horses  two 
Left  me  the  worst,  and  mounted  on  the  best, 
His  charger  spurred,  and  bolted;  for  the  rest, 
You  may  be  sure  that  nothing  he  omitted, 
Save  bidding  me  good-by,  before  he  quitted. 

So  —  ticklish  round  the  throat,  to  say  the  truth, 
But  looking  like  St.  George  —  this  hopeful  youth 
Rode  off,  and  left  his  master  sleeping  sound, 
Who  waking,  not  a  blessed  penny  found. 
This  master  was  myself, — the  very  one, — 
And  quite  dumbfounded  to  be  thus  undone; 
To  find  myself  without  a  decent  suit, 
And  vexed  enough  to  lose  my  horse,  to  boot. 


973 6  CLEMENT  MAROT 

But  for  the  money  you  had  given  me, 
The  losing  it  ought  no  surprise  to  be; 
For,  as  your  gracious  Highness  understands, 
Your  money,  Sire,  is  ever  changing  hands. 


FROM  A   RHYMED   LETTER  TO  THE  KING 
AT  THE  TIME  OF  HIS  EXILE  AT  FERRARA — 1535 

I  THINK  it  may  be  that  your  Majesty,  Sovereign  King,  may  be- 
lieve that  my  absence  is  occasioned  by  my  feeling  the  prick 

of  some  ill  deed;  but  it  is  not  so,  for  I  do  not  feel  myself  to 
be  of  the  number  of  the  guilty:  but  I  know  of  many  corruptible 
judges  in  Paris,  who,  for  pecuniary  gain,  or  for  friends,  or  for 
their  own  ends,  or  in  tender  grace  and  charity  to  some  fair 
humble  petitioner,  will  save  the  foul  and  guilty  life  of  the  most 
wicked  criminal  in  the  world;  while  on  the  other  hand,  for  lack 
of  bribing  or  protection,  or  from  rancor,  they  are  to  the  inno- 
cent so  inhuman  that  I  am  loth  to  fall  into  their  hands. 

They  are  much  my  enemies  because  of  their  hell,  which  I 
have  set  in  a  writing,  wherein  some  few  of  their  wicked  wiles  I 
lay  bare.  They  wish  great  harm  to. me  for  a  small  work.  .  .  . 

As  much  as  they,  and  with  no  good  cause,  wishes  ill  to  me 
the  ignorant  Sorbonne.  Very  ignorant  she  shows  herself  in  being 
the  enemy  of  the  noble  trilingual  academy  [College  de  France] 
your  Majesty  has  created.  It  is  clearly  manifest  that  within  her 
precincts,  against  your  Majesty's  will  is  prohibited  all  teaching 
of  Hebrew  or  Greek  or  Latin,  she  declaring  it  heretical.  O  poor 
creatures,  all  denuded  of  learning,  you  make  true  the  familiar 
proverb,  (<  Knowledge  has  no  such  haters  as  the  ignorant.  *..•', 

They  have  given  me  the  name  of  Lutheran.  I  answer  them 
that  it  is  not  so.  Luther  for  me  has  not  descended  from 
heaven.  Luther  for  my  sins  has  not  hung  upon  the  cross;  and 
I  am  quite  sure  that  in  his  name  I  have  not  been  baptized:  I 
have  been  baptized  in  that  Name  at  whose  naming  the  Eternal 
Father  gives  that  which  is  asked  for,  the  sole  Name  in  and  by 
which  this  wicked  world  can  find  salvation.  .  .  . 

O  Lord  God  .  .  .  grant  that  whilst  I  live,  my  pen  may 
be  employed  in  thy  honor;  and  if  this  my  body  be  predestined 
by  thee  one  day  to  be  destroyed  by  fire,  grant  that  it  be  for  no 
light  cause,  but  for  thee  and  for  thy  Word.  And  I  pray  thee, 
Father,  that  the  torture  may  not  be  so  intense  that  my  soul  may 
be  sunk  in  forgetfulness  of  thee  in  whom  is  all  my  trust. 


9737 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 

(1792-1848) 

IHOUGH  it  is  nearly  half  a  century  since  Captain  Frederick 
Marryat  passed  away,  he  still  lives  in  his  sea  stories.  The 
circulating-library  copies  are  dog's-eared  with  constant  use, 
and  an  occasional  new  edition  testifies  to  the  favor  of  a  younger  gen- 
eration. His  most  ardent  admirers,  however,  do  not  rank  him  among 
the  great  novelists.  He  had  no  theories  of  fiction;  he  had  little  cult- 
ure, and  of  philosophy  or  psychology  he  did  not  dream.  But  there 
is  life,  energy,  directness  in  his  tales,  coupled  with  lively  narrative 
and  spontaneous  humor  which  keep  them 
fresh  and  interesting.  He  is  a  born  story- 
teller; and  the  talent  of  the  story-teller 
commands  attention  and  enchains  an  audi- 
ence, whatever  the  defects  of  manner. 

Marryat  was  descended  from  a  Huguenot 
family  that  fled  from  France  at  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century  and  settled  in  Eng- 
land. On  his  mother's  side  he  was  of  a 
German  stock,  transplanted  to  Boston,  and 
there  etherealized,  perhaps,  by  east  winds 
and  Yankee  cultivation.  He  boasted  indeed 
of  the  blood  of  four  different  peoples.  He 
was  the  second  son  of  Joseph  Marryat  of 
Wimbledon,  Member  of  Parliament  for  Sand- 
wich, and  was  born  in  London.  Educated  at  private  schools,  he 
was  noted  from  his  early  boyhood  for  his  boisterous  and  refractory 
though  not  unamiable  temper,  which  often  involved  him  in  passion- 
ate quarrels  with  his  teachers,  and  resulted  in  his  running  away.. 
After  he  had  run  away  repeatedly,  and  always  with  the  intention  of 
going  to  sea,  his  father,  yielding  to  his  determined  bent,  got  him 
at  the  age  of  fourteen  on  board  the  frigate  Imperieuse  as  midship- 
man. His  ship  was  engaged  as  part  of  the  squadron  which  supported 
the  Catalonians  against  the  French.  His  service  there  was  active 
and  brilliant:  he  took  part  in  some  fifty  engagements,  in  one  of 
which  he  was  severely  wounded  and  left  for  dead.  His  pugnacity 
saved  him;  for  the  contemptuous  kick  of  a  fellow  midshipman,  whom 
he  hated,  roused  a  fury  in  him  that  overcame  his  speechless  and 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 


FREDERICK   MARRYAT 

apparently  lifeless  condition.  The  work  of  his  division  was  cutting 
out  privateers,  storming  batteries,  and  destroying  marine  signal  tele- 
graph stations.  Long  afterwards  he  portrayed  the  daring  and  judg- 
ment of  his  commander,  Lord  Cochrane,  in  the  characters  of  Captain 
Savage  in  ( Peter  Simple,*  and  Captain  M in  ( The  King's  Own.* 

Marryat  was  a  man  of  a  personal  daring  as  reckless  as  that 
of  his  favorite  heroes.  Again  and  again  he  risked  his  life  to  save 
drowning  men  or  to  protect  his  superiors.  More  than  once  he  re- 
ceived the  medal  of  the  Humane  Society,  and  King  Louis  Philippe 
decorated  him  with  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  A  life  of 
great  exposure,  constant  danger,  and  severe  exertion  ruined  his  health ; 
and  before  he  was  forty  he  resolved  to  leave  the  sea  and  devote 
himself  to  story-writing.  He  took  many  of  his  characters  and  inci- 
dents from  real  life,  copying  them  closely  in  the  main,  but  exagger- 
ating and  coloring  them  to  meet  the  purposes  of  fiction.  While  not 
without  imagination,  he  depended  so  greatly  on  his  observation  and 
experience  that  many  of  his  novels  may  be  said  to  be  almost  auto- 
biographic. To  this  fact  they  owe  much  of  their  naturalness,  vivid- 
ness, and  verisimilitude.  His  ample  fund  of  rough  humor  and  his 
extraordinary  fondness  for  spinning  yarns  —  a  characteristic  which 
belongs  to  the  nautical  temperament  —  contributed  their  best  quali- 
ties to  his  books;  giving  them  not  only  the  hue  and  quality,  but 
the  very  sound  and  odor  of  the  sea.  One  of  his  old  shipmates,  who 
lived  hale  and  hearty  to  be  an  octogenarian,  used  to  say  that  to  read 
<  Midshipman  Easy *  or  ( Jacob  Faithful  *  was  exactly  like  spending 
half  a  day  in  the  Captain's  company  in  his  best  mood.  There  is 
very  little  art  in  his  thirty-five  or  forty  volumes.  They  are  the  nar- 
ratives of  a  bluff,  bold,  thorough-going,  somewhat  coarse  sailor,  who 
has  a  strong  dramatic  sense  and  an  intense  relish  for  fun.  Hardly 
any  of  his  novels  have  what  deserves  to  be  called  a  plot, — the  ( King's 
Own*  and  one  or  two  others,  perhaps,  being  exceptions, — nor  are 
they  generally  finished,  or  even  carefully  studied.  Frequently  they 
read  like  half-considered,  uncorrected  manuscripts  that  have  been  dic- 
tated. The  principal  events  are  graphically  recorded,  the  minor  cir- 
cumstances and  their  connections  loosely  woven.  But  with  all  their 
defects,  the  stories  seem  to  the  ordinary  reader  more  as  if  they 
had  actually  happened  than  as  if  they -had  been  invented.  They  are 
entirely  realistic, —  the  characters  being  perfectly  vitali-zed,  acting, 
breathing  human  beings. 

Among  Marryat's  best  known  novels,  besides  those  already  men- 
tioned, are  <  Adventures  of  a  Naval  Officer;  or,  Frank  Mildmay,*  his 
first  work,  published  at  twenty-eight;  < Newton  Forster,*  <The  Pacha  of 
Many  Tales,*  <The  Pirate  and  the  Three  Cutters,*  <Japhet  in  Search 
of  a  Father,*  <  Peter  Simple,*  <Percival  Keene,*  <  Snarley- Yow, *  <The 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 


9739 


Phantom  Ship,*  <  Poor  Jack,*  and  <The  Private ersman  One  Hundred 
Years  Ago,'  all  of  which  had  a  large  sale.  He  served  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, in  the  East  and  West  Indies,  and  off  the  coast  of  North 
America;  participating  during  the  war  of  1812  in  a  gunboat  fight  on 
Lake  Pontchartrain,  just  before  the  battle  of  New  Orleans.  In  the 
same  year  he  was  made  lieutenant,  and  after  a  few  months  com- 
mander. At  twenty-seven  he  married  a  daughter  of  Sir  Stephen 
Shairp,  and  became  the  father  of  eleven  children.  In  1837  he  visited 
this  country;  and  two  years  later  published  (A  Diary  in  America, >  in 
which  he  ridiculed  the  republic, — as  Mrs.  Trollope  had  done  in  her 
( Domestic  Manners,  >  as  Dickens  is  still  believed  (by  those  who  have 
not  read  the  book)  to  have  done  not  long  after  in  his  American 
Notes, >  and  as  he  did  most  viciously  in  <  Martin  Chuzzlewit  >  to  revenge 
himself  for  the  uproar  over  the  American  Notes.  >  Americans  of  the 
present  generation  are  so  much  less  sensitive  than  their  predecessors, 
however,  that  they  are  perhaps  more  inclined  to  ask  whether  these 
adverse  criticisms  were  not  well  founded  than  to  resent  their  severity. 

After  this  journey  he  produced  divers  miscellaneous  books;  among 
which  ( Masterman  Ready  >  and  < The  Settlers  in  Canada  >  delighted 
the  boys  of  two  generations,  and  are  still  popular.  ( Masterman 
Ready  >  was  primarily  written  because  his  children  wished  him  to 
write  a  sequel  to  the  <  Swiss  Family  Robinson,  >  which  was  structur- 
ally not  feasible;  but  was  also  designed  to  ridicule  that  priggish 
story,  and  was  meant  as  a  protest  of  naturalness  against  artificiality. 
Fortunate  indeed  is  the  owner  of  an  early  illustrated  edition  of  ( Mas- 
terman, >  portraying  that  excellent  father  of  a  family,  Mr.  Seagrave, 
walking  about  his  fortuitous  island,  turning  over  turtles,  building 
stockades,  or  gathering  cocoanuts,  attired  in  a  swallow-tailed  cfoat, 
voluminous  cravat,  trousers  severely  strapped  down  under  high-heeled 
boots,  and  a  tall  silk  hat  which  he  seemed  never  to  remove. 

In  his  later  life  Marryat  retired  to  Norfolk,  and  undertook  amateur 
farming,  with  the  usual  result  of  heavy  losses.  He  died  in  1848  at 
Langham;  comparatively  poor,  through  carelessness,  mismanagement, 
and  extravagance,  although  for  many  years  he  had  earned  a  large 
income.  In  England  <  Peter  Simple  >  and  <Mr.  Midshipman  Easy> 
take  rank  with  Smollett's  <  Peregrine  Pickle  y  and  ( Roderick  Random. J 
Not  a  few  of  his  characters  are  as  individual  and  as  often  cited  as 
^om  Bowling>  and  <Jack  Hatchway.*  And  if  he  is  somewhat  out  of 
fashion  in  manner,  it  is  still  probable  that  his  naturalness,  his  racy 
dialogue,  and  his  comical  incidents,  will  make  him  a  welcome  com- 
panion for  years  to  come. 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 

PERILS  OF  THE  SEA 
From  <  Peter  Simple  > 

WE  CONTINUED  our  cruise  along  the  coast  until  we  had  run 
down  into  the  Bay  of  Arcason,  where  we  captured  two  or 
three  vessels  and  obliged  many  more  to  run  on  shore. 
And  here  we  had  an  instance  showing  how  very  important  it  is 
that  a  captain  of  a  man-of-war  should  be  a  good  sailor,  and  have 
his  ship  in  such  discipline  as  to  be  strictly  obeyed  by  his  ship's 
company.  I  heard  the  officers  unanimously  assert,  after  the  dan- 
ger was  over,  that  nothing  but  the  presence  of  mind  which  was 
shown  by  Captain  Savage  could  have  saved  the  ship  and  her 
crew.  We  had  chased  a  convoy  of  vessels  to  the  bottom  of  the 
bay:  the  wind  was  very  fresh  when  we  hauled  off,  after  running 
them  on  shore;  and  the  surf  on  the  beach  even  at  that  time  was 
so  great,  that  they  were  certain  to  go  to  pieces  before  they  could 
be  got  afloat  again.  We  were  obliged  to  double-reef  the  topsails 
as  soon  as  we  hauled  to  the  wind,  and  ,the  weather  looked  very 
threatening.  In  an  hour,  afterwards  the  whole  sky  was  covered 
with  one  black  cloud,  which  sank  so  low  as  nearly  to  touch  our 
mast-heads;  and  a  tremendous  sea,  which  appeared  to  have  risen 
up  almost  by  magic,  rolled  in  upon  us,  setting  the  vessel  on  a 
dead  lee  shore.  As  the  night  closed  in,  it  blew  a  dreadful  gale, 
and  the  ship  was  nearly  buried  with  the  press  of  canvas  which 
she'  was  obliged  to  carry:  for  had  we  sea-room,  we  should  have 
been  lying-to  under  storm  staysails;  but  we  were  forced  to  carry 
on  at  all  risks,  that  we  might  claw  off  shore.  The  sea  broke 
over  us  as  we  lay  in  the  trough,  deluging  us  with  water  from 
the  forecastle  aft  to  the  binnacles;  and  very  often,  as  the  ship 
descended  with  a  plunge,  it  was  with  such  force  that  I  really 
thought  she  would  divide  in  half  with  the  violence  of  the  shock. 
Double  breechings  were  rove  on  the  guns,  and  they  were  further 
secured  with  tackles;  and  strong  cleats  nailed  behind  the  trun- 
nions; for  we  heeled  over  so  much  when  we  lurched,  that  the 
guns  were  wholly  supported  by  the  breechings  and  tackles,  and 
had  one  of  them  broken  loose  it  must  have  burst  right  through 
the  lee  side  of  the  ship,  and  she  must  have  foundered.  The  cap- 
tain, first  lieutenant,  and  most  of  the  officers  remained  on  deck 
during  the  whole  of  the  night:  and  really,  what  with  the  howling 
of  the  wind,  the  violence  of  the  rain,  the  washing  of  the  water 


FREDERICK   MARRYAT 


9741 


about  the  decks,  the  working  of  the  chain  pumps,  and  the  creak- 
ing and  groaning  of  the  timbers,  I  thought  that  we  must  inevi- 
tably have  been  lost ;  and  I  said  my  prayers  at  least  a  dozen  times 
during  the  night,  for  I  felt  it  impossible  to  go  to  bed.  I  had 
often  wished,  out  of  curiosity,  that  I  might  be  in  a  gale  of  wind; 
but  I  little  thought  it  was  to  have  been  a  scene  of  this  descrip- 
tion, or  anything  half  so  dreadful.  What  made  it  more  appalling 
was,  that  we  were  on  a  lee  shore;  and  the  consultations  of  the 
captain  and  officers,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  they  looked 
out  for  daylight,  told  us  that  we  had  other  dangers  to  encounter 
besides  the  storm.  At  last  the  morning  broke,  and  the  lookout 
man  upon  the  gangway  called  out,  <(  Land  on  the  lee  beam ! w  I 
perceived  the  master  dash  his  feet  against  the  hammock  rails  as 
if  with  vexation,  and  walk  away  without  saying  a  word,  and  look- 
ing very  grave'. 

<(Up  there,  Mr.  Wilson, »  said  the  captain  to  the  second  lieu- 
tenant, (<  and  see  how  far  the  land  trends  forward,  and  whether 
you  can  distinguish  the  point."  The  second  lieutenant  went  up 
the  main  rigging,  and  pointed  with  his  hand  to  about  two  points 
before  the  beam. 

(<  Do  you  see  two  hillocks  inland  ? w 

<(Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  second  lieutenant. 

"Then  it  is  so,"  observed  the  captain  to  the  master;  ((and  if 
we  weather  it  we  shall  have  more  sea-room.  Keep  her  full,  and 
let  her  go  through  the  water :  do  you  hear,  quartermaster  ? }> 

«Ay,  ay,  sir.* 

(<Thus,  and  no  nearer,  my  man.  Ease  her  with  a  spoke  or 
two  when  she  sends;  but  be  careful,  or  she'll  take  the  wheel  out 
of  your  hands." 

It  really  was  a  very  awful  sight.  When  the  ship  was  in  the 
trough  of  the  sea,  you  could  distinguish  nothing  but  a  waste  of 
tumultuous  water;  but  when  she  was  borne  up  on  the  summit  of 
the  enormous  waves,  you  then  looked  down,  as  it  were,  upon  a 
low,  sandy  coast,  close  to  you.,  and  covered  with  foam  and  break- 
ers. <(  She  behaves  nobly, "  observed  the  captain,  stepping  aft  to 
the  binnacle  and  looking  at  the  compass:  (<if  the  wind  does  not 
baffle  us,  we  shall  weather."  The  captain  had  scarcely  time  to 
make  the  observation  when  the  sails  shivered  and  flapped  like  thun- 
der. <(  Up  with  the  helm :  what  are  you  about,  quartermaster  ? " 

<(  The  wind  has  headed  us,  sir, "  replied  the  quartermaster 
coolly. 


9742  FREDERICK  MARRYAT 

The  captain  and  master  remained  at  the  binnacle  watching  the 
compass;  and  when  the  sails  were  again  full,  she  had  broken  off 
two  points,  and  the  point  of  land  was  only  a  little  on  the  lee  bow. 

<(We  must  wear  her  round,  Mr.  Falcon.  Hands,  wear  ship  — 
ready,  oh,  ready. }> 

(<  She  has  come  up  again,"  cried  the  master,  who  was  at  the 
binnacle. 

(<  Hold  fast  there  a  minute.     How's  her  head  now  ? }) 

<(N.  N.  E.,  as  she  was  before  she  broke  off,  sir.  * 

<(  Pipe  belay, J>  said  the  captain.  <(  Falcon, J>  continued  he,  (<  if 
she  breaks  off  again  we  may  have  no  room  to  wear;  indeed 
there  is  so  little  room  now  that  I  must  run  the  risk.  Which 
cable  was  ranged  last  night  —  the  best  bower  ? M 

«  Yes,  sir. » 

<(Jump  down,  then,  and  see  it  double-bitted  and  stoppered  at 
thirty  fathoms.  See  it  well  done  —  our  lives  may  depend  upon 
it.» 

The  ship  continued  to  hold  her  course  good;  and  we  were 
within  half  a  mile  of  the  point,  and  fully  expected  to  weather  it, 
when  again  the  wet  and  heavy  sails  napped  in  the  wind,  and  the 
ship  broke  off  two  points  as  before.  The  officers  and  seamen 
were  aghast,  for  the  ship's  head  was  right  on  to  the  breakers. 
<(Luff  now,  all  you  can,  quartermaster, }>  cried  the  captain. 
(( Send  the  men  aft  directly. —  My  lads,  there  is  no  room  for 
words  —  I  am  going  to  club '-haul  the  ship,  for  there  is  no  time  to 
wear.  The  only  chance  you  have  of  safety  is  to  be  cool,  watch 
my  eye,  and  execute  my  orders  with  precision.  Away  to  your 
stations  for  tacking  ship.  Hands  by  the  best  bower  anchor.  Mr. 
Wilson,  attend  below  with  the  carpenter  and  his  mates  ready  to 
cut  away  the  cable  at  the  moment  that  I  give  the  order.  Silence, 
there,  fore  and  aft.  Quartermaster,  keep  her  full  again  for  stays. 
Mind  you,  ease  the  helm  down  when  I  tell  you.®  About  a  min- 
ute passed  before  the  captain  gave  any  further  orders.  The  ship 
had  closed-to  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  beach,  and  the 
waves  curled  and  topped  around  us,  bearing  us  down  upon  the 
shore,  which  presented  one  continued  surface  of  foam,  extending 
to  within  half  a  cable's  length  of  our  position,  at  which  distance 
the  enormous  waves  culminated  and  fell  with  the  report  of 
thunder.  The  captain  waved  his  hand  in  silence  to  the  quarter- 
master at  the  wheel,  and  the  helm  was  put  down.  The  ship 
turned  slowly  to  the  wind,  pitching  and  chopping  as  the  sails 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 

were  spilling.  When  she  had  lost  her  way,  the  captain  gave  the 
order,  (<Let  go  the  anchor.  We  will  haul  all  at  once,  Mr.  Fal- 
con,w  said  the  captain.  Not  a  word  was  spoken;  the  men  went 
to  the  fore-brace,  which  had  not  been  manned;  most  of  them 
knew,  although  I  did  not,  that  if  the  ship's  head  did  not  go 
round  the  other  way,  we  should  be  on  shore  and  among  the 
breakers  in  half  a  minute.  I  thought  at  the  time  that  the  cap- 
tain had  sa,d  that  he  would  haul  all  the  yards  at  once:  there 
appeared  to  be  doubt  or  dissent  on  the  countenance  of  Mr.  Fal- 
con, and  I  was  afterwards  told  fhat  he  had  not  agreed  with  the 
captain ;  but  he  was  too  good  an  officer  (and  knew  that  there  was 
no  time  for  discussion)  to  make  any  remark:  and  the  event  proved 
that  the  captain  was  right.  At  last  the  ship  was  head  to  wind, 
and  the  captain  gave  the  signal.  The  yards  flew  round  with  such 
a  creaking  noise  that  I  thought  the  masts  had  gone  over  the 
side;  and  the  next  moment  the  wind  had  caught  the  sails,  and 
the  ship,  which  for  a  moment  or  two  had  been  on  an  even 
keel,  careened  over  to  her  gunnel  with  its  force.  The  captain, 
who  stood  upon  the  weather  hammock-rails,  holding  by  the  main- 
rigging,  ordered  the  helm  amidships,  looked  full  at  the  sails  and 
then  at  the  cable,  which  grew  broad  upon  the  weather  bow  and 
held  the  ship  from  nearing  the  shore.  At  last  he  cried,  (<Cut 
away  the  cable ! })  A  few  strokes  of  the  axes  were  heard,  and 
then  the  cable  flew  out  of  the  hawse-hole  in  a  blaze  of  fire,  from 
the  violence  of  the  friction,  and  disappeared  under  a  huge  wave 
which  struck  us  on  the  chest-tree  and  deluged  us  with  water 
fore  and  aft.  But  we  were  now  on  the  other  tack,  and  the  ship 
regained  her  way,  and  we  had  evidently  increased  our  distance 
from  the  land. 

<c  My  lads, w  said  the  captain  to  the  ship's  company,  (<  you 
have  behaved  well,  and  I  thank  you;  but  I  must  tell  you  hon- 
estly that  we  have  more  difficulties  to  get  through.  We  have 
to  weather  a  point  of  the  bay  on  this  tack.  Mr.  Falcon,  splice 
the  mainbrace  and  call  the  watch.  How's  her  head,  quarter- 
master? J> 

«S.  W.  by  S.   Southerly,  sir.» 

(<  Very  well,  let  her  go  through  the  water; })  and  the  captain, 
beckoning  to  the  n.  aster  to  follow  him,  went  down  into  the  cabin. 
As  our  immediate  danger  was  over,  I  went  down  into  the  berth 
to  see  if  I  could  get  anything  for  breakfast,  where  I  found 
O'Brien  and  two  or  three  more. 


FREDERICK   MARRYAT 

<(By  the  powers,  it  was  as  nate  a  thing  as  ever  I  saw  done,® 
observed  O'Brien:  (<the  slightest  mistake  as  to  time  or  manage- 
ment, and  at  this  moment  the  flatfish  would  have  been  dubbing 
at  our  ugly  carcasses.  Peter,  you're  not  fond  of  flatfish,  are  you, 
my  boy  ?  We  may  thank  heaven  and  the  captain,  I  can  tell 
you  that,  my  lads;  but  now  where's  the  chart,  Robinson?  Hand 
me  down  the  parallel  rules  and  compasses,  Peter;  they  are  in 
the  corner  of  the  shelf.  Here  we  are  now,  a  devilish  sight  too 
near  this  infernal  point.  Who  knows  how  her  head  is  ? " 

<(I  do,  O'Brien:  I  heard  the  quartermaster  tell  the  captain 
S.  W.  by  S.  Southerly. " 

<(  Let  me  see,"  continued  O'Brien,  (<  variation  2\  —  leeway  — 
rather  too  large  an  allowance  of  that,  I'm  afraid:  but  however, 
we'll  give  her  2-J-  points;  the  Diomede  would  blush  to  make  any 
more,  under  any  circumstances.  Here  —  the  compass  —  now  we'll 
see;"  and  O'Brien  advanced  the  parallel  rule  from  the  compass 
to  the  spot  where  the  ship  was  placed  on  the  chart.  <(  Bother ! 
you  see  it's  as  much  as  she'll  do  to  weather  the  other  point  now, 
on  this  tack,  and  that's  what  the  captain  meant  when  he  told  us 
we  had  more  difficulty.  I  could  have  taken  my  Bible  oath  that 
we  were  clear  of  everything,  if  the  wind  held." 

(<See  what  the  distance  is,  O'Brien,"  said  Robinson.  It  was 
measured,  and  proved  to  be  thirteen  miles.  "Only  thirteen  miles; 
and  if  we  do  weather,  we  shall  do  very  well,  for  the  bay  is  deep 
beyond.  It's  a  rocky  point,  you  see,  just  by  way  of  variety- 
Well,  my  lads,  I've  a  piece  of  comfort  for  you,  anyhow.  It's  not 
long  that  you'll  be  kept  in  suspense;  for  by  one  o'clock  this  day, 
you'll  either  be  congratulating  each  other  upon  your  good  luck 
or  you'll  be  past  praying  for.  Come,  put  up  the  chart,  for  I  hate 
to  look  at  melancholy  prospects;  and  steward,  see  what  you  can 
find  in  the  way  of  comfort."  Some  bread  and  cheese,  with  the 
remains  of  yesterday's  boiled  pork,  were  put  on  the  table,  with  a 
bottle  of  rum,  procured  at  the  time  they  <(  spliced  the  mainbrace  " ; 
but  we  were  all  too  anxious  to  eat  much,  and  one  by  one  returned 
on  deck,  to  see  how  the  weather  was,  and  if  the  wind  at  all 
favored  us.  On  deck  the  superior  officers  were  in  conversation 
with  the  captain,  who  had  expressed  the  same  fear  that  O'Brien 
had  in  our  berth.  The  men,  who  knew  what  they  had  to  expect, — 
for  this  sort  of  intelligence  is  soon  communicated  through  a 
ship, —  were  assembled  in  knots,  looking  very  grave,  but  at  the 
same  time  not  wanting  in  confidence.  They  knew  that  they  could 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 


9745 


trust  to  the  captain,  as  far  as  skill  or  courage  could  avail  them, 
and  sailors  are  too  sanguine  to  despair,  even  at  the  last  moment. 
As  for  myself,  I  felt  such  admiration  for  the  captain,  after  what 
I  had  witnessed  that  morning,  that  whenever  the  idea  came  over 
me  that  in  all  probability  I  should  be  lost  in  a  few  hours,  I  could 
not  help  acknowledging  how  much  more  serious  it  was  that  such 
a  man  should  be  lost  to  his  country.  I  do  not  intend  to  say  that 
it  consoled  me;  but  it  certainly  made  me  still  more  regret  the 
chances  with  which  we  were  threatened. 

Before  twelve  o'clock  the  rocky  point  which  we  so  much 
dreaded  was  in  sight,  broad  on  the  lee  bow;  and  if  the  low  sandy 
coast  appeared  terrible,  how  much  more  did  this,  even  at  a  dis- 
tance! the  black  masses  of  rock  covered  with  foam,  which  each 
minute  dashed  up  in  the  air  higher  than  our  lower  mast-heads. 
The  captain  eyed  it  for  some  minutes  in  silence,  as  if  in  calcula- 
tion. 

<(  Mr.  Falcon, )}  said  he  at  last,  <(we  must  put  the  mainsail  on 
her.» 

<(  She  never  can  bear  it,  sir. )} 

(<  She  must  bear  it, w  was  the  reply.  <(  Send  the  men  aft  to  the 
mainsheet.  See  that  careful  men  attend  the  buntlines." 

The  mainsail  was  set;  and  the  effect  of  it  upon  the  ship  was 
tremendous.  She  careened  over  so  that  her  lee  channels  were 
under  the  water;  and  when  pressed  by  a  sea,  the  lee  side  of  the 
quarter-deck  and  gangway  were  afloat.  She  now  reminded  me 
of  a  goaded  and  fiery  horse,  mad  with  the  stimulus  applied; 
not  rising  as  before,  but  forcing  herself  through  whole  seas,  and 
dividing  the  waves,  which  poured  in  one  continual  torrent  from 
the  forecastle  down  upon  the  decks  below.  Four  men  were 
secured  to  the  wheel;  the  sailors  were  obliged  to  cling,  to  pre- 
vent being  washed  away;  the  ropes  were  thrown  in  confusion  to 
leeward;  Ihe  shot  rolled  out  of  the  lockers,  and  every  eye  was 
fixed  aloft,  watching  the  masts,  which  were  expected  every  mo- 
ment to  go  over  the  side.  A  heavy  sea  struck  us  on  the  broad- 
side, and  it  was  some  moments  before  the  ship  appeared  to 
recover  herself;  she  reeled,  trembled,  and  stopped  her  way,  as  if 
it  had  stupefied  her.  The  first  lieutenant  looked  at  the  captain, 
as  if  to  say,  « This  will  not  do."  <(  It  is  our  only  chance, » 
answered  the  captain  to  the  appeal.  That  the  ship  went  faster 
through  the  water  and  held  a  better  wind,  was  certain;  but 
just  before  we  arrived  at  the  point,  the  gale  increased  in  force. 


974<5 


FREDERICK   MARRYAT 


<(  If  anything  starts,  we  are  lost,  sir,"  observed  the  first  lieutenant 
again. 

<(I  am  perfectly  aware  of  it,"  replied  the  captain  in  a  calm 
tone;  <(but  as  I  said  before,  and  you  must  now  be  aware,  it  is 
our  only  chance.  The  consequence  of  any  carelessness  or  neglect 
in  the  fitting  and  securing  of  the  rigging  will  be  felt  now;  and 
this  danger,  if  we  escape  it,  ought  to  remind  us  how  much  we 
have  to  answer  for  if  we  neglect  our  duty.  The  lives  of  a  whole 
ship's  company  may  be  sacrificed  by  the  neglect  or  incompetence 
of  an  officer  when  in  harbor.  I  will  pay  you  the  compliment, 
Falcon,  to  say  that  I  feel  convinced  that  the  masts  of  the  ship 
are  as  secure  as  knowledge  and  attention  can  make  them." 

The  first  lieutenant  thanked  the  captain  for  his  good  opinion, 
and  hoped  it  would  not  be  the  last  compliment  which  he  paid 
him. 

<(I  hope  not  too;  but  a  few  minutes  will  decide  the  point." 

The  ship  was  now  within  two  cables'  lengths  of  the  rocky 
point;  some  few  of  the  men  I  observed  to  clasp  their  hands,  but 
most  of  them  were  silently  taking  off  their  jackets  and  kicking 
off  their  shoes,  that  they  might  not  lose  a  chance  of  escape  pro- 
vided the  ship  struck. 

« 'Twill  be  touch  and  go  indeed,  Falcon,"  observed  the  captain 
(for  I  had  clung  to  the  belaying  pins,  close  to  them,  for  the  last 
half -hour  that  the  mainsail  had  been  set).  <(  Come  aft;  you  and 
I  must  take  the  helm.  We  shall  want  nerve  there,  and  only 
there,  now." 

The  captain  and  first  lieutenant  went  aft  and  took  the  fore- 
spokes  of  the  wheel;  and  O'Brien,  at  a  sign  made  by  the  cap- 
tain, laid  hold  of  the  spokes  behind  them.  An  old  quartermaster 
kept  his  station  at  the  fourth.  The  roaring  of  the  seas  on  the 
rocks,  with  the  howling  of  the  winds,  was  dreadful;  but  the  sight 
was  more  dreadful  than  the  noise.  For  a  few  moments  I  shut 
my  eyes,  but  anxiety  forced  me  to  open  them  again.  As  near 
as  I  could  judge,  we  were  not  twenty  yards  from  the  rocks  at 
the  time  that  the  ship  passed  abreast  of  them.  We  were  in  the 
midst  of  the  foam,  which  boiled  around  us;  and  as  the  ship  was 
driven  nearer  to  them,  and  careened  with  the  wave,  I  thought 
that  our  main  yard-arm  would  have  touched  the  rock;  and  at 
this  moment  a  gust  of  wind  came  on  which  laid  the  ship  on  her 
beam-ends  and  checked  her  progress  through  the  water,  while 
the  accumulated  noise  was  deafening.  A  few  moments  more  the 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 


9747 


ship  dragged  on;  another  wave  dashed  over  her  and  spent  itself 
upon  the  rocks,  while  the  spray  was  dashed  back  from  them  and 
returned  upon  the  decks.  The  main  rock  was  within  ten  yards 
of  her  counter,  when  another  gust  of  wind  laid  us  on  our  beam- 
ends;  the  foresail  and  mainsail  split  and  were  blown  clean  out 
of  the  bolt-ropes  —  the  ship  righted,  trembling  fore  and  aft.  I 
looked  astern;  the  rocks  were  to  windward  on  our  quarter,  and 
we  were  safe.  I  thought  at  the  time  that  the  ship,  relieved  of 
her  courses,  and  again  lifting  over  the  waves,  was  not  a  bad 
similitude  of  the  relief  felt  by  us  all  at  that  moment;  and  like 
her  we  trembled  as  we  panted  with  the  sudden  reaction,  and  felt 
the  removal  of  the  intense  anxiety  which  oppressed  our  breasts. 
The  captain  resigned  the  helm,  and  walked  aft  to  look  at  the 
point,  which  was  now  broad  on  the  weather  quarter.  In  a  min- 
ute or  two  he  desired  Mr.  Falcon  to  get  new  sails  up  and  bend 
them,  and  then  went  below  to  his  cabin.  I  am  sure  it  was  to 
thank  God  for  our  deliverance;  I  did  most  fervently,  not  only 
then,  but  when  I  went  to  my  hammock  at  night.  We  were  now 
comparatively  safe  —  in  a  few  hours  completely  so,  for,  strange 
to  say,  immediately  after  we  had  weathered  the  rocks  the  gale 
abated;  and  before  morning  we  had  a  reef  out  of  the  topsails. 


MRS.    EASY  HAS  HER   OWN  WAY 
From  <Mr.  Midshipman  Easy> 

IT  WAS  the  fourth  day  after  Mrs.  Easy's  confinement  that  Mr. 
Easy,  who  was  sitting  by  her  bedside  in  an  easy-chair,  com- 
menced as  follows:  <(  I  have  been  thinking,  my  dear  Mrs. 

Easy,  about  the  name  I  shall  give  this  chile1.. v 

<(  Name,   Mr.   Easy  ?   why,  what  name  should  you   give   it   but 

your  own  ? w 

<(Not   so,   my  dear,"  replied  Mr.    Easy:    (<they  call  all  names 

proper  names,  but  I  think  that  mine  is  not.     It  is  the  very  worst 

name  in  the  calendar. w 

«  Why,  what's  the  matter  with  it,   Mr.   Easy  ? » 

<(The  matter  affects  me  as  well  as  the  boy.     Nicodemus  is  a 

long  name  to  write  at  full  length,   and  Nick  is  vulgar.     Besides, 

as  there  will  be  two  Nicks,  they  will  naturally  call  my  boy  Young 

Nick,  and  of  course    I   shall   be   styled   Old    Nick,  which  will  be 

diabolical. w 


9748 


FREDERICK  MARRYAT 


<(Well,  Mr.  Easy,  at  all  events  then  let  me  choose  the  name.* 

<c  That  you  shall,  my  dear ;  and  it  was  with  this  view  that  I 
have  mentioned  the  subject  so  early. " 

«I  think,  Mr.  Easy,  I  will  call  the  boy  after  my  poor  father: 
his  name  shall  be  Robert." 

"Very  well,  my  dear:  if  you  wish  it,  it  shall  be  Robert.  You 
shall  have  your  own  way.  But  I  think,  my  dear,  upon  a  little 
consideration,  you  will  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  decided 
objection.  " 

(<An  objection,   Mr.   Easy  ? " 

(<  Yes,  my  dear :  Robert  may  be  very  well,  but  you  must 
reflect  upon  the  consequences;  he  is  certain  to  be  called  Bob." 

<(  Well,  my  dear,  and  suppose  they  do  call  him  Bob  ? " 

<(  I  cannot  bear  even  the  supposition,  my  dear.  You  forget 
the  county  in  which  you  are  residing,  the  downs  covered  with 
sheep. " 

<(Why,  Mr.  Easy,  what  can  sheep  have  to  do  with  a  Christian 
name  ? " 

"There  it  is:  women  never  look  to  consequences.  My  dear, 
they  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  name  of  Bob.  I  will  ap- 
peal to  any  farmer  in  the  country  if  ninety-nine  shepherds'  dogs 
out  of  one  hundred  are  not  called  Bob.  Now  observe:  your  child 
is  out  of  doors  somewhere  in  the  fields  or  plantations;  you 
want  and  you  call  him.  Instead  of  your  child,  what  do  you  find  ? 
Why,  a  dozen  curs,  at  least,  who  come  running  up  to  you, 
all  answering  to  the  name  of  Bob,  and  wagging  their  stumps 
of  tails.  You  see,  Mrs.  Easy,  it  is  a  dilemma  not  to  be  got 
over.  You  level  your  only  son  to  the  brute  creation  by  giving 
him  a  Christian  name  which,  from  its  peculiar  brevity,  has  been 
monopolized  by  all  the  dogs  in  the  county.  Any  other  name 
you  please,  my  dear;  but  in  this  one  instance  you  must  allow  me 
to  lay  my  positive  veto." 

"Well,  then,  let  me  see  —  but  I'll  think  of  it,  Mr.  Easy:  my 
head  aches  very  much  just  now." 

"I  will  think  for  you,  my  dear.     What  do  you  say  to  John?" 

<(Oh  no,  Mr.   Easy, —  such  a  common  name!" 

<(A  proof  of  its  popularity,  my  dear.  It  is  Scriptural  —  we 
have  the  Apostle  and  the  Baptist,  we  have  a  dozen  popes  who 
were  all  Johns.  It  Is  royal  —  we  have  plenty  of  kings  who 
were  Johns  —  and  moreover,  it  is  short,  and  sounds  honest  and 
manly." 


FREDERICK   MARRYAT 

(<Yes,  very  true,  my  dear;   but  they  will  call  him  Jack." 

"Well,  we  have  had  several  celebrated  characters  who  were 
Jacks.  There  was  —  let  me  see  —  Jack  the  Giant-Killer,  and  Jack 
of  the  Bean-Stalk  —  and  Jack  —  Jack—  » 

"Jack  Sprat. » 

"And  Jack  Cade,  Mrs.  Easy,  the  great  rebel —  and  Three- 
fingered  Jack,  Mrs.  Easy,  the  celebrated  negro  —  and  above  all, 
Jack  Falstaff,  ma'am,  Jack  Falstaff  — honest  Jack  Falstaff  —  witty 
Jack  Falstaff  —  » 

"  I  thought,  Mr.  Easy,  that  I  was  to  be  permitted  to  choose 
the  name." 

"Well,  so  you  shall,  my  dear;  I  give  it  up  to  you.  Do  just 
as  you  please;  but  depend  upon  it  that  John  is  the  right  name. 
Is  it  not,  now,  my  dear  ? " 

"It's  the  way  you  always  treat  me,  Mr.  Easy:  you  say  that 
you  give  it  up,  and  that  I  shall  have  my  own  way,  but  I  never 
do  have  it.  I  am  sure  that  the  child  will  be  christened  John." 

"  Nay,  my  dear,  it  shall  be  just  what  you  please.  Now  I 
recollect  it,  there  were  several  Greek  emperors  who  were  Johns; 
but  decide  for  yourself,  my  dear." 

"  No,  no, "  replied  Mrs.  Easy,  who  was  ill,  and  unable  to  con- 
tend any  longer,  "  I  give  it  up,  Mr.  Easy.  I  know  how  it  will 
be,  as  it  always  is:  you  give  me  my  own  way  as  people  give 
pieces  of  gold  to  children;  it's  their  own  money,  but  they  must 
not  spend  it.  Pray  call  him  John.^ 

"  There,  my  dear,  did  not  I  tell  you  you  would  be  of  my 
opinion  upon  reflection  ?  I  knew  you  would.  I  have  given  you 
your  own  way,  and  you  tell  me  to  call  him  John;  so  now  we're 
both  of  the  same  mind,  and  that  point  is  settled." 

"  I  should  like  to  go  to  sleep,  Mr.  Easy :  I  feel  far  from 
well." 

"You  shall  always  do  just  as  you  like,  my  dear,"  replied 
the  husband,  "  and  have  your  own  way  in  everything.  It  is  the 
greatest  pleasure  I  have  when  I  yield  to  your  wishes.  I  will 
walk  in  the  garden.  Good-by,  my  dear." 

Mrs.  Easy  made  no  reply,  and  the  philosopher  quitted  the 
room.  As  may  easily  be  imagined,  on  the  following  day  the  boy 
was  christened  John. 


9750 


MARTIAL 
(MARCUS   VALERIUS   MARTIALIS) 

(5o?-io2?  A.  D.) 
BY  CASKIE  HARRISON 

PARTIAL  (Marcus  Valerius  Martialis),  the  world's  epigrammatist, 
was,  like  Seneca  and  Quintilian,  a  Spanish  Latin.  Born  at 
Bilbilis  about  A.  D.  40,  he  probably  came  to  Rome  in  63 ; 
but  we  first  individualize  him  about  79.  He  lived  in  Rome  for  nearly 
thirty-five  years,  publishing  epigrams,  book  after  book  and  edition 
after  edition,  doing  hack-work  in  his  own  line  for  those  who  had  the 
money  to  buy  but  not  the  wit  to  produce,  and  plagiarized  by  those 
who  lacked  both  the  wit  and  the  money;  reading  his  last  good  thing 

to  his  own  circle,  from  which  he  could 
not  always  exclude  poachers  on  his  pre- 
serves, and  lending  a  courteous  or  a  politic 
patience  to  the  long-winded  recitations  of 
new  aspirants;  patronized  in  various  more 
or  less  substantial  ways  by  the  Emperor 
and  sundry  men  of  wealth,  influence,  and 
position,  on  whom  he  pulled  all  the  strings 
of  fulsome  flattery  and  importunate  appeal; 
adjusting  himself  to  the  privileges  and  ex- 
pectancies of  Rome's  miscellaneous  <(  upper 
ten"  in  private  and  public  resorts:  solacing 
his  better  nature  with  the  contact  and  es- 
teem of  the  best  authors  of  the  day.  Bored 
with  the  <(  fuss  and  feathers w  of  town  life, 

and  yearning  for  the  lost  or  imagined  happiness  of  his  native  place, 
he  would  from  time  to  time  fly  to  his  Nomentane  cottage  or  make 
trips  into  the  provinces,  only  to  be  disenchanted  by  rustic  monotony 
and  depressed  by  the  lack  of  urban  occupations  and  diversions.  His 
works,  and  his  life  as  there  sketched,  expose  the  times  and  their 
representative  men  at  their  best  and  at  their  worst.  This  delineation 
gives  to  his  writings  an  importance  even  greater  than  that  due  to 
his  general  pre-eminence  as  the  one  poet  of  his  age,  or  to  the  special 
supremacy  of  his  epigrams  as  such.  His  rating  as  a  poet  has  indeed 
been  questioned,  and  his  restriction  of  the  epigram  deplored;  but  no 


MARTIAL 


MARTIAt, 

one  can  question  his  portraiture  of  the  Roman  Empire  at  the  turn  of 
its  troubled  tide. 

Returning  to  Spain  early  in  Trajan's  reign,  he  died  there  about 
102;  and  his  death  is  noted  with  sincere  feeling  by  the  younger 
Pliny,  whose  recognition  must  to  a  certain  degree  offset  our  repug- 
nance to  some  of  Martial's  acknowledged  characteristics.  Martial  was 
a  man  of  many  personal  attractions:  he  was  essentially  sympathetic 
and  true,  loving  nature  and  children;  his  manners  were  genial,  and 
his  education  was  finished;  his  acute  observation  was  matched  by  his 
versatile  wit;  in  an  age  of  artifice,  his  style  was  as  natural  as  his 
disposition  was  fair  and  generous.  All  these  qualities  are  detected 
in  his  works,  although  his  time  demanded  the  general  repression  or 
the  prudent  display  of  such  qualities  by  one  whose  livelihood  must 
depend  on  patronage, — an  inevitable  professionalism  that  perhaps 
fully  explains,  not  only  his  obsequiousness,  but  also  his  obscenity. 
Martial  was  a  predestined  gentleman  and  scholar,  forced  by  his  pro- 
fession into  a  trimmer  and  a  dependent:  a  man  of  stronger  character 
might  have  refused  to  .live  such  a  life  even  at  the  cost  of  his  vocation 
and  its  aptitudes;  but  Martial  was  a  man  of  his  own  world. 

Whether  Martial  was  married,  and  how  many  times,  it  is  hard  to 
determine:  he  is  his  only  witness,  and  his  testimony  is  too  indirect 
to  be  unquestionable;  at  any  rate,  he  seems  to  have  had  no  children. 
His  pecuniary  condition  is  equally  doubtful:  he  credits  himself  with 
possessions  adequate  to  comfort  only  as  a  basis  for  protestations 
of  discomfort;  but  we  know  how  time  and  circumstances  alter  one's 
standards  of  worldly  contentment.  Even  when  Martial  speaks  in  the 
first  person,  we  cannot  be  sure  it  is  not  the  <(  professional, w  instead  of 
the  individual,  first  person, — the  vicarious  and  anonymous  first  per- 
son of  the  myriad  public  whose  hints  he  worked  up  into  effective 
mottoes,  valentines,  and  lampoons,  and  for  whose  holiday  gifts  he 
devised  appropriate  companion  pieces  of  verse. 

Martial's  poems  —  fifteen  books,  containing  about  sixteen  hundred 
numbers  in  several  measures — are  epigrams  of  different  kinds.  The 
( Liber  Spectaculorum  >  (The  Show  Book)  merely  depicts  the  marvels 
of  the  <(  greatest  shows  on  earth, »  while  eulogizing  the  generosity  of 
the  emperors  who  provided  them.  The  <Xenia)  (« friendly  gifts") 
and  'Apophoreta*  ((< things  to  take  away  with  you")  are  couplets  to 
label  or  convoy  presents,  whose  enumeration  includes  an  inventory 
of  Flavian  dietetics,  costume,  furniture,  and  bric-a-brac.  The  other 
twelve  books  are  epigrams  of  the  standard  type;  a  kind  illustrated 
indeed  by  the  Greeks,  but  developed  and  fixed  by  the  Romans  from 
Catullus  down,  Martial  being  the  perpetual  exemplar  of  its  possibilities. 

Besides  some  lapses  of  taste,  whereby  the  fatal  facility  of  over- 
smartness  sometimes  leads  to  contaminating  tender  or  lofty  sentiments 


9752  MARTIAL 

by  untimely  pleasantry,  Martial  is  justly  condemned  by  the  modern 
world  for  the  two  blemishes  which  have  been  already  specified.  How 
far  he  really  felt  his  obsequiousness  and  his  obscenity  to  be  compro- 
mises of  his  dignity,  and  how  far  his  life  was  cleaner  than  his  page, 
we  cannot  tell:  he  was  a  client  of  Domitian's  day,  but  he  had  enjoyed 
the  countenance  of  Pliny.  In  justice  to  Martial's  memory,  it  must  be 
said  that  only  about  one-fifth  of  his  epigrams  are  really  offensive. 

The  reign  of  Domitian  was  a  reaction  within  a  reaction,  char- 
acterized by  the  power  and  the  impotence  of  wealth  and  its  cheap 
imitations.  It  was  an  age  of  fads  and  nostrums:  sincere,  as  the 
galvanizing  of  dead  philosophies;  affected,  as  the  vicarious  intellect- 
ualism  or  the  vicarious  athleticism  of  hired  thinkers  and  hired  glad- 
iators. It  was  an  age  of  forgotten  fundamentals,  with  no  enthusiasm 
except  for  practical  advantage,  with  public  spirit  aped  only  in  mutual 
admiration.  Its  art  and  literature  had  no  creativeness  and  no  respon- 
sibility; form  and  copy  being  ideals,  and  point  demanding  the  highest 
season  for  its  pungency,  while  the  stage  and  the  arena  were  scenes 
of  filth  or  brutality.  Its  religion  was  either,  agnostic  paganism  or 
various  novel  sentimentalities.  Its  social  functions  were  chiefly  het- 
erogeneous gatherings  of  a  flotsam  and  jetsam  assemblage  of  parve- 
nus, where  acquaintance  was  accidental  and  multitudinous  isolation 
was  the  rule.  The  incongruities  of  the  day  afforded  matchless  targets 
for  our  poet's  wit,  many  of  them  unfortunately  not  suited  to  modern 
light.  Yet  other  ages  of  the  world  have  indisputably  exhibited  in 
their  own  forms  one  or  another  of  the  features  familiarized  to  us 
by  Martial. 

Martial  divides  with  Juvenal  the  right  to  represent  this  period; 
but  the  division  is  not  equal.  The  serious  purpose  of  the  satirist, 
even  more  than  the  purely  impersonal  attitude  of  the  historian,  leads 
him  to  emphasize  unduly  circumstances  of  perhaps  great  momentary 
importance,  but  of  no  ultimate  or  typical  pertinence.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  satirist  and  the  historian  are  apt  to  neglect  or  overlook 
many  aspects  of  contemporary  life  because  these  seem  insignificant 
as  regards  any  particular  aim  or  tendency;  whereas  trifles  are  often 
the  best  exhibits  of  the  actual  offhand  life,  as  distinguished  from  the 
professed  principles  and  practice  of  the  time.  Hence  Martial's  epi- 
grams have  been  well  called  by  Merivale  "the  quintessence  of  the 
Flavian  epoch. >}  The  epigrammatist  has  no  mission  to  fulfill;  and  the 
form  as  well  as  the  volume  of  his  works  enables  him  to  touch  every 
aspect  of  life  into  the  boldest  relief.  Especially  interesting  is  the 
modernness  of  these  touches;  and  it  would  startle  a  stranger  to  see 
how  slight  an  adaptation  or  perversion  of  an  epigram  or  a  line  or  a 
word  produces  anticipatory  echoes  of  present-day  experiences,  in  their 
extremest  or  most  peculiar  features. 


•-3J  wyy 

fflBfflTOlL 


ChKCA 


KfcfM6TMl/AHHI€MhHCl<A.ii 

<^j         ,»  »r^      \  -  „ 

iK5A  AHTONHH  frAI^ 


K6H  \\HHCHKh  CMC  i^  t  K 

cn^dC'ro^TeAUiVmHftoyijJ.  K 

?;  M  A  h  ftVl  *fc  H  Kp'fc  II  6  C  T  H  COCA  A 
117^4  H  T  K^O  MKfljl  fcl  ftT  "fr  HKAAtf  dH 


-ACMh  «  Hoy     NH  H 
it  n  A  KM 


N 


cirocf 


K.OTT 

the  nationality 
and  blend  with  < 
like    the    Araer: 
•ind  illustration. 

.as,   ech< 

curious  antetypes 
ial   I- 

>ns  here  ap;  • 
character  Hires  of 

ern   eounten; 

preference  has  b  n   tu 

qualities,   as  being  the  specia1 


humorous    after   the   dry 

.  omedy  and  epigram 

ates  the 

ws  all  the  colors 
f  France,  of  Ireland, 
•ams;  and  even 

legro   idiosyncra- 

rains,  antitheses, 

'fh  some 

L  or  proverb- 

In   the 

pirit;  the 

een  prc  i  a  mod- 

it  command, 
;t   rather   th  'ther 


epigram;  though  rifice 

SLAVONIC  WRITING  OF  Xlth  CENTURY 

This  is  said  to  have  been  copied  from  a  Manuscript  in  Cyrillian  charac- 
ters in  the  Bibliotheque  Royale  of  Paris,  containing  some 

historical  tracts  and  saints'  lives, 
verse  being  the  best  complete 
sions  of  individual  epigr 
monographs   in    the 

from  Martial >  give   j  ;joet   in 

our  tongue. 


JT*Jv^ 


TH;.  UT 

LAST  night  as 
:  ter  havi 
recall  that  I  as 

And  yo:  ^eese! 

maudli;.  iow, 

1  thought  of  the  mor 

se  mind's  not  a  blank  the  next  day! 


-  Wry 

mm 


KMMhThlpANHKMh 
'  A(Sft.\  ANTflNHH 


,^ 


>  4  J<e  H  \AHHCH  Kh  CMC  1^1  C  K  AdlU  ^  KHiUC 


nAoCTdW 

)  f^WT\5l 
;•>  n«TH 

B  moil  bat^oo  naad  sv 


>£i£ib  otnxJ  ni 

s:; 


i£3* 


HM0V 


M  AhCTftdy  H^OO  Tje  KjlA  Nh  ft 

.H«H 


CO  YH 


H  .  ^v^  Ajce  NH  H  H  H  ui  € 

lHH   ndMAHC 


MARTIAL 


9753 


Generally  speaking,  the  Romans  were  humorous  after  the  dry 
kind,  while  the  Greeks  were  witty;  but  Greek  comedy  and  epigram 
are  as  humorous  as  those  of  any  nation,  and  Martial  vindicates  the 
Roman  capacity  for  triumphant  wit  —  a  wit  that  shows  all  the  colors 
of  all  the  nationalities.  The  wit  of  America,  of  France,  of  Ireland, 
cross  and  blend  with  each  other  in  Martial's  epigrams;  and  even  trav- 
esties like  the  American  mockery  of  Hebrew  or  negro  idiosyncra- 
sies find  illustration.  Puns,  parodies,  paradoxes,  refrains,  antitheses, 
alliterations,  echoes  and  surprises  of  all  sorts  are  there,  with  some 
curious  antetypes  of  modern  slang,  of  present  provincial  or  proverb- 
ial usages,  and  even  of  some  points  of  recent  comic  songs.  In  the 
versions  here  appended,  literalness  has  been  sacrificed  to  spirit;  the 
characteristic  features  of  the  original  have  been  preserved  in  a  mod- 
ern countenance  and  expression.  In  the  small  space  at  command, 
preference  has  been  given  to  our  poet's  wit  rather  than  his  other 
qualities,  as  being  the  special  characteristic  of  himself  and  of  the 
epigram;  though  the  omission  of  other  specimens  is  a  sacrifice  of  his 
dues. 

The  only  notable  edition  of  Martial  is  Friedlander's  with  Ger- 
man notes,  the  school  manuals  being  inadequate  and  unsympathetic. 
There  is  no  great  translation,  the  French  renderings  in  prose  and 
verse  being  the  best  complete  reproduction;  there  are  admirable  ver- 
sions of  individual  epigrams  in  all  the  modern  languages.  Sellar's 
monographs  in  the  ( Encyclopaedia  Britannica >  and  his'  ( Selections 
from  Martial*  give  perhaps  the  best  brief  estimate  of  the  poet  in 
our  tongue. 


THE  UNKINDEST  CUT 

LAST  night  as  we  boozed  at  our  wine, 
After  having  three  bottles  apiece, 
You  recall  that  I  asked  you  to  dine, 

And  you've  come,  you  absurdest  of  geese! 
I  was  maudlin,  you  should  have  been  mellow, 

All  thought  of  the  morrow  away: 
Well,  he's  but  a  sorry  good  fellow 

Whose  mind's  not  a  blank  the  next  day! 


9754  MARTIAL 

EVOLUTION 


A 


SURGEON  once  —  a  sexton  now  —  twin  personages: 
Identical  professions,  only  different  stages! 

VALE  OF  TEARS 


ALONE  she  never  weeps  her  father's  death; 
When  friends  are  by,  her  tears  time  every  breath. 
Who  weeps  for  credit,  never  grief  hath  known; 
He  truly  weeps  alone,  who  weeps  alone! 


SIC  VOS  NON  VOBIS 

IF  THAT  the  gods  should  grant  these  brothers  twain 
Such  shares  of  life  as  Leda's  Spartans  led, 
A  noble  strife  affection  would  constrain, 

For  each  would  long  to  die  in  brother's  stead; 
And  he  would  say  who  first  reached  death's  confine, 
(<Live,  brother,  thine  own  days,  and  then  live  mine!0 


SILENCE   IS   GOLDEN 

T  7ou'RE  pretty,  I  know  it;   and  young,  that  is  true; 
J       And  wealthy  —  there's  none  but  confesses  that  too: 

But  you  trumpet  your  praises  with  so  loud  a  tongue 
That  you  cease  to  be  wealthy  or  pretty  or  young! 


SO  NEAR  AND  YET  SO  FAR 

YES,  New  and  I  both  here  reside: 
Our  stoops  you  see  are  side  by  side; 
And  people  think  I'm  puffed  with  pride, 
And  envy  me  serenely  blessed, 
With  such  a  man  for  host  and  guest. 
The  fact  is  this  —  he's  just  as  far 
As  folks  in  Borrioboola  Gha. 
What !   booze  with  him  ?  or  see  his  face, 
Or  hear  his  voice  ?    In  all  the  place 
There's  none  so  far,  there's  none  so  near! 
We'll  never  meet  if  both  stay  here! 
To  keep  from  knowing  New  at  all, 
Just  lodge  with  him  across  the  hall! 


MARTIAL  9755 


THE   LEAST  OF  EVILS 

WHILE  some  with  kisses  Julia  smothers, 
Reluctant  hand  she  gives  to  others: 
Give  me  thy  merest  finger-tips, 
Or  anything — but  not  thy  lips! 


T 


THOU   REASON'ST  WELL 

HE  atheist  swears  there  is  no  God 

And  no  eternal  bliss: 
For  him  to  own  no  world  above 

Doth  make  a  heaven  of  this. 


NEVER   IS,  BUT  ALWAYS   TO   BE 

You  always  say  (< to-morrow, w  (< to-morrow w  you  will  live; 
But  that  "to-morrow,"  prithee,  say  when  will  it  arrive? 
How  far  is't   off  ?    Where  is   it  now  ?     Where   shall   I   go  to 

find  it? 

In  Afric's  jungles  lies  it  hid?     Do  polar  icebergs  bind  it? 
It's  ever  coming,  never  here;    its  years  beat  Nestor's  hollow! 
This  wondrous  thing,  to  call  it  mine,  I'll  give  my  every  dollar! 
Why,  man,  to-day's  too  late  to  live  —  the  wise  is  who  begun 
To  live  his  life  with  yesterday,  e'en  with  its  rising  sunJ 


LEARNING  BY  DOING 

As  MITHRADATES  used  to  drink  the  deadly  serpent's  venom, 
That  thus   all   noxious   things   might  have   for   him   no   mis- 
chief in  'em, — 

So  Skinner  feeds  but  once  a  day  with  scanty  preparation, 
To  teach  his  folks  to  smile  unfed  nor  suffer  from  starvation. 


w 


TERTIUM  QUID 

HEN  poets,  croaking  hoarse  with  cold, 
To  spout  their  verses  seek, 

They  show  at  once  they  cannot  hold 
Their  tongues,  yet  cannot  speak. 


9756 


MARTIAL 


SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS 

WONDER  not  that  this  sweetheart  of  thine 

Abstains  from  wine; 
I  only  wonder  that  her  father's  daughter 

Can  stick  to  water. 


CANNIBALISM 


Y 


WITHOUT  roast  pig  he  never  takes  his  seat: 
Always  a  boor  —  a  boar  —  companions  meet! 


EQUALS  ADDED  TO  EQUALS 

ou  ask  why  I  refuse  to  wed  a  woman  famed  for  riches: 
Because  I  will  not  take  the  veil  and  give  my  wife  the  breeches. 
The  dame,  my  friend,  unto  her  spouse  must  be  subservient  quite ; 
No  other  way  can  man  and  wife  maintain  their  equal  right.. 

THE  COOK  WELL  DONE 

WHY  call  me  a  bloodthirsty,  gluttonous  sinner 
For  pounding  my  chef  when  my  peace  he  subverts  ? 
If  I  can't  thrash  my  cook  when  he  gets  a  poor  dinner, 
Pray  how  shall  the  scamp  ever  get  his  deserts? 


A  DIVERTING  SCRAPE 

MY  SHAVER,  barber  eke  and  boy, — 
One  such  as  emperors  employ 
Their  hirsute  foliage  to  destroy, — 
I  lent  a  friend  as  per  request 
To  make  his  features  look  their  best. 
By  test  of  testy  looking-glass 
He  mowed  and  raked  the  hairy  grass, 
Forgetful  how  the  long  hours  pass; 
He  1eft  my  friend  a  perfect  skin, 
But  grew  a  beard  on  his  own  chin! 


Y 


MARTIAL  9757 


DIAMOND   CUT  DIAMOND 

OU'D  marry  Crichton,  Miss  Jemima: 

Smart  for  you! 
But  somehow  he  won't  come  to  time.     Ah! 

He's  smart  too! 


H 


THE   COBBLER'S   LAST 

PREDESTINED  for  patching  and  soling, 
For  fragrance  of  grease,  wax,  and  thread, 
You  find  yourself  squire  by  cajoling, 

When  with  pigs  you  should  hobnob  instead; 
And  midst  your  lord's  vertu  you're  rolling, 

With  liquor  and  love  in  your  head! 
How  foolish  to  send  me  to  college, 

To  soak  up  unpractical  views! 
How  slow  is  the  progress  of  knowledge 
By  the  march  of  your  three-dollar  shoes! 


BUT   LITTLE   HERE   BELOW 

is  grave  must  be  shallow, —  the  earth  on  him  light, 
Or  else  you  will  smother  the  poor  little  mite. 


E   PLURIBUS   UNUS 

WHEN  hundreds  to  your  parlors  rush, 
You  wonder  I  evade  the  crush  ? 
Well,  frankly,  sir,  I'm  not  imbued 
With  love  of  social  solitude. 


L 


FINE   FRENZY 

ONG  and  Short  will  furnish  verse 

To  market  any  fake : 
Do  poets  any  longer  dream, 

Or  are  they  wide-awake? 


9758 


MARTIAL 


LIVE  WITHOUT  DINING 


Now,  if  you  have  an  axe  to  grind,  or  if  you  mean  to  spout, 
If  your  invite  is  to  a  spread,  then  you  must  count  me  out: 
I  do  not  like  that  dark-brown  taste,  I  dread  the  thought  of 

gout, 

I'm  restless  at  the  gorgeous  gorge  that  ostentation  dares. 
My  friend  must  offer  me  pot-luck  on  wash-days  unawares; 
I  like  my  feed  when  his  menu  with  my  own  larder  squares. 


THE   TWO   THINGS   NEEDFUL 

How  grand  your  gorgeous  mansion  shows 
Through  various  trees  in  stately  rows! 
Yet  two  defects  its  splendors  spite: 
No  charmed  recess  for  tedious  night  — 
No  cheerful  spot  where  friends  may  dine  — 
Well,  your  non-residence  is  fine! 


w 


9759 


JAMES  MARTINEAU 

(1805-1900) 

Iwo  names  overtop  all  others  in  the  history  of  English  Unita- 
rian thought  and  leadership, —  Joseph  Priestley  and  James 
Martineau.  Priestley  died  in  1804,  and  Martineau  was  born 
the  following  year,  April  2ist,  coming  of  a  Huguenot  family  which 
had  been  long  settled  in  England.  From  his  father  he  inherited  the 
gentleness  and  refinement  of  his  nature,  from  his  mother  that  intel- 
lectual strength  in  which  his  celebrated  sister  Harriet_so  fully  shared. 
His  education  began  at  the  <(  Grammar  School })  in  Norwich,  where 
his  father  was  a  manufacturer  and  wine 
merchant;  and  was  continued  at  Bristol  with 
Dr.  Lant  Carpenter,  then  a  prominent  Uni- 
tarian minister,  but  now  best  known  as  the 
father  of  the  scientist  W.  B.  Carpenter  and 
Mary  the  philanthropist.  The  next  step 
was  to  the  workshop,  with  a  view  to  mak- 
ing himself  a  civil  engineer.  This  phase 
of  his  •  experience  enriched  his  mind  with 
the  materials  for  many  a  brilliant  metaphor 
in  his  writings,  wonderful  to  his  readers 
until  they  know  his  early  history.  But  his 
heart  was  not  in  his  work;  and  at  length 
his  father  yielded  to  his  solicitations,  and 
assuring  him  that  he  was  <(  courting  pov- 
erty, w  sent  him  to  Manchester  New  College,  which  was  then  at 
York, — a  lineal  descendant  of  that  Warrenton  Academy  in  which 
Priestley  taught  and  Malthus  was  educated,  but  already,  in  1824,  a 
Unitarian  theological  school.  Here  Martineau  was  graduated  in  1827, 
and  soon  after  became  junior  pastor  of  a  church  in  Dublin,  nominally 
Presbyterian  like  most  of  the  early  Unitarian  churches  in  England 
and  Ireland.  Already  distinguished  as  a  preacher  of  great  eloquence 
and  fervor,  upon  the  death  of  his  senior  he  refused  to  take  that  sen- 
ior's place  because  it  entailed  the  regium  donum:  a  gift  of  the  Crown 
to  Protestant  ministers,  which  he  thought  discriminated  unfairly 
against  Roman  Catholics.  His  next  charge  was  in  Liverpool,  whither 
he  went  in  1832,  and  in  1836  published  his  first  book,  <  Rationale  of 
Religious  Enquiry,*  which  was  strikingly  in  advance  of  the  current 


JAMES  MARTINEAU 


976o  JAMES  MARTINEAU 

Unitarian  thinking.  In  1839  he  made  himself  a  great  reputation  in 
the  famous  (<  Liverpool  Controversy » ;  accepting,  with  the  Unitarians 
Thorn  and  Giles,  the  challenge  of  thirteen  clergymen  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  to  a  public  debate.  Martineau's  contribution  was  the 
most  brilliant  and  effective  ever  made  to  Unitarian  controversial  writ- 
ing. This  success  may  have  done  something  to  set  the  habit  of  his 
life;  for  it  is  certain  that  it  continued  ever  after  stoutly  controver- 
sial,— his  numerous  essays  and  reviews,  and  even  his  most  import- 
ant books,  being  cast  for  the  most  part  in  a  controversial  mold,  while 
his  sermons  frequently  take  on  a  controversial  character  without  any 
of  the  personalities  which  the  other  things  involve. 

In  1840  he  was  made  professor  of  mental  and  moral  philosophy  in 
Manchester  New  College;  which,  following  its  peripatetic  habit,  in 
1841  returned  from  York  to  Manchester,  went  to  London  in  1847,  and 
to  Oxford  in  1889.  Martineau  was  connected  with  it  as  professor, 
and  for  many  years  as  its  head,  until  1885.  In  the  mean  time  he 
had  removed  from  Liverpool  to  London,  in  1857,  after  ten  years  of 
journeying  there  to  his  lectures  and  back  to  his  pastoral  work.  The 
substance  of  his  college  work  is  embodied  in  his  ( Types  of  Ethical 
Theory  >  (1885),  <A  Study  of  Religion  >  (1888),  and  <The  Seat  of 
Authority  in  Religion J  (1890). 

The  critical  radicalism  of  the  last  of  these  volumes  did  much  to 
alienate  the  sympathies  of  those  whose  religious  conservatism  had 
attracted  them  to  the  two  others,  and  to  the  general  working  of  his 
mind  as  opposed  to  the  materialistic  tendencies  which  were  domi- 
nant and  'aggressive  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  century.  But  as  a 
critic  of  the  New  Testament  and  Christian  origins  there  was  nothing 
in  ( The  Seat  of  Authority >  to  astonish  or  surprise  any  one  acquainted 
with  the  course  of  his  development.  In  this  respect  he  had  been 
consistently  radical  from  first  to  last.  Some  of  the  most  radical  posi- 
tions in  the  book  will  be  found,  germinal  if  not  developed,  in  his 
reviews  and  studies  of  a  much  earlier  date.  The  result  of  his  criti- 
cisms was,  for  himself,  a  conception  of  Jesus  and  his  work  in  history 
which,  ethically  and  spiritually,  transcended  any  that  he  found  in 
the  traditional  presentation,  but  was  strictly  within  the  limits  of  a 
humanitarian  view. 

If  Martineau's  theological  and  philosophical  position  was  conserva-j 
tive  as  compared  with  his  criticism,  it  was  so  only  from  the  accident 
of  a  temporary  swaying  of  the  pendulum  of  thought  towards  materi- 
alism —  a  tendency  which  has  already  reached  its  term,  and  which  no 
English  writer  has  done  so  much  to  counteract  as  he.  But  an  intui- 
tive philosophy,  anti-materialistic,  anti-necessarian,  anti-utilitarian,  was 
not  a  conservative  but  a  radical  philosophy  from  1840  until  1860;  and 
this  was  the  philosophy  of  Martineau  in  those  years  of  earnest  thought 


JAMES  MARTINEAU  976i 

and  active  change.  He  had  begun  as  an  ardent  disciple  of  Locke 
and  Hartley  and  Priestley;  serving  out  his  captivity  with  them 
more  patiently  because  of  the  idealization  of  their  doctrine  by  the 
younger  Mill,  who  as  early  as  1841  noticed  in  a  syllabus  of  Marti- 
neau's  lectures  that  he  was  falling  away  from  his  allegiance  to  the 
empirical  school,  and  begged  to  have  the  lectures  printed  lest  he 
should  (<be  studying  them  in  another  state  of  existence )}  were  their 
publication  long  delayed.  In  a  little  while  Martineau  found  himself 
bound  (<  to  concede  to  the  self-conscious  mind  itself,  both  as  knowing 
and  willing,  an  autonomous  function  distinct  from  each  and  all  of 
the  phenomena  known,  and  changes  willed,  —  a  self-identity  as  unlike 
as  possible  to  any  growing  aggregate  of  miscellaneous  and  dissimilar 
experiences. w  This  involved  a  surrender  of  determinism  and  a  revis- 
ion of  the  doctrine  of  causation.  In  1848-9  he  spent  fifteen  months  in 
Germany,  studying  with  Trendelenburg,  and  was  soon  brought  into 
the  same  plight  with  reference  to  the  cognitive  and  aesthetic  side  of 
life  that  had  already  befallen  him  in  regard  to  the  moral.  He  had 
become  a  metaphysician, — the  possible  as  real  for  him  as  the  actual, 
noumena  as  real  as  phenomena,  mind  central  to  the  universe,  and  God 
a  righteous  will. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  brilliant  series  of  writings  — 
culminating  in  the  elaborate  treatises  of  1885,  1887,  1890 — than  those 
in  which  Martineau  defended  his  new-found  philosophic  faith.  He 
had  many  foemen  worthy  of  his  pen.  In  the  persons  of  Mansel  and 
Spencer  he  opposed  himself  to  Agnosticism  before  Huxley  had  named 
the  terrible  child,  and  while  it  was  provisionally  called  Nescience. 
Against  Tyndall  and  others  as  the  prophets  of  Materialism,  he  put 
forth  his  utmost  strength.  In  the  great  battle  with  Determinism  and 
Utilitarianism  he  met  all  those  who  came,  up  against  him  with  a  dia- 
lectic supple  and  keen  as  a  Damascus  sword.  On  these  several  fields 
he  was  a  recognized  captain  of  the  host,  and  obtained  the  admiration 
and  the  gratitude  of  many  who  could  not  abide  his  Unitarian  faith. 
His  scientific  knowledge  was  so  large  that  it  enabled  him  to  cope 
with  noble  confidence  with  scientists  venturing  across  his  lines.  He 
lived  to  see  many  of  the  bolder  of  them  retreating  from  positions 
too  rashly  taken  up  ;  but  that  his  own  are  final  is  not  to  be  supposed. 
One  may  greatly  admire  him,  and  yet  conceive  that  he  was  far  more 
apt  in  finding  what  is  weakest  in  the  philosophical  and  religious 
implications  of  a  transitional  science,  than  in  appropriating  those 
scientific  elements  which  make  for  a  more  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
universal  mystery  than  any  yet  obtained. 

But  if  Martineau  had  not  been  a  master  in  philosophy  and  ethics, 
he  would  still  have  been  one  of  the  most  distinguished  preachers  of 
his  sect  and  time.  His  most  helpful  books  have  been  his  volumes 


gj62  JAMES  MARTINEAU 

of  sermons,  especially  the  two  volumes  (1843-7)  ( Endeavors  after  a 
Christian  Life.*  The  published  sermons  of  his  later  life  are  too  much 
overcrowded  by  the  fear  that  the  materialists  be  upon  us.  They 
have  not  the  joyous  march  and  song  of  the  <  Endeavors.'  A  pene- 
trating spirituality  is  the  dominant  note  of  all  his  works;  a  passion 
for  ideal  truth  and  purity.  The  beauty  of  holiness  shines  from  every 
page  as  from  the  preacher's  face.  His  style,  though  marvel ously 
brilliant,  has  undoubtedly  been  a  deduction  from  his  influence.  It  is 
so  rich  with  metaphor  that  it  dazzles  the  reader  more  than  it  illumi- 
nates the  theme.  Moreover,  we  are  arrested  by  the  beauty  of  the 
expression  as  by  a  painted  window  that  conceals  what  is  beyond. 
Nevertheless,  for  those  straining  after  an  ideal  perfection,  his  sermons 
are  as  music  to  their  feet.  He  won  the  unbounded  love  and  reverence 
of  his  own  household  of  faith ;  and  all  the  great  universities  of  Great 
Britain,  America,  and  Continental  Europe,  accorded  him  their  highest 
honors.  His  death  occurred  in  1900,  at  the  advanced  age  of  95 
years. 


THE   TRANSIENT  AND   THE   REAL  IN   LIFE 
From  <  Hours  of  Thought  on  Sacred  Things  > 

Job  xii.    22:     ^He  discovereth  deep  things  out  of  darkness;  and  bringeth 
out  to  light  the  shadow  of  Deaths 

IT  is  the  oldest,  as  it  is  the  newest,  reproach  of  the  cynic  against 
the  devout,  that  they  construe  the  universe  by  themselves; 
attribute  it  to  a  will  like  their  own;  tracing  in  it  imaginary 
vestiges  of  a  moral  plan,  and  expecting  from  it  the  fulfillment  of 
their  brilliant  but  arbitrary  dreams.  Instead  of  humbly  sitting  at 
the  feet  of  Nature,  copying  her  order  into  the  mind,  and  shap- 
ing all  desire  and  belief  into  the  form  of  her  usages  and  laws, 
they  turn  out  their  own  inward  life  into  the  spaces  of  the  world, 
and  impose  their  longings  and  admirations  on  the  courses  and 
issues  of  Time.  With  childish  self-exaggeration,  it  is  said,  we 
fancy  creation  governed  like  a  great  human  life, —  peopled  with 
motives,  preferences,  and  affections  parallel  to  ours, —  its  light 
and  heat,  its  winds  and  tides,  its  seasons  and  its  skies,  adminis- 
tered by  choice  of  good  or  ill,  transparent  with  the  flush  of  an 
infinite  love,  or  suffused  with  the  shadow  of  an  infinite  displeas- 
ure. We  set  at  the  helm  of  things  a  glorified  humanity;  and 
that  is  our  God.  We  think  away  from  society  the  cries  of  wrong 


TAMES  MARTINEAU 

and  the  elements  of  sin,  leaving  only  what  is  calm  and  holy;  and 
that  is  our  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  We  picture  to  ourselves  youth 
that  never  wastes,  thought  that  never  tires,  and  friendship  with- 
out the  last  adieu;  and  that  is  our  immortality.  Religion,  we 
are  assured,  is  thus  born  of  misery:  it  is  the  soul's  protest  against 
disappointment  and  refusal  to  accept  it,  the  pity  which  our  nature 
takes  upon  its  own  infirmities,  and  is  secured  only  on  the  pathos 
of  the  human  heart. 

Be  it  so.  Are  you  sure  that  the  security  is  not  good  ?  Are 
we  so  made  as  to  learn  everything  from  the  external  world, 
and  nothing  out  of  ourselves  ?  Grant  the  allegation.  Let  our 
diviner  visions  be  the  native  instinct,  the  home  inspiration,  of 
our  thought  and  love:  are  they  therefore  false  because  we  think 
them  ?  illusory,  because  beautiful  relatively  to  us  ?  Am  I  to  be- 
lieve the  register  of  my  senses,  and  to  contradict  the  divinations 
of  conscience  and  the  trusts  of  pure  affection  ?  Is  it  a  sign  of 
highest  reason  to  deny  God  until  I  see  him,  and  blind  myself  to 
the  life  eternal  till  I  am  born  into  its  surprise  ?  Nothing  more 
arbitrary,  nothing  narrower,  can  well  be  conceived,  than  to  lay 
down  the  rule  that  our  lowest  endowment  —  the  perceptive  pow- 
ers which  introduce  us  to  material  things  —  has  the  monopoly 
of  knowledge,  and  that  the  surmises  of  the  moral  sense  have 
nothing  true,  and  the  vaticinations  of  devoted  love  only  a  light 
that  leads  astray.  The  wiser  position  surely  is,  that  the  mind 
is  a  balanced  organ  of  truth  all  round, —  that  each  faculty  sees 
aright  on  its  own  side  of  things,  and  can  measure  what  the 
others  miss:  the  hand,  the  palpable;  the  eye,  the  visible;  the 
imagination,  the  beautiful;  the  spirit,  the  spiritual;  and  the  will, 
the  good.  How  else  indeed  could  God  and  Heaven,  if  really 
there,  enter  our  field  of  knowledge,  but  by  standing  thus  in  rela- 
tion to  some  apprehensive  gift  in  us,  and  emerging  as  the  very 
condition  of  its  exercise  and  the  attendant  shadow  of  its  move- 
ments ? 

And  in  truth,  if  we  are  not  strangely  self-ignorant,  we  must 
be  conscious  of  two  natures  blended  in  us,  each  carrying  a  sep- 
arate order  of  beliefs  and  trusts,  which  may  assert  themselves 
with  the  least  possible  notice  of  the  other.  There  is  the  nature 
which  lies  open  to  the  play  of  the  finite  world,  gathers  its  expe- 
rience, measures  everything  by  its  standard,  adapts  itself  to  its 
rules,  and  discharges  as  fictitious  whatever  its  appearances  fail 
to  show.  And  underlying  this,  in  strata  far  below,  there  is  the 


JAMES  MARTINEAU 

nature  which  stands  related  to  things  infinite,  and  heaves  and 
stirs  beneath  their  solemn  pressure,  and  is  so  engaged  with  them 
as  hardly  to  feel  above  it  the  sway  and  ripple  of  the  transi- 
tory tides.  Living  by  the  one,  we  find  our  place  in  nature;  by 
the  other,  we  lose  ourselves  in  God.  By  the  first,  we  have  our 
science,  our  skill,  our  prudence;  by  the  second,  our  philosophy, 
our  poetry,  our  reverence  for  duty.  The  one  computes  its  way 
by  foresight;  the  other  is  self-luminous  for  insight.  In  short, 
the  one  puts  us  into  communication  with  the  order  of  appear- 
ances; the  other  with  eternal  realities.  It  is  a  shallow  mind 
which  can  see  to  the  bottom  of  its  own  beliefs,  and  is  conscious 
of  nothing  but  what  it  can  measure  in  evidence  and  state  in 
words;  which  feels  in  its  own  guilt  no  depth  it  cannot  fathom, 
and  in  another's  holiness  no  beauty  it  can  only  pine  to  seize; 
which  reads  on  the  face  of  things  —  on  the  glory  of  the  earth 
and  sky,  on  human  joy  and  grief,  on  birth  and  death,  in  pity 
and  heroic  sacrifice,  in  the  eyes  of  a  trusting  child  and  the  com- 
posure of  a  saintly  countenance  —  no  meanings  that  cannot  be 
printed;  and  which  is  never  drawn,  alone  and  in  silence,  into 
prayer  exceeding  speech.  Things  infinite  and  divine  lie  too  near 
to  our  own  centre,  and  mingle  in  too  close  communion,  to  be 
looked  at  as  if  they  were  there  instead  of  here:  they  are  given 
not  so  much  for  definition  as  for  trust;  are  less  the  objects  we 
think  of  than  the  very  tone  and  color  of  our  thought,  the  ten- 
sion of  our  love,  the  unappeasable  thirst  of  grief  and  reverence. 
Till  we  surrender  ourselves  not  less  freely  to  the  implicit  faiths 
folded  up  in  the  interior  reason,  conscience,  and  affection,  than  to 
the  explicit  beliefs  which  embody  in  words  the  laws  of  the  out- 
ward world,  we  shall  be  but  one-eyed  children  of  Nature,  and 
utterly  blind  prophets  of  God. 

No  doubt  these  two  sides  of  our  humanity,  supplying  the 
temporal  and  the  spiritual  estimates  of  things,  are  at  ceaseless 
variance;  they  reckon  by  incommensurable  standards,  and  the 
answers  can  never  be  the  same.  The  natural  world,  with  the 
part  of  us  that  belongs  to  it,  is  so  framed  as  to  make  nothing 
of  importance  to  us  except  the  rules  by  which  it  goes,  and  to 
bid  us  ask  no  questions  about  its  origin;  since  we  have  equally 
to  fall  in  with  its  ways,  be  they  fatal  or  be  they  divine.  But  to 
our  reason  in  its  noblest  exercise,  it  makes  a  difference  simply 
infinite,  whether  the  universe  it  scans  is  in  the  hands  of  dead 
necessity  or  of  the  living  God.  This,  which  our  science  ignores, 


JAMES   MARTINEAU  9765 

is  precisely  the  problem  which  our  intellect  is  made  to  ponder. 
Again,  our  social  system  of  rights  and  obligations  is  constructed 
on  the  assumption  that  with  the  springs  of  action  we  have  no 
concern:  they  fulfill  all  conditions,  if  we  ask  nothing  and  give 
nothing  beyond  the  conduct  happiest  in  its  results.  But  the  nat- 
ural conscience  flies  straight  to  the  inner  springs  of  action  as 
its  sole  interest  and  object;  it  is  there  simply  as  an  organ  for 
interpreting  them,  and  finding  in  them  the  very  soul  of  right- 
eousness: that  which  the  outward  observer  shuns  is  the  inward 
spirit's  holy  place.  And  once  more,  Nature,  as  the  mere  mother 
of  us  all,  takes  small  account  in  this  thronged  and  historic  world  of 
the  single  human  life-,  repeating  it  so  often  as  to  render  it  cheap; 
short  as  it  is,  often  cutting  its  brief  thread;  and  making  each 
one  look  so  like  the  other  that  you  would  say  it  could  not  matter 
who  should  go.  But  will  our  private  love,  which  surely  has  the 
nearer  insight,  accept  this  estimate  ?  Do  we,  when  its  treasure 
has  fallen  from  our  arms,  say  of  the  term  of  human  years,  (<  It 
has  been  enough >}  ?  —  that  the  possibilities  are  spent ;  that  the 
cycle  of  the  soul  is  complete;  and  that  with  larger  time  and 
renovated  opportunity,  it  could  learn  and  love  and  serve  no 
more  ?  Ah  no !  to  deep  and  reverent  affection  there  is  an  aspect 
under  which  death  must  ever  appear  unnatural;  and  its  cloud, 
after  lingering  awhile  till  the  perishable  elements  are  hid,  grows 
transparent  as  we  gaze,  and  half  shows,  half  veils,  a  glorious 
image  in  the  depth  beyond.  Tell  me  not  that  affection  is  blind, 
and  magnifies  its  object  in  the  dark.  Affection  blind!  I  say  there 
is  nothing  else  that  can  see;  'that  can  find  its  way  through  the 
windings  of  the  soul  it  loves,  and  know  how  its  graces  lie.  The 
cynic  thinks  that  all  the  fair  look  of  our  humanity  is  on  the  out- 
Bide,  inasmuch  as  each  mind  will  put  on  its  best  dress  for  com- 
pany ;  and  if  there  he  detects  some  littleness  and  weakness,,  which 
perhaps  his  own  cold  eye  brings  to  the  surface,  there  can  be 
only  what  is  worse  within.  Dupe  that  he  is  of  his  own  wit!  he 
has  not  found  out  that  all  the  evil  spirits  of  human  nature  flock 
to  him;  that  his  presence  brings  them  to  the  surface  from  their 
recesses  in  every  heart,  and  drives  the  blessed  angels  to  hide 
themselves  away:  for  who  would  own  a  reverence,  who  tell  a 
tender  grief,  before  that  hard  ungenial  gaze  ?  Wherever  he  moves, 
he  empties  the  space  around  him  of  its  purest  elements:  with  his 
low  thought  he  roofs  it  from  the  heavenly  light  and  the  sweet 
air;  and  then  complains  of  the  world  as  a  close-breathed  and 


97<56  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

stifling  place.  It  is  not  the  critic,  but  the  lover,  who  can  know 
the  real  contents  and  scale  of  a  human  life;  and  that  interior 
estimate,  as  it  is  the  truer,  is  always  the  higher:  the  closest  look 
becomes  the  gentlest  too;  and  domestic  faith,  struck  by  bereave- 
ment, easily  transfigures  the  daily  familiar  into  an  image  con- 
genial with  a  brighter  world. 

Our  faculties  and  affections  are  graduated  then  to  objects 
greater,  better,  fairer,  and  more  enduring,  than  the  order  of 
nature  gives  us  here.  They  demand  a  scale  and  depth  of  being 
which  outwardly  they  do  not  meet,  yet  inwardly  they  are  the 
organ  for  apprehending.  Hence  a  certain  glorious  sorrow  must 
ever  mingle  with  our  life:  all  our  actual  is  transcended  by  our 
possible;  our  visionary  faculty  is  an  overmatch  for  our  experi- 
ence; like  the  caged  bird,  we  break  ourselves  against  the  bars 
of  the  finite,  with  a  wing  that  quivers  for  the  infinite.  To  stifle 
this  struggle,  to  give  up  the  higher  aspiration,  and  be  content 
with  making  our  small  lodgings  snug,  is  to  cut  off  the  summit 
of  our  nature,  and  live  upon  the  flat  of  a  mutilated  humanity. 
To  let  the  struggle  be,  however  it  may  sadden  us,  to  trust  the 
pressure  of  the  soul  towards  diviner  objects  and  more  holy  life, 
and  measure  by  it  the  invisible  ends  to  which  we  tend, —  this 
is  true  faith;  the  unfading  crown  of  an  ideal  and  progressive 
nature.  It  is  indeed,  and  ever  must  be,  notwithstanding  the 
light  that  circles  it,  a  crown  of  thorns;  and  the  brow  that  wears 
it  can  never  wholly  cease  to  bleed.  A  nature  which  reaches 
forth  to  the  perfect  from  a  station  in  the  imperfect  must  always 
have  a  pathetic  tinge  in  its  experience.  Think  not  to  escape  it 
by  any  change  of  scene,  though  from  the  noisy  streets  to  the 
eternal  City  of  God.  There  is  but  One  for  whom  there  is  no 
interval  between  what  he  thinks  and  what  he  is;  in  whom  there- 
fore is  <( light,  and  no  darkness  at  all.*  For  us,  vain  is  the 
dream  of  a  shadowless  world,  with  no  interruption  of  brilliancy, 
no  remission  of  joy.  Were  our  heaven  never  overcast,  yet  we 
meet  the  brightest  morning  only  in  escape  from  recent  night; 
and  the  atmosphere  of  our  souls,  never  passing  from  ebb  and 
flow  of  love  into  a  motionless  constancy,  must  always  break  the 
white  eternal  beams  into  a  colored  and  a  tearful  glory.  Whence 
is  that  tincture  of  sanctity  which  Christ  has  given  to  sorrow,  and 
which  makes  his  form  at  once  the  divinest  and  most  pathetic  in 
the  world  ?  It  is  that  he  has  wakened  by  his  touch  the  illimit- 
able aspirations  of  our  bounded  nature,  and  flung  at  once  into 


JAMES  MARTINEAU  9767 

our  thought  and  affection  a  holy  beauty,  a  divine  Sonship,  into 
which  we  can  only  slowly  grow.  And  this  is  a  condition  which 
can  never  cease  to  be.  Among  the  true  children  of  the  Highest, 
who  would  wish  to  be  free  from  it?  Let  the  glorious  burden 
lie!  How  can  we  be  angry  at  a  sorrow  which  is  the  birth-pang 
of  a  diviner  life  ? 

From  this  strife,  of  infinite  capacity  with  finite  conditions, 
spring  all  the  ideal  elements  which  mingle  with  the  matter  of 
our  being.  Nor  is  it  our  conscience  only  that  betrays  the  secret 
of  this  double  life.  Our  very  memory  too,  though  it  seems  but 
to  photograph  the  actual,  proves  to  have  the  artist's  true  select- 
ing power,  and  knows  how  to  let  the  transient  fall  away,  and 
leave  the  imperishable  undimmed  and  cleai  As  time  removes 
us  from  each  immediate  experience,  some  freshening  dew,  some 
wave  of  regeneration,  brightens  all  the  colors  and  washes  off  th^ 
dust;  so  that  often  we  discover  the  essence  only  when  the  acci- 
dents are  gone,  and  the  present  must  die  from  us  ere  it  can 
truly  live.  The  work  of  yesterday,  with  its  place  and  hour,  has 
but  a  dull  look  when  we  recall  it.  But  the  scene  of  our  childish 
years, —  the  homestead,  it  may  be,  with  its  quaint  garden  and 
its  orchard  grass;  the  bridge  across  the  brook  from  which  we 
dropped  the  pebbles  and  watched  the  circling  waves;  the  school- 
house  in  the  field,  whose  bell  broke  up  the  game  and  quickened 
every  lingerer's  feet;  the  yew-tree  path  where  we  crossed  the 
church-yard,  with  arm  round  the  neck  of  a  companion  now  be- 
neath the  sod, — how  soft  the  light,  how  tender  the  shadows,  in 
which  that  picture  lies!  how  musical  across  the  silence  are  the 
tones  it  flings!  The  glare,  the  heat,  the  noise,  the  care,  are 
gone;  and  the  sunshine  sleeps,  and  the  waters  ripple,  and  the 
lawns  are  green,  as  if  it  were  in  Paradise.  But  in  these  minor 
religions  of  life,  it  is  the  personal  images  of  companions  loved 
and  lost  that  chiefly  keep  their  watch  with  us,  and  sweeten  and 
solemnize  the  hours.  The  very  child  that  misses  the  mother's 
appreciating  love  is  introduced,  by  his  first  tears,  to  that  thirst 
of  the  heart  which  is  the  early  movement  of  piety,  ere  yet  it  has 
got  its  wings.  And  I  have  known  the  youth  who  through  long 
years  of  harsh  temptation,  and  then  short  years  of  wasting  decline, 
has,  from  like  memory,  never  lost  the  sense  as  of  a  guardian  angel 
near,  and  lived  in  the  enthusiasm,  and  died  into  the  embrace, 
of  the  everlasting  holiness.  In  the  heat  and  struggle  of  mid-life, 
it  is  a  severe  but  often  a  purifying  retreat  to  be  lifted  into  the 


JAMES  MARTINEAU 

lonely  observatory  of  memory,  above  the  fretful  illusions  of  the 
moment,  and  in  presence  once  more  of  the  beauty  and  the  sanc- 
tity of  life.  The  voiceless  counsels  that  look  through  the  vision- 
ary eyes  of  our  departed  steal  into  us  behind  our  will,  and  sweep 
the  clouds  away,  and  direct  us  on  a  wiser  path  than  we  should 
know  to  choose.  If  age  ever  gains  any  higher  wisdom,  it  is 
chiefly  that  it  sits  in  a  longer  gallery  of  the  dead,  and  sees 
the  noble  and  saintly  faces  in  further  perspective  and  more  vari- 
ous throng.  The  dim  abstracted  look  that  often  settles  on  the 
features  of  the  old, —  what  means  it  ?  Is  it  a  mere  fading  of 
the  life  ?  an  absence,  begun  already,  from  the  drama  of  humanity  ? 
a  deafness  to  the  cry  of  its  woes  and  the  music  of  its  affections  ? 
Not  always  so:  the  seeming  forgetfulness  may  be  but  brightened 
memory;  and  if  the  mists  lie  on  the  outward  present,  and  make 
it  as  a  gathering  night,  the  more  brilliant  is  the  lamp  within 
that  illuminates  the  figures  of  the  past,  and  shows  again,  by  their 
flitting  shadows,  the  plot  in  which  they  moved  and  fell. 

It  is  through  such  natural  experiences  —  the  treasured  sanctities 
of  every  true  life  —  that  God  <(  discovereth  to  us  deep  things  out 
of  darkness,  and  turneth  into  light  the  shadow  of  death. })  They 
constitute  the  lesser  religions  of  the  soul;  and  say  what  you  will, 
they  come  and  go  with  the  greater,  and  put  forth  leaf  and  blos- 
som from  the  same  root.  We  are  so  constituted  throughout  —  in 
memory,  in  affection,  in  conscience,  in  intellect  —  that  we  cannot 
rest  in  the  literal  aspect  of  things  as  they  materially  come  to 
us.  No  sooner  are  they  in  our  possession,  than  we  turn  them 
into  some  crucible  of  thought,  which  saves  their  essence  and  pre- 
cipitates their  dross;  and  their  pure  idea  emerges  as  our  lasting 
treasure,  to  be  remembered,  loved,  willed,  and  believed.  What 
we  thus  gain,  then, —  is  it  a  falsification  ?  or  a  revelation  ?  What 
we  discard, —  is  it  the  sole  constant,  which  alone  we  ought  to 
keep  ?  or  the  truly  perishable,  which  we  deservedly  let  slip  ?  If 
the  vision  which  remains  with  us  is  fictitious,  then  is  there  a 
fatal  misadjustment  between  the  actual  universe  and  the  powers 
given  us  for  interpreting  it;  so  that  precisely  what  we  recognize 
as  highest  in  us  —  the  human  distinctions  of  art,  of  love,  of  duty, 
of  faith  —  must  be  treated  as  palming  off  upon  us  a  system  of 
intellectual  frauds.  But  if  the  idealizing  analysis  be  true,  it  is 
only  that  our  faculties  have  not  merely  passive  receptivity,  but 
discriminative  insight,  are  related  to  the  permanent  as  well  as  to 
the  transient,  and  are  at  once  prophetic  and  retrospective;  and 


JAMES   MARTINEAU  9769 

thus  are  qualified  to  report  to  us,  not  only  what  is,  but  what 
ought  to  be  and  is  to  be.  Did  we  apply  the  transforming-  imagi- 
nation only  to  the  present,  so  as  to  discern  in  it  a  better  possi- 
bility beyond,  it  might  be  regarded  as  simply  a  provision  for  the 
progressive  improvement  of  this  world, —  an  explanation  still  carry- 
ing in  itself  the  thought  of  a  beneficent  Provider.  But  w,e  glorify 
no  less  what  has  been  than  what  now  is;  and  see  it  in  a  light  in 
which  it  never  appeared  beneath  the  sun:  and  this  is  either  an 
illusion  or  a  prevision. 

The  problem  whether  the  transfiguring  powers  of  the  mind 
serve  upon  us  an  imposture  or  open  to  us  a  divine  vision,  carries 
in  its  answer  the  whole  future  of  society,  the  whole  peace  and 
nobleness  of  individual  character.  High  art,  high  morals,  high 
faith,  are  impossible  among  those  who  do  not  believe  their  own 
inspirations,  but  only  court  and  copy  them  for  pleasure  or  profit. 
And  for  great  lives,  and  stainless  purity,  and  holy  sorrow,  and 
surrendering  trust,  the  souls  of  men  must  pass  through  all  vain 
semblances,  and  touch  the  reality  of  an  eternal  Righteousness 
and  a  never-wearied  Love. 


-  -  '  m 


. 


9770 


ANDREW  MARVELL 

(1621-1678) 

JNDREW  MARVELL  has  been  described  as  of  medium  height, 
sturdy  and  thick-set,  with  bright  dark  eyes,  and  pleasing, 
rather  reserved  expression. 
He  was  born  in  1621,  at  Winestead,  near  Hull,  in  Yorkshire.  His 
father  was  master  of  the  grammar  school,  and  there  Andrew  was  pre- 
pared for  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  But  a  boyish  escapade  led  to 
his  expulsion  before  the  completion  of  his  university  course,  and  for 
several  years  he  lived  abroad;  visiting  France,  Holland,  Spain,  and 

Italy,  and  improving  his  mind  (<  to  very 
good  purpose, }>  as  his  friend  John  Milton 
said  admiringly.  He  returned  to  become 
tutor  to  Lord  Fairfax's  young  daughter,  and 
lived  at  Nun  Appleton  near  Hull.  He  was 
an  ardent  lover  of  nature,  finding  rest  and 
refreshment  in  its  color  and  beauty,  noting 
the  lilt  of  a  bird  or  the  texture  of  a  blos- 
som with  a  happy  zest  which  recalls  the 
songs  of  the  Elizabethans.  Much  of  his 
pastoral  verse  was  written  at  this  period. 
But  his  energetic  nature  soon  tired  of 
country  calm.  His  connection  with  Lord 
Fairfax  had  made  him  known  in  Round- 
head circles,  and  he  left  Nun  Appleton, 

appointed  by  Cromwell  tutor  to  his  young  ward  Mr.  Button,  and 
afterwards  engaged  in  politics.  His  native  Hull  elected  him  to  Par- 
liament three  times;  and  he  is  said  to  have  been  the  last  member  to 
receive  wages  —  two  shillings  a  day  —  for  his  services.  So  well  did 
he  satisfy  his  constituents  that  they  continued  him  a  pension  until 
his  death  in  1678.  His  public  career  was  distinguished  for  fearless 
integrity;  and  an  often  quoted  instance  of  this  describes  Lord  Treas- 
urer Danby  sent  by  Charles  II.  to  seek  out  the  poet  in  his  poverty- 
stricken  lodgings  off  the  Strand,  with  enticing  offers  to  join  the  court 
party.  These  Marvell  stoutly  declined;  although  the  story  adds  that 
as  soon  as  his  flattering  visitor  had  gone  he  was  forced  to  send  out 
for  the  loan  of  a  guinea. 

Marvell's    satiric    prose    was    too    bitter    and    too    personal    not   to 
arouse  great  animosity,  and  he  was  often  forced  to  circulate  it  in 


ANDREW  MARVELL 


ANDREW  MARVELL 


9771 


manuscript  or  have  it  secretly  printed.  The  vigorous  style  suggests 
Swift;  and  mingled  with  coarse  invective  and  frequent  brutalities 
there  is  sledge-hammer  force  of  wit, — much  of  which,  however,  is 
lost  to  the  modern  reader  from  the  fact  that  the  issues  involved  are 
now  forgotten. 

The  great  objects  of  Marvell's  veneration  were  Cromwell  and  Mil- 
ton. He  knew  them  personally,  was  the  associate  of  Milton  at  the 
latter's  request,  and  these  master  minds  inspired  some  of  his  finest 
verse.  He  has  been  called  ((the  poet  of  the  Protectorate }> ;  and  per- 
haps no  one  has  spoken  more  eloquently  upon  Cromwell  than  he  in 
his  ( Horatian  Ode >  and  ( Death  of  Cromwell. J  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  Milton  and  Cromwell  admired  and  respected  Marvell's 
talents,  and  that  the  former  suggested  in  all  sincerity  that  he  himself 
might  find  matter  for  envy  in  the  achievement  of  the  lesser  poet. 

Marvell  <(was  eminently  afflicted  with  the  gift  of  wit  or  ingenuity 
much  prized  in  his  time,"  says  Goldwin  Smith.  His  fanciful  artificial- 
ities, reflecting  the  contemporary  spirit  of  Waller  and  Cowley,  are 
sometimes  tedious  to  modern  taste.  But  in  sincerer  moods  he  could 
write  poems  whose  genuine  feeling,  descriptive  charm,  and  artistic 
skill  are  still  as  effective  as  ever. 


THE  GARDEN 

How  vainly  men  themselves  amaze, 
To  win  the  palm,  the  oak,  or  bays: 
And  their  incessant  labors  see 
Crowned  from  some  single  herb,  or  tree, 
Whose  short  and  narrow-verged  shade 
Does  prudently  their  toils  upbraid; 
While  all  the  flowers  and  trees  do  close, 
To  weave  the  garlands  of  repose. 

Fair  Quiet,  have  I  found  thee  here, 
And  Innocence,  thy  sister  dear  ? 
Mistaken  long,  I  sought  you  then 
In  busy  companies  of  men. 
Your  sacred  plants,  if  here  below. 
Only  among  the  plants  will  grow; 
Society  is  all  but  rude 
To  this  delicious  solitude. 

No  white  nor  red  was  ever  seen 

So  amorous  as  this  lovely  green.    ,    . 


97 7 2  ANDREW  MARVELL 

Fond  lovers,  cruel  as  their  flame, 

Cut  in  these  trees  their  mistress's  name. 

Little,  alas!   they  know  or  heed, 

How  far  these  beauties  her  exceed! 

Fair  trees!   where'er  your  barks  I  wound, 

No  name  shall  but  your  own  be  found. 

When  we  have  run  our  passion's  heat. 
Love  hither  makes  his  best  retreat. 
The  gods,  who  mortal  beauty  chase, 
Still  in  a  tree  did  end  their  race. 
Apollo  hunted  Daphne  so, 
Only  that  she  might  laurel  grow; 
And  Pan  did  after  Syrinx  speed, 
Not  as  a  nymph,  but  for  a  reed. 

What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head ; 
The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine; 
The  nectarine  and  curious  peach 
Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach; 
Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I  pass, 
Insnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 

Meanwhile  the  mind  from  pleasure  less 

Withdraws  into  its  happiness  — 

The  mind,  that  ocean  where  each  kind 

Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  find: 

Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these, 

Far  other  worlds  and  other  seas; 

Annihilating  all  that's  made 

To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 

Here  at  the  fountain's  sliding  foot, 
Or  at  some  fruit-tree's  mossy  root, 
Casting  the  body's  vest  aside, 
My  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide: 
There  like  a  bird  it  sits  and  sings, 
Then  whets  and  claps  its  silver  wings; 
And  till  prepared  for  longer  flight, 
Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light. 

Such  was  the  happy  garden  state, 
While  man  there  walked  without  a  mate; 
After  a  place  so  pure  and  sweet, 
What  other  help  could  yet  be  meet? 


ANDREW   MARVELL 

But  'twas  beyond  a  mortal's  share 
To  wander  solitary  there: 
Two  paradises  are  in  one, 
To  live  in  paradise  alone. 

How  well  the  skillful  gardener  drew 

Of  flowers  and  herbs,  this  dial  new! 

Where  from  above  the  milder  sun 

Does  through  a  fragrant  zodiac  run; 

And  as  it  works,  th'  industrious  bee 

Computes  its  time  as  well  as  we.  . 

How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 

Be  reckoned,  but  with  herbs  and  flowers? 


THE   EMIGRANTS   IN   BERMUDAS 

WHERE  the  remote  Bermudas  ride 
In  th'  ocean's  bosom,  unespied  — 
From  a  small  boat  that  rowed  along, 
The  listening  winds  received  this  song:  — 

What  should  we  do  but  sing  His  praise 
That  led  us  through  the  watery  maze 
Unto  an  isle  so  long  unknown, 
And  yet  far  kinder  than  our  own  ? 
Where  he  the  huge  sea  monsters  wracks 
That  lift  the  deep  upon  their  backs, 
He  lands  us  on  a  grassy  stage, 
Safe  from  the  storms  and  prelate's  rage. 
He  gave  us  this  eternal  spring 
Which  here  enamels  everything, 
And  sends  the  fowls  to  us  in  care, 
On  daily  visits  through  the  air. 
He  hangs  in  shades  the  orange  bright, 
Like  golden  lamps  in  a  green  night, 
And  does  in  the  pomegranates  close 
Jewels  more  rich  than  Ormus  shows; 
He  makes  the  figs  our  mouths  to  meet, 
And  throws  the  melons  at  our  feet; 
But  apples, — plants  of  such  a  price 
No  tree  could  ever  bear  them  twice, — 
With  cedars,   chosen  by  his  hand 
From  Lebanon,  he  stores  the  land; 
And  makes  the  hollow  seas  that  roar 
Proclaim  the  ambergris  on  shore. 


9773 


9774  ANDREW  MARVELL 

He  cast  (of  which  we  rather  boast) 
The  gospel's  pearl  upon  our  coast; 
And  in  these  rocks  for  us  did  frame 
A  temple  where  to  sound  his  name. 
Oh,  let  our  voice  his  praise  exalt 
Till  it  arrive  at  heaven's  vault; 
Which  then,  perhaps,  rebounding  may 
Echo  beyond  the  Mexique  bay. 

Thus  they  sang,  in  the  English  boat, 
A  .holy  and  a  cheerful  note ; 
And  all  the  way,  to  guide  their  chime, 
With  falling  oars  they  kept  the  time. 


THE  MOWER  TO   THE   GLOW-WORMS 


Y 


E  LIVING  lamps,  by  whose  dear  light 
The  nightingale  does  sit  so  late, 

And  studying  all  the  summer  night, 
Her  matchless  songs  does  meditate! 


Ye  country  comets,  that  portend 
No  war,  nor  prince's  funeral, 

Shining  unto  no  other  end 

Than  to  presage  the  grass's  fall! 

Ye  glow-worms,  whose  officious  flame 
To  wandering  mowers  shows  the  way, 

That  in  the  night  have  lost  their  aim, 
And  after  foolish  fires  do  stray! 

Your  courteous  lights  in  vain  you  waste, 

Since  Juliana  here  is  come; 
For  she  my  mind  hath  so  displaced, 

That  I  shall  never  find  my  home. 


M 


THE  MOWER'S   SONG 

Y  MIND  was  once  the  true  survey  • 
Of  all  these  meadows  fresh  and  gay; 
And  in  the  greenness  of  the  grass 
Did  see  its  hopes  as  in  a  glass: 

When  Juliana  came,  and  she, 
What  I  do  to  the  grass,  does  to  my  thoughts  and  me. 


ANDREW  MARVELL  9775 

But  these,  while  I  with  sorrow  pine, 
Grew  more  luxuriant  still  and  fine; 
That  not  one  blade  of  grass  you  spied 
But  had  a  flower  on  either  side : 
When  Juliana  came,  and  she, 
What  I  do  to  the  grass,  does  to  my  thoughts  and  me. 

Unthankful  meadows,  could  you  so 
A  fellowship  so  true  forego, 
And  in  your  gaudy  May-games  meet, 
While  I  lay  trodden  under  feet? 
When  Juliana  came,  and  she, 
What  I  do  to  the  grass,  does  to  my  thoughts  and  me. 

But  what  you  in  compassion  ought, 
Shall  now  by  my  revenge  be  wrought; 
And  flowers,  and  grass,  and  I,  and  all, 
Will  in  one  common  ruin  fall: 

For  Juliana  comes,  and  she, 
What  I  do  to  the  grass,  does  to  my  thoughts  and  me. 

And  thus  ye  meadows,  which  have  been 
Companions  of  my  thoughts  more  green, 
Shall  now  the  heraldry  become 
With  which  I  shall  adorn  my  tomb: 

For  Juliana  comes,  and  she, 
What  I  do  to  the  grass,  does  to  my  thoughts  and  me. 


THE   PICTURE   OF  T.  C. 
IN  A  PROSPECT  OF  FLOWERS 

SEE  with  what  simplicity 
This  nymph  begins  her  golden  days! 
In  the  green  grass  she  loves  to  lie, 
And  there  with  her  fair  aspect  tames 
The  wilder  flowers,  and  gives  them  names; 
But  only  with  the  roses  plays, 

And  them  does  tell 
What  color  best  becomes  them,  and  what  smell. 

Who  can  foretell  for  what  high  cause 
This  darling  of  the  gods  was  born? 


9776  ANDREW  MARVELL 

See!  this  is  she  whose  chaster  laws 

The  wanton  Love  shall  one  day  fear, 
And  under  her  command  severe, 
See  his  bow  broke  and  ensigns  torn. 

Happy  who  can 
Appease  this  virtuous  enemy  of  man! 

Oh,  then  let  me  in  time  compound 

And  parley  with  those  conquering  eyes, 
Ere  they  have  tried  their  force  to  wound, — 

Ere  with  their  glancing  wheels  they  drive 
In  triumph  over  hearts  that  strive, 
And  them  that  yield  but  more  despise: 

Let  me  be  laid 
Where  I  may  see  the  glory  from  some  shade. 

Meanwhile,  whilst  every  verdant  thing 

Itself  does  at  thy  beauty  charm, 
Reform  the  errors  of  the  spring: 

Make  that  the  tulips  may  have  share 
Of  sweetness,  seeing  they  are  fair; 
And  roses  of  their  thorns  disarm; 

But  most  procure 
That  violets  may  a  longer  age  endure. 

But  oh,  young  beauty  of  the  woods, 

Whom  Nature  courts  with  fruit  and  flowerS;, 
Gather'  the  flowers,  but  spare  the  buds, 
Lest  Flora,  angry  at  thy  crime 
To  kill  her  infants  in  their  prime, 
Should  quickly  make  the  example  yours; 

And  ere  we  see, 
Nip  in  the  blossom  all  our  hopes  in  thee. 


9776a 


KARL  MARX 

(1818-1883) 

BY   WILLIAM   ENGLISH   WALLING 

JT  is  the  common  belief  that  modern  Socialism  owes  its  prin- 
ciples largely  to  Karl  Marx.  But  the  central  idea  of  Marx's 
thought  was  precisely  that  every  great  social  movement  is 
based  not  upon  the  ideas  of  any  single  man  or  group  of  men,  but  upon 
the  economic  conditions,  the  needs  and  the  aspirations  of  whole  popula- 
tions —  or  rather  of  those  social  classes  which  are  destined  to  pre- 
dominate. His  first  and  greatest  teaching  was  that  such  a  movement 
would  come  into  existence  whether  or  not  there  were  any  leaders  capable 
of  adequately  formulating  its  thought. 

According  to  the  Marxian  view,  the  importance  of  Karl  Marx  is  not 
that  he  created  the  Socialist  Movement  or  that  he  laid  down  its  funda- 
mental theoretical  principles,  but  that  his  many-sided  personality  was 
thoroughly  (though  not  completely)  representative  of  that  movement. 
To  appreciate  this  representative  character  of  Marx,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  gain  more  than  a  rudimentary  knowledge  of  his  leading  ideas.  The 
briefest  glance  at  his  life  and  at  the  subject  matter  and  titles  of  his 
writings  is  sufficient. 

In  the  first  place,  his  whole  life  and  thought  were  thoroughly  inter- 
national; that  is  to  say,  his  politics  and  economics  did  not  rest  upon  the 
tradition  of  a  single  nation,  but  upon  a  comparative  study  of  those 
three  countries  in  which  he  lived,  Germany,  France,  and  England  — 
the  three  leading  countries  of  the  world  at  the  period  in  which  he  wrote. 
Even  his  descent  and  birthplace  were  significant.  He  was  born  of 
Jewish  parents  in  the  town  of  Trier  in  the  year  1818.  That  is  to  say, 
he  was  born  of  an  international  stock  within  a  few  miles  of  the  boundary 
of  France  and  a  very  short  distance  from  Belgium  and  Holland.  Only 
his  early  youth  was  spent  in  Germany.  During  several  years  of  his 
mature  manhood  he  lived  in  exile  in  Paris  and  he  spent  the  latter  half 
of  his  life  in  exile  in  London.  His  father  having  been  a  banker,-  Marx 
was  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  business  and  since  he  devoted  his 
life  chiefly  to  the  study  of  political  economy  he  continued  from  his  earliest 
years  to  his  death  to  take  a  view  of  all  public  questions  that  was  largely 
based  upon  an  economic  foundation.  At  the  same  time  he  was  thor- 
ough master  of  all  the  public  discussion  of  his  time,  whether  from  an 
economic,  a  philosophical,  or  a  purely  political  standpoint.  In  Germany 
he  mastered  all  the  current  philosophies  of  his  period,  especially  those 


9776 b  KARL  MARX 

of  Hegel  and  Feuerbach.  In  France  he  devoured  and  assimilated  all 
the  Revolutionary  and  post-Revolutionary  political  thought.  In 
England  he  not  only  became  an  adept  in  all  the  political  economy  of 
the  period  from  Adam  Smith  to  Ricardo  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  but  his 
keen  powers  of  criticism  soon  enabled  him  to  see  all  around  these  great 
economists  —  at  least  in  many  directions,  as  most  later  economists 
have  admitted. 

The  Socialism  of  Karl  Marx  was  thus  essentially  of  a  comparative 
or  scientific  character.  Not  only  was  it  based  on  a  comparative  study 
of  the  three  greatest  and  most  advanced  nations  of  Europe,  but  it  was 
compounded  of  ideas  drawn  from  three  almost  separate  sources:  Ger- 
man philosophy,  French  politics,  and  British  economics.  It  may  be 
admitted  that  the  so-called  Utopian  Socialists  of  France  and  England, 
Fourier,  St.  Simon,  and  Owen,  also  exerted  an  influence.  Undoubtedly 
they  furnished  Marx  with  an  ideal  —  that  of  a  scientifically  organized 
industrial  democracy.  But  this  was  only  the  smaller  part  of  Marx's 
thought.  He  was  concerned  relatively  little  with  the  nature  of  the 
future  society  and  concentrated  his  attention  almost  wholly  on  the  ways 
and  means  of  attaining  it. 

I  have  indicated  the  influence  of  the  geographical  environment 
upon  the  life  and  work  of  Karl  Marx.  It  remains  to  mention  the 
influence  of  the  period  in  which  he  lived.  His  education  and  his  earliest 
writing  were  dominated  by  the  French  Revolution  and  its  after  results. 
All  the  progressive  political  thought  of  Europe  before  1848  was  under 
the  same  influences:  the  theory  of  political  democracy  was  accepted 
dogmatically  and  absolutely;  consequently  all  progressive  thought 
which  concerned  itself  with  social  and  economic  questions  tended  to 
extend  the  idea  of  democracy  to  cover  those  fields,  and  the  ideal  of 
industrial  and  social  democracy  was  in  the  air. 

But  Marx  also  drew  a  more  immediate  lesson  from  the  French 
Revolution  —  in  agreement,  in  this  instance,  with  French  political 
thought,  but  in  disagreement  both  with  the  philosophy  of  Germany 
and  with  the  economics  of  England.  He  held,  with  the  French,  that  all 
thorough  and  radical  social  progress  must  be  achieved  in  large  part  by 
the  method  of  social  revolution.  He  took  from  English  political 
economy  the  idea  —  prevalent  among  business  men  everywhere  and  at 
all  times  —  that  social  progress  depends  largely,  if  not  chiefly,  upon 
economic  progress.  But  he  thought  that  no  very  fundamental  social 
progress,  and  especially  no  change  for  the  benefit  of  the  democracy, 
could  be  brought  about  without  revolution.  The  old  order  is  always 
defended  to  the  last  ditch  by  the  privileged  classes  that  benefit  from  it. 
This  creates  a  ((class  struggle))  between  the  privileged  and  the  non- 
privileged,  a  ((class  struggle))  which  can  only  be  terminated  successfully 
by  means  of  a  political  and  social  revolution. 

This  thought  is  in  no  way  original  with  Marx,  but  was  the  prevalent 


KARL   MARX  97?6c 

one  in  France  even  before  1848.  The  Revolution  of  1848  very  much 
strengthened  this  conception.  Like  the  great  French  Revolution,  it 
extended  itself  over  Europe,  indicating  that  it  was  directed  not  against 
the  superficial  political  forms  of  a  single  nation,  but  against  the  fun- 
damental economic  and  social  conditions  of  a  whole  period.  But  the 
Revolution  of  1848  was  far  more  conscious  than  that  of  1789.  The 
earlier  revolution  was  thought  of  by  its  partisans  merely  as  a  struggle 
between  an  old  and  a  new  order,  the  new  order  being  regarded  as  a  final 
and  conclusive  settlement  of  all  fundamental  social  problems.  The 
revolutionary  movement  of  1848  brought  to  various  countries  of  Europe 
complicated  class  struggles,  struggles  participated  in  by  several  social 
classes:  the  land-owning  nobilities,  the  peasantry,  the  urban  middle 
classes,  and  the  urban  working  classes,  not  to  mention  other  social 
groups  and  subdivisions  of  those  already  named.  The  existence  of 
these  social  classes  was  recognized  by  nearly  all  the  historians  and  politi- 
cal and  economic  writers  of  the  period.  But  nearly  all  of  these  writers 
were  still  under  the  Utopian  illusion  of  the  French  Revolution,  that  the 
impending  change  would  be  the  last  great  social  upheaval.  Karl 
Marx,  realizing  how  far  from  Socialism  were  the  ideals  of  the  leading 
revolutionists  of  1848,  came  to  regard  this  revolution  like  its  predecessor, 
as  marking  merely  a  stage  in  progress  towards  Socialism  to  be  followed 
by  a  later  revolution  before  a  Socialist  society  could  be  ushered  in. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  we  can  say  that  Marx  definitely  applied  the 
idea  of  evolution,  which  was  not  yet  finally  accepted  in  biology  at  the 
time  when  he  wrote,  to  human  society.  Possibly  a  more  accurate  way 
of  stating  his  position  would  be  to  say  that  he  had  advanced  from  the 
Utopian  concept  (which  expected  the  final  reorganization  of  society  at 
a  single  bound)  in  the  direction  of  an  evolutionary  concept  which  looks 
forward  to  endless  change  and  progress  in  the  fundamental  organization 
of  society  as  well  as  in  all  other  directions.  He  had  not  fully  attained 
this  evolutionary  view,  for  while  he  speaks  of  several  fundamental 
revolutionary  changes  in  the  past,  he  looks  forward  to  only  one  such 
change  in  the  future,  namely,  the  social  revolution  which  was  to  usher 
in  Socialism.  On  the  other  hand,  his  view  is  evolutionary  in  one 
exceedingly  important  aspect.  He  does  not  believe  v/e  shall  be  ready 
for  that  great  social  change  with  which  he  is  chiefly  concerned  until  a 
preliminary  evolution  is  passed  through  with.  Here  indeed  is  the  kernel 
of  his  thought.  No  great  progress  is  possible  except  through  revolution. 
But  no  revolution  is  possible  except  when  the  economic  evolution  of 
society  has  thoroughly  prepared  the  soil  by  creating  new  social  classes 
and  by  making  practicable  the  new  social  institutions  demanded  by  a 
new  society.  In  his  theory,  theny  it  might  be  said  that  Marx  was  not 
wholly  an  evolutionist.  In  practice  and  in  his  attitude  towards  the 
existing  economic  questions  his  standpoint  was  entirely  evolutionary. 

The  importance  of  Karl  Marx,  as  I  have  said,  lies  in  the  fact  that  he 


9776 d  KARL  MARX 

was  so  thoroughly  representative  of  a  great  social  movement.  It  is 
not  surprising,  then,  that  he  could  claim  no  originality  in  any  of  the 
ideas  that  I  have  mentioned  up  to  the  present  point.  What  he  did  do 
was  to  express  these  ideas  better  than  others,  to  connect  them  in  a  more 
logical  system,  and  to  discover  a  larger  amount  of  evidence  in  support 
of  these  views.  But  Marx  did  make  an  original  contribution  to  politi- 
cal thought  and  to  the  Socialist  Movement  —  a  contribution  of  the 
first  magnitude.  Undoubtedly  many  other  persons  in  his  period,  and 
even  before,  were  idealizing  the  role  of  ((labor))  as  the  social  class  upon 
which  society  rested  and  the  class  which  would  have  to  reorganize 
society  in  the  end  and  establish  Socialism.  But  few  attempted  to  make 
this  thought  the  fundamental  and  central  thought  of  a  whole  social 
system  —  and  such  attempts  as  were  made  were  unsuccessful;  they  did 
not  leave  a  profound  impression  either  upon  the  educated  public  generally 
or  upon  ((labor.))  Marx  was  the  first  to  achieve  a  brilliant  success  in 
both  of  these  directions  —  a  success  so  brilliant  that  none  of  his  succes- 
sors have  been  able  to  make  a  very  radical  advance  in  this  line  of  thought. 
Additions  have  been  made  and  they  have  constituted  advances,  but  it 
may  safely  be  said  that  all  the  Marxism  since  the  days  of  Marx  is 
hardly  as  important  as  the  writings  of  Marx  himself. 

It  is  impracticable  in  a  brief  space  even  to  summarize  the  contents 
of  the  writings  of  Marx,  but  we  may  mention  his  leading  works  and 
indicate  their  relative  importance.  It  is  usual  for  the  disciples  of  Marx, 
as  well  as  for  professional  critics,  to  regard  (Das  Kapital)  as  his  chief 
work.  However,  this  monumental  performance  is  of  an  exceedingly 
abstract  and  theoretical  nature.  In  spite  of  the  high  regard  in  which  it 
is  held  by  the  working  classes,  as  well  as  all  disciples  and  some  critics  of 
Marx,  it  is  of  such  an  abstruse  character  that  it  has  had  relatively  few 
readers  when  compared  with  his  other  writings.  In  (Das  Kapital) 
Marx  exposes  a  new  philosophy  and  logic  (based  upon  Hegel),  a  new 
theory  of  history,  and  a  new  political  economy.  Besides  the  main 
theoretical  argument,  the  work  contains  a  vast  amount  of  historical 
study  and  observation  of  the  highest  interest  and  value  —  matter 
which  is  merely  illustrative,  however.  Of  equal  merit  as  studies  of 
economic  history,  are  Marx's  shorter  historical  writings  about  the  re- 
Volutions  of  1789  and  1848  and  the  Paris  Commune  of  1871.  There  can 
be  little  question  that  these  writings  have  had  a  far  larger  number  of 
readers  than  his  magnum  opus.  Even  if  it  is  possible  that  the  first 
volume  of  (Das  Kapital)  may  have  had  equally  large  editions,  it  is 
certain  that  a  very  large  number  of  the  volumes  purchased  have  either 
remained  largely  unread  or  have  been  only  partly  read  and  still  less 
understood.  Even  more  important  in  actual  influence  on  the  political 
development  of  Europe  has  been  the  (Communist  Manifesto,)  written 
by  Marx  together  with  Frederick  Engels  in  1847  —  and  therefore  among 
his  very  earliest  writings.  This  is  a  relatively  short  pamphlet  outlining 


KARL  MARX  97?6e 

very  briefly  and  with  the  utmost  eloquence  Marx's  whole  system.  It 
would  probably  be  impossible  to  make  even  an  approximate  calculation 
of  the  number  of  readers  of  this  pamphlet.  It  has  certainly  circulated 
by  many  millions. 

Marx  is  best  represented  by  the  (Communist  Manifesto,)  for  several 
reasons.  In  the  first  place  this  document  was,  in  a  sense,  the  cause  of 
the  formation  of  the  first  International  Working  Men's  Association,  a 
body  which  for  fifteen  years  played  an  important  role  in  the  history  of 
labor  in  Europe  and  even  in  America.  Then  the  Manifesto  displays 
the  true  secret  of  Marx's  power,  his  masterly  grasp  of  social  conditions, 
his  thorough-going  democracy,  and  his  self-evident  and  absolute  in- 
tellectual honesty.  Incidentally,  the  Manifesto  exhibits  all  the  chief 
strength  and  weakness  of  Marxism  as  it  has  developed  since  its  publica- 
tion. It  shows  —  intimately  connected  together  —  a  deeply  philo- 
sophical interest  in  social  progress  and  an  extraordinary  grasp  of  practical 
politics.  At  the  same  time  there  is  visible  both  the  rigid  dogmatism  and 
the  extreme  partisanship  of  Marxism  as  the  world  has  known  it  ever 
since  that  time. 

The  most  original  doctrine  of  Karl  Marx  is,  of  course,  the  doctrine 
which  has  created  the  most  controversy,  namely  "the  class-struggle." 
The  fact  that  it  has  created  the  most  controversy  is  by  no  means  a 
paradox,  for  all  great  new  systems  of  thought,  in  whatever  field,  arouse 
opposition  in  proportion  to  their  originality.  We  may  even  go  farther 
and  say  that  it  is  usually  found,  after  a  lapse  of  time,  that  the  more 
original  and  more  valuable  a  new  idea  is,  the  more  serious  and  profound 
is  the  error  that  is  discovered  to  be  an  essential  part  of  it.  We  have 
discovered  that  Marx's  very  concept  of  ((labor))  is  necessarily  vague, 
and  vague  to  such  a  degree  that  it  is  never  employed  without  leading 
to  a  large  measure  of  confusion,  perhaps  to  almost  as  much  confusion  as 
clarity  of  thought.  For  example,  a  larger  and  larger  proportion  of  the 
population  is  growing  to  be  employed  by  governments.  These  govern- 
ments are  still  chiefly  under  the  control  of  Capitalism,  as  all  Marxists 
or  Socialists  of  whatever  school  agree.  Government  employees  of  the 
lower  ranks  are  treated  like  laborers  and  their  condition  is  similar  to 
that  of  the  laborer  in  every  way.  On  the  other  hand,  the  higher  em- 
ployees are  drawn  from  privileged  classes  and  their  position  is  exceed- 
ingly similar  in  every  way  to  that  of  the  privileged  classes  from  which 
they  are  drawn.  Between  these  two  groups  there  is  a  steady  gradation, 
and  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  sharply  define  ((labor))  in  government 
employment,  though  this  definition  is  absolutely  indispensable  in  all  the 
generalizations  of  Karl  Marx.  And  this  is  only  one  of  the  difficulties 
with  the  concept  ((labor.)) 

Not  only  is  the  concept  ((labor))  vague,  but  the  concept  ((capital))  is 
equally  so,  and  perhaps  the  idea  of  ((struggle))  is  still  more  impossible  to 
'define.  What  Marx  had  in  mind  was  undoubtedly  a  struggle  leading 


9776  f  KARL  MARX 

gradually  to  a  revolutionary  climax,  but  the  majority  of  Marxists  have 
already  agreed  to  apply  the  term  also  to  practically  every  struggle 
between  employers  and  employed,  no  matter  how  small  its  area  and 
without  regard  to  the  fact  that  sometimes  a  group  of  laborers  may  aim 
at  its  own  advantage  at  the  expense  of  other  groups  of  laborers.  Of 
course  the  strictly  orthodox  Marxists  could  not  call  the  ordinary  strike 
an  example  of  class  struggle,  but  this  merely  proves  that  the  number  of 
genuinely  orthodox  Marxists  is  so  small  as  to  be  utterly  insignificant  — 
for  the  great  majority  do  speak  of  practically  every  strike  as  an  example 
of  the  class  struggle,  and  of  every  labor  union,  as  an  example  of  the 
economic  organization  of  ((labor))  as  a  class  struggling  against  capital. 
In  politics  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  define  what  is  meant  by  the  term 
<(struggle»  in  the  class  struggle  theory.  There  are  all  shades  of  Socialist 
co-operation  with  middle  class  parties,  and  even  with  the  government  of 
one's  own  nation  in  conflict  with  the  government  of  another  nation. 
In  fact,  a  large  majority  of  the  Socialist  parties  of  the  world  are  now 
supporting  their  governments,  and  not  a  few  of  them  —  including  those 
of  several  neutral  nations  —  have  actually  become  a  part  of  the  govern- 
ment by  sending  official  representatives  of  the  party  into  coalition 
ministries. 

Marx  expected  that  the  period  of  industrial  competition  would  bring 
itself  to  an  end  by  creating  monopolies  in  all  the  important  fields  of 
industry.  However,  he  concluded  that  this  period  of  industrial  mo- 
nopolies would  be  exceedingly  short,  as  it  would  at  once  evolve  into 
government  ownership  and  government  ownership  would  in  turn  evolve 
into  Socialism.  We  now  find  ourselves  in  the  period  of  monopoly,  or 
very  nearly  in  it.  We  also  find  ourselves  approaching  the  period  of 
government  ownership.  But  the  present  order  of  society  shows  many 
signs  of  considerable  stability.  Therefore  the  writings  of  Marx  have 
little  application  to  the  present  time.  His  whole  attack  is  against 
competition  and  his  whole  argument  is  that  we  can  and  should  take 
advantage  of  the  ending  of  competition  to  transform  the  existing  order 
into  a  Socialist  society.  He  throws  no  light  upon,  and  gives  no  direction 
with  regard  to,  the  intervening  stages  —  that  is  to  say,  his  references  to 
the  period  in  which  we  now  live  are  entirely  incidental  and  almost  casual. 

Marx  did  not  foresee  a  long  intervening  period  of  State  Socialism. 
Hence,  he  did  not  credit  social  reform  with  the  power  of  making  any 
of  those  radical  improvements  in  conditions  which  we  see  taking  place 
all  about  us  to-day.  All  the  weaknesses  of  the  period  of  industrial 
competition  he  supposed  would  be  continued  up  to  the  very  moment  of 
social,  revolution  and  Socialism  —  especially  pauperism  or  poverty  in  an 
extreme  form. 

A  closely  related  error  is  that  ((labor))  can  gain  no  radical  advance 
except  through  its  own  effort,  ((the  class  struggle,))  and  that,  as  soon  as 
it  gains  anything  very  important,  this  is  a  sign  that  it  is  getting  the 


KARL   MARX  97?6g 

upper  hand  over  capital  and  that  the  social  revolution  is  at  hand.  Until 
that  moment  arrives,  Marx  held  little,  if  any  gain  is  theoretically  possible. 
On  the  contrary,  we  see  the  governments  all  tending  in  the  direction  of 
the  adoption  of  a  policy  of  national  efficiency  —  which  requires  that  the 
individual  efficiency  of  ((labor))  shall  be  raised  by  means  of  radical  social 
reforms.  This  policy  is  being  adopted  not  only  because  of  competition 
between  nations,  but  because  the  upper  and  privileged  classes  find  that 
a  policy  of  enlightened  selfishness  may  produce  far  larger  profits  than 
to  allow  the  working  class  to  stagnate  or  decay.  At  the  same  time  the 
advances  of  the  privileged  still  remain  far  greater  proportionately  than 
the  advances  of  the  non-privileged.  In  other  words,  the  relative  power 
of  the  working  classes  is  not  increasing,  and  we  are  therefore  not  at 
present  approaching  a  revolution.  Whether  we  shall  ever  do  so  is  a 
question  for  the  future  to  decide.  It  is  certain  that  the  tendency  of  the 
present  moment  is  not  in  that  direction.  On  the  contrary,  the  best 
hope  of  a  social  revolution  which  might  establish  social  and  industrial 
democracy  is  precisely  that  the  physical  and  mental  condition  of  ((labor)) 
is  being  rapidly  improved  —  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  has  no  power 
to  compel  such  improvements.  Thus  ((labor))  is  becoming  stronger 
decade  by  decade.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  condition  of  the  other 
classes  is  improving  still  more  rapidly,  the  time  may  come  when,  by 
virtue  of  its  own  organized  power,  ((labor))  will  be  able  to  compel  radical 
changes  in  society  in  the  direction  of  Socialism  —  possibly  even  to  the 
extent  of  introducing  a  Socialist  society  —  one  in  which  their  children 
will  have  equal  economic  opportunity  with  the  children  of  other  social 
classes. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  considered  Marx  as  the  formulator  of  a 
political  doctrine  and  the  organizer  of  a  political  movement.  But  it 
would  be  a  great  mistake,  and  a  gross  injustice  to  Marx,  to  gauge  his 
value  solely  by  the  nature  and  influence  of  his  purely  intellectual 
achievements.  Intellectually  he  was  limited  by  the  thought  of  his 
time.  Fundamentally  he  held  to  the  philosophy,  the  logic  and  the 
political  economy  of  his  period.  His  conclusions  were  radically  different 
from  those  of  his  contemporaries,  but  his  starting-point,  his  funda- 
mental assumptions  and  methods  of  thought  were  the  same.  The 
immense  influence  he  still  wields,  both  over  the  working  classes  and 
over  a  large  part  of  the  educated  classes  of  the  world  to-day,  is  due  in 
large  measure  to  another  aspect  of  his  character.  It  may  be  doubted  if 
any  individual  has  ever  been  more  passionately  devoted  to  the  cause  of 
social  progress  or  has  ever  been  able  to  bring  a  greater  capacity  to  its 
service.  The  vigor  of  Marx's  personality  and  the  immense  literary 
power  and  propaganda  value  of  his  writings  are  due  at  least  as  much 
to  his  social  sympathies  as  to  the  clarity  and  accuracy  of  his  think- 
ing. Few  historians  would  question  the  fact  that  he  had  a  larger  and 
more  thorough  grasp  on  the  social  conditions  of  his  time  than  any  other 


9776 h  KARL  MARX 

living  man.  He  not  only  realized  these  conditions,  but  he  made  an 
encyclopaedic  review  of  all  the  remedies  that  had  been  offered  and  all  the 
hopes  that  had  been  held  before  the  masses  of  mankind.  From  this 
review  he  then  succeeded  —  unquestionably  —  in  picking  out  those 
social  facts  and  tendencies  and  those  remedies  which  promised  the 
best  for  the  future.  Later  history  has  shown  that  he  was  very  radically 
wrong  in  many  of  his  predictions  and  conceptions  —  but  it  still  remains 
true  that  he  was  probably  less  wrong  than  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
If  his  predictions  have  proved  partly  false  they  have  proved  partly 
true  —  and  in  larger  measure  than  those  of  any  other  social  philosopher 
or  statesman  of  his  period. 

When  Marx  first  wrote,  ((labor))  was  disunited  and  doubtful  of  its 
own  future.  He  succeeded,  in  large  measure,  in  uniting  labor — in  so  far 
as  this  could  be  done  by  giving  it  a  single  point  of  view.  Moreover, 
he  popularized  politics  and  economics  among  the  masses,  largely  because 
of  the  hope  he  offered  to  democracy  in  all  of  his  writings.  Every  orderly 
discussion  requires  a  working  hypothesis.  Marx  provided  working  hypo- 
theses so  excellent  that  some  of  them  remain  more  or  less  serviceable  even 
to-day.  At  any  rate,  they  were  well  in  advance  of  the  prevailing  hypo- 
theses of  his  time  and  they  served  their  purpose  of  fixing  in  the  workers' 
minds  an  orderly  and  logical  picture  —  largely  accurate  —  of  economic 
and  social  progress. 

The  social  sympathy  and  absolute  intellectual  honesty  of  Karl 
Marx  are  chiefly  responsible  for  the  enormous  following  he  has  gained. 
If  his  intellectual  achievement  loses  in  value,  this  does  not  in  any  way 
lessen  the  stupendous  contribution  he  made  to  social  progress.  More- 
over the  negative  value  of  his  work  is  lasting  and  cannot  be  overestimated. 
He  overthrew  the  reign  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  every  manner  of 
obsolete  theory,  from  theology  to  a  social  philosophy,  a  political  economy 
and  a  political  science  which  were  almost  consciously  formulated  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  social  change  and  deceiving  the  masses. 

As  far  as  his  popular  influence  is  concerned,  it  may  even  be  said  that 
Marx  succeeded  too  well.  Possibly  he  planted  hope  so  firmly  in  the 
hearts  of  the  working  classes  as  to  produce  a  form  of  optimistic  fatalism. 
Possibly  he  so  weakened  the  theory  of  individualism  as  to  aid  materially 
in  the  upgrowth  of  a  tyrannical  State  Socialism.  Again,  it  may  be 
held  that  he  popularized  history  to  such  a  degree  that  he  has  brought 
the  working  people  of  Continental  Europe  —  for  example,  those  of 
Germany  and  France  —  to  fix  their  attention  too  firmly  upon  the  past, 
and  especially  upon  its  revolutions  and  upon  a  class  alignment  which 
after  all  may  be  destined  to  play  only  a  limited  role  in  history. 


KARL  MARX  9776  i 

BOURGEOIS  AND  PROLETARIANS.1 

From  (The  Manifesto  of    the  Communist  Party,)  by  Karl  Marx  and  Frederick 
Engels.     Translated  by  Samuel  Moore. 

THE  history  of   all   hitherto   existing   society2   is   the   history    of 
class  struggles. 

Freeman  and  slave,  patrician  and  plebeian,  lord  and  serf, 
guildmaster3  and  journeyman,  in  a  word,  oppressor  and  oppressed, 
stood  in  constant  opposition  to  one  another,  carried  on  an  uninter- 
rupted, now  hidden,  now  open  fight,  that  each  time  ended,  either  in 
revolutionary  reconstitution  of  society  at  large,  or  in  the  common 
ruin  of  the  contending  classes. 

In  the  earlier  epochs  of  history  we  find  almost  everywhere  a 
complicated  arrangement  of  society  into  various  orders,  a  manifold 
gradation  of  social  rank.  In  ancient  Rome  we  have  patricians, 
knights,  plebeians,  slaves;  in  the  Middle  Ages,  feudal  lords,  vassals, 
guildmasters,  journeymen,  apprentices,  serfs;  in  almost  all  of  these 
classes,  again,  subordinate  gradations. 

The  modern  Bourgeois  society  that  has  sprouted  from  the  ruins 
of  feudal  society  has  not  done  away  with  class  antagonisms.  It 
has  but  established  new  classes,  new,  conditions  of  oppression,  new 
forms  of  struggle  in  place  of  the  old  ones. 

Our  epoch,  the  epoch  of  the  bourgeois,  possesses,  however,  this 
distinctive  feature:  it  has  simplified  the  class  antagonisms.  Society 
as  a  whole  is  more  and  more  splitting  up  into  two  great  hostile  camps, 

1  By  bourgeoisie  is  meant  the  class  of  modern  capitalists,  owners  of  the  means  of 
social  production  and  employers  of  wage-labor.     By  proletariat,  the  class  of  modern 
wage-laborers  who,  having  no  means  of  production  of  their  own,  are  reduced  to 
selling  their  labor-power  in  order  to  live. 

2  That  is,  all  -written  history.     In  1847,  the  pre-history  of  society,  the  social 
organization  existing  previous  to  recorded  history,  was  all  but  unknown.    Since  then, 
Haxthausen  discovered  common  ownership  of  land  in  Russia,  Maurer  proved  it  to  be 
the  social  foundation  from  which  all  Teutonic  races  started  in  history,  and  by  and 
by  village  communities  were  found  to  be,  or  to  have  been  the  primitive  form  of 
society  everywhere  from  India  to  Ireland.     The  inner  organization  of  this  primitive 
Communistic  society  was  laid  bare,   in  its  typical  form,   by  Morgan's  crowning 
discovery  of  the  true  nature  of  the  gens  and  its  relation  to  the  tribe.      With  the 
dissolution  of  these  primaeval  communities  society  begins  to  be  differentiated  into 
separate  and  finally  antagonistic  classes.     I  have  attempted  to  retrace  this  process 
of  dissolution  in  :  ( Der  Ursprung  der  Familie,  des  Privateigenthums  und  des  Staats, ) 
2nd  edit.,  Stuttgart,  1886. 

3  Guildmaster,  that  is  a  full  member  of  a  guild,  a  master  within,  not  a  head  of  a 
guild. 


9776  j  KARL  MARX 

into  two  great  classes  directly  facing  each  other:  Bourgeoisie  and 
Proletariat. 

From  the  serfs  of  the  Middle  Ages  sprang  the  chartered  burghers 
of  the  earliest  towns.  From  these  burgesses  the  first  elements  of 
the  bourgeoisie  were  developed. 

The  discovery  of  America,  the  rounding  of  the  Cape,  opened  up 
fresh  ground  for  the  rising  bourgeoisie.  The  East  Indian  and  Chinese 
markets,  the  colonization  of  America,  trade  with  the  colonies,  the 
increase  in  the  means  of  exchange  and  in  commodities  generally,  gave 
to  commerce,  to  navigation,  to  industry,  an  impulse  never  before 
known,  and  thereby,  to  the  revolutionary  element  in  the  tottering 
feudal  society,  a  rapid  development. 

The  feudal  system  of  industry,  under  which  industrial  production 
was  monopolized  by  close  guilds,  now  no  longer  sufficed  for  the  grow- 
ing wants  of  the  new  markets.  The  manufacturing  system  took  its 
place.  The  guildmasters  were  pushed  on  one  side  by  the  manu- 
facturing middle  class;  division  of  labor  between  the  different  cor- 
porate guilds  vanished  in  the  face  of  division  of  labor  in  each  single 
workshop. 

Meantime  the  markets  kept  ever  growing,  the  demand  ever  rising. 
Even  manufacture  no  longer  sufficed.  Thereupon  steam  and  machin- 
ery revolutionized  industrial  production.  The  place  of  manufacture 
was  taken  by  the  giant,  Modern  Industry,  the  place  of  the  industrial 
middle  class,  by  industrial  millionaires,  the  leaders  of  whole  industrial 
armies,  the  modern  bourgeois. 

Modern  industry  has  established  the  world's  market,  for  which 
the  discovery  of  America  paved  the  way.  The  market  has  given 
an  immense  development  to  commerce,  to  navigation,  to  communi- 
cation by  land.  This  development  has,  in  its  turn,  reacted  on  the 
extension  of  industry;  and  in  proportion  as  industry,  commerce, 
navigation,  and  railways  extended,  in  the  same  proportion  the  bour- 
geoisie developed,  increased  its  capital,  and  pushed  into  the  background 
every  class  handed  down  from  the  Middle  Ages. 

We  see,  therefore,  how  the  modern  bourgeoisie  is  itself  the  product 
of  a  long  course  of  development,  of  a  series  of  revolutions  in  the 
modes  of  production  and  of  exchange. 

Each  step  in  the  development  of  the  bourgeoisie  was  accompanied 
by  a  corresponding  political  advance  of  that  class.  An  oppressed 
class  under  the  sway  of  the  feudal  nobility,  an  armed  and  self-govern- 
ing association  in  the  mediaeval  commune,  here  independent  urban 
republic  (as  in  Italy  and  Germany),  there  taxable  ((third  estate)) 


KARL  MARX  97?6k 

of  the  monarchy  (as  in  France),  afterwards,  in  the  period  of  manu- 
facture proper,  serving  either  the  semi-feudal  or  the  absolute  monarchy 
as  a  counterpoise  against  the  nobility,  and,  in  fact,  cornerstone  of  the 
great  monarchies  in  general,  the  bourgeoisie  has  at  last,  since  the 
establishment  of  Modern  Industry  and  of  the  world's  market,  con- 
quered for  itself,  in  the  modern  representative  State,  exclusive  politi- 
cal sway.  The  executive  of  the  modern  State  is  but  a  committee 
for  managing  the  common  affairs  of  the  whole  bourgeoisie. 

The  bourgeoisie,  historically,  has  played  a  most  revolutionary 
part. 

The  bourgeoisie,  wherever  it  has  got  the  upper  hand,  has  put  an 
end  to  all  feudal,  patriarchal,  idyllic  relations.  It  has  pitilessly 
torn  asunder  the  motley  feudal  ties  that  bound  man  to  his  ((natural 
superiors,))  and  has  left  remaining  no  other  nexus  between  man  and 
man  than  naked  self-interest,  callous  ((cash  payment.))  It  has  drowned 
the  most  heavenly  ecstasies  of  religious  fervor,  of  chivalrous  enthu- 
siasm, of  philistine  sentimentalism,  in  the  icy  water  of  egotistical 
calculation.  It  has  resolved  personal  worth  into  exchange  value, 
and  in  place  of  the  numberless  indefeasible  chartered  freedoms,  has 
set  up  that  single,  unconscionable  freedom  —  Free  Trade.  In  one 
word,  for  exploitation,  veiled  by  religious  and  political  illusions,  it 
has  substituted  naked,  shameless,  direct,  brutal  exploitation. 

The  bourgeoisie  has  stripped  of  its  halo  every  occupation  hitherto 
honored  and  looked  up  to  with  reverent  awe.  It  has  converted  the 
physician,  the  lawyer,  the  priest,  the  poet,  the  man  of  science,  into 
its  paid  wage-laborers. 

The  bourgeoisie  has  torn  away  from  the  family  its  sentimental 
veil,  and  has  reduced  the  family  relation  to  a  mere  money  relation. 

The  bourgeoisie  has  disclosed  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the  brutal 
display  of  vigor  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which  Reactionists  so  much 
admire,  found  its  fitting  complement  in  the  most  slothful  indolence. 
It  has  been  the  first  to  show  what  man's  activity  can  bring  about. 
It  has  accomplished  wonders  far  surpassing  Egyptian  pyramids, 
Roman  aqueducts,  and  Gothic  cathedrals;  it  has  conducted  expedi- 
tions that  put  in  the  shade  all  former  Exoduses  of  nations  and  crusades. 

The  bourgeoisie  cannot  exist  without  constantly  revolutionizing 
the  instruments  of  production,  and  thereby  the  relations  of  produc- 
tion, and  with  them  the  whole  relations  of  society.  Conservation 
of  the  old  modes  of  production  in  unaltered  forms,  was,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  first  condition  of  existence  for  all  earlier  industrial  classes. 
Constant  revolutionizing  of  production,  uninterrupted  disturbance 


97761  KARL  MARX 

of  all  social  conditions,  everlasting  uncertainty  and  agitation,  distin- 
guish the  bourgeois  epoch  from  all  earlier  ones.  All  fixed,  fast-frozen 
relations,  with  their  train  of  ancient  and  venerable  prejudices  and 
opinions,  are  swept  away;  all  new-formed  ones  become  antiquated 
before  they  can  ossify.  All  that  is  solid  melts  into  air,  all  that  is 
holy  is  profaned,  and  man  is  at  last  compelled  to  face  with  sober 
senses  his  real  conditions  of  life  and  his  relations  with  his  kind. 

The  need  of  a  constantly  expanding  market  for  its  products 
chases  the  bourgeoisie  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  globe.  It  must 
nestle  everywhere,  settle  everywhere,  establish  connections  every- 
where. 

The  bourgeoisie  has  through  its  exploitation  of  the  world!s  market 
given  a  cosmopolitan  character  to  production  and  consumption  in 
every  country.  To  the  great  chagrin  of  Reactionists,  it  has  drawn 
from  under  the  feet  of  industry  the  national  ground  on  which  it  stood. 
All  old-established  national  industries  have  been  destroyed  or  are 
daily  being  destroyed.  They  are  dislodged  by  new  industries,  whose 
introduction  becomes  a  life  and  death  question  for  all  civilized  nations, 
by  industries  that  no  longer  work  up  indigenous  raw  material,  but 
raw  material  drawn  from  the  remotest  zones,  industries  whose  prod- 
ucts are  consumed,  not  only  at  home,  but  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe.  In  place  of  the  old  wants,  satisfied  by  the  productions  of 
the  country,  we  find  new  wants,  requiring  for  their  satisfaction  the 
products  of  distant  lands  and  climes.  In  place  of  the  old  local  and 
national  seclusion  and  self-sufficiency,  we  have  intercourse  in  every 
direction,  universal  inter-dependence  of  nations.  And  as  in  material, 
so  also  in  intellectual  production.  The  intellectual  creations  of 
individual  nations  become  common  property.  National  one-sided- 
ness  and  narrow-mindedness  become  more  and  more  impossible,  and 
from  the  numerous  national  and  local  literatures,  there  arises  a  world 
literature. 

The  bourgeoisie,  by  the  rapid  improvement  of  all  instruments  of 
production,  by  the  immensely  facilitated  means  of  communication, 
draws  all,  even  the  most  barbarian,  nations  into  civilization.  The 
cheap  prices  of  its  commodities  are  the  heavy  artillery  with  which  it 
batters  down  all  Chinese  walls,  with  which  it  forces  the  barbarians' 
intensely  obstinate  hatred  of  foreigners  to  capitulate.  It  compels 
all  nations,  on  pain  of  extinction,  to  adopt  the  bourgeois  mode  of 
production;  it  compels  them  to  introduce  what  it  calls  civilization 
into  their  midst,  i.  e.,  to  become  bourgeois  themselves.  In  one  word, 
it  creates  a  world  after  its  own  image. 


KARL    MARX  9776m 

The  bourgeoisie  has  subjected  the  country  to  the  rule  of  the  towns. 
It  has  created  enormous  cities,  has  greatly  increased  the  urban  popu- 
lation as  compared  with  the  rural,  and  has  thus  rescued  a  considerable 
part  of  the  population  from  the  idiocy  of  rural  life.  Just  as  it  has 
made  the  country  dependent  on  the  towns,  so  it  has  made  barbarian 
and  semi-barbarian  countries  dependent  on  the  civilized  ones,  nations 
of  peasants  on  nations  of  bourgeois,  the  East  on  the  West. 

The  bourgeoisie  keeps  more  and  more  doing  away  with  the  scat- 
tered state  of  the  population,  of  the  means  of  production,  centralizes 
means  of  production,  and  has  concentrated  property  in  a  few  hands. 
The  necessary  consequence  of  this  was  political  centralization.  In- 
dependent, or  but  loosely  connected  provinces,  with  separate  interests, 
laws,  governments,  and  systems  of  taxation,  became  lumped  together 
into  one  nation,  with  one  government,  one  code  of  laws,  one  national 
class  interest,  one  frontier,  and  one  customs  tariff. 

The  bourgeoisie,  during  its  rule  of  scarce  one  hundred  years,  has 
created  more  massive  and  more  colossal  productive  forces  than  have 
all  preceding  generations  together.  Subjection  of  Nature's  forces 
to  man,  machinery,  application  of  chemistry  to  industry  and  agri- 
culture, steam  navigation,  railways,  electric  telegraphs,  clearing  of 
whole  continents  for  cultivation,  canalization  of  rivers,  whole  popu- 
lations conjured  out  of  the  ground  —  what  earlier  century  had  even 
a  presentiment  that  such  productive  forces  slumbered  in  the  lap  of 
social  labor? 

We  see  then:  the  means  of  production  and  of  exchange  on  whose 
foundation  the  bourgeoisie  built  itself  up  were  generated  in  feudal 
society.  At  a  certain  stage  in  the  development  of  these  means  of 
production  and  of  exchange,  the  conditions  under  which  feudal 
society  produced  and  exchanged,  the  feudal  organization  of  agricul- 
ture and  manufacturing  industry,  in  one  word,  the  feudal  relations 
of  property,  became  no  longer  compatible  with  the  already  developed 
productive  forces;  they  became  so  many  fetters.  They  had  to  be 
burst  asunder. 

Into  their  place  stepped  free  competition,  accompanied  by  a 
social  and  political  constitution  adapted  to  it,  and  by  the  economical 
and  political  sway  of  the  bourgeois  class. 

A  similar  movement  is  going  on  before  our  own  eyes.  Modern 
bourgeois  society  with  its  relations  of  production,  of  exchange,  and 
of  property,  a  society  that  has  conjured  up  such  gigantic  means  of 
production  and  of  exchange,  is  like  the  sorcerer,  who  is  no  longer  able 
to  control  the  powers  of  the  nether  world  whom  he  has  called  up  by 


9776  n>  KARL  MARX 

his  spells.  For  many  a  decade  past  the  history  of  industry  and 
commerce  is  but  the  history  of  the  revolt  of  modern  productive  forces 
against  modern  conditions  of  production,  against  the  property  rela- 
tions that  are  the  conditions  for  the  existence  of  the  bourgeoisie  and 
of  its  rule.  It  is  enough  to  mention  the  commercial  crises  that  by 
their  periodical  return  put  on  its  trial,  each  time  more  threateningly, 
the  existence  of  the  bourgeois  society.  In  these  crises  a  great  part 
not  only  of  the  existing  products,  but  also  of  the  previously  created 
productive  forces,  is  periodically  destroyed.  In  these  crises  there 
breaks  out  an  epidemic  that,  in  all  earlier  epochs,  would  have  seemed 
an  absurdity  —  the  epidemic  of  overproduction.  Society  suddenly 
finds  itself  put  back  into  a  state  of  momentary  barbarism ;  it  appears 
as  if  a  famine,  a  universal  war  of  devastation  had  cut  off  the  supply 
of  every  means  of  subsistence;  industry  and  commerce  seem  to  be 
destroyed;  and  why?  because  there  is  too  much  civilization,  too 
much  means  of  subsistence,  too  much  industry,  too  much  commerce. 
The  productive  forces  at  the  disposal  of  society  no  longer  tend  to 
further  the  development  of  the  conditions  of  bourgeois  property ;  on 
the  contrary,  they  have  become  too  powerful  for  these  conditions, 
by  which  they  are  fettered,  and  so  soon  as  they  overcome  these  fet- 
ters, they  bring  disorder  into  the  whole  of  bourgeois  society,  endanger 
the  existence  of  bourgeois  property.  The  conditions  of  bourgeois 
society  are  too  narrow  to  comprise  the  wealth  created  by  them.  And 
how  does  the  bourgeoisie  get  over  these  crises?  On  the  one  hand, 
by  enforced  destruction  of  a  mass  of  productive  forces ;  on  the  other, 
by  the  conquest  of  new  markets,  and  by  the  more  thorough  exploita- 
tion of  the  old  ones.  That  is  to  say,  by  paving  the  way  for  more 
extensive  and  more  destructive  crises,  and  by  diminishing  the  means 
whereby  crises  are  prevented. 

The  weapons  with  which  the  bourgeoisie  felled  feudalism  to  the 
ground  are  now  turned  against  the  bourgeoisie  itself. 

But  not  only  has  the  bourgeoisie  forged  the  weapons  that 
bring  death  to  itself;  it  has  also  called  into  existence  the  men  who 
are  to  wield  those  weapons  —  the  modern  working  class  —  the 
proletarians. 

In  proportion  as  the  bourgeoisie,  i.  e.,  capital,  is  developed, 
in  the  same  proportion  is  the  proletariat,  the  modern  working  class, 
developed;  a  class  of  laborers,  who  live  only  so  long  as  they  find  work, 
and  who  find  work  only  so  long  as  their  labor  increases  capital.  These 
laborers,  who  must  sell  themselves  piecemeal,  are  a  commodity, 
like  every  other  article  of  commerce,  and  are  consequently  exposed 


KARL  MARX  9776 o 

to  all  the  vicissitudes  of  competition,  to  all  the  fluctuations  of  the 
market. 

Owing  to  the  extensive  use  of  machinery  and  to  division  of  labor, 
the  work  of  the  proletarians  has  lost  all  individual  character,  and, 
consequently,  all  charm  for  the  workman.  He  becomes  an  appendage 
of  the  machine,  and  it  is  only  the  most  simple,  most  monotonous,  and 
most  easily  acquired  knack,  that  is  required  of  him.  Hence,  the 
cost  of  production  of  a  workman  is  restricted  almost  entirely  to  the 
means  of  subsistence  that  he  requires  for  his  maintenance,  and  for 
the  propagation  of  his  race.  But  the  price  of  a  commodity,  and 
therefore  also  of  labor,  is  equal  to  its  cost  of  production.  In  pro- 
portion, therefore,  as  the  repulsiveness  of  the  work  increases,  the 
wage  decreases.  Nay,  more,  in  proportion  as  the  use  of  machinery 
and  division  of  labor  increases,  in  the  same  proportion  the  burden 
of  toil  also  increases,  whether  by  prolongation  of  the  working  hours, 
by  increase  of  the  work  exacted  in  a  given  time,  or  by  increased  speed 
of  the  machinery,  etc. 

Modern  industry  has  converted  the  little  workshop  of  the  patri- 
archal master  into  the  great  factory  of  the  industrial  capitalist.  Masses 
of  laborers,  crowded  into  the  factory,  are  organized  like  soldiers.  •  As 
privates  of  the  industrial  army  they  are  placed  under  the  command 
of  a  perfect  hierarchy  of  officers  and  sergeants.  Not  only  are  they 
slaves  of  the  bourgeois  class,  and  of  the  bourgeois  State,  they  are 
daily  and  hourly  enslaved  by  the  machine,  by  the  over-looker,  and, 
above  all,  by  the  individual  bourgeois  manufacturer  himself.  The 
more  openly  this  despotism  proclaims  gain  to  be  its  end  and 
aim,  the  more  petty,  the  more  hateful,  and  the  more  embittering 
it  is. 

The  less  skill  and  exertion  of  strength  is  implied  in  manual  labor, 
in  other  words,  the  more  modern  industry  becomes  developed,  the 
more  is  the  labor  of  men  superseded  by  that  of  women.  Differences 
of  age  and  sex  have  no  longer  any  distinctive  social  validity  for  the 
working  class.  All  are  instruments  of  labor,  more  or  less  expensive 
to  use,  according  to  age  and  sex. 

No  sooner  is  the  exploitation  of  the  laborer  by  the  manufacturer 
so  far  at  an  end  that  he  receives  his  wages  in  cash,  than  he  is  set 
upon  by  the  other  portions  of  the  bourgeoisie,  the  landlord,  the 
shopkeeper,  the  pawnbroker,  etc. 

The  lower  strata  of  the  middle  class  —  the  small  tradespeople, 
shopkeepers,  and  retired  tradesmen  generally,  the  handicraftsmen 
and  peasants  —  all  these  sink  gradually  into  the  proletariat,  partly 


9776  p  KARL  MARX 

because  their  diminutive  capital  does  not  suffice  for  the  scale  on  which 
modern  industry  is  carried  on,  and  is  swamped  in  the  competition 
with  the  large  capitalists,  partly  because  their  specialized  skill  is 
rendered  worthless  by  new  methods  of  production.  Thus  the  pro- 
letariat is  recruited  from  all  classes  of  the  population. 

The  proletariat  goes  through  various  stages  of  development. 
With  its  birth  begins  its  struggle  with  the  bourgeoisie.  At  first  the 
contest  is  carried  on  by  individual  laborers,  then  by  the  workpeople 
of  a  factory,  then  by  the  operatives  of  one  trade,  in  one  locality 
against  the  individual  bourgeois  who  directly  exploits  them.  They 
direct  their  attacks  not  against  the  bourgeois  conditions  of  produc- 
tion, but  against  the  instruments  of  production  themselves;  they 
destroy  imported  wares  that  compete  with  their  labor,  they  smash 
to  pieces  machinery,  they  set  factories  ablaze,  they  seek  to  restore 
by  force  the  vanished  status  of  the  workman  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

At  this  stage  the  laborers  still  form  an  incoherent  mass  scattered 
over  the  whole  country,  and  broken  up  by  their  mutual  competition. 
If  anywhere  they  unite  to  form  more  compact  bodies,  this  is  not  yet 
the  consequence  of  their  own  active  union,  but  of  the  union  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  which  class,  in  order  to  attain  its  own  political  ends,  is 
compelled  to  set  the  whole  proletariat  in  motion,  and  is  moreover 
yet,  for  a  time,  able  to  do  so.  At  this  Stage,  therefore,  the  proleta- 
rians do  not  fight  their  enemies,  but  the  enemies  of  their  enemies, 
the  remnants  of  absolute  monarchy,  the  landowners,  the  non-indus- 
trial bourgeois,  the  petty  bourgeoisie.  Thus  the  whole  historical 
movement  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  bourgeoisie;  every 
victory  so  obtained  is  a  victory  for  the  bourgeoisie. 

But  with  the  development  of  industry  the  proletariat  not  only 
increases  in  number;  it  becomes  concentrated  in  greater  masses,  its 
strength  grows  and  it  feels  that  strength  more.  The  various  interests 
and  conditions  of  life  within  the  ranks  of  the  proletariat  are  more 
and  more  equalized,  in  proportion  as  machinery  obliterates  all  dis- 
tinctions of  labor,  and  nearly  everywhere  reduces  wages  to  the  same 
low  level.  The  growing  competition  among  the  bourgeois,  and  the 
resulting  commercial  crises,  make  the  wages  of  the  workers  ever  more 
fluctuating.  The  unceasing  improvement  of  machinery,  ever  more 
rapidly  developing,  makes  their  livelihood  more  and  more  precarious ; 
the  collisions  between  individual  workmen  and  individual  bourgeois 
take  more  and  more  the  character  of  collisions  between  two  classes. 
Thereupon  the  workers  begin  to  form  combinations  (Trades'  Unions) 


KARL  MARX  97?6q 

against  the  bourgeois;  they  club  together  in  order  to  keep  up  the 
rate  of  wages;  they  found  permanent  associations  in  order  to  make 
provision  beforehand  for  these  occasional  revolts.  Here  and  there 
the  contest  breaks  out  into  riots. 

Now  and  then  the  workers  are  victorious,  but  only  for  a  time. 
The  real  fruit  of  their  battles  lies  not  in  the  immediate  result  but  in 
the  ever  improved  means  of  communication  that  are  created  in  mod- 
ern industry  and  that  place  the  workers  of.  different  localities  in 
contact  with  one  another.  It  was  just  this  contact  that  was  needed 
to  centralize  the  numerous  local  struggles,  all  of  the  same  character, 
into  one  national  struggle  between  classes.  But  every  class  struggle 
is  a  political  struggle.  And  that  union,  to  attain  which  the  burghers 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  their  miserable  highways,  required  cen- 
turies, the  modern  proletarians,  thanks  to  railways,  achieve  in  a 
few  years. 

This  organization  of  the  proletarians  into  a  class,  and  conse- 
quently into  a  political  party,  is  continually  being  upset  again  by  the 
competition  between  the  workers  themselves.  But  it  ever  rises  up 
again;  stronger,  firmer,  mightier.  It  compels  legislative  recogni- 
tion of  particular  interests  of  the  workers,  by  taking  advantage  of 
the  divisions  among  the  bourgeoisie  itself.  Thus  the  ten-hours'  bill 
in  England  was  carried. 

Altogether  collisions  between  the  classes  of  the  old  society  further, 
in  many  ways,  the  course  of  development  of  the  proletariat.  The 
bourgeoisie  finds  itself  involved  in  a  constant  battle.  At  first  with 
the  aristocracy;  later  on,  with  those  portions  of  the  bourgeoisie  itself 
whose  interests  have  become  antagonistic  to  the  progress  of  industry; 
at  all  times  with  the  bourgeoisie  of  foreign  countries.  In  all  these 
countries  it  sees  itself  compelled  .to  appeal  to  the  proletariat,  to  ask 
for  its  help,  and  thus  to  drag  it  into  the  political  arena.  The  bour- 
geoisie itself,  therefore,  supplies  the  proletariat  with  weapons  for 
fighting  the  bourgeoisie. 

Further,  as  we  have  already  seen,  entire  sections  of  the  ruling 
classes  are,  by  the  advance  of  industry,  precipitated  into  the  prole- 
tariat, or  are  at  least  threatened  in  their  conditions  of  existence.  These 
also  supply  the  proletariat  with  fresh  elements  of  enlightenment  and 
progress. 

Finally,  in  times  when  the  class  struggle  nears  the  decisive  hour, 
the  process  of  dissolution  going  on  within  the  ruling  class,  in  fact 
within  the  whole  range  of  old  society,  assumes  such  a.  violent,  glaring 
character,  that  a  small  section  of  the  ruling  class  cuts  itself  adrift, 


9776  r  KARL  MARX 

and  joins  the  revolutionary  class,  the  class  that  holds  the  future  in  its 
hands.  Just  as,  therefore,  at  an  earlier  period,  a  section  of  the  nobil- 
ity went  over  to  the  bourgeoisie,  so  now  a  portion  of  the  bour- 
geoisie goes  over  to  the  proletariat,  and  in  particular,  a  portion  of 
the  bourgeois  ideologists,  who  have  raised  themselves  to  the  level 
of  comprehending  theoretically  the  historical  movement  as  a 
whole. 

Of  all  the  classes  that  stand  face  to  face  with  the  bourgeoisie 
to-day,  the  proletariat  alone  is  a  really  revolutionary  class.  The 
other  classes  decay  and  finally  disappear  in  the  face  of  modern  in- 
dustry; the  proletariat  is  its  special  and  essential  product. 

The  lower  middle  class,  the  small  manufacturer,  the  shopkeeper, 
the  artisan,  the  peasant,  all  these  fight  against  the  bourgeoisie  to 
save  from  extinction  their  existence  as  fractions  of  the  middle  class. 
They  are,  therefore,  not  revolutionary,  for  they  try  to  roll  back  the 
wheel  of  history.  If  by  chance  they  are  revolutionary,  they  are  so 
only  in  view  of  their  impending  transfer  into  the  proletariat;  they 
thus  defend  not  their  present,  but  their  future  interests,  they 
desert  their  own  standpoint  to  place  themselves  at  that  of  the 
proletariat. 

The  ((dangerous  class,))  the  social  scum,  that  passively  rotting 
class  thrown  off  by  the  lowest  layers  of  old  society,  may,  here  and 
there,  be  swept  into  the  movement  by  a  proletarian  revolution;  its 
conditions  of  life,  however,  prepare  it  far  more  for  the  part  of  a  bribed 
tool  of  reactionary  intrigue. 

In  the  conditions  of  the  proletariat,  those  of  old  society  at  large 
are  already  virtually  swamped.  The  proletarian  is  without  property; 
his  relation  to  his  wife  and  children  has  no  longer  anything  in  common 
with  the  bourgeois  family  relations;,  modern  industrial  labor,  modern 
subjection  to  capital,  the  same  in  England  as  in  France,  in  America 
as  in  Germany,  has  stripped  him  of  every  trace  of  national  character. 
Law,  morality,  religion,  are  to  him  so  many  bourgeois  prejudices, 
behind  which  lurk  in  ambush  just  as  many  bourgeois  interests. 

All  the  preceding  classes  that  got  the  upper  hand  sought  to  fortify 
their  already  acquired  status  by  subjecting  society  at  large  to  their 
conditions  of  appropriation.  The  proletarians  cannot  become  masters 
of  the  productive  forces  of  society,  except  by  abolishing  their  own 
previous  mode  of  appropriation,  and  thereby  also  every  other  previous 
mode  of  appropriation.  They  have  nothing  of  their  own  to  secure 
and  to  fortify;  their  mission  is  to  destroy  all  previous  securities  for, 
and  insurances  of,  individual  property. 


KARL   MARX  97 7$  S 

All  previous  historical  movements  were  movements  of  minorities, 
or  in  the  interest  of  minorities.  The  proletarian  movement  is  the 
self-conscious,  independent  movement  of  the  immense  majority,  in 
the  interest  of  the  immense  majority.  The  proletariat,  the  lowest 
stratum  of  our  present  society,  cannot  stir,  cannot  raise  itself  up, 
without  the  whole  super-incumbent  strata  of  official  society  being 
sprung  into  the  air. 

Though  not  in  substance,  yet  in  form,  the  struggle  of  the  proleta- 
riat with  the  bourgeoisie  is  at  first  a  national  struggle.  The  proletariat 
of  each  country  must,  of  course,  first  of  all  settle  matters  with  its  own 
bourgeoisie. 

In  depicting  the  most  general  phases  of  the  development 
of  the  proletariat,  we  traced  the  more  or  less  veiled  civil  war, 
raging  within  existing  society,  up  to  the  point  where  that  war 
breaks  out  into  open  revolution,  and  where  the  violent  over- 
throw of  the  bourgeoisie  lays  the  foundation  for  the  sway  of  the 
proletariat. 

Hitherto  every  form  of  society  has  been  based,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  on  the  antagonism  of  oppressing  and  oppressed  classes.  But  in 
order  to  oppress  a  class  certain  conditions  must  be  assured  to  it  under 
which  it  can,  at  least,  continue  its  slavish  existence.  The  serf,  in 
the  period  of  serfdom,  raised  himself  to  membership  in  the  commune, 
just  as  the  petty  bourgeois,  under  the  yoke  of  feudal  absolutism, 
managed  to  develop  into  a  bourgeois.  The  modern  laborer,  on  the 
contrary,  instead  of  rising  with  the  progress  of  industry,  sinks  deeper 
and  deeper  below  the  conditions  of  existence  of  his  own  class.  He 
becomes  a  pauper,  and  pauperism  develops  more  rapidly  than  popula- 
tion and  wealth.  And  here  it  becomes  evident  that  the  bourgeoisie 
is  unfit  any  longer  to  be  the  ruling  class  in  society  and  to  impose 
its  conditions  of  existence  upon  society  as  an  overriding  law.  It  is 
unfit  to  rule  because  it  is  incompetent  to  assure  an  existence  to  its 
slave  within  his  slavery,  because  it  cannot  help  letting  him  sink  into 
such  a  state  that  it  has  to  feed  him  instead  of  being  fed  by  him.  Soci- 
ety can  no  longer  live  under  this  bourgeoisie;  in  other  words,  its 
existence  is  no  longer  compatible  with  society. 

The  essential  condition  for  the  existence,  and  for  the  sway,  of  the 
bourgeois  class,  is  the  formation  and  augmentation  of  capital;  the 
condition  for  capital  is  wage-labor.  Wage-labor  rests  exclusively  on 
competition  between  the  laborers.  The  advance  of  industry,  whose 
involuntary  promoter  is  the  bourgeoisie,  replaces  the  isolation  of  the 
laborers,  due  to  competition,  by  their  revolutionary  combination,  due 


97?6t  KARL  MARX 

to  association.  The  development  of  modern  industry,  therefore, 
cuts  from  under  its  feet  the  very  foundation  on  which  the  bourgeoisie 
produces  and  appropriates  products.  What  the  bourgeoisie  therefore 
produces,  above  all,  are  its  own  grave-diggers.  Its  fall  and  the 
victory  of  the  proletariat  are  equally  inevitable. 


9777 


JOHN  MASEFIELD 

(1874-) 

BY   JOYCE    KILMER 

lo  be  versatile  and  prolific  generally  is  to  be  unimportant.  Es- 
pecially in  literature,  Jack-of-all-trades  is,  as  a  rule,  master 
of  none.  An  exception  brilliantly  proving  this  rule  is  John 
Masefield. 

Homer  (scholars  tell  us)  was  not  one  man  but  a  company  of  poets, 
writing  through  more  than  one  century.  Shakespeare  (we  are  en- 
couraged to  believe)  was  not  a  theatrical  manager  who  liked  occasion-* 
ally  to  build'  a  play  to  show  his  dramatists  how  it  should  be  done,  but 
a  syndicate  of  philosophers,  poets,  playwrights,  scientists,  and  politicians. 
Three  hundred  years  from  now  literary  detectives  will  busy  themselves 
with  discovering  the  names  of  the  sailor,  the  farmer,  the  Hellenist,  the 
Orientalist,  the  sociologist,  the  realist,  the  romanticist,  the  dramatist, 
the  ballad  maker,  the  sonneteer,  the  novelist,  the  short  story  writer, 
who  called  their  conspiracy  John  Masefield.  They  will  attribute  some 
of  the  Salt  Water  Ballads  to  Kipling,  some  to  Henry  Newbolt,  some  to 
C.  Fox  Smith.  They  will  attribute  (The  Sweeps  of  Ninety-Eight)  to 
Dr.  Douglas  Hyde.  They  will  attribute  (The  Faithful)  to  Sturge 
Moore.  They  will  attribute  (The  Tragedy  of  Nan)  to  D.  H.  Lawrence, 
part  of  (A  Mainsail  Haul)  to  Charles  Whibley,  part  of  it  to  Algernon 
Blackwood,  and  part  of  it  to  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  And  some  of  his 
ballads  they  will  attribute  to  Wilfrid  Gibson  and  some  of  his  lyrics  to 
William  Butler  Yeats.  This  will  be  a  stupid  thing  for  them  to  do,  but, 
nevertheless,  they  will  do  it. 

One  reason  why  the  conduct  of  these  hypothetical  scholars  is  particu- 
larly irritating  is  that  John  Masefield  is  a  writer  of  strong  individuality. 
He  has  a  distinct  and  easily  recognizable  style;  his  theme  may  be  a 
battle  of  wits  between  Tiger  Roche  and  the  rebel  hunters  of  1798,  or  the 
tragedy  of  Nan  Hardwick  and  the  mutton  parsties  and  the  malicious 
Pargetters,  or  the  great  intrigues  of  royal  Spain,  or  the  ambitions  of 
Pompey,  or  the  soul  of  man  in  its  relation  to  the  mercy  of  God  —  what- 
ever his  theme  may  be,  his  style  is  the  same.  The  writer's  eyes  may  be 
fixed  upon  the  mysteries  of  his  own  heart,  or  they  may  be  searching  the 
boundless  heavens;  he  is,  nevertheless,  always  a  realist.  They  may  be 
curiously  studying  the  most  ordinary  details  of  modern  life;  he  is, 
nevertheless,  always  an  idealist.  So  the  intellectual,  perhaps  it  might 
be  said  the  spiritual,  attitude  of  John  Masefield  is  unvarying.  And 


97 77  a  JOHN   MASEFIELD 

in  this  is  to  be  found  the  reason  for  the  intense  individuality  of  the 
writer  as  seen  in  his  works,  for  the  feeling,  common  to  all  his  readers,  of 
being  in  direct  communication  with  him.  And  the  style  of  the  sequence 
of  sonnets  in  the  Shakespearean  manner  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  the 
stories  about  pirates  and  the  drama  of  ancient  Japan.  The  nervous 
expressive  diction,  the  direct  Elizabethan  colloquialism,  these  things  are 
Masefield;  the  form  may  vary,  but  not  in  its  characteristics,  the  language. 
A  writer's  attitude  toward  life  and  toward  the  things  beyond  life  is 
his  own;  it  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  heredity  or  environment. 
But  a  writer's  style  must  necessarily  be  influenced  by  what  he  reads 
and  by  the  talk  of  those  with  whom  he  spends  the  formative  periods 
of  his  life.  Even  the  careless  reader  of  John  Masefield's  books  will 
notice  occasionally  in  them,  especially  in  the  lyrics,  a  strong  Celtic 
flavor.  Masefield's  (Sea  Fever)  and  (Roadways)  and  (Cardigan 
Bay)  and  (Trade  Winds)  and  (The  Harper's  Song)  surely  belong  to 
the  same  family  as  Eva  Gore  Booth's  (The  Little  Waves  of  Breffny) 
and  William  Butler  Yeats's  (The  Lake  Isle  of  Innisfree.)  Furthermore, 
Masefield  has  that  belief  in  the  beauty  of  tragedy,  tragedy  in  itself 
without  regard  to  its  moral  significance,  which  is  characteristic  of  many 
of  the  Irish  writers  of  our  generation.  In  the  preface  to  (The  Tragedy 
of  Nan)  he  writes: 

((Tragedy  at  its  best  is  a  vision  of  the  heart  of  life.  The  heart  of  life  can  only  be 
laid  bare  in  the  agony  and  exultation  of  dreadful  acts.  The  vision  of  agony,  or 
spiritual  contest,  pushed  beyond  the  limits  of  the  dying  personality,  is  exalting  and 
cleansing.  It  is  only  by  such  visions  that  a  multitude  can  be  brought  to  the  passion- 
ate knowledge  of  things  exulting  and  eternal.  .  .  .  Our  playwrights  have  all  the 
powers  except  that  power  of  exaltation  which  comes  from  a  delighted  brooding  on 
excessive,  terrible  things.  That  power  is  seldom  granted  to  men;  twice  or  thrice  to 
a  race  perhaps,  not  oftener.  But  it  seems  to  me  certain  that  every  effort,  however 
humble,  towards  the  achieving  of  that  power -helps  the  genius  of  a  race  to  obtain  it, 
though  the  obtaining  may  be  fifty  years  after  the  strivers  are  dead.)) 

Now  in  our  time  only  one  other  writer  has  expressed  this  idea  with 
equal  force.  And  that  writer  is  Mr.  William  Butler  Yeats.  He  has 
written  in  an  essay:  ((Tragic  art,  passionate  art,  .  .  .  the  confounder 
of  understanding,  moves  us  by  setting  us  to  reverie,  by  alluring  us 
almost  to  the  intensity  of  trance.))  So  we  find  the  Irish  and  the  English 
writer  guided  by  one  impulse  and  by  one  conviction.  And  the  result 
is  that  considering  this,  and  considering  also  the  Celtic  idiom  which 
seemingly  conies  so  naturally  from  the  lips  of  Mr.  Masefield,  Englishman 
though  he  be,  in  his  lyrics,  in  his  poetic  dramas,  and  in  many  of  the 
stories  in  (A  Mainsail  Haul,)  we  are  tempted  to  believe  that  the  Irish 
literary  movement  has  stretched  a  shadowy  arm  across  the  channel  and 
laid  its  potent  spell  upon  a  man  of  Saxon  blood.  And  to  this  theory 
Masefield's  close  friendship  with  William  Butler  Yeats  lends  color. 


JOHN   MASEFIELD  9777  b 

But  there  are  flaws  in  this  theory.  One  of  them  is  that  Masefield 
was  writing  in  this  manner  before  he  met  Yeats,  before,  indeed,  the 
Irish  literary  movement  had  attracted  much  attention  outside  of  its 
home.  Another  flaw  is  that  this  idea  of  the  nobility,  one  might  almost 
say,  of  the  loveliness  of  tragedy,  while  it  is  in  our  time  more  Irish  than 
English,  was  held  by  the  English  dramatists  and  poets  of  centuries 
ago  —  Marlowe,  for  instance,  and  Webster  and  Shakespeare  himself. 
The  very  earliest  English  poets  selected  tragic  themes  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Which  of  the  great  old  ballads  is.  without  at  least  one  bloody 
murder?  Furthermore,  the  modern  Irish-English  idiom  is  to  a  great 
extent  the  idiom  of  England  some  centuries  ago.  There  are  rhymes  in 
Shakespeare  and  even  in  Pope  which  show  that  what  we  consider  Irish 
mispronunciations  of  English  are  simply  English  pronunciations  that 
have  been  carried  through  the  ages  unchanged  —  the  «ay)>  sound  for 
«ea»  is  an  example  of  that.  ((Our  gracious  Anne,  whom  the  three  realms 
obey,  does  sometimes  counsel  take,  and  sometimes  tea.))  Chaucerian 
scholars  say  that  the  Wife  of  Bath  talked  what  we  would  call  Irish 
dialect.  Now,  John  Masefield's  literary  idols  belong  not  to  his  own 
generation  or  that  immediately  preceding  it  but  to  the  early  days  of 
English  letters.  His  favorite  poem,  he  has  told  me,  is  Chaucer's  (Ballad 
of  Good  Counsel.)  This  reading  has  affected  his  style  and  it  has 
affected  also  his  thought,  to  the  strengthening  of  the  first  and  the 
deepening  of  the  second. 

There  has  been  much  said  and  written  about  Masefield's  romantic 
youth  —  about  his  experiences  before  the  mast  and  behind  the  bar. 
There  was  a  tendency  during  his  tour  of  the  United  States  in  the  early 
spring  of  1916  to  regard  him  as. very  much  a  self-made  man,  to  marvel 
at  the  miracle  of  genius  which  turned  a  bartender-sailor  into  a  great 
poet.  But  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  Masefield  is  essentially  of  the 
literary  type,  a  man  who  might  readily  have  supported  himself  by 
school-teaching,  journalism,  or  some  other  unromantic  trade,  but 
deliberately  selected  colorful  and  exciting  occupations.  No  one  can 
talk  to  him  and  retain  the  idea  that  Masefield  is  a  ((sailor-poet))  or  a 
((bartender-poet.))  He  is  an  educated  English  gentleman,  very  thor- 
oughly a  man  of  letters,  who  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  add  to  his 
treasury  of  experience  by  travels  in  strange  places  and  among  strange 
people. 

Masefield's  first  important  romantic  experience,  however,  was 
undergone  at  a  time  when  the  poet  was  so  young  that  it  can  scarcely 
have  been  the  result  of  his  own  volition.  Born  in  1874  at  Ledbury,  in 
the  west  of  England,  he  was  indentured  to  a  captain  in  the  English 
merchant  marine  at  the  age  of  fourteen  years.  A  fourteen-year-old  boy 
on  shipboard  generally  learns  to  hate  passionately  and  consistently  the 
sea  and  all  that  is  associated  with  it.  And  it  would  not  be  strictly  true 
to  say  that  Masefield  gained  from  this  early  adventure  a  love  of  the  sea. 


9777C  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

Rather  he  then  came  under  the  spell  of  the  sea,  a  spell  from  which  he  has 
never  escaped.  He  has  not  that  sentimental  affection  for  the  sea  which 
inspires  the  life-on-the-ocean-waves'  verse  written  by  landsmen  who 
know  Neptune  only  by  week-end  visits  in  the  summer  time.  He  has 
been  in  the  power  of  the  sea  more  than  it  is  altogether  safe  for  so  sensi- 
tive a  spirit  to  be.  He  seems  haunted  by  the  sea;  in  those  of  his  writings 
which  in  theme  are  least  related  to  the  sea  the  reader  finds  that  again 
and  again  the  figures  and  comparisons  are  drawn  from  the  poet's  memory 
of  days  when  above  and  beyond  him  were  nothing  but  water  and  sky. 
Not  even  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  was  so  much  influenced  by  the 
sea  as  Masefield  has  been. 

It  is  true  that  Masefield  has  given  more  beautiful  expression  to 
love  for  the  sea  than  any  other  poet  of  our  time  —  (Sea-Fever)  alone 
would  establish  him  as  the  sea's  true  lover.  But  also  Masefield  has 
expressed  with  terrible  force  the  cruelty  of  the  sea,  its  brutal  and  terrify- 
ing energy,  its  soul-shattering  melancholy.  And  nowhere  in  English 
literature  is  it  possible  to  find  more  vivid  pictures  of  the  bitter  hardship 
of  a  seaman's  life  than  in  the  Salt  Water  Poems  and  Ballads.  Masefield 
is  not  elective  nor  selective  in  his  attitude  toward  the  sea;  his  feeling 
toward  the  sea  seems  almost  an  obsession.  The  sea  is  not  subject  to  his 
genius;  it  speaks  through  him. 

Masefield's  life  on  shipboard  did  more  than  put  him  in  the  power  of 
the  sea,  it  began  his  interest  in  the  lives  and  thoughts  of  simple  hard- 
working people.  And  this  interest  has  never  left  him.  It  is  true  that 
he  occasionally  gives  us  something  like  (The  Faithful)  or  (Philip,  the 
King)  or  (The  Tragedy  of  Pompey  the  Great.)  But  his  heart  is  in 
poems  like  (Dauber)  and  (The  Everlasting  Mercy)  and  in  stories  like 
(A  Deal  of  Cards,)  in  which  he  writes  of  unsophisticated  people  who 
feel  strongly  and  do  not  conceal  their  emotions. 

It  was,  perhaps,  because  of  a  real  sense  of  the  value  and  interest  of 
life  among  simple  people  that  Masefield  made  the  selection  he  did  of 
work  to  support  himself  during  his  first  visit  to  the  United  States.  In 
Connecticut  he  was  a  farm  laborer,  in  Yonkers  he  was  a  hand  in  a 
carpet-factory  and  in  New  York  City  he  was  a  sort  of  helper  to  the 
bartender  in  the  old  Colonial  hotel  on  Sixth  Avenue  near  Jefferson 
Market  Court.  This  hotel  is  still  in  the  possession  of  the  family  who 
employed  Masefield  and  their  recollections  of  him  are  highly  entertain- 
ing. The  writer  once  asked  the  eldest  son  of  the  family  if  Masefield 
had  written  anything  during  the  days  of  his  employment  there.  He  had 
not,  it  seemed,  and  he  was  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  family  with 
the  art  of  poetry  for  one  reason  only  —  that  being  that  he  used  to  sing 
to  the  fretful  baby,  holding  it  in  his  lap  as  he  sat  in  a  rocking-chair  in  the 
kitchen,  waiting  for  his  employer's  wife  to  serve  his  dinner. 

When  Masefield  went  back  to  England  he  went  to  work  as  a  clerk 
in  a  London  office.  He  was  writing  now,  putting  on  paper  the  pictures 


JOHN  MASEFIELD  9777  d 

that  had  been  etched  in  his  brain  and  in  his  heart  during  his  wander 
years.  Now  he  perceived  the  deep  and  abiding  beauty  and  the  deep 
and  abiding  tragedy  (to  Masefield  they  are  the  same)  of  his  experiences. 
How  this  knowledge  came  to  him  he  has  told  in  twelve  intensely  sincere 
lines.  E.  A.  Robinson  has  said  that  poetry  is  a  language  which  tells, 
by  means  of  a  more  or  less  emotional  reaction,  that  which  cannot  be 
stated  in  prose.  And  therefore  it  is  better  to  let  Masefield  tell  this  in 
poetry  than  to  attempt  to  paraphrase  it.  He  wrote,  by  way  of  preface 
to  (A  Mainsail  Haul): 

((I  yarned  with  ancient  shipmen  beside  the  galley  range 
And  some  were  fond  of  women,  but  all  were  fond  of  change; 
They  sang  their  quavering  chanties,  all  in  a  fo'c's'le  drone, 
And  I  was  finally  suited,  if  I  had  only  known. 

I  rested  in  an  ale-house  that  had  a  sanded  floor, 

Where  seamen  sat  a-drinking  and  chalking  up  the  score; 

They  yarned  of  ships  and  mermaids,  of  topsail  sheets  and  slings^  " 

But  I  was  discontented ;  I  looked  for  better  things. 

I  heard  a  drunken  fiddler  in  Billy  Lee's  saloon, 
I  brooked  an  empty  belly  with  thinking  of  the  tune; 
I  swung  the  doors  disgusted  as  drunkards  rose  to  dance, 
And  now  I  know  the  music  was  life  and  life's  romance.)) 

Masefield's  work  soon  attracted  the  -attention  of  William  Butler 
Yeats,  John  Galsworthy,  Sturge  Moore,  and  other  English  men  of 
letters,  and  largely  through  their  efforts  was  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  public.  American  readers  first  became  aware  of  him  through  the 
publication  of  two  long  poems  —  (The  Everlasting  Mercy)  and  (The 
Widow  in  the  Bye  Street.)  To  say  that  these  were  long  narrative 
poems  dealing  with  intensely  tragic  and  dramatic  events  in  the  life  of 
the  British  poor  is  not  to  describe  them  adequately.  They  were  a 
poetry  new  to  our  generation.  They  showed  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  lives  of  the  poor,  especially  of  the  criminal  poor,  not  to  be  found 
in  the  amiable  poems  of  Mr.  W.  W.  Gibson  and  similar  socialistic 
dilletantes.  They  were  not  socialistic  in  message;  rather  they  were 
individualistic.  Saul  Kane  was  not  a  drunkard  because  of  economic 
pressure;  Jimmy's  siren  lived  an  evil  life  merely  because  she  was  evil, 
not  as  a  result  of  the  injustice  of  man-made  laws  or  anything  else  of  the 
sort.  So  precedents  were  violated  and  Masefield  scored  a  success  of 
sensation.  The  savage  colloquialisms  of  the  poems,  their  violent 
emotionalism,  their  melodrama  —  these  things  brought  them  to  the 
attention  of  a  large  number  of  people  not  ordinarily  interested  in  the 
work  of  new  poets,  and  thus  an  audience  was  prepared  for  the  poet's 
later  and  more  important  work. 

There   can  be  no  doubt  that  the   work  published  later   was   more 


9777*e  JOHN   MASEFIELD 

important.  There  were  crudities  in  these  two  narrative  poems  which 
seemed  to  be  put  there  deliberately,  in  order  to  startle  and  shock  the 
reader.  Masefield  followed  these  poems  with  other  poems  in  the  same 
manner  done  with  much  greater  technical  skill  and  with  a  more  convinc- 
ing sincerity.  (Dauber)  and  (Biography)  and  the  ( Daffodill  Fields) 
are  more  likely  to  be  read  by  the  next  generation  than  are  ( The  Widow  in 
the  Bye  Street)  and  (The  Everlasting  Mercy,)  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  last  mentioned  poem  was  awarded  the  Edward  de  Polignac  prize  of 
$500  by  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature. 

It  is  hard  to  tell  just  what  form  Masefield  will  finally  select  for  the 
expression  of  his  genius.  He  has  written  ballads,  lyrics,  plays,  novels, 
short-stories,  even  histories,  and  all  these  forms  he  has  molded  to  his 
own  use.  At  the  time  of  writing  he  is  in  France  actively  engaged  in 
Red  Cross  work,  and  has  begun  to  send  to  the  magazines  stories  of  the 
things  that  he  has  seen  which  entitle  him  to  be  called  a  great  reporter. 
The  quest  for  beauty  has  been  and  is  his  ruling  passion  —  he  is  splendidly 
explicit  on  this  subject  in  the  magnificent  sequence  of  Shakespearean 
sonnets  printed  in  (  Good  Friday  and  Other  Poems.  >  He  has  searched  for 
this  beauty  on  the  boundless  sea,  in  noisy  barrooms,  in  English  meadows, 
in  the  streets  of  New  York.  He  is  seeking  it  now,  we  may  believe,  in  the 
tragedy  and  heroism  of  the  battlefield.  And  always,  his  sonnets  tell  us, 
it  is  evasive  and  very  distant,  because  its  real  dwelling  place  is  his  own 
soul. 


FROM   (THE  EVERLASTING  MERCY) 
Copyright  by  the  Macmillan  Co.,  and  reprinted  by  their  permission. 

FROM  '41  to  '51 
I  was  my  folk's  contrary  son; 

I  bit  my  father's  hand  right  through 
And  broke  my  mother's  heart  in  two. 
I  sometimes  go  without  my  dinner 
Now  that  I  know  the  times  I've  gi'n  her. 

From  '51  to  '61 

I  cut  my  teeth  and  took  to  fun. 

I  learned  what  not  to  be  afraid  of 

And  what  stuff  women's  lips  are  made  of; 

I  learned  with  what  a  rosy  feeling 

Good  ale  makes  floors  seem  like  the  ceiling, 

And  how  the  moon  gives  shiny  light 

To  lads  as  roll  home  singing  by't. 

My  blood  did  leap,  my  flesh  did  revel, 

Saul  Kane  was  tokened  to  the  devil. 


JOHN  MASEFIELD  977 7  £ 

From  '61  to  '67 

I  lived  in  disbelief  of  Heaven. 

I  drunk,  I  fought,  I  poached,  I  whored, 

I  did  despite  unto  the  Lord. 

I  cursed,  'would  make  a  man  look  pale, 

And  nineteen  times  I  went  to  gaol. 

Now  friends,  observe  and  look  upon  me, 

Mark  how  the  Lord  took  pity  on  me. 
By  Dead  Man's  Thorn,  while  setting  wires, 
Who  should  come  up  but  Billy  Myers, 
A  friend  of  mine,  who  used  to  be 
As  black  a  sprig  of  hell  as  me, 
With  whom  I'd  planned,  to  save  encroaching 
Which  fields  and  coverts  each  should  poach  in. 
Now  when  he  saw  me  set  my  snare, 
He  tells  me  ((Get  to  hell  from  there. 
This  field  is  mine,))  he  says,  ((by  right; 
If  you  poach  here,  there'll  be  a  fight. 
Out  now,))  he  says,  ((and  leave  your  wire; 
It's  mine.)) 

«It  ain't.)) 

((You  put.» 

((You  liar.)) 
((You  closhy  put.)) 
((You  bloody  liar.)) 
((This  is  my  field.)) 
((This  is  my  wire.)) 
((I'm  ruler  here.)) 
((You  ain't.)) 
((I  am.)) 

((I'll  fight  you  for  it.)) 
((Right,  by  damn. 

Not  now,  though,  I've  a-sprained  my  thumb, 
We'll  fight  after  the  harvest  hum. 
And  Silas  Jones,  that  bookie  wide, 
Will  make  a  purse  five  pounds  a  side.)) 
Those  were  the  words,  that  was  the  place 
By  which  God  brought  me  into  grace. 

On  Wood  Top  Field  the  peewits  go 
Mewing  and  wheeling  ever  so; 
And  like  the  shaking  of  a  timbrel 
Cackles  the  laughter  of  the  whimbrel. 


977 7  g  JOHN   MASEFIELD 

In  the  old  quarry-pit  they  say 

Head-keeper  Pike  was  made  away. 

He  walks,  head-keeper  Pike,  for  harm, 

He  taps  the  windows  of  the  farm; 

The  blood  drips  from  his  broken  chin, 

He  taps  and  begs  to  be  let"  in. 

On  Wood  Top,  nights,  I've  shaked  to  hark 

The  peewits  wambling  in  the  dark 

Lest  in  the  dark  the  old  man  might 

Creep  up  to  me  to  beg  a  light. 

1     But  Wood  Top  grass  is  short  and  sweet 
And  springy  to  a  boxer's  feet; 
At  harvest  hum  the  moon  so  bright 
Did  shine  on  Wood  Top  for  the  fight. 

When  Bill  was  stripped  down  to  his  bends 

I  thought  how  long  we  two'd  been  friends, 

And  in  my  mind,  about  that  wire, 

I  thought,  ((He's  right,  I  am  a  liar. 

As  sure  as  skilly's  made  in  prison 

The  right  to  poach  that  copse  is  his'n. 

I'll  have  no  luck  to-night,))  thinks  I. 

((I'm  fighting  to  defend  a  lie. 

And  this  moonshiny  evening's  fun 

Is  worse  than  aught  I've  ever  done.)) 

And  thinking  that  way  my  heart  bled  so 

I  almost  stept  to  Bill  and  said  so. 

And  now  Bill's  dead  I  would  be  glad 

If  I  could  only  think  I  had. 

But  no.     I  put  the  thought  away 

For  fear  of  what  my  friends  would  say. 

They'd  backed  me,  see?     O  Lord,  the  sin 

Done  for  the  things  there's  money  in. 

The  stakes  were  drove,  the  ropes  were  hitched, 

Into  the  ring  my  hat  I  pitched. 

My  corner  faced  the  Squire's  park 

Just  where  the  fir  trees  made  it  dark; 

The  place  where  I  begun  poor  Nell 

Upon  the  woman's  road  to  hell. 

I  thought  oft,  sitting  in  my  corner 
After  the  time-keep  struck  his  warner 
(Two  brandy  flasks,  for  fear  of  noise, 
Clinked  out  the  time  to  us  two  boys). 


JOHN   MASEFIELD  9777k 

And  while  my  seconds  chafed  and  gloved  me 

I  thought  of  Nell's  eyes  when  she  loved  me, 

And  wondered  how  my  tot  would  end, 

First  Nell  cast  off  and  now  my  friend; 

And  in  the  moonlight  dim  and  wan 

I  knew  quite  well  my  luck  was  gone; 

And  looking  round  I  felt  a  spite 

At  all  who'd  come  to  see  me  fight; 

The  five  and  forty  human  faces 

Inflamed  by  drink  and  going  to  races, 

Faces  of  men  who'd  never  been 

Merry  or  true  or  live  or  clean; 

Who'd  never  felt  the  boxer's  trim 

Of  brain  divinely  knit  to  limb, 

Nor  felt  the  whole  live  body  go 

One  tingling  health  from  toe  to  toe; 

Nor  took  a  punch  nor  given  a  swing, 

But  just  soaked  deady  round  the  ring 

Until  their  brains  and  bloods  were  foul 

Enough  to  make  their  throttles  howl, 

While  we  whom  Jesus  died  to  teach 

Fought  round  on  round,  three  minutes  each. 

And  thinking  that,  you'll  understand 
I  thought,  ((I'll  go  and  take  Bill's  hand. 
I'll  up  and  say  the  fault  was  mine, 
He  shan't  make  play  for  these  here  swine.)) 
And  then  I  thought  that  that  was  silly,     ' 
They'd  think  I  was  afraid  of  Billy; 
They'd  think  (I  thought  it,  God  forgive  me) 
I  funked  the  hiding  Bill  could  give  me. 
And  that  would  make  me  mad  and  hot. 
((Think  that,  will  they?     Well,  they  shall  not. 
They  shan't  think  that.      I  will  not.      I'm 
Damned  if  I  will.      I  will  not.)) 
Time! 


Out  into  darkness,  out  to  night 
My  flaring  heart  gave  plenty  light, 
So  wild  it  was  there  was  no  knowing 
Whether  the  clouds  or  stars  were  blowing; 
Blown  chimney  pots  and  folk  blown  blind, 
And  puddles  glimmering  like  my  mind, 


9777i  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

And  clinking  glass  from  windows  banging, 
And  inn  signs  swung  like  people  hanging, 
And  in  my  heart  the  drink  unpriced, 
The  burning  cataracts  of  Christ. 

I  did  not  think,  I  did  not  strive, 

The  deep  peace  burnt  my  me  alive; 

The  bolted  door  had  broken  in, 

I  knew  that  I  had  done  with  sin. 

I  knew  that  Christ  had  given  me  birth 

To  brother  all  the  souls  on  earth, 

And  every  bird  and  every  beast 

Should  share  the  crumbs  broke  at  the  feast. 

0  glory  of  the  lighted  mind. 

How  dead  I'd  been,  how  dumb,  how  blind. 
The  station  brook,  to  my  new  eyes, 
Was  babbling  out  of  Paradise, 
The  waters  rushing  from  the  rain 
Were  singing  Christ  has  risen  again. 

1  thought  all  earthly  creatures  knelt 
From  rapture  of  the  joy  I  felt. 

The  narrow  station-wall's  brick  ledge, 
The  wild  hop  withering  in  the  hedge, 
The  lights  in  huntsman's  upper  storey 
Were  parts  of  an  eternal  glory, 
Were  God's  eternal  garden  flowers. 
I  stood  in  bliss  at  this  for  hours. 

' 

O  glory  of  the  lighted  soul. 
The  dawn  came  up  on  Bradlow  Knoll, 
The  dawn  with  glittering  on  the  grasses, 
The  dawn  which  pass  and  never  passes. 

((It's  dawn,))  I  said,  ((And  chimney's  smoking, 
And  all  the  blessed  fields  are  soaking. 
It's  dawn,  and  there's  an  engine  shunting; 
And  hounds,  and  I  must  wander  north 
Along  the  road  Christ  led  me  forth.)) 


JOHN   MASEFIELD  9777  j 


THE  YARN  OF  THE  ((  LOCH  ACHRAY)) 

From  (Salt  Water  Ballads.)     Copyright   by  the  Macmillan  Co.,  and  reprinted  by 

their  permission. 

THE  ((Loch  Achray))  was  a  clipper  tall 
With  seven-and-twenty  hands  in  all. 
Twenty  to  hand  and  reef  and  haul, 
A  skipper  to  sail  and  mates  to  brawl 
((Tally  on  the  tackle-fall, 
Heave  now'n'  start  her,  heave V  pawl!)) 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 

Her  crew  were  shipped  and  they  said  A  Fare  well, 

So-long,  my  Tottie,  my  lovely  gell; 

We  sail  to-day  if  we  fetch  to  hell, 

It's  time  we  tackled  the  wheel  a  spell.)) 

Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 

An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 


The  dockside  loafers  talked  on  the  quay 
The  day  that  she  towed  down  to  sea: 
((Lord,  what  a  handsome  ship  she  be! 
Cheer  her,  sonny  boys,  three  times  three!)) 
And  the  dockside  loafers  gave  her  a  shout 
As  the  red-funnelled  tug-boat  towed  her  out; 
They  gave  her  a  cheer  as  the  custom  is, 
And  the  crew  yelled  ((Take  our  loves  to  Liz  — 
Three  cheers,  bullies,  for  old  Pier  Head 
*N*  the  bloody  stay-at-homes!))  they  said. 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 

In  the  gray  of  the  coming  on  of  night 
She  dropped  the  tug  at  the  Tuskar  Light, 
'N'  the  topsails  went  to  the  topmast  head 
To  a  chorus  that  fairly  awoke  the  dead. 
She  trimmed  her  yards  and  slanted  South 
With  her  royals  set  and  a  bone  in  her  mouth. 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 


9777k  JOHN   MASEFIELD 

She  crossed  the  Line  and  all  went  well, 
They  ate,  they  slept,  and  they  struck  the  bell 
And  I  give  you  a  gospel  truth  when  I  state 
The  crowd  didn't  find  any  fault  with  the  Mate, 
But  one  night  off  the  River  Plate. 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 

It  freshened  up  till  it  blew  like  thunder 
And  burrowed  her  deep,  lee-scuppers  under. 
The  old  man  said,  ((I  mean  to  hang  on 
Till  her  canvas  busts  or  her  sticks  are  gone))  — 
Which  the  blushing  looney  did,  till  at  last 
Overboard  went  her  mizzen-mast. 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 

Then  a  fierce  squall  struck  the  ((Loch  Achray,)) 
And  bowed  her  down  to  her  water-way; 
Her  main-shrouds  gave  and  her  forestay, 
And  a  green  sea  carried  her  wheel  away; 
Ere  the  watch  below  had  time  to  dress 
She  was  cluttered  up  in  a  blushing  mess. 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 

T 

She  couldn't  lay-to  nor  yet  pay-off, 
And  she  got  swept  clean  in  the  bloody  trough, 
Her  masts  were  gone,  and  afore  you  knowed 
She  filled  by  the  head  and  down  she  goed. 
Her  crew  made  seven-and-twenty  dishes 
For  the  big  jack-sharks  and  the  little  fishes, 
And  over  their  bones  the  water  swishes. 
Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 
An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 

The  wives  and  girls  they  watch  in  the  rain 
For  a  ship  as  won't  come  home  again. 
((I  reckon  it's  them  head- winds,))  they  say, 
((She'll  be  home  to-morrow,  if  not  to-day. 
I'll  just  nip  home  'n'  I'll  air  the  sheets 
'N'  buy  the  fixin's  'n'  cook  the  meats 
As  my  man  likes  'n'  as  my  man  eats.)) 


JOHN   MASEFIELD  97771 

So  home  they  goes  by  the  windy  streets, 
Thinking  their  men  are  homeward  bound 
With  anchors  hungry  for  English  ground, 
And  the  bloody  fun  of  it  is,  they're  drowned! 

Hear  the  yarn  of  a  sailor, 

An  old  yarn  learned  at  sea. 


SEA-FEVER 

From  (Salt  Water  Ballads.)     Copyright  by  the  Macmillan  Co.,  and  reprinted  by 

their  permission. 

IMUST  down  to  the  seas  again,  to  the  lonely  sea  and  the  sky, 
And  all  I  ask  is  a  tall  ship  and  a  star  to  steer  her  by, 
And  the  wheel's  kick  and  the  wind's  song  and  the  white  sail's 

shaking, 
And  a  gray  mist  on  the  sea's  face  and  a  gray  dawn  breaking. 

I  must  down  to  the  seas  again,  for  the  call  of  the  running  tide 

Is  a  wild  call  and  a  clear  call  that  may  not  be  denied; 

And  all  I  ask  is  a  windy  day  with  the  white  clouds  flying, 

And  the  flung  spray  and  the  blown  spume,  and  the  sea-gulls  crying. 

I  must  down  to  the  seas  again  to  the  vagrant  gypsy  life, 

To  the  gull's  way  and  the  whale's  way  where  the  wind's  like  a  whetted 

knife; 

And  all  I  ask  is  a  merry  yarn  from  a  laughing  fellow-rover, 
And  quiet  sleep  and  a  sweet  dream  when  the  long  trick's  over. 


D'AVALOS'    PRAYER 

From  (Salt  Water  Ballads.)     Copyright  by  the  Macmillan  Co.,  and  reprinted  by 

their  permission. 


W 


HEN  the  last  sea  is  sailed  and  the  last  shallow  charted, 

When  the  last  field  is  reaped  and  the  last  harvest  stored, 
When  the  last  fire  is  out  and  the  last  guest  departed, 
Grant  the  last  prayer  that  I  shall  pray,  Be  good  to  me,  0  Lord! 


And  let  me  pass  in  a  night  at  sea,  a  night  of  storm  and  thunder, 
In  the  loud  crying  of  the  wind  through  sail  and  rope  and  spar; 

Send  me  a  ninth  great  peaceful  wave  to  drown  and  roll  me  under 
To  the  cold  tunny-fishes'  home  where  the  drowned  galleons  are. 


9777  m  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

And  in  the  dim  green -quiet  place  far  out  of  sight  and  hearing, 
Grant  I  may  hear  at  whiles  the  wash  and  thresh  of  the  sea-foam 

About  the  fine  keen  bows  of  the  stately  clippers  steering 
Towards  the  lone  northern  star  and  the  fair  ports  of  home. 


SONNETS 


L 


From  (Good  Friday  and  Other  Poems.)      Copyright  by  the  Macmillan  Co.  and 
reprinted  by  their  permission. 

' 
ONG  ago  when  all  the  glittering  earth 

Was  heaven  itself,  when  drunkards  in  the  street 
Were  like  mazed  kings  shaking  at  giving  birth 

To  acts  of  war  that  sickle  men  like  wheat, 

When  the  white  clover  opened  Paradise 

And  God  lived  in  a  cottage  up  the  brook, 

Beauty,  you  lifted  up  my  sleeping  eyes 

And  filled  my  heart  with  longing  with  a  look; 

And  all  the  day  I  searched  and  could  not  find 

The  beautiful  dark-eyed  who  touched  me  there, 

Delight  in  her  made  trouble  in  my  mind, 

She  was  within  all  Nature,  everywhere, 

The  breath  I  breathed,  the  brook,  the  flower,  the  grass, 
Were  her,  her  word,  her  beauty,  all  she  was. 

Night  came  again,  but  now  I  could  not  sleep. 

The  owls  were  watching  in  the  yew,  the  mice 

Gnawed  at  the  wainscot;  the  mid  dark  was  deep, 

The  death-watch  knocked  the  dead  man's  summons  thrice. 

The  cats  upon  the  pointed  housetops  peered 

About  the  chimneys,  with  lit  eyes  which  saw 

Things  in  the  darkness,  moving,  which  they  feared. 

The  midnight  filled  the  quiet  house  with  awe. 

So,  creeping  down  the  stair,  I  drew  the  bolt 

And  passed  into  the  darkness,  and  I  knew 

That  Beauty  was  brought  near  by  my  revolt. 

Beauty  was  in  the  moonlight,  in  the  dew, 

But  more  within  myself  whose  venturous  tread 

Walked  the  dark  house  where  death  ticks  called  the  dead. 

Even  after  all  these  years  there  comes  the  dream 
Of  lovelier  life  than  this  in  some  new  earth, 
In  the  full  summer  of  that  unearthly  gleam 
Which  lights  the  spirit  when  the  brain  gives  birth, 


JOHN  MASEFIELD  9777  n 

Of  a  perfected  I,  in  happy  hours, 

Treading  above  the  sea  that  trembles  there, 

A  path  through  thickets  of  immortal  flowers 

That  only  grow  where  sorrows  never  were. 

And,  at  a  turn,  of  coming  face  to  face 

With  Beauty's  self,  that  Beauty  I  have  sought 

In  women's  hearts,  in  friends,  in  many  a  place, 

In  barren  hours  passed  at  grips  with  thought, 

Beauty  of  woman,  comrade,  earth  and  sea, 

Incarnate  thought  come  face  to  face  with  me. 

If  I  could  come  again  to  that  dear  place 

Where  once  I  came,  where  Beauty  lived  and  moved, 

Where,  by  the  sea,  I  saw  her  face  to  face, 

That  soul  alive  by  which  the  world  has  loved; 

If,  as  I  stood  at  gaze  among  the  leaves, 

She  would  appear  again,  as  once  before, 

While  the  red  herdsman  gathered  up  his  sheaves 

And  brimming  waters  trembled  up  the  shore; 

If,  as  I  gazed,  her  Beauty  that  was  dumb, 

In  that  old  time,  before  I  learned  to  speak, 

Would  lean  to  me  and  revelation  come, 

Words  to  the  lips  and  color  to  the  cheek, 

Joy  with  its  searing-iron  would  burn  me  wise, 

I  should  know  all;  all  powers,  all  mysteries. 

Let  that  which  is  to  come  be  as  it  may, 

Darkness,  extinction,  justice,  life  intense, 

The  flies  are  happy  in  the  summer  day, 

Flies  will  be  happy  many  summers  hence. 

Time  with  his  antique  breeds  that  built  the  Sphynx 

Time  with  her  men  to  come  whose  wings  will  tower, 

Poured  and  will  pour,  not  as  the  wise  man  thinks, 

But  with  blind  force,  to  each  his  little  hour. 

And  when  the  hour  has  struck,  comes  death  or  change, 

Which,  whether  good  or  ill,  we  cannot  tell, 

But  the  blind  planet  will  wander  through  her  range 

Bearing  men  like  us  who  will  serve  as  well. 

The  sun  will  rise,  the  winds  that  ever  move 

Will  blow  our  dust  that  once  were  men  in  love. 

Flesh,  I  have  knocked  at  many  a  dusty  door, 
Gone  down  full  many  a  midnight  lane, 
Probed  in  old  walls  and  felt  along  the  floor, 
Pressed  in  blind  hope  the  window-pane. 


97770  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

But  useless  all,  though  sometimes,  when  the  moon 
Was  full  in  heaven  and  the  sea  was  full, 
Along  my  body's  alleys  came  a  tune 
Played  in  the  tavern  by  the  Beautiful. 
Then  for  an  instant  I  have  felt  at  point 
To  find  and  seize  her,  whosoe'er  she  be, 
Whether  some  saint  whose  glory  does  anoint 
Those  whom  she  loves,  or  but  a  part  of  me, 
Or  something  that  the  things  not  understood 
Make  for  their  uses  out  of  flesh  and  blood. 


9777P 


MASQUES 


BY  ERNEST  RHYS 


*OME  of  the  prettiest  things  in  all  literature  lie  hidden  and 
half  forgotten  in  the  <(  masques  »  and  «  triumphs  »  to  be  found 
in  the  old  quartos  and  dusty  folios  of  the  early  seventeenth 
century.  Lord  Bacon  unbent  to  praise  them;  Milton  and  Ben  Jonson 
wrote  them  ;  Campion  used  both  his  music  and  his  poetry  upon  them  ; 
Inigo  Jones  lent  them  his  art.  These  are  famous  names,  and  in  a 
brief  account  one  must  keep  to  the  great  craftsmen'  who  worked  in 
that  way;  but  it  is  fair  to  remember  too  the  number  of  less  known 
writers  who  left  things  of  the  kind,  imperfect  as  whole  performances, 
but  full  of  such  effects  and  pleasant  passages  as  well  reward  the 
students  and  lovers  of  old  poetry. 

Among  the  poets  who  have  not  come  popularly  into  the  first  or 
second  rank,  Samuel  Daniel  —  <(  'Jie  well-language  d  Daniel,  »  as  he  has 
been  called  —  has  written  exquisitely  parts  and  passages  in  this  kind. 
Daniel,  it  may  be  recalled,  besides  writing  plays  on  a*classical  Senecan 
model,  very  remarkable  and  exceptional  in  the  literature  of  the  time, 
wrote  a  very  convincing  retort  in  his  <  Defence  of  Rhyme  >  to  Cam- 
pion's attack  on  its  use  in  English  poetry.  The  prose  <  Defence  )  had 
its  verse  counterpart  in  <  Musophilus  >  ;  in  whose  terse  lines  may  be 
found  some  that  may  grow  proverbial,  as  e.  g.  :  — 

«  While  timorous  knowledge  stands  considering, 
Audacious  ignorance  hath  done  the  deed.* 

Something  of  the  same  idiomatic  force  of  expression  may  be  found 
in  his  masques  and  in  his  plays.  In  his  masque  of  <  Tethys's  Festival, 
or  the  Queen's  Wake,*  which  was  celebrated  at  Whitehall  in  1610,  and 
which  like  so  many  of  Ben  Jonson's  masques  owed  a  moiety  at  least 
of  their  effect  to  the  genius  of  Inigo  Jones,  —  as  becomes  a  play 
devoted  to  Tethys,  Queen  of  Ocean,  and  her  nymphs,  we  find  that  —  • 

«  The  Scene  it  selfe  was  a  Port  or  Haven,  with  Bulworkes  at  the  entrance, 
and  the  figure  of  a  Castle  commaunding  a  fortified  towne  :  within  this  Port  were 
many  Ships,  small  and  great,  seeming  to  lie  at  anchor,  some  neerer,  and  some 
further  off,  according  to  perspective:  beyond  all  appeared  the  Horizon  or  ter- 
mination of  the  Sea,  which  seemed  to  moove  with  a  gentle  gale,  and  many 
Sayles  lying,  some  to  come  into  the  Port,  and  others  passing  out.  From  this 
Scene  issued  Zephyrus,  with  eight  Naydes,  Nymphs  of  fountaines,  and  two 
Tritons  sent  from  Tethys.  » 


9778  MASQUES 

Then  followed  songs  and  dances,  and  a  change  of  scene  accom- 
plished during  a  wonderful  circular  dance  of  mirrors  and  lights, 
devised  by  Inigo  Jones. 

«  After  this,  Tethys  rises,  and  with  her  Nymphes  performes  her  second 
daunce,  and  then  reposes  her  againe  upon  the  Mount,  entertained  with  another 
song:  — 

«Are  they  shadowes  that  we  see? 

And  can  shadowes  pleasure  give? 
Pleasures  onely  shadowes  bee 

Cast  by  bodies  we  conceive; 
And  are  made  the  things  we  deeme, 
In  those  figures  which  they  seeme. 

<(  But  these  pleasures  vanish  fast, 

Which  by  shadowes  are  exprest: 
Pleasures  are  not,  if  they  last; 

In  their  passing  is  their  best. 
Glory  is  most  bright  and  gay 
In  a  flash,  and  so  away.» 

Another  poet  and  playwright  of  a  distinctly  lower  rank  than  Dan- 
iel, and  yet  a  better  writer  perhaps  than  we  now  usually  deem  him, 
• — Sir  William  £)avenant, — also  wrote  masques  in  conjunction  with 
Inigo  Jones.  Whether  it  was  that  Inigo  had  a  good  and  inspiring 
influence  on  the  Oxford  vintner's  son,  whom  old  report  has  associated 
now  and  again  with  Shakespeare  himself,  certainly  Davenant  is  found 
quite  at  his  most  interesting  pitch  in  such  masques  as  (The  Temple 
of  Love,'  written  some  twenty-four  years  after  Daniel's  (Tethys's 
Festival,*  and  presented  by  the  (<  Queenes  Majesty  and  her  Ladies  at 
Whitehall,  on  Shrove  Tuesday  i634.))  The  Queen  was  Henrietta 
Maria,  wife  of  Charles  I.  There  is  a  certain  quaintness  in  the  concep- 
tion of  this  masque,  in  which  t(  Divine  Poesie,"  who  is  called  <(the 
Secretary  of  Nature }>  in  the  Argument,  plays  a  prominent  part.  She 
appears  in  the  masque  itself  as  <(a  beautiful  woman,  her  garment 
sky-color,  set  all  with  stars  of  gold,  her  head  crowned  with  laurel,  a 
spangled  veil  hanging  down  behind, })  a  swan  at  her  side,  attended  by 
the  Greek  poets.  For  high-priest  she  has  Orpheus,  who  is  seen  most 
picturesquely  in  the  following  scene :  — 

«Out  of  a  Creeke  came  waving  forth  a  Barque  of  a  gracious  Antique  de- 
signe,  adorned  with  Sculpture  finishing  in  Scrowles,  that  on  the  poope  had  for 
Ornament  a  great  Masque  head  of  a  Sea-god;  and  all  the  rest  enriched  with 
embost  worke  touched  with  silver  and  gold.  In  the  midst  of  this  Barque  sate 
Orpheus  with  his  Harpe;  he  wore  a  white  robe  girt,  on  his  shoulders  was  a 
mantle  of  carnation,  and  his  head  crowned  with  a  laurell  garland;  with  him, 
other  persons  in  habits  of  Sea-men  as  pilots  and  guiders  of  the  Barque  he 
playing  one  straine  was  answered  with  the  voyces  and  instruments. 


MASQUES  9779 

THE  SONG 

HEARKE!  Orpheus  is  a  Sea-man  growne; 
No  winds  of  late  have  rudely  blowne, 

Nor  waves  their  troubled  heads  advance! 
His  Harpe  hath  made  the  winds  so  mild, 
They  whisper  now  as  reconciled; 

The  waves  are  soothed  into  a  dance. }> 

Obviously  much  of  the  picturesqueness  of  such  scenes  was  due  to 
the  fine  art  of  Inigo  Jones.  But  we  have  to  remember  that  music  too 
was  an  essential  part;  and  this  brings  us  to  the  conclusion  that  in 
the  masque,  the  arts  all  meet  and  combine  in  close  accord.  Paint- 
ing and  poetry,  music  and  dancing, —  nay,  even  architecture  and 
sculpture,  have  their  allotted  uses  in  it.  For,  to  take  sculpture,  not 
only  does  the  devising  and  posing  of  the  masquers  and  their  draper- 
ies seem  as  much  a  sculptor's  as  a  painter's  prerogative,  but  in  the 
old  masques  the  device  of  living  statues  was  a  common  one.  Take 
for  example  the  ( Masque  of  the  Gentlemen  of  Gray's  Inn,*  by  Fran- 
cis Beaumont:  — 

(<The  statues  were  attired  in  cases  of  gold  and  silver  close  to  their  bodies, 
faces,  hands,  and  feet, —  nothing  seen  but  gold  and  silver,  as  if  they  had  been 
solid  images  of  metal;  tresses  of  hair,  .  .  .  girdles  and  small  aprons  of 
oaken  leaves,  as  if  they  had  been  carved  or  molded  out  of  the  metal.  At 
their  coming,  the  music  changed  from  violins  to  hautboys,  cornets,  etc. ;  and 
the  air  of  the  music  was  utterly  turned  into  a  soft  time,  with  drawing  notes: 
excellently  expressing  their  natures,  .  .  .  and  the  statues  placed  in  such 
several  postures  ...  as  was  very  graceful,  besides  the  novelty. }> 

This  is  enough  to  give  an  idea  of  the  charm,  in  daintily  mingled 
effects  of  color  and  music,  which  exists  in  this  realm  of  masques  and 
pageants;  which  is  wide  enough  to  include  such  pure  poetry  as  Mil- 
ton's 'Comus,'  and  such  splendid  scenes  of  State  as  the  Field  of  the 
Cloth  of  Gold.  A  pleasant  realm  to  wander  in,  which  leaves  one 
haunted  indeed  by  such  sights  and  sounds  as  those  of  the  Dance  of 
the  Stars,  so  frequently  introduced,  and  the  song  that  attended  its 

progress: — 

<(  Shake  off  your  heavy  trance, 
And  leap  into  a  dance, 
Such  as  no  mortals  use  to  tread; 

Fit  only  for  Apollo 
To  play  to,  for  the  moon  to  lead, 
And  all  the  stars  to  follow. » 


9780 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

(1663-1742) 

BY  J.  F.  BINGHAM 

(HE  subject  of  this  sketch,  the  celebrated  Bishop  of  Clermont, 
was  the  last  of  the   three   greatest   preachers    of   the  great 
age   of  pulpit   eloquence   in    France  —  the    age,    as    Voltaire 
has   observed,   probably   the    greatest   in   pulpit   oratory   of   all   time. 
Massillon,   by    the    consensus    of   the    world,   has    been    adjudged    the 
greatest  of  the  great  three,  in  the  region  of  the  pathetic,  or  persua- 
sion by  the  resource  of  emotion,  or  in  still 
other  words,  as  a  preacher;   that  is,   in  the 
power    of    stirring    the    hearts    and   moving 
the  passions  of  multitudes  of  men  towards 
that  which  all  men  know  to  be  the  noblest 
and    best,    whatever    the    practice    of    their 
lives  may  be. 

Bossuet,  the  monarch  of  the  pulpit, 
moved  on  with  a  magnificent  and  thunder- 
ing tread,  trampling  down  all  opposition; 
in  a  dignified  and  elegant  fury,  subduing 
all  things  to  his  imperial  will.  Bourdaloue, 
the  Jesuit  and  incomparable  logician,  a  com- 
batant by  far  more  skillful  than  even  Bos- 
suet,  with  no  flourish  of  trumpets,  brought 

up  the  irresistible  battalions  of  arguments,  marshaled  with  matchless 
skill,  swiftly  succeeding  one  another  with  an  unerring  aim,  all  in 
fighting  undress,  without  waving  plumes  or  the  clank  of  glittering 
trappings  or  the  frippery  of  gilded  lace  and  pompous  orders,  but  with 
victory  written  on  every  banner;  and  when  the  hour  of  conflict  was 
over,  stood  on  a  field  strewed  with  the  wrecks  of  every  adversary. 

Massillon,  coming  immediately  after  these  giants  of  a  world-wide 
renown,  while  yet  the  air  was  ringing  of  their  hitherto  unequaled 
achievements, — with  the  great  advantage,  indeed,  of  being  offered 
the  opportunity  of  learning  much  from  their  skill, — yet  struck  out 
a  wholly  new  method  for  himself.  Each  of  the  three  evinced  enor- 
mous native  oratorical  talent.  Each  had  acquired  and  mastered  what- 
ever the  schools  can  furnish  of  rhetorical  skill  and  finish;  and  this  is 
much.  But  Massillon  evinced  an  enormous  superiority  in  that  which 


J.  B.  MASSILLON 


JEAN  BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

was  a  peculiarity  of  his  own  —  and  it  was  a  peculiarity  of  measure- 
less  consequence.  He  evinced  a  moral  constitution  more  subtle  and 
more  refined  than  either;  a  knowledge  of  the  secret  depths  of  the 
human  heart  more  profound;  and  a -certain  sympathetic  power,  inde- 
scribable in  words,  but  infinitely  effective  in  stirring  the  emotions  and 
rousing  the  passions  of  the  hearer  into  an  irresistible  conflict  in  his 
soul  with  his  own  perverse  inclinations:  while  at  the  same  moment 
he  was  enchanting  him  with  the  purest  and  most  perfect  graces  of 
style;  and  was  sweetly,  almost  unconsciously,  leading  him  along,  not 
able,  not  wishing,  to  resist;  or  even  affrighting  him  by  a  sudden  cry 
of  alarm,  as  sincere  and  tender  as  that  of  a  mother  frightening  her 
infant  away  from  the  wrong  way  into  the  right. 

In  respect  of  purity  and  beauty  of  style,  Fenelon,  and  Fenelon  alone 
of  all  preachers,  might  come  into  competition  with  him;  but  Fenelon 
having  ordered  his  sermons  to  be  burned,  we  have  little  or  nothing 
of  his  in  this  line. 

It  is  a  happy  consequence  of  this  extreme  elegance,  this  match- 
less purity  and  beauty  of  style, — and  it  is  one  of  the  rarest  in  the 
world,  in  the  case  of  the  great  preachers, — that  after  deducting  the 
necessary  and  unspeakable  loss  of  his  majestic  presence,  his  impress- 
ive manner,  his  wonderfully  lovely  voice,  his  perfect  and  bewitch- 
ing elocution,  his  printed  sermons  were  read  by  the  most  refined  of 
his  contemporaries  in  the  closet,  and  for  nearly  two  hundred  years 
have  been  and  are  still  read  (in  the  original),  with  unabated  delight. 
The  young  King  Louis  XV.,  we  are  told,  « learned  them  by  heart, 
the  magistrate  had  them  in  his  office,  the  fine  lady  on  her  toilet 
table. }>  Unfortunately  there  are  not,  perhaps  there  cannot  be,  anv 
translation  of  his  masterpieces  which  in  respect  of  style  would  be 
judged,  by  those  most  competent  to  judge,  to  be  worthy  of  him. 
From  the  smoothness  and  harmonious  flow  of  his  sentences,  Voltaire 
named  him  the  Racine  of  the  pulpit;  and  tells  us  that  the  'Athalie* 
of  Racine  and  the  ( Grand  Careme )  of  Massillon  (the  forty-two  ser- 
mons preached  at  Versailles  before  Louis  XIV.  during  the  Lent  of 
1704)  are  always  lying  on  his  table  side  by  side. 

This  remarkable  man  was  the  son  of  a"  minor  officer  of  the  law: 
born  in  the  little  city  of  Hyeres, —  an  ancient  watering-place  on  the 
French  Riviera,  some  fifty  miles  east  of  Marseilles, —  and  educated 
at  the  College  of  the  Oratorians  at  Marseilles,  of  which  liberal 
order  he  became  in  due  time  a  priest.  He  was  a  true  child  of  the 
fervid  south.  The  warm  blood  of  Provence  galloped  through  his 
veins,  and  the  hot  passions  of  human  nature  were  strong  in  his  soul. 
His  infant  rambles  were  among  orange  groves,  olives,  and  palms. 
The  soft  breezes  of  the  Mediterranean  fanned  the  cheeks  of  his 
youth;  and  from  infancy  up  his  ears  were  daily  saluted  by  the  gay 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  MASSILLON 

and  amorous  melodies  of  the  Troubadours.  He  was  rusticated  from 
his  college  for  some  faux  pas  with  the  sex.  It  was  nothing  very 
serious,  we  imagine  (he  was  only  eighteen),  and  he  was  restored  to 
his  classes  within  the  year.  After  his  great  sermon  on  the  Prodiga? 
Son,  in  which  he  so  profoundly  analyzes  the  workings  of  the  volup- 
tuous passions,  he  was  asked  <(  where,  being  a  recluse,  he  could  have 
obtained  such  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  voluptuous  life?"  He 
replied,  (<  In  my  own  heart. }> 

He  was  not  only  born  in  the  land  of  love  and  song,  he  was  born 
an  orator.  It  is  related  of  him  that  in  early  childhood  he  was  ac- 
customed, on  Sundays  and  holy  days,  to  gather  his  comrades  around 
him,. then  mount  a  rock,  a  box,  or  a  chair,  and  declaim  to  them  the 
substance  of  the  sermon  he  had  heard  at  mass.  In  college  he  pur- 
sued the  humanities  with  the  greatest  zeal,  and  was  greatly  distin- 
guished in  all  the  rhetorical  exercises;  yet  after  becoming  a  priest 
and  furnished  with  such  a  magnificent  equipment,  he  •  grew  shy  of 
this  great  talent,  made  repeated  attempts  to  escape  the  pulpit,  and 
finally  began  the  exercise  of  his  remarkable  gifts  only  on  the  abso- 
lute command  of  the  superior  of  his  order.  From  the  first  moment 
a  brilliant  career  was  assured.  Success  swiftly  followed  success.  He 
passed  rapidly  up  the  ladder  of  promotion.  The  great  capital  was 
already  whispering  his  fame,  when  in  his  thirty-third  year  he  found 
himself  actually  planted  in  that  wicked  Babylon,  and  summoned  to 
preach  in  its  most  prominent  pulpits.  Improving  his  opportunity  to 
hear  the  greatest  preachers  there  (including  of  course  Bossuet  and 
Bourdaloue,  and  probably  Flechier  and  Mascaron),  he  said  on  one 
occasion  to  a  brother  priest  who  accompanied  him :  (<  I  feel  their 
intellectual  force,  I  recognize  their  great  talents;  but  if  I  preach,  I 
shall  not  preach  like  them.**  And  surely  he  did  not. 

From  this  moment,  to  hear  a  sermon  of  Massillon  was  a  new  expe- 
rience to  Paris.  Many  stories  have  come  down  to  us  of  the  effects 
of  this  new  method  in  the  hands  of  this  unparalleled  master.  We  can 
cite  but  a  specimen.  To  illustrate  how  widely  his  influence  pervaded 
the  lowest  as  well  as  the  highest  classes  of  society,  it  is  related  that 
when  Massillon  was  to  preach  in  Notre  Dame,  the  crush  at  the  en- 
trance was  something  extraordinary  even  for  a  Paris  crowd.  On  one 
occasion  a  rather  powerful  woman  of  the  town,  bent  on  hearing  him, 
roughly  elbowing  her  way  through  the  mass,  whispered  aloud,  (<Eh! 
wherever  this  devil  of  a  Massillon  preaches,  he  makes  such  a  row!v 
Baron,  the  comic  author  and  actor,  at  that  time  the  leading  star  of 
the  French  stage,  soon  went  to  hear  him.  Struck  by  the  simplicity 
of  his  manner  and  the  impressive  truthfulness  of  his  elocution,  he 
said  to  a  brother  actor  who  accompanied  him,  <(  There,  my  friend. 
is  an  orator:  we  are  but  players. }>  Laharpe  relates  that  a  courtier. 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  MASSILLON 

going  to  a  new  opera,  found  his  carriage  blocked  in  a  double  file  of 
carriages,  the  one  bound  for  the  opera,  the  other  for  the  Quinze- 
vingts.  The  church  was  near  where  Massillon  was  preaching.  In 'his 
impatience  he  dismounted  from  the  carriage,  and  out  of  curiosity  for 
a  sight  of  the  famous  preacher,  he  entered  the  church.  The  sermon 
was  already  begun.  It  was  the  celebrated  discourse  <On  the  Word 
of  God.*  At  that  moment  Massillon  raised  his  usually  downcast  look, 
and  sweeping  the  congregation  with  his  wonderful  eye,  uttered  the 
apostrophe — Tu  es  ille  vir!  [Thou  art  the  man.]  The  gentleman 
was  struck  as  by  an  arrow.  He  remained  till  the  end  of  the  sermon, 
fixed  in  his  place  as  by  a  charm.  At  the  close  he  did  not  go  to 
the  opera,  but  returned  to  his  home  a  changed  man.  Bourdaloue, 
after  hearing  him,  being  asked  by  a  distinguished  brother  of  his  own 
order  how  he  ranked  the  new  orator,  is  said  to  have  replied  in  the 
words  of  the  Forerunner  concerning  the  just  appearing  Messiah:  <(  He 
must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease. »  The  celebrated  compliment  of 
Louis  XIV.  at  the  close  of  the  <  Grand  Careme,*  though  threadbare 
and  possibly  intended  to  be  equivocal,  must  not  be  omitted,  because 
it  was  unquestionably  as  true  as  it  was  elegant,  when  he  said  to 
him :  <(  Father,  I  have  heard  several  great  orators  in  my  chapel ;  I 
have  been  mightily  pleased  with  them:  as  for  you,  every  time  I  have 
heard  you,  I  have  been  very  much  displeased  —  with  myself. )J  He 
presently  added:  <(And  I  wish  to  hear  you,  father,  hereafter  every 
two  years. >J  Yet  for  this  or  some  other  now  unknown  reason,  Mas- 
sillon was  never  again  invited  by  Louis  XIV.  to  preach  before  him. 
Bourdaloue,  than  whom  there  could  be  no  abler  or  severer  judge, 
after  reading  his  printed  discourses  declared:  <(The  progress  one 
has  made  in  eloquence  must  be  judged  of  by  the  relish  he  finds  in 
reading  Massillon's  works. »  In  1717  he  was  appointed  by  Louis  XV. 
Bishop  of  Clermont,  and  in  1719  he  was  elected  one  of  the  French 
Academy.  He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty,  of  apoplexy,  in  his  country 
house  a  few  miles  outside  his  see-city. 

Now  what  were  the  great  and  distinguishing  features  of  this  <(new 
method, w  which  resulted  in  such  enormous  contemporary  as  well  as 
lasting  .success?  Setting  aside,  as  having  been  sufficiently  noticed, 
the  extraordinary  witchery  of  his  person,  of  his  voice,  of  his  manner, 
of  even  his  delicious  language  and  perfect  literary  form,  what  partic- 
ulars can  we  discover,  in  the  printed  pages  of  his  sermons,  as  we 
have  them  in  our  hands  to-day,  to  account  for  the  prodigious  strength 
and  unrelaxing  permanence  of  his  grip  on  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
men  ?  This  we  shall  try  to  show  in  the  selections  we  now  offer  the 
reader  from  his  most  famous  discourses. 

There  are  two  observations  to  be  made  in  a  general  way  toward 
answering  this  question,  before  descending  to  more  definite  particulars. 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

One  strikes  us,  on  the  first  notice  of  the  subjects  he  has  chosen 
to  discourse  on.  He  had  observed,  he  once  said,  that  there  was  too 
much  dwelling  on  external  manners  and  a  general  and  vague  morality. 
If  we  examine,  we  find  that  his  subject-matter  is  always  something 
definite  and  personal,  something  that  comes  home  to  <(the  business 
and  bosom }>  of  every  one  of  his  auditory.  This  is  too  evident  in 
every  one  of  his  discourses  to  need  any  citations. 

Then  it  is  conspicuous  how  little  space  he  gives  to  establishing 
accepted  truths  and  general  propositions  universally  adopted.  He 
assumes  these,  or  at  most  confirms  them  in  a  paragraph  or  two. 
Then  he  sets  himself  to  search  out  in  the  bottom  of  the  hearts  of 
his  hearers  —  in  their  criminal  attachments,  in  their  earthly  interests  — 
the  reasons  why  each  one  in  particular,  without  contesting  the  exist- 
ence of  the  law  or  the  necessity  of  obeying  it,  pretends  that  he  can 
give  himself  a  dispensation  from  submitting  himself  to  it.  This  too, 
as  we  shall  see,  appears  in  every  sermon. 

Another  characteristic  which  pervades  his  whole  method,  and  is 
found  in  every  discourse,  and  in  which  Buffon  in  his  treatise  on 
< Eloquence  }  gives  it  as  his  judgment  that  Massillon  surpasses  all 
the  orators  ancient  and  modern,  is  called  in  the  schools  Amplifica- 
tion. It  consists  in  the  difficult  but  effective  art  of  developing  a 
principal  thought  in  one  long  composite  sentence,  which  occupies  an 
entire  paragraph,  and  is  made  up  of  an  expanding  series  of  intensi- 
fying clauses,  flowing  in  one  indivisible  stream  of  multiplying  minor 
thoughts,  which  roll  the  fundamental  sentiment  along,  exhibiting  con- 
tinually new  relations,  new  colors,  new  charms,  with  ever  increasing 
force.  As  he  thus  revolved  his  thought  through  every  application 
and  under  every  light,  not  only  did  the  gathering  force  bear  on  all 
before  it,  but  each  individual  for  himself,  sooner  or  later,  found  his 
own  moral  picture  flashed  into  his  soul;  and  these  individual  con- 
victions, melting  into  one  mighty  sentiment,  set  the  whole  auditory  in 
commotion  as  if  it  were  but  a  single  soul.  For  an  example  of  the 
pathetic  thus  amplified,  take  the  famous 


PICTURE  OF  THE  DEATH-BED  OF  A  SINNER 

THEN  the  dying  sinner,  finding-  no  longer  in  the  remembrance 
of  the  past,  anything  but  regrets  which  overwhelm  him;  in 
all  which  is  passing  from  his  sight,  but  images  which  afflict 
him;    in   the   thought   of   the    future,  but   horrors   which   affright 
him;  —  knowing   no   longer    to   whom    he    should    have    recourse: 
neither  to  the  creatures,  which  are  escaping  from  him,  nor  to  the 
world,  which  is   vanishing;   nor   to   men,  who  do  not  know  how 


JEAN   BAPTISTS   MASSILLON  9785 

to  deliver  him  from  death;  nor  to  the  just  God,  whom  he  regards 
as  his  declared  enemy,  whose  indulgence  he  must  no  longer  ex- 
pect;—  he  revolves  his  horrors  in  his  soul;  he  torments  himself, 
he  tosses  himself  hither  and  thither,  to  flee  from  death  which  is 
seizing  him,  or  at  least  to  flee  from  himself;  from  his  dying  eyes 
issues  a  gloomy  wildness  which  bespeaks  the  furiousness  of  his 
soul;  from  the  depths  of  his  dejection  he  throws  out  words  broken 
by  sobs,  which  one  but  half  understands,  and  knows  not  whether 
it  is  despair  or  repentance  which  has  given  them  form;  he  casts 
on  the  crucifix  affrighted  looks,  and  such  as  leave  us  to  doubt 
whether  it  is  fear  or  hope,  hatred  or  love,  which  they  mean;  he 
goes  into  convulsions  in  which  one  is  ignorant  whether  it  is  the 
body  dissolving,  or  the  soul  perceiving  the  approach  of  her  judge; 
he  sighs  deeply,  and  one  cannot  tell  whether  it  is  the  memory  of 
his  crimes  which  is  tearing  these  sighs  from  him,  or  his  despair 
at  relinquishing  life.  Finally,  in  the  midst  of  his  mournful  strug- 
gles, his  eyes  become  fixed,  his  features  change,  his  countenance 
is  distorted,  his  livid  mouth  falls  open;  his  whole  body  trembles, 
and  with  this  last  struggle  his  wretched  soul  is  sorrowfully  torn 
from  this  body  of  clay,  falls  into  the  hands  of  God,  and  finds 
itself  at  the  foot  of  the  awful  tribunal. 

New  translation  by  J.  F.  B. 

In  his  painting  of  manners  to  be  reproved,  while  always  abiding 
in  the  perfection  of  elegance,  he  sometimes  descended  with  a  frank 
and  bold  simplicity  to  startling  details.  An  example  of  this  stripping 
luxury  naked  for  chastisement  appears  in  the  following  exposure  of 
the  ways  by  which  it  seeks  to  elude  the  rigor  of  the  precept,  from 
the  opening  sermon  of  the  <  Grand  Careme,'  on  — 

FASTING 

TEXT:  ((Cum  jejunatis,  nolite  fieri  sicut  hypocritse,  tristes.^ — VULGATE.     [When 
thou  fastest,  be  not  like  the  hypocrites,  sad. —  FRENCH  TRANSLATION.] 

MY  BRETHREN,  there  is  more  than  one  kind  of  sadness.     There 
is  a  sadness  of  penitence  which  works  salvation,  and  the 
joy  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  always  its  sweetest  fruit;  a  sad- 
ness of  hypocrisy,  which  observes  the  letter  of  the  law,  wearing 
an  affected  exterior,   pale  and  disfigured,  in  order  not  to  lose  be- 
fore  men   the  merit   of  its  penitence, —  and   this   is  rare;    finally, 
there  is  a  sadness  of  corruption,  which  opposes  to  this  holy  law 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  MASSILLON 

a  depth  of  corruption  and  of  sensuality:  and  one  may  safely  say 
that  this  is  the  most  universal  impression  which  is  made  on  us 
by  the  precept  of  the  fast  and  of  abstinence.  .  .  . 

I  ask  you  whether,  if  it  mortified  the  body  and  the  passions 
of  the  flesh,  this  ought  to  be  by  the  length  of  the  abstinence,  or 
by  the  simplicity  of  the  food  one  makes  use  of,  or  in  the  frugal- 
ity which  one  observes  in  his  repasts.  Pardon  me  this  detail:  it 
is  here  indispensable,  and  I  will  make  no  abuse  of  it. 

Is  it  the  length  of  the  abstinence  ?  But  if,  for  gathering  the 
fruit  and  merit  of  the  fast,  the  body  must  languish  and  faint 
in  the  restriction  of  its  nourishment,  in  order  that  the  soul,  while 
expiating  her  profane  voluptuousness,  may  learn  in  this  natural 
desire  what  ought  to  be  her  hunger  and  her  thirst  for  the  ever- 
lasting righteousness,  and  for  that  blessed  estate  in  which,  estab- 
lished again  in  the  truth,  we  shall  be  delivered  from  all  these 
humiliating  necessities,  —  oh,  what  of  the  useless  and  unfruitful 
fasts  in  the  Church! 

Alas!  the  first  believers,  who  did  not  break  it  till  after  the  sun 
was  set;  they  whom  a  thousand  holy  and  laborious  exercises  had 
prepared  for  the  hour  of  the  repast:  they  who  during  the  night 
which  preceded  their  fasting,  had  often  watched  in  our  temples, 
and  chanted  hymns  and  canticles  on  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs, — 
these  pious  believers  might  safely  have  referred  the  whole  merit 
of  their  fasting  to  the  length  of  their  abstinence,  and  yet  only 
then  could  their  flesh  and  their  criminal  passions  be  enfeebled. 
But  for  us,  my  brethren,  it  is  no  longer  there  that  the  merit 
of  our  fastings  must  be  sought;  for  besides  that  the  Church,  by 
consenting  that  the  hour  of  the  repast  should  be  advanced,  has 
spared  this  rigor  to  the  faithful,  what  unworthy  easements  have 
not  been  added  to  her  indulgence  ?  It  seems  that  all  one's  atten- 
tion is  limited  to  doing  in  a  way  that  will  bring  one  to  the  hour 
of  the  repast,  without  one's  really  perceiving  the  length  and  the 
rigor  of  the  fasting. 

And  beyond  this  (since  you  oblige  us  to  say  it  here,  and  to 
put  these  indecent  details  in  the  place  of  the  great  verities  of 
religion),  one  prolongs  the  hours  of  his  sleep  in  order  to  shorten 
those  of  his  abstinence;  one  dreads  to  feel  for  a  single  instant 
the  rigor  of  the  precept,  one  stifles  in  the  softness  of  repose 
the  prick  of  hunger,  from  which  even  the  fasting  of  Jesus  was 
not  exempt;  in  the  sloth  of  a  bed  one  nurses  a  flesh  which  the 
Church  had  purposed  to  emaciate  and  afflict  by  punishment;  and 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON  9787 

far  from  taking-  nourishment  as  a  necessary  relief  accorded  at 
last  to  the  length  of  one's  abstinence,  one  brings  to  it  a  body 
still  all  full  of  the  fumes  of  the  night,  and  does  not  find  in  it 
even  the  relish  which  pleasure  alone  would  have  desired  for  its 

own  satisfaction. 

Translation  of  J.  F.  B. 

A  similar  heart-searching  severity  pervades  the  following  chastise- 
ment, from  the  magnificent  sermon  on  Alms-giving:  — 

HYPOCRITICAL  HUMILITY  IN  CHARITY 

IN  TRUTH,  there  are  few  of  those  coarse  and  open  hypocrisies 
which  publish  on  the  house-tops  the  merit  of  their  holy  deeds; 
the  pride  is  more  adroit,  and  never  immediately  unmasks:  but 
what  in  the  world,  nevertheless,  has  less  of  the  true  zealot  of 
charity,  who  seeks,  like  Jesus  Christ,  solitary  and  desert  places  to 
conceal  his  charitable  prodigality!  One  hardly  sees  any  of  these 
ostentatious  zealots  who  do  not  keep  their  eye  out  merely  for 
miseries  of  renown,  and  piously  wish  to  put  the  public  into  their 
confidence  concerning  their  largesses;  a  good  many  means  are 
sometimes  taken  to  cover  them,  but  nobody  is  sorry  that  an  in- 
discretion has  drawn  them  out;  one  will  not  seek  the  public  eye, 
but  one  will  be  enraptured  when  the  public  eye  overtakes  us; 
and  the  liberalities  which  are  unknown  are  almost  regarded  as 
lost. 

Alas!  with  their  gifts  on  every  side,  were  not  our  temples  and 
our  altars  the  names  and  the  marks  of  their  benefactors,  that  is 
to  say,  the  public  monuments  of  the  vanity  of  our  fathers  and  of 
our  own  ?  If  one  wished  only  the  invisible  eye  of  the  heavenly 
Father  for  witness,  to  what  good  this  vain  ostentation  ?  Do  you 
fear  that  the  Lord  forgets  your  offerings  ?  Is  it  necessary  that 
he  should  not  be  able  to  glance  from  the  depth  of  the  sanctuary, 
where  we  adore  him,  without  finding  again  the  remembrance  of 
them  ?  If  you  propose  only  to  please  him,  why  expose  your 
bounties  to  other  eyes  than  his  ?  Why  shall  his  ministers  them- 
selves, in  the  most  awful  functions  of  the  priesthood,  appear  at 
the  altar  —  where  they  ought  to  bring  only  the  sins  of  the  people  — 
loaded  and  clothed  with  marks  of  your  vanity?  Why  these  titles 
and  inscriptions  which  immortalize  on  sacred  walls  your  gifts 
and  your  pride  ?  Was  it  not  enough  that  these  gifts  should  be 
written  by  the  hand  of  the  Lord  in  the  Book  of  Life  ?  Why 


9788  JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

engrave,  on  marble  which  will  perish,  the  merit  of  an  action 
which  the  charity  of  it  was  sufficient  to  render  immortal? 

Ah!  Solomon,  after  having  reared  the  most -stately  and  mag- 
nificent temple  that  ever  was,  had  engraved  on  it  only  the 
awful  name  of  the  Lord,  and  took  care  not  to  mix  the  marks  of 
the  grandeur  of  his  race  with  those  of  the  eternal  majesty  of  the 
King  of  Kings.  A  pious  name  is  given  to  this  custom;  people 
believe  that  these  public  monuments  allure  the  liberality  of  the 
faithful.  But  has  the  Lord  charged  your  vanity  with  the  care  of 
attracting  bounties  to  his  altars  ?  and  has  he  permitted  you  to  be 
a  modest  means  that  your  brethren  should  become  more  chari- 
table ?  Alas !  the  most  powerful  among  the  first  believers  brought 
simply,  like  the  most  obscure,  their  patrimonies  to  the  feet  of 
the  apostles;  they  saw,  with  a  holy  joy,  their  names  and  their 
goods  confounded  with  those  of  their  brethren  who  had  offered 
less  than  they;  people  were  not  distinguished  then  in  the  assem- 
blies of  the  faithful  in  proportion  to  their  benefactions;  the 
honors  and  the  precedences  there  were  not  yet  the  price  of  gifts 
and  offerings;  and  one  did  not  care  to  change  the  eternal  recom- 
pense which  was  awaited  from  the  Lord,  into  this  frivolous 
glory  which  might  be  received  from  men:  and  to-day  the  Church 
has  not  privileges  enough  to  satisfy  the  vanity  of  her  benefactors; 
their  places  with  us  are  marked  in  the  sanctuary;  their  tombs 
with  us  appear  even  under  the  altar,  where  only  the  ashes  of  the 
martyrs  should  repose;  honors  even  are  rendered  to  them  which 
ought  to  be  reserved  to  the  glory  of  the  priesthood;  and  if  they 
do  not  bring  their  hand  to  the  censer,  they  at  least  wish  to  share 
with  the  Lord  the  incense  which  burns  on  his  altars.  Custom 
authorizes  this  abuse,  it  is  true;  but  that  which  it  authorizes, 
custom  never  justifies. 

Charity,  my  brethren,  is  that  sweet  odor  of  Jesus  Christ 
which  evaporates  and  is  lost  the  moment  it  is  uncovered.  It 
does  not  cause  to  abstain  from  the  public  duties  of  benevolence; 
we  owe  to  our  brethren  edification  and  example;  it  is  a  good 
thing  for  them  to  see  our  works,  but  we  should  not  see  them 
ourselves;  and  our  left  hand  ought  not  to  know  the  gifts  our 
right  distributes;  the  achievements  even  which  duty  renders  the 
most  brilliant,  ought  always  to  be  secret  in  the  preparations  of 
the  heart;  we  ought  to  entertain  a  kind  of  jealousy  for  them 
against  others'  gaze;  and  not  think  their  innocence  sure,  but 
when  they  are  under  the  eyes  of  God  alone.  Yes,  my  brethren, 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

the  alms  which  have  almost  always  rolled  along  in  secret,  have 
arrived  much  more  pure  into  the  bosom  of  God  himself  than 
those  which,  exposed  even  against  our  will  to  the  eyes  of  men, 
have  been  somewhat  befouled  and  disturbed  on  their  course  by 
the  unavoidable  complaisances  of  self-love  and  the  praise  of  the 
spectators:  like  those  streams  which  have  almost  always  rolled 
under  the  ground,  and  which  carry  into  the  bosom  of  the  sea 
waters  living  and  pure;  while,  on  the  contrary,  those  which  have 
traversed  level  and  exposed  tracts  in  the  open  ordinarily  carry 
there  only  defiled  waters,  which  are  always  dragging  along  the 
rubbish,  the  corpses,  the  slime  which  they  have  amassed  on  their 
route.  Translation  of  J.  F.  B. 

Massillon  was  especially  noted  for  the  appositeness  and  beauty  of 
his  exordiums;  and  one  of  his  sermons  of  great  repute  owes  its  enor- 
mous fame  to  that  peculiarity  of  the  text  and  to  the  action  of  the 
first  three  minutes.  Massillon  used  no  gestures,  properly  so  called: 
but  in  the  words  of  the  Abbe  Maury,  he  had  an  eloquent  eye;  which, 
Sainte-Beuve  has  added,  made  for  him  the  most  beautiful  of  gestures. 
The  sermon  in  question  was  that  which  he  pronounced  in  the  final 
obsequies  for  Louis  XIV.  He  entered  the  pulpit  with  lowered  eyes, 
as  was  his  custom.  At  length,  raising  them,  he  swept  them  in  silence 
over  all  that  magnificent  funeral  pomp.  Then  he  fixed  them  on  the 
lofty  catafalque,  and  slowly  pronounced  the  words  of  his  text,  taken 
from  the  first  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes.  in  the  French  version  of  the 
Vulgate:  <(I  have  become  great;  I  have  surpassed  in  glory  all  who 
have  preceded  me  in  Jerusalem. }>  After  a  long  silence,  and  upon 
the  excited  expectation  of  the  auditory,  he  began  with  the  ever  since 
famous  words:  <(My  brethren,  God  alone  is  great. w 

Perhaps  this  bewitching  felicity  was  never  more  striking  than  in 
the  exordium  of  his  first  sermon  before  the  same  Louis  XIV.,  when, 
knowing  that  a  reputation  for  austerity  had  preceded  him,  he  made 
his  debut  before  that  glittering  earthy  crowd  in  the  following  way, 
with  the  sermon  on  — 

THE  BLESSEDNESS  OF  THE  RIGHTEOUS 
TEXT:   « Blessed  are  they  that  mourn. » 

SIRE:  If  the  world  were  speaking  here  instead  of  Jesus 
Christ,  no  doubt  it  would  not  offer  such  language  as  this  to 
your  Majesty. 

(<  Blessed  the  Prince, w  it  would  say  to  you,  "who  has  never 
fought  but  to  conquer;  who  has  seen  so  many  powers  in  arms 


p79o  JEAN    BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

against  him,  only  to  gain  glory  in  granting  them  peace;  who 
has  always  been  equally  greater  than  danger  and  greater  than 
victory ! 

<(  Blessed  the  Prince,  who  throughout  the  course  of  a  long  and 
flourishing  reign  has  peacefully  enjoyed  the  emoluments  of  his 
glory,  the  love  of  his  subject  peoples,  the  esteem  of  his  enemies, 
the  admiration  of  all  the  world,  the  advantage  of  his  conquests, 
the  magnificence  of  his  works,  the  wisdom  of  his  laws,  the 
august  hope  of  a  numerous  posterity;  and  who  has  nothing  more 
to  desire  than  long  to  preserve  that  which  he  possesses ! }) 

Thus  the  world  would  speak;  but,  Sire,  Jesus  does  not  speak 
like  the  world. 

(<  Blessed,  ®  says  he  to  you,  (C  not  he  who  is  achieving  the 
admiration  of  his  age,  but  he  who  is  making  the  world  to  come 
his  principal  concern,  and  who  lives  in  contempt  of  himself,  and 
of  all  that  is  passing  away;  because  his  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

(<  Blessed,  not  he  whose  reign  and  whose  acts  history  is  going 
to  immortalize  in  the  remembrance  of  men,  but  he  whose  tears 
shall  have  effaced  the  story  of  his  sins  from  the  remembrance  of 
God  himself;  because  he  will  be  eternally  comforted. 

<(  Blessed,  not  he  who  shall  have  extended  by  new  conquests 
the  limits  of  his  empire,  but  he  who  shall  have  confined  his 
inclinations  and  passions  within  the  limits  of  the  law  of  God; 
because  he  will  possess  an  estate  more  lasting  than  the  empire 
of  the  whole  world. 

<(  Blessed,  not  he  who,  raised  by  the  acclamations  of  subject 
peoples  above  all  the  princes  who  have  preceded  him,  peacefully 
enjoys  his  grandeur  and  his  glory,  but  he  who,  not  finding  on  the 
throne  even  anything  worthy  of  his  heart,  seeks  for  perfect  hap- 
piness here  below  only  in  virtue  and  in  righteousness;  because  he 
will  be  satisfied. 

<(  Blessed,  not  he  to  whom  men  shall  have  given  the  glorious 
titles  of  * Great J  and  < Invincible,  >  but  he  to  whom  the  unfortu- 
nate shall  have  given,  before  Jesus,  the  title  of  ( Father y  and  of 
* Merciful * ;  because  he  will  be  treated  with  mercy. 

<(  Blessed,  in  fine,  not  he  who,  being  always  arbiter  of  the 
destiny  of  his  enemies,  has  more  than  once  given  peace  to  the 
earth,  but  he  who  has  been  able  to  give  it  to  himself,  and  to 
banish  from  his  heart  the  vices  and  inordinate  affections  which 
trouble  the  tranquillity  of  it;  because  he  will  be  called  a  child 
of  God.» 


JEAN   BAPTTSTE   MASSIL/LON 

These,  Sire,  are  they  whom  Jesus  calls  blessed,  and  the  Gos- 
pel does  not  know  any  other  blessedness  on  earth  than  virtue 

and  innocence.  ' 

New  translation  by  J.  F.  B. 

Further  on  in  this  same  discourse,  where  he  feels  called  upon  to 
defend  himself  from  the  charge  of  preaching  on  imaginary  or  at  least 
exaggerated  delusions  of  the  world,  he  draws,  as  follows, — 


ONE  OF  His  CELEBRATED  PICTURES  OF  GENERAL  SOCIETY 

WHAT  is  the  world  for  the  worldlings  themselves  who  love  it, 
who  seem  intoxicated  with  its  pleasures,  and  who  are  not  able 
to  step  from  it?  The  world? — It  is  an  everlasting  servitude, 
where  no  one  lives  for  himself,  and  where  to  be  blest  one  must 
be  able  to  kiss  one's  fetters  and  love  one's  slavery.  The  world  ? 
—  It  is  a  daily  round  of  events  which  awaken  in  succession,  in 
the  hearts  of  its  -partisans,  the  most  violent  and  the  most  gloomy 
passions,  cruel  hatreds,  hateful  perplexities,  bitter  fears,  devour- 
ing jealousies,  overwhelming  griefs.  The  world  ?  —  It  is  a  terri- 
tory under  a  curse,  where  even  its  pleasures  carry  with  them 
their  thorns  and  their  bitternesses;  its  sport  tires  by  its  furies 
and  its  caprices;  its  conversations  annoy  by  the  oppositions  of 
its  moods  and  the  contrariety  of  its  sentiments;  its  passions 
and  criminal  attachments  have  their  disgusts,  their  derangements, 
their  unpleasant  brawls;  its  shows,  hardly  rinding  more  in  the 
spectators  than  souls  grossly  dissolute,  and  incapable  of  being 
awakened  but  by  the  most  monstrous  excesses  of  debauchery, 
become  stale,  while  moving  only  those  delicate  passions  which 
only  show  crime  in  the  distance,  and  dress  out  traps  for  inno- 
cence. The  world,  in  fine,  is  a  place  where  hope,  regarded  as  a 
passion  so  sweet,  renders  everybody  unhappy;  where  those  who 
have  nothing  to  hope  for,  think  themselves  still  more  miserable; 
where  all  that  pleases,  pleases  never  for  long;  and  where  ennui 
is  almost  the  sweetest  destiny  and  the  most  supportable  that  one 
can  expect  in  it. 

This,  my  brethren,  is  the  world:  and  it  is  not  the  obscure 
world,  which  knows  neither  the  great  pleasures  nor  the  charms 
of  prosperity,  of  favor,  and  of  wealth, — it  is  the  world  at  its 
best;  it  is  the  world  of  the  court ;^  it  is  you  yourselves  who  hear 
me,  my  brethren. 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  MASSILLON 

This  is  the  world;  and  it  is  not,  in  this  aspect,  one  of  those 
paintings  from  imagination  of  which  the  resemblance  is  nowhere 
to  be  found.  I  am  painting  the  world  only  after  your  own 
hearts;  that  is,  such  as  you  know  it  and  always  feel  it  yourselves 
to  be. 

There,  notwithstanding,  is  the  place  where  all  sinners  are  seek- 
ing their  felicity.  There  is  their  country.  It  is  there  that  they 
wish  they  could  eternize  themselves.  This  is  the  world  which 
they  prefer  to  the  eternal  joys  and  to  all  the  promises  of  faith. 

New  translation  by  J.  F.  B. 

An  exhaustive,  masterly,  and  tremendous  discourse,  perhaps  without 
a  parallel  in  all  literature  for  boldness  and  terrible  severity  in  scor- 
ing the  sin  of  unchastity,  was  that  on  the  ( Prodigal  Son,*  pronounced 
before  Louis  XIV.  in  the  chapel  at  Versailles  during  the  ( Grand 
Careme.*  His  text  was:  <(  He  went  into  a  far  country,  and  there 
wasted  his  substance  with  riotous  living. >}  His  exordium  consists  in 
repeating  minutely  the  story,  dwelling  on  the  willingness  to  live  far 
from  home,  with  swine  and  like  swine, — the  nastiness,  the  emptiness, 
the  deadliness  of  such  a  life, — and  closes  with  this  affecting 

PRAYER 

PURIFY    my   lips,   O   my   God!    and    while   I   shall    recount   the 
excess  of  a  voluptuous  sinner,  furnish  me  with  expressions 
which  will   not   offend  a  virtue,  the   love  of  which   I  come 
to-day   to   inspire   in   those   who   hear   me;    for   the   world,   which 
no  longer  knows  any  restraint  on  this  vice,  exacts  much  notwith- 
standing of  us  in  the  language  which  condemns  it. 

Then  he  opens  upon  this  sin  his  clean-sweeping  artillery  thus: — 

The  vice  the  deadly  consequences  of  which  I  am  to-day  un- 
dertaking to  expose  —  this  vice  so  universally  spread  abroad  on 
the  earth,  and  which  is  desolating  with  such  fury  the  heritage 
of  Jesus;  this  vice  of  which  the  Christian  religion  had  purged 
the  world,  and  which  to-day  has  prevailed  on  religion  itself — is 
marked  by  certain  peculiar  characteristics,  all  which  I  find  in  the 
story  of  the  wanderings  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 

There  is  never  a  vice  which  more  separates  the  sinner  from 
God ;  there  is  never  a  vice  which,  after  it  has  separated  him  from 
God,  leaves  him  less  resource  for  returning  to  Him;  there  is 
never  a  vice  which  renders  the  sinner  more  insupportable  to 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

himself;  finally,  there  is  not  one  which  renders  him  more  con- 
temptible in  the  eyes  even  of  other  men.  Observe,  I  pray,  all 
these  characteristics  in  the  story  of  the  sinner  of  our  gospel. 

The  first  characteristic  of  the  vice  of  which  we  are  speaking- 
is  the  putting,  as  it  were,  an  abyss  between  God  and  the  volup- 
tuous soul,  and  the  leaving  him  almost  no  more  hope  of  return. 
The  prodigal  of  our  gospel  went  off  at  first  into  a  very  far 
country,  which  left  no  longer  anything  in  common  between  him 
and  his  natural  father:  <(  He  took  his  journey  into  a  far  country. w 

Indeed,  in  all  the  other  vices,  the  sinner  seems  still  to  hold 
upon  God  by  some  feeble  ties.  There  are  some  vices  which  respect 
at  least  the  sacredness  of  the  body,  and  do  not  strengthen  its 
inordinate  inclinations;  there  are  others  which  do  not  spread  so 
deep  darkness  on  the  mind,  and  leave  at  least  some  use  of  the 
light  of  reason;  finally,  there  are  some  which  do  not  occupy 
the  heart  to  such  a  degree  as  absolutely  to  take  away  from  it  the 
relish  for  all  which  could  lead  back  to  God.  But  the  shameful 
passion  of  which  I  am  speaking  dishonors  the  body,  extinguishes 
reason,  renders  all  the  things  of  heaven  disagreeable,  and  raises 
a  wall  of  separation  between  God  and  the  sinner  which  seems  to 
take  away  all  hope  of  reunion. — ((  He  took  his  journey  into  a  far 
country. w 

I  said  that  it  dishonors  the  body  of  the  Christian;  it  profanes 
the  temple  of  God  in  us;  it  makes  the  members  of  Jesus  do  an 
ignominious  service:  it  soils  a  flesh  nourished  on  his  body  and 
his  blood,  consecrated  by  the  grace  of  baptism;  a  flesh  which  is 
to  attain  immortality  and  be  conformable  to  the  glorious  likeness 
of  Jesus  risen;  a  flesh  which  will  repose  in  the  holy  place,  and 
whose  ashes  will  await,  under  the  altar  of  the  Lamb,  the  day  of 
revelation,  mingled  with  the  ashes  of  the  virgins  and  the  martyrs; 
a  flesh  more  holy  than  those  august  temples  where  the  glory  of 
the  Lord  reposes;  more  worthy  of  being  possessed  with  honor 
and  with  reverence  than  the  very  vases  of  the  sanctuary,  conse- 
crated by  the  terrible  mysteries  which  they  inclose.  But  what  a 
barrier  does  not  the  opprobrium  of  this  vice  put  to  the  return  of 
God  into  us!  Can  a  holy  God,  in  whose  sight  even  the  heavenly 
spirits  are  unclean,  sufficiently  separate  himself  from  a  flesh  cov- 
ered with  shame  and  ignominy  ?  The  creature  being  but  dust 
and  ashes,  the  holiness  of  God  must  suffer  by  lowering  himself 
down  to  it:  ah,  what  then  can  the  sinner  promise  himself  who 
joins  to  his  own  nothingness  and  baseness  the  indignities  of  a 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

body  shamefully  dishonored  ?  — (<  He  took  his  journey  into  a  fai 
country. }) 

I  said  that  this  vice  extinguishes  even  in  the  soul  all  het 
lights,  and  that  the  sinner  is  no  longer  capable  of  those  salu- 
tary reflections  which  often  lead  back  an  unbelieving  soul.  The 
prodigal  of  our  gospel,  already  blinded  by  his  passion,  does  not 
see  the  wrong  he  is  doing  himself  in  separating  himself  from  his 
paternal  home;  the  ingratitude  of  which  he  is  rendering  himself 
culpable  towards  his  natural  father;  the  dangers  to  which  he  is 
exposing  himself  in  wishing  to  be  the  sole  arbiter  of  his  own 
destiny;  the  decencies  even  which  he  is  violating  in  setting  out 
for  a  far  country,  without  the  counsel  and  advice  of  him  to  whom 
he  owes  at  least  the  sentiments  of  reverence  and  deference  which 
mere  nature  itself  inspires.  He  starts,  and  no  longer  sees  but  by 
the  eyes  of  his  passion.  — <(  He  took  his  journey  into  a  far  coun- 
try. » 

Such  is  the  characteristic  of  this  ill-fated  passion, —  it  spreads 
a  thick  cloud  over  reason:  men  wise,  shrewd,  brilliant,  lose  here 
at  once  all  their  shrewdness,  all  their  wisdom;  all  their  principles 
of  conduct  are  instantly  effaced;  a  new  manner  of  thinking  is 
made  up,  in  which  all  the  ordinary  ideas  are  proscribed, —  it  is 
no  longer  light  and  counsel,  it  is  an  impetuous  inclination  which 
decides  and  rules  all  their  proceedings;  what  one  owes  to  others 
and  what  one  owes  to  one's  self  is  forgotten;  one  is  blind  to 
one's  fortune,  to  one's  duty,  to  one's  reputation,  to  one's  interests, 
to  the  decencies  even  of  which  the  other  passions  are  so  jealous; 
and  while  one  is  giving  one's  self  for  a  spectacle  to  the  public, 
it  is  one's  self  alone  that  does  not  see  one.  One  is  made  blind 
to  fortune:  and  Ammon  loses  his  life  and  crown  for  not  having 
been  able  to  subdue  his  unjust  feebleness.  One  is  made  blind  to 
duty :  and  the  impassioned  wife  of  Potiphar  no  longer  remembers 
that  Joseph  is  a  slave ;  she  forgets  her  birth,  her  glory,  her  pride, 
and  no  longer  sees  in  that  Hebrew  aught  but  the  object  of  her 
shameful  passion.  One  is  made  blind  to  gratitude:  and  David 
has  no  longer  eyes  either  for  Uriah's  faithfulness,  or  for  the 
ingratitude  of  which  he  is  going  to  render  himself  guilty  towards 
a  God  who  had  drawn  him  from  the  dust  to  set  him  on  the 
throne  of  Judah;  from  the  time  that  his  heart  was  touched,  all 
his  lights  were  extinguished.  .  .  .  Thus  it  is,  O  my  God! 
that  thou  punishest  the  passions  of  the  flesh  by  the  darkness  of 
the  rnind;  that  thy  light  shines  no  longer  on  souls  adulterous  and 


JEAN  BAPTISTE  MASSILLON 

corrupt,  and  that  their  foolish  heart  is  darkened.  — (<  He  took  his 
journey  into  a  far  country. J> 

Finally,  this  deplorable  passion  puts  into  the  heart  an  invinci- 
ble disgust  for  the  things  of  heaven.  .  .  .  Whatever  is  not 
marked  by  the  shameful  characteristic  of  voluptuousness  interests 
no  longer.  Even  the  duties  of  society,  the  functions  of  a  charge, 
the  decencies  of  a  dignity,  domestic  cares, —  all  weary,  all  become 
disagreeable,  outside  of  passion.  .  .  .  Solomon  is  more  attent- 
ive to  building  profane  temples  to  the  gods  of  his  foreign  wives 
than  to  easing  his  people  of  the  weight  of  the  public  expense. 
[A  thrust  of  amazing  boldness  in  the  face  of  Louis  XIV. !]  .  .  . 
One  employs  one  s  self  in  occupations  all  which  go  to  nourish 
voluptuousness,  —  profane  shows,  pernicious  reading,  lascivious 
music,  obscene  pictures.  .  .  .  It  is  the  characteristic  of  this 
passion  to  fill  the  whole  heart  entirely;  one  is  no  longer  able 
to  occupy  one's  self  but  with  it;  one  is  possessed,  drunk  with 
it;  one  finds  it  everywhere;  everything  shows  the  marks  of  its 
deadly  impress;  everything  awakens  its  iniquitous  desires;  the 
world,  solitude,  presence,  absence,  objects  the  most  indifferent, 
occupations  the  most  serious,  the  holy  temple  itself,  the  sacred 
altars,  the  terrible  mysteries,  recall  the  remembrance  of  it:  and 
everything  becomes  unclean,  as  the  Apostle  says,  to  him  who  is 
already  himself  unclean.  — (<  He  took  his  journey  into  a  far  coun- 
try. » 

Look  back,  unbelieving  soul;  recall  those  first  sentiments  of 
modesty  and  virtue  with  which  you  were  born,  and  see  all  the 
way  you  have  made  in .  the  road  of  iniquity,  since  the  fatal  day 
when  this  shameful  vice  soiled  your  heart;  and  how  much  you 
have  since  removed  yourself  away  from  your  God :  <(  He  took  his 

journey  into  a  far  country. w 

Translation  of  J.  F.  B. 

Probably  the  most  visibly  effective  of  all  the  many  extraordinary 
bursts  of  Massillon's  oratory  was  the  celebrated  passage  in  the  per- 
oration of  the  sermon  on  the  <  Small  Number  of  the  Saved,  >  pro- 
nounced before  Louis  XIV.  in  the  chapel  royal  at  Versailles  in  the 
course  of  the  c  Grand  Careme } ;  when,  having  in  a  long  discourse 
wrought  up  and  prepared  his  auditory,  he  began:  — 

If  Jesus  should  appear  in  this  temple,  in  the  midst  of  this 
assembly,  the  most  august  in  the  whole  world,  to  be  our  judge, 
to  make  the  terrible  separation  between  the  sheep  and  the  goats. 


JEAN   BAPTISTE   MASSILLON 

do  you  believe  that  the  greater  number  of  us  would  be  set  on 
his  right  hand  ?  —  do  you  believe  that  things  would  be  at  least 
equal?  —  do  you  believe  there  would  be  found  here  only  ten 
righteous,  which  the  Lord  was  not  able  to  find  formerly  in  five 
entire  cities?  I  ask  you;  —  you  do  not  know,  I  do  not  know  my- 
self. Thou  alone,  O  God,  dost  know  those  who  belong  to  thee! 
But  if  we  do  not  know  who  belong  to  him,  we  do  know  at  least 
that  sinners  do  not.  But  wrho  are  the  faithful  believers  here  as- 
sembled ? —  Titles  and  dignities  must  be  counted  for  nothing;  you 
will  be  stripped  of  them  before  Jesus.  Who  are  they  ?  A  mass 
of  sinners  who  do  not  wish  to  be  converted;  still  more  who  wish 
to  be,  but  who  are  putting  off  their  conversion:  a  good  many 
who  were  converted,  but  only  always  to  backslide;  finally,  a 
great  number  who  think  they  have  no  need  of  conversion:  here 
is  the  party  of  the  reprobates.  Retrench  these  four  sorts  of  sin- 
ners from  this  holy  assembly;  for  they  will  be  retrenched  in  the 
great  day;  —  appear  now,  ye  righteous:  where  are  you!  Remnant 
of  Israel,  pass  to  the  right;  wheat  of  Jesus,  separate  yourselves 
from  this  chaff  destined  to  the  fire.  O  God!  where  are  thine 
elect  ?  and  what  remains  for  thy  portion  ? 

New  translation  by  J.  F.  B. 

It  is  a  curious  and  very  significant  tradition  that  this  tremendous 
sermon  had  been  pronounced  before  in  St.  Eustache  in  Paris,  where 
the  turn  in  the  passage  given  above  was  unexpected,  and  the  effect 
unparalleled.  At  his  call  for  (<the  remnant  of  Israel, »  it  is  said  that 
the  whole  congregation,  carried  away  in  sympathy  with  the  orator, 
rose  to  their  feet  in  a  body,  not  knowing  what  they  were  doing. 
Stranger  still,  this  was  known  at  Versailles,  and  the  passage  was 
expected  and  eagerly  awaited.  Yet  hard  as  it  is  to  credit  it,  we  are 
told  that  the  effect  was  not  a  whit  less  tremendous.  Strangest  per- 
haps of  all,  it  is  said  that  Massillon  himself,  by  his  posture,  by  his 
look  of  dejection,  by  his  silence  of  some  seconds  (a  frequent  usage  of 
his  to  add  emphasis),  associated  himself  with  and  augmented  the  ter- 
ror of  the  audience  in  the  chapel  royal  at  Versailles.  But  we  must 
suppose  that  it  was  an  expression  of  sincere  sympathy,  as  well  as  a 
sentiment  of  refinement  and  decency. 


9797 


PHILIP  MASSINGER 

(1583-1640) 

BY  ANNA  MCCLURE   SHOLL 

(HE  plays  of  Philip  Massinger  embody  the  prosaic  spirit  of  the 
period  of  decline  which  followed  Shakespeare.  This  spirit 
is  not  indicated  by  the  subject-matter  of  his  dramas.  The 
plots  of  <The  Duke  of  Milan,  >  (  The  Guardian,'  or  <The  Fatal  Dowry,  > 
admit  of  great  treatment.  In  Massinger's  hands  they  are  at  least 
well  woven.  His  absence  of  imagination  is  shown  rather  by  his 
lack  of  moral  consistency  in  the  depiction 
of  character.  His  men  and  women  are  pup- 
pets, moved  to  action  by  the  will  of  their 
artificer,  not  by  the  laws  of  their  individu- 
ality. 

The  events  of  Massinger's  life  are  ob- 
scure and  elusive.  He  was  born  in  1583; 
he  entered  St.  Albans  Hall,  Oxford,  in  1602. 
During  his  four  years'  residence  there  <(  he 
gave  his  mind  more  to  poetry  and  romances 
than  to  logic  and  philosophy. »  After  leav- 
ing Oxford  he  went  up  to  London,  to  throw 
in  his  fortunes  with  the  frequenters  of  the 
Mermaid  Tavern.  The  enchanted  world  of 
the  drama  was  at  that  time  clothed  in  the 

richness  and  beauty  of  its  prime.  The  young  hearts  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  of  Webster  and  Tourneur,  still  throbbed  with  (<the  love 
of  love,  the  hate  of  hate."  The  brain  of  genius  was  still  unchilled 
by  doubt  and  speculation. 

Massinger,  though  contemporary  with  these  great  children  of  a 
great  age,  belongs  by  his  spirit  to  a  duller  time.  His  dramas  have 
the  solidity  of  prose  without  its  freedom.  His  characters  and  situa- 
tions lack  the  spontaneity  of  nature.  He  is  melodramatic  in  the 
sense  that  his  men  and  women  are  personifications  of  virtue  or  vice. 
The  broad  via  media,  the  highway  on  which  the  majority  of  mankind 
is  afoot,  has  no  place  in  his  dramas.  He  is  blind  to  the  half-lights 
of  character, — to  the  subtle  blen dings  of  shade  and  color  in  the  minds 
of  mer>- 


PHILIP  MASSINGER 


PHILIP   MASSINGER 

Camiola  and  Adorni  in  <  The  Maid  of  Honour  >  are  exceptions  to  this 
rule.  Camiola,  who  loves  Bertoldo  and  is  herself  hopelessly  beloved 
of  Adorni,  is  (<  a  small  but  ravishing  substance. w  Her  impetuous  affec- 
tion, like  Juliet's,  goes  directly  to  its  goal  without  subterfuge  or 
deviation.  When  she  learns  from  the  servants  that  Bertoldo  is  in 
prison,  abandoned  by  the  King,  the  impatience  of  her  sorrow  leaps  to 
her  lips:  — 

<( Possible!     Pray  you,  stand  off. 
If  I  do  mutter  treason  to  myself 

My  heart  will  break;   and  yet  I  will  not  curse  him, — 
He  is  my  King.     The  news  you  have  delivered 
Makes  me  weary  of  your  company:    we'll  salute 
When  we  meet  next.     I'll  bring  you  to  the  door. 
Nay,  pray  you,  no  more  compliments. }) 

Adorni  is  a  noble  and  convincing  figure.  When  commissioned  by 
Camiola  to  rescue  his  rival,  she  asks  of  him,  (<  You  will  do  this  ? })  He 
answers,  « Faithfully,  madam ;»  then  aside,  ((but  not  live  long  after. » 
Massinger  rarely  clothes  such  abundance  of  meaning  in  so  few  words. 

( The  Fatal  Dowry  >  and  ( The  Duke  of  Milan y  are  generally  as- 
signed the  first  place  among  the  tragedies  of  Massinger.  They  are 
stately  plays,  but  dreary  and  lifeless.  His  two  comedies  (A  New 
Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts  >  and  <  The  City  Madam )  are  comedies  only 
in  the  sense  that  they  do  not  end  in  death  and  disaster.  The  char- 
acter of  Sir  Giles  Overreach  in  the  former  play  has  held  the  stage 
until  the  present  time.  Of  Massinger's  classical  dramas,  Arthur 
Symons  assigns  the  highest  place  to  ( Believe  as  You  List,*  though 
the  better  known  play  <  The  Roman  Actor  >  was  held  by  the  author 
<(to  be  the  most  perfect  work  of  my  Minerva. » 

Massinger  is  farthest  from  greatness  in  his  depiction  of  women. 
With  the  exception  of  Camiola,  of  Lidia  in  the  ( Great  Duke  of 
Florence, >  of  Bellisant  in  the  'Parliament  of  Love,*  of  Matilda  in  the 
*  Bashful  Lover, y  and  of  one  or  two  others,  his  women  are  vulgar 
and  sensual.  Their  purity  and  their  vice  are  alike  unconvincing. 
This  defect  of  portrayal  is  common,  however,  to  the  majority  of 
Massinger's  characters.  They  are  uninteresting  because  their  qualities 
are  imposed  upon  them.  There  is  no  fidelity  to  the  hidden  springs 
of  action. 

Massinger  wrote  a  number  of  plays  in  conjunction  with  other 
dramatists.  The  best  known  is  <The  Virgin-Martyr.'  Dekker's  touch 
is  recognizable  in  such  lines  as  these:  — 

(( I  could  weary  stars, 

And  force  the  wakeful  moon  to  lose  her  eyes, 
With  my  late  watching. » 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  9799 

Massinger  was  a  prolific  writer.  Beside  the  plays  already  men- 
tioned,  he  gave  to  the  stage  of  his  day  <The  Renegade,  >  <The  Bond- 
man, >  (A  Very  Woman,  >  <  The  Emperor  of  the  East,>  <The  Pictured 
and  (The  Unnatural  Combat.*  Coleridge  has  recommended  the  diction 
of  JMassinger  to  the  imitation  of  modern  writers,  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  the  nearest  approach  to  the  language  of  real  life  at  all  com- 
patible with  a  fixed  metre. .  It  is  this  very  characteristic  of  it  which 
deprives  it  of  the  highest  poetical  quality. 


FROM  <THE  MAID  OF  HONOUR  > 

[Camiola,  who  is  in  love  with  Bertoldo,  is  told  by  his  Friends  Antonio 
and  Gasparo  that  he  is  a  prisoner,  and  that  the  King  has  refused  to  pay  hia 
ransom.] 

Enter  a  Servant 

Servant  —  The  signiors,  madam,  Gasparo  and  Antonio, 
Selected  friends  of  the  renowned  Bertoldo, 
Put  ashore  this  morning. 

Camiola  —  Without  him  ? 

Servant —  I  think  so. 

Camiola  —  Never  think  more,  then! 

Servant —  They  have  been  at 'court, 

Kissed  the  King's  hand,  and,  their  first  duties  done 
To  him,  appear  ambitious  to  tender 
To  you  their  second  service. 

Camiola —  Wait  them  hither. 

Fear,  do  not  rack  me!     Reason,  now  if  ever 
Haste  with  thy  aids,  and  tell  me,  such  a  wonder 
As  my  Bertoldo  is,  with  such  care  fashioned, 
Must  not,  nay,   cannot,  in  Heaven's  providence 
So  soon  miscarry !  — 

Enter  Antonio  and  Gasparo 

Pray  you,  forbear:  ere  you  take 
The  privilege  as  strangers  to  salute  me, 
(Excuse  my  manners)  make  me  first  understand 
How  it  is  with  Bertoldo. 


9800 


PHILIP  MASSINGER 


Gasparo —  The  relation 

Will  not,  I  fear,  deserves  your  thanks. 
Antonio —  I  wish 

Some  other  should  inform  you. 
Camiola —  Is  he  dead? 

You  see,  though  with  some  fear,  I  dare  inquire  it. 
Gasparo — Dead!     Would  that  were  the  worst:  a  debt  were  paid  then.. 

Kings  in  their  birth  owe  nature. 
Camiola —  Is  there  aught 

More  terrible  than  death  ? 
Antonio —  Yes,  to  a  spirit 

Like  his:  cruel  imprisonment,  and  that 

Without  the  hope  of  freedom. 
Camiola —  You  abuse  me: 

The  royal  King  cannot,  in  love  to  virtue, 

(Though  all  the  springs  of  affection  were  dried  up) 

But  pay  his  ransom. 
Gasparo —  When  you  know  what  'tis. 

You  will  think  otherwise:  no  less  will  do  it 

Than  fifty  thousand  crowns. 
Camiola—  A  petty  sum, 

The  price  weighed  with  the  purchase:  fifty  thousand! 

To  the  King  'tis  nothing.     He  that  can  spare  more 

To  his  minion  for  a  masque,  cannot  but  ransom 

Such  a  brother  at  a  million.     You  wrong 

The  King's  munificence. 
Antonio —  In  your  opinion; 

But  'tis  most  certain:  he  does  not  alone 

In  himself  refuse  to  pay  it,  but  forbids 

All  other  men. 

Camiola —  Are  you  sure  of  this? 

Gasparo —  You  may  read 

The  edict  to  that  purpose,  published  by  him. 

That  will  resolve  you. 
Camiola —  Possible!     Pray  you,  stand  off. 

If  I  do  mutter  treason  to  myself 

My  heart  will  break;  and  yet  I  will  not  curse  him, — 

He  is  my  King.     The  news  you  have  delivered 

Makes  me  weary  of  your  company:  we'll  salute 

When  we  meet  next.     I'll  bring  you  to  the  door. 

Nay,  pray  you,  no  more  compliments. 


PHILIP   MASSINGER  9801 

FROM  <A  NEW  WAY  TO  PAY  OLD  DEBTS  > 

[Sir  Giles   Overreach,  on  fire  with  greed  and  with  ambition  to  found  a 
great  feudal  house,  treats  about  marrying  his  daughter  with  Lord  Lovell.] 

OVERREACH  —  To  my  wish:   we  are  private. 
I  come  not  to  make  offer  with  my  daughter 
A  certain  portion, — that  were  poor  and  trivial: 
In  one  word  I  pronounce  all  that  is  mine, 
In  lands  or  leases,  ready  coin  or  goods, 
With  her,  my  lord,  comes  to  you;   nor  shall  you  have 
One  motive  to  induce  you  to  believe 
I  live  too  long,  since  every  year  I'll  add 
Something  unto  the  heap,  which  shall  be  yours  too. 
Lovell —     You  are  a  right  kind  father. 

Overreach —  You  shall  have  reason 

To  think  me  such.     How  do  you  like  this  seat? 
It  is  well  wooded  and  well  watered, — the  acres 
Fertile  and  rich:   would  it  not  serve  for  change 
To  entertain  your  friends  in  a  summer  progress? 
What  thinks  my  noble  lord  ? 

Lovell—  'Tis  a  wholesome  air, 

And  well  built;   and  she  that  is  mistress  of  it 
Worthy  the  large  revenues. 

Overreach—  She  the  mistress! 

It  may  be  so  for  a  time ;   but  let  my  lord 
Say  only  that  he  but  like  it,  and  would  have  it, — 
I  say,  ere  long  'tis  his. 

Lovell—  Impossible ! 

Overreach  — 

You  do  conclude  too  fast:  not  knowing  me, 
Nor  the  engines  that  I  work  by.     'Tis  not  alone 
The  lady  Allworth's  lands;  —  but  point  out  any  man's 
In  all  the  shire,  and  say  they  lie  convenient 
And  useful  for  your  Lordship,  and  once  more 
I  say  aloud,  they  are  yours. 

Lovell —  I  dare  not  own 

What's  by  unjust  and  cruel  means  extorted. 
My  fame  and  credit  are  more  dear  to  me, 
Than  so  to  expose  'em  to  be  censured  by 
The  public  voice. 

Overreach—  You  run,  my  lord,  no  hazard: 

Your  reputation  shall  stand  as  fair 
In  all  good  men's  opinions  as  now. 
Nor  can  my  actions,  though  condemned  for  ill, 
Cast  any  foul  aspersion  upon  yours: 


9802 


PHILIP  MASSINGER 


For  though  I  do  contemn  report  myself, 

As  a  mere  sound,  I  still  will  be  so  tender 

Of  what  concerns  you  in  all  points  of  honor, 

That  the  immaculate  whiteness  of  your  fame, 

Nor  your  unquestioned  integrity, 

Shall  e'er  be  sullied  with  one  taint  or  spot 

That  may  take  from  your  innocence  and  candor. 

All  my  ambition  is  to  have  my  daughter 

Right  Honorable,  which  my  lord  can  make  her; 

And  might  I  live  to  dance  upon  my  knee 

A  young  Lord  Lovell,  born  by  her  unto  you, 

I  write  nil  ultra  to  my  proudest  hopes. 

As  for  possessions  and  annual  rents, 

Equivalent  to  maintain  you  in  the  part 

Your  noble  birth  and  present  state  require, 

I  do  remove  the  burden  from  your  shoulders, 

And  take  it  on  my  own";  for  though  I  ruin 

The  country  to  supply  your  riotous  waste, 

The  scourge  of  prodigals  (want)  shall  never  find  you. 

Are  you  not  frighted  with  the  imprecations 

And  curses  of  whole  families,  made  wretched 

By  your  sinister  practices  ? 

Overreach —  Yes,  as  rocks  are 

When  foamy  billows  split  themselves  against 
Their  flinty  ribs;   or  as  the  moon  is  moved 
When  wolves,  with  hunger  pined,  howl  at  her  brightness. 
I  am  of  a  solid  temper,  and  like  these, 
Steer  on  a  constant  course:  with  mine  own  sword, 
If  called  into  the  field,  I  can  make  that  right 
Which  fearful  enemies  murmured  at  as  wrong. 
Now,  for  those  other  piddling  complaints, 
Breathed  out  in  bitterness:  as  when  they  call  me 
Extortioner,  tyrant,  cormorant,  or  intruder 
On  my  poor  neighbor's  rights,  or  grand  incloser 
Of  what  was  common  to  my  private  use; 
Nay,  when  my  ears  are  pierced  with  widows'  cries, 
And  undone  orphans  wash  with  tears  my  threshold' 
I  only  think  what  'tis  to  have  my  daughter 
Right  Honorable;  and  'tis  a  powerful  charm 
Makes  me  insensible  of  remorse  or  pity, 
Or  the  least  sting  of  conscience. 

Lovell —  I  admire 

The  toughness  of  your  nature. 

Overreach —  'Tis  for  you, 

My  lord,  and  for  my  daughter,  I  am  marble. 


9802  a 


BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

(1852-) 

BY   ERNEST   HUNTER   WRIGHT 

>ORN  at  New  Orleans  February  2ist,  1852,  Brander  Matthews 
was  educated  in  New  York,  where  he  was  graduated  from 
Columbia  College  in  1871  and  from  the  Columbia  Law  School 
two  years  later.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  but  a  fortunate  choice 
soon  turned  him  to  the  profession  of  letters.  His  first  book  was  pub- 
lished in  1879,  an(i  since  that  date  he  has  contributed  uninterruptedly 
to  literature,  in  drama,  fiction,  biography,  and  perhaps  most  signally, 
in  criticism.  In  recognition  of  the  distinction  of  his  books  he  was 
called  to  Columbia  as  lecturer  in  English  in  1891,  and  in  the  following 
year  was  appointed  professor  of  literature.  In  1899  he  became  the 
professor  of  dramatic  literature,  and  in  this  professorate  he  has  been, 
since  1903,  the  senior  member  of  the  Department  of  English  in  the 
university. 

He  has  been  a  prolific  author  in  several  fields.  Beginning  with  a 
volume  on  (The  Theatres  of  Paris)  in  1880,  he  continued  his  studies  of 
the  French  stage  with  (French  Dramatists  of  the  Nineteenth  Century) 
in  iSSi.  Without  taking  leave  of  the  field  of  criticism,  he  then  devoted 
himself  principally  for  more  than  ten  years  to  the  drama,  the  novel,  and 
the  short  story.  His  comedy  of  (Margery's  Lovers,)  produced  in  1884, 
was  followed  by  (This  Picture  and  That)  in  1887  and  (The  Decision  of 
the  Court)  in  1893;  and  he  also  collaborated  with  George  H.  Jessop  in 
(A  Gold  Mine)  (1887)  and  (On  Probation)  (1889),  and  with  Bronson 
Howard  in  (Peter  Stuyvesant)  (1898).  In  fiction  he  was  more  produc- 
tive; the  titles  of  the  novels  and  short  stories  in  his  seventeen  volumes 
of  narrative  are  too  numerous  for  full  citation  here.  They  include 
(Tom  Paulding)  (1892),  (His  Father's  Son)  (1895),  (Tales  of  Fantasy 
and  Fact)  (1896),  (Outlines  in  Local  Color)  (1897),  (A  Confident  To- 
morrow) (1899),  and  (Vistas  of  New  York)  (1912).  Without  delivering 
himself  to  the  rigors  of  realistic  theory,  Professor  Matthews  consistently 
wrote  of  the  life  that  passed  before  his  eyes;  and  if  one  type  of  his  fiction 
should  be  selected  more  than  another  for  especial  mention,  it  should 
probably  be  such  stories  as  the  (Vignettes  of  Manhattan)  (1894),  in 
which,  over  and  above  the  tale  that  is  told,  he  has  given  us  faithful 
etchings  of  certain  characters  and  certain  modes  of  living  which  the 
hurried  growth  of  the  metropolis  has  all  but  obliterated  and  which  now 
endure  dimly  in  the  memories  of  men  turned  gray.  i 


98o2b  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

During  the  years  devoted  largely  to  drama  and  to  fiction,  Professor 
Matthews  was  also  steadily  producing  in  the  essay  form,  using  it  prin- 
cipally for  literary  and  dramatic  criticism,  and  in  the  last  twenty  years 
the  bulk  of  his  work  has  been  done  in  this  field.  In  the  total  product  of 
his  pen  his  criticisms  form  the  major  part,  and  probably  will  prove  his 
most  valuable  work.  (Pen  and  Ink,)  from  1888,  is  a  sheaf  of  essays  on 
various  subjects,  grave  and  gay.  (Americanisms  and  Briticisms) 
(1892)  presents,  among  other  things,  an  unbiassed  study  of  variant 
diction  in  which  information  is  seasoned  with  amusement.  (Studies  of 
the  Stage)  (1894)  treats  various  aspects  of  the  art  to  which  the  author 
has  given  most  thought  and  devotion.  (Bookbindings,  Old  and  New) 
(1895)  betrays  by  its  title  another  interest  of  the  author  which  is  re- 
flected here  and  there  in  others  of  his  works.  The  ( Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  American  Literature)  (1896)  has  been  a  companion  to  thou- 
sands of  students  through  school  and  college  courses.  (Aspects  of 
Fiction)  (1896)  contains,  beside  much  else,  studies  in  the  technic  of  the 
novel  and  the  short  story,  an  art  to  which,  incidentally,  the  author  has 
contributed  in  criticism  a  body  of  doctrine  comparable  with  the  more 
extended  doctrine  of  the  drama  of  which  he  has  been  a  leading  formu- 
lator.  Criticism  of 'this  and  other -kinds  he  carries  on  into  (The  His- 
torical Novel  and  Other  Essays)  in  1901.  In  (Parts  of  Speech,)  from 
the  same  year,  he  returns  to  a  study  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  the 
title-essay  in  (Americanisms  and  Briticisms.)  In  (The  Development  of 
the  Drama)  (1903)  he  traces  the  history  of  dramatic  art  from  its  begin- 
nings among  barbarian  tribes  to  its  full  development  in  modern  society. 
Then,  after  two  volumes  of  essays  on  various  subjects  in  (Inquiries  and 
Opinions)  (1907)  and  (The  American  of  the  Future,  and  Other  Essays) 
(1909),  he  returns  to  the  art  of  play-making  in  (A  Study  of  the  Drama) 
in  1910.  (A  Study  of  Versification)  followed  this  in  the  next  year. 
Miscellaneous  treatises  on  literary  topics  were  combined  in  (Gateways 
to  Literature)  in  1913.  And  (A  Book  About  the  Theatre,)  in  1916, 
is  the  author's  latest  volume  of  studies  in  his  favorite  art. 

Within  the  limits  of  this  article  it  is  not  possible  to  mention,  even  by 
name,  all  the  works  of  Professor  Matthews.  A  list  that  should  include, 
besides  those  already  mentioned  and  others  similar  in  kind,  his  various 
pamphlets  and  booklets,  his  numerous  prefaces  and  extensive  editorial 
work,  and  the  chapters  he  has  contributed  to  volumes  written  in  col- 
laboration, would  be  impressive  for  its  length;  and  it  is  superfluous  to  say 
that  the  exceptionally  sustained  quality  of  work  so  varied  has  long 
since  assured  him  a  position  in  the  front  rank  of  contemporary  authors 
in  America.  But  two  at  least  of  his  later  volumes  call  for  especial  notice. 
In  more  than  one  sense  his  biography  of  (Moliere,)  from  1910,  and  his 
(Shakespeare  as  a  Playwright,)  from  1913,  are  the  work  of  a  lifetime. 
The  one  he  had  actually  planned  in  youth,  and  the  other  voices  with 
equal  emphasis  a  lifelong  interest.  But  more  than  this,  the  matured 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  98020 

critical  gifts  of  the  author,  which  had  always  been  devoted  most  willingly 
and  most  valuably  to  the  drama,  find  here  their  amplest  opportunity 
in  the  two  leading  dramatists  of  modern  times;  and  the  principles  of  the 
dramatic  art,  which  the  author  has  derived  from  the  study  of  its  entire 
history  and  which  he  has  formulated  in  a  score  of  other  works,  are  here 
given  their  fullest  application  and  illustration.  To  Professor  Matthews 
the  drama  has  always  been  much  more  than  a  literary  art.  It  is  the 
picture  of  an  action  shown  not  merely  in  words,  but  in  the  flesh,  in  the 
persons  of  certain  actors  before  a  certain  audience  in  a  certain  kind  of 
theatre.  It  is  a  plastic  as  well  as  a  literary  art.  For  the  kind  of  criti- 
cism that  recognizes  it  as  such,  Professor  Matthews  has  been  one  of 
the  leading  spokesmen  in  America,  and  possibly  his  success  in  this 
endeavor  has  been  his  main  achievement  as  a  critic.  It  is  therefore 
natural  that  the  most  original  chapters  of  his  (Moliere)  and  of  his 
(Shakespeare)  should  be  those  that  attempt  to  show  —  what  had  been 
too  often  neglected  —  how  the  plays  of  these  dramatists  were  molded, 
in  accordance  with  the  cardinal  laws  of  all  drama,  with  an  eye  upon  the 
actors  who  were  to  produce  them,  upon  the  audiences  who  were  to  wit- 
ness them,  and  upon  the  theatres  which  aided  and  limited  the  presenta- 
tion of  them. 

The  work  of  Professor  Matthews  has  not  failed  of  recognition.  Since 
the  days  when  he  used  to  write  for  the  Saturday  Review  his  reputation 
has  been  international.  He  is  a  member  of  many  clubs  and  societies  in 
America  and  abroad.  Of  several  of  these  he  was  a  founder,  among  them 
the  Authors  and  the  Players  in  New  York,  and  the  Kinsmen  in  New 
York  and  London.  He  was  also  an  organizer  of  the  American  Copyright 
League,  of  the  Columbia  University  Press,  of  the  Dunlap  Society,  of  the 
National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters,  and  of  the  Simplified  Spelling 
Board.  The  last  three  of  these  he  has  served  as  president  or  chairman. 
He  bears  the  honorary  doctorate  from  several  universities,  wears  the 
ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  sits  in  the  American  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Letters.  His  friends  form  a  host;  the  list  of  them  is  like  a  roll- 
call  of  the  great  men  of  three  nations  in  the  last  half-century.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  add  that  he  knows  himself  how  to  be  a  friend.  In  conversa- 
tion he  is  one  of  the  foremost  of  American  wits.  In  his  work  he  has  been 
at  once  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  letters  —  one  of  the  few  men  of  his  time 
who  has  given  to  scholarship  the  voice  of  literature.  That  voice,  above 
all  else,  has  been  one  of  clarity.  They  say  in  France  that  if  a  sentence  is 
not  clear  it  is  not  French.  Certainly  we  of  the  English  tongue  can  boast 
no  such  distinction.  But  the  author  whose  work  we  have  here  been 
reviewing  has  been  a  lifelong  reader  of  French  prose,  and  whether  this 
be  part  of  the  reason  or  not,  there  is  no  exaggeration  in  the  statement 
that  if  a  sentence  fails  of  clarity  it  was  not  written  by  Brander  Matthews. 
And  clarity  in  diction,  here  as  usually,  is  the  token  of  lucidity  of  mind 
and  sincerity  of  purpose. 


9802  d  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

AMERICAN  CHARACTER 

From  (The  American  of  the  Future  and  Other  Essays.)     Copyright  by  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  and  reprinted  by  their  permission. 


IN  a  volume  recording  a  series  of  talks  with  Tolstoi,  published  by 
a  French  writer  in  the  final  months  of  1904,  we  are  told  that 
the  Russian  novelist  thought  the  Dukhobors  had  attained  to 
a  perfected  life,  in  that  they  were  simple,  free  from  envy,  wrath,  and 
ambition,  detesting  violence,  refraining  from  theft  and  murder,  and 
seeking  ever  to  do  good.  Then  the  Parisian  interviewer  asked  which 
of  the  peoples  of  the  world  seemed  most  remote  from  the  perfection 
to  which  the  Dukhobors  had  elevated  themselves;  and  when  Tolstoi 
returned  that  he  had  given  no  thought  to  this  question,  the  French 
correspondent  suggested  that  we  Americans  deserved  to  be  held  up 
to  scorn  as  the  least  worthy  of  nations. 

The  tolerant  Tolstoi  asked  his  visitor  why  he  thought  so  ill  of  us ; 
and  the  journalist  of  Paris  then  put  forth  the  opinion  that  we  Ameri- 
cans are  «a  people  terribly  practical,  avid  ,of  pleasure,  systematically 
hostile  to  all  idealism.  The  ambition  of  the  American's  heart,  the 
passion  of  his  life,  is  money ;  and  it  is  rather  a  delight  in  the  conquest 
and  possession  of  money  than  in  the  use  of  it.  The  Americans  ignore 
the  arts;  they  despise  disinterested  beauty.  And  now,  moreover, 
they  are  imperialists.  They  could  have  remained  peaceful  without 
danger  to  their  national  existence;  but  they  had  to  have  a  fleet  and 
an  army.  They  set  out  after  Spain,  and  attacked  her;  and  now 
they  begin  to  defy  Europe.  Is  there  not  something  scandalous  in 
this  revelation  of  the  conquering  appetite  in  a  new  people  with  no 
hereditary  predisposition  toward  war?)) 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  French  correspondent  that  after  setting 
down  this  fervid  arraignment,  he  was  honest  enough  to  record  Tolstoi's 
dissent.  But  although  he  dissented,  the  great  Russian  expressed 
little  surprise  at  the  virulence  of  this  diatribe.  No  doubt  it  voiced 
an  opinion  familiarized  to  him  of  late  by  many  a  newspaper  of  France 
and  of  Germany.  Fortunately  for  us,  the  assertion  that  foreign 
nations  are  a  contemporaneous  posterity  is  not  quite  true.  Yet  the 
opinion  of  foreigners,  even  when  most  at  fault,  must  have  its  value 
for  us  as  a  useful  corrective  of  conceit.  We  ought  to  be  proud  of 
our  country;  but  we  need  not  be  vain  about  it.  Indeed,  it  would 
be  difficult  for  the  most  patriotic  of  us  to  find  any  satisfaction  in  the 
figure  of  the  typical  American  which  apparently  exists  in  the  mind 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  98020 

of  most  Europeans,  and  which  seems  to  be  a  composite  photograph 
of  the  backwoodsman  of  Cooper,  the  negro  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  the 
Mississippi  river-folk  of  Mark  Twain,  modified  perhaps  by  more 
vivid  memories  of  Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West.  Surely  this  is  a  strange 
monster;  and  we  need  not  wonder  that  foreigners  feel  towards  it  as 
Voltaire  felt  toward  the  prophet  Habakkuk,  —  whom  he  declared  to 
be  ((capable  of  anything.)) 

It  has  seemed  advisable  to  quote  here  what  the  Parisian  journal- 
ist said  of  us,  not  because  he  himself  is  a  person  of  consequence, 
indeed,  he  is  so  obscure  that  there  is  no  need  even  to  mention  his 
name,  but  because  he  has  had  the  courage  to  attempt  what  Burke 
declared  to  be  impossible,  —  to  draw  an  indictment  against  a  whole 
nation.  It  would  be  easy  to  retort  on  him  in  kind,  for,  unfortunately, 
—  and  to  the  grief  of  all  her  friends,  —  France  has  laid  herself  open 
to  accusations  as  sweeping  and  as  violent.  It  would  be  easy  to  dis- 
miss the  man  himself  as  one  whose  outlook  on  the  world  is  so  narrow 
that  it  seems  to  be  little  more  than  what  he  can  get  through  a  chance 
slit  in  the  wall  of  his  own  self-sufficiency.  It  would  be  easy  to  answer 
him  in  either  of  these  fashions,  but  what  is  easy  is  rarely  worth  while; 
and  it  is  wiser  to  weigh  what  he  said  and  to  see  if  we  cannot  find  our 
profit  in  it. 

Sifting  the  essential  charges  from  out  the  mass  of  his  malevolent 
accusation,  we  find  this  Frenchman  alleging  first,  that  we  Americans 
care  chiefly  for  making  money;  second,  that  we  are  hostile  to  art 
and  to  all  forms  of  beauty;  and  thirdly,  that  we  are  devoid  of  ideals. 
These  three  allegations  may  well  be  considered,  one  by  one,  beginning 
with  the  assertion  that  we  are  mere  money-makers. 


Now,  in  so  far  as  this  Frenchman's  belief  is  but  an  exaggeration 
of  the  saying  of  Napoleon's,  that  the  English  were  a  nation  of  shop- 
keepers, we  need  not  wince,  for  the  Emperor  of  the  French  found  to 
his  cost  that  those  same  English  shopkeepers  had  a  stout  stomach 
for  fighting.  Nor  need  we  regret  that  we  can  keep  shop  profitably, 
in  these  days  when  the  doors  of  the  bankers'  vaults  are  the  real  gates 
of  the  Temple  of  Janus,  war  being  impossible  until  they  open.  There 
is  no  reason  for  alarm  or  for  apology  so  long  as  our  shopkeeping  does 
not  cramp  our  muscle  or  curb  our  spirit,  for,  as  Bacon  declared  three 
centuries  ago,  ((walled  towns,  stored  arsenals  and  armories,  goodly 
races  of  horse,  chariots  of  war,  elephants,  ordnance,  artillery,  and  the 


98o2f  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

like,  all  this  is  but  a  sheep  in  a  lion's  skin,  except  the  breed  and  dis- 
position of  the  people  be  stout  and  warlike.)) 

Even  the  hostile  French  traveler  did  not  accuse  us  of  any  flab- 
biness  of  fibre;  indeed,  he  declaimed  especially  against  our  ((con- 
quering appetite,))  which  seemed  to  him  scandalous  «in  a  new  people 
with  no  hereditary  predisposition  toward  war.))  But  here  he  fell 
into  a  common  blunder;  the  United  States  may  be  a  new  nation 
—  although  as  a  fact  the  stars-and-stripes  is  now  older  than  the 
tricolor  of  France,  the  union  jack  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  standards 
of  those  newcomers  among  the  nations,  Italy  and  Germany  - 
the  United  States  may  be  a  new  nation,  but  the  people  here  have  had 
as  many  ancestors  as  the  population  of  any  other  country.  The 
people  here,  moreover,  have  «a  hereditary  predisposition  toward 
war,))  or  at  least  toward  adventure,  since  they  are,  every  man  of 
them,  descended  from  some  European  more  venturesome  than  his 
fellows,  readier  to  risk  the  perils  of  the  Western  Ocean  and  bolder 
to  front  the  unknown  dangers  of  an  unknown  land.  The  warlike 
temper,  the  aggressiveness,  the  imperialistic  sentiment,  —  these 
are  in  us  no  new  development  of  unexpected  ambition;  and  they 
ought  not  to  surprise  anyone  familiar  with  the  way  in  which  our 
forefathers  grasped  this  Atlantic  coast  first,  then  thrust  themselves 
across  the  Alleghanies,  spread  abroad  to  the  Mississippi,  and  reached 
out  at  last  to  the  Rockies  and  to  the  Pacific.  The  lust  of  adventure 
may  be  dangerous,  but  it  is  no  new  thing;  it  is  in  our  blood,  and 
we  must  reckon  with  it. 

Perhaps  it  is  because  ((the  breed  and  disposition  of  the  people))  is 
((stout  and  warlike))  that  our  shopkeeping  has  been  successful  enough 
to  awaken  envious  admiration  among  other  races  whose  energy 
may  have  been  relaxed  of  late.  After  all,  the  arts  of  war  and  the 
arts  of  peace  are  not  so  unlike;  and  in  either  a  triumph  can  be  won 
only  by  an  imagination  strong  enough  to  foresee  and  to  divine  what 
is  hidden  from  the  weakling.  We  are  a  trading  community,  after 
all  and  above  all,  even  if  we  come  of  fighting  stock.  We  are  a  trading 
community,  just  as  Athens  was,  and  Venice  and  Florence.  And 
like  the  men  of  these  earlier  commonwealths,  the  men  of  the  United 
States  are  trying  to  make  money.  They  are  striving  to  make  money 
not  solely  to  amass  riches,  but  partly  because  having  money  is  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  success,  —  because  it  is  the  most  obvious 
measure  of  accomplishment. 

In  his  talk  with  Tolstoi  our  French  critic  revealed  an  unexpected 
insight  when  he  asserted  that  the  passion  of  American  life  was  not 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9802  g 

so  much  the  use  of  money  as  a  delight  in  the  conquest  of  it.  Many 
an  American  man  of  affairs  would  admit  without  hesitation  that  he 
would  rather  make  half  a  million  dollars  than  inherit  a  million.  It 
is  the  process  he  enjoys,  rather  than  the  result;  it  is  the  tough  tussle 
in  the  open  market  which  gives  him  the  keenest  pleasure,  and  not 
the  idle  contemplation  of  wealth  safely  stored  away.  He  girds  him- 
self for  battle  and  fights  for  his  own  hand;  he  is  the  son  and  the 
grandson  of  the  stalwart  adventurers  who  came  from  the  Old  World 
to  face  the  chances  of  the  new.  This  is  why  he  is  unwilling  to  retire 
as  men  are  wont  to  do  in  Europe  when  their  fortunes  are  made. 
Merely  to  have  money  does  not  greatly  delight  him  —  although  he 
would  regret  not  having  it;  but  what  does  delight  him  unceasingly 
is  the  fun  of  making  it. 

The  money  itself  often  he  does  not  know  what  to  do  writh;  and 
he  can  find  no  more  selfish'use  for  it  than  to  give  it  away.  He  seems 
to  recognize  that  his  making  it  was  in  some  measure  due  to  the  un- 
conscious assistance  of  the  community  as  a  whole;  and  he  feels  it 
his  duty  to  do  something  for  the  people  among  whom  he  lives.  It 
must  be  noted  that  the  people  themselves  also  expect  this  from 
him;  they  expect  him  sooner  or  later  to  pay  his  footing.  As  a  result 
of  this  pressure  of  public  opinion  and  of  his  own  lack  of  interest  in 
money  itself,  he  gives  freely.  In  time  he  comes  to  find  pleasure  in 
this  as  well;  and  he  applies  his  business  sagacity  to  his  benefactions. 
Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  modern  American  life  than  this 
pouring  out  of  private  wealth  for  public  service.  Nothing  remotely 
resembling  it  is  to  be  seen  now  in  any  country  of  the  Old  World ;  and 
not  even  in  Athens  in  its  noblest  days  was  there  a  larger-handed 
lavishness  of  the  individual  for  the  benefit  of  the  community. 

Again,  in  no  country  of  the  Old  World  is  the  prestige  of  wealth 
less  powerful  than  it  is  here.  This,  of  course,  the  foreigner  fails  to 
perceive;  he  does  not  discover  that  it  is  not  the  man  who  happens 
to  possess  money  that  we  regard  with  admiration  but  the  man  who 
is  making  money,  and  thereby  proving  his  efficiency  and  indirectly 
benefiting  the  community.  To  many  it  may  sound  like  an  insuffer- 
able paradox  to  assert  that  nowhere  in  the  civilized  world  to-day  is 
money  itself  of  less  weight  than  here  in  the  United  States;  but  the 
broader  his  opportunity  the  more  likely  is  an  honest  observer  to 
come  to  this  unexpected  conclusion.  Fortunes  are  made  in  a  day 
almost,  and  they  may  fade  away  in  a  night;  as  the  Yankee  proverb 
put  it  pithily,  ((it's  only  three  generations  from  shirt-sleeves  to  shirt- 
sleeves.)) Wealth  is  likely  to  lack  something  of  its  glamour  in  a  land 


9802  h  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

where  well-being  is  widely  diffused  and  where  a  large  proportion  of 
the  population  have  either  had  a  fortune  and  lost  it,  or  else  expect  to 
gain  one  in  the  immediate  future. 

Probably  also  there  is  no  Country  which  now  contains  more  men 
who  do  not  greatly  care  for  large  gains  and  who  have  gladly  given  up 
money-making  for  some  other  occupation  they  found  more  profit- 
able for  themselves.  These  are  the  men  like  Thoreau  —  in  whose 
(Wai den, )  now  half  a  century  old,  we  can  find  an  emphatic  declara- 
tion of  all  the  latest  doctrines  of  the  simple  life.  We  have  all  heard 
of  Agassi z,  —  best  of  Americans,  even  though  he  was  born  in  another 
republic,  —  how  he  repelled  the  proffer  of  large  terms  for  a  series  of 
lectures,  with  the  answer  that  he  had  no  time  to  make  money.  Closely 
akin  was  the  reply  of  a  famous  machinist  in  response  to  an  inquiry 
as  to  what  he  had  been  doing  —  to  the  effect  that  he  had  accomplished 
nothing  of  late,  —  «we  have  just  been  building  engines  and  making 
money,  and  I'm  about  tired  of  it.))  There  are  not  a  few  men  to-day 
in  these  toiling  United  States  who  hold  with  Ben  Jonson  that  ((money 
never  made  any  man  rich,  —  but  his  mind.)) 

But  while  this  is  true,  while  there  are  some  men  among  us  who 
care  little  for  money,  and  while  there  are  many  who  care  chiefly  for 
the  making  of  it,  ready  to  share  it  when  made  with  their  fellow- 
citizens,  candor  compels  the  admission  that  there  are  also  not  a  few 
who  are  greedy  and  grasping,  selfish  and  shameless,  and  who  stand 
forward,  conspicuous  and  unscrupulous,  as  if  to  justify  to  the  full 
the  aspersions  which  foreigners  cast  upon  us.  Although  these  men 
manage  for  the  most  part  to  keep  within  the  letter  of  the  law,  their 
morality  is  that  of  the  wrecker  and  of  the  pirate.  It  is  a  symptom 
of  health  in  the  body  politic  that  the  proposal  has  been  made  to 
inflict  social  ostracism  upon  the  criminal  rich.  We  need  to  stiffen 
our  conscience  and  to  set  up  a  loftier  standard  of  social  intercourse, 
refusing  to  fellowship  with  the  men  who  make  their  money  by  over- 
riding the  law  or  by  undermining  it,  —  just  as  we  should  have  declined 
the  friendship  of  Captain  Kidd  laden  down  with  stolen  treasure. 

In  the  immediate  future  these  men  will  be  made  to  feel  that  they 
are  under  the  ban  of  public  opinion.  One  sign  of  an  acuter  sensi- 
tiveness is  the  recent  outcry  against  the  acceptance  of  ((tainted  money)) 
for  the  support  of  good  works.  Although  it  is  wise  always  to  give 
a  good  deed  the  credit  of  a  good  motive,  yet  it  is  impossible  some- 
times not  to  suspect  that  certain  large  gifts  have  an  aspect  of  ((con- 
science money.))  Some  of  them  seem  to  be  the  result  of  a  desire  to 
divert  public  attention  from  the  evil-  way  in  which  the  money  was 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9802! 

made  to  the  nobler  manner  in  which  it  is  spent.  They  appear  to 
be  the  attempt  of  a  social  outlaw  to  buy  his  peace  with  the  com- 
munity. Apparently  there  are  rich  men  among  us,  who,  having  sold 
their  honor  for  a  price,  would  now  gladly  give  up  the  half  of  their 
fortunes  to  get  it  back. 

Candor  compels  the  admission  also  that  by  the  side  of  the  crimi- 
nal rich  there  exists  the  less  noxious  but  more  offensive  class  of  the 
idle  rich,  who  lead  lives  of  wasteful  luxury  and  of  empty  excitement. 
When  the  French  reporter  who  talked  with  Tolstoi  called  us  Ameri- 
cans ((avid  of  pleasure))  it  was  this  little  group  he  had  in  mind,  as  he 
may  have  seen  the  members  of  it  splurging  about  in  Paris,  squandering 
and  self-advertising.  Although  these  idle  rich  now  exhibit  them- 
selves most  openly  and  to  least  advantage  in  Paris  and  in  London, 
their  foolish  doings  are  recorded  superabundantly  in  our  own  news- 
papers; and  their  demoralizing  influence  is  spread  abroad.  The 
snobbish  report  of  their  misguided  attempts  at  amusement  may 
even  be  a  source  of  danger  in  that  it  seems  to  recognize  a  false  stand- 
ard of  social  success  or  in  that  it  may  excite  a  miserable  ambition 
to  emulate  these  pitiful  frivolities.  But  there  is  no  need  of  delaying 
longer  over  the  idle  rich;  they  are  only  a  few,  and  they  have  doomed 
themselves  to  destruction,  since,  it  is  an  inexorable  fact  that  those 
who  break  the  laws  of  nature  can  have  no  hope  of  executive  clemency. 

((Patience  a  little;  learn  to  wait, 
Years  are  long  on  the  clock  of  fate.)) 

in 

The  second  charge  which  the  wandering  Parisian  journalist 
brought  against  us  was  that  we  ignore  the  arts  and  that  we  despise 
disinterested  beauty.  Here  again  the  answer  that  is  easiest  is  not 
altogether  satisfactory.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  declaring  that  there 
are  American  artists,  both  painters  and  sculptors,  who  have  gained 
the  most  cordial  appreciation  in  Paris  itself,  or  in  drawing  attention 
to  the  fact  that  certain  of  the  minor  arts  —  that  of  the  silversmith, 
for  one,  and  for  another,  that  of  the  glass-blower,  and  the  glass- 
cutter  —  flourish  in  the  United  States  at  least  as  freely  as  they  do 
anywhere  else,  while  the  art  of  designing  in  stained  glass  has  had  a 
new  birth  here,  which  has  given  it  a  vigorous  vitality  lacking  in 
Europe  since  the  Middle  Ages.  It  would  not  be  hard  to  show  that 
our  American  architects  are  now  undertaking  to  solve  new  problems 
wholly  unknown  to  the  builders  of  Europe,  and  that  they  are  often 


9802  j  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

succeeding  in  this  grapple  with  unprecedented  difficulty.  Nor  would 
it  take  long  to  draw  up  a  list  of  the  concerted  efforts  of  certain  of 
our  cities  to  make  themselves  more  worthy  and  more  sightly  with 
parks  well  planned  and  with  public  buildings  well-proportioned  and 
appropriately  decorated.  We  might  even  invoke  the  memory  of  the 
evanescent  loveliness  of  the  White  City  that  graced  the  shores  of 
Lake  Michigan  a  few  years  ago;  and  we  might  draw  attention  again 
to  the  Library  of  Congress,  a  later  effort  of  the  allied  arts  of  the 
architect,  the  sculptor,  and  the  painter. 

But  however  full  of  high  hope  for  the  future  we  may  esteem 
these  several  instances  of  our  reaching  out  for  beauty,  we  must  admit 
—  if  we  are  honest  with  ourselves  —  that  they  are  all  more  or  less 
exceptional,  and  that  to  offset  this  list  of  artistic  achievements  the 
Devil's  Advocate  could  bring  forward  a  damning  catalogue  of  crimes 
against  good  taste  which  would  go  far  to  prove  that  the  feeling  for 
beauty  is  dead  here  in  America  and  also  the  desire  for  it.  The  Devil's 
Advocate  would  bid  us  consider  the  flaring  and  often  vulgar  advertise- 
ments that  disfigure  our  highways,  the  barbaric  ineptness  of  many 
of  our  public  buildings,  the  squalor  of  the  outskirts  of  our  towns  and 
villages,  the  hideousness  and  horror  of  the  slums  in  most  of  our  cities, 
the  negligent  toleration  of  dirt  and  disorder  in  our  public  convey- 
ances, and  many  another  pitiable  deficiency  of  our  civilization  present 
in  the  minds  of  all  of  us. 

The  sole  retort  possible  is  a  plea  of  confession  and  avoidance, 
coupled  with  a  promise  of  reformation.  These  evils  are  evident 
and  they  cannot  be  denied.  But  they  are  less  evident  to-day  than 
they  were  yesterday;  and  we  may  honestly  hope  that  they  will  be 
less  evident  to-morrow.  The  bare  fact  that  they  have  been  observed 
warrants  the  belief  that  unceasing  effort  will  be  made  to  do  away 
with  them.  Once  aroused,  public  opinion  will  work  its  will  in  due 
season.  And  here  occasion  serves  to  deny  boldly  the  justice  of  a 
part  of  the  accusation  which  the  French  reporter  brought  against  us. 
It  may  be  true  that  we  ((ignore  the  arts,))  —  although  this  is  an  ob- 
vious overstatement  of  the  case;  but  it  is  not  true  that  we  ((despise 
beauty.))  However  ignorant  the  American  people  may  be  as  a  whole, 
they  are  in  no  sense  hostile  toward  art  —  as  certain  other  peoples 
seem  to  be.  On  the  contrary,  they  welcome  it;  with  all  their  igno- 
rance, they  are  anxious  to  understand  it;  they  are  pathetically  eager 
for  it.  They  are  so  desirous  of  it  that  they  want  it  in  a  hurry,  only 
too  often  to  find  themselves  put  off  with  an  empty  imitation.  But 
the  desire  itself  is  indisputable;  and  its  accomplishment  is  likely  to 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9802  k 

be  helped  along  by  the  constant  commingling  here  of  peoples  from 
various  other  stocks  than  the  Anglo-Saxon,  since  the  mixture  of 
races  tends  always  to  a  swifter  artistic  development. 

It  is  well  to  probe  deeper  into  the  question  and  to  face  the  fact  that 
not  only  in  the  arts  bat  also  in  the  sciences  we  are  not  doing  all  that 
may  fairly  be  expected  of  us.  Athens  was  a  trading  city  as  New 
York  is,  but  New  York  has  had  no  Sophocles  and  no  Phidias.  Flor- 
ence and  Venice  were  towns  whose  merchants  were  princes,  but  no 
American  city  has  yet  brought  forth  a  Giotto,  a  Dante,  a  Titian.  It 
is  now  nearly  threescore  years  and  ten  since  Emerson  delivered  his 
address  on  the  (American  Scholar,)  which  has  well  been  styled  our 
intellectual  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  in  which  he  expressed 
the  hope  that  ((perhaps  the  time  is  already  come  .  .  .  when  the 
sluggard  intellect  of  this  continent  will  look  from  under  its  iron  lids 
and  fulfill  the  postponed  expectation  of  the  world  with  something 
better  that  the  exertions  of  a  mechanical  skill.))  Nearly  seventy 
years  ago  was  this  prophecy  uttered  which  still  echoes  unaccomplished. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  in  which  we  came  to  maturity  as  a 
nation,  no  one  of  the  chief  leaders  of  art,  even  including  literature 
in  its  broadest  aspects,  and  no  one  of  the  chief  leaders  in  science, 
was  native  to  our  country.  Perhaps  we  might  claim  that  Webster 
was  one  of  the  world's  greatest  orators  and  that  Parkman  was  one 
of  the  world's  greatest  historians;  but  probably  the  experts  outside 
of  the  United  States  would  be  found  unprepared  and  unwilling  to 
admit  either  claim,  however  likely  it  may  be  to  win  acceptance  in 
the  future.  Lincoln  is  indisputably  one  of  the  world's  greatest  states- 
men; and  his  fame  is  now  firmly  established  throughout  the  whole 
of  civilization.  But  this  is  all  we  can  assert;  and  we  cannot  deny 
that  we  have  given  birth  to  very  few  indeed  of  the  foremost  poets, 
dramatists,  novelists,  painters,  sculptors,  architects,  or  scientific 
discoverers  of  the  last  hundred  years. 

Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  whose  renown  is  linked  with  Darwin's 
and  whose  competence  as  a  critic  of  scientific  advance  is  beyond  dis- 
pute, has  declared  that  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  most  won- 
derful of  all  since  the  world  began.  He  asserts  that  the  scientific 
achievements  of  the  last  hundred  years,  both  in  the  discovery  of 
general  principles  and  in  their  practical  application,  exceed  in  number 
the  sum  total  of  the  scientific  achievements  to  be  credited  to  all  the 
centuries  that  went  before.  He  considers,  first  of  all,  the  practical 
applications,  which  made  the  aspect  of  civilization  in  1900  differ 
in  a  thousand  ways  from  what  it  had  been  in  1801.  He  names  a 


9802  I  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

dozen  of  these  practical  applications:  railways,  steam  navigation, 
the  electric  telegraph,  the  telephone,  friction-matches,  gas-lighting, 
electric  lighting,  the  photograph,  the  Roentgen  rays,  spectrum  analy- 
sis, anaesthetics,  and  antiseptics.  It  is  with  pride  than  an  Ameri- 
can can  check  off  not  a  few  of  these  utilities  as  being  due  wholly  or 
in  large  part  to  the  ingenuity  of  one  or  another  of  his  countrymen. 

But  his  pride  has  a  fall  when  Wallace  draws  up  a  second  list  not 
of  mere  inventions  but  of  those  fundamental  discoveries,  of  those 
fecundating  theories  underlying  all  practical  applications  and  mak- 
ing them  possible,  of  those  principles  ((which  have  extended  our  knowl- 
edge or  widened  our  conceptions  of  the  universe.))  Of  these  he 
catalogues  twelve;  and  we  are  pained  to  find  that  no  American  has 
had  an  important  share  in  the  establishment  of  any  of  these  broad 
generalizations.  He  may  have  added  a  little  here  and  there;  but 
no  single  one  of  all  the  twelve  discoveries  is  mainly  to  be  credited  to 
any  American.  It  seems  as  if  our  French  critic  was  not  so  far 
out  when  he  asserted  that  we  were  ((terribly  practical.))  In 
the  application  of  principles,  in  the  devising  of  new  methods,  our 
share  was  larger  than  that  of  any  other  nation.  In  the  working  out 
of  the  stimulating  principles  themselves,  our  share  was  less  than  «a 
younger  brother's  portion.)) 

It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  even  though  we  may  not 
have  brought  forth  a  chief  leader  of  art  or  of  science  to  adorn  the 
wonderful  century,  there  are  other  evidences  of  our  practical  saga- 
city than  those  set  down  by  Wallace,  evidences  more  favorable  and 
of  better  augury  for  our  future.  We  derived  our  language  and 
our  laws,  our  public  justice  and  our  representative  government  from 
our  English  ancestors,  as  we  derived  from  the  Dutch  our  religious 
toleration  and  perhaps  .also  our  large  freedom  of  educational  op- 
portunity. In  our  time  we  have  set  an  example  to  others  and 
helped  along  the  progress  of  the  world.  President  Eliot  holds  that 
we  have  made  five  important  contributions  to  the  advancement  of 
civilization.  First  of  all,  we  have  done  more  than  any  other  people 
to  further  peace-keeping,  and  to  substitute  legal  arbitration  for  the 
brute  conflict  of  war.  Second,  we  have  set  a  splendid  example 
of  the  broadest  religious  toleration  —  even  though  Holland  had  first 
shown  us  how.  Thirdly,  we  have  made  evident  the  wisdom  of 
universal  manhood,  suffrage.  Fourthly,  by  our  welcoming  of  new- 
comers from  all  parts  of  the  earth,  we  have  proved  that  men  be- 
longing to  a  great  variety  of  races  are  fit  for  political  freedom. 
Finally,  we  have  succeeded  in  diffusing  material  well-being  among 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9802  m 

the  whole  population  to  an  extent  without  parallel  in  any  other  country 
in  the  world. 

These  five  American  contributions  to  civilization  are  all  of  them 
the  result  of  the  practical  side  of  the  American  character.  They 
may  even  seem  commonplace  as  compared  with  the  conquering  ex- 
ploits of  some  other  races.  But  they  are  more  than  merely  practi- 
cal; they  are  all  essentially  moral.  As  President  Eliot  insists,  they 
are  ((triumphs  of  reason,  enterprise,  courage,  faith,  and  justice  over 
passion,  selfishness,  inertness,  timidity,  and  distrust.  Beneath  each 
of  these  developments  there  lies  a  strong  ethical  sentiment,  a  strenu- 
ous moral  and  social  purpose.  It  is  for  such  work  that  multitudinous 
democracies  are  fit.)) 

IV 

A  ((strong  ethical  sentiment,))  and  a  ((strenuous  moral  purpose)) 
cannot  flourish  unless  they  are  deeply  rooted  to  idealism.  And  here 
we  find  an  adequate  answer  to  the  third  assertion  of  Tolstoi's  visitor, 
who  maintained  that  we  are  ((hostile  to  all  idealism.))  Our  idealism 
may  be  of  a  practical  sort,  but  it  is  idealism  none  the  less.  Emerson 
was  an  idealist,  although  he  was  also  a  thrifty  Yankee.  Lincoln  was 
an  idealist,  even  if  he  was  also  a  practical  politician,  an  opportunist, 
knowing  where  he  wanted  to  go,  but  never  crossing  a  bridge 
before  he  came  to  it.  Emerson  and  Lincoln  had  ever  a  firm  grip 
on  the  facts  of  life;  each  of  them  kept  his  gaze  fixed  on  the  stars, 
—  and  he  also  kept  his  feet  firm  on  the  soil. 

There  is  a  sham  idealism,  boastful  and  shabby,  which  stares  at 
the  moon  and  stumbles  in  the  mud,  as  Shelley  and  Poe  stumbled. 
But  the  basis  of  the  highest  genius  is  always  a  broad  common  sense. 
Shakespeare  and  Moliere  were  held  in  esteem  by  their  comrades 
for  their  understanding  of  affairs;  and  they  each  of  them  had  money 
out  at  interest.  Sophocles  was  entrusted  with  command  in  battle; 
and  Goethe  was  the  shrewdest  of  the  Grand  Duke's  counselors. 
The  idealism  of  Shakespeare  and  of  Moliere,  of  Sophocles  and  of 
Goethe,  is  like  that  of  Emerson  and  of  Lincoln;  it  is  unfailingly 
practical.  And  thereby  it  is  sharply  set  apart  from  the  aristocratic 
idealism  of  Plato  and  of  Renan,  of  Ruskin  and  of  Nietzsche,  which 
is  founded  on  obvious  self-esteem  and  which  is  sustained  by  arrogant 
and  inexhaustible  egotism.  True  idealism  is  not  only  practical,  it 
is  also  liberal  and  tolerant. 

Perhaps  it  might  seem  to  be  claiming  too  much  to  insist  on  certain 
points  of  similarity  between  us  and  the  Greeks  of  old.  The  points 


980211  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

of  dissimilarity  are  only  too  evident  to  most  of  us;  and  yet  there  is 
a  likeness  as  well  as  an  unlikeness.  Professor  Butcher  has  recently 
asserted  that  «no  people  was  ever  less  detached  from  the  practical 
affairs  of  life))  than  the  Greeks,  ((less  insensible  to  outward  utility; 
yet  they  regarded  prosperity  as  a  means,  never  as  an  end.  The 
unquiet  spirit  of  gain  did  not  take  possession  of  their  souls.  Shrewd 
traders  and  merchants,  they  were  yet  idealists.  They  did  not  lose 
sight  of  the  higher  and  distinctively  human  aims  which  give  life  its 
significance.))  It  will  be  well  for  us  if  this  can  be  said  of  our  civiliza- 
tion two  thousand  years  after  its  day  is  done ;  and  it  is  for  us  to  make 
sure  that  ((the  unquiet  spirit  of  gain))  shall  not  take  possession  of  our 
souls.  It  is  for  us  also  to  rise  to  the  attitude  of  the  Greeks,  among 
whom,  as  Professor  Butcher  points  out,  ((money  lavished  on  personal 
enjoyment  was  counted  vulgar,  oriental,  inhuman.)) 

There  is  comfort  in  the  memory  of  Lincoln  and  of  those  whose 
death  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg  he  commemorated.  The  men  who 
there  gave  up  their  lives  that  the  country  might  live,  had  answered 
to  the  call  of  patriotism,  which  is  one  of  the  sublimest  images  of 
idealism.  There  is  comfort  also  in  the  recollection  of  Emerson,  and 
in  the  fact  that  for  many  of  the  middle  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury he  was  the  most  popular  of  lecturers,  with  an  unfading  attractive- 
ness to  the  plain  people,  perhaps,  because,  in  Lowell's  fine  phrase, 
he  ((kept  constantly  burning  the  beacon  of  an  ideal  life  above  the 
lower  region  of  turmoil.))  There  is  comfort  again  in  the  knowledge 
that  idealism  is  one  manifestation  of  imagination,  and  that  imagina- 
tion itself  is  but  an  intenser  form  of  energy.  That  we  have  energy 
and  to  spare,  no  one  denies;  and  we  may  reckon  him  a  nearsighted 
observer  who  does  not  see  also  that  we  have  our  full  share  of  imagina- 
tion, even  though  it  has  not  yet  expressed  itself  in  the  loftiest  regions 
of  art  and  of  science.  The  outlook  is  hopeful,  and  it  is  not  true  that 

((We,  like  sentries,  are  obliged  to  stand 
In  starless  nights  and  wait  the  appointed  hour.)) 

The  foundations  of  our  commonwealth  were  laid  by  the  sturdy  Eliza- 
bethans who  bore  across  the  ocean  with  them  their  portion  of  that 
imagination  which  in  England  flamed  up  in  rugged  prose  and  in 
superb  and  soaring  verse.  In  two  centuries  and  a  half  the  sons  of 
these  stalwart  Englishmen  have  lost  nothing  of  their  ability  to  see 
visions  and  to  dream  dreams,  and  to  put  solid  foundations  under 
their  castles  in  the  air.  The  flame  may  seem  to  die  down  for  a  season, 
but  it  springs  again  from  the  embers  most  unexpectedly,  as  it  broke 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  98020 

forth  furiously  in  1861.  There  was  imagination  at  the  core  of  the 
little  war  for  the  freeing  of  Cuba,  —  the  very  attack  on  Spain,  which  the 
Parisian  journalist  cited  to  Tolstoi  as  the  proof  of  our  predatory 
aggressiveness.  We  said  that  we  were  going  to  war  for  the  sake  of 
the  ill-used  people  in  the  suffering  island  close  to  our  shores;  we  said 
that  we  would  not  annex  Cuba;  we  did  the  fighting  that  was  need- 
ful;— and  we  kept  our  word.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  even  the  most 
bitter  of  critics  can  discover  in  this  anything  selfish. 

There  was  imagination  also  in  the  sudden  stopping  of  all  the 
steamcraft,  of  all  the  railroads,  of  all  the  street-cars,  of  all  the  inces- 
sant traffic  of  the  whole  nation,  at  the  moment  when  the  body  of  a 
murdered  chief  magistrate  was  lowered  into  the  grave.  This  pause 
in  the  work  of  the  world  was  not  only  touching,  it  had  a  large  signifi- 
cance to  anyone  seeking  to  understand  the  people  of  these  United 
States.  It  was  a  testimony  that  the  Greeks  would  have  appreciated; 
it  had  the  bold  simplicity  of  an  Attic  inscription.  And  we  would 
thrill  again  in  sympathetic  response  if  it  was  in  the  pages  of  Plutarch 
that  we  read  the  record  of  another  instance.  When  the  time  arrived 
for  Admiral  Sampson  to  surrender  the  command  of  the  fleet  he  had 
brought  back  to  Hampton  Roads,  he  came  on  deck  to  meet  there 
only  those  officers  whose  prescribed  duty  required  them  to  take 
part  in  the  farewell  ceremonies  as  set  forth  in  the  regulations.  But 
when  he  went  over  the  side  of  the  flagship  he  found  that  the  boat 
which  was  to  bear  him  ashore  was  manned  by  the  rest  of  the  officers, 
ready  to  row  him  themselves  and  eager  to  render  this  last  personal 
service;  and  then  from  every  other  ship  of  the  fleet  there  put  out  a 
boat  also  manned  by  officers,  to  escort  for  the  last  time  the  commander 
whom  they  loved  and  honored. 


As  another  illustration  of  our  regard  for  the  finer  and  loftier 
aspects  of  life,  consider  our  parks,  set  apart  for  the  use  of  the  people 
by  the  city,  the  state,  and  the  nation.  In  the  cities  of  this  new  coun- 
try the  public  playgrounds  have  had  to  be  made,  the  most  of  them, 
and  at  high  cost, —  whereas  the  towns  of  the  Old  World  have  come 
into  possession  of  theirs  for  nothing,  more  often  than  not  inheriting 
the  private  recreation-grounds  of  their  rulers.  And  Europe  has 
little  or  nothing  to  show  similar  either  to  the  reservations  of  certain 
states,  like  the  steadily  enlarging  preserves  in  the  Catskills  and  the 
Adirondacks,  or  to  the  ampler  national  parks,  the  Yellowstone,  the 
Yosemite,  and  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado,  some  of  them  far 


9802  p  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

larger  in  area  than  one  at  least  of  the  original  thirteen  states.  Over- 
coming the  pressure  of  private  greed,  the  people  have  ordained  the 
preservation  of  this  natural  beauty  and  its  protection  for  all  time 
under  the  safe  guardianship  of  the  nation  and  with  free  access  to 
all  who  may  claim  admission  to  enjoy  it. 

In  like  manner  many  of  the  battlefields,  whereon  the  nation  spent 
its  blood  that  it  might  be  what  it  is  and  what  it  hopes  to  be,  —  these 
have  been  taken  over  by  the  nation  itself  and  set  apart  and  kept 
as  holy  places  of  pilgrimage.  They  are  free  from  the  despoiling  hand 
of  any  individual  owner.  They  are  adorned  with  monuments  re- 
cording the  brave  deeds  of  the  men  who  fought  there.  They  serve 
as  constant  reminders  of  the  duty  we  owe  to  our  country  and  of  the 
debt  we  owe  to  those  who  made  it  and  who  saved  it  for  us.  And 
the  loyal  veneration-  with  which  these  fields  of  blood  have  been  cher- 
ished here  in  the  United  States  finds  no  counterpart  in  any  country 
in  Europe,  no  matter  how  glorious  may  be  its  annals  of  military 
prowess.  Even  Waterloo  is  in  private  hands;  and  its  broad  acres, 
enriched  by  the  bones  of  thousands,  are  tilled  every  year  by  the  in- 
dustrious Belgian  farmers.  Yet  it  was  a  Frenchman,  Renan,  who 
told  us  that  what  welds  men  into  a  nation  is  ((the  memory  of  great 
deeds  done  in  common  and  the  will  to  accomplish  yet  more.)) 

According  to  the  theory  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  there 
ought  to  be  about  as  much  virtue  in  the  world  at  one  time  as  at  an- 
other. According  to  the  theory  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  there 
ought  to  be  a  little  more  now  than  there  was  a  century  ago.  We 
Americans  to-day  have  our  faults,  and  they  are  abundant  enough 
and  blatant  enough,  and  foreigners  take  care  that  we  shall  not 
overlook  them ;  but  our  ethical  standard  —  however  imperfectly  we 
may  attain  to  it  —  is  higher  than  that  of  the  Greeks  under  Pericles, 
of  the  Romans  under  Caesar,  of  the  English  under  Elizabeth.  It 
is  higher  even  than  that  of  our  forefathers  who  established  our  free- 
dom, as  those  know  best  who  have  most  carefully  inquired  into  the 
inner  history  of  the  American  Revolution.  In  nothing  was  our 
advance  more  striking  than  in  the  different  treatment  meted  out  to 
the  vanquished. after  the  Revolution  and  after  the  Civil  War.  When 
we  made  our  peace  with  the  British  the  native  tories  were  proscribed, 
and  thousands  of  loyalists  left  the  United  States  to  carry  into  Canada 
the  indurated  hatred  of  the  exiled.  But  after  Lee's  surrender  at 
Appomattox,  no  body  of  men,  no  single  man  indeed,  was  driven  forth 
to  live  an  alien  for  the  rest  of  his  days;  even  though  a  few  might 
choose  to  go,  none  were  compelled. 


BRANDER  MATTHEWS  9802  q 

This  change  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  those  who  were  victors  in 
the  struggle  was  evidence  of  an  increasing  sympathy.  Not  only  is 
sectionalism  disappearing,  but  with  it  is  departing  the  feeling  that 
really  underlies  it, —  the  distrust  of  those  who  dwell  elsewhere  than 
where  we  do.  This  distrust  is  common  all  over  Europe  to-day. 
Here  in  America  it  has  yielded  to  a  friendly  neighborliness  which 
makes  the  family  from  Portland,  Maine,  soon  find  itself  at  home  in 
Portland,  Oregon.  It  is  getting  hard  for  us  to  hate  anybody,  —  espe- 
cially since  we  have  disestablished  the  devil.  We  are  good-natured 
and  easy-going;  Herbert  Spencer  even  denounced  this  as  our  imme- 
diate danger,  maintaining  that  we  were  too  good-natured,  too  easy- 
going, too  tolerant  of  evil ;  and  he  insisted  that  we  needed  to  strengthen 
our  wills  to  protest  against  wrong,  to  wrestle  with  it  resolutely,  and 
to  overcome  it  before  it  is  firmly  rooted. 

VI 

\Ve  are  kindly  and  we  are  helpful;  and  we  are  fixed  in  the  belief 
that  somehow  everything  will  work  out  all  right  in  the  long  run. 
But  nothing  will  work  out  all  right  unless  we  so  make  it  work;  and 
excessive  optimism  may  be  as  corrupting  to  the  fibre  of  the  people 
as  ((the  Sabbathless  pursuit  of  fortune,))  as  Bacon  termed  it.  When 
Mr.  John  Morley  was  last  in  this  country  he  seized  swiftly  upon  a 
chance  allusion  of  mine  to  this  ingrained  hopefulness  of  ours.  ((Ah, 
what  you  call  optimism,))  he  cried,  ((I  call  fatalism.))  But  an  optimism 
which  is  solidly  based  on  a  survey  of  the  facts  cannot  fairly  be  termed 
fatalism;  and  another  British  student  of  political  science,  Mr.  James 
Bryce,  has  recently  pointed  out  that  the  intelligent  native  American 
has  —  and  by  experience  is  justified  in  having  —  a  firm  conviction 
that  the  majority  of  qualified  voters  are  pretty  sure  to  be  right. 

Then  he  suggested  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  us,  when  he 
declared  that  no  such  feeling  exists  in  Europe,  since  in  Germany  the 
governing  class  dreads  the  spread  of  socialism,  in  France  the  repub- 
licans know  that  it  is  not  impossible  that  Monarchism  and  Clerical- 
ism may  succeed  in  upsetting  the  Republic,  while  in  Great  Britain 
each  party  believes  that  the  other  party,  when  it  succeeds,  succeeds 
by  misleading  the  people,  and  neither  party  supposes  that  the  major- 
ity are  any  more  likely  to  be  right  than  to  be  wrong. 

Mr.  Morley  and  Mr.  Bryce  were  both  here  in  the  United  States 
in  the  fall  of  1904,  when  we  were  in  the  midst  of  a  presidential  elec- 
tion, one  of  those  prolonged  national  debates,  creating  incessant 
commotion,  but  invaluable  agents  of  our  political  education,  in  so 


98o2r  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

far  as  they  force  us  all  to  take  thought  about  the  underlying  prin- 
ciples of  policy,  by  which  we  wish  to  see  the  government  guided.  It 
was  while  this  political  campaign  was  at  its  height  that  the  French 
visitor  to  the  Russian  novelist  was  setting  his  notes  in  order  and  copy- 
ing out  his  assertion  that  we  Americans  were  mere  money-grubbers, 
((systematically  hostile  to  all  idealism.))  If  this  unthinking  Parisian 
journalist  had  only  taken  the  trouble  to  consider  the  addresses  which 
the  chief  speakers  of  the  two  parties  here  in  the  United  States  were 
then  making  to  their  fellow-citizens  in  the  hope  of  winning  votes, 
he  would  have  discovered  that  these  practical  politicians,  trained 
to  perceive  the  subtler  shades  of  popular  feeling,  were  founding  all 
their  arguments  on  the  assumption  that  the  American  people  as  a 
whole  wanted  to  do  right.  He  would  have  seen  that  the  appeal  of 
these  stalwart  partisans  was  rarely  to  prejudice  or  to  race-hatred,  — 
evil  spirits  that  various  orators  have  sought  to  arouse  and  to  intensify 
in  the  more  recent  political  discussions  of  the  French  themselves. 

An  examination  of  the  platforms,  of  the  letters  of  the  candidates, 
and  of  the  speeches  of  the  more  important  leaders  on  both  sides  re- 
vealed to  an  American  observer  the  significant  fact  that  ((each  party 
tried  to  demonstrate  that  it  was  more  peaceable,  more  equitable, 
more  sincerely  devoted  to  lawful  and  righteous  behavior  than  the 
other));  and  ((the  voter  was  instinctively  credited  with  loving  peace 
and  righteousness,  and  with  being  stirred  by  sentiments  of  good- will 
toward  men.))  This  seems  to  show  that  the  heart  of  the  people  is 
sound,  and  that  it  does  not  throb  in  response  to  ignoble  appeals. 
It  seems  to  show  that  there  is  here  the  desire  ever  to  do  right  and  to 
see  right  done,  even  if  the  will  is  weakened  a  little  by  easy-going 
good-nature,  and  even  if  the  will  fails  at  times  to  stiffen  itself  reso- 
lutely to  make  sure  that  the  right  shall  prevail. 

((Liberty  hath  a  sharp  and  double  edge  fit  only  to  be  handled  by 
just  and  virtuous  men,))  so  Milton  asserted  long  ago,  adding  that 
«to  the  bad  and  dissolute,  it  becomes  a  mischief  unwieldy  in  their 
own  hands.))  Even  if  we  Americans  can  clear  ourselves  of  being 
((bad  and  dissolute,))  we  have  much  to  do  before  we  may  claim  to 
be  ((just  and  virtuous.))  Justice  and  virtue  are  not  to  be  had  for  the 
asking;  they  are  the  rewards  of  a  manful  contest  with  selfishness 
and  with  sloth.  They  are  the  results  of  an  honest  effort  to  think 
straight,  and  to  apply  eternal  principles  to  present  needs.  Merely 
to  feel  is  only  the  beginning;  what  remains  is  to  think  and  to  act. 

A  British  historian,  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  who  came  here  to 
spy  out  the  land  three  or  four  years  before  Mr.  Morley  and  Mr.  Bryce 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  98023 

last  visited  us,  was  struck  by  the  fact  —  and  by  the  many  conse- 
quences of  the  fact  —  that  ((America  is  the  only  land  on  earth  where 
caste  has  never  had  a  footing,  nor  has  left  a  trace.))  It  seemed  to 
him  that  ((vast  numbers  and  the  passion  of  equality  tend  to  low  aver- 
ages in  thought,  in  manners,  and  in  public  opinion,  which  the  zeal 
of  the  devoted  minority  tends  gradually  to  raise  to  higher  planes  of 
thought  and  conduct.))  He  believed  that  we  should  solve  our  prob- 
lems one  by  one  because  ((the  zeal  for  learning,  justice,  and  humanity)) 
lies  deep  in  the  American  heart.  Mr.  Harrison  did  not  say  it  in  so 
many  words,  but  it  is  implied  in  what  he  did  say,  that  the  absence  of 
caste  and  the  presence  of  low  averages  in  thought,  in  manners,  and  in 
public  opinion,  impose  a  heavier  task  on  the  devoted  minority,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  keep  alive  the  zeal  for  learning,  justice,  and  humanity. 

Which  of  us,  if  haply  the  spirit  moves  him,  may  not  elect  himself 
to  this  devoted  minority?  Why  should  not  we  also,  each  in  our 
own  way,  without  pretense,  without  boastfulness,  without  bullying, 
do  whatsoever  in  us  lies  for  the  attainment  of  justice  and  of  virtue? 
It  is  well  to  be  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar;  but  after  all  it  is  best  to 
be  a  man,  ready  to  do  a  man's  work  in  the  world.  And  indeed  there 
is  no  reason  why  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar  should  not  also  be  a  man. 
He  will  need  to  cherish  what  Huxley  called  ((that  enthusiasm  for 
truth,  that  fanaticism  for  veracity,  which  is  a  greater  possession  than 
much  learning,  a  nobler  gift  than  the  power  of  increasing  knowledge.)) 
He  will  need  also  to  remember  that 

((Kings  have  their  dynasties,  —  but  not  the  mind; 
Cassar  leaves  other  Caesars  to  succeed, 
But  Wisdom,  dying,  leaves  no  heir  behind.)) 

(1905-) 

SHAKSPERE'S  ACTORS 

From  (Shakspere  as  a  Playwright.)      Copyright  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  and 
reprinted  by  their  permission. 


IT  would  be  interesting  if  we  could  also  ascertain  the  names  of  the 
original   performers  of   the  important   parts  in  all  Shakspere's 
plays.     Here  our  information  is  pitiably  scant.     There  were  in 
those  days  no  printed  playbills  in  the  theatre  itself;  and  there  were 
no  theatrical  criticisms  in  the  newspapers,  for  the  sufficient  reason 
that  there  were  no  newspapers.     When  a  play  was  published  it  rarely 
contained  a  list  of  the  characters  carrying  on  its  plot;  in  the  First 


98o2t  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

Folio  such  a  list  is  appended  to  only  two  or  three  of  Shakspere's 
pieces,  the  (Winter's  Tale)  for  one  and  the  second  part  of  (Henry 
IV. )  for  another.  And  even  when  the  list  of  characters  is  given  there 
is  no  indication  of  the  names  of  the  performers  who  played  the  several 
parts. 

Yet  even  if  our  information-  is  scant,  it  is  not  wholly  lacking. 
From  an  elegy  written  upon  the  death  of  Richard  Burbage  we  learn, 
what  we  might  have  inferred  without  this  positive  assurance,  that 
he  was  the  performer  of  Hamlet,  Othello,  and  King  Lear,  and  another 
poem  of  the  period  authorizes  us  to  believe  that  he  also  played  Richard 
III.  In  the  First  Folio  (Romeo  and  Juliet)  in  the  fourth  act  the 
stage-direction  reads  ((enter  Peter,))  whereas  in  the  second  and  third 
quartos  the  stage  direction  reads  ((enter  Will  Kempe));  and  we  have 
no  right  to  doubt  that  Kemp  was  the  original  actor  of  Peter.  In 
-(Much  Ado  about  Nothing)  a  similar  slip  supplies  us  with  two  simi- 
lar identifications  of  an  actor  with  a  part:  in  the  fourth  act,  when 
the  watch  enters,  the  speeches  of  Dogberry  and  Verges  are  assigned 
to  Kemp  and  Cowley,  the  names  of  the  performers  themselves  care- 
lessly appearing  in  place  of  the  names  of  the  characters  they  were 
impersonating.  And  earlier  in  the  same  play,  in  the  second  act, 
the  stage-direction  reads,  ((enter  Prince,  Leonato,  Claudio,  and  Jacke 
Wilson,))  which  is  evidence  that  Wilson  was  the  performer  of  the 
part  of  Balthasar  (who  sings  ((Sigh  no  more,  ladies;  sigh  no  more))). 
Another  slip  of  the  same  kind  informs  us  that  the  servant  who  enters 
in  the  third  act  of  the  (Taming  of  the  Shrew)  was  played  by  an  actor 
known  in  the  theatre  as  ((Nick.)) 

It  may  be  noted  that  Will  Kemp  resigned  about  1598,  and  that 
his  place  was  taken  by  Robert  Armin,  who  seems  to  have  been  con- 
nected with  the  company  off  and  on  for  at  least  ten  years.  In  the 
dedication  of  a  play  of  Armin's  published  in  1609,  he  discloses  the 
fact  that  he  had  impersonated  Dogberry;  it  is  likely,  therefore,  that 
he  succeeded  to  all  of  Kemp's  characters  when  he  joined  the  company 
after  Kemp  had  left  it. 

In  the  quarto  edition  of  Ben  Jonson's  (Every  Man  in  His  Humour, ) 
printed  in  1603,  there  is  a  list  of  the  actors  who  appeared  in  this  play: 
((Will.  Shakspeare,  Aug.  Philips,  Hen.  Condel,  Will.  Slye,  Will 
Kempe,  Ric.  Burbage,  J.  Hemings,  Thos.  Pope,  Chr.  Beeston,  and 
John  Duke.))  The  play  had  been  produced  by  the  company  to  which 
Shakspere  belonged  in  1598,  and  the  list  given  in  1603  is  probably 
an  incomplete  roster  of  the  company  as  it  was  in  1598,  since  it  in- 
cludes Kemp,  who  seems  to  have  withdrawn  shortly  after  Jonson's 


BRANDER  MATTHEWS  9802  u 

comedy  was  first  performed.  When  Jonson's  tragedy  of  (Sejanus) 
was  published  in  1605,  the  final  page  tells  us  that  ((this  Tragaedie 
was  first  acted  in  the  yeere  1603  By  the  King's  Majesties  Servants)) 
and  that  ((the  principal  Tragaedians  were  Ric.  Burbadge,  Aug.  Philips, 
Will.  Sly,  Joh.  Lowin,  Will.  Shakes-peare,  Joh.  Hemings,  Hen.  Con- 
del,  Alex.  Cooke.))  Mention  must  be  made  also  of  the  fact  that  the 
(Seven  Deadly  Sins)  (acted  in  all  probability  in  1592)  had  among 
its  performers  Burbage,  Philips,  Pope,  Condell,  Cowley,  Sly,  Duke, 
and  Bryan. 

In  the  First  Folio  we  have  a  list  of  ((the  names  of  the  Principall 
Actors  in  all  these  Plays))  arranged  in  two  columns: 

William  Shakespeare  Samuel  Gilburne 

Richard  Burbage  Robert  Armin 

John  Hemmings  William  Ostler 

Augustine  Phillips  Nathan  Field 

William  Kempt  John  Underwood 

Thomas  Poope  Nicholas  Tooley 

George  Bryan  William  Ecclestone 

Henry  Condell  Joseph  Taylor 

William  Slye  Robert  Benfield 

Richard  Cowly  Robert  Goughe 

John  Lowine  Richard  Robinson 

Samuell  Crosse  John  Shancke 

Alexander  Cooke  John  Rice 

But  this  list  is  not  absolutely  complete,  since  it  omits  the  names 
of  John  Duke,  Christopher  Beeston,  and  John  Sinkler.  Also  to  be 
noted  is  the  fact  that  it  contains  the  names  of  actors  probably  not 
in  the  company  at  the  same  time;  Kemp  and  Armin,  for  example. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  company  ever  numbered  as  many 
as  twenty-six,  even  at  its  fullest  strength.  The  usual  number  was 
probably  not  more  than  fifteen.  A  single  actor  would  often  appear 
in  two  or  more  of  the  less  important  parts.  The  suggestion  has 
even  been  made  that  one  actor,  possibly  Wilson,  thus  ((doubled)) 
Cordelia  and  the  Fool. 


Apparently  it  was  about  1590  that  Shakspere  joined  the  com- 
pany, when  certain  of  its  leading  members  had  already  been  associated 
for  some  years.  It  had  been  organized  before  the  Burbages  built 


9802V  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

the  first  Theatre  in  1576,  the  materials  of  which  were  used  in  the 
erection  of  the  Globe  twenty  years  later.  It  bore  various  titles, 
being  called  Lord  Strange's  men,  Lord  Derby's  and  Lord  Hunsdon's, 
and  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company;  and  finally,  in  1603,  after 
the  accession  of  James,  it  was  authorized  to  call  itself  the  King's 
Players.  In  London,  it  acted  not  only  at  the  Theatre  and  the  Rose, 
and  then  at  the  Globe,  but  still  later  also  at  the  Blackfriars.  It 
went  on  frequent  strolling  expeditions  in  the  provinces;  and  it  may 
have  given  performances  in  Stratford  when  Shakspere  was  still  a 
resident  in  his  native  town.  But  although  it  altered  its  name  from 
time  to  time,  and  although  it  acted  in  different  places,  it  retained  its 
membership  for  a  score  of  years  after  1590  with  comparatively  few 
changes.  It  seems  to  have  been  well  chosen  at  the  start  and  to  have 
been  skillfully  recruited  as  vacancies  were  caused  by  retirement  or 
by  death.  Its  half  dozen  or  half  score  chief  members,  the  ((sharers)) 
or  associated  managers,  who  hired  the  boys  and  subordinate  per- 
formers, were  not  only  good  actors,  they  were  also  men  of  good 
character  bound  by  ties  of  friendship  as  well  as  of  interest.  Its 
leading  actors  were  partners  in  the  management  and  in  the  very 
considerable  profits  of  the  enterprise.  In  fact,  in  its  organization, 
in  the  qualities  of  its  constituent  elements,  in  its  enduring  solidarity 
it  bears  a  striking  likeness  to  the  company  which  Moliere  brought 
back  to  Paris  in  1658  and  which  still  survives  as  the  Comedie-Fran- 
gaise.  Theatrical  conditions  in  London,  when  Shakspere  retired 
in  the  first  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century,  did  not  widely  differ 
from  those  in  Paris  when  Moliere  died  toward  the  end  of  the  third 
quarter  of  that  century;  but  theatrical  conditions  then  were  very 
different  from  theatrical  conditions  now.  To-day,  in  the  first  quarter 
of  the  twentieth  century,  there  is  not  to  be  seen  in  London  or  in  New 
York  a  single  permanent  company,  and  in  Paris  there  is  but  one  which 
is  substantially  the  same  year  after  year. 

Nowadays  a  special  company  is  engaged  for  every  new  play  that 
is  produced  and  for  every  important  revival.  To-day  there  is  a 
vast  body  of  unemployed  actors  and  actresses  from  whom  the  manager 
can  select  the  performers  best  suited  to  the  several  parts  of  the  piece 
he  is  about  to  bring  out ;  and  the  dramatist  composes  his  play,  having 
in  mind  special  actors  only  for  one  or  more  of  the  salient  characters, 
knowing  that  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  securing  fairly  satisfactory 
performers  for  the  less  important  parts.  But  in  Shakspere's  time, 
as  in  Moliere's,  there  were  at  call  few  disengaged  performers  of 
merit;  most  of  the  available  actors  were  already  attached  to  one 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9802  w 

or  another  of  the  existing  companies  in  London  or  in  the  provinces. 
The  dramatist,  therefore,  composed  his  play  specifically  for  the  mem- 
bers of  some  one  of  these  companies,  perforce  adjusting  the  parts 
to  the  performers  who  were  originally  to  undertake  them,  and  care- 
fully refraining  from  the  introduction  of  any  part  for  which  there 
was  not  a  fit  performer  already  in  the  company.  What  is  now  known 
as  a  ((special  engagement))  was  then  impossible,  because  it  would  not 
have  been  profitable,  since  the  company  kept  all  its  successful  plays 
in  repertory,  ready  for  immediate  performance  in  its  own  theatre  in 
London  and  in  any  convenient  hall  in  the  country  towns  when  it 
went  on  its  frequent  strolling  excursions.  In  London  fifteen  to 
twenty  new  plays  were  produced  by  a  company  every  season;  and 
no  one  of  them  had  more  than  fifteen  or  twenty  performances,  scat- 
tered through  the  year,  and  never  consecutive. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  Moliere  has  no  maternal  love  in  any 
of  his  plays,  because  his  company  did  not  contain  any  ((old  woman)) ; 
and  the  elderly  females  who  do  appear  now  and  again  in  his  comedies 
were  all  of  them  highly  colored  so  that  they  could  be  performed  by 
a  male  actor,  in  accord  with  mediaeval  tradition  still  surviving  in 
the  French  theatre  during  the  seventeenth  century.  Shakspere, 
like  Moliere,  composed  all  his  plays  for  one  particular  company, 
that  to  which  he  himself  belonged.  We  may  rest  assured  that  Shak- 
spere and  Moliere  rarely  wrote  any  part  for  which  there  was  not  a 
proper  performer  already  in  the  company.  We  may  feel  certain  also 
that  Shakspere,  like  Moliere,  fitted  the  characters  in  his  comedies 
and  his  tragedies  to  the  special  actors  for  whom  he  intended  them. 
As  the  repertory  was  large  and  as  the  program  was  changed  daily,  it 
is  probable  that  a  prominent  actor  was  not  unwilling  now  and  again  to 
appear  in  a  part  of  less  prominence  than  his  importance  in  the  theatre 
would  warrant ;  and  it  may  be  noted  that  this  was  the  practice  in  the 
famous  Meiningen  company  toward  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

We  know  very  little  about  the  histrionic  ability  of  the  members 
of  the  company  for  which  Shakspere  wrote.  We  have  no  record 
of  the  manner  in  which  Burbage  acted  Othello  and  Lear,  or  of  the 
method  of  Kemp  in  Peter  and  Dogberry.  Yet  with  the  evidence  of 
Shakspere's  plays  before  us,  and  with  our  knowledge  of  the  extra- 
ordinary demands  they  make  upon  the  performers,  we  are  justified 
in  believing  that  the  company  must  have  been  very  strong  indeed, 
rich  in  actors  of  varied  accomplishment.  We  should  have  the  same 
conviction  in  regard  to  Moliere's  company,  on  the  sole  testimony  of 
his  plays,  even  if  we  were  without  the  abundant  contemporary  evi- 


9802X  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

dence  to  the  merits  of  Moliere  and  his  wife,  of  La  Grange  and  Made- 
leine Bejart.  By  the  fact  that  Shakspere  wrote.  Othello  and  Lear 
and  Hamlet  for  Burbage  we  are  debarred  from  any  right  to  doubt 
that  Burbage  was  a  great  tragedian.  The  parts  that  Shakspere 
composed  for  Kemp,  and  later  for  Armin,  may  be  taken  as  proof 
positive  that  these  two  actors  had  a  broad  vein  of  humor  like  that 
which  Charles  Lamb  relished  in  Dowton.  The  swift  succession  of 
Portia  and  Beatrice,  Rosalind  and  Viola,  is  irrefragable  testimony 
to  the  histrionic  capacity  of  the  shaven  lad  who  impersonated  these 
lovely  creatures  one  after  another.  A  good  company  it  must  have 
been,  that  for  which  Shakspere  wrote  his  twoscore  histories  and 
comedies  and  tragedies,  filled  with  superb  parts  stimulating  to  the 
ambition  of  the  actors  who  were  his  associates;  and  it  was  a  good  all- 
round  company  also,  versatile  and  energetic. 

That  Shakspere  fitted  these  actors  with  parts,  that  he  adjusted 
his  characters  to  the  capacity  of  the  performers,  that  he  was  moved 
in  his  choice  of  subject  by  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  histrionic 
capability  of  his  fellow-actors,  and  perhaps  also  by  their  expressed 
desire  for  more  ambitious  opportunities,  this  is  surely  beyond  question, 
since  we  know  that  it  is  just  what  Moliere  did  in  his  day  and  just 
what  every  dramatist  has  done  and  must  do.  The  author  of  (Ralph 
Roister  Doister)  was  head-master  of  Eton;  and  he  put  together  that 
piece  of  boisterous  fun-making  for  the  crude  acting  of  his  robustious 
young  scholars.  Lyly's  more  delicate  comedies  were  most  of  them 
composed  for  performance  by  choir-boys;  and  they  are  found  to  be 
devoid  of  any  violence  of  emotion  which  might  be  beyond  the  power 
of  youthful  inexperience.  What  may  be  observed  in  the  seventeenth 
century  can  be  seen  also  in  the  nineteenth;  and  the  best  of  Labiche's 
farces  were  not  more  closely  adjusted  to  the  company  at  the  Palais 
Royal  than  were  the  later  plays  of  the  younger  Dumas  adjusted  to 
the  incomparable  assembly  of  actors  at  the  Theatre  Francais. 

Just  as  Mr.  Crummies,  having  bought  a  pump  cheap,  insisted 
upon  the  introduction  of  that  implement  into  the  next  play  which 
Nicholas  Nickleby  adapted  for  his  company,  so  every  dramatist  is 
moved,  perhaps  more  or  less  unconsciously,  to  utilize  the  gifts  of  the 
actors  for  whom  he  is  working.  If  one  of  them  is  a  trained  singer,  a 
Jack  Wilson,  then  he  is  tempted  to  write  in  a  part  for  that  performer 
and  so  give  him  one  or  more  songs.  This  fact  was  seized  by  the 
acute  intellect  of  James  Spedding,  who  once  wrote  a  letter  to  Furni- 
vall  in  criticism  of  the  latter's  attempt  to  classify  Shaksperc's 
plays  in  chronological  order  in  accordance  with  the  mood  of  the  dram- 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  98027 

atist  at  the  time  when  they  were  written.  Spedding  insisted  that 
the  distinguishing  feature  of  every  play  ((would  depend  upon  many 
things  besides  the  author's  state  of  mind.  It  would  depend  upon  the 
story  which  he  had  to  tell ;  and  the  choice  of  the  story  would  depend 
upon  the  requirements  of  the  theatre,  the  taste  of  the  public,  the 
popularity  of  the  different  actors,  the  strength  of  the  company.  A 
new  part  might  be  wanted  for  Burbage  or  Kemp.  The  two  boys 
that  acted  Hermia  and  Helena  —  the  tall  and  the  short  one  —  or 
the  two  men  who  were  so  alike  that  they  might  be  mistaken  for  each 
other,  might  want  new  pieces  to  appear  in;  and  so  on.)) 

The  vice  of  the  narrowly  philosophic  criticism  of  Shakspere, 
which  was  so  prevalent  in  the  nineteenth  century,  lies  in  its  con- 
sideration of  his  characters  solely  and  exclusively  as  characters. 
They  are  characters,  of  course,  but  they  are  also  parts  prepared  for 
particular  actors.  They  form  a  succession  of  magnificent  parts, 
making  the  most  varied  demand  upon  these  actors.  They  are  parts, 
first  of  all,  conceived  in  consonance  with  their  author's  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  histrionic  abilities  of  his  fellow-players,  even  if 
every  one  of  them  is  also  a  character,  subtler  and  broader  and  deeper 
than  any  mere  part  needs  to  be.  In  devising  these  parts  Shakspere 
was  fitting  the  performers  of  the  company  to  which  he  belonged,  even 
if  he  was  also  availing  himself  of  the  opportunity  to  body  forth  his 
own  vision  of  life. 


in 


When  we  have  once  grasped  the  significance  of  the  relation  of  the 
author  and  the  actor  our  disappointment  is  redoubled  that  we  know 
so  little  about  the  various  members  of  Shakspere 's  company.  Our 
acquaintance  with  the  career  of  Coquelin  helps  us  to  understand  the 
structure  of  (Cyrano  de  Bergerac, )  just  as  our  familiarity  with  the 
needs  of  Macrea'dy  as  an  actor-manager  helps  to  eludicate  the  Quali- 
ties of  (Richelieu)  and  (Money.)  But  we  do  not  know  Burbage 
and  Kemp,  Heming  and  Armin,  as  we  know  Macready  and  Coquelin. 
Instead  of  being  able  to  explain  their  parts  in  some  measure  by  their 
personalities  and  by  their  abilities,  we  are  forced  to  guess  at  their 
personalities  and  their  abilities  by  an  analysis  of  the  parts  which 
Shakspere  intrusted  to  them.  And  here  again  we  are  at  sea,  since 
we  lack  detailed  information  as  to  the  parts  they  severally  performed. 

Yet  there  are  a  few  things  which  we  may  fairly  infer,  without 
involving  ourselves  in  the  fog  of  dangerous  conjecture.  If  Burbage 
was  the  original  impersonator  of  Hamlet  and  Lear,  of  Othello  and 


gSo2z  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

Richard  III.,  we  may  assume  that  he  was  also  the  original  performer 
of  all  Shakspere's  tragic  heroes,  of  Romeo  and  Richard  II.,  Mac- 
beth and  Brutus.  Burbage  played  early  in  the  seventeenth  century 
all  the  parts  which  were  undertaken  toward  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  by  Booth  and  Irving  —  with  the  possible  exception  only  of 
Shylock,  which  seems  to  have  been  in  its  author's  intent  a  serio-comic 
character,  at  once  grim  and  grotesque,  and  which  therefore  might 
fall  to  the  lot  of  the  actor  who  had  appeared  as  Falstaff  or  else  to  the 
habitual  impersonator  of  villains.  Burbage  left  behind  him  the  repu- 
tation of  the  foremost  tragedian  of  his  time;  and  since  he  was  in- 
trusted by  Shakspere  with  these  overwhelming  characters,  one 
after  another,  he  must  have  been  a  great  actor,  noble  in  bearing, 
eloquent  in  delivery,  passionate  and  versatile.  As  he  grew  older,  so 
did  the  characters  which  Shakspere  composed  for  him  to  act, 
Romeo  having  been  written  for  him  in  his  ardent  and  energetic  youth, 
while  Lear  was  prepared  later  in  his  riper  maturity.  After  his  death, 
in  1619,  his  parts  seem  to  have  been  divided  between  Lowin  and 
Taylor. 

Just  as  we  may  feel  safe  in  assuming  that  Burbage  impersonated 
all  Shakspere's  tragic  heroes,  because  we  know  that  he  played 
Hamlet  and  Othello,  so  we  are  justified  in  assigning  a  succession  of 
comic  characters  in  Shakspere's  earliest  comedies  to  Kemp  be- 
cause of  our  knowledge  that  he  appeared  as  Peter  and  Dogberry. 
There  is  a  strong  family  likeness  between  Peter  and  a  group  of  other 
low-comedy  parts,  composed  at  no  great  interval  before  or  after 
(Romeo  and  Juliet) — simple  figures  of  fun,  mere  «clownes,»  as  they 
were  then  called,  quick  in  quips,  but  lacking  altogether  the  mellower 
humor  of  Shakspere's  later  comic  characters.  Since  Kemp  was 
the  original  Peter,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  was  also  one  of 
the  two  Dromios  and  one  of  the  two  Gobbos,  and  that  he  appeared 
either  as  Costard  or  Dull  in  (Love's  Labour's  Lost)  and  either  as 
Launce  or  Speed  in  the  (Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. )  And  we  can 
find  confirmation  for  this  surmise  in  the  disappearance  of  this  sort 
of  part  from  Shakspere's  plays  after  Kemp  left  the  company,  to 
be  replaced  by  Armin.  No  doubt  Armin  took  over  all  these  earlier 
parts  whenever  the  older  plays  were  performed ;  but  in  the  new  plays 
the  corresponding  characters  —  Touchstone,  for  example,  the  Grave- 
digger  in  (Hamlet)  and  the  Porter  in  (Macbeth)  —  are  less  frivolous, 
almost  graver  in  their  method.  Nowadays  the  comedian  who  acts 
Touchstone  also  acts  Sir  Toby  Belch,  and  it  is  inherently  likely  that 
Armin  was  the  original  of  that  unctuously  humorous  character,  al- 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9803 

though  this  part  may  have  been  cast  to  the  original  performer  of 
Falstaff  (possibly  Heming).  There  is  to  be  noted  in  Moliere's  plays 
a  curious  parallel  to  this  modification  of  the  low-comedy  parts  in 
Shakspere's  plays  after  Armin  had  succeeded  Kemp.  Moliere 
composed  all  his  earlier  soubrettes,  his  exuberant  serving-maids,  for 
Madeleine  Bejart;  and  after  her  death,  when  her  place  was  taken 
by  Mademoiselle  Beauval,  who  had  less  authority  and  a  more  con- 
tagious gayety,  the  soubrettes  in  these  later  comedies  change  in  tone 
to  adjust  themselves  to  the  different  gifts  of  the  new  actress. 

One  other  piece  of  information  is  also  in  our  possession:  the 
Balthasar,  who  sings  in  (Much  Ado,)  was  played  by  Jack  Wilson. 
From  this  we  may  fairly  assume  that  Wilson  also  appeared  as  Amiens, 
who  sings  in  (As  You  Like  it,)  -and  as  Feste,  who  sings  in  (Twelfth 
Night.)  This  assumption  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  '(Much 
Ado,)  (As  you  Like  it,)  and  the  (Twelfth  Night)  are  closely  related, 
having  been  composed  rapidly  one  after  the  other.  Then,  if  we 
choose,  we  may  risk  a  more  daring  speculation — that  Wilson  was 
also  the  actor  who  created  a  little  later  the  part  of  the  Fool  in  (King 
Lear, )  since  this  character  is  called  upon  for  frequent  snatches  of  song. 

In  dealing  with  Burbage  and  Wilson,  with  Kemp  and  Armin, 
we  are  on  fairly  solid  ground;  that  is  to  say,  we  are  making  infer- 
ences from  known  facts.  But  when  we  desire  to  push  our  investiga- 
tions further  our  footing  is  less  secure;  yet  it  is  not  impossible  to 
venture  a  little  distance  in  advance.  At  least,  there  are  a  few  ques- 
tions which  we  may  put  to  ourselves  with  advantage,  even  though  we 
may  not  be  completely  satisfied  by  the  best  answers  that  we  can  find. 
For  example,  the  original  performer  of  Falstaff  —  Heming  or  another — 
was  possibly  the  original  performer  of  Shy  lock,  and  probably  the 
original  performer  of  Sir  Toby.  This  creates  a  likelihood  that  he 
had  also  impersonated  Bottom.  It  is  also  not  unlikely  that  he  was 
intrusted  with  the  Dromio  that  Kemp  did  not  play,  and  also  with 
either  Launce  or  Speed,  Costard  or  Dull.  And  he  seems  to  be  the 
performer  who  would  naturally  be  called  upon  later  to  impersonate 
Caliban.  ' 

rv 

We  can  also  get  a  little  light  upon  the  probable  organization  of 
the  company  at  the  Globe  when  Shakspere  was  a  member  of  it  by 
considering  the  organization  of  Drury  Lane  when  Sheridan  was  its 
manager  and  when  the  stock-company  system  was  in  its  prime.  In- 
deed, a  similar  organization  is  to  be  observed  to-day  in  the  many 


9803  a  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

minor  stock  companies  scattered  throughout  the  United  States. 
The  governing  principle  in  Drury  Lane  and  in  the  modern  theatres 
occupied  by  stock  companies  is  that  every  one  of  the  several  actors 
has  his  own  (dine  of  business,))  as  it  is  called;  that  is  to  say,  he  con- 
fines himself  to  a  certain  definite  class  of  characters.  When  an  old 
play  is  revived,  and  even  when  a  new  play  is  produced,  the  actor  is 
generally  able  to  recognize  at  a  glance  the  part  to  which  he  is  entitled. 
The  ((leading  man))  and  the  ((leading  lady))  expect,  of  course,  to  imper- 
sonate the  hero  and  the  heroine.  The  ((low  comedian))  is  ready  at 
once  to  undertake  the  broadly  comic  character,  and  the  ((soubrette)) 
(or  ((chambermaid)))  is  equally  ready  to  assume  the  corresponding 
female  part.  The  villain  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  ((heavy  man.))  The 
((old  man))  and  the  ((old  woman))  naturally  assume  the  more  elderly 
characters.  The  ((light  comedy))  part  is  the  privilege  of  one  actor, 
and  the  ((character  part))  is  the  duty  of  another.  In  a  large  company 
there  would  be  also  a  ((second  low  comedian,))  a  ((second  old  man,)) 
and  soon,  besides  several  trustworthy  performers  known  as  ((responsi- 
ble utilities.)) 

This  organization  is  efficient,  and  its  influence  can  be  detected 
very  clearly  in  the  English  drama  until  the  final  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  when  the  stock-company  system  was  abolished  in 
the  more  important  theatres  of  London  and  New  York.  It  was  not 
absolutely  rigid,  of  course ;  and  now  and  again  an  actor  of  exceptional 
power  and  range  did  not  hesitate  to  undertake  parts  not  strictly  in 
his  own  (dine  of  business.))  John  Kemble,  for  example,  the  foremost 
tragedian  of  his  time,  liked  to  appear  in  the  light  comedy  part  of 
Charles  Surface,  a  performance  which  was  wittily  described  as  ((Char- 
les's Martyrdom.))  His  brother,  Charles  Kemble,  the  foremost 
light  comedian  of  his  time,  had  an  infelicitous  aspiration  for  tragic 
characters.  But  even  if  this  method  of  distributing  the  several 
parts  in  a  play  among  the  several  members  of  the  company  was  not 
absolutely  fixed  and  final,  it  was  generally  acceptable.  The  departures 
from  the  rules  were  infrequent  in  Drury  Lane  under  Sheridan;  and 
we  have  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they  were  quite  as  infrequent  in 
the  Globe  when  Shakspere  was  writing  his  plays  for  its  company. 

The  line  of  business  which  any  one  of  Shakspere 's  fellow-actors 
undertook  would  be  the  same,  of  course,  whether  the  play  were  writ- 
ten by  Shakspere  himself  or  by  another  playwright.  Therefore, 
if  we  could  discover  any  part  played  by  any  one  of  these  actors  in  a 
piece  not  by  Shakspere,  we  might  guess  at  the  line  of  business  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  playing  and  thus  we  might  infer  that  he  may 


BRANDER   MATTHEWS  9803  b 

have  been  the  original  performer  of  those  Shaksperean  characters 
which  plainly  belong  to  the  particular  line  of  business.  Now,  there' 
is  a  little  evidence  of  this  sort.  We  know,  for  example,  that  Burbage 
played  Hieronimo  in  the  (Spanish  Tragedy) ;  and  this  would  give  us 
warrant  for  believing  that  he  played  Hamlet  and  Othello,  even  if  we 
had  not  more  emphatic  testimony.  We  know  also  that  Condell 
played  the  Cardinal  in  Webster's  (Duchess  of  Malfi,)  which  is  a 
((heavy))  part,  a  stage  villain  of  the  deepest  dye.  If  we  may  assume 
from  this  that  Condell  was  the  regular  performer  of  ((heavies,))  then 
we  may  venture  to  ascribe  to  him  not  a  few  of  Shakspere's  villains 
—  Edmund  in  (King  Lear)  and,  above  all,  lago.  We  may  even  go 
further  and  suggest  the  probability  that  he  was  also  the  original 
performer  of  Don  John  in  (Much  Ado,)  of  the  usurping  Duke  in 
(As  you  Like  it, )  and  of  the  King  in  (Hamlet.) 

Unfortunately,  we  have  no  clue  as  significant  as  this  to  guide  us 
to  a  guess  as  to  the  original  performer  of  another  line  of  business, 
very  important  in  Shakspere's  plays  —  that  of  ((juvenile  lead))  or 
((light  comedy.))  Some  of  the  parts  seem  to  belong  to  one  group  and 
some  to  another,  yet  they  were  probably  played  by  the  same  actor 
in  Shakespeare's  company,  since  they  are  now  generally  undertaken 
by  the  same  actor  in  our  modern  companies.  These  are  the  parts 
in  which  Charles  Kemble  excelled ;  they  are  the  parts  in  which  Edwin 
Adams  and  Lawrence  Barrett  supported  Booth  and  in  which  Terriss 
and  Alexander  supported  Irving.  In  the  tragedies  these  characters 
are  Laertes,  Richmond,  Cassio,-  and  Mercutio;  and  in  the  comedies 
they  are  Gratiano,  Claudio  and  Orsino.  And  the  same  actor  would 
logically  be  intrusted  also  with  Faulconbridge,  with  Hotspur,  and 
probably  with  Bolingbroke.  These  are  most  of  them  characters 
which  require  for  their  adequate  rendition  youth  and  fire,  vigor  and 
vivacity,  wit  and  grace.  We  may  never  discover  the  name  of  the 
actor  who  created  these  parts,  but  that  they  were  all  of  them  created 
by  one  and  the  same  performer  seems  highly  probable.  To  those 
who  are  familiar  with  the  inner  workings  of  the  theatre  there  will  be 
nothing  fanciful  in  the  suggestion  that  the  ((tag))  —  the  final  speech  — 
of  the  (Merchant  of  Venice)  may  have  been  given  to  Gratiano  as 
some  compensation  to  this  actor  for  the  early  killing  off  of  Mercutio, 
in  (Romeo  and  Juliet,)  the  play  which  almost  immediately  preceded 
the  (Merchant  of  Venice.)  In  general  the  tag  is  given  by  Shak- 
spere  to  the  most  important  of  the  surviving  characters. 

As  to  the  several  boys  who  were  intrusted  with  Shakspere's 
women  we  are  absolutely  in  the  dark.  We  can  see  with  Spedding 


98030  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

that  there  were  in  the  company  at  one  time  two  lads  who  appeared  as 
the  comedy  heroines,  one  of  them  taller  than  the  other;  Le  Beau 
tells  Orlando  that  Celia  is  taller  than  Rosalind,  and  Hero  is  repeatedly 
called  short.  To  one  or  another  of  these  boys  were  committed  also 
Portia  and  Jessica,  Viola  and  Olivia,  Mrs.  Page  and  Anne  Page. 
Mrs.  Ford  must  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  a  third  lad,  who  was  later 
to  display  his  captivating  humor  as  Maria  in  (Twelfth  Night,)  having 
already  appeared  as  the  laughing  Nerissa  in  the  (Merchant  of  Venice) 
and  as  the  giggling  Audrey  in  (As  you  Like  it.)  But  which  of  these 
three  boys  was  bold  enough  to  undertake  Cleopatra  or  Lady  Macbeth  ? 

It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  the  Queen  Margaret  who  curses 
so  copiously  was  impersonated  by  the  young  fellow  who  was  soon 
after  to  appear  as  Kate  the  cursed.  What  became  of  this  lad,  and  of 
the  others  also,  when  their  voices  cracked  and  they  grew  to  manhood? 
Probably  most  of  them  remained  in  the  company  and  took  to  male 
characters,  returning  on  occasion  to  the  other  sex  when  there  arrived 
a  strongly  marked  part  for  an  ((old  woman))  —  a  part  which  did  not 
demand  actual  youth.  One  such  actor,  boy  or  man,  must  have 
created  the  Nurse  in  (Romeo  and  Juliet),,  the  various  Mrs.  Quicklys 
in  the  two  parts  of  (Henry  IV.,)  in  (Henry  V.,)  and  in  the  (Merry 
Wives,)  and  Mrs.  Overdone  in  (Measure  for  Measure,)  characters 
closely  akin  in  their  oily  humor. 

A  few  further  suggestions  may  be  risked.  It  seems  highly  prob- 
able that  the  performer  who  was  the  original  Slender  in  the  (Merry 
Wives)  was  also  the  creator  of  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  in  (Twelfth 
Night,)  of  Le  Beau  in  (As  you  Like  it)  and  of  Osric  in  (Hamlet.) 
We  may  also  venture  the  surmise  that  the  actor  who  created  Chris- 
topher Sly  in  the  induction  of  the  (Taming  of  the  Shrew)  had  also 
created  one  of  the  strongly  marked  comic  characters  in  the  Falstaff 
plays,  Nym  or  Pistol,  but  more  probably  Bardolph. 

These  scattered  suggestions  may  seem  fantastic.  They  are  sug- 
gestions only,  hypotheses  which  may  be  verified  by  further  investi- 
gation or  which  may  be  contradicted  by  more  diligent  research.  The 
inquiry  here  initiated  modestly  can  be  pushed  further;  for  example, 
we  have  some  information  as  to  the  actors  who  personated  the  chief 
parts  in  certain  of  the  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  plays,  and  a  study  of 
these  parts  may  indicate  the  lines  of  business  they  were  in  the  habit 
of  playing  and  thus  point  to  their  possible  Shaksperean  parts.  Such 
an  inquiry  is  likely  to  increase  our  knowledge  of  the  theatrical  con- 
ditions under  which  Shakspere  worked  and  to  which  he  had  to 
conform. 


9803  d 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 

(1850-1893) 

BY  FIRMIN  ROZ 

IHEN,  after  a  volume  of  poetry,  (  Des  Vers>  (Verses:  1880),  Guy 
de  Maupassant  published  in  1881  the  famous  story  <  Boule  de 
SuiP  (Tallow-Ball),  he  was  claimed  by  the  naturalists;  and 
Zola,  in   an  enthusiastic  article,  introduced   the   author  and   the  work 
to  the  public.    It  learned  that  the  new-comer  to  the  Soirees  de  Medan 
was  a  robust  Norman,  proud  of  his  strength,  skilled  in  physical  exer- 
cises.    During  ten  years,   Gustave  Flaubert, 
his  godfather,  had   gradually  and   patiently 
taught   him   his  profession  of   observer  and 
writer.       According     to     some,     the     pupil 
equaled  the  master.     He  certainly  excelled 
a  great  number  of  those  who  claimed  to  be 
enrolled  in  their  ranks. 

The  document  school  was  then  in  all  its 
glory.  It  was  the  heroic  time  of  the  so- 
called  realistic  novel,  composed  of  slices  out 
of  life ;  of  the  scientific  and  psychologic 
novel,  in  which  the  study  of  the  passions, 
the  conflicts  of  reason  with  instinct, —  all 
the  old-time  psychology,  in  short, — was 
replaced  by  the  organic  dissection  of  the 

characters,  atavism,  the  influence  of  environment  and  circumstances, — 
all  determinism,  in  a  word.  In  this  examination  of  facts,  hearts  were 
neglected;  and  novels  laboriously  constructed  according  to  the  posi- 
tivist  method  set  forth  by  Zola  in  <  Le  Roman  Experimental  >  —  novels 
in  which  all  must  be  explained  and  demonstrated,  which  attempted 
to  reproduce  the  very  movement  of  life  —  were  sometimes  as  false  and 
devoid  of  li:£e  as  photographs,  which  exactly  reproduce  the  details  of 
a  face  without  catching  its  expression. 

By  temperament,  by  education,  Guy  de  Maupassant  was  above  all 
a  realist.  He  had  learned  from  Flaubert  that  anything  is  worthy  of 
art  when  the  artist  knows  how  to  fashion  it.  A  country  pharmacist, 
pretentious  and  commonplace  (Bournisien  in  c  Madame  Bovary*),  is 
no  less  interesting  than  a  scholar,  a  poet,  or  a  prince.  The  writer 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


9804 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 


should  not  accord  any  preference  to  one  or  another  of  his  heroes. 
His  impartiality  guarantees  the  sureness  of  his  observation.  His  role 
is  to  express  life  simply  and  purely,  without  seeking  its  meaning, 
without  choosing  this  or  that  form  to  the  exclusion  of  some  other. 
But  if  the  vulgarity  or  even  coarseness  of  the  characters  and  environ- 
ment, the  crudeness  of  scene  and  language,  aroused  the  curiosity  of 
the  public,  and  assisted  the  author's  success  by  winning  admirations 
not  always  addressed  perhaps  to  what  was  truly  admirable, — the 
learned,  the  connoisseurs,  were  not  deceived.  They  greeted  him  as 
a  master  writer,  an  unequaled  story-teller,  who  in  spite  of  Zola  pre- 
served the  classic  virtues  —  precision,  clearness,  art  of  composition  — 
which  are  necessary  to  the  novel,  indispensable  to  the  short  story. 
This  alone  was  enough  to  distinguish  Maupassant  from  the  Zolaists 
and  the  De  Goncourtists,  who  were  then  swarming:  his  firm,  alert 
prose  is  so  profoundly  French,  free  from  neologisms,  strong  in  verbs, 
sober  in  adjectives,  every  sentence  standing  out  with  no  apparent 
effort,  no  excess,  like  a  muscle  in  the  perfect  body  of  a  young 
athlete. 

In  less  than  twelve  years  Guy  de  Maupassant  published  ten  collec- 
tions of  short  stories  .and  tales:  ( Mademoiselle  FifV  (Miss  Harriett, y 
<Au  SoleiP  (In  the  Sunshine),  <Les  Sceurs  Rondoli*  (The  Sisters 
Rondoli),  <  Contes  de  la  Becasse,>  <M.  Parent,  >  <L'Inutile  Beaute>  (Vain 
Beauty),  etc.;  and  six  novels:  <Une  Vie>  (A  Life:  1883),  <Mont-Oriol,) 
<  Bel-Ami }  (1885),  <  Pierre  et  Jean>  (Peter  and  John:  1888),  <  Fort  comme 
la  Mort>  (Strong  as  Death:  1889),  <  Notre  Cceur)  (Our  Heart:  1893).* 

Guy  de  Maupassant's  place,  then,  is  in  the  first  rank  of  the  real- 
ists, and  nearer  to-  Flaubert  than  to  De  Goncourt  and  Zola.  For  the 
purest  expression  of  naturalism,  one  must  seek  him  and  his  master. 
He  has  that  sense  of  the  real  which  so  many  naturalists  lack,  and 
which  the  care  for  exact  detail  does  not  replace.  Beside  the  con- 
gealed works  of  that  school  his  work  lives,  not  as  a  representation  of 
life  but  as  life  itself, —  interior  life  expressed  by  exterior  life,  life  of 
men  and  of  animals,  the  complex  and  multiform  life  of  the  universe 
weighed  down  by  eternal  fatalities.  And  in  the  least  little  stories, 
most  often  far  from  gays — between  two  phrases  of  Rachel  Rondoli  or 
of  M.  Parent;  through  evocation  of  a  sky,  a  perfume,  a  landscape,— 
one  experiences  the  disquiet  of  physical  mysteries,  the  shudder  of 
love  or  of  death.  This  living  realism  is  absolutely  pure  with  Guy  de 
Maupassant.  There  is  no  longer  any  trace  of  that  romantic  heredity 
which  is  still  apparent  with  the  author  of  ( Salammbo y  and  of  <  La 
Tentation  de  Saint  Antoine.*  He  was  rarely  even  tempted  toward 
the  study  and  description  of  what  are  called  the  upper  classes;  or  by 
the  luxury  which  fascinated  Balzac.  His  predilection  for  ordinary 

*  Published  by  V.  Havard  in  nine  volumes ;  by  Ollendorff  in  ei^ht  volumes. 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 


9805 


scenes  and  ordinary  types  is  everywhere  evident;  he  uses  all  kinds 
of  settings, —  a  cafe,  a  furnished  room,  a  farm-yard,  seen  in  their  act- 
ual character  without  poetic  transfiguration,  with  all  their  vulgarity, 
their  poverty,  their  ugliness.  And  he  uses  too  all  kinds  of  charac- 
ters,—  clerks,  peasants  of  Normandy,  petty  bourgeois  of  Paris  and  of 
the  country.  They  live  the  empty,  tragic,  or  grotesque  hours  of  their 
lives;  a're  sometimes  touching,  sometimes  odious;  and  never  achieve 
greatness  either  in  heroism  or  in  wickedness. 

They  are  not  gay,  these  stories;  and  the  kind  of  amusement  they 
afford  is  strongly  mixed  with  irony,  pity,  and  contempt.  Gayety, 
whether  brutal,  frank,  mocking,  or  delicate,  never  leaves  this  bitter 
taste  in  the  heart.  How  pitiful  in  its  folly,  in  its  vanity,  in  its  weak- 
ness, is  the  humanity  which  loves,  weeps,  or  agitates  in  the  tales  of 
Maupassant!  There,  virtue  if  awkward  is  never  recompensed,  nor  vice 
if  skillful  punished;  mothers  are  not  always  saints,  nor  sons  always 
grateful  and  respectful;  the  guilty  are  often  ignorant  of  remorse. 
Then  are  these  beings  immoral  ?  To  tell  the  truth,  they  are  guided 
by  their  instincts,  by  events,  submissive  to  the  laws  of  necessity,  and 
apparently  released  by  the  author  from  all  responsibility. 

Such  is  the  individual  humor  of  Guy  de  Maupassant, —  a  humor 
rarely  joyous,  without  sparkling  shocks  of  repartee;  a  humor  tinged 
with  bitterness  and  contempt,  arising  usually  from  the  seriousness  of 
ridiculous  people  and  from  the  ridiculousness  of  serious  people,  and 
nearly  always  from  the  universal  powerlessness  to  advance  beyond 
mediocrity.  And  if  Maupassant  is  cruel  to  his  heroes,  he  would 
doubtless  say  that  it  is  because  life  too  is  cruel,  unjust,  sad,  deceiv- 
ing; and  that  beauty,  virtue,  and  happiness  are  only  exceptions. 

Thence  the  pessimistic  tendency  of  his  work.  Nothing  shows  this 
original  pessimism — rough  and  lucid,  emotional  without  lyricism  — 
better  than  the  novel  (  Une  Vie.}  It  is  the  story  of  a  commonplace 
existence:  the  life  of  a  country  woman,  married  to  a  brutal  and  ava- 
ricious country  squire,  delivered  from  him  through  a  neighbor's  ven- 
geance, deceived  by  her  son  as  well*  as  by  her  husband,  and  fixing 
her  obstinate  hope  upon  the  grandchild,  who  perhaps,  if  death  does 
not  liberate  her  in  time,  will  add  one  supreme  deception  to  all  the 
others.  This  woman,  who  believes  herself  the  victim  of  a  special 
fatality,  has  against  her  nothing  but  the  chance  of  a  bad  choice, 
and  the  weakness  of  her  own  tender  spirit,  incapable  of  struggle  or 
action.  She  is  good,  pure,  and  perhaps  more  sympathetic  than  any 
other  of  Maupassant's  heroines.  Her  life  is  like  many  other  lives, 
and  doubtless  the  sadness  which  emanates  from  it  widens  to  infinity. 

In  the  short  stories,  this  pessimistic  tendency  grows  finer  and 
sharper  so  as  sometimes  to  find  expression  in  a  tragic  element. 
But  with  Maupassant  the  tragic  is  of  very  special  essence,  and  not 


9806  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

expressed  in  grand  melodramatic  effects  or  catastrophes  as  in  roman- 
ticism. Nor  does  it  consist  in  the  classic  debate  between  duty  and 
passion.  No,  it  consists  rather  in  a  wholly  physical  emotion,  excited 
by  the  wretchedness  of  certain  destinies,  and  evoking  in  its  turn  the 
mysterious  menaces  which  hover  over  us.  Disease,  madness,  death, 
are  in  ambush  behind  every  door  of  our  house;  and  no  one  has 
expressed  better  than  Maupassant  the  terror  of  the  being  who  feels 
their  breath  or  sees  them  face  to  face.  No  one  has  felt  with  deeper 
sorrow  behind  this  human  misery,  the  frightful  solitude  of  man 
among  men;  the  black  chasm  which  separates  us  from  those  whom 
we  love;  the  impossibility  of  uniting  two  hearts  or  two  thoughts; 
the  slow  succession  of  the  little  miseries  of  life;  the  fatal  disorgan- 
ization of  a  solitary  existence  whose  dreams  have  vanished;  and  the 
reason  of  those  tragic  endings  which  only  nervous,  sensitive  minds 
can  understand. 

This  enables  us  to  grasp  the  very  principle  of  Maupassant's  pes- 
simism, and  of  this  disorganization  in  which  his  clear  and  vigorous 
intellect  foundered.  Even  his  first  volume,  (Des  Vers,*  showed  this 
haunting  thought  of  death,  this  sadness  of  the  supersensitive  soul  har- 
assed and  unsatisfied,  powerless  to  take  pleasure  in  the  joys  which 
are  scattered  through  the  universe.  In  the  two  little  poems  ( La 
Venus  Rustique>  (The  Country  Venus)  and  <Au  Bord  de  1'Eau*  (On 
the  Water's  Brink),  there  is  as  it  were  an  intoxication  with  life,  which 
at  first  appears  the  sane  and  happy  expression  of  a  robust  tempera- 
ment, but  which  quickly  ends  in  nostalgia  and  horror  of  nothingness. 
And  here  is  the  keynote  to  Maupassant's  sensualism:  it  is  the  fran- 
tic desire  to  concentrate  in  the  senses  of  a  single  man  all  that  the 
material  world  contains  of  delight, — colors,  sounds,  perfumes,  beauty 
under  all  its  forms;  it  is  the  adoration  of  matter,  ?nd  it  is  the  de- 
spair of  a  being  crushed  by  the  blind,  implacable,  and  eternal  divinity 
which  it  has  chosen.  What  does  feeling  become  in  this  pagan  joy, 
this  mother  of  pains  and  slaveries?  It  is  easy  to  see:  love  is  as  fatal 
as  death.  It  is  a  force  of  nature  which  we  can  neither  control  nor 
avoid,  nor  fix  according  to  our  wish;  and  its  very  nature  explains 
the  derangements  of  hearts,  the  betrayals,  the  jealousies,  which  deck 
it  in  fictitious  sentimentality.  Final  conclusion :  —  our  free  will,  our 
liberty,  are  illusions;  and  morality  is  suppressed  at  the  same  time 
that  remorses,  internal  conflicts,  duties  are  reduced  to  more  conven- 
tions useful  to  society. 

This  is  the  principle  of  Maupassant's  pessimism.  As  is  evident,  it 
springs  directly  from  his  naturalism.  His  conception  of  art  and  his 
conception  of  life  are  closely  allied.  This  pessimism  became  more 
and  more  accentuated  from  one  work  to  another;  from  ( tine  Vie1 
(1883)  to  <  Notre  Coeur>  (1892).  But  in  the  measure  of  the  novelist's 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  9807 

more  and  more  profound  investigation  of  life,  he  imperceptibly  and  to 
a  certain  degree  substituted  psychological  study  for  realism  according 
to  Flaubert's  formula.  This  evolution  of  Guy  de  Maupassant's  talent 
asserts  itself  in  ( Pierre  et  Jean)  (1888),  and  is  still  more  clearly 
delineated  in  <  Fort  comme  la  Mort>  and  <  Notre  Coeur.*  We  are  far 
away  from  the  <Boule  de  Suifs*  and  the  like.  His  observation  has 
become  acuter,  his  language  better  shaded.  There  is  a  more  flexible 
precision  in  the  study  of  more  delicate  sentiments  and  of  more 
complicated  minds.  Is  not  the  love  of  the  old  painter  Bertin  for 
the  daughter  of  the  woman  he  has  passionately  loved  an  exceptional 
sentiment?  It  was  a  ticklish  subject;  and  the  author  presented  it 
very  ably,  without  brutalities.  We  cannot  help  pitying  the  woman 
who  feels  herself  growing  old,  the  man  who  cherished  in  his  friend's 
daughter  the  young  beauty  of  the  mother  whom  he  once  loved.  But 
the  charming  child  is  ignorant  of  the  harm  she  is  innocently  doing. 
She  marries,  and  the  old  painter  bears  his  passion  with  him  in  death; 
while  Madame  de  Guilleroy  burns  the  old  letters,  their  love  letters, 
found  in  a  drawer,  and  Olivier's  resigned  agony  is  lighted  up  by  the 
reflection  of  their  blazing  leaves. 

This  novel  was  less  successful  than  its  predecessors.  The  ordi- 
nary public,  who  had  enjoyed  < Maitre  Hauchecorne  >  and  ( Mademoi- 
selle FifV  thought  that  its  author  had  been  changed.  It  asserted 
that  the  success  of  the  psychologic  novel  had  fascinated  Maupassant. 
Perhaps  we  should  see  in  this  new  phase  of  his  talent  only  a  conse- 
quence of  the  modification  which  years  and  the  events  of  his  inti- 
mate life  had  little  by  little  brought  about.  < Notre  Cceur  >  would 
confirm  this  view.  It  resembles  an  autobiography.  It  is  the  eternal 
misunderstanding  between  man  and  woman, —  drawing  near  for  an 
instant,  never  united,  and  never  giving  the  same  words  the  same 
meaning.  What  an  exquisite  charming  face  is  that  of  Michelle  de 
Burne!  a  costly  flower  blossoming  after  centuries  of  extreme  civiliza- 
tion; a  positive,  gently  egoistic  being,  in  whom  nothing  is  left  of 
primitive  woman  except  the  need  of  dazzling  others  and  of  being 
adored.  Simple  sincere  Elizabeth  may  console  Andre  Mariolle;  but 
neither  brilliant  orchid  nor  humble  daisy  can  replace  or  make  the 
other  forgotten.  That  is  why  Andre,  uniting  the  two  in  a  single 
bouquet,  renounces  the  torturing  dream  of  one  only  love.  Thus  Guy 
de  Maupassant  had  been  led  by  the  progress  of  his  observation  and 
his  analysis  to  penetrate  into  the  intimate  regions  of  the  heart,  where 
our  most  secret  and  most  diverse  sentiments  hide,  struggle,  suppli- 
cate, and  contend  with  each  other.  This  progress  of  the  novelist  is 
natural.  As  his  observation  grows  sharper  and  finer,  it  penetrates 
deeper;  proceeds  from  faces  to  minds,  and  from  gestures  to  feelings. 
Psychological  analysis  appears,  and  with  it  reflection.  The  mind  falls 


9808 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 


back  upon  itself;  the  man  returns  to  his  own  thoughts,  his  dreams, 
his  emotions.  He  descends  into  his  own  heart,  and  irony  becomes  pity 
and  tenderness.  His  art  is  perhaps  more  human. 

Neither  (Fort  comme  la  Mort)  nor  ( Notre  Cceur,'  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant's last  two  novels,  shows  any  trace  of  insanity.  Yet  when 
the  world  learned  in  1893  that  this  terrible  disease  had  seized  the 
famous  novelist,  those  who  had  read  and  studied  his  work  were  only 
half  surprised.  It  was  then  some  years  since  the  reading  of  (  Horla  > 
had  made  them  anxious. 

What  is  <  Horla >? —  It  is  not  a  spirit,  it  is  not  a  phantom  of  the 
imagination.  It  is  not  any  kind  of  a  creature  either  natural  or  su- 
pernatural. It  is  not  even  an  illusion  of  sick  senses,  a  hallucination 
of  fever.  No;  it  is  something  both  more  real  and  less  real,  less  dis- 
quieting and  more  so:  it  is  the  unknown  hostility  surrounding  one  in 
the  invisible.  It  is  everywhere, — in  the  bed  curtains,  in  the  water 
pitcher,  in  the  fire  lighted  to  drive  it  from  the  house.  Dream  of  a 
madman,  whom  the  wing  of  insanity  had  brushed!  Already  in  1884, 
in  the  story  entitled  'Lui,*  there  had  been  signs  of  this  fear  of  fears, 
fear  of  the  spasms  of  a  wandering  mind,  fear  of  that  horrible  sensa- 
tion of  incomprehensible  terror :  — <(  I  am  afraid  of  the  walls,  of  the 
furniture,  of  the  familiar  objects  which  seem  to  me  to  assume  a  kind 
of  animal  life.  Above  all  I  fear  the  horrible  confusion  of  my  thought, 
of  my  reason  escaping,  entangled  and  scattered  by  an  invisible  and 
mysterious  anguish. w 

Sensuality,  pessimism,  obsession  of  nothingness,  hallucinations  of 
the  strange, — these  different  states  cruelly  asserted  their  logical 
dependence  in  the  intellectual  history  of  Guy  de  Maupassant.  The 
mind  which  had  seemed  so  profoundly  sane  and  free  from  any  mor- 
bid germ  became  disordered,  and  then  shattered  entirely.  The  uni- 
verse of  forms,  sounds,  .  colors,  and  perfumes,  to  which  he  had  so 
complaisantly  surrendered  himself,  became  uninhabitable.  Perhaps  it 
is  necessary  that  in  its  attitude  toward  matter  the  mind  should 
always  retain  a  kind  of  distrust,  and  dominate  it  without  yielding 
completely  to  its  sorceries  and  enchantments.  To  this  feast  Maupas- 
sant had  opened  all  his  senses.  The  day  came  when  he  felt  his  ideas 
flying  around  him,  he  said,  like  butterflies.  With  his  habitual  grasp 
he  still  sought  to  seize  them  while  they  were  already  far  from  his 
empty  brain.  Guy  de  Maupassant  died  in  1893,  when  forty-three 
years  old.  His  robust  constitution  could  not  resist  the  excessive  ex- 
penditure of  all  his  energies. 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

THE   LAST  YEARS   OF  MADAME  JEANNE 
From  <A  Life> 


9809 


JEANNE  did  not  go  out  any  more.  She  hardly  bestirred  herself. 
Each  morning  she  got  up  at  the  same  hour;  took  notice  of 
the  weather  outside ;  and  then  went  down  and  seated  her- 
self before  the  fire  in  the  hall. 

She  would  remain  there  whole  days,  immovable,  her.  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  flame,  giving  course  to  lamentable  thoughts,  fol- 
lowing the  melancholy  retrospect  of  her  sorrows.  Little  by  little 
darkness  would  invade  the  small  room  as  the  day  closed,  without 
her  having  made  any  other  movement  than  to  put  more  wood  on 
the  fire.  Then  Rosalie  would  bring  the  lamp,  exclaiming  to  her, 
"Come,  come,  Madame  Jeanne!  You  must  shake  yourself  up.  a 
bit,  or  really  you  won't  have  any  appetite  this  evening  for  sup- 
per.» 

Often,  too,  she  was  persecuted  by  fixed  ideas,  which  besieged 
and  tortured  her;  by  insignificant  preoccupations, —  mere  trifles 
which  took  in  her  dim  brain  a  false  importance. 

More  than  anything  else  she  took  to  living  over  the  past, — - 
her  past  that  lay  furthest  back,  haunted  by  the  early  days  of 
her  life, —  by  her  wedding  trip,  over  there  in  Corsica.  Suddenly 
there  would  rise  up  before  her,  landscapes  of  that  island  so  long 
forgotten,  seen  now  in  the  embers  of  the  fireplace :  she  would 
recall  all  the  details,  all  the  trivial  little  episodes,  every  face 
once  met  in  that  time;  the  fine  head  of  the  guide  that  they  had 
employed  —  Jean  Ravoli  —  kept  coming  before  her,  and  she  some- 
times fancied  that  she  heard  his  voice. 

Then  too  she  would  fall  into  a  revery  upon  the  happy  years 
of  her  son's  childhood,  when  she  and  Aunt  Lison,  with  Paul,  had 
worked  in  the  salad-bed  together^  kneeling  side  by  side  in  the  soft 
ground,  the  two  women  rivals  in  their  effort  to  amuse  the  child 
as  they  toiled  among  the  young  plants. 

So  musing,  her  lips  would  murmur,  <(  Poulet,  Poulet !  my  little 
Poulet," — as  if  she  were  speaking  to  him;  and,  her  revery  broken 
as  she  spoke,  she  would  try  during  whole  hours  to  write  the  boy's 
name  in  the  air,  shaping  with  her  outstretched  finger  these  letters. 
She  would  trace  them  slowly  in  space  before  the  fire,  sometimes 
imagining  that  she  really  saw  them,  then  believing  that  her  eyes 
had  deceived  her;  and  so  she  would  rewrite  the  capital  P  again, 
her  old  arm  trembling  with  fatigue,  but  forcing  herself  to  trace 


9810 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 


the  name  to  its  end;  then  when  she  had  finished  it  she  would 
write  it  over  again.  At  last  she  could  not  write  it  any  more. 
She  would  confuse  everything, —  form  other  words  at  random, 
enfeebled  almost  to  idiocy. 

All  the  little  manias  of  those  who  live  solitary  took  hold  of 
her.  The  least  change  in  her  surroundings  irritated  her. 

Rosalie  would  often  insist  upon  making  her  walk  about,  and 
even,  carry  her  off  to  the  roadside:  but  Jeanne  at  the  end  of 
twenty  minutes  would  always  end  up  by  saying,  (<No,  I  am  too 
tired  out,  my  good  girl ;  *  and  then  she  would  sit  down  on  the 
edge  of  the  green  roadside. 

Indeed,  movement  of  any  kind  was  soon  distasteful  to  hei> 
and  she  would  stay  in  bed  in  the  morning  as  late  as  possible. 
Ever  since  her  infancy  one  particular  habit  had  remained  tena- 
ciously with  her, — that  of  jumping  up  out  of  bed  just  as  soon  as 
she  had  swallowed  her  morning  coffee.  She  was  very  much  set 
on  that  way  of  breakfasting,  and  the  privation  would  have  been 
felt  more  than  anything  else.  Each  morning  she  would  await 
Rosalie's  arrival  at  her  bedside  with  an  exaggerated  impatience, 
and  just  as  soon  as  the  cup  was  put  upon  the  table  at  her  side, 
she  would  start  up  and  empty  it  almost  greedily,  and  then  begin 
to  dress  herself  at  once. 

But  now,  little  by  little,  she  had  grown  into  the  habit  of 
dreamily  waiting  some  seconds  after  she  had  put  back  the  cup 
into  the  plate;  then  she  would  settle  herself  again  in  her  bed; 
and  then,  little  by  little,  would  lengthen  her  idleness  from  day 
to  day,  until  Rosalie  would  come  back  furious  at  such  delay,  and 
would  dress  her  mistress  almost  by  force. 

Besides  all  this,  she  did  not  seem  to  have  now  any  appear- 
ance of  a  will  about  matters;  and  each  time  that  Rosalie  would 
ask  her  opinion  as  to  whether  something  was  to  be  one  way  or 
another,  she  would  answer,  (<Do  as  you  think  best,  my  girl." 

She  fancied  herself  directly  pursued  by  obstinate  misfortune, 
against  which  she  made  herself  as  fatalistic  as  an  Oriental:  the 
habit  of  seeing  her  dreams  evaporate,  and  her  hopes  come  to 
nothing,  put  her  into  the  attitude  of  being  afraid  to  undertake 
anything;  and  she  hesitated  whole  days  before  accomplishing  the 
most  simple  affair,  convinced  that  she  would  only  set  out  the 
wrong  way  to  do  it,  and  that  it  would  turn  out  badly.  She 
repeated  continually,  <(  I  have  never  had  any  luck  in  my  life. }> 
Then  it  was  Rosalie's  turn  to  cry  to  her,  <(  What  would  you  say 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  98n 

if  you  had  had  to  work  for  your  bread,  —  if  you  were  obliged  to 
get  up  every  morning  at  six  o'clock  and  go  out  for  your  day's 
doings  ?  There  are  lots  of  people  who  are  obliged  to  do  that, 
nevertheless;  and  when  such  people  become  too  old,  they  have  to 
die  —  just  of  their  poverty. )} 

A  little  more  strength  came  to  her  when  the  air  softened  into 
the  first  days  of  spring;  but  she  used  this  new  activity  only  to 
throw  herself  more  and  more  into  sombre  thoughts. 

One  morning,  when  she  had  climbed  up  into  the  garret  to 
hunt  for  something,  she  happened  to  open  a  trunk  full  of  old 
calendars;  somebody  had  kept  them,  as  certain  country  people 
have  a  habit  of  doing.  It  seemed  to  her  that  in  finding  them 
she  found  the  very  years  themselves  of  her  past  life;  and  she 
remained  stricken  with  a  strange  and  confused  emotion  before 
that  pile  of  cardboard  squares. 

She  took  them  up  and  carried  them  down-stairs.  They  were 
of  all  shapes,  big  and  little.  She  began  to  arrange  them  year 
by  year,  upon  the  table ;  and  then,  all  at  once,  she  found  the  very 
first  one  that  had  belonged  to  her, —  the  same  one  that  she  had 
brought  to  Peuples.  She  looked  at  this  one  a  long  time,  with 
the  dates  marked  off  by  her  the  morning  of  her  departure  from 
Rouen,  the  day  after  her  going  away  from  the  convent.  She 
wept  over  it.  Sadly  and  slowly  the  tears  fell;  the  bitter  tears 
of  an  old  woman  whose  life  was  spread  out  before  her  on  that 
table. 

With  the  calendars  came  to  her  an  idea  that  soon  became  a 
sort  of  obsession;  terrible,  incessant,  inexorable.  She  would  try  to 
remember  just  whatever  she  had  done  from  day  to  day  during- 
all  her  life.  She  pinned  the  calendars  against  the  walls  and  on 
the  carpet  one  after  the  other  —  those  faded  pieces  of  cardboard; 
and  so  she  came  to  pass  hours  face  to  face  with  them,  continually 
asking  herself.  <(  Now  let  me  see, — what  was  it  happened  to  me 
that  month  ? » 

She  had  checked  certain  memorable  days  in  the  course  of  her 
life,  hence  now  and  then  she  was  able  to  recall  the  episodes  of 
an  entire  month,  bringing  them  up  one  by  one,  grouping  them 
together,  connecting  one  by  another  all  those  little  matters  which 
had  preceded  or  followed  some  important  event.  She  succeeded 
by  sheer  force  of  attention,  by  force  of  memory  and  of  concen- 
trated will,  in  bringing  back  to  mind  almost  completely  her  two 
first  years  at  Peuples.  Far-away  souvenirs  of  her  life  returned  to 


9812 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


her  with  a  singular  facility,  and  with  a  kind  of  relief  in  them; 
but  the  later  years  gradually  seemed  to  lose  themselves  in  a 
mist, —  to  become  mixed  one  with  another:  and  so  Jeanne  would 
remain  now  and  then  an  indefinite  time,  her  head  bowed  toward 
one  of  the  calendars,  her  mind  spellbound  by  the  past,  without 
being  able  to  remember  whether  it.  was  in  this  or  that  calendar 
that  such  or  such  a  remembrance  ought  to  be  decided.  She 
ranged  them  around  the  room  like  the  religious  pictures  that 
point  out  the-  Way  of  the  Cross  in  a  church, —  these  tableaux 
of  days  that  were  no  more.  Then  she  would  abruptly  set  down 
her  chair  before  one  of  them;  and  there  she  would  sit  until 
night  came,  immobile,  staring  at  it,  buried  in  her  vague  re- 
searches. 

All  at  once,  when  the  sap  began  to  awaken  in  the  boughs 
beneath  the  warmth  of  the  sun;  when  the  crops  began  to  spring 
up  in  the  fields,  the  trees  to  become  verdant;  when  the  apple- 
trees  in  the  orchard  swelled  out  roundly  like  rosy  balls,  and  per- 
fumed the  plain, —  then  a  great  counter-agitation  came  over  her; 
she  could  not  seem  to  stay  still.  She  went  and  came;  she  left 
the  house  and  returned  to  it  twenty  times  a  day,  and  even  took 
now  and  then  a  stroll  the  length  of  the  farming  tracts,  excited 
to  a  sort  of  fever  of  regret.  The  sight  of  a  daisy  blossoming  in 
a  tuft  of  grass,  the  flash  of  a  ray  of  sun  slipping  down  between 
the  leaves,  the  glittering  of  a  strip  of  water  in  which  the  blue 
sky  was  mirrored, — all  moved  her;  awakened  a  tenderness  in 
her;  gave  her  sensations  very  far  away,  like  an  echo  of  her 
emotions  as  a  young  girl,  when  she  went  dreaming  about  the 
country-side. 

One  morning  the  faithful  Rosalie  came  later  than  usual  into 
her  room,  and  said,  setting  down  upon  the  table  the  bowl  of  cof- 
fee :  <(  Come  now,  drink  this.  Denis  is  down-stairs  waiting  for  us 
at  the  door.  We  will  go  over  to  Peuples  to-day:  I've  got  some 
business  to 'attend  to  over  there. }> 

Jeanne  thought  that  she  was  going  to  faint,  so  deep  was  her 
emotion  at  the  sound  of  that  name,  at  the  thought  of  going  to 
the  home  of  her  girlhood.  She  dressed  herself,  trembling  with 
emotion,  frightened  and  tremulous  at  the  mere  idea  of  seeing 
again  that  dear  house. 

A  radiant  sky  spread  out  above  over  all  the  world;  the  horse, 
in  fits  and  starts  of  liveliness,  sometimes  went  almost  at  a  gallop. 
When  they  entered  into  the  commune  of  Etouvent,  Jeanne  could 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

hardly  breathe,  so  much  did  her  heart  beat;  and  when  she  saw 
from  a  distance  the  brick  pillars  of  the  boundary-line  of  her  old 
home,  she  exclaimed  in  a  low  voice  two  or  three  times,  and  as  if 
in  spite  of  herself,  <(Oh!  —  oh!  —  oh! — }>  as  if  before  things  that 
threatened  to  revolutionize  all  her  heart. 

They  left  the  wagon  with  the  Couillard  family:  then,  while 
Rosalie  and  her  son  went  off  to  attend  to  their  business,  the  care- 
takers offered  Jeanne  the  chance  of  taking  a  little  turn  around 
the  chateau,  the  present  owners  of  it  being  absent;  so  they  gave 
her  the  keys. 

Alone  she  set  out;  and  when  she  was  fairly  before  the  old 
manor-house  by  the  seaside,  she  stopped  to  look  at  its  outside 
once  again.  It  had  changed  in  nothing  outside.  The  large, 
grayish  building  that  day  showed  upon  its  old  walls  the  smile  of 
the  sunshine.  All  the  shutters  were  closed. 

A  bit  of  a  dead  branch  fell  from  above  upon  her  dress.  She 
raised  her  eyes.  It  came  from  the  plane-tree.  She  drew  near 
the  big  tree  with  its  smooth,  pale  bark;  she  caressed  it  with  her 
hand  almost  as  if  it  had  been  an  animal.  Her  foot  struck  some- 
thing in  the  grass, — a  fragment  of  rotten  wood;  lo!  it  was  the 
last  fragment  of  the  very  bench  on  which  she  had  sat  so  often 
with  those  of  her  own  family  about  her,  so  many  years  ago;  the 
very  bench  which  had  been  set  in  place  on  the  same  day  that 
Julien  had  made  his  first  visit. 

She  turned  then  to  the  double  doors  of  the  vestibule  of  the 
house,  and  she  had  great  trouble  to  open  them;  for  the  heavy 
key,  grown  rusty,  refused  to  turn  in  the  lock.  At  length  the 
lock  yielded  with  a  heavy  grinding  of  its  springs;  and  the  door, 
a  little  obstinate  itself,  gave  her  entrance  with  a  cloud  of  dust. 

At  once,  and  almost  running,  she  went  up-stairs  to  find  what 
had  been  her  own  room.  She  could  hardly  recognize  it, .  hung 
as  it  was  with  a  light  new  paper:  but  throwing  open  a  window, 
she  looked  out  and  stood  motionless,  stirred  even  to  the  depth  of 
her  being  at  the  sight  of  all  that  landscape  so  much  beloved;  the 
thicket,  the  elm-trees,  the  flat  reaches,  and  the  sea  dotted  with 
brown  sails,  seeming  motionless  in  the  distance. 

She  began  prowling  about  the  great  empty,  lonely  dwelling. 
She  even  stopped  to  look  at  the  discolorations  on  the  walls;  spots 
familiar  to  her  eyes.  Once  she  stood  before  a  little  hole  crushed 
in  the  plaster  by  her  father  himself;  who  had  often  amused  him- 
self with  making  passages  at  arms,  cane  in  hand,  against  the 
partition  wall,  when  he  would  happen  to  be  passing  this  spot. 


9814  GUY  DE   MAUPASSANT 

Her  mother's  room — in  it  she  found,  stuck  behind  the  door 
in  a  dark  corner  near  the  bed,  a  fine  gold  hairpin;  one  which 
she  herself  had  stuck  there  so  long  ago,  and  which  she  had  often 
tried  to  find  during  the  past  years.  Nobody  had  ever  come  across 
it.  She  drew  it  out  as  a  relic  beyond  all  price,  and  kissed  it, 
and  carried  it  away  with  her.  Everywhere  about  the  house  she 
walked,  recognizing  almost  invisible  marks  in  the  hangings  of 
the  rooms  that  had  not  been  changed;  she  made  out  once  more 
those  curious  faces  that  a  childish  imagination  gives  often  to  the 
patterns  and  stuffs,  to  marbles,  and  to  shadings  of  the  ceilings, 
grown  dingy  with  time.  On  she  walked,  with  soundless  footsteps, 
wholly  alone  in  the  immense,  silent  house,  as  one  who  crosses  a 
cemetery.  All  her  life  was  buried  in  it. 

She  went  down-stairs  to  the  drawing-room.  It  was  sombre 
behind  the  closed  shutters:  for  some  time  she  could  not  distin- 
guish anything;  then  her  eyes  became  accustomed  to  the  darkness. 
She  recognized,  little  by  little,  the  tall  hangings  with  their  pat- 
terns of  birds  flitting  about.  Two  arm-chairs  were  set  before  the 
chimney,  as  if  people  had  just  quitted  them;  and  even  the  odor 
of  the  room,  an  odor  which  it  had  always  kept, —  that  old  vague, 
sweet  odor  belonging  to  some  old  houses, —  entered  Jeanne's  very 
being,  enwrapt  her  in  souvenirs,  intoxicated  her  memory.  She 
remained  gasping,  breathing  in  that  breath  of  the  past,  and  with 
her  eyes  fixed  upon  those  two  chairs;  for  suddenly,  in  a  sort  of 
hallucination  which  gave  place  to  a  positive  idea,  she  saw  —  as 
she  had  so  often  seen  them  —  her  father  and  her  mother,  sitting 
there  warming  their  feet  by  the  fire.  She  drew  back  terrified, 
struck  her  back  against  the  edge  of  the  door,  caught  at  it  to 
keep  herself  from  falling,  but  with  her  eyes  still  fixed  upon  the 
chairs. 

The  vision  disappeared.  She  remained  forgetful  of  everything 
during  some  moments;  then  slowly  she  recovered  her  self-pos- 
session, and  would  have  fled  from  the  room,  fearful  of  losing  her 
very  senses.  By  chance,  her  glance  fell  against  the  door-post  on 
which  she  chanced  to  be  leaning;  and  lo!  before  her  eyes  were 
the  marks  that  had  been  made  to  keep  track  of  Poulet's  height 
as  he  was  growing  up! 

The  little  marks  climbed  the  painted  wood  with  unequal  in- 
tervals; figure?  traced  with  the  penknife  noted  down  the  different 
ages  and  growths  during  the  boy's  life.  Sometimes  the  jottings 
were  in  the  handwriting  of  her  father,  a  large  hand;  sometimes 
they  were  in  her  own  smaller  hand;  sometimes  in  that  of  Aunt 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


9815 


Lison,  a  little  tremulous.  It  seemed  to  her  that  the  child  of 
other,  days  was  actually  there,  standing  before  her  with  his  blond 
hair,  pressing  his  little  forehead  against  the  wall  so  that  his 
height  could  be  measured;  and  the  Baron  was  crying,  <(  Why, 
Jeanne!  he  has  grown  a  whole  centimetre  since  six  weeks  ago!* 
She  kissed  the  piece  of  wood  in  a  frenzy  of  love  and  desolate- 
ness. 

But  some  one  was  calling  her  from  outside.  It  was  Rosalie's 
voice :  <(  Madame  Jeanne,  Madame  Jeanne !  We  are  waiting  for 
you,  to  have  luncheon. }>  She  hurried  away  from  the  room  half 
out  of  her  senses.  She  hardly  understood  anything  that  the  oth- 
ers said  to  her  at  luncheon.  She  ate  the  things  that  they  put 
on  her  plate;  she  listened  without  knowing  what  she  heard,  talk- 
ing mechanically  with  the  farming- women,  who  inquired  about 
her  health;  she  let  them  embrace  her,  and  herself  saluted  the 
cheeks  that  were  held  out  to  her;  and  then  got  into  the  wagon 
again. 

When  the  high  roof  of  the  chateau  was  lost  to  her  sight 
across  the  trees,  she  felt  in  her  very  heart  a  direful  wrench.  It 
seemed  to  her  in  her  innermost  spirit  that  now  she  had  said 
farewell  forever  to  her  old  home! 

Translated  for  <A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature, >  by 
E.  Irenseus  Stevenson 


A  NORMANDY  OUTING:    JEAN   ROLAND'S   LOVE-MAKING 

From  <  Pierre  and  Jean.>     Copyright  1890,  by  Hugh  Craig.     Published  by 
Home  Book  Company 

THE  harvest  was   ripe.      Beside  the   dull    green   of   the   clover 
and    the    bright    green    of    the    beets,  the    yellow    stalks    of 
wheat   illuminated   the   plains  with   a   tawny  golden   gleam. 
They  seemed  to  have  imbibed  the   sunlight  that  fell  upon  them. 
Here    and    there    the   reapers   were    at   work;    and   in    the    fields 
attacked  by  the  scythe  the  laborers  were  seen,  swinging  rhythmi- 
cally as  they  swept  the  huge,  wing-shaped  blade  over  the  surface 
of  the  ground. 

After  a  drive  of  two  hours,  the  break  turned  to  the  left, 
passed  near  a  windmill  in  motion, —  a  gray  melancholy  wreck, 
half  rotten  and  condemned,  the  last  survivor  of  the  old  mills, — 


p8l6  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

and  then  entered  a  pretty  court-yard  and  drew  up  before  a  gay 
little  house,  a  celebrated  inn  of  the  district. 

They  started  out,  net  on  shoulder  and  basket  on  back.  Ma- 
dame Rosemilly  was  charming  in  this  costume,  with  an  unex- 
pected, rustic,  fearless  style  of  beauty. 

The  petticoat  borrowed  from  Alphonsine,  coquettishly  raised 
and  held  by  a  few  stitches,  so  as  to  enable  the  wearer  to  run 
and  leap  without  fear  among  the  rocks,  displayed  her  ankle  and 
the  lower  part  of  the  calf  —  the  firm  calf  of  a  woman  at  once 
agile  and  strong.  Her  figure  was  loose,  to  leave  all  her  move- 
ments easy;  and  she  had  found,  to  cover  her  head,  an  immense 
gardener's  hat  of  yellow  straw,  with  enormous  flaps,  to  which  a 
sprig  of  tamarisk,  holding  one  side  cocked  up,  gave  the  daunt- 
less air  of  a  dashing  mousquetaire. 

Jean,  since  receiving  his  legacy,  had  asked  himself  every  day 
whether  he  should  marry  her  or  no.  Every  time  he  saw  her, 
he  felt  decided  to  make  her  his  wife;  but  when  he  was  alone, 
he  thought  that  meanwhile  there  was  time  to  reflect.  She  was 
now  not  as  rich  as  he  was,  for  she  possessed  only  twelve  thou- 
sand francs  a  year;  —  but  in  real-estate  farms,  and  lots  in  Havre 
on  the  docks,  and  these  might  in  time  be  worth  a  large  sum. 
Their  fortunes,  then,  were  almost  equivalent;  and  the  young 
widow  assuredly  pleased  him  much. 

As  he  saw  her  walking  before  him  on  this  day,  he  thought, 
<(  Well,  I  must  decide.  Beyond  question,  I  could  not  do  bet- 
ter. » 

They  followed  the  slope  of  a  little  valley,  descending  from  the 
village  to  the  cliff;  and  the  cliff  at  the  end  of  this  valley  looked 
down  on  the  sea  from  a  height  of  nearly  three  hundred  feet. 
Framed  in  by  the  green  coast,  sinking  away  to  the  left  and 
right,  a  spacious  triangle  of  water,  silvery  blue  in  the  sunlight, 
was  visible;  and  a  sail,  scarcely  perceptible,  looked  like  an  insect 
down  below.  The  sky,  filled  with  radiance,  was  so  blended  with 
the  water  that  the  eye  could  not  distinguish  where  one  ended  and 
the  other  began;  and  the  two  ladies,  who  were  in  front  of  the 
three  men,  cast  on  this  clear  horizon  the  clear  outline  of  their 
compact  figures. 

Jean,  with  ardent  glance,  saw  speeding  before  him  the  enti- 
cing hat  of  Madame  Rosemilly.  Every  movement  urged  him  to 
those  decisive  resolutions  which  the  timid  and  the  hesitating  take 
abruptly.  The  warm  air,  in  which  was  blended  the  scent  of  the 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT  9817 

coastr  of  the  reeds,  the  clover,  the  grasses,  and  the  marine  odor 
of  the  rocks  exposed  by  the  tide,  animated  him  with  a  gentle 
intoxication;  and  he  decided,  more  and  more  at  every  step,  at 
every  second,  at  every  look  he  cast  on  the  graceful  outline  of 
the  young  woman  —  he  decided  to  hesitate  no  longer,  to  tell  her 
that  he  loved  her  and  wanted  to  marry  her.  The  fishing  party 
would  be  of  service:  it  would  render  a  tete-a-tete  more  easy;  and 
besides,  it  would  furnish  a  pretty  background,  a  pretty  scene  for 
words  of  love,  with  their  feet  in  a  basin  of  limpid  water,  as  they 
watched  the  long  feelers  of  the  shrimps  darting  through  the  sea- 
weeds. 

When  they  reached  the  end  of  the  valley  at  the  edge  of  the 
bluff,  they  perceived  a  little  path  that  ran  down  the  cliff;  and 
below  them,  between  the  sea  and  the  foot  of  the  precipice,  about 
half-way  down,  a  wondrous  chaos  of  enormous  rocks,  that  had 
fallen  or  been  hurled  down,  heaped  on  each  other  on  a  kind 
of  grassy  broken  plain  which  disappeared  toward  the  south,  and 
which  had  been  formed  by  ancient  landslips.  In  the  long  strip 
of  brushwood  and  turf,  tossed,  one  might  say,  by  the  throes  of  a 
volcano,  the  fallen  rocks  resembled  the  ruins  of  a  great  vanished 
city  that  once  on  a  time  had  looked  down  on  the  ocean,  itself 
dominated  by  the  white  and  endless  wall  of  the  cliff. 

(<  How  beautiful ! })  said  Madame  Rosemilly,  pausing. 

Jean  joined  her,  and  with  beating  heart  offered  his  hand  to 
guide  her  down  the  narrow  steps  cut  in  the  rock. 

They  went  on  in  front;  while  Beausire,  stiffening  himself  on 
his  short  legs,  held  out  his  bent  arm  to  Madame  Roland,  who 
was  dazed  by  the  blank  depth. 

Roland  and  Pierre  came  last;  and  the  doctor  had  to  support 
his  father,  who  was  so  troubled  by  vertigo  that  he  sat  down,  and 
thus  slid  from  step  to  step. 

The  young  people,  who  descended  at  the  head  of  the  party, 
went  rapidly,  and  suddenly  caught  sight  of  a  streamlet  of  pure 
water  springing  from  a  little  hole  in  the  cliff,  by  the  side  of  a 
wooden  bench,  which  formed  a  resting-place  about  the  middle  of 
the  slope.  The  streamlet  at  first  spread  into  a  basin  about  the 
size  of  a  wash-hand  bowl,  which  it  had  excavated  for  itself;  and 
then,  falling  in  a  cascade  of  about  two  feet  in  height,  flowed 
across  the  path  where  a  carpet  of  cress  had  grown,  and  then 
disappeared  in  the  reeds  and  grass,  across  the  level  where  the 
landslips  were  heaped  up. 

"How  thirsty  I  am!"  cried  Madame  Rosemilly. 


9818  GUY  DE   MAUPASSANT 

But  how  to  drink?  She  tried  to  collect  in  the  hollow  of  her 
hand  the  water  which  escaped  between  her  fingers.  Jean  had  a 
bright  idea;  he  placed  a  stone  in  the  road,  and  she  knelt  on  it  to 
drink  from  the  very  source  with  her  lips,  which  were  thus  raised 
to  the  same  height. 

When  she  raised  her  head,  covered  with  glittering  drops 
sprinkled  by  thousands  over  her  face,  her  hair,  her  eyelashes,  her 
bust, —  Jean,  bending  toward  her,  whispered:  — 

((  How  pretty  you  are ! }> 

She  replied  in  the  tone  one  assumes  to  scold  a  child:  — 

<(  Will  you  hold  your  tongue  ? w 

These  were  the  first  words  of  flirtation  which  they  had  ex- 
changed. 

"Come,"  said  Jean,  rather  discomfited,  (<  let  us  be  off  before 
they  overtake  us.}> 

In  fact,  he  was  aware  that  Captain  Beausire  was  quite  close 
to  them,  and  was  descending  backwards  in  order  to  support 
Madame  Roland  with  both  hands;  while,  higher  up  and  farther 
away,  M.  Roland,  in  a  sitting  posture,  was  dragging  himself  down 
by  his  feet  and  elbows  with  the  speed  of  a  tortoise,  and  Pierre 
went  before  him  to  superintend  his  movements. 

The  path  became  less  steep,  and  formed  now  a  sloping  road 
that  skirted  the  enormous  blocks  that  had  fallen  from  above. 
Madame  Rose*milly  and  Jean  began  to  run,  and  were  soon  on  the 
shingle.  They  crossed  it  to  gain  the  rocks,  which  extended  in  a 
long  and  flat  surface  covered  with  seaweed,  in  which  innumerable 
flashes  of  water  glittered.  The  tide  was  low  and  far  out,  behind 
this  slimy  plain  of  sea-wrack  with  its  shining  green  and  black 
growths. 

Jean  rolled  up  his  trousers  to  the  knee  and  his  sleeves  to  the 
elbow,  so  as  to  wet  himself  with  impunity,  and  cried  (<  Forward  i  * 
as  he  boldly  leaped  into  the  first  pool  that  presented  itself. 

With  more  prudence,  though  with  equal  determination  to  wade 
into  the  water  at  once,  the  young  woman  went  around  the  narrow 
basin  with  timid  steps, — for  she  slipped  on  the  slimy  weeds. 

<(  Do  you  see  anything  ? }>   she  said. 

<(  Yes,  I  see  your  face  reflected  in  the  water.  " 

<(  If  you  only  see  that,  you  will  not  have  any  fishing  to  boast 
of.» 

He  said  in  a  tender  voice:  — 

<(Ah,  that  is  fishing  I  shall  prefer  over  all!" 

She  laughed. 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  9819 

"Try,  then,  and  you'll  see  how  it  slips  through  your  net.® 

«Well,  if  you  like  — » 

(<  I  should  like  to  see  you  catch  some  prawns  —  and  nothing 
more  —  just  at  present. w 

(<You  are  cruel.     Let  us  go  farther:  there  is  nothing  here." 

He  offered  her  his  hand  to  steady  her  on  the  greasy  rocks. 
She  leaned  on  it  rather  timidly;  and  he,  all  at  once,  felt  himself 
invaded  by  love,  throbbing  with  desire,  hungering  for  her,  as  if 
the  passion  that  was  germinating  in  him  had  waited  for  that  day 
to  burst  forth. 

They  soon  arrived  at  a  deeper  crevice,  where,  beneath  the 
rippling  water  flowing  to  the  distant  sea  by  an  invisible  fissure, 
long,  fine,  strangely  colored  seaweeds,  with  tresses  of  rose  and 
green,  floated  as  if  they  were  swimming. 

Madame  Rosemilly  exclaimed:  — 

(<  Look,  look,  I  see  one  —  a  big  one,  a  very  big  one,  down 
chere!» 

He  perceived  it  in  turn,  and  went  down  into  the  crevice, 
although  the  water  wet  him  to  the  waist. 

But  the  creature,  moving  its  long  feelers,  quietly  retired  be- 
fore the  net.  Jean  drove  it  toward  the  wreck,  sure  of  catching 
it  there.  When  it  found  itself  blockaded,  it  made  a  sudden  dash 
over  the  net,  crossed  the  pool,  and  disappeared. 

The  young  woman,  who  was  watching  in  panting  eagerness 
his  attempt,  could  not  refrain  from  crying.— 

« Ah,  clumsy !  » 

He  was  vexed,  and  without  thinking,  dragged  his  net  through 
a  pool  full  of  weeds.  As  he  raised  it  to  the  surface,  he  saw  in  it 
three  large  transparent  prawns,  which  had  been  blindly  dragged 
from  their  invisible  hiding-place. 

He  presented  them  in  triumph  to  Madame  Rosemilly,  who 
dared  not  touch  them  for  fear  of  the  sharp,  tooth-like  point  which 
arms  their  heads.  At  last  she  decided  to  take  them;  and  seiz- 
ing between  two  of  her  fingers  the  thin  end  of  their  beard,  she 
placed  them  one  after  the  other  in  her  basket,  with  some  weed 
to  keep  them  alive. 

Then,  on  finding  a  shallower  piece  of  water,  she  entered  it 
with  hesitating  steps,  and  catching  her  breath  as  the  cold  struck 
her  feet,  began  to  fish  herself.  She  was  skillful  and  cunning, 
with  a  supple  wrist  and  a  sportman's  instinct.  At  about  every 
cast  she  brought  out  some  victims,  deceived  and  surprised  by 
the  ingenious  slowness  with  which  she  swept  the  pool. 


9820 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 


Jean  was  taking  nothing;  but  he  followed  her  step  by  step, 
touched  her  dress,  bent  over  her,  pretended  to  be  in  despair  at 
his  awkwardness,  and  wished  her  to  teach  him. 

<(  Show  me  how, w  he  said ;    <(  show  me !  w 

Then,  as  their  two  faces  were  reflected  one  beside  the  other 
in  the  clear  water,  which  the  deep-growing  seaweeds  formed  into 
a  limpid  mirror,  Jean  smiled  at  the  face  so  near  his  which  looked 
up  to  him  from  below;  and  at  times  threw  to  it,  from  the  tips 
of  his  fingers,  a  kiss  which  seemed  to  fall  on  it. 

(( You  are  very  tiresome, }>  the  young  woman  said.  (<  My  dear 
fellow,  never  do  two  things  at  the  same  time.'* 

He  replied:  — 

<(  I  am  only  doing  one.     I  love  you.'* 

She  drew  herself  up  erect,  and  said  in  a  serious  tone:  — 

"Come  now,  what  is  the  matter  with  you  for  the  last  ten 
minutes  ?  Have  you  lost  your  head  ? }> 

<(  No,  I  have  not  lost  my  head.  I  love  you,  and  at  last  dare 
to  tell  you  so." 

They  were  now  standing  in  the  pool  of  sea-water  that  rose 
nearly  to  their  knees,  and  with  their  dripping  hands  leaning  on 
their  nets,  looked  into  the  depth  of  each  other's  eyes. 

She  resumed  in  a  playful  and  rather  annoyed  tone:  — 

<(You  are  badly  advised  to  speak  to  me  thus  at  this  moment. 
Could  you  not  wait  another  day,  and  not  spoil  my  fishing  ?* 

He  replied:  — 

<(  Pardon  me,  but  I  could  not  keep  silence.  I  have  loved  you 
a  long  time.  To-day  you  have  made  me  lose  my  senses. w 

Then  she  seemed  at  once  to 'take  her  resolution,  and  to  resign 
herself  to  talk  business  and  renounce  amusement. 

(<  Let  us  sit  on  this  rock,  *  she  said :  (<  we  shall  be  able  to  talk 
quietly. }> 

They  climbed  on  a  rock  a  little  higher;  and  when  they  were 
settled,  side  by  side,  their  feet  hanging  down  in  the  full  sunshine, 
she  rejoined:  — 

<(  My  friend,  you  are  not  a  child,  and  I  am  not  a  girl.  Both 
of  us  know  what  we  are  about,  and  can  weigh  all  the  conse- 
quences of  our  acts.  If  you  decide  to-day  to  declare  your  love 
to  me,  I  suppose  naturally  you  wish  to  marry  me." 

He  had  scarcely  expected  such  a  clear  statement  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  answered  sheepishly:  — 

«Why,  yes!» 

«  Have  you  spoken  to  your  father  and  mother  ? w 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  982i 

<(No.     I  wished  to  know  if  you  would  accept  me." 

She  extended  to  him  her  hand,  which  was  still  wet,  and  as  he 
placed  his  own  in  it  with  fervor  — 

<(  I  am  willing, }>  she  said.  <(  I  believe  you  good  and  loyal. 
But  do  not  forget  that  I  would  not  displease  your  parents. }> 

<(  Do  you  think  that  my  mother  has  foreseen  nothing,  and  that 
she  would  love  you  as  she  does  if  she  did  not  desire  a  marriage 
between  us  ? }> 

w  True :   I  am  rather  confused. w 

They  were  silent.  On  his  part,  he  was  astonished  that  she 
was  so  little  confused  and  so  reasonable.  He  had  expected  some 
pretty  airs  and  graces,  refusals  which  say  yes,  a  whole  coquettish 
comedy  of  love  blended  with  fishing  and  the  splashing  of  water. 
And  it  was  all  over;  he  felt  himself  bound  and  married  in  a 
score  of  words.  They  had  nothing  more  to  say  to  each  other, 
since  they  were  in  full  accord;  and  they  both  now  remained 
somewhat  embarrassed  at  what  had  passed  so  rapidly  between 
them,  perhaps  even  somewhat  confused, —  not  daring  to  speak 
further,  not  daring  to  fish  further,  not  knowing  what  to  do.  • 

Translation  of  Hugh  Craig. 


THE  PIECE   OF  STRING 
From  <The  Odd  Number.>     Copyright  1889,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

IT  WAS  market  day,  and  over  all  the  roads  round  Goderville  the 
peasants  and  their  wives  were  coming  towards  the  town.  The 

men  walked  easily,  lurching  the  whole  body  forward  at  every 
step.  Their  long  legs  were  twisted  and  deformed  by  the  slow, 
painful  labors  of  the  country:  by  bending  over  to  plow,  which 
is  what  also  makes  their  left  shoulders  too  high  and  their  figures 
crooked;  and  by  reaping  corn,  which  obliges  them  for  steadiness' 
sake  to  spread  their  knees  too  wide.  Their  starched  blue  blouses, 
shining  as  though  varnished,  ornamented  at  collar  and  cuffs  with 
little  patterns  of  white  stitch-work,  and  blown  up  big  around 
their  bony  bodies,  seemed  exactly  like  balloons  about  to  soar,  but 
putting  forth  a  head,  two  arms,  and  two  feet. 

Some  of  these  fellows  dragged  a  cow  or  a  calf  at  the  end 
of  a  rope.  And  just  behind  the  animal,  beating  it  over  the 
back  with  a  leaf-covered  branch  to  hasten  its  pace,  went  their 
wives,  carrying  large  baskets  from  which  came  forth  the  heads 


9g22  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

of  chickens  or  of  ducks.  These  women  walked  with  steps  far 
shorter  and  quicker  than  the  men;  their  figures,  withered  and 
upright,  were  adorned  with  scanty  little  shawls  pinned  over  their 
flat  bosoms;  and  they  enveloped  their  heads  each  in  a  white 
cloth,  close  fastened  round  the  hair  and  surmounted  by  a  cap. 

Now  a  char-a-banc  passed  by,  drawn  by  a  jerky-paced  nag.  It 
shook  up  strangely  the  two  men  on  the  seat.  And  the  woman 
at  the  bottom  of  the  cart  held  fast  to  its  sides  to  lessen  the  hard 
joltings. 

In  the  market-place  at  Goderville  was  a  great  crowd,  a  min- 
gled multitude  of  men  and  beasts.  The  horns  of  the  cattle,  the 
high  and  long-napped  hats  of  wealthy  peasants,  the  head-dresses 
of  the  women,  came  to  the  surface  of  that  sea.  And  voices 
clamorous,  sharp,  shrill,  made  a  continuous  and  savage  din.  Above 
it  a  huge  burst  of  laughter  from  the  sturdy  lungs  of  a  merry 
yokel  would  sometimes  sound,  and  sometimes  a  long  bellow  from 
a  cow  tied  fast  to  the  wall  of  a  house. 

.  It  all  smelled  of  the  stable,  of  milk,  of  hay,  and  of  perspira- 
tion; giving  off  that  half  human,  half  animal  odor  which  is  pecul- 
iar to  the  men  of  the  fields. 

Maitre  Hauchecorne,  of  Breaute,  had  just  arrived  at  Godeis 
ville,  and  was  taking  his  way  towards  the  square,  when  he 
perceived  on  the  ground  a  little  piece  of  string.  Maitre  Hauche- 
corne, economical  like  all  true  Normans,  reflected  that  everything 
was  worth  picking  up  which  could  be  of  any  use;  and  he  stooped 
down  —  but  painfully,  because  he  suffered  with  rheumatism.  He 
took  the  bit  of  thin  cord  from  the  ground,  and  was  carefully  pre- 
paring to  roll  it  up  when  he  saw  Maitre  Malandain  the  harness- 
maker  on  his  doorstep,  looking  at  him.  They  had  once  had  a 
quarrel  about  a  halter,  and  they  had  remained  angry,  bearing 
malice  on  both  sides.  Maitre  Hauchecorne  was  overcome  with  a 
sort  of  shame  at  being  seen  by  his  enemy  looking  in  the  dirt  so 
for  a  bit  of  string.  He  quickly  hid  his  find  beneath  his  blouse; 
then  in  the  pocket  of  his  breeches;  then  pretended  to  be  still 
looking  for  something  on  the  ground  which  he  did  not  discover; 
and  at  last  went  off  towards  the  market-place,  with  his  head  bent 
forward,  and  a  body  almost  doubled  in  two  by  rheumatic  pains. 

He  lost  himself  immediately  in  the  crowd,  which  was  clamor- 
ous, slow,  and  agitated  by  interminable  bargains.  The  peasants 
examined  the  cows,  went  off.  came  back,  always  in  great  per- 
plexity and  fear  of  being  cheated,  never  quite  daring  to  decide, 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  9823 

spying  at  the  eye  of  the  seller,  trying  ceaselessly  to  discover  the 
tricks  of  the  man  and  the  defect  in  the  beast. 

The  women,  having  placed  their  great  baskets  at  their  feet, 
had  pulled  out  the  poultry,  which  lay  upon  the  ground,  tied  by 
the  legs,  with  eyes  scared,  with  combs  scarlet. 

They  listened  to  propositions,  maintaining  their  prices,  with  a 
dry  manner,  with  an  impassive  face ;  or  suddenly,  perhaps,  decid- 
ing to  take  the  lower  price  which  was  offered,  they  cried  out  to 
the  customer,  who  was  departing  slowly:  — 

«A11  right:   I'll  let  you  have  them,  Mait'  Anthime." 

Then,  little  by  little,  the  square  became  empty;  and  when 
the  Angelus  struck  midday,  those  who  lived  at  a  distance  poured 
into  the  inns. 

At  Jourdain's,  the  great  room  was  filled  with  eaters,  just  as 
the  vast  court  was  filled  with  vehicles  of  every  sort,— wagons, 
gigs,  char-a-bancs,  tilburies,  tilt-carts  which  have  no  name,  yel- 
low with  mud,  misshapen,  pieced  together,  raising  their  shafts  to 
heaven  like  two  arms,  or  it  may  be  with  their  nose  in  the  dirt 
and  their  rear  in  the  air. 

Just  opposite  to  where  the  diners  were  at  table,  the  huge 
fireplace,  full  of  clear  flame,  threw  a  lively  heat  on  the  backs  of 
those  who  sat  along  the  right.  Three  spits  were  turning,  loaded 
with  chickens,  with  pigeons,  and  with  joints  of  mutton;  and  a 
delectable  odor  of  roast  meat,  and  of  gravy  gushing  over  crisp 
brown  skin,  took  wing  from  the  hearth,  kindled  merriment,  caused 
mouths  to  water. 

All  the  aristocracy  of  the  plow  were  eating  there,  at  Mait' 
Jourdain's,  the  innkeeper's, —  a  dealer  in  horses  also,  and  a  sharp 
fellow  who  had  made  a  pretty  penny  in  his  day. 

The  dishes  were  passed  round,  were  emptied,  with  jugs  of 
yellow  cider.  Every  one  told  of  his  affairs,  of  his  purchases  and 
his  sales.  They  asked  news  about  the  crops.  The  weather  was 
good  for  green  stuffs,  but  a  little  wet  for  wheat. 

All  of  a  sudden  the  drum  rolled  in  the  court  before  the  house. 
Every  one,  except  some  of  the  most  indifferent,  was  on  his  feet 
at  once  and  ran  to  the  door,  to  the  windows,  with  his  mouth  still 
full,  and  his  napkin  in  his  hand. 

When  the  public  crier  had  finished  his  tattoo,  he  called  forth 
in  a  jerky  voice,  making  his  pauses  out  of  time:  — 

<(  Be  it  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  Goderville,  and  in  general 
to  all  —  persons  present  at  the  market,  that  there  has  been  lost 


9824 


GUY   DE   MAUPASSANT 


this  morning^  on  the  Belize ville  road,  between  —  nine  and  ten 
o'clock,  a  pocket-book  of  black  leather,  containing  five  hundred 
francs  and  business  papers.  You  are  requested  to  return  it  —  to 
the  mayor's  office  at  once,  or  to  Maitre  Fortune  Houlbreque  of 
Manne ville.  There  will  be  fifty  francs  reward." 

Then  the  man  departed.  They  heard  once  more  at  a  distance 
the  dull  beatings  on  the  drum,  and  the  faint  voice  of  the  crier. 

Then  they  began  to  talk  of  this  event,  reckoning  up  the 
chances  which  Maitre  Houlbreque  had  of  finding  or  of  not  find- 
ing his  pocket-book  again. 

And  the  meal  went  on. 

They  were  finishing  their  coffee  when  the  corporal  of  gen- 
darmes appeared  on  the  threshold. 

He  asked:  — 

(<  Is  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  of  Breaute,  here  ? " 

Maitre  Hauchecorne,  seated  at  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
answered :  — 

«Here  I  ani.» 

And  the  corporal  resumed:  — 

((  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  will  you  have  the  kindness  to  come  with 
me  to  the  mayor's  office  ?  M.  le  Maire  would  like  to  speak  to 
you. " 

The  peasant,  surprised  and  uneasy,  gulped  down  his  little  glass 
of  cognac,  got  up,  and  —  even  worse  bent  over  than  in  the  morn- 
ing, since  the  first  steps  after  a  rest  were  always  particularly  dif- 
ficult —  started  off,  repeating :  — 

<(  Here  I  am,  here  I  am. " 

And  he  followed  the  corporal. 

The  mayor  was  waiting  for  him,  seated  in  an  arm-chair.  He 
was  the  notary  of  the  place,  a  tall,  grave  man  of  pompous  speech. 

<(  Maitre  Hauchecorne,"  said  he,  "this  morning,  on  the  Beuze- 
ville  road,  you  were  seen  to  pick  up  the  pocket-book  lost  by 
Maitre  Houlbreque  of  Manneville." 

The  countryman,  speechless,  gazed  at  the  mayor;  frightened 
already  by  this  suspicion,  which  rested  on  him  he  knew  not  why. 

<(  I  —  I  picked  up  that  pocket-book  ? " 

<(Yes,  you." 

C(I  swear  I  didn't  even  know  nothing  about  it  at  all." 

(( You  were  seen." 

(<  They  saw  me  —  me  ?     Who  is  that  who  saw  me  ? " 

<(M.  Malandain,  the  harness-maker." 


GU\    DE  MAUPASSANT  9825 

Then  the  old  man  remembered,  understood,  and  reddening 
with  anger:  — 

(<Ah !  he  saw  me,  did  he,  the  rascal  ?  He  saw  me  picking  up 
this  string  here,  M'sieu'  le  Maire." 

And  fumbling  at  the  bottom  of  his  pocket,  he  pulled  out  of 
it  the  little  end  of  string. 

But  the  mayor  incredulously  shook  his  head:  — 

((You  will  not  make  me  believe,  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  that 
M.  Malandain,  who  is  a  man  worthy  of  credit,  has  mistaken  this 
string  for  a  pocket-book. }> 

The  peasant,  furious,  -raised  his  hand  and  spit  as  if  to  attest 
his  good  faith,  repeating:  — 

«For  all  that,  it  is  the  truth  of  the  good  God,  the  blessed 
truth,  M'sieu'  le  Maire.  There!  on  my  soul  and  my  salvation  I 
repeat  it. }) 

The  mayor  continued;  — 

<(After  picking  up  the  thing  in  question,  you  even  looked 
for  some  time  in  the  mud  to  see  if  a  piece  of  money  had  not 
dropped  out  of  it.}' 

The  good  man  was  suffocated  with  indignation  and  with  fear. 

<(  If  they  can  say  — !  If  they  can  say  sucn  lies  as  that  to  slan- 
der an  honest  man !  If  they  can  say  — !  w 

He  might  protest,  he  was  not  believed. 

He  was  confronted  with  M.  Malandain,  who  repeated  and 
sustained  his  testimony.  They  abused  one  another  for  an  hour. 
At  his  own  request,  Maitre  Hauchecorne  was  searched.  Nothing 
was  found  on  him. 

At  last  the  mayor,  much  perplexed,  sent  him  away,  warning 
him  that  he  would  inform  the  public  prosecutor  and  ask  for 
orders. 

The  news  had  spread.  When  he  left  the  mayor's  office,  the 
old  man  was  surrounded,  interrogated  with  a  curiosity  which  was 
serious  or  mocking  as  the  case  might  be,  but  into  which  no  in- 
dignation entered.  And  he  began  to  tell  the  story  of  the  string. 
They  did  not  believe  him.  They  laughed. 

He  passed  on,  buttonholed  by  every  one,  himself  buttonholing 
his  acquaintances,  beginning  over  and  over  again  his  tale  and  his 
protestations,  showing  his  pockets  turned  inside  out  to  prove  that 
he  had  nothing. 

They  said  to  him:  — 

<(You  old  rogue, 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

And  he  grew  angry,  exasperated,  feverish,  in  despair  at  not 
being  believed;  and  always  telling  his  story. 

The  night  came.  It  was  time  to  go  home.  He  set  out  with 
three  of  his  neighbors,  to  whom  he  pointed  out  the  place  where 
he  had  picked  up  the  end  of  string;  and  all  the  way  he  talked 
of  his  adventure. 

That  evening  he  made  the  round  in  the  village  of  Breaute,  so 
as  to  tell  every  one.  He  met  only  unbelievers. 

He  was  ill  of  it  all  night  long. 

The  next  day,  about  one  in  the  afternoon,  Marius  Paumeile,  a 
farm  hand  of  Maitre  Breton,  the  market-gardener  at  Ymauville, 
returned  the  pocket-book  and  its  contents  to  Maitre  Houlbreque 
of  Manneville. 

This  man  said  that  he  had  indeed  found  it  on  the  road:  but 
not  knowing  how  to  read,  he  had  carried  it  home  and  given  it 
to  his  master. 

The  news  spread  to  the  environs.  Maitre  Hauchecorne  was 
informed.  He  put  himself  at  once  upon  the  go,  and  began  to 
relate  his  story  as  completed  by  the  denouement.  He  triumphed. 

"What  grieved  me,"  said  he,  (<  was  not  the  thing  itself,  do 
you  understand;  but  it  was  the  lies.  There's  nothing  does  you 
so  much  harm  as  being  in  disgrace  for  lying. w 

All  day  he  talked  of  his  adventure;  he  told  it  on  the  roads  to 
the  people  who  passed;  at  the  cabaret  to  the  people  who  drank; 
and  the  next  Sunday,  when  they  came  out  of  church.  He  even 
stopped  strangers  to  tell  them  about  it.  He  was  easy  now,  and 
yet  something  worried  him  without  his  knowing  exactly  what  it 
was.  People  had  a  joking  manner  while  they  listened.  They  did 
not  seem  convinced.  He  seemed  to  feel  their  tittle-tattle  behind 
his  back. 

On  Tuesday  of  the  next  week  he  went  to  market  at  Goder- 
viile,  prompted  entirely  by  the  need  of  telling  his  story. 

Malandain,  standing  on  his  door-step,  began  to  laugh  as  he 
saw  him  pass.  Why  ? 

He  accosted  a  farmer  of  Criquetot,  who  did  not  let  him  finish, 
and  giving  him  a  punch  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach,  cried  in  his 
face : — 

(<  Oh  you  great  rogue,  va  !  }>     Then  turned  his  heel  upon  Him. 

Maitre  Hauchecorne  remained  speechless,  and  grew  more  and 
more  uneasy.  Why  had  they  called  him  <(  great  rogue  w  ? 

When  seated  at  table  in  Jourdain's  tavern  he  began  again  to 
explain  the  whole  affair. 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 


9827 


A  horse-dealer  of  Montivilliers  shouted  at  him:  — 

(<Get  out,  get  out,  you  old  scamp:  I  know  all  about  your 
Etring!" 

Hauchecorne  stammered:  — 

<(  But  since  they  found  it  again,  the  pocket-book  — ! }) 

But  the  other  continued:  — 

(<  Hold  your  tongue,  daddy :  there's  one  who  finds  it  and  there's 
another  who  returns  it.  And  no  one  the  wiser. }> 

The  peasant  was  choked.  He  understood  at  last.  They  accused 
him  of  having  had  the  pocket-book-  brought  back  by  an  accom- 
plice, by  a  confederate. 

He  tried  to  protest.     The  whole  table  began  to  laugh. 

He  could  not  finish  his  dinner,  and  went  away-  amid  a  chorus 
of  jeers. 

He  went  home  ashamed  and  indignant,  choked  with  rage,  with 
confusion;  the  more  cast  down  since  from  his  Norman  cunning, 
he  was  perhaps  capable  of  having  done  what  they  accused  him 
of,  and  even  of  boasting  of  it  as  a  good  trick.  His  innocence 
dimly  seemed  to  him  impossible  to  prove,  his  craftiness  being 
so  well  known.  And  he  felt  himself  struck  to  the  heart  by  the 
injustice  of  the  suspicion. 

Then  he  began  anew  to  tell  of  his  adventure,  lengthening  his 
recital  every  day,  each  time  adding  new  proofs,  more  energetic 
protestations,  and  more  solemn  oaths  which  he  thought  of,  which 
he  prepared  in  his  hours  of  solitude,  his  mind  being  entirely 
occupied  by  the  story  of  the  string.  The  more  complicated  his 
defense,  the  more  artful  his  arguments,  the  less  he  was  believed. 

<(  Those  are  liars'  proofs,  *  they  said  behind  his  back. 

He  felt  this ;  it  preyed  upon  his  heart.  He  exhausted  himself 
in  useless  efforts. 

He  was  visibly  wasting  away. 

The  jokers  now  made  him  tell  <(the  story  of  the  piece  of 
string })  to  amuse  them,  just  as  you  make  a  soldier  who  has  been 
on  a  campaign  tell  his  story  of  the  battle.  His  mind,  struck  at 
the  root,  grew  weak. 

About  the  end  of  December  he  took  to  his  bed. 

He  died  early  in  January,  and  in  the  delirium  of  the  death 
agony  he  protested  his  innocence,  repeating:  — 

(<A  little  bit  of  string  —  a  little  bit  of  string — see,  here  it  is, 
M'sieu'  le  Maire." 

Translation  of  Jonathan  Sturges. 


9828 


FREDERICK   DENISON  MAURICE 

(1805-1872) 

FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE  takes  high  rank  among  the  reli- 
gious teachers  of  this  century,  more  by  virtue  of  what  he 
was  than  of  what  he  wrote.  He  is  of  those  elect  souls 
whose  insight  becomes  a  guiding  force  both  to  themselves  and  to 
their  fellows.  Of  a  generation  which  knew  Carlyle  and  Mill  and 
Darwin,  which  was  given  over  to  the  dry-rot  of  intellectual  despair 
in  all  matters  concerning  the  religious  life  of  man,  Maurice  seemed 
born  out  of  due  time.  He  belonged  apparently  to  an  earlier  or  to  a 

later  day.  Yet  by  force,  not  of  his  intellect 
but  of  his  faith,  he  succeeded  in  turning 
many  of  his  contemporaries  to  the  Christ- 
ian ideal  which  haunted  him  throughout  his 
life,  and  which  perpetually  dominated  his 
nineteenth-century  inheritance  of  skepti- 
cism. Unlike  Newman,  with  whom  he  was 
associated  at  Oxford,  Maurice  was  content 
to  find  in  the  Church  of  England,  as  in  all 
churches,  only  a  partial  realization  of  his 
ideal. of  righteousness.  He  is  of  those  who 
believe  that  the  whole  truth  can  never 
be  revealed  to  one  generation.  He  shares 
FREDERICK  D.  MAURICE  the  Platonic  belief  that  the  vision  of  God 

becomes  gradually  apparent   through  many 

aeons.     This   liberalism  was  the    mainspring  of   his   power    as   a  reli- 
gious teacher. 

His  early  training  had  enlarged  his  sympathies  and  prepared  the 
way  for  his  future  ministrations.  He  was  born  in  1805  of  a  Unitarian 
father,  and  of  a  mother  who  adhered  to  the  doctrines  of  Calvin.  His 
first  religious  problem  was  to  reconcile  these  differences  of  faith. 
Later  his  education  at  Cambridge  deepened  within  him  the  evangeli- 
cal sympathies,  which  made  him  long  to  unite  the  world  under  one 
banner  as  Sons  of  God.  Upon  leaving  Cambridge  he  undertook  the 
editorship  of  the  Athenaeum  in  London,  and  while  engaged  upon 
this  work  became  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England.  His  resi- 
dence at  Oxford  was  the  natural  outcome  of  this  step.  The  strong- 
hold of  medievalism  was  then  vital  with  the  presence  of  Newman, 


FREDERICK   DENISON   MAURICE 


9829 


of  Pusey,  of  Keble,  and  of  others  who  were  seeking  with  passionate 
eagerness  a  refuge  from  the  insistent  doubts  and  difficulties  of  the 
age.  The  spirit  of  the  age  was  then  trying  all  men  through  the  re- 
ligious faculty.  Maurice,  as  if  anticipating  the  Christianity  of  the 
twentieth  century,  found  the  key  to  all  problems,  not  in  an  infalli- 
ble church  nor  in  infallible  reason,  but  in  the  everlasting  love  and 
fatherhood  of  God,  and  in  the  universal  sonship  of  men.  Cambridge 
had  increased  his  liberality;  Oxford  deepened  his  idealism.  Maurice 
would  exclude  no  man,  whether  Jew,  Turk,  infidel,  or  heretic,  from 
the  Divine  family;  yet  in  his  exalted  worship  of  Jesus  he  was  linked 
to  the  mediaeval  mystic.  This  rare  combination  gave  him  charm,  and 
drew  to  him  thoughtful  and  cultured  men  who  were  too  large  for 
narrowed  and  dogmatic  Christianity,  yet  who  longed  to  give  expres- 
sion to  the  soul  of  worship  within  them.  It  drew  to  him  also  the 
workingmen  of  London.  After  Maurice  left  Oxford  he  was  appointed 
to  the  chaplaincy  of  Guy's  Hospital  in  London.  He  held  also  the 
chairs  of  history,  literature,  and  divinity  in  King's  College,  and  the 
chaplaincy- of  Lincoln's  Inn  and  of  St.  Peter's.  During  his  long  resi- 
dence in  London,  from  1834  until  1866,  the  broad  and  fervent  religious 
spirit  of  Maurice  found  expression  in  social  work.  The  man  who 
would  knit  together  all  the  kindreds  of  the  wor.d  in  the  bonds  of 
Divine  fellowship  could  not  limit  his  ministrations  to  certain  classes 
of  society.  He  was  in  strong  sympathy  with  workingmen,  believing 
that  their  lack  of  education  by  no  means  debarred  them  from  the 
apprehension  of  the  highest  spiritual  truths.  His  foundation  of  the 
Workingman's  College  was  the  outcome  of  this  sympathy.  He  founded 
also  Queen's  College  for  women;  and  thus  established  still  further  his 
claim  to  be  ranked  with  the  prophets  of  his  time.  In  1866  he  became 
professor  of  moral  philosophy  at  Cambridge.  He  died  in  1872. 

Frederick  Denison  Maurice  was  the  author  of  many  religious 
works,  but  his  pre-eminent  power  is  in  his  sermons.  His  < Lectures 
on  Ecclesiastical  History,  >  his  <  Theological  Essays,  >  his  <  Kingdom  of 
Christ,  >  his  <  Unity  of  the  New  Testament,  >  have  literary  value  in 
proportion  as  they  exhibit  the  spirit  of  the  preacher.  In  his  ser- 
mons the  luminous  spirituality  of  Maurice  and  his  strength  as  a  writer 
find  completest  expression.  The  man  himself  can  be  most  closely 
approached  in  his  sensitive  and  thoughtful  letters  to  his  friends. 


9830  FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE 

FROM  A   LETTER  TO   REV.  J.  DE   LA  TOUCHE 

HOLDOR  HOUSE,  DORKING,  April  i4th,  1863. 

I  DO  not  know  whether  you  will  think  me  less  or  more  fitted 
to  enter  into  that  tremendous  difficulty  of  which  you  speak 

in  your  last  letter,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  was  brought  up 
a  Unitarian,  and  that  I  have  distinctly  and  deliberately  accepted 
the  belief  which  is  expressed  in-  the  Nicene  Creed  as  the  only 
satisfaction  of  the  infinite  want  which  Unitarianism  awakened  in 
me;  yes,  and  as  the  only  vindication  of  the  truth  which  Unitari- 
anism taught  me. 

You  feel  that  our  Lord  is  a  man  in  the  most  perfect  sense 
of  the  word.  You  cannot  convince  yourself  that  he  is  more. 
No,  nor  will  any  arguments  convince  you  that  he  is  more.  For 
what  do  you  mean  by  that  more?  Is  it  a  Jupiter  Tonans  whom 
you  are  investing  with  the  name  of  God  ?  is  it  to  him  you  pray 
when  you  say  (<  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven >J  ?  Is  God 
a  Father, —  really  and  actually  a  Father?  is  he  in  heaven,  far 
away  from  our  conceptions  and  confusions, —  one  whom1  we  can- 
not make  in  the  likeness  of  anything  above,  around,  beneath  us? 
Or  is  all  this  a  dream  ?  is  there  no  God,  no  father  ?  has  he  never 
made  himself  known,  never  come  near  to  men  ?  can  men  never 
come  near  to  him  ? 

Are  you  startled  that  I  put  these  questions  to  you  ?  Do 
they  seem  more  terrible  than  any  that  have  yet  presented  them- 
selves to  you  ?  Oh,  they  are  the  way  back  to  the  faith  of  the 
little  child,  and  to  the  faith  of  the  grown  man.  It  is  not  Christ 
about  whom  our  doubts  are.  We  are  feeling  after  God  if  haply 
we  may  find  him.  We  cannot  find  him  in  nature.  Paley  will  not 
reveal  him  to  us.  But  he  is  very  near  us;  very  near  to  those 
creatures  whom  he  has  formed  in  his  own  image;  seeking  after 
them;  speaking  to  them  in  a  thousand  ways. 

The  belief  of  a  Son  who  was  with  him  before  all  worlds,  in 
whom  he  created  and  loves  the  world;  who  for  us  men  and  for 
our  salvation  came  down  from  heaven  and  became  incarnate,  and 
died,  and  was  buried,  and  rose  again  for  us,  and  ascended  on 
high  to  be  the  High  Priest  of  the  universe, —  this  belief  is  what? 
Something  that  I  can  prove  by  texts  of  Scripture  or  by  cun- 
ning arguments  of  logic  ?  God  forbid !  I  simply  commend  it  to 
you.  I  know  that  you  want  it.  I  know  that  it  meets  exactly 
what  your  spirit  is  looking  after,  and  cannot  meet  with  in  any 


FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE  9831 

books  of  divinity.  For  we  have  to  find  out  that  God  is  not  in  a 
book;  that  he  is;  that  he  must  reveal  himself  to  us;  —  that  he  is 
revealing  himself  to  us. 

I  am  not  distressed  that  you  should  be  brought  to  feel  that 
these  deep  and  infinite  questions  —  not  questions  about  the  arith- 
metic of  the  Bible  —  are  what  are  really  haunting  and  torment- 
ing you.  I  believe  that  the  clergy  must  make  this  discovery.  We 
have  beea  repeating  phrases  and  formulas.  We  have  not  entered 
into  them,  but  only  have  accepted  certain  reasonings  and  proofs 
about  them.  Now  they  are  starting  up  and  looking  at  us  as  if 
they  were  alive,  and  we  aie  frightened  at  the  sight.  It  is  good 
for  us  to  be  frightened;  only  let  us  not  turn  away  from  them, 
and  find  fault  with  them,  but  ask  God — if  we  believe  that  he  can 
hear  us  —  to  search  us  and  show  us  what  is  true,  and  to  bring 
us  out  of  our  atheism. 

How,  you  ask,  can  I  use  the  prayers  of  the  Church  which 
assume  Christ's  divinity  when  I  cannot  see  sufficient  proof  that 
he  is  divine  ?  That  is  a  question,  it  seems  to  me,  which  no  man 
can  answer  for  you;  nay,  which  you  cannot  answer  for  yourself. 
If  I  am  right,  it  is  in  prayer  that  you  must  find  the  answer. 
Yes,  in  prayer  to  be  able  to  pray;  in  prayer  to  know  what  prayer 
is;  in  prayer  to  know  whether,  without  a  Mediator,  prayer  is  not 
a  dream  and  an  impossibility  for  you,  me,  every  one.  I  cannot 
solve  this  doubt.  I  can  but  show  you  how  to  get  it  solved.  I 
can  but  say,  The  doubt  itself  may  be  the  greatest  blessing  you 
ever  had,  may  be  the  greatest  striving  of  God's  Spirit  within  you 
that  you  have  ever  known,  may  be  the  means  of  making  every 
duty  more  real  to  you. 

I  do  not  know  who  your  bishop  is.  If  he  is  a  person  with 
whom  it  is  possible  to  communicate  freely,  I  should  tell  him  that 
I  had  perplexities  which  made  the  use  of  the  Prayer  Book  not 
as  true  to  me  as  it  once  was;  that  I  wanted  time  for  quiet 
thought;  that  I  should  like  to  be  silent  for  a  little  while;  —  I 
would  ask  him  to  let  me  commit  my  charge  to  a  curate  till  I 
could  see  my  way  more  clearly.  That  would  be  better,  surely, 
than  a  resignation,  painful  not  merely  to  your  friends  but  inju- 
rious to  the  Church,  and  perhaps  a  reason  for  severe  repentance 
afterwards.  But  I  may  be  only  increasing  your  puzzles  by  this 
suggestion.  Of  the  fathers  in  God  on  earth  I  have  no  certainty. 
Of  the  Father  in  heaven  I  can  be  quite  certain.  Therefore  one 
of  my  hints  may  be  worth  nothing.  The  other  is  worth  every- 
thing. 


9832  FREDERICK   DENISON    MAURICE 


FROM  A  LETTER  TO  REV.  CHARLES   KINGSLEY 

MARCH  9TH,  1849. 

I  HAVE  done  your  bidding  and  read  Froude's  book  (the  ( Nemesis 
of  Faith*),  with  what  depth  of  interest  I  need  not  tell  you. 
It  is  a  very  awful,  and  I  think  may  be  a  very  profitable  book. 
Yes,  God  would  not  have  permitted  it  to  go  forth  if  he  did  not 
mean  good  to  come  out  of  it.  For  myself,  I  have  felt  more  than 
ever  since  I  read  it  how  impossible  it  is  to  find  any  substitute 
for  the  old  faith.  If  after  all  that  experience,  a  man  cannot  ask 
the  God  of  Truth  to  give  him  his  spirit  of  truth,  to  guide  him 
into  all  truth,  what  is  left  but  just  what  he  describes, —  doubt; 
not  merely  of  existence,  but  of  doubt  itself;  doubt  whether  every 
superstition  may  not  be  real,  every  lie  a  fact  ?  It  is  undoubted 
that  such  a  state  of  mind  is  possible, — yes,  is  near  to  all  of  us; 
Froude  is  no  false  witness.  But  if  it  is  possible,  there  must  be 
some  one  to  bring  us  out  of  it;  clearly  the  deliverance  is  not  in 
ourselves.  And  what  is  the  Bible  after'  all  but  the  history  of  a 
deliverer;  of  God  proclaiming  himself  as  man's  deliverer  from  the 
state  into  which  he  is  ever  ready  to  sink, —  a  state  of  slavery  to 
systems,  superstitions,  the  world,  himself,  atheism  ?  The  book  is 
good  for  this:  it  brings  us  to  the  root  'of  things;  and  there  is 
nothing,  or  there  is  God.  It  is  good  for  this:  it  shows  that  God 
must  come  forth  and  do  the  work  for  us,  and  that  all  the  reli- 
gions we  make  for  ourselves,  whatever  names  we  give  them,  are 
miserable  mutilated  attempts  to  fashion  him  after  our  image,  with 
yet  such  fragments  of  truth  as  show  that  we  are  formed  in  his. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND   LAWS  OF  THE   KINGDOM   OF  HEAVEN 

TEXT:  —  <(And  he  lifted  up  his  eyes  on  his  disciples,  and  said,  Blessed  be  ye 
poor,  for  yours  is  the  kingdom  of  God.» —  ST.  LUKE  vi.  20.    . 

So   BEGINS  a  discourse  which  has  often  been  said  to  contain  a 
code  of  very  high   morality  for   those  who   forsake  the  low 
level  of  the  crowd,   and  aim  at  a   specially   elevated   stand- 
ard of  excellence.      The  previous  sentence  explains  to  whom  the 
discourse  was   addressed.     <(And   he   came   down   with  them,  and 
stood  in  the  plain,  and  the  company  of  his  disciples,  and  a  great 
multitude   of   people  out   of  all   Judea   and   Jerusalem,   and   from 
the  sea-coast  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  which  came  to  hear  him,  and  to 


FREDERICK  DENISON   MAURICE 


9833 


be  healed  of  their  diseases. w  Those  were  the  people  who  heard 
Christ  say,  (<  Blessed  are  ye  poor,  for  yours  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven. }> 

We  were  wont  to  mitigate  the  force  of  this  sentence  by  re- 
ferring to  the  one  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  which  most  resembles 
it.  For  <<poor,)>  we  say,  the  other  Evangelist  gives  us  ((poor  in 
spirit. })  Is  not  that  the  sense  in  which  we  must  understand  the 
words  here  ?  I  am  most  thankful  for  the  expression  in  St.  Mat- 
thew, and  am  quite  willing  to  use  it  for  the  illustration  of  the 
discourse  in  which  it  occurs.  We  may  find  it  a  great  help  here- 
after in  understanding  St.  Luke.  But  I  must  take  his  language 
as  it  stands.  He  says  that  our  Lord  lifted  up  his  eyes  on  a 
miscellaneous  crowd.  He  cannot  have  expected  that  crowd  to 
introduce  any  spiritual  qualification  into  the  words,  (<  Yours  is 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. w  What  then  did  those  words  import  ? 
Might  they  be  addressed  to  a  multitude  similarly  composed  in 
London  ?  .  .  . 

Surely,  in  this  very  simple  and  direct  sense.  Our  Lord  had 
come  to  tell  them  who  was  governing  them;  under  whose  author- 
ity they  were  living.  Who  had  they  fancied  was  governing 
them  ?  One  who  regarded  the  rich  with  affection ;  who  had 
bestowed  great  advantages  upon  them ;  who  had  given  them  an 
earnest  here  of  what  he  might  do  for  them  hereafter.  It  was 
most  natural  for  poor  men  to  put  this  interpretation  upon  that 
which  they  saw  and  that  which  they  felt.  It  was  difficult  for 
them  to  find  any  other  interpretation.  It  was  not  more  difficult 
for  the  people  who  dwelt  about  the  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon 
than  for  the  people  who  dwell  in  the  courts  and  alleys  of  Lon- 
don. The  difficulty  is  the  same  precisely  in  kind.  The  degree 
of  it  must  be  greater,  on  some  accounts,  for  the  dwellers  in 
a  crowded  modern  city  than  for  those  who  breathed  the  fresh 
air  of  Galilee.  The  difficulty  was  not  diminished  for  the  latter 
(I  mean  for  the  Galileans)  by  anything  which  they  heard  from 
their  religious  teachers.  It  was  enormously  increased.  God  was 
said  to  demand  of  these  poor  people  religious  services  which  they 
could  not  render;  an  account  of  knowledge  about  his  law  which 
they  could  not  possess.  His  prizes  and  blessings  here  and 
hereafter  were  said  to  be  contingent  upon  their  performing  these 
services,  upon  their  having  that  knowledge.  Whichever  way  they 
turned, —  to  their  present  condition,  to  the  forefathers  to  wnose 
errors  or  *ias  they  must  in  great  part  attribute  that  condition, 


9834  FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE 

to  the  future  in  which  they  must  expect  the  full  fruit  of  the 
misery  and  evil  into  which  they  had  fallen, —  all  looked  equally 
dark  and  hopeless. 

Startling-  indeed,  then,  were  the  tidings,  (<  Yours  is  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven*  Most  startling  when  they  were  translated  into 
these :  (<  You  have  a  Father  in  heaven  who  is  seeking  after  you, 
watching  over  you,  whom  you  may  trust  entirely.  He  ruled  over 
your  forefathers.  He  promised  that  he  would  show  forth  his 
dominion  fully  and  perfectly  in  the  generations  to  come.  I  am 
come  to  tell  you  of  him;  to  tell  you  how  he  rules  over  you, 
and  how  you  may  be  in  very  deed  his  subjects.  I  am  come 
that  you  and  your  children  may  be  citizens  in  God's  own  city, 
that  the  Lord  God  himself  may  reign  over  you. }>  I  cannot  ren- 
der the  phrase  into  any  equivalents  that  are  simpler,  more  obvi- 
ous, than  these.  And  if  they  were  true,  must  they  not  have  been 
true  for  all  that  crowd,  for  every  thief  and  harlot  in  it  ?  Was 
not  this  the  very  message  of  John,  delivered  by  Him  who  could 
not  only  call  to  repentance  but  give  repentance  ? 

"Yes,"  it  may  be  answered,  <(  that  •  might  be  so,  if  the  lan- 
guage only  declared  to  the  poor  that  there  was  a  Heavenly 
Father  who  cared  for  them  no  less  than  he  cared  for  the  rich: 
but  the  sentences  which  follow  give  them  a  positive  advantage; 
it  would  appear  as  if  the  blessing  on  the  poor  involved  a  curse 
on  the  rich.  What  other  force  can  you  put  on  such  sentences  as 
these  ?  (  Blessed  are  ye  that  hunger  now,  for  ye  shall  be  filled. 
Blessed  are  ye  that  weep  now,  for  ye  shall  laugh.  But  woe  unto 
you  that  are  rich,  for  ye  have  received  your  consolation.  Woe 
unto  you  that  are  full,  for  ye  shall  hunger.  Woe  unto  you  that 
laugh  now,  for  ye  shall  mourn  and  weep. }  w 

Language  so  explicit  as  this  cannot  be  evaded.  And  I  hold 
it  is  greatly  for  the  interest  of  all  of  us  who  are  leading  easy 
and  comfortable  lives  in  the  world,  that  it  should  not  be  evaded. 
If  any  amount  of  riches  greater  or  smaller  does  give  us  consola- 
tion, it  is  well  for  us  to  understand  that  there  is  a  woe  upon 
those  riches.  They  were  not  meant  to  give  consolation ;  we  were 
not  meant  to  find  it  in  them.  If  any  laughter  of  ours  does  make 
us  incapable  of  weeping,  incapable  of  entering  into  the  sorrow 
of  the  world  in  which  we  are  dwelling,  we  ought  to  feel  that 
there  is  misery  and  death  in  that  laughter.  Our  Lord  does  not 
speak  against  laughter;  he  sets  it  forth  as  a  blessing.  He  does 
denounce  all  that  laughter  which  is  an  exultation  in  our  own 


FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE  9835 

prosperity  and  in  the  calamities  of  others.  He  does  promise 
that  those  who  are  indulging  that  sort  of  laughter  shall  weep. 
I  use  the  word  promise  advisedly.  It  is  a  promise,  not  a  threat- 
ening; or  if  you  please,  a  threat  which  contains  a  promise.  It 
is  the  proof  that  we  are  under  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven;  that  God 
does  not  allow  such  laughter  to  go  on;  that  he  stops  it;  that  he 
gives  the  blessing  of  sorrow  in  place  of  it.  And  thus  all  alike 
are  taught  that  they  are  under  this  fatherly  government.  All 
are  shown  that  the  Father  in  heaven  is  aware  of  the  discipline 
which  they  need,  and  will  apportion  it.  All  may  be  brought 
to  take  their  places  with  their  brethren  in  this  kingdom.  All 
may  be  taught  that  the  common  blessings  —  the  blessings  from 
which  one  cannot  exclude  another  —  are  the  highest  blessings. 
All  may  be  brought  to  know  that  this  one  fact,  that  they  have 
a  Father  in  heaven,  is  worth  all  others.  And  so  that  poverty 
of  spirit  which  is  only  another  name  for  childlike  dependence 
upon  One  who  is  above  us,  and  is  all  good  because  we  have 
found  we  cannot  depend  upon  ourselves,  may  be  wrought  by 
Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do  in  rich  and  poor  equally.  The 
heavenly  treasures  may  be  revealed  to  both,  which  moth  and 
rust  cannot  corrupt,  which  thieves  cannot  break  through  and 
steal. 

Thus  far,  assuredly,  the  tendency  of  this  discourse  of  our 
Lord's  has  been  to  level,  not  to  exalt.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
has  not  been  a  prize  for  those  who  are  unlike  their  fellows,  but 
for  those  who  will  take  their  stand  by  them  —  who  will  set  up 
no  exclusive  pretensions  of  their  own.  But  what  shall  we  say 
of  this  benediction  — <(  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  hate  you, 
and  when  they  shall  separate  you  from  their  company,  and  shall 
reproach  you,  and  shall  cast  out  your  name  as  evil,  for  the  Son 
of  Man's  sake.  Rejoice  ye  in  that  day,  and  leap  for  joy,  for 
behold  your  reward  is  great  in  heaven:  for  in  the  like  manner 
did  their  fathers  unto  the  prophets"?  And  again  of  this  woe  — 
(<Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  shall  speak  well  of  you,  for  so  did 
their  fathers  unto  the  false  prophets  "  ?  Is  there  not  here  a  glori- 
fication of  the  little  minority  which  is  persecuted,  a  denunciation 
of  the  majority  which  persecutes  ? 

The  comment  on  the  language  is  in  the  actual  history.  Why 
was  St.  Stephen,  whom  we  have  been  remembering  lately,  cast 
out  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem  and  stoned  ?  Because  he  was  ac- 
cused of  breaking  down  the  barriers  which  separated  the  chosen 


9836  FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE 

people  from  the  surrounding  nations.  Why  was  the  young  man 
at  whose  feet  the  witnesses  against  Stephen  laid  down  their 
clothes,  afterwards  denounced  in  .the  same  city  as  one  who  ought 
not  to  live  ?  Because  he  said  that  he  was  sent  with  a  message 
of  peace  and  reconciliation  to  the  Gentiles.  What  was  it  that 
sustained  and  comforted  Stephen  in  the  hour  when  his  country- 
men were  gnashing  upon  him  with  their  teeth  ?  The  sight  of 
the  Son  of  Man  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God;  the  Savior 
and  King,  not  of  him  and  his  brother  disciples,  but  of  mankind. 
What  was  St.  Paul's  deepest  sorrow,  and  how  was  it  that  in  the 
midst  of  that  sorrow  he  could  always  rejoice  ?  His  sorrow  was 
that  his  kinsmen  after  the  flesh  were  to  be  cut  off,  because  they 
were  enemies  to  God  and  contrary  to  all  men.  His  joy  was  in 
the  thought  that  « all  Israel  should  be  saved ; »  that  « God  had 
concluded  all  in  unbelief,  that  he  might  have  mercy  upon  all.* 
This  then  was  the  witness  of  the  little  band  of  the  persecuted, 
that  God  is  the  Father  of  all;  that  his  Kingdom  is  over  all. 
And  the  determination  of  that  powerful  majority  of  persecutors 
was  to  keep  the  favor  of  God  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to 
themselves.  Those  of  whom  all  men  speak  well  are  those  who 
flatter  their  exclusiveness ;  who  lead  them  to  think  that  they 
are  better  than  others,  and  that  they  shall  have  mercies  which  are 
denied  to  others.  The  comfort  of  the  persecuted,  which  the  per- 
secutor could  not  have,  was  the  comfort  of  believing  that  God 
would  conquer  all  obstacles;  that  the  Son  of  Man,  for  whose  sake 
they  loved  not  their  lives,  would  be  shown  in  very  deed  to  be 
King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords — all  human  wills  being  sub- 
jected to  his  will. 

And  so  you  perceive  how  the  next  precepts,  which  we  often 
read  as  if  they  were  mere  isolated  maxims,  are  connected  with 
these  blessings  and  these  woes.  (( But  I  say  unto  you  which 
hear," —  unto  you,  that  is,  whom  I  have  told  that  men  shall  sep- 
arate you  from  their  company,  and  cast  out  your  persons  as 
evil, — (( Love  your  enemies;  do  good  to  them  which  persecute 
you.  Bless  them  that  curse  you,  and  pray  for  them  which  de- 
spitefully  use  you.  And  unto  him  that  smiteth  thee  on  the  one 
cheek  offer  also  the  other;  and  him  that  taketh  away  thy  cloke 
forbid  not  to  take  thy  coat  also.  Give  to  every  man  that  asketh 
of  thee;  and  of  him  that  taketh  away  thy  goods  ask  them  not 
again.  And  as  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  also 
to  them  likewise.  For  if  ye  love  them  which  love  you,  what 


FREDERICK   DENISON   MAURICE  9837 

thank  have  ye  ?  for  sinners  also  love  those  that  love  them.  And 
if  ye  do  good  to  them  which  do  good  to  you,  what  thank  have 
ye  ?  for  sinners  also  do  even  the  same.  And  if  ye  lend  to  them 
of  whom  ye  hope  to  receive,  what  thank  have  ye  ?  for  sinners 
also  lend  to  sinners,  to  receive  as  much  again.  But  love  ye  your 
enemies,  and  do  good;  and  lend,  hoping  for  nothing  again.  And 
ye  shall  be  the  children  of  the  Highest;  for  he  is  kind  unto  the 
unthankful  and  to  the  evil.  Be  ye  therefore  merciful,  as  your 
Father  in  heaven  is  merciful. }> 

In  these  passages  is  contained  the  sum  of  what  we  have  been 
used  to  call  the  peculiar  Christian  morality.  It  is  supposed  to 
be  very  admirable,  but  far  too  fine  for  common  use.  He  who 
aims  at  following  it  is  to  be  counted  a  high  saint.  He  claims 
a  state  immensely  above  the  ordinary  level  of  humanity.  He 
even  discards  the  maxims  by  which  civil  society  is  governed  — 
those  which  the  statesman  considers  necessary  fcr  his  objects. 
No  doubt,  it  is  said,  this  transcendent  doctrine  has  had  a  cer- 
tain influence  upon  the  nations  in  which  it  is  promulgated.  It 
has  modified  some  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which  are  most 
adverse  to  it.  The  beauty  of  it  is  confessed  by  many  who  never 
dream  of  practicing  it.  There  are  some  unbelievers  who  try  to 
practice  it,  and  say  that  if  this  part  of  Christianity  could  be  sepa- 
rated from  its  mysterious  part,  they  could  not  reverence  it  too 
highly.  But  though  this  is  true,  we  have  proofs,  it  is  said,  every 
day  and  hour,  that  this  love  to  enemies,  this  blessing  them  that 
curse,  this  turning  the  one  cheek  to  him  who  smites  the  other, 
is  altogether  contrary  to  the  habits  and  tempers  of  the  world. 

My  friends,  the  evidence  goes  much  further  than  that.  We 
need  not  derive  our  proofs  that  the  natural  heart  revolts  against 
these  precepts  from  what  is  called  The  World.  The  records  of 
the  Church  will  furnish  that  demonstration  much  more  perfectly. 
Hatred  of  those  whom  they  have  counted  their  enemies,—  this 
has  been  the  too  characteristic  sign  of  men  who  have  called 
themselves  Christ's  servants  and  soldiers.  Curses  have  been  their 
favorite  weapons.  No  church  can  bring  that  charge  against  an- 
other without  laying  itself  open  to  retaliation.  '  And  it  cannot  be 
pleaded,  (<  Oh,  there  is  a  corrupt  unbelieving  leaven  in  every 
Christian  society. }>  The  habit  I  speak  of  has  come  forth  often 
most  flagrantly  in  those  who  were  denouncing  this  leaven,  who 
were  seeking  to  cast  it  out.  I  am  not  saying  that  they  were  not 
good  men.  The  case  is  all  the  stronger  if  they  were.  I  am  not 


9838  FREDERICK   DENISON  MAURICE 

saying  that  a  genuine  zeal  for  truth  was  not  at  the  root  of  their 
rage,  and  did  not  mingle  with  the  most  outrageous  acts  of  it. 
Of  all  this,  God  will  be  the  judge.  We  are  not  wise  to  antici- 
pate his  decisions.  But  such  facts,  which  are  notorious,  and  are 
repeated  in  every  age  and  in  every  country,  show  the  absurdity 
of  the  theory  that  what  our  Lord  lays  down  as  the  laws  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  are  intended  for  the  use  of  a  particular 
class  of  persons,  who  aspire  to  outstrip  their  fellows  and  win 
higher  prizes  than  the  rest  of  mankind.  They  lead  us  to  suspect 
that  those  who  have  aimed  at  such  distinctions  and  pursued  such 
objects  have  not  been  able  to  submit  to  his  government  —  have 
assumed  a  position  which  was  essentially  rebellious.  They  lead 
us  back  to  the  leveling  sentence  with  which  the  discourse  opens, 
and  which  must  be  accepted  as  the  key  to  the  whole  of  it.  What 
business  has  any  citizen  of  a  kingdom  to  talk  of  a  certain  standard 
which  is  meant  for  him  and  not  for  all  the  subjects  of  it  ?  What 
is  that  but  adopting  the  maxim  which  the  Roman  poet  unfairly 
ascribed  to  the  Greek  hero,  that  (<  laws  were  not  born  for  him  >}  ? 
How  reasonable,  on  the  other  hand, — how  perfectly  consist- 
ent,—  is  our  Lord's  language,  if  we  suppose  him  to  be  revealing 
the  laws  under  which  God  has  constituted  human  beings, — the 
laws  which  are  the  expression  of  his  own  Divine  nature,  the  laws 
which  were  perfectly  fulfilled  in  his  Son,  the  laws  which  his 
Spirit  is  seeking  to  write  on  all  hearts!  What  signifies  it  to 
the  reality  of  such  laws  that  this  or  that  man  transgresses  them; 
that  he  who  transgresses  them  calls  himself  Churchman  or  Dis- 
senter, Catholic  or  Protestant,  believer  or  infidel  ?  If  they  are 
true,  they  must  stand  in  spite  of  such  transgressions;  they  will 
make  their  power  manifest  through  such  transgressions.  There 
will  be  a  witness  on  behalf  of  them,  such  as  we  see  there  is  in 
all  human  consciences;  there  will  be  a  resistance  to. them,  such 
as  we  see  there  is  in  all  human  wills.  Our  belief  in  their  ulti- 
mate triumph  over  that  which  opposes  them  must  depend  on 
our  belief  in  Him  who  is  the  Author  of  the  law.  If  we  think 
that  he  is  our  Father  in  heaven,  and  that  his  law  of  forgiveness 
has  been  fully  accomplished  in  Christ,  and  that  his  Spirit  is 
stronger  than  the  Evil  Spirit,  every  sign  of  the  victory  of  love 
over  striving  and  hating  wills  must  be  a  pledge  how  the  battle 
is  to  terminate:  no  success  of  bitterness,  and  wrath,  and  malice, 
however  it  may  shake  our  minds,  can  be  anything  but  a  proof 
that  less  than  Almighty  love,  less  than  a  Divine  sacrifice,  would 


FREDERICK   DENISON   MAURICE  9839 

have  been  unable  to  subdue  such  adversaries.  But  if  we  think 
this  discourse  to  be  the  announcement  of  a  refined  ethical  sys- 
tem,—  not  the  proclamation  of  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  as  it  pro- 
fesses to  be, —  we  may  well  complain  how  feeble  and  ineffective  it 
is  and  must  always  be.  We  may  say  that  its  power  can  never  be 
recognized  beyond  a  circle  of  rare  exceptional  persons.  And  we 
may  find  that  these  rare  exceptional  persons  are  always  supplied 
with  a  set  of  evasions,  equivocations,  and  apologies  for  violating 
every  one  of  its  principles,  especially  in  those  acts  which  they 
consider  most  religious  and  meritorious. 

Those  who  confine  this  discourse  to  saints  speedily  contradict 
themselves.  When  they  bring  forth  evidences  of  Christianity,  or 
evidences  of  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church,  they  appeal  to 
the  power  which  the  Cross,  with  its  proclamation  of  Divine  for- 
giveness to  enemies,  has  exercised  over  the  wild  warring  tribes 
that  have  fashioned  modern  Europe.  They  ask  whether  the  con- 
science of  those  tribes,  in  the  midst  of  all  their  bloody  feuds 
and  acts  of  personal  vengeance,  did  not  stoop  to  the  authority 
of  a  Prince  of  Peace;  whether  it  did  not  confess  him  as  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords;  whether  it  did  not  acknowledge  those 
as  especially  his  ministers  who  in  bodily  weakness  —  in  defiance 
of  the  physically  strong  —  showed  forth  the  loving-kindness  which 
they  said  was  his,  and  claimed  the  serf  and  the  noble  as  alike 
his  subjects  and  his  brethren.  The  facts  cannot  be  gainsaid. 
They  are  written  in  sunbeams  on  all  the  darkest  pages  of  mod- 
ern history.  What  do  they  prove  ?  Surely,  that  our  Lord  was 
not  proclaiming  a  code  which  was  at  variance  with  civil  order 
and  obedience, — a  transcendental  morality, — but  principles  which 
were  the  foundation  of  civil  order  and  obedience;  principles 
which  were  to  undermine  and  uproot  the  very  evils  which  all 
national  codes  are  endeavoring  to  counteract.  The  national  code 
—  the  most  exalted,  the  most  divine  code  —  can  only  forbid,  only 
counteract.  If  it  aspires  to  do  more,  if  it  strives  to  extirpate 
vices  instead  of  to  punish  crimes,  if  it  enjoins  virtues  instead  of 
demanding  simple  submission  to  its  decrees, — it  proves  its  own 
impotence.  It  is  always  asking  for  help  to  do  that  which  it  can- 
not do.  It  wants  a  power  to  make  the  obedience  which  it  needs 
voluntary:  to  kindle  the  patriotism  without  which  it  will  only 
be  directed  to  a  herd  of  animals,  not  a  race  of  men.  Wherever 
there  has  been  a  voluntary  obedience,  wherever  there  has  been 
a  patriotism  which  has  made  men  willing  to  die  that  their  land 


FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE 

might  not  be  in  the  possession  of  strangers,  there  has  been  faith 
in  an  unseen  Ruler;  there  has  been  a  confidence  that  he  wilk 
men  to  be  free.  The  Jewish  history  interprets  other  history. 
It  shows  what  has  been  the  source  of  law  and  freedom;  what 
has  been  the  destruction  of  both;  what  has  been  the  preservation 
of  both.  This  discourse,  because  it  proclaims  a  more  universal 
principle  than  the  Jewish  or  national  principle,  is  supposed  to 
set  that  aside.  I  accept  our  Lord's  words,  a  I  come  not  to  de- 
stroy, but  to  fulfill, }>  as  true  in  every  case.  He  does  not  destroy 
the  fundamental  maxim  that  God  is  the  author  of  the  Com- 
mandments. He  fulfills  it  by  proclaiming  the  mind  of  his  Father 
in  heaven  as  the  ground  of  all  the  acts  of  his  children.  He  does 
not  destroy  one  sacrifice  which  any  patriot  had  made  for  his  peo- 
ple's freedom.  He  fulfills  it  in  his  perfect  sacrifice  to  God  and 
for  us.  He  does  not  destroy  any  one  precept  of  duty  to  God 
or  to  our  neighbor.  He  fulfills  it  by  baptizing  with  his  Spirit; 
by  making  duty  to  God  the  surrender  of  man's  will  to  his  will 
which  is  working  in  us;  that  will  binding  men  to  each  other  as 
members  of  the  same  body;  that  will  fighting  with  all  the  self- 
ish impulses  which  tear  us  asunder.  There  is  no  opposition  be- 
tween the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  any  kingdom  of  earth,  except 
what  is  produced  by  this  selfishness  which  is  the  enemy  of  both. 
If  the  civil  ruler  sanctions  one  law  for  the  rich  and  one  law 
for  the  poor,  he  offends  against  the  maxims  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven;  but  then  he  also  introduces  a  confusion  into  his  own. 
If  he  prefers  war  to  peace,  gambling  to  honesty,  bondage  to 
freedom,  and  if  he  seeks  religious  sanctions  to  uphold  him  in 
these  tastes,  he  offends  against  the  maxims  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven,  and  he  is  preparing  ruin  for  his  own  State.  If  the 
ecclesiastic  proclaims  one  law  for  the  saint  and  another  for  the 
common  man,  he  overthrows  the  common  order  and  morality  of 
nations;  but  he  sins  still  more  directly  against  the  laws  which 
Christ  proclaimed  on  the  Mount.  If  he  sets  up  the  priest  against 
the  magistrate,  he  disturbs  the  peace  of  civil  communities;  but 
he  also  exalts  the  priest  into  the  place  of  God,  and  so  commits 
treason  against  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  If  he  assume  the  office 
of  a  judge  of  his  brethren,  he  may  do  much  mischief  on  earth 
which  the  ruler  on  earth  cannot  hinder.  But  he  falls  under  this 
sentence:  "Judge  not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  judged;  condemn  not, 
and  ye  shall  not  be  condemned;  forgive,  and  ye  shall  be  for- 
given. w 


FREDERICK   DENISON   MAURICE  9841 

These  laws  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  seem  very  hard  to 
keep.  See  what  hinders  us  from  keeping  them.  It  is  not  some 
incapacity.  It  is  our  determination  to  assume  a  place  which  is 
not  ours.  Each  of  us  is  continually  setting  up  himself  to  be  a 
God.  Each  is  seizing  the  judgment-throne  of  the  universe.  We 
know  that  it  is  so.  And  from  this  throne  we  must  come  down. 
We  must  confess  that  we  are  not  gods;  not  able  to  pronounce 
on  the  condition  of  our  fellows,  needing  forgiveness  every  day 
from  our  Father  and  from  each  other,  permitted  to  dispense 
what  he  sends  us.  The  lesson  is  a  simple  one.  Yet  every  other 
is  contained  in  it.  If  we  do  in  very  deed  come  to  the  light, 
our  deeds  may  be  made  manifest;  if  we  ask  to  be  judged  —  if 
we  ask  our  Father  in  Heaven  to  make  us  his  ministers  and  not 
his  rivals  —  we  shall  be  able  to  enter  into  the  wonderful  precept 
that  follows  (v.  38):  <(  Give,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you; 
good  measure  pressed  down  and  shaken  together,  and  running 
over,  shall  men  give  into  your  bosom.  For  with  the  same  meas- 
ure that  ye  mete  withal  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again.* 
They  had  been  told  before  that  they  were  (<  to  do  good  and  lend, 
hoping  for  nothing  again. })  How  is  it  that  we  are  encouraged 
to  hope  here  that  if  we  give  it  shall  be  given  to  us  ?  The  two 
passages  explain  each  other;  experience  confirms  them  both. 
Only  the  man  who  gives  hoping  for  nothing  again,  who  gives 
freely  without  calculation  out  of  the  fullness  of  his  heart,  ever 
can  find  his  love  returned  to  him.  He  may  win  hatred  as  well 
as  love ;  but  love  does  come  in  measures  that  he  never  could 
dream  of.  We  see  it  every  day;  and  every  day,  perhaps,  we  may 
be  disappointed  at  finding  some  favors  which  we  thought  were 
well  laid  out  bringing  back  no  recompense.  They  were  bestowed 
with  the  hope  of  something  again. 

Yes,  friends:  most  truly  are  these  the  unchangeable  laws  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  That  which  we  measure  is  measured 
against  us  again;  selfishness  for  selfishness,  love  for  love.  It 
may  not  be  clear  to  us  now  that  it  is.  We  shall  be  sure  of  it 
one  day  —  in  that  day  which  shall  show  Him  who  -spoke  this  dis- 
course to  be  indeed  the  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  For, 
as  his  next  words  tell  us,  this  has  been  the  great  inversion  of 
order:  <(  The  blind  have  been  leading  the  blind;  the  disciples  have 
been  setting  themselves  above  their  Master."  We  have  been  lay- 
ing down  our  own  maxims  and  codes  of  morality.  Each  one  has 
been  saying  to  his  brother,  <(  Brother,  let  me  pull  out  the  mote 


FREDERICK   DENISON  MAURICE 

out  of  thine  eye."  We  have  had  such  a  clear  discernment  of 
these  motes!  And  all  the  while  none  of  us  has  been  aware  of 
the  beam  in  his  own  eye.  And  how  can  any  of  us  become  aware 
of  it;  how  can  we  escape  the  charge  of  hypocrisy  which  our  con- 
sciences own  to  be  so  well  deserved  ?  Only  if  there  is  a  King 
and  Judge  over  us  who  detects  the  beam;  who  makes  us  feel 
that  it  is  there;  who  himself  undertakes  to  cast  it  out.  To  that 
point  we  must  always  return.  We  may  boast  of  this  morality 
as  something  to  glorify  saints.  We  may  call  it  <(  delicious, w  as  a 
modern  French  critic  calls  it.  Only  when  it  actually  confronts 
us,  as  the  word  of  a  King  who  is  speaking  to  us  and  convict- 
ing us  of  our  departures  from  it  —  only  then  shall  we  discover 
that  it  is  for  sinners,  not  saints;  that  it  is  terrible,  not  delicious. 
But  only  then  shall  we  know  what  the  blessedness  is  of  being 
claimed  as  children  of  this  kingdom;  only  then  shall  we  begin 
to  apprehend  the  glory  of  which  we  are  inheritors.  For  we  then 
shall  understand  that  there  is  a  selfish  evil  nature  in  every  man, 
let  him  call  himself  churchman  or  man  of  the  world,  believer 
or  unbeliever,  which  cannot  bring  forth  good  fruit  —  which  is 
utterly  damnable;  and  that  there  is  a  Divine  root  of  humanity, 
a  Son  of  Man,  whence  all  the  good  in  churchman  or  man  of  the 
world,  in  believer  or  unbeliever,  springs  —  whence  nothing  but 
good  can  spring.  If  we  exalt  ourselves  upon  our  privileges  as 
Christians  or  saints,  the  King  will  say  to  us,  (<Why  call  ye  me 
Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  which  I  say  ? }>  If  we  submit  to  his 
Spirit  we  may  bring  forth  now  the  fruits  of  good  works  which 
are  to  his  glory;  we  may  look  for  the  day  when  every  law  of 
his  kingdom  shall  be  fulfilled,  when  all  shall  know  him  from  the 
least  to  the  greatest.  And  churches,  in  the  sense  of  their  own 
nothingness,  may  seek  after  the  foundation  which  God  has  laid, 
and  which  will  endure  the  shock  of  all  winds  and  waves.  And 
churches  which  rest  upon  their  own  decrees  and  traditions  and 
holiness  will  be  like  the  man  (<  who  without  a  foundation  built 
an  house  upon  the  earth,  against  which  the  stream  did  beat 
vehemently,  and  immediately  it  fell;  and  the  ruin  of  that  house 
was  great. }) 


9843 


JOSEPH   MAZZINI 

(1805-1872) 

BY  FRANK   SEWALL 

IMONG  the  liberators  of  modern  Italy,  ranking  in  influence  with 
Victor  Emmanuel,  Cavour,  and  Garibaldi,  Joseph  Mazzini 
was  unique  in  his  combination  of  deep  religious  motive, 
philosophic  insight,  and  revolutionary  zeal.  His  early  studies  of  Dante 
inspired  in  him  two  ideals:  a  restored  Italian  unity,  and  the  subor- 
dination of  political  government  to  spiritual  law,  exercised  in  the 
conscience  of  a  free  people.  Imprisoned  in  early  life  for  participation 
in  the  conspiracy  of  the  Carbonari,  he  left  Italy  in  his  twentv-sixth 
year,  to  spend  almost  the  entire  remainder 
of  his  life  in  exile.  While  living  as  a  refu- 
gee in  Marseilles  and  in  Switzerland,  from 
1831  to  1836,  he  fostered  the  revolutionary 
association  of  young  Italian  enthusiasts, 
and  edited  their  journal,  the  Giovine  Italia, 
its  purpose  being  to  bring  about  a  national 
revolution  through  the  insurrection  of  the 
Sardinian  States.  In  Switzerland  he  organ- 
ized in  the  same  spirit  the  <(  Young  Switzer- 
land M  and  the  <(  Young  Europe, w  fostering 
the  idea  of  universal  political  reform,  and 
the  bringing  in  of  a  new  era  of  the  world, 
in  which  free  popular  government  should 
displace  the  old  systems  both  of  legitimate 

monarchy  and  despotic  individualism.  Banished  from  Switzerland 
under  a  decree  of  the  French  government,  in  1836  Mazzini  found 
refuge  in  London ;  and  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  the  English  press 
was  the  chief  organ  of  his  world-wide  influence  as  a  reformer,  while 
his  literary  ability  won  him  a  place  among  the  most  brilliant  of  the 
modern  British  essayists.  Only  for  brief  intervals  did  Mazzini  appear 
again  in  Italy;  notably  in  the  period  of  1848  and  1849,  when,  on  the 
insurrection  of  Sicily  and  Venetian  Lombardy  and  the  flight  of  Pio 
Nono  from  Rome,  like  a  Rienzi  of  the  nineteenth  century  he  issued 
from  that  (<  city  of  the  soul »  the  declaration  of  the  Roman  Republic, 
and  was  elected  one  of  the  triumvirs.  He  led  in  a  heroic  resistance 


JOSEPH  MAZZINI 


9844  JOSEPH  MAZZINI 

to  the  besieging  French  army  until  compelled  to  yield;  and  he  was 
content  to  have  brought  forth  from  the  conflict  the  unstained  banner, 
'<God  and  the  People, »  to  be  the  standard  for  all  future  struggles  for 
the  union  of  free  Italy  under  the  rightful  leadership  of  Rome.  In 
1857  he  again  took  part  in  person  in  the  insurrections  in  Genoa  and 
in  Sicily,  and  was  laid  under  sentence  of  death,  a  judgment  which  was 
removed  in  1865.  In  1870,  on  his  attempting  to  join  Garibaldi  in 
Sicily,  he  was  arrested  at  sea  and  imprisoned  at  Gaeta,  to  be  released 
in  two  months,  as  the  danger  of  a  general  insurrection  disappeared. 
During  all  this  time  he  had  been  carrying  on,  mainly  from  England, 
his  propaganda  through  the  press;  publishing  in  1852,  in  the  West- 
minster Review,  the  essay  ( Europe,  its  Conditions  and  Prospects, J 
completing  in  1858  <The  Duties  of  Man,*  and  addressing  open  letters 
to  Pio  Nono,  to  Louis  Napoleon,  and  to  Victor  Emmanuel.  In  1871  he 
contributed  to  the  Contemporary  Review  an  essay  on  (The  Franco- 
German  War  and  the  Communed  The  last  production  of  his  pen  was 
his  essay  on  Renan's  (Reforme  Morale  et  Intellectuelle,'  finished  in 
March  1872,  and  published  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  in  1874. 

It  was  shortly  after  the  completion  of  this  essay  at  Pisa,  whither 
he  had  gone  in  the  hope  of  regaining  his  health,  that  he  was  seized 
with  the  illness  that  closed  his  earthly  life  on  March  loth,  1872. 
Honors  were  decreed  him  by  the  Italian  Parliament,  his  funeral  was 
attended  by  an  immense  concourse  of  people,  and  his  remains  were 
laid  away  in  a  costly  monument  in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Genoa. 

If  Mazzini  is  entitled  to  be  called  the  prophet  of  a  new  political 
age,  it  is  because  he  sought  for  a  new  spiritual  basis  for  political 
reform.  What  is  remarkable  is,  that  his  bold  and  ingenuous  insist- 
ence on  the  religious  motive  as  fundamental  in  the  government  that 
is  to  be,  did  not  diminish  his  influence  with  his  contemporaries  of 
whatever  shades  of  opinion.  Even  so  radical  a  writer  as  the  Russian 
anarchist  Bakunin,  in  an  essay  on  the  ( Political  Theology  >  of  Mazzini, 
speaks  of  him  as  one  of  the  noblest  and  purest  individualities  of  our 
age. 

The  two  fundamental  principles  for  which  Mazzini  stood  were  col- 
lective humanity  as  opposed  to  individualism,  and  duty  as  opposed  to 
rights.  His  position  was,  that  the  revolutionary  achievements  of  the 
past  had  at  most  overcome  the  tyranny  of  monarchy  in  asserting  the 
principle  of  the  rights  of  the  individual.  But  this  is  not  in  itself  a 
unifying  motive.  The  extreme  assertion  of  this  leads  to  disunion  and 
weakness,  and  makes  way  only  for  another  and  more  hopeless  des- 
potism. The  rights  of  the  individual  must  now  be  sacrificed  to  the 
collective  good,  and  the  motive  of  selfish  aggrandizement  must  yield 
to  the  sacred  law  of  duty  under  the  Divine  government.  It  is  this 
undeviating  regard  for  the  supreme  principle  of  duty  to  the  collective 


JOSEPH  MAZZINI  9845 

man,  under  the  authority  of  the  Divine  law,  that  alone  can  make  the 
perpetuation  of  the  republic  possible. 

Mazzini's  devotion  to  this  principle  accounts  for  his  apparent  luke- 
warmness  in  many  of  the  boldest  and  most  conspicuous  movements 
in  the  progress  of  Italian  liberation  and  unity.  It  was  because  he 
saw  the  preponderance  of  sectional  aims  rather  than  the  participa- 
tion of  all  in  the  new  federation,  that  he  criticized  the  Carbonari  king, 
Charles  Albert,  in  1831,  and  that  he  fought  against  the  policy  of  ob- 
taining at  the  cost  of  Savoy  and  Nice  (<a  truncated  Italy  of  monarchy 
and  diplomacy,  the  creation  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  Louis  Napoleon,  and 
Cavour.^  He  lived  to  see  Italy,  nominally  at  least,  a  united  nation, 
freed  from  foreign  control;  but  far  from  being  the  ideal  republic 
whose  law  is  from  above,  and  whose  strength  is  in  the  supreme 
devotion  of  each  citizen  to  the  good  of  all,  and.  to  the  realization 
in  this  manner  of  a  Divine  government  in  the  world.  Toward  the 
attainment  of  this  ideal  by  progressive  governments  everywhere,  the 
influence  of  Mazzini  will  long  be  a  powerful  factor,  and  his  mission 
more  and  more  recognized  as  that  of  a  true  prophet  of  a  new  politi- 
cal era  of  the  world. 

Among  Mazzini's  literary  writings  may  be  mentioned  his  essays  on 
( Victor  Hugo,}  (  George  Sand,'  (  Byron  and  Goethe, }  (The  Genius  and 
Tendency  of  the  Writings  of  Thomas  Carlyle,'  and  that  on  (M.  Renan 
and  France. }  His  (Life  and  Writings,*  in  six  volumes,  were  published 
in  London  in  1870;  and  a  volume  of  ( Essays,  Selected,  *  in  1887. 


FAITH   AND  THE   FUTURE 
From  the  <  Essays  > 

FAITH  requires  an  aim  capable  of  embracing  life  as  a  whole, 
of  concentrating  all  its  manifestations,  of  directing  its  vari- 
ous modes  of  activity,  or  of  repressing  them  all  in  favor  of 
one  alone.  It  requires  an  earnest,  unalterable  conviction  that 
that  aim  will  be  realized;  a  profound  belief  in  a  mission  and 
the  obligation  to  fulfill  it;  and  the  consciousness  of  a  supreme 
power  watching  over  the  path  of  the  faithful  towards  its  accom- 
plishment. These  elements  are  indispensable  to  faith;  and  where 
any  one  of  these  is  wanting,  we  shall  have  sects,  schools,  political 
parties,  but  no  faith, —  no  constant  hourly  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
a  great  religious  idea. 


5846  JOSEPH  MAZZINI 

Now  we  have  no  definite  religious  idea,  no  profound  belief  in 
an  obligation  entailed  by  a  mission,  no  consciousness  of  a  supreme 
protecting  power.  Our  actual,  apostolate  is  a  mere  analytical 
opposition;  our  weapons  are  interest,  and  our  chief  instrument  of 
action  is  a  theory  of  rights.  We  are  all  of  us,  notwithstanding 
our  sublime  presentiments,  the  sons  of  rebellion.  We  advance 
like  renegades,  without  a  God,  without  a  law,  without  a  banner 
to  lead  us  towards  the  future.  Our  former  aim  has  vanished 
from  our  view;  the  new,  dimly  seen  for  an  instant,  is  effaced  by 
that  doctrine  of  rights  which  alone  directs  our  labors.  We  make 
of  the  individual  both  the  means  and  the  aim.  We  talk  of 
humanity  —  a  formula  essentially  religious  —  and  banish  religion 
from  our  work.  We  talk  of  synthesis,  and  yet  neglect  the  most 
powerful  and  active  element  of  human  existence.  Bold  enough 
to  be  undaunted  by  the  dream  of  the  material  unity  of  Europe, 
we  thoughtlessly  destroy  its  moral  unity  by  failing-  to  recognize 
the  primary  condition  of  all  association, — uniformity  of  sanction 
and  belief.  And  it  is  amidst  such  contradictions  that  we  pretend 
to  renew  a  world. 

Right  is  the  faith  of  the  individual.  Duty  is  the  common  col- 
lective faith.  Right  can  but  organize  resistance:  it  may  destroy, 
it  cannot  found.  Duty  builds  up,  associates,  and  unites:  it  is 
derived  from  a  general  law,  whereas  right  is  derived  only  from 
human  will.  There  is  nothing,  therefore,  to  forbid  a  struggle 
against  right;  any  individual  may  rebel  against  any  right  in 
another  individual  which  is  injurious  to  him,  and  the  sole  judge 
left  between  the  adversaries  is  force:  and  such  in  fact  has  fre- 
quently been  the  answer  which  societies  based  upon  right  have 
given  to  their  opponents. 

Societies  based  upon  duty  would  not  be  compelled  to  have 
recourse  to  force;  duty,  once  admitted  as  the  rule,  excludes  the 
possibility  of  struggle;  and  by  rendering  the  individual  subject  to 
the  general  aim,  it  cuts  at  the  very  root  of  those  evils  which 
right  is  unable  to  prevent,  and  only  affects  to  cure.  Moreover, 
progress  is  not  a  necessary  result  of  the  doctrine  of  right:  it 
merely  admits  it  as  a  fact.  The  exercise  of  rights  being  of 
necessity  limited  by  capacity,  progress  is  abandoned  to  the  arbi- 
trary rule  of  an  unregulated  and  aimless  liberty. 

The  doctrine  of  rights  puts  an  end  to  sacrifice,  and  cancels 
martyrdom  from  the  world:  in  every  theory  of  individual  rights, 
interests  become  the  governing  and  motive  power,  and  martyrdom 


JOSEPH  MAZZINI  9847 

an  absurdity;  for  what  interest  can  endure  beyond  the  tomb? 
Yet  how  often  has  martyrdom  been  the  initiation  of  progress, 
the  baptism  of  a  world !  .  .  . 

Faith,  which  is  intellect,  energy,  and  love,  will  put  an  end  to 
the  discords  existing  in  a  society  which  has  neither  church  nor 
leaders;  which  invokes  a  new  world,  but  forgets  to  ask  its  secret, 
its  Word,  from  God. 

With  faith  will  revive  poetry,  rendered  fruitful  by  the  breath 
of  God  and  by  a  holy  creed.  Poetry,  exiled  now  from  a  world  a 
prey  to  anarchy;  poetry,  the  flower  of  the  angels,  nourished  by 
the  blood  of  martyrs  and  watered  by  the  tears  of  mothers,  blos- 
soming often  among  ruins  but  ever  colored  by  the  rays  of  dawn; 
poetry,  a  language  prophetic  of  humanity,  European  in  essence 
and  national  in  form, —  will  make  known  to  us  the  fatherland  of 
all  the  nations  hitherto;  translate  the  religious  and  social  syn- 
thesis through  art;  and  render  still  lovelier  by  its  light,  Woman, 
an  angel, —  fallen,  it  is  true,  but  yet  nearer  heaven  than  we, — 
and  hasten  her  redemption  by  restoring  her  to  her  mission  of 
inspiration,  prayer,  and  pity,  so  divinely  symbolized  by  Christian- 
ity in  Mary.  .  .  . 

The  soul  of  man  had  fled;  the  senses  reigned  alone.  The 
multitude  demanded  bread  and  the  sports  of  the  circus.  Philoso- 
phy had  sunk  first  into  skepticism,  then  into  epicureanism,  then 
into  subtlety  and  words.  Poetry  was  transformed  into  satire. 

Yet  there  were  moments  when  men  were  terror-struck  at  the 
solitude  around  them,  and  trembled  at  their  isolation.  They  ran 
to  embrace  the  cold  and  naked  statues  of  their  once  venerated 
gods;  to  implore  of  them  a  spark  of  moral  life,  a  ray  of  faith, 
even  an  illusion!  They  departed,  their  prayers  unheard,  with 
despair  in  their  hearts  and  blasphemy  upon  their  lips.  Such 
were  the  times;  they  resembled  our  own. 

Yet  this  was  not  the  death  agony  of  the  world.  It  was  the 
conclusion  of  one  evolution  of  the  world  which  had  reached  its 
ultimate  expression.  A  great  epoch  was  exhausted,  and  passing 
away  to  give  place  to  another,  the  first  utterances  of  which  had 
already  been  heard  in  the  north,  and  which  awaited  but  the  Ini- 
tiator to  be  revealed. 

He  came, —  the  soul  the  most  full  of  love,  the  most  sacredly 
virtuous,  the  most  deeply  inspired  by  God  and  the  future  that 
men  have  yet  seen  on  earth, —  Jesus.  He  bent  over  the  corpse  of 
the  dead  world,  and  whispered  a  word  of  faith.  Over  the  clay 
that  had  lost  all  of  man  but  the  movement  and  the  form,  he 


9848  JOSEPH  MAZZINI 

uttered  words  until  then  unknown, — love,  sacrifice,  a  heavenly 
origin.  And  the  dead  arose.  A  new  life  circulated  through  the 
clay,  which  philosophy  had  tried  in  vain  to  reanimate.  From  that 
corpse  arose  the  Christian  world,  the  world  of  liberty  and  equal- 
ity. From  that  clay  arose  the  true  man,  the  image  of  God,  the 
precursor  of  humanity. 


THOUGHTS  ADDRESSED  TO  THE  POETS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 

From  <Giovine  Italia J 

THE  future  is  humanity.  The  world  of  individuality,  the  world 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  is  exhausted  and  consumed.  The  mod- 
ern era  of  the  social  world  is  now  in  the  dawn  of  its  devel- 
opment; and  genius  is  possessed  by  the  consciousness  of  this 
coming  world. 

Napoleon  and  Byron  represented,  summed  up,  and  concluded 
the  epoch  of  individuality:  the  one  the  monarch  of  the  kingdom 
of  battle,  the  other  the  monarch  of  the  realm  of  imagination; 
the  poetry  of  action,  the  poetry  of  thought. 

Created  by  nature  deeply  to  feel,  and  identify  himself  with 
the  first  sublime  image  offered  to  his  sight,  Byron  gazed  around 
upon  the  world  and  found  it  not. 

Religion  was  no  more.  An  altar  was  yet  standing,  but  broken 
and  profaned:  a  temple  silent  and  destitute  of  all  noble  and  ele- 
vating emotion,  and  converted  into  a  fortress  of  despotism;  in  it 
a  neglected  cross.  Around  him  a  world  given  up  to  materialism, 
which  had  descended  from  the  rank  of  philosophical  opinion  to 
the  need  of  practical  egotism,  and  the  relics  of  a  superstition 
which  had  become  deformed  and  ridiculous  since  the  progress  of 
civilization  had  forbidden  it  to  be  cruel.  Cant  was  all  that  was 
left  in  England,  frivolity  in  France,  and  inertia  in  Italy.  No 
generous  sympathy,  no  pure  enthusiasm,  no  religion,  'no  earnest 
desire,  no  aspiration  visible  in  the  masses. 

Whence  could  the  soul  of  Byron  draw  inspiration?  where 
find  a  symbol  for  the  immense  poetry  that  burned  within  him  ? 
Despairing  of  the  world  around  him,  he  took  refuge  in  his  own 
heart,  and  dived  into  the  inmost  depths  of  his  own  soul.  It  was 
indeed  a  whole  world,  a  volcano,  a  chaos  of  raging  and  tumultu- 
ous passions, —  a  cry  of  war  against  society  such  as  tyranny  had 
made  it;  against  religion  such  as  the  pope  and  the  craft  of  priests 


JOSEPH  MAZZINI  9849 

had  made  it;  and  against  mankind  as  he  saw  them, — isolated, 
degraded,  and  deformed. 

The  result  was  a  form  of  poetry  purely  individual, —  all  of 
individual  sensation  and  images;  a  poetry  having  no  basis  in 
humanity,  nor  in  any  universal  faith;  a  poetry  over  which,  with 
all  its  infinity  of  accessories  drawn  from  nature  and  the  material 
world,  there  broods  the  image  of  Prometheus  bound  down  to 
earth  and  cursing  the  earth,  an  image  of  individual  will  striving 
to  substitute  itself  by  violence  for  the  universal  will  and  univer- 
sal right. 

Napoleon  fell;  Byron  fell.  The  tombs  of  St.  Helena  and  Mis- 
solonghi  contain  the  relics  of  an  entire  world. 


ON   CARLYLE 
From  the  < Essays  > 

WE  ALL  seek  God;  but  we  know  that  here  below  we  can 
neither  attain  unto  him,  nor  comprehend  him,  nor  con- 
template him:  the  absorption  into  God  of  some  of  the 
Brahminical  religions,  of  Plato,  and  of  some  modern  ascetics,  is 
an  illusion  that  cannot  be  realized.  Our  aim  is  to  approach 
God:  this  we  can  do  by  our  works  alone.  To  incarnate  as  far 
as  possible  his  word;  to  translate,  to  realize  his  thought, —  is 
our  charge  here  below.  It  is  not  by  contemplating  his  works 
that  we  can  fulfill  our  mission  upon  earth;  it  is  by  devoting 
ourselves  to  our  share  in  the  evolution  of  his  work,  without 
interruption,  without  end.  The  earth  and  man  touch  at  all  points 
on  the  infinite:  this  we  know  well,  but  is  it  enough  to  know  this  ? 
have  we  not  to  march  onwards,  to  advance  into  this  infinite  ? 
But  can  the  individual  finite  creature  of  a  day  do  this  if  he 
relies  only  upon  his  own  powers  ?  It  is  precisely  from  having 
found  themselves  for  an  instant  face  to  face  with  infinity,  with- 
out calculating  upon  other  faculties,  upon  other  powers,  than 
their  own,  that  some  of  the  greatest  intellects  of  the  day  have 
been  led  astray  into  skepticism  or  misanthropy.  Not  identifying 
themselves  sufficiently  with  humanity,  and  startled  at  the  dis- 
proportion between  the  object  and  the  means,  they  have  ended 
by  seeing  naught  but  death  and  annihilation  on  every  side, 
and  have  no  longer  had  courage  for  the  conflict.  The  ideal  has 
appeared  to  them  like  a  tremendous  irony. 


9850  JOSEPH  MAZZ1NI 

In  truth,  human  life,  regarded  from  a  merely  individual  point 
of  view,  is  deeply  sad.  Glory,  power,  grandeur,  all  perish,— 
playthings  of  a  day,  broken  at  night.  The  mothers  who  loved 
us,  whom  we  love,  are  snatched  away;  friendships  die,  and  we 
survive  them.  The  phantom  of  death  watches  by  the  pillow  of 
those  dear  to  us.  The  strongest  and  purest  love  would  be  the 
bitterest  irony,  were  it  not  a  promise  for  the  future;  and  this 
promise  itself  is  but  imperfectly  felt  by  us,  such  as  we  are  at  the 
present  day.  The  intellectual  adoration  of  truth  without  hope  of 
realization  is  sterile:  there  is  a  larger  void  in  our  souls,  a  yearn- 
ing for  more  truth  than  we  can  realize  during  our  short  terrestrial 
existence.  .  .  . 

Sadness,  unending  sadness,  discordance  between  the  will  and 
the  power,  disenchantment,  discouragement  —  such  is  human  life, 
when  looked  at  only  from  the  individual  point  of  view.  A  few 
rare  intellects  escape  the  common  law  and  attain  calmness:  but 
it  is  the  calm  of  inaction,  of  contemplation;  and  contemplation 
here  on  earth  is  the  selfishness  of  genius. 

I  repeat,  Mr.  Carlyle  has  instinctively  'all  the  presentiments  of 
the  new  epoch;  but  following  the  teachings  of  his  intellect  rather 
than  his  heart,  and  rejecting  the  idea  of  the  collective  life,  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  for  him  to  find  the  means  of  their  realiza- 
tion. A  perpetual  antagonism  prevails  throughout  all  he  does; 
his  instincts  drive  him  to  action,  his  theory  to  contemplation. 
Faith  and  discouragement  alternate  in  his  works,  as  they  must  in 
his  soul.  He  weaves  and  unweaves  his  web,  like  Penelope;  he 
preaches  by  turns  life  and  nothingness;  he  wearies  out  the  pow- 
ers of  his  readers  by  continually  carrying  them  from  heaven  to 
hell,  from  hell  to  heaven.  Ardent,  and  almost  menacing,  upon 
the  ground  of  ideas,  he  becomes  timid  and  skeptical  as  soon  as 
he  is  engaged  on  that  of  their  application.  I  may  agree  with 
him  with  respect  to  the  aim,  I  cannot  respecting  the  means: 
he  rejects  them  all,  but  he  proposes  no  others.  He  desires 
progress,  but  shows  hostility  to  all  who  strive  to  progress;  he 
foresees,  he  announces  as  inevitable,  great  changes  or  revolu- 
tions in  the  religious,  social,  political  order,  but  it  is  on  condition 
that  the  revolutionists  take  no  part  in  them;  he  has  written 
many  admirable  pages  on  Knox  and  Cromwell,  but  the  chances 
are  that  he  would  have  written  them  as  admirably,  although  less 
truly,  against  them  had  he  lived  at  the  commencement  of  their 
struggles.  .  .  . 


JOSEPH   MAZZINI  9851 

What  is  meant  by  (<  reorganizing  labor"  but  bringing  back  the 
dignity  of  labor?  What  is  a  new  form  but  the  case  or  the  sym- 
bol of  a  new  idea  ?  We  perhaps  have  had  a  glimpse  of  the  ideal 
in  all  its  purity;  we  feel  ourselves  capable  of  soaring  into  the 
invisible  regions  of  the  spirit.  But  are  we,  on  this  account,  to 
isolate  ourselves  from  the  movement  which  is  going  on  among 
our  brethren  beneath  us  ?  Must  we  be  told,  <(  You  profane  the 
sanctity  of  the  idea,"  because  the  men  into  whom  we  seek  to 
instill  it  are  flesh  and  blood,  and  we  are  obliged  to  speak  to  their 
senses  ?  Condemn  all  action,  then ;  for  action  is  only  a  form 
given  to  thought  —  its  application,  practice.  (<The  end  of  man  is 
an  action  and  not  a  thought. w  Mr.  Carlyle  himself  repeats  this 
in  his  ( Sartor  Resartus  > ;  and  yet  the  spirit  which  pervades  his 
works  seems  to  me  too  often  of  a  nature  to  make  his  readers 
forget  it. 

It  has  been  asked,  what  is  at  the  present  day  the  duty  of 
which  we  have  spoken  so  much  ?  A  complete  reply  would  re- 
quire a  volume,  but  I  may  suggest  it  in  a  few  words.  Duty 
consists  of  that  love  of  God  and  man  which  renders  the  life  of 
the  individual  the  representation  and  expression  of  all  that  he 
believes  to  be  the  truth,  absolute  or  relative.  Duty  is  progress- 
ive, as  the  evolution  of  truth;  it  is  modified  and  enlarged  with 
the  ages;  it  changes  its  manifestations  according  to  the  require- 
ment of  times  and  circumstances.  There  are  times  in  which  we 
must  be  able  to  die  like  Socrates;  there  are  others  in  which  we 
must  be  able  to  struggle  like  Washington:  one  period  claims  the 
pen  of  the  sage,  another  requires  the  sword  of  the  hero.  But 
here  and  everywhere  the  source  of  this  duty  is  God  and  his  law; 
its  object,  humanity;  its  guarantee,  the  mutual  responsibility  of 
men;  its  measure,  the  intellect  of  the  individual  and  the  demands 
of  the  period;  its  limit,  power. 

Study  the  universal  tradition  of  humanity,  with  all  the  facul- 
ties, with  all  the  disinterestedness,  with  all  the  comprehensive- 
ness of  which  God  has  made  you  capable:  where  you  find  the 
general  permanent  voice  of  humanity  agreeing  with  the  voice  of  , 
your  conscience,  be  sure  that  you  hold  in  your  grasp  something 
of  absolute  truth  —  gained,  and  forever  yours.  Study  also  with 
interest,  attention,  and  comprehensiveness,  the  tradition  of  your 
epoch  and  of  your  nation  —  the  idea,  the  want,  which  ferments 
within  them:  where  you  find  that  your  conscience  sympathizes 
with  the  general  aspiration,  you  are  sure  of  possessing  the  rel- 
ative truth.  Your  life  must  embody  both  these  truths,  must 


9852  JOSEPH  MAZZINI 

represent  and  communicate  them,  according  to  your  intelligence 
and  your  means:  you  must  be  not  only  MAN,  but  a  man  of  your 
age;  you  must  act  as  well  as  speak;  you  must  be  able  to  die 
without  being  compelled  to  acknowledge,  <(  I  have  known  such  a 
fraction  of  the  truth,  I  could  have  done  such  a  thing  for  its  tri- 
umph, and  I  have  not  done  it." 

Such  is  duty  in  its  most  general  expression.  As  to  its  spe- 
cial application  to  our  times,  I  have  said  enough  on  this  point 
in  that  part  of  my  article  which  establishes  my  difference  from 
the  views  of  Mr.  Carlyle,  to  render  its  deduction  easy.  The 
question  at  the  present  day  is  the  perfecting  of  the  principle 
of  association,  a  transformation  of  the  medium  in  which  man- 
kind moves:  duty  therefore  lies  in  a  collective  labor.  Every  one 
should  measure  his  powers,  and  see  what  part  of  this  labor  falls 
to  him.  The  greater  the  intellect  and  influence  a  man  enjoys, 
the  greater  his  responsibility;  but  assuredly  contemplation  cannot 
satisfy  duty  in  any  degree. 

Mr.  Carlyle's  idea  of  duty  is  naturally  different.  Thinking 
only  of  individuality,  calculating  only  the  powers  of  the  individ- 
ual, he  would  rather  restrict  than  enlarge  its  sphere.  The  rule 
which  he  adopts  is  that  laid  down  by  Goethe, — <(  Do  the  duty 
which  lies  nearest  thee.}>  And  this  rule,  like  all  other  moral 
rules,  is  good  in  so  far  as  it  is  susceptible  of  a  wide  interpretation ; 
bad  so  far  as,  taken  literally,  and  fallen  into  the  hands  of  men 
whose  tendencies  to  self-sacrifice  are  feeble,  it  may  lead  to  the 
justification  of  selfishness,  and  cause  that  which  at  bottom  should 
only  be  regarded  as  the  wages  of  duty  to  be  mistaken  for  duty 
itself.  It  is  well  known  what  use  Goethe,  the  high  priest  of 
the  doctrine,  made  of  this  maxim:  enshrining  himself  in  what  he 
called  <( Art }> ;  and  amidst  a  world  in  misery,  putting  away  the 
question  of  religion  and  politics  as  <(  a  troubled  element  for  Art,  * 
though  a  vital  one  for  man,  and  giving  himself  up  to  the  con- 
templation of  forms  and  the  adoration  of  self. 

There  are  at  the  present  day  but  too  many  who  imagine 
they  have  perfectly  done  their  duty,  because  they  are  kind  toward 
their  friends,  affectionate  in  their  families,  inoffensive  toward  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  maxim  of  Goethe  and  of  Mr.  Carlyle  will 
always  suit  and  serve  such  men,  by  transforming  into  duties 
the  individual,  domestic,  or  other  affections, — in  other  words,  the 
consolations  of  life.  Mr.  Carlyle  probably  does  not  carry  out  his 
maxim  in  practice;  but  his  principle  leads  to  this  result,  and  can- 
not theoretically  have  anv  other. 


9853 


JOHANN  WILHELM  MEINHOLD 

(1797-1851) 

IN  THE  year  1843  appeared  from  an  important  Prussian  pub- 
lishing house  a  small  volume,  which  was  received  with  the 
liveliest  interest  by  literary  Germany.  Its  title  was  <  Maria 
Schweidler,  the  Amber-Witch:  Being  the  most  Interesting  Trial  for 
Witchcraft  yet  Known:  Taken  from  a  Defective  Manuscript,  made  by 
the  Father  of  the  Accused,  the  Reverend  Abraham  Schweidler,  of 
Coserow  [Usedom  Island];  Edited  by  Reverend  W.  Meinhold.'  With- 
in its  pages  was  brought  up  from  the  superstitious  past  of  the  rural 
life  of  North  Germany,  in  1630,  a  grim  yet  absorbingly  interesting 
picture  and  personal  drama.  Rev.  Johann  Wilhelm  Meinhold,  in  edit- 
ing the  relic,  stated  that  he  had  discovered  its  yellowed  and  torn 
pages  by  merest  accident  among  some  literary  rubbish  in  the  choir 
of  the  old  Coserow  church.  The  writer  of  it,  the  Reverend  Abra- 
ham Schweidler,  a  godly  and  simple-minded  man,  had  almost  lost  his 
only  child  Maria  through  a  villainous  plot  on  the  part  of  a  rejected 
suitor,  aided  by  an  evil  and  jealous  woman  of  the  neighborhood, — 
the  latter  confessing  herself  an  actual  servant  of  Satan.  After  a 
formal  trial,  and  the  beginnings  of  those  direful  tortures  to  induce 
confession  that  were  then  the  ordinary  accompaniment  of  German 
criminal  processes,  the  unfortunate  young  girl,  wholly  innocent  of  the 
preposterous  charge,  had  confessed  it.  She  had  found  herself  con- 
quered by  sheer  physical  agony,  and  by  her  inability  to  endure  the 
torment  of  the  executioners.  Sentenced  to  the  stake,  Maria  had  pre- 
pared herself  to  meet  her  undeserved  doom;  and  not  before  she  was 
fairly  on  the  way  to  the  pyre  was  she  rescued  by  a  courageous  young 
nobleman  who  loved  her,  and  not  only  made  himself  her  deliverer, 
but  anon  her  husband  and  protector  for  life.  The  whole  narrative 
was  given  with  a  simplicity  of  accent,  and  with  a  minuteness  of 
detail,  that  precluded  doubt  as  to  its  being  a  genuine  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  the  witchcraft  delusion  in  Europe, —  to  which  Mas- 
sachusetts furnished  an  American  supplement. 

In  offering  to  the  public  his  interesting  treasure,  the  Reverend 
Pastor  Meinhold  particularly  stated  that  he  had  kept  the  connection 
between  the  fragments  of  Pastor  Schweidler's  old  manuscript  by 
interpolating  passages  of  his  own  editorial  composition,  c<  imitating 
as  accurately  as  I  was  able  the  language  and  manner  of  the  old 


9854  JOHANN  WILHELM  MEINHOLD 

biographer. w  The  careful  Meinhold  noted  that  he  expressly  refrained 
from  pointing  out  the  particular  passages  supplied,  because  <(  modern 
criticism,  which  has  now  attained  to  a  degree  of  acuteness  never 
before  equaled, »  could  easily  distinguish  them. 

The  work  met  with  the  most  complete  success.  <  Maria  Schweid- 
ler,  the  Amber- Witch  >  was  received  with  high  commendation,  as  a 
mediaeval  document  most  happily  brought  to  light.  Not  only  did  its 
dramatic  treatment  attract  critical  notice :  a  sharp  argument  soon 
arose  among  those  reviewers  especially  keen  in  dealing  with  curious 
mediaeval  chronicles,  as  to  the  extent  of  Pastor  Meinhold's  <(  editorial » 
additions;  and  as  to  whether  this  passage  or  that  were  original,  or 
only  a  nice  imitation  of  the  crabbed  chronicle.  The  discussion  soon 
became  a  literary  tempest  in  a  teapot.  Meinhold  observed  for  months 
a  strict  silence:  then  he  abruptly  announced  that  ( Maria  Schweidler, 
the  Amber- Witch >  was  a  total  fabrication ;  that  he  had  written  the 
whole  story;  that  no  part  of  it  had  ever  been  found  in  Coserow 
Church  or  elsewhere;  and  further,  that  he  had  not  been  inspired  to 
perpetrate  his  brilliant  fraud  by  merely  the  innocent  vanity  of  a 
story-teller  or  antiquarian.  He  had  desired  to  prove  to  the  learned 
Biblical  critics  of  the  date  (it  was  the  time, of  the  attacks  of  Strauss 
and  Baur  on  the  authenticity  of  certain  books  of  the  Scriptures)  how 
untrustworthy  was  their  reasoning,  from  purely  internal  evidence,  as 
to  the  sources  of  the  Canon.  If  a  contemporary  could  deceive  their 
judgment  with  a  forged  romance,  how  much  more  might  they  err  in 
their  Biblical  arguments !  <  Maria  Schweidler,  the  Amber- Witch  >  was 
thus  a  country  parson's  protest  against  inerrancy  in  the  <(  higher 
criticism*  then  agitating  German  orthodoxy.  It  is  interesting  to 
know  that  Meinhold's  confession  was  at  first  rejected;  although  he 
soon  proved  the  story  to  be  indeed  the  result  of  his  scholarship 
and  quaint  imagination.  Its  reputation  grew;  and  the  acknowledged 
imposture  only  added  to  its  circulation. 

Of  Meinhold's  life  and  career,  except  as  the  author  of  ( Maria 
Schweidler,  the  Amber-Witch,  >  there  is  little  to  be  said.  His  father 
was  a  Protestant  minister,  eccentric  almost  to  the  degree  of  insanity. 
Wilhelm  was  born  at  Netzelkow,  Usedom  Island,  February  27th,  1797. 
He  studied  at  Greifswald  University,  was  a  private  tutor  at  Ueker- 
munde  and  a  curate  at  Gutzkow.  On  his  marriage  he  settled  first 
at  Usedom,  later  at  Coserow.  His  literary  success  attracted  the  favor 
of  King  Frederic  Wilhelm  IV.  of  Prussia;  but  after  taking  a  pastor- 
ate at  Rehwinkel,  in  Stargard,  Meinhold  remained  there  almost  to 
the  close  of  his  life,  although  he  inclined  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
theology  as  he  came  to  middle  years.  Another  mediaeval  romance  of 
witchcraft,  (Sidonia  von  Bork,  the  Cloister- Witch,  >  is  by  some  critics 
considered  superior  to  <  Maria  Schweidler,  the  Amber-Witch  > ;  but  it 


JOHANN   WILHELM  MEINHOLD  9855 

has  never  met  with  the  popularity  of  the  less  pretentious  story  that 
gave  the  Usedom  clergyman  his  wide  reputation.  It  is  of  interest  to 
add  that  not  only  has  the  translation  of  the  tale  by  Lady  Duff-Gordon 
been  recognized  as  one  of  the  very  best  examples  of  English  transla- 
tion of  a  fiction,  —  the  translation  that  does  not  suggest  the  convey- 
ance of  a  tale  at  second-hand, — but  that  on  the  appearance  of  her 
version  she  was  credited  with  the  authorship  of  the  story,  and  the 
likelihood  of  a  German  original  denied.  From  first  to  last,  the  drama 
of  Maria  Schweidler's  peril  and  romance  seems  to  have  been  destined 
to  deceive  better  even  than  it  was  planned  to  deceive. 

The  (  Amber- Witch >  belongs  in  the  same  category  of  <(  fictions  that 
seem  fact"  which  includes  Defoe's  (  Robinson  Crusoe,*  or  his  'History 
of  the  Plague  in  London ) ;  where  the  appropriate  detail  is  so  abundant, 
and  the  atmosphere  of  an  epoch  and  community  is  so  fully  conveyed, 
as  to  bar  suspicion  that  the  story  is  manufactured.  As  Mr.  Joseph 
Jacobs  happily  remarks  in  his  excellent  study  of  Meinhold,  and  of  the 
history  that  has  kept  his  name  alive  among  German  romanticists:  — 

« Who  shall  tell  where  Art  will  find  her  children  ?  On  the  desolate  and 
gloomy  shores  of  the  Baltic,  the  child  of  a  half-crazy  father,  unfriendly  and 
unfriended  as  a  bursch, —  a  Protestant  pastor  with  Romanist  tendencies, — 
who  would  have  anticipated  from  Meinhold  perhaps  the  most  effective  pres- 
entation of  mediaeval  thought  and  feeling  which  the  whole  Romantic  move- 
ment produced?  And  the  occasion  of  the  production  of  (The  Amber-Witch > 
was  equally  unexpected.  Meinhold  went  forth  to  refute  Strauss,  and  founded 
on  his  way  a  new  kingdom  in  the  realm  of  Romance.  It  is  a  repetition  of 
the  history  of  Saul.» 


THE   RESCUE   ON  THE   ROAD   TO   THE   STAKE 
From  <The  AmberrWitch> 

[The  following  extract  is  from  the  concluding  portion  of  the  terrible  expe- 
riences of  Maria  Schweidler.  She  has  been  tried  and  convicted  of  sorcery, 
and  solemnly  sentenced.  Seated  in  a  cart,  in  which  her  father  and  her  god- 
father (the  Pastor  Benzensis  of  the  chronicle)  are-  allowed  to  accompany  her 
to  her  doom,  the  young  girl  maintains  the  courage  of  despair.  On  her  ride 
to  the  mountain,  where  the  pyre  has  been  raised,  she  is  surrounded  by  suc- 
cessive mobs  of  infuriated  peasants;  but  is  not  unnerved,  and  advances  toward 
her  death  reciting  prayers  and  hymns.  Popular  fury  against  her  is  deepened 
by  the  rising  of  a  violent  storm,  naturally  laid  to  the  young  girl's  last  spells; 
and  by  the  violent  death  of  her  chief  accuser,  the  wicked  Sheriff  Wittich, 
who  is  killed  by  falling  into  the  wheel  of  a  roadside  mill.  At  last  the  ele» 
ments  and  the  populace  are  quieted  enough  to  allow  the  death  procession  to 
be  resumed.  Surrounded  by  guards  with  pitchforks,  and  bound  in  the  cart, 
Maria  is  drawn  toward  the  Blocksberg;  and  nothing  apparently  can  interfere 
with  the  legal  tragedy  of  which  she  is  the  heroine.  At  this  point  the  incident 
occurs  which  is  told  in  the  excerpt] 


9856  JOHANN  WILHELM  MEINHOLD 

How  MY  DAUGHTER  WAS  AT  LENGTH  SAVED  BY  THE  HELP  OF  THE  ALL- 
MERCIFUL,  YEA,  OF  THE  ALL-MERCIFUL  GOD 

MEANWHILE,  by  reason  of  my  unbelief,  wherewith  Satan  again 
tempted  me,  I  had  become  so  weak  that  I  was  forced  to 
lean  my  back  against  the  constable  his  knees,  and  expected 
not  to  live  till  even  we  should  come  to  the  mountain;  for  the 
last  hope  I  had  cherished  was  now  gone,  and  I  saw  that  my 
innocent  lamb  was  in  the  same  plight.  Moreover  the  reverend 
Martinus  began  to  upbraid  her,  saying  that  he  too  now  saw  that 
all  her  oaths  were  lies,  and  that  she  really  could  brew  storms. 
Hereupon  she  answered  with  a  smile,  although  indeed  she  was  as 
white  as  a  sheet,  <(Alas,  reverend  godfather,  do  you  then  really 
believe  that  the  weather  and  the  storms  no  longer  obey  our  Lord 
God  ?  Are  storms  then  so  rare  at  this  season  of  the  year  that 
none  save  the  foul  fiend  can  cause  them  ?  Nay,  I  have  never 
broken  the  baptismal  vow  you  once  made  in  my  name,  nor  will 
I  ever  break  it,  as  I  hope  that  God  will  be  merciful  to  me  in 
my  last  hour,  which  is  now  at  hand."  But  the  reverend  Mar- 
tinus shook  his  head  doubtingly,  and  said,  <v  The  Evil  One  must 
have  promised  thee  much,  seeing  thou  remainest  so  stubborn 
even  unto  thy  life's  end,  and  blasphemest  the  Lord  thy  God;  but 
wait,  and  thou  wilt  soon  learn  with  horror  that  the  devil  <(is  a 
liar,  and  the  father  of  it"  (St.  John  viii.).  Whilst  he  yet  spake 
this,  and  more  of  a  like  kind,  we  came  to  Uekeritze,  where  all 
the  people  both  great  and  small  rushed  out  of  their  doors,  also 
Jacob  Schwarten  his  wife,  -who  as  we  afterwards  heard  had  only 
been  brought  to  bed  the  night  before,  and  her  £'oodman  came 
running  after  her  to  fetch  her  back.  In  vain:  she  told  him  he 
was  a  fool,  and  had  been  one  for  many  a  weary  day,  and  that  if 
she  had  to  crawl  up  the  mountain  on  her  bare  knees,  she  would 
go  to  see  the  parson's  witch  burned;  that  she  had  reckoned  upon 
it  for  so  long,  and  if  he  did  not  let  her  go,  she  would  give  him 
a  thump  on  the  chaps,  etc. 

Thus  did  the  coarse  and  foul-mouthed  people  riot  around  the 
cart  wherein  we  sat;  and  as  they  knew  not  what  had  befallen, 
they  ran  so  near  us  that  the  wheel  went  over  the  foot  of  a 
boy.  Nevertheless  they  all  crowded  up  again,  more  especially  the 
lasses,  and  felt  my  daughter  her  clothes,  and  would  even  see  her 
shoes  and  stockings,  and  asked  her  how  she  felt.  Item,  one  fel- 
low asked  whether  she  would  drink  somewhat,  with  many  more 


JOHANN  WILHELM  MEINHOLD  9857 

fooleries  besides;  till  at  last,  when  several  came  and  asked  her  for 
her  garland  and  her  golden  chain,  she  turned  towards  me  and 
smiled,  saying,  «  Father,  I  must  begin  to  speak  some  Latin  again ; 
otherwise  the  folks  will  leave  me  no  peace. >}  But  it  was  not 
wanted  this  time:  for  our  guards  with  the  pitchforks  had  now 
reached  the  hindmost,  and  doubtless  told  them  what  had  hap- 
pened, as  we  presently  heard  a  great  shouting  behind  us,  for  the 
love  of  God  to  turn  back  before  the  witch  did  them  a  mischief, 
and  as  Jacob  Schwarten  his  wife  heeded  it  not,  but  still  plagued 
my  child  to  give  her  her  apron  to  make  a  christening  coat  for 
her  baby,  for  that  it  was  a  pity  to  let  it  be  burnt,  her  goodman 
gave  her  such  a  thump  on  her  back  with  a  knotted  stick  which 
he  had  pulled  out  of  the  hedge  that  she  fell  down  with  loud 
shrieks:  and  when  he  went  to  help  her  up  she  pulled  him  down 
by  his  hair,  and  as  reverend  Martinus  said,  now  executed  what 
she  had  threatened;  inasmuch  as  she  struck  him  on  the  nose  with 
her  fist  with  might  and  main,  until  the  other  people  came  run- 
ning up  to  them,  and  held  her  back.  Meanwhile,  however,  the 
storm  had  almost  passed  over,  and  sank  down  toward  the  sea. 

And  when  we  had  gone  through  the  little  wood,  we  suddenly 
saw  the  Streckelberg  before  us  covered  with  people,  and  the  pile 
and  stake  upon  the  top,  upon  the  which  the  tall  constable  jumped 
up  when  he  saw  us  coming,  and  beckoned  with  his  cap  with  all 
his  might.  Thereat  my  senses  left  -me,  and  my  sweet  lamb  was 
not  much  better,  for  she  bent  to  and  fro  like  a  reed,  and  stretch- 
ing her  bound  hands  towards  heaven,  she  once  more  cried  out:  — 

<(Rex  tremendae  majestatis! 
Qui  salvandos  salvas  gratis, 
Salva  me,  fons  pietatisP* 

And  behold,  scarce  had  she  spoken  these  words,  when  the  sun 
came  out  and  formed  a  rainbow  right  over  the  mountain  most 
pleasant  to  behold;  and  it  is  clear  that  this  was  a  sign  from  the 
merciful  God,  such  as  he  often  gives  us,  but  which  we  blind 
and  unbelieving  men  do  not  rightly  mark.  Neither  did  my  child 
heed  it;  for  albeit  she  thought  upon  that  first  rainbow  which 
shadowed  forth  our  troubles,  yet  it  seemed  to  her  impossible  that 
she  could  now  be  saved:  wherefore  she  grew  so  faint,  that  she 
no  longer  heeded  the  blessed  sign  of  mercy,  and  her  head  fell 
forward  (for  she  could  no  longer  lean  it  upon  me,  seeing  that  I 
lay  my  length  at  the  bottom  of  the  cart),  till  her  garland  almost 


9858  JOHANN   WILHELM   MEINHOLD 

touched  my  worthy  gossip  his  knees.  Thereupon  he  bade  the 
driver  stop  for  a  moment,  and  pulled  out  a  small  flask  filled  with 
wine,  which  he  always  carries  in  his  pocket  when  witches  are  to 
be  burnt,  in  order  to  comfort  them  therewith  in  their  terror. 
(Henceforth,  I  myself  will  ever  do  the  like,  for  this  fashion  of 
my  dear  gossip  pleases  me  well.)  He  first  poured  some  of  this 
wine  down  my  throat,  and  afterwards  down  my  child's:  and  we 
had  scarce  come  to  ourselves  again,  when  a  fearful  noise  and 
tumult  arose  among  the  people  behind  us,  and  they  not  only 
cried  out  in  deadly  fear,  «  The  sheriff  is  come  back !  the  sheriff  is 
come  again ! })  but  as  they  could  neither  run  away  forwards  or 
backwards  (being  afraid'  of  the  ghost  behind  and  of  my  child 
before  them),  they  ran  on  either  side;  some  rushing  into  the 
coppice  and  others  wading  into  the  Achterwater  up  to  their 
necks. 

Item,  as  soon  as  Dom.  Camerarius  saw  the  ghost  come  out  of 
the  coppice  with  a  gray  hat  and  a  gray  feather,  such  as  the  sher- 
iff wore,  riding  on  the  gray  charger,  he  crept  under  a  bundle 
of  straw  in  the  cart;  and  Dom.  Consul  cursed  my  child  again, 
and  bade  the  coachman  drive  on  as  madly  as  they  could,  even 
should  all  the  horses  die  of  it,  when  the  impudent  constable 
behind  us  called  to  him,  (<  It  is  not  the  sheriff,  but  the  young 
lord  of  Nienkerken,  who  will  surely  seek  to  save  the  witch:  shall 
I  then  cut  her  throat  with  my  sword  ? }>  At  these  fearful  words 
my  child  and  I  came  to  ourselves  again,  and  the  fellow  had 
already  lift  up  his  naked  sword  to  smite  her,  seeing  Dom.  Con- 
sul had  made  him  a  sign  with  his  hand,  when  my  dear  gossip, 
who  saw  it,  pulled  my  child  with  all  his  strength  into  his  lap. 
(May  God  reward  him  on  the  Day  of  Judgment,  for  I  never  can.) 
The  villain  would  have  stabbed  her  as  she  lay  in  his  lap;  but 
the  young  lord  was  already  there,  and  seeing  what  he  was  about 
to  do,  thrust  the  boar-spear  which  he  held  in  his  hand  in  between 
the  constable's  shoulders,  so  that  he  fell  headlong  on  the  earth, 
and  his  own  sword,  by  the  guidance  of  the  most  righteous  God, 
went  into  his  ribs  on  one  side  and  out  again  at  the  other. 
He  lay  there  and  bellowed;  but  the  young  lord  heeded  him  not, 
but  said  to  my  child,  (<  Sweet  maid,  God  be  praised  that  you  are 
safe ! }>  When,  however,  he  saw  her  bound  hands,  he  gnashed 
his  teeth;  and  cursing  her  judges,  he  jumped  off  his  horse,  and 
cut  the  rope  with  his  sword  which  he  held  in  his  right  hand, 
took  her  hand  in  his,  and  said,  <(Alas,  sweet  maid,  how  have  I 


JOHANN  WILHELM   MEINHOLD  9859 

sorrowed  for  you!  but  I  could  not  save  you,  as  I  myself  also  lay 
in  chains,  which  you  may  see  from  my  looks. w 

But  my  child  could  answer  him  never  a  word,  and  fell  into  a 
swound  again  for  joy;  howbeit  she  soon  came  to  herself  again, 
seeing  my  dear  gossip  still  had  a  little  wine  by  him.  Meanwhile 
the  dear  young  lord  did  me  some  injustice,  which  however  I 
freely  forgive  him;  for  he  railed  at  me  and  called  me  an  old 
woman,  who  could  do  naught  save  weep  and  wail.  Why  had  I  not 
journeyed  after  the  Swedish  king,  or  why  had  I  not  gone  to  Mel- 
lenthin  myself  to  fetch  his  testimony,  as  I  knew  right  well  what 
he  thought  about  witchcraft  ?  (But,  blessed  God,  how  could  I  do 
otherwise  than  believe  the  judge,  who  had  been  there  ?  Others 
besides  old  women  would  have  done  the  same;  and  I  never 
once  thought  of  the  Swedish  king;  and  say,  dear  reader,  how 
could  I  have  journeyed  after  him  and  left  my  own  child  ?  But 
young  folks  do  not  think  of  these  things,  seeing  they  know  not 
what  a  father  feels.) 

Meanwhile,  however,  Dom.  Camerarius,  having  heard  that  it 
was  the  young  lord,  had  again  crept  out  from  beneath  the  straw; 
item,  Dom.  Consul  had  jumped  down  from  the  coach  and  ran 
towards  us,  railing  at  him  loudly,  and  asking  him  by  what 
power  and  authority  he  acted  thus,  seeing  that  he  himself  had 
heretofore  denounced  the  ungodly  witch  ?  But  the  young  lord 
pointed  with  his  sword  to  his  people,  who  now  came  riding  out 
of  the  coppice  about  eighteen  strong,  armed  with  sabres,  pikes, 
and  muskets,  and  said,  (( There  is  my  authority;  and  I  would  let 
you  feel  it  on  your  back  if  I  did  not  know  that  you  were  but  a 
stupid  ass.  When  did  you  hear  any  testimony  from  me  against 
this  virtuous  maiden  ?  You  lie  in  your  throat  if  you  say  you 
did."  And  as  Dom.  Consul  stood  and  straightway  forswore  him- 
self, the  young  lord,  to  the  astonishment  of  all,  related  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

That  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  misfortune  which  had  befallen 
me  and  my  child,  he  ordered  his  horse  to  be  saddled  forthwith, 
in  order  to  ride  to  Pudgla  to  bear  witness  to  our  innocence: 
this,  however,  his  old  father  would  nowise  suffer,  thinking  that 
his  nobility  would  receive  a  stain  if  it  came  to  be  known  that 
his  son  had  conversed  with  a  reputed  witch  by  night  on  the 
Streckelberg.  He  'had  caused  him  therefore,  as  prayers  and 
threats  were  of  no  avail,  to  be  bound  hand  and  foot  and  con- 
fined in  the  donjon -keep,  where  till  datum  an  old  servant  had 


986o  JOHANN   WILHELM   MEINHOLD 

watched  him;  who  refused  to  let  him  escape,  notwithstanding  he 
offered  him  any  sum  of  money;  whereupon  he  fell  into  the  great- 
est anguish  and  despair  at  the  thought  that  innocent  blood  would 
be  shed  on  his  account:  but  that  the  all-righteous  God  had  gra- 
ciously spared  him  this  sorrow;  for  his  father  had  fallen  sick  from 
vexation,  and  lay  abed  all  this  time,  and  it  so  happened  that 
this  very  morning,  about  prayer-time,  the  huntsman  in  shooting 
at  a  wild  duck  in  the  moat  had  by  chance  sorely  wounded  his 
father's  favorite  dog,  called  Packan,  which  had  crept  howling  to 
his  father's  bedside  and  had  died  there;  whereupon  the  old  man, 
who  was  weak,  was  so  angered  that  he  was  presently  seized  with 
a  fit  and  gave  r.p  the  ghost  too.  Hereupon  his  people  released 
him;  and  after  he  had  closed  his  father's  eyes  and  prayed  an 
<(  Our  Father w  over  him,  he  straightway  set  out  with  all  the 
people  he  could  find  in  the  castle  in  order  to  save  the  innocent 
maiden.  For  he  testified  here  himself  before  all,  on  the  word 
and  honor  of  a  knight, —  nay,  more,  by  his  hopes  of  salvation, — 
that  he  himself  was  that  devil  which  had  appeared  to  the  maiden 
on  the  mountain  in  the  shape  of  a  hairy  giant:  for  having  heard 
by  common  report  that  she  ofttimes  went  thither,  he  greatly 
desired  to  know  what  she  did  there,  and  that  from  fear  of  his 
hard  father  he  disguised  himself  in  a  wolf's  skin,  so  that  none 
might  know  him,  and  he  had  already  spent  two  nights  there, 
when  on  the  third  the  maiden  came;  and  he  then  saw  her  dig 
for  amber  on  the  mountain,  and  that  she  did  not  call  upon 
Satan,  but  recited  a  Latin  carmen  aloud  to  herself.  This  he 
would  have  testified  at  Pudgla,  but  from  the  cause  aforesaid  he 
had  not  been  able :  moreover  his  father  had  laid  his  cousin,  Claus 
von  Nienkerken,  who  was  there  on  a  visit,  in  his  bed,  and  made 
him  bear  false  witness;  for  as  Dom.  Consul  had  not  seen  him 
(I  mean  the  young  lord)  for  many  a  long  year,  seeing  he  had 
studied  in  foreign  parts,  his  father  thought  that  he  might  easily 
be  deceived,  which  accordingly  happened. 

When  the  worthy  young  lord  had  stated  this  before  Dom. 
Consul  and  all  the  people,  which  flocked  together  on  hearing  that 
the  young  lord  was  no  ghost,  I  felt  as  though  a  millstone  had 
been  taken  off  my  heart;  and  seeing  that  the  people  (who  had 
already  pulled  the  constable  from  under  the  cart,  and  crowded 
round  him  like  a  swarm  of  bees)  cried  to  me  that  he  was  dying, 
but  desired  first  to  confess  somewhat  to  me,  I  jumped  from  the 
cart  as  lightly  as  a  young  bachelor,  and  called  to  Dom.  Consul 


JOHANN  WILHELM  MEINHOLD  986i 

and  the  young  lord  to  go  with  me,  seeing  that  I  could  easily 
guess  what  he  had  on  his  mind.  He  sat  upon  a  stone,  and  the 
blood  gushed  from  his  side  like  a  fountain,  now  that  they  had 
drawn  out  the  sword;  he  whimpered  on  seeing  me,  and  said  that 
he  had  in  truth  hearkened  behind  the  door  to  all  that  old  Liz- 
zie had  confessed  to  me,  namely,  that  she  herself,  together  with 
the  sheriff,  had  worked  all  the  witchcraft  on  man  and  beast,  to 
frighten  my  poor  child  and  force  her  to  play  the  wanton.  That 
he  had  hidden  this,  seeing  that  the  sheriff  had  promised  him 
a  great  reward  for  so  doing;  but  that  he  would  now  confess  it 
freely,  since  God  had  brought  my  child  her  innocence  to  light. 
Wherefore  he  besought  my  child  and  myself  to  forgive  him. 
And  when  Dom.  Consul  shook  his  head,  and  asked  whether  he 
would  live  and  die  on  the  truth  of  this  confession,  he  answered, 
<(  Yes ! }>  and  straightway  fell  on  his  side  to  the  earth  and  gave 
up  the  ghost. 

Meanwhile  time  hung  heavy  with  the  people  on  the  mountain, 
who  had  come  from  Coserow,  from  Zitze,  from  Gnitze,  etc.,  to 
see  my  child  burnt;  and  they  all  came  /unning  down  the  hill 
in  long  rows  like  geese,  one  after  the  other,  to  see  what  had 
happened.  And  among  them  was  my  ploughman,  Claus  Neels. 
When  the  worthy  fellow  saw  and  heard  what  had  befallen  us, 
he  began  to  weep  aloud  for  joy;  and  straightway  he  too  told 
what  he  had  heard  the  sheriff  say  to  old  Lizzie  in  the  garden, 
and  how  he  had  promised  a  pig  in  the  room  of  her  own  little 
pig,  which  she  had  herself  bewitched  to  death  in  order  to  bring 
my  child  into  evil  repute.  Summa:  all  that  I  have  noted  above, 
and  which  till  datum  he  had  kept  to  himself  for  fear  of  the 
question.  Hereat  all  the  people  marveled,  and  greatly  bewailed 
her  misfortunes;  and  many  came,  among  them  old  Paasch,  and 
would  have  kissed  my  daughter  her  hands  and  feet,  as  also  mine 
own,  and  praised  us  now  as  much  as  they  had  before  reviled  us. 
But  thus  it  ever  is  with  the  people.  Wherefore  my  departed 
father  used  to  say:  — 

(( The  people's  hate  is  death ; 
Their  love  a  passing  breath !}) 

My  dear  gossip  ceased  not  from  fondling  my  child,  holding  her 
in  his  lap,  and  weeping  over  her  like  a  father  (for  I  could  not 
have  wept  more  myself  than  he  wept).  Howbeit  she  herself  wept 
not,  but  begged  the  young  lord  to  send  one  of  his  horsemen 


9862  JOHANN   WILHELM   MEINHOLD 

to  her  faithful  old  maid-servant  at  Pudgla,  to  tell  her  what  had 
befallen  us,  which  he  straightway  did  to  please  her.  But  the 
worshipful  court  (for  Dom.  Camerarius  and  the  scriba  had  now 
plucked  up  a  heart,  and  had  come  down  from  the  coach)  was  not 
yet  satisfied,  and  Dom.  Consul  began  to  tell  the  young  lord  about 
the  bewitched  bridge,  which  none  other  save  my  daughter  could 
have  bewitched.  Hereto  the  young  lord  gave  answer  that  this 
was  indeed  a  strange  thing,  inasmuch  as  his  own  horse  had  also 
broken  a  leg  thereon;  whereupon  he  had  taken  the  sheriff  his 
horse,  which  he  saw  tied  up  at  the  mill:  but  he  did  not  think 
that  this  could  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  maiden,  but  that  it 
came  about  by  natural  means,  as  he  had  half  discovered  already, 
although  he  had  not  had  time  to  search  the  matter  thoroughly. 
Wherefore  he  besought  the  worshipful  court  and  all  the  people, 
together  with  my  child  herself,  to  return  back  thither,  where, 
with  God's  help,  he  would  clear  her  from  this  suspicion  also,  and 
prove  her  perfect  innocence  before  them  all. 

Thereunto  the  worshipful  court  agreed;  and  the  young  lord, 
having  given  the  sheriff  his  gray  charger  to  my  ploughman  to 
carry  the  corpse,  which  had  been  laid  across  the  horse's  neck,  to 
Coserow,  the  young  lord  got  into  the  cart  by  us,  but  did  not 
seat  himself  beside  my  child,  but  backward  by  my  dear  gossip. 
Moreover,  he  bade  one  of  his  own  people  drive  us  instead  of 
the  old  coachman,  and  thus  we  turned  back  in  God  his  name. 
Gustos  Benzensis,  who  with  the  children  had  run  in  among  the 
vetches  by  the  wayside  (my  defunct  Gustos  would  not  have  done 
so,  he  had  more  courage),  went  on  before  again  with  the  young 
folks ;  and"  by  command  of  his  reverence  the  pastor  led  the  Am- 
brosian  Te  Deum,  which  deeply  moved  us  all,  more  especially 
my  child,  insomuch  that  her  book  was  wetted  with  her  tears, 
and  she  at  length  laid  it  down  and  said,  at  the  same  time  giving 
her  hand  to  the  young  lord,  <(  How  can  I  thank  God  and  you  for 
that  which  you  have  done  for  me  this  day  ? )}  Whereupon  the 
young  lord  answered,  saying,  <(  I  have  greater  cause  to  thank 
God  than  yourself,  sweet  maid,  seeing  that  you  have  suffered  in 
your  dungeon  unjustly,  but  I  justly,  inasmuch  as  by  my  thought- 
lessness I  brought  this  misery  upon  you.  Believe  me  that  this 
morning,  when  in  my  donjon-keep  I  first  heard  the  sound  of 
the  dead-bell,  I  thought  to  have  died;  and  when  it  tolled  for  the 
third  time,  I  should  have  gone  distraught  in  my  grief,  had  not 
the  Almighty  God  at  that  moment  taken  the  life  of  my  strange 


JOHANN   WILHELM  MEINHOLD  9863 

father,  so  that  your  innocent  life  should  be  saved  by  me.  Where- 
fore I  have  vowed  a  new  tower,  and  whatsoe'er  beside  may  be 
needful,  to  the  blessed  house  of  God;  for  naught  more  bitter 
could  have  befallen  me  on  earth  than  your  death,  sweet  maid, 
and  naught  more  sweet  than  your  life ! }) 

But  at  these  words  my  child  only  wept  and  sighed ;  and  when 
he  looked  on  her,  she  cast  down  her  eyes  and  trembled,  so  that 
I  straightway  perceived  that  my  sorrows  were  not  yet  come  to  an 
end,  but  that  another  barrel  of  tears  was  just  tapped  for  me;  and 
so  indeed  it  was.  Moreover,  the  ass  of  a  Gustos,  having  finished 
the  Te  Deum  before  we  were  come  to  the  bridge,  straightway 
struck  up  the  next  following  hymn,  which  was  a  funeral  one, 
beginning  <(  The  body  let  us  now  inter. })  (God  be  praised  that 
no  harm  has  come  of  it  till  datum.)  My  beloved  gossip  rated 
him  not  a  little,  and  threatened  him  that  for  his  stupidity  he 
should  not  get  the  money  for  the  shoes  which  he  had  promised 
him  out  of  the  Church  dues.  But  my  child  comforted  him,  and 
promised  him  a  pair  of  shoes  at  her  own  charges,  seeing  that 
peradventure  a  funeral  hymn  was  better  for  her  than  a  song  of 
gladness. 

And  when  this  vexed  the  young  lord,  and  he  said,  (<  How 
now,  sweet  maid,  you  know  not  how  enough  to  thank  God  and 
me  for  your  rescue,  and  yet  you  speak  thus  ? })  she  answered, 
smiling  sadly,  that  she  had  only  spoken  thus  to  comfort  the  poor 
Gustos.  But  I  straightway  saw  that  she  was  in  earnest;  for  that 
she  felt  that  although  she  had  escaped  one  fire,  she  already 
burned  in  another. 

Meanwhile  we  were  come  to  the  bridge  again;  and  all  the 
folks  stood  still,  and  gazed  open-mouthed,  when  the  young  lord 
jumped  down  from  the  cart,  and  after  stabbing  His  horse,  which 
still  lay  kicking  on  the  bridge,  went  on  his  knees,  and  felt  here 
and  there  with  his  hand.  At  length  he  called  to  the  worshipful 
court  to  draw  near,  for  that  he  had  found  out  the  witchcraft. 
But  none  save  Dom.  Consul  and  a  few  fellows  out  of  the  crowd, 
among  whom  was  old  Paasch,  would  follow  him;  item,  my  dear 
gossip  and  myself :  and  the  young  lord  showed  us  a  lump  of  tal- 
low about  the  size  of  a  large  walnut  which  lay  on  the  ground, 
and  wherewith  the  whole  bridge  had  been  smeared,  so  that  it 
looked  quite  white,  but  which  all  the  folks  in  their  fright  had 
taken  for  flour  out  of  the  mill;  item,  with  some  other  materia 
which  stunk  like  fitchock's  dung,  but  what  it  was  we  could  not 


9864  JOHANN  WILHELM   MEINHOLD 

find  out.  Soon  after  a  fellow  found  another  bit  of  tallow,  and 
showed  it  to  the  people;  whereupon  I  cried,  <(Aha!  none  hath 
done  this  but  that  ungodly  miller's  man,  in  revenge  for  the 
stripes  which  the  sheriff  gave  him  for  reviling  my  child. w  Where- 
upon I  told  what  he  had  done,  and  Dom.  Consul,  who  also  had 
heard  thereof,  straightway  sent  for  the  miller. 

He,  however,  did  as  though  he  knew  naught  of  the  matter; 
and  only  said  that  his  man  had  left  his  service  about  an  hour 
ago.  But  a  young  lass,  the  miller's  maid-servant,  said  that  that 
very  morning  before  daybreak,  when  she  had  got  up  to  let  out 
the  cattle,  she  had  seen  the  man  scouring  the  bridge;  but  that 
she  had  given  it  no  further  heed,  and  had  gone  to  sleep  for 
another  hour — and  she  pretended  to  know  no  more  than  the 
miller  whither  the  rascal  was  gone.  When  the  young  lord  had 
heard  this  news,  he  got  up  into  the  cart  and  began  to  address 
the  people,  seeking  to  persuade  them  no  longer  to  believe  in 
witchcraft,  now  that  they  had  seen  what  it  really  was.  When  I 
heard  this,  I  was  horror-stricken  (as  was  but  right)  in  my  con- 
science as  a  priest,  and  I  got  upon  the  cart-wheel,  and  whispered 
into  his  ear  for  God  his  sake  to  leave  this  materia;  seeing  that 
if  the  people  no  longer  feared  the  Devil,  neither  would  they  fear 
our  Lord  God. 

The  dear  young  lord  forthwith  did  as  I  would  have  him,  and 
only  asked  the  people  whether  they  now  held  my  child  to  be 
perfectly  innocent?  and  when  they  had  answered  "Yes!"  he 
begged  them  to  go  quietly  home,  and  to  thank  God  that  he 
had  saved  innocent  blood.  That  he  too  would  now  return  home, 
and  that  he  hoped  that  none  would  molest  me  and  my  child  if 
he  let  us  return  to  Coserow  alone.  Hereupon  he  turned  hastily 
towards  her,  took  her  hand,  and  said,  (( Farewell,  sweet  maid: 
I  trust  that  I  shall  soon  clear  your  honor  before  the  world;  but 
do  you  thank  God  therefor,  not  me."  He  then  did  the  like  to 
me  and  to  my  dear  gossip,  whereupon  he  jumped  down  from  the 
cart  and  went  and  sat  beside  Dom.  Consul  in  his  coach.  The 
latter  also  spake  a  few  words  to  the  people,  and  likewise  begged 
my  child  and  me  to  forgive  him  (and  I  must  say  it  to  his  honor 
that  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks  the  while) ;  but  he  was  so 
hurried  by  the  young  lord  that  he  brake  short  his  discourse,  and 
they  drove  off  over  the  little  bridge  without  so  much  as  looking 
back.  Only  Dom.  Consul  looked  round  once,  and  called  out  to 
me  that  in  his  hurry  he  had  forgotten  to  tell  the  executioner 


JOHANN  WILHELM   MEINHOLD  9865 

that  no  one  was  to  be  burned  to-day:  I  was  therefore  to  send 
the  churchwarden  of  Uekeritze  up  the  mountain,  to  say  so  in  his 
name;  the  which  I  did.  And  the  bloodhound  was  still  on  the 
mountain,  albeit  he  had  long  since,  heard  what  had  befallen; 
and  when  the  bailiff  gave  him  the  orders  of  the  worshipful  court, 
he  began  to  curse  so  fearfully  that  it  might  have  awakened  the 
dead ;  moreover  he  plucked  off  his  cap  and  trampled  it  under  foot, 
so  that  any  one  might  have  guessed  what  he  felt. 

But  to  return  to  ourselves.  My  child  sat  as  still  and  as  white 
as  a  pillar  of  salt  after  the  young  lord  had  left  her  so  suddenly 
and  so  unawares;  but  she  was  somewhat  comforted  when  the 
old  maid-servant  came  running  with  her  coats  tucked  up  to  her 
knees,  and  carrying  her  shoes  and  stockings  in  her  hands.  We 
heard  her  afar  off,  as  the  mill  had  stopped,  blubbering  for  joy; 
and  she  fell  at  least  three  times  on  the  bridge,  but  at  last  she 
got  over  safe,  and  kissed  now  mine  and  now  my  child  her  hands 
and  feet;  begging  us  only  not  to  turn  her  away,  but  to  keep  her 
until  her  life's  end;  the  which  we  promised  to  do.  She  had  to 
climb  up  behind  where  the  impudent  constable  had  sat,  seeing 
that  my  dear  gossip  would  not  leave  me  until  I  should  be  back 
in  mine  own  manse.  And  as  the  young  lord  his  servant  had  got 
up  behind  the  coach,  old  Paasch  drove  us  home,  and  all  the  folks 
who  had  waited  till  datum  ran  beside  the  cart,  praising  and  pity- 
ing as  much  as  they  had  before  scorned  and  reviled  us.  Scarce 
however  had  we  passed  through  Uekeritze,  when  we  again  heard 
cries  of — (<  Here  comes  the  young  lord,  here  comes  the  young 
lord ! })  so  that  my  child  started  up  for  joy  and  became  as  red  as 
a  rose ;  but  some  of  the  folks  ran  into  the  buckwheat  by  the  road 
again,  thinking  it  was  another  ghost.  It  was  however  in  truth 
the  young  lord,  who  galloped  up  on  a  black  horse,  calling  out 
as  he  drew  near  us,  (<  Notwithstanding  the  haste  I  am  in,  sweet 
maid,  I  must  return  and  give  you  safe -conduct  home,  seeing  that 
I  have  just  heard  that  the  filthy  people  reviled  you  by  the  way, 
and  I  know  not  whether  you  are  yet  safe."  Hereupon  he  urged 
old  Paasch  to  mend  his  pace;  and  as  his  kicking  and  trampling 
did  not  even  make  the  horses  trot,  the  young  lord  struck  the 
saddle-horse  from  time  to  time  with  the  flat  of  his  sword,  so  that 
we  soon  reached  the  village  and  the  manse.  Howbeit  when  I 
prayed  him  to  dismount  awhile,  he  would  not,  but  excused  him- 
self, saying  that  he  must  still  ride  through  Usedom  to  Anclam; 
but  charged  old  Paasch,  who  was  our  bailiff,  to  watch  over  my 


9866  JOHANN  WILHELM   MEINHOLD 

child  as  the  apple  of  his  eye,  and  should  anything  unusual  hap- 
pen he  was  straightway  to  inform  the  town -clerk  at  Pudgla,  or 
Dom.  Consul  at  Usedom,  thereof.  And  when  Paasch  had  promised 
to  do  this,  he  waved  his  hand  to  us  and  galloped  off  as  fast  as 
he  could. 

But  before  he  got  round  the  corner  by  Pagel  his  house,  he 
turned  back  for  the  third  time;  and  when  we  wondered  thereat, 
he  said  we  must  forgive  him,  seeing  his  thoughts  wandered 
to-day. 

That  I  had  formerly  told  him  that  I  still  had  my  patent  of 
nobility,  the  which  he  begged  me  to  lend  him  for  a  time.  Here- 
upon I  answered  that  I  must  first  seek  for  "it,  and  that  he  had 
best  dismount  the  while.  But  he  would  not,  and  again  excused 
himself,  saying  he  had  no  time.  He  therefore  stayed  without 
the  door  until  I  brought  him  the  patent;  whereupon  he  thanked 
me  and  said,  <(Do  not  wonder  hereat:  you  will  soon  see  what  my 
purpose  is."  Whereupon  he  struck  his  spurs  into  his  horse's  sides 
and  did  not  come  back  again. 

Translation  of  Lady  Duff -Gordon. 


9867 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 

(1819-1891) 

1846  appeared  a  volume  of  travel  and  adventure  called 
<Typee,)  with  the  name  of  Herman  Melville  on  the  title- 
page.  It  created  a  stir,  which  in  these  days  would  be 
called  a  sensation,  which  speedily  spread  to  England.  What  was 
Typee  ?  What  was  this  South  Sea  island  ?  Did  it  exist,  with  its  soft 
airs  and  compliant  people,  only  in  romance  ?  The  romantic  name 
<(  Herman  Melville }>  must  be  only  a  nom  de  plume.  The  critics  and 
the  newspapers  took  up  the  mystery  and  tossed  it  about.  Was  the 
whole  thing  an  invention  of  a  clever  ro- 
mancer ?  Was  there  any  such  person  as 
Melville  and  his  sailor  comrade  (<  Toby >y  ? 
The  newspapers  were  facetious  about  the 
latter,  and  headed  their  paragraphs  (<To  Be 
or  not  To  Be.*  It  was  a  great  relief  when 
one  day  the  veritable  sailor  Toby  turned 
up  in  Buffalo,  New  York,  and  made  affirma- 
tion to  the  truth  of  the  Vhole  narrative. 

< Typee  }  was  the  first  of  the  long  line 
of  books  of  travel,  adventure,  and  romance 
about  the  South  Seas;  and  Fayaway  was 
the  first  of  the  Polynesian  maidens  to  at- 
tract the  attention  of  the  world.  The  book 
not  only  opened  a  new  world,  but  it  gave 

new  terms — like  taboo  —  to  our  language.  It  led  the  way  to  a  host 
of  other  writers,  among  whom  recently  are  Pierre  Loti  and  Steven- 
son. The  (  Mariage  de  Loti,'  in  its  incidents  and  romanticism,  copies 
(  Typee. )  It  is  not  probable,  however,  that  Pierre  Loti  ever  saw  Mel- 
ville's book,  or  he  would  not  have  made  such  an  imitation. 

Herman  Melville,  son  of  a  New  York  merchant,  and  born  in  that 
city  in  October  1819,  in  a  state  of  life  which  hedged  him  about 
with  a  thousand  social  restrictions,  early  <(came  to  live  in  the  all,*  as 
Goethe  has  it;  though  Melville  himself  put  the  transformation  much 
later,  when  he  broke  away  from  home,  became  a  sailor  on  a  whal- 
ing vessel,  and  there  endured  innumerable  hardships  and  cruelties. 
Finally  escaping  from  his  tyrants,  he  reached  the  Marquesas  Islands, 


HERMAN  MELVILLE 


9868 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 


where  he  enjoyed  strange  adventures  for  many  months, —  a  captive 
in  a  tribe  of  cannibals  in  the  Typee  Valley.  An  Australian  ship 
having  taken  him  aboard,  he  returned  home,  the  hero  of  strange 
tales  which  he  at  once  chronicled  in  the  romances  ( Typee )  (1846) 
and  <Omoo>  (1847).  No  sooner  were  these  volumes  published  than 
his  promise  of  lasting  fame  « was  voluble  in  the  mouths  of  wisest 
censure, »  while  his  actual  success  put  him  in  the  first  rank  of  Amer- 
ican authors  at  the  age  of  twenty-six.  But  for  some  mysterious  rea- 
son (for  most  of  his  other  books  were  written  on  the  subject  which 
inspired  'Typee*  and  <Omoo,)  and  were  possessed  with  the  same 
enthusiasm)  <Moby  Dick,'  published  when  he  was  only  thirty-two 
years  old,  disclosed  that  he  had  <(come  to  the  last  leaf  in  the  bulb." 
He  wrote  several  books  afterwards,  musings  and  stories,  and  three 
volumes  of  poems  which  just  miss  the  mark.  Mr.  R.  H.  Stoddard,  his 
kindly  and  sympathetic  critic,  said  of  him  that  he  thought  like  a 
poet,  saw  like  a  poet,  felt  like  a  poet;  but  never  attained  any  pro- 
ficiency in  verse,  because,  though  there  was  a  wealth  of  imagination 
in  his  mind,  it  was  an  untrained  imagination,  and  <(a  world  of  the 
stuff  out  of  which  poetry  is  made,  but  no  poetry,  which  is  creation, 
not  chaos. » 

At  one  time  Melville  and  Hawthorne  were  near  neighbors, — when 
Hawthorne  lived  on  the  brink  of  Stockbridge  pool,  and  Melville  at 
Lenox;  and  it  is  possible  that  each  was  influenced  by  the  genius  of 
the  other.  Mr.  Stoddard  thinks  there  were  dark,  mysterious  elements 
in  Melville's  nature  akin  to  those  that  possessed  Hawthorne ;  but  that 
unlike  Hawthorne,  Melville  did  not  control  his  melancholy,  letting  it 
rather  lead  him  into  morbid  moods.  Certainly,  in  the  days  of  <  Omoo  > 
and  ( Typee  *  Melville  exhibited  no  such  traits ;  but  he  had  probably, 
like  Emily  Bronte,  <(  an  intense  and  glowing  mind }>  to  see  everything 
through  its  own  atmosphere.  Really  to  know  Melville  the  man,  it  is 
necessary  to  read  the  letters  that  passed  between  Hawthorne  and 
himself,  which  are  printed  in  Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne's  memoir  of  his 
parents.  There  Melville  pours  out  his  sad  strange  views  of  life,  which 
on  the  whole  had  treated  him  kindly,  given  him  a  success  which 
would  have  intoxicated  another  man  with  joy,  and  the  promise  of 
favors  to  come. 

His  later  years  were  passed  in  the  world  of  thought  rather  than 
of  action.  He  published  nothing;  and  New  York,  his  old  camping- 
ground,  seldom  knew  him.  But  when  he  appeared,  his  gray  figure, 
gray  hair  and  coloring,  and  piercing  gray  eyes,  marked  him  to  the 
most  casual  observer.  Though  a  man  of  moods,  he  had  a  peculiarly 
winning  and  interesting  personality,  suggesting  Laurence  Oliphant  in 
his  gentle  deference  to  an  opponent's  conventional  opinion  while  he 
expressed  the  wildest  and  most  emancipated  ideas  of  his  own. 


HERMAN   MELVILLE  9869 

Herman  Melville  died  in  New  York,  September  28th,  1891;  and  in 
his  death  he  was  revived  in  the  memories  of  many  of  his  old-time 
associates  and  admirers,  to  whom  his  personality  had  become  shad- 
owy, but  who  still  regarded  <Omoo)  and  <Typee>  as  landmarks  in 
American  literature. 

The  Marquesas  Islands,  when  Melville  visited  them,  were  virgin 
soil;  the  report  that  their  inhabitants  were  cannibals  having  kept 
the  country  safe  from  the  invading  tourist.  Melville  soon  ingratiated 
himself  with  the  gentle  creatures  who  ate  human  beings,  as  Emer- 
son's savage  kills  his  enemy,  only  out  of  pure  compliment  to  their 
virtues,  fancying  that  the  qualities  of  a  great  antagonist  will  pass  into 
his  conqueror.  The  feminine  element  came  in  to  add  romance;  and 
though  a  human  soul,  even  that  of  a  South  Sea  Islander,  is  always 
more  interesting  than  all  the  coral  reefs  and  the  cocoanut  palms  in 
the  world,  and  Melville's  beautiful  heroines  are  a  little  too  subsidiary 
to  scenery,  the  critic  must  remember  that  the  primitive  woman  is  a 
thing  of  traits,  not  of  peculiarities,  and  therefore  alike  the  world  over. 

We  should  therefore  judge  him  not  too  harshly  because  there  is 
little  character-drawing  in  his  romances;  and  be  thankful  to  breathe 
—  as  he  makes  us  breathe  —  the  soft  airs,  see  the  blue  sky,  and  visit 
the  coral  caves,  of  the  South  Seas.  His  great  advantage  is  in  placing 
his  stories  in  a  sort  of  poetic  or  fairy  precinct,  where  the  groves  are 
sylvan  haunts  and  the  very  names  full  of  romance;  while  his  dramatis 
persons,  if  not  marked,  are  a  people  gentle  but  lofty,  eloquent,  and 
full  of  poetry  and  hospitality.  All  this  he  embodied  in  his  first  nov- 
els; and  although  he  had  the  advantage  of  <(  breaking  ground, »  as 
the  farmers  say,  he  had  to  compete  not  with  the  literature  of  a  new 
country,  but  with  the  prejudices  of  a  new  country  against  anything 
not  produced  in  the  old.  <Omoo's)  charms,  however,  penetrated  the 
conservatism  of  Blackwood  and  the  Edinburgh  Review;  while  his 
confreres  —  Lowell,  Hawthorne,  Bayard  Taylor,  and  the  rest — were 
proud  of  his  recognition  abroad. 

A  re-reading  does  not  destroy  the  illusion  of  his  reputation.  The 
spirit  of  his  books  is  as  fresli  and  penetrating  as  when  they 'were 
first  written,  his  genius  keeping  for  him  the  secret  of  eternal  youth. 
His  vocabulary  is  perhaps  too  large,  too  fluent;  it  has  been  called 
unliterary:  but  what  he  lacks  in  conciseness  is  atoned  for  in  spon- 
taneity. And  although  his  romances  are  permeated  with  languid  airs 
and  indolent  odors,  and  although  flower-decked  maidens  turn  their 
brown  shoulders  and  their  soft  eyes  to  the  captive  hero,  the  books 
have  a  healthy,  manly  ring  as  far  from  sensuousness  as  from  auster- 
ity; the  reader  knows  that  after  all  it  is  a  captive's  tale,  and  that 
one  day,  when  the  winds  blow  to  stir  him  to  action,  he  will  sail  away 
to  a  more  bracing  clime. 


9870  HERMAN  MELVILLE 

A  TYPEE  HOUSEHOLD 
From  <Typee> 

MEHEVI  having  now  departed,  and  the  family  physician  having 
likewise  made  his  exit,  we  were  left  about  sunset  with 
the  ten  or  twelve  natives  who  by  this  time  I  had  ascer- 
tained composed  the  household  of  which  Toby  and  I  were  mem- 
bers. As  the  dwelling  to  which  we  had  been  first  introduced 
was  the  place  of  my  permanent  abode  while  I  remained  in  the 
valley,  and  as  I  was  necessarily  placed  upon  the  most  intimate 
footing  with  its  occupants,  I  may  as  well  here  enter  into  a  little 
description  of  it  and  its  inhabitants.  This  description  will  apply 
also  to  nearly  all  the  other  dwelling-places  in  the  vale,  and  will 
furnish  some  idea  of  the  generality  of  the  natives. 

Near  one  side  of  the  valley,  and  about  midway  up  the  ascent 
of  a  rather  abrupt  rise  of  ground  waving  with  the  richest  ver- 
dure, a  number  of  large  stones  were  laid  in  successive  courses  to 
the  height  of  nearly  eight  feet,  and  disposed  in  such  a  manner 
that  their  level  surface  corresponded  in  shape  with  the  habita- 
tion which  was  perched  upon  it.  A  narrow  space  however  wag 
reserved  in  front  of  the  dwelling,  upon  the  summit  of  this  pile 
of  stones  (called  by  the  natives  a  "pi-pi"),  which  being  inclosed 
by  a  little  pocket  of  canes  gave  it  somewhat  the  appearance  of 
a  veranda.  The  frame  of  the  house  was  constructed  of  large 
bamboos  planted  uprightly,  and  secured  together  at  intervals  by 
transverse  stalks  of  the  light  wood  of  the  hibiscus,  lashed  with 
thongs  of  bark.  The  rear  of  the  tenement  —  built  up  with  suc- 
cessive ranges  of  cocoanut  boughs  bound  one  upon  another,  with 
their  leaflets  cunningly  woven  together  —  inclined  a  little  from 
the  vertical,  and  extended  from  the  extreme  edge  of  the  <(  pi-pi >J 
to  about  twenty  feet  from  its  surface;  whence  the  shelving  roof, 
thatched  with  the  long  tapering  leaves  of  the  palmetto,  sloped 
steeply  off  to  within  about  five  feet  of  the  floor,  leaving  the 
eaves  drooping  with  tassel-like  appendages  over  the  front  of  the 
habitation.  This  was  constructed  of  light  and  elegant  canes, 
in  a  kind  of  open  screen-work,  tastefully  adorned  with  bindings 
of  variegated  sinnate,  which  served  to  hold  together  its  various 
parts.  The  sides  of  the  house  were  similarly  built;  thus  present- 
ing three  quarters  for  the  circulation  of  the  air,  while  the  whole 
was  impervious  to  the  rain. 


HERMAN  MELVILLE 


9871 


In  length  this  picturesque  building  was  perhaps  twelve  yards, 
while  in  breadth  it  could  not  have  exceeded  as  many  feet.  So 
much  for  the  exterior;  which  with  its  wire -like  reed-twisted  sides 
not  a  little  reminded  me  of  an  immense  aviary. 

Stooping  a  little,  you  passed  through  a  narrow  aperture  in  its 
front:  and  facing  you  on  entering,  lay  two  long,  perfectly  straight, 
and  well-polished  trunks  of  the  cocoanut-tree,  extending  the  full 
length  of  the  dwelling;  one  of  them  placed  closely  against  the 
rear,  and  the  other  lying  parallel  with  it  some  two  yards  distant, 
the  interval  between  them  being  spread  with  a  multitude  of  gayly 
worked  mats,  nearly  all  of  a  different  pattern.  This  space  formed 
the  common  couch  and  lounging-place  of  the  natives,  answering 
the  purpose  of  a  divan  in  Oriental  countries.  Here  would  they 
slumber  through  the  hours  of  the  night,  and  recline  luxuriously 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  The  remainder  of  the  floor 
presented  only  the  cool  shining  surfaces  of  the  large  stones  of 
which  the  "pi-pi"  was  composed. 

From  the  ridge-pole  of  the  house  hung  suspended  a  number 
of  large  packages  enveloped  in  coarse  tappa;  some  of  which  con- 
tained festival  dresses,  and  various  other  matters  of  the  ward- 
robe, held  in  high  estimation.  These  were  easily  accessible  by 
means  of  a  line,  which,  passing  over  the  ridge-pole,  had  one  end 
attached  to  a  bundle;  while  with  the  other,  which  led  to  the  side 
of  the  dwelling  and  was  there  secured,  the  package  could  be 
lowered  or  elevated  at  pleasure. 

Against  the  farther  wall  of  the  house  were  arranged  in  taste- 
ful figures  a  variety  of  spears  and  javelins,  and  other  implements 
of  savage  warfare.  Outside  of  the  habitation,  and  built  upon  the 
piazza-like  area  in  its  front,  was  a  little  'shed  used  as  a  sort  of 
larder  or  pantry,  and  in  which  were  stored  various  articles  of 
domestic  use  and  convenience.  A  few  yards  from  the  <(  pi-pi }> 
was  a  large  shed  built  of  cocoanut  boughs,  where  the  process  of 
preparing  the  <(  poee-poee }>  was  carried  on,  and  all  culinary  oper- 
ations attended  to. 

Thus  much  for  the  house  and  its  appurtenances;  and  it  will 
be  readily  acknowledged  that  a  more  commodious  and  appropriate 
dwelling  for  the  climate  and  the  people  could  not  possibly  be  de- 
vised. It  was  cool,  free  to  admit  the  air,  scrupulously  clean,  and 
elevated  above  the  dampness  and  impurities  of  the  ground. 

But  now  to  sketch  the  inmates;  and  here  I  claim  for  my  tried 
servitor  and  faithful  valet  Kory-Kory  the  precedence  of  a  first 


9872  HERMAN  MELVILLE 

description.  As  his  character  will  be  gradually  unfolded  in  the 
course  of  my  narrative,  I  shall  for  the  present  content  myself 
with  delineating  his  personal  appearance.  Kory-Kory,  though  the 
most  devoted  and  best-natured  serving-man  in  the  world,  was, 
alas!  a  hideous  object  to  look  upon.  He  was  some  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  and  about  six  feet  in  height,  robust  and  well  made, 
and  of  the  most  extraordinary  aspect.  His  head  was  carefully 
shaven,  with  the  exception  of  two  circular  spots,  about  the  size 
of  a  dollar,  near  the  top  of  the  cranium,  where  the  hair,  per- 
mitted to  grow  of  an  amazing  length,  was  twisted  up  in  two 
prominent  knots,  that  gave  him  the  appearance  of  being  deco- 
rated with  a  pair  of  horns.  His  beard,  plucked  out  by  the  roots 
from  every  other  part  of  his  face,  was  suffered  to  droop  in  hairy 
pendants,  two  of  which  garnished  his  upper  lip,  and  an  equal 
number  hung  from  the  extremity  of  his  chin. 

Kory-Kory,  with  a  view  of  improving  the  handiwork  of  nature, 
and  perhaps  prompted  by  a  desire  to  add  to  the  engaging  ex- 
pression of  his  countenance,  had  seen  fit  to  embellish  his  face 
with  three  broad  longitudinal  stripes  of  tattooing,  which,  like 
those  country  roads  that  go  straight  forward  in  defiance  of  all 
obstacles,  crossed  his  nasal  organ,  descended  into  the  hollow  of 
his  eyes,  and  even  skirted  the  borders  of  his  mouth.  Each  com- 
pletely spanned  his  physiognomy;  one  extending  in  a  line  with 
his  eyes,  another  crossing  the  face  in  the  vicinity  of  the  nose, 
and  the  third  sweeping  along  his  lips  from  ear  to  ear.  His 
countenance  thus  triply  hooped,  as  it  were,  with  tattooing,  always 
reminded  me  of  those  unhappy  wretches  whom  I  have  sometimes 
observed  gazing  out  sentimentally  from  behind  the  grated  bars 
of  a  prison  window;  whilst  the  entire  body  of  my  savage  valet, 
covered  all  over  with  representations  of  birds  and  fishes,  and  a 
variety  of  most  unaccountable-looking  creatures,  suggested  to  me 
the  idea  of  a  pictorial  museum  of  natural  history,  or  an  illus- 
trated copy  of  ( Goldsmith's  Animated  Nature. } 

But  it  seems  really  heartless  in  me  to  write  thus  of  the  poor 
islander,  when  I  owe  perhaps  to  his  unremitting  attentions  the 
very  existence  I  now  enjoy.  Kory-Kory,  I  mean  thee  no  harm 
in  what  I  say  in  regard  to  thy  outward  adornings;  but  they  were 
a  little  curious  to  my  unaccustomed  sight,  and  therefore  I  dilate 
upon  them.  But  to  underrate  or  forget  thy  faithful  services  is 
something  I  could  never  be  guilty  of,  even  in  the  giddiest  mo- 
ment of  my  life. 


HERMAN   MELVILLE  9873 

The  father  of  my  attached  follower  was  a  native  of  gigantic 
frame,  and  had  once  possessed  prodigious  physical  powers;  but 
the  lofty  form  was  now  yielding  to  the  inroads  of  time,  though 
the  hand  of  disease  seemed  never  to  have  been  laid  upon  the 
aged  warrior.  Marheyo  —  for  such  was  his  name  —  appeared  to 
have  retired  from  all  active  participation  in  the  affairs  of  the 
valley,  seldom  or  never  accompanying  the  natives  in  their  vari- 
ous expeditions;  and  employing  the  greater  part  of  his  time  in 
throwing  up  a  little  shed  just  outside -the  house,  upon  which  he 
was  engaged  to  my  certain  knowledge  for  four  months,  without 
appearing  to  make  any  sensible  advance.  I  suppose  the  old  gen- 
tleman was  in  his  dotage,  for  he  manifested  in  various  ways  the 
characteristics  which  mark  this  particular  stage  of  life. 

I  remember  in  particular  his  having  a  choice  pair  of  ear 
ornaments,  fabricated  from  the  teeth  of  some  sea-monster.  These 
he  would  alternately  wear  and  take  off  at  least  fifty  times  in  the 
course  of  the  day,  going  and  coming  from  his  little  hut  on  each 
occasion  with  all  the  tranquillity  imaginable.  Sometimes  slipping 
them  through  the  slits  in  his  ears,  he  would  seize  his  spear  — 
which  in  length  and  slightness  resembled  a  fishing-pole  —  and 
go  stalking  beneath  the  shadows  of  the  neighboring  groves,  as  if 
about  to  give  a  hostile  meeting  to  some  cannibal  knight.  But 
he  would  soon  return  again,  and  hiding  his  weapon  under  the 
projecting  eaves  of  the  house,  and  rolling  his  clumsy  trinkets 
carefully  in  a  piece  of  tappa,  would  resume  his  more  pacific 
operations  as  quietly  as  if  he  had  never  interrupted  them. 

But  despite  his  eccentricities,  Marheyo  was  a.  most  paternal 
and  warm-hearted  old  fellow,  and  in  this  particular  not  a  little 
resembled  his  son  Kory-Kory.  The  mother  of  the  latter  was  the 
mistress  of  the  family,— and  a  notable  housewife;  and  a  most 
industrious  old  lady  she  was.  If  she  did  not  understand  the  art 
of  making  jellies,  jams,  custards,  tea-cakes,  and  such  like  trashy 
affairs,  she  was  profoundly  skilled  in  the  mysteries  of  preparing 
"amar,*  "poee-poee,"  and  "kokoo,"  with  other  substantial  mat- 
ters. She  was  a  genuine  busybody:  bustling  about  the  house 
like  a  country  landlady  at  an  unexpected  arrival;  forever  giving 
the  young  girls  tasks  to  perform,  which  the  little  huzzies  as  often 
neglected;  poking  into  every  corner  and  rummaging  over  bun- 
dles of  old  tappa,  or  making  a  prodigious  clatter  among  the  cala* 
bashes.  Sometimes  she  might  have  been  seen  squatting  Upon 
her  haunches  in  front  of  a  huge  wooden  basin,  and  kneading 


pg^4  HERMAN   MELVILLE 

poee-poee  with  terrific  vehemence,  dashing  the  stone  pestle  about 
as  if  she  would  shiver  the  vessel  into  fragments;  on  other  occas- 
ions galloping  about  the  valley  in  search  of  a  particular  kind  of 
leaf  used  in  some  of  her  recondite  operations,  and  returning 
home,  toiling  and  sweating,  with  a  bundle  of  it  under  which 
most  women  would  have  sunk. 

To  tell  the  truth,  Kory-Kory's  mother  was  the  only  indus- 
trious person  in  all  the  valley  of  Typee;  and  she  could  not  have 
employed  herself  more  actively  had  she  been  left  an  exceedingly 
muscular  and  destitute  widow  with  an  inordinate  supply  of  young 
children,  in  the  bleakest  part  of  the  civilized  world.  There  was 
not  the  slightest  necessity  for  the  greater  portion  of  the  labor 
performed  by  the  old  lady :  but  she '  seemed  to  work  from  some 
irresistible  impulse;  her  limbs  continually  swaying  to  and  fro, 
as  if  there  were  some  indefatigable  engine  concealed  within  her 
body  which  kept  her  in  perpetual  motion. 

Never  suppose  that  she  was  a  termagant  or  a  shrew  for  all 
this:  she  had  the  kindliest  heart  in  the  world,  and  acted  towards 
me  in  particular  in  a  truly  maternal  manner;  occasionally  putting 
some  little  morsel  of  choice  food  into  my  hand,  some  outlandish 
kind  of  savage  sweetmeat  or  pastry,  like  a  doting  mother  petting 
a  sickly  urchin  with  tarts  and  sugar-plums.  Warm  indeed  are 
my  remembrances  of  the  dear,  good,  affectionate  old  Tinor! 

Besides  the  individuals  I  have  mentioned,  there  belonged  to 
the  household  three  young  men, —  dissipated,  good-for-nothing, 
roystering  blades  of  savages,  —  who  were  either  employed  in 
prosecuting  loye  affairs  with  the  maidens  of  the  tribe,  or  grew 
boozy  on  ((  arva }>  and  tobacco  in  the  company  of  congenial  spir- 
its, the  scapegraces  of  the  valley. 

Among  the  permanent  inmates  of  the  house  were  likewise 
several  lovely  damsels,  who  instead  of  thrumming  pianos  and  read- 
ing novels,  like  more  enlightened  young  ladies,  substituted  for 
these  employments  the  manufacture  of  a  fine  species  of  tappa; 
but  for  the  greater  portion  of  the  time  were  skipping  from 
house  to  house,  gadding  and  gossiping  with  their  acquaintances. 

From  the  rest  of  these,  however,  I  must  except  the  beauteous 
nymph  Fayaway,  who  was  my  peculiar  favorite.  Her  free  pliant 
figure  was  the  very  perfection  of  female  grace  and  beauty.  Her 
complexion  was  a  rich  and  mantling  olive;  and  when  watching 
the  glow  upon  her  cheeks,  I  could  almost  swear  that  beneath  the 
transparent  medium  there  lurked  the  blushes  of  a  faint  vermilion. 


HERMAN   MELVILLE  9875, 

The  face  of  this  girl  was  a  rounded  oval,  and  each  feature  as 
perfectly  formed  as  the  heart  or  imagination  of  man  could  desire. 
Her  full  lips,  when  parted  with  a  smile,  disclosed  teeth  of  a  daz- 
zling whiteness;  and  when  her  rosy  mouth  opened  with  a  burst 
of  merriment,  they  looked  like  the  milk-white  seeds  of  the  (<  arta, w 
—  a  fruit  of  the  valley  which,  when  cleft  in  twain,  shows  them 
reposing  in  rows  on  either  side,  imbedded  in  the  rich  and  juicy 
pulp.  Her  hair  of  the  deepest  brown,  parted  irregularly  in  the 
middle,  flowed  in  natural  ringlets  over  her  shoulders,  and  when- 
ever she  chanced  to  stoop,  fell  over  and  hid  from  view  her 
lovely  bosom.  Gazing  into  the  depths  of  her  strange  blue  eyes, 
when  she  was  in  a  contemplative  mood,  they  seemed  most  placid 
yet  unfathomable;  but  when  illuminated  by  some  lively  emotion, 
they  beamed  upon  the  beholder  like  stars.  The  hands  of  Faya- 
way  were  as  soft  and  delicate  as  those  of  any  countess;  for  an 
entire  exemption  from  rude  labor  marks  the  girlhood  and  even 
prime  of  a  Typee  woman's  life.  Her  feet,  though  wholly  ex- 
posed, were  as  diminutive  and  fairly  shaped  as  those  which  peep 
from  beneath  the  skirts  of  a  Lima  lady's  dress.  The  skin  of  this 
young  creature,  from  continual  ablutions  and  the  use  of  mollifying 
ointments,  was  inconceivably  smooth  and  soft. 

I  may  succeed,  perhaps,  in  particularizing  some  of  the  indi- 
vidual features  of  Fayaway's  beauty;  but  that  general  loveliness 
of  appearance  which  they  all  contributed  to  produce  I  will  not 
attempt  to  describe.  The  easy  unstudied  graces  of  a  child  of 
nature  like  this  —  breathing  from  infancy  an  atmosphere  of  per- 
petual summer,  and  nurtured  by  the  simple  fruits  of  the  earth, 
enjoying  a  perfect  freedom  from  care  and  anxiety,  and  removed 
effectually  from  all  injurious  tendencies  —  strike  the  eye  in  a 
manner  which  cannot  be  portrayed.  This  picture  is  no  fancy 
sketch:  it  is  drawn  from  the  most  vivid  recollections  of  the  per- 
son delineated. 

Were  I  asked  if  the  beauteous  form  of  Fayaway  was  alto- 
gether free  from  the  hideous  blemish  of  tattooing,  I  should  be 
constrained  to  answer  that  it  was  not.  But  the  practitioners  of 
the  barbarous  art,  so  remorseless  in  their  inflictions  upon  the 
brawny  limbs  of  the  warriors  of  the  tribe,  seem  to  be  conscious 
that  it  needs  not  the  resources  of  their  profession  to  augment 
the  charms  of  the  maidens  of  the  vale. 

The  females  are  very  little  embellished  in  this  way;  and  Fay- 
away,  with  all  the  other  young  girls  of  her  age,  were  even  less 


9876 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 


so  than  those  of  their  sex  more  advanced  in  years.  The  reason 
of  this  peculiarity  will  be  alluded  to  hereafter.  All  the  tattooing 
that  the  nymph  in  question  exhibited  upon  her  person  may  be 
easily  described.  Three  minute  dots,  no  bigger  than  pin-heads, 
decorated  either  lip,  and  at  a  little  distance  were  not  at  all  dis- 
cernible. Just  upon  the  fall  of  the  shoulder  were  drawn  two 
parallel  lines,  half  an  inch  apart  and  perhaps  three  inches  in 
length,  the  interval  being  filled  with  delicately  executed  figures. 
These  narrow  bands  of  tattooing,  thus  placed,  always  reminded 
me  of  those  stripes  of  gold  lace  worn  by  officers  in  undress,  and 
which  were  in  lieu  of  epaulettes  to  denote  their  rank. 

Thus  much  was  Fayaway  tattooed  —  the  audacious  hand  which 
had  gone  so  far  in  its  desecrating  work  stopping  short,  appar- 
ently wanting  the  heart  to  proceed. 

But  I  have  omitted  to  describe  the  dress  worn  by  this  nymph 
of  the  valley. 

Fayaway — I  must  avow  the  fact  —  for  the  most  part  clung  to 
the  primitive  and  summer  garb  of  Eden.  But  how  becoming  the 
costume!  It  showed  her  fine  figure  to  the  best  possible  advan- 
tage, and  nothing  could  have  been  better  adapted  to  her  peculiar 
style  of  beauty.  On  ordinary  occasion  she  was  habited  precisely 
as  I  have  described  the  two  youthful  savages  whom  we  had  met 
on  first  entering  the  valley.  At  other  times,  when  rambling 
among  the  groves,  or  visiting  at  the  houses  of  her  acquaintances, 
she  wore  a  tunic  of  white  tappa,  reaching  from  her  waist  to  a 
little  below  the  knees;  and  when  exposed  for  any  length  of  time 
to  the  sun,  she  invariably  protected  herself  from  its  rays  by  a 
floating  mantle  of  the  same  material,  loosely  gathered  about  the 
person.  Her  gala  dress  will  be  described  hereafter. 

As  the  beauties  of  our  own  land  delight  in  bedecking  them- 
selves with  fanciful  articles  of  jewelry, —  suspending  them  from 
their  ears,  hanging  them  about  their  necks,  clasping  them  around 
their  wrists, —  so  Fayaway  and  her  companions  were  in  the  habit 
of  ornamenting  themselves  with  similar  appendages. 

Flora  was  their  jeweler.  Sometimes  they  wore  necklaces  of 
small  carnation  flowers,  strung  like  rubies  upon  a  fibre  of  tappa; 
or  displayed  in  their  ears  a  single  white  bud,  the  stem  thrust 
backward  through  the  aperture,  and  showing  in  front  the  deli- 
cate petals  folded  together  in  a  beautiful  sphere,  and  looking  like 
a  drop  of  the  purest  pearl.  Chaplets  too,  resembling  in  their 
arrangement  the  strawberry  coronal  worn  by  an  English  peeress, 


HERMAN  MELVILLE  9877 

and  composed  of  intertwined  leaves  and  blossoms,  often  crowned 
their  temples;  and  bracelets  and  anklets  of  the  same  tasteful 
pattern  were  frequently  to  be  seen.  Indeed,  the  maidens  of  the 
islands  were  passionately  fond  of  flowers,  and  never  wearied  of 
decorating  their  persons  with  them;  a  lovely  trait  in  their  char- 
acter, and  one  that  ere  long  will  be  more  fully  alluded  to. 

Though  in  my  eyes,  at  least,  Fayaway  was  indisputably  the 
loveliest  female  I  saw  in  Typee,  yet  the  description  I  have  given 
of  her  will  in  some  measure  apply  to  nearly  all  the  youthful 
portion  of  her  sex  in  the  valley.  Judge  you  then,  reader,  what 
beautiful  creatures  they  must  have  been. 


FAYAWAY  IN  THE  CANOE 
From  <  Typee  > 

FOR  the  life  of  me  I  could  not  understand  why  a  woman  should 
not  have  as  much  right  to  enter  a  canoe  as  a  man.  At  last 
he  became  a  little  more  rational,  and  intimated  that,  out 
of  the  abundant  love  he  bore  me,  he  would  consult  with  the 
priests  and  see  what  could  be  done. 

How  it  was  that  the  priesthood  of  Typee  satisfied  the  affair 
with  their  consciences,  I  know  not;  but  so  it  was,  and  Fayaway's 
dispensation  from  this  portion  of  the  taboo  was  at  length  pro- 
cured. Such  an  event  I  believe  never  before  had  occurred  in 
the  valley;  but  it  was  high  time  the  islanders  should  be  taught 
a  little  gallantry,  and  I  trust  that  the  example  I  set  them  may 
produce  beneficial  effects.  Ridiculous,  indeed,  that  the  lovely 
creatures  should  be  obliged  to  paddle  about  in  the  water  like  so 
many  ducks,  while  a  parcel  of  great  strapping  fellows  skimmed 
over  its  surface  in  their  canoes. 

The  first  day  after  Fayaway's  emancipation  I  had  a  delightful 
little  party  on  the  lake  —  the  damsel,  Kory-Kory,  and  myself. 
My  zealous  body-servant  brought  from  the  house  a  calabash  of 
poee-poee,  half  a  dozen  young  cocoanuts  stripped  of  their  husks, 
three  pipes,  as  many  yams,  and  me  on  his  back  a  part  of  the 
way.  Somethirig  of  a  load;  but  Kory-Kory  was  a  very  strong 
man  for  his  size,  and  by  no  means  brittle  in  the  spine.  We  had 
a  very  pleasant  day;  my  trusty  valet  plied  the  paddle  and  swept 
us  gently  along  the  margin  of  the  water,  beneath  the  shades  of 


9878 


HERMAN  MELVILLE 


the  overhanging  thickets.  Fayaway  and  I  reclined  in  the  stern 
of  the  canoe,  on  the  very,  best  terms  possible  with  one  another; 
the  gentle  nymph  occasionally  placing  her  pipe  to  her  lip  and 
exhaling  the  mild  fumes  of  the  tobacco,  to  which  her  rosy 
breath  added  a  fresh  perfume.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  there 
is  nothing  in  which  a  young  and  beautiful  female  appears  to 
more  advantage  than  in  the  act  of  smoking.  How  captivating  is 
a  Peruvian  lady  swinging  in  her  gayly  woven  hammock  of  grass, 
extended  between  two  orange-trees,  and  inhaling  the  fragrance  of 
a  choice  cigarro!  But  Fayaway,  holding  in  her  delicately  formed 
olive  hand  the  long  yellow  reed  of  her  pipe,  with  its  quaintly 
carved  bowl,  and  every  few  moments  languishingly  giving  forth 
light  wreaths  of  vapor  from  her  mouth  and  nostrils,  looked  still 
more  engaging. 

We  floated  about  thus  for  several  hours,  when  I  looked  up  tb 
the  warm,  glowing,  tropical  sky,  and  then  down  into  the  trans- 
parent depths  below;  and  when  my  eye,  wandering  from  the 
bewitching  scenery  around,  fell  upon  the  grotesquely  tattooed 
form  of  Kory-Kory,  and  finally  encountered  the  pensive  gaze  of 
Fayaway,  I  thought  I  had  been  transported  to  some  fairy  region, 
so  unreal  did  everything  appear. 

This  lovely  piece  of  water  was  the  coolest  spot  in  all  the  val- 
ley, and  I  now  made  it  a  place  of  continual  resort  during  the 
hottest  period  of  the  day.  One  side  of  it  lay  near  the  termina- 
tion of  a  long,  gradually  expanding  gorge,  which  mounted  to  the 
heights  that  environed  the  vale.  The  strong  trade-wind,  met  in 
its  course  by  these  elevations,  circled  and  eddied  about  their 
summits,  and  was  sometimes  driven  down  the  steep  ravine  and 
swept  across  the  valley,  ruffling  in  its  passage  the  otherwise  tran- 
quil surface  of  the  lake. 

One  day,  after  we  had  been  paddling  about  for  some  time, 
I  disembarked  Kory-Kory  and  paddled  the  canoe  to  the  wind- 
ward side  of  the  lake.  As  I  turned  the  canoe,  Fayaway,  who  was 
with  me,  seemed  all  at  once  to  be  struck  with  some  happy 
idea.  With  a  wild  exclamation  of  delight,  she  disengaged  from 
her  person  the  ample  robe  of  tappa  which  was  knotted  over 
her  shoulder  (for  the  purpose  of  shielding  her  from  the  sun),  and 
spreading  it  out  like  a  sail,  stood  erect  with  uprai'sed  arms  in  the 
head  of  the  canoe.  We  American  sailors  pride  ourselves  upon 
our  straight  clean  spars,  but  a  prettier  little  mast  than  Fayaway 
made  was  never  shipped  aboard  of  any  craft. 


HERMAN   MELVILLE  9879 

In  a  moment  the  tappa  was  distended  by  the  breeze,  the  long 
brown  tresses  of  Fayaway  streamed  in  the  air,  and  the  canoe 
glided  rapidly  through  the  water  and  shot  towards  the  shore. 
Seated  in  the  stern,  I  directed  its  course  with  my  paddle  until 
it  dashed  up  the  soft  sloping  bank,  and  Fayaway  with  a  light 
spring  alighted  on  the  ground;  whilst  Kory-Kory,  who  had 
watched  our  manoeuvres  with  admiration,  now  clapped  his  hands 
in  transport  and  shouted  like  a  madman.  Many  a  time  after- 
wards was  this  feat  repeated. 


THE  GENERAL  CHARACTER   OF  THE  TYPEES 
From  <Typee> 

IHAVE  already  mentioned  that  the  influence  exerted  over  the 
people  of  the  valley  by  their  chiefs  was  mild  in  the  extreme; 

and  as  to  any  general  rule  or  standard  of  conduct  by  which 
the  commonalty  were  governed  in  their  intercourse  with  each 
other,  so  far  as  my  observation  extended,  I  should  be  almost 
tempted  to  say  that  none  existed  on  the  island,  except  indeed 
the  mysterious  ((  Taboo  w  be  considered  as  such.  During  the  time 
I  lived  among  the  Typees,  no  one  was  ever  put  upon  his  trial 
for  any  offense  against  the  public.  To  all  appearances  there 
were  no  courts  of  law  or  equity.  There  were  no  municipal  police 
for  the  purpose  of  apprehending  vagrants  and  disorderly  charac- 
ters. In  short,  there  were  no  legal  provisions  whatever  for  the 
well-being  and  conservation  of  society,  the  enlightened  end  of 
civilized  legislation.  And  yet  everything  went  on  in  the  valley 
with  a  harmony  and  smoothness  unparalleled,  I  will  venture  to 
assert,  in  the  most  select,  refined,  and  pious  associations  of  mor- 
tals in  Christendom.  How  are  we  to  explain  this  enigma  ?  These 
islanders  were  heathens!  savages!  ay,  cannibals!  and  how  came 
they,  without  the  aid  of  established  law,  to  exhibit  in  so  emi- 
nent a  degree  that  social  order  which  is  the  greatest  blessing 
and  highest  pride  of  the  social  state  ? 

It  may  reasonably  be  inquired,  How  were  these  people  gov- 
erned ?  how  were  their  passions  controlled  in  their  every-day 
transactions  ?  It  must  have  been  by  an  inherent  principle  of 
honesty  and  charity  towards  each  other.  They  seemed  to  be 
governed  by  that  sort  of  tacit  common-sense  law,  which,  say  what 
they  will  of  the  inborn  lawlessness  of  the  human  race,  has  its 


9880 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 


precepts  graven  on  every  breast.  The  grand  principles  of  virtue 
ind  honor,  however  they  may  be  distorted  by  arbitrary  codes, 
are  the  same  all  the  world  over;  and  where  these  principles  are 
concerned,  the  right  or  wrong  of  any  action  appears  the  same 
to  the  uncultivated  as  to  the  enlightened  mind.  It  is  to  this 
indwelling,  this  universally  diffused  perception  of  what  is  just  and 
noble,  that  the  integrity  of  the  Marquesans  in  their  intercourse 
with  each  other  is  to  be  attributed.  In  the  darkest  nights  they 
slept  securely,  with  all  their  worldly  wealth  around  them,  in 
houses  the  doors  of  which  were  never  fastened.  The  disquiet- 
ing ideas  of  theft  or  assassination  never  disturbed  them.  Each 
islander  reposed  beneath  his  own  palmetto  thatching,  or  sat  under 
his  own  bread-fruit  tree,  with  none  to  molest  or  alarm  him.  There 
was  not  a  padlock  in  the  valley,  nor  anything  that  answered  the 
purpose  of  one;  still  there  was  no  community  of  goods.  This 
long  spear,  so  elegantly  carved  and  highly  polished,  belongs  to 
Wormoonoo;  it  is  far  handsomer  than  the  one  which  old  Marheyo 
so  greatly  prizes, —  it  is  the  most  valuable  article  belonging  to  its 
owner.  And  yet  I  have  seen  it  leaning  against  a  cocoanut-tree 
in  the  grove,  and  there  it  was  found  when  sought  for.  Here  is 
a  sperm-whale  tooth,  graven  all  over  with  cunning  devices:  it  is 
the  property  of  Karluna;  it  is  the  most  precious  of  the  damsel's 
ornaments.  In  her  estimation  its  price  is  far  above  rubies.  And 
yet  there  hangs  the  dental  jewel  by  its  cord  of  braided  bark 
in  the  girl's  house,  which  is  far  back  in  the  valley;  the  door 
is  left  open,  and  all  the  inmates  have  gone  off  to  bathe  in  the 
stream.  .  .  . 

There  was  one  admirable  trait  in  the  general  character  of  the 
Typees  which,  more  than  anything  else,  secured  my  admiration: 
it  was  the  unanimity  of  feeling  they  displayed  on  every  occasion. 
With  them  there  hardly  appeared  to  be  any  difference  of  opinion 
upon  any  subject  whatever.  They  all  thought  and  acted  alike.  I 
do  not  conceive  that  they  could  support  a  debating  society  for  a 
single  night:  there  would  be  nothing  to  dispute  about;  and  were 
they  to  call  a  convention  to  take  into  consideration  the  state  of 
the  tribe,  its  session  would  be  a  remarkably  short  one.  They 
showed  this  spirit  of  unanimity  in  every  action  of  life :  everything 
was  done  in  concert  and  good-fellowship.  .  .  . 

Not  a  single  female  took  part  in  this  employment  [house- 
building]; and  if  the  degree  of  consideration  in  which  the  ever 
adorable  sex  is  held  by  the  men,  be  —  as  the  philosophers  affirm  — 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 

a  just  criterion  of  the  degree  of  refinement  among  a  people,  then 
I  may  truly  pronounce  the  Typees  to  be  as  polished  a  commu- 
nity as  ever  the  sun  shone  upon.  The  religious  restrictions  of 
the  taboo  alone  excepted,  the  women  of  the  valley  were  allowed 
every  possible  indulgence.  Nowhere  are  the  ladies  more  assidu- 
ously courted ;  nowhere  are  they  better  appreciated  as  the  contrib- 
utors to  our  highest  enjoyments;  and  nowhere  are  they  more 
sensible  of  their  power.  Far  different  from  their  condition  among 
many  rude  nations,  where  the  women  are  made  to  perform  all 
the  work  while  their  ungallant  lords  and  masters  lie  buried  in 
sloth,  the  gentle  sex  in  the  valley  of  Typee  were  exempt  from 
toil;  if  toil  it  might  be  called,  that  even  in  that  tropical  climate, 
never  distilled  one  drop  of  perspiration.  Their  light  household 
occupations,  together  with  the  manufacture  of  tappa,  the  platting 
of  mats,  and  the  polishing  of  drinking-vessels,  \vere  the  only  em- 
ployments pertaining  to  the  women.  And  even  these  resembled 
those  pleasant  avocations  which  fill  up  the  elegant  morning  leis- 
ure of  our  fashionable  ladies  at  home.  But  in  these  occupations, 
slight  and  agreeable  though  they  were,  the  giddy  young  girls 
very  seldom  engaged.  Indeed,  these  willful,  care-killing  damsels 
were  averse  to  all  useful  employment.  Like  so  many  spoiled 
beauties,  they  ranged  through  the  groves,  bathed  in  the  stream, 
danced,  flirted,  played  all  manner  of  mischievous  pranks,  and 
passed  their  days  in  one  merry  round  of  thoughtless  happiness. 
During  my  whole  stay  on  the  island  I  never  witnessed  a  sin- 
gle quarrel,  nor  anything  that  in  the  slightest  degree  approached 
even  to  a  dispute.  The  natives  appeared  to  form  one  household, 
whose  members  were  bound  together  by  the  ties  of  strong  affec- 
tion. The  love  of  kindred  I  did  not  so  much  perceive,  for  it 
seemed  blended  to  the  general  love;  and  where  all  were  treated 
as  brothers  and  sisters,  it  was  hard  to  tell  who  were  actually 
related  to  each  other  by  blood. 


TABOO 

From  ( Typee  > 

is  a  marked  similarity,  almost  an  identity,  between  the 
1       religious    institutions    of    most    of    the    Polynesian    islands; 
and   in  all   exists  the   mysterious  "Taboo,"  restricted  in  its 
uses  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.     So  strange  and  complex  in  its 


9882 


HERMAN  MELVILLE 


arrangements  is  this  remarkable  system,  that  I  have  in  several 
cases  met  with  individuals  who  after  residing  for  years  among 
the  islands  in  the  Pacific,  and  acquiring  a  considerable  knowl- 
edge of  the  language,  have  nevertheless  been  altogether  unable 
to  give  any  satisfactory  account  of  its  operations.  Situated  as  I 
was  in  the  Typee  valley,  I  perceived  every  hour  the  effects  of 
this  all-controlling  power,  without  in  the  least  comprehending  it. 
Those  effects  were  indeed  wide-spread  and  universal,  pervading 
the  most  important  as  well  as  the  minutest  transactions  of  life. 
The  savage,  in  short,  lives  in  the  continual  observance  of  its  dic- 
tates, which  guide  and  control  every  action  of  his  being. 

For  several  days  after  entering  the  valley,  I  had  been  saluted 
at  least  fifty  times  in  the  twenty-four  hours  with  the  talismanic 
word  (( Taboo w  shrieked  in  my  ears,  at  some  gross  violation  of 
its  provisions,  of  which  I  had  unconsciously  been  guilty.  The 
day  after  our  arrival  I  happened  to  hand  some  tobacco  to  Toby 
over  the  head  of  a  native  who  sat  between  us.  He  started  up  as 
if  stung  by  an  adder;  while  the  whole  company,  manifesting  an 
equal  degree  of  horror,  simultaneously  screamed  out  <(  Taboo ! w 
I  never  again  perpetrated  a  similar  piece  of  ill  manners,  which 
indeed  was  forbidden  by  the  canons  of  good  breeding  as  well  as 
by  the  mandates  of  the  taboo.  But  it  was  not  always  so  easy  to 
perceive  wherein  you  had  contravened  the  spirit  of  this  institu- 
tion. I  was  many  times  called  to  order,  if  I  may  use  the  phrase, 
when  I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me  conjecture  what  particular 
offense  I  had  committed. 

One  day  I  was  strolling  through  a  secluded  portion  of  the  val- 
ley; and  hearing  the  musical  sound  of  the  cloth-mallet  at  a  little 
distance,  I  turned  down  a  path  that  conducted  me  in  a  few 
moments  to  a  house  where  there  were  some  half-dozen  girls  em- 
ployed in  making  tappa.  This  was  an  operation  I  had  frequently 
witnessed,  and  had  handled  the  bark  in  all  the  various  stages  of 
its  preparation.  On  the  present  occasion  the  females  were  intent 
upon  their  occupation;  and  after  looking  up  and  talking  gayly 
to  me  for  a  few  moments,  they  resumed  their  employment.  I 
regarded  them  for  awhile  in  silence,  and  then  carelessly  picking 
up  a  handful  of  the  material  that  lay  around,  proceeded  uncon- 
sciously to  pick  it  apart.  While  thus  engaged,  I  was  suddenly 
startled  by  a  scream,  like  that  of  a  whole  boarding-school  of 
young  ladies  just  on  the  point  of  going  into  hysterics.  Leaping 
tip  with  the  idea  of  seeing  a  score  of  Happar  warriors  about  to 


HERMAN   MELVILLE  9883 

perform  anew  the  Sabine  atrocity,  I  found  myself  confronted  by 
the  company  of  girls,  who,  having  dropped  their  work,  stood  be- 
fore me  with  starting  eyes,  swelling  bosoms,  and  fingers  pointed 
in  horror  towards  me. 

Thinking  that  some  venomous  reptile  must  be  concealed  in 
the  bark  which  I  held  in  my  hand,  I  began  cautiously  to  sepa- 
rate and  examine  it.  Whilst  I  did  so  the  horrified  girls  redoubled 
their  shrieks.  Their  wild  cries  and  frightened  motions  actually 
alarmed  me;  and  throwing  down  the  tappa,  I  was  about  to 
rush  from  the-  house,  when  in  the  same  instant  their  clamors 
ceased,  and  one  of  them,  seizing  me  by  the  arm,  pointed  to  the 
broken  fibres  that  had  just  fallen  from  my  grasp,  and  screamed 
in  my  ear  the  fatal  word  ((  Taboo ! >} 

I  subsequently  found  out  that  the  fabric  they  were  engaged 
in  making  was  of  a  peculiar  kind,  destined  to  be  worn  on  the 
heads  of  females;  and  through  every  stage  of  its  manufacture 
was  guarded  by  a  rigorous  taboo,  which  interdicted  the  whole 
masculine  gender  from  even  so  much  as  touching  it. 

Frequently  in  walking  through  the  groves,  I  observed  bread- 
fruit and  cocoanut  trees  with  a  wreath  of  leaves  twined  in  a 
peculiar  fashion  about  their  trunks.  This  was  the  mark  of  the 
taboo.  The  trees  themselves,  their  fruit,  and  even  the  shadows 
they  cast  upon  the  ground,  were  consecrated  by  its  presence.  In 
the  same  way  a  pipe  which  the  King  had  bestowed  upon  me  was 
rendered  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  the  natives,  none  of  whom  could 
I  ever  prevail  upon  to  smoke  from  it.  The  bowl  was  encircled 
by  a  woven  band  of  grass,  somewhat  resembling  those  Turks'- 
heads  occasionally  worked  in  the  handles  of  our  whip-stalks. 

A  similar  badge  was  once  braided  about  my  wrist  by  the 
royal  hand  of  Mehevi  himself,  who,  as  soon  as  he  had  concluded 
the  operation,  pronounced  me  <(  Taboo. J>  This  occurred  shortly 
after  Toby's  disappearance;  and  were  it  not  that  from  the  first 
moment  I  had  entered  the  valley  the  natives  had  treated  me 
with  uniform  kindness,  I  should  have  supposed  that  their  con- 
duct afterwards  was  to  be  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  I  had  received 
this  sacred  investiture. 

The  capricious  operation  of  the  taboo  is  not  its  least  remark- 
able feature;  to  enumerate  them  all  would  be  impossible.  Black 
hogs,  infants  to  a  certain  age,  women  in  an  interesting  situation, 
young  men  while  the  operation  of  tattooing  their  faces  is  going 
on,  and  certain  parts  of  the  valley  during  the  continuance  of  a 
shower,  are  alike  fenced  about  by  the  operation  of  the  taboo. 


9884 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 


I  witnessed  a  striking  instance  of  its  effects  in  the  bay  of 
Tior,  my  visit  to  which  place  has  been  alluded  to  in  a  former 
part  of  this  narrative.  On  that  occasion  our  worthy  captain 
formed  one  of  the  party.  He  was  a  most  insatiable  sportsman. 
Outward  bound,  and  off  the  pitch  of  Cape  Horn,  he  used  to 
sit  on  the  taffrail  and  keep  the  steward  loading  three  or  four 
old  fowling-pieces,  with  which  he  would  bring  down  albatrosses, 
Cape  pigeons,  jays,  petrels,  and  divers  other  marine  fowl,  who 
followed  chattering  in  our  wake.  The  sailors  were  struck  aghast 
at  his  impiety;  and  one  and  all  attributed  our  forty  days'  beating 
about  that  horrid  headland  to  his  sacrilegious  slaughter  of  these 
inoffensive  birds. 

At  Tior  he  evinced  the  same  disregard  for  the  religious  preju- 
dices of  the  islanders  as  he  had  previously  shown  for  the  supersti- 
tions of  the  sailors.  Having  heard  that  there  was  a  considerable 
number  of  fowls  in  the  valley, —  the  progeny  of  some  cocks  and 
hens  accidentally  left  there  by  an  English  vessel,  and  which,  being 
strictly  tabooed,  flew  about  almost  in  a  wild  state, —  he  deter- 
mined to  break  through  all  restraints  and  be  the  death  of  them. 
Accordingly  he  provided  himself  with  a  most  formidable-looking 
gun,  and  announced  his  landing  on  the  beach  by  shooting  down 
a  noble  cock,  that  was  crowing  what  proved  to  be  his  own  funeral 
dirge  on  the  limb  of  an  adjoining  tree.  "Taboo,"  shrieked  the 
affrighted  savages.  <(  Oh,  hang  your  taboo, }>  says  the  nautical 
sportsman :  (<  talk  taboo  to  the  marines ; }>  and  bang  went  the 
piece  again,  and  down  came  another  victim.  At  this  the  natives 
ran  scampering  through  the  groves,  horror-struck  at  the  enormity 
of  the  act. 

All  that  afternoon  the  rocky  sides  of  the  valley  rang  with  suc- 
cessive reports,  and  the  superb  plumage  of  many  a  beautiful  fowl 
was  ruffled  by  the  fatal  bullet.  Had  it  not  been  that  the  French 
admiral,  with  a  large  party,  was  then  in  the  glen,  I  have  no 
doubt  that  the  natives,  although  their  tribe  was  small  and  dis- 
pirited, would  have  inflicted  summary  vengeance  upon  the  man 
who  thus  outraged  their  most  sacred  institutions:  as  it  was,  they 
contrived  to  annoy  him  not  a  little. 

Thirsting  with  his  exertions,  the  skipper  directed  his  steps  to 
a  stream;  but  the  savages,  who  had  followed  at  a  little  distance, 
perceiving  his  object,  rushed  towards  him  and  forced  him  away 
from  its  bank, —  his  lips  would  have  polluted  it.  Wearied  at  last, 
he  sought  to  enter  a  house,  that  he  might  rest  for  a  while  on 
the  mats:  its  inmates  eathered  tumultuously  about  the  door  and 


HERMAN   MELVILLE 


9885 


denied  him  admittance.  He  coaxed  and  blustered  by  turns,  but 
in  vain, — the  natives  were  neither  to  be  intimidated  nor  appeased; 
and  as  a  final  resort  he  was  obliged  to  call  together  his  boat's 
crew,  and  pull  away  from  what  he  termed  the  most  infernal  place 
he  ever  stepped  upon. 

Lucky  was  it  for  him  and  for  us  that  we  were  not  honored 
on  our  departure  by  a  salute  of  stones  from  the  hands  of  the 
exasperated  Tiors.  In  this  way,  on  the  neighboring  island  of 
Ropo,  were  killed  but  a  few  weeks  previously,  and  for  a  nearly 
similar  offense,  the  master  and  three  of  the  crew  of  the  K . 

I  cannot  determine  with  anything  approaching  to  certainty 
what  power  it  is  that  imposes  the  taboo.  When  I  consider  the 
slight  disparity  of  condition  among  the  islanders,  the  very  limited 
and  inconsiderable  prerogatives  of  the  king  and  chiefs,  and  the 
loose  and  indefinite  functions  of  the  priesthood, —  most  of  whom 
were  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  their  country- 
men,—  I  am  wholly  at  a  loss  where  to  look  for  the  authority  which 
regulates  this  potent  institution.  It  is  imposed  upon  something 
to-day,  and  withdrawn  to-morrow;  while  its  operations  in  other 
cases  are  perpetual.  Sometimes  its  restrictions  only  affect  a  sin- 
gle individual,  sometimes  a  particular  family,  sometimes  a  whole 
tribe;  and  in  a  few  instances  they  extend  not  merely  over  the 
various  clans  on  a  single  island,  but  over  all  the  inhabitants  of 
an  entire  group.  In  illustration  of  this  latter  peculiarity,  I  may 
cite  the  law  which  forbids  a  female  to  enter  a  canoe, —  a  prohi- 
bition which  prevails  upon  all  the  northern  Marquesas  Islands. 

The  word  itself  ((( taboo w)  is  used  in  more  than  one  signifi- 
cation. It  is  sometimes  used  by  a  parent  to  his  child,  when  in 
the  exercise  of  parental  authority  he  forbids  it  to  perform  a  par- 
ticular action.  Anything  opposed  to  the  ordinary  customs  of  the 
islanders,  although  not  expressly  prohibited,  is  said  to  be  (<  taboo. >J 


9886 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

(1809-1847) 

THE  personality  of  Mendelssohn  the  musician,  and  of  the 
professional  activities  of  a  career  of  perhaps  as  complete 
artistic  felicity  and  success  as  can  be  pointed  out,  few 
essential  facts  are  unfamiliar  at  this  date.  In  connection  with  a  lit- 
erary work  they  need  but  general  review.  Not  many  masters  in  art 
have  come  into  the  world  with  so  many  amiable  fairies  to  rock  the  cra- 
dle, so  prompt  to  bestow  almost  a  superfluity  of  gracious  gifts.  Born 
at  Hamburg,  February  3d,  1809,  of  Hebrew  blood,  and  of  a  prosper- 
ous and  distinguished  family  that  numbered 
the  Platonist,  Moses  Mendelssohn,  among  its 
immediate  ancestry,  the  boy's  temperament 
and  talents  received  peculiarly  careful  cul- 
tivation. Indeed,  so  far  was  this  the  case 
that  it  would  not  have  been  singular  had 
Felix  made  music  a  mere  avocation,  instead 
of  accepting  it  as  the  business  and  pas- 
sion of  his  life;  one  which  he  pursued  with 
that  splendid  system  and  industry,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten  having  much  to  do  with 
the  recognition  of  what  the  world  thinks 
the  irresistibility  of  genius.  From  being  a 
youthful  prodigy  at  the  pianoforte  and  in 
original  composition,  from  studying  dili- 
gently with  his  charming  sister  Fanny,  the  lad  outgrew  the  interest 
attaching  to  merely  a  young  virtuoso,  and  stood  forth  as  one  of  his 
art's  mature  and  accepted  masters.  Mendelssohn's  career  of  triumph 
may  be  spoken  of  as  beginning  with  the  familiar  music  to  Shake- 
speare's ( Midsummer  Night's  Dream } ;  its  later  milestones  are  familiar 
in  a  long  series  of  orchestral  works  of  large  form,  and  in  the  large 
body  of  chamber  music,  vocal  and  instrumental,  of  greater  or  less  in- 
terest; and  it  can  be  said  to  have  culminated  in  ( Elijah, y  the  best  of 
his  oratorios, —  indeed,  the  best  oratorio  on  a  Handelian  pattern  yet 
heard.  Life  to  him  from  year  to  year  meant  incessant  and  delight- 
ful labor,  bringing  admiration  and  substantial  honor.  Only  Mozart — 
with  whom  Mendelssohn's  affinity  is  emphatic  —  was  as  prolific,  with 
so  little  that  in  the  general  result  can  be  dismissed  as  dull  or  trashy. 


MENDELSSOHN 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 


9887 


After  Germany  and  England  had  been  the  scene  of  a  career  which, 
reviewed  at  this  date,  appears  to  us  to  have  brought  not  only  fame 
but  a  personal  and  musical  idolatry,  the  composer  died  in  the  flush  of 
manhood,  at  Leipzig,  in  1847.  There  was  soon  after  a  certain  nat- 
ural reaction  against  his  music,  save  in  England.  Lisztian  influences 
affected  it,  in  especial.  Much  of  it  still  is  laid  aside,  if  not  actually 
dismissed.  But  his  place  in  his  art  seems  securer  now  than  it  was  a 
decade  ago;  and  however  the  forms  and  the  emotional  conception  of 
music  have  changed,  whatever  the  shifting  currents  of  popular  taste, 
it  seems  now  probable  that  Mendelssohn's  best  orchestral  works,  his 
best  compositions  for  the  voice,  and  even  the  best  of  his  pianoforte 
pieces,  will  long  retain  their  hold  on  the  finer  public  ear  and  the 
more  sensitive  musical  heart.  The  world  has  begun  to  re-esteem 
them,  and  to  show  signs  of  feeling  a  new  conviction  of  their  beauty 
of  idea  and  their  singular  perfection  of  form.  This  is  the  day  of  the 
dramatic  in  music;  but  Mendelssohn's  expression  of  that  element  is 
not  feeble  nor  uncertain,  albeit  it  must  be  caught  rather  between 
the  lines  by  a  generation  concentrated  on  Beethoven,  Schubert, 
Schumann,  Brahms,  and  Wagner. 

Mendelssohn's  letters  are  —  like  his  music,  like  his  drawings,  like 
everything  that  he  did  —  a  faithful  and  delightful  expression  of  him- 
self. His  temperament  was  charming,  his  nature  was  sound,  his  heart 
affectionate,  and  his  appreciations  wide.  His  sense  of  humor  was 
unfailing.  He  poured  himself  out  to  his  friends  and  relations  in  his 
correspondence  in  all  his  moods,  whether  on  professional  tours  or 
stationary  in  one  city  or  another.  Every  mood,  every  shade  of  emo- 
tion, is  latent  in  his  <(  pages  of  neat,  aristocratic  chirography. »  He 
knew  everybody  of  note;  he  wrote  to  dozens  of  people  —  musical  and 
unmusical  —  regularly  and  voluminously.  His  epistolary  style  is  as 
distinct  as  his  musical  one, — what  with  its  precision  in  conveying  just 
what  came  into  his  head,  united  to  lucidity,  elegance,  finish,  a  knack 
of  making  even  a  trifling  thing  interesting;  and  showing  a  serious 
undercurrent  from  a  deeply  thoughtful  intelligence.  He  was  a  born 
letter-writer,  just  as  he  was  a  born  musician.  Those  few  volumes 
that  the  kindness  of  his  friends  has  gradually  given  to  the  world 
(for  the  original  letters  of  the  composer  have  always  been  difficult  to 
procure),  depict  his  moral  and  aesthetic  nature,  so  limpid  and  happily 
balanced,  with  an  obvious  fidelity  and  an  almost  lavish  openness. 


9888  FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

FROM  A  LETTER  TO   F.  KILLER 

LEIPZIG,  January  24th,   1836. 

NOTHING  is  more  repugnant  to  me  than  casting  blame  on  the 
nature  or  genius  of  any  one:  it  only  renders  him  irritable 
and  bewildered,  and  does  no  good.  No  man  can  add  one 
inch  to  his  stature;  in  such  a  case  all  striving  and  toiling  is  vain, 
therefore  it  is  best  to  be  silent.  Providence  is  answerable  for 
this  defect  in  his  nature.  But  if  it  be  the  case,  as  it  is  with 
this  work  of  yours,  that  precisely  those  very  themes,  and  all  that 
requires  talent  or  genius  (call  it  as  you  will),  are  excellent  and 
beautiful  and  touching,  but  the  development  not  so  good, —  then 
I  think  silence  should  not  be  observed;  then  I  think  blame  can 
never  be  unwise;  for  this  is  the  point  where  great  progress  can 
be  made  by  the  composer  himself  in  his  works;  and  as  I  believe 
that  a  man  with  fine  capabilities  has  the  absolute  duty  imposed 
on  him  of  becoming  something  really  superior,  so  I  think  that 
blame  must  be  attributed  to  him  if  he  does  not  develop  himself 
according  to  the  means  with  which  he  is  endowed.  And  I  main- 
tain that  it  is  the  same  with  a  musical  composition.  Do  not  tell 
me  that  it  is  so,  and  therefore  it  must  remain  so.  I  know  well 
that  no  musician  can  alter  the  thoughts  and  talents  which  Heaven 
has  bestowed  on  him;  but  I  also  know  that  when  Providence 
grants  him  superior  ones,  he  must  also  develop  them  properly. 


FROM  A  LETTER  TO  HERR  ADVOCAT  CONRAD  SCHLEINITZ. 

AT  LEIPZIG 

BERLIN,  August  ist,   1838. 

I  ALWAYS  think  that  whatever  an  intelligent  man  gives  his 
heart  to,  and  really  understands,  must  become  a  noble  voca- 
tion: and  I  only  personally  dislike  those  in  whom  there  is 
nothing  personal,  and  in  whom  all  individuality  disappears;  as 
for  example  the  military  profession  in  peace,  of  which  we  have 
instances  here.  But  with  regard  to  the  others  it  is  more  or  less 
untrue.  When  one  profession  is  compared  with  another,  the  one 
is  usually  taken  in  its  naked  reality,  and  the  other  in  the  most 
beautiful  ideality;  and  then  the  decision  is  quickly  made.  How 
easy  it  is  for  an  artist  to  feel  such  reality  in  his  sphere,  and  yet 
esteem  practical  men  happy  who  have  studied  and  known  the 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY  9889 

different  relations  of  men  towards  each  other,  and  who  help 
others  to  live  by  their  own  life  and  progress,  and  at  once  see  the 
fruits  of  all  that  is  tangible,  useful,  and  benevolent  instituted  by 
them!  In  one  respect  too  an  upright  man  has  the  hardest  stand 
to  make,  in  knowing  that  the  public  are  more  attracted  by  out- 
ward show  than  by  truth.  But  individual  failures  and  strife  must 
not  be  allowed  to  have  their  growth  in  the  heart:  there  must  be 
something  to  occupy  and  to  elevate  it  far  above  these  isolated 
external  things.  This  speaks  strongly  in  favor  of  my  opinion; 
for  it  is  the  best  part  of  every  calling,  and  common  to  all, — to 
yours,  to  mine,  and  to  every  other.  Where  is  it  that  you  find 
beauty  when  I  am  working  at  a  quartet  or  a  symphony  ?  Merely 
in  that  portion  of  myself  that  I  transfer  to  it,  or  can  succeed  in 
expressing;  and  you  can  do  this  in  as  full  a  measure  as  any 
man,  in  your  defense  of  a  culprit,  or  in  a  case  of  libel,  or  in  any 
one  thing  that  entirely  engrosses  you:  and  that  is  the  great  point. 
If  you  can  only  give  utterance  to  your  inmost  thoughts,  and 
if  these  inmost  thoughts  become  more  and  more  worthy  of  being 
expressed,  ...  all  the  rest  is  indifferent. 


HOURS  WITH   GOETHE,  1830 
From  the  <  Letters  from  Italy  and  Switzerland  > 

YESTERDAY  evening   I  was  at  a   party  at  Goethe's,  and  played 
alone  the  whole  evening:  the  Concert-Stuck,  the  ( Invitation 
a   la  Valse,*  and   Weber's  Polonaise  in    C,  my  three  Welsh 
pieces,  and  my  Scotch  Sonata.     It  was  over  by  ten  o'clock,  but  I 
of  course  stayed  till  twelve  o'clock,  when  we  had  all  sorts  of  fun, 
dancing  and  singing;    so  you   see   I  lead  a  most  jovial  life  here. 
The  old   gentleman    goes  to   his  room   regularly  at-  nine   o'clock, 
and  as  soon   as  he  is  gone   we  begin  our  frolics,  and  never  sep- 
arate before  midnight.    ^ 

To-morrow  my  portrait  is  to  be  finished:  a  large  black-crayon 
sketch,  and  very  like,  but  I  look  rather  sulky.  Goethe  is  so 
friendly  and  kind  to  me  that  I  don't  know  how  to  thank  him 
sufficiently,  or  what  to  do  to  deserve  it.  In  the  forenoon  he  likes 
me  to  play  to  him  the  compositions  of  the  various  great  masters, 
in  chronological  order,  for  an  hour,  and  also  tell  him  the  progress 
they  have  made;  while  he  sits  in  a  dark  corner,  like  a  Jupiter 
Tonans,  his  old  eyes  flashing  on  me.  He  did  not  wish  to  hear 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

anything  of  Beethoven's;  but  I  told  him  that  I  could  not  let  him 
off,  and  played  the  first  part  of  the  Symphony  in  C  minor.  It 
seemed  to  have  a  singular  effect  on  him :  at  first  he  said,  ((  This 
causes  no  emotion,  nothing  but  astonishment;  it  is  grandios* 
He  continued  grumbling  in  this  way,  and  after  a  long  pause  he 
began  again, — (<  It  is  very  grand,  very  wild;  it  makes  one  fear 
that  the  house  is  about  to  fall  down:  and  what  must  it  be  when 
played  by  a  number  of  men  together!"  During  dinner,  in  the 
midst  of  another  subject,  he  alluded  to  it  again.  You  know  that 
I  dine  with  him  every  day,  when  he  questions  me  very  minutely, 
and  is  always  so  gay  and  communicative  after  dinner  that  we 
generally  remain  together  alone  for  an  hour  while  he  speaks  on 
uninterruptedly. 

I  have  no  greater  pleasure  than  when  he  brings  out  engrav- 
ings and  explains  them  to  me,  or  gives  his  opinion  of  <Ernani,) 
or  Lamartine's  Elegies,  or  the  theatre,  or  pretty  girls.  He  has 
several  times  lately  invited  people;  which  he  rarely  does  now,  so 
that  most  of  the  guests  had  not  seen  him  for  a  long  time.  I 
then  play  a  great  deal,  and  he  compliments  me  before  all  these 
people,  and  *ganz  stupend*  is  his  favorite  expression.  To-day  he 
has  invited  a  number  of  Weimar  beauties  on  my  account,  because 
he  thinks  I  ought  to  enjoy  the  society  of  young  people.  If  I 
go  up  to  him  on  such  occasions,  he  says,  <(  My  young  friend,  you 
must  join  the  ladies,  and  make  yourself  agreeable  to  them."  I 
am  not  however  devoid  of  tact,  so  I  contrived  to  have  him  asked 
yesterday  whether  I  did  not  come  too  often;  but  he  growled  out 
to  Ottilie,  who  put  the  question  to  him,  that  <(he  must  now  begin 
to  speak  to  me  in  good  earnest,  for  I  had  such  clear  ideas  that 
he  hoped  to  learn  much  from  me."  I  became  twice  as  tall  in 
my  own  estimation  when  Ottilie  repeated  this  to  me.  He  said  so 
to  me  himself  yesterday:  and  when  he  declared  that  there  were 
many  subjects  he  had  at  heart  that  I  must  explain  to  him,  I 
said,  <(  Oh,  certainly ! w  but  I  thought,  « This  is  an  honor  I  can 
never  forget ;  w —  often  it  is  the  very  reverse.  FELIX. 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY  9891 

A  CORONATION   IN   PRESBURG 
From  <The  Letters  from  Italy  and  Switzerland  > 

THE  King  is  crowned  —  the  ceremony  was  wonderfully  fine. 
How  can  I  even  try  to  describe  it  to  you  ?  An  hour  hence 
we  will  all  drive  back  to  Vienna,  and  thence  I  pursue  my 
journey.  There  is  a  tremendous  uproar  under  my  windows;  and 
the  Burgher-guards  are  flocking  together,  but  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  shouting  <(  Vivat!  })  I  pushed  my  way  through  the  crowd, 
while  our  ladies  saw  everything  from  the  windows,  and  never 
can  I  forget  the  effect  of  all  this  brilliant  and  almost  fabulous 
magnificence. 

In  the  great  square  of  the  Hospitalers  the  people  were 
closely  packed  together:  for  there  the  oaths  were  to  be  taken  on 
a  platform  hung  with  cloth,  and  afterwards  the  people  were  to 
be  allowed  the  privilege  of  tearing  down  the  cloth  for  their  own 
use;  close  by  was  a  fountain  spouting  red  and  white  Hungarian 
wine.  The  grenadiers  could  not  keep  back  the  people;  one 
unlucky  hackney  coach  that  stopped  for  a  moment  was  instantly 
covered  with  men,  who  clambered  on  the  spokes  of  the  wheels, 
and  on  the  roof,  and  on  the  box,  swarming  on  it  like  ants,  so 
that  the  coachman,  unable  to  drive  on  without  becoming  a  mur- 
derer, was  forced  to  wait  quietly  where  he  was.  When  the  pro- 
cession arrived,  which  was  received  bare-headed,  I  had  the  utmost 
difficulty  in  taking  off  my  hat  and  holding  it  above  my  head: 
an  old  Hungarian  behind  me,  however,  whose  view  it  inter- 
cepted, quickly  devised  a  remedy,  for  without  ceremony  he  made 
a  snatch  at  my  unlucky  hat,  and  in  an  instant  flattened  it  to  the 
size  of  a  cap;  then  they  yelled  as  if  they  had  all  been  spitted, 
and  fought  for  the  cloth.  In  short,  they  were  a  mob;  but  my 
Magyars!  the  fellows  look  as  if  they  were  born  noblemen,  and 
privileged  to  live  at  ease,  looking  very  melancholy,  but  riding 
like  the  devil. 

When  the  procession  descended  the  hill,  first  came  the  court 
servants,  covered  with  embroidery,  the  trumpeters  and  kettle- 
drums, the  heralds  and  all  that  class;  and  then  suddenly  galloped 
along  the  street  a  mad  count,  en  pleine  carriere,  his  horse  plun- 
ging and  capering,  and  the  caparisons  edged  with  gold;  the  count 
himself  a  mass  of  diamonds,  rare  herons'  plumes,  and  velvet 
embroidery  (though  he  had  not  yet  assumed  his  state  uniform, 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

being-  bound  to  ride  so  madly  —  Count  Sandor  is  the  name  of 
this  furious  cavalier).  He  had  an  ivory  sceptre  in  his  hand  with 
which  he  urged  on  his  horse,  causing  it  each  time  to  rear  and 
to  make  a  tremendous  bound  forward. 

When  his  wild  career  was  over,  a  procession  of  about  sixty 
more  magnates  arrived,  all  in  the  same  fantastic  splendor,  with 
handsome  colored  turbans,  twisted  mustaches,  and  dark  eyes. 
One  rode  a  white  horse  covered  with  a  gold  net;  another  a  dark 
gray,  the  bridle  and  housings  studded  with  diamonds;  then  came 
a  black  charger  with  purple  cloth  caparisons.  One  magnate  was 
attired  from  head  to  foot  in  sky-blue,  thickly  embroidered  with 
gold,  a  white  turban,  and  a  long  white  dolman;  another  in  cloth 
of  gold,  with  a  purple  dolman;  each  one  more  rich  and  gaudy 
than  the  other,  and  all  riding  so  boldly  and  fearlessly,  and  with 
such  defiant  gallantry,  that  it  was  quite  a  pleasure  to  look  at 
them.  At  length  came  the  Hungarian  Guards,  with  Esterhazy 
at  their  head,  dazzling  in  gems  and  pearl  embroidery.  How  can 
I  describe  the  scene  ?  You  ought  to  have  seen  the  procession 
deploy  and  halt  in  the  spacious  square,  and  all  the  jewels  and 
bright  colors,  and  the  lofty  golden  mitres  of  the  bishops,  and  the 
crucifixes  glittering  in  the  brilliant  sunshine  like  a  thousand  stars1. 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  VENICE 
From  the  <  Letters  from  Italy  and  Switzerland  > 

IN  TREVISO  there  was  an  illumination, —  paper  lanterns  suspended 
in  every  part  of  the  great  square,  and  a  large  gaudy  trans- 
parency in  the  centre.  Some  most  lovely  girls  were  walking 
about  in  their  long  white  veils  and  scarlet  petticoats.  It  was 
quite  dark  when  we  arrived  at  Mestre  last  night,  when  we  got 
into  a  boat  and  in  a  dead  calm  gently  rowed  across  to  Venice. 
On  our  passage  thither,  where  nothing  but  water  is  to  be  seen, 
and  distant  lights,  we  saw  a  small  rock  which  stands  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea;  on  this  a  lamp  was  burning.  All  the  sailors 
took  off  their  hats  as  we  passed,  and  one  of  them  said  this  was 
the  <(  Madonna  of  Tempests, »  which  are  often  most  dangerous 
and  violent  here.  We  then  glided  quietly  into  the  great  city, 
under  innumerable  bridges,  without  sound  of  post-horns,  or  rat- 
tling of  wheels,  or  toll-keepers.  The  passage  now  became  more 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 


9893 


thronged,  and  numbers  of  ships  were  lying  near;  past  the  theatre, 
where  gondolas  in  long  rows  lie  waiting  for  their  masters,  just 
as  our  own  carriages  do  at  home;  then  into  the  great  canal,  past 
the  church  of  St.  Mark,  the  Lions,  the  palace  of  the  Doges,  and 
the  Bridge  of  Sighs.  The  obscurity  of  night  only  enhanced  my 
delight  on  hearing  the  familiar  names  and  seeing  the  dark  out- 
lines. 

And  so  I  am  actually  in  Venice!  Well,  to-day  I  have  seen 
the  finest  pictures  in  the  world,  and  have  at  last  personally 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  very  admirable  man,  whom  hitherto  I 
only  knew  by  name;  I  allude  to  a  certain  Signer  Giorgione,  an 
inimitable  artist, —  and  also  to  Pordenone,  who  paints  the  most 
noble  portraits,  both  of  himself  and  many  of  his  simple  scholars, 
in  such  a  devout,  faithful,  and  pious  spirit,  that  you  seem  to  con- 
verse with  him  and  to  feel  an  affection  for  him.  Who  would 
not  have  been  confused  by  all  this  ?  But  if  I  am  to  speak  of 
Titian  I  must  do  so  in  a  more  reverent  mood.  Till  now,  I 
never  knew  that  he  was  the  felicitous  artist  I  have  this  day  s.een 
him  to  be.  That  he  thoroughly  enjoyed  life  in  all  its  beauty  and 
fullness,  the  picture  in  Paris  proves;  but  he  has  fathomed  the 
depths  of  human  sorrow,  as  well  as  the  joys  of  heaven.  His 
glorious  ^ntombment^  and  also  the  ( Assumption,  >  fully  evince 
this.  How  Mary  floats  on  the  cloud,  while  a  waving  movement 
seems  to  pervade  the  whole  picture;  how  you  see  at  a  glance 
her  very  breathing,  her  awe,  and  piety,  and  in  short  a  thousand 
feelings, —  all  words  seem  poor  and  commonplace  in  comparison! 
The  three  angels  too,  on  the  right  of  the  picture,  are  of  the 
highest  order  of  beauty, —  pure,  serene  loveliness,  so  unconscious, 
so  bright  and  so  seraphic.  But  no  more  of  this!  or  I  must  per- 
force become  poetical, —  or  indeed  am  so  already, —  and  this  does 
not  at  all  suit  me;  but  I  shall  certainly  see  it  every  day. 

I  must  however  say  a  few  words  about  the  c  Entombment, y 
as  you  have  the  engraving.  Look  at  it,  and  think  of  me.  This 
picture  represents  the  conclusion  of  a  great  tragedy, —  so  still, 
so  grand,  and  so  acutely  painful.  Magdalene  is  supporting  Mary, . 
fearing  that  she  will  die  of  anguish;  she  endeavors  to  lead  her 
away,  but  looks  round  herself  once  more, —  evidently  wishing  to 
imprint  this  spectacle  indelibly  on  her  heart,  thinking  it  is  for 
the  last  time;  —  it  surpasses  everything;  —  and  then  the  sorrow- 
ing John,  who  sympathizes  and  suffers  with  Mary;  and  Joseph, 
who,  absorbed  in  his  piety  and  occupied  with  the  tomb,  directs 


5894  FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

and  conducts  the  whole;  and  Christ  himself,  lying  there  so  tran- 
quil, having  endured  to  the  end;  then  the  blaze  of  brilliant  color, 
and  the  gloomy  mottled  sky!  It  is  a  composition  that  speaks  to 
my  heart  and  fills  me  with  enthusiasm,  and  will  never  leave  my 
memory. 


IN  ROME:   ST.  , PETER'S 
From  the  <  Letters  from  Italy  and  Switzerland  > 

IWAS  in  St.  Peter's  to-day,  where  the  grand  solemnities  called 
the  absolutions  have  begun  for  the  Pope, —  which  last  till 
Tuesday,  when  the  Cardinals  assemble  in  conclave.  The 
building  surpasses  all  powers  of  description.  It  appears  to  me 
like  some  great  work  of.  nature, —  a  forest,  a  mass  of  rocks,  or 
something  similar;  for  I  never  can  realize  the  idea  that  it  is  the 
work  of  man.  You  strive  as  little  to  distinguish  the  ceiling  as 
the  canopy  of  heaven.  You  lose  your  way  in  St.  Peter's;  you  take 
a  walk  in  it,  and  ramble  till  you  are  quite  tired;  when  Divine 
service  is  performed  and  chanted  there,  you  are  not  aware  of  it 
till  you  come  quite  close.  The  angels  in  the  Baptistery  are  mon- 
strous giants;  the  doves,  colossal  birds  of  prey;  you  lose  all 
idea  of  measurement  with  the  eye,  or  proportion;  and  yet  who 
does  not  feel  his  heart  expand  when  standing  under  the  dome 
and  gazing  up  at  it  ?  At  present  a  monstrous  catafalque  has 
been  erected  in  the  nave  in  this  shape.*  The  coffin  is  placed  in 
the  centre  under  the  pillars;  the  thing  is  totally  devoid  of  taste, 
and  yet  it  has  a  wondrous  effect.  The  upper  circle  is  thickly 
studded  with  lights, —  so  are  all  the  ornaments;  the  lower  circle 
is  lighted  in  the  same  way,  and  over  the  coffin  hangs  a  burn- 
ing lamp,  and  innumerable  lights  are  blazing  under  the  statues. 
The  whole  structure  is  more  than  a  hundred  feet  high,  and  stands 
exactly  opposite  the  entrance.  The  guards  of  honor,  and  the 
Swiss,  march  about  in  the  quadrangle;  in  every  corner  sits  a 
cardinal  in  deep  mourning,  attended  by  his  servants,  who  hold 
large  burning  torches;  and  then  the  singing  commences  with 
responses,  in  the  simple  and  monotonous  tone  you  no  doubt 
remember.  It  is  the  only  occasion  when  there  is  any  singing 
in  the  middle  of  the  church,  and  the  effect  is  wonderful.  Those 
who  place  themselves  among  the  singers  (as  I  do)  and  watch 

*A  little  sketch  of  the  catafalque  was  inclosed  in  the  letter. 


FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY  9895 

them,  are  forcibly  impressed  by  the  scene:  for  they  all  stand 
round  a  colossal  book  from  which  they  sing,  and  this  book  is  in 
turn  lit  up  by  a  colossal  torch  that  burns  before  it;  while  the 
choir  are  eagerly  pressing  forward  in  their  vestments,  in  order  to 
see  and  to  sing  properly;  and  Baini  with  his  monk's  face,  mark- 
ing time  with  his  hand  and  occasionally  joining  in  the  chant  with 
a  stentorian  voice.  To  watch  all  these  different  Italian  faces  was 
most  interesting;  one  enjoyment  quickly  succeeds  another  here, 
and  it  is  the  same  in  their  churches,  especially  in  St.  Peter's, 
where  by  moving  a  few  steps  the  whole  scene  is  changed.  I 
went  to  the  very  furthest  end,  whence  there  was  indeed  a  won- 
derful coup  d'ceil.  Through  the  spiral  columns  of  the  high  altar, 
which  is  confessedly  as  high  as  the  palace  in  Berlin,  far  beyond 
the  space  of  the  cupola,  the  whole  mass  of  the  catafalque  was 
seen  in  diminished  perspective,  with  its  rows  of  lights,  and  num- 
bers of  small  human  beings  crowding  round  it.  When  the  music 
commences,  the  sounds  do  not  reach  the  other  end  for  a  long 
time,  but  echo  and  float  in  the  vast  space,  so  that  the  most 
singular  and  vague  harmonies  are  borne  towards  you.  If  you 
change  your  position  and  place  yourself  right  in  front  of  the 
catafalque,  beyond  the  blaze  of  light  and  the  brilliant  pageantry, 
you  have  the  dusky  cupola  replete  with  blue  vapor;  all  this  is 
quite  indescribable.  Such  is  Rome! 


A    SUNDAY  AT  FORIA 
From  the  <  Letters  from  Italy  and  Switzerland  > 

NEXT  morning,  Sunday,  the  weather  was  again  fine.  We  went 
to  Foria,  and  saw  the  people  going  to  the  cathedral  in 
their  holiday  costumes.  The  women  wore  their  well-known 
head-dress  of  folds  of  white  muslin  placed  flat  on  the  head;  the 
men  were  standing  'in  the  square  before  the  church  in  their 
bright  red  caps  gossiping  about  politics,  and  we  gradually  wound 
our  way  through  these  festal  villages  up  the  hill.  It  is  a  huge 
rugged  volcano,  full  of  fissures,  ravines,  cavities,  and  steep  preci- 
pices. The  cavities  being  used  for  wine  cellars,  they  are  filled 
with  large  casks.  Every  declivity  is  clothed  with  vines  and  fig- 
trees,  or  mulberry-trees.  Corn  grows  on  the  sides  of  the  steep 
rocks,  and  yields  more  than  one  crop  every  year.  The  ravines 
are  covered  with  ivy  and  innumerable  bright-colored  flowers  and 


9896 


FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 


herbs;  and  wherever  there  is  a  vacant  space  young  chestnut-trees 
shoot  up,  furnishing  the  most  delightful  shade.  The  last  village, 
Fontana,  lies  in  the  midst  of  verdure  and  vegetation.  As  we 
climbed  higher,  the  sky  became  overcast  and  gloomy;  and  by  the 
time  we  reached  the  most  elevated  peaks  of  the  rocks,  a  thick 
fog  had  come  on.  The  vapors  flitted  about;  and  although  the 
rugged  outlines  of  the  rocks  and  the  telegraph  and  the  cross 
stood  forth  strangely  in  the  clouds,  still  we  could  not  see  even 
the  smallest  portion  of  the  view.  Soon  afterwards  rain  com- 
menced; and  as  it  was  impossible  to  remain  and  wait  as  you  do 
on  the  Righi,  we  were  obliged  to  take  leave  of  Epomeo  without 
having  made  his  acquaintance.  We  ran  down  in  the  rain,  one 
rushing  after  the  other;  and  I  do  believe  that  we  were  scarcely 
an  hour  in  returning. 


A  VAUDOIS  WALKING  TRIP:   PAULINE 
From  the  <  Letters  from  Italy  and  Switzerland J 

AFTER  BREAKFAST. 

HEAVENS!  here  is  a  pretty  business.  My  landlady  has  just  told 
me  with  a  long  face  that  there  is  not  a  creature  in  the 
village  to  show  me  the  way  across  the  Dent,  or  to  carry 
my  knapsack,  except  a  young  girl;  the  men  being  all  at  work. 
I  usually  set  off  every  morning  very  early  and  quite  alone,  with 
my  bundle  on  my  shoulders,  because  I  find  the  guides  from  the 
inns  both  too  expensive  and  too  tiresome;  a  couple  of  hours  later 
I  hire  the  first  honest-looking  lad  I  see,  and  so  I  travel  famously 
on  foot.  I  need  not  say  how  enchanting  the  lake  and  the  road 
hither  were:  you  must  recall  for  yourself  all  the  beauties  you 
once  enjoyed  there.  The  footpath  is  in  continued  shade,  under 
walnut-trees  and  up-hill,  past  villas  and  castles,  along  the  lake 
which  glitters  through  the  foliage;  villages  everywhere,  and 
brooks  and  streams  rushing  along  from  every  nook  in  every  vil- 
lage; then  the  neat  tidy  houses, —  it  is  all  quite  too  charming, 
and  you  feel  so  fresh  and  so  free.  Here  comes  the  girl  with  her 
steeple  hat.  I  can  tell  you  she  is  vastly  pretty  into  the  bargain, 
and  her  name  is  Pauline;  she  has  just  packed  my  things  into 
her  wicker  basket.  Adieu! 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY  9897 

EVENING,   CHATEAU  D'OEX,  CANDLE-LIGHT. 

I  have  had  the  most  delightful  journey.  What  would  I  not 
give  to  procure  you  such  a  day!  But  then  you  must  first  become 
two  youths  and  be  able  to  climb  actively,  and  drink  milk  when 
the  opportunity  offered,  and  treat  with  contempt  the  intense 
heat,  the  many  rocks  in  the  way,  the  innumerable  holes  in  the 
path  and  the  still  larger  holes  in  your  boots, —  and  I  fear  you 
are  rather  too  dainty  for  this;  but  it  was  most  lovely!  I  shall 
never  forget  my  journey  with  Pauline:  she  is  one  of  the  nicest 
girls  I  ever  met, —  so  pretty  and  healthy-looking,  and  naturally 
intelligent;  she  told  me  anecdotes  about  her  village,  and  I  in  re- 
turn told  her  about  Italy:  but  I  know  who  was  the  most  amused. 

The  previous  Sunday,  all  the  young  people  of  distinction  in 
her  village  had  gone  to  a  place  far  across  the  mountain,  to  dance 
there  in  the  afternoon.  They  set  off  shortly  after  midnight, 
arrived  while  it  was  still  dark,  lighted  a  large  fire,  and  made 
coffee.  Towards  morning  the  men  had  running  and  wrestling 
matches  before  the  ladies  (we  passed  a  broken  hedge  testifying 
to  the  truth  of  this) ;  then  they  danced,  and  were  at  home  again 
by  Sunday  evening,  and  early  on  Monday  morning  they  all  re- 
sumed their  labors  in  the  vineyards.  By  Heavens!  I  felt  a  strong 
inclination  to  become  a  Vaudois  peasant  while  I  was  listening 
to  Pauline,  when  from  above  she  pointed  out  to  me  the  villages 
where  they  dance  when  the  cherries  are  ripe,  and  others  where 
they  dance  when  the  cows  go  to  pasture  in  the  meadows  and 
give  milk.  To-morrow  they  are  to  dance  in  St.  Gingolph;  they 
row  across  the  lake,  and  any  one  who  can  play  takes  his  instru- 
ment with  him:  but  Pauline  is  not  to  be  of  the  party,  because 
her  mother  will  not  allow  it,  from  dread  of  the  wide  lake;  and 
many  other  girls  also  do  not  go  for  the  same  reason,  as  they  all 
cling  together. 

She  then  asked  my  leave  to  say  good-day  to  a  cousin  of  hers, 
and  ran  down  to  a  neat  cottage  in  the  meadow;  soon  the  two 
girls  came  out  together  and  sat  on  a  bench  and  chattered;  on 
the  Col  de  Jaman  above,  I  saw  her  relations  busily  mowing,  and 
herding  the  cows. 

What  cries  and  shouts  ensued!  Then  those  above  began  to 
jodel,  on  which  they  all  laughed.  I  did  not  understand  one 
syllable  of  their  patois,  except  the  beginning,  which  was  "Adieu, 
Pierrot ! }>  All  these  sounds  were  taken  up  by  a  merry  mad  echo, 
that  shouted  and  laughed  and  jodeled  too.  Towards  noon  we 


9898  FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

arrived  at  Alliere.  When  I  had  rested  for  a  time,  I  once  more 
shouldered  my  knapsack,  for  a  fat  old  man  provoked  me  by 
offering  to  carry  it  for  me;  then  Pauline  and  I  shook  hands  and 
we  took  leave  of  each  other.  I  descended  into  the  meadows: 
and  if  you  do  not  care  about  Pauline,  or  if  I  have  bored  you 
with  her,  it  is  not  my  fault,  but  that  of  the  mode  in  which  1 
have  described  her;  nothing  could  be  more  pleasant  in  reality, 
and  so  was  my  further  journey.  I  came  to  a  cherry  orchard, 
where  the  people  were  gathering  the  fruit;  so  I  lay  down  on  the 
grass  and  ate  cherries  for  a  time  along  with  them.  I  took  my 
midday  rest  at  Latine  in  a  clean  wooden  house.  The  carpenter 
who  built  it  gave  me  his  company  to  some  roast  lamb,  and 
pointed  out  to  me  with  pride  every  table  and  press  and  chair. 

At  length  I  arrived  here,  at  night,  through  dazzling  green 
meadows,  interspersed  with  houses,  surrounded  by  fir-trees  and 
rivulets;  the  church  here  stands  on  a  velvet-green  eminence; 
more  houses  in  the  distance,  and  still  further  away,  huts  and 
rocks;  and  in  a  ravine,  patches  of  snow  still  lying  on  the  plain. 
It  is  one  of  those  idyllic  spots  such  as  we  have  seen  together  in 
Wattwyl,  but  the  village  smaller  and  the  mountains  more  green 
and  lofty.  I  must  conclude,  however,  to-day  by  a  high  eulogy  on 
the  Canton  de  Vaud.  Of  all  the  countries  I  know,  this  is  the 
most  beautiful,  and  it  is  the  spot  where  I  should  most  like  to 
live  when  I  become  really  old:  the  people  are  so  contented  and 
look  so  well,  and  the  "country  also.  Coming  from  Italy,  it  is  quite 
touching  to  see  the  honesty  that  still  exists  in  the  world, — happy 
faces,  a  total  absence  of  beggars  or  saucy  officials:  in  short,  there 
is  the  most  complete  contrast  between  the  two  nations.  I  thank 
God  for  having  created  so  much  that  is  beautiful;  and  may  it  be 
his  gracious  will  to  permit  us  all,  whether  in  Berlin,  England,  or 
in  the  Chateau  d'Oex,  to  enjoy  a  happy  evening  and  a  tranquil 
night  5 

A  CRITICISM 
From  a  Letter  to  his  Sister,  of  September  2d,  1831 

r-pELL  me,    Fanny,  do  you  know  Auber's  (  Parisienne )  ?     I  con- 
sider it  the  very  worst  thing  he  has  ever  produced;  perhaps 
because  the  subject  was  really  sublime,   and  for  other  rea- 
sons also.     Auber  alone  could  have  been  guilty  of  composing  for 
a  great  nation,  in  the  most   violent   state  of  excitement,  a  cold, 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 

insignificant  piece,  quite  commonplace  and  trivial.  The  refrain 
revolts  me  every  time  I  think  of  it:  it  is  as  if  children  were 
playing  with  a  drum,  and  singing  to  it  —  only  more  objectionable. 
The  words  also  are  worthless:  little  antitheses  and  points  are 
quite  out  of  place  here.  Then  the  emptiness  of  the  music!  a 
march  for  acrobats,  and  at  the  end  a  mere  miserable  imitation 
of  the  (  Marseillaise. }  Woe  to  us  if  it  be  indeed  what  suits  this 
epoch, —  if  a  mere  copy  of  the  ( Marseillaise  Hymn>  be  all  that 
is  required.  What  in  the  latter  is  full  of  fire  and  spirit  and 
impetus,  is  in  the  former  ostentatious,  cold,  calculated,  and  arti- 
ficial'. The  ( Marseillaise  y  is  as  superior  to  the  ( Parisienne >  as 
everything  produced  by  genuine  enthusiasm  must  be  to  what  is 
made  for  a  purpose,  even  if  it  be  with  a  view  to  promote  enthu- 
siasm: it  will  never  reach  the  heart,  because  it  does  not  come 
from  the  heart. 

By  the  way,  I  never  saw  such  a  striking  identity  between 
a  poet  and  a  musician  as  between  Auber  and  Clauren.  Auber 
faithfully  renders  note  for  note  what  the  other  writes  word  for 
word, —  braggadocio,  degrading  sensuality,  pedantry,  epicurism, 
and  parodies  of  foreign  nationality.  But  why  should  Clauren  be 
effaced  from  the  literature  of  the  day  ?  Is  it  prejudicial  to  any 
one  that  he  should  remain  where  he  is  ?  and  do  you  read  what  is 
really  good  with  less  interest  ?  Any  young  poet  must  indeed  be 
degenerate,  if  he  does  not  cordially  hate  and  despise  such  trash: 
but  it  is  only  too  true  that  the  people  like  him;  so  it  is  all  very 
well  —  it  is  only  the  people's  loss.  Write  me  your  opinion  of  the 
( Parisienne^  I  sometimes  sing  it  to  myself  as  I  go  along:  it 
makes  a  man  walk  like  a  chorister  in  a  procession. 


9900 


CATULLE  MENDfeS 

(1843-1909) 

|HE  writings  of  Catulle  Mendes  are  representative  of  the 
cameo-art  in  literature.  His  little  stories  and  sketches  are 
of  a  dainty  and  polished  workmanship,  and  of  minute,  com- 
plex design.  The  French  faculty  of  attaining  perfection  in  miniature 
was  his  to  a  high  degree.  He  was  born  in  Bordeaux  in  1843,  and  in 
1860  he  began  writing  for  the  reviews.  His  short  tales  were  written 
with  exquisite  nonchalance  of  style;  but  underneath  their  graceful 
lightness  there  are  not  wanting  signs  of  a  deep  insight  into  human 

nature,  and  into  life's  little  ironies.  The 
pretty  stories,  so  delicately  constructed,  hint 
of  a  more  serious  intention  in  their  fram- 
ing than  merely  to  amuse.  (The  Mirror* 
might  be  read  to  nursery  children  and  to 
an  audience  of  sages  with  equal  pertinence. 
The  <  Man  of  Letters  >  condenses  the  experi- 
ence of  a  thousand  weary  writers  into  a  few 
paragraphs.  In  the  pastoral  of  vagabond 
Philip  and  the  little  white  goat  with  gilded 
horns,  there  is  all  the  fragrance  of  the 
country  and  of  a  wandering  outdoor  life. 
< Charity  Rewarded*  embodies  the  unique 
quality  of  Mendes  in  its  perfection.  He  was 
able  to  put  a  world  of  meaning  into  a 

phrase,  as  when  he  wrote  that  the  pretty  lasses  and  handsome  lads 
did  not  see  the  beggar  at  the  roadside  because  they  were  occupied 
«  with  singing  and  with  love."  Sometimes  he  put  a  landscape  into 
a  sentence,  as  when  Philip  in  the  country  hears  (<  noon  rung  out  from 
a  slender  steeple. » 

Mendes  was  a  poet  as  well  as  a  writer  of  stories.  It  should  be  said, 
however,  that  much  that  he  produced  in  later  years  did  not  represent 
his  higher  gifts.  Catulle  Mendes  died  on  Februry  8,  1909. 


CATULLE  MENDES 


CATULLE   MENDES  9901 

THE   FOOLISH  WISH 
From  the  <Contes  du  Rouet> 

BAREFOOT,  his  hair  blowing  in  the  wind,  a  vagabond  was  pass- 
ing along  the  way  before  the  King's  palace.  Very  young, 
he  was  very  handsome,  with  his  golden  curls,  his  great 
black  eyes,  and  his  mouth  fresh  as  a  rose  after  rain.  As  if  the 
sun  had  taken  pleasure  in  looking  at  him,  there  was  more  joy 
and  light  on  his  rags  than  on  the  satins,  velvets,  and  brocades 
of  the  gentlemen  and  noble  ladies  grouped  in  the  court  of  honor. 

<(  Oh,  how  pretty  she  is ! })  he  exclaimed,  suddenly  stopping. 

He  had  discovered  the  princess  Rosalind,  who  was  taking  the 
fresh  air  at  her  window;  and  indeed  it  would  be  impossible  to 
see  anything  on  earth  as  pretty  as  she.  Motionless,  with  arms 
lifted  toward  the  casement  as  toward  an  opening  in  the  sky 
which  revealed  Paradise,  he  would  have  stayed  there  until  even- 
ing if  a  guard  had  not  driven  him  off  with  a  blow  of  his  par- 
tisan, with  hard  words. 

He  went  away  hanging  his  head.  It  seemed  to  him  now  that 
everything  was  dark  before  him,  around  him, — the  horizon,  the 
road,  the  blossoming  trees.  Now  that  he  no  longer  saw  Rosa- 
lind he  thought  the  sun  was  dead.  He  sat  down  under  an  oak 
on  the  edge  of  the  wood,  and  began  to  weep. 

(( Well,  my  child,  why  are  you  sorrowing  thus  ? }>  asked  an 
old  woman  who  came  out  of  the  wood,  her  back  bowed  under 
a  heap  of  withered  boughs. 

<(  What  good  would  it  do  me  to  tell  you  ?  You  can't  do  any- 
thing for  me,  good  woman. w 

<(  In  that  you  are  mistaken, w  said  the  old  woman. 

At  the  same  time  she  drew  herself  up,  throwing  away  her 
bundle.  She  was  no  longer  an  old  forester,  but  a  fairy  beautiful 
as  the  day,  clad  in  a  silver  robe,  her  hair  garlanded  with  flowers 
of  precious  stones.  As  to  the  withered  boughs,  they  had  taken 
flight,  covering  themselves  with  green  leaves;  and  returned  to 
the  trees  from  which  they  had  fallen,  shaken  with  the  song  of 
birds. 

<(O  Madame  Fairy!"  said  the  vagabond,  throwing  himself  on 
his  knees,  <(  have  pity  on  my  misfortune.  Since  seeing  the  King's 
daughter,  who  was  taking  the  fresh  air  at  her  window,  my  heart 
is  no  longer  my  own.  I  feel  that  I  shall  never  love  any  other 
woman  but  her." 


CATULLE   MENDES 

(<  Good !  w  said  the  fairy :   (<  that's  no  great  misfortune. w 

"Could  there  be  a  greater  one  for  me?  I  shall  die  if  I  do 
not  become  the  princess's  husband. w 

<(  What  hinders  you  ?     Rosalind  is  not  betrothed. J> 

<(  O  madame,  look  at  my  rags,  my  bare  feet.  I  am  a  poor 
boy  who  begs  along  the  way." 

"Never  mind!  He  who  loves  sincerely  cannot  fail  to  be 
loved.  That  is  the  happy  eternal  law.  The  King  and  Queen 
will  repulse  you  with  contempt,  the  courtiers  will  make  you  a 
laughing-stock:  but  if  your  love  is  genuine,  Rosalind  will  be 
touched  by  it;  and  some  evening  when  you  have  been  driven  off 
by  the  servants  and  worried  by  the  dogs,  she  will  come  to  you 
blushing  and  happy. }> 

The  boy  shook  his  head.  He  did  not  believe  that  such  a 
miracle  was  possible. 

<(  Take  care ! >y  continued  the  fairy.  <(  Love  does  not  like  to 
have  his  power  doubted,  and  you  might  be  punished  in  some 
cruel  fashion  for  your  little  faith.  However,  since  you  are  suf- 
fering, I  am  willing  to  help  you.  Make  a  wish:  I  will  grant  it.* 

<(  I  wish  to  be  the  most  powerful  prince  on  the  earth,  so  that 
I  can  marry  the  princess  whom  I  adore. )} 

<(Ah!  Why  don't  you  go  without  any  such  care,  and  sing  a 
love  song  under  her  window  ?  But  as  I  have  promised,  you  shall 
have  your  desire.  But  I  must  warn  you  of  one  thing:  when  you 
have  ceased  to  be  what  you  are  now,  no  enchanter,  no  fairy  — 
not  even  I  —  can  restore  you  to  your  first  state.  Once  a  prince, 
you  will  be  one  for  always. >} 

(<  Do  you  think  that  the  royal  husband  of  Princess  Rosalind 
will  ever  want  to  go  and  beg  his  bread  on  the  roads  ? >} 

(<  I  wish  you  happiness, >}  said  the  fairy  with  a  sigh. 

Then  with  a  golden  wand  she  touched  his  shoulder;  and  in 
a  sudden  metamorphosis,  the  vagabond  became  a  magnificent 
lord,  sparkling  with  silk  and  jewels,  astride  a  Hungarian  steed, 
at  the  head  of  a  train  of  plumed  courtiers,  and  of  warriors  in 
golden  armor  who  sounded  trumpets. 

So  great  a  prince  was  not  to  be  ill  received  at  court.  They 
gave  him  a  most  cordial  welcome.  For  a  whole  week  there  were 
carousals,  and  balls,  and  all  kinds  of  festivities  in  his  honor. 
But  these  pleasures  did  not  absorb  him.  Every  hour  of  the  day 
and  night  he  thought  of  Rosalind.  When  he  saw  her  he  felt 
his  heart  overflow  with  delight.  When  she  spoke  he  thought  he 


CATULLE  MENDES 

heard  divine  music;  and  once  he  almost  swooned  with  joy  when 
he  gave  her  his  hand  to  dance  a  pavan.  One  thing  vexed  him 
a  little:  she  whom  he  loved  so  much  did  not  seem  to  heed  the 
pains  he  took  for  her.  She  usually  remained  silent  and  melan- 
choly. He  persisted,  nevertheless,  in  his  plan  of  asking  her 
in  marriage;  and  naturally  Rosalind's  parents  took  care  not  to 
refuse  so  illustrious  a  match.  Thus  the  former  vagabond  was 
about  to  possess  the  most  beautiful  princess  in  the  world!  Such 
extraordinary  felicity  so  agitated  him  that  he  responded  to  the 
King's  consent  by  gestures  hardly  compatible  with  his  rank,  and 
a  little  more  and  he  would  have  danced  the  pavan  all  alone 
before  the  whole  court.  Alas!  this  great  joy  had  only  a  short 
duration.  Hardly  had  Rosalind  been  informed  of  the  paternal 
will,  when  she  fell  half  dead  into  the  arms  of  her  maids  of 
honor;  and  when  she  came  to,  it  was  to  say,  sobbing  and  wring- 
ing  her  hands,  that  she  did  not  want  to  marry,  that  she  would 
rather  kill  herself  than  wed  the  prince. 

More  despairing  than  can  be  expressed,  the  unhappy  lover 
precipitated  himself  in  spite  of  etiquette  into  the  room  where 
the  princess  had  been  carried;  and  fell  on  his  knees,  with  arms 
stretched  toward  her. 

<(  Cruel'  girl ! »  he  cried :  <(  take  back  the  words  which  are  kill- 
ing me!" 

She  slowly  opened  her  eyes,  and  answered  languidly  yet 
firmly :  — 

<(  Prince,  nothing  can  overcome  my  resolve :  I  will  never 
marry  you.* 

"What!  you  have  the  barbarity  to  lacerate  a  heart  which  is 
all  your  own?  What  crime  have  I  committed  to  deserve  such  a 
punishment  ?  Do  you  doubt  my  love  ?  Do  you  fear  that  some 
day  I  may  cease  to  adore  you  ?  Ah !  if  you  could  read  within 
me,  you  would  no  longer  have  this  doubt  nor  these  fears.  My 
passion  is  so  ardent  that  it  renders  me  worthy  even  of  your 
incomparable  beauty.  And  if  you  will  not  be  moved  by  my 
complaints,  I  will  find  only  in  death  a  remedy  for  my  woes! 
Restore  me  to  hope,  princess,  or  I  will  go  to  die  at  your  feet." 

He  did  not  end  his  discourse  there.  He  said  everything  that 
the  most  violent  grief  can  teach  a  loving  heart;  so  that  Rosalind 
was  touched,  but  not  as  he  wished. 

t(  Unhappy  prince, »  she  said,  (<if  my  pity  instead  of  my 
love  can  be  a  consolation  to  you,  I  willingly  grant  it.  I  have  as 


99o4 


CATULLE   MENDES 


much  reason  to  complain  as  you;  since  I  myself  am  enduring 
the  torments  which  are  wringing  you." 

*  What  do  you  mean,   princess  ? }> 

<(Alas!  if  I  refuse  to  marry  you,  it  is  because  I  love  with  a 
hopeless  love  a  young  vagabond  with  bare  feet  and  hair  blowing 
in  the  wind,  who  passed  my  father's  palace  one  day  and  looked 
at  me,  and  who  has  never  come  back ! w 


THE   SLEEPING  BEAUTY 
From  the  <Contes  du  Rouet> 

IT  is  not  alone  history  which  is  heedlessly  written,  but  legend 
as  well;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  most  conscien- 
tious and  best-informed  story-tellers  —  Madame  d'Aulnoy,  good 
Perrault  himself — have  frequently  related  things  in  not  exactly 
the  fashion  in  which  they  happened  in  fairyland.  For  example, 
Cinderella's  eldest  sister  did  not  wear  to  the  prince's  ball  a  red 
velvet  dress  with  English  garniture,  as  has  been  hitherto  sup- 
posed: she  had  a  scarlet  robe  embroidered  with  silver  and  laced 
with  gold.  Among  the  monarchs  of  all  the  countries  invited 
to  the  wedding  of  Peau  d'Ane  some  indeed  did  come  in  sedan 
chairs,  others  in  cabs,  the  most  distant  mounted  on  eagles,  tigers, 
or  elephants;  but  they  have  omitted  to  tell  us  that  the  King 
of  Mataguin  entered  the  palace  court  between  the  wings  of  a 
monster  whose  nostrils  emitted  flames  of  precious  stones.  And 
don't  think  to  catch  me  napping  by  demanding  how  and  by 
whom  I  was  enlightened  upon  these  important  points.  I  used  to 
know,  in  a  cottage  on  the  edge  of  a  field,  a  very  old  woman; 
old  enough  to  be  a  fairy,  and  whom  I  always  suspected  of  being 
one.  As  I  used  to  go  sometimes  and  keep  her  company  when 
she  was  warming  herself  in  the  sun  before  her  little  house,  she 
took  me  into  friendship;  and  a  few  days  before  she  died, —  or 
returned,  her  expiation  finished,  to  the  land  of  Vivians  and 
Melusinas, —  she  made  me  a  farewell  gift  of  a  very  old  and 
very  extraordinary  spinning-wheel.  For  every  time  the  wheel  is 
turned  it  begins  to  talk  or  to  sing  in  a  soft  little  voice,  like  that 
of  a  grandmother  who  is  cheerful  and  chatters.  It  tells  many 
pretty  stories:  some  that  nobody  knows;  others  that  it  knows 
better  than  any  one  else;  and  in  this  last  case,  as  it  does  not 
lack  malice,  it  delights  to  point  out  and  to  rectify  the  mistakes  of 
those  who  have  taken  upon  themselves  to  write  these  accounts. 


CATULLE   MENDES 


9905 


You  will  see  that  I  had  something  to  learn,  and  you  would 
be  very  much  astonished  if  I  were  to  tell  you  all  that  has  been 
revealed  to  me.  Now  you  think  you  know  all  the  details  ot 
the  story  of  the  princess,  who  having  pierced  her  hand  with  a 
spindle,  fell  into  a  sleep  so  profound  that  no  one  could  wake 
her;  and  who  lay  in  a  castle  in  the  midst  of  a  park,  on  a  bed 
embroidered  with  gold  and  silver.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  you 
know  nothing  at  all  about  it,  or  else  that  you  are  much  mistaken 
as  to  the  end  of  this  accident;  and  you  will  never  know  if  I  do 
not  make  it  my  duty  to  inform  you. 

Yes,  yes, —  hummed  the  Wheel, —  the  princess  had  been  sleep- 
ing for  a  hundred  years,  when  a  young  prince,  impelled  by  love 
and  by  glory,  resolved  to  penetrate  to  her  and  to  waken  her. 
The  great  trees,  the  thorns  and  brambles,  drew  aside  of  their 
own  accord  to  let  him  pass.  .  He  walked  toward  the  castle,  which 
he  saw  at  the  end  of  a  broad  avenue;  he  entered;  and  what 
surprised  him  a  little,  none  of  his  company  had  been  able  to  fol- 
low him,  because  the  trees  had  grown  together  again  as  soon  as 
he  had  passed.  At  last,  when  he  had  crossed  several  courts  paved 
with  marble, —  where  porters  with  pimpled  noses  and  red  faces 
were  sleeping  beside  their  cups,  in  which  were  remaining  a  few 
drops  of  wine,  which  showed  plainly  enough  that  they  had  gone 
to  sleep  while  drinking;  when  he  had  traversed  long  vestibules 
and  climbed  staircases  where  the  guards  were  snoring,  his  car- 
bine on  his  shoulder,  —  he  finally  found  himself  in  a  gilded 
room,  and  saw  on  a  bed  with  open  curtains  the  most  beautiful 
sight  he  had  ever  beheld, —  a  princess  who  seemed  about  fifteen 
or  sixteen,  and  whose  resplendent  beauty  had  something  lumi- 
nous and  divine. 

I  grant  that  things  happened  in  this  way.  —  it  is  the  Wheel 
who  is  speaking, —  and  up  to  this  point  the  author  has  not  been 
audaciously  false.  But  nothing  is  more  untrue  than  the  rest  of 
the  tale;  and  I  cannot  admit  that  the  awakened  Beauty  looked 
lovingly  at  the  prince,  or  that  she  said  to  him,  (<  Is  it  you  ?  you 
have  kept  me  waiting  a  long  time." 

If  you  want  to  know  the  truth,  listen. 

The  princess  stretched  her  arms,  raised  her  head  a  little,  half 
opened  her  eyes,  closed  them  as  if  afraid  of  the  light,  and  sighed 
long,  while  Puff  her  little  dog,  also  awakened,  yelped  with  rage. 

"What  has  happened  ? w  asked  the  fairy's  goddaughter  at  last; 
<(and  what  do  they  want  of  me?* 


9906 


CATULLE  MENDES 


The  prince  on  his  knees  exclaimed:  — 

<(He  who  has  come  is  he  who  adores  you,  and  who  has  braved 
the  greatest  dangers  »  (he  flattered  himself  a  little)  <(to  draw  you 
from  the  enchantment  in  which  you  were  captive.  Leave  this 
bed  where  you  have  been  sleeping  for  a  hundred  years,  give  me 
your  hand,  and  let  us  go  back  together  into  brightness  and  life.* 

Astonished  at  these  words,  she  considered  him,  and  could  not 
help  smiling;  for  he  was  a  very  well  made  young  prince,  with 
the  most  beautiful  eyes  in  the  world,  and  he  spoke  in  a  very 
melodious  voice. 

"So  it  is  true,"  she  said,  pushing  back  her  hair:  <(the  hour  is 
come  when  I  can  be  delivered  from  my  long,  long  sleep?* 

"  Yes,  you  can. }> 

«Ah!»    said  she. 

And  she  thought.     Then  she  went  on:  — 

"What  will  happen  to  me  if  I  come  out  of  the  shadows,  if  1 
return  among  the  living  ? » 

<(  Can't  you  guess  ?  Have  you  forgotten  that  you  are  the 
daughter  of  a  king  ?  You  will  see  your'  people  hastening  to  wel- 
come you,  charmed,  uttering  cries  of  pleasure,  and  waving  gay 
banners.  The  women  and  children  will  kiss  the  hem  of  your 
gown.  In  short,  you  will  be  the  most  powerful,  most  honored 
queen  in  the  world. )} 

(<  I  shall  like  to  be  queen, w  she  said.  "What  else  will  happen 
to  me  ? » 

"You  will  live  in  a  palace  bright  as  gold;  and  ascending 
the  steps  to  your  throne,  you  will  tread  upon  mosaics  of  dia- 
monds. The  courtiers  grouped  about  you  will  sing  your  praises. 
The  most  august  brows  will  incline  under  the  all-powerful  grace 
of  your  smile." 

"  To  be  praised  and  obeyed  will  be  charming, "  she  said. 
"  Shall  I  have  other  pleasures  ? " 

<(  Maids  of  honor  as  skillful  as  the  fairies.  Your  godmothers 
will  dress  you  in  robes  the  color  of  moon  and  sun.  They  will 
powder  your  hair,  put  tiny  black  patches  at  the  brink  of  your 
eye  or  at  the  corner  of  your  mouth.  You  will  have  a  grand 
golden  mantle  trailing  after  you." 

"Good!"  she  said.     <(  I  was  always  a  little  coquettish." 

"  Pages  as  pretty  as  birds  will  offer  you  dishes  of  the  most 
delicious  sweetmeats,  will  pour  in  your  cup  the  sweet  wines  which 
are  so  fragrant. w 


CATULLE  MENDES 

<(That  is  very  fine,"  she  said.     <(  I  was  always  a  little  greedy 
Will  those  be  all  of  my  joys  ? " 

<( Another  delight,  the  greatest  of  all,  awaits  you." 

«Ah!   what?" 

<(  You  will  be  loved. " 

«By  whom?" 

(<  By  me !  —  Unless  you  think  me  unworthy  to  claim  your  af- 
fection. " 

(<  You  are  a  fine-looking  prince;  and  your  costume  is  very 
becoming. " 

(<  If  you  deign  not  to  repel  my  prayers,  I  will  give  you  my 
whole  heart  for  another  kingdom  of  which  you  shall  be  sovereign; 
and  I  will  never  cease  to  be  the  grateful  slave  of  your  cruelest 
caprices. " 

(< Ah !   what  happiness  you  promise  me !  " 

(<  Rise  then,  sweetheart,  and  follow  me. " 

«  Follow  you  ?  Already  ?  Wait  a  little.  I  must  reflect.  There 
is  doubtless  more  than  one  tempting  thing  among  all  that  you 
offer  me;  but  do  you  know  if  I  may  not  have  to  leave  better  in 
order  to  obtain  it  ?  " 

(<  What  do  you  mean,  princess  ?  " 

<(  I  have  been  sleeping  for  a  century,  it  is  true ;  but  I  have 
been  dreaming  too,  for  a  century.  In  my  dreams  I  am  also  a 
queen,  and  of  what  a  divine  kingdom!  My  palace  has  walls  of 
light.  I  have  angels  for  courtiers,  who  celebrate  me  in  music  of 
infinite  sweetness.  I  tread  on  branches  of  stars.  If  you  knew 
what  beautiful  dresses  I  wear,  the  peerless  fruits  I  have  on  my 
table,  and  the  honey  wines  in  which  I  moisten  my  lips!  As  for 
love,  believe  me,  I  don't  lack  that  either;  for  I  am  adored  by  a 
husband  who  is  handsomer  than  all  the  princes  of  the  earth,  and 
who  has  been  faithful  for  a  hundred  years.  Everything  con- 
sidered, I  think,  my  lord,  that  I  should  gain  nothing  by  coming 
out  of  my  enchantment.  Please  let  me  sleep. " 

Thereupon  she  turned  toward  the  side  of  the  bed,  drew  her 
hair  over  her  eyes,  and  resumed  her  long  nap;  while  Puff  the 
little  dog  stopped  yelping,  content,  her  nose  on  her  paws. 

The  prince  went  away  much  abashed.  And  since  then,  thanks 
to  the  protection  of  the  good  fairies,  no  one  has  come  to  disturb 
the  slumbers  of  the  Sleeping  Beauty. 


9908  CATULLE   MENDES 

THE  CHARITY   OF   SYMPATHY 
From  <The  Humor  of  France  > 

ON  THE  Spanish  high-road,  where  the  pretty  lasses  and  the 
handsome  lads  arm-in-arm  were  returning1  from  the  Cor- 
rida, a  young  beggar,  wrapped  in  his  ragged  cloak,  asked 
alms,  saying  he  had  eaten  nothing  for  two  days.  Judging  from 
his  miserable  appearance  and  his  hollow  cheeks,  it  was  plain  he 
did  not  lie.  However,  no  one  took  any  heed  of  him,  occupied 
as  they  were  with  singing  and  love.  Must  he  be  left  to  die  of 
hunger,  the  handsome  beggar,  by  the  roadside  ? 

But  three  girls  of  twenty  years,  plump,  laughing,  stopped  and 
took  pity  on  him. 

The  first  gave  him  a  real. 

« Thank  you,"  he  said. 

The  second  gave  him  a  smaller  coin. 

<(May  God  reward  you,"  he  said. 

The  third  —  the  poorest  and  the  prettiest — had  neither  small 
coins  nor  reals;  she  gave  him  a  kiss.  The  starving  man  spoke 
never  a  word;  but  a  flower-seller  happening  to  come  by,  he 
spent  all  the  money  they  had  just  given  him  on  a  big  bunch  of 
roses,  and  presented  it  to  the  pretty  girl. 

Translated  by  Elizabeth  Lee. 


THE  MIRROR 
From  (The  Humor  of  France* 

IT  WAS  in  a  kingdom  in  which  there  was  no  mirror.  All  the 
mirrors  —  those  you  hang  on  the  walls,  those  you  hold  in 
your  hand,  those  you  carry  on  the  chatelaine  —  had  been 
broken,  reduced  to  the  tiniest  bits  by  order  of  the  Queen.  If  the 
smallest  glass  was  found,  no  matter  in  what  house,  she  never 
failed  to  put  the  inhabitants  to  death  with  terrible  tortures.  I 
can  tell  you  the  motives  of  the  strange  caprice.  Ugly  to  a 
degree  that  the  worst  monsters  would  have  seemed  charming 
beside  her,  the  Queen  did  not  wish  when  she  went  about  the 
town  to  run  the  risk  of  encountering  her  reflection;  and  knowing 
herself  to  be  hideous,  it  was  a  consolation  to  her  to  think  that 
others  at  least  could  not  see  their  beauty.  What  was  the  good 


CATULLE   MENDES 


9909 


of  having  the  most  beautiful  eyes  in  the  world,  a  mouth  as  fresh 
as  roses,  and  of  putting  flowers  in  your  hair,  if  you  could  not  see 
your  head-dress,  nor  your  mouth,  nor  your  eyes  ?  You  could  not 
even  count  on  your  reflection  in  the  brooks  and  lakes.  The 
rivers  and  ponds  of  the  country  had  been  hidden  under  deftly 
joined  slabs  of  stone;  water  was  drawn  from  wells  so  deep  that 
you  could  not  see  their  surface,  and  not  in  pails  in  which  reflec- 
tion would  have  been  possible,  but  in  almost  flat  troughs.  The 
grief  was  beyond  anything  you  can  imagine,  especially  among  the 
coquettes,  who  were  not  rarer  in  that  country  than  in  others. 
And  the  Queen  did  not  pity  them  at  all;  but  was  well  content 
that  her  subjects  should  be  as  unhappy  at  not  seeing  themselves 
as  she  would  have  been  furious  at  sight  of  herself. 

However,  there  was  in  a  suburb  of  the  town  a  young  girl 
called  Jacinthe,  who  was  not  quite  so  miserable  as  the  rest,  be- 
cause of  a  lover  she  had.  Some  one  who  finds  you  beautiful,  and 
never  tires  of  telling  you  so,  can  take  the  place  of  a  mirror. 

(<  What,  truly  ? }>  she  asked,  (<  there  is  nothing  unpleasant  in 
the  color  of  my  eyes  ? J> 

<(  They  are  like  corn-flowers  in  which  a  clear  drop  of  amber 
has  fallen.* 

«My  skin  isn't  black  ?» 

<(  Know  that  your  brow  is  purer  than  snow  crystals ;  know  that 
your  cheeks  are  like  roses  fair  yet  pink ! }> 

« What  must  I  think  of  my  lips  ?  » 

<(  That  they  are  like  a  ripe  raspberry. w 

(<And  what  of  my  teeth,  if  you  please  ? w 

"That  grains  of  rice,  however  fine,  are  not  as  white. w 

<(  But  about  my  ears,  haven't  I  reason  for  disquiet  ? }) 

(<Yes,  if  it  disquiets  you  to  have  in  a  tangle  of  light  hair,  two 
little  shells  as  intricate  as  newly  opened  violets. }) 

Thus  they  talked, —  she  charmed,  he  more  ravished  still;  for 
he  did  not  say  a  word  which  was  not  the  very  truth.  All  that 
she  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  praised,  he  had  the  delight  of  see- 
ing. So  their  mutual  tenderness  grew  livelier  from  hour  to  hour. 
The  day  he  asked  if  she  would  consent  to  have  him  for  her  hus- 
band, she  blushed,  but  certainly  not  from  fear;  people  who  seeing 
her  smile  might  have  thought  she  was  amusing  herself  with  the 
thought  of  saying  no,  would  have  been  much  mistaken.  The 
misfortune  was,  that  the  news  of  the  engagement  came  to  the 
ears  of  the  wicked  Queen,  whose  only  joy  was  to  trouble  that  of 


99 10  CATULLE  MENDES 

others;  and  she  hated  Jacinthe  more  than  all,  because  she  was 
the  most  beautiful  of  all. 

Walking  one  day,  a  short  time  before  the  wedding1,  in  the 
orchard,  an  old  woman  approached  Jacinthe  asking  alms;  then 
suddenly  fell  back  with  a  shriek,  like  some  one  who  has  nearly 
trodden  on  a  toad. 

(<Ah,  heaven!   what  have  I  seen?" 

<(  What's  the  matter,  my  good  woman,  and  what  have  you 
seen  ?  Speak. " 

"The  ugliest  thing  on  the  face  of  the  earth.0 

"Certainly  that  isn't  me,"  said  Jacinthe,   smiling. 

"Alas!  yes,  poor  child,  it  is  you.  I  have  been  a  long  time  in 
the  world,  but  I  never  yet  met  any  one  so  hideous  as  you  are." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  I  am  ugly  —  I  ? " 

<( A  hundred  times  more  than  it  is  possible  to  express !  " 

«  What !  my  eyes  ? " 

"They  are  gray  as  dust;  but  that  would  be  nothing  if  you 
did  not  squint  in  the  most  disagreeable  way." 

«  My  skin  ?  " 

"  One  would  say  that  you  had  rubbed  your  forehead  and 
cheeks  with  coal-dust." 

«  My  mouth  ?  " 

<(  It  is  pale  like  an  old  autumnal  flower," 

«  My  teeth  ?  " 

"  If  the  beauty  of  teeth  was  to  be  large  and  yellow,  I  should 
not  know  any  more  beautiful  than  yours." 

<(Ah!     At  least  my  ears—" 

"  They  are  so  big,  so  red,  and  so  hairy,  one  cannot  look  at 
them  without  horror.  I  am  not  at  all  pretty  myself,  and  yet  I 
think  I  should  die  of  shame  if  I  had  the  like." 

Thereupon  the  old  woman,  who  must  have  been  some  wicked 
fairy,  a  friend  of  the  wicked  Queen,  fled,  cruelly  laughing;  while 
Jacinthe,  all  in  tears,  sank  down  on  a  bench  under  the  apple- 
trees. 

Nothing  could  divert  her  from  her  affliction.  <(  I  am  ugly !  I 
am  ugly !  "  she  repeated  unceasingly.  In  vain  her  lover  assured 
her  of  the  contrary  with  many  oaths.  <(  Leave  me !  you  are  lying 
out  of  pity.  I  understand  everything  now.  It  is  not  love  but 
pity  that  you  feel  for  me.  The  beggar-woman  had  no  interest 
in  deceiving  me ;  why  should  she  do  so  ?  It  is  only  too  true :  I 
am  hideous.  I  cannot  conceive  how  you  even  endure  the  sight 


CATULLE  MENDES 

of  me."  In  order  to  undeceive  her,  it  occurred  to  him  to  make 
many  people  visit  her:  every  man  declared  that  Jacinthe  was 
exactly  made  for  the  pleasure  of  eyes;  several  women  said  as 
much  in  a  fashion  a  little  less  positive.  The  poor  child  persisted 
in  the  conviction  that  she  was  an  object  of  horror.  <(  You  are 
planning  together  to  impose  upon  me ! "  and  as  the  lover  pressed 
her,  in  spite  of  all,  to  fix  the  day  for  the  wedding,  (<  I  your 
wife ! "  she  cried,  <(  never !  I  love  you  too  tenderly  to  make  you 
a  present  of  such  a  frightful  thing  as  I  am."  You  can  guess  the 
despair  of  this  young  man,  so  sincerely  enamored.  He  threw 
himself  on  his  knees,  he  begged,  he  supplicated.  She  always 
answered  the  same  thing,  that  she  was  too  ugly  to  marry.  What 
was  he  to  do  ?  The  only  means  of  contradicting  the  old  woman, 
of  proving  the  truth  to  Jacinthe,  would  have  been  to  put  a  mir- 
ror before  her  eyes.  But  there  was  not  a  mirror  in  the  whole 
kingdom;  and  the  terror  inspired  by  the  Queen  was  so  great  that 
no  artisan  would  have  consented  to  make  one. 

(<  Well,  I  shall  go  to  court,  "  said  the  lover  at  last.  <(  However 
barbarous  our  mistress  is,  she  cannot  fail  to  be  moved  by  my 
tears  and  Jacinthe's  beauty.  She  will  retract,  if  only  for  a  few 
hours,  the  cruel  command  from  which  all  the  harm  comes."  It 
was  not  without  difficulty  that  the  young  girl  allowed  herself  to 
be  conducted  to  the  palace.  She  did  not  want  to  show  herself, 
being  so  ugly;  and  then,  what  would  be  the  use  of  a  mirror 
except  to  convince  her  still  more  of  her  irremediable  misfor- 
tune ?  However,  she  finally  consented,  seeing  that  her  lover  was 
weeping. 

<(  Well,  what  is  it  ? "  said  the  wicked  Queen.  <(  Who  are  these 
people,  and  what  do  they  want  of  me  ? " 

"Your  Majesty,  you  see  before  you  the  most  wretched  lover 
on  the  face  of  the  earth." 

tt That's  a  fine  reason  for  disturbing  me." 

«Do  not  be  pitiless." 

<(  But  what  have  I  to  do  with  your  love  troubles  ? " 

(<  If  you  would  allow  a  mirror — " 

The  Queen  rose,  shaking  with  anger. 

<(  You  dare  to  talk  of  a  mirror ! "  she  said,  gnashing  her  teeth. 

<(  Do  not  be  angry,  your  Majesty.  I  beseech  you,  pardon  me 
and  deign  to  hear  me.  The  young  girl  you  see  before  you  labors 
under  the  most  unaccountable  error:  she  imagines  that  she  is 
ugly — " 


CATULLE  MENDES 

"Well!"  said  the  Queen  with  a  fierce  laugh,  «she  is  right!  1 
never  saw,  I  think,  a  more  frightful  object. w 

At  those  words  Jacinthe  thought  she  should  die  of  grief. 
Doubt  was  no  longer  possible,  since  to  the  Queen's  eyes  as  well 
as  to  those  of  the  beggar  she  was  ugly.  Slowly  she  lowered  her 
eyelids,  and  fell  fainting  on  the  steps  of  the  throne,  looking  like 
a  dead  woman.  But  when  her  lover  heard  the  cruel  words,  he 
was  by  no  means  resigned;  he  shouted  loudly  that  either  the 
Queen  was  mad,  or  that  she  had  some  reason  for  so  gross  a  lie. 
He  had  not  time  to  say  a  word  more;  the  guards  seized  him  and 
held  him  fast.  At  a  sign  from  the  Queen  some  one  advanced, 
who  was  the  executioner.  He  was  always  near  the  throne,  be- 
cause he  might  be  wanted  at  any  moment. 

(<  Do  your  duty,"  said  the  Queen,  pointing  to  the  man  who  had 
insulted  her. 

The  executioner  lifted  a  big  sword,  while  Jacinthe,  not  know- 
ing where  she  was,  beating  the  air  with  her  hands,  languidly 
opened  one  eye,  and  then  two  very  different  cries  were  heard. 
One  was  a  shout  of  joy,  for  in  the  bright  naked  steel  Jacinthe 
saw  herself,  so  deliciously  pretty!  and  the  other  was  a  cry  of 
pain,  a  rattle,  because  the  ugly  and  wicked  Queen  gave  up  the 
ghost  in  shame  and  anger  at  having  also  seen  herself  in  the 
unthought-of  mirror. 


THE  MAN   OF   LETTERS 
From  <The  Humor  of  France* 

LAST,  evening,  a  poet,  as  yet  unknown,  was  correcting  the  last 
sheets   of   his   first    book.      A   famous    man    of   letters,   who 
happened   to   be    there,    quickly   caught   hold   of   the   young 
man's  hand,  and   said   in   a   rough   voice,   <(  Don't   send  the  press 
proofs!     Don't  publish  those  poems!* 
<(  You  consider  them  bad  ? w 

(<  I  haven't  read  them,  and  I  don't  want  to  read  them.     They 
are  possibly  excellent.     But  beware  of  publishing  them." 
«Why?w 

<(  Because,   the  book  once  out,  you  would   henceforth  be  irre- 
mediably an  author,  an  artist  —  that  is  to  say.  a  monster ! }> 
«A  monster  ? » 
«Yes.» 


CATULLE  MENDES 

(<Are  you  a  monster,  dear  master  ?" 

«  Certainly !  and  one  of  the  worst  kind ;  for  I  have  been  writ- 
ing poems,  novels,  and  plays  longer  than  many  others." 

The  young  man  opened  his  eyes  wide.  The  other,  walking 
up  and  down  the  room,  violently  gesticulating,  continued:  — 

"True,  we  are  honest,  upright,  and  loyal!  Twenty  or  thirty 
years  ago  it  was  the  fashion  for  literary  men  to  borrow  a  hun- 
dred sous  and  forget  to  return  them;  to  leave  their  lodgings 
without  giving  the  landlord  notice;  and  never  to  pay,  even  in  a 
dream,  their  bootmaker  or  their  tailor.  To  owe  was  a  sort  of 
duty.  Follies  of  one's  youth!  The  Bohemians  have  disappeared; 
literature  has  become  respectable.  We  have  cut  our  hair  and 
put  our  affairs  in  order.  We  no  longer  wear  red  waistcoats; 
and  our  concierge  bows  to  us  because  we  give  him  tips,  just  as 
politely  as  he  does  to  the  banker  on  the  ground  floor  or  the  law- 
yer on  the  second.  Good  citizens,  good  husbands,  good  fathers, 
we  prepare  ourselves  epitaphs  full  of  honor.  I  fought  in  the  last 
war  side  by  side  with  Henri  Regnault;  I  have  a  wife  to  whom 
I  have  never  given  the  slightest  cause  for  sorrow;  and  I  myself 
teach  my  three  children  geography  and  history,  and  bring  them 
up  to  have  a  horror  of  literature.  Better  still:  it  happened  to 
me  —  a  remarkable  turning  of  the  tables  —  to  lend  six  thousand 
francs  to  one  of  my  uncles,  an  ironmonger  at  Angouleme,  who 
had  foolishly  got  into  difficulties,  and  not  without  reading  him  a 
severe  lecture.  In  a  word,  we  are  orderly,  correct  persons.  But 
I  say  we  are  monsters.  For  isn't  it  indeed  a  monstrous  thing, 
being  a  man,  not  to  be  —  not  to  be  able  to  be  —  a  man  like  other 
men  ?  to  be  unable  to  love  or  to  hate,  to  rejoice  or  to  suffer, 
as  others  love  or  hate,  rejoice  or  suffer?  And  we  cannot, —  no, 
no,  never, — not  under  any  circumstances!  Obliged  to  consider 
or  observe,  obliged  to  study,  analyze,  in  ourselves  and  outside 
ourselves,  all  feelings,  all  passions;  to  be  ever  on  the  watch  for 
the  result,  to  follow  its  development  and  fall,  to  consign  to  our 
memory  the  attitudes  they  bring  forth,  the  language  they  inspire, — 
we  have  definitely  killed  in  ourselves  the  faculty  of  real  emotion, 
the  power  of  being  happy  or  unhappy  with  simplicity.  We  have 
lost  all  the  holy  unctuousness  of  the  soul!  It  has  become  impos- 
sible for  us,  when  we  experience,  to  confine  ourselves  to  expe- 
riencing. We  verify,  we  appraise  our  hopes,  our  agonies,  our 
anguish  of  heart,  our  joys;  we  take  note  of  the  jealous  torments 
that  devour  us  when  she  whom  we  expect  does  not  come  to  the 


CATULLE  MENDES 

tryst;  our  abominable  critical  sense  judges  kisses  and  caresses, 
compares  them,  approves  of  them  or  not,  makes  reservations; 
we  discover  faults  of  taste  in  our  transports  of  joy  or  grief;  we 
mingle  grammar  with  love,  and  at  the  supreme  moment  of  pas- 
sion, when  we  say  to  our  terrified  mistress,  (  Oh,  I  want  you  to 
love  me  till  death ! }  are  victims  of  the  relative  pronoun,  of  the 
particle.  Literature!  literature!  you  have  become  our  heart,  our 
senses,  oilr  flesh,  our  voice.  It  is  not  a  life  that  we  live — it  is 
a  poem,  or  a  novel,  or  a  play.  Ah!  I  would  give  up  all  the 
fame  that  thirty  years  of  work  have  brought  me,  in  order  to 
weep  for  one  single  moment  without  perceiving  that  I  am 

weeping !)} 

Translation  of  Elizabeth  Lee. 


MARCELINO  MENENDEZ  Y  PELAYO 

(1856-1912) 

BY   FEDERICO   DE   ONIS 

>ENENDEZ  Y  PELAYO  was  born  in  Santander,  a  centre  of  Old 
Castile,  and  he  died  in  Madrid.  His  life  was  entirely  devoted 
to  books.  His  first  works  were  published  when  he  was  barely 
twenty  years  old;  and  coming  from  one  so  young,  they  occasioned  great 
surprise  for  the  amount  of  reading  they  presupposed.  His  death,  forty 
years  later,  occurred  in  his  splendid  library  in  Santander,  one  of  the  best 
in  the  whole  world  of  Spanish  books.  The  fact  seems  symbolic  of  his 
regret  at  leaving  the  world  when  so  many  books  still  remained  to  be 
read.  Much  of  his  writing,  especially  of  his  early  production,  is  bound 
up  with  the  passions  and  quarrels  of  politics.  To  this  is  due  in  large 
measure  the  rapid  popularity  he  attained  —  a  success  far  greater  than 
usually  comes  to  scholars  and  men  of  science.  However  he  never  came 
to  take  an  active  part  in  politics.  His  whole  energy  was  consecrated  to 
his  literary  studies,  to  the  writing  and  publication  of  his  own  volumes. 

In  the  work  of  Menendez  y  Pelayo  there  is  no  unifying  system  of 
philosophical  thought,  nor  is  there  any  original  method  of  literary 
criticism.  As  regards  his  ideas  we  have  the  two  cardinal  points  of  his 
traditionalism  and  his  Catholicism;  but  they  present  neither  the  con- 
sistency nor  the  rigorousness  that  might  be  expected.  At  bottom  he  was 
a  tolerant  person,  much  more  deeply  sensitive  to  aesthetic  beauty  than 
interested  in  purely  rational  questions:  he  finally  settled  down,  in  his 
Spanish  environment,  as  an  avowed  enemy  of  uncompromising  scholas- 
ticism, as  a  prudent  and  amiable  eclectic.  .  Indeed  his  religious  feeling 
seems  to  have  arisen  in  his  mind  largely  as  an  attitude  toward  a  problem 
of  Spanish  history:  Catholicism  is  the  essence  of  Spanish  civilization,  of 
Spanish  mentality;  in  defending  it,  therefore,  we  defend  our  racial,  our 
national  tradition. 

This  nationalistic  spirit,  combined  with  a  deep  intuitive  sense  of 
beauty  and  art,  is  the  only  unifying  bond  of  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  work. 
When  he  appeared  before  the  public,  Spanish  literary  studies  were  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  scholars  more  or  less  deserving,  but  who  lacked  the  power 
of  creating  general  ideas  capable  of  interpreting  as  a  whole  the  vast 
field  of  Spanish  bibliography.  This  was  the  task  Menendez  y  Pelayo 
set  himself;  and  he  performed  it  with  a  success  equalled  neither  before 
nor  since. 

His  first  publications  were  polemical  works  directed  to  the  defense  of 


99I4b  MARCELINO   MENENDEZ    Y    PELAYO 

Spanish  traditions  against  the  attacks  leveled  against  them,  before 
and  during  his  time,  both  by  Spanish  and  foreign  writers.  Thus  his 
(History  of  Spanish  Heretics)  was  written  to  prove  that  the  genuine 
thought  of  Spain  is  Catholic,  and  that  outside  of  Catholicism,  only  by 
rare  exception  have  works  of  any  value  been  produced.  Catholicism, 
far  from  being  the  cause  of  the  national  backwardness,  is  on  the  con- 
trary the  inspiration  of  the  best  and  noblest  elements  of  Spanish  culture. 
Similarly  his  (Spanish  Science)  is  a  response  to  the  long-standing 
accusation  that  Spain  has  not  contributed  as  much  as  other  peoples  to 
the  development  of  the  scientific  civilization  of  modern  times.  These 
((theses,))  these  ((apologies))  of  Spanish  life,  brought  their  author  rapidly 
into  the  public  eye.  They  have  the  merits  and  defects  of  all  such  works. 
They  possess  emotional  tone  and  enthusiasm  but  they  are  not  always 
statements  of  the  exact  truth.  It  may  well  be  that  the  two  theses  there 
sustained  by  Menendez  y  Pelayo  are  true,  or  indeed  true  with  certain 
restrictions.  It  is  apparent  however  that  the  method  used  by  the 
author  —  that  of  passionate  affirmation — is  not  the  best  adapted  to 
carrying  conviction.  In  fact,  to  prove  his  point  Menendez  y  Pelayo 
would  have  been  obliged  to  undertake  the  for  him  impossible  task  of 
writing  the  whole  history  of  Spanish  science  and  Spanish  religion  in  its 
minutest  details.  That  is  why  these  works  remain  valuable  exclusively 
for  the  rich  bibliography  they  contain,  for  the  precious  citations  of  rare 
documents  made  in  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  field  of  literary  criticism,  the  work  of 
Menendez  y  Pelayo  is  less  debated  and  less  debatable.  We  may  say 
that  there  is  no  important  point  of  Spanish  literature  about  which  he 
has  not  said  something  decisive,  something  which  will,  at  least,  have  to 
be  reckoned  with  as  the  interpretation  of  a  man  of  fine  taste  and  extra- 
ordinary insight,  who  is  the  most  illustrious  and  representative  writer 
of  an  epoch  of  Spanish  criticism.  It  was  he  who  broke  the  almost  virgin 
soil  of  Spanish  literature,  establishing  an  order  and  a  hierarchy  in  the 
midst  of  a  vast  chaos  of  writings,  fixing  evaluations  which  have  hitherto 
stood  as  the  most  exact  and  discerning  yet  attained.  Some  of  his  sub- 
jects were  treated  with  the  greatest  detail,  and  all  his  work  shows  a 
vast  erudition.  He  clothed  his  learning  with  a  noble  Castilian  style 
which  makes  many  of  his  pages  models  of  Spanish  prose.  This  critical 
work  he  supplemented  with  original  productions  in  prose  and  verse. 
His  volume  of  elegant  verse,  of  classic  tendencies,  is  far  from  being 
without  interest. 

Among  these  critical  works,  above  referred  to,  an  important  place  is 
occupied  by  the  (History  of  ^Esthetic  Ideas  in  Spain.)  This  was  a 
study  made  by  the  author  as,  to  his  notion,  a  necessary  preliminary  to  a 
general  history  of  Spanish  literature  which  he  had  in  view,  but  which 
was  never  completed,  though  many  of  the  chapters  written  for  it  appear 
in  other  works.  The  (History  of  ^Esthetic  Ideas)  however  remains 


MARCELINO  MENENDEZ   Y   PELAYO  99I4C 

perhaps  the  most  important  general  study  of  Spanish  literature  that  we 
possess,  though  the  greater  part  of  the  work  is  devoted  to  the  history  of 
aesthetic  ideas  outside  of  Spain.  Such  a  comprehensive  work  could 
hardly  be  of  equal  value  in  all  its  parts.  Critics  usually  consider  the 
portions  devoted  to  the  early  periods  of  Christianity  and  to  modern 
Romanticism  as  the  most  solid. 

The  most  important  chapters  of  his  history  of  Spanish  literature, 
left  complete  by  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  are  the  studies  on  the  novela 
(prefaces  to  the  relative  volumes  in  his  ( New  Library  of  Spanish  Au- 
thors)) and  on  Spanish  poetry  (preface  to  his  (Anthology  of  Spanish 
Lyric  Poets)).  The  fact  that  mere  prefaces  constitute  the  most  valu- 
able portion  of  his  work  gives  some  idea  of  the  spontaneity  of  his  dis- 
organized talent,  so  exuberant  and  rich,  so  incapable  of  method  and 
system.  These  prefaces,  both  as  regards  scope  and  preparation,  form 
real  treatises,  easily  capable  of  extension  into  one  or  several  volumes. 
The  other  subjects  of  the  history  were  conceived  along  vast  lines  — 
so  comprehensively  in  fact  that  almost  all  of  them,  though  begun 
many  years  ago,  remained  incomplete  at  the  author's  death. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  another  monumental  work  planned  by 
Menendez  y  Pelayo,  his  critical  edition  of  the  works  of  Lope  de  Vega, 
published  by  the  Spanish  Academy.  While  the  text-constitution  of  this 
edition  is  not  overscrupulous,  the  introduction  to  each  of  the  comedies 
is  a  treasure-store  of  erudition  and  a  masterpiece  of  criticism.  Taking 
these  introductions  together,  and  in  view  of  the  extraordinary  wealth 
of  suggestion  in  an  author  like  Lope,  we  get  another  surprising  result, 
though  here  again  the  disorder  that  reigned  in  the  critic's  mind  mars 
the  utility  of  his  work.  Another  great  work  on  the  Spanish  theatre  is 
his  study  on  Calderon. 

Barely  to  mention  the  bibliographical  studies  on  (Horace  in  Spain) 
and  on  classic  Latin  letters  in  Spain,  we  come  to  the  (Studies  in  Literary 
Criticism)  which  complete  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  varied  production. 
Here  in  short  essays  and  lectures,  brilliant  and  eloquent  in  execution,  we 
have  discussions  of  the  most  diverse  themes  of  Spanish  literature. 
These  essays  are  of  quite  general  competence,  though  the  author,  in  his 
inattention  to  an  occasional  detail,  cannot  be  called  a  ((specialist))  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  term.  Here  his  mind  plays  freely  with  all  its 
power  of  suggestiveness  and  vision,  running  over  wide  territories,  with- 
out ever  losing  the  sense  of  perspective.  In  his  erudition  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  is  neither  a  compiler  nor  a  synthetizer.  He  does  indeed  use  to 
advantage  the  studies  of  other  scholars,  but  in  reality  the  subjects  he 
attacks  are  most  often  new.  In  this  work  lay  his  special  gift,  his  distinc- 
tive originality.  He  had  the  power  of  rapid  evaluation,  the  faculty  of 
erecting  solid  structures  in  criticism  from  among  the  scattered'  relics  of 
the  whole  civilization  of  a  people.  On  this  kind  of  work  rests  the  title 
of  Menendez  y  Pelayo  as  the  greatest  Spanish  historian  of  the  nineteenth 


99l4d  MARCELINO  MENENDEZ   Y   PELAYO 

century.  The  advance  of  modern  learning  may  perhaps  render  much  of 
this  labor  antiquated  to  future  generations  of  scholars,  as  far  as  the 
groundwork  of  erudition  and  documentation  on  which  it  rests  is  con- 
cerned. But  they  have  then  a  generous  residue  of  artistic  merit  on  which 
to  rely.  The  permanent  elements  in  the  writing  of  Menendez  y  Pelayo 
are  his  passionate  national  spirit  and  his  intense  love  of  beauty. 


CALDERON 

From  (Calderon  y  su  Teatro)    (pp.  374-402),  por  Marcelino  Menendez  y  Pelayo, 
Madrid,  1884,  Vol.  xxi,  of  the  Coleccion  de  Escritorcs  Castellanos. 

Translated  by  Arthur  Livingston. 

LET  us  examine  Calderon  in  his  historical  significance,  viewing 
him  as  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  where  the  dramatic 
school  is  led  by  Lope  de  Vega.  As  regards  certain  literary 
qualities  of  the  first  importance,  Calderon  proves  to  be  not  only  our 
leading  dramatist,  but  the  symbol,  the  compendium,  the  crown  of 
the  Spanish  stage.  On  the  other  hand  as  regards  certain  secondary 
but  nevertheless  very  important  artistic  considerations  he  is  far  from 
being  our  leader.  Comparing  without  preconceptions  or  prejudice 
the  theatre  of  Calderon  with  that  of  Lope,  of  Tirso  de  Molina,  of 
Alarcon  —  we  may  add  even  a  number  of  quite  inferior  men  —  it 
is  evident  that  Calderon  yields  to  Lope  in  variety,  in  amplitude  and 
ease  of  execution,  in  facile  and  spontaneous  inspiration,  in  simplicity 
and  fullness  of  expression,  in  naturalness  and  fidelity  to  life.  He 
falls  far  short  of  Lope's  excellence  in  the  interpretation  of  human 
sentiment,  in  the  portrayal  of  female  character,  in  the  presentation 
of  jealousy  and  love. 

Tirso  likewise  surpasses  Calderon  in  the  creation  of  living,  ener- 
getic, animated  characters,  rich  with  all  the  complexities  of  human 
nature,  endowed  with  personalities  as  real  and  vivacious  as  those 
offered  to  us  by  life  itself.  One  looks  in  vain  through  Calderon's 
work  for  something  to  approach  Tirso's  (Don  Juan)  —  a  figure  in  a 
class  by  itself,  not  only  superior  to  any  other  character  of  the  Span- 
ish stage,  but  as  vital  and  full  of  energy  as  the  personages  of  Shake- 
speare. Calderon  never  attained  to  a  conception  of  such  universality. 

Calderon  lacks  also  Tirso's  grace  and  -liveliness  of  fancy,  his 
picaresque  licentiousness,  his  depth  of  irony,  his  comic  spirit,  his 
malicious  and  exuberant  dialogue,  his  happy  inventiveness  and  pic- 
turesque audacity  of  idiom.  In  the  comedy  of  contemporary  man- 


MARCELINO   MENENDEZ   Y    PELAYO 

ners,  of  ((character,);  he  is  second  to  Alarcon,  who,  for  that  matter, 
has  no  rival  among  our  dramatists  for  elegance  and  polish  of  style, 
for  unerring  taste,  for  exquisite  perfection  of  dialogue. 

But  in  other  respects,  Calderon,  taken  as  a  whole,  has  no  reason 
to  envy  two  authors  generally  considered  as  of  the  first  class  —  Rojas 
and  Moreto  —  nor  any  of  those  of  the  second  order.  These  second- 
rate  men  have  to  be  sure  in  occasional  moments  of  inspiration  pro- 
duced works  superior  in  merit  to  some  plays  of  Calderon.  But  no 
one  of  them  offers  a  complete  theatre  sufficient  to  give  them  a  clearly 
defined  and  distinct  dramatic  physiognomy.  The  glory  of  Guillem 
de  Castro,  for  example,  rests  on  the  legendary  drama  entitled  (Las 
Modedades  del  Cid )  —  a  work  superior  to  anything  of  the  kind  on 
our  stage.  Similarly  Mira  de  Amescua  offers  one  play,  (El  esclavo 
del  Demonio,  >  which  can  rival  the  best  work  of  Calderon,  without 
however  surpassing  it  and  remaining  certainly  inferior  to  (El  Con- 
denado  por  desconfiado)  of  Tirso.  Rojas  is  distinguished  by  his 
tragic  violence,  a  gift  possessed  to  quite  as  remarkable  degree  by  Cal- 
deron, save  that  Rojas  attains  an  actual  superiority  in  his  (Garcia 
del  Castanar, )  and  in  a  few  lines  of  a  monologue  in  (El  Cain  de 
Cataluna.) 

Calderon,  then,  in  certain  secondary  qualities  is  inferior  to  Lope, 
to  Tirso  and  Alarcon;  he  is  superior  to  all  the  others  even  in  these 
lesser  qualities,  or  at  least  equals  them  in  their  most  fortunate  moments. 
In  his  distinctive  traits,  he  possesses  virtues  however  which  raise  him 
to  a  solitary  pedestal:  vastness  of  conception,  loftiness  in  the  initial, 
genetic  vision  of  his  subjects.  It  is,  for  instance,  useless  to  look  in 
our  literature  for  a  concept  to  equal  that  of  (La  vida  es  suefio,)  as, 
indeed,  it  would  be  useless  to  look  for  one  anywhere  else. 

Calderon  is  a  Catholic  poet  pre-eminently.  In  bringing  a  sort 
of  Christian  symbolism  upon  the  stage  he  is  without  a  peer  among 
all  our  writers.  We  may  go  even  farther:  in  the  history  of  allegory 
within  the  limits  of  Christian  literature,  his  place  is  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Dante.  Calderon  has  vastness  of  idea,  a  certain  compre- 
hensive, synthetic  vigor,  a  sense  of  harmony,  which,  especially  in 
the  (Autos  sacramentales, )  unites  the  real  with  the  ideal,  the  visible 
with  the  invisible,  the  tangible  with  the  intangible,  earth  with  heaven, 
and  the  ephemeral  with  the  eternal.  He  reduces  these  contrarieties 
to  unity,  making  everything  contribute  to  the  greater  praise  of  the 
((Real  God  Pan))  —  the  sacramental  body  of  Christ,  as  he  entitled 
one  of  his  sacred  plays.  This  symbolism,  at  times  slovenly  perhaps 
and  incongruous,  is  always  however  informed  with  a  lofty  and  supe- 


99  Uf  MARCELINO   MENENDEZ    Y    PELAYO 

rior  sentiment,  the  Christian  spirituality  of  unhesitating  faith,  which 
constitutes  the  true  greatness  of  Calderon.  In  this  regard  Calderon 
is  almost  a  unique  phenomenon  in  world  literature.  He  succeeded, 
if  not  in  creating,  at  least  in  perfecting  the  theological  drama  — 
which,  at  best,  is  an  exceptional  curiosity,  one  may  even  say,  an 
aberration  of  the  aesthetic  sense.  It  is  a  drama  without  human  pas- 
sions, devoid  of  characters  and  emotions,  a  dialogue  between  allegori- 
cal beings,  abstractions,  vices,  and  virtues.  We  have  evidence  of 
Calderon's  exceptional  power  of  imagination,  of  his  deep  penetration 
into  the  profoundest  notions  of  theology  and  philosophy,  when  we 
consider  that  he  was  able  to  clothe  such  things  with  an  aesthetic  dress, 
and  actually  introduce  them  to  the  theatre.  The  feat  is  a  gigantic 
one,  even  if  it  proved  not  always  fortunate.  Considered  simply  as 
a  tour  de  force  it  strikes  the  imagination  for  its  audacity  which  was 
never  inspired  by  vulgar  motives.  This  dogmatic,  resolute,  Christian 
idealism  is  the  soul  of  all  the  religious  dramas  of  our  poet,  though 
these  are  not,  on  the  whole,  the  best  in  our  literature.  We  have  in 
(El  condenado  por  desconfiado)  a  drama  more  theological  and  more 
artistic  still.  But  leaving  aside  this  marvelous  work,  the  gem  of  the 
whole  religious  theatre  of  Spain,  and  one  of  the  few  that  show  a 
loving  compenetration  of  feeling  and  form,  the  religious  plays  of 
Calderon  merit  recognition  as  the  leaders  in  this  genre.  And  of  these 
the  best  is  (El  Principe  Constante,)  in  which  the  author  solved  an- 
other aesthetic  paradox  as  great  as  that  of  the  (Autos  sacramentales. ) 
I  refer  to  the  successful  exploitation  on  the  stage  of  the  impeccably 
just  man,  free  from  doubts,  passions,  vacillations,  struggles  —  a 
character  which  the  drama  absolutely  excludes,  but,  which,  never- 
theless, is  here  clothed  with  a  successfully  dramatic  form.  Aside 
from  this  play,  (La  Devocion  de  la  Cruz)  will  always  be  sure  of 
appreciation  from  intelligent  audiences  as  a  jewel  in  the  crown  of 
our  national  literature.  It  is  less  a  theological  than  a  militant  play; 
but  it  is  written  with  all  the  freedom  and  charm  which  characterize 
the  florid  springtime  of  the  poet,  the  period  when  he  was  still  un- 
affected by  the  vicious  mannerisms  which  later  attacked  his  work. 
The  (Devocion  de  la  Cruz,  >  along  with  (El  Purgatorio  de  San  Patricio,) 
where  there  are  traces  of  a  Dantesque  vigor,  in  spite  of  the  fantastic 
exaggeration  of  the  principal  character;  (El  Magico  Prodigioso,) 
for  the  sublimity  of  its  thought,  rather  than  for  the  accuracy  of  its 
execution,  though  certainly  the  most  beautiful  part  of  this  play  is 
the  portion  derived  from  the  popular  legend,  and  the  development 
is  in  a  measure  inferior  to  the  possibilities  of  the  primitive  idea  itself; 


MARCELINO   MENENDEZ    Y    PELAYO  99*4g 

and  finally,  the  beautiful  conception  of  (Los  dos  Amantes  del  Cielo,) 
are  sufficient  to  assure  for  Calderon  a  glorious  position  among  the 
world's  cultivators  of  religious  art. 

Calderon  possesses  eminent  tragic  qualities,  which  doubtless 
would  have  been  more  striking  had  he  not,  for  perhaps  unavoidable 
circumstances  of  social  environment,  imprisoned  them  in  an  at- 
mosphere distinctly  conventional  and  false.  Instead  of  real  passion, 
social  preoccupations  predominated  in  the  society  about  him.  Re- 
lative morality  held  sway  over  absolute  morality.  Instincts  and 
passions  rarely  presented  themselves  in  pure,  frank,  unadulterated 
forms;  they  were  veiled  behind  formulas  of  honor,  reputation,  etc., 
etc.,  which  deprive  them  of  universal,  eternal  value,  and  in  fact 
make  them  even  unintelligible  to  other  ages  and  other  peoples.  This 
defect,  on  the  other  hand,  explains  the  enormous  enthusiasm  with 
which  Calderon  was  welcomed  in  his  own  epoch.  Unfortunately 
what  one  gains  from  submission  to  the  dominant  tastes  and  preoccu- 
pations of  a  given  period,  one  loses  later  in  universality  and  absolute 
worth,  which  are  independent  of  time  and  place. 

To  illustrate:  Calderon  wrote  four  dramas  on  the  subject  of 
jealousy:  (El  Medico  de  su  Honra, )  (A  Secreto  Agravio  Secreta 
Venganza,)  (El  Pintor  de  su  Deshonra, )  and  (El  Tetrarca  de  Jeru- 
salen. )  Yet  hardly  ever  in  these  works  does  he  touch  on  the  real 
passion  of  jealousy.  He  either  subordinates  that  emotion  to  feelings 
of  pride  and  amour  propre,  as  in  (El  Medico  de  su  Honra)  and  (A 
Secreto  Agravio  Secreta  Venganza ) ;  or  he  transforms  it  into  blind 
vindictiveness,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Don  Juan  of  (El  Pintor  de  su 
Deshonra) ;  or,  finally,  he  exaggerates  and  idealizes  it  into  a  delirium, 
as  happens  in  (El  Tetrarca  de  Jerusalem. )  In  his  eagerness  to  subli- 
mate the  jealousy  of  Herod,  Calderon  has  changed  the  king  into  a 
sort  of  maniac  quite  removed  from  the  conditions  of  reality.  If,  at 
first  glance,  the  jealousy  of  Herod  may  seem  nobler  and  more  gener- 
ous than  other  similar  passions  presented  on  the  stage,  it  is  actually 
far  more  irrational  than  that  of  Othello,  for  instance;  since  the  Te- 
trarch's  jealousy  springs  neither  from  outraged  honor,  nor  from  the 
suspicion  thereof,  nor  again  from  the  fear  of  any  danger  that  may 
befall  him  in  this  life;  but  purely  and  simply  from  his  selfish 
resentment  that  perhaps,  after  his  death,  someone  else  will  come  to 
possess  Marianna. 

Great  dramatic  effects  can  be  based  only  on  something  universal, 
characteristic  of  the  human  heart  in  all  ages ;  they  cannot  be  obtained 
from  the  peculiar  interests  of  a  given  moment  in  history.  The  sense 


9914k  MARCELINO   MENENDEZ    Y    PELAYO 

of  honor  may  have  been  good  in  its  origin,  in  the  general  principle 
of  personal  dignity.  But  in  the  times  of  Calderon  the  sense  of  honor 
had  been  pushed  to  the  most  remotely  conceivable  extremes,  to  the 
point  of  justifying  crime  and  treachery. 

In  spite  of  these  serious  defects,  Calderon's  treatment  of  tragic 
themes  is  almost  always  of  superior  quality.  And  when  by  chance 
he  hits  upon  a  passion  consistently  genuine,  and  free  from  the  deadly 
atmosphere  in  which  he  lived  —  this  is  the  case  in  (El  Alcalde  de 
Zalamea) — we  get  a  masterpiece.  In  this  connection  we  may  men- 
tion (Amar  -despues  de  la  muerte, )  and  a  few  of  his  other  efforts  in 
the  field  of  the  tragic. 

In  the  comedy  of  contemporary  manners,  Calderon  shows  little 
variety,  especially  if  he  is  compared  with  Lope.  Lope  traversed  and 
experienced  the  whole  of  life.  He  excludes  none  of  it  from  his  come- 
dies: picaros,  panderers,  Celestinas,  they  are  all  there,  as  witness 
(Dorotea, )  (El  Anzuelo  de  Fenisa, )  (El  Arenal  de  Sevilla, )  (El 
Rufian  Castrucho. )  The  comedy  of  (Capa  y  espada)  has  inimitable 
models  in  Lope's  (La  Esclava  de  su  Galan)  and  (El  Premio  del  bien 
hablar,  >  plays  at  once  fanciful,  pleasant,  and  facile.  In  a  word,  Lope 
takes  in  everything;  whereas  Calderon  is  not  so  venturesome.  His 
circle  is  much  more  restricted.  He  scarcely  ever  oversteps  the  limits 
of  the  middle  class  —  hidalgos  and  chevaliers.  He  never  descends 
to  the  depths  of  society;  rarely  does  he  depict  popular  types;  and 
even  in  the  social  stratum  which  interested  him,  he  confines  himself 
to  a  few  figures,  treated  always  in  the  same  manner.  Shall  we  at- 
tribute this  to  poverty  of  imagination,  sterility,  lack  of  resourceful- 
ness? I  think  not.  There  is  hardly  greater  range  in  the  comedies 
of  Tirso  de  Molina,  which  likewise  move  inside  the  boundaries  of 
conventional  subjects:  the  lady  in  search  of  reparation  for  her  lost 
honor;  the  capricious  princess  inveigling  the  licentious  adventurer. 

The  proof  that  it  was  not  wholly  a  question  of  poor  inventiveness 
in  the  poet  is  to  be  found  in  some  of  the  works  of  his  early  youth, 
(El  Astrologo  fingido, )  (Hombre  Pobre  Todo  es  Trazas,)  (El  Alcalde 
de  si  mismo,  >  and  others  still.  There  we  discover  the  happiest  apti- 
tude for  a  comedy  like  that  of  Lope  and  Tirso,  even  for  the  comedy 
of  character.  The  fact  is  that  Calderon  felt  an  instinctive  repugnance 
toward  presenting  on  the  stage  the  prosaic,  ugly,  or  less  noble  aspects 
of  human  nature.  Not  only  did  this  deprive  him  of  an  infinitude  of 
types,  but  even  made  such  characters  as  he  did  derive  from  this  source 
artificial,  thin,  uninteresting,  easily  reducible  to  a  formula.  He 
dispensed  with  all  the  figures  of  the  brothel,  which  Lope  had  pre- 


MARCELINO   MENENDEZ   Y   PELAYO 

served ;  he  never  ventured  even  to  represent  a  situation  dear  to  Tirso 
de  Molina  —  rivalry  in  love  between  two  sisters.  Furthermore, 
this  idealistic  tendency  of  Calderon,  this  willingness  to  present  only 
the  poetic,  generous,  noble  side  of  life,  gives  a  similar  contour  even  to 
his  favorite  types:  his  lovers  and  ladies,  his  fathers,  his  brothers, 
are  emptied,  so  to  speak,  out  of  the  same  mold.  Character,  in  each 
of  these  personages,  may  be  reduced  to  a  simple  expression.  All 
kinds  of  secondary  traits,  all  that  more  or  less  vulgar  element  which 
enters  into  the  composition  of  all  human  nature  along  with  the  nobler 
and  more  poetic  impulses,  are  brushed  aside  by  Calderon.  Realism 
is  something  foreign  to  his  art ;  there  is  no  room  for  it  in  his  view  of 
the  world.  Hence  it  is  that  all  questions  of  social  relations  are  some- 
thing outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the  poet:  he  never  brought  mothers 
before  his  public  —  he  had  too  much  respect  for  the  sanctity  of  the 
home;  nor  would  he  present  married  ladies,  save  as  the  victims  of 
some  terrible  punishment  after  a  fall,  where  the  husband  figures  at 
once  as  judge,  avenger,  and  executioner. 

Hence  also  his  slight  attention  to  the  comedy  of  character,  and 
the  superficial  treatment  accorded  to  such  specimens  of  it  as  he  pro- 
duced. We  may  cite,  in  evidence,  the  two  character  sketches  in 
(Guardate  del  Agua  Mansa)  —  that  of  the  female  hypocrite  and  that 
of  the  coquette;  and  (No  hay  Burlas  con  el  Amor)  as  well.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  character  comedy  does  not  exist  for  Calderon, 
it  is  the  exclusive  inheritance  of  Tirso  and  Alarcon,  —  if  you  wish : 
also  of  Lope,  all  men  with  tendencies  toward  realism  much  more 
pronounced  than  is  the  case  with  Calderon. 

Alarcon  occasionally  falls  into  the  prosaic,  after  the  manner  of 
the  French,  among  them  even  Moliere;  and  he  sometimes  presents 
his  moral  lesson  didactically  or  as  a  thesis.  He  thus  went  as  far  as 
was  permissible  in  a  literature  so  elegant  and  chivalric  as  that  of 
Spain  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

We  must  not  forget  moreover  that  Calderon  worked  in  large  part 
by  commission.  He  wrote  for  palace  entertainments,  for  particular 
spectacles,  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case  had  to  be  quite  as  conven- 
tional and  artificial  as  they  were  ideal  and  fantastic.  Considerations 
of  times,  places,  passions,  characters  were  determined  by  the  expecta- 
tions of  court  or  salon.  Such  were  the  circumstances  in  which  his 
mythological  and  chivalric  works  were  produced.  At  best  we  may 
hope  in  them  for  good  specimens  of  lyric  poetry,  though  hardly  for 
dramatic  conditions  properly  so  called. 

Calderon 's  idealism,  thus,  is  not  the  harmonious  perfect  idealism 


99I4J  MARCELINO   MENENDEZ    Y    PELAYO 

of  Greek  tragedy  or  Greek  sculpture,  but  an  idealism  so  to  speak  of  a 
second  order  —  the  idealism  of  a  race  and  of  a  period.  He  is  idealistic 
in  the  sense  that  he  has  excluded  absolutely  from  his  theatre  all  the 
prosaic  aspects  —  all  the  wrecks  —  of  humanity.  Meanwhile  he 
exalts,  idealizes,  transfigures  whatever  in  the  society  of  his  time 
seemed  to  him  great,  generous,  and  noble.  Herein  lies  the  real  gran- 
deur of  his  spirit.  This  gives  him  his  figure  as  a  symbol  of  the  Spanish 
race;  this  entitles  him  to  the  esteem  he  has  won  everywhere  as  our 
distinctively  national  poet;  this  explains  why,  when  an  author  is 
sought  to  typify,  to  summarize  all  the  intellectual  and  poetic  great- 
ness of  our  Golden  Age,  all  eyes  turn  toward  Don  Pedro  Calderon 
de  la  Barca.  This  national  character  of  the  poet  has  prejudiced  to 
a  certain  extent  his  universality.  Much  of  his  worth  and  significance, 
measured  on  the  background  of  his  age,  is  lost  when  he  is  considered 
in  the  absolute  and  removed  from  the  society  for  which  he  wrote. 
He  is,  accordingly,  one  of  the  most  antiquated  of  our  authors.  His 
plays,  save  (El  Alcalde,)  have  little  interest  for  us  on  the  stage  and 
they  are  very  tiresome  even  when  read.  In  spite  of  all  that,  the  Span- 
ish theatre  presents  no  greater  name. 

His  glory,  then,  rather  than  the  glory  of  a  poet,  is  the  glory  of  an 
entire  nation.  Calderon  is  ancient  Spain,  with  all  its  lights  and 
shadows,  with  all  its  grandeur  and  its  defects,  its  pretentious  pomp, 
its  vanity,  its  slumber  of  decadence,  its  national  pride  unaffected  by 
national  disaster,  its  religious  sentiment,  its  monarchical  sentiment, 
its  love  of  justice,  its  devotion  to  patriarchal  privilege..  Calderon 
reflects  all  this  confusion  of  impulse  that  seethed  in  the  vitals  of 
Spanish  society. 


99^5 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

(1828-1909) 

BY  ANNA  MCCLURE  SHOLL 

>HAT  Robert  Browning  is  among  English  poets,  George  Mere- 
dith is  among  English  novelists.  A  writer  of  genius  who 
had  no  predecessors  and  who  can  have  no  posterity,  the 
isolation  of  Meredith  is  inherent  in  the  very  constitution  of  his  re- 
markable novels.  These  are  so  completely  of  the  man  himself  that 
their  kind  will  perish  with  him.  Their  weaknesses  elude  the  imi- 
tation of  the  most  scholarly  contortionists 
of  English.  Their  strength  -is  altogether 
superlative  and  unique. 

In  the  preface  to  a  late  work  Meredith 
writes :  <(  The  forecast  may  be  hazarded  that 
if  wre  do  not  speedily  embrace  philosophy 
in  fiction,  the  art  is  doomed  to  extinction. }> 
The  Meredithian  principle  of  the  novel  is 
summed  up  in  this  prophecy.  There  have 
not  been  wanting  critics  to  whom  the  lusty 
embraces  of  art  with  philosophy  in  Mr. 
Meredith's  novels  seem  productive  of  little 
but  intolerable  weariness  to  the  reader. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  writer  of  < The  Egoist > 
and  of  the  ( Tragic  Comedians  >  has  been 

scrupulously  faithful  to  his  ideal  of  what  constitutes  vitality  in  fiction. 
He  never  descends  to  the  deadening,  vulgarity  of  an  intricate  plot, 
nor  does  he  swamp  character  in  incident.  His  men  and  women 
reveal  themselves  by  their  subtle  play  upon  one  another  in  the  slow 
progress  of  situations  lifelike  in  their  apparent  unimportance.  They 
are  actors  not  in  a  romance  nor  in  a  melodrama,  but  in  a  drama  of 
philosophy.  Sometimes  this  philosophy  of  Meredith's  lies  like  a  cloak 
of  lead  about  the  delicate  form  of  his  rare  poetical  imagination. 
The  enchanting  lines  can  only  be  faintly  traced  through  the  formless 
shroud.  The  man  who  wrote  this  love  passage  in  ( Richard  Feverel* 
might  seem  to  have  made  sad  uses  of  philosophy  in  his  later  books:  — 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


<(The  sweet  heaven-bird  shivered  out  his  song  above  him.     The  gracious 
glory  of  heaven  fell  upon  his  soul.    He  touched  her  hand,  not  moving  his  eyes 


9916 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


from  her  nor  speaking:  and  she  with  a  soft  word  of  farewell  passed  across  the 
stile,  and  up  the  pathway  through  the  dewy  shades  of  the  copse,  and  out  of 
the  arch  of  the  light,  away  from  his  eyes.» 

From  the  delight  of  pure  beauty  like  this,  the  reader  passes  to 
sentences  where  the  metaphysician  has  buried  the  artist  and  poet 
under  the  unhewn  masses  of  his  thought. 

« A  witty  woman  is  a  treasure :  a  witty  beauty  is  a  power.  Has  she  actual 
beauty,  actual  wit?  not  an  empty,  tidal,  material  beauty  that  pacses  current 
among  pretty  flippancy  or  staggering  pretentiousness?  Grant  the  combination; 
she  will  appear  a  veritable  queen  of  her  period,  fit  for  homage,  at  least  meriting 
a  disposition  to  believe  the  best  of  her  in  the  teeth  of  foul  rumor;  because  the 
well  of  true  wit  is  truth  itself,  the  gathering  of  the  precious  drops  of  right 
reason,  wisdom's  lighting;  and  no  soul  possessing  it  and  dispensing  it  can 
justly  be  a  target  for  the  world,  however  well  armed  the  world  confronting 
her.  Our  contemporary  world,  that  Old  Credulity  and  stone-hurling  urchin 
in  one,  supposes  it  possible  for  a  woman  to  be  mentally  active  up  to  the  point 
of  spiritual  clarity,  and  also  fleshly  vile  —  a  guide  to  life  and  a  biter  at  the 
fruits  of  death  —  both  open  mind  and  a  hypocrite. » 

Between  these  two  passages  there  is  apparently  a  great  gulf  fixed, 
but  they  are  equally  expressive  of  the  genius  of  George  Meredith. 
He  is  a  poet  whose  passion  for  mind  has  led  him  far  enough  away 
from  the  poetical  environment.  Of  all  English  novelists,  none  ap- 
proach him  in  his  absorption  in  the  minds  of  men.  He  weaves  his 
novels  not  around  what  men  do,  but  what  they  think.  Mental  sensa- 
tions form  the  subject-matter  of  his  chapters.  He  delights  in  minute 
analyses,  which,  as  in  (The  Egoist,*  reveal  human  nature  unclothed. 
He  laughs  over  his  own  amazing  discoveries,  but  he  seldom  victim- 
izes a  woman.  What  sympathy  he  has  with  his  creations  falls  to  the 
lot  of  his  heroines.  The  minds  of  women  are  to  George  Meredith 
the  most  fascinating  subjects  of  research  in  the  universe.  He  may 
jest  at  times  over  their  contradictions;  but  he  attributes  their  worst 
features  to  man,  who  should  have  been  the  civilizer  of  woman,  but 
who  has  been  instead  the  refined  savage,  gloating  over  « veiled,  vir- 
ginal dolls. » 

Meredith,  who  was  born  in  1828,  was  many  years  in  revealing 
himself  to  the  British  public,  who  loved  him  not.  He  had  published 
a  volume  of  verse  in  1851,  and  he  was  known  to  the  narrow  circle  of 
his  friends  as  a  poet  only.  His  first  wife  was  the  daughter  of  Thomas 
Love  Peacock,  who  was  in  a  sense  the  spiritual  progenitor  of  George 
Meredith  the  novelist.  The  eccentric  author  of  <  Headlong  HalP  and 
<Maid  Marian,*  whose  novels  are  peopled  with  « perfectibilians,  dete- 
riorationists,  statu-quo-ites,  phrenologists,  transcendentalists,  political 
economists,  theorists  in  all  sciences,  projectors  in  all  arts,  enthusiasts, 
lovers  of  music,  lovers  of  the  picturesque,  and  lovers  of  good  dinners," 
might  well  have  influenced  the  author  of  <One  of  Our  Conquerors.* 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 


9917 


Among-  the  earlier  works  of  Meredith  <The  Shaving  of  Shagpat* 
and  <  Farina  >  witness  to  the  splendor  of  his  imagination,  but  not  to 
the  wealth  of  his  psychological  experience.  < The  Shaving  of  Shagpat ' 
is  an  extravaganza  which  puts  the  ( Arabian  Nights  >  to  shame.  (The 
Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel  >  is  his  first  typical  novel,  and  in  a  sense 
one  of  his  greatest,  because  it  combines  his  passion  for  philosophical 
estimates  of  character  with  his  passion  for  beauty.  Beauty  to  George 
Meredith  means  women  and  nature.  The  genius -of  the  man  forgets 
theories  when  under  this  double  inspiration. 

One  of  the  most  perfect  love  scenes  in  the  whole  range  of  fiction 
is  that  between  Richard  and  Lucy  alone  together  in  the  sweet  fields. 
Richard  Feverel  was  a  youth  with  whom  it  was  intended  that  nature 
should  have  little  to  do.  He  was  reared  upon  a  system,  the  fruit  of 
the  dejected  brain  and  hurt  heart  of  his  father,  Sir  Austin  Feverel. 
This  system  in  its  sublimated  perfection  overlooks  human  nature, 
and  provides  for  marriage  as  a  play  of  < Hamlet y  with  Hamlet  left 
out.  Richard,  young,  ardent,  living  in  his  youth  as  in  a  halo,  breaks 
through  the  paddock  of  the  appointed  order  to  marry  Lucy,  a  farm- 
er's daughter,  the  one  woman  of  George  Meredith  adjusted  to  the 
sentimental  type.  Separated  from  his  bride,  Richard  is  plunged 
into  his  fiery  ordeal.  He  comes  out  of  it  spotted,  wretched,  unwill- 
ing to  return  to  his  girl  bride,  whose  love  had  not  held  him  from  un- 
faithfulness. The  book  closes  in  the  sombreness  of  tragedy;  an 
ending  unusual  with  Meredith,  who  inclines  naturally  to  the  comedy 
of  human  nature.  There  is  not  a  little  of  this  comedy  in  <  Richard 
Feverel.*  The  household  of  Sir  Austin  is  essentially  the  fruit  of  the 
author's  humorous  insight  into  the  eccentricities  of  men  and  women. 
In  his  portrayal  of  the  wise  youth  Adrian  Harley,  who  will  speak 
only  in  epigrams;  of  Algernon  Feverel,  to  whom  dinner  is  both 
heaven  and  hell;  of  the  scheming  mother;  of  the  pale  Clare,  the  type 
of  feminine  submission  to  the  inevitable, —  Meredith  exhibits  his  com- 
prehension of  twisted  and  damaged  human  nature  and  his  detach- 
ment from  it. 

No  author  ever  took  his  creations  less  seriously,  unless  indeed 
they  are  women,  full  of  rich,  vibrant  life.  Meredith's  characters  must 
be  a  match  for  him,  else  he  will  hold  them  up  to  the  subtle  ridicule 
of  those  who  are  in  his  secret.  The  men  and  women  of  <  Evan  Har- 
rington >  are  thus  put  on  the  stage.  Parts  of  this  novel  are  supposed 
to  be  pages  from  Meredith's  own  experience  when  living  in  a  village 
near  London.  The  struggles  of  Evan  and  his  sisters,  who  have  been 
hampered  in  their  social  career  by  their  father,  a  tailor  of  foppish 
pretensions,  are  related  with  delicate  gusto.  About  these  central 
figures  come  and  go  a  host  of  Meredith's  own  people,  enveloped  one 
and  all  in  the  rose  light  of  a  dainty  comedy  of  manners. 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 

In  (  Sandra  Belloni  *  and  in  its  sequel  ( Vittoria  >  the  transition  be- 
comes marked  from  the  well-tempered  realistic  romance  of  ( Richard 
Feverel,*  and  the  frank  comedy  of  ( Evan  Harrington, }  to  the  meta- 
physical, enigmatic,  subtle  novels  of  Meredith's  later  manner.  Yet 
<  Sandra  Belloni  >  and  (  Vittoria >  are  brilliant  with  (<  noble  strength  on 
fire.w  The  heroine  Emilia  is  the  daughter  of  great  passions.  Her 
meteoric  life  is  traced  by  flashes  through  heavy  clouds  of  profound 
and  lengthy  epigrams, —  epigrams  after  the  manner  of  Meredith,  whole 
paragraphs  long. 

In  (  Diana  of  the  Crossways  >  the  peculiar  genius  of  Meredith  finds 
more  complete  expression.  This  is  a  year-long  novel  for  the  reading, 
and  like  <The  Egoist  *  requires  perhaps  a  lifetime  for  digestion.  The 
career  of  Diana,  an  Irish  gentlewoman,  strong  and  beautiful,  pure  and 
fervid,  made  for  love  and  leadership,  is  the  subject  of  this  remark- 
able novel.  The  men  who  love  her  are  seen  and  judged  less  by  a 
light  of  their  own  making  than  by  the  radiance  of  Diana.  They  are, 
as  is  usual  with  Meredith's  men,  the  dependents  of  the  woman.  The 
author  introduces  his  reader  to  his  heroine  by  a  preface  unintelligible 
to  the  uninitiated:  — 

(<  To  demand  of  us  truth  to  nature  excluding  philosophy  is  really  to  bid 
a  pumpkin  caper.  As  much  as  legs  are  wanted  for  the  dance,  philosophy 
is  required  to  make  our  human  nature  credible  and  acceptable.  Fictioc 
implores  you  to  heave  a  bigger  breast  and  take  her  in  with  this  heavenly 
preservative  helpmate,  her  inspiration  and  her  essence.  There  is  a  peep- 
show  and  a  Punch's  at  the  corner  of  every  street:  one  magnifying  the  lace- 
work  of  life,  another  the  ventral  tumulus;  and  it  is  there  for  you,  dry  bones, 
if  you  do  not  open  to  Philosophy. » 

Philosophy,  the  guiding  star  of  Meredith's  artistic  pilgrimage,  leads 
him  in  (  The  Egoist )  into  heavy  quagmires  of  mannerisms.  Yet  this 
novel  is  the  most  typical  of  his  intricate  genius.  It  reveals  to  the 
full  his  passion  for  unveiling  man  to  the  gaze  of  man.  Sir  Willoughby 
Patterne,  the  egoist,  might  be  embodied  satire  on  the  dearest  frailty 
of  man,  were  he  not  too  lifelike  and  too  remote  from  the  region  of 
the  abstract.  His  monstrous  selfishness  is  set  forth  in  such  exquisite 
detail  that  the  lesson  cannot  possibly  fail  of  its  purpose  through  un- 
due exaggeration.  Clara  Middleton,  <(the  dainty  rogue  in  porcelain, }> 
too  precious  for  the  clumsy  fingers  of  Sir  Willoughby,  ranks  with 
Diana  as  one  of  the  most  finished  creations  of  Meredith.  She  gives 
to  ( The  Egoist >  whatever  charm  it  has.  It  is  mainly  for  the  sake 
of  George  Meredith's  women  that  the  -reader  adventures  o'er  moor 
and  fen  and  crag  and  torrent  of  his  philosophical  mysteries  of  style. 
The  prize  is  worth  the  quest.  No  one  but  Hardy  has  approached 
Meredith  in  the  portrayal  of  woman  'nature,  and  Hardy  falls  short  of 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  99  rg 

Meredith,  because  the  creator  of  Diana  has  done  what  the  creator  of 
Tess  omits  doing.  He  has  given  to  the  world  its  own  nineteenth- 
century  women  of  the  best  type, — brilliant  but  not  neurotic,  thought- 
ful but  not  morbid.  Renee  and  Cecilia  in  <Beauchamp's  Career,  > 
Clara  Middleton  in  (The  Egoist,  >  Aminta  in  <Lord  Ormont,*  Diana, 
Vittoria,  and  others  of  their  kin,  are  in  their  mentality  women  of  no 
century  but  the  present;  yet  in  their  capacity  for  noble  passion  they 
might  be  placed  with  Elaine  in  the  airy  tower  of  a  forgotten  castle, 
or  with  Penelope"  in  the  sea  wanderer's  palace,  or  with  Senta  in  the 
fisherman's  hut.  The  milkmaid  type  of  woman  Meredith  drew  but 
once,  in  Lucy.  She  is  much  more  of  a  pink-and-white  country  lass 
than  Dahlia  and  Rhoda  in  (  Rhoda  Fleming. >  These  sisters  are  in  no 
sense  country  women,  unless  the  straightforward  passionate  career  of 
Rhoda  seeking  to  right  a  ruined  sister  establishes  her  as  a  child  of 
nature.  To  George  Meredith  it  is  the  woman  who  combines  heart 
and  intellect  who  is  to  be  worshiped  on  bended  knees.  His  ideal  of 
women  —  and  perhaps  the  best  description  of  his  own  women  —  is 
summed  up  in  this  passage  from  his  essay  on  'Comedy*: — 

(<But  those  two  ravishing  women,  so  copious  and  so  choice  of  speech,  who 
fence  with  men  and  pass  their  guard,  are  heartless !  Is  it  not  preferable  to 
be  the  pretty  idiot,  the  passive  beauty,  the  adorable  bundle  of  caprices, —  very 
feminine,  very  sympathetic  of  romantic  and  sentimental  fiction  ?  Our  women 
are  taught  to  think  so.  The  Agnes  of  the  < Ecole  des  Femmes  >  should  be 
a  lesson  for  men.  The  heroines  of  comedy  are  like  women  of  the  world: 
not  necessarily  heartless  from  being  clear-sighted;  they  seem  so  to  the  sen- 
timentally reared  only  for  the  reason  that  they  use  their  wits,  and  are  not 
wandering  vessels  crying  for  a  captain  or  a  pilot.  Comedy  is  an  exhibition 
of  their  battle  with  men,  and  that  of  men  with  them;  and  as  the  two,  however 
divergent,  both  look  on  one  object, —  namely,  Life, —  the  gradual  similarity  of 
their  impressions  must  bring  them  to  some  resemblance.  The  comic  poet 
dares  to  show  us  men  and  women  coming  to  this  mutual  likeness:  he  is  for 
saying  that  when  they  draw  together  in  social  life  their  minds  grow  liker ;  just 
as  the  philosopher  discerns  the  similarity  of  boy  and  girl  until  the  girl  is 
marched  away  to  the  nursery.  Philosopher  and  comic  poet  are  of  a  cousinship 
in  the  eye  they  cast  on  life;  and  they  are  equally  unpopular  with  our  willful 
English  of  the  hazy  region,  and  the  ideal  that  is  not  to  be  disturbed. » 

George  Meredith  explains  himself  and  his  doctrine  so  lucidly  in 
this  paragraph,  that  it  seems  impossible  ever  again  to  join  forces 
with  the  (<  willful  English  of  the  hazy  region. »  Yet  in  his  latest  nov- 
els he  sometimes  compels  his  most  penetrative  disciples  to  apostasy. 
Professor  Dowden  has  well  said  that  the  obscurity  of  an  author  is 
a  matter  for  subsequent  generations  to  decide;  yet  the  obscurity  of 
Meredith  in  <One  of  Our  Conquerors,*  in  the  < Amazing  Marriage,* 
or  in  (Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta, J  can  scarcely  be  due  to  the 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 

smoked  glasses  of  his  contemporaries.  A  writer  like  Meredith,  who 
possesses  in  the  highest  degree  the  unique  gift  of  the  comic  insight 
into  life,  with  all  that  it  implies  of  delicate  sympathy  and  subtle 
comprehension  of  human  nature,  must  be  expected  to  tell  of  his 
extraordinary  discoveries  in  an  extraordinary  tongue.  The  question  is 
pertinent,  however,  of  whether  supreme  genius  might  not  be  able  to 
relate  the  same  marvelous  stories  of  humanity  in  a  simpler  speech. 


MEREDITH'S  POETRY 

BY  GERTRUDE  E.  T.   SLAUGHTER 

WHEN  Meredith  had  become  the  acknowledged  leader  of  English 
letters  and  «the  oracle  of  Box  Hill))  he  was  still,  as  he  himself 
said,  «an  unpopular  novelist  and  an'  unaccepted  poet.))  Official 
criticism,  having  placed  his  novels  where  they  will  doubtless  remain, 
hesitates  about  his  poems.  And  not  without  reason.  For  poetry  such 
as  his  cannot  be  accepted  or  rejected  till  the  time  is  ripe.  His  forward- 
reaching  mind  conceived  ideas  that  were  difficult  to  express  and  he 
made  demands  upon  his  readers  which  only  time  can  lessen.  But  if  the 
task  of  a  poet  is  the  reinterpretation  of  life,  no  quality  is  more  requisite 
than  a  ((forward  imagination.))  And  it  may  well  happen  that  the 
quality  of  Meredith's  poetry  which  is  the  chief  cause  of  its  slow  appeal 
will  be  a  reason  for  its  final  acceptance.  Certainly,  if  poetry  is  to  convey 
a  new  realization  of  the  meaning  of  things,  it  can  be  received  only  when 
our  highest  intelligence  is  awake.  It  must  be  poetry  that  we  shall  cling 
to  with  our  strength  and  not  with  our  weakness. 

It  is  clear  from  the  Letters  that  Meredith  thought  of  himself  always 
as  a  poet  and  that  he  was  inclined  to  poetical  expression  by  every  in- 
stinct. Before  he  was  twenty  years  old  he  had  given  proof  of  his  ability 
to  sing;  and  the  volume  that  he  published  at  the  age  of  seventy-three 
shows  over-concentration  but  no  diminution  of  his  power.  Often  when 
he  was  writing  the  novels  the  ((curse  of  verse))  would  come  upon  him  to 
((bedevil  him))  and  hinder  his  work.  Poetry  was  his  ((evil  fairy  who  had 
condemned  him  to  poverty  from  the  cradle  through  the  love  of  verse.)) 
In  middle  life,  when  he  was  less  driven  by  the  pressure  of  remunerative 
work,  he  said:  ((Latterly  I  have  felt  poetically  weakened  by  philo- 
sophical reflection.  But  this  is  going  and  a  greater  strength  comes  of  it. 
For  I  believe  I  am  in  the  shadow  of  the  truth;  and  as  it  is  my  nature  to 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  992Oa 

sing  I  may  yet  do  well.))  That  he  had  the  gifts  of  a  poet  none  will  den^: 
The  imaginative  quality  of  his  style,  with  all  its  ((passionate  and  various 
beauty))  —  its  ability  to  flash  meanings  in  a  phrase  and  to  translate 
moods  into  pure  lyrics  —  combined  with  his  power  over  the  elements 
of  tragedy  and  comedy  to  produce,  in  whatever  medium,  the  work  of  a 
poet.  If  he  seemed  to  abuse  his  power  at  times,  it  was  never  willfully  but 
because  of  an  overabundance  of  the  intellectual  vigor  which  enhances 
the  value  of  his  most  majestic  lines  and  his  most  melodious  cadences. 

It  was  maintained  by  an  English  critic  at  the  end  of  the  century 
that,  in  the  true  succession  of  English  poets,  Meredith  stands  next  to 
Wordsworth,  inasmuch  as  no  other  poet  after  Wordsworth  gave  such 
exalted  expression  to  the  passion  of  the  century,  which  was  the  love  of 
nature,  combined  with  so  great  faith  in  its  virtue.  Meredith's  poetry 
does  in  fact  attach  itself  to  Wordsworth's,  although  far  exceeding  it  in 
scope,  in  that  both  gave  to  natural  phenomena,  each  as  his  own  age 
understood  them,  that  (diving  and  colored  representation))  which  Sainte- 
Beuve  declared  to  be  the  function  of  poetry.  To  both  of  them  nature 
was  the  great  revealing  agency.  Meredith  accepted  freely  the  scientific 
teachings  of  his  day  toward  which  Tennyson's  attitude  was  vacillating 
and  Browning's  reactionary.  He  accepted  them  moreover  with  the  en- 
thusiasm of  a  poet  and  they  became  the  justification  of  his  faith,  the 
reasonable  warrant  of  his  dream.  During  the  entire  second  half  of  the 
century,  while  literary  movements  waxed  and  waned  and  the  new  world 
ushered  in  by  Darwin's  popularization  of  scientific  theories  seemed 
powerless  to  be  born,  Meredith  was  creating  in  his  poetry  an  interpreta- 
tion at  once  faithful  and  original  of  the  theories  and  the  spirit  of  the 
new  science. 

His  conclusions  led  him  to  none  of  the  extremes  to  which,  by  the 
subjectivity  of  logic,  the  tenets  of  science  have  led  many  modern  thinkers. 
Between  the  material  determinism  of  modern  literature  which  involves 
every  individual  life  in  the  energy  that  drives  existence  forward  and 
the  narrowness  of  mid- Victorian  individualism  he  held  a  middle  ground, 
asserting  that  by  the  power  of  the  spirit  the  fates  are  within  us  even 
while,  by  the  laws  of  nature,  we  are  in  the  hands  of  the  fates,  —  the 
inevitable  paradox  of  life.  He  did  not  resort  to  the  false  line  of  reasoning 
that  constructs  the  moral  world  by  literal  deductions  from  the  physical. 
He  is  a  poet  and  proceeds  in  a  different  way.  Accepting  the  biological 
theory  of  evolution  without  any  sense  of  conflict,  he  sees  an  earth  alive 
with  meanings;  and  to  read  those  meanings  is  to  behold  the  significance 
of  life  in  an  impassioned  vision  of  reality.  The  outlook  is  not  through 
science  to  despair.  Nor  is  it  to  self-complacent  optimism.  For  the 
vision  is  not  for  those  who  (dean  their  heads  on  downy  ignorance))  and 
transfer  their  responsibilities  to  fate  or  circumstance  or  to  the  power 
that  somehow,  in  spite  of  us,  will  make  for  righteousness.  It  is  for  those 
who  have  understanding  minds  and  ((souls  not  lent  in  usury));  for  those 


9920  b  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

who,  scorning  Fear  and  casting  Self  aside,  are  willing  to  throw  them- 
selves —  their  strength  well  knit  —  into  the  brave  wars  that  must  be 
waged  before  mankind  may  attain  to  the  stature  of  the  gods.  Although 
struggle  is  the  condition  of  growth  and  will  never  end,  it  is  the  glory  of 
man  to  share  in  the  upward  impulse  of  nature.  And  that  upward 
impulse,  which  has  produced  reason  and  love  and  laughter,  is  away 
from  rivalries  and  self-seeking  toward  brotherhood,  away  from  slavery 
toward  liberty,  from  the  senses  to  the  spirit,  from  Earth  ((Up  to  God's 
footstool  whither  she  reaches.))  • 

It  seems  to  Meredith  that  systems  of  religion  and  schemes  of  worship 
have  often  ((slain  the  soul  of  brotherhood,))  whereas  the  aspect  of  nature 
in  the  process  of  evolution  creates  both  brotherhood  and  reverence.  It 
levels  mankind.  As  old  Martin  says, 

((It  pours  such  a  splendor  on  heaps  of  poor  souls.)) 

But  if  it  levels  mankind  and  crushes  the  pretensions  of  the  elect  it 
also  creates  distinctions  that  prove  the  soul.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the 
seer  ventures  beyond  the  sky-line  of  the  scientist.  For  while  life  is  at 
the  grindstone  set  to  make  good  instruments  of  men,  yet  in  the  end  the 
fittest  to  survive  is  solved  in  spirit.  For  the  spiritual  is  the  eternal. 
((Earth  that  gives  the  milk  the  spirit  gives,))  and  he  whose  spirit  conquers 
the  flesh  is  the  best-loved  child  of  earth. 

((Our  lives  are  but  a  little  holding  lent 
To  do  a  mighty  labor.     We  are  one 
With  heaven  and  the  stars  if  it  is  spent 
To  do  God's  will.     Else  die  we  with  the  sun.)) 

Among  those  who  have  admired  Meredith's  poems  there  is  wide 
divergence  of  opinion.  One  pronounces  his  fame  secure  because  (Love 
in  the  Valley)  is  the  greatest  love  poem  of  the  century.  Another  would 
base  his  reputation  on  (The  Woods  of  Westermain, )  which  he  regards 
as  a  great  and  original  achievement,  while  (Love  in  the  Valley)  is  only  a 
successful  venture  in  a  popular  vein.  Another,  who  finds  in  (Juggling 
Jerry)  the  universality  of  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  condemns  (Modern 
Love,)  that  searching  tragi-comedy  which  Swinburne  declared  to  be 
((above  the  aim  and  beyond  the  reach  of  any  but  its  author,))  as  artificial 
and  strained  and  false.  While  another  who  has  only  scorn  for  (Juggling 
Jerry)  .places  (Modern  Love)  above  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  Another 
presses  for  the  ballad  poetry,  declaring  that  (The  Nuptials  of  Attila) 
raises  its  author  above  the  other  poets  of  his  day.  Still  another  finds 
the  proof  of  his  greatness  in  (Earth  and  Man,)  another  in  (The  Day  of 
the  Daughter  of  Hades,)  another  in  the  (Ode  to  France,)  and  another  in 
(The  Lark  Ascending.) 

These    personal    preferences    have    an    interest    as    the    opinions    of 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  992Oc 

interesting  men.  But  the  time  has  come  to  judge  Meredith's  poetry 
more  critically,  to  study  it  as  a  whole,  and  to  inquire  whether  there  is 
not  some  poetic  quality  common  to  all  of  these  types,  —  to  nature 
poetry  and  ballad  poetry,  to  lyrical  outbursts  of  simple  melody  and 
analytical  poems  of  deep  reflection,  to  dramas  of  domestic  life  and 
criticisms  of  literature,  to  impersonations  and  reminiscences  and  his- 
tories. If  they  possess  a  unity  of  imaginative  conception  it  is  a  greater 
thing  than  unity  of  style.  Similarity  of  form  gives  an  easy  vogue  to 
many  a  passing  versifier  and  often  betokens  poverty  of  expression. 
There  is  a  deeper  unity  which  is  rooted  in  thoughtfulness  and  therefore 
in  the  general  life. 

It  is  indeed  difficult  to  understand  how  the  rough  and  involved 
expressions  of  some  of  the  poems  can  be  related  in  any  way  to  the 
melodious  flow  of  others;  how  the  lines  of  the  (Ode  to  the  Comic  Spirit,) 
for  example,  can  have  issued  out  of  the  same  mind  that  produced  the 
stanzas  of  (Love  in  the  Valley)  — those  stanzas  that  made  Stevenson 
((drunk  like  wine.))  Nothing  can  excuse  the  faults  of  faulty  lines,  and 
there  are  many  of  Meredith's  that  nobody  will  read  twice  if  he  can  help 
it.  But  it  is  true  that  one  may  accustom  oneself  to  inversions  and 
syncopated  forms,  and  that  there  comes  to  be  even  a  certain  fascination 
in  the  ruggedYiess  and  independence  of  the  style.  Its  very  asperities 
impart  a  kind  of  strength,  like  the  strength  of  the  relentless  sea.  Whether 
one  will  tempt  this  sea  of  verse  will  depend  upon  how  forcibly  one  is 
impelled  by  the  power  of  the  portions  that  have  been  revealed  to  one. 

It  is  only  by  reading  this  poetry  until  one  has  penetrated  through  its 
diversity  of  form  to  its  unity  of  spirit  that  one  is  made  aware  of  its  power 
to  touch  the  soul  with  new  life  even  as  it  haunts  the  ear  with  strange 
melodies.  The  faithful  reader  will  be  led  through  some  tangles  and 
desert  wastes.  Nevertheless  he  is  led  on  an  exhilarating  journey.  He  is 
taken  into  the  secret  haunt  of  every  bird  and  flower  of  the  English 
countryside,  where,  in  ((^olian  silences.))  he  will  catch  the  sound  of 
((water,  first  of  singers))  or  the  ((chirp  of  Ariel))  or  the  ((Dryad  voices  of 
old  hymning  night.))  He  is  carried  upward  with  the  lark  who  ((wings  our 
green  to  wed  our  blue))  and  taken  delving  into  dark  problems  of  evil  and 
left  to  rest  where 

((The  soft  night  wind  went  laden  to  death 
With  smell  of  the  orange  in  flower.)) 

He  will  meet  a  few  members  of  the  aristocratic  world  of  the  novels  but 
he  will  encounter  oftener  some  roadside  beggar  or  farmer  or  villager  or 
some  princess  of  old  romance.  He  will  enter  no  unreal  gardens  of 
Proserpine  or  the  Sensitive  Plant  but  in  the  meadows  where  he  walks 
among  familiar  sights  he  will  meet  Apollo  and  Daphne  and  Demeter  and 
Triptolemus  and  one  who  is  close  kin  to  Nausicaa.  He  will  feel  the  teeth 
of  the  fiercest  wind  and  there  is  no  mood  of  the  woods  that  he  will  not 


9920  d  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

share.  Wherever  he  is  led  he  will  find  more  than  pictures  and  music, 
or  more  than  the  emptiness  of  poetry  that  attempts  to  do  the  tasks  of 
pictures  and  music.  But  no  weight  of  thought  will  prevent  his  tasting 
((joy's  excess))  and  the  ((savage  freedom  of  the  skies.))  He  will  be  caught 
up  by  the  spirit  of  life  until  he  echoes  the  poet's  faith  that  forward  sets 
and  his  «dream  of  the  blossom  of  good.)) 

The  inherent  magic  of  the  poet  is  one  with  the  fundamental  tenet  of 
the  philosopher.  That  which  the  philosopher  counsels  the  poet  realizes. 

He  realizes  it  most  of  all  by  the  cumulative  effect  of  the  poetry  as  a 
whole.  It  would  be  impossible  to  convey  an  impression  of  that  effect 
in  prose,  but  it  may  be  indicated  by  some  lines  in  which  the  poet  says  of 
Beauty  and  the  Soul: 

((He  gives  her  homeliness  in  desert  air 
And  sovereignty  in  spaciousness.     He  leads 
Through  widening  chambers  of  surprise  to  where 
Throbs  rapture  near  an  end  that  aye  recedes 
Because  his  touch  is  infinite  and  lends 
A  yonder  to  all  ends.)) 

The  effect  of  the  poetry  is  to  impart  to  the  reader  a  sense  of  homeliness 
in  desert  air,  of  sovereignty  in  spaciousness.  '  It  has  the  power  so  rare  in 
modern  verse  of  compelling  the  mind  to  sink  its  fate,  or  enlarge  its  life, 
in  the  encircling  radiance  of  universal  being. 

It  would  be  possible  to  go  through  the  poems  and  show  how  they 
contribute  severally  to  this  effect.  The  purest  lyrics,  like  (The  Lark 
Ascending,)  with  its  marvelous  bird-song,  take  you  into  the  heart  of 
things  and  make  you  one  with  nature.  (The  Day  of  the  Daughter  of 
Hades)  exalts  life  with  ecstasy.  It  is  a  series  of  singing  pictures,  full  of 
the  enchantment  of  growing  things,  of  the  glory  of  light,  of  the  splendor 
of  storm,  of  the  wonders  wrought  by  the  law  of  life  and  death.  It  is  at 
once  the  most  beautiful  transformation  of  the  Demeter  legend  into  a 
modern  poem  and  a  perfect  expression  of  the  poet's  view  of  reality. 
(Love  in  the  Valley)  weaves  the  delights  of  nature  and  young  love  into 
a  pattern  of  exquisite  harmonies.  The  sonnet-sequence,  (  Modern  Love,) 
is  the  tragedy  of  two  souls  caught  in  the  net  of  a  subtle  selfishness.  It 
reveals  in  trenchant  and  haunting  phrases  the  dark  depths  of  their 
suffering  and  the  littleness  of  their  problem  in  the  face  of  nature's  great 
simplicity.  (The  Woods  of  Westermain)  is  an  alluring  invitation  to  the 
courageous  soul  to  enter  into  the  secrets  of  nature  in  her  multitudinous 
aspects  and  to  learn  joy  and  wisdom  from  every  cone  and  seedling,  from 
growth  and  decay  and  birth  and  death,  and  from  ((Change,  the  strongest 
son  of  Life.)) 

((You  of  any  well  that  springs 
May  unfold  the  heaven  of  things.)) 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  9920  e 

Meredith  was  always  unfolding  the  secrets  of  the  Woods  of  Wester- 
main,  from  the  (Pastorals)  and  (The  Southwest  Wind  in  the  Woodland) 
of  his  earliest  volume,  through  (Melampus)  and  (Phcebus  with  Ad- 
metus)  and '(The  Spirit  of  Earth  in  Autumn)  and  (The  Thrush  in 
February)  and  the  (Night  of  Frost  in  May,)  even  down  to  the  youthful 
song  of  his  eightieth  year: 

((My  heart  shoots  into  the  breast  of  the  bird 
As  it  will  for  sheer  love  till  the  last  long  sigh.)) 

Ballads,  like  (The  Nuptials  of  Attila) ;  poems  of  character  and  inci- 
dent, like  (Earth  and  the  Wedded  Woman,)  (The  Old  Chartist,)  (A 
Ballad  of  Fair  Ladies  in  Revolt,)  and  (Juggling  Jerry);  and  delicate 
lyrics  like  (Autumn  Even-song)  and  (Wind  on  the  Lyre)  — all  have 
their  inspiration  in  a  consciousness  of  the  unity  of  life.  Everywhere  man 
and  nature  are  held  close  together  as  nature  holds  them. 

((Earth  was  not  Earth  before  her  sons  appeared 
Nor  Beauty  Beauty  ere  young  Love  was  born.)) 

Some  of  the  poems  breathe  less  the  spirit  of  life  and  expound  more 
coldly  the  views  of  the  philosopher.  (Earth  and  Man)  is  usually  cited 
as  the  most  complete  expression  of  the  philosophy.  But  (Earth  and 
Man)  presents  ideas  in  gaunt  outlines.  It  does  not  compel  us  ((to  feel 
that  which  we  perceive  and  to  imagine  that  which  we  know.))  It  re- 
presents the  earth  as  producing  man  her  offspring  and  leaving  him  to 
contend  with  the  elements  for  his  existence.  She  gives  him  what  he 
needs  but  not  what  he  desires.  She  bids  him  crush  his  personal  longings; 
and  her  only  consolation  is  the  maxim,  ((Live  in  thy  offspring  as  I  live 
in  mine.))  She  has  planted  a  dream  within  him  and  he  will  learn  that 
she  is  spirit  and  that  he  may  rest  his  faith  in  her.  But  these  ideas  are 
not  illumined.  They  lack  the  impassioned  expression,  the  instinctive 
joyfulness,  and  perception  of  beauty  of  many  of  his  earlier  poems  and 
his  later  softened  understanding  of  life. 

The  sonnet,  (Lucifer  in  Starlight,)  contains  the  sterner  aspect  of 
truth,  but  it  does  not  leave  the  reader  coldly  speculating.  It  conveys  a 
sense  of  what  it  proclaims,  the  reign  of  unalterable  law.  In  (A  Medita- 
tion under  Stars)  the  measureless  immensity  is  made  palpable  in  lines 
that  contain  the  essence  of  the  philosophy.  The  poet  finds  no  answer 
to  his  questions  of  the  stars  but  he  is  satisfied  with  the  belief  that 

((  The  fire  is  in  them  whereof  we  are  born, 
The  music  of  their  motion  may  be  ours.)) 

(The  Test  of  Manhood,)  written  nearly  twenty  years  later  than 
(Earth  and  Man,)  is  a  more  comprehensive  and  more  poetical  formation 
of  Meredith's  philosophy.  It  describes  in  impressive  words  the  brave 


992 of  ^        GEORGE  MEREDITH 

struggle  of  the  race  through  crimson  mire,  like  a  seed  toward  light  and 
air;  and  when,  in  his  effort  to  balance  rightly  the  powers  of  life,  man  is 
((dragged  rearward,  shamed,  amazed,))  the  poet  asks  what  Jiope  there  is 
and  answers  that  with  each  recovery  he  acquires  a  surer  sense  of  his 
march  ahead.  Something  permanent  is  gained  at  every  new  advance. 

(( A  sun  goes  down  in  wasted  fire :  a  sun 
Resplendent  shines,  to  faith  refreshed  compels.)) 

As  the  philosopher's  reading  of  life  is  condensed  into  (The  Test  of 
Manhood,)  the  poet's  enthusiasm  for  thebeauty-of  nature  is  concentrated 
in  the  (Hymn  to  Color.)  The  spirit  that  animates  the  poems  and  gives 
them  unity  assumes  in  the  (Hymn  to  Color)  a  form  that  bears  witness 
to  the  poet's  constructive  art.  It  is  a  form  unique  in  modern  verse. 
It  stands  apart  like  an  ode  of  Pindar,  in  a  high  light,  aloof  from  the 
beaten  paths.  Yet  it  is  not  elusive  or  fantastic.  Its  truth  springs 
from  the  actual.  It  is  as  if  the  poet,  in  the  maturity  of  his  years,  were 
standing  on  an  eminence  and  looking  down  upon  the  world  into  whose 
secrets  he  had  penetrated  and,  gazing  through  the  web  of  phenomena, 
perceived  the  meaning  of  things  more  clearly  because  he  stands  apart; 
or  as  if  he  had  taken  into  his  hand  the  bare  essentials  of  his  structure  of 
human  life  and  molded  them  into  a  plastic  form  at  once  sensuous  and 
austere.  This  beauty  that  Meredith  exalts  is  ((Color,  the  soul's  bride- 
groom,)) the  beauty  of  nature  seen  through  love,  the  beauty  of  dawn 
that  vanishes  in  an  instant  and  yet  lasts  through  eternity,  that  gives 
warmth  to  life  and  gentleness  to  death;  and,  more  than  all,  it  is  the 
fount  from  which  to  drink  delight  of  battle.  It  is  the  soul's  armor  for 
the  warfare  of  humanity  in  which  he  may  go  forth  to  triumph  after 
triumph  of  the  spirit  until 

((  He  shall  uplift  his  earth  to  meet  her  Lord, 
Himself  the  attuning  chord.)) 

The  ( Hymn  to  Color, )  written  at  the  age  of  sixty,  holds  in  perfect 
balance  the  poetic  ardors  of  Meredith's  earlier  poetry  and  the  intellec- 
tual abstractions  that  dominated  more  and  more  his  later  work.  It 
belongs  to  a  group  of  poems  which,  issuing  as  they  do  out  of  a  period  of 
great  strain  and  suffering,  when,  as  he  said  in  one  of  the  Letters,  he 
((trod  on  spikes  where  once  were  flowers,))  offer  a  certain  corrective  of  his 
earlier  philosophy.  One  discerns  in  them  a  deepened  vision  of  spiritual 
reality,  a  fuller  sense  of  the  cost  to  the  individual  of  the  renunciation 
that  underlies  his  doctrine  of  acceptance.  The  ungrudging  willingness 
to  be  sword  or  block  in  the  service  of  future  generations  is  an  ideal  too 
austere  for  the  maintenance  of  the  joy  the  poet  cherishes.  The  change 
is  one  of  emphasis  rather  than  of  doctrine,  but  it  has  the  effect  of  mellow- 
ing and  humanizing  the  philosophy. 

The   (Faith  on  Trial)   is  the  story  of  the  white  heat  of  the  ordeal. 


GEORGE    MEREDITH  992 Og 

It  takes  the  reader  into  the  heart  of  the  beech-woods  in  early  spring  and 
into  close  intimacy  with  the  poet.  The  heavens  have  broken  upon  him; 
and  his  own  soul  as  well  as  his  philosophy  is  put  on  trial.  He  sees  the 
clearing  vision  in  the  folds  of  blossom  on  the  wild  white  cherry-tree,  but 
it  is  only  when  he  has  wrestled  with  himself  and  bowed  in  resignation 
and  cried,  ((Smite,  sacred  Reality,))  that  his  philosophy  triumphs.  The 
triumph  of  his.  philosophy  is  the  triumph  of  his  faith  in  the  life  of  the 
spirit.  He  has  applied  his  test  to  himself  unflinchingly,  and  like  Me- 
lampus  and  Juggling  Jerry  and  Shakespeare  and  the  Daughter  of  Hades 
he  has  looked  upon  earth  deeper  than  flower  and  tree  and  has  found 

((A  soul  beside  our  own  to  quicken,  quell, 
Irradiate,  and  through  ruinous  floods  uplift.)) 

In  the  (Odes  in  Contribution  to  the  Song  of  French  History)  Mere- 
dith applied  his  test  of  human  worth  to  nations.  Three  of  the  four  odes 
were  written  in  the  poet's  seventieth  year,  the  ode  to  (France,  1870) 
thirty  years  earlier.  Taken  together  they  so  far  exceed  in  magnitude 
any  similar  treatment  of  history  in  English  poetry  as  to  constitute  a  new 
type  of  lyric.  They  give  evidence  of  a  close  reading  of  history  and  they 
uphold  a  conception  of  the  responsibility  of  nations  that  forecasts  the 
((new  internationalism))  of  the  present  time. 

The  whole  series  is  a  vivid  analysis  of  the  ((radiance  and  the  mon- 
strous deeds))  of  France  since  the  days  that  preceded  the  Revolution 
and  a  prophecy  of  her  future  task  before  the  world.  The  character  of 
Napoleon,  which  is  drawn  with  master  strokes,  is  presented  in  its  con- 
trast with  the  national  ideal  of  ((soaring  France.))  In  all  of  Meredith's 
characters,  whether  he  shows  them  caught  in  the  snares  of  sentimen- 
talism  or  in  the  tragic  net  of  circumstance  or  escaping  free  of  both,  the 
rock  of  disaster  is  the  love  of  self.  The  root  of  evil  in  Napoleon's  nature 
is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Egoist,  and  the  high  soul  of  France  is  trium- 
phant after  bitter  conflict  for  the  same  reason  that  the  devoted  spirit  of 
Vittoria  issued  clear  out  of  strife.  Joan  of  Arc  is  greater  than  Napoleon 
and  will  outlive  him  because  she  had  tossed  her  heart  into  the  furnace 
pit  for  the  sake  of  France,  while  he,  the  arbiter  of  circumstance,  had 
lured  her  by  the  promise  of  order  in  the  state  and  held  her  as  his  slave. 
When  France  in  the  Revolution  rose  to  wed  Liberty  she  had  learned 
to  embrace  mankind.  She  had  listened  to  the  song  of  Earth,  and  its 
harmonies  had  taught  her  the  laws  of  life.  They  had  taught  her  the 
meaning  of  accord,  which  is  the  only  true  liberty.  The  voice  of  liberty 
was  ((the  voice  of  Earth's  very  soul.))  Whenever  she  was  fresh  from 
nature's  breast  her  only  concern  was  to  plant  good  seed  for  the  young 
generations.  At  the  end  the  poet  calls  upon  her  to  ((wash  from  her  eyes 
the  Napoleonic  glare))  forever,  to  forfeit  the  desire  of  glory  for  the  sake 
of  Europe  where  war  is  fratricide,  and  to  know  that  humanity  is  on  trial 
in  her  and  it  is  her  task  to  lead  the  nations  through  troubled  seas. 


992 Oh  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

Meredith  saw  in  France  a  resurgency  of  light  that  makes  her  the 
hope  of  the  age.  But  it  was  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  England  that  he  was 
holding  up  in  a  new  light  his  ideal  of  reason  and  sacrifice.  With  all  of  his 
rapier  thrusts  at  the  faults  of  England,  she  was  to  him  ((our  England  of  the 
ancient  fortitude  and  the  future  incarnation.))  He  identified  the  cause  of 
his  country  with  the  cause  of  humanity.  He  devoted  a  number  of  poems  to 
English  national  affairs,  but  they  are  unimportant  compared  with  the  criti- 
cism of  English  society  that  permeates  his  work  both  as  novelist  and  poet. 

In  one  of  the  memorable  conversations  of  his  later  years  Meredith 
said  of  his  work  that  its  aim  had  been  to  make  John  Bull  understand 
himself.  He  said  too  that  although  his  verse  was  little  read  it  was  for 
his  verse  that  he  cared  most.  ((Chiefly,))  he  said,  «by  that  in  my  verse 
which  emphasizes  the  unity  of  life,  the  soul  that  breathes  through  the 
universe,  do  I  wish  to  be  remembered.  For  the  spiritual  is  the  eternal.)) 

These  words  express  the  twofold  aspect  of  his  achievement.  Neither 
aspect  is  limited  to  his  poetry  and  neither  to  his  prose.  One  represents 
its  extensive  value  and  covers  his  treatment  of  character.  The  other  is 
intensive  and  indicates  the  attitude  toward  nature  which  is  the  basis  of 
his  philosophy.  To  understand  them  both  is  to  know  that  he  has  not 
bequeathed  us  a  ((Sphinx  to  tease  the  world  again,))  as  an  American  poet 
said  of  him.  It  is  to  know  that  the  most  remarkable  quality  of  his 
genius  is  its  unity  in  versatility,  its  simplicity  in  complexity.  He  who 
overpowers  us  at  times  with  the  cudgels  of  his  intellect  or  dazzles  us 
with  the  finely  chiseled  facets  of  his  wit  has  in  reality  a  philosophy  so 
simple  that  it  resolves  itself  into  the  essence  of  religion.  Humility  and 
reverence  are  its  watchwords.  Its  fruit  is  a  simple  faith  based  on  reality, 
asking  for  no  special  indulgences  in  this  world  or  another,  learning  of 
nature  the  way  of  progress  through  patient  fidelities  toward  an  ideal  of 
brotherhood.  Its  guiding  lights  are  reason  and  sanity.  Its  temper  is  the 
((rapture  of  the  forward  view.)) 

Meredith's  poetry  has  a  vital  and  sustaining  power.  The  energetic 
faith  that  ((through  disaster  sings))  and  the  temper  that  is  able 

((To  see  in  mold  the  rose  unfold, 
The  soul  through  blood  and  tears,)) 

is  imparted  not  by  precept  and  persuasion  but  by  the  inspiration  of 
poetry.  Meredith  was  not  an  experimenter  in  verse  who  succeeded  once 
or  twice  by  chance.  He  proved  himself  a  singer  of  simple  melodies  and 
a  master  of  complex  metres;  a  bard  of  lyrical  ecstasies  and  a  dispassionate 
seeker  after  truth.  He  said  of  his  poems  that  they  were  ((flints,  not 
flowers.))  But  they  are  both.  They  ((strike  the  spark  out  of  our  human  clay)) 
and  they  reproduce  that  exalted  mood  when,  for  the  reader  as  for  the  poet, 

((Dead  seasons  quicken  in  one  petal-spot 
Of  color  unforgot.)) 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  99  21 

RICHARD  AND   LUCY:   AN   IDYL 
From  <The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel  > 

WHEN  nature  has  made  us  ripe  for  love,  it  seldom  occurs 
that  the  Fates  are  behindhand  in  furnishing  a  temple  for 
the  flame. 

Above  green-flashing  plunges  of  a  weir,  and  shaken  by  the 
thunder  below,  lilies,  golden  and  white,  were  swaying  at  anchor 
among  the  reeds.  Meadow-sweet  hung  from  the  banks  thick 
with  weed  and  trailing  bramble,  and  there  also  hung  a  daughter 
of  earth.  Her  face  was  shaded  by  a  broad  straw  hat  with  a 
flexible  brim  that  left  her  lips  and  chin  in  the  sun,  and  some- 
times nodding,  sent  forth  a  light  of  promising  eyes.  Across  her 
shoulders,  and  behind,  flowed  large  loose  curls,  brown  in  shadow, 
almost  golden  where  the  ray  touched  them.  She  was  simply 
dressed,  befitting  decency  and  the  season.  On  a  closer  inspection 
you  might  see  that  her  lips  were  stained.  This  blooming  young 
person  was  regaling  on  dewberries.  They  grew  between  the 
bank  and  the  water.  Apparently  she  found  the  fruit  abundant, 
for  her  hand  was  making  pretty  progress  to  her  mouth.  Fastid- 
ious youth,  which  shudders  and  revolts  at  woman  plumping  her 
exquisite  proportions  on  bread  and  butter,  and  would  (we  must 
suppose)  joyfully  have  her  quite  scraggy  to  have  her  quite  poeti- 
cal, can  hardly  object  to  dewberries.  Indeed,  the  act  of  eating 
them  is  dainty  and  induces  musing.  The  dewberry  is  a  sister  to 
the  lotus,  and  an  innocent  sister.  You  eat;  mouth,  eye,  and  hand 
are  occupied,  and  the  undrugged  mind  free  to  roam.  And  so  it 
was  with  the  damsel  who  knelt  there.  The  little  skylark  went 
up  above  her,  all  song,  to  the  smooth  southern  cloud  lying  along 
the  blue;  from  a  dewy  copse  standing  dark  over  her  nodding 
hat  the  blackbird  fluted,  calling  to  her  with  thrice  mellow  note; 
the  kingfisher  flashed  emerald  out  of  green  osiers;  a  bow-winged 
heron  traveled  aloft,  seeking  solitude;  a  boat  slipped  toward  her, 
containing  a  dreamy  youth;  and  still  she  plucked  the  fruit,  and 
ate,  and  mused,  as  if  no  fairy  prince  were  invading  her  territo 
ries,  and  as  if .  she  wished  not  for  one,  or  knew  not  her  wishes. 
Surrounded  by  the  green  shaven  meadows,  the  pastoral  summer 
buzz,  the  weirfall's  thundering  white,  amid  the  breath  and  beauty 
of  wild  flowers,  she  was  a  bit  of  lovely  human  life  in  a  fair  set- 
ting; a  terrible  attraction.  The  Magnetic  Youth  leaned  round  to 
note  his  proximity  to  the  weir-piles,  and  beheld  the  sweet  vision. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Stiller  and  stiller  grew  nature,  as  at  the  meeting  of  two  electric 
clouds.  Her  posture  was  so  graceful  that  though  he  was  making 
straight  for  the  weir,  he  dared  not  dip  a  scull.  Just  then  one 
most  enticing  dewberry  caught  her  eyes.  He  was  floating  by 
unheeded,  and  saw  that  her  hand  stretched  low,  and  could  not 
gather  what  it  sought.  A  stroke  from  his  right  brought  him 
beside  her.  The  damsel  glanced  up  dismayed,  and  her  whole 
shape  trembled  over  the  brink.  Richard  sprang  from  his  boat 
into  the  water.  Pressing  a  hand  beneath  her  foot,  which  she 
had  thrust  against  the  crumbling  wet  sides  of  the  bank  to  save 
herself,  he  enabled  her  to  recover  her  balance  and  gain  safe 
earth,  whither,  emboldened  by  the  incident,  touching  her  finger's 
tip,  he  followed  her. 

HE  HAD  landed  on  an  island  of  the  still -vexed  Bermoothes. 
The  world  lay  wrecked  behind  him ;  Raynham  hung  in  the  mists, 
remote,  a  phantom  to  the  vivid  reality  of  this  white  hand  which 
had  drawn  him  thither  away  thousands  of  leagues  in  an  eye- 
twinkle.  Hark,  how  Ariel  sung  overhead!  What  splendor  in  the 
heavens!  What  marvels  of  beauty  about  his  enchanted  head! 
And,  O  you  wonder!  Fair  Flame!  by  whose  light  the  glories  of 
being  are  now  first  seen.  Radiant  Miranda!  Prince  Ferdinand  is 
at  your  feet. 

Or  is  it  Adam,  his  rib  taken  from  his  side  in  sleep,  and  thus 
transformed,  to  make  him  behold  his  Paradise,  and  lose  it  ? 

The  youth  looked  on  her  with  as  glowing  an  eye.  It  was  the 
First  Woman  to  him. 

And  she  —  mankind  was  all  Caliban  to  her,  saving  this  one 
princely  youth. 

So  to  each  other  said  their  changing  eyes  in  the  moment  they 
stood  together;  he  pale,  and  she  blushing. 

She  was  indeed  sweetly  fair,  and  would  have  been  held  fair 
among  rival  damsels.  On  a  magic  shore,  and  to  a  youth  edu- 
cated by  a  System,  strung  like  an  arrow  drawn  to  the  head,  he, 
it  might  be  guessed,  could  fly  fast  and  far  with  her.  The  soft 
rose  in  her  cheeks,  the  clearness  of  her  eyes,  bore  witness  to 
the  body's  virtue;  and  health  and  happy  blood  were  in  her  bear- 
ing. Had  she  stood  before  Sir  Austin  among  rival  damsels, 
that  Scientific  Humanist,  for  the  consummation  of  his  System, 
would  have  thrown  her  the  handkerchief  for  his  son.  The  wide 
summer-hat,  nodding  over  her  forehead  to  her  brows,  seemed  to 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  £923 

flow  with  the  flowing  heavy  curls,  and  those  fire-threaded  mellow 
curls,  only  half -curls, —  waves  of  hair,  call  them, — rippling  at  the 
ends,  went  like  a  sunny  red-veined  torrent  down  her  back  almost 
to  her  waist;  a  glorious  vision  to  the  youth,  who  embraced  it  as 
a  flower  of  beauty,  and  read  not  a  feature.  There  were  curious 
features  of  color  in  her  face  for  him  to  have  read.  Her  brows, 
thick  and  brownish  against  a  soft  skin  showing  the  action  of  the 
blood,  met  in  the  bend  of  a  bow,  extending  to  the  temples  long 
and  level:  you  saw  that  she  was  fashioned  to  peruse  the  sights 
of  earth,  and  by  the  pliability  of  her  brows  that  the  wonderful 
creature  used  her  faculty,  and  was  not  going  to  be  a  statue  to 
the  gazer.  Under  the  dark  thick  brows  an  arch  of  lashes  shot 
out,  giving  a  wealth  of  darkness  to  the  full  frank  blue  eyes, 
a  mystery  of  meaning  —  more  than  brain  was  ever  meant  to 
fathom;  richer,  henceforth,  than  all  mortal  wisdom  to  Prince 
Ferdinand.  For  when  nature  turns  artist,  and  produces  contrasts 
of  color  on  a  fair  face,  where  is  the  Sage,  or  what  the  Oracle, 
shall  match  the  depth  of  its  lightest  look  ? 

Prince  Ferdinand  was  also  fair.  In  his  slim  boating  attire 
his  figure  looked  heroic.  His  hair,  rising  from  the  parting  to 
the  right  of  his  forehead,  in  what  his  admiring  Lady  Blandish 
called  his  plume,  fell  away  slanting  silkily  to  the  temples  across 
the  nearly  imperceptible  upward  curve  of  his  brows  there, —  felt 
more  than  seen,  so  slight  it  was, — and  gave  to  his  profile  a 
bold  beauty,  to  which  his  bashful,  breathless  air  was  a  flattering 
charm.  An  arrow  drawn  to  the  head,  capable  of  flying  fast  and 
far  with  her.  'He  leaned  a  little  forward  to  her,  drinking  her  in 
with  all  his  eyes, —  and  young  Love  has  a  thousand.  Then  truly 
the  System  triumphed,  just  ere  it  was  to  fall;  and  could  Sir 
Austin  have  been  content  to  draw  the  arrow  to  the  head  and  let 
it  fly,  when  it  would  fly,  he  might  have  pointed  to  his  son  again, 
and  said  to  the  world,  (<  Match  him  1 }>  Such  keen  bliss  as  the 
youth  had  in  the  sight  of  her,  an  innocent  youth  alone  has 
powers  of  soul  in  him  to  experience. 

(( O  women ! )J  says  The  Pilgrim's  Scrip,  in  one  of  its  solitary 
outbursts,  <( women,  who  like,  and  will  have  for  hero,  a  rake! 
how  soon  are  you  not  to  learn  that  you  have  taken  bankrupts  to 
your  bosoms,  and  that  the  putrescent  gold  that  attracted  you  is 
the  slime  of  the  Lake  of  Sin !  » 

If  these  two  were  Ferdinand  and  Miranda,  Sir  Austin  was  not 
Prospero  and  was  not  present,  or  their  fates  might  have  been 
different. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

So  they  stood  a  moment,  changing  eyes,  and  then  Miranda 
spoke,  and  they  came  down  to  earth,  feeling  no  less  in  heaven. 

She  spoke  to  thank  him  for  his  aid.  She  used  quite  com- 
mon simple  words;  and  used  them,  no  doubt,  to  express  a  com- 
mon simple  meaning:  but  to  him  she  was  uttering  magic,  casting 
spells,  and  the  effect  they  had  on  him  was  manifested  in  the 
incoherence  of  his  replies,  which  were  too  foolish  to  be  chron- 
icled. 

The  couple  were  again  mute.  Suddenly  Miranda,  with  an 
exclamation  of  anguish,  and  innumerable  lights  and  shadows  play- 
ing over  her  lovely  face,  clapped  her  hands,  crying  aloud,  <(  My 
book!  my  book  I w  and  ran  to  the  bank. 

Prince  Ferdinand  was  at  her  side.  <(  What  have  you  lost  ?  w 
he  said. 

<(  My  book !  my  book ! w  she  answered,  her  long  delicious  curls 
swinging  across  her  shoulders  to  the  stream.  Then  turning  to 
him,  divining  his  rash  intention,  <(Oh,  no,  no!  let  me  entreat  you 
not  to, }>  she  said :  <(  I  do  not  so  very  much  mind  losing  it. w  And 
in  her  eagerness  to  restrain  him  she  unconsciously  laid  her  gen- 
tle hand  upon  his  arm,  and  took  the  force  of  motion  out  of  him. 

<(  Indeed,  I  do  not  really  care  for^  the  silly  book,"  she  con- 
tinued, withdrawing  her  hand  quickly,  and  reddening.  <(  Pray  do 
not!» 

The  young  gentleman  had  kicked  off  his  shoes.  No  sooner 
was  the  spell  of  contact  broken  than  he  jumped  in.  The  water 
was  still  troubled  and  discolored  by  his  introductory  adventure; 
and  though  he  ducked  his  head  with  the  spirit  of  a  dabchick, 
the  book  was  missing.  A  scrap  of  paper  floating  from  the 
bramble  just  above  the  water,  and  looking  as  if  fire  had  caught 
its  edges,  and  it  had  flown  from  one  adverse  element  to  the 
other,  was  all  he  could  lay  hold  of;  and  he  returned  to  land  dis- 
consolately, to  hear  Miranda's  murmured  mixing  of  thanks  and 
pretty  expostulations. 

(<  Let  me  try  again, })  he  said. 

(<  No  indeed !  w  she  replied,  and  used  the  awful  threat,  <(  I  will 
run  away  if  you  do ; >}  which  effectually  restrained  him. 

Her  eye  fell  on  the  fire-stained  scrap  of  paper,  and  bright- 
ened as  she  cried,  (<  There,  there !  you  have  what  I  want.  It  is 
that.  I  do  not  care  for  the  book.  No,  please!  you  are  not  to 
look  at  it.  Give  it  me." 

Before  her  playfully  imperative  injunction  was  fairly  spoken, 
Richard  had  glanced  at  the  document  and  discovered  a  Griffin 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

between  Two  Wheatsheaves ;  his  crest  in  silver;  and  below — 
oh,  wonderment  immense,  his  own  handwriting!  remnant  of  his 
burnt-offering!  a  page  of  the  sacrificed  poems!  one  blossom  pre- 
served from  the  deadly  universal  blight. 

He  handed  it  to  her  in  silence.  She  took  it,  and  put  it  in 
her  bosom. 

Who  would  have  said,  have  thought,  that  where  all  else  per- 
ished,—  Odes,  fluttering  bits  of  broad -winged  Epic,  Idyls,  Lines, 
Stanzas, —  this  one  Sonnet  to  the  stars  should  be  miraculously 
reserved  for  such  a  starry  fate!  passing  beatitude! 

As  they  walked  silently  across  the  meadow,  Richard  strove 
to  remember  the  hour  and  the  mood  of  mind  in  which  he  had 
composed  the  notable  production.  The  stars  were  invoked,  as  see- 
ing and  foreseeing  all,  to  tell  him  where  then  his  love  reclined, 
and  so  forth;  Hesper  was  complaisant  enough  to  do  so,  and 
described  her  in  a  couplet  — 

<(  Through  sunset's  amber  see  me  shining  fair, 
As  her  blue  eyes  shine  through  her  golden  hair." 

And  surely  no  words  could  be  more  prophetic.  Here  were  two 
blue  eyes  and  golden  hair;  and  by  some  strange  chance,  that 
appeared  like  the  working  of  a  Divine  finger,  she  had  become 
the  possessor  of  the  prophecy,  she  that  was  to  fulfill  it!  The 
youth  was  too  charged  with  emotion  to  speak.  Doubtless  the 
damsel  had  less  to  think  of,  or  had  some  trifling  burden  on  her 
conscience,  for  she  seemed  to  grow  embarrassed.  At  last  she 
drew  up  her  chin  to  look  at  her  companion  under  the  nodding 
brim  of  her  hat  (and  the  action  gave  her  a  charmingly  freakish 
air) ,  crying,  ((  But  where  are  you  going  to  ?  You  are  wet  through. 
Let  me  thank  you  again;  and  pray  leave  me,  and  go  home  and 
change  instantly. }) 

<(  Wet  ? }>  replied  the  magnetic  muser,  with  a  voice  of  tender 
interest:  <(  not  more  than  one  foot,  I  hope?  I  will  leave  you 
while  you  dry  your  stockings  in  the  sun." 

At  this  she  could  not  withhold  a  shy  and  lovely  laugh: 
<(  Not  I,  but  you.     You  know  you  saved  me,  and  would  try  to 
get  that  silly  book  for  me,  and  you  are  dripping  wet.      Are  you 
not  very  uncomfortable  ? }> 

In  all  sincerity  he  assured  her  that  he  was  not. 
<(And  you  really  do  not  feel  that  you  are  wet  ? w 
He  really  did  not;  and  it  was  a  fact  that  he  spoke  truth. 


9926 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


She  pursed  her  sweet  dewberry  mouth  in  the  most  comical 
way,  and  her  blue  eyes  lightened  laughter  out  of  the  half -closed 
lids. 

"  I  cannot  help  it,"  she  said,  her  mouth  opening,  and  sound- 
ing harmonious  bells  of  laughter  in  his  ears.  <(  Pardon  me,  won't 
you  ? " 

His  face  took  the  same  soft  smiling  curves  in  admiration  of 
her. 

"  Not  to  feel  that  you  have  been  in  the  water  >  the  very  mo- 
ment after!"  she  musically  interjected,  seeing  she  was  excused. 

"It's  true,"  he  said;  and  his  own  gravity  then  touched  him  to 
join  a  duet  with  her,  which  made  them  no  longer  feel  strangers, 
and  did  the  work  of  a  month  of  intimacy.  Better  than  senti- 
ment, laughter  opens  the  breast  to  love;  opens  the  whole  breast 
to  his  full  quiver,  instead  of  a  corner  here  and  there  for  a  soli- 
tary arrow.  Hail  the  occasion  propitious,  O  British  young!  and 
laugh  and  treat  love  as  an  honest  god,  and  dabble  not  with  the 
sentimental  rouge.  These  two  Iaughed4  and  the  souls  of  each 
cried  out  to  other,  <(  It  is  I.  It  is  I.* 

They  laughed,  and  forgot  the  cause  of  their  laughter;  and  the 
sun  dried  his  light  river  clothing;  and  they  strolled  toward  the 
blackbird's  copse,  and  stood  near  a  stile  in  sight  of  the  foam  of 
the  weir  and  the  many-colored  rings  of  eddies  streaming  forth 
from  it. 

Richard's  boat,  meanwhile,  had  contrived  to  shoot  the  weir, 
and  was  swinging,  bottom  upward,  broadside  with  the  current 
down  the  rapid  backwater. 

<(Will  you  let  it  go?"  said  the  damsel,  eying  it  curiously. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  and  low,  as  if  he  spoke  in  the  core  of  his 
thought.  "  What  do  I  care  for  it  now ! " 

His  old  life  was  whirled  away  with  it,  dead,  drowned.  His 
new  life  was  with  her,  alive,  divine. 

She  napped  low  the  brim  of  her  hat.  ((  You  must  really  not 
come  any  farther,"  she  softly  said. 

<(And  will  you  go  and  not  tell  me  who  you  are  ? "  he  asked, 
growing  bold  as  the  fears  of  losing  her  came  across  him.  "And 
will  you  not  tell  me  before  you  go"  —  his  face  burned  —  "how 
you  came  by  that  —  that  paper  ? " 

She  chose  to  select  the  easier  question  to  reply  to :  <(  You 
ought  to  know  me:  we  have  been  introduced."  Sweet  was  her 
winning  off-hand  affability. 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  9927 

<(Then  who,  in  heaven's  name,  are  you?  Tell  me!  I  never 
could  have  forgotten  you." 

"You  have,   I  think, }>  she   said  demurely. 

(<  Impossible  that  we  could  ever  have  met,  and  I  forget  you!>;> 

She  looked  up  to  him  quickly. 

(<  Do  you  remember  Belthorpe  ? w 

<(  Belthorpe !  Belthorpe ! }>  quoth  Richard,  as  if  he  had  to  touch 
his  brain  to  recollect  there  was  such  a  place.  ((  Do  you  mean  old 
Blaize's  farm  ? }) 

(<  Then  I  am  old  Blaize's  niece. )J  She  tripped  him  a  soft 
curtsy. 

The  magnetized  youth  gazed  at  her.  By  what  magic  was  it 
that  this  divine  sweet  creature  could  be  allied  with  that  old 
churl! 

(<  Then  what  —  what  is  your  name  ? "  said  his  mouth ;  while 
his  eyes  added,  (<O  wonderful  creature  I  how  came  you  to  enrich 
the  earth  ? » 

(<  Have  you  forgot  the  Desboroughs  of  Dorset,  too  ?  *  She 
peered  at  him  archly  from  a  side  bend  of  the  flapping  brim. 

<(  The  Desboroughs  of  Dorset  ? }>  A  light  broke  in  on  him. 
<(And  have  you  grown  to  this  ?  That  little  girl  I  saw  there ! }) 

He  drew  close  to  her  to  read  the  nearest  features  of  the 
vision.  She  could  no  more  laugh  off  the  piercing  fervor  of  his 
eyes.  Her  volubility  fluttered  under  his  deeply  wistful  look, 
and  now  neither  voice  was  high,  and  they  were  mutually  con- 
strained. 

(<  You  see,})  she  murmured,   C(we  are  old  acquaintances. }> 

Richard,  with  his  eyes  still  intently  fixed  on  her,  returned, 
<(  You  are  very  beautiful !  w 

The  words  slipped  out.  Perfect  simplicity  is  unconsciously 
audacious.  Her  overpowering  beauty  struck  his  heart,  and  like 
an  instrument  that  is  touched  and  answers  to  the  touch,  he 
spoke. 

Miss  Desborough  made  an  effort  to  trifle  with  this  terrible 
directness;  but  his  eyes  would  not  be  gainsaid,  and  checked  her 
lips.  She  turned  away  from  them,  her  bosom  a  little  rebellious. 
Praise  so  passionately  spoken,  and  by  one  who  has  been  a  dam- 
sel's first  dream,  dreamed  of  nightly  many  long  nights,  and 
clothed  in  the  virgin  silver  of  her  thoughts  in  bud, —  praise  from- 
him  is  coin  the  heart  cannot  reject,  if  it  would.  She  quickened 
her  steps  to  the  stile. 


9928 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 


<(I  have  offended  you!*  said  a  mortally  wounded  voice  across 
her  shoulder. 

That  he  should  think  so  were  too  dreadful. 

<(Oh  no,  no!  you  would  never  offend  me."  She  gave  him  her 
whole  sweet  face 

i(  Then  why  —  why  do  you  leave  me  ?  w 

"Because,"  she  hesitated,   (( I  must  go." 

<(  No.     You  must  not  go.     Why  must  you  go?     Do  not  go." 

(<  Indeed  I  must, "  she  said,  pulling  at  the  obnoxious  broad 
brim  of  her  hat;  and  interpreting  a  pause  he  made  for  his  assent 
to  her  rational  resolve,  shyly  looking  at  him,  she  held  her  hand 
out,  and  said  <(  Good-by, "  as  if  it  were  a  natural  thing  to  say. 

The  hand  was  pure  white  —  white  and  fragrant  as  the  frosted 
blossom  of  a  May  night.  It  was  the  hand  whose  shadow,  cast 
before,  he  had  last  night  bent  his  head  reverentially  above,  and 
kissed;  resigning  himself  thereupon  over  to  execution  for  pay- 
ment of  the  penalty  of  such  daring  —  by  such  bliss  well  rewarded. 

He  took  the  hand,  and  held  it,  gazing  between  her  eyes. 

<(  Good-by,"  she  said  again,  as  frankly  as  she  could,  and  at  the 
same  time  slightly  compressing  her  fingers  on  his  in  token  of 
adieu.  It  was  a  signal  for  his  to  close  firmly  upon  hers. 

«  You  will  not  go  ? » 

(<  Pray  let  me,"  she  pleaded,  her  sweet  brows  suing  in  wrin- 
kles. 

(<  You  will  not  go  ? "  Mechanically  he  drew  the  white  hand 
nearer  his  thumping  heart. 

<(  I  must, "  she  faltered  piteously. 

<(  You  will  not  go  ? " 

«Oh  yes!  yes!" 

(<  Tell  me  —  do  you  wish  to  go  ?  w 

The  question  was  subtle.  A  moment  or  two  she  did  not 
answer,  and  then  forswore  herself  and  said  Yes. 

(<  Do  you  —  do  you  wish  to  go  ?  "  He  looked  with  quivering 
eyelids  under  hers. 

A  fainter  Yes  responded  to  his  passionate  repetition. 

(<  You  wish  —  wish  to  leave  me  ? "  His  breath  went  with  the 
words. 

« Indeed  I  must" 

Her  hand  became  a  closer  prisoner. 

All  at  once  an  alarming  delicious  shudder  went  through  her 
frame.  From  him  to  her  it  coursed,  and  back  from  her  to  him. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Forward  and  back  love's  electric  messenger  rushed  from  heart  to 
heart,  knocking  at  each  till  it  surged  tumultuously  against  the 
bars  of  its  prison,  crying  out  for  its  mate.  They  stood  trem- 
bling in  unison,  a  lovely  couple  under  these  fair  heavens  of  the 
morning. 

When  he  could  get  his  voice  it  said,   <(  Will  you  go  ? w 

But  she  had  none  to  reply  with,  and  could  only  mutely  bend 
upward  her  gentle  wrist. 

<(  Then  farewell ! >y  he  said ;  and  dropping  his  lips  to  the  soft 
fair  hand,  kissed  it,  and  hung  his  head,  swinging  away  from  her, 
ready  for  death. 

Strange,  that  now  she  was  released  she  should  linger  by  him. 
Strange,  that  his  audacity,  instead  of  the  executioner,  brought 
blushes  and  timid  tenderness  to  his  side,  and  the  sweet  words, 
<(  You  are  not  angry  with  me  ? w 

(( With  you,  O  Beloved ! })  cried  his  soul.  <( And  you  forgive 
me,  fair  charity ! }> 

She  repeated  her  words  in  deeper  sweetness  to  his  bewildered 
look;  and  he,  inexperienced,  possessed  by  her,  almost  lifeless  with 
the  divine  new  emotions  she  had  realized  in  him,  could  only  sigh 
and  gaze  at  her  wonderingly. 

<l  I  think  it  was  rude  of  me  to  go  without  thanking  you 
again, })  she  said,  and  again  proffered  her  hand. 

The  sweet  heaven-bird  shivered  out  his  song  above  him.  The 
gracious  glory  of  heaven  fell  upon  his  soul.  He  touched  her 
hand,  not  moving  his  eyes  from  her  nor  speaking;  and  she,  with 
a  soft  word  of  farewell,  passed  across  the  stile,  and  up  the  path- 
way through  the  dewy  shades  of  the  copse,  and  out  of  the  arch 
of  the  light,  away  from  his  eyes. 

And  away  with  her  went  the  wild  enchantment.  He  looked 
on  barren  air.  But  it  was  no  more  the  world  of  yesterday. 
The  marvelous  splendors  had  sown  seeds  in  him,  ready  to  spring 
up  and  bloom  at  her  gaze;  and  in  his  bosom  now  the  vivid  con- 
juration of  her  tones,  her  face,  her  shape,  makes  them  leap  and 
illumine  him  like  fitful  summer  lightnings  —  ghosts  of  the  van- 
ished sun. 

There  was  nothing  to  tell  him  that  he  had  been  making  love 
and  declaring  it  with  extraordinary  rapidity;  nor  did  he  know  it. 
Soft  flushed  cheeks !  sweet  mouth !  strange  sweet  brows !  eyes  of 
softest  fire! — how  could  his  ripe  eyes  behold  you,  and  not  plead 


9930  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

to  keep  you  f  Nay,  how  could  he  let  you  go  r  And  he  seriously 
asked  himself  that  question. 

To-morrow  this  place  will  have  a  memory, —  the  river  and  the 
meadow,  and  the  white  falling  weir;  his  heart  will  build  a  tem- 
ple here;  and  the  skylark  will  be  its  high  priest,  and  the  old 
blackbird  its  glossy-gowned  chorister,  and  there  will  be  a  sacred 
repast  of  dewberries.  To-day  the  grass  is  grass;  his  heart  is 
chased  by  phantoms  and  finds  rest  nowhere.  Only  when  the 
most  tender  freshness  of  his  flower  comes  across  him  does  he 
taste  a  moment's  calm;  and  no  sooner  does  it  come  than  it  gives 
place  to  keen  pangs  of  fear  that  she  may  not  be  his  forever. 

Ere  long  he  learns  that  her  name  is  Lucy.  Ere  long  he 
meets  Ralph,  and  discovers  that  in  a  day  he  has  distanced  him 
by  a  sphere. 


RICHARD'S  ORDEAL  IS  OVER 
From  <The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel* 

WHERE  are  the  dreams  of  the  hero  when  he  learns  he  has  a 
child  ?  Nature  is  taking  him  to  her  bosom.  She  will 
speak  presently  Every  domesticated  boor  in  these  hills 
can  boast  the  same;  yet  marvels  the  hero  at  none  of  his  visioned 
prodigies  as  he  does  when  he  comes  to  hear  of  this  most  com- 
mon performance.  A  father  ?  Richard  fixed  his  eyes  as  if  he 
were  trying  to  make  out  the  lineaments  of  his  child. 

Telling  Austin  he  would  be  back  in  a  few  minutes,  he  sallied 
into  the  air,  and  walked  on  and  on.  <(A  father  I )}  he  kept  repeat- 
ing to  himself:  <(a  child  I"  And  though  he  knew  it  not,  he  was 
striking  the  keynotes  of  Nature.  But  he  did  know  of  a  singular 
harmony  that  suddenly  burst  over  his  whole  being. 

The  moon  was  surpassingly  bright;  the  summer  air  heavy 
and  still.  He  left  the  high-road  and  pierced  into  the  forest.  His 
walk  was  rapid:  the  leaves  on  the  trees  brushed  his  cheeks; 
the  dead  leaves  heaped  in  the  dells  noised  to  his  feet,  Some- 
thing of  a  religious  joy  —  a  strange  sacred  pleasure  —  was  in 
him.  By  degrees  it  wore;  he  remembered  himself;  and  now  he 
was  possessed  by  a  proportionate  anguish.  A  father!  he  dared 
never  see  his  child.  And  he  had  no  longer  his  phantasies  to  fall 
upon.  He  was  utterly  bare  to  his  sin.  In  his  troubled  mind  it 
seemed  to  him  that  Clare  looked  down  on  him — Clare,  who  saw 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

him  as  he  was — and  that  to  her  eyes  it  would  be  infamy  for 
him  to  go  and  print  his  kiss  upon  his  child.  Then  came  stern 
efforts  to  command  his  misery  and  make  the  nerves  of  his  face 
iron. 

By  the  log  of  an  ancient  tree,  half  buried  in  dead  leaves  of 
past  summers,  beside  a  brook,  he  halted  as  one  who  had  reached 
his  journey's  end.  There  he  discovered  he  had  a  companion  in 
Lady  Judith's'  little  dog.  He  gave  the  friendly  animal  a  pat  of 
recognition,  and  both  were  silent  in  the  forest  silence. 

It  was  impossible  for  Richard  to  return;  his  heart  was  sur- 
charged. He  must  advance ;  and  on  he  footed,  the  little  dog  fol- 
lowing. 

An  oppressive  slumber  hung  about  the  forest  branches.  In  the 
dells  and  on  the  heights  was  the  same  dead  heat.  Here  where 
the  brook  tinkled,  it  was  no  cool-lipped  sound,  but  metallic,  and 
without  the  spirit  of  water.  Yonder,  in  a  space  of  moonlight 
on  lush  grass,  the  beams  were  as  white  fire  to  sight  and  feeling. 
No  haze  spread  around.  The  valleys  were  clear,  defined  to  the 
shadows  of  their  verges;  the  distances  sharply  distinct,  and  with 
the  colors  of  day  but  slightly  softened.  Richard  beheld  a  roe 
moving  across  a  slope  of  sward  far  out  of  rifle  mark.  The  breath- 
less silence  was  significant,  yet  the  moon  shone  in  a  broad  blue 
heaven.  Tongue  out  of  mouth  trotted  the  little  dog  after  him; 
couched  panting  when  he  stopped  an  instant;  rose  weariedly 
when  he  started  afresh.  Now  and  then  a  large  white  night-moth 
flitted  through  the  dusk  of  the  forest. 

On  a  barren  corner  of  the  wooded  highland,  looking  inland, 
stood  gray  topless  ruins  set  in  nettles  and  rank  grass  blades. 
Richard  mechanically  sat  down  on  the  crumbling  flints  to  rest, 
and  listened  to  the  panting  of  the  dog.  Sprinkled  at  his  feet 
were  emerald  lights;  hundreds  of  glow-worms  studded  the  dark 
dry  ground. 

He  sat  and  eyed  them,  thinking  not  at  all.  His  energies 
were  expended  in  action.  He  sat  as  a  part  of  the  ruins,  and  the 
moon  turned  his  shadow  westward  from  the  south.  Overhead, 
as  she  declined,  long  ripples  of  silver  cloud  were  imperceptibly 
stealing  toward  her.  They  were  the  van  of  a  tempest.  He  did 
not  observe  them,  or  the  leaves  beginning  to  chatter.  When  he 
again  pursued  his  course  with  his  face  to  the  Rhine,  a  huge 
mountain  appeared  to  rise  sheer  over  him,  and  he  had  it  in  his 
mind  to  scale  it.  He  got  no  nearer  to  the  base  of  it  for  all  his 


0932  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

vigorous  outstepping.  The  ground  began  to  dip;  he  lost  sight  of 
the  sky.  Then  heavy  thunder  drops  struck  his  cheek,  the  leaves 
were  singing,  the  earth  breathed,  it  was  black  before  him  and 
behind.  All  at  once  the  thunder  spoke.  The  mountain  he  had 
marked  was  bursting  over  him. 

Up  started  the  whole  forest  in  violet  fire.  He  saw  the  coun- 
try at  the  foot  of  the  hills,  to  the  bounding  Rhine,  gleam,  quiver, 
extinguished.  Then  there  were  pauses:  and  the  lightning  seemed 
as  the  eye  of  heaven,  and  the  thunder  as  the  tongue  of  heaven, 
each  alternately  addressing  him;  filling  him  with  awful  rapture 
Alone  there  —  sole  human  creature  among  the  grandeurs  and 
mysteries  of  storm  —  he  felt  the  representative  of  his  kind;  and 
his  spirit  rose  and  marched  and  exulted, — let  it  be  glory,  let  it 
be  ruin!  Lower  down  the  lightened  abysses  of  air  rolled  the 
wrathful  crash;  then  white  thrusts  of  light  were. darted  from  the 
sky,  and  great  curving  ferns,  seen  steadfast  in  pallor  a  second, 
were  supernaturally  agitated,  and  vanished.  Then  a  shrill  song 
roused  in  the  leaves  and  the  herbage.  Prolonged  and  louder  it 
sounded,  as  deeper  and  heavier  the  deluge  pressed.  A  mighty 
force  of  water  satisfied  the  desire  of  the  earth.  Even  in  this, 
drenched  as  he  was  by  the  first  outpouring,  Richard  had  a  sav- 
age pleasure.  Keeping  in  motion,  he  was  scarcely  conscious  of 
the  wet,  and  the  grateful  breath  of  the  weeds  was  refreshing. 
Suddenly  he  stopped  short,  lifting  a  curious  nostril.  He  fancied 
he  smelt  meadow-sweet.  He  had  never  seen  the  flower  in  Rhine- 
land —  never  thought  of  it;  'and  it  would  hardly  be  met  with  in 
a  forest.  He  was  sure  he  smelt  it  fresh  in  dews.  His  little 
companion  wagged  a  miserable  wet  tail  some  way  in  advance. 
He  went  on  slowly,  thinking  indistinctly.  After  two  or  three 
steps  he  stooped  and  stretched  out  his  hand  to  feel  for  the 
flower, —  having,  he  knew  not  why,  a  strong  wish  to  verify  its 
growth  there.  Groping  about,  his  hand  encountered  something 
warm  that  started  at  his  touch;  and  he,  with  the  instinct  we 
have,  seized  it  and  lifted  it  to  look  at  it.  The  creature  was  very 
small,  evidently  quite  young.  Richard's  eyes,  now  accustomed 
to  the  darkness,  were  able  to  discern  it -for  what  it  was, —  a  tiny 
leveret;  and  he  supposed  that  the  dog  had  probably  frightened 
its  dam  just  before  he  found  it.  He  put  the  little  thing  on  one 
hand  in  his  breast,  and  stepped  out  rapidly  as  before. 

The  rain  was  now  steady;  from  every  tree  a  fountain  poured 
So  cool  and  easy  had  his  mind  become  that  he  was  speculating 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


9933 


on  what  kind  of  shelter  the  birds  could  find,  and  how  the  butter- 
flies  and  moths  saved  their  colored  wings  from  washing.  Folded 
close  they  might  hang  under  a  leaf,  he  thought.  Lovingly  he 
looked  into  the  dripping  darkness  of  the  coverts  on  each  side,  as 
one  of  their  children.  Then  he  was  musing  on  a  strange  sensa- 
tion he  experienced.  It  ran  up  one  arm  with  an  indescribable 
thrill,  but  communicated  nothing  to  his  heart.  It  was  purely 
physical,  ceased  for  a  time,  and  recommenced,  till  he  had  it  all 
through  his  blood,  wonderfully  thrilling.  He  grew  aware  that 
the  little  thing  he  carried  in  his  breast  was  licking  his  hand 
there.  The  small  rough  tongue  going  over  and  over  the  palm  of 
his  hand  produced  this  strange  sensation  he  felt.  Now  that  he 
knew  the  cause,  the  marvel  ended;  but  now  that  he  knew  the 
cause,  his  heart  was  touched  and  made  more  of  it.  The  gentle 
scraping  continued  without  intermission  as  on  he  walked.  What 
did  it  say  to  him  ?  Human  tongue  could  not  have  said  so  much 
just  then. 

A  pale  gray  light  on  the  skirts  of  the  flying  tempest  dis- 
played the  dawn.  Richard  was  walking  hurriedly.  The  green 
drenched  weeds  lay  all  about  in  his  path,  bent  thick,  and  the 
forest  drooped  glimmeringly.  Impelled  as  a  man  who  feels  a 
revelation  mounting  obscurely  to  his  brain,  Richard  was  passing 
one  of  those  little  forest  chapels,  hung  with  votive  wreaths,  where 
the  peasant  halts  to  kneel  and  pray.  Cold,  still,  in  the  twilight 
it  stood,  rain-drops  pattering  round  it.  He  looked  within,  and 
saw  the  Virgin  holding  her  Child.  He  moved  by.  But  not 
many  steps  had  he  gone  ere  his  strength  went  out  of  him,  and 
he  shuddered.  What  was  it  ?  He  asked  not.  He  was  in  other 
hands.  Vivid  as  lightning  the  Spirit  of  Life  illumined  him.  He 
felt  in  his  heart  the  cry  of  his  child,  his  darling's  touch.  With 
shut  eyes  he  saw  them  both.  They  drew  him  from  the  depths; 
they  led  him  a  blind  and  tottering  man.  And  as  they  led  him, 
he  had  a  sense  of  purification  so  sweet  he  shuddered  again  and 
again. 

When  he  looked  out  from  his  trance  on  the  breathing  world, 
the  small  birds  hopped  and  chirped:  warm  fresh  sunlight  was 
over  all  the  hills.  He  was  on  the  edge  of  the  forest,  entering  a 
plain  clothed  with  ripe  corn  under  a  spacious  morning  sky. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


AMINTA  TAKES  A  MORNING  SEA-SWIM:  A  MARINE  DUET 

From  <  Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta.*     Copyright  1894,  by  Charles  Scribner's 

Sons 

A  GLORIOUS    morning    of   flushed    open    sky   and  sun   on  a  sea 
chased  all  small  thoughts  out  of  it.     The  breeze  was  from 
the  west;   and  the  Susan,  lightly  laden,  took  the  heave  of 
smooth  rollers  with  a  flowing  current-curtsy  in  the  motion  of  her 
speed.     Foresail  and  aft  were  at  their  gentle  strain;   her  shadow 
rippled  fragmentarily  along  to  the  silver  rivulet  and  boat  of  her 
wake.     Straight  she  flew  to  the  ball  of  fire  now  at  spring  above 
the  waters,   and   raining  red  gold  on  the  line  of  her  bows.     By 
comparison    she  was  an  ugly  yawl,  and  as  the  creature  of  wind 
and  wave  beautiful. 

They  passed  an  English  defensive  fort,  and  spared  its  walls, 
in  obedience  to  Matthew  Shale's  good  counsel  that  they  should 
forbear  from  sneezing.  Little  Collett  pointed  to  the  roof  of  his 
mother's  house  twenty  paces  rearward  of  a  belt  of  tamarisks, 
green  amid  the  hollowed  yellows  of  shore  banks  yet  in  shade, 
crumbling  to  the  sands.  Weyburn  was  attracted  by  a  diminutive 
white  tent  of  sentry-box  shape;  evidently  a  bather's,  quite  as  evi- 
dently a  fair  bather's.  He  would  have  to  walk  on  some  way  for 
his  dip.  He  remarked  to  little  Collett  that  ladies  going  into  the 
water  half-dressed  never  have  more  than  half  a  bath.  His  arms 
and  legs  flung  out  contempt  of  that  style  of  bathing,  exactly  in 
old  Matey's  well-remembered  way. 

Half  a  mile  off  shore,  the  Susan  was  put  about  to  flap  her 
sails,  and  her  boat  rocked  with  the  passengers.  Turning  from  a 
final  cheer  to  friendly  Matthew,  Weyburn  at  the  rudder  espied 
one  of  those  unenfranchised  ladies  in  marine  uniform  issuing 
through  the  tent-slit.  She  stepped  firmly,  as  into  her  element. 
A  plain  look  at  her,  and  a  curious  look,  and  an  intent  look,  fixed 
her  fast,  and  ran  the  shock  on  his  heart  before  he  knew  of  a 
guess.  She  waded,  she  dipped;  a  head  across  the  breast  of  the 
waters  was  observed:  this  one  of  them  could  swim.  She  was 
making  for  sea,  a  stone 's-throw  off  the  direction  of  the  boat. 

Before  his.  wits  had  grasped  the  certainty  possessing  them, 
fiery  envy  and  desire  to  be  alongside  her  set  his  fingers  fretting 
at  buttons.  A  grand  smooth  swell  of  the  waters  lifted  her,  and 
her  head  rose  to  see  her  world.  She  sank  down  the  valley, 
where  another  wave  was  mounding  for  its  onward  roll:  a  gentle 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 


9935 


scene  of  the  fidvr  imovra  of  Weyburn 's  favorite  Sophoclean  chorus. 
Now  she  was  given  to  him  —  it  was  she.  How  could  it  ever  have 
been  any  other!  He  handed  his  watch  to  little  Collett,  and  gave 
him  the  ropes,  pitched  coat  and  waistcoat  on  his  knees,  stood 
free  of  boots  and  socks,  and  singing  out  truly  enough  the  words 
of  a  popular  cry,  (<  White  ducks  want  washing, )}  went  over  and  in. 

Aminta  soon  had  to  know  she  was  chased.  She  had  seen  the 
dive  from  the  boat,  and  received  an  illumination.  With  a  chuckle 
of  delighted  surprise,  like  a  blackbird  startled,  she  pushed  sea- 
ward for  joy  of  the  effort,  thinking  she  could  exult  in  imagina- 
tion of  an  escape  up  to  the  moment  of  capture,  yielding  then 
only  to  his  greater  will;  and  she  meant  to  try  it. 

The  swim  was  a  holiday;  all  was  new — nothing  came  to  her 
as  the  same  old  thing  since  she  took  her  plunge;  she  had  a  sea- 
mind —  had  left  her  earth^mind  ashore.  The  swim,  and  Matey 
Weyburn  pursuing  her,  passed  up  out  of  happiness,  through  the 
spheres  of  delirium,  into  the  region  where  our  life  is  as  we 
would  have  it  be:  a  home  holding  the  quiet  of  the  heavens,  if 
but  midway  thither,  and  a  home  of  delicious  animation  of  the 
whole  frame,  equal  to  wings. 

He  drew  on  her;  but  he  was  distant,  and  she  waved  an  arm. 
The  shout  of  her  glee  sprang  from  her:  "Matey!"  He  waved; 
she  heard  his  voice.  Was  it  her  name  ?  He  was  not  so  drunken 
of  the  sea  as  she:  he  had  not  leapt  out  of  bondage  into  buoyant 
waters,  into  a  youth  without  a  blot,  without  an  aim,  satisfied  in 
tasting;  the  dream  of  the  long  felicity. 

A  thought  brushed  by  her:     How  if  he  were  absent? 

It  relaxed  her  stroke  of  arms  and  legs.  He  had  doubled  the 
salt  sea's  rapture,  and  he  had  shackled  its  gift  of  freedom.  She 
turned  to  float,  gathering  her  knees  for  the  funny  sullen  kick, 
until  she  heard  him  near.  At  once  her  stroke  was  renewed  vig- 
orously; she  had  the  foot  of  her  pursuer,  and  she  called,  (<  Adieu, 
Matey  Weyburn ! )} 

Her  bravado  deserved  a  swifter  humiliation  than  he  was  able 
to  bring  down  on  her;  she  swam  bravely:  and  she  was  divine  to 
see  as  well  as  overtake. 

Darting  to  the  close  parallel,  he  said,  <(  What  sea-nymph  sang 
me  my  name  ?  w 

She  smote  a  pang  of  her  ecstasy  into  him:  <(Ask  mine!® 

«  Browny ! » 


9936  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

They  swam;  neither  of  them  panted;  their  heads  were  water- 
flowers  that  spoke  at  ease*. 

« We've  run  from  school;  we  won't  go  back." 

<(  We've  a  kingdom. " 

(<  Here's  a  big  wave  going  to  be  a  wall." 

«Off  he  rolls. » 

<(  He's  like  the  High  Brent  broad  meadow  tinder  Elling 
Wood.» 

(<  Don't  let  Miss  Vincent  hear  you. " 

(< They're  not  waves:  they're  sighs  of  the  deep.);) 

<(A  poet  I  swim  with!  He  fell  into  the  deep  in  his  first  of 
May-morning  ducks.  We  used  to  expect  him.* 

<(  I  never  expected  to  owe  them  so  much.  " 

Pride  of  the  swimmer  and  the  energy  of  her  joy  embraced 
Aminta,  that  she  might  nerve  all  her  powers  to  gain  the  half- 
minute  for  speaking  at  her  ease. 

<(  Who'd  have  thought  of  a  morning  like  this  ?  You  were 
looked  for  last  night." 

(<A  lucky  accident  to  our  coach.  I  made  friends  with  the 
skipper  of  the  yawl." 

(<  I  saw  the  boat.  Who  could  have  dreamed  —  ?  Anything 
may  happen  now." 

For  nothing  further  would  astonish  her,  as  he  rightly  under- 
stood her;  but  he  said,  a  You  're  prepared  for  the  rites?  Old 
Triton  is  ready." 

«  Float,  and  tell  me." 

They  spun  about  to  lie  on  their  backs.  Her  right  hand,  a1 
piano-work  of  the  octave-shake,  was  touched  and  taken,  and  she 
did  not  pull  it  away.  Her  eyelids  fell. 

«Old  Triton  waits." 

«Why?» 

tfWe're  going  to  him." 

«Yes?" 

(<  Customs  of  the  sea. K 

<(Tell  me." 

<(  He  joins  hands.     We  say,  (  Browny — Matey, }  and  it's  done." 

She  splashed,  crying  (<Swim,"  and  after  two  strokes,  (<You 
want  to  beat  me,  Matey  Weyburn.*' 

«  How  ? " 

•Not  fair!* 

«Say  what" 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 

*  Take  my  breath.     But,  yes !   we'll  be  happy  in  our  own  way. 
We're  sea-birds.     We've  said  adieu  to  land.     Not  to  one  another. 
We  shall  be  friends  ?  » 

*  Always. " 

"This  is  going  to  last?" 

"  Ever  so  long. " 

They  had  a  spell  of  steady  swimming,  companionship  to  inspirit 
it.  Browny  was  allowed  place  a  little  foremost,  and  she  guessed 
not  wherefore,  in  her  flattered  emulation. 

"I'm  bound  for  France." 

"  Slue  a  point  to  the  right :  southeast  by  south.  We  shall  hit 
Dunquerque.  " 

"I  don't  mean  to  be  picked  up  by  boats. » 

"We'll  decline. » 

"You  see  I  can  swim." 

"  I  was  sure  of  it. " 

They  stopped  their  talk  —  for  the  pleasure  of  the  body  to  be 
savored  in  the  mind,  they  thought;  and  so  took  Nature's  counsel 
to  rest  their  voices  awhile. 

Considering  that  she  had  not  been  used  of  late  to  long  immer- 
sions, and  had  not  broken  her  fast,  and  had  talked  much  for  a 
sea-nymph,  Weyburn  spied  behind  him  on  a  shore  seeming  flat 
down,  far  removed. 

"France  next  time,"  he  said:    "we'll  face  to  the  rear." 

"  Now  ? "  said  she,  big  with  blissful  conceit  of  her  powers,  and 
incredulous  of  such  a  command  from  him. 

"You  may  be  feeling  tired  presently." 

The  musical  sincerity  of  her  "  Oh  no,  not  I ! "  sped  through 
his  limbs:  he  had  a  willingness  to  go  onward  still  some  way. 

But  his  words  fastened  the  heavy  land  on  her  spirit,  knocked 
at  the  habit  of  obedience.  Her  stroke  of  the  arms  paused.  She 
inclined  to  his  example,  and  he  set  it  shoreward. 

They  swam  silently,  high,  low,  creatures  of  the  smooth  green 
Toller. 

He  heard  the  water-song  of  her  swimming.  She,  though 
breathing  equably  at  the  nostrils,  lay  deep.  The  water  shocked 
at  her  chin,  and  curled  round  the  under  lip.  He  had  a  faint 
anxiety;  and  not  so  sensible  of  a  weight  in  the  sight  of  land  as 
she  was,  he  chattered  by  snatches,  rallied  her,  encouraged  her 
to  continue  sportive  for  this  once,  letting  her  feel  it  was  but  a 
once  and  had  its  respected  limit  with  him.  So  it  was  not  out  of 
the  world. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Ah,  friend  Matey !  And  that  was  right  and  good  on  land ;  but 
lightness  and  goodness  flung  earth's  shadow  across  her  brilliancy 
here,  and  any  stress  on  <(  this  once  "  withdrew  her  liberty  to  revel 
in  it,  putting  an  end  to  a  perfect  holiday;  and  silence,  too,  might 
hint  at  fatigue.  She  began  to  think  her  muteness  lost  her  the 
bloom  of  the  enchantment,  robbing  her  of  her  heavenly  frolic 
lead,  since  friend  Matey  resolved  to  be  as  eminently  good  in  salt 
water  as  on  land.  Was  he  unaware  that  they  were  boy  and  girl 
again?  —  she  washed  pure  of  the  intervening  years,  new  born,  by 
blessing  of  the  sea;  worthy  of  him  here!  —  that  is,  a  swimmer 
worthy  of  him,  his  comrade  in  salt  water. 

(<  You're  satisfied  I  swim  well  ? "  she  said. 

<(  It  would  go  hard  with  me  if  we  raced  a  long  race." 

<(I  really  was  out  for  France." 

tt  I  was  ordered  to  keep  you  for  England. " 

She  gave  him  Browny's  eyes. 

*  We've  turned  our  backs  on  Triton." 

"The  ceremony  was  performed." 

«When?» 

<(The  minute  I  spoke  of  it  and  you  splashed." 

(<  Matey !     Matey  Weyburn !  " 

«Browny  Farrell!" 

WO  Matey!  she's  gone!" 

« She's  here." 

(<Try  to  beguile  me,  then,  that  our  holiday's  not  over.  You 
won't  forget  this  hour  ? " 

(<No  time  of  mine  on  earth  will  live  so  brightly  for  me." 

<(I  have  never  had  one  like  it.  I  could  go  under  and  be 
happy;  go  to  old  Triton  and  wait  for  you;  teach  him  to  speak 
your  proper  Christian  name.  He  hasn't  heard  it  yet  —  heard 
c  Matey* —  never  yet  has  been  taught  (  Matthew.  >" 

«Aminta!» 

<(O  my  friend!  my  dear!"  she  cried,  in  the  voice  of  the 
wounded,  like  a  welling  of  her  blood,  (<my  strength  will  leave 
me.  I  may  play — not  you:  you  play  with  a  weak  vessel.  Swim, 
and  be  quiet.  How  far  do  you  count  it?"  . 

(<  Under  a  quarter  of  a  mile. " 

(<  Don't  imagine  me  tired. " 

(<If  you  are,  hold  on  to  me." 

<( Matey,  I'm  for  a  dive." 

He  went  after  the  ball  of  silver  and  bubbles,  and  they  came 
up  together.  There  is  no  history  of  events  below  the  surface. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH 


9939 


She  shook  off  her  briny  blindness,  and  settled  to  the  full 
sweep  of  the  arms,  quite  silent  now.  Some  emotion,  or  exhaus- 
tion from  the  strain  of  the  swimmer's  breath  in  speech,  stopped 
her  playfulness.  The  pleasure  she  still  knew  was  a  recollection 
of  the  outward  swim,  when  she  had  been  privileged  to  cast 
away  sex  with  the  push  from  earth,  as  few  men  will  believe 
that  women,  beautiful  women,  ever  wish  to  do;  and  often  and 
ardently  during  the  run  ahead  they  yearn  for  Nature  to  grant 
them  their  one  short  holiday  truce. 

But  Aminta  forgave  him  for  bringing  earth  so  close  to  her 
when  there  was  yet  a  space  of  salt  water  between  her  and  shore; 
and  she  smiled  at  times,  that  he  might  not  think  she  was  look- 
ing grave. 

They  touched  the  sand  at  the  first  draw  of  the  ebb;  and  this 
being  earth,  Matey  addressed  himself  to  the  guardian  and  ab- 
solving genii  of  matter-of-fact  by  saying,  ((  bid  you  inquire  about 
the  tides  ? » 

Her  head  shook,  stunned  with  what  had  passed.  She  waded 
to  shore,  after  motioning  for  him  to  swim  on. 

Men,  in  the  comparison  beside  their  fair  fellows,  are  so  little 
sensationally  complex,  that  his  one  feeling  now  as  to  what  had 
passed,  was  relief  at  the  idea  of  his  presence  having  been  a  war- 
rantable protectorship.  Aminta's  return  from  sea-nymph  to  the 
state  of  woman  crossed  annihilation  on  the  way  back  to  senti- 
ence, and  picked-up  meaningless  pebbles  and  shells  of  life,  be- 
tween the  sea's  verge  and  her  tent's  shelter:  hardly  her  own  life 
to  her  understanding  yet,  except  for  the  hammer  Memory  became 
to  strike  her  insensible,  at  here  and  there  a  recollected  word  or 
nakedness  of  her  soul.  What  had  she  done,  what  revealed,  to 
shiver  at  for  the  remainder  of  her  days! 

He  swam  along  the  shore  to  where  the  boat  was  paddled, 
spying  at  her  bare  feet  on  the  sand,  her  woman's  form.  He 
waved,  and  the  figure  in  the  striped  tunic  and  trousers  waved 
her  response,  apparently  the  same  person  he  had  quitted. 

Dry  and  clad,  and  decently  formal  under  the  transformation, 
they  met  at  Mrs.  Collett's  breakfast  table;  and  in  each  hung  the 
doubt  whether  land  was  the  dream,  or  sea. 


9939  a  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

LOVE  IN  THE  VALLEY 

UNDER  yonder  beech-tree  single  on  the  green-sward, 
Couched  with  her  arms  behind  her  golden  head, 
Knees  and  tresses  folded  to  slip  and  ripple  idly, 
Lies  my  young  love  sleeping  in  the  shade. 
Had  I  the  heart  to  slide  an  arm  beneath  her, 

Press  her  parting  lips  as  her  waist  I  gather  slow, 
Waking  in  amazement  she  could  not  but  embrace  me: 
Then  would  she  hold  me  and  never  let  me  go? 

Shy  as  the  squirrel  and  wayward  as  the  swallow, 

Swift  as  the  swallow  along  the  river's  light 
Circleting  the  surface  to  meet  his  mirrored  winglets, 

Fleeter  she  seems  in  her  stay  than  in  her  flight. 
Shy  as  the  squirrel  that  leaps  among  the  pine-tops, 

Wayward  as  the  swallow  overhead  at  set  of  sun, 
She  whom  I  love  is  hard  to  catch  and  conquer, 

Hard,  but  0  the  glory  of  the  winning  were  she  won! 

When  her  mother  tends  her  before  the  laughing  mirror, 

Tying  up  her  laces,  looping  up  her  hair, 
Often  she  thinks,  were  this  wild  thing  wedded, 

More  love  should  I  have,  and  much  less  care. 
When  her  mother  tends  her  before  the  lighted  mirror, 

Loosening  her  laces,  combing  down  her  curls, 
Often  she  thinks,  were  this  wild  thing  wedded, 

I  should  miss  but  one  for  many  boys  and  girls. 

Heartless  she  is  as  the  shadow  in  the  meadows 

Flying  to  the  hills  on  a  blue  and  breezy  noon. 
No,  she  is  athirst  and  drinking  up  her  wonder: 

Earth  to  her  is  young  as  the  slip  of  the  new  moon. 
Deals  she  an  unkindness,  'tis  but  her  rapid  measure, 

Even  as  in  a  dance;  and  her  smile  can  heal  no  less: 
Like  the  swinging  May-cloud  that  pelts  the  flowers  with  hailstones 

Off  a  sunny  border,  she  was  made  to  bruise  and  bless. 

Lovely  are  the  curves  of  the  white  owl  sweeping 

Wavy  in  the  dusk  lit  by  one  large  star. 
Lone  on  the  fir-branch,  his  rattle-note  unvaried, 

Brooding  o'er  the  gloom,  spins  the  brown  evejar. 
Darker  grows  the  valley,  more  and  more  forgetting: 

So  were  it  with  me  if  forgetting  could  be  willed. 
.  Tell  the  grassy  hollow  that  holds  the  bubbling  well-spring, 

Tell  it  to  forget  the  source  that  keeps  it  filled. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  993 9  b 

Stepping  down  the  hill  with  her  fair  companions, 

Arm  in  arm,  all  against  the  raying  West, 
Boldly  she  sings,  to  the  merry  tune  she  marches, 

Brave  is  her  shape,  and  sweeter  unpossessed. 
Sweeter,  for  she  is  what  my  heart  first  awaking 

Whispered  the  world  was;  morning  light  is  she. 
Love  that  so  desires  would  fain  keep  her  changeless; 

Fain  would  fling  the  net,  and  fain  have  her  free. 

Happy  happy  time,  when  the  white  star  hovers 

Low  over  dim  fields  fresh  with  bloomy  dew, 
Near  the  face  of  dawn,  that  draws  athwart  the  darkness, 

Threading  it  with  color,  like  yewberries  the  yew. 
Thicker  crowd  the  shades  as  the  grave  East  deepens, 

Glowing,  and  with  crimson  a  long  cloud  swells. 
Maiden  still  the  morn  is;  and  strange  she  is,  and  secret; 

Strange  her  eyes;  her  cheeks  are  cold  as  cold  seashells. 

When  at  dawn  she  sighs,  and  like  an  infant  to  the  window 

Turns  grave  eyes  craving  light,  released  from  dreams, 
Beautiful  she  looks,  like  a  white  water-lily 

Bursting  out  of  bud  in  havens  of  the  streams. 
When  from  bed  she  rises  clothed  from  neck  to  ankle 

In  her  long  nightgown  sweet  as  boughs  of  May, 
Beautiful  she  looks,  like  a  tall  garden  lily 

Pure  from  the  night,  and  splendid  for  the  day. 

All  the  girls  are  out  with  their  baskets  for  the  primrose, 

Up  lanes,  woods  through,  they  troop  in  joyful  bands. 
My  sweet  leads;  she  knows  not  why,  but  now  she  loiters, 

Eyes  the  bent  anemones,  and  hangs  her  hands. 
Such  a  look  will  tell  that  the  violets  are  peeping, 

Coming  the  rose:  and  unaware  a  cry 
Springs  in  her  bosom  for  odors  and  for  color, 

Covert  and  the  nightingale;  she  knows  not  why. 

Cool  was  the  woodside;  cool  as  her  white  dairy 

Keeping  sweet  the  cream-pan;  and  there  the  boys  from  school, 
Cricketing  below,  rushed  brown  and  red  with  sunshine; 

0  the  dark  translucence  of  the  deep-eyed  cool! 
Spying  from  the  farm,  herself  she  fetched  a  pitcher 

Full  of  milk,  and  tilted  for  each  in  turn  the  beak. 
Then  a  little  fellow,  mouth  up  and  on  tiptoe, 

Said,  «I  will  kiss  you));  she  laughed  and  leaned  her  cheek. 


9939  c  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

Doves  of  the  fir-wood  walling  high  our  red  roof 

Through  the  long  noon  coo,  crooning  through  the  coo. 
Loose  droop  the  leaves,  and  down  the  sleepy  roadway 

Sometimes  pipes  a  chaffinch;  loose  droops  the  blue. 
Cows  flap  a  slow  tail  knee-deep  in  the  river, 

Breathless,  given  up  to  sun  and  gnat  and  fly. 
Nowhere  is  she  seen;  and  if  I  see  her  nowhere, 

Lightning  may  come,  straight  rains  and  tiger  sky. 

O  the  golden  sheaf,  the  rustling  treasure-armful! 

0  the  nutbrown  tresses  nodding  interlaced! 
0  the  treasure-tresses  one  another  over 

Nodding!     0  the  girdle  slack  about  the  waist! 
Slain  are  the  poppies  that  shot  their  random  scarlet 

Quick  amid  the  wheatears:  wound  about  the  waist, 
Gathered,  see  these  brides  of  Earth  one  blush  of  ripeness! 

0  the  nutbrown  tresses  nodding  interlaced! 

Could  I  find  a  place  to  be  alone  with  heaven, 

1  would  speak  my  heart  out:  heaven  is  my  need. 
Every  woodland  tree  is  flushing  like  the  dogwood, 

Flashing  like  the  whitebeam,  swaying  like  the  reed. 
Flushing  like  the  dogwood  crimson  in  October; 

Streaming  like  the  flag-reed  South-west  blown; 
Flashing  as  in  gusts  the  sudden-lighted  whitebeam: 

All  seem  to  know  what  is  for  heaven  alone. 

THE  LARK  ASCENDING 

HE  rises  and  begins  to  round, 
He  drops  the  silver  chain  of  sound, 
Of  many  links  without  a  break, 
In  chirrup,  whistle,  slur  and  shake, 
All  intervolved  and  spreading  wide, 
Like  water-dimples  down  a  tide 
Where  ripple  ripple  overcurls 
And  eddy  into  eddy  whirls; 
A  press  of  hurried  notes  that  run 
So  fleet  they  scarce  are  more  than  one 
Yet  changingly  the  trills  repeat 
And  linger  ringing  while  they  fleet, 
Sweet  to  the  quick  o'  the  ear,  and  dear 
To  her  beyond  the  handmaid  ear, 
Who  sits  beside  our  inner  springs, 
Too  often  dry  for  this  he  brings, 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  9939  d 

Which  seems  the  very  jet  of  earth 

At  sight  of  sun,  her  music's  mirth, 

As  up  he  wings  the  spiral  stair, 

A  song  of  light,  and  pierces  air 

With  fountain  ardor,  fountain  play, 

To  reach  the  shining  tops  of  day, 

And  drink  in  everything  discerned 

An  ecstasy  to  music  turned, 

Impelled  by  what  his  happy  bill 

Disperses;  drinking,  showering  still, 

Unthinking  save  that  he  may  give 

His  voice  the  outlet,  there  to  live 

Renewed  in  endless  notes  of  glee, 

So  thirsty  of  his  voice  is  he, 

For  all  to  hear  and  all  to  know 

That  he  is  joy,  awake,  aglow, 

The  tumult  of  the  heart  to  hear 

Through  pureness  filtered  crystal-clear, 

And  know  the  pleasure  sprinkled  bright 

By  simple  singing  of  delight, 

Shrill,  irreflective,  unrestrained, 

Rapt,  ringing,  on  the  jet  sustained 

Without  a  break,  without  a  fall, 

Sweet-silvery,  sheer  lyrical, 

Perennial,  quavering  up  the  chord 

Like  myriad  dews  of  sunny  sward 

That  trembling  into  fullness  shine, 

And  sparkle  dropping  argentine; 

Such  wooing  as  the  ear  receives 

From  zephyr  caught  in  choric  leaves 

Of  aspens  when  their  chattering  net 

Is  flushed  to  white  with  shivers  wet; 

And  such  the  water-spirits'  chime 

On  mountain  heights  in  morning's  prime, 

Too  freshly  sweet  to  seem  excess, 

Too  animate  to  need  a  stress; 

But  wider  over  many  heads 

The  starry  voice  ascending  spreads, 

Awakening,  as  it  waxes  thin, 

The  best  in  us  to  him  akin; 

And  every  face  to  watch  him  raised, 

Puts  on  the  light  of  children  praised, 

So  rich  our  human  pleasure  ripes 

When  sweetness  on  sincereness  pipes, 


9939  e  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

Though  nought  be  promised  from  the  seas, 
But  only  a  soft-ruffling  breeze 
Sweep  glittering  on  a  still  content, 
Serenity  in  ravishment. 

For  singing  till  his  heaven  fills, 

'Tis  love  of  earth  that  he  instills, 

And  ever  winging  up  and  up, 

Our  valley  is  his  golden  cup, 

And  he  the  wine  which  overflows 

To  lift  us  with  him  as  he  goes: 

The  woods  and  brooks,  the  sheep  and  kine, 

He  is,  the  hills,  the  human  line, 

The  meadows  green,  the  fallows  brown, 

The  dreams  of  labor  in  the  town; 

He  sings  the  sap,  the  quickened  veins; 

The  wedding  song  of  sun  and  rains 

He  is,  the  dance  of  children,  thanks 

Of  sowers,  shout  of  primrose-banks, 

And  eye  of  violets  while  they  breathe; 

All  these  the  circling  song  will  wreathe, 

And  you  shall  hear  the  herb  and  tree, 

The  better  heart  of  men  shall  see, 

Shall  feel  celestially,  as  long 

As  you  crave  nothing  save  the  song. 
Was  never  voice  of  ours  could  say 
Our  inmost  in  the  sweetest  way, 
Like  yonder  voice  aloft,  and  link 
All  hearers  in  the  song  they  drink. 
Our  wisdom  speaks  from  failing  blood, 
Our  passion  is  too  full  in  flood, 
We  want  the  key  of  his  wild  note 
Of  truthful  in  a  tuneful  throat, 
The  song  seraphically  free 
Of  taint  of  personality, 
So  pure  that  it  salutes  the  suns 
The  voice  of  one  for  millions, 
In  whom  the  millions  rejoice 
For  giving  their  one  spirit  voice. 

Yet  men  have  we,  whom  we  revere, 
Now  names,  and  men  still  housing  here, 
Whose  lives,  by  many  a  battle  dint 
Defaced,  and  grinding  wheels  on  flint, 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  9939  f 

Yield  substance,  though  they  sing  not,  sweet 

For  song  our  highest  heaven  to  greet: 

Whom  heavenly  singing  gives  us  new, 

Enspheres  them  brilliant  in  our  blue, 

From  firmest  base  to  farthest  leap, 

Because  their  love  of  earth  is  deep, 

And  they  are  warriors  in  accord 

With  life  to  serve,  and  pass  reward, 

So  touching  purest'  and  so  heard 

In  the  brain's  reflex  of  yon  bird: 

Wherefore  their  soul  in  me,  or  mine, 

Through  self-forgetfulness  divine, 

In  them,  that  song  aloft  maintains, 

To  fill  the  sky  and  thrill  the  plains 

With  showerings  drawn  from  human  stores, 

As  he  to  silence  nearer  soars, 

Extends  the  world  at  wings  and  dome, 

More  spacious  making  more  our  home, 

Till  lost  on  his  aerial  rings 

In  light,  and  then  the  fancy  sings. 


FROM  (THE  WOODS  OF  WESTERMAIN) 


ENTER  these  enchanted  woods, 
You  who  dare. 

Nothing  harms  beneath  the  leaves 
More  than  waves  a  swimmer  cleaves. 
Toss  your  heart  up  with  the  lark, 
Foot  at  peace  with  mouse  and  worm, 

Fair  you  fare. 
Only  at  a  dread  of  dark 
Quaver,  and  they  quit  their  form: 
Thousand  eyeballs  under  hoods 

Have  you  by  the  hair. 
Enter  these  enchanted  woods, 
You  who  dare. 

ii 

Here  the  snake  across  your  path 
Stretches  in  his  golden  bath: 
Mossy-footed  squirrels  leap 
Soft  as  winnowing  plumes  of  Sleep: 


9939  g  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

Yaffles  on  a  chuckle  skim 
Low  to  laugh  from  branches  dim: 
Up  the  pine,  where  sits  the  star, 
Rattles  deep  the  moth- winged  jar. 
Each  has  business  of  his  own; 
But  should  you  distrust  a  tone, 

Then  beware. 

Shudder  all  the  haunted  roods, 
All  the  eyeballs  under  hoods 

Shroud  you  in  their  glare. 
Enter  these  enchanted  woods, 

You  who  dare. 


FROM  (FRANCE,  1870) 

WE  look  for  her  that  sunlike  stood 
Upon  the  forehead  of  our  day, 

An  orb  of  nations,  radiating  food 
For  body  and  for  mind  alway. 
Where  is  the  Shape  of  glad  array; 
The  nervous  hands,  the  front  of  steel, 
The  clarion  tongue?     Where  is  the  bold  proud  face? 
We  see  a  vacant  place; 
We  hear  an  iron  heel. 

0  she  that  made  the  brave  appeal 
For  manhood  when  our  time  was  dark, 
And  from  our  fetters  struck  the  spark 
Which  was  as  lightning  to  reveal 
New  seasons,  with  the  swifter  play 
Of  pulses,  and  benigner  day; 
She  that  divinely  shook  the  dead 
From  living  man;  that  stretched  ahead 
Her  resolute  forefinger  straight, 
And  marched  towards  the  gloomy  gate 

Of  earths  Untried,  gave  note,  and  in 
The  good  name  of  Humanity 

Called  forth  the  daring  vision!  she, 

She  likewise  half  corrupt  of  sin, 

Angel  and  Wanton!     Can  it  be? 

Her  star  has  foundered  in  eclipse, 

The  shriek  of  madness  on  her  lips; 

Shreds  of  her,  and  no  more,  we  see. 
There  is  a  horrible  convulsion,  smothered  din, 
As  of  one  that  in  a  grave-cloth  struggles  to  be  free. 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  9939  h 


Look  not  on  spreading  boughs 

For  the  riven  forest  tree. 
Look  down  where  deep  in  blood  and  mire 
Black  thunder  plants  his  feet  and  ploughs 
The  soil  for  ruin;  that  is  France: 

Still  thrilling  like  a  lyre, 
Amazed  to  shivering  discord  from  a  fall 
Sudden  as  that  the  lurid  hosts  recall 
Who  met  in  Heaven  the  irreparable  mischance. 

0  that  is  France! 
The  brilliant  eyes  to  kindle  bliss, 
The  shrewd  quick  lips  to  laugh  and  kiss, 
Breasts  that  a  sighing  world  inspire, 
And  laughter-dimpled  countenance 
Whence  soul  and  senses  caught  desire! 


Henceforth  of  her  the  Gods  are  known, 
Open  to  them  her  breast  is  laid. 
Inveterate  of  brain,  heart-valiant, 
Never  did  fairer  creature  pant 
Before  the  altar  and  the  blade! 


She  shall  rise  worthier  of  her  prototype 
Through  her  abasement  deep;  the  pain  that  runs 
From  nerve  to  nerve  some  victory  achieves. 
They  lie  like  circle-strewn  soaked  Autumn-leaves 
Which  stain  the  forest  scarlet,  her  fair  sons! 
And  of  their  death  her  life  is:  of  their  blood 
From  many  streams  now  urging  to  a  flood. 
No  more  divided,  France  shall  rise  afresh. 
Of  them  she  learns  the  lesson  of  the  flesh:  — 
The  lesson  writ  in  red  since  first  Time  ran 
A  hunter  hunting  down  the  beast  in  man: 
That  till  the  chasing  out  of  its  last  vice, 
The  flesh  was  fashioned  but  for  sacrifice. 


Soaring   France! 

Now  is  Humanity  on  trial  in  thee: 
Now  may'st  thou  gather  humankind  in  fee: 
Now  prove  that  Reason  is  a  quenchless  scroll; 
Make  of  calamity  thine  aureole, 
And  bleeding  lead  us  through  the  troubles  of  the  sea. 


9940  GEORGE    MEREDITH 

FROM  (MODERN  LOVE) 

IV 

ALL  other  joys  of  life  he  strove  to  warm, 
And  magnify,  and  catch  them  to  his  lip; 
But  they  had  suffered  shipwreck  with  the  ship. 
And  gazed  upon  him  sallow  from  the  storm. 
Or  if  Delusion  came,  'twas  but  to  show 

The  coming  minute  mock  the  one  that  went. 

Cold  as  a  mountain  in  its  star-pitched  tent 
Stood  high  philosophy,  less  friend  than  foe; 
Whom  self-caged  passion,  from  its  prison-bars, 

Is  always  watching  with  a  wondering  hate. 

Not  till  the  fire  is  dying  in  the  grate 
Look  we  for  any  kinship  with  the  stars. 
Oh,  Wisdom  never  comes  when  it  is  gold, 

And  the  great  price  we  pay  for  it  full  worth; 

We  have  it  only  when  we  are  half  earth: 
Little  avails  that  coinage  to  the  old! 


XVI 

In  our  old  shipwrecked  days  there  was  an  hour 
When,  in  the  firelight  steadily  aglow, 
Joined  slackly,  we  beheld  the  red  chasm  grow 

Among  the  clicking  coals.     Our  library-bower 

That  eve  was  left  to  us;  and  hushed  we  sat 
As  lovers  to  whom  Time  is  whispering. 
From  sudden-opened  doors  we  heard  them  sing; 

The  nodding  elders  mixed  good  wine  with  chat. 

Well  knew  we  that  Life's  greatest  treasure  lay 
With  us,  and  of  it  was  our  talk.     ((Ah,  yes! 
Love  dies!»     I  said:  I  never  thought  it  less. 

She  yearned  to  me  that  sentence  to  unsay. 

Then  when  the  fire  domed  blackening,  I  found 
Her  cheek  was  salt  against  my  kiss,  and  swift 
Up  the  sharp  scale  of  sobs  her  breast  did  lift;  — 

Now  am  I  haunted  by  that  taste!  that  sound! 


GEORGE   MEREDITH  9940  a 


XLIII 


Mark  where  the  pressing  wind  shoots  javelin-like 
Its  skeleton  shadow  on  the  broad-backed  wave! 
Here  is  a  fitting  spot  to  dig  Love's  grave; 

Here  where  the  ponderous  breakers  plunge  and  strike, 

And  dart  their  hissing  tongues  high  up  the  sand; 
In  hearing  of  the  ocean,  and  in  sight 
Of  those  ribbed  wind-streaks  running  into  white. 

If  I  the  death  of  Love  had  deeply  planned 

I  never  could  have  made  it  half  so  sure 
As  by  the  unblest  kisses  which  upbraid 
The  full-waked  senses;  or,  failing  that,  degrade! 

'Tis  morning;  but  no  morning  can  restore 

What  we  have  forfeited.      I  see  no  sin: 

The  wrong  is  mixed.      In  tragic  life,  God  wot 
No  villain  need  be!     Passions  spin  the  plot. 

We  are  betrayed  by  what  is  false  within. 


XLVII 


We  saw  the  swallows  gathering  in  the  sky, 
And  in  the  osier-isle  we  heard  their  noise. 
We  had  not  to  look  back  on  summer  joys, 

Or  forward  to  a  summer  of  bright  dye; 

But  in  the  largeness  of  the  evening  earth 
Our  spirits  grew  as  we  went  side  by  side. 
The  hour  became  her  husband  and  my  bride. 

Love  that  had  robbed  us  so,  thus  blessed  our  dearth! 

The  pilgrims  of  the  year  waxed  very  loud 
In  multitudinous  chatterings  as  the  flood 
Full  brown  came  from  the  West  and  like  pale  blood 

Expanded  to  the  upper  crimson  cloud. 

Love,  that  h'ad  robbed  us  of  immortal  things, 
This  little  moment  mercifully  gave, 
Where  I  have  seen  across  the  twilight  wave 

The  swan  sail  with  her  young  beneath  her  wings. 


9940  b  GEORGE    MEREDITH 


Thus  piteously  Love  closed  what  he  begat; 
The  union  of  this  ever-diverse  pair! 
These  two  were  rapid  falcons  in  a  snare, 
Condemned  to  do  the  flitting  of  the  bat. 
Lovers  beneath  the  singing  sky  of  May, 
They  wandered  once;  clear  as  the  dew  on  flowers. 
But  they  fed  not  on  the  advancing  hours: 
Their  hearts  held  cravings  for  the  buried  day. 
Then  each  applied  to  each  that  fatal  knife, 
Deep  questioning,  which  probes  to  endless  dole. 
Ah!  what  a  dusty  answer  gets  the  soul 
When  hot  for  certainties  in  this  our  life!  — . 
In  tragic  hints  here  see  what  evermore 
Moves  dark  as  yonder  midnight  ocean's  force, 
Thundering  like  ramping  hosts  of  warrior  horse, 
To  throw  that  faint  thin  line  upon  the  shore. 


9941 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

(1803-1870) 
BY  GRACE  KING 

*NE  of  the  magisterial  critics  of  Merimee's  day,  passing  judg- 
ment upon  his  writings,  dismisses  personal  details  about  the 
author  with  the  remark:  <(As  for  the  biography  of  Prosper 
Merimee,  it  is  like  the  history  of  a  happy  people, — it  does  not  exist. 
One  knows  only  that  he  was  educated  in  a  college  of  Paris,  that  he 
has  studied  law.  that  he  has  been  received  as  a  lawyer,  that  he  has 
never  pleaded;  and  the  papers  have  taken 
pains  to  inform  us  that  he  is  to-day  secre- 
tary to  M.  le  Comte  d'Argout.  Those  who 
know  him  familiarly  see  in  him  nothing 
more  than  a  man  of  very  simple  -manners, 
with  a  solid  education,  reading  Italian  and 
modern  Greek  with  ease,  and  speaking  Eng- 
lish and  Spanish  with  remarkable  purity. » 

This  was  written  in  1832,  when  Merimee 
in  his  thirtieth  year  had  attained  celebrity 
not  only  in  the  literary  world  of  Paris,  but 
in  the  world  of  literary  Europe,  as  the 
author  of  the  <  Theatre  de  Clara  GazuP; 
<La  Guzla>;  <La  Chronique  de  Charles  IX.  >; 
1  Mateo  Falcone  y ;  <  Tamango  > ;  <  La  Partie 

de  Tric-Trac  > ;  <  Le  Vase  Etrusque  > ;  <  La  Double  Meprise > ;  <  La  Vision 
de  Charles  XI.*:  most  of  which  Taine  pronounced  masterpieces  of 
fiction,  destined  to  immortality  as  classics. 

No  tribute  could  have  been  better  devised  to  please  Merimee,  and 
praise  his  writings,  than  this  one  to  the  impersonality  of  his  art,  and 
the  dispensation  of  it  from  any  obligation  to  its  author.  <(We  should 
write  and  speak, w  he  held,  <(  so  that  no  one  would  notice,  at  least 
immediately,  that  we  were  writing  or  speaking  differently  from  any 
one  else."  But  as  that  most  impersonal  of  modern  critics,  Walter 
Pater,  keenly  observes:  <(  Merimee's  superb  self-effacement,  his  imper- 
sonality, is  itself  but  an  effective  personal  trait,  and  transferred  to 
art,  becomes  a  markedly  peculiar  quality  of  literary  beauty. >J  And 
he  pronounces  in  a  sentence  the  judgment  of  Merimee's  literary  pos- 
terity upon  him :  <(  For  in  truth  this  creature  who  had  no  care  for 
half-lights,  and  like  his  creations,  had  no  atmosphere  about  him, — 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

gifted  as  he  was  with  pure  mind,  with  the  quality  which  secures 
flawless  literary  structures, — had  on  the  other  hand  nothing  of  what 
we  call  soul  in  literature. w 

And  the  brilliant  young  secretary  and  successful  author,  whose 
happiness  furnishes  presumptive  evidence  against  a  biography,  was  no 
more  relieved  from  the  fact  of  it  than  the  hypothetical  happy  people 
of  their  history.  With  that  unfaltering  rectification  of  contempo- 
raneous values  which  time  and  the  gravitation  to  truth  bring  about, 
Merimee's  position  in  regard  to  his  works  is  quite  the  reverse  of 
what  he  contemplated  and  aimed  for.  Of  the  published  volumes  of 
his  writings,  the  many  containing  his  artistic  works  could  be  better 
spared  than  the  few  containing  his  letters.  And  of  his  letters,  that 
volume  will  longest  carry  his  name  into  the  future  which  contains 
his  most  intimate,  most  confidential,  least  meditated,  in  short  most 
genuinely  personal  and  most  artistically  perfect  revelations, — his 
<Lettres  a  une  Inconnue*  (Letters  to  an  Unknown  Woman). 

Prosper  Merimee  was  born  in  Paris  in  1803,  of  parentage  that 
made  his  vocation,  it  would  seem,  mandatory.  His  father  was  an 
artist  of  note,  a  pupil  of  David's,  and  long  secretary  of  the  Ecole  des 
Beaux-Arts,  His  mother  was  also,  and  in  a  double  measure,  an  artist. 
Her  talent  was  for  portraits  of  children,  whose  quiet  sittings  she 
secured  by  her  other  talent  of  relating  stories, — a  gift  inherited  from 
her  grandmother,  Madame  de  Beaumont,  a  charming  writer  of  child- 
ren's stories,  and  the  author  of  the  famous  and  entrancing  ( Beauty 
and  the  Beast. y  At  twenty,  having  finished  his  collegiate  studies, 
Merimee,  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  his  parents,  began  to  fit  himself 
for  the  legal  profession.  Following  his  own  tastes,  however,  he  had 
already  sought  and  gained  admission  into  the  salons  of  the  men  of 
letters,  and  was  already  under  his  first  and  only  literary  influence, — 
that  of  Henri  Beyle,  the  progenitor  of  modern  French  realism.  It 
was  in  one  of  these  salons  that  he,  not  yet  twenty-one,  read  his  first 
composition,  a  drama,  < Cromwell } ;  an  effort  inspired  by  Shakespeare 
and  composed  according  to  the  doctrines  of  Beyle.  It  was  never 
published.  Shortly  afterwards,  in  the  same  place  and  to  the  same 
audience,  he  read  aloud  his  second  attempt,  (The  Spaniards  in  Den- 
mark};  and  ( Heaven  and  Hell,J  a  little  dramatic  scene  which  met 
with  spontaneous  applause,  and  was  praised  as  extremely  witty  and 
still  more  undevout.  Successive  readings  followed  in  successive  even- 
ings, under  the  encouragement  of  applause;  and  the  collection,  by  a 
last  stroke  of  audacious  wit,  in  which  author  and  audience  collab- 
orated, was  published  as  the  ( Theatre  de  Clara  GazuP  (an  imaginary 
Spanish  actress),  with  the  portrait  of  Merimee,  in  low-necked  dress 
and  mantilla,  for  frontispiece. 

The  strong  individuality  of  Merimee's  art  is  as  easily  discernible 
to-day,  under  the  thin  disguise  of  his  pseudonym,  as  his  features 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

under  his  travesty:  his  clear,  cold,  impartial  realism,  unflinching  wit, 
and  —  a  trait  attributed  also  to  his  mother  —  his  invincible  irreligion. 
The  success  of  the  mystification  was  immediate  and  effective.  His 
next  adventure  was  of  the  same  kind:  the  publication  of  (La  Guzla,* 
a  collection  of  prose  ballads,  pseudo-translations  from  the  Dalmatian 
folk-songs,  with  prefatory  notices,  appendices,  and  biographical  sketch 
of  the  author,  the  bard  Magdanovitch,  accompanied  by  a  dissertation 
on  vampires  and  the  evil  eye.  The  intrinsic  beauty  of  the  ballads, 
the  barbaric  strength  of  the  imagination,  in  the  musical  rhythm  of 
French  prose,  contributed  to  render  the  mystification  one  of  the  most 
perfect  in  literary  history.  Goethe  wrote  an  article  upon  it,  Push- 
kin made  translations  from  it,  and  German  scholars  rejoiced  in  print 
to  find  in  it  some  long-lost  Illyrian  metrical  measure.  This  success 
disgusted  Merimee  with  <(  local  color, )}  —  the  shibboleth  of  the  young 
French  Romantic  school. —  seeing,  as  he  said,  how  easy  it  was  to  fab- 
ricate it. 

The  c  Famille  Carvajal,'  a  continuation  of  the  Spanish  vein, — a 
weird,  grewsome,  and  pitiless  tale, —  and  (  Le  Jacquerie, }  a  dramatic 
historical  recital  in  the  Shakespearean  vein,  followed.  His  next 
venture  was  in  historical  fiction:  'The  Chronicle  of  Charles  IX.,  >  an 
evident  inspiration  from  Walter  Scott.  From  an  English  point  of 
view,  it  is  the  masterpiece  of  French  fiction  in  historical  domain;  and 
one,  with  a  few  reservations,  not  unworthy  the  hand  of  "Waverley" 
himself. 

In  1830  came  the  visit  to  Spain,  related  in  his  published  letters, 
and  the  forming  of  the  friendship  with  the  Countess  of  Montijo  which 
led  to  a  correspondence,  of  which  the  fragments  published  are  war- 
rant that  it  will  prove  in  the  future  an  invaluable  guide  to  the  social, 
literary,  and  political  history  of  Paris  during  the  yet  controverted 
period  of  the  Empire.  Always  sensitive  to  feminine  influence,  if  not 
to  local  color,  it  is  to  the  Countess  of  Montijo  that  Merimee  owes  the 
Spanish  inspiration,  as  it  may  well  be  called,  which  bore  fruit  in  his 
incomparable  relation  of  ( Carmen^  And  while  a  guest  of  his  friend, 
listening  to  her  charming  tales  of  the  Alhambra  and  the  Generalife, 
Merimee  formed  his  historical  friendship  with  the  Empress  Eugenie, 
then  a  little  girl  playing  around  her  mother's  knee. 

Appointed  inspector-general  of  the  historical  monuments  of  France, 
Merimee  threw  his  archaeological  erudition  into  diligent  performance 
of  official  duties.  His  reports,  written  with  minute  and  even  pedan- 
tic conscientiousness,  bear  out  Faguet's  assertion  that  —  archaeologist, 
traveler,  art  critic,  historian,  and  philologist,  man  of  the  world  and 
senator,  and  competent  and  sure  as  each  —  he  would  and  should 
have  belonged  to  four  academies;  it  was  only  his  discretion  that  re- 
stricted him  to  two, —  the  Academic  Frangaise  and  Academic  des 
Inscriptions.  As  a  compatriot  states,  it  was  the  inspector-general  that 


PROSPER   MERIMEE 

related  to  him  two  of  his  most  perfect  stories,  the  ( Venus  d'llle* 
and  <Colombaf>  while  it  was  the  philologist  who  found  the  episode  of 
<  Carmen.  > 

It  was  at  this  point  of  his  life,  at  the  meridian  of  age  and  success, 
that  he  received  his  first  letter  from  the  Inconnue, — a  graceful  tribute 
from  the  graceful  pen  of  a  woman,  who  yielded  to  an  impulse  to 
express  her  admiration,  yet  guarded  her  identity  beyond  possibility 
of  discovery.  The  correspondence  ensued  that  a  posthumous  publi- 
cation under  the  editorship  of  H.  Taine  has  revealed  to  the  public. 
In  it,  for  one  who  knows  how  to  read  the  letters,  as  Taine  says, 
Merimee  shows  himself  gracious,  tender,  delicate,  truly  in  love,  and  a 
poet.  After  nine  years  of  expostulation  and  entreaty  he  obtained  an 
interview;  and  his  mysterious  friend  proved  to  be  a  Mademoiselle 
Jenny  Dacquin,  the  daughter  of  a  notary  of  Boulogne.  The  friend- 
ship that  ensued  waxed  into  love  through  the  thirty  succeeding  years, 
and  waned  again  into  a  friendship  that  ended  only  with  Merimee's 
life;  his  last  letter  to  the  Inconnue,  a  few  lines,  was  written  two 
hours  before  he  died. 

Merimee's  ( Studies  in  the  History  of  Rome,*  his  Social  War,*  and 
( Catiline,*  were  to  have  been  followed  ,and  closed  by  a  study  of 
Caesar.  Circumstances,  however,  adjourned  the  task,  which  was  after- 
wards ceded  to  an  illustrious  competitor,  or  collaborator, — Napoleon 
III.  In  1844  he  was  elected  to  the  French  Academy.  On  the  follow- 
ing day  he  published  (Arsene  Guillot.*  Had  the  publication  preceded 
the  election,  the  result  might  have  been  different;  for  repentant 
Academicians  pronounced  immoral  the  tale  which  Anglo-Saxon  critics 
have  generally  selected  as  the  most  simple,  most  pathetic,  and  only 
human  one  the  author  ever  wrote. 

In  1852,  the  little  girl  whose  growth  and  development  Merimee 
had  watched  with  tenderest  interest  became  Empress  of  the  French. 
He  was  appointed  life  senator  in  the  reconstructed  government ;  and 
became  one  of  the  most  familiar  members  of  the  new  and  brilliant 
court  at  the  Tuileries,  and  always  a  conspicuous  one.  His  pleased, 
tender,  sad,  gay,  and  always  frank  and  critical  commentary  of  the 
court  and  its  circles,  forms  the  interest  of  his  weekly  bulletins  to 
the  Countess  of  Montijo.  His  conversational  charm,  his  wit,  and  his 
ever  ready  response  to  demands  upon  his  artistic  and  historical  lore, 
in  questions  of  etiquette,  costumes,  and  precedent;  his  versatility  as 
dramatist  and  actor,  and  his  genius  for  friendship  with  women,— 
made  him  not  only  a  favorite,  but  a  spoiled  favorite,  in  the  royal  cir- 
cle. His  coldness,  reserve,  cynicism,  frank  speech,  and  independent 
political  opinions  saved  him  from  even  a  suspicion  of  being  a  courtier. 
He  nevertheless  lost  none  of  his  diligence  in  literature.  It  was  the 
period  of  his  edition  of  Henri  Beyle  and  of  Brantome,  of  numerous 
miscellaneous  articles  in  reviews,  and  of  those  excursions  into  Russian 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

literature — critical  dissertations  upon  Gogol,  Pushkin,  and  Tourgue- 
nieff — which  may  be  considered  the  pioneer  of  that  advance  into 
Russian  literature  which  has  resulted  in  throwing  it  open  to,  and 
making  it  one  with,  the  literature  of  Europe. 

To  this  period  also  belongs  his  friendship  with  Panizzi,  the  ad- 
ministrator of  the  British  Museum;  and  the  voluminous 'correspond- 
ence in  which  he  reveals  himself  in  all  the  fineness  and  breadth  of 
his  culture, —  as  Taine  puts  it,  the  possessor  of  six  languages  with 
their  literature  and  history,  man  of  the  world  and  politician,  as  well 
as  philosopher,  artist,  and  historian. 

So  shrewd  an  observer  of  men  and  politics  could  not  be  unpre- 
pared for  the  catastrophe  of  1870.  He  had  never  been  free  from 
vague  apprehensions,  and  the  acute  presentiment  overshadows  the 
gayety  in  his  letters.  In  addition  he  was  growing  old,  and  infirm 
health  drove  him  during  the  winter  months  into  annual  exile  at 
Cannes.  It  was  there  that,  in  a  crisis  of  his  malady,  the  journals,  in 
anticipation  of  the  end,  published  his  death,  and  M.  Guizot  in  conse- 
quence made  official  announcement  of  it  at  the  Academy.  Merimee 
lived,  however,  to  return  to  Paris,  and  suffer  through  to  the  end  of 
the  tragedy.  He  dragged  himself  to  the  Tuileries,  had  a  last  inter- 
view with  his  mistress,  sat  for  the  last  time  in  his  seat  in  the  Senate, 
and  voted  for  adjournment  to  a  morrow  which  never  came.  Four 
days  afterwards  he  departed  for  Cannes,  where  a  fortnight  later  he 
died.  He  was  buried  in  the  Protestant  cemetery. 

«A  gallant  man  and  a  gentleman, »  says  Faguet,  <(he  has  had  the  reward 
he  would  have  wished.  He  has  been  discreetly  and  intimately  enjoyed  by 
delicate  tastes.  He  has  not  been  brutally  balloted  about  in  the  tumult  of  scho- 
lastic discussions.  He  has  not  been  attacked  by  any  one,  nor  praised  with 
loud  cries,  nor  admired  with  great  reinforcement  of  adjectives.  .  .  .  His 
glory  is  of  the  good  ore,  as  are  his  character,  his  mind,  and  his  style.  .  .  . 
He  has  entered  posterity  as  one  enters  a  parlor,  without  discussion  and  with- 
out disturbance;  received  with  the  greatest  pleasure,  without  vain  effusion,  he 
installed  himself  comfortably  in  a  good  place,  from  which  he  will  never  be 
moved.  ...  It  was  his  rare  talent  to  give  us  those  limpid,  rapid,  full 
tales,  that  one  reads  in  an  hour,  re-reads  in  a  day,  which  fill  the  memory  and 
occupy  the  thoughts  forever.» 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 


FROM   <ARSENE   GUILLOT> 

THE  last  mass  had  just  come  to  an  end  at  St.  Roch's,  and  the 
beadle  was  going  his  rounds,  closing  the  deserted  chapels. 
He  was  about  drawing  the  grating  of  one  of  these  aristo- 
cratic sanctuaries,  where  certain  devotees  purchase  the  permission 
to  pray  to  God  apart  and  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  the  faith- 
ful, when  he  remarked  a  woman  still  remaining  in  it,  absorbed 
seemingly  in  meditation,  her  head  bent  over  the  back  of  her 
chair.  a  It  is  Madame  de  Piennes,  })  he  said  to  himself,  stopping 
at  the  entrance  of  the  chapel.  Madame  de  Piennes  was  well 
known  by  the  beadle.  At  that  period  a  woman  of  the  world, 
young,  rich,  pretty,  who  rendered  the  blessed  bread,  who  gave 
the  altar  clothes,  who  gave  much  in  charity  through  the  media- 
tion of  her  curate,  had  some  merit  for  being  devout  when  she 
did  not  have  some  employe  of  the  government  for  a  husband, 
when  she  was  not  an  attachee  of  Madame  la  Dauphine,  and  when 
she  had  nothing  to  gain  but  her  salvation  by  frequenting  the 
church.  The  beadle  wished  heartily  top  go  to  dinner,  for  people 
of  his  kind  dine  at  one  o'clock;  but  he  dared  not  trouble  the  de- 
votions of  a  person  so  well  considered  in  the  parish  of  St.  Roch. 
He  moved  away,  therefore,  making  his  slipper-shod  feet  resound 
against  the  marble  floor,  not  without  hope  that,  the  round  of  the 
church  made,  he  would  find  the  chapel  empty. 

He  was  already  on  the  other  side  of  the  choir,  when  a  young 
woman  entered  the  church,  and  walked  along  one  of  the  side 
aisles,  looking  with  curiosity  about  her.  She  was  about  twenty- 
five  years  old,  but  one  had  to  observe  her  with  much  attention 
not  to  think  her  older.  Although  very  brilliant,  her  black  eyes 
were  sunken,  and  surrounded  by  a  bluish  shadow;  her  dead-white 
complexion  and  her  colorless  lips  indicated  suffering;  and  yet  a 
certain  air  of  audacity  and  gayety  in  her  glance  contrasted  with 
her  sickly  appearance.  Her  rose-colored  capote,  ornamented  with 
artificial  flowers,  would  have  better  suited  an  evening  neglige. 
Under  a  long  cashmere  shawl,  of  which  the  practiced  eye  of  a 
woman  would  have  divined  that  she  was  not  the  first  proprietor, 
was  hidden  a  gown  of  calico,  at  twenty  cents  a  yard,  and  a  little 
worn.  Finally,  only  a  man  would  have  admired  her  foot,  clothed 
as  it  was  in  common  stockings  and  prunella  shoes,  very  much 
the  worse  for  wear  of  the  street.  You  remember,  madam,  that 
asphalt  was  not  invented  yet. 


PROSPER  MERIMEE  9947 

This  woman,  whose  social  position  you  have  guessed,  ap- 
proached the  chapel,  in  which  Madame  de  Piennes  still  lingered; 
and  after  having  observed  her  for  a  moment  with  a  restless, 
embarrased  air,  she  accosted  her  when  she  saw  her  arise  and 
on  the  point  of  leaving.  <(  Could  you  inform  me,  madam, w  she 
asked  in  a  low  voice  and  with  a  timid  smile, — (( could  you  inform 
me  to  whom  I  should  go  for  a  candle  ? )}  Such  language  was  too 
strange  to  the  ears  of  Madame  de  Piennes  for  her  to  understand 
it  at  once.  She  had  the  question  repeated.  <(Yes,  I  should  like 
to  burn  a  candle  to  St.  Roch,  but  I  do  not  know  whom  to  give 
the  money  to." 

Madame  de  Piennes  was  too  enlightened  in  her  piety  for 
participation  in  these  popular  superstitions.  Nevertheless  she 
respected  them;  for  there  is  something  touching  in  every  form 
of  adoration,  however  gross  it  may  be.  Supposing  that  the  mat- 
ter was  a  vow,  or  something  of  the  kind,  and  too  charitable  to 
draw  from  the  costume  of  the  young  woman  of  the  rose-colored 
bonnet  the  conclusions  that  you  perhaps  have  not  feared  to 
form,  she  showed  her  the  beadle  approaching.  The  unknown  one 
thanked  her,  and  ran  towards  the  man,  who  appeared  to  under- 
stand her  at  a  word.  While  Madame  de  Piennes  was  taking  up 
her  prayer-book  and  rearranging  her  veil,  she  saw  the  lady  of  the 
candle  draw  out  a  little  purse  from  her  pocket,  take  from  a 
quantity  of  small-change  a  five-franc  piece,  and  hand  it  to  the 
beadle,  giving  him  at  the  same  time,  in  a  low  voice,  some  long 
instructions  and  recommendations,  to  which  he  listened  with  a 
smile. 

Both  left  the  church  at  the  same  time;  but,  the  lady  of  the 
candle  walking  very  fast,  Madame  de  Piennes  soon  lost  sight  of 
her,  although  she  followed  in  the  same  direction.  At  the  corner 
of  the  street  she  lived  in,  she  met  her  again.  Under  her  tem- 
porary cashmere  the  unknown  was  trying  to  conceal  a  loaf  of 
bread  bought  in  a  neighboring  shop.  On  recognizing  Madame 
de  Piennes  she  bent  her  head,  could  not  suppress  a  smile,  and 
hastened  her  step.  Her  smile  seemed  to  say:  <(  Well,  what  of 
it?  I  am  poor.  Laugh  at  me  if  you  will.  I  know  very  well 
that  one  does  not  go  to  buy  bread  in  a  rose-colored  capote  and 
cashmere  shawl. w  The  mixture  of  false  shame,  resignation,  and 
good-humor  did  not  escape  Madame  de  Piennes.  She  thought, 
not  without  sadness,  of  the  probable  position  of  the  young 
woman.  <(  Her  rjiety,"  she  said  to  herself,  ((is  more  meritorious 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

than  mine.  Assuredly  her  offering  of  a  five-franc  piece  is  a 
much  greater  sacrifice  than  what  I  give  to  the  poor  out  of  my 
superfluity,  without  the  imposition  of  a  single  privation.  *  She 
then  recalled  the  widow's  mite,  more  acceptable  to  God  than 
the  gaudy  charities  of  the  rich.  <(I  do  not  do  enough  good/* 
she  thought ;  <(  I  do  not  do  all  that  I  might. )}  While  mentally 
addressing  these  reproaches  to  herself,  she  entered  her  house. 

The  candle,  the  loaf  of  bread,  and  above  all  the  offering  of  an 
only  five-franc  piece,  engraved  upon  the  memory  of  Madame  de 
Piennes  the  figure  of  the  young  woman,  whom  she  regarded 
as  a  model  of  piety.  She  met  her  rather  often  afterwards,  in 
the  street,  near  the  church,  but  never  at  service.  Every  time 
the  unknown  passed  her  she  bent  her  head  and  smiled  slightly. 
The  smile  by  its  humility  pleased  Madame  de  Piennes.  She 
would  have  liked  to  find  an  occasion  to  serve  the  poor  girl,  who 
had  first  interested  her,  but  who  now  excited  her  pity;  for  she 
remarked  that  the  rose-colored  capote  had  faded  and  the  cash- 
mere shawl  had  disappeared.  No  doubt  it  had  returned  to  the 
second-hand  dealer.  It  was  evident  that  St.  Roch  was  not  pay- 
ing back  a  hundredfold  the  offering  made  him. 

One  day  Madame  de  Piennes  saw  enter  St.  Roch  a  bier,  fol- 
lowed by  a  man  rather  poorly  dressed  and  with  no  crape  on 
his  hat.  For  more  than  a  month  she  had  not  met  the  young 
woman  of  the  candle,  and  the  idea  came  to  her  that  this  was 
her  funeral.  Nothing  was  more  probable,  she  was  so  pale  and 
thin  the  last  time  Madame  de  Piennes  saw  her.  The  beadle, 
questioned,  interrogated  in  his  turn  the  man  following  the  bier. 
He  replied  that  he  was  the  concierge  of  a  house,  Rue  Louis 
le-Grand,  and  that  one  of  his  tenants  dying, — a  Madame  Guillot 
who  had  no  friends  nor  relations,  only  a  daughter, — he,  the  con- 
cierge, out  of  pure  kindness  of  heart,  was  going  to  the  funeral 
of  a  person  who  was  nothing  whatever  to  him.  Immediately 
Madame  de  Piennes  imagined  that  her  unknown  one  had  died 
in  misery,  leaving  a  little  girl  without  help;  and  she  promised 
herself  to  make  inquiries,  by  means  of  an  ecclesiastic  whom  she 
ordinarily  employed  for  her  good  deeds. 

Two  days  following,  a  cart  athwart  the  street  stopped  her 
carriage  for  a  few  seconds,  as  she  was  leaving  her  door.  Look- 
ing out  of  the  window  absent-mindedly,  she  saw  standing  against 
a  wall  the  young  girl  whom  she  believed  dead.  She  recognized 
her  without  difficulty,  although  paler  and  thyiner  than  ever, 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

dressed  in  mourning,  but  shabbily,  without  gloves  or  a  hat.  Her 
expression  was  strange.  Instead  of  her  habitual  smile,  her  fea- 
tures were  all  contracted;  her  great  black  eyes  were  haggard; 
she  turned  them  towards  Madame  de  Piennes,  but  without  recog- 
nizing her,  for  she  saw  nothing.  In  her  whole  countenance  was 
to  be  read,  not  grief,  but  furious  determination.  The  image  of 
the  young  girl  and  her  desperate  expression  pursued  Madame  de 
Piennes  for  several  hours. 

On  her  return  she  saw  a  great  crowd  in  the  street.  All  the 
porters'  wives  were  at  their  doors,  telling  their  neighbors  some 
tale  that  was  being  listened  to  with  vivid  interest.  The  groups 
were  particularly,  crowded  before  a  house  near  to  the  one  in 
which  Madame  de  Piennes  lived.  All  eyes  were  turned  towards 
an  open  window  in  the  third  story,  and  in  each  little  circle 
cne  or  two  arms  were  raised  to  point  it  out  to  the  attention  of 
the  public;  then  all  of  a  sudden  the  arms  would  fall  towards 
the  ground,  and  all  eyes  would  follow  the  movement.  Some 
extraordinary  event  had  happened. 

<(Ah,  madame!"  said  Mademoiselle  Josephine,  as  she  unfast- 
ened the  shawl  of  Madame  de  Piennes,  (<  My  blood  is  all  fro- 
zen!  Never  have  I  seen  anything  so  terrible  —  that  is,  I  did  not 
see,  though  I  ran  to  the  spot  the  moment  after.  But  all  the 
same  — >} 

<(  What  has  happened  ?     Speak  quickly,  Mademoiselle.  ® 

"Well,  madame  —  three  doors  from  here,  a  poor  young  girl 
threw  herself  out  of  the  window,  not  three  minutes  ago;  if 
madame  had  arrived  a  moment  earlier,  she  could  have  heard 
the  thud." 

<(Ah,  heaven!     And  the  unfortunate  thing  has  killed  herself!" 

(':  Madame,  it  gave  one  the  horrors  to  look  at  it.  Baptiste, 
who  has  been  in  the  wars,  said  he  had  never  seen  anything  like 
it.  From  the  third  story,  madame  !}> 

«  Did  the  blow  kill  her  ? » 

(<  Oh,  madame !  she  was  still  moving,  she  talked  even.  < I  want 
them  to  finish  me !  >  she  was  saying.  But  her  bones  were  in  a 
jelly.  Madame  may  imagine  what  a  terrible  fall  it  was. w 

(<  But  the  unhappy  creature!  Did  some  one  go  to  her  relief; 
was  a  physician  sent  for  —  a  priest?" 

(<  A  priest,  madame  knows  that  as  well  as  I.  But  if  I  were  a 
priest —  A  wretched  creature,  so  abandoned  as  to  kill  herself! 
And  besides,  she  had  no  behavior, —  that  is  easily  seen.  She 


995° 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 


belonged  to  the  Opera,  so  they  told  me:  all  those  girls  end 
badly.  She  put  herself  in  the  window;  she  tied  her  skirts  with 
a  pink  ribbon,  and  —  flop !  " 

"It  is  the  poor  young  girl  in  mourning ! "  cried  Madame  de 
Piennes,  speaking  to  herself. 

"Yes,  madame:  her  mother  died  three  or  four  days  ago.  It 
must  have  turned  her  head.  And  with  that,  her  lover  perhaps 
had  left  her  in  the  lurch.  And  then  rent  day  came  —  and  no 
money.  And  that  kind  doesn't  know  how  to  work." 

(<  Do  you  know  if  the  unhappy  girl  has  what  she  needs  in  her 
condition, —  linen,  a  mattress?  Find  out  im mediately. " 

(( I  shall  go  for  madame,  if  madame  wishes,",  cried  the  maid; 
enchanted  to  think  of  seeing,  close  by,  a  woman  who  had  tried  to 
•kill  herself.  "But,"  she  added,  « I  don't  know  if  I  should  have 
the  strength  to  look  at  her, —  a  woman  fallen  from  the  third 
story!  When  they  bled  Baptiste  I  felt  sick:  it  was  stronger 
than  I.» 

"Well  then,  send  Baptiste,"  cried  Madame  de  Piennes;  <(but 
let  me  know  immediately  how  the  poor  thing  is  getting  along. " 

Luckily  her   physician,   Dr.   K ,  arrived  as  she  was  giving 

the  order.  He  came  to  dine  with  her,  according  to  his  custom, 
every  Tuesday,  the  day  for  Italian  opera. 

<(  Run  quick,  doctor ! "  —  without  giving  him  time  to  put  down 
his  cane  or  take  off  his  muffler.  "  Baptiste  will  take  you.  A 
poor  girl  has  just  thrown  herself  from  a  third-story  window,  and 
she  is  without  attention." 

"  Out  of  the  window ! "  said  the  doctor.  <(  If  it  was  high,  I 
shall  probably  have  nothing  to  do." 

At  the  end  of  an  hour  the  doctor  reappeared,  slightly  un- 
powdered,  and  his  handsome  jabot  of  batiste  in  disorder. 

"These  people  who  set  out  to  kill  themselves,"  he  said,  "are 
born  with  a  caul.  The  other  day  they  brought  to  my  hospital 
a  woman  who  had  sent  a  pistol  shot  into  her  mouth.  A  poor 
way!  she  broke  three  teeth  and  made  an  ugly  hole  in  her  left 
cheek.  She  will  be  a  little  uglier,  that  is  all.  This  one  throws 
herself  from  a  third-story  window.  A  poor  devil  of  an  honest 
man,  falling  by  accident  from  a  first-story,  would  break  his  skull 
This  girl  breaks  her  leg,  has  two  ribs  driven  in,  and  gets  the 
inevitable  bruises — and  that  is  all.  But  the  worst  of  it  is,  the 
ratin  on  this  turbot  is  completely  dried  up,  I  fear  for  the  roast, 
and  we  shall  miss  the  first  act  of  Othello.  * 


PROSPER  MERIMEE  9951 

"And  the  unfortunate  creature  —  did  she  tell  you  what  drove 
her  to  it  ? » 

<(Oh,  madame,  I  never  listen  to  those  stories.  I  ask  them, 
(Had  you  eaten  before  ?J  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth, — because 
that  is  necessary  for  the  treatment.  Parbleu!  When  one  kills 
one's  self,  it  is  because  one  has  some  bad  reason  for  it.  You 
lose  a  sweetheart,  a  landlord  puts  you  out  of  doors, —  and  you 
jump  from  the  window  to  get  even  with  him.  And  one  is  no 
sooner  in  the  air  than  one  begins  to  repent" 

ft  I  hope  she  repents,  poor  child. >J 

<(  No  doubt,  no  doubt.  She  cried  and  made  fuss  enough  to 
distract  me.  What  makes  it  the  more  interesting  in  her  case 
is,  that  if  she  had  killed  herself  she  would  have  been  the  gainer, 
in  not  dying  of  consumption  —  for  she  is  consumptive.  To  be  in 
such  a  hurry,  when  all  she  had  to  do  was  to  let  it  come ! )J 

The  girl  lay  on  a  good  bed  sent  by  Madame  de  Piennes,  in 
a  little  chamber  furnished  with  three  straw-seated  chairs  and  a 
small  table.  Horribly  pale,  with  flaming  eyes.  She  had  one  arm 
outside  of  the  covering,  and  the  portion  of  that  arm  uncovered 
by  the  sleeve  of  her  gown  was  livid  and  bruised,  giving  an  idea 
of  the  state  of  the  rest  of  her  body.  When  she  saw  Madame  de 
Piennes,  she  lifted  her  head,  and  said  with  a  sad  faint  smile:  — 

(<I  knew  that  it  was  you,  madame,  who  had  had  pity  upon 
me.  They  told  me  your  name,  and  I  was  sure  that  it  was  the 
lady  whom  I  met  near  St.  Roch." 

«You  seem  to  be  in  a  poor  way  here,  my  poor  child, })  said 
Madame  de  Piennes,  her  eyes  traveling  over  the  sad  furnishment 
of  the  room.  (<Why  did  they  not  send  you  some  curtains?  You 
must  ask  Baptiste  for  any  little  thing  you  need." 

"You  are  very  good,  madame.  What  do  I  lack?  Nothing. 
It  is  all  over.  A  little  more  or  a  little  less,  what  difference  does 
it  make  ?  » 

And  turning  her  head,  she  began  to  cry. , 

<(Do  you  suffer  much,  my  poor  child?"  said  Madame  de 
Piennes,  sitting  by  the  bed. 

"No,  not  much.  Only  I  feel  all  the  time  in  my  ears  the 
wind  when  I  was  falling,  and  then  the  noise  —  crack!,  when  1  fell 
on  the  pavement. >} 

<(You  were  out  of  your  mind  then,  my  dear  friend:  you  re- 
pent now,  do  you  not? 

"Yes;  but  when  one  is  unhappy,  one  cannot  keep  one's  head.* 


PROSPER  MERIMEE 

(<I  regret  not  having  known  your  position  sooner.  But,  my 
child,  in  no  circumstances  of  life  should  we  abandon  ourselves  to 
despair. }) 

(< Ah !  I  do  not  know, B  cried  the  sick  girl,  (<  what  got  into 
me;  there  were  a  hundred  reasons  if  one.  First,  when  mamma 
died,  that  was  a  blow.  Then  I  felt  myself  abandoned — no  one 
interested  in  me.  And  at  last,  some  one  of  whom  I  thought 
more  than  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together — madame, 
to  forget  even  my  name!  Yes,  I  am  named  Arsene  Guillot, — 
G,  u,  i,  double  1:  he  writes  it  with  a  y!" 

<(And  so  you  have  been  deceived,  poor  child  ? )}   resumed  Ma 
dame  de  Piennes  after  a  moment  of  silence. 

<(  I  ?  No.  How  can  a  miserable  girl  like  myself  be  deceived  ? 
Only  he  did  not  care  for  me  any  longer.  He  was  right:  I  am 
not  the  kind  for  him.  He  was  always  good  and  generous.  I 
wrote  to  him,  telling  him  how  it  was  with  me,  and  if  he  wished  — 
Then  he  wrote  to  me  —  what  hurt  me  very  much. — The  other 
day,  when  I  came  back  to  my  room,  I  let  fall  a  looking-glass 
that  he  had  given  me;  a  Venetian  mirror,  he  called  it.  It 
broke.  I  said  to  myself,  *That  is  the  last  stroke!  That  is  a 
sign  that  all  is  at  an  end.'  I  had  nothing  more  from  him.  All 
the  jewelry  I  had  pawned.  And  then  I  said  to  myself,  that  if  I 
destroyed  myself  that  would  hurt  him,  and  I  would  be  revenged. 
The  window  was  open,  and  I  threw  myself  out  of  it.* 

<(  But,  unfortunate  creature  that  you  are !  the  motive  was  as 
frivolous  as  the  action  was  criminal.* 

<(Well  —  what  then?  When  one  is  in  trouble,  one  does  not 
reflect.  It  is  very  easy  for  happy  people  to  say,  (Be  reason- 
able. >» 

<(I  know  it, — -misfortune  is  a  poor  counselor;  nevertheless, 
even  in  the  midst  of  the  most  painful  trials  there  are  things 
one  should  not  forget.  I  saw  you  a  short  while  ago  perform  an 
act  of  piety  at  St.  Roch.  You  have  the  happiness  to  believe. 
Your  religion,  my  dear,  should  have  restrained  you,  at  the  very 
moment  you  were  abandoning  yourself  to  despair.  You  received 
your  life  from  God.  It  does  not  belong  to  you.  But  I  am  wrong 
to  scold  you  now,  poor  little  one.  You  repent,  you  suffer:  God 
will  have  mercy  upon  you." 

Arsene  bent  her  head,  and  tears  moistened  her  eyelids. 

<(Ah,  madame ! »  she  said  with  a  great  sigh,  <(you  believe  me 
to  be  better  than  I  am. — You  believe  me  to  be  pious. —  I  am  not 


PROSPER  MERIMEE  9953 

very  much  so. —  1  was  not  taught — and  if  you  saw  me  at  church 
burning  a  candle,  it  was  because  I  —  did  not  know  wnat  else  to 
put  my  wits  at." 

<(Well,  my  dear,  it  was  a  good  thought.  In  misfortune,  it  is 
always  to  God  that  one  must  turn." 

"They  told  me  —  that  if  I  burned  a  candle  to  St.  Roch —  But 
no,  madame,  I  cannot  tell  you  that.  A  lady  like  you  does  not 
know  what  one  can  do  when  one  has  not  a  sou." 

(<One  must  ask  God  for  courage  above  all.® 

<( Anyway,  madame,  I  do  not  wish  to  make  myself  out  better 
than  I  am;  and  it  would  be  stealing  to  profit  by  the  charity 
you  show  me,  without  knowing  what  I  am.  I  am  an  unfortunate 
girl —  But  in  this  world  one  lives  as  one  can. — To  come  to 
an  end,  madame,  I  burned  a  candle  because  my  mother  said  that 
when  one  burned  a  candle  to  St.  Roch,  eight  days  never  passed 
without  finding  some  one  — " 

Madame  de  Piennes  with  downcast  eyes  murmured  faintly: 
<(  Your  mother!  Pcor  thing!  how  can  you  dare  to  say  it?" 

<(  Oh,  my  mother  was  like  all  mothers  —  all  the  mothers  of 
such  as  we.  She  supported  her  mother;  I  supported  her;  —  fortu- 
nately I  have  no  child —  I  see,  madame,  that  it  frightens  you — - 
but  what  would  you  have  ?  You  have  been  well  reared:  you  have 
never  lacked.  When  one  is  rich,  it  is  easy  to  be  honest.  As  for 
me,  I  would  have  been  honest  had  I  had  the  means.  I  never 
loved  but  one  man,  and  he  left  me. —  See,  madame,  I  am  talking 
to  you  this  way,  so  frankly,  although  I  see  what  you  think  of 
me;  and  you  are  right.  But  you  are  the  only  honest  woman  I 
ever  talked  to  in  my  life  —  and  you  look  so  good  —  that  a  while 
ago  I  said  to  myself,  (Even  when  she  knows  what  I  am,  she 
will  take  pity  on  me.  I  am  going  to  die,  and  I  ask  of  you  only 
one'  favor:  to  have  a  mass  said  for  me  in  the  church  where  I 
first  saw  you.  One  single  prayer,  that  is  all,  and  I  thank  you 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  " 

<(  No,  you  will  not  die,"  cried  Madame  de  Piennes,  greatly 
moved.  (<  God  will  have  pity  upon  you,  poor  sinful  one.  You 
will  repent  of  your  faults  and  he  will  pardon  you.  Those  who 
have  reared  you  are  more  guilty  than  you  are.  Only  have 
courage  and  hope.  Try  above  all  to  be  calmer,  my  poor  child. 
The  body  must  be  cured;  the  soul  is  ill  too;  but  I  will  answer 
for  its  cure." 

She  had  risen  while  speaking,  rolling  in  her  fingers  a  piece 
of  paper  that  contained  a  few  louis. 


9954  PROSPER  MER1MEE 

*(Take  this,"  she  said,  (<  if  you  have  any  little  fancy — "  slip- 
ping  it  tinder  the  pillow. 

tt  No,  madame ! "  cried  Arsene  impetuously,  thrusting  back  the 
paper :  tt  I  do  not  wish  anything  from  you  but  what  you  have 
promised.  Good-by.  We  shall  see  one  another  no  more.  Have 
me  taken  to  a  hospital,  so  that  I  can  die  without  bothering  any 
one.  You  would  never  be  able  to  make  anything  out  of  me/ 
A  great  lady  like  you  will  have  prayed  for  me;  I  am  content 
Adieu. » 

And  turning  around  as  much  as  the  apparatus  that  held  her 
to  the  bed  would  permit,  she  hid  her  head  in  the  pillow,  so  as 
to  keep  from  seeing  anything  further. 

<(  Listen,  Arsene,"  said  Madame  de  Piennes  in  a  grave  tone. 
<(I  have  plans  for  you:  I  want  to  make  an  honest  woman  of 
you.  I  have  confidence  in  your  repentance.  I  shall  see  you 
often,  I  shall  take  care  of  you.  One  day  you  will  owe  me  your 
self-esteem," — taking  her  hand,  which  she  pressed  lightly. 

<(You  have  touched  me,"  cried  the  poor  girl,  <(you  have 
pressed  my  hand." 

And  before  Madame  de  Piennes  could  withdraw  her  hand,  she 
seized  it  and  covered  it  with  tears  and  kisses. 

<(  Calm  yourself,  calm  yourself,  my  dear,"  said  Madame  de 
Piennes.  <(  You  must  not  talk  any  more.  Now  I  know  all,  and 
I  understand  you  better  than  you  understand  yourself.  It  is  I 
who  am  to  be  the  doctor  of  your  head  —  your  poor  weak  head. 
And  you  must  obey  me  —  I  insist  upon  that — just  like  any  other 
doctor.  I  shall  send  you  in  a  priest,  one  of  my  friends.  .  You 
must  listen  to  him.  I  shall  choose  good  books  for  you;  you  must 
read  them.  We  will  talk  together  sometimes.  And  when  you 
get  better,  we  will  busy  ourselves  about  your  future." 

The  nurse  entered,  fetching  a  vial  from  the  druggist.  Arsene 
continued  to  weep. 

Repentance  was  not  difficult  for  poor  Arsene,  who,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  hours  of  gross  pleasure,  had  known  only  the 
miseries  of  life. 

The  poor  girl  was  in  a  pitiable  condition.  It  was  evident 
that  her  last  hour  was  near.  Her  respiration  was  nothing  more 
than  a  painful  rattle ;  and  Madame  de  Piennes  was  told  that  sev- 
eral times  during  the  morning  she  had  been  delirious,  and  that 
the  physician  did  not  think  she  could  last  until  the  next  day. 
Arsene,  however,  recognized  her  protectress  and  thanked  her  for 
coming. 


PROSPER   MERIMEE 

(<  You  will  not  tire  yourself  any  more  by  mounting  my  stairs,  " 
she  said  in  a  faint  voice. 

Every  word  seemed  to  cost  her  a  painful  effort,  and  exhaust 
the  little  strength  she  had  left.  They  had  to  bend  over  her  to 
hear  her.  Madame  de  Piennes  took  her  hand;  it  was  alraady 
cold  and  inanimate. 

Max  arrived  shortly  after,  and  silently  approached  the  bed  of 
the  dying  girl.  She  made  him  a  slight  sign  of  the  head,  and 
noticing  that  he  had  a  book  in  his  hand, — (<  You  will  not  read 
to-day,"  she  murmured  faintly. 

Abbe  Dubignon,  who  had  been  all  the  morning  with  Arsene, 
observing  with  what  rapidity  her  strength  was  being  exhausted, 
wished  to  use  for  her  salvation  the  few  moments  that  yet  re- 
mained to  her.  He  motioned  Madame  de  Piennes  and  Max  aside; 
and  bending  over  the  bed  of  suffering,  he  spoke  to  the  poor 
girl  those  solemn  and  consoling  words  that  religion  reserves  for 
such  moments.  In  a  corner  of  the  room,  madame  was  on  her 
knees  praying;  Max,  standing  at  a  window,  seemed  transformed 
into  a  statue. 

(<  You  pardon  all  those  who  have  offended  you,  my  daughter  ?  " 
said  the  priest  in  a  moved  voice. 

"Yes.  May  they  be  happy, "  said  the  dying  girl,  making  an 
effort  to  be  heard. 

<(  Trust  in  the  mercy  of  God,  my  daughter, "  resumed  the 
Abbe :  <(  repentance  opens  the  gates  of  heaven. " 

For  several  minutes  longer  the  Abbe  continued  his  exhorta- 
tions; then  he  ceased  to  speak,  in  doubt  whether  he  had  not  a 
corpse  before  him.  Madame  de  Piennes  softly  arose  to  her  feet, 
and  each  one  remained  for  awhile  motionless,  anxiously  looking  at 
the  livid  face  of  Arsene.  Each  one  was  holding  breath,  for  fear 
of  disturbing  the  terrible  slumber  that  perhaps  had  commenced 
for  her;  the  ticking  of  a  watch  on  the  stand  by  the  bed  was  dis- 
tinctly heard  in  the  room. 

(<  She  has  passed  away,  the  poor  young  lady, "  at  last  said  the 
nurse,  after  holding  her  snuff-bo^  before  the  lips  of  Arsene: 
wsee,  the  glass  is  not  dimmed.  She  is  dead." 

<(  Poor  child, "  cried  Max,  coming  out  of  the  stupor  in  which 
he  seemed  sunk,  (<  what  happiness  has  she  known  in  this  world !  * 

Of  a  sudden,  as  if  recalled  by  his  voice,  Arsene  opened  her 
eyes:  <(  I  have  loved,"  she  said  in  a  lifeless  voice.  (<  I  have 
loved,"  she  repeated  with  a  sad  smile.  They  were  her  last  words. 

Translated  for  <  A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature, >  by  Grace  King. 


9956 


THE  MEXICAN   NUN 

LA   MONJA   DE   MEXICO  — JUAN  A   YNEZ   DE   LA   CRUZ 

(1651-1695) 

BY  JOHN   MALONE 

IHILE,  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth   century,  that  portion 
of  North  America  which  now   comprises  the  United   States 
was    unexplored    wilderness,    the    empire    of    Spain    held    a 
brilliant    court    in    the    city   of    the    Montezumas.      Scholars,    artists, 

and  philosophers,  boasting  the 
best  blood  of  proud  Castilian 
races,  were  gathered  in  the 
New  World  about  the  persons 
who  represented  the  Crown  and 
its  .authority.  Great  must  have 
been  the  surprise  of  the  learned 
and  able  in  the  imperial  city  of 
Madrid,  when  in  1689,  in  that 
city,  Maria  Luisa,  Countess  of 
Parades,  wife  of  the  viceroy  of 
Mexico,  caused  to  be  published 
a  volume  of  poems  by  a  native 
of  the  wonderful  country  in 
which  Cortez  and  his  daring  fol- 
lowers had  set  up  the  triumph- 
ant standard  of  Spain.  Still 
greater  was  the  wonder  when 
upon  reading,  it  was  found  that 
THE  MEXICAN  NUN  these  poems  of  (<  La  Monja 

de  Mexico }>  (The  Mexican  Nun) 

were  brilliant  enough  to  compare  with  any  from  the  pen  of  the  most 
admired  and  distinguished  authors  of  the  home  land.  So  eagerly  was 
the  book  read,  and  so  passionately  admired,  that  in  three  years  it 
went  through  as  many  editions,  and  gained  for  the  cloistered  writer 
the  unanimous  tribute  of  the  title  <(La  Decima  Musa"  (The  Tenth 
Muse).  Her  world  called  her  simply  "The  Mexican  Nun";  but  sub- 
sequent generations  have  added  to  that  title  the  name  of  <(  Immortal 
honor  of  her  sex  and  native  land." 

The  distinguished  Father  Luis  Morales,  abbot  of  the  monastery  of 
San  Joaquin  in  Madrid,  who  approved  the  printing  of  the  book,  said  of 


THE  MEXICAN  NUN 


9957 


it;  *No  greater  treasure  has  been  wafted  by  happy  breezes  from  the 
Indies  into  Spain. )} 

The  person  whose  humble  state  of  life  was  thus  glorified  bore  the 
name  in  her  convent  of  Sister  Juana  Ynez  de  la  Cruz;  and  was  born 
on  the  1 2th  or  November  1651,  at  a  country  place  about  forty  miles 
from  the  City  of  Mexico,  called  San  Miguel  de  Nepanthla.  Her 
parents  were  Don  Manuel  Asbaje,  a  gentleman  of  good  rank  belong- 
ing to  the  city  of  Vegara,  and  Dona  Isabel  Ramirez  de  Santillana, 
a  native  of  the  city  of  Ayacapixtla.  As  a  child  the  gift  of  poetry 
approved  itself  in  this  Mexican  country  girl  as  early  as  her  eighth 
year,  when  it  is  said  she  accomplished  the  marvelous  task  of  writing 
a  dramatic  eulogy  or  "Auto"  in  honor  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  So 
earnest  was  her  disposition  towards  study,  that  having  heard  there 
was  a  school  of  sciences  in  the  City  of  Mexico  devoted  exclusively  to 
the  education  of  boys,  she  earnestly  begged  her  father  to  allow  her 
to  assume  male  attire,  and  go  to  Mexico  for  the  purpose  of  entering 
this  college.  Her  maternal  grandmother,  a  resident  of  the  City  of 
Mexico,  learning  of  the  child's  impatience  for  larger  opportunities  of 
study  than  were  afforded  by  her  father's  house,  obtained  permission 
to  take  the  little  one  under  her  own  roof  and  there  superintend  her 
education.  Finding  in  her  grandmother's  house  a  great  store  of 
books,  the  future  poetess  eagerly,  but  with  a  discrimination  beyond 
the  ordinary,  absorbed  a  vast  amount  of  knowledge.  Under  the 
direction  of  Master  Olivas,  a  teacher  of  Latin  grammar,  she  easily 
and  quickly  acquired  a  knowledge  of  classical  authors,  and  became 
proficient  as  a  writer  of  prose  and  verse  in  the  speech  of  VirgiL 

The  fame  of  this  talented  girl  soon  came  to  the  ears  of  the  vice- 
roy, and  caused  his  lady,  the  Marquesa  de  Macera,  to  bestow  upon 
the  young  poetess  a  position  in  the  palace  as  one  of  the  ladies  of 
honor.  While  occupying  this  distinguished  place,  Juana  Ynez  gave 
so  great  evidence  of  the  pre-eminence  of  her  mental  power,  and  was 
withal  so  gentle  and  attractive,  that  many  noble  and  brilliant  offers 
of  marriage  were  laid  at  her  feet. 

In  spite  of  the  great  praise  and  flattering  hopes  of  social  rank 
poured  daily  down  before  her,  she  determined  to  take  up  a  religious 
life.  In  this  she  was  encouraged  by  the  direction  and  advice  of 
Father  Antonio  Nunez,  a  very  learned  Jesuit,  who  was  at  that  time 
the  confessor  of  the  viceroy.  Dona  Juana  at  first  assumed  the  habit 
of  the  barefooted  Carmelites  in  the  convent  of  San  Jose,  of  the  City 
of  Mexico;  but  shortly  realizing  that  the  rigor  of  their  rule  was 
too  great  for  her,  and  acting  upon  the  advice  of  her  physician,  she 
removed  to  the  house  of  the  Jeromite  nuns,  where  she  made  her  sol- 
emn profession  before  the  end  of  her  eighteenth  year.  For  twenty- 
seven  years  she  remained  in  this  house,  devoted  to  the  study  of  the 
Scriptures  and  sacred  theology,  as  well  as  mathematics,  history,  and 


9958 


THE  MEXICAN  NUN 


poetry.  Her  collected  works,  the  best  edition  of  which  was  published 
in  Madrid  in  the  year  1725,  in  three  quarto  volumes,  show  that 
the  power  of  her  Muse  extended  to  all  pleasing  and  soul-elevating 
topics,  whether  connected  with  religion  or  with  social  life.  Many 
of  her  light  and  humorous  sonnets  to  her  private  friends  reveal  the 
very  soul  of  wit.  Her  charming  comedy  on  the  obligations  of  hos- 
pitality displays  a  delicate  and  masterful  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
love  and  family,  as  well  as  of  the  somewhat  severe  and  complicated 
rules  by  which  the  Spanish  comedy  of  the  < Cloak  and  Sword  >  was 
constructed.  So  perfect  is  this  social  comedy,  that  it  causes  one  to 
wonder  how  this  secluded  Mexican  nun  could  have  acquired  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  practical  needs  of  the  stage  as  complete  as  any  that 
illuminated  the  work  of  Calderon  or  of  Lope  de  Vega. 

The  greatest  triumph  of  her  genius,  however,  is  the  Corpus  Christi 
play  entitled  (The  Divine  Narcissus*;  in  which,  by  a  simple  yet 
wonderful  allegory,  she  weaves  the  fable  of  the  pagan  lover  into  a 
marvelous  broidery  of  the  life  and  passion  of  the  Christ.  The  dar- 
ing of  the  thought  and  its  treatment  is  Shakespearean  in  convincing 
mastery. 

But  it  was  not  in  her  impassioned  verse  alone  that  the  genius  of 
this  remarkable  woman  found  expression.  She  was  an  artist  in  paint 
as  well,  and  her  own  exquisitely  refined  features  have  been  preserved 
for  us  by  her  own  hand.  The  vignette  which  is  here  reproduced  is 
after  a  life-size  copy  in  oil  of  the  portrait  that  she  painted  of  her- 
self. Beneath  it  is  a  Spanish  inscription  of  direct  and  simple  elo- 
quence :  — <(  Faithful  copy  of  another  which  she  herself  made  and 
painted  with  her  own  hand.  The  Rev.  Mother  Juana  Yiiez  de  la 
Cruz,  Phoenix  of  America,  glorious  perfection  of  her  sex,  honor  of  the 
nation  of  the  New  World,  and  subject  of  the  admiration  and  praises 
of  the  Old. » 

This  copy  was  purchased  by  Dr.  Robert  H.  Lamborn,  and  placed 
in  his  collection  of  Mexican  colonial  works  of  art  in  Memorial  Hall, 
Philadelphia. 

The  quiet  01  the  convent  walks  did  not  save  the  poetess  from  the 
noise  of  envy  and  detraction.  Many  rude  assaults  were  made  upon 
her  name  and  fame;  but  her  unassuming  modesty,  her  virtue,  and  her 
generous  and  unselfish  devotion,  drew  finally  even  those  who  most 
maligned  her  into  the  ranks  of  her  true  friends.  It  was  about  two 
years  before  her  death,  and  while  her  name  and  the  music  of  her 
song  were  being  chanted  in  a  chorus  of  the  highest  praise,  that  she 
at  once  and  willingly  gave  up  all  efforts  toward  any  of  the  world's 
works,  and  under  the  care  of  her  old  confessor,  Father  Nunez, 
devoted  herself  and  her  remaining  years  to  the  study  and  hope  of 
eternity.  Of  this  time  of  her  life  Father  Nunez  said,  <(She  seemed 
to  long  for  Heaven  as  the  white  dove  longs  for  its  nest." 


THE  MEXICAN  NUN  9959 

The  plague  broke  out  in  the  City  of  Mexico  in  the  early  spring  of 
1695;  and  amongst  the  devoted  women  of  God  who  went  to  the  care 
of  the  sick  and  dying  was  Sister  Juana  Ynez.  One  day  she  came 
back  to  her  cell  with  the  dread  infection  heavy  upon  her;  and  on 
the  1 7th  of  April  of  this  year,  having  been  forty-four  years  and  five 
months  amongst  men,  her  soul  departed.  Her  death  was  bemoaned 
by  the  people  of  two  continents,  and  her  obsequies  were  attended 
with  almost  royal  honors. 


ON  THE  CONTRARIETIES   OF   LOVE 
(SECOND  SONNET) 

ONE  loves  me  though  his  homage  I  disdain; 
And  one  for  whom  I  languish  mocks  my  smile. 
To  double  torment  thus  doth  pride  beguile, 
And  make  me  loathe  and  love  at  once  in  vain; 
On  him  who  honors  casting  wanton  stain, 
And  hazarding  to  be  esteemed  vile 
By  wooing  where  I  am  not  sought,  the  while 
I  waste  the  patience  of  a  gentler  swain. 
So  must  I  fear  despite  to  my  good  fame; 

For  here  with  vanity,  with  conscience  there, 
My  blushing  cheeks  betray  my  needless  shame: 

'Tis  I  am  guilty  towards  this  guiltless  pair. 
For  shame !   to  court  a  light-love's  woeful  name, 
And  leave  an  earnest  lover  to  despair. 


LEARNING  AND   RICHES 

WHY  should  the  world  be  apt  to  censure  me  ? 
Wherein  have  I  offended  that  I  sought 
To  grace  my  mind  with  jewels  dearly  bought, 
Nor  turned  my  heart  to  jeweled  vanity  ? 
From  greed  of  riches  I  am  fancy-free; 

But  deem  no  work  of  fancy  fairly  wrought 
Till  crowned  with  diamonds  from  the  mine  of  thought, 
That  worth  my  wealth,  not  wealth  my  worth,  may  be. 
I  am  not  Beauty's  votary.     I  know 

Her  conquests  fall  a  spoil  to  age  at  last; 


996°  THE  MEXICAN  NUN 

I  find  no  joy  in  money's  gaudy  show; 

For  gold  like  chaff  into  the  furnace  cast 
Fits  but  to  feed  Art's  flame,  and  keep  the  glow 

Of  golden  Truth  a  glory  unsurpassed. 


DEATH  IN  YOUTH 

1   NOTED  once  a  fair  Castilian  rose, 
All  blushing  with  the  bloom  of  life  new-born. 
Flaunt  lovingly  her  beauty  to  the  morn, 
Whose  whisper  woed  the  coy  bud  to  unclose 
Her  dewy  petals  to  his  kiss.     «  Thy  foes,)) 

I  cried,   (<  the  cankering  elves  of  darkness,   scorn ! 
The  joys  of  purity  thy  day  adorn, 
And  guard  thee  through  the  night's  despoiling  woes. 
And  thus,  though  withering  Death  may  touch  thy  leaf, 

And  in  his  dusky  veil  thy  fragrance  fold, 
Thy  youth  and  beauty  ever  smile  at  grief. 

Thy  little  life  and  story  quickly  told 
Make  blest  the  teaching  of  a  sweet  belief: 

'Tis  fairer  fortune  to  die  young  than  old.  w 


THE  DIVINE  NARCISSUS 
A  SACRAMENTAL  PLAY 

[NOTE. — The  action  begins  with  a  Loa  or  prologue  in  which  the  Western 
World  and  America  appear  as  persons  habited  in  the  dress  of  Indians.  They 
are  about  to  offer  sacrifice  to  the  god  of  seed-time,  when  Zeal,  a  Spanish 
soldier,  interrupts  them,  and  with  his  armed  companions  endeavors  to  compel 
them  to  desist.  He  is  prevented  and  rebuked  by  Religion  in  the  person  of 
a  virgin,  who  invites  the  attention  of  all  to  the  story  of  the  passion  of  the 
Divine  Narcissus. 

The  persons  of  the  play  than  take  the  place  of  those  of  the  Loa.  The 
Hebrew  and  the  Gentile  as  Synagogue  and  Gentility,  in  the  guise  .of  nymphs 
accompanied  by  an  unseen  chorus,  alternate  in  songs  of  praise, —  the  first  to 
the  Divine  Narcissus,  the  Son  of  God,  the  second  to  the  spirit  of  fountains 
and  flowers.  Human  Nature,  another  nymph,  asks  them  to  reconcile  their 
songs,  and  declares  the  divinity  of  Narcissus  and  her  love  for  him.  Grace, 
Echo  as  Angelic  Nature,  Pride,  Self-Love,  and  other  nymphs,  together  with  a 
band  of  shepherds  and  the  chorus,  take  part  with  Human  Nature  and  her 
loving  Narcissus  in  acting  a  beautiful  allegory  in  which  the  heathen  myth  is 
wedded  to  Christ's  passion.  Echo,  as  Angelic  Nature  sues  in  vain  for  the 
love  of  Narcissus,  and  Human  Nature  comes  to  the  grove  to  seek  him.  On 
her  coming  she  gives  voice  to  the  lament  on  the  following  page.] 


H 


THE  MEXICAN  NUN  996i 

Enter  Human  Nature 
UMAN  NATURE — 

Ah,   weary  me!  my  perilous  quest 
I  follow  still  with  faith  untired. 
My  wandering  steps  may  have  no  rest 

Until  I  find  my  well-desired, 
My  loved  Narcissus,  whom  in  vain 
1  seek  through  shady  grove  and  sunny  plain. 

Hope  leads  me  to  this  pleasant  glade, 
With  promise  of  my  lost  one's  sight. 

If  I  may  trust  her  gentle  aid, 

His  presence  caused  the  sweet  delight 

Which  beams  in  every  fragrant  flower, 
And  sets  a-tremble  all  this  leafy  bower. 

How  many  days,  alas!  have  I 

The  woodland,  flower  by  flower,  searched 
With  many  a  heart-consuming  sigh, 

By  thorns  empierced,  by  slime  besmirched; 
Each  woe  to  new  hope  giving  birth ! 
Ages  my  days,  my  pilgrimage  the  earth! 

My  past  declares  our  sacred  troth; 

The  paths  I've  trod  with  ceaseless  pain, 
My  sighs  and  groans  commingling  both 

With  tears  that  wet  my  cheeks  like  rainl 
Nay,  slavery  and  prison  oft 
My  unforgetting  fealty  madly  scoffed! 

Once  was  I  from  his  city  driven, 

E'en  by  the  servants  of  his  power, — 

My  mantle  torn,  my  sceptre  riven. 
The  watchers  of  his  warden  tower 

My  shoulders  scourged  with  whips  of  flame. 
And  thrust  me  forth  with  Sin  and  Evil  Fame* 

O  nymphs,  who  grace  this  fair  retreat! 

Your  sympathy  I  pray  impart: 
Should  you  my  soul's  Beloved  meet, 

Tell  him  the  longings  of  my  heart ; 
The  patience  of  my  passion  tell, 
My  tortured  spirit  and  my  anguish  fell. 

If  sign  you  need  my  Loved  to  know, 

His  brow  is  fair  as  rosy  morn, 
His  bosom  whiter  than  the  snow, 

With  light  like  that  by  jasper  borne. 


9962  THE   MEXICAN   NUN 

His  eyes  are  limpid  as  the  dove's, 
And  all  their  deep,  unfathomed  gleams  are  Love's. 

His  breath  is  like  the  fragrance  thrown 
From  rarest  incense;  and  his  hand 

Is  jeweled  with  the  jacynth  stone, 

The  badge  of  Glory's  knightly  band, 

The  jewel  of  the  sigh  and  tear, — 
The  crest  of  all  who  triumph  over  fear. 

He  stands  as  stately  as  the  -shaft 

That  lifts  the  temple  dome  on  high; 
His  graceful  gestures  gently  waft 
A  spell  o'er  every  gazer's  eye. 
O  maids!   perfections  all  combine 
To  mark  the  person  of  my  Love  divine!  — 

Among  the  myriads  you  will  know  him 

O'er  all  the  better  or  the  worse; 
His  god-like  form  will  ever  show  him 

The  flower  of  the  universe. 
No  other  shepherd  is  there,  here 
Or  elsewhere,  equal  to  this  Shepherd  dear  I 

Then  tell  me  where  my  soul's  adored 
His  swift  and  busy  footsteps  turns! 

What  shady  bower  he  fleeth  toward 

When  high  the  midday  sunlight  burns! 

For  sad  and  weary  is  my  heart 
With  wandering  through  the  forest's  every  part, 

[The  action  passes   naturally  to  a  culmination  in  the   following   scene  of 
the  resurrection  of  Narcissus  after  his  supposed  death  in  the  fountain.] 

Enter  about  the  Fountain,  Human  Nature  with  all  the  nymphs  and  shep- 
herds. They  bewail  the  death  of  Narcissus.  Grace  enters,  and 
addressing  Human  Nature,  says:  — 

Grace —     Why  weep  you  thus  so  grievously,  fair  nymph  ? 

What  seek  you,  and  what  is  your  cause  of  woe  ? 
Human  Nature — 

.    The  Master  of  my  love  in  vain  I  seek. 

I  know  not  where  the  jealous  Fates  have  hid 

Him  from  my  eager  sight. 
Grace —  Lament  not!  weep  not! 

Nor  seek  among  the  dead  the  Eternal  One. 

Narcissus,  thy  Beloved,  lives. 


THE   MEXICAN   NUN  9963 

Narcissus,  brilliantly  dressed  and  crowned  as  from  the  Resurrection,  enters, 
accompanied  by  a  troop  of  rejoicing  shepherds.  Human  Nature  turns 
and  sees .  him. 

Narcissus —  Fair  maid, 

Thy  pearly  tears  are  precious  to  my  sight, 

And  melt  my  heart  to  pity!     Why  does  grief 

Thus  flood  thy  gentle  eyes  ? 
Human  Nature—  I  weep,  my  lord, 

For  my  Narcissus.     Oh,  could  you  but  tell 

Me  where  to  seek  for  my  lost  love ! 
Narcissus —  Dear  spouse, 

Has  heaven's  glory  shining  on  my  brow 

So  masked  me  that  you  know  me  not  ? 
ffuman  Nature — 

0  spouse  adorable!     My  joy!     My  heart 
Bows  to  the  earth  with  its  great  happiness! 

1  kiss  thy  feet. 

Narcissus —  No,  dear  one,  thou  must  not! 

A  little  longer  must  thou  wait,  for  I 
Go  now  to  join  my  Father  on  his  throne. 

Human  Nature  — 

Thou  wilt  leave  me  here  alone  ?     Dear  Lord,  I  faint 
To  think  without  thine  arm  to  shelter  me 
My  enemy  the  serpent  may  destroy  me. 

Enter  Echo,  Pride,  and  Self-Love 

Echo —  True  that!   for  he  has  laid  in  wait  for  her 

With  wary  cunning  for  these  many  years. 

[Narcissus  rebukes  the  envious  nymphs,  and  calls  on  Grace  to  declare  the 
will  of  God.] 

Narcissus  —  Then  to  thy  greater  pain,  since  thou  canst  wish 

Such  evil  to  another,  know  my  plan 

Of  safeguard  for  my  chosen  spouse.     Speak,   Grace, 

The  meaning  of  this  parable  which  we 

So  far  have  acted.     Tell  my  message. 
Grace  —  List 

Ye  all!     The  master  I  obey. 
Echo—  Alas! 

My  woe  grows  heavier  at  thy  words  of  dole. 
Grace —         So  shall  the  beauty  of  Narcissus  bloom 

In  sovereign  state  while  he  enjoys  the  bliss 

Eternally  prepared  for  him,  the  king 

Of  happiness,  dispenser  of  all  joys, 


THE   MEXICAN    NUN 

Perfection's  treasurer  and  crowned  cause 

Of  wonder-making  miracles.     The  orbs 

Whose  crystal  radiance  lights  the  firmament 

Shall  be  his  lofty  glory's  witnesses; 

Their  circled  courses,  as  with  pens  of  fire, 

Shall  write  his  deeds  upon  the  vast  of  space; 

The  splendor  of  the  morning  stars,  the  flame 

Of  purifying  fires,  the  storm-tossed  plumes 

Of  ocean,  the  uplifted  crags  of  earth, 

And  the  unceasing  music  of  the  winds, 

Shall  praise  him,  and  from  him  the  myriad  suns 

And  brilliant  stars  shall  proudly  borrow  light. 

The  sapphire  of  the  deep  and  placid  lakes, 

The  pearly  radiance  of  the  flying  mis£ss 

Shall  be  the  mirrors  of  his  smile ;  the  folds 

Shall  clothe  themselves  with  flowers,  and  the  peaks 

With  snow,  to  imitate  his  glory. 

The  wild  things  of  the  forest  and  the  air 

From  den  and  eyrie  shall  adore  his  name. 

The  silent  caverns  of  the  deep  shall  teem 

With  servants  of  his  word.     The  sea  itself 

Shall  pile  its  jeweled  waves  aloft  to  make 

The  thunderous  altars  of  the  choir  of  storms., 

All  growing  things  —  the  lofty  pine,  the  moss 

That  clings  about  the  desert  rock — shall  teach 

His  worship;  him  the  boundless  main  declares, 

Receiving  all  the  waters  of  the  earth 

To  give  them  back  in  helpful  rain  as  he 

Receives  in  adoration  and  gives  back 

In  bliss. 

And  this  has  ever  been  since  time 
And  movement  of  created  things  began. 
For  all  things  hold  their  being  from  his  care. 
Should  he  not  care,  chaos  would  mar  the  world. 
This  is  the  happy   fear  that  sways  the  flowers, 
The  fear  that  tells  the  lily  to  grow  pale 
And  brings  a  blush  upon  the  rose. 

He  came 

To  see  in  man,  creation's  prince,  the  best 
Reflection  of  himself.     God-Man,  he  saw, 
And  loved  the  Godlike  image  of  himself. 
Godlike  to  God  the  only  worth  can  be« 

Translated  for  <A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature. : 


9965 


KONRAD   FERDINAND  MEYER 

(1825-1898) 

FOREMOST  among  the  German  poets  and  novelists  of  our  time 
stand  the  two  Swiss  writers  Gottfried  Keller  and  Konrad 
Ferdinand  Meyer.  Strongly  contrasted  as  their  lives  were 
in  external  circumstances,  and  widely  different  as  were  the  fields  from 
which  they  chose  their  materials,  in  their  artistic  aims  the  two  men 
had  much  in  common.  Keller's  life  was  a  long  battle  with  small 
things,  and  fame  was  slow  in  coming;  Meyer  has  led  a  life  of  literary 
leisure,  devoted  to  self-cultivation  and  indifferent  to  public  recogni- 
tion. But  in  the  work  of  each  of  these  poets 
there  is  the  same  perfection  of  form  and 
fastidious  polish  of  style.  Keller  is  perhaps 
more  rugged  and  vigorous;  Meyer  depicts 
life  with  the  keen  insight  of  a  contemplat- 
ive and  poetic  student  of  history.  In  both 
cases  the  treatment  is  realistic.  Keller's, 
however,  is  obviously  the  realism  of  act- 
ual observation  and  experience;  Meyer's^is 
the  realism  of  a  plastic  mind  infusing  life 
into  the  facts  and  forms  of  a  bygone  age. 
Together  these  two  men  are  the  chief  orna- 
ments of  modern  Swiss  literature. 

Konrad    Ferdinand    Meyer    was    born    at 
Zurich  on  October   i2th,  1825.     His  younger 

years  were  passed  in  Geneva  and  Lausanne,  where  he  acquired  com- 
mand of  the  French  language.  For  a  time  it  was  his  intention  to 
study  law;  but  after  a  brief  experience  at  the  University  of  Zurich, 
he  abandoned  the  idea.  Moved  solely  by  his.  own  inclinations,  and  for 
years  with  no  other  purpose  than  the  gratification  of  his  own  tastes, 
he  devoted  himself  with  scholarly  ardor  to  the  study  of  history.  It 
is  a  curious  instance  of  a  blind  impulse  guiding  genius  into  its  proper 
course.  Still  unproductive,  he  went  to  Paris  in  1857  to  pursue  his 
historical  studies,  and  spent  the  following  year  in  Italy.  Since  1875 
he  has  lived  at  his  country  home,  at  Kilchberg  near  Zurich.  His  life 
has  been  free  from  sordid  cares,  and  filled  chiefly  with  the  joys  of 
scholarly  labor  and  poetic  creation. 


K.   F.   MEYER 


9966 


KONRAD   FERDINAND  MEYER 


.  Meyer  had  reached  the  prime  of  life  when  he  first  entered  the 
field  of  literature.  His  first  public  venture  was  a  collection  of  ( Bal- 
lads}  which  came  out  in  1867,  when  their  author  was  in  his  forty- 
second  year.  In  1870  came  a  volume  of  poems  entitled  ( Romances 
and  Pictures.  >  But  it  was  not  until  the  appearance  of  (Hutten's  Last 
Days>  —  a  highly  original  cycle  of  poems,  half  lyric,  half  epic  —  that 
Meyer  began  to  attract  attention.  This  was  in  1871;  and  in  the  same 
year  the  idyllic  <Engelberg>  was  published.  Herein  also  may  be 
found  the  epic  element  which  reveals  the  mind  of  a  poet,  whose 
chief  intellectual  delight  is  the  study  of  history. 

But  it  was  the  long  array  of  his  vigorous  and  brilliant  stories  that 
brought  to  Meyer  the  full  measure  of  fame  he  now  enjoys.  ( Der 
Heilige*  (The  Saint),  in  which  is  told  the  story  of  Thomas  Becket. 
is  one  of  the  most  finished  pieces  of  historical  fiction  in  German  lit- 
erature. Next  in  finish  of  execution  to  this  figure  of  Becket  stands 
that  of  the  sombre  and  impressive  Dante,  into  whose  mouth,  as 
he  sits  in  the  halls  of  Cangrande,  is  put  the  thrilling  tale  of  (The 
Monk's  Wedding. J  This  book,  which  appeared  in  1884,  and  (The 
Temptation  of  Pescara>  (1889),  may  perhaps  be  singled  out  as  the 
best  of  these  historical  romances;  but  the  list  of  Meyer's  works  is  a 
long  one,  and  none  of  them  shows  hasty  workmanship  nor  flagging 
powers;  and  the  public  interest  remains  unabated. 

Meyer  is  a  master  of  clear  objective  treatment.  He  never  inter- 
poses himself,  nor  intrudes  historical  information.  As  the  reader 
accompanies  the  characters  through  their  experiences,  he  has  only 
to  look  about  to  see  how  things  once  appeared,  and  how  men  once 
behaved  in  the  dead  days  which  the.  poet  is  re-creating.  The  thing 
is  presented  as  the  author  sees  it  in  his  plastic  imagination,  and  the 
vividness  of  the  impression  it  conveys  is  independent  of  all  historical 
accessories  and  learned  elucidation.  Meyer  died  at  Kilchberg  on  Nov- 
ember 28th,  1898. 


FROM  <THE  MONK'S  WEDDING > 

Copyright  1887,  by  Cupples  &  Kurd 

« y  s  IT  at  all  necessary  that  there  should  be  monks  ? w  whispered 
a  voice  out  of  a  dim  corner,  as  if  to  suggest  that  any  sort 
of  escape  from  an  unnatural  condition  was  a  blessing. 
The  audacious  question  caused  no  shock;  for  at  this  court  the 
boldest  discussion  of  religious  matters  was  allowed, —  yes,  smiled 
upon, —  whilst  a  free  or  incautious  word  in  regard  to  the  person 
or  policy  of  the  Emperor  was  certain  destruction. 


KONRAD  FERDINAND  MEYER 


9967 


Dante's  eyes  sought  the  speaker,  and  recognized  in  him  a 
young  ecclesiastic  whose  fingers  toyed  with  the  heavy  gold  cross 
he  wore  over  his  priestly  robe. 

"  Not  on  my  account, "  said  the  Florentine  deliberately.  <(  May 
the  monks  die  out  as  soon  as  a  race  is  born  that  understands 
how  to  unite  justice  and  mercy  —  the  two  highest  attributes  of 
the  human  soul  —  which  seem  now  to  exclude  one  another.  Until 
that  late  hour  in  the  world's  history  may  the  State  administer  the 
one,  and  the  Church  the  other.  Since,  however,  the  exercise  of 
mercy  requires  a  thoroughly  unselfish  heart,  the  three  monastic 
vows  are  not  only  a  proper  but  essential  preparation;  for  expe- 
rience has  taught  that  total  abnegation  is  less  difficult  than  a 
reserved  and  partial  self-surrender." 

"Are  there  not  more  bad  than  good  monks  ? "  persisted  the 
doubting  ecclesiastic. 

"No,"  said  Dante,  (<  when  we  take  into  consideration  human 
weakness;  else  there  are  more  unjust  than  righteous  judges,  more 
cowards  than  brave  warriors,  more  bad  men  than  good." 

"And  is  not  this  the  case  ? "  asked  the  guest  in  the  dim  cor- 
ner. 

"No,  certainly  not,"  Dante  replied,  a  heavenly  brightness  sud- 
denly illuminating  his  stern  features.  "  Is  not  philosophy  asking 
and  striving  to  find  out  how  evil  came  into  this  world?  Had  the 
bad  formed  the  majority,  we  should,  on  the  contrary,  have  been 
asking  how  good  came  into  the  world." 

This  proud  enigmatical  remark  impressed  the  party  forcibly, 
but  at  the  same  time  excited  some  apprehension  lest  the  Floren- 
tine was  going  deeper  into  scholasticism  instead  of  relating  his 
story. 

Cangrande,  seeing  his  pretty  young  friend  suppress  a  yawn, 
said,  "  Noble  Dante,  are  you  to  tell  us  a  true  story,  or  will  you 
embellish  a  legend  current  among  the  people;  or  can  you  not 
give  us  a  pure  invention  out  of  your  own  laurel-crowned  head  ? " 

Dante  replied  with  slow  emphasis,  "  I  evolve  my  story  from 
an  inscription  on  a  grave." 

"On  a  grave!" 

"Yes,  from  an  inscription  on  a  gravestone  which  I  read  years 
ago,  when  with  the  Franciscans  at  Padua.  The  stone  was  in  a 
corner  of  the  cloister  garden,  hidden  under  wild  rose-bushes,  but 
still  accessible  to  the  novices,  if  they  crept  on  all  fours  and  did 
not  mind  scratching  their  cheeks  with  thorns.  I  ordered  the 


9968 


KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER 


prior  —  or,  I  should  say,  besought  him  —  to  have  the  puzzling 
stone  removed  to  the  library,  and  there  commended  to  the  inter- 
est of  a  gray-headed  custodian. 

ft  What  was  on  the  stone  ? w  interposed  somewhat  listlessly  the 
wife  of  the  Prince. 

"The  inscription, }>  answered  Dante,  (<was  in  Latin,  and  ran 
thus:  — 

0<Hic  jacet  monachus  Astorre  cum  uxore  Antiope.  Sepeliebat 
Azzolinus. > » 

<(  What  does  it  mean  ?  ®  eagerly  cried  the  lady  on  Cangrande's 
left. 

The  Prince  fluently  translated:- — 

(<Here  sleeps  the  monk  Astorre  beside  his  wife  Antiope.  Both 
buried  by  Ezzelin.^ 

(< Atrocious  tyrant !  M  exclaimed  the  impressible  maiden :  (<  I  am 
sure  he  had  them  buried  alive,  because  they  were  lovers;  and  he 
insulted  the  poor  victims  even  in  their  graves,  by  styling  her  the 
cwife  of  the  monk,* —  cruel  wretch  that  he  was!" 

<(  Hardly, w  said  Dante:  <(I  construe  it  quite  differently,  and 
according  to  the  history  this  seems  improbable;  for  Ezzelin's 
rigor  was  directed  rather  against  breaches  of  ecclesiastical  disci- 
pline. He  interested  himself  little  either  in  the  making  or  break- 
ing of  sacred  vows.  I  take  the  ( sepeliebat *  in  a  friendly  sense, 
and  believe  the  meaning  to  be  that  he  gave  the  two  burial. M 

<(  Right, w  exclaimed  Cangrande.  (<  Florentine,  I  agree  with 
you!  Ezzelin  was  a  born  ruler,  and  as  such  men  usually  are, 
somewhat  harsh  and  violent;  but  nine-tenths  of  the  crimes  im- 
puted to  him  are  inventions  —  forgeries  of  the  clergy  and  scandal- 
loving  people. }> 

(< Would  it  were  so!"  sighed  Dante;  (<at  any  rate,  where  he 
appears  upon  the  stage  in  my  romance,  he  has  not  yet  become 
the  monster  which  the  chronicle^  be  it  true  or  false,  pictures  him 
to  be;  his  cruelty  is  only  beginning  to  show  itself  in  certain 
lines  about  the  mouth. >J 

(<A  commanding  figure, >J  exclaimed  Cangrande  enthusiastically, 
desiring  to  bring  him  more  palpably  before  the  audience,  « with 
black  hair  bristling  round  his  great  brow,  as  you  paint  him,  in 
your  Twelfth  Canto,  among  the  inhabitants  of  hell.  But  whence 
have  you  taken  this  dark  head  ? » 


KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER 

*  It  is  yours,®  replied  Dante  boldly;  and  Cangrande  felt  him- 
self flattered, 

<(And  the  rest  of  the  characters  in  my  story, )}  he  said  with 
smiling  menace,  (( I  will  also  take  from  among  you,  if  you  will 
allow  me,"  —  and  he  turned  toward  his  listeners:  « I  borrow  your 
names  only,  leaving  untouched  what  is  innermost;  for  that  I  can- 
not read.'* 

(<  My  outward  self  I  lend  you  gladly, }>  responded  the  Princess, 
whose  indifference  was  beginning  to  yield. 

A  murmur  of  intense  excitement  now  ran  through  the  courtly 
circle,  and  (( Thy  story,  Dante,  thy  story ! })  was  heard  on  all 
sides, 

a  Here  it  is,"  he  said,  and  began:  — 

[Dante  begins  his  tale  with  a  description  of  a  bridal  party  returning  in 
festal  barges  upon  the  waters  of  the  Brenta  to  Padua,  where  the  wedding 
is  to  be  solemnized.  Umberto  Vicedomini,  with  his  three  sons  by  a  former 
marriage,  and  his  bride,  Diana,  occupy  one  barge;  an  accident  overturns 
the  vessel,  and  the  entire  party  is  drowned,  with  the  exception  of  Diana, 
who  is  rescued  by  Astorre,  Umberto's  younger  brother.  The  news  of  this  acci- 
dent is  brought  to  the  aged  head  of  the  house  of  Vicedomini,  who  thus  sees 
all  his  hopes  of  a  posterity  cut  off,  for  his  only  surviving  son  has  already 
assumed  monastic  vows.  Upon  his  willingness  to  renounce  these  vows  now 
depends  the  future  of  the  house  of  the  Vicedomini.  The  old  man  is  in  the 
midst  of  a  heated  interview  with  the  ruler  Ezzelin  when  Diana  enters  his 
chamber.] 

Just  then  he  caught  sight  of  his  daughter-in-law,  who  had 
pressed  through  the  crowd  of  servants  in  advance  of  the  monk, 
and  was  standing  on  the  threshold.  Spite  of  his  physical  weak- 
ness he  rushed  towards  her,  staggering;  seized  and  wrenched  her 
hands  apart,  as  if  to  make  her  responsible  for  the  misfortune 
which  had  befallen  them. 

<(  Where  is  my  son,  Diana  ? w  he  gasped  out. 

(<  He  lies  in  the  Brenta, J)  she  answered  sadly,  and  her  blue 
eyes  grew  dim. 

<(  Where  are  my  three  grandchildren  ? w 

(<In  the  Brenta, w  she  repeated. 

*And  you  bring  me  yourself  as  a  gift — you  are  presented  to 
me  ? }>  and  the  old  man  laughed  discordantly. 

(( Would  that  the  Almighty, w  she  said  slowly,  <(had  drawn  me 
deeper  under  the  waves,  and  that  thy  children  stood  here  in  my 
stead!*  She  was  silent;  then  bursting  into  sudden  anger,— 


997° 


KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER 


<(  Does  my  presence  insult  you,  and  am  I  a  burden  to  you  ? 
Impute  the  blame  to  him  (pointing  to  the  monk).  He  drew  me 
from  the  water  when  I  was  already  dead,  and  restored  me  to 


The  old  man  now  for  the  first  time  perceived  his  son;  and 
collecting  himself  quickly,  exhibited  the  powerful  will  which  his 
bitter  grief  seemed  to  have  steeled  rather  than  lamed. 

<(  Really  —  he  drew  you  out  of  the  Brenta  ?  H'm!  Strange. 
The  ways  of  God  are  marvelous!  >J 

He  grasped  the  monk  by  the  shoulder  and  arm  at  once,  as  if 
to  take  possession  of  nitn  body  and  soul,  and  dragged  him  along 
to  his  great  chair,  into  which  the  old  man  fell  without  relaxing 
his  pressure  on  the  arm  of  his  unresisting  son.  Diana  followed, 
knelt  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  chair,  and  leaned  her  head 
upon  the  arm  of  it,  so  that  only  the  coil  of  her  blond  hair  was 
visible  —  like  some  inanimate  object.  Opposite  the  group  sat  Ezze- 
lin,  his  right  hand  upon  the  rolled-up  letter,  like  a  commander- 
in-chief  resting  upon  his  staff. 

<(  My  son  —  my  own  one,"  whimpered  the  dying  man,  with  a 
tenderness  in  which  truth  and  cunning  mingled,  (<  my  last  and 
only  consolation!  Thou  staff  and  stay  of  my  old  age,  thou  wilt 
not  crumble  like  dust  under  my  trembling  fingers.  Thou  must 
understand,  M  he  went  on,  already  in  a  colder  and  more  practical 
tone,  <(  that  as  things  are,  it  is  not  possible  for  thee  to  remain 
longer  in  the  cloister.  It  is  according  to  the  canons,  my  son, 
is  it  not,  that  a  monk  whose  father  is  sick  unto  death,  or  impov- 
erished, should  withdraw  in  order  to  nurse  the  author  of  his 
days,  or  to  till  his  father's  acres  ?  But  I  need  thee  even  more 
pressingly:  thy  brothers  and  nephews  are  gone,  and  now  thou 
must  keep  the  life  torch  of  our  house  burning.  Thou  art  a  little 
flame  I  have  kindled,  and  I  cannot  suffer  it  to  glimmer  and  die 
out  in  a  narrow  cell.  Know  one  thing  >J  —  he  had  read  in  the 
warm  brown  eyes  a  genuine  sympathy,  and  the  reverent  bear- 
ing of  the  monk  appeared  to  promise  blind  obedience  •  <(  I  am 
more  ill  than  you  suppose  —  am  I  not,  Issacher?"  He  turned 
to  look  in  the  face  a  spare  little  man,  who,  with  phial  and  spoon 
in  his  hands,  had  stept  behind  the  chair  of  the  old  Vicedominl, 
and  now  bowed  his  white  head  in  affirmation.  <(  I  travel  toward 
the  river;  but  I  tell  thee,  Astorre,  if  my  wish  is  not  granted, 
thy  father  will  refuse  to  step  into  Charon's  boat,  and  will  sit 
cowering  on  the  twilight  strand.  >J 


KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER 

The  monk  stroked  the  feverish  hand  of  the  old  man  with 
tenderness,  but  answered  quietly  in  two  words :  (<  My  vows ! }) 

Ezzelin  unfolded  the  letter.  <(  Thy  vows, w  said  the  old  man  in 
a  wheedling  tone  — (( loosened  strings ;  filed-away  chains.  Make  a 
movement  and  they  fall.  The  Holy  Church,  to  which  thy  obedi- 
ence is  due,  has  declared  them  null  and  void.  There  it  stands 
written, w  and  his  thin  finger  pointed  to  the  parchment  with  the 
Pope's  seal. 

The  monk  approached  the  governor,  took  the  letter  from  him 
respectfully,  and  read  it  through,  closely  watched  the  while  by 
four  eyes.  Completely  dazed,  he  took  one  step  backward,  as  if 
he  were  standing  on  .the  top  of  a  tower,  and  all  at  once  saw  the 
rampart  give  way. 

Ezzelin  seized  the  reeling  man  by  the  arm  with  the  curt  ques- 
tion, (<  To  whom  did  you  make  your  vows,  monk, —  to  yourself, 
or  to  the  Church  ? » 

(<To  both,  of  course/'  shrieked  the  old  man  angrily:  "these 
are  cursed  subtleties.  Take  care,  son,  or  he  will  reduce  us, 
Vicedomini,  to  beggary. )} 

Without  a  trace  of  feeling  or  resentment,  Ezzelin  laid  his 
right  hand  on  his  beard  and  swore  — <(  If  Vicedomini  dies,  the 
monk  here  inherits  his  property,  and  should  the  family  become 
extinct  with  him,  if  he  love  me  and  his  native  city,  he  shall 
found  a  hospital  of  such  size  and  grandeur  that  the  hundred 
cities }>  (he  meant  the  Italian)  <(  will  envy  us.  Now,  godfather, 
having  cleared  myself  from  the  charge  of  rapacity,  may  I  put  to 
the  monk  a  few  questions  ?  —  have  I  your  permission  ? >J 

The  fury  of  the  old  man  now  rose  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  bring 
on  a  fit  of  convulsions;  but  even  then  he  did  not  release  the  arm 
of  the  monk. 

Issacher  put  carefully  to  the  pale  lips  a  spoon  filled  with 
some  strong-smelling  essence.  The  sufferer  turned  his  head 
away  with  an  effort.  <(  Leave  me  in  peace, })  he  groaned :  <(  you 
are  the  governor's  physician  as  well,**  and  closed  his  eyes  again. 

The  Jew  looked  at  the  tyrant  as  if  to  beg  forgiveness  for  this 
suspicion.  « Will  he  return  to  life  ? })  asked  Ezzelin.  (<  I  think 
so,"  replied  the  Jew,  (<  but  not  for  long;  I  fear  he  will  not  live 
to  see  the  sun  go  down.® 

The  tyrant  took  advantage  of  the  moment  to  speak  to  the 
monk,  who  was  exerting  himself  to  the  utmost  to  restore  his 
father. 


9972  KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER 

<(And  whither  do  your  own  thoughts  tend,  monk  ? w  he  in- 
quired. 

<(  They  are  unchanged  and  persistent ;  yet,  God  forgive  me,  I 
would  my  father  never  woke  again,  that  I  should  be  forced  to 
oppose  him  so  cruelly.  If  he  had  but  received  extreme  unction !  a 

He  kissed  passionately  the  cheek  of  the  fainting  man;  who 
thereupon  returned  to  consciousness,  and  heaving  a  deep  sigh, 
raised  his  weary  eyelids,  from  under  whose  gray  bushy  brows  he 
directed  toward  the  monk  a  supplicating  look.  <(  How  is  it  ? }>  he 
asked:  <(to  what  hast  thou  doomed  me,  dearest, —  to  heaven,  or  to 
hell  ? » 

<(  Father, w  prayed  Astorre  in  a  tremulour  voice,  (<  thy  time  has 
come;  only  a  short  hour  remains:  banish  all  earthly  cares  and 
interests,  think  of  thy  soul.  See,  thy  priests )}  (he  meant  those 
of  the  parish  church)  (<  are  gathered  together  waiting  to  perform 
the  last  sacrament. }) 

It  was  so!  The  door  of  the  adjacent  room  had  softly  opened, 
in  which  the  faint  glimmer  of  lighted  candles  was  perceptible, 
whilst  a  choir  was  intoning  a  prelude,  and  the  gentle  vibration  of 
a  beli  became  audible. 

Now  the  old  man,  who  already  felt  his  knees  sinking  into 
Lethe's  flood,  clung  to  the.  monk,  as  once  St.  Peter  to  the  Sav- 
ior on  the  Sea  of  Gennesaret.  (<  Thou  wilt  do  it  for  my  sake  ? w 
he  stammered. 

«If  I  could;  if  I  dared, »  sighed  the  monk.  « By  all  that  is 
holy,  my  father,  think  on  eternity;  leave  the  earthly.  Thine  hour 
is  come ! w 

This  veiled  refusal  kindled  the  last  spark  of  life  in  the  old 
man  to  a  blaze.  <(  Disobedient,  ungrateful  one ! J>  he  cried. 

Astorre  beckoned  to  the  priests. 

<(By  all  the  devils,  spare  me  your  kneadings  and  salvings," 
raved  the  dying  man.  <(  I  have  nothing  to  gain ;  I  am  already 
like  one  of  the  damned,  and  must  remain  so  in  the  midst  of 
Paradise,  if  my  son  wantonly  repudiates  me  and  destroys  my 
germ  of  life." 

The  horror-struck  monk,  thrilled  to  the  soul  by  this  frightful 
blasphemy,  pictured  his  father  doomed  to  eternal  perdition.  (This 
was  his  thought,  and  he  was  as  firmly  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
it  as  I  should  have  been  in  his  place. )  He  fell  on  his  knees 
before  the  old  man,  and  in  utter  despair,  bursting  into  tears, 
said:  «  Father,  I  beseech  thee,  have  pity  on  thyself  and  on  me!" 


KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER  9973 

*  Let  the  crafty  one  go  his  way,"  whispered  the  tyrant. 

The  monk  did  not  hear  him.  Again  he  gave  the  astounded 
priests  a  sign,  and  the  litany  for  the  dying  was  about  to  begin. 

At  this  the  old  man  doubled  himself  up  like  a  refractory  child, 
and  shook  his  head. 

a  Let  the  sly  fox  go  where  he  must,"  admonished  Ezzelin  in 
a  louder  tone. 

<(  Father,  father ! "  sobbed  the  monk,  his  whole  soul  dissolved 
in  pity. 

(<  Illustrious  signer  and  Christian  brother,"  said  the  priest  with 
unsteady  voice,  (<  are  you  in  the  frame  of  mind  to  meet  your 
Creator  and  Savior  ? "  The  old  man  took  no  notice. 

(<Are  you  firm  as  a  believer  in  the  Holy  Trinity  ?  Answer 
me,  signor,"  said  the  priest;  and  then  turned  pale  as  a  sheet,  for 
<(  Cursed  and  denied  be  it  for  ever  and  ever,"  fell  from  the  dying 
man's  lips.  <(  Cursed  and — " 

<(No  more,"  cried  the  monk,  springing  to  his  feet.  <(  Father,  I 
resign  myself  to  thy  will.  Do  with  me  what  you  choose,  if  only 
you  will  not  throw  yourself  into  the  flames  of  hell." 

The  old  man  gasped  as  after  some  terrible  exertion;  then 
ga«ed  about  him  with  an  air  of  relief, —  I  had  almost  said,  of 
pleasure.  Groping,  he  seized  the  blond  hair  of  Diana,  lifted  her 
up  from  her  knees,  took  her  right  hand, —  which  she  did  not 
refuse, —  opened  the  cramped  hand  of  the  monk,  and  laid  the 
two  together. 

<(  Binding,  in  presence  of  the  most  holy  sacrament ! "  he  ex- 
claimed triumphantly,  and  blessed  the  pair.  The  monk  did  not 
gainsay  it;  while  Diana  closed  her  eyes. 

(<  Now  quick,  reverend  fathers :  there  is  need  of  haste,  I  think, 
and  I  am  now  in  a  Christian  frame  of  mind." 

The  monk  and  his  affianced  bride  would  fain  have  stepped 
behind  the  train  of  priests.  "Stay,"  muttered  the  dying  man; 
"stay  where  my  comforted  eyes  may  look  upon  you  until  they 
close  in  death."  Astorre  and  Diana  were  thus  with  clasped  hands 
obliged  to  wait  and  watch  the  expiring  glance  of  the  obstinate 
old  man. 

The  latter  murmured  a  short  confession,  received  the  last 
sacrament,  and  breathed  his  final  breath  as  they  were  anointing 
his  feet,  while  the  priests  uttered  in  his  already  deaf  ears  those 
sublime  words,  <(  Rise,  Christian  Soul. "  .  The  dead  face  bore  the 
unmistakable  expression  of  triumphant  cunning. 


KONRAD   FERDINAND   MEYER 

The  tyrant  sat,  whilst  all  around  were  upon  their  knees; 
and  with  calm  attention  observed  the  performance  of  the  sacred 
office,  much  like  a  savant  studying  on  a  sarcophagus  the  repre- 
sentation of  some  religious  rites  of  an  ancient  people.  He  now 
approached  the  dead  man  and  closed  his  eyes. 

He  then  turned  to  Diana.  <(  Noble  lady, J>  said  he,  <(  let  us 
go  home:  your  parents,  even  if  assured  of  your  safety,  will  long 
to  see  you." 

tt Prince,  I  thank  you,  and  will  follow, *  she  answered;  but  she 
did  not  withdraw  her  hand  from  that  of  the  monk,  whose  eyes 
until  then  she  had  avoided.  Now  she  looked  her  betrothed  full 
in  the  face,  and  said  in  a  deep  but  melodious  voice,  whilst  her 
cheeks  glowed :  — <(  My  lord  and  master,  we  could  not  let  your 
father's  soul  perish:  thus  have  I  become  yours.  Hold  your  faith 
to  me  better  than  to  the  cloister.  Your  brother  did  not  love  me; 
forgive  me  for  saying  it, —  I  speak  the  simple  truth.  You  will 
have  in  me  a  good  and  obedient  wife;  but  I  have  two  peculiari- 
ties which  you  must  treat  with  indulgence.  I  am  hot  with  anger 
if  any  attack  is  made  on  my  honor  or  my  rights,  and  I  am  most 
exacting  in  regard  to  the  fulfillment  of  a  promise  once  made. 
Even  as  a  child  I  was  so  I  have  few  wishes,  and  desire  noth- 
ing unreasonable:  but  when  a  thing  has  once  been  shown  and 
promised  me,  I  insist  upon  possessing  it;  and  I  lose  my  faith, 
and  resent  injustice  more  than  other  women,  if  the  promise  I 
have  received  is  not  faithfully  kept.  But  how  can  I  allow  my- 
self to  talk  in  this  way  to  you,  my  lord,  whom  I  scarcely  know? 
I  have  done.  Farewell,  my  husband;  grant  me  nine  days  to 
mourn  your  brother. })  At  this  she  slowly  released  her  hand  from 
his  and  disappeared  with  the  tyrant. 

Meanwhile  the  band  of  priests  had  borne  away  the  corpse  to 
place  it  upon  a  bier  in  the  palace  chapel,  and  to  bless  it. 

[In  thus  yielding  to  his  father's  importunities  Astorre  has  weakened  the 
mainstays  of  his  character  ;  and  if  one  vow  may  be  broken,  so  may  another 
also.  He  loves  a  fair  shy  girl,  Antiope,  and  marries  her;  but  the  imperious 
and  implacable  Diana  insists  upon  her  prior  rights.  Contemptuously  she  con- 
descends to  return  her  betrothal  ring  if  Antiope  will  come  to  her  in  humble 
supplication.  Astorre's  sense  of  justice  leads  him  to  give  his  consent  to  this 
humiliation,  and  Antiope  now  prepares  to  obey  his  wishes.  This  brings  about 
the  final  catastrophe.] 

Antiope  now  hastily  completed  her  toilet.  Even  the  frivolous 
Sotte  was  frightened  at  the  palior  of  the  face  reflected  in  the 


KONRAD  FERDINAND  MEYER 


9975 


glass.  There  was  no  sign  of  life  in  it,  save  the  terror  in  the 
eyes  and  the  glistening  of  the  firmly  set  teeth.  A  red  stripe, 
caused  by  Diana's  blow,  was  visible  upon  her  white  brow. 

When  at  last  arrayed,  Astorre's  wife  rose  with  beating  pulse 
and  throbbing  temples;  and  leaving  her  safe  chamber,  hurried 
through  the  halls  to  find  Diana.  She  was  urged  on  by  the 
excitement  of  both  hope  and  fear.  She  would  fly  back  jubilantly, 
after  she  had  recovered  the  ring,  to  meet  her  husband,  whom  she 
wished  to  spare  the  sight  of  her  humiliation. 

Soon  among  the  masqueraders  she  distinguished  the  conspicu- 
ous figure  of  the  goddess  of  ihe  chase,  recognized  her  enemy, 
and  followed,  as  with  measured  steps  she  passed  through  the 
main  hall  and  retired  into  one  of  the  dimly  lighted  small  side 
rooms.  It  seemed  the  goddess  desired  not  public  humiliation, 
but  lowliness  of  heart. 

Quickly  Antiope  bowed  before  Diana,  and  forced  her  lips  to 
titter,  (<  Will  you  give  me  the  ring  ? >-  while  she  touched  the  pow- 
erful finger. 

<(  Humbly  and  penitently  ? w  asked  Diana. 

<(  How  else  ? w  the  unhappy  child  said  feverishly.  <(  But  yon 
trifle  with  me ;  cruelly  —  you  have  doubled  up  your  finger ! w 

Whether  Antiope  imagined  it,  or  whether  Diana  really  was 
trifling  with  her,  a  finger  is  so  easily  curved!  Cangrande,  you 
have  accused  me  of  injustice.  I  will  not  decide. 

Enough !  the  Vicedomini  raised  her  willowy  figure,  and  with 
flaming  eyes  fixed  on  the  severe  face  of  Diana,  cried  out,  <(Will 
you  torture  a  wife,  maiden  ? }>  Then  she  bent  down  again,  and 
tried  with  both  hands  to  pull  the  ring  off  her  finger.  Like  a 
flash  of  lightning  a  sharp  pain  went  through  her.  The  aven- 
ging Diana,  while  surrendering  to  her  the  left  hand,  had  with 
the  right  drawn  an  arrow  from  ner  quiver  and  plunged  it  into 
Antiope's  heart.  She  swayed  first  to  the  left,  then  to  the  right, 
turned  a  little,  and  fell  with  the  arrow  still  deep  in  her  warm 
flesh. 

The  monk,  who,  after  bidding  farewell  to  his  rustic  guests, 
hastened  back  and  eagerly  sought  his  wife,  found  her  lifeless. 
With  a  shriek  of  horror  he  threw  himself  upon  her  and  drew  the 
arrow  from  her  side;  a  stream  of  blood  followed.  Astorre  dropped 
senseless. 

When  he  recovered  from  his  swoon,  Germano  was  standing 
over  him  with  crossed  arms.  <(Are  you  the  murderer  ? w  asked 


KONRAD  FERDINAND  MEYER 

the  monk.     <(  I  murder  no  women,"  replied  the  other  sadly      <(I 
is  my  sister  who  has  demanded  justice." 

Astorre  groped  for  the  arrow  and  found  it.  Springing  up 
with  a  bound,  and  grasping  the  long  weapon  with  the  bloody 
point,  he  fell  in  blind  rage  upon  his  old  playfellow.  The  war- 
rior shuddered  slightly  before  the  ghastly  figure  in  black,  with 
disheveled  hair,  and  crimson-stained  arrow  in  his  hand. 

He  retreated  a  step.  Drawing  the  short  sword  which  in  place 
of  armor  he  was  wearing,  and  warding  off  the  arrow  with  it,  he 
said  compassionately,  <(Go  back  to  your  cloister,  Astorre,  which 
you  should  never  have  left  " 

Suddenly  he  perceived  the  tyrant,  who,  followed  by  the  entire 
company,  was  just  entering  the  door  opposite  to  them. 

Ezzelin  stretched  out  his  right  hand  and  commanded  peace. 
Germano  dutifully  lowered  his  weapon  before  his  chief.  The 
infuriated  monk  seized  the  moment,  and  plunged  the  arrow  into 
the  breast  of  the  knight,  whose  eyes  were  directed  toward  Ezze- 
lin. But  he  also  met  his  death  pierced  by  the  soldier's  sword, 
which  had  been  raised  again  with  the  3peed  of  lightning. 

Germano  sank  to  the  ground.  The  monk,  supported  by  As 
canio,  made  a  few  tottering  steps  toward  his  wife,  and  laying 
himself  by  her  side,  mouth  to  mouth,  expired. 

The  wedding  guests  gathered  about  the  husband  and  wife. 
Ezzelin  gazed  upon  them  for  a  moment;  then  knelt  upon  one 
knee,  and  closed  first  Antiope's  and  then  Astorre 's  eyes.  In  the 
hush,  through  the  open  windows  came  the  sound  of  revelry.  Out 
of  the  darkness  was  heard  the  words,  <(Now  slumbers  the  monk 
Astorre  beside  his  wife  Antiope,"  and  a  distant  shout  of  laughter. 

DANTE  arose.  ft  I  have  paid  for  my  place  by  the  fire,"  he  said, 
<(and  will  now  seek  the  blessing  of  sleep.  May  the  God  of  peace 
be  with  you!"  He  turned  and  stepped  toward  the  door,  which 
the  page  had  opened^  All  eyes  followed  him,  as  by  the  dim 
light  of  a  flickering  torch  he  slowly  ascended  the  staircase. 

Translation  of  Miss  Sarah  Holland  Adams. 


9977 


MICHEL    ANGELO 

(1475-1564) 

IHE  mosc  famous  of  Florentine  artists,  whose  literary  fame 
rests  on  his  sonnets  and  his  letters,  was  born  in  Caprese, 
Italy,  March  6th,  1475.  His  father  was  Ludovico  Buonarotti, 
a  poor  gentleman  of  Florence,  who  loved  to  boast  that  he  had  never 
added  to  his  impoverished  estates  by  mercantile'  pursuits.  The  story 
of  Michel  Angelo's  career  as  painter,  sculptor,  and  architect,  belongs 
to  the  history  of  art.  Under  the  patronage  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici, 
Angelo  Doni,  Pope  Julius  II. ,  and  Pope  Paul  III.,  his  genius  flow- 
ered. In  the  decoration  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  he  seems  to  have  put 
forth  his  greatest  energy  both  as  poet  and  as  painter.  He  described 
the  discomforts  of  working  on  this  ceiling  in  a  humorous  sonnet 
addressed  to  Giovanni  da  Pistoja;  on  the  margin  of  which  he  drew  a 
little  caricature  of  himself,  lying  upon  his  back  and  using  his  brush. 
For  a  long  time  after  these  paintings  were  completed,  he  could  read 
only  by  holding  the  page  above  his  head  and  raising  his  eyes.  His 
impaired  sight  occasioned  a  medical  treatise  on  the  eyes,  which  is 
preserved  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Vatican.  The  twelve  years  between 
1522  and  1534  he  spent  in  Florence,  occupied  with  sculpture  and 
architecture,  under  the  capricious  patronage  of  the  Medici  family. 

His  fine  allegory  of  Night,  sculptured  upon  the  Medici  tomb,  was 
celebrated  in  verse  by  the  poets  of  the  day.  To  Strozzi  this  quatrain 
is  attributed:  — 

« La  Notte,  che  tu  vedi  in  si  dolci  atti 
Dormire,  fu  da  un  angelo  scolpita 
In  questo  sasso:  e  perche  dorme,  ha  vita; 
Destala.  se  no'l  crcdi   e  parleratti.» 

[This  Night,  which  you  see  sleeping  in  such  sweet  abandon,  was  sculptured 
by  an  angel.  She  is  living,  although  she  sleeps  in  marble.  If  you  doubt, 
wake  her:  she  then  will  speak.] 

Michel  Angelo  replied  thus :  — 

«  Grato  mi  e  il  sonno,  e  piu  d'esser  di  sasso ; 
Mentre  che  il  danno  e  la  vergogna  dura, 
Non  veder,  non  seutir  m'e  gran  ventura;  . 
Pero  non  mi  destar;  deh!    parla  basso. }> 

[It  is  sweet  to  sleep,  sweeter  to  be  of  marble.  While  evil  and  shame  live, 
it  is  my  happiness  to  hear  nothing  and  to  feel  nothing.  Ah !  speak  softly,  and 
wake  me  not.] 


9978  MICHEL  ANGELO 

In  1535  he  removed  to  Rome,  where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life; 
dying  there  in  1564  at  the  ripe  age  of  eighty-nine.  During  this  period 
he  executed  the  (  Last  Judgment,'  and  built  the  Farnese  Palace. 

Although  Symonds  considers  his  literary  work  merely  «  a  scholastic 
exercise  upon  the  emotions, }>  and  says  that  (<  his  stock  in  trade  con- 
sists of  a  few  Platonic  notions  and  a  few  Petrarchian  antitheses, »  the 
Italian  critics  place  Michel  Angelo's  sonnets  immediately  after  those 
of  Dante  and  Petrarch.  It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  the  sculptor 
was  a  devoted  student  of  Dante,  as  his  sonnets  to  the  great  poet 
show.  Not  only  did  he  translate  into  painting  much  symbolical 
imagery  of  the  ( Inferno,*  but  he  illustrated  the  ( Divina  Commedia* 
in  a  magnificent  series  of  drawings,  which  unfortunately  perished  at 
sea.  The  popular  interest  in  so  universal  a  genius  lies  not  in  descrip- 
tions of  his  personality  and  traits  of  character,  but  in  his  theories 
of  art  and  'life,  and  in  those  psychological  moods  which  explain  the 
source  of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  power  expressed  in  his  mys- 
tical conceptions.  These  moods  have  free  utterance  in  his  poems, 
written  at  all  periods  of  his  life. 

The  name  most  frequently  associated  with  his  poetry  is  that  of 
Vittoria  Colonna,  Marchesa  di  Pescara,  whom  he  met  in  Rome  after 
he  had  passed  the  meridian  of  life.  She  had  been  for  two  years  a 
widow;  and  refusing  to  reward  Michel  Angelo's  devotion  by  the 
gift  of  her  hand,  finally  entered  a  convent.  Their  friendship  lasted 
from  1527  to  her  death  in  1547.  Whether  she  was  the  Egeria  of  his 
spiritual  life,  or  a  romantic  love,  has  long  been  the  subject  of  criti- 
cal speculation.  The  first  editor  of  Michel  Angelo's  poems  attributed 
most  of  his  sonnets  and  madrigals  to  her  inspiration;  but  only  a  few 
may  be  thus  credited  with  certainty.  His  extravagant  admiration  foi 
Tommaso  dei  Cavalieri,  a  young  Roman  gentleman  of  extraordinary 
physical  beauty  and  grace  of  manner, — the  only  person  of  whom 
Michel  Angelo  ever  drew  a  cartoon  portrait, — is  expressed  with  as 
much  devotion.  Symonds  speaks  thus  of  M1'chel  Angelo's  ambiguous 
beauty- worship :  <(  Whether  a  man  or  a  woman  is  in  the  case  (for  both 
were  probably  the  objects  of  his  aesthetical  admiration),  the  tone  of 
feeling,  the  language,  and  the  philosophy  do  not  vary.  He  uses  the 
same  imagery,  the  same  conceits,  the  same  abstract  ideas,  for  both 
sexes;  and  adapts  the  leading  motive  which  he  had  invented .  for  a 
person  of  one  sex  to  a  person  of  the  other  when  it  suits  his  purpose. w 
In  his  art  too  is  found  no  imaginative  feeling  for  what  is  specifically 
feminine.  With  few  exceptions,  his  women,  as  compared  with  those 
of  Raphael,  Correggio,  TMan,  and  Tintoretto,  are  really  colossal 
companions  for  primeval  gods;  such  as,  for  example,  his  Sibyls  and 
Fates,  which  are  Titanic  in  the?.!  majesty.  Although  tranquil  women 
of  maturity  exist  by  means  oi  his  marvelous  brush  and  chisel,  to 
woman  in  the  magic  of  youthful  beauty  his  art  seems  insensible. 


MICHEL   ANGELO  9979 

The  inference  is,  that  emotionally  he  never  feels  the  feminine  spirit, 
and  reverences  alone  that  of  eternal  and  abstract  beauty. 

The  literature  that  clusters  around  the  name  of  Michel  Angelo  is 
enormous.  The  chief  storehouse  of  material  is  preserved  in  the  Casa 
Buonarotti  in  Florence.  This  consists  of  letters,  poems,  and  memo- 
landa  in  Michel  Angelo's  autograph;  copies  of  his  sonnets  made  by 
his  grandnephew  and  Michel  Angelo  the  younger;  and  his  corre- 
spondence with  famous  contemporaries.  In  1859  the  British  Museum 
purchased  a  large  manuscript  collection'  of  memoranda,  used  first 
by  Hermann  Grimm  in  his  (Leben  Michelangelos  >  (1860),  the  fifth 
edition  of  which  was  published  in  Hanover  in  1875.  Public  and  pri- 
vate libraries  possess  valuable  data  and  manuscripts,  more  or  less 
employed  by  the  latest  biographers.  To  celebrate  Michel  Angelo's 
fourth  centenary,  a  volume  of  his  ( Letters )  was  edited  by  Gaetano 
Milanesi  and  published  in  Florence  in  1875.  The  first  edition  of  the 
artist's  poems  was  published  in  1623  by  Michel  Angelo  the  younger, 
as  (  Le  Rime  di  Michelangelo  Buonarotti  > ;  and  they  were  known  only 
to  the  world  in  this  distorted  form  until  1863,  when  a  new  edition 
was  brought  out  in  Florence  by  Cesare  Guasti.  This  is  considered 
the  first  classical  and  valuable  presentation  of  his  poetry.  The 
earliest  lives  of  Michel  Angelo  are  by  Vasari,  in  his  first  edition  of 
the  ( Lives  of  Italian  Artists,*  published  in  1550,  enlarged  and  repub- 
lished  in  1579;  and  by  Condovi,  who  published  his  biography  in  1553, 
while  his  master  was  still  living.  Other  important  biographies  are 
by  Aurelio  Gotti  in  two  volumes  (Florence,  1875);  by  Charles  Heath 
Wilson  (London,  1876);  and  by  John  Addington  Symonds  (two  vol- 
umes, London,  1892),  which  contains  a  bibliography,  a  portrait,  and 
valuable  guidance  for  research  upon  Michel  Angelo's  genius,  works, 
and  character.  The  same  author  translated  his  sonnets,  and  pub- 
lished them  with  those  of  Campanella  (London,  1878).  His  transla- 
tions are  used  in  the  following  selections. 


A  PRAYER   FOR  STRENGTH 

BURDENED  with  years  and  full  of  sinfulness, 
With  evil  custom  grown  inveterate, 
Both  deaths  I  dread  that  close  before  me  wait, 
Yet  feed  my  heart  on  poisonous  thoughts  no  less. 
No  strength  I  find  in  my  own  feebleness 
To  change  or  life,  or  love,  or  use,  or  fate, 
Unless  Thy  heavenly  guidance  come,  though  late, 
Which  only  helps  and  stays  our  nothingness. 


9980  MICHEL   ANGELO 

5Tis  not  enough,  dear  Lord,  to  make  me  yearn 
For  that  celestial  home  where  yet  my  soul 

May  be  new-made,  and  not,  as  erst,  of  naught'. 
Nay,  ere  thou  strip  her  mortal  vestment,  turn 
My  steps  toward  the  steep  ascent,  that  whole 

And  pure  before  thy  face  she  may  be  brought. 


THE    IMPEACHMENT  OF  NIGHT 

WHAT  time  bright  Phoebus  doth  not  stretch  and  bend 
His  shining  arms  around  this  terrene  sphere, 
The  people  call  that  season  dark  and  drear, 
Night, —  for  the  cause  they  do  not  comprehend. 
So  weak  is  Night  that  if  our  hand  extend 

A  glimmering  torch,  her  shadows  disappear, 
Leaving  her  dead;    like  frailest  gossamere, 
Tinder  and  steel  her  mantle  rive  and  rend. 
Nay,  if  this  Night  be  anything  at  all, 

Sure  she  is  daughter  of  the  sun  and  earth; 
This  holds,  the  other  spreads  that  shadowy  pall. 
Howbeit,  they  err  who  praise  this  gloomy  birth, 
So  frail  and  desolate  and  void  of  mirth 
That  one  poor  firefly  can  her  might  appall. 


LOVE,  THE  LIFE-GIVER 
To  TOMMASO  DE'  CAVALIERI 

WITH  your  fair  eyes  a  charming  light  I  see, 
For  which  my  own  blind  eyes  would  peer  in  vain; 
Stayed  by  your  feet,  the  burden  I  sustain 
Which  my  lame  feet  find  all  too  strong  for  me; 
"Wingless,  upon  your  pinions  forth  I  fly; 

Heavenward  your  spirit  stirreth  me  to  strain. 
E'en  as  you  will,  I  blush  and  blanch  again, 
Freeze  in  the  sun,  burn  'neath  a  frosty  sky. 
Your  will  includes  and  is  the  lord  of  mine; 

Life  to  my  thoughts  within  your  heart  is  given; 

My  words  begin  to  breathe  upon  your  breath: 
Like  to  the  moon  am  I,  that  cannot  shine 

Alone;  for  lo!   our  eyes  see  naught  in  heaven 
Save  what  the  living  sun  illumineth. 


MICHEL  ANGELO  9981 

IRREPARABLE   LOSS 
AFTER  THE  DEATH  OF  VITTORIA  COLONNA 

WHEN  my  rude  hammer  to  the  stubborn  stone 
Gives  human  shape,  now  that,  now  this,  at  will, 
Following  his  hand  who  wields  and  guides  it  still, 
It  moves  upon  another's  feet  alone: 

But  tha.t  which  dwells  in  heaven,  the  world  doth  fill 
With  beauty  by  pure  motions  of  its  own; 
And  since  tools  fashion  tools  which  else  were  none, 

Its  life  makes  all  that  lives  with  living  skill. 
Now,  for  that  every  stroke  excels  the  more 
The  higher  at  the  forge  it  doth  ascend, 

Her  soul  that  fashioned  mine  hath  sought  the  skies ; 
Wherefore  unfinished  I  must  meet  my  end, 

If  God,  the  great  Artificer,  denies 
That  aid  which  was  unique  on  earth  before,, 


9982 


JULES  MICHELET 

(1798-1874) 

BY   GRACE   KING 

>ICHELET  said  of  himself:  <(  My  book  created  me;  it  was  I  that 
was  its  work.*'  The  book  he  referred  to  was  his  <Histoire 
de  France,*  in  sixteen  volumes,  the  laborious  task  of  forty 
years;  the  work  of  his  life,  the  work  that  was  his  life.  His  other 
books  were  accessory  to  it;  the  sprouts,  as  it  were,  from  its  roots  in 
the  over-rich  soil  of  his  mind.  <(I  have  been  much  favored  by  des- 
tiny,w  he  continued.  al  have  possessed  two  rare  gifts  which  have 

made  this  work:  First,  liberty,  which  was 
the  soul  of  it;  then,  useful  duties,  which, 
by  dragging  it  out  and  retarding  its  execu- 
tion, made  it  more  reflective  and  stronger, 
— gave  it  the  solidity,  the  robust  foundation 
of  time.  .  .  I  was  free,  by  my  solitude, 
by  my  poverty,  and  by  my  teaching.  .  .  . 
I  had  but  one  master,  Vico.  His  principle 
of  vital  force  —  Humanity,  which  created 
itself  —  made  my  book  and  made  my  edu- 
cation. » 

Michelet's  life  confirms  this  personal  tes- 
timony. He  was  born  in  1798,  of  humble 
parentage;  and  his  childhood  was  a  hard, 
sad,  poverty-stricken  one.  His  father  and 

uncle  were  printers;  and  he  himself,  as  soon  as  he  was  old  enough, 
was  apprenticed  to  the  same  trade.  But  at  the  same  time  he  .began 
his  other  apprenticeship  to  the  spiritual  head  of  printing, — Litera- 
ture; and  while  learning  to  set  type  he  made  his  first  efforts  at 
study  under  an  old  librarian,  an  ex-schoolmaster.  It  was  proposed  to 
his  family  to  enter  him  in  the  ^Imprimerie  Royale.^  This  his  father 
not  only  refused,  but  on  the  contrary  employed  his  last  meagre 
resources  to  enter  the  youth  in  the  Lycee  Charlemagne.  Here  Miche- 
let  began  his  career  at  once  by  hard  study,  and  received  his  degree 
in  1821  after  passing  a  brilliant  examination.  This  obtained  for  him 
a  professorship  of  history  in  the  College  Rollin,  where  he  remained 
until  1826.  His  first  writings  date  from  this  period,  and  were  sketches 
and  chronological  tables  of  modern  history.  Although  elementary  in 


JULES  MICHELET 


JULES  MICHELET  9983 

character  and  purpose,  and  precise  in  style,  they  give  evidence  of  the 
latent  tendencies,  the  personal  coloring,  which  became  the  distinguish- 
ing force  of  his  later  work.  In  1827  he  was  appointed  «Maitre  de 
Conferences »  at  the  Ecole  Normale;  and  in  1831  he  wrote  an  <  Intro- 
duction to  Universal  History,*  in  which  his  literary  originality  appears 
rvtill  more  marked,  and  his  confidence  in  his  own  erudition  assured. 

The  revolution  of  1830,  by  putting  in  power  his  old  professors, 
Guizot  and  Villemain,  secured  him  the  position  of  « Chef  de  la  Sec- 
tion Historiques  aux  Archives";  and  he  became  Guizot's  deputy  in 
the  professorship  of  history  in  the  University.  He  also  obtained  a 
chair  of  history  in  the  College  de  France,  from  which  he  delivered  a 
course  of  lectures,  attended  by  all  the  students  of  the  day.  It  was 
from  this  chair  that  he  also  gained  popular  acclamation  by  his  attack 
upon  ecclesiasticism  and  the  Jesuits,  denouncing  the  latter  for  their 
intrigues  and  encroachments.  The  <  History  of  France  >  had  already 
been  begun  in  1833.  The  results  of  his  lectures  were  published  in 
1843  as  <Le  Pretre>  (The  Priest),  (  La  Femme  >  (Woman),  <La  Famille* 
(The  Family),  <  Le  Peuple  >  (The  People).  By  the  influence  of  the 
clergy,  Michelet's  course  of  lectures  was  suspended,  and  his  career 
seemed  permanently  arrested.  The  revolution  of  1848  favored  him, 
and  he  could  have  obtained  reinstatement  in  his  chair;  but  he  re- 
fused to  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity,  having  resolved  to  devote 
himself  thenceforth  to  his  studies  and  his  work.  As  he  has  said,  his 
history  henceforth  became  his  life;  interrupted  again  and  again  by 
other  work,  but  always  resumed  with  increasing  ardor  and  passion. 
"Augustin  Thierry, »  he  said,  <( called  history  narrative;  Guizot  called 
it  analysis:  but  I  call  it  resurrection."  And  to  quote  him  again,  as 
his  own  master  authority:  — <( I  had  a  fine  disease  that  clouded  my 
youth,  but  one  very  proper  to  a  historian.  I  loved  death.  I  lived 
nine  years  at  the  gates  of  Pere  la  Chaise,  and  there  was  my  only 
promenade.  Then  I  lived  near  La  Bievre,  in  the  midst  of  great  con- 
vent gardens;  more  tombs.  I  lived  a  life  that  the  world  would  have 
called  buried,  with  no  society  but  the  past,  my  only  friends  buried 
people.  The  gift  that  St.  Louis  asked,  and  did  not  obtain,  I  had, — 
the  gift  of  tears.  All  those  I  wept  over  —  peoples  and  gods  —  revived 
for  me.  I  had  no  other  art." 

All  the  criticism  that  has  been  written  about  Michelet  is  little 
more  than  sermons  from  this  text,  furnished  by  himself.  In  it  he 
himself  furnishes  all  the  commentary  needed  upon  his  work;  it  is  a 
rtsumd  of  all  his  talent,  and  of  his  faults,— which  are  only  the  faults 
of  this  talent,  as  Taine  points  out.  Michelet's  exalted  sensibility  he 
calls  (< imagination  of  the  heart. »  To  summarize  Taine's  conclusions: 

(<His  impressionable  imagination  is  touched  by  general  as  well  as  by  par- 
ticular facts,  and  he  sympathizes  with  the  life  of  centuries  as  with  the  life  of 


9984  JULES  MICHELET 

men.  He  sees  the  passions  of  an  epoch  as  clearly  as  the  passions  of  a  man. 
and  paints  the  Middle  Age  or  the  Renaissance  with  as  much  vivacity  as  Phi- 
lippe le  Bel  or  Frangois  I.  ...  Every  picture  or  print  he  sees,  every 
document  he  reads,  touches  and  impresses  his  imagination ;  vividly  moved  and 
eloquent  himself,  he  cannot  fail  to  move  others.  His  book,  the  <  History,> 
seizes  the  mind  fast  at  the  first  page ;  in  vain  you  try  to  resist  it,  you  read  to 
the  end.  You  think  of  the  dialogue  where  Plato  describes  the  god  drawing 
to  himself  the  soul  of  the  poet,  and  the  soul  of  the  poet  drawing  to  himself 
the  souls  of  his  auditors.  .  .  .  Is  it  possible,  where  facts  and  men  impress 
themselves  so  vividly  upon  an  inflamed  imagination,  to  keep  the  tone  of  nar- 
ration ?  No,  the  author  ends  by  believing  them  real;  —  he  sees  them  alive,  he 
speaks  to  them.  Michelet's  emotions  thus  become  his  convictions;  history 
unrolls  before  him  like  a  vision,  and  his  language  rises  to  Apocalyptic. » 

In  his  first  design  or  vision  of  the  ( History  of  France,  >  Michelet 
saw  men  and  facts  not  chained  to  one  another,  and  to  past  and 
future,  by  chains  of  logical  sequence, —  he  saw  them  as  episodes 
rising  in  each  period  to  a  culminating  and  dramatic  point  of  inter- 
est; and  however  interrupted  his  work  was,  he  pursued  his  original 
design.  Hence  his  volumes  bear  the  titles  of  episodes:  (The  Renais- 
sance, y  'The  Reformation,*  ( Religious  Wars,*  <  The  League  and  Henry 
IV.,  >  < Henry  IV.  and  Richelieu,  *  (  Richelieu  and  the  Fronde,  >  <  Louis 
XIV.,  >  <The  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, >  <  Louis  XV., >  <  Louis 
XV.  and  Louis  XVI.,  >  <The  French  Revolution.  >  The  Renaissance  he 
incarnated  in  Michel  Angelo,  the  Revolution  in  Danton.  He  in  fact 
breathed  a  human  soul  into  every  epoch,  period,  and  event  that  came 
under  his  pen:  and  (<a  soul,*  lie  says,  (<  weighs  infinitely  more  than  a 
kingdom  or  an  empire;  at  times,  more  than  the  human  race."  <(  He 
wrote  as  Delacroix  painted,®  Taine  says:  <( risking  the  crudest  color- 
ing; seeking  means  of  expression  in  the  gutter  mud  itself;  borrowing 
from  the  language  of  medicine,  and  the  slang  of  the  vulgar,  details 
and  terms  which  shock  and  frighten  one.®  His  prolific  suggestions 
swarm  and  multiply  over  the  diseased  tissue  of  a  character,  in  the 
tainted  spot  of  a  heart,  until,  as  in  the  description  of  the  moral 
decadence  of  Louis  XV.,  the  imaginative  reader  shudders  and  stops 
reading;  for  suggestion  has  suggested  what  it  is  unbearable  to  think. 

It  is  to  the  perfect  happiness  of  his  marriage  to  a  second  wife  — 
an  incomparable  companion  —  that  we  owe  that  series  of  books  whose 
dithyrambic  strains  were  poured  out  under  the  silvery  light  of  a 
continuous  honey-moon,  as  a  biographer  expresses  it:  <L'Oiseau,) 
<L'Insecte,>  c  I/Amour,*  <  La  Mer,>  to  which  later  a  fifth,  <  La  Mon- 
tagne,}  was  added;  and  which  Taine  says  adds  him  to  the  three 
great  poets  of  France  during  the  century, —  De  Musset,  Lamartine, 
and  Hugo:  (<for  art  and  genius,  his  prose  is  worth  their  poetry.8 
The  c Bible  of  Humanity*  and  some  volumes  of  collected  essays  com- 
plete  the  series  of  his  published  writings 


JULES  MICHELET  9985 

In  1870  the  Franco-Prussian  war  called  out  his  ( France  before 
Europe,'  a  passionate  appeal  to  the  common  fraternity  of  all  peoples. 
He  was  ardently  engaged  upon  a  history  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
his  last  return  to  his  ( History  of  France,  >  when  he  died  in  1874  of 
heart  disease  contracted  during  the  Prussian  invasion  of  his  country. 
He  lies  buried  in  Pere  la  Chaise,  where  in  youth  he  used  to  wander 
among  the  dead  he  loved  so  well;  who,  responding  to  the  passionate 
evocation  of  his  imagination,  resumed  their  being  before  his  mental 
vision  with  such  vivified  reality,  that  in  their  turn  they  evoked  from 
his  heart  the  genius  that  was  henceforth  to  be  his  life. 


THE   DEATH   OF  JEANNE   D'ARC 
From  the  ( History  of  France  > 

THE  end  of  the  sad  journey  was  the  Vieux-Marche,  the  fish- 
market.  Three  scaffolds  had  been  erected.  Upon  one  were 
the  episcopal  and  royal  chairs,  and  the  throne  of  the  car- 
dinal of  England  amid  the-  seats  of  his  prelates.  On  the  other 
were  to  figure  the  personages  of  the  dismal  drama:  the  preacher, 
the  judges,  the  bailiff,  and  lastly  the  condemned  one.  Apart 
was  seen  a  large  scaffold  of  masonry,  loaded  and  overloaded  with 
wood.  As  to  the  pyre,  there  was  nothing  to  complain  of:  it 
frightened  by  its  height.  This  was  not  merely  to  make  the  exe- 
cution more  solemn:  there  was  an  intention  in  it;  it  was  that 
the  pile  being  built  so  high,  the  executioner  could  only  reach 
the  bottom  portion  to  light  it,  and  thus  he  could  not  abridge  the 
martyrdom  nor  expedite  the  end,  as  he  sometimes  did  to  others, 
sparing  them  the  flame.  Here  there  was  no  idea  of  defrauding 
justice,  or  giving  a  dead  body  to  the  fire;  they  wished  her  to 
be  well  burned,  alive,  and  so  that,  placed  on  the  summit  of  this 
mountain  of  wood,  and  dominating  the  circle  of  lances  and  swords 
around  her,  she  could  be  seen  from  all  parts  of  the  place.  Slowly 
burned  tinder  the  eyes  of  a  curious  crowd,  there  was  reason 
to  believe  that  at  the  end  she  would  be  surprised  into  some 
weakness,  that  something  would  escape  her  that  might  pass  as 
a  disavowal;  at  the  least,  confused  words  to  be  interpreted,  low 
prayers,  humiliating  cries  for  mercy,  as  from  a  distracted  woman 


JULES   MICHELET 

The  ghastly  ceremony  began  by  a  sermon.  Master  Nicolay 
Midy,  one  of  the  lights  of  the  University  of  Paris,  preached  on 
this  edifying  text:  "When  a  member  of  the  Church  is  ill,  the 
whole  Church  is  ill.®  This  poor  Church  could  only  cure  itself 
by  cutting  off  a  member.  He  concluded  by  the  formula,  <( Jeanne, 
go  in  peace:  the  Church  cannot  defend  you." 

Then  the  judge  of  the  Church,  the  bishop  of  Beauvais,  be- 
nignly exhorted  her  to  think  of  her  soul,  and  to  recall  all  her 
misdeeds  in  order  to  excite  herself  to  contrition.  The  Assertors 
had  judged  that  it  was  according  to  law  to  read  to  her  her  abju- 
ration: the  bishop  did  not  do  anything  of  the  kind, — he  feared 
her  denials,  her  reclamations.  But  the  poor  girl  did  not  dream 
of  thus  quibbling  for  her  life:  she  had  far  other  thoughts. 
Before  they  could  even  exhort  her  to  contrition,  she  was  on  her 
knees  invoking  God,  the  Virgin,  St.  Michael,  and  St.  Catherine; 
forgiving  everybody,  and  asking  forgiveness;  saying  to  the  assist- 
ants, tt  Pray  for  me. w  She  requested  each  of  the  priests,  particu- 
larly, to  say  a  mass  for  her  soul.  All  this  in  such  a  devout 
fashion,  so  humble,  so  touching,  that  emotion  spreading,  no  one 
could  control  himself:  the  bishop  of  Beauvais  began  to  weep,  he 
of  Boulogne  sobbed;  and  behold  the  English  themselves  crying 
and  weeping  also — Winchester  with  the  others. 

But  the  judges,  who  had  for  a  moment  lost  countenance,  recov- 
ered and  hardened  themselves.  The  bishop  of  Beauvais,  wiping  his 
eyes,  began  to  read  the  condemnation.  He  reminded  the  culprit 
of  her  crimes, —  schism,  idolatry,  invocation  of  demons;  how  she 
had  been  admitted  to  penitence;  and  how,  seduced  by  the  Prince 
of  Lies,  she  had  fallen  again  —  oh  sorrow!  —  like  the  dog  which 
returns  to  his  vomit.  <(  Therefore  we  pronounce  you  a  rotten 
member,  and  as  such,  cut  off  from  the  Church,  We  deliver  you 
over  to  the  secular  power,  praying  it  nevertheless  to  moderate 
its  judgment,  by  sparing  you  death  and  the  mutilation  of  your 
members. w 

Thus  forsaken  by  the  Church,  she  committed  herself  in  all 
confidence  to  God.  She  asked  for  the  cross.  An  Englishman 
passed  to  her  a  cross,  which  he  made  of  sticks:  she  received  it 
none  the  less  devoutly;  she  kissed  it,  and  placed  it,  this  rough 
cross,  beneath  her  clothes  and  on  her  flesh.  But  she  wished 
to  hold  the  Church's  cross  before  her  eyes  till  death;  and  the 
good  bailiff  Massieu  and  brother  Isambart  were  so  moved  by 
her  insistence  that  they  brought  her  that  of  the  parish  church 
of  Saint- Sauveur.  As  she  was  embracing  this  cross  and  being 


JULES  MICHELET  9987 

couraged  by  Isambart^  the  English  began  to  find  all  this  very 
long:  it  must  be  at  least  midday;  the  soldiers  grumbled,  the  cap- 
tains said,  <(  How,  priest,  will  you  make  us  dine  here  ? >}  Then 
losing  patience,  and  not  awaiting  the  order  of  the  bailiff,  who 
nevertheless  alone  had  authority  to  send  her  to  death,  they  made 
two  soldiers  climb  up  to  remove  her  out  of  the  priests'  hands. 
At  the  foot  of  the  tribunal  she  was  seized  by  armed  men,  who 
dragged  her  to  the  executioner  and  said  to  him,  (<  Do  your 
work.-0  This  fury  of  the  soldiers  caused  horror;  several  of  the 
assistants,  even  the  judges,  fled  in  order  not  to  see  more.  When 
she  found  herself  below  in  the  open  square  amid  these  English- 
men, who  laid  hands  on  her,  nature  suffered  and  the  flesh  was 
troubled ;  she  cried  anew,  (( O  Rouen !  you  will  then  be  my  last 
dwelling-place. }>  She  said  no  more,  and  sinned  not  by  her  lips 
even  in  this  moment  of  terror  and  trouble;  she  accused  neither 
her  king  nor  his  saints.  But,  the  top  of  the  pile  reached,  seeing 
that  great  city,  that  immovable  and  silent  crowd,  she  could  not 
keep  from  saying,  (( O  Rouen !  Rouen !  I  have  a  great  fear  that 
you  will  have  to  suffer  for  my  death !  w  She  who  had  saved  the 
people  and  whom  the  people  abandoned,  expressed  in  dying  only 
admirable  sweetness  of  soul,  only  compassion  for  them.  She  was 
tied  beneath  the  infamous  writing,  crowned  with  a  mitre,  on 
which  was  to  be  read,  ((  Heretic,  pervert,  apostate,  idolater w — and 
then  the  executioner  lighted  the  fire.  She  saw  it  from  above,  and 
uttered  a  cry.  Then,  as  the  brother  who  was  exhorting  her  paid 
no  attention  to  the  flames,  she  feared  for  him;  forgetting  herself, 
she  made  him  go  down. 

Which  well  proves  that  up  to  then  she  had  retracted  noth- 
ing expressedly;  and  that  the  unfortunate  Cauchon  was  obliged, 
no  doubt  by  the  high  Satanic  will  which  presided,  to  come  to 
the  foot  of  the  pyre,  to  front  the  face  of  his  victim,  to  try  to 
draw  out  some  word.  He  only  obtained  one  despairing  one. 
She  said  to  him  with  sweetness  what  she  had  already  said: 
<(  Bishop,  I  die  by  your  hand.  If  you  had  put  me  in  the  Church's 
prisons  this  would  not  have  happened. )}  They  had  doubtless 
hoped  that  believing  herself  abandoned  by  her  king,  she  would 
at  the  last  accuse  him,  say  something  against  him.  She  still 
defended  him.  « Whether  I  did  well  or  ill,  my  king  had  nothing 
to  do  with  it;  it  was  not  he  who  counseled  me." 

But  the  flame  rose.  At  the  moment  it  touched  her,  the  un- 
fortunate one  shuddered,  and  asked  for  holy  water;  for  water  — 


9988  JULES  MICHELET 

it  was  apparently  the  cry  of  fright.  But  recovering  herself 
instantly,  she  no  longer  named  any  but  God,  his  angels  and  his 
saints.  She  testified, ((  Yes,  my  voices  were  from  God ;  my  voices 
did  not  deceive  me ! »  This  vanishing  of  all  doubt,  in  the  flames, 
should  make  us  believe  that  she  accepted  death  as  the  deliv- 
erance promised;  that  she  no  longer  understood  salvation  in  a 
Judaistic  and  material  sense,  as  she  had  done  till  then;  that 
she  saw  clear  at  last,  and  that  coming  out  of  the  shadows,  she 
obtained  that  which  she  still  lacked  of  light  and  holiness. 

Ten  thousand  men  wept.  A  secretary  of  the  King  of  Eng- 
land said  aloud,  on  returning  from  the  execution,  <(  We  are  lost: 
we  have  burned  a  saint  1^  This  word  escaped  from  an  enemy  is 
none  the  less  grave.  It  will  remain.  The  future  will  not  con- 
tradict it.  Yes,  according  to  Religion,  according  to  Patriotism, 
Jeanne  d'Arc  was  a  saint. 

What  legend  more  beautiful  than  this  incontestable  history! 
But  we  should  take  care  not  to  make  a  legend  of  it:  every 
feature,  even  the  most  human,  should  be  piously  preserved;  the 
touching  and  terrible  reality  of  it  should  be  respected.  Let  the 
spirit  of  romance  touch  it  if  it  dare:  poetry  never  will  do  it. 
And  what  could  it  add  ?  The  idea  which  all  during  the  Middle 
Ages  it  had  followed  from  legend  to  legend — this  idea  was 
found  at  last  to  be  a  person ;  this  dream  was  tangible.  The 
helping  Virgin  of  battles,  .upon  whom  the  soldiers  called,  whom 
they  awaited  from  on  high  —  she  was  here  below.  In  whom! 
This  is  the  marvel.  In  that  which  was  despised,  in  that  which 
was  of  the  humblest, —  in  a  child,  in  a  simple  girl  of  the  fields, 
of  the  poor  people  of  France.  For  there  was  a  people,  there 
was  a  France.  This  last  figure  of  their  Past  was  also  the  first 
of  the  time  that  was  beginning.  In  her  appeared  at  the  same 
time  the  Virgin  and  already  the  country. 

Such  is  the  poetry  of  this  great  fact ;  such  is  the  philosophy, 
the  high  truth  of  it.  But  the  historical  reality  is  not  the  less 
certain;  it  was  only  too  positively  and  too  cruelly  established. 
This  living  enigma,  this  mysterious  creature  whom  all  judged 
to  be  supernatural,  this  angel  or  demon  who  according  to  some 
would  fly  away  some  morning,  was  found  to  be  a  young  woman, 
a  young  girl:  she  had  no  wings,  but,  attached  like  us  to  a 
mortal  body,  she  was  to  suffer,  die;  and  what  a  hideous  death! 
But  it  is  just  in  this  reality,  which  seems  degrading,  in  this  sad 
trial  of  nature,  that  the  ideal  is  found  again  and  shines  out.  The 


JULES   MICHELET  9989 

contemporaries  themselves  recognized  in  it  Christ  among  the 
Pharisees.  Yet  we  should  see  in  it  still  another  thing:  the  pas- 
sion of  the  Virgin,  the  martyrdom  of  purity. 

There  have  been  many  martyrs;  history  cites  innumerable 
ones,  more  or  less  pure,  more  or  less  glorious.  Pride  has  had  its 
own,  and  hatred,  and  the  spirit  of  dispute.  No  century  has  lacked 
righting  martyrs,  who  no  doubt  died  with  good  grace  when  they 
could  not  kill.  These  fanatics  have  nothing  to  see  here.  The 
holy  maid  is  not  of  them;  she  had  a  different  sign, — goodness, 
charity,  sweetness  of  soul.  She  had  the  gentleness  of  the  ancient 
martyrs,  but  with  a  difference.  The  early  Christians  only  re- 
mained sweet  and  pure  by  fleeing  from  action,  by  sparing  them- 
selves the  struggle  and  trial  of  the  world.  This  one  remained 
sweet  in  the  bitterest  struggle  of  good  amid  the  bad;  peaceful 
even  in  war, —  that  triumph  of  the  Devil, —  she  carried  into  it  the 
spirit  of  God.  She  took  arms  when  she  knew  <(the  pity  there 
was  in  the  kingdom  of  France. J>  She  could  not  see  French  blood 
flow.  This  tenderness  of  heart  she  had  for  all  men;  she  wept 
after  victories,  and  nursed  the  wounded  English.  Purity,  sweet- 
ness, heroic  goodness  —  that  these  supreme  beauties  of  soul  should 
be  met  in  a  girl  of  France  may  astonish  strangers,  who  only  like 
to  judge  our  nation  by  the  lightness  of  its  manners.  Let  us  say 
to  them  (and  without  self-partiality,  since  to-day  all  this  is  so  far 
from  us)  that  beneath  this  lightness  of  manner,  amid  her  follies 
and  her  vices,  old  France  was  none  the  less  the  people  of  love 
and  of  grace. 

The  savior  of  France  was  to  be  a  woman.  France  was  a 
woman  herself.  She  had  the  nobility  of  one;  but  also  the  ami- 
able sweetness,  the  facile  and  charming  pity,  the  excellence  at 
least  of  impulse.  Even  when  she  delighted  in  vain  elegances 
and  exterior  refinements,  she  still  remained  at  the  bottom  nearer 
to  nature.  The  Frenchman,  even  when  vicious,  kept  more  than 
any  one  else  his  good  sense  and  good  heart.  May  new  France 
not  forget  the  word  of  old  France:  (<  Only  great  hearts  know 
how  much  glory  there  is  in  being  good.  °  To  be  and  remain 
such,  amid  the  injustices  of  men  and  the  severities  of  Provi- 
dence, is  not  only  the  gift  of  af  fortunate  nature,  but  it  is  strength 
and  heroism.  To  keep  sweetness  and  benevolence  amid  so  many 
bitter  disputes,  to  traverse  experience  without  permitting  it  to 
touch  this  interior  treasure, —  this  is  divine.  Those  who  persist 
and  go  thus  to  the  end  are  the  true  elect.  And  even  if  they 


9990  JULES   MICHELET 

have  sometimes  stumbled  in  the  difficult  pathways  of  the  world, 
amid  their  falls,  their  weakness,  and  their  childishnesses  they  will 
remain  none  the  less  children  of  God. 

Translated  for  <A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature,*  by  Grace  King. 


MICHEL  ANGELO 
From  <The  Renaissance  > 

WHERE  was  the  soul  of  Italy  in  the  sixteenth  century?  In 
the  placid  facility  of  the  charming  Raphael  ?  In  the 
sublime  ataraxy  of  the  great  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  the 
centralizer  of  arts,  the  prophet  of  sciences  ?  He  who  wished 
for  insensibility,  he  who  said  to  himself,  ((  Fly  from  storms, w  he 
nevertheless,  whether  he  wished  it  or  not,  left  in  his  (  St.  John/ 
in  the  (  Bacchus, >  and  even  in  the  ( Jocunda,  >  in  the  nervous 
and  sickly  memory  that  all  those  strange  heads  express  on  their 
lips  —  he  has  left  a  painful  trace  of  the  convulsing  pains  of  the 
Italian  mind;  of  the  kind  of  Maremma  fever,  which  was  cov- 
•ered  by  a  false  hilarity;  of  the  jesting,  rather  light  than  gay,  of 
Pulci  and  Ariosto.  There  was  a  man  in  these  times,  a  heart,  a 
true  hero.  Have  you  seen  in  the  ( Last  Judgment,*  towards 
the  middle  of  the  immense  canvas,  him  who  is  disputing  with 
demons  and  angels, — have  you  seen  in  that  face  and  in  others 
those  swimming  eyes  struggling  to  look  above;  mortal  anxiety 
of  a  soul  in  which  two  opposing  infinities  are  struggling  ?  True 
image  of  the  sixteenth  century,  between  old  and  new  beliefs; 
image  of  Italy  among  nations;  image  of  the  man  of  the  time, 
and  of  Michel  Angelo  himself. 

It  has  been  marvelously  well  said,  (<  Michel  Angelo  was  the 
conscience  of  Italy.  From  birth  to  death,  his  work  was  the 
Judgment. >J  One  must  not  pay  attention  to  the  first  pagan 
sculptures  of  Michel  Angelo,  or  to  the  Christian  velleities  that 
crossed  his  life.  In  St.  Peter  he  had  no  thought  of  the  triumph 
of  Catholicism;  his  only  dream  was  the  triumph  of  the  new  art, 
the  completion  of  the  great  victory  of  his  master  Brunelleschi, 
before  whose  work  he  had  his  tomlb  placed,  in  order,  as  he  said, 
to  contemplate  it  throughout  eternity.  He  proceeded  from  two 
men,  Savonarola  and  Brunelleschil  He  belongs  to  the  religion 
of  the  Sibyls,  of  that  of  the  prophet  Elias,  of  the  savage  locust- 


JULES  MICHELET 

eaters  of  the  Old  Testament.  His  one  glory  and  his  crown  — 
nothing  like  it  before,  nothing  afterwards — is  his  having  put 
into  art  that  eminently  novel  thing,  the  thirst  for  and  aspiration 
towards  the  good.  Ah,  how  well  he  deserves  to  be  called  the 
defender  of  Italy!  Not  for  having  fortified  the  walls  of  Florence 
in  his  last  days;  but  for  having,  in  the  infinite  number  of  days 
that  followed  and  will  follow,  showed  in  the  Italian  soul,  mar- 
tyred like  a  soul  without  right,  the  triumphant  idea  of  a  right 
that  the  world  did  not  yet  see. 

To  recall  his  origin  is  to  tell  why  he  alone  could  do  these 
things.  Born  in  the  city  of  judges,  Arezzo,  to  which  all  others 
came  to  get  podestas,  he  had*  a  judge  for  a  father.  He  de- 
scended from  the  counts  of  Canossa,  relatives  of  the  Emperor 
who  founded  at  Bologna,  against  the  popes,  the  school  of  Roman 
law.  We  must  not  be  astonished  that  his  family  at  his  birth 
gave  him  the  name  of  the  angel  of  justice,  Michael,  just  as  the 
father  of  Raphael  gave  him  the  name  of  the  angel  of  grace.  It 
was  a  choleric  race,  Arezzo,  an  old  Etruscan  city,  petty  fallen 
republic,  was  despised  by  the  great  banking  city;  Dante  gave 
it  a  knock  in  passing.  One  of  the  most  ordinary  subjects  of 
Italian  farces  was  the  podesta,  representing  the  powerlessness  of 
the  law  in  stranger  cities  that  called  him,  paid  him,  and  drove 
him  out.  Again  everybody  in  Italy  made  mockery  of  his  justice. 
There  was  needed  a  heroic  effort,  like  that  of  Brancaleone's,  to 
make  the  sword  of  justice  respected.  It  needed  a  lion-hearted 
man,  stranger  and  isolated  as  he  was,  to  execute  his  own  judg- 
ments disputed  by  all.  Michel  Angelo  would  have  been  one  of 
these  warrior  judges  of  the  thirteenth  century.  By  heart  and 
stature  he  belonged  to  the  great  Ghibellines  of  that  time;  to  the 
one  whom  Dante  honored  on  his  couch  of  fire;  to  the  other  with 
the  tragic  face:  <(  Lombard  soul,  why  the  slow  moving  of  thine 
eyes  ?  one  would  say  a  lion  in  his  repose. }>  Not  wearing  the 
sword,  under  the  reign  of  men  of  money,  in  its  place  he  took  the 
chisel.  He  was  the  Brancaleone,  the  judge  and  podesta,  of  Ital- 
ian art.  He  exercised  in  marble  and  stone  the  high  censure  of 
his  time.  For  nearly  a  century  his  life  was  a  combat,  a  contin- 
ual contradiction.  Noble  and  poor,  he  was  reared  in  the  house  of 
the  Medici,  where  we  have  seen  him  sculpturing  statues  of  snow. 
Republican,  all  his  life  he  served  princes  and  popes.  Envy  dis- 
figures him,  a  rival  has  deformed  him  forever.  Made  to  love 
and  be  loved,  always  he  will  remain  alone. 


9992 


JULES  MICHELET 


What  was  of  great  assistance  to  Michel  Angelo  was  the  fact 
that  the  Sixtine  Chapel,  the  work  of  Sixtus  IV.,  uncle  of  Julius 
IV.,  was  only  a  second  thought  of  the  latter,  who  attached  the 
glory  of  his  pontificate  to  the  construction  of  St.  Peter's.  He 
obtained  the  favor  of  alone  having  the  key  of  the  chapel,  and  of 
not  having  any  visitors.  The  visits  of  the  Pope,  which  he  dared 
not  refuse,  he  rendered  difficult  by  leaving  no  access  to  his  scaf- 
folding save  by  a  steep  step-ladder,  upon  which  the  old  Pope  had 
to  risk  himself.  This  obscure  and  solitary  vault,  in  which  he 
passed  five  years,  was  for  him  the  cave  of  Mount  Carmel;  and 
he  lived  in  it  like  Elias.  He  had  a  bed  suspended  from  the  arch, 
upon  which  he  painted  with  his 'head  stretched  back.  No  com- 
pany but  the  prophets  and  the  sermons  of  Savonarola.  It  was 
thus,  in  the  absolute  solitude  of  the  years  1507,  1508,  1509,  1510, 
—  it  was  during  the  war  of  the  League  of  Cambray,  when  the 
Pope  gave  a  last  blow  to  Italy  in  killing  Venice, —  that  the  great 
Italian  made  his  prophets  and  his  sibyls,  realized  that  work  of 
sorrow,  of  sublime  liberty,  of  obscure  presentments,  of  inter- 
penetrating lights. 

He  put  four  years  into  it.  And  I  —  I  have  put  thirty  years 
into  interrogating  it.  Not  a  year  at  longest  has  passed  without 
my  taking  up  again  this  Bible,  this  Testament,  which  is  never  old 
nor  new,  but  of  an  age  still  unknown.  Born  out  of  the  Jewish 
Bible,  it  passes  and  goes  far  beyond  it.  One  must  take  care 
not  to  go  into  the  chapel,  as  is  done  during  the  solemnities 
of  Holy  Week  and  with  the  crowd.  One  must  go  there  alone, 
slip  in  as  the  Pope  sometimes  did  (only  Michel  Angelo  would 
frighten  him  by  throwing  down  a  plank) ;  one  must  confront  it, 
tete-a-tete,  alone.  Reassure  yourself:  that  painting,  extinguished 
and  obscured  by  the  smoke  of  incense  and  of  candles,  has  no 
longer  its  old  trait  of  inspiring  terror;  it  has  lost  something  of 
its  frightening  power,  gained  in  harmony  and  sweetness;  it  par- 
takes of  the  long  patience  and  equanimity  of  time.  It  appears 
blackened  from  the  depths  of  ages;  but  all  the  more  victorious, 
not  surpassed,  not  contradicted.  Dante  did  not  see  these  things 
in  his  last  circle.  But  Michel  Angelo  saw  them,  foresaw  them, 
dared  to  paint  them  in  the  Vatican,  writing  the  three  words  of 
Belshazzar's  feast  upon  the  walls,  soiled  by  the  Borgias,  the  mur- 
derers of  Robera.  Happily  he  was  not  understood.  They  would 
have  had  it  all  effaced.  We  know  how  for  years  he  defended  the 
door  of  the  Sixtine  Chapel,  and  how  Julius  II.  told  him:  <(  If 


JULES  MICHELET  9993 

you  are  slow,  I  will  throw  you  down  from  the  top  of  your  scaf- 
fold. J)  On  the  perilous  day  when  the  door  was  at  last  opened, 
and  when  the  Pope  entered  in  processional  pomp,  Michel  Angelo 
could  see  that  his  work  remained  a  dead  letter;  that  in  looking 
at  it  they  saw  nothing.  Stunned  by  the  enormous  enigma,  ma- 
licious but  not  daring  to  malign  those  giants  whose  eyes  shot 
thunderbolts,  they  all  kept  silence.  The  Pope,  to  put  a  good 
countenance  upon  it,  and  not  let  himself  be  subdued  by  the  terri- 
fying vision,  grumbled  out  these  words :  <(  There  is  no  gold  in  it 
at  all.®  Michel  Angelo,  reassured  now  and  certain  of  not  being 
understood,  replied  to  this  futile  censure,  his  bitter  tragic  mouth 
laughing:  (( Holy  Father,  the  people  up  there,  they  were  not 
rich,  but  holy  personages,  who  did  not  wear  gold,  and  made  little 
of  the  goods  of  this  world. w 

Translated  for  <A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature, >  by  Grace  King. 


SUMMARY   OF   THE   INTRODUCTION   TO   <THE   RENAISSANCE  > 

WHY  did  the  Renaissance  arrive  three  hundred  years  too  late  ? 
Why  did  the  Middle  Age  live  three  hundred  years  after 
its  death  ?  Its  terrorism,  its  police,  its  stakes  and  fagots, 
would  not  have  sufficed.  The  human  mind  would  have  shattered 
everything.  Salvation  came  from  the  School,  from  the  creation 
of  a  great  people  of  reasoners  against  Reason.  The  void  became 
fecund,  created.  Out  of  the  proscribed  philosophy  was  born  the 
infinite  legion  of  wranglers:  the  serious,  violent  disputation  of 
emptiness,  nothingness.  Out  of  the  smothered  religion  was  born 
the  sanctimonious  world  of  reasoning  mystics;  the  art  of  raving 
sagely.  Out  of  the  proscription  of  nature  and  the  sciences  was 
brought  forth  a  throng  of  impostors  and  dupes,  who  read  the 
stars  and  made  gold.  Immense  army  of  the  sons  of  Eolus,  born 
of  wind  and  puffed  out  with  words.  They  blew.  At  their  breath, 
a  babel  of  lies  and  humbugs,  a  solid  fog,  thickened  by  magic  in 
which  reason  would  not  take  hold,  arose  in  the  air.  Humanity 
sat  at  the  foot,  mournful,  silent,  renouncing  truth.  If  at  least, 
in  default  of  truth,  one  could  attain  justice  ?  The  king  opposes 
it  against  the  pope.  Great  tumult,  great  combat  by  our  gods! 
And  all  for  nothing.  The  two  incarnations  come  to  an  agree- 
ment, and  all  liberty  is  despaired  of.  People  fall  lower  than 
before.  The  communes  have  perished;  the  burgher  class  is  born, 


9994  JULES  MICHELET 

and  with  it  a  petty  prudence.  The  masses  thus  deadened,  what 
can  great  souls  .effect  ?  Superhuman  apparitions  to  awaken  the 
dead  will  come,  and  will  do  nothing.  The  people  see  a  Joan  of 
Arc  pass  by,  and  say,  <(  Who  is  that  girl  ? w  Dante  has  built  his 
cathedral,  and  Brunelleschi  is  makinp-  his  calculations  for  Santa 
Maria  del  Fiore.  But  Boccaccio  alone  is  enjoyed.  The  goldsmith 
dominates  the  architect  The  old  Gothic  church,  in  extremis,  is 
overlaid  with  all  kinds  of  little  ornaments,  crimpings,  lace-work, 
etc.  She  is  tricking  herself  off,  making  herself  pretty.  The  per- 
severing cultivation  of  the  false,  continued  so  many  centuries,  the 
sustained  care  to  flatten  the  human  brain,  has  produced  its  fruit. 
To  the  proscribed  natural  has  succeeded  the  anti-natural,  out  of 
which  by  spontaneous  generation  is  born  the  monster  with  two 
faces:  monster  of  false  science,  monster  of  perverse  ignorance. 
The  scholastic  and  the  shepherd,  the  inquisitor  and  the  witch, 
represent  two  opposing  peoples.  Withal  the  fools  in  ermine  and 
the  fools  in  rags  have  fundamentally  the  same  faith, —  faith  in 
Evil  as  the  master  and  prince  of  this  world.  Fools,  terrified  at 
the  triumph  of  the  Devil,  burn  fools  to  protect  God.  Here  lies 
the  deepest  depth  of  the  darkness.  And  a  half -century  passes 
without  printing's  bringing  even  a  little  light  into  it.  The  great 
Jewish  Encyclopaedia,  published  with  its  discordance  of  centu- 
ries, schools,  and  doctrines,  confuses  at  first  and  complicates  the 
perplexities  of  the  human  mind.  The  fall  of  Constantinople  and 
Greece's  taking  refuge  in  Europe  do  not  help  at  all:  the  arriv- 
ing manuscripts  seek  serious  readers;  the  principal  ones  will  not 
be  printed  until  the  following  century.  Thus  great  discoveries  — 
machinery,  material  means,  fortuitous  aids,  all  —  are  still  useless. 
At  the  death  of  Louis  XL,  and  during  the  first  years  that  fol- 
lowed, there  is  naught  that  permits  one  to  predict  the  dawn  of  a 
new  day.  All  the  honor  of  it  will  belong  to  the  soul,  to  heroic 
will.  A  great  movement  is  going  to  take  place  —  of  war  and 
events,  confused  agitations,  vague  inspirations.  These  obscure 
intimations,  coming  out  of  the  masses  and  little  understood  by 
them,  some  one  (Columbus,  Copernicus,  or  Luther)  will  take  fof 
himself;  alone,  will  rise  and  answer,  <(  Here  I  am." 

Translated  for  <A  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature, >  by  Grace  King. 


9995 


ADAM  MICKIEWICZ 

(1798-1855) 

BY  CHARLES  HARVEY  GENUNG 

*ITH  the  passing  of  Poland  from  the  family  of  European  States, 
the  genius  of  her  people  received  a  fresh  and  passionate 
impulse.  Her  political  dominion  was  gone,  but  she  set  to 
work  in  the  world  of  spirit  to  create  a  new  and  undivided  realm. 
She  put  her  adversity  to  sweet  uses,  and  won  a  brilliant  place  in  the 
history  of  human  culture.  In  the  works  of  her  poets  the  ancient 
glories  of  the  annihilated  commonwealth  re- 
gained their  lustre;  and  a  host  of  splendid 
names  bear  witness,  in  this  century  of  her 
political  obliteration,  to  the  fervid  strength 
of  the  old  national  spirit.  Love  of  country, 
pride  in  her  great  past,  grief  at  her  mis- 
fortunes, and  inextinguishable  hope  —  these 
are  her  poets'  themes  and  the  inspiration 
of  her  noblest  achievements. 

The  golden  age  of  Polish  letters  was 
ushered  in  by  the  Romanticists.  In  the 
presence  of  the  world-stirring  events  of  a 
great  social  revolution,  the  pseudo-classical 
themes  lost  their  vitality.  German  culture 
wrought  a  widening  of  the  intellectual  hori- 
zon. Goethe,  Schiller,  Scott,  and  Byron  became  almost  Polish  poets. 
In  the  background  loomed  Ossian  and  Shakespeare  and  Dante.  Her- 
mits, knights,  and  spectres  took  the  place  of  the  ancient  gods  in 
the  scenery  of  the  new  ballads.  Mickiewicz  began  his  literary  career 
with  a  collection  of  such  ballads,  and  was  hailed  at  once  as  a  leader 
of  the  Romantic  movement;  and  this  movement,  although  accom- 
panied by  much  sound  and  fury,  was  yet  the  necessary  prologue 
to  the  splendid  outburst  of  Polish  poetry  in  the  second  quarter 
of  this  century.  It  put  an  end  to  the  domination  of  Paris,  and  set 
free  the  national  genius.  Genuine  poets  arose,  possessing  the  essen- 
tials of  high  art, —  a  perfected  technique,  a  deep  and  sympathetic 
insight  into  the  most  diverse  human  motives,  and  a  strong  individu- 
ality. Byron  was  the  dominant  literary  influence.  It  is  evident  in 


ADAM  MICKIEWIC'Z 


9996 


ADAM   MICKIEWICZ 


Malczewski's  superb  poem,  <  Maria, >  whose  appearance  in  1825  marked 
the  beginning  of  the  great  age.  Malczewski  had  known  Byron  in 
Venice,  and  had  suggested  to  him  the  theme  of  (Mazeppa);  but  Mic- 
kiewicz,  Krasinski,  Slowacki,  all  bear  the  marks  of  Byronic  inspira- 
tion. The  literature  of  this  golden  age  in  Poland  was  one  of  exiles 
and  emigrants.  Scarcely  one  of  the  great  works  of  the  time  was 
written  on  Polish  soil,  and  yet  never  was  a  literature  more  intensely 
national.  The  scenes  are  laid  in  Poland,  the  themes  are  drawn 
from  Polish  history,  and  everything  is  treated  with  a  passionate 
patriotism.  Even  when,  as  in  Krasinski's  <Irydion,)  the  subject  is 
taken  from  the  history  of  a  foreign  people,  its  application  to  the 
situation  of  Poland  is  obvious.  And  it  was  Mickiewicz,  wandering 
for  thirty  years  far  from  his  native  land,  who  finally  gave  to  the 
spirit  of  Poland  its  highest  literary  expression;  he  revived  the  pride 
of  the  Poles  in  the  spiritual  achievements  of  their  race,  and  restored 
to  them  the  consciousness  of  their  national  solidarity.  He  created 
the  great  national  poem  of  Poland  in  ( Pan  Tadeusz  '  (Pan  Thad- 
deus),  which  ranks  with  the  finest  poetry  of  the  world's  literature. 
It  is  the  crystallized  product  of  all  the  centuries  of  Polish  culture; 
in  it  centre  the  pride,  the  hopes,  and  the  ambitions  of  the  Polish 
people. 

Adam  Mickiewicz  was  born  at  Zaosie,  near  Novogrodek,  on  Decem- 
ber 24th,  1798.  His  childhood  was  passed  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
stirring  scenes,  which  left  a  deep  impression  upon  him.  During  the 
Russian  campaign,  his  father's  house  was  the  headquarters  of  the 
King  of  Westphalia.  All  the  hopes  of  Poland  were  then  founded 
upon  Napoleon;  and  for  Napoleon,  Mickiewicz  cherished  a  lifelong 
enthusiastic  reverence,  which  in  his  latter  days  assumed  a  mystical 
character.  For  Byron  he  felt  a  similar  regard;  but  it  was  not  Byron 
but  Burger  who  gave  the  impulse  to  the  volume  of  ballads  with 
which  Mickiewicz  made  his  first  appearance  in  literature  in  1822. 
The  ballad  of  'Lenore*  had  a  wonderful  fructifying  power:  it  gave 
to  Scott  his  earliest  inspiration;  it  caught  the  youthful  fancy  of  Vic- 
tor Hugo ;  it  awoke  the  genius  of  Mickiewicz.  But  the  first  distinctive 
work  of  the  Polish  poet  was  written  in  the  spirit  of  <Werther,)  and 
was  wrung  from  him  by  his  grief  over  an  unfortunate  love  affair. 
This  was  (Dziady}  (In  Honor  of  our  Ancestors),  a  broadly  conceived 
but  never  finished  poem,  of  which  the  first  installment  appeared  in 
1823.  It  is  not  the  poet's  own  sorrow  alone  that  here  finds  expres- 
sion, for  under  this  we  hear  the  despairing  cry  of  an  enslaved  people. 

In  1824  Mickiewicz  left  his  native  land,  never  to  return.  He  lived 
in  an  age  of  unions  and  associations,  of  unrest  and  suspicion.  Liter- 
ary societies  easily  became  involved  in  political  discussions,  and  ac- 
quired a  reputation  for  revolutionary  sentiments.  Mickiewicz  belonged 


ADAM   MICKIEWICZ 


9997 


to  the  Philareths;  and  on  account  of  the  part  he  took  in  a  student 
demonstration,  he  was  arrested  and  sent  to  St.  Petersburg.  Banished 
thence  to  Odessa,  he  obtained  permission  in  the  autumn  of  1825  to 
visit  the  Crimea.  In  the  following  year  this  visit  bore  fruit  in  the 
splendid  Oriental  series  of  (  Crimean  Sonnets.*  Meanwhile  Mickiewicz, 
whose  personal  relations  with  the  Russian  government  had  always 
remained  cordial,  was  given  a  post  in  the  office  of  the  Governor- 
General  at  Moscow.  He  never  had  pretended  to  play  the  martyr;  for 
with  his  genuine  Polish  patriotism  he  combined  a  coldly  objective 
view  of  the  political  situation.  When  in  1828  he  settled  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, he  was  received  into  the  great  world  by  the  leading  spirits  of 
the  time  with  an  enthusiasm  that  bordered  on  glorification.  He  stood 
in  close  spiritual  intercourse  with  Pushkin,  the  other  great  Slavic 
poet  of-  the  age,  and  his  junior  by  just  six  months.  The  fame  of  Mic- 
kiewicz in  Russia  was  based  upon  the  translations  of  the  (  Crimean 
Sonnets }  and  of  (  Konrad  Wallenrod. )  This  powerful  epic,  written 
in  Moscow  in  1827  and  published  in  St.  Petersburg  in  1828,  treats  of 
the  relations  between  Russia  and  Poland,  and  the  burning  questions 
of  the  day  are  presented  with  cold  objectivity.  The  manner  is 
Byronic.  This  poem  at  once  took  its  place  as  a  national  epic,  con- 
tributed incalculably  to  the  strengthening  of  the  national  feeling,  and 
furthermore  it  signalized  the  triumph  of  Romanticism. 

Mickiewicz  never  definitely  renounced  Romanticism  as  Goethe 
did.  The  classic  and  the  romantic  existed  in  him  side  by  side.  He 
freed  himself,  however,  from  the  shackles  of  a  one-sided  tendency,  and 
began  to  seek  the  sources  of  .his  poetry  in  reality  and  truth.  And 
for  Mickiewicz  truth  came  more  and  more  to  assume  a  religious  color- 
ing. Even  where  the  influence  of  (  Faust >  and  < Cain  '  and  ( Manfred * 
is  most  apparent,  the  heroes  of  Mickiewicz  are  at  strife  only  with 
the  sins  and  evils  of  humanity;  they  are  never  in  revolt  against  the 
Divine  power.  But  the  work  in  which  Mickiewicz  first  definitely 
abandoned  purely  romantic  methods  was  'Grazyna.*  It  appeared  at 
about  the  same  time  that  the  publication  of  ( Konrad  Wallenrod* 
marked  the  culmination  of  the  Romantic  movement.  Both  poems 
treat  of  the  Lithuanian  struggles  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
Teutonic  Knights;  but  <Grazyna>  is  full  of  epic  reserve,  classic  sim- 
plicity, and  majestic  repose.  It  reveals  Mickiewicz  as  an  epic  poet  of 
the  grand  style.  By  these  two  works  he  rose  at  once  above  the 
strife  of  schools  and  tendencies  into  the  regions  of  universal  poetry, 
and  became  the  national  poet  of  his  people. 

In  the  adulation  with  which  Mickiewicz  was  surrounded  in  St. 
Petersburg  there  lurked  a  certain  danger:  it  threatened  to  drag  his 
genius  down  into  the  epicurean  dolce  far  niente  of  the  gay  capital ;  but 
the  deep  earnestness  of  his  character  saved  him.  In  1829  he  obtained 


9998  ADAM  MICKIEWICZ 

permission  to  leave  Russia.  As  when,  five  years  before,  he  had  left 
Poland  forever,  so  when  he  crossed  the  Russian  border  he  crossed  it 
never  to  return;  he  never  again  set  foot  on  Slavic  soil.  The  five 
years  in  Russia  had  given  to  his  genius  its  universality  and  cosmo- 
politan range.  And  the  travels  which  now  began  brought  him  a  rich 
harvest  of  experience  and  friends.  In  -Weimar  he  met  Goethe;  in 
Switzerland  his  two  greatest  Polish  contemporaries,  Krasinski  and 
Slowacki;  and  in  the  cosmopolitan  society  of  Rome  he  formed  a  close 
friendship  with  James  Fenimore  Cooper.  In  1830  the  revolution 
which  Mickiewicz  had  foreseen  broke  out  in  Warsaw,  with  the  singing 
of  the  closing  stanzas  of  his  own  *  Ode  to  Youth. }  The  poet  hastened 
to  join  his  countrymen,  but  he  was  met  at  Posen  with  the  news  of 
Polish  defeat.  He  turned  back,f  saddened  and  aimless.  Sorrow  of  a 
keenly  personal  sort  followed  close  upon  the  grief  of  the  patriot.  In 
Italy  he  fell  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  a  Polish  magnate.  His  love 
was  reciprocated;  but  encountering  the  father's  haughty  opposition, 
Mickiewicz  suddenly  departed.  The  literary  result  of  this  sorrow  wag 
( Pan  Tadeusz,  >  written,  as  Goethe  wrote,  for  self-liberation.  It  was 
begun  in  Paris  in  1832  and  published  in  1834.  It  is  the  most  per- 
fect work  of  the  poet,  the  culminating  point  of  Polish  poetry, — and 
indeed,  the  pearl  of  all  Slavic  literature/ 

The  scene  of  ( Pan  Tadeusz  *  is  laid  in  Lithuania  in  1812,  when 
Poland's  hopes  were  high,  and  Napoleon's  star  still  in  the  ascendant. 
It  is  the  story  of  the  last  raid  in  Lithuania;  and  the  lawlessness  of 
private  war  is  here  portrayed  in  vivid  pictures.  These  civil  feuds 
were  a  late  survival  of  the  many  disruptive  evils  upon  which  the  com- 
monwealth was  finally  wrecked.  The  poem  abounds  in  rich  poetic 
scenes  of  Lithuanian  life,  the  sublime  sweep  of  the  landscapes,  the 
solemn  gloom  and  loneliness  of  vast  primeval  forests.  There  is  in  it 
all  a  tone  of  majesty  which  reveals  a  great  poet  in  his  loftiest  mood. 

<  Pan  Tadeusz  *  was  Mickiewicz's  last  important  work.  To  be 
mentioned,  however,  are  <  The  Books  of  the  Polish  People  and  of  the 
Polish  Pilgrimage, >  and  the  ( Lectures  on  Slavic  Literature.*  In  the 
former  the  poet  treats  in  Biblical  style  of  the  function  of  Poland  in 
history,  and  of  her  mission  in  the  future.  The  Slavic  lectures  were 
those  delivered  at  the  College  de  France,  where  in  1840  Cousin  had 
founded  a  chair  of  Slavic  literature.  Mickiewicz  was  the  first  incum- 
bent, and  his  lectures  were  received  with  unbounded  enthusiasm.  All 
literary  Paris  flocked  to  hear  the  famous  poet  tell  of  the  spiritual 
conquests  of  his  countrymen.  The  lectures  are  distinguished  by  feli- 
city of  phrase  and  fineness  of  fancy;  less  by  careful  scholarship. 

The  last  decade  of  the  poet's  life  was  clouded  by  sorrow,  illness, 
and  financial  embarrassment.  In  1834  he  had  married  the  daughter 
of  the  celebrated  pianiste  Szymanowska.  It  was  not  a  marriage  of 


ADAM     MICKIEWICZ 

love,  but  seems  not  to  have  been  unhappy.  Mickiewicz's  nature  was 
deeply  religious;  in  Italy  he  had  been  in  close  communion  with  such 
men  as  Montalembert  and  Lamennais;  in  Paris  he  became  fascinated 
by  the  mystic  Messianism  of  the  uncultured  fanatic  Towianski,  and 
with  all  the  poetic  fervor  of  his  being  he  plunged  into  the  depths  of 
mysticism.  He  was  removed  from  his  professorship  on  this  account 
in  1844.  The  genius  of  the  poet  was  darkened;  only  the  patriot 
remained.  In  1848  he  tried  to  raise  in  Italy  a  Polish  legion  against 
Austria.  In  1849  he  edited  the  Tribune  des  Peuples,  but  at  the  end 
of  three  months  the  paper  was  suppressed.  When  Napoleon  III. 
seized  the  imperial  throne  in  1852,  Mickiewicz  was  made  librarian  of 
the  Arsenal  Library.  During  the  war  in  the  Orient,  he  was  sent  as 
a  special  emissary  of  the  French  government  to  raise  Polish  legions 
in  Turkey.  The  camp  life  which  his  duties  rendered  necessary  ruined 
a  constitution  already  undermined;  and  at  Constantinople,  on  Novem- 
ber 26th,  1855,  he  died.  His  body  was  brought  to  Montmorency,  but 
in  1890  was  removed  to  the  royal  vaults  at  Cracow. 

Mickiewicz,  with  his  wide  knowledge  of  literatures  and  languages, 
and  with  his  cosmopolitan  experience,  nevertheless  succeeded  by  sheer 
force  of  genius,  infused  with  ardent  patriotism,  in  so  blending  all  the 
foreign  elements  of  his  own  culture  with  the  characteristics  of  his 
race  and  country  as  to  create  a  distinctively  Polish  literature,  and 
deserve  the  name  of  supreme  national  poet.  His  poetry  exercises  in 
Poland  that  cohesive  force  which  Greece  found  in  Homer  and  Italy 
derived  from  Dante.  He  is  the  rallying-point  for  the  poets  and 
patriots  of  Poland,  and  the  consolation  of  a  proud  and  oppressed  race. 


SONNET 

THE  tricks  of  pleasing  thou  hast  aye  disdained; 
Thy  words  are  plain,  and  simple  all  thy  ways; 
Yet  throngs,  admiring,  tremble  'neath  thy  gaze, 
And  in  thy  queenly  presence  stand  enchained. 
Amid  the  social  babble  unconstrained, 

I  heard  men  speak  of  women  words  of  praise, 
And  with  a  smile  each  turned  some  honeyed  phrase. 
Thou  cam'st, —  and  lo!  a  sacred  silence  reigned. 
Thus  when  the  dancers  with  each  other  vie, 


I  oooo  ADAM   MICKIEWICZ 

And  through  the  merry  mazes  whirling  go, 
Abruptly  all  is  hushed:  they  wonder  why, 

And  no  one  can  the  subtle  reason  show. 
The  poet  speaks:   <( There  glides  an  angel  by!* 

The  guest  all  dimly  feel,  but  few  do  know. 

Translation  of  Charles  Harvey  Genung. 


[The  following  poems  are  from  the  <  Poets  and  Poetry  of  Poland.  >    Edited,  and 
copyrighted  1881,  by  Paul  Soboleski.] 

FATHER'S  RETURN 
A  BALLAD 


G 


o,  CHILDREN,  all  of  you  together. 

To  the  pillar  upon  the  hill, 
And  there  before  the  miraculous  picture 

Kneel  and  pray  with  a  fervent  will. 


<(  Father  returns  not.     Mornings  and  evenings 

I  await  him  in  tears,  and  fret. 
The  streams  are  swollen,  the  wild  beasts  prowling. 

And  the  woods  with  robbers  beset.  ® 

The  children  heard,  and  they  ran  together 

To  the  pillar  upon  the  hill; 
And  there  before  the  miraculous  picture 

Knelt  and  prayed  with  a  fervent  will. 

<(Hear  us,  O  Lord!     Our  father  is  absent, 

Our  father  so  tender  and  dear. 
Protect  him  from  all  besetting  danger! 

Guide  him  home  to  us  safely  here!* 

They  kiss  the  earth  in  the  name  of  the  Father, 

Again  in  the  name  of  the  Son. 
Be  praised  the  name  of  the  Trinity  holy, 

And  forever  their  will  be  done. 

* 

Then  they  said  Our  Father,  the  Ave  and  Credo, 
The  Commandments  and  Rosary  too; 

And  after  these  prayers  were  all  repeated, 
A  book  from  their  pockets  they  drew. 

And  the  Litany  and  the  Holy  Mother 
They  sang  while  the  eldest  led : 


ADAM   MICKIEWICZ  IOOOI 

(<O  Holy  Mother, w  implored  the  children, 
<(  Be  thy  sheltering  arms  outspread ! }) 

Soon  they  heard  the  sound  of  wheels  approaching. 

And  the  foremost  wagon  espied. 
Then  jumped  the  children  with  joy  together: 

<(Our  father  is  coming !»  they  cried. 

The  father  leaped  down,  his  glad  tears  flowing, 

Among  them  without  delay. 
"And  how  are  you  all,  my  dearest  children? 

Were  you  lonesome  with  me  away  ? 

<(And  is  your  mother  well  —  your  aunt  and  the  servants? 

Here  are  grapes  in  the  basket,  boys.w 
Then  the  children  jumped  in  their  joy  around  him, 

Till  the  air  was  rent  with  their  noise. 

*  Start  on,n  the  merchant  said  to  the  servants, 

t(  With  the  children  I  will  follow  on ; }> 
But  while  he  spoke  the  robbers  surround  them, 

A  dozen,  with  sabres  drawn. 

Long  beards  had  they,  and  curly  mustaches, 

And  soiled  the  clothes  they  wore; 
Sharp  knives  in  their  belts  and  swords  Beside  them, 

While  clubs  in  their  hands  they  bore. 

Then  shrieked  the  children  in  fear  and  trembling, 

And  close  to  their  father  clung, 
While  helpless  and  pale  in  his  consternation, 

His  hands  he  imploringly  wrung. 

wTake  all  I  have!*  he  cried;  <(take  my  earnings. 

But  let  us  depart  with  life. 
Make  not  of  these  little  children  orphans, 

Or  a  widow  of  my  young  wife.** 

But  the  gang,  who  have  neither  heard  nor  heeded, 

Their  search  for  the  booty  begin. 
a  Money  P  they  cry,  and  swinging  their  truncheons, 

They  threaten  with  curses  and  din. 

Then  a  voice  is  heard  from  the  robber  captain, 
<(Hold,  hold,  with  your  plundering  hereP' 

And  releasing  the  father  and  frightened  children, 
He  bids  them  go  without  fear. 


I0002  ADAM   MICKIEWICZ 

To  the  merchant  then  the  robber  responded:  — 
"No  thanks  —  for  I  freely  declare 

A  broken  head  you  had  hardly  escaped  with, 
Were  it  not  for  the  children's  prayer. 

(<Your  thanks  belong  to  the  children  only; 

To  them  alone  your  life  you  owe. 
Now  listen  while  I  relate  to  you  briefly 

How  it  came  to  happen,  and  go. 

ttl  and  my  comrades  had  long  heard  rumors 
Of  a  merchant  coming  this  way; 

And  here  in  the  woods  that  skirt  the  pillar 
We  were  lying  in  wait  to-day. 

*And  lying  in  wait  behind  the  bushes, 

The  children  at  prayer  I  heard. 
Though  I  listened  at  first  with  laugh  derisive, 

Soon  to  pity  my  heart  was  stirred. 

<(I  listened,  and  thoughts  of  my  home  came  to  me 
From  its  purpose  my  heart  was  won. 

I  too  have  a  wife  who  awaits  my  coming, 
And  with  her  is  my  little  son. 

tt  Merchant,  depart, —  to  the  woods  I  hasten; 

And  children,  come  sometimes  here, 
And  kneeling  together  beside  this  pillar 

Give  me  a  prayer  and  a  tearl* 


PRIMROSE 


SCARCE  had  the  happy  lark  begun 
To  sing  of  Spring  with  joyous  burst, 
When  oped  the  primrose  to  the  sun  — 
The  golden-petaled  blossoms  first 

ii 

Tis  yet  too  soon,  my  little  flower, — 

The  north  wind  waits  with  chilly  breath; 

Still  capped  by  snow  the  mountains  tower, 
And  wet  the  meadows  lie  beneath. 


ADAM  MICKIEWICZ  10003 

Hide  yet  awhile  thy  golden  light, 

Hide  yet  beneath  thy  mother's  wing, 
Ere  chilly  frosts  that  pierce  and  blight 

Unto  thy  fragile  petals  cling. 

in 

PRIMROSE 

<(LiKE  butterflies  our  moments  are; 

They  pass,  and  death  is  all  our  gain: 
One  April  hour  is  sweeter  far 

Than  all  December's  gloomy  reign. 

<(  Dost  seek  a  gift  to  give  the  gods  ? 

Thy  friend  or  thy  beloved  one  ? 
Then  weave  a  wreath  wherein  there  nods 

My  blossoms  —  fairer  there  are  none.'* 

IV 

'Mm  common  grass  within  the  wood, 

Beloved  flower,  thou  hast  grown; 
So  simple,  few  have  understood 

What  gives  the  prestige  all  thy  own. 

Thou  hast  no  hues  of  morning  star, 

Nor  tulip's  gaudy  turbaned  crest, 
Nor  clothed  art  thou  as  lilies  are, 

Nor  in  the  rose's  splendor  drest. 

When  in  a  wreath  thy  colors  blend, 

When  comes  thy  sweet  confiding  sense 

That  friends  —  and  more  beloved  than  friend— 
Shall  give  thee  kindly  preference  ? 

v 

PRIMROSE 

aWiTH  pleasure  friends  my  buds  will  greet, — 

They  see  spring's  angel  in  my  face; 
For  friendship  dwells  not  in  the  heat, 

But  loves  with  me  the  shady  place. 

<(  Whether  of  Marion,  beloved  one, 

Worthy  I  am,  can't  tell  before  ? 
If  she  but  looks  this  bud  upon, 

I'll  get  a  tear  —  if  nothing  more!® 


10004 


ADAM  MICKIEWICZ 


NEW-YEAR'S  WISHES 

THE  old  year  is  dead,  and  from  its  ashes  blossoms  bright 
New  Phoenix,   spreading  wings  o'er  the   heavens  far  and 

near; 
Full  of  hopes  and  wishes,  earth  salutes  it  with  delight. 

What  should  I  for  myself  desire  on  this  glad  New  Year? 

Say,  happy  moments!    I  know  these  lightning  flashes  swift; 

When  they  the  heavens  open  and  gild  the  wide  earth  o'er, 
We  wait  the  assumption  till  the  weary  eyes  we  lift 

Are  darkened  by  a  night  sadder  than  e'er  known  before. 

Say,  'tis  love  I  wish!  —  that  youthful  frenzy  full  of  bliss 
Bears  one  to  spheres  platonic  —  to  joys  divine  I  know; 

Till  the  strong  and  gay  are  hurled  down  pain's  profound  abyss, 
Hurled  from  the  seventh  heaven  upon  the  rocks  below. 

I  have  dreamed  and  I  have  pined.     I  soared,  and  then  I  fell. 

Of  a  peerless  rose  I  dreamed,  and  to  gather  it  I  thought, 
When  I  awoke.     Then  vanished  the  rose  with  the  dream's  bright 
spell, 

Thorns  in  my  breast  alone  were  left — Love  I  desire  not! 

Shall  I  ask  for  friendship  ? — that  fair  goddess  who  on  earth 

Youth   creates  ?     Ah !   who   is   there   who  would   not   friendship 
crave  ? 

She  is  first  to  give  imagination's  daughter  birth; 
Ever  to  the  uttermost  she  seeks  its  life  to  save. 

Friends,  how  happy  are  ye  all!     Ye  live  as  one,  and  hence 
Ever  the  selfsame  power  has  o'er  ye  all  control; 

Like  Armida's  palm,  whose  leaves  seemed  separate  elements 
While  the  whole  tree  was  nourished  by  one  accursed  soul. 

But  when  the  fierce  and  furious  hail-storms  strike  the  tree. 

Or  when  the  venomous  insects  poison  it.  with  their  bane, 
In  what  sharp  suffering  each  separate  branch  must  be 

For  others  and  itself!  —  I  desire  not  friendship's  pain! 

For  what,  then,  shall  I  wish,  on  this  New  Year  just  begun  ? 

Some    lovely   by-place  —  bed    of    oak  —  where    sweet    peace    de- 
scends, 
From  whence  I  could  see  never  the  brightness  of  the  sun, 

Hear  the  laugh  of  enemies,  or  see  the  tears  of  friends! 


ADAM   MICKIEWICZ 


10005 


There  until  the  world  should  end,  and  after  that  to  stay 

In  sleep  which  all  my  senses  against  all  power  should  bind, 

Dreaming  as  I  dreamt  my  golden  youthful  years  away, 

Love  the  world  —  wish  it  well  —  but  away  from  humankind. 


TO  M- 


H 


ENCE  from  my  sight!  —  I'll  obey  at  once. 

Hence  from  my  heart!  —  I  hear  and  understand. 
But  hence  from  memory?    Nay,  I  answer,  nay! 

Our  hearts  won't  listen  to  this  last  command! 


As  the  dim  shadows  that  precede  the  night 
In  deepening  circles  widen  far  and  near, 

So  when  your  image  passes  from  my  sight 
It  leaves  behind  a  memory  all  too  dear. 

In  every  place  —  wherever  we  became 

As  one  in  joy  and  sorrow  that  bereft  — 

I  will  forever  be  by  you  the  same, 

For  there  a  portion  of  my  soul  is  left. 

When  pensively  within  some  lonely  room 

You  sit  and  touch  your  harp's  melodious  string, 

You  will,  remembering,  sigh  in  twilight's  gloom, 
<(I  sang  for  him  this  song  which  now  I  sing.0 

Or  when  beside  the  chess-board  —  as  you  stand 
In  danger  of  a  checkmate  —  you  will  say, 

(<Thus  stood  the  pieces  underneath  my  hand 

When  ended  our  last  game  —  that  happy  day!® 

When  in  the  quiet  pauses  at  the  ball 
You,  sitting,  wait  for  music  to  begin, 

A  vacant  place  beside  you  will  recall 
How  once  I  used  to  sit  by  you  therein. 

When  on  the  page  that  tells  how  fate's  decree 
Parts  happy  lovers,  you  shall  bend  your  eyes, 

You'll  close  the  volume,  sighing  wearily, 

(('Tis  but  the  record  of  our  love  likewise. » 

But  if  the  author  after  weary  years 

Shall  bid  the  current  of  their  lives  reblend, 

You'll  sit  in  darkness,  whispering  through  your  tears, 
<(Why  does  not  thus  our  story  find  an  end?" 


10006  ADAM  MICKIEWICZ 

When  night's  pale  lightning  darts  with  fitful  flash 
O'er  the  old  pear-tree,  rustling  withered  leaves, 

The  while  the  screech-owl  strikes  your  window-sash, 
You'll  think  it  is  my  baffled  soul  that  grieves. 

In  every  place — in  all  remembered  ways 

Where  we  have  shared  together  bliss  or  dole  — 

Still  will  I  haunt  you  through  the  lonely  days, 
For  there  I  left  a  portion  of  my  soul. 


FROM   <THE  ANCESTORS  > 

SHE  is  fair  as  a  spirit  of  light, 
That  floats  in  the  ether  on  high, 
And  her  eye  beams  as  kindly  and  bright 

As  the  sun  in  the  azure-tinged  sky. 
The  lips  of  her  lover  join  hers 

Like  the  meeting  of  flame  with  flame, 
And  as  sweet  as  the  voice  of  two  lutes 
Which  one  harmony-  weds  the  same. 


FROM   <  PARIS  > 

No  PALMS  are  seen  with  their  green  hair, 
Nor  white-crested  desert  tents  are  there; 
But  his  brow  is  shaded  by  the  sky, 
That  flingeth  aloft  its  canopy; 
The  mighty  rocks  lie  now  at  rest, 
And  the  stars  move  slowly  on  heaven's  breast. 

MY  ARAB  steed  is  black  — 
Black  as  the  tempest  cloud  that  flies 
Across  the  dark  and  muttering  skies, 

And  leaves  a  gloomy  track. 
His  hoofs  are  shod  with  lightning's  glare; 
I  give  the  winds  his  flowing  mane, 
And  spur  him  smoking  o'er  the  plain; 
And  none  from  earth  or  heaven  dare 

My  path  to  chase  in  vain. 
And  as  my  barb  like  lightning  flies, 
I  gaze  upon  the  moonlit  skies, 
And  see  the  stars  with  golden  eyes 

Look  down  upon  the  plain. 


BINDING  SECT.  JUN  It> 


PN      The  Warner  library 

6013 

W3 

1917 

v.16 


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