[Transcriber's notes:

Bold text is denoted with ~. 

Footnotes:In the original, footnote numbering restarted on each page, and theywere collated at the end of the text in page number order. In thise-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively through the text. However, they are still to be found in their original position after thetext, and the original page numbers have been retained in thefootnotes. 

There is one footnote in the Preface, which is to be found in itsoriginal position at the end of the Preface. ]

 * * * * *

Riverside College Classics

SELECTIONS

FROM THE PROSE WORKS OF

MATTHEW ARNOLD

_EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_

BY

WILLIAM SAVAGE JOHNSON, PH. D. 

_Professor of English Literature in the University of Kansas_

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO

The Riverside Press Cambridge

_The essays included in this issue of the Riverside College Classics arereprinted by permission of, and by arrangement with, The MacmillanCompany, the American publishers of Arnold's writings. _

1913, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside PressCAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTSPRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 

PREFACE

This book of selections aims to furnish examples of Arnold's prose inall the fields in which it characteristically employed itself exceptthat of religion. It has seemed better to omit all such material than toattempt inclusion of a few extracts which could hardly give any adequatenotion of Arnold's work in this department. Something, however, of hismethod in religious criticism can be discerned by a perusal of thechapter on _Hebraism and Hellenism_, selected from _Culture andAnarchy_. Most of Arnold's leading ideas are represented in this volume, but the decision to use entire essays so far as feasible has naturallyprecluded the possibility of gathering all the important utterancestogether. The basis of division and grouping of the selections is madesufficiently obvious by the headings. In the division of literarycriticism the endeavor has been to illustrate Arnold's cosmopolitanismby essays of first-rate importance dealing with the four literatureswith which he was well acquainted. In the notes, conciseness with areasonable degree of thoroughness has been the principle followed. 

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SELECTIONS:

I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM:

 1. Poetry and the Classics (1853) 2. The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864) 3. The Study of Poetry (1880) 4. Literature and Science (1882)

II. LITERARY CRITICISM:

 1. Heinrich Heine (1863) 2. Marcus Aurelius (1863) 3. The Contribution of the Celts to English Literature (1866) 4. George Sand (1877) 5. Wordsworth (1879)

III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES:

 1. Sweetness and Light (1867) 2. Hebraism and Hellenism (1867) 3. Equality (1878)

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

I

[Sidenote: Life and Personality]

"The gray hairs on my head are becoming more and more numerous, and Isometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupationsand labor for which, after all, I was not born. But we are not here tohave facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them. "This sentence, written in a letter to his mother in his fortieth year, admirably expresses Arnold's courage, cheerfulness, and devotion in themidst of an exacting round of commonplace duties, and at the same timethe energy and determination with which he responded to the imperativeneed of liberating work of a higher order, that he might keep himself, as he says in another letter, "from feeling starved and shrunk up. " Thetwo feelings directed the course of his life to the end, a lifecharacterized no less by allegiance to "the lowliest duties" than bybrilliant success in a more attractive field. 

Matthew Arnold was born at Laleham, December 24, 1822, the eldest son ofThomas Arnold, the great head master of Rugby. He was educated atLaleham, Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1845 he waselected a fellow of Oriel, but Arnold desired to be a man of the world, and the security of college cloisters and garden walls could not longattract him. Of a deep affection for Oxford his letters and his booksspeak unmistakably, but little record of his Oxford life remains asidefrom the well-known lines of Principal Shairp, in which he is spoken ofas

 So full of power, yet blithe and debonair, Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay. 

From Oxford he returned to teach classics at Rugby, andin 1847 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then LordPresident of the Council. In 1851, the year of his marriage, he becameinspector of schools, and in this service he continued until two yearsbefore his death. As an inspector, the letters give us a picture ofArnold toiling over examination papers, and hurrying from place toplace, covering great distances, often going without lunch or dinner, orseeking the doubtful solace of a bun, eaten "before the astonishedschool. " His services to the cause of English education were great, bothin the direction of personal inspiration to teachers and students, andin thoughtful discussion of national problems. Much time was spent ininvestigating foreign systems, and his _Report upon Schools andUniversities on the Continent_ was enlightened and suggestive. 

Arnold's first volume of poems appeared in 1849, and by 1853 the largerpart of his poetry was published. Four years later he was appointedProfessor of Poetry at Oxford. Of his prose, the first book to attractwide notice was that containing the lectures _On Translating Homer_delivered from the chair of Poetry and published in 1861-62. From thistime until the year of his death appeared the remarkable series ofcritical writings which have placed him in the front rank of the men ofletters of his century. He continued faithfully to fulfill his duties asschool inspector until April, 1886, when he resigned after a service ofthirty-five years. He died of heart trouble on April 15, 1888, atLiverpool. 

The testimony to Arnold's personal charm, to his cheerfulness, hisurbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform. He isdescribed by one who knew him as "the most sociable, the most lovable, the most companionable of men"; by another as "preëminently a good man, gentle, generous, enduring, laborious. " His letters are among theprecious writings of our time, not because of the beauty orinimitableness of detail, but because of the completed picture whichthey make. They do not, like the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence, show ahand that could not set pen to paper without writing picturesquely, butthey do reveal a character of great soundness and sweetness, and one inwhich the affections play a surprisingly important part, the love offlowers and books, of family and friends, and of his fellow men. Hislife was human, kindly and unselfish, and he allowed no clash betweenthe pursuit of personal perfection and devotion to the public cause, even when the latter demanded sacrifice of the most cherished projectsand adherence to the most irritating drudgery. 

II

[Sidenote: Arnold's Place among Nineteenth-Century Teachers]

By those who go to literature primarily for a practical wisdom presentedin terms applicable to modern life, the work of Arnold will be reckonedhighly important, if not indispensable. He will be placed by them amongthe great humanizers of the last century, and by comparison with hiscontemporaries will be seen to have furnished a complementarycontribution of the highest value. Of the other great teachers whosework may most fitly be compared with his, two were preëminently men offeeling. Carlyle was governed by an overmastering moral fervor whichgave great weight to his utterances, but which exercised itself in anarrow field and which often distorted and misinterpreted the facts. Ruskin was governed by his affections, and though an ardent lover oftruth and beauty, was often the victim of caprice and extravagance. Emerson and Arnold, on the other hand, were governed primarily by theintellect, but with quite different results. Emerson presents life inits ideality; he comparatively neglects life in its phenomenal aspect, that is, as it appears to the ordinary man. Arnold, while not withoutemotional equipment, and inspired by idealism of a high order, introduces a yet larger element of practical season. _Tendens manus ripæulterioris amore_, he is yet first of all a man of this world. His chiefinstrument is common sense, and he looks at questions from the point ofview of the highly intelligent and cultivated man. His dislike ofmetaphysics was as deep as Ruskin's, and he was impatient ofabstractions of any sort. With as great a desire to further the trueprogress of his time as Carlyle or Ruskin, he joined a greater calmnessand disinterestedness. "To be less and less personal in one's desiresand workings" he learned to look upon as after all the great matter. Ofthe lessons that are impressed upon us by his whole life and work ratherthan by specific teachings, perhaps the most precious is the inspirationto live our lives thoughtfully, in no haphazard and hand-to-mouth way, and to live always for the idea and the spirit, making all things elsesubservient. He does not dazzle us with extraordinary power prodigallyspent, but he was a good steward of natural gifts, high, though belowthe highest. His life of forethought and reason may be profitablycompared with a life spoiled by passion and animalism like that of Byronor of Burns. His counsels are the fruit of this well-ordered life andare perfectly in consonance with it. While he was a man of less strikingpersonality and less brilliant literary gift than some of hiscontemporaries, and though his appeal was without the moving power thatcomes from great emotion, we find a compensation in his greater balanceand sanity. He makes singularly few mistakes, and these chiefly ofdetail. Of all the teachings of the age his ideal of perfection is thewisest and the most permanent. 

III

[Sidenote: His Teachers and his Personal Philosophy]

Arnold's poetry is the poetry of meditation and not the poetry ofpassion; it comes from "the depth and not the tumult of the soul"; itdoes not make us more joyful, but it helps us to greater depth ofvision, greater detachment, greater power of self-possession. Ourconcern here is chiefly with its relation to the prose, and this, too, is a definite and important relation. In his prose Arnold gives suchresult of his observation and meditation as he believes may be gatheredinto the form of counsel, criticism, and warning to his age. In hispoetry, which preceded the prose, we find rather the processes throughwhich he reached these conclusions; we learn what is the nature of hiscommuning upon life, not as it affects society, but as it fronts theindividual; we learn who are the great thinkers of the past who came tohis help in the straits of life, and what is the armor which theyfurnished for his soul in its times of stress. 

One result of a perusal of the poems is to counteract the impressionoften produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The realsubstance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; noone felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age. More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritualsickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as_Dover Beach_ and _Stagirius_ should be placed the lines from_Westminster Abbey_:--

 For this and that way swings The flux of mortal things, Though moving inly to one far-set goal. 

Out of this entanglement and distraction Arnold turned for help to thosewriters who seemed most perfectly to have seized upon the eternalverities, to have escaped out of the storm of conflict and to havegained calm and peaceful seats. Carlyle and Ruskin, Byron and Shelley, were stained with the blood of battle, they raged in the heat ofcontroversy; Arnold could not accept them as his teachers. But the Greekpoets and the ancient Stoic philosophers have nothing of this dust andheat about them, and to them Arnold turns to gather truth and to imitatetheir spirit. Similarly, two poets of modern times, Goethe andWordsworth, have won tranquillity. They, too, become his teachers. Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets, Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius andEpictetus; two modern poets, Goethe and Wordsworth. 

In Homer and Sophocles, Arnold sought what we may call the Greek spirit. What he conceived this spirit to be as expressed in art, we find in theessay on _Literature and Science_, "fit details strictly combined, inview of a large general result nobly conceived. " In Sophocles, Arnoldfound the same spirit interpreting life with a vision that "saw lifesteadily and saw it whole. " In another Greek idea, that of fate, he isalso greatly interested, though his conception of it is modified by theinfluence of Christianity. From the Greek poets, then, Arnold derived asense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdomof conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving oflife as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and thedesirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makeson us, of adapting fit details to the main purpose of life. 

Among modern writers Arnold turned first to Goethe, "Europe's sagesthead, Physician of the Iron Age. " One of the things that he learned fromthis source was the value of detachment. In the midst of the turmoil oflife, Goethe found refuge in Art. He is the great modern example of aman who has been able to separate himself from the struggle of life andwatch it calmly. 

 He who hath watch'd, not shared the strife, Knows how the day hath gone. 

Aloofness, provided it be not selfish, has its own value, and, indeed, isolation must be recognized as a law of our existence. 

 Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, And faint the city gleams; Rare the lone pastoral huts--Marvel not thou! The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, But to the stars and the cold lunar beams; Alone the sun rises, and alone Spring the great streams. 

From Goethe, also, Arnold derived the gospel of culture and faith in theintellectual life. It is significant that while Carlyle and Arnold mayboth be looked upon as disciples of Goethe, Carlyle's mostcharacteristic quotation from his master is his injunction to us to "dothe task that lies nearest us, " while Arnold's is such a maxim as, "Toact is easy, to think is hard. "

In some ways Wordsworth was for Arnold a personality even more congenialthan Goethe. His range, to be sure, is narrow, but he, too, has attainedspiritual peace. His life, secure among its English hills and lakes, wasuntroubled in its faith. Wordsworth strongly reinforces three things inArnold, the ability to derive from nature its "healing power" and toshare and be glad in "the wonder and bloom of the world"; truth to thedeeper spiritual life and strength to keep his soul

 Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to the mark, not spent on other things;

and finally, a satisfaction in the cheerful and serene performance ofduty, the spirit of "toil unsevered from tranquillity, " sharing in theworld's work, yet keeping "free from dust and soil. "

From the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and from the slave Epictetus alike, Arnold learned to look within for "the aids to noble life. " Overshadowedon all sides by the "uno'erleaped mountains of necessity, " we must learnto resign our passionate hopes "for quiet and a fearless mind, " to mergethe self in obedience to universal law, and to keep ever before ourminds

 The pure eternal course of life, Not human combatings with death. 

No conviction is more frequently reiterated in Arnold's poetry than thatof the wisdom of resignation and self-dependence. 

These great masters, then, strengthened Arnold in those high instinctswhich needed nourishment in a day of spiritual unrest. From the Greekpoets he learned to look at life steadily and as a whole, to direct ittoward simple and noble ends, and to preserve in it a balance andperfection of parts. From Goethe he derived the lessons of detachmentand self-culture. From Wordsworth he learned to find peace in nature, topursue an unworldly purpose, and to be content with humble duties. Fromthe Stoics he learned, especially, self-dependence and resignation. Ingeneral, he endeavored to follow an ideal of perfection and todistinguish always between temporary demands and eternal values. 

IV

[Sidenote: Theory of Criticism and Equipment as a Critic]

In passing from poetry to criticism, Arnold did not feel that he wasdescending to a lower level. Rather he felt that he was helping to liftcriticism to a position of equality with more properly creative work. The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its loftyambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate thebest that is known and thought in the world, " and its more ultimatepurpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding andvulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection. " It is not to be confinedto art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which isblameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best. 

For this work great virtues are demanded of the critic. Foremost ofthese is disinterestedness. "If I know your sect, I anticipate yourargument, " says Emerson in the essay on _Self-Reliance_. SimilarlyArnold warns the critic against partisanship. It is better that herefrain from active participation in politics, social or humanitarianwork. Connected with this is another requisite, that of clearness ofvision. One of the great disadvantages of partisanship is that it blindsthe partisan. But the critical effort is described as "the effort to seethe object as in itself it really is. " This is best accomplished byapproaching truth in as many ways and from as many sides as possible. 

Another precaution for the critic who would retain clearness of visionis the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder thenecessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined andscrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected . .. That thecritic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one'sridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to hismother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which inArnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutarycriticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's ownmind and methods: the endeavor to understand, to sympathize with, and toguide intelligently the main tendencies of his age, rather thanviolently to oppose them; at the same time the courage to presentunpleasant antidotes to its faults and to keep from fostering a peoplein its own conceit; and finally, amidst many discouragements, theretention of a high faith in spiritual progress and an unwavering beliefthat the ideal life is "the normal life as we shall one day see it. "

Criticism, to be effective, requires also an adequate style. In Arnold'sdiscussion of style, much stress is laid on its basis in character, andmuch upon the transparent quality of true style which allows that basiccharacter to shine through. Such words as "limpidness, " "simplicity, ""lucidity, " are favorites. Clearness and effectiveness are the qualitiesthat he most highly valued. The latter he gained especially through thecrystallization of his thought into certain telling phrases, such as"Philistinism, " "sweetness and light, " "the grand style, " etc. That thishabit was attended with dangers, that his readers were likely to gethold of his phrases and think that they had thereby mastered histhought, he realized. Perhaps he hardly realized the danger to thecoiner of apothegms himself, that of being content with a half truthwhen the whole truth cannot be conveniently crowded into narrow compass. Herein lies, I think, the chief source of Arnold's occasional failure toquite satisfy our sense of adequacy or of justice, as, for instance, inhis celebrated handling of the four ways of regarding nature, or thepassage in which he describes the sterner self of the working-class asliking "bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer. "

By emotionalism, however, he does not allow himself to be betrayed, andhe does not indulge in rhythmical prose or rhapsody, though occasionallyhis writing has a truly poetical quality resulting from the quiet butdeep feeling which rises in connection with a subject on which the mindhas long brooded with affection, as in the tribute to Oxford at thebeginning of the _Essay on Emerson_. Sometimes, on the other hand, acertain pedagogic stiffness appears, as if the writer feared that thedullness of comprehension of his readers would not allow them to graspeven the simplest conceptions without a patient insistence on theliteral fact. 

One can by no means pass over Arnold's humor in a discussion of hisstyle, yet humor is certainly a secondary matter with him, in spite ofthe frequency of its appearance. It is not much found in his moreintimate and personal writing, his poetry and his familiar letters. Insuch a book as _Friendship's Garland_, where it is most in evidence, itis plainly a literary weapon deliberately assumed. In fact, Arnold isalmost too conscious of the value of humor in the gentle warfare inwhich he had enlisted. Its most frequent form is that of playful satire;it is the product of keen wit and sane mind, and it is always directedtoward some serious purpose, rarely, if ever, existing as an end initself. 

V

[Sidenote: Literary Criticism]

The first volume of _Essays in Criticism_ was published in 1865. That abook of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character, so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort, should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make sosingle an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominantand important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality. What Arnold called his "sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding"tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behindnearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the twovolumes of _Essays in Criticism_ and the volume of _Mixed Essays_discloses what that purpose is. The essays may roughly be divided intotwo classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussingsubjects of more general nature. The purpose of both is what Arnoldhimself has called "the humanization of man in society. " In the formerhe selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selectssome general idea, which he deems of importance for our furtherhumanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustratesit for us. But in spite of this unlabored method he takes care somewherein the essay to seize upon a phrase that shall bring home to us theessence of his theme and to make it salient enough so as not to escapeus. How much space shall be devoted to exposition, and how much toillustration, depends largely on the familiarity of his subject to hisreaders. Besides the general purpose of humanization, two otherconsiderations guide him: the racial shortcomings of the English peopleand the needs of his age. The English are less in need of energizing andmoralizing than of intellectualizing, refining, and inspiring with thepassion for perfection. This need accordingly determines the choice inmost cases. So Milton presents an example of "sure and flawlessperfection of rhythm and diction"; Joubert is characterized by hisintense care of "perfecting himself"; Falkland is "our martyr ofsweetness and light, of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper";George Sand is admirable because of her desire to make the ideal lifethe normal one; Emerson is "the friend and aider of those who would livein the spirit. "

The belief that poetry is our best instrument for humanizationdetermines Arnold's loyalty to that form of art; that classical art issuperior to modern in clarity, harmony, and wholeness of effect, determines his preference for classic, especially for Greek poetry. Hethus represents a reaction against the romantic movement, yet hasexperienced the emotional deepening which that movement brought with it. Accordingly, he finds a shallowness in the pseudo-classicism of Pope andhis contemporaries, and turns rather to Sophocles on the one hand andGoethe on the other for his exemplars. He feels "the peculiar charm andaroma of the Middle Age, " but retains "a strong sense of theirrationality of that period and of those who take it seriously, andplay at restoring it" (letter to Miss Arnold, December 17, 1860); andagain: "No one has a stronger and more abiding sense than I have of the'dæmonic' element--as Goethe called it--which underlies and encompassesour life; but I think, as Goethe thought, that the right thing is whileconscious of this element, and of all that there is inexplicable roundone, to keep pushing on one's posts into the darkness, and to establishno post that is not perfectly in light and firm" (letter to his mother, March 3, 1865). 

VI

[Sidenote: Criticism of Society, Politics, and Religion]

Like the work of all clear thinkers, Arnold's writing proceeds from afew governing and controlling principles. It is natural, therefore, thatwe should find in his criticism of society a repetition of the ideasalready encountered in his literary criticism. Of these, the chief isthat of "culture, " the theme of his most typical book, _Culture andAnarchy_, published in 1869. Indeed, it is interesting to see howclosely related his doctrine of culture is to his theory of criticism, already expounded. True criticism, we have seen, consists in an"endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought inthe world. " The shortest definition that Arnold gives of culture is "astudy of perfection. " But how may one pursue perfection? Evidently byputting oneself in the way of learning the best that is known andthought, and by making it a part of oneself. The relation of the criticto culture thereupon becomes evident. He is the appointed apostle ofculture. He undertakes as his duty in life to seek out and to ministerto others the means of self-improvement, discriminating the evil and thespecious from the good and the genuine, rendering the formercontemptible and the latter attractive. But in a degree all seekersafter culture must be critics also. Both pursue the same objects, thebest that is thought and known. Both, too, must propagate it; forculture consists in general expansion, and the last degree of personalperfection is attained only when shared with one's fellows. The criticand the true man of culture are, therefore, at bottom, the same, thoughArnold does not specifically point this out. But the two ideals unitedin himself direct all his endeavor. As a man of culture he is intentchiefly upon the acquisition of the means of perfection; as a critic, upon their elucidation and propagation. 

This sufficiently answers the charge of selfishness that in frequentlybrought against the gospel of culture. It would never have been broughtif its critics had not perversely shut their eyes to Arnold's expressstatements that perfection consists in "a general expansion"; that it"is not possible while the individual remains isolated"; that one of itscharacteristics is "increased sympathy, " as well as "increasedsweetness, increased light, increased life. " The other common charge ofdilettanteism, brought by such opponents as Professor Huxley and Mr. Frederic Harrison, deserves hardly more consideration. Arnold has madeit sufficiently clear that he does not mean by culture "a smattering ofGreek and Latin, " but a deepening and strengthening of our wholespiritual nature by all the means at our command. No other ideal of thecentury is so satisfactory as this of Arnold's. The ideal of socialdemocracy, as commonly followed, tends, as Arnold has pointed out, toexalt the average man, while culture exalts man at his best. Thescientific ideal, divorced from a general cultural aim, appeals "to alimited faculty and not to the whole man. " The religious ideal, tooexclusively cultivated, dwarfs the sense of beauty and is marked bynarrowness. Culture includes religion as its most valuable component, but goes beyond it. 

The fact that Arnold, in his social as in his literary criticism, laidthe chief stress upon the intellectual rather than the moral elements ofculture, was due to his constant desire to adapt his thought to thecondition of his age and nation. The prevailing characteristics of theEnglish people he believed to be energy and honesty. These he contrastswith the chief characteristics of the Athenians, openness of mind andflexibility of intelligence. As the best type of culture, that is, ofperfected humanity, for the Englishman to emulate, he turns, therefore, to Greece in the time of Sophocles, Greece, to be sure, failed becauseof the lack of that very Hebraism which England possesses and to whichshe owes her strength. But if to this strength of moral fiber could beadded the openness of mind, flexibility of intelligence, and love ofbeauty which distinguished the Greeks in their best period, a trulygreat civilization would result. That this ideal will in the endprevail, he has little doubt. The strain of sadness, melancholy, anddepression which appears in Arnold's poetry is rigidly excluded from hisprose. Both despondency and violence are forbidden to the believer inculture. "We go the way the human race is going, " he says at the closeof _Culture and Anarchy_. 

Arnold's incursion into the field of religion has been looked upon bymany as a mistake. Religion is with most people a matter of closerinterest and is less discussable than literary criticism. _Literatureand Dogma_, aroused much antagonism on this account. Moreover, it cannotbe denied that Arnold was not well enough equipped in this field toprevent him from making a good many mistakes. But that the upshot of hisreligious teaching is wholesome and edifying can hardly be denied. Arnold's spirit is a deeply religious one, and his purpose in hisreligious books was to save what was valuable in religion by separatingit from what was non-essential. He thought of himself always as afriend, not as an enemy, of religion. The purpose of all his religiouswritings, of which _St. Paul and Protestantism_, 1870, and _Literatureand Dogma_, 1873, are the most important, is the same, to show thenatural truth of religion and to strengthen its position by freeing itfrom dependence on dogma and historical evidence, and especially to makeclear the essential value of Christianity. Conformity with reason, truespirituality, and freedom from materialistic interpretation were for himthe bases of sound faith. That Arnold's religious writing is thoroughlyspiritual in its aim and tendency has, I think, never been questioned, and we need only examine some of his leading definitions to becomeconvinced of this. Thus, religion is described as "that which binds andholds us to the practice of righteousness"; faith is the "power, preëminently, of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness"; God is"the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness"; immortality isa union of one's life with an eternal order that never dies. Arnold didnot without reluctance enter into religious controversy, but when onceentered he did his best to make order and reason prevail there. Hisattitude is well stated in an early essay not since reprinted:--

 "And you are masters in Israel, and know not these things; and you require a voice from the world of literature to tell them to you! Those who ask nothing better than to remain silent on such topics, who have to quit their own sphere to speak of them, who cannot touch them without being reminded that they survive those who touched them with far different power, you compel, in the mere interest of letters, of intelligence, of general culture, to proclaim truths which it was your function to have made familiar. And when you have thus forced the very stones to cry out, and the dumb to speak, you call them singular because they know these truths, and arrogant because they declare them!"[1]

In political discussion as in all other forms of criticism Arnold aimedat disinterestedness. "I am a Liberal, " he says in the Introduction to_Culture and Anarchy_, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflection, and self-renouncement. " In the last condition he believedthat his particular strength lay. "I do not wish to see men of cultureentrusted with power. " In his coolness and freedom from bitterness is tobe found his chief superiority to his more violent contemporaries. Thissaved him from magnifying the faults inseparable from the socialmovements of his day. In contrast with Carlyle he retains to the end asympathy with the advance of democracy and a belief in the principles ofliberty and equality, while not blinded to the weaknesses of Liberalism. Political discussion in the hands of its express partisans is alwayslikely to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidednessArnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expressesit, in _Culture and Anarchy_, "Culture is the eternal opponent of thetwo things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism, --its fierceness andits addiction to an abstract system. "

VII

[Sidenote: Conclusion]

"Un Milton jeune et voyageant" was George Sand's description of theyoung Arnold. The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in thisdescription, he carried from youth into manhood and age. The innocence, the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to theend. But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, awisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period. Hisprose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountableinspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of hiscontemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities ofill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarifiedair of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying andstrengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality. 

[Footnote 1: From _Dr. Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, Macmillan's Magazine_, February, 1863, vol. 7, p. 336. ]

~BIBLIOGRAPHY~

ARNOLD'S POEMS. 

1849. _The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems_. 1852. ~Empedocles onEtna, and other Poems~. 1853. _Poems_. 1855. _Poems_ (Second Series). 1858. _Merope_. 1867. _New Poems_. 1869. _Poems_ (First CollectedEdition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877, 1881, 1885, and 1890. )

ARNOLD'S PROSE. 

1859. _England and the Italian Question_. 1861. _Popular Education inFrance_. 1861. _On Translating Homer_. 1862. _Last Words on TranslatingHomer_. 1864. _A French Eton_. 1865. _Essays in Criticism_. 1867. _Onthe Study of Celtic Literature_. 1868. _Schools and Universities on theContinent_. 1869. _Culture and Anarchy_. 1870. _St. Paul andProtestantism_. 1871. _Friendship's Garland_. 1873. _Literature andDogma_. 1875. _God and the Bible_. 1877. _Last Essays on Church andReligion_. 1879. _Mixed Essays_. 1882. _Irish Essays_. 1885. _Discoursesin America_. 1888. _Essays in Criticism_ (Second Series). 1888. _Civilization in the United States_. 1891. _On Home Rule for Ireland_. 1910. _Essays in Criticism_ (Third Series). 

For a complete bibliography of Arnold's writings and of Arnoldcriticism, see _Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, by T. B. Smart, London, 1892. The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G. W. E. Russell in 1896. 

CRITICISM OF ARNOLD'S PROSE. 

BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE: _Res Judicatæ_, London, 1892. 

BROWNELL, W. C. : _Victorian Prose Masters_, New York, 1902. 

BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Indoor Studies_, Boston, 1889. 

DAWSON, W. H. : _Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of ourTime_, New York, 1904. 

FITCH, SIR JOSHUA: _Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence onEnglish Education_, New York, 1897. 

GATES, L. E. : _Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold_, NewYork, 1898. 

HARRISON, FREDERIC: _Culture; A Dialogue_. In _The Choice of Books_, London, 1886. 

HUTTON, R. H. : _Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith_, London, 1887. 

JACOBS, JOSEPH: _Literary Studies_, London, 1895. 

PAUL, HERBERT W. : _Matthew Arnold_. In _English Men of Letters Series_, London and New York, 1902. 

ROBERTSON, JOHN M. : _Modern Humanists_, London, 1891. 

RUSSELL, G. W. E. : _Matthew Arnold_, New York, 1904. 

SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: _Corrected Impressions_, London, 1895. _MatthewArnold_. In _Modern English Writers Series_, London, 1899. 

SHAIRP, J. C. : _Culture and Religion_, Edinburgh, 1870. 

SPEDDING, JAMES: _Reviews and Discussions_, London, 1879. 

STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE: _Studies of a Biographer_, vol. 2, London, 1898. 

WOODBERRY, GEORGE E. : _Makers of Literature_, London, 1900. 

~SELECTIONS FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD~

I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM

POETRY AND THE CLASSICS[1]

In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, theother in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume havealready appeared. The rest are now published for the first time. 

I have, in the present collection, omitted the poem[2] from which thevolume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because thesubject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousandyears ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in thedelineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate thefeelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one ofthe family of Orpheus and Musæus, having survived his fellows, living oninto a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fastto change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists[3] toprevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there are entered muchthat we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, thefragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient atleast to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the greatmonuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusivecharacteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, thedisinterested objectivity have disappeared; the dialogue of the mindwith itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; wehear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and ofFaust. 

The representation of such a man's feelings must be interesting, ifconsistently drawn. We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle, [4]in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of ourlove of poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because allknowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, butto mankind at large. Every representation therefore which isconsistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as itgratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is _not_interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind;that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representationwhich is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, precise, and firm. 

Any accurate representation may therefore be expected to be interesting;but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this isdemanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also thatit shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm, and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod[5] says, were born thatthey might be "a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares": and itis not enough that the poet should add to the knowledge of men, it isrequired of him also that he should add to their happiness. "All art, "says Schiller, "is dedicated to joy, and there is no higher and no moreserious problem, than how to make men happy. The right art is thatalone, which creates the highest enjoyment. "

A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it has been shownto be an accurate, and therefore interesting representation; it has tobe shown also that it is a representation from which men can deriveenjoyment. In presence of the most tragic circumstances, represented ina work of art, the feeling of enjoyment, as is well known, may stillsubsist: the representation of the most utter calamity, of the liveliestanguish, is not sufficient to destroy it: the more tragic the situation, the deeper becomes the enjoyment; and the situation is more tragic inproportion as it becomes more terrible. 

What then are the situations, from the representation of which, thoughaccurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in whichthe suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state ofmental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, orresistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to bedone. In such situations there is inevitably something morbid, in thedescription of them something monotonous. When they occur in actuallife, they are painful, not tragic; the representation of them in poetryis painful also. 

To this class of situations, poetically faulty as it appears to me, thatof Empedocles, as I have endeavored to represent him, belongs; and Ihave therefore excluded the poem from the present collection. 

And why, it may be asked, have I entered into this explanationrespecting a matter so unimportant as the admission or exclusion of thepoem in question? I have done so, because I was anxious to avow that thesole reason for its exclusion was that which has been stated above; andthat it has not been excluded in deference to the opinion which manycritics of the present day appear to entertain against subjects chosenfrom distant times and countries: against the choice, in short, of anysubjects but modern ones. 

"The poet, " it is said, [6] and by an intelligent critic, "the poet whowould really fix the public attention must leave the exhausted past, anddraw his subjects from matters of present import, and _therefore_ bothof interest and novelty. "

Now this view I believe to be completely false. It is worth examining, inasmuch as it is a fair sample of a class of critical dicta everywherecurrent at the present day, having a philosophical form and air, but noreal basis in fact; and which are calculated to vitiate the judgment ofreaders of poetry, while they exert, so far as they are adopted, amisleading influence on the practice of those who make it. 

What are the eternal objects of poetry, among all nations and at alltimes? They are actions; human actions; possessing an inherent interestin themselves, and which are to be communicated in an interesting mannerby the art of the poet. Vainly will the latter imagine that he haseverything in his own power; that he can make an intrinsically inferioraction equally delightful with a more excellent one by his treatment ofit: he may indeed compel us to admire his skill, but his work willpossess, within itself, an incurable defect. 

The poet, then, has in the first place to select an excellent action;and what actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which mostpowerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to thoseelementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which areindependent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; thatwhich interests them is permanent and the same also. The modernness orantiquity of an action, therefore, has nothing to do with its fitnessfor poetical representation; this depends upon its inherent qualities. To the elementary part of our nature, to our passions, that which isgreat and passionate is eternally interesting; and interesting solely inproportion to its greatness and to its passion. A great human action ofa thousand years ago is more interesting to it than a smaller humanaction of to-day, even though upon the representation of this last themost consummate skill may have been expended, and though it has theadvantage of appealing by its modern language, familiar manners, andcontemporary allusions, to all our transient feelings and interests. These, however, have no right to demand of a poetical work that it shallsatisfy them; their claims are to be directed elsewhere. Poetical worksbelong to the domain of our permanent passions: let them interest these, and the voice of all subordinate claims upon them is at once silenced. 

Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra, Dido[7]--what modern poem presentspersonages as interesting, even to us moderns, as these personages of an"exhausted past"? We have the domestic epic dealing with the details ofmodern life, which pass daily under our eyes; we have poems representingmodern personages in contact with the problems of modern life, moral, intellectual, and social; these works have been produced by poets themost distinguished of their nation and time; yet I fearlessly assertthat _Hermann and Dorothea_, _Childe Harold_, _Jocelyn_, the_Excursion_, [8] leave the reader cold in comparison with the effectproduced upon him by the latter books of the _Iliad_, by the _Oresteia_, or by the episode of Dido. And why is this? Simply because in the threelast-named cases the action is greater, the personages nobler, thesituations more intense: and this is the true basis of the interest in apoetical work, and this alone. 

It may be urged, however, that past actions may be interesting inthemselves, but that they are not to be adopted by the modern poet, because it is impossible for him to have them clearly present to his ownmind, and he cannot therefore feel them deeply, nor represent themforcibly. But this is not necessarily the case. The externals of a pastaction, indeed, he cannot know with the precision of a contemporary; buthis business is with its essentials. The outward man of Oedipus[9] or ofMacbeth, the houses in which they lived, the ceremonies of their courts, he cannot accurately figure to himself; but neither do they essentiallyconcern him. His business is with their inward man; with their feelingsand behavior in certain tragic situations, which engage their passionsas men; these have in them nothing local and casual; they are asaccessible to the modern poet as to a contemporary. 

The date of an action, then, signifies nothing: the action itself, itsselection and construction, this is what is all-important. This theGreeks understood far more clearly than we do. The radical differencebetween their poetical theory and ours consists, as it appears to me, inthis: that, with them, the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, was the first consideration; with us, attentionis fixed mainly on the value of the separate thoughts and images whichoccur in the treatment of an action. They regarded the whole; we regardthe parts. With them, the action predominated over the expression of it;with us, the expression predominates over the action. Not that theyfailed in expression, or were inattentive to it; on the contrary, theyare the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the_grand style_:[10] but their expression is so excellent because it is soadmirably kept in its right degree of prominence; because it is sosimple and so well subordinated; because it draws its force directlyfrom the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys. For what reason wasthe Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects?Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in thehighest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thoughtthat on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem beconstructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently adapted for tragedy, maintained almost exclusive possession of the Greek tragic stage. Theirsignificance appeared inexhaustible; they were as permanent problems, perpetually offered to the genius of every fresh poet. This too is thereason of what appears to us moderns a certain baldness of expression inGreek tragedy; of the triviality with which we often reproach theremarks of the chorus, where it takes part in the dialogue: that theaction itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon, [11] wasto stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract thespectator's attention from this, that the tone of the parts was to beperpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect ofthe whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was foundedstood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines uponthe spectator's mind; it stood in his memory, as a group of statuary, faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the poet, embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not asentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke, the dramaproceeded: the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealeditself to the riveted gaze of the spectator: until at last, when thefinal words were spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a modelof immortal beauty. This was what a Greek critic demanded; this waswhat a Greek poet endeavored to effect. It signified nothing to whattime an action belonged. We do not find that the _Persæ_ occupied aparticularly high rank among the dramas of Æschylus because itrepresented a matter of contemporary interest: this was not what acultivated Athenian required. He required that the permanent elements ofhis nature should be moved; and dramas of which the action, though takenfrom a long-distant mythic time, yet was calculated to accomplish thisin a higher degree than that of the _Persæ_, stood higher in hisestimation accordingly. The Greeks felt, no doubt, with their exquisitesagacity of taste, that an action of present times was too near them, too much mixed up with what was accidental and passing, to form asufficiently grand, detached, and self-subsistent object for a tragicpoem. Such objects belonged to the domain of the comic poet, and of thelighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious kinds, for _pragmatic_poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius, [12] they were moredifficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted. Their theory and practice alike, the admirable treatise of Aristotle, and the unrivalled works of their poets, exclaim with a thousandtongues--"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, penetrate yourself with the feeling of its situations; this done, everything else will follow. "

But for all kinds of poetry alike there was one point on which they wererigidly exacting; the adaptability of the subject to the kind of poetryselected, and the careful construction of the poem. 

How different a way of thinking from this is ours! We can hardly at thepresent day understand what Menander[13] meant, when he told a man whoenquired as to the progress of his comedy that he had finished it, nothaving yet written a single line, because he had constructed the actionof it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the meritof his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his penas he went along. We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sakeof single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing anytotal-impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attentionmerely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not tothe action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not intheir hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression tobe derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they thinkthe term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit thepoet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go asit will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of finewriting, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided thathe gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of hisneglecting to gratify these, there is little danger; he needs rather tobe warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; heneeds rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action toeverything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellencesto develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of hispersonal peculiarities: most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds ineffacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did innature. 

But the modern critic not only permits a false practice: he absolutelyprescribes false aims. "A true allegory of the state of one's own mindin a representative history, " the poet is told, "is perhaps the highestthing that one can attempt in the way of poetry. " And accordingly heattempts it. An allegory of the state of one's own mind, the highestproblem of an art which imitates actions! No assuredly, it is not, itnever can be so: no great poetical work has ever been produced with suchan aim. _Faust_ itself, in which something of the kind is attempted, wonderful passages as it contains, and in spite of the unsurpassedbeauty of the scenes which relate to Margaret, _Faust_ itself, judged asa whole, and judged strictly as a poetical work, is defective: itsillustrious author, the greatest poet of modern times, the greatestcritic of all times, would have been the first to acknowledge it; heonly defended his work, indeed, by asserting it to be "somethingincommensurable. "

The confusion of the present times is great, the multitude of voicescounselling different things bewildering, the number of existing workscapable of attracting a young writer's attention and of becoming hismodels, immense: what he wants is a hand to guide him through theconfusion, a voice to prescribe to him the aim which he should keep inview, and to explain to him that the value of the literary works whichoffer themselves to his attention is relative to their power of helpinghim forward on his road towards this aim. Such a guide the Englishwriter at the present day will nowhere find. Failing this, all that canbe looked for, all indeed that can be desired, is, that his attentionshould be fixed on excellent models; that he may reproduce, at any rate, something of their excellence, by penetrating himself with their worksand by catching their spirit, if he cannot be taught to produce what isexcellent independently. 

Foremost among these models for the English writer stands Shakespeare: aname the greatest perhaps of all poetical names; a name never to bementioned without reverence. I will venture, however, to express a doubtwhether the influence of his works, excellent and fruitful for thereaders of poetry, for the great majority, has been an unmixed advantageto the writers of it. Shakespeare indeed chose excellent subjects--theworld could afford no better than _Macbeth_, or _Romeo and Juliet_, or_Othello_: he had no theory respecting the necessity of choosingsubjects of present import, or the paramount interest attaching toallegories of the state of one's own mind; like all great poets, he knewwell what constituted a poetical action; like them, wherever he foundsuch an action, he took it; like them, too, he found his best in pasttimes. But to these general characteristics of all great poets he addeda special one of his own; a gift, namely, of happy, abundant, andingenious expression, eminent and unrivalled: so eminent as irresistiblyto strike the attention first in him and even to throw into comparativeshade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been the mischief. Theseother excellences were his fundamental excellences, _as a poet_; whatdistinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is_Architectonicè_ in the highest sense; that power of execution whichcreates, forms, and constitutes: not the profoundness of singlethoughts, not the richness of imagery, not the abundance ofillustration. But these attractive accessories of a poetical work beingmore easily seized than the spirit of the whole, and these accessoriesbeing possessed by Shakespeare in an unequalled degree, a young writerhaving recourse to Shakespeare as his model runs great risk of beingvanquished and absorbed by them, and, in consequence, of reproducing, according to the measure of his power, these, and these alone. Of thisprepondering quality of Shakespeare's genius, accordingly, almost thewhole of modern English poetry has, it appears to me, felt theinfluence. To the exclusive attention on the part of his imitators tothis, it is in a great degree owing that of the majority of modernpoetical works the details alone are valuable, the compositionworthless. In reading them one is perpetually reminded of that terriblesentence on a modern French poet, --_il dit tout ce qu'il veut, maismalheureusement il n'a rien a dire. _[14]

Let me give an instance of what I mean. I will take it from the works ofthe very chief among those who seem to have been formed in the school ofShakespeare; of one whose exquisite genius and pathetic death render himforever interesting. I will take the poem of _Isabella, or the Pot ofBasil_, by Keats. I choose this rather than the _Endymion_, because thelatter work (which a modern critic has classed with the Faery Queen!), although undoubtedly there blows through it the breath of genius, is yetas a whole so utterly incoherent, as not strictly to merit the name of apoem at all. The poem of _Isabella_, then, is a perfect treasure-houseof graceful and felicitous words and images: almost in every stanzathere occurs one of those vivid and picturesque turns of expression, bywhich the object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind, and whichthrill the reader with a sudden delight. This one short poem contains, perhaps, a greater number of happy single expressions which one couldquote than all the extant tragedies of Sophocles. But the action, thestory? The action in itself is an excellent one; but so feebly is itconceived by the poet, so loosely constructed, that the effect producedby it, in and for itself, is absolutely null. Let the reader, after hehas finished the poem of Keats, turn to the same story in the_Decameron_:[15] he will then feel how pregnant and interesting the sameaction has become in the hands of a great artist, who above all thingsdelineates his object; who subordinates expression to that which it isdesigned to express. 

I have said that the imitators of Shakespeare, fixing their attention onhis wonderful gift of expression, have directed their imitation to this, neglecting his other excellences. These excellences, the fundamentalexcellences of poetical art, Shakespeare no doubt possessed them--possessed many of them in a splendid degree; but it may perhaps bedoubted whether even he himself did not sometimes give scope to hisfaculty of expression to the prejudice of a higher poetical duty. For wemust never forget that Shakespeare is the great poet he is from hisskill in discerning and firmly conceiving an excellent action, from hispower of intensely feeling a situation, of intimately associatinghimself with a character; not from his gift of expression, which rathereven leads him astray, degenerating sometimes into a fondness forcuriosity of expression, into an irritability of fancy, which seems tomake it impossible for him to say a thing plainly, even when the pressof the action demands the very directest language, or its levelcharacter the very simplest. Mr. Hallam, [16] than whom it is impossibleto find a saner and more judicious critic, has had the courage (for atthe present day it needs courage) to remark, how extremely and faultilydifficult Shakespeare's language often is. It is so: you may find mainscenes in some of his greatest tragedies, _King Lear_, for instance, where the language is so artificial, so curiously tortured, and sodifficult, that every speech has to be read two or three times beforeits meaning can be comprehended. This over-curiousness of expression isindeed but the excessive employment of a wonderful gift--of the powerof saying a thing in a happier way than any other man; nevertheless, itis carried so far that one understands what M. Guizot[17] meant when hesaid that Shakespeare appears in his language to have tried all stylesexcept that of simplicity. He has not the severe and scrupulousself-restraint of the ancients, partly, no doubt, because he had a farless cultivated and exacting audience. He has indeed a far wider rangethan they had, a far richer fertility of thought; in this respect herises above them. In his strong conception of his subject, in thegenuine way in which he is penetrated with it, he resembles them, and isunlike the moderns. But in the accurate limitation of it, theconscientious rejection of superfluities, the simple and rigorousdevelopment of it from the first line of his work to the last, he fallsbelow them, and comes nearer to the moderns. In his chief works, besideswhat he has of his own, he has the elementary soundness of the ancients;he has their important action and their large and broad manner; but hehas not their purity of method. He is therefore a less safe model; forwhat he has of his own is personal, and inseparable from his own richnature; it may be imitated and exaggerated, it cannot be learned orapplied as an art. He is above all suggestive; more valuable, therefore, to young writers as men than as artists. But clearness of arrangement, rigor of development, simplicity of style--these may to a certain extentbe learned: and these may, I am convinced, be learned best from theancients, who, although infinitely less suggestive than Shakespeare, arethus, to the artist, more instructive. 

What then, it will be asked, are the ancients to be our sole models? theancients with their comparatively narrow range of experience, and theirwidely different circumstances? Not, certainly, that which is narrow inthe ancients, nor that in which we can no longer sympathize. An actionlike the action of the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, which turns upon theconflict between the heroine's duty to her brother's corpse and that tothe laws of her country, is no longer one in which it is possible thatwe should feel a deep interest. I am speaking too, it will beremembered, not of the best sources of intellectual stimulus for thegeneral reader, but of the best models of instruction for the individualwriter. This last may certainly learn of the ancients, better thananywhere else, three things which it is vitally important for him toknow:--the all-importance of the choice of a subject; the necessity ofaccurate construction; and the subordinate character of expression. Hewill learn from them how unspeakably superior is the effect of the onemoral impression left by a great action treated as a whole, to theeffect produced by the most striking single thought or by the happiestimage. As he penetrates into the spirit of the great classical works, ashe becomes gradually aware of their intense significance, their noblesimplicity, and their calm pathos, he will be convinced that it is thiseffect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at which the ancientpoets aimed; that it is this which constitutes the grandeur of theirworks, and which makes them immortal. He will desire to direct his ownefforts towards producing the same effect. Above all, he will deliverhimself from the jargon of modern criticism, and escape the danger ofproducing poetical works conceived in the spirit of the passing time, and which partake of its transitoriness. 

The present age makes great claims upon us: we owe it service, it willnot be satisfied without our admiration. I know not how it is, but theircommerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those whoconstantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon theirjudgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressiveexperience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom theylive. They wish neither to applaud nor to revile their age: they wish toknow what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what theywant. What they want, they know very well; they want to educe andcultivate what is best and noblest in themselves: they know, too, thatthis is no easy task--[Greek: Chalepon] as Pittacus[18] said, [Greek:Chalepon esthlonemmenai]--and they ask themselves sincerely whethertheir age and its literature can assist them in the attempt. If they areendeavoring to practise any art, they remember the plain and simpleproceedings of the old artists, who attained their grand results bypenetrating themselves with some noble and significant action, not byinflating themselves with a belief in the preëminent importance andgreatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor ofinterpreting their age, nor of the coming poet; all this, they know, isthe mere delirium of vanity; their business is not to praise their age, but to afford to the men who live in it the highest pleasure which theyare capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by means of subjectsdrawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the present agehas for supplying them. They are told that it is an era of progress, anage commissioned to carry out the great ideas of industrial developmentand social amelioration. They reply that with all this they can donothing; that the elements they need for the exercise of their art aregreat actions, calculated powerfully and delightfully to affect what ispermanent in the human soul; that so far as the present age can supplysuch actions, they will gladly make use of them; but that an age wantingin moral grandeur can with difficulty supply such, and an age ofspiritual discomfort with difficulty be powerfully and delightfullyaffected by them. 

A host of voices will indignantly rejoin that the present age isinferior to the past neither in moral grandeur nor in spiritual health. He who possesses the discipline I speak of will content himself withremembering the judgments passed upon the present age, in this respect, by the men of strongest head and widest culture whom it has produced; byGoethe and by Niebuhr. [19] It will be sufficient for him that he knowsthe opinions held by these two great men respecting the present age andits literature; and that he feels assured in his own mind that theiraims and demands upon life were such as he would wish, at any rate, hisown to be; and their judgment as to what is impeding and disabling suchas he may safely follow. He will not, however, maintain a hostileattitude towards the false pretensions of his age; he will contenthimself with not being overwhelmed by them. He will esteem himselffortunate if he can succeed in banishing from his mind all feelings ofcontradiction, and irritation, and impatience; in order to delighthimself with the contemplation of some noble action of a heroic time, and to enable others, through his representation of it, to delight in italso. 

I am far indeed from making any claim, for myself, that I possess thisdiscipline; or for the following poems, that they breathe its spirit. But I say, that in the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid thebewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poeticalart, I seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solidfooting, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted inart, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, andnot hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words ofdisparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what isreally to be aimed at which makes our difficulty, not thedissatisfaction of the critic, who himself suffers from the sameuncertainty. _Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta; . .. Dii me terrent, etJupiter hostis. _[20] Two kinds of _dilettanti_, says Goethe, there arein poetry: he who neglects the indispensable mechanical part, and thinkshe has done enough if he shows spirituality and feeling; and he whoseeks to arrive at poetry merely by mechanism, in which he can acquirean artisan's readiness, and is without soul and matter. And he adds, that the first does most harm to art, and the last to himself. If wemust be _dilettanti_: if it is impossible for us, under thecircumstances amidst which we live, to think clearly, to feel nobly, andto delineate firmly: if we cannot attain to the mastery of the greatartists--let us, at least, have so much respect for our art as to preferit to ourselves. Let us not bewilder our successors: let us transmit tothem the practice of poetry, with its boundaries and wholesomeregulative laws, under which excellent works may again, perhaps, at somefuture time, be produced, not yet fallen into oblivion through ourneglect, not yet condemned and cancelled by the influence of theireternal enemy, caprice. 

THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME[21]

Many objections have been made to a proposition which, in some remarksof mine[22] on translating Homer, I ventured to put forth; a propositionabout criticism, and its importance at the present day. I said: "Of theliterature of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe ingeneral, the main effort, for now many years, has been a criticaleffort; the endeavor, in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself itreally is. " I added, that owing to the operation in English literatureof certain causes, "almost the last thing for which one would come toEnglish literature is just that very thing which now Europe mostdesires, --criticism"; and that the power and value of English literaturewas thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that theimportance I here assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted theinherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over itscritical effort. And the other day, having been led by a Mr. Shairp's[23] excellent notice of Wordsworth[24] to turn again to hisbiography, I found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one, must always listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed onthe critic's business, which seems to justify every possibledisparagement of it. Wordsworth says in one of his letters[25]:--

"The writers in these publications" (the Reviews), "while they prosecutetheir inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mindvery favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing sopure as genuine poetry. "

And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a more elaboratejudgment to the same effect:--

"Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than theinventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time consumed inwriting critiques on the works of others were given to originalcomposition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much betteremployed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and itwould do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may domuch injury to the minds of others, a stupid invention, either in proseor verse, is quite harmless. "

It is almost too much to expect of poor human nature, that a man capableof producing some effect in one line of literature, should, for thegreater good of society, voluntarily doom himself to impotence andobscurity in another. Still less is this to be expected from menaddicted to the composition of the "false or malicious criticism" ofwhich Wordsworth speaks. However, everybody would admit that a false ormalicious criticism had better never have been written. Everybody, too, would be willing to admit, as a general proposition, that the criticalfaculty is lower than the inventive. But is it true that criticism isreally, in itself, a baneful and injurious employment; is it true thatall time given to writing critiques on the works of others would be muchbetter employed if it were given to original composition, of whateverkind this may be? Is it true that Johnson had better have gone onproducing more _Irenes_[26] instead of writing his _Lives of the Poets_;nay, is it certain that Wordsworth himself was better employed in makinghis Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated Preface[27]so full of criticism, and criticism of the works of others? Wordsworthwas himself a great critic, and it is to be sincerely regretted that hehas not left us more criticism; Goethe was one of the greatest ofcritics, and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left usso much criticism. Without wasting time over the exaggeration whichWordsworth's judgment on criticism clearly contains, or over an attemptto trace the causes, --not difficult, I think, to be traced, --which mayhave led Wordsworth to this exaggeration, a critic may with advantageseize an occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking himselfof what real service at any given moment the practice of criticismeither is or may be made to his own mind and spirit, and to the mindsand spirits of others. 

The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but inassenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a freecreative activity, is the highest function of man; it is proved to be soby man's finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity inother ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if itwere not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the truehappiness of all men. They may have it in well-doing, they may have itin learning, they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing tobe kept in mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power inthe production of great works of literature or art, however high thisexercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under all conditionspossible; and that therefore labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, which might with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering itpossible. This creative power works with elements, with materials; whatif it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? Inthat case it must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature, --I will limit myself to literature, for it is about literature that thequestion arises, --the elements with which the creative power works areideas; the best ideas on every matter which literature touches, currentat the time. At any rate we may lay it down as certain that in modernliterature no manifestation of the creative power not working with thesecan be very important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, notmerely accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does notprincipally show itself in discovering new ideas: that is rather thebusiness of the philosopher. The grand work of literary genius is a workof synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its giftlies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectualand spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it findsitself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them inthe most effective and attractive combinations, --making beautiful workswith them, in short. But it must have the atmosphere, it must finditself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and these itis not so easy to command. This is why great creative epochs inliterature are so rare, this is why there is so much that isunsatisfactory in the productions of many men of real genius; because, for the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is notenough without the moment; the creative power has, for its happyexercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its owncontrol. 

Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is thebusiness of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, "in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it really is. " Thus it tends, atlast, to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power canprofitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if notabsolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; tomake the best ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growtheverywhere; out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs ofliterature. 

Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the generalmarch of genius and of society, --considerations which are apt to becometoo abstract and impalpable, --every one can see that a poet, forinstance, ought to know life and the world before dealing with them inpoetry; and life and the world being in modern times very complexthings, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a greatcritical effort behind it; else it must be a comparatively poor, barren, and short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so littleendurance in it, and Goethe's so much; both Byron and Goethe had a greatproductive power, but Goethe's was nourished by a great critical effortproviding the true materials for it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knewlife and the world, the poet's necessary subjects, much morecomprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. He knew a great deal more ofthem, and he knew them much more as they really are. 

It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in ourliterature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it infact something premature; and that from this cause its productions aredoomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompaniedand do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than theproductions of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comesfrom its having proceeded without having its proper data, withoutsufficient materials to work with. In other words, the English poetry ofthe first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty ofcreative force, did not know enough. This makes Byron so empty ofmatter, Shelley so incoherent, Wordsworth even, profound as he is, yetso wanting in completeness and variety. Wordsworth cared little forbooks, and disparaged Goethe. I admire Wordsworth, as he is, so muchthat I cannot wish him different; and it is vain, no doubt, to imaginesuch a man different from what he is, to suppose that he _could_ havebeen different. But surely the one thing wanting to make Wordsworth aneven greater poet than he is, --his thought richer, and his influence ofwider application, --was that he should have read more books, among them, no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. 

But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstandinghere. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry atthis epoch: Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immensereading. Pindar and Sophocles--as we all say so glibly, and often withso little discernment of the real import of what we are saying--had notmany books; Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece ofPindar and Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in acurrent of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to thecreative power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by freshthought, intelligent and alive. And this state of things is the truebasis for the creative power's exercise, in this it finds its data, itsmaterials, truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in theworld are only valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this doesnot actually exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct akind of semblance of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge andintelligence in which he may live and work. This is by no means anequivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought ofthe epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare; but, besides that it may be ameans of preparation for such epochs, it does really constitute, if manyshare in it, a quickening and sustaining atmosphere of great value. Suchan atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and widely combinedcritical effort of Germany formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. There was no national glow of life and thought there as in the Athens ofPericles or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness. Butthere was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete culture andunfettered thinking of a large body of Germans. That was his strength. In the England of the first quarter of this century there was neither anational glow of life and thought, such as we had in the age ofElizabeth, nor yet a culture and a force of learning and criticism suchas were to be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of poetrywanted, for success in the highest sense, materials and a basis; athorough interpretation of the world was necessarily denied to it. 

At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of theFrench Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works ofgenius equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productivetime of Greece, or out of that of the Renascence, with its powerfulepisode the Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the FrenchRevolution took a character which essentially distinguished it from suchmovements as these. These were, in the main, disinterestedlyintellectual and spiritual movements; movements in which the humanspirit looked for its satisfaction in itself and in the increased playof its own activity. The French Revolution took a political, practicalcharacter. The movement, which went on in France under the old régime, from 1700 to 1789, was far more really akin than that of the Revolutionitself to the movement of the Renascence; the France of Voltaire andRousseau told far more powerfully upon the mind of Europe than theFrance of the Revolution. Goethe reproached this last expressly withhaving "thrown quiet culture back. " Nay, and the true key to how much inour Byron, even in our Wordsworth, is this!--that they had their sourcein a great movement of feeling, not in a great movement of mind. TheFrench Revolution, however, --that object of so much blind love and somuch blind hatred, --found undoubtedly its motive-power in theintelligence of men, and not in their practical sense; this is whatdistinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the First'stime. This is what makes it a more spiritual event than our Revolution, an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, thoughpractically less successful; it appeals to an order of ideas which areuniversal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational?1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is itaccording to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to betreated, within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for itssuccess, within its own sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law inone place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not law evenhere to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is binding on one man'sconscience is not binding on another's. The old woman[28] who threw herstool at the head of the surpliced minister in St. Giles's Church atEdinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race may bepermitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason areabsolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is theeasiest way of counting_--that is a proposition of which every one, fromhere to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least I should say so if wedid not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning wemay find a letter in the _Times_ declaring that a decimal coinage is anabsurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with anenthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making itsprescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider howlittle of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes intothe motives which alone, in general, impel great masses of men. In spiteof the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of thecrimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolutionderives from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which ittook for its law, and from the passion with which it could inspire amultitude for these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is, --itwill probably long remain, --the greatest, the most animating event inhistory. And as no sincere passion for the things of the mind, eventhough it turn out in many respects an unfortunate passion, is everquite thrown away and quite barren of good, France has reaped from hersone fruit--the natural and legitimate fruit though not precisely thegrand fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where _thepeople_ is most alive. 

But the mania for giving an immediate political and practicalapplication to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here anEnglishman is in his element: on this theme we can all go on for hours. And all we are in the habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great dealof truth. Ideas cannot be too much prized in and for themselves, cannotbe too much lived with; but to transport them abruptly into the world ofpolitics and practice, violently to revolutionize this world to theirbidding, --that is quite another thing. There is the world of ideas andthere is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing theone and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. A memberof the House of Commons said to me the other day: "That a thing is ananomaly, I consider to be no objection to it whatever. " I venture tothink he was wrong; that a thing is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not necessarily, undersuch and such circumstances, or at such and such a moment, an objectionto it in the sphere of politics and practice. Joubert has saidbeautifully: "C'est la force et le droit qui règlent toutes choses dansle monde; la force en attendant le droit. "[29] (Force and right are thegovernors of this world; force till right is ready. ) _Force till rightis ready_; and till right is ready, force, the existing order of things, is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But right is something moral, andimplies inward recognition, free assent of the will; we are not readyfor right, --_right_, so far as we are concerned, _is not ready_, --untilwe have attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. The way inwhich for us it may change and transform force, the existing order ofthings, and become, in its turn, the legitimate ruler of the world, should depend on the way in which, when our time comes, we see it andwill it. Therefore for other people enamored of their own newlydiscerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and violentlyto substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to beresisted. It sets at naught the second great half of our maxim, _forcetill right is ready_. This was the grand error of the French Revolution;and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere andrushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigiousand memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as themovement of ideas of the Renascence, and created, in opposition toitself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. The great force ofthat epoch of concentration was England; and the great voice of thatepoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Burke'swritings on the French Revolution[30] as superannuated and conquered bythe event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry andprejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by theviolence and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke'sview was bounded, and his observation therefore at fault. But on thewhole, and for those who can make the needful corrections, whatdistinguishes these writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, philosophical truth. They contain the true philosophy of an epoch ofconcentration, dissipate the heavy atmosphere which its own nature isapt to engender round it, and make its resistance rational instead ofmechanical. 

But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he bringsthought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought. It ishis accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch ofconcentration, not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristicthat he so lived by ideas, and had such a source of them welling upwithin him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration andEnglish Tory politics with them. It does not hurt him that Dr. Price[31]and the Liberals were enraged with him; it does not even hurt him thatGeorge the Third and the Tories were enchanted with him. His greatnessis that he lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor EnglishToryism is apt to enter;--the world of ideas, not the world ofcatchwords and party habits. So far is it from being really true of himthat he "to party gave up what was meant for mankind, "[32] that at thevery end of his fierce struggle with the French Revolution, after allhis invectives against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, with his sincere convictions of its mischievousness, he can close amemorandum on the best means of combating it, some of the last pages heever wrote, --the _Thoughts on French Affairs_, in December 1791, --withthese striking words:--

"The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must bewhere power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with goodintentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, Ibelieve, forever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last twoyears. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds ofmen will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will drawthat way. Every fear, every hope will forward it: and then they whopersist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appearrather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designsof men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse andobstinate. _"

That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of thefinest things in English literature, or indeed in any literature. Thatis what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long hadyour earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hearall round you no language but one, when your party talks this languagelike a steam-engine and can imagine no other, --still to be able tothink, still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current ofthought to the opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam, [33] tobe unable to speak anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. Iknow nothing more striking, and I must add that I know nothing moreun-English. 

For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member ofParliament, and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomalyis absolutely no objection to it whatever. He is like the LordAuckland[34] of Burke's day, who, in a memorandum on the FrenchRevolution, talks of "certain miscreants, assuming the name ofphilosophers, who have presumed themselves capable of establishing a newsystem of society. " The Englishman has been called a political animal, and he values what is political and practical so much that ideas easilybecome objects of dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants, "because ideas and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics andpractice. This would be all very well if the dislike and neglectconfined themselves to ideas transported out of their own sphere, andmeddling rashly with practice; but they are inevitably extended to ideasas such, and to the whole life of intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the mind is nothing. The notion of the free play of themind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object ofdesire, being an essential provider of elements without which a nation'sspirit, whatever compensations it may have for them, must, in the longrun, die of inanition, hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts. Itis noticeable that the word _curiosity_, which in other languages isused in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man'snature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on allsubjects, for its own sake, --it is noticeable, I say, that this word hasin our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad anddisparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially theexercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to tryto know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectivelyof practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to valueknowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusionof any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for whichthere is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical Englishnature, and what there was of it has undergone a long benumbing periodof blight and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followedthe French Revolution. 

But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs ofexpansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch ofexpansion seems to be opening in this country. In the first place alldanger of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practicehas long disappeared; like the traveller in the fable, therefore, webegin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, the ideas of Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, thoughin infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing andbrutalizing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems tome indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, tolead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, after he has made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determinewhat to do with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, and that the mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant itis mainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to ourrailways, our business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, our travelling, and our unbounded liberty to hold just as hard andsecurely as we please to the practice to which our notions have givenbirth, all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freelywith these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to penetrate alittle into their real nature. Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreignsense of the word, appear amongst us, and it is in these that criticismmust look to find its account. Criticism first; a time of true creativeactivity, perhaps, --which, as I have said, must inevitably be precededamongst us by a time of criticism, --hereafter, when criticism has doneits work. 

It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearlydiscern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself of the fieldnow opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought totake. The rule may be summed up in one word, --_disinterestedness_. Andhow is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from whatis called "the practical view of things"; by resolutely following thelaw of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on allsubjects which it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any ofthose ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, whichplenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps oughtoften to be attached to them, which in this country at any rate arecertain to be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticismhas really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simplyto know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in itsturn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Itsbusiness is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; butits business is to do no more, and to leave alone all questions ofpractical consequences and applications, questions which will never failto have due prominence given to them. Else criticism, besides beingreally false to its own nature, merely continues in the old rut which ithas hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly miss thechance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of criticism inthis country? It is that practical considerations cling to it and stifleit. It subserves interests not its own. Our organs of criticism areorgans of men and parties having practical ends to serve, and with themthose practical ends are the first thing and the play of mind thesecond; so much play of mind as is compatible with the prosecution ofthose practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the _Revue desDeux Mondes_, [35] having for its main function to understand and utterthe best that is known and thought in the world, existing, it may besaid, as just an organ for a free play of the mind, we have not. But wehave the _Edinburgh Review_, existing as an organ of the old Whigs, andfor as much play of the mind as may suit its being that; we have the_Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of the Tories, and for as muchplay of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _British QuarterlyReview_, existing as an organ of the political Dissenters, and for asmuch play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _Times_, existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. And so onthrough all the various fractions, political and religious, of oursociety; every fraction has, as such, its organ of criticism, but thenotion of combining all fractions in the common pleasure of a freedisinterested play of mind meets with no favor. Directly this play ofmind wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of practicalconsiderations a little, it is checked, it is made to feel the chain. Wesaw this the other day in the extinction, so much to be regretted, ofthe _Home and Foreign Review_. [36] Perhaps in no organ of criticism inthis country was there so much knowledge, so much play of mind; butthese could not save it. The _Dublin Review_ subordinates play of mindto the practical business of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each ofthese sects and parties should have its organ, and should make thisorgan subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, that there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, not their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. Noother criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real waytowards its end, --the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. 

It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectualsphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been sodirectly polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, in this country, its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from aself-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead himtowards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent initself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemicalpractical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal imperfection oftheir practice, makes them willingly assert its ideal perfection, inorder the better to secure it against attack: and clearly this isnarrowing and baneful for them. If they were reassured on the practicalside, speculative considerations of ideal perfection they might bebrought to entertain, and their spiritual horizon would thus graduallywiden. Sir Charles Adderley[37] says to the Warwickshire farmers:--

"Talk of the improvement of breed! Why, the race we ourselvesrepresent, the men and women, the old Anglo-Saxon race, are the bestbreed in the whole world. .. . The absence of a too enervating climate, too unclouded skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced sovigorous a race of people, and has rendered us so superior to all theworld. "

Mr. Roebuck[38] says to the Sheffield cutlers:--

"I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not propertysafe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not walk fromone end of England to the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, the world over or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. Ipray that our unrivalled happiness may last. "

Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in words andthoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction, until we find ourselvessafe in the streets of the Celestial City. 

 "Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke Der vorwärts sieht, wie viel noch übrig bleibt--"[39]

says Goethe; "the little that is done seems nothing when we look forwardand see how much we have yet to do. " Clearly this is a better line ofreflection for weak humanity, so long as it remains on this earthlyfield of labor and trial. 

But neither Sir Charles Adderley nor Mr. Roebuck is by natureinaccessible to considerations of this sort. They only lose sight ofthem owing to the controversial life we all lead, and the practical formwhich all speculation takes with us. They have in view opponents whoseaim is not ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their ownpractice against these innovators, they go so far as even to attributeto this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting tointroduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or tocollect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish localself-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likelyimproper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to saystoutly, "Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all theworld! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! Ipray that our unrivalled happiness may last! I ask you whether, theworld over or in past history, there is anything like it?" And so longas criticism answers this dithyramb by insisting that the oldAnglo-Saxon race would be still more superior to all others if it had nochurch-rates, or that our unrivalled happiness would last yet longerwith a six-pound franchise, so long will the strain, "The best breed inthe whole world!" swell louder and louder, everything ideal and refiningwill be lost out of sight, and both the assailed and their critics willremain in a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unvital, a sphere inwhich spiritual progression is impossible. But let criticism leavechurch-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most candid spirit, without a single lurking thought of practical innovation, confront withour dithyramb this paragraph on which I stumbled in a newspaperimmediately after reading Mr. Roebuck:--

"A shocking child murder has just been committed at Nottingham. A girlnamed Wragg left the workhouse there on Saturday morning with her youngillegitimate child. The child was soon afterwards found dead on MapperlyHills, having been strangled. Wragg is in custody. "

Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute eulogies ofSir Charles Adderley and Mr. Roebuck, how eloquent, how suggestive arethose few lines! "Our old Anglo-Saxon breed, the best in the wholeworld!"--how much that is harsh and ill-favored there is in this best!_Wragg!_ If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in thewhole world, " has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in ourrace, what an original short-coming in the more delicate spiritualperceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideousnames, --Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg! In Ionia and Attica they wereluckier in this respect than "the best race in the world"; by theIlissus there was no Wragg, poor thing! And "our unrivalled happiness";--what an element of grimness, bareness, and hideousness mixes with itand blurs it; the workhouse, the dismal Mapperly Hills, --how dismalthose who have seen them will remember;--the gloom, the smoke, the cold, the strangled illegitimate child! "I ask you whether, the world over orin past history, there is anything like it?" Perhaps not, one isinclined to answer; but at any rate, in that case, the world is verymuch to be pitied. And the final touch, --short, bleak and inhuman:_Wragg is in custody_. The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivalledhappiness; or (shall I say?) the superfluous Christian name lopped offby the straightforward vigor of our old Anglo-Saxon breed! There isprofit for the spirit in such contrasts as this; criticism serves thecause of perfection by establishing them. By eluding sterile conflict, by refusing to remain in the sphere where alone narrow and relativeconceptions have any worth and validity, criticism may diminish itsmomentary importance, but only in this way has it a chance of gainingadmittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to which all itsduty is really owed. Mr. Roebuck will have a poor opinion of anadversary who replies to his defiant songs of triumph only by murmuringunder his breath, _Wragg is in custody_; but in no other way will thesesongs of triumph be induced gradually to moderate themselves, to get ridof what in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softerand truer key. 

It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I amthus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this mannerthe Indian virtue of detachment[40] and abandoning the sphere ofpractical life, it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow andobscure it may be, but it is the only proper work of criticism. The massof mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as theyare; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequateideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. Thatis as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they arewill find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by thissmall circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will everget current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always havea dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, andtend to draw him into its vortex; most of all will this be the casewhere that life is so powerful as it is in England. But it is only byremaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of viewof the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man anyservice; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his owncourse, and by at last convincing even the practical man of hissincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetuallythreaten him. 

For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in thesedistinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. But it is not easy to lead a practical man, --unless you reassure him asto your practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him, --to seethat a thing which he has always been used to look at from one sideonly, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, quite deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestowsupon it, --that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear muchless beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to ourpractical allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, howshall we make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, toenable us to say to the political Englishmen that the BritishConstitution itself, which, seen from the practical side, looks such amagnificent organ of progress and virtue, seen from the speculativeside, --with its compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its studied avoidance of clear thoughts, --that, seen from this side, ouraugust Constitution sometimes looks, --forgive me, shade of LordSomers![41]--a colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? Howis Cobbett[42] to say this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he iswith the smoke of a lifelong conflict in the field of politicalpractice? how is Mr. Carlyle to say it and not be misunderstood, afterhis furious raid into this field with his _Latter-day Pamphlets?_[43]how is Mr. Ruskin, [44] after his pugnacious political economy? I say, the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice in thepolitical, social, humanitarian sphere, if he wants to make a beginningfor that more free speculative treatment of things, which may perhapsone day make its benefits felt even in this sphere, but in a natural andthence irresistible manner. 

Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed tofrequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as in this country. Forhere people are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that withoutthis free disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highestculture are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, so accustomed to take all their notions from this life and itsprocesses, that they are apt to think that truth and culture themselvescan be reached by the processes of this life, and that it is animpertinent singularity to think of reaching them in any other. "We areall _terræ filii_, "[45] cries their eloquent advocate; "allPhilistines[46] together. Away with the notion of proceeding by anyother course than the course dear to the Philistines; let us have asocial movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue truth andnew thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all stick toeach other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense aboutindependent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and themany. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shallinvent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speakswell, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are allin the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit oftruth. " In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and advertisements; with the excitement of an occasional scandal, with alittle resistance to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general, plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe says; to think is so hard![47] It is true that the critic hasmany temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the partymovement, one of these _terræ filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse tobe a _terræ filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic'sduty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry withObermann: _Périssons en résistant_[48]. 

How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity ofexperiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebratedfirst volume of Bishop Colenso. [49] The echoes of the storm which wasthen raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me. Thatstorm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a resultof no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science andreligion are two wholly different things. The multitude will foreverconfuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for whilethe multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it doesreally live by its true religion. Dr. Colenso, however, in his firstvolume did all he could to strengthen the confusion, [50] and to make itdangerous. He did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, andwith the most candid ignorance that this was the natural effect of whathe was doing; but, says Joubert, "Ignorance, which in matters of moralsextenuates the crime, is itself, in intellectual matters, a crime of thefirst order. "[51] I criticized Bishop Colenso's speculative confusion. Immediately there was a cry raised: "What is this? here is a liberalattacking a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not you afriend of truth? Is not Bishop Colenso in pursuit of truth? then speakwith proper respect of his book. Dr. Stanley[52] is another friend oftruth, and you speak with proper respect of his book; why make theseinvidious differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal;Bishop Colenso's perhaps the most so, because it is the boldest, andwill have the best practical consequences for the liberal cause. Do youwant to encourage to the attack of a brother liberal his, and your, andour implacable enemies, the _Church and State Review_ or the _Record_, --the High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyena? Be silent, therefore; or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you can! and go intoecstasies over the eighty and odd pigeons. "

But criticism cannot follow this coarse and indiscriminate method. It isunfortunately possible for a man in pursuit of truth to write a bookwhich reposes upon a false conception. Even the practical consequencesof a book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if the bookis, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a lady[53] who herself, too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes with great ability, but alittle too much, perhaps, under the influence of the practical spirit ofthe English liberal movement, classes Bishop Colenso's book and M. Renan's[54] together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, asfacts of the same order, works, both of them, of "great importance";"great ability, power, and skill"; Bishop Colenso's, perhaps, the mostpowerful; at least, Miss Cobbe gives special expression to her gratitudethat to Bishop Colenso "has been given the strength to grasp, and thecourage to teach, truths of such deep import. " In the same way, morethan one popular writer has compared him to Luther. Now it is just thiskind of false estimate which the critical spirit is, it seems to me, bound to resist. It is really the strongest possible proof of the lowebb at which, in England, the critical spirit is, that while thecritical hit in the religious literature of Germany is Dr. Strauss's[55]book, in that of France M. Renan's book, the book of Bishop Colenso isthe critical hit in the religious literature of England. BishopColenso's book reposes on a total misconception of the essentialelements of the religious problem, as that problem is now presented forsolution. To criticism, therefore, which seeks to have the best that isknown and thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of noimportance whatever. M. Renan's book attempts a new synthesis of theelements furnished to us by the Four Gospels. It attempts, in myopinion, a synthesis, perhaps premature, perhaps impossible, certainlynot successful. Up to the present time, at any rate, we must acquiescein Fleury's sentence on such recastings of the Gospel story: _Quiconques'imagine la pouvoir mieux écrire, ne l'entend pas_. [56] M. Renan hadhimself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his own work, when hesaid: "If a new presentation of the character of Jesus were offered tome, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, thebest proof of its insufficiency. " His friends may with perfect justicerejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene ofthe Gospel story, all the current of M. Renan's thoughts may havenaturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistiblysuggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applyingCicero's maxim: Change of mind is not inconsistency--_nemo doctus unquammutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse_. [57] Nevertheless, forcriticism, M. Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as longas his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (touse Coleridge's happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M. Renan's attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest andimportance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the NewTestament _data_--not a making war on them, in Voltaire's fashion, not aleaving them out of mind, in the world's fashion, but the putting a newconstruction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional, conventional point of view and placing them under a new one--is the veryessence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by effortsin this direction can it receive a solution. 

Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, MissCobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both hereand in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstructionof religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or atleast setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are alwaysthinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative andconstructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_, and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be inevery one's mind. These works often have much ability; they often springout of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and theysometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted tosay so) one which they have in common with the British College ofHealth, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health;it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeiabefore it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutelycertain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building does credit, perhaps, tothe resources of Dr. Morrison and his disciples; but it falls a gooddeal short of one's idea of what a British College of Health ought tobe. In England, where we hate public interference and love individualenterprise, we have a whole crop of places like the British College ofHealth; the grand name without the grand thing. Unluckily, creditable toindividual enterprise as they are, they tend to impair our taste bymaking us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful characterproperly belongs to a public institution. The same may be said of thereligions of the future of Miss Cobbe and others. Creditable, like theBritish College of Health, to the resources of their authors, they yettend to make us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautifulcharacter properly belongs to religious constructions. The historicreligions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs tothe religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and weimpoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it. What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point ofview, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works, --its New Roadreligions of the future into the bargain, --for their general utility'ssake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect ideal. Forcriticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, andin this country they have been very little followed, and one meets withimmense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting themagain and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of thepractical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of thepractical spirit it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere ofthe ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on tothe goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, andknow how to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to thingsand how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praiseelements that for the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, eventhough they belong to a power which in the practical sphere may bemaleficent. It must be apt to discern the spiritual shortcomings orillusions of powers that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. Andthis without any notion of favoring or injuring, in the practicalsphere, one power or the other; without any notion of playing off, inthis sphere, one power against the other. When one looks, for instance, at the English Divorce Court--an institution which perhaps has itspractical conveniences, but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; aninstitution which neither makes divorce impossible nor makes it decent, which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife of her husband, butmakes them drag one another first, for the public edification, through amire of unutterable infamy, --when one looks at this charminginstitution, I say, with its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, andits money compensations, this institution in which the grossunregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of himself, --one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicismrefreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of itssupposed rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticismtoo magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that itspretensions, in this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that theReformation was a moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther'stheory of grace[59] no more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit thanBossuet's philosophy of history[60] reflects it; and that there is nomore antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durham's stock of ideasbeing agreeable to perfect reason than of Pope Pius the Ninth's. Butcriticism will not on that account forget the achievements ofProtestantism in the practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in theintellectual sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stumblingmanner, carried forward the Renascence, while Catholicism threw itselfviolently across its path. 

I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardorand movement which he now found amongst young men in this country withwhat he remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. "What reformerswe were then!" he exclaimed; "What a zeal we had! how we canvassed everyinstitution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them allon first principles!" He was inclined to regret, as a spiritualflagging, the lull which he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as apause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is beingaccomplished. Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongstus, in inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We havepretty well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection, we have got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a moredisinterested mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to theserener life of the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have itsexcesses and dangers; but they are not for us at present. Let us thinkof quietly enlarging our stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soonas we get an idea or half an idea, be running out with it into thestreet, and trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps in fiftyyears' time it will in the English House of Commons be an objection toan institution that it is an anomaly, and my friend the Member ofParliament will shudder in his grave. But let us in the meanwhile ratherendeavor that in twenty years' time it may, in English literature, be anobjection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a change sovast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it. _Ab Integrosoeclorum nascitur ordo_. [61]

If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take wherepolitics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burningmatters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. I have wished, above all, to insist on the attitude which criticism should adopttowards things in general; on its right tone and temper of mind. Butthen comes another question as to the subject-matter which literarycriticism should most seek. Here, in general, its course is determinedfor it by the idea which is the law of its being: the idea of adisinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known andthought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and trueideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the world, much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be ofEnglish growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it isjust this that we are least likely to know, while English thought isstreaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that weshall not be ignorant of its existence. The English critic ofliterature, therefore, must dwell much on foreign thought, and withparticular heed on any part of it, which, while significant and fruitfulin itself, is for any reason specially likely to escape him. Again, judging is often spoken of as the critic's one business, and so in somesense it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself in afair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the valuable one;and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge, must be the critic's greatconcern for himself. And it is by communicating fresh knowledge, andletting his own judgment pass along with it, --but insensibly, and in thesecond place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as anabstract lawgiver, --that the critic will generally do most good to hisreaders. Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author'splace in literature, and his relation to a central standard (and if thisis not done, how are we to get at our _best in the world?_) criticismmay have to deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledgeis out of the question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciationand detailed application of principles. Here the great safeguard isnever to let oneself become abstract, always to retain an intimate andlively consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the momentthis fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still under allcircumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, initself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, thesense of creative activity. 

But stop, some one will say; all this talk is of no practical use to uswhatever; this criticism of yours is not what we have in our minds whenwe speak of criticism; when we speak of critics and criticism, we meancritics and criticism of the current English literature of the day: whenyou offer to tell criticism its function, it is to this criticism thatwe expect you to address yourself. I am sorry for it, for I am afraid Imust disappoint these expectations. I am bound by my own definition ofcriticism; _a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the bestthat is known and thought in the world. _. How much of current Englishliterature comes into this "best that is known and thought in theworld"? Not very much I fear; certainly less, at this moment, than ofthe current literature of France or Germany. Well, then, am I to altermy definition of criticism, in order to meet the requirements of anumber of practising English critics, who, after all, are free in theirchoice of a business? That would be making criticism lend itself just toone of those alien practical considerations, which, I have said, are sofatal to it. One may say, indeed, to those who have to deal with themass--so much better disregarded--of current English literature, thatthey may at all events endeavor, in dealing with this, to try it, so faras they can, by the standard of the best that is known and thought inthe world; one may say, that to get anywhere near this standard, everycritic should try and possess one great literature, at least, besideshis own; and the more unlike his own, the better. But, after all, thecriticism I am really concerned with, --the criticism which alone canmuch help us for the future, the criticism which, throughout Europe, isat the present day meant, when so much stress is laid on the importanceof criticism and the critical spirit, --is a criticism which regardsEurope as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one greatconfederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result;and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, andtemporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation willin the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which mostthoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but saying that wetoo, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, shall make the more progress?

There is so much inviting us!--what are we to take? what will nourish usin growth towards perfection? That is the question which, with theimmense field of life and of literature lying before him, the critic hasto answer; for himself first, and afterwards for others. In this idea ofthe critic's business the essays brought together in the following pageshave had their origin; in this idea, widely different as are theirsubjects, they have, perhaps, their unity. 

I conclude with what I said at the beginning: to have the sense ofcreative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of beingalive, and it is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticismmust be sincere, simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creativeactivity; a sense which a man of insight and conscience will prefer towhat he might derive from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequatecreation. And at some epochs no other creation is possible. 

Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only togenuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what trueman of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for agifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and livingideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likelyto underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakespeare make us feeltheir preëminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life ofliterature; there is the promised land, towards which criticism can onlybeckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shalldie in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have salutedit from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction amongcontemporaries; it will certainly be the best title to esteem withposterity. 

THE STUDY OF POETRY[62]

"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthyof its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an eversurer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not anaccredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a receivedtradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion hasmaterialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attachedits emotion to the fact, and how the fact is failing it. But for poetrythe idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divineillusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea _is_ thefact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconsciouspoetry. "[63]

Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering thethought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all ourstudy of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one greatcontributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited tofollow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. Butwhether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the severalstreams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to knowthem all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceiveof poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom toconceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, andcalled to higher destinies than those which in general men haveassigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that wehave to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, tosustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and mostof what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replacedby poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finelyand truly does Wordsworth call poetry "the impassioned expression whichis in a countenance of all science"[64] and what is a countenancewithout its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry"the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge":[64] our religion, parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now;our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation andfinite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams andfalse shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall wonder atourselves for having trusted to them, for having taken them seriously;and the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize "thebreath and finer spirit of knowledge" offered to us by poetry. 

But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must alsoset our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable offulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order ofexcellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to astrict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, whensomebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: "Charlatan asmuch as you please; but where is there _not_ charlatanism?"--"Yes, "answers Sainte-Beuve, [65] "in politics, in the art of governing mankind, that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, the eternal honor is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; hereinlies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man's being. " It isadmirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thoughtand art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honor, that charlatanismshall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate andinviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating thedistinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or onlyhalf-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these. Andin poetry, more than anywhere else, it is unpermissible to confuse orobliterate them. For in poetry the distinction between excellent andinferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or onlyhalf-true, is of paramount importance. It is of paramount importancebecause of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as a criticism oflife[66] under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws ofpoetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, wehave said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation andstay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to thepower of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be ofpower in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather thaninferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather thanuntrue or half-true. 

The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have apower of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. Aclearer, deeper sense of the best[67] is the most precious benefit whichwe can gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet inthe very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitablysomething which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what ourbenefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We shouldtherefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and shouldcompel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as weproceed. 

Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the reallyexcellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should bepresent in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. Butthis real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if weare not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimateand the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or apoem may count to us historically, they may count to us on groundspersonal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They may countto us historically. The course of development of a nation's language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding apoet's work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bringourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself itreally is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise incriticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our poeticjudgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic. Then, again, a poet or a poem may count to us on grounds personal toourselves. Our personal affinities, likings, and circumstances, havegreat power to sway our estimate of this or that poet's work, and tomake us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it reallypossesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance. Herealso we over-rate the object of our interest, and apply to it a languageof praise which is quite exaggerated. And thus we get the source of asecond fallacy in our poetic judgments--the fallacy caused by anestimate which we may call personal. 

Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of thehistory and development of a poetry may incline a man to pause overreputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrelwith a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition andhabit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another, ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French have becomediligent students of their own early poetry, which they long neglected;the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their so-called classicalpoetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth century, a poetry whichPellisson[68] long ago reproached with its want of the true poeticstamp, with its _politesse sterile et rampante?_[69] but whichnevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely as if it had been theperfection of classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is natural;yet a lively and accomplished critic, M. Charles d'Héricault, [70] theeditor of Clement Marot, goes too far when he says that "the cloud ofglory playing round a classic is a mist as dangerous to the future of aliterature as it is intolerable for the purposes of history. " "Ithinders, " he goes on, "it hinders us from seeing more than one singlepoint, the culminating and exceptional point, the summary, fictitiousand arbitrary, of a thought and of a work. It substitutes a halo for aphysiognomy, it puts a statue where there was once a man, and hidingfrom us all trace of the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, thefailures, it claims not study but veneration; it does not show us howthe thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above all, for thehistorian this creation of classic personages is inadmissible; for itwithdraws the poet from his time, from his proper life, it breakshistorical relationships, it blinds criticism by conventionaladmiration, and renders the investigation of literary originsunacceptable. It gives us a human personage no longer, but a God seatedimmovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus; and hardlywill it be possible for the young student, to whom such work isexhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it did not issueready made from that divine head. "

All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for adistinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classiccharacter. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a falseclassic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his workbelongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and rightmeaning of the word _classic, classical_), then the great thing for usis to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and toappreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not thesame high character. This is what is salutary, this is what isformative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry. Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious. True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blindedwith superstition; we must perceive when his work comes short, when itdrops out of the class of the very best, and we must rate it, in suchcases, at its proper value. But the use of this negative criticism isnot in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us to have a clearer senseand a deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent. To trace the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of a genuine classic, toacquaint oneself with his time and his life and his historicalrelationships, is mere literary dilettantism unless it has that clearsense and deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the more weknow about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived aslong as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness andwills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it isplausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case withthe Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaboratephilological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory anadmirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authorsworthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shallbe able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were not soshort, and schoolboys' wits not so soon tired and their power ofattention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philologicalpreparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. So with the investigator of "historic origins" in poetry. He ought toenjoy the true classic all the better for his investigations; he oftenis distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good heoverbusies himself, and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to thetrouble which it has cost him. 

The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships cannotbe absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally the poetsto be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for exhibitionwho are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who have nospecial inclination towards them. Moreover the very occupation with anauthor, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes us to affirm andamplify his importance. In the present work, therefore, we are sure offrequent temptation to adopt the historic estimate, or the personalestimate, and to forget the real estimate; which latter, nevertheless, we must employ if we are to make poetry yield us its full benefit. Sohigh is that benefit, the benefit of clearly feeling and of deeplyenjoying the really excellent, the truly classic in poetry, that we dowell, I say, to set it fixedly before our minds as our object instudying poets and poetry, and to make the desire of attaining it theone principle to which, as the _Imitation_ says, whatever we may read orcome to know, we always return. _Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, adunum semper oportet redire principium. _[71]

The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment andour language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personalestimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at anyrate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not inthemselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly entersthe general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literarymen who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. Sowe hear Cædmon, [72] amongst, our own poets, compared to Milton. I havealready noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for"historic origins. " Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet, [73]comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, the _Chanson de Roland. _[74] It is indeed a most interesting document. The _joculator_ or _jongleur_ Taillefer, who was with William theConqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so saidthe tradition, singing "of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, andof the vassals who died at Roncevaux"; and it is suggested that in the_Chanson de Roland_ by one Turoldus or Theroulde, a poem preserved in amanuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, wehave certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chantwhich Taillefer sang. The poem has vigor and freshness; it is notwithout pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it adocument of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguisticvalue; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epicgenius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in itsdetails he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, whichare the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish itfrom the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this isthe sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higherpraise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry ofthe highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the _Chansonde Roland_ at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself downunder a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy--

 "De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist, De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist, De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit. "[75]

That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality ofits own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. But now turn to Homer--

 [Greek: Os phato tous d aedae katecheu phusizoos aia en Lakedaimoni authi, philm en patridi gaim][76]

We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; hereis rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the_Chanson de Roland_. If our words are to have any meaning, if ourjudgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praiseupon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. 

Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetrybelongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do usmost good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions ofthe great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Ofcourse we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it maybe very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when wehave lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone fordetecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also thedegree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place besidethem. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quitesufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers;--or take his

 [Greek:] A delo, to sphoi domen Paelaei anakti Thnaeta; umeis d eston agaero t athanato te. Ae ina dustaenoiosi met andrasin alge echaeton;[77]

the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;--or take finally his

 [Greek:] Kai se, geron, to prin men akouomen olbion einar[78]

the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take thatincomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words--

 "Io no piangeva; sì dentro impietrai. Piangevan elli . .. "[79]

take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil--

 "Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale, Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, Nè fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale . .. "[80]

take the simple, but perfect, single line--

 "In la sua volontade è nostra pace. "[81]

Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulationwith sleep--

 "Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge . .. "[82]

and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio--

 "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story . .. "[83]

Take of Milton that Miltonic passage--

 "Darken'd so, yet shone Above them all the archangel; but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care Sat on his faded cheek . .. "[84]

add two such lines as--

 "And courage never to submit or yield And what is else not to be overcome . .. "[85]

and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss

 " . .. Which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world. "[86]

These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even ofthemselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to saveus from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. 

The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but theyhave in common this: the possession of the very highest poeticalquality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall findthat we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laidbefore us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality ispresent or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labor to drawout what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality ofpoetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples;--to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, andto say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed_there_. They are far better recognized by being felt in the verse ofthe master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account ofthem, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how andwhy the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are inthe matter and substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner andstyle. Both of these, the substance and matter on the one hand, thestyle and manner on the other, have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark and accent inthe abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkeningthe question, not clearing it. The mark and accent are as given by thesubstance and matter of that poetry, by the style and manner of thatpoetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality. 

Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation[87] that thesuperiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a highertruth and a higher seriousness ([Greek: philosophoteron kahispondaioteron]). Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: thatthe substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their specialcharacter from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style andmanner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, isgiven by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. Andthough we distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, ofsuperiority, yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with theother. The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matterand substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority ofdiction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superioritiesare closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet'smatter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poeticstamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. Inproportion as this high stamp of diction and movement, again, is absentfrom a poet's style and manner, we shall find, also, that high poetictruth and seriousness are absent from his substance and matter. 

So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies intheir application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make theapplication of them for himself. Made by himself, the application wouldimpress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neitherwill my limits allow me to make any full application of the generalitiesabove propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, somesignificance in them, and of establishing an important principle morefirmly by their means, I will, in the space which remains to me, followrapidly from the commencement the course of our English poetry with themin my view. 

Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our ownpoetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth andthirteenth centuries, that seed-time of all modern language andliterature, the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. Ofthe two divisions of that poetry, its productions in the _langue d'oïl_and its productions in the _langue d'oc_, the poetry of the _langued'oc_, [88] of southern France, of the troubadours, is of importancebecause of its effect on Italian literature;--the first literature ofmodern Europe to strike the true and grand note, and to bring forth, asin Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the predominanceof French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, is due to its poetry of the _langue d'oïl_, the poetry of northernFrance and of the tongue which is now the French language. In thetwelfth century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier andstronger in England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than inFrance itself. But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our nativepoetry formed itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poemswhich took possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries are French; "they are, " as Southeyjustly says, "the pride of French literature, nor have we anything whichcan be placed in competition with them. " Themes were supplied from allquarters: but the romance-setting which was common to them all, andwhich gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for theFrench poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the MiddleAge, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini, [89] themaster of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says, "laparleure en est plus délitable et plus commune à toutes gens. " In thesame century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian ofTroyes, [90] formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France, his native country, as follows:--

 "Or vous ert par ce livre apris, Que Gresse ot de chevalerie Le premier los et de clergie; Puis vint chevalerie à Rome, Et de la clergie la some, Qui ore est en France venue. Diex doinst qu'ele i soit retenue Et que li lius li abelisse Tant que de France n'isse L'onor qui s'i est arestee!"

"Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown forchivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed toRome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; andthat the place may please it so well, that the honor which has come tomake stay in France may never depart thence!"

Yet it is now all gone, this French romance-poetry, of which the weightof substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by thisextract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimatecan we persuade ourselves now to think that any of it is of poeticalimportance. 

But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished onthis poetry; taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, meter from this poetry; for even of that stanza[91] which the Italiansused, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basisand suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have alreadynamed him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian ofTroyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach. [92] Chaucer's power of fascination, however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need theassistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine sourceof joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always. He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is readnow. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and Ithink in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. InChaucer's case, as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to beunhesitatingly accepted and overcome. 

If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority ofChaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry--why it is that in passing fromthis to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, weshall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetryand in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given byhis large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life, --so unlikethe total want, in the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to surveythe world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only tocall to mind the Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_. The right commentupon it is Dryden's: "It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that _here is God's plenty_. "[93] And again: "He is a perpetual fountainof good sense. " It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; andChaucer's poetry has truth of substance. 

Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry andthen of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity ofmovement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his "golddew-drops of speech. " Johnson misses the point entirely when he findsfault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement of ournumbers, and says that Gower[94] also can show smooth numbers and easyrhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more thanthis. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy rhymes, and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father of oursplendid English poetry; he is our "well of English undefiled, " becauseby the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, hemakes an epoch and founds a tradition. 

In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition ofthe liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it ishis liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and atanother time it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible. 

Bounded as is my space, I must yet find room for an example of Chaucer'svirtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the greatclassics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to showthe charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this--

 "O martyr souded[95] in virginitee!"

has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all theverse of romance-poetry;--but this is saying nothing. The virtue is suchas we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside the poetswhom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's tradition. Asingle line, however, is too little if we have not the strain ofChaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It is from_The Prioress's Tale_, the story of the Christian child murdered in aJewry--

 "My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone Saidè this child, and as by way of kinde I should have deyd, yea, longè time agone; But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookès finde, Will that his glory last and be in minde, And for the worship of his mother dere Yet may I sing _O Alma_ loud and clere. "

Wordsworth has modernized this Tale, and to feel how delicate andevanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth'sfirst three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's--

 "My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow, Said this young child, and by the law of kind I should have died, yea, many hours ago. "

The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness andfluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentiousdealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, suchas Burns too enjoyed, of making words like _neck_, _bird_, into adissyllable by adding to them, and words like _cause_, _rhyme_, into adissyllable by sounding the _e_ mute. It is true that Chaucer's fluidityis conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; but weought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was dependent uponhis talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not attain to thefluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. Poets, again, who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare or Keats, haveknown how to attain to his fluidity without the like liberty. 

And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcendsand effaces, easily and without effort, all the romance-poetry ofCatholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all the English poetrycontemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all the English poetrysubsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of such avail is poetictruth of substance, in its natural and necessary union with poetic truthof style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one of the great classics. Hehas not their accent. What is wanting to him is suggested by the meremention of the name of the first great classic of Christendom, theimmortal poet who died eighty years before Chaucer, --Dante. The accentof such verse as

 "In la sua volontade è nostra pace . .. "

is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel thatthis accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it wasnecessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage ofgrowth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, estimateof poetry. However we may account for its absence, something is wanting, then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have before it can beplaced in the glorious class of the best. And there is no doubt whatthat something is. It is the[Greek: spoudaiotaes] the high andexcellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grandvirtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of thingsand his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism oflife has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chieflywhich gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with theincreasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of givingus what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. A voicefrom the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voiceof poor Villon[96] out of his life of riot and crime, has at its happymoments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of _La Belle Heaulmière_[97]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness than all theproductions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and in men likeVillon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the power of theircriticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained. 

To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be thislimitation: he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, andtherewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for usto bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to thatreal estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic truthof substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, andcorresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue ofstyle and manner. With him is born our real poetry. 

For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or onthe continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of usprofess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry; we all of usrecognize it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Miltonas our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universalcurrency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficultybegin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; andthe question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the realestimate. 

The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century whichfollowed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poeticalclassics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyondall its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable theopinion "that the sweetness of English verse was never understood orpractised by our fathers. "[98] Cowley could see nothing at all inChaucer's poetry. [99] Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen, praised its matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movementall he can find to say is that "there is the rude sweetness of a Scotchtune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. "[100]Addison, wishing to praise Chaucer's numbers, compares them withDryden's own. And all through the eighteenth century, and down even intoour own times, the stereotyped phrase of approbation for good versefound in our early poetry has been, that it even approached the verse ofDryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson. 

Are Dryden and Pope poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, whichrepresents them as such, and which has been so long established that itcannot easily give way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, asis well known, denied it;[101] but the authority of Wordsworth andColeridge does not weigh much with the young generation, and there aremany signs to show that the eighteenth century and its judgments arecoming into favor again. Are the favorite poets of the eighteenthcentury classics?

It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question fully. And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to disposedictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, suchmasters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of suchenergetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full benefitfrom poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast about for somemode of arriving, in the present case, at such an estimate withoutoffence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it is easy to begin, with cordial praise. 

When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressinghimself in his preface thus: "Though truth in her very nakedness sits inso deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can soundher, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that, thedate being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall nowgird his temples with the sun, "--we pronounce that such a prose isintolerable. When we find Milton writing: "And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not befrustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, oughthimself to be a true poem, "[102]--we pronounce that such a prose has itsown grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when we findDryden telling us: "What Virgil wrote in the vigor of his age, in plentyand at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years;struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write, "[103]--then we exclaim thathere at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we wouldall gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton'scontemporary. 

But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt theimperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come whenour nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the absorbingpreoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had exercised. It wasimpossible that this freedom should be brought about without somenegative excess, without some neglect and impairment of the religiouslife of the soul; and the spiritual history of the eighteenth centuryshows us that the freedom was not achieved without them. Still, thefreedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an undoubtedly baneful andretarding one if it had continued, was got rid of. And as with religionamongst us at that period, so it was also with letters. A fit prose wasa necessity; but it was impossible that a fit prose should establishitself amongst us without some touch of frost to the imaginative life ofthe soul. The needful qualities for a fit prose are regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. The men of letters, whose destiny it maybe to bring their nation to the attainment of a fit prose, must ofnecessity, whether they work in prose or in verse, give a predominating, an almost exclusive attention to the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. But an almost exclusive attention tothese qualities involves some repression and silencing of poetry. 

We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope asthe splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of ourexcellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes oftheir mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, isnot good?

 "A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged. "[104]

I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age ofprose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almostwhere you will, is not good?

 "To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down; Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own. "[105]

I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age ofprose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from menwith an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism oflife has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness, haspoetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me whether theapplication of ideas to life in the verse of these men, often a powerfulapplication, no doubt, is a powerful _poetic_ application? Do you ask mewhether the poetry of these men has either the matter or the inseparablemanner of such an adequate poetic criticism; whether it has the accentof

 "Absent thee from felicity awhile . .. "

or of

 "And what is else not to be overcome . .. "

or of

 "O martyr sonded in virginitee!"

I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of thebuilders of an age of prose and reason. 

Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense bemasters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics ofour poetry, they are classics of our prose. 

Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position ofGray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not thevolume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favorable, haveattained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with thegreat poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetuallystudying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view forregarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and themanner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he hadnot the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Popenever had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is thescantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic. 

And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of theeighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter nowon times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, andwhere the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. Butin spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of nationalpartiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry of Burns. By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenthcentury, and has little importance for us. 

 "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!"[106]

Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would havedisappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's[107] love-poet, Sylvander, thereal Burns either. But he tells us himself: "These English songs gravelme to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of mynative tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in Englishthan in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in English, butall I can do is desperately stupid. "[108] We English turn naturally, inBurns, to the poems in our own language, because we can read themeasily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns. 

The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say thatof much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is apt to bepersonal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotchreligion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets itspoet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the _Holy Fairor Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, andScotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is not a partialcountryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, andno one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with abeautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, andScotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world; even theworld of his _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is not a beautiful world. Nodoubt a poet's criticism of life may have such truth and power that ittriumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over hisworld, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how andwhere. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of thepersonal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he canbear it. 

Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial, genuine, delightful, here--

 "Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair Than either school or college; It kindles wit, it waukens lair, It pangs us fou o' knowledge. Be't whisky gill or penny wheep Or ony stronger potion, It never fails, on drinking deep, To kittle up our notion By night or day. "[109]

There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it isunsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because ithas not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do itjustice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado, somethingwhich makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us with hisreal voice: something, therefore, poetically unsound. 

With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have thegenuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the independence, equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song _For a' that and a'that_--

 "A prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's a boon his might, Guid faith he manna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a' that. "

Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when thispuissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, fallsmoralizing--

 "The sacred lowe o' weel placed love Luxuriantly indulge it; But never tempt th' illicit rove, Tho' naething should divulge it. I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard o' concealing, But och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling. "[110]

Or in a higher strain--

 "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone; Each spring, its various bias. Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's _done_ we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. "[111]

Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, unsurpassable--

 "To make a happy fire-side clime To weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life. "[112]

There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say tous; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with whatwas the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates. And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorousunderstanding, and (need I say?) a master of language. 

But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerfulapplication of ideas to life; it must be an application under theconditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Thoselaws fix as an essential condition, in the poet's treatment of suchmatters as are here in question, high seriousness;--the high seriousnesswhich comes from absolute sincerity. The accent of high seriousness, born of absolute sincerity, is what gives to such verse as

 "In la sua volontade è nostra pace. .. "

to such criticism of life as Dante's, its power. Is this accent felt inthe passages which I have been quoting from Burns? Surely not; surely, if our sense is quick, we must perceive that we have not in thosepassages a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns; he isnot speaking to us from these depths, he is more or less preaching. Andthe compensation for admiring such passages less, for missing theperfect poetic accent in them, will be that we shall admire more thepoetry where that accent is found. 

No; Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of thegreat classics, and the virtue of matter and manner which goes with thathigh seriousness is wanting to his work. At moments he touches it in aprofound and passionate melancholy, as in those four immortal linestaken by Byron as a motto for _The Bride of Abydos_, but which have inthem a depth of poetic quality such as resides in no verse of Byron'sown--

 "Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met, or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted. "

But a whole poem of that quality Burns cannot make; the rest, in the_Farewell to Nancy_, is verbiage. 

We arrive best at the real estimate of Burns, I think, by conceiving hiswork as having truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the accentor the poetic virtue of the highest masters. His genuine criticism oflife, when the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic; it is not--

 "Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil, Here firm I rest, they must be best Because they are Thy will!"[113]

It is far rather: _Whistle owre the lave o't!_ Yet we may say of him asof Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, hisview is large, free, shrewd, benignant, --truly poetic, therefore; andhis manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, atthe same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of Chauceris heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the benignity ofChaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming sense of the pathos ofthings;--of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-humannature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer's manner, the manner of Burnshas spring, bounding swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the largeness andfreedom of Burns get full sweep, as in _Tam o' Shanter_, or still morein that puissant and splendid production, _The Jolly Beggars_, his worldmay be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs over it. In the world of_The Jolly Beggars_ there is more than hideousness and squalor, there isbestiality; yet the piece is a superb poetic success. It has a breadth, truth, and power which make the famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar, ofGoethe's _Faust_, seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are onlymatched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes. 

Here, where his largeness and freedom serve him so admirably, and alsoin those poems and songs where to shrewdness he adds infinite archnessand, wit, and to benignity infinite pathos, where his manner isflawless, and a perfect poetic whole is the result, --in things like theaddress to the mouse whose home he had ruined, in things like _DuncanGray, Tarn Glen, Whistle and I'll come to you my Lad, Auld Lang Syne_(this list might be made much longer), --here we have the genuine Burns, of whom the real estimate must be high indeed. Not a classic, nor withthe excellent[Greek: spoudaihotaes] of the great classics, nor with averse rising to a criticism of life and a virtue like theirs; but a poetwith thorough truth of substance and an answering truth of style, givingus a poetry sound to the core. We all of us have a leaning towards thepathetic, and may be inclined perhaps to prize Burns most for histouches of piercing, sometimes almost intolerable, pathos; for verselike--

 "We twa hae paidl't i' the burn From mornin' sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin auld lang syne . .. "

where he is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by theperfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that heis poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a personalestimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will be, --ofthat beautiful spirit building his many-colored haze of words and images

 "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane"--[114]

no contact can be wholesomer than the contact with Burns at his archestand soundest. Side by side with the

 "On the brink of the night and the morning My coursers are wont to respire, But the Earth has just whispered a warning That their flight must be swifter than fire . .. "[115]

of _Prometheus Unbound_, how salutary, how very salutary, to place thisfrom _Tam Glen_--

 "My minnie does constantly deave me and bids me beware o' young men; They flatter, she says, to deceive me; But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?"

But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times sonear to us--poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth--of whichthe estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with passion. For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of Burns, thefirst poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is evidently aptto be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, using thepoetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to correct thisestimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means the historicestimate where we met with it. A collection like the present, with itssuccession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, offers a goodopportunity to us for resolutely endeavoring to make our estimates ofpoetry real. I have sought to point out a method which will help us inmaking them so, and to exhibit it in use so far as to put any one wholikes in a way of applying it for himself. 

At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed tolead, and from leading to which, if they do lead to it, they get theirwhole value, --the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply toenjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry, --is an end, let me say itonce more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often told that anera is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort ofreaders, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers donot want and could not relish anything better than such literature, andthat to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even ifgood literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still beabundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it neverwill lose currency with the world, in spite of momentary appearances; itnever will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, notindeed by the world's deliberate and conscious choice, but by somethingfar deeper, --by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. 

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE[116]

Practical people talk with a smile of Plato and of his absolute ideas;and it is impossible to deny that Plato's ideas do often seemunpractical and impracticable, and especially when one views them inconnection with the life of a great work-a-day world like the UnitedStates. The necessary staple of the life of such a world Plato regardswith disdain; handicraft and trade and the working professions heregards with disdain; but what becomes of the life of an industrialmodern community if you take handicraft and trade and the workingprofessions out of it? The base mechanic arts and handicrafts, saysPlato, bring about a natural weakness in the principle of excellence ina man, so that he cannot govern the ignoble growths in him, but nursesthem, and cannot understand fostering any other. Those who exercise sucharts and trades, as they have their bodies, he says, marred by theirvulgar businesses, so they have their souls, too, bowed and broken bythem. And if one of these uncomely people has a mind to seekself-culture and philosophy, Plato compares him to a bald littletinker, [117] who has scraped together money, and has got his releasefrom service, and has had a bath, and bought a new coat, and is riggedout like a bridegroom about to marry the daughter of his master who hasfallen into poor and helpless estate. 

Nor do the working professions fare any better than trade at the handsof Plato. He draws for us an inimitable picture of the workinglawyer, [118] and of his life of bondage; he shows how this bondage fromhis youth up has stunted and warped him, and made him small and crookedof soul, encompassing him with difficulties which he is not man enoughto rely on justice and truth as means to encounter, but has recourse, for help out of them, to falsehood and wrong. And so, says Plato, thispoor creature is bent and broken, and grows up from boy to man without aparticle of soundness in him, although exceedingly smart and clever inhis own esteem. 

One cannot refuse to admire the artist who draws these pictures. But wesay to ourselves that his ideas show the influence of a primitive andobsolete order of things, when the warrior caste and the priestly castewere alone in honor, and the humble work of the world was done byslaves. We have now changed all that; the modern majesty[119] consistsin work, as Emerson declares; and in work, we may add, principally ofsuch plain and dusty kind as the work of cultivators of the ground, handicraftsmen, men of trade and business, men of the workingprofessions. Above all is this true in a great industrious communitysuch as that of the United States. 

Now education, many people go on to say, is still mainly governed by theideas of men like Plato, who lived when the warrior caste and thepriestly or philosophical class were alone in honor, and the reallyuseful part of the community were slaves. It is an education fitted forpersons of leisure in such a community. This education passed fromGreece and Rome to the feudal communities of Europe, where also thewarrior caste and the priestly caste were alone held in honor, and wherethe really useful and working part of the community, though notnominally slaves as in the pagan world, were practically not much betteroff than slaves, and not more seriously regarded. And how absurd it is, people end by saying, to inflict this education upon an industriousmodern community, where very few indeed are persons of leisure, and themass to be considered has not leisure, but is bound, for its own greatgood, and for the great good of the world at large, to plain labor andto industrial pursuits, and the education in question tends necessarilyto make men dissatisfied with these pursuits and unfitted for them!

That is what is said. So far I must defend Plato, as to plead that hisview of education and studies is in the general, as it seems to me, sound enough, and fitted for all sorts and conditions of men, whatevertheir pursuits may be. "An intelligent man, " says Plato, "will prizethose studies, which result in his soul getting soberness, righteousness, and wisdom, and will less value the others. "[120] Icannot consider _that_ a bad description of the aim of education, and ofthe motives which should govern us in the choice of studies, whether weare preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat in the English House ofLords or for the pork trade in Chicago. 

Still I admit that Plato's world was not ours, that his scorn of tradeand handicraft is fantastic, that he had no conception of a greatindustrial community such as that of the United States, and that such acommunity must and will shape its education to suit its own needs. Ifthe usual education handed down to it from the past does not suit it, itwill certainly before long drop this and try another. The usualeducation in the past has been mainly literary. The question is whetherthe studies which were long supposed to be the best for all of us arepractically the best now; whether others are not better. The tyranny ofthe past, many think, weighs on us injuriously in the predominance givento letters in education. The question is raised whether, to meet theneeds of our modern life, the predominance ought not now to pass fromletters to science; and naturally the question is nowhere raised withmore energy than here in the United States. The design of abasing whatis called "mere literary instruction and education, " and of exaltingwhat is called "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge, "is, in this intensely modern world of the United States, even moreperhaps than in Europe, a very popular design, and makes great and rapidprogress. 

I am going to ask whether the present movement for ousting letters fromtheir old predominance in education, and for transferring thepredominance in education to the natural sciences, whether this briskand flourishing movement ought to prevail, and whether it is likely thatin the end it really will prevail. An objection may be raised which Iwill anticipate. My own studies have been almost wholly in letters, andmy visits to the field of the natural sciences have been very slight andinadequate, although those sciences have always strongly moved mycuriosity. A man of letters, it will perhaps be said, is not competentto discuss the comparative merits of letters and natural science asmeans of education. To this objection I reply, first of all, that hisincompetence, if he attempts the discussion but is really incompetentfor it, will be abundantly visible; nobody will be taken in; he willhave plenty of sharp observers and critics to save mankind from thatdanger. But the line I am going to follow is, as you will soon discover, so extremely simple, that perhaps it may be followed without failureeven by one who for a more ambitious line of discussion would be quiteincompetent. 

Some of you may possibly remember a phrase of mine which has been theobject of a good deal of comment; an observation to the effect that inour culture, the aim being _to know ourselves and the world_, we have, as the means to this end, _to know the best which has been thought andsaid in the world_. [121] A man of science, who is also an excellentwriter and the very prince of debaters, Professor Huxley, in a discourse[122] at the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's college at Birmingham, layinghold of this phrase, expanded it by quoting some more words of mine, which are these: "The civilized world is to be regarded as now being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, boundto a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members havefor their proper outfit a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Easternantiquity, and of one another. Special local and temporary advantagesbeing put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectualand spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carriesout this programme. "[123]

Now on my phrase, thus enlarged, Professor Huxley remarks that when Ispeak of the above-mentioned knowledge as enabling us to know ourselvesand the world, I assert _literature_ to contain the materials whichsuffice for thus making us know ourselves and the world. But it is notby any means clear, says he, that after having learnt all which ancientand modern literatures have to tell us, we have laid a sufficientlybroad and deep foundation for that criticism of life, that knowledge ofourselves and the world, which constitutes culture. On the contrary, Professor Huxley declares that he finds himself "wholly unable to admitthat either nations or individuals will really advance, if their outfitdraws nothing from the stores of physical science. An army withoutweapons of precision, and with no particular base of operations, mightmore hopefully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, than a man, devoid ofa knowledge of what physical science has done in the last century, upona criticism of life. "

This shows how needful it is for those who are to discuss any mattertogether, to have a common understanding as to the sense of the termsthey employ, --how needful, and how difficult. What Professor Huxleysays, implies just the reproach which is so often brought against thestudy of _belles lettres_, as they are called: that the study is anelegant one, but slight and ineffectual; a smattering of Greek and Latinand other ornamental things, of little use for any one whose object isto get at truth, and to be a practical man. So, too, M. Renan[124]talks of the "superficial humanism" of a school-course which treats usas if we were all going to be poets, writers, preachers, orators, and heopposes this humanism to positive science, or the critical search aftertruth. And there is always a tendency in those who are remonstratingagainst the predominance of letters in education, to understand byletters _belles lettres_, and by _belles lettres_ a superficial humanismthe opposite of science or true knowledge. 

But when we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for instance, which is the knowledge people have called the humanities, I for my partmean a knowledge which is something more than a superficial humanism, mainly decorative. "I call all teaching _scientific_" says Wolf, thecritic of Homer, "which is systematically laid out and followed up toits original sources. For example: a knowledge of classical antiquity isscientific when the remains of classical antiquity are correctly studiedin the original languages. " There can be no doubt that Wolf[125] isperfectly right; that all learning is scientific which is systematicallylaid out and followed up to its original sources, and that a genuinehumanism is scientific. 

When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, therefore, as a helpto knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a knowledge of somuch vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions of authors in theGreek and Latin languages, I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, andtheir life and genius, and what they were and did in the world; what weget from them, and what is its value. That, at least, is the ideal; andwhen we talk of endeavoring to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a helpto knowing ourselves and the world, we mean endeavoring so to know themas to satisfy this ideal, however much we may still fall short of it. 

The same also as to knowing our own and other modern nations, with thelike aim of getting to understand ourselves and the world. To know thebest that has been thought and said by the modern nations, is to know, says Professor Huxley, "only what modern _literatures_ have to tell us;it is the criticism of life contained in modern literature. " And yet"the distinctive character of our times, " he urges, "lies in the vastand constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge. "And how, therefore, can a man, devoid of knowledge of what physicalscience has done in the last century, enter hopefully upon a criticismof modern life?

Let us, I say, be agreed about the meaning of the terms we are using. Italk of knowing the best which has been thought and uttered in theworld; Professor Huxley says this means knowing _literature_. Literatureis a large word; it may mean everything written with letters or printedin a book. Euclid's _Elements_ and Newton's _Principia_ are thusliterature. All knowledge that reaches us through books is literature. But by literature Professor Huxley means _belles lettres_. He means tomake me say, that knowing the best which has been thought and said bythe modern nations is knowing their _belles lettres_ and no more. Andthis is no sufficient equipment, he argues, for a criticism of modernlife. But as I do not mean, by knowing ancient Rome, knowing merely moreor less of Latin _belles lettres_, and taking no account of Rome'smilitary, and political, and legal, and administrative work in theworld; and as, by knowing ancient Greece, I understand knowing her asthe giver of Greek art, and the guide to a free and right use of reasonand to scientific method, and the founder of our mathematics and physicsand astronomy and biology, --I understand knowing her as all this, andnot merely knowing certain Greek poems, and histories, and treatises, and speeches, --so as to the knowledge of modern nations also. By knowingmodern nations, I mean not merely knowing their _belles lettres_, butknowing also what has been done by such men as Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin. "Our ancestors learned, " says Professor Huxley, "thatthe earth is the centre of the visible universe, and that man is thecynosure of things terrestrial; and more especially was it inculcatedthat the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, andconstantly was, altered. " But for us now, continues Professor Huxley, "the notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained byour forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that theearth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the worldis not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature isthe expression of a definite order, with which nothing interferes. " "Andyet, " he cries, "the purely classical education advocated by therepresentatives of the humanists in our day gives no inkling of allthis!"

In due place and time I will just touch upon that vexed question ofclassical education; but at present the question is as to what is meantby knowing the best which modern nations have thought and said. It isnot knowing their _belles lettres_ merely which is meant. To knowItalian _belles lettres_, is not to know Italy, and to know English_belles lettres_ is not to know England. Into knowing Italy and Englandthere comes a great deal more, Galileo and Newton amongst it. Thereproach of being a superficial humanism, a tincture of _belleslettres_, may attach rightly enough to some other disciplines; but tothe particular discipline recommended when I proposed knowing the bestthat has been thought and said in the world, it does not apply. In thatbest I certainly include what in modern times has been thought and saidby the great observers and knowers of nature. 

There is, therefore, really no question between Professor Huxley and meas to whether knowing the great results of the modern scientific studyof nature is not required as a part of our culture, as well as knowingthe products of literature and art. But to follow the processes by whichthose results are reached, ought, say the friends of physical science, to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And herethere does arise a question between those whom Professor Huxley callswith playful sarcasm "the Levites of culture, " and those whom the poorhumanist is sometimes apt to regard as its Nebuchadnezzars. 

The great results of the scientific investigation of nature we areagreed upon knowing, but how much of our study are we bound to give tothe processes by which those results are reached? The results have theirvisible bearing on human life. But all the processes, too, all the itemsof fact, by which those results are reached and established, areinteresting. All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and theknowledge of nature is interesting to all men. It is very interesting toknow, that, from the albuminous white of the egg, the chick in the egggets the materials for its flesh, bones, blood, and feathers; while fromthe fatty yolk of the egg, it gets the heat and energy which enable itat length to break its shell and begin the world. It is lessinteresting, perhaps, but still it is interesting, to know that when ataper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water. Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts, whichis given by the study of nature, is, as the friends of physical sciencepraise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal, in the studyof nature, is constantly to observation and experiment; not only is itsaid that the thing is so, but we can be made to see that it is so. Notonly does a man tell us that when a taper burns the wax is convertedinto carbonic acid and water, as a man may tell us, if he likes, thatCharon is punting his ferry-boat on the river Styx, or that Victor Hugois a sublime poet, or Mr. Gladstone the most admirable of statesmen; butwe are made to see that the conversion into carbonic acid and water doesactually happen. This reality of natural knowledge it is, which makesthe friends of physical science contrast it, as a knowledge of things, with the humanist's knowledge, which is, say they, a knowledge of words. And hence Professor Huxley is moved to lay it down that, "for thepurpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific educationis at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education. " And acertain President of the Section for Mechanical Science in the BritishAssociation is, in Scripture phrase, "very bold, " and declares that if aman, in his mental training, "has substituted literature and history fornatural science, he has chosen the less useful alternative. " But whetherwe go these lengths or not, we must all admit that in natural sciencethe habit gained of dealing with facts is a most valuable discipline, and that every one should have some experience of it. 

More than this, however, is demanded by the reformers. It is proposed tomake the training in natural science the main part of education, for thegreat majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I partcompany with the friends of physical science, with whom up to this pointI have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceedwith the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my ownacquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before mymind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. Theability and pugnacity of the partisans of natural science make themformidable persons to contradict. The tone of tentative inquiry, whichbefits a being of dim faculties and bounded knowledge, is the tone Iwould wish to take and not to depart from. At present it seems to me, that those who are for giving to natural knowledge, as they call it, thechief place in the education of the majority of mankind, leave oneimportant thing out of their account: the constitution of human nature. But I put this forward on the strength of some facts not at allrecondite, very far from it; facts capable of being stated in thesimplest possible fashion, and to which, if I so state them, the man ofscience will, I am sure, be willing to allow their due weight. 

Deny the facts altogether, I think, he hardly can. He can hardly deny, that when we set ourselves to enumerate the powers which go to thebuilding up of human life, and say that they are the power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, and the powerof social life and manners, --he can hardly deny that this scheme, though drawn in rough and plain lines enough, and not pretending toscientific exactness, does yet give a fairly true representation of thematter. Human nature is built up by these powers; we have the need forthem all. When we have rightly met and adjusted the claims of them all, we shall then be in a fair way for getting soberness, and righteousnesswith wisdom. This is evident enough, and the friends of physical sciencewould admit it. 

But perhaps they may not have sufficiently observed another thing:namely, that the several powers just mentioned are not isolated, butthere is, in the generality of mankind, a perpetual tendency to relatethem one to another in divers ways. With one such way of relating them Iam particularly concerned now. Following our instinct for intellect andknowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently in thegenerality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces ofknowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for beauty, --and thereis weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is balked. Now in thisdesire lies, I think, the strength of that hold which letters have uponus. 

All knowledge is, as I said just now, interesting; and even items ofknowledge which from the nature of the case cannot well be related, butmust stand isolated in our thoughts, have their interest. Even lists ofexceptions have their interest. If we are studying Greek accents it isinteresting to know that _pais_ and _pas_, and some other monosyllablesof the same form of declension, do not take the circumflex upon the lastsyllable of the genitive plural, but vary, in this respect, from thecommon rule. If we are studying physiology, it is interesting to knowthat the pulmonary artery carries dark blood and the pulmonary veincarries bright blood, departing in this respect from the common rule forthe division of labor between the veins and the arteries. But every oneknows how we seek naturally to combine the pieces of our knowledgetogether, to bring them under general rules, to relate them toprinciples; and how unsatisfactory and tiresome it would be to go onforever learning lists of exceptions, or accumulating items of factwhich must stand isolated. 

Well, that same need of relating our knowledge, which operates herewithin the sphere of our knowledge itself, we shall find operating, also, outside that sphere. We experience, as we go on learning andknowing, --the vast majority of us experience, --the need of relating whatwe have learnt and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct, to the sense which we have in us for beauty. 

A certain Greek prophetess of Mantineia in Arcadia, Diotima[126] byname, once explained to the philosopher Socrates that love, and impulse, and bent of all kinds, is, in fact, nothing else but the desire in menthat good should forever be present to them. This desire for good, Diotima assured Socrates, is our fundamental desire, of whichfundamental desire every impulse in us is only some one particular form. And therefore this fundamental desire it is, I suppose, --this desire inmen that good should be forever present to them, --which acts in us whenwe feel the impulse for relating our knowledge to our sense for conductand to our sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general theinstinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will beadmitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our followingthe lead of its innocent instincts. Therefore, in seeking to gratifythis instinct in question, we are following the instinct ofself-preservation in humanity. 

But, no doubt, some kinds of knowledge cannot be made to directly servethe instinct in question, cannot be directly related to the sense forbeauty, to the sense for conduct. These are instrument-knowledges; theylead on to other knowledges, which can. A man who passes his life ininstrument-knowledges is a specialist. They may be invaluable asinstruments to something beyond, for those who have the gift thus toemploy them; and they may be disciplines in themselves wherein it isuseful for every one to have some schooling. But it is inconceivablethat the generality of men should pass all their mental life with Greekaccents or with formal logic. My friend Professor Sylvester, [127] who isone of the first mathematicians in the world, holds transcendentaldoctrines as to the virtue of mathematics, but those doctrines are notfor common men. In the very Senate House and heart of our EnglishCambridge I once ventured, though not without an apology for myprofaneness, to hazard the opinion that for the majority of mankind alittle of mathematics, even, goes a long way. Of course this is quiteconsistent with their being of immense importance as an instrument tosomething else; but it is the few who have the aptitude for thus usingthem, not the bulk of mankind. 

The natural sciences do not, however, stand on the same footing withthese instrument-knowledges. Experience shows us that the generality ofmen will find more interest in learning that, when a taper burns, thewax is converted into carbonic acid and water, or in learning theexplanation of the phenomenon of dew, or in learning how the circulationof the blood is carried on, than they find in learning that the genitiveplural of _pais_ and _pas_ does not take the circumflex on thetermination. And one piece of natural knowledge is added to another, andothers are added to that, and at last we come to propositions sointeresting as Mr. Darwin's famous proposition[128] that "our ancestorwas a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probablyarboreal in his habits. " Or we come to propositions of such reach andmagnitude as those which Professor Huxley delivers, when he says thatthe notions of our forefathers about the beginning and the end of theworld were all wrong, and that nature is the expression of a definiteorder with which nothing interferes. 

Interesting, indeed, these results of science are, important they are, and we should all of us be acquainted with them. But what I now wish youto mark is, that we are still, when they are propounded to us and wereceive them, we are still in the sphere of intellect and knowledge. Andfor the generality of men there will be found, I say, to arise, whenthey have duly taken in the proposition that their ancestor was "a hairyquadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal inhis habits, " there will be found to arise an invincible desire to relatethis proposition to the sense in us for conduct, and to the sense in usfor beauty. But this the men of science will not do for us, and willhardly even profess to do. They will give us other pieces of knowledge, other facts, about other animals and their ancestors, or about plants, or about stones, or about stars; and they may finally bring us to thosegreat "general conceptions of the universe, which are forced upon usall, " says Professor Huxley, "by the progress of physical science. " Butstill it will be _knowledge_, only which they give us; knowledge not putfor us into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, and touched with emotion by being so put; not thus put for us, andtherefore, to the majority of mankind, after a certain while, unsatisfying, wearying. 

Not to the born naturalist, I admit. But what do we mean by a bornnaturalist? We mean a man in whom the zeal for observing nature is souncommonly strong and eminent, that it marks him off from the bulk ofmankind. Such a man will pass his life happily in collecting naturalknowledge and reasoning upon it, and will ask for nothing, or hardlyanything, more. I have heard it said that the sagacious and admirablenaturalist whom we lost not very long ago, Mr. Darwin, once owned to afriend that for his part he did not experience the necessity for twothings which most men find so necessary to them, --religion and poetry;science and the domestic affections, he thought, were enough. To a bornnaturalist, I can well understand that this should seem so. So absorbingis his occupation with nature, so strong his love for his occupation, that he goes on acquiring natural knowledge and reasoning upon it, andhas little time or inclination for thinking about getting it related tothe desire in man for conduct, the desire in man for beauty. He relatesit to them for himself as he goes along, so far as he feels the need;and he draws from the domestic affections all the additional solacenecessary. But then Darwins are extremely rare. Another great andadmirable master of natural knowledge, Faraday, was a Sandemanian. [129]. That is to say, he related his knowledge to his instinct for conduct andto his instinct for beauty, by the aid of that respectable Scottishsectary, Robert Sandeman. And so strong, in general, is the demand ofreligion and poetry to have their share in a man, to associatethemselves with his knowing, and to relieve and rejoice it, that, probably, for one man amongst us with the disposition to do as Darwindid in this respect, there are at least fifty with the disposition to doas Faraday. 

Education lays hold upon us, in fact, by satisfying this demand. Professor Huxley holds up to scorn mediæval education, with its neglectof the knowledge of nature, its poverty even of literary studies, itsformal logic devoted to "showing how and why that which the Church saidwas true must be true. " But the great mediæval Universities were notbrought into being, we may be sure, by the zeal for giving a jejune andcontemptible education. Kings have been their nursing fathers, andqueens have been their nursing mothers, but not for this. The mediævalUniversities came into being, because the supposed knowledge, deliveredby Scripture and the Church, so deeply engaged men's hearts, by sosimply, easily, and powerfully relating itself to their desire forconduct, their desire for beauty. All other knowledge was dominated bythis supposed knowledge and was subordinated to it, because of thesurpassing strength of the hold which it gained upon the affections ofmen, by allying itself profoundly with their sense for conduct, theirsense for beauty. 

But now, says Professor Huxley, conceptions of the universe fatal to thenotions held by our forefathers have been forced upon us by physicalscience. Grant to him that they are thus fatal, that the new conceptionsmust and will soon become current everywhere, and that every one willfinally perceive them to be fatal to the beliefs of our forefathers. Theneed of humane letters, as they are truly called, because they serve theparamount desire in men that good should be forever present to them, --the need of humane letters, to establish a relation between the newconceptions, and our instinct for beauty, our instinct for conduct, isonly the more visible. The Middle Age could do without humane letters, as it could do without the study of nature, because its supposedknowledge was made to engage its emotions so powerfully. Grant that thesupposed knowledge disappears, its power of being made to engage theemotions will of course disappear along with it, --but the emotionsthemselves, and their claim to be engaged and satisfied, will remain. Now if we find by experience that humane letters have an undeniablepower of engaging the emotions, the importance of humane letters in aman's training becomes not less, but greater, in proportion to thesuccess of modern science in extirpating what it calls "mediævalthinking. "

Have humane letters, then, have poetry and eloquence, the power hereattributed to them of engaging the emotions, and do they exercise it?And if they have it and exercise it, _how_ do they exercise it, so as toexert an influence upon man's sense for conduct, his sense for beauty?Finally, even if they both can and do exert an influence upon the sensesin question, how are they to relate to them the results--the modernresults--of natural science? All these questions may be asked. First, have poetry and eloquence the power of calling out the emotions? Theappeal is to experience. Experience shows that for the vast majority ofmen, for mankind in general, they have the power. Next, do they exerciseit? They do. But then, _how_ do they exercise it so as to affect man'ssense for conduct, his sense for beauty? And this is perhaps a case forapplying the Preacher's words: "Though a man labor to seek it out, yethe shall not find it; yea, farther, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it. "[130] Why should it be one thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say, "Patience is a virtue, " andquite another thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say with Homer, [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin]--[131]

"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children ofmen"? Why should it be one thing, in its effect upon the emotions, tosay with the philosopher Spinoza, _Felicitas in ea consistit quod homosuum esse conservare potest_--"Man's happiness consists in his beingable to preserve his own essence, " and quite another thing, in itseffect upon the emotions, to say with the Gospel, "What is a manadvantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, forfeithimself?"[132] How does this difference of effect arise? I cannot tell, and I am not much concerned to know; the important thing is that it doesarise, and that we can profit by it. But how, finally, are poetry andeloquence to exercise the power of relating the modern results ofnatural science to man's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty?And here again I answer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, but that they can and will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean thatmodern philosophical poets and modern philosophical moralists are tocome and relate for us, in express terms, the results of modernscientific research to our instinct for conduct, our instinct forbeauty. But I mean that we shall find, as a matter of experience, if weknow the best that has been thought and uttered in the world, we shallfind that the art and poetry and eloquence of men who lived, perhaps, long ago, who had the most limited natural knowledge, who had the mosterroneous conceptions about many important matters, we shall find thatthis art, and poetry, and eloquence, have in fact not only the power ofrefreshing and delighting us, they have also the power, --such is thestrength and worth, in essentials, of their authors' criticism of life, --they have a fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestivepower, capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modernscience to our need for conduct, our need for beauty. Homer'sconceptions of the physical universe were, I imagine, grotesque; butreally, under the shock of hearing from modern science that "the worldis not subordinated to man's use, and that man is not the cynosure ofthings terrestrial, " I could, for my own part, desire no better comfortthan Homer's line which I quoted just now, [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin--]

"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children ofmen"!

And the more that men's minds are cleared, the more that the results ofscience are frankly accepted, the more that poetry and eloquence come tobe received and studied as what in truth they really are, --thecriticism of life by gifted men, alive and active with extraordinarypower at an unusual number of points;--so much the more will the valueof humane letters, and of art also, which is an utterance having a likekind of power with theirs, be felt and acknowledged, and their place ineducation be secured. 

Let us, therefore, all of us, avoid indeed as much as possible anyinvidious comparison between the merits of humane letters, as means ofeducation, and the merits of the natural sciences. But when somePresident of a Section for Mechanical Science insists on making thecomparison, and tells us that "he who in his training has substitutedliterature and history for natural science has chosen the less usefulalternative, " let us make answer to him that the student of humaneletters only, will, at least, know also the great general conceptionsbrought in by modern physical science: for science, as Professor Huxleysays, forces them upon us all. But the student of the natural sciencesonly, will, by our very hypothesis, know nothing of humane letters; notto mention that in setting himself to be perpetually accumulatingnatural knowledge, he sets himself to do what only specialists have ingeneral the gift for doing genially. And so he will probably beunsatisfied, or at any rate incomplete, and even more incomplete thanthe student of humane letters only. 

I once mentioned in a school-report, how a young man in one of ourEnglish training colleges having to paraphrase the passage in _Macbeth_beginning, "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?"[133]

turned this line into, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" And Iremarked what a curious state of things it would be, if every pupil ofour national schools knew, let us say, that the moon is two thousand onehundred and sixty miles in diameter, and thought at the same time that agood paraphrase for

 "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?"

was, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" If one is driven to choose, Ithink I would rather have a young person ignorant about the moon'sdiameter, but aware that "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" is bad, than a young person whose education had been such as to manage thingsthe other way. 

Or to go higher than the pupils of our national schools. I have in mymind's eye a member of our British Parliament who comes to travel herein America, who afterwards relates his travels, and who shows a reallymasterly knowledge of the geology of this great country and of itsmining capabilities, but who ends by gravely suggesting that the UnitedStates should borrow a prince from our Royal Family, and should make himtheir king, and should create a House of Lords of great landedproprietors after the pattern of ours; and then America, he thinks, would have her future happily and perfectly secured. Surely, in thiscase, the President of the Section for Mechanical Science would himselfhardly say that our member of Parliament, by concentrating himself upongeology and mineralogy, and so on, and not attending to literature andhistory, had "chosen the more useful alternative. "

If then there is to be separation and option between humane letters onthe one hand, and the natural sciences on the other, the great majorityof mankind, all who have not exceptional and overpowering aptitudes forthe study of nature, would do well, I cannot but think, to choose to beeducated in humane letters rather than in the natural sciences. Letterswill call out their being at more points, will make them live more. 

I said that before I ended I would just touch on the question ofclassical education, and I will keep my word. Even if literature is toretain a large place in our education, yet Latin and Greek, say thefriends of progress, will certainly have to go. Greek is the grandoffender in the eyes of these gentlemen. The attackers of theestablished course of study think that against Greek, at any rate, theyhave irresistible arguments. Literature may perhaps be needed ineducation, they say; but why on earth should it be Greek literature? Whynot French or German? Nay, "has not an Englishman models in his ownliterature of every kind of excellence?" As before, it is not on anyweak pleadings of my own that I rely for convincing the gainsayers; itis on the constitution of human nature itself, and on the instinct ofself-preservation in humanity. The instinct for beauty is set in humannature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or theinstinct for conduct. If the instinct for beauty is served by Greekliterature and art as it is served by no other literature and art, wemay trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keepingGreek as part of our culture. We may trust to it for even making thestudy of Greek more prevalent than it is now. Greek will come, I hope, some day to be studied more rationally than at present; but it will beincreasingly studied as men increasingly feel the need in them forbeauty, and how powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve thisneed. Women will again study Greek, as Lady Jane Grey[134] did; Ibelieve that in that chain of forts, with which the fair host of theAmazons are now engirdling our English universities, I find that here inAmerica, in colleges like Smith College in Massachusetts, and VassarCollege in the State of New York, and in the happy families of the mixeduniversities out West, they are studying it already. 

_Defuit una mihi symmetria prisca_, --"The antique symmetry was the onething wanting to me, " said Leonardo da Vinci; and he was an Italian. Iwill not presume to speak for the Americans, but I am sure that, in theEnglishman, the want of this admirable symmetry of the Greeks is athousand times more great and crying than in any Italian. The results ofthe want show themselves most glaringly, perhaps, in our architecture, but they show themselves, also, in all our art. _Fit details strictlycombined, in view of a large general result nobly conceived_; that isjust the beautiful _symmetria prisca_ of the Greeks, and it is justwhere we English fail, where all our art fails. Striking ideas we have, and well executed details we have; but that high symmetry which, withsatisfying and delightful effect, combines them, we seldom or neverhave. The glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens did not come fromsingle fine things stuck about on that hill, a statue here, a gatewaythere;--no, it arose from all things being perfectly combined for asupreme total effect. What must not an Englishman feel about ourdeficiencies in this respect, as the sense for beauty, whereof thissymmetry is an essential element, awakens and strengthens within him!what will not one day be his respect and desire for Greece and its_symmetria prisca_, when the scales drop from his eyes as he walks theLondon streets, and he sees such a lesson in meanness, as the Strand, for instance, in its true deformity! But here we are coming to ourfriend Mr. Ruskin's province, and I will not intrude upon it, for he isits very sufficient guardian. 

And so we at last find, it seems, we find flowing in favor of thehumanities the natural and necessary stream of things, which seemedagainst them when we started. The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tailand pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits, " this good fellowcarried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to developinto a necessity for humane letters. Nay, more; we seem finally to beeven led to the further conclusion that our hairy ancestor carried inhis nature, also, a necessity for Greek. 

And, therefore, to say the truth, I cannot really think that humaneletters are in much actual danger of being thrust out from their leadingplace in education, in spite of the array of authorities against them atthis moment. So long as human nature is what it is, their attractionswill remain irresistible. As with Greek, so with letters generally: theywill some day come, we may hope, to be studied more rationally but theywill not lose their place. What will happen will rather be that therewill be crowded into education other matters besides, far too many;there will be, perhaps, a period of unsettlement and confusion and falsetendency; but letters will not in the end lose their leading place. Ifthey lose it for a time, they will get it back again. We shall bebrought back to them by our wants and aspirations. And a poor humanistmay possess his soul in patience, neither strive nor cry, admit theenergy and brilliancy of the partisans of physical science, and theirpresent favor with the public, to be far greater than his own, and stillhave a happy faith that the nature of things works silently on behalf ofthe studies which he loves, and that, while we shall all have toacquaint ourselves with the great results reached by modern science, andto give ourselves as much training in its disciplines as we canconveniently carry, yet the majority of men will always require humaneletters; and so much the more, as they have the more and the greaterresults of science to relate to the need in man for conduct, and to theneed in him for beauty. 

II. LITERARY CRITICISM

HEINRICH HEINE[135]

"I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one day be laid onmy coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been to me buta divine plaything. I have never attached any great value to poeticalfame; and I trouble myself very little whether people praise my versesor blame them. But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldierin the Liberation War of humanity. "[136]

Heine had his full share of love of fame, and cared quite as much as hisbrethren of the _genus irritabile_ whether people praised his verses orblamed them. And he was very little of a hero. Posterity will certainlydecorate his tomb with the emblem of the laurel rather than with theemblem of the sword. Still, for his contemporaries, for us, for theEurope of the present century, he is significant chiefly for the reasonwhich he himself in the words just quoted assigns. He is significantbecause he was, if not pre-eminently a brave, yet a brilliant, a mosteffective soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. 

To ascertain the master-current in the literature of an epoch, and todistinguish this from all minor currents, is one of the critic's highestfunctions; in discharging it he shows how far he possesses the mostindispensable quality of his office, --justness of spirit. The livingwriter who has done most to make England acquainted with German authors, a man of genius, but to whom precisely this one quality of justness ofspirit is perhaps wanting, --I mean Mr. Carlyle, --seems to me in theresult of his labors on German literature to afford a proof how verynecessary to the critic this quality is. Mr. Carlyle has spokenadmirably of Goethe; but then Goethe stands before all men's eyes, themanifest centre of German literature; and from this central source manyrivers flow. Which of these rivers is the main stream? which of thecourses of spirit which we see active in Goethe is the course which willmost influence the future, and attract and be continued by the mostpowerful of Goethe's successors?--that is the question. Mr. Carlyleattaches, it seems to me, far too much importance to the romantic schoolof Germany, --Tieck, Novalis, Jean Paul Richter, [137]--and gives to thesewriters, really gifted as two, at any rate, of them are, an undueprominence. These writers, and others with aims and a general tendencythe same as theirs, are not the real inheritors and continuators ofGoethe's power; the current of their activity is not the main current ofGerman literature after Goethe. Far more in Heine's works flows thismain current; Heine, far more than Tieck or Jean Paul Richter, is thecontinuator of that which, in Goethe's varied activity, is the mostpowerful and vital; on Heine, of all German authors who survived Goethe, incomparably the largest portion of Goethe's mantle fell. I do notforget that when Mr. Carlyle was dealing with German literature, Heine, though he was clearly risen above the horizon, had not shone forth withall his strength; I do not forget, too, that after ten or twenty yearsmany things may come out plain before the critic which before were hardto be discerned by him; and assuredly no one would dream of imputing itas a fault to Mr. Carlyle that twenty years ago he mistook the centralcurrent in German literature, overlooked the rising Heine, and attachedundue importance to that romantic school which Heine was to destroy; onemay rather note it as a misfortune, sent perhaps as a delicatechastisement to a critic, who--man of genius as he is, and no onerecognizes his genius more admirably than I do--has, for the functionsof the critic, a little too much of the self-will and eccentricity of agenuine son of Great Britain. 

Heine is noteworthy, because he is the most important German successorand continuator of Goethe in Goethe's most important line of activity. And which of Goethe's lines of activity is this?--His line of activityas "a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity. "

Heine himself would hardly have admitted this affiliation, though he wasfar too powerful-minded a man to decry, with some of the vulgar Germanliberals, Goethe's genius. "The wind of the Paris Revolution, " he writesafter the three days of 1830, "blew about the candles a little in thedark night of Germany, so that the red curtains of a German throne ortwo caught fire; but the old watchmen, who do the police of the Germankingdoms, are already bringing out the fire engines, and will keep thecandles closer snuffed for the future. Poor, fast-bound German people, lose not all heart in thy bonds! The fashionable coating of ice meltsoff from my heart, my soul quivers and my eyes burn, and that is adisadvantageous state of things for a writer, who should control hissubject-matter and keep himself beautifully objective, as the artisticschool would have us, and as Goethe has done; he has come to be eightyyears old doing this, and minister, and in good condition:--poor Germanpeople! that is thy greatest man!"[138]

But hear Goethe himself: "If I were to say what I had really been to theGermans in general, and to the young German poets in particular, Ishould say I had been their _liberator_. "

Modern times find themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, rules, which have come tothem from times not modern. In this system their life has to be carriedforward; yet they have a sense that this system is not of their owncreation, that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants oftheir actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational. Theawakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern spirit. Themodern spirit is now awake almost everywhere; the sense of want ofcorrespondence between the forms of modern Europe and its spirit, between the new wine of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and theold bottles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or even of thesixteenth and seventeenth, almost every one now perceives; it is nolonger dangerous to affirm that this want of correspondence exists;people are even beginning to be shy of denying it. To remove this wantof correspondence is beginning to be the settled endeavor of mostpersons of good sense. Dissolvents of the old European system ofdominant ideas and facts we must all be, all of us who have any power ofworking; what we have to study is that we may not be acrid dissolventsof it. 

And how did Goethe, that grand dissolvent in his age when there werefewer of them than at present, proceed in his task of dissolution, ofliberation of the modern European from the old routine? He shall tell ushimself. "Through me the German poets have become aware that, as manmust live from within outwards, so the artist must work from withinoutwards, seeing that, make what contortions he will, he can only bringto light his own individuality. I can clearly mark where this influenceof mine has made itself felt; there arises out of it a kind of poetry ofnature, and only in this way is it possible to be original. "

My voice shall never be joined to those which decry Goethe, and if it issaid that the foregoing is a lame and impotent conclusion to Goethe'sdeclaration that he had been the liberator of the Germans in general, and of the young German poets in particular, I say it is not. Goethe'sprofound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all routinethinking, he puts the standard, once for all, inside every man insteadof outside him; when he is told, such a thing must be so, there isimmense authority and custom in favor of its being so, it has been heldto be so for a thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, "But_is_ it so? is it so to _me_?" Nothing could be more really subversiveof the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may beremarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, nopersons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe's influencemost deeply. If it is said that Goethe professes to have in this waydeeply influenced but a few persons, and those persons poets, one mayanswer that he could have taken no better way to secure, in the end, theear of the world; for poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. Nevertheless the process of liberation, as Goethe worked it, thoughsure, is undoubtedly slow; he came, as Heine says, to be eighty yearsold in thus working it, and at the end of that time the old Middle-Agemachine was still creaking on, the thirty German courts and theirchamberlains subsisted in all their glory; Goethe himself was aminister, and the visible triumph of the modern spirit over prescriptionand routine seemed as far off as ever. It was the year 1830; the Germansovereigns had passed the preceding fifteen years in breaking thepromises of freedom they had made to their subjects when they wantedtheir help in the final struggle with Napoleon. Great events werehappening in France; the revolution, defeated in 1815, had arisen fromits defeat, and was wresting from its adversaries the power. HeinrichHeine, a young man of genius, born at Hamburg, [139] and with all theculture of Germany, but by race a Jew; with warm sympathies for France, whose revolution had given to his race the rights of citizenship, andwhose rule had been, as is well known, popular in the Rhine provinces, where he passed his youth; with a passionate admiration for the greatFrench Emperor, with a passionate contempt for the sovereigns who hadoverthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy, --Heinrich Heinewas in 1830 in no humor for any such gradual process of liberation fromthe old order of things as that which Goethe had followed. His counselwas for open war. Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in hishand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle. What wasthat battle? the reader will ask. It was a life and death battle withPhilistinism. 

_Philistinism!_[140]--we have not the expression in English. Perhaps wehave not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, Iimagine, they did not talk of solecisms;[141] and here, at the veryheadquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. The French haveadopted the term _épicier_ (grocer), to designate the sort of being whomthe Germans designate by the Philistine; but the French term--besidesthat it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living andsusceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buriedlong ago--is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressivethan the German term. Efforts have been made to obtain in English someterm equivalent to _Philister_ or _épicier_; Mr. Carlyle has madeseveral such efforts: "respectability with its thousand gigs, "[142] hesays;--well, the occupant of every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlylemeans, a Philistine. However, the word _respectable_ is far too valuablea word to be thus perverted from its proper meaning; if the English areever to have a word for the thing we are speaking of, --and soprodigious are the changes which the modern spirit is introducing, thateven we English shall perhaps one day come to want such a word, --I thinkwe had much better take the term _Philistine_ itself. 

_Philistine_ must have originally meant, in the mind of those whoinvented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of thechosen people, of the children of the light. The party of change, thewould-be remodellers of the old traditional European order, the invokersof reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit inevery sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with therobust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, aschildren of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrumpeople, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, butat the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, thatPaladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preferencewhich he gives to France over Germany: "The French, " he says, "are thechosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas havebeen drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and theRhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom fromthe land of the Philistines. "[143] He means that the French, as apeople, have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people;that prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon anyother people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alterat the bidding (real or supposed) of reason. This explains, too, thedetestation which Heine had for the English: "I might settle inEngland, " he says, in his exile, "if it were not that I should findthere two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either. "What he hated in the English was the "ächtbrittische Beschränktheit, " ashe calls it, --the _genuine British narrowness_. In truth, the English, profoundly as they have modified the old Middle-Age order, great as isthe liberty which they have secured for themselves, have in all theirchanges proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by the rule of thumb;what was intolerably inconvenient to them they have suppressed, and asthey have suppressed it, not because it was irrational, but because itwas practically inconvenient, they have seldom in suppressing itappealed to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or form, or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for their purpose, and which saved them from the necessity of recurring to generalprinciples. They have thus become, in a certain sense, of all people themost inaccessible to ideas and the most impatient of them; inaccessibleto them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and impatientof them because they have got on so well without them, that they despisethose who, not having got on as well as themselves, still make a fussfor what they themselves have done so well without. But there hascertainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat of a generaldepression of pure intelligence: Philistia has come to be thought by usthe true Land of Promise, and it is anything but that; the born lover ofideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, thatthe sky over his head is of brass and iron. The enthusiast for the idea, for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for themselves; he valuesthem, irrespectively of the practical conveniences which their triumphmay obtain for him; and the man who regards the possession of thesepractical conveniences as something sufficient in itself, somethingwhich compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea, of reason, is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why Heine so often and somercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hatesPhilistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. Our Cobbett[144] is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy andaristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers onevery hand and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number: aPhilistine, the staff of whose spear is like a weaver's beam. Thus hespeaks of him:--

"While I translate Cobbett's words, the man himself comes bodily beforemy mind's eye, as I saw him at that uproarious dinner at the Crown andAnchor Tavern, with his scolding red face and his radical laugh, inwhich venomous hate mingles with a mocking exultation at his enemies'surely approaching downfall. He is a chained cur, who falls with equalfury on every one whom he does not know, often bites the best friend ofthe house in his calves, barks incessantly, and just because of thisincessantness of his barking cannot get listened to, even when he barksat a real thief. Therefore the distinguished thieves who plunder Englanddo not think it necessary to throw the growling Cobbett a bone to stophis mouth. This makes the dog furiously savage, and he shows all hishungry teeth. Poor old Cobbett! England's dog! I have no love for thee, for every vulgar nature my soul abhors: but thou touchest me to theinmost soul with pity, as I see how thou strainest in vain to breakloose and to get at those thieves, who make off with their booty beforethy very eyes, and mock at thy fruitless springs and thine impotenthowling. "[145]

There is balm in Philistia as well as in Gilead. A chosen circle ofchildren of the modern spirit, perfectly emancipated from prejudice andcommonplace, regarding the ideal side of things in all its efforts forchange, passionately despising half-measures and condescension to humanfolly and obstinacy, --with a bewildered, timid, torpid multitudebehind, --conducts a country to the government of Herr von Bismarck. Anation regarding the practical side of things in its efforts for change, attacking not what is irrational, but what is pressingly inconvenient, and attacking this as one body, "moving altogether if it move at all, "[146] and treating children of light like the very harshest ofstep-mothers, comes to the prosperity and liberty of modern England. Forall that, however, Philistia (let me say it again) is not the truepromised land, as we English commonly imagine it to be; and ourexcessive neglect of the idea, and consequent inaptitude for it, threatens us, at a moment when the idea is beginning to exercise a realpower in human society, with serious future inconvenience, and, in themeanwhile, cuts us off from the sympathy of other nations, which feelits power more than we do. 

But, in 1830, Heine very soon found that the fire-engines of the Germangovernments were too much for his direct efforts at incendiarism. "Whatdemon drove me, " he cries, "to write my _Reisebilder_, to edit anewspaper, to plague myself with our time and its interests, to try andshake the poor German Hodge out of his thousand years' sleep in hishole? What good did I get by it? Hodge opened his eyes, only to shutthem again immediately; he yawned, only to begin snoring again the nextminute louder than ever; he stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only tosink down again directly afterwards, and lie like a dead man in the oldbed of his accustomed habits. I must have rest; but where am I to find aresting-place? In Germany I can no longer stay. "

This is Heine's jesting account of his own efforts to rouse Germany: nowfor his pathetic account of them; it is because he unites so much witwith so much pathos that he is so effective a writer:--

"The Emperor Charles the Fifth[147] sate in sore straits, in the Tyrol, encompassed by his enemies. All his knights and courtiers had forsakenhim; not one came to his help. I know not if he had at that time thecheese face with which Holbein has painted him for us. But I am surethat under lip of his, with its contempt for mankind, stuck out evenmore than it does in his portraits. How could he but contemn the tribewhich in the sunshine of his prosperity had fawned on him so devotedly, and now, in his dark distress, left him all alone? Then suddenly hisdoor opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw backhis cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von derRosen, the court jester. This man brought him comfort and counsel, andhe was the court jester!

"'O German fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Conrad von derRosen. The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in goodtimes should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thyprison in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptreand crown; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser? If I cannot free thee, I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with theewho will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whispercourage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shallbe at thy service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the truelord of the land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far thanthat purple _Tel est notre plaisir_, which invokes a divine right withno better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thywill, my people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now thouliest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail;the day of deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning. My Kaiser, the night is over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn. '

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takesta headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is onlyblood. '

"'No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; thesesix thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high timethere should come a change. '

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy redcap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!'

"'Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard andfierce, that the fool's bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is nonethe worse for that. '

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking andcracking outside there?'

"'Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and soon the doors ofthy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!'

"'Am I then really Kaiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells meso!'

"'Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee sodesponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feelonce more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proudlike a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, andungrateful, as princes are. '

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what wilt thou dothen?'

"'I will then sew new bells on to my cap. '

"'And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?'

"'Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a ditch!'"[148]

I wish to mark Heine's place in modern European literature, the scope ofhis activity, and his value. I cannot attempt to give here a detailedaccount of his life, or a description of his separate works. In May 1831he went over his Jordan, the Rhine, and fixed himself in his newJerusalem, Paris. There, henceforward, he lived, going in general tosome French watering-place in the summer, but making only one or twoshort visits to Germany during the rest of his life. His works, in verseand prose, succeeded each other without stopping; a collected edition ofthem, filling seven closely-printed octavo volumes, has been publishedin America;[149] in the collected editions of few people's works isthere so little to skip. Those who wish for a single good specimen ofhim should read his first important work, the work which made hisreputation, the _Reisebilder_, or "Travelling Sketches": prose andverse, wit and seriousness, are mingled in it, and the mingling of theseis characteristic of Heine, and is nowhere to be seen practised morenaturally and happily than in his _Reisebilder_. In 1847 his health, which till then had always been perfectly good, gave way. He had a kindof paralytic stroke. His malady proved to be a softening of the spinalmarrow: it was incurable; it made rapid progress. In May 1848, not ayear after his first attack, he went out of doors for the last time; buthis disease took more than eight years to kill him. For nearly eightyears he lay helpless on a couch, with the use of his limbs gone, wastedalmost to the proportions of a child, wasted so that a woman could carryhim about; the sight of one eye lost, that of the other greatly dimmed, and requiring, that it might be exercised, to have the palsied eyelidlifted and held up by the finger; all this, and besides this, sufferingat short intervals paroxysms of nervous agony. I have said he was notpreëminently brave; but in the astonishing force of spirit with which heretained his activity of mind, even his gayety, amid all his suffering, and went on composing with undiminished fire to the last, he was trulybrave. Nothing could clog that aërial lightness. "Pouvez-vous siffler?"his doctor asked him one day, when he was almost at his last gasp;--"siffler, " as every one knows, has the double meaning of _to whistle_and _to hiss_:--"Hélas! non, " was his whispered answer; "pas même unecomédie de M. Scribe!" M. Scribe[150] is, or was, the favoritedramatist of the French Philistine. "My nerves, " he said to some one whoasked him about them in 1855, the year of the great Exhibition in Paris, "my nerves are of that quite singularly remarkable miserableness ofnature, that I am convinced they would get at the Exhibition the grandmedal for pain and misery. " He read all the medical books which treatedof his complaint. "But, " said he to some one who found him thus engaged, "what good this reading is to do me I don't know, except that it willqualify me to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors onearth about diseases of the spinal marrow. " What a matter of grimseriousness are our own ailments to most of us! yet with this gayetyHeine treated his to the end. That end, so long in coming, came at last. Heine died on the 17th of February, 1856, at the age of fifty-eight. Byhis will he forbade that his remains should be transported to Germany. He lies buried in the cemetery of Montmartre, at Paris. 

His direct political action was null, and this is neither to be wonderedat nor regretted; direct political action is not the true function ofliterature, and Heine was a born man of letters. Even in his favoriteFrance the turn taken by public affairs was not at all what he wished, though he read French politics by no means as we in England, most of us, read them. He thought things were tending there to the triumph ofcommunism; and to a champion of the idea like Heine, what there is grossand narrow in communism was very repulsive. "It is all of no use, " hecried on his death-bed, "the future belongs to our enemies, theCommunists, and Louis Napoleon[151] is their John the Baptist. " "Andyet, "--he added with all his old love for that remarkable entity, sofull of attraction for him, so profoundly unknown in England, the Frenchpeople, --"do not believe that God lets all this go forward merely as agrand comedy. Even though the Communists deny him to-day, he knowsbetter than they do, that a time will come when they will learn tobelieve in him. " After 1831, his hopes of soon upsetting the GermanGovernments had died away, and his propagandism took another, a moretruly literary, character. 

It took the character of an intrepid application of the modern spirit toliterature. To the ideas with which the burning questions of modern lifefilled him, he made all his subject-matter minister. He touched all thegreat points in the career of the human race, and here he but followedthe tendency of the wide culture of Germany; but he touched them with awand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye caresmost to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany, --so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, andto lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea roundwhich to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school ofGermany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered by theirinfluence, came to ruin by its vain dreams of renewing them. Heine, witha far profounder sense of the mystic and romantic charm of the MiddleAge than Goerres, or Brentano, or Arnim, [152] Heine the chief romanticpoet of Germany, is yet also much more than a romantic poet: he is agreat modern poet, he is not conquered by the Middle Age, he has atalisman by which he can feel--along with but above the power of thefascinating Middle Age itself--the power of modern ideas. 

A French critic of Heine thinks he has said enough in saying that Heineproclaimed in German countries, with beat of drum, the ideas of 1789, and that at the cheerful noise of his drum the ghosts of the Middle Agetook to flight. But this is rather too French an account of the matter. Germany, that vast mine of ideas, had no need to import ideas, as such, from any foreign country; and if Heine had carried ideas, as such, fromFrance into Germany, he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle. But that for which, France, far less meditative than Germany, iseminent, is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of an idea, when she seizes it, in all departments of human activity which admit it. And that in which Germany most fails, and by failing in which sheappears so helpless and impotent, is just the practical application ofher innumerable ideas. "When Candide, " says Heine himself, "came toEldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing withgold-nuggets instead of marbles. This degree of luxury made him imaginethat they must be the king's children, and he was not a littleastonished when he found that in Eldorado gold-nuggets are of no morevalue than marbles are with us, and that the schoolboys play with them. A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner, when he cameto Germany and first read German books. He was perfectly astounded atthe wealth of ideas which he found in them; but he soon remarked thatideas in Germany are as plentiful as gold-nuggets in Eldorado, and thatthose writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were inreality only common schoolboys. "[153] Heine was, as he calls himself, a "Child of the French Revolution, " an "Initiator, " because hevigorously assured the Germans that ideas were not counters or marbles, to be played with for their own sake; because he exhibited in literaturemodern ideas applied with the utmost freedom, clearness, andoriginality. And therefore he declared that the great task of his lifehad been the endeavor to establish a cordial relation between France andGermany. It is because he thus operates a junction between the Frenchspirit and German ideas and German culture, that he founds somethingnew, opens a fresh period, and deserves the attention of criticism farmore than the German poets his contemporaries, who merely continue anold period till it expires. It may be predicted that in the literatureof other countries, too, the French spirit is destined to make itsinfluence felt, --as an element, in alliance with the native spirit, ofnovelty and movement, --as it has made its influence felt in Germanliterature; fifty years hence a critic will be demonstrating to ourgrandchildren how this phenomenon has come to pass. 

We in England, in our great burst of literature during the first thirtyyears of the present century, had no manifestation of the modern spirit, as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe's works or Heine's. And thereason is not far to seek. We had neither the German wealth of ideas, nor the French enthusiasm for applying ideas. There reigned in the massof the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, thatPhilistinism, --to use the German nickname, --which reacts even on theindividual genius that is exempt from it. In our greatest literaryepoch, that of the Elizabethan age, [154] English society at large wasaccessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to adegree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the uniquegreatness in English literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. They were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation;they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas, --the ideas ofthe Renascence and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the greatEnglish middle class, the kernel of the nation, the class whoseintelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakespeare, entered the prison ofPuritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundredyears. _He enlargeth a nation_, says Job, _and straiteneth it again. _[155]

In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century thesignal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England bytwo members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. Aristocraciesare, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individualmembers have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man ofgenius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in thearistocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him fromfreely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in theirattempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; theycould not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want ofintelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Theirliterary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakespeareand Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, isa failure. The best literary creation of that time in England proceededfrom men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. What, in fact, was the career of the chief English men of letters, theircontemporaries? The gravest of them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle-Agephrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged himself in the inward life, he voluntarily cut himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge took toopium. Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. Keatspassionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty forinterpreting nature; and he died of consumption at twenty-five. Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats have left admirable works; far more solidand complete works than those which Byron and Shelley have left. Buttheir works have this defect, --they do not belong to that which is themain current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not applymodern ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, _minor currents_, andall other literary work of our day, however popular, which has the samedefect, also constitutes but a minor current. Byron and Shelley willlong be remembered, long after the inadequacy of their actual work isclearly recognized, for their passionate, their Titanic effort to flowin the main stream of modern literature; their names will be greaterthan their writings; _stat magni nominis umbra_. [156] Heine's literarygood fortune was superior to that of Byron and Shelley. His theatre ofoperations was Germany, whose Philistinism does not consist in her wantof ideas, or in her inaccessibility to ideas, for she teems with themand loves them, but, as I have said, in her feeble and hesitatingapplication of modern ideas to life. Heine's intense modernism, hisabsolute freedom, his utter rejection of stock classicism and stockromanticism, his bringing all things under the point of view of thenineteenth century, were understood and laid to heart by Germany, through virtue of her immense, tolerant intellectualism, much as therewas in all Heine said to affront and wound Germany. The wit and ardentmodern spirit of France Heine joined to the culture, the sentiment, thethought of Germany. This is what makes him so remarkable: his wonderfulclearness, lightness, and freedom, united with such power of feeling, and width of range. Is there anywhere keener wit than in his story ofthe French abbé who was his tutor, and who wanted to get from him that_la religion_ is French for _der Glaube_: "Six times did he ask me thequestion: 'Henry, what is _der Glaube_ in French?' and six times, andeach time with a greater burst of tears, did I answer him--'It is _lecrédit_' And at the seventh time, his face purple with rage, theinfuriated questioner screamed out: 'It is _la religion_'; and a rain ofcuffs descended upon me, and all the other boys burst out laughing. Since that day I have never been able to hear _la religion_ mentioned, without feeling a tremor run through my back, and my cheeks grow redwith shame. "[157] Or in that comment on the fate of Professor Saalfeld, who had been addicted to writing furious pamphlets against Napoleon, andwho was a professor at Göttingen, a great seat, according to Heine, ofpedantry and Philistinism. "It is curious, " says Heine, "the threegreatest adversaries of Napoleon have all of them ended miserably. Castlereagh[158] cut his own throat; Louis the Eighteenth rotted uponhis throne; and Professor Saalfeld is still a professor at Göttingen. "[159] It is impossible to go beyond that. 

What wit, again, in that saying which every one has heard: "TheEnglishman loves liberty like his lawful wife, the Frenchman loves herlike his mistress, the German loves her like his old grandmother. " Butthe turn Heine gives to this incomparable saying is not so well known;and it is by that turn he shows himself the born poet he is, --full ofdelicacy and tenderness, of inexhaustible resource, infinitely new andstriking:--

"And yet, after all, no one can ever tell how things may turn out. Thegrumpy Englishman, in an ill-temper with his wife, is capable of someday putting a rope round her neck, and taking her to be sold atSmithfield. The inconstant Frenchman may become unfaithful to his adoredmistress, and be seen fluttering about the Palais Royal after another. _But the German will never quite abandon his old grandmother_; he willalways keep for her a nook by the chimney-corner, where she can tell herfairy stories to the listening children. "[160]

Is it possible to touch more delicately and happily both the weaknessand the strength of Germany; pedantic, simple, enslaved, free, ridiculous, admirable Germany?

And Heine's verse, --his _Lieder?_ Oh, the comfort, after dealing withFrench people of genius, irresistibly impelled to try and expressthemselves in verse, launching out into a deep which destiny has sownwith so many rocks for them, --the comfort of coming to a man of genius, who finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose voyageover the deep of poetry destiny makes smooth! After the rhythm, to us, at any rate, with the German paste in our composition, so deeplyunsatisfying, of--

 "Ah! que me dites-vous, et qne vous dit mon âme? Que dit le ciel a l'aube et la flamme à la flamme?"

what a blessing to arrive at rhythms like--

 "Take, oh, take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn--"[161]

or--

 "Siehst sehr sterbeblässlich aus, Doch getrost! du bist zu Haus--"[162]

in which one's soul can take pleasure! The magic of Heine's poeticalform is incomparable; he chiefly uses a form of old German popularpoetry, a ballad-form which has more rapidity and grace than anyballad-form of ours; he employs this form with the most exquisitelightness and ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness, pathos, and old-world charm of all true forms of popular poetry. Thus inHeine's poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of Frenchmodernism and clearness, with that of German sentiment and fulness; andto give this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine's greatcharacteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it in his formas well as in his contents, and by translation I can only reproduce itso far as his contents give it. But even the contents of many of hispoems are capable of giving a certain sense of it. Here, for instance, is a poem in which he makes his profession of faith to an innocentbeautiful soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of some simple miningpeople having their hut among the pines at the foot of the HartzMountains, who reproaches him with not holding the old articles of theChristian creed:--

"Ah, my child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet sate upon mymother's knee, I believed in God the Father, who rules up there inHeaven, good and great;

"Who created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful men and womenthereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and stars their courses. 

"When I got bigger, my child, I comprehended yet a great deal more thanthis, and comprehended, and grew intelligent; and I believe on the Sonalso;

"On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love to us; and, for hisreward, as always happens, was crucified by the people. 

"Now, when I am grown up, have read much, have travelled much, my heartswells within me, and with my whole heart I believe on the Holy Ghost. 

"The greatest miracles were of his working, and still greater miraclesdoth he even now work; he burst in sunder the oppressor's stronghold, and he burst in sunder the bondsman's yoke. 

"He heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right; all mankind areone race of noble equals before him. 

"He chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs of the brain, whichhave spoilt love and joy for us, which day and night have loured on us. 

"A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the Holy Ghost chosen out tofulfil his will, and he has put courage into their souls. 

"Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave; what, thou wouldstgive much, my child, to look upon such gallant knights?

"Well, on me, my child, look! kiss me, and look boldly upon me! one ofthose knights of the Holy Ghost am I. "[163]

One has only to turn over the pages of his _Romancero_, [164]--acollection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with hiswhole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems ofall, painfully touched by the air of his _Matrazzen-gruft_, his"mattress-grave, "--to see Heine's width of range; the most variedfigures succeed one another, --Rhampsinitus, [165] Edith with the SwanNeck, [166] Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of_Mabille_, Melisanda of Tripoli, [167] Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro theCruel[168], Firdusi[169], Cortes, Dr. Döllinger[170];--but never doesHeine attempt to be _hubsch objectiv_, "beautifully objective, " tobecome in spirit an old Egyptian, or an old Hebrew, or a Middle-Ageknight, or a Spanish adventurer, or an English royalist; he alwaysremains Heinrich Heine, a son of the nineteenth century. To give anotion of his tone, I will quote a few stanzas at the end of the_Spanish Atridæ_[171] in which he describes, in the character of avisitor at the court of Henry of Transtamare[172] at Segovia, Henry'streatment of the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don DiegoAlbuquerque, his neighbor, strolls after dinner through the castle withhim:--

"In the cloister-passage, which leads to the kennels where are kept theking's hounds, that with their growling and yelping let you know a longway off where they are, "There I saw, built into the wall, and with a strong iron grating forits outer face, a cell like a cage. 

"Two human figures sate therein, two young boys; chained by the leg, they crouched in the dirty straw. 

"Hardly twelve years old seemed the one, the other not much older; theirfaces fair and noble, but pale and wan with sickness. 

"They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean bodies showedwounds, the marks of ill-usage; both of them shivered with fever. 

"They looked up at me out of the depth of their misery; 'Who, ' I criedin horror to Don Diego, 'are these pictures of wretchedness?'

"Don Diego seemed embarrassed; he looked round to see that no one waslistening; then he gave a deep sigh; and at last, putting on the easytone of a man of the world, he said:--

"'These are a pair of king's sons, who were early left orphans; the nameof their father was King Pedro, the name of their mother, Maria dePadilla. 

"'After the great battle of Navarette, when Henry of Transtamare hadrelieved his brother, King Pedro, of the troublesome burden of thecrown, "'And likewise of that still more troublesome burden, which is calledlife, then Don Henry's victorious magnanimity had to deal with hisbrother's children. 

"'He has adopted them, as an uncle should; and he has given them freequarters in his own castle. 

"'The room which he has assigned to them is certainly rather small, butthen it is cool in summer, and not intolerably cold in winter. 

"'Their fare is rye-bread, which tastes as sweet as if the goddess Cereshad baked it express for her beloved Proserpine. 

"'Not unfrequently, too, he sends a scullion to them withgarbanzos, [173]and then the young gentlemen know that it is Sunday inSpain. 

"'But it is not Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not come every day;and the master of the hounds gives them the treat of his whip. 

"'For the master of the hounds, who has under his superintendence thekennels and the pack, and the nephews' cage also, "'Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman with the whiteruff, whom we remarked to-day at dinner. 

"'And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband snatches his whip, andrushes down here, and gives it to the dogs and to the poor little boys. 

"'But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such proceedings, andhas given orders that for the future his nephews are to be treateddifferently from the dogs. 

"'He has determined no longer to entrust the disciplining of his nephewsto a mercenary stranger, but to carry it out with his own hands. '

"Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the castle joined us, and politely expressed his hope that we had dined to our satisfaction. "

Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing with the griminnuendo of the last stanza but one, is at once truly masterly and trulymodern. 

No account of Heine is complete which does not notice the Jewish elementin him. His race he treated with the same freedom with which he treatedeverything else, but he derived a great force from it, and no one knewthis better than he himself. He has excellently pointed out how in thesixteenth century there was a double renascence, --a Hellenic renascenceand a Hebrew renascence--and how both have been great powers ever since. He himself had in him both the spirit of Greece and the spirit of Judæa;both these spirits reach the infinite, which is the true goal of allpoetry and all art, --the Greek spirit by beauty, the Hebrew spirit bysublimity. By his perfection of literary form, by his love of clearness, by his love of beauty, Heine is Greek; by his intensity, by hisuntamableness, by his "longing which cannot be uttered, "[174] he isHebrew. Yet what Hebrew ever treated the things of the Hebrews likethis?--"There lives at Hamburg, in a one-roomed lodging in the Baker'sBroad Walk, a man whose name is Moses Lump; all the week he goes aboutin wind and rain, with his pack on his back, to earn his few shillings;but when on Friday evening he comes home, he finds the candlestick withseven candles lighted, and the table covered with a fair white cloth, and he puts away from him his pack and his cares, and he sits down totable with his squinting wife and yet more squinting daughter, and eatsfish with them, fish which has been dressed in beautiful white garlicsauce, sings therewith the grandest psalms of King David, rejoices withhis whole heart over the deliverance of the children of Israel out ofEgypt, rejoices, too, that all the wicked ones who have done thechildren of Israel hurt, have ended by taking themselves off; that KingPharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, and all such people, are well dead, while he, Moses Lump, is yet alive, and eating fish withwife and daughter; and I can tell you, Doctor, the fish is delicate andthe man is happy, he has no call to torment himself about culture, hesits contented in his religion and in his green bedgown, like Diogenesin his tub, he contemplates with satisfaction his candles, which he onno account will snuff for himself; and I can tell you, if the candlesburn a little dim, and the snuffers-woman, whose business it is to snuffthem, is not at hand, and Rothschild the Great were at that moment tocome in, with all his brokers, bill discounters, agents, and chiefclerks, with whom he conquers the world, and Rothschild were to say:'Moses Lump, ask of me what favor you will, and it shall be grantedyou';--Doctor, I am convinced, Moses Lump would quietly answer: 'Snuffme those candles!' and Rothschild the Great would exclaim withadmiration: 'If I were not Rothschild, I would be Moses Lump. '"[175]

There Heine shows us his own people by its comic side; in the poem ofthe _Princess Sabbath_[176] he shows it to us by a more serious side. The Princess Sabbath, "the _tranquil Princess_, pearl and flower of allbeauty, fair as the Queen of Sheba, Solomon's bosom friend, that bluestocking from Ethiopia, who wanted to shine by her _esprit_, and withher wise riddles made herself in the long run a bore" (with Heine thesarcastic turn is never far off), this princess has for her betrothed aprince whom sorcery has transformed into an animal of lower race, thePrince Israel. 

"A dog with the desires of a dog, he wallows all the week long in thefilth and refuse of life, amidst the jeers of the boys in the street. 

"But every Friday evening, at the twilight hour, suddenly the magicpasses off, and the dog becomes once more a human being. 

"A man with the feelings of a man, with head and heart raised aloft, infestal garb, in almost clean garb he enters the halls of his Father. 

"Hail, beloved halls of my royal Father! Ye tents of Jacob, I kiss withmy lips your holy door-posts!"

Still more he shows us this serious side in his beautiful poem on Jehudaben Halevy, [176] a poet belonging to "the great golden age of theArabian, Old-Spanish, Jewish school of poets, " a contemporary of thetroubadours:--

"He, too, --the hero whom we sing, --Jehuda ben Halevy, too, had hislady-love; but she was of a special sort. 

"She was no Laura, [177] whose eyes, mortal stars, in the cathedral onGood Friday kindled that world-renowned flame. 

"She was no chatelaine, who in the blooming glory of her youth presidedat tourneys, and awarded the victor's crown. 

"No casuistess in the Gay Science was she, no lady _doctrinaire_, whodelivered her oracles in the judgment-chamber of a Court of Love. [178]

"She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woe-begone poor darling, a mourningpicture of desolation . .. And her name was Jerusalem. "

Jehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pilgrimage toJerusalem; and there, amid the ruins, sings a song of Sion which hasbecome famous among his people:--

"That lay of pearled tears is the wide-famed Lament, which is sung inall the scattered tents of Jacob throughout the world. 

"On the ninth day of the month which is called Ab, on the anniversary ofJerusalem's destruction by Titus Vespasianus. 

"Yes, that is the song of Sion, which Jehuda ben Halevy sang with hisdying breath amid the holy ruins of Jerusalem. 

"Barefoot, and in penitential weeds, he sat there upon the fragment of afallen column; down to his breast fell, "Like a gray forest, his hair; and cast a weird shadow on the face whichlooked out through it, --his troubled pale face, with the spiritualeyes. 

"So he sat and sang, like unto a seer out of the foretime to look upon;Jeremiah, the Ancient, seemed to have risen out of his grave. 

"But a bold Saracen came riding that way, aloft on his barb, lolling inhis saddle, and brandishing a naked javelin;

"Into the breast of the poor singer he plunged his deadly shaft, andshot away like a winged shadow. 

"Quietly flowed the Rabbi's life-blood, quietly he sang his song to anend; and his last dying sigh was Jerusalem!"

But, most of all, Heine shows us this side in a strange poem describinga public dispute, before King Pedro and his Court, between a Jewish anda Christian champion, on the merits of their respective faiths. In thestrain of the Jew all the fierceness of the old Hebrew genius, all itsrigid defiant Monotheism, appear:--

"Our God has not died like a poor innocent lamb for mankind; he is nogushing philanthropist, no declaimer. 

"Our God is not love, caressing is not his line; but he is a God ofthunder, and he is a God of revenge. 

"The lightnings of his wrath strike inexorably every sinner, and thesins of the fathers are often visited upon their remote posterity. 

"Our God, he is alive, and in his hall of heaven he goes on existingaway, throughout all the eternities. 

"Our God, too, is a God in robust health, no myth, pale and thin assacrificial wafers, or as shadows by Cocytus. 

"Our God is strong. In his hand he upholds sun, moon, and stars; thronesbreak, nations reel to and fro, when he knits his forehead. 

"Our God loves music, the voice of the harp and the song of feasting;but the sound of church-bells he hates, as he hates the grunting ofpigs. "[179]

Nor must Heine's sweetest note be unheard, --his plaintive note, his noteof melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in thewinter night, on his "mattress-grave" at Paris, and let his thoughtswander home to Germany, "the great child, entertaining herself with herChristmas-tree. " "Thou tookest, "--he cries to the German exile, --

"Thou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness; naked and poorreturnest thou back. German truth, German shirts, --one gets them worn totatters in foreign parts. 

"Deadly pale are thy looks, but take comfort, thou art at home! one lieswarm in German earth, warm as by the old pleasant fireside. 

"Many a one, alas, became crippled, and could get home no more!longingly he stretches out his arms; God have mercy upon him!"[180]

God have mercy upon him! for what remain of the days of the years of hislife are few and evil. "Can it be that I still actually exist? My bodyis so shrunk that there is hardly anything of me left but my voice, andmy bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whosetops shine like green flames to heaven. Ah, I envy thee those trees, brother Merlin, and their fresh waving! for over my mattress-grave herein Paris no green leaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing butthe rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of thepiano. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of thedeparted, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to writeletters, or to compose books What a melancholy situation!"[181]

He died, and has left a blemished name; with his crying faults, --hisintemperate susceptibility, his unscrupulousness in passion, hisinconceivable attacks on his enemies, his still more inconceivableattacks on his friends, his want of generosity, his sensuality, hisincessant mocking, --how could it be otherwise? Not only was he not oneof Mr. Carlyle's "respectable" people, he was profoundly_dis_respectable; and not even the merit of not being a Philistine canmake up for a man's being that. To his intellectual deliverance therewas an addition of something else wanting, and that something else wassomething immense: the old-fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moraldeliverance. Goethe says that he was deficient in _love_; to me hisweakness seems to be not so much a deficiency in love as a deficiency inself-respect, in true dignity of character. But on this negative side ofone's criticism of a man of great genius, I for my part, when I haveonce clearly marked that this negative side is and must be there, haveno pleasure in dwelling. I prefer to say of Heine something positive. Heis not an adequate interpreter of the modern world. He is only abrilliant soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. But, such as he is, he is (and posterity too, I am quite sure, will say this), in theEuropean poetry of that quarter of a century which follows the death ofGoethe, incomparably the most important figure. 

What a spendthrift, one is tempted to cry, is Nature! With whatprodigality, in the march of generations, she employs human power, content to gather almost always little result from it, sometimes none!Look at Byron, that Byron whom the present generation of Englishmen areforgetting; Byron, the greatest natural force, the greatest elementarypower, I cannot but think, which has appeared in our literature sinceShakespeare. And what became of this wonderful production of nature? Heshattered himself, he inevitably shattered himself to pieces against thehuge, black, cloud-topped, interminable precipice of BritishPhilistinism. But Byron, it may be said, was eminent only by his genius, only by his inborn force and fire; he had not the intellectual equipmentof a supreme modern poet; except for his genius he was an ordinarynineteenth-century English gentleman, with little culture and with noideas. Well, then, look at Heine. Heine had all the culture of Germany;in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have wegot from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and ofnobleness of soul and character. That is what I say; there is so muchpower, so many seem able to run well, so many give promise of runningwell;--so few reach the goal, so few are chosen. _Many are called, fewchosen. _

MARCUS AURELIUS[182]

Mr. Mill[183] says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality isin great part merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negativerather than positive, passive rather than active. " He says, that, incertain most important respects, "it falls far below the best moralityof the ancients. " Now, the object of systems of morality is to takepossession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion orallowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it inthe practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain byprescribing to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules ofconduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in itsdays of languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be makingway towards its goal. Christian morality has not failed to supply tohuman life aids of this sort. It has supplied them far more abundantlythan many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite document afterthose of the New Testament, of all the documents the Christian spirithas ever inspired, --the _Imitation_, [184]--by no means contains thewhole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality wouldthink themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the_Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of passages likethese: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est";--"Omni die renovaredebemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus";--"Secundum propositum nostrumest cursus profectus nostri";--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfectevincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur"; "Semper aliquidcerti proponendum est"; "Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac. " (_A lifewithout a purpose is a languid, drifting thing;--Every day we ought torenew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a soundbeginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought;--Our improvement isin proportion to our purpose;--We hardly ever manage to get completelyrid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on _daily_improvement;--Always place a definite purpose before thee;--Get thehabit of mastering thine inclination. _) These are moral precepts, andmoral precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of ourconduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles andinward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by thegreat masters of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. 

But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorouslyfollowed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass ofmankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearlyas ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship forthe natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of thenarrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It isimpossible to rise from reading Epictetus[185]or Marcus Aureliuswithout a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that theburden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to thesages who have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutesa relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever creed, the paganEmpedocles[186] as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on thenecessity of an inspiration, a joyful emotion, to make moral actionperfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop oftruth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy onjustification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary man, this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification;it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards thegoal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it has _lightedup_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needfulfor carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying theordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most dross in themhave had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifestsit with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says theprayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will followwithout wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have tofollow all the same. "[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, forthe few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surroundsthem is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth intothe land of righteousness";[188]--"The Lord shall be unto thee aneverlasting light, and thy God thy glory";[189]--"Unto you that fear myname shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, "[190] says the Old Testament; "Born, not of blood, nor of the will ofthe flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God";[191]--"Except a man beborn again, he cannot see the kingdom of God";[192]--"Whatsoever isborn of God, overcometh the world, "[193] says the New. The ray ofsunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;--the austerity of thesage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak is healed; he who isvivified by it renews his strength; "all things are possible to him";[194] "he is a new creature. "[195]

Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will beartaking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay nothold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by thishandle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold ofit by this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt takehold of it by what will bear handling. "[196] Jesus, being asked whethera man is bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers:"I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven. "[197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness ofinjuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus ison that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, theemotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice offorgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves himcold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not thatit propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor, "[198]with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than othermoral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspirationwhich wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it. It isbecause Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of thisnature, that he is, --instead of being, like the school from which heproceeds, doomed to sterility, --a writer of distinguished mark andinfluence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I mustbe pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened withthem, that he falls just short of being a great writer. 

That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor Marcus Aureliustheir peculiar character and charm, is their being suffused and softenedby something of this very sentiment whence Christian morality draws itsbest power. Mr. Long[199] has recently published in a convenient form atranslation of these writings, and has thus enabled English readers tojudge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has rendered his countrymen areal service by so doing. Mr. Long's reputation as a scholar is asufficient guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of histranslation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak, and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and the rest of theunlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this: that he treats MarcusAurelius's writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek andRoman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter oflearning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability andliving interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can bemade clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals withthe modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but asfood for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life andaction, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats thistruly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, butas a present source from which to draw "example of life, and instructionof manners. " Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold[200] say, what mightnaturally here be said by any other critic, that in this lively andfruitful way of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece andRome, Mr. Long resembles Dr. Arnold?

One or two little complaints, however, I have against Mr. Long, and Iwill get them off my mind at once. In the first place, why could he nothave found gentler and juster terms to describe the translation of hispredecessor, Jeremy Collier, [201]--the redoubtable enemy of stageplays, --than these: "a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?" Asa matter of taste, a translator should deal leniently with hispredecessor; but putting that out of the question, Mr. Long's languageis a great deal too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus Aureliusbefore Mr. Long appeared as his introducer, knew him through JeremyCollier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such animperishable benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense ofobligation towards the man who confers it. Apart from this claim uponone's tenderness, however, Jeremy Collier's version deserves respect forits genuine spirit and vigor, the spirit and vigor of the age of Dryden. Jeremy Collier too, like Mr. Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius theliving moralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth of feelinggave to his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr. Long's style(I do not blame it on that account) are absent. Let us place the twoside by side. The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius's fifth book, Mr. Long translates thus:--

"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought bepresent: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am Idissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and forwhich I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to liein the bed clothes and keep myself warm?--But this is more pleasant. --Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action orexertion?"

Jeremy Collier has:--

"When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make thisshort speech to yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of aman; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designedfor nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thoughtaction had been the end of your being. '"

In another striking passage, again, Mr. Long has:--

"No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections frombooks which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the endwhich thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come tothine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thypower. "[202]

Here his despised predecessor has:--

"Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself. Alas, you haveno time left to peruse your diary, to read over the Greek and Romanhistory: come, don't flatter and deceive yourself; look to the mainchance, to the end and design of reading, and mind life more thannotion: I say, if you have a kindness for your person, drive at thepractice and help yourself, for that is in your own power. "

It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier can (to saythe least) perfectly stand comparison with Mr. Long. Jeremy Collier'sreal defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but hisimperfect acquaintance with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatalone; it rendered a translation like Mr. Long's necessary. JeremyCollier's work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of thefield, but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor'sgrave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handfulof kindly earth. 

Another complaint I have against Mr. Long is, that he is not quiteidiomatic and simple enough. It is a little formal, at least, if notpedantic, to say _Ethic_ and _Dialectic_, instead of _Ethics_ and_Dialectics_, and to say "_Hellenes_ and Romans" instead of "_Greeks_and Romans. " And why, too, --the name of Antoninus being preoccupied byAntoninus Pius, [203]--will Mr. Long call his author Marcus _Antoninus_instead of Marcus _Aurelius?_ Small as these matters appear, they areimportant when one has to deal with the general public, and not with asmall circle of scholars; and it is the general public that thetranslator of a short masterpiece on morals, such as is the book ofMarcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make MarcusAurelius's work as popular as the _Imitation_, and Marcus Aurelius'sname as familiar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, therefore, punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought asaccessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperorand his precepts _volitare per ora virum_[204] It is essential torender him in language perfectly plain and unprofessional, and to callhim by the name by which he is best and most distinctly known. Thetranslators of the Bible talk of _pence_ and not _denarii_, and theadmirers of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet. [205]

But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must end, as onebegan, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long for his excellent andsubstantial reproduction in English of an invaluable work. In generalthe substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long's rendering are(I will venture, after all, to give my opinion about them) asconspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; andthese qualities are particularly desirable in the translator of a worklike that of Marcus Aurelius, of which the language is often corrupt, almost always hard and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr. Long's merits as a translator may read, in the original and in Mr. Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book; he will seehow, through all the dubiousness and involved manner of the Greek, Mr. Long has firmly seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at thebottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering thisthought, has at the same time thrown round its expression acharacteristic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it. And Marcus Aurelius's book is one which, when it is rendered soaccurately as Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerablywell may choose to read rather in the translation than in the original. For not only are the contents here incomparably more valuable than theexternal form, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly oneof those styles which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part oftheir author, which stamp an indelible impression of him on the reader'smind. An old Lyons commentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius'sGreek, something characteristic, something specially firm and imperial;but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly find this: he will findcrabbed Greek, without any great charm of distinct physiognomy. TheGreek of Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who reads them in atranslation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing it;but the Greek of Marcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the New Testament, and even more than the Greek of the New Testament, is wanting in it. Ifone could be assured that the English Testament were made perfectlyaccurate, one might be almost content never to open a Greek Testamentagain; and, Mr. Long's version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is, anEnglishman who reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforthlet the Greek original repose upon its shelf. 

The man whose thoughts Mr. Long has thus faithfully reproduced, isperhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of thoseconsoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind ourweak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness andperseverance have once been carried, and may be carried again. Theinterest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of signalgoodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness isthe most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means ofpleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their commandthe kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was theruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men. Besides him, history presents one or two sovereigns eminent for theirgoodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus Aurelius has, for usmoderns, this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essentialcharacteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant centre ofcivilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened age" just as glibly asthe _Times_[206] talks of it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a manlike ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis[207]inhabits an atmosphere of mediæval Catholicism, which the man of thenineteenth century may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish toinhabit, but which, strive as he will, he cannot really inhabit. Alfredbelongs to a state of society (I say it with all deference to the_Saturday Review_[208] critic who keeps such jealous watch over thehonor of our Saxon ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor SaintLouis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as MarcusAurelius. 

The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little ofstriking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to hispredecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he wasforty years old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he hadassisted in administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's deathin 161, for nineteen years he reigned as emperor. The barbarians werepressing on the Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius'snineteen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His absences fromRome were numerous and long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece; but, above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the warwith the barbarians was going on, --in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. Inthese countries much of his Journal seems to have been written; parts ofit are dated from them; and there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninthbirthday, he fell sick and died. [209] The record of him on which hisfame chiefly rests is the record of his inward life, --his _Journal_, or_Commentaries_, or _Meditations_, or _Thoughts_, for by all these nameshas the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records ofhis outward life is that which the first book of this work supplies, where he gives an account of his education, recites the names of thoseto whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his obligations to each ofthem. It is a refreshing and consoling picture, a priceless treasure forthose, who, sick of the "wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile, "which seems to be nearly the whole of what history has to offer to ourview, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking and well-doingwhich in all ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without it thecontinued life of humanity would have been impossible. "From my mother Ilearnt piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deedsbut even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way ofliving, far removed from the habits of the rich. " Let us remember that, the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. [210] "From mytutor I learnt" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor, and to want little and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle withother people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander. " Thevices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Græculusesuriens_[211]--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads MarcusAurelius's account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understandhow it is that, in spite of the vices and foibles of individual_Græculi_, the education of the human race owes to Greece a debt whichcan never be overrated. The vague and colorless praise of history leaveson the mind hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from theprivate memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disciplined, hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, interests mankind less than his immortal nephew only because he has leftin writing no record of his inner life, --_caret quia vate sacro_. [212]

Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond thesenotices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interestand importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heardof the assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius, [213] against whomhe was marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of thepleasure of pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes ofhim which show the same spirit. But the great record for the outwardlife of a man who has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirationsas that which Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice ofall his contemporaries, --high and low, friend and enemy, pagan andChristian, --in praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. Theworld's charity does not err on the side of excess, and here was a manoccupying the most conspicuous station in the world, and professing thehighest possible standard of conduct;--yet the world was obliged todeclare that he walked worthily of his profession. Long after his death, his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wideRoman empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busiesitself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is itsnobler part which busies itself with those of the dead; these busts ofMarcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bear witness, not to the inmates' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, butto their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon theearth. 

Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inwardlife of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one's notice, and demanda word of comment; he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his sonthe vicious and brutal Commodus. [214] The persecution at Lyons, in whichAttalus[215] and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in whichPolycarp[216] suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of histolerance, of his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrainfrom severe measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temperthe severity of these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, there is no doubt: but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, attributed to him, directing that no Christian should be punished forbeing a Christian, is spurious; it is almost certain that his allegedanswer to the authorities of Lyons, in which he directs that Christianspersisting in their profession shall be dealt with according to law, isgenuine. Mr. Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt over thepersecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the LyonsChristians relating it, alleges it to have been attended by miraculousand incredible incidents. "A man, " he says, "can only act consistentlyby accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blamehim for either. " But it is contrary to all experience to say thatbecause a fact is related with incorrect additions, and embellishments, therefore it probably never happened at all; or that it is not, ingeneral, easy for an impartial mind to distinguish between the fact andthe embellishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution tookplace, and that the punishment of Christians for being Christians wassanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. But then I must add that nine modernreaders out of ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have aperfectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus Aurelius, insanctioning that punishment, really was. They imagine Trajan, orAntoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of theGospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints, ordering their extermination because he loved darkness rather thanlight. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors aimed atrepressing was, in their conception of it, something philosophicallycontemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable. As men, they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people, with us, regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as Liberal statesmen, with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, constituted as a vastsecret society, with obscure aims of political and social subversion, was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed themselves to berepressing when they punished Christians. The early Christian apologistsagain and again declare to us under what odious imputations theChristians lay, how general was the belief that these imputations werewell-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. Themultitude, convinced that the Christians were atheists who ate humanflesh and thought incest no crime, displayed against them a fury sopassionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. The severeexpressions of Tacitus, _exitiabilis superstitio--odio humani generisconvicti_, [217] show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude imbuedthe educated class also. One asks oneself with astonishment how adoctrine so benign as that of Jesus Christ can have incurredmisrepresentation so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of themisrepresentation lay, no doubt, in this, --that Christianity was a newspirit in the Roman world, destined to act in that world as itsdissolvent; and it was inevitable that Christianity in the Roman world, like democracy in the modern world, like every new spirit with a similarmission assigned to it, should at its first appearance occasion aninstinctive shrinking and repugnance in the world which it was todissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, the confounding of the Christians withthe Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, whose stubbornness, fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the fancy of a civilizedRoman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of mystery and noveltywhich surrounded the Christian rites; the very simplicity of Christiantheism. For the Roman statesman, the cause of mistake lay in thatcharacter of secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christiancommunity wore, under a State-system as jealous of unauthorizedassociations as is the State-system of modern France. 

A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position could not well see theChristians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen throughsuch a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not theirown; but it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really theirown many of them assuredly appeared with besides, faults especiallylikely to strike such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm himin the prejudices of his race, station, and rearing. We look back uponChristianity after it has proved what a future it bore within it, andfor us the sole representatives of its early struggles are the pure anddevoted spirits through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it withits future yet unshown, and with the tares among its professed progenynot less conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that among theprofessing Christians of the second century, as among the professingChristians of the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabidnonsense, plenty of gross fanaticism? who will even venture to affirmthat, separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization ofthe world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have beenits fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimablegerm? Who will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianitywith the virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines, --of the bestproduct of Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Romancivilization had yet life and power, --Christianity and the world, aswell as the Antonines themselves, would not have been gainers? Thatalliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an uttermisconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, not on the Palatine. And Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach byhaving authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not therebybecome in the least what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede thatit was impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was;--asimpossible as for even the moderate and sensible Fleury[218] to see theAntonines as they really were;--one may concede that the point of viewfrom which Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, which the State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, wasinevitably his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who madeperfection his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immenseinjustice and rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. And this is, in truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he isblameless, yet, in a certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, beautiful as it is, there is something melancholy, circumscribed, andineffectual. 

For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he isnot to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. Disposition and temperament are inexplicable things; there are natureson which the best education and example are thrown away; excellentfathers may have, without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. It is to be remembered, also, that Commodus was left, at the perilousage of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, at that age, wasbut beginning a twenty years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, andself-command, under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favorites; and if the story istrue which says that he left, all through his reign, the Christiansuntroubled, and ascribes this lenity to the influence of his mistressMarcia, it shows that he could be led to good as well as to evil. Butfor such a nature to be left at a critical age with absolute power, andwholly without good counsel and direction, was the more fatal. Still onecannot help wishing that the example of Marcus Aurelius could haveavailed more with his own only son. One cannot but think that with suchvirtue as his there should go, too, the ardor which removes mountains, and that the ardor which removes mountains might have even won Commodus. The word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind; Marcus Aurelius savedhis own soul by his righteousness, and he could do no more. Happy theywho can do this! but still happier, who can do more!

Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turnsover the pages of his _Meditations_, --entries jotted down from day today, amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for hisown guidance and support, meant for no eye but his own, without theslightest attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing, notto be surpassed for naturalness and sincerity, --all disposition to carpand cavil dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a characterof such purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small thingsnor in great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great springs ofaction may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may beright also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler too, witha passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as thefollowing:--

"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write ina letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglectof duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, byalleging urgent occupation. "[219]

And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to bewritten down and meditated by him:--

"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polityadministered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all thefreedom of the governed. "[220] And, for all men who "drive atpractice, " what practical rules may not one accumulate out of these_Meditations_:--

"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a mantakes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself: 'Is this one ofthe unnecessary things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessaryacts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will notfollow after. "[221]

And again:--

"We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that iswithout a purpose and useless, but most of all the over curious feelingand the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those thingsonly about which if one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thythoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'Thisor That'; so that from thy words it should be plain that everything inthee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, andone that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalryor envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush ifthou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind. "[222]

So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses onhis favorite text, _Let nothing be done without a purpose_. But it iswhen he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when heutters his thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he ismost interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable MarcusAurelius. Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstoodwhen it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgarmotives of worldly interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but"that their Father which, seeth in secret may reward them openly. " Themotives of reward and punishment have come, from the misconception oflanguage of this kind, to be strangely overpressed by many Christianmoralists, to the deterioration and disfigurement of Christianity. Marcus Aurelius says, truly and nobly:--

"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it downto his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and heknows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what hehas done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeksfor nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As ahorse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when ithas made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not callout for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vinegoes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be oneof these, who in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes. "[223]

And again:--

"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thounot content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, anddost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded arecompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?"[224]

Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correctits apparent offers of external reward, and to say: _The kingdom of Godis within you. _

I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality ofMarcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one ofChristian morality. The sentences of Seneca[225] are stimulating to theintellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character;the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have saidthat religious emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotionof Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffusesit; it has not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quiteaway, but it shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, notso much of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; adelicate and tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more thanresignation. He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one ofhis teachers, "cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness;_and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_":and it is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makeshim so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry even into hisobservation of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, worthy of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following hashardly a parallel, so far as my knowledge goes, in the whole range ofGreek and Roman literature:--

"Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives thevery circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiarbeauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion'seyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, andmany other things, --though they are far from being beautiful, in acertain sense, --still, because they come in the course of nature, have abeauty in them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have afeeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which areproduced in the universe, there is hardly anything which comes in thecourse of nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposedso as to give pleasure. "[226]

But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that hisdelicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who canfeel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of anemperor who prized mental superiority highly:--

"Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits. ' Be it so;but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am notformed for them by nature. ' Show those qualities, then, which arealtogether in thy power, --sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once ableto exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity andunfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Orart thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, tomurmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poorbody, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be sorestless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been deliveredfrom these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged withbeing rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyselfabout this also, not neglecting nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness. "[227]

The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees theisolation and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought ofthe misery of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man isblest with the power to escape from it:--

"Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity, --forthou wast made by nature a part, but thou hast cut thyself off, --yethere is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unitethyself. God has allowed this to no other part, --after it has beenseparated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider thegoodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in hispower, when he has been separated, to return and to be united and toresume his place. "[228]

It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, sostrong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abidingcity:--

"Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, andmountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. Butthis is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is inthy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhereeither with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retirethan into his own soul, particularly when he has within him suchthoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfecttranquillity. Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renewthyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which as soonas thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soulcompletely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with thethings to which thou returnest. "[229]

Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to thegreat for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, but so enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius neverceased to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrancethe blessings of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false:--

"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father(Antoninus Pius) who was able to take away all pride from me, and tobring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in apalace without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show ofthis kind; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself verynear to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reasoneither meaner in thought or more remiss in action with respect to thethings which must be done for public interest. .. . I have to be thankfulthat my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I didnot make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, bywhich I should perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seenthat I was making great progress in them; . .. That I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus; . .. That I received clear and frequent impressionsabout living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, sothat, so far as depended on Heaven, and its gifts, help, andinspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according tonature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, andthrough not observing the admonitions of Heaven, and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such akind of life as mine; that though it was my mother's lot to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that whenever I wished tohelp any man in his need, I was never told that I had not the means ofdoing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fallinto the hands of a sophist. "[230]

And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafedto him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revertwith awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where hestood, to the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, [231] in theirhideous blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such awarning entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:--

"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, tyrannical!"[232]

Or this:--

"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must askmyself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of mewhich they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now?--thatof a child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or ofone of the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wildbeast?"[233]

The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he hasmarked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:--

"When thou hast assumed these names, --good, modest, true, rational, equal-minded, magnanimous, --take care that thou dost not change thesenames; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thoumaintainest thyself in possession of these names without desiring thatothers should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wiltenter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hithertobeen, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, is thecharacter of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and likethose half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered withwounds and gore still entreat to be kept to the following day, thoughthey will be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few names: and if thouart able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the HappyIslands. "[234]

For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life"between two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the realowner) was to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances onit he saw through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general moregloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness andtransitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the greatcharm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotonyand to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic heis imaginative, fresh, and striking:--

"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all thesethings, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinatelyarrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumblingabout the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consulsor kings. Well then that life of these people no longer exists at all. Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life toois gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyselfknown distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do whatwas in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly tothis and to be content with it. "[235]

Again:--

"The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, andtrifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, andlittle children quarrelling, crying, and then straightway laughing. Butfidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth, are fled

 'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth. '

What then is there which still detains thee here?"[236]

And once more:--

"Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countlesssolemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together, anddie. And consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and thelife now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thyname, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now arepraising thee will very soon blame thee and that neither a posthumousname is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else. "[237]

He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the prime principlein man's constitution is the social";[238] and he labored sincerely tomake not only his acts towards his fellow-men, but his thoughts also, suitable to this conviction:--

"When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those wholive with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty ofanother, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of afourth. "[239]

Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state ofrapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow-creatures; aboveall it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow-creatures thrust, in no common measure, upon his notice, --has had, time after time, toexperience how "within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whomthou art now a beast and an ape. " His true strain of thought as to hisrelations with his fellow-men is rather the following. He has beenenumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at theapproach of death, and he goes on:--

"But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reachthy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing theobjects from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of thosewith whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right tobe offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bearwith them gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not befrom men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the onlything, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attachus to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the sameprinciples as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the distresscaused by the difference of those who live together, so that thou mayestsay: 'Come quick, O death, lest perchance I too should forgetmyself. '"[240]

_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? howlong shall I suffer you?_[241] Sometimes this strain rises even topassion:--

"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on amountain. Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he wasmeant to live. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that isbetter than to live as men do. "[242]

It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, how little of those _scoriæ_ which a reader has to clear away before hegets to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt orquestion, the morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. Perhaps as to onepoint we must make an exception. Marcus Aurelius is fond of urging as amotive for man's cheerful acquiescence in whatever befalls him, that"whatever happens to every man _is for the interest of theuniversal_";[243] that the whole contains nothing _which is not for itsadvantage_; that everything which happens to a man is to be accepted, "even if it seems disagreeable, _because it leads to the health of theuniverse_. "[244] And the whole course of the universe, he adds, has aprovidential reference to man's welfare: "_all other things have beenmade for the sake of rational beings_. "[245] Religion has in all agesfreely used this language, and it is not religion which will object toMarcus Aurelius's use of it; but science can hardly accept as severelyaccurate this employment of the terms _interest_ and _advantage_. To asound nature and a clear reason the proposition that things happen "forthe interest of the universal, " as men conceive of interest, may seem tohave no meaning at all, and the proposition that "all things have beenmade for the sake of rational beings" may seem to be false. Yet even tothis language, not irresistibly cogent when it is thus absolutely used, Marcus Aurelius gives a turn which makes it true and useful, when hesays: "The ruling part of man can make a material for itself out of thatwhich opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, and riseshigher by means of this very material";[246]--when he says: "What elseare all things except exercises for the reason? Persevere then untilthou shalt have made all things thine own, as the stomach which isstrengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flameand brightness out of everything that is thrown into it";[247]--when hesays: "Thou wilt not cease to be miserable till thy mind is in such acondition, that, what luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shallbe to thee, in every matter which presents itself, the doing of thethings which are conformable to man's constitution; for a man ought toconsider as an enjoyment everything which it is in his power to doaccording to his own nature, --and it is in his power everywhere. "[248]In this sense it is, indeed, most true that "all things have been madefor the sake of rational beings"; that "all things work together forgood. "

In general, however, the action Marcus Aurelius prescribes is actionwhich every sound nature must recognize as right, and the motives heassigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as valid. And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of all clear-headedand scrupulous, yet pure-hearted and upward striving men, in those agesmost especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no openvision. He cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but hegives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. 

Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love himmost! it is rather because of the emotion which lends to his voice sotouching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for somethingunattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutorof the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, its happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for whichhis soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, he passed them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one readsmust still have remained, even had Christianity been fully known to him, in a great measure himself; he would have been no Justin;--but how wouldChristianity have affected him? in what measure would it have changedhim? Granted that he might have found, like the _Alogi_[249] of moderntimes, in the most beautiful of the Gospels, the Gospel which hasleavened Christendom most powerfully, the Gospel of St. John, too muchGreek metaphysics, too much _gnosis_;[250] granted that this Gospelmight have looked too like what he knew already to be a total surpriseto him: what, then, would he have said to the Sermon on the Mount, tothe twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What would have become of hisnotions of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the "obstinacy of theChristians"? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius isthat he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, stretching out hisarms for something beyond, --_tendentemque manus ripæ ulteriorisamore_. [251]

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE[252]

If I were asked where English poetry got these three things, its turnfor style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, forcatching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near andvivid way, --I should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of itsturn for style from a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got muchof its melancholy from a Celtic source; with no doubt at all, that froma Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magic. 

Any German with penetration and tact in matters of literary criticismwill own that the principal deficiency of German poetry is in style;that for style, in the highest sense, it shows but little feeling. Takethe eminent masters of style, the poets who best give the idea of whatthe peculiar power which lies in style is--Pindar, Virgil, Dante, Milton. An example of the peculiar effect which these poets produce, youcan hardly give from German poetry. Examples enough you can give fromGerman poetry of the effect produced by genius, thought, and feelingexpressing themselves in clear language, simple language, passionatelanguage, eloquent language, with harmony and melody: but not of thepeculiar effect exercised by eminent power of style. Every reader ofDante can at once call to mind what the peculiar effect I mean is; Ispoke of it in my lectures on translating Homer, and there I took anexample of it from Dante, who perhaps manifests it more eminently thanany other poet. 

But from Milton, too, one may take examples of it abundantly; comparethis from Milton:--

 ". .. Nor sometimes forget Those other two equal with me in fate, So were I equall'd with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides--"[253]

with this from Goethe:--

 "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt. "[254]

Nothing can be better in its way than the style in which Goethe therepresents his thought, but it is the style of prose as much as of poetry;it is lucid, harmonious, earnest, eloquent, but it has not received thatpeculiar kneading, heightening, and recasting which is observable in thestyle of the passage from Milton--a style which seems to have for itscause a certain pressure of emotion, and an ever-surging, yet bridled, excitement in the poet, giving a special intensity to his way ofdelivering himself. In poetical races and epochs this turn for style ispeculiarly observable; and perhaps it is only on condition of havingthis somewhat heightened and difficult manner, so different from theplain manner of prose, that poetry gets the privilege of being loosed, at its best moments, into that perfectly simple, limpid style, which isthe supreme style of all, but the simplicity of which is still not thesimplicity of prose. The simplicity of Menander's[255] style is thesimplicity of prose, and is the same kind of simplicity as that whichGoethe's style, in the passage I have quoted, exhibits; but Menanderdoes not belong to a great poetical moment, he comes too late for it; itis the simple passages in poets like Pindar or Dante which are perfect, being masterpieces of _poetical_ simplicity. One may say the same of thesimple passages in Shakespeare; they are perfect, their simplicity beinga _poetical_ simplicity. They are the golden, easeful, crowning momentsof a manner which is always pitched in another key from that of prose, amanner changed and heightened; the Elizabethan style, regnant in most ofour dramatic poetry to this day, is mainly the continuation of thismanner of Shakespeare's. It was a manner much more turbid and strewnwith blemishes than the manner of Pindar, Dante, or Milton; often it wasdetestable; but it owed its existence to Shakespeare's instinctiveimpulse towards _style_ in poetry, to his native sense of the necessityfor it; and without the basis of style everywhere, faulty though it mayin some places be, we should not have had the beauty of expression, unsurpassable for effectiveness and charm, which is reached inShakespeare's best passages. The turn for style is perceptible allthrough English poetry, proving, to my mind, the genuine poetical giftof the race; this turn imparts to our poetry a stamp of highdistinction, and sometimes it doubles the force of a poet not by natureof the very highest order, such as Gray, and raises him to a rank beyondwhat his natural richness and power seem to promise. Goethe, with hisfine critical perception, saw clearly enough both the power of style initself, and the lack of style in the literature of his own country; andperhaps if we regard him solely as a German, not as a European, hisgreat work was that he labored all his life to impart style into Germanliterature, and firmly to establish it there. Hence the immenseimportance to him of the world of classical art, and of the productionsof Greek or Latin genius, where style so eminently manifests its power. Had he found in the German genius and literature an element of styleexisting by nature and ready to his hand, half his work, one may say, would have been saved him, and he might have done much more in poetry. But as it was, he had to try and create, out of his own powers, a stylefor German poetry, as well as to provide contents for this style tocarry; and thus his labor as a poet was doubled. 

It is to be observed that power of style, in the sense in which I amhere speaking of style, is something quite different from the power ofidiomatic, simple, nervous, racy expression, such as the expression ofhealthy, robust natures so often is, such as Luther's was in a strikingdegree. Style, in my sense of the word, is a peculiar recasting andheightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of whata man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction toit; and dignity and distinction are not terms which suit many acts orwords of Luther. Deeply touched with the _Gemeinheit_[256] which is thebane of his nation, as he is at the same time a grand example of thehonesty which is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even showhimself brave, resolute, and truthful, without showing a strong dash ofcoarseness and commonness all the while; the right definition of Luther, as of our own Bunyan, is that he is a Philistine of genius. So Luther'ssincere idiomatic German, --such language as this: "Hilf, lieber Gott, wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so garnichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre!"--no more proves a power ofstyle in German literature, than Cobbett's[257] sinewy idiomatic Englishproves it in English literature. Power of style, properly so-called, asmanifested in masters of style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero, Bossuet[258] or Bolingbroke[259] in prose, is something quite different, and has, as I have said, for its characteristic effect, this: to adddignity and distinction. 

 * * * * *

This something is _style_, and the Celts certainly have it in awonderful measure. Style is the most striking quality of their poetry. Celtic poetry seems to make up to itself for being unable to master theworld and give an adequate interpretation of it, by throwing all itsforce into style, by bending language at any rate to its will, andexpressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable intensity, elevation, andeffect. It has all through it a sort of intoxication of style--a_Pindarism_, to use a word formed from the name of the poet, on whom, above all other poets, the power of style seems to have exercised aninspiring and intoxicating effect; and not in its great poets only, inTaliesin, or Llywarch Hen, or Ossian, [260] does the Celtic genius showthis Pindarism, but in all its productions:--

 "The grave of March is this, and this the grave of Gwythyr; Here is the grave of Gwgawn Gleddyfreidd; But unknown is the grave of Arthur. "[261]

That comes from the _Welsh Memorials of the Graves of the Warriors_, andif we compare it with the familiar memorial inscriptions of an Englishchurchyard (for we English have so much Germanism in us that ourproductions offer abundant examples of German want of style as well asof its opposite):--

 "Afflictions sore long time I bore, Physicians were in vain, Till God did please Death should me seize And ease me of my pain--"

if, I say, we compare the Welsh memorial lines with the English, whichin their _Gemeinheit_ of style are truly Germanic, we shall get a clearsense of what that Celtic talent for style I have been speaking of is. 

 * * * * *

Its chord of penetrating passion and melancholy, again, its _Titanism_as we see it in Byron, --what other European poetry possesses that likethe English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehementreaction against the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, their manifold striving, their adverse destiny, their immensecalamities, the Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercingregret and passion, --of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, Macpherson's _Ossian_, [262] carried in the last century this vein like aflood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticize Macpherson's_Ossian_ here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in the book, as large as you please; strip Scotland, if youlike, of every feather of borrowed plumes which on the strength ofMacpherson's _Ossian_ she may have stolen from that _vetus et majorScotia_, the true home of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland; I make noobjection. But there will still be left in the book a residue with thevery soul of the Celtic genius in it, and which has the prouddistinction of having brought this soul of the Celtic genius intocontact with the genius of the nations of modern Europe, and enrichedall our poetry by it. Woody Morven, and echoing Sora, and Selma with itssilent halls!--we all owe them a debt of gratitude, and when we areunjust enough to forget it, may the Muse forget us! Choose any one ofthe better passages in Macpherson's _Ossian_ and you can see even atthis time of day what an apparition of newness and power such a strainmust have been to the eighteenth century:--

"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The foxlooked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round herhead. Raise the song of mourning, O bards, over the land of strangers. They have but fallen before us, for one day we must fall. Why dost thoubuild the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towerstoday; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls inthy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. Let the blastof the desert come! we shall be renowned in our day. "

All Europe felt the power of that melancholy; but what I wish to pointout is, that no nation of Europe so caught in its poetry the passionatepenetrating accent of the Celtic genius, its strain of Titanism, as theEnglish. Goethe, like Napoleon, felt the spell of Ossian verypowerfully, and he quotes a long passage from him in his _Werther_. [263]But what is there Celtic, turbulent, and Titanic about the GermanWerther, that amiable, cultivated and melancholy young man, having forhis sorrow and suicide the perfectly definite motive that Lotte cannotbe his? Faust, again, has nothing unaccountable, defiant, and Titanic inhim; his knowledge does not bring him the satisfaction he expected fromit, and meanwhile he finds himself poor and growing old, and balked ofthe palpable enjoyment of life; and here is the motive for Faust'sdiscontent. In the most energetic and impetuous of Goethe's creations, --his _Prometheus_, [264]--it is not Celtic self-will and passion, it israther the Germanic sense of justice and reason, which revolts againstthe despotism of Zeus. The German _Sehnsucht_ itself is a wistful, soft, tearful longing, rather than a struggling, fierce, passionate one. Butthe Celtic melancholy is struggling, fierce, passionate; to catch itsnote, listen to Llywarch Hen in old age, addressing his crutch:--

"O my crutch! is it not autumn, when the fern is red, the water-flagyellow? Have I not hated that which I love?

O my crutch! is it not winter-time now, when men talk together afterthat they have drunken? Is not the side of my bed left desolate?

O my crutch! is it not spring, when the cuckoo passes through the air, when the foam sparkles on the sea? The young maidens no longer love me. 

O my crutch! is it not the first day of May? The furrows, are they notshining; the young corn, is it not springing? Ah! the sight of thyhandle makes me wroth. 

O my crutch! stand straight, thou wilt support me the better; it is verylong since I was Llywarch. 

Behold old age, which makes sport of me, from the hair of my head to myteeth, to my eyes, which women loved. 

The four things I have all my life most hated fall upon me together, --coughing and old age, sickness and sorrow. 

I am old, I am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone from me; the couchof honor shall be no more mine; I am miserable, I am bent on my crutch. 

How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when he was broughtforth! sorrows without end, and no deliverance from his burden. "[265]

There is the Titanism of the Celt, his passionate, turbulent, indomitable reaction against the despotism of fact; and of whom does itremind us so much as of Byron?

 "The fire which on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle; No torch is kindled at its blaze; A funeral pile!"[266]

Or, again:--

 "Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been, 'Tis something better not to be. "[267]

One has only to let one's memory begin to fetch passages from Byronstriking the same note as that passage from Llywarch Hen, and she willnot soon stop. And all Byron's heroes, not so much in collision withoutward things, as breaking on some rock of revolt and misery in thedepths of their own nature; Manfred, self-consumed, fighting blindly andpassionately with I know not what, having nothing of the consistentdevelopment and intelligible motive of Faust, --Manfred, Lara, Cain, [268]what are they but Titanic? Where in European poetry are we to find thisCeltic passion of revolt so warm-breathing, puissant, and sincere;except perhaps in the creation of a yet greater poet than Byron, but anEnglish poet, too, like Byron, --in the Satan of Milton?

 ". .. What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome. "[269]

There, surely, speaks a genius to whose composition the Celtic fibre wasnot wholly a stranger!

 * * * * *

The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave hispoetry style; his indomitable personality gave it pride and passion; hissensibility and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, the giftof rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. Theforest solitude, the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywherein romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there; they areNature's own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes themsomething quite different from the woods, waters, and plants of Greekand Latin poetry. Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is sopre-eminent a mistress, that it seems impossible to believe the powerdid not come into romance from the Celts. [270] Magic is just the wordfor it, --the magic of nature; not merely the beauty of nature, --that theGreeks and Latins had; not merely an honest smack of the soil, afaithful realism, --that the Germans had; but the intimate life ofNature, her weird power and her fairy charm. As the Saxon names ofplaces, with the pleasant wholesome smack of the soil in them, --Weathersfield, Thaxted, Shalford, --are to the Celtic names of places, with their penetrating, lofty beauty, --Velindra, Tyntagel, Caernarvon, --so is the homely realism of German and Norse nature to the fairy-likeloveliness of Celtic nature. Gwydion wants a wife for his pupil: "Well, "says Math, "we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form awife for him out of flowers. So they took the blossoms of the oak, andthe blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, andproduced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful thatman ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name ofFlower-Aspect. "[271] Celtic romance is full of exquisite touches likethat, showing the delicacy of the Celt's feeling in these matters, andhow deeply Nature lets him come into her secrets. The quick dropping ofblood is called "faster than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade ofreed-grass upon the earth, when the dew of June is at the heaviest. " Andthus is Olwen described: "More yellow was her hair than the flower ofthe broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairerwere her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemonyamidst the spray of the meadow fountains. "[272] For loveliness it wouldbe hard to beat that; and for magical clearness and nearness take thefollowing:--

"And in the evening Peredur entered a valley, and at the head of thevalley he came to a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, and there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, and when hewent forth, behold, a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and ahawk had killed a wild-fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of thehorse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. AndPeredur stood and compared the blackness of the raven, and the whitenessof the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady whombest he loved, which was blacker than the raven, and to her skin, whichwas whiter than the snow, and to her two cheeks which were redder thanthe blood upon the snow appeared to be. "[273]

And this, which is perhaps less striking, is not less beautiful:--

"And early in the day Geraint and Enid left the wood, and they came toan open country, with meadows on one hand and mowers mowing the meadows. And there was a river before them, and the horses bent down and drankthe water. And they went up out of the river by a steep bank, and therethey met a slender stripling with a satchel about his neck; and he had asmall blue pitcher in his hand, and a bowl on the mouth of thepitcher. "[274]

And here the landscape, up to this point so Greek in its clear beauty, is suddenly magicalized by the romance touch, --

"And they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one-half of whichwas in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green andin full leaf. "

Magic is the word to insist upon, --a magically vivid and nearinterpretation of nature; since it is this which constitutes the specialcharm and power of the effect I am calling attention to, and it is forthis that the Celt's sensibility gives him a peculiar aptitude. But thematter needs rather fine handling, and it is easy to make mistakes herein our criticism. In the first place, Europe tends constantly to becomemore and more one community, and we tend to become Europeans instead ofmerely Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians; so whatever aptitude orfelicity one people imparts into spiritual work, gets imitated by theothers, and thus tends to become the common property of all. Thereforeanything so beautiful and attractive as the natural magic I am speakingof, is sure, nowadays, if it appears in the productions of the Celts, orof the English, or of the French, to appear in the productions of theGermans also, or in the productions of the Italians; but there will be astamp of perfectness and inimitableness about it in the literatureswhere it is native, which it will not have in the literatures where itis not native. Novalis[275] or Rückert, [276] for instance, have theireye fixed on nature, and have undoubtedly a feeling for natural magic; arough-and-ready critic easily credits them and the Germans with theCeltic fineness of tact, the Celtic nearness to nature and her secret;but the question is whether the strokes in the German's picture ofnature[277] have ever the indefinable delicacy, charm, and perfection ofthe Celt's touch in the pieces I just now quoted, or of Shakespeare'stouch in his daffodil, [278] Wordsworth's in his cuckoo, [279] Keats's inhis Autumn, Obermann's in his mountain birch-tree, or his Easter-daisyamong the Swiss farms. [280] To decide where the gift for natural magicoriginally lies, whether it is properly Celtic or Germanic, we mustdecide this question. 

In the second place, there are many ways of handling nature, and we arehere only concerned with one of them; but a rough-and-ready criticimagines that it is all the same so long as nature is handled at all, and fails to draw the needful distinction between modes of handling her. But these modes are many; I will mention four of them now: there is theconventional way of handling nature, there is the faithful way ofhandling nature, there is the Greek way of handling nature, there is themagical way of handling nature. In all these three last the eye is onthe object, but with a difference; in the faithful way of handlingnature, the eye is on the object, and that is all you can say; in theGreek, the eye is on the object, but lightness and brightness are added;in the magical, the eye is on the object, but charm and magic are added. In the conventional way of handling nature, the eye is not on theobject; what that means we all know, we have only to think of oureighteenth-century poetry:--

 "As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night--"[281]

to call up any number of instances. Latin poetry supplies plenty ofinstances too; if we put this from Propertius's _Hylas_:--

 ". .. Manus heroum . .. Mollia composita litora fronde tegit--"[282]

side by side with the line of Theocritus by which it was suggested:--

[Greek: leimon gar sphin ekeito megas, stibadessin oneiar--][283]

we get at the same moment a good specimen both of the conventional andof the Greek way of handling nature. But from our own poetry we may getspecimens of the Greek way of handling nature, as well as of theconventional: for instance, Keats's:--

 "What little town by river or seashore, Or mountain-built with quiet citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?"[284]

is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is composedwith the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added. German poetry abounds in specimens of the faithful way of handlingnature; an excellent example is to be found in the stanzas called_Zueignung_[285], prefixed to Goethe's poems; the morning walk, themist, the dew, the sun, are as faithful as they can be, they are givenwith the eye on the object, but there the merit of the work, as ahandling of nature, stops; neither Greek radiance nor Celtic magic isadded; the power of these is not what gives the poem in question itsmerit, but a power of quite another kind, a power of moral and spiritualemotion. But the power of Greek radiance Goethe could give to hishandling of nature, and nobly too, as any one who will read his_Wanderer_, --the poem in which a wanderer falls in with a peasant womanand her child by their hut, built out of the ruins of a temple nearCuma, --may see. Only the power of natural magic Goethe does not, Ithink, give; whereas Keats passes at will from the Greek power to thatpower which is, as I say, Celtic; from his

 "What little town, by river or seashore--"

to his

 "White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine, Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves--"[286]

or his

 ". .. Magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn--"[287]

in which the very same note is struck as in those extracts which Iquoted from Celtic romance, and struck with authentic and unmistakablepower. 

Shakespeare, in handling nature, touches this Celtic note soexquisitely, that perhaps one is inclined to be always looking for theCeltic note in him, and not to recognize his Greek note when it comes. But if one attends well to the difference between the two notes, andbears in mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil's "moss-grown springsand grass softer than sleep:"--

 "Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba--"[288]

as his charming flower-gatherer, who--

 "Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi--"[289]

as his quinces and chestnuts:--

 " . .. Cana legam tenera lanugine mala Castaneasque nuces . .. "[290]

then, I think, we shall be disposed to say that in Shakespeare's

 "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine--"[291]

it is mainly a Greek note which is struck. Then, again in his

 " . .. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!"[292]

we are at the very point of transition from the Greek note to theCeltic; there is the Greek clearness and brightness, with the Celticaërialness and magic coming in. Then we have the sheer, inimitableCeltic note in passages like this:--

 "Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea--"[293]

or this, the last I will quote:--

 "The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, And they did make no noise, in such a night Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls--

 . .. In such a night Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew-- . .. In such a night _Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love To come again to Carthage. _"[294]

And those last lines of all are so drenched and intoxicated with thefairy-dew of that natural magic which is our theme, that I cannot dobetter than end with them. 

And now, with the pieces of evidence in our hand, let us go to those whosay it is vain to look for Celtic elements in any Englishman, and let usask them, first, if they seize what we mean by the power of naturalmagic in Celtic poetry: secondly, if English poetry does not eminentlyexhibit this power; and, thirdly, where they suppose English poetry gotit from?

GEORGE SAND[295]

The months go round, and anniversaries return; on the ninth of JuneGeorge Sand will have been dead just one year. She was born in 1804; shewas almost seventy-two years old when she died. She came to Paris afterthe revolution of 1830, with her _Indiana_[296] written, and began herlife of independence, her life of authorship, her life as _George Sand_. She continued at work till she died. For forty-five years she waswriting and publishing, and filled Europe with her name. 

It seems to me but the other day that I saw her, yet it was in theAugust of 1846, more than thirty years ago. I saw her in her own Berry, at Nohant, [297] where her childhood and youth were passed, where shereturned to live after she became famous, where she died and has now hergrave. There must be many who, after reading her books, have felt thesame desire which in those days of my youth, in 1846, took me to Nohant, --the desire to see the country and the places of which the books thatso charmed us were full. Those old provinces of the centre of France, primitive and slumbering, --Berry, La Marche, Bourbonnais; those sitesand streams in them, of name once so indifferent to us, but to whichGeorge Sand gave such a music for our ear, --La Châtre, Ste. Sévère, the_Vallée Noire_, the Indre, the Creuse; how many a reader of George Sandmust have desired, as I did, after frequenting them so much in thought, fairly to set eyes upon them!

I had been reading _Jeanne_. [298] I made up my mind to go and see ToulxSte. Croix, Boussac, and the Druidical stones on Mont Barlot, the_Pierres Jaunâtres_. [299]

I remember looking out Toulx in Cassini's great map[300] at theBodleian Library. The railway through the centre of France went in thosedays no farther than Vierzon. From Vierzon to Châteauroux one travelledby an ordinary diligence, from Châteauroux to La Châtre by a humblerdiligence, from La Châtre to Boussac by the humblest diligence of all. At Boussac diligence ended, and _patache_[301] began. BetweenChâteauroux and La Châtre, a mile or two before reaching the latterplace, the road passes by the village of Nohant. The Château of Nohant, in which Madame Sand lived, is a plain house by the road-side, with awalled garden. Down in the meadows, not far off, flows the Indre, bordered by trees. I passed Nohant without stopping, at La Châtre Idined and changed diligence, and went on by night up the valley of theIndre, the _Vallée Noire_, past Ste. Sévère to Boussac. At Ste. Sévèrethe Indre is quite a small stream. In the darkness we quitted itsvalley, and when day broke we were in the wilder and barer country of LaMarche, with Boussac before us, and its high castle on a precipitousrock over the Little Creuse. 

That day and the next I wandered through a silent country of heathy andferny _landes_, [302] a region of granite boulders, holly, and broom, ofcopsewood and great chestnut trees; a region of broad light, and freshbreezes and wide horizons. I visited the _Pierres Jaunâtres. _ I stood atsunset on the platform of Toulx Ste. Croix, by the scrawled and almosteffaced stone lions, --a relic, it is said, of the English rule, --andgazed on the blue mountains of Auvergne filling the distance, andsoutheastward of them, in a still further and fainter distance, on whatseemed to be the mountains over Le Puy and the high valley of the Loire. 

From Boussac I addressed to Madame Sand the sort of letter of which shemust in her lifetime have had scores, a letter conveying to her, in badFrench, the homage of a youthful and enthusiastic foreigner who had readher works with delight. She received the infliction good-naturedly, foron my return to La Châtre I found a message left at the inn by a servantfrom Nohant that Madame Sand would be glad to see me if I called. Themid-day breakfast at Nohant was not yet over when I reached the house, and I found a large party assembled. I entered with some trepidation, aswell I might, considering how I had got there; but the simplicity ofMadame Sand's manner put me at ease in a moment. She named some of thosepresent; amongst them were her son and daughter, the Maurice and Solange[303] so familiar to us from her books, and Chopin[304] with hiswonderful eyes. There was at that time nothing astonishing in MadameSand's appearance. She was not in man's clothes, she wore a sort ofcostume not impossible, I should think (although on these matters Ispeak with hesitation), to members of the fair sex at this hour amongstourselves, as an outdoor dress for the country or for Scotland. She mademe sit by her and poured out for me the insipid and depressing beverage, _boisson fade et mélancolique_, as Balzac called it, for which Englishpeople are thought abroad to be always thirsting, --tea. She conversed ofthe country through which I had been wandering, of the Berry peasantsand their mode of life, of Switzerland, whither I was going; she touchedpolitely, by a few questions and remarks, upon England and things andpersons English, --upon Oxford and Cambridge, Byron, Bulwer. As shespoke, her eyes, head, bearing, were all of them striking; but the mainimpression she made was an impression of what I have already mentioned, --of _simplicity_, frank, cordial simplicity. After breakfast she ledthe way into the garden, asked me a few kind questions about myself andmy plans, gathered a flower or two and gave them to me, shook handsheartily at the gate, and I saw her no more. In 1859 M. Michelet[305]gave me a letter to her, which would have enabled me to present myselfin more regular fashion. Madame Sand was then in Paris. But a day or twopassed before I could call, and when I called, Madame Sand had leftParis and had gone back to Nohant. The impression of 1846 has remainedmy single impression of her. 

Of her gaze, form, and speech, that one impression is enough; betterperhaps than a mixed impression from seeing her at sundry times andafter successive changes. But as the first anniversary of her death[306] draws near, there arises again a desire which I felt when shedied, the desire, not indeed to take a critical survey of her, --very farfrom it. I feel no inclination at all to go regularly through herproductions, to classify and value them one by one, to pick out fromthem what the English public may most like, or to present to thatpublic, for the most part ignorant of George Sand and for the most partindifferent to her, a full history and a judicial estimate of the womanand of her writings. But I desire to recall to my own mind, before theoccasion offered by her death passes quite away, --to recall and collectthe elements of that powerful total-impression which, as a writer, shemade upon me; to recall and collect them, to bring them distinctly intoview, to feel them in all their depth and power once more. What I hereattempt is not for the benefit of the indifferent; it is for my ownsatisfaction, it is for myself. But perhaps those for whom George Sandhas been a friend and a power will find an interest in following me. 

_Le sentiment de la vie idéale, qui n'est autre que la vie normale telleque nous sommes appelés à la connaître_;[307]--"the sentiment of theideal life, which is none other than man's normal life as we shall someday know it, "--those words from one of her last publications give theruling thought of George Sand, the ground-_motive_, as they say inmusic, of all her strain. It is as a personage inspired by this motivethat she interests us. 

The English public conceives of her as of a novel-writer who wrotestories more or less interesting; the earlier ones objectionable anddangerous, the later ones, some of them, unexceptionable and fit to beput into the hands of the youth of both sexes. With such a conception ofGeorge Sand, a story of hers like _Consuelo_[308] comes to be elevatedin England into quite an undue relative importance, and to pass withvery many people for her typical work, displaying all that is reallyvaluable and significant in the author. _Consuelo_ is a charming story. But George Sand is something more than a maker of charming stories, andonly a portion of her is shown in _Consuelo_. She is more, likewise, than a creator of characters. She has created, with admirable truth tonature, characters most attractive and attaching, such as Edmee, Genevieve, Germain. [309] But she is not adequately expressed by them. We do not know her unless we feel the spirit which goes through her workas a whole. 

In order to feel this spirit it is not, indeed, necessary to read allthat she ever produced. Even three or four only out of her many booksmight suffice to show her to us, if they were well chosen; let us say, the _Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, François le Champi_, [310] and astory which I was glad to see Mr. Myers, [311] in his appreciativenotice of Madame Sand, single out for praise, --_Valvèdre_. [312] In thesemay be found all the principal elements of their author's strain: thecry of agony and revolt, the trust in nature and beauty, the aspirationtowards a purged and renewed human society. 

Of George Sand's strain, during forty years, these are the grandelements. Now it is one of them which appears most prominently, now itis another. The cry of agony and revolt is in her earlier work only, andpasses away in her later. But in the evolution of these three elements, --the passion of agony and revolt, the consolation from nature and frombeauty, the ideas of social renewal, --in the evolution of these isGeorge Sand and George Sand's life and power. Through their evolutionher constant motive declares and unfolds itself, that motive which wehave set forth above: "the sentiment of the ideal life, which is noneother than man's normal life as we shall one day know it. " This is themotive, and through these elements is its evolution: an evolutionpursued, moreover, with the most unfailing resolve, the most absolutesincerity. 

The hour of agony and revolt passed away for George Sand, as it passedaway for Goethe, as it passes away for their readers likewise. It passesaway and does not return; yet those who, amid the agitations, more orless stormy, of their youth, betook themselves to the early works ofGeorge Sand, may in later life cease to read them, indeed, but they canno more forget them than they can forget _Werther_[313]. George Sandspeaks somewhere of her "days of _Corinne_. "[314] Days of _Valentine_, many of us may in like manner say, --days of _Valentine_, days of_Lélia_[315], days never to return! They are gone, we shall read thebooks no more, and yet how ineffaceable is their impression! How thesentences from George Sand's works of that period still linger in ourmemory and haunt the ear with their cadences! Grandiose and moving, theycome, those cadences, like the sighing of the wind through the forest, like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. Lélia in her cell on themountain of the Camaldoli--

"Sibyl, Sibyl forsaken; spirit of the days of old, joined to a brainwhich rebels against the divine inspiration; broken lyre, muteinstrument, whose tones the world of to-day, if it heard them, could notunderstand, but yet in whose depth the eternal harmony murmursimprisoned; priestess of death, I, I who feel and know that before now Ihave been Pythia, have wept before now, before now have spoken, but whocannot recollect, alas, cannot utter the word of healing! Yes, yes! Iremember the cavern of truth and the access of revelation; but the wordof human destiny, I have forgotten it; but the talisman of deliverance, it is lost from my hand. And yet, indeed, much, much have I seen! andwhen suffering presses me sore, when indignation takes hold of me, whenI feel Prometheus wake up in my heart and beat his puissant wingsagainst the stone which confines him, --oh! then, in prey to a frenzywithout a name, to a despair without bounds, I invoke the unknown masterand friend who might illumine my spirit and set free my tongue; but Igrope in darkness, and my tired arms grasp nothing save delusiveshadows. And for ten thousand years, as the sole answer to my cries, asthe sole comfort in my agony, I hear astir, over this earth accurst, thedespairing sob of impotent agony. For ten thousand years I have cried ininfinite space: _Truth! Truth!_ For ten thousand years infinite spacekeeps answering me: _Desire, Desire_. O Sibyl forsaken! O mute Pythia!dash then thy head against the rocks of thy cavern, and mingle thyraging blood with the foam of the sea; for thou deemest thyself to havepossessed the almighty Word, and these ten thousand years thou artseeking him in vain. "[316]

Or Sylvia's cry over Jacques[317] by his glacier in the Tyrol--

"When such a man as thou art is born into a world where he can do notrue service; when, with the soul of an apostle and the courage of amartyr, he has simply to push his way among the heartless and aimlesscrowds which vegetate without living; the atmosphere suffocates him andhe dies. Hated by sinners, the mock of fools, disliked by the envious, abandoned by the weak, what can he do but return to God, weary withhaving labored in vain, in sorrow at having accomplished nothing? Theworld remains in all its vileness and in all its hatefulness; this iswhat men call, 'the triumph of good sense over enthusiasm. '"[318]

Or Jacques himself, and his doctrine--

"Life is arid and terrible, repose is a dream, prudence is useless; merereason alone serves simply to dry up the heart; there is but one virtue, the eternal sacrifice of oneself. "

Or George Sand speaking in her own person, in the _Lettres d'unVoyageur_--

"Ah, no, I was not born to be a poet, I was born to love. It is themisfortune of my destiny, it is the enmity of others, which have made mea wanderer and an artist. What I wanted was to live a human life; I hada heart, it has been torn violently from my breast. All that has beenleft me is a head, a head full of noise and pain, of horrible memories, of images of woe, of scenes of outrage. And because in writing storiesto earn my bread I could not help remembering my sorrows, because I hadthe audacity to say that in married life there were to be foundmiserable beings, by reason of the weakness which is enjoined upon thewoman, by reason of the brutality which is permitted to the man, byreason of the turpitudes which society covers and protects with a veil, I am pronounced immoral, I am treated as if I were the enemy of thehuman race. "[319]

If only, alas, together with her honesty and her courage, she could feelwithin herself that she had also light and hope and power; that she wasable to lead those whom she loved, and who looked to her for guidance!But no; her very own children, witnesses of her suffering, heruncertainty, her struggles, her evil report, may come to doubt her:--

"My poor children, my own flesh and blood, will perhaps turn upon me andsay: 'You are leading us wrong, you mean to ruin us as well as yourself. Are you not unhappy, reprobated, evil spoken of? What have you gained bythese unequal struggles, by these much trumpeted duels of yours withcustom and belief? Let us do as others do; let us get what is to be gotout of this easy and tolerant world. '

"This is what they will say to me. Or at best, if, out of tenderness forme, or from their own natural disposition, they give ear to my words andbelieve me, whither shall I guide them? Into what abysses shall we goand plunge ourselves, we three?--for we shall be our own three uponearth, and not one soul with us. What shall I reply to them if they comeand say to me; 'Yes, life is unbearable in a world like this. Let us dietogether. Show us the path of Bernica, or the lake of Sténio, or theglaciers of Jacques. '"[320]

Nevertheless the failure of the impassioned seekers of a new and betterworld proves nothing, George Sand maintains, for the world as it is. Ineffectual they may be, but the world is still more ineffectual, and itis the world's course which is doomed to ruin, not theirs. "What has itdone, " exclaims George Sand in her preface to Guérin's _Centaure_, "whathas it done for our moral education, and what is it doing for ourchildren, this society shielded with such care?" Nothing. Those whom itcalls vain complainers and rebels and madmen, may reply:--

"Suffer us to bewail our martyrs, poets without a country that we are, forlorn singers, well versed in the causes of their misery and of ourown. You do not comprehend the malady which killed them; they themselvesdid not comprehend it. If one or two of us at the present day open oureyes to a new light, is it not by a strange and unaccountable goodProvidence; and have we not to seek our grain of faith in storm anddarkness, combated by doubt, irony, the absence of all sympathy, allexample, all brotherly aid, all protection and countenance in highplaces? Try yourselves to speak to your brethren heart to heart, conscience to conscience! Try it!--but you cannot, busied as you arewith watching and patching up in all directions your dykes which theflood is invading. The material existence of this society of yoursabsorbs all your care, and requires more than all your efforts. Meanwhile the powers of human thought are growing into strength, andrise on all sides around you. Amongst these threatening apparitions, there are some which fade away and reënter the darkness, because thehour of life has not yet struck, and the fiery spirit which quickenedthem could strive no longer with the horrors of this present chaos; butthere are others that can wait, and you will find them confronting you, up and alive, to say: 'You have allowed the death of our brethren, andwe, we do not mean to die. '"

She did not, indeed. How should she faint and fail before her time, because of a world out of joint, because of the reign of stupidity, because of the passions of youth, because of the difficulties anddisgusts of married life in the native seats of the _homme sensuelmoyen_, the average sensual man, she who could feel so well the power ofthose eternal consolers, nature and beauty? From the very first theyintroduce a note of suavity in her strain of grief and passion. Who canforget the lanes and meadows of _Valentine_?

George Sand is one of the few French writers who keep us closely andtruly intimate with rural nature. She gives us the wild-flowers by theiractual names, --snowdrop, primrose, columbine, iris, scabious. Nowherehas she touched her native Berry and its little-known landscape, its_campagnes ignorées_, with a lovelier charm than in _Valentine_. Thewinding and deep lanes running out of the high road on either side, thefresh and calm spots they take us to, "meadows of a tender green, plaintive brooks, clumps of alder and mountain ash, a whole world ofsuave and pastoral nature, "--how delicious it all is! The grave andsilent peasant whose very dog will hardly deign to bark at you, thegreat white ox, "the unfailing dean of these pastures, " staring solemnlyat you from the thicket; the farmhouse "with its avenue of maples, andthe Indre, here hardly more than a bright rivulet, stealing alongthrough rushes and yellow iris, in the field below, "--who, I say, canforget them? And that one lane in especial, the lane where Athenais putsher arm out of the side window of the rustic carriage and gathers Mayfrom the overarching hedge, --that lane with its startled blackbirds, andhumming insects, and limpid water, and swaying water-plants, andshelving gravel, and yellow wagtails hopping, half-pert, half-frightened, on the sand, --that lane with its rushes, cresses, andmint below, its honeysuckle and traveller's-joy above, --how gladly mightone give all that strangely English picture in English, if the charm ofMadame Sand's language did not here defy translation! Let us trysomething less difficult, and yet something where we may still have herin this her beloved world of "simplicity, and sky, and fields and trees, and peasant life, --peasant life looked at, by preference, on its goodand sound side. " _Voyez donc la simplicité, vous autres, voyez le cielet les champs, et les arbres, et les paysans, surtout dans ce qu'ils ontde bon et de vrai. _

The introduction to _La Mare au Diable_ will give us what we want. George Sand has been looking at an engraving of Holbein's _Laborer. _[321] An old thick-set peasant, in rags, is driving his plough in themidst of a field. All around spreads a wild landscape, dotted with a fewpoor huts. The sun is setting behind a hill; the day of toil is nearlyover. It has been a hard one; the ground is rugged and stony, thelaborer's horses are but skin and bone, weak and exhausted. There is butone alert figure, the skeleton Death, who with a whip skips nimbly alongat the horses' side and urges the team. Under the picture is a quotationin old French, to the effect that after the laborer's life of travailand service, in which he has to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, here comes Death to fetch him away. And from so rude a life does Deathtake him, says George Sand, that Death is hardly unwelcome; and inanother composition by Holbein, where men of almost every condition, --popes, sovereigns, lovers, gamblers, monks, soldiers, --are taunted withtheir fear of Death and do indeed see his approach with terror, Lazarusalone is easy and composed, and sitting on his dunghill at the richman's door, tells Death that he does not dread him. 

With her thoughts full of Holbein's mournful picture, George Sand goesout into the fields of her own Berry:--

"My walk was by the border of a field which some peasants were gettingready for being sown presently. The space to be ploughed was wide, as inHolbein's picture. The landscape was vast also; the great lines of greenwhich it contained were just touched with russet by the approach ofautumn; on the rich brown soil recent rain had left, in a good manyfurrows, lines of water, which shone in the sun like silver threads. Theday was clear and soft, and the earth gave out a light smoke where ithad been freshly laid open by the ploughshare. At the top of the fieldan old man, whose broad back and severe face were like those of the oldpeasant of Holbein, but whose clothes told no tale of poverty, wasgravely driving his plough of an antique shape, drawn by two tranquiloxen, with coats of a pale buff, real patriarchs of the fallow, tall ofmake, somewhat thin, with long and backward-sloping horns, the kind ofold workmen who by habit have got to be _brothers_ to one another, asthroughout our country-side they are called, and who, if one loses theother, refuse to work with a new comrade, and fret themselves to death. People unacquainted with the country will not believe in this affectionof the ox for his yoke-fellow. They should come and see one of the poorbeasts in a corner of his stable, thin, wasted, lashing with hisrestless tail his lean flanks, blowing uneasily and fastidiously on theprovender offered to him, his eyes forever turned towards the stabledoor, scratching with his foot the empty place left at his side, sniffing the yokes and bands which his companion has worn, andincessantly calling for him with piteous lowings. The ox-herd will tellyou: There is a pair of oxen done for! his _brother_ is dead, and thisone will work no more. He ought to be fattened for killing; but wecannot get him to eat, and in a short time he will have starved himselfto death. "[322]

How faithful and close it is, this contact of George Sand with countrythings, with the life of nature in its vast plenitude and pathos! Andalways in the end the human interest, as is right, emerges andpredominates. What is the central figure in the fresh and calm ruralworld of George Sand? It is the peasant. And what is the peasant? He isFrance, life, the future. And this is the strength of George Sand, andof her second movement, after the first movement of energy and revoltwas over, towards nature and beauty, towards the country, towardsprimitive life, the peasant. She regarded nature and beauty, not withthe selfish and solitary joy of the artist who but seeks to appropriatethem for his own purposes, she regarded them as a treasure of immenseand hitherto unknown application, as a vast power of healing and delightfor all, and for the peasant first and foremost. Yes she cries, thesimple life is the true one! but the peasant, the great organ of thatlife, "the minister in that vast temple which only the sky is vastenough to embrace, " the peasant is not doomed to toil and moil in itforever, overdone and unawakened, like Holbein's laborer, and to havefor his best comfort the thought that death will set him free. _Non, nous n'avons plus affaire à la mort, mais à la vie. _[323] "Our businesshenceforth is not with death, but with life. "

Joy is the great lifter of men, the great unfolder. _Il faut que la viesoit bonne afin qu'elle soit féconde. _ "For life to be fruitful, lifemust be felt as a blessing":--

"Nature is eternally young, beautiful, bountiful. She pours out beautyand poetry for all that live, she pours it out on all plants, and theplants are permitted to expand in it freely. She possesses the secret ofhappiness, and no man has been able to take it away from her. Thehappiest of men would be he who possessing the science of his labor andworking with his hands, earning his comfort and his freedom by theexercise of his intelligent force, found time to live by the heart andby the brain, to understand his own work and to love the work of God. The artist has satisfactions of this kind in the contemplation andreproduction of nature's beauty; but when he sees the affliction ofthose who people this paradise of earth, the upright and human-heartedartist feels a trouble in the midst of his enjoyment. The happy day willbe when mind, heart, and hands shall be alive together, shall work inconcert; when there shall be a harmony between God's munificence andman's delight in it. Then, instead of the piteous and frightful figureof Death, skipping along whip in hand by the peasant's side in thefield, the allegorical painter will place there a radiant angel, sowingwith full hands the blessed grain in the smoking furrow. 

"And the dream of a kindly, free, poetic, laborious, simple existencefor the tiller of the field is not so hard to realize that it must bebanished into the world of chimæras. Virgil's sweet and sad cry: 'Ohappy peasants, if they but knew their own blessings!' is a regret; butlike all regrets, it is at the same time a prediction. The day will comewhen the laborer may be also an artist;--not in the sense of renderingnature's beauty, a matter which will be then of much less importance, but in the sense of feeling it. Does not this mysterious intuition ofpoetic beauty exist in him already in the form of instinct and of vaguereverie?"[324]

It exists in him, too, adds Madame Sand, in the form of that_nostalgia_, that homesickness, which forever pursues the genuine Frenchpeasant if you transplant him. The peasant has here, then, the elementsof the poetic sense, and of its high and pure satisfactions. 

"But one part of the enjoyment which we possess is wanting to him, apure and lofty pleasure which is surely his due, minister that he is inthat vast temple which only the sky is vast enough to embrace. He hasnot the conscious knowledge of his sentiment. Those who have sentencedhim to servitude from his mother's womb, not being able to debar himfrom reverie, have debarred him from reflection. 

"Well, for all that, taking the peasant as he is, incomplete andseemingly condemned to an eternal childhood, I yet find him a morebeautiful object than the man in whom his acquisition of knowledge hasstifled sentiment. Do not rate yourselves so high above him, many of youwho imagine that you have an imprescriptible right to his obedience; foryou yourselves are the most incomplete and the least seeing of men. Thatsimplicity of his soul is more to be loved than the false lights ofyours. "[325]

In all this we are passing from the second element in George Sand to thethird, --her aspiration for a social new-birth, a _renaissance sociale_. It is eminently the ideal of France; it was hers. Her religion connecteditself with this ideal. In the convent where she was brought up, she hadin youth had an awakening of fervent mystical piety in the Catholicform. That form she could not keep. Popular religion of all kinds, withits deep internal impossibilities, its "heaven and hell serving to coverthe illogical manifestations of the Divinity's apparent designsrespecting us, " its "God made in our image, silly and malicious, vainand puerile, irritable or tender, after our fashion, " lost all sort ofhold upon her:--

"Communion with such a God is impossible to me, I confess it. He iswiped out from my memory: there is no corner where I can find him anymore. Nor do I find such a God out of doors either; he is not in thefields and waters, he is not in the starry sky. No, nor yet in thechurches where men bow themselves; it is an extinct message, a deadletter, a thought that has done its day. Nothing of this belief, nothingof this God, subsists in me any longer. "[326]

She refused to lament over the loss, to esteem it other than abenefit:--

"It is an addition to our stock of light, this detachment from theidolatrous conception of religion. It is no loss of the religious sense, as the persisters in idolatry maintain. It is quite the contrary, it isa restitution of allegiance to the true Divinity. It is a step made inthe direction of this Divinity, it is an abjuration of the dogmas whichdid him dishonor. "[327]

She does not attempt to give of this Divinity an account much moreprecise than that which we have in Wordsworth, --"_a presence thatdisturbs me with the joy of animating thoughts_. "[328]

"Everything is divine (she says), even matter; everything is superhuman, even man. God is everywhere; he is in me in a measure proportioned tothe little that I am. My present life separates me from him just in thedegree determined by the actual state of childhood of our race. Let mecontent myself, in all my seeking, to feel after him, and to possess ofhim as much as this imperfect soul can take in with the intellectualsense I have. "[329]

And she concludes:--

"The day will come when we shall no longer talk about God idly, nay, when we shall talk about him as little as possible. We shall cease toset him forth dogmatically, to dispute about his nature. We shall putcompulsion on no one to pray to him, we shall leave the whole businessof worship within the sanctuary of each man's conscience. And this willhappen when we are really religious. "[330]

Meanwhile the sense of this spirit or presence which animates us, thesense of the divine, is our stronghold and our consolation. A man maysay of it: "It comes not by my desert, but the atom of divine sensegiven to me nothing can rob me of. " _Divine sense_, --the phrase is avague one; but it stands to Madame Sand for that to which are to bereferred "all the best thoughts and the best actions of life, sufferingendured, duty achieved, whatever purifies our existence, whatevervivifies our love. "

Madame Sand is a Frenchwoman, and her religion is therefore, as we mightexpect, with peculiar fervency social. Always she has before her mind"the natural law which _will have it_ (the italics are her own) that thespecies _man_ cannot subsist and prosper but by _association_. " Whateverelse we may be in creation, we are, first and foremost, "at the head ofthe species which are called by instinct, and led by necessity, to thelife of _association_. " The word _love_--the great word, as she justlysays, of the New Testament--acquires from her social enthusiasm apeculiar significance to her:--

"The word is a great one, because it involves infinite consequences. Tolove means to help one another, to have joint aspirations, to act inconcert, to labor for the same end, to develop to its ideal consummationthe fraternal instinct, thanks to which mankind have brought the earthunder their dominion. Every time that he has been false to this instinctwhich is his law of life, his natural destiny, man has seen his templescrumble, his societies dissolve, his intellectual sense go wrong, hismoral sense die out. The future is founded on love. "[331]

So long as love is thus spoken of in the general, the ordinary seriousEnglishman will have no difficulty in inclining himself with respectwhile Madame Sand speaks of it. But when he finds that love implies, with her, social equality, he will begin to be staggered. And in truthfor almost every Englishman Madame Sand's strong language aboutequality, and about France as the chosen vessel for exhibiting it, willsound exaggerated. "The human ideal, " she says, "as well as the socialideal, is to achieve equality. "[332] France, which has made equality itsrallying cry, is therefore "the nation which loves and is loved, " _lanation qui aime et qu'on aime_. The republic of equality is in her eyes"an ideal, a philosophy, a religion. " She invokes the "holy doctrine ofsocial liberty and fraternal equality, ever reappearing as a ray of loveand truth amidst the storm. " She calls it "the goal of man and the lawof the future. " She thinks it the secret of the civilization of France, the most civilized of nations. Amid the disasters of the late war shecannot forbear a cry of astonishment at the neutral nations, _insensibles à l'égorgement d'une civilisation comme la nôtre_, "lookingon with insensibility while a civilization such as ours has its throatcut. " Germany, with its stupid ideal of corporalism and _Kruppism_, iscontrasted with France, full of social dreams, too civilized for war, incapable of planning and preparing war for twenty years, she is soincapable of hatred;--_nous sommes si incapables de haïr!_ We seem to belistening, not to George Sand, but to M. Victor Hugo, half genius, halfcharlatan; to M. Victor Hugo, or even to one of those French declaimersin whom we come down to no genius and all charlatan. 

The form of such outbursts as we have quoted will always be distastefulto an Englishman. It is to be remembered that they came from Madame Sandunder the pressure and anguish of the terrible calamities of 1870. Butwhat we are most concerned with, and what Englishmen in general regardtoo little, is the degree of truth contained in these allegations thatFrance is the most civilized of nations, and that she is so, above all, by her "holy doctrine of equality. " How comes the idea to be so current;and to be passionately believed in, as we have seen, by such a woman asGeorge Sand? It was so passionately believed in by her, that when oneseeks, as I am now seeking, to recall her image, the image is incompleteif the passionate belief is kept from appearing. 

I will not, with my scanty space, now discuss the belief; but I willseek to indicate how it must have commended itself, I think, to GeorgeSand. I have somewhere called France "the country of Europe where _thepeople_ is most alive. "[333] _The people_ is what interested GeorgeSand. And in France _the people_ is, above all, the peasant. The workmanin Paris or in other great towns of France may afford material for suchpictures as those which M. Zola[334] has lately given us in_L'Assommoir_--pictures of a kind long ago labelled by Madame Sand as"_the literature of mysteries of iniquity_, which men of talent andimagination try to bring into fashion. " But the real _people_ in France, the foundation of things there, both in George Sand's eyes and inreality, is the peasant. The peasant was the object of Madame Sand'sfondest predilections in the present, and happiest hopes in the future. The Revolution and its doctrine of equality had made the French peasant. What wonder, then, if she saluted the doctrine as a holy and paramountone?

And the French peasant is really, so far as I can see, the largest andstrongest element of soundness which the body social of any Europeannation possesses. To him is due that astonishing recovery which Francehas made since her defeat, and which George Sand predicted in the veryhour of ruin. Yes, in 1870 she predicted _ce reveil général qui vasuivre, à la grande surprise des autres nations, l'espèce d'agonie oùelles nous voient tombés_, [335] "the general re-arising which, to theastonishment of other nations, is about to follow the sort of agony inwhich they now see us lying. " To the condition, character, and qualitiesof the French peasant this recovery is in the main due. His materialwell-being is known to all of us. M. De Laveleye, [336] the well-knowneconomist, a Belgian and a Protestant, says that France, being thecountry of Europe where the soil is more divided than anywhere except inSwitzerland and Norway, is at the same time the country where well-beingis most widely spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, and where population is least outrunning the limits which, for thecomfort and progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. George Sand could see, of course, the well-being of the French peasant, for we can all see it. 

But there is more. George Sand was a woman, with a woman's ideal ofgentleness, of "the charm of good manners, " as essential tocivilization. She has somewhere spoken admirably of the variety andbalance of forces which go to make up true civilization; "certain forcesof weakness, docility, attractiveness, suavity, are here just as realforces as forces of vigor, encroachment, violence, or brutality. " Yes, as real _forces_, although Prince Bismarck cannot see it; because humannature requires them, and, often as they may be baffled, and slow as maybe the process of their asserting themselves, mankind is not satisfiedwith its own civilization, and keeps fidgeting at it and altering itagain and again, until room is made for them. George Sand thought theFrench people, --meaning principally, again, by the French people the_people_ properly so called, the peasant, --she thought it "the mostkindly, the most amiable, of all peoples. " Nothing is more touching thanto read in her _Journal_, written in 1870, while she was witnessing whatseemed to be "the agony of the Latin races, " and undergoing what seemedto be the process of "dying in a general death of one's family, one'scountry, and one's nation, " how constant is her defence of the people, the peasant, against her Republican friends. Her Republican friends werefurious with the peasant; accused him of stolidity, cowardice, want ofpatriotism; accused him of having given them the Empire, with all itsvileness; wanted to take away from him the suffrage. Again and againdoes George Sand take up his defence, and warn her friends of the follyand danger of their false estimate of him. "The contempt of the masses, there, " she cries, "is the misfortune and crime of the presentmoment!"[337] "To execrate the people, " she exclaims again, "is realblasphemy; the people is worth more than we are. "

If the peasant gave us the Empire, says Madame Sand, it was because hesaw the parties of liberals disputing, gesticulating, and threatening totear one another asunder and France too; he was told _the Empire ispeace_, and he accepted the Empire. The peasant was deceived, he isuninstructed, he moves slowly; but he moves, he has admirable virtues, and in him, says George Sand, is our life:--

"Poor Jacques Bonhomme! accuse thee and despise thee who will; for mypart I pity thee, and in spite of thy faults I shall always love thee. Never will I forget how, a child, I was carried asleep on thy shoulders, how I was given over to thy care and followed thee everywhere, to thefield, the stall, the cottage. They are all dead, those good old peoplewho have borne me in their arms; but I remember them well, and Iappreciate at this hour, to the minutest detail, the pureness, thekindness, the patience, the good humor, the poetry, which presided overthat rustic education amidst disasters of like kind with those which weare undergoing now. Why should I quarrel with the peasant because oncertain points he feels and thinks differently from what I do? There areother essential points on which we may feel eternally at one with him, --probity and charity. "[338]

Another generation of peasants had grown up since that firstrevolutionary generation of her youth, and equality, as its reignproceeded, had not deteriorated but improved them. 

 "They have advanced greatly in self-respect and well-being, thesepeasants from twenty years old to forty: they never ask for anything. When one meets them they no longer take off their hat. If they know youthey come up to you and hold out their hand. All foreigners who staywith us are struck with their good bearing, with their amenity, and thesimple, friendly, and polite ease of their behavior. In presence ofpeople whom they esteem they are, like their fathers, models of tact andpoliteness; but they have more than that mere _sentiment_ of equalitywhich was all that their fathers had, --they have the _idea_ of equality, and the determination to maintain it. This step upwards they owe totheir having the franchise. Those who would fain treat them as creaturesof a lower order dare not now show this disposition to their face; itwould not be pleasant. "[339]

Mr. Hamerton's[340] interesting book about French life has much, Ithink, to confirm this account of the French peasant. What I have seenof France myself (and I have seen something) is fully in agreement withit. Of a civilization and an equality which makes the peasant thus_human_, gives to the bulk of the people well-being, probity, charity, self-respect, tact, and good manners, let us pardon Madame Sand if shefeels and speaks enthusiastically. Some little variation on our owneternal trio of Barbarians, Philistines, Populace, [341] or on theeternal solo of Philistinism among our brethren of the United States andthe Colonies, is surely permissible. 

Where one is more inclined to differ from Madame Sand is in her estimateof her Republican friends of the educated classes. They may stand, shesays, for the genius and the soul of France; they represent its "exaltedimagination and profound sensibility, " while the peasant represents itshumble, sound, indispensable body. Her protégé, the peasant, is muchruder with those eloquent gentlemen, and has his own name for one andall of them, _l'avocat_, by which he means to convey his belief thatwords are more to be looked for from that quarter than seriousness andprofit. It seems to me by no means certain but that the peasant is inthe right. 

George Sand herself has said admirable things of these friends of hers;of their want of patience, temper, wisdom; of their "vague and violentway of talking"; of their interminable flow of "stimulating phrases, cold as death. " Her own place is of course with the party and propagandaof organic change. But George Sand felt the poetry of the past; she hadno hatreds; the furies, the follies, the self-deceptions of secularistand revolutionist fanatics filled her with dismay. They are, indeed, thegreat danger of France, and it is amongst the educated and articulateclasses of France that they prevail. If the educated and articulateclasses in France were as sound in their way as the inarticulate peasantis in his, France would present a different spectacle. Not "imaginationand sensibility" are so much required from the educated classes ofFrance, as simpler, more serious views of life; a knowledge how great apart _conduct_ (if M. Challemel-Lacour[342] will allow me to say so)fills in it; a better example. The few who see this, such as Madame Sandamong the dead, and M. Renan[343] among the living, perhaps awaken onthat account, amongst quiet observers at a distance, all the moresympathy; but in France they are isolated. 

All the later work of George Sand, however, all her hope of genuinesocial renovation, take the simple and serious ground so necessary. "Thecure for us is far more simple than we will believe. All the betternatures amongst us see it and feel it. It is a good direction given byourselves to our hearts and consciences;--_une bonne direction donnéepar nous-mêmes à nos coeurs et à nos consciences_. "[344] These are amongthe last words of her _Journal_ of 1870. 

 * * * * *

Whether or not the number of George Sand's works--always fresh, alwaysattractive, but poured out too lavishly and rapidly--is likely to provea hindrance to her fame, I do not care to consider. Posterity, alarmedat the way in which its literary baggage grows upon it, always seeks toleave behind it as much as it can, as much as it dares, --everything butmasterpieces. But the immense vibration of George Sand's voice upon theear of Europe will not soon die away. Her passions and her errors havebeen abundantly talked of. She left them behind her, and men's memory ofher will leave them behind also. There will remain of her to mankind thesense of benefit and stimulus from the passage upon earth of that largeand frank nature, of that large and pure utterance, --the _the largeutterance of the early gods_. There will remain an admiring and everwidening report of that great and ingenuous soul, simple, affectionate, without vanity, without pedantry, human, equitable, patient, kind. Shebelieved herself, she said, "to be in sympathy, across time and space, with a multitude of honest wills which interrogate their conscience andtry to put themselves in accord with it. " This chain of sympathy willextend more and more. 

It is silent, that eloquent voice! it is sunk, that noble, that speakinghead! we sum up, as we best can, what she said to us, and we bid heradieu. From many hearts in many lands a troop of tender and gratefulregrets converge towards her humble churchyard in Berry. Let them bejoined by these words of sad homage from one of a nation which sheesteemed, and which knew her very little and very ill. Her guidingthought, the guiding thought which she did her best to make ours too, "the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none other than man's normallife as we shall one day know it, " is in harmony with words and promisesfamiliar to that sacred place where she lies. _Exspectat resurrectionemmortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi. _[345]

WORDSWORTH[346]

I remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, after Wordsworth's death, whensubscriptions were being collected to found a memorial of him, that tenyears earlier more money could have been raised in Cambridge alone, todo honor to Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country. Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and telling way ofputting things, and we must always make allowance for it. But probablyit is true that Wordsworth has never, either before or since, been soaccepted and popular, so established in possession of the minds of allwho profess to care for poetry, as he was between the years 1830 and1840, and at Cambridge. From the very first, no doubt, he had hisbelievers and witnesses. But I have myself heard him declare that, forhe knew not how many years, his poetry had never brought him in enoughto buy his shoe-strings. The poetry-reading public was very slow torecognize him, and was very easily drawn away from him. Scott effacedhim with this public. Byron effaced him. 

The death of Byron seemed, however, to make an opening for Wordsworth. Scott, who had for some time ceased to produce poetry himself, and stoodbefore the public as a great novelist; Scott, too genuine himself not tofeel the profound genuineness of Wordsworth, and with an instinctiverecognition of his firm hold on nature and of his local truth, alwaysadmired him sincerely, and praised him generously. The influence ofColeridge upon young men of ability was then powerful, and was stillgathering strength; this influence told entirely in favor ofWordsworth's poetry. Cambridge was a place where Coleridge's influencehad great action, and where Wordsworth's poetry, therefore, flourishedespecially. But even amongst the general public its sale grew large, theeminence of its author was widely recognized, and Rydal Mount[347]became an object of pilgrimage. I remember Wordsworth relating how oneof the pilgrims, a clergyman, asked him if he had ever written anythingbesides the _Guide to the Lakes_. Yes, he answered modestly, he hadwritten verses. Not every pilgrim was a reader, but the vogue wasestablished, and the stream of pilgrims came. 

Mr. Tennyson's decisive appearance dates from 1842. [348] One cannot saythat he effaced Wordsworth as Scott and Byron had effaced him. Thepoetry of Wordsworth had been so long before the public, the suffrage ofgood judges was so steady and so strong in its favor, that by 1842 theverdict of posterity, one may almost say, had been already pronounced, and Wordsworth's English fame was secure. But the vogue, the ear andapplause of the great body of poetry-readers, never quite thoroughlyperhaps his, he gradually lost more and more, and Mr. Tennyson gainedthem. Mr. Tennyson drew to himself, and away from Wordsworth, thepoetry-reading public, and the new generations. Even in 1850, whenWordsworth died, this diminution of popularity was visible, andoccasioned the remark of Lord Macaulay which I quoted at starting. 

The diminution has continued. The influence of Coleridge has waned, andWordsworth's poetry can no longer draw succor from this ally. The poetryhas not, however, wanted eulogists; and it may be said to have broughtits eulogists luck, for almost every one who has praised Wordsworth'spoetry has praised it well. But the public has remained cold, or, atleast, undetermined. Even the abundance of Mr. Palgrave's fine andskilfully chosen specimens of Wordsworth, in the _Golden Treasury_, surprised many readers, and gave offense to not a few. To tenth-ratecritics and compilers, for whom any violent shock to the public tastewould be a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible tospeak of Wordsworth's poetry, not only with ignorance, but withimpertinence. On the Continent he is almost unknown. 

I cannot think, then, that Wordsworth has, up to this time, at allobtained his deserts. "Glory, " said M. Renan the other day, "glory afterall is the thing which has the best chance of not being altogethervanity. " Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly neverhave thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the bestchance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that fewthings are less vain than _real_ glory. Let us conceive of the wholegroup of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and spiritualpurposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and workingtowards a common result; a confederation whose members have a dueknowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of oneanother. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which willimpose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more. Then to be recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as amaster, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy workman, in one'sown line of intellectual or spiritual activity, is indeed glory; a glorywhich it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what could be morebeneficent, more salutary? The world is forwarded by having itsattention fixed on the best things; and here is a tribunal, free fromall suspicion of national and provincial partiality, putting a stamp onthe best things, and recommending them for general honor and acceptance. A nation, again, is furthered by recognition of its real gifts andsuccesses; it is encouraged to develop them further. And here is anhonest verdict, telling us which of our supposed successes are really, in the judgment of the great impartial world, and not in our privatejudgment only, successes, and which are not. 

It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one's own things, sohard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We have a greatempire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the "unrivalled happiness"of our national civilization. But then comes a candid friend, [349] andremarks that our upper class is materialized, our middle classvulgarized, and our lower class brutalized. We are proud of ourpainting, our music. But we find that in the judgment of other peopleour painting is questionable, and our music non-existent. We are proudof our men of science. And here it turns out that the world is with us;we find that in the judgment of other people, too, Newton among thedead, and Mr. Darwin among the living, hold as high a place as they holdin our national opinion. 

Finally, we are proud of our poets and poetry. Now poetry is nothingless than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearestto being able to utter the truth. It is no small thing, therefore, tosucceed eminently in poetry. And so much is required for duly estimatingsuccess here, that about poetry it is perhaps hardest to arrive at asure general verdict, and takes longest. Meanwhile, our own convictionof the superiority of our national poets is not decisive, is almostcertain to be mingled, as we see constantly in English eulogy ofShakespeare, with much of provincial infatuation. And we know what wasthe opinion current amongst our neighbors the French--people of taste, acuteness, and quick literary tact--not a hundred years ago, about ourgreat poets. The old _Biographie Universelle_[350] notices thepretension of the English to a place for their poets among the chiefpoets of the world, and says that this is a pretension which to no onebut an Englishman can ever seem admissible. And the scornful, disparaging things said by foreigners about Shakespeare and Milton, andabout our national over-estimate of them, have been often quoted, andwill be in every one's remembrance. 

A great change has taken place, and Shakespeare is now generallyrecognized, even in France, as one of the greatest of poets. Yes, someanti-Gallican cynic will say, the French rank him with Corneille andwith Victor Hugo! But let me have the pleasure of quoting a sentenceabout Shakespeare, which I met with by accident not long ago in the_Correspondant_, a French review which not a dozen English people, Isuppose, look at. The writer is praising Shakespeare's prose. WithShakespeare, he says, "prose comes in whenever the subject, being morefamiliar, is unsuited to the majestic English iambic. " And he goes on:"Shakespeare is the king of poetic rhythm and style, as well as the kingof the realm of thought: along with his dazzling prose, Shakespeare hassucceeded in giving us the most varied, the most harmonious verse whichhas ever sounded upon the human ear since the verse of the Greeks. " M. Henry Cochin, [351] the writer of this sentence, deserves our gratitudefor it; it would not be easy to praise Shakespeare, in a singlesentence, more justly. And when a foreigner and a Frenchman writes thusof Shakespeare, and when Goethe says of Milton, in whom there was somuch to repel Goethe rather than to attract him, that "nothing has beenever done so entirely in the sense of the Greeks as _Samson Agonistes_, "and that "Milton is in very truth a poet whom we must treat with allreverence, " then we understand what constitutes a European recognitionof poets and poetry as contradistinguished from a merely nationalrecognition, and that in favor both of Milton and of Shakespeare thejudgment of the high court of appeal has finally gone. 

I come back to M. Renan's praise of glory, from which I started. Yes, real glory is a most serious thing, glory authenticated by theAmphictyonic Court[352] of final appeal, definite glory. And even forpoets and poetry, long and difficult as may be the process of arrivingat the right award, the right award comes at last, the definitive gloryrests where it is deserved. Every establishment of such a real glory isgood and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for thenation which produced the poet crowned with it. To the poet himself itcan seldom do harm; for he, poor man, is in his grave, probably, longbefore his glory crowns him. 

Wordsworth has been in his grave for some thirty years, and certainlyhis lovers and admirers cannot flatter themselves that this great andsteady light of glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognizedat home; he is not recognized at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe thatthe poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare andMilton, of which all the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly themost considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to thepresent time. Chaucer is anterior; and on other grounds, too, he cannotwell be brought into the comparison. But taking the roll of our chiefpoetical names, besides Shakespeare and Milton, from the age ofElizabeth downwards, and going through it, --Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are dead), --I think it certainthat Wordsworth's name deserves to stand, and will finally stand, abovethem all. Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences whichWordsworth has not. But taking the performance of each as a whole, I saythat Wordsworth seems to me to have left a body of poetical worksuperior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduringfreshness, to that which any one of the others has left. 

But this is not enough to say. I think it certain, further, that if wetake the chief poetical names of the Continent since the death ofMolière, and, omitting Goethe, confront the remaining names with that ofWordsworth, the result is the same. Let us take Klopstock, [353]Lessing, [354] Schiller, Uhland, [355] Rückert, [356] and Heine[357] forGermany; Filicaja, [358] Alfieri, [359] Manzoni, [360] and Leopardi[361]for Italy; Racine, [362] Boileau, [363] Voltaire, André Chénier, [364]Béranger, [365] Lamartine, [366] Musset, [367] M. Victor Hugo (he has beenso long celebrated that although he still lives I may be permitted toname him) for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts andexcellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in realpoetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, hereagain, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behindhim a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on thewhole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far morebrilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal. Wordsworth's performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, ininterest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior totheirs. 

This is a high claim to make for Wordsworth. But if it is a just claim, if Wordsworth's place among the poets who have appeared in the last twoor three centuries is after Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, indeed, but before all the rest, then in time Wordsworth will have hisdue. We shall recognize him in his place, as we recognize Shakespeareand Milton; and not only we ourselves shall recognize him, but he willbe recognized by Europe also. Meanwhile, those who recognize him alreadymay do well, perhaps, to ask themselves whether there are not in thecase of Wordsworth certain special obstacles which hinder or delay hisdue recognition by others, and whether these obstacles are not in somemeasure removable. 

The _Excursion_ and the _Prelude_, his poems of greatest bulk, are by nomeans Wordsworth's best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, and many indeed are there of these which are of first-rate excellence. But in his seven volumes the pieces of high merit are mingled with amass of pieces very inferior to them; so inferior to them that it seemswonderful how the same poet should have produced both. Shakespearefrequently has lines and passages in a strain quite false, and which areentirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine him smiling if one couldmeet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling and replyingthat he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it matter? But withWordsworth the case is different. Work altogether inferior, work quiteuninspired, flat and dull, is produced by him with evidentunconsciousness of its defects, and he presents it to us with the samefaith and seriousness as his best work. Now a drama or an epic fill themind, and one does not look beyond them; but in a collection of shortpieces the impression made by one piece requires to be continued andsustained by the piece following. In reading Wordsworth the impressionmade by one of his fine pieces is too often dulled and spoiled by a veryinferior piece coming after it. 

Wordsworth composed verses during a space of some sixty years; and it isno exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, between 1798 and 1808, almost all his really first-rate work wasproduced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and afterthis golden prime, imbedding the first-rate work and clogging it, obstructing our approach to it, chilling, not unfrequently, thehigh-wrought mood with which we leave it. To be recognized far and wideas a great poet, to be possible and receivable as a classic, Wordsworthneeds to be relieved of a great deal of the poetical baggage which nowencumbers him. To administer this relief is indispensable, unless he isto continue to be a poet for the few only, --a poet valued far below hisreal worth by the world. 

There is another thing. Wordsworth classified his poems not according toany commonly received plan of arrangement, but according to a scheme ofmental physiology. He has poems of the fancy, poems of the imagination, poems of sentiment and reflection, and so on. His categories areingenious but far-fetched, and the result of his employment of them isunsatisfactory. Poems are separated one from another which possess akinship of subject or of treatment far more vital and deep than thesupposed unity of mental origin, which was Wordsworth's reason forjoining them with others. 

The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind was infallible. We mayrely upon it that we shall not improve upon the classification adoptedby the Greeks for kinds of poetry; that their categories of epic, dramatic, lyric, and so forth, have a natural propriety, and should beadhered to. It may sometimes seem doubtful to which of two categories apoem belongs; whether this or that poem is to be called, for instance, narrative or lyric, lyric or elegiac. But there is to be found in everygood poem a strain, a predominant note, which determines the poem asbelonging to one of these kinds rather than the other; and here is thebest proof of the value of the classification, and of the advantage ofadhering to it. Wordsworth's poems will never produce their due effectuntil they are freed from their present artificial arrangement, andgrouped more naturally. 

Disengaged from the quantity of inferior work which now obscures them, the best poems of Wordsworth, I hear many people say, would indeed standout in great beauty, but they would prove to be very few in number, scarcely more than a half a dozen. I maintain, on the other hand, thatwhat strikes me with admiration, what establishes in my opinionWordsworth's superiority, is the great and ample body of powerful workwhich remains to him, even after all his inferior work has been clearedaway. He gives us so much to rest upon, so much which communicates hisspirit and engages ours!

This is of very great importance. If it were a comparison of singlepieces, or of three or four pieces, by each poet, I do not say thatWordsworth would stand decisively above Gray, or Burns, or Coleridge, orKeats, or Manzoni, or Heine. It is in his ampler body of powerful workthat I find his superiority. His good work itself, his work whichcounts, is not all of it, of course, of equal value. Some kinds ofpoetry are in themselves lower kinds than others. The ballad kind is alower kind; the didactic kind, still more, is a lower kind. Poetry ofthis latter sort counts, too, sometimes, by its biographical interestpartly, not by its poetical interest pure and simple; but then this canonly be when the poet producing it has the power and importance ofWordsworth, a power and importance which he assuredly did not establishby such didactic poetry alone. Altogether, it is, I say, by the greatbody of powerful and significant work which remains to him, after everyreduction and deduction has been made, that Wordsworth's superiority isproved. 

To exhibit this body of Wordsworth's best work, to clear awayobstructions from around it, and to let it speak for itself, is whatevery lover of Wordsworth should desire. Until this has been done, Wordsworth, whom we, to whom he is dear, all of us know and feel to beso great a poet, has not had a fair chance before the world. When onceit has been done, he will make his way best, not by our advocacy of him, but by his own worth and power. We may safely leave him to make his waythus, we who believe that a superior worth and power in poetry finds inmankind a sense responsive to it and disposed at last to recognize it. Yet at the outset, before he has been duly known and recognized, we maydo Wordsworth a service, perhaps, by indicating in what his superiorpower and worth will be found to consist, and in what it will not. 

Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profoundapplication of ideas to life is the most essential part of poeticgreatness[Transcriber's note: no punctuation here] I said that a greatpoet receives his distinctive character of superiority from hisapplication, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws of poeticbeauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, to his subject, whatever it may be, of the ideas

 "On man, on nature, and on human life, "[368]

which he has acquired for himself. The line quoted is Wordsworth's own;and his superiority arises from his powerful use, in his best pieces, hispowerful application to his subject, of ideas "on man, on nature, and onhuman life. "

Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that "no nationhas treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than theEnglish nation. " And he adds; "There, it seems to me, is the great meritof the English poets. " Voltaire does not mean by treating in poetrymoral ideas, the composing moral and didactic poems;--that brings usbut a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as wasmeant when I spoke above "of the noble and profound application of ideasto life"; and he means the application of these ideas under theconditions fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. If it is said that to call these ideas _moral_ ideas is to introduce astrong and injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing ofthe kind, because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. The question, _how to live_, is itself a moral idea; and it is thequestion which most interests every man, and with which, in some way orother, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to begiven to the term _moral_. Whatever bears upon the question, "how tolive, " comes under it. 

"Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv'st, Live well; how longor short, permit to heaven. "[369]

In those fine lines Milton utters, as every one at once perceives, amoral idea. Yes, but so too, when Keats consoles the forward-bendinglover on the Grecian Urn, the lover arrested and presented in immortalrelief by the sculptor's hand before he can kiss, with the line, "Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair--"

he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says, that

 "We are such stuffAs dreams are made of, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep, "[370]

he utters a moral idea. 

Voltaire was right in thinking that the energetic and profound treatmentof moral ideas, in this large sense, is what distinguishes the Englishpoetry. He sincerely meant praise, no dispraise or hint of limitation;and they err who suppose that poetic limitation is a necessaryconsequence of the fact, the fact being granted as Voltaire states it. If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powerful and profoundapplication of ideas to life, which surely no good critic will deny, then to prefix to the term ideas here the term moral makes hardly anydifference, because human life itself is in so preponderating a degreemoral. 

It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is atbottom a criticism of life;[371] that the greatness of a poet lies inhis powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life, --to thequestion: How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and falsefashion; they are bound up with systems of thought and belief which havehad their day; they are fallen into the hands of pedants andprofessional dealers; they grow tiresome to some of us. We findattraction, at times, even in a poetry of revolt against them; in apoetry which might take for its motto Omar Khayyám's words: "Let us makeup in the tavern for the time which we have wasted in the mosque. " Or wefind attractions in a poetry indifferent to them; in a poetry where thecontents may be what they will, but where the form is studied andexquisite. We delude ourselves in either case; and the best cure for ourdelusion is to let our minds rest upon that great and inexhaustible word_life_, until we learn to enter into its meaning. A poetry of revoltagainst moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against _life_; a poetry ofindifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards_life_. 

Epictetus had a happy figure for things like the play of the senses, orliterary form and finish, or argumentative ingenuity, in comparison with"the best and master thing" for us, as he called it, the concern, how tolive. Some people were afraid of them, he said, or they disliked andundervalued them. Such people were wrong; they were unthankful orcowardly. But the things might also be over-prized, and treated as finalwhen they are not. They bear to life the relation which inns bear tohome. "As if a man, journeying home, and finding a nice inn on the road, and liking it, were to stay forever at the inn! Man, thou hastforgotten thine object; thy journey was not _to_ this, but _through_this. 'But this inn is taking. ' And how many other inns, too, aretaking, and how many fields and meadows! but as places of passagemerely, you have an object, which is this: to get home, to do your dutyto your family, friends, and fellow-countrymen, to attain inwardfreedom, serenity, happiness, contentment. Style takes your fancy, arguing takes your fancy, and you forget your home and want to make yourabode with them and to stay with them, on the plea that they are taking. Who denies that they are taking? but as places of passage, as inns. Andwhen I say this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, thecare for argument. I am not; I attack the resting in them, the notlooking to the end which is beyond them. "[372]

Now, when we come across a poet like Théophile Gautier, [373] we have apoet who has taken up his abode at an inn, and never got farther. Theremay be inducements to this or that one of us, at this or that moment, tofind delight in him, to cleave to him; but after all, we do not changethe truth about him, --we only stay ourselves in his inn along with him. And when we come across a poet like Wordsworth, who sings

 "Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love and hope, And melancholy fear subdued by faith, Of blessed consolations in distress, Of moral strength and intellectual power, Of joy in widest commonalty spread--"[374]

then we have a poet intent on "the best and master thing, " and whoprosecutes his journey home. We say, for brevity's sake, that he dealswith _life_, because he deals with that in which life really consists. This is what Voltaire means to praise in the English poets, --thisdealing with what is really life. But always it is the mark of thegreatest poets that they deal with it; and to say that the English poetsare remarkable for dealing with it, is only another way of saying, whatis true, that in poetry the English genius has especially shown itspower. 

Wordsworth deals with it, and his greatness lies in his dealing with itso powerfully. I have named a number of celebrated poets above all ofwhom he, in my opinion, deserves to be placed. He is to be placed abovepoets like Voltaire, Dryden, Pope, Lessing, Schiller, because thesefamous personages, with a thousand gifts and merits, never, or scarcelyever, attain the distinctive accent and utterance of the high andgenuine poets--

 "Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, "[375]

at all. Burns, Keats, Heine, not to speak of others in our list, havethis accent;--who can doubt it? And at the same time they have treasuresof humor, felicity, passion, for which in Wordsworth we shall look invain. Where, then, is Wordsworth's superiority? It is here; he dealswith more of _life_ than they do; he deals with _life_ as a whole, morepowerfully. 

No Wordsworthian will doubt this. Nay, the fervent Wordsworthian willadd, as Mr. Leslie Stephen[376] does, that Wordsworth's poetry isprecious because his philosophy is sound; that his "ethical system is asdistinctive and capable of exposition as Bishop Butler's"; that hispoetry is informed by ideas which "fall spontaneously into a scientificsystem of thought. " But we must be on our guard against theWordsworthians, if we want to secure for Wordsworth his due rank as apoet. The Wordsworthians are apt to praise him for the wrong things, andto lay far too much stress upon what they call his philosophy. Hispoetry is the reality, his philosophy--so far, at least, as it may puton the form and habit of "a scientific system of thought, " and the morethat it puts them on--is the illusion. Perhaps we shall one day learn tomake this proposition general, and to say: Poetry is the reality, philosophy the illusion. But in Wordsworth's case, at any rate, wecannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy. 

The _Excursion_ abounds with philosophy and therefore the _Excursion_ isto the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover ofpoetry, --a satisfactory work. "Duty exists, " says Wordsworth, in the_Excursion_; and then he proceeds thus--

 " . .. Immutably survive, For our support, the measures and the forms, Which an abstract Intelligence supplies, Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not. "[377]

And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweetunion of philosophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of poetrywill feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than theproposition which they would interpret; that they are a tissue ofelevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry. 

Or let us come direct to the centre of Wordsworth's philosophy, as "anethical system, as distinctive and capable of systematical exposition asBishop Butler's"--

 ". .. One adequate support For the calamities of mortal life Exists, one only;--an assured belief That the procession of our fate, howe'er Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being Of infinite benevolence and power; Whose everlasting purposes embrace All accidents, converting them to good. "[378]

That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious andphilosophic doctrine; and the attached Wordsworthian loves passages ofsuch doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet'sexcellence. But however true the doctrine may be, it has, as herepresented, none of the characters of _poetic_ truth, the kind of truthwhich we require from a poet, and in which Wordsworth is really strong. 

Even the "intimations" of the famous Ode, [379] those corner-stones ofthe supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth, --the idea of the highinstincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divinehome recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds, --this idea, ofundeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character ofpoetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity. The instinct ofdelight in Nature and her beauty had no doubt extraordinary strength inWordsworth himself as a child. 

But to say that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, andtends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful. Inmany people, perhaps with the majority of educated persons, the love ofnature is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong andoperative at thirty. In general we may say of these high instincts ofearly childhood, the base of the alleged systematic philosophy ofWordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greekrace: "It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote;but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they wereno very great things. "

Finally, the "scientific system of thought" in Wordsworth gives us atleast such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts--

 "O for the coming of that glorious time When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth And best protection, this Imperial Realm, While she exacts allegiance, shall admit An obligation, on her part, to _teach_ Them who are born to serve her and obey; Binding herself by statute to secure, For all the children whom her soil maintains, The rudiments of letters, and inform The mind with moral and religious truth. "[380]

Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of theseun-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment! One canhear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up thewhole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dustyair and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald headsand women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscriptwritten within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and inthe soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe!

"But turn we, " as Wordsworth says, "from these bold, bad men, " thehaunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, against the exhibitors and extollers of a "scientific system of thought"in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while theythus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be toldquite simply. Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinarypower with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, thejoy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; andbecause of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, heshows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. 

The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and mostunfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessibleuniversally. Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his ownstrong and characteristic line, he brings us word

 "Of joy in widest commonalty spread. "[381]

Here is an immense advantage for a poet. Wordsworth tells of what allseek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a sourcewhere all may go and draw for it. 

Nevertheless, we are not to suppose that everything is precious whichWordsworth, standing even at this perennial and beautiful source, maygive us. Wordsworthians are apt to talk as if it must be. They willspeak with the same reverence of _The Sailor's Mother_, for example, asof _Lucy Gray_. They do their master harm by such lack ofdiscrimination. _Lucy Gray_ is a beautiful success; _The Sailor'sMother_ is a failure. To give aright what he wishes to give, tointerpret and render successfully, is not always within Wordsworth's owncommand. It is within no poet's command; here is the part of the Muse, the inspiration, the God, the "not ourselves. "[382] In Wordsworth'scase, the accident, for so it may almost be called, of inspiration, isof peculiar importance. No poet, perhaps, is so evidently filled with anew and sacred energy when the inspiration is upon him; no poet, when itfails him, is so left "weak as is a breaking wave. " I remember hearinghim say that "Goethe's poetry was not inevitable enough. " The remark isstriking and true; no line in Goethe, as Goethe said himself, but itsmaker knew well how it came there. Wordsworth is right, Goethe's poetryis not inevitable; not inevitable enough. But Wordsworth's poetry, whenhe is at his best, is inevitable, as inevitable as Nature herself. Itmight seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, butwrote his poem for him. He has no style. He was too conversant withMilton not to catch at times his master's manner, and he has fineMiltonic lines; but he has no assured poetic style of his own, likeMilton. When he seeks to have a style he falls into ponderosity andpomposity. In the _Excursion_ we have his style, as an artistic productof his own creation; and although Jeffrey completely failed to recognizeWordsworth's real greatness, he was yet not wrong in saying of the_Excursion_, as a work of poetic style: "This will never do. "[383]. Andyet magical as is that power, which Wordsworth has not, of assured andpossessed poetic style, he has something which is an equivalent for it. 

Every one who has any sense for these things feels the subtle turn, theheightening, which is given to a poet's verse by his genius for style. We can feel it in the

 "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well"--[384]

of Shakespeare; in the

 ". .. Though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues"--[385]

of Milton. It is the incomparable charm of Milton's power of poeticstyle which gives such worth to _Paradise Regained_, and makes a greatpoem of a work in which Milton's imagination does not soar high. Wordsworth has in constant possession, and at command, no style of thiskind; but he had too poetic a nature, and had read the great poets toowell, not to catch, as I have already remarked, something of itoccasionally. We find it not only in his Miltonic lines; we find it insuch a phrase as this, where the manner is his own, not Milton's--

 "the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow barricadoed evermore Within the walls of cities;"[386]

although even here, perhaps, the power of style which is undeniable, ismore properly that of eloquent prose than the subtle heightening andchange wrought by genuine poetic style. It is style, again, and theelevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of_Laodameia_. Still, the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, if we are to seize his true and most characteristic form of expression, is a line like this from _Michael_--

 "And never lifted up a single stone. "

There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style, strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and mosttruly expressive kind. 

Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relyingfor effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entirefidelity it utters, Burns could show him. 

 "The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn and wise to know, And keenly felt the friendly glow And softer flame; But thoughtless follies laid him low And stain'd his name. "[387]

Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth; and ifWordsworth did great things with this nobly plain manner, we mustremember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward toacknowledge, that Burns used it before him. 

Still Wordsworth's use of it has something unique and unmatchable. Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and towrite for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arisesfrom two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworthfeels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and naturalcharacter of his subject itself. He can and will treat such a subjectwith nothing but the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness. His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poemof _Resolution and Independence_; but it is bald as the bare mountaintops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. 

Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profoundtruth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. Hisbest poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have awarm admiration for _Laodameia_ and for the great _Ode_; but if I am totell the very truth, I find _Laodameia_ not wholly free from somethingartificial, and the great _Ode_ not wholly free from somethingdeclamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to showWordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as_Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper_. [388] And poems with thepeculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworthproduced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of whichthe worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is stillexceedingly high. 

On the whole, then, as I said at the beginning, not only is Wordswortheminent by reason of the goodness of his best work, but he is eminentalso by reason of the great body of good work which he has left to us. With the ancients I will not compare him. In many respects the ancientsare far above us, and yet there is something that we demand which theycan never give. Leaving the ancients, let us come to the poets andpoetry of Christendom. Dante, Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, arealtogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heaventhan Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the moderns, we are tofind his superiors. 

To disengage the poems which show his power, and to present them to theEnglish-speaking public and to the world, is the object of this volume. I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems isinteresting. Except in the case of _Margaret_, a story composedseparately from the rest of the _Excursion_, and which belongs to adifferent part of England, I have not ventured on detaching portions ofpoems, or on giving any piece otherwise than as Wordsworth himself gaveit. But under the conditions imposed by this reserve, the volumecontains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may bestserve him with the majority of lovers of poetry, nothing which maydisserve him. 

I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians; and if we are to get Wordsworthrecognized by the public and by the world, we must recommend him not inthe spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers ofpoetry. But I am a Wordsworthian myself. I can read with pleasure andedification _Peter Bell_, and the whole series of _EcclesiasticalSonnets_, and the address to Mr. Wilkinson's spade, and even the_Thanksgiving Ode_;--everything of Wordsworth, I think, except_Vaudracour and Julia_. It is not for nothing that one has been broughtup in the veneration of a man so truly worthy of homage; that one hasseen him and heard him, lived in his neighborhood, and been familiarwith his country. No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for thispure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of asmall band of devoted followers, and we ought not to rest satisfieduntil he is seen to be what he is. He is one of the very chief gloriesof English Poetry; and by nothing is England so glorious as by herpoetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting himrecognized as this, and let our one study be to bring to pass, as widelyas possible and as truly as possible, his own word concerning his poems:"They will coöoperate with the benign tendencies in human nature andsociety, and will, in their degree, be efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier. "

III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT[389]

The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity;sometimes, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusivenessand vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on asmattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothingso intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanityand ignorance or else as an engine of social and class distinction, separating its holder, like a badge or title, from other people who havenot got it. No serious man would call this _culture_, or attach anyvalue to it, as culture, at all. To find the real ground for the verydiffering estimate which serious people will set upon culture, we mustfind some motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a realambiguity; and such a motive the word _curiosity_ gives us. 

I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like theforeigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. With us the word is always used in a somewhat disapproving sense. Aliberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind may bemeant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, but with us the wordalways conveys a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying activity. Inthe _Quarterly Review_, some little time ago, was an estimate of thecelebrated French critic, M. Sainte-Beuve, [390] and a very inadequateestimate it in my judgment was. And its inadequacy consisted chiefly inthis: that in our English way it left out of sight the double sensereally involved in the word _curiosity_, thinking enough was said tostamp M. Sainte-Beuve with blame if it was said that he was impelled inhis operations as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to perceivethat M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with him, wouldconsider that this was praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point outwhy it ought really to be accounted worthy of blame and not of praise. For as there is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, and merely a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity, --a desire afterthe things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasureof seeing them as they are, --which is, in an intelligent being, naturaland laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are, implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attainedwithout fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of the blind anddiseased impulse of mind which is what we mean to blame when we blamecuriosity. Montesquieu says: "The first motive which ought to impel usto study is the desire to augment the excellence of our nature, and torender an intelligent being yet more intelligent. "[391] This is the trueground to assign for the genuine scientific passion, however manifested, and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion; and it is aworthy ground, even though we let the term _curiosity_ stand to describeit. But there is of culture another view, in which not solely thescientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, naturaland proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. Thereis a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the impulses towardsaction, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery, the nobleaspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it, --motives eminently such as are called social, --come in as part of thegrounds of culture, and the main and preëminent part. Culture is thenproperly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as havingits origin in the love of perfection; it is _a study of perfection_. Itmoves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passionfor pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doinggood. As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy mottoMontesquieu's words: "To render an intelligent being yet moreintelligent!" so, in the second view of it, there is no better mottowhich it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson:[392] "To makereason and the will of God prevail!"[393]

Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be overhasty indetermining what reason and the will of God say, because its turn is foracting rather than thinking and it wants to be beginning to act; andwhereas it is apt to take its own conceptions, which proceed from itsown state of development and share in all the imperfections andimmaturities of this, for a basis of action; what distinguishes cultureis, that it is possessed by the scientific passion as well as by thepassion of doing good; that it demands worthy notions of reason and thewill of God, and does not readily suffer its own crude conceptions tosubstitute themselves for them. And knowing that no action orinstitution can be salutary and stable which is not based on reason andthe will of God, it is not so bent on acting and instituting, even withthe great aim of diminishing human error and misery ever before itsthoughts, but that it can remember that acting and instituting are oflittle use, unless we know how and what we ought to act and toinstitute. 

This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that other, which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing. But itneeds times of faith and ardor, times when the intellectual horizon isopening and widening all around us, to flourish in. And is not the closeand bounded intellectual horizon within which we have long lived andmoved now lifting up, and are not new lights finding free passage toshine in upon us? For a long time there was no passage for them to maketheir way in upon us, and then it was of no use to think of adapting theworld's action to them. Where was the hope of making reason and the willof God prevail among people who had a routine which they had christenedreason and the will of God, in which they were inextricably bound, andbeyond which they had no power of looking? But now, the iron force ofadhesion to the old routine, --social, political, religious, --haswonderfully yielded; the iron force of exclusion of all which is new haswonderfully yielded. The danger now is, not that people shouldobstinately refuse to allow anything but their old routine to pass forreason and the will of God, but either that they should allow somenovelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they shouldunderrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough tofollow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to makereason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment forculture to be of service, culture which believes in making reason andthe will of God prevail, believes in perfection, is the study andpursuit of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincibleexclusion of whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, simply because they are new. 

The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is regarded notsolely as the endeavor to see things as they are, to draw towards aknowledge of the universal order which seems to be intended and aimed atin the world, and which it is a man's happiness to go along with or hismisery to go counter to, --to learn, in short, the will of God, --themoment, I say, culture is considered not merely as the endeavor to _see_and _learn_ this, but as the endeavor, also, to make it _prevail_, themoral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. Themere endeavor to see and learn the truth for our own personalsatisfaction is indeed a commencement for making it prevail, a preparingthe way for this, which always serves this, and is wrongly, therefore, stamped with blame absolutely in itself and not only in its caricatureand degeneration. But perhaps it has got stamped with blame, anddisparaged with the dubious title of curiosity, because in comparisonwith this wider endeavor of such great and plain utility it looksselfish, petty, and unprofitable. 

And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts by whichthe human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself, --religion, that voice of the deepest human experience, --does not only enjoin andsanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the aim of settingourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail; butalso, in determining generally in what human perfection consists, religion comes to a conclusion identical with that which culture, --culture seeking the determination of this question through _all_ thevoices of human experience which have been heard upon it, of art, science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of religion, in orderto give a greater fulness and certainty to its solution, --likewisereaches. Religion says: _The kingdom of God_ _is within you_; andculture, in like manner, places human perfection in an _internal_condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, asdistinguished from our animality. It places it in the ever-increasingefficacy and in the general harmonious expansion of those gifts ofthought and feeling, which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, andhappiness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion: "It isin making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of itspowers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the spirit of thehuman race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, culture is anindispensable aid, and that is the true value of culture. " Not a havingand a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character ofperfection as culture conceives it; and here, too, it coincides withreligion. 

And because men are all members of one great whole, and the sympathywhich is in human nature will not allow one member to be indifferent tothe rest or to have a perfect welfare independent of the rest, theexpansion of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which cultureforms, must be a _general_ expansion. Perfection, as culture conceivesit, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. Theindividual is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in hisown development if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in hismarch towards perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlargeand increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward. And, here, once more, culture lays on us the same obligation as religion, which says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to promote thekingdom of God is to increase and hasten one's own happiness. "[394]

But, finally, perfection, --as culture from a thorough disinterestedstudy of human nature and human experience learns to conceive it, --is aharmonious expansion of _all_ the powers which make the beauty and worthof human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of anyone power at the expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religionas religion is generally conceived by us. 

If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmoniousperfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists inbecoming something rather than in having something, in an inwardcondition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set ofcircumstances, --it is clear that culture, instead or being thefrivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright, [395] and Mr. FredericHarrison, [396] and many other Liberals are apt to call it, has a veryimportant function to fulfil for mankind. And this function isparticularly important in our modern world, of which the wholecivilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization ofGreece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to becomemore so. But above all in our own country has culture a weighty part toperform, because here that mechanical character, which civilizationtends to take everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeednearly all the characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fixthem, meet in this country with some powerful tendency which thwartsthem and sets them at defiance. The idea of perfection as an _inward_condition of the mind and spirit is at variance with the mechanical andmaterial civilization in esteem with us, and nowhere, as I have said, somuch in esteem as with us. The idea of perfection as a _general_expansion of the human family is at variance with our strongindividualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of theindividual's personality, our maxim of "every man for himself. " Aboveall, the idea of perfection as a _harmonious_ expansion of human natureis at variance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude forseeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energeticabsorption in the particular pursuit we happen to be following. Soculture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its preachers have, and are likely long to have, a hard time of it, and they will muchoftener be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or spuriousJeremiahs than as friends and benefactors. That, however, will notprevent their doing in the end good service if they persevere. And, meanwhile, the mode of action they have to pursue, and the sort ofhabits they must fight against, ought to be made quite clear for everyone to see, who may be willing to look at the matter attentively anddispassionately. 

Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in machinerymost absurdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it isto do any good at all, is to serve; but always in machinery, as if ithad a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery? what ispopulation but machinery? what is coal but machinery? what are railroadsbut machinery? what is wealth but machinery? what are, even, religiousorganizations but machinery? Now almost every voice in England isaccustomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends inthemselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfectionindisputably joined to them. I have before now noticed Mr. Roebuck's[397] stock argument for proving the greatness and happiness ofEngland as she is, and for quite stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I donot know why I should be weary of noticing it. "May not every man inEngland say what he likes?"--Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks: and that, hethinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what mensay, when they may say what they like, is worth saying, --has good init, and more good than bad. In the same way the _Times_, replying tosome foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of the Englishabroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free todo and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not tomake what each raw person may like, the rule by which he fashionshimself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. 

And in the same way with respect to railroads and coal. Every one musthave observed the strange language current during the late discussionsas to the possible failure of our supplies of coal. Our coal, thousandsof people were saying, is the real basis of our national greatness; ifour coal runs short, there is an end of the greatness of England. Butwhat _is_ greatness?--culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritualcondition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and theoutward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, whichof the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest, and admiration of mankind, --would most, therefore, show the evidences ofhaving possessed greatness, --the England of the last twenty years, orthe England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, butwhen our coal, and our industrial operations depending on coal, werevery little developed? Well, then, what an unsound habit of mind it mustbe which makes us talk of things like coal or iron as constituting thegreatness of England, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent onseeing things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this kindand fixing standards of perfection that are real!

Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for materialadvantage are directed, --the commonest of commonplaces tells us how menare always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself: andcertainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are inEngland at the present time. Never did people believe anything morefirmly than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day believe thatour greatness and welfare are proved by our being so very rich. Now, theuse of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standardof perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say asa matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really toperceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effectwrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as wellas the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The peoplewho believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our beingvery rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines. Culture says:"Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, theirmanners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively;observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which makethe furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth havingwith the condition that one was to become just like these people byhaving it?" And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of thehighest possible value in stemming the common tide of men's thoughts ina wealthy and industrial community, and which saves the future, as onemay hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the present. 

Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things which arenowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exaggerated way asin England. Both are really machinery; yet how many people all around usdo we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! Why, one has heardpeople, fresh from reading certain articles of the _Times_ on theRegistrar-General's returns of marriages and births in this country, whowould talk of our large English families in quite a solemn strain, as ifthey had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and meritorious inthem; as if the British Philistine would have only to present himselfbefore the Great Judge with his twelve children, in order to be receivedamong the sheep as a matter of right!

But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be classed withwealth and population as mere machinery; they have a more real andessential value. True; but only as they are more intimately connectedwith a perfect spiritual condition than wealth or population are. Themoment we disjoin them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition, and pursue them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends inthemselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machinery, asour worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent andvulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one with anything like anadequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked thissubordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodilyvigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness isprofitable unto all things, "[398] says the author of the Epistle toTimothy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly:--"Eat anddrink such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, _inreference to the services of the mind_. "[399] But the point of view ofculture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly inview, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion orutilitarianism assigns to it, a special and limited character, thispoint of view, I say, of culture is best given by these words ofEpictetus: "It is a sign of[Greek: aphuia], " says he, --that is, of anature not finely tempered, --"to give yourselves up to things whichrelate to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss about exercise, a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about drinking, a great fussabout walking, a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to bedone merely by the way: the formation of the spirit and character mustbe our real concern. "[400] This is admirable; and, indeed, the Greekword[Greek: euphuia], a finely tempered nature, gives exactly thenotion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmoniousperfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty andintelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest ofthings, "--as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself alltoo little, most happily calls them in his _Battle of the Books_, --"thetwo noblest of things, _sweetness and light_. "[401] The[Greek:euphuaes] is the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the[Greek:aphuaes], on the other hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritualsignificance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired withthis central and happy idea of the essential character of humanperfection; and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smatteringof Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderfulsignificance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of oureducation, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. 

In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry. Farmore than on our freedom, our population, and our industrialism, manyamongst us rely upon our religious organizations to save us. I havecalled religion a yet more important manifestation of human nature thanpoetry, because it has worked on a broader scale for perfection, andwith greater masses of men. But the idea of beauty and of a human natureperfect on all its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is atrue and invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the success that theidea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a humannature perfect on the moral side, --which is the dominant idea ofreligion, --has been enabled to have; and it is destined, adding toitself the religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and governthe other. 

The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and poetry areone, in which the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on allsides adds to itself a religious and devout energy, and works in thestrength of that, is on this account of such surpassing interest andinstructiveness for us, though it was, --as, having regard to the humanrace in general, and, indeed, having regard to the Greeks themselves, wemust own, --a premature attempt, an attempt which for success needed themoral and religious fibre in humanity to be more braced and developedthan it had yet been. But Greece did not err in having the idea ofbeauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, so present andparamount. It is impossible to have this idea too present and paramount;only, the moral fibre must be braced too. And we, because we have bracedthe moral fibre, are not on that account in the right way, if at thesame time the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, iswanting or misapprehended amongst us; and evidently it _is_ wanting ormisapprehended at present. And when we rely as we do on our religiousorganizations, which in themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, and think we have done enough if we make them spread and prevail, then, I say, we fall into our common fault of overvaluing machinery. 

Nothing is more common than for people to confound the inward peace andsatisfaction which follows the subduing of the obvious faults of ouranimality with what I may call absolute inward peace and satisfaction, --the peace and satisfaction which are reached as we draw near to completespiritual perfection, and not merely to moral perfection, or rather torelative moral perfection. No people in the world have done more andstruggled more to attain this relative moral perfection than our Englishrace has. For no people in the world has the command to _resist thedevil_, to _overcome the wicked one_, in the nearest and most obvioussense of those words, had such a pressing force and reality. And we havehad our reward, not only in the great worldly prosperity which ourobedience to this command has brought us, but also, and far more, ingreat inward peace and satisfaction. But to me few things are morepathetic than to see people, on the strength of the inward peace andsatisfaction which their rudimentary efforts towards perfection havebrought them, employ, concerning their incomplete perfection and thereligious organizations within which they have found it, language whichproperly applies only to complete perfection, and is a far-off echo ofthe human soul's prophecy of it. Religion itself, I need hardly say, supplies them in abundance with this grand language. And very freely dothey use it; yet it is really the severest possible criticism of such anincomplete perfection as alone we have yet reached through our religiousorganizations. 

The impulse of the English race towards moral development andself-conquest has nowhere so powerfully manifested itself as inPuritanism. Nowhere has Puritanism found so adequate an expression as inthe religious organization of the Independents. [402] The modernIndependents have a newspaper, the _Nonnconformist_, written with greatsincerity and ability. The motto, the standard, the profession of faithwhich this organ of theirs carries aloft, is: "The Dissidence of Dissentand the Protestantism of the Protestant religion. "[403] There issweetness and light, and an ideal of complete harmonious humanperfection! One need not go to culture and poetry to find language tojudge it. Religion, with its instinct for perfection, supplies languageto judge it, language, too, which is in our mouths every day. "Finally, be of one mind, united in feeling, "[404] says St. Peter. There is anideal which judges the Puritan ideal: "The Dissidence of Dissent and theProtestantism of the Protestant religion!" And religious organizationslike this are what people believe in, rest in, would give their livesfor! Such, I say, is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings ofperfection, of having conquered even the plain faults of our animality, that the religious organization which has helped us to do it can seem tous something precious, salutary, and to be propagated, even when itwears such a brand of imperfection on its forehead as this. And men havegot such a habit of giving to the language of religion a specialapplication, of making it a mere jargon, that for the condemnation whichreligion itself passes on the shortcomings of their religiousorganizations they have no ear; they are sure to cheat themselves and toexplain this condemnation away. They can only be reached by thecriticism which culture, like poetry, speaking a language not to besophisticated, and resolutely testing these organizations by the idealof a human perfection complete on all sides, applies to them. 

But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and againfailing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to aharmonious perfection, in the subduing of the great obvious faults ofour animality, which it is the glory of these religious organizations tohave helped us to subdue. True, they do often so fail. They have oftenbeen without the virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; it hasbeen one of their dangers that they so felt the Puritan's faults thatthey too much neglected the practice of his virtues. I will not, however, exculpate them at the Puritan's expense. They have often failedin morality, and morality is indispensable. And they have been punishedfor their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for his performance. They have been punished wherein they erred; but their ideal of beauty, of sweetness and light, and a human nature complete on all its sides, remains the true ideal of perfection still; just as the Puritan's idealof perfection remains narrow and inadequate, although for what he didwell he has been richly rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results ofthe Pilgrim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of perfection arerightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil, --soulsin whom sweetness and light, and all that in human nature is mosthumane, were eminent, --accompanying them on their voyage, and think whatintolerable company Shakespeare and Virgil would have found them! In thesame way let us judge the religious organizations which we see allaround us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they haveaccomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea ofhuman perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that the Dissidence ofDissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will neverbring humanity to its true goal. As I said with regard to wealth: Let uslook at the life of those who live in and for it, --so I say with regardto the religious organizations. Look at the life imaged in such anewspaper as the _Nonnconformist_, --a life of jealousy of theEstablishment, disputes, tea-meetings, openings of chapels, sermons; andthen think of it as an ideal of a human life completing itself on allsides, and aspiring with all its organs after sweetness, light, andperfection!

Another newspaper, representing, like the _Nonconformist_, one of thereligious organizations of this country, was a short time ago giving anaccount of the crowd at Epsom[405] on the Derby day, and of all the viceand hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the writerturned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how heproposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. Iconfess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: and how do youpropose to cure it with such a religion as yours? How is the ideal of alife so unlovely, so unattractive, so incomplete, so narrow, so farremoved from a true and satisfying ideal of human perfection, as is thelife of your religious organization as you yourself reflect it, toconquer and transform all this vice and hideousness? Indeed, thestrongest plea for the study of perfection as pursued by culture, theclearest proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of perfection heldby the religious organizations, --expressing, as I have said, the mostwidespread effort which the human race has yet made after perfection, --is to be found in the state of our life and society with these inpossession of it, and having been in possession of it I know not howmany hundred years. We are all of us included in some religiousorganization or other; we all call ourselves, in the sublime andaspiring language of religion which I have before noticed, _children ofGod_. Children of God;--it is an immense pretension!--and how are we tojustify it? By the works which we do, and the words which we speak. Andthe work which we collective children of God do, our grand centre oflife, our _city_ which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London!London, with its unutterable external hideousness, and with its internalcanker of _publice egestas, privatim opulentia_, [406]--to use the wordswhich Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome, --unequalled in theworld! The word, again, which we children of God speak, the voice whichmost hits our collective thought, the newspaper with the largestcirculation in England, nay, with the largest circulation in the wholeworld, is the _Daily Telegraph_![407] I say that when our religiousorganizations--which I admit to express the most considerable effortafter perfection that our race has yet made--land us in no better resultthan this, it is high time to examine carefully their idea ofperfection, to see whether it does not leave out of account sides andforces of human nature which we might turn to great use; whether itwould not be more operative if it were more complete. And I say that theEnglish reliance on our religious organizations and on their ideas ofhuman perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, onmuscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth, --mere beliefin machinery, and unfruitful; and that it is wholesomely counteracted byculture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on drawing the humanrace onwards to a more complete, a harmonious perfection. 

Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, its desiresimply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom fromfanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while itinsists that it _is_ machinery. Fanatics, seeing the mischief men dothemselves by their blind belief in some machinery or other, --whether itis wealth and industrialism, or whether it is the cultivation of bodilystrength and activity, or whether it is a political organization, --orwhether it is a religious organization, --oppose with might and main thetendency to this or that political and religious organization, or togames and athletic exercises, or to wealth and industrialism, and tryviolently to stop it. But the flexibility which sweetness and lightgive, and which is one of the rewards of culture pursued in good faith, enables a man to see that a tendency may be necessary, and even, as apreparation for something in the future, salutary, and yet that thegenerations or individuals who obey this tendency are sacrificed to it, that they fall short of the hope of perfection by following it; and thatits mischiefs are to be criticized, lest it should take too firm a holdand last after it has served its purpose. 

Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech at Paris, --and others havepointed out the same thing, --how necessary is the present greatmovement towards wealth and industrialism, in order to lay broadfoundations of material well-being for the society of the future. Theworst of these justifications is, that they are generally addressed tothe very people engaged, body and soul, in the movement in question; atall events, that they are always seized with the greatest avidity bythese people, and taken by them as quite justifying their life; and thatthus they tend to harden them in their sins. Now, culture admits thenecessity of the movement towards fortune-making and exaggeratedindustrialism, readily allows that the future may derive benefit fromit; but insists, at the same time, that the passing generations ofindustrialists, --forming, for the most part, the stout main body ofPhilistinism, --are sacrificed to it. In the same way, the result of allthe games and sports which occupy the passing generation of boys andyoung men may be the establishment of a better and sounder physical typefor the future to work with. Culture does not set itself against thegames and sports; it congratulates the future, and hopes it will make agood use of its improved physical basis; but it points out that ourpassing generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop the moral fibre of theEnglish race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiasticaldomination over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom ofthought in the distant future; still, culture points out that theharmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists hasbeen, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom of speech may be necessary forthe society of the future, but the young lions[408] of the _DailyTelegraph_ in the meanwhile are sacrificed. A voice for every man in hiscountry's government may be necessary for the society of the future, butmeanwhile Mr. Beales[409]and Mr. Bradlaugh[410] are sacrificed. 

Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has heavilypaid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the modernworld. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and sweetness ofthat beautiful place, have not failed to seize one truth, --the truththat beauty and sweetness are essential characters of a complete humanperfection. When I insist on this, I am all in the faith and traditionof Oxford. I say boldly that this our sentiment for beauty andsweetness, our sentiment against hideousness and rawness, has been atthe bottom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our oppositionto so many triumphant movements. And the sentiment is true, and hasnever been wholly defeated, and has shown its power even in its defeat. We have not won our political battles, we have not carried our mainpoints, we have not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have notmarched victoriously with the modern world; but we have told silentlyupon the mind of the country, we have prepared currents of feeling whichsap our adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept up ourown communications with the future. Look at the course of the greatmovement which shook Oxford to its centre some thirty years ago! It wasdirected, as any one who reads Dr. Newman's _Apology_[411] may see, against what in one word may be called "Liberalism. " Liberalismprevailed; it was the appointed force to do the work of the hour; it wasnecessary, it was inevitable that it should prevail. The Oxford movementwas broken, it failed; our wrecks are scattered on every shore:--

 "Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"[412]

But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman saw it, and as it reallybroke the Oxford movement? It was the great middle-class liberalism, which had for the cardinal points of its belief the Reform Bill of1832, [413] and local self-government, in politics; in the social sphere, free-trade, unrestricted competition, and the making of large industrialfortunes; in the religious sphere, the Dissidence of Dissent and theProtestantism of the Protestant religion. I do not say that other andmore intelligent forces than this were not opposed to the Oxfordmovement: but this was the force which really beat it; this was theforce which Dr. Newman felt himself fighting with; this was the forcewhich till only the other day seemed to be the paramount force in thiscountry, and to be in possession of the future; this was the force whoseachievements fill Mr. Lowe[414] with such inexpressible admiration, andwhose rule he was so horror-struck to see threatened. And where is thisgreat force of Philistinism now? It is thrust into the second rank, itis become a power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A new power hassuddenly appeared, a power which it is impossible yet to judge fully, but which is certainly a wholly different force from middle-classliberalism; different in its cardinal points of belief, different in itstendencies in every sphere. It loves and admires neither the legislationof middle-class Parliaments, nor the local self-government ofmiddle-class vestries, nor the unrestricted competition of middle-classindustrialists, nor the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and theProtestantism of middle-class Protestant religion. I am not now praisingthis new force, or saying that its own ideals are better; all I say is, that they are wholly different. And who will estimate how much thecurrents of feeling created by Dr. Newman's movements, the keen desirefor beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the deep aversion itmanifested to the hardness and vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, thestrong light it turned on the hideous and grotesque illusions ofmiddle-class Protestantism, --who will estimate how much all thesecontributed to swell the tide of secret dissatisfaction which has minedthe ground under self-confident liberalism of the last thirty years, andhas prepared the way for its sudden collapse and supersession? It is inthis manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetnessconquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer!

In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there is plentyof work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and more democraticforce which is now superseding our old middle-class liberalism cannotyet be rightly judged. It has its main tendencies still to form. We hearpromises of its giving us administrative reform, law reform, reform ofeducation, and I know not what; but those promises come rather from itsadvocates, wishing to make a good plea for it and to justify it forsuperseding middle-class liberalism, than from clear tendencies which ithas itself yet developed. But meanwhile it has plenty ofwell-intentioned friends against whom culture may with advantagecontinue to uphold steadily its ideal of human perfection; that this is_an inward spiritual activity, having for its characters increasedsweetness, increased light, increased life, increased sympathy_. Mr. Bright, who has a foot in both worlds, the world of middle-classliberalism and the world of democracy, but who brings most of his ideasfrom the world of middle-class liberalism in which he was bred, alwaysinclines to inculcate that faith in machinery to which, as we have seen, Englishmen are so prone, and which has been the bane of middle-classliberalism. He complains with a sorrowful indignation of people who"appear to have no proper estimate of the value of the franchise"; heleads his disciples to believe--what the Englishman is always too readyto believe--that the having a vote, like the having a large family, ora large business, or large muscles, has in itself some edifying andperfecting effect upon human nature. Or else he cries out to thedemocracy, --"the men, " as he calls them, " upon whose shoulders thegreatness of England rests, "--he cries out to them: "See what you havedone! I look over this country and see the cities you have built, therailroads you have made, the manufactures you have produced, the cargoeswhich freight the ships of the greatest mercantile navy the world hasever seen! I see that you have converted by your labors what was once awilderness, these islands, into a fruitful garden; I know that you havecreated this wealth, and are a nation whose name is a word of powerthroughout all the world. " Why, this is just the very style of laudationwith which Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Lowe debauches the minds of the middleclasses, and makes such Philistines of them. It is the same fashion ofteaching a man to value himself not on what he _is_, not on his progressin sweetness and light, but on the number of the railroads he hasconstructed, or the bigness of the tabernacle he has built. Only themiddle classes are told they have done it all with their energy, self-reliance, and capital, and the democracy are told they have done itall with their hands and sinews. But teaching the democracy to put itstrust in achievements of this kind is merely training them to bePhilistines to take the place of the Philistines whom they aresuperseding; and they, too, like the middle class, will be encouraged tosit down at the banquet of the future without having on a weddinggarment, and nothing excellent can then come from them. Those who knowtheir besetting faults, or those who have watched them and listened tothem, or those who will read the instructive account recently given ofthem by one of themselves, the _Journeyman Engineer_, will agree thatthe idea which culture sets before us of perfection, --an increasedspiritual activity, having for its characters increased sweetness, increased light, increased life, increased sympathy, --is an idea whichthe new democracy needs far more than the idea of the blessedness of thefranchise, or the wonderfulness of its own industrial performances. 

Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, not inthe old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which arenaturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this country theyare novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of Jacobinism. [415]Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of renovationapplied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and white forelaborating down to the very smallest details a rational society for thefuture, --these are the ways of Jacobinism. Mr. Frederic Harrison[416]and other disciples of Comte, [417]--one of them, Mr. Congreve, [418] isan old friend of mine, and I am glad to have an opportunity of publiclyexpressing my respect for his talents and character, --are among thefriends of democracy who are for leading it in paths of this kind. Mr. Frederic Harrison is very hostile to culture, and from a natural enoughmotive; for culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which arethe signal marks of Jacobinism, --its fierceness, and its addiction toan abstract system. Culture is always assigning to system-makers andsystems a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friendslike. A current in people's minds sets towards new ideas; people aredissatisfied with their old narrow stock of Philistine ideas, Anglo-Saxon ideas, or any other; and some man, some Bentham[419] orComte, who has the real merit of having early and strongly felt andhelped the new current, but who brings plenty of narrowness and mistakesof his own into his feeling and help of it, is credited with being theauthor of the whole current, the fit person to be entrusted with itsregulation and to guide the human race. 

The excellent German historian of the mythology of Rome, Preller, [420]relating the introduction at Rome under the Tarquins of the worship ofApollo, the god of light, healing, and reconciliation, will have usobserve that it was not so much the Tarquins who brought to Rome the newworship of Apollo, as a current in the mind of the Roman people whichset powerfully at that time towards a new worship of this kind, and awayfrom the old run of Latin and Sabine religious ideas. In a similar way, culture directs our attention to the natural current there is in humanaffairs, and to its continual working, and will not let us rivet ourfaith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not only his goodside, but also how much in him was of necessity limited and transient;nay, it even feels a pleasure, a sense of an increased freedom and of anampler future, in so doing. 

I remember, when I was under the influence of a mind to which I feel thegreatest obligations, the mind of a man who was the very incarnation ofsanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it seems to me, whom America has yet produced, --Benjamin Franklin, --I remember therelief with which, after long feeling the sway of Franklin'simperturbable common-sense, I came upon a project of his for a newversion of the Book of Job, [421] to replace the old version, the styleof which, says Franklin, has become obsolete, and thence lessagreeable. "I give, " he continues, "a few verses, which may serve as asample of the kind of version I would recommend. " We all recollect thefamous verse in our translation: "Then Satan answered the Lord and said:'Doth Job fear God for nought?'" Franklin makes this: "Does your Majestyimagine that Job's good conduct is the effect of mere personalattachment and affection?" I well remember how, when first I read that, I drew a deep breath of relief and said to myself: "After all, there isa stretch of humanity beyond Franklin's victorious good sense!" So, after hearing Bentham cried loudly up as the renovator of modernsociety, and Bentham's mind and ideas proposed as the rulers of ourfuture, I open the _Deontology. _[422] There I read: "While Xenophon waswriting his history and Euclid teaching geometry, Socrates and Platowere talking nonsense under pretense of talking wisdom and morality. This morality of theirs consisted in words; this wisdom of theirs wasthe denial of matters known to every man's experience. " From the momentof reading that, I am delivered from the bondage of Bentham! thefanaticism of his adherents can touch me no longer. I feel theinadequacy of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of humansociety, for perfection. 

Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, ofdisciples, of a school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, [423] or Mr. Mill. [424] However much it may find to admire in thesepersonages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Benot ye called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. ButJacobinism loves a Rabbi; it does not want to pass on from its Rabbi inpursuit of a future and still unreached perfection; it wants its Rabbiand his ideas to stand for perfection, that they may with the moreauthority recast the world; and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture, --eternally passing onwards and seeking, --is an impertinence and anoffence. But culture, just because it resists this tendency ofJacobinism to impose on us a man with limitations and errors of his ownalong with the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does theworld and Jacobinism itself a service. 

So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the past and of those whomit makes liable for the sins of the past, cannot away with theinexhaustible indulgence proper to culture, the consideration ofcircumstances, the severe judgment of actions joined to the mercifuljudgment of persons. "The man of culture is in politics, " cries Mr. Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. FredericHarrison wants to be doing business, and he complains that the man ofculture stops him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love of selfishease, and indecision in action. " Of what use is culture, he asks, exceptfor "a critic of new books or a professor of _belles-lettres_?"[425]Why, it is of use because, in presence of the fierce exasperation whichbreathes, or rather, I may say, hisses through the whole production inwhich Mr. Frederic Harrison asks that question, it reminds us that theperfection of human nature is sweetness and light. It is of use, because, like religion, --that other effort after perfection, --ittestifies that, where bitter envying and strife are, there is confusionand every evil work. 

The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the willof God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hateshatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness andlight. It has one even yet greater!--the passion for making them_prevail_. It is not satisfied till we _all_ come to a perfect man; itknows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect untilthe raw and unkindled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness andlight. If I have not shrunk from saying that we must work for sweetnessand light, so neither have I shrunk from saying that we must have abroad basis, must have sweetness and light for as many as possible. Again and again I have insisted how those are the happy moments ofhumanity, how those are the marking epochs of a people's life, how thoseare the flowering times for literature and art and all the creativepower of genius, when there is a _national_ glow of life and thought, when the whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated bythought, sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must be_real_ thought and _real_ beauty; _real_ sweetness and _real_ light. Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, anintellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think proper forthe actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular literature isan example of this way of working on the masses. Plenty of people willtry to indoctrinate the masses with the set of ideas and judgmentsconstituting the creed of their own profession or party. Our religiousand political organizations give an example of this way of working onthe masses. I condemn neither way; but culture works differently. Itdoes not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes; it does nottry to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-madejudgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make thebest that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; tomake all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where theymay use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely, --nourished, and not boundby them. 

This is the _social idea_; and the men of culture are the true apostlesof equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passionfor diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of societyto the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who havelabored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficientoutside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remainingthe _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard[426] in theMiddle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and thence the boundlessemotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. Such were Lessing[427]and Herder[428] in Germany, at the end of the last century; and theirservices to Germany were in this way inestimably precious. Generationswill pass, and literary monuments will accumulate, and works far moreperfect than the works of Lessing and Herder will be produced inGermany; and yet the names of these two men will fill a German with areverence and enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted masterswill hardly awaken. And why? Because they _humanized_ knowledge; becausethey broadened the basis of life and intelligence; because they workedpowerfully to diffuse sweetness and light, to make reason and the willof God prevail. With Saint Augustine they said: "Let us not leave theealone to make in the secret of thy knowledge, as thou didst before thecreation of the firmament, the division of light from darkness; let thechildren of thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make their lightshine upon the earth, mark the division of night and day, and announcethe revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the newarises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt crownthe year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth laborers into thyharvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou shalt send forth newlaborers to new seed-times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet. "[429]

HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM[430]

This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now thispreference is a main element in our nature and as we study it we findourselves opening up a number of large questions on every side. 

Let me go back for a moment to Bishop Wilson, [431] who says: "First, never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that yourlight be not darkness. " We show, as a nation, laudable energy andpersistence in walking according to the best light we have, but are notquite careful enough, perhaps, to see that our light be not darkness. This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strongpoint and favorable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we maygive to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yetlarger range of application. We may regard this energy driving atpractice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light wehave, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at thoseideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardentsense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man'sdevelopment brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjustthem perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may regard asin some sense rivals, --rivals not by the necessity of their own nature, but as exhibited in man and his history, --and rivals dividing the empireof the world between them. And to give these forces names from the tworaces of men who have supplied the most signal and splendidmanifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces ofHebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism, --between these twopoints of influence moves our world. At one time it feels morepowerfully the attraction of one of them, at another time of the other;and it ought to be, though it never is, evenly and happily balancedbetween them. 

The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism, as of all great spiritualdisciplines, is no doubt the same: man's perfection or salvation. Thevery language which they both of them use in schooling us to reach thisaim is often identical. Even when their language indicates byvariation, --sometimes a broad variation, often a but slight and subtlevariation, --the different courses of thought which are uppermost in eachdiscipline, even then the unity of the final end and aim is stillapparent. To employ the actual words of that discipline with which weourselves are all of us most familiar, and the words of which, therefore, come most home to us, that final end and aim is "that wemight be partakers of the divine nature. "[432] These are the words of aHebrew apostle, but of Hellenism and Hebraism alike this is, I say, theaim. When the two are confronted, as they very often are confronted, itis nearly always with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; thespeaker's whole design is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and heuses the other only as a foil and to enable him the better to giveeffect to his purpose. Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism whichis thus reduced to minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is asermon on Greece and the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentionedwithout interest and respect, Frederick Robertson, [433] in which thisrhetorical use of Greece and the Greek spirit, and the inadequateexhibition of them necessarily consequent upon this, is almostludicrous, and would be censurable if it were not to be explained by theexigencies of a sermon. On the other hand, Heinrich Heine, [434] andother writers of his sort give us the spectacle of the tables completelyturned, and of Hebraism brought in just as a foil and contrast toHellenism, and to make the superiority of Hellenism more manifest. Inboth these cases there is injustice and misrepresentation. The aim andend of both Hebraism and Hellenism is, as I have said, one and the same, and this aim and end is august and admirable. 

Still, they pursue this aim by very different courses. The uppermostidea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermostidea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can do away withthis ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and itsdesires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel withthem is, that they hinder right acting. "He that keepeth the law, happyis he";[435] "Blessed is the man that feareth the Eternal, thatdelighteth greatly in his commandments";--[436] that is the Hebrewnotion of felicity; and, pursued with passion and tenacity, this notionwould not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had at last gotout of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his whole life, togovern every moment of it, every impulse, every action. The Greek notionof felicity, on the other hand, is perfectly conveyed in these words ofa great French moralist: "_C'est le bonheur des hommes_, "--when? whenthey abhor that which is evil?--no; when they exercise themselves in thelaw of the Lord day and night?--no; when they die daily?--no; when theywalk about the New Jerusalem with palms in their hands?--no; but whenthey think aright, when their thought hits: "_quand ils pensent juste_. "At the bottom of both the Greek and the Hebrew notion is the desire, native in man, for reason and the will of God, the feeling after theuniversal order, --in a word, the love of God. But, while Hebraism seizesupon certain plain, capital intimations of, the universal order, andrivets itself, one may say, with unequalled grandeur of earnestness andintensity on the study and observance of them, the bent of Hellenism isto follow, with flexible activity, the whole play of the universalorder, to be apprehensive of missing any part of it, of sacrificing onepart to another, to slip away from resting in this or that intimation ofit, however capital. An unclouded clearness of mind, an unimpeded playof thought, is what this bent drives at. The governing idea of Hellenismis _spontaneity of consciousness_; that of Hebraism, _strictness ofconscience_. 

Christianity changed nothing in this essential bent of Hebraism to setdoing above knowing. Self-conquest, self-devotion, the following not ourown individual will, but the will of God, _obedience_, is thefundamental idea of this form, also, of the discipline to which we haveattached the general name of Hebraism. Only, as the old law and thenetwork of prescriptions with which it enveloped human life wereevidently a motive-power not driving and searching enough to produce theresult aimed at, --patient continuance in well-doing, self-conquest, --Christianity substituted for them boundless devotion to that inspiringand affecting pattern of self-conquest offered by Jesus Christ; and bythe new motive-power, of which the essence was this, though the love andadmiration of Christian churches have for centuries been employed invarying, amplifying, and adorning the plain description of it, Christianity, as St. Paul truly says, "establishes the law, "[437] and inthe strength of the ampler power which she has thus supplied to fulfillit, has accomplished the miracles, which we all see, of her history. 

So long as we do not forget that both Hellenism and Hebraism areprofound and admirable manifestations of man's life, tendencies, andpowers, and that both of them aim at a like final result, we can hardlyinsist too strongly on the divergence of line and of operation withwhich they proceed. It is a divergence so great that it most truly, asthe prophet Zechariah says, "has raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thysons, O Greece!"[438] The difference whether it is by doing or byknowing that we set most store, and the practical consequences whichfollow from this difference, leave their mark on all the history of ourrace and of its development. Language may be abundantly quoted from bothHellenism and Hebraism to make it seem that one follows the same currentas the other towards the same goal. They are, truly, borne towards thesame goal; but the currents which bear them are infinitely different. Itis true, Solomon will praise knowing: "Understanding is a well-spring oflife unto him that hath it. "[439] And in the New Testament, again, JesusChrist is a "light, "[440] and "truth makes us free. "[441] It is true, Aristotle will undervalue knowing: "In what concerns virtue, " says he, "three things are necessary--knowledge, deliberate will, andperseverance; but, whereas the two last are all-important, the first isa matter of little importance. "[442] It is true that with the sameimpatience with which St. James enjoins a man to be not a forgetfulhearer, but a _doer of the work_, [443] Epictetus[444] exhorts us to _do_what we have demonstrated to ourselves we ought to do; or he taunts uswith futility, for being armed at all points to prove that lying iswrong, yet all the time continuing to lie. It is true, Plato, in wordswhich are almost the words of the New Testament or the Imitation, callslife a learning to die. [445] But underneath the superficial agreementthe fundamental divergence still subsists. The understanding of Solomonis "the walking in the way of the commandments"; this is "the way ofpeace, " and it is of this that blessedness comes. In the New Testament, the truth which gives us the peace of God and makes us free, is the loveof Christ constraining us[446] to crucify, as he did, and with a likepurpose of moral regeneration, the flesh with its affections and lusts, and thus establishing, as we have seen, the law. The moral virtues, onthe other hand, are with Aristotle but the porch[447] and access to theintellectual, and with these last is blessedness. That partaking of thedivine life, which both Hellenism and Hebraism, as we have said, fix astheir crowning aim, Plato expressly denies to the man of practicalvirtue merely, of self-conquest with any other motive than that ofperfect intellectual vision. He reserves it for the lover of pureknowledge, of seeing things as they really are, --the[Greek:philomathhaes][448]

Both Hellenism and Hebraism arise out of the wants of human nature, andaddress themselves to satisfying those wants. But their methods are sodifferent, they lay stress on such different points, and call into beingby their respective disciplines such different activities, that the facewhich human nature presents when it passes from the hands of one of themto those of the other, is no longer the same. To get rid of one'signorance, to see things as they are, and by seeing them as they are tosee them in their beauty, is the simple and attractive ideal whichHellenism holds out before human nature; and from the simplicity andcharm of this ideal, Hellenism, and human life in the hands ofHellenism, is invested with a kind of aërial ease, clearness, andradiancy; they are full of what we call sweetness and light. Difficulties are kept out of view, and the beauty and rationalness ofthe ideal have all our thoughts. "The best man is he who most tries toperfect himself, and the happiest man is he who most feels that he _is_perfecting himself, "[449]--this account of the matter by Socrates, thetrue Socrates of the _Memorabilia_, has something so simple, spontaneous, and unsophisticated about it, that it seems to fill us withclearness and hope when we hear it. But there is a saying which I haveheard attributed to Mr. Carlyle about Socrates--a very happy saying, whether it is really Mr. Carlyle's or not, --which excellently marks theessential point in which Hebraism differs from Hellenism. "Socrates, "this saying goes, "is terribly _at ease in Zion_. " Hebraism--and here isthe source of its wonderful strength--has always been severelypreoccupied with an awful sense of the impossibility of being at ease inZion; of the difficulties which oppose themselves to man's pursuit orattainment of that perfection of which Socrates talks so hopefully, and, as from this point of view one might almost say, so glibly. It is allvery well to talk of getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things intheir reality, seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be donewhen there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts?

This something is _sin_; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, ascompared with Hellenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle toperfection fills the whole scene, and perfection appears remote andrising away from earth, in the background. Under the name of sin, thedifficulties of knowing oneself and conquering oneself which impedeman's passage to perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, activeentity hostile to man, a mysterious power which I heard Dr. Pusey[450]the other day, in one of his impressive sermons, compare to a hideoushunchback seated on our shoulders, and which it is the main business ofour lives to hate and oppose. The discipline of the Old Testament may besummed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; thediscipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die toit. As Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly, seeing things in theiressence and beauty, as a grand and precious feat for man to achieve, soHebraism speaks of becoming conscious of sin, of awakening to a sense ofsin, as a feat of this kind. It is obvious to what wide divergence thesediffering tendencies, actively followed, must lead. As one passes andrepasses from Hellenism to Hebraism, from Plato to St. Paul, one feelsinclined to rub one's eyes and ask oneself whether man is indeed agentle and simple being, showing the traces of a noble and divinenature; or an unhappy chained captive, laboring with groanings thatcannot be uttered to free himself from the body of this death. 

Apparently it was the Hellenic conception of human nature which wasunsound, for the world could not live by it. Absolutely to call itunsound, however, is to fall into the common error of its Hebraizingenemies; but it was unsound at that particular moment of man'sdevelopment, it was premature. The indispensable basis of conduct andself-control, the platform upon which alone the perfection aimed at byGreece can come into bloom, was not to be reached by our race so easily;centuries of probation and discipline were needed to bring us to it. Therefore the bright promise of Hellenism faded, and Hebraism ruled theworld. Then was seen that astonishing spectacle, so well marked by theoften-quoted words of the prophet Zechariah, when men of all languagesand nations took hold of the skirt of him that was a Jew, saying:--"_Wewill go with you, for we have heard that God is with you_. "[451] And theHebraism which thus received and ruled a world all gone out of the wayand altogether become unprofitable, was, and could not but be, thelater, the more spiritual, the more attractive development of Hebraism. It was Christianity; that is to say, Hebraism aiming at self-conquestand rescue from the thrall of vile affections, not by obedience to theletter of a law, but by conformity to the image of a self-sacrificingexample. To a world stricken with moral enervation Christianity offeredits spectacle of an inspired self-sacrifice; to men who refusedthemselves nothing, it showed one who refused himself everything;--"_mySaviour banished joy!_"[452] says George Herbert. When the _alma Venus_, the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished bythe pagan world, could not save her followers from self-dissatisfactionand ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly andrefreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because ofthese things cometh the wrath of God upon the children ofdisobedience. "[453] Through age after age and generation aftergeneration, our race, or all that part of our race which was most livingand progressive, was _baptized into a death_; and endeavored, bysuffering in the flesh, to cease from sin. Of this endeavor, theanimating labors and afflictions of early Christianity, the touchingasceticism of mediæval Christianity, are the great historicalmanifestations. Literary monuments of it, each in its own wayincomparable, remain in the _Epistles_ of St. Paul, in St. Augustine's_Confessions_, and in the two original and simplest books of the_Imitation_. [454]

Of two disciplines laying their main stress, the one, on clearintelligence, the other, on firm obedience; the one, on comprehensivelyknowing the ground of one's duty, the other, on diligently practisingit; the one, on taking all possible care (to use Bishop Wilson's wordsagain) that the light we have be not darkness, the other, that accordingto the best light we have we diligently walk, --the priority naturallybelongs to that discipline which braces all man's moral powers, andfounds for him an indispensable basis of character. And, therefore, itis justly said of the Jewish people, who were charged with settingpowerfully forth that side of the divine order to which the words_conscience_ and _self-conquest_ point, that they were "entrusted withthe oracles of God";[455] as it is justly said of Christianity, whichfollowed Judaism and which set forth this side with a much deepereffectiveness and a much wider influence, that the wisdom of the oldpagan world was foolishness[456] compared to it. No words of devotionand admiration can be too strong to render thanks to these beneficentforces which have so borne forward humanity in its appointed work ofcoming to the knowledge and possession of itself; above all, in thosegreat moments when their action was the wholesomest and the mostnecessary. 

But the evolution of these forces, separately and in themselves, is notthe whole evolution of humanity, --their single history is not the wholehistory of man; whereas their admirers are always apt to make it standfor the whole history. Hebraism and Hellenism are, neither of them, the_law_ of human development, as their admirers are prone to make them;they are, each of them, _contributions_ to human development, --augustcontributions, invaluable contributions; and each showing itself to usmore august, more invaluable, more preponderant over the other, according to the moment in which we take them, and the relation in whichwe stand to them. The nations of our modern world, children of thatimmense and salutary movement which broke up the pagan world, inevitablystand to Hellenism in a relation which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in arelation which magnifies it. They are inevitably prone to take Hebraismas the law of human development, and not as simply a contribution to it, however precious. And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that thehuman spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bearit onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, like Hellenism, but a contribution. 

Perhaps we may help ourselves to see this clearer by an illustrationdrawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundlyengaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities forshowing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that theidea of immortality, as this idea rises in its generality before thehuman spirit, is something grander, truer, and more satisfying, than itis in the particular forms by which St. Paul, in the famous fifteenthchapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and Plato, in the_Phaedo_[457] endeavor to develop and establish it. Surely we cannot butfeel, that the argumentation with which the Hebrew apostle goes about toexpound this great idea is, after all, confused and inconclusive; andthat the reasoning, drawn from analogies of likeness and equality, whichis employed upon it by the Greek philosopher, is over-subtle andsterile. Above and beyond the inadequate solutions which Hebraism andHellenism here attempt, extends the immense and august problem itself, and the human spirit which gave birth to it. And this singleillustration may suggest to us how the same thing happens in other casesalso. 

But meanwhile, by alternations of Hebraism and Hellenism, of a man'sintellectual and moral impulses, of the effort to see things as theyreally are, and the effort to win peace by self-conquest, the humanspirit proceeds; and each of these two forces has its appointed hours ofculmination and seasons of rule. As the great movement of Christianitywas a triumph of Hebraism and man's moral impulses, so the greatmovement which goes by the name of the Renascence[458] was an uprisingand reinstatement of man's intellectual impulses and of Hellenism. We inEngland, the devoted children of Protestantism, chiefly know theRenascence by its subordinate and secondary side of the Reformation. TheReformation has been often called a Hebraizing revival, a return to theardor and sincereness of primitive Christianity. No one, however, canstudy the development of Protestantism and of Protestant churcheswithout feeling that into the Reforrmation, too, --Hebraizing child ofthe Renascence and offspring of its fervor, rather than itsintelligence, as it undoubtedly was, --the subtle Hellenic leaven of theRenascence found its way, and that the exact respective parts, in theReformation, of Hebraism and of Hellenism, are not easy to separate. Butwhat we may with truth say is, that all which Protestantism was toitself clearly conscious of, all which it succeeded in clearly settingforth in words, had the characters of Hebraism rather than of Hellenism. The Reformation was strong, in that it was an earnest return to theBible and to doing from the heart the will of God as there written. Itwas weak, in that it never consciously grasped or applied the centralidea of the Renascence, --the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines ofactivity, the law and science, to use Plato's words, of things as theyreally are. Whatever direct superiority, therefore, Protestantism hadover Catholicism was a moral superiority, a superiority arising out ofits greater sincerity and earnestness, --at the moment of its apparitionat any rate, --in dealing with the heart and conscience. Its pretensionsto an intellectual superiority are in general quite illusory. ForHellenism, for the thinking side in man as distinguished from the actingside, the attitude of mind of Protestantism towards the Bible in norespect differs from the attitude of mind of Catholicism towards theChurch. The mental habit of him who imagines that Balaam's ass spoke, inno respect differs from the mental habit of him who imagines that aMadonna of wood or stone winked; and the one, who says that God's Churchmakes him believe what he believes, and the other, who says that God'sWord makes him believe what he believes, are for the philosopherperfectly alike in not really and truly knowing, when they say _God'sChurch_ and _God's Word_, what it is they say, or whereof they affirm. 

In the sixteenth century, therefore, Hellenism re-entered the world, and again stood in presence of Hebraism, --a Hebraism renewed and purged. Now, it has not been enough observed, how, in the seventeenth century, afate befell Hellenism in some respects analogous to that which befell itat the commencement of our era. The Renascence, that great reawakeningof Hellenism, that irresistible return of humanity to nature and toseeing things as they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, produced such splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of thepagan world, a side of moral weakness and of relaxation or insensibilityof the moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startlingplainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was veryapparent, too. Again this loss of spiritual balance, this exclusivepreponderance given to man's perceiving and knowing side, this unnaturaldefect of his feeling and acting side, provoked a reaction. Let us tracethat reaction where it most nearly concerns us. 

Science has now made visible to everybody the great and pregnantelements of difference which lie in race, and in how signal a mannerthey make the genius and history of an Indo-European people vary fromthose of a Semitic people. Hellenism is of Indo-European growth, Hebraism is of Semitic growth; and we English, a nation of Indo-Europeanstock, seem to belong naturally to the movement of Hellenism. Butnothing more strongly marks the essential unity of man, than theaffinities we can perceive, in this point or that, between members ofone family of peoples and members of another. And no affinity of thiskind is more strongly marked than that likeness in the strength andprominence of the moral fibre, which, notwithstanding immense elementsof difference, knits in some special sort the genius and history of usEnglish, and our American descendants across the Atlantic, to the geniusand history of the Hebrew people. Puritanism, which has been so great apower in the English nation, and in the strongest part of the Englishnation, was originally the reaction in the seventeenth century of theconscience and moral sense of our race, against the moral indifferenceand lax rule of conduct which in the sixteenth century came in with theRenascence. It was a reaction of Hebraism against Hellenism; and itpowerfully manifested itself, as was natural, in a people with much ofwhat we call a Hebraizing turn, with a signal affinity for the bentwhich, was the master-bent of Hebrew life. Eminently Indo-European byits _humor_, by the power it shows, through this gift, of imaginativelyacknowledging the multiform aspects of the problem of life, and of thusgetting itself unfixed from its own over-certainty, of smiling at itsown over-tenacity, our race has yet (and a great part of its strengthlies here), in matters of practical life and moral conduct, a strongshare of the assuredness, the tenacity, the intensity of the Hebrews. This turn manifested itself in Puritanism, and has had a great part inshaping our history for the last two hundred years. Undoubtedly itchecked and changed amongst us that movement of the Renascence which wesee producing in the reign of Elizabeth such wonderful fruits. Undoubtedly it stopped the prominent rule and direct development of thatorder of ideas which we call by the name of Hellenism, and gave thefirst rank to a different order of ideas. Apparently, too, as we said ofthe former defeat of Hellenism, if Hellenism was defeated, this showsthat Hellenism was imperfect, and that its ascendency at that momentwould not have been for the world's good. 

Yet there is a very important difference between the defeat inflicted onHellenism by Christianity eighteen hundred years ago, and the checkgiven to the Renascence by Puritanism. The greatness of the differenceis well measured by the difference in force, beauty, significance, andusefulness, between primitive Christianity and Protestantism. Eighteenhundred years ago it was altogether the hour of Hebraism. PrimitiveChristianity was legitimately and truly the ascendant force in the worldat that time, and the way of mankind's progress lay through its fulldevelopment. Another hour in man's development began in the fifteenthcentury, and the main road of his progress then lay for a time throughHellenism. Puritanism was no longer the central current of the world'sprogress, it was a side stream crossing the central current and checkingit. The cross and the check may have been necessary and salutary, butthat does not do away with the essential difference between the mainstream of man's advance and a cross or side stream. For more than twohundred years the main stream of man's advance has moved towards knowinghimself and the world, seeing things as they are, spontaneity ofconsciousness; the main impulse of a great part, and that the strongestpart, of our nation has been towards strictness of conscience. They havemade the secondary the principal at the wrong moment, and the principalthey have at the wrong moment treated as secondary. This contraventionof the natural order has produced, as such contravention always mustproduce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are nowbeginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In alldirections our habitual causes of action seem to be losingefficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even withourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want aclue to some sound order and authority. This we can only get by goingback upon the actual instincts and forces which rule our life, seeingthem as they really are, connecting them with other instincts andforces, and enlarging our whole view and rule of life. 

EQUALITY[459]

When we talk of man's advance towards his full humanity, we think of anadvance, not along one line only, but several. Certain races andnations, as we know, are on certain lines preëminent and representative. The Hebrew nation was preëminent on one great line. "What nation, " itwas justly asked by their lawgiver, "hath statutes and judgments sorighteous as the law which I set before you this day? Keep therefore anddo them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight ofthe nations which shall hear all these statutes and say: Surely thisgreat nation is a wise and understanding people!" The Hellenic race waspreëminent on other lines. Isocrates[460] could say of Athens: "Our cityhas left the rest of the world so far behind in philosophy andeloquence, that those educated by Athens have become the teachers of therest of mankind; and so well has she done her part, that the name ofGreeks seems no longer to stand for a race but to stand for intelligenceitself, and they who share in our culture are called Greeks even beforethose who are merely of our own blood. " The power of intellect andscience, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners, --these are what Greece so felt, and fixed, and may stand for. They aregreat elements in our humanization. The power of conduct is anothergreat element; and this was so felt and fixed by Israel that we cannever with justice refuse to permit Israel, in spite of all hisshortcomings, to stand for it. 

So you see that in being humanized we have to move along several lines, and that on certain lines certain nations find their strength and take alead. We may elucidate the thing yet further. Nations now existing maybe said to feel or to have felt the power of this or that element in ourhumanization so signally that they are characterized by it. No one whoknows this country would deny that it is characterized, in a remarkabledegree, by a sense of the power of conduct. Our feeling for religion isone part of this; our industry is another. What foreigners so muchremark in us--our public spirit, our love, amidst all our liberty, forpublic order and for stability--are parts of it too. Then the power ofbeauty was so felt by the Italians that their art revived, as we know, the almost lost idea of beauty, and the serious and successful pursuitof it. Cardinal Antonelli, [461] speaking to me about the education ofthe common people in Rome, said that they were illiterate, indeed, butwhoever mingled with them at any public show, and heard them passjudgment on the beauty or ugliness of what came before them, --"_ebrutto_, " "_e bello_, "--would find that their judgment agreed admirably, in general, with just what the most cultivated people would say. Even atthe present time, then, the Italians are preëminent in feeling the powerof beauty. The power of knowledge, in the same way, is eminently aninfluence with the Germans. This by no means implies, as is sometimessupposed, a high and fine general culture. What it implies is a strongsense of the necessity of knowing _scientifically_, as the expressionis, the things which have to be known by us; of knowing themsystematically, by the regular and right process, and in the only realway. And this sense the Germans especially have. Finally, there is thepower of social life and manners. And even the Athenians themselves, perhaps, have hardly felt this power so much as the French. 

Voltaire, in a famous passage[462] where he extols the age of Louis theFourteenth and ranks it with the chief epochs in the civilization of ourrace, has to specify the gift bestowed on us by the age of Louis theFourteenth, as the age of Pericles, for instance, bestowed on us its artand literature, and the Italian Renascence its revival of art andliterature. And Voltaire shows all his acuteness in fixing on the giftto name. It is not the sort of gift which we expect to see named. Thegreat gift of the age of Louis the Fourteenth to the world, saysVoltaire, was this: _l'esprit de société_, the spirit of society, thesocial spirit. And another French writer, looking for the good points inthe old French nobility, remarks that this at any rate is to be said intheir favor: they established a high and charming ideal of socialintercourse and manners, for a nation formed to profit by such an ideal, and which has profited by it ever since. And in America, perhaps, we seethe disadvantages of having social equality before there has been anysuch high standard of social life and manners formed. 

We are not disposed in England, most of us, to attach all thisimportance to social intercourse and manners. Yet Burke says: "Thereought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mindwould be disposed to relish. " And the power of social life and mannersis truly, as we have seen, one of the great elements in ourhumanization. Unless we have cultivated it, we are incomplete. Theimpulse for cultivating it is not, indeed, a moral impulse. It is by nomeans identical with the moral impulse to help our neighbor and to dohim good. Yet in many ways it works to a like end. It brings mentogether, makes them feel the need of one another, be considerate of oneanother, understand one another. But, above all things, it is a promoterof equality. It is by the humanity of their manners that men are madeequal. "A man thinks to show himself my equal, " says Goethe, "by being_grob_, --that is to say, coarse and rude; he does not show himself myequal, he shows himself _grob_. " But a community having humane mannersis a community of equals, and in such a community great socialinequalities have really no meaning, while they are at the same time amenace and an embarrassment to perfect ease of social intercourse. Acommunity with the spirit of society is eminently, therefore, acommunity with the spirit of equality. A nation with a genius forsociety, like the French or the Athenians, is irresistibly drawn towardsequality. From the first moment when the French people, with itscongenital sense for the power of social intercourse and manners, cameinto existence, it was on the road to equality. When it had once got ahigh standard of social manners abundantly established, and at the sametime the natural, material necessity for the feudal inequality ofclasses and property pressed upon it no longer, the French peopleintroduced equality and made the French Revolution. It was not thespirit of philanthropy which mainly impelled the French to thatRevolution, neither was it the spirit of envy, neither was it the loveof abstract ideas, though all these did something towards it; but whatdid most was the spirit of society. 

The well-being of the many comes out more and more distinctly, inproportion as time goes on, as the object we must pursue. An individualor a class, concentrating their efforts upon their own well-beingexclusively, do but beget troubles both for others and for themselvesalso. No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed, as Obermannsays, in the midst of men who suffer; _passée au milieu des générationsqui souffrent_. To the noble soul, it cannot be happy; to the ignoble, it cannot be secure. Socialistic and communistic schemes have generally, however, a fatal defect; they are content with too low and material astandard of well-being. That instinct of perfection, which is themaster-power in humanity, always rebels at this, and frustrates thework. Many are to be made partakers of well-being, true; but the idealof well-being is not to be, on that account, lowered and coarsened. M. De Laveleye, [463] the political economist, who is a Belgian and aProtestant, and whose testimony, therefore, we may the more readily takeabout France, says that France, being the country of Europe where thesoil is more divided than anywhere except in Switzerland and Norway, isat the same time the country where material well-being is most widelyspread, where wealth has of late years increased most, and wherepopulation is least outrunning the limits, which, for the comfort andprogress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. This may gofor a good deal. It supplies an answer to what Sir Erskine May[464] saysabout the bad effects of equality upon French prosperity. But I willquote to you from Mr. Hamerton[465] what goes, I think, for yet more. Mr. Hamerton is an excellent observer and reporter, and has lived formany years in France. He says of the French peasantry that they areexceedingly ignorant. So they are. But he adds: "They are at the sametime full of intelligence; their manners are excellent, they havedelicate perceptions, they have tact, they have a certain refinementwhich a brutalized peasantry could not possibly have. If you talk to oneof them at his own home, or in his field, he will enter intoconversation with you quite easily, and sustain his part in a perfectlybecoming way, with a pleasant combination of dignity and quiet humor. The interval between him and a Kentish laborer is enormous. "

This is, indeed, worth your attention. Of course all mankind are, as Mr. Gladstone says, of our own flesh and blood. But you know how often ithappens in England that a cultivated person, a person of the sort thatMr. Charles Sumner[466] describes, talking to one of the lower class, oreven of the middle class, feels and cannot but feel, that there issomehow a wall of partition between himself and the other, that theyseem to belong to two different worlds. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions, susceptibilities, language, manners, --everything is different. Whereas, with a French peasant, the most cultivated man may find himself insympathy, may feel that he is talking to an equal. This is an experiencewhich has been made a thousand times, and which may be made again anyday. And it may be carried beyond the range of mere conversation, it maybe extended to things like pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking, and so on. In general the pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking ofEnglish people, when once you get below that class which Mr. CharlesSumner calls the class of gentlemen, are to one of that classunpalatable and impossible. In France there is not this incompatibility. Whether he mix with high or low, the gentleman feels himself in a worldnot alien or repulsive, but a world where people make the same sort ofdemands upon life, in things of this sort, which he himself does. In allthese respects France is the country where the people, as distinguishedfrom a wealthy refined class, most lives what we call a humane life, thelife of civilized man. 

Of course, fastidious persons can and do pick holes in it. There is justnow, in France, a _noblesse_ newly revived, full of pretension, full ofairs and graces and disdains; but its sphere is narrow, and out of itsown sphere no one cares very much for it. There is a general equality ina humane kind of life. This is the secret of the passionate attachmentwith which France inspires all Frenchmen, in spite of her fearfultroubles, her checked prosperity, her disconnected units, and the restof it. There is so much of the goodness and agreeableness of life there, and for so many. It is the secret of her having been able to attach soardently to her the German and Protestant people of Alsace, [467] whilewe have been so little able to attach the Celtic and Catholic people ofIreland. France brings the Alsatians into a social system so full of thegoodness and agreeableness of life; we offer to the Irish no suchattraction. It is the secret, finally, of the prevalence which we haveremarked in other continental countries of a legislation tending, likethat of France, to social equality. The social system which equalitycreates in France is, in the eyes of others, such a giver of thegoodness and agreeableness of life, that they seek to get the goodnessby getting the equality. 

Yet France has had her fearful troubles, as Sir Erskine May justly says. She suffers too, he adds, from demoralization and intellectual stoppage. Let us admit, if he likes, this to be true also. His error is that heattributes all this to equality. Equality, as we have seen, has broughtFrance to a really admirable and enviable pitch of humanization in oneimportant line. And this, the work of equality, is so much a good in SirErskine May's eyes, that he has mistaken it for the whole of which it isa part, frankly identifies it with civilization, and is inclined topronounce France the most civilized of nations. 

But we have seen how much goes to full humanization, to truecivilization, besides the power of social life and manners. There is thepower of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power ofbeauty. The power of conduct is the greatest of all. And without in theleast wishing to preach, I must observe, as a mere matter of naturalfact and experience, that for the power of conduct France has never hadanything like the same sense which she has had for the power of sociallife and manners. Michelet, [468] himself a Frenchman, gives us thereason why the Reformation did not succeed in France. It did notsucceed, he says, because _la France ne voulait pas de réforme morale_--moral reform France would not have; and the Reformation was above all amoral movement. The sense in France for the power of conduct has notgreatly deepened, I think, since. The sense for the power of intellectand knowledge has not been adequate either. The sense for beauty has notbeen adequate. Intelligence and beauty have been, in general, but so farreached, as they can be and are reached by men who, of the elements ofperfect humanization, lay thorough hold upon one only, --the power ofsocial intercourse and manners. I speak of France in general; she hashad, and she has, individuals who stand out and who form exceptions. Well, then, if a nation laying no sufficient hold upon the powers ofbeauty and knowledge, and a most failing and feeble hold upon the powerof conduct, comes to demoralization and intellectual stoppage andfearful troubles, we need not be inordinately surprised. What we shouldrather marvel at is the healing and bountiful operation of Nature, whereby the laying firm hold on one real element in our humanization hashad for France results so beneficent. 

And thus, when Sir Erskine May gets bewildered between France's equalityand fearful troubles on the one hand, and the civilization of France onthe other, let us suggest to him that perhaps he is bewildered by hisdata because he combines them ill. France has not exemplary disaster andruin as the fruits of equality, and at the same time, and independentlyof this, an exemplary civilization. She has a large measure of happinessand success as the fruits of equality, and she has a very large measureof dangers and troubles as the fruits of something else. 

We have more to do, however, than to help Sir Erskine May out of hisscrape about France. We have to see whether the considerations which wehave been employing may not be of use to us about England. 

We shall not have much difficulty in admitting whatever good is to besaid of ourselves, and we will try not to be unfair by excluding allthat is not so favorable. Indeed, our less favorable side is the onewhich we should be the most anxious to note, in order that we may mendit. But we will begin with the good. Our people has energy and honestyas its good characteristics. We have a strong sense for the chief powerin the life and progress of man, --the power of conduct. So far we speakof the English people as a whole. Then we have a rich, refined, andsplendid aristocracy. And we have, according to Mr. Charles Sumner'sacute and true remark, a class of gentlemen, not of the nobility, butwell-bred, cultivated, and refined, larger than is to be found in anyother country. For these last we have Mr. Sumner's testimony. As to thesplendor of our aristocracy, all the world is agreed. Then we have amiddle class and a lower class; and they, after all, are the immensebulk of the nation. 

Let us see how the civilization of these classes appears to a Frenchman, who has witnessed, in his own country, the considerable humanization ofthese classes by equality. To such an observer our middle class dividesitself into a serious portion and a gay or rowdy portion; both are amarvel to him. With the gay or rowdy portion we need not much concernourselves; we shall figure it to our minds sufficiently if we conceiveit as the source of that war-song produced in these recent days ofexcitement:--

 "We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, and we're got the money too. "[469]

We may also partly judge its standard of life, and the needs of itsnature, by the modern English theatre, perhaps the most contemptible inEurope. But the real strength of the English middle class is in itsserious portion. And of this a Frenchman, who was here some little timeago as the correspondent, I think, of the _Siècle_ newspaper, and whoseletters were afterwards published in a volume, writes as follows. He hadbeen attending some of the Moody and Sankey[470] meetings, and he says:"To understand the success of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, one must befamiliar with English manners, one must know the mind-deadeninginfluence of a narrow Biblism, one must have experienced the sense ofacute ennui, which the aspect and the frequentation of this greatdivision of English society produce in others, the want of elasticityand the chronic ennui which characterize this class itself, petrified ina narrow Protestantism and in a perpetual reading of the Bible. "

You know the French;--a little more Biblism, one may take leave to say, would do them no harm. But an audience like this--and here, as I said, is the advantage of an audience like this--will have no difficulty inadmitting the amount of truth which there is in the Frenchman's picture. It is the picture of a class which, driven by its sense for the power ofconduct, in the beginning of the seventeenth century entered, --as I havemore than once said, and as I may more than once have occasion in futureto say, --_entered the prison of Puritanism, and had the key turned uponits spirit there for two hundred years_. [471] They did not know, goodand earnest people as they were, that to the building up of human lifethere belong all those other powers also, --the power of intellect andknowledge, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners. And something, by what they became, they gained, and the whole nationwith them; they deepened and fixed for this nation the sense of conduct. But they created a type of life and manners, of which they themselves, indeed, are slow to recognize the faults, but which is fatally condemnedby its hideousness, its immense ennui, and against which the instinct ofself-preservation in humanity rebels. 

Partisans fight against facts in vain. Mr. Goldwin Smith, [472] a writerof eloquence and power, although too prone to acerbity, is a partisan ofthe Puritans, and of the nonconformists who are the special inheritorsof the Puritan tradition. He angrily resents the imputation upon thatPuritan type of life, by which the life of our serious middle class hasbeen formed, that it was doomed to hideousness, to immense ennui. Heprotests that it had beauty, amenity, accomplishment. Let us go tofacts. Charles the First, who, with all his faults, had the just ideathat art and letters are great civilizers, made, as you know, a famouscollection of pictures, --our first National Gallery. It was, I suppose, the best collection at that time north of the Alps. It contained nineRaphaels, eleven Correggios, twenty-eight Titians. What became of thatcollection? The journals of the House of Commons will tell you. Thereyou may see the Puritan Parliament disposing of this Whitehall or YorkHouse collection as follows: "Ordered, that all such pictures andstatues there as are without any superstition, shall be forthwithsold. .. . Ordered, that all such pictures there as have therepresentation of the Second Person in the Trinity upon them, shall beforthwith burnt. Ordered, that all such pictures there as have therepresentation of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt. "There we have the weak side of our parliamentary government and ourserious middle class. We are incapable of sending Mr. Gladstone to betried at the Old Bailey because he proclaims his antipathy to LordBeaconsfield. A majority in our House of Commons is incapable ofhailing, with frantic laughter and applause, a string of indecent jestsagainst Christianity and its Founder. But we are not, or were notincapable of producing a Parliament which burns or sells themasterpieces of Italian art. And one may surely say of such a PuritanParliament, and of those who determine its line for it, that they hadnot the spirit of beauty. 

What shall we say of amenity? Milton was born a humanist, but thePuritan temper, as we know, mastered him. There is nothing more unlovelyand unamiable than Milton the Puritan disputant. Some one answers his_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. "I mean not, " rejoins Milton, "todispute philosophy with this pork, who never read any. " However, he doesreply to him, and throughout the reply Milton's great joke is, that hisadversary, who was anonymous, is a serving-man. "Finally, he winds uphis text with much doubt and trepidation; for it may be his trencherswere not scraped, and that which never yet afforded corn of favor to hisnoddle--the salt-cellar--was not rubbed; and therefore, in this haste, easily granting that his answers fall foul upon each other, and prayingyou would not think he writes as a prophet, but as a man, he runs to theblack jack, fills his flagon, spreads the table, and serves updinner. "[473] There you have the same spirit of urbanity and amenity, asmuch of it, and as little, as generally informs the religiouscontroversies of our Puritan middle class to this day. 

But Mr. Goldwin Smith[474] insists, and picks out his own exemplar ofthe Puritan type of life and manners; and even here let us follow him. He picks out the most favorable specimen he can find, --ColonelHutchinson, [475] whose well-known memoirs, written by his widow, we haveall read with interest. "Lucy Hutchinson, " says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "ispainting what she thought a perfect Puritan would be; and her picturepresents to us not a coarse, crop-eared, and snuffling fanatic, but ahighly accomplished, refined, gallant, and most amiable, thoughreligious and seriously minded, gentleman. " Let us, I say, in thisexample of Mr. Goldwin Smith's own choosing, lay our finger upon thepoints where this type deflects from the truly humane ideal. 

Mrs. Hutchinson relates a story which gives us a good notion of what theamiable and accomplished social intercourse, even of a picked Puritanfamily, was. Her husband was governor of Nottingham. He had occasion, she said, "to go and break up a private meeting in the cannoneer'schamber"; and in the cannoneer's chamber "were found some notesconcerning pædobaptism, [476] which, being brought into the governor'slodgings, his wife having perused them and compared them with theScriptures, found not what to say against the truths they assertedconcerning the mis-application of that ordinance to infants. " Soonafterwards she expects her confinement, and communicates the cannoneer'sdoubts about pædobaptism to her husband. The fatal cannoneer makes abreach in him too. "Then he bought and read all the eminent treatises onboth sides, which at that time came thick from the presses, and stillwas cleared in the error of the pædobaptists. " Finally, Mrs. Hutchinsonis confined. Then the governor "invited all the ministers to dinner, andpropounded his doubt and the ground thereof to them. None of them coulddefend their practice with any satisfactory reason, but the tradition ofthe Church from the primitive times, and their main buckler of federalholiness, which Tombs and Denne had excellently overthrown. He and hiswife then, professing themselves unsatisfied, desired their opinions. "With the opinions I will not trouble you, but hasten to the result:"Whereupon that infant was not baptised. "

No doubt to a large division of English society at this very day, thatsort of dinner and discussion, and indeed, the whole manner of life andconversation here suggested by Mrs. Hutchinson's narrative, will seemboth natural and amiable, and such as to meet the needs of man as areligious and social creature. You know the conversation which reigns inthousands of middle-class families at this hour, about nunneries, teetotalism, the confessional, eternal punishment, ritualism, disestablishment. It goes wherever the class goes which is moulded onthe Puritan type of life. In the long winter evenings of Toronto Mr. Goldwin Smith has had, probably, abundant experience of it. What is itsenemy? The instinct of self-preservation in humanity. Men make crudetypes and try to impose them, but to no purpose. "_L'homme s'agite, Dieule mene_, "[477] says Bossuet. "There are many devices in a man's heart;nevertheless the counsel of the Eternal, that shall stand. "[478] Thosewho offer us the Puritan type of life offer us a religion not true, theclaims of intellect and knowledge not satisfied, the claim of beauty notsatisfied, the claim of manners not satisfied. In its strong sense forconduct that life touches truth; but its other imperfections hinder itfrom employing even this sense aright. The type mastered our nation fora time. Then came the reaction. The nation said: "This type, at anyrate, is amiss; we are not going to be all like _that!_" The typeretired into our middle class, and fortified itself there. It seeks toendure, to emerge, to deny its own imperfections, to impose itselfagain;--impossible! If we continue to live, we must outgrow it. The veryclass in which it is rooted, our middle class, will have to acknowledgethe type's inadequacy, will have to acknowledge the hideousness, theimmense ennui of the life which this type has created, will have totransform itself thoroughly. It will have to admit the large part oftruth which there is in the criticisms of our Frenchman, whom we havetoo long forgotten. 

After our middle class he turns his attention to our lower class. And ofthe lower and larger portion of this, the portion not bordering on themiddle class and sharing its faults, he says: "I consider this multitudeto be absolutely devoid, not only of political principles, but even ofthe most simple notions of good and evil. Certainly it does not appeal, this mob, to the principles of '89, which you English make game of; itdoes not insist on the rights of man; what it wants is beer, gin, and_fun_. "[479]

That is a description of what Mr. Bright[480] would call the residuum, only our author seems to think the residuum a very large body. And itscondition strikes him with amazement and horror. And surely well it may. Let us recall Mr. Hamerton's account of the most illiterate class inFrance; what an amount of civilization they have notwithstanding! Andthis is always to be understood, in hearing or reading a Frenchman'spraise of England. He envies our liberty, our public spirit, our trade, our stability. But there is always a reserve in his mind. He never meansfor a moment that he would like to change with us. Life seems to him somuch better a thing in France for so many more people, that, in spite ofthe fearful troubles of France, it is best to be a Frenchman. AFrenchman might agree with Mr. Cobden, [481] that life is good in Englandfor those people who have at least £5000 a year. But the civilization ofthat immense majority who have not £5000 a year, or, £500, or even£100, --of our middle and lower class, --seems to him too deplorable. 

And now what has this condition of our middle and lower class to tell usabout equality? How is it, must we not ask, how is it that, beingwithout fearful troubles, having so many achievements to show and somuch success, having as a nation a deep sense for conduct, having signalenergy and honesty, having a splendid aristocracy, having anexceptionally large class of gentlemen, we are yet so little civilized?How is it that our middle and lower classes, in spite of the individualsamong them who are raised by happy gifts of nature to a more humanelife, in spite of the seriousness of the middle class, in spite of thehonesty and power of true work, the _virtus verusque labor_, which areto be found in abundance throughout the lower, do yet present, as awhole, the characters which we have seen?

And really it seems as if the current of our discourse carried us ofitself to but one conclusion. It seems as if we could not avoidconcluding, that just as France owes her fearful troubles to otherthings and her civilizedness to equality, so we owe our immunity fromfearful troubles to other things, and our uncivilizedness to inequality. "Knowledge is easy, " says the wise man, "to him that understandeth";[482]easy, he means, to him who will use his mind simply and rationally, andnot to make him think he can know what he cannot, or to maintain, _perfas et nefas_, a false thesis with which he fancies his interests to bebound up. And to him who will use his mind as the wise man recommends, surely it is easy to see that our shortcomings in civilization are dueto our inequality; or, in other words, that the great inequality ofclasses and property, which came to us from the Middle Age and which wemaintain because we have the religion of inequality, that thisconstitution of things, I say, has the natural and necessary effect, under present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class. [483] Andthis is to fail in civilization. 

For only just look how the facts combine themselves. I have said littleas yet about our aristocratic class, except that it is splendid. Yetthese, "our often very unhappy brethren, " as Burke calls them, are by nomeans matter for nothing but ecstasy. Our charity ought certainly, Burkesays, to "extend a due and anxious sensation of pity to the distressesof the miserable great. " Burke's extremely strong language about theirmiseries and defects I will not quote. For my part, I am always disposedto marvel that human beings, in a position so false, should be so goodas these are. Their reason for existing was to serve as a number ofcentres in a world disintegrated after the ruin of the Roman Empire, andslowly re-constituting itself. Numerous centres of material force wereneeded, and these a feudal aristocracy supplied. Their large andhereditary estates served this public end. The owners had a positivefunction, for which their estates were essential. In our modern worldthe function is gone; and the great estates, with an infinitelymultiplied power of ministering to mere pleasure and indulgence, remain. The energy and honesty of our race does not leave itself without witnessin this class, and nowhere are there more conspicuous examples ofindividuals raised by happy gifts of nature far above their fellows andtheir circumstances. For distinction of all kinds this class has anesteem. Everything which succeeds they tend to welcome, to win over, toput on their side; genius may generally make, if it will, not bad termsfor itself with them. But the total result of the class, its effect onsociety at large and on national progress, are what we must regard. Andon the whole, with no necessary function to fulfil, never conversantwith life as it really is, tempted, flattered, and spoiled fromchildhood to old age, our aristocratic class is inevitably materialized, and the more so the more the development of industry and ingenuityaugments the means of luxury. Every one can see how bad is the action ofsuch an aristocracy upon the class of newly enriched people, whose greatdanger is a materialistic ideal, just because it is the ideal they caneasiest comprehend. Nor is the mischief of this action now compensatedby signal services of a public kind. Turn even to that sphere whicharistocracies think specially their own, and where they have under othercircumstances been really effective, --the sphere of politics. When thereis need, as now, for any large forecast of the course of human affairs, for an acquaintance with the ideas which in the end sway mankind, andfor an estimate of their power, aristocracies are out of their element, and materialized aristocracies most of all. In the immense spiritualmovement of our day, the English aristocracy, as I have elsewhere said, always reminds me of Pilate confronting the phenomenon of Christianity. Nor can a materialized class have any serious and fruitful sense for thepower of beauty. They may imagine themselves to be in pursuit of beauty;but how often, alas, does the pursuit come to little more than dabblinga little in what they are pleased to call art, and making a great dealof what they are pleased to call love!

Let us return to their merits. For the power of manners an aristocraticclass, whether materialized or not, will always, from its circumstances, have a strong sense. And although for this power of social life andmanners, so important to civilization, our English race has no specialnatural turn, in our aristocracy this power emerges and marks them. Whenthe day of general humanization comes, they will have fixed the standardof manners. The English simplicity, too, makes the best of the Englisharistocracy more frank and natural than the best of the like classanywhere else, and even the worst of them it makes free from theincredible fatuities and absurdities of the worst. Then the sense ofconduct they share with their countrymen at large. In no class has itsuch trials to undergo; in none is it more often and more grievouslyoverborne. But really the right comment on this is the comment ofPepys[484] upon the evil courses of Charles the Second and the Duke ofYork and the court of that day: "At all which I am sorry; but it is theeffect of idleness, and having nothing else to employ their greatspirits upon. "

Heaven forbid that I should speak in dispraise of that unique and mostEnglish class which Mr. Charles Sumner extols--the large class ofgentlemen, not of the landed class or of the nobility, but cultivatedand refined. They are a seemly product of the energy and of the power torise in our race. Without, in general, rank and splendor and wealth andluxury to polish them, they have made their own the high standard oflife and manners of an aristocratic and refined class. Not having allthe dissipations and distractions of this class, they are much moreseriously alive to the power of intellect and knowledge, to the power ofbeauty. The sense of conduct, too, meets with fewer trials in thisclass. To some extent, however, their contiguousness to the aristocraticclass has now the effect of materializing them, as it does the class ofnewly enriched people. The most palpable action is on the young amongstthem, and on their standard of life and enjoyment. But in general, forthis whole class, established facts, the materialism which they seeregnant, too much block their mental horizon, and limit thepossibilities of things to them. They are deficient in openness andflexibility of mind, in free play of ideas, in faith and ardor. Civilized they are, but they are not much of a civilizing force; theyare somehow bounded and ineffective. 

So on the middle class they produce singularly little effect. What themiddle class sees is that splendid piece of materialism, thearistocratic class, with a wealth and luxury utterly out of their reach, with a standard of social life and manners, the offspring of that wealthand luxury, seeming utterly out of their reach also. And thus they arethrown back upon themselves--upon a defective type of religion, a narrowrange of intellect and knowledge, a stunted sense of beauty, a lowstandard of manners. And the lower class see before them thearistocratic class, and its civilization, such as it is, even infinitelymore out of _their_ reach than out of that of the middle class; whilethe life of the middle class, with its unlovely types of religion, thought, beauty, and manners, has naturally, in general, no greatattractions for them either. And so they, too, are thrown back uponthemselves; upon their beer, their gin, and their _fun_. Now, then, youwill understand what I meant by saying that our inequality materializesour upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower. 

And the greater the inequality the more marked is its bad action uponthe middle and lower classes. In Scotland the landed aristocracy fillsthe scene, as is well known, still more than in England; the otherclasses are more squeezed back and effaced. And the social civilizationof the lower middle class and of the poorest class, in Scotland, is anexample of the consequences. Compared with the same class even inEngland, the Scottish lower middle class is most visibly, to vary Mr. Charles Sumner's phrase, _less_ well-bred, _less_ careful in personalhabits and in social conventions, _less_ refined. Let any one who doubtsit go, after issuing from the aristocratic solitudes which possess LochLomond, let him go and observe the shopkeepers and the middle class inDumbarton, and Greenock, and Gourock, and the places along the mouth ofthe Clyde. And for the poorest class, who that has seen it can everforget the hardly human horror, the abjection and uncivilizedness ofGlasgow?

What a strange religion, then, is our religion of inequality! Romanceoften helps a religion to hold its ground, and romance is good in itsway; but ours is not even a romantic religion. No doubt our aristocracyis an object of very strong public interest. The _Times_ itself bestowsa leading article by way of epithalamium on the Duke of Norfolk'smarriage. And those journals of a new type, full of talent, and whichinterest me particularly because they seem as if they were written bythe young lion[485] of our youth, --the young lion grown mellow and, asthe French say, _viveur_, arrived at his full and ripe knowledge of theworld, and minded to enjoy the smooth evening of his days, --thosejournals, in the main a sort of social gazette of the aristocracy, areapparently not read by that class only which they most concern, but areread with great avidity by other classes also. And the common people, too, have undoubtedly, as Mr. Gladstone says, a wonderful preference fora lord. Yet our aristocracy, from the action upon it of the Wars of theRoses, the Tudors, and the political necessities of George the Third, isfor the imagination a singularly modern and uninteresting one. Itssplendor of station, its wealth, show, and luxury, is then what theother classes really admire in it; and this is not an elevatingadmiration. Such an admiration will never lift us out of our vulgarityand brutality, if we chance to be vulgar and brutal to start with; itwill rather feed them and be fed by them. So that when Mr. Gladstoneinvites us to call our love of inequality "the complement of the love offreedom or its negative pole, or the shadow which the love of freedomcasts, or the reverberation of its voice in the halls of theconstitution, " we must surely answer that all this mystical eloquence isnot in the least necessary to explain so simple a matter; that our loveof inequality is really the vulgarity in us, and the brutality, admiringand worshipping the splendid materiality. 

Our present social organization, however, will and must endure until ourmiddle class is provided with some better ideal of life than it has now. Our present organization has been an appointed stage in our growth; ithas been of good use, and has enabled us to do great things. But the useis at an end, and the stage is over. Ask yourselves if you do notsometimes feel in yourselves a sense, that in spite of the strenuousefforts for good of so many excellent persons amongst us, we beginsomehow to flounder and to beat the air; that we seem to be findingourselves stopped on this line of advance and on that, and to bethreatened with a sort of standstill. It is that we are trying to liveon with a social organization of which the day is over. Certainlyequality will never of itself alone give us a perfect civilization. But, with such inequality as ours, a perfect civilization is impossible. 

To that conclusion, facts, and the stream itself of this discourse, doseem, I think, to carry us irresistibly. We arrive at it because they sochoose, not because we so choose. Our tendencies are all the other way. We are all of us politicians, and in one of two camps, the Liberal orthe Conservative. Liberals tend to accept the middle class as it is, andto praise the nonconformists; while Conservatives tend to accept theupper class as it is, and to praise the aristocracy. And yet here we areat the conclusion, that whereas one of the great obstacles to ourcivilization is, as I have often said, British nonconformity, anothermain obstacle to our civilization is British aristocracy! And this whilewe are yet forced to recognize excellent special qualities as well asthe general English energy and honesty, and a number of emergent humaneindividuals, in both nonconformists and aristocracy. Clearly such aconclusion can be none of our own seeking. 

Then again, to remedy our inequality, there must be a change in the lawof bequest, as there has been in France; and the faults andinconveniences of the present French law of bequest are obvious. Ittends to over-divide property; it is unequal in operation, and can beeluded by people limiting their families; it makes the children, howeverill they may behave, independent of the parent. To be sure, Mr. Mill[486] and others have shown that a law of bequest fixing themaximum, whether of land or money, which any one individual may take bybequest or inheritance, but in other respects leaving the testator quitefree, has none of the inconveniences of the French law, and is in everyway preferable. But evidently these are not questions of practicalpolitics. Just imagine Lord Hartington[487] going down to Glasgow, andmeeting his Scotch Liberals there, and saying to them: "You are ill atease, and you are calling for change, and very justly. But the cause ofyour being ill at ease is not what you suppose. The cause of your beingill at ease is the profound imperfectness of your social civilization. Your social civilization is, indeed, such as I forbear to characterize. But the remedy is not disestablishment. The remedy is social equality. Let me direct your attention to a reform in the law of bequest andentail. " One can hardly speak of such a thing without laughing. No, thematter is at present one for the thoughts of those who think. It is athing to be turned over in the minds of those who, on the one hand, havethe spirit of scientific inquirers, bent on seeing things as they reallyare; and, on the other hand, the spirit of friends of the humane life, lovers of perfection. To your thoughts I commit it. And perhaps, themore you think of it, the more you will be persuaded that Menander[488]showed his wisdom quite as much when he said _Choose equality_, as whenhe assured us that _Evil communications corrupt good manners_. 

NOTES

POETRY AND THE CLASSICS

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[1] ~Poetry and the Classics~. Published as Preface to _Poems_: 1853(dated Fox How, Ambleside, October 1, 1853). It was reprinted in IrishEssays, 1882. 

[2] ~the poem~. _Empedocles on Etna_. 

[3] ~the Sophists~. "A name given by the Greeks about the middle of thefifth century B. C. To certain teachers of a superior grade who, distinguishing themselves from philosophers on the one hand and fromartists and craftsmen on the other, claimed to prepare their pupils, notfor any particular study or profession, but for civic life. "_Encyclopædia Britannica_. 

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[4] _Poetics_, 4. 

[5] _Theognis_, ll. 54-56. 

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[6] ~"The poet, " it is said~. In the _Spectator_ of April 2, 1853. Thewords quoted were not used with reference to poems of mine. [Arnold. ]

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[7] ~Dido~. See the _Iliad_, the _Oresteia_ (_Agamemnon, Choëpharæ_, and_Eumenides_) of Æschylus, and the _Æneid_. 

[8] ~Hermann and Dorothea, Childe Harold, Jocelyn, the Excursion~. Longnarrative poems by Goethe, Byron, Lamartine, and Wordsworth. 

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[9] ~Oedipus~. See the _Oedipus Tyrannus_ and _Oedipus Coloneus_ ofSophocles. 

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[10] ~grand style~. Arnold, while admitting that the term ~grand~ style, which he repeatedly uses, is incapable of exact verbal definition, describes it most adequately in the essay _On Translating Homer_: "Ithink it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry when anoble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severitya serious subject. " See _On the Study of Celtic Literature and onTranslating Homer_, ed. 1895, pp. 264-69. 

[11] ~Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon~. The story of ~Orestes~ wasdramatized by Æschylus, by Sophocles, and by Euripides. Merope was thesubject of a lost tragedy by Euripides and of several modern plays, including one by Matthew Arnold himself. The story of ~Alcmæon~ was thesubject of several tragedies which have not been preserved. 

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[12] ~Polybius~. A Greek historian (c. 204-122 B. C. )

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[13]. ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note 3, p. 177. [Transcriber's note: this is Footnote 255 in this e-text. ]

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[14] ~rien à dire~. He says all that he wishes to, but unfortunately hehas nothing to say. 

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[15] Boccaccio's _Decameron_, 4th day, 5th novel. 

[16] ~Henry Hallam~ (1777-1859). English historian. See his_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenthand Seventeenth Centuries_, chap. 23, §§ 51, 52. 

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[17] ~François Pierre Guillaume Guizot~ (1787-1874), historian, orator, and statesman of France. 

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[18] ~Pittacus~, of Mytilene in Lesbos (c. 650-569 B. C. ), was one of theSeven Sages of Greece. His favorite sayings were: "It is hard to beexcellent" ([Greek: chalepon esthlon emenai]), and "Know when to act. "

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[19] ~Barthold Georg Niebuhr~ (1776-1831) was a German statesman andhistorian. His _Roman History_ (1827-32) is an epoch-making work. Forhis opinion of his age see his Life and Letters, London, 1852, II, 396. 

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[20] _Æneid_, XII, 894-95. 

THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME

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[21] Reprinted from _The National Review_, November, 1864, in the_Essays in Criticism_, Macmillan & Co. , 1865. 

[22] In _On Translating Homer_, ed. 1903, pp. 216-17. 

[23] An essay called _Wordsworth: The Man and the Poet_, published in_The North British Review_ for August, 1864, vol. 41. ~John CampbellShairp~ (1819-85), Scottish critic and man of letters, was professor ofpoetry at Oxford from 1877 to 1884. The best of his lectures from thischair were published in 1881 as _Aspects of Poetry_. 

[24] I cannot help thinking that a practice, common in England duringthe last century, and still followed in France, of printing a notice ofthis kind, --a notice by a competent critic, --to serve as an introductionto an eminent author's works, might be revived among us with advantage. To introduce all succeeding editions of Wordsworth, Mr. Shairp's noticemight, it seems to me, excellently serve; it is written from the pointof view of an admirer, nay, of a disciple, and that is right; but thenthe disciple must be also, as in this case he is, a critic, a man ofletters, not, as too often happens, some relation or friend with noqualification for his task except affection for his author. [Arnold. ]

[25] See _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, ed. 1851, II, 151, letter toBernard Barton. 

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[26] ~Irene~. An unsuccessful play of Dr. Johnson's. 

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[27] ~Preface~. Prefixed to the second edition (1800) of the _LyricalBallads_. 

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[28] ~The old woman~. At the first attempt to read the newly prescribedliturgy in St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh, on July 23, 1637, a riot tookplace, in which the "fauld-stools, " or folding stools, of thecongregation were hurled as missiles. An untrustworthy traditionattributes the flinging of the first stool to a certain Jenny or JanetGeddes. 

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[29] _Pensées de J. Joubert_, ed. 1850, I, 355, titre 15, 2. 

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[30] ~French Revolution~. The latter part of Burke's life was largelydevoted to a conflict with the upholders of the French Revolution. _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, 1790, and _Letters on aRegicide Peace_, 1796, are his most famous writings in this cause. 

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[31] ~Richard Price, D. D. ~ (1723-91), was strongly opposed to the warwith America and in sympathy with the French revolutionists. 

[32] From Goldsmith's epitaph on Burke in the _Retaliation_. 

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[33] ~Num. XXII~, 35. 

[34] ~William Eden, First Baron Auckland~ (1745-1814), Englishstatesman. Among other services he represented English interests inHolland during the critical years 1790-93. 

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[35] ~Revue des deux Mondes~. The best-known of the French magazinesdevoted to literature, art, and general criticism, founded in Paris in1831 by Francois Buloz. 

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[36] ~Home and Foreign Review~. Published in London 1862-64. 

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[37] ~Charles Bowyer Adderley, First Baron Norton~ (1814-1905), Englishpolitician, inherited valuable estates in Warwickshire. He was a strongchurchman and especially interested in education and the colonies. 

[38] ~John Arthur Roebuck~ (1801-79), a leading radical and utilitarianreformer, conspicuous for his eloquence, honesty, and strong hostilityto the government of his day. He held a seat for Sheffield from 1849until his death. 

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[39] From Goethe's _Iphigenie auf Tauris_, I, ii, 91-92. 

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[40] ~detachment~. In the Buddhistic religion salvation is found throughan emancipation from the craving for the gratification of the senses, for a future life, and for prosperity. 

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[41] ~John Somers, Baron Somers~ (1651-1716), was the most trustedminister of William III, and a stanch supporter of the EnglishConstitution. See Addison, _The Freeholder_, May 14, 1716, andMacauley's _History_, iv, 53. 

[42] ~William Cobbett~ (1762-1835). English politician and writer. As apamphleteer his reputation was injured by his pugnacity, self-esteem, and virulence of language. See _Heine, Selections_, p. 120, [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 144 in this e-text] and _TheContribution of the Celts, Selections_, p. 179. [Transcriber's note:This is Footnote 257 in this e-text. ]

[43] ~Carlyle's~ _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ (1850) contain much violentdenunciation of the society of his day. 

[44] ~Ruskin~ turned to political economy about 1860. In 1862, hepublished _Unto this Last_, followed by other works of similar nature. 

[45] ~terrae filii~. Sons of Mother Earth; hence, obscure, mean persons. 

[46] See _Heine, Selections_, Note 2, p. 117. [Transcriber's note: Thisis Footnote 140 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 43

[47] ~To think is so hard~. Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_, Book VII, chap. IX. 

[48] See Sénancour's _Obermann_, letter 90. Arnold was much influencedby this remarkable book. For an account of the author (1770-1846) andthe book see Arnold's _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann_, "with note on the poem, and the essay on Obermann in _Essays inCriticism_, third series. 

[49] So sincere is my dislike to all personal attack and controversy, that I abstain from reprinting, at this distance of time from theoccasion which called them forth, the essays in which I criticized Dr. Colenso's book; I feel bound, however, after all that has passed, tomake here a final declaration of my sincere impenitence for havingpublished them. Nay, I cannot forbear repeating yet once more, for hisbenefit and that of his readers, this sentence from my original remarksupon him; _There is truth of science and truth of religion; truth ofscience does not become truth of religion till it is made religious. _And I will add: Let us have all the science there is from the men ofscience; from the men of religion let us have religion. [Arnold. ]

~John William Colenso~ (1814-83), Bishop of Natal, published a series oftreatises on the _Pentateuch_, extending from 1862-1879, opposing thetraditional views about the literal inspiration of the Scriptures andthe actual historical character of the Mosaic story. Arnold's censoriouscriticism of the first volume of this work is entitled _The Bishop andthe Philosopher_ (_Macmillan's Magazine_, January, 1863). As an exampleof the Bishop's cheap "arithmetical demonstrations" he describes him aspresenting the case of Leviticus as follows: "'_If three priests have toeat 264 pigeons a day, how many must each priest eat?_' That disposes ofLeviticus. " The essay is devoted chiefly to contrasting Bishop Colenso'sunedifying methods with those of the philosopher Spinoza. In passing, Arnold refers also to Dr. Stanley's _Sinai and Palestine_ (1856), quotations from which are characterized as "the refreshing spots" in theBishop's volume. 

[50] It has been said I make it "a crime against literary criticism andthe higher culture to attempt to inform the ignorant. " Need I point outthat the ignorant are not informed by being confirmed in a confusion?[Arnold. ]

PAGE 44

[51] Joubert's _Pensées_, ed. 1850, II, 102, titre 23, 54. 

[52] ~Arthur Penrhyn Stanley~ (1815-81), Dean of Westminster. He was theauthor of a _Life_ of (Thomas) _Arnold_, 1844. In university politicsand in religious discussions he was a Liberal and the advocate oftoleration and comprehension. 

[53] ~Frances Power Cobbe~ (1822-1904), a prominent Englishphilanthropist and woman of letters. The quotation below is from _BrokenLights_ (1864), p. 134. Her _Religious Duty_ (1857), referred to on p. 46, is a book of religious and ethical instruction written from theUnitarian point of view. 

[54] ~Ernest Renan~ (1823-92), French philosopher and Orientalist. The_Vie de Jésus_ (1863), here referred to, was begun in Syria and isfilled with the atmosphere of the East, but is a work of literary ratherthan of scholarly importance. 

PAGE 45

[55] ~David Friedrich Strauss~ (1808-74), German theologian and man ofletters. The work referred to is the _Leben Jesu_ 1835. A popularedition was published in 1864. 

[56] From "Fleury (Preface) on the Gospel. "--Arnold's _Note Book_. 

PAGE 46

[57] Cicero's _Att. _ 16. 7. 3. 

[58] ~Coleridge's happy phrase~. Coleridge's _Confessions of anInquiring Spirit_, letter 2. 

PAGE 49

[59] ~Luther's theory of grace~. The question concerning the "means ofgrace, " i. E. Whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of thedivine grace is _ex opere operato_, or dependent on the faith of therecipient, was the chief subject of controversy between Catholics andProtestants during the period of the Reformation. 

[60] ~Jacques Bénigne Bossuet~ (1627-1704), French divine, orator, andwriter. His _Discours sur l'histoire universelle_ (1681) was an attemptto provide ecclesiastical authority with a rational basis. It isdominated by the conviction that "the establishment of Christianity wasthe one point of real importance in the whole history of the world. "

PAGE 50

[61] From Virgil's _Eclogues_, iv, 5. Translated in Shelley's _Hellas_:"The world's great age begins anew. "

THE STUDY OF POETRY

PAGE 55

[62] Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to _The EnglishPoets_, edited by T. H. Ward. Reprinted in _Essays in Criticism_, SecondSeries, Macmillan & Co. , 1888. 

[63] This quotation is taken, slightly condensed, from the closingparagraph of a short introduction contributed by Arnold to _The HundredGreatest Men_, Sampson, Low & Co. , London, 1885. 

PAGE 56

[64] From the Preface to the second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800. 

[65] ~Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve~ (1804-69), French critic, waslooked upon by Arnold as in certain respects his master in the art ofcriticism. 

PAGE 57

[66] ~a criticism of life~. This celebrated phrase was first used byArnold in the essay on _Joubert_ (1864), though the theory is implied in_On Translating Homer_, 1861. In _Joubert_ it is applied to literature:"The end and aim of all literature, if one considers it attentively, is, in truth, nothing but that. " It was much attacked, especially as appliedto poetry, and is defended as so applied in the essay on _Byron_ (1881). See also _Wordsworth, Selections_, p. 230. [Transcriber's note: This isFootnote 371 in this e-text. ]

[67] Compare Arnold's definition of the function of criticism, _Selections_, p. 52. [Transcriber's note: This approximates to thesection following the text reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 59

[68] ~Paul Pellisson~ (1624-93). French author, friend of Mlle. Scudéry, and historiographer to the king. 

[69] Barren and servile civility. 

70. ~M. Charles d' Hericault~ was joint editor of the Jannet edition(1868-72) of the poems of ~Clément Marot~ (1496-1544). 

PAGE 62

[71] _Imitation of Christ_, Book III, chap. 43, 2. 

[72] ~Cædmon~. The first important religious poet in Old Englishliterature. Died about 680 A. D. 

[73] ~Ludovic Vitet~ (1802-73). French dramatist and politician. 

[74] ~Chanson de Roland~. The greatest of the _Chansons des Gestes_, long narrative poems dealing with warfare and adventure popular inFrance during the Middle Ages. It was composed in the eleventh century. Taillefer was the surname of a bard and warrior of the eleventh century. The tradition concerning him is related by Wace, _Roman de Rou_, thirdpart, v. , 8035-62, ed. Andreson, Heilbronn, 1879. The Bodleian _Roland_ends with the words: "ci folt la geste, que Turoldus declinet. " Turoldhas not been identified. 

PAGE 63

[75] "Then began he to call many things to remembrance, --all the landswhich his valor conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of hislineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him. "--_Chanson deRoland_, III, 939-42. [Arnold. ]

[76] "So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedæmon. "_Iliad_, III, 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey). [Arnold. ]

PAGE 64

[77] "Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? butye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born tomisery ye might have sorrow?"--_Iliad_, XVII, 443-445. [Arnold. ]

[78] "Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, happy. "--_Iliad_, XXIV, 543. [Arnold. ]

[79] "I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;--_they_ wailed. "--_Inferno_, XXXIII, 39, 40. [Arnold. ]

[80] "Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that yourmisery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me. "--_Inferno_, II, 91-93. [Arnold. ]

[81] "In His will is our peace. "--_Paradiso_, III, 85. [Arnold. ]

[82] _Henry IV_, part 2, III, i, 18-20. 

PAGE 65

[83] _Hamlet_, V, ii, 361-62. 

[84] _Paradise Lost_, I, 599-602. 

[85] _Ibid. _, I, 108-9. 

[86] _Ibid. _, IV, 271. 

PAGE 66

[87] _Poetics_, § 9. 

PAGE 67

[88] ~Provençal~, the language of southern France, from the southernFrench _oc_ instead of the northern _oïl_ for "yes. "

PAGE 68

[89] Dante acknowledges his debt to ~Latini~ (c. 1230-c. 1294), but thelatter was probably not his tutor. He is the author of the _Tesoretto_, a heptasyllabic Italian poem, and the prose _Livres dou Trésor_, a sortof encyclopedia of medieval lore, written in French because thatlanguage "is more delightful and more widely known. "

[90] ~Christian of Troyes~. A French poet of the second half of thetwelfth century, author of numerous narrative poems dealing with legendsof the Round Table. The present quotation is from the _Cligés_, ll. 30-39. 

PAGE 69

[91] Chaucer's two favorite stanzas, the seven-line and eight-linestanzas in heroic verse, were imitated from Old French poetry. See B. Ten Brink's _The Language and Meter of Chaucer_, 1901, pp. 353-57. 

[92] ~Wolfram von Eschenbach~. A medieval German poet, born in the endof the twelfth century. His best-known poem is the epic _Parzival_. 

PAGE 70

[93] From Dryden's _Preface to the Fables_, 1700. 

[94] The _Confessio Amantis_, the single English poem of ~John Gower~(c. 1330-1408), was in existence in 1392-93. 

PAGE 71

[95] ~souded~. The French _soudé_, soldered, fixed fast. [Arnold. ] Fromthe _Prioress's Tale_, ed. Skeat, 1894, B. 1769. The line should read, "O martir, souded to virginitee. "

PAGE 73

[96] ~François Villon~, born in or near Paris in 1431, thief and poet. His best-known poems are his _ballades_. See R. L. Stevenson's essay. 

[97] The name _Heaulmière_ is said to be derived from a headdress (helm)worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon's ballad, a poor old creature ofthis class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last stanza of theballad runs thus:

 "Ainsi le bon temps regretons Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes, Assises bas, à croppetons, Tout en ung tas comme pelottes; A petit feu de chenevottes Tost allumées, tost estainctes. Et jadis fusmes si mignottes! Ainsi en prend à maintz et maintes. "

"Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old things, low-seated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls; by a littlefire of hemp-stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we were suchdarlings! So fares it with many and many a one. "[Arnold. ]

PAGE 74

[98] From _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, 1688. 

[99] A statement to this effect is made by Dryden in the _Preface to theFables_. 

[100] From _Preface to the Fables_. 

PAGE 75

[101] See Wordsworth's _Essay, Supplementary to the Preface_, 1815, andColeridge's _Biographia Literaria_. 

[102] _An Apology for Smectymnuus_, Prose Works, ed. 1843, III, 117-18. Milton was thirty-four years old at this time. 

PAGE 76

[103] The opening words of Dryden's _Postscript to the Reader_ in thetranslation of Virgil, 1697. 

PAGE 77

[104] The opening lines of _The Hind and the Panther_. 

[105] _Imitations of Horace_, Book II, Satire 2, ll. 143-44. 

PAGE 78

[106] From _On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq. _

PAGE 79

[107] ~Clarinda~. A name assumed by Mrs. Maclehose in her sentimentalconnection with Burns, who corresponded with her under the name ofSylvander. 

[108] Burns to Mr. Thomson, October 19, 1794. 

PAGE 80

[109] From _The Holy Fair_. 

PAGE 81

[110] From _Epistle: To a Young Friend_. 

[111] From _Address to the Unco' Quid, or the Rigidly Righteous_. 

[112] From _Epistle: To Dr. Blacklock_. 

[Footnote 4: See his _Memorabilia_. ][Transcriber's note: The referencefor this footnote is missing from the original text. ]

PAGE 83

[113] From _Winter: A Dirge_. 

PAGE 84

[114] From Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_, III, iv, last line. 

[115] _Ibid. _, II, v. 

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

PAGE 87

[116] Reprinted (considerably revised) from the _Nineteenth Century_, August, 1882, vol. XII, in _Discourses in America_, Macmillan & Co. , 1885. It was the most popular of the three lectures given by Arnoldduring his visit to America in 1883-84. 

[117] Plato's _Republic_, 6. 495, _Dialogues_, ed. Jowett, 1875, vol. 3, p. 194. 

[118] ~working lawyer~. Plato's _Theoetetus, _ 172-73, _Dialogues_, IV, 231. 

PAGE 88

[119] ~majesty~. All editions read "majority. " What Emerson said was"majesty, " which is therefore substituted here. See Emerson's _LiteraryEthics, Works_, Centenary ed. , I, 179. 

PAGE 89

[120] "His whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement ofjustice and temperance and wisdom. . .. And in the first place, he willhonor studies which impress these qualities on his soul and willdisregard others. "--_Republic_, IX, 591, _Dialogues_, III, 305. 

PAGE 91

[121] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 52. [Transcriber'snote: This approximates to the section following the text reference forFootnote 61 in this e-text. ]

[122] Delivered October 1, 1880, and printed in _Science and Culture andOther Essays_, Macmillan & Co. , 1881. 

[123] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, pp. 52-53. [Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the textreference for Footnote 61 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 92

[124] See _L'Instruction supérieur en France_ in Renan's _QuestionsContemporaines_, Paris, 1868. 

PAGE 93

[125] ~Friedrich August Wolf~ (1759-1824), German philologist andcritic. 

PAGE 99

[126] See Plato's _Symposium, Dialogues_, II, 52-63. 

PAGE 100

[127] ~James Joseph Sylvester~ (1814-97), English mathematician. In1883, the year of Arnold's lecture, he resigned a position as teacher inJohns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to accept the Savilian Chair ofGeometry at Oxford. 

PAGE 101

[128] Darwin's famous proposition. _Descent of Man_, Part III, chap. XXI, ed. 1888, II, 424. 

PAGE 103

[129] ~Michael Faraday~ (1791-1867), English chemist and physicist, andthe discoverer of the induction of electrical currents. He belonged tothe very small Christian sect called after ~Robert Sandeman~, and hisopinion with respect to the relation between his science and hisreligion is expressed in a lecture on mental education printed at theend of his _Researches in Chemistry and Physics_. 

PAGE 105

[130] Eccles. VIII, 17. [Arnold. ]

[131] _Iliad_, XXIV, 49. [Arnold. ]

[132] Luke IX, 25. 

PAGE 107

[133] _Macbeth_, V, iii. 

PAGE 109

[134] A touching account of the devotion of ~Lady Jane Grey~ (1537-54)to her studies is to be found in Ascham's _Scholemaster_, Arber's ed. , 46-47. 

HEINRICH HEINE. 

PAGE 112

[135] Reprinted from the _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. VIII, August, 1863, in _Essays in Criticism_, 1st series, 1865. 

[136] Written from Paris, March 30, 1855. See Heine's _Memoirs_, ed. 1910, II, 270. 

PAGE 113

[137] The German Romantic school of ~Tieck~ (1773-1853), ~Novalis~(1772-1801), and ~Richter~ (1763-1825) followed the classical school ofSchiller and Goethe. It was characterized by a return to individualism, subjectivity, and the supernatural. Carlyle translated extracts fromTieck and Richter in his _German Romance_ (1827), and his _Critical andMiscellaneous Essays_ contain essays on Richter and Novalis. 

PAGE 114

[138] From _English Fragments; Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel_, ed. 1891, Leland's translation, _Works_, III, 466-67. 

PAGE 117

[139] ~Heine's~ birthplace was not ~Hamburg~, but ~Düsseldorf~. 

[140] ~Philistinism~. In German university slang the term _Philister_was applied to townsmen by students, and corresponded to the Englishuniversity "snob. " Hence it came to mean a person devoid of culture andenlightenment, and is used in this sense by Goethe in 1773. Heine wasespecially instrumental in popularizing the expression outside ofGermany. Carlyle first introduced it into English literature in 1827. Ina note to the discussion of Goethe in the second edition of _GermanRomance_, he speaks of a Philistine as one who "judged of Brunswick mum, by its _utility_. " He adds: "Stray specimens of the Philistine nationare said to exist in our own Islands; but we have no name for them likethe Germans. " The term occurs also in Carlyle's essays on _The State ofGerman Literature_, 1827, and _Historic Survey of German Poetry_, 1831. Arnold, however, has done most to establish the word in English usage. He applies it especially to members of the middle class who are swayedchiefly by material interests and are blind to the force of ideas andthe value of culture. Leslie Stephen, who is always ready to plead thecause of the Philistine, remarks: "As a clergyman always calls every onefrom whom he differs an atheist, and a bargee has one or two favoritebut unmentionable expressions for the same purpose, so a prig alwayscalls his adversary a Philistine. " _Mr. Matthew Arnold and the Church ofEngland, Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1870. 

[141] The word ~solecism~ is derived from[Greek: soloi], in Cilicia, owing to the corruption of the Attic dialect among the Atheniancolonists of that place. 

PAGE 118

[142] The "~gig~" as Carlyle's symbol of philistinism takes its originfrom a dialogue which took place in Thurtell's trial: "I always thoughthim a respectable man. " "What do you mean by 'respectable'?" "He kept agig. " From this he coins the words "gigman, " "gigmanity, " "gigmania, "which are of frequent occurrence in his writings. 

PAGE 119

[143] _English Fragments, Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 464. 

PAGE 120

[144] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 121

[145] _English Fragments_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 410-11. 

[146] Adapted from a line in Wordsworth's _Resolution and Independence_. 

PAGE 122

[147] ~Charles the Fifth~. Ruler of The Holy Roman Empire, 1500-58. 

PAGE 124

[148] _English Fragments, Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 468-70. 

[149] A complete edition has at last appeared in Germany. [Arnold. ]

PAGE 125

[150] ~Augustin Eugène Scribe~ (1791-1861), French dramatist, for fiftyyears the best exponent of the ideas of the French middle class. 

PAGE 126

[151] ~Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte~ (Napoleon III), 1808-73, son ofLouis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, by the _coup d'état_ ofDecember, 1851, became Emperor of France. This was accomplished againstthe resistance of the Moderate Republicans, partly through the favor ofhis democratic theories with the mass of the French people. Heine wasmistaken, however, in believing that the rule of Louis Napoleon hadprepared the way for Communism. An attempt to bring about a Communisticrevolution was easily crushed in 1871. 

PAGE 127

[152] ~J. J. Von Goerres~ (1776-1848), ~Klemens Brentano~ (1778-1842), and ~Ludwig Achim von Arnim~ (1781-1831) were the leaders of the secondGerman Romantic school and constitute the Heidelberg group of writers. They were much interested in the German past, and strengthened thenational and patriotic spirit. Their work, however, is often marred byexaggeration and affectation. 

PAGE 128

[153] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. X, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 199. 

PAGE 129

[154] Cf. _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 26. [Transcriber'snote: This approximates to the section following the text reference forFootnote 27 in this e-text. ]

[155] Job XII, 23: "He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth themagain. "

PAGE 131

[156] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, book I, 135: "he stands the shadow of a greatname. "

PAGE 132

[157] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 312-13. 

[158] ~Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh~ (1769-1822), as ForeignSecretary under Lord Liverpool, became the soul of the coalition againstNapoleon, which, during the campaigns of 1813-14, was kept together byhim alone. He committed suicide with a penknife in a fit of insanity inAugust, 1822. 

[159] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 324. 

[160] From _English Fragments_, 1828, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 340-42. 

PAGE 133

[161] Song in _Measure for Measure_, IV, i. 

[162][Transcriber's note: "From _The Dying One_: for translation see p. 142. " in original. Please see reference in text for Footnote 180. ]

PAGE 135

[163] From _Mountain Idyll, Travels in the Hartz Mountains, Book ofSongs. Works_, ed. 1904, pp. 219-21. 

[164] Published 1851. 

[165] ~Rhampsinitus~. A Greek corruption of _Ra-messu-pa-neter_, thepopular name of Rameses III, King of Egypt. 

[166] ~Edith with the Swan Neck~. A mistress of King Harold of England. 

[167] ~Melisanda of Tripoli~. Mistress of Geoffrey Rudel, thetroubadour. 

[168] ~Pedro the Cruel~. King of Castile (1334-69). 

[169] ~Firdusi~. A Persian poet, author of the epic poem, the_Shahnama_, or "Book of Kings, " a complete history of Persia in nearlysixty thousand verses. 

[170] ~Dr. Döllinger~. A German theologian and church historian(1799-1890). 

[171] _Spanish Atrides, Romancero, Works_, ed. 1905, pp. 200-04. 

[172] ~Henry of Trastamare~. King of Castile (1369-79). 

PAGE 137

[173] ~garbanzos~. A kind of pulse much esteemed in Spain. 

PAGE 138

[174] Adapted from Rom. VIII, 26. 

PAGE 139

[175] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 184-85. 

[176] _Romancero_, book III. 

PAGE 140

[177] ~Laura~. The heroine of Petrarch's famous series of love lyricsknown as the _Canzoniere_. 

[178] ~Court of Love~. For a discussion of this supposed medievaltribunal see William A. Neilson's _The Origins and Sources of the Courtof Love, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature_, Boston, 1899, chap. VIII. 

PAGE 142

[179] _Disputation, Romancero_, book III. 

[180] _The Dying One, Romancero_, book II, quoted entire. 

PAGE 143

[181] Written from Paris, September 30, 1850. See _Memoirs_, ed. 1910, II, 226-27. 

MARCUS AURELIUS. 

PAGE 145

[182] Reprinted from _The Victoria Magazine_, II, 1-9, November, 1863, in _Essays in Criticism_, 1865. 

[183] ~John Stuart Mill~ (1806-73), English philosopher and economist. _On Liberty_ (1859) is his most finished writing. 

[184] The _Imitation of Christ_ (_Imitatio Christi_), a famous medievalChristian devotional work, is usually ascribed to Thomas à Kempis(1380-1471), an Augustinian canon of Mont St. Agnes in the diocese ofUtrecht. 

PAGE 146

[185] ~Epictetus~. Greek Stoic philosopher (born c. A. D. 60). He is anearnest preacher of righteousness and his philosophy is eminentlypractical. For Arnold's personal debt to him see his sonnet _To aFriend_. 

PAGE 147

[186] ~Empedocles~. A Greek philosopher and statesman (c. 490-430 B. C. ). He is the subject of Arnold's early poetical drama, _Empedocles onEtna_, which he later suppressed for reasons which he states in thePreface to the _Poems_ of 1853. See _Selections_, pp. 1-3. [Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the textreference for Footnote 1 in this e-text. ]

[187] _Encheiridion_, chap. LII. 

[188] Ps. CXLIII, 10; incorrectly quoted. 

[189] Is. LX, 19. 

[190] Mal. IV, 2. 

[191] John I, 13. 

[192] John III, 5. 

PAGE 148

[193] 1 John V, 4. 

[194] Matt. XIX, 26. 

[195] 2 Cor. V, 17. 

[196] _Encheiridion_, chap. XLIII. 

[197] Matt. XVIII, 22. 

[198] Matt. XXII, 37-39, etc. 

PAGE 149

[199] ~George Long~ (1800-79), classical scholar. He published_Selections from Plutarch's Lives_, 1862; _Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius_, 1862; etc. 

[200] ~Thomas Arnold~ (1795-1842), English clergyman and headmaster ofRugby School, father of Matthew Arnold. 

PAGE 150

[201] ~Jeremy Collier~ (1650-1726). His best-known work is his _ShortView of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_, 1698, asharp and efficacious attack on the Post-Restoration drama. _The EmperorM. Aurelius Antoninus, his Conversation with himself_, appeared in 1701. 

PAGE 151

[202] _Meditations_, III, 14. 

PAGE 152

203. ~Antoninus Pius~. Roman Emperor, A. D. 138-161, and foster-father ofM. Aurelius. 

[204] To become current in men's speech. 

[205] The real name of ~Voltaire~ was ~François Marie Arouet~. The nameVoltaire was assumed in 1718 and is supposed to be an anagram of Arouetle j(eune). 

PAGE 154

[206] See _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 36. [Transcriber'snote: This approximates to the section following the text reference forFootnote 36 in this e-text. ]

[207] ~Louis IX of France~ (1215-70), the leader of the crusade of 1248. 

PAGE 155

[208] ~The Saturday Review~, begun in 1855, was pronouncedlyconservative in politics. It devoted much space to pure criticism andscholarship, and Arnold's essays are frequently criticized in itscolumns. 

[209] He died on the 17th of March, A. D. 180. [Arnold. ]

PAGE 156

[210] ~Juvenal's sixth satire~ is a scathing arraignment of the vicesand follies of the women of Rome during the reign of Domitian. 

[211] See Juvenal, _Sat. _ 3, 76. 

[212] Because he lacks an inspired poet (to sing his praises). Horace, _Odes_, IV, 9, 28. 

PAGE 157

[213] ~Avidius Cassius~, a distinguished general, declared himselfEmperor in Syria in 176 A. D. Aurelius proceeded against him, deploringthe necessity of taking up arms against a trusted officer. Cassius wasslain by his own officers while M. Aurelius was still in Illyria. 

[214] ~Commodus~. Emperor of Rome, 180-192 A. D. He was dissolute andtyrannical. 

[215] ~Attalus~, a Roman citizen, was put to death with other Christiansin A. D. 177. 

[216] ~Polycarp~, Bishop of Smyrna, and one of the Apostolic Fathers, suffered martyrdom in 155 A. D. 

PAGE 159

[217] ~Tacitus~, _Ab Excessu Augusti_, XV, 44. 

PAGE 161

[218] ~Claude Fleury~ (1640-1723), French ecclesiastical historian, author of the _Histoire Ecclésiastique_, 20 vols. , 1691. 

PAGE 163

[219] _Med. _, I, 12. 

[220] _Ibid. _, I, 14. 

[221] _Ibid. _, IV, 24. 

PAGE 164

[222] _Ibid. _, III, 4. 

PAGE 165

[223] _Ibid. _, V, 6. 

[224] _Ibid. _, IX, 42. 

[225] ~Lucius Annæus Seneca~ (c. 3 B. C. -A. D. 65), statesman andphilosopher. His twelve so-called _Dialogues_ are Stoic sermons of apractical and earnest character. 

PAGE 166

[226] _Med. _, III, 2. 

PAGE 167

[227] _Ibid. _, V, 5. 

[228] _Ibid. _, VIII, 34. 

PAGE 168

[229] _Ibid. _, IV, 3. 

PAGE 169

[230] _Ibid. _, I, 17. 

[231] ~Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian~. Roman Emperors, 14-37 A. D. , 37-41 A. D. , 54-68 A. D. , and 81-96 A. D. 

[232] _Med. _, IV, 28. 

[233] _Ibid. _, V, 11. 

PAGE 170

[234] _Ibid. _, X, 8. 

PAGE 171

[235] _Ibid. _, IV, 32. 

[236] _Ibid. _, V, 33. 

[237] _Ibid. _, IX, 30. 

[238] _Ibid. _, VII, 55. 

PAGE 172

[239] _Ibid. _, VI, 48. 

[240] _Ibid. _, IX, 3. 

PAGE 173

[241] Matt. XVII, 17. 

[242] _Med. _, X, 15. 

[243] _Ibid. _, VI, 45. 

[244] _Ibid. _, V, 8. 

[245] _Ibid. _, VII, 55. 

PAGE 174

[246] _Ibid. _, IV, 1. 

[247] _Ibid. _, X, 31. 

[248] _Ibid. _

PAGE 175

[249] ~Alogi~. An ancient sect that rejected the Apocalypse and theGospel of St. John. 

[250] ~Gnosis~. Knowledge of spiritual truth or of matters commonlyconceived to pertain to faith alone, such as was claimed by theGnostics, a heretical Christian sect of the second century. 

[251] The correct reading is _tendebantque_ (_Æneid_, VI, 314), whichArnold has altered to apply to the present case. 

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE

PAGE 176

[252] From _On The Study of Celtic Literature_, London, 1867, chap. VI. It was previously published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, vols. XIII andXIV, March-July, 1866. In the Introduction to the book Arnold says: "Thefollowing remarks on the study of Celtic literature formed the substanceof four lectures given by me last year and the year before in the chairof poetry at Oxford. " The chapter is slightly abridged in the presentselection. 

PAGE 177

[253] _Paradise Lost_, III, 32-35. 

[254] _Tasso_, I, 2, 304-05. 

[255] ~Menander~. The most famous Greek poet of the New Comedy (342-291B. C. ). 

PAGE 179

[256] ~Gemeinheit~. Arnold defines the word five lines below. 

[257] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text. ]

[258] ~Bossuet~. See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 49. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text. ]

[259] ~Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke~ (1678-1751), Englishstatesman and man of letters, was author of the _Idea of a PatriotKing_. Arnold is inclined to overestimate the quality of his style. 

PAGE 180

[260] ~Taliessin~ and ~Llywarch Hen~ are the names of Welsh bards, supposedly of the late sixth century, whose poems are contained in the_Red Book of Hergest_, a manuscript formerly preserved in Jesus College, Oxford, and now in the Bodleian. Nothing further is known of them. ~Ossian~, ~Ossin~, or ~Oisin~, was a legendary Irish third century heroand poet, the son of Finn. In Scotland the Ossianic revival was due toJames Macpherson. See Note 1, p. 181. [Transcriber's note: This isFootnote 262 in this e-text. ]

[261] From the _Black Book of Caermarthen_, 19. 

PAGE 181

[262] ~James Macpherson~ (1736-96) published anonymously in 1760 his_Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland andtranslated from the Gaelic or Erse language_. This was followed by anepic _Fingal_ and other poems. Their authenticity was early doubted anda controversy followed. They are now generally believed to be forgeries. The passage quoted, as well as references to Selma, "woody Morven, " and"echoing Lora" (not _Sora_), is from _Carthon: a Poem_. 

PAGE 182

[263] ~Werther~. Goethe's _Die Leiden des jungen Werthers_ (1774) was aproduct of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement in German literature, andresponsible for its sentimental excesses. Goethe mentions Ossian inconnection with Homer in _Werther_, book II, "am 12. October, " andtranslates several passages of considerable length toward the close ofthis book. 

[264] ~Prometheus~. An unfinished drama of Goethe's, of which a finefragment remains. 

PAGE 183

[265] For ~Llywarch Hen~, see Note 1, p. 180. [Transcriber's note: Thisis Footnote 260 in this e-text. ] The present quotation is from book IIof the _Red Book_. A translation of the poem differing somewhat from theone quoted by Arnold is contained in W. F. Skene's _The Four AncientBooks of Wales_, Edinburgh, 1868. 

[266] From _On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year_, 1824. 

[267] From _Euthanasia_, 1812. 

PAGE 184

[268] ~Manfred, Lara, Cain~. Heroes of Byron's poems so named. 

[269] From _Paradise Lost_, I, 105-09. 

PAGE 185

[270] Rhyme, --the most striking characteristic of our modern poetry asdistinguished from that of the ancients, and a main source, to ourpoetry, of its magic and charm, of what we call its _romantic element_--rhyme itself, all the weight of evidence tends to show, comes into ourpoetry from the Celts. [Arnold. ] A different explanation is given by J. Schipper, _A History of English Versification_, Oxford, 1910: "End-rhymeor full-rhyme seems to have arisen independently and without historicalconnection in several nations. .. . Its adoption into all modernliterature is due to the extensive use made of it in the hymns of thechurch. "

[271] Lady Guest's _Mabinogion, Math the Son of Mathonwy_, ed. 1819, III, 239. 

[272] _Mabinogion, Kilhwch and Olwen_, II, 275. 

PAGE 186

[273] _Mabinogion, Peredur the Son of Evrawc_, I, 324. 

[274] _Mabinogion, Geraint the Son of Erbin_, II, 112. 

PAGE 187

[275] ~Novalis~. The pen-name of ~Friedrich von Hardenberg~ (1772-1801), sometimes called the "Prophet of Romanticism. " See Carlyle's essay onNovalis. 

[276] For ~Rückert~, see _Wordsworth, Selections_, Note 4, p. 224. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 356 in this e-text. ]

[277] Take the following attempt to render the natural magic supposed topervade Tieck's poetry: "In diesen Dichtungen herrscht einegeheimnissvolle Innigkeit, ein sonderbares Einverständniss mit derNatur, besonders mit der Pflanzen-und Steinreich. Der Leser fühlt sichda wie in einem verzauberten Walde; er hört die unterirdischen Quellenmelodisch rauschen; wildfremde Wunderblumen schauen ihn an mit ihrenbunten sehnsüchtigen Augen; unsichtbare Lippen küssen seine Wangen mitneckender Zärtlichkeit; _hohe Pilze, wie goldne Glocken, wachsenklingend empor am Fusse der Bäume_"; and so on. Now that stroke of the_hohe Pilze_, the great funguses, would have been impossible to the tactand delicacy of a born lover of nature like the Celt; and could onlyhave come from a German who has _hineinstudirt_ himself into naturalmagic. It is a crying false note, which carries us at once out of theworld of nature-magic, and the breath of the woods, into the world oftheatre-magic and the smell of gas and orange-peel. [Arnold. ]

~Johann Ludwig Tieck~ (1773-1853) was one of the most prominent of theGerman romanticists. He was especially felicitous in the rehandling ofthe old German fairy tales. The passage quoted above is from Heine's_Germany_, Part II, book II, chap. II. The following is the translationof C. G. Leland, slightly altered: "In these compositions we feel amysterious depth of meaning, a marvellous union with nature, especiallywith the realm of plants and stones. The reader seems to be in anenchanted forest; he hears subterranean springs and streams rustlingmelodiously and his own name whispered by the trees. Broad-leavedclinging plants wind vexingly about his feet, wild and strangewonderflowers look at him with vari-colored longing eyes, invisible lipskiss his cheeks with mocking tenderness, great funguses like goldenbells grow singing about the roots of trees. "

[278] _Winter's Tale_, IV, iii, 118-20. 

[279] Arnold doubtless refers to the passage in _The Solitary Reaper_referred to in a similar connection in the essay on Maurice de Guérin, though Wordsworth has written two poems _To the Cuckoo_. 

[280] The passage on the mountain birch-tree, which is quoted in theessay on Maurice de Guérin, is from Sénancour's _Obermann_, letter 11. For his delicate appreciation of the Easter daisy see _Obermann_, letter91. 

PAGE 188

[281]. Pope's _Iliad_, VIII, 687. 

[282] Propertius, _Elegies_, book I, 20, 21-22: "The band of heroescovered the pleasant beach with leaves and branches woven together. "

[283] _Idylls_, XIII, 34. The present reading of the line gives[Greek:hekeito, mega]: "A meadow lay before them, very good for beds. "

[284] From the _Ode to a Grecian Urn_. 

PAGE 189

[285] That is, _Dedication_. 

[286] From the _Ode to a Nightingale_. 

[287] _Ibid. _

PAGE 190

[288] Virgil, _Eclogues_, VII, 45. 

[289] _Ibid. _, II, 47-48: "Plucking pale violets and the tallestpoppies, she joins with them the narcissus and the flower of thefragrant dill. "

[290] _Ibid. _, II, 51-52: "I will gather quinces, white with delicatedown, and chestnuts. "

[291] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 249-52. 

[292] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 58-59. 

[293] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 83-85. 

PAGE 191

[294] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 1 ff. 

GEORGE SAND

PAGE 192

[295] Reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_ for June, 1877, in _MixedEssays_, Smith, Elder & Co. , 1879. ~Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant~, née ~Dupin~ (1804-76), was the most prolific woman writer of France. Thepseudonym ~George Sand~ was a combination of George, the typicalBerrichon name, and Sand, abbreviated from (Jules) Sandeau, incollaboration with whom she began her literary career. 

[296] ~Indiana~, George Sand's first novel, 1832. 

[297] ~Nohant~ is a village of Berry, one of the ancient provinces ofFrance, comprising the modern departments of Cher and Indre. The ~Indre~and the ~Creuse~ are its chief rivers. ~Vierzon, Châteauroux, LeChâtre~, and ~Ste. -Sévère~ are towns of the province. ~Le Puy~ is in theneighboring department of Haute-Loire, and ~La Marche~ is in thedepartment of Vosges. For the ~Vallée Noire~ see Sand's _The Miller ofAngibault_, chap. III, etc. 

[298] ~Jeanne~. The first of a series of novels in which the pastoralelement prevails. It was published in 1844. 

[299] The ~Pierres Jaunâtres~ (or ~Jomâtres~) is a district in themountains of the Creuse (see _Jeanne, Prologue_). ~Touix Ste. -Croix~ isa ruined Gallic town (_Jeanne_, chap. I). For the druidical stones of~Mont Barlot~ see _Jeanne_, chap. VII. 

PAGE 193

[300] ~Cassini's great map~. A huge folio volume containing 183 chartsof the various districts of France, published by Mess. Maraldi andCassini de Thury, Paris, 1744. 

[301] For an interesting description of the patache, or rustic carriage, see George Sand's _Miller of Angibault_, chap. II. 

[302] ~landes~. An infertile moor. 

PAGE 194

[303] ~Maurice and Solange~. See, for example, the _Letters of aTraveller_. 

[304] ~Chopin~. George Sand's friendship for the composer Chopin beganin 1837. 

PAGE 195

[305] ~Jules Michelet~ (1798-1874), French historian. 

[306] ~her death~. George Sand died at Nohant, June 8, 1876. 

PAGE 196

[307]. From the _Journal d'un Voyageur_, September 15, 1870, ed. 1871, p. 2. 

[308] ~Consuelo~ (1842-44) is George Sand's best-known novel. 

[309] ~Edmée, Geneviève, Germain~. Characters in the novels _Mauprat, André_, and _La Mare au Diable_. 

[310] ~Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, François le Champi~. Published in1830-36, 1836, and 1848. 

[311] ~F. W. H. Myers~ (1843-1901), poet and essayist. See his _Essays, Modern_, ed. 1883, pp. 70-103. 

PAGE 197

[312] ~Valvèdre~. Published in 1861. 

[313] ~Werther~. See _The Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note1, p. 182. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 263 in this e-text. ]

[314] ~Corinne~. An esthetic romance (1807) by Mme. De Staël. 

[315] ~Valentine~ (1832), George Sand's second novel, pointed out "thedangers and pains of an ill-assorted marriage. " ~Lélia~ (1833) was astill more outspoken diatribe against society and the marriage law. 

PAGE 199

[316] From _Lélia_, chap. LXVII. 

[317] ~Jacques~ (1834), the hero of which is George Sand in man'sdisguise, sets forth the author's doctrine of free love. 

[318] From _Jacques_, letter 95. 

PAGE 200

[319] From _Lettres d'un Voyageur_, letter 9. 

[320] _Ibid. _, à Rollinat, September, 1834. 

PAGE 203

[321] ~Hans Holbein~, the younger (1497-1543), German artist. 

PAGE 205

[322] From _La Mare au Diable_, chap. 1. 

[323] _Ibid. _, _The Author to the Reader_. 

PAGE 206

[324] _Ibid. _, chap. 1. 

PAGE 207

[325] _Ibid. _, chap. 1. 

PAGE 208

[326] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, ed. 1873, p. 135. 

[327] _Ibid. _, p. 137. 

[328] From Wordsworth's _Lines Composed a few Miles above TinternAbbey_. 

[329] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, p. 136. 

PAGE 209

[330] _Ibid. _, p. 139. 

PAGE 210

[331] _Ibid. _, p. 269. 

[332] _Ibid. _, p. 253. 

PAGE 211

[333] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 29. [Transcriber'snote: This approximates to the section following the text reference forFootnote 29 in this e-text. ]

[334] ~Émile Zola~ (1840-1902), French novelist, was the apostle of the"realistic" or "naturalistic" school. _L'Assommoir_ (1877) depictsespecially the vice of drunkenness. 

PAGE 212

[335] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 305. 

[336] ~Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye~ (1822-92), Belgian economist. Hewas especially interested in bimetallism, primitive property, andnationalism. 

PAGE 213

[337] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, December 21, 1870, p. 202. 

PAGE 214

[338] _Ibid. _, December 21, 1870, p. 220. 

PAGE 215

[339] _Ibid. _, February 7, 1871, p. 228. 

[340] _Round my House: Notes of Rural Life in France in Peace and War_(1876), by ~Philip Gilbert Hamerton~. See especially chapters XI andXII. 

[341] ~Barbarians, Philistines, Populace~. Arnold's designations for thearistocratic, middle, and lower classes of England in _Culture andAnarchy_. 

PAGE 216

[342] ~Paul Amand Challemel-Lacour~ (1827-96), French statesman and manof letters. 

[343] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 4, p. 44. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 54 in this e-text. ]

[344] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 309. 

PAGE 217

[345] The closing sentence of the Nicene Creed with _expecto_ changed to_exspectat_. For the English translation see Morning Prayer in theEpiscopal Prayer Book; for the Greek and Latin see Schaff, _Creeds ofChristendom_, II, 58, 59. 

WORDSWORTH

PAGE 218

[346] Published in _Macmillan's Magazine_, July, 1879, vol. XL; asPreface to _The Poems of Wordsworth_, chosen and edited by Arnold in1879; and in _Essays in Criticism_, Second Series, 1888. 

PAGE 219

[347] ~Rydal Mount~. Wordsworth's home in the Lake District from 1813until his death in 1850. 

[348] ~1842~. The year of publication of the two-volume edition ofTennyson's poems, containing _Locksley Hall_, _Ulysses_, etc. 

PAGE 221

[349] ~candid friend~. Arnold himself. 

PAGE 222

[350] The _Biographie Universelle, ou Dictionnaire historique_ of F. X. De Feller (1735-1802) was originally published in 1781. 

[351] ~Henry Cochin~. A brilliant lawyer and writer of Paris, 1687-1747. 

PAGE 223

[352] ~Amphictyonic Court~. An association of Ancient Greek communitiescentering in a shrine. 

PAGE 224

[353] ~Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock~ (1724-1803) was author of _DerMessias_. 

[354] ~Lessing~. See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 2, p. 271. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 427 in this e-text. ]

[355] ~Johann Ludwig Uhland~ (1787-1862), romantic lyric poet. 

[356] ~Friedrich Rückert~ (1788-1866) was the author of _Liebesfrühling_and other poems. 

[357] ~Heine~. See _Heinrich Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. 

[358] The greatest poems of ~Vicenzo da Filicaja~ (1642-1707) are sixodes inspired by the victory of Sobieski. 

[359] ~Vittorio, Count Alfieri~ (1749-1803), Italian dramatist. Hisbest-known drama is his _Saul_. 

[360] ~Manzoni~ (1785-1873) was a poet and novelist, author of _IPromessi Sposi_. 

[361] ~Giacomo, Count Leopardi~ (1798-1837), Italian poet. His writingsare characterized by deep-seated melancholy. 

[362] ~Jean Racine~ (1639-99), tragic dramatist. 

[363] ~Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux~ (1636-1711), poet and critic. 

[364] ~André de Chénier~ (1762-94), poet, author of _Jeune Captive_, etc. 

[365] ~Pierre Jean de Béranger~ (1780-1857), song-writer. 

[366] ~Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine~ (1790-1869), poet, historian, and statesman. 

[367] ~Louis Charles Alfred de Musset~ (1810-57), poet, play-writer, andnovelist. 

PAGE 228

[368] From _The Recluse_, l. 754. 

PAGE 229

[369] _Paradise Lost_, XI, 553-54. 

PAGE 230

[370] _The Tempest_, IV, i, 156-58. 

[371] ~criticism of life~. See _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note1, p. 57. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 66 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 231

[372] _Discourses_ of Epictetus, trans. Long, 1903, vol. I, book II, chap. XXIII, p. 248. 

PAGE 232

[373] ~Théophile Gautier~. A noted French poet, critic, and novelist, and a leader of the French Romantic Movement (1811-72). 

[374] _The Recluse_, ll. 767-71. 

[375] _Æneid_, VI, 662. 

PAGE 233

[376] ~Leslie Stephen~. English biographer and literary critic(1832-1904). He was the first editor of the _Dictionary of NationalBiography_. Arnold quotes from the essay on _Wordsworth's Ethics_ in_Hours in a Library_ (1874-79), vol. III. 

[377] _Excursion_, IV, 73-76. 

PAGE 234

[378] _Ibid. _, II, 10-17. 

[379] _Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of EarlyChildhood_. 

PAGE 235

[380] _Excursion_, IX, 293-302. 

PAGE 236

[381] See p. 232. [Transcriber's note: This approximates to the sectionfollowing the text reference for Footnote 373 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 237

[382] ~the "not ourselves. "~ Arnold quotes his own definition of God as"the enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness. " See_Literature and Dogma_, chap. I. 

[383] The opening sentence of a famous criticism of the _Excursion_published in the _Edinburgh Review_ for November, 1814, no. 47. It waswritten by ~Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey~ (1773-1850), Scottish judgeand literary critic, and first editor of the _Edinburgh Review_. 

PAGE 238

[384] _Macbeth_, III, ii. 

[385] _Paradise Lost_, VII, 23-24. 

[386] _The Recluse_, l. 831. 

PAGE 239

[387] From Burns's _A Bard's Epitaph_. 

PAGE 240

[388] The correct title is _The Solitary Reaper_. 

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT

PAGE 242

[389] This selection is the first chapter of _Culture and Anarchy_. Itoriginally formed a part of the last lecture delivered by Arnold asProfessor of Poetry at Oxford. _Culture and Anarchy_ was first printedin _The Cornhill Magazine_, July 1867, -August, 1868, vols. XVI-XVIII. Itwas published as a book in 1869. 

[390] For ~Sainte-Beuve~, see _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note 2, p. 56. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 65 in this e-text. ] The article referred to appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1866, vol. CXIX, p. 80. It finds fault with Sainte-Beuve's lack ofconclusiveness, and describes him as having "spent his life in fittinghis mind to be an elaborate receptacle for well-arranged doubts. " Inthis respect a comparison is made with Arnold's "graceful but perfectlyunsatisfactory essays. "

PAGE 243

[391] From Montesquieu's _Discours sur les motifs qui doivent nousencourager aux sciences, prononcé le 15 Novembre, 1725_. Montesquieu's_Oeuvres complètes_, ed. Laboulaye, VII, 78. 

PAGE 244

[392] ~Thomas Wilson~ (1663-1755) was consecrated Bishop of Sodor andMan in 1698. His episcopate was marked by a number of reforms in theIsle of Man. The opening pages of Arnold's _Preface_ to _Culture andAnarchy_ are devoted to an appreciation of Wilson. He says: "On a lowerrange than the _Imitation_, and awakening in our nature chords lesspoetical and delicate, the _Maxims_ of Bishop Wilson are, as a religiouswork, far more solid. To the most sincere ardor and unction, BishopWilson unites, in these _Maxims_, that downright honesty and plain goodsense which our English race has so powerfully applied to the divineimpossibilities of religion; by which it has brought religion so muchinto practical life, and has done its allotted part in promoting uponearth the kingdom of God. "

[393] ~will of God prevail~. _Maxim_ 450 reads: "A prudent Christianwill resolve at all times to sacrifice his inclinations to reason, andhis reason to the will and word of God. "

PAGE 247

[394] From Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_, Noon Prayers, _Works_, ed. 1781, I, 199. 

PAGE 248

[395] ~John Bright~ (1811-89) was a leader with Cobden in the agitationfor repeal of the Corn Laws and other measures of reform, and was one ofEngland's greatest masters of oratory. 

[396] ~Frederic Harrison~ (1831-), English jurist and historian, waspresident of the English Positivist Committee, 1880-1905. His _Creed ofa Layman_ (1907) is a statement of his religious position. 

PAGE 249

[397] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 37. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 38 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 253

[398] 1 Tim. , IV, 8. 

[399] The first of the "Rules of Health and Long Life" in _PoorRichard's Almanac_ for December, 1742. The quotation should read: "asthe Constitution of thy Body allows of. "

[400] Epictetus, _Encheiridion_, chap. XLI. 

[401] ~Sweetness and Light~. The phrase is from Swift's _The Battle ofthe Books, Works_, ed. Scott, 1824, X, 240. In the apologue of theSpider and the Bee the superiority of the ancient over the modernwriters is thus summarized: "Instead of dirt and poison we have ratherchose to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind withthe two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light. "

PAGE 256

[402] ~Independents~. The name applied in England during the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries to the denomination now known asCongregationalists. 

[403] From Burke's Speech on _Conciliation with America, Works_, ed. 1834, I, 187. 

[404] 1 Pet. , III, 8. 

PAGE 258

[405] ~Epsom~. A market town in Surrey, where are held the famous Derbyraces, founded in 1780. 

PAGE 259

[406] Sallust's _Catiline_, chap. LII, § 22. 

[407] The ~Daily Telegraph~ was begun in June, 1855, as a twopennynewspaper. It became the great organ of the middle classes and has beendistinguished for its enterprise in many fields. Up to 1878 it wasconsistently Liberal in politics. It is a frequent object of Arnold'sirony as the mouthpiece of English philistinism. 

PAGE 261

[408] ~Young Leo~ (or ~Leo Adolescens~) is Arnold's name for the typicalwriter of the _Daily Telegraph_ (see above). He is a prominent characterof _Friendship's Garland_. 

PAGE 262

[409] ~Edmond Beales~ (1803-81), political agitator, was especiallyidentified with the movement for manhood suffrage and the ballot, andwas the leading spirit in two large popular demonstrations in London in1866. 

[410] ~Charles Bradlaugh~ (1833-91), freethought advocate andpolitician. His efforts were especially directed toward maintaining thefreedom of the press in issuing criticisms on religious belief andsociological questions. In 1880 he became a Member of Parliament, andbegan a long and finally successful struggle for the right to take hisseat in Parliament without the customary oath on the Bible. 

[411] ~John Henry Newman~ (1801-90) was the leader of the OxfordMovement in the English Church. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ (1864) was adefense of his religious life and an account of the causes which led himfrom Anglicanism to Romanism. For his hostility to Liberalism see the_Apologia_, ed. 1907, pp. 34, 212, and 288. 

[412] _Æneid_, I, 460. 

PAGE 263

[413] ~The Reform Bill of 1832~ abolished fifty-six "rotten" boroughsand made other changes in representation to Parliament, thustransferring a large share of political power from the landedaristocracy to the middle classes. 

[414] ~Robert Lowe~ (1811-92), afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke, heldoffices in the Board of Education and Board of Trade. He was liberal, but opposed the Reform Bill of that party in 1866-67. His speeches onthe subject were printed in 1867. 

PAGE 266

[415] ~Jacobinism~. The _Société des Jacobins_ was the most famous ofthe political clubs of the French Revolution. Later the term ~Jacobin~was applied to any promulgator of extreme revolutionary or radicalopinions. 

[416] See _ante_, Note 2, p. 248. 

[417] ~Auguste Comte~ (1798-1857), French philosopher and founder ofPositivism. This system of thought attempts to base religion on theverifiable facts of existence, opposes devotion to the study ofmetaphysics, and substitutes the worship of Humanity for supernaturalreligion. 

[418] ~Richard Congreve~ (1818-99) resigned a fellowship at Oxford in1855, and devoted the remainder of his life to the propagation of thePositive philosophy. 

PAGE 267

[419] ~Jeremy Bentham~ (1748-1832), philosopher and jurist, was leaderof the English school of Utilitarianism, which recognizes "the greatesthappiness of the greatest number" as the proper foundation of moralityand legislation. 

[420] ~Ludwig Preller~ (1809-61), German philologist and antiquarian. 

PAGE 268

[421] ~Book of Job~. Arnold must have read Franklin's piece hastily, since he has mistaken a bit of ironic trifling for a serious attempt torewrite the Scriptures. The _Proposed New Version of the Bible_ ismerely a bit of amusing burlesque in which six verses of the Book of Jobare rewritten in the style of modern politics. According to Mr. WilliamTemple Franklin the _Bagatelles_, of which the _Proposed New Version_ isa part, were "chiefly written by Dr. Franklin for the amusement of hisintimate society in London and Paris. " See Franklin's _Complete Works_, ed. 1844, II, 164. 

[422] ~The Deontology~, or _The Science of Morality_, was arranged andedited by John Bowring, in 1834, two years after Bentham's death, and itis doubtful how far it represents Bentham's thoughts. 

[423] ~Henry Thomas Buckle~ (1821-62) was the author of the _History ofCivilization in England_, a book which, though full of inaccuracies, hashad a great influence on the theory and method of historical writing. 

[424] ~Mr. Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius, Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text. ]

PAGE 269

[425] The article from which Arnold quotes these extracts is notFrederic Harrison's _Culture: A Dialogue_, but an earlier essay in the_Fortnightly Review_ for March 1, 1867, called _Our VenetianConstitution_, See pages 276-77 of the article. 

PAGE 271

[426] ~Peter Abelard~ (1079-1142) was a scholastic philosopher and aleader in the more liberal thought of his day. 

[427] ~Gotthold Ephraim Lessing~ (1729-81), German critic and dramatist. His best-known writings are the epoch-making critical work, _Laokoön_(1766), and the drama _Minna van Barnhelm_ (1767). His ideas were in thehighest degree stimulating and fruitful to the German writers whofollowed him. 

[428] ~Johann Gottfried von Herder~ (1744-1803), a voluminous andinfluential German writer, was a pioneer of the Romantic Movement. Hechampioned adherence to the national type in literature, and helped tofound the historical method in literature and science. 

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[429] _Confessions of St. Augustine_, XIII, 18, 22, Everyman'sLibrary ed. , p. 326. 

HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM

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[430] The present selection comprises chapter IV, of _Culture andAnarchy_. In the preceding chapter Arnold has been pointing out theimperfection of the various classes of English society, which hedescribes as "Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace. " For the correctionof this imperfection he pleads for "some public recognition andestablishment of our best self, or right reason. " In chapter III, he hasshown how "our habits and practice oppose themselves to such arecognition. " He now proposes to find, "beneath our actual habits andpractice, the very ground and cause out of which they spring. " Thenfollows the selection here given. 

Professor Gates has pointed out the fact that Arnold probably borrowsthe terms here contrasted from Heine. In _Über Ludwig Börne_ (_Werke_, ed. Stuttgart, X, 12), Heine says: "All men are either Jews or Hellenes, men ascetic in their instincts, hostile to culture, spiritual fanatics, or men of vigorous good cheer, full of the pride of life, Naturalists. "For Heine's own relation to Hebraism and Hellenism, see the presentselection, p. 275. 

[431] See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 1, p. 244. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 392 in this e-text. ] _Maxim_ 452reads: "Two things a Christian will never do--never go against the bestlight he has, this will prove his sincerity, and, 2, to take care thathis light be not darkness, i. E. , that he mistake not his rule by whichhe ought to go. "

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[432] 2 Pet. I, 4. 

[433] ~Frederick William Robertson~ (1816-53) began his famous ministryat Brighton in 1847. He was a man of deep spirituality and greatsincerity. The latter part of his life was clouded by opposition rousedby his sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1848 epoch and bythe mental trouble which eventually resulted in his death. The sermonreferred to seems to be the first Advent Lecture on _The Greek_. Arnoldobjects to Robertson's rather facile summarizing. Four characteristicsare mentioned as marking Grecian life and religion: restlessness, worldliness, worship of the beautiful, and worship of the human. Thesecond of these has three results, disappointment, degradation, disbelief in immortality. 

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[434] ~Heinrich Heine~. See _Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. [Transcriber's note: This section begins at the text reference forFootnote 135 in this e-text. ]

[435] Prov. XXIX, 18. 

[436] Ps. CXII, 1. 

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[437] Rom. III, 31. 

[438] Zech. IX, 13. 

[439] Prov. XVI, 22. 

[440] John I, 4-9; 8-12; Luke II, 32, etc. 

[441] John VIII, 32. 

[442] _Nichomachæan Ethics_, bk. II, chap. III. 

[443] Jas. I, 25. 

[444] _Discourses of Epictetus_, bk. II, chap. XIX, trans. Long, I, 214 ff. 

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[445] ~Learning to die~. Arnold seems to be thinking of _Phædo_, 64, _Dialogues_, II, 202: "For I deem that the true votary of philosophy islikely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he isalways pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had thedesire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should herepine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?" Platogoes on to show that life is best when it is most freed from theconcerns of the body. Cf. Also _Phædrus_ (_Dialogues_, II, 127) and_Gorgias_ (_Dialogues_, II, 369). 

[446] 2 Cor. V, 14. 

[447] See Aristotle, _Nichomachæan Ethics_, bk. X, chaps. VIII, IX. 

[448] _Phædo_, 82D, _Dialogues_, I, 226. 

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[449] Xenophon's _Memorabilia_, bk. IV, chap. VIII, § 6. 

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[450] ~Edward Bouverie Pusey~ (1800-82), English divine and leader ofthe High Church party in the Oxford Movement. 

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[451] Zech. VIII, 23. 

[452] ~my Saviour banished joy~. The sentence is an incorrect quotationfrom George Herbert's _The Size_, the fifth stanza of which begins:--

 "Thy Savior sentenced joy, And in the flesh condemn'd it as unfit, -- At least in lump. "

[453] Eph. V, 6. 

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[454] The first two books. [Arnold. ]

[455] See Rom. III, 2. 

[456] See Cor. III, 19. 

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[457] ~Phædo~. In this dialogue Plato attempts to substantiate thedoctrine of immortality by narrating the last hours of Socrates and hisconversation on this subject when his own death was at hand. 

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[458] ~Renascence~. I have ventured to give to the foreign word_Renaissance_--destined to become of more common use amongst us as themovement which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly tointerest us, --an English form. [Arnold. ]

EQUALITY

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[459] This essay, originally an address delivered at the RoyalInstitution, was published in the _Fortnightly Review_, for March, 1878, and reprinted in _Mixed Essays_, 1879. In the present selection theopening pages have been omitted. Arnold begins with a statement ofEngland's tendency to maintain a condition of inequality betweenclasses. This is reinforced by the English freedom of bequest, a freedomgreater than in most of the Continental countries. The question of theadvisability of altering the English law of bequest is a matter not ofabstract right, but of expediency. That the maintenance of inequality isexpedient for English civilization and welfare is generally assumed. Whether or not this assumption is well founded, Arnold proposes toexamine in the concluding pages. As a preliminary step he definescivilization as the humanization of man in society. Then follows theselected passage. 

[460] ~Isocrates~. An Attic orator (436-338 B. C. ). He was an ardentadvocate of Greek unity. The passage quoted occurs in the _Panegyricus_, § 50, _Orations_, ed. 1894, p. 67. 

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[461] ~Giacomo Antonelli~ (1806-76), Italian cardinal. From 1850 untilhis death his activity was chiefly devoted to the struggle between thePapacy and the Italian Risorgimento. 

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[462] ~famous passage~. The _Introduction_ to his _Age of Louis XIV_. 

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[463] ~Laveleye~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 212. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 336 in this e-text. ]

[464] ~Sir Thomas Erskine May, Lord Farnborough~ (1815-86), constitutional jurist. Arnold in the omitted portion of the presentessay has quoted several sentences from his _History of Democracy_:"France has aimed at social equality. The fearful troubles through whichshe has passed have checked her prosperity, demoralised her society, andarrested the intellectual growth of her people. Yet is she high, if notthe first, in the scale of civilised nations. "

[465] ~Hamerton~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 215. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 340 in this e-text. ] The quotationis from _Round My House_, chap, XI, ed. 1876, pp. 229-30. 

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[466] ~Charles Sumner~ (1811-74), American statesman, was the mostbrilliant and uncompromising of the anti-slavery leaders. 

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[467] ~Alsace~. The people of Alsace, though German in origin, showed avery strong feeling against Prussian rule in the Franco-Prussian War of1870-71. In September, 1872, 45, 000 elected to be still French andtransferred their domicile to France. 

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[468] ~Michelet~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. 195. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 305 in this e-text. ]

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[469] The chorus of a popular music-hall song of the time. From it wasderived the word _jingoism_. For the original application of this termsee Webster's _Dictionary_. 

[470] ~Dwight L. Moody~ (1837-99) and ~Ira D. Sankey~ (1840-1908), thefamous American evangelists, held notable revival meetings in England in1873-75. 

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[471] See, e. G. , _Heine_, _Selections_, p. 129. [Transcriber's note:This approximates to the section following the text reference forFootnote 154 in this e-text. ]

[472] ~Goldwin Smith~. See Note 2, p. 301. 

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[473] See Milton's _Colasterion_, _Works_, ed. 1843, III, 445 and 452. 

[474] ~Goldwin Smith~ (1824-1910), British publicist and historian, hastaken an active part in educational questions both in England andAmerica. The passage quoted below is from an article entitled _Falklandand the Puritans_, published in the _Contemporary Review_ as a reply toArnold's essay on Falkland. See _Lectures and Essays_, New York, 1881. 

[475] ~John Hutchinson~ (1616-64), Puritan soldier. The _Memoirs of theLife of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his wife Lucy, but not publisheduntil 1806, are remarkable both for the picture which they give of theman and the time, and also for their simple beauty of style. For thepassage quoted see Everyman's Library ed. , pp. 182-83. 

[476] ~pædobaptism~. Infant baptism. 

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[477] Man disquiets himself, but God manages the matter. For ~Bossuet~see _The Function of Criticism_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 49. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text. ]

[478] Prov. XIX, 21. 

[479] So in the original. [Arnold. ]

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[480] ~Bright~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. 248. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 395 in this e-text. ]

[481] ~Richard Cobden~ (1804-65), English manufacturer and Radicalpolitician. He was a leader in the agitation for repeal of the Corn Lawsand in advocacy of free trade. 

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[482] Prov. XIV, 6. 

[483] Compare _Culture and Anarchy_, chaps. II and III, and _EcceConvertimur ad Gentes, Irish Essays_, ed. 1903, p. 115. 

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[484] ~Samuel Pepys~ (1633-1703), English diarist. 

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[485] ~young lion~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. 261. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 408 in this e-text. ]

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[486] ~Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text. ]

[487] ~Spencer Compton Cavendish~ (1833-1908), Marquis of ~Hartington~(since 1891 Duke of Devonshire), became Liberal leader in the House ofCommons after the defeat and withdrawal of Gladstone in January, 1875. 

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[488] ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts_, _Selections_, Note 3, p. 177. [Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 255 in this e-text. ]