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Text
65
lUIIab.
Why is it so with me, false Love,
Why is it so with me ?
Mine enemies might thus have dealt;
I fear’d it not of thee.
Thou wast the thought of all my thoughts,
Nor other hope had I:
My life was laid upon thy love;
Then how could’st let me die ?
The flower is loyal to the bud,
The greenwood to the spring,
The soldier to his banner bright,
The noble to his king :
The bee is constant to the hive,
The ringdove to the tree,
The martin to the cottage-eaves;
Thou only not to me.
Yet if again, false Love, thy feet
To tread the pathway burn
That once they trod so well and oft,
Return, false Love, return;
And stand beside thy maiden’s bier,
And thou wilt surely see,
That I have been as true to love
As thou wert false to me.
F. T. Palgrave.
4—5
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Ballad
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Palgrave, Francis Turner
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 1 page (p.65) ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From the Cornhill Magazine 30 (July, 1874). Attribution from Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900.
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[Smith, Elder & Co.]
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[1874]
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G5347
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Poetry
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Ballad), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
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850
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
worships his kind are bounded, as we have said, by the limita
tions which he knows are incident to humanity; idealize as he
may, he can never free himself of the belief that no perfect man
or woman has ever trod this planet. How, then, is it possible
that any one but the ignorant and unreflective can ever feel the
glow of genuine devotion when he bows himself to a being whose
nature he knows to have been but a fragmentary representative of
the ideal of man, or when he worships his best conception of this
ideal itself knowing it to be an idol of his own creation ? These
fatal weaknesses of Positivism have no application to the Theist:
the fervour of his adoration is deadened by no secret conscious
ness that the object of his worship is marred with imperfection;
for however great and glorious may be the attributes he ascribes
to it, he feels assured that they are infinitely surpassed by the
Reality itself.
Art. II.—Recollections
of
Shelley
and
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron.
Trelawny. London: Edward Moxon. 1858.
Byron.
By E. J.
R. TRELAWNY has done well in giving this manly and
carelessly written little volume to the world: it will at least
revive the personal memory of two Englishmen who, though long
dead, can never be altogether of the past. Without telling much
of either with which we were not previously acquainted, the infor
mation communicated is the result of intimate personal know
ledge, and, gathered during the intervals of a familiar acquaint
ance, comes out with such freshness and vigour, that it possesses
nearly all the merit of novelty; and the striking features of cha
racter are brought forward in much stronger relief, than in the
tame and wearisome biography of whioh one at least was the
victim. It is the least enviable appanage of genius that it perpe
tuates by its own lustre those faults and weaknesses which repose
in the graves of meaner men; the biographer, even though a
friend, cannot ignore these; and while he avoids giving them
undue prominence, cannot forget that truth has its claims, as well
as genius.
We recognise Shelley in these sketches as he appeared in his
works—the gentle, guileless, noble soul who persisted in putting
himself wrong with the world, and who rashly and fearlessly
launched his indignant sarcasm at the cant and bigotry and sei-
M
�Shelley's Personal Appearance.
351
fishness of society, without indicating any rational plan for its
regeneration. Had he possessed a friend sufficiently influential
and judicious to have delayed the publication of “ Queen Mab”
for ten years, Shelley’s lot might have been far different. How
could he reasonably expect forbearance from a society whose
creed, by a portion of it sincerely venerated, he so recklessly out
raged ? The wisest man feels himself to be an infant if he at
tempts to understand the doctrine of Original Sin ; and yet it was
this problem that the youthful and inexperienced Shelley dared to
grapple in his poem, in a spirit of unparalleled rashness and pre
sumption.
Mr. Trelawny was for some time, as is well known, the compa
nion of Byron and Shelley during their voluntary exile in Italy.
Too manly and too honest to believe in the justice of the tremendous
calumnies which drove Shelley from England, and deprived him
of his children, he was yet, like all who ever came to personal
knowledge of Shelley, astonished to find what manner of man
was this of whom all who did not know him spoke so ill. We
see him as Mr. Trelawny saw him, more than thirty years since,
in the following scene:—
“ Swiftly gliding in, blushing like a girl, a tall thin stripling held out
both his hands; and although I could hardly believe, as I looked at his
flushed, feminine, and artless face, that it could be the poet, I re
turned his warm pressure. After the ordinary greetings and cour
tesies, he sat down and listened. I was silent from astonishment; was
it possible this mild-looking, beardless boy could be the veritable mon
ster at war with all the world ?—excommunicated by the fathers of
the Church, deprived of his civil rights by a grim Lord Chancellor,
discarded by every member of his family, and denounced by the rival
sages of our literature as the founder of a Satanic school ? I could
not believe it; it must be a hoax. He was habited like a boy, in black
jacket and trousers, which he seemed to have outgrown, or his tailor,
as is the custom, had shamefully stinted him in his 1 sizings.’ ”
His wife’s personal appearance, nee Godwin, the authoress of
“Frankenstein,”is sketched on the same occasion:—
“ The most striking feature in her face was her calm, grey eyes.
She was rather under the English standard of woman’s height, very
fair and fight-haired, witty, social and animated in the society of
friends, though mournful in solitude; like Shelley, though in a minor
degree, she had the power of expressing her thoughts in varied and
appropriate words, derived from familiarity with the works of our
vigorous old writers. Neither of them used obsolete or foreign
words.”
The artless and natural character of Shelley endeared him to
the few who had the privilege of personal knowledge; and,
as appears from these sketches, contrasted very favourably with
�852
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
the artificial manner and undisguised egotism of Byron—but, in
truth, the latter was only himself when in the stillness of night
he was engaged in composition, and absorbed into forgetfulness
of his physical deficiences and his chronic starvation.
Mr. Trelawny gives a more minute and circumstantial detail
than has previously appeared, of the miserable circumstances at
tending the deaths of Shelley and his companion Mr. Williams.
The letter which the latter had despatched to his wife on the pre
vious day, informing her and Mrs. Shelley of their proposed return
to the home in the Gulf of Spezzia, where both ladies were
anxiously expecting their husbands, who had been unexpectedly
detained in Leghorn, is surely, breathing as it does the warmest
affection, destined to be so sadly quenched, the most touching
document ever preserved from oblivion. The condition of the two
bodies, when thrown ashore after many days, was such as to make
incremation the most eligible means of disposing of the remains ;
and this proceeding was conducted in both cases—for they were
not burned together—with great care by Mr. Trelawny, in an iron
furnace constructed on purpose. Lord Byron may have given way
to some apparent levity on the occasion; but it was but to conceal
an emotion he deeply felt, but which he lacked the moral courage
to evince publicly. Shelley’s toy skiff, the Don Juan, in which
they embarked with inauspicious omens on that melancholy even
ing, does not appear to have been capsized during the gale, not
withstanding the ominous remark of the Genoese mate of the
Bolivar about the superfluous gaff-topsail; but from her damaged
condition, when afterwards weighed by the exertions of Captain
Roberts, was probably run down by some Italian speronare
scudding before the gale.
Shelley stands far higher in the opinions of his country
men now than when his gentle spirit and ardent love of truth
were quenched for ever in the waves of the Mediterranean. It is
not necessary to vindicate his character from calumnies which are
long forgotten; but if there are any who, not knowing, yet care to
know, how gentle, how generous, how accomplished, and how
unselfish he was, it is written in this late testimony of one who
knew him well, and knowing him well in life, had the hard task
assigned him of communicating his premature death to the de
spairing widow.
Shelley formed a correct and candid estimate of his own writ
ings when he said, “ They are little else than visions which im
personate my own apprehensions of the beautiful and just—they
are dreams of what ought to be, or may be.” He read too much,
was altogether too much imbued with the ideas of others. His
were the azure and vermilion clouds that float in insubstantial
beauty through the atmosphere of an Alpine sunrise, rather than
�Byrons Movements after Shelley’s Death.
353
the enduring creation of grandeur, strength, and beauty which we
recognise in a great poem.
After Shelley’s death, Byron moved from Pisa to Albaro, near
Genoa, where he occupied the Casa Saluzzi; but the loss of one
whom he must have looked on as a friend, and respected for the
nobleness of his nature, together with the failure of the Liberal,
which could hardly succeed undei* the auspices of two such
editors as Hunt and himself, made him dissatisfied with an inac
tive existence, and he looked round for some field, not of enter
prise, but excitement. He was quite unfit constitutionally to en
counter real fatigue or privation; he had courage, no doubt;
contempt of life, and tameless pride, but neither possessed the
physical or mental robustness to see in well-planned, and longsustained action a career of distinction or usefulness. After much
wavering, he determined to revisit Greece, and bought a vessel to
convey himself and his lares to the land which was to witness
his own dissolution, and thus to derive from him another of its
many claims to classic interest. The choice of his vessel seems
to have been decided more by motives of economy than from any
regard to its nautical capabilities, and when its defects were indi
cated by a more critical judgment than his own, he was consoled
by the reflection that he had got it a bargain.
It was on the 13th of July, 1823, that lie sailed in the Hercules
from Genoa with Mr. Trelawny, Count Gamba, and an Italian
crew ; slowly they stood eastward up the Mediterranean, and so
wretched were the sailing qualities of the vessel, that even with
a fair wind the average progress was but twenty miles a day.
They put into Leghorn, which they quitted for Cephalonia, on the
23rd of July.
“ On coming near Lonza, a small islet converted into one of its
many prisons by the Neapolitan government, I said to Byron, ‘ There
is a sight that would curdle the blood of a poet laureate.’ ‘ If
Southey were here,’ he answered, ‘ he would sing hosannahs to the
Bourbons. Here kings and governors are only the jailors and hangmen
of the detestable Austrian barbarians. What dolts and drivellers the
people are to submit to such universal despotism. I should like to see
from this our ark, the world, submerged, and all the rascals drowning on
it like rats.’ I put a pencil and paper into his hand, saying, ‘ Perpe
tuate your curses on tyranny,’ &c. He readily took the paper and set
to work. I walked the deck, and prevented his being disturbed. . . .
After a long spell he said, ‘ You think it is as easy to write poetry as
to smoke a cigar—look, it’s only doggrel. Extemporising verse is non
sense ; Poetry is a distinct faculty—it wont come when called. You
may as well whistle for a wind; a Pythoness was primed when put
into the tripod. I must chew the cud before I write. I have
thought over most of my subjects for years before writing a line.’ . . .
‘ Give me time—I can’t forget the theme ; but for this Greek business
[Vol. LXIX. No. CXXXVI.]—New Sekies, Vol. XIII. No. II. A A
�354
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
I should have been at Naples writing a fifth canto of ‘ Childe Harold,’
expressly to give vent to my detestation of the Austrian tyranny in
Italy.’ ”
But his own earlier lines might well have recurred both to the
poet and to his biographer, for surely none could be more appli
cable to the scene before their eyes then, as before ours now, when
we look on Naples :—
“ It is as though the fiends prevailed
Against the seraphs they assailed,
And fixed on heavenly thrones should dwell
The freed inheritors of hell—
So fair the scene, so formed for joy,
So cursed the tyrants that destroy.”
“ The poet had an antipathy to everything scientific; maps and
charts offended him............ Buildings the most ancient or modern he
was as indifferent to as he was to painting, sculpture, or music. But
dll natural objects, or changes in the elements, he was generally the
first to point out, and the last to lose sight of.” p. 187. [The italics
are our own.]
Mr. Trelawny echoes an old remark of Baron Macaulay’s
(Warren Hastings), which every one’s experience will confirm,
as to the effect of a sea voyage in testing temper and character,
and says—“ I never was on shipboard with a better companion
than Byron : he was generally cheerful, gave no trouble, assumed
no authority, uttered no complaints, and did not interfere with
the working of the ship; when appealed to, he always answered,
‘Do as you like.’” There was much enjoyment of life on board
this dull sailer, the Hercules; and the voyage, if protracted, was
under clear, warm skies, and in smooth water. One scene nar
rated has a grimly comic element: apropos to some remark,
Byron exclaimed, “ Women, you should say; if we had a woman
kind on board, she would set us all at loggerheads, and make a
mutiny; would she not, captain?” “I wish my old woman were
here,” replied the skipper; “ she would make you as comfortable
in my cabin at sea as your own wife would in her parlour on
shore.” Byron started, and looked savage. The skipper went
on unconscious, &c. &c.
Byron had written an autobiography, it seems, conceived in
manly, straightforward fashion,—in a vigorous, fearless style, and
was apparently truthful as regarded himself. It was subse
quently entrusted to Mr. Moore, as literary executor, and by him
suppressed, following the advice of others, it would seem. “ I
told Murray Lady Byron was to read the manuscript if she
wished it, and requested she would add, omit, or make any com
ments she pleased, now, or when it was going through the press.”
(p. 197.) They reached Zante and Cephaloniaat last; and after
�. Byron’s second Visit to Greece.
355
an absence of eleven years, Lord Byron again saw the Morea,
which he loved so well—
“ The sun, the sky, but not the slave the same.”
The reckless greediness of the Suliote refugees at Cephalonia
disgusted him; and the intelligence he received about the pros
pects of liberty in Greece, or the probability of assistance from
the Western Powers, so long withheld, being far from encourag
ing, he determined to remain some time at Cephalonia, but pre
ferred living on board to accepting the warmly-proffered hospi
tality of Colonel Charles Napier, or of the other residents in the
island.
•“ One day, after a bathe, he held out his right leg to me, saying—
‘ I hope this accursed limb will be knocked off in the war.’ ‘ It wont
improve your swimming,’ I answered; ‘ I will exchange legs, if you
will give me a portion of your brains.’ £ You would repent your bar
gain,’ he said, &e. &c.” (p. 20.)
The Greeks, it appears, very rationally desired a strong cen
tralized authority to suppress the hordes of robbers—much more
numerous than usual, since the outbreak of the war with Turkey
■—and talked, at least a portion of them did, of offering the
crown to Byron; he might have bought it, perhaps, afterwards
at Salona, and the Greeks would have had a king for three
months, if he had not abdicated before, worthy of their classical
renown certainly, but not quite the man to disentangle, or divide
the political and social complications in which they were en
tangled. The beauty of Ithaca, visited at this time, seems to
have justified the persevering partiality of Ulysses for his island
kingdom; but there is an inexcusable piece of rudeness to the
abbot of a Greek convent on that island, recorded against Byron.
The poor man had received him with all the honour in his power
or knowledge, but proceeded, unluckily, to inflict an harangue of
such length and solemnity, that Lord Byron, who had missed
the indispensable siesta, broke into ungovernable wrath, and
abused his entertainer with much more emphasis than euphony,
from which his character, and wish to please, should certainly
have protected the abbot. No wonder that the astounded abbot
could find no better excuse for the conduct of the English peer
and poet than madness—“ Ecolo e matto poveretto.”
Mr. Trelawny left Lord Byron at Cephalonia, for he was long
in moving when once settled, and never saw him again in life.
Anxious to know something of the state of matters in the Morea,
the former passed over, accompanied by Mr. Hamilton Browne.
They found only confusion, intrigue, and embezzlement; and after
transacting a little business, his companion, Mr. Browne, went
to London, accompanying certain Greek deputies, who were comAA2
�356
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
missioned to raise a loan there, which, wonderful to relate, they
succeeded in doing ; though the worthy stockbrokers could hardly
have been moved to liberality, or rather credulity, by their
classical sympathies; while Mr. Trelawny, quitting the Morea,
made for Athens, and joined a celebrated robber chief, who had
assumed political functions in the disturbed and anarchic state
of the country, and bore the classical name of Odysseus. In
January, 1824, Mr. Trelawny heard that Byron had gone to
Missolonghi, and then, that he was dead; worn out with fatigue,
anxiety, and disgust, his frame, already shattered by repeated
attacks of remittent fever, acquired during former residence in
the marsh-girt cities of Ravenna and Venice, succumbed in the
prime of life to the miasma which in greater or less intensity,
according to the season, constitutes the atmosphere of Misso
longhi. Mr. Trelawny was at Salona, but left for Missolonghi
directly, which he entered on the third day from his departure,
and found it “ situated on the verge of the most dismal swamp I
had ever seen.”
“ No one was in the house but Fletcher, who withdrew the black
pall and the white shroud, and there lay the embalmed body of the
Pilgrim—more beautiful even in death than in life. The contraction
of the skin and muscles had effaced every line traced by time or
passion; few marble busts could have matched its stainless white, the
harmony of its proportions, and its perfect finish. Yet he had been
dissatisfied with that body, and longed to cast its slough. How often
have I heard him curse it. I asked Fletcher to bring me a glass of
water; and on his leaving the room, to confirm or remove my doubts
as to the cause of his lameness, I uncovered the Pilgrim’s feet, and
was answered—both his feet were clubbed, and the legs withered to
the knee: the form and face of an Apollo, with the feet and legs of a
.sylvan satyr.”
The remaining chapters are exclusively autobiographical, and
are not without interest, for Mr. Trelawny’s name has become
historical in Gordon’s “ History of the Greek Revolution.” His
adventures are not commonplace; and his intimate connexion
with the family and fortunes of Odysseus afforded an opportunity
of seeing and knowing more of the wilder and worthier elements
of Romaic character than has fallen to the lot of any other edu
cated Englishman. For some time he held watch and ward in
the fortified, inaccessible cave on Mount Parnassus, where Odys
seus had placed his family and property, with a garrison of a few
men, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Trelawny, in command. He
was at last desperately wounded in a very treacherous manner,
by a Scotchman named Fenton, whom he had unduly trusted,
but who had been bribed to act as a spy on Odysseus and him
self, He tells his story, regardless of criticism, in a frank and
�Byron’s early Poetry.
357
candid manner; and it must be a captious critic indeed, who can
object to the consciousness of that superior physical strength and
vigour, which sustained with ease exertions that exhausted the
more delicate powers of the two celebrated companions, whose
names lend so much interest to his book, and to whose intel
lectual pre-eminence he renders respectful and affectionate
homage.
We have so recently recorded our opinions on Shelley’s
*
writings, that we shall now offer a few remarks on some portion
of Lord Byron’s poetry, which, with all its popularity, has not,
it appears to us, been always rightly estimated. He unaffectedly
repudiated the opinion so generally entertained, that he was the
hero of his own compositions—that the monotonous protagonists
of his early and brilliantly successful Eastern tales, no less than
the blase and reflective “ Childe,” or the fortunate and brilliant
“Don Juan,” were drawn from the inspiration of a too partial
egotism. We are inclined to believe in the sincerity of his pro
test, and to attribute to dramatic poverty the uniformity of his
characters, and to his own physical imperfection the bodily
strength and activity by which his heroes are so generally distin
guished. In those short pieces which were the fruits of his early
travels, and which at once attracted the attention of every reader
by the unequalled brilliancy of the language, we perceive the
immature judgment and the vehement sensation of his character;
the verse flows onward in a torrent of splendour, and a false lustre
is given to the passion whose fruit is ashes; beauty of form, and
the easy and over-valued achievements of physical courage, are
the artless and ordinary attractions of his actors; there is no
depth or refinement of character, no difficult invention; the
poems are but pictures of ordinary merit, in splendid frames.
But a deeper knowledge dawned upon him—a larger experience
of his own heart, though little of the actual world from which he
shrunk; and if he, as most men have done, regretted the delu
sions of the master-passion, and wished that the deception had
lasted for ever, or had never existed, yet his later strains, in their
deeper tone and wider sympathies, evince that better self-know
ledge, without which no man has successfully mapped even the
narrowest province of the human heart; for that knowledge is itself
but the evidence and the record of sufferings which the conflicts
of reason with passion must ever produce.
In the crude though not inharmonious products of his youth,
we see how little he had felt his strength, and how he was fettered
by the rules which had been the guide of his model and antithesis
Pope; nowhere does he dare to be original, and the spirit which
* Vide Number for January of this year.
�368
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
dictated his first and weakest satire, was but the natural resent
ment of an Englishman who had no mind to he bullied: the mere
mechanical versification gives small promise of the matchless
powers which produced “ Don Juan ” and “ Beppo;” and in the
matter, there is nothing to warn us of that contemplative and
deeply poetical thought which is so apparent in the “Prophecy of
Dante,” and in the two later cantos of “ Childe Harold.” Even
those unequalled satiric powers which culminated in the “ Irish
Avatar,” are but shadowed, not developed, and the commonplace
abuse and half-affected contempt of his first satire are calculated
to produce a very different effect from the withering ridicule and
careless contempt which overwhelmed those who provoked the
displeasure of his later years.
The German critics, with a severity of taste that does them
honour, place the three great poets, whose names at once occur
to us—Homer, Shakspeare, and Goethe—so far above all rivalry,
as to accord to these alone that supremacy and universality of
intellect which we call poetic genius; and this may be just, but
the human mind is so constituted in its appreciation of poetry,
as sometimes to derive superior pleasure from strains which have
emanated from minds of far inferior order. We like best that
poetry which addresses most strongly and directly the prevailing
sentiments of our own characters; and hence thousands in whom
the finest of Homer’s rhapsodies, Shakspeare’s “ Tempest,” or
Goethe’s “ Iphigenia,” would awake no other sentiment than cool
admiration, would be moved to tears or to enthusiasm by Pindar,
Campbell, or Gray. It is no less certain that men of even the
keenest intellect merely, are not unfrequently deficient in poetic
taste and judgment. We know, for example, that Napoleon pre
ferred Ossian, and Robert Hall Virgil to Homer; and that
Lord Byron himself, utterly wanting in dramatic power, but little
appreciated the true strength of Shakspeare.
Poetry, indeed,
especially of the first order, must be felt in the heart as well as
judged by the head, and the greatest merit is least apparent to a
superficial glance; long study, contemplation, and comparison
are required to comprehend the consummate excellence of a
masterpiece, whether it be from the hand of Shakspeare or the
pencil of Raphael.
But if the very few of the first order of poets completely satisfy
all the requirements of the most refined and matured intellect,
the poetry of Lord Byron will always appeal strongly to those,
and they are not a few, whose passions, at some period of their
lives, have proved too strong for the control of reason, and where
regret, if not remorse, has followed the fruitless contest—a contest
which has left the mind vacant for want of strong excitement,
�Characteristics of Byron’s Poetry.
359
and wearied with a scene which offers no sufficient substitute for
what has been lost. Flashes of the melancholy wisdom which
follows on such experience are frequent in his later works, and
their deep, and perhaps not barren truth, may sink with some
thing of a healing and enlightening influence into hearts whose
scars are not yet callous.
There is, too, a strong and ardent reverence for the nobleness
of intellect, ever felt most strongly by those most highly endowed;
that reverence which, rightly considered, is the only true religion,
and a scorn, as strongly expressed, for the vulgar or tinsel idols
of mob idolatry.
His spirit had wrestled with itself in vain; the vehement and
unwise desire for something denied to mere mortality was his;
the self-condemnation of performance so grievously inadequate to
the lofty resolution, which more or less dwells in every heart,
rebelling against the sway of low desires, was strong upon him;
so that he hated life, and sought at first wildly, but afterwards
more calmly, to give that feeling utterance : but the “ voiceless
thought” could not so be spoken, and he, the most eloquent,
went to his grave without succeeding in the vain effort to
unburden his full heart. Not by words, however eloquent, can
man satisfy himself, or vindicate liis life to others. Consistent
action alone can satisfy the conscience, or justify us to our own
hearts; and when action is denied or unsought, we strive for the
relief, however inadequate, that words can furnish. Thus Chaucer:
“ For when we may not do, then will we speken,
And in our ashen colde, is fire yreken.”
Had any suitable career of action been open to him, or had he
lived in feudal times, he might have surpassed Bertrand de Born
in thirst for irregular warlike achievement, and in the strains that
celebrated it; the monotony of a modern.military career, and the
subordination which can recognise no superiority but professional
rank, where the opportunity of achievement is an accident, and
routine the rule of life, was utterly unsuited to his character and
his physical constitution. No better career offered to him than that
miserable one of Missolonghi, and here he gave evidence of a
moderation and self-command little to have been expected from
a man whose vanity and egotism were not less conspicuous than
his genius; this desire for an active career is translated into his
eastern stories, and his heroes are rather models of what he
wished to be, than what he was.
His forte, however, as he knew, was vivid description, varied
and illuminated by flashes of earnest thought, and the results of
a melancholy, if a short experience.
�360
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
In sustained diamatic, or epic power, he was deficient; but
this is an imperial endowment, and, in his own language,
“ Not Hellas could unrol
From her Olympiads two such names.”
His “Manfred,” despite Mr. Moore’s crude criticism, is a dramatic
failure ; and when he calls this creation of Lord Byron’s “ loftier
and worse ” than Milton’s Satan, the critic shows how little of
the dramatic or epic element he must have himself possessed.
“ Manfred ” is not a great creation—he is but a dreamer, who,
finding no pleasure in an earthly pursuit, itself a morbid and
unhealthy feeling, strives to o’erpass the limits of mortality, and
to coerce the Spirits whom the elements obey. Such a desire, as
common as it was vain, before men had emerged from the super
stitious element of the middle ages, evinces no elevation or great
ness of character, and if with dauntless courage he defies the
spirits whom he had evoked by his spells, and provoked by his
contempt of their power, he does so as one who knows they
cannot injure him, and who seeks death rather than shuns it.
The great blot of the piece, however, is the doubt that encom
passes the fate of Astarte; the imagination can conceive no adequate
cause for the terrible implacability which could reign in the bosom
of a beatified spirit, and deny to a despairing brother one word
of consolation in his awful abandonment. If she could condemn
him, how can he be forgiven ?
Such a subject, however attractive to a writer of strong imagi
nation, and however promising in appearance, proves much more
difficult to treat adequately, if, indeed, it can ever be so treated
at all, than scenes and characters of a more earthly nature, where
strictly human agents appeal to a kindred reason and sympathy.
The communion of the supernatural with the natural has been
a favourite theme, and a certain stumbling-block, to the greatest
poets. Homei' succeeded best, because he invented little, taking
the materials within his reach—and his gods and goddesses are
but human beings, with a loftier physical and mental stature; it
was easy to introduce them implementing the inferior powers of
their favourite heroes, but we feel that, in all that should distin
guish the supernatural Being above the human nature, the greatest
of all, the tyrant Zeus, was inferior. Like some vulgar earthly
ruler, he uses his power but to gratify passions unworthy of
a God------ and the charm of divine beauty and celestial grace
which hovers for ever round the name of Aphrodite, is insufficient
to overcome the disgust with which we regard her threat to
Helena, when the latter indignantly refuses to return to her van
quished and fugitive paramour.
And when, in the “ Tempest,” Shakspeare introduces Ariel to-
�The Supernatural as an Element of Poetry.
361
delude and torment a set of drunken menials, or frighten a brutal
and ignorant drudge, he scarcely redeems the character of that
“ dainty” creation by his services in reconstructing the shattered
ship, or even in deceiving the wretches who were plotting the
death of the Duke. An inspired genius may walk through pro
prieties at will, as he so constantly does, but even Shakspeare
might have remembered in the “Tempest,” “NecDeus intersit,” &c.
When Goethe, following the popular superstition, introduces
the Devil, thinly disguised, as the companion and mentor of
Faust, he goes easily enough with the pair through the tempta
tions and the punishment of his neophyte and of Margaret—an
episode too common in daily life to require the Devil as its agent
—and Faust, when on the blasted heath he upbraids Mephisto
with the cruel fate of her he should have protected from all harm,
and curses himself as the dupe of a pitiless fiend, does but vent
the reproaches many a man has heaped on himself, shuddering, if he
had a conscience, at the cruel treachery which has rent a heart that
beat only for him. But when the great German leaves the popular
guide to invent a sphere of supernatural action, when Faust
appears in scenes where the author has no guide from tradition,
and subject to temptations of a less human character, we see how
little mere mortal wit can observe any semblance of probability,
or appearance of cohesion, in attempting that for which there is
no actual precedent in human experience. There is but one
Magician, and he has long laid aside all pretensions above morta
lity. Patient and sagacious interrogation of nature, in disclosing
the hidden properties of matter, has evoked powers which the
genii of the lamp might have envied, and wealth, which would
have satisfied the avarice of the alchemists.
The greatest can but draw the supernatural from knowledge of
the natural, and we have but human nature exaggerated in the
majority of instances; Shakspeare’s Ariel, and the spirits in
“Manfred” are nearly the only exceptions. Homer is greatest
where he describes the actions of men, and the submissive grace
and tenderness of women. Shakspeare stirs the heart, and
awakens our admiration most strongly when he depicts the
loving constancy of the gentler sex, and the masculine heroism of
Coriolanus or of Henry the Fifth. Goethe has an easy task when
he echoes the sarcastic mockery, or paints the demon heart of
Mephisto; but the master-hand is seen in the calm and natural
beauty of the “ Iphigenia,” and above all in his unequalled delinea
tion of the female nature; he who could draw such characters
as Gretchen, Clara, Mignon, and Adelheid von Weislingen, has
surpassed all others, Shakspeare himself, in this the most inte
resting province of observation and invention.
And Lord Byron, though he has clothed his demons with
�362
Recollections of Shelley ancl Byron.
majesty and power, though he has avoided the vulgar error of
too easily vanquishing evil by good, Satan by Abdiel, yet hardly
introduces these for purposes worthy their supernatural powers,
unless it be to justify the magnificent “ Hymn of the Spirits” in
worship round the throne of Ahrimanes.
In the first two cantos of “ Childe Harold,” the objective
element is strongly ascendant, written as they were at a period of
life when the world was still fresh, and the essential identity of
human nature, under all its phases, hardly appreciated. The
boundless command of his own language, and the liveliest sus
ceptibility to the beauty or grandeur of nature, produced a poem
which riveted immediately the attention of contemporaries, partly,
indeed, due to a comparative novelty of style, and the want of
sustained originality, in the poetry which immediately preceded
its publication; something too may have been owing to the lesser
preoccupation of the public by the floods of ephemeral and
amusing literature which dissipate the intellectual tastes of the
readers of our day. It is in the two latter cantos, and especially
the last, in which wTe find his powers completely matured, whether
reflective or descriptive. In these cantos he has carried those
important elements of poetry to their highest excellence, though
of invention, the test of the highest genius, we find no traces.
There is throughout a want of cohesion, if we consider “ Childe
Harold ” as an attempt at poetic creation, for the “ Childe” is a
voice, not a living pilgrim; but if we recognise Lord Byron him
self under an alias, narrating what he saw, and expressing in
just and vivid language what he felt, we have a poem, the various
merit of which it is difficult to over-estimate.
The vigour of description therein displayed is indeed without a
parallel; who has equalled, or even approached, the power displayed_ in stanzas 27, 28, 29 of the fourth canto ; in them we
see actually brought before us by the magical force of his lan
guage, the exquisite and fugitive beauties of an Italian sunset,
which would have mocked the pictorial art of Claude or Turner
to transfer to canvas. Mere words are made to appeal to the
mind more effectively than the consummate skill of the masters of
painting could appeal to the sense of vision. Even Homer is
here surpassed for a moment, for nowhere does he bring before
us so striking and so difficult a phase of nature’s ever-varying
countenance; not even in the familiar passage in the eighth
Rhapsody—
S’ or ev ovpavu aarpa (]>aeivi)v apuju (teXt]vt]v
<baivErai apLirpe7TEa. k. t. X.
though it well deserves the homage Byron pays it in the fourth
canto of the “ Prophecy of Dante”—
�Childe Harold.
363
a The kindled marble’s bust may wear
More poesy upon its speaking brow
Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear.”
In stanza 102, canto 3, we even seem to hear and see the
busy summer forest life of birds and insects in the woods of
Clarens, the rustle of the leaves in the early summer breath of
June, and the very plash of Alpine waterfalls; the beautiful
living solitude, unspoilt by the intrusion of man, comes before
us as if in spirit, or in a dream we were transported to the Swiss
wilderness ; it is transferred to paper as delicately and with truer
colouring than could have been effected by the calotype: but these
scenes in their quiet loveliness yet suggest reminiscences of the
world which the author and the reader have for a moment for
gotten, and the vigorous sketches of Gibbon and Voltaire, who
had long lived within sight of that beautiful scenery, come like
a cloud over the mind which had just been revelling in the
laughing sunshine of a Swiss landscape. Applied to graver
scenes, the same matchless power nearly rivals the merit of inven
tion, and when by the lake of Thrasymene (c. iv., w. 62, 63, 64),
he recals the strife that made Rome to reel on her seven-hilled
throne, and strove with inexorable fate to reverse her stern de
cree, the ancient battle comes before us as by a lightning-flash
darted into the abysses of the past; as the soldiers of Carthage
and of Rome pass before us in their deadly struggle.
Nothing can be more exquisite than the various harmony of
the stanzas from 86 to 104 of canto iii.: in these every variety of
emotion and of feeling is characterized; of admiration, reverence,
love, awe; and in the apostrophe to “ Clarens, sweet Clarens,”
that passion which he felt with so much of its earthly alloy is
exalted to a refinement almost unearthly, and to a dignity which
truly belongs to it, as in its purity the least selfish of human
desires.
Was there ever a tribute to the Divinity of Love so exquisite
as that contained in stanza 100 of canto iii.?—
“ O’er the flower
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.”
Such language may fairly excite a rapturous admiration, resem
bling that which he professes, and only professes to have felt,
when beholding the marble loveliness of the Medicean Venus.
But in a different mood, and with feelings disappointed or
blunted, he afterwards recurs to this, the dream of youth, and the
disenchantment of maturity; and as a warning against the in
dulgence of that passionate and eager credulity, what homily or
�350
Recollections of Shelley and Byron.
worships his kind are hounded, as we have said, by the limita
tions which he knows are incident to humanity; idealize as he
may, he can never free himself of the belief that no perfect man
or woman has ever trod this planet. How, then, is it possible
that any one but the ignorant and unreflective can ever feel the
glow of genuine devotion when he bows himself to a being whose
nature he knows to have been but a fragmentary representative of
the ideal of man, or when he worships his best conception of this
ideal itself knowing it to be an idol of his own creation? These
fatal weaknesses of Positivism have no application to the Theist:
the fervour of his adoration is deadened by no secret conscious
ness that the object of his worship is marred with imperfection;
for however great and glorious may be the attributes he ascribes
to it, he feels assured that they are infinitely surpassed by the
Reality itself.
——
C7I
Art. II.—Recollections of Shelley
and
Recollections of the Last Lays of Shelley and Byron.
Trelawny. London: Edward Moxon. 1858.
Byron.
By E. J.
R. TRELAWNY has done well in giving this manly and
carelessly written little volume to the world: it will at least
revive the personal memory of two Englishmen who, though long
dead, can never be altogether of the past. Without telling much
of either with which we were not previously acquainted, the infor
mation communicated is the result of intimate personal know
ledge, and, gathered during the intervals of a familiar acquaint
ance, comes out with such freshness and vigour, that it possesses
nearly all the merit of novelty; and the striking features of cha
racter are brought forward in much stronger relief, than in the
tame and wearisome biography of which one at least was the
victim. It is the least enviable appanage of genius that it perpe
tuates by its own lustre those faults and weaknesses which repose
in the graves of meaner men; the biographer, even though a
friend, cannot ignore these; and while he avoids giving them
undue prominence, cannot forget that truth has its claims, as well
as genius.
We recognise Shelley in these sketches as he appeared in his
works—the gentle, guileless, noble soul who persisted in putting
himself wrong with the world, and who rashly and fearlessly
launched his indignant sarcasm at the cant and bigotry and sei-
M
�
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Recollections of Shelley and Byron
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: p. 350-368 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Review essay of "Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron" by Edward John Trelawny. London: Edward Moxon, 1858. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Westminster Review 13 (April 1858).
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Poetry
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Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
George Gordon Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry in English
Romantic Poetry
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Text
FATED OTHERWISE,
A POEM,
BY
BLANCHE
AUTHORESS
“IN
MORTIMER,
OF THE POEM
OTHER LANDS,”
&c, &c.
FERMOY :
PRINTED BY JOHN LINDSEY, KING STREET,
1871.
�*
-
�Fated
Otherwise.
It is customary, now, to acknowledge the source from
whence our Plays and Poesies are inspired, hence, become
identified in Madame de Valerie at her meeting with Ernest
Maltravers.
Lord Lytton’s Romance.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Visions sweetly fair shone before me in array;
A beauteous form in white,
So maidenly and slight,
With rosy cheeks so bright,
Like a fay,
Like a fay,
As I lay a-dreaming, she skipped o’er heath and spray.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Gazing in a boudoir soft sounds swept by my ear:
“Bright-eyed Canary, tell to me
“Whether One could ever see,
“ How One’s lot in life would be,
“ It isn’t clear
“It isn’t clear.”
As I lay a-dreaming, her bird she asked in fear.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Shaking all his plumes he merrily chirped away:
“ Now can I look so sage,
“ When confined within my cage
“ I do not know the Age,
“Life’s not play,
“ Life’s not play:”
As I lay a-drcaming, he chirped “ we turn to clay.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
A Parrot from her perch screamed “ Closely watch the Page,
“ Scratch poll, I’m Pol, Polly knows,
“Mark the vane when it blows,
“Darling is her Papa’s rose,
“ Love’s the rage,
“Love’s the rage.”
As I lay a-dreaming, screeched “ Remain sixteen in age.”
�4
FATED OTHERWISE.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Charming was the ball room presented to my view,
Those bosoms heaving there,
With diamonds as a snare,
Like serpents in their lair,
Folly too,
Folly too,
As I lay a-dreaming, thought Satan must have you.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Hidden in an alcove two lovers fondly coo’d;
“ Darling, lavest thou me,
“ My wife, Sweet, wilt thou be ?“ Say yes, for I love thee,”
Oh, love’s mood,
Oh, love’s mood.
As I lay a-xlreaming, ’twas thus he won and woo’d..
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
His hand she gently pressed and blushing answered soon,
“ There’s one more query yet,
“ Papa must free his pet,
“He would not see her fret.”
‘ A honeymoon !
‘ A honeymoon ! ’
As I lay a-dreaming, she mused ‘ ’tviixt lip, and spoon.’
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
“ Quite early yet to marry,” said the Earl in hauteur;;
“ No, no, my noble boy,
“ Thou must not make a toy
“Of her’ nay fondest joy.”
‘ Lose my daughter !
‘ Lose my daughter
As 1 lay a-dreaming, thought could he not thwart her,
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Thus spake her Sire again, a vivid whim to strike,
“ Go, England’s Flag to wave,
“ To dwell amidst the brave
“ A great name boy to pave,
“ Cutlass and pike !
“ Cutlass and pike 1”
As I lay a-dreaming, mused he, this ruse I like.
�FATED
OTHERWISE.
5.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Sadly sobbed the Earl with his face between his hancfe:•
“ Acquired in every art,
“ So fashioned to my heart,
“I could not with her part,
“Brief are life’s sands,
“ Brief are life’s sands.”
As I lay a-dreaming, willed, “ she bends to my commands.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
So. fondly a letter she has clasped to her breast;
“Lina, Pet, I am well,
“ Hugh writes from sea to tell
“Love to his own Blue belle.
“ Eears at rest,
“ Fears at rest.
As I lay a-dreaming, cried, P.S. ? No ! Which I detest.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Lina and her Aunt were embarked in fierce contest:
“ His talents are so great,
“ Likewise that huge estate,
“ While there’s a marquisate,
“ Which is no jest,
“ Which is no jest.
As I lay a-dreaming, ended, “ wealth'grasped is best.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Our heroine replies, in simple earnest tone :
“ Golden fetters, ehains they are,
“Happiness at best is far,
“Spring and Winter more than jar,
“ My love is flown,
“ My love is flown.”
As I lay a-dreaming.. breathed, no throne would I own.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
“ Heart-rending loss,” read the Earl from his Court Review
“ A cyclone it is said,
“ Caught “ Canute,” and o’erspread
“ All lives in their last bed.’’
“ Poor dear Hugh,
“ Poor dear Hugh.”
As I lay a-dreaming, She sobbed and breathed A Djev.
�6
FATED OTHERWISE.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
I wondered how quickly faces from memory fade,
When from dying friends we’re torn,
Nature yields our grief a bourn,
Then virgins sigh, widows mourn.
Born, soon decayed,
Born, soon decayed.
As [ lay a-dreaming, mused, How should I be laid
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
At the Altar stood a Marquis with his young bride :
Her eyes glistened with tears,
Her heart panted with fears,
Those cheers jarred on her ears,
“For life tied,
“ For life tied.”
As I lay a-dreaming sighed, “ wreath thou dost deride.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
From the Church-porch issued the joyous wedding throng,
Silver coins pleased the crowd,
Children strewed flowers and bowed,
Harridans grinned aloud:
“ May you live long!
“ May you live long!”
As I lay a-dreaming, the bells pealed out So-Wrong.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Lina strolled around the scenes of her childish glee :
“ ’Twas here he stood that day,
“Here kissed that frown away...
“ That coming form! Oh stay !
“ Alive and free,
“ Alive and free,’’
As I lay a-dreaming, shrieked, “ yes! to torture me.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Hugh bounding o’ei' a rivulet has reached her seat.
‘ His kiss gives my eyes a gleam,
‘ Do I wake as from a dream,
‘Madness, but ecstacy supreme,’
“Art sad to meet?
“ Art sad to meet ?”
As I lay a-dreaming, Hugh cried, “ Speak, I entreat.!”
�FATED
OTIIjE RAVI SE.
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Hugh rattled gaily on as there she sat tongue-tied:
“Nine jumped in an open boat,
“Providence kept us afloat,
“ Till ta’en to a Port remote.
“ What! a Bride !
“Thou! a Bride.”
As I lay a-dreaming, moaned, “ Thou my life, my guide.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
Starting to her feet she wildly cried “leave me not,
“ I will fly, if you dare;
“ Spurn me not, if you share
“ One wish for my wellfare,
“ Pity my lot,
“ Pity my lot.”
As I lay a-dreaming, urged, “ help me tear that knot.”
As I lay a-dreaming, a-dreaming, a-dreaming,
He said, “ Darling, Civilization leads astray,
“ Yet scorn her she wields hate,
“Women map the maiden’s fate
“ As Fiends hate, of love in hate,
“ Hard to obey,
“ Hard to obey.”
As I lay a-dreaming, cried, “ Fortune does betray.”
As I shook in dreaming, in dreaming, in dreaming—
Sweetest Lutestring, another word then I am gone,
“Try thy sad lot to bear, dear,
“ Sorrows are not given here,
“ Without some cause rests quite clear,
“ But each May morn,
“ But each May morn.
“If I fall in dream-land I’ll muse for my lovelorn.’’
BLANCHE MOBTIMEB.
7
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Mortimer, Blanche
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Place of publication: Fermoy
Collation: 7 p. ; 21 cm.
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Conway Tracts
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A WINTRY WALK
AMONG THE MOUNTAINS
WITH SINCEREST APOLOGIES TO THE SHADE OF HIAWATHA.
LONDON:
F. B. KITTO, 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT.
1867.
�EXPLANATORY.
The following lines contain an accurate account of what befel
the writer during a ramble, on May 13th, 1867, over the summit
of Glyder-fach and down by Llyn Bochlwyd to Llyn Idwal,
returning by Twll-du and over Glyder-fawr, to Pen-y-gwryd.
Weather, densely overcast and strong gale from E. ; reached
the clouds and newly-fallen snow at about 2,000 feet above sea
level, and had the company of both to the summit, a further
height of 1,200 feet. The air temperature in the valley had fallen
twenty-five degrees since the evening of the 11th.
From several aneroid readings, the writer suspects Glyderfach, the Lesser Glyder, to be at least equal in height to Glyderfawr, i. e. to rise 3,275 feet or more above sea level; and from
Snowdon the former looks considerably the higher.
H. B. BIDEN.
Witton, Birmingham, '
June, 1867.
�A WINTRY WALK AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
Scene—The Heart of Snowdonia.
MAY 13th, 1861.
Reader, let a rambler tell you,—
One who oft, the storm defying,
Converse lone has held with Nature
In her grandest, sternest aspect,
'Mid the crags of wild Snowdonia,
Or, with pleasantest companions,
Scaled her lofty peaks and ridges
Oft by roughest, untried circuit,
One incurably afflicted
With ^-oaetyetkes scandendiP'caccreiZu’s —
Though he ne’er beheld the wonders
Of the far-famed Alpine ranges
How, this day, alone, he wandered
O’er the newly snow-crowned mountains—
"Winter’s snows had gone in April*
Spite of Post, Gazette, or Record.
Senseless work, would say the Guide Books,—
Sapient, cockney-followed Guide Books,—
Yet most useful to the novice,
Thus “ without a guide ” (!) to wander,
Courting well deserved destruction !
How he scampered o’er the quagmires,
How he floundered through the Gwryd,
�4
More correctly called the Mymbyr,
Slipping off the treacherous boulders ;
Scrambled up the Lesser Glyder
Spite of clouds, of snow, and easter.
Wind beloved (?) and sung by Kingsley ;
Would that he could thus have felt it
Freezing his poor toes and fingers.
Reached the drifting, level, cloud-roof,
Plunged behind its dim grey curtain
Darkly stretched o’er lakes and valleys,
Blotting out all higher regions,
Hiding every well known landmark;
Reached the eighteen-inch-deep heather
Water-logged with snow half melted,
Half way up the lofty mountain ;
Onward, upward, floundering, scrambling,
Through the fog and furious east wind,
Steering now by faith and compass,
Reached unmitigated winter;
Clambered up by blocks and ledges
O’er the frozen cliffs and boulders ;
Gained a loftier, colder region,
Where the gale made wildest music
Howling o’er the crested ridges,
Through the obelisks and turrets,
Serried battlements and cannons,
Dimly seen through drifting mist wreath,
Outworks of the storm-rent summit:
Wondrous handiwork of Nature,
Nought like this is seen on Snowdon,
Though each scene alike be snowed on !
Reached Castell-y-gwynt, whose crags were
Pointed, edged with fairest frostwork ;
Frozen mist, on blocks and ledges—
Silvery plumage, icy feathers,
Pointed bristling to the tempest;
Hung with icicles of crystal
Glittering bright in rows and clusters
From each point and “ coign of vantage.”
Reached the lofty rock-strewn platform,
Where the snow lay thick around him,
Where the great Stonehenge-like ruins,
Ruins of no human structure,
■
'
�5
Lichen-marbled, sno w-besprinkJed,
Looming spectral through the cloud-rack
In their ever changing groupings,
Stood or leaned in solemn grandeur.
Porphyritic trap their structure ;
Trap indeed the writer found it
Once, too far the crags descending
Northward from the lofty summit
Recking not of cliffs beneath him ;—Novice then at mountaineering,
Yet compelled by his position
Down that wall of rock to scramble
To Cwm Bochlwyd’s deep recesses,—
Down, by clefts and narrowing ledges
Through the haunts of kite and raven.
Reached the pointed sharp-edged cap stone,
Bright with snow and silvery frostwork,
Thickly fringed with icy pendants,
Gleaming through the mist like daggers.
Crossed the rugged pile of “ ruins,”
Summit of the lofty mountain ;
Reached the rocky steep o’erlooking
Tryfan’s cone of blocks and pillars,—
Deep Cwm Bochlwyd’s wild recesses,
All concealed in clouds beneath him :
Whence the ravens’ dismal croaking
Echoed from the crags of Tryfan
O’er the hidden deep abysses
Reached his ear, in sudden chorus
Piercing through the eddying vapour,
IMwf loud in expectation,
Scenting, may be, feast most welcome,
Should the wanderer’s ice-numbed fingers'
Losing hold on crags or boulders,
Send him headlong down among them.
Corresponding members doubtless,
Of that “ Red-tarn Club,” so famous
Once, as holding nightly revel
In the wilds of far Helvellyn,
(Till disturbed by “Mister Wudswuth”)
O’er the bruised and mangled body
Of the luckless Obadiah !
(See Chris. North his “ Recreations.”)
�6
'fc
'fc
5|c
How, his purpose now accomplished,*
O’er the mountain crest returning,
Feet and fingers numbed and senseless
Struggling with the furious easter
And its six degrees of freezing,
Underneath his chin he carried
(Load unwonted for the season,
On this thirteenth day of fifth month)
Frozen mist, an icy burden
Hanging to his draggled whiskers,
Till each patriarchal “ Billy ”
In the depths of lone Cwm Bochlwyd,
In that rugged grey-goat valley,
Might have owned him as a brother ;
But, alas, the goats have vanished !
Passed again the “ Tempest’s Castle,”
Where on high, in snowy mantle,
Fringed and edged with frosted lace work
Stood the “ Sentinel ” gigantic,
Lonely ward and vigil keeping
Through the heats and frosts of ages
By the rugged block-strewn glacis
O’er the lofty Col du Gribin.
Floundered down the narrow couloir,
Waging cool war with the snow drift
By the eastern flank of Gribin,
Whose arête of stony columns,
Though by Ordnance-map constructors
Hardly indicated, rises
Rough with crest of spiny fretwork
(If the fog would let one see it ! )
Gained the scree, so loose and shelving,
Down the rugged steep descending.
Reached Llyn Boehlwyd’s sparkling fountain,
Dripping well of clearest water
Where the crystal streamlets trickle
From the high-ranged porph’ry columns,
From the cliff so grim and barren
Northwest face of Lesser Glyder
Down the screen of richest verdure ;
Golden rod and scented rose root,
Mountain rue, and kidney sorrel,
* Fixing a minimum thermometer among the rocks.
�7
Ladies’ mantle, starry cresses,
&®Men saxifrage, and mosses,
Glancing bright in silvery ripples.
Welcome sight when heats of summer
Parch with thirst the mountain climber ;
Beauteous now witli fairest frost-work
AM enframed in purest snow-wreath ;
Forty-two degrees its waters
Now, as in the heats of August.
Lost at length the whitened snow-field,
Left behind the realm of Winter,
Lost awhile the piercing east wind
In the lee of rugged Tryfan ;
Left above, the drifting vapour ;—
Saw the snow-crowned Carnedd Dafydd
Clear awhile from gloom and tempest;
Saw Llyn Ogwen’s rippling waters
Fifteen hundred feet beneath him ;
Saw the lengthening vale of Francon
Bask awhile in pleasant sunshine ;
Hastened down to ice-ground Bocblwyd
(See Professor Ramsay’s “ Glaciers : ”—
No connexion here writh Murray;
Safe in print the writer had it
In the “ Brum. Gazette ” of August—
Of the twenty-fifth of eighth month—
Eighteen hundred four and sixtyJ
Reached Llyn Bochlwyd’s sheet of silver ;
Stood beside its lonely margin
Sometimes reached by roving angler,
Scarcely known to guide-book maker,
Scene but rarely seen by artist;
Stood awhile, the view surveying.
Wild and gloomy frowned the valley,'
Dark beneath its roof of vapour
Stretched across from peaks to ridges,
From sharp Tryfan’s headless shoulders
To decapitated G ribin ;
While the crags of Lesser Glyder,
Seamed with lines of white, descending
Glacier-like from cloud-hid snow fields,
Closed the darksome rugged picture.
Glorious are these lofty mountains
�8
Scarred with precipice and cavern
In the full revealing sunshine
Of the pleasant days of summer ;
(All untrod by highway tourist
Only bent to “do” the country)
Yet most glorious, when the sunset
Breaking through departing tempest
Floods with sudden, radiant splendour
( Golden lights and ebon shadows )
“ Castle ” pinnacle and “ turret ”
On the lofty crested ridges ;
While the lazy snake-like cloud-wreaths,
Rank by rank in long procession,
Stained throughout with evening’s purple
Crawl athwart their lofty shoulders,
O’er the dim retiring valleys
Grey with cliff-entangled mist beds.
“ Scene of sternest desolation ; ”
Yet, amid its barren grandeur,
Gems of loveliest tint or verd ure
“ Waste on desert air their sweetness.”-—(Reader, please forgive this rendering
Of a somewhat well-worn passage.)
Oft they smile in welcome beauty
On the mountain rambler’s footsteps :—
Parsley fern in ell-broad masses,
Dots the screes with tufted clusters ;
Mountain thrift, the sea-green rose-root,
Gnarly rooted, golden blossomed,
Star, and mossy saxifrages,
Bladder fern in brittle lace-work,
Alchemilla, mountain shield fern,
Oak and beech ferns, stemless catchfly,
Golden rod, the pale green-spleenwort,
Fringe with green the rocks and ledges,
Line the mossy caves and crannies ;
While the bristling, bright fir club moss,
Sturdy little mountain climber,
Though it not disdains the valleys,
Dots with life the loftiest ridges ;
Or its grey-green Alpine cousin
Struggles through the close cropp’d herbage ;
Or vivip’rous Alpine grasses
Wave in air their tufted offspring
�9
Held aloft on wiry foot-stalk ;
Or, in damp and sheltered corners,
Golden saxifrage encases
Rocks and stones with richest carpet:—
“ Common ” plant, but yet how lovely
Glimmering blue-green in the darkness
Deep within some dripping cavern,
Roofed with darker olive fringes
Of the filmy fern of Wilson ;
Chiefly found in wild luxuriance,
In the darksome damp recesses
Of the huge and loose-heaped fragments,
Relics of moraines, dissected
By the hidden, tinkling streamlets ;
Or in more illumined aspect,
Spangled with the snowy blossoms,
Gold besprinkled, emerald tufted,
Of saxífraga stellaris.
(Ending now this long digression,)
On again the rambler started,—
Scrambled down to well known Idwal,
(See Smith’s, Brown’s, or Jones’s guide-books;)
Many a hundred feet descending
To Llyn Idwal’s southern angle ;
Thence by the moraine so rugged
Up the centre of the valley
Tow’rds the distant “ Devil’s Kitchen,”
Gaping high in air before him ;
Onward, upward, climbing, scrambling,
Round or o’er the ice borne fragments.
*
*
*
*
Hark, what sudden, sharp crack-crackling,
Like the sound of rifle volley
Or the snap of closest thunder,
Swelling now to noise “uproarious,”
Echoes round the rock-walled valley ?
Is His Sable Highness cooking
In the gloomy cleft up yonder ?
Has his kitchen Inter busted ?
Whence can come such startling clamour ?
See, from out yon crown of vapour
Resting on the lofty mountain,
�10
Lines of dust, with seeming slowness,
( Strange effect of height and distance,)
Creeping down that steep escarpment,
Glyder-fawr’s north-western angle ;
Gleaming now with sudden radiance
In the level sheet of sunshine
Streaming ’neath the drifting cloud roof,
From Elidyr’s lofty shoulder
O’er the twilight darkening valley ;
See, from out the lowering columns
Right and left, the glancing fragments
Leaping, crashing o’ei’ the ledges,
Hurling down the loosened boulders,
Now with headlong speed descending,
Score the cliff with lines of ruin :
Nearer, sharper, grows the tumult,
Louder, grander, roar the echoes,
Till the rushing, stony torrent
Clattering down by screes and gullies,
Spent and worn, has found its level
All its noisy life departed.
On again the rambler struggled,
Reached at last Twll-du’s dark fissure,
Tempting spot to plant collector-;
(See the trusty “ Guides ” aforesaid.)
Yet one little floral beauty
Well deserves a passing notice ;—
Purple saxifrage ; its blossoms,
Soon as winter’s snows have left it
Rosy-tinting rocks aud boulders
On the old volcanic ash beds;
Loveliest little Alpine creeper,
With its slender thyme-like branches
Threading all the rocks with crimson.
Looked into the “ Devil’s Kitchen,”
Too much water, now, to enter,
Though the writer oft has clambered
Up the fallen blocks and ledges
Ad sanctissimum sanctorum,
Underneath the fallen boulder ;
Whence, on looking back, the landscape,
Lake and mountain, bright in sunshine,
Seen along the darksome crevice,
�11
Framed between its gloomy portals,
Startles with its golden radiance ;
Like the light of moon or planets
Yellow in the midnight darkness.
—Climbed to Llyn-y-cwn’s morasses,
—Saw the dim grey sea horizon
Faintly gleaming o’er Carnarvon,—
O’er the tower of Penrhyn Castle
Down Nant Francon’s long perspective ;
Saw in faintest ghostly outline
Moel Eilio’s grassy summit
O’er the lakes of deep Llanberis ;
All things else in mist were shrouded.
Scrambled on by screes and ledges,
Near a thousand feet ascending
Up the slope of Esgair-felen
To the brow of the Great Glyder.
Reached again the drifting cloud roof,
Reached once more the reign of Winter,
Faced again the piercing easter
With its six degrees of freezing ;
Crunched again the frozen snow sheets,
Half a foot in depth, new-fallen ;
Hastened on again by compass
Through the all-encircling mist wreaths,
(Centre of a faint horizon
Scarce a hundred yards in compass),
Through the gathering shades of evening,
O’er the lofty rock strewn platform ;
O’er a mile of stony desert,
Sharp edged shingle, “ snow-denuded.”
Now, a howling wintry desert,
Tempest-ridden, fog enfolded ;
Yet, in brighter, clearer weather,
Scarce you’ll find a nobler station
Whence to view the lofty Snowdon :
Whence to see the mountain monarch,
Whence to watch the changing colours
On his peaks and winding ridges
In some clear north western sunset
Of the longer days of summer;
Whoa Crib-goch in fiery radiance
Glows along each stony saw crest,
�12
Down each scree, with streams of orange;
While Cwm-glas in deepening shadow
Veiled -with haze of grey and purple
Dimly shews its tiny lakelets
Dark with rock-reflecting shadows
O’er the gorge of deep Llanberis :
And Y Wyddfa, “ the conspicuous,”
Towering high, in gilded outline,
O’er Crib-ddysgyll’s darkening ridges,
Crowns the scene of mountain glory.
Lost in distance man’s “improvements,”
All unseen, those huts unsightly,
Yet most welcome to the climber,
Faint or thirsty with his scramble
Up some rugged mountain buttress :—
Up Cwm-dyli’s “ rush of waters,’*
By the knife-edged crest of Lliwedd,
Up the cliff from Bwlch-y-saethau :—
Up the screes, from Cwm-y-clogwyn,
Up from Cwm-y-llan’s recesses,
To the “ Saddleback’s ” dread (!) shoulder,
Scene of regulation terrors !—
O’er Crib-goch’s spiky ridges,
O’er its wearying screes unstable,
Each loose stone a “ friction-roller”
Set with knives of flinty sharpness,
Roughest peak in all Snowdonia ;
From Cwm-glas’ deep recesses
By the spiny crest of Ddysgyl.
(Routes most dangerous ! most improper ! !
For the guideless mountain rambler.)
Why deform a spot so glorious
As the crested cone of Snowdon
With excrescences so hideous ?
Wooden shanties, roofs of patchwork,
Rusty funnels, empty bottles ;
Why not build in style substantial
Honest stonework, plain yet sightly,
In some neighbouring sheltered hollow ?
Leaving free the narrow summit
For the crowds who come to study
(When the drifting mists allow them)
Scenes of oft recorded beauty.
�13
While (to Glyder fawr returning)
Snowdon’s lengthening three-forked shadow
Leaps Llyn Gwynant’s silvery mirror,
Stalks across the wood crowned valley,
Climbs the slopes of Cerig Cochion.
And the Glyders’ gloomy profiles
Slowly creep up sunlit Siabod.
Stain his golden-glowing shoulders
With their deep embrasured outline.
While the Lesser Glyder’s ridges
Cut the sky with crested ruins.
Wondrous mountain architecture
Shining bright in level sunlight.
Or, perchance, in broken -weather,
-Scenes below, in fitful fragments,
Lake and streamlet, rock and woodland,
Here and there by turns emerging
Lom the snowy, rolling vapour
Shine revealed in sudden clearness :
While the sea-horizon, gleaming
Far and wide in radiant silver
Floods the distant scene with beauty,
Mottled o’er with flying shadows,
Saowy cloudlets, floating islands,
Gliding o’er its shining level.
While, around, the parting mist-wreaths, Lingering yet, in playful wanderings
Race along the rocky desert,
Round its pinnacles and turrets.
Or some sudden pelting shower
Sweeping o’er the lofty ridges
Gilds the scene with new-born lustre
Flashing in the fitful sunshine ;—
Floats away o’er sharp-coned Tryfan—
Wreaths his head with sudden glories,
Radiant circles, full orbed rainbows,
Ro mere lowland “ arch triumphant,”
Each concentric ring, completed
In the yawning depths of Bochlwyd,
Standing forth in fairest colours
From the dark, retreating nimbus.
While old Snowdon’s western shoulder
Ploughing up the sea borne currents
�14
Into higher, colder regions
Forms a train of sweeping cloudlets
Visibly increasing, growing
Out of evening’s purest ether ;
Till the long cascade of vapour
Streaming o’er his pointed summit,
Gliding down Cwm-dyli’s hollow,
Floats across the vale of Gwynant ;
Vainly struggles, hither, thither,
Stands in heaps o’er Pen-y-gwryd,
Tangled in the threefold eddy
Streaming up, from deep Nant Peris,
Round from Gwynant’s curving valley,
O’er the slopes of Gallt-y-wenallt.
Sight of snowy sunlit beauty
To the rambler far above it ;—
Source of discontented grumbling
To the helpless “walking tourist”
Buried ’neath its surging billows,
Coffee room imprisoned, fearful
Of the mountain mist or tempest ;
Weatlier-bound, the silly fellow,
Ignorant of scenes so glorious
On the lofty crests above him.
Thus in plaintive doleful numbers
Pouring forth his lamentation.
�15
LAY OF THE IMPRISONED TOURIST,
AS HE LAY “ USED UP” ON THE SOFA,
Stranger, who by love for mountains
E’er shouldst chance to be allured
To this den of dreary horrors,
Soon your weakness will be cured:
All the skies in cloud extinguished,
All the earth by mist obscured,
Imps cerulean, dismal vapours,
Reign supreme at Pen-y-gwryd !
Here the heavens are ever pouring
Drenching streams from fog-bank lurid :
Tears of sympathy incessant
Angels high in ether pure hid
Weep for us, poor luckless captives,
In this wretched place immured.
Traveller, that’s the reason why it
Always rains at Pen-y-gwryd !
Walker! Mr. Walking-tourist,
Fudge and nonsense, cease your growling ;
Off with those eternal slippers ;
Out, and scramble up the mountains ;
Burn that fossil, last week’s paper,
Last resource of mind most wretched,
Come, and soon will soul and body
Rise superior to the vapours.
Come, and see what glorious pictures
Nature shews, in ceaseless beauty,
To the thoughtful, loving student
Of her ever-changing features,—
Not forgetting Nature’s Author,
’Mid such tokens of His power,
(With all reverence be it spoken),
In whose hands are earth’s deep places,—
Whose, the strength of hills and mountains,—-
�16
Whose the sea is, for He made it,—
Who the outspread land created :—
Whose, are Earth and all her fulness,
Hail and lightning, snow and vapour,
Wind and storm, His word fulfilling,—
Ministers that do His pleasure.
*
*
*
*
4:
Yet what strange ironic contrast
To all sunny recollections
Was the scene, this wintry evening,
On the crest of lofty Glyder !
Howling tempest, whirling vapour,
Piercing frost, and crunching snow-wreath.
Reached at length his eastern shoulder,
Hastened down once more from cloudland ;
Saw the face of Llyn-cwm-ffynnon
Shine like silver far beneath him—
Welcome landmark through the twilight.
Passed the darkened cliff of greenstone,
Reached the doubly ice-grooved platform,
Witness strange, of two-fold glaciers;
Hastened down by roches moutonnees,
’Mid blocs perches by the hundred ;
Passed the spring-fed Llyn-cwm-ffynnon,
Where of late the char have flourished;
Hurried on, well nigh belated,
Scrambled down, in almost darkness,
Gained the road at lone Gorphwysfa,
Pen-y-pass, of late its title ;
Pen-y-“ pass ! ” a mongrel nickname
Cymru should be all ashamed of.
Nothing loth, reached Pen-y-gwryd,
Ever welcome Pen-y-gwryd!
Thus did end an eight hours’ ramble
All alone, across the mountains ;
(No one else wrould face the weather)—
High-away-there ! o’er the Glyders.
WHITE AND PIKE, PRINTERS, BIRMINGHAM.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A wintry walk among the mountains
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Biden, H.E. [1832-1907]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "With sincerest apologies to the shade of Hiawatha" [Title page]. "The following lines contain an accurate account of what befell the writer during a ramble on May 18th,1867, over the summit of Glyder-fach and down by Lyn Bochlwyd to LlynIdwal ..." [Author's note].
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F.B. Kitto
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1867
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G5312
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Poetry
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Conway Tracts
English Poetry
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Sacerdotalism
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241
TUDY
OF
jVALT
J/VHIT/VlANj
THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
By the Hon. Roden Hoel.
PART I.
I had just been reading Whitman for the first time, when I took up a
weekly review, which always speaks, if not as one having, yet as one
assuming to have, authority; and there I found it stated that Walt
Whitman was an obscure impostor, and that his poetry was no better
than Miss Codger’s prose. I had thought otherwise; but upon a
diffident person this unhesitating deliverance from our weekly oracle
of critical revelation might well have a staggering effect. Kot very
long after, however, I read in the same literary arbiter, which so
thoroughly fills among us the functions of any possible Academy (what
could Mr. Arnold and Mr. Proude have been thinking about when they
sighed for one ?), that Charles Dickens was a rather inferior writer, a
sort of Bavius or Msevius of his day, at least if compared with Mr.
Tennyson. Upon this, I felt that the critic was speaking out of a
sphere so entirely away from and elevated above mine, that, until he
should have communicated his own superior nature to me, I must
remain totally incapable of profiting by his revelations. Kot without
many a qualm, therefore, I betook myself again to my own feeble lights,
having really for the nonce nothing better that I could look to.
To me, then, I will begin by owning at the outset, Walt Whitman
appears as one of the largest and most important figures of the time,
Of those who have publicly expressed a somewhat similar conviction,
may be mentioned Mr. Rossetti, Mr. Conway, Mr. Robert Buchanan,
and (I believe) Mr. Swinburne.
I think that what delights and arrests one most is the general im
pression he gives of nature, strength, health, individuality—his relish
of all life is so keen, intense, catholic—the grasp of his faith is so
nervous and tremendous—as he says, ‘ My feet are tenon’d and mortis’d
in granite.’ One of the notes of a man of genius is, that through life
he remains a child; and there is something eminently childlike in
Whitman. He is full of naif wonder and delight—each thing, every
�242
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
time lie looks upon it, flashes upon him with a sense of eternal freshness
and surprise ; nor is anything to him common or unclean ; but an aerial
glory, as of morning, utterly insensible to vulgar eyes, bathes and
suffuses all. He is tall, colossal, luxuriant, unpruned, like some
giant tree in a primeval forest, whose feet root profoundly in a virgin
soil. He springs out of that vast American continent full-charged
with all that is special and national in it, in a supercmincnt degrees
representative of all that is richest and most fresh in that American
life which, more fully than any other, embodies the present age’s own
individual life. He is very far from being hopeless and disdainful of
his time ; he does not, as many really great writers of his country have
done, prefer distant lands, enriched with long and eventful histories, for
his theme ; he takes his own country and his own time, however ignoble
they may seem to some fastidious tastes ; he is by no means himself
uninfluenced by the special errors and special weaknesses of these;
but he is withal magnificently pregnant with all a seer’s half-articulate
previsions, with all a prophet’s triumphant anticipations of that larger
and more generous human future which is surely about to issue out
of these travailing loins and from these most ominous birthpangs of
the present. He is American democracy incarnate ; and however much
that leaves to be desired, yet it is great. As Mr. Buchanan has already
remarked, he is more prophet than artist. He very seldom retires to
create deliberate imaginative wholes, in whose many diverse forms may
be deposited the truths he sees and must utter, the mastering emotions
which dominate his soul. You never cease to see this man Walt
Whitman. But then it is a very noble, and I contend a very poetic,
personality you see—one in which, as in a magic crystal, all these men
and women of the wrorld, all the sights of city and of landscape, find
themselves mirrored with most astonishing distinctness. He is too
eager, too excited, to linger and to weave artistic poems out of his
materials ; yet in the flash of the dark-lantern he turns upon them for
a moment as he passes, though they too often appear isolated and
disjunct, they dart out upon you with all the marvellous solidity and
reality which their images have in nature. It is certainly a poet’s
glance which has been poured upon them—piercing, remaking them;
not the glance of an analyst, a practical man, or one apathetic and
indifferent. It is always one of intense enjoyment, from complete vision
of the essence and heart of a thing. And this atmosphere of keen
buoyant personal sympathy and pleasure is more marked in Whitman
than in anyone else, and is wonderfully bracing and refreshing to
breathe. All the stale heaps of common, familiar things seem to leap
up into their proper vitality as he passes : they glow like dingy metal
filings in some electric light. And if he were otherwise, more of an
ordinary artist, we should lose this refreshing novel sense of intense
yet catholic and impersonal personality which is so eminently charac
teristic of Walt Whitman. He seems to revel in his own life, and
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
243
equally in that of every man, woman, and child he meets or can
imagine. And now that so many people say and sing that they are
weary and tired and despairing, that the world is worn out, and that
yon must go back to the classics or mediaeval themes for any objects
of warm poetic interest, that life now is ‘ a suck and a sell, and its end
a bit of threadbare crape,’ this spectacle of a poet and a man like a
very child rejoicing in all the teeming forces and energies of this vulgar
world of ours—this surely is something at least novel and ‘ sensational.’
True it is,- however, that Whitman comes of the people; his past
life has been active, adventurous, healthy, varied, and broadly human
in experience. Tic dare nob set himself above them, above the meanest
of them, and look down from a height serenely benevolent upon them ;
he claims to be one with them; and what he sees more vividly than
they, glories in more supremely, is—that he is, not an elect, a very
intellectual or refined man, but a man, and has men and women
for brothers and sisters. This honest and unfeigned use of great
ness in rendering service rather than in exacting it—in pouring self
out for the enrichment of mankind rather than jn cunningly playing
upon the weaknesses of mankind for one’s own glory—this is after the
ancient type of heroism, after Christ, ‘ friend of publicans and sinners,’
the Divinest Son of Man, who ‘ drew all men to Himself; ’ and one can
well understand the personal fascination and influence which we are
informed Whitman is exercising upon so many of the youth of
America. The life familiar to him is the picturesque, free, unconven
tional life of the people—not the pale monotonous artificial life of literary
student, aristocrat, or plutocrat. He enters profoundly into all their
difficulties, enjoyments, sorrows, and eager aspirations. Then, too, he
has been in the great civil war, and been keenly penetrated with
the noblest (as well as the less noble, but still powerfully human) of
its principles and ideas. And in that war he was present personally
in the sublimes! and most heroic of capacities—he ministered constantly
to the wounded on both sides, on the field and in the hospital. Such
a man, therefore, has had exceptional advantages as man—and the
raw material being heroic, such is the result. We who stay at home in
the old country, with old traditions and prejudices rank in our blood,
nurtured under the grand yet somewhat chilling shadow of ‘ timehonoured institutions ’—we cannot pretend to call ourselves men of
the age as that man can call himself man of the age. But of book
learning, of refined inherited culture-inculcated accents, words, and
ways, this man has probably little—so far, he has not, perhaps, had all
advantages, though, whether they would not have cramped and injured
him, is to me very questionable.
There are those, I know, who affirm that a poet can never (except
quite indirectly) be a teacher or a prophet. This is again a critical
dictum so removed from me that I do not pretend to understand it. I
should have thought it depended on how he taught and prophesied—
�244
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
whether in doing so his whole nature was a-fire or not, his imagination
and his heart all a-glow about the chariot way of his reason ; for other
wise Isaiah and Jeremiah, Lucretius and Shelley, would be no poets,
which on the whole I rather take leave to doubt. But it resolves itself
of course into a dispute about words.
If, again, a poet must necessarily mean a metrist after our established
English models, certainly Whitman is none. His expression indeed
must be admitted to be often slovenly, inadequate, clumsy, and harsh ;
sometimes even stilted, bombastic, and inflated. But it is very far
from uniformly or generally this. I read indeed in the same review of
which I have before so reverently spoken, how it was now an axiom
unquestioned by any judicious person that subject-matter in poetry was
nothing, and style, expression, was everything. I felt terribly discon
certed at always having to believe exactly the opposite of all that is so
categorically and without argument laid down by this our supreme
authority in matters critical; hut really that did seem startling to the
uninitiated mind. Whether a poet has anything to say, to bring out,
to express, is of no consequence whatsoever. Whether it be nothing or
something, whether it be nonsense or wisdom, whether it be empty
wind or inspired revelations, gibberings of an idiot, pulings of a senti
mentalist, or utterances of sublime imagination and divine passion—all
this is of absolutely no account; if only there be sibilants and labials
and rotundities of sound in the slipping of any or of either of these
things off the tongue, he who gives vent to them is a poet, in either
case equally a poet; but if there be not quite enough of these sounds,
whatever else there be, by no means and on no account a poet. Well,
then, must not musical glasses be a poet ? And since it would certainly
be possible to weave intricacies of sound more exquisite and more varied
by discarding altogether that old-fashioned hampering obligation of
conceiving, imagining, and feeling with strength sustained enough to
keep coherence, harmony, and distinctness among the ideal links we
weave, would it not on these principles be well to lay down ex cathedra
the grand, if novel axiom, that true poetry can only and shall only
consist of nonsense verses ? On the contrary, I venture to believe that
expression implies meanings to be expressed, and that the most perfect
expression is that which most transparently and impressively fits and
shows off the meaning.
The charm of ‘ Don Juan ’ is surely in that wonderful adaptation of
the metre to all clear, luscious beauty of the pictures, all free, in
commoded movements of the story, all sparkling turns of the satire,
the humour, and the wit; there is here no deliberate concoction of
‘ blessed words like Mesopotamia,’ no triumphant exultation in the
invention of novel tricks for saying ordinary things that must be said
in a roundabout, coxcombical, and unintelligible manner, which now
(as in the days of Euphues and Darwin) appears to be considered the
one essential of great poetry. Wordsworth hoped vainly that he had
�THS POET 0> MODERN DEMOCRACY.
245
refuted that. I refuse to call him a great master of expression with
whom words, whether in prose or verse, are not before all a medium of
meaning ; if they are employed with all manner of tricks and artifice,
primarily for their own sakes, and the meaning has very much to take
its chance of sanity and wholeness among them (the effect being that
of a kaleidoscope, where bright broken fragments of ideas keep shifting
their combinations in an endless and bewildering fashion), whatever the
music of the sound be, it is not good expression, but the very worst.
Poetry in this case usurps the place of music, for words can never bo
mere sound, but always must remain symbolic sound with a determined
meaning. Just so precisely the latest fashion in music usurps the place
of language and stultifies the very idea and specific difference of music,
which implies sound for its own sake, spiritual suggestion only indirect
and indefinite : a similar remark applies to the last fashion in painting.
Shelley himself, for example, wonderful poet as he is, was often carried
into totally inadequate expression by his exquisite ear for melodious
sound. His melody and harmony are glorious when they rise spon
taneously into heaven, immediately responsive to the soaring and ex
panding impulse within, wholly obedient to the burst of impetuous ima
gination., to the divine stress and swell of immense human sympathies.
But of a poet—a maker, a seer, a singer—must first of all be demanded
if he can make and feel and see ; then afterwards, if he can sing. Yet
the chances are that if he answer ‘ yes ’ to the first question, you are
almost safe in leaving the other unasked. It is the very meaning and
essence of poetry that a man who can make in the region of the ideal,
who can feel and imagine (unless he be by nature impelled to some
other than verbal form of plastic expression), will necessarily be driven
to
form of rhythmical utterance. I do not depreciate the most
gifted in the region of melodious metrical expression. I glorify them.
If they have other things yet more essential, they are by far the most
perfect of our poets ; only Byron and Wordsworth, whose melody was
less perfect than that of Shelley or Coleridge, cannot on that account be
placed below the latter as poets; for they have abundantly filled for us
vast spaces in the area of poetry which could not have been filled without
them. They have ideal treasures not to be found in their contemporaries.
What were the early rhapsodists, the story-tellers, ballad-intoners,
bards, of an infant people ? It is generally conceded that poetry
among these is of the purest and freshest. Yet what do they know of
our elaborate involutions of phrase-mongering ? Therefore, especially
do I welcome Whitman. In spite of all his faults, he brings us back
to the matrix, to common sense and common nature, and makes us feel
what poetry originally, what at the root of the matter poetry even now,
really means and ought to mean. He is not himself indeed always an
artist a poet; but he is often a very great poet; and when he is,
he shows himself to be one, because he must be, not because he would
like to be, and can mimic those who are. He chants, declaims; when
�245
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
his soul and subject hid him, he sings, quite in his own fashion, as the
poets of a primitive people do.
After all, it is rarely that you find all poetic gifts perfectly balancing
one another in any poet whatever. Nor can I concede for a moment
that deficiency in the region of large vivid insight, affluent imagination,
broad human sympathy, or rush and fire of passion, can be more
perfectly atoned for by verbal daintiness and skill, or by a fine ear for
verbal music, than some defect in these last gifts can be by possession
on the part of a poet of those ideal gifts in ampler measure. Indeed, I
distinctly believe that the contrary rather is true. There is more hope
that a poet may be cured of hesitating utterance than that a mere
voluble versifier may sober and strengthen into a poet.
We did want some infusion of robuster and healthier blood among
the pallid civilised brotherhood of our poets. If admirers arise who
strive to imitate Whitman’s gait and form, they will probably make
themselves ridiculous, puff themselves out and collapse ; yet will he
certainly give our jaded literature the prick and fillip that it needed.
He at any rate is no closet-warbler, trilling delicately after the music
of other singers, having merely a few thin thoughts and emotions only
a quarter his own and a clever aptitude for catching the tricks of
another man’s manner.
He bears, however, a marvellous resemblance (I often think) to
Oriental prophets. He is in manner of life, as well as manner of
thought, feeling, temperament, marvellously like a reincarnation over
there in the West of that special principle of personality which has
been so much more frequently manifested in the East—in Derwishes,
for instance, and Sufis. He has so thoroughly assimilated Bible
poetry on account of his profound personal identity with the writers
of it. Yet is he very un-Hebrew after all. He is more Egyptian,
Persian, Indian. Pantheist is he to the back bone; a nature worshipper,
seeing God everywhere—God in all, even the meanest thing ; bowing
before good and evil as integral and correlative elements in the universal
scheme of things, all going (as Hegel demonstrates) by the principle
of identity in contraries. He is a desperate and shameless assertor of
the sacredness of the flesh, the body, beauty of form and colour, and
the fleshly instincts. This he is (let us freely admit and regret)
wantonly, inartistically coarse in asserting; unutterably shocking
of course to those who are unutterably shocked with nature for
making us of flesh at all, and who hold that the only way to remedy
her immodest mistake is to hush the fact up altogether.
The passages most capable of giving deep and permanent delight to
lovers of poetry in all ages are certainly those in which a profound
soul-moving spiritual signification rises without let or hindrance into
that perfect rhythmic cadence which is propel’ to it. Here doubtless a
careful training of the organ of expression has its place, as well as a
fine original instinct for expression, and a genius for grandeur and
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
247
melody of sound. In proportion to the completeness, magic sug
gestiveness, and special beauty of sound concordant with idea and
feeling, will be the penetration and lingeringly-inherent power of the
poem. But the condition implied is that the sound be verily an echo,
a reduplication of the sense. In that wonderful music of Coleridge’s
1 Ode to France ’ there is all the still floating of cloud, the long
roll of wave, the solemn music of wind and swinging pine by
night. In ‘Lewti,’ the delicious, how the mellow ripple of verse in
its own ‘meandering mazes’ reflects and multiplies for ever that
gleam of river-swans and the river 1 A marvellous and mysterious
fellowship among sights and sounds makes such a marrying of them
attainable. Not only is the word thunder next of kin to the very roll
of sound in heaven, but very twins also are blitz and the flash that
blinds. The name gleaming gently soothes the ear, even as soft tender
light does the eye. And when the whole subject has a pervading tone,
a characteristic movement, be it rapid tumultuous rush, solemn im
perial march, pathetic pause, or tripping buoyancy of the dance, then
must the true poet’s measure breathe antiphonal response in the
music. Take Shelley’s marvellously lovely prophetic chorus in
‘ Hellas,’ or the splendid music of his eagle-chorus in the same ; out of
Byron take the stern, sad warrior-lilt of his ‘ Isles of Greece ;’ out of
Burns the abrupt exulting tramp, the clarion and the battle-shout of
‘ Scots, wha hae.’
But in no case can I find that any great poets made poetry to con
sist in mere ingenious allurements for the ear, busied themselves first
of all about this, and let the spiritual fire fall into the midst of their
word-altar if it would, or if it could. Alas ! how often it will not, though
the priests of Ashtaroth cry aloud, and leap, and cut themselves with
knives! '
Coleridge’s 1 Kubla Khan,’ exquisite for music, even in spite of the
line which brings in that ‘ blessed word ’ Mount Abora, is far too shadowy
a vision from opium-land to be permanently remembered, as 1 Christabel ’
or the 1 Mariner ’ may be. To my mind, that sweetest little bit, called
the ‘ Knight’s Grave,’ is, for atmosphere of tender sentiment, undefined
yet far-reaching and profound, suffusing picture, thought, and melody
alike (surely the melody is magical to a degree), worth many ‘Kubla
Khans ’ and similar pieces, arresting only or almost only from the music
of the syllables.
So much I thought it well to premise, because in a day which
has seen really beautiful artificial melodies in poetry brought to a
pitch of rare perfection, the rough untutored guise of Walt Whit
man’s muse is likely to prove the most serious obstacle of all to
toy cardinal justice being done to his high poetic genius.
Yet in Whitman we shall often recognise that nobler kind of music
which is bound up with a poet’s language as a more thorough and
effectual expression of thought, image, and feeling.
�248
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
Turn, first, to his beautiful lament for the death of Lincoln, 1 When
lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed ’ :
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest received me,
The gray-browll bird I know received us comrades three,
And he sang what seemed the song of Death, and a verse for him I love
Come, lovely and soothing Death !
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day in the night, to all to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death!
Praised be the fathomless universe
Por life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love. But praise ' 0 praise and praise
Por the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death !
Yet each I keep and all,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woo,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odour.
For the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands . . .
And this for his dear sake.
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
Note here, too, the creation of a simple beautiful whole—a few
ordinary sights, scents, and sounds, flowing quietly as by accident
into his soul, and there taking a solemn tinge from the sublime
atmosphere of a manly grief ready to kindle into the gladness of a
triumphant faith—but nothing forced, nothing strained, nothing made
up; these messengers from without just taking on an aspect of
hallowed sympathy with the tone and temper of the soul they visit.
I note this particularly as one instance out of many in Whitman,
because what is most noticeable on the surface of him is a certain
fragmentariness, a certain tendency to rush rapidly through a whole
world of isolated details with an intensity of exhilaration, indeed,
which is itself poetic, but which yet fails of creating high art, because
there is no obvious wholeness, no sufficiently pervading idea or
purpose to impart unity. It is not with him a question of painting a
particular scene or even object with extraordinary lovingness and
minuteness of touch, the whole being poetical because every touch
helps to create, or indeed more strictly develop, a spiritual ideal of
scene or thing by flashing upon the bare matter, as it appears to the
cold unloving sense, a thousand tints and tones from kindred things
�The
poet
Of
modern democracy.
249
With which it has latent fellowship and sympathy. With Whitman
rather, in snch passages as offend many readers, it is a kind of rapid
excited stride through brilliant but heterogeneous stalls of a great
exhibition or bazaar, cataloguing objects with bare names as he goes.
And this is the notion he gives you always and everywhere. How
ever barren, or even stammering and inadequate his naming and
picturing, still he contrives to flash upon all a wonderful light of
freshness, and glory, and triumph in the bare existence of all things, as
he shoulders along, the great sane man, enjoying, praising, filled to
the very brim, in an age of nervous hesitation, and question, and
lamentation, with a faith as tremendous and unquenchable in the
ultimate excellence and right of things as ever burned in prophet or
saint of old. A faith not received by inheritance as an heirloom, and
conventionally valued as a property, a propriety, a matter of course—■
but a faith grown out of the very roots and breadths of his own per
sonality, and that the personality of a man who, with all reverence for
the past, yet lives in, and assimilates the fresh results yielded by the
present, sharing, according to the fuller measure of genius and un
wonted human sympathy, the hopes and aspirations of his fellows for
the future. His bright and large views of life may indeed be fairly
attributed in some measure to his splendid health and physique, as Mr.
Rosset ti remarks. And I think this rapid, often unsatisfactory, nakedly
prosaic cataloguing of innumerable isolated details, may be attributed
largely also to the poet’s exhilaration in the open air; he can hardly
stop to meditate and get the precise character of the object opened out
to him, he enjoys it so, and then so many other things everywhere
press themselves on him to be noticed and enjoyed. In this respect,
Ms fellowship with ordinary out-door, healthy men, his habit of loafing
»bout and basking, does a serious injury to his artistic expression.
For it should be well understood that accuracy of detail may be either
naked, cold, and mechanical, or intensely poetic because thoroughly
spiritualised. It is unjust to apply the phrase ‘ photographic ’ to this
Zasi kind of work. Coleridge and Keats always saw nature thus;
Wordsworth’s harder nature not perhaps always, though usually: and
what I mean by the poetic vision is a more real and intense, by no
means a less true, sight.
But generally Whitman’s description appears to me thoroughly
masterful. His epithets are few, yet precise and characteristic of the
broad general image which a thing, a scene, casts upon a quick,
passing, but piercing and sympathetic, observer. Thus :
In lower latitudes, in warmer air in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating
slowly, high beyond the tree-tops ;
°
below the red cedar festooned with tylandia j the pines ajid cypresses
Growing out of the white sand, that spreads far and flat ;
Ihe waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the
wind.’
VOL. II.—NO. VIII.
N
�250
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
But if Whitman be sometimes remarkable for incisive luminous
distinctness of vision and keenness of all sensation, at other times he
is no less remarkable for a certain magical, mysterious, half-Oriental,
half-German mood that anon possesses him, vague and dim, tender,
mournful, mystical.
‘ The Song of the Broad-axe ’ and ‘ Drum-taps ’ are poems that
are almost all wholes—exquisite pictures drawn writh a few broad
telling touches, and exhaling the profoundest pathos, yet seldom
morbid—a wind, as of bracing faith, blowing through all the sorrow
and the horror; a bracing atmosphere of personal unselfish heroic
endeavours, and most sterling human sympathy pervades them.
On the ‘ Drum-taps ’ Whitman might be content to rest his fame
with future generations. There is little philosophy or mysticism ;
there are few of those peculiarities in form or boldnesses of speech
which shock people most—the art is certainly more perfect. There
is here a definite theme through all the poems—the subject is large,
grand, full of energy and strife, one for which Whitman’s genius as
well as personal experience eminently fits him. Have there ever
been such a series of war poems written ? I do not know of any.
Here, however, not only the tender, loving, pathetic, as well as real
istic and idyllic power of Whitman appears, but also his own ardent
personal convictions, tastes, and aspirations, so that ever and anon
he breaks into passages of tremendous lyric fire. And, except in that
other great poetic figure of the day, Victor Hugo, I hardly know
where we shall look in Europe for the like ; for our verse does not excel
row-a-days in verve, and fire, and rapid rush.1 In that line is not the
following magnificent ?—
Beat! beat! drums. Blow ! bugles ! blow !
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid, mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, 0 terrible drums ; so loud you bugles blow!
And in ‘ The Uprising,’ you can hear the surge, and whirl, and
shriek of the wind; the tremendous upheaval and welter of the
sea; the deep gathering overwhelming roar of a roused and mad
dening multitude. Then ‘ The Song of the Banner ’ is all alive with
spirit of battle. In the few lines 1 The Flag ’ there is a wild fierce
delight, electrically communicated, from the mere upheaval of a people
en masse to fight, it scarcely matters why or for what.
‘What we believe in invites no man, promises nothing, sits in
1 I wish to state that this essay was written more than a year and a half ago, and
has been lying by. I have since seen Mr. Swinburne’s ‘ Songs before Sunrise,’ many
of which are all alive with resonant lyric fervour inspired by great human emotions.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
251
Calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discourage
ment, waiting patiently, waiting its time ! ’ That to me is grand ;
he cannot define, will not pretend to explain precisely, the in
evitable and Divine issue of all our strife, and hallowed endeavour
and success, and failure—but It is there, in the Future, in the For
ever ; patient, silent, grand, adorable, inevitably To be.
The short, "so perfect, pathetic pictures I spoke of in ‘ Drum-taps ’
are well worthy of study. ‘ A Letter from Camp,’ is the simple relation
of an affecting incident, without over-elaborate phrase, or prim
precision of ornament, after the manner of idyls which become a
little wearisome, but has the rare merit, for all its plain speech, of
dropping directly into our hearts and remaining there.
‘Vigil on the Field’ is exquisite for tenderness, sadness, and
large clear delineation of incident and scene. There is a rare fresh
ness of personal feeling about that: the charm of it seems to me un
utterable. He watches by a dying comrade whom he loved—a boy
-—on the field of battle, returns to find him dead, buries him in a
blanket in a rude dug grave there. ‘ The Wounded ’ is another graphic
picture. ‘ 0 tan-faced prairie-boy ’ and ‘ A Grave ’ are exquisite little
sketches. ‘ Camps of Green,’ too, is beautiful—the camps of the dead.
So is the ‘ Dirge for Two Veterans ’ and the ‘ Hymn of Dead Soldiers : ’
Sweet, are the blooming cheeks of the living, sweet ere the musical voices sounding;
But sweet, ah ! sweet are the dead, with their silent eyes.
And what shall we say of this, called ‘ Reconciliation ’ ?—
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war ancl all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever
again this soiled world ;
For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead.
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin ; I draw near,
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Or of this ?—He walks out in the dim gray daybreak, and sees three
forms on stretchers, covered with’ gray heavy blankets. ‘ Curious I
halt, and silent stand ’—then he lifts one blanket:
Who are you, elderly man, so gaunt and grim, with well-grayed hair, and flesh all
sunken about the eyes? Who are you, my dear comrade ?
Then to the second I step—and who are you, my child and darling ? Who are you,
sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming ?
Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white
ivory,
Young man, I think I know you. I think this face of yours is the face of the Christ
himself;
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
I
We would now, before passing to consider shortly the general
character of Whitman’s philosophy and teaching, draw closer attentio n
N2
�252
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
to the nature of his music. We take another instance from the poem,
1 When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed ’:
0 how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved ?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone ?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love ?
Seawinds blown from east and west,
Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till tlierff on the prail'iea
meeting:
These, and with these and the breath of my chant,
I perfume the grave of him I love.
0 what shall I hang on the chamber Walls ?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love ?
But of all our author’s poems, surely the loveliest is ‘ A Song
out of the Sea.’ I only wish I could quote it whole, but it is too
long. I hesitate not to say that to me there is no lyric in the language
like it—out of Shelley.
There is a wonderful natural music running through this and
similar poems of Whitman’s : an outbreathing as in primitive times,
and among a primitive people, that can come from nowhere but from
the very depths of a poet’s, a singer’s soul. It is all his own—creation
of spirit, body, vesture. He is intensely original; has not been imbued
with the world’s rich inheritance of treasured poetry: works under no
strong (however flexible) traditions of art, speaks because he must, sings
because he must; yet, with all his rare personal mass and intensity, sings
only sometimes—would certainly sing more constantly did he condescend
to condense and concentrate more; in which some respect for established
forms would largely assist him. And yet in the links of poems where
there is confessedly no intensity of fire possible, if at least we require
that it shall be germane to the subjects, it is more than doubtful
whether the poetic barrenness should be scattered over with sham
flowers instead of real ones ; as the established forms, or at least the
standard poetry by which this English generation judges, appears to
require. So you get either fine sound with no meaning whatever, or
epithets ingeniously constructed in cold blood, which in either case
seriously interferes with the natural and lifelike development of the
poem. Pure honest prose, where prose is really proper, would be
infinitely better.
However all this be, here, in the ‘ Song of the Sea,’ and in similar
passages from Whitman, you do assuredly find, if you are sensitive
and competent, a certain artless harmony of sound that flows like a
spell upon jaded ears, somewhat sated with cloying artificial harmonies
from the study. One is reminded of some dreary nocturne, some
slumbrous mystic voluntary breathed in twilight within a vast
cathedral, or weird natural sounds we know not whence, wandering
phantasmal over lowland wildernesses by night.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
253
It is like the very voice of the sea himself, entangled in strings of
the harper ; into the strain has passed the very plaint and murmur of
winds over barren sand and briny briar; rising alternately and fall
ing ; harsh, interrupted, disturbed ; caught up unaware smooth and
soothing; stealing upon us forlorn and melodious, from unfooted
wastes, and shadowy realms of some spirit land that is very far.
Just two personification-pictures, eminently rich in colour, firm
in outline, distinct and pregnant with symbol, yet small in compass
and condensed. One is from ‘ Old Ireland ’ :
Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen, now lean and tattered, seated on the ground ;
Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders;
At her feet an unused royal harp,
Long silent—she too long silent—mourning her shrouded hope and heir :
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.
The other is from ‘A Broadway Pageant,’ written on occasion of
the reception of a Japanese embassy:
The Originatress comes,
The. land of Paradise—land of the Caucasus—the nest of birth,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of Eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes !
[To &e continued.']
’
�
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A study of Walt Whitman, the poet of modern democracy. Part 1
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Noel, Roden
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 241-253 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (October 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
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American Poetry
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Walt Whitman
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305
J3f\OWNING
AS
P^eachei^
A
SECOND PAPER.
'The first part of this essay was occupied with an attempt to define
some aspects of Mr. Browning’s position amongst contemporary poets;
¡and the tone and temper in which his poetry enters upon one of its
functions—preaching—(this word I used advisedly as better befitting
poetry than the term teaching}. His art and his preaching are, indeed,
inextricably interwoven in all his writings; and the result of an en•deavour to abstract either one or other from the whole, must of course
be unsatisfactory; nevertheless, in some measure I must aim at tracing
•one or two of his characteristics as preacher, to their expression in
some of his sermons. Within a space so limited, I can only allude
to a very few poems : a thorough analysis of any, would be, one need
hardly say, useless to attempt. ‘ Easter-day ’ is perhaps of all others,
the most strikingly illustrative of the Browning peculiarities, the one
which least of all could have been the work of any other man. Viewed
.side by side with his £ Christmas-eve,’ it is, one feels, the more
difficult of apprehension : it seems more complex in meaning, and
full of subtle transitions of thought and mood. It is possible to a cer
tain extent to content ourselves with an interpretation of ‘Christmas-eve,’
but the other poem seems to grow with each successive reading; and
by newly perceived connections of thought or feeling, to modify our old
exegeses. One feels that one is admitted more immediately in this,
into the mysterious presence of a human mind. The impression one
.gets from comparison of the two poems is that the whole of the vivid
artist and man-consciousness of which the £ Easter-day ’ is a product, is
not brought into action in the formation of the poem of ‘ Christmas-eve
and in this latter there is less absolute demand than in the other, that
his readers should have some degree of intellectual and moral affinity
■with the writer.
Granting that there is this difference in the poems, we may perhaps
VOL. II.---- NO. IX.
Q
�306
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
discern a reason for it in the difference of the subjects which occupy
them; the subject dealt with in £ Christmas-eve,’ belonging to the region
of matters practical—-that of ‘ Easter-day’ extending into the speculative.
Vigorous and clear-sighted though Browning is in his dealings with
these former, it is in a speculative region only that the full force of hisnature seems to develope itself in that passionate pressing on after
substantial reality of some sort or other—whether good or evil, at least
truth—which is the ultimate attitude of all his intellectual and emotional
action.
1 Christmas-eve’ starts from beliefs, which it takes for granted con
cerning the relations of humanity to an unseen spiritual world. It
belongs to the world of intercourse with our fellow men, a region where'
our beliefs are certainties, or as good as certainties. The question it treatsof is one within the Christian Church. The lesson it gives is a practical
one of broad charity and tolerance, a tolerance which, resulting out of the*
love to be learned by contemplation of the Human-Divine love, is to be
able to overcome all intellectual variances and fastidious repugnances of
taste. There is wrought out in the poem the grand feeling of a brother
hood, including witbin its comprehensive hold the manifold varieties of
human lives. Browning by his deep digging into humanity, finds
essential root-union, where Matthew Arnold with his languid scratching
at the surface, finds only dissimilarities forbidding sympathy. He unites
himself and us with the men and women of the Zion Chapel meeting,,
whose portraits he places before his readers in terms so grotesquely
graphic,—omitting no offensive detail to render them thoroughly life
like; and effectually preventing any mere aesthetic sentiment from being
the basis of our Christian charity. The absence of sweetness and light,
and the presence of certan repulsive characteristics (there is a vein off
humour akin to Dickens’s, in the way in which these are individualized),,
in the 1 preaching-man,’ alike, and in the flock that sat under the ‘ pig-oflead-like pressure,’ of his ‘ immense stupidity,’ are things that Browning:
insists on our realising to the full. Then, over the disgust awakened,
in us, he gains and makes us gain, as the poem proceeds, a victory
sublime, both as ethics and as art. (I said in the earlier pages of this,
essay, that Browning had no pathos—no sense of grand incongruities;.
I retract:—this is what one might call an inverted pathos. The un
looked-for discovery that the reality is nobler than the appearance, is.
the pathos belonging to Browning, and, to Christianity; just as the
finding truth to be smaller and meaner than illusion, had been the
pathos of Paganism). ‘Christmas-eve’ unites us, also, with the crowd
of ignorant worshippers in Rome at the ‘ raree show of Peter’s suc
cessor,’ who (typical of a multitude in all sections of the Church).,
remain in the days when the ‘world’s eyes are open’
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
307
Peevish as ever to be suckled,
Lulled by the same old baby prattle,
With intermixture of the rattle ;
and with the Gottingen professor who, with an inconsistency nobler than
his logic, retains the feeling of faith in and love for what his reason has
reduced to a myth. (Were it not that this paper must abstain from
viewing Browning as an artist, I would notice as a specimen of his
power as a portrait painter, the way in which with a few vigorous touches
he sets before us the whole ‘personnel ’ outer and inner, of this ‘ virginminded studious martyr to mild enthusiasm.’) The poem has its cul
minating idea in the grand trust that can say—
‘— Subsisteth. ever
God’s care above, and I exult
That God, by God’s own ways occult
May—doth. I will believe—bring back
All wanderers to a single track.’
Browning lets us see clearly what the nature of this feeling of brother
hood is j and guards jealously against any possibility of confounding it
with ‘ mild indifferentism’ or ‘lazy glow of benevolence over the various
modes of man’s beliefs.’ He makes no attempt to harmonize the different
creeds and tempers of religious feeling, by the modern method of elimi
nating the peculiarities of each as non-essentials. He, on the contrary,
insists that what constitutes each man’s earthly care, is to ‘ strive—to
find some one chief way of worship, and contrive ’ that his fellows ‘ take
their share.’ His tolerance is only the result of his confidence that here
where man’s care ends, ‘ God’s, which is above it and distinct,’ begins.
He cannot take the philosophical bird’s-eye view of the different creeds,
which is possible to men who are sufficiently impersonal to themselves to
contemplate at their ease, and compare impartially, the various religious
systems and cults spread out before them. All conclusions taking as
their premises only the aspects of men in masses, are unsatisfactory to
him. All problems of life, social or ecclesiastical, are unintelligible to
him until he have gained a solvent for them through the solution of the
problem of the life individual. The unit from which his reasonings
start is neither Humanity, nor the portion of it included within a church,
but the ego (the only ego he knows as a basis for argument being his
own). And it is only through his individual realisings, attained through
the toil and struggle of personal faith, that he gets his hope for the des
tinies of other men : it is only because of what he has himself discerned,
that he is enabled to reach—by a leap, not by a logical process—to the
trust that the discerning» of his fellows, though varying from his own,
are not illusory. The ratio of his power of sympathy and tolerance is
exactly that of the strength of his own dogmatic beliefs.
Q 2
�308
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
It is in tlie 1 Easter day ’ that we have to look for the record of how
an earnest human soul attains to that faith in the unseen, which in
‘ Christmas eve ’ is assumed all along as the basis of the argument. The
poem concerns itself with no questions of the ecclesiastical life, but of
the individual Christian life, which includes within itself the idea of the
objectively-including ecclesiastical life. Here Browning’s especial faculty
■—the strong venturing of faith—finds exercise. There are men (and
many amongst the highest orders of men) whose motions of thought and
feeling gain in firmness and freedom by the consciousness of belonging
to and acting with an ecclesiastical organisation or great public move
ment of opinion. But Browning’s mind has no place amongst minds of
this class : it is equally unfitted to move in an army organised under a
definite church system, or in an irregular force banded together by 1 the
spirit of an age;’ its victories must be won in single combat, if won
at all.
Here, parenthetically, we may notice this isolated working of Brown
ing’s thought, as the source of two characteristic imperfections—or,
more properly, limitations—in it. 1st, owing to this, his conception of
Christianity lacks the solidarity that arises out of the corporate feeling
and consciousness of historic permanence. It has never the broad firm
grandeur of the mood of the Ambrosian hymns, for instance, or the ‘ Te
Deum.’ According to his view, each generation of men have just the
same sort of work to do which they would have to do were all the
work of their ancestors to be blotted out, and leave no vestige of itself or
its effects. The objective creed is not placed by him ever in any secure
independence of our subjective hold upon it. 2ndly, though from this
mental aloneness comes the chief glory of his work as truthseeker,—his
way of getting face to face with his beliefs, and seeing whatever he sees,
directly and through no medium of languidly accepted traditions,—-yet
from the same source there comes one characteristic, which limits the
range of his helpfulness, and makes his teaching incapable of influencing
more than one class of minds. His own view of the immeasurable ex
panse of truth makes him, indeed, profoundly tolerant of the views of
other men whose standpoints are not his : but is he wholly free from
exclusiveness in his notions as to what should be accounted the lawful
organ in human nature for truth-discerning 1 Does he not seem to make
his very peculiar self the measure of other men, and become sometimes
intolerant of varieties of ways in which variously constituted men arrive
at and hold their beliefs ? In himself two natures are met in rare com
bination ; each of these natures being of heroic size and vigour. There
is the union of intellectual strength and subtlety, with a vividly imagin
ative and emotional temperament. He is at once a hard thinker and a
passionate feeler—a logician and a poet; and is, for his own part, able
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
30 9
to work in whatever engages him, with the faculties that belong to this
two-fold nature, and choose to which set of faculties he will entrust the
work he cares most about. His poems portray or suggest mental pro
cesses in ■which progress into scepticism and out of it takes place usually
thus:—the keen dialectic intellect first takes up the question in hand,
and works at it until it has made visible all the difficulties that are to
be found in it;—then, at the point where all objections have been fairly
brought into notice, the ego does not set the part of its nature—the in
tellect—which began operations with them, to the further task of at
tempting either to find explanation and answer to them, or to relegate
them beyond the province of things explicable ; but with a sudden
change of mood, the consciousness (leaving all these as and where they
are) flings itself with a passionate leap away from them, into the emo
tional part of human nature, and seeks its faith in a refuge from, rather
than in an encounter with, intellectual difficulty.
Whatever imperfections there are in Mr. Browning’s power of sym
pathy, are to be found on the side that is turned towards the class of
thinkers incapable, from mental constitution, of reaching faith by such
methods. His Christianity seems to exclude men born to belong to
what Mr. R. H. Hutton (in a somewhat ‘hard’-mooded essay—out of tune
with the others in his two recently-published volumes,) styles the ‘ Hard
Church.’ From these,—the men feebler in imagination and emotion,
than in intellectual power,—men whose feelings flow only as after-conse
quences from beliefs which they in no way helped to form—men who
for doubts of reason must find either satisfaction by reason, or find by it
good cause for the impossibility of such satisfaction—from such men
Browning holds aloof. His preaching rejects with somewhat of contempt
the evidences which are their faith’s all. He casts impatiently aside the
evidence, e.g., of the 1 greater probability ’—which to many a man must
be the sole ground of his belief in Christianity, and a ground which
would seem to melt from under him, if emotion or desire intruded upon
a mood dispassionately judicial. Browning’s mind, itself able instinc
tively to feel out the ‘ mightiness of love inextricably curled about ’ all
‘power and beauty in the world;’ and able to transcend, in the strength
of these intuitive perceptions, the chasm intervening between Nature
and the Christian Tale ; refuses to recognise the existence of any logical
footway of historical evidence, whereby alone a mind such as, <?.</., Arch
bishop Whately’s could arrive at belief in the truth of the story.
The failing to behold ‘lover’ written ‘on the foreheads’of the men who
must lovelessly know before they can love, is the imperfection discernible
in the great fraternal-hearted poet-thinker.
It happens often that men far more rigidly exclusive as to the ‘ what ’
of other people’s beliefs, are less so than Mr. Browning with regard to the
�310
BROWNING ÀS A PREACHER.
‘ how.’ This sort of tolerance results from their accepting the creed of
a church as handed down, ¿Ind not making religious truth a matter of
individual investigation. The creed of a church represents the aggre
gate action of varieties of minds it is the centre of agreement where
Opinions meet, irrespective of how they have travelled. Whoever, there
fore, takes this already-arrived-at creed as his own starting-point of
thought or feeling, acquiesces thereby in the lawfulness of roads (be these
what they may) which have brought other men to it. Keble, for in
stance, though a man immeasurably narrower in inherent sympathies
than Browning, has in some ways a larger toleration for minds of a dif
ferent order from his own, and holds in honour modes of thought such
as Bishop Butler’s. This is made possible to him (though for his own
part his faith would rest upon feeling only), by his having at the outset
abstained from individual truth-seeking, and merged his own life in the
catholic life of a church.
In Browning’s teaching there is in many respects a repetition alike of
the perfections and imperfections of Coleridge’s. In both of these men
the same intense inwardness and vivid self-concentrated thought which
fits them to accomplish—as their own peculiar work—the maintaining of
the subjective evidences for religious truth, inclines them to the same
sort of impatience towards all others, who, not able to trust the instinc
tive voices from within, have to seek faith through investigation and
comparison of what is without.
‘ Easter Day ’ is all throughout illustrative of Browning’s tendency
to exclusive reliance upon the subjective evidence of the human instincts.
The problem of the poem is the how
‘To joint
This flexile, finite life once tight
Into the fixed and infinite.’
•—the how to find, first, a ‘ fixed and infinite.’ And for the problem’s
solution, his mind refuses to avail itself of all aids which the intellect,
judging from things external, can offer. Meeting each answer of the
interlocutor with freshly occurring objections, he gets down deeper into
the difficulty, seeing ever more and more ‘ how very hard it is to be a
Christian.’ Then there comes to him, out of his great poet-heart, a
means of escape from the throng of surrounding perplexities, in that
strange, terribly vivid vision-dream, which brings in succession all earthly
things accounted good—earth’s exquisite treasures of wonder and delight
■—the waving of her woods, and flowing of her rivers, and all her vast
exhaustless beauty, and endless change—art in its most perfect ancient
and modern forms—knowledge, and the power to range Faust-like
‘through all circling sciences, philosophies, and histories’—brings all
these to the test of the human soul’s hunger for satisfaction; until it
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
311
feels that none of them is sufficient to stay its cravings; and that its one
final desire (to attain which it would let all else go in exchange) is for
love. And then there comes the mighty leap up of the human instincts,
regardless of intervening intellectual obstacles, towards the love of God
as told of in the Christian story,
£ "What doubt in thee, could countervail
Belief in it— ?’
and in ‘ it ’ he feels that he has found the substance of the gleams
that, blending with all the displays of power and beauty on the earth,
have been the essence of the brightness and good in her, which men have
rejoiced in. The scene which the dream tells of is placed in the after
judgment state; the whole poem, however, is in its scope not illustra
tive of a belief in a spiritual world, and of man’s probation for it, but
tentative of the grounds for such belief; and taking the judgment sen
tences of condemnation, merely as hypotheses in order to have in them,
the most searching tests to apply to human instincts.
Characteristically, too, in his £ Saul,’ Browning makes the Messianic
prophecy evolve itself to David from his instincts introspectively per
ceived. The £ Caliban upon Setebos’ gives us his views (strikingly unPaleyan) of the utmost that natural theology would amount to, argued
out without the aid of the intuitions of human love. These he illus
trates in this (which is one of his most powerfully executed poems), by
showing how Caliban, the loveless creature, who is either devoid of human
affections, or in whom they have not been called into activity by fellow
ship with men, can bring no key from within to unlock the meanings of
the universe; and therefore all that he can find in it, everywhere, all
around, by those shrewd bitterly ironical reasonings which his intellect
alone gathers from external things, is only merciless power, and capri
ciously used strength. And the horrible loathsomeness of this idea is
drawn out with a minute perfection curiously fascinating.
Preference for internal evidence is shown, too, in the whole tenor of
Pope Innocent’s monologue in the £ Ring and the Book.’ Here, though
truth is sought not through the mere instincts of the heart, but with
long patient reasonings of the head, it is still the introspective glance
into the human mind which supplies the starting point of the whole
.argument by which the old Pope, finding therein ideas' of strength, inrtelligence and goodness, larger in conception than in human fulfilment,
;and finding in the natural order of the world, actual fulfilment corre
sponding to two only of these ideas, arrives (by the necessity of finding
some instance of the third) at belief in the Christian story of limitless
Jove and sacrifice.
Brom -within, too, Innocent gets his very beautiful answer to the doubt
�312
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
that inevitably suggested itself to a man living in days when the earth
had become very evil, and lust and cruelty such as Guido’s ‘ had their
way i’ the world where God should rule,’ lest haply Christianity’s visible
failure should disprove its truth. The query,
‘ And is this little all that was to be;
Where is the glorious decisive change ?
The immeasurable metamorphosis
Of human clay to divine gold, we looked
Should in some poor sort justify the price ?
.*
«
*
*
*
*
Well, is the thing we see salvation ? ’
is answered by the guess which is supplied by his own heart instincts,,
that this very weakness and failure may be, after all,
‘ But repetition of the miracle,
The Divine instance of self-sacrifice
That never ends, and aye begins for man.’
and are characteristics necessary in a religion corresponding to the re
quirements of our truest humanity.
‘ How can man love but what he yearns to help ?
What but the weakness in a faith supplies
The incentive to humanity, no strength
Absolute, irresistible, comports ? ’
Thoroughly Browning-like is the Pope’s mood, when in his forecast of
the age succeeding his own, his hopes of world-regeneration are placed
in his expectation that it will ‘ shake the torpor of assurance from men’s
creed,’ and compel them, when they shall have grown to disbelieve re
port, to look inwards for truth, and
‘ Correct the portrait by the living face ;
Man’s God, by God’s God in the mind of man.’
A noticeable exception to Browning’s usual attitude of thought occurs,
in the closing pages of the ‘Paracelsus.’ The speech of the dying
knowledge-seeker contains a passage (too long to quote, and whose im
measurable poetic beauty must not here be spoken of), where the argu
ment extends over the whole known aspect of our world, viewing man
objectively in his chronological place in Nature, as an appearance illus
trative by its ‘ supplementary reflux of light’ of all foregoing appearances:
as the counterpai-t of anterior creations, a mirror consciously reflectant
of the whole.
Mr. Browning is an optimist: and all throughout his poetry his opti
mism is as the life-blood, circulating through and giving colour to every
part of it. Some notion of this element in his creed must be defined in
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
all criticism of him, either as teachei’ or artist. The features distinguish
ing his optimistic theory, are, I think, first, his never at any time ceas
ing to behold evil as evil, and to hate it as such : and secondly, his seeming
not to feel the oppression of its mystery that has lain as a burden so
heavily on the minds of generations of thinkers.
Moral evil he beholds as a thing in no way resolvable into mere imper
fection. Where he finds it in the human world it retains for him its old
meaning of sin, and is viewed as something wholly distinct from a stunting
of the beautiful development of men’s natures: by unfavourable outward
circumstances, such as the absence of knowledge and culture. His own
favourite theory of the position of human impulse, and the homage due
to it, never leads him into letting that homage be of a blind indiscrimina
ting sort. He recognises that there is a principle working internally,
and sending forth impulses which must not be mistaken for those which
are men’s lawful guides. With him holiness and healthiness are not
quite convertible terms. Caponsacchi and Guido have both acted
according to the promptings of impulse, obeying laws which were part of
the nature of each : yet between them a difference is set. Rejoicing
praise is bestowed by the Pope, in the 1 Ring and the Book,’ on the
obedience yielded to instincts by one of these men ;
‘ Well done !
Be glad thou hast let light into the world
Through that irregular breach in the boundary,—see
The same upon thy path, and march assured,
Learning anew the use of soldiership,
Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear ;
Loyalty to the life’s end.’
And on the other—Guido—whom he images to himself as pleading in
self-justification that his course of action has been only the same as that
commended, inasmuch as he too has guided his steps according to the
tune of impulse, the old man’s righteous anger smites the blow of the
sentence of temporal death. Wherein does Pope Innocent account this
difference just ? In this—that there has been a probation for both ;
each of them having within him a something to follow, and a some
thing to resist. Count Guido he beholds as
‘ Furnished forth for his career,
On starting for his life-chance in our world,
With nearly all we count sufficient help.
Body and mind in balance—a sound frame,
A solid intellect; the wit to seek,
Wisdom to choose, and courage wherewithal
To deal with whatsoever circumstance
Should minister to man—make life succeed.’
�314
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
■and fortified in his surroundings with 1 great birth, good breeding, and
the Church for guide.’ He accounts that such a man’s trial lies in the
having within, evil impulses balanced more evenly against the good than
they are in the man less favourably circumstanced for resistance to evil.
He condemns (justly, he feels) him who, if he had so willed, might have
made the good outweigh the evil,—might have used stumbling-block as
stepping-stone; but -who has chosen rather to love and believe in—
‘ Just the vile of life,
Low instinct—base pretension.’
Caponsacchi, too, Innocent views as having undergone trial by urgings
of two kinds of impulse ; and as having followed the noble and resisted
the base,—as having, while yielding to instincts of ‘healthy rage’
against cruelty and oppression, retained self-government, and kept
himself pure in thought, and word, and deed. In his praise there is
involved the idea that evil has been present as—
‘ Temptation . . . for man to meet
And master, and make crouch beneath his feet,
And so be pedestailed in triumph.’
.So, too, in the 1 Easter Day’ (as elsewhere) we find the same doctrine of
.a probation for all human life by instincts good and evil. To each
¿human soul has been shown—
‘ The earthly mixed
With heavenly, it must choose betwixt.
The earthly joys lay palpable,—
A taint in each, distinct as well
The heavenly flitted faint and rare
Above them.’
Far on, indeed, in the hereafter, Browning looks on to there being no
longer this two-fold and contrary working of impulse. His expectation
is that human nature will take its perfection in a grand one-ness. When
it shall—
‘ reach the ultimate, angel’s law
Indulging every instinct of the soul,
There where law, Hfe, joy, impulse are one thing.’
-—‘ A Death in the Desert.’
But he does not confound his hope for the future with his teaching for
.the needs of the present.
An optimist Browning is not in the sense of rejecting or explaining
•away the dogma that humanity has inherent tendencies to moral evil
dark and foul; or proclaiming a freedom to all impulses from any bar
save that of physical or social inexpediency; yet an optimist he is—and
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
315
that not falteringly, but with the conviction of his whole heart—in the
¡sense of being able, all the while he sees the evil which he will not dis
guise by any other name, to look steadily into its dark hateful face, assured
that its ultimate significance is good. He does not conceive that it has
come as some unlucky accident to spoil a harmony of order in a world
which but for it had been perfect; he holds, rather, that it is through
it that a higher perfection is attainable. Feeling this, he does not need
that shuffle into a real though unacknowledged Manichceism, which is
the refuge of so many men from the perplexities and contradictions of a
creed of mingled pessimism and optimism. He believes that the antagon
ism between principles does not extend beyond the world of finite being;
and ventures to refer to the same source the placing in this world of ours
the two contrary principles which we call good and evil. Here is some
of his doctrine, spoken by the Pope in the ‘ Ring and the Book.’
He says (having reached the point of acknowledgment that the
Christian story is true, and that therein ‘ God shows complete’):—
‘ I can believe this dread machinery
Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else
Devised,-—all pain, at most expenditure
Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve
By new machinery in counterpart
The moral qualities of man—how else ?
To make him love in turn and be beloved,
Creating and self-sacrificing too—
And thus eventually, God-like (ay
■“I have said ye are Gods”—shall it be said for nought ?)
Enable man to wring from out all pain
All pleasure for a common heritage.
******
The moral sense grows but by exercise,
’Tis even as man grew, probatively
Initiated in Godship, set to make
A fairer moral world than this he finds.
******
Life is probation, and this earth no goal,
But starting-point for man, compel him strive,
Which means in man as good as reach the goal.’
Evil he beholds as the immediate bringer to humanity of our chief and
peculiar glory—progress, as a messenger sent to institute a race for men,
from less to more, from lower to higher. The one thing of which he
feels a shrinking horror is ‘ ghastly smooth life ’ in which man should be
left ‘dead at heart;’ and his whole spirit leaps up to behold purposes of
goodness in the appearance of anything as a deliverer from that.
Browning’s is a creed including within it the hope that where during
�316
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
the earthly probation, men’s moral wills have been too feeble to enable
them to use temptations by evil as ‘ points that prove advantage for who
vaults from low to high;’ the work neglected or failed in here, may yet
elsewhere, though under harder conditions, be ultimately done. Even
Guido Franceschini, the abominable, he will not allow to depart from
our sight unfollowed by words of hope. In the forgivingness of Pompilia,
the victim of the murderer in her life and death, there is a gospel of a
far-off healing and restoration for him even, albeit by God’s shadow instead
of the light of His face. And the Pope, Guido’s judge, thinks of the
criminal on whom he pronounces sentence of temporal death, as going,
forth—
‘ Into that sad, obscui’e, sequestered state,
Where God unmakes but to remake a soul
He else had made in vain ; which must not be.’
And the same hope comes out, in vaguer expression, in that last phrase-,
of ‘Easter Day’ (without adding which, the human heart of the poet will
not suffer him to let go his vision of the close of the earthly probation):—
‘ Mercy, every way,
Is infinite—and who can say 1 ’
Very faint, by comparison with Browning’s, is Tennyson’s trust in the
‘larger hope;’ though lie, too, seeks to hold the creed that ‘somehow
good will be the final goal of ill.’ All that Tennyson attains to is an
infant’s blind crying after it—a groping for it, with ‘lame hands of faith.’
He looks for his theory of optimism in a direction whither Browning, an
idealist in his metaphysics, does not turn in his quests of objective
realities. And looking for it all throughout the material world and her
analogies, he finds nothing to be a reliable guide to it; and can only fall
in the darkness upon that ‘great world’s altar-stairs;’ not feeling assured
as to what ultimate law and purpose he should find above them, could he
see up their heights.
However, in speaking of the Tennyson and Browning optimisms, it is
not fail’ to make the quality of vigour the point of comparison—nor,
indeed, any other quality either. The aim of the two poets, in their
search, is essentially different. Tennyson’s colder and more symmetrical
mind looks to find truth as harmony and proportion; and is alwayssuspicious of the parts unless it can see the whole. What Browning;
seeks is truth absolute, not relative ; and if he thinks he has got hold of
the minutest particle of that, it is to him as a thing indestructible by
any mass of contradictions; and it suffices to him as a sure earnest of
the rest. His own heart’s instinctive conviction of a law of Lave is out
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
317
of the reach of whatever ‘evil dreams ’ Nature may lend, and does not
need to concern itself with analogies of her waste and destruction—with
appearances such as that ‘of fifty seeds, she often brings but one to bear?
The optimistic creed of Tennyson is the result of an effort, very noble, to
comprehend: that of Browning is an effort to apprehend. The one seeks
a superhuman solution to the problem, and fails : the other, grasping
with a human passion, succeeds in finding satisfaction.
At this part of Browning’s creed there is one of the many doors of
entrance, from the question of his work as a truth-seeker, into the question
of his Art. Into this we may not now’ trespass, further than to observe
that the character of his work, as poet of external Nature, seems to be
determined by the negative influence of his optimism, and his method of
.attaining thereto. His seeking and finding his satisfaction as to the
world’s purport, in another quarter than in the material world, leaves
him free to derive from that world, art of a peculiar and very valuable
kind. Browning’s poetry of external Nature has some characteristics so
rare, that (though in quantity it is much less than what most other great
poets have produced) its loss would leave a gap in our literature. It is
nowhere mystical, like Wordsworth’s, nor eesthetico-scientific, like Tenny
son’s Nature-poetry ; but it is simply full of a noble sensuousness. It is
not the product of moods of intellectual and moral tension. It is glad
acceptance of the physical influences of external Nature—not truth.seeking in and through her mysteries. The contact of the phenomena
which we term material, in ourselves, with the so-called material phe
nomena outside us, is rested in, for the time being, without endeavour to
pursue a further significance. Beautiful art, as well as teaching not a
little wholesome, is given to us in Mr. Browning’s poems of Nature; of
which the speciality is theii’ being sensuous, yet restrained by a manly
■dignity from ever becoming a voluptuous self-abandoning to enslavement
by her beauty. We have the same sort of thing only from one other
modern English poet—A. H. Clough. (See ‘The Bothie.’) There is a cer
tain amount of positivism in both Clough’s and Browning’s acceptance of
the material -world, which results, in both cases, in a similar sort of purely
physical enjoyment of it (the latter’s poetical expression of this being,
however, by far the superior in varied richness). Their positivisms are,
of course, alike in their effects only, and are essentially different. Clough’s
is the positivism of a strong mind, sternly setting aside truth-seeking in
this direction as bootless, and -with a resolute temperate cheerfulness,
accepting whatever certain good it can find. Browning’s is the positivism
of childlike trust—so confident in the truth which it has found elsewhere,
that it can afford to pause here from restless searching, and take the
-earth’s beauty as beauty—joys of sense as joy. For illustration of Mr.
JBrowning’s poetical feeling for external Nature, we might refer to his
�318
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
‘ Pippa Passes,’ to his ‘ Saul ’ (specially to the passage in it beginning1 Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour’), to parts of the ‘Paracelsus,’ and to
other passages, which cannot here be enumerated. Though none otherof our poets is so perpetually on the watch to discern transcendental
significance, translucent through the facts of mind, yet he, more than,
most others, is content to behold the facts of matter as (so to speak)‘ opaque] and to describe his impressions from them, directly and unsymbolically. To Wordsworth it would be impossible to tell simply of.
‘the sense of the yellow mountain flowers.’
This paper must hasten to conclude, leaving with only a passing
mention, one of the aspects of Mr. Browning’s preaching—its stern moral
lessons, and its peculiar downrightness of enforcing them. As poet of
the Will, he has words of unsparing condemnation to bestow on such sins
as failure ‘ through weak endeavour.’ There is an earnest severity in
‘The Statue and the Bust,’ and in his ‘Sordello’—terriblest of tragedies,
inasmuch as it depicts the deterioration of a soul. The miserable life
failure, of which this latter is the history, is looked on by him as resulting
from the man’s irresoluteness to overcome and banish his probation
spectre (Do not many of us know something akin to it ?); of his hauntingdouble consciousness—fourfold consciousness, rather; of, at the same
time, an ego divided by impulses diverging towards two ways of utterance
—Art and action; and of another two-fold spectral ego—reflexion of the
actual ego—contemplating, as if from some view-point in nowhere, it and.
its work, in their place in the All-of-things. The real self and its re
flexion keep on, like opposite mirrors, reflecting each other backwards
and forwards, ad infinitum; each becoming alternately subject and
object, until there is produced in Sordello, as the result, a wretched
paralysis of all working-power, either artistic or practical. And all for
lack of the vigorous effort of whole-hearted obedience to either impulse, ,
by which his will could have freed him from the thing that wrought the
ruin of his life. Sternest of sermons this I on the text, difip Si^vyos,.
aKaTaoraTos,’ &c., &c. (St. James i., 8.)
Need one say anything with reference to one charge which we some
times heai* brought against Mr. Browning—of being, in ‘ The Ring and.
the Book,’ too open—offensively coarse, even, of speech 1 I—a woman—
feel that he needs no apology in this matter. Those of his readers who
are capable of, and willing to take the trouble of entering into the spirit
of his poetry, do not fail to find in it, moral saltness enough to keep its
purity untainted by the ugly words which his grave truthfulness some
times uses in indicating ugly things : and to mere criticism from without
—from those who neither learn from or sympathise with him—I imagine
that Mr. Browning does not greatly care to commend himself and his.
poems.
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
319'
Wholly unsatisfied by what these two papers have been able to say as
to some of the characteristics noticeable on one side of the most manysided of contemporary poets, I gladly cease from the attempt to write
little definitions of the poetry which I would rather feel indefinitely, and
grow into increasingly.
E. Dickinson West.
Mr. Browning’s latest work, ‘ Balanstione Adventure,’ lets us see, in its whole tenorand purport, the same characteristics of his preaching. There is no slight significance
in his choosing for his theme, a Greek play not ranked by critics amongst the finest;
but having peculiar attractions for the poet of the will, on account of its being the
story of the victory of a will—a half-7iw?iara will—over death and fate.
For nothing human or divine, does Browning recognise an iron law of necesssity.
He cares not for the grand Greek lifeless virtue of endurance of the inevitable ; and
would find his own poetical feeling wholly unsuited- to reproduce utterances such as
the hEschylean :
Tijv 7re7rpwp,ev7jv 8e ypiy
aT<rav (f>epeLV ws pacna, yiyva><TK.ov3’ on
’Avay/<7js ecrr’ aBrjpLTOV cr^evos
to ttjs
of Prometheus in his majestic passiveness.
There seems to be a curiously personal sympathy in Mr. Browning for Herakles, the
labour and effort God, whose strength is a thoroughly human strength of conscious
toil. Browning’s enlargement of Euripides’ portraiture of the hero, has been criti
cized as exaggerating the idea of joyous helpful strength ; and making him too much
of a ‘muscular Christian.’ I think that this objection to it fades out of sight, when
we view the poem as tinged and explained by the luminous Browning conscious
ness that indefinitely appears all throughout it. Struggle—and joy and hope in
struggle, and all things that he holds to be the portion best suited for the spiritual
part of our human life, are connected by him in a deep dim suggestiveness, with his
representation of Herakles. It is a spiritual truth—and not mere admiration of
thews and muscles, and good use of them, that he preaches to us.
In Browning’s suggested new version of the story, ‘ New Admetos new Alkestis,’
we may notice his characteristic way of penetrating through all surface appearances.
Deep underneath these, he finds a connection between human and infinite truths, and
sees there a beautiful ‘ how,’ by which Admetos might worthily let his wife die that
he might live. In harmony with all his other teaching, too, is Browning’s idea of
making the undyingness of Alkestis come to her, not as a mere salvation given from
without, but as worked out from wii7wn. The principle of life which cannot be holden
of death, is viewed by him always as a thing given to be in humanity.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Browning as a preacher. Part 2
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West, Elizabeth Dickinson
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 305-319 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (November, 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
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[s.n.]
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[1871]
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G5337
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Poetry
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Browning as a preacher. Part 2), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
Robert Browning
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1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
501
necessity. On the same basis, we must allow at least a miocene
emigration to the platyrhine monkey which first came to
America with his thirty-six teeth and his prehensile tail, while
we must be prepared to find the origin of the monkey tribe it
self disappear in the enormous gap which divides the eocene
from the cretaceous age. In all this there would be nothing
inconsistent with our present vague geological knowledge ; for,
although no pliocene man has yet been identified, few geolo
gists would care to deny the possibility of his existence, while
an eocene monkey not unlike an American type is known to
have lived in Switzerland. All that we have assumed is the
truth of Lamarck’s hypothesis, a purely scientific matter, about
which we shall certainly not venture to express an opinion.
Henry Brooks Adams.
----------
.
CT
Art. V. — Epic Philosophy.
Homer begins the Iliad with “ Sing, Goddess,” as if not
himself, but a divine being, were the true poet. Shall we
suppose that his invocation is merely formal ? that it is con
sciously addressed to Nothing ? To do so were to appreciate
ill the simplicity and sincerity of Homer. Were it not also to
misinterpret the law of all language ? Words are never empty
formalities at the outset; it was only a veritable meaning that
made them. Men do not go about consciously giving names to
nonentities. As well suppose a living body to have come into
being without the action of any organizing force as persuade
one’s self that language is originated without belief. Words, like
men, may grow old and die ; but only by sincere, vital action
are they born. It is true that defunct vocables sometimes have
their Hades here above ground, wandering about as shadowy
semblances of their former selves, neither well dead nor yet
alive. But Homer belongs to the young world; and his words
are not merely living, they are in excellent health, with red
blood in them, and a bloom on the cheek. When, therefore,
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he says, “ Sing, 0 Goddess,” one may be sure that the invoca
tion is no piece of perfunctory compliment, but that his heart
keeps pace with his tongue.
Upon whom does he call ? The question may be asked with
interest, for there is in this part of the old Greek mythology a
profound significance, a fine soul of meaning, which remains
true for us, and will be true forever, however its forms may
prove transitory or grow strange. The “ Goddess ” is the
Muse, — the Muses considered as one divinity. The Muses,
again, were said to be daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, or
Memory. It will be no waste of study to inquire into the sig
nificance of this parentage, and with Homer’s devout appeal in
mind.
Zeus, in the old Hellenic conception, is the eternal One, the
unitive, sovereign genius of being. The physical meaning of
the word, we are told, is sky, the pure heaven, changeless, allembracing ; but by a deeper and truer meaning it denotes the
inner divine sky of the soul, rounding in, with its translucent,
indivisible unity, the divided opacity and discord of time.
*
“ From One all things proceed, and into the same are re
solved,” says Musaeus, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius. Zeus is
this One, but rather in the moral sense, that of rule, than in
the more metaphysical sense, which Musaeus seems to have in
* All strictly primitive words seem to have at first a like twofold significance,
physical-spiritual. It is the trick of lexicographers to represent the physical mean
ing as primary, the higher sense as only secondary and superinduced. Let us test
this procedure in a single instance. The original sense of rectus is said to be
straight; the secondary sense, right. We turn, however, to the root, reg, and find
that the nearest word to this, formed immediately from it, is rex (regs), a king, or
straightener in the strictly moral sense. Could evidence be clearer that the moral
meaning was in the word from the first, at the root of it, and that, in making it a
mere afterthought, the lexicographer has followed, not the indications of language,
but his own whim of opinion ? I cannot but anticipate a sure determination of the
fact, one day, that man is a speaker only as he is a spiritual being; pure spiritual
sensibility joined with a lower kind of impressibility to produce root-words. At
first the words are held as common property by the two producing factors, nor is
their twofold character for a long time, it may be, explicitly recognized. Zeus
meant originally, I suppose, both a physical object, and a spiritual reality signified
by that object; but to the first namers this meaning was strictly single, not double.
When reflective discrimination began, and the word, instead of being divided in
itself, and made to bear two widely distinct meanings, like our word heaven, went
wholly over to the higher, the indication is that this import was the more powerful
in it from the start.
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Epic Philosophy.
503
mind. It is the testimony of language that man uttered his
impression of this comprehending One when he first said sky ;
and since such an object must have been among the earliest
named, we can trace that supreme recognition to the very
dawn of his conscious being. All-comprehending, all-recon
ciling spiritual unity, —it is an import which the soul en
shrines from the first and forever. And this is the Homeric
Zeus, progenitor of the Muse.
On the other hand, Mnemosyne, Memory, symbolizes the sum
total of such things as memory is concerned with, — incident,
accident, event, whatever happens. In wide contrast, there
fore, to the peace of eternity, she images the storied variety
and conflict of time, the world of things eventful, — of multi
plicity, diversity, contrariety, contention, the surface-world of
Nature and man, with heterogeneity and mutation for its insep
arable characteristics.
Thus in Zeus and Mnemosyne we have, on the one side, the
universe in the everlasting peace and rest of pure unity, — on
the other side, the universe in the character of dividedness,
changefulness, with a myriad of diverse features and conflict
ing energies, here playing through a colored pliantasmagory
of magic mutation, there yawning in chasms of hate, set against
itself, crashing in upon itself, blind with contending passion,
black with tragic fate. From these opposites the Muse is born,,
— from these as at once opposite, and yet joined, made one in
spousal love.
The Muse, then, is that symphony of existence which arises
from the conjunction of these two terms, Spiritual Being in its
essential pure oneness, and the world of finite character and
action, of diversity and evanescence, the world of time. This
conjunction is Music, — “ music of the spheres,” in the Pythag
orean phrase: an imagination peculiar to Pythagoras only in
form of statement. It is upon this melodious Voice of the
All that Homer calls devoutly, and of which he would be but
the reporter or secretary.
Here we lay hold upon the prime fact by which he stands as
the type of poetic genius. To him it is existence itself that is
tuneful. Through the diversity of characters, the conflict of
passions, and the whirl of events, the divine secret of the world
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sings to his soul.
*
The impassioned, it may be infuriate, toss
ing, warring, woe of time gives, as he deems, but the notes, out
of which the Spirit of the All makes up its eternal harmony.
That antique imagination may be embraced with serious
modern conviction. Zeus and Mnemosyne symbolize still the
two opposites, of which poesy is the wedding festival. Who
ever truly sings, be it “ the sweet psalmist of Israel” or Greek
2Eschylus, the author of the Book of Job or that of the Excur
sion, sings their espousal. The universe is unity ; being rests
in spiritual peace and poise forever. The sky is never clouded ;
only the earth is clouded. Nevertheless, there is the constant
antithesis to this wholeness and repose, — antithesis expressed
in ten thousand shapes, and pushed with such inexorable
energy and excess that we wonder how the bands of eternity
do not burst, and suffer the world to welter in immitigable
craze. Oppositions and emulations arise, multiply, rage, gain
appetite by what they feed on; countless tribes of creatures live
only by slaughter, created to kill; existence sprouts all over
in horns, fangs, tusks, claws, while from its horrid alembic
venoms, hates, envies distil, and drip, drip upon its own blister
ing heart; hungry pestilences devour nations, — then, like the
boa, retire and sleep into new hunger, that they may return to
new feast; “ the earthquake smacks its mumbling lips o’er
some thick-peopled city,” or the volcano binds about it, while yet
living, a shroud of fire; strife is around man, and strife is with
in him; the lightning thrusts its blazing scymitar through
his roof, the thief creeps in at his door, and remorse at his
heart. Who, looking on these things, does not acknowledge
that man is indeed fearfully as well as wonderfully made ?
Who would not sometimes cry, 0 that my eyes were a foun
tain of tears, that I might weep, not the desolations of Israel
alone, but the hate of Israel to Edom and of Edom to Israel,
the jar, the horror, the ensanguined passion and ferocity of Na
* Virgil, on the contrary, regards himself only as the singer. It is true, that, after
announcing himself as such, he makes a formal invocation to the Muse, but misses
even formal propriety in doing so. For he does not pray the Divinity to pour
for his ear the melody of existence, nor even to exalt his soul and make it melo
dious, but only to apologize, if possible, for the strange conduct of the Olympians :
Mihi causas memora: Let the Muse, since she visits in that family, tell what set on
Juno to pursue with revenges that remarkably nice man, my hero.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
505
ture ? But when we would despair, behold we cannot. Out
of the conscious heart of humanity issues forever, more or less
clearly, a voice of infinite, pure content: “ Though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for Thou art with me.” Sometimes, when our trial is sorest,
that voice is clearest, singing as from the jaws of death and
the gates of hell. And now, though the tears fall, they become
jewels as they fall; and the sorrow that begot them wears
them in the diadem of its more than regal felicity. We, too,
rest in the rest of Being; the changeless axis is here, it is in our
souls ; an’d around it all the movement of existence becomes
orbital.
Eternal rest, endless unrest, — rest and unrest, it would
seem, of the same universal whole. There is comprehending
unity, that nothing invades, nothing eludes ; there is yawn
ing chasm that seems to go through the world, cleaving its
very heart. Every globule of existence spins between these
irreconcilable opposites.
And yet they are not irreconcil
able, for they are reconciled, though it be ineffably.
Now it is this tossing rest, this multiple unity, this contradic
tory and contending identity, that makes the universe epical;
and to represent this within practicable limits, embodying in
human speech the enticement, the awful, infinite charm of that
mystery forever resolved and forever remaining, is the grand
task of the epic artist.
The poet is the restorer of wholeness. He can strike the
universal chord, that of identity, or spiritual unity. But he does
this, observe, not by confounding distinction, blurring charac
teristic, hiding difference, explaining away contradiction, but,
on the contrary, by displaying them. No one adheres with
a fidelity religious like his to special character, finite fact.
Individual feature and complexion, the peculiar expression of
all objects, the circumstance and finest edge of all events, are,
as it were, sacred to him, and come forth from beneath his pen
with an exquisite, loving exactness of rendering. He will
give you form, color, manner, gait, garb, tone of voice, measure
of stature, tune of thought; minute he will be as Nature her
self, nothing small to him which is characteristic; his very hu
man condition he will, as it were, forsake, to spring with
vol. evil. — no. 221.
33
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Epic Philosophy.
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grass-blades and hum with bees, to ripple with the ripening
wheat and pass in the shadow of flying clouds, to dance with
sunshine on the sea, or join its sprite-like hide-and-seek among
quivering leaves ; sorrow, too, and dismay he will depict as
with a kind of love, — tempests that rage across the green
fields of humanity, clothed in night and whirling along boughs
rent from the tree of life, — frosts that descend untimely upon
vernal years, to leave their blossoms shrivelled and all the
glory of their garniture gone forever ; and by this chase of di
versities and celebration of contradictions he will bring out the
refrain of the living whole, the repose, the unity, the infinite
content of being.
Contrast this procedure with that of the mere generalizer.
The latter spares himself all this delicate and subtile exacti
tude, very likely thinks it trivial. Betaking himself to gen
eralities, he evaporates one generality into another more diffuse
and vague, and, by an incessant elimination of feature, arrives
finally at a statement the most general possible. At best he
has attained only congruity, not consanguinity. His thought
holds together, suppose, in itself; it does not bring souls, na
tures, together; it does not awaken the sense of a universal
kindred, wherein the one immortal heart is felt to beat.
Even the naturalist, patient, tireless observer, faithful by his
good-will to Nature in her speciality and her unity alike, can
draw creatures into association only by mere points of outward
resemblance,’ as two kinds here by a likeness in the hoof, two
kinds there by a similarity in the hide, again two kinds by ap
proximation in the shape of a scale. There is a catalogue of
superficial resemblances, not community. The poet does not
thus go on merely to enumerate points of external peculiarity
and resemblance; he, on the one side, delineates the individ
ual thing in the very feature, color, and aroma of its special
being, yet, on the other hand, keeps up the interior conversa
tion of each with all. Not by dead similarities, but by the liv
ing, flowing fellowship of heart-language, do the unlikes of
voiceful Nature blend and symphonize in his thought.
Mr. Ruskin censures a dictum of Sir Joshua Reynolds, to the
effect that poetry deals only with what is general and perma
nent, to the exclusion of transient particulars. The eloquent
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Epic Philosophy.
507
critic brings forward good instances, with which Wordsworth
offered him an abundant supply, to show, on the contrary, that
the poet has an inevitable eye for minute traits and evanescent
expression. The truth is parted between them. The poet sees
the varying surfaces of Nature, and feels in them her constant
heart. By a delicately true portrayal of what is most limited
and transient, he appeals to a sentiment universal and peren
nial. Playing with the play of Nature, flitting with winged
fancy through all the variety of her manifold forms and
changing hues, he yet feels in all, and by the magic of melodi
ous suggestion can make others to feel, that inner identity, that
unceasing, ineffable return into oneness, which in the hidden
sanctuary of existence is a joy of espousal forever. It is the
ringing of these marriage-bells of Nature that is the music be
hind the words of his verse.
To be cordially sensible of an illimitable kindred, which,
moreover, is not only boundless in scope, but divine in kind,
purer far and richer in every beautiful claim and blessed re
sponse than any blood relationship, — is it not a surpassing
delight ? But the felicity comes to the last, finest edge, when
one may enter into this immortal fellowship without loss of in
dividual character, and, speaking there only his own vernacular,
may join by means of it, and with no foreign nor provincial ac
cent, in that language of the heart of humanity wherein was
never yet a confusion of tongues.
Man is a stranger in the world, looking on with remote, un
related eye, till the Muse make him at home there. This,
touching upon all that seems most shut up to itself, most set
apart from the spirit and sympathy of man, awakens a surpris
ing refrain of fellowship in his breast. Now he lives a life not
bounded by the limits of his individual constitution. It is as if
an invisible system of nerves ramified from his breast, with a
pole in every passing shadow, in every star, in whatsoever has
form of being or seeming to the sense. Once that this is rightly
addressed, his own being is reflected in all, claimed by all; his
voice has an illimitable echo ; his heart blends its beating with
the vast rhythm of Nature; everywhere are relation and re
sponse ; from sun and moon look down glorified human faces ;
wood and river teem with half-humanities, that sway in the
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Epic Philosophy.
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trees and slip in the tide ; from the lifted mountain-tops, and
from the waste grandeur of the reticent, never-covenanting sea,
comes a language at once theirs and his own ; the bladed grass
claims kindred from beneath his feet, and the shadow cast by
a stone on the moor moves him with some deep home-feeling,
as if it were inscrutably inwrought with shadowy memories of
the cradle and the mother’s lullaby.
The poet can touch these nerves, and give sympathy the
happiness of that unmeasured scope. But he can thus touch
them, observe, only at their poles on the surfaces of Nature.
Of this a sufficient suggestion is given by the economy of the
human body. The brain itself is insensitive; its feeling, at
least its pleasurable feeling, is found at the fingers’ ends, at the
surfaces and extremes of the body. So it is that this univer
sal heart in man is to be happily awakened only at the fingers’
ends, the farthest reach, of its manifold relationship. Hence
it is that the purest poetry is most objective. This touches the
heart healthily, where the nerves of imaginative sympathy
come to the surface. Introspection, on the contrary, invades
the system, and strikes the nerves midway, hence is unhealth
ful and painful.
It is only in the sense of uni’ty with the whole that the
heart finds peace. Chasm is brutal. Yet he who seeks unity
otherwise than in the diversity of Nature and movement of
life, he who seeks it by prying and intrusion, finds, not a
charmed repose, but only sickness. Nature sings to him who
respects her secret, and who only by a reverent remoteness
comes near; and he who sings to others will scrupulously
keep up the polarity of life, displaying identity only through
the medium of peculiarity.
Take as an illustration Burns’s “ To a Mouse.” The “ wee
beastie ” is represented to the life, its habit and condition given
without varnish.
“ That wee bit heap o leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! ”
Leaves and stubble, got by nibbling: this is a veritable mouse,
no transparent sham, like Dryden’s “ Hind and Panther,”
which are seen at a glance to be no more than a pair of cut
and dried, theologues masquerading on four legs, whereof
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Epic Philosophy.
509
two are evidently broomsticks. But while a mouse, it is yet
man ; and the poet only brings his delineation to ripeness,
when he says,—
“ Me, thy poor earthborn companion
And fellow mortal.”
The outward circumstance retains its distinction, the hearts
touch and beat together, and we have a truly poetical situation.
Emerson’s “Humble-Bee” furnishes an illustration that will
bear even closer inspection; for the external peculiarity is
shown yet more pointedly, while the interior sympathy is not
less, though 'suggested with a delicate reticence that adds to
the charm. The painting is so minutely and exquisitely exact
that I have sometimes said, should Nature one day lose the
breed of bees, and forget what they were, she might recover
the type from this model. Yet who reads without feeling that
the humble-bee is one of us ?
“ Yellow-breeched philosopher,” —
it does not come jarring in, but belongs there ; and because
this open stroke of sympathy — in which, however, the humor
still hints at distinction — is consistent with a piece of painting
so objective, we have here a poem in the right sense of the word.
A like effect is reached, when a peculiar human character is
so pictured that we at once perceive its remoteness from our
selves and feel it all in ourselves. The more entire, isolated,
unapproachable, the more poetic its impression, if only it be
so depicted that to every stroke of the delineation our hearts
vibrate response. The more peculiar it shows itself, the more
does it awaken in us the sense of our community. This is
poetry.
It may be said, then, that poetry is the expression of com
prehending spiritual unity by means of that which opposes and
apparently denies it. This definition, however, is here only
provisional. I hope soon to substitute for it another, which,
while embracing this, shall be more adequate. At present let
us obtain with precision what is in this.
First, let it be observed that the character of things which is
opposed to their unity with the soul must not be in its own
place denied. Even to disguise it there is to make its sub
sequent identification with the heart ridiculous. Dress the
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Epic Philosophy.
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mouse in jacket and trousers, as we sometimes see monkeys in
the street, then say, “Fellow mortal,” and the by-standers burst
out laughing. Set the bee to discoursing on fate and free-will,
and “ yellow-breeched philosopher ” loses its tone of fine sym
pathetic humor, to become a sorry jest.
Observe, secondly, that the separation of objects from the
heart of the poet and of man is maintained by one order of ap
prehension, while the identity exists only to another. The one
is bluntly, stubbornly, indomitably maintained by the prosaic
understanding; the other is melodiously affirmed by the imag
ining heart, eternal priest at the marriage altars of Nature.
Moreover, it is the interest of imagination that the prosaic fac
ulty should hold its ground, yielding never an inch. There
can be no espousal, if there is no duality, — no making one, un
less there are two. The sense of spiritual community plays
over somewhat which contradicts it; and it is this playing
over which constitutes the poetic act. The imagination abhors
confusion, though it craves community. It leaves finite objects,
merely as such, to stand by and for themselves, refusing all
cordial kindred with the spirit of man ; and then, in neverthe
less making fellowship between them and the human soul, it
shows these objects to be capable of such fellowship only in
quite another character than that which is proper to them
as things merely. I will illustrate these points by a stanza of
description taken from Wordsworth : —
“ The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields
Are hung, as if with golden shields,
Bright trophies of the sun !
Like a fair sister of the sky,
Unruffled doth the blue lake lie,
The mountains looking on.”
Well, this is fine ! — the understanding would say. Are we to
believe that the fields have put on the corn as a suit of clothes ?
or that the said patches of corn, while having that sartorial
character, are also captured shields, which the sun has hung
up to commemorate his victories ? or that the sky and lake
are a kind of Jane and Nancy in the same family? or that
the mountains really do look on ? No ; so far as the under
standing is concerned, these statements are made only to be
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Epic Philosophy.
511
disbelieved. To it they are sheer untruth, and are meant for un
truth. The understanding is pre-engaged to dispute, to deny, to
repugn them altogether. Just that is a part of the programme;
and to leave it out would spoil the performance. Did not the
statement infold its own contradiction on a lower scale, and
thereby obtain the opposition of the prosaic understanding, like
the opposition of the viol-string to the bow, it were not poetic
truth. To say that Peter is clad, that Jane and Nancy are sis
ters, or look as if they were sisters, and that Hezekiah looks on,
might be to affirm what is entirely credible ; but such truth is
not poetic truth, for the reason that it does not address itself to
spiritual credence. In order that imagination and spiritual ap
prehension may be reached,there must be that “play over” we
have spoken of, — therefore somewhat over which, and in con
trariety to which, the play goes on. Thus the great privilege of
the spirit to find the whole world kin is freed from confusion
with any such community as the prosaic mind can recognize.
I have thus far spoken only of poetry ; let it now be said
that I have constantly had in view the being of man, regarding
this as the poem of poems, — fast locked to any metaphysic
which does not approach with a key corresponding to its poetic
quality. In the being of man, in the universe of God, there is
that “ play over.” It is, indeed, the grand secret; he that finds
it out reads the Sphinx’s riddle, and may save his soul alive.
Finding it out perfectly, he will know what Spirit is ; and until
one knows that, does he in the highest sense know anything ?
In order to clear up this matter, and prepare the way for
further exposition, I wish now to establish a primary scale of
degrees, that we may see definitely what is over, what under,
and the validity of each in its own kind. And to invite a
vigorous attention, I may say that we have now come to the
hinge upon which all turns.
Nature as thing is Force and Form, no more. Scrutinized
to any extent, it will exhibit only these characters, fixed force
and form.
To the world of things corresponds in man the perceptive
understanding. This finds in things a thing, — character, if
one may speak so, — finds, that is, their special determinations,
and the consequent isolation of each thing in itself. It is, we
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Epic Philosophy.
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[Oct.
might say, a brace between things, to keep them.forever apart,
without interior communication. It sees every object—ox,
grass, hill, river, stone, man — as only itself, utterly locked up
in its special identity.
Becoming scientific, however, the understanding not only
discriminates, and specially identifies, but finds connections,
and looks toward unity. But the unity is on the same level
with the diversity, and is therefore only partial. There is
unity of form between man and a fish, as both are vertebrate
animals; there is diversity of form, as the one is a mammal
and the other not such. The community of the two, and the
special, isolate identity of each, are alike of form, and are
therefore mutually limiting. Unity, accordingly, is never
attained. The scientific intellect is more full than the ordinary
perceptive understanding; but it works within the same limits,
has the same kind of recognitions. It recognizes form, force,
the constancy of force, and, lastly, as its highest perception,
the form offorce. What we call “ natural law ” is, of course,
simply force formulated, that is, constant in measure and
definite in character. Gravitation, electricity, chemical affinity,
do not differ as force, but only as forms of force. Force and
form, then, constitute the whole character of Nature in one
aspect; and to it in this aspect the prosaic understanding cor
responds.
Accordingly, the understanding can never, in any adequate
manner, say God. It attempts often enough, with stretched
mouth, to achieve that grand enunciation, and often supposes
the feat accomplished. But its God can be only some partic
ular object or force, supposably an immensely great thing, but
after all only a thing, one thing among others. Of late some
of its officers are making bold to say that no such Thing is discoverable. “ God ? ” some Lewes will say ; u what force or
form of force is it ? Is gravitation God ? Is chemical affinity
God ? If neither of these, what force, then, and where is it ? ”
Suppose I answer, that God is in those forces, and in all others ?
u In them ? ” he may reply ; “ how in them ? how in gravi
tation ? As gravitation ? Then he is gravitation; and we
have two words for the same thing. As somewhat other than
gravitation ? But what ? Do we discern in gravitation any
thing but itself ? ”
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Epic Philosophy.
513
“ But there is somewhat which makes it,” I plead.
“ Makes what ? ” he will say. “ Makes stones fall ? Grav
itation does that. Is there a making behind this making ?
Well, double, triple, centuple, if you will, the makings, all we
come to is that stones are made to fall. There is a force which
has this character; and wherever it is, the character of it is
the same. Though the note of hand be indorsed by a hun
dred individuals one after another, the value of it remains
the same.”
“ But,” I say, making a last effort, “ God is the unity of all
forces.”
He smiles provokingly. “ You mean, perhaps, that he is
that correlation and mutual convertibility of forces of which
we are beginning to learn. Truly, I give you joy of a God so
substantial! ”
I leave the savant in possession of the field, easily victorious.
It should be frankly confessed, that, as by no peeping and pry
ing and inferring among the fiddle-strings can we discover the
genius of the composer, so by no inspection of the formulations
of force do we obtain the smallest glimpse of infinite Spirit.
Here we are, then, locked utterly into the limits of finite
Nature. Can we, after all, make escape ? I do not inquire
whether we find in our own breasts a hint of spiritual compre
hension and freedom, — we undoubtedly do find such; but it
is said that this subjective impression, being contradicted by
everything else in the universe, must be suppressed as mere
private prejudice or illusion. Some indeed bravely refuse, and
pledge their faith to the testimony of “ consciousness ” ; the
other party smile superior to “ consciousness ” none the less ;
the contestants find no common ground. We will therefore
face the difficulty, and inquire whether it is possible to dis
cover a road leading from Nature to Spirit, and to Spirit as in
itself all. I think it can be found, and without any tedious
groping.
Be it observed, then, that Nature has another character, very
different frqm the one just noted, — the character, namely, of
Sign or Expressiveness. To the primitive civilizers of hu
manity it is scarcely known otherwise than in this nobler char
acter. Everywhere the first grand sallies of the human mind
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Epic Philosophy.
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overleap the fixed constitution of things, and alight upon some
what of a higher order, which the world of things suggests.
Is it not to this overleaping that all human speech is due ?
Man looks upon an object, and between it and the eye there
springs up a felt poetic significance, which, before reflection
has come to complicate mental action, is no sooner felt than it
issues by a responsive sign, a word. Spontaneous naming is
the act of identifying an object with its poetic significance,
declaring that the thing is what it signifies. Only while the
expression or suggestion of objects is taken in entire good faith
as their reality is man a producer of root-words.
In the case of words which convey distinctively a moral,
metaphysical, or spiritual import, this repose upon the sign
character of Nature is obvious. Spirit is breath; right is
straight; wrong is crooked, — wrung, turned forcibly aside;
light is truth or knowledge, — “ the light which enlighteneth
every man that cometh into the world ” (the Parsees are said
to worship fire or light, that is, they worship what it signifies,
as Christians also do) ; heaven, too, is God, — “ kingdom of
God ” and “ kingdom of heaven ” we say indifferently; warmth
is love; coldness is indifference; and so on: it were easy to
multiply familiar examples, — and I seek no others, — to the
weariness of the reader.
But I believe, still further, that man’s ability to name physi
cal objects in the directest manner depends no less, though
less obviously, upon their sign-character. Were they to man,
as to the dog and ox, mere force and form, he would respond
to them, in the animal fashion, by the forces of his organism
only, by appetite, aversion, anger, fear, and the like. The
aspect of green grass excites only the stomach of a cow : here
is the mere relation of finite to finite ; and accordingly the
creature opens its mouth, not to speak, but to bite, — not to
utter the object, but to swallow it. Man, on the contrary, sees
natural objects as picture, suggestion, significance, and speaks
them because to him they are speaking. How could he repre
sent them by signs, did they not present themselves as signifi
cant, and as veritably present in their significance ?
“ Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth forth knowledge.” Verily, statements so noble as this,
�1868.]
Epic' Philosophy.
515
coming to us from a far-off antiquity, might tempt one to think
that the primitive poetic mind of humanity took off the cream
of truth, and left its skimmed milk to science. But can we
not perceive that day and night are indeed and forever voice
ful ? Speech runs and ripples over all the surfaces of Nature:
here in grand affirmative tides, Amazons and Missouris of sig
nificance ; there in vast, perpetual eddies of reverse meaning;
again in whirling and dancing equivocations, evanescent half
expressions, with which only the flitting instability of fancy
can keep pace. Speech breaks out as from an inner heart in
things, and wraps itself as a many-colored mantle about them,
hiding what they are in what they suggest; insomuch that the
understanding must search as with a candle to discover be
neath that glorious disguise their fixed and specific character.
Science, coming late and with labor, tries to lift the mantle,
tries to divest Nature of her garment of meaning; but one fold
falls down as another is raised ; only by endless pertinacity of
industry and wide combination of effort is the thing at last de
nuded, and seen as it is in itself.
.Half the world is now busy in this labor. “ Off with it! ”
men say; “off with that garment of suggestion wherewith
Nature clothed herself to the untaught intelligence of hu
manity!” As the work goes on, there are huzzas mingled with
moanings, complainings, reproaches, — huzzas over notable pro
gress achieved, complaint that so great a labor needs now
to be done. The first men did us a mischief, it would seem,
by permitting Nature to assume that array of significance.
Had things been seen from the start as things really are, then
what toil and difficulty had our age been spared 1 But those
men, perverse, must go and be “ theological,” or “ metaphysi
cal,” or the like : hinc illce lachrymce. The greater, however,
the glory of our age, when, despite these needless hindrances,
it peeps and pries, until at length the world of things appears
without disguise. We complain, but still more do we exult.
The great enterprise prospers ; off it comes, that pictured
array ; the Thing lies bare !
Not quite, however. Seen only as it is in itself, the world
of things is not yet, nor, in my judgment, is likely to be.
Never yet was there a mind dry and prosaic enough to behold
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Epic Philosophy.
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any object in the mere light of the understanding, — to see in
a horse, for example, only anatomy and physiology. To Dryas
dust also, even to that portentous specimen of the genus, the
Dryasdust of science, — Herbert Spencer, say, — the neck of
the war-horse is indeed clothed with thunder, the Pleiades
have sweet influences, the zephyr whispers, the storm roars,
morning blushes, the' sun rises rejoicing, night is vocal with
solemn suggestion, and the blue heaven more, much more, than
some gases and an optical illusion. Let Mr. Spencer do his
best to see in Nature, as he says, only “ force,” it will be
to him also a language, will speak to his sensibility. Let
Briareus use all his hundred hands, the mantle of meaning
will fall down, and with its lettered folds wrap the heart of the
Titan himself.
Por by the Word the worlds were indeed made, as the Scrip
tures say. “ And God said, Let there be light, and there
was light.” Was ; for light itself is but a shining syllable,
and darkness another, that shines only in the breast of the
Speaker, not outwardly; and all the universe exists, word-like,
only for and through its expressiveness. By the Word, by the
perpetual act of Spirit giving expression to its inherent import,
— which is its substance, itself, for Spirit is Absolute Import,
self-affirmed, — the worlds were made, and do exist. Because
Nature is spoken, it speaks ; because it speaks, the spirit of
man, kindred with the eternal Word, may espouse in Nature
its own import, and evoke the representative world of uttered
thought and feeling.
The imaginative intelligence recognizes in visible existence
this character of Sign, and reads off from it a significance for
the soul. Force and form, says the understanding; import,
says the poetic intelligence. This is thus and so, reports the
one; this means thus, announces the other. The former
regards the finite world as substantial, and as asserting only
itself; the latter regards the finite world as denying its own
substantiality in behalf of that which it signifies.
*
* Swedenborg sought to establish a science of significances, a science of Nature
on that higher degree. Hence the gulf which separates him from the ordinary man
of science. The latter is engaged in supplying what, with reference to the import
of Nature, we must call its grammar; he looks to the classification and syntactical
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
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“ As denying its own substantiality,” I say. How is that ?
I hope the reader will say, How is that ? and will say it with
a purpose to be pointedly dissatisfied, unless the question be
answered clearly and precisely.
A sign, observe, is necessarily the sign of that which itself is
not. It exists only to say, “ I am not it,” and in doing so to
point effectually toward that which is. As the finger on the
sign-board is not the road or city, as the spoken word man is
not man, but only sound, so is it with all signs whatsoever:
they point wholly away from themselves, being in themselves
nothing to the purpose ; they are there only for the eye to pass
over; and, considered with reference to their real purpose,
their entire being is a mere flitting away and vanishing into
that which they suggest. Plainly, that which is meant by a
word is the real thing. Plainly, a word, by the fact of having
a meaning, implicitly denies that itself is at all the real thing.
The meaning made the word, holds it in possession, and is all
the being of it. The significance is the substantial fact; the
sign, by the very fact of being such, professes itself the con
trary. If now we venture to apply to the universe this easy
and plain discrimination, all the difficulty will be in the ven
ture, none in the application. Two and two are still neither
more nor less than four, be the figures written in hundredths
of an inch, or from Labrador to Cape Horn. Making bold to
write our figures large, we may say with some confidence that
the natural universe, as Sign, only spoken into being, and
having its being only in its meaning, denies its own substantive
existence ; the meaning of it, not itself, is the real Fact; it is
but a pointing, as of an index-finger, to that which indeed is.
What does it say is ?
When one reads a word, considering it as a word, what does
he implicitly affirm ? Or what does the word itself, by the fact
relation of its etymons or elements. Now Shakespeare and Nature alike, merely
as parsed, are void of meaning : we arrive at an order of arrangement, and at nothing
more. Swedenborg sought not merely to parse, but to read ; he assumed a meaning,
and attempted a scientific exposition of it. I am not of those who think his success
perfect, or other than very imperfect; sometimes it is only the dignity of the enter
prise which forbids one to laugh. On the other hand, one must own that a gram
mar of the cosmos, were it complete, would not be sufficient. To do Lindley
Murray on that scale is to work at a large task indeed; but though one parse the
universe, is it enough merely to parse ?
�518
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
of being such, imply ? It implies, and he who reads it im
plicitly affirms, Mind. Only from Mind could words issue ;
only to it are they expressive, — that is, indeed words. When
the natural universe appears as expressive, a manifold sign, a
language, it affirms Absolute Mind, Spirit. Only from this
could a universal significance issue, only by it be embraced.
If Nature mean anything, Spirit is what it means. And so
the human race has thought; its apprehension of this truth is
embodied in the confessions and litanies of all ages.
Now to read the world as a language, finding in it an import
for the soul, is the essentially poetic act. We have thus ar
rived at the final definition promised: Poetry is the free read
ing up and down from Nature to Spirit and from Spirit to
Nature, each seen in the other. The outward feature of Nature
and life must be preserved, with the finest, most delicate ex
actitude, that we may not read in a blurred type; and yet in
all the soul must find its own immanent secret.
The understanding, meanwhile, holds out sturdily against
all this. Its business is to paint the index on the guide-board,
that this may be there for that traveller, the spiritual imagina
tion, to go by. Its utmost stretch is to observe that the travel
ler does go by, — that, looking on the sky, for example, the
untaught man has cried, “ Dyaus,” “ Zeus,” “ God,” making a
sign of it, and flying infinitely beyond. But it can never verify
this enunciation, nor indeed can believe in it; and, trying to
give some account of that passage, it will strain a point and
say, “ Rhetoric.” This, too, is liberal of it, extremely liberal;
it has grown to be a highly polite and tolerant understanding,
when it gives the name of rhetoric to that passing by; before
arriving at these handsome manners, it had bluntly said,
“ Nonsense.”
Has it now been made clear what poetry is ? And has it
also been rendered apparent, or at least credibly indicated,
that the conscious being of man is itself, in the sense ex
plained, a poem 1 If so, we may proceed to consider the epic
in particular, anticipating that epical truth will be found not
only in books, but in the fact of the universe.
We already know that the epic will represent comprehend
ing spiritual unity, and beneath this its apparent contradiction.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
519
We know also that the latter will be made to suggest just that
which it seemingly contradicts, and so to negate its own nega
tion. This is the character of all poetry; but what distin
guishes the epic ?
Its primary distinction is, that here the scale of the draw
ing is strictly and explicitly universal. Existence in its full
breadth is the ground; the import of life in its full depth is
the theme. Here are to be the ultimate poles: the pure
Infinite, in contrast and correlation with finite Nature, — the
sovereign, perfect consciousness of man, in like contrast and
correlation with the most poignant contradiction supplied by
his natural experience.
First, the unity is here that of Being itself, absolute Spirit.
It is not merely a relative and subjective unity, that of mouse
and mountain daisy, beggar and king, with me, but the pure
One, which in oneness comprehends all. The oneness is, indeed,
the oneness, — the One to which, in the highest sense, there is
no Other, — absolute solvent, that liquefies all, englobing worlds
like drops of dew, cosmic dew of suns and stars, mist of milky
ways; and which, having pictured itself in Nature, whispers
in the enchanted heart of man, I am.
* First, then, the eter
nal Zeus, rest of all hearts, community of all natures. No
epical thought or genius has man without a consciousness of
this perfect, universal Identity, this all-embracing sky of the
soul.
Let this point be emphasized. What sort of epic were that
wherein this ultimate import of the spiritual consciousness
should not nobly and expressively appear ? The sort of epic
which is made such only by the title. The world has seen
such, but could not keep them long in view. The Genius of
the Whole is somewhat necessary to the parts, be it in a tree
or in a universe, and so in a poem which attempts to sing the
perennial character and relations of man’s life.
It is not a little curious to see how the grasshopper intelli
gence of Voltaire skips about this prime requisite of the epic
* It is peculiar also to the epic that this Unity is made explicit, represented ob
jectively, while in the drama proper it remains implicit, felt, not seen, a light to
enlighten, but no sun visible. Compare Homer and Shakespeare. -The Prometheus
hovers between the two.
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*
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
in his Essai sur La Poesie Epique. That he should attempt
such a topic is laughable. Few men have been more skilful
to break a jest; but here he was broken upon one. I once '
knew a youth who fancied himself a musical genius, because,
having not the slightest ear for music, he was never to his own
apprehension out of tune. At sight of a note he could promptly
produce a noise; and though, to compare small things with
great, it was like Milton’s gates of hell grating harsh thunder,
yet the innocent creature, not being deaf, as the hearers wished
they were, never doubted that he was melodious, since beyond
doubt he was vocal. I was reminded of him by reading the
“ philosopher ” of Ferney upon the Epic ; for never, perhaps,
was a very clever man more incapable of following on the track
of an epic imagination, or less aware of his own inability. He
perceives that in Homer the gods appear; whereupon he briskly
announces, that, in order to an epic, the “ marvellous ” must be
introduced. Now the marvellous, merely as such, has no more
a place in epic poetry than in science; nor, indeed, does it find
place in any form of noble literature. The blank gape it pro
duces is in the mind just that vacant 0, that annular eclipse
of intelligence, which the moon-mouth would indicate by the
shape it assumes.
The Olympus of Homer is his holding-ground in the
heavens. Therein he casts anchor, and so rides out the
storms of time in security and peace of heart. He would have
“ marvelled ” to find himself without it, and adrift on the sea
of events. He sings first of all that which sings itself in him,
the great faith of his soul.
Homer has, indeed, a keen sympathy with that which, per
haps ironically, is called “ real life ” ; and therefore is able to
paint it with an almost matchless precision and verisimilitude.
He is heroically faithful to Mnemosyne. Here is her whole story,
told without euphemism. Here is, now the struggle, and now
the stupor of passion, now the rolling resistless tide, and now
the sudden eddy and refluence, of courage, — rivalries, too,
mixed irresolvably of noble and ignoble, honor and infamy,
spun into the same thread ; here are the ebb and flow, the toss
and whirl, the interlacement, the twisted tangle, the blind and
blurting conclusion, of actual life. Here also is the charm of
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
521
feature and picturesque detail; individual action stands out in
boldest relief, individual portraiture is lavished, while to all
this is added the effect of diverse costumes, tongues, manners :
the details, handled in a way less masterly, were bewildering .in
their multiplicity ; and the picture, but for its breadth, would be
motley in the crowding of colors and contrasts. But the artist
is at his ease with much as with little, — always the master.
And yet, were this all, the Iliad would not be a poem: it were
only a wondrous piece of photography.
It is that Olympian repose with which Homer is able to over
arch this field of action, it is that peace of the All which he
makes to breathe about the storm and change of man’s little
world, that shows him a poet rather than a photographer,
Homer rather than De Foe. As his terrestrial observation is
wide, genial, and exact, so the faith of his soul, its hold upon
celestial Unity, is sure. To both he is just, and to each in. its
place and kind. And the objects of both, though opposite,
blend in harmony ; and the greater, though not only greater,
but all, does extinguish the less ; and the less, though it re
mains in vigor of feature and ruddiness of strength, passes
while it remains, and only the One-and-All is. Thus his pic
ture became a glass wherein the men of his time saw their life
with more than mortal vision. There the visible had become
ideal, yet retained its character ; there the invisible had be
come apparent, yet nowhere had broken the lines or blurred
the feature of actual experience. There the tempest of our
little life was seen rounded in with skies of everlasting calm :
participants in the divine secret, the mortal beholders looked
on and saw with new-informed eyes the cerulean circumambi
ent eternity, as now it condensed its viewless burden into our
whirling cloudlet of time, and anon drank it off into its own
transparent peace.
I confess we can no longer see the same perfectly in the
same mirror. To us the Iliad is not, cannot be, a pure epic.
Homer’s faith is not precisely that of the modern world; we
are able to follow him throughout only, as it were, by sympathy
prepense. That “ majestic, deathless head,” whose nod once
shook the world, and was the end of controversy to gods and
men, is now subject to the dispute of any too ready tongue,
vol. evil. — no. 221.
34
�522
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
sovereign no more. But the eternal Zeus lives under another
name, or without name ; Greece and Ilium we have, like the
poor, always with us ; the epos of existence remains; and
Homer’s speech needs but a translation into that diction which
is behind the words, to become ours.
Have we sufficiently dwelt upon the first grand requisite of
the epic ? Is it clear that this celestial unity must appear in
the written poem, because in the being of man that sovereign
import plays forever over the discord and disunity of our out
ward experience ? The matter has, indeed, been treated
slightly, but I will suppose that enough has been offered on
this head. Let us, then, turn the leaf.
That unity must have its opposite ; the nature of poetry, as
we are aware, requires this. The opposite, too, must in the
present case be no trivial one ; the play-over of Absolute Spirit
should be worthy of it. The eagle does not display his
strength of wing by merely flying across a ditch that a grass
hopper might leap. Show us a chasm yawning all the way
from east to west, wide as the world ; and when the genius of
the universe shall cast over that an arch whose keystone is the
zenith of eternity, it will do somewhat. Of this consummate
act the epic poet is to make us witness.
Every epic artist represents, as antithetic to the unitive
genius of being, the infernal, — that is, sheer moral inversion,
sheer head-down of moral order, the one thing with which the
soul cannot be directly reconciled. Moreover, he wellnigh
seems to give this abhorrent thing full possession of the field.
“ I read in Homer,” said Goethe, “ that properly we enact
hell here below.” Is this a true reading of 'Homer ? And if
so, does Homer read the world truly ? I think that in both
Goethe and Homer it is a true reading.
Goethe’s statement is, indeed, one-sided; and he perhaps
betrayed his own limit, while illustrating his penetration, in
making it. He himself is a little lame of the right foot. His
Mephistopheles is a lovely devil, cap-a-pie like a West Point
cadet turned out for parade, — magister artium in his kind,
compared with Milton’s Titanic undergraduate. Here Goethe
is perfect; but the sovereign term, the Zeus, he does not man
age so well.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
523
Yet his statement about Homer can hardly be impeached.
What is the situation described in the Iliad ? It is this : the
crime of a coxcomb has bound two noble nations by the loftiest
public sentiment of antiquity, the sentiment of national honor,
to the work of mutual destruction. The occasion of their san
guinary struggle is a deed they alike despise, a deed of which
the fit notice were a hearty kicking to the culprit. And yet
just that in each which dignifies and adorns their humanity it
engages to the pitiless destruction of the other.
Is it said, that honor, rightly understood, engaged them to
nothing of the sort ? It would not in us ; in them it did so ;
nor could they disobey its mandate without moral collapse.
Hector says, the Trojan women, not to speak of the men, would
despise him, did he decline the combat, odious to him as it
was. I think it apparent that the nation which had yielded
would have seen all the bands of order dissolve in the caustic
of contempt.
Highest enslaved by lowest, and compelled to rivet and re
*
new its own bonds, — that is the spectacle. What is intrinsi
cally good, beautiful, noble, made not only to serve evil ends,
but even to accept and consecrate the service,— that is the
hateful situation which Homer places before us.
Does it seem that the dilemma might have been easily
escaped ? There is the very bite of it. So easy to escape, —
and impossible! In Shakespeare we find the same. How
easy for Cordelia, by two words, to save her father and herself
the misery that ensues ! Easy, — and she cannot utter them.
It is her true, honorable love that forbids ; it is the voluble
hypocrisy of Regan and Groneril that compels her love to make
its own misconstruction. The ease, and yet the impossibility ;
the nobleness that immediately makes the impossibility ; the
ape’s hand that behind all manipulates the dead-lock: there,
there is the poison of it.
Know we of nothing similar in actual life ? Have we never
seen petty interests, petty strifes, spites, jealousies, envies, of
no more importance than the spit-spat of belligerent tom-cats,
roping in worthy natures with abhorrent bands, that multiply
and tighten till the anguish is intolerable ?
Thackeray’s she-catamount of a “ campaigner ” can hunt
�524
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
Colonel Newcome to his death. What signifies her caterwaul,
pray ? He knows that it signifies nothing, and he dies of it;
the contemptibleness of the torture makes it only the more
torturing.
A politician rises in Congress, and proposes a compliment to
the shillalah invasion of Canada. Honorable men, who despise
the motion, feel compelled to sustain it; the election at New
York is at hand, and such a resolution once offered, they dare
not vote it down. In other circumstances, a war between
England and America might easily have arisen from this move
in the small game of an individual anxious to wipe out his
“ Know-Nothing ” record; and when it had arisen, the purest
patriotism in the land would have been driven, with loathing
stomach, to sustain its country’s quarrel. History, indeed, is
replete with instances — and did we see it behind the cur
tains, more instances would be known to us — wherein the
noblest sentiments of humanity have been harnessed beyond
help in the dirt-carts of sordid interest, while pitiful tricksters,
men who would sell what soul they have for a crossed sixpence,
and cheat Mephistopheles in the bargain, hold the reins, and
goad them on.
It is such a case from which the incident of Homer’s story
is drawn, — a case of moral head-down in the worst shape it
could assume to the mind of Grecian antiquity. The great
master does not hide, he is at pains to display, its hateful
features. By the avowed and intense revolt of Hector’s soul
from the work his hands must do, the abhorrent constraint of
the situation is made to the last degree biting. And that
nothing might be wanting to the keenness of the contradiction,
the Trojan prince is shown to us, not only in his valor, his
magnanimity, his sense of justice, but also in the tender nobility
of his domestic life. Andromache comes before us, queenly,
devoted, in all the pathos of wifely love; while the babe, drawn
to the father, shrinks away from the warrior, to suggest the
last rebuke of that dreadful strife. Meanwhile, in contrast
with this beautiful picture, — the noblest touch of tenderness
that has come to us from the old Hellenic world, — Paris has
signalized anew his luxurious infamy, and made the occasion
of the struggle, odious enough before, seem intolerable. And
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
525
yet Hector must go to the field and to his doom, and An
dromache remain behind, helplessly awaiting her doom, and
doomed Ilium also abide her day.
All that follows upon the main situation is painted with
the like pitiless fidelity, — pitiless only in fidelity; for deep,
tender compassion is in the poet’s soul. Hero after hero comes
forth, uplifted with all soaring thoughts, godlike in bearing,
glorious in form and in renown; then before our eyes he goes
down; we see him clutch the earth in blind agony, we hear
his armor clank over him, — his only knell. Nothing is ex
plained away; and the pathos reaches its acme in the stern,
stern words, “ all-ending death.” The poet cuts off his under
standing from all succors, — breaks down the bridges behind
him. Only by a transcendent process does he escape into
repose. The will of Zeus is accomplished: that is all. To
Homer this all was enough. To the author of the Book of
Job it was enough.
*
A deep sea in which to cast anchor!
We in our day like shallower waters.
Why is it that Homer selects the sentiment of honor to be
thus enslaved ? Because he has the keenest sympathy with it.
In his eyes it is noblest, best; its enslavement, therefore,
shows most strikingly that moral inversion he wishes to dis
play. Nor is he alone in this procedure; other epic poets
have done the same. Dante is pre-eminently the poet of Love :
read the story of Francesca, wherein the pathos of the Inferno
culminates, and you find him distilling from the honey of love
a cup that he swoons but to taste. Milton is the apostle of
Liberty: in the Paradise Lost he has opened the heavens to
show us the impulse to just this, Liberty, turned toward the
pit, and drawing after it one third part of heaven’s host.
Goethe’s noblest trait is his intellectual devotion, his worship
of Truth: it is precisely this that in his half-epic betrays
Faust. In the Ramayana, a supreme emphasis is laid upon
truth in the sense of veracity, respect for the plighted word.
Describing his hero, Kapila says: “ This illustrious prince could
• * It is true that at the end of the Book of Job a kind of offset is got up.
But we may observe, that, in representing this pay-off appreciable by the under
standing, the poet—if he wrote the conclusion — falls from poetry to prose. The
poem was already complete.
�526
Epic Philosophy. >
[Oct.
willihgly renounce life, fortune the most opulent, desire the
most dear, — but the truth never.” Now it is just this, respect
for the plighted word, that brings about the catastrophe of the
poem.
Somewhere in his picture, and generally in the foreground,
the epic artist casts in this quintessence of contradiction, this
ink of indelible darkness, Worst from Best, — all the juices of
sweet life going to feed cancers. Moreover, the higher the
art and the grander the genius of the poet, the more resolutely
does he leave this terrible fact in possession of its proper field.
In the Ramayana, those who had fallen in the war against the
demon were, after the victory, magically restored to life. That
is impure art. In the Iliad, death has his prey undisputed, and
tragic fates pursue even the living. This is the manner of the
master.
Worst from Best, — is it found only in poems? The stout
common sense of Theodore Parker led him to say that Religion
may become prince of the devils. Whence was the inquisition
generated ? It was bred out of the Beatitudes and the song of
the angels, “ Peace on earth, good-will to men! ” What is
wourali poison, in which South American Indians dip their
arrows, compared with the envenomed conscience that even
the spirit of Christendom has secreted ? “We enact hell here
below! ”
In the epics, then, of men, and in the epic of the Supreme
Poet, there is somewhat with which the heart of man cannot
be reconciled, nor should be reconciled, since it is antithetic to
moral order and unity: when man does not abhor it, he has
forsworn his own nature. What, precisely, is this somewhat,
this Satan ever going to and fro in the world, this serpent
always lurking in garden ? Let us see whether this thing can
be accurately defined. Having learned its nature, — if, indeed,
to do so be possible, — we may further inquire whether the epic
idea of the world can be seen as comprehending, commanding
it, and evoking melody from it. And if the attempt be daring,
and our space for exposition brief, all the more must precision
be sought; nor will a little formality in the statement, if it
help toward precision, be esteemed inexcusable.
1. In the world of the senses and of science all goes by law,
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
527
the savans tell us. Granted: force has definite characters and
constant measures ; in measure and character alike it is inva
riable. All there goes by law : by what kind of law, however ?
By a law that is absolutely and everlastingly indifferent to any
thought which man derives from his spiritual being, to any
sentiment, any ideal desire or purpose of the soul. You would
have a house, wherein to enshrine the sanctities and felicities
of domestic life : what cares gravitation for your wish ? These
Romans would build a city; Michel Angelo would lift St. Pe
ter’s dome: gravitation enters into no complicity with such
desires ; inexorably, stolidly faithful to its own business, it
holds down the rock in the quarry; whoever will get a block
of it away shall sweat for it. Well, the builders outwit gravi
tation, making it help them lift the stone, and put it in place,
where the stolid tug of that force shall serve their design : it
is outwitted, that is all; not in the least has it been won into
sympathy with a human purpose. The forces of Nature, as
they do not change to approach, so cannot change to elude, the
design of man: get the wind of them, and they are captive.
Now, as the soul has, through the body, a foothold in Nature,
and commands immediately a certain amount of force, it is
enabled to take natural law by surprise, and bring it to obe
dience. But in obedience it is remote as ever, maintaining
the same impassive, unconquerable indifference to all that the
soul imagines or intends. As with gravitation, so with all
natural forces : even when serving the most vital uses, they are
infinitely far away from man’s thought of use. Oxygen rushes
into the lungs, when they create a vacuum: it is but rushing
into a vacuum. It combines with the globules of the blood to
recreate life; to further decomposition would suit it as well :
growth and decay, life and death, man’s gain or loss, pleasure
or anguish, are to it quite the same. Thus it happens that
man, as a worker in the realm of finite Nature, must always
work among and upon forces that are no less than infinitely
removed from any sympathy with his spirit. The world serves
him, but does not know him even when it serves.
2. In using these forces, man puts himself somewhat in their
power. We lift the roof, but lift it over our own heads : gravi
tation has no respect for the heads ; its business is to draw
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
downward, which it attends to assiduously, not considering
who or what is beneath; and it holds the roof in place, I
must repeat, only as it is outwitted. When the earthquake
comes, comes its opportunity ; and now men fly the houses they
have built for their security. Moreover, for purposes of use
we must set free agencies that were not active before, that we
can never be sure of our ability to control, and that, despite
their services, ever continue terrible to us. Fire, for example,
is a demon that man has conjured up. It is needful, indispen
sable ; we must take it into our houses near the cradle and the
couch, must sleep with it for housefellow, knowing all the while
that it is an untamable demon, never a whit domesticated by
its long intimacy with man. Now fire is not bad; but the burn
ing of the house, for which it is at any moment ready, were
an evil. The burning of the house, and the fall, perchance, of
the flaming roof upon those it was designed to shelter, — de
spite all the glosses of optimism, a plain man may take leave
to regard that as indubitably an evil.
Here, therefore, is an evil, yet no evil principle. There is a
gap between human ends and natural means ; and evil — physi
cal evil only as yet — is incidental to it.
3. Man is not only in this world of forces thus indifferent
to every thought of his spirit, but, as an organized creature,
he is himself composed of such forces. Yet more, they assume
in him a new and peculiar intensity, becoming sensitive, and
rounding into an Ego heated with immeasurable desire. Nev
ertheless, these forces, though as an organized nature he is
compounded of them, belong to that world which is forever
infinitely remote from the pure thought and ideal desire of his
spirit. The relation of himself as spirit to himself as organ
ized in nature is the same with the general relation of man to
force in the external world. Hunger and thirst are no less
indifferent than gravitation to all that the soul believes and
loves. Temperamental force has its own orbit, moves by its
own springs, knows only its own ends. Indispensable utilities
are exacted from it; but it transmits them, as a mail-bag does
letters, without knowing what is in them.
Thus the soul must not only work upon, it must also work
by means of, an alien material. This material, moreover, is
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
529
not passive, it is force, fiercely intent, impersuasible. Accord
ingly, the soul can accomplish nothing, it is annulled, until by
an efflux of virtue it takes possession of the field; while only
by a continuance of the same energy does it keep possession.
Even in victory and supremacy, it may not retire and sleep :
its authority is dead, its victory vanishes, in the moment that
it ceases to act and to overcome. It is a sovereign whose sub
jects are all rebels at heart, and become such in act the moment
it does not make upon them an overmastering impression.
They are rebels, not by any concerted antagonism to the regal
principle, but because they are wholly moved by an intention
of their own, which is alien and indifferent to spiritual ideas.
4. The soul, in building up its own architectures, and pre
paring its own repast, must make immaterial fire, must liberate
demons in its own organic household, and so newly imperil
itself. For the better culture and discipline of mankind, it es
tablishes Property, — an institution which rests wholly upon an
ideal basis : instantly it creates cupidity, a very terrible demon
indeed, hungry beyond measure, sometimes in its rage of appe
tite devouring entire civilizations. What a raising of chimneys,
called courts of law, there has to be! What anxious binding
of the demon with precedents, statutes, legal forms! Despite
all which, it will sometimes break bounds : and, indeed, when
is it not breaking bounds, committing trespass, doing inde
scribable mischief ?
The soul, again, builds the state, to incarnate therein, as in
a larger body, the spirit of community : at once it sets free the
love of dominion,—fire again, and a fire that makes horrible
conflagrations. The desire of power and sway is not bad ; the
debt to it of civilization is immense, immeasurable ; never was
there a great ruler or statesman whose breast did not brim
with it; and only at far-distant periods of time do the Timoleons and Washingtons appear, who possess it largely without
being possessed by it. Often has it wrought prodigiously, when
Goodness lay asleep, wrapped in sweet dreams ; and history on
many a page
“ Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
Till in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end.”
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
Nor, on the other hand, is it good; for in itself it has no moral
quality whatsoever. But a force destitute of all moral char
acter, which nevertheless must be brought into the closest
intimacy with moral interests, and even fanned and stimulated
in their behalf, has in it capacities of evil.
The soul builds churches, architectures to house a thought
higher still; and again it makes fire ; and this time may make
the very fire of hell, bigotry, conscientious hatred, holy cruelty,
lying for God, tyranny that not only oppresses, but makes in
its victims a hunger to be oppressed. And once more we have
to say, that the force thus brought into action is in itself neither
good nor evil, though of both good and evil it is vastly capable.
Fire, — it may kindle fagots about the martyr, and blaze
abroad to devastate entire centuries and civilizations, or may
genially warm the hearts and households of believing ages.
Finally, this Ego of ours, —this also is demon, is fire. The
Spirit makes it: never could mere organic force become con
scious, and say I. But the Spirit makes it as the intensest
conceivable antithesis to its own pure, including universality.
I, — what a portentous exclusion the word implies ! It shuts
out all the universe beside itself; indeed, to the egoistic appre
hension pure and simple, I is universe, is god. A wonderful
thing is this particular, limited Self. It is eccentric centre,
— pure partiality in the state, and with the sense of perfect
wholeness. It is Spirit inverted or reverted from its compre
hending, universal self-identity, to sustain its own intensest
contradiction, a purely limited and excluding self-identification.
This special Self is demon all and only. Not good, it is yet
here as the strong caryatid to sustain a spiritual conscious
ness, which is God’s surpassing work of art. Not bad, it is
nevertheless a caryatid whose head is not kept under without
pains, and that at best seldom fails to put a wry face upon his
labor.
Fire is not bad ; but the burning 'of the house, which despite
all precautions may happen, were an evil. Egoism is not bad;
but its exaction and forage upon the soul, which in some degree
are sure to happen, are an evil. When the forces of finite Na
ture turn the virtue and providence of the soul against itself,
then there is evil, devil. Devil is not a person, it is not even
�Epic Philosophy.
531
a thing or a force ; it is simply an effect incidental to a par
ticular form of relation. With finite Nature, fixed, resolute,
inexorable in its finitude, the soul must make an intimacy, to
which intimacy Nature can never respond by the faintest blush
of sympathy; natural forces will seek forever, must forever
seek, to carry away in their own line whatever comes within
their reach; and when they succeed in appropriating and
bringing into their own line of action the virtue of the soul,
evil appears. The epic poet represents this most terrible inci
dent of the Spirit’s engagement in Nature, — the soul pulled
overboard by the fish it was drawing in, — the soul caught in
the mesh of its own mechanism, ground in its own mill.
If, now, the foregoing exposition be at all correct, it will
appear, that, though there is no evil principle, though Satan
is the boldest of impersonations, implying some temerity of
rhetoric, yet the Satanic, the infernal, exists nevertheless.
Disease is no entity; but epilepsy and lockjaw are quite real.
On the other hand, the epic “ play-over ” must not be for
gotten. Evil is real, but it is not commensurate with man’s
being. Man is properly supernatural; the soul is above all its
experience within the limits of finite Nature, and
“ Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”
Accordingly, I find two opposite classes of theorists, who,
severally following, though in contrary directions, a linear and
prosaic logic, arrive at a forced conclusion on this matter. The
one party, beginning from below, and perceiving evil to be real
relatively to the soul as engaged in Nature, reasons to the
eternal from the temporal, and asserts, a supernatural Satan,
conceived of either as a person or a state of existence. The
other party, setting out from man’s supreme consciousness,
wherein he feels the serene eminence of his spirit over Nature,
reasons downward, and declares that even within the limits of
Nature evil is not real.
The latter opinion seems to have been adopted with a degree
of enthusiasm by the Emersonian school in America, though
of Mr. Emerson himself one may rather say that he has shown
a marked predilection for it than that it is sustained by him
as a fixed dogma. The chief argument for it is an undeniable
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
fact, namely, that evil is often reconverted to use. But were
this always the case, evil would not lose its proper character.
At sight of somewhat with which it cannot be reconciled, the
soul is stung, and newly incited. Well, why is it stung ?
Whence the provocation ? It is the sight or the experience
of somewhat odious to the soul that stings. If we say, “ This
so-called evil is made to serve a use, therefore it is not evil;
whatever is is right; the soul can and must be reconciled with
it,” — where are we ? Let us shun huddled thinking.
Asafoetida is the best of antispasmodics ; it does not there
fore smell the better. Esteem me not narrow-minded, if I hold
my nose. The philosopher tells me, indeed, that only devil
knows devil, — that only because I am cousin-german to asa
foetida does its odor offend me. Perhaps so; it may be, that,
were the nose regenerate, it would find only frankincense in
foetor. I humbly confess such grace has not been given that
organ. Be it to my shame or no, I must distinguish between
scent of heliotrope and scent of carrion-flower. I follow my
nose as my fathers did before me. Nor in truth do I propose
to be shamefaced before Philosophy in doing so. Offence is
offence, make the best of it. Evil is a thing good to esteem
bad, good to be offended at, good to keep the cork on. Like
ipecacuanha and tartar-emetic, it is useful only as it creates
nausea and is intolerantly rejected by the system.
It is said further, that Good has a vast power of assimilation,
a chemistry that nothing can wholly resist. This also is true.
As in the physical world the organific force will masticate
quartz and porphyry, gnawing away at the frozen adamant of
mountain crags with teeth harder and more capable of self
repair than those of rodents, and solving all with the alchemy
of eupeptic life, until it has given the earth flesh, has clothed
this with the garniture of field and forest, and digested this
again into animal form and motion, so the higher genius that
works in humanity to dissolve and to organize does not live
upon spoon-victual alone, but has teeth to cut platinum, a
stomach to digest poison, and an art out of pus and gangrene
to make the vigor of dancing feet and bloom of dawning beauty.
Eyes that are not sick will see this without spectacles, and
sound minds will be apt to emphasize it. But let us not say
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
533
too much, and be like cowards who betray fear by voluble affir
mation that there is no danger. Good has diamond teeth, —
and it needs them! Poor logic, to say, that, because it has this
masticating and digestive force, therefore all is food for it,
artistically prepared by some cosmic Blot, and that what seems
odious is only pepper-sauce, a sharp condiment to provoke
appetite.
In fine, the universe will not be spun out in one thread, and
turned to prose. Our nice mental machinery can do much,
but cannot do that; and this new-patented method of optimism
fails like every other. It does good work of the kind, but the
poetic truth of existence will not be caught on the smooth
turning spindle.
The opposition of good and evil is never to be explained away.
But this opposition is itself prosaic, if only in itself consid
ered. To deny it is fatal to epic truth; to remain only in it,
the captive and jail-bird of Nature, is no less fatal. Evil, and
good as merely opposed to evil, belong alike to the soul only
as standing in organic connection with finite Nature; but the
soul’s true being is not in Nature, it is in Spirit, the self-affirmed,
eternal, indivisible Import, into which Nature, as sign, ever
more resolves itself. To the bird as walking the wall exists,
and is impassable: the bird takes wing, and the wall, though
solid as ever, becomes for it no wall. But man at once walks
and flies, — walks and works on these levels of Nature, yet by
- his true substantive being soars and circles in the divine ether;
and here, in unity with the One-and-All, he is himself the sky,
which rounds in and contains in harmony his natural experi
ence. In his breast is enshrined this exceeding great mystery,
—the infinite separation of Nature from Spirit, the perfect poetic
comprehension of Nature by Spirit. A mystery, nay, a very
dust in the eyes, to prose thought, it is far otherwise in the
being' of man, as in the universe of God: here it abides in
poetic clearness forever,— so clear, that the voice of it, when it
comes to speech, can be no other than a voice of singing, to
which only melodious numbers and concord of sweet sound
afford a fit expression. The universe rings with it like a bell;
and the heart of the poet, being whole, also rings silver-clear;,
and in the deep heart of humanity a poetic thought is peren
nial, though in general it is shattered on the lips.
�534
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
From the height of its perfect consciousness the soul looks
down upon the imperfect quasi world of Nature; and seeing
itself involved there, yet not involved, — locked into those
limits of inexorable finitude, yet above them, including them, ’
resolving them into that breath of Spirit which sings while it
passes, — it has the sentiment not only of a Whole, but of an
epic Whole, including within its flawless unity the intensest
contradiction.
We are now prepared, let it be supposed, to attempt a final *
survey of this epic Whole, this Iliad of existence, placing its
grand features in their true relation to each other. Only from
the summit of thought and consciousness can such a survey be
attempted sanely; we must therefore begin and end with the
all-comprehending Unity, with pure Spirit.
1. Man has the consciousness of Spirit in its integrity,
whole and the whole, nothing if not all. He knows this, and,
as knowing, is one with it. Never can it be. known as other ■
than that by which it is known ; if another, it is no longer the
One, but only a particular existence. Tell me not of a God,
one being particularized among others, though great or great
est. John Stuart Mill kindly explains, that, though it be
ridiculous to speak of the Infinite, the Absolute, yet God may '
be infinite in a particular way, — infinitely just and good in the
sense of being entirely just and good. His infinite is merely
unmixed quality. In the same sense a spider is infinitely a |
spider, if it be all and only spider. Should the creature ever I
be afflicted with a doubt about the propriety of catching flies, |
the spiderly nature, becoming mixed, would fall from infini- I
tude. Infinite in the sense of pure quality is perhaps as good !
an infinite as positivism admits of; but I quite agree with Mr.
Mill in thinking it ridiculous to call this the infinite.
The infinite of Spirit is not to be caught in a cobweb. The
ambitious broom of positivist logic will neither sweep it down
from the dark corners of the understanding nor sweep it to
gether from the floors of phenomenal Nature. What it is we
may a little conceive thus: though there were a myriad of
perfectly rational minds, there were but one Reason, and each
of them were it. The consciousness of reason is an integrating
consciousness; in it there is a unity, not numerical, but intrinsic:
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
535
multiple in manifestation, it is not divided, nor in itself multi
ple, but ever identical. Spirit is reason, and more than we
mean by reason distinctively. It is not only integral, but is
active, eternal, absolute integration. As there is not only a
possible rest in motion, but also a rest of motion,— as, for
example, in orbital movement, — so there is a unity, not only
in multiplicity, but of multiplicity, — a unity of comprehension
and embrace, which, though it contain contradiction, yet does
indeed contain it, and therefore remains itself unbroken. The
consciousness of this it is that the human race has confessed
so often as it has said God. There is no night there; there
all limit is swallowed up, freedom and necessity become one
and the same ; there the jars of Nature blend in the tune of the
eternal Whole, and the clash of oppositions is felt to be sus
tained by the very unity which they seemingly oppose. “ The
will of Zeus is accomplished ” : it is the key-note which to
every note is a key. Spirit is; and he is Spirit who is con
scious of it, and he the voice of it who hears its language.
Spirit is, the everlasting Only, only and all, playing over op
position, yet never opposed; abiding ever in itself, yet not
aloof; dwelling only with itself, yet housing the universe.
2. Nevertheless, in precise antithesis to this, there is the
world of finite Nature, also assuming to be all, and indeed
complete in its way, — no escape from it, when once you have
accepted its level and law. It bears, however, this ear-mark
of imperfection, that the essential character of it is to be ex
cluding. Excluding : every particle of matter shoulders away
every other; — every square inch of space says, as it were, to
universal space, “ Stand off! ” — every moment of time fixes
itself between the two eternities of time, denying them, saying,
“ Of time I alone am, I, the present moment! ” — every force,
so much as it acts, negates all other force. It is a universe of
exclusions, — purest conceivable opposite to the including sim
plicity of Spirit.
What then? We have a dual world: Spirit and Nature
standing in irreconcilable opposition, each, it should seem,
excluding the very possibility of the other. Yet as Spirit is
whole and the whole, or is nothing, dualism kills it. And,
indeed, many in our day espouse the cause of finite Nature to
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
this extent, saying, “ Spirit can be no more than a fiction of
speech, since for it as a reality Nature leaves no room.” True,
Nature has no room for it. Here is a difficulty, which to a
prosaic speculation is, and must remain, insuperable. But the
bolt turns to another key.
3. We have seen that this self-asserting finite Nature asserts
itself only to the same ear which itself makes, to the finite
understanding. To the higher poetic intelligence, it is only
Sign, only Language. As such, it declares itself to be in and
of itself nothing. A word, — for what is it here? To be
somewhat in itself? No, but expressly to be nothing in itself.
It is a word only as, vacating itself, pointing away from itself,
denying its own substantiality, it simply and unequivocally
stands for somewhat which indeed is, namely, an import exist
ing in the mind. The world, then, as Sign, denies its sub
stantial existence, vacates its own pretension to reality, and
affirms what is not itself, affirms a significance whose unity
and substantiality is Spirit.
It has been said, but will bear saying again, that to this
significant and therefore ever-vanishing character of Nature all
human speech is due. So all mythology, all theology, comes
of the impulse to render that language which Nature is into
the language man uses. Poetry, painting, every fine art, is a
fine art for the reason that it elects the significant impression
of Nature as the real fact of it, while the so-called useful arts
regard Nature only in its lower character, as force. Whence
the charm of landscape painting ? It is always inferior to that
which one may any day see from his doorstep. The charm of
it is this: it presents Nature as only picture, only significant
show, without its outdoor pretension to substantiality, — pre
sents Nature more as what it veritably is. Hence mere fac
simile painting, which foists upon the’picture Nature’s habitual
disguise of its true character, is but mock art.
4. Having thus affirmed Spirit, then shown finite Nature as
apparently denying it, then again shown the same Nature as
confessing itself a mere sign of that which it seems to deny,
we come to an act which concerns us human beings very
nearly, but of which there seems to be in the streets of our
cities little notice taken. I have never once seen mention of it
on the bulletin-boards, nor found it in the column of news.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
537
Spirit issues in person, in the person, that is, of humanity,
upon this scene of finite Nature ; accepts the fiction of its sub
stantiality; and even so, upon these hard terms, extorts a con
fession of its presence and quality. Here, then, it is in the
militant state, a warrior in armor, overcoming a hostility that
never abates, compelling a confession ineffably alien to the lips
that utter it.
Spirit militant, Spirit accepting the fiction of Nature’s sub
stantiality to conquer it on its own level, — this is the moral life
of humanity. With this “ accepted fiction ” under the feet,
we cannot wonder that our life should divide itself into the
irreconcilable opposites, Right and Wrong, God and Devil.
A contradiction is involved in such a state of existence; the
t contradiction will appear, and make itself felt, sometimes to
the utter anguish of the soul.
Here the soul conquers, but always with costs; here it en
dures defeat, but in defeat still conquers, if its quality has
been signalized. No other business has it than to say effectu
ally, I am : achieving this, though in dungeons, at the stake,
on the cross, it is victorious.
Partial defeat it ever does and must suffer, optimism to the
contrary notwithstanding. “ All is well,” am I told ? Yes,
the All is very well, undoubtedly. One gets fresh intelligence
of that fact in his own breast now and then, and pipes his little
note of rejoicing accordingly. But is this taken to mean that
all goes well ? that in the line and on the level of outward
events there is perfect process ? that the moral life of man
involves no contradiction, in the midst of which the soul must
strive and suffer ? that we may lie on our oars and trust the
tide of events to take us to port? Enough, 0, more than
enough of this! In the line of events, as related to the moral
life of humanity, there is, there can be, no perfect process on
the earth: the very conception of our existence forbids. We
chant, with a sweet imbecility, “ the good time coming ” :
it is ever coming, and never come. Some say that the golden
age has been, and some that it is to be ; but I, that all events
are cheap and all times tawdry, — that only the soul is golden,
and that the shine of this metal out of the dust-cloud of history
is the true result.
vol. cvn. — no. 221.
35
�538
t
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
Here is the field of the tragic poet. He causes the soul to
show itself and to shine from out the utmost darkness and
devilishness of events. The one is helpless and inextinguish
able ; the other victorious and without honor. The soul suffers
every conceivable defeat, and is godlike still; the law of events
follows its own fatal course, making no clear distinction be
tween good and bad, and is seen in its proper under-foot char
acter. Thus, Shakespeare in his grand tragedies will give us
scarce a crumb of comfort, so far as the course of events is
concerned. Iago, indeed, ends his iniquity with his death :
who is consoled ? who cares ? You crush the snake that has
just fleshed its fang in priceless honor and innocence: well; it
was but a snake. Iago dies; but Desdemona, Othello! — who
talks of a balance struck ? Or who in this presence will pro
claim the “ good of evil ” ? What good ? Snake number two
is more likely to be regenerate ? St. Snake is somewhat less
beautiful to me than the creature uncanonized. Anything, if
you please, but Satan in a state of grace!
I thank Shakespeare that he gives no hint of these suspi
cious compensations. Out of wrong done and suffered the
soul has shown its quality: this is the true result. All the
grandeur of the great poet’s genius is found in this, his habit
ual manner of representing life. Had he stooped to patch up
events, pretending, after the fashion of the novelist, that the
significance of life is found in their course and result, he would
have stooped indeed, and been no longer Shakespeare.
Spirit by issuing upon this scene of things brings moral good
to a world which before was but a system of forces, incapable
of moral character: by the same act it makes the possibility
and the general (not particular) necessity of moral evil. It
does so by placing the virtue of the soul within reach of the
energies of the finite world, “ laws ” of Nature, organic im
pulses and desires, — huge polypi, that throw their long tena
cious tentacles about all that comes within their scope, and know
not what they devour. Thus the Hebrew “ God of battles ” —
the unity of Spirit in the militant state — says, “ I, God, make
good, and I create evil.” Does this sound harsh ? But is it
not true ? Are not moral good and moral evil correlative op
posites, each of which forever wars upon and forever implies
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy^
539
the other ? Does not the soul make both, the former by its
intrinsic quality, and the latter by the situation it accepts ?
As the human providence which evokes the element of fire
makes it possible that any house may burn and certain that
some houses will burn, so spiritual virtue, by creating moral
good, enables the characterless energies of Nature to attain the
higher, though abhorrent quality of evil.
But the divining sense of humanity has touched the ultimate
truth of this situation with a precision yet more admirable.
Spirit militant, appearing no longer as the “ God of battles,”
but as the suffering Prince of Peace, the crucified God, meekly
enduring, in the consciousness of an infinite resource, all the
utmost despite of Nature, — never yet has a nobler or truer
imagination inspired the worship of humanity. A great in
justice is, indeed, done this perennial poetic truth, when it is
Calvinized into prose ; yet what an appeal, even so, has it
made to the heart of man! Let the form change as it may
and must; but let the grand imagination remain, for the trage
dy of the world has this extent; and JEschylus and Shake
speare and every greatest poet has touched it most nearly just
then when his genius was at the supreme height.
The strictly moral consciousness is dualistic, not integrating;
for beneath its feet is an assumption contradictory to the eter
nal quality of Spirit, namely, the assumed substantiality of
finite Nature. Hence it dwells in a divided world, whose ulti
mate terms a^e God (the warring or suffering God) and Devil.
But optimism pretends that the moral consciousness is unitive
and entire. It blinks the underlying contradiction, and .there
fore must seek to persuade us that “ the Devil is not so black
as he is painted,” and indeed is not of a black complexion at
all, but is only a serviceable angel in soiled linen, — grimed
with necessary labor, and none the worse for not appearing in
holiday clothes. I freely make over my share in this charita
ble judgment to those who can find a use for it, and freely
confess that^a more limping, one-legged thing is not known to
us than a purely moralistic theology which sets out with deny
ing the necessary dualism of morals.
5. But the old religionists permitted themselves to speak of
mere morality, as if there were a consciousness in man and a
�540
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
truth in being that transcended morals, though without invali
dating them. Were they utterly deceived ? Has humanity no
consciousness, has being no character of this transcendent
kind ? Are right and wrong the supreme words ? — wrong,
however, being inscrutably wrung back, and so brought, as it
were clandestinely, into the line of right. Epic imagination,
whether as found in written poems, or as speaking in all the
higher spirituality of mankind, affirms a sovereign Unity, which,
indeed, becomes moral by descent into the limits of finite Na
ture, but which is in itself, as Hooker said, “ not only one, but
very oneness,” while in oneness it includes, and is, all. Let it
be permitted me to speak as I can, and without reproach, of this
Unspeakable, happy if the words shall in any manner or degree
hint what the best of words will never more than hint.
It may be read in epics, and as their supreme import, neces
sary to render them epical, that Spirit, even while provisionally
accepting this finite Nature as substantial, and issuing upon it
in the militant character, remains not the less and forever in
itself, in the consciousness of its pure, eternal integrity, un
broken by the dividedness of time, untouched by its tumult.
This One to which there is no Other, while yet it does not ex
clude, but embraces and houses all multiplicity and diversity,
— is it not the “ open secret,” always inaccessible to the criti
cal understanding, while to the adoring heart and spiritual
imagination it is not only accessible, but is alone to them in
the deepest sense native ? Inexplicable, indubitable, not to be
solved only because itself the universal solvent, it is the mys
tery of eternity, yet is mysterious only to the prosaic mind,
while only through its infinite reconciling presence is finite Na
ture itself other than an affronting mystery to the credent and
poetic soul. This is the blessed play-over, beneath which, and
yet within which, all the fortune of life, all the struggle and
process of existence, go on, and into which they evermore
vanish, to appear in vanishing and to die in renewal, as words
sink and are lost in the import that creates and sustains them.
An indestructible consciousness in man, fundamental fact of
his being, makes him a participant in this oneness, this whole
ness, this perfection of Spirit in itself. Spirit as engaged in
Nature, —it is Sarpedon, son of Zeus, warring, stricken, perish
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
541
ing, lying gory on the battle-field ; Spirit abiding in itself, —
it is Zeus poised in Olympian peace, and in himself containing
all. Sarpedon falling, dying, the victim of Nature ; Zeus im
mortal, hurtless as the blue heaven, and embracing Nature as
the sky the earth; — the one is the passionate experience of
man, and the other is his pure, integrating consciousness. But
the latter is his consciousness, not merely as his, and subjec
tive, but as veritable, substantial, the indivisible consciousness
of Spirit, existing only because Spirit is, one and indivisible,
— the eternal fact impressing itself with the sense of its own
infinite reality.
It follows from all the foregoing that man’s being is a scale
of three degrees. On the lowest, he is only an organized
nature, a mote or molecule in the immeasurable system of
things ; a little learning the trick of it, a little and a little
better able, from age to age, to take care of his small peculium; getting to be at length, from a mote, an insect, and
humming so as to be heard, 0, yards away!
On the de
gree above this, far above, he is moral, engaged in the battle
without truce between good and evil; at issue with others and
with himself ; finding a law in his members warring upon the
law of his mind and bringing him into captivity, till he cry,
“ Wretched man that I am ! ” Here he may have noble battle,
but never peace ; always there is a Hannibal in his Italy, or
the Gauls are gathering on the border ; and he is still bound
by the necessities of the conflict in the rare hours of his tri
umphal march. On the highest degree, he is one with the
One-and-All. Here, as from the height of eternity, he looks
down on his small fortunes in the world of time, and by all that
he there suffers renews and intensifies the consciousness of his
eternal security and sovereignty in God.
It was the door into this supreme consciousness that the
Christian evangel, particularly as represented .by Paul, un
barred and threw open to the access of mankind; the doc
trine of “ salvation by faith,” though its dryness now parches
the tongue, began the epopee of Christendom, and gave the
key-note to the largest symphony in which the imaginations
of nations and ages have as yet joined. This consciousness,
though not at all denying, but, on the contrary, admitting and
�542
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
using, what is beneath it, declares itself alone veritable.
Spirit only is ; all else appears, and is not. And here one can
not help asking by what fine luck it was that Hellenic tradition
made Homer blind; that which he sang he saw but as a
picture within his breast. For so the eye of absolute Spirit
sees Nature and the natural experience of man as things by
itself imagined, airy nothings with a local habitation and a
name.
The epic poet sets off all the worst that the soul can suffer
in Nature against that higher impossibility of its suffering at
all. He gives himself the divine pleasure of beholding this
troubled, tumultuous quasi existence as it vanishes momentarily
and forever into the peace and perfect comprehension of Spirit
in itself. That engagement in Nature, and yet an everlasting
ease and delight of self-rescue out of Nature, — the perpetual
play-up of finite life out of itself and into the infinite as its
truer self, while Spirit in its divine play-over stoops to the
world, and, stooping, remains infinitely above, and seeming tu
acknowledge another than itself, makes that apparent other an
instrument through which to blow its eternal affirmation, I
only am ; — this is that symphony of being whose choirs are
solar and stellar systems, and whose notes and numbers are in
dividual lives, while in each note the tune of the whole, the
tune of eternity, presides, and the Symphonist himself is pres
ent. And in finding this, we find the epic interpretation of
human life.
D. A. Wasson.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Epic philosophy
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Wasson, David Atwood
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: Boston
Collation: 501-542 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Article from North American Review, vol. CVII, no. 221. Annotations in pencil "N. Amer. Rev." page 501. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[s.n.]
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1868
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CT53
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Epic philosophy), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Poetry
Mythology
Classics
Ancient Greek Poetry
Epic Poetry
Homer
Mythology
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Keble and "The Christian year"
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Shairp, J.C.
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 229-264 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Attribution of author and journal title from Wellesley Guide to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From North British Review, no. 6 (September, 1866). The North British Review was a Scottish periodical founded in 1844 to act as the organ of the new Free Church of Scotland.
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[1866]
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CT30
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Poetry
Christianity
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English
Christianity
Conway Tracts
John Keble
Poetry
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HE praise of Venus has been often sung, but never in any existing verse
of high order with the unhesitating frankness and untempered fervor
which distinguish Mr. Swinburne’s last volume of poems* Disdaining apol
ogy or subterfuge, he lifts up his voice, and with unfaltering tongue and un
ambiguous phrase he tells in the rich music of his verse the joys of Aphrodite.
Of his capacity and his inclination to treat this theme in this manner every
attentive reader of his last two poems “ Atalanta in Calydon ” and “ Chastelard ” must be well aware. Both those poems were distinguished by a large
simplicity and directness of utterance which showed that the poet had risen
far above the plane of timid conventionality ; and the latter showed a ten
dency toward an open recognition of the power of sexual love and an intense,
if not an ideal, expression of its working. The promise of those two dramatic
poems in this regard has been amply, but somewhat hastily fulfilled in the
present volume, which, as Mr. Swinburne of course expected, is loudly con
demned by all that class of critics who are content to “ dwell in decencies for
ever.” We have heard of editors who have refused to notice the book even
by way of condemnation, lest they should thus contribute to its notoriety.
A weak, unwise, shortsighted policy. Poets of Mr. Swinburne’s grade are
not to be crushed by condemnation or extinguished by neglect; least of all
when they find their inspiration in a passion which has stirred and swayed
the world ever since it became the habitation of two sexes. If they do wrong,
if they soil their plumes by too close a contact with unmitigated human
nature, let them be convicted and condemned; but let us not fondly sup
pose, when one of them gives voice to the delight of men in the beauty of
. women and of women in the manliness of men that we can stop the world’s
ears by pretending that we don’t hear him. No, Mr. Swinburne’s book, like
all books that, whether good or bad, are bold and able and high-toned, must
be taken up and discussed and its place in literature decided by the general
judgment of men, aided through, not controlled by, the decisions of criticism.
The very fact that a Jftrge edition of the book was bought up here in three or
four days, and that it is the subject of conversation among cultivated and
thoughtful people should of itself show critics that it is not to be ignored.
We have called these poems high-toned; and this epithet against which
some of Mr. Swinburne's censors would most loudly protest, is the one of all
at our command which we regard as most particularly expressive of their dis
tinctive character. Their subject we have stated in plain terms ; and they
present that subject unveiled, simply, without mitigation, as bare of conceal
ment as a naked, un-fig-leaved statue. Yet, in the very essence of their
thought they are high-toned. They are filled full of the utterance of that joy
T
* “Laus Veneris, and other Poems and Ballads.” By Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Author’s Edition. New York: Carleton. London : Moxon & Co.
�666
MR. SWINBURNE’S POEMS.
which to gross souls is gross, but which to all others is mysteriously no les3
imaginative than Bensuous; but there is in them not one .passage that is
vulgar, or coarse, or even immodest. There is in Pope’s “ Rape of the Lock,”
a poem which is within the reach of any girl who desires to read it, a line of
more immodesty than could be made of all Charles Swinburne’s poems concen
trated within the same compass. And by calling Mr. Swinburne’s lyrics
high-toned we do not mean merely that they are the product of genius.
They are that indeed ; but so is “ Don Juan,” a poem open to objection of the
same kind as those which are urged against “ Laus Veneris; ” but “ Don
Juan,” work of genius although it be, is as low in tone, as light and as frivo
lous as “ Laus Veneris” is high and impressive and serious. “ Don Juan ”
was written to furnish amusement by the prurient treatment of forbidden
subjects; “ Laus Veneris ” is the presentation in the naked ideal of an over
powering passion. It is not immodest but, like other things that are also not
immodest, under certain circumstances it is indecent. The line above alluded
to in the “ Rape of the Lock ” is immodest and under all circumstances inde
cent, because it belittles, and degrades, and treats with gross familiarity, and
sets up for jeers and laughter one of the most masterful of human passions,
and one which more than any other sways, through soul and sense, the whole
being of every perfect human creature. Mr. Swinburne writes with no such
motive. He shows us the figure of Love stripped bare, but never grovelling.
Yet, as we have said, his book is, or rather it becomes indecent under certain
circumstances. The man who would read in mixed society, at this day, or
read to a young woman, or, for that matter, to an old one, such a poem as Mr.
Swinburne’s sonnet, rf Love and Sleep ” would commit an act so indecent as to
merit the immediate ejection from the house, which he would, probably re
ceive. But so would he be indecent if he offered the woman a caress, which,
under other circumstances, she would both desire and expect. So would he
be if he read many passages in the “ Song of Solomon,” which are in every
respect as plain-spoken and as fervid as anything that Mr. Swinburne has
written, and certain others in the fourth and the eighth books of “ Paradise
Lost.” And yet, the woman who cannot read any of these herself without harm,
is already long past mental contamination. The question is plainly this, Is
sexual love in itself impure ? or is it in itself entirely without moral charac
ter, and under certain circumstances as rightful as it is joyful, and under
others criminal, and in the end full of bitterness ? Will men who have wives
and mothers, and women who hope to be wives and mothers decide for the
former ? And if it is not impure, filling, as it does, so large a place and hav
ing so important a function in man’s life, shall it be excluded from the domain
of art, of high art ? No, but let it be draped, is th^ reply that will come
from some quarters. Surely, let it be draped, except he comes who shows
that he has the right to lift its veil. He will show his right by the way in
which he exercises it. We do not go about unclothed. We do not put any
undraped picture upon our walls, because there are few painters who have
the right to paint nude figures for pure-minded people. But when one of
those who have the right paints such a picture, then it hangs before our eyes
and we see that it is naked, and are not ashamed. What genius and high
mental tone are in art love as well as in real life—so our poet says ;
Behold my Venus, my soul’s body, lies
With my love laid upon her garment-wise.
This is the key note of his song.
To a woman who loves, the love of the
�MR. SWINBURNE’S POEMS.
667
man she loves is as a garment. A modest woman never lays aside her mod
esty ; but as to shame, one of the greatest of moralists tells us that that may be
< taken off and put on like her petticoat. It is from this moral plane, and through
this moral medium that Mr. Swinburne contemplates his subject. We have
said that his lyrics, under certain circumstances, would be indecent: more, to
many people, they will be blasphemous. Take this passage as an example
curiously framed to elicit both those epithets :
Lo she was thus when her clear limbs enticed
All lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ,
Stained with the blood fallen from the feet of God,
The feet and hands where at our souls were priced.
Alas, Lord, surely thoH art great and fair.
But lo her wonderfully woven hair !
And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss;
But see now, Lord ; her mouth is lovelier.
She is right fair; what hath she done to thee ?
Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see;
Had now thy mother such a lip—like this ?
Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to me.
Could the ingenuity of genius, taxed for the sole purpose, contrive to bring
together within twelve lines anything more shocking to the ascetic religionist
than this ? Let every man who can see in this passage only blasphemy and
impurity, let every man who measures a woman’s innocence by her physio
logical ignorance and her bodily torpidity, exclude this book from his house
and the houses of all those in whom he takes an interest, as he would keep
poison from his table; for it swells to bursting with such venom. There will
be others who, perceiving at once the dramatic spirit through the lyric form
of these poems, will find in them neither blasphemy nor the intention of
blasphemy, and who, breathing the same moral atmosphere as the poet, will
find in his song impurity neither of word nor thought. To all such readers
they will not only be harmless, but full of deep and strong delight. Their
beauty, and the joy they give, is heroic, and will consume small souls It is
like the beauty of the poet's “ Dolores,” to whom he says •
Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,
And thy limbs are as melodies yet.
His whole book is an expression of beauty and of passion in this fearless
old fashion: naked, free and strong. Naked not for the sake of nakedness,
but for the sake of freedom, strength and beauty. In this as in the dramatic
motive of these lyrics, and also in his way of not beginning at the beginning,
but, as it were, in the middle, and implying what has gone before, Mr. Swin
burne is very like the greatest dramatic poet the world has seen for two cen
turies—Robert Browning. A failure to perceive the purely dramatic charac
ter of almost all the erotic poems in this volume must lead to a very errone
ous and unjust judgment of the poet. Thus, in “Before Dawn" the sup
posed speaker says, that amid the fierce joys to which he has abandoned him
self, he is ready,
**’’. •
To say of shame—what is it ?
Of virtue—we can miss it;
Of sin—we can but kiss it
And it’s no longer sin.
�668
MR. SWINBURNE’S POEMS.
And of a beautiful woman it is said elsewhere,
All her body was more virtuous
Than souls of women fashioned otherwise.
These passages cause sentence to be pronounced upon him in various quarters
for the crime of asserting that delight purges sin of wrong and that beauty
makes vice virtue. But the poet is not preaching, he is painting. And the
spirit, if not the very thought of both these passages is expressed by Brown
ing in one of his finest poems, “ Pippa Passes.” Lucca’s wife Ottima is with
her paramour Sebald, to whom she says,
Sebald, as we lay
Rising and falling only with our pants
Who said, Let death come now—'tis right to die !
Right to be punished—naught completes such bliss
But woe ?
. . . Bind it [her hair] thrice about my brow
Crown me your queen, your spirit’s arbitress,
Magnificent in sin.
True, Browning makes the voice of Pippa singing “ God is in his heaven ”
rouse Sebald from his guilty trance, to loathe his paramour. But so Swin
burne closes his poem thus :
Lest all who love and choose him
See Love and so refuse him ;
For all who find him lose him,
But all have found him fair.
Whoever will read this scene of Browning’s—poet without reproach—will find
in it an expression of delight in physical beauty and of abandonment to pas
sion which it would almost seem that Mr. Swinburne had imitated and not
surpassed. And in Browning’s “ Dramatic Lyrics ” and in his “ Men and
Women” are other passages that glow with all the amorous fire that burns in
Mr. Swinburne’s pages. There is this great difference, however, among others,
between the poets, that Browning has not published a volume devoted to the
celebration of sexual love and fleshly beauty. But that Mr. Swinburne fias
done so is at once his sin and his salvation, as a poet writing for the general
public. Whoever takes up this volume knows beforehand exactly the en
tertainment to which he is bidden; no reader finds himself 'betrayed into
reading erotic poetry. For one of the poems in this book we can, however,
find no excuse, even in its marvellous beauty, because its subject is without
the pale of nature. True, it is purely dramatic ; but why the poet should
choose such a subject as that incomprehensible, monstrous passion known as
“ Sapphic love,” and name his poem by the Greek word “ Anactoria,” i. e.,
sovereignty, we cannot conjecture. Had he exhausted nature and the love
of man and woman for each other? Yet, in this poem, as we have already
intimated, are some of the finest passages that he has written, some of the
very finest in all modern poetry. We do not refer only or chiefly to such ex
quisite expressions of love as,
The fervent under lid, and that above
Lifted with laughter or abashed with love,
Thine amorous girdle, full of thee and fair,
And leavings of the lilies in thine hair.
The poem passes beyond these limits, and deals not reverentially with sub-
�MR. SWINBURNE’S POEMS.
669
jeets higher and vaster than mere human passion. In a passage of this kind
are the following lines, of strange power and awful beauty :
For who shall change with prayers and thanksgivings
The mystery of the cruelty of things ?
Or say what God above all gods and years
With offering and blood and sacrifice of tears,
With lamentation from strange lands, from graves
Where the snake pastures, from scarred mouths of slaves,
From prison, and from plunging prows of ships
Through flame-like foam of the sea’s closing lips—
With thwarting of strange signs, and wind-blown hair
Of comets, desolating the dim air,
When darkness is made fast with seals and bars
And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars,
Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills, and wings
Darkening, and blind inexplicable things—
With sorrow of laboring moons, and altering light
And travail of the planets of the night,
And weeping of the weary Pleiad’s seven,
Feeds the mute, melancholy lust of heaven
This may be frightfully impious, even when put into the mouth of the
heathen Sappho ; but it is not, therefore, one whit less grand. Has there
lived more than one other poet who could think such thoughts and use lan
guage with such supreme mastery ? We do not remember in all poetical
literature a passage which expresses with such sustained power the vague
terror and mysterious woe of the whole universe. It is in his daring use of
language and his ability to justify his daring that half Mr. Swinburne’s power
resides. In the above passage this power is very striking. The very phrase
“ disastrous stars,” against which the etymological criticism might be brought
that it is tautological—“ disastrous ” having come to mean fraught with
calamity because it first meant ill-starred—is yet evidence of the poet’s right
ful consciousness of a power which places him above all such pedagogic con
siderations in his choice of words. A scholar himself, he can yet leave his
scholarship out of sight and out of mind, while yet with the trained skill of
an intellectual athlete he does feats of language which to mere scholars would
be impossible. He is the master, not the servant of words, and uses them
for the service that they can do to-day, not for that which they could do in days
gone by. Yet that he can use them thus, as if he had been born four hun
dred years ago, he shows in “ The Masque of Queen Bersabe ” and “ St.
Dorothy.” And the name of the latter poem reminds us to mention it as one
that for its spirit might have been written by a saintly nun. It is a poetic
exaltation of the legend of the Christian virgin who died in Rome by the axe
rather than enter the service of Venus, as that service was in the decadence
of the Empire. There are other poems of like spirit in the volume. Such are
“Itylus,” one of the sweetest and tenderest, as well as most musical lyric
poems in the language, “ A Lamentation ” and “ Amina Ancepsand
although such as these are rare, those are frequent which tell terribly of
the woes that wrongful love may bring. There is not a sadder, more
remorseful poem to be read than “ The Triumph of Time.” But magazines
have limits, and we must stay our hand. Mr. Swinburne’s poems are
not without faults, but these are trifling indeed compared with the strange,
fresh beauty of the pages that they spot. One blemish of frequent occur
�670
MR. SWINBURNE’S POEMS.
rence we have noticed—the more because it should not have appeared in the
work of a poet who is so fertile .of fancy, so rich in language, and who has
such a remarkable gift of rhyme. The kisses that, whether implied or named
must needs be plentifully scattered over the pages of an erotic poet, are too
often used for sound as well as sense by Mr. Swinburne—who ought to be
above making "kiss” rhyme to “bliss”—and, moreover, are incessantly repre
sented as stings or wounds. The lips that give and take them are described
as flecked with blood and very often with salt foam ; so often, indeed, that it
provokes the thought that Mr. Swinburne gets his lovers into a very sad
pickle. This blemish is one symptom of the general evil of these poems—
that they are overwrought and have too little of the repose which is a neces
sary condition of all high art. The turbulence is grand, the passion is real
as well as fervid; but we do not li_a to live in a tempest. We cannot refrain
from remarking that Mr. Swinburne has the high distinction of being the first
poet since Shakespeare who has written lines that Shakespeare might have
written. We do not mean to liken him to Shakespeare; and we refer not to
his thoughts but to his turn of phrase, which is sometimes like Shakespeare’s
in his sonnets. We can only quote as example these lines from the beautiful
poem upon the myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis :
Where between sleep and life some brief space is
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss.
That last line Mr. Swinburne might have recovered from some lost sonnet
of Shakespeare’s; so might he this whole passage.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair
Fed thee on Summers, watered thee with showers
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours ?
But wide as are the bounds of our admiration, our expression of it must
be compressed within narrow limits. Let no one misunderstand us. These
poems are of the flesh fleshly. They are not of the kind that “ will not bring
a blush to the cheek of innocence,” and they should be shunned and execrated
by all people who believe that a blush of awakened consciousness is the first
warning of the flight of purity. Nor would those who do not so believe, and
who think that these dramatic lyrics have their place in poetry, and that no
mean one, be pleased to see any friend, young or old, male or female, choose
them for frequent perusal. They are not written virginibus puerisque. Yet
the spirit that animates them is not that of Aretino ; the pictures that they
present do not bring up those that Giulio Romano drew. The men and
women who speak through them are such as Raphael painted -after he had
touched the lips of the Fornarina. Let every man avert his eyes who be
lieves that there is sin in passion or pollution in beauty.
Richard Grant White.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Mr Swinburne's poems
Creator
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White, Richard Grant [1832-1907.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [665]-670 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Review of 'Laus Veneris, and other Poems and Ballads' by Swinburne. Author's edition. New York: Carleton; London: Moxon & Co. From Galaxy 2. Attribution: Virginia Clark catalogue.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[n.d.]
Identifier
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G5315
Subject
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Poetry
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Mr Swinburne's poems), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The missing links to Darwin's origin of species
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Merriam, A.W.
Mistick Krewe of Comus
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New Orleans]
Collation: [38] p. : ill. (engravings) ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Text printed within decorative ruled borders. "Keepsake, in verse, distributed to guests at the ball given by the Mistick Krewe of Comus on Mardi Gras, Feb. 25, 1873. Instead of the traditional float, the members marched in costumes that were not only a satire on the Darwinian theory, but made fun of carpetbaggers who were then in control of New Orleans. In 1873 the captain of Comus, whose duty it was to design, produce and manage the pageant and ball, and who presumably wrote the keepsake, was A.W. Merriam. Cf. One hundred years of Comus (New Orleans, 1956)." [From Worldcat, accessed 11/2017]. Adolph Zenneck was a German-born engraver active and living in Louisiana.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1873]
Identifier
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G5451
Contributor
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Zenneck-Buckingham (ill)
Subject
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Poetry
USA
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The missing links to Darwin's origin of species), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
American Poetry
American Reconstruction
Charles Darwin
Conway Tracts
Origin of the Species
Poetry in English
Satire