THE MAN WHO DARES“BALLADS AND SONGS,” BY JOHN DAVIDSON
GRANT ALLEN has written of “The Woman Who Did”—and the title suggests that John Davidson may fitly be called “The Man Who Dares;” for certainly some of his themes and some of his lines, in this his latest book, are among the most daring in modern literature.
Richard Le Gallienne, in comparing William Watson and John Davidson, suggests that Davidson is a great man, and Watson a great manner. This is a statement I am not ready to indorse. I think Watson has much more than a great manner. He has noble and stately thought, a large outlook, and, in his own direction, subtle and keen perception. He knows the moods of the spirit, the reach of the soul; but the human heart does not cry out to him. He waits in the stately Court of the Intellect, and surveys the far heavens through its luminous windows.
Davidson, on the contrary, hearkens to the heart’s cry. The passionate senses clamor in his lines.Ceaseless unrest assails him. Doubt and faith war in him for mastery. Above all he is human; and, secondly, he is modern. “Perfervid,” “A Practical Novelist,” and two or three other tales, at once merry and fantastic, prove his gifts as a story-teller. He has written several delightful plays, among which “Scaramouch In Naxos” is, perhaps, the most remarkable. Its originality, its charm, its wayward grace give it a place to itself in modern literature; and I doubt if we have any other man who could have given us quite the same thing. But when the right to careful attention of his other work has been fully admitted, I am inclined to think that nowhere does he more thoroughly prove his high claim to distinction than in his “Fleet-Street Eclogues,” and his new volume of “Ballads and Songs.”
Of all these Ballads the three that have most moved me are “A Ballad of a Nun,” “A Ballad of Heaven,” and “A Ballad of Hell.” There is much crude strength in “A Ballad in Blank Verse of the Making of a Poet;” but the blank verse, impassioned though it be, has neither the stately splendor of Milton nor the artistic and finished grace of Tennyson. It is full of stress and strain,—thisstory of a youth who was brought up by a father and mother who really believed that the soul’s probation ends with this brief span of earthly life, and that
“In life it is your privilege to choose,But after death you have no choice at all.”
“In life it is your privilege to choose,But after death you have no choice at all.”
“In life it is your privilege to choose,
But after death you have no choice at all.”
He tortured his mother by his unbelief, until he slowly broke her heart, and “she died, in anguish for his sins.” His father upbraided him, and he cried—very naturally, if not very poetically—
“Oh, let me be!”
Then he sought his Aphrodite, and found her, dull, tawdry, unbeautiful,—an outcast of the streets. He wrote his dreams; and then he felt that they were lies. He grew desperate, at last, and professed himself convicted of sin, and became a Christian—resolved to please his father, if he could not please himself. But this phase could not last; and he shattered his father’s new-found happiness by a wild denunciation of all creeds, and an assertion that there is no God higher than ourselves. Then was the father torn between his desire to seek his wife in Heaven, and his impulse to go with his son into thejaws of Hell. At last, in his turn, the father died; and the poet—the child of storm and stress—was left at liberty to be himself—
“——a thoroughfareFor all the pageantry of Time; to catchThe mutterings of the Spirit of the Hour,And make them known.”
“——a thoroughfareFor all the pageantry of Time; to catchThe mutterings of the Spirit of the Hour,And make them known.”
“——a thoroughfare
For all the pageantry of Time; to catchThe mutterings of the Spirit of the Hour,And make them known.”
There are lines, here and there, in this poem of exquisite beauty; but there are others that seem to me “tolerable and not to be endured.”
I make my “Exodus From Houndsditch,” without as yet being tempted to linger there, and come to “A Ballad of a Nun.” And here, indeed, you have something of which only John Davidson has proved himself capable. The Ballad tells the old Roman Catholic legend of the Nun whom the lust of the flesh tempted.
There are stanzas here of such splendid power and beauty that they thrill one like noble and stirring music. You shall listen to some of them. The Abbess loved this Nun so well that she had trusted her above all the rest, and made her the Keeper of the Door:—
“High on a hill the Convent hung,Across a duchy looking down,Where everlasting mountains flungTheir shadows over tower and town.“The jewels of their lofty snowsIn constellations flashed at night;Above their crests the moon arose;The deep earth shuddered with delight.“Long ere she left her cloudy bed,Still dreaming in the orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.“The adventurous sun took heaven by storm;Clouds scattered largesses of rain;The sounding cities, rich and warm,Smouldered and glittered in the plain.“Sometimes it was a wandering wind,Sometimes the fragrance of the pine,Sometimes the thought how others sinnedThat turned her sweet blood into wine.“Sometimes she heard a serenadeComplaining sweetly, far away:She said, ‘A young man wooes a maid;And dreamt of love till break of day.”
“High on a hill the Convent hung,Across a duchy looking down,Where everlasting mountains flungTheir shadows over tower and town.“The jewels of their lofty snowsIn constellations flashed at night;Above their crests the moon arose;The deep earth shuddered with delight.“Long ere she left her cloudy bed,Still dreaming in the orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.“The adventurous sun took heaven by storm;Clouds scattered largesses of rain;The sounding cities, rich and warm,Smouldered and glittered in the plain.“Sometimes it was a wandering wind,Sometimes the fragrance of the pine,Sometimes the thought how others sinnedThat turned her sweet blood into wine.“Sometimes she heard a serenadeComplaining sweetly, far away:She said, ‘A young man wooes a maid;And dreamt of love till break of day.”
“High on a hill the Convent hung,Across a duchy looking down,Where everlasting mountains flungTheir shadows over tower and town.
“High on a hill the Convent hung,
Across a duchy looking down,
Where everlasting mountains flung
Their shadows over tower and town.
“The jewels of their lofty snowsIn constellations flashed at night;Above their crests the moon arose;The deep earth shuddered with delight.
“The jewels of their lofty snows
In constellations flashed at night;
Above their crests the moon arose;
The deep earth shuddered with delight.
“Long ere she left her cloudy bed,Still dreaming in the orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.
“Long ere she left her cloudy bed,
Still dreaming in the orient land,
On many a mountain’s happy head
Dawn lightly laid her rosy hand.
“The adventurous sun took heaven by storm;Clouds scattered largesses of rain;The sounding cities, rich and warm,Smouldered and glittered in the plain.
“The adventurous sun took heaven by storm;
Clouds scattered largesses of rain;
The sounding cities, rich and warm,
Smouldered and glittered in the plain.
“Sometimes it was a wandering wind,Sometimes the fragrance of the pine,Sometimes the thought how others sinnedThat turned her sweet blood into wine.
“Sometimes it was a wandering wind,
Sometimes the fragrance of the pine,
Sometimes the thought how others sinned
That turned her sweet blood into wine.
“Sometimes she heard a serenadeComplaining sweetly, far away:She said, ‘A young man wooes a maid;And dreamt of love till break of day.”
“Sometimes she heard a serenade
Complaining sweetly, far away:
She said, ‘A young man wooes a maid;
And dreamt of love till break of day.”
In vain she plied her knotted scourge. Day after day she “had still the same red sin to purge.” Winter came, and the snow shut in hill and plain; and she watched the nearest city glow beneath the frosty sky. “Her hungry heart devoured the town;” until, at last, she tore her fillet and veil into strips, and cast aside the ring and bracelet that she wore as the betrothed of Christ:—
“‘Life’s dearest meaning I shall probe;Lo! I shall taste of love, at last!Away!’ She doffed her outer robe,And sent it sailing down the blast.“Her body seemed to warm the wind;With bleeding feet o’er ice she ran;‘I leave the righteous God behind;I go to worship sinful man.’”
“‘Life’s dearest meaning I shall probe;Lo! I shall taste of love, at last!Away!’ She doffed her outer robe,And sent it sailing down the blast.“Her body seemed to warm the wind;With bleeding feet o’er ice she ran;‘I leave the righteous God behind;I go to worship sinful man.’”
“‘Life’s dearest meaning I shall probe;Lo! I shall taste of love, at last!Away!’ She doffed her outer robe,And sent it sailing down the blast.
“‘Life’s dearest meaning I shall probe;
Lo! I shall taste of love, at last!
Away!’ She doffed her outer robe,
And sent it sailing down the blast.
“Her body seemed to warm the wind;With bleeding feet o’er ice she ran;‘I leave the righteous God behind;I go to worship sinful man.’”
“Her body seemed to warm the wind;
With bleeding feet o’er ice she ran;
‘I leave the righteous God behind;
I go to worship sinful man.’”
She reached “the sounding city’s gate.” She drank the wild cup of love to the dregs. She cried—
“‘I am sister to the mountains, now,And sister to the sun and moon.’”
“‘I am sister to the mountains, now,And sister to the sun and moon.’”
“‘I am sister to the mountains, now,
And sister to the sun and moon.’”
She made her queen-like progress. She loved and lived—
“But soon her fire to ashes burned;Her beauty changed to haggardness;Her golden hair to silver turned;The hour came of her last caress.“At midnight from her lonely bedShe rose, and said, ‘I have had my will.’The old ragged robe she donned, and fledBack to the convent on the hill.”
“But soon her fire to ashes burned;Her beauty changed to haggardness;Her golden hair to silver turned;The hour came of her last caress.“At midnight from her lonely bedShe rose, and said, ‘I have had my will.’The old ragged robe she donned, and fledBack to the convent on the hill.”
“But soon her fire to ashes burned;Her beauty changed to haggardness;Her golden hair to silver turned;The hour came of her last caress.
“But soon her fire to ashes burned;
Her beauty changed to haggardness;
Her golden hair to silver turned;
The hour came of her last caress.
“At midnight from her lonely bedShe rose, and said, ‘I have had my will.’The old ragged robe she donned, and fledBack to the convent on the hill.”
“At midnight from her lonely bed
She rose, and said, ‘I have had my will.’
The old ragged robe she donned, and fled
Back to the convent on the hill.”
She blessed, as she ran thither, the comfortable convent laws by which nuns who had sinned as she had done were buried alive. But I must copy the remaining stanzas, for no condensation can do justice to their tender, piteous, triumphant charm:—
“Like tired bells chiming in their sleep,The wind faint peals of laughter bore;She stopped her ears and climbed the steep,And thundered at the convent door.“It opened straight: she entered in,And at the Wardress’ feet fell prone:‘I come to purge away my sin;Bury me, close me up in stone.’“The Wardress raised her tenderly;She touched her wet and fast-shut eyes:‘Look, sister; sister, look at me;Look; can you see through my disguise?’“She looked, and saw her own sad face,And trembled, wondering, ‘Who art thou?’‘God sent me down to fill your place:I am the Virgin Mary now.’“And with the word, God’s mother shone:The wanderer whispered, ‘Mary, Hail!’The vision helped her to put onBracelet and fillet, ring and veil.“‘You are sister to the mountains now,And sister to the day and night;Sister to God.’ And on the browShe kissed her thrice, and left her sight.“While dreaming in her cloudy bed,Far in the crimson orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.”
“Like tired bells chiming in their sleep,The wind faint peals of laughter bore;She stopped her ears and climbed the steep,And thundered at the convent door.“It opened straight: she entered in,And at the Wardress’ feet fell prone:‘I come to purge away my sin;Bury me, close me up in stone.’“The Wardress raised her tenderly;She touched her wet and fast-shut eyes:‘Look, sister; sister, look at me;Look; can you see through my disguise?’“She looked, and saw her own sad face,And trembled, wondering, ‘Who art thou?’‘God sent me down to fill your place:I am the Virgin Mary now.’“And with the word, God’s mother shone:The wanderer whispered, ‘Mary, Hail!’The vision helped her to put onBracelet and fillet, ring and veil.“‘You are sister to the mountains now,And sister to the day and night;Sister to God.’ And on the browShe kissed her thrice, and left her sight.“While dreaming in her cloudy bed,Far in the crimson orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.”
“Like tired bells chiming in their sleep,The wind faint peals of laughter bore;She stopped her ears and climbed the steep,And thundered at the convent door.
“Like tired bells chiming in their sleep,
The wind faint peals of laughter bore;
She stopped her ears and climbed the steep,
And thundered at the convent door.
“It opened straight: she entered in,And at the Wardress’ feet fell prone:‘I come to purge away my sin;Bury me, close me up in stone.’
“It opened straight: she entered in,
And at the Wardress’ feet fell prone:
‘I come to purge away my sin;
Bury me, close me up in stone.’
“The Wardress raised her tenderly;She touched her wet and fast-shut eyes:‘Look, sister; sister, look at me;Look; can you see through my disguise?’
“The Wardress raised her tenderly;
She touched her wet and fast-shut eyes:
‘Look, sister; sister, look at me;
Look; can you see through my disguise?’
“She looked, and saw her own sad face,And trembled, wondering, ‘Who art thou?’‘God sent me down to fill your place:I am the Virgin Mary now.’
“She looked, and saw her own sad face,
And trembled, wondering, ‘Who art thou?’
‘God sent me down to fill your place:
I am the Virgin Mary now.’
“And with the word, God’s mother shone:The wanderer whispered, ‘Mary, Hail!’The vision helped her to put onBracelet and fillet, ring and veil.
“And with the word, God’s mother shone:
The wanderer whispered, ‘Mary, Hail!’
The vision helped her to put on
Bracelet and fillet, ring and veil.
“‘You are sister to the mountains now,And sister to the day and night;Sister to God.’ And on the browShe kissed her thrice, and left her sight.
“‘You are sister to the mountains now,
And sister to the day and night;
Sister to God.’ And on the brow
She kissed her thrice, and left her sight.
“While dreaming in her cloudy bed,Far in the crimson orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.”
“While dreaming in her cloudy bed,
Far in the crimson orient land,
On many a mountain’s happy head
Dawn lightly laid her rosy hand.”
“A Ballad of a Nun” seems to me Mr. Davidson’s crowning achievement; yet “A Ballad of Heaven” and “A Ballad of Hell” are scarcely less striking. In “A Ballad of Heaven” there is amusician who works for years at one great composition. The world ignores him. His wife and child, clothed in rags, are starving in their windy garret; but he does not know it, for he dwells in the strange, far heaven of his music.
“Wistful he grew, but never feared;For always on the midnight skiesHis rich orchestral score appeared,In stars and zones and galaxies.”
“Wistful he grew, but never feared;For always on the midnight skiesHis rich orchestral score appeared,In stars and zones and galaxies.”
“Wistful he grew, but never feared;
For always on the midnight skies
His rich orchestral score appeared,
In stars and zones and galaxies.”
He turns, at last, from his completed score to seek the sympathy of love; but wife and child are lying dead. He gathers to his breast the stark, wan wife with the baby skeleton in her arms.
“‘You see you are alive,’ he cried.He rocked them gently to and fro.‘No, no, my love, you have not died;Nor you, my little fellow; no.’“Long in his arms he strained his dead,And crooned an antique lullaby;Then laid them on the lowly bed,And broke down with a doleful cry.”
“‘You see you are alive,’ he cried.He rocked them gently to and fro.‘No, no, my love, you have not died;Nor you, my little fellow; no.’“Long in his arms he strained his dead,And crooned an antique lullaby;Then laid them on the lowly bed,And broke down with a doleful cry.”
“‘You see you are alive,’ he cried.He rocked them gently to and fro.‘No, no, my love, you have not died;Nor you, my little fellow; no.’
“‘You see you are alive,’ he cried.
He rocked them gently to and fro.
‘No, no, my love, you have not died;
Nor you, my little fellow; no.’
“Long in his arms he strained his dead,And crooned an antique lullaby;Then laid them on the lowly bed,And broke down with a doleful cry.”
“Long in his arms he strained his dead,
And crooned an antique lullaby;
Then laid them on the lowly bed,
And broke down with a doleful cry.”
Then his own heart broke, at last, and he, too, was dead.
“Straightway he stood at heaven’s gateAbashed, and trembling for his sin:I trow he had not long to waitFor God came out and led him in.“And then there ran a radiant pair.Ruddy with haste and eager-eyed,To meet him first upon the stair—His wife and child, beatified.“God, smiling, took him by the hand,And led him to the brink of heaven:He saw where systems whirling stand,Where galaxies like snow are driven.”
“Straightway he stood at heaven’s gateAbashed, and trembling for his sin:I trow he had not long to waitFor God came out and led him in.“And then there ran a radiant pair.Ruddy with haste and eager-eyed,To meet him first upon the stair—His wife and child, beatified.“God, smiling, took him by the hand,And led him to the brink of heaven:He saw where systems whirling stand,Where galaxies like snow are driven.”
“Straightway he stood at heaven’s gateAbashed, and trembling for his sin:I trow he had not long to waitFor God came out and led him in.
“Straightway he stood at heaven’s gate
Abashed, and trembling for his sin:
I trow he had not long to wait
For God came out and led him in.
“And then there ran a radiant pair.Ruddy with haste and eager-eyed,To meet him first upon the stair—His wife and child, beatified.
“And then there ran a radiant pair.
Ruddy with haste and eager-eyed,
To meet him first upon the stair—
His wife and child, beatified.
“God, smiling, took him by the hand,And led him to the brink of heaven:He saw where systems whirling stand,Where galaxies like snow are driven.”
“God, smiling, took him by the hand,
And led him to the brink of heaven:
He saw where systems whirling stand,
Where galaxies like snow are driven.”
And lo! it was to his own music that the very spheres were moving.
“A Ballad of Hell” tells the story of a woman’s love and a woman’s courage. Her lover writes her that he must go to prison, unless he marries, the next day, his cousin whom he abhors. There is no refuge but in death; and by her love he conjures her to kill herself at midnight, and meet him, though it must be in Hell. She waited till sleep had fallen on the house. Then out into the night she went, hurried to the trysting oak, and there she drove herdagger home into her heart, and fell on sleep. She woke in Hell. The devil was quite ready to welcome her; but she answered him only—
“‘I am young Malespina’s bride;Has he come hither yet?’”
“‘I am young Malespina’s bride;Has he come hither yet?’”
“‘I am young Malespina’s bride;
Has he come hither yet?’”
But Malespina had turned coward, when the supreme test came, and he was to marry his cousin on the morrow. For long, and long, she would not believe; but when long waiting brought certainty, at last, she cried—
“‘I was betrayed. I will not stay.’”
And straight across the gulf between Hell and Heaven she walked:—
“To her it seemed a meadow fair;And flowers sprang up about her feet;She entered Heaven; she climbed the stair,And knelt down at the mercy-seat.”
“To her it seemed a meadow fair;And flowers sprang up about her feet;She entered Heaven; she climbed the stair,And knelt down at the mercy-seat.”
“To her it seemed a meadow fair;
And flowers sprang up about her feet;
She entered Heaven; she climbed the stair,
And knelt down at the mercy-seat.”
Next to these three Ballads I should rank “Thirty Bob A Week.” It is of the solid earth, and has none of the Dantesque weirdness of the Ballads of Hell and Heaven; but it is stronger than either ofthem in its own way—this monologue of the man who must live on thirty shillings a week, and make the best of it.
“But the difficultest go to understand,And the difficultest job a man can do,Is to come it brave and meek, with thirty bob a week,And feel that that’s the proper thing for you.“It’s a naked child against a hungry wolf;It’s playing bowls upon a splitting wreck;It’s walking on a string across a gulf,With millstones fore-an-aft about your neck;But the thing is daily done by many and many a one;And we fall, face-forward, fighting, on the deck.”
“But the difficultest go to understand,And the difficultest job a man can do,Is to come it brave and meek, with thirty bob a week,And feel that that’s the proper thing for you.“It’s a naked child against a hungry wolf;It’s playing bowls upon a splitting wreck;It’s walking on a string across a gulf,With millstones fore-an-aft about your neck;But the thing is daily done by many and many a one;And we fall, face-forward, fighting, on the deck.”
“But the difficultest go to understand,And the difficultest job a man can do,Is to come it brave and meek, with thirty bob a week,And feel that that’s the proper thing for you.
“But the difficultest go to understand,
And the difficultest job a man can do,
Is to come it brave and meek, with thirty bob a week,
And feel that that’s the proper thing for you.
“It’s a naked child against a hungry wolf;It’s playing bowls upon a splitting wreck;It’s walking on a string across a gulf,With millstones fore-an-aft about your neck;But the thing is daily done by many and many a one;And we fall, face-forward, fighting, on the deck.”
“It’s a naked child against a hungry wolf;
It’s playing bowls upon a splitting wreck;
It’s walking on a string across a gulf,
With millstones fore-an-aft about your neck;
But the thing is daily done by many and many a one;
And we fall, face-forward, fighting, on the deck.”
Here is a man to whom nothing human is foreign—who understandsbecausehe feels.
It is the “Ballads” rather than the “Songs,” which give to this book its exceptional value, yet some of the Songs are charming—for instance, the two “To the Street Piano,” “A Laborer’s Wife,” and “After the End.” Indeed there is nothing in the volume more deeply imbued with the human sympathy, of which Mr. Davidson’s work is so pregnant, than these two songs. Witness the refrain to the one which the laborer’s wife sings:—
“Oh! once I had my fling!I romped at ging-go-ring;I used to dance and sing,And play at everything.I never feared the light;I shrank from no one’s sight;I saw the world was right;I always slept at night.”
“Oh! once I had my fling!I romped at ging-go-ring;I used to dance and sing,And play at everything.I never feared the light;I shrank from no one’s sight;I saw the world was right;I always slept at night.”
“Oh! once I had my fling!
I romped at ging-go-ring;
I used to dance and sing,
And play at everything.
I never feared the light;
I shrank from no one’s sight;
I saw the world was right;
I always slept at night.”
But in an evil hour she married, “on the sly.” Now three pale children fight and whine all day; her “man” gets drunk; her head and her bones are sore; and her heart is hacked; and she sings—
“Now I fear the light;I shrink from every sight;I see there’s nothing right;I hope to die to-night.”
“Now I fear the light;I shrink from every sight;I see there’s nothing right;I hope to die to-night.”
“Now I fear the light;
I shrink from every sight;
I see there’s nothing right;
I hope to die to-night.”
“After the End” is in a very different key. It is more universal. Kings and queens, as well as the humblest of their subjects, may well cry out, into the unknown dark—
“After the end of all things,After the years are spent,After the loom is broken,After the robe is rent,Will there be hearts a-beating,Will friend converse with friend,Will men and women be lovers,After the end?”
“After the end of all things,After the years are spent,After the loom is broken,After the robe is rent,Will there be hearts a-beating,Will friend converse with friend,Will men and women be lovers,After the end?”
“After the end of all things,
After the years are spent,
After the loom is broken,
After the robe is rent,
Will there be hearts a-beating,
Will friend converse with friend,
Will men and women be lovers,
After the end?”
“In Romney Marsh” is a fascinating bit of landscape-painting; and “A Cinque Port” has a melancholy and suggestive beauty that makes me long for space to copy it. The “Songs” for “Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn,” and “Winter” are charming, also.
There is thought enough and strength enough in the “Songs,” “To the New Women,” and “To the New Men;” but they are rhymed prose, rather than poetry—if, indeed, “what” and “hot” can be said torhymewith “thought.”
Why, oh why, does Mr. Davidson treat us to such uncouth words as “bellettrist,” and “moneyers,” and “strappadoes”?—why talk to us of “apes in lusts unspoken,” and “fools, who lick the lip and roll the lustful eye”? “The Exodus From Houndsditch,” which contains these phrases, is certainly hard reading; but one is compelled, all the same, to read it more than once, for it is pregnant with thought, and here and there it is starred with splendid lines, such as—
“The chill wind whispered winter; night set in;Stars flickered high; and like a tidal wave,He heard the rolling multitudinous dinOf life the city lave—”
“The chill wind whispered winter; night set in;Stars flickered high; and like a tidal wave,He heard the rolling multitudinous dinOf life the city lave—”
“The chill wind whispered winter; night set in;
Stars flickered high; and like a tidal wave,
He heard the rolling multitudinous din
Of life the city lave—”
or the picture of some fantastic world,
“Where wild weeds half way down the frowning bankFlutter, like poor apparel stained and sere,And lamplight flowers, with hearts of gold, their rankAnd baleful blossoms rear.”
“Where wild weeds half way down the frowning bankFlutter, like poor apparel stained and sere,And lamplight flowers, with hearts of gold, their rankAnd baleful blossoms rear.”
“Where wild weeds half way down the frowning bank
Flutter, like poor apparel stained and sere,
And lamplight flowers, with hearts of gold, their rank
And baleful blossoms rear.”
One closes Mr. Davidson’s book with reluctance, and with a haunting sense of beauty, and power, and the promise of yet greater things to come. He is a young man—scarcely past thirty; what laurels are springing up for him to gather in the future, who shall say? Happily he is not faultless—since for the faultless there is no perspective of hope.