Give all to love;Obey thy heart;Friends, kindred, days,Estate, good-fame,Plans, credit, and the Muse,—Nothing refuse...Cling with life to the maid;But when the surprise,First vague shadow of surmiseFlits across her bosom youngOf a joy apart from thee,Free be she, fancy-free;Nor thou detain her vesture’s hemNor the palest rose she flungFrom her summer diadem.Though thou loved her as thyself,As a self of purer clay,Though her parting dims the day,Stealing grace from all alive;Heartily know,When half-gods goThe gods arrive.R. W. Emerson(Give all to Love).
Give all to love;Obey thy heart;Friends, kindred, days,Estate, good-fame,Plans, credit, and the Muse,—Nothing refuse...Cling with life to the maid;But when the surprise,First vague shadow of surmiseFlits across her bosom youngOf a joy apart from thee,Free be she, fancy-free;Nor thou detain her vesture’s hemNor the palest rose she flungFrom her summer diadem.Though thou loved her as thyself,As a self of purer clay,Though her parting dims the day,Stealing grace from all alive;Heartily know,When half-gods goThe gods arrive.R. W. Emerson(Give all to Love).
Give all to love;Obey thy heart;Friends, kindred, days,Estate, good-fame,Plans, credit, and the Muse,—Nothing refuse...Cling with life to the maid;But when the surprise,First vague shadow of surmiseFlits across her bosom youngOf a joy apart from thee,Free be she, fancy-free;Nor thou detain her vesture’s hemNor the palest rose she flungFrom her summer diadem.
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,
Plans, credit, and the Muse,—
Nothing refuse
...
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,As a self of purer clay,Though her parting dims the day,Stealing grace from all alive;Heartily know,When half-gods goThe gods arrive.
Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go
The gods arrive.
R. W. Emerson(Give all to Love).
R. W. Emerson(Give all to Love).
On Dreamthorp centuries have fallen, and have left no more trace than have last winter’s snowflakes. This commonplace sequence and flowing on of life is immeasurably affecting. That winter morning when Charles lost his head in front of the banqueting-hall of his own palace, the icicles hung from the eaves of the houses here, and the clown kicked the snowballs from his clouted shoon, and thought but of his supper when, at three o’clock, the red sun set in the purple mist.... Battles have been fought, kings have died, history has transacted itself; but, all unheeding and untouched, Dreamthorp has watched apples-trees redden, and wheat ripen, and smoked its pipe, and quaffed its mug of beer, and rejoiced over its newborn children, and with proper solemnity carried its dead to the churchyard.
Alexander Smith(Dreamthorp).
O moon, tell me,Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?Are beauties there as proud as here they be?Do they above love to be loved, and yetThose lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?Sir P. Sidney.
O moon, tell me,Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?Are beauties there as proud as here they be?Do they above love to be loved, and yetThose lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?Sir P. Sidney.
O moon, tell me,Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?Are beauties there as proud as here they be?Do they above love to be loved, and yetThose lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
O moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
Sir P. Sidney.
Sir P. Sidney.
“Do they call ungratefulness a virtue?”
“Do they call ungratefulness a virtue?”
Quixotism, or Utopianism: that is another of the devil’s pet words. I believe the quiet admission which we are all of us so ready to make, that, because things have long been wrong, it is impossible they should ever be right, is one of the most fatal sources of misery and crime from which this world suffers. Whenever you hear a man dissuading you from attempting to do well, on the ground that perfection is “Utopian,” beware of that man. Cast the word out of your dictionary altogether.
John Ruskin(Lectures on Architecture and Painting).
Two angels guideThe path of man, both aged and yet young,As angels are, ripening through endless years.On one he leans: some call her Memory,And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,With deep mysterious accord: the other,Floating above, holds down a lamp which streamsA light divine and searching on the earth,Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,Yet clings with loving check, and shines anewReflecting all the rays of that bright lampOur angel Reason holds. We had not walkedBut for Tradition; we walk evermoreTo higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp.George Eliot(Spanish Gypsy).
Two angels guideThe path of man, both aged and yet young,As angels are, ripening through endless years.On one he leans: some call her Memory,And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,With deep mysterious accord: the other,Floating above, holds down a lamp which streamsA light divine and searching on the earth,Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,Yet clings with loving check, and shines anewReflecting all the rays of that bright lampOur angel Reason holds. We had not walkedBut for Tradition; we walk evermoreTo higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp.George Eliot(Spanish Gypsy).
Two angels guideThe path of man, both aged and yet young,As angels are, ripening through endless years.On one he leans: some call her Memory,And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,With deep mysterious accord: the other,Floating above, holds down a lamp which streamsA light divine and searching on the earth,Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,Yet clings with loving check, and shines anewReflecting all the rays of that bright lampOur angel Reason holds. We had not walkedBut for Tradition; we walk evermoreTo higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp.
Two angels guide
The path of man, both aged and yet young,
As angels are, ripening through endless years.
On one he leans: some call her Memory,
And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,
With deep mysterious accord: the other,
Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams
A light divine and searching on the earth,
Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,
Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew
Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
But for Tradition; we walk evermore
To higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp.
George Eliot(Spanish Gypsy).
George Eliot(Spanish Gypsy).
Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated character among my acquaintance: not one Christian: not one but undervalues Christianity—singly, what am I to do? Wesley (have you read his life?) was he not an elevated character? Wesley has said “Religion is not a solitary thing.” Alas! it necessarily is so with me, or next to solitary.
Charles Lamb(1775-1834) (Letter to S. T. Coleridge, Jan. 10, 1797).
Poor lovable Charles Lamb! When he wrote this he was only twenty-one years of age, he had already been himself confined in an asylum, and now his sister in a moment of madness had killed her mother. When afterwards he was allowed to take care of Mary, he had still to take her back to the asylum from time to time, as a fresh attack of mania began to manifest itself. The picture of the weeping brother and sister on their way to the asylum is dreadfully sad. The passage seems interesting because of Lamb’s reference to Wesley.
Poor lovable Charles Lamb! When he wrote this he was only twenty-one years of age, he had already been himself confined in an asylum, and now his sister in a moment of madness had killed her mother. When afterwards he was allowed to take care of Mary, he had still to take her back to the asylum from time to time, as a fresh attack of mania began to manifest itself. The picture of the weeping brother and sister on their way to the asylum is dreadfully sad. The passage seems interesting because of Lamb’s reference to Wesley.
Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain:Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain:As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.Keats(The Eve of St. Agnes).
Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain:Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain:As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.Keats(The Eve of St. Agnes).
Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain:Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain:As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain:
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain:
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
Keats(The Eve of St. Agnes).
Keats(The Eve of St. Agnes).
Madeline is lying asleep in bed—but the last line could be used in quite another sense as prettily expressingrejuvenation.
Madeline is lying asleep in bed—but the last line could be used in quite another sense as prettily expressingrejuvenation.
Beneath the moonlight and the snowLies dead my latest year;The winter winds are wailing lowIts dirges in my ear.I grieve not with the moaning windAs if a loss befell;Before me, even as behind,God is, and all is well!J. G. Whittier(My Birthday).
Beneath the moonlight and the snowLies dead my latest year;The winter winds are wailing lowIts dirges in my ear.I grieve not with the moaning windAs if a loss befell;Before me, even as behind,God is, and all is well!J. G. Whittier(My Birthday).
Beneath the moonlight and the snowLies dead my latest year;The winter winds are wailing lowIts dirges in my ear.
Beneath the moonlight and the snow
Lies dead my latest year;
The winter winds are wailing low
Its dirges in my ear.
I grieve not with the moaning windAs if a loss befell;Before me, even as behind,God is, and all is well!
I grieve not with the moaning wind
As if a loss befell;
Before me, even as behind,
God is, and all is well!
J. G. Whittier(My Birthday).
J. G. Whittier(My Birthday).
If on my theme I rightly think,There are five reasons why men drink:—Good wine; a friend; or being dry;Or lest we should be by and by;Or—any other reason why.Henry Aldrich(1647-1710).
If on my theme I rightly think,There are five reasons why men drink:—Good wine; a friend; or being dry;Or lest we should be by and by;Or—any other reason why.Henry Aldrich(1647-1710).
If on my theme I rightly think,There are five reasons why men drink:—Good wine; a friend; or being dry;Or lest we should be by and by;Or—any other reason why.
If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink:—
Good wine; a friend; or being dry;
Or lest we should be by and by;
Or—any other reason why.
Henry Aldrich(1647-1710).
Henry Aldrich(1647-1710).
Autres temps, autres moeurs!Aldrich was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, when he wrote these lines.
Autres temps, autres moeurs!Aldrich was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, when he wrote these lines.
INSCRIPTION FOR A BUST OF CUPID
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître;Il l’est, le fut, ou le doit être.(Whatso’er thou art, thy master see!He was, or is, or is to be.)Voltaire.
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître;Il l’est, le fut, ou le doit être.(Whatso’er thou art, thy master see!He was, or is, or is to be.)Voltaire.
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître;Il l’est, le fut, ou le doit être.
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître;
Il l’est, le fut, ou le doit être.
(Whatso’er thou art, thy master see!He was, or is, or is to be.)
(Whatso’er thou art, thy master see!
He was, or is, or is to be.)
Voltaire.
Voltaire.
UP-HILL
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?Yes, to the very end.Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?From morn to night, my friend.But is there for the night a resting-place?A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.May not the darkness hide it from my face?You cannot miss that inn.Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?Those who have gone before.Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?They will not keep you standing at that door.Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?Of labour you shall find the sum[22]Will there be beds for me and all who seek?Yea, beds for all who come.Christina Rossetti.
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?Yes, to the very end.Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?From morn to night, my friend.But is there for the night a resting-place?A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.May not the darkness hide it from my face?You cannot miss that inn.Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?Those who have gone before.Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?They will not keep you standing at that door.Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?Of labour you shall find the sum[22]Will there be beds for me and all who seek?Yea, beds for all who come.Christina Rossetti.
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?Yes, to the very end.Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?From morn to night, my friend.
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.May not the darkness hide it from my face?You cannot miss that inn.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?Those who have gone before.Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?Of labour you shall find the sum[22]Will there be beds for me and all who seek?Yea, beds for all who come.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum[22]
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
Christina Rossetti.
Christina Rossetti.
A pebble in the streamlet scantHas turned the course of many a river,A dewdrop in the baby plantHas warped the giant oak for ever.Author not traced.
A pebble in the streamlet scantHas turned the course of many a river,A dewdrop in the baby plantHas warped the giant oak for ever.Author not traced.
A pebble in the streamlet scantHas turned the course of many a river,A dewdrop in the baby plantHas warped the giant oak for ever.
A pebble in the streamlet scant
Has turned the course of many a river,
A dewdrop in the baby plant
Has warped the giant oak for ever.
Author not traced.
Author not traced.
But now he walks the streets,And he looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes’ his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,“They are gone.”The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.My grandmamma has said—Poor old lady, she is deadLong ago,—That he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow.But now his nose is thin.And it rests upon his chinLike a staff.And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh....O. W. Holmes(The Last Leaf).
But now he walks the streets,And he looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes’ his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,“They are gone.”The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.My grandmamma has said—Poor old lady, she is deadLong ago,—That he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow.But now his nose is thin.And it rests upon his chinLike a staff.And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh....O. W. Holmes(The Last Leaf).
But now he walks the streets,And he looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes’ his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,“They are gone.”
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes’ his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
“They are gone.”
The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said—Poor old lady, she is deadLong ago,—That he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow.
My grandmamma has said—
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago,—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.
But now his nose is thin.And it rests upon his chinLike a staff.And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh....
But now his nose is thin.
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff.
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh....
O. W. Holmes(The Last Leaf).
O. W. Holmes(The Last Leaf).
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know!John Keats(Ode on a Grecian Urn).
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know!John Keats(Ode on a Grecian Urn).
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know!
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!
John Keats(Ode on a Grecian Urn).
John Keats(Ode on a Grecian Urn).
Matthew Arnold says of this: “No, it is not all; but it is true, deeply true, and we have deep need to know it.... To see things in their beauty is to see things in their truth, and Keats knew it. ‘What the Imagination seizes on as Beauty must be Truth,’ he says in prose.”
Matthew Arnold says of this: “No, it is not all; but it is true, deeply true, and we have deep need to know it.... To see things in their beauty is to see things in their truth, and Keats knew it. ‘What the Imagination seizes on as Beauty must be Truth,’ he says in prose.”
Were it not sadder, in the years to come,To feel the hand-clasp slacken for long use,The untuned heart-strings for long stress refuseTo yield old harmonies, the songs grow dumbFor weariness, and all the old spells loseThe first enchantment? Yet this they must be:Love is but mortal, save in memory.John Payne(A Farewell).
Were it not sadder, in the years to come,To feel the hand-clasp slacken for long use,The untuned heart-strings for long stress refuseTo yield old harmonies, the songs grow dumbFor weariness, and all the old spells loseThe first enchantment? Yet this they must be:Love is but mortal, save in memory.John Payne(A Farewell).
Were it not sadder, in the years to come,To feel the hand-clasp slacken for long use,The untuned heart-strings for long stress refuseTo yield old harmonies, the songs grow dumbFor weariness, and all the old spells loseThe first enchantment? Yet this they must be:Love is but mortal, save in memory.
Were it not sadder, in the years to come,
To feel the hand-clasp slacken for long use,
The untuned heart-strings for long stress refuse
To yield old harmonies, the songs grow dumb
For weariness, and all the old spells lose
The first enchantment? Yet this they must be:
Love is but mortal, save in memory.
John Payne(A Farewell).
John Payne(A Farewell).
Aux coeurs blessés—l’ombre et le silence.
(For the wounded heart—shade and silence.)
Balzac(Le Médecin de Campagne).
The huge mass of black crags that towered at the head of the gloomy defile was exactly what one would picture as the enchanted castle of the evil magician, within sight of which all vegetation withered, looking from over the desolate valley of ruins to the barren shore strewed with its sad wreckage, and the wild ocean beyond....
The land-crabs certainly looked their part of goblin guardians of the approaches to the wicked magician’s fastness. They were fearful as the firelight fell on their yellow cynical faces, fixed as that of the sphinx, but fixed in a horrid grin. Those who have observed this foulest species of crab will know my meaning. Smelling the fish we were cooking they came down the mountains in thousands upon us. We threw them lumps of fish, which they devoured with crab-like slowness, yet perseverance.
It is a ghastly sight, a land-crab at his dinner. A huge beast was standing a yard from me; I gave him a portion of fish, and watched him. He looked at me straight in the face with his outstarting eyes, and proceeded with his two front claws to tear up his food, bringing bits of it to his mouth with one claw, as with a fork. But all this while he never looked at what he was doing; his face was fixed in one position, staring at me. And when I looked around, lo! there were half a dozen others all steadily feeding, but with immovable heads turned to me with that fixed basilisk stare. It was indeed horrible, and the effect was nightmarish in the extreme. While we slept that night they attacked us, and would certainly have devoured us, had we not awoke; and did eat holes in our clothes. One of us had to keep watch, so as to drive them from the other two, otherwise we should have had no sleep.
Imagine a sailor cast alone on this coast, weary, yet unable to sleep a moment on account of these ferocious creatures. After a few days of an existence full of horror he would die raving mad, and then be consumed in an hour by his foes. In all Dante’s Inferno there is no more horrible a suggestion of punishment than this.
E. F. Knight(The Cruise of the “Falcon”).
The scene is in the Island of Trinidad, off the coast of Brazil.
The scene is in the Island of Trinidad, off the coast of Brazil.
... Nor the end of love is sure,(Alas! how much less sure than anything!)Whether the little love-light shall endureIn the clear eyes of her we loved in Spring.Or if the faint flowers of rememberingShall blow, we know not: only this we know,—Afar Death comes with silent steps and slow.John Payne(Salvestra).
... Nor the end of love is sure,(Alas! how much less sure than anything!)Whether the little love-light shall endureIn the clear eyes of her we loved in Spring.Or if the faint flowers of rememberingShall blow, we know not: only this we know,—Afar Death comes with silent steps and slow.John Payne(Salvestra).
... Nor the end of love is sure,(Alas! how much less sure than anything!)Whether the little love-light shall endureIn the clear eyes of her we loved in Spring.
... Nor the end of love is sure,
(Alas! how much less sure than anything!)
Whether the little love-light shall endure
In the clear eyes of her we loved in Spring.
Or if the faint flowers of rememberingShall blow, we know not: only this we know,—Afar Death comes with silent steps and slow.
Or if the faint flowers of remembering
Shall blow, we know not: only this we know,—
Afar Death comes with silent steps and slow.
John Payne(Salvestra).
John Payne(Salvestra).
The stars of midnight shall be dearTo her; and she shall lean her earIn many a secret placeWhere rivulets dance their wayward round,And beauty born of murmuring soundShall pass into her face.W. Wordsworth(Three Years She Grew).
The stars of midnight shall be dearTo her; and she shall lean her earIn many a secret placeWhere rivulets dance their wayward round,And beauty born of murmuring soundShall pass into her face.W. Wordsworth(Three Years She Grew).
The stars of midnight shall be dearTo her; and she shall lean her earIn many a secret placeWhere rivulets dance their wayward round,And beauty born of murmuring soundShall pass into her face.
The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.
W. Wordsworth(Three Years She Grew).
W. Wordsworth(Three Years She Grew).
As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are also necessary: the wild flower by the wayside, as well as the tended corn; and the wild birds and creatures of the forest, as well as the tended cattle: because man doth not live by bread alone, but also by the desert manna; by every wondrous word and unknowable work of God.
John Ruskin.
Alas! the long gray years have vanquished me,The shadow of the inexorable days!I am grown sad and silent: for the seaOf Time has swallowed all my pleasant ways.I am grown weary of the years that fleeAnd bring no light to set my bound hope free,No sun to fill the promise of old Mays.Author not traced.
Alas! the long gray years have vanquished me,The shadow of the inexorable days!I am grown sad and silent: for the seaOf Time has swallowed all my pleasant ways.I am grown weary of the years that fleeAnd bring no light to set my bound hope free,No sun to fill the promise of old Mays.Author not traced.
Alas! the long gray years have vanquished me,The shadow of the inexorable days!I am grown sad and silent: for the seaOf Time has swallowed all my pleasant ways.I am grown weary of the years that fleeAnd bring no light to set my bound hope free,No sun to fill the promise of old Mays.
Alas! the long gray years have vanquished me,
The shadow of the inexorable days!
I am grown sad and silent: for the sea
Of Time has swallowed all my pleasant ways.
I am grown weary of the years that flee
And bring no light to set my bound hope free,
No sun to fill the promise of old Mays.
Author not traced.
Author not traced.
LOVE
Cet égoisme à deux.
De Staël.
It is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.
Washington Irving.
I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world may not in part depend on the personal response which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But itfeelslike a real fight,—as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild, half-saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in our nature is this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and unwillingnesses, our faiths and fears.... In these depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise. Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments—the veto, for example, which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith—sound to us like mere chatterings of the teeth.
William James(Is Life Worth Living?).
(Mr. T. R. Glover inThe Jesus of Historypoints out that when Christ said “Ye are they that have continued with me in my temptations” (Luke xxii, 26), He meant that the disciples hadhelped Himby their fidelity.)The following is from Professor Hobhouse’sQuestions of War and Peace, repeating what he had set out at length in hisDevelopment and Purpose(I take the quotation fromThe Spectatorreview, as the book is not yet procurable in Australia):“I think, therefore, that we must go back into ourselves for faith, and away from ourselves into the world for reason. The deeper we go into ourselves the more we throw off forms and find the assurance not only that the great things exist, but that they are the heart of our lives, and, since after all we are of one stock, they must be at the heart of your lives as well as mine. You say there are bad men and wars and cruelties and wrong, I say allthese are the collision of undeveloped forms. What is the German suffering from but a great illusion that the State is something more than man, and that power is more than justice! Strip him of this and he is a man like yourself, pouring out his blood for the cause that he loves, and that you and I detest. Probe inwards, then, and you find the same spring of life everywhere and it is good. Look outwards, and you find, as you yourself admit the slow movement towards a harmony which just means that these impulses of primeval energy come, so to say, to understand one another. Every form they take as they grow will provoke conflict, perish, and be cast aside until the whole unites, and there you have the secret of your successive efforts and failures which yet leave something behind them. God is not the creator who made the world in six days, rested on the seventh and saw that it was good. He is growing in the actual evolution of the world.”
(Mr. T. R. Glover inThe Jesus of Historypoints out that when Christ said “Ye are they that have continued with me in my temptations” (Luke xxii, 26), He meant that the disciples hadhelped Himby their fidelity.)
The following is from Professor Hobhouse’sQuestions of War and Peace, repeating what he had set out at length in hisDevelopment and Purpose(I take the quotation fromThe Spectatorreview, as the book is not yet procurable in Australia):
“I think, therefore, that we must go back into ourselves for faith, and away from ourselves into the world for reason. The deeper we go into ourselves the more we throw off forms and find the assurance not only that the great things exist, but that they are the heart of our lives, and, since after all we are of one stock, they must be at the heart of your lives as well as mine. You say there are bad men and wars and cruelties and wrong, I say allthese are the collision of undeveloped forms. What is the German suffering from but a great illusion that the State is something more than man, and that power is more than justice! Strip him of this and he is a man like yourself, pouring out his blood for the cause that he loves, and that you and I detest. Probe inwards, then, and you find the same spring of life everywhere and it is good. Look outwards, and you find, as you yourself admit the slow movement towards a harmony which just means that these impulses of primeval energy come, so to say, to understand one another. Every form they take as they grow will provoke conflict, perish, and be cast aside until the whole unites, and there you have the secret of your successive efforts and failures which yet leave something behind them. God is not the creator who made the world in six days, rested on the seventh and saw that it was good. He is growing in the actual evolution of the world.”
And since (man) cannot spend and use arightThe little time here given him in trust.But wasteth it in weary undelightOf foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust.He naturally claimeth to inheritThe everlasting Future, that his meritMay have full scope; as surely is most just.James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
And since (man) cannot spend and use arightThe little time here given him in trust.But wasteth it in weary undelightOf foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust.He naturally claimeth to inheritThe everlasting Future, that his meritMay have full scope; as surely is most just.James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
And since (man) cannot spend and use arightThe little time here given him in trust.But wasteth it in weary undelightOf foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust.He naturally claimeth to inheritThe everlasting Future, that his meritMay have full scope; as surely is most just.
And since (man) cannot spend and use aright
The little time here given him in trust.
But wasteth it in weary undelight
Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust.
He naturally claimeth to inherit
The everlasting Future, that his merit
May have full scope; as surely is most just.
James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
The moving waters at their priest-like taskOf pure ablution round earth’s human shores.John Keats(His Last Sonnet, 1820).
The moving waters at their priest-like taskOf pure ablution round earth’s human shores.John Keats(His Last Sonnet, 1820).
The moving waters at their priest-like taskOf pure ablution round earth’s human shores.
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.
John Keats(His Last Sonnet, 1820).
John Keats(His Last Sonnet, 1820).
With sweet May dews my wings were wet,And Phoebus fired my vocal rage;Love caught me in his silken net,And shut me in his golden cage.He loves to sit and hear me sing.Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;Then stretches out my golden wing,And mocks my loss of liberty.W. Blake(Song).
With sweet May dews my wings were wet,And Phoebus fired my vocal rage;Love caught me in his silken net,And shut me in his golden cage.He loves to sit and hear me sing.Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;Then stretches out my golden wing,And mocks my loss of liberty.W. Blake(Song).
With sweet May dews my wings were wet,And Phoebus fired my vocal rage;Love caught me in his silken net,And shut me in his golden cage.
With sweet May dews my wings were wet,
And Phoebus fired my vocal rage;
Love caught me in his silken net,
And shut me in his golden cage.
He loves to sit and hear me sing.Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;Then stretches out my golden wing,And mocks my loss of liberty.
He loves to sit and hear me sing.
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.
W. Blake(Song).
W. Blake(Song).
This poem was written before Blake wasfourteenyears of age.
This poem was written before Blake wasfourteenyears of age.
When the fight was done,When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,Fresh as a bridegroom....He was perfumèd like a milliner;And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he heldA pouncet-box. And still he smiled and talked;And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,To bring a slovenly unhandsome corseBetwixt the wind and his nobility.Shakespeare(1 Henry IV., i. 3).
When the fight was done,When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,Fresh as a bridegroom....He was perfumèd like a milliner;And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he heldA pouncet-box. And still he smiled and talked;And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,To bring a slovenly unhandsome corseBetwixt the wind and his nobility.Shakespeare(1 Henry IV., i. 3).
When the fight was done,When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,Fresh as a bridegroom....He was perfumèd like a milliner;And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he heldA pouncet-box. And still he smiled and talked;And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,To bring a slovenly unhandsome corseBetwixt the wind and his nobility.
When the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom....
He was perfumèd like a milliner;
And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box. And still he smiled and talked;
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
Shakespeare(1 Henry IV., i. 3).
Shakespeare(1 Henry IV., i. 3).
... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above themMatching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!...... In a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,Barefoot, barelegged he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes!A. H. Clough(The Bothie of Tober-na Vuolich).
... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above themMatching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!...... In a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,Barefoot, barelegged he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes!A. H. Clough(The Bothie of Tober-na Vuolich).
... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above themMatching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!...... In a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,Barefoot, barelegged he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes!
... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,
Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them
Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!
...
... In a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,
Barefoot, barelegged he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,
Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes!
A. H. Clough(The Bothie of Tober-na Vuolich).
A. H. Clough(The Bothie of Tober-na Vuolich).
As I came through the desert thus it was,As I came through the desert: Eyes of fireGlared at me throbbing with a starved desire;The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breathWas hot upon me from deep jaws of death;Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers coldPlucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:But I strode on austere;No hope could have no fear.James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
As I came through the desert thus it was,As I came through the desert: Eyes of fireGlared at me throbbing with a starved desire;The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breathWas hot upon me from deep jaws of death;Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers coldPlucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:But I strode on austere;No hope could have no fear.James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
As I came through the desert thus it was,As I came through the desert: Eyes of fireGlared at me throbbing with a starved desire;The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breathWas hot upon me from deep jaws of death;Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers coldPlucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:But I strode on austere;No hope could have no fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Eyes of fire
Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire;
The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath
Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death;
Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold
Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:
But I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.
James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
James Thomson(The City of Dreadful Night).
The five quotations above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85).
The five quotations above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85).
SHE COMES AS COMES THE SUMMER NIGHT
She comes as comes the summer night,Violet, perfumed, clad with stars,To heal the eyes hurt by the lightFlung by Day’s brandish’d scimitars.The parted crimson of her lipsLike sunset clouds that slowly dieWhen twilight with cool finger-tipsUnbraids her tresses in the sky.The melody of waterfallsIs in the music of her tongue,Low chanted in dim forest hallsEre Dawn’s loud bugle-call has rung.And as a bird with hovering wingsHalts o’er her young one in the nest,Then droops to still his flutterings,She takes me to her fragrant breast.O star and bird at once thou art,And Night, with purple-petall’d charm,Shining and singing to my heart,And soothing with a dewy calm.Let Death assume this lovely guise,So darkly beautiful and sweet,And, gazing with those starry eyes,Lead far away my weary feet.And that strange sense of valleys fairWith birds and rivers making songTo lull the blossoms gleaming there,Be with me as I pass along.Ah! lovely sisters, Night and Death,And lovelier Woman—wondrous three,“Givers of Life,” my spirit saith,Unfolders of the mystery.Ah! only Love could teach me this,In memoried springtime long since flown;Red lips that trembled to my kiss,That sighed farewell, and left me lone.O Joy and Sorrow intertwined,—A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears,—Yet ever after in the wind,The bird-like music of the spheres!Frank S. Williamson.
She comes as comes the summer night,Violet, perfumed, clad with stars,To heal the eyes hurt by the lightFlung by Day’s brandish’d scimitars.The parted crimson of her lipsLike sunset clouds that slowly dieWhen twilight with cool finger-tipsUnbraids her tresses in the sky.The melody of waterfallsIs in the music of her tongue,Low chanted in dim forest hallsEre Dawn’s loud bugle-call has rung.And as a bird with hovering wingsHalts o’er her young one in the nest,Then droops to still his flutterings,She takes me to her fragrant breast.O star and bird at once thou art,And Night, with purple-petall’d charm,Shining and singing to my heart,And soothing with a dewy calm.Let Death assume this lovely guise,So darkly beautiful and sweet,And, gazing with those starry eyes,Lead far away my weary feet.And that strange sense of valleys fairWith birds and rivers making songTo lull the blossoms gleaming there,Be with me as I pass along.Ah! lovely sisters, Night and Death,And lovelier Woman—wondrous three,“Givers of Life,” my spirit saith,Unfolders of the mystery.Ah! only Love could teach me this,In memoried springtime long since flown;Red lips that trembled to my kiss,That sighed farewell, and left me lone.O Joy and Sorrow intertwined,—A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears,—Yet ever after in the wind,The bird-like music of the spheres!Frank S. Williamson.
She comes as comes the summer night,Violet, perfumed, clad with stars,To heal the eyes hurt by the lightFlung by Day’s brandish’d scimitars.The parted crimson of her lipsLike sunset clouds that slowly dieWhen twilight with cool finger-tipsUnbraids her tresses in the sky.
She comes as comes the summer night,
Violet, perfumed, clad with stars,
To heal the eyes hurt by the light
Flung by Day’s brandish’d scimitars.
The parted crimson of her lips
Like sunset clouds that slowly die
When twilight with cool finger-tips
Unbraids her tresses in the sky.
The melody of waterfallsIs in the music of her tongue,Low chanted in dim forest hallsEre Dawn’s loud bugle-call has rung.And as a bird with hovering wingsHalts o’er her young one in the nest,Then droops to still his flutterings,She takes me to her fragrant breast.
The melody of waterfalls
Is in the music of her tongue,
Low chanted in dim forest halls
Ere Dawn’s loud bugle-call has rung.
And as a bird with hovering wings
Halts o’er her young one in the nest,
Then droops to still his flutterings,
She takes me to her fragrant breast.
O star and bird at once thou art,And Night, with purple-petall’d charm,Shining and singing to my heart,And soothing with a dewy calm.Let Death assume this lovely guise,So darkly beautiful and sweet,And, gazing with those starry eyes,Lead far away my weary feet.
O star and bird at once thou art,
And Night, with purple-petall’d charm,
Shining and singing to my heart,
And soothing with a dewy calm.
Let Death assume this lovely guise,
So darkly beautiful and sweet,
And, gazing with those starry eyes,
Lead far away my weary feet.
And that strange sense of valleys fairWith birds and rivers making songTo lull the blossoms gleaming there,Be with me as I pass along.Ah! lovely sisters, Night and Death,And lovelier Woman—wondrous three,“Givers of Life,” my spirit saith,Unfolders of the mystery.
And that strange sense of valleys fair
With birds and rivers making song
To lull the blossoms gleaming there,
Be with me as I pass along.
Ah! lovely sisters, Night and Death,
And lovelier Woman—wondrous three,
“Givers of Life,” my spirit saith,
Unfolders of the mystery.
Ah! only Love could teach me this,In memoried springtime long since flown;Red lips that trembled to my kiss,That sighed farewell, and left me lone.O Joy and Sorrow intertwined,—A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears,—Yet ever after in the wind,The bird-like music of the spheres!
Ah! only Love could teach me this,
In memoried springtime long since flown;
Red lips that trembled to my kiss,
That sighed farewell, and left me lone.
O Joy and Sorrow intertwined,—
A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears,—
Yet ever after in the wind,
The bird-like music of the spheres!
Frank S. Williamson.
Frank S. Williamson.
This is from the author’s “Purple and Gold,” a book of poems published in Melbourne (Thomas C. Lothian, publisher).
This is from the author’s “Purple and Gold,” a book of poems published in Melbourne (Thomas C. Lothian, publisher).
No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
G. MacDonald(Robert Falconer).
WHEN LOVE MEETS LOVE
When love meets love, breast urged to breast,God interposes,An unacknowledged guest,And leaves a little child among our roses.O, gentle hap!O, sacred lap!O, brooding dove!But when he growsHimself to be a rose,God takes him—Where is then our love?O, where is all our love?
When love meets love, breast urged to breast,God interposes,An unacknowledged guest,And leaves a little child among our roses.O, gentle hap!O, sacred lap!O, brooding dove!But when he growsHimself to be a rose,God takes him—Where is then our love?O, where is all our love?
When love meets love, breast urged to breast,God interposes,An unacknowledged guest,And leaves a little child among our roses.
When love meets love, breast urged to breast,
God interposes,
An unacknowledged guest,
And leaves a little child among our roses.
O, gentle hap!O, sacred lap!O, brooding dove!But when he growsHimself to be a rose,God takes him—Where is then our love?O, where is all our love?
O, gentle hap!
O, sacred lap!
O, brooding dove!
But when he grows
Himself to be a rose,
God takes him—Where is then our love?
O, where is all our love?
BETWEEN OUR FOLDING LIPS
Between our folding lipsGod slipsAn embryon life, and goes;And this becomes your rose.We love, God makes: in our sweet mirthGod spies occasion for a birth.Then is it His, or is it ours?I know not—He is fond of flowers.T. E. Brown.
Between our folding lipsGod slipsAn embryon life, and goes;And this becomes your rose.We love, God makes: in our sweet mirthGod spies occasion for a birth.Then is it His, or is it ours?I know not—He is fond of flowers.T. E. Brown.
Between our folding lipsGod slipsAn embryon life, and goes;And this becomes your rose.We love, God makes: in our sweet mirthGod spies occasion for a birth.Then is it His, or is it ours?I know not—He is fond of flowers.
Between our folding lips
God slips
An embryon life, and goes;
And this becomes your rose.
We love, God makes: in our sweet mirth
God spies occasion for a birth.
Then is it His, or is it ours?
I know not—He is fond of flowers.
T. E. Brown.
T. E. Brown.
Compare the well-known lines by George MacDonald:Where did you come from, baby dear?Out of the everywhere into here....How did they all[23]just come to be you?God thought about me, and so I grew.The suggestion that we are the result of God’s thought appears elsewhere in MacDonald, as inRobert Falconer:If God werethinkingme—ah! But if He be onlydreamingme, I shall go mad.And inThe Marquis of Lossie:I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.
Compare the well-known lines by George MacDonald:
Where did you come from, baby dear?Out of the everywhere into here....How did they all[23]just come to be you?God thought about me, and so I grew.
Where did you come from, baby dear?Out of the everywhere into here....How did they all[23]just come to be you?God thought about me, and so I grew.
Where did you come from, baby dear?Out of the everywhere into here....
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here....
How did they all[23]just come to be you?God thought about me, and so I grew.
How did they all[23]just come to be you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.
The suggestion that we are the result of God’s thought appears elsewhere in MacDonald, as inRobert Falconer:
If God werethinkingme—ah! But if He be onlydreamingme, I shall go mad.
And inThe Marquis of Lossie:
I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.
Some things are of that Nature as to makeOne’s fancy checkle, while his Heart doth ake.John Bunyan.
Some things are of that Nature as to makeOne’s fancy checkle, while his Heart doth ake.John Bunyan.
Some things are of that Nature as to makeOne’s fancy checkle, while his Heart doth ake.
Some things are of that Nature as to make
One’s fancy checkle, while his Heart doth ake.
John Bunyan.
John Bunyan.
Checkle = chuckle.
Checkle = chuckle.
My days are in the yellow leaf;The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the griefAre mine alone!Lord Byron(On my Thirty-sixth Year).
My days are in the yellow leaf;The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the griefAre mine alone!Lord Byron(On my Thirty-sixth Year).
My days are in the yellow leaf;The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the griefAre mine alone!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
Lord Byron(On my Thirty-sixth Year).
Lord Byron(On my Thirty-sixth Year).
’Tis a very good world to live in,To spend, and to lend, and to give in;But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own’Tis the very worst world that ever was known.J. Bromfield.
’Tis a very good world to live in,To spend, and to lend, and to give in;But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own’Tis the very worst world that ever was known.J. Bromfield.
’Tis a very good world to live in,To spend, and to lend, and to give in;But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own’Tis the very worst world that ever was known.
’Tis a very good world to live in,
To spend, and to lend, and to give in;
But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own
’Tis the very worst world that ever was known.
J. Bromfield.
J. Bromfield.
Often ascribed to the Earl of Rochester. SeeNotes and QueriesJuly 18, 1896.
Often ascribed to the Earl of Rochester. SeeNotes and QueriesJuly 18, 1896.
Dead years have yet the fire of lifeIn Memory’s holy urn;Her altars, heaped with frankincenseOf bygone summers, burn;And, when in everlasting nightWe see yon sun decline,Deep in the soul his purple flamesEternally will shine.Albert Joseph Edmunds(b. 1857) (The Living Past).
Dead years have yet the fire of lifeIn Memory’s holy urn;Her altars, heaped with frankincenseOf bygone summers, burn;And, when in everlasting nightWe see yon sun decline,Deep in the soul his purple flamesEternally will shine.Albert Joseph Edmunds(b. 1857) (The Living Past).
Dead years have yet the fire of lifeIn Memory’s holy urn;Her altars, heaped with frankincenseOf bygone summers, burn;And, when in everlasting nightWe see yon sun decline,Deep in the soul his purple flamesEternally will shine.
Dead years have yet the fire of life
In Memory’s holy urn;
Her altars, heaped with frankincense
Of bygone summers, burn;
And, when in everlasting night
We see yon sun decline,
Deep in the soul his purple flames
Eternally will shine.
Albert Joseph Edmunds(b. 1857) (The Living Past).
Albert Joseph Edmunds(b. 1857) (The Living Past).
Mr. Edmunds, when this was written in 1880, was a young English poet and spiritualist, but has since settled in Philadelphia. He has written a number of works, the principal beingBuddhist and Christian Gospels now First Compared from the Originals.In 1883 he was cataloguing a library at Sunderland, and came across books on the Alps, etc., by a Rev. Leslie Stephen. He wrote to the publishers to find out if they were by the same writer as the Leslie Stephen who had written on Ethics. Sir (then Mr.) Leslie Stephen had just been appointed Clark Lecturer at Cambridge. He replied to Edmunds, “I am one person,” adding that he had given up holy orders. Edmunds replied:To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir,Confound your personality;I did, and now must here, averBelief was not reality.I hope my slip may be excused,And doom this time decided not,For, though thepersonsI confused,YoursubstanceI divided not.Now thanks to you, my mind’s relievedFrom mystified plurality,For, in your courteous note received,You’ve unifiedduality.Your Alpine thoughts will elevateOld Cantab’s flat vicinity,And give her church anotherstateBy unifyingTrinity!You’ve left, you say, the fold of strife,Where desperatechargesnever end;Not handsomeliving, handsomelifeHenceforth will make youreverend.I’m Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland,Where souls in sulphur barter, sir;But, please excuse an ending grand—My name to rhyme’s a Tartar, sir.
Mr. Edmunds, when this was written in 1880, was a young English poet and spiritualist, but has since settled in Philadelphia. He has written a number of works, the principal beingBuddhist and Christian Gospels now First Compared from the Originals.
In 1883 he was cataloguing a library at Sunderland, and came across books on the Alps, etc., by a Rev. Leslie Stephen. He wrote to the publishers to find out if they were by the same writer as the Leslie Stephen who had written on Ethics. Sir (then Mr.) Leslie Stephen had just been appointed Clark Lecturer at Cambridge. He replied to Edmunds, “I am one person,” adding that he had given up holy orders. Edmunds replied:
To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir,Confound your personality;I did, and now must here, averBelief was not reality.I hope my slip may be excused,And doom this time decided not,For, though thepersonsI confused,YoursubstanceI divided not.Now thanks to you, my mind’s relievedFrom mystified plurality,For, in your courteous note received,You’ve unifiedduality.Your Alpine thoughts will elevateOld Cantab’s flat vicinity,And give her church anotherstateBy unifyingTrinity!You’ve left, you say, the fold of strife,Where desperatechargesnever end;Not handsomeliving, handsomelifeHenceforth will make youreverend.I’m Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland,Where souls in sulphur barter, sir;But, please excuse an ending grand—My name to rhyme’s a Tartar, sir.
To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir,Confound your personality;I did, and now must here, averBelief was not reality.I hope my slip may be excused,And doom this time decided not,For, though thepersonsI confused,YoursubstanceI divided not.Now thanks to you, my mind’s relievedFrom mystified plurality,For, in your courteous note received,You’ve unifiedduality.Your Alpine thoughts will elevateOld Cantab’s flat vicinity,And give her church anotherstateBy unifyingTrinity!You’ve left, you say, the fold of strife,Where desperatechargesnever end;Not handsomeliving, handsomelifeHenceforth will make youreverend.I’m Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland,Where souls in sulphur barter, sir;But, please excuse an ending grand—My name to rhyme’s a Tartar, sir.
To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir,Confound your personality;I did, and now must here, averBelief was not reality.
To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir,
Confound your personality;
I did, and now must here, aver
Belief was not reality.
I hope my slip may be excused,And doom this time decided not,For, though thepersonsI confused,YoursubstanceI divided not.
I hope my slip may be excused,
And doom this time decided not,
For, though thepersonsI confused,
YoursubstanceI divided not.
Now thanks to you, my mind’s relievedFrom mystified plurality,For, in your courteous note received,You’ve unifiedduality.
Now thanks to you, my mind’s relieved
From mystified plurality,
For, in your courteous note received,
You’ve unifiedduality.
Your Alpine thoughts will elevateOld Cantab’s flat vicinity,And give her church anotherstateBy unifyingTrinity!
Your Alpine thoughts will elevate
Old Cantab’s flat vicinity,
And give her church anotherstate
By unifyingTrinity!
You’ve left, you say, the fold of strife,Where desperatechargesnever end;Not handsomeliving, handsomelifeHenceforth will make youreverend.
You’ve left, you say, the fold of strife,
Where desperatechargesnever end;
Not handsomeliving, handsomelife
Henceforth will make youreverend.
I’m Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland,Where souls in sulphur barter, sir;But, please excuse an ending grand—My name to rhyme’s a Tartar, sir.
I’m Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland,
Where souls in sulphur barter, sir;
But, please excuse an ending grand—
My name to rhyme’s a Tartar, sir.
SPIRITUALISM
Only a rising billow,Only a deep sigh drawnBy the great sea of chaosBefore Creation’s dawn.Only a little princessSpelling the words of kings;Only the Godhead’s prattleIn Sinai mutterings!The crowd mistakes and fears it,And Aaron has ignored,But Moses, far above them,Is talking with the Lord!Albert Joseph Edmunds.
Only a rising billow,Only a deep sigh drawnBy the great sea of chaosBefore Creation’s dawn.Only a little princessSpelling the words of kings;Only the Godhead’s prattleIn Sinai mutterings!The crowd mistakes and fears it,And Aaron has ignored,But Moses, far above them,Is talking with the Lord!Albert Joseph Edmunds.
Only a rising billow,Only a deep sigh drawnBy the great sea of chaosBefore Creation’s dawn.
Only a rising billow,
Only a deep sigh drawn
By the great sea of chaos
Before Creation’s dawn.
Only a little princessSpelling the words of kings;Only the Godhead’s prattleIn Sinai mutterings!
Only a little princess
Spelling the words of kings;
Only the Godhead’s prattle
In Sinai mutterings!
The crowd mistakes and fears it,And Aaron has ignored,But Moses, far above them,Is talking with the Lord!
The crowd mistakes and fears it,
And Aaron has ignored,
But Moses, far above them,
Is talking with the Lord!
Albert Joseph Edmunds.
Albert Joseph Edmunds.
See note to previous quotation. This poem was written in 1883.Although I preserved these verses, I may add that I had no interest whatever in spiritualism, permeated as it was with childishness and fraud. But, nevertheless, it (together with the so-called “Theosophy”) led to the happy result that the Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. Although spiritualism did good in this way, its unhappy associations do harm to the Society and hamper it in the important work it has carried on during the last thirty-eight years. Popular prejudice continues to associate it with the old spiritualism, and in consequence no proper attention is paid to itsintensely interestingand most valuable investigations. For example, there are, apart from Public Libraries and Universities, only six members or associates in the whole of Australia! And yet, besides important work in other directions, it must be admitted by any open-minded person that the evidence collected by the Society that the dead (by telepathy or otherwise) communicate with the living is unanswerable.
See note to previous quotation. This poem was written in 1883.
Although I preserved these verses, I may add that I had no interest whatever in spiritualism, permeated as it was with childishness and fraud. But, nevertheless, it (together with the so-called “Theosophy”) led to the happy result that the Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. Although spiritualism did good in this way, its unhappy associations do harm to the Society and hamper it in the important work it has carried on during the last thirty-eight years. Popular prejudice continues to associate it with the old spiritualism, and in consequence no proper attention is paid to itsintensely interestingand most valuable investigations. For example, there are, apart from Public Libraries and Universities, only six members or associates in the whole of Australia! And yet, besides important work in other directions, it must be admitted by any open-minded person that the evidence collected by the Society that the dead (by telepathy or otherwise) communicate with the living is unanswerable.
He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed.
Thomas Fuller.
This refers to the French proverb, “Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué,” or, as we say, “Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.”
This refers to the French proverb, “Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué,” or, as we say, “Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.”
Habit dulls the senses and puts the critical faculty to sleep. The fierceness and hardness of ancient manners is apparent to us, but the ancients themselves were not shocked by sights which were familiar to them. To us it is sickening to think of the gladiatorial show, of the massacres common in Roman warfare, of the infanticide practised by grave and respectable citizens, who did not merely condemn their children to death, but often in practice, as they well knew, to what was still worse—a life of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded a gladiatorial show as we regard a hunt; the news of the slaughter of two hundred thousand Helvetians by Cæsar or half a million Jews by Titus excited in his mind a thrill of triumph; infanticide committed by a friend appeared to him a prudent measure of household economy.
Sir J. R. Seeley(Ecce Homo).
It is still more important to realize that the exposure of children was a recognized practice also among the Greeks, and that no one, not even Plato, their noblest philosopher, saw anything wrong in it. It is only by letting the mind dwell on such facts as these, until their significance is fully appreciated, that we can realize the width and depth of the great gulf that separates the Pagan and the Christian, the ancient and the modern world. Take this one fact only: imagine the Greek father looking at his helpless babe and coldly deciding that to rear it will be inconvenient,[24]or that there are already enough children to divide the inheritance, or that the child is sickly or deformed, or that its person offends his idea of beauty—and then consigning his own offspring to slavery, prostitution, or death! (The child would either die or be picked up to be reared for some such purpose.) Even in the very imperfect state of our own civilization, we at least have children’s hospitals and crèches, and are inflamed with righteous rage when even anunknownbaby is ill-treated. (We, indeed, go further, and have laws and societies for prevention of cruelty toanimals.)The consideration of such a fact leads us also to inquire as to the relations of husband and wife, seeing that the woman would have at least the affection for her offspring that is common among the lower animals. We then find that the modern chivalrous idea of womanhood was unknown to the Greeks; the wife was not educated, and was considered an inferior being; she was married mainly in order to provide sons to carry out certain ritual observances necessary for the father’s welfare after death; she was kept in an almost Eastern seclusion (and therefore had to improve her pallid complexion by paint); she would associate mainly with the children and slaves. We also find that fidelity of the husband to the wife was neither required noresteemed; and that there was little marital love or family life. (Plato in his model Republic would abolish both the latter, for there was to be promiscuity of women, and all children were to be brought up by the State.)Considering further this practice of exposing children, we realize that it indicatesthe want of pity for the helpless and suffering, which is seen among the lower animals (but with exceptions even among them). From this we may reasonably infer that the Greeks would show little humanity in treating other helpless or suffering people, the sick or distressed, dependents or slaves, conquered enemies or others in their power. (In this respect, however, they, as an intellectual people, would subject themselves to and be controlled by necessarysociallaws andpracticalconsiderations; and also, as a fact, they at times showed generosity to a valiant foe.) Again we can infer that, where even the spirit of mercy was so wanting, the gospel oflovecould not possibly exist, and that the Greeks lived on a far lowermoralplane than ours. These questions are far too large to discuss in this book, and I must leave them to be dealt with elsewhere.But, even from this very small portion of the available evidence, we can arrive at three resulting facts:First, that when in translations from the Greek we find such words as “kindness,” “love,” “morality,” “purity,”“virtue,” “religion,” etc., they have for us a far larger and higher content than the Greek words in the original;secondly, that therefore, the reader must get incorrect impressions of Greek literature and thought; and,thirdly, that truly marvellous as the Greeks were in art and literature, the current conception of them as a noble-minded and refined people is erroneous.In referring to the Greeks, one needs to limit the people and period, and I am referring to the great age of the Attic or Athenian Greeks, say the Fifth Century, B.C. There would, of course, be gradations of character among them, and, no doubt, some would be kind-hearted, others would have affection for their wives, and so on. But this can only be assumption, for there is little in their literature to support it. This will be seen if the evidence adduced by Mr. Livingstone (“The Greek Genius,” pp. 117-122) is carefully and critically examined. (His references to Homer, who lived in a far distant age must be omitted.) Also the fact that Herodotus, in the course of his narrative, tells us that some men of another state had a moment of compassion for a baby whom they were about to slay, does not prove in the slightest degree that he was himself humane. The wording of Mr. Livingstone’s translation, p. 118, “It happenedby a divine chancethat the baby smiled, etc.,” would appear to confirm this view of his; but the Greek words simply mean that a god by chance intervened. Knowing what we do of the Greek gods, that intervention would certainly not be actuated by any kindly feeling towards the infant—the object presumably was that the child should live to fulfil the destiny prophesied by the Delphic Oracle. (Herodotus was a typical Greek to whom the world was peopled with gods, and he sees them constantly interposing in human affairs.) As regards the exposure of children, the point is thatit was a recognized and common practice, duly sanctioned by law, and never condemned by any writer. Indeed Plato and Aristotle definitely approve of it, and in Plato’s Ideal Republic the weakly and deformed children were to be killed by the State.As regards the current conception of the Greeks, Shelley in his “Preface to Hellas” describes them as “those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our kind.” Similar statements could be gathered from innumerable English and European writers.
It is still more important to realize that the exposure of children was a recognized practice also among the Greeks, and that no one, not even Plato, their noblest philosopher, saw anything wrong in it. It is only by letting the mind dwell on such facts as these, until their significance is fully appreciated, that we can realize the width and depth of the great gulf that separates the Pagan and the Christian, the ancient and the modern world. Take this one fact only: imagine the Greek father looking at his helpless babe and coldly deciding that to rear it will be inconvenient,[24]or that there are already enough children to divide the inheritance, or that the child is sickly or deformed, or that its person offends his idea of beauty—and then consigning his own offspring to slavery, prostitution, or death! (The child would either die or be picked up to be reared for some such purpose.) Even in the very imperfect state of our own civilization, we at least have children’s hospitals and crèches, and are inflamed with righteous rage when even anunknownbaby is ill-treated. (We, indeed, go further, and have laws and societies for prevention of cruelty toanimals.)
The consideration of such a fact leads us also to inquire as to the relations of husband and wife, seeing that the woman would have at least the affection for her offspring that is common among the lower animals. We then find that the modern chivalrous idea of womanhood was unknown to the Greeks; the wife was not educated, and was considered an inferior being; she was married mainly in order to provide sons to carry out certain ritual observances necessary for the father’s welfare after death; she was kept in an almost Eastern seclusion (and therefore had to improve her pallid complexion by paint); she would associate mainly with the children and slaves. We also find that fidelity of the husband to the wife was neither required noresteemed; and that there was little marital love or family life. (Plato in his model Republic would abolish both the latter, for there was to be promiscuity of women, and all children were to be brought up by the State.)
Considering further this practice of exposing children, we realize that it indicatesthe want of pity for the helpless and suffering, which is seen among the lower animals (but with exceptions even among them). From this we may reasonably infer that the Greeks would show little humanity in treating other helpless or suffering people, the sick or distressed, dependents or slaves, conquered enemies or others in their power. (In this respect, however, they, as an intellectual people, would subject themselves to and be controlled by necessarysociallaws andpracticalconsiderations; and also, as a fact, they at times showed generosity to a valiant foe.) Again we can infer that, where even the spirit of mercy was so wanting, the gospel oflovecould not possibly exist, and that the Greeks lived on a far lowermoralplane than ours. These questions are far too large to discuss in this book, and I must leave them to be dealt with elsewhere.
But, even from this very small portion of the available evidence, we can arrive at three resulting facts:First, that when in translations from the Greek we find such words as “kindness,” “love,” “morality,” “purity,”“virtue,” “religion,” etc., they have for us a far larger and higher content than the Greek words in the original;secondly, that therefore, the reader must get incorrect impressions of Greek literature and thought; and,thirdly, that truly marvellous as the Greeks were in art and literature, the current conception of them as a noble-minded and refined people is erroneous.
In referring to the Greeks, one needs to limit the people and period, and I am referring to the great age of the Attic or Athenian Greeks, say the Fifth Century, B.C. There would, of course, be gradations of character among them, and, no doubt, some would be kind-hearted, others would have affection for their wives, and so on. But this can only be assumption, for there is little in their literature to support it. This will be seen if the evidence adduced by Mr. Livingstone (“The Greek Genius,” pp. 117-122) is carefully and critically examined. (His references to Homer, who lived in a far distant age must be omitted.) Also the fact that Herodotus, in the course of his narrative, tells us that some men of another state had a moment of compassion for a baby whom they were about to slay, does not prove in the slightest degree that he was himself humane. The wording of Mr. Livingstone’s translation, p. 118, “It happenedby a divine chancethat the baby smiled, etc.,” would appear to confirm this view of his; but the Greek words simply mean that a god by chance intervened. Knowing what we do of the Greek gods, that intervention would certainly not be actuated by any kindly feeling towards the infant—the object presumably was that the child should live to fulfil the destiny prophesied by the Delphic Oracle. (Herodotus was a typical Greek to whom the world was peopled with gods, and he sees them constantly interposing in human affairs.) As regards the exposure of children, the point is thatit was a recognized and common practice, duly sanctioned by law, and never condemned by any writer. Indeed Plato and Aristotle definitely approve of it, and in Plato’s Ideal Republic the weakly and deformed children were to be killed by the State.
As regards the current conception of the Greeks, Shelley in his “Preface to Hellas” describes them as “those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our kind.” Similar statements could be gathered from innumerable English and European writers.
THE PACE THAT KILLS