Chapter 17

Here’s my case. Of old I used to love himThis same unseen friend, before I knew:Dream there was none like him, none above him,—Wake to hope and trust my dream was true....All my days, I’ll go the softlier, sadlier,For that dream’s sake! How forget the thrillThrough and through me as I thought “The gladlierLives my friend because I love him still!”R. Browning(Fears and Scruples).

Here’s my case. Of old I used to love himThis same unseen friend, before I knew:Dream there was none like him, none above him,—Wake to hope and trust my dream was true....

Here’s my case. Of old I used to love him

This same unseen friend, before I knew:

Dream there was none like him, none above him,—

Wake to hope and trust my dream was true....

All my days, I’ll go the softlier, sadlier,For that dream’s sake! How forget the thrillThrough and through me as I thought “The gladlierLives my friend because I love him still!”

All my days, I’ll go the softlier, sadlier,

For that dream’s sake! How forget the thrill

Through and through me as I thought “The gladlier

Lives my friend because I love him still!”

R. Browning(Fears and Scruples).

The “Friend” is God. The lines “All my days, I’ll go the softlier, sadlier, For that dream’s sake,” seem to me very beautiful. In so few words Browning, with dramatic insight, expresses the feeling of a Renan or George Eliot after they had lost their faith in Christianity.

The world is his, who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance—by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow....

In proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form. Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. They are the kings of the world who give the colour of their present thought to all nature and all art.... The great man makes the great thing.... Linnæus makes botany the most alluring of studies, and wins it from the farmer and the herb-woman; Davy, chemistry; and Cuvier, fossils. The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd to him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon.

Emerson(The American Scholar).

Cantat Deo, qui vivit Deo.

(He sings to God, who lives to God.)

Author not traced.

Jenny Lind used to say, “I sing to God.”

A CONSERVATIVE

The garden beds I wandered byOne bright and cheerful morn,When I found a new-fledged butterfly,A-sitting on a thorn,A black and crimson butterfly,All doleful and forlorn.I thought that life could have no stingTo infant butterflies,So I gazed on this unhappy thingWith wonder and surprise,While sadly with his waving wingHe wiped his weeping eyes.Said I, “What can the matter be?Why weepest thou so sore,With garden fair and sunlight freeAnd flowers in goodly store?”—But he only turned away from meAnd burst into a roar.Cried he, “My legs are thin and fewWhere once I had a swarm!Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view—Once kept my body warm,Before these flapping wing-things grew,To hamper and deform!”At that outrageous bug I shotThe fury of mine eye;Said I, in scorn all burning hot,In rage and anger high,“You ignominious idiot!Those wings are made to fly!”“I do not want to fly,” said he,“I only want to squirm!”And he dropped his wings dejectedly,But still his voice was firm:“I do not want to be a fly!I want to be a worm!”O yesterday of unknown lack!To-day of unknown bliss!I left my fool in red and black,The last I saw was this,—The creature madly climbing backInto his chrysalis.Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

The garden beds I wandered byOne bright and cheerful morn,When I found a new-fledged butterfly,A-sitting on a thorn,A black and crimson butterfly,All doleful and forlorn.

The garden beds I wandered by

One bright and cheerful morn,

When I found a new-fledged butterfly,

A-sitting on a thorn,

A black and crimson butterfly,

All doleful and forlorn.

I thought that life could have no stingTo infant butterflies,So I gazed on this unhappy thingWith wonder and surprise,While sadly with his waving wingHe wiped his weeping eyes.

I thought that life could have no sting

To infant butterflies,

So I gazed on this unhappy thing

With wonder and surprise,

While sadly with his waving wing

He wiped his weeping eyes.

Said I, “What can the matter be?Why weepest thou so sore,With garden fair and sunlight freeAnd flowers in goodly store?”—But he only turned away from meAnd burst into a roar.

Said I, “What can the matter be?

Why weepest thou so sore,

With garden fair and sunlight free

And flowers in goodly store?”—

But he only turned away from me

And burst into a roar.

Cried he, “My legs are thin and fewWhere once I had a swarm!Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view—Once kept my body warm,Before these flapping wing-things grew,To hamper and deform!”

Cried he, “My legs are thin and few

Where once I had a swarm!

Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view—

Once kept my body warm,

Before these flapping wing-things grew,

To hamper and deform!”

At that outrageous bug I shotThe fury of mine eye;Said I, in scorn all burning hot,In rage and anger high,“You ignominious idiot!Those wings are made to fly!”

At that outrageous bug I shot

The fury of mine eye;

Said I, in scorn all burning hot,

In rage and anger high,

“You ignominious idiot!

Those wings are made to fly!”

“I do not want to fly,” said he,“I only want to squirm!”And he dropped his wings dejectedly,But still his voice was firm:“I do not want to be a fly!I want to be a worm!”

“I do not want to fly,” said he,

“I only want to squirm!”

And he dropped his wings dejectedly,

But still his voice was firm:

“I do not want to be a fly!

I want to be a worm!”

O yesterday of unknown lack!To-day of unknown bliss!I left my fool in red and black,The last I saw was this,—The creature madly climbing backInto his chrysalis.

O yesterday of unknown lack!

To-day of unknown bliss!

I left my fool in red and black,

The last I saw was this,—

The creature madly climbing back

Into his chrysalis.

Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

The very fiends weave ropes of sandRather than taste pure hell in idleness.R. Browning(A Forgiveness).

The very fiends weave ropes of sandRather than taste pure hell in idleness.

The very fiends weave ropes of sand

Rather than taste pure hell in idleness.

R. Browning(A Forgiveness).

He had formed several ingenious plans by which he meant to circumvent people of large fortune and small capacity; but then he never met with exactly the right people under exactly the right circumstances.... It is possible to pass a great many bad half-pennies and bad half-crowns, but I believe there has no instance been known of passing a half-penny or a half-crown for a sovereign.

George Eliot(Brother Jacob).

In the old times Death was a feverish sleep,In which men walked. The other world was coldAnd thinly-peopled, so life’s emigrantsCame back to mingle with the crowds of earth:But now great cities are transplanted thither,Memphis, and Babylon, and either Thebes,And Priam’s towery town with its one beech.The dead are most and merriest: so be sureThere will be no more haunting, till their townsAre full to the garret; then they’ll shut their gates,To keep the living out, and perhaps leaveA dead or two between both kingdoms.T. L. Beddoes(Death’s Jest-Book, III, 3).

In the old times Death was a feverish sleep,

In which men walked. The other world was cold

And thinly-peopled, so life’s emigrants

Came back to mingle with the crowds of earth:

But now great cities are transplanted thither,

Memphis, and Babylon, and either Thebes,

And Priam’s towery town with its one beech.

The dead are most and merriest: so be sure

There will be no more haunting, till their towns

Are full to the garret; then they’ll shut their gates,

To keep the living out, and perhaps leave

A dead or two between both kingdoms.

T. L. Beddoes(Death’s Jest-Book, III, 3).

This is one of the queer fancies in a curious poem.

Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in. Embark and the romance quits our vessel, and hangs on every other sail in the horizon.

Emerson(Essay on Experience).

De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus.

(We make for ourselves a ladder of our vices, when we tread under foot the vices themselves.)

St. Augustine(De Ascensione).

I held it truth, with him who singsTo one clear harp in divers tones,That men may rise on stepping-stonesOf their dead selves to higher things.Tennyson(In Memoriam).

I held it truth, with him who singsTo one clear harp in divers tones,That men may rise on stepping-stonesOf their dead selves to higher things.

I held it truth, with him who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones,

That men may rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves to higher things.

Tennyson(In Memoriam).

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,That of our vices we can frameA ladder, if we will but treadBeneath our feet each deed of shame!Longfellow(The Ladder of St. Augustine).

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,That of our vices we can frameA ladder, if we will but treadBeneath our feet each deed of shame!

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

Longfellow(The Ladder of St. Augustine).

The trials that beset you,The sorrows ye endure,The manifold temptationsThat death alone can cure,What are they but His jewelsOf right celestial worth?What are they but the ladderSet up to Heav’n on earth?J. M. Neale(O Happy Band of Pilgrims).

The trials that beset you,The sorrows ye endure,The manifold temptationsThat death alone can cure,

The trials that beset you,

The sorrows ye endure,

The manifold temptations

That death alone can cure,

What are they but His jewelsOf right celestial worth?What are they but the ladderSet up to Heav’n on earth?

What are they but His jewels

Of right celestial worth?

What are they but the ladder

Set up to Heav’n on earth?

J. M. Neale(O Happy Band of Pilgrims).

I can bear it no longer—this diabolical invention of gentility, which kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, and should be flung into thefire. Organize rank and precedence! That was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some great marshal, and organize Equality in society.

Thackeray(Book of Snobs).

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,We bargain for the graves we lie in;At the devil’s booth are all things sold,Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;For a cap and bells our lives we pay,Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking:’Tis heaven alone that is given away,’Tis only God may be had for the asking.J. R. Lowell(The Vision of Sir Launfal).

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil’s booth are all things sold,

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay,

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking:

’Tis heaven alone that is given away,

’Tis only God may be had for the asking.

J. R. Lowell(The Vision of Sir Launfal).

... The too susceptible Tupman, who, to the wisdom and experience of maturer years, superadded the enthusiasm and ardour of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses, love. Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of Tupman’s vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat; but the soul of Tupman had known no change.

Charles Dickens(Pickwick Papers).

The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all thesavantsin the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality. And the worst of all this is, that love and friendship may be the outcome of a certain condition of knowledge; increase the knowledge, and love and friendship beat their wings and go. Every man’s road in life is marked by the graves of his personal likings. Intimacy is frequently the road to indifference; and marriage a parricide.

Alexander Smith(The Importance of a Man to Himself).

I think sometimes how good it were had I some one by me to listen when I am tempted to read a passage aloud. Yes, but is there any mortal in the whole world upon whom I could invariably depend for sympathetic understanding—nay, who would even generally be at one with me in my appreciation? Such harmony of intelligences is the rarest thing. All through life we long for it ... and, after all, we learn that the vision is illusory. To every man is it decreed: Thou shalt live alone.

George Gissing(The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft).

ISOLATION

Yes! in the sea of life enisled,With echoing straits between us thrown,Dotting the shoreless watery wild,We mortal millions livealone.The islands feel the enclasping flow,And then their endless bounds they know.But when the moon their hollows lights,And they are swept by balms of spring,And in their glens, on starry nights,The nightingales divinely sing;And lovely notes, from shore to shore,Across the sounds and channels pour—Oh! then a longing like despairIs to their farthest caverns sent;For surely once, they feel, we wereParts of a single continent!Now round us spreads the watery plain—Oh might our marges meet again!Who ordered, that their longing’s fireShould be, as soon as kindled, cooled?Who renders vain their deep desire?A God, a God their severance ruled!And bade betwixt their shores to beThe unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.Matthew Arnold.

Yes! in the sea of life enisled,

With echoing straits between us thrown,

Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

We mortal millions livealone.

The islands feel the enclasping flow,

And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights,And they are swept by balms of spring,And in their glens, on starry nights,The nightingales divinely sing;And lovely notes, from shore to shore,Across the sounds and channels pour—

But when the moon their hollows lights,

And they are swept by balms of spring,

And in their glens, on starry nights,

The nightingales divinely sing;

And lovely notes, from shore to shore,

Across the sounds and channels pour—

Oh! then a longing like despairIs to their farthest caverns sent;For surely once, they feel, we wereParts of a single continent!Now round us spreads the watery plain—Oh might our marges meet again!

Oh! then a longing like despair

Is to their farthest caverns sent;

For surely once, they feel, we were

Parts of a single continent!

Now round us spreads the watery plain—

Oh might our marges meet again!

Who ordered, that their longing’s fireShould be, as soon as kindled, cooled?Who renders vain their deep desire?A God, a God their severance ruled!And bade betwixt their shores to beThe unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.

Who ordered, that their longing’s fire

Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled?

Who renders vain their deep desire?

A God, a God their severance ruled!

And bade betwixt their shores to be

The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.

Matthew Arnold.

This fine poem is one of a series called “Switzerland,” which was written as the result of Arnold’s meeting and falling in love with a lady at Berne. The poem immediately preceding it in the series is entitled “Isolation: To Marguerite,” while this is called “To Marguerite, Continued” but as it is now quoted separately, it is better entitled “Isolation.”In the preceding poems the lady has lost her affection while her lover is still devoted; and this leads to the subject of our isolation from each other in our inner lives. In the second verse the poet describes the moments when we most crave for love, sympathy, and mutual spiritual understanding and union.For an interesting fact connected with this poem, see next quotation and note.

In the preceding poems the lady has lost her affection while her lover is still devoted; and this leads to the subject of our isolation from each other in our inner lives. In the second verse the poet describes the moments when we most crave for love, sympathy, and mutual spiritual understanding and union.

For an interesting fact connected with this poem, see next quotation and note.

(Thackeray has been describing how husband, wife, mother, son—each of the inmates of a household—is interested in his or her own separate world and looking at the same things from a different point of view.) How lonely we are in the world! You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for forty years and fancy yourselves united: pshaw! does she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the tooth-ache?... As for your wife—O philosophic reader, answer and say, Do you tellherall? Ah, sir, a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine—all things in nature are different to each—the woman we look at has not the same features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one and the other—you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us.

Thackeray(Pendennis, ch. XVI).

The similarity between this passage and the preceding poem, written at about the same time, is very curious. Arnold’s poem appeared in 1852 but was composed ten years earlier, whilePendenniswas published in monthly parts in 1849-50. Therefore, neither author would consciously know at the time what the other had written.The incident is probably an illustration of the mysterious way in which minds influence one another and create the spirit of the particular age. There is, I believe, a Chinese proverb to the effect that we are more the product of our age than of our parents. This permeating quality of thought and feeling is, no doubt, the explanation why the highest art and literature, though often unappreciated at the time, become ultimately recognized. It appears not to be sufficiently taken into account in other directions. For instance, it is repeatedly stated that Blake, because of the limited circulation of his poems, exercisednoinfluence on the Romantic Revival—see for exampleThe Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. XI, 201. Yet we know that his work was known to and appreciated by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, and Hayley. (Although littleregarded now, Hayley’s fame was then so great that he was offered and refused the poet-laureateship. He appears to be the one man who was an intimate friend of both Blake and Cowper.) While a very long period went by before Blake’s poems became generally known, their influence may well have been very great, permeating unconsciously through other minds.See reference on p. 194to the similar case of Fitzgerald’s “Omar Khayyam.”Even if a poem were read byonly one person, it might conceivably influence a generation of authors. Suppose, if that had been possible, a page of Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyonesse” or F. W. H. Myers’ “Implicit Promise” (both quoted elsewhere) had been read by Pope or Dryden; how the monotonous heroic couplet of their time might have been transformed!

The incident is probably an illustration of the mysterious way in which minds influence one another and create the spirit of the particular age. There is, I believe, a Chinese proverb to the effect that we are more the product of our age than of our parents. This permeating quality of thought and feeling is, no doubt, the explanation why the highest art and literature, though often unappreciated at the time, become ultimately recognized. It appears not to be sufficiently taken into account in other directions. For instance, it is repeatedly stated that Blake, because of the limited circulation of his poems, exercisednoinfluence on the Romantic Revival—see for exampleThe Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. XI, 201. Yet we know that his work was known to and appreciated by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, and Hayley. (Although littleregarded now, Hayley’s fame was then so great that he was offered and refused the poet-laureateship. He appears to be the one man who was an intimate friend of both Blake and Cowper.) While a very long period went by before Blake’s poems became generally known, their influence may well have been very great, permeating unconsciously through other minds.See reference on p. 194to the similar case of Fitzgerald’s “Omar Khayyam.”

Even if a poem were read byonly one person, it might conceivably influence a generation of authors. Suppose, if that had been possible, a page of Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyonesse” or F. W. H. Myers’ “Implicit Promise” (both quoted elsewhere) had been read by Pope or Dryden; how the monotonous heroic couplet of their time might have been transformed!

A child was playing on a summer strandThat fringed the wavelets of a sunny sea;The mother looked in love. “Now build,” said she,“Your splendid golden castles where you stand;But when the wave has beaten all to sand,You must go home.” “Ah, not so soon,” said he.And now the night has darkened out his glee,And sad-eyed Grief has grasped him by the hand.No more the years shall find him free and wildAnd madly merry as a bright brave bird:For earth has nothing like the home he cravesAnd pauseless Time is beating bitter wavesOn all his palaces. He waits the wordAway beyond the blue, “Come home, my child.”R. Hodgson, 1879.

A child was playing on a summer strand

That fringed the wavelets of a sunny sea;

The mother looked in love. “Now build,” said she,

“Your splendid golden castles where you stand;

But when the wave has beaten all to sand,

You must go home.” “Ah, not so soon,” said he.

And now the night has darkened out his glee,And sad-eyed Grief has grasped him by the hand.No more the years shall find him free and wildAnd madly merry as a bright brave bird:For earth has nothing like the home he cravesAnd pauseless Time is beating bitter wavesOn all his palaces. He waits the wordAway beyond the blue, “Come home, my child.”

And now the night has darkened out his glee,

And sad-eyed Grief has grasped him by the hand.

No more the years shall find him free and wild

And madly merry as a bright brave bird:

For earth has nothing like the home he craves

And pauseless Time is beating bitter waves

On all his palaces. He waits the word

Away beyond the blue, “Come home, my child.”

R. Hodgson, 1879.

An impromptu written when the mother and child incident happened and not revised.

Humanity is neither a love for the whole human race, nor a love for each individual of it, but a love for the race, or for the ideal of man, in each individual. In other and less pedantic words, he who is truly humane considers every human beingas suchinteresting and important, and without waiting to criticize each individual specimen, pays in advance to all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy.... If some human beings are abject and contemptible, if it be incredible to us that they can have any high dignity or destiny, do we regard them from so great a height as Christ? Are we likely to be more pained by their faults and deficiencies than he was? Is our standard higher thanhis? And yet he associated by preference with these meanest of the race; no contempt for them did he ever express, no suspicion that they might be less dear than the best and wisest to the common Father, no doubt that they were naturally capable of rising to a moral elevation like his own. There is nothing of which a man may be prouder than of this; it is the most hopeful and redeeming fact in history; it is precisely what was wanting to raise the love of man as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory has been shed upon the human race by the love Christ bore to it.

Sir J. R. Seeley(Ecce Homo).

On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled:So live, that sinking to thy life’s last sleepCalm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.Sir William Jones(1746-1794) (From the Persian).

On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled:So live, that sinking to thy life’s last sleepCalm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.

On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,

Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled:

So live, that sinking to thy life’s last sleep

Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.

Sir William Jones(1746-1794) (From the Persian).

Can the earth where the harrow is drivenThe sheaf of the furrow foresee?Or thou guess the harvest for heavenWhen iron has entered in thee?Author not traced.

Can the earth where the harrow is drivenThe sheaf of the furrow foresee?Or thou guess the harvest for heavenWhen iron has entered in thee?

Can the earth where the harrow is driven

The sheaf of the furrow foresee?

Or thou guess the harvest for heaven

When iron has entered in thee?

Author not traced.

This was quoted by Lord Lytton in an essay onThe Influence of Love upon Literature and Real Life.

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;The diver, Omar, plucked them from their bed,Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.J. R. Lowell(On Omar Khayyam).

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;The diver, Omar, plucked them from their bed,Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,

Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;

The diver, Omar, plucked them from their bed,

Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

J. R. Lowell(On Omar Khayyam).

It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy dining.

George Eliot(Daniel Deronda).

So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without which he yet could not be, and whereof he is in part compounded.

G. MacDonald(Phantastes).

In the story an ogre is reading this passage from a book.Phantastesis MacDonald’s finest work.

There, on the fields around,All men shall till the ground,Corn shall wave yellow, and bright rivers stream;Daily, at set of sun,All, when their work is done,Shall watch the heavens yearn down and the strange starlight gleam.R. Buchanan(The City of Man).

There, on the fields around,

All men shall till the ground,

Corn shall wave yellow, and bright rivers stream;

Daily, at set of sun,

All, when their work is done,

Shall watch the heavens yearn down and the strange starlight gleam.

R. Buchanan(The City of Man).

This is the poet’s vision of the city of the future, and will be interesting to the allotment-holders in English cities to-day.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the goldUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.R. Browning(A Toccata of Galuppi’s).

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the goldUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

R. Browning(A Toccata of Galuppi’s).

Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime,Il faut aimer ce que l’on a.(When you have not what you loveYou must love what you have.)Thomas Corneille(L’Inconnu).

Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime,Il faut aimer ce que l’on a.

Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime,

Il faut aimer ce que l’on a.

(When you have not what you loveYou must love what you have.)

(When you have not what you love

You must love what you have.)

Thomas Corneille(L’Inconnu).

At last methought that I had wandered farIn an old wood: fresh-washed in coolest dewThe maiden splendours of the morning starShook in the steadfast blue....At length I saw a lady within call,Stiller than chiselled marble, standing there;A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,And most divinely fair....I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled;A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,Brow-bound with burning gold....“I died a Queen. The Roman soldier foundMe lying dead, my crown about my brows,A name for ever!—lying robed and crowned,Worthy a Roman spouse.”Tennyson(A Dream of Fair Women).

At last methought that I had wandered farIn an old wood: fresh-washed in coolest dewThe maiden splendours of the morning starShook in the steadfast blue....

At last methought that I had wandered far

In an old wood: fresh-washed in coolest dew

The maiden splendours of the morning star

Shook in the steadfast blue....

At length I saw a lady within call,Stiller than chiselled marble, standing there;A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,And most divinely fair.

At length I saw a lady within call,

Stiller than chiselled marble, standing there;

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,

And most divinely fair.

...

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled;A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,Brow-bound with burning gold....

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,

One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled;

A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,

Brow-bound with burning gold....

“I died a Queen. The Roman soldier foundMe lying dead, my crown about my brows,A name for ever!—lying robed and crowned,Worthy a Roman spouse.”

“I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found

Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,

A name for ever!—lying robed and crowned,

Worthy a Roman spouse.”

Tennyson(A Dream of Fair Women).

Helen of Troy and Cleopatra—but, as Peacock mentioned inGryll Grange, Cleopatra was of pure Greek descent and could not have been a “swarthy” lady.

One pond of water gleams;... the trees bendO’er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl.R. Browning(Pauline).

One pond of water gleams;... the trees bendO’er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl.

One pond of water gleams;

... the trees bend

O’er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl.

R. Browning(Pauline).

I met a lady in the meads,Full beautiful, a faery’s child;Her hair was long, her foot was light,And her eyes were wild.I set her on my pacing steed,And nothing else saw all day long;For sideways would she lean, and singA faery’s song.Keats(La Belle Dame sans Merci).

I met a lady in the meads,Full beautiful, a faery’s child;Her hair was long, her foot was light,And her eyes were wild.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a faery’s child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,And nothing else saw all day long;For sideways would she lean, and singA faery’s song.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sideways would she lean, and sing

A faery’s song.

Keats(La Belle Dame sans Merci).

He put the hawthorn twigs apart,And yet saw no more wondrous thingThan seven white swans, who on wide wingWent circling round, till one by oneThey dropped the dewy grass upon.W. Morris(The Earthly Paradise, the Land East of the Sun).

He put the hawthorn twigs apart,And yet saw no more wondrous thingThan seven white swans, who on wide wingWent circling round, till one by oneThey dropped the dewy grass upon.

He put the hawthorn twigs apart,

And yet saw no more wondrous thing

Than seven white swans, who on wide wing

Went circling round, till one by one

They dropped the dewy grass upon.

W. Morris(The Earthly Paradise, the Land East of the Sun).

Quoth Christabel.—So let it be!And, as the lady bade, did she.Her gentle limbs did she undressAnd lay down in her loveliness.S. T. Coleridge(Christabel)

Quoth Christabel.—So let it be!And, as the lady bade, did she.Her gentle limbs did she undressAnd lay down in her loveliness.

Quoth Christabel.—So let it be!

And, as the lady bade, did she.

Her gentle limbs did she undress

And lay down in her loveliness.

S. T. Coleridge(Christabel)

The six quotations above are word-pictures (see note p. 85).

It is a mistake into which spiritually-minded men have fallen, that God is apprehended and known by a special faculty. The fact is that every faculty is serviceable in this noble work. We reach the Divine through our aesthetic faculties when our soul is stirred by a grand burst of music, or by the contemplation of a magnificent landscape. We reach the Divine through our purely intellectual faculties, when, by true reasoning, founded on sound observation, we master any great law by which God governs the world. We reach the Divine through our emotional nature when pure grief or pure love, holy longing, unselfish hope, righteous indignation, elevate us above theprosaic level of customary equanimity, and help us to realize the incomparable beauty of holiness.

Just as the weeping Magdalene[32]stood bewailing the loss of what even to her was only sacred clay, all unconscious that her Saviour had been given back to her without seeing corruption, in a glorified and eternal form, not dead, but alive for evermore, whom she could love with ever increasing ardour of devotion: so, we say, there are not a few in our time whose lot it is to wring their hands over the grave of lost ideas, which they loved and their fathers loved, but for which God himself is substituting ideas nobler and better far, which earlier ages failed to grasp only because they were not in circumstances to feel their higher worth.

One cannot demonstrate on any physical or visible basis whatever, that it is a nobler thing to suffer injustice than to commit it, that truth-speaking is honourable, forgiveness of injuries magnanimous, and loving self-sacrifice for others sublime. Honour, purity, humility, reverence, tenderness, courtesy, patience, these things cannot be weighed on physical scales, cannot be handled or touched, or melted or frozen in any mechanical or chemical laboratory. They belong to a different order of realities from acids and vapours: they are denizens of what, for want of any more definite or accurate expression, we are accustomed to call the spiritual world.

One can see how religion should, to a young person, be associated with repressive and prohibitive laws. Youth is the time for the luxuriating of newborn, and, therefore, delicious vital forces. But its very luxuriance is disorderly, and religion cannot coexist with disorder. Therefore, that which is so continually warning the young against impulse, and passion, and irregularity, ought not to be too greatly displeased if it should, by and by, come to be regarded by the young as a synonym for mere repressiveforce, and, therefore, as an unpleasant and unpopular thing. I believe, too, that there is no exception to the uniformity of the experience, that all young countries adopt freer systems of religion, and divest religious bodies more completely of all political and properly coercive power than older countries. It is all an illustration of the same thing. Young life, which most needs regulation, most dislikes it.[33]

As the genius of the bard is in the poem, as the wisdom of the legislator is in the law, as the skill of the mechanician is in the engine, as the soul of the musician is in the harmony and melody, as the words of a man’s lips issue from the inner world of his mental and spiritual character—so every work of God, and conspicuously man, as the noblest of God’s works, may truly be said to shadow forth a portion of the mind of God.

We talk of creation as a past thing. But the truth is, creation is eternal. Creation never ceases. Every time the clouds drop in rain, every time the waters freeze into new ice, every time the juices of nature gather into another violet, every time a new wail of life is heard upon a mother’s breast, every time you breathe another sigh, or shed another tear, there is God as truly present in His miraculous creative capacity as on the day when He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

P. S. Menzies(Sermons).

Apart from their intrinsic value, the above extracts are given because this book of sermons is of special interest to Australians and because it has passed into oblivion. There are very few copies in existence.Menzies came from Glasgow to Scots Church, Melbourne, in 1868 and died at the early age of thirty-four in 1874. At the Glasgow University he had been largely influenced mentally and spiritually by Principal Caird.The sermons published in this book were selected by his widow after his death. Although not revised by their gifted young author, the fine thoughts expressed in chaste and beautiful language remind one of James Martineau.

Menzies came from Glasgow to Scots Church, Melbourne, in 1868 and died at the early age of thirty-four in 1874. At the Glasgow University he had been largely influenced mentally and spiritually by Principal Caird.

The sermons published in this book were selected by his widow after his death. Although not revised by their gifted young author, the fine thoughts expressed in chaste and beautiful language remind one of James Martineau.

Our sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions—like effects of colour that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass, and rags.

George Eliot(The Lifted Veil).

MyGalligaskinsthat have long withstoodThe Winter’s Fury, and incroaching Frosts,By Time subdued, (what will not Time subdue!)An horrid Chasm disclose, with OrificeWide, discontinuous.John Phillips(1676-1709) (The Splendid Shilling).

MyGalligaskinsthat have long withstoodThe Winter’s Fury, and incroaching Frosts,By Time subdued, (what will not Time subdue!)An horrid Chasm disclose, with OrificeWide, discontinuous.

MyGalligaskinsthat have long withstood

The Winter’s Fury, and incroaching Frosts,

By Time subdued, (what will not Time subdue!)

An horrid Chasm disclose, with Orifice

Wide, discontinuous.

John Phillips(1676-1709) (The Splendid Shilling).

Galligaskins, trunk-hose. “The Splendid Shilling” is a famous parody on Milton.

We would not pray that sorrow ne’er may shedHer dews along the pathway they must tread;The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all,If no least rain of tears did ever fall.Gerald Massey(Via Crucis, Via Lucis).

We would not pray that sorrow ne’er may shedHer dews along the pathway they must tread;The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all,If no least rain of tears did ever fall.

We would not pray that sorrow ne’er may shed

Her dews along the pathway they must tread;

The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all,

If no least rain of tears did ever fall.

Gerald Massey(Via Crucis, Via Lucis).

But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us;Morning is here in the joy of its might;With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us;Now let him pass and the myrtles make way for us;Love can but last in us here at his heightFor a day and a night.Swinburne(At Parting).

But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us;

Morning is here in the joy of its might;

With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us;

Now let him pass and the myrtles make way for us;

Love can but last in us here at his height

For a day and a night.

Swinburne(At Parting).

That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

George Eliot(Middlemarch).

In the story Dorothea has found her husband to be a man of narrow mind and unsympathetic nature. Such a disillusionment after marriage frequently happens, and we are not deeply moved by what is not unusual, although it may mean a real life-tragedy. Ruskin says “God gives the disposition to every healthy human mind in some degree to pass over or even harden itself against evil things, else the suffering would be too great to be borne” (Modern Paintersv., xix., 32). Only thus could we have lived through the horrors of the present war.George Eliot’s analogy between intensity of the emotions and acuteness of the senses reminds one of Pope’s lines (“Essay on Man,” Ep. I.) where he says life would be insupportable, if we had the acute hearing, smell and other senses of insects and other animals; we shouldDie of a rose in aromatic pain.

George Eliot’s analogy between intensity of the emotions and acuteness of the senses reminds one of Pope’s lines (“Essay on Man,” Ep. I.) where he says life would be insupportable, if we had the acute hearing, smell and other senses of insects and other animals; we should

Die of a rose in aromatic pain.

Man that passes bySo like to God, so like the beasts that die.W. Morris(The Earthly Paradise).

Man that passes bySo like to God, so like the beasts that die.

Man that passes by

So like to God, so like the beasts that die.

W. Morris(The Earthly Paradise).

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;Not in semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power,Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodistWhen eternity affirms the conception of an hour.The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by and bye.R. Browning(Abt Vogler).

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;Not in semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power,Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodistWhen eternity affirms the conception of an hour.The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by and bye.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;

Not in semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power,

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by and bye.

R. Browning(Abt Vogler).

Abt—or Abbé—Georg Joseph Vogler, 1749-1814, a German organist and composer, is probably chosen by Browning because, although an important musician, his compositions have perished. In this fine poem Vogler has been extemporizing, and his inspired music has lifted him in ecstasy to heaven. The sounds are his slaves who have built palaces of music, as in the Arab legends angels and demons built magic structures forSolomon. He grieves that this wonderful music should apparently have vanished for ever; but is comforted by the thought that no good thing, no fine aspiration, no great effort or noble impulse can really die, but must exist for ever in the mind of God.If Browning had known the evidence now afforded scientifically by hypnotism and otherwise, he might have come to the conclusion that all our thoughts and feelings,both good and bad, are recorded deep down in our own consciousness. Moreover, the existence of thought-transference leads to the somewhat dreadful suggestion that this record of all our inmost thoughts and feelings may possibly become open to the inspection of every one.The quotation reminds one of Wordsworth’s sonnet on the “Inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.”Where music dwellsLingering—and wandering on as loth to die;Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proofThat they were born for immortality.

If Browning had known the evidence now afforded scientifically by hypnotism and otherwise, he might have come to the conclusion that all our thoughts and feelings,both good and bad, are recorded deep down in our own consciousness. Moreover, the existence of thought-transference leads to the somewhat dreadful suggestion that this record of all our inmost thoughts and feelings may possibly become open to the inspection of every one.

The quotation reminds one of Wordsworth’s sonnet on the “Inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.”

Where music dwellsLingering—and wandering on as loth to die;Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proofThat they were born for immortality.

Where music dwells

Lingering—and wandering on as loth to die;

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof

That they were born for immortality.

... Had I painted the whole,Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth;Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause,Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:—But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said:Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!Robert Browning(Abt Vogler).

... Had I painted the whole,

Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth;

Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause,

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;

It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,

Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:—

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said:Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!

And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.

Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;

It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said:

Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:

And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

Robert Browning(Abt Vogler).

See the preceding note. The poet says that Painting and Poetry are “art in obedience to laws,” but the musician exerts a highercreativewill akin to that of God. The painter has before him the pictures he reproduces,the poet borrows his imagery from visible things and has apt words in which to express his thoughts: the musician has nothing visible, nothing outside his own soul, to assist him, and can use only the meaningless sounds which we hear everywhere around us. By combining, however, three of those empty sounds (in a chord) he evolves a fourth sound, which so transcends all that other arts can do in expressing emotion that Browning compares it to a “star.”But this expresses only part of the poet’s meaning. In using this tremendous comparison to astar, as also in enthroning music supreme above art and poetry, he means that it transcends their loftiest flights and risesabove our worldto the heavens above. In the earlier part of the poem the “pinnacled glory” built by the slaves of sound at the bidding of the musician’s soul is based “broad on the roots of things” and ascends until it “attains to heaven.”F. W. H. Myers, in “The Renewal of Youth,” has a passage on music. His theme is that while music (as in Mozart’s operas) may express human passion, it also (as in Beethoven) rises to greater heights and appears to voice the emotions of a world beyond our senses. In the lines I have italicized in the following passage he no doubt refers to Browning’s line, “That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star!”—the “star” meaning that music ascends to a higher world than our own:—... Music is a creature bound,A voice not ours, the imprisoned soul of sound,—Who fain would bend down hither and find her partIn the strong passion of a hero’s heart,Or one great hour constrains herself to singPastoral peace and waters wandering;—Then hark how on a chord she is rapt and flownTo that true world thou seest not nor hast known,Nor speech of thine can her strange thought unfold,The bars’ wild beat, and ripple of running gold.Not only does Browning unselfishly assert that the sister-art is superior to his own, but he goes further, and doubts if music is not the greatest of all man’s gifts. I do not discuss either contention—leaving musicians to rejoice in the tribute of a great poet.

But this expresses only part of the poet’s meaning. In using this tremendous comparison to astar, as also in enthroning music supreme above art and poetry, he means that it transcends their loftiest flights and risesabove our worldto the heavens above. In the earlier part of the poem the “pinnacled glory” built by the slaves of sound at the bidding of the musician’s soul is based “broad on the roots of things” and ascends until it “attains to heaven.”

F. W. H. Myers, in “The Renewal of Youth,” has a passage on music. His theme is that while music (as in Mozart’s operas) may express human passion, it also (as in Beethoven) rises to greater heights and appears to voice the emotions of a world beyond our senses. In the lines I have italicized in the following passage he no doubt refers to Browning’s line, “That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star!”—the “star” meaning that music ascends to a higher world than our own:—

... Music is a creature bound,A voice not ours, the imprisoned soul of sound,—Who fain would bend down hither and find her partIn the strong passion of a hero’s heart,Or one great hour constrains herself to singPastoral peace and waters wandering;—Then hark how on a chord she is rapt and flownTo that true world thou seest not nor hast known,Nor speech of thine can her strange thought unfold,The bars’ wild beat, and ripple of running gold.

... Music is a creature bound,

A voice not ours, the imprisoned soul of sound,—

Who fain would bend down hither and find her part

In the strong passion of a hero’s heart,

Or one great hour constrains herself to sing

Pastoral peace and waters wandering;—

Then hark how on a chord she is rapt and flown

To that true world thou seest not nor hast known,

Nor speech of thine can her strange thought unfold,

The bars’ wild beat, and ripple of running gold.

Not only does Browning unselfishly assert that the sister-art is superior to his own, but he goes further, and doubts if music is not the greatest of all man’s gifts. I do not discuss either contention—leaving musicians to rejoice in the tribute of a great poet.

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