Chapter 21

Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,And utterly consumed with sharp distress,While all things else have rest from weariness?All things have rest: why should we toil alone,We only toil, who are the first of things,And make perpetual moan,Still from one sorrow to another thrown:Nor ever fold our wings,And cease from wanderings,Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,“There is no joy but calm!”Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?...Hateful is the dark-blue sky,Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.Death is the end of life; ah, whyShould life all labour be?Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,And in a little while our lips are dumb.Let us alone. What is it that will last?All things are taken from us, and becomePortions and parcels of the dreadful Past.Let us alone. What pleasure can we haveTo war with evil? Is there any peaceIn ever climbing up the climbing wave?All things have rest, and ripen toward the graveIn silence; ripen, fall and cease:Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.Tennyson(The Lotos-Eaters).

Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,

And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,

“There is no joy but calm!”

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?...

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.Death is the end of life; ah, whyShould life all labour be?Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,And in a little while our lips are dumb.Let us alone. What is it that will last?All things are taken from us, and becomePortions and parcels of the dreadful Past.Let us alone. What pleasure can we haveTo war with evil? Is there any peaceIn ever climbing up the climbing wave?All things have rest, and ripen toward the graveIn silence; ripen, fall and cease:Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,

Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.

Death is the end of life; ah, why

Should life all labour be?

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,

And in a little while our lips are dumb.

Let us alone. What is it that will last?

All things are taken from us, and become

Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have

To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence; ripen, fall and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

Tennyson(The Lotos-Eaters).

See preceding quotation.

We may well begin to doubt whether the known and the natural can suffice for human life. No sooner do we try to think so than pessimism raises its head. The more our thoughts widen and deepen, as the universe grows upon us and we become accustomed to boundless space and time, the more petrifying is the contrast of our own insignificance, the more contemptible become the pettiness, shortness, fragility of the individual life. A moral paralysis creeps upon us. For awhile we comfort ourselves with the notion of self-sacrifice; we say, what matter if I pass, let me think of others! But theotherhas become contemptible no less than the self; all human griefs alike seem little worth assuaging, human happiness too paltry at the best to be worth increasing. The whole moral world is reduced to a point; good and evil, right and wrong become infinitesimal ephemeral matters, while eternity and infinity remain attributes of that only which is outside the sphere of morality. Life becomes more intolerable the more we know and discover, so long as everything widens and deepens except our own duration, and that remains as pitiful as ever. The affections die away in a world where everything great and enduring is cold; they die of their own conscious feebleness and bootlessness.

Sir J. R. Seeley(Natural Religion).

See the two preceding quotations.

Death stands above me, whispering lowI know not what into my ear;Of his strange language all I knowIs, there is not a word of fear.W. S. Landor

Death stands above me, whispering lowI know not what into my ear;Of his strange language all I knowIs, there is not a word of fear.

Death stands above me, whispering low

I know not what into my ear;

Of his strange language all I know

Is, there is not a word of fear.

W. S. Landor

LOVE-SWEETNESS

Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfallAbout thy face; her sweet hands round thy headIn gracious fostering union garlanded;Her tremulous smiles; her glances’ sweet recallOf love; her murmuring sighs memorial;Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shedOn cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so ledBack to her mouth which answers there for all:—What sweeter than these things, except the thingIn lacking which all these would lose their sweet:—The confident heart’s still fervour: the swift beatAnd soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing,Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?D. G. Rossetti.

Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfall

About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head

In gracious fostering union garlanded;

Her tremulous smiles; her glances’ sweet recall

Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;

Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shed

On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led

Back to her mouth which answers there for all:—

What sweeter than these things, except the thing

In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:—

The confident heart’s still fervour: the swift beat

And soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing,

Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,

The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?

D. G. Rossetti.

Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him.Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and there am I.

(Logia of Jesus).

This is one of the Logia or Sayings of Jesus written on papyrus in the third century and discovered in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897. The italics, of course, are mine.

The first of all Gospels is this, that a Lie cannot endure for ever.

Meanwhile it is singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided you do not handle it roughly.

There are quarrels in which even Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly, might cover himself with glory—of a temporary nature.

... Nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.

Thou art bound hastily for the City ofNowhere; and wilt arrive!

Carlyle(French Revolution).

It is interesting to learn from a correspondent ofThe Spectator(Feb. 17, 1917) that Carlyle wrote two verses which he combined with Shakespeare’s “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” (Cymbeline iv, 2) to make a requiem, of which he was very fond:Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.Hurts thee now no harsh behest,Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger;Trouble’s storm has got to rest,To his place the wayworn stranger.Want is done, and grief and pain,Done is all thy bitter weeping:Thou art safe from wind and rainIn the Mother’s bosom sleeping.Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages:Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.Hurts thee now no harsh behest,Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger;Trouble’s storm has got to rest,To his place the wayworn stranger.Want is done, and grief and pain,Done is all thy bitter weeping:Thou art safe from wind and rainIn the Mother’s bosom sleeping.Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages:Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

Nor the furious winter’s rages;

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.

Hurts thee now no harsh behest,Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger;Trouble’s storm has got to rest,To his place the wayworn stranger.

Hurts thee now no harsh behest,

Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger;

Trouble’s storm has got to rest,

To his place the wayworn stranger.

Want is done, and grief and pain,Done is all thy bitter weeping:Thou art safe from wind and rainIn the Mother’s bosom sleeping.

Want is done, and grief and pain,

Done is all thy bitter weeping:

Thou art safe from wind and rain

In the Mother’s bosom sleeping.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages:Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

Nor the furious winter’s rages:

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

It takes two for a kiss,Only one for a sigh;Twain by twain we marry,One by one we die.Joy has its partnerships,Grief weeps alone;Cana had many guests,Gethsemane had none.Frederic Lawrence Knowles.

It takes two for a kiss,Only one for a sigh;Twain by twain we marry,One by one we die.Joy has its partnerships,Grief weeps alone;Cana had many guests,Gethsemane had none.

It takes two for a kiss,

Only one for a sigh;

Twain by twain we marry,

One by one we die.

Joy has its partnerships,

Grief weeps alone;

Cana had many guests,

Gethsemane had none.

Frederic Lawrence Knowles.

Byron in “Don Juan” says:All who joy would win must share it,Happiness was born a twin.

Byron in “Don Juan” says:

All who joy would win must share it,Happiness was born a twin.

All who joy would win must share it,

Happiness was born a twin.

(Speaking of the rare and exalted nature of Dorothea, who has adopted the normal, domestic married life) Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me, as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

George Eliot(Middlemarch).

This passage, which finely expresses an important truth, is at the end ofMiddlemarch. The reference is to a story of Herodotus. He says that Cyrus, the Persian, was angry with the river Gyndes (Diyalah), because it had drowned one of the white horses, which, as being sacred to the sun, accompanied the expedition. He, therefore, employed his army to divert the river into 360 channels (representing the number of days in the year). The story was probably told to Herodotus as explaining the great irrigation system that existed in Mesopotamia. The Diyalah flows into the Tigris not far from Baghdad.

Any sort of meaning looks intenseWhen all beside itself means and looks nought.R. Browning(Fra Lippo Lippi).

Any sort of meaning looks intenseWhen all beside itself means and looks nought.

Any sort of meaning looks intense

When all beside itself means and looks nought.

R. Browning(Fra Lippo Lippi).

Hold, Time, a little while thy glass,And, Youth, fold up those peacock wings!More rapture fills the years that passThan any hope the future brings;Some for to-morrow rashly pray,And some desire to hold to-day.But I am sick for yesterday....Ah! who will give us back the past?Ah! woe, that youth should love to beLike this swift Thames that speeds so fast,And is so fain to find the sea,—That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep,These creeks down which blown blossoms creep,For breakers of the homeless deep.Edmund Gosse(Desiderium).

Hold, Time, a little while thy glass,

And, Youth, fold up those peacock wings!

More rapture fills the years that pass

Than any hope the future brings;

Some for to-morrow rashly pray,

And some desire to hold to-day.

But I am sick for yesterday....

Ah! who will give us back the past?Ah! woe, that youth should love to beLike this swift Thames that speeds so fast,And is so fain to find the sea,—That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep,These creeks down which blown blossoms creep,For breakers of the homeless deep.

Ah! who will give us back the past?

Ah! woe, that youth should love to be

Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast,

And is so fain to find the sea,—

That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep,

These creeks down which blown blossoms creep,

For breakers of the homeless deep.

Edmund Gosse(Desiderium).

The night has a thousand eyes,And the day but one;Yet the light of the bright world diesWith the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,And the heart but one;Yet the light of a whole life dies,When love is done.F. W. Bourdillon.

The night has a thousand eyes,And the day but one;Yet the light of the bright world diesWith the dying sun.

The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,And the heart but one;Yet the light of a whole life dies,When love is done.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies,

When love is done.

F. W. Bourdillon.

See reference to this poem inPreface.

But to come again unto Apelles, this was his manner and custom besides, which he perpetually observed, that no day went over his head, but what businesse soever he had otherwise to call him away, he would make one draught or other (and never misse) for to exercise his hand and keepe it in use, inasmuch as from him grew the proverbe,Nulla dies sine linea,i.e.Be alwaies doing somewhat, though you doe but draw a line. His order was when he had finished a piece of work or painted table, and layd it out of his hand, to set it forth in some open gallerie or thorowfare, to be seen of folke that passed by, and himselfe would lie close behind it to hearken what faults were found therewith; preferring the judgment of the common people before his owne, and imagining they would spy more narrowly, and censure his doings sooner than himselfe: and as the tale is told, it fell out upon a time, that a shoomaker as he went by seemed to controlle his workmanship about the shoo or pantofle that he had made to a picture, and namely, that there was one latchet fewer than there should be: Apelles acknowledging that the man said true indeed, mended that fault by the next morning, and set forth his table as his manner was. The same shoomaker comming again the morrow after, and finding the want supplied which he noted the day before, took some pride unto himselfe, that his former admonition had sped so well, and was so bold as to cavil at somewhat about the leg. Apelles could not endure that, but putting forth his head from behind the painted table, and scorning thus to be checked and reproved, Sirrha (quoth hee) remember you are but a shoomaker, and therefore meddle no higher I advise you, than with shoos. Which words also of his came afterwards to be a common proverbe,Ne sutor ultra crepidam.

Pliny(Natural History).

Apelles, the greatest painter of antiquity. The two proverbs mean: “No day without a line,” “A cobbler should stick to his last.”Pantofle, sandal;latchet, the thong fastening the sandal;painted table, panel picture;controlle, find fault with.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,Before rude hands have touched it?Have you marked but the fall of the snow,Before the soil hath smutched it?Have you felt the wool of the beaver?Or swan’s down ever?Or have smelt o’ the bud of the briar,Or the nard in the fire?Or have tasted the bag of the bee?O, so white! O, so soft! O, so sweet is she!Ben Jonson(A Celebration of Charis).

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

Before rude hands have touched it?

Have you marked but the fall of the snow,

Before the soil hath smutched it?

Have you felt the wool of the beaver?

Or swan’s down ever?

Or have smelt o’ the bud of the briar,

Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O, so white! O, so soft! O, so sweet is she!

Ben Jonson(A Celebration of Charis).

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom—a third part bud; a third part past, a third part in full bloom—is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

John Ruskin(Stones of Venice II, vi, 25).

The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

George Eliot(Janet’s Repentance).

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;Purple the sails, and so perfumed thatThe winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke. She did lieIn her pavilion: on each side herStood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,With divers-coloured fans....Her gentlewomen, like the Nereïdes,So many mermaids tended her. At the helmA seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackleSwell with the touches of those flower-soft hands.Shakespeare(Antony and Cleopatra).

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke. She did lie

In her pavilion: on each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers-coloured fans....

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereïdes,

So many mermaids tended her. At the helm

A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle

Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands.

Shakespeare(Antony and Cleopatra).

This and the next three quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85).

Little round Pepíta, blondest maidIn all Bedmar—Pepíta, fair yet flecked,Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as redAs breasts of robins stepping on the snow—Who stands in front with little tapping feet,And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosedThose sleeping crickets, the dark castanets.George Eliot(The Spanish Gypsy).

Little round Pepíta, blondest maid

In all Bedmar—Pepíta, fair yet flecked,

Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red

As breasts of robins stepping on the snow—

Who stands in front with little tapping feet,

And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed

Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets.

George Eliot(The Spanish Gypsy).

And how then was the Devil drest?Oh! he was in his Sunday’s best:His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,And there was a hole where the tail came through.Over the hill and over the dale,And he went over the plain,And backward and forward he swished his long tail,As a gentleman swishes his cane.S. T. Coleridge(The Devil’s Thoughts).

And how then was the Devil drest?Oh! he was in his Sunday’s best:His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,And there was a hole where the tail came through.

And how then was the Devil drest?

Oh! he was in his Sunday’s best:

His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,

And there was a hole where the tail came through.

Over the hill and over the dale,And he went over the plain,And backward and forward he swished his long tail,As a gentleman swishes his cane.

Over the hill and over the dale,

And he went over the plain,

And backward and forward he swished his long tail,

As a gentleman swishes his cane.

S. T. Coleridge(The Devil’s Thoughts).

The stanzas are reversed in order.

We walked abreast all up the street,Into the market up the street;Our hair with marigolds was wound,Our bodices with love-knots laced,Our merchandise with tansy[48]bound....And when our chaffering all was done,All was paid for, sold and done,We drew a glove on ilka hand,We sweetly curtsied, each to each,And deftly danced a saraband.William Bell Scott(The Witch’s Ballad).

We walked abreast all up the street,Into the market up the street;Our hair with marigolds was wound,Our bodices with love-knots laced,Our merchandise with tansy[48]bound....

We walked abreast all up the street,

Into the market up the street;

Our hair with marigolds was wound,

Our bodices with love-knots laced,

Our merchandise with tansy[48]bound....

And when our chaffering all was done,All was paid for, sold and done,We drew a glove on ilka hand,We sweetly curtsied, each to each,And deftly danced a saraband.

And when our chaffering all was done,

All was paid for, sold and done,

We drew a glove on ilka hand,

We sweetly curtsied, each to each,

And deftly danced a saraband.

William Bell Scott(The Witch’s Ballad).

The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85).

ON THE NONPAREIL

Naught but himself can be his parallel.

With marble-coloured shoulders—and keen eyesProtected by a forehead broad and white—And hair cut close, lest it impede the sight,And clenched hands, firm and of a punishing size,Steadily held, or motioned wary-wiseTo hit or stop—and kerchief, too, drawn tightO’er the unyielding loins, to keep from flightThe inconstant wind, that all too often flies—The Nonpareil stands! Fame, whose bright eyes run o’erWith joy to see a Chicken of her own,Dips her rich pen inclaret, and writes downUnder the letter R, first on the score,“Randall—John—Irish Parents—age not known—Good with both hands, and only ten stone four!”Peter Corcoran(The Fancy, 1820).

With marble-coloured shoulders—and keen eyes

Protected by a forehead broad and white—

And hair cut close, lest it impede the sight,

And clenched hands, firm and of a punishing size,

Steadily held, or motioned wary-wise

To hit or stop—and kerchief, too, drawn tight

O’er the unyielding loins, to keep from flight

The inconstant wind, that all too often flies—

The Nonpareil stands! Fame, whose bright eyes run o’er

With joy to see a Chicken of her own,

Dips her rich pen inclaret, and writes down

Under the letter R, first on the score,

“Randall—John—Irish Parents—age not known—

Good with both hands, and only ten stone four!”

Peter Corcoran(The Fancy, 1820).

Randall was a pugilist of the time.“None but himself can be his parallel” is a line fromThe Double Falsehoodof Louis Theobald (1691-1744), but it comes originally from Seneca (Hercules Furens, Act I, Sc. I):Quaeris Alcidae parem?Nemo est nisi ipse.(Do you seek the equal of Alcides?No one is except himself.)I copied the above sonnet fromGossip in a Libraryby Edmund Gosse (1891), partly because Mr. Gosse said of it, “Anthologies are not edited in a truly catholic spirit, or they would contain this very remarkable sonnet.” I hardly think this, but the lines seem sufficiently interesting to quote.

Randall was a pugilist of the time.

“None but himself can be his parallel” is a line fromThe Double Falsehoodof Louis Theobald (1691-1744), but it comes originally from Seneca (Hercules Furens, Act I, Sc. I):

Quaeris Alcidae parem?Nemo est nisi ipse.(Do you seek the equal of Alcides?No one is except himself.)

Quaeris Alcidae parem?Nemo est nisi ipse.

Quaeris Alcidae parem?

Nemo est nisi ipse.

(Do you seek the equal of Alcides?No one is except himself.)

(Do you seek the equal of Alcides?

No one is except himself.)

I copied the above sonnet fromGossip in a Libraryby Edmund Gosse (1891), partly because Mr. Gosse said of it, “Anthologies are not edited in a truly catholic spirit, or they would contain this very remarkable sonnet.” I hardly think this, but the lines seem sufficiently interesting to quote.

Le roi disait, en la voyant si belle,A son neveu:“Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d’elle,Pour un cheveu,Infant Don Ruy, je donnerais l’EspagneEt le Pérou!”Le vent qui vient à travers la montagneMe rendra fou.

Le roi disait, en la voyant si belle,

A son neveu:

“Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d’elle,

Pour un cheveu,

Infant Don Ruy, je donnerais l’Espagne

Et le Pérou!”

Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne

Me rendra fou.

(The King, seeing her so beautiful, said to his nephew, “For one kiss, for a smile, for one hair of her head, Infante Don Ruy, I would give Spain and Peru.”The wind that blows over the mountain will drive me mad.)

Victor Hugo(Gastibelza).

This charmingly extravagant praise of a lady’s beauty recalls the story of another poet. The Eastern conqueror, Timur (or Tamerlane), sent for the Persian poet Hafiz and very angrily asked him, “Art thou he who offered to give my two great cities, Samarkand and Bokhara, for the black mole on thy mistress’s cheek?” Hafiz, however, cleverly escaped trouble by replying, “Yes, sire, I always give freely, and in consequence am now reduced to poverty. May I crave your kind assistance?” Timur was amused at the reply and made the poet a present. The story, however, is considered doubtful, because Timur did not conquer Persia until some years after 1388, which is supposed to be the date of the poet’s death.

Mere verbal insults (to a Roman Emperor) were not considered treason; for, said the Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, in language that is a standing rebuke to pusillanimous tyrants, if the words are uttered in a spirit of frivolity, the attack merits contempt; if from madness, they excite pity; if from malice, they are to be forgiven.

William A. Hunter(1844-1898) (Roman Law, Appendix).

This recalls to mind the numerous cases oflèse-majestéfor words spoken against the Kaiser before the war. The passage would make a pleasant retort to a rude opponent (a “pusillanimous tyrant”) in a debate.

I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great ones, is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular men feign themselves to be servants of others, to make these slaves to them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, etc., that they may be food for him.

Ben Jonson(Mores Aulici).

Ci-gît ma femme, ah! qu’elle est bien,Pour son repos—et pour le mien.Du Lorens.

Ci-gît ma femme, ah! qu’elle est bien,Pour son repos—et pour le mien.

Ci-gît ma femme, ah! qu’elle est bien,

Pour son repos—et pour le mien.

Du Lorens.

Paraphrased as:—Here Abigail my wife doth lie;She’s at peace and so am I.

Paraphrased as:—

Here Abigail my wife doth lie;She’s at peace and so am I.

Here Abigail my wife doth lie;

She’s at peace and so am I.

GLADSTONE AND THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH.

Mr. Gladstone’s relation to Psychical Research affords one more illustration of the width and force of his intellectual sympathies. Many men, even of high ability, if convinced as Mr. Gladstone was of the truth and sufficiency of the Christian revelation, permit themselves to ignore these experimental approaches to spiritual knowledge, as at best superfluous. They do not realize how profoundly the evidence, the knowledge, which we seek and which in some measure we find, must ultimately influence men’s views as to both the credibility and the adequacy of all forms of faith. Mr. Gladstone’s broad intellectual purview,—aided perhaps in this instance by something of the practical foresight of the statesman,—placed him in a quite different attitude towards our quest. “It is the most important work which is being done in the world,” he said in a conversation in 1885. “By far the most important,” he repeated, with a grave emphasis which suggested previous trains of thought, to which he did not care to give expression. He went on to apologize, in his courteous fashion, for his inability to render active help; and ended by saying “If you will accept sympathy without service, I shall be glad to join your ranks.” He became an Honorary Member, and followed with attention,—I know not with how much of study—thesuccessive issues of ourProceedings. Towards the close of his life he desired that theProceedingsshould be sent to St. Deiniol’s Library, which he had founded at Hawarden; thus giving final testimony to his sense of the salutary nature of our work. From a man so immersed in other thought and labour that work could assuredly claim no more; from men profoundly and primarily interested in the spiritual world it ought, I think, to claim no less.

F. W. H. Myers(S.P.R. Journal, June, 1898).

Apart from this interesting glimpse of Gladstone, it shows the importance he attached to the work of the Society for Psychical Research. To the severely orthodox, who think no evidence of life after death should be sought outside “Revelation,” his opinion should appeal. Every increase of knowledge is a further “Revelation.” In the Bible we are told of one resurrection, and there is certainly no reason why we should not seek the evidence of others. We should not shut our eyes and close our ears to newRevelation.The Society has been thirty-eight years in existence and is still insufficiently appreciated. Hodgson said inThe Forum, 1896 “There are so many ways of looking at the world. It may be a speck in space, or a huge cauldron with a graveyard for its crust, a place in which to get a hunger and satisfy it, the fighting ground for a while of dragon or ape, of Trojan or Turk, an evolutionary drama that must end in ice or fire. Many things it means to different men. One is busy with earthworms, another with stars, another with the splendour of the day or the strivings of the human soul. Numerous investigators are hunting for further proofs that we came out of the mud, but very few are seeking indications, in any scientific spirit, of what may follow the toil and turmoil of our individual existence here.”Myers says: “The question of the survival of man is a branch of experimental psychology. Is there, or is there not, evidence in the actual observed phenomena of automatism, apparitions and the like, for a transcendental energy in living men, or for an influence emanating from personalities which have overpassed the tomb? This is the definite question, which we can at least intelligibly discuss, and which either we or our descendants may some day hope to answer.”

The Society has been thirty-eight years in existence and is still insufficiently appreciated. Hodgson said inThe Forum, 1896 “There are so many ways of looking at the world. It may be a speck in space, or a huge cauldron with a graveyard for its crust, a place in which to get a hunger and satisfy it, the fighting ground for a while of dragon or ape, of Trojan or Turk, an evolutionary drama that must end in ice or fire. Many things it means to different men. One is busy with earthworms, another with stars, another with the splendour of the day or the strivings of the human soul. Numerous investigators are hunting for further proofs that we came out of the mud, but very few are seeking indications, in any scientific spirit, of what may follow the toil and turmoil of our individual existence here.”

Myers says: “The question of the survival of man is a branch of experimental psychology. Is there, or is there not, evidence in the actual observed phenomena of automatism, apparitions and the like, for a transcendental energy in living men, or for an influence emanating from personalities which have overpassed the tomb? This is the definite question, which we can at least intelligibly discuss, and which either we or our descendants may some day hope to answer.”

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,Or waves that own no curbing hand,How fast has brother followed brother,From sunshine to the sunless land!Wordsworth(On the Death of James Hogg).

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,Or waves that own no curbing hand,How fast has brother followed brother,From sunshine to the sunless land!

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,

Or waves that own no curbing hand,

How fast has brother followed brother,

From sunshine to the sunless land!

Wordsworth(On the Death of James Hogg).

Car, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon maître,Un certain animal difficile à connoitre,Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal.

Car, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon maître,

Un certain animal difficile à connoitre,

Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal.

(A woman, look you, is a certain animal hard to understand and much inclined to mischief.)

Molière(Le Dépit Amoureux).

Here, where sharp the sea-bird shrills his ditty,Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm,Rose triumphal, crowning all a city,Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm,Built of holy hands for holy pity,Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm.Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion,Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime,Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion,Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime,Filled with spirit of prayer and thrilled with passion,Hailed a God more merciful than Time.Ah, less mighty, less than Time prevailing,Shrunk, expelled, made nothing at his nod,Less than clouds across the sea-line sailingLies he, stricken by his master’s rod.“Where is man?” the cloister murmurs wailing;Back the mute shrine thunders—“Where is God?”Here is all the end of all his glory—Dust, and grass, and barren silent stones.Dead, like him, one hollow tower and hoaryNaked in the sea-wind stands and moans,Filled and thrilled with its perpetual story;Here, where earth is dense with dead men’s bones.Low and loud and long, a voice for ever,Sounds the wind’s clear story like a song.Tomb from tomb the waves devouring sever,Dust from dust as years relapse along;Graves where men made sure to rest and neverLie dismantled by the seasons’ wrong.Now displaced, devoured and desecrated,Now by Time’s hands darkly disinterred,These poor dead that sleeping here awaitedLong the archangel’s re-creating word,Closed about with roofs and walls high-gatedTill the blast of judgment should be heard,Naked, shamed, cast out of consecration,Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves,Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station,Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves,Desolate beyond man’s desolation,Shrink and sink into the waste of waves.Tombs, with bare white piteous bones protruded,Shroudless, down the loose collapsing banks,Crumble, from their constant place detruded,That the sea devours and gives not thanks.Graves where hope and prayer and sorrow broodedGape and slide and perish, ranks on ranks.Rows on rows and line by line they crumble,They that thought for all time through to be.Scarce a stone whereon a child might stumbleBreaks the grim field paced alone of me.Earth, and man, and all their gods wax humbleHere, where Time brings pasture to the sea....But afar on the headland exalted,But beyond in the curl of the bay,From the depth of his dome deep-vaultedOur father is lord of the day.Our father and lord that we follow,For deathless and ageless is he;And his robe is the whole sky’s hollow,His sandal the sea.Where the horn of the headland is sharper,And her green floor glitters with fire,The sea has the sun for a harper,The sun has the sea for a lyre.The waves are a pavement of amber,By the feet of the sea-winds trodTo receive in a god’s presence-chamberOur father, the God.Time, haggard and changeful and hoary,Is master and god of the land:But the air is fulfilled of the gloryThat is shed from our lord’s right hand.O father of all of us ever,All glory be only to theeFrom heaven, that is void of thee never,And earth, and the sea....Swinburne(By the North Sea).

Here, where sharp the sea-bird shrills his ditty,

Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm,

Rose triumphal, crowning all a city,

Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm,

Built of holy hands for holy pity,

Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm.

Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion,Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime,Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion,Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime,Filled with spirit of prayer and thrilled with passion,Hailed a God more merciful than Time.

Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion,

Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime,

Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion,

Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime,

Filled with spirit of prayer and thrilled with passion,

Hailed a God more merciful than Time.

Ah, less mighty, less than Time prevailing,Shrunk, expelled, made nothing at his nod,Less than clouds across the sea-line sailingLies he, stricken by his master’s rod.“Where is man?” the cloister murmurs wailing;Back the mute shrine thunders—“Where is God?”

Ah, less mighty, less than Time prevailing,

Shrunk, expelled, made nothing at his nod,

Less than clouds across the sea-line sailing

Lies he, stricken by his master’s rod.

“Where is man?” the cloister murmurs wailing;

Back the mute shrine thunders—“Where is God?”

Here is all the end of all his glory—Dust, and grass, and barren silent stones.Dead, like him, one hollow tower and hoaryNaked in the sea-wind stands and moans,Filled and thrilled with its perpetual story;Here, where earth is dense with dead men’s bones.

Here is all the end of all his glory—

Dust, and grass, and barren silent stones.

Dead, like him, one hollow tower and hoary

Naked in the sea-wind stands and moans,

Filled and thrilled with its perpetual story;

Here, where earth is dense with dead men’s bones.

Low and loud and long, a voice for ever,Sounds the wind’s clear story like a song.Tomb from tomb the waves devouring sever,Dust from dust as years relapse along;Graves where men made sure to rest and neverLie dismantled by the seasons’ wrong.

Low and loud and long, a voice for ever,

Sounds the wind’s clear story like a song.

Tomb from tomb the waves devouring sever,

Dust from dust as years relapse along;

Graves where men made sure to rest and never

Lie dismantled by the seasons’ wrong.

Now displaced, devoured and desecrated,Now by Time’s hands darkly disinterred,These poor dead that sleeping here awaitedLong the archangel’s re-creating word,Closed about with roofs and walls high-gatedTill the blast of judgment should be heard,

Now displaced, devoured and desecrated,

Now by Time’s hands darkly disinterred,

These poor dead that sleeping here awaited

Long the archangel’s re-creating word,

Closed about with roofs and walls high-gated

Till the blast of judgment should be heard,

Naked, shamed, cast out of consecration,Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves,Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station,Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves,Desolate beyond man’s desolation,Shrink and sink into the waste of waves.

Naked, shamed, cast out of consecration,

Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves,

Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station,

Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves,

Desolate beyond man’s desolation,

Shrink and sink into the waste of waves.

Tombs, with bare white piteous bones protruded,Shroudless, down the loose collapsing banks,Crumble, from their constant place detruded,That the sea devours and gives not thanks.Graves where hope and prayer and sorrow broodedGape and slide and perish, ranks on ranks.

Tombs, with bare white piteous bones protruded,

Shroudless, down the loose collapsing banks,

Crumble, from their constant place detruded,

That the sea devours and gives not thanks.

Graves where hope and prayer and sorrow brooded

Gape and slide and perish, ranks on ranks.

Rows on rows and line by line they crumble,They that thought for all time through to be.Scarce a stone whereon a child might stumbleBreaks the grim field paced alone of me.Earth, and man, and all their gods wax humbleHere, where Time brings pasture to the sea.

Rows on rows and line by line they crumble,

They that thought for all time through to be.

Scarce a stone whereon a child might stumble

Breaks the grim field paced alone of me.

Earth, and man, and all their gods wax humble

Here, where Time brings pasture to the sea.

...

But afar on the headland exalted,But beyond in the curl of the bay,From the depth of his dome deep-vaultedOur father is lord of the day.Our father and lord that we follow,For deathless and ageless is he;And his robe is the whole sky’s hollow,His sandal the sea.

But afar on the headland exalted,

But beyond in the curl of the bay,

From the depth of his dome deep-vaulted

Our father is lord of the day.

Our father and lord that we follow,

For deathless and ageless is he;

And his robe is the whole sky’s hollow,

His sandal the sea.

Where the horn of the headland is sharper,And her green floor glitters with fire,The sea has the sun for a harper,The sun has the sea for a lyre.The waves are a pavement of amber,By the feet of the sea-winds trodTo receive in a god’s presence-chamberOur father, the God.

Where the horn of the headland is sharper,

And her green floor glitters with fire,

The sea has the sun for a harper,

The sun has the sea for a lyre.

The waves are a pavement of amber,

By the feet of the sea-winds trod

To receive in a god’s presence-chamber

Our father, the God.

Time, haggard and changeful and hoary,Is master and god of the land:But the air is fulfilled of the gloryThat is shed from our lord’s right hand.O father of all of us ever,All glory be only to theeFrom heaven, that is void of thee never,And earth, and the sea....

Time, haggard and changeful and hoary,

Is master and god of the land:

But the air is fulfilled of the glory

That is shed from our lord’s right hand.

O father of all of us ever,

All glory be only to thee

From heaven, that is void of thee never,

And earth, and the sea....

Swinburne(By the North Sea).

Swinburne introduced the new Hellenism or paganism, which was followed by Pater and J. A. Symonds and ended with Oscar Wilde (see p. 310 note.) Here Time is the supreme god who wrecks Christian Churches, etc.Although Swinburne had no important message to deliver, yet by his wonderful mastery of metre and language he was of tremendous service in transforming English Poetry (see p. 219.) But in spite of the magical effect of his new melodies, he was wanting in the art (of which Milton is the supreme example) of varying his rhythm and accents. His extreme regularity, notwithstanding the fine language and the splendid swing of his verses, produces in his longer poems a certain effect of monotony. Swinburne spoke of the “spavined and spur-galled Pegasus” of George Eliot, but although she lacked his wonderful lyric melody, she was more artistic and effective than he in varying the rhythm of her verse. However, the immense influence of Swinburne on all subsequent poetry can never be forgotten. Even the dreary Iambic couplet in his hands was transformed into music.

Although Swinburne had no important message to deliver, yet by his wonderful mastery of metre and language he was of tremendous service in transforming English Poetry (see p. 219.) But in spite of the magical effect of his new melodies, he was wanting in the art (of which Milton is the supreme example) of varying his rhythm and accents. His extreme regularity, notwithstanding the fine language and the splendid swing of his verses, produces in his longer poems a certain effect of monotony. Swinburne spoke of the “spavined and spur-galled Pegasus” of George Eliot, but although she lacked his wonderful lyric melody, she was more artistic and effective than he in varying the rhythm of her verse. However, the immense influence of Swinburne on all subsequent poetry can never be forgotten. Even the dreary Iambic couplet in his hands was transformed into music.

There is the love of the good for the good’s sake, and the love of the truth for the truth’s sake. I have known many, especially women, love the good for the good’s sake; but very few, indeed—and scarcely one woman—love the truth for the truth’s sake. Yet without the latter, the former may become, as it has a thousand times been, the source of the persecution of the truth—the pretext and motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry. To see clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately identical is given only to those who love both sincerely and without any foreign ends.

S. T. Coleridge(Table Talk).

The old creeds grew out of human nature as genuinely as weeds and flowers out of the earth. It is well enough that the gardener, whose business it is to pull them up, should despise them as pigweed, wormwood, chickweed, shadblossom: so theyare, out of their place; but the botanist picks up the same and recognizes them as Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchier, Amaranth.Natura nihil agit frustra.Let us coax each to yield its last bud.

Moncure D. Conway.

I have not Conway’s bookAn Earthward Pilgrimageto refer to. The latter part of the above is apparently a quotation from Thoreau, as I remember it is so quoted by Emerson.

God is my witness, what hours of wretchedness I have spent at times, while reading the Bible devoutly from day to day, and reverencing every word of it as the Word of God, when petty contradictions met me which seemed to my reason to conflict with the notion of the absolute historical veracity of every part of Scripture, and which, as I felt,in the study of any other bookwe should honestly treat as errors or mis-statements, without in the least detracting from the real value of the book! But in those days, I was taught that it was my duty to fling the suggestion from me at once, “as if it were a loaded shell shot into the fortress of my soul,” or to stamp out desperately, as with an iron heel, each spark of honest doubt, which God’s own gift, the love of truth, had kindled in my bosom.... I thank God that I was not able long to throw dust in the eyes of my own mind, and do violence to the love of truth in this way.

Bishop Colenso(1814-1883) (Pentateuch).

(See G. W. Cox’sLife of Colenso, I, 493.) Colenso’s quotation, “as if it were a loaded shell,” etc., is from Bishop Wilberforce. Cox mentions elsewhere that in one of Wilberforce’s published sermons he speaks of a young man of great promise dying in darkness and despair, because he had indulged in doubt as to whether the sun and moon stood still at Joshua’s bidding! Who, that went through the experiences of those days, can ever forget them? We had been taught that we “must believe” every word of the Bible to be divinely inspired or else be eternally damned. And yet we realized that such belief was absolutely impossible!The horror with which Bishop Colenso’s revelations were received in orthodox circles would to-day be scarcely credible, and not until after the eighties were the results of the Higher Criticism generally accepted.

The horror with which Bishop Colenso’s revelations were received in orthodox circles would to-day be scarcely credible, and not until after the eighties were the results of the Higher Criticism generally accepted.

Let a man be once fully persuaded that there is no difference between the two positions, “The Bible contains the religion revealed by God,” and “Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God”; and that whatever can be said of the Bible, collectively taken, may and must be saidof each and every sentence of the Bible, taken for and by itself,—and I no longer wonder at these paradoxes. I only object to the inconsistency of those who profess the same belief, and yet affect to look down with a contemptuous or compassionate smile on John Wesley for rejecting the Copernican system as incompatible therewith; or who exclaim, “Wonderful!” when they hear that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to the gallows in honour of the Witch of Endor.... I challenge these divines and their adherents to establish the compatibility of a belief in the modern astronomy and natural philosophy with their and Wesley’s doctrine respecting the inspired Scriptures.

S. T. Coleridge.

For the Parsons are dumb dogs, turning round,And scratching their hole in the warmest ground,And laying them down in the sun to wink,Drowsing, and dreaming, and thinking they think.As they mumble the marrowless bones of morals,Like toothless children gnawing their corals,Gnawing their corals to soothe their gumsWith a kind of watery thought that comes.W. C. Smith(Borland Hall).

For the Parsons are dumb dogs, turning round,

And scratching their hole in the warmest ground,

And laying them down in the sun to wink,

Drowsing, and dreaming, and thinking they think.

As they mumble the marrowless bones of morals,

Like toothless children gnawing their corals,

Gnawing their corals to soothe their gums

With a kind of watery thought that comes.

W. C. Smith(Borland Hall).

Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans in poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. Corn—which, in my garden, grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority—is, however, the child of song. It “waves” in all literature.

Charles Dudley Warner(My Summer in a Garden).

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