"As gain--mistrust it! Not as means to gain:Lacquer we learn by: cast in firing-pot,We learn,--when what seemed ore assayed proves dross--Surelier true gold's worth, guess how purityI' the lode were precious could one light on oreClarified up to test of crucible.The prize is in the process: knowledge meansEver-renewed assurance by defeatThat victory is somehow still to reach."
"As gain--mistrust it! Not as means to gain:
Lacquer we learn by: cast in firing-pot,
We learn,--when what seemed ore assayed proves dross--
Surelier true gold's worth, guess how purity
I' the lode were precious could one light on ore
Clarified up to test of crucible.
The prize is in the process: knowledge means
Ever-renewed assurance by defeat
That victory is somehow still to reach."
For men with minds of the type of Spencer's, this negative assurance of an infinite ever on before is sufficient, but human beings, as a rule, will not rest satisfied in such cold abstractions. Though Job said thousands of years ago "Who by searching can find out God," mankind still continues to search.
Now comes Browning and says that it is in that very act of searching that the absolute becomes most directly manifest. From the earliest times of which we have any record man has been aspiring toward God. Many times he has thought that he had found God, but later discovered it to be only God's image built up out of his own human experiences. This search is very beautifully described in the Fancy called 'The Sun,' under the symbol of the man who seeks the prime giver that he may give thanks where it is due for a palatable fig. This search for God Browning calls Love, meaning by that the moving, aspiring force of the whole universe, and many are its manifestations, from the love that goes forth in thanks for benefits received, through the aspirations of the artist toward beauty, of the lover toward human sympathy, even of the scientist toward knowledge, to the lover of humanity like Ferishtah, who declares "I know nothing save that love I can boundlessly, endlessly."
The poet argues from this that if mankind has with ever increasing fervor aspired toward a God of Love, and has ever developed toward broader conceptions of human love, it is only reasonable to infer that in his nature God has something which corresponds to human love, though it transcend our most exalted imagining of it. In John Fiske's recent book 'Through Nature to God' he advances a theory identical with this, evidently unaware that Browning had been before him, for he claims it as entirely original. Fiske's originality consists in his having based his proof upon analogies drawn from the evolution of organic life in following out the law of the adjustment of inner to outer relations. For example, since the eye has through aeons of time gradually adjusted itself into harmony with light, why should not man's search for God be the gradual adjustment of the soul into harmony with the infinite spirit. Other modern thinkers have advanced the idea that love was the ruling force of the universe; nor need we confine ourselves to the moderns, for like nearly every phase of thought, it had its counterpart or at least its seed in Greek thought. Thus we find that Empedocles declared that the ruling forces of the universe were Love and Strife and that the conflict between these was necessary for the continuance of life. As far as I know, however, no other thinker or poet has emphasized with such power the thought that the only true basis of belief is the intuition of God that comes from the direct revelation of feeling in the human heart, and which has been at once the motive force of the search for God and the basis of a conception of God's nature. A natural corollary of such a theory is that every conception man has had of the Infinite had its value as a partial image since it grew out of the divine impulse planted in man, but that in the Christian ideal, the highest symbolical conception was attained through the mystical unfolding of love in the human soul.
The thought of the 'Fancies' is optimistically rounded out in 'A Bean Stripe also Apple Eating' in which Ferishtah argues that life, in spite of the evil in it, seems to him on the whole good, and he cannot believe that evil is not meant for good ends since he is so sure that God is infinite in love.
From all this it will be seen that our poet accepts with Spencerians the negative proof of God growing out of the failure of intellect, but adds to it the positive proof derived from emotion.
It was a happy thought of the poet to present such problems in Persian guise, for Persia stands in Zoroastrianism for the dualism which Ferishtah denies in his recognition of the part evil plays in the development of good, and through Mahometanism for the Fatalism, Ferishtah learned to cast from him. The Persian atmosphere is preserved throughout not only by the introduction constantly of Persian allusions traceable to the great Persian epic the Shah Nameh, but by the telling of fables in the Persian manner to point the morals intended. With the exception of the first Fancy, which is derived from a fable of Bidpai's, we have the poet's own word that all the others are inventions of his own, but they are none the worse for this. These clever stories make the poems lively reading, and we soon find ourselves growing fond of the wise and clever Ferishtah, who like Socrates is never at a loss for an answer, no matter what bothersome questions his pupils may propound.
If we see the thoughtful and brilliant Browning in the 'Fancies' proper, we perhaps see even more clearly the emotional and passionate Browning in the lyrics which add such variety and charm to the whole. This feature is also borrowed from Persian form, a beautiful example of which has been given to English readers in Edwin Arnold's 'Gulistan' or 'Rose Garden' of the poet Sa' di. In fact Sa' di's preface to his 'Rose Garden' evidently gave Browning the hint for his humorous prologue, in which he likens the poems to follow to an Italian dish made of ortolans on toast with a bitter sage leaf, symbolizing sense, sight and song
"Sage-leaf is bitter-pungent--so's a quince:Eat each who's able!But through all three bite boldly--lo, the gust!Flavor--no fixture--Flies, permeating flesh and leaf and crustIn fine admixture.So with your meal, my poem masticateSense, sight, and song there!Digest these, and I praise your peptics' state,Nothing found wrong there."
"Sage-leaf is bitter-pungent--so's a quince:
Eat each who's able!
But through all three bite boldly--lo, the gust!
Flavor--no fixture--
Flies, permeating flesh and leaf and crust
In fine admixture.
So with your meal, my poem masticate
Sense, sight, and song there!
Digest these, and I praise your peptics' state,
Nothing found wrong there."
Similarly Sa' di says "Yet will men of light and learning, from whom the true countenance of a discourse is not concealed, be well aware that herein the pearls of good counsel which heal are threaded on strings of right sense; that the bitter physic of admonition is constantly mingled with the honey of good humor, so that the spirits of listeners grow not sad, and that they remain not exempt from blessings of acceptance."
A further interest attaches to these lyrics because they form a series of emotional phases in the soul-life of two lovers whom I think, we may be justified in regarding as Mr. and Mrs. Browning themselves. I always think of them as companion pictures to 'The Sonnets from the Portuguese.' In these the sun-rise of a great love is portrayed with intense and exalted passion while the lyrics in 'Ferishtah's Fancies' reflect the subsequent development of such a love, through the awakening of whole new realms of feeling, wherein love for humanity is enlarged, criticism from the one beloved, welcome; all the little trials of life dissolved in the new light; and divine love realized with a force never before possible. Do we not see a living portrait of the two poets in the lyric 'So the head aches and the limbs are faint'? Many a hint may be found in their letters to prove that Mrs. Browning with just such a frail body possessed a fire of spirit that carried her constantly toward attainment while he, with all the vigor of splendid health could with truth have frequently said "In the soul of me sits sluggishness." These exquisite lyrics which, whether they conform to Elizabethan models or not, are as fine as anything ever done in that line, are crowned by the epilogue in which we hear the stricken husband crying out to her whom twenty years earlier he had called his "lyric love" in a voice doubting, yet triumphing in the thought that his optimism is the light radiating from the halo which her human love had irised round his head.
In 'The Parleyings' the discussions turn principally upon artistic problems and their relation to modern philosophy, four out of the seven being inspired by artist, poet, or musician. The forgotten worthies whom Browning rescued from oblivion, make their appeal to him upon various grounds that connect them with the present. Bernard de Mandeville evidently caught Browning's fancy because in his satirical poem 'The Grumbling Hive' he forestalled, by a defence of the Duke of Marlborough's war policy, the doctrine of the relativity of good and evil. One might have imagined that this subject had been exhausted in 'Ferishtah's Fancies,' but it seems to have had a great fascination for Browning, probably because the idea was a new one and he felt the need of thinking his way through all its implications. Fresh interest is added in this case because the objector in the argument was a contemporary of Browning's--Carlyle, whose well-known pessimism over the existence of evil is graphically presented. Browning clenches his side of the argument with an original and daring variation upon the Prometheus myth led up to by one of the most magnificent passages in the whole range of his poetry, and probably the finest example anywhere in literature of a description of nature as interpreted by the laws of cosmic evolution. He describes the effect of the sun-light in developing the life upon the earth, tracing it as far as the mind of man. But the mind of man is not satisfied with the purely physical and phenomenal.
"What avails sun's earth-felt thrillTo me? Mind seeks to see,Touch, understand, by mind inside me,The outside mind--whose quickening I attainTo recognize--I only."
"What avails sun's earth-felt thrill
To me? Mind seeks to see,
Touch, understand, by mind inside me,
The outside mind--whose quickening I attain
To recognize--I only."
But Prometheus offered an artifice whereby man's mind is satisfied. He drew Sun's rays into a focus plain and true. The very sun in little: made fire burn and henceforth do man service. Denuded of its scientific and mystical symbolism Browning makes the Prometheus myth teach his favorite doctrine, namely that the image of love formed in the human heart by means of the burning glass supplied by sense and feeling is a symbol of infinite love.
Daniel Bartoli, an extremely superstitious old Jesuit of the 17th century is set up by Browning in the next poem, simply to be knocked down again on the ground that all the legendary saints he worshipped could not compare with a real woman the poet knows. The romantic story of this lady is told in Browning's most fascinating narrative style, so rapid and direct that it has all the force of a dramatic sketch. Her claim upon his admiration consists in her recognition of the sacredness of love which she will not dishonor for worldly considerations, and finding her betrothed love incapable of attaining her height of nobleness, she leaves him free. This story only bears upon the poet's philosophy as it reflects his attitude toward human love, which he considers so clearly a revelation, that any treatment of it not absolutely noble and true to the highest ideals is a sin against heaven itself.
George Bubb Dodington is the black sheep of these later poems and gives the poet an opportunity to let loose all his subtlety and sarcasm; and the reader a chance to use his wits in discovering that the poetassumesto agree with Dodington that when one is serving his state, he should at the same time have an eye to his own private welfare, that hepretendsto criticise only Dodington's method of attaining this-- which is to disclaim that he works for any other good than the state's, nobody would ever believe that. He then gives what purports to be his own opinion on the correct method of successful statesmanship--that is, to pose as a superior being with a divine right to rule, treating everybody as his puppet and entirely scornful of their opinion of him. If he will adopt this attitude he may change his tactics every year and the people instead of suspecting his sincerity will think that he has wise reasons beyond their insight for his changes. Browning is said to have had Lord Beaconsfield in mind when he described this proper method for the statesman. Be that as it may the type is not unknown in this day. Having discovered all this, the wit of the reader may now draw its inferences--which will doubtless be that the whole poem is a powerful, intensely cynical argument, against what we to-day call imperialism and in favor of liberal government which means the development of every individual so that he will be able to see for himself whether this or that policy be right instead of depending upon the leadership of the over-man, whose intentions are unfortunately too seldom to be trusted.
The poet Browning calls out from the shades is Christopher Smart, who was celebrated for having only once in his life composed a great poem, 'The Song of David,' that put him on a par with Milton and Keats. Perhaps we might not altogether agree with this decision, but critics have loved to eulogize its great beauties and whether Browning actually agreed with their conclusions or not makes little difference, for the fact furnishes him with a text for discussing the problem of beauty versus truth in art. Should the poet's province simply be to record his visions of the beauty and strength of nature and the universe, that come to him in moments of inspiration such as that which came once to Christopher Smart? "No," says Browning, whose feet are always firmly based upon the earth. These visions of poets should not be considered ends in themselves but the materials for greater ends. He asks such poets if they would
"Play the fool,Abjuring a superior privilege?Please simply when your function is to rule--By thought incite to deed? Ears and eyesWant so much strength and beauty, and no lessNor more, to learn life's lesson by."
"Play the fool,
Abjuring a superior privilege?
Please simply when your function is to rule--
By thought incite to deed? Ears and eyes
Want so much strength and beauty, and no less
Nor more, to learn life's lesson by."
He goes on to insist that the poet should find his inspiration in the human heart and climb to heaven by its means, not investigate the heavens first. He evidently does not sympathize with Emerson's attitude that the poet has some mysterious connection with the divine mind which enables him to become at one bound a seer who may henceforth lead mankind. Rather must the poet diligently study mankind and teach as a man may through this knowledge. Space does not permit me to dwell on the beautiful opening of this poem which recalls the imaginative faculty of the visions in 'Christmas Eve' and 'Easter Day.'
In 'Francis Furini' the subject is the nude in art, and Browning vows he will never believe the tale told by Baldinucci that Furini ordered all his pictures of this description burned. He expresses his indignation vigorously at some length, showing plainly his own sympathies then makes Furini pray a very beautiful prayer, then deliver before a supposed cultured London audience a long and decidedly recondite speech containing an attack upon that species of agnosticism that allies itself with positivism and Furini's refutation. The upshot of it all is that Furini declares the only thing he is certain of is his own consciousness and the fact that it had a cause behind it, called God.
"Knowledge so far impinges on the causeBefore me, that I know--by certain lawsWholly unknown, what'ere I apprehendWithin, without, me, had its rise: thus blendI, and all things perceived in one effect."
"Knowledge so far impinges on the cause
Before me, that I know--by certain laws
Wholly unknown, what'ere I apprehend
Within, without, me, had its rise: thus blend
I, and all things perceived in one effect."
Readers of philosophy will recognize in this an echo from Descartes. This fact of the human consciousness he further develops into an argument that the painter should paint the human body, just as it was argued the poet should study the human heart.
A Philippic against Greek art and its imitation is delivered by the poet in the 'Parleying with Gerard de Lairesse' whom he makes the scape-goat of his strictures, on the score of a book Lairesse wrote in which was described a walk through a Dutch landscape transmogrified by classic imaginings. To this good soul an old sepulchre, struck by lightning became the tomb of Phaeton, and an old cart wheel half buried in the sand near by, the Chariot of the Sun. In a spirit of bravado Browning proceeds to show what he himself could make of a walk provided he condescended to illuminate it by classic metaphor and symbol, and a remarkable passage is the result. It occupies from the eighth to the twelfth stanzas. It is meant to be in derision of the grandiloquent, classically embroidered style but so splendid is the language, so haunting the pictures, the symbolism so profound that it is as if a God were showing some poor weakling mortal how not to do it--and through his omniscience must perforce create something wondrously beautiful. The double feeling one has about this passage only adds to its interest. After thus classicizing in a manner that might make Euripides himself turn green with envy, he nonchalantly remarks--
"Enough, stop further fooling,"
and to show how a modern poet greets a landscape he flings in the perfectly simple and irresistible little lyric
"Dance, yellows, and whites and reds."
"Dance, yellows, and whites and reds."
The poet's strictures upon classicism are entirely in line with his philosophy, placing as it does the paramount importance on living realities.
"'Do and no wise dream,' he exclaims'Earth's young significance is all to learn;The dead Greek lore lies buried in its urnWhere who seeks fire finds ashes.'"
"'Do and no wise dream,' he exclaims
'Earth's young significance is all to learn;
The dead Greek lore lies buried in its urn
Where who seeks fire finds ashes.'"
The 'Parleying with Charles Avison' is more a poem of moods than any of the others. The poet's love for music is reflected in his claiming it as the highest expression possible to man; but sadness comes to him at the thought of the ephemeralness of its forms, a fact that is borne in on him by the inadequateness of Avison's old March styled "grand." He finally makes of music the most perfect symbol of the evolution of spirit of which the central truth remains always permanent, while the form though ever changing is of absolute value to the time when the spirit found expression in it.
Even this does not quite satisfy the poet's desires for the supremacy of music, and his final conclusion is that if we only get ourselves into a proper historical frame of mind, any form will reveal its beauty, This is a truth which needs especially to be recognized in music, for we too often hear people objecting to Haydn or Mozart and even Beethoven because they are not modern, never realizing that each age has produced its distinctive musical beauty.
But Browning means it of course to have the largest significance in relation to all forms of truth and beauty of which every age has had its living example--thus--his last triumphant mood is, "Never dream that what once lived shall ever die."
I have been able to throw out only a few general suggestions as to these late masterpieces. There are many subtleties of thought and graces of expression which reveal themselves upon every fresh reading, and each poem might well be made the subject of a special study.
I have said nothing about the Prologue and Epilogue to the Parleyings, not because I love them less, but because I love them so much that I should never be able to bring this paper, already too long, to a close if I once began on them. I hope, however, I have said enough not only to prove the point that these poems give complete expression to the thought of the age, but that Browning appears in them, to borrow an apt term from Whitman, as the "Answerer" of the age. That he has unquestioningly accepted the knowledge which science has brought and recognizing its relative character, has yet interpreted it in such a way as to make it subserve the highest ideals in ethics, religion, and art, and that far from reflecting any degeneration in Browning's philosophy of life, these poems put on a firmer basis than ever the thoughts prominent in his poetry from the first, and which constantly find illustration indirectly and sometimes directly in his dramatic poems.
I am just as unable to find any fault with their subject matter as with their form. The variety in both is remarkable. Religion and fable, romance and philosophy, art and science all commingled in rich profusion. Everything in language--talk almost colloquial, dainty lyrics full of exquisite emotion, and grand passages which present in sweeping images now the processes of cosmic evolution, now those of spiritual evolution, until it seems as if we had indeed been conducted to some vast mountain height, whence we could look forth upon the century's turbulent seas of thought, into which flows many a current from the past, while suspended above between the sea and sky like the crucifix in Simons' wonderful symbolistic picture of the Middle Ages, is the mystical form of Divine Love.Helen A. Clarke.
1. Edmund Clarence Stedman.
Readings from Stedman:--'Hebe,' 'A Sea Change.' New York Scenes: 'Peter Stuyvesant,' 'Pan in Wall Street,' 'The Door Step.' A Sheaf of Patriotic Poems: 'The Pilgrims,' 'Old Brown,' 'Wanted a Man,' 'Treason's Device,' 'Israel Freyer,' 'Cuba.' (In 'Poems' Household Edition. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.50.)
Query for Discussion.--Are Mr. Stedman's local and patriotic themes inconsistent with the highest degree of lyric grace, or does his poetic gift appear to best advantage when enlivened by familiar home interests?
2. Louise Chandler Moulton.
Readings:--'A Quest,' 'The House of Death.' Sonnets: 'The New Day,' 'One Dread,' 'Afar,' 'Love's Empty House,' 'The Cup of Death,' 'Before the Shrine,' 'As in Vision,' 'Though We Were Dust,' 'Were but My Spirit Loosed Upon the Air,' 'The New Year Dawns,' 'Aspiration,' 'The Secret of Arcady,' 'Her Picture.' (The first two selections and first three sonnets are in 'Swallow Flights.' New edition of poems of 1877 with additional poems; the four following are in 'The Garden of Dreams'; and the four last sonnets and the other poems in 'At the Wind's Will.' Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $1.25 each. For general review of work see, also, 'The Poetry of Louise Chandler Moulton.' Contemporary Writer Series inPoet-lore. Vol. IV. New Series. Opening Number, 1900, pp. 114-125.)
Query for Discussion.--Is Mrs. Moulton too narrowly restricted to emotional themes and emotional means of expression for bounteous poetic cheer, or is the perfect alliance of her emotional range and workmanship the very source of her lyric excellence.
3. Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
Readings:--'Unsung,' 'Nameless Pain,' 'Quits,' 'Andromeda,' 'Baby Bell,' 'An Untimely Thought,' 'Bagatelle,' 'Palabras Carinosas,' 'On an Intaglio of Head of Minerva.' Sonnets: 'Books and Seasons,' 'The Poets,' 'On Reading William Watson's "The Purple East."' (In Poetical Works. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $2.00.)
Queries for Discussion.--Does Mr. Aldrich escape the usual penalty for laying emphasis on delicacy of finish so that the result is satisfying in its happy precision? Or does he seem cold and elaborately superficial? Does he, so to speak, carve cherry-stones oftener than he engraves cameos?
4. Louise Imogen Guiney.
Readings:--'Peter Rugg,' 'Open Time,' 'The Still of the Year,' 'Hylas,' 'The Kings,' Alexandrina, I, x, and xiii. 'The Martyr's Idyl,' 'Sanctuary,' 'Arboricide,' 'To the Outbound Republic,' 'The Perfect Hour,' 'Deo Optimo Maximo,' 'Borderlands.' (From 'A Roadside Harp' are selected the first five poems and the Alexandrina, from 'The Martyr's Idyl and Shorter Poems' the others. $1.00 each. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)
Queries for Discussion.--Is Miss Guiney's scholasticism too dominant in her work? Does she lack human warmth? Or are her restraint and good taste the index of deeper feeling? Does her cultured thought and chaste concentrated power of expression lift her above the ranks of the minor poets?
5. Richard Hovey.<
Readings:--'Spring,' an Ode, 'The Wander-lovers.' 'Taliesin,' Second, Third, Movements. Sonnets: 'Love in the Winds,' 'After Business Hours,' Act V from 'The Marriage of Guenevere.' ('Spring' first published inPoet-lore, is included in 'Along the Trail' ($1.25), which also contains the sonnets here selected. 'Taliesin' also originally published inPoet-lore, Vol. VIII, old series, January, February, and June, 1896, pp. 1-14, 63-78, 292-306, is recently published in 1 vol. uniform with 'The Marriage of Guenevere' ($1.50). 'The Wander-lovers' appears in 'Vagabondia.' Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. A general review of Hovey's work will be the second of the 'Contemporary Writer Series' in nextPoet-lore.)
Queries for Discussion.--Has Hovey's way of telling the story of Guenevere and Launcelot an advantage realistically over Tennyson's, but none either poetically or ethically? (See on this query, 'The Disloyal Wife in Literature: Comparative Study Programme,'Poet-lore, Vol. I., new series, pp. 265-274, Spring Number, 1897.) Does Hovey attain greatness by his liveliness and human quality joined to varied and skilful metrical effects? Is 'Taliesin' his best work, or is his best work done in his short pieces?
6. Bliss Carman.
Readings:--'Spring Song,' 'A More Ancient Mariner,' 'Envoy,' 'Beyond the Gaspereau,' 'Behind the Arras,' 'The Cruise of the Galleon,' 'A Song before Sailing,' 'The Lodger,' 'Beyond the Gamut,' 'The Ships of St. John,' 'The Marring of Malyn.' (The first, second, and third are in 'Vagabondia'; the fourth inPoet-lore, Vol. I., new series, pp. 321-329, Summer Number, 1897; the next five in 'Behind the Arras' ($1.50); the others in 'Ballads of Lost Haven' ($1.00). Boston: Small, Maynard & Co.)
Query for Discussion.--Is Carman better in his earlier descriptive lyrics, or better in his later symbolical lyrics because these being richer in interest are stronger to hold the deeper reader?
7. Hannah Parker Kimball.
Readings:--'Revelation,' 'The Smoke,' 'The Sower,' 'Consummation,' 'Glory of Earth,' 'Primitive Man,' 'Man to Nature,' 'Eavesdroppers,' 'Social Appeal,' 'The Quiet Land Within,' 'The Saving of Judas Iscariot.' (The first four of the poems named are in 'Soul and Sense,' 75 cents; the last inPoet-lore, Vol. I., new series, pp. 161-168, Spring Number, 1897; the others in 'Victory and Other Poems.' Boston: Copeland & Day, now Small, Maynard & Co.)
Queries for Discussion.--Does Miss Kimball's portraiture of Judas Iscariot reveal a capacity for dramatically creating development in character? Are her lyrics too grave, or is it their especial blend of high seriousness and intellectual insight with unforced expression which gives them unusual richness?
The Editors.
Conceived amid the heat and discomfort of the sweating-shops, born in poverty and squalid surroundings, growing up with hunger and despair and failure, and at last an honored guest at the table of ease and culture--such is the history of the 'Songs from the Ghetto' by Morris Rosenfeld. Mr. Rosenfeld was born of poor parents in Poland in 1862. Wandering in search of work in England and Holland, he at length found a scanty means of support as a tailor in the sweating-shops of New York. Of miserable origin, poorly educated, struggling for the barest necessities of life, there was yet in him a poet's soul, struggling for expression.
The poems of Mr. Rosenfeld, written in the Judeo-German dialect, which he has brought to great literary perfection, have been collected, translated into English prose and edited by Professor Leo Wiener, instructor in Slavic languages at Harvard.
The songs in this little volume are very beautiful, but whether they sing of labour or nature, of the shop or the country, there is in every one a strain of sadness, the melody of each is broken with tears. For the beauty of which the poet sings, the birds and the flowers, are only dreams from which he wakes to the misery in his life. It is not the bitter sadness of hate and rebellion, but the sadness of the Jewish race, resigned and oppressed, expecting no happiness among an alien people, but looking for a life of peace in a new Jerusalem.
"Again your lime will be fragrant, and your orange will gleam," he comforts the wanderer, "again God will awaken and bring you thither. You will sing Shepherd songs as you will herd your sheep; you will live again, live eternally, without end. After your terrible wanderings you will again breathe freely; there will again beat a hero's heart under the silent mountain Moriah."
The songs are not all of labour, or of the sorrows of the Jews. In lighter vein is 'The Nightingale to the Labourer,' 'The Creation of Man'--which contains the pretty idea that the poet alone was given wings, and an angel stood always "ready day and night to attach the wings to him whenever his holy song will rise."
The last song in the little volume, called 'In the Wilderness,' is typical of the poet's spirit; but not, we believe, of his place in the world. For the world is always ready to listen to a song that carries with it the impress of truth and beauty.
"In a distant wilderness a bird stands alone and looks about him, sadly, and sings a beautiful song.
"His heavenly-sweet voice flows like the purest gold, and wakens the cold stones and the prairie wide and deserted.
"He wakens the dead rocks and the silent mountains round about,--but the dead remain dead, and the silent remain silent.
"For whom, sweet singer, do your clear tones resound? Who hears you, and who feels you? And whose concern are you?
"You may put your whole soul into your singing. You will not awaken a heart in the cold, hard rock!
"You will not sing there long,--I feel it, I know it: your heart will soon burst with loneliness and woe.
"In vain is your endeavour, it will not help you, no! Alone you have come, and alone you will pass away!"
'A Vison of New Hellas' is one of the books that is destined to be more important than interesting, more noteworthy than popular. The conception is certainly very beautiful and very wonderful even if the author does not always reach the height of expression towards which he aims. But it is a book which can only appeal to the few, who are ready to search beneath the covering of fantastic imagery and strange verse forms which clothe a high poetic purpose and ideal. Even those who come to the work with a knowledge of the songs of old Hellas and the philosophy of Plato must feel deeply grateful for the elucidating of the meaning of the book in an argument which the author has kindly supplied to forestall the vain imaginings of the uninitiated.
The poet's aim is as serious as was that of Milton or Dante--"to realize as best he can such visions of beauty as may be vouchsafed to him," that through his work he may "make richer the human world in things of the spirit that quicken and delight."
In contemplation the poet rises above the mists of sordidness which rise from the struggle of trade and industry, beyond the clouds of pessimism and religious doubt, and on the Pisgah heights of Hellenic culture he sees a vision of the new life that shall come to man.
Through the beautiful world-myth, the story of Demeter and Persephone and Dionysus, the poet is taught the lesson of the immortality of the race, of its ceaseless progression toward a nobler and more beautiful future. To celebrate their happiness at the discovery that Aidoneus, dread King of Death, is none other than the Lord of Life "leader of the blessed to the highest heaven," they resolve to bring about the redemption of the world.
This is made possible through the union of Aphrodite, Beauty of Form, with Apollo, Light of the Mind. From them shall spring a new race of Gods, typifying the new ideals which shall uplift man until he is fitted for fellowship at the banquet of the Immortals. Thence will rise "a nobler, a larger mankind," wakened at length from "the night of toil, unhallowed by joy in the task." Through Aphrodite will come "feeling and loving--and art that bids death defiance," and through Apollo "seeing and knowing and man's life-mastering science." Thence shall come
"The lover's rapture Elysian,The poet's fury, the prophet's vision,The serene world-sight of the thinker."
"The lover's rapture Elysian,
The poet's fury, the prophet's vision,
The serene world-sight of the thinker."
This vision typified the future regeneration of America and through her of the race. From the sordid reality of present conditions man must advance ever nearer to the "eternal ideal"; from mean conditions, inspired by lofty emotions and holy enthusiasms, shall come new standards of life and of art.
Mr. Guthrie's work indicates in its form some of the characteristics of the new literary art. Though his theories are undoubtedly good, the expression is as yet too crude to form much idea of its possibilities. Whatever may be the age of the author, his work indicates a certain inexperience and lacks the grasp and finish of the skilled workman. His work is too reminiscent; he has not sufficiently assimilated his sources and impressed them with his own individuality, giving them a distinctive unity of conception and expression. Though we are quite willing to accept his assurance that he "did not intend his work to resemble any known performance," we are continually reminded of passages in other writers who had inspired him. At times we are struck with admiration at his power for catching the very trick of his model.
His work is as "oddly suited" as was Portia's lover. For he suggests to us--Homer and the Greek tragedians of course in theme and expression; Milton and Dante with their lofty ideals; Piers Ploughman dreaming about his "fair field full of folk." For the conception he owes much to Shelley's 'Prometheus,' whose theme is very similar, but his methods are more modern, with verse theories of Whitman, philosophy of Browning, a Wagnerian idea of rhythm, making each rhythmical theme represent a peculiar mood or image, which is frequently very effective but sometimes forced.
Harriott S. Olive.
(Songs from the Ghetto, by Morris Rosenfeld. With Introduction, Prose Translation, and Glossary. By Leo Weiner, Instructor in the Slavic Languages at Harvard University. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co.--A Vision of New Hellas--Songs of American Destiny. William Norman Guthrie. Clarke Publishing Company. Chicago: $2.50.)
Colonel Higginson might have added to his 'Contemporaries' as a sub-title: 'Our Nineteenth Century Roll of Honor,' for he makes mention, either brief or extended, in his book, of nearly all the men and women of the age who would be entitled to a place on such a roll. It gives one's patriotism a thrill, on looking down the list, to see how long and splendid a one it is, to note what fine thoughts, emotions, and achievements stand representative in the brief sketches of the period of our national existence which the author has observed and shared in. Patriotic fervor for the past, and, arguing from the past, a renewed hope in the national future, are the dominant feelings the book begets. Not that the author has emphasized the bequests of statesmen and reformers to the country, to the neglect of other influences. The volume contains nineteen sketches; and the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, the man of private though beneficent life, have all places therein; yet all is woven into a whole with one aspect, the national one.
All of the sketches are, as the preface states, reprinted pieces first published in different periodicals any time during the past fifty years. Since from this point of view the volume can have little or no consecutiveness, it is noteworthy that a picture of the times is nevertheless obtained unbroken in its continuity. Every sketch, however fragmentary a part of the life of its subject, has the vigor of its surroundings; and the papers upon the men and women of the Abolitionist period and the Civil War, though most of them have been somewhat revised for their present publication, have the heart-beats of the "times that tried men's souls" throbbing in them true and loud.
One paper, upon John Brown's Household, printed in 1859 and quite unaltered, preserves by the splendid restraint of its simple language the very spirit of the iron endeavor and concentred force it describes.
The value of an author's judgment upon his contemporaries, is unquestioned; the advantage of a personal share in the lives and actions of the men who form his theme, added to our already confidence in his critical judgment, give it worth over other proved biography. On the deeds of many of the men whose work he commemorates, Fame has yet to pronounce lastly: their services are too recent for a perfect judgment. But testimony such as this will surely have value in a decision.
One feels a little inclined to quarrel with the author that there is so little "I" in his book, that there are so few really personal glimpses, but of course this is too much to ask of a book which is really a compilation of scattered sketches; and perhaps Colonel Higginson will remedy the lack in the future.
It is seldom that one has the pleasure of reading so satisfying and delightful a piece of autobiography as Mrs. Howe's 'Reminiscences.' One hardly knows, when the last page is turned, which of two capacities of the mind has been more completely filled and brimmed over: that of intellectual appreciation, or the well where abides the feeling of delighted enthusiasm which is inspired by our friend. We respond to the pleasure the reading gives us with a really personal sense of gratitude.
The subject matter of the book could not have been of other than deep interest. Mrs. Howe's long and beautiful life has been lived in surroundings of the highest culture of her time; the events of which she has written are those which will take their place in the history of the century just closing; and finally, the men and women who were her friends and in whose labors she shared, were the men and women whose opinions have largely moulded the events. But it is not all this, of unfailing interest though it must be, that gives the book its finest quality, and that makes one wish to read it over the moment one has read it through. It is, instead, that we have learned so much of a beauty-gifted and beauty-giving life in words at once so simple and so satisfying. Cheeriness and healthiness--if by the latter word one may express a certain poise and normalness of outlook--are the characteristics of the narrative. The great and the small of life each receive their just due; perhaps it is by her treatment of the small that we are best assured we have read into an intimacy with Mrs. Howe. That perennial question as to the feminine lack of humor, which has lately been re-threshed in the newspapers, should receive final and silencing reply--had it ever deserved a reply at all--in the 'Reminiscences.' The narrative twinkles with keen appreciation of the humorous, the ludicrous, even of the deliciously nonsensical; also abounding in that larger sort of humor which does not consist in seeing the point to a joke, but which makes life bearable and judgments tender under conditions least likely to keep them so.
Assuredly Mrs. Howe did not put together the recollections of her life with primarily didactic purpose, just as assuredly she did not write them down primarily for the benefit of the American young woman. Yet in view of the cause to which she has given the work of her latter years, it is permitted me to say that no greater encouragement could be given it for the future than the words from which we learn her personal services to it and to the other causes which she has aided with brain and hands throughout her life.
Helen Tracy Porter.
(Contemporaries, By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. $2.00. Reminiscences: Julia Ward Howe. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston and New York. $2.50.)
----The last scenes in the present-day epoch of commercialism promise to be like the last scenes in the old-time epoch of feudalism, picturesque, violent, and significant rendings and tearings of the whole body politic prior to a re-formation on the basis of a larger unity. Then they portended the unification of England under the Tudors, or the unification of France under the eleventh Louis. Now they portend--what?
Some larger, more spiritual unity, it may be guessed, that shall quietly and with unprecedented swiftness make use of the materialistic objects which the short-sighted leaders of commercialism now have in mind, and after a manner they no more dream is implied in their success than the royal dynasties of England and France dreamed that the bloody heads of kings would be the fruit of the new nationality.
----To the leaders of the commercial world-movement, their materialistic objects are ends in themselves, very substance of very substance. But the Time-spirit already laughs them to scorn and tosses them, as mere tools out of place, to some more convenient corner of her spacious work-shop, where they make but one with a mass of other such tools awaiting the mastery of her history-shaping hand.
The tumults of South Africa and China are but signs of the vaster tumult in which these tumults shall be devoured and assimilated.
----In the world of faith, too, how restless is the aggregate organism! Ruptures and dissolutions are splitting and fusing orthodoxies and heterodoxies.
And in the withdrawn and secret world of the human consciousness the ferment of new desires and potencies, opposed by all the organized and settled forces of opinion, is permeating thought, and stirring the slumbering soul to try the unguessed faculties of its idealism, as if the real king of the total Unquietness held there his throne.
The world of politics and commerce, the world of faith and intelligence tend, it would seem, already, towards that synthetic development foreseen in 1855, by one whom the obtuse world may yet have reason enough to recognize as one of the clearest-brained statesmen of the nineteenth century, though her trade was poetry not politics--Elizabeth Barrett Browning, when she said of the future:
"What I expect is a great development of Christianity in opposition to the churches, and of humanity generally in opposition to the nations."