Men produce nothing. They control nothing. On the contrary, they are themselves like bubbles thrown up with the heavings of an infinite sea. They do not direct the course of history. Nations go to battle as the clouds enter a storm. Do clouds really fight, or are they not rather driven into concussion? Are not unseen forces behind both the nations and the clouds? What was Rome but a catapult, and Cæsar but the stone? He was flung from it beyond the Alps to fall upon the barbarians of Gaul and Britain. What was Alfred but the bared right arm of England? What was Dante but a wail of the middle ages?—and what was Luther but a tocsin? What was Napoleon but a thunderbolt rattling among the thrones of Europe? He did not fling himself, butwas flung!The whole tendency of inquiry respecting the place of man in history has been to reduce the agency of the individual. Every advance in our scientific knowledge has confirmed what was aforetime only a suspicion, that the influence of man, as man, on the world’s course of events is insignificant. Over all there is a controlling Force and Tendency, without which events and facts and institutions are nothing…. History may be defined as the aggregate of human forces acting under law, moving invisibly—but with visible phenomena…. The individuals who contribute to the vast volumedo not understand their contributions thereto, or the general scheme of which they are little more than the atomic parts.Over this aggregate of human forces there presides somehow and somewhere a Will, a Purpose, a Principle, the nature of which no man knoweth to this day. To this Will and Purpose, to this universal Plan, which we are able to see dimly manifested in the general results and course of things, men give various names according to their age and race; according to their biases of nature and education. Some call it … Fate; some, the First Cause; some, the Logos; some, Providence; some of the greatest races have called it God.
Men produce nothing. They control nothing. On the contrary, they are themselves like bubbles thrown up with the heavings of an infinite sea. They do not direct the course of history. Nations go to battle as the clouds enter a storm. Do clouds really fight, or are they not rather driven into concussion? Are not unseen forces behind both the nations and the clouds? What was Rome but a catapult, and Cæsar but the stone? He was flung from it beyond the Alps to fall upon the barbarians of Gaul and Britain. What was Alfred but the bared right arm of England? What was Dante but a wail of the middle ages?—and what was Luther but a tocsin? What was Napoleon but a thunderbolt rattling among the thrones of Europe? He did not fling himself, butwas flung!
The whole tendency of inquiry respecting the place of man in history has been to reduce the agency of the individual. Every advance in our scientific knowledge has confirmed what was aforetime only a suspicion, that the influence of man, as man, on the world’s course of events is insignificant. Over all there is a controlling Force and Tendency, without which events and facts and institutions are nothing…. History may be defined as the aggregate of human forces acting under law, moving invisibly—but with visible phenomena…. The individuals who contribute to the vast volumedo not understand their contributions thereto, or the general scheme of which they are little more than the atomic parts.
Over this aggregate of human forces there presides somehow and somewhere a Will, a Purpose, a Principle, the nature of which no man knoweth to this day. To this Will and Purpose, to this universal Plan, which we are able to see dimly manifested in the general results and course of things, men give various names according to their age and race; according to their biases of nature and education. Some call it … Fate; some, the First Cause; some, the Logos; some, Providence; some of the greatest races have called it God.
We come then to the admission on the Buckle side of the argument that the forces referred to as “universal causation” may possibly include the will of God. And from the time this admission is made there seems to be little of material difference between the contestants. Practically, both refer, or may refer, back to the will of God; and the discussion here brings me to the point at which some pertinent questions may be asked.
In what historical crises has the will of God been manifested? Can you confidently point to one? If so, your conversational friend will probably call your attention to some terrible disasters which arose from it. Perhaps you may thus point to some monarchy. But your iconoclastic friend will probably refer you to a loathsome system of parasitic adulation, in which place and position went by favoritism and whimsical preference, and where advancement through personal merit was almost unknown. These ills, you think, could not be present in a republic; but when you point to one of these, your attention is directed to an internal rottenness in which justice and liberty are bought and sold by men who must make their fortunes during a short term of irresponsible office. You are then apt to smile at the idea that any of these represented the intentions of God.
Or, to take an extreme case, you may instance the life, teachings, and death of Christ. But if your friend be a fairly good amateur historian he can sufficiently indicate the many wars, the almost countless conflicts and incalculable amount of manslaughter that belief in Christ gave rise to. He can tell of those stupendous waves of crusadic fanaticism in the course of which the pillage and rapine of utterly lawless hordes brought undying disgrace upon Europe. He can pile story upon story of carnage and divided homes until you may possibly conclude that it would have been better for the world if the cross of Golgothahad never been heard of. A wrong conclusion, most certainly; but one that has oceans of facts to back it.
Outside the cases in which retribution has seemed to follow close upon wrongdoing, where can we find a momentous event of history which we can point out to ourselves and say with confidence, “That, certainly, was brought about by the will of God.” If amalgamation of hostile baronies into one dominant nation and the acquirement of many civil advantages may be regarded as a blessing, then some will point back to an immensely picturesque figure of history and claim that the Norman William was one specially produced by the divine will for an event from which issued peculiarly valuable results. But here we have to face a question which is continually prominent when historical events are attributed to the will of God: “Is it necessary,” we are driven to ask ourselves, “that God’s purposes be brought to a culmination through trickery, perjury, manslaughter, and every kind of falsity?” Personally I feel totally unable to think this. I wish to mention the difficulties which everyone who thinks honestly must encounter, and to do so reverently. History thus seems to enforce acceptance of one of two conclusions: Either that the justice of God is not what we are glad to suppose it to be; or else that these matters were not conducted according to the divine will. For in William’s case we find all these difficulties: the claim to be acting on Harold’s promise, the prior mortgaging of the intended results to the church of Rome in order to gain the assistance of foreign hordes by calling the proposed invasion a holy war, and other trickeries which need not now be set out. He brought his newly-made England into the bondage of a hierarchy, and in buying Romish aid established a precedent that was followed by other kings until priestcraft gained the unlimited power which drained the coffers of Europe, impoverished Italy, beggared Spain, revelled in the demoniacal Inquisition, subsequently degraded the Lower Canadians to almost the ignorance of the beasts, and is now using the whole of its political power to fasten its vampire clutch upon the fair virgin provinces of the Canadian Northwest.
If William could have foreseen some results of his handiwork he could have been properly regarded as one of the worst devils ever let loose upon the earth. And yet we are asked to believethat all these things were foreknown to the Deity, and that the shaping of William’s policy was under the divine will.
This brief survey of a great event is only one of a large number that could be made, each collection of occurrences showing similar mixed conditions—some exhibiting resulting benefits, but in many cases mingled with disaster and distress to such an extent that the movement as a whole cannot possibly be attributed by any thinking person to the divine will.
Every historian will admit that in the great events of history, the conquests and other large acquisitions of territory, some one or more of the following disgraces were present: the killing of human beings, false pretences, pillage and rapine, human tortures, treacheries, imprisonments, introductions of diseases, plagues, and bad habits, traffic in drugs and liquors which debauched, degraded, and killed. Such a list is almost endless. And shall we say that an Almighty Father caring for his children could have desired such proceedings? Surely not! Let us be sensible and conform our judgment to the evidence.
In doing so, what is our alternative? Are we not forced to comprehend that even the most valuable improvements were only advanced so far as human intelligence could advance them when this intelligence was illuminated by a partial exercise of its highest faculties? Are we not forced to admit that the resulting benefits, whether personal or national, were for the most part those which were humanly foreseen, and that the subsequent disasters were for the most part those which could not be foreseen by human intelligence?—or were foreseen and intentionally risked and braved? Has there been a single event of history which cannot be honestly attributed to human intelligence—this being aided by a partial exercise of its highest faculties?
What, then, are these highest faculties? What are the powers within man which enable him to transcend other men, and previous men? Let me here state my conviction, which later on will seem justified, that advance in comprehension of the higher faculties in man must be gained through a further acquaintance with phenomena which may be present in hypnotic conditions. I do not mean that personal attention to the experiments is necessary, no matter how preferable. Nor do I suggest that they tell as much as one could wish—at least, so far as Ihave followed them. Mine have only led me to the outside ramparts of vast realms which await the investigations of others.
What I mean is that everyone should in some way be made certain, either through personal experiment or reliable hearsay, that in the human make-up there are faculties which may be forced by will-power into an activity which they do not manifest in the ordinary daily life. There is no reason to doubt that these are the same faculties which become so apparent in the keen-sightedness of those who are great in statecraft, diplomacy, business, or in any other way. With ordinary people, especially the laboring classes, these faculties seem more inactive, through disuse. In most men they seem to show activity only when forced by concentration and will-power; but there are bright people of both sexes in whom they seem very alert without urging.
My reasons for stating that everyone should be acquainted with these peculiarities are well founded. Without this the admission that there is a “soul” in man is largely due to the compulsion of hearsay. Without this, and certain other studies, some of the reasons for the evolution of man and beast are obscured, and the most telling argument in favor of further evolution remains practically a blank. Without this we need not look for a better understanding of man’s place in history. But, on the other hand, this kind of research supplies proof of many seemingly miraculous powers in man which have valuable explanations to make in regard to the history of history.
Here the truth-seeker may prove to himself the reality of “soul.” And why should anyone admit its reality if he has never had cause to regard himself as anything better than a good-natured animal? Unless he has had made clear to him some soul-truths (which, owing to the fact that every human being is a hypnotic patient, are generally made manifest without any dabbling in experiments)—unless, I say, he has been in some way convinced of the reality of “soul,” his moral ramparts are chiefly constructed of the hearsay that provides but slim defence. The suggestion here is that the best way to be able to believe in miracles is to learn how to perform them!
This paper, however, will deal solely with man’s place in history, which is only a section of the ranges of view which the study of the mesmeric phenomena forces into consideration.We want to know more about those who have controlled armies, nations, events, and themselves. We want to gain a better idea of the forces at work in the making of history; how far, if not entirely, man was responsible; how far, if at all, he was assisted in any peculiar way toward the acquirement of a farsightedness superior to that of his fellows; why historical events, both in their inception and action, were so peculiarly human and often so dreadfully animal; why the sought-for and acquired benefits have so often been mingled with distress and catastrophe.
These somewhat numerous inquiries are answered, in effect, by an exposition of the faculties referred to, and of the powers by which these may be forced into increased activity. When these are understood so far as they can be explained here, then the answers to all the above queries will become apparent to those who apply the facts to their knowledge of history; and they will need no more detailed answer than that which I shall give.
Many have noted the fact that the foremost personages of history have been men of great will-power. They might be French, Greek, Jew, or Moslem; they might be of any occupation, rank, or color; but always they were men of great will-power. This has been the one peculiarity common to all. But why should will-power be asine qua nonof greatness? The reasons will appear as we proceed.
In the year 1897 an attempt to explain mesmerism is not as necessary as it used to be. The amount of notice which the newspapers give to the subject suggests that an interest in it is very widespread in America. Even the most illiterate must now be aware that persons may be so influenced by the wills of others that they pass into a sleep, or a condition resembling sleep, during which they are to a large extent, and sometimes entirely, subject to the wills of the actuators. Professionals have also assisted in instructing the public as to the minor phenomena. One of them has lately been making money in New York by keeping his patient in the hypnotic trance for a week, during which ignorant medical students and doctors tried brutal methods of awakening the victim—the same methods which disgrace some of the hospitals when unfortunates pass into trances from unknown causes. In other cases, persons in the audience are requested to pencil secretly somelines on paper and hide the writings in their pockets. The patient on the stage then reads the writing, and this reading is subsequently compared with the hidden papers and found to be correct. The numbers engraved on people’s watches are also read in the same way.
I have never attended such performances because they had nothing to teach me; and if confederates were used, all I can say is that the performances could be given much more easily without confederates. My reason for mentioning these people is that their work, if genuine, as I suppose, allows me a greater brevity in this paper; also because their large numbers prove the truth of what I published long ago, that anyone of fairly strong will-power can perform these seeming marvels if a suitable patient can be procured. It may, however, be accepted as absolutely correct that the vision of mesmerized patients is not impeded by materials. In my earliest experiments I tried all kinds of receptacles when secreting articles. But the changes made no difference. The patients can discern the interior of an iron box as easily as we in the ordinary state can see through a glass one. Of course this has nothing to do with ordinary vision, the eyelids being closed at the time. All such trials as this I ranked in the lowest grade, because the patients may have been reading what was within my own knowledge—a faculty that was partly exhibited to prominent men in chief cities by Mr. Stuart Cumberland and Mr. Irving Bishop.
This classifying of my experiments is only to bring on their mention in the order in which they seem to increase in importance. As a fact, the same faculties attend to them all. Still, the division is useful. Second, then, come those which dealt with long distances. To one of my first patients (a messenger in a law-office) I showed scenes in Syria, Egypt, Athens, and Rome, and after I had removed him from the mesmeric sleep I handed him a pile of photographs which I had brought from foreign countries. He turned them over rapidly and picked out the picture of the scene he had witnessed, and without hesitation. I ranked all this class next to lowest in importance because I had the scenes in my own mind at the time. Yet the patients saw more than I was thinking of. When I showed this messenger the obelisk in front of St. Peter’s at Rome, healso described the great colonnade around the piazza, which I had at the moment forgotten. Subsequent experiments with others made me know that he was viewing the scene itself.
The class ranked third, or next higher, were those in which the patients were called from a distance. In the Arlington Heights Sanitarium some of the patients formerly received, and I suppose still receive, beneficial hypnotic treatment. One patient, Grace ——, could be called into the office at any time by the simple will of Dr. Ring, the proprietor. I received the account from a valued nurse who attended this patient in the hospital. I was able to do the same thing myself in one case, but only when the patient was at some occupation which did not require much concentration. I am not prepared to speak as to the spaces across which this influence may be exerted. With another patient, who was over two miles away, the experiment seemed fairly successful, but I am not sufficiently certain to claim a success.
In class four, the patients told facts which had not been previously within their knowledge or mine. For tests of this kind I would procure from friends some old coins wrapped up so that I could not know the dates on them. When the first patient with whom this was tried was told to pass into the sleep she called out the date of the coin almost instantaneously—“1793.” I thought she was still awake and guessing. But in that instant she had passed into a deep sleep and had told the date correctly.
In the fifth class the reader’s credence will be much tested. Many of the Scripture miracles were not a whit more difficult to believe. In fact, some were precisely the same. Professional frauds have created much hostility to the idea of anyone possessing clairvoyance. But the somewhat amusing fact is that every human being is a clairvoyant—which could be shown beyond disagreement if the doubter were placed in the mesmeric trance. An instructive experiment has lately been told me, in which the same patient, Grace ——, was used. A Mrs. Fuller, an invalid in the hospital, was anxious about her daughter, who had not lately written. Dr. Chapin, one of the house doctors, was the actuator. Under his will the faculties of Grace —— were made to see the child, then about thirtymiles off. She described Mrs. Fuller’s home, its interior, the daughter coming from school with her books, whom she talked to, what she said, the precise time on a peculiar old clock in the room, and a call on a neighbor then made by the daughter—all of which was afterward proved to have been correctly reported. I mention Dr. Chapin’s work because it relieves me of some of the seeming egotism which a recital of this kind enforces, and because my own experiments, which were, in effect, precisely the same, though different in detail, have been published elsewhere.[16]
As if these facts were not astounding enough, we come finally to a sixth class, in which we find that these marvels can be produced by one’s own will-power acting on one’s own interior faculties—the proofs of which I have already published.
Now here, I submit, we get our right clew to the true position of man in history. We now see why great men had always to be possessed of peculiar will-power. They were great when the intensities of their ambitions, desires, or necessities forced from their soul-faculties some portions of knowledge which gave them a temporary ascendency, such, for instance, as would provide an advantage in strategy, statecraft, duplicity, treachery, or any other qualities which have assisted men who were leaders. There was no limit to this, for the experiments show that there is some quality in the soul of man that seems to be omniscient, or in direct correspondence with omniscience.
It was always through stress. None have become great in idleness or slackened energies. And as soon as the stress ceased, after the occasion for the intense strivings of years passed, when the fruits of victory were being enjoyed, when the aim of life was simply to hold and not to gain, then the man ceased to be markedly different from others. Then other men lead, because nature’s leaderships are gained by that intensest concentration which forces the best methods from the soul-faculties. Apply this system of nature to any great event of history and you will invariably find it accomplishing the known results. There you will find a man making a name for himself, and, in a sense, making history. Always through stress,strain, and necessity, in the same ways that extraordinary ingenuity comes to men and animals to assist their escape from situations of dire peril. Lock up the human wild beasts who agonize for liberty, and you will find that few jails will hold them. And their escapes may well be called miraculous.
The question then comes back for answer: What about this “universal causation”?—Fate?—the will of God? Here it must be said, as before, that no event of history can be selected which cannot be honestly referred to the intelligence of man when this has been assisted by a partial use of his soul-faculties. When human projects ran foul of natural laws, disaster followed. For instance, the acquirement of a new territory may take a vast amount of energy and heroic fighting—and the will of one man may then be paramount in making a fact of history coupled with his name; but if the army of occupation dies in the swamps of the conquered country, shall the disaster be attributed to God? Shall we not rather say that if the events of history were in His intended control they would be less cruel, less human, less bestial? Can anyone trace a lasting benefit that arose from Napoleon’s career? The meteor disappeared into impalpable dust. The conquered lands returned to their owners. Was any country improved by his coming? He left a bloody trail through Egypt, but not till the last decade has the Egyptian fellah known a whiff of liberty or justice for two thousand years. The only outcome that lasts to the present day is the assisted vanity of the French people, a vanity built on the abilities of one man, which were lost to the country when he died. Does anyone see a trace of the will of God in all this? I do not.
His Corsican mother bore him while she attended her husband in his battles. The offspring was marked for war in his mother’s womb. He was preëminently a natural product; and in him we find indomitable will continually concentrated on faculties which yielded the discernments that made him master of men and master of war. No man came under his scrutiny without feeling that he was read to the core. The weaknesses, strengths, vanities, braveries, and ambitions of others were all read, used, and played upon for one man’s ends. And from Bismarck back to Cyrus we find all the great ones ruling in thesame way—through the discernments that are will-forced from the soul-faculties.
But among lesser men, and in everyday life? Here, the same, only in lesser degrees; not with a knowledge of the processes at work, and thus without the conscious direction of effort which would produce more satisfactory results; though often the world is astonished when the extraordinary introspection of some business men enables them to make money in all their dealings. This is not luck. Their amassed wealth is the proof of their life’s strain—almost another name for it. And it should be remarked, in passing, that most of the great ones have been deeply religious in their own ways. Jay Gould was deeply religious in his own way, though I am told he wrecked many. So is Bismarck. So were Wellington and Von Moltke—men who guided frightful carnage. We may smile at the religion which wrecks and kills and prays, but we do not remove the combination; and it is probable that the great ones have been too closely conscious of their own sudden discernments to find a gross materialism possible. It was the same with the pagans. Even Bonaparte had an implicit belief in what he called his lucky star.
The followers of Buckle claim that man is personally hardly more than a cipher in history, that his name is hardly worth writing in the great scroll. But how is this when the fate of Europe rests, as it may rest at this moment, wholly and solely in the faculties of one man? The instinct of hero-worship is too deep-set to be valueless. And the experiments which do so much to explain the sources of increased human knowledge point to the fact that it is in the man of the hour that the history of the hour is written. One leads; the others follow. Gifted he may be, even before he is born; endowed he may be, by forefathers who were clean; but when the event approaches there is always one who more than others realizes the stress, strain, or peril, and in a mighty effort creates from his own faculties a scheme or plan which others are glad to follow.
That is greatness. That is history. That is creation. For creation is of spirit; and man, as these seemingly trivial experiments prove, is also, in part, of spirit. The disasters that may result through other causes from his action are only the proof of his humanness—proof that his strain for enlightenment wasnot continued. In these ways history is human, but always with a partly secreted and godlike faculty awaiting demand. “Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The greatest man that ever lived taught this. And whatever he was, or was not, he knew more than any other man.
This article is by no means intended to suggest that the will of God need not be considered in the study of history. When it is proved that human privacy is impossible, and that any ordinary person’s soul may be made to see us at all times, then we may be quite sure that the Giver of these faculties to man possesses them himself and that we are watched both personally and nationally. But the articleisintended to suggest that man has progressed and has been great when the exercise of his will-power, or the concentrated desire of prayer, has forced his interior faculties, perhaps through their correspondences, to help him through enlightenment. We find ourselves placed on this planet in total ignorance as to why we came or where we go, but there seems to be one continuous purpose through all—that man shall improve. It may be that high intelligence, combined with experience in all grades of life, is required somewhere else. It may be that in order to gain such experience it must be lived through. There would certainly be no striving if everything came to us as an unearned gift. The disasters resulting from one man’s action are a warning to the next venturer; and if experience is not, or cannot be, sent into a soul as an unearned gift, then the higher wisdom may be non-interference.
The estimate of man’s personal agency in history is necessarily raised when the faculties he has utilized in gaining his ends are inquired into. Such a study seems to lead toward an alteration in the accepted idea of divine control in matters of history when it suggests this intention—that the divinity of a right control shall be shown through man. Such a study shows that he is sufficiently endowed with a spiritual nature, not only for this purpose, but for any other; and it suggests that, as his faculties bring him into direct connection with some All-knowledge from which every kind of intelligence may be drawn, he is expected to use his opportunities; also that the natural consequences of mistakes will not be rectified except through the intelligence supplied to further demand.
BY MILES MENANDER DAWSON.
She stands beside her mate, companion-wise,Erect, self-poised, with clear, straightforward eyes.For what she knows he is she holds him dear,And not for what she fancies him—with fear.Brave spirit! Disillusionized, she liftsWhat blinder women bear as heaven’s ill gifts.She asks but, ere she reproduce a man,He truly be one, so a woman can.She gives not for the asking, nor as oneWho does unpleasant things that must be done.Nay, he who half-unwilling love receivesKnows not the full-orbed joy she freely gives.Emancipated, on firm feet she stands,And all that man exacts of her demands;The new morality, the art of life,And not obedience, holds her as wife.Hail, the new woman! By her choices sheDetermines wisely what mankind shall be.She will not with eyes open be beguiledTo choose a tainted father for her child.
She stands beside her mate, companion-wise,Erect, self-poised, with clear, straightforward eyes.For what she knows he is she holds him dear,And not for what she fancies him—with fear.
She stands beside her mate, companion-wise,
Erect, self-poised, with clear, straightforward eyes.
For what she knows he is she holds him dear,
And not for what she fancies him—with fear.
Brave spirit! Disillusionized, she liftsWhat blinder women bear as heaven’s ill gifts.She asks but, ere she reproduce a man,He truly be one, so a woman can.
Brave spirit! Disillusionized, she lifts
What blinder women bear as heaven’s ill gifts.
She asks but, ere she reproduce a man,
He truly be one, so a woman can.
She gives not for the asking, nor as oneWho does unpleasant things that must be done.Nay, he who half-unwilling love receivesKnows not the full-orbed joy she freely gives.
She gives not for the asking, nor as one
Who does unpleasant things that must be done.
Nay, he who half-unwilling love receives
Knows not the full-orbed joy she freely gives.
Emancipated, on firm feet she stands,And all that man exacts of her demands;The new morality, the art of life,And not obedience, holds her as wife.
Emancipated, on firm feet she stands,
And all that man exacts of her demands;
The new morality, the art of life,
And not obedience, holds her as wife.
Hail, the new woman! By her choices sheDetermines wisely what mankind shall be.She will not with eyes open be beguiledTo choose a tainted father for her child.
Hail, the new woman! By her choices she
Determines wisely what mankind shall be.
She will not with eyes open be beguiled
To choose a tainted father for her child.
BY COATES KINNEY.
It is a sad, sad sight.—Carlyle.
O stars! as the flakes of a snowstormHow ye fly and fall and drift!Swift snowing of suns out of darkness,Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!Fly! fall! but the wind the AlmightyStill behind you always runs,Still pushes you onward together,Fixed each sun in drift of suns.Fixed, ay, to the vision of mortalNever change hath shown in you;Lands, seas, and their kingdoms and racesAll have changed, but ye are true—Still true to the old constellations,Such as when the forebrain firstUplifted itself to their gloriesWith this human spirit’s thirst.Calm! still! though in every sparkleMotions like the thunderbolt,Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight,Planet’s wheel and comet’s volt,All hang, as it were, in a dewdropFrozen to a steadfast gleam;Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter,Whimseys of an instant’s dream.Drift! drift! all the universe driftingRound some sun too vast for thought!On! on! awful maelstrom of matterWhirling in a gulf of naught!Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabirdFlies across and dips and flees—Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird’s,Tossed and lost upon the seas!
O stars! as the flakes of a snowstormHow ye fly and fall and drift!Swift snowing of suns out of darkness,Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!
O stars! as the flakes of a snowstorm
How ye fly and fall and drift!
Swift snowing of suns out of darkness,
Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!
Fly! fall! but the wind the AlmightyStill behind you always runs,Still pushes you onward together,Fixed each sun in drift of suns.
Fly! fall! but the wind the Almighty
Still behind you always runs,
Still pushes you onward together,
Fixed each sun in drift of suns.
Fixed, ay, to the vision of mortalNever change hath shown in you;Lands, seas, and their kingdoms and racesAll have changed, but ye are true—Still true to the old constellations,Such as when the forebrain firstUplifted itself to their gloriesWith this human spirit’s thirst.
Fixed, ay, to the vision of mortal
Never change hath shown in you;
Lands, seas, and their kingdoms and races
All have changed, but ye are true—
Still true to the old constellations,
Such as when the forebrain first
Uplifted itself to their glories
With this human spirit’s thirst.
Calm! still! though in every sparkleMotions like the thunderbolt,Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight,Planet’s wheel and comet’s volt,All hang, as it were, in a dewdropFrozen to a steadfast gleam;Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter,Whimseys of an instant’s dream.
Calm! still! though in every sparkle
Motions like the thunderbolt,
Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight,
Planet’s wheel and comet’s volt,
All hang, as it were, in a dewdrop
Frozen to a steadfast gleam;
Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter,
Whimseys of an instant’s dream.
Drift! drift! all the universe driftingRound some sun too vast for thought!On! on! awful maelstrom of matterWhirling in a gulf of naught!Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabirdFlies across and dips and flees—Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird’s,Tossed and lost upon the seas!
Drift! drift! all the universe drifting
Round some sun too vast for thought!
On! on! awful maelstrom of matter
Whirling in a gulf of naught!
Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabird
Flies across and dips and flees—
Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird’s,
Tossed and lost upon the seas!
BY CHARLES MELVIN WILKINSON.
Too long, too long on the mountain’s browYou linger, O storm-cloud! Know you notI, the suffering lowland, need you nowWhere the scorching sun glares hot?You deluge the barren cliffs of chalkWhile wither the grass and the fruitful grain,And the red rose, shrivelling, dies on its stalkWith a smothered cry for rain.You lavish your wealth on the lordly heightThat knows not a miser’s need therefor,—With a smile I must take what is mine by rightAs the gift true souls abhor.But the rain that is mine by the love of God,By the grace of the mountain a gift to me,Of what avail to the parching sod,Since it runneth down to the sea?O cloud, I charge you to right my wrongs!Be just with the bounty of God’s own hand,And scatter the rain where the rain belongs,On the hot and thirsty land.I charge you, cloud, by the love of God,That you pour His gift on the humble plainTill the myriad mouths of the parching sodDrink deep of the blessèd rain.
Too long, too long on the mountain’s browYou linger, O storm-cloud! Know you notI, the suffering lowland, need you nowWhere the scorching sun glares hot?
Too long, too long on the mountain’s brow
You linger, O storm-cloud! Know you not
I, the suffering lowland, need you now
Where the scorching sun glares hot?
You deluge the barren cliffs of chalkWhile wither the grass and the fruitful grain,And the red rose, shrivelling, dies on its stalkWith a smothered cry for rain.
You deluge the barren cliffs of chalk
While wither the grass and the fruitful grain,
And the red rose, shrivelling, dies on its stalk
With a smothered cry for rain.
You lavish your wealth on the lordly heightThat knows not a miser’s need therefor,—With a smile I must take what is mine by rightAs the gift true souls abhor.
You lavish your wealth on the lordly height
That knows not a miser’s need therefor,—
With a smile I must take what is mine by right
As the gift true souls abhor.
But the rain that is mine by the love of God,By the grace of the mountain a gift to me,Of what avail to the parching sod,Since it runneth down to the sea?
But the rain that is mine by the love of God,
By the grace of the mountain a gift to me,
Of what avail to the parching sod,
Since it runneth down to the sea?
O cloud, I charge you to right my wrongs!Be just with the bounty of God’s own hand,And scatter the rain where the rain belongs,On the hot and thirsty land.
O cloud, I charge you to right my wrongs!
Be just with the bounty of God’s own hand,
And scatter the rain where the rain belongs,
On the hot and thirsty land.
I charge you, cloud, by the love of God,That you pour His gift on the humble plainTill the myriad mouths of the parching sodDrink deep of the blessèd rain.
I charge you, cloud, by the love of God,
That you pour His gift on the humble plain
Till the myriad mouths of the parching sod
Drink deep of the blessèd rain.
BY ROBERT F. GIBSON.
I am a Radical, and this my faith:The aim and hope of all true citizensAre justice and real happiness for all.Some are content—I know not why—to sitAmong the sleepy worshippers who fillThe gilded temple of conservatism,And sitting, awestruck, there they think they serve.I am too busy for idolatry.I carry in my hand a naked sword,And pity, roused for one, stays not my handWhen prompt, sure blows mean freedom for a score.That is my faith, and I am not afraidTo face my Maker when my name is called.
I am a Radical, and this my faith:The aim and hope of all true citizensAre justice and real happiness for all.Some are content—I know not why—to sitAmong the sleepy worshippers who fillThe gilded temple of conservatism,And sitting, awestruck, there they think they serve.I am too busy for idolatry.I carry in my hand a naked sword,And pity, roused for one, stays not my handWhen prompt, sure blows mean freedom for a score.That is my faith, and I am not afraidTo face my Maker when my name is called.
I am a Radical, and this my faith:
The aim and hope of all true citizens
Are justice and real happiness for all.
Some are content—I know not why—to sit
Among the sleepy worshippers who fill
The gilded temple of conservatism,
And sitting, awestruck, there they think they serve.
I am too busy for idolatry.
I carry in my hand a naked sword,
And pity, roused for one, stays not my hand
When prompt, sure blows mean freedom for a score.
That is my faith, and I am not afraid
To face my Maker when my name is called.
Carlyle has remarked upon the significance of symbolism. All nations seek a sign. The sign becomes the visible expression of the highest thought. It is made into an emblem around which the given people march by day and encamp by night. Thus have come all the totems which mankind have lifted up, from the brazen snake in the desert to the Stars and Stripes on the mountain.
Symbolism has its beauty and also its ugliness. In some cases the symbol is happily conceived. It is benign; it expresses hope, truth, fidelity, aspiration, even immortality. Behold the egg of the Egyptians and their circle expressive of undying life and eternity. Note the owl of the Athenians. Note the sweet lily of ancient Provence, adopted by France as the emblem of purity and national peace. Note the Irish shamrock—that delicate green trifolium which has signified so much of union and hope to an enthusiastic and failing race. On the other hand, note the serpent of the Aztecs, the crawling reptiles of Malaysia and India, the savage beasts and carnivorous birds adopted as the symbols of race-life and purpose by the coarse barbarians of northern Europe, and preserved on the flags and banners of their descendants to the present day.
Russia is a bear. Germany is a black eagle. France also, in her Bonaparte mood, is an eagle. Imperial Romewasan eagle from the days of the Cæsars. Great Britain is a lion, and Prussia is a leopard, and Siam is an elephant, and Mexico is still a snake. As for Great Britain, not satisfied with one lion, she repeats him seven times, rampant or couchant, on the royal standard. She also preserves on her coat-of-arms and coins the unicorn, that fabulous, one-horned monster of a horrid dream.
The American Republic seems to have accepted the eagle for its totem. We might have taken a bear or a caribou, but the eagle has pleased our mythologists more—and so, instead of belonging to the tribe of the Turkey, the tribe of the Dog,or the tribe of the Calf, we belong to the tribe of the Eagle. But what does our totem signify?
The eagle in our symbolism and war-myth has come to us from the past. He was of old the totem of the Romans. From the Tiber he flew beyond the Alps, to perch on the standards of German chieftains and Gallic emperors. He has visited all lands that are affected with the civil and ethnic life of Rome. He has appeared here and there on the flags of the Latin races in the Old World and the New. He has made an eyrie in our mountains, and his scream has been heard in our wars. He has settled on our flagstaffs, and has been seen by certain and sundry poets who apostrophize him in verse. He has been admired by orators whose imaginations rise as high as battle and conquest, but not as high as the Stars and Stripes. He has been adored in academic essays. He has hovered over the pages of inchoate histories, until his claim to be regarded as the American bird is established. The eagle has become traditional as the totem of the United States.
In so far as the eagle is the symbol of the independence and freedom of men, let us accept him! In so far as he represents the idea and sublimity of height and flight, let him soar! The eagle as a sign of the free voyage of the human mind, triumphant over nature, visiting on strong wing the far and otherwise inaccessible heights of escape and glory, is the noblest of all the totems ever discovered by man; for flight is the noblest and most sublime of earthly actions. Height is the sublimest of all earthly stations. Height and flight are precisely the dream which we would select from the infinite visions of the soul and have engraved on our seal as a motto for eternity. Height and flight and freedom!
In so far as the eagle may be regarded as the bird of the past; in so far as he stands for violence and conquest; in so far as he represents the rending and destruction of life, the carnivorous passion in mankind, the rage of battle and triumph,—to that extent be there no eagle for the Republic or for us! It is high time that some race of men should rise to the height of discarding violence and blood as the beginnings of fame and power. It is high time that some race should renounce all bears and leopards and lions and mythological monsters as the symbols of itsspirit and purpose. It is high time that some nation should ascend to a level from which it may look down on the savage emblems and beast-born symbolism of the past world as no longer fit to express the central purposes and noblest visions of an enlightened people.
The American eagle in the better and more glorious sense—in the sense in which he typifies freedom and height and flight—is a totem of which neither philosopher nor peasant need be ashamed. The eagle’s wing is more than pinion; it is thought. The eagle’s eye is more than fierce disdain; it is a flash of ineffable light. His glance is more than terror; it is an arrow shot into the darkness. His breast is more than pressure and force; it is defiance of wind and battle-rack. His spirit is more than destruction; it is supremacy over chaotic elements and the triumph of the emancipated spirit. His scream is more than the shriek of carnal victory and rage of destroying strength; it is the cry of liberty and the shout of progress to all peoples in the valleys of the world.
Give man the spirit of the eagle. Give him height and flight and freedom. Give us who are Americans the splendid arena of the plains and the open vault of heaven. Give us the mountain, the beetling crag, the precipice, the gnarled oak, the lightning, and the cloud. Give us the warfare of the lawless elements, the world-blaze of the magnificent sun, the starlight of the profound and unspeakable night. Give us the transport of the unchained seasons, the snow-blast and the sun-flash, the tenderness of the dawn, the sorrow of the evening, the rainspout of the bursting nimbus, and the mellow light of autumn. Give us the splendid apocalypse of October and the infinite air-bath of the perfumed June. Give us all the aspirations of the man-soul standing in the midst of this splendor and mutation, standing high and opening the eagle-wing to cloudland and the sky, soaring and circling unfettered, viewing all lakes and hills from the aerial curves of freedom, alighting at will on the chosen summit, undisturbed by fear and untroubled by the torments of power!
A strange fact is the apathy of the American nation towards France and the French people. There is every reason to expect a different sentiment on this side of the sea. France was ever our friend; since the colonial days we have never warred with her. The French were our allies when the days were dark and the winds of our destiny were loosed on the deep. We had been assailed by an unnatural mother. That strong mother had wronged us, treated us as aliens, erased us from her book, turned loose mercenary armies upon us, killed our patriot fathers.
In that hour of fate France appeared willingly on the scene as our champion. She succored us. Whatever may have been her motive, she put her ægis over our head. She sent her heroes to our camps; she gave us Lafayette and Rochambeau. She placed her fleets at our ports, with guns pointed seaward for protection. Then, when the fight was won, she aided us to enlarge our territories, to confirm our new republican empire. Though in the afterdays of her monarchical gloom France sometimes looked askance at our flag, the French nation was never once disloyal to us—never once indifferent to the fate of our great democracy.
In our institutional development for more than a century we have proceeded on the same general lines with the French. If we are satisfied with the result—if webelievein our republic—we ought, in good reason, to believe in the republic of France; for the republic is a universal fact, little trammelled by locality. The barrier of race ought not to predominate over political and social sympathies. The barrier of race ought not to separate us from our own. The fact that we are allied in ethnic descent with the English people ought not to make us enamored of the social life and civil institutions of Great Britain. Much less should the industrial and commercial life of England allure us as if to provoke a like manner of life in ourselves. Least of all should the financial method of Great Britain lead us by imitation to fix upon ourselves a similar incubus and horror.
This leads us to say that to break away from Great Britain, even when incited thereto by the antipathy and prejudice whichwe must needs hold against her; to leave her behind; to treat her as a historical fact not favorable, but inimical rather, to our progress and independent destiny,—seems to be the hardest task imposed upon the American democracy. The preference of race and language is so profound, the influences of the commercial life are so far-reaching, the admiration for political stability is so natural, the domination of centralized wealth is so overwhelming, and the allurements of consolidated power so well calculated to fascinate the masses, that even American democracy has found it hard to break the British tie and sail away uncabled and disenchanted on the sea.
This deluded instinct of attachment to Great Britain, and this unnatural lack of sympathy for France have cost us dearly. The two sentiments have modified our national life, and have left a result different by not a little from what it would have been if influenced by other and more wholesome dispositions on our part. Our nationality has lost much force on both counts—on the score of our illogical attachment to Great Britain on the one hand, and of our unnatural indifference to France on the other. Under the one influence we have becometolerant of subserviencyas a national trait, and under the other we have become in a measureincapable of enthusiasm. The addition of British subserviency has been aggravated with the subtraction of French enthusiasm from our public and private life.
All this had been better otherwise. All this—even after the lapse of a hundred and twenty-one years from the great summer of our Independence—ought still to be bettered with amendment. It is not needed, stiff as we have already become in our national instincts and methods, to go forward by going backwards. To approximate Great Britain is to go backwards. The Englishpeopleare among the greatest of the historic races, but the Britishmonarchy, with its mediæval pretensions, its humbug of a throne and a crown, its subordinated ranks of society, its military and naval despotism, and its vast skein oftentaculæstretching to every valuable thing in the world,—is perhaps the one thing that modern civilization should most dread and put away from the field of its desires.
On the other hand France is, in nearly all respects, admirable. Her mobility is life, and her warmth is a fructifyingforce. France gives forth more than she takes from the nations. Her republic is a splendid piece of political workmanship. Her spirit is patriotic. Her people, instead of straggling over the world like adventurers and pirates, remain in the borders ofLa Patrie, happy and vital in the possession of freedom.
Her lilies still bloom in the depth of the valleys.
Her vineyards are a covert under which if there be a peasantry it is not a peasantry forced down by oppression, but only the modest residue of the stronger life above and beyond. The free institutions of this beautiful land are the natural counterpart of our own; we should be all the better for warming ourselves not a little in the glow of the Gallic enthusiasm.Vive la France!