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I.Beauty! thy name were counted less than dustThat warriors’ tombs with sullen grace enfold,Save that thou strip man’s arrant love of lustAnd cloak his tarnished soul with sudden gold.II.Beauty! thy price has been a nation’s spoil,—A wizard’s epitaph, a child’s grim plea;And yet a peasant bought thee with his toil,A poet lived with thee in penury.HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR.
I.Beauty! thy name were counted less than dustThat warriors’ tombs with sullen grace enfold,Save that thou strip man’s arrant love of lustAnd cloak his tarnished soul with sudden gold.II.Beauty! thy price has been a nation’s spoil,—A wizard’s epitaph, a child’s grim plea;And yet a peasant bought thee with his toil,A poet lived with thee in penury.HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR.
I.
I.
Beauty! thy name were counted less than dustThat warriors’ tombs with sullen grace enfold,Save that thou strip man’s arrant love of lustAnd cloak his tarnished soul with sudden gold.
Beauty! thy name were counted less than dust
That warriors’ tombs with sullen grace enfold,
Save that thou strip man’s arrant love of lust
And cloak his tarnished soul with sudden gold.
II.
II.
Beauty! thy price has been a nation’s spoil,—A wizard’s epitaph, a child’s grim plea;And yet a peasant bought thee with his toil,A poet lived with thee in penury.
Beauty! thy price has been a nation’s spoil,—
A wizard’s epitaph, a child’s grim plea;
And yet a peasant bought thee with his toil,
A poet lived with thee in penury.
HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR.
HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR.
“I’ve never told anyone how I happened to become a priest because, for the first few years after ordination I didn’t like to recall the circumstances surrounding it, and afterwards, when they had lost most of their sting, the whole thing was so deeply buried in the past that I never resurrected it. But now, since I’m reaching that point where the events of my life appear to me more as interesting stories than anything else, I may as well tell it to you from that point of view.
“To begin with, I had, at twenty, a pretty definite philosophy. I thought of life and all its functions, as created by the divine hand of God, to be essentially perfect. Man was created, according to the teaching of the Church, in God’s image and likeness. The very highest good, to me, was to live in an accord as close as possible to the universal laws of nature. Man’s natural state isgood, and when he violates this state he undergoes a physical reaction, called shame, over which he has no control whatsoever. I had this underlying belief, which was clarified more or less by reading Walt Whitman and Carlyle, though I added some ideas of my own which I found in neither of these. But I can’t swear that they aren’t there. I drew no such sharp lines as are generally drawn between physical and spiritual love, but visualized, or rather, believed in, an ideal love in which both are combined, and which, by this combination raise each other to far higher levels, both collectively and individually. I rejected a purely abstract affection of the spirit as weakness, since it does accept and is out of tune with nature. That was Carlyle. And there was the only point of the whole matter that I have since come to question, though I have not actually put it aside. I wonder if I could still hold to it had I married. But if I reject this, the whole thing breaks down, so I must cling to it, though it does waver. I had always been a Catholic, and as far as I could see there was no conflict between my doctrine and that of the Church. In addition, though I realized that this was a personal viewpoint and couldn’t be brought to bear too closely on the other, beauty was to me rarely seductive. My moments of desire were, for the most part, connected with the most intense ugliness.
“At this time I was in love with a girl who was exactly the ideal of it all. She too was a Catholic and had been educated in a convent for the greater part of her life. She had not the clarity of feature that generally characterizes beauty, but possessed something infinitely more subtle than this. If you’ve ever seen one of those glorious green Irish hills that look as if they’ve been drawn up fresh from the depths of the earth by the hand of God, you’ll understand what I mean. She had the same original force of beauty in the rough mold of her face, which was at the same time miraculously soft, and free from cold line. Her whole head was clothed in a sort of cloudiness, like Venus, the mother of Aeneas, appearing to her son. Her body, and mind, and voice were so harmonious an expression of good that goodness was with her almost a physical quality. She had almost never come in contact with wrong, but I know she would have been the same under any circumstances. It’s easy to understand how I could hold to mybeliefs here; I loved her as much for her body as for her spirit. She had the same sweet curves and moved with the same music as a green, young tree bent in the wind.”
He was silent for a moment, and gazed into the thick purple sky, underneath which the sea beat tirelessly at the rocks which fringed the bottom of the cliff.
“Unfortunately, she didn’t love me, but had the same sort of affection a girl has for a very good friend of the opposite sex. However, as we were both quite young (she eighteen) I had plenty of hope that as soon as I was in a position to ask her to marry me, she would accept.
“Then, in the summer after her graduation from the convent, I learned that she was determined to return there in the fall as a nun! For two or three days after this discovery I was in a state of almost continual mental anguish, that she, a creature so beautifully alive, should keep the precious gift of herself from the world, and especially from me,—though curiously enough I looked at it from the general rather than the individual point of view. I was completely stunned.
“I had never definitely settled in my mind the question of priests and nuns remaining unmarried. This was through nothing more nor less than overlooking it, which I cannot understand, since it should have been so vital to me. But now I came out dead against it. To me it seemed that, since those who served God and were supposed to be leading the highest life possible to man were not permitted to marry, the Church put a mark of disapproval on the married state and the begetting of children. It was not the actual celibacy of the priests and nuns that concerned me most, but the disapprobation of what I considered the most spiritual act of life. I suppose I should have gone to a priest to learn the defense for it, but I became so prejudiced myself that I imagined that his point of view or any explanation he might make could be nothing else but prejudiced.”
He paused again, this time to light his pipe, which he pulled on for many long seconds before resuming the story, while I held my tongue and gazed into the vast plain of darkness.
“After a while the pain ceased, and I lapsed into a state almost of indifference, though the day she was to leave for the convent was pretty nearly always on my mind. Strangely enough I can’t for the life of me think what it was now, though I shall never forget what happened on the day itself.
“I went to her home, which was quite a large estate, to bid her good-bye. I still had the indifferent feeling, though my mind had that queer, detached sensation one gets in a fever, and felt, somehow, as if it were outside of the rest of me. Her brothers and sisters and I sat about talking constrainedly until the time came for her departure. She was to go off in the carriage to the station with no one accompanying her save the coachman. It rolled up to the door and they all crowded out to see her off. They were a rather grim lot, standing there, though no one was weeping. As for her, her face had the strangest mixture of joy and sorrow, which was exactly mirrored in her mother’s. The rest were all frankly and achingly unhappy. I was relapsing more and more and more into a dazed condition.
“When she said good-bye to me, I took her hand, quite unconsciously, and kissed it. It was trembling, which pierced my heart and made me gasp violently. I have no recollection at all of her actual departure, but when she was gone I must have been overcome by it, for I heard some one say, ‘He’s going to faint,’ and then one of her brothers took me inside and gave me a drink. I had several more, which increased my state of mental detachment, but did not affect my mental processes in the least. After a while I went outside the house and wandered about the lawn, until finally I sat down on a bench bordering a wide patch of grass on which there were no trees or shrubbery of any kind. I don’t think I noticed it, but night had practically fallen, and darkness was gradually enveloping the place. The thought of her trembling hand kept coming back to me, making the blood in my head throb violently, when suddenly, with a wrench that shook my whole body, my head cleared absolutely. I realized then, for the first time, that she was irretrievably gone, and the realization flung me into a rage. I cursed God in unutterable vileness for taking her from me, for making of life such a deceiving, rotten thing, and for setting me down in the midst of it! I am neither a savage,nor a superstitious idiot, but as I stand here, I wonder I wasn’t struck down by His almighty hand for the filth and blasphemy I put upon my tongue that night!
“Then, out on the very center of the lawn before me, appeared a column of cottony-white smoke which, by indescribable foldings, formed itself into a woman of the most unearthly and terrible beauty. She was naked, and each particle of her white skin seemed to be shouting the fact of her nakedness aloud. The steely outline of her bare flesh cut the stuff of night away, and flashed out its blinding brilliance.
“She commenced to sing. There is a certain way of striking a harp which gives it a shuddering noise, and this, magnified beyond measure, is the nearest thing to a description I can give of the beginning of her song, which poured out of her lips in a thick flame of sound. It pressed down on me with the volume of a thousand storms, when suddenly I realized that she was singing in a man’s voice! Without thought, the conviction flashed on me that this was undoubtedly the devil, and that all her beauty was false. With a shriek of awful fear I called on God to protect me! Immediately the song caught in the throat of the thing, man or beast, whatever it was, and the body commenced to distort into sheer ugliness without form. I don’t know how it finally disappeared, for I went into a raving delirium and swooned.
“The next two months I spent in a sanitarium on the verge of insanity. All I can remember of this is an occasional flash of miraculous fear, when I seemed to be vainly fleeing the avenging hand of God. As soon afterward as I was able, I joined the priesthood, and I don’t mind saying that it was through an actual, original fear of God and nothing else.”
“What about your philosophy?” I asked.
“I still have that,” he answered. “And it required very little reconciliation to keep it. The realization of the part of celibacy in it came to me about a year after I was ordained, as a feeling, or conviction. Of course the refutation of my argument is that the Church makes marriage a sacrament. I suppose most men have this explained to them before they become priests, but I never found it necessary.”
“Is the girl a nun now?” I pursued.
“No,” he said, a faint smile lurking about the corners of his mouth. “She never took the final vows, but left the convent and married. She has five very beautiful children, one of whom, the eldest, I’m marrying next week. In fact, he’s named for me.”
This time the silence was longer and seemed almost a conclusion, until I broke it with one last question.
“Do you think that was actually the devil who appeared to you, or an illusion brought on by the state of your mind?”
He answered me very quietly. “The hand of God is seen in strange places.”
ROBERT CRUISE MCMANUS.
(Translated from a fifteenth century lyric of Charles d’Orleans)
Once in the weary wood of dull DistressWhere Fate condemned my leaden feet to strayIt chanced that Venus, now my comfortress,Besought to know where I did take my way.Then I replied, “My fortune’s gone astray,And I long exiled ’mid this wood’s repose,It happens I am one of whom men say,‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”Then she, all smiles and godlike graciousness,“Tell me, my friend, the reason, oh I pray.Why is it you are lost in black Distress?I may have power to set you on your way.Long have I sought love’s pleasures to displayUnto your heart—I knew not of your woes.Nor can I bear to see you thus to-day,A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”And I, “Alas! Most sovereign Princess!You know my state: shall I repeat it? Nay!’Twas Death—who doth all men alike oppress—’Twas Death that stole my darling love away.She who so guided me upon my way—My only love, more lovely than the rose—That while she lived no one of me might say,‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”For I am blind—I catch no spark of day—Nor but with tapping staff can find my way.So tapping here and there the wanderer goes.It is indeed a pity they must say,“A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH.
Once in the weary wood of dull DistressWhere Fate condemned my leaden feet to strayIt chanced that Venus, now my comfortress,Besought to know where I did take my way.Then I replied, “My fortune’s gone astray,And I long exiled ’mid this wood’s repose,It happens I am one of whom men say,‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”Then she, all smiles and godlike graciousness,“Tell me, my friend, the reason, oh I pray.Why is it you are lost in black Distress?I may have power to set you on your way.Long have I sought love’s pleasures to displayUnto your heart—I knew not of your woes.Nor can I bear to see you thus to-day,A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”And I, “Alas! Most sovereign Princess!You know my state: shall I repeat it? Nay!’Twas Death—who doth all men alike oppress—’Twas Death that stole my darling love away.She who so guided me upon my way—My only love, more lovely than the rose—That while she lived no one of me might say,‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”For I am blind—I catch no spark of day—Nor but with tapping staff can find my way.So tapping here and there the wanderer goes.It is indeed a pity they must say,“A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH.
Once in the weary wood of dull DistressWhere Fate condemned my leaden feet to strayIt chanced that Venus, now my comfortress,Besought to know where I did take my way.Then I replied, “My fortune’s gone astray,And I long exiled ’mid this wood’s repose,It happens I am one of whom men say,‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”
Once in the weary wood of dull Distress
Where Fate condemned my leaden feet to stray
It chanced that Venus, now my comfortress,
Besought to know where I did take my way.
Then I replied, “My fortune’s gone astray,
And I long exiled ’mid this wood’s repose,
It happens I am one of whom men say,
‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”
Then she, all smiles and godlike graciousness,“Tell me, my friend, the reason, oh I pray.Why is it you are lost in black Distress?I may have power to set you on your way.Long have I sought love’s pleasures to displayUnto your heart—I knew not of your woes.Nor can I bear to see you thus to-day,A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”
Then she, all smiles and godlike graciousness,
“Tell me, my friend, the reason, oh I pray.
Why is it you are lost in black Distress?
I may have power to set you on your way.
Long have I sought love’s pleasures to display
Unto your heart—I knew not of your woes.
Nor can I bear to see you thus to-day,
A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”
And I, “Alas! Most sovereign Princess!You know my state: shall I repeat it? Nay!’Twas Death—who doth all men alike oppress—’Twas Death that stole my darling love away.She who so guided me upon my way—My only love, more lovely than the rose—That while she lived no one of me might say,‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”
And I, “Alas! Most sovereign Princess!
You know my state: shall I repeat it? Nay!
’Twas Death—who doth all men alike oppress—
’Twas Death that stole my darling love away.
She who so guided me upon my way—
My only love, more lovely than the rose—
That while she lived no one of me might say,
‘A man astray, uncertain where he goes.’”
For I am blind—I catch no spark of day—Nor but with tapping staff can find my way.So tapping here and there the wanderer goes.It is indeed a pity they must say,“A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”
For I am blind—I catch no spark of day—
Nor but with tapping staff can find my way.
So tapping here and there the wanderer goes.
It is indeed a pity they must say,
“A man astray, uncertain where he goes.”
LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH.
LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH.