[1]Oscar Wilde.
[1]Oscar Wilde.
Religious Heathen.—Hardly anywhere are there such religious men as the Orientals. Five times a day themuezzincalls from each minaret in eastern lands: "God is great! I bear witness that there is no God but God! I bear witness that Muhammed is the Apostle of God! Come to prayer! Come to salvation! God is great! There is no God but God!" Early in the morning they cry in addition, "Prayer is better than sleep." On the streets and market-places, in the shops and inns, everywhere one is summoned to prayer.
Is it not impressive to see a whole people, of whom not one is ashamed of his God—not one! A people among whom, five times a day, this joyful message comes from the Lord, the All-Merciful, who "has not forsaken and has not repulsed thee!" And is it not uplifting in themidst of the severe and squalid tasks of every day to hear a voice from above witnessing, without attempting to convince, that God is God? Anything so perverse and stupid as free-thinking and atheism does not exist in the Orient. If anyone attempted to assert such an abominable tenet as the non-existence of God, he would be imprisoned or put to death. And if anyone came and tried to close the mosques ... but no one comes, for the mosques are never empty:
"By the splendour of the day,By the darkness of the night,Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee,Neither hath He repelled thee."—Koran.
That is the implicit and childlike faith which Christian heathen called "intolerance," "fanaticism," and so on.
The Pleasure-Garden.—If the inexperienced man knew how much suffering a separation between a married pair involves, he would reflect before taking such a step. The two souls have so grown into each other, that the dissolution of the duplex personality which they form is the most painful operation possible. It is a kind of death.
When one uproots the weeds round a flower, the flower fades away—partly because its rootsare injured, partly because it has been deprived of shade, moisture, and support, or perhaps merely companionship.
The sorrow in this case resembles that which follows on a death, but is not so uplifting and ennobling. The image of the separated wife is always present to one's eyes, and becomes idealised in memory; ugly traits are obliterated, one begins to reproach oneself, there is a painful emptiness and longing; one's soul is tom in pieces by her departure; she has carried off its finest-fibred roots, and one feels as though bleeding to death. One can no more exchange common recollections. The loss of the illusions of the first springtide of love shatters one's faith in everything. A cry of mourning rings through the universe as though an irreparable crime had been committed, such as the sin against the Holy Ghost. Love, God's creative power, the sun's warmth that fills the heavens, the origin of life has ceased to exist. Chaos and darkness resume their reign. It is a spiritual death, without comfort and without hope.
Nevertheless something remains, if there ever was something there. And though both may marry again, there is a recollection of the former tie. It cannot be as though it had not been, norbe forgotten. However unpleasant the relationship may have been, still in its best hours it resembled something which is not to be found on earth. In its glorious beginning it was a Garden of Eden, such a heightening of existence that one felt nearer God. That was no optical delusion, but a higher reality. Then came the Fall and the expulsion. But the memory of the first joy remains, and it is true that a real love never ends.
People ask whether it continues on the other side even when inclination has "changed its object." Probably some of it remains, but in an incomprehensible way, even if one were to suppose that the personality is resolved into several "monads," of which one seeks a similar one, and another another; and what is called love can here become friendship.
According to Plato's doctrine of reminiscence and the reincarnation theory of the theosophists, one might believe that when two fall in love it is only a meeting again. And all the beauty which they then see round them is the reflection of the memories of some far beautiful land where they have met before, but which they now remember for the first time. The continual illusions of love would then be connected with experiences on the other side, which now come up in memory from theside where all is completion and beauty. Therefore we have such a terrible awakening from our dreams of happiness when we find that everything down here is distorted, everything a caricature, even love itself.
The Happiness of Love.—Even though earthly love be a caricature or bad copy of the heavenly it has some traits of resemblance to its prototype. In the first spring-days of love there are elevated moments, in which one compassionates other mortals who are not so happy. We tremble for our blessedness, finding it not quite just; yet it is possible even to wish for a misfortune to rectify the balance.
There was a dramatist who became engaged, and at the same time had just celebrated his greatest triumph on the stage. The ground seemed to sway under his feet, the air caressed his face, men paid him homage on the streets; he felt hardly on earth, as he was beloved by the woman whom he loved.
Then there came the crash of a failure! All his former merits were forgotten; he was called a noodle and a charlatan. But he was so happy in his love that he did not feel the blow. He felt, on the contrary, an inner joy that misfortune haddrawn him and his fiancée closer together; he was so high that he did not grudge men the joy of pulling him down a little. His fame had begun to bore them; now that he was down, he found sympathy, while formerly he had been the object of envy.
That was the miracle of love! It made him so little self-seeking, that on behalf of men he suffered under his oppressive fame and his great happiness.
Our Best Feelings.—Life is not beautiful; on its animal, domestic, and business sides it brings us into so many ugly situations. Life is cynical since it ridicules our nobler feelings and flings scorn on our faith. Therefore it is difficult to use fine words in the stress of every-day; one hides one's better feelings in order not to expose them to ridicule. One might therefore say that men are partly better than they appear to be. One is forced to play the sceptic in order not to perish, and one is made cynical by the cynicism of life. It is therefore unjust to call men hypocrites in a bad sense, for most men, on the contrary, make themselves out worse than they are.
When a man writes a letter to an intimate friend, or to the woman he loves, he puts on hisfestive dress; that is befitting. And in the quiet letter, on the white paper, he expresses his best feelings. The tongue and the spoken word are so vulgarised by everyday use, that they cannot say aloud the beautiful things which the pen says silently.
It is not posing or attitudinising, it is not falsity when one exhibits in correspondence a better soul than in everyday life. The lover is not untrue in his love-letters. He does not make himself out better than he is; he becomes better, andisso for the passing moment. He is true at such moments, the greatest which life grants us!
Blood-Fraternity.—Blood-fraternity used to be sealed with a sacred ceremonial—the mingling of blood. "The life of the soul is in the blood," says the Old Testament; and it is probable that there was something mysterious in it which we do not understand, as in all sacraments, which we understand as little.
An old saga tells us that Torger and Tormod had mingled their blood and had fought battles and won victories together. But one day, when Torger was intoxicated by success, he carelessly remarked to his brother, "Which of us, do youthink, would prove the better man if we ventured on a conflict?"
"I don't know," answered his brother, "but I know that your question makes an end of our living together. I will not remain with you any more."
"I did not seriously mean that we should try our strength on one another."
"But it came into your mind, since you said it." He departed, and their tie of brotherhood was at an end. The narrator adds, "The bond of their friendship was so fragile, that it could not bear the touch of an over-hasty thought."
Marriage is a blood-bond and more—it is a sacred transaction. It is so tender and so fragile, that a hasty word—a joke, as one calls it—can make an end of it for the whole of life. It is no use afterwards to say, "It was only a jest." We have the answer of the mediæval Norse poet Tormod, "It came into your mind." "Long years must pay for the wrong of a second."
And then, "Which of us two do you think would prove the master?" As soon as a married pair conceive their relation as a struggle for power, while it is just the contrary, hell comes into the house. The woman has an inclination to rule. But if, in her defence, I say that this inclinationis her way of reacting against the suppressing, not oppressive, man (for such a one I have never seen), I hope I shall not have to repent it.
"If we ventured on a conflict!" Yes, then it is as if one drew a weapon on oneself, or as if a kingdom were divided. Every blow which one deals, strikes one's own heart.
Cicero says that friendship is only possible between friendly equals. Swedenborg says that marriage is impossible between godless people. I am convinced of it; for without contact with God, who is the Fountain-head of love, no stream of illumination can flow from the Eternal. I have described the marriage of godless people. I have suffered for doing so, but I do not regret it, and do not recall a word. It is as I said. The devout do not describe their marriages, and they write neither dramas nor romances; literary history which mostly deals with irreligious books, should take notice of that.
The Power of Love.—In France there lives a marquis who is an occultist. Endowed by nature with a sensitive type of soul, refined by education, protected by wealth against the brutality of life, purified by suffering and renunciation, he entered into contact with the higher forms of existence,which the theosophists call "the astral plane." His sensitiveness was elaborated to such a pitch, that he became a medium, and could enter into touch with friends at a distance.
Then he met a woman belonging to the same spiritual sphere, a transparent airy figure, whose steps were inaudible, whose words were rather to be apprehended than heard.
This married pair were so united, that each was, as it were, born in the other. He carried her heart about in him literally. When, on a journey to some relatives, she was frightened by a shying horse and had a fit of palpitations, he felt it in his breast, and his heart stood still for a moment when she fainted. Similarly, when he once pricked himself with a needle, she felt it. They lived in each other, were each other's children and each other's parents.
Then she died. He nearly died too, did die perhaps, and rose again. And now he speaks with her, hears her voice in his heart, literally, not in a figure.
I do not doubt it at all, for I have had a similar experience, and much, much more.
The Box on the Ear.—I was thirty years old, and life was mine for the first time after I had lainin the potato-cellar and shot out white rootlets instead of growing. I had secured a home, wife, and child, and was my own master. After I had done the day's task I used to invite friends in; I call them "friends" because they got on well with me and I with them. We did no harm; we played like children with words and sounds; we disguised ourselves in order to look more fine; we composed and delivered speeches. I think no one would grudge me these hours.
But soon there was something of satiety in it; we had wounded the dignity of sacred sleep; the wine turned sour in the glasses. One night towards morning, in a cheerful circle, at a full table, my high spirits broke bounds, since fortune had given me everything at once, and I uttered a word which a married man should not utter. I immediately received a box on the ear from a strong hand. I found it quite natural, and continued what I was saying, but in another and better tone. No one took notice of what had happened; all went on as before; and we all parted as friends.
He who gave me the buffet was a bachelor of not superfine morals. If he had disapproved my point of view, it must have been a very low one.
For several days I had a blue mark on my cheek.My wife said nothing, only one of my friends let fall a remark, "How could you put up with that?"
"I must have felt that I deserved it! Otherwise I cannot explain it."
Now, when I am sixty years old, I wish that I had received several such boxes on the ear, for the first was no use. Recognising that, I feel that it was a great piece of good-fortune that I was able to confess it. And now I should like to live twenty years more, in order to forget my slowness to learn, with its sad consequences.
Saul, Afterwards Called Paul.—Saul was standing by when Stephen was stoned, or, at any rate, kept the clothes of those who stoned him. He also persecuted Christ and the Christians. The question is often, almost constantly asked, "Had he a right, later on, to be severe against those who threw the stones?" One can only answer with an unconditional "Yes," for he wished to make good the wrong he had done; and it was his duty to speak with his new tongue. But he is honourable and courageous enough to remind his hearers that he does not regard himself as an exception. He calls himself "the chief of sinners," and says, "I thank Him who has enabled me, who was formerly a blasphemer, and persecutor, and evil doer;but mercy was shown to me because I did it ignorantly in unbelief."
How entirely Paul felt himself to be quite a different person to the dead Saul one sees from his tremendous severity against the two blasphemers, Hymenæus and Alexander, whom he delivered over to Satan, "that they might learn not to blaspheme."
What is to be understood by these terrible words, I have explained in theInferno. He who has not understood it there, can obtain a clearer explanation in the asylums, where there is no rest, no peace, only terror and despair. These cannot be cured by cold or by warm water baths, for it is a sickness of the soul, often called Paranoia, because the senses see what is not to be seen every day.
A Scene from Hell.—The man who had been separated from his wife went one day to fetch his little six-year-old daughter from her mother. They meant to go for a walk, look at the shop-windows, and buy toys only for an hour. They were to meet before the mother's house. The little one came, half-sad, half-joyful, with a slightly roguish look.
This street, this street, this house, these stairswhich only a short time ago he had hurried up with his hands full of presents in order for an hour long to see his beautiful home, and the best which life has to show—the young maidenly mother putting her child to bed! The two together! One still more beautiful than the other! And made more beautiful by love, or a friendship which has sprung up in painful solitude.
He took the little girl's hand, and they went down the now darkened street. Then the child turned round, and said aloud, "Mamma is coming behind us."
Why did he not turn round, but went on still faster, drawing the child with him?
Ask the pains of seven long years, which had robbed him of his self-esteem so that he no longer believed he possessed the poor solitary heart that followed him contritely and longed for reconciliation.
The child turned round yet again, and several times, as though it were a plot laid in all friendliness, and the man felt by the throbbing of the little hand how its heart beat in hope and expectation.
But he went straight forward, for he did not believe any more in the possibility of a return, and he did not dare to encounter a scornful smile,or a proud, sharp word. He turned down side-streets, but he felt that she followed. Who suffered most during this five minutes in hell, in this interplay of feelings? The child with her beautiful hopes which were disappointed; the mother with her injured self-esteem, as she sought on the street what she had thrown away; or the man with uncertainty and doubt in one half of his heart, and in the other the immeasurable grief of being obliged to hurt the innocent little child-heart? But while it was actually going on, he felt almost nothing, for he was stunned by the shock. Not till the next day did he feel the pain in his heart, and the longer the time that elapsed, the more that pain increased.
The Jewel-casket or his Better Half.—When a man during the first days of love has deposited the best and fairest part of his soul with the woman he loves, he has laid up a treasure with her. If then he sinks below the heavy burdens of everyday life and loses his ornaments, he generally finds them again with her; she has kept and guarded them (not always, however).
At such moments he calls her his better half, and such she is. She can, at the right time, return to him a beautiful thought or word, whichhe has given her once; then he is ashamed and laments over his fall. And when he sees his earlier better self in her, he realises how low he has sunk, while she still stands on the clear cliff. Then he looks up to her, cries out for help, and when she reaches him her hand, he is raised, and he thanks her for having saved him.
Paul explains this relation between man and wife, which is so often misunderstood and really difficult to understand. "For in the Lord, neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man; for as the woman is from the man, so also is the man by the woman, but all is of God."
Therefore in a true marriage neither the husband nor the wife appear separate, but both regard themselves, and are regarded by others, as one being. If one receives any good from the other, the recipient should thank, and the giver also because he was able to give. They thank each other because they are one being, and the interchange of gifts is continuous and unceasing, so that they cannot distinguish between giving and taking.
Therefore a true marriage is indissoluble; it cannot suffer severance, for what it possesses is not alienable, it is common; it is a spiritual property which cannot be sold or bought.
But in the rough tumult of life the man loses his ideal part sooner than the woman, who sits sheltered by the warm hearth of the well-protected home. There she can guard his jewel-casket for him, and if she does it faithfully, he will always look up to her, as to his better self.
The Mummy-Coffin.—Seven years of marriage had passed; they had not tended their lamp, but it smoked so that everything in the beautiful home was blackened. Now each sits in their own comer of the dwelling, because they cannot look each other in the eyes. They lament each other as dead, and miss each other like lost children.
Then he opens a drawer and takes out a little box. A scent of fresh roses streams into the room, although it comes from dry rose-leaves pressed between sheets of paper.
Those are her letters which she wrote during her engagement seven years ago. How beautiful it all is: the paper with its fine, still unbleached lavender tint and gold borders, just like the wedding-breakfast glasses; the envelopes carefully folded like the embroidered cushion-cover of the cradle; the letters themselves in beautiful rows of gentle words from beautiful lips which smile gracefully.
Beauty and love in thoughts and feelings—there he had found her again in the little box embalmed with rose-leaves and violets.
But now she is dead, and he weeps!
And at the other end of the house she sits over her little mummy-coffin and speaks with her beloved dead, and weeps.
Lost for ever! For ever!
In the Attic.—Only three years had passed since his marriage, and now the storm had carried away all—his wife and child. He had occasion to go up to the attic to fetch something which had been put away there. So he came up to this room, where it always rustled and creaked, and cats slunk about, and the viscera of the house, so to speak, were visible in beams and chimney, where there were rust and soot and hanging cobwebs. He unfastened the padlock. There lay all the flotsam and jetsam after the wreck. It was too late to turn back, and he remained. There was the canopy of their marriage-bed, with green silk and gilt-brass ornaments. There was the cradle of the little one, and the six milk-bottles which the mother always used to wash with her small hands in the ice-cold water; all the flower-vases and glasses which came into the house on the weddingevening, when the table was laid in the hall.
There stood the basket once filled with roses, which she had received on her engagement, which had afterwards become a work-basket. There were withered bouquets, laurel-wreaths, and even books, presents from him at Christmas and on birthdays, with beautiful inscriptions....
But there were also prehistoric articles: pieces of furniture belonging to her girlhood which she had brought into the new home—a Japanese umbrella adorned with chrysanthemums and golden pheasants, a small carpet, a flower-stand....
But why did all these relics lie here in the dust and soot, and not downstairs with him who cherished those memories? Was it that he did not dare to see them every day, or did not wish to?
Then his eyes fell on a little toy cupboard, which lay in a paper-basket. There occurred to his mind the faint recollection of a moment like a Christmas evening, a child's eyes, little white milk teeth, the first musical-box which the little one played to the Christmas-tree, the rocking-horse, and her dolls Rosa and Brita.
He opened the toy cupboard; it contained no musical-box, but a phonograph, very small andsimple, a toy which could only utter a single word! He did not remember which. The key lay close by; he wound it up and set it going. At first it hummed like a bee; it did not sting, however, but whispered the only word it could, "Darling!"
And in her voice! Yes, she had spoken it into the phonograph, though he had forgotten it.
"Darling!"
Then he cried to God, then he raged against fate, and then he fell to the ground! And as he lay there he could only lament, "If they were at least only dead! If...."
For they were not dead. They lived.
That was the thing which could not be altered nor atoned for, and all these things were not relics; they were the flotsam and jetsam of a wreck.
The Sculptor.—Even when a man has found a masterpiece of creation in his wife, he still tries to improve away little faults in design and colour, in order to make his work of art as free from faults as possible. His little wife does not always understand that, and often becomes irritable.
"You only see faults in me."
"On the contrary, you are for me the most beautiful that exists, but I want to have youperfect. You should, for example, never be angry, for then your beautiful eyes grow ugly, and I suffer. You must not dress in verdigris-colour, for that does not suit you, and you look poisonous, so that I turn my looks away." And so on.
Eating is not beautiful, and to watch one's darling stowing away food in her beautiful mouth, which ought to speak beautiful words, smile bewitchingly, and purse up her tender lips to a kind of flower-bud which one inhales in a kiss—that may be downright repugnant! Therefore one is accustomed to hide this unseemly function under light conversation, and forgets what the beautiful mouth is occupied with.
"You are always finding fault! Say something nice for once."
"Can you not read in my eyes that I admire you; I do not generally say it first with my lips. But I want you to be perfect. That is the whole matter!"
On the Threshold at Five Years of Age.—A certain Dr. Ogle states in his statistics that in six-and-twenty years four cases of suicide have taken place among children between five and ten years old. When I read that, "between five andten years old," I thought, "No! between five and ten! Is that possible? And the reason of it?" I could not think more, but I saw one scene, two scenes, three scenes....
The little girl was five years old; she was playing in the room near her mother; children must have something to do, but the mother was nervous, because she had been going into gaiety and flirting beyond measure.
"Don't rock the horse; it makes mamma's head ache."
The little one took the cat, and pinched it, so that it mewed.
"Don't do that, child; mamma is ill."
The child was good, and did not wish to be troublesome. She sat down at the table, and was silent in order not to irritate mamma.
But a child's little body cannot be still; nor ought it indeed; it moves of itself. Probably the child must have been singing a song to itself, for the little unruly feet beat time against the legs of the chair.
The mother started up, "Go to Ellen in the kitchen, disobedient child!"
The child was not disobedient; doubly wounded in her little heart, she went into the kitchen, good and obedient. But immediately afterwardsshe reappeared in the doorway, "Ellen was washing up."
There stood the child on the threshold, turned out and repulsed from both sides, and could not go anywhere. She looked like a despairing child, tearless, but with all the terror of the lonely in her face. Dumb, turned to stone, as though in the whole world there were no place for her, as though no one would have her, and she knew not why. At this moment she really stood on the threshold of life, for she suddenly brightened up, and approached the open window, which was high above the ground.
To the honour of the mother, I must confess that she has described this scene to me with the greatest remorse; it ended by her springing up, taking the child in her arms, and playing with her till the sun went down.
"If anything had happened to the child, I should have lived in a hell of self-reproach! And now I think; for every moment which I had not devoted to my child, for every little joy which I had denied her, I would, if it had departed, weep my soul out of my body; I would plunge into space and seek the child under the stars in order to beg her forgiveness, if I could be forgiven...."
To think of it! At five years old, on the threshold of life!
Goethe on Christianity and Science.—As I waded in Professor Delitzsch's dung-heap,[1]I reached at last his third lecture. In the last lines of the last page I found a pearl, which I will set, in order to show it to those who misuse poor Goethe's name for their heathenish propaganda. In a conversation with Eckermann, on March 11, 1832, that is, eleven days before his death, Goethe spoke these ever memorable words: "Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences go on gaining in depth and breadth, and the human mind expand as it may, it will never go beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity as it shines in the Gospel."
That was the fruit of a life of eighty years spent in seeking God and His Son. After long useless detours, Goethe found it again at the end of his life, as is apparent from the conclusion of the second part ofFaust. I will only add some words of Goethe's on superstition, as it is not comprehended by the apelings: "Superstition is an inheritance of powerful, earnest, progressive natures; unbelief is peculiarly characteristic ofweak, petty, retrogressive men." Such is unbelief as Goethe said in 1808.
[1]The work entitledBabel und Bibel.
[1]The work entitledBabel und Bibel.
Summa Summarum.—Since destructive science has proved itself so hollow, consisting as it does of guesses, false inferences, self-deceit, hair-splittings, why does the State support these armies of conjecturers and soothsayers?
Rousseau's first prize-essay regarding the curse of culture and learning should be repondered.
A Descartes ought to return and teach men to doubt the untruths of the sciences.
Another Kant might write a newCritique of Pure Reasonand re-establish the doctrine of the Categorical Imperative and Postulate, which, however, is already to be found in the Ten Commandments and the Gospels.
And a prophet must be born to teach men the simple meaning of life in a few words, though it has been already so well summed up: "Fear God, and keep His commandments," or "Pray and work."
All the errors and mistakes which we have made should serve to instil into us a lively hatred of evil, and to impart to us fresh impulses to good; these we can take with us to the other side, where they can first bloom and bear fruit.
That is the true meaning of life, at which the obstinate and impenitent cavil in order to escape trouble.
Pray,butwork; suffer,buthope; keeping both the earth and the stars in view. Do not try and settle permanently, for it is a place of pilgrimage; not a home, but a halting-place. Seek truth, for it is to be found, but only in one place, with Him who Himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.