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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38873-8.txt b/38873-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b9bb21 --- /dev/null +++ b/38873-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6949 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gentle Reader, by Samuel McChord Crothers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gentle Reader + +Author: Samuel McChord Crothers + +Release Date: February 14, 2012 [EBook #38873] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE READER *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously available at The Internet +Archive) + + + + + + + + +THE GENTLE READER + + + + +The Gentle Reader + +BY + +SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + +The Riverside Press, Cambridge + +1904 + +_Copyright, 1903 + +By Samuel McChord Crothers + +All rights reserved + +Published October, 1903_ + + + + +Preface + + +When Don Quixote was descanting on the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, +the Duchess interrupted him by expressing a doubt as to that lady's +existence. + +"Much may be said on that point," said Don Quixote. "God only knows +whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world. These are things the +proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths." + +But this admission does not in the least interfere with the habitual +current of his thoughts, or cool the ardor of his loyalty. He proceeds +after the momentary digression as if nothing had happened. "I behold her +as she needs must be, a lady who contains within herself all the +qualities to make her famous throughout the world; beautiful, without +blemish; dignified, without haughtiness; tender, and yet modest; +gracious from courtesy, and courteous from good breeding; and lastly of +illustrious birth." + +If in the following pages I begin by admitting that there is much to be +said in behalf of the popular notion that the Gentle Reader no longer +exists, let this pass simply as an evidence of my decent respect for the +opinion of mankind. To my mind the Gentle Reader is the most agreeable +of companions, and to make his acquaintance is one of the pleasures of +life. + +Of so elusive a personality it is not always possible to give a +consistent account. I have no doubt that I may have occasionally +attributed to him sentiments which are really my own; on the other hand, +I suspect that some views that I have set down as my own may have been +unconsciously derived from him. I have particular reference to the +opinions expressed on the subject of Ignorance. Such confusion of +mental properties the Gentle Reader will readily pardon, for there is no +one in all the world so careless of the distinctions between Meum and +Tuum. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +THE GENTLE READER 1 + +THE ENJOYMENT OF POETRY 35 + +THE MISSION OF HUMOR 64 + +CASES OF CONSCIENCE CONCERNING WITCHCRAFTS 101 + +THE HONORABLE POINTS OF IGNORANCE 135 + +THAT HISTORY SHOULD BE READABLE 167 + +THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENTLEMAN 201 + +THE HINTER-LAND OF SCIENCE 227 + +THE GENTLE READER'S FRIENDS AMONG THE CLERGY 243 + +QUIXOTISM 271 + +INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE AND DELIGHT 303 + + + + +The Gentle Reader + + +What has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he +has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that +henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the +Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a +generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were +dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were +their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer +would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle +Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate +of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved. + +"Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must have a chat with the Gentle +Reader, and find out what he thinks about it." + +And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the +Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature, +until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle +Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story." + +The thirteenth book of Tom Jones leaves the heroine in the greatest +distress. The last words are, "Nor did this thought once suffer her to +close her eyes during the whole succeeding night." Had Fielding been +addressing the Intelligent Modern Public he would have intensified the +interest by giving an analysis of Sophia's distress so that we should +all share her insomnia. But not at all! While the dear girl is +recovering her spirits it is such an excellent opportunity to have +uninterrupted discourse with the Gentle Reader, who doesn't take these +things too hard, having long since come to "the years that bring the +philosophic mind." So the next chapter is entitled An Essay to prove +that an author will write better for having some knowledge of the +subject on which he treats. The discussion is altogether irrelevant; +that is what the Gentle Reader likes. + +"It is a paradoxical statement you make," he says, trying to draw the +author out. "What are your arguments?" + +Then the author moderates his expressions. "To say the truth I require +no more than that an author should have some little knowledge of the +subject of which he treats." + +"That sounds more reasonable," says the Gentle Reader. "You know how +much I dislike extreme views. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, +that a writer may know a little about his subject. I hope that this may +not prove the opening wedge for erudition. By the way, where was it we +left the sweet Sophy; and do you happen to know anything more about that +scapegrace Jones?" + +That was the way books were written and read in the good old days before +the invention of the telephone and the short story. The generation that +delighted in Fielding and Richardson had some staying power. A book was +something to tie to. No one would say jauntily, "I have read Sir Charles +Grandison," but only, "I am reading." The characters of fiction were +not treated as transient guests, but as lifelong companions destined to +be a solace in old age. The short story, on the other hand, is invented +for people who want a literary "quick lunch." "Tell me a story while I +wait," demands the eager devourer of fiction. "Serve it hot, and be +mighty quick about it!" + +In rushes the story-teller with love, marriage, jealousy, disillusion, +and suicide all served up together before you can say Jack Robinson. +There is no time for explanation, and the reader is in no mood to allow +it. As for the suicide, it must end that way; for it is the quickest. +The ending, "They were happy ever after," cannot be allowed, for the +doting author can never resist the temptation to add another chapter, +dated ten years after, to show how happy they were. + +I sometimes fear that reading, in the old-fashioned sense, may become a +lost art. The habit of resorting to the printed page for information is +an excellent one, but it is not what I have in mind. A person wants +something and knows where to get it. He goes to a book just as he goes +to a department store. Knowledge is a commodity done up in a neat +parcel. So that the article is well made he does not care either for the +manufacturer or the dealer. + +Literature, properly so called, is quite different from this, and +literary values inhere not in things or even in ideas, but in persons. +There are some rare spirits that have imparted themselves to their +words. The book then becomes a person, and reading comes to be a kind of +conversation. The reader is not passive, as if he were listening to a +lecture on The Ethics of the Babylonians. He is sitting by his fireside, +and old friends drop in on him. He knows their habits and whims, and is +glad to see them and to interchange thought. They are perfectly at their +ease, and there is all the time in the world, and if he yawns now and +then nobody is offended, and if he prefers to follow a thought of his +own rather than theirs there is no discourtesy in leaving them. If his +friends are dull this evening, it is because he would have it so; that +is why he invited them. He wants to have a good, cosy, dull time. He has +had enough to stir him up during the day; now he wants to be let down. +He knows a score of good old authors who have lived long in the happy +poppy fields. + +In all good faith he invokes the goddess of the Dunciad:-- + + "Her ample presence fills up all the place, + A veil of fogs dilates her awful face. + Here to her Chosen all her works she shews, + Prose swelled to verse, verse loitering into prose." + +The Gentle Reader nods placidly and joins in the ascription:-- + + "Great tamer of all human art! + First in my care and ever at my heart; + Dullness whose good old cause I still defend. + + * * * * * + + O ever gracious to perplex'd mankind, + Still shed a healing mist before the mind; + And lest we err by wit's wild dancing light, + Secure us kindly in our native night." + +I would not call any one a gentle reader who does not now and then take +up a dull book, and enjoy it in the spirit in which it was written. + +Wise old Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, advises the restless +person to "read some pleasant author till he be asleep." Many persons +find the Anatomy of Melancholy to answer this purpose; though Dr. +Johnson declares that it was the only book that took him out of bed two +hours before he wished to rise. It is hard to draw the line between +stimulants and narcotics. + +This insistence on the test of the enjoyment of the dullness of a dull +book is not arbitrary. It arises from the characteristic of the Gentle +Reader. He takes a book for what it is and never for what it is not. If +he doesn't like it at all he doesn't read it. If he does read it, it is +because he likes its real quality. That is the way we do with our +friends. They are the people of whom we say that "we get at them." I +suppose every one of us has some friend of whom we would confess that as +thinker he is inferior to Plato. But we like him no less for that. We +might criticise him if we cared,--but we never care. We prefer to take +him as he is. It is the flavor of his individuality that we enjoy. +Appreciation of literature is the getting at an author, so that we like +what he is, while all that he is not is irrelevant. + +There are those who endeavor to reduce literary criticism to an exact +science. To this end they would eliminate the personal element, and +subject our admirations to fixed standards. In this way it is hoped +that we may ultimately be able to measure the road to Parnassus by +kilometers. All this is much more easily said than done. Personal +likings will not stay eliminated. We admire the acuteness of the critic +who reveals the unsuspected excellence of our favorite writer. It is a +pleasure like that which comes when a friend is received into a learned +society. We don't know much about his learning, but we know that he is a +good fellow, and we are glad to learn that he is getting on. We feel +also a personal satisfaction in having our tastes vindicated and our +enjoyment treated as if it were a virtue, just as Mr. Pecksniff was +pleased with the reflection that while he was eating his dinner, he was +at the same time obeying a law of the Universe. + +But the rub comes when the judgment of the critic disagrees with ours. +We discover that his laws have no penalties, and that if we get more +enjoyment from breaking than from obeying, then we are just that much +ahead. As for giving up an author just because the judgment of the +critic is against him, who ever heard of such a thing? The stanchest +canons of criticism are exploded by a genuine burst of admiration. + +That is what happens whenever a writer of original force appears. The +old rules do not explain him, so we must make new rules. We first enjoy +him, and then we welcome the clever persons who assure us that the +enjoyment is greatly to our credit. But-- + + "You must love him ere to you + He shall seem worthy of your love." + +I asked a little four-year-old critic, whose literary judgments I accept +as final, what stories she liked best. She answered, "I like Joseph and +Aladdin and The Forty Thieves and The Probable Son." + +It was a purely individual judgment. Some day she may learn that she has +the opinion of many centuries behind her. When she studies rhetoric she +may be able to tell why Aladdin is better than The Shaving of Shagpat, +and why the story of "The Probable Son" delights her, while the +half-hour homily on the parable makes not the slightest impression on +her mind. The fact is, she knows a good story just as she knows a good +apple. How the flavor got there is a scientific question which she has +not considered; but being there, trust the uncloyed palate to find it +out! She does not set up as a superior person having good taste; but she +says, "I can tell you what tastes good." + +The Gentle Reader is not greatly drawn to any formal treatises. He does +not enjoy a bare bit of philosophy that has been moulded into a fixed +form. Yet he dearly loves a philosopher, especially if he turns out to +be a sensible sort of man who doesn't put on airs. + +He likes the old Greek way of philosophizing. What a delight it was for +him to learn that the Academy in Athens was not a white building with +green blinds set upon a bleak hilltop, but a grove where, on pleasant +days, Plato could be found, ready to talk with all comers! That was +something like; no board of trustees, no written examinations, no +text-books--just Plato! You never knew what was to be the subject or +where you were coming out; all you were sure of was that you would come +away with a new idea. Or if you tired of the Academy, there were the +Peripatetics, gentlemen who were drawn together because they imagined +they could think better on their legs; or there were the Stoics, elderly +persons who liked to sit on the porch and discuss the "cosmic weather." +No wonder the Greeks got such a reputation as philosophers! They deserve +no credit for it. Any one would like philosophy were it served up in +that way. + +All that has passed. Were Socrates to come back and enter a downtown +office to inquire after the difference between the Good and the +Beautiful, he would be confronted with one of those neatly printed +cards, intended to discourage the Socratic method during business hours: +"This is our busy day." + +The Gentle Reader also has his business hours, and has learned to submit +to their inexorable requirements; but now and then he has a few hours to +himself. He declines an invitation to a progressive euchre party, on the +ground of a previous engagement he had made long ago, in his college +days, to meet some gentlemen of the fifth century B. C. The evening +passes so pleasantly, and the world seems so much fresher in interest, +that he wonders why he doesn't do that sort of thing oftener. Perhaps +there are some other progressive euchre parties he could cut, and the +world be none the worse. + +How many people there have been who have gone through the world with +their eyes open, and who have jotted down their impressions by the way! +How quickly these philosophers come to know their own. Listen to Izaak +Walton in his Epistle to the Reader: "I think it fit to tell thee these +following truths, that I did not undertake to write or publish this +discourse of Fish and Fishing to please myself, and that I wish it may +not displease others. And yet I cannot doubt but that by it some readers +may receive so much profit that if they be not very busy men, may make +it not unworthy the time of their perusal. And I wish the reader to take +notice that in the writing of it I have made a recreation of a +recreation; and that it might prove so to thee in the reading, and not +to read dully and tediously, I have in several places mixed some +innocent mirth; of which if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, +then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.... I am the willinger +to justify this innocent mirth because the whole discourse is a kind of +picture of my own disposition, at least of my disposition on such days +and times as I allow myself--when Nat and I go fishing together." How +cleverly he bows out the ichthyologists! How he rebukes the sordid +creature who has come simply to find out how to catch fish! That is the +very spirit of Simon Magus! "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this +matter!" + +The Gentle Reader has no ulterior aims. All he wants to know is how +Izaak Walton felt when he went fishing, and what he was thinking about. + +"A kind of picture of a man's own disposition," that is literature. Even +the most futile attempt at self-revelation evokes sympathy. I remember, +as a boy, gazing at an austere volume in my grandfather's library. It +was, as far as I could ascertain, an indigestible mixture of theology +and philology. But my eye was caught by the title, The Diversions of +Purley. I had not the slightest idea who Purley was, but my heart went +out to him at once. + +"Poor Purley!" I said. "If these were your diversions, what a dog's life +you must have led!" I could see Purley gazing vaguely through his +spectacles as he said: "Don't pity me! It's true I have had my +trials,--but then again what larks! See that big book; I did it!" Only +long after did I learn that my sympathy was un-called for, as Purley +was not a person but a place. + + * * * * * + +Of all the devices for promoting a good understanding the old-fashioned +Preface was the most excellent. It was not an introduction to the +subject, its purpose was personal. In these days the Preface, where it +survives, is reduced to the smallest possible space. It is like the +platform of an electric car which affords the passenger a precarious +foothold while he strives to obey the stern demand of the conductor that +he move forward. But time was when the Preface was the broad hospitable +porch on which the Author and Reader sat for an hour or so and talked +over the enterprise that was before them. Sometimes they would talk so +long that they almost forgot their ostensible subject. + +The very title of Sir William Davenant's "Preface before Gondibert" +suggests the hospitable leisure of the seventeenth century. Gondibert is +a poetical masterpiece not to be lightly adventured upon. The mind must +be duly prepared for it. Sir William, therefore, discourses about poetry +in general, and then takes up special instances. + +"I will (according as all times have applied their reverence) begin with +Homer." + +"Homer is an admirable point of departure, and I have no doubt but that +you will also tell what you think of Virgil," says the Gentle Reader, +who when he is asked to go a mile is glad to go twain. + +Then follows discourse on Lucan, Statius, Tasso, and the rest. + +"But I feel (sir) that I am falling into the dangerous Fit of a hot +writer; for instead of performing the promise which begins this Preface, +and doth oblige me (after I had given you the judgement of some upon +others), to present myself to your censure, I am wandering after new +thoughts; but I shall ask your pardon and return to my undertaking." + +"No apologies are necessary, I assure you. With new thoughts the rule is +first come, first served, while an immortal masterpiece can wait till +such time as we can enjoy it together." + +After some reflections on the fallibility of the clergy and the state of +the country, the author proceeds to describe the general structure of +his poem. + +"I have now given you an account of such provisions as I have made for +this new Building, and you may next please, having examined the +substance, to take a view of the form." He points out the "shadowings, +happy strokes, and sweet graces" of his work. This is done with an +intimacy of knowledge and fullness of appreciation that could not be +possible in a stranger. + +"'Tis now fit, after I have given you so long a survey of the Building, +to render you some account of the Builder, that you may know by what +times, pains, and assistance I have already proceeded." + +The time passes with much pleasure and profit until at last the host +says: "And now (sir) I shall after my busy vanitie in shewing and +describing my new Building, with great quietness, being almost as weary +as yourself, bring you to the Back-dore." + +It is all so handsomely done that the reader is prepared to begin upon +the poem itself, and would do so were it not that the distinguished +friend of the author, Mr. Hobbes, has prepared An Answer to the +Preface--a point of politeness which has not survived the seventeenth +century. Mr. Hobbes is of the opinion that there is only one point in +which Gondibert is inferior to the masterpieces of antiquity, and that +is that it is written in English instead of in Greek or Latin. The +Preface and Answer to the Preface having been read, the further +discovery is made that there is a Postscript. + +The Author, it appears, has fallen on evil days, and is in prison +charged with High Treason. + +"I am arrived here at the middle of the Third Book which makes an equal +half of the Poem, and I was now by degrees to present you (as I promised +in the Preface) the several keys to the Main Building, which should +convey you through such short walks as give you an easie view of the +whole Frame. But 'tis high time to strike sail and cast anchor (though I +have but run half my course), when at the Helme I am threatened with +Death, who though he can trouble us but once seems troublesome, and even +in the Innocent may beget such gravitie as diverts the Musick of Verse. +I beseech thee if thou art as civill as to be pleased with what is +written, not to take it ill that I run not till my last gasp.... If thou +art a malicious Reader thou wilt remember my Preface boldly confessed +that a main motive to this undertaking was a desire of Fame, and thou +maist likewise say that I may not possibly live to enjoy it.... If thou +(Reader) art one of those who has been warmed with Poetick Fire, I +reverence thee as my Judge, and whilst others tax me with Vanitie as if +the Preface argued my good Opinion of the Work, I appeal to thy +Conscience whether it be much more than such a necessary assurance as +thou hast made to thyself in like Undertakings." + +The Gentle Reader feels that whatever may be the merits of Gondibert, +Sir William Davenant is a gallant gentleman and worthy of his lasting +friendship. + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader has a warm place in his heart for those whom he calls +the paradisaical writers. These are the unfallen spirits who reveal +their native dispositions and are not ashamed. They write about that +which they find most interesting--themselves. They not only tell us what +happens, but what they think and how they feel. We are made partners of +their joys and sorrows. The first person singular is glorified by their +use. + +"But," says the Severe Moralist, "don't you frequently discover that +these persons are vain?" + +"Precisely so," answers the Gentle Reader, "and that's what I want to +find out. How are you going to discover what an author thinks about +himself if he hides behind a mask of impersonality? There is no getting +acquainted with such hypocrites. In five hundred pages you may not have +a glimpse of the man behind the book, though he may be bubbling over +with self-conceit. There was Alexander Cruden, one of the most eccentric +persons of the eighteenth century. Fully persuaded of his own greatness, +he called himself Alexander the Corrector and announced that he was +destined to be 'the second Joseph and a great man at court.' He haunted +the ante-chambers of the nobility, but found only one nobleman who would +listen to him, Earl Paulett, 'who being goutish in his feet could not +run away from the Corrector as other men are apt to do.' Cruden appears +to have spent his leisure moments in going about London with a large +piece of sponge with which he erased any offensive chalk marks on the +walls. 'This employment,' says his biographer, 'occasionally made his +walks very tedious.' Now one might consult Cruden's 'Concordance of the +Holy Scriptures' in vain for any hint of these idiosyncrasies of the +author. Perhaps the nature of the work made this impossible. But what +shall we say of writers who, having no such excuse, take pains to +conceal from us what manner of men they were. Even David Hume, whose +good opinion of himself is a credit to his critical sagacity, assumes an +apologetic tone when he ventures upon a sketch of his own life. 'It is +difficult,' he says, 'for a man to speak long about himself without +vanity; therefore I shall be brief.' What obtuseness that shows in a +philosopher who actually wrote a treatise on human nature! What did he +know about human nature if he thought anybody would read an +auto-biography that was without vanity? Vanity is one of the most +lovable of weaknesses. If in our contemporaries it sometimes troubles +us, that is only because two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the +same time. But when it is all put in a book and the pure juices of +self-satisfaction have been allowed to mellow for a few centuries, +nothing can be more delicious." + +His heart was won by a single sentence in one of Horace Walpole's +letters: "I write to you as I think." To the writer who gives him this +mark of confidence he is as faithful as is the Arab to the guest who has +eaten salt in his tent. The books which contain the results of thought +are common enough, but it is a rare privilege to share with a pleasant +gentleman the act of thinking. If the thoughts are those which arise +spontaneously out of the incidents of the passing day, so much the +better. He therefore warmly resents Wordsworth's remark about "that cold +and false-hearted, frenchified coxcomb, Horace Walpole." + +"What has Horace Walpole done except to give us a picture of his own +disposition and incidentally of the world he lived in? It is an instance +of the ingratitude of Republics--and the Republic of Letters is the most +ungrateful of them all--that this should be made the ground of a railing +accusation against him. Walpole might answer as Timoleon did, when, +after having restored the liberties of Syracuse, a citizen denounced him +in the popular assembly. The Liberator replied: 'I cannot sufficiently +express my gratitude to the gods for granting my request in permitting +me to see all the Syracusans enjoy the liberty of saying what they think +fit.' A man who could write letters for sixty-two years revealing every +phase of feeling for the benefit of posterity earns the right of making +as magnanimous a retort as that of any of Plutarch's men. He might well +thank the gods for permitting him to furnish future generations with +ample material for passing judgment upon him. For myself, I do not agree +with Wordsworth. I have summered and wintered with Horace Walpole and he +has never played me false; he has shown himself exactly as he is. To be +sure, he has his weaknesses, but he is always ready to share them with +his friends. I suppose that is the reason why he is accused of being +frenchified. A true born Englishman would have kept his faults to +himself as if they were incommunicable attributes. I am not going to +allow a bit of criticism to come between us at this late day. The +relation between Reader and Author is not to be treated so lightly. I +believe that there is no reason for separation in such cases except +incompatibility of temper." + +Then he makes his way to Strawberry Hill and listens to its master +describing his possession. "It is set in enameled meadows with filigree +hedges,-- + + 'A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled + And little finches wave their wings of gold.' + +Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually +with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as barons of the exchequer +move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospects; +but thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. +Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is +just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight." + +It is pleasant to sit in the Gothic villa on Strawberry Hill and see the +world pass by. The small Euphrates, the filigree hedges, and the +gossiping dowagers, being in the foreground, appear more important than +they do in the formal histories which have no perspective. But the great +world does pass by, and the master of the house is familiar with it and +recognizes every important person in the procession. Was he not a Prime +Minister's son, and were not his first letters written from Downing +Street? + +How rapidly the procession moves, giving only time for a nod and a word! +The reader is like a country cousin in the metropolis bewildered by a +host of new sensations. Now and then he smiles as some one whose name +has been long familiar is pointed out. The chief wonder is that there +are so many notabilities of whom he has never heard before. What an +unconscionable number of Duchesses there are, and each one has a +history! How different the Statesmen are from what he had imagined; not +nearly so wise but ever so much more amusing. Even the great William +Pitt appears to be only "Sir William Quixote," and a fantastic figure he +is! Strawberry Hill has its prejudices. It listens incredulously to the +stories illustrative of incorruptible political virtue. They are tales +to be told to Posterity. + +In regard to the historical drama that unfolds there is a pleasant +ambiguity. Which is it that sees behind the scenes,--the writer or the +present-day reader? The reader representing Posterity has a general +notion of the progress of events. He thinks he knows how things actually +came out and which were the more important. He is anxious to know how +they strike a contemporary. But he is chastened by the discovery of the +innumerable incidents which Posterity has forgotten, but which made a +great stir in their day. "The Tower guns have sworn through thick and +thin that Prince Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and city +bonfires all believe it." Prince Ferdinand "is the most fashionable man +in England. Have not the Tower guns and all the parsons in London been +ordered to pray for him?" + +The Gentle Reader is almost tempted to look up Prince Ferdinand, but is +diverted from this inquiry by a bit of gossip about the Duke of +Marlborough and the silver spoons. + +When he comes to the glorious year 1775 he is eager to learn the +sensations of Walpole when the echoes of the "shot heard round the +world" come to him. The shot is heard, but its effect is not so +startling as might have been imagined. "I did but put my head into +London on Thursday, and more bad news from America. I wonder when it +will be bad enough to make folks think it so, without going on?" Then +Walpole turns to something more interesting. "I have a great mind to +tell you a Twickenham story." + +It is about a certain Captain Mawhood who had "applied himself to learn +the classics and free-thinking and was always disputing with the parson +of the parish about Dido and his own soul." + +It is not just what the Gentle Reader was expecting, but he adapts +himself cheerfully to the situation. + +"I was about to inquire what you thought about the American war, but we +may come to that at some other time. Now let us have the Twickenham +story." + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader loves the writers who reveal their intellectual +limitations, but he does not care for those who insist upon telling him +their physical ailments. He is averse to the letters and journals which +are merely contributions to pathology. Indeed, he would, if he had his +own way, allow the mention of only one malady, the gout. This is +doubtless painful enough in the flesh, but in a book it has many +pleasant associations. Its intervals seem conducive to reminiscence, and +its twinges are the occasions of eloquent objurgations which light up +many an otherwise colorless page. + +With all his tolerance of vanity he dislikes that inverted kind which +induces certain morbid persons to write out painful confessions of their +own sins. He is willing to believe that they are far from perfect, but +he is sceptical in regard to their claims to be the chief of sinners. It +is hard to attain distinction in a line where there is so much +competition. + +When he finds a book of Life and Letters unreadable, he does not bring a +railing accusation against either the biographer or the biographee. + +They may both have been interesting persons, though the result in cold +print is not exhilarating. He knows how volatile is the charm of +personality, and how hard it is to preserve the best things. His friend, +who is a great diner-out, says: "Those were delightful people I met at +dinner yesterday, and what a capital story the judge told! I laugh every +time I think about it." + +"What story?" asks the Gentle Reader, eager for the crumbs that fall +from the witty man's table. + +"I can't remember just what it was about, or what was the point of it; +but it was a good story, and you would have thought so, too, if you had +heard the judge tell it." + +"I certainly should," replies the Gentle Reader, "and I shall always +believe, on your testimony, that the judge is one of the best +story-tellers in existence." + +In like manner he believes in interesting things that great men must +have done which unfortunately were not taken down by any one at the +time. + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader himself is not much at home in fashionable literary +society. He is a shy person, and his embarrassment is increased by the +consciousness that he seldom gets round to a book till after people are +through talking about it. Not that he prides himself on this fact; for +he is far from cherishing the foolish prejudice against new books. + +"'David Copperfield' was a new book once, and it was as good then as it +is now." It simply happens that there are so many good books that it is +hard to keep up with the procession. Besides, he has discovered that the +books that are talked about can be talked about just as well without +being read; this leaves him more time for his old favorites. + +"I have a sweet little story for you," says the charming authoress. "I +am sure you like sweet little stories." + +"Only one lump, if you please," says the Gentle Reader. + +In spite of his genial temperament there are some subjects on which he +is intolerant. When he picks up a story that turns out to be only a +Tract for the Times, he turns indignantly on the author. + +"Sirrah," he cries, under the influence of deep feeling, relapsing into +the vernacular of romance, "you gained access to me under the plea that +you were going to please me; and now that you have stolen a portion of +my time, you throw off all disguise, and admit that you entered with +intent to instruct, and that you do not care whether you please me or +not! I've a mind to have you arrested for obtaining my attention under +false pretenses! How villainously we are imposed upon! Only the other +day a man came to me highly recommended as an architect. I employed him +to build me a Castle in Spain, regardless of expense. When I suggested a +few pleasant embellishments, the wretch refused on the ground that he +never saw anything of the kind in the town he came from,--Toledo, Ohio. +If he had pleaded honest poverty of invention I should have forgiven +him, but he took a high and mighty tone with me, and said that it was +against his principles to allow any incident that was not probable. 'Who +said that it should be probable?' I replied. 'It is your business to +make it _seem_ probable.'" + +He highly disapproves of what he considers the cheese-paring economy on +the part of certain novelists in the endowment of their characters. +"Their traits are so microscopic, and require such minute analysis, that +I get half through the book before I know which is which. It seems as if +the writers were not sure that there was enough human nature to go +around. They should study the good old story of Aboukir and Abousir. + +"'There were in the city of Alexandria two men,--one was a dyer, and his +name was Aboukir; the other was a barber, and his name was Abousir. They +were neighbors, and the dyer was a swindler, a liar, and a person of +exceeding wickedness.' + +"Now, there the writer and reader start fair. There are no unnecessary +concealments. You know that the dyer is a villain, and you are on your +guard. You are not told in the first paragraph about the barber, but you +take it for granted that he is an excellent, well-meaning man, who is +destined to become enormously wealthy. And so it turns out. If our +writers would only follow this straightforward method we should hear +less about nervous prostration among the reading classes." He is very +severe on the whimsical notion, that never occurred to any one until the +last century, of saying that the heroine is not beautiful. + +"Such a remark is altogether gratuitous. When I become attached to a +young lady in fiction she always appears to me to be an extraordinarily +lovely creature. It's sheer impertinence for the author to intrude, +every now and then, just to call my attention to the fact that her +complexion is not good, and that her features are irregular. It's bad +manners,--and, besides, I don't believe that it's true." + +Nothing, however, so offends the Gentle Reader as the trick of +elaborating a plot and then refusing to elucidate it, and leaving +everything at loose ends. He feels toward this misdirected ingenuity as +Miss Edgeworth's Harry did toward the conundrum which his sister +proposed. + +"This is quite different," he said, "from the others. The worst of it is +that after laboring ever so hard at one riddle it does not in the least +lead to another. The next is always on some other principle." + +"Yes, to be sure," said Lucy. "Nobody who knows how to puzzle would give +two riddles of the same kind; that would be too easy." + +"But then, without something to guide one," said Harry, "there is no +getting on." + +"Not in your regular way," said Lucy. + +"That is the very thing I complain of," said Harry. + +"Complain! But my dear Harry, riddles are meant only to divert one." + +"But they do not divert me," said Harry; "they only puzzle me." + +The Gentle Reader is inclined to impute unworthy motives to the writer +whose work merely puzzles him. + +"The lazy unscrupulous fellow takes a job, and then throws it up and +leaves me to finish it for him. It's a clear breach of contract! That +sort of thing would never have been allowed in any well-governed +community. Fancy what would have happened in the court of Shahriar, +where story-telling was taken seriously." + +Sheherazade has got Sindbad on the moving island. + +"How did he get off?" asks the Sultan. + +"That's for your majesty to find out," answers Sheherazade archly. +"Maybe he got off, and maybe he didn't. That's the problem." + +"Off with her head!" says the Sultan. + +When sore beset by novelists who, under the guise of fiction, attempt to +saddle him with "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world," the +Gentle Reader takes refuge with one who has never deceived him. + +"What shall it be?" says Sir Walter. + +"As you please, Sir Walter." + +"No! As _you_ please, Gentle Reader. If you have nothing else in mind, +how would this do for a start?-- + + 'Waken! Lords and Ladies gay! + On the mountain dawns the day.' + +It's a fine morning, and it's a gallant company! +Let's go with them!" + +"Let's!" cries the Gentle Reader. + + + + +The Enjoyment of Poetry + + +Browning's description of the effect of +the recital of classic poetry upon a band of +piratical Greeks must seem to many persons to +be exaggerated:-- + +"Then, because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts, + And poetry is power, they all outbroke + In a great joyous laughter with much love." + +Because Americans are Americans, and business is business, and time is +money, and life is earnest, we take our poetry much more seriously than +that. We are ready to form classes to study it and to discuss it, but +these solemn assemblies are not likely to be disturbed by outbursts of +"great joyous laughter." + +We usually accept poetry as mental discipline. It is as if the poet +said, "Go to, now. I will produce a masterpiece." Thereupon the +conscientious reader answers, "Very well; I can stand it. I will apply +myself with all diligence, that by means of it I may improve my mind." +Who has not sometimes quailed before the long row of British Poets in +uniform binding, standing stiffly side by side, like so many British +grenadiers on dress parade? Who has not felt his courage ooze away at +the sight of those melancholy volumes labeled Complete Poetical Works? +Poetical Remains they used to call them, and there is something funereal +in their aspect. + +The old hymn says, "Religion never was designed to make our pleasures +less," and the same thing ought to be said about poetry. The distaste +for poetry arises largely from the habit of treating it as if it were +only a more difficult kind of prose. We are so much under the tyranny of +the scientific method that the habits of the school-room intrude, and we +try to extract instruction from what was meant to give us joy. The +prosaic commentary obscures the beauty of the text, so that + + "The glad old romance, the gay chivalrous story, + With its fables of faery, its legends of glory, + Is turned to a tedious instruction, not new, + To the children, who read it insipidly through." + +One of the most ruthless invasions of the prosaic faculties into the +realm of poetry comes from the thirst for general information. When this +thirst becomes a disease, it is not satisfied with census reports and +encyclopædia articles, but values literature according to the number of +facts presented. Suppose these lines from "Paradise Lost" to be taken +for study:-- + + "Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks + In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades + High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge + Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed + Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew + Busiris and his Memphian chivalry." + +What an opportunity this presents to the schoolmaster! "Come now," he +cries with pedagogic glee, "answer me a few questions. Where is +Vallombrosa? What is the character of its autumnal foliage? Bound +Etruria. What is sedge? Explain the myth of Orion? Point out the +constellation on the map of the heavens. Where is the Red Sea? Who was +Busiris? By what other name was he known? Who were the Memphian +Chivalry?" + +Here is material for exhaustive research in geography, ancient and +modern, history, botany, astronomy, meteorology, chronology, and +archæology. The industrious student may get almost as much information +out of "Paradise Lost" as from one of those handy compilations of useful +knowledge, which are sold on the railway cars for twenty-five cents. As +for the poetry of Milton, that is another matter. + + * * * * * + +Next to the temptation to use a poem as a receptacle for a mass of +collateral information is that to use it for the display of one's own +penetration. As in the one case it is treated as if it were an +encyclopædia article, in the other it is treated as if it were a verbal +puzzle. It is taken for granted that the intention of the poet is to +conceal thought, and the game is for the reader to find it out. We are +hunting for hidden meanings, and we greet one another with the grim +salutation of the creatures in the jungle: "Good hunting!" "What is the +meaning of this passage?" Who has not heard this sudden question +propounded in regard to the most transparent sentence from an author who +is deemed worthy of study? The uninitiated, in the simplicity of his +heart, might answer that he probably means what he says. Not at all; if +that were so, "what are we here for?" We are here to find hidden +meanings, and one who finds the meaning simple must be stopped, as +Armado stops Moth, with + + "Define, define, well-educated infant." + +It is a verbal masquerade to which we have been invited. No knowing what +princes in disguise, as well as anarchists and nihilists and other +objectionably interesting persons, may be discovered when the time for +unmasking comes. + +Now, the effect of all this is that many persons turn away from the +poets altogether. Why should they spend valuable time in trying to +unravel the meaning of lines which were invented to baffle them? There +are plenty of things we do not understand, without going out of our way +to find them. Then, as Pope observes, + + "True No-meaning puzzles more than Wit." + +The poets themselves, as if conscious that they are objects of +suspicion, are inclined to be apologetic, and endeavor to show that +they are doing business on a sound prosaic basis. Wordsworth set the +example of such painstaking self-justification. His conscience compelled +him to make amends to the literal minded Public for poetic +indiscretions, and to offer to settle all claims for damages. What a +shame-faced excuse he makes for the noble lines on Rob Roy's grave. "I +have since been told that I was misinformed as to the burial-place of +Rob Roy; if so, I may plead in excuse that I wrote on apparently good +authority, namely that of a well-educated lady who lived at the head of +the lake." + +One is reminded of the preface to the works of The Sweet Singer of +Michigan: "This little book is composed of truthful pieces. All those +which speak of being killed, died, or drowned are truthful songs, others +are more truth than poetry." + +It is against this mistaken conscientiousness that the Gentle Reader +protests. He insists that the true "defense of poesy" is that it has an +altogether different function from prose. It is not to be appreciated by +the prosaic understanding; unless, indeed, that awkward faculty be +treated to some Delsartean decomposing exercises to get rid of its +stiffness. + +"When I want more truth than poetry," he says, "I will go directly to +The Sweet Singer of Michigan, or I will inquire of the well-educated +lady who lives at the head of the lake. I do not like to have a poet +troubled about such small matters." + +Then he reads with approval the remarks of one of his own order who +lived in the seventeenth century, who protests against those "who take +away the liberty of a poet and fetter his feet in the shackles of an +historian. For why should a poet doubt in story to mend the intrigues of +fortune by more delightful conveyances of probable fictions because +austere historians have entered into bond to truth; an obligation which +were in poets as foolish and unnecessary as is the bondage of false +martyrs, who lie in chains for a mistaken opinion. But by this I would +imply that truth, narrative and past, is the idol of historians (who +worship a dead thing), and truth operative and by effects continually +alive is the mistress of poets, who hath not her existence in matter but +in reason." + +I am well aware that the attitude of the Gentle Reader seems to many +strenuous persons to be unworthy of our industrial civilization. These +persons insist that we shall make hard work of our poetry, if for no +other reason than to preserve our self-respect. Here as elsewhere they +insist upon the stern law that if a man will not labor neither shall he +eat. Even the poems of an earlier and simpler age which any child can +understand must be invested with some artificial difficulty. The learned +guardians of these treasures insist that they cannot be appreciated +unless there has been much preliminary wrestling with a "critical +apparatus," and much delving among "original sources." This is the same +principle that makes the prudent householder provide a sharp saw and a +sufficient pile of cord wood as a test to be applied to the stranger who +asks for a breakfast. There is much academic disapproval of one who in +defiance of all law insists on enjoying poetry after his own "undressed, +unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or +ratherest unconfirmed fashion." I, however, so thoroughly sympathize +with the Gentle Reader that I desire to present his point of view. + +To understand poetry is a vain ambition. That which we fully understand +is the part that is not poetry. It is that which passes our +understanding which has the secret in itself. There is an incommunicable +grace that defies all attempts at analysis. Poetry is like music; it is +fitted, not to define an idea or to describe a fact, but to voice a +mood. The mood may be the mood of a very simple person,--the mood of a +shepherd watching his flocks, or of a peasant in the fields; or, on the +other hand, it may be the mood of a philosopher whose mind has been +engrossed with the most subtle problems of existence. But in each case +the mood, by some suggestion, must be communicated to us. Thoughts and +facts must be transfigured; they must come to us as through some finer +medium. As we are told that we must experience religion before we know +what religion is, so we must experience poetry. The poet is the +enchanter, and we are the willing victims of his spells:-- + + "Would'st thou see + A man i' th' clouds and hear him speak to thee? + Would'st thou be in a dream and yet not sleep? + Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep? + Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm? + And find thyself again without a charm? + + * * * * * + O then come hither + And lay my book, thy head and heart together." + +Only the reader who yields to the charm can dream the dream. The poet +may weave his story of the most common stuff, but "there's magic in the +web of it." If we are conscious of this magical power, we forgive the +lack of everything else. The poet may be as ignorant as Aladdin himself, +but he has a strange power over our imaginations. At his word they obey, +traversing continents, building palaces, painting pictures. They say, +"We are ready to obey as thy slaves, and the slaves of all that have +that lamp in their hands,--we and the other slaves of the lamp." + +This is the characteristic of the poet's power. He does not construct a +work of the imagination,--he makes our imaginations do that. That is why +the fine passages of elaborate description in verse are usually +failures. The verse-maker describes accurately and at length. The poet +speaks a word, and Presto! change! We are transported into a new land, +and our eyes are "baptized into the grace and privilege of seeing." +Many have taken in hand to write descriptions of spring; and some few +painstaking persons have nerved themselves to read what has been +written. I turn to the prologue of the "Canterbury Tales;" it is not +about spring, it is spring, and I am among those who long to go upon a +pilgrimage. A description of a jungle is an impertinence to one who has +come under the spell of William Blake's + + "Tiger! tiger! burning bright + In the forest of the night." + +Those fierce eyes glowing there in the darkness sufficiently illuminate +the scene. Immediately it is midsummer, and we feel all its delicious +languor when Browning's David sings of + + "The sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell + That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well." + +The first essential to the enjoyment of poetry is leisure. The demon +Hurry is the tempter, and knowledge is the forbidden fruit in the poet's +paradise. To enjoy poetry, you must renounce not only your easily +besetting sins, but your easily besetting virtues as well. You must not +be industrious, or argumentative, or conscientious, or strenuous. I do +not mean that you must be a person of unlimited leisure and without +visible means of support. I have known some very conscientious students +of literature who, when off duty, found time to enjoy poetry. I mean +that if you have only half an hour for poetry, for that half hour you +must be in a leisurely frame of mind. + +The poet differs from the novelist in that he requires us to rest from +our labors. The ordinary novel is easy reading, because it takes us as +we are, in the midst of our hurry. The mind has been going at express +speed all the day; what the novelist does is to turn the switch, and off +we go on another track. The steam is up, and the wheels go around just +the same. The great thing is still action, and we eagerly turn the pages +to see what is going to happen next,--unless we are reading some of our +modern realistic studies of character. Even then we are lured on by the +expectation that, at the last moment, something may happen. But when we +turn to the poets, we are in the land of the lotus-eaters. The +atmosphere is that of a perfect day, + + "Whereon it is enough for me + Not to be doing, but to be." + +Into this land our daily cares cannot follow us. It is an + + "enchanted land, we know not where, + But lovely as a landscape in a dream." + +Once in this enchanted country, haste seems foolish. Why should we toil +on as if we were walking for a wager? It is as if one had the privilege +of joining Izaak Walton as he loiters in the cool shade of a sweet +honeysuckle hedge, and should churlishly trudge on along the dusty +highway rather than accept the gentle angler's invitation: "Pray, let us +rest ourselves in this sweet, shady arbor of jessamine and myrtle; and I +will requite you with a bottle of sack, and when you have pledged me, I +will repeat the verses I promised you." One may, as a matter of strict +conscience, be both a pedestrian and a prohibitionist, and yet not find +it in his heart to decline such an invitation. + +The poets who delight us with their verses are not always serious-minded +persons with an important thought to communicate. When I read, + + "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan + A stately pleasure-dome decree," + +I am not a bit wiser than I was before, but I am a great deal happier; +although I have not the slightest idea where Xanadu was, and only the +vaguest notion of Kublai Khan. + +There are poems whose charm lies in their illusiveness. Fancy any one +trying to explain Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Yet when the mood is on +us we see her as she leans + + "From the gold bar of Heaven: + Her eyes were deeper than the depth + Of waters stilled at even; + She had three lilies in her hand + And the stars in her hair were seven." + +We look over the mystic ramparts and are dimly conscious that + + "the souls mounting up to God + Went by her like thin flames." + +This is not astronomy nor theology, nor any of the things we know all +about--it is only poetry. + +Let no one trouble me by attempting to elucidate "Childe Roland to the +Dark Tower came." I do not care for a Baedeker. I prefer to lose my way. +I love the darkness rather than light. I do not care for a topographical +chart of the hills that + + "like giants at a hunting lay, + Chin upon hand." + +The mood in which we enjoy such poetry is that described in Emerson's +"Forerunners." + + "Long I followed happy guides, + I could never reach their sides. + + * * * * * + + But no speed of mine avails + To hunt upon their shining trails. + + * * * * * + + On eastern hills I see their smokes, + Mixed with mist by distant lochs. + I met many travelers + Who the road had surely kept: + They saw not my fine revelers." + +If our thoughts make haste to join these "fine revelers," rejoicing in +the sense of freedom and mystery, delighting in the mist and the wind, +careless of attaining so that we may follow the shining trails, all is +well. + +As there are poems which are not meant to be understood, so there are +poems that are not meant to be read; that is, to be read through. There +is Keats's "Endymion," for instance. I have never been able to get on +with it. Yet it is delightful,--that is the very reason why I do not +care to get on with it. Wherever I begin, I feel that I might as well +stay where I am. It is a sweet wilderness into which the reader is +introduced. + + "Paths there were many, + Winding through palmy fern and rushes fenny + And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly + To a wide lawn... + Who could tell + The freshness of the space of heaven above, + Edged round with dark tree-tops?--through which a dove + Would often beat its wings, and often, too, + A little cloud would move across the blue." + +We are brought into the very midst of this pleasantness. Deep in the +wood we see fair faces and garments white. We see the shepherds coming +to the woodland altar. + + "A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks + As may be read of in Arcadian books; + Such as sat list'ning round Apollo's pipe + When the great deity, for earth too ripe, + Let his divinity o'erflowing die + In music, through the vales of Thessaly." + +We see the venerable priest pouring out the sweet-scented wine, and then +we see the young Endymion himself:-- + + "He seemed + To common lookers-on like one who dreamed + Of idleness in groves Elysian." + +What happened next? What did Endymion do? Really, I do not know. It is +so much pleasanter, at this point, to close the book, and dream "of +idleness in groves Elysian." The chances are that when one turns to the +poem again he will not begin where he left off, but at the beginning, +and read as if he had never read it before; or rather, with more +enjoyment because he has read it so many times:-- + + "A thing of beauty is a joy forever: + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness; but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing." + +Shelley describes a mood such as Keats brings to us:-- + + "My spirit like a charmèd bark doth swim + Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing + Far away into regions dim + Of rapture, as a boat with swift sails winging + Its way adown some many-winding river." + +He who finds himself afloat upon the "many-winding river" throws aside +the laboring oar. It is enough to float on,--he cares not whither. + +What greater pleasure is there than in the "Idylls of the King" provided +we do not study them, but dream them. We must enter into the poet's own +mood:-- + + "I seemed + To sail with Arthur under looming shores, + Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams + Begin to feel the truth and stir of day." + +It is good to be there, in that far-off time, good to come to Camelot:-- + + "Built by old kings, age after age, + So strange and rich and dim." + +All we see of kings, and magicians, and ladies, and knights is "strange +and rich and dim." Over everything is a luminous haze. There are + + "hollow tramplings up and down, + And muffled voices heard, and shadows past." + +There is the flashing of swords, the weaving of spells, the seeing of +visions. All these things become real to us; not simply the stainless +king and the sinful queen, the prowess of Lancelot and the love of +Elaine, but the magic of Merlin and the sorceries of Vivien, with her +charms + + "Of woven paces and of waving hands." + +And we must stand at last with King Arthur on the shore of the mystic +sea, and see the barge come slowly with the three queens, "black-stoled, +black-hooded, like a dream;" and hear across the water a cry, + + "As it were one voice, an agony + Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills + All night in a waste land, where no one comes, + Or hath come, since the making of the world." + +But what good is there in all this? Why waste time on idle dreams? We +hear Walt Whitman's challenge to romantic poetry:-- + + "Arthur vanished with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot + and Galahad, all gone, dissolved utterly like an exhalation; + Embroidered, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous + legends, myths, + Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and + courtly dames, + Passed to its charnel vault, coffined with crown and armor on, + Blazoned with Shakspere's purple page + And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme." + +Away with the old romance! Make room for the modern bard, who is + + "Bluffed not a bit by drain-pipes, gasometers, + and artificial fertilizers." + +The Gentle Reader, also, is not to be bluffed by any useful things, +however unpleasant they may be, but he winces a little as he reads that +the "far superber themes for poets and for art" include the teaching by +the poet of how + + "To use the hammer and the saw (rip or cross-cut), + To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting, + To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter, + To invent a little something ingenious to aid the washing, + cooking, cleaning." + +The Muse of Poetry shrieks at the mighty lines in praise of +"leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making," and the rest. +Boiler-making, she protests, is a useful industry and highly to be +commended, but it is not music. When asked to give a reason why she +should not receive all these things as poetry, the Muse is much +embarrassed. "It's all true," she says. "Leather-dressing and +boiler-making are undoubted realities, while Arthur and Lancelot may be +myths." Yet she is not quite ready to be off with the old love and on +with the new,--it's all so sudden. + +Whitman himself furnishes the best illustrations of the difference +between poetry and prose. He comes like another Balaam to prophesy +against those who associate poetry with beauty of form and melody of +words; and then the poetic spirit seizes upon him and lifts him into the +region of harmony. In the Song of the Universal he declares that-- + + "From imperfection's murkiest cloud + Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, + One flash of heaven's glory. + To fashion's, customs discord, + To the mad Babel's din, the deafening orgies, + Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard + From some far shore, the final chorus sounding. + O the blest eyes, the happy hearts + That see, that know the guiding thread so fine + Along the mighty labyrinth." + +There speaks the poet declaring the true faith, which except a man +believe he is condemned everlastingly to the outer darkness. His task is +selective. No matter about the murkiness of the cloud he must make us +see the ray of perfect light. In the mad Babel-din he must hear and +repeat the strain of pure music. As to the field of choice, it may be as +wide as the world, but he must choose as a poet, and not after the +manner of the man with the muck-rake. + + "In this broad earth of ours + Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, + Inclosed and safe within the central heart + Nestles the seed perfection." + +When the poet delves in the grossness and the slag, he does so as one +engaged in the search for the perfect. + +"My feeling," says the Gentle Reader, "about the proper material for +poetry, is very much like that of Whitman in regard to humanity-- + + 'When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my + friendly companions, + I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as + I do of men and women like you.' + +"So I say, when drain pipes and cross-cut saws and the beef on the +butcher's stalls are invested with beautiful associations and thrill my +soul in some mysterious fashion, then I will make as much of these +things as I do of the murmuring pines and the hemlocks. When a poet +makes bank clerks and stevedores and wood-choppers to loom before my +imagination in heroic proportions, I will receive them as I do the +heroes of old. But, mind you, the miracle must be actually performed; I +will not be put off with a prospectus." + +Now and then the miracle is performed. We are made to feel the romance +that surrounds the American pioneer, we hear the + + "Crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven by strong arms." + +But, for the most part, Whitman, when under the influence of deep +feeling, forgets his theory, and uses as his symbols those things which +have already been invested with poetical associations. Turn to that +marvelous dirge, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard bloomed." There is +here no catalogue of facts or events, no parade of glaring realism. +Tennyson's "sweet sad rhyme" has nowhere more delicious music than we +find in the measured cadence of these lines. We are not told the news of +the assassination of Lincoln as a man on the street might tell it. It +comes to us through suggestion. We are made to feel a mood, not to +listen to the description of an event. There is symbolism, suggestion, +color mystery. We inhale the languorous fragrance of the lilacs; we see +the drooping star; in secluded recesses we hear "a shy and hidden bird" +warbling a song; there are dim-lit churches and shuddering organs and +tolling bells, and there is one soul heart-broken, seeing all and +hearing all. + + "Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to + keep, for the dead I loved so well, + For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and + this for his dear sake, + Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, + There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim." + +This is real poetry, and yet while we yield to the charm we are +conscious that it is made up of the old familiar elements. + +Tennyson's apology to a utilitarian age was not needed:-- + + "Perhaps some modern touches here and there + Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness." + +The "modern touches" we can spare. The modern life we have always with +us; but it is a rare privilege to enjoy the best things of the past. It +is the poet who is the minister of this fine grace. The historian tells +us what men of the past did, the philosopher tells us how their +civilizations developed and decayed; we smile at their superstitions, +and pride ourselves upon our progress. But the ethereal part has +vanished, that which made their very superstitions beautiful and cast a +halo over their struggles. These are the elements out of which the poet +creates his world, into which we may enter. In the order of historic +development chivalry must give way before democracy, and loyalty to the +king must fade before the increasing sense of liberty and equality; but +the highest ideals of chivalry may remain. Imaginative and romantic +poetry has this high mission to preserve what otherwise would be lost. +It lifts the mind above the daily routine into the region of pure joy. +Whatever necessary changes take place in the world we find, in + + "All lovely tales which we have heard or read, + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink." + +I have said that one may be a true poet without having any very +important thought to communicate, but it must be said that most of the +great poets have been serious thinkers as well. They have had their +philosophy of life, their thoughts about nature and about human duty and +destiny. It is the function of the poet not only to create for us an +ideal world and to fill it with ideal creatures, but also to reveal to +us the ideal element in the actual world. + +"I do not know what poetical is," says Audrey. "Is it honest in deed and +word? Is it a true thing?" We must not answer with Touchstone: "No, +truly! for the truest poetry is the most feigning." + +The poetical interpretation of the world is not feigning; it is a true +thing,--the truest thing of which we can know. The grace and sublimity +which we see through the poet's eyes are real. We must, however, still +insist on our main contention. The poet, if he is to hold us, must +always be a poet. His thought must be in solution, and not appear as a +dull precipitate of prose. He may be philosophical, but he must not +philosophize. He may be moral, but he must not moralize. He may be +religious, but let him spare his homilies. + +"Whatever the philosopher saith should be done," said Sir Philip Sidney; +"the peerless poet giveth a perfect picture of it. He yieldeth to the +power of the mind an image of that of which the philosopher bestoweth +but a wordish description.... The poet doth not only show the way, but +doth give so sweet a prospect unto the way as will entice any man to +enter it. Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a fair +vineyard, at first give you a cluster of grapes." + +We have a right to ask our poets to be pleasant companions even when +they discourse on the highest themes. Even when they have theories of +their own about what we should enjoy, let us not allow them to foist +upon us "wordish descriptions" of excellent things instead of poetry. +When the poet invites me to go with him I first ask, "Let me taste your +grapes." + +You remember Mr. By-ends in the "Pilgrim's Progress,"--how he said of +Christian and Hopeful, "They are headstrong men who think it their duty +to rush on in their journey in all weathers, while I am for waiting for +wind or tide. I am for Religion when he walks in his silver slippers in +the sunshine." That was very reprehensible in Mr. By-ends, and he richly +deserved the rebuke which was afterward administered to him. But when we +change the subject, and speak, not of religion, but of poetry, I confess +that I am very much of Mr. By-ends' way of thinking. There are literary +Puritans who, when they take up the study of a poet, make it a point of +conscience to go on to the bitter end of his poetical works. If they +start with Wordsworth on his "Excursion," they trudge on in all +weathers. They _do_ the poem, as when going abroad they do Europe in six +weeks. As the revival hymn says, "doing is a deadly thing." Let me say, +good Christian and Hopeful, that though I admire your persistence, I +cannot accompany you. I am for a poet only when he puts on his singing +robes and walks in the sunshine. As for those times when he goes on +prosing in rhyme from force of habit, I think it is more respectful as +well as more pleasurable to allow him to walk alone. + + * * * * * + +Shelley's definition of poetry as "the record of the best and happiest +moments of the happiest and best minds" suggests the whole duty of the +reader. All that is required of him is to obey the Golden Rule. There +must be perfect reciprocity and fraternal sympathy. The poet, being +human, has his unhappy hours, when all things are full of labor. Upon +such hours the Gentle Reader does not intrude. In their happiest moments +they meet as if by chance. In this encounter they are pleased with one +another and with the world they live in. How could it be otherwise? It +is indeed a wonderful world, transfigured in the light of thought. +Familiar objects lose their sharp outlines and become symbols of +universal realities. Likenesses, before unthought of, appear. Nature +becomes a mirror of the soul, and answers instantly to each passing +mood. Words are no longer chosen, they come unbidden as the poet and his +reader + + "mount to Paradise + By the stairway of surprise." + + + + +The Mission of Humor + + +In "The Last Tournament" we are told how + + "Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his moods + Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, + At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, + Danced like a withered leaf before the hall." + +That is the view which many worthy people take of the humorist. He is +Sir Dagonet. Among the serious persons who are doing the useful work of +the world, discovering its laws, classifying its facts, forecasting its +future, this light-minded, light-hearted creature comes with his +untimely jests. In their idle moments they tolerate the mock-knight, but +when important business is on hand they dismiss him, as did Sir +Tristram, with + + "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?" + +This half-contemptuous view is very painful to the Gentle Reader who, +though he may seem to some to take his poetry too lightly, is disposed +to take his humor rather seriously. Humor seems to him to belong to the +higher part of our nature. It is not the enjoyment of a grotesque image +in a convex mirror, but, rather, the recognition of fleeting forms of +truth. + +"I have brought you a funny book, Gentle Reader," says the Professional +Humorist. + +"Thank you," he answers, struggling against his melancholy forebodings. +"You will pardon me if I seem to take my pleasures sadly." + +It is hard for him to force a smile as he watches the procession of +jokes, each as broad as it is long. This ostentatious jocosity is not to +his liking. + +"Thackeray," he says, "defines humor as a mixture of love and wit. +Humor, therefore, being of the nature of love, should not behave itself +unseemly." + +He cannot bear to see it obtruding itself upon the public. Its proper +habit is to hide from observation "as if the wren taught it +concealment." When a Happy Thought ventures abroad it should be as a +royal personage traveling _incognito_. + +This is a big world, and it is serious business to live in it. It makes +many demands. It requires intensity of thought and strenuousness of will +and solidity of judgment. Great tasks are set before us. We catch +fugitive glimpses of beauty, and try to fix them forever in perfect +form,--that is the task of art. We see thousands of disconnected facts, +and try to arrange them in orderly sequence,--that is the task of +science. We see the ongoing of eternal force, and seek some reason for +it,--that is the task of philosophy. + +But when art and science and philosophy have done their best, there is a +great deal of valuable material left over. There are facts that will not +fit into any theory, but which keep popping up at us from the most +unexpected places. Nobody can tell where they come from or why they are +here; but here they are. Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net +result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectnesses. We are +surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many +different ways. Everything is under the reign of strict law; but many +queer things happen, nevertheless. What are we to do with all the waifs +and strays? What are we to do with all the sudden incongruities which +mock at our wisdom and destroy the symmetry of our ideas? + +The solemnly logical intelligence ignores their existence. It does not +trouble itself about anything which does not belong to its system. The +system itself has such perfect beauty that it is its own excuse for +being. + +More sensitive and less self-centred natures do not find the way so +easy. They allow themselves to be worried by the incongruities which +they cannot ignore. It seems to them that whenever they are in earnest +the world conspires to mock them. Continually they feel that intellect +and conscience are insulted by whipper-snappers of facts that have no +right to be in an orderly universe. They can expose a lie, and feel a +certain superiority in doing it; but a little unclassified, +irreconcilable truth drives them to their wit's end. There it stands in +all its shameless actuality asking, "What do you make of me?" + +Just here comes the beneficent mission of humor. It takes these +unassorted realities that are the despair of the sober intelligence, and +extracts from them pure joy. If life depends on the perpetual +adjustment of the organism to its environment, humor is the means by +which the intellectual life is sustained on those occasions when the +expected environment is not there. The adjustment must be made, without +a moment's warning, to an altogether new set of conditions. We are +called upon to swap horses while crossing the stream. It is a method +which the serious minded person does not approve. While arguing the +matter he is unhorsed, and finds himself floundering in the water. The +humorist accepts the situation instantly. As he scrambles upon his new +nag it is with a sense of triumph, for the moment at least, he feels +that he has the best of the bargain. + +One may have learned to enjoy the sublime, the beautiful, the useful, +the orderly, but he has missed something if he has not also learned to +enjoy the incongruous, the illusive, and the unexpected. Artistic +sensibility finds its satisfaction only in the perfect. Humor is the +frank enjoyment of the imperfect. Its objects are not so high,--but +there are more of them. + +Evolution is a cosmic game of Pussy wants a corner. Each creature has +its eye on some snug corner where it would rest in peace. Each corner +is occupied by some creature that is not altogether satisfied and that +is on the lookout for a larger sphere. There is much beckoning between +those who are desirous of making a change. Now and then some bold spirit +gives up his assured position and scrambles for something better. The +chances are that the adventurer finds it harder to attain the coveted +place than he had thought. For the fact is that there are not corners +enough to go around. If there were enough corners, and every one were +content to stay in the one where he found himself at the beginning, then +the game would be impossible. It is well that this never happens. Nature +looks after that. When things are too homogeneous she breaks them up +into new and amazing kinds of heterogeneity. It is a good game, and one +learns to like it after he enters into the spirit of it. + +If the Universe had a place for everything and everything was in its +place, there would be little demand for humor. As a matter of fact the +world is full of all sorts of people, and they are not all in their +proper places. There are amazing incongruities between station and +character. It is not a world that has been reduced to order; it is still +in the making. One may easily grow misanthropic and pessimistic by +dwelling upon the misfits. + + "As to behold desert a beggar born + And needy nothing trimmed in jollity. + + * * * * * + + And art made tongue-tied by authority, + And simple truth miscalled simplicity, + And folly doctor-like, controlling skill, + And captive good attending captive ill." + +But fortunately these incongruities are not altogether tragical. There +are certain moods when we rather enjoy seeing "needy nothing trimmed in +jollity." We are pleased when Justice Shallow slaps Sir John Falstaff on +the back and says, "Ha! it was a merry night, Sir John." We are not +irritated beyond endurance because in this world where so many virtuous +people have a hard time, such trifling fellows as Sir Toby and Sir +Andrew have their cakes and ale. When folly puts on doctor-like airs it +is not always disagreeable. We would not have Dogberry put off the watch +to give place to some one who could pass the civil service examination. + +The humorist, when asked what he thinks of the actual world, would turn +upon his questioner as Touchstone turned upon Corin when he was asked +how he liked the shepherd's life:-- + +"Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?" The world is not at all like +the descriptions of it, and yet he cannot take a very gloomy view of it. +In respect to itself it is a good world, and yet in respect that it is +not finished it leaves much to be desired. Yet in respect that it leaves +much to be desired, and much to be done by us, it is perhaps better _for +us_ than if it were finished. In respect that many things happen that +are opposed to our views of the eternal fitness of things, it is a +perplexing world. Yet in respect that we have a faculty for enjoying the +occasional unfitness of things, it is delightful. On the whole, he sums +up with Touchstone, "It suits my humor well." + +Humor is impossible to the man of one idea. There must be at least two +ideas moving in opposite directions, so that there may be a collision. +Such an accident does not happen in a mind under economical management +that runs only one train of thought a day. + +There are many ideas that have a very insecure tenure. They hold their +own as squatters. By and by Science will come along and evict them, but +in the mean time these homely folk make very pleasant neighbors. All +they ask is that we shall not take them too seriously. That a thing is +not to be taken too seriously does not imply that it is either unreal or +unimportant:--it only means that it is not to be taken that way. There +is, for example, a pickaninny on a Southern plantation. The +anthropologist measures his skull and calls it by a long Latin name. The +psychologist carefully records his nervous reactions. The pedagogical +expert makes him the victim of that form of inquisition known as "child +study." The missionary perplexes himself in vain attempting to get at +his soul. Then there comes along a person of another sort. At the first +look, a genial smile of recognition comes over the face of this new +spectator. He is the first one who has seen the pickaninny. The one +essential truth about a black, chubby, kinky-haired pickaninny is that, +when he rolls up his eyes till only the whites are visible, he is +irresistibly funny. This is what theologians term "the substance of +doctrine" concerning the pickaninny. + +When Charles Lamb slipped on the London pavement, he found delight in +watching the chimney sweep who stood laughing at his misfortune. "There +he stood irremovable, as though the jest were to last forever, with such +a maximum of glee and minimum of mischief in his mirth--for the grin of +a genuine sweep hath no malice in it--that I could have been content, if +the honor of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and +his mockery till midnight." There were many middle-aged London citizens +who could no more appreciate that kind of pleasure than a Hottentot +could appreciate an oratorio. That is only saying that the average +citizen and the average Hottentot have, as Wordsworth mildly puts it, +"faculties which they have never used." + +The high place that humor holds among our mental processes is evident +when we consider that it is almost the only one that requires that we +shall be thoroughly awake. In our dreams we have many æsthetic +enjoyments, as vague splendors pass before us. At other times there is +an abnormal sensitiveness to the sovereignty, not to say the despotism +of ethics. We feel burdened with the weight of unpardonable sins. We are +able also in our sleep to philosophize after a fashion which is, for the +time, quite satisfactory. At such times we are sure that we have made +important discoveries; if we could only remember what they were. A +thousand incongruities pass through our minds, but there is one thing +which we cannot do. We cannot recognize that they are incongruous. Such +a discovery would immediately awaken us. + +Tennyson tells how + + "half awake I heard + The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, + Now harping on the church commissioners, + Now hawking at Geology and schism." + +It would be possible for the parson and his congregation to keep on with +that sort of thing Sunday after Sunday. They would discover nothing +absurd in the performance, so long as they were in their usual +semi-somnolent condition. + +Humor implies mental alertness and power of discrimination. It also +implies a hospitality toward all the differences that are recognized. +Psychologists speak of the Association of Ideas. It is a pleasant +thought, but it is, in reality, difficult to induce Ideas to associate +in a neighborly way. In many minds the different groups are divided by +conventional lines, and there are aristocratic prejudices separating the +classes from the masses. The Working Hypothesis, honest son of toil that +he is, does not expect so much as a nod of recognition from the High +Moral Principle who walks by in his Sunday clothes. The steady Habit +does not associate with the high-bred Sentiment. They do not belong to +the same set. Only in the mind of the humorist is there a true +democracy. Here everybody knows everybody. Even the priggish Higher +Thought is not allowed to enjoy a sense of superiority. Plain Common +Sense slaps him on the back, calls him by his first name, and bids him +not make a fool of himself. + +Of the two ingredients which Thackeray mentions, the first, love, is +that which gives body; the addition of wit gives the effervescence. The +pleasure of wit lies in its unexpectedness. In humor there is the added +pleasure of really liking that which surprises us. It is like meeting an +old friend in an unexpected place. "What, you here?" we say. This is the +kind of pleasure we get from Dr. Johnson's reply to the lady who asked +why he had put a certain definition in his dictionary: "Pure ignorance, +madam." + +The fact is that long ago we made the acquaintance of one whom Bunyan +describes as "a brisk young lad named Ignorance." He is a dear friend of +ours, and we are on very familiar terms with him when we are at home; +but we do not expect to meet him in fine society. Suddenly we turn the +corner, and we see him walking arm in arm with so great a man as Dr. +Samuel Johnson. At once we are at our ease in the presence of the great +man; it seems we have a mutual acquaintance. + +Another element in real humor is a certain detachment of mind. We must +not be afraid, or jealous, or angry; in order to take a really humorous +view of any character, we must be in a position to see all around it. If +I were brought before Fielding's Squire Western on charge of poaching, +and if I had a pheasant concealed under my coat, I should not be able +to appreciate what an amusing person the squire is. I should be inclined +to take him very seriously. + +The small boy who pins a paper to the schoolmaster's coat tail imagines +that he has achieved a masterpiece of humor. But he is not really in a +position to reap the fruits of his perilous adventure. It is a fearful +and precarious joy which he feels. What if the schoolmaster should turn +around? That would be tragedy. Neither the small boy nor the +schoolmaster gets the full flavor of humor. But suppose an old friend of +the schoolmaster happens just then to look in at the door. His delight +in the situation has a mellowness far removed from the anxious, +ambiguous glee of the urchin. He knows that the small boy is not so +wicked as he thinks he is, and the schoolmaster is not so terrible as he +seems. He remembers the time when the schoolmaster was up to the same +pranks. So, from the assured position of middle age, he looks upon the +small boy that was and upon the small boy that is, and finds them both +very good,--much better, indeed, than at this moment they find each +other. + +It is this sense of the presence of a tolerant spectator, looking upon +the incidents of the passing hour, which we recognize in the best +literature. Books that are meant simply to be funny are very +short-lived. The first reception of a joke awakens false expectations. +It is received with extravagant heartiness. But when, encouraged by this +hospitality, it returns again and again, its welcome is worn out. There +is something melancholy in a joke deserted in its old age. + +The test of real literature is that it will bear repetition. We read +over the same pages again and again, and always with fresh delight. This +bars out all mere jocosity. A certain kind of wit, which depends for its +force on mere verbal brilliancy, has the same effect. The writers whom +we love are those whose humor does not glare or glitter, but which has +an iridescent quality. It is the perpetual play of light and color which +enchants us. We are conscious all the time that the light is playing on +a real thing. It is something more than a clever trick; there is an +illumination. + +Erasmus, in dedicating his "Praise of Folly" to Sir Thomas More, +says:-- + +"I conceived that this would not be least approved by you, inasmuch as +you are wont to be delighted with such kind of pleasantry as is neither +unlearned nor altogether insipid. Such is your sweetness of temper that +you can and like to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Unless +an overweening opinion of myself may have made me blind, I have praised +folly not altogether foolishly. I have moderated my style, that the +understanding reader may perceive that my endeavor is to make mirth +rather than to bite." + +Erasmus has here described a kind of humor that is consistent with +seriousness of purpose. The characteristics he notes are good temper, +insight into human nature, a certain reserve, and withal a gentle irony +that makes the praise of folly not unpleasing to the wise. It is a way +of looking at things characteristic of men like Chaucer and Cervantes +and Montaigne and Shakespeare, and Bunyan and Fielding and Addison, +Goldsmith, Charles Lamb and Walter Scott. In America, we have seen it in +Irving and Dr. Holmes and James Russell Lowell. + +I have left out of the list one whom nature endowed for the supreme man +of humor among Englishmen,--Jonathan Swift. Charles Lamb argues against +the common notion that it is a misfortune to a man to have a surly +disposition. He says it is not his misfortune; it is the misfortune of +his neighbors. It is our misfortune that the man who might have been the +English Cervantes had a surly disposition. Dean Swift's humor would have +been irresistible, if it had only been good humor. + +One of the best examples of humor pervading a work of the utmost +seriousness of purpose is Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The "Pilgrim's +Progress" is not a funny book; the humor is not tacked on as a moral is +tacked on to a fable, nor does it appear by way of an interlude to +relieve the tension of the mind. It is so deeply interfused, so a part +and parcel of the religious teaching, that many readers overlook it +altogether. One may read the book a dozen times without a smile, and +after that he may recognize the touch of the born humorist on every +page. Bunyan himself recognized the quality of his work:-- + + "Some there be that say he laughs too loud, + And some do say his head is in a cloud. + + * * * * * + + One may, I think, say both his laughs and cries + May well be guessed at by his wat'ry eyes. + Some things are of that nature as to make + One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." + +There speaks the real humorist; not the Merry Andrew laughing at his +meaningless pranks, but one whose quick imagination is at play when his +conscience is most overtasked. Even in the Valley of Humiliation, where +the fierce Apollyon was wont to fright the pilgrims, they heard a boy +singing cheerily,-- + + "He that is down need fear no fall." + +And Mr. Great Heart said: "Do you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a +merrier life, and wears more of the herb called heart's-ease in his +bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet." It is a fine spirit +that can find time, on such a strenuous pilgrimage, to listen to these +wayside songs. + +Take the character sketch of Mr. Fearing:-- + +"Now as they walked together, the guide asked the old gentleman if he +did not know one Mr. Fearing that came on a pilgrimage out of his +parts? + +"_Honest_. Yes, very well, said he. He was a man that had the root of +the matter in him, but he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims that +ever I met in all my days. + +"_Great Heart_. Why, he was always afraid he should come short of +whither he had a desire to go. Everything frightened him that he heard +anybody speak of that had but the least appearance of opposition in it. +I hear that he lay roaring in the Slough of Despond for about a month +together.... Well, after he had lain in the Slough of Despond a great +while, as I have told you, one sunshine morning, I do not know how, he +ventured and so got over; but when he was over he would scarce believe +it. He had, I believe, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough he +carried everywhere with him.... When he came to the Hill Difficulty he +made no stick at that; nor did he much fear the lions; for you must know +his trouble was not about such things as those.... When he was come at +Vanity Fair, I thought he would have fought with all the men at the +fair.... He was a man of choice spirit though he kept himself very low." + +Poor Mr. Fearing. We all have been made uncomfortable by him. But we +love Bunyan for that touch about the lions, for we know it is true. Easy +things go hard with Mr. Fearing; but give him something difficult, like +going up San Juan hill in the face of a withering fire, and Mr. Fearing +can keep up with the best Rough Rider of them all. It takes Mr. Great +Heart to do justice to Mr. Fearing. + +It is the mission of a kindly humor to take a person full of foibles and +weaknesses and suddenly to reveal his unsuspected nobleness. And there +is considerable room for this kind of treatment; for there are a great +many lovable people whose virtues are not chronic, but sporadic. These +virtues grow up, one knows not how, without visible means of support in +the general character, and in defiance of moral science; and yet it is a +real pleasure to see them. + +There are two very different kinds of humor. One we naturally describe +as a flavor, the other as an atmosphere. We speak of the flavor of the +essays of Charles Lamb. It is a discovery we make very much as Bobo made +the discovery of roast pig. The mind of Charles Lamb was like a +capacious kettle hanging from the crane in the fireplace; all sorts of +savory ingredients were thrown into it, and the whole was kept gently +simmering, but never allowed to come to the boil. + +Lamb says, "C. declares that a man cannot have a good conscience who +refuses apple dumpling, and I confess that I am of the same opinion." I +am inclined to pass that kind of judgment on the person who does not +have a comfortable feeling of satisfaction in reading for the twentieth +time The Complaint on the Decay of Beggars, and the Praise of Chimney +Sweepers. + +Charles Lamb is not jocose. He likes to theorize. Now, your prosaic +theorist has a very laborious task. He tries to get all the facts under +one formula. This is very ticklish business. It is like the game of Pigs +in Clover. He gets all the facts but one into the inner circle. By a +dexterous thrust he gets that one in, and the rest are out. + +Lamb is a philosopher who does not have this trouble. He does not try to +fit all the facts to one theory. That seems to him too economical, when +theories are so cheap. With large-hearted generosity he provides a +theory for every fact. He clothes the ragged exception with all the +decent habiliments of a universal law. He picks up a little ragamuffin +of a fact, and warms its heart and points out its great relations. He is +not afraid of generalizing from insufficient data; he has the art of +making a delightful summer out of a single swallow. When we turn to the +essay on the Melancholy of Tailors, we do not think of asking for +statistics. If one tailor was melancholy, that was enough to justify the +generalization. When we find a tailor who is not melancholy, it will be +time to make another theory to fit his case. + +This is the charm of Lamb's letter to the gentleman who inquired +"whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no more proficiency +than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of the English +alphabet amounts to, by dint of persevering application and good +masters, may hope to arrive within a presumable number of years at that +degree of attainment that would entitle the possessor to the character +of a _learned man_." The answer is candid, serious, and exhaustive. No +false hopes are encouraged. The difficulties are plainly set forth. +"However," it is said, "where all cannot be compassed, much may be +accomplished; but I must not, in fairness, conceal from you that you +have much to do." The question is thoroughly discussed as to whether it +would be well for him to enter a primary school. "You say that you stand +in need of emulation; that this incitement is nowhere to be had but in +the public school. But have you considered the nature of the emulation +belonging to those of tender years which you would come in competition +with?" + +Do you think these dissertations a waste of time? If you do, it is +sufficient evidence that you sadly need them; for they are the antitoxin +to counteract the bacillus of pedantry. Were I appointed by the school +board to consider the applicants for teachers' certificates, after they +had passed the examination in the arts and sciences, I should subject +them to a more rigid test. I should hand each candidate Lamb's essays on +The Old and New Schoolmaster and on Imperfect Sympathies. I should make +him read them to himself, while I sat by and watched. If his countenance +never relaxed, as if he were inwardly saying, "That's so," I should +withhold the certificate. I should not consider him a fit person to have +charge of innocent youth. + +Just as we naturally speak of the flavor of Charles Lamb, so we speak of +the atmosphere of Cervantes or of Fielding. We are out of doors in the +sunshine. All sorts of people are doing all sorts of things in all sorts +of ways; and we are glad that we are there to see them. It is one of the + + "charmèd days + When the Genius of God doth flow; + The wind may alter twenty ways + But a tempest cannot blow." + +On such days it doesn't matter what happens. We are not "under the +weather," but consciously superior to it. We are in no mood to grumble +over mishaps,--the more the merrier. The master of the revels has made +the brave announcement that his programme shall be carried out "rain or +shine," and henceforth we have no anxieties. + +This diffused good-humor can only come from a mind which is free from +any taint of morbidness. It is that merry-heartedness that "doth good +like medicine." It is an overflowing friendliness, which brings a +laughter that is without scorn. + +This kind of humor is possible only among persons who are thoroughly +congenial, and who take mutual good-will for granted. It is for this +reason that it is so difficult to translate it or to carry it from one +community to another. It is customary for every nation to bring the +accusation against foreigners that they are destitute of the sense of +humor. Even peoples so near akin as the English and Americans cherish +such suspicions. The American is likely to feel that his English friends +do not receive his pleasantries with that punctuality which is the +politeness of kings. They are conscientious enough and eventually do the +right thing; but procrastination is the thief of wit as well as of time. +But we, on our side, are equally slow, and Mr. Punch often causes +anxious thoughts. + +The real difficulty is not in understanding what is said but in +appreciating that which should be taken for granted. The stranger does +not see the serious background of sober thought and genuine admiration, +into which the amusing figures suddenly intrude. The frontiersman would +see no point in a story that might delight a common room in Oxford. What +if a bishop did act in an undignified manner or commit a blunder? Why +shouldn't he--like the rest of us? To enjoy his foibles one must first +have a realizing sense of what a great man a bishop is, and how +surprising it is that, now and then, he should step down from his +pedestal. + +On the other hand, the real humor of the frontier is missed by one who +has not learned to take seriously the frontiersman's life and who has +not entered into his habitual point of view. + +Dickens is an example of the way in which a man's humor is limited to +the sphere of his sympathies. How genial is the atmosphere which +surrounds Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Sam Weller! Whatever they do, they can +never go wrong. But when we turn to the "American Notes" or to the +American part of "Martin Chuzzlewit," we are conscious of a difference. +There is no atmosphere to relieve the dreariness. Mr. Jefferson Brick is +not amusing; he is odious. The people on the Ohio River steamer do not +make us smile by their absurdities. Dickens lets us see how he despises +them all. He is fretful and peevish. He fails utterly to catch the +humor of the frontier. He is unable to follow out the hint which Mark +Tapley gave when, looking over the dreary waste of Eden on the +Mississippi, he said apologetically, "Eden ain't all built yet." + +To an Englishman that does not mean much, but to an American it is +wonderfully appealing. Martin Chuzzlewit saw only the ignominious +contrast between the prospectus and the present reality. Eden was a +vulgar fraud, and that was the whole of it. The American, with +invincible optimism, looking upon the same scene, sees something more! +He smiles, perhaps, a little cynically at the incongruity between the +prospectus and the present development, and then his fancy chuckles at +what his fancy sees in the future. "Eden ain't all built yet,"--that's a +fact. But just think what Eden will be when it is all built! + + * * * * * + +By the way, there is one particularly good thing about the atmosphere; +it prevents our being hit by meteors. The meteor, when it strikes the +upper air, usually ignites, and that is the end of it. There are some +minds that have not enough atmosphere to protect them. They are pelted +continually; whatever is unpleasant comes to them in solid chunks. There +are others more fortunately surrounded, who escape this impact. All that +is seen is a flash in the upper air. They are none the worse for passing +through a meteoric shower of petty misfortunes. + +The mind that is surrounded by an atmosphere of humorous suggestiveness +is also favored in its outlook upon the shortcomings of mankind. Their +angularities are softened and become less uniformly unpleasing. That +fine old English divine, Dr. South, has a sermon in which he defends the +thesis that it is a greater guilt to enjoy the contemplation of our +neighbor's sins than to commit the same offences in our proper persons. +That seems to me to be very hard doctrine. I am inclined to make a +distinction. There are some faults which ought to be taken seriously at +all times, but there are others which the neighbors should be allowed to +enjoy, if they can. + +Indeed, it is the genuine reformer who is seeking to right great wrongs +who most needs the capacity to distinguish between grave evils and +peccadillos. A measure of good-humored tolerance for human weakness is a +part of his equipment for effective work. Lacking in this, he is doomed +to perpetual irritation and disappointment. He mistakes friends for foes +and wages a losing battle. He is likely to be the victim of a moral +egoism which distorts the facts of experience and confuses his personal +whims with his disinterested purposes. His great ideal is lost sight of +in some petty strife. Above all, he loses the power of endurance in the +time of partial failure. + +The contest of wits between the inventors of projectiles and the makers +of armor plate seemed at one time settled by Harvey's process for +rendering the surface of the resisting steel so hard that the missiles +hurled against it were shattered. The answer of the gun-makers was made +by attaching a tip of softer metal to the shell. The soft tip received +the first shock of the impact, and it was found that the penetrating +power of the shell was increased enormously. The scientific explanation +I have forgotten. I may, however, hazard an anthropomorphic +explanation. If there is any human nature in the atoms of steel, I can +see a great advantage in having the softer particles go before the hard, +to have a momentary yielding before the inevitable crash. When they are +hurtling through the air, tense and strained by the initial velocity +till it seems that they must fly apart, it is a great thing to have a +group of good-humored, happy-go-lucky atoms in the front, who call out +cheerily: "Come along, boys! Don't take it too hard; we're in for it." +And sure enough, before they have time to fall apart they are in. Those +whose thoughts and purposes have most penetrated the hard prejudices of +their time have learned this lesson. + +Your unhumorous reformer, with painful intensity of moral +self-consciousness, cries out:-- + + "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, + That ever I was born to set it right!" + +He takes himself and his cause always with equal seriousness. He hurls +himself against the accumulated wrongs and the invincible ignorance of +the world, and there is a great crash; but somehow, the world seems to +survive the shock better than he does. It is a tough old world, and +bears a great deal of pounding. Indeed, it has been pounded so much and +so long that it has become quite solid. + +Now and then, however, there comes along a reformer whose zeal is tipped +with humor. His thought penetrates where another man's is only +shattered. That is what made Luther so effective. He struck heavy blows +at the idols men adored. But he was such a genial, whole-souled +iconoclast that those who were most shocked at him could not help liking +him--between times. He would give a smashing blow at the idol, and then +a warm hand grasp and a hearty "God bless you" to the idolater; and then +idolater and iconoclast would be down on the floor together, trying to +see if there were any pieces of the idol worth saving. It was all so +unexpected and so incongruous and so shocking, and yet so unaffectedly +religious and so surprisingly the right thing to do, that the upshot of +it all was that people went away saying, "Dr. Martin isn't such a bad +fellow, after all." + +Luther's "Table Talk" penetrated circles which were well protected +against his theological treatises. Men were conscious of a good humor +even in his invective; for he usually gave them time to see the kindly +twinkle in his eye before he knocked them down. + +In order to engage Karlstadt in a controversy, Luther drew out a florin +from his pocket and cried heartily, "Take it! Attack me boldly!" +Karlstadt took it, put it in his purse, and gave it to Luther. Luther +then drank to his health. Then Karlstadt pledged Luther. Then Luther +said, "The more violent your attacks, the more I shall be delighted." +Then they gave each other their hands and parted. One can almost be +reconciled to theological controversy, when it is conducted in a manner +so truly sportsmanlike. + +Luther had a way of characterizing a person in a sentence, that was much +more effective than his labored vituperation (in which, it must be +confessed, he was a master). Thus, speaking of the attitude of Erasmus, +he said, "Erasmus stands looking at creation like a calf at a new door." +It was very unjust to Erasmus, and yet the picture sticks in the mind; +for it is such a perfect characterization of the kind of mind that we +are all acquainted with, which looks at the marvels of creation with the +wide-eyed gaze of bovine youthfulness, curious, not to know how that +door came there, but only to know whether it leads to something to eat. + +The humor of Luther suggests that of Abraham Lincoln. Both were men of +the people, and their humor had a flavor of the soil. They were alike +capable of deep dejection, but each found relief in spontaneous +laughter. The surprise of the grave statesman when Lincoln would preface +a discussion with a homely anecdote of the frontier was of the same kind +felt by the sixteenth-century theologians when Luther turned aside from +his great arguments, which startled Europe, to tell a merry tale in +ridicule of the pretensions of the monks. + +If I were to speak of the humorist as a philosopher, some of the gravest +of the philosophers would at once protest. Humor, they say, has no place +in their philosophy; and they are quite right. Indeed, it is doubtful if +a humorist would ever make a good, systematic philosopher. He is a +modest person. He is only a gleaner following the reapers; but he +manages to pick up a great many grains of wisdom which they overlook. + +Dante pictures the sages of antiquity as forever walking on a verdant +mead, "with eyes slow and grave, and with great authority in their +looks;" as if, in the other world, they were continually oppressed by +the wisdom they had acquired in this. But I can imagine a gathering of +philosophers in a different fashion. Gravely they have come, each +bearing his ponderous volume, in which he has explained the universe and +settled the destiny of mankind. Then, suddenly, in contrast with their +theories, the reality is disclosed. The incorrigible pedants and +dogmatists turn away in sullen disappointment; but from all true lovers +of wisdom there arises a peal of mellow laughter, as each one realizes +the enormous incongruity between what he knew and what he thought he +knew. + +The discovery that things are not always as they seem is one that some +people make in this world. They get a glimpse of something that is going +on behind the scenes, and their smile is very disconcerting to the sober +spectators around them. + +Sometimes it is the bitter smile of disillusion. Matthew Arnold wrote of +Heine:-- + + "The Spirit of the world, + Beholding the absurdity of men,-- + Their vaunts, their feats,--let a sardonic smile, + For one short moment, wander o'er his lips. + That smile was Heine." + +But there is another kind of smile evoked by the incongruity between the +appearance and the reality. It is the smile that comes when behind some +mask that had affrighted us we recognize a familiar and friendly face. +There is a smile which is not one of disillusion. There is a philosophy +which is dissolved in humor. The wise man sees the incongruities +involved in the very nature of things. They are the result of the free +play of various forces. To his quick insight the actual world is no more +like the formal descriptions of it than the successive attitudes of a +galloping horse are like the pose of an equestrian statue. His mind +catches instantaneous views of this world as its elements are +continually dissolving and recombining. It is all very surprising, and +he smiles as he sees how much better they turn out than might be +expected. + + "Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say + Endless dirges to decay. + + * * * * * + + And yet it seemeth not to me + That the high gods love tragedy; + For Saadi sat in the sun. + + * * * * * + + Sunshine in his heart transferred, + Lighted each transparent word. + + * * * * * + + And thus to Saadi said the Muse: + 'Eat thou the bread which men refuse; + Flee from the goods which from thee flee; + Seek nothing,--Fortune seeketh thee. + + * * * * * + + On thine orchard's edge belong + All the brags of plume and song. + + * * * * * + + Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, + A poet or a friend to find: + Behold, he watches at the door! + Behold his shadow on the floor!'" + +In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom says, "I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence." +But there is another member of the household. It is Humor, sister of +serene Wisdom and of the heavenly Prudence. She does not often laugh, +and when she does it is mostly at her sister Wisdom, who cannot long +resist the infection. There is not one set smile upon her face, as if +she contemplated an altogether amusing world. The smiles that come and +go are shy, elusive things, but they cannot remain long in hiding. + +Wisdom, from her high house, takes wide views, and Prudence peers +anxiously into the future; but gentle Humor loves to take short views; +she delights in homely things, and continually finds surprises in that +which is most familiar. Wisdom goes on laborious journeys, and comes +home bringing her treasures from afar; and Humor matches them, every +one, with what she has found in the dooryard. + + + + +Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts + + +That was a curious state of things in Salem village. There was the +Meeting-House in plain sight, with sermons every Sunday and lectures on +week-days. There were gospel privileges for all, and the path of duty +was evident enough for the simplest understanding. Nevertheless, certain +persons who should have listened to the sermons, when they heard the +sound of a trumpet hied to the rendezvous of witches. When haled before +the court their only answer was that they couldn't help it. + +The ministers were disturbed, but being thorough-going men, they did not +rest content with academic discussion of the question of the falling-off +in church attendance. They inquired into its cause, and became +convinced that they were dealing with sorcery. All this is duly set down +in Increase Mather's treatise on "Cases of Conscience concerning +Witchcrafts." + +This method of inquisition is commended to those writers who look upon +the Gentle Reader's love of Romance as a deadly sin. The trouble, as I +understand it, is this. A number of gentlemen devoted to literature have +cultivated style till it is as near a state of utter perfection as human +nature will tolerate. Indeed, they emulate that classic writer of whom +Roger Ascham remarked that he labored "with uncontented care to write +better than he could." They have attained such accuracy of observation +and such skill in the choice of words that the man in the book is as +like to the man on the street as two peas. They are also skilled in +criticism and are able to prove that it is our duty not only to admire +but also to read their books. The complaint is that the readers, instead +of walking in the path of duty, troop off after some mere story-teller +who has never passed an examination in Pathology, and who is utterly +incapable of making an exhaustive analysis of motives. + +The Gentle Reader when he hears the accusations of the stern realists +makes no denial of the facts. He admits that he likes a good story +better than an involved study of character. He listens to the reproofs +with the helplessness of one who has only the frail barrier of a +personal taste to shield him from the direct blow of the categorical +imperative. If personal taste were to be accepted as a sufficient plea, +he is aware that the most besotted inebriate would go unwhipped of +justice. In this predicament he shields himself behind his favorite +authors. If there be a fault it is theirs, not his. They have bewitched +him by their spells. It is impossible for him to withstand the potent +enchantments of these wizards. + +I am inclined to think that there is much justice in this view of the +matter and that the militant realists should turn their attention from +the innocent reader to those who have power to bewitch him. + +The accepted signs of witchcraft, as enumerated by the Mathers, are +present. Thus we are told: "A famous Divine recites among other +Convictions of a Witch, the Testimony of the Party bewitched, together +with the joint Oaths of sufficient Persons that they have seen +Prodigious Pranks or Feats wrought by the Party accused." + +This was the kind of evidence relied upon in the case of G. B. in the +Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Salem in 1692. "He was accused by +Nine Persons for extraordinary Lifting and such Feats of Strength as +could not be done without Diabolical Assistance." It was said that +"though he was a Puny Man yet he had done things beyond the strength of +a Giant. A Gun of about seven foot Barrel, and so heavy that strong Men +could not steadily hold it out with both hands; there were several +Testimonies that he made nothing of taking up such a Gun behind the +Lock, with one hand, and holding it out like a Pistol at arm's end." Any +readers of romance can tell of many such prodigious pranks which, while +the spell was upon them, seemed altogether credible. + +The test which was looked upon as infallible by those judicious judges +who put little confidence in the flotation of witches on the mill pond, +was that of the lack of intellectual consistency. "Faltering, faulty, +inconstant, and contrary answers upon judicial and deliberate +Examination are accounted unlucky symptoms of guilt." + +Such inconsistencies may be found in all romantic fiction; yet the +magicians seem to have the power to make all things appear probable. I +might tell what a pleasant thrill is sometimes produced by these +sorceries, but I had better follow the policy of Cotton Mather, who +declined to tell all he knew about the Invisible World, lest he might +make witchcraft too attractive. "I will not speak plainly lest I should, +unaware, poison some of my Readers, as the pious Hermingius did one of +his Pupils when he only by way of Diversion recited a Spell." + +Cotton Mather makes a suggestion which is of value in regard to the +different grades of witches and other wonder-working spirits. His +remarks upon this head are so judicious that they should be quoted in +full. + +"Thirdly, 'tis to be supposed, that some _Devils_ are more peculiarly +_Commission'd_, and perhaps _Qualify'd_, for some Countries, while +others are for others. This is intimated when in _Mar_. 5. 10. The +Devils _besought_ our Lord much, _that he would not send them away out +of the Countrey_. Why was that? But in all probability, because _these +Devils_ were more able to _do the works of the Devil_, in such a +Countrey, than in another. It is not likely that every Devil does know +every _Language_; or that every Devil can do every _Mischief_. 'Tis +possible, that the _Experience_, or, if I may call it so, the +_Education_ of all Devils is not alike, and that there may be some +difference in their _Abilities_. If one might make an Inference from +what the Devils _do_, to what they _are_, One cannot forbear dreaming, +that there are _degrees_ of Devils. Who can allow, that such Trifling +_Demons_, as that of _Mascon_, or those that once infested our +New-berry, are of so much Grandeur, as those _Demons_, whose Games are +mighty Kingdoms? Yea, 'tis certain, that all Devils do not make a like +figure in the _Invisible World_. Nor does it look agreeably, That the +_Demons_, which were Familiars of such a Man as the old _Apollonius_, +differ not from those baser Goblins that chuse to Nest in the filthy and +loathsome Rags of a beastly Sorceress. Accordingly, why may not some +Devils be more accomplished for what is to be done in such and such +places, when others must be _detach'd_ for other Territories? Each +Devil, as he sees his advantage, cries out, _Let me be in this Countrey, +rather than another_." + +It is only on the theory of bewitchment by a trifling demon who belongs +to the lower orders of the literary world that I can account for the sad +fall of the reader whose confession follows. Carefully shielded in his +youth from all the enticements of the imagination, he yet fell from +grace. The unfortunate person seems to be lacking in strength of will, +and yet to have some good in him. In my opinion he was more sinned +against than sinning. But I will let him tell his story in his own way. + + +A CONFESSION + +One half the world does not know what the other half reads; but good +people are now taught that the first requisite of sociological virtue is +to interest themselves in the other half. I therefore venture to call +attention to a book that has pleased me, though my delight in it may at +once class me with the "submerged tenth" of the reading public. It is +"The Pirate's Own Book." + +By way of preface to a discussion of this volume, let me make a personal +explanation of the causes which led me to its perusal. My reading of +such a book cannot be traced to early habit. In my boyhood I had no +opportunity to study the careers of pirates, for I was confined to +another variety of literature. On Sunday afternoons I read aloud a book +called "The Afflicted Man's Companion." The unfortunate gentleman +portrayed in this work had a large assortment of afflictions,--if I +remember rightly, one for each day of the month,--but among them was +nothing so exciting as being marooned in the South Seas. Indeed, his +afflictions were of a generalized and abstract kind, which he could have +borne with great cheerfulness had it not been for the consolations which +were remorselessly administered to him. + +If I have become addicted to tales of piracy, I must attribute it to the +literary criticisms of too strenuous realists. Before I read them, I +took an innocent pleasure in romantic fiction. Without any compunction +of conscience I rejoiced in Walter Scott; and when he failed I was +pleased even with his imitators. My heart leaped up when I beheld a +solitary horseman on the first page, and I did not forsake the horseman, +even though I knew he was to be personally conducted through his journey +by Mr. G. P. R. James. Fenimore Cooper, in those days, before I was +awakened to the nature of literary sin, I found altogether pleasant. The +cares of the world faded away, and a soothing conviction of the +essential rightness of things came over me, as the pioneers and Indians +discussed in deliberate fashion the deepest questions of the universe, +between shots. As for stories of the sea, I never thought of being +critical. I was ready to take thankfully anything with a salty flavor, +from "Sindbad the Sailor" to Mr. Clark Russell. I had no inconvenient +knowledge to interfere with my enjoyment. All nautical language was +alike impressive, and all nautical manoeuvres were to me alike +perilous. It would have been a poor Ancient Mariner who could not have +enthralled me, when + + "He held me with his skinny hand; + 'There was a ship,' quoth he." + +And if the ship had raking masts and no satisfactory clearance papers, +that was enough; as to what should happen, I left that altogether to +the author. That the laws of probability held on the Spanish Main as on +dry land, I never dreamed. + +But after being awakened to the sin of romance, I saw that to read a +novel merely for recreation is not permissible. The reader must be put +upon oath, and before he allows himself to enjoy any incident must swear +that everything is exactly true to life as he has seen it. All vagabonds +and sturdy vagrants who have no visible means of support, in the present +order of things, are to be driven out of the realm of well-regulated +fiction. Among these are included all knights in armor; all rightful +heirs with a strawberry mark; all horsemen, solitary or otherwise; all +princes in disguise; all persons who are in the habit of saying +"prithee," or "Odzooks," or "by my halidome;" all fair ladies who have +no irregularities of feature and no realistic incoherencies of speech; +all lovers who fall in love at first sight, and who are married at the +end of the book and live happily ever after; all witches, +fortune-tellers, and gypsies; all spotless heroes and deep-dyed +villains; all pirates, buccaneers, North American Indians with a taste +for metaphysics; all scouts, hunters, trappers, and other individuals +who do not wear store clothes. According to this decree, all readers are +forbidden to aid and abet these persons, or to give them shelter in +their imagination. A reader who should incite a writer of fiction to +romance would be held as an accessory before the fact. + +After duly repenting of my sins and renouncing my old acquaintances, I +felt a preëminent virtue. Had I met the Three Guardsmen, one at a time +or all together, I should have passed them by without stopping for a +moment's converse. I should have recognized them for the impudent +Gascons that they were, and should have known that there was not a word +of truth in all their adventures. As for Stevenson's fine old pirate, +with his contemptible song about a "dead men's chest and a bottle of +rum," I should not have tolerated him for an instant. Instead, I should +have turned eagerly to some neutral-tinted person who never had any +adventure greater than missing the train to Dedham, and I should have +analyzed his character, and agitated myself in the attempt to get at his +feelings, and I should have verified his story by a careful reference +to the railway guide. I should have treated that neutral-tinted +character as a problem, and I should have noted all the delicate shades +in the futility of his conduct. When, on any occasion that called for +action, he did not know his own mind, I should have admired him for his +resemblance to so many of my acquaintances who do not know their own +minds. After studying the problem until I came to the last chapter, I +should suddenly have given it up, and agreed with the writer that it had +no solution. In my self-righteousness, I despised the old-fashioned +reader who had been lured on in the expectation that at the last moment +something thrilling might happen. + +But temptations come at the unguarded point. I had hardened myself +against romance in fiction, but I had not been sufficiently warned +against romance in the guise of fact. When in a book-stall I came upon +"The Pirate's Own Book," it seemed to answer a felt want. Here at least, +outside the boundaries of strict fiction, I could be sure of finding +adventure, and feel again with Sancho Panza "how pleasant it is to go +about in expectation of accidents." + +I am well aware that good literature--to use Matthew Arnold's phrase--is +a criticism of life. But the criticism of life, with its discriminations +between things which look very much alike, is pretty serious business. +We cannot keep on criticising life without getting tired after a while, +and longing for something a little simpler. There is a much-admired +passage in Ferishtah's Fancies, in which, after mixing up the beans in +his hands and speculating on their color, Ferishtah is not able to tell +black from white. Ferishtah, living in a soothing climate, could stand +an indefinite amount of this sort of thing; and, moreover, we must +remember that he was a dervish, and dervishry, although a steady +occupation, is not exacting in its requirements. In our more stimulating +climate, we should bring on nervous prostration if we gave ourselves +unremittingly to the discrimination between all the possible variations +of blackishness and whitishness. We must relieve our minds by +occasionally finding something about which there can be no doubt. When +my eyes rested on the woodcut that adorns the first page of "The +Pirate's Own Book," I felt the rest that comes from perfect certainty in +my own moral judgment. Ferishtah himself could not have mixed me up. +Here was black without a redeeming spot. On looking upon this pirate, I +felt relieved from any criticism of life; here was something beneath +criticism. I was no longer tossed about on a chop sea, with its +conflicting waves of feeling and judgment, but was borne along +triumphantly on a bounding billow of moral reprobation. + +As I looked over the headings of the chapters, I was struck by their +straightforward and undisguised character. When I read the chapter +entitled The Savage Appearance of the Pirates, and compared this with +the illustrations, I said, "How true!" Then there was a chapter on the +Deceitful Character of the Malays. I had always suspected that the +Malays were deceitful, and here I found my impressions justified by +competent authority. Then I dipped into the preface, and found the same +transparent candor. "A piratical crew," says the author, "is generally +formed of the desperadoes and renegades of every clime and nation." +Again I said, "Just what I should have expected. The writer is evidently +one who 'nothing extenuates.'" Then follows a further description of +the pirate: "The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, +when not cruising on the ocean, that great highway of nations, selects +the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or secretes himself +near the shores of bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited +countries." Just the places where I should have expected him to settle. + +"The pirate, when not engaged in robbing, passes his time in singing old +songs with choruses like,-- + + 'Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul! + Let the world wag as it will; + Let the heavens growl, let the devil howl, + Drain, drain the deep bowl and fill!' + +Thus his hours of relaxation are passed in wild and extravagant frolics, +amongst the lofty forests and spicy groves of the torrid zone, and +amidst the aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable products of that +region." + +Again: "With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich +plunder,--caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of +outlandish coins, secreted in lonely out-of-the-way places, or buried +about the wild shores of rivers and unexplored seacoasts, near rocks +and trees bearing mysterious marks, indicating where the treasure is +hid." "As it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his booty, +and from the perilous life he lives being often killed, he can never +revisit the spot again, immense sums remaining buried in these places +are irrevocably lost." Is it any wonder that, with such an introduction, +I became interested? + +After a perusal of the book, I am inclined to think that a pirate may be +a better person to read about than some persons who stand higher in the +moral scale. Compare, if you will, a pirate and a pessimist. As a +citizen and neighbor I should prefer the pessimist. A pessimist is an +excellent and highly educated gentleman, who has been so unfortunate as +to be born into a world which is inadequate to his expectations. +Naturally he feels that he has a grievance, and in airing his grievance +he makes himself unpopular; but it is certainly not his fault that the +universe is no better than it is. On the other hand, a pirate is a bad +character; yet as a subject of biography he is more inspiring than the +pessimist. In one case, we have the impression of one good man in a +totally depraved world; in the other case, we have a totally depraved +man in what but for him would be a very good world. I know of nothing +that gives one a more genial appreciation of average human nature, or a +greater tolerance for the foibles of one's acquaintances, than the +contrast with an unmitigated pirate. + +My copy of "The Pirate's Own Book" belongs to the edition of 1837. On +the fly-leaf it bore in prim handwriting the name of a lady who for many +years must have treasured it. I like to think of this unknown lady in +connection with the book. I know that she must have been an excellent +soul, and I have no doubt that her New England conscience pointed to the +moral law as the needle to the pole; but she was a wise woman, and knew +that if she was to keep her conscience in good repair she must give it +some reasonable relaxation. I am sure that she was a woman of versatile +philanthropy, and that every moment she had the ability to make two +duties grow where only one had grown before. After, however, attending +the requisite number of lectures to improve her mind, and considering in +committees plans to improve other people's minds forcibly, and going to +meetings to lament over the condition of those who had no minds to +improve, this good lady would feel that she had earned a right to a few +minutes' respite. So she would take up "The Pirate's Own Book," and feel +a creepy sensation that would be an effectual counter-irritant to all +her anxieties for the welfare of the race. Things might be going slowly, +and there were not half as many societies as there ought to be, and the +world might be in a bad way; but then it was not so bad as it was in the +days of Black Beard; and the poor people who did not have any societies +to belong to were, after all, not so badly off as the sailors whom the +atrocious Nicola left on a desert island, with nothing but a blunderbuss +and Mr. Brooks's Family Prayer Book. In fact, it is expressly stated +that the pirates refused to give them a cake of soap. To be on a desert +island destitute of soap made the common evils of life appear trifling. +She had been worried about the wicked people who would not do their +duty, however faithfully they had been prodded up to it, who would not +be life members on payment of fifty dollars, and who would not be +annual members on payment of a dollar and signing the constitution, and +who in their hard and impenitent hearts would not even sit on the +platform at the annual meeting; but somehow their guilt seemed less +extreme after she had studied again the picture of Captain Kidd burying +his Bible in the sands near Plymouth. A man who would bury his Bible, +using a spade several times too large for him, and who would strike such +a world-defying attitude while doing it, made the sin of not joining the +society appear almost venial. In this manner she gained a certain moral +perspective; even after days when the public was unusually dilatory +about reforms, and the wheels of progress had begun to squeak, she would +get a good night's sleep. Contrasting the public with the black +background of absolute piracy, she grew tolerant of its shortcomings, +and learned the truth of George Herbert's saying, that "pleasantness of +disposition is a great key to do good." + +Not only is a pirate a more comfortable person to read about than a +pessimist, but in many respects he is a more comfortable person to read +about than a philanthropist. The minute the philanthropist is +introduced, the author begins to show his own cleverness by discovering +flaws in his motives. You begin to see that the poor man has his +limitations. Perhaps his philanthropies are of a different kind from +yours, and that irritates you. Musical people, whom I have heard +criticise other musical people, seem more offended when some one flats +just a little than when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and +moralists are apt to have the same fastidiousness. The philanthropist is +made the victim of the most cruel kind of vivisection,--a +character-study. + +Here is a fragment of conversation from a study of character: "'That was +really heroic,' said Felix. 'That was what he wanted to do,' Gertrude +went on. 'He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral +pleasure; he made up his mind to do his duty; he felt sublime,--that's +how he likes to feel.'" + +This leaves the mind in a painful state of suspense. The first instinct +of the unsophisticated reader is that if the person has done a good +deed, we ought not to begrudge him a little innocent pleasure in it. If +he is magnanimous, why not let him feel magnanimous? But after Gertrude +has made these subtle suggestions we begin to experience something like +antipathy for a man who is capable of having a fine moral pleasure; who +not only does his duty, but really likes to do it. There is something +wrong about him, and it is all the more aggravating because we are not +sure just what it is. There is no trouble of that kind in reading about +pirates. You cannot make a character-study out of a pirate,--he has no +character. You know just where to place him. You do not expect anything +good of him, and when you find a sporadic virtue you are correspondingly +elated. + +For example, I am pleased to read of the pirate Gibbs that he was +"affable and communicative, and when he smiled he exhibited a mild and +gentle countenance. His conversation was concise and pertinent, and his +style of illustration quite original." If Gibbs had been a +philanthropist, it is doubtful whether these social and literary graces +would have been so highly appreciated. + +So our author feels a righteous glow when speaking of the natives of the +Malabar coasts, and accounting for their truthfulness: "For as they had +been used to deal with pirates, they always found them men of honor in +the way of trade,--a people enemies of deceit, and that scorned to rob +but in their own way." + +He is a very literal-minded person, and takes all his pirates seriously, +but often we are surprised by some touch of nature that makes the whole +world kin. There was the ferocious Benevedes, who flourished on the west +coast of South America, and who, not content with sea power, attempted +to gather an army. It is said that "a more finished picture of a pirate +cannot be conceived," and the description that follows certainly bears +out this assertion. Yet he had his own ideas of civilization, and a +power of adaptation that reminds us of the excellent and ingenious Swiss +Family Robinson. When he captures the American whaling-ship Herculia, we +are prepared for a wild scene of carnage; but instead we are told that +Benevedes immediately dismantled the ship, and "out of the sails made +trousers for half his army." After the trousers had been distributed, +Benevedes remarked that his army was complete except in one essential +particular,--he had no trumpets for the cavalry: whereupon, at the +suggestion of the New Bedford skipper, he ripped off the copper sheets +of the vessel, out of which a great variety of copper trumpets were +quickly manufactured, and soon "the whole camp resounded with the +warlike blasts." While the delighted pirates were enjoying their +instrumental music, the skipper and nine of the crew took occasion to +escape in a boat which had been imprudently concealed on the river bank. + +In the "Proverbial Philosophy" we are told that + + "Many virtues weighted by excess sink among the vices, + Many vices, amicably buoyed, float among the virtues." + +Had Mr. Tupper been acquainted with the career of Captain Davis of the +Spanish Main, he would have found many apt illustrations of his thesis. +Captain Davis had the vices incidental to a piratical career, but they +were amicably buoyed up by some virtues which would have adorned a +different station in life. He was a great stickler for parliamentary +law, and everything under his direction was done decently and in order. +Whenever it was possible, he made his demands in writing, a method which +was business-like and left no room for misunderstanding. After a sloop +had been seized and duly pillaged, we are informed that:-- + +"In full possession of the vessel and stores and goods, a large bowl of +punch was made. Under its exhilarating influence it was proposed to +choose a commander, and to form a future mode of policy. The election +was soon over and a large majority of legal voters were in favor of +Davis, and, no scrutiny being demanded, Davis was declared duly elected. +He then addressed them in a short and appropriate speech." + +The chief virtue of Davis seemed to be neatness, which on one occasion +he used to admirable advantage. "Encountering a French ship of +twenty-four guns, Davis proposed to the crew to attack her, assuring +them that she would prove a rich prize. This appeared to the crew such a +hazardous enterprise that they were adverse to the measure; but he +acquainted them that he had conceived a stratagem that he was confident +would succeed." + +This stratagem was worthy of the Beau Brummel of pirates. At the +critical moment, the crew "according to the direction of Davis appeared +on deck in white shirts, which making an appearance of numbers the +Frenchman was intimidated and struck." Why the white shirts should have +given the appearance of numbers it is difficult to understand, but we +can well understand the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' +immaculate attire. + +Most of the pirates seem to have conducted their lives on a highly +romantic, not to say sensational plan. This reprehensible practice, of +course, must shut them off from the sympathy of all realists of the +stricter school, who hold that there should be no dramatic situations, +and that even when a story is well begun it should not be brought to a +finish, but should "peter out" in the last chapters, no one knows how or +why. Sometimes, however, a pirate manages to come to an end sufficiently +commonplace to make a plot for a most irreproachable novel. There was +Captain Avery. He commenced the practice of his profession very +auspiciously by running away with a ship of thirty guns from Bristol. In +the Indian Ocean he captured a treasure-ship of the Great Mogul. In this +ship, it is said, "there were several of the greatest persons of the +court." There was also on board the daughter of the Great Mogul, who +was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The painstaking historian comments on this +very justly: "It is well known that the people of the East travel with +great magnificence, so that they had along with them all their slaves, +with a large quantity of vessels of gold and silver and immense sums of +money. The spoil, therefore, that Avery received from that ship was +almost incalculable." To capture the treasure-ship of the Great Mogul +under such circumstances would have turned the head of any ordinary +pirate who had weakened his mind by reading works tinged with +romanticism. His companions, when the treasure was on board, wished to +sail to Madagascar, and there build a small fort; but "Avery +disconcerted the plan and rendered it altogether unnecessary." We know +perfectly well what these wretches would have done if they had been +allowed to have their own way: they would have gathered in one of the +spicy groves, and would have taken up vociferously their song,-- + + "Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul! + Let the world wag as it will." + +Avery would have none of this, so when most of the men were away from +the ship he sailed off with the treasure, leaving them to their evil +ways, and to a salutary poverty. Here begins the realism of the story. +With the treasures of the Great Mogul in his hold, he did not follow the +illusive course of Captain Kidd, "as he sailed, as he sailed." He did +not even lay his course for the "coasts of Coromandel." Instead of that +he made a bee-line for America, with the laudable intention of living +there "in affluence and honor." When he got to America, however, he did +not know what to do with himself, and still less what to do with the +inestimable pearls and diamonds of the Great Mogul. An ordinary pirate +of romance would have escaped to the Spanish Main, but Avery did just +what any realistic gentleman would do: after he had spent a short time +in other cities--he concluded to go to Boston. The chronicler adds, +"Arriving at Boston, he almost resolved to settle there." It was in the +time of the Mathers. But in spite of its educational and religious +advantages, Boston furnished no market for the gems of the Orient, so +Captain Avery went to England. If he had in his youth read a few +detective stories, he might have known how to get his jewels exchanged +for the current coin of the realm; but his early education had been +neglected, and he was of a singularly confiding and unsophisticated +nature--when on land. After suffering from poverty he made the +acquaintance of some wealthy merchants of Bristol, who took his gems on +commission, on condition that they need not inquire how he came by them. +That was the last Avery saw of the gems of the Great Mogul. A plain +pirate was no match for financiers. Remittances were scanty, though +promises were frequent. What came of it all? Nothing came of it; things +simply dragged along. Avery was not hanged, neither did he get his +money. At last, on a journey to Bristol to urge the merchants to a +settlement, he fell sick and died. What became of the gems? Nobody +knows. What became of those merchants of Bristol? Nobody cares. A +novelist might, out of such material, make an ending quite clever and +dreary. + +To this realistic school of pirates belongs Thomas Veal, known in our +history as the "Pirate of Lynn." To turn from the chapter on the Life, +Atrocities, and Bloody Death of Black Beard to the chapter on the Lynn +Pirate, is a relief to the overstrained sensibilities. Lynn is in the +temperate zone, and we should naturally reason that its piracies would +be more calm and equable than those of the tropics, and so they were. +"On one pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen +to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently +lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the +river." It is needless to say that these men were pirates. In the +morning the vessel had disappeared, but a man found a paper whereon was +a statement that if a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and hatchets were +placed in a certain nook, silver would be deposited near by to pay for +them. The people of Lynn in those days were thrifty folk, and the +hardware was duly placed in the spot designated, and the silver was +found as promised. After some months four pirates came and settled in +the woods. The historian declares it to be his opinion (and he speaks as +an expert) that it would be impossible to select a place more convenient +for a gang of pirates. He draws particular attention to the fact that +the "ground was well selected for the cultivation of potatoes and common +vegetables." This shows that the New England environment gave an +industrial and agricultural cast to piracy which it has not had +elsewhere. In fact, after reading the whole chapter, I am struck by the +pacific and highly moral character of these pirates. The last of +them--Thomas Veal--took up his abode in what is described as a "spacious +cavern," about two miles from Lynn. "There the fugitive fixed his +residence, and practiced the trade of a shoemaker, occasionally coming +down to the village to obtain articles of sustenance." By uniting the +occupations of market-gardening, shoe-making, and piracy, Thomas Veal +managed to satisfy the demands of a frugal nature, and to live respected +by his neighbors in Lynn. It must have been a great alleviation in the +lot of the small boys, when now and then they escaped from the eyes of +the tithing-men, and in the cave listened to Mr. Veal singing his +pirate's songs. Of course a solo could give only a faint conception of +what the full chorus would have been in the tropical forests, but still +it must have curdled the blood to a very considerable extent. + +There is, I must confess, a certain air of vagueness about this +interesting narration. No overt act of piracy is mentioned. Indeed, the +evidence in regard to the piratical character of Mr. Veal, so far as it +is given in this book, is largely circumstantial. + +There is, first, the geographical argument. The Saugus River, being a +winding stream, was admirably adapted for the resort of pirates who +wished to prey upon the commerce of Boston and Salem. This establishes +the opportunity and motive, and renders it antecedently probable that +piracy was practiced. The river, it is said, was a good place in which +to secrete boats. This we know from our reading was the invariable +practice of pirates. + +Another argument is drawn from the umbrageous character of the Lynn +woods. We are told with nice particularity that in this tract of country +"there were many thick pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and places where the +rays of the sun at noon could not penetrate." Such a place would be just +the spot in which astute pirates would be likely to bury their treasure, +confident that it would never be discovered. The fact that nothing ever +has been discovered here seems to confirm this supposition. + +The third argument is that while a small cave still remains, the +"spacious cavern" in which Thomas Veal, the piratical shoemaker, is said +to have dwelt no longer exists. This clinches the evidence. For there +was an earthquake in 1658. What more likely than that, in the +earthquake, "the top of the rock was loosened and crushed down into the +mouth of the cavern, inclosing the unfortunate inmate in its unyielding +prison?" At any rate, there is no record of Mr. Veal or of his spacious +cavern after that earthquake. + +No one deserves to be called an antiquarian who cannot put two and two +together, and reconstruct from these data a more or less elaborate +history of the piracies of Mr. Thomas Veal. The only other explanation +of the facts presented, that I can think of as having any degree of +plausibility, is that possibly Mr. Veal may have been an Anabaptist, +escaped from Boston, who imposed upon the people of Lynn by making them +believe that he was only a pirate. + +I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more +edifying than entertaining. He can never resist the temptation to draw a +moral, and his dogmatic bias in favor of the doctrine of total +depravity is only too evident. But his book has the great advantage that +it is not devoid of incident. Take it all in all, there are worse books +to read--after one is tired of reading books that are better. + +I am inclined to think that our novelists must make home happy, or they +may drive many of their readers to "The Pirate's Own Book." The policy +of the absolute prohibition of romance, while excellent in theory, has +practical difficulties in the way of enforcement. Perhaps, under certain +restrictions, license might be issued to proper persons to furnish +stimulants to the imagination. Of course the romancer should not be +allowed to sell to minors, nor within a certain distance of a +schoolhouse, nor to habitual readers. My position is the conservative +one that commended itself to the judicious Rollo. + +"'Well, Rollo,' said Dorothy, 'shall I tell you a true story, or one +that is not true?' + +"'I think, on the whole, Dorothy, I would rather have it true.'" + +But there must have been times--though none are recorded--when Rollo +tired even of the admirable clear thinking and precise information of +Jonas. At such times he might have tolerated a story that was not so +very true, if only it were interesting. There are main thoroughfares +paved with hard facts where the intellectual traffic must go on +continually. There are tracks on which, if a heedless child of romance +should stray, he is in danger of being run down by the realists, those +grim motor-men of the literary world. But outside the congested +districts there should be some roadways leading out into the open +country where all things are still possible. At the entrance to each of +these roads there ought to be displayed the notice, "For pleasure only. +No heavy teaming allowed." I should not permit any modern improvements +in this district, but I should preserve all its natural features. There +should be not only a feudal castle with moat and drawbridge, but also a +pirate's cave. + + + + +The Honorable Points of Ignorance + + +I happen to live in a community where there is a deeply rooted prejudice +in favor of intelligence, with many facilities for its advancement. I +may, therefore, be looked upon as unmindful of my privileges when I +confess that my chief pleasures have been found in the more secluded +paths of ignorance. + +I am no undiscriminating lover of Ignorance. I do not like the +pitch-black kind which is the negation of all thought. What I prefer is +a pleasant intellectual twilight, where one sees realities through an +entrancing atmosphere of dubiety. + +In visiting a fine old Elizabethan mansion in the south of England our +host took us to a room where he had discovered the evidences of a secret +panel. "What is behind it?" we asked. "I do not know," he answered; +"while I live it shall never be opened, for then I should have no secret +chamber." + +There was a philosopher after my own heart. He was wise enough to resist +the temptation to sell his birthright of mystery for a mess of +knowledge. The rural New Englander expresses his interest by saying, "I +want to know!" But may one not have a real interest in persons and +things which is free from inquisitiveness? For myself, I frequently +prefer not to know. Were Bluebeard to do me the honor of intrusting me +with his keys, I should spend a pleasant half-hour speculating on his +family affairs. I might even put the key in the lock, but I do not think +I should turn it. Why should I destroy twenty exciting possibilities for +the sake of a single discovery? + +I like to watch certain impressive figures as they cross the College +Yard. They seem like the sages whom Dante saw:-- + + "People were there with solemn eyes and slow, + Of great authority in their countenance." + +Do I therefore inquire their names, and intrusively seek to know what +books they have written, before I admire their scholarship? No, to my +old-fashioned way of thinking, scholarship is not a thing to be +measured; it is a mysterious effluence. Were I to see-- + + "Democritus who puts the world on chance, + Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, + Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus, + + * * * * * + + Tully and Livy and moral Seneca, + Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy, + Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna," + +I should not care to ask, "Which is which?" still less should I venture +to interview Galen on the subject of medicine, or put leading questions +to Diogenes. The combined impression of ineffable wisdom would be more +to me than any particular information I might get out of them. + +But, as I said, I am not an enthusiast for Ignorance. Mine is not the +zeal of a new convert, but the sober preference of one to the manner +born. I do not look upon it as a panacea, nor, after the habit of +reformers, would I insist that it should be taught in the public +schools. There are important spheres wherein exact information is much +to be preferred. + +Because Ignorance has its own humble measure of bliss I would not jump +at the conclusion that it is folly to be wise. That is an extravagant +statement. If real wisdom were offered me I should accept it gratefully. +Wisdom is an honorable estate, and, doubtless, it has pleasures of its +own. I only have in mind the alternative that is usually presented to +us, conscious ignorance or a kind of knowingness. + +It is necessary, at this point, to make a distinction. A writer on the +use of words has a chapter on Ignorantism, which is a term he uses to +indicate Ignorance that mistakes itself, or seeks to make others mistake +it, for Knowledge. For Ignorantism I make no plea. If Ignorance puts on +a false uniform and is caught within the enemy's lines, it must suffer +the penalties laid down in the laws of war. + +Nor would I defend what Milton calls "the barbarous ignorance of the +schools." This scholastic variety consists of the scientific definition +and classification of "things that aren't so." It has no value except as +a sort of gelatine culture for the propagation of verbal bacteria. + +But the affectations of the pedants or the sciolists should not be +allowed to cast discredit on the fair name of Ignorance. It is only +natural Ignorance which I praise; not that which is acquired. It was a +saying of Landor that if a man had a large mind he could afford to let +the greater part of it lie fallow. Of course we small proprietors cannot +do things on such a generous scale; but it seems to me that if one has +only a little mind it is a mistake to keep it all under cultivation. + +I hope that this praise of Ignorance may not give offense to any +intelligent reader who may feel that he is placed by reason of his +acquirements beyond the pale of our sympathies. He need fear no such +exclusion. My Lady Ignorance is gracious and often bestows her choicest +gifts on those who scorn her. The most erudite person is intelligent +only in spots. Browning's Bishop Blougram questioned whether he should +be called a skeptic or believer, seeing that he could only exchange + + "a life of doubt diversified by faith, + For one of faith diversified by doubt: + We called the chess-board white,--we call it black." + +Whether a person thinks of his own intellectual state as one of +knowledge diversified by ignorance or one of ignorance diversified by +knowledge is a matter of temperament. We like him better when he frankly +calls his intellectual chess-board black. That, at any rate, was the +original color, the white is an afterthought. + +Let me, then, without suspicion of treasonable intent, be allowed to +point out what we may call in Shakespearean phrase "the honorable points +of ignorance." + +The social law against "talking shop" is an indication of the very +widespread opinion that the exhibition of unmitigated knowledge is +unseemly, outside of business hours. When we meet for pleasure we prefer +that it should be on the humanizing ground of not knowing. Nothing is so +fatal to conversation as an authoritative utterance. When a man who is +capable of giving it enters, + + "All talk dies, as in a grove all song + Beneath the shadow of a bird of prey." + +Conversation about the weather would lose all its easy charm in the +presence of the Chief of the Weather Bureau. + +It is possible that the fear of exhibiting unusual information in a +mixed company may be a survival of primitive conditions. Just as the +domesticated dog will turn around on the rug before lying down, for +hereditary reasons which I do not remember, so it is with civilized man. +Once ignorance was universal and enforced by penalties. In the progress +of the race the environment has been modified, but so strong is the +influence of heredity that The Man Who Knows no sooner enters the +drawing-room than he is seized by guilty fears. His ancestors for having +exhibited a moiety of his intelligence were executed as wizards. But +perhaps the ordinary working of natural selection may account for the +facts. The law of the survival of the fittest admits of no exceptions, +and the fittest to give us pleasure in conversation is the sympathetic +person who appears to know very little more than we do. + +In the commerce of ideas there must be reciprocity. We will not deal +with one who insists that the balance of trade shall always be in his +favor. Moreover there must be a spice of incertitude about the +transaction. The real joy of the intellectual traffic comes when we +sail away like the old merchant adventurers in search of a market. There +must be no prosaic bills of exchange: it must be primitive barter. We +have a choice cargo of beads which we are willing to exchange for +frankincense and ivory. If on some strange coast we should meet +simple-minded people who have only wampum, perhaps even then we might +make a trade. + +Have you never when engaged in such commerce felt something of the +spirit of the grave Tyrian trader who had sailed away from the +frequented marts, and held on + + "O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, + Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, + To where the Atlantic raves + Outside the western straits, and unbent sails + There where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, + Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; + And on the beach undid his corded bales." + +It is not every day that one meets with such shy traffickers, for the +world is becoming very sophisticated. One does not ask that those with +whom we converse should be ignorant of everything; it is enough that +they should not know what is in our bales before we undo them. + +One very serious drawback to our pleasure in conversation with a too +well-informed person is the nervous strain that is involved. We are +always wondering what will happen when he comes to the end of his +resources. After listening to one who discourses with surprising +accuracy upon any particular topic, we feel a delicacy in changing the +subject. It seems a mean trick, like suddenly removing the chair on +which a guest is about to sit down for the evening. With one who is +interested in a great many things he knows little about there is no such +difficulty. If he has passed the first flush of youth, it no longer +embarrasses him to be caught now and then in a mistake; indeed your +correction is welcomed as an agreeable interruption, and serves as a +starting point for a new series of observations. + +The pleasure of conversation is enhanced if one feels assured not only +of wide margins of ignorance, but also of the absence of uncanny +quickness of mind. + +I should not like to be neighbor to a wit. It would be like being in +proximity to a live wire. A certain insulating film of kindly stupidity +is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse. There are +certain minds whose processes convey the impression of alternating +currents of high voltage on a wire that is not quite large enough for +them. From such I would withdraw myself. + +One is freed from all such apprehensions in the companionship of people +who make no pretensions to any kind of cleverness. "The laughter of +fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot." What cheerful +sounds! The crackling of the dry thorns! and the merry bubbling of the +pot! + +There is an important part played by what I may call defensive +Ignorance. It was said of Robert Elsmere that he had a mind that was +defenseless against the truth. It is a fine thing to be thus open to +conviction, but the mental hospitality of one who is without prejudices +is likely to be abused. All sorts of notions importunately demand +attention, and he who thinks to examine all their credentials will find +no time left for his own proper affairs. + +For myself, I like to have a general reception-room in my mind for all +sorts of notions with which I desire to keep up only a calling +acquaintance. Here let them all be welcomed, good, bad, and +indifferent, in the spacious antechamber of my Ignorance. But I am not +able to invite them into my private apartments, for I am living in a +small way in cramped quarters, where there is only room for my own +convictions. There are many things that are interesting to hear about +which I do not care to investigate. If one is willing to give me the +result of his speculations on various esoteric doctrines I am ready to +receive them in the spirit in which they are offered, but I should not +think of examining them closely; it would be too much like looking a +gift horse in the mouth. + +I should like to talk with a Mahatma about the constitution of the +astral body. I do not know enough about the subject to contradict his +assertions, and therefore he would have it all his own way. But were he +to become insistent and ask me to look into the matter for myself, I +should beg to be excused. I would not take a single step alone. In such +a case I agree with Sir Thomas Browne that "it is better to sit down in +modest ignorance and rest contented with the natural blessings of our +own reasons." + +There are zealous persons of a proselyting turn of mind who insist upon +our accepting their ideas or giving reasons for our rejection of them. +When we see the flames of controversy sweeping upon us, the only safety +lies in setting a back fire which shall clear the ground of any fuel for +argument. If we can only surround ourselves with a bare space of +nescience we may rest in peace. I have seen a simple Chinese +laundry-man, by adopting this plan, resist a storm of argument and +invective without losing his temper or yielding his point. Serene, +imperturbable, inscrutable, he stood undisturbed by the strife of +tongues. He had one supreme advantage,--he did not know the language. + +It was thus in the sixteenth century, when religious strife waxed mad +around him, that Montaigne preserved a little spot of tolerant thought. +"O what a soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity +whereon to compose a well-contrived head!" + +This sounds like mere Epicureanism, but Montaigne had much to say for +himself: "Great abuse in the world is begot, or, to speak more boldly, +all the abuses of the world are begot by our being taught to be afraid +of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things +we are not able to refute.... They make me hate things that are likely +when they impose upon me for infallible. I love those words which +mollify and moderate the temerity of our propositions, 'Peradventure, in +some sort, 'tis said, I think,' and the like.... There is a sort of +ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honor and courage +to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge +than knowledge itself." + +Not only is protection needed from the dogmatic assaults of our +neighbors, but also from our own premature ideas. There are opinions +which we are willing to receive on probation, but these probationers +must be taught by judicious snubbing to know their place. The +plausibilities and probabilities that are pleasantly received must not +airily assume the place of certainties. Because you say to a stranger, +"I'm glad to see you," it is not certain that you are ready to sign his +note at the bank. + +When one happens to harbor any ideas of a radical character, he is +fortunate if he is so constituted that it is not necessary for his +self-respect that he should be cock-sure. The consciousness of the +imperfection of his knowledge serves as a buffer when the train of +progress starts with a jerk. + +Sir Thomas More was, it is evident, favorably impressed with many of the +sentiments of the gentleman from Utopia, but it was a great relief to +him to be able to give them currency without committing himself to them. +He makes no dogmatic assertion that the constitution of Utopia was +better than that of the England of Henry VIII. In fact, he professes to +know nothing about Utopia except from mere hearsay. He gracefully +dismisses the subject, allowing the seeds of revolutionary ideas to +float away on the thistle-down of polite Ignorance. + +"When Raphael had made an end of speaking, though many things occurred +to me both concerning the manners and laws of that country that seemed +very absurd ... yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary and I was +not sure whether he could bear contradiction ... I only commended their +constitution and the account he had given of it in general; and so, +taking him by the hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would +find some other time for examining this subject more particularly and +discoursing more copiously upon it." + + * * * * * + +One whose quiet tastes lead him away from the main traveled roads into +the byways of Ignorance is likely to retain a feeling in regard to books +which belongs to an earlier stage of culture. Time was when a book was a +symbol of intellectual mysteries rather than a tool to be used. When +Omar Khayyám sang of the delights of a jug of wine and a book, I do not +think he was intemperate in the use of either. The same book and the +same jug of wine would last him a long time. The chief thing was that it +gave him a comfortable feeling to have them within reach. + +The primitive feeling in regard to a book as a kind of talisman survives +chiefly among bibliophiles, but with them it is overlaid by matters of +taste which are quite beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. As +for myself, I know nothing of such niceties. + +I know nothing of rare bindings or fine editions. My heart is never +disturbed by coveting the contents of my neighbor's bookshelves. +Indeed, I have always listened to the tenth commandment with a tranquil +heart since I learned, in the Shorter Catechism, that "the tenth +commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying +or grieving at the good of our neighbor and all inordinate motions and +affections to anything that is his." If that be all, it is not aimed at +me, particularly in this matter of books. + +I feel no discontentment at the disorderly array of bound volumes that I +possess. I know that they are no credit either to my taste or to my +scholarship, but if that offends my neighbor, the misery is his, not +mine. If he should bring a railing accusation against me, let him +remember that there is a ninth commandment which "forbiddeth anything +that is injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name." As for any +inordinate motions or affections toward his literary treasures, I have +no more than toward his choice collection of stamps. + +Yet I have one weakness in common with the bibliophile; I have a liking +for certain books which I have neither time nor inclination to read. +Just as according to the mediæval theory there was a sanctity about a +duly ordained clergyman altogether apart from his personal character, so +there is to my mind an impressiveness about some volumes which has +little to do with their contents, or at least with my knowledge of them. +Why should we be too curious in regard to such matters? There are books +which I love to see on the shelf. I feel that virtue goes out of them, +but I should think it undue familiarity to read them. + +The persons who have written on "Books that have helped me" have usually +confined their list to books which they have actually read. One book has +clarified their thoughts, another has stimulated their wills, another +has given them useful knowledge. But are there no Christian virtues to +be cultivated? What about humility, that pearl of great price? + +To be constantly reminded that you have not read Kant's "Critique of the +Pure Reason," and that therefore you have no right to express a final +opinion on philosophy, does not that save you from no end of unnecessary +dogmatism? The silent monitor with its accusing, uncut pages is a +blessed help to the meekness of wisdom. A book that has helped me is +"The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England," by Edward, +Earl of Clarendon. I am by nature and education a Cromwellian, of a +rather narrow type. I am more likely than not to think of Charles I. as +a man of sin. When, therefore, I brought home Clarendon's History I felt +a glow of conscious virtue; the volume was an outward and visible sign +of inward and spiritual grace,--the grace of tolerance; and so it has +ever been to me. + +Years have passed, and the days of leisure have not yet come when I +could devote myself to the reading of it. Perhaps the fact that I +discovered that the noble earl's second sentence contains almost three +hundred words may have had a discouraging influence,--but we will let +that pass. Because I have not crossed the Rubicon of the second chapter, +will you say that the book has not influenced me? "When in my sessions +of sweet, silent thought," with the Earl of Clarendon, "I summon up +remembrance of time past," is it necessary that I should laboriously +turn the pages? It is enough that I feel my prejudices oozing away, and +that I am convinced, when I look at the much prized volume, that there +are two sides to this matter of the English Commonwealth. Could the +most laborious reading do more for me? + +Indeed, it is dangerous, sometimes, not to let well-enough alone. +Wordsworth's fickle Muse gave him several pretty fancies about the +unseen banks of Yarrow. "Yarrow Unvisited" was so delightful that he was +almost tempted to be content with absent treatment. + + "We will not see them, will not go + To-day nor yet to-morrow, + Enough if in our hearts we know + There's such a place as Yarrow. + Be Yarrow's stream unseen, unknown, + It must, or we shall rue it, + We have a vision of our own, + Ah, why should we undo it?" + +Ah, why, indeed? the reader asks, after reading Yarrow Visited and +Yarrow Re-visited. The visits were a mistake. + +Perhaps Clarendon Unread is as good for my soul as Clarendon Read or +Clarendon Re-read. Who can tell? + + * * * * * + +There is another sphere in which the honorable points of ignorance are +not always sufficiently appreciated, that of Travel. The pleasure of +staying at home consists in being surrounded by things which are +familiar and which we know all about. The primary pleasure of going +abroad consists in the encounter with the unfamiliar and the unknown. + +That was the impulse which stirred old Ulysses to set forth once more +upon his travels. + + "For my purpose holds + To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths + Of all the western stars, until I die. + It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, + It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, + And see the great Achilles, whom we knew." + +"It may be"--there lay the charm. There was no knowing what might happen +on the dark, broad seas. Perhaps they might get lost, and then again +they might come upon the Happy Isles. And if as they sailed under their +looming shores they should see the great Achilles--why all the better! + +What joys the explorers of the New World experienced! The heart leaps up +at the very title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company. "Merchants +Adventurers of England for the discovery of lands, territories, isles +and signories, unknown." There was no knowing beforehand which was an +island and which the mainland. All they had to do was to keep on, sure +only of finding something which they had not expected. When they got to +the mainland they were as likely as not to stumble on the great Khan +himself. Of course they might not make a discovery of the first +magnitude like that of the Spaniards on the Peak in Darien,--but if it +was not one thing it was another! + +Two or three miles back of Plymouth, Mass., is a modest little pond +called Billington's Sea. Billington, an adventurous Pilgrim, had climbed +a tree, and looking westwards had caught sight of the shimmering water. +He looked at it with a wild surmise, and then the conviction flashed +upon him that he had discovered the goal of hardy mariners,--the great +South Sea. That was a great moment for Billington! + +Of course the Spaniards were more fortunate in their geographical +position. It turned out that it was the Pacific that they saw from their +Peak in Darien; while Billington's Sea does not grow on acquaintance. + +But my heart goes out to Billington. He also was a discoverer, +according to his lights. He belonged to a hardy breed, and could stare +on new scenes with the best of them. It was not his fault that the +Pacific was not there. If it had been, Billington would have discovered +it. We know perfectly well that the Pacific Ocean does not lave the +shores of Plymouth County, and so we should not go out into the woods on +a fine morning to look for it. There is where Billington had the +advantage of us. + +Is it not curious that while we profess to envy the old adventurers the +joys of discovery, yet before we set out on our travels we make it a +point of convenience to rob ourselves of these possibilities? Before we +set out for Ultima Thule we must know precisely where it is, and how we +are going to get there, and what we are to see and what others have said +about it. After a laborious course of reading the way is as familiar to +our minds as the road to the post office. After that there is nothing +more for us to do but to sally forth to verify the guide-books. We have +done all that we could to brush the bloom off our native Ignorance. + +Of course even then all the possibilities of discovery are not shut +out. The best-informed person cannot be completely guarded against +surprise. Accidents will happen, and there is always the chance that one +may have been misinformed. + +I remember a depressed looking lady whom I encountered as she trudged +through the galleries of the Vatican with grim conscientiousness. She +had evidently a stern duty to perform for the cause of Art. But in the +Sistine Chapel the stillness was broken by her voice, which had a note +of triumph as she spoke to her daughter. She had discovered an error in +Baedeker. It infused new life into her tired soul. + + "Some flowerets of Eden we still inherit + Though the trail of the serpent is over them all." + +Speaking of the Vatican, that suggests the weak point in my argument. It +suggests that there are occasions when knowledge is very convenient. On +the Peak in Darien the first comer, with the wild surmise of ignorance, +has the advantage in the quality of his sensation; but it is different +in Jerusalem or Rome. There the pleasure consists in the fact that a +great many interesting people have been there before and done many +interesting things, which it might be well to know about. + +At this point I am quite willing to grant an inch; with the +understanding that it shall not be lengthened into an ell. The Camel of +Knowledge may push his head into the tent, and we shall have to resist +his further encroachments as we may. + +What we call the historic sense is not consistent with a state of +nescience. The picture which the eye takes in is incomplete without the +thousand associations which come from previous thought. Still, it +remains true that the finest pleasure does not come when the mental +images are the most precise. Before entering Paradise the mediæval +pilgrims tasted of the streams of Eunoë and Lethe,--the happy memory and +the happy forgetfulness. The most potent charm comes from the judicious +mingling of these waters. + +There is a feeling of antiquity that only comes now and then, but which +it is worth traveling far to experience. It is the thrill that comes +when we consciously stand in the presence of the remote past. Some scene +brings with it an impression of immemorial time. In almost every case +we find that it comes from being reminded of something which we have +once known and more than half forgotten. What are the "mists of time" +but imperfect memories? + +Modern psychologists have given tardy recognition to the "Subliminal +Self,"--the self that lodges under the threshold of consciousness. He is +a shy gnome, and loves the darkness rather than the light; not, as I +believe, because his deeds are evil, but for reasons best known to +himself. To all appearances he is the most ignorant fellow in the world, +and yet he is no fool. As for the odds and ends that he stores up under +the threshold, they are of more value than the treasures that the +priggish Understanding displays in his show windows upstairs. + +In traveling through historic lands the Subliminal Self overcomes his +shyness. There are scenes and even words that reach back into hoar +antiquity, and bring us into the days of eld. + +Each person has his own chronology. If I were to seek to bring to mind +the very ancientest time, I should not think of the cave-dwellers: I +should repeat, "The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the +Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the +Girgashites." + +There is antiquity! It is not only a long time since these tribes dwelt +in the land; it has been a long time since I first heard of them. + +My memory goes back to the time when a disconsolate little boy sat on a +bench in a Sunday-school and asked himself, "What is a Girgashite?" + +The habit of the Sunday-school of mingling the historical and ethical +elements in one inextricable moral had made it uncertain whether the +Girgashite was a person or a sin. In either case it happened a long time +ago. There upon the very verge of Time stood the Girgashite, like the +ghost in Ossian, "His spear was a column of mist, and the stars looked +dim through his form." + +Happily my studies have not led in that direction, and there is nothing +to disturb the first impression. If some day wandering over Oriental +hills I should come upon some broken monuments of the Girgashites, I am +sure that I should feel more of a thrill than could possibly come to my +more instructed companion. To him it would be only the discovery of +another fact, to fit into his scheme of knowledge: to me it would be +like stumbling unawares into the primeval world. + +What is more delightful than in a railway train in Italy to hear voices +in the night calling out names that recall the lost arts of our +childhood! There is a sense + + "Of something here like something there, + Of something done, I know not where, + Such as no language can declare." + +There is a bittersweet to it, for there is a momentary fear that you may +be called upon to construe; but when that is past it is pure joy. + +"Monte Soracte," said the Italian gentleman on the train between Foligno +and Rome, as he pointed out a picturesque eminence. My answering smile +was intended to convey the impression that one touch of the classics +makes the whole world kin. Had I indeed kept up my Horace, a host of +clean-cut ideas would have instantly rushed into my mind. "Is that +Soracte! It is not what I had reason to expect. As a mountain I prefer +Monadnock." + +Fortunately I had no such prepossessions. I had expected nothing. There +only came impressions of lessons years ago in a dingy school-room +presided over by a loved instructor whom we knew as "Prof. Ike." Looking +back through the mists of time, I felt that I had been the better for +having learned the lessons, and none the worse for having long since +forgotten them. In those days Soracte had been a noun standing in +mysterious relations to a verb unknown; but now it was evident that it +was a mountain. There it stood under the clear Italian sky just as it +had been in the days of Virgil and Horace. Thoughts of Horace and of the +old professor mingled pleasantly so long as the mountain was in sight. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some timid souls that this praise of Ignorance may have a +sinister motive, and may be intended to deter from the pursuit of +knowledge. On the contrary, it is intended to encourage those who are +"faint yet pursuing." + +It must have occurred to every serious person that the pursuit of +knowledge is not what it once was. Time was when to know seemed the +easiest thing in the world. All that a man had to do was to assert +dogmatically that a thing was so, and then argue it out with some one +who had even less acquaintance with the subject than he had. He was not +hampered by a rigid, scientific method, nor did he need to make +experiments, which after all might not strengthen his position. The +chief thing was a certain tenacity of opinion which would enable him, in +Pope's phrase, to "hold the eel of science by the tail." There were no +troublesome experts to cast discredit on this slippery sport. If a man +had a knack at metaphysics and a fine flow of technical language he +could satisfy all reasonable curiosity about the Universe. Or with the +minimum of effort he might attain a jovial scholarship adequate for all +convivial purposes, like Chaucer's pilgrim + + "Whan that he wel dronken had the win, + Than wold he speken no word but Latin." + +It was the golden age of the amateur, when certainty could be had for +the asking, and one could stake out any part of the wide domain of human +interest and hold it by the right of squatter sovereignty. But in these +days the man who aspires to know must do something more than assert his +conviction. He must submit to all sorts of mortifying tests, and at best +he can obtain a title to only the tiniest bit of the field he covets. + +With the severer definitions of knowledge and the delimitation of the +territory which any one may call his own there has come a curious +result. While the aggregate of intellectual wealth has increased, the +individual workers are being reduced to penury. It is a pathetic +illustration of Progress and Poverty. The old and highly respected class +of gentlemen and scholars is being depleted. Scholarship has become so +difficult that those who aspire after it have little time for the +amenities. It is not as it was in the "spacious times of great +Elizabeth." Enter any company of modern scholars and ask what they know +about any large subject, and you will find that each one hastens to take +the poor debtor's oath. How can they be expected to know so much? + +On this minute division of intellectual labor the exact sciences thrive, +but conversation, poetry, art, and all that belongs to the humanities +languish. + +Your man of highly specialized intelligence has often a morbid fear of +half-knowledge, and he does not dare to express an opinion that has not +been the result of original research. He shuns the innocent questioners +who would draw him out, as if they were so many dunning creditors. He +becomes a veritable Dick Swiveller as one conversational thoroughfare +after another is closed against him, until he no longer ventures abroad. +The worst of it is that he has a haunting apprehension that even the bit +of knowledge which he calls his own may be taken away from him by some +new discovery, and he may be cast adrift upon the Unknowable. + +It is then that he should remember the wisdom of the unjust steward, so +that when he is cast out of the House of Knowledge he may find congenial +friends in the habitations of Ignorance. + +There are a great many mental activities that stop short of strict +knowledge. Where we do not know, we may imagine, and hope, and dare; we +may laugh at our neighbor's mistakes, and occasionally at our own. We +may enjoy the delicious moments of suspense when we are on the verge of +finding out; and if it should happen that the discovery is postponed, +then we have a chance to go over the delightful process again. + +To say "I do not know" is not nearly as painful as it seems to those +who have not tried it. The active mind, when the conceit of absolute +knowledge has been destroyed, quickly recovers itself and cries out, +after the manner of Brer Rabbit when Brer Fox threw him into the brier +patch, "Bred en bawn in a brier patch, Brer Fox--bred en bawn in a brier +patch!" + + + + +That History should be Readable + + +That was a clever device which a writer of "mere literature" hit upon +when he boldly dedicated his book to a man of prodigious learning. "Who +so guarded," he says, "can suspect his safety even when he travels +through the Enemy's Country, for such is the vast field of Learning, +where the Learned (though not numerous enough to be an Army) lie in +small Parties, maliciously in Ambush, to destroy all New Men who look +into their Quarters." + +It is doubtful, however, whether in these days a lover of Ignorance--or, +if you prefer, an ignorant lover of good things--could be safe in the +enemy's country, even under the protection of such a Mr. Great Heart. +It is no longer true that the Learned are not numerous enough to be an +army and are content with guerrilla warfare; on the contrary, they have +increased to multitudes, and their well-disciplined forces hold all the +strategic points. As for those who love to read and consider, rather +than to enter into minute researches, it is as in the days of Shamgar, +the son of Anoth, when "the highways were unoccupied and the people +walked through byways." + +There is one field, however, that the Gentle Reader will not give up +without a struggle--it is that of history. He claims that it belongs to +Literature as much as to Science. History and Story are variations of +the same word, and the historian who is master of his art must be a +story-teller. Clio was not a school-mistress, but a Muse, and the +papyrus roll in her hand does not contain mere dates and statistics, it +is filled with the record of heroic adventures. The primitive form of +history was verbal tradition, as one generation told the story of the +past to the generation that followed. + +"There was a great advantage in that method," says the Gentle Reader, +"the irrelevant details dropped out. It is only the memorable things +that can be remembered. What a pleasant invitation that was in the +eighty-first psalm to the study of Hebrew History, in order to learn +what had happened when Israel went out through the land of Egypt:-- + + 'Take up the psalm and bring hither the timbrel, + The pleasant harp with the psaltery, + Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, + And the full moon on our solemn feast days.' + +"The Jews had a way of setting their history to music, and bringing in +the great events as a glorious refrain, which they never feared +repeating too often; perhaps that is one reason why their history has +lasted so long." + +The Gentle Reader's liking for histories that might be read to the +accompaniment of the "pleasant harp and psaltery," and which now and +then stir him as with the sound of a trumpet, brings upon him many a +severe rebuke. He is told that his favorite writers are frequently +inaccurate and one-sided. The true historian, he is informed, is a +prodigy of impartiality, who has divested himself of all human passions, +in order that he may set down in exact sequence the course of events. +The Gentle Reader turns to these highly praised volumes and finds +himself adrift, without human companionship, on a bottomless sea of +erudition,--writings, writings everywhere and not a page to read! +Returning from this perilous excursion, he ever after adheres to his +original predilection for histories that are readable. + +He is of the opinion that a history must be essentially a work of the +imagination. This does not mean that it must not be true, but it means +that the important truth about any former generation can only be +reproduced through the imagination. The important thing is that these +people were once alive. No critical study of their meagre memorials can +make us enter into their joys, their griefs, and their fears. The +memorials only suggest to the historic imagination what the reality must +have been. + +Peter Bell could recognize a fact when he saw it:-- + + "A primrose on the river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him, + And it was nothing more." + +As long as the primrose was there, he could be trusted to describe it +accurately enough. But set Peter Bell the task of describing last year's +primrose. "There aren't any last year's primroses on the river's brim," +says Peter, "so you must be content with a description of the one in my +herbarium. Last year's primroses, you will observe, are very much +flattened out." To Mr. Peter Bell, after he has spent many years in the +universities, a document is a document, and it is nothing more. When he +has compared a great many documents, and put them together in a +mechanical way, he calls his work a history. That's where he differs +from the Gentle Reader who calls it only the crude material out of which +a man of genius may possibly make a history. + +To the Gentle Reader it is a profoundly interesting reflection that +since this planet has been inhabited people have been fighting, and +working, and loving, and hating, with an intensity born of the +conviction that, if they went at it hard enough, they could finish the +whole business in one generation. He likes to get back into any one of +these generations just "to get the feel of it." He does not care so much +for the final summing up of the process, as to see it in the making. +Any one who can give him that experience is his friend. + +He is interested in the stirring times of the English Revolution, and +goes to the historical expert to find what it was all about. The +historical expert starts with the Magna Charta and makes a preliminary +survey. Then he begins his march down the centuries, intrenching every +position lest he be caught unawares by the critics. His intellectual +forces lack mobility, as they must wait for their baggage trains. At +last he comes to the time of the Stuarts, and there is much talk of the +royal prerogative, and ship money, and attainders, and acts of +Parliament. There are exhaustive arguments, now on the one side and now +on the other, which exactly balance one another. There are references to +bulky volumes, where at the foot of every page the notes run along, like +little angry dogs barking at the text. + +The Gentle Reader calls out: "I have had enough of this. What I want to +know is what it's all about, and which side, on the whole, has the right +of it. Which side are you on? Are you a Roundhead or a Cavalier? Are +your sympathies with the Whigs or the Tories?" + +"Sympathies!" says the expert. "Who ever heard of a historian allowing +himself to sympathize? I have no opinions of my own to present. My great +aim is not to prejudice the mind of the student." + +"Nonsense," says the Gentle Reader; "I am not a student, nor is this a +school-room. It's all in confidence; speak out as one gentleman to +another under a friendly roof! What do you think about it? No matter if +you make a mistake or two, I'll forget most that you say, anyway. All +that I care for is to get the gist of the matter. As for your fear of +warping my mind, there's not the least danger in the world. My mind is +like a tough bit of hickory; it will fly back into its original shape +the moment you let go. I have a hundred prejudices of my own,--one more +won't hurt me. I want to know what it was that set the people by the +ears. Why did they cut off the head of Charles I., and why did they +drive out James II.? I can't help thinking that there must have been +something more exciting than those discussions of yours about +constitutional theories. Do you know, I sometimes doubt whether most of +the people who went to the wars knew that there was such a thing as the +English Constitution; the subject hadn't been written up then. I suspect +that something happened that was not set down in your book; something +that made those people fighting mad." + +Then the Gentle Reader turns to his old and much criticised friend +Macaulay, and asks,-- + +"What do you think about it?" + +"Think about it!" says Macaulay. "I'll tell you what I think about it. +To begin with, that Charles I., though good enough as a family man, was +a consummate liar." + +"That's the first light I've had on the subject," says the Gentle +Reader. "Charles lied, and that made the people mad?" + +"Precisely! I perceive that you have the historic sense. We English +can't abide a liar; so at last when we could not trust the king's word +we chopped off his head. Mind you, I'm not defending the regicides, but +between ourselves I don't mind saying that I think it served him right. +At any rate our blood was up, and there was no stopping us. I wish I had +time to tell you all about Hampden, and Pym, and Cromwell, but I must +go on to the glorious year 1688, and tell you how it all came about, and +how we sent that despicable dotard, James, flying across the Channel, +and how we brought in the good and wise King William, and how the great +line of Whig statesmen began. I take for granted--as you appear to be a +sensible man--that you are a Whig?" + +"I'm open to conviction," says the Gentle Reader. + +In a little while he is in the very thick of it. He is an Englishman of +the seventeenth century. He has taken sides and means to fight it out. +He knows how to vote on every important question that comes before +Parliament. No Jacobite sophistry can beguile him. When William lands he +throws up his hat, and after that he stands by him, thick or thin. When +you tell him that he ought to be more dispassionate in his historical +judgments, he answers: "That would be all very well if we were not +dealing with living issues,--but with Ireland in an uproar and the +Papists ready to swarm over from France, there is a call for decision. A +man must know his own mind. You may stand off and criticise William's +policy; but the question is, What policy do you propose? You say that I +have not exhausted the subject, and that there are other points of view. +Very likely. Show me another point of view, only make it as clear to me +as Macaulay makes his. Let it be a real view, and not a smudge. Some +other day I may look at it, but I must take one thing at a time. What I +object to is the historian who takes both sides in the same paragraph. +That is what I call offensive bi-partisanship." + +The Gentle Reader is interested not only in what great men actually +were, but in the way they appeared to those who loved or hated them. He +is of the opinion that the legend is often more significant than the +colorless annals. When a legend has become universally accepted and has +lived a thousand years, he feels that it should be protected in its +rights of possession by some statute of limitation. It has come to have +an independent life of its own. He has, therefore, no sympathy with +Gibbon in his identification of St. George of England with George of +Cappadocia, a dishonest army contractor who supplied the troops of the +Emperor Julian with bacon. Says Gibbon: "His employment was mean; he +rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud +and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious that George was +compelled to escape from the pursuit of his enemies.... This odious +stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the +mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George +of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of +England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter." + +"That is a serious indictment," says the Gentle Reader. "I have no plea +to make for the Cappadocian; I can readily believe that his bacon was +bad. But why not let bygones be bygones? If he managed to transform +himself into a saint, and for many centuries avoid all suspicion, I +believe that it was a thorough reformation. St. George of England has +long been esteemed as a valiant gentleman,--and, at any rate, that +affair with the dragon was greatly to his credit." + +Sometimes the Gentle Reader is disturbed by finding that different lines +of tradition have been mixed, and his mind becomes the battleground +whereon old blood feuds are fought out. Thus it happens that as a child +he was brought up on the tales of the Covenanters and imbibed their +stern resentment against their persecutors. He learned to hate the very +name of Graham of Claverhouse who brought desolation upon so many +innocent homes. On the other hand, his heart beats high when he hears +the martial strains of Bonnie Dundee. "There was a man for you!" + + "Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, + The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat. + + * * * * * + + 'Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks-- + Ere I own as usurper, I'll couch with the fox! + And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee, + You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!' + + * * * * * + + He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown, + The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on, + Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermeston's lee + Died away the wild war notes of Bonnie Dundee." + +"When I see him wave his proud hand," says the Gentle Reader, "I am his +clansman, and I'm ready to be off with him." + +"I thought you were a Whig," says the student of history. + +"I thought so too,--but what's politics where the affections are +enlisted? Don't you hear those wild war notes?" + +"But are you aware that the Bonnie Dundee is the same man whom you have +just been denouncing under the name of Graham of Claverhouse?" + +"Are you sure they are the same?" sighs the Gentle Reader. "I cannot +make them seem the same. To me there are two of them: Graham of +Claverhouse, whom I hate, and the Bonnie Dundee, whom I love. If it's +all the same to you, I think I shall keep them separate and go on loving +and hating as aforetime." + + * * * * * + +But though the Gentle Reader has the defects of his qualities and is +sometimes led astray by his sympathies, do not think that he is +altogether lacking in solidity of judgment. He has a genuine love of +truth and finds it more interesting than fiction--when it is well +written. If he objects to the elimination of myth and fable it is +because he is profoundly interested in the history of human feeling. The +story that is the embodiment of an emotion is itself of the greatest +significance. In Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, before Jupiter himself +is revealed, the Phantasm of Jupiter appears and speaks. Prometheus +addresses him:-- + + "Tremendous Image, as thou art must be + He whom thou shadowest forth." + +On the stage of history each great personage has a phantasmal +counterpart; sometimes there are many of them. Each phantasm becomes a +centre of love and hate. + +The cold-blooded historian gives us what he calls the real Napoleon. He +is, he asserts, neither the Corsican Ogre of the British imagination nor +the Heroic Emperor for whom myriads of Frenchmen gladly died. Perhaps +not; but when the Napoleonic legend has been banished, what about the +Napoleonic wars? The Phantasms of Napoleon appear on every battlefield. +The men of that day saw them, and were nerved to the conflict. The +reader must, now and then, see them, or he can have no conception of +what was going on. He misses "the moving why they did it." And as for +the real Napoleon, what was the magic by which he was able to call such +phantasms from the vasty deep? + +The careful historian who would trace the history of Europe in the +centuries that followed the barbarian invasion is sorely troubled by the +intrusion of legendary elements. After purging his work of all that +savors of romance, he has a very neat and connected narrative. + +"But is it true?" asks the Gentle Reader. "I for one do not believe it. +The course of true history never did run so smooth. Here is a worthy +person who undertakes to furnish me with an idea of the Dark Ages, and +he forgets the principal fact, which is that it was dark. His picture +has all the sharp outlines of a noon-day street scene. I don't believe +he ever spent a night alone in a haunted house. If he had he would have +known that if you don't see ghosts, you see shapes that look like them. +At midnight mysterious forms loom large. The historian must have a +genius for depicting Chaos. He must make me dimly perceive 'the +fragments of forgotten peoples,' with their superstitions, their +formless fears, their vague desires. They were all fighting them in the +dark. + + "'For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, + And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; + And some had visions out of golden youth, + And some beheld the faces of old ghosts + Look in upon the battle; and in the mist + Was many a noble deed, and many a base + And chance and craft and strength in single fights, + And ever and anon with host to host + Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, + Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash + Of battle axes on shattered helms, and shrieks + After the Christ, of those who falling down + Looked up for heaven and only saw the mist.'" + +"But, Gentle Reader," says the Historian, "that is poetry, not history." + +"Perhaps it is, but it's what really happened." + + * * * * * + +He is of the opinion that many histories owe their quality of +unreadableness to the virtues of their authors. The kind-hearted +historians over-load their works through their desire to rescue as many +events and persons as possible from oblivion. When their better judgment +tells them that they should be off, they remain to drag in one more. +Alas, their good intention defeats itself; their frail craft cannot bear +the added burden, and all hands go to the bottom. There is no surer +oblivion than that which awaits one whose name is recorded in a book +that undertakes to tell all. + +The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. Here are +millions of happenings every day. Each one has its infinite series of +antecedents and consequents; and each takes longer in the telling than +in the doing. Evidently there must be some principle of selection. +Naturalists with a taste for mathematics tell us of the appalling +catastrophe which would impend if every codfish were to reach maturity. +It would be equaled by the state of things which would exist were every +incident duly chronicled. A foretaste of this calamity has been given in +our recent war,--and yet there were some of our military men who did not +write reminiscences. + +What the principle of selection shall be depends upon the predominant +interest of the writer. But there must be a clear sequence; one can +relate only what is related to the chosen theme. The historian must +reverse the order of natural evolution and proceed from the +heterogeneous to the homogeneous. Alas for the ill-fated pundit who, +forgetting his aim, flounders in the bottomless morass of heterogeneity. +The moment he begins to tell how things are he remembers some +incongruous incident which proves that they were quite otherwise. The +genius for narrative consists in the ability to pick out the facts which +belong together and which help each other along. The company must keep +step, and the stragglers must be mercilessly cut off. One cannot say of +any fact that it is important in itself. The important thing is that +which has a direct bearing on the subject. The definition of dirt as +matter in the wrong place is suggestive. All the details that throw +light on the main action are of value. Those that obscure it are but +petty dust. It is no sufficient plea that the dust is very real and that +it took a great deal of trouble to collect it. + +As vivid a bit of history as one may read is the Journal of Sally +Wister, a Quaker girl who lived near Philadelphia during the period of +the American Revolution. She gives a narrative of the things which +happened to her during those fateful years. In October, 1777, she says, +"Here, my dear, passes an interval of several weeks in which nothing +happened worth the time and paper it would take to write it." + +The editor is troubled at this remark, because during that very week the +Battle of Germantown and been fought not far away. But Sally Wister had +the true historical genius. The Battle of Germantown was an event, and +so was the coming of a number of gay young officers to the hospitable +country house; and this latter event was much more important to Sally +Wister. So omitting all irrelevant incidents, she gives a circumstantial +account of what was happening on the centre of the stage. + +"Cousin Prissa and myself were sitting at the door; I in my green skirt, +dark gown, etc. Two genteel men of the military order rode up to the +door. 'Your servant, ladies,' etc. Asked if they could have quarters for +General Smallwood." + +"I can see just how they did it," says the Gentle Reader, "and what a +commotion the visit made. Now when a person who is just as much absorbed +in the progress of the Revolutionary War as Sally Wister was in those +young officers writes about it I will read his history gladly." + + * * * * * + +Some otherwise excellent histories fall into the abyss of unreadableness +because of the author's unnecessary pains to justify his heroes to the +critical intelligence of the reader. He is continually making apologies +when he should be telling a story. He is comparing the deeds of one age +with the ethical standards of another; and the result is a series of +moral anachronisms. There is a running fire of more or less irrelevant +comment. + +What a delightful plan that was, which the author of the Book of Judges +hit upon to avoid this difficulty! He had a hard task. His worthies were +not persons of settled habits, and they did many things that might +appear shocking to later generations. They were called upon to do rough +work and they did it in their own way. If the author had undertaken to +justify their conduct by any conventional standard he would have made +sorry work of it. What he did was much better than that. Whenever he +came to a point where there was danger of the mind of the reader +becoming turbid with moral reflections that belonged to a later age, he +threw in the clarifying suggestion, "And there was no King in Israel, +and every man did what was right in his own eyes." This precipitated all +the disturbing elements, and the story ran on swift and clear. It was +as if when the reader was about to protest the author anticipated him +with, "What would you do, reader, if the Philistines were upon you and +there were no King in Israel?" Undoubtedly under such circumstances it +would be a great relief to catch sight of Gideon or Samson. It would not +be a time for fastidiousness about their shortcomings; they would be +hailed as strong deliverers. + +"That is just the point of it," cries the Gentle Reader. "They were on +our side. The important thing is to recognize our friends. To teach us +who our friends are is the purpose of history. Here is a conflict that +has been going on for ages. The men who have done valiant service are +not all smooth-spoken gentlemen in black coats--but what of it? They +have done what they could. We can't say that each act was absolutely +right, but they were moving in the right direction. When a choice was +offered they took the better part. The historian should not only know +what they did, but what was the alternative offered them. There was the +Prophet Samuel. Some persons will have no further respect for him after +they learn that he hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord. They think he +ought to have stood up for Free Religion. They take for granted that the +alternative offered him was religious toleration as we understand it. It +was nothing of the sort. The question for a man of that age was, Shall +Samuel hew Agag in pieces, or shall Agag hew Samuel in pieces, and my +sympathies are with Samuel." + +Having once made allowance for the differences of time and place, he +follows with eager interest the fortunes of the men who have made the +world what it is. What if they do have their faults? He does not care +for what he calls New England Primer style of History:-- + + "Young Obadias, David, Josias + All were pious." + +Such monotony of excellence wearies him, and the garment of praise is +accompanied by a spirit of heaviness. + +"I like saints best in the state of nature," he says; "the process of +canonization does not seem good for them. When too many of them are +placed together in a book their virtues kill one another, and at a +little distance all halos look very much alike." + +There are certain histories which he finds readable, not because he +cares very much for their ostensible subject, but because of the light +they throw on the author's personality. He, good man, thinks he is +telling the story of the Carlovingian Dynasty, or the rise of the +Phoenician sea power, while in reality he is giving an intimate +account of his own state of mind. The author is like a bee which wanders +far afield and visits many flowers, but always brings back the spoil to +one hollow tree. The Gentle Reader, like a practiced bee hunter, is +careless of the outward journeys, but watches closely the direction of +the return flight. + +"If you would know a person's limitations," he says, "induce him to +write on some large subject like the History of Civilization, or the +History of the Origin and Growth of the Moral Sentiment. You will find +his particular hobby writ large." + +He takes up a History of the Semites. "What a pertinacious fellow he +is," alluding not to any ancient Semite but to the Author, "how closely +he sticks to his point! He has discovered a new fact about the +Amalekites,--I wonder what he will do with it. Just as I expected! there +he is back with it to that controversy he is having with his +Presbytery. I notice that he calls the children of Israel the +Beni-Israel. He knows that that sort of thing irritates the conservative +party. It suggests that he is following Renan, and yet it may only prove +that he thinks in Hebrew." + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader regards ambitious works on the Philosophy of History +with mingled suspicion and curiosity. So much depends, in such cases, +upon the philosopher. In spite of many misadventures, curiosity +generally gets the better of caution. + +He opens Comte's "Positive Philosophy" and reads, "In order to +understand the true value and character of the 'Positive Philosophy' we +must take a brief, general view of the progressive course of the human +mind regarded as a whole." Then he is conducted through the three stages +of the theological or fictitious, the metaphysical or abstract, and the +scientific or positive; which last circle proves large enough only for +Comte's own opinions. He is caught in a trap and goes round and round +without finding the hole through which he came in. + +"When a learned person asks one," says the Gentle Reader, "to accompany +him on a brief general survey of the progressive course of the human +mind, regarded as a whole, I am apt to be wary. I want to know what he +is up to. I fear the philosopher bearing historical gifts." + +Yet where the trap is made of slighter fabric, and he feels that he can +break through at will, he enjoys watching the author and his work. How +marvelous are the powers of the human mind! How the facts of experience +can be bent to a sternly logical formula! And how the whole trend of +things seems to yield to an imperious will that is stronger than fate! + +Here is a book published in Wheeling, Virginia, in 1809. It is "A +Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity in Scotland, +before the Reformation; and the Progress of Religion since in Scotland +and America." We are told that the history was read paragraph by +paragraph at a meeting of the Reformed Dissenting Presbytery at the +Three Ridge Meeting House, and unanimously approved. At the beginning we +are taken into a wide place and given a comprehensive view of early +Christianity. Then we are shown how in the sixteenth century began a +series of godly reformations. Christianity, bursting through the +barriers of Popery, began its resistless flow toward the pure theology +of the Three Ridge Meeting House. As the articles of the true faith were +increased the number of persons who were able to hold correct opinions +upon them all diminished. The history, by perfectly logical processes, +brings us down to the year 1799, when secession had done its perfect +work and the true church had attained to an apostolic purity of doctrine +and a more than apostolic paucity of membership. It is with a fearful +joy that the historians proclaim the culmination of the age-long +evolution. "O! the times we live in! There were but two of us to defend +the doctrine of the Bible and the Westminster Confession." At the time +the history of the Progress of Christianity was written there were but +two ministers who held the uncorrupted faith; namely, Robert Warwick and +Alexander McCoy. These two brethren were the joint authors of the +history, and in their capacity as church council gave it ecumenical +authority. Had McCoy disagreed with Warwick about Preterition, or had +Warwick suspected McCoy of Sublapsarianism, then we should have had two +histories of Christianity instead of one. It would have appeared that +all the previous developments of Christianity were significant only as +preparing for the Great Schism. + +"There is a great deal of this Three Ridge Meeting House kind of +history," says the Gentle Reader, "and I confess I find it very +instructive. I like to find out what the writers think on the questions +of the day." + +The fact is that there is a great deal of human nature even in learned +people, and they cannot escape from the spell of the present moment. +They are like the rest of us, and feel that they are living at the +terminus of the road and not at a way station. The cynical reflection on +the way in which the decisions of the Supreme Court follow the election +returns suggests the way in which historical generalizations follow the +latest telegraphic dispatches. Something happens and then we look up its +historical antecedents. It seems as if everything had been pointing to +this one event from the beginning. + +"Here is a very readable History of Fans. The writer justly says that +the subject is one that has been much neglected. 'In England brief +sketches on the subject have occasionally appeared in the magazines, but +thus far a History of Fans has not been published in book form.... The +subject amply repays careful study, and will not fail to interest the +reader, provided the demands on both his patience and his time are not +too great.' I confess that it is a line of research I have never taken +up, but it is evident that there is ample material. The beginning +inspires confidence. 'The chain of tradition, followed as far as +possible into the past, carries us but to the time when the origin of +the fan is derived from tradition.' It appears that we come out upon +firm ground when we reach the Mahabharata. But the question which +arouses my curiosity is, How did it occur to any one that there should +be a history of fans? The author reveals the inciting cause,--'The Loan +Exhibition held at South Kensington in 1870 gave a great impulse to the +collection and decoration of fans.' I suspect that almost all readable +histories have some such origin." + +The title of Professor Freeman's "History of Federal Government from the +Foundation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United +States" was timely when the first volume was published in 1863. The +terminal points seemed closely connected in 1862 and the spring of 1863. +Gettysburg and Appomattox destroyed the line of communication. But there +was a time when the subject had great dramatic unity. + +One May morning the Gentle Reader saw in the newspapers the account of +the victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, and learned how the English +people rejoiced over the success of American arms. "This will remake a +great deal of history," he said, "and there will be a great revival of +interest in Hengist and Horsa. These primitive Anglo-Saxon expansionists +kept their own counsel, but it's evident that the movement they set on +foot must go on to its logical conclusion. When a competent scholar +takes hold of the history it will be seen that it couldn't stop with the +Heptarchy or the destruction of the Spanish Armada. It was a foregone +conclusion that these Anglo-Saxons would eventually take the +Philippines." + +When one by one the books began to come out he read them with eager +interest. That there should be histories of the triumphant progress of +Anglo-Saxondom, after the Spanish-American war, he looked upon as +something as inevitable as the history of fans, after the South +Kensington Exhibition. It was manifest destiny. + + * * * * * + +There is one page in the history books which the Gentle Reader looks +upon with a skeptical smile; it is that which contains the words, "The +End." + +"The writer may think that the subject has been exhausted, and that he +has said the last word; but in reality there is no end." + +He is well aware that at best he gets but a glimpse of what is going on. +The makers of history are for the most part unknown to the writers of +it. He loves now and then to catch sight of one of these unremembered +multitudes. For a moment the searchlight of history falls upon him, and +he stands blinking in the unaccustomed glare, and then the light shifts +and oblivion swallows him up. + +He stops to meditate when he comes upon this paragraph in Bishop +Burnet's "History of his Own Times." + +"When King James I. was in Scotland he erected a new Bishopric, and made +one Forbes Bishop. He was a very learned and pious man; he had a strange +faculty of preaching five or six hours at a time. His way of life and +devotion was thought monastic, and his learning lay in antiquity; he +studied to be a reconciler between Papists and Protestants, leaning +rather to the first; he was a simple-hearted man and knew little of the +world, so he fell into several errors of conduct, but died soon after +suspected of Popery." + +"That man Forbes," says the Gentle Reader, "doesn't cut much of a figure +on the pages of history. Indeed, that is all that is said of him, yet I +doubt not but that he was a much more influential man in his day than +many of those bishops and reformers that I have been reading about. A +learned man who has a faculty for preaching five or six hours at a time +is a great conservative force. He keeps things from going too fast. When +one reads about the Reformation of the sixteenth century, one wonders +that it didn't make a clean sweep. We must remember the number of good +Protestants who died suspected of Popery." + +But though he loves to get a glimpse of Forbes and men of his kind, he +knows that they are not of the stuff that readable histories are made +of. The retarding influences of the times must be taken into account, +but after all the historian is concerned with the people who are "in the +van of circumstance." They may be few in number, but their achievements +are the things worth telling. + +"Every history," says the Gentle Reader, "should be a Book of Genesis. I +want to see things in their beginnings and in their fresh growth. I do +not care to follow the processes of decay. Fortunately there is no +period when something is not beginning. 'Sweet is the genesis of +things.' History is a perpetual spring-time. New movements are always on +foot. Even when I don't approve of them I want to know what they are +like. When the band strikes up 'See the Conquering Hero come,' it's +sheer affectation not to look up. The conquering hero is always worth +looking at, even if you do not approve of him. The historian who +undertakes to tell what men at any period were about must be quick to +detect their real enthusiasms. He must join the victorious army and not +cling to a lost cause. I have always thought that it was a mistake for +Gibbon to call his great work, 'The History of the Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire.' The declining power of the Roman Empire was not the +great fact of those ten centuries. There were powers which were not +declining, but growing. How many things were in the +making,--Christianity, Mohammedanism, the new chivalry, the Germanic +civilization. As for the Roman Empire, one could see that _that_ game +was lost, and it wasn't worth while to play it out to the last move. I +couldn't make those shadowy Emperors at Constantinople seem like +Caesars--and, for that matter, they weren't." + +On this last point I think that the Gentle Reader is correct, and that +the great historian is one who has a certain prophetic gift. He is quick +to discern the signs of the times. He identifies himself so thoroughly +with the age of which he writes that he always seems to be at the +beginning of an era peering into the yet dim future. In this way he +shares the hopes and aspirations of the men of whom he writes. For there +was a day when all our familiar institutions were new. There was a time +when the Papacy was not an established fact, but a vague dream of +spiritual power and unity, a challenge to a barbarian world. It appealed +to young idealists as the federation of the world or a socialistic +commonwealth appeals to-day. There was a time when constitutional +government was a Utopian experiment which a few brave men were willing +to try. There was a time when Calvinism was a spiritual adventure. + +The historian whom we love is one who stands at the parting of the ways, +and sees ideals grow into actualities. He is not reminiscent. He is +forward-looking as he speaks to each age out of intimate acquaintance +with its new hopes, as one + + "Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones + For prophecies of thee, and for the sake + Of loveliness new born." + + + + +The Evolution of the Gentleman + + +"What is your favorite character, Gentle Reader?" "I like to read about +gentlemen," he answers; "it's a taste I have inherited, and I find it +growing upon me." + +And yet it is not easy to define a gentleman, as the multitudes who have +made the attempt can testify. It is one of the cases in which the +dictionary does not help one. Perhaps, after all, definitions are to be +looked upon as luxuries, not as necessities. When Alice told her name to +Humpty Dumpty, that intolerable pedant asked,-- + +"'What does it mean?' + +"'Must a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully. + +"'Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh. 'My name +means the shape I am,--and a good handsome shape it is, too.'" + +I suppose that almost any man, if he were asked what a gentleman is, +would answer with Humpty Dumpty, "It is the shape I am." I judge this +because, though the average man would not feel insulted if you were to +say, "You are no saint," it would not be safe to say, "You are no +gentleman." + +And yet the average man has his misgivings. For all his confident talk, +he is very humble minded. The astral body of the gentleman that he is +endeavoring to project at his neighbors is not sufficiently materialized +for his own imperfect vision. The word "gentleman" represents an ideal. +Above whatever coarseness and sordidness there may be in actual life, +there rises the ideal of a finer kind of man, with gentler manners and +truer speech and braver action. + +In every age we shall find the true gentleman--that is, the man who +represents the best ideal of his own time, and we shall find the mimicry +of him the would-be gentleman who copies the form while ignorant of the +substance. These two characters furnish the material, on the one hand +for the romancer, and on the other for the satirist. If there had been +no real gentlemen, the epics, the solemn tragedies, and the stirring +tales of chivalry would have remained unwritten; and if there had been +no pretended gentlemen, the humorist would have lost many a pleasure. +Always the contrasted characters are on the stage together; simple +dignity is followed by strutting pomposity, and after the hero the +braggart swaggers and storms. So ridicule and admiration bear rule by +turns. + +The idea of the gentleman involves the sense of personal dignity and +worth. He is not a means to an end; he is an end in itself. How early +this sense arose we may not know. Professor Huxley made merry over the +sentimentalists who picture the simple dignity of primitive man. He had +no admiration to throw away on "the dignified and unclothed savage +sitting in solitary meditation under trees." And yet I am inclined to +think that the gentleman must have appeared even before the advent of +tailors. The peasants who followed Wat Tyler sang,-- + + "When Adam delved and Eve span + Who was then the gentleman?" + +But a writer in the age of Queen Elizabeth published a book in which he +argued that Adam himself was a perfect gentleman. He had the advantage, +dear to the theological mind, that though affirmative proof might be +lacking, it was equally difficult to prove the negative. + +As civilization advances and literature catches its changing features, +the outlines of the gentleman grow distinct. + +In the Book of Genesis we see Abraham sitting at his tent door. Three +strangers appear. When he sees them, he goes to meet them, and bows, and +says to the foremost, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, +pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray +you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: +and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after +that ye shall pass on." + +There may have been giants in those days, and churls, and all manner of +barbarians, but as we watch the strangers resting under the oak we say, +"There were also gentlemen in those days." How simple it all is! It is +like a single palm tree out-lined against the desert and the sky. + +We turn to the Analects of Confucius and we see the Chinese gentleman. +Everything with him is exact. The disciples of Confucius are careful to +tell us how he adjusted the skirts of his robe before and behind, how he +insisted that his mince-meat should be cut quite small and should have +exactly the right proportion of rice, and that his mat must be laid +straight before he would sit on it. Such details of deportment were +thought very important. But we forget the mats and the mince-meat when +we read: "Three things the master had not,--he had no prejudices, he had +no obstinacy, he had no egotism." And we forget the fantastic garb and +the stiff Chinese genuflections, and come to the conclusion that the +true gentleman is as simple-hearted amid the etiquette of the court as +in the tent in the desert, when we hear the master saying: "Sincerity is +the way of Heaven; the wise are the unassuming. It is said of Virtue +that over her embroidered robe she puts a plain single garment." + +When we wish to see a masculine virtue which has no need of an +embroidered garment we go to Plutarch's portrait gallery of antique +gentlemen. What a breed of men they were! They were no holiday +gentlemen. With the same lofty dignity they faced life and death. How +superior they were to their fortunes. No wonder that men who had learned +to conquer themselves conquered the world. + +Most of Plutarch's worthies were gentlemen, though there were +exceptions. There was, for example, Cato the Censor, who bullied the +Roman youth into virtue, and got a statue erected to himself as the +restorer of the good old manners. Poor Plutarch, who likes to do well by +his heroes, is put to his wits' end to know what to do with testy, +patriotic, honest, fearless, parsimonious Cato. Cato was undoubtedly a +great man and a good citizen; but when we are told how he sold his old +slaves, at a bargain, when they became infirm, and how he left his +war-horse in Spain to save the cost of transportation, Plutarch adds, +"Whether such things be an evidence of greatness or littleness of soul +let the reader judge for himself." The judicious reader will conclude +that it is possible to be a great man and a reformer, and yet not be +quite a gentleman. + +When the Roman Empire was destroyed the antique type of gentleman +perished. The very names of the tribes which destroyed him have yet +terrible associations. Goths, Vandals, Huns--to the civilized man of the +fifth and sixth centuries these sounded like the names of wild beasts +rather than of men. You might as well have said tigers, hyenas, wolves. +The end had come of a civilization that had been the slow growth of +centuries. + +Yet out of these fierce tribes, destroyers of the old order, a new order +was to arise. Out of chaos and night a new kind of gentleman was to be +evolved. The romances of the Middle Ages are variations on a single +theme, the appearance of the finer type of manhood and its struggle for +existence. In the palace built by the enchantment of Merlin were four +zones of sculpture. + + "And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, + And in the second men are slaying beasts, + And on the third are warriors, perfect men, + And on the fourth are men with growing wings." + +Europe was in the second stage, when men were slaying beasts and what +was most brutal in humanity. If the higher manhood was to live, it must +fight, and so the gentleman appears, sword in hand. Whether we are +reading of Charlemagne and his paladins, or of Siegfried, or of Arthur, +the story is the same. The gentleman has appeared. He has come into a +waste land, + + "Thick with wet woods and many a beast therein, + And none or few to scare or chase the beast." + +He comes amid savage anarchy where heathen hordes are "reddening the sun +with smoke and earth with blood." The gentleman sends forth his clear +defiance. All this shall no longer be. He is ready to meet force with +force; he is ready to stake his life upon the issue, the hazard of new +fortunes for the race. + +It is as a pioneer of the new civilization that the gentleman has +pitched + + "His tent beside the forest. And he drave + The heathen, and he slew the beast, and felled + The forest, and let in the sun." + +The ballads and romances chronicle a struggle desperate in its beginning +and triumphant in its conclusion. They are in praise of force, but it is +a noble force. There is something better, they say, than brute force: it +is manly force. The giant is no match for the gentleman. + +If we would get at the mediæval idea of the gentleman, we must not +listen merely to the romances as they are retold by men of genius in +our own day. Scott and Tennyson clothe their characters in the old +draperies, but their ideals are those of the nineteenth century rather +than of the Middle Ages. Tennyson expressly disclaims the attempt to +reproduce the King Arthur + + "whose name, a ghost, + Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, + And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him + Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one + Touched by the adulterous finger of a time + That hovered between war and wantonness." + +When we go back and read Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, we find +ourselves among men of somewhat different mould from the knights of +Tennyson's idylls. It is not the blameless King Arthur, but the +passionate Sir Launcelot, who wins admiration. We hear Sir Ector crying +over Launcelot's body, "Ah, Launcelot, thou wert the head of the +Christian knights. Thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare +shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode +horse; and thou wert the truest lover for a sinful man that ever loved +woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and +thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; +and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall +with ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that +ever put spear in the rest." + +We must take, not one of these qualities, but all of them together, to +understand the gentleman of those ages when good and evil struggled so +fiercely for the mastery. No saint was this Sir Launcelot. There was in +him no fine balance of virtues, but only a wild tumult of the blood. He +was proud, self-willed, passionate, pleasure-loving; capable of great +sin and of sublime expiation. What shall we say of this gentlest, +sternest, kindest, goodliest, sinfulest of knights,--this man who knew +no middle path, but who, when treading in perilous places and following +false lights, yet draws all men admiringly to himself? + +We can only say this: he was the prototype of those mighty men who were +the makers of the modern world. They were the men who fought with +Charlemagne, and with William the Conqueror, and with Richard; they were +the men who "beat down the heathen, and upheld the Christ;" they were +the men from whom came the crusades, and the feudal system, and the +great charter. As we read the history, we say at one moment, "These men +were mail-clad ruffians," and at the next, "What great-hearted +gentlemen!" + +Perhaps the wisest thing would be to confess to both judgments at once. +In this stage of his evolution the gentleman may boast of feats that +would now be rehearsed only in bar-rooms. This indicates that the +standard of society has improved, and that what was possible once for +the nobler sort of men is now characteristic of the baser sort. The +modern rowdy frequently appears in the cast-off manners of the old-time +gentleman. Time, the old-clothes man, thus furnishes his customers with +many strange misfits. What is of importance is that through these +transition years there was a ceaseless struggle to preserve the finer +types of manhood. + +The ideal of the mediæval gentleman was expressed in the word +"gallantry." The essence of gallantry is courage; but it is not the +sober courage of the stoic. It is courage charged with qualities that +give it sparkle and effervescence. It is the courage that not only faces +danger, but delights in it. What suggestions of physical and mental +elasticity are in Shakespeare's description of the "springing, brave +Plantagenet"! Scott's lines express the gallant spirit:-- + + "One crowded hour of glorious life + Is worth an age without a name." + +Gallantry came to have another implication, equally characteristic. The +knight was gallant not only in war, but in love also. There had come a +new worship, the worship of woman. In the Church it found expression in +the adoration of the Madonna, but in the camp and the court it found its +place as well. Chivalry was the elaborate and often fantastic ritual, +and the gentleman was minister at the altar. The ancient gentleman stood +alone; the mediæval gentleman offered all to the lady of his love. Here, +too, gallantry implied the same overflowing joy in life. If you are +anxious to have a test by which to recognize the time when you are +growing old,--so old that imagination is chilled within you,--I should +advise you to turn to the chapter in the Romance of King Arthur entitled +"How Queen Guenever went maying with certain Knights of the Table Round, +clad all in green." Then read: "So it befell in the month of May, Queen +Guenever called unto her knights and she gave them warning that early +upon the morrow she would ride maying into the woods and fields besides +Westminster, and I warn you that none of you but that he be well horsed +and that ye all be clothed in green.... I shall bring with me ten ladies +and every knight shall have a squire and two yeomen. So upon the morn +they took their horses with the Queen and rode on maying through the +woods and meadows in great joy and delights." + +If you cannot see them riding on, a gallant company over the meadows, +and if you hear no echoes of their laughter, and if there is no longer +any enchantment in the vision of that time when all were "blithe and +debonair," then undoubtedly you are growing old. It is time to close the +romances: perhaps you may still find solace in Young's "Night Thoughts" +or Pollok's "Course of Time." Happy are they who far into the seventies +still see Queen Guenever riding in the pleasant month of May: these are +they who have found the true fountain of youth. + +The gentleman militant will always be the hero of ballads and romances; +and in spite of the apostles of realism, I fancy he has not lost his +charm. There are Jeremiahs of evolution, who tell us that after a time +men will be so highly developed as to have neither hair nor teeth. In +that day, when the operating dentists have ceased from troubling, and +given way to the manufacturing dentists, and the barbers have been +superseded by the wig-makers, it is quite possible that the romances may +give place to some tedious department of comparative mythology. In that +day, Chaucer's knight who "loved chevalrie, trouthe and honour, fredom +and curtesie," will be forgotten, though his armor on the museum walls +will be learnedly described. But that dreadful day is still far distant; +before it comes, not only teeth and hair must be improved out of +existence, but a substitute must be found for good red blood. Till that +time "no laggard in love or dastard in war" can steal our hearts from +young Lochinvar. + +The sixteenth century marks an epoch in the history of the gentleman, as +in all else. Old ideas disappear, to come again in new combinations. +Familiar words take on meanings that completely transform them. The same +hands wielded the sword and the pen. The scholars, the artists, the +poets, began to feel a sense of personal worth, and carried the gallant +spirit of the gentleman into their work. They were not mere specialists, +but men of action. The artist was not only an instrument to give +pleasure to others, but he was himself a centre of admiration. Out of +this new consciousness how many interesting characters were produced! +There were men who engaged in controversies as if they were tournaments, +and who wrote books and painted pictures and carved statues, not in the +spirit of professionalism, but as those who would in this activity enjoy +"one crowded hour of glorious life." Very frequently, these gentlemen +and scholars, and gentlemen and artists, overdid the matter, and were +more belligerent in disposition than were the warriors with whom they +began to claim equality. + +To this self-assertion we owe the most delightful of +autobiographies,--that of Benvenuto Cellini. He aspired to be not only +an artist, but a fine gentleman. No one could be more certain of the +sufficiency of Humpty Dumpty's definition of a gentleman than was he. + +If we did not have his word for it, we could scarcely believe that any +one could be so valiant in fight and so uninterrupted in the pursuit of +honor without its interfering with his professional work. Take, for +example, that memorable day when, escaping from the magistrates, he +makes an attack upon the household of his enemy, Gherardo Guascanti. "I +found them at table; and Gherardo, who had been the cause of the +quarrel, flung himself upon me. I stabbed him in the breast, piercing +doublet and jerkin, but doing him not the least harm in the world." +After this attack, and after magnanimously pardoning Gherardo's father, +mother, and sisters, he says: "I ran storming down the staircase, and +when I reached the street, I found all the rest of the household, more +than twelve persons: one of them seized an iron shovel, another a thick +iron pipe; one had an anvil, some hammers, some cudgels. When I got +among them, raging like a mad bull, I flung four or five to the earth, +and fell down with them myself, continually aiming my dagger now at one, +and now at another. Those who remained upright plied with both hands +with all their force, giving it me with hammers, cudgels, and the +anvil; but inasmuch as God does sometimes mercifully intervene, he so +ordered that neither they nor I did any harm to one another." + +What fine old days those were, when the toughness of skin matched so +wonderfully the stoutness of heart! One has a suspicion that in these +degenerate times, were a family dinner-party interrupted by such an +avalanche of daggers, cudgels, and anvils, some one would be hurt. As +for Benvenuto, he does not so much as complain of a headache. + +There is an easy, gentleman-like grace in the way in which he recounts +his incidental homicides. When he is hiding behind a hedge at midnight, +waiting for the opportunity to assassinate his enemies, his heart is +open to all the sweet influences of nature, and he enjoys "the glorious +heaven of stars." He was not only an artist and a fine gentleman, but a +saint as well, and "often had recourse with pious heart to holy +prayers." Above all, he had the indubitable evidence of sainthood, a +halo. "I will not omit to relate another circumstance, which is perhaps +the most remarkable that ever happened to any one. I do so in order to +justify the divinity of God and of his secrets, who deigned to grant me +this great favor: forever since the time of my strange vision until now, +an aureole of glory (marvelous to relate) has rested on my head. This is +visible to every sort of man to whom I have chosen to point it out, but +these have been few." He adds ingenuously, "I am always able to see it." +He says, "I first became aware of it in France, at Paris; for the air in +those parts is so much freer from mists that one can see it far better +than in Italy." + +Happy Benvenuto with his Parisian halo, which did not interfere with the +manly arts of self-defense! His self-complacency was possible only in a +stage of evolution when the saint and the assassin were not altogether +clearly differentiated. Some one has said, "Give me the luxuries of +life, and I can get along without the necessities." Like many of his +time, Benvenuto had all the luxuries that belong to the character of a +Christian gentleman, though he was destitute of the necessities. An +appreciation of common honesty as an essential to a gentleman seems to +be more slowly developed than the more romantic sentiment that is called +honor. + +The evolution of the gentleman has its main line of progress where there +is a constant though slow advance; but, on the other hand, there are +arrested developments, and quaint survivals, and abortive attempts. + +In each generation there have been men of fashion who have mistaken +themselves for gentlemen. They are uninteresting enough while in the +flesh, but after a generation or two they become very quaint and +curious, when considered as specimens. Each generation imagines that it +has discovered a new variety, and invents a name for it. The dude, the +swell, the dandy, the fop, the spark, the macaroni, the blade, the +popinjay, the coxcomb,--these are butterflies of different summers. +There is here endless variation, but no advancement. One fashion comes +after another, but we cannot call it better. One would like to see +representatives of the different generations together in full dress. +What variety in oaths and small talk! What anachronisms in swords and +canes and eye-glasses, in ruffles, in collars, in wigs! What affluence +in powders and perfumes and colors! But "will they know each other +there"? The real gentlemen would be sure to recognize each other. +Abraham and Marcus Aurelius and Confucius would find much in common. +Launcelot and Sir Philip Sidney and Chinese Gordon would need no +introduction. Montaigne and Mr. Spectator and the Autocrat of the +Breakfast-Table would fall into delightful chat. But would a "swell" +recognize a "spark"? And might we not expect a "dude" to fall into +immoderate laughter at the sight of a "popinjay"? + +Fashion has its revenges. Nothing seems so ridiculous to it as an old +fashion. The fop has no toleration for the obsolete foppery. The +artificial gentleman is as inconceivable out of his artificial +surroundings as the waxen-faced gentleman of the clothing store outside +his show window. + +There was Beau Nash, for example,--a much-admired person in his day, +when he ruled from his throne in the pump-room in Bath. Everything was +in keeping. There was Queen Anne architecture, and Queen Anne furniture, +and Queen Anne religion, and the Queen Anne fashion in fine gentlemen. +What a curious piece of bricabrac this fine gentleman was, to be sure! +He was not fitted for any useful purpose under the sun, but in his place +he was quite ornamental, and undoubtedly very expensive. Art was as +self-complacent as if nature had never been invented. What multitudes of +the baser sort must be employed in furnishing the fine gentleman with +clothes! All Bath admired the way in which Beau Nash refused to pay for +them. Once when a vulgar tradesman insisted on payment, Nash compromised +by lending him twenty pounds,--which he did with the air of a prince. So +great was the impression he made upon his time that a statue was erected +to him, while beneath were placed the busts of two minor contemporaries, +Pope and Newton. This led Lord Chesterfield to write:-- + + "This statue placed the busts between + Adds to the satire strength, + Wisdom and wit are little seen, + But folly at full length." + +Lord Chesterfield himself had nothing in common with the absurd +imitation gentlemen, and yet the gentleman whom he described and +pretended to admire was altogether artificial. He was the Machiavelli of +the fashionable world. He saw through it, and recognized its +hollowness; but such as it was it must be accepted. The only thing was +to learn how to get on in it. "In courts you may expect to meet +connections without friendships, enmities without hatred, honor without +virtue, appearances saved and realities sacrificed, good manners and bad +morals." + +There is something earnestly didactic about Lord Chesterfield. He gives +line upon line, and precept upon precept, to his "dear boy." Never did a +Puritan father teach more conscientiously the shorter catechism than did +he the whole duty of the gentleman, which was to save appearances even +though he must sacrifice reality. "My dear boy," he writes +affectionately, "I advise you to trust neither man nor woman more than +is absolutely necessary. Accept proffered friendships with great +civility, but with great incredulity." + +No youth was more strenuously prodded up the steep and narrow path of +virtue than was little Philip Stanhope up the steep and narrow path of +fashion. Worldliness made into a religion was not without its +asceticism. "Though you think you dance well, do not think you dance +well enough. Though you are told that you are genteel, still aim at +being genteeler.... Airs, address, manners, graces, are of such infinite +importance and are so essentially necessary to you that now, as the time +of meeting draws near, I tremble for fear that I may not find you +possessed of them." + +Lord Chesterfield's gentleman was a man of the world; but it was, after +all, a very hard and empty world. It was a world that had no eternal +laws, only changing fashions. It had no broken hearts, only broken vows. +It was a world covered with glittering ice, and the gentleman was one +who had learned to skim over its dangerous places, not caring what +happened to those who followed him. + +It is a relief to get away from such a world, and, leaving the fine +gentleman behind, to take the rumbling stagecoach to the estates of Sir +Roger de Coverley. His is not the great world at all, and his interests +are limited to his own parish. But it is a real world, and much better +suited to a real gentleman. His fashions are not the fashions of the +court, but they are the fashions that wear. Even when following the +hounds Sir Roger has time for friendly greetings. "The farmers' sons +thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old +knight, which he requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry +after their fathers and uncles." + +But even dear old Roger de Coverley cannot rest undisturbed as an ideal +gentleman. He belonged, after all, to a privileged order, and there is a +force at work to destroy all social privileges. A generation of farmers' +sons must arise not to be so easily satisfied with a kindly nod and +smile. Liberty, fraternity, and equality have to be reckoned with. +Democracy has come with its leveling processes. + + "The calm Olympian height + Of ancient order feels its bases yield." + +In a revolutionary period the virtues of an aristocracy become more +irritating than their vices. People cease to attribute merit to what +comes through good fortune. No wonder that the disciples of the older +time cry:-- + + "What hope for the fine-nerved humanities + That made earth gracious once with gentler arts?" + +What becomes of the gentleman in an age of democratic equality? Just +what becomes of every ideal when the time for its fulfillment has come. +It is freed from its limitations and enters into a larger life. + +Let us remember that the gentleman was always a lover of equality, and +of the graces that can only grow in the society of equals. The gentleman +of an aristocracy is at his best only when he is among his peers. There +is a little circle within which there is no pushing, no assumption of +superiority. Each member seeks not his own, but finds pleasure in a +gracious interchange of services. + +But an aristocracy leaves only a restricted sphere for such good +manners. Outside the group to which he belongs the gentleman is +compelled by imperious custom to play the part of a superior being. It +has always been distasteful and humiliating to him. It is only an +essentially vulgar nature that can really be pleased with the servility +of others. + +An ideal democracy is a society in which good manners are universal. +There is no arrogance and no cringing, but social intercourse is based +on mutual respect. This ideal democracy has not been perfected, but the +type of men who are creating it has already been evolved. Among all the +crude and sordid elements of modern life, we see the stirring of a new +chivalry. It is based on a recognition of the worth and dignity of the +common man. + +Milton in memorable words points out the transition which must take +place from the gentleman of romance to the gentleman of enduring +reality. After narrating how, in his youth, he betook himself "to those +lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of +knighthood founded by our victorious kings and thence had in renown +through all Christendom," he says, "This my mind gave me that every free +and gentle spirit, without that oath ought to be born a knight, nor +needed to expect a gilt spur or the laying on of a sword upon his +shoulder." + + + + +The Hinter-land of Science + + +A genial critic detects a note of exaggeration in my praise of +Ignorance. It is, he declares, a bit of "Yellow Journalism." The +reader's attention is attracted by a glaring headline which leads him to +suppose that a crime has been committed, when in reality nothing out of +the ordinary has happened. That a person who has emerged from the state +of absolute illiteracy far enough to appear in print should express a +preference for Ignorance would be important if true. After perusing the +chapter, however, he is of the opinion that it is not Ignorance, at all, +that is described, but something much more respectable. It is akin to a +state of mind which literary persons have agreed to praise under the +name of Culture. + +It is very natural that these literary persons should prefer a +high-sounding name, and one free from vulgar associations, but I do not +think that their plea will stand the test of scientific analysis. +Science will not tolerate half knowledge nor pleasant imaginings, nor +sympathetic appreciations; it must have definite demonstration. The +knowledge of the best that has been said and thought may be very +consoling, but it implies an unscientific principle of selection. It can +be proved by statistics that the best things are exceptional. What about +the second best, not to speak of the tenth rate? It is only when you +have collected a vast number of commonplace facts that you are on the +road to a true generalization. + +In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington there is a children's room, +in which there is a case marked "Pretty Shells." The specimens fully +justify the inscription. The very daintiest shapes, and the most +intricate convolutions, and the most delicate tints are represented. +They are pretty shells, which have not left their beauty on the shore. +But the delight in all this loveliness is not scientific. The kind +gentleman who arranged the shells according to this classification +acted not in his capacity as a conchologist, but as the father of a +family. + +Nor does the enjoyment of the most beautiful thoughts or words satisfy +the requirements of those sciences which deal with humanity. The +distinction between Literature and Science is fundamental. What is a +virtue in one sphere is a vice in the other. After all that has been +said about the scientific use of the imagination it remains true that +the imagination is an intruder in the laboratory. Even if it were put to +use, that would only mean that it is reduced to a condition of slavery. +In its own realm it is accustomed to play rather than to work. It is +also true that the attempts to introduce the methods of the laboratory +into literature have been dismal failures. That way dullness lies. + +Now and then, indeed, Nature in a fit of prodigality endows one person +with both gifts.--Was not Oliver Wendell Holmes a Professor of Anatomy? +In such a case there is a perpetual effervescence. But even Dr. Holmes +could not insinuate a sufficient knowledge of Anatomy by means of a +series of discursive essays; nor could he give scientific value to the +reflections of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." + +There was a time when the ability to read was such a rare accomplishment +that it seemed to furnish the key to all knowledge. Men of the baser +sort had to learn by experience, but the reader followed a royal path to +the very fountain head of wisdom. Ordinary rules were not for him; he +could claim the benefit of clergy. Only a generation ago young men of +parts prepared themselves for the bar--and very good lawyers they +made--by "reading Blackstone." Blackstone is a pleasant author, with a +fund of wise observations, and many pleasant afternoons were spent in +his company. In like manner other young men "read medicine." + +It is now coming to be understood that one cannot read a science; it +must be studied in quite a different fashion. "Book-learning" in such +matters has been discredited. + +The Gentle Reader has learned this lesson. It may be that he has +cultivated some tiny field of his own, and has thus come to know how +different this laborious task is from the care-free wandering in which +at other hours he delights. But though he cannot read his way into the +domains of strict science, yet there is an adjacent territory which he +frequents. Into this territory, though he holds an ambiguous position, +and finds many to molest and make him afraid, he is drawn by an +insatiable curiosity. In a border-land danger has attractions and +mystery is alluring. There is pleasant reading in spite of many +threatening technicalities which seem to bar further progress. + +On the coasts of the Dark Continent of Ignorance the several sciences +have gained a foothold. In each case there is a well-defined country +carefully surveyed and guarded. Within its frontiers the laws are +obeyed, and all affairs are carried on in an orderly fashion. Beyond it +is a vague "sphere of influence," a Hinter-land over which ambitious +claims of suzerainty are made; but the native tribes have not yet been +exterminated, and life goes on very much as in the olden time. Into the +Hinter-land the Gentle Reader wanders, and he is known to the scientific +explorer as a friendly native, whose good-will is worth cultivating. He +is often confounded with the "General Reader," a very different person, +whose omnivorous appetite and intemperance in the use of miscellaneous +information are very offensive to him. Unscrupulous adventurers carry on +a thriving trade with the General Reader in damaged goods, which are +foisted on him under the name of Popular Science. + + * * * * * + +In the Hinter-land there is dense ignorance of the achievements and even +of the names of most of those who are recognized as authorities in their +several sciences. They are as unknown as is the Lord Mayor of London to +the natives on the banks of the Zambesi. The heroes of the Hinter-land +are the bold explorers who in militant fashion have made their way into +regions as yet unsubdued. + +In the middle of the nineteenth century there was an heroic period +during which scientific investigation took on all the color of romance. +The Gentle Reader turns to the lives and works of Darwin, Huxley, and +Tyndall, very much as he would turn to the tales of Charlemagne and his +Paladins. Here was a field of action. Something happened. As he reads he +is conscious that he has nothing of that impersonal attitude which +belongs to pure science. It is not scientific but human interest which +moves him. He is anxious to know what these men did, and what was the +result of their deeds. It is an intellectual adventure of which the +outcome is still uncertain. + +The new generation cannot fully realize what the word "Evolution" meant +to those who saw in it a portent of mysterious change. In its early +advocates there was a mingling of romantic daring and missionary zeal. +Its enemies resisted with the fortitude which belongs to those who never +know when they are beaten. In almost any old bookstores one may see a +counter labeled "Second-hand Theology, very cheap." It is a collection +of the spent ammunition which may still be found on the field of battle. +It is in an unfrequented corner. Now and then a theological student may +visit it, but even he seems rather to be a vague considerer of worthy +things than a bargain hunter. Yet once these volumes were eagerly read. + +Out of the border warfare between Science and certain types of Theology +and Philosophy there came a kind of literature that has a very real +value and which is not lacking in charm. What a sense of relief came to +the Gentle Reader when he stumbled upon John Fiske's "Excursions of an +Evolutionist." This was the very thing he had been looking for; not an +exhaustive survey, nor a strenuous campaign, but an excursion with a +competent guide and interpreter, a friendly person acquainted with the +country who would tell him the things he wanted to know, and not weary +him with irrelevant and confusing details. + +What an admirable interpreter Fiske was! Darwin, with characteristic +modesty, acknowledged his indebtedness to him for pointing out some of +the larger results of his own investigations. He had the instinct which +enabled him to seize the salient points; to open up new vistas, to make +clear a situation. His histories are always readable because he followed +the main stream and never lost himself in a sluggish bayou. The same +method applied to cosmic forces makes him see their dramatic movement. +It is the genius of a born man of letters using the facts discovered by +scientific methods for its own purpose. That purpose is always broad and +humanizing. + +The specialist is apt to speak patronizingly of such work, as if it were +necessarily inferior to his own. It seems to bear the marks of +superficiality. To appreciate it properly one must take it for what it +is. Man was interested in the Universe long before he began to study it +scientifically. He dreamed about it, he mused over its mysteries, he +talked about its more obvious aspects. And it is as interesting now as +it ever was and as fit an object of thought. The conceptions which +satisfied us in the days when ignorance had not arrived at +self-consciousness have to be given up; but we are anxious to know what +have taken their places. We want to get our bearings and to discern the +general trend of the forces which make the world. It is no mean order of +mind that is fitted to answer our needs by wise interpretation. + +There is often a conflict between private owners and the public over the +right to fish in certain waters. The landowners put up warning signs and +try to prevent trespass, while the public insists on its ancient +privileges. The law, with that admirable common sense for which it has +such a great reputation, makes a distinction. The small pond may be +privately owned and fenced in, but "boatable waters" are free to all. + +So we may concede to the specialist the exclusive right to have an +opinion on certain subjects--subjects let us say of a size suitable for +the thesis of a Doctor of Philosophy. But we are not to be shut off from +the pleasure of thinking on more sizable themes. We have all equal +rights on the "boatable waters." + + * * * * * + +Matthew Arnold retells the story of the Scholar-gypsy who, forsaking the +university, "took to the woods,"--so far as we can learn from the poem, +to his own spiritual and intellectual advantage. The combination of the +scholar and gypsy has a fascination. One likes to conceive of thought as +playing freely among the other forces of nature, and dealing directly +with all objects and not with those especially prepared for it. + +Across the border-land of the physical sciences one may meet many such +scholar-gypsies. They have taken to the wilderness and yet carried into +it a trained intelligence. Here may be found keen observers, who might +have written text-books on ornithology had they not fallen in love with +birds. They follow their friends into their haunts in the thickets, and +they love to gossip about their peculiarities. Here are botanists who +love the growing things in the fields and woods better than the +specimens in their herbariums. They love to describe better than to +analyze. Now and then one may meet a renegade who carries a geologist's +hammer. It is a sheer hypocrisy, like a fishing rod in the hands of a +contemplative rambler. It is merely an excuse for being out of doors and +among the mountains. + +The Gentle Reader finds unfailing delight in these wanderers. They open +up to him a leafy world. Thanks to them there are places where he feels +intimately at home: a certain English parish; a strip of woodland in +Massachusetts; the vicinity of a farm on the Hudson; an enchanted +country in the high Sierras. + +"I verily believe," he says, "there is more Natural History to be +learned in such places than in all the museums. Besides, I never liked a +museum." + +The fact is that he does learn a good many things in this way--and some +of them he remembers. + + * * * * * + +The native African who is capable of understanding the philosophy of +history may adjust his mind to the idea that his continent is intended +for exploitation by a superior race. The forests in which his ancestors +have hunted for generations form only a part of the Hinter-land of some +colony on the coast which he has never seen. After a time, by an +inevitable process of expansion, the colony will absorb and assimilate +all the adjoining country. But his perplexities are not over when he +has, in a general way, resigned himself to manifest destiny. He +discovers that all Europeans are not alike, though they certainly look +alike. There are conflicting claims. To whose sphere of influence does +he belong? It is not easy to answer such questions, and mistakes are +liable to bring down upon him punitive expeditions from different +quarters. + +A similar perplexity arises in the minds of the simple inhabitants of +the scientific Hinter-lands. They are ready to admit the superior claims +of the exact sciences, but they are puzzled to know to what particular +sphere they belong. + +In the absence of any generally received philosophy each special science +pushes out as far as it can and attempts to take in the whole of +existence. The specialist, forgetting his self-imposed limitations, and +fired with the ambition for wide generalization, which is the infirmity +of all active minds, becomes an intellectual tyrant. He is a veritable +Tamerlane, and if he rears no pyramids of skulls, he leaves behind him a +multitude of muddled brains. + +Wilberforce tells us of the havoc wrought in his day by the new science +of Political Economy. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was hailed as the +complete solution of all social problems. Forgetting the narrow scope of +the inquiry which had to do with only a single aspect of human life, the +maxims of trade were elevated into the place of the moral law. +Superstition magnified those useful twins, Demand and Supply, into two +all-powerful Genii who were quite capable of doing the work of +Providence. For any one in the spirit of brotherly kindness to interfere +with their autocratic operations was looked upon as an act of rebellion +against the nature of things. "A dismal science," indeed, as any science +is when it becomes an unlimited despotism. + +At the present time Geology is a very modest science, remaining +peacefully within its natural frontiers; but in the days of Hugh Miller +it was viewed with alarm. Elated with its victory in the affair with +Genesis, its adherents were filled with militant ardor and were in the +mood for universal conquest. In alliance with Chemistry it invaded the +sphere of morals. Was not even Ruskin induced to write of the "Ethics of +the Dust"? In the form of Physical Geography and with the auxiliary +forces of Meteorology, it was ready to recast human history. Books were +written to show that all civilization could be sufficiently explained by +one who took account only of such features of the world as soil and +climate. + +While learned men were geologizing through the successive +stratifications of humanity, a new claimant appeared. Biology became +easily the paramount power. Its fame spread far and wide among those who +knew nothing of its severer methods. In the Hinter-land the worship of +Protoplasm became a cult. The hopes and fears and spiritual powers of +humanity seemed illusory unless such phenomena were confirmed by +analogies drawn from "the psychic life of micro-organisms." Fortunately +at about this time the aggressive temper of "The New Psychology" did +much to restore the balance of power. Under its influence those who +still adhered to the belief that the proper study of mankind is man took +heart and ventured, though with caution, to move abroad. The new +Psychology in its turn has developed imperialistic ambitions. Its +conquests have not been without much devastation, especially in the fair +fields of education. A distinguished Psychologist has sounded a note of +warning. He would have psychological experiments confined to the +laboratory, leaving the school-room to the wholesome government of +common sense. It is doubtful, however, whether such protests will avail +any more than the eloquence of the Little Englanders has been able to +limit colonial expansion. + +The border-land between Psychology and Sociology is the scene of many a +foray. The Psychologist thinks nothing of following a fleeing idea +across the frontier. He deals confidently with the "Psychology of the +mob," and "the aggregate mind," and the hypnotic influence of the crowd. +There is such an air of authority about it all, that we forget that he +is dealing with figures of speech. On the other hand, the Sociologist +attempts to solve the most delicate problems of the individual soul by +the statistical method. + +The Hinter-land has not yet been reduced to order. The Gentle Reader +suspects that no one of the rival sciences is strong enough to impose +its own laws over so wide a region. Perhaps, after all, they may have to +call upon Philosophy to undertake the task of forming a responsible +government. + + + + +The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy + + +"There has been a sad falling off in clerical character," says the +Gentle Reader. "In the old books it is a pleasure to meet a parson. He +is so simple and hearty that you feel at home with him at once. You know +just where to find him, and he always takes himself and his profession +for granted. He may be a trifle narrow, but you make allowance for that, +and as for his charity it has no limits. You expect him to give away +everything he can lay hands on. As for his creed it is always the same +as the church to which he belongs, which is a great relief and saves no +end of trouble. But the clergyman I meet with in novels nowadays is in a +chronic state of fidgetiness. Nothing is as it seems or as it ought to +be. He is as full of problems as an egg is full of meat. Everything +resolves itself into a conflict of duties, and whichever duty he does he +wishes it had been the other one. When the poor man is not fretting +because of evil-doers he begins to fret because of the well-doers, who +do well in the old fashion without any proper knowledge of the Higher +Criticism or Sanitary Drainage. What with his creed and his congregation +and his love affairs, all of which need mending, he lives a distracted +life. Though the author in the first chapter praises his athletic +prowess, he seems to have no staying powers and his nerves give out +under the least strain. He is one of those trying characters of whom +some one has said that 'we can hear their souls scrape.' I prefer the +old-time parsons. They were much more comfortable and in more rugged +health. I like the phrase 'Bishops and other Clergy.' The bishops are +great personages whose lives are written like the lives of the Lord +Chancellors; and they are not always very readable. But my heart goes +out to the other clergy, the good sensible men who were neither great +scholars nor reformers nor martyrs, and who therefore did not get into +the Church Histories, but who kept things going." + +When he turns to the parson of "The Canterbury Tales" he finds the +refreshment that comes from contact with a perfectly wholesome nature. +Here is an enduring type of natural piety. In the person of the good man +the prayers of the church for the healthful spirit of grace had been +answered in full measure. In his ministry in his wide parish we cannot +imagine him as being worried or hurried. There could be for him no +conflict of duties; the duties plodded along one after another in sturdy +English fashion. And when the duties were well done that was the end of +them. Their pale uneasy ghosts did not disturb his slumbers, and point +with vague menace to the unattainable. The parson had his place and his +definite task. He trod the earth as firmly and sometimes as heavily as +did the ploughman. + +If the virtues of the fourteenth-century parson were of the enduring +order, so were his foibles. The Gentle Reader is familiar with his +weaknesses; for has he not "sat under his preaching?" The homiletic +habit is hard to break, and renders its victim strangely oblivious to +the passage of time. Every incident suggests a text and every text +suggests a new application. In the homiletic sphere perpetual motion is +an assured success. + +What sinking of heart must have come to laymen like the merchant and the +yeoman when the parson on the pleasant road to Canterbury called their +attention to the resemblance between their journey and + + "...thilke parfit, glorious pilgrymage, + That highte Jerusalem celestial." + +They knew the symptoms. When the homilist has got scent of an analogy he +will run it down, however long the chase. + +It would be interesting to discover the origin of the impression so +persistent in the lay mind that sermons are long. A sermon is seldom as +long as it seems. But it is always with trepidation that the listener +observes in a discourse a constitutional tendency to longevity. In his +opinion the good die young. As it is to-day so it was on the afternoon +when the host, with ill-concealed alarm, called upon the good parson to +take his turn. + + "Telleth," quod he, "youre meditacioun; + But hasteth yow, the sonne wole adoun. + Beth fructuous, and that in litel space." + +It is needless to say that what the parson called his "little tale in +prose" proved to be one of his old sermons which he delivered without +notes. He was very unskillful in concealing his text, which was Jeremiah +vi. 16. + +We are familiar with that interesting picture of the pilgrims as they +set out in the morning, each figure alert. I wonder that some one has +not painted a picture of them about sunset, as the parson was in the +middle of his discourse. It is said that in every battle there is a +critical moment when each side is almost exhausted. The side which at +this moment receives reinforcements or rallies for a supreme effort +gains the victory. So one must have noticed in every over-long discourse +a critical moment when the speaker and his hearers are equally +exhausted. If at that moment the speaker, who has apparently used up his +material, boldly announces a new head, the hearers' discomfiture is +complete. This point of strategy the parson, guileless as he was, +understood and so managed to get in the last word, so that "The +Canterbury Tales" end with the Canterbury sermon. + +By the way, there was one ministerial weakness from which Chaucer's +parson was free,--the love of alliteration. One is often struck, when +listening to a fervent discourse against besetting sins, with the +curious fact that all the transgressions begin with the same letter of +the alphabet. There is something suspicious in this circumstance. Not a +great many years ago a political party suffered severely because its +candidate received an address from a worthy clergyman who was addicted +to this habit, and instead of the usual three R's enumerated "Rum, +Romanism, and Rebellion." The chances are that he meant no offense to +his Roman Catholic fellow citizens; but once on the toboggan slide of +alliteration he could not stop. If instead of rum he had begun with +whiskey, his homiletic instinct would have led him to assert that the +three perils of the Republic were whiskey, war, and woman-suffrage. + +It is to the credit of Chaucer's parson that he distinctly repudiated +alliteration with all its allurements, especially in connection with the +seductive letter R. + + "I kan nat geeste '_rum_, _ram_, _ruf_,' by lettre; + Ne, God woot, rym holde I but litel bettre." + +When it came to plain prose without any rhetorical embellishments, he +was in his element. + +It must be confessed that the clergyman is not an eminently +Shakespearean character. The great high ecclesiastics, like Pandulph and +Wolsey, are great personages who make a fine show, but the other clergy +are not always in good and regular standing. They are sometimes little +better than hedge-priests. But what pleasant glimpses we get into the +unwritten history of the English Church in the days when it was still +Merry England. The Cranmers and the Ridleys made a great stir in those +days, but no rumors of it reached the rural parishes where Holofernes +kept school and Nathanael warmed over for his slumbering congregation +the scraps he had stolen in his youth from the feast of the languages. +As for the parishioners, they were doubtless well satisfied and could +speak after the fashion of Constable Dull when he was reproved for his +silence. + +"Goodman Dull, thou hast said no word all this while." + +Dull,--"Nor understood none neither, sir!" + +The innocent pedant whose learning lies in the dead languages and who +has a contempt for the living world is a type not extinct; but what +shall we say of the Welsh curate of Windsor, Hugh Evans? In Windsor Park +Mrs. Ford whispers, "Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and that +Welsh devil Sir Hugh?" + +That was her affectionate, though not respectful, way of referring to +her spiritual adviser. Curate Evans was certainly not an example of what +has been termed "the mild and temperate spirituality which has always +characterized the Church of England." The dignity of the cloth is not in +his mind as he cries, "Trib, fairies, trib, come and remember your +parts, pe pold, I pray you, ... when I give the watch'ords do as I pid +you." + +Yet though he seemed not to put so much emphasis on character in +religion as we in these more serious days think fitting, this Welsh +devil of a parson had enough of the professional spirit to wish to point +a moral on all proper occasions. Not too obtrusive or moral, nor +carrying it to the sweating point, but a good, sound approbation of +right sentiment. When Master Slender declares his resolution, "After +this trick I'll ne'er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, +godly company. If I be drunk I'll be drunk with those who fear God," the +convivial curate responds, "So God judge me that shows a virtuous mind." + +That Shakespeare intended any reflection on the Welsh clergy is not +probable; but so late as the eighteenth century a traveler in Wales +remarks that the ale house was usually kept by the parson. One wonders +whether with such manifest advantages the Welsh ministers' meetings were +given over to lugubrious essays on "Why we do not reach the masses." + +Shakespeare uses the word Puritan once, but Malvolio was a prig rather +than a true Puritan. His objection to cakes and ale was rather because +revelry disturbed his slumbers than because it troubled his conscience. +But when we turn to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and come across Tribulation +Wholesome, from Amsterdam, we know that the battle between the stage and +the conventicle has begun. We know the solid virtues of these sectaries +from whom came some of the best things in England and New England. But +we must not expect to find this side of their character in the +literature of the next two or three centuries. Unfortunately the +non-conformist conscience was offended at those innocent pleasures in +which amiable writers and readers have always taken satisfaction. + +Charles Lamb inclined to the opinion of his friend who held that "a man +cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumpling." The +gastronomic argument against Puritanism has always been a strong one +with the English mind. It was felt that a person must be a hypocrite who +could speak disrespectfully of the creature comforts. There was no +toleration for the miserable pretender who would "blaspheme custard +through the nose." Tribulation Wholesome was deserving only of the +pillory. There was no doubt but that the viands which were publicly +reprobated were privately enjoyed. + + "You rail against plays to please the alderman + Whose daily custard you devour. + ...You call yourselves + By names of Tribulation, Persecution, + Restraint, Long Patience and such-like, affected + Only for glory and to catch the ear + Of the disciple." + +In "Bartholomew Fair" we meet Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy, an unlicensed +exhorter, who has attained the liberty of prophesying, and is the leader +of a little flock. + +Did history keep on repeating itself, or did literary men keep on +repeating each other? At any rate Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy reappears +continually. He is in every particular the prototype of those painful +brethren who roused the wrath of honest Sam Weller. We recognize his +unctuous speech, his unfailing appetite, and even his offensive and +defensive alliance with the mother-in-law. + +Mr. Little-Wit introduces him as "An old elder from Banbury who puts in +here at meal times to praise the painful brethren and to pray that the +sweet singers may be restored; and he says grace as long as his breath +lasts." + +To which Mrs. Little-Wit responds, "Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious +time with him, what for his diet and his clothes too, he breaks his +buttons and cracks seams at every saying that he sobs out." + +In answer to the anxious inquiry of his mother-in-law, Dame Pure-Craft, +Little-Wit announces that he has found the good man "with his teeth +fast in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on +his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right." In Dame Pure-Craft +he finds a stanch supporter. "Slander not the brethren, wicked one," she +cries. + +Zeal of the Land Busy attempts to lead his flock through the perils of +Bartholomew Fair. "Walk in the middle of the way--turn neither to the +right nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside by vanity nor +your ears by noises." It was indeed a dangerous journey, for it was +nothing less than "a grove of hobby horses and trinkets; the wares are +the wares of devils, and the fair is the shop of Satan." + +But, alas, though the eyes and ears were guarded, another avenue of +temptation had been forgotten. The delicious odor of roast pig came from +one of the booths. It was a delicate little pig, cooked with fire of +juniper and rosemary branches. Mrs. Little-Wit longed for it and her +husband encouraged her weakness. Dame Pure-Craft rebukes him and bids +him remember the wholesome admonition of their leader. + +Zeal of the Land Busy is a casuist of no mean ability, and is equal to +the task of finding an exception to his own rule. + +"It may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, +which I think it doth in this place, huh! huh!--yes, it doth. And it +were a sin of obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to resist the +titillation of the famelic sense which is smell. Therefore be bold, +follow the scent; enter the tents of the unclean for this once, and +satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your +zealous mother and my suffering self will be satisfied also." + +Zeal of the Land Busy was like a certain English statesman of whom it +was said, "His conscience, instead of being his monitor, became his +accomplice." + +One characteristic of these unlicensed exhorters seems to be very +persistent,--their almost superhuman fluency. Despising preparation and +trusting to the inspiration of the moment, they are never left without +words. Preaching without notes is not particularly difficult if one has +something to say, but these exhorters attempt to preach without notes +and also without ideas. They require nothing but a word to begin with. +The speaker is like an army which, having broken away from its base of +supplies, lives on the country through which it is marching. The +hortatory guerrilla gets forage enough in one sentence to carry him on +through the next. This was the homiletical method which Zeal of the Land +used in his discourse at the fair. At a venture he cries out,-- + +"Down with Dagon!" + +Leather-Head, the hobby-horse seller, asks very imprudently,-- + +"What do you mean, sir!" + +That was enough; a torrent of impromptu eloquence is let loose. + +"I will remove Dagon there, I say; that idol, that heathenish idol, that +remains as I may say a beam, a very beam, not a beam of the sun, nor a +beam of the moon, nor a beam of the balance, neither a house beam, nor a +weaver's beam, but a beam in the eye, an exceeding great beam!" + +It was the same method employed long after by Mr. Chadband in his moving +address to little Joe. + +"My young friend, you are to us a pearl, a diamond, you are to us a +jewel. And why, my young friend?" + +"I don't know," replied Joe, "I don't know nothink." + +This gave Mr. Chadband his opportunity for continued speech. "My young +friend, it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem, a +jewel. For what are you? Are you a beast of the field? No! Are you a +fish of the river? No! You are a human boy! Oh, glorious to be a human +boy! And why glorious, my young friend?" + +Marvelous, to taciturn folk, is this flow of language. The little rill +becomes a torrent, and soon there are waters to swim in. It seems to +savor of the supernatural, being of the nature of creation out of +nothing. And yet like many other wonderful things, it is easy when one +knows how to do it. + +The churchmen of those days joined with the wits in laughter which +greeted the tinkers and the bakers who turned to prophesying on their +own account. But now and then one of the zealous independents could give +as keen a thrust as any which were received. It would be hard to find +more delicate satire than in the description of Parson Two Tongues of +the town of Fair Speech, who was much esteemed by his distinguished +parishioners, My Lord Time-Server, Mr. Facing Both-Ways, and Mr. +Anything. The parson was a man of good family, though his grandfather +had been a waterman, and had thus learned the art of looking one way and +rowing another. It is his parishioner Mr. Bye-Ends who propounds the +question of ministerial ethics. "Suppose a minister, a worthy man, +possessed of but a small benefice, has in his eye a greater, more fat +and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting it, yet so +as being more studious, by preaching more zealously, and because the +temper of the people requires it, by altering some of his principles, +for my part I see no reason but a man may do this (provided he has a +call), aye, and a great deal more besides, and be an honest man." As for +changing his principles to suit the times, Mr. Bye-Ends argues that it +shows that the minister "is of a self-sacrificing temper." + +The argument for conformity is put so plausibly that it is calculated to +deceive the very elect; and then as if by mere inadvertence we are +allowed a glimpse of the seamy side. It is evident that the wits were +not all banished from the conventicles. + + * * * * * + +To those who are acquainted only with the pale and interesting +tea-drinking parsons of nineteenth-century English fiction, there is +something surprising in the clergymen one meets in the pages of +Fielding. They are all in such rude health! There is not a suggestion of +nervous prostration nor of minister's sore throat. Not one of them seems +to be in need of a vacation; perhaps because they are out of doors all +the time. Their professional duties were doubtless done, but they are +not obtruded on the reader's attention. + +The odious Chaplain Thwackum is chiefly remembered for his argument with +the free-thinker Square. Square having asserted that honor might exist +independently of religion, Thwackum refutes him in a manner most +satisfactory. "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion, +and not only the Christian religion but the Protestant religion, and not +only the Protestant religion but the religion of the Church of England; +and when I mention honor I mean that mode of divine grace which is +dependent on that religion." + +"Thwackum," says the Gentle Reader, "was, after all, an unworldly man. +He was content to remain a mere hanger-on of the church when he was +capable of thoughts which were really in great demand. I have been +looking over a huge controversial volume by an author of that day, and I +found nothing but Thwackum argument expanded and illustrated. The author +was made a bishop for it." + +As for Parson Trulliber, the Falstaff of divines, the less said about +him the better. The curate Barnabas is a more pleasing character, though +hardly an example of spirituality. He reminds one of the good parson +who, in his desire for moderation, prayed that the Lord might lead his +people "in the safe middle path between right and wrong." + +When Joseph Andrews confessed his sins to him, Barnabas was divided +between his eagerness to do his professional duty to the sinner, and the +desire to prepare the punch for the company downstairs, a work in which +he particularly excelled. + +"Barnabas asked him if he forgave his enemies 'as a Christian ought.' + +"Joseph desired to know what that forgiveness was. + +"'That is,' answered Barnabas, 'to forgive them--as--it is to forgive +them as--in short, to forgive them as a Christian.' + +"Joseph replied 'He forgave them as much as he could.' + +"'Well! Well!' said Barnabas, 'that will do!' He then demanded of him if +he had any more sins unrepented of, and if he had, to repent of them as +fast as he could; ... for some company was waiting below in the parlor +where the ingredients for punch were all in readiness, for that no one +could squeeze the oranges till he came." + +Barnabas would have been shocked at the demands of the Methodists for +immediate repentance, but on this occasion he was led into almost equal +urgency. + +But Fielding more than atones for all the rest by the creation of Parson +Adams. Dear, delightful Parson Adams! to know him is to love him! In him +the Church of England appears a little out at the elbows, but in good +heart. With the appetite of a ploughman, and "a fist rather less than +the knuckle of an ox," he represents the true church militant. He has a +pipe in his mouth, and a short great coat which half conceals his +cassock, which he had "torn some ten years ago in passing over a stile." +But however uncanonical his attire, his heart is in the right place. + +What a different world Parson Adams lived in from that of George Eliot's +Amos Barton, bewildered with thoughts which he could not express. "'Mr. +Barton,' said his rural parishioner, 'can preach as good a sermon as +need be when he writes it down, but when he tries to preach without book +he rambles about, and every now and then flounders like a sheep as has +cast itself and can't get on its legs.'" + +One cannot imagine Parson Adams floundering about, under any +circumstances. There is a sturdy strength and directness about all he +says and does. His simplicity is endearing but never savors of weakness. + +He sets great store by his manuscript sermons, for which he seeks a +publisher. The curate Barnabas throws cold water on his plans. The age, +he says, is so wicked that nobody reads sermons; + +"'Would you think it, Mr. Adams, I intended to print a volume of +sermons, myself, and they had the approbation of three bishops, but what +do you think the bookseller offered me?' + +"'Twelve guineas,' cried Adams. + +"'Nay,' answered Barnabas, 'the dog refused me a concordance in +exchange.... To be concise with you, three bishops said they were the +best sermons that were ever writ; but indeed there are a pretty moderate +number printed already, and they are not all sold yet.'" + +The theology of Parson Adams was genially human. "'Can anything,' he +said, 'be more derogatory to the honor of God than for men to imagine +that the all-wise Being will hereafter say to the good and virtuous, +Notwithstanding the purity of thy life, notwithstanding the constant +rule of virtue and goodness in which thou walkedst upon earth; still, as +thou didst not believe everything in the true orthodox manner, thy want +of faith shall condemn thee? Or, on the other side, can any doctrine be +more pernicious in society than the persuasion that it will be a good +plea for a villain at the last day,--"Lord, it is true I never obeyed +any of Thy commandments; yet punish me not, for I believe in them +all?"'" + +This was not sound doctrine in the opinion of the itinerant bookseller. +"'I am afraid,' he said, 'that you will find a backwardness in the trade +to engage in a book which the clergy would be certain to cry down.'" + +The good parson had the clerical weakness for reading sermons in season +and out of season. At a festive gathering there was a call for speeches, +to which it was objected that no one was prepared for an address; +"'Unless,' turning to Adams, 'you have a sermon about you.' + +"'Sir,' said Adams, 'I never travel without one, for fear of what might +happen.'" + +Like other clergymen, he dabbled occasionally in politics. "'On all +proper seasons, such as at the approach of an election, I throw a +suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear +is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen, my +neighbors.'" + +At one time he actively labored for the election of young Sir Thomas +Booby, who had lately returned from his travels. He was elected, "'and +a fine Parliament man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour +long, and I have been told very fine ones; but he could never persuade +Parliament to be of his opinion.'" + +Estimable, eloquent Sir Thomas Booby! How many orators have found the +same result following their speeches of an hour long! + +To the returned traveler who had engaged in a controversy with him, +Parson Adams gave expression to his literary faith. + +"'Master of mine, perhaps I have traveled a great deal further than you, +without the assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different +cities or countries is traveling. I can go further in an afternoon than +you in a twelve-month. What, I suppose you have seen the pillars of +Hercules and perhaps the walls of Carthage?... You have sailed among the +Cyclades and passed the famous straits which took their name from the +unfortunate Helle, so sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have +passed the very spot where Dædalus fell into the sea; you have doubtless +traversed the Euxine, and called at Colchis to see if there was another +golden fleece.' + +"'Not I, truly,' said the gentleman. 'I never touched at any of these +places.' + +"'But I have been in all these,' replied Adams. + +"'Then you have been in the Indies, for there are no such places, I'll +be sworn, either in the West Indies or in the Levant.' + +"'Pray, where is the Levant?' quoth Adams. + +"'Oho! You're a pretty traveler and not to know the Levant. You must not +tip me for a traveler, it won't go here.' + +"'Since thou art so dull as to misunderstand me,' quoth Adams, 'I will +inform thee. The traveling I mean is in books, the only kind of +traveling by which any knowledge is acquired.'" + +"There is a great deal to be said in defense of that opinion," says the +Gentle Reader. + + * * * * * + +To turn from Parson Adams to the Vicar of Wakefield is to experience a +change of spiritual climate. Parson Adams was a good man, and so was Dr. +Primrose; otherwise they were quite different. Was piety ever made more +attractive to restless, over-driven people than in the person of the +dear, non-resistant vicar. Here was a man who might be reviled and +persecuted,--but he never could be hurried. + +The Gentle Reader rejoices in the peace of the opening chapters. "The +year was spent in moral and rural amusements. We had no revolutions to +fear, no fatigues to undergo, all our adventures were by the fireside, +and all our migrations were from the blue bed to the brown." And +good-natured Mrs. Primrose, absorbed in making pickles and gooseberry +wine, and with her ability to read any English book without much +spelling, was an ideal minister's wife, before the days of missionary +societies and general information. It was only her frivolous daughters +who were brought into society, where there was talk of "pictures, taste, +Shakespeare, and the musical glasses." These subjects not then being +supposed to have any esoteric, religious significance, which it was the +duty of the minister's wife to discover and disseminate, she busied +herself with her domestic concerns without any haunting sense that she +was neglecting the weightier matters. The vicar's favorite sermons were +in praise of matrimony, and he preached out of a happy experience. + +This peaceful scene bears the same relation to the trials that +afterwards befell the good man that the prologue to the Book of Job does +to the main part of it. Satan has his will with Job, so also it happened +with Dr. Primrose. His banker absconds to Amsterdam, his daughter elopes +with the wicked young squire who has the father thrown into prison, +where he hears of the death of his wretched daughter who has been cast +off by her betrayer. Troubles came thick and fast; yet did not the vicar +hurry, nor for a moment change the even tenor of his way. It was the +middle of the eighteenth century, when piety was not treated as an +elemental force. It did not lift up its voice and cry out against +injustice. The church was the patient Griselda married to the state, and +the clergyman was a teacher of resignation. + +Upon learning of his daughter's abduction, Dr. Primrose calls for his +Bible and his staff, but he does not indulge in any haste unbecoming a +clergyman. He finds time in his leisurely pursuit to discourse most +judiciously and at considerable length on the royal prerogative. He +remembers his duty to the landed gentry, and on his return from his +unsuccessful quest remains several days to enjoy the squire's +hospitality. + +Was ever poetical justice done with more placidity and completeness than +in the prison scene? The vicar, feeling that he is about to die, +proceeds to address his fellow wretches. He falls naturally into an old +sermon on the evils of free-thinking philosophy, that being the line of +the least resistance. The discourse being finished, it is without +surprise and yet with real pleasure that we learn that he does not die; +nor is his son, who was about to be hanged, hanged at all; on the +contrary, he appears not long after handsomely dressed in regimentals, +and makes a modest and distant bow to Miss Wilmot, the heiress. That +young lady had just arrived and was to be married next day to the wicked +young squire, but on learning that young gentleman's perfidy, "'Oh +goodness!' cried the lovely girl, 'how I have been deceived.'" The +vicar's son being on the spot in his handsome regimentals, they are +engaged in the presence of the company, and her affluent fortune is +assured to this hitherto impecunious youth. And the daughter Olivia at +the same time appears, it happening that she was not dead after all, +and that she has papers to show that she is the lawful wife of the young +squire. And the banker who ran away with the vicar's property has been +captured and the money restored. In the mean time--for happy accidents +never come singly--the wretch who was in the act of carrying off the +younger daughter Sophy has been foiled by the opportune arrival of Mr. +Burchell. And best of all, Mr. Burchell proves not to be Mr. Burchell at +all, but the celebrated Sir William Thornhill, who is loyal to the +constitution and a friend of the king. The Vicar is so far restored that +he leaves the jail and partakes of a bountiful repast, at which the +company is "as merry as affluence and innocence could make them." + +Affluence as the providential, though sometimes long delayed, reward of +innocence was a favorite thesis of eighteenth-century piety. + +"It may sound very absurd," says the Gentle Reader, "to those who insist +that all the happenings should be realistic; but the Vicar of Wakefield +is a very real character, nevertheless; and he is the kind of a person +for whom you would expect things to come out right in the end." + + + + +Quixotism + + +When Falstaff boasted that he was not only witty himself but the cause +of wit in other men, he thought of himself more highly than he ought to +have thought. The very fact that he was witty prevented him from the +highest efficiency in stimulating others in that direction. The +atmospheric currents of merriment move irresistibly toward a vacuum. +Create a character altogether destitute of humor and the most sluggish +intelligence is stirred in the effort to fill the void. + +When we seek one who is the cause of wit in other men we pass by the +jovial Falstaff and come to the preternaturally serious Don Quixote. +Here we have not the chance outcropping of "the lighter vein," but the +mother lode which the humorist finds inexhaustible. Don Quixote, with a +lofty gravity which never for an instant relaxes, sets forth upon his +mission. His is a soul impenetrable to mirth; but as he rides he +enlivens the whole country-side. Everywhere merry eyes are watching him; +boisterous laughter comes from the stables of village inns; from castle +windows high-born ladies smile upon him; the peasants in the fields +stand gaping and holding their sides; the countenances of the priests +relax, and even the robbers salute the knight with mock courtesy. The +dullest La Manchan is refreshed, and feels that he belongs to a choice +coterie of wits. + +Cervantes tells us that he intended only a burlesque on the books of +chivalry which were in vogue in his day. Had he done no more than he +intended, he would have amused his own generation and then have been +forgotten. It would be too much to ask that we should read the endless +tales about Amadis and Orlando, only that we might appreciate his clever +parody of them. A satire lasts no longer than its object. It must shoot +folly as it flies. To keep on shooting at a folly after it is dead is +unsportsmanlike. + +But though we have not read the old books of chivalry, we have all come +in contact with Quixotism. I say we have all come in contact with it; +but let no selfish, conventional persons be afraid lest they catch it. +They are immune. They may do many foolish things, but they cannot +possibly be quixotic. Quixotism is a malady possible only to generous +minds. + +Listen to Don Quixote as he makes his plea before the duke and duchess. +"I have redressed grievances, righted the injured, chastised the +insolent, vanquished giants. My intentions have all been directed toward +virtuous ends and to do good to all mankind. Now judge, most excellent +duke and duchess, whether a person who makes it his study to practice +all this deserves to be called a fool." + +Our first instinct is to answer confidently, "Of course not! Such a +character as you describe is what we call a hero or a saint." But the +person whose moral enthusiasm has been tempered with a knowledge of the +queer combinations of goodness and folly of which human nature is +capable is more wary, and answers, "That depends." + +In the case of Don Quixote it depends very much on the kind of world he +lives in. If it should happen that in this world there are giants +standing truculently at their castle doors, and forlorn maidens at every +cross-roads waiting to be rescued, we will grant him the laurels that +are due to the hero. But if La Mancha should not furnish these materials +for his prowess,--then we must take a different view of the case. + +The poor gentleman is mad, that is what the curate and the barber say; +but when we listen to his conversation we are in doubt. If the curate +could discourse half so eloquently he would have been a bishop long +before this. The most that can be said is that he has some notions which +are not in accordance with the facts, and that he acts accordingly; but +if that were a proof of madness there would not be enough sane persons +in the world to make strait-jackets for the rest. His chief peculiarity +is that he takes himself with a seriousness that is absolute. All of us +have thoughts which would not bear the test of strict examination. There +are vagrant fancies and random impulses which, fortunately for our +reputations, come to nothing. We are just on the verge of doing +something absurd when we recognize the character of our proposed +action; and our neighbors lose a pleasure. We comfort ourselves by the +reflection that their loss is our gain. Don Quixote has no such +inhibition; he carries out his own ideas to their logical conclusion. + +The hero of Cervantes had muddled his wits by the reading of romances. +Almost any kind of printed matter may have the same effect if one is not +able to distinguish between what he has read and what he has actually +experienced. One may read treatises on political economy until he +mistakes the "economic man" who acts only according to the rules of +enlightened self-interest for a creature of flesh and blood. One may +read so many articles on the Rights of Women that he mistakes a +hard-working American citizen who spends his summer in a down-town +office, in order that his wife and daughter may go to Europe, for that +odious monster the Tyrant Man. It is possible to read the Society +columns of the daily newspapers till the reader does not know good +society when he sees it. An estimable teacher in the public schools may +devote herself so assiduously to pedagogical literature that she +mistakes her school-room for a psychological laboratory, with results +that are sufficiently tragical. There are excellent divines so learned +in the history of the early church that they believe that +semi-pelagianism is still the paramount issue. There were few men whose +minds were, in general, better balanced than Mr. Gladstone's, yet what a +fine example of Quixotism was that suggested by Queen Victoria's remark: +"Mr. Gladstone always addresses me as if I were a public meeting." To +address a woman as if she were a public meeting is the mistake of one +who had devoted himself too much to political speeches. + +A thoroughly healthy mind can endure a good deal of reading and a +considerable amount of speculation with impunity. It does not take the +ideas thus derived too seriously. It is continually making allowances, +and every once in a while there is a general clearance. It is like a gun +which expels the old cartridge as the new shot is fired. When the +delicate mechanism for the expulsion of exploded opinions gets out of +order the mind becomes the victim of "fixed ideas." The best idea +becomes dangerous when it gets stuck. When the fixed ideas are of a +noble and disinterested character we have a situation which excites at +once the admiration of the moralist and the apprehension of the +alienist. Perhaps this border-land between spiritual reality and +intellectual hallucination belongs neither to the moralist nor to the +alienist, but to the wise humorist. He laughs, but there is no +bitterness or scorn in his laughter. It is mellow and human-hearted. + +The world is full of people who have a faculty which enables them to +believe whatever they wish. Thought is not, for them, a process which +may go on indefinitely, a work in which they are collaborating with the +universe. They do it all by themselves. It is the definite transaction +of making up their minds. When the mind is made up it closes with a +snap. After that, for an unwelcome idea to force an entrance would be a +well-nigh impossible feat of intellectual burglary. + +We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe +when compared with a stubborn theory. Let the theory, however +extravagant in its origin, choose its own ground, and intrench itself in +the mind of a well-meaning lady or gentleman of an argumentative turn, +and I'll warrant you it can hold its own against a whole regiment of +facts. + +Did you ever attend a meeting of the society for the--perhaps I had +better not mention the name of the society, lest I tread on your +favorite Quixotism. Suffice it to say that it has a noble purpose. It +aims at nothing less than the complete transformation of human society, +by the use of means which, to say the least, seem quite inadequate. + +After the minutes of the last meeting have been read, and the objects of +the society have been once more stated with much detail, there is an +opportunity for discussion from the floor. + +"Perhaps there is some one who may give some new suggestions, or who may +desire to ask a question." + +You have observed what happens to the unfortunate questioner. What a +sorry exhibition he makes of himself! No sooner does he open his mouth +than every one recognizes his intellectual feebleness. He seems unable +to grasp the simplest ideas. He stumbles at the first premise, and lies +sprawling at the very threshold of the argument. "If what I have taken +for granted be true," says the chairman, "do not all the fine things I +have been telling you about follow necessarily?" + +"But," murmurs the questioner, "the things you take for granted are just +what trouble me. They don't correspond to my experience." + +"Poor, feeble-minded questioner!" cry the members of the society, "to +think that he is not even able to take things for granted! And then to +set up his experience against our constitution and by-laws!" + +We sometimes speak of an inconsequent, harum-scarum person, who is +always going off after new ideas, as quixotic. But true Quixotism is +grave, self-contained, conservative. Within its own sphere it is +accurate and circumstantial. There is no absurdity in its mental +processes; all that is concealed in its assumptions. Granted the reality +of the scheme of knight-errantry, and Don Quixote becomes a solid, +dependable man who will conscientiously carry it out. There is no danger +of his going off into vagaries. He has a mind that will keep the +roadway. + +He is a sound critic, intolerant of minor incongruities. When the +puppet-player tells about the bells ringing in the mosques of the +Moorish town, the knight is quick to correct him. "There you are out, +boy; the Moors have no bells; they only use kettledrums. Your ringing +of bells in Sansuena is a mere absurdity." Such absurdities were not +amusing; they were offensive to his serious taste. + +The quixotic mind loves greatly the appearance of strict logic. It is +satisfied if one statement is consistent with another statement; whether +either is consistent with the facts of the case is a curious matter +which it does not care to investigate. So much does it love Logic that +it welcomes even that black sheep of the logical family, the Fallacy; +and indeed the impudent fellow, with all his irresponsible ways, does +bear a family resemblance which is very deceiving. Above all is there +delight in that alluring mental exercise known as the argument in a +circle. It is an intellectual merry-go-round. A hobby-horse on rockers +is sport for tame intelligences, but a hobby that can be made to go +round is exciting. You may see grave divines and astute metaphysicians +and even earnest sociologists rejoicing in the swift sequence of their +own ideas, as conclusion follows premise and premise conclusion, in +endless gyration. How the daring riders clutch the bridles and +exultingly watch the flying manes of their steeds! They have the sense +of getting somewhere, and at the same time the comfortable assurance +that that somewhere is the very place from which they started. + +"Didn't we tell you so!" they cry. "Here we are again. Our arguments +must be true, for we can't get away from them." + +Your ordinary investigator is a disappointing fellow. His opinions are +always at the mercy of circumstances over which he has no control. He +cuts his coat according to his cloth, and sometimes when his material +runs short his intellectual garments are more scanty than decency +allows. Sometimes after a weary journey into the Unknown he will return +with scarcely an opinion to his back. Not so with the quixotist. His +opinions not being dependent on evidence, he does not measure different +degrees of probability. Half a reason is as good as a whole one, for the +result in any case is perfect assurance. All things conspire, in most +miraculous fashion, to confirm him in his views. That other men think +differently he admits, he even welcomes their skepticism as a foil to +his faith. His imperturbable tolerance is like that of some knight who, +conscious of his coat of mail, good-humoredly exposes himself to the +assaults of the rabble. It amuses them, and does him no harm. + +When Don Quixote had examined Mambrino's enchanted helmet, his candor +compelled him to listen to Sancho's assertion that it was only a +barber's basin. He was not disposed to controvert the evidence of the +senses, but he had a sufficient explanation ready. "This enchanted +helmet, by some strange accident, must have fallen into the possession +of one who, ignorant of its true value as a helmet, and seeing it to be +of the purest gold, hath inconsiderately melted down the one half for +lucre's sake, and of the other half made this, which, as thou sayest, +doth indeed look like a barber's basin; but to me, who know what it +really is, its transformation is of no importance, for I will have it so +repaired in the first town where there is a smith that it shall not be +surpassed or even equaled. In the mean time I will wear it as I can, for +something is better than nothing, and it will be sufficient to defend me +from stones." + +Where have you heard that line of argument, so satisfying to one who has +already made up his mind? Yesterday, it runs, we had several excellent +reasons for the opinion which we hold. Since then, owing to +investigations which we imprudently entered into before we knew where we +were coming out, all our reasons have been overthrown. This, however, +makes not the slightest difference. It rather strengthens our general +position, as it is no longer dependent on any particular evidence for +its support. + +We prate of the teaching of Experience. But did you ever know Experience +to teach anything to a person whose ideas had set up an independent +government of their own? The stern old dame has been much overrated as +an instructor. Her pedagogical method is very primitive. Her instruction +is administered by a series of hard whacks which the pupil is expected +to interpret for himself. That something is wrong is evident; but what +is it? It is only now and then that some bright pupil says, "That means +that I made a mistake." As for persons of a quixotic disposition, the +most adverse experience only confirms their pre-conceptions. At most the +wisdom gained is prudential. After Don Quixote had made his first +unfortunate trial of his pasteboard visor, "to secure it against like +accidents in future he made it anew, and fenced it with thin plates of +iron so skillfully that he had reason to be satisfied with his work, and +so, without further experiment, resolved that it should pass for a good +and sufficient helmet." + +One is tempted to linger over that moment when Quixote ceased to +experiment and began to dogmatize. What was the reason of his sudden +dread of destructive criticism? Was he quite sincere? Did he really +believe that his helmet was now cutlass proof? + +For myself, I have no doubts of his knightly honor and of his +transparent candor. He certainly believed that he believed; though under +the circumstances he felt that it was better to take no further risks. + +In his admirable discourse with Don Fernando on the comparative merits +of arms and literature, he describes the effects of the invention of +gunpowder. + +"When I reflect on this I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I +repent of having adopted the profession of knight-errantry in so +detestable an age as we live in. For though no peril can make me fear, +still it gives me some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may rob +me of the opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout +the world by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword." + +There is here a bit of uneasiness, such as comes to any earnest person +who perceives that the times are out of joint. Still the doubt does not +go very deep. In an age of artillery knight-errantry is doubtless more +difficult, but it does not seem impossible. + +It is the same feeling that must come now and then to a gallant +twentieth-century Jacobite who meets with his fellow conspirators in an +American city, to lament the untimely taking off of the blessed martyr +King Charles, and to plot for the return of the House of Stuart. The +circumstances under which they meet are not congenial. The path of +loyalty is not what it once was. A number of things have happened since +1649; still they may be treated as negligible quantities. It is a fine +thing to sing about the king coming to his own again. + +"But what if there isn't any king to speak of?" + +"Well, at any rate, the principle is the same." + +I occasionally read a periodical devoted to the elevation of mankind by +means of a combination of deep breathing and concentrated thought. The +object is one in which I have long been interested. The means used are +simple. The treatment consists in lying on one's back for fifteen +minutes every morning with arms outstretched. Then one must begin to +exhale self and inhale power. The directions are given with such +exactness that no one with reasonably good lungs can go astray. The +treatment is varied according to the need. One may in this way breathe +in, not only health and love, but, what may seem to some more important, +wealth. + +The treatment for chronic impecuniosity is particularly interesting. The +patient, as he lies on his back and breathes deeply, repeats, "I am +Wealth." This sets the currents of financial success moving in his +direction. + +One might suppose that a theory of finance so different from that of the +ordinary workaday world would be surrounded by an air of weirdness or +strangeness. Not at all. Everything is most matter of fact. The Editor +is evidently a sensible person when it comes to practical details, and, +on occasion, gives admirable advice. + +A correspondent writes: "I have tried your treatment for six months, and +I am obliged to say that I am harder up than ever before. What do you +advise?" + +It is one of those obstinate cases which are met with now and then, and +which test the real character of the practitioner. The matter is treated +with admirable frankness, and yet with a wholesome optimism. The patient +is reminded that six months is a short time, and one must not expect too +quick results. A slow, sure progress is better, and the effects are more +lasting. This is not the first case that has been slow in yielding to +treatment. Still it may be better to make a slight change. The formula, +"I am Wealth," may be too abstract, though it usually has worked well. A +more concrete thought might possibly be more effective. Why not try, +remembering, of course, to continue the same breathings, "I am Andrew +Carnegie?" + +Then the practitioner adds a bit of advice which was certainly worth the +moderate fee charged: "When the exercises are over, ask yourself what +Andrew would do next. Andrew would hustle." + +A slight acquaintance with the pseudo sciences which are in vogue at the +present day reveals a world to which only the genius of Cervantes could +do justice. We see Absurdity clothed, and in its right mind. It is +formally correct, punctiliously exact, completely serious, and withal +high-minded. Until it comes in contact with the actual world we do not +realize that it is absurd. + +Religion and medicine have always furnished tempting fields for persons +of the quixotic temper. Perhaps it is because their professed objects +are so high, and perhaps also because their achievements fall so far +below what we have been led to expect. Neither spiritual nor mental +health is so robust as to satisfy us with the usual efforts in their +behalf. Sin and sickness are continual challenges. Some one ought to +abolish them. An eager hearing is given to any one who claims to be able +to do so. The temptation is great for those who do not perceive the +difference between words and things to answer the demands. + +It is not necessary to go for examples either to fanatics or quacks. Not +to take too modern an instance, there was Bishop Berkeley! He was a +true philosopher, an earnest Christian, and withal a man of sense, and +yet he was the author of "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections +and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar Water, and divers other +Subjects connected together, and arising One from Another." It is one of +those works which are the cause of wit in other men. It is so learned, +so exhaustive, so pious, and the author takes it with such utter +seriousness! + +Tar is the good bishop's Dulcinea. All his powers are enlisted in the +work of proclaiming the matchless virtues of this mistress of his +imagination, who is "black but comely." Our minds are prepared by a +lyric outburst:-- + + "Hail, vulgar Juice of never-fading Pine! + Cheap as thou art! thy virtues are divine, + To show them and explain (such is thy store), + There needs much modern and much ancient Lore." + +For this great work the author is well equipped. Plato, Aristotle, +Pliny, and the rest of the ancients appear as vanquished knights +compelled to do honor to my Lady Tar. + +Other specifics are allowed to have their virtues, but they grow pale +before this paragon. Common soap has its admirers; they are treated +magnanimously, but compelled to surrender at last. "Soap is allowed to +be cleansing, attenuating, opening, resolving, sweetening; it is +pectoral, vulnerary, diuretic, and hath other good qualities; which are +also found in tar water.... Tar water therefore is a soap, and as such +hath all the medicinal qualities of soaps." To those who put their faith +in vinegar a like argument is made. It is shown that tar water is not +only a superior kind of soap, but also a sublimated sort of vinegar; in +fact, it appears to be all things to all men. + +To those who incline to the philosophy of the ancient fire-worshipers a +special argument is made. "I had a long Time entertained an Opinion +agreeable to the Sentiments of many ancient Philosophers, that Fire may +be regarded as the Animal Spirit of this visible World. And it seemed to +me that the attracting and secreting of this Fire in the various Pores, +Tubes, and Ducts of Vegetables, did impart their specifick Virtues to +each kind, that this same Light, or Fire, was the immediate Cause of +Sense and Motion, and consequently of Life and Health to animals; that +on Account of this Solar Light or Fire, Phoebus was in the ancient +Mythology reputed the God of Medicine. Which Light as it is leisurely +introduced, and fixed in the viscid juice of old Firs and Pines, so +setting it free in Part, that is, the changing its viscid for a volatile +Vehicle, which may mix with Water, and convey it throughout the Habit +copiously and inoffensively, would be of infinite Use in Physic." It +appears therefore that tar water is not only a kind of soap, but also a +kind of fire. + +Yet is not Quixote himself more careful to avoid all appearance of +extravagance? The author shrinks from imposing conclusions on another. +After an elaborate argument which moves irresistibly to one conclusion, +he stops short. "This regards the Possibility of a Panacea in general; +as for Tar Water in particular, I do not say it is a Panacea, I only +suspect it to be so." Yet he must be a churlish reader who could go with +him so far and then refuse to take the next step. Nor can a right-minded +person be indifferent to the moral argument in favor of "Tar Water, +Temperance, and Early Hours." If tar water is to be known by the company +it keeps, it is to be commended. + +There is a great advantage in taking our example from another age than +ours. Our enjoyment of the bishop's Quixotism does not cast discredit on +any similar hobby of our own day. "However," as the author of Siris +remarked, "it is hoped they will not condemn one Man's Tar Water for +another Man's Pill or Drop, any more than they would hang one Man for +another's having stole a Horse." + +Indeed, of all quixotic notions the most extreme is that of those who +think that Quixotism can be overcome by any direct attack. It is a state +of mind which must be accepted as we accept any other curious fact. As +well tilt against a cloud as attempt to overcome it by argument. It is a +part of the myth-making faculty of the human mind. A myth is a quixotic +notion which takes possession of multitudes rather than of a single +person. Everybody accepts it; nobody knows why. You can nail a lie, but +you cannot nail a myth,--there is nothing to nail it to. It is of no use +to deny it, for that only gives it a greater vogue. + +I have great sympathy for all mythical characters. It is possible that +Hercules may have been an amiable Greek gentleman of sedentary habits. +Some one may have started the story of his labors as a joke. In the next +town it was taken seriously, and the tale set forth on its travels. +After it once had been generally accepted, what could Hercules do? What +good would it have been for him to say, "There's not a word of truth in +what everybody is saying about me. I am as averse to a hard day's work +as any gentleman of my social standing in the community. They are +turning me into a sun-myth, and mixing up my private affairs with the +signs of the zodiac! I won't stand it!" + +Bless me! he would have to stand it! His words would but add fuel to the +flame of admiration. What a hero he is; so strong and so modest! He has +already forgotten those feats of strength! It is ever so with greatness. +To Hercules it was all mere child's play. All the more need that we keep +the stories alive in order to hand them down to our children. Perhaps we +had better touch them up a bit so that they may be more interesting to +the little dears. And so would begin a new cycle of myths. + +After Socrates had once gained the reputation for superlative wisdom, +do you think it did any good for him to go about proclaiming that he +knew nothing? He was suspected of having some ulterior design. Nobody +would believe him except Xanthippe. + +When after hearing strange noises in the night Don Quixote sallies forth +only to discover that the sounds come from fulling hammers instead of +from giants, he rebukes the ill-timed merriment of his squire. "Come +hither, merry sir! Suppose these mill hammers had really been some +perilous adventure, have I not given proof of the courage requisite to +undertake and achieve it? Am I, being a knight, to distinguish between +sounds, and to know which are and which are not those of a fulling mill, +more especially as I have never seen any fulling mills in my life?" + +If the mill hammers could only be transformed into giants, how easy the +path of reform! for it would satisfy the primitive instinct to go out +and kill something. I have heard a temperance orator denounce the Demon +Drink so roundly that every one in the audience was ready to destroy the +monster on sight. The solution of the liquor problem, however, was +quite a different matter. The young patriot who conceives of the money +power under the terrifying image of an octopus resolves at once to give +it battle. When elected to the legislature he meets many smooth-spoken +gentlemen whose schemes are so plausible that he readily assents to +them,--but not an octopus does he see. Yet I believe that were he to see +an octopus he would slay it. + +Perhaps there is no better test of a person's nature than his attitude +toward Quixotism. The man of coarse, unfriendly humor sees in it nothing +but a broad farce. He greets the misadventures of Don Quixote with a +loud guffaw. What a fool he was not to know the difference between an +ordinary inn and a castle! + +There are persons of a sensitive and refined disposition to whom it is +all a tragedy, exquisitely painful to contemplate. Alas, poor gentleman, +with all his lofty ideals, to be so buffeted by a world unworthy of him! + +But this refinement of sentiment comes perilously near to +sentimentalism. Cervantes had the more wholesome attitude. He +appreciated the valor of Don Quixote. It was genuine, though the +knight, owing to circumstances beyond his own control, had been +compelled to make his visor out of pasteboard. He had heroism of soul; +but what of it! There was plenty more where it came from. A man who had +fought at Lepanto, and endured years of Algerine captivity, was not +inclined to treat manly virtue as if it were a rare and delicate fabric +that must be preserved in a glass case. It was amply able to take care +of itself. He knew that he couldn't laugh genuine chivalry away, even if +he tried. It could stand not only hard knocks from its foes, but any +amount of raillery from its friends. + +The bewildered soldier who mistakes a harmless camp follower for the +enemy must expect to endure the gibes of his comrades; yet no one doubts +that he would have acquitted himself nobly if the enemy had appeared. +The rough humor of the camp is a part of its wholesome discipline. + +Quixotism is a combination of goodness and folly. To enjoy it one must +be able to appreciate them both at the same time. It is a pleasure +possible only to one who is capable of having mixed feelings. + +When we consider the faculty which many good people have of believing +things that are not so, and ignoring the plainest facts and laws of +nature, we are sometimes alarmed over the future of society. If any of +the Quixotisms which are now in vogue should get themselves established, +what then? + +Fortunately there is small need of anxiety. When the landsman first +ventures on the waves he observes with alarm the keeling over of the +boat under the breeze, for he expects the tendency to be followed to its +logical conclusion. Fortunately for the equilibrium of society, +tendencies which are viewed with alarm are seldom carried to their +logical conclusion. They are met by other tendencies before the danger +point is reached, and the balance is restored. + +The factor which is overlooked by those who fear the ascendency of any +quixotic notion is the existence of the average man. This individual is +not a striking personality, but he holds the balance of power. Before +any extravagant idea can establish itself it must convert the average +man. He is very susceptible, and takes a suggestion so readily that it +seems to prophesy the complete overthrow of the existing order of +things. But was ever a conversion absolute? The best theologians say no. +A great deal of the old Adam is always left over. When the average man +takes up with a quixotic notion, only so much of it is practically +wrought out as he is able to comprehend. The old Adam of common sense +continually asserts itself. The natural corrective of Quixotism is +Sancho-Panzaism. The solemn knight, with his head full of visionary +plans, is followed by a squire who is as faithful as his nature will +permit. Sancho has no theories, and makes no demands on the world. He +leaves that sort of thing to his master. He has the fatalism which +belongs to ignorant good nature, and the tolerance which is found in +easy-going persons who have neither ideals nor nerves. He has no +illusions, though he has all the credulity of ignorance. + +He belongs to the established order of things, and can conceive no +other. When knight-errantry is proposed to him, he reduces that also to +the established order. He takes it up as an honest livelihood, and rides +forth in search of forlorn maidens with the same contented jog with +which he formerly went to the village mill. When it is explained that +faithful squires become governors of islands he approves of the idea, +and begins to cherish a reasonable ambition. Knight-errantry is brought +within the sphere of practical politics. Sancho has no stomach for +adventures. When his master warns him against attacking knights, until +such time as he has himself reached their estate, he answers:-- + +"Never fear, I'll be sure to obey your worship in that, I'll warrant +you; for I ever loved peace and quietness, and never cared to thrust +myself into frays and quarrels." + +When Sancho becomes governor of his snug, land-locked island, there is +not a trace of Quixotism in his executive policy. The laws of Chivalry +have no recognition in his administration; and everything is carried on +with most admirable common sense. + +It is an experience which is quite familiar to the readers of history. +"All who knew Sancho," moralizes the author, "wondered to hear him talk +so sensibly, and began to think that offices and places of trust inspire +some men with understanding, as they stupefy and confound others." + +Mother wit has a great way of evading the consequences of theoretical +absurdities. Natural law takes care of itself, and preserves the +balance. So long as Don Quixote can get no other follower than Sancho +Panza, we need not be alarmed. There is no call for a society for the +Preservation of Windmills. + +After all, there is an ambiguity about Quixotism. They laugh best who +laugh last; and we are not sure that satire has the last word. Was Don +Quixote as completely mistaken as he seemed? He mistook La Mancha for a +land of romance, and wandered through it as if it were an enchanted +country. + +The Commentator explains to us that in this lay the jest, for no part of +Spain was so vulgarly commonplace. Its villages were destitute of charm, +and its landscape of beauty. La Mancha was a name for all that was +unromantic. + +"I cannot make it appear so," says the Gentle Reader, who has come under +the spell of Cervantes. "Don Quixote seems to be wandering through the +most romantic country in the world. I can see + + 'The long, straight line of the highway, + The distant town that seems so near, + + * * * * * + + White crosses in the mountain pass, + Mules gay with tassels, the loud din + Of muleteers, the tethered ass + That crops the dusty wayside grass, + And cavaliers with spurs of brass + Alighting at the inn; + + White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat, + + * * * * * + + White sunshine flooding square and street, + Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet + The river-beds are dry with heat,-- + All was a dream to me.' + +"Through this enchanted country it is pleasant to wander about in +irresponsible fashion, climbing mountains, loitering in secluded +valleys, where shepherds and shepherdesses still make love in Arcadian +fashion, meeting with monks, merchants, muleteers, and fine gentlemen, +and coming in the evening to some castle where one is lulled to sleep by +the splash of fountains and the tinkle of guitars; and if it should turn +out that the castle is only an inn,--why, to lodge in an inn of La +Mancha would be a romantic experience!" + +The Spain of the sixteenth century is to us as truly a land of romance +as any over which a knight-errant roamed. It seems just suited for +heroic adventure. + +Some day our quixotic characters may appear to the future reader thus +magically conformed to the world they live in, or rather, the world may +be transformed by their ideals. + +"They do seem strange to us," the Gentle Reader of that day will say, +"but then we must remember that they lived in the romantic dawn of the +twentieth century." + + + + +Intimate Knowledge and Delight + + +IN the affairs of the mind we are all "Indian givers." We will part with +our most cherished convictions for a merely nominal consideration, such +as "for the sake of the argument,"--even when we do not really care for +arguments. But let no one be deceived into thinking that this is the +end. Renunciation usually has some mental reservation, or at least some +saving ambiguity. + +You may see a saint, in his enthusiasm for disinterested virtue, give up +all claim to personal happiness. But does he expect to be taken at his +word and to live miserably ever after? Not he! Already, if he be a true +saint, he has begun to enjoy the beatific vision. + +I know a teacher of religion who is inclined to rebel against what seems +to him to be the undue emphasis upon faith. For himself, it seems a +wholesome thing to do a little doubting now and then, and he looks upon +this as a religious exercise. He affirms that the characteristic +attitudes of the spiritual man can be expressed in terms of skepticism +as well as of belief. It is all one whether the matter be put positively +or negatively. Materialism he treats as a form of dogmatism based on the +appearance of things. The religious mind is incredulous of this +explanation of the universe and subjects it to a destructive criticism. +The soul of man is full of "obstinate questionings of sense and outward +things." Yet this same person, when he forgets his argument, is apt to +talk like the rest of us. After all, it is some kind of faith that he is +after, even when he pursues it by the methods of skepticism. In his most +radical moods he never lets his convictions slip away from him; at +least, they never go so far away that he cannot get them again. + +In like manner I must confess that I am an Indian giver. In giving over +to Science all claim to the domain of Knowledge, and reserving to my +friend the Gentle Reader only the right of way over the picturesque but +less fruitful fields of Ignorance, I was actuated by the purest motives. +At the time it seemed very magnanimous, and, moreover, it saved the +trouble of a doubtful contest. + +But now that so much has been given away, I am visited by compunctions, +and, if it is not too late, I will take back part of the too generous +gift. Let us make a distinction, and instead of treating knowledge as if +it were indivisible, let us speak, after the manner of Swedenborg, of +knowledges. The greater number of knowledges we will make over without +question to Science and Philosophy; the knowledges which are concerned +with laws and forces and with the multitudinous facts which are capable +of classification. But for the Gentle Reader and his kind let us reserve +the claim to a knowledge of some things which cannot be classified. I +hardly believe that they will be missed; they are not likely to be +included in any scientific inventory; their value is chiefly in personal +association. + +There is a knowledge of persons as well as of things, and in particular +there is a knowledge of certain persons to whom one is drawn in close +friendship. Emerson, in his essay on Milton, speaks of those who come to +the poet with "intimate knowledge and delight." It is, after all, +convenient to treat this feeling of delightful intimacy as a kind of +knowledge. If it is not that, what is it? + +The peculiarity of this kind of knowledge is that it is impossible to +formulate it; and that the very attempt to do so is an offence. The +unpardonable sin against friendship is to merge the person in a class. +Think of an individual as an adult Caucasian, "an inhabitant of North +America, belonging to the better classes," as to religion a moderate +churchman, in politics a Republican, and you may accumulate a number of +details interesting enough in a stranger. You may in this way "know +where to place him." But if you do actually place him there, and treat +him accordingly, he has ceased to be your friend. + +A friend is unique. He belongs to no categories. He is not a case, nor +the illustration of a thesis. Your interest is neither pathological nor +anthropological nor statistical. You are concerned not with what he is +like, but with what he is. There is an element of jealous exclusiveness +in such knowledge. + +In the Song of Songs, after the ecstatic praise of the beloved, the +question is asked:-- + + "What is thy beloved more than any other beloved, that thou dost so + adjure us?" + +The answer is a description of his personal perfections:-- + + "My beloved is white and ruddy, + + * * * * * + + His locks are bushy, and black as a raven. + His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks. + + * * * * * + + His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars, + His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. + This is my beloved, and this is my friend, + O daughters of Jerusalem." + +Do you think that the daughters of Jerusalem would be so tactless as to +reply that they had seen a number of handsome youths with bushy black +hair and languishing eyes and fine forms, and that they represented an +admirable type of manly beauty? That would be to confess that they had +not seen the beloved, for he was unlike all others. "My beloved is +marked out with a banner among ten thousand." + +The knowledge that is required is not contained in a catalogue of the +points in which he resembles the nine thousand nine hundred and +ninety-nine; it is a recognition of the incommunicable grace that is his +own. + +Even in ordinary social intercourse the most delicate compliment is to +treat the person with whom you are talking as an exception to all rules. +That he is a clergyman or a commercial traveler tells you nothing of his +inner life. That is left for him to reveal, if it so pleases him. Even a +king grows tired of being addressed in terms appropriate to royalty. It +is a relief to travel incognito, and he is flattered when he is assured +that no one suspects his station in life. It makes him feel that he is +not like the ordinary run of kings. + +No one likes to be pigeon-holed or reduced to a formula. We resent being +classed as old or middle-aged or young. Why should we be confounded with +our coevals? We may not be any better than they are; but we are +different. Nor is it pleasant to have our opinions treated as if they +were the necessary product of social forces. There is something +offensive in the curiosity of those who are all the time asking how we +came by our ideas. What if they do bear a general resemblance to those +of the honest people who belong to our party and who read the same +newspaper. We do not care to be reminded of these chance coincidences. +Because one has found it convenient and economical to buy a ready-made +suit of clothing, it does not follow that he is willing to wear the tag +which contains the statement of the price and size. These labels were +very useful so long as the garment was kept in stock by the dealer, but +the information that they convey is now irrelevant. + +This sensitiveness in regard to personal identity is strangely lacking +in many modern students of literature. They treat the man of genius as a +phenomenon, to be explained by other phenomena and used to illustrate a +general law. They love to deal in averages and aggregates. They describe +minutely the period to which a writer belongs, its currents of thought, +its intellectual limitations, and its generally received notions. With a +knowledge of antecedent conditions there is the expectancy of a certain +type of man as the result. Our minds are prepared for some one who +resembles the composite photograph which is first presented to us. We +are, for example, given an elaborate account of the Puritan movement in +England. We form a conception of what the Puritan was, and then we are +introduced to Milton. Our preconceptions stand in the way of personal +sympathy. + +The method of the Gentle Reader is more direct. He is fortunate enough +to have read Milton before he has read much about him, and he returns to +the reading with ever fresh delight. He does not think of him as +belonging to a past age. He is a perpetual contemporary. The seventeenth +century gave color to his words, but it did not limit his genius. + +Seventeenth century Independency might be, as a general thing, lacking +in grace, but when we turn away from Praise-God-Barebones to John Milton +we find it transformed into a-- + + "divine philosophy, + Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, + But musical as is Apollo's lute, + And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets." + +Into its austere beauty, into its wide free spaces, into its sensuous +charms, no one but Milton can conduct us. We must follow not as those +who know beforehand what is to be seen or heard, but as those who are +welcomed by a generous householder who brings out of his treasures +things new and old. + +We come upon a sublime spirit-- + + "Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free." + +That is Milton; but it is Milton also who can sing of-- + + "Jest and youthful Jollity, + Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, + Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles + Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, + And love to live in dimple sleek, + Sport that wrinkled Care derides, + And Laughter holding both his sides." + +If this be Puritanism, it is Puritanism with a difference. Did any one +in a few words give such a picture of mirth-- + + "So buxom, blithe, and debonair?" + +Was this the real Milton? Why not? His radiant youth was as real as his +blindness and his old age. And Milton the political pamphleteer was real +too, though his language was not always that which might have been +expected from the author of "Paradise Lost." We pass lightly over pages +of vituperation which any one might have written, and then come upon +splendid passages which could have come from him alone. The sentiment of +democratic equality is invested with a dignity which makes all the +pretensions of privileged orders seem vulgar. Here is the Milton who is +invoked to-- + + "Give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!" + +In these moments we become aware of a man who was not to be explained by +any general rule. + +To one who takes delight in the personality of Milton, even "Paradise +Lost" is not a piece of unmitigated sublimity. It is full of +self-revelations. The reader who has come to share Milton's passion for +personal liberty and scorn for a "fugitive and cloistered virtue" is +curious to know how he will treat his new theme. In the "Areopagitica" +he had frankly treated the "Fall of Man" as a "fall upward." "Good and +evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost +inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven +with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly +to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche +as an increased labor to cull out and sort asunder, were not more +intermixt. And perhaps that is the doom which Adam fell into of knowing +good and evil; that is to say, of knowing good by evil. As therefore the +state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence +to forbear without the knowledge of evil.... That virtue, therefore, +which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the +utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a +blank virtue, not a pure.... Since, therefore, the knowledge and survey +of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human +virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can +we more safely and with less danger scout into the region of sin and +falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner +of reasons." + +What would such an adventurous spirit make + + "Of man's first Disobedience and the Fruit + Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste + Brought Death into the World and all our woe, + With loss of Eden"? + +What would Milton make of Adam in his sheltered Paradise? And what would +one whose whole life had been a passionate protest against the idea of +submission to mere arbitrary power do with the element of arbitrariness +which the theology of his day attributed to the Divine Ruler? And what +of Satan? + + "One who brings + A mind not to be changed by Place or Time. + The mind is its own place, and in itself + Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. + What matter where, if I be still the same?" + +There is a note in that proud creed that could not be altogether +uncongenial to one who in his blindness could-- + + "still bear up and steer + Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? + The Conscience, Friend, t' have lost them overplied + In liberty's defense, my noble task; + Of which all Europe rings from side to side. + This thought might lead me through this World's vain mask + Content though blind, had I no better Guide." + +In its ostensible plot "Paradise Lost" is a tragedy; but did Milton +really feel it to be so? One fancies--though he may be mistaken--that as +Adam and Eve leave Paradise he hears a sigh of relief from the poet, +who was himself ever a lover of "the Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty." At +any rate, there is an undertone of cheer. + + "Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon, + The World was all before them where to choose + Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." + +Adam, when the old sheltered life is over, and the possibilities of the +new life of struggle were revealed,-- + + "Replete with joy and wonder thus replied. + O goodness infinite, goodness immense! + That all this good of evil shall produce, + And evil turn to good; more wonderful + Than that which by creation first brought forth + Light out of darkness! full of doubt I stand, + Whether I should repent me now of sin + By me done and occasioned or rejoice + Much more that much more good thereof shall spring." + +That Adam should treat the loss of Eden in such a casual manner, and +that he should express a doubt as to whether the estate into which his +fall plunged the race was not better than one in which no moral struggle +was necessary, was not characteristic of seventeenth-century +theology,--but it was just like Milton. + +There is no knowledge so intimate as that possessed by the reader of one +book. It is an esoteric joy. The wisdom of the ages concentrated into +one personality and then graciously communicated to the disciple has a +flavor of which the multitudes of mere scholars know nothing. To them +Wisdom is a public character. + + "Doth not Wisdom cry, + And understanding put forth her voice? + In the top of high places + Where the paths meet she standeth." + +But the disciple is not content with such publicity. He shuns the +crowded highways, and delights to hear wisdom speaking in confidential +tones. + +In a little settlement in the far West I once met a somewhat +depressed-looking man who remained silent till a chance remark brought a +glow of enthusiasm to his eyes. + +"Oh," he cried, "you have been reading the Ruins." + +My remark had been of a kind that needed no special reading to account +for it. It merely expressed one of those obvious truths which are likely +to occur to the majority of persons. But to him it seemed so reasonable +that it could only come from the one source of wise thought with which +he was acquainted. + +"The Ruins" proved to be a translation of Volney's "Ruins of Empire." I +fear that I must have given the impression of greater familiarity with +that work than was warranted by the facts, for my new-found friend +received me as a member of the true brotherhood. His tongue was +unloosed, and his intellectual passions, so long pent up, were freed. +Had we not both read "The Ruins"! It was to him more than a book; it was +a symbol of the unutterable things of the mind. It was a passionate +protest against the narrow opinions of his neighbors. It stood for all +that was lifted above the petty gossip of the little community, and for +all that united him to an intellectual world of which he dreamed. + +As we talked I marveled at the amount of sound philosophy this lonely +reader had extracted from "The Ruins." Or had it been that he had +brought the wisdom from his own meditation and deposited it at this +shrine? One can never be sure whether a text has suggested the thought +or the thought has illuminated the text. + +When it happens that the man of one book has chosen a work of intrinsic +value, the result is a kind of knowledge which is of inestimable worth. +It is deeply interfused with the whole imaginative life, it is involved +in every personal experience. + +The supreme example of such intimate knowledge was that which +generations of English speaking men had of the Bible. Apart from any +religious theory, this familiarity was a wonderful fact in the history +of culture. It meant that the ordinary man was not simply in his youth +but throughout his life brought into direct contact with great poetry, +sublime philosophy, vivid history. These were not reserved for state +occasions; they were the daily food of the mind. Into the plain fabric +of western thought was woven a thread of Oriental sentiment. Children +were as familiar with the names and incidents of remote ages and lands +as with their own neighborhood. + +The important things about this culture of the common people was that it +came through mere reading. The Bible was printed "without note or +comment." The lack of critical apparatus and of preliminary training +was the cause of many incidental mistakes; but it prevented the greatest +mistake of all,--that of obscuring the text by the commentary. + +In these days there has been a great advance in critical scholarship. +Much more is known about the Bible, at least by those who have made it +the object of special study; but there is a suspicion that fewer persons +know the Bible than in the days when there were no "study classes," but +only the habit of daily reading. + +The Protestant insistence upon publishing the Scriptures without note or +comment was an effort to do away with the middle-men who stood between +the Book and its readers. Private judgment, it was declared, was a +sufficient interpreter even of the profoundest utterances. This is a +doctrine that needs to be revived and extended till it takes in all +great literature. + +To come to a book as to a friend, to allow it to speak for itself, +without the intrusion of a third person, this is the substance of the +whole matter. There must be no hard and fast rules, no preconceived +opinions. Because the author has a reputation as a humorist, let him not +be received with an expectant smile. Nothing can be more disconcerting +to his sensitive spirit; and besides, how can you know that he has not a +very serious message to communicate? Because he is said to be capable of +sublimity, do not await him with overstrained sensibilities. Perhaps you +may find him much less sublime and much more entertaining than you had +anticipated. If the sublime vision does come, you will appreciate it all +the more if it comes upon you unawares. + +"As cloud on cloud, as snow on snow, as the bird on the air, and the +planet on space in its flight, so do nations of men and their +institutions rest on thoughts." + +If this be so, can there be any knowledge more important than the +knowledge of what a man actually thinks. "A penny for your thoughts," we +say lightly, knowing well that this hidden treasure cannot be bought. +The world may be described in formal fashion as if it were an unchanging +reality; but how the world appears to each inhabitant of it he alone can +declare. Or perhaps he cannot declare it, for most of us find it +impossible to tell what we really think or feel. In attempting to do it +we fall into conventionality, and succeed only in telling what we think +other people would like to have us think. Only now and then is one born +with the gift of true self-expression. In his speech we recognize a real +person, and not the confused murmur of a multitude. Institutions and +traditions do not account for him; this thought is the more fundamental +fact. Here is a unique bit of knowledge. There is no other way of +getting at it than that of the Gentle Reader,--to shut out the rest of +the world and listen to the man himself. + + * * * * * + +The Riverside Press +_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. +Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + + * * * * * + +The following typographical error was corrected by the etext +transcriber: + +the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirate's immaculate attire.=>the +surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' immaculate attire. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentle Reader, by Samuel McChord Crothers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE READER *** + +***** This file should be named 38873-8.txt or 38873-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/8/7/38873/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously available at The Internet +Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gentle Reader + +Author: Samuel McChord Crothers + +Release Date: February 14, 2012 [EBook #38873] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE READER *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously available at The Internet +Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="357" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="image of the book's cover" /></a> +</p> + +<h1>THE GENTLE READER</h1> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_title_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_title.jpg" width="383" height="550" alt="title page +The Gentle Reader; +BY; +SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS; +BOSTON AND NEW YORK; +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY; +The Riverside Press, Cambridge; +1904" title="The Gentle Reader; +BY; +SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS; +BOSTON AND NEW YORK; +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY; +The Riverside Press, Cambridge; +1904" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="c"><b><i>Copyright, 1903<br /> +<br /> +By Samuel McChord Crothers<br /> +<br /> +All rights reserved<br /> +<br /> +Published October, 1903</i></b></p> + +<h2><a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_preface-a.png" width="150" height="98" alt="Preface" title="Preface" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_w.png" width="45" height="68" alt="W" title="W" /></span>HEN Don Quixote was descanting on the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, +the Duchess interrupted him by expressing a doubt as to that lady's +existence.</p> + +<p>"Much may be said on that point," said Don Quixote. "God only knows +whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world. These are things the +proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths."</p> + +<p>But this admission does not in the least interfere with the habitual +current of his thoughts, or cool the ardor of his loyalty. He proceeds +after the momentary digression as if nothing had happened. "I behold her +as she needs must be, a lady who contains within herself all the +qualities to make her famous throughout the world; beautiful, without +blemish; dignified, without haughtiness; tender, and yet modest; +gracious from courtesy, and courteous from good breeding; and lastly of +illustrious birth."</p> + +<p>If in the following pages I begin by admitting that there is much to be +said in behalf of the popular notion that the Gentle Reader no longer +exists, let this pass simply as an evidence of my decent respect for the +opinion of mankind. To my mind the Gentle Reader is the most agreeable +of companions, and to make his acquaintance is one of the pleasures of +life.</p> + +<p>Of so elusive a personality it is not always possible to give a +consistent account. I have no doubt that I may have occasionally +attributed to him sentiments which are really my own; on the other hand, +I suspect that some views that I have set down as my own may have been +unconsciously derived from him. I have particular reference to the +opinions expressed on the subject of Ignorance. Such confusion of +mental properties the Gentle Reader will readily pardon, for there is no +one in all the world so careless of the distinctions between Meum and +Tuum.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><th align="center" colspan="2"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><big>CONTENTS</big></th></tr> +<tr><td align="right" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Gentle_Reader">The Gentle Reader</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Enjoyment_of_Poetry">The Enjoyment of Poetry</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_035">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Mission_of_Humor">The Mission of Humor</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_064">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#Cases_of_Conscience_Concerning_Witchcrafts">Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcrafts</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Honorable_Points_of_Ignorance">The Honorable Points of Ignorance</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#That_History_should_be_Readable">That History should be Readable</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_167">167</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Evolution_of_the_Gentleman">The Evolution of the Gentleman</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_201">201</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Hinter-land_of_Science">The Hinter-land of Science</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_227">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Gentle_Readers_Friends_among_the_Clergy">The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy</a></span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#Quixotism">Quixotism</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_271">271</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#Intimate_Knowledge_and_Delight">Intimate Knowledge and Delight</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_303">303</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Gentle_Reader" id="The_Gentle_Reader"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_001-a.png" width="300" height="78" alt="The Gentle Reader" title="The Gentle Reader" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_w.png" width="45" height="68" alt="W" title="W" /></span>HAT has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he +has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that +henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the +Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a +generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were +dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were +their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer +would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle +Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate +of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved.</p> + +<p>"Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> have a chat with the Gentle +Reader, and find out what he thinks about it."</p> + +<p>And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the +Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature, +until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle +Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story."</p> + +<p>The thirteenth book of Tom Jones leaves the heroine in the greatest +distress. The last words are, "Nor did this thought once suffer her to +close her eyes during the whole succeeding night." Had Fielding been +addressing the Intelligent Modern Public he would have intensified the +interest by giving an analysis of Sophia's distress so that we should +all share her insomnia. But not at all! While the dear girl is +recovering her spirits it is such an excellent opportunity to have +uninterrupted discourse with the Gentle Reader, who doesn't take these +things too hard, having long since come to "the years that bring the +philosophic mind." So the next chapter is entitled An Essay to prove +that an author will write better for having some knowledge of the +subject on which he treats. The discussion is altogether<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> irrelevant; +that is what the Gentle Reader likes.</p> + +<p>"It is a paradoxical statement you make," he says, trying to draw the +author out. "What are your arguments?"</p> + +<p>Then the author moderates his expressions. "To say the truth I require +no more than that an author should have some little knowledge of the +subject of which he treats."</p> + +<p>"That sounds more reasonable," says the Gentle Reader. "You know how +much I dislike extreme views. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, +that a writer may know a little about his subject. I hope that this may +not prove the opening wedge for erudition. By the way, where was it we +left the sweet Sophy; and do you happen to know anything more about that +scapegrace Jones?"</p> + +<p>That was the way books were written and read in the good old days before +the invention of the telephone and the short story. The generation that +delighted in Fielding and Richardson had some staying power. A book was +something to tie to. No one would say jauntily, "I have read Sir Charles +Grandison," but only, "I am reading."<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> The characters of fiction were +not treated as transient guests, but as lifelong companions destined to +be a solace in old age. The short story, on the other hand, is invented +for people who want a literary "quick lunch." "Tell me a story while I +wait," demands the eager devourer of fiction. "Serve it hot, and be +mighty quick about it!"</p> + +<p>In rushes the story-teller with love, marriage, jealousy, disillusion, +and suicide all served up together before you can say Jack Robinson. +There is no time for explanation, and the reader is in no mood to allow +it. As for the suicide, it must end that way; for it is the quickest. +The ending, "They were happy ever after," cannot be allowed, for the +doting author can never resist the temptation to add another chapter, +dated ten years after, to show how happy they were.</p> + +<p>I sometimes fear that reading, in the old-fashioned sense, may become a +lost art. The habit of resorting to the printed page for information is +an excellent one, but it is not what I have in mind. A person wants +something and knows where to get it. He goes to a book just as he goes +to a department store. Knowledge<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> is a commodity done up in a neat +parcel. So that the article is well made he does not care either for the +manufacturer or the dealer.</p> + +<p>Literature, properly so called, is quite different from this, and +literary values inhere not in things or even in ideas, but in persons. +There are some rare spirits that have imparted themselves to their +words. The book then becomes a person, and reading comes to be a kind of +conversation. The reader is not passive, as if he were listening to a +lecture on The Ethics of the Babylonians. He is sitting by his fireside, +and old friends drop in on him. He knows their habits and whims, and is +glad to see them and to interchange thought. They are perfectly at their +ease, and there is all the time in the world, and if he yawns now and +then nobody is offended, and if he prefers to follow a thought of his +own rather than theirs there is no discourtesy in leaving them. If his +friends are dull this evening, it is because he would have it so; that +is why he invited them. He wants to have a good, cosy, dull time. He has +had enough to stir him up during the day; now he wants to be let down. +He knows a score of good old authors<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> who have lived long in the happy +poppy fields.</p> + +<p>In all good faith he invokes the goddess of the Dunciad:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Her ample presence fills up all the place,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">A veil of fogs dilates her awful face.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Here to her Chosen all her works she shews,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Prose swelled to verse, verse loitering into prose."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The Gentle Reader nods placidly and joins in the ascription:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Great tamer of all human art!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">First in my care and ever at my heart;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Dullness whose good old cause I still defend.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">O ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Still shed a healing mist before the mind;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And lest we err by wit's wild dancing light,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Secure us kindly in our native night."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>I would not call any one a gentle reader who does not now and then take +up a dull book, and enjoy it in the spirit in which it was written.</p> + +<p>Wise old Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, advises the restless +person to "read some pleasant author till he be asleep." Many persons +find the Anatomy of Melancholy to answer this purpose; though Dr. +Johnson declares that it<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> was the only book that took him out of bed two +hours before he wished to rise. It is hard to draw the line between +stimulants and narcotics.</p> + +<p>This insistence on the test of the enjoyment of the dullness of a dull +book is not arbitrary. It arises from the characteristic of the Gentle +Reader. He takes a book for what it is and never for what it is not. If +he doesn't like it at all he doesn't read it. If he does read it, it is +because he likes its real quality. That is the way we do with our +friends. They are the people of whom we say that "we get at them." I +suppose every one of us has some friend of whom we would confess that as +thinker he is inferior to Plato. But we like him no less for that. We +might criticise him if we cared,—but we never care. We prefer to take +him as he is. It is the flavor of his individuality that we enjoy. +Appreciation of literature is the getting at an author, so that we like +what he is, while all that he is not is irrelevant.</p> + +<p>There are those who endeavor to reduce literary criticism to an exact +science. To this end they would eliminate the personal element, and +subject our admirations to fixed standards. In this<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> way it is hoped +that we may ultimately be able to measure the road to Parnassus by +kilometers. All this is much more easily said than done. Personal +likings will not stay eliminated. We admire the acuteness of the critic +who reveals the unsuspected excellence of our favorite writer. It is a +pleasure like that which comes when a friend is received into a learned +society. We don't know much about his learning, but we know that he is a +good fellow, and we are glad to learn that he is getting on. We feel +also a personal satisfaction in having our tastes vindicated and our +enjoyment treated as if it were a virtue, just as Mr. Pecksniff was +pleased with the reflection that while he was eating his dinner, he was +at the same time obeying a law of the Universe.</p> + +<p>But the rub comes when the judgment of the critic disagrees with ours. +We discover that his laws have no penalties, and that if we get more +enjoyment from breaking than from obeying, then we are just that much +ahead. As for giving up an author just because the judgment of the +critic is against him, who ever heard of such a thing? The stanchest +canons of criticism are exploded by a genuine burst of admiration.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<p>That is what happens whenever a writer of original force appears. The +old rules do not explain him, so we must make new rules. We first enjoy +him, and then we welcome the clever persons who assure us that the +enjoyment is greatly to our credit. But—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"You must love him ere to you</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">He shall seem worthy of your love."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>I asked a little four-year-old critic, whose literary judgments I accept +as final, what stories she liked best. She answered, "I like Joseph and +Aladdin and The Forty Thieves and The Probable Son."</p> + +<p>It was a purely individual judgment. Some day she may learn that she has +the opinion of many centuries behind her. When she studies rhetoric she +may be able to tell why Aladdin is better than The Shaving of Shagpat, +and why the story of "The Probable Son" delights her, while the +half-hour homily on the parable makes not the slightest impression on +her mind. The fact is, she knows a good story just as she knows a good +apple. How the flavor got there is a scientific question which she has +not considered;<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> but being there, trust the uncloyed palate to find it +out! She does not set up as a superior person having good taste; but she +says, "I can tell you what tastes good."</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader is not greatly drawn to any formal treatises. He does +not enjoy a bare bit of philosophy that has been moulded into a fixed +form. Yet he dearly loves a philosopher, especially if he turns out to +be a sensible sort of man who doesn't put on airs.</p> + +<p>He likes the old Greek way of philosophizing. What a delight it was for +him to learn that the Academy in Athens was not a white building with +green blinds set upon a bleak hilltop, but a grove where, on pleasant +days, Plato could be found, ready to talk with all comers! That was +something like; no board of trustees, no written examinations, no +text-books—just Plato! You never knew what was to be the subject or +where you were coming out; all you were sure of was that you would come +away with a new idea. Or if you tired of the Academy, there were the +Peripatetics, gentlemen who were drawn together because they imagined +they could think better on their legs; or there were the Stoics, elderly +persons<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> who liked to sit on the porch and discuss the "cosmic weather." +No wonder the Greeks got such a reputation as philosophers! They deserve +no credit for it. Any one would like philosophy were it served up in +that way.</p> + +<p>All that has passed. Were Socrates to come back and enter a downtown +office to inquire after the difference between the Good and the +Beautiful, he would be confronted with one of those neatly printed +cards, intended to discourage the Socratic method during business hours: +"This is our busy day."</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader also has his business hours, and has learned to submit +to their inexorable requirements; but now and then he has a few hours to +himself. He declines an invitation to a progressive euchre party, on the +ground of a previous engagement he had made long ago, in his college +days, to meet some gentlemen of the fifth century <small>B. C.</small> The evening +passes so pleasantly, and the world seems so much fresher in interest, +that he wonders why he doesn't do that sort of thing oftener. Perhaps +there are some other progressive euchre parties he could cut, and the +world be none the worse.<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></p> + +<p>How many people there have been who have gone through the world with +their eyes open, and who have jotted down their impressions by the way! +How quickly these philosophers come to know their own. Listen to Izaak +Walton in his Epistle to the Reader: "I think it fit to tell thee these +following truths, that I did not undertake to write or publish this +discourse of Fish and Fishing to please myself, and that I wish it may +not displease others. And yet I cannot doubt but that by it some readers +may receive so much profit that if they be not very busy men, may make +it not unworthy the time of their perusal. And I wish the reader to take +notice that in the writing of it I have made a recreation of a +recreation; and that it might prove so to thee in the reading, and not +to read dully and tediously, I have in several places mixed some +innocent mirth; of which if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, +then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.... I am the willinger +to justify this innocent mirth because the whole discourse is a kind of +picture of my own disposition, at least of my disposition on such days +and times as I allow myself—when Nat and I go fishing<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> together." How +cleverly he bows out the ichthyologists! How he rebukes the sordid +creature who has come simply to find out how to catch fish! That is the +very spirit of Simon Magus! "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this +matter!"</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader has no ulterior aims. All he wants to know is how +Izaak Walton felt when he went fishing, and what he was thinking about.</p> + +<p>"A kind of picture of a man's own disposition," that is literature. Even +the most futile attempt at self-revelation evokes sympathy. I remember, +as a boy, gazing at an austere volume in my grandfather's library. It +was, as far as I could ascertain, an indigestible mixture of theology +and philology. But my eye was caught by the title, The Diversions of +Purley. I had not the slightest idea who Purley was, but my heart went +out to him at once.</p> + +<p>"Poor Purley!" I said. "If these were your diversions, what a dog's life +you must have led!" I could see Purley gazing vaguely through his +spectacles as he said: "Don't pity me! It's true I have had my +trials,—but then again what larks! See that big book; I did it!" Only +long after did I learn that my sympathy was un-called<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> for, as Purley +was not a person but a place.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Of all the devices for promoting a good understanding the old-fashioned +Preface was the most excellent. It was not an introduction to the +subject, its purpose was personal. In these days the Preface, where it +survives, is reduced to the smallest possible space. It is like the +platform of an electric car which affords the passenger a precarious +foothold while he strives to obey the stern demand of the conductor that +he move forward. But time was when the Preface was the broad hospitable +porch on which the Author and Reader sat for an hour or so and talked +over the enterprise that was before them. Sometimes they would talk so +long that they almost forgot their ostensible subject.</p> + +<p>The very title of Sir William Davenant's "Preface before Gondibert" +suggests the hospitable leisure of the seventeenth century. Gondibert is +a poetical masterpiece not to be lightly adventured upon. The mind must +be duly prepared for it. Sir William, therefore, discourses about poetry +in general, and then takes up special instances.<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p> + +<p>"I will (according as all times have applied their reverence) begin with +Homer."</p> + +<p>"Homer is an admirable point of departure, and I have no doubt but that +you will also tell what you think of Virgil," says the Gentle Reader, +who when he is asked to go a mile is glad to go twain.</p> + +<p>Then follows discourse on Lucan, Statius, Tasso, and the rest.</p> + +<p>"But I feel (sir) that I am falling into the dangerous Fit of a hot +writer; for instead of performing the promise which begins this Preface, +and doth oblige me (after I had given you the judgement of some upon +others), to present myself to your censure, I am wandering after new +thoughts; but I shall ask your pardon and return to my undertaking."</p> + +<p>"No apologies are necessary, I assure you. With new thoughts the rule is +first come, first served, while an immortal masterpiece can wait till +such time as we can enjoy it together."</p> + +<p>After some reflections on the fallibility of the clergy and the state of +the country, the author proceeds to describe the general structure of +his poem.<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a></p> + +<p>"I have now given you an account of such provisions as I have made for +this new Building, and you may next please, having examined the +substance, to take a view of the form." He points out the "shadowings, +happy strokes, and sweet graces" of his work. This is done with an +intimacy of knowledge and fullness of appreciation that could not be +possible in a stranger.</p> + +<p>"'Tis now fit, after I have given you so long a survey of the Building, +to render you some account of the Builder, that you may know by what +times, pains, and assistance I have already proceeded."</p> + +<p>The time passes with much pleasure and profit until at last the host +says: "And now (sir) I shall after my busy vanitie in shewing and +describing my new Building, with great quietness, being almost as weary +as yourself, bring you to the Back-dore."</p> + +<p>It is all so handsomely done that the reader is prepared to begin upon +the poem itself, and would do so were it not that the distinguished +friend of the author, Mr. Hobbes, has prepared An Answer to the +Preface—a point of politeness which has not survived the seventeenth +century. Mr. Hobbes<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> is of the opinion that there is only one point in +which Gondibert is inferior to the masterpieces of antiquity, and that +is that it is written in English instead of in Greek or Latin. The +Preface and Answer to the Preface having been read, the further +discovery is made that there is a Postscript.</p> + +<p>The Author, it appears, has fallen on evil days, and is in prison +charged with High Treason.</p> + +<p>"I am arrived here at the middle of the Third Book which makes an equal +half of the Poem, and I was now by degrees to present you (as I promised +in the Preface) the several keys to the Main Building, which should +convey you through such short walks as give you an easie view of the +whole Frame. But 'tis high time to strike sail and cast anchor (though I +have but run half my course), when at the Helme I am threatened with +Death, who though he can trouble us but once seems troublesome, and even +in the Innocent may beget such gravitie as diverts the Musick of Verse. +I beseech thee if thou art as civill as to be pleased with what is +written, not to take it ill that I run not till my last gasp.... If thou +art a malicious Reader thou wilt remember my Preface<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> boldly confessed +that a main motive to this undertaking was a desire of Fame, and thou +maist likewise say that I may not possibly live to enjoy it.... If thou +(Reader) art one of those who has been warmed with Poetick Fire, I +reverence thee as my Judge, and whilst others tax me with Vanitie as if +the Preface argued my good Opinion of the Work, I appeal to thy +Conscience whether it be much more than such a necessary assurance as +thou hast made to thyself in like Undertakings."</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader feels that whatever may be the merits of Gondibert, +Sir William Davenant is a gallant gentleman and worthy of his lasting +friendship.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader has a warm place in his heart for those whom he calls +the paradisaical writers. These are the unfallen spirits who reveal +their native dispositions and are not ashamed. They write about that +which they find most interesting—themselves. They not only tell us what +happens, but what they think and how they feel. We are made partners of +their joys and sorrows. The first person singular is glorified by their +use.<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a></p> + +<p>"But," says the Severe Moralist, "don't you frequently discover that +these persons are vain?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely so," answers the Gentle Reader, "and that's what I want to +find out. How are you going to discover what an author thinks about +himself if he hides behind a mask of impersonality? There is no getting +acquainted with such hypocrites. In five hundred pages you may not have +a glimpse of the man behind the book, though he may be bubbling over +with self-conceit. There was Alexander Cruden, one of the most eccentric +persons of the eighteenth century. Fully persuaded of his own greatness, +he called himself Alexander the Corrector and announced that he was +destined to be 'the second Joseph and a great man at court.' He haunted +the ante-chambers of the nobility, but found only one nobleman who would +listen to him, Earl Paulett, 'who being goutish in his feet could not +run away from the Corrector as other men are apt to do.' Cruden appears +to have spent his leisure moments in going about London with a large +piece of sponge with which he erased any offensive chalk marks on the +walls. 'This employment,' says his biographer, 'occasionally<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> made his +walks very tedious.' Now one might consult Cruden's 'Concordance of the +Holy Scriptures' in vain for any hint of these idiosyncrasies of the +author. Perhaps the nature of the work made this impossible. But what +shall we say of writers who, having no such excuse, take pains to +conceal from us what manner of men they were. Even David Hume, whose +good opinion of himself is a credit to his critical sagacity, assumes an +apologetic tone when he ventures upon a sketch of his own life. 'It is +difficult,' he says, 'for a man to speak long about himself without +vanity; therefore I shall be brief.' What obtuseness that shows in a +philosopher who actually wrote a treatise on human nature! What did he +know about human nature if he thought anybody would read an +auto-biography that was without vanity? Vanity is one of the most +lovable of weaknesses. If in our contemporaries it sometimes troubles +us, that is only because two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the +same time. But when it is all put in a book and the pure juices of +self-satisfaction have been allowed to mellow for a few centuries, +nothing can be more delicious."<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a></p> + +<p>His heart was won by a single sentence in one of Horace Walpole's +letters: "I write to you as I think." To the writer who gives him this +mark of confidence he is as faithful as is the Arab to the guest who has +eaten salt in his tent. The books which contain the results of thought +are common enough, but it is a rare privilege to share with a pleasant +gentleman the act of thinking. If the thoughts are those which arise +spontaneously out of the incidents of the passing day, so much the +better. He therefore warmly resents Wordsworth's remark about "that cold +and false-hearted, frenchified coxcomb, Horace Walpole."</p> + +<p>"What has Horace Walpole done except to give us a picture of his own +disposition and incidentally of the world he lived in? It is an instance +of the ingratitude of Republics—and the Republic of Letters is the most +ungrateful of them all—that this should be made the ground of a railing +accusation against him. Walpole might answer as Timoleon did, when, +after having restored the liberties of Syracuse, a citizen denounced him +in the popular assembly. The Liberator replied: 'I cannot sufficiently +express<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> my gratitude to the gods for granting my request in permitting +me to see all the Syracusans enjoy the liberty of saying what they think +fit.' A man who could write letters for sixty-two years revealing every +phase of feeling for the benefit of posterity earns the right of making +as magnanimous a retort as that of any of Plutarch's men. He might well +thank the gods for permitting him to furnish future generations with +ample material for passing judgment upon him. For myself, I do not agree +with Wordsworth. I have summered and wintered with Horace Walpole and he +has never played me false; he has shown himself exactly as he is. To be +sure, he has his weaknesses, but he is always ready to share them with +his friends. I suppose that is the reason why he is accused of being +frenchified. A true born Englishman would have kept his faults to +himself as if they were incommunicable attributes. I am not going to +allow a bit of criticism to come between us at this late day. The +relation between Reader and Author is not to be treated so lightly. I +believe that there is no reason for separation in such cases except +incompatibility of temper."<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<p>Then he makes his way to Strawberry Hill and listens to its master +describing his possession. "It is set in enameled meadows with filigree +hedges,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And little finches wave their wings of gold.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually +with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as barons of the exchequer +move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospects; +but thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. +Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is +just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight."</p> + +<p>It is pleasant to sit in the Gothic villa on Strawberry Hill and see the +world pass by. The small Euphrates, the filigree hedges, and the +gossiping dowagers, being in the foreground, appear more important than +they do in the formal histories which have no perspective. But the great +world does pass by, and the master of the house is familiar with it and +recognizes every<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> important person in the procession. Was he not a Prime +Minister's son, and were not his first letters written from Downing +Street?</p> + +<p>How rapidly the procession moves, giving only time for a nod and a word! +The reader is like a country cousin in the metropolis bewildered by a +host of new sensations. Now and then he smiles as some one whose name +has been long familiar is pointed out. The chief wonder is that there +are so many notabilities of whom he has never heard before. What an +unconscionable number of Duchesses there are, and each one has a +history! How different the Statesmen are from what he had imagined; not +nearly so wise but ever so much more amusing. Even the great William +Pitt appears to be only "Sir William Quixote," and a fantastic figure he +is! Strawberry Hill has its prejudices. It listens incredulously to the +stories illustrative of incorruptible political virtue. They are tales +to be told to Posterity.</p> + +<p>In regard to the historical drama that unfolds there is a pleasant +ambiguity. Which is it that sees behind the scenes,—the writer or the +present-day reader? The reader representing Posterity<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> has a general +notion of the progress of events. He thinks he knows how things actually +came out and which were the more important. He is anxious to know how +they strike a contemporary. But he is chastened by the discovery of the +innumerable incidents which Posterity has forgotten, but which made a +great stir in their day. "The Tower guns have sworn through thick and +thin that Prince Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and city +bonfires all believe it." Prince Ferdinand "is the most fashionable man +in England. Have not the Tower guns and all the parsons in London been +ordered to pray for him?"</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader is almost tempted to look up Prince Ferdinand, but is +diverted from this inquiry by a bit of gossip about the Duke of +Marlborough and the silver spoons.</p> + +<p>When he comes to the glorious year 1775 he is eager to learn the +sensations of Walpole when the echoes of the "shot heard round the +world" come to him. The shot is heard, but its effect is not so +startling as might have been imagined. "I did but put my head into +London on Thursday, and more bad news from America. I wonder<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> when it +will be bad enough to make folks think it so, without going on?" Then +Walpole turns to something more interesting. "I have a great mind to +tell you a Twickenham story."</p> + +<p>It is about a certain Captain Mawhood who had "applied himself to learn +the classics and free-thinking and was always disputing with the parson +of the parish about Dido and his own soul."</p> + +<p>It is not just what the Gentle Reader was expecting, but he adapts +himself cheerfully to the situation.</p> + +<p>"I was about to inquire what you thought about the American war, but we +may come to that at some other time. Now let us have the Twickenham +story."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader loves the writers who reveal their intellectual +limitations, but he does not care for those who insist upon telling him +their physical ailments. He is averse to the letters and journals which +are merely contributions to pathology. Indeed, he would, if he had his +own way, allow the mention of only one malady, the gout. This is +doubtless painful enough in the flesh, but<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> in a book it has many +pleasant associations. Its intervals seem conducive to reminiscence, and +its twinges are the occasions of eloquent objurgations which light up +many an otherwise colorless page.</p> + +<p>With all his tolerance of vanity he dislikes that inverted kind which +induces certain morbid persons to write out painful confessions of their +own sins. He is willing to believe that they are far from perfect, but +he is sceptical in regard to their claims to be the chief of sinners. It +is hard to attain distinction in a line where there is so much +competition.</p> + +<p>When he finds a book of Life and Letters unreadable, he does not bring a +railing accusation against either the biographer or the biographee.</p> + +<p>They may both have been interesting persons, though the result in cold +print is not exhilarating. He knows how volatile is the charm of +personality, and how hard it is to preserve the best things. His friend, +who is a great diner-out, says: "Those were delightful people I met at +dinner yesterday, and what a capital story the judge told! I laugh every +time I think about it."<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a></p> + +<p>"What story?" asks the Gentle Reader, eager for the crumbs that fall +from the witty man's table.</p> + +<p>"I can't remember just what it was about, or what was the point of it; +but it was a good story, and you would have thought so, too, if you had +heard the judge tell it."</p> + +<p>"I certainly should," replies the Gentle Reader, "and I shall always +believe, on your testimony, that the judge is one of the best +story-tellers in existence."</p> + +<p>In like manner he believes in interesting things that great men must +have done which unfortunately were not taken down by any one at the +time.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader himself is not much at home in fashionable literary +society. He is a shy person, and his embarrassment is increased by the +consciousness that he seldom gets round to a book till after people are +through talking about it. Not that he prides himself on this fact; for +he is far from cherishing the foolish prejudice against new books.</p> + +<p>"'David Copperfield' was a new book once,<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> and it was as good then as it +is now." It simply happens that there are so many good books that it is +hard to keep up with the procession. Besides, he has discovered that the +books that are talked about can be talked about just as well without +being read; this leaves him more time for his old favorites.</p> + +<p>"I have a sweet little story for you," says the charming authoress. "I +am sure you like sweet little stories."</p> + +<p>"Only one lump, if you please," says the Gentle Reader.</p> + +<p>In spite of his genial temperament there are some subjects on which he +is intolerant. When he picks up a story that turns out to be only a +Tract for the Times, he turns indignantly on the author.</p> + +<p>"Sirrah," he cries, under the influence of deep feeling, relapsing into +the vernacular of romance, "you gained access to me under the plea that +you were going to please me; and now that you have stolen a portion of +my time, you throw off all disguise, and admit that you entered with +intent to instruct, and that you do not care whether you please me or +not! I've a mind to have you<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> arrested for obtaining my attention under +false pretenses! How villainously we are imposed upon! Only the other +day a man came to me highly recommended as an architect. I employed him +to build me a Castle in Spain, regardless of expense. When I suggested a +few pleasant embellishments, the wretch refused on the ground that he +never saw anything of the kind in the town he came from,—Toledo, Ohio. +If he had pleaded honest poverty of invention I should have forgiven +him, but he took a high and mighty tone with me, and said that it was +against his principles to allow any incident that was not probable. 'Who +said that it should be probable?' I replied. 'It is your business to +make it <i>seem</i> probable.'"</p> + +<p>He highly disapproves of what he considers the cheese-paring economy on +the part of certain novelists in the endowment of their characters. +"Their traits are so microscopic, and require such minute analysis, that +I get half through the book before I know which is which. It seems as if +the writers were not sure that there was enough human nature to go +around. They should study the good old story of Aboukir and Abousir.<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a></p> + +<p>"'There were in the city of Alexandria two men,—one was a dyer, and his +name was Aboukir; the other was a barber, and his name was Abousir. They +were neighbors, and the dyer was a swindler, a liar, and a person of +exceeding wickedness.'</p> + +<p>"Now, there the writer and reader start fair. There are no unnecessary +concealments. You know that the dyer is a villain, and you are on your +guard. You are not told in the first paragraph about the barber, but you +take it for granted that he is an excellent, well-meaning man, who is +destined to become enormously wealthy. And so it turns out. If our +writers would only follow this straightforward method we should hear +less about nervous prostration among the reading classes." He is very +severe on the whimsical notion, that never occurred to any one until the +last century, of saying that the heroine is not beautiful.</p> + +<p>"Such a remark is altogether gratuitous. When I become attached to a +young lady in fiction she always appears to me to be an extraordinarily +lovely creature. It's sheer impertinence for the author to intrude, +every now and then,<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> just to call my attention to the fact that her +complexion is not good, and that her features are irregular. It's bad +manners,—and, besides, I don't believe that it's true."</p> + +<p>Nothing, however, so offends the Gentle Reader as the trick of +elaborating a plot and then refusing to elucidate it, and leaving +everything at loose ends. He feels toward this misdirected ingenuity as +Miss Edgeworth's Harry did toward the conundrum which his sister +proposed.</p> + +<p>"This is quite different," he said, "from the others. The worst of it is +that after laboring ever so hard at one riddle it does not in the least +lead to another. The next is always on some other principle."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to be sure," said Lucy. "Nobody who knows how to puzzle would give +two riddles of the same kind; that would be too easy."</p> + +<p>"But then, without something to guide one," said Harry, "there is no +getting on."</p> + +<p>"Not in your regular way," said Lucy.</p> + +<p>"That is the very thing I complain of," said Harry.</p> + +<p>"Complain! But my dear Harry, riddles are meant only to divert one."<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a></p> + +<p>"But they do not divert me," said Harry; "they only puzzle me."</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader is inclined to impute unworthy motives to the writer +whose work merely puzzles him.</p> + +<p>"The lazy unscrupulous fellow takes a job, and then throws it up and +leaves me to finish it for him. It's a clear breach of contract! That +sort of thing would never have been allowed in any well-governed +community. Fancy what would have happened in the court of Shahriar, +where story-telling was taken seriously."</p> + +<p>Sheherazade has got Sindbad on the moving island.</p> + +<p>"How did he get off?" asks the Sultan.</p> + +<p>"That's for your majesty to find out," answers Sheherazade archly. +"Maybe he got off, and maybe he didn't. That's the problem."</p> + +<p>"Off with her head!" says the Sultan.</p> + +<p>When sore beset by novelists who, under the guise of fiction, attempt to +saddle him with "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world," the +Gentle Reader takes refuge with one who has never deceived him.</p> + +<p>"What shall it be?" says Sir Walter.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a></p> + +<p>"As you please, Sir Walter."</p> + +<p>"No! As <i>you</i> please, Gentle Reader. If you have nothing else in mind, +how would this do for a start?—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'Waken! Lords and Ladies gay!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">On the mountain dawns the day.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">It's a fine morning, and it's a gallant company! +Let's go with them!"</p> + +<p>"Let's!" cries the Gentle Reader.<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Enjoyment_of_Poetry" id="The_Enjoyment_of_Poetry"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_035a.png" width="320" height="61" alt="The Enjoyment of Poetry" title="The Enjoyment of Poetry" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_b.png" width="35" height="68" alt="B" title="B" /></span>ROWNING'S description of the effect of +the recital of classic poetry upon a band of +piratical Greeks must seem to many persons to +be exaggerated:—</p> + +<p> +"Then, because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And poetry is power, they all outbroke</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In a great joyous laughter with much love."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="nind">Because Americans are Americans, and business is business, and time is +money, and life is earnest, we take our poetry much more seriously than +that. We are ready to form classes to study it and to discuss it, but +these solemn assemblies are not likely to be disturbed by outbursts of +"great joyous laughter."</p> + +<p>We usually accept poetry as mental discipline. It is as if the poet +said, "Go to, now. I will<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> produce a masterpiece." Thereupon the +conscientious reader answers, "Very well; I can stand it. I will apply +myself with all diligence, that by means of it I may improve my mind." +Who has not sometimes quailed before the long row of British Poets in +uniform binding, standing stiffly side by side, like so many British +grenadiers on dress parade? Who has not felt his courage ooze away at +the sight of those melancholy volumes labeled Complete Poetical Works? +Poetical Remains they used to call them, and there is something funereal +in their aspect.</p> + +<p>The old hymn says, "Religion never was designed to make our pleasures +less," and the same thing ought to be said about poetry. The distaste +for poetry arises largely from the habit of treating it as if it were +only a more difficult kind of prose. We are so much under the tyranny of +the scientific method that the habits of the school-room intrude, and we +try to extract instruction from what was meant to give us joy. The +prosaic commentary obscures the beauty of the text, so that</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"The glad old romance, the gay chivalrous story,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">With its fables of faery, its legends of glory,<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Is turned to a tedious instruction, not new,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To the children, who read it insipidly through."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>One of the most ruthless invasions of the prosaic faculties into the +realm of poetry comes from the thirst for general information. When this +thirst becomes a disease, it is not satisfied with census reports and +encyclopædia articles, but values literature according to the number of +facts presented. Suppose these lines from "Paradise Lost" to be taken +for study:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Busiris and his Memphian chivalry."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>What an opportunity this presents to the schoolmaster! "Come now," he +cries with pedagogic glee, "answer me a few questions. Where is +Vallombrosa? What is the character of its autumnal foliage? Bound +Etruria. What is sedge? Explain the myth of Orion? Point out the +constellation on the map of the heavens. Where is the Red Sea? Who was +Busiris? By what other name was he known? Who were the Memphian +Chivalry?"<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p>Here is material for exhaustive research in geography, ancient and +modern, history, botany, astronomy, meteorology, chronology, and +archæology. The industrious student may get almost as much information +out of "Paradise Lost" as from one of those handy compilations of useful +knowledge, which are sold on the railway cars for twenty-five cents. As +for the poetry of Milton, that is another matter.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Next to the temptation to use a poem as a receptacle for a mass of +collateral information is that to use it for the display of one's own +penetration. As in the one case it is treated as if it were an +encyclopædia article, in the other it is treated as if it were a verbal +puzzle. It is taken for granted that the intention of the poet is to +conceal thought, and the game is for the reader to find it out. We are +hunting for hidden meanings, and we greet one another with the grim +salutation of the creatures in the jungle: "Good hunting!" "What is the +meaning of this passage?" Who has not heard this sudden question +propounded in regard to the most transparent sentence from an author who +is deemed<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> worthy of study? The uninitiated, in the simplicity of his +heart, might answer that he probably means what he says. Not at all; if +that were so, "what are we here for?" We are here to find hidden +meanings, and one who finds the meaning simple must be stopped, as +Armado stops Moth, with</p> + +<p class="c">"Define, define, well-educated infant."</p> + +<p class="nind">It is a verbal masquerade to which we have been invited. No knowing what +princes in disguise, as well as anarchists and nihilists and other +objectionably interesting persons, may be discovered when the time for +unmasking comes.</p> + +<p>Now, the effect of all this is that many persons turn away from the +poets altogether. Why should they spend valuable time in trying to +unravel the meaning of lines which were invented to baffle them? There +are plenty of things we do not understand, without going out of our way +to find them. Then, as Pope observes,</p> + +<p class="c">"True No-meaning puzzles more than Wit."</p> + +<p>The poets themselves, as if conscious that they are objects of +suspicion, are inclined to be apologetic,<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> and endeavor to show that +they are doing business on a sound prosaic basis. Wordsworth set the +example of such painstaking self-justification. His conscience compelled +him to make amends to the literal minded Public for poetic +indiscretions, and to offer to settle all claims for damages. What a +shame-faced excuse he makes for the noble lines on Rob Roy's grave. "I +have since been told that I was misinformed as to the burial-place of +Rob Roy; if so, I may plead in excuse that I wrote on apparently good +authority, namely that of a well-educated lady who lived at the head of +the lake."</p> + +<p>One is reminded of the preface to the works of The Sweet Singer of +Michigan: "This little book is composed of truthful pieces. All those +which speak of being killed, died, or drowned are truthful songs, others +are more truth than poetry."</p> + +<p>It is against this mistaken conscientiousness that the Gentle Reader +protests. He insists that the true "defense of poesy" is that it has an +altogether different function from prose. It is not to be appreciated by +the prosaic understanding; unless, indeed, that awkward faculty be<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> +treated to some Delsartean decomposing exercises to get rid of its +stiffness.</p> + +<p>"When I want more truth than poetry," he says, "I will go directly to +The Sweet Singer of Michigan, or I will inquire of the well-educated +lady who lives at the head of the lake. I do not like to have a poet +troubled about such small matters."</p> + +<p>Then he reads with approval the remarks of one of his own order who +lived in the seventeenth century, who protests against those "who take +away the liberty of a poet and fetter his feet in the shackles of an +historian. For why should a poet doubt in story to mend the intrigues of +fortune by more delightful conveyances of probable fictions because +austere historians have entered into bond to truth; an obligation which +were in poets as foolish and unnecessary as is the bondage of false +martyrs, who lie in chains for a mistaken opinion. But by this I would +imply that truth, narrative and past, is the idol of historians (who +worship a dead thing), and truth operative and by effects continually +alive is the mistress of poets, who hath not her existence in matter but +in reason."<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a></p> + +<p>I am well aware that the attitude of the Gentle Reader seems to many +strenuous persons to be unworthy of our industrial civilization. These +persons insist that we shall make hard work of our poetry, if for no +other reason than to preserve our self-respect. Here as elsewhere they +insist upon the stern law that if a man will not labor neither shall he +eat. Even the poems of an earlier and simpler age which any child can +understand must be invested with some artificial difficulty. The learned +guardians of these treasures insist that they cannot be appreciated +unless there has been much preliminary wrestling with a "critical +apparatus," and much delving among "original sources." This is the same +principle that makes the prudent householder provide a sharp saw and a +sufficient pile of cord wood as a test to be applied to the stranger who +asks for a breakfast. There is much academic disapproval of one who in +defiance of all law insists on enjoying poetry after his own "undressed, +unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or +ratherest unconfirmed fashion." I, however, so thoroughly sympathize +with the Gentle Reader that I desire to present his point of view.<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a></p> + +<p>To understand poetry is a vain ambition. That which we fully understand +is the part that is not poetry. It is that which passes our +understanding which has the secret in itself. There is an incommunicable +grace that defies all attempts at analysis. Poetry is like music; it is +fitted, not to define an idea or to describe a fact, but to voice a +mood. The mood may be the mood of a very simple person,—the mood of a +shepherd watching his flocks, or of a peasant in the fields; or, on the +other hand, it may be the mood of a philosopher whose mind has been +engrossed with the most subtle problems of existence. But in each case +the mood, by some suggestion, must be communicated to us. Thoughts and +facts must be transfigured; they must come to us as through some finer +medium. As we are told that we must experience religion before we know +what religion is, so we must experience poetry. The poet is the +enchanter, and we are the willing victims of his spells:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Would'st thou see</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">A man i' th' clouds and hear him speak to thee?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Would'st thou be in a dream and yet not sleep?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep?<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And find thyself again without a charm?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">O then come hither</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And lay my book, thy head and heart together."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Only the reader who yields to the charm can dream the dream. The poet +may weave his story of the most common stuff, but "there's magic in the +web of it." If we are conscious of this magical power, we forgive the +lack of everything else. The poet may be as ignorant as Aladdin himself, +but he has a strange power over our imaginations. At his word they obey, +traversing continents, building palaces, painting pictures. They say, +"We are ready to obey as thy slaves, and the slaves of all that have +that lamp in their hands,—we and the other slaves of the lamp."</p> + +<p>This is the characteristic of the poet's power. He does not construct a +work of the imagination,—he makes our imaginations do that. That is why +the fine passages of elaborate description in verse are usually +failures. The verse-maker describes accurately and at length. The poet +speaks a word, and Presto! change! We are transported into a new land, +and our eyes are "baptized into the grace and privilege of seeing."<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +Many have taken in hand to write descriptions of spring; and some few +painstaking persons have nerved themselves to read what has been +written. I turn to the prologue of the "Canterbury Tales;" it is not +about spring, it is spring, and I am among those who long to go upon a +pilgrimage. A description of a jungle is an impertinence to one who has +come under the spell of William Blake's</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Tiger! tiger! burning bright</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">In the forest of the night."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Those fierce eyes glowing there in the darkness sufficiently illuminate +the scene. Immediately it is midsummer, and we feel all its delicious +languor when Browning's David sings of</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"The sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The first essential to the enjoyment of poetry is leisure. The demon +Hurry is the tempter, and knowledge is the forbidden fruit in the poet's +paradise. To enjoy poetry, you must renounce not only your easily +besetting sins, but your easily besetting virtues as well. You must not +be industrious, or argumentative, or conscientious, or strenuous. I do +not mean that<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> you must be a person of unlimited leisure and without +visible means of support. I have known some very conscientious students +of literature who, when off duty, found time to enjoy poetry. I mean +that if you have only half an hour for poetry, for that half hour you +must be in a leisurely frame of mind.</p> + +<p>The poet differs from the novelist in that he requires us to rest from +our labors. The ordinary novel is easy reading, because it takes us as +we are, in the midst of our hurry. The mind has been going at express +speed all the day; what the novelist does is to turn the switch, and off +we go on another track. The steam is up, and the wheels go around just +the same. The great thing is still action, and we eagerly turn the pages +to see what is going to happen next,—unless we are reading some of our +modern realistic studies of character. Even then we are lured on by the +expectation that, at the last moment, something may happen. But when we +turn to the poets, we are in the land of the lotus-eaters. The +atmosphere is that of a perfect day,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Whereon it is enough for me</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Not to be doing, but to be."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<p>Into this land our daily cares cannot follow us. It is an</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"enchanted land, we know not where,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">But lovely as a landscape in a dream."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Once in this enchanted country, haste seems foolish. Why should we toil +on as if we were walking for a wager? It is as if one had the privilege +of joining Izaak Walton as he loiters in the cool shade of a sweet +honeysuckle hedge, and should churlishly trudge on along the dusty +highway rather than accept the gentle angler's invitation: "Pray, let us +rest ourselves in this sweet, shady arbor of jessamine and myrtle; and I +will requite you with a bottle of sack, and when you have pledged me, I +will repeat the verses I promised you." One may, as a matter of strict +conscience, be both a pedestrian and a prohibitionist, and yet not find +it in his heart to decline such an invitation.</p> + +<p>The poets who delight us with their verses are not always serious-minded +persons with an important thought to communicate. When I read,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">A stately pleasure-dome decree,"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>I am not a bit wiser than I was before, but I am<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> a great deal happier; +although I have not the slightest idea where Xanadu was, and only the +vaguest notion of Kublai Khan.</p> + +<p>There are poems whose charm lies in their illusiveness. Fancy any one +trying to explain Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Yet when the mood is on +us we see her as she leans</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"From the gold bar of Heaven:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Her eyes were deeper than the depth</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of waters stilled at even;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">She had three lilies in her hand</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And the stars in her hair were seven."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>We look over the mystic ramparts and are dimly conscious that</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"the souls mounting up to God</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Went by her like thin flames."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>This is not astronomy nor theology, nor any of the things we know all +about—it is only poetry.</p> + +<p>Let no one trouble me by attempting to elucidate "Childe Roland to the +Dark Tower came." I do not care for a Baedeker. I prefer to lose my way. +I love the darkness rather than light. I do not care for a topographical +chart of the hills that</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"like giants at a hunting lay,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Chin upon hand."<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The mood in which we enjoy such poetry is that described in Emerson's +"Forerunners."</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Long I followed happy guides,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">I could never reach their sides.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">But no speed of mine avails</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To hunt upon their shining trails.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">On eastern hills I see their smokes,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Mixed with mist by distant lochs.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">I met many travelers</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Who the road had surely kept:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">They saw not my fine revelers."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>If our thoughts make haste to join these "fine revelers," rejoicing in +the sense of freedom and mystery, delighting in the mist and the wind, +careless of attaining so that we may follow the shining trails, all is +well.</p> + +<p>As there are poems which are not meant to be understood, so there are +poems that are not meant to be read; that is, to be read through. There +is Keats's "Endymion," for instance. I have never been able to get on +with it. Yet it is delightful,—that is the very reason why I do not +care to get on with it. Wherever I begin, I feel that I might as well +stay where I am. It is a sweet wilderness into which the reader is +introduced.<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Paths there were many,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Winding through palmy fern and rushes fenny</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">To a wide lawn...</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Who could tell</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The freshness of the space of heaven above,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Edged round with dark tree-tops?—through which a dove</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Would often beat its wings, and often, too,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">A little cloud would move across the blue."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>We are brought into the very midst of this pleasantness. Deep in the +wood we see fair faces and garments white. We see the shepherds coming +to the woodland altar.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">As may be read of in Arcadian books;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Such as sat list'ning round Apollo's pipe</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">When the great deity, for earth too ripe,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Let his divinity o'erflowing die</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">In music, through the vales of Thessaly."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>We see the venerable priest pouring out the sweet-scented wine, and then +we see the young Endymion himself:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"He seemed</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">To common lookers-on like one who dreamed</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Of idleness in groves Elysian."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>What happened next? What did Endymion do? Really, I do not know. It is +so much pleasanter, at this point, to close the book, and<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> dream "of +idleness in groves Elysian." The chances are that when one turns to the +poem again he will not begin where he left off, but at the beginning, +and read as if he had never read it before; or rather, with more +enjoyment because he has read it so many times:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"A thing of beauty is a joy forever:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Its loveliness increases; it will never</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Pass into nothingness; but still will keep</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">A bower quiet for us, and a sleep</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Shelley describes a mood such as Keats brings to us:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"My spirit like a charmèd bark doth swim</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Far away into regions dim</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of rapture, as a boat with swift sails winging</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Its way adown some many-winding river."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>He who finds himself afloat upon the "many-winding river" throws aside +the laboring oar. It is enough to float on,—he cares not whither.</p> + +<p>What greater pleasure is there than in the "Idylls of the King" provided +we do not study them, but dream them. We must enter into the poet's own +mood:—<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"I seemed</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">To sail with Arthur under looming shores,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Begin to feel the truth and stir of day."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">It is good to be there, in that far-off time, good to come to Camelot:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Built by old kings, age after age,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">So strange and rich and dim."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">All we see of kings, and magicians, and ladies, and knights is "strange +and rich and dim." Over everything is a luminous haze. There are</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"hollow tramplings up and down,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And muffled voices heard, and shadows past."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">There is the flashing of swords, the weaving of spells, the seeing of +visions. All these things become real to us; not simply the stainless +king and the sinful queen, the prowess of Lancelot and the love of +Elaine, but the magic of Merlin and the sorceries of Vivien, with her +charms</p> + +<p class="c">"Of woven paces and of waving hands."</p> + +<p class="nind">And we must stand at last with King Arthur on the shore of the mystic +sea, and see the barge come slowly with the three queens, "black-stoled, +black-hooded, like a dream;" and hear across the water a cry,<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"As it were one voice, an agony</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">All night in a waste land, where no one comes,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Or hath come, since the making of the world."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But what good is there in all this? Why waste time on idle dreams? We +hear Walt Whitman's challenge to romantic poetry:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Arthur vanished with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad, all gone, dissolved utterly like an exhalation;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Embroidered, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Passed to its charnel vault, coffined with crown and armor on,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Blazoned with Shakspere's purple page</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Away with the old romance! Make room for the modern bard, who is</p> + +<p class="c">"Bluffed not a bit by drain-pipes, gasometers, and artificial fertilizers."</p> + +<p class="nind">The Gentle Reader, also, is not to be bluffed by any useful things, +however unpleasant they may be, but he winces a little as he reads that +the "far superber themes for poets and for art" include the teaching by +the poet of how<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"To use the hammer and the saw (rip or cross-cut),</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To invent a little something ingenious to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">The Muse of Poetry shrieks at the mighty lines in praise of +"leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making," and the rest. +Boiler-making, she protests, is a useful industry and highly to be +commended, but it is not music. When asked to give a reason why she +should not receive all these things as poetry, the Muse is much +embarrassed. "It's all true," she says. "Leather-dressing and +boiler-making are undoubted realities, while Arthur and Lancelot may be +myths." Yet she is not quite ready to be off with the old love and on +with the new,—it's all so sudden.</p> + +<p>Whitman himself furnishes the best illustrations of the difference +between poetry and prose. He comes like another Balaam to prophesy +against those who associate poetry with beauty of form and melody of +words; and then the poetic spirit seizes upon him and lifts him into the +region of harmony. In the Song of the Universal he declares that—<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"From imperfection's murkiest cloud</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">One flash of heaven's glory.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To fashion's, customs discord,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To the mad Babel's din, the deafening orgies,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">From some far shore, the final chorus sounding.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">O the blest eyes, the happy hearts</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That see, that know the guiding thread so fine</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Along the mighty labyrinth."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">There speaks the poet declaring the true faith, which except a man +believe he is condemned everlastingly to the outer darkness. His task is +selective. No matter about the murkiness of the cloud he must make us +see the ray of perfect light. In the mad Babel-din he must hear and +repeat the strain of pure music. As to the field of choice, it may be as +wide as the world, but he must choose as a poet, and not after the +manner of the man with the muck-rake.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"In this broad earth of ours</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Inclosed and safe within the central heart</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Nestles the seed perfection."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>When the poet delves in the grossness and the slag, he does so as one +engaged in the search for the perfect.<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a></p> + +<p>"My feeling," says the Gentle Reader, "about the proper material for +poetry, is very much like that of Whitman in regard to humanity—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my friendly companions,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"So I say, when drain pipes and cross-cut saws and the beef on the +butcher's stalls are invested with beautiful associations and thrill my +soul in some mysterious fashion, then I will make as much of these +things as I do of the murmuring pines and the hemlocks. When a poet +makes bank clerks and stevedores and wood-choppers to loom before my +imagination in heroic proportions, I will receive them as I do the +heroes of old. But, mind you, the miracle must be actually performed; I +will not be put off with a prospectus."</p> + +<p>Now and then the miracle is performed. We are made to feel the romance +that surrounds the American pioneer, we hear the</p> + +<p class="c">"Crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven by strong arms."</p> + +<p>But, for the most part, Whitman, when under<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> the influence of deep +feeling, forgets his theory, and uses as his symbols those things which +have already been invested with poetical associations. Turn to that +marvelous dirge, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard bloomed." There is +here no catalogue of facts or events, no parade of glaring realism. +Tennyson's "sweet sad rhyme" has nowhere more delicious music than we +find in the measured cadence of these lines. We are not told the news of +the assassination of Lincoln as a man on the street might tell it. It +comes to us through suggestion. We are made to feel a mood, not to +listen to the description of an event. There is symbolism, suggestion, +color mystery. We inhale the languorous fragrance of the lilacs; we see +the drooping star; in secluded recesses we hear "a shy and hidden bird" +warbling a song; there are dim-lit churches and shuddering organs and +tolling bells, and there is one soul heart-broken, seeing all and +hearing all.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a></p> + +<p>This is real poetry, and yet while we yield to the charm we are +conscious that it is made up of the old familiar elements.</p> + +<p>Tennyson's apology to a utilitarian age was not needed:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Perhaps some modern touches here and there</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">The "modern touches" we can spare. The modern life we have always with +us; but it is a rare privilege to enjoy the best things of the past. It +is the poet who is the minister of this fine grace. The historian tells +us what men of the past did, the philosopher tells us how their +civilizations developed and decayed; we smile at their superstitions, +and pride ourselves upon our progress. But the ethereal part has +vanished, that which made their very superstitions beautiful and cast a +halo over their struggles. These are the elements out of which the poet +creates his world, into which we may enter. In the order of historic +development chivalry must give way before democracy, and loyalty to the +king must fade before the increasing sense of liberty and equality; but +the highest ideals of chivalry may remain. Imaginative and romantic +poetry<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> has this high mission to preserve what otherwise would be lost. +It lifts the mind above the daily routine into the region of pure joy. +Whatever necessary changes take place in the world we find, in</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"All lovely tales which we have heard or read,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">An endless fountain of immortal drink,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>I have said that one may be a true poet without having any very +important thought to communicate, but it must be said that most of the +great poets have been serious thinkers as well. They have had their +philosophy of life, their thoughts about nature and about human duty and +destiny. It is the function of the poet not only to create for us an +ideal world and to fill it with ideal creatures, but also to reveal to +us the ideal element in the actual world.</p> + +<p>"I do not know what poetical is," says Audrey. "Is it honest in deed and +word? Is it a true thing?" We must not answer with Touchstone: "No, +truly! for the truest poetry is the most feigning."</p> + +<p>The poetical interpretation of the world is not<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> feigning; it is a true +thing,—the truest thing of which we can know. The grace and sublimity +which we see through the poet's eyes are real. We must, however, still +insist on our main contention. The poet, if he is to hold us, must +always be a poet. His thought must be in solution, and not appear as a +dull precipitate of prose. He may be philosophical, but he must not +philosophize. He may be moral, but he must not moralize. He may be +religious, but let him spare his homilies.</p> + +<p>"Whatever the philosopher saith should be done," said Sir Philip Sidney; +"the peerless poet giveth a perfect picture of it. He yieldeth to the +power of the mind an image of that of which the philosopher bestoweth +but a wordish description.... The poet doth not only show the way, but +doth give so sweet a prospect unto the way as will entice any man to +enter it. Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a fair +vineyard, at first give you a cluster of grapes."</p> + +<p>We have a right to ask our poets to be pleasant companions even when +they discourse on the highest themes. Even when they have theories<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> of +their own about what we should enjoy, let us not allow them to foist +upon us "wordish descriptions" of excellent things instead of poetry. +When the poet invites me to go with him I first ask, "Let me taste your +grapes."</p> + +<p>You remember Mr. By-ends in the "Pilgrim's Progress,"—how he said of +Christian and Hopeful, "They are headstrong men who think it their duty +to rush on in their journey in all weathers, while I am for waiting for +wind or tide. I am for Religion when he walks in his silver slippers in +the sunshine." That was very reprehensible in Mr. By-ends, and he richly +deserved the rebuke which was afterward administered to him. But when we +change the subject, and speak, not of religion, but of poetry, I confess +that I am very much of Mr. By-ends' way of thinking. There are literary +Puritans who, when they take up the study of a poet, make it a point of +conscience to go on to the bitter end of his poetical works. If they +start with Wordsworth on his "Excursion," they trudge on in all +weathers. They <i>do</i> the poem, as when going abroad they do Europe in six +weeks. As the revival hymn says, "doing is a deadly thing." Let me say, +good<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> Christian and Hopeful, that though I admire your persistence, I +cannot accompany you. I am for a poet only when he puts on his singing +robes and walks in the sunshine. As for those times when he goes on +prosing in rhyme from force of habit, I think it is more respectful as +well as more pleasurable to allow him to walk alone.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Shelley's definition of poetry as "the record of the best and happiest +moments of the happiest and best minds" suggests the whole duty of the +reader. All that is required of him is to obey the Golden Rule. There +must be perfect reciprocity and fraternal sympathy. The poet, being +human, has his unhappy hours, when all things are full of labor. Upon +such hours the Gentle Reader does not intrude. In their happiest moments +they meet as if by chance. In this encounter they are pleased with one +another and with the world they live in. How could it be otherwise? It +is indeed a wonderful world, transfigured in the light of thought. +Familiar objects lose their sharp outlines and become symbols of +universal realities. Likenesses, before unthought<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> of, appear. Nature +becomes a mirror of the soul, and answers instantly to each passing +mood. Words are no longer chosen, they come unbidden as the poet and his +reader</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"mount to Paradise</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">By the stairway of surprise."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Mission_of_Humor" id="The_Mission_of_Humor"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_064-a.png" width="320" height="63" alt="The Mission of Humor" title="The Mission of Humor" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letrai"><img src="images/ill_i.png" width="30" +height="101" alt="I" title="I" /></span>N "The Last Tournament" we are told how</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his moods</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Danced like a withered leaf before the hall."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">That is the view which many worthy people take of the humorist. He is +Sir Dagonet. Among the serious persons who are doing the useful work of +the world, discovering its laws, classifying its facts, forecasting its +future, this light-minded, light-hearted creature comes with his +untimely jests. In their idle moments they tolerate the mock-knight, but +when important business is on hand they dismiss him, as did Sir +Tristram, with</p> + +<p class="c">"Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?"</p> + +<p class="nind">This half-contemptuous view is very painful to<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> the Gentle Reader who, +though he may seem to some to take his poetry too lightly, is disposed +to take his humor rather seriously. Humor seems to him to belong to the +higher part of our nature. It is not the enjoyment of a grotesque image +in a convex mirror, but, rather, the recognition of fleeting forms of +truth.</p> + +<p>"I have brought you a funny book, Gentle Reader," says the Professional +Humorist.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he answers, struggling against his melancholy forebodings. +"You will pardon me if I seem to take my pleasures sadly."</p> + +<p>It is hard for him to force a smile as he watches the procession of +jokes, each as broad as it is long. This ostentatious jocosity is not to +his liking.</p> + +<p>"Thackeray," he says, "defines humor as a mixture of love and wit. +Humor, therefore, being of the nature of love, should not behave itself +unseemly."</p> + +<p>He cannot bear to see it obtruding itself upon the public. Its proper +habit is to hide from observation "as if the wren taught it +concealment." When a Happy Thought ventures abroad it should be as a +royal personage traveling <i>incognito</i>.</p> + +<p>This is a big world, and it is serious business<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> to live in it. It makes +many demands. It requires intensity of thought and strenuousness of will +and solidity of judgment. Great tasks are set before us. We catch +fugitive glimpses of beauty, and try to fix them forever in perfect +form,—that is the task of art. We see thousands of disconnected facts, +and try to arrange them in orderly sequence,—that is the task of +science. We see the ongoing of eternal force, and seek some reason for +it,—that is the task of philosophy.</p> + +<p>But when art and science and philosophy have done their best, there is a +great deal of valuable material left over. There are facts that will not +fit into any theory, but which keep popping up at us from the most +unexpected places. Nobody can tell where they come from or why they are +here; but here they are. Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net +result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectnesses. We are +surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many +different ways. Everything is under the reign of strict law; but many +queer things happen, nevertheless. What are we to do with all the waifs +and strays? What are we to do<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> with all the sudden incongruities which +mock at our wisdom and destroy the symmetry of our ideas?</p> + +<p>The solemnly logical intelligence ignores their existence. It does not +trouble itself about anything which does not belong to its system. The +system itself has such perfect beauty that it is its own excuse for +being.</p> + +<p>More sensitive and less self-centred natures do not find the way so +easy. They allow themselves to be worried by the incongruities which +they cannot ignore. It seems to them that whenever they are in earnest +the world conspires to mock them. Continually they feel that intellect +and conscience are insulted by whipper-snappers of facts that have no +right to be in an orderly universe. They can expose a lie, and feel a +certain superiority in doing it; but a little unclassified, +irreconcilable truth drives them to their wit's end. There it stands in +all its shameless actuality asking, "What do you make of me?"</p> + +<p>Just here comes the beneficent mission of humor. It takes these +unassorted realities that are the despair of the sober intelligence, and +extracts from them pure joy. If life depends on<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> the perpetual +adjustment of the organism to its environment, humor is the means by +which the intellectual life is sustained on those occasions when the +expected environment is not there. The adjustment must be made, without +a moment's warning, to an altogether new set of conditions. We are +called upon to swap horses while crossing the stream. It is a method +which the serious minded person does not approve. While arguing the +matter he is unhorsed, and finds himself floundering in the water. The +humorist accepts the situation instantly. As he scrambles upon his new +nag it is with a sense of triumph, for the moment at least, he feels +that he has the best of the bargain.</p> + +<p>One may have learned to enjoy the sublime, the beautiful, the useful, +the orderly, but he has missed something if he has not also learned to +enjoy the incongruous, the illusive, and the unexpected. Artistic +sensibility finds its satisfaction only in the perfect. Humor is the +frank enjoyment of the imperfect. Its objects are not so high,—but +there are more of them.</p> + +<p>Evolution is a cosmic game of Pussy wants a corner. Each creature has +its eye on some snug<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> corner where it would rest in peace. Each corner +is occupied by some creature that is not altogether satisfied and that +is on the lookout for a larger sphere. There is much beckoning between +those who are desirous of making a change. Now and then some bold spirit +gives up his assured position and scrambles for something better. The +chances are that the adventurer finds it harder to attain the coveted +place than he had thought. For the fact is that there are not corners +enough to go around. If there were enough corners, and every one were +content to stay in the one where he found himself at the beginning, then +the game would be impossible. It is well that this never happens. Nature +looks after that. When things are too homogeneous she breaks them up +into new and amazing kinds of heterogeneity. It is a good game, and one +learns to like it after he enters into the spirit of it.</p> + +<p>If the Universe had a place for everything and everything was in its +place, there would be little demand for humor. As a matter of fact the +world is full of all sorts of people, and they are not all in their +proper places. There are<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> amazing incongruities between station and +character. It is not a world that has been reduced to order; it is still +in the making. One may easily grow misanthropic and pessimistic by +dwelling upon the misfits.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"As to behold desert a beggar born</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And needy nothing trimmed in jollity.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And art made tongue-tied by authority,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And simple truth miscalled simplicity,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And folly doctor-like, controlling skill,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And captive good attending captive ill."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But fortunately these incongruities are not altogether tragical. There +are certain moods when we rather enjoy seeing "needy nothing trimmed in +jollity." We are pleased when Justice Shallow slaps Sir John Falstaff on +the back and says, "Ha! it was a merry night, Sir John." We are not +irritated beyond endurance because in this world where so many virtuous +people have a hard time, such trifling fellows as Sir Toby and Sir +Andrew have their cakes and ale. When folly puts on doctor-like airs it +is not always disagreeable. We would not have Dogberry put off the watch +to give place to some one who could pass the civil service examination.<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p> + +<p>The humorist, when asked what he thinks of the actual world, would turn +upon his questioner as Touchstone turned upon Corin when he was asked +how he liked the shepherd's life:—</p> + +<p>"Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?" The world is not at all like +the descriptions of it, and yet he cannot take a very gloomy view of it. +In respect to itself it is a good world, and yet in respect that it is +not finished it leaves much to be desired. Yet in respect that it leaves +much to be desired, and much to be done by us, it is perhaps better <i>for +us</i> than if it were finished. In respect that many things happen that +are opposed to our views of the eternal fitness of things, it is a +perplexing world. Yet in respect that we have a faculty for enjoying the +occasional unfitness of things, it is delightful. On the whole, he sums +up with Touchstone, "It suits my humor well."</p> + +<p>Humor is impossible to the man of one idea. There must be at least two +ideas moving in opposite directions, so that there may be a collision. +Such an accident does not happen in a mind under economical management +that runs only one train of thought a day.<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p>There are many ideas that have a very insecure tenure. They hold their +own as squatters. By and by Science will come along and evict them, but +in the mean time these homely folk make very pleasant neighbors. All +they ask is that we shall not take them too seriously. That a thing is +not to be taken too seriously does not imply that it is either unreal or +unimportant:—it only means that it is not to be taken that way. There +is, for example, a pickaninny on a Southern plantation. The +anthropologist measures his skull and calls it by a long Latin name. The +psychologist carefully records his nervous reactions. The pedagogical +expert makes him the victim of that form of inquisition known as "child +study." The missionary perplexes himself in vain attempting to get at +his soul. Then there comes along a person of another sort. At the first +look, a genial smile of recognition comes over the face of this new +spectator. He is the first one who has seen the pickaninny. The one +essential truth about a black, chubby, kinky-haired pickaninny is that, +when he rolls up his eyes till only the whites are visible, he is +irresistibly funny. This is what theologians term<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> "the substance of +doctrine" concerning the pickaninny.</p> + +<p>When Charles Lamb slipped on the London pavement, he found delight in +watching the chimney sweep who stood laughing at his misfortune. "There +he stood irremovable, as though the jest were to last forever, with such +a maximum of glee and minimum of mischief in his mirth—for the grin of +a genuine sweep hath no malice in it—that I could have been content, if +the honor of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and +his mockery till midnight." There were many middle-aged London citizens +who could no more appreciate that kind of pleasure than a Hottentot +could appreciate an oratorio. That is only saying that the average +citizen and the average Hottentot have, as Wordsworth mildly puts it, +"faculties which they have never used."</p> + +<p>The high place that humor holds among our mental processes is evident +when we consider that it is almost the only one that requires that we +shall be thoroughly awake. In our dreams we have many æsthetic +enjoyments, as vague<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> splendors pass before us. At other times there is +an abnormal sensitiveness to the sovereignty, not to say the despotism +of ethics. We feel burdened with the weight of unpardonable sins. We are +able also in our sleep to philosophize after a fashion which is, for the +time, quite satisfactory. At such times we are sure that we have made +important discoveries; if we could only remember what they were. A +thousand incongruities pass through our minds, but there is one thing +which we cannot do. We cannot recognize that they are incongruous. Such +a discovery would immediately awaken us.</p> + +<p>Tennyson tells how</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"half awake I heard</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Now harping on the church commissioners,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Now hawking at Geology and schism."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">It would be possible for the parson and his congregation to keep on with +that sort of thing Sunday after Sunday. They would discover nothing +absurd in the performance, so long as they were in their usual +semi-somnolent condition.</p> + +<p>Humor implies mental alertness and power of discrimination. It also +implies a hospitality<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> toward all the differences that are recognized. +Psychologists speak of the Association of Ideas. It is a pleasant +thought, but it is, in reality, difficult to induce Ideas to associate +in a neighborly way. In many minds the different groups are divided by +conventional lines, and there are aristocratic prejudices separating the +classes from the masses. The Working Hypothesis, honest son of toil that +he is, does not expect so much as a nod of recognition from the High +Moral Principle who walks by in his Sunday clothes. The steady Habit +does not associate with the high-bred Sentiment. They do not belong to +the same set. Only in the mind of the humorist is there a true +democracy. Here everybody knows everybody. Even the priggish Higher +Thought is not allowed to enjoy a sense of superiority. Plain Common +Sense slaps him on the back, calls him by his first name, and bids him +not make a fool of himself.</p> + +<p>Of the two ingredients which Thackeray mentions, the first, love, is +that which gives body; the addition of wit gives the effervescence. The +pleasure of wit lies in its unexpectedness. In<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> humor there is the added +pleasure of really liking that which surprises us. It is like meeting an +old friend in an unexpected place. "What, you here?" we say. This is the +kind of pleasure we get from Dr. Johnson's reply to the lady who asked +why he had put a certain definition in his dictionary: "Pure ignorance, +madam."</p> + +<p>The fact is that long ago we made the acquaintance of one whom Bunyan +describes as "a brisk young lad named Ignorance." He is a dear friend of +ours, and we are on very familiar terms with him when we are at home; +but we do not expect to meet him in fine society. Suddenly we turn the +corner, and we see him walking arm in arm with so great a man as Dr. +Samuel Johnson. At once we are at our ease in the presence of the great +man; it seems we have a mutual acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Another element in real humor is a certain detachment of mind. We must +not be afraid, or jealous, or angry; in order to take a really humorous +view of any character, we must be in a position to see all around it. If +I were brought before Fielding's Squire Western on charge of poaching, +and if I had a pheasant concealed<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> under my coat, I should not be able +to appreciate what an amusing person the squire is. I should be inclined +to take him very seriously.</p> + +<p>The small boy who pins a paper to the schoolmaster's coat tail imagines +that he has achieved a masterpiece of humor. But he is not really in a +position to reap the fruits of his perilous adventure. It is a fearful +and precarious joy which he feels. What if the schoolmaster should turn +around? That would be tragedy. Neither the small boy nor the +schoolmaster gets the full flavor of humor. But suppose an old friend of +the schoolmaster happens just then to look in at the door. His delight +in the situation has a mellowness far removed from the anxious, +ambiguous glee of the urchin. He knows that the small boy is not so +wicked as he thinks he is, and the schoolmaster is not so terrible as he +seems. He remembers the time when the schoolmaster was up to the same +pranks. So, from the assured position of middle age, he looks upon the +small boy that was and upon the small boy that is, and finds them both +very good,—much better, indeed, than at this moment they find each +other.</p> + +<p>It is this sense of the presence of a tolerant<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> spectator, looking upon +the incidents of the passing hour, which we recognize in the best +literature. Books that are meant simply to be funny are very +short-lived. The first reception of a joke awakens false expectations. +It is received with extravagant heartiness. But when, encouraged by this +hospitality, it returns again and again, its welcome is worn out. There +is something melancholy in a joke deserted in its old age.</p> + +<p>The test of real literature is that it will bear repetition. We read +over the same pages again and again, and always with fresh delight. This +bars out all mere jocosity. A certain kind of wit, which depends for its +force on mere verbal brilliancy, has the same effect. The writers whom +we love are those whose humor does not glare or glitter, but which has +an iridescent quality. It is the perpetual play of light and color which +enchants us. We are conscious all the time that the light is playing on +a real thing. It is something more than a clever trick; there is an +illumination.</p> + +<p>Erasmus, in dedicating his "Praise of Folly" to Sir Thomas More, +says:—<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a></p> + +<p>"I conceived that this would not be least approved by you, inasmuch as +you are wont to be delighted with such kind of pleasantry as is neither +unlearned nor altogether insipid. Such is your sweetness of temper that +you can and like to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Unless +an overweening opinion of myself may have made me blind, I have praised +folly not altogether foolishly. I have moderated my style, that the +understanding reader may perceive that my endeavor is to make mirth +rather than to bite."</p> + +<p>Erasmus has here described a kind of humor that is consistent with +seriousness of purpose. The characteristics he notes are good temper, +insight into human nature, a certain reserve, and withal a gentle irony +that makes the praise of folly not unpleasing to the wise. It is a way +of looking at things characteristic of men like Chaucer and Cervantes +and Montaigne and Shakespeare, and Bunyan and Fielding and Addison, +Goldsmith, Charles Lamb and Walter Scott. In America, we have seen it in +Irving and Dr. Holmes and James Russell Lowell.</p> + +<p>I have left out of the list one whom nature<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> endowed for the supreme man +of humor among Englishmen,—Jonathan Swift. Charles Lamb argues against +the common notion that it is a misfortune to a man to have a surly +disposition. He says it is not his misfortune; it is the misfortune of +his neighbors. It is our misfortune that the man who might have been the +English Cervantes had a surly disposition. Dean Swift's humor would have +been irresistible, if it had only been good humor.</p> + +<p>One of the best examples of humor pervading a work of the utmost +seriousness of purpose is Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The "Pilgrim's +Progress" is not a funny book; the humor is not tacked on as a moral is +tacked on to a fable, nor does it appear by way of an interlude to +relieve the tension of the mind. It is so deeply interfused, so a part +and parcel of the religious teaching, that many readers overlook it +altogether. One may read the book a dozen times without a smile, and +after that he may recognize the touch of the born humorist on every +page. Bunyan himself recognized the quality of his work:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Some there be that say he laughs too loud,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And some do say his head is in a cloud.<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">One may, I think, say both his laughs and cries</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">May well be guessed at by his wat'ry eyes.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Some things are of that nature as to make</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>There speaks the real humorist; not the Merry Andrew laughing at his +meaningless pranks, but one whose quick imagination is at play when his +conscience is most overtasked. Even in the Valley of Humiliation, where +the fierce Apollyon was wont to fright the pilgrims, they heard a boy +singing cheerily,—</p> + +<p class="c">"He that is down need fear no fall."</p> + +<p class="nind">And Mr. Great Heart said: "Do you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a +merrier life, and wears more of the herb called heart's-ease in his +bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet." It is a fine spirit +that can find time, on such a strenuous pilgrimage, to listen to these +wayside songs.</p> + +<p>Take the character sketch of Mr. Fearing:—</p> + +<p>"Now as they walked together, the guide asked the old gentleman if he +did not know one Mr. Fearing that came on a pilgrimage out of his +parts?<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a></p> + +<p>"<i>Honest</i>. Yes, very well, said he. He was a man that had the root of +the matter in him, but he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims that +ever I met in all my days.</p> + +<p>"<i>Great Heart</i>. Why, he was always afraid he should come short of +whither he had a desire to go. Everything frightened him that he heard +anybody speak of that had but the least appearance of opposition in it. +I hear that he lay roaring in the Slough of Despond for about a month +together.... Well, after he had lain in the Slough of Despond a great +while, as I have told you, one sunshine morning, I do not know how, he +ventured and so got over; but when he was over he would scarce believe +it. He had, I believe, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough he +carried everywhere with him.... When he came to the Hill Difficulty he +made no stick at that; nor did he much fear the lions; for you must know +his trouble was not about such things as those.... When he was come at +Vanity Fair, I thought he would have fought with all the men at the +fair.... He was a man of choice spirit though he kept himself very low."</p> + +<p>Poor Mr. Fearing. We all have been made<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> uncomfortable by him. But we +love Bunyan for that touch about the lions, for we know it is true. Easy +things go hard with Mr. Fearing; but give him something difficult, like +going up San Juan hill in the face of a withering fire, and Mr. Fearing +can keep up with the best Rough Rider of them all. It takes Mr. Great +Heart to do justice to Mr. Fearing.</p> + +<p>It is the mission of a kindly humor to take a person full of foibles and +weaknesses and suddenly to reveal his unsuspected nobleness. And there +is considerable room for this kind of treatment; for there are a great +many lovable people whose virtues are not chronic, but sporadic. These +virtues grow up, one knows not how, without visible means of support in +the general character, and in defiance of moral science; and yet it is a +real pleasure to see them.</p> + +<p>There are two very different kinds of humor. One we naturally describe +as a flavor, the other as an atmosphere. We speak of the flavor of the +essays of Charles Lamb. It is a discovery we make very much as Bobo made +the discovery of roast pig. The mind of Charles Lamb was like a +capacious kettle hanging from the crane in<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> the fireplace; all sorts of +savory ingredients were thrown into it, and the whole was kept gently +simmering, but never allowed to come to the boil.</p> + +<p>Lamb says, "C. declares that a man cannot have a good conscience who +refuses apple dumpling, and I confess that I am of the same opinion." I +am inclined to pass that kind of judgment on the person who does not +have a comfortable feeling of satisfaction in reading for the twentieth +time The Complaint on the Decay of Beggars, and the Praise of Chimney +Sweepers.</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb is not jocose. He likes to theorize. Now, your prosaic +theorist has a very laborious task. He tries to get all the facts under +one formula. This is very ticklish business. It is like the game of Pigs +in Clover. He gets all the facts but one into the inner circle. By a +dexterous thrust he gets that one in, and the rest are out.</p> + +<p>Lamb is a philosopher who does not have this trouble. He does not try to +fit all the facts to one theory. That seems to him too economical, when +theories are so cheap. With large-hearted generosity he provides a +theory for every fact.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> He clothes the ragged exception with all the +decent habiliments of a universal law. He picks up a little ragamuffin +of a fact, and warms its heart and points out its great relations. He is +not afraid of generalizing from insufficient data; he has the art of +making a delightful summer out of a single swallow. When we turn to the +essay on the Melancholy of Tailors, we do not think of asking for +statistics. If one tailor was melancholy, that was enough to justify the +generalization. When we find a tailor who is not melancholy, it will be +time to make another theory to fit his case.</p> + +<p>This is the charm of Lamb's letter to the gentleman who inquired +"whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no more proficiency +than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of the English +alphabet amounts to, by dint of persevering application and good +masters, may hope to arrive within a presumable number of years at that +degree of attainment that would entitle the possessor to the character +of a <i>learned man</i>." The answer is candid, serious, and exhaustive. No +false hopes are encouraged. The difficulties are plainly set forth. +"However," it<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> is said, "where all cannot be compassed, much may be +accomplished; but I must not, in fairness, conceal from you that you +have much to do." The question is thoroughly discussed as to whether it +would be well for him to enter a primary school. "You say that you stand +in need of emulation; that this incitement is nowhere to be had but in +the public school. But have you considered the nature of the emulation +belonging to those of tender years which you would come in competition +with?"</p> + +<p>Do you think these dissertations a waste of time? If you do, it is +sufficient evidence that you sadly need them; for they are the antitoxin +to counteract the bacillus of pedantry. Were I appointed by the school +board to consider the applicants for teachers' certificates, after they +had passed the examination in the arts and sciences, I should subject +them to a more rigid test. I should hand each candidate Lamb's essays on +The Old and New Schoolmaster and on Imperfect Sympathies. I should make +him read them to himself, while I sat by and watched. If his countenance +never relaxed, as if he were inwardly saying, "That's so," I should<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> +withhold the certificate. I should not consider him a fit person to have +charge of innocent youth.</p> + +<p>Just as we naturally speak of the flavor of Charles Lamb, so we speak of +the atmosphere of Cervantes or of Fielding. We are out of doors in the +sunshine. All sorts of people are doing all sorts of things in all sorts +of ways; and we are glad that we are there to see them. It is one of the</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"charmèd days</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">When the Genius of God doth flow;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The wind may alter twenty ways</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">But a tempest cannot blow."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">On such days it doesn't matter what happens. We are not "under the +weather," but consciously superior to it. We are in no mood to grumble +over mishaps,—the more the merrier. The master of the revels has made +the brave announcement that his programme shall be carried out "rain or +shine," and henceforth we have no anxieties.</p> + +<p>This diffused good-humor can only come from a mind which is free from +any taint of morbidness. It is that merry-heartedness that "doth good +like medicine." It is an overflowing friendliness,<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> which brings a +laughter that is without scorn.</p> + +<p>This kind of humor is possible only among persons who are thoroughly +congenial, and who take mutual good-will for granted. It is for this +reason that it is so difficult to translate it or to carry it from one +community to another. It is customary for every nation to bring the +accusation against foreigners that they are destitute of the sense of +humor. Even peoples so near akin as the English and Americans cherish +such suspicions. The American is likely to feel that his English friends +do not receive his pleasantries with that punctuality which is the +politeness of kings. They are conscientious enough and eventually do the +right thing; but procrastination is the thief of wit as well as of time. +But we, on our side, are equally slow, and Mr. Punch often causes +anxious thoughts.</p> + +<p>The real difficulty is not in understanding what is said but in +appreciating that which should be taken for granted. The stranger does +not see the serious background of sober thought and genuine admiration, +into which the amusing figures suddenly intrude. The frontiersman<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> would +see no point in a story that might delight a common room in Oxford. What +if a bishop did act in an undignified manner or commit a blunder? Why +shouldn't he—like the rest of us? To enjoy his foibles one must first +have a realizing sense of what a great man a bishop is, and how +surprising it is that, now and then, he should step down from his +pedestal.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the real humor of the frontier is missed by one who +has not learned to take seriously the frontiersman's life and who has +not entered into his habitual point of view.</p> + +<p>Dickens is an example of the way in which a man's humor is limited to +the sphere of his sympathies. How genial is the atmosphere which +surrounds Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Sam Weller! Whatever they do, they can +never go wrong. But when we turn to the "American Notes" or to the +American part of "Martin Chuzzlewit," we are conscious of a difference. +There is no atmosphere to relieve the dreariness. Mr. Jefferson Brick is +not amusing; he is odious. The people on the Ohio River steamer do not +make us smile by their absurdities. Dickens lets us see how he despises +them all. He is fretful and peevish.<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> He fails utterly to catch the +humor of the frontier. He is unable to follow out the hint which Mark +Tapley gave when, looking over the dreary waste of Eden on the +Mississippi, he said apologetically, "Eden ain't all built yet."</p> + +<p>To an Englishman that does not mean much, but to an American it is +wonderfully appealing. Martin Chuzzlewit saw only the ignominious +contrast between the prospectus and the present reality. Eden was a +vulgar fraud, and that was the whole of it. The American, with +invincible optimism, looking upon the same scene, sees something more! +He smiles, perhaps, a little cynically at the incongruity between the +prospectus and the present development, and then his fancy chuckles at +what his fancy sees in the future. "Eden ain't all built yet,"—that's a +fact. But just think what Eden will be when it is all built!</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>By the way, there is one particularly good thing about the atmosphere; +it prevents our being hit by meteors. The meteor, when it strikes the +upper air, usually ignites, and that is the end of it. There are some +minds that<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> have not enough atmosphere to protect them. They are pelted +continually; whatever is unpleasant comes to them in solid chunks. There +are others more fortunately surrounded, who escape this impact. All that +is seen is a flash in the upper air. They are none the worse for passing +through a meteoric shower of petty misfortunes.</p> + +<p>The mind that is surrounded by an atmosphere of humorous suggestiveness +is also favored in its outlook upon the shortcomings of mankind. Their +angularities are softened and become less uniformly unpleasing. That +fine old English divine, Dr. South, has a sermon in which he defends the +thesis that it is a greater guilt to enjoy the contemplation of our +neighbor's sins than to commit the same offences in our proper persons. +That seems to me to be very hard doctrine. I am inclined to make a +distinction. There are some faults which ought to be taken seriously at +all times, but there are others which the neighbors should be allowed to +enjoy, if they can.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it is the genuine reformer who is seeking to right great wrongs +who most needs the<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> capacity to distinguish between grave evils and +peccadillos. A measure of good-humored tolerance for human weakness is a +part of his equipment for effective work. Lacking in this, he is doomed +to perpetual irritation and disappointment. He mistakes friends for foes +and wages a losing battle. He is likely to be the victim of a moral +egoism which distorts the facts of experience and confuses his personal +whims with his disinterested purposes. His great ideal is lost sight of +in some petty strife. Above all, he loses the power of endurance in the +time of partial failure.</p> + +<p>The contest of wits between the inventors of projectiles and the makers +of armor plate seemed at one time settled by Harvey's process for +rendering the surface of the resisting steel so hard that the missiles +hurled against it were shattered. The answer of the gun-makers was made +by attaching a tip of softer metal to the shell. The soft tip received +the first shock of the impact, and it was found that the penetrating +power of the shell was increased enormously. The scientific explanation +I have forgotten. I may, however, hazard an anthropomorphic +explanation.<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> If there is any human nature in the atoms of steel, I can +see a great advantage in having the softer particles go before the hard, +to have a momentary yielding before the inevitable crash. When they are +hurtling through the air, tense and strained by the initial velocity +till it seems that they must fly apart, it is a great thing to have a +group of good-humored, happy-go-lucky atoms in the front, who call out +cheerily: "Come along, boys! Don't take it too hard; we're in for it." +And sure enough, before they have time to fall apart they are in. Those +whose thoughts and purposes have most penetrated the hard prejudices of +their time have learned this lesson.</p> + +<p>Your unhumorous reformer, with painful intensity of moral +self-consciousness, cries out:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That ever I was born to set it right!"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">He takes himself and his cause always with equal seriousness. He hurls +himself against the accumulated wrongs and the invincible ignorance of +the world, and there is a great crash; but somehow, the world seems to +survive the shock better than he does. It is a tough old world,<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> and +bears a great deal of pounding. Indeed, it has been pounded so much and +so long that it has become quite solid.</p> + +<p>Now and then, however, there comes along a reformer whose zeal is tipped +with humor. His thought penetrates where another man's is only +shattered. That is what made Luther so effective. He struck heavy blows +at the idols men adored. But he was such a genial, whole-souled +iconoclast that those who were most shocked at him could not help liking +him—between times. He would give a smashing blow at the idol, and then +a warm hand grasp and a hearty "God bless you" to the idolater; and then +idolater and iconoclast would be down on the floor together, trying to +see if there were any pieces of the idol worth saving. It was all so +unexpected and so incongruous and so shocking, and yet so unaffectedly +religious and so surprisingly the right thing to do, that the upshot of +it all was that people went away saying, "Dr. Martin isn't such a bad +fellow, after all."</p> + +<p>Luther's "Table Talk" penetrated circles which were well protected +against his theological treatises. Men were conscious of a good humor +even<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> in his invective; for he usually gave them time to see the kindly +twinkle in his eye before he knocked them down.</p> + +<p>In order to engage Karlstadt in a controversy, Luther drew out a florin +from his pocket and cried heartily, "Take it! Attack me boldly!" +Karlstadt took it, put it in his purse, and gave it to Luther. Luther +then drank to his health. Then Karlstadt pledged Luther. Then Luther +said, "The more violent your attacks, the more I shall be delighted." +Then they gave each other their hands and parted. One can almost be +reconciled to theological controversy, when it is conducted in a manner +so truly sportsmanlike.</p> + +<p>Luther had a way of characterizing a person in a sentence, that was much +more effective than his labored vituperation (in which, it must be +confessed, he was a master). Thus, speaking of the attitude of Erasmus, +he said, "Erasmus stands looking at creation like a calf at a new door." +It was very unjust to Erasmus, and yet the picture sticks in the mind; +for it is such a perfect characterization of the kind of mind that we +are all acquainted with, which looks at the marvels of creation with the +wide-eyed gaze of<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> bovine youthfulness, curious, not to know how that +door came there, but only to know whether it leads to something to eat.</p> + +<p>The humor of Luther suggests that of Abraham Lincoln. Both were men of +the people, and their humor had a flavor of the soil. They were alike +capable of deep dejection, but each found relief in spontaneous +laughter. The surprise of the grave statesman when Lincoln would preface +a discussion with a homely anecdote of the frontier was of the same kind +felt by the sixteenth-century theologians when Luther turned aside from +his great arguments, which startled Europe, to tell a merry tale in +ridicule of the pretensions of the monks.</p> + +<p>If I were to speak of the humorist as a philosopher, some of the gravest +of the philosophers would at once protest. Humor, they say, has no place +in their philosophy; and they are quite right. Indeed, it is doubtful if +a humorist would ever make a good, systematic philosopher. He is a +modest person. He is only a gleaner following the reapers; but he +manages to pick up a great many grains of wisdom which they overlook.<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a></p> + +<p>Dante pictures the sages of antiquity as forever walking on a verdant +mead, "with eyes slow and grave, and with great authority in their +looks;" as if, in the other world, they were continually oppressed by +the wisdom they had acquired in this. But I can imagine a gathering of +philosophers in a different fashion. Gravely they have come, each +bearing his ponderous volume, in which he has explained the universe and +settled the destiny of mankind. Then, suddenly, in contrast with their +theories, the reality is disclosed. The incorrigible pedants and +dogmatists turn away in sullen disappointment; but from all true lovers +of wisdom there arises a peal of mellow laughter, as each one realizes +the enormous incongruity between what he knew and what he thought he +knew.</p> + +<p>The discovery that things are not always as they seem is one that some +people make in this world. They get a glimpse of something that is going +on behind the scenes, and their smile is very disconcerting to the sober +spectators around them.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it is the bitter smile of disillusion. Matthew Arnold wrote of +Heine:—<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"The Spirit of the world,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Beholding the absurdity of men,—</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Their vaunts, their feats,—let a sardonic smile,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">For one short moment, wander o'er his lips.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That smile was Heine."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But there is another kind of smile evoked by the incongruity between the +appearance and the reality. It is the smile that comes when behind some +mask that had affrighted us we recognize a familiar and friendly face. +There is a smile which is not one of disillusion. There is a philosophy +which is dissolved in humor. The wise man sees the incongruities +involved in the very nature of things. They are the result of the free +play of various forces. To his quick insight the actual world is no more +like the formal descriptions of it than the successive attitudes of a +galloping horse are like the pose of an equestrian statue. His mind +catches instantaneous views of this world as its elements are +continually dissolving and recombining. It is all very surprising, and +he smiles as he sees how much better they turn out than might be +expected.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Endless dirges to decay.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And yet it seemeth not to me</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That the high gods love tragedy;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">For Saadi sat in the sun.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Sunshine in his heart transferred,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Lighted each transparent word.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And thus to Saadi said the Muse:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">'Eat thou the bread which men refuse;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Flee from the goods which from thee flee;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Seek nothing,—Fortune seeketh thee.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">On thine orchard's edge belong</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">All the brags of plume and song.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">A poet or a friend to find:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Behold, he watches at the door!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Behold his shadow on the floor!'"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom says, "I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence." +But there is another member of the household. It is Humor, sister of +serene Wisdom and of the heavenly Prudence. She does not often laugh, +and when she does it is mostly at her sister Wisdom, who cannot long +resist the infection. There is not one set smile upon her face, as if +she contemplated an altogether amusing world. The smiles that<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> come and +go are shy, elusive things, but they cannot remain long in hiding.</p> + +<p>Wisdom, from her high house, takes wide views, and Prudence peers +anxiously into the future; but gentle Humor loves to take short views; +she delights in homely things, and continually finds surprises in that +which is most familiar. Wisdom goes on laborious journeys, and comes +home bringing her treasures from afar; and Humor matches them, every +one, with what she has found in the dooryard.<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="Cases_of_Conscience_Concerning_Witchcrafts" id="Cases_of_Conscience_Concerning_Witchcrafts"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_101-a.png" width="320" height="121" alt="Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts" title="Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_t.png" width="30" height="67" alt="T" title="T" /></span>HAT was a curious state of things in Salem village. There was the +Meeting-House in plain sight, with sermons every Sunday and lectures on +week-days. There were gospel privileges for all, and the path of duty +was evident enough for the simplest understanding. Nevertheless, certain +persons who should have listened to the sermons, when they heard the +sound of a trumpet hied to the rendezvous of witches. When haled before +the court their only answer was that they couldn't help it.</p> + +<p>The ministers were disturbed, but being thorough-going men, they did not +rest content with academic discussion of the question of the falling-off +in church attendance. They inquired<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> into its cause, and became +convinced that they were dealing with sorcery. All this is duly set down +in Increase Mather's treatise on "Cases of Conscience concerning +Witchcrafts."</p> + +<p>This method of inquisition is commended to those writers who look upon +the Gentle Reader's love of Romance as a deadly sin. The trouble, as I +understand it, is this. A number of gentlemen devoted to literature have +cultivated style till it is as near a state of utter perfection as human +nature will tolerate. Indeed, they emulate that classic writer of whom +Roger Ascham remarked that he labored "with uncontented care to write +better than he could." They have attained such accuracy of observation +and such skill in the choice of words that the man in the book is as +like to the man on the street as two peas. They are also skilled in +criticism and are able to prove that it is our duty not only to admire +but also to read their books. The complaint is that the readers, instead +of walking in the path of duty, troop off after some mere story-teller +who has never passed an examination in Pathology, and who is utterly +incapable of making an exhaustive analysis of motives.<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a></p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader when he hears the accusations of the stern realists +makes no denial of the facts. He admits that he likes a good story +better than an involved study of character. He listens to the reproofs +with the helplessness of one who has only the frail barrier of a +personal taste to shield him from the direct blow of the categorical +imperative. If personal taste were to be accepted as a sufficient plea, +he is aware that the most besotted inebriate would go unwhipped of +justice. In this predicament he shields himself behind his favorite +authors. If there be a fault it is theirs, not his. They have bewitched +him by their spells. It is impossible for him to withstand the potent +enchantments of these wizards.</p> + +<p>I am inclined to think that there is much justice in this view of the +matter and that the militant realists should turn their attention from +the innocent reader to those who have power to bewitch him.</p> + +<p>The accepted signs of witchcraft, as enumerated by the Mathers, are +present. Thus we are told: "A famous Divine recites among other +Convictions of a Witch, the Testimony of<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> the Party bewitched, together +with the joint Oaths of sufficient Persons that they have seen +Prodigious Pranks or Feats wrought by the Party accused."</p> + +<p>This was the kind of evidence relied upon in the case of G. B. in the +Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Salem in 1692. "He was accused by +Nine Persons for extraordinary Lifting and such Feats of Strength as +could not be done without Diabolical Assistance." It was said that +"though he was a Puny Man yet he had done things beyond the strength of +a Giant. A Gun of about seven foot Barrel, and so heavy that strong Men +could not steadily hold it out with both hands; there were several +Testimonies that he made nothing of taking up such a Gun behind the +Lock, with one hand, and holding it out like a Pistol at arm's end." Any +readers of romance can tell of many such prodigious pranks which, while +the spell was upon them, seemed altogether credible.</p> + +<p>The test which was looked upon as infallible by those judicious judges +who put little confidence in the flotation of witches on the mill pond, +was that of the lack of intellectual consistency. "Faltering, faulty, +inconstant, and<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> contrary answers upon judicial and deliberate +Examination are accounted unlucky symptoms of guilt."</p> + +<p>Such inconsistencies may be found in all romantic fiction; yet the +magicians seem to have the power to make all things appear probable. I +might tell what a pleasant thrill is sometimes produced by these +sorceries, but I had better follow the policy of Cotton Mather, who +declined to tell all he knew about the Invisible World, lest he might +make witchcraft too attractive. "I will not speak plainly lest I should, +unaware, poison some of my Readers, as the pious Hermingius did one of +his Pupils when he only by way of Diversion recited a Spell."</p> + +<p>Cotton Mather makes a suggestion which is of value in regard to the +different grades of witches and other wonder-working spirits. His +remarks upon this head are so judicious that they should be quoted in +full.</p> + +<p>"Thirdly, 'tis to be supposed, that some <i>Devils</i> are more peculiarly +<i>Commission'd</i>, and perhaps <i>Qualify'd</i>, for some Countries, while +others are for others. This is intimated when in <i>Mar</i>. 5. 10. The +Devils <i>besought</i> our Lord<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> much, <i>that he would not send them away out +of the Countrey</i>. Why was that? But in all probability, because <i>these +Devils</i> were more able to <i>do the works of the Devil</i>, in such a +Countrey, than in another. It is not likely that every Devil does know +every <i>Language</i>; or that every Devil can do every <i>Mischief</i>. 'Tis +possible, that the <i>Experience</i>, or, if I may call it so, the +<i>Education</i> of all Devils is not alike, and that there may be some +difference in their <i>Abilities</i>. If one might make an Inference from +what the Devils <i>do</i>, to what they <i>are</i>, One cannot forbear dreaming, +that there are <i>degrees</i> of Devils. Who can allow, that such Trifling +<i>Demons</i>, as that of <i>Mascon</i>, or those that once infested our +New-berry, are of so much Grandeur, as those <i>Demons</i>, whose Games are +mighty Kingdoms? Yea, 'tis certain, that all Devils do not make a like +figure in the <i>Invisible World</i>. Nor does it look agreeably, That the +<i>Demons</i>, which were Familiars of such a Man as the old <i>Apollonius</i>, +differ not from those baser Goblins that chuse to Nest in the filthy and +loathsome Rags of a beastly Sorceress. Accordingly, why may not some +Devils be more accomplished for what is<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> to be done in such and such +places, when others must be <i>detach'd</i> for other Territories? Each +Devil, as he sees his advantage, cries out, <i>Let me be in this Countrey, +rather than another</i>."</p> + +<p>It is only on the theory of bewitchment by a trifling demon who belongs +to the lower orders of the literary world that I can account for the sad +fall of the reader whose confession follows. Carefully shielded in his +youth from all the enticements of the imagination, he yet fell from +grace. The unfortunate person seems to be lacking in strength of will, +and yet to have some good in him. In my opinion he was more sinned +against than sinning. But I will let him tell his story in his own way.</p> + +<p class="c"><b>A CONFESSION</b></p> + +<p>One half the world does not know what the other half reads; but good +people are now taught that the first requisite of sociological virtue is +to interest themselves in the other half. I therefore venture to call +attention to a book that has pleased me, though my delight in it may at +once class me with the "submerged tenth" of the reading public. It is +"The Pirate's Own Book."<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<p>By way of preface to a discussion of this volume, let me make a personal +explanation of the causes which led me to its perusal. My reading of +such a book cannot be traced to early habit. In my boyhood I had no +opportunity to study the careers of pirates, for I was confined to +another variety of literature. On Sunday afternoons I read aloud a book +called "The Afflicted Man's Companion." The unfortunate gentleman +portrayed in this work had a large assortment of afflictions,—if I +remember rightly, one for each day of the month,—but among them was +nothing so exciting as being marooned in the South Seas. Indeed, his +afflictions were of a generalized and abstract kind, which he could have +borne with great cheerfulness had it not been for the consolations which +were remorselessly administered to him.</p> + +<p>If I have become addicted to tales of piracy, I must attribute it to the +literary criticisms of too strenuous realists. Before I read them, I +took an innocent pleasure in romantic fiction. Without any compunction +of conscience I rejoiced in Walter Scott; and when he failed I was +pleased even with his imitators. My heart leaped up<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> when I beheld a +solitary horseman on the first page, and I did not forsake the horseman, +even though I knew he was to be personally conducted through his journey +by Mr. G. P. R. James. Fenimore Cooper, in those days, before I was +awakened to the nature of literary sin, I found altogether pleasant. The +cares of the world faded away, and a soothing conviction of the +essential rightness of things came over me, as the pioneers and Indians +discussed in deliberate fashion the deepest questions of the universe, +between shots. As for stories of the sea, I never thought of being +critical. I was ready to take thankfully anything with a salty flavor, +from "Sindbad the Sailor" to Mr. Clark Russell. I had no inconvenient +knowledge to interfere with my enjoyment. All nautical language was +alike impressive, and all nautical manœuvres were to me alike +perilous. It would have been a poor Ancient Mariner who could not have +enthralled me, when</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"He held me with his skinny hand;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">'There was a ship,' quoth he."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">And if the ship had raking masts and no satisfactory clearance papers, +that was enough; as to<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> what should happen, I left that altogether to +the author. That the laws of probability held on the Spanish Main as on +dry land, I never dreamed.</p> + +<p>But after being awakened to the sin of romance, I saw that to read a +novel merely for recreation is not permissible. The reader must be put +upon oath, and before he allows himself to enjoy any incident must swear +that everything is exactly true to life as he has seen it. All vagabonds +and sturdy vagrants who have no visible means of support, in the present +order of things, are to be driven out of the realm of well-regulated +fiction. Among these are included all knights in armor; all rightful +heirs with a strawberry mark; all horsemen, solitary or otherwise; all +princes in disguise; all persons who are in the habit of saying +"prithee," or "Odzooks," or "by my halidome;" all fair ladies who have +no irregularities of feature and no realistic incoherencies of speech; +all lovers who fall in love at first sight, and who are married at the +end of the book and live happily ever after; all witches, +fortune-tellers, and gypsies; all spotless heroes and deep-dyed +villains; all pirates, buccaneers,<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> North American Indians with a taste +for metaphysics; all scouts, hunters, trappers, and other individuals +who do not wear store clothes. According to this decree, all readers are +forbidden to aid and abet these persons, or to give them shelter in +their imagination. A reader who should incite a writer of fiction to +romance would be held as an accessory before the fact.</p> + +<p>After duly repenting of my sins and renouncing my old acquaintances, I +felt a preëminent virtue. Had I met the Three Guardsmen, one at a time +or all together, I should have passed them by without stopping for a +moment's converse. I should have recognized them for the impudent +Gascons that they were, and should have known that there was not a word +of truth in all their adventures. As for Stevenson's fine old pirate, +with his contemptible song about a "dead men's chest and a bottle of +rum," I should not have tolerated him for an instant. Instead, I should +have turned eagerly to some neutral-tinted person who never had any +adventure greater than missing the train to Dedham, and I should have +analyzed his character, and agitated myself in the attempt to get at his +feelings, and I should have verified<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> his story by a careful reference +to the railway guide. I should have treated that neutral-tinted +character as a problem, and I should have noted all the delicate shades +in the futility of his conduct. When, on any occasion that called for +action, he did not know his own mind, I should have admired him for his +resemblance to so many of my acquaintances who do not know their own +minds. After studying the problem until I came to the last chapter, I +should suddenly have given it up, and agreed with the writer that it had +no solution. In my self-righteousness, I despised the old-fashioned +reader who had been lured on in the expectation that at the last moment +something thrilling might happen.</p> + +<p>But temptations come at the unguarded point. I had hardened myself +against romance in fiction, but I had not been sufficiently warned +against romance in the guise of fact. When in a book-stall I came upon +"The Pirate's Own Book," it seemed to answer a felt want. Here at least, +outside the boundaries of strict fiction, I could be sure of finding +adventure, and feel again with Sancho Panza "how pleasant it is to go +about in expectation of accidents."<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a></p> + +<p>I am well aware that good literature—to use Matthew Arnold's phrase—is +a criticism of life. But the criticism of life, with its discriminations +between things which look very much alike, is pretty serious business. +We cannot keep on criticising life without getting tired after a while, +and longing for something a little simpler. There is a much-admired +passage in Ferishtah's Fancies, in which, after mixing up the beans in +his hands and speculating on their color, Ferishtah is not able to tell +black from white. Ferishtah, living in a soothing climate, could stand +an indefinite amount of this sort of thing; and, moreover, we must +remember that he was a dervish, and dervishry, although a steady +occupation, is not exacting in its requirements. In our more stimulating +climate, we should bring on nervous prostration if we gave ourselves +unremittingly to the discrimination between all the possible variations +of blackishness and whitishness. We must relieve our minds by +occasionally finding something about which there can be no doubt. When +my eyes rested on the woodcut that adorns the first page of "The +Pirate's Own Book," I felt the rest that comes from perfect certainty in +my own moral<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> judgment. Ferishtah himself could not have mixed me up. +Here was black without a redeeming spot. On looking upon this pirate, I +felt relieved from any criticism of life; here was something beneath +criticism. I was no longer tossed about on a chop sea, with its +conflicting waves of feeling and judgment, but was borne along +triumphantly on a bounding billow of moral reprobation.</p> + +<p>As I looked over the headings of the chapters, I was struck by their +straightforward and undisguised character. When I read the chapter +entitled The Savage Appearance of the Pirates, and compared this with +the illustrations, I said, "How true!" Then there was a chapter on the +Deceitful Character of the Malays. I had always suspected that the +Malays were deceitful, and here I found my impressions justified by +competent authority. Then I dipped into the preface, and found the same +transparent candor. "A piratical crew," says the author, "is generally +formed of the desperadoes and renegades of every clime and nation." +Again I said, "Just what I should have expected. The writer is evidently +one who 'nothing extenuates.'" Then<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> follows a further description of +the pirate: "The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, +when not cruising on the ocean, that great highway of nations, selects +the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or secretes himself +near the shores of bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited +countries." Just the places where I should have expected him to settle.</p> + +<p>"The pirate, when not engaged in robbing, passes his time in singing old +songs with choruses like,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the world wag as it will;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Let the heavens growl, let the devil howl,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drain, drain the deep bowl and fill!'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Thus his hours of relaxation are passed in wild and extravagant frolics, +amongst the lofty forests and spicy groves of the torrid zone, and +amidst the aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable products of that +region."</p> + +<p>Again: "With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich +plunder,—caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of +outlandish coins, secreted in lonely out-of-the-way places, or buried +about the wild shores of rivers and unexplored<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> seacoasts, near rocks +and trees bearing mysterious marks, indicating where the treasure is +hid." "As it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his booty, +and from the perilous life he lives being often killed, he can never +revisit the spot again, immense sums remaining buried in these places +are irrevocably lost." Is it any wonder that, with such an introduction, +I became interested?</p> + +<p>After a perusal of the book, I am inclined to think that a pirate may be +a better person to read about than some persons who stand higher in the +moral scale. Compare, if you will, a pirate and a pessimist. As a +citizen and neighbor I should prefer the pessimist. A pessimist is an +excellent and highly educated gentleman, who has been so unfortunate as +to be born into a world which is inadequate to his expectations. +Naturally he feels that he has a grievance, and in airing his grievance +he makes himself unpopular; but it is certainly not his fault that the +universe is no better than it is. On the other hand, a pirate is a bad +character; yet as a subject of biography he is more inspiring than the +pessimist. In one case, we have the impression of one<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> good man in a +totally depraved world; in the other case, we have a totally depraved +man in what but for him would be a very good world. I know of nothing +that gives one a more genial appreciation of average human nature, or a +greater tolerance for the foibles of one's acquaintances, than the +contrast with an unmitigated pirate.</p> + +<p>My copy of "The Pirate's Own Book" belongs to the edition of 1837. On +the fly-leaf it bore in prim handwriting the name of a lady who for many +years must have treasured it. I like to think of this unknown lady in +connection with the book. I know that she must have been an excellent +soul, and I have no doubt that her New England conscience pointed to the +moral law as the needle to the pole; but she was a wise woman, and knew +that if she was to keep her conscience in good repair she must give it +some reasonable relaxation. I am sure that she was a woman of versatile +philanthropy, and that every moment she had the ability to make two +duties grow where only one had grown before. After, however, attending +the requisite number of lectures to improve her mind, and considering in +committees<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> plans to improve other people's minds forcibly, and going to +meetings to lament over the condition of those who had no minds to +improve, this good lady would feel that she had earned a right to a few +minutes' respite. So she would take up "The Pirate's Own Book," and feel +a creepy sensation that would be an effectual counter-irritant to all +her anxieties for the welfare of the race. Things might be going slowly, +and there were not half as many societies as there ought to be, and the +world might be in a bad way; but then it was not so bad as it was in the +days of Black Beard; and the poor people who did not have any societies +to belong to were, after all, not so badly off as the sailors whom the +atrocious Nicola left on a desert island, with nothing but a blunderbuss +and Mr. Brooks's Family Prayer Book. In fact, it is expressly stated +that the pirates refused to give them a cake of soap. To be on a desert +island destitute of soap made the common evils of life appear trifling. +She had been worried about the wicked people who would not do their +duty, however faithfully they had been prodded up to it, who would not +be life members on payment of fifty dollars, and who<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> would not be +annual members on payment of a dollar and signing the constitution, and +who in their hard and impenitent hearts would not even sit on the +platform at the annual meeting; but somehow their guilt seemed less +extreme after she had studied again the picture of Captain Kidd burying +his Bible in the sands near Plymouth. A man who would bury his Bible, +using a spade several times too large for him, and who would strike such +a world-defying attitude while doing it, made the sin of not joining the +society appear almost venial. In this manner she gained a certain moral +perspective; even after days when the public was unusually dilatory +about reforms, and the wheels of progress had begun to squeak, she would +get a good night's sleep. Contrasting the public with the black +background of absolute piracy, she grew tolerant of its shortcomings, +and learned the truth of George Herbert's saying, that "pleasantness of +disposition is a great key to do good."</p> + +<p>Not only is a pirate a more comfortable person to read about than a +pessimist, but in many respects he is a more comfortable person to read +about than a philanthropist. The minute the<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> philanthropist is +introduced, the author begins to show his own cleverness by discovering +flaws in his motives. You begin to see that the poor man has his +limitations. Perhaps his philanthropies are of a different kind from +yours, and that irritates you. Musical people, whom I have heard +criticise other musical people, seem more offended when some one flats +just a little than when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and +moralists are apt to have the same fastidiousness. The philanthropist is +made the victim of the most cruel kind of vivisection,—a +character-study.</p> + +<p>Here is a fragment of conversation from a study of character: "'That was +really heroic,' said Felix. 'That was what he wanted to do,' Gertrude +went on. 'He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral +pleasure; he made up his mind to do his duty; he felt sublime,—that's +how he likes to feel.'"</p> + +<p>This leaves the mind in a painful state of suspense. The first instinct +of the unsophisticated reader is that if the person has done a good +deed, we ought not to begrudge him a little innocent pleasure in it. If +he is magnanimous, why not let him feel magnanimous? But after Gertrude<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> +has made these subtle suggestions we begin to experience something like +antipathy for a man who is capable of having a fine moral pleasure; who +not only does his duty, but really likes to do it. There is something +wrong about him, and it is all the more aggravating because we are not +sure just what it is. There is no trouble of that kind in reading about +pirates. You cannot make a character-study out of a pirate,—he has no +character. You know just where to place him. You do not expect anything +good of him, and when you find a sporadic virtue you are correspondingly +elated.</p> + +<p>For example, I am pleased to read of the pirate Gibbs that he was +"affable and communicative, and when he smiled he exhibited a mild and +gentle countenance. His conversation was concise and pertinent, and his +style of illustration quite original." If Gibbs had been a +philanthropist, it is doubtful whether these social and literary graces +would have been so highly appreciated.</p> + +<p>So our author feels a righteous glow when speaking of the natives of the +Malabar coasts, and accounting for their truthfulness: "For as<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> they had +been used to deal with pirates, they always found them men of honor in +the way of trade,—a people enemies of deceit, and that scorned to rob +but in their own way."</p> + +<p>He is a very literal-minded person, and takes all his pirates seriously, +but often we are surprised by some touch of nature that makes the whole +world kin. There was the ferocious Benevedes, who flourished on the west +coast of South America, and who, not content with sea power, attempted +to gather an army. It is said that "a more finished picture of a pirate +cannot be conceived," and the description that follows certainly bears +out this assertion. Yet he had his own ideas of civilization, and a +power of adaptation that reminds us of the excellent and ingenious Swiss +Family Robinson. When he captures the American whaling-ship Herculia, we +are prepared for a wild scene of carnage; but instead we are told that +Benevedes immediately dismantled the ship, and "out of the sails made +trousers for half his army." After the trousers had been distributed, +Benevedes remarked that his army was complete except in one essential +particular,—he had no trumpets for the cavalry: whereupon,<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> at the +suggestion of the New Bedford skipper, he ripped off the copper sheets +of the vessel, out of which a great variety of copper trumpets were +quickly manufactured, and soon "the whole camp resounded with the +warlike blasts." While the delighted pirates were enjoying their +instrumental music, the skipper and nine of the crew took occasion to +escape in a boat which had been imprudently concealed on the river bank.</p> + +<p>In the "Proverbial Philosophy" we are told that</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Many virtues weighted by excess sink among the vices,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Many vices, amicably buoyed, float among the virtues."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Had Mr. Tupper been acquainted with the career of Captain Davis of the +Spanish Main, he would have found many apt illustrations of his thesis. +Captain Davis had the vices incidental to a piratical career, but they +were amicably buoyed up by some virtues which would have adorned a +different station in life. He was a great stickler for parliamentary +law, and everything under his direction was done decently and in order. +Whenever it was possible, he made his demands in writing, a method which +was business-like and left no room for misunderstanding.<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> After a sloop +had been seized and duly pillaged, we are informed that:—</p> + +<p>"In full possession of the vessel and stores and goods, a large bowl of +punch was made. Under its exhilarating influence it was proposed to +choose a commander, and to form a future mode of policy. The election +was soon over and a large majority of legal voters were in favor of +Davis, and, no scrutiny being demanded, Davis was declared duly elected. +He then addressed them in a short and appropriate speech."</p> + +<p>The chief virtue of Davis seemed to be neatness, which on one occasion +he used to admirable advantage. "Encountering a French ship of +twenty-four guns, Davis proposed to the crew to attack her, assuring +them that she would prove a rich prize. This appeared to the crew such a +hazardous enterprise that they were adverse to the measure; but he +acquainted them that he had conceived a stratagem that he was confident +would succeed."</p> + +<p>This stratagem was worthy of the Beau Brummel of pirates. At the +critical moment, the crew "according to the direction of Davis appeared +on deck in white shirts, which making an appearance<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> of numbers the +Frenchman was intimidated and struck." Why the white shirts should have +given the appearance of numbers it is difficult to understand, but we +can well understand the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' +immaculate attire.</p> + +<p>Most of the pirates seem to have conducted their lives on a highly +romantic, not to say sensational plan. This reprehensible practice, of +course, must shut them off from the sympathy of all realists of the +stricter school, who hold that there should be no dramatic situations, +and that even when a story is well begun it should not be brought to a +finish, but should "peter out" in the last chapters, no one knows how or +why. Sometimes, however, a pirate manages to come to an end sufficiently +commonplace to make a plot for a most irreproachable novel. There was +Captain Avery. He commenced the practice of his profession very +auspiciously by running away with a ship of thirty guns from Bristol. In +the Indian Ocean he captured a treasure-ship of the Great Mogul. In this +ship, it is said, "there were several of the greatest persons of the +court." There was also on board the daughter of the<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> Great Mogul, who +was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The painstaking historian comments on this +very justly: "It is well known that the people of the East travel with +great magnificence, so that they had along with them all their slaves, +with a large quantity of vessels of gold and silver and immense sums of +money. The spoil, therefore, that Avery received from that ship was +almost incalculable." To capture the treasure-ship of the Great Mogul +under such circumstances would have turned the head of any ordinary +pirate who had weakened his mind by reading works tinged with +romanticism. His companions, when the treasure was on board, wished to +sail to Madagascar, and there build a small fort; but "Avery +disconcerted the plan and rendered it altogether unnecessary." We know +perfectly well what these wretches would have done if they had been +allowed to have their own way: they would have gathered in one of the +spicy groves, and would have taken up vociferously their song,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Let the world wag as it will."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Avery would have none of this, so when most of the men were away from +the ship he sailed off<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> with the treasure, leaving them to their evil +ways, and to a salutary poverty. Here begins the realism of the story. +With the treasures of the Great Mogul in his hold, he did not follow the +illusive course of Captain Kidd, "as he sailed, as he sailed." He did +not even lay his course for the "coasts of Coromandel." Instead of that +he made a bee-line for America, with the laudable intention of living +there "in affluence and honor." When he got to America, however, he did +not know what to do with himself, and still less what to do with the +inestimable pearls and diamonds of the Great Mogul. An ordinary pirate +of romance would have escaped to the Spanish Main, but Avery did just +what any realistic gentleman would do: after he had spent a short time +in other cities—he concluded to go to Boston. The chronicler adds, +"Arriving at Boston, he almost resolved to settle there." It was in the +time of the Mathers. But in spite of its educational and religious +advantages, Boston furnished no market for the gems of the Orient, so +Captain Avery went to England. If he had in his youth read a few +detective stories, he might have known how to get his jewels exchanged +for the current coin<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> of the realm; but his early education had been +neglected, and he was of a singularly confiding and unsophisticated +nature—when on land. After suffering from poverty he made the +acquaintance of some wealthy merchants of Bristol, who took his gems on +commission, on condition that they need not inquire how he came by them. +That was the last Avery saw of the gems of the Great Mogul. A plain +pirate was no match for financiers. Remittances were scanty, though +promises were frequent. What came of it all? Nothing came of it; things +simply dragged along. Avery was not hanged, neither did he get his +money. At last, on a journey to Bristol to urge the merchants to a +settlement, he fell sick and died. What became of the gems? Nobody +knows. What became of those merchants of Bristol? Nobody cares. A +novelist might, out of such material, make an ending quite clever and +dreary.</p> + +<p>To this realistic school of pirates belongs Thomas Veal, known in our +history as the "Pirate of Lynn." To turn from the chapter on the Life, +Atrocities, and Bloody Death of Black Beard to the chapter on the Lynn +Pirate, is a relief to the<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> overstrained sensibilities. Lynn is in the +temperate zone, and we should naturally reason that its piracies would +be more calm and equable than those of the tropics, and so they were. +"On one pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen +to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently +lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the +river." It is needless to say that these men were pirates. In the +morning the vessel had disappeared, but a man found a paper whereon was +a statement that if a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and hatchets were +placed in a certain nook, silver would be deposited near by to pay for +them. The people of Lynn in those days were thrifty folk, and the +hardware was duly placed in the spot designated, and the silver was +found as promised. After some months four pirates came and settled in +the woods. The historian declares it to be his opinion (and he speaks as +an expert) that it would be impossible to select a place more convenient +for a gang of pirates. He draws particular attention to the fact that +the "ground was well selected for the cultivation of potatoes and common +vegetables." This shows<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> that the New England environment gave an +industrial and agricultural cast to piracy which it has not had +elsewhere. In fact, after reading the whole chapter, I am struck by the +pacific and highly moral character of these pirates. The last of +them—Thomas Veal—took up his abode in what is described as a "spacious +cavern," about two miles from Lynn. "There the fugitive fixed his +residence, and practiced the trade of a shoemaker, occasionally coming +down to the village to obtain articles of sustenance." By uniting the +occupations of market-gardening, shoe-making, and piracy, Thomas Veal +managed to satisfy the demands of a frugal nature, and to live respected +by his neighbors in Lynn. It must have been a great alleviation in the +lot of the small boys, when now and then they escaped from the eyes of +the tithing-men, and in the cave listened to Mr. Veal singing his +pirate's songs. Of course a solo could give only a faint conception of +what the full chorus would have been in the tropical forests, but still +it must have curdled the blood to a very considerable extent.</p> + +<p>There is, I must confess, a certain air of vagueness about this +interesting narration. No overt<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> act of piracy is mentioned. Indeed, the +evidence in regard to the piratical character of Mr. Veal, so far as it +is given in this book, is largely circumstantial.</p> + +<p>There is, first, the geographical argument. The Saugus River, being a +winding stream, was admirably adapted for the resort of pirates who +wished to prey upon the commerce of Boston and Salem. This establishes +the opportunity and motive, and renders it antecedently probable that +piracy was practiced. The river, it is said, was a good place in which +to secrete boats. This we know from our reading was the invariable +practice of pirates.</p> + +<p>Another argument is drawn from the umbrageous character of the Lynn +woods. We are told with nice particularity that in this tract of country +"there were many thick pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and places where the +rays of the sun at noon could not penetrate." Such a place would be just +the spot in which astute pirates would be likely to bury their treasure, +confident that it would never be discovered. The fact that nothing ever +has been discovered here seems to confirm this supposition.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a></p> + +<p>The third argument is that while a small cave still remains, the +"spacious cavern" in which Thomas Veal, the piratical shoemaker, is said +to have dwelt no longer exists. This clinches the evidence. For there +was an earthquake in 1658. What more likely than that, in the +earthquake, "the top of the rock was loosened and crushed down into the +mouth of the cavern, inclosing the unfortunate inmate in its unyielding +prison?" At any rate, there is no record of Mr. Veal or of his spacious +cavern after that earthquake.</p> + +<p>No one deserves to be called an antiquarian who cannot put two and two +together, and reconstruct from these data a more or less elaborate +history of the piracies of Mr. Thomas Veal. The only other explanation +of the facts presented, that I can think of as having any degree of +plausibility, is that possibly Mr. Veal may have been an Anabaptist, +escaped from Boston, who imposed upon the people of Lynn by making them +believe that he was only a pirate.</p> + +<p>I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more +edifying than entertaining. He can never resist the temptation to draw a +moral, and his dogmatic bias in favor of the<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> doctrine of total +depravity is only too evident. But his book has the great advantage that +it is not devoid of incident. Take it all in all, there are worse books +to read—after one is tired of reading books that are better.</p> + +<p>I am inclined to think that our novelists must make home happy, or they +may drive many of their readers to "The Pirate's Own Book." The policy +of the absolute prohibition of romance, while excellent in theory, has +practical difficulties in the way of enforcement. Perhaps, under certain +restrictions, license might be issued to proper persons to furnish +stimulants to the imagination. Of course the romancer should not be +allowed to sell to minors, nor within a certain distance of a +schoolhouse, nor to habitual readers. My position is the conservative +one that commended itself to the judicious Rollo.</p> + +<p>"'Well, Rollo,' said Dorothy, 'shall I tell you a true story, or one +that is not true?'</p> + +<p>"'I think, on the whole, Dorothy, I would rather have it true.'"</p> + +<p>But there must have been times—though none are recorded—when Rollo +tired even of the admirable clear thinking and precise information of<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> +Jonas. At such times he might have tolerated a story that was not so +very true, if only it were interesting. There are main thoroughfares +paved with hard facts where the intellectual traffic must go on +continually. There are tracks on which, if a heedless child of romance +should stray, he is in danger of being run down by the realists, those +grim motor-men of the literary world. But outside the congested +districts there should be some roadways leading out into the open +country where all things are still possible. At the entrance to each of +these roads there ought to be displayed the notice, "For pleasure only. +No heavy teaming allowed." I should not permit any modern improvements +in this district, but I should preserve all its natural features. There +should be not only a feudal castle with moat and drawbridge, but also a +pirate's cave.<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Honorable_Points_of_Ignorance" id="The_Honorable_Points_of_Ignorance"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_135-a.png" width="320" height="112" alt="The Honorable Points of Ignorance" title="The Honorable Points of Ignorance" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_i.png" width="30" height="101" alt="I" title="I" /></span> +HAPPEN to live in a community where there is a deeply rooted prejudice +in favor of intelligence, with many facilities for its advancement. I +may, therefore, be looked upon as unmindful of my privileges when I +confess that my chief pleasures have been found in the more secluded +paths of ignorance.</p> + +<p>I am no undiscriminating lover of Ignorance. I do not like the +pitch-black kind which is the negation of all thought. What I prefer is +a pleasant intellectual twilight, where one sees realities through an +entrancing atmosphere of dubiety.</p> + +<p>In visiting a fine old Elizabethan mansion in<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> the south of England our +host took us to a room where he had discovered the evidences of a secret +panel. "What is behind it?" we asked. "I do not know," he answered; +"while I live it shall never be opened, for then I should have no secret +chamber."</p> + +<p>There was a philosopher after my own heart. He was wise enough to resist +the temptation to sell his birthright of mystery for a mess of +knowledge. The rural New Englander expresses his interest by saying, "I +want to know!" But may one not have a real interest in persons and +things which is free from inquisitiveness? For myself, I frequently +prefer not to know. Were Bluebeard to do me the honor of intrusting me +with his keys, I should spend a pleasant half-hour speculating on his +family affairs. I might even put the key in the lock, but I do not think +I should turn it. Why should I destroy twenty exciting possibilities for +the sake of a single discovery?</p> + +<p>I like to watch certain impressive figures as they cross the College +Yard. They seem like the sages whom Dante saw:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"People were there with solemn eyes and slow,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of great authority in their countenance."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a></p> + +<p>Do I therefore inquire their names, and intrusively seek to know what +books they have written, before I admire their scholarship? No, to my +old-fashioned way of thinking, scholarship is not a thing to be +measured; it is a mysterious effluence. Were I to see—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Democritus who puts the world on chance,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Tully and Livy and moral Seneca,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">I should not care to ask, "Which is which?" still less should I venture +to interview Galen on the subject of medicine, or put leading questions +to Diogenes. The combined impression of ineffable wisdom would be more +to me than any particular information I might get out of them.</p> + +<p>But, as I said, I am not an enthusiast for Ignorance. Mine is not the +zeal of a new convert, but the sober preference of one to the manner +born. I do not look upon it as a panacea, nor, after the habit of +reformers, would I insist that it should be taught in the public +schools. There are important spheres wherein exact information is much +to be preferred.<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a></p> + +<p>Because Ignorance has its own humble measure of bliss I would not jump +at the conclusion that it is folly to be wise. That is an extravagant +statement. If real wisdom were offered me I should accept it gratefully. +Wisdom is an honorable estate, and, doubtless, it has pleasures of its +own. I only have in mind the alternative that is usually presented to +us, conscious ignorance or a kind of knowingness.</p> + +<p>It is necessary, at this point, to make a distinction. A writer on the +use of words has a chapter on Ignorantism, which is a term he uses to +indicate Ignorance that mistakes itself, or seeks to make others mistake +it, for Knowledge. For Ignorantism I make no plea. If Ignorance puts on +a false uniform and is caught within the enemy's lines, it must suffer +the penalties laid down in the laws of war.</p> + +<p>Nor would I defend what Milton calls "the barbarous ignorance of the +schools." This scholastic variety consists of the scientific definition +and classification of "things that aren't so." It has no value except as +a sort of gelatine culture for the propagation of verbal bacteria.<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a></p> + +<p>But the affectations of the pedants or the sciolists should not be +allowed to cast discredit on the fair name of Ignorance. It is only +natural Ignorance which I praise; not that which is acquired. It was a +saying of Landor that if a man had a large mind he could afford to let +the greater part of it lie fallow. Of course we small proprietors cannot +do things on such a generous scale; but it seems to me that if one has +only a little mind it is a mistake to keep it all under cultivation.</p> + +<p>I hope that this praise of Ignorance may not give offense to any +intelligent reader who may feel that he is placed by reason of his +acquirements beyond the pale of our sympathies. He need fear no such +exclusion. My Lady Ignorance is gracious and often bestows her choicest +gifts on those who scorn her. The most erudite person is intelligent +only in spots. Browning's Bishop Blougram questioned whether he should +be called a skeptic or believer, seeing that he could only exchange</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"a life of doubt diversified by faith,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">For one of faith diversified by doubt:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">We called the chess-board white,—we call it black."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">Whether a person thinks of his own intellectual state as one of +knowledge diversified by ignorance or one of ignorance diversified by +knowledge is a matter of temperament. We like him better when he frankly +calls his intellectual chess-board black. That, at any rate, was the +original color, the white is an afterthought.</p> + +<p>Let me, then, without suspicion of treasonable intent, be allowed to +point out what we may call in Shakespearean phrase "the honorable points +of ignorance."</p> + +<p>The social law against "talking shop" is an indication of the very +widespread opinion that the exhibition of unmitigated knowledge is +unseemly, outside of business hours. When we meet for pleasure we prefer +that it should be on the humanizing ground of not knowing. Nothing is so +fatal to conversation as an authoritative utterance. When a man who is +capable of giving it enters,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"All talk dies, as in a grove all song</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Beneath the shadow of a bird of prey."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Conversation about the weather would lose all its easy charm in the +presence of the Chief of the Weather Bureau.<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a></p> + +<p>It is possible that the fear of exhibiting unusual information in a +mixed company may be a survival of primitive conditions. Just as the +domesticated dog will turn around on the rug before lying down, for +hereditary reasons which I do not remember, so it is with civilized man. +Once ignorance was universal and enforced by penalties. In the progress +of the race the environment has been modified, but so strong is the +influence of heredity that The Man Who Knows no sooner enters the +drawing-room than he is seized by guilty fears. His ancestors for having +exhibited a moiety of his intelligence were executed as wizards. But +perhaps the ordinary working of natural selection may account for the +facts. The law of the survival of the fittest admits of no exceptions, +and the fittest to give us pleasure in conversation is the sympathetic +person who appears to know very little more than we do.</p> + +<p>In the commerce of ideas there must be reciprocity. We will not deal +with one who insists that the balance of trade shall always be in his +favor. Moreover there must be a spice of incertitude about the +transaction. The real joy of<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> the intellectual traffic comes when we +sail away like the old merchant adventurers in search of a market. There +must be no prosaic bills of exchange: it must be primitive barter. We +have a choice cargo of beads which we are willing to exchange for +frankincense and ivory. If on some strange coast we should meet +simple-minded people who have only wampum, perhaps even then we might +make a trade.</p> + +<p>Have you never when engaged in such commerce felt something of the +spirit of the grave Tyrian trader who had sailed away from the +frequented marts, and held on</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To where the Atlantic raves</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Outside the western straits, and unbent sails</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">There where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And on the beach undid his corded bales."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It is not every day that one meets with such shy traffickers, for the +world is becoming very sophisticated. One does not ask that those with +whom we converse should be ignorant of everything; it is enough that +they should not know what is in our bales before we undo them.<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p> + +<p>One very serious drawback to our pleasure in conversation with a too +well-informed person is the nervous strain that is involved. We are +always wondering what will happen when he comes to the end of his +resources. After listening to one who discourses with surprising +accuracy upon any particular topic, we feel a delicacy in changing the +subject. It seems a mean trick, like suddenly removing the chair on +which a guest is about to sit down for the evening. With one who is +interested in a great many things he knows little about there is no such +difficulty. If he has passed the first flush of youth, it no longer +embarrasses him to be caught now and then in a mistake; indeed your +correction is welcomed as an agreeable interruption, and serves as a +starting point for a new series of observations.</p> + +<p>The pleasure of conversation is enhanced if one feels assured not only +of wide margins of ignorance, but also of the absence of uncanny +quickness of mind.</p> + +<p>I should not like to be neighbor to a wit. It would be like being in +proximity to a live wire. A certain insulating film of kindly stupidity +is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse.<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> There are +certain minds whose processes convey the impression of alternating +currents of high voltage on a wire that is not quite large enough for +them. From such I would withdraw myself.</p> + +<p>One is freed from all such apprehensions in the companionship of people +who make no pretensions to any kind of cleverness. "The laughter of +fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot." What cheerful +sounds! The crackling of the dry thorns! and the merry bubbling of the +pot!</p> + +<p>There is an important part played by what I may call defensive +Ignorance. It was said of Robert Elsmere that he had a mind that was +defenseless against the truth. It is a fine thing to be thus open to +conviction, but the mental hospitality of one who is without prejudices +is likely to be abused. All sorts of notions importunately demand +attention, and he who thinks to examine all their credentials will find +no time left for his own proper affairs.</p> + +<p>For myself, I like to have a general reception-room in my mind for all +sorts of notions with which I desire to keep up only a calling +acquaintance.<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> Here let them all be welcomed, good, bad, and +indifferent, in the spacious antechamber of my Ignorance. But I am not +able to invite them into my private apartments, for I am living in a +small way in cramped quarters, where there is only room for my own +convictions. There are many things that are interesting to hear about +which I do not care to investigate. If one is willing to give me the +result of his speculations on various esoteric doctrines I am ready to +receive them in the spirit in which they are offered, but I should not +think of examining them closely; it would be too much like looking a +gift horse in the mouth.</p> + +<p>I should like to talk with a Mahatma about the constitution of the +astral body. I do not know enough about the subject to contradict his +assertions, and therefore he would have it all his own way. But were he +to become insistent and ask me to look into the matter for myself, I +should beg to be excused. I would not take a single step alone. In such +a case I agree with Sir Thomas Browne that "it is better to sit down in +modest ignorance and rest contented with the natural blessings of our +own reasons."<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> + +<p>There are zealous persons of a proselyting turn of mind who insist upon +our accepting their ideas or giving reasons for our rejection of them. +When we see the flames of controversy sweeping upon us, the only safety +lies in setting a back fire which shall clear the ground of any fuel for +argument. If we can only surround ourselves with a bare space of +nescience we may rest in peace. I have seen a simple Chinese +laundry-man, by adopting this plan, resist a storm of argument and +invective without losing his temper or yielding his point. Serene, +imperturbable, inscrutable, he stood undisturbed by the strife of +tongues. He had one supreme advantage,—he did not know the language.</p> + +<p>It was thus in the sixteenth century, when religious strife waxed mad +around him, that Montaigne preserved a little spot of tolerant thought. +"O what a soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity +whereon to compose a well-contrived head!"</p> + +<p>This sounds like mere Epicureanism, but Montaigne had much to say for +himself: "Great abuse in the world is begot, or, to speak more boldly, +all the abuses of the world are begot by<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> our being taught to be afraid +of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things +we are not able to refute.... They make me hate things that are likely +when they impose upon me for infallible. I love those words which +mollify and moderate the temerity of our propositions, 'Peradventure, in +some sort, 'tis said, I think,' and the like.... There is a sort of +ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honor and courage +to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge +than knowledge itself."</p> + +<p>Not only is protection needed from the dogmatic assaults of our +neighbors, but also from our own premature ideas. There are opinions +which we are willing to receive on probation, but these probationers +must be taught by judicious snubbing to know their place. The +plausibilities and probabilities that are pleasantly received must not +airily assume the place of certainties. Because you say to a stranger, +"I'm glad to see you," it is not certain that you are ready to sign his +note at the bank.</p> + +<p>When one happens to harbor any ideas of a radical character, he is +fortunate if he is so constituted<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> that it is not necessary for his +self-respect that he should be cock-sure. The consciousness of the +imperfection of his knowledge serves as a buffer when the train of +progress starts with a jerk.</p> + +<p>Sir Thomas More was, it is evident, favorably impressed with many of the +sentiments of the gentleman from Utopia, but it was a great relief to +him to be able to give them currency without committing himself to them. +He makes no dogmatic assertion that the constitution of Utopia was +better than that of the England of Henry VIII. In fact, he professes to +know nothing about Utopia except from mere hearsay. He gracefully +dismisses the subject, allowing the seeds of revolutionary ideas to +float away on the thistle-down of polite Ignorance.</p> + +<p>"When Raphael had made an end of speaking, though many things occurred +to me both concerning the manners and laws of that country that seemed +very absurd ... yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary and I was +not sure whether he could bear contradiction ... I only commended their +constitution and the account he had given of it in general; and so, +taking him by<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> the hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would +find some other time for examining this subject more particularly and +discoursing more copiously upon it."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>One whose quiet tastes lead him away from the main traveled roads into +the byways of Ignorance is likely to retain a feeling in regard to books +which belongs to an earlier stage of culture. Time was when a book was a +symbol of intellectual mysteries rather than a tool to be used. When +Omar Khayyám sang of the delights of a jug of wine and a book, I do not +think he was intemperate in the use of either. The same book and the +same jug of wine would last him a long time. The chief thing was that it +gave him a comfortable feeling to have them within reach.</p> + +<p>The primitive feeling in regard to a book as a kind of talisman survives +chiefly among bibliophiles, but with them it is overlaid by matters of +taste which are quite beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. As +for myself, I know nothing of such niceties.</p> + +<p>I know nothing of rare bindings or fine editions. My heart is never +disturbed by coveting<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> the contents of my neighbor's bookshelves. +Indeed, I have always listened to the tenth commandment with a tranquil +heart since I learned, in the Shorter Catechism, that "the tenth +commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying +or grieving at the good of our neighbor and all inordinate motions and +affections to anything that is his." If that be all, it is not aimed at +me, particularly in this matter of books.</p> + +<p>I feel no discontentment at the disorderly array of bound volumes that I +possess. I know that they are no credit either to my taste or to my +scholarship, but if that offends my neighbor, the misery is his, not +mine. If he should bring a railing accusation against me, let him +remember that there is a ninth commandment which "forbiddeth anything +that is injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name." As for any +inordinate motions or affections toward his literary treasures, I have +no more than toward his choice collection of stamps.</p> + +<p>Yet I have one weakness in common with the bibliophile; I have a liking +for certain books which I have neither time nor inclination to read.<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> +Just as according to the mediæval theory there was a sanctity about a +duly ordained clergyman altogether apart from his personal character, so +there is to my mind an impressiveness about some volumes which has +little to do with their contents, or at least with my knowledge of them. +Why should we be too curious in regard to such matters? There are books +which I love to see on the shelf. I feel that virtue goes out of them, +but I should think it undue familiarity to read them.</p> + +<p>The persons who have written on "Books that have helped me" have usually +confined their list to books which they have actually read. One book has +clarified their thoughts, another has stimulated their wills, another +has given them useful knowledge. But are there no Christian virtues to +be cultivated? What about humility, that pearl of great price?</p> + +<p>To be constantly reminded that you have not read Kant's "Critique of the +Pure Reason," and that therefore you have no right to express a final +opinion on philosophy, does not that save you from no end of unnecessary +dogmatism? The silent monitor with its accusing, uncut pages is a +blessed help to the meekness of wisdom. A<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> book that has helped me is +"The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England," by Edward, +Earl of Clarendon. I am by nature and education a Cromwellian, of a +rather narrow type. I am more likely than not to think of Charles I. as +a man of sin. When, therefore, I brought home Clarendon's History I felt +a glow of conscious virtue; the volume was an outward and visible sign +of inward and spiritual grace,—the grace of tolerance; and so it has +ever been to me.</p> + +<p>Years have passed, and the days of leisure have not yet come when I +could devote myself to the reading of it. Perhaps the fact that I +discovered that the noble earl's second sentence contains almost three +hundred words may have had a discouraging influence,—but we will let +that pass. Because I have not crossed the Rubicon of the second chapter, +will you say that the book has not influenced me? "When in my sessions +of sweet, silent thought," with the Earl of Clarendon, "I summon up +remembrance of time past," is it necessary that I should laboriously +turn the pages? It is enough that I feel my prejudices oozing away, and +that I am convinced, when I look at the much prized volume, that there +are two sides<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> to this matter of the English Commonwealth. Could the +most laborious reading do more for me?</p> + +<p>Indeed, it is dangerous, sometimes, not to let well-enough alone. +Wordsworth's fickle Muse gave him several pretty fancies about the +unseen banks of Yarrow. "Yarrow Unvisited" was so delightful that he was +almost tempted to be content with absent treatment.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"We will not see them, will not go</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To-day nor yet to-morrow,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Enough if in our hearts we know</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">There's such a place as Yarrow.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Be Yarrow's stream unseen, unknown,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">It must, or we shall rue it,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">We have a vision of our own,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Ah, why should we undo it?"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Ah, why, indeed? the reader asks, after reading Yarrow Visited and +Yarrow Re-visited. The visits were a mistake.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Clarendon Unread is as good for my soul as Clarendon Read or +Clarendon Re-read. Who can tell?</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>There is another sphere in which the honorable points of ignorance are +not always sufficiently<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> appreciated, that of Travel. The pleasure of +staying at home consists in being surrounded by things which are +familiar and which we know all about. The primary pleasure of going +abroad consists in the encounter with the unfamiliar and the unknown.</p> + +<p>That was the impulse which stirred old Ulysses to set forth once more +upon his travels.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"For my purpose holds</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Of all the western stars, until I die.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And see the great Achilles, whom we knew."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"It may be"—there lay the charm. There was no knowing what might happen +on the dark, broad seas. Perhaps they might get lost, and then again +they might come upon the Happy Isles. And if as they sailed under their +looming shores they should see the great Achilles—why all the better!</p> + +<p>What joys the explorers of the New World experienced! The heart leaps up +at the very title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company. "Merchants +Adventurers of England for the discovery<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> of lands, territories, isles +and signories, unknown." There was no knowing beforehand which was an +island and which the mainland. All they had to do was to keep on, sure +only of finding something which they had not expected. When they got to +the mainland they were as likely as not to stumble on the great Khan +himself. Of course they might not make a discovery of the first +magnitude like that of the Spaniards on the Peak in Darien,—but if it +was not one thing it was another!</p> + +<p>Two or three miles back of Plymouth, Mass., is a modest little pond +called Billington's Sea. Billington, an adventurous Pilgrim, had climbed +a tree, and looking westwards had caught sight of the shimmering water. +He looked at it with a wild surmise, and then the conviction flashed +upon him that he had discovered the goal of hardy mariners,—the great +South Sea. That was a great moment for Billington!</p> + +<p>Of course the Spaniards were more fortunate in their geographical +position. It turned out that it was the Pacific that they saw from their +Peak in Darien; while Billington's Sea does not grow on acquaintance.</p> + +<p>But my heart goes out to Billington. He also<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> was a discoverer, +according to his lights. He belonged to a hardy breed, and could stare +on new scenes with the best of them. It was not his fault that the +Pacific was not there. If it had been, Billington would have discovered +it. We know perfectly well that the Pacific Ocean does not lave the +shores of Plymouth County, and so we should not go out into the woods on +a fine morning to look for it. There is where Billington had the +advantage of us.</p> + +<p>Is it not curious that while we profess to envy the old adventurers the +joys of discovery, yet before we set out on our travels we make it a +point of convenience to rob ourselves of these possibilities? Before we +set out for Ultima Thule we must know precisely where it is, and how we +are going to get there, and what we are to see and what others have said +about it. After a laborious course of reading the way is as familiar to +our minds as the road to the post office. After that there is nothing +more for us to do but to sally forth to verify the guide-books. We have +done all that we could to brush the bloom off our native Ignorance.</p> + +<p>Of course even then all the possibilities of<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> discovery are not shut +out. The best-informed person cannot be completely guarded against +surprise. Accidents will happen, and there is always the chance that one +may have been misinformed.</p> + +<p>I remember a depressed looking lady whom I encountered as she trudged +through the galleries of the Vatican with grim conscientiousness. She +had evidently a stern duty to perform for the cause of Art. But in the +Sistine Chapel the stillness was broken by her voice, which had a note +of triumph as she spoke to her daughter. She had discovered an error in +Baedeker. It infused new life into her tired soul.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Some flowerets of Eden we still inherit</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Though the trail of the serpent is over them all."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Speaking of the Vatican, that suggests the weak point in my argument. It +suggests that there are occasions when knowledge is very convenient. On +the Peak in Darien the first comer, with the wild surmise of ignorance, +has the advantage in the quality of his sensation; but it is different +in Jerusalem or Rome. There the pleasure consists in the fact that a +great many interesting people have been there before and<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> done many +interesting things, which it might be well to know about.</p> + +<p>At this point I am quite willing to grant an inch; with the +understanding that it shall not be lengthened into an ell. The Camel of +Knowledge may push his head into the tent, and we shall have to resist +his further encroachments as we may.</p> + +<p>What we call the historic sense is not consistent with a state of +nescience. The picture which the eye takes in is incomplete without the +thousand associations which come from previous thought. Still, it +remains true that the finest pleasure does not come when the mental +images are the most precise. Before entering Paradise the mediæval +pilgrims tasted of the streams of Eunoë and Lethe,—the happy memory and +the happy forgetfulness. The most potent charm comes from the judicious +mingling of these waters.</p> + +<p>There is a feeling of antiquity that only comes now and then, but which +it is worth traveling far to experience. It is the thrill that comes +when we consciously stand in the presence of the remote past. Some scene +brings with it an impression<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> of immemorial time. In almost every case +we find that it comes from being reminded of something which we have +once known and more than half forgotten. What are the "mists of time" +but imperfect memories?</p> + +<p>Modern psychologists have given tardy recognition to the "Subliminal +Self,"—the self that lodges under the threshold of consciousness. He is +a shy gnome, and loves the darkness rather than the light; not, as I +believe, because his deeds are evil, but for reasons best known to +himself. To all appearances he is the most ignorant fellow in the world, +and yet he is no fool. As for the odds and ends that he stores up under +the threshold, they are of more value than the treasures that the +priggish Understanding displays in his show windows upstairs.</p> + +<p>In traveling through historic lands the Subliminal Self overcomes his +shyness. There are scenes and even words that reach back into hoar +antiquity, and bring us into the days of eld.</p> + +<p>Each person has his own chronology. If I were to seek to bring to mind +the very ancientest time, I should not think of the cave-dwellers: I +should repeat, "The Kenites, the Kenizzites,<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> the Kadmonites, the +Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the +Girgashites."</p> + +<p>There is antiquity! It is not only a long time since these tribes dwelt +in the land; it has been a long time since I first heard of them.</p> + +<p>My memory goes back to the time when a disconsolate little boy sat on a +bench in a Sunday-school and asked himself, "What is a Girgashite?"</p> + +<p>The habit of the Sunday-school of mingling the historical and ethical +elements in one inextricable moral had made it uncertain whether the +Girgashite was a person or a sin. In either case it happened a long time +ago. There upon the very verge of Time stood the Girgashite, like the +ghost in Ossian, "His spear was a column of mist, and the stars looked +dim through his form."</p> + +<p>Happily my studies have not led in that direction, and there is nothing +to disturb the first impression. If some day wandering over Oriental +hills I should come upon some broken monuments of the Girgashites, I am +sure that I should feel more of a thrill than could possibly come to my +more instructed companion. To him it would be only the discovery of +another fact, to<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> fit into his scheme of knowledge: to me it would be +like stumbling unawares into the primeval world.</p> + +<p>What is more delightful than in a railway train in Italy to hear voices +in the night calling out names that recall the lost arts of our +childhood! There is a sense</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Of something here like something there,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of something done, I know not where,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Such as no language can declare."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>There is a bittersweet to it, for there is a momentary fear that you may +be called upon to construe; but when that is past it is pure joy.</p> + +<p>"Monte Soracte," said the Italian gentleman on the train between Foligno +and Rome, as he pointed out a picturesque eminence. My answering smile +was intended to convey the impression that one touch of the classics +makes the whole world kin. Had I indeed kept up my Horace, a host of +clean-cut ideas would have instantly rushed into my mind. "Is that +Soracte! It is not what I had reason to expect. As a mountain I prefer +Monadnock."</p> + +<p>Fortunately I had no such prepossessions. I had expected nothing. There +only came impressions<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> of lessons years ago in a dingy school-room +presided over by a loved instructor whom we knew as "Prof. Ike." Looking +back through the mists of time, I felt that I had been the better for +having learned the lessons, and none the worse for having long since +forgotten them. In those days Soracte had been a noun standing in +mysterious relations to a verb unknown; but now it was evident that it +was a mountain. There it stood under the clear Italian sky just as it +had been in the days of Virgil and Horace. Thoughts of Horace and of the +old professor mingled pleasantly so long as the mountain was in sight.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>It may seem to some timid souls that this praise of Ignorance may have a +sinister motive, and may be intended to deter from the pursuit of +knowledge. On the contrary, it is intended to encourage those who are +"faint yet pursuing."</p> + +<p>It must have occurred to every serious person that the pursuit of +knowledge is not what it once was. Time was when to know seemed the +easiest thing in the world. All that a man had to do was to assert +dogmatically that a thing was so,<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> and then argue it out with some one +who had even less acquaintance with the subject than he had. He was not +hampered by a rigid, scientific method, nor did he need to make +experiments, which after all might not strengthen his position. The +chief thing was a certain tenacity of opinion which would enable him, in +Pope's phrase, to "hold the eel of science by the tail." There were no +troublesome experts to cast discredit on this slippery sport. If a man +had a knack at metaphysics and a fine flow of technical language he +could satisfy all reasonable curiosity about the Universe. Or with the +minimum of effort he might attain a jovial scholarship adequate for all +convivial purposes, like Chaucer's pilgrim</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Whan that he wel dronken had the win,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Than wold he speken no word but Latin."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It was the golden age of the amateur, when certainty could be had for +the asking, and one could stake out any part of the wide domain of human +interest and hold it by the right of squatter sovereignty. But in these +days the man who aspires to know must do something more than assert his +conviction. He must submit to all sorts of mortifying tests, and at best +he can obtain<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> a title to only the tiniest bit of the field he covets.</p> + +<p>With the severer definitions of knowledge and the delimitation of the +territory which any one may call his own there has come a curious +result. While the aggregate of intellectual wealth has increased, the +individual workers are being reduced to penury. It is a pathetic +illustration of Progress and Poverty. The old and highly respected class +of gentlemen and scholars is being depleted. Scholarship has become so +difficult that those who aspire after it have little time for the +amenities. It is not as it was in the "spacious times of great +Elizabeth." Enter any company of modern scholars and ask what they know +about any large subject, and you will find that each one hastens to take +the poor debtor's oath. How can they be expected to know so much?</p> + +<p>On this minute division of intellectual labor the exact sciences thrive, +but conversation, poetry, art, and all that belongs to the humanities +languish.</p> + +<p>Your man of highly specialized intelligence has often a morbid fear of +half-knowledge, and he does not dare to express an opinion that has<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> not +been the result of original research. He shuns the innocent questioners +who would draw him out, as if they were so many dunning creditors. He +becomes a veritable Dick Swiveller as one conversational thoroughfare +after another is closed against him, until he no longer ventures abroad. +The worst of it is that he has a haunting apprehension that even the bit +of knowledge which he calls his own may be taken away from him by some +new discovery, and he may be cast adrift upon the Unknowable.</p> + +<p>It is then that he should remember the wisdom of the unjust steward, so +that when he is cast out of the House of Knowledge he may find congenial +friends in the habitations of Ignorance.</p> + +<p>There are a great many mental activities that stop short of strict +knowledge. Where we do not know, we may imagine, and hope, and dare; we +may laugh at our neighbor's mistakes, and occasionally at our own. We +may enjoy the delicious moments of suspense when we are on the verge of +finding out; and if it should happen that the discovery is postponed, +then we have a chance to go over the delightful process again.</p> + +<p>To say "I do not know" is not nearly as<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> painful as it seems to those +who have not tried it. The active mind, when the conceit of absolute +knowledge has been destroyed, quickly recovers itself and cries out, +after the manner of Brer Rabbit when Brer Fox threw him into the brier +patch, "Bred en bawn in a brier patch, Brer Fox—bred en bawn in a brier +patch!"<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="That_History_should_be_Readable" id="That_History_should_be_Readable"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_167-a.png" width="350" height="138" alt="That History should be Readable" title="That History should be Readable" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_t.png" width="30" height="67" alt="T" title="T" /></span>HAT was a clever device which a writer of "mere literature" hit upon +when he boldly dedicated his book to a man of prodigious learning. "Who +so guarded," he says, "can suspect his safety even when he travels +through the Enemy's Country, for such is the vast field of Learning, +where the Learned (though not numerous enough to be an Army) lie in +small Parties, maliciously in Ambush, to destroy all New Men who look +into their Quarters."</p> + +<p>It is doubtful, however, whether in these days a lover of Ignorance—or, +if you prefer, an ignorant lover of good things—could be safe in the +enemy's country, even under the protection of<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> such a Mr. Great Heart. +It is no longer true that the Learned are not numerous enough to be an +army and are content with guerrilla warfare; on the contrary, they have +increased to multitudes, and their well-disciplined forces hold all the +strategic points. As for those who love to read and consider, rather +than to enter into minute researches, it is as in the days of Shamgar, +the son of Anoth, when "the highways were unoccupied and the people +walked through byways."</p> + +<p>There is one field, however, that the Gentle Reader will not give up +without a struggle—it is that of history. He claims that it belongs to +Literature as much as to Science. History and Story are variations of +the same word, and the historian who is master of his art must be a +story-teller. Clio was not a school-mistress, but a Muse, and the +papyrus roll in her hand does not contain mere dates and statistics, it +is filled with the record of heroic adventures. The primitive form of +history was verbal tradition, as one generation told the story of the +past to the generation that followed.</p> + +<p>"There was a great advantage in that method,"<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> says the Gentle Reader, +"the irrelevant details dropped out. It is only the memorable things +that can be remembered. What a pleasant invitation that was in the +eighty-first psalm to the study of Hebrew History, in order to learn +what had happened when Israel went out through the land of Egypt:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'Take up the psalm and bring hither the timbrel,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The pleasant harp with the psaltery,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Blow up the trumpet in the new moon,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And the full moon on our solemn feast days.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"The Jews had a way of setting their history to music, and bringing in +the great events as a glorious refrain, which they never feared +repeating too often; perhaps that is one reason why their history has +lasted so long."</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader's liking for histories that might be read to the +accompaniment of the "pleasant harp and psaltery," and which now and +then stir him as with the sound of a trumpet, brings upon him many a +severe rebuke. He is told that his favorite writers are frequently +inaccurate and one-sided. The true historian, he is informed, is a +prodigy of impartiality, who has divested himself of all human passions, +in order<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> that he may set down in exact sequence the course of events. +The Gentle Reader turns to these highly praised volumes and finds +himself adrift, without human companionship, on a bottomless sea of +erudition,—writings, writings everywhere and not a page to read! +Returning from this perilous excursion, he ever after adheres to his +original predilection for histories that are readable.</p> + +<p>He is of the opinion that a history must be essentially a work of the +imagination. This does not mean that it must not be true, but it means +that the important truth about any former generation can only be +reproduced through the imagination. The important thing is that these +people were once alive. No critical study of their meagre memorials can +make us enter into their joys, their griefs, and their fears. The +memorials only suggest to the historic imagination what the reality must +have been.</p> + +<p>Peter Bell could recognize a fact when he saw it:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"A primrose on the river's brim</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">A yellow primrose was to him,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And it was nothing more."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">As long as the primrose was there, he could be trusted to describe it +accurately enough. But set Peter Bell the task of describing last year's +primrose. "There aren't any last year's primroses on the river's brim," +says Peter, "so you must be content with a description of the one in my +herbarium. Last year's primroses, you will observe, are very much +flattened out." To Mr. Peter Bell, after he has spent many years in the +universities, a document is a document, and it is nothing more. When he +has compared a great many documents, and put them together in a +mechanical way, he calls his work a history. That's where he differs +from the Gentle Reader who calls it only the crude material out of which +a man of genius may possibly make a history.</p> + +<p>To the Gentle Reader it is a profoundly interesting reflection that +since this planet has been inhabited people have been fighting, and +working, and loving, and hating, with an intensity born of the +conviction that, if they went at it hard enough, they could finish the +whole business in one generation. He likes to get back into any one of +these generations just "to get the feel of it." He does not care so much +for<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> the final summing up of the process, as to see it in the making. +Any one who can give him that experience is his friend.</p> + +<p>He is interested in the stirring times of the English Revolution, and +goes to the historical expert to find what it was all about. The +historical expert starts with the Magna Charta and makes a preliminary +survey. Then he begins his march down the centuries, intrenching every +position lest he be caught unawares by the critics. His intellectual +forces lack mobility, as they must wait for their baggage trains. At +last he comes to the time of the Stuarts, and there is much talk of the +royal prerogative, and ship money, and attainders, and acts of +Parliament. There are exhaustive arguments, now on the one side and now +on the other, which exactly balance one another. There are references to +bulky volumes, where at the foot of every page the notes run along, like +little angry dogs barking at the text.</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader calls out: "I have had enough of this. What I want to +know is what it's all about, and which side, on the whole, has the right +of it. Which side are you on? Are you<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> a Roundhead or a Cavalier? Are +your sympathies with the Whigs or the Tories?"</p> + +<p>"Sympathies!" says the expert. "Who ever heard of a historian allowing +himself to sympathize? I have no opinions of my own to present. My great +aim is not to prejudice the mind of the student."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," says the Gentle Reader; "I am not a student, nor is this a +school-room. It's all in confidence; speak out as one gentleman to +another under a friendly roof! What do you think about it? No matter if +you make a mistake or two, I'll forget most that you say, anyway. All +that I care for is to get the gist of the matter. As for your fear of +warping my mind, there's not the least danger in the world. My mind is +like a tough bit of hickory; it will fly back into its original shape +the moment you let go. I have a hundred prejudices of my own,—one more +won't hurt me. I want to know what it was that set the people by the +ears. Why did they cut off the head of Charles I., and why did they +drive out James II.? I can't help thinking that there must have been +something more exciting than those discussions of yours about +constitutional<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> theories. Do you know, I sometimes doubt whether most of +the people who went to the wars knew that there was such a thing as the +English Constitution; the subject hadn't been written up then. I suspect +that something happened that was not set down in your book; something +that made those people fighting mad."</p> + +<p>Then the Gentle Reader turns to his old and much criticised friend +Macaulay, and asks,—</p> + +<p>"What do you think about it?"</p> + +<p>"Think about it!" says Macaulay. "I'll tell you what I think about it. +To begin with, that Charles I., though good enough as a family man, was +a consummate liar."</p> + +<p>"That's the first light I've had on the subject," says the Gentle +Reader. "Charles lied, and that made the people mad?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely! I perceive that you have the historic sense. We English +can't abide a liar; so at last when we could not trust the king's word +we chopped off his head. Mind you, I'm not defending the regicides, but +between ourselves I don't mind saying that I think it served him right. +At any rate our blood was up, and there was no stopping us. I wish I had +time to tell<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> you all about Hampden, and Pym, and Cromwell, but I must +go on to the glorious year 1688, and tell you how it all came about, and +how we sent that despicable dotard, James, flying across the Channel, +and how we brought in the good and wise King William, and how the great +line of Whig statesmen began. I take for granted—as you appear to be a +sensible man—that you are a Whig?"</p> + +<p>"I'm open to conviction," says the Gentle Reader.</p> + +<p>In a little while he is in the very thick of it. He is an Englishman of +the seventeenth century. He has taken sides and means to fight it out. +He knows how to vote on every important question that comes before +Parliament. No Jacobite sophistry can beguile him. When William lands he +throws up his hat, and after that he stands by him, thick or thin. When +you tell him that he ought to be more dispassionate in his historical +judgments, he answers: "That would be all very well if we were not +dealing with living issues,—but with Ireland in an uproar and the +Papists ready to swarm over from France, there is a call for decision. A +man must know his own mind.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> You may stand off and criticise William's +policy; but the question is, What policy do you propose? You say that I +have not exhausted the subject, and that there are other points of view. +Very likely. Show me another point of view, only make it as clear to me +as Macaulay makes his. Let it be a real view, and not a smudge. Some +other day I may look at it, but I must take one thing at a time. What I +object to is the historian who takes both sides in the same paragraph. +That is what I call offensive bi-partisanship."</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader is interested not only in what great men actually +were, but in the way they appeared to those who loved or hated them. He +is of the opinion that the legend is often more significant than the +colorless annals. When a legend has become universally accepted and has +lived a thousand years, he feels that it should be protected in its +rights of possession by some statute of limitation. It has come to have +an independent life of its own. He has, therefore, no sympathy with +Gibbon in his identification of St. George of England with George of +Cappadocia, a dishonest army contractor who supplied the troops of the +Emperor Julian with bacon.<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> Says Gibbon: "His employment was mean; he +rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud +and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious that George was +compelled to escape from the pursuit of his enemies.... This odious +stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the +mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George +of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of +England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter."</p> + +<p>"That is a serious indictment," says the Gentle Reader. "I have no plea +to make for the Cappadocian; I can readily believe that his bacon was +bad. But why not let bygones be bygones? If he managed to transform +himself into a saint, and for many centuries avoid all suspicion, I +believe that it was a thorough reformation. St. George of England has +long been esteemed as a valiant gentleman,—and, at any rate, that +affair with the dragon was greatly to his credit."</p> + +<p>Sometimes the Gentle Reader is disturbed by finding that different lines +of tradition have been mixed, and his mind becomes the battleground<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> +whereon old blood feuds are fought out. Thus it happens that as a child +he was brought up on the tales of the Covenanters and imbibed their +stern resentment against their persecutors. He learned to hate the very +name of Graham of Claverhouse who brought desolation upon so many +innocent homes. On the other hand, his heart beats high when he hears +the martial strains of Bonnie Dundee. "There was a man for you!"</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks—</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Ere I own as usurper, I'll couch with the fox!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!'</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermeston's lee</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Died away the wild war notes of Bonnie Dundee."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"When I see him wave his proud hand," says the Gentle Reader, "I am his +clansman, and I'm ready to be off with him."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were a Whig," says the student of history.</p> + +<p>"I thought so too,—but what's politics where<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> the affections are +enlisted? Don't you hear those wild war notes?"</p> + +<p>"But are you aware that the Bonnie Dundee is the same man whom you have +just been denouncing under the name of Graham of Claverhouse?"</p> + +<p>"Are you sure they are the same?" sighs the Gentle Reader. "I cannot +make them seem the same. To me there are two of them: Graham of +Claverhouse, whom I hate, and the Bonnie Dundee, whom I love. If it's +all the same to you, I think I shall keep them separate and go on loving +and hating as aforetime."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>But though the Gentle Reader has the defects of his qualities and is +sometimes led astray by his sympathies, do not think that he is +altogether lacking in solidity of judgment. He has a genuine love of +truth and finds it more interesting than fiction—when it is well +written. If he objects to the elimination of myth and fable it is +because he is profoundly interested in the history of human feeling. The +story that is the embodiment of an emotion is itself of the greatest +significance. In Shelley's Prometheus Unbound,<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> before Jupiter himself +is revealed, the Phantasm of Jupiter appears and speaks. Prometheus +addresses him:—</p> + +<p class="c">"Tremendous Image, as thou art must be<br /> + He whom thou shadowest forth."</p> + +<p class="nind">On the stage of history each great personage has a phantasmal +counterpart; sometimes there are many of them. Each phantasm becomes a +centre of love and hate.</p> + +<p>The cold-blooded historian gives us what he calls the real Napoleon. He +is, he asserts, neither the Corsican Ogre of the British imagination nor +the Heroic Emperor for whom myriads of Frenchmen gladly died. Perhaps +not; but when the Napoleonic legend has been banished, what about the +Napoleonic wars? The Phantasms of Napoleon appear on every battlefield. +The men of that day saw them, and were nerved to the conflict. The +reader must, now and then, see them, or he can have no conception of +what was going on. He misses "the moving why they did it." And as for +the real Napoleon, what was the magic by which he was able to call such +phantasms from the vasty deep?</p> + +<p>The careful historian who would trace the history<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> of Europe in the +centuries that followed the barbarian invasion is sorely troubled by the +intrusion of legendary elements. After purging his work of all that +savors of romance, he has a very neat and connected narrative.</p> + +<p>"But is it true?" asks the Gentle Reader. "I for one do not believe it. +The course of true history never did run so smooth. Here is a worthy +person who undertakes to furnish me with an idea of the Dark Ages, and +he forgets the principal fact, which is that it was dark. His picture +has all the sharp outlines of a noon-day street scene. I don't believe +he ever spent a night alone in a haunted house. If he had he would have +known that if you don't see ghosts, you see shapes that look like them. +At midnight mysterious forms loom large. The historian must have a +genius for depicting Chaos. He must make me dimly perceive 'the +fragments of forgotten peoples,' with their superstitions, their +formless fears, their vague desires. They were all fighting them in the +dark.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"'For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">And some had visions out of golden youth,<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">And some beheld the faces of old ghosts</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">Look in upon the battle; and in the mist</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">Was many a noble deed, and many a base</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">And chance and craft and strength in single fights,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">And ever and anon with host to host</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">Of battle axes on shattered helms, and shrieks</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">After the Christ, of those who falling down</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .4em;">Looked up for heaven and only saw the mist.'"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"But, Gentle Reader," says the Historian, "that is poetry, not history."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is, but it's what really happened."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>He is of the opinion that many histories owe their quality of +unreadableness to the virtues of their authors. The kind-hearted +historians over-load their works through their desire to rescue as many +events and persons as possible from oblivion. When their better judgment +tells them that they should be off, they remain to drag in one more. +Alas, their good intention defeats itself; their frail craft cannot bear +the added burden, and all hands go to the bottom. There is no surer +oblivion than that which awaits one whose name is recorded in a book +that undertakes to tell all.<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a></p> + +<p>The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. Here are +millions of happenings every day. Each one has its infinite series of +antecedents and consequents; and each takes longer in the telling than +in the doing. Evidently there must be some principle of selection. +Naturalists with a taste for mathematics tell us of the appalling +catastrophe which would impend if every codfish were to reach maturity. +It would be equaled by the state of things which would exist were every +incident duly chronicled. A foretaste of this calamity has been given in +our recent war,—and yet there were some of our military men who did not +write reminiscences.</p> + +<p>What the principle of selection shall be depends upon the predominant +interest of the writer. But there must be a clear sequence; one can +relate only what is related to the chosen theme. The historian must +reverse the order of natural evolution and proceed from the +heterogeneous to the homogeneous. Alas for the ill-fated pundit who, +forgetting his aim, flounders in the bottomless morass of heterogeneity. +The moment he begins to tell how things are he remembers some +incongruous incident which proves that they were<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> quite otherwise. The +genius for narrative consists in the ability to pick out the facts which +belong together and which help each other along. The company must keep +step, and the stragglers must be mercilessly cut off. One cannot say of +any fact that it is important in itself. The important thing is that +which has a direct bearing on the subject. The definition of dirt as +matter in the wrong place is suggestive. All the details that throw +light on the main action are of value. Those that obscure it are but +petty dust. It is no sufficient plea that the dust is very real and that +it took a great deal of trouble to collect it.</p> + +<p>As vivid a bit of history as one may read is the Journal of Sally +Wister, a Quaker girl who lived near Philadelphia during the period of +the American Revolution. She gives a narrative of the things which +happened to her during those fateful years. In October, 1777, she says, +"Here, my dear, passes an interval of several weeks in which nothing +happened worth the time and paper it would take to write it."</p> + +<p>The editor is troubled at this remark, because during that very week the +Battle of Germantown<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> and been fought not far away. But Sally Wister had +the true historical genius. The Battle of Germantown was an event, and +so was the coming of a number of gay young officers to the hospitable +country house; and this latter event was much more important to Sally +Wister. So omitting all irrelevant incidents, she gives a circumstantial +account of what was happening on the centre of the stage.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Prissa and myself were sitting at the door; I in my green skirt, +dark gown, etc. Two genteel men of the military order rode up to the +door. 'Your servant, ladies,' etc. Asked if they could have quarters for +General Smallwood."</p> + +<p>"I can see just how they did it," says the Gentle Reader, "and what a +commotion the visit made. Now when a person who is just as much absorbed +in the progress of the Revolutionary War as Sally Wister was in those +young officers writes about it I will read his history gladly."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Some otherwise excellent histories fall into the abyss of unreadableness +because of the author's unnecessary pains to justify his heroes to the<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> +critical intelligence of the reader. He is continually making apologies +when he should be telling a story. He is comparing the deeds of one age +with the ethical standards of another; and the result is a series of +moral anachronisms. There is a running fire of more or less irrelevant +comment.</p> + +<p>What a delightful plan that was, which the author of the Book of Judges +hit upon to avoid this difficulty! He had a hard task. His worthies were +not persons of settled habits, and they did many things that might +appear shocking to later generations. They were called upon to do rough +work and they did it in their own way. If the author had undertaken to +justify their conduct by any conventional standard he would have made +sorry work of it. What he did was much better than that. Whenever he +came to a point where there was danger of the mind of the reader +becoming turbid with moral reflections that belonged to a later age, he +threw in the clarifying suggestion, "And there was no King in Israel, +and every man did what was right in his own eyes." This precipitated all +the disturbing elements, and the story ran on swift and clear. It<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> was +as if when the reader was about to protest the author anticipated him +with, "What would you do, reader, if the Philistines were upon you and +there were no King in Israel?" Undoubtedly under such circumstances it +would be a great relief to catch sight of Gideon or Samson. It would not +be a time for fastidiousness about their shortcomings; they would be +hailed as strong deliverers.</p> + +<p>"That is just the point of it," cries the Gentle Reader. "They were on +our side. The important thing is to recognize our friends. To teach us +who our friends are is the purpose of history. Here is a conflict that +has been going on for ages. The men who have done valiant service are +not all smooth-spoken gentlemen in black coats—but what of it? They +have done what they could. We can't say that each act was absolutely +right, but they were moving in the right direction. When a choice was +offered they took the better part. The historian should not only know +what they did, but what was the alternative offered them. There was the +Prophet Samuel. Some persons will have no further respect for him after +they learn that he hewed<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> Agag in pieces before the Lord. They think he +ought to have stood up for Free Religion. They take for granted that the +alternative offered him was religious toleration as we understand it. It +was nothing of the sort. The question for a man of that age was, Shall +Samuel hew Agag in pieces, or shall Agag hew Samuel in pieces, and my +sympathies are with Samuel."</p> + +<p>Having once made allowance for the differences of time and place, he +follows with eager interest the fortunes of the men who have made the +world what it is. What if they do have their faults? He does not care +for what he calls New England Primer style of History:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Young Obadias, David, Josias</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">All were pious."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Such monotony of excellence wearies him, and the garment of praise is +accompanied by a spirit of heaviness.</p> + +<p>"I like saints best in the state of nature," he says; "the process of +canonization does not seem good for them. When too many of them are +placed together in a book their virtues kill one another, and at a +little distance all halos look very much alike."<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> + +<p>There are certain histories which he finds readable, not because he +cares very much for their ostensible subject, but because of the light +they throw on the author's personality. He, good man, thinks he is +telling the story of the Carlovingian Dynasty, or the rise of the +Phœnician sea power, while in reality he is giving an intimate +account of his own state of mind. The author is like a bee which wanders +far afield and visits many flowers, but always brings back the spoil to +one hollow tree. The Gentle Reader, like a practiced bee hunter, is +careless of the outward journeys, but watches closely the direction of +the return flight.</p> + +<p>"If you would know a person's limitations," he says, "induce him to +write on some large subject like the History of Civilization, or the +History of the Origin and Growth of the Moral Sentiment. You will find +his particular hobby writ large."</p> + +<p>He takes up a History of the Semites. "What a pertinacious fellow he +is," alluding not to any ancient Semite but to the Author, "how closely +he sticks to his point! He has discovered a new fact about the +Amalekites,—I wonder what he will do with it. Just as I expected! there +he is<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> back with it to that controversy he is having with his +Presbytery. I notice that he calls the children of Israel the +Beni-Israel. He knows that that sort of thing irritates the conservative +party. It suggests that he is following Renan, and yet it may only prove +that he thinks in Hebrew."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader regards ambitious works on the Philosophy of History +with mingled suspicion and curiosity. So much depends, in such cases, +upon the philosopher. In spite of many misadventures, curiosity +generally gets the better of caution.</p> + +<p>He opens Comte's "Positive Philosophy" and reads, "In order to +understand the true value and character of the 'Positive Philosophy' we +must take a brief, general view of the progressive course of the human +mind regarded as a whole." Then he is conducted through the three stages +of the theological or fictitious, the metaphysical or abstract, and the +scientific or positive; which last circle proves large enough only for +Comte's own opinions. He is caught in a trap and goes round and round +without finding the hole through which he came in.<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p> + +<p>"When a learned person asks one," says the Gentle Reader, "to accompany +him on a brief general survey of the progressive course of the human +mind, regarded as a whole, I am apt to be wary. I want to know what he +is up to. I fear the philosopher bearing historical gifts."</p> + +<p>Yet where the trap is made of slighter fabric, and he feels that he can +break through at will, he enjoys watching the author and his work. How +marvelous are the powers of the human mind! How the facts of experience +can be bent to a sternly logical formula! And how the whole trend of +things seems to yield to an imperious will that is stronger than fate!</p> + +<p>Here is a book published in Wheeling, Virginia, in 1809. It is "A +Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity in Scotland, +before the Reformation; and the Progress of Religion since in Scotland +and America." We are told that the history was read paragraph by +paragraph at a meeting of the Reformed Dissenting Presbytery at the +Three Ridge Meeting House, and unanimously approved. At the beginning we +are taken into a wide place and given a comprehensive view of early +Christianity. Then we are<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> shown how in the sixteenth century began a +series of godly reformations. Christianity, bursting through the +barriers of Popery, began its resistless flow toward the pure theology +of the Three Ridge Meeting House. As the articles of the true faith were +increased the number of persons who were able to hold correct opinions +upon them all diminished. The history, by perfectly logical processes, +brings us down to the year 1799, when secession had done its perfect +work and the true church had attained to an apostolic purity of doctrine +and a more than apostolic paucity of membership. It is with a fearful +joy that the historians proclaim the culmination of the age-long +evolution. "O! the times we live in! There were but two of us to defend +the doctrine of the Bible and the Westminster Confession." At the time +the history of the Progress of Christianity was written there were but +two ministers who held the uncorrupted faith; namely, Robert Warwick and +Alexander McCoy. These two brethren were the joint authors of the +history, and in their capacity as church council gave it ecumenical +authority. Had McCoy disagreed with Warwick about Preterition, or had +Warwick suspected<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> McCoy of Sublapsarianism, then we should have had two +histories of Christianity instead of one. It would have appeared that +all the previous developments of Christianity were significant only as +preparing for the Great Schism.</p> + +<p>"There is a great deal of this Three Ridge Meeting House kind of +history," says the Gentle Reader, "and I confess I find it very +instructive. I like to find out what the writers think on the questions +of the day."</p> + +<p>The fact is that there is a great deal of human nature even in learned +people, and they cannot escape from the spell of the present moment. +They are like the rest of us, and feel that they are living at the +terminus of the road and not at a way station. The cynical reflection on +the way in which the decisions of the Supreme Court follow the election +returns suggests the way in which historical generalizations follow the +latest telegraphic dispatches. Something happens and then we look up its +historical antecedents. It seems as if everything had been pointing to +this one event from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Here is a very readable History of Fans. The writer justly says that +the subject is one that<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> has been much neglected. 'In England brief +sketches on the subject have occasionally appeared in the magazines, but +thus far a History of Fans has not been published in book form.... The +subject amply repays careful study, and will not fail to interest the +reader, provided the demands on both his patience and his time are not +too great.' I confess that it is a line of research I have never taken +up, but it is evident that there is ample material. The beginning +inspires confidence. 'The chain of tradition, followed as far as +possible into the past, carries us but to the time when the origin of +the fan is derived from tradition.' It appears that we come out upon +firm ground when we reach the Mahabharata. But the question which +arouses my curiosity is, How did it occur to any one that there should +be a history of fans? The author reveals the inciting cause,—'The Loan +Exhibition held at South Kensington in 1870 gave a great impulse to the +collection and decoration of fans.' I suspect that almost all readable +histories have some such origin."</p> + +<p>The title of Professor Freeman's "History of Federal Government from the +Foundation of the<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> Achaian League to the Disruption of the United +States" was timely when the first volume was published in 1863. The +terminal points seemed closely connected in 1862 and the spring of 1863. +Gettysburg and Appomattox destroyed the line of communication. But there +was a time when the subject had great dramatic unity.</p> + +<p>One May morning the Gentle Reader saw in the newspapers the account of +the victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, and learned how the English +people rejoiced over the success of American arms. "This will remake a +great deal of history," he said, "and there will be a great revival of +interest in Hengist and Horsa. These primitive Anglo-Saxon expansionists +kept their own counsel, but it's evident that the movement they set on +foot must go on to its logical conclusion. When a competent scholar +takes hold of the history it will be seen that it couldn't stop with the +Heptarchy or the destruction of the Spanish Armada. It was a foregone +conclusion that these Anglo-Saxons would eventually take the +Philippines."</p> + +<p>When one by one the books began to come out he read them with eager +interest. That there<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> should be histories of the triumphant progress of +Anglo-Saxondom, after the Spanish-American war, he looked upon as +something as inevitable as the history of fans, after the South +Kensington Exhibition. It was manifest destiny.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>There is one page in the history books which the Gentle Reader looks +upon with a skeptical smile; it is that which contains the words, "The +End."</p> + +<p>"The writer may think that the subject has been exhausted, and that he +has said the last word; but in reality there is no end."</p> + +<p>He is well aware that at best he gets but a glimpse of what is going on. +The makers of history are for the most part unknown to the writers of +it. He loves now and then to catch sight of one of these unremembered +multitudes. For a moment the searchlight of history falls upon him, and +he stands blinking in the unaccustomed glare, and then the light shifts +and oblivion swallows him up.</p> + +<p>He stops to meditate when he comes upon this paragraph in Bishop +Burnet's "History of his Own Times."<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a></p> + +<p>"When King James I. was in Scotland he erected a new Bishopric, and made +one Forbes Bishop. He was a very learned and pious man; he had a strange +faculty of preaching five or six hours at a time. His way of life and +devotion was thought monastic, and his learning lay in antiquity; he +studied to be a reconciler between Papists and Protestants, leaning +rather to the first; he was a simple-hearted man and knew little of the +world, so he fell into several errors of conduct, but died soon after +suspected of Popery."</p> + +<p>"That man Forbes," says the Gentle Reader, "doesn't cut much of a figure +on the pages of history. Indeed, that is all that is said of him, yet I +doubt not but that he was a much more influential man in his day than +many of those bishops and reformers that I have been reading about. A +learned man who has a faculty for preaching five or six hours at a time +is a great conservative force. He keeps things from going too fast. When +one reads about the Reformation of the sixteenth century, one wonders +that it didn't make a clean sweep. We must remember the number of good +Protestants who died suspected of Popery."<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p> + +<p>But though he loves to get a glimpse of Forbes and men of his kind, he +knows that they are not of the stuff that readable histories are made +of. The retarding influences of the times must be taken into account, +but after all the historian is concerned with the people who are "in the +van of circumstance." They may be few in number, but their achievements +are the things worth telling.</p> + +<p>"Every history," says the Gentle Reader, "should be a Book of Genesis. I +want to see things in their beginnings and in their fresh growth. I do +not care to follow the processes of decay. Fortunately there is no +period when something is not beginning. 'Sweet is the genesis of +things.' History is a perpetual spring-time. New movements are always on +foot. Even when I don't approve of them I want to know what they are +like. When the band strikes up 'See the Conquering Hero come,' it's +sheer affectation not to look up. The conquering hero is always worth +looking at, even if you do not approve of him. The historian who +undertakes to tell what men at any period were about must be quick to +detect their real enthusiasms. He<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> must join the victorious army and not +cling to a lost cause. I have always thought that it was a mistake for +Gibbon to call his great work, 'The History of the Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire.' The declining power of the Roman Empire was not the +great fact of those ten centuries. There were powers which were not +declining, but growing. How many things were in the +making,—Christianity, Mohammedanism, the new chivalry, the Germanic +civilization. As for the Roman Empire, one could see that <i>that</i> game +was lost, and it wasn't worth while to play it out to the last move. I +couldn't make those shadowy Emperors at Constantinople seem like +Caesars—and, for that matter, they weren't."</p> + +<p>On this last point I think that the Gentle Reader is correct, and that +the great historian is one who has a certain prophetic gift. He is quick +to discern the signs of the times. He identifies himself so thoroughly +with the age of which he writes that he always seems to be at the +beginning of an era peering into the yet dim future. In this way he +shares the hopes and aspirations of the men of whom he writes. For there +was a day when all our familiar institutions<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> were new. There was a time +when the Papacy was not an established fact, but a vague dream of +spiritual power and unity, a challenge to a barbarian world. It appealed +to young idealists as the federation of the world or a socialistic +commonwealth appeals to-day. There was a time when constitutional +government was a Utopian experiment which a few brave men were willing +to try. There was a time when Calvinism was a spiritual adventure.</p> + +<p>The historian whom we love is one who stands at the parting of the ways, +and sees ideals grow into actualities. He is not reminiscent. He is +forward-looking as he speaks to each age out of intimate acquaintance +with its new hopes, as one</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">For prophecies of thee, and for the sake</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of loveliness new born."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Evolution_of_the_Gentleman" id="The_Evolution_of_the_Gentleman"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_201-a.png" width="350" height="166" alt="The Evolution of the Gentleman" title="The Evolution of the Gentleman" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_w_q.png" width="60" height="68" alt=""W" /></span>HAT is your favorite character, Gentle Reader?" "I like to read about +gentlemen," he answers; "it's a taste I have inherited, and I find it +growing upon me."</p> + +<p>And yet it is not easy to define a gentleman, as the multitudes who have +made the attempt can testify. It is one of the cases in which the +dictionary does not help one. Perhaps, after all, definitions are to be +looked upon as luxuries, not as necessities. When Alice told her name to +Humpty Dumpty, that intolerable pedant asked,—</p> + +<p>"'What does it mean?'</p> + +<p>"'Must a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"'Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> with a short laugh. 'My name +means the shape I am,—and a good handsome shape it is, too.'"</p> + +<p>I suppose that almost any man, if he were asked what a gentleman is, +would answer with Humpty Dumpty, "It is the shape I am." I judge this +because, though the average man would not feel insulted if you were to +say, "You are no saint," it would not be safe to say, "You are no +gentleman."</p> + +<p>And yet the average man has his misgivings. For all his confident talk, +he is very humble minded. The astral body of the gentleman that he is +endeavoring to project at his neighbors is not sufficiently materialized +for his own imperfect vision. The word "gentleman" represents an ideal. +Above whatever coarseness and sordidness there may be in actual life, +there rises the ideal of a finer kind of man, with gentler manners and +truer speech and braver action.</p> + +<p>In every age we shall find the true gentleman—that is, the man who +represents the best ideal of his own time, and we shall find the mimicry +of him the would-be gentleman who copies the form while ignorant of the +substance. These two characters furnish the material, on the one<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> hand +for the romancer, and on the other for the satirist. If there had been +no real gentlemen, the epics, the solemn tragedies, and the stirring +tales of chivalry would have remained unwritten; and if there had been +no pretended gentlemen, the humorist would have lost many a pleasure. +Always the contrasted characters are on the stage together; simple +dignity is followed by strutting pomposity, and after the hero the +braggart swaggers and storms. So ridicule and admiration bear rule by +turns.</p> + +<p>The idea of the gentleman involves the sense of personal dignity and +worth. He is not a means to an end; he is an end in itself. How early +this sense arose we may not know. Professor Huxley made merry over the +sentimentalists who picture the simple dignity of primitive man. He had +no admiration to throw away on "the dignified and unclothed savage +sitting in solitary meditation under trees." And yet I am inclined to +think that the gentleman must have appeared even before the advent of +tailors. The peasants who followed Wat Tyler sang,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"When Adam delved and Eve span</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Who was then the gentleman?"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">But a writer in the age of Queen Elizabeth published a book in which he +argued that Adam himself was a perfect gentleman. He had the advantage, +dear to the theological mind, that though affirmative proof might be +lacking, it was equally difficult to prove the negative.</p> + +<p>As civilization advances and literature catches its changing features, +the outlines of the gentleman grow distinct.</p> + +<p>In the Book of Genesis we see Abraham sitting at his tent door. Three +strangers appear. When he sees them, he goes to meet them, and bows, and +says to the foremost, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, +pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray +you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: +and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after +that ye shall pass on."</p> + +<p>There may have been giants in those days, and churls, and all manner of +barbarians, but as we watch the strangers resting under the oak we say, +"There were also gentlemen in those days." How simple it all is! It is +like a single palm tree out-lined against the desert and the sky.<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a></p> + +<p>We turn to the Analects of Confucius and we see the Chinese gentleman. +Everything with him is exact. The disciples of Confucius are careful to +tell us how he adjusted the skirts of his robe before and behind, how he +insisted that his mince-meat should be cut quite small and should have +exactly the right proportion of rice, and that his mat must be laid +straight before he would sit on it. Such details of deportment were +thought very important. But we forget the mats and the mince-meat when +we read: "Three things the master had not,—he had no prejudices, he had +no obstinacy, he had no egotism." And we forget the fantastic garb and +the stiff Chinese genuflections, and come to the conclusion that the +true gentleman is as simple-hearted amid the etiquette of the court as +in the tent in the desert, when we hear the master saying: "Sincerity is +the way of Heaven; the wise are the unassuming. It is said of Virtue +that over her embroidered robe she puts a plain single garment."</p> + +<p>When we wish to see a masculine virtue which has no need of an +embroidered garment we go to Plutarch's portrait gallery of antique +gentlemen.<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> What a breed of men they were! They were no holiday +gentlemen. With the same lofty dignity they faced life and death. How +superior they were to their fortunes. No wonder that men who had learned +to conquer themselves conquered the world.</p> + +<p>Most of Plutarch's worthies were gentlemen, though there were +exceptions. There was, for example, Cato the Censor, who bullied the +Roman youth into virtue, and got a statue erected to himself as the +restorer of the good old manners. Poor Plutarch, who likes to do well by +his heroes, is put to his wits' end to know what to do with testy, +patriotic, honest, fearless, parsimonious Cato. Cato was undoubtedly a +great man and a good citizen; but when we are told how he sold his old +slaves, at a bargain, when they became infirm, and how he left his +war-horse in Spain to save the cost of transportation, Plutarch adds, +"Whether such things be an evidence of greatness or littleness of soul +let the reader judge for himself." The judicious reader will conclude +that it is possible to be a great man and a reformer, and yet not be +quite a gentleman.</p> + +<p>When the Roman Empire was destroyed the<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> antique type of gentleman +perished. The very names of the tribes which destroyed him have yet +terrible associations. Goths, Vandals, Huns—to the civilized man of the +fifth and sixth centuries these sounded like the names of wild beasts +rather than of men. You might as well have said tigers, hyenas, wolves. +The end had come of a civilization that had been the slow growth of +centuries.</p> + +<p>Yet out of these fierce tribes, destroyers of the old order, a new order +was to arise. Out of chaos and night a new kind of gentleman was to be +evolved. The romances of the Middle Ages are variations on a single +theme, the appearance of the finer type of manhood and its struggle for +existence. In the palace built by the enchantment of Merlin were four +zones of sculpture.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"And in the lowest beasts are slaying men,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And in the second men are slaying beasts,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And on the third are warriors, perfect men,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And on the fourth are men with growing wings."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">Europe was in the second stage, when men were slaying beasts and what +was most brutal in humanity. If the higher manhood was to live, it must +fight, and so the gentleman appears, sword in hand. Whether we are +reading of Charlemagne<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> and his paladins, or of Siegfried, or of Arthur, +the story is the same. The gentleman has appeared. He has come into a +waste land,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Thick with wet woods and many a beast therein,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And none or few to scare or chase the beast."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">He comes amid savage anarchy where heathen hordes are "reddening the sun +with smoke and earth with blood." The gentleman sends forth his clear +defiance. All this shall no longer be. He is ready to meet force with +force; he is ready to stake his life upon the issue, the hazard of new +fortunes for the race.</p> + +<p>It is as a pioneer of the new civilization that the gentleman has +pitched</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"His tent beside the forest. And he drave</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The heathen, and he slew the beast, and felled</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The forest, and let in the sun."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The ballads and romances chronicle a struggle desperate in its beginning +and triumphant in its conclusion. They are in praise of force, but it is +a noble force. There is something better, they say, than brute force: it +is manly force. The giant is no match for the gentleman.</p> + +<p>If we would get at the mediæval idea of the gentleman, we must not +listen merely to the<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> romances as they are retold by men of genius in +our own day. Scott and Tennyson clothe their characters in the old +draperies, but their ideals are those of the nineteenth century rather +than of the Middle Ages. Tennyson expressly disclaims the attempt to +reproduce the King Arthur</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"whose name, a ghost,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Touched by the adulterous finger of a time</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">That hovered between war and wantonness."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">When we go back and read Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, we find +ourselves among men of somewhat different mould from the knights of +Tennyson's idylls. It is not the blameless King Arthur, but the +passionate Sir Launcelot, who wins admiration. We hear Sir Ector crying +over Launcelot's body, "Ah, Launcelot, thou wert the head of the +Christian knights. Thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare +shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode +horse; and thou wert the truest lover for a sinful man that ever loved +woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and +thou wert the goodliest person that ever came<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> among press of knights; +and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall +with ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that +ever put spear in the rest."</p> + +<p>We must take, not one of these qualities, but all of them together, to +understand the gentleman of those ages when good and evil struggled so +fiercely for the mastery. No saint was this Sir Launcelot. There was in +him no fine balance of virtues, but only a wild tumult of the blood. He +was proud, self-willed, passionate, pleasure-loving; capable of great +sin and of sublime expiation. What shall we say of this gentlest, +sternest, kindest, goodliest, sinfulest of knights,—this man who knew +no middle path, but who, when treading in perilous places and following +false lights, yet draws all men admiringly to himself?</p> + +<p>We can only say this: he was the prototype of those mighty men who were +the makers of the modern world. They were the men who fought with +Charlemagne, and with William the Conqueror, and with Richard; they were +the men who "beat down the heathen, and upheld the Christ;" they were +the men from whom came the crusades, and the feudal system, and the<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> +great charter. As we read the history, we say at one moment, "These men +were mail-clad ruffians," and at the next, "What great-hearted +gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>Perhaps the wisest thing would be to confess to both judgments at once. +In this stage of his evolution the gentleman may boast of feats that +would now be rehearsed only in bar-rooms. This indicates that the +standard of society has improved, and that what was possible once for +the nobler sort of men is now characteristic of the baser sort. The +modern rowdy frequently appears in the cast-off manners of the old-time +gentleman. Time, the old-clothes man, thus furnishes his customers with +many strange misfits. What is of importance is that through these +transition years there was a ceaseless struggle to preserve the finer +types of manhood.</p> + +<p>The ideal of the mediæval gentleman was expressed in the word +"gallantry." The essence of gallantry is courage; but it is not the +sober courage of the stoic. It is courage charged with qualities that +give it sparkle and effervescence. It is the courage that not only faces +danger, but delights in it. What suggestions of physical and<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> mental +elasticity are in Shakespeare's description of the "springing, brave +Plantagenet"! Scott's lines express the gallant spirit:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"One crowded hour of glorious life</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Is worth an age without a name."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Gallantry came to have another implication, equally characteristic. The +knight was gallant not only in war, but in love also. There had come a +new worship, the worship of woman. In the Church it found expression in +the adoration of the Madonna, but in the camp and the court it found its +place as well. Chivalry was the elaborate and often fantastic ritual, +and the gentleman was minister at the altar. The ancient gentleman stood +alone; the mediæval gentleman offered all to the lady of his love. Here, +too, gallantry implied the same overflowing joy in life. If you are +anxious to have a test by which to recognize the time when you are +growing old,—so old that imagination is chilled within you,—I should +advise you to turn to the chapter in the Romance of King Arthur entitled +"How Queen Guenever went maying with certain Knights of the Table Round, +clad all in green." Then read: "So it befell in the month of May,<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> Queen +Guenever called unto her knights and she gave them warning that early +upon the morrow she would ride maying into the woods and fields besides +Westminster, and I warn you that none of you but that he be well horsed +and that ye all be clothed in green.... I shall bring with me ten ladies +and every knight shall have a squire and two yeomen. So upon the morn +they took their horses with the Queen and rode on maying through the +woods and meadows in great joy and delights."</p> + +<p>If you cannot see them riding on, a gallant company over the meadows, +and if you hear no echoes of their laughter, and if there is no longer +any enchantment in the vision of that time when all were "blithe and +debonair," then undoubtedly you are growing old. It is time to close the +romances: perhaps you may still find solace in Young's "Night Thoughts" +or Pollok's "Course of Time." Happy are they who far into the seventies +still see Queen Guenever riding in the pleasant month of May: these are +they who have found the true fountain of youth.</p> + +<p>The gentleman militant will always be the hero of ballads and romances; +and in spite of the<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> apostles of realism, I fancy he has not lost his +charm. There are Jeremiahs of evolution, who tell us that after a time +men will be so highly developed as to have neither hair nor teeth. In +that day, when the operating dentists have ceased from troubling, and +given way to the manufacturing dentists, and the barbers have been +superseded by the wig-makers, it is quite possible that the romances may +give place to some tedious department of comparative mythology. In that +day, Chaucer's knight who "loved chevalrie, trouthe and honour, fredom +and curtesie," will be forgotten, though his armor on the museum walls +will be learnedly described. But that dreadful day is still far distant; +before it comes, not only teeth and hair must be improved out of +existence, but a substitute must be found for good red blood. Till that +time "no laggard in love or dastard in war" can steal our hearts from +young Lochinvar.</p> + +<p>The sixteenth century marks an epoch in the history of the gentleman, as +in all else. Old ideas disappear, to come again in new combinations. +Familiar words take on meanings that completely transform them. The same +hands<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> wielded the sword and the pen. The scholars, the artists, the +poets, began to feel a sense of personal worth, and carried the gallant +spirit of the gentleman into their work. They were not mere specialists, +but men of action. The artist was not only an instrument to give +pleasure to others, but he was himself a centre of admiration. Out of +this new consciousness how many interesting characters were produced! +There were men who engaged in controversies as if they were tournaments, +and who wrote books and painted pictures and carved statues, not in the +spirit of professionalism, but as those who would in this activity enjoy +"one crowded hour of glorious life." Very frequently, these gentlemen +and scholars, and gentlemen and artists, overdid the matter, and were +more belligerent in disposition than were the warriors with whom they +began to claim equality.</p> + +<p>To this self-assertion we owe the most delightful of +autobiographies,—that of Benvenuto Cellini. He aspired to be not only +an artist, but a fine gentleman. No one could be more certain of the +sufficiency of Humpty Dumpty's definition of a gentleman than was he.<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> + +<p>If we did not have his word for it, we could scarcely believe that any +one could be so valiant in fight and so uninterrupted in the pursuit of +honor without its interfering with his professional work. Take, for +example, that memorable day when, escaping from the magistrates, he +makes an attack upon the household of his enemy, Gherardo Guascanti. "I +found them at table; and Gherardo, who had been the cause of the +quarrel, flung himself upon me. I stabbed him in the breast, piercing +doublet and jerkin, but doing him not the least harm in the world." +After this attack, and after magnanimously pardoning Gherardo's father, +mother, and sisters, he says: "I ran storming down the staircase, and +when I reached the street, I found all the rest of the household, more +than twelve persons: one of them seized an iron shovel, another a thick +iron pipe; one had an anvil, some hammers, some cudgels. When I got +among them, raging like a mad bull, I flung four or five to the earth, +and fell down with them myself, continually aiming my dagger now at one, +and now at another. Those who remained upright plied with both hands +with all their force, giving it me with hammers,<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> cudgels, and the +anvil; but inasmuch as God does sometimes mercifully intervene, he so +ordered that neither they nor I did any harm to one another."</p> + +<p>What fine old days those were, when the toughness of skin matched so +wonderfully the stoutness of heart! One has a suspicion that in these +degenerate times, were a family dinner-party interrupted by such an +avalanche of daggers, cudgels, and anvils, some one would be hurt. As +for Benvenuto, he does not so much as complain of a headache.</p> + +<p>There is an easy, gentleman-like grace in the way in which he recounts +his incidental homicides. When he is hiding behind a hedge at midnight, +waiting for the opportunity to assassinate his enemies, his heart is +open to all the sweet influences of nature, and he enjoys "the glorious +heaven of stars." He was not only an artist and a fine gentleman, but a +saint as well, and "often had recourse with pious heart to holy +prayers." Above all, he had the indubitable evidence of sainthood, a +halo. "I will not omit to relate another circumstance, which is perhaps +the most remarkable that ever happened to any one. I do<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> so in order to +justify the divinity of God and of his secrets, who deigned to grant me +this great favor: forever since the time of my strange vision until now, +an aureole of glory (marvelous to relate) has rested on my head. This is +visible to every sort of man to whom I have chosen to point it out, but +these have been few." He adds ingenuously, "I am always able to see it." +He says, "I first became aware of it in France, at Paris; for the air in +those parts is so much freer from mists that one can see it far better +than in Italy."</p> + +<p>Happy Benvenuto with his Parisian halo, which did not interfere with the +manly arts of self-defense! His self-complacency was possible only in a +stage of evolution when the saint and the assassin were not altogether +clearly differentiated. Some one has said, "Give me the luxuries of +life, and I can get along without the necessities." Like many of his +time, Benvenuto had all the luxuries that belong to the character of a +Christian gentleman, though he was destitute of the necessities. An +appreciation of common honesty as an essential to a gentleman seems to +be more slowly developed than the more romantic sentiment that is called +honor.<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p> + +<p>The evolution of the gentleman has its main line of progress where there +is a constant though slow advance; but, on the other hand, there are +arrested developments, and quaint survivals, and abortive attempts.</p> + +<p>In each generation there have been men of fashion who have mistaken +themselves for gentlemen. They are uninteresting enough while in the +flesh, but after a generation or two they become very quaint and +curious, when considered as specimens. Each generation imagines that it +has discovered a new variety, and invents a name for it. The dude, the +swell, the dandy, the fop, the spark, the macaroni, the blade, the +popinjay, the coxcomb,—these are butterflies of different summers. +There is here endless variation, but no advancement. One fashion comes +after another, but we cannot call it better. One would like to see +representatives of the different generations together in full dress. +What variety in oaths and small talk! What anachronisms in swords and +canes and eye-glasses, in ruffles, in collars, in wigs! What affluence +in powders and perfumes and colors! But "will they know each other +there"? The real gentlemen<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> would be sure to recognize each other. +Abraham and Marcus Aurelius and Confucius would find much in common. +Launcelot and Sir Philip Sidney and Chinese Gordon would need no +introduction. Montaigne and Mr. Spectator and the Autocrat of the +Breakfast-Table would fall into delightful chat. But would a "swell" +recognize a "spark"? And might we not expect a "dude" to fall into +immoderate laughter at the sight of a "popinjay"?</p> + +<p>Fashion has its revenges. Nothing seems so ridiculous to it as an old +fashion. The fop has no toleration for the obsolete foppery. The +artificial gentleman is as inconceivable out of his artificial +surroundings as the waxen-faced gentleman of the clothing store outside +his show window.</p> + +<p>There was Beau Nash, for example,—a much-admired person in his day, +when he ruled from his throne in the pump-room in Bath. Everything was +in keeping. There was Queen Anne architecture, and Queen Anne furniture, +and Queen Anne religion, and the Queen Anne fashion in fine gentlemen. +What a curious piece of bricabrac this fine gentleman was, to be sure!<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> +He was not fitted for any useful purpose under the sun, but in his place +he was quite ornamental, and undoubtedly very expensive. Art was as +self-complacent as if nature had never been invented. What multitudes of +the baser sort must be employed in furnishing the fine gentleman with +clothes! All Bath admired the way in which Beau Nash refused to pay for +them. Once when a vulgar tradesman insisted on payment, Nash compromised +by lending him twenty pounds,—which he did with the air of a prince. So +great was the impression he made upon his time that a statue was erected +to him, while beneath were placed the busts of two minor contemporaries, +Pope and Newton. This led Lord Chesterfield to write:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"This statue placed the busts between</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Adds to the satire strength,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Wisdom and wit are little seen,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">But folly at full length."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Lord Chesterfield himself had nothing in common with the absurd +imitation gentlemen, and yet the gentleman whom he described and +pretended to admire was altogether artificial. He was the Machiavelli of +the fashionable world.<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> He saw through it, and recognized its +hollowness; but such as it was it must be accepted. The only thing was +to learn how to get on in it. "In courts you may expect to meet +connections without friendships, enmities without hatred, honor without +virtue, appearances saved and realities sacrificed, good manners and bad +morals."</p> + +<p>There is something earnestly didactic about Lord Chesterfield. He gives +line upon line, and precept upon precept, to his "dear boy." Never did a +Puritan father teach more conscientiously the shorter catechism than did +he the whole duty of the gentleman, which was to save appearances even +though he must sacrifice reality. "My dear boy," he writes +affectionately, "I advise you to trust neither man nor woman more than +is absolutely necessary. Accept proffered friendships with great +civility, but with great incredulity."</p> + +<p>No youth was more strenuously prodded up the steep and narrow path of +virtue than was little Philip Stanhope up the steep and narrow path of +fashion. Worldliness made into a religion was not without its +asceticism. "Though you<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> think you dance well, do not think you dance +well enough. Though you are told that you are genteel, still aim at +being genteeler.... Airs, address, manners, graces, are of such infinite +importance and are so essentially necessary to you that now, as the time +of meeting draws near, I tremble for fear that I may not find you +possessed of them."</p> + +<p>Lord Chesterfield's gentleman was a man of the world; but it was, after +all, a very hard and empty world. It was a world that had no eternal +laws, only changing fashions. It had no broken hearts, only broken vows. +It was a world covered with glittering ice, and the gentleman was one +who had learned to skim over its dangerous places, not caring what +happened to those who followed him.</p> + +<p>It is a relief to get away from such a world, and, leaving the fine +gentleman behind, to take the rumbling stagecoach to the estates of Sir +Roger de Coverley. His is not the great world at all, and his interests +are limited to his own parish. But it is a real world, and much better +suited to a real gentleman. His fashions are not the fashions of the +court, but they are the<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> fashions that wear. Even when following the +hounds Sir Roger has time for friendly greetings. "The farmers' sons +thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old +knight, which he requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry +after their fathers and uncles."</p> + +<p>But even dear old Roger de Coverley cannot rest undisturbed as an ideal +gentleman. He belonged, after all, to a privileged order, and there is a +force at work to destroy all social privileges. A generation of farmers' +sons must arise not to be so easily satisfied with a kindly nod and +smile. Liberty, fraternity, and equality have to be reckoned with. +Democracy has come with its leveling processes.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"The calm Olympian height</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of ancient order feels its bases yield."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">In a revolutionary period the virtues of an aristocracy become more +irritating than their vices. People cease to attribute merit to what +comes through good fortune. No wonder that the disciples of the older +time cry:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"What hope for the fine-nerved humanities</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That made earth gracious once with gentler arts?"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a></p> + +<p>What becomes of the gentleman in an age of democratic equality? Just +what becomes of every ideal when the time for its fulfillment has come. +It is freed from its limitations and enters into a larger life.</p> + +<p>Let us remember that the gentleman was always a lover of equality, and +of the graces that can only grow in the society of equals. The gentleman +of an aristocracy is at his best only when he is among his peers. There +is a little circle within which there is no pushing, no assumption of +superiority. Each member seeks not his own, but finds pleasure in a +gracious interchange of services.</p> + +<p>But an aristocracy leaves only a restricted sphere for such good +manners. Outside the group to which he belongs the gentleman is +compelled by imperious custom to play the part of a superior being. It +has always been distasteful and humiliating to him. It is only an +essentially vulgar nature that can really be pleased with the servility +of others.</p> + +<p>An ideal democracy is a society in which good manners are universal. +There is no arrogance and no cringing, but social intercourse is based<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> +on mutual respect. This ideal democracy has not been perfected, but the +type of men who are creating it has already been evolved. Among all the +crude and sordid elements of modern life, we see the stirring of a new +chivalry. It is based on a recognition of the worth and dignity of the +common man.</p> + +<p>Milton in memorable words points out the transition which must take +place from the gentleman of romance to the gentleman of enduring +reality. After narrating how, in his youth, he betook himself "to those +lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of +knighthood founded by our victorious kings and thence had in renown +through all Christendom," he says, "This my mind gave me that every free +and gentle spirit, without that oath ought to be born a knight, nor +needed to expect a gilt spur or the laying on of a sword upon his +shoulder."<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Hinter-land_of_Science" id="The_Hinter-land_of_Science"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_227-a.png" width="350" height="66" alt="The Hinter-land of Science" title="The Hinter-land of Science" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_a.png" width="40" height="74" alt="A" title="A" /></span> +GENIAL critic detects a note of exaggeration in my praise of +Ignorance. It is, he declares, a bit of "Yellow Journalism." The +reader's attention is attracted by a glaring headline which leads him to +suppose that a crime has been committed, when in reality nothing out of +the ordinary has happened. That a person who has emerged from the state +of absolute illiteracy far enough to appear in print should express a +preference for Ignorance would be important if true. After perusing the +chapter, however, he is of the opinion that it is not Ignorance, at all, +that is described, but something much more respectable. It is akin to a +state of mind which literary persons have agreed to praise under the +name of Culture.<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></p> + +<p>It is very natural that these literary persons should prefer a +high-sounding name, and one free from vulgar associations, but I do not +think that their plea will stand the test of scientific analysis. +Science will not tolerate half knowledge nor pleasant imaginings, nor +sympathetic appreciations; it must have definite demonstration. The +knowledge of the best that has been said and thought may be very +consoling, but it implies an unscientific principle of selection. It can +be proved by statistics that the best things are exceptional. What about +the second best, not to speak of the tenth rate? It is only when you +have collected a vast number of commonplace facts that you are on the +road to a true generalization.</p> + +<p>In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington there is a children's room, +in which there is a case marked "Pretty Shells." The specimens fully +justify the inscription. The very daintiest shapes, and the most +intricate convolutions, and the most delicate tints are represented. +They are pretty shells, which have not left their beauty on the shore. +But the delight in all this loveliness is not scientific. The kind +gentleman who<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a> arranged the shells according to this classification +acted not in his capacity as a conchologist, but as the father of a +family.</p> + +<p>Nor does the enjoyment of the most beautiful thoughts or words satisfy +the requirements of those sciences which deal with humanity. The +distinction between Literature and Science is fundamental. What is a +virtue in one sphere is a vice in the other. After all that has been +said about the scientific use of the imagination it remains true that +the imagination is an intruder in the laboratory. Even if it were put to +use, that would only mean that it is reduced to a condition of slavery. +In its own realm it is accustomed to play rather than to work. It is +also true that the attempts to introduce the methods of the laboratory +into literature have been dismal failures. That way dullness lies.</p> + +<p>Now and then, indeed, Nature in a fit of prodigality endows one person +with both gifts.—Was not Oliver Wendell Holmes a Professor of Anatomy? +In such a case there is a perpetual effervescence. But even Dr. Holmes +could not insinuate a sufficient knowledge of Anatomy by means of a +series of discursive essays; nor could<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> he give scientific value to the +reflections of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."</p> + +<p>There was a time when the ability to read was such a rare accomplishment +that it seemed to furnish the key to all knowledge. Men of the baser +sort had to learn by experience, but the reader followed a royal path to +the very fountain head of wisdom. Ordinary rules were not for him; he +could claim the benefit of clergy. Only a generation ago young men of +parts prepared themselves for the bar—and very good lawyers they +made—by "reading Blackstone." Blackstone is a pleasant author, with a +fund of wise observations, and many pleasant afternoons were spent in +his company. In like manner other young men "read medicine."</p> + +<p>It is now coming to be understood that one cannot read a science; it +must be studied in quite a different fashion. "Book-learning" in such +matters has been discredited.</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader has learned this lesson. It may be that he has +cultivated some tiny field of his own, and has thus come to know how +different this laborious task is from the care-free wandering in which +at other hours he delights. But<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> though he cannot read his way into the +domains of strict science, yet there is an adjacent territory which he +frequents. Into this territory, though he holds an ambiguous position, +and finds many to molest and make him afraid, he is drawn by an +insatiable curiosity. In a border-land danger has attractions and +mystery is alluring. There is pleasant reading in spite of many +threatening technicalities which seem to bar further progress.</p> + +<p>On the coasts of the Dark Continent of Ignorance the several sciences +have gained a foothold. In each case there is a well-defined country +carefully surveyed and guarded. Within its frontiers the laws are +obeyed, and all affairs are carried on in an orderly fashion. Beyond it +is a vague "sphere of influence," a Hinter-land over which ambitious +claims of suzerainty are made; but the native tribes have not yet been +exterminated, and life goes on very much as in the olden time. Into the +Hinter-land the Gentle Reader wanders, and he is known to the scientific +explorer as a friendly native, whose good-will is worth cultivating. He +is often confounded with the "General Reader," a very different person, +whose omnivorous appetite and intemperance in the use of miscellaneous<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> +information are very offensive to him. Unscrupulous adventurers carry on +a thriving trade with the General Reader in damaged goods, which are +foisted on him under the name of Popular Science.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>In the Hinter-land there is dense ignorance of the achievements and even +of the names of most of those who are recognized as authorities in their +several sciences. They are as unknown as is the Lord Mayor of London to +the natives on the banks of the Zambesi. The heroes of the Hinter-land +are the bold explorers who in militant fashion have made their way into +regions as yet unsubdued.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the nineteenth century there was an heroic period +during which scientific investigation took on all the color of romance. +The Gentle Reader turns to the lives and works of Darwin, Huxley, and +Tyndall, very much as he would turn to the tales of Charlemagne and his +Paladins. Here was a field of action. Something happened. As he reads he +is conscious that he has nothing of that impersonal attitude which +belongs to pure science. It is not scientific but human interest which +moves him. He<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> is anxious to know what these men did, and what was the +result of their deeds. It is an intellectual adventure of which the +outcome is still uncertain.</p> + +<p>The new generation cannot fully realize what the word "Evolution" meant +to those who saw in it a portent of mysterious change. In its early +advocates there was a mingling of romantic daring and missionary zeal. +Its enemies resisted with the fortitude which belongs to those who never +know when they are beaten. In almost any old bookstores one may see a +counter labeled "Second-hand Theology, very cheap." It is a collection +of the spent ammunition which may still be found on the field of battle. +It is in an unfrequented corner. Now and then a theological student may +visit it, but even he seems rather to be a vague considerer of worthy +things than a bargain hunter. Yet once these volumes were eagerly read.</p> + +<p>Out of the border warfare between Science and certain types of Theology +and Philosophy there came a kind of literature that has a very real +value and which is not lacking in charm. What a sense of relief came to +the Gentle Reader when he stumbled upon John Fiske's "Excursions of<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> an +Evolutionist." This was the very thing he had been looking for; not an +exhaustive survey, nor a strenuous campaign, but an excursion with a +competent guide and interpreter, a friendly person acquainted with the +country who would tell him the things he wanted to know, and not weary +him with irrelevant and confusing details.</p> + +<p>What an admirable interpreter Fiske was! Darwin, with characteristic +modesty, acknowledged his indebtedness to him for pointing out some of +the larger results of his own investigations. He had the instinct which +enabled him to seize the salient points; to open up new vistas, to make +clear a situation. His histories are always readable because he followed +the main stream and never lost himself in a sluggish bayou. The same +method applied to cosmic forces makes him see their dramatic movement. +It is the genius of a born man of letters using the facts discovered by +scientific methods for its own purpose. That purpose is always broad and +humanizing.</p> + +<p>The specialist is apt to speak patronizingly of such work, as if it were +necessarily inferior to his own. It seems to bear the marks of +superficiality.<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> To appreciate it properly one must take it for what it +is. Man was interested in the Universe long before he began to study it +scientifically. He dreamed about it, he mused over its mysteries, he +talked about its more obvious aspects. And it is as interesting now as +it ever was and as fit an object of thought. The conceptions which +satisfied us in the days when ignorance had not arrived at +self-consciousness have to be given up; but we are anxious to know what +have taken their places. We want to get our bearings and to discern the +general trend of the forces which make the world. It is no mean order of +mind that is fitted to answer our needs by wise interpretation.</p> + +<p>There is often a conflict between private owners and the public over the +right to fish in certain waters. The landowners put up warning signs and +try to prevent trespass, while the public insists on its ancient +privileges. The law, with that admirable common sense for which it has +such a great reputation, makes a distinction. The small pond may be +privately owned and fenced in, but "boatable waters" are free to all.</p> + +<p>So we may concede to the specialist the exclusive<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> right to have an +opinion on certain subjects—subjects let us say of a size suitable for +the thesis of a Doctor of Philosophy. But we are not to be shut off from +the pleasure of thinking on more sizable themes. We have all equal +rights on the "boatable waters."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Matthew Arnold retells the story of the Scholar-gypsy who, forsaking the +university, "took to the woods,"—so far as we can learn from the poem, +to his own spiritual and intellectual advantage. The combination of the +scholar and gypsy has a fascination. One likes to conceive of thought as +playing freely among the other forces of nature, and dealing directly +with all objects and not with those especially prepared for it.</p> + +<p>Across the border-land of the physical sciences one may meet many such +scholar-gypsies. They have taken to the wilderness and yet carried into +it a trained intelligence. Here may be found keen observers, who might +have written text-books on ornithology had they not fallen in love with +birds. They follow their friends into their haunts in the thickets, and +they love to gossip about their peculiarities. Here are botanists who +love the<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> growing things in the fields and woods better than the +specimens in their herbariums. They love to describe better than to +analyze. Now and then one may meet a renegade who carries a geologist's +hammer. It is a sheer hypocrisy, like a fishing rod in the hands of a +contemplative rambler. It is merely an excuse for being out of doors and +among the mountains.</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader finds unfailing delight in these wanderers. They open +up to him a leafy world. Thanks to them there are places where he feels +intimately at home: a certain English parish; a strip of woodland in +Massachusetts; the vicinity of a farm on the Hudson; an enchanted +country in the high Sierras.</p> + +<p>"I verily believe," he says, "there is more Natural History to be +learned in such places than in all the museums. Besides, I never liked a +museum."</p> + +<p>The fact is that he does learn a good many things in this way—and some +of them he remembers.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>The native African who is capable of understanding the philosophy of +history may adjust<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> his mind to the idea that his continent is intended +for exploitation by a superior race. The forests in which his ancestors +have hunted for generations form only a part of the Hinter-land of some +colony on the coast which he has never seen. After a time, by an +inevitable process of expansion, the colony will absorb and assimilate +all the adjoining country. But his perplexities are not over when he +has, in a general way, resigned himself to manifest destiny. He +discovers that all Europeans are not alike, though they certainly look +alike. There are conflicting claims. To whose sphere of influence does +he belong? It is not easy to answer such questions, and mistakes are +liable to bring down upon him punitive expeditions from different +quarters.</p> + +<p>A similar perplexity arises in the minds of the simple inhabitants of +the scientific Hinter-lands. They are ready to admit the superior claims +of the exact sciences, but they are puzzled to know to what particular +sphere they belong.</p> + +<p>In the absence of any generally received philosophy each special science +pushes out as far as it can and attempts to take in the whole of +existence.<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> The specialist, forgetting his self-imposed limitations, and +fired with the ambition for wide generalization, which is the infirmity +of all active minds, becomes an intellectual tyrant. He is a veritable +Tamerlane, and if he rears no pyramids of skulls, he leaves behind him a +multitude of muddled brains.</p> + +<p>Wilberforce tells us of the havoc wrought in his day by the new science +of Political Economy. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was hailed as the +complete solution of all social problems. Forgetting the narrow scope of +the inquiry which had to do with only a single aspect of human life, the +maxims of trade were elevated into the place of the moral law. +Superstition magnified those useful twins, Demand and Supply, into two +all-powerful Genii who were quite capable of doing the work of +Providence. For any one in the spirit of brotherly kindness to interfere +with their autocratic operations was looked upon as an act of rebellion +against the nature of things. "A dismal science," indeed, as any science +is when it becomes an unlimited despotism.</p> + +<p>At the present time Geology is a very modest science, remaining +peacefully within its natural<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> frontiers; but in the days of Hugh Miller +it was viewed with alarm. Elated with its victory in the affair with +Genesis, its adherents were filled with militant ardor and were in the +mood for universal conquest. In alliance with Chemistry it invaded the +sphere of morals. Was not even Ruskin induced to write of the "Ethics of +the Dust"? In the form of Physical Geography and with the auxiliary +forces of Meteorology, it was ready to recast human history. Books were +written to show that all civilization could be sufficiently explained by +one who took account only of such features of the world as soil and +climate.</p> + +<p>While learned men were geologizing through the successive +stratifications of humanity, a new claimant appeared. Biology became +easily the paramount power. Its fame spread far and wide among those who +knew nothing of its severer methods. In the Hinter-land the worship of +Protoplasm became a cult. The hopes and fears and spiritual powers of +humanity seemed illusory unless such phenomena were confirmed by +analogies drawn from "the psychic life of micro-organisms." Fortunately +at about this<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> time the aggressive temper of "The New Psychology" did +much to restore the balance of power. Under its influence those who +still adhered to the belief that the proper study of mankind is man took +heart and ventured, though with caution, to move abroad. The new +Psychology in its turn has developed imperialistic ambitions. Its +conquests have not been without much devastation, especially in the fair +fields of education. A distinguished Psychologist has sounded a note of +warning. He would have psychological experiments confined to the +laboratory, leaving the school-room to the wholesome government of +common sense. It is doubtful, however, whether such protests will avail +any more than the eloquence of the Little Englanders has been able to +limit colonial expansion.</p> + +<p>The border-land between Psychology and Sociology is the scene of many a +foray. The Psychologist thinks nothing of following a fleeing idea +across the frontier. He deals confidently with the "Psychology of the +mob," and "the aggregate mind," and the hypnotic influence of the crowd. +There is such an air of authority about it all, that we forget that he +is dealing with figures<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> of speech. On the other hand, the Sociologist +attempts to solve the most delicate problems of the individual soul by +the statistical method.</p> + +<p>The Hinter-land has not yet been reduced to order. The Gentle Reader +suspects that no one of the rival sciences is strong enough to impose +its own laws over so wide a region. Perhaps, after all, they may have to +call upon Philosophy to undertake the task of forming a responsible +government.<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Gentle_Readers_Friends_among_the_Clergy" id="The_Gentle_Readers_Friends_among_the_Clergy"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_243-a.png" width="350" height="116" alt="The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy" title="The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_t.png" width="30" height="67" alt=""T" /></span>HERE has been a sad falling off in clerical character," says the +Gentle Reader. "In the old books it is a pleasure to meet a parson. He +is so simple and hearty that you feel at home with him at once. You know +just where to find him, and he always takes himself and his profession +for granted. He may be a trifle narrow, but you make allowance for that, +and as for his charity it has no limits. You expect him to give away +everything he can lay hands on. As for his creed it is always the same +as the church to which he belongs, which is a great relief and saves no +end of trouble. But the clergyman I meet with in novels nowadays is in a +chronic<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> state of fidgetiness. Nothing is as it seems or as it ought to +be. He is as full of problems as an egg is full of meat. Everything +resolves itself into a conflict of duties, and whichever duty he does he +wishes it had been the other one. When the poor man is not fretting +because of evil-doers he begins to fret because of the well-doers, who +do well in the old fashion without any proper knowledge of the Higher +Criticism or Sanitary Drainage. What with his creed and his congregation +and his love affairs, all of which need mending, he lives a distracted +life. Though the author in the first chapter praises his athletic +prowess, he seems to have no staying powers and his nerves give out +under the least strain. He is one of those trying characters of whom +some one has said that 'we can hear their souls scrape.' I prefer the +old-time parsons. They were much more comfortable and in more rugged +health. I like the phrase 'Bishops and other Clergy.' The bishops are +great personages whose lives are written like the lives of the Lord +Chancellors; and they are not always very readable. But my heart goes +out to the other clergy, the good sensible men who were neither<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> great +scholars nor reformers nor martyrs, and who therefore did not get into +the Church Histories, but who kept things going."</p> + +<p>When he turns to the parson of "The Canterbury Tales" he finds the +refreshment that comes from contact with a perfectly wholesome nature. +Here is an enduring type of natural piety. In the person of the good man +the prayers of the church for the healthful spirit of grace had been +answered in full measure. In his ministry in his wide parish we cannot +imagine him as being worried or hurried. There could be for him no +conflict of duties; the duties plodded along one after another in sturdy +English fashion. And when the duties were well done that was the end of +them. Their pale uneasy ghosts did not disturb his slumbers, and point +with vague menace to the unattainable. The parson had his place and his +definite task. He trod the earth as firmly and sometimes as heavily as +did the ploughman.</p> + +<p>If the virtues of the fourteenth-century parson were of the enduring +order, so were his foibles. The Gentle Reader is familiar with his +weaknesses; for has he not "sat under his preaching?" The homiletic +habit is hard to break, and<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> renders its victim strangely oblivious to +the passage of time. Every incident suggests a text and every text +suggests a new application. In the homiletic sphere perpetual motion is +an assured success.</p> + +<p>What sinking of heart must have come to laymen like the merchant and the +yeoman when the parson on the pleasant road to Canterbury called their +attention to the resemblance between their journey and</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"...thilke parfit, glorious pilgrymage,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That highte Jerusalem celestial."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>They knew the symptoms. When the homilist has got scent of an analogy he +will run it down, however long the chase.</p> + +<p>It would be interesting to discover the origin of the impression so +persistent in the lay mind that sermons are long. A sermon is seldom as +long as it seems. But it is always with trepidation that the listener +observes in a discourse a constitutional tendency to longevity. In his +opinion the good die young. As it is to-day so it was on the afternoon +when the host, with ill-concealed alarm, called upon the good parson to +take his turn.<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Telleth," quod he, "youre meditacioun;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">But hasteth yow, the sonne wole adoun.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Beth fructuous, and that in litel space."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It is needless to say that what the parson called his "little tale in +prose" proved to be one of his old sermons which he delivered without +notes. He was very unskillful in concealing his text, which was Jeremiah +vi. 16.</p> + +<p>We are familiar with that interesting picture of the pilgrims as they +set out in the morning, each figure alert. I wonder that some one has +not painted a picture of them about sunset, as the parson was in the +middle of his discourse. It is said that in every battle there is a +critical moment when each side is almost exhausted. The side which at +this moment receives reinforcements or rallies for a supreme effort +gains the victory. So one must have noticed in every over-long discourse +a critical moment when the speaker and his hearers are equally +exhausted. If at that moment the speaker, who has apparently used up his +material, boldly announces a new head, the hearers' discomfiture is +complete. This point of strategy the parson, guileless as he was, +understood and so managed to get in the<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> last word, so that "The +Canterbury Tales" end with the Canterbury sermon.</p> + +<p>By the way, there was one ministerial weakness from which Chaucer's +parson was free,—the love of alliteration. One is often struck, when +listening to a fervent discourse against besetting sins, with the +curious fact that all the transgressions begin with the same letter of +the alphabet. There is something suspicious in this circumstance. Not a +great many years ago a political party suffered severely because its +candidate received an address from a worthy clergyman who was addicted +to this habit, and instead of the usual three R's enumerated "Rum, +Romanism, and Rebellion." The chances are that he meant no offense to +his Roman Catholic fellow citizens; but once on the toboggan slide of +alliteration he could not stop. If instead of rum he had begun with +whiskey, his homiletic instinct would have led him to assert that the +three perils of the Republic were whiskey, war, and woman-suffrage.</p> + +<p>It is to the credit of Chaucer's parson that he distinctly repudiated +alliteration with all its allurements, especially in connection with the +seductive letter R.<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"I kan nat geeste '<i>rum</i>, <i>ram</i>, <i>ruf</i>,' by lettre;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Ne, God woot, rym holde I but litel bettre."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">When it came to plain prose without any rhetorical embellishments, he +was in his element.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that the clergyman is not an eminently +Shakespearean character. The great high ecclesiastics, like Pandulph and +Wolsey, are great personages who make a fine show, but the other clergy +are not always in good and regular standing. They are sometimes little +better than hedge-priests. But what pleasant glimpses we get into the +unwritten history of the English Church in the days when it was still +Merry England. The Cranmers and the Ridleys made a great stir in those +days, but no rumors of it reached the rural parishes where Holofernes +kept school and Nathanael warmed over for his slumbering congregation +the scraps he had stolen in his youth from the feast of the languages. +As for the parishioners, they were doubtless well satisfied and could +speak after the fashion of Constable Dull when he was reproved for his +silence.</p> + +<p>"Goodman Dull, thou hast said no word all this while."<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a></p> + +<p>Dull,—"Nor understood none neither, sir!"</p> + +<p>The innocent pedant whose learning lies in the dead languages and who +has a contempt for the living world is a type not extinct; but what +shall we say of the Welsh curate of Windsor, Hugh Evans? In Windsor Park +Mrs. Ford whispers, "Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and that +Welsh devil Sir Hugh?"</p> + +<p>That was her affectionate, though not respectful, way of referring to +her spiritual adviser. Curate Evans was certainly not an example of what +has been termed "the mild and temperate spirituality which has always +characterized the Church of England." The dignity of the cloth is not in +his mind as he cries, "Trib, fairies, trib, come and remember your +parts, pe pold, I pray you, ... when I give the watch'ords do as I pid +you."</p> + +<p>Yet though he seemed not to put so much emphasis on character in +religion as we in these more serious days think fitting, this Welsh +devil of a parson had enough of the professional spirit to wish to point +a moral on all proper occasions. Not too obtrusive or moral, nor +carrying it to the sweating point, but a good, sound approbation of +right sentiment. When Master Slender<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> declares his resolution, "After +this trick I'll ne'er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, +godly company. If I be drunk I'll be drunk with those who fear God," the +convivial curate responds, "So God judge me that shows a virtuous mind."</p> + +<p>That Shakespeare intended any reflection on the Welsh clergy is not +probable; but so late as the eighteenth century a traveler in Wales +remarks that the ale house was usually kept by the parson. One wonders +whether with such manifest advantages the Welsh ministers' meetings were +given over to lugubrious essays on "Why we do not reach the masses."</p> + +<p>Shakespeare uses the word Puritan once, but Malvolio was a prig rather +than a true Puritan. His objection to cakes and ale was rather because +revelry disturbed his slumbers than because it troubled his conscience. +But when we turn to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and come across Tribulation +Wholesome, from Amsterdam, we know that the battle between the stage and +the conventicle has begun. We know the solid virtues of these sectaries +from whom came some of the best<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> things in England and New England. But +we must not expect to find this side of their character in the +literature of the next two or three centuries. Unfortunately the +non-conformist conscience was offended at those innocent pleasures in +which amiable writers and readers have always taken satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb inclined to the opinion of his friend who held that "a man +cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumpling." The +gastronomic argument against Puritanism has always been a strong one +with the English mind. It was felt that a person must be a hypocrite who +could speak disrespectfully of the creature comforts. There was no +toleration for the miserable pretender who would "blaspheme custard +through the nose." Tribulation Wholesome was deserving only of the +pillory. There was no doubt but that the viands which were publicly +reprobated were privately enjoyed.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"You rail against plays to please the alderman</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Whose daily custard you devour.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">...You call yourselves</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">By names of Tribulation, Persecution,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Restraint, Long Patience and such-like, affected</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Only for glory and to catch the ear</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of the disciple."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a></p> + +<p>In "Bartholomew Fair" we meet Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy, an unlicensed +exhorter, who has attained the liberty of prophesying, and is the leader +of a little flock.</p> + +<p>Did history keep on repeating itself, or did literary men keep on +repeating each other? At any rate Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy reappears +continually. He is in every particular the prototype of those painful +brethren who roused the wrath of honest Sam Weller. We recognize his +unctuous speech, his unfailing appetite, and even his offensive and +defensive alliance with the mother-in-law.</p> + +<p>Mr. Little-Wit introduces him as "An old elder from Banbury who puts in +here at meal times to praise the painful brethren and to pray that the +sweet singers may be restored; and he says grace as long as his breath +lasts."</p> + +<p>To which Mrs. Little-Wit responds, "Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious +time with him, what for his diet and his clothes too, he breaks his +buttons and cracks seams at every saying that he sobs out."</p> + +<p>In answer to the anxious inquiry of his mother-in-law, Dame Pure-Craft, +Little-Wit announces<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a> that he has found the good man "with his teeth +fast in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on +his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right." In Dame Pure-Craft +he finds a stanch supporter. "Slander not the brethren, wicked one," she +cries.</p> + +<p>Zeal of the Land Busy attempts to lead his flock through the perils of +Bartholomew Fair. "Walk in the middle of the way—turn neither to the +right nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside by vanity nor +your ears by noises." It was indeed a dangerous journey, for it was +nothing less than "a grove of hobby horses and trinkets; the wares are +the wares of devils, and the fair is the shop of Satan."</p> + +<p>But, alas, though the eyes and ears were guarded, another avenue of +temptation had been forgotten. The delicious odor of roast pig came from +one of the booths. It was a delicate little pig, cooked with fire of +juniper and rosemary branches. Mrs. Little-Wit longed for it and her +husband encouraged her weakness. Dame Pure-Craft rebukes him and bids +him remember the wholesome admonition of their leader.</p> + +<p>Zeal of the Land Busy is a casuist of no mean<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> ability, and is equal to +the task of finding an exception to his own rule.</p> + +<p>"It may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, +which I think it doth in this place, huh! huh!—yes, it doth. And it +were a sin of obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to resist the +titillation of the famelic sense which is smell. Therefore be bold, +follow the scent; enter the tents of the unclean for this once, and +satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your +zealous mother and my suffering self will be satisfied also."</p> + +<p>Zeal of the Land Busy was like a certain English statesman of whom it +was said, "His conscience, instead of being his monitor, became his +accomplice."</p> + +<p>One characteristic of these unlicensed exhorters seems to be very +persistent,—their almost superhuman fluency. Despising preparation and +trusting to the inspiration of the moment, they are never left without +words. Preaching without notes is not particularly difficult if one has +something to say, but these exhorters attempt to preach without notes +and also without ideas. They require nothing but a word to begin with.<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> +The speaker is like an army which, having broken away from its base of +supplies, lives on the country through which it is marching. The +hortatory guerrilla gets forage enough in one sentence to carry him on +through the next. This was the homiletical method which Zeal of the Land +used in his discourse at the fair. At a venture he cries out,—</p> + +<p>"Down with Dagon!"</p> + +<p>Leather-Head, the hobby-horse seller, asks very imprudently,—</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, sir!"</p> + +<p>That was enough; a torrent of impromptu eloquence is let loose.</p> + +<p>"I will remove Dagon there, I say; that idol, that heathenish idol, that +remains as I may say a beam, a very beam, not a beam of the sun, nor a +beam of the moon, nor a beam of the balance, neither a house beam, nor a +weaver's beam, but a beam in the eye, an exceeding great beam!"</p> + +<p>It was the same method employed long after by Mr. Chadband in his moving +address to little Joe.</p> + +<p>"My young friend, you are to us a pearl, a diamond, you are to us a +jewel. And why, my young friend?"<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a></p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Joe, "I don't know nothink."</p> + +<p>This gave Mr. Chadband his opportunity for continued speech. "My young +friend, it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem, a +jewel. For what are you? Are you a beast of the field? No! Are you a +fish of the river? No! You are a human boy! Oh, glorious to be a human +boy! And why glorious, my young friend?"</p> + +<p>Marvelous, to taciturn folk, is this flow of language. The little rill +becomes a torrent, and soon there are waters to swim in. It seems to +savor of the supernatural, being of the nature of creation out of +nothing. And yet like many other wonderful things, it is easy when one +knows how to do it.</p> + +<p>The churchmen of those days joined with the wits in laughter which +greeted the tinkers and the bakers who turned to prophesying on their +own account. But now and then one of the zealous independents could give +as keen a thrust as any which were received. It would be hard to find +more delicate satire than in the description of Parson<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> Two Tongues of +the town of Fair Speech, who was much esteemed by his distinguished +parishioners, My Lord Time-Server, Mr. Facing Both-Ways, and Mr. +Anything. The parson was a man of good family, though his grandfather +had been a waterman, and had thus learned the art of looking one way and +rowing another. It is his parishioner Mr. Bye-Ends who propounds the +question of ministerial ethics. "Suppose a minister, a worthy man, +possessed of but a small benefice, has in his eye a greater, more fat +and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting it, yet so +as being more studious, by preaching more zealously, and because the +temper of the people requires it, by altering some of his principles, +for my part I see no reason but a man may do this (provided he has a +call), aye, and a great deal more besides, and be an honest man." As for +changing his principles to suit the times, Mr. Bye-Ends argues that it +shows that the minister "is of a self-sacrificing temper."</p> + +<p>The argument for conformity is put so plausibly that it is calculated to +deceive the very elect; and then as if by mere inadvertence we are +allowed a glimpse of the seamy side. It is evident<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> that the wits were +not all banished from the conventicles.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>To those who are acquainted only with the pale and interesting +tea-drinking parsons of nineteenth-century English fiction, there is +something surprising in the clergymen one meets in the pages of +Fielding. They are all in such rude health! There is not a suggestion of +nervous prostration nor of minister's sore throat. Not one of them seems +to be in need of a vacation; perhaps because they are out of doors all +the time. Their professional duties were doubtless done, but they are +not obtruded on the reader's attention.</p> + +<p>The odious Chaplain Thwackum is chiefly remembered for his argument with +the free-thinker Square. Square having asserted that honor might exist +independently of religion, Thwackum refutes him in a manner most +satisfactory. "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion, +and not only the Christian religion but the Protestant religion, and not +only the Protestant religion but the religion of the Church of England; +and when I mention honor I mean that mode of<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a> divine grace which is +dependent on that religion."</p> + +<p>"Thwackum," says the Gentle Reader, "was, after all, an unworldly man. +He was content to remain a mere hanger-on of the church when he was +capable of thoughts which were really in great demand. I have been +looking over a huge controversial volume by an author of that day, and I +found nothing but Thwackum argument expanded and illustrated. The author +was made a bishop for it."</p> + +<p>As for Parson Trulliber, the Falstaff of divines, the less said about +him the better. The curate Barnabas is a more pleasing character, though +hardly an example of spirituality. He reminds one of the good parson +who, in his desire for moderation, prayed that the Lord might lead his +people "in the safe middle path between right and wrong."</p> + +<p>When Joseph Andrews confessed his sins to him, Barnabas was divided +between his eagerness to do his professional duty to the sinner, and the +desire to prepare the punch for the company downstairs, a work in which +he particularly excelled.<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a></p> + +<p>"Barnabas asked him if he forgave his enemies 'as a Christian ought.'</p> + +<p>"Joseph desired to know what that forgiveness was.</p> + +<p>"'That is,' answered Barnabas, 'to forgive them—as—it is to forgive +them as—in short, to forgive them as a Christian.'</p> + +<p>"Joseph replied 'He forgave them as much as he could.'</p> + +<p>"'Well! Well!' said Barnabas, 'that will do!' He then demanded of him if +he had any more sins unrepented of, and if he had, to repent of them as +fast as he could; ... for some company was waiting below in the parlor +where the ingredients for punch were all in readiness, for that no one +could squeeze the oranges till he came."</p> + +<p>Barnabas would have been shocked at the demands of the Methodists for +immediate repentance, but on this occasion he was led into almost equal +urgency.</p> + +<p>But Fielding more than atones for all the rest by the creation of Parson +Adams. Dear, delightful Parson Adams! to know him is to love him! In him +the Church of England appears a little out at the elbows, but in good +heart. With the<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> appetite of a ploughman, and "a fist rather less than +the knuckle of an ox," he represents the true church militant. He has a +pipe in his mouth, and a short great coat which half conceals his +cassock, which he had "torn some ten years ago in passing over a stile." +But however uncanonical his attire, his heart is in the right place.</p> + +<p>What a different world Parson Adams lived in from that of George Eliot's +Amos Barton, bewildered with thoughts which he could not express. "'Mr. +Barton,' said his rural parishioner, 'can preach as good a sermon as +need be when he writes it down, but when he tries to preach without book +he rambles about, and every now and then flounders like a sheep as has +cast itself and can't get on its legs.'"</p> + +<p>One cannot imagine Parson Adams floundering about, under any +circumstances. There is a sturdy strength and directness about all he +says and does. His simplicity is endearing but never savors of weakness.</p> + +<p>He sets great store by his manuscript sermons, for which he seeks a +publisher. The curate Barnabas throws cold water on his plans. The age, +he says, is so wicked that nobody reads sermons;<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a></p> + +<p>"'Would you think it, Mr. Adams, I intended to print a volume of +sermons, myself, and they had the approbation of three bishops, but what +do you think the bookseller offered me?'</p> + +<p>"'Twelve guineas,' cried Adams.</p> + +<p>"'Nay,' answered Barnabas, 'the dog refused me a concordance in +exchange.... To be concise with you, three bishops said they were the +best sermons that were ever writ; but indeed there are a pretty moderate +number printed already, and they are not all sold yet.'"</p> + +<p>The theology of Parson Adams was genially human. "'Can anything,' he +said, 'be more derogatory to the honor of God than for men to imagine +that the all-wise Being will hereafter say to the good and virtuous, +Notwithstanding the purity of thy life, notwithstanding the constant +rule of virtue and goodness in which thou walkedst upon earth; still, as +thou didst not believe everything in the true orthodox manner, thy want +of faith shall condemn thee? Or, on the other side, can any doctrine be +more pernicious in society than the persuasion that it will be a good +plea for a villain at the last day,—"Lord, it is true I never obeyed +any of Thy commandments;<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> yet punish me not, for I believe in them +all?"'"</p> + +<p>This was not sound doctrine in the opinion of the itinerant bookseller. +"'I am afraid,' he said, 'that you will find a backwardness in the trade +to engage in a book which the clergy would be certain to cry down.'"</p> + +<p>The good parson had the clerical weakness for reading sermons in season +and out of season. At a festive gathering there was a call for speeches, +to which it was objected that no one was prepared for an address; +"'Unless,' turning to Adams, 'you have a sermon about you.'</p> + +<p>"'Sir,' said Adams, 'I never travel without one, for fear of what might +happen.'"</p> + +<p>Like other clergymen, he dabbled occasionally in politics. "'On all +proper seasons, such as at the approach of an election, I throw a +suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear +is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen, my +neighbors.'"</p> + +<p>At one time he actively labored for the election of young Sir Thomas +Booby, who had lately returned from his travels. He was elected, "'and<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> +a fine Parliament man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour +long, and I have been told very fine ones; but he could never persuade +Parliament to be of his opinion.'"</p> + +<p>Estimable, eloquent Sir Thomas Booby! How many orators have found the +same result following their speeches of an hour long!</p> + +<p>To the returned traveler who had engaged in a controversy with him, +Parson Adams gave expression to his literary faith.</p> + +<p>"'Master of mine, perhaps I have traveled a great deal further than you, +without the assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different +cities or countries is traveling. I can go further in an afternoon than +you in a twelve-month. What, I suppose you have seen the pillars of +Hercules and perhaps the walls of Carthage?... You have sailed among the +Cyclades and passed the famous straits which took their name from the +unfortunate Helle, so sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have +passed the very spot where Dædalus fell into the sea; you have doubtless +traversed the Euxine, and called at Colchis to see if there was another +golden fleece.'<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a></p> + +<p>"'Not I, truly,' said the gentleman. 'I never touched at any of these +places.'</p> + +<p>"'But I have been in all these,' replied Adams.</p> + +<p>"'Then you have been in the Indies, for there are no such places, I'll +be sworn, either in the West Indies or in the Levant.'</p> + +<p>"'Pray, where is the Levant?' quoth Adams.</p> + +<p>"'Oho! You're a pretty traveler and not to know the Levant. You must not +tip me for a traveler, it won't go here.'</p> + +<p>"'Since thou art so dull as to misunderstand me,' quoth Adams, 'I will +inform thee. The traveling I mean is in books, the only kind of +traveling by which any knowledge is acquired.'"</p> + +<p>"There is a great deal to be said in defense of that opinion," says the +Gentle Reader.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>To turn from Parson Adams to the Vicar of Wakefield is to experience a +change of spiritual climate. Parson Adams was a good man, and so was Dr. +Primrose; otherwise they were quite different. Was piety ever made more +attractive to restless, over-driven people than in the person of the +dear, non-resistant vicar. Here was a man<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> who might be reviled and +persecuted,—but he never could be hurried.</p> + +<p>The Gentle Reader rejoices in the peace of the opening chapters. "The +year was spent in moral and rural amusements. We had no revolutions to +fear, no fatigues to undergo, all our adventures were by the fireside, +and all our migrations were from the blue bed to the brown." And +good-natured Mrs. Primrose, absorbed in making pickles and gooseberry +wine, and with her ability to read any English book without much +spelling, was an ideal minister's wife, before the days of missionary +societies and general information. It was only her frivolous daughters +who were brought into society, where there was talk of "pictures, taste, +Shakespeare, and the musical glasses." These subjects not then being +supposed to have any esoteric, religious significance, which it was the +duty of the minister's wife to discover and disseminate, she busied +herself with her domestic concerns without any haunting sense that she +was neglecting the weightier matters. The vicar's favorite sermons were +in praise of matrimony, and he preached out of a happy experience.<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a></p> + +<p>This peaceful scene bears the same relation to the trials that +afterwards befell the good man that the prologue to the Book of Job does +to the main part of it. Satan has his will with Job, so also it happened +with Dr. Primrose. His banker absconds to Amsterdam, his daughter elopes +with the wicked young squire who has the father thrown into prison, +where he hears of the death of his wretched daughter who has been cast +off by her betrayer. Troubles came thick and fast; yet did not the vicar +hurry, nor for a moment change the even tenor of his way. It was the +middle of the eighteenth century, when piety was not treated as an +elemental force. It did not lift up its voice and cry out against +injustice. The church was the patient Griselda married to the state, and +the clergyman was a teacher of resignation.</p> + +<p>Upon learning of his daughter's abduction, Dr. Primrose calls for his +Bible and his staff, but he does not indulge in any haste unbecoming a +clergyman. He finds time in his leisurely pursuit to discourse most +judiciously and at considerable length on the royal prerogative. He +remembers his duty to the landed gentry, and on<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> his return from his +unsuccessful quest remains several days to enjoy the squire's +hospitality.</p> + +<p>Was ever poetical justice done with more placidity and completeness than +in the prison scene? The vicar, feeling that he is about to die, +proceeds to address his fellow wretches. He falls naturally into an old +sermon on the evils of free-thinking philosophy, that being the line of +the least resistance. The discourse being finished, it is without +surprise and yet with real pleasure that we learn that he does not die; +nor is his son, who was about to be hanged, hanged at all; on the +contrary, he appears not long after handsomely dressed in regimentals, +and makes a modest and distant bow to Miss Wilmot, the heiress. That +young lady had just arrived and was to be married next day to the wicked +young squire, but on learning that young gentleman's perfidy, "'Oh +goodness!' cried the lovely girl, 'how I have been deceived.'" The +vicar's son being on the spot in his handsome regimentals, they are +engaged in the presence of the company, and her affluent fortune is +assured to this hitherto impecunious youth. And the daughter Olivia at +the same time appears, it happening that she was<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> not dead after all, +and that she has papers to show that she is the lawful wife of the young +squire. And the banker who ran away with the vicar's property has been +captured and the money restored. In the mean time—for happy accidents +never come singly—the wretch who was in the act of carrying off the +younger daughter Sophy has been foiled by the opportune arrival of Mr. +Burchell. And best of all, Mr. Burchell proves not to be Mr. Burchell at +all, but the celebrated Sir William Thornhill, who is loyal to the +constitution and a friend of the king. The Vicar is so far restored that +he leaves the jail and partakes of a bountiful repast, at which the +company is "as merry as affluence and innocence could make them."</p> + +<p>Affluence as the providential, though sometimes long delayed, reward of +innocence was a favorite thesis of eighteenth-century piety.</p> + +<p>"It may sound very absurd," says the Gentle Reader, "to those who insist +that all the happenings should be realistic; but the Vicar of Wakefield +is a very real character, nevertheless; and he is the kind of a person +for whom you would expect things to come out right in the end."<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="Quixotism" id="Quixotism"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_271-a.png" width="200" height="94" alt="Quixotism" title="Quixotism" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/ill_w.png" width="45" height="68" alt="W" title="W" /></span>HEN Falstaff boasted that he was not only witty himself but the cause +of wit in other men, he thought of himself more highly than he ought to +have thought. The very fact that he was witty prevented him from the +highest efficiency in stimulating others in that direction. The +atmospheric currents of merriment move irresistibly toward a vacuum. +Create a character altogether destitute of humor and the most sluggish +intelligence is stirred in the effort to fill the void.</p> + +<p>When we seek one who is the cause of wit in other men we pass by the +jovial Falstaff and come to the preternaturally serious Don Quixote. +Here we have not the chance outcropping of "the lighter vein," but the +mother lode which<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> the humorist finds inexhaustible. Don Quixote, with a +lofty gravity which never for an instant relaxes, sets forth upon his +mission. His is a soul impenetrable to mirth; but as he rides he +enlivens the whole country-side. Everywhere merry eyes are watching him; +boisterous laughter comes from the stables of village inns; from castle +windows high-born ladies smile upon him; the peasants in the fields +stand gaping and holding their sides; the countenances of the priests +relax, and even the robbers salute the knight with mock courtesy. The +dullest La Manchan is refreshed, and feels that he belongs to a choice +coterie of wits.</p> + +<p>Cervantes tells us that he intended only a burlesque on the books of +chivalry which were in vogue in his day. Had he done no more than he +intended, he would have amused his own generation and then have been +forgotten. It would be too much to ask that we should read the endless +tales about Amadis and Orlando, only that we might appreciate his clever +parody of them. A satire lasts no longer than its object. It must shoot +folly as it flies. To keep on shooting at a folly after it is dead is +unsportsmanlike.<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a></p> + +<p>But though we have not read the old books of chivalry, we have all come +in contact with Quixotism. I say we have all come in contact with it; +but let no selfish, conventional persons be afraid lest they catch it. +They are immune. They may do many foolish things, but they cannot +possibly be quixotic. Quixotism is a malady possible only to generous +minds.</p> + +<p>Listen to Don Quixote as he makes his plea before the duke and duchess. +"I have redressed grievances, righted the injured, chastised the +insolent, vanquished giants. My intentions have all been directed toward +virtuous ends and to do good to all mankind. Now judge, most excellent +duke and duchess, whether a person who makes it his study to practice +all this deserves to be called a fool."</p> + +<p>Our first instinct is to answer confidently, "Of course not! Such a +character as you describe is what we call a hero or a saint." But the +person whose moral enthusiasm has been tempered with a knowledge of the +queer combinations of goodness and folly of which human nature is +capable is more wary, and answers, "That depends."</p> + +<p>In the case of Don Quixote it depends very<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a> much on the kind of world he +lives in. If it should happen that in this world there are giants +standing truculently at their castle doors, and forlorn maidens at every +cross-roads waiting to be rescued, we will grant him the laurels that +are due to the hero. But if La Mancha should not furnish these materials +for his prowess,—then we must take a different view of the case.</p> + +<p>The poor gentleman is mad, that is what the curate and the barber say; +but when we listen to his conversation we are in doubt. If the curate +could discourse half so eloquently he would have been a bishop long +before this. The most that can be said is that he has some notions which +are not in accordance with the facts, and that he acts accordingly; but +if that were a proof of madness there would not be enough sane persons +in the world to make strait-jackets for the rest. His chief peculiarity +is that he takes himself with a seriousness that is absolute. All of us +have thoughts which would not bear the test of strict examination. There +are vagrant fancies and random impulses which, fortunately for our +reputations, come to nothing. We are just on the verge of doing +something absurd when we recognize<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> the character of our proposed +action; and our neighbors lose a pleasure. We comfort ourselves by the +reflection that their loss is our gain. Don Quixote has no such +inhibition; he carries out his own ideas to their logical conclusion.</p> + +<p>The hero of Cervantes had muddled his wits by the reading of romances. +Almost any kind of printed matter may have the same effect if one is not +able to distinguish between what he has read and what he has actually +experienced. One may read treatises on political economy until he +mistakes the "economic man" who acts only according to the rules of +enlightened self-interest for a creature of flesh and blood. One may +read so many articles on the Rights of Women that he mistakes a +hard-working American citizen who spends his summer in a down-town +office, in order that his wife and daughter may go to Europe, for that +odious monster the Tyrant Man. It is possible to read the Society +columns of the daily newspapers till the reader does not know good +society when he sees it. An estimable teacher in the public schools may +devote herself so assiduously to pedagogical literature that she +mistakes her school-room for a psychological laboratory,<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a> with results +that are sufficiently tragical. There are excellent divines so learned +in the history of the early church that they believe that +semi-pelagianism is still the paramount issue. There were few men whose +minds were, in general, better balanced than Mr. Gladstone's, yet what a +fine example of Quixotism was that suggested by Queen Victoria's remark: +"Mr. Gladstone always addresses me as if I were a public meeting." To +address a woman as if she were a public meeting is the mistake of one +who had devoted himself too much to political speeches.</p> + +<p>A thoroughly healthy mind can endure a good deal of reading and a +considerable amount of speculation with impunity. It does not take the +ideas thus derived too seriously. It is continually making allowances, +and every once in a while there is a general clearance. It is like a gun +which expels the old cartridge as the new shot is fired. When the +delicate mechanism for the expulsion of exploded opinions gets out of +order the mind becomes the victim of "fixed ideas." The best idea +becomes dangerous when it gets stuck. When the fixed ideas are of a +noble and disinterested character we have a situation which excites<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a> at +once the admiration of the moralist and the apprehension of the +alienist. Perhaps this border-land between spiritual reality and +intellectual hallucination belongs neither to the moralist nor to the +alienist, but to the wise humorist. He laughs, but there is no +bitterness or scorn in his laughter. It is mellow and human-hearted.</p> + +<p>The world is full of people who have a faculty which enables them to +believe whatever they wish. Thought is not, for them, a process which +may go on indefinitely, a work in which they are collaborating with the +universe. They do it all by themselves. It is the definite transaction +of making up their minds. When the mind is made up it closes with a +snap. After that, for an unwelcome idea to force an entrance would be a +well-nigh impossible feat of intellectual burglary.</p> + +<p>We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe +when compared with a stubborn theory. Let the theory, however +extravagant in its origin, choose its own ground, and intrench itself in +the mind of a well-meaning lady or gentleman of an argumentative turn, +and I'll warrant you it can hold its own against a whole regiment of +facts.<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a></p> + +<p>Did you ever attend a meeting of the society for the—perhaps I had +better not mention the name of the society, lest I tread on your +favorite Quixotism. Suffice it to say that it has a noble purpose. It +aims at nothing less than the complete transformation of human society, +by the use of means which, to say the least, seem quite inadequate.</p> + +<p>After the minutes of the last meeting have been read, and the objects of +the society have been once more stated with much detail, there is an +opportunity for discussion from the floor.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps there is some one who may give some new suggestions, or who may +desire to ask a question."</p> + +<p>You have observed what happens to the unfortunate questioner. What a +sorry exhibition he makes of himself! No sooner does he open his mouth +than every one recognizes his intellectual feebleness. He seems unable +to grasp the simplest ideas. He stumbles at the first premise, and lies +sprawling at the very threshold of the argument. "If what I have taken +for granted be true," says the chairman, "do not all the fine things I +have been telling you about follow necessarily?"<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a></p> + +<p>"But," murmurs the questioner, "the things you take for granted are just +what trouble me. They don't correspond to my experience."</p> + +<p>"Poor, feeble-minded questioner!" cry the members of the society, "to +think that he is not even able to take things for granted! And then to +set up his experience against our constitution and by-laws!"</p> + +<p>We sometimes speak of an inconsequent, harum-scarum person, who is +always going off after new ideas, as quixotic. But true Quixotism is +grave, self-contained, conservative. Within its own sphere it is +accurate and circumstantial. There is no absurdity in its mental +processes; all that is concealed in its assumptions. Granted the reality +of the scheme of knight-errantry, and Don Quixote becomes a solid, +dependable man who will conscientiously carry it out. There is no danger +of his going off into vagaries. He has a mind that will keep the +roadway.</p> + +<p>He is a sound critic, intolerant of minor incongruities. When the +puppet-player tells about the bells ringing in the mosques of the +Moorish town, the knight is quick to correct him. "There you are out, +boy; the Moors have no bells; they<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a> only use kettledrums. Your ringing +of bells in Sansuena is a mere absurdity." Such absurdities were not +amusing; they were offensive to his serious taste.</p> + +<p>The quixotic mind loves greatly the appearance of strict logic. It is +satisfied if one statement is consistent with another statement; whether +either is consistent with the facts of the case is a curious matter +which it does not care to investigate. So much does it love Logic that +it welcomes even that black sheep of the logical family, the Fallacy; +and indeed the impudent fellow, with all his irresponsible ways, does +bear a family resemblance which is very deceiving. Above all is there +delight in that alluring mental exercise known as the argument in a +circle. It is an intellectual merry-go-round. A hobby-horse on rockers +is sport for tame intelligences, but a hobby that can be made to go +round is exciting. You may see grave divines and astute metaphysicians +and even earnest sociologists rejoicing in the swift sequence of their +own ideas, as conclusion follows premise and premise conclusion, in +endless gyration. How the daring riders clutch the bridles and +exultingly watch the flying manes<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a> of their steeds! They have the sense +of getting somewhere, and at the same time the comfortable assurance +that that somewhere is the very place from which they started.</p> + +<p>"Didn't we tell you so!" they cry. "Here we are again. Our arguments +must be true, for we can't get away from them."</p> + +<p>Your ordinary investigator is a disappointing fellow. His opinions are +always at the mercy of circumstances over which he has no control. He +cuts his coat according to his cloth, and sometimes when his material +runs short his intellectual garments are more scanty than decency +allows. Sometimes after a weary journey into the Unknown he will return +with scarcely an opinion to his back. Not so with the quixotist. His +opinions not being dependent on evidence, he does not measure different +degrees of probability. Half a reason is as good as a whole one, for the +result in any case is perfect assurance. All things conspire, in most +miraculous fashion, to confirm him in his views. That other men think +differently he admits, he even welcomes their skepticism as a foil to +his faith. His imperturbable tolerance is like that of some knight who, +conscious of his<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a> coat of mail, good-humoredly exposes himself to the +assaults of the rabble. It amuses them, and does him no harm.</p> + +<p>When Don Quixote had examined Mambrino's enchanted helmet, his candor +compelled him to listen to Sancho's assertion that it was only a +barber's basin. He was not disposed to controvert the evidence of the +senses, but he had a sufficient explanation ready. "This enchanted +helmet, by some strange accident, must have fallen into the possession +of one who, ignorant of its true value as a helmet, and seeing it to be +of the purest gold, hath inconsiderately melted down the one half for +lucre's sake, and of the other half made this, which, as thou sayest, +doth indeed look like a barber's basin; but to me, who know what it +really is, its transformation is of no importance, for I will have it so +repaired in the first town where there is a smith that it shall not be +surpassed or even equaled. In the mean time I will wear it as I can, for +something is better than nothing, and it will be sufficient to defend me +from stones."</p> + +<p>Where have you heard that line of argument, so satisfying to one who has +already made up his<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a> mind? Yesterday, it runs, we had several excellent +reasons for the opinion which we hold. Since then, owing to +investigations which we imprudently entered into before we knew where we +were coming out, all our reasons have been overthrown. This, however, +makes not the slightest difference. It rather strengthens our general +position, as it is no longer dependent on any particular evidence for +its support.</p> + +<p>We prate of the teaching of Experience. But did you ever know Experience +to teach anything to a person whose ideas had set up an independent +government of their own? The stern old dame has been much overrated as +an instructor. Her pedagogical method is very primitive. Her instruction +is administered by a series of hard whacks which the pupil is expected +to interpret for himself. That something is wrong is evident; but what +is it? It is only now and then that some bright pupil says, "That means +that I made a mistake." As for persons of a quixotic disposition, the +most adverse experience only confirms their pre-conceptions. At most the +wisdom gained is prudential. After Don Quixote had made his first +unfortunate trial of his pasteboard<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a> visor, "to secure it against like +accidents in future he made it anew, and fenced it with thin plates of +iron so skillfully that he had reason to be satisfied with his work, and +so, without further experiment, resolved that it should pass for a good +and sufficient helmet."</p> + +<p>One is tempted to linger over that moment when Quixote ceased to +experiment and began to dogmatize. What was the reason of his sudden +dread of destructive criticism? Was he quite sincere? Did he really +believe that his helmet was now cutlass proof?</p> + +<p>For myself, I have no doubts of his knightly honor and of his +transparent candor. He certainly believed that he believed; though under +the circumstances he felt that it was better to take no further risks.</p> + +<p>In his admirable discourse with Don Fernando on the comparative merits +of arms and literature, he describes the effects of the invention of +gunpowder.</p> + +<p>"When I reflect on this I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I +repent of having adopted the profession of knight-errantry in so +detestable an age as we live in. For though no peril can<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> make me fear, +still it gives me some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may rob +me of the opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout +the world by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword."</p> + +<p>There is here a bit of uneasiness, such as comes to any earnest person +who perceives that the times are out of joint. Still the doubt does not +go very deep. In an age of artillery knight-errantry is doubtless more +difficult, but it does not seem impossible.</p> + +<p>It is the same feeling that must come now and then to a gallant +twentieth-century Jacobite who meets with his fellow conspirators in an +American city, to lament the untimely taking off of the blessed martyr +King Charles, and to plot for the return of the House of Stuart. The +circumstances under which they meet are not congenial. The path of +loyalty is not what it once was. A number of things have happened since +1649; still they may be treated as negligible quantities. It is a fine +thing to sing about the king coming to his own again.</p> + +<p>"But what if there isn't any king to speak of?"<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, at any rate, the principle is the same."</p> + +<p>I occasionally read a periodical devoted to the elevation of mankind by +means of a combination of deep breathing and concentrated thought. The +object is one in which I have long been interested. The means used are +simple. The treatment consists in lying on one's back for fifteen +minutes every morning with arms outstretched. Then one must begin to +exhale self and inhale power. The directions are given with such +exactness that no one with reasonably good lungs can go astray. The +treatment is varied according to the need. One may in this way breathe +in, not only health and love, but, what may seem to some more important, +wealth.</p> + +<p>The treatment for chronic impecuniosity is particularly interesting. The +patient, as he lies on his back and breathes deeply, repeats, "I am +Wealth." This sets the currents of financial success moving in his +direction.</p> + +<p>One might suppose that a theory of finance so different from that of the +ordinary workaday world would be surrounded by an air of weirdness or +strangeness. Not at all. Everything is most<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a> matter of fact. The Editor +is evidently a sensible person when it comes to practical details, and, +on occasion, gives admirable advice.</p> + +<p>A correspondent writes: "I have tried your treatment for six months, and +I am obliged to say that I am harder up than ever before. What do you +advise?"</p> + +<p>It is one of those obstinate cases which are met with now and then, and +which test the real character of the practitioner. The matter is treated +with admirable frankness, and yet with a wholesome optimism. The patient +is reminded that six months is a short time, and one must not expect too +quick results. A slow, sure progress is better, and the effects are more +lasting. This is not the first case that has been slow in yielding to +treatment. Still it may be better to make a slight change. The formula, +"I am Wealth," may be too abstract, though it usually has worked well. A +more concrete thought might possibly be more effective. Why not try, +remembering, of course, to continue the same breathings, "I am Andrew +Carnegie?"</p> + +<p>Then the practitioner adds a bit of advice which was certainly worth the +moderate fee charged:<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a> "When the exercises are over, ask yourself what +Andrew would do next. Andrew would hustle."</p> + +<p>A slight acquaintance with the pseudo sciences which are in vogue at the +present day reveals a world to which only the genius of Cervantes could +do justice. We see Absurdity clothed, and in its right mind. It is +formally correct, punctiliously exact, completely serious, and withal +high-minded. Until it comes in contact with the actual world we do not +realize that it is absurd.</p> + +<p>Religion and medicine have always furnished tempting fields for persons +of the quixotic temper. Perhaps it is because their professed objects +are so high, and perhaps also because their achievements fall so far +below what we have been led to expect. Neither spiritual nor mental +health is so robust as to satisfy us with the usual efforts in their +behalf. Sin and sickness are continual challenges. Some one ought to +abolish them. An eager hearing is given to any one who claims to be able +to do so. The temptation is great for those who do not perceive the +difference between words and things to answer the demands.</p> + +<p>It is not necessary to go for examples either to fanatics or quacks. Not +to take too modern an<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> instance, there was Bishop Berkeley! He was a +true philosopher, an earnest Christian, and withal a man of sense, and +yet he was the author of "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections +and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar Water, and divers other +Subjects connected together, and arising One from Another." It is one of +those works which are the cause of wit in other men. It is so learned, +so exhaustive, so pious, and the author takes it with such utter +seriousness!</p> + +<p>Tar is the good bishop's Dulcinea. All his powers are enlisted in the +work of proclaiming the matchless virtues of this mistress of his +imagination, who is "black but comely." Our minds are prepared by a +lyric outburst:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Hail, vulgar Juice of never-fading Pine!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Cheap as thou art! thy virtues are divine,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">To show them and explain (such is thy store),</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">There needs much modern and much ancient Lore."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>For this great work the author is well equipped. Plato, Aristotle, +Pliny, and the rest of the ancients appear as vanquished knights +compelled to do honor to my Lady Tar.</p> + +<p>Other specifics are allowed to have their virtues, but they grow pale +before this paragon.<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> Common soap has its admirers; they are treated +magnanimously, but compelled to surrender at last. "Soap is allowed to +be cleansing, attenuating, opening, resolving, sweetening; it is +pectoral, vulnerary, diuretic, and hath other good qualities; which are +also found in tar water.... Tar water therefore is a soap, and as such +hath all the medicinal qualities of soaps." To those who put their faith +in vinegar a like argument is made. It is shown that tar water is not +only a superior kind of soap, but also a sublimated sort of vinegar; in +fact, it appears to be all things to all men.</p> + +<p>To those who incline to the philosophy of the ancient fire-worshipers a +special argument is made. "I had a long Time entertained an Opinion +agreeable to the Sentiments of many ancient Philosophers, that Fire may +be regarded as the Animal Spirit of this visible World. And it seemed to +me that the attracting and secreting of this Fire in the various Pores, +Tubes, and Ducts of Vegetables, did impart their specifick Virtues to +each kind, that this same Light, or Fire, was the immediate Cause of +Sense and Motion, and consequently of Life and Health to animals; that +on Account of this Solar Light or Fire, Phœbus<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> was in the ancient +Mythology reputed the God of Medicine. Which Light as it is leisurely +introduced, and fixed in the viscid juice of old Firs and Pines, so +setting it free in Part, that is, the changing its viscid for a volatile +Vehicle, which may mix with Water, and convey it throughout the Habit +copiously and inoffensively, would be of infinite Use in Physic." It +appears therefore that tar water is not only a kind of soap, but also a +kind of fire.</p> + +<p>Yet is not Quixote himself more careful to avoid all appearance of +extravagance? The author shrinks from imposing conclusions on another. +After an elaborate argument which moves irresistibly to one conclusion, +he stops short. "This regards the Possibility of a Panacea in general; +as for Tar Water in particular, I do not say it is a Panacea, I only +suspect it to be so." Yet he must be a churlish reader who could go with +him so far and then refuse to take the next step. Nor can a right-minded +person be indifferent to the moral argument in favor of "Tar Water, +Temperance, and Early Hours." If tar water is to be known by the company +it keeps, it is to be commended.<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a></p> + +<p>There is a great advantage in taking our example from another age than +ours. Our enjoyment of the bishop's Quixotism does not cast discredit on +any similar hobby of our own day. "However," as the author of Siris +remarked, "it is hoped they will not condemn one Man's Tar Water for +another Man's Pill or Drop, any more than they would hang one Man for +another's having stole a Horse."</p> + +<p>Indeed, of all quixotic notions the most extreme is that of those who +think that Quixotism can be overcome by any direct attack. It is a state +of mind which must be accepted as we accept any other curious fact. As +well tilt against a cloud as attempt to overcome it by argument. It is a +part of the myth-making faculty of the human mind. A myth is a quixotic +notion which takes possession of multitudes rather than of a single +person. Everybody accepts it; nobody knows why. You can nail a lie, but +you cannot nail a myth,—there is nothing to nail it to. It is of no use +to deny it, for that only gives it a greater vogue.</p> + +<p>I have great sympathy for all mythical characters. It is possible that +Hercules may have<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a> been an amiable Greek gentleman of sedentary habits. +Some one may have started the story of his labors as a joke. In the next +town it was taken seriously, and the tale set forth on its travels. +After it once had been generally accepted, what could Hercules do? What +good would it have been for him to say, "There's not a word of truth in +what everybody is saying about me. I am as averse to a hard day's work +as any gentleman of my social standing in the community. They are +turning me into a sun-myth, and mixing up my private affairs with the +signs of the zodiac! I won't stand it!"</p> + +<p>Bless me! he would have to stand it! His words would but add fuel to the +flame of admiration. What a hero he is; so strong and so modest! He has +already forgotten those feats of strength! It is ever so with greatness. +To Hercules it was all mere child's play. All the more need that we keep +the stories alive in order to hand them down to our children. Perhaps we +had better touch them up a bit so that they may be more interesting to +the little dears. And so would begin a new cycle of myths.</p> + +<p>After Socrates had once gained the reputation<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a> for superlative wisdom, +do you think it did any good for him to go about proclaiming that he +knew nothing? He was suspected of having some ulterior design. Nobody +would believe him except Xanthippe.</p> + +<p>When after hearing strange noises in the night Don Quixote sallies forth +only to discover that the sounds come from fulling hammers instead of +from giants, he rebukes the ill-timed merriment of his squire. "Come +hither, merry sir! Suppose these mill hammers had really been some +perilous adventure, have I not given proof of the courage requisite to +undertake and achieve it? Am I, being a knight, to distinguish between +sounds, and to know which are and which are not those of a fulling mill, +more especially as I have never seen any fulling mills in my life?"</p> + +<p>If the mill hammers could only be transformed into giants, how easy the +path of reform! for it would satisfy the primitive instinct to go out +and kill something. I have heard a temperance orator denounce the Demon +Drink so roundly that every one in the audience was ready to destroy the +monster on sight. The solution of the liquor<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> problem, however, was +quite a different matter. The young patriot who conceives of the money +power under the terrifying image of an octopus resolves at once to give +it battle. When elected to the legislature he meets many smooth-spoken +gentlemen whose schemes are so plausible that he readily assents to +them,—but not an octopus does he see. Yet I believe that were he to see +an octopus he would slay it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there is no better test of a person's nature than his attitude +toward Quixotism. The man of coarse, unfriendly humor sees in it nothing +but a broad farce. He greets the misadventures of Don Quixote with a +loud guffaw. What a fool he was not to know the difference between an +ordinary inn and a castle!</p> + +<p>There are persons of a sensitive and refined disposition to whom it is +all a tragedy, exquisitely painful to contemplate. Alas, poor gentleman, +with all his lofty ideals, to be so buffeted by a world unworthy of him!</p> + +<p>But this refinement of sentiment comes perilously near to +sentimentalism. Cervantes had the more wholesome attitude. He +appreciated the<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> valor of Don Quixote. It was genuine, though the +knight, owing to circumstances beyond his own control, had been +compelled to make his visor out of pasteboard. He had heroism of soul; +but what of it! There was plenty more where it came from. A man who had +fought at Lepanto, and endured years of Algerine captivity, was not +inclined to treat manly virtue as if it were a rare and delicate fabric +that must be preserved in a glass case. It was amply able to take care +of itself. He knew that he couldn't laugh genuine chivalry away, even if +he tried. It could stand not only hard knocks from its foes, but any +amount of raillery from its friends.</p> + +<p>The bewildered soldier who mistakes a harmless camp follower for the +enemy must expect to endure the gibes of his comrades; yet no one doubts +that he would have acquitted himself nobly if the enemy had appeared. +The rough humor of the camp is a part of its wholesome discipline.</p> + +<p>Quixotism is a combination of goodness and folly. To enjoy it one must +be able to appreciate them both at the same time. It is a pleasure +possible only to one who is capable of having mixed feelings.<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a></p> + +<p>When we consider the faculty which many good people have of believing +things that are not so, and ignoring the plainest facts and laws of +nature, we are sometimes alarmed over the future of society. If any of +the Quixotisms which are now in vogue should get themselves established, +what then?</p> + +<p>Fortunately there is small need of anxiety. When the landsman first +ventures on the waves he observes with alarm the keeling over of the +boat under the breeze, for he expects the tendency to be followed to its +logical conclusion. Fortunately for the equilibrium of society, +tendencies which are viewed with alarm are seldom carried to their +logical conclusion. They are met by other tendencies before the danger +point is reached, and the balance is restored.</p> + +<p>The factor which is overlooked by those who fear the ascendency of any +quixotic notion is the existence of the average man. This individual is +not a striking personality, but he holds the balance of power. Before +any extravagant idea can establish itself it must convert the average +man. He is very susceptible, and takes a suggestion so readily that it +seems to prophesy<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a> the complete overthrow of the existing order of +things. But was ever a conversion absolute? The best theologians say no. +A great deal of the old Adam is always left over. When the average man +takes up with a quixotic notion, only so much of it is practically +wrought out as he is able to comprehend. The old Adam of common sense +continually asserts itself. The natural corrective of Quixotism is +Sancho-Panzaism. The solemn knight, with his head full of visionary +plans, is followed by a squire who is as faithful as his nature will +permit. Sancho has no theories, and makes no demands on the world. He +leaves that sort of thing to his master. He has the fatalism which +belongs to ignorant good nature, and the tolerance which is found in +easy-going persons who have neither ideals nor nerves. He has no +illusions, though he has all the credulity of ignorance.</p> + +<p>He belongs to the established order of things, and can conceive no +other. When knight-errantry is proposed to him, he reduces that also to +the established order. He takes it up as an honest livelihood, and rides +forth in search of forlorn maidens with the same contented jog with +which<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> he formerly went to the village mill. When it is explained that +faithful squires become governors of islands he approves of the idea, +and begins to cherish a reasonable ambition. Knight-errantry is brought +within the sphere of practical politics. Sancho has no stomach for +adventures. When his master warns him against attacking knights, until +such time as he has himself reached their estate, he answers:—</p> + +<p>"Never fear, I'll be sure to obey your worship in that, I'll warrant +you; for I ever loved peace and quietness, and never cared to thrust +myself into frays and quarrels."</p> + +<p>When Sancho becomes governor of his snug, land-locked island, there is +not a trace of Quixotism in his executive policy. The laws of Chivalry +have no recognition in his administration; and everything is carried on +with most admirable common sense.</p> + +<p>It is an experience which is quite familiar to the readers of history. +"All who knew Sancho," moralizes the author, "wondered to hear him talk +so sensibly, and began to think that offices and places of trust inspire +some men with understanding, as they stupefy and confound others."<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a></p> + +<p>Mother wit has a great way of evading the consequences of theoretical +absurdities. Natural law takes care of itself, and preserves the +balance. So long as Don Quixote can get no other follower than Sancho +Panza, we need not be alarmed. There is no call for a society for the +Preservation of Windmills.</p> + +<p>After all, there is an ambiguity about Quixotism. They laugh best who +laugh last; and we are not sure that satire has the last word. Was Don +Quixote as completely mistaken as he seemed? He mistook La Mancha for a +land of romance, and wandered through it as if it were an enchanted +country.</p> + +<p>The Commentator explains to us that in this lay the jest, for no part of +Spain was so vulgarly commonplace. Its villages were destitute of charm, +and its landscape of beauty. La Mancha was a name for all that was +unromantic.</p> + +<p>"I cannot make it appear so," says the Gentle Reader, who has come under +the spell of Cervantes. "Don Quixote seems to be wandering through the +most romantic country in the world. I can see<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'The long, straight line of the highway,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The distant town that seems so near,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">White crosses in the mountain pass,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mules gay with tassels, the loud din</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of muleteers, the tethered ass</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That crops the dusty wayside grass,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And cavaliers with spurs of brass</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alighting at the inn;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">White sunshine flooding square and street,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The river-beds are dry with heat,—</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">All was a dream to me.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Through this enchanted country it is pleasant to wander about in +irresponsible fashion, climbing mountains, loitering in secluded +valleys, where shepherds and shepherdesses still make love in Arcadian +fashion, meeting with monks, merchants, muleteers, and fine gentlemen, +and coming in the evening to some castle where one is lulled to sleep by +the splash of fountains and the tinkle of guitars; and if it should turn +out that the castle is only an inn,—why, to lodge in an inn of La +Mancha would be a romantic experience!"<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a></p> + +<p>The Spain of the sixteenth century is to us as truly a land of romance +as any over which a knight-errant roamed. It seems just suited for +heroic adventure.</p> + +<p>Some day our quixotic characters may appear to the future reader thus +magically conformed to the world they live in, or rather, the world may +be transformed by their ideals.</p> + +<p>"They do seem strange to us," the Gentle Reader of that day will say, +"but then we must remember that they lived in the romantic dawn of the +twentieth century."<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="Intimate_Knowledge_and_Delight" id="Intimate_Knowledge_and_Delight"></a> </h2> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illpg_303-a.png" width="350" height="130" alt="Intimate Knowledge and Delight" title="Intimate Knowledge and Delight" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letrai"><img src="images/ill_i.png" width="30" height="101" alt="I" title="I" /></span>N the affairs of the mind we are all "Indian givers." We will part with +our most cherished convictions for a merely nominal consideration, such +as "for the sake of the argument,"—even when we do not really care for +arguments. But let no one be deceived into thinking that this is the +end. Renunciation usually has some mental reservation, or at least some +saving ambiguity.</p> + +<p>You may see a saint, in his enthusiasm for disinterested virtue, give up +all claim to personal happiness. But does he expect to be taken at his +word and to live miserably ever after? Not he! Already, if he be a true +saint, he has begun to enjoy the beatific vision.<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a></p> + +<p>I know a teacher of religion who is inclined to rebel against what seems +to him to be the undue emphasis upon faith. For himself, it seems a +wholesome thing to do a little doubting now and then, and he looks upon +this as a religious exercise. He affirms that the characteristic +attitudes of the spiritual man can be expressed in terms of skepticism +as well as of belief. It is all one whether the matter be put positively +or negatively. Materialism he treats as a form of dogmatism based on the +appearance of things. The religious mind is incredulous of this +explanation of the universe and subjects it to a destructive criticism. +The soul of man is full of "obstinate questionings of sense and outward +things." Yet this same person, when he forgets his argument, is apt to +talk like the rest of us. After all, it is some kind of faith that he is +after, even when he pursues it by the methods of skepticism. In his most +radical moods he never lets his convictions slip away from him; at +least, they never go so far away that he cannot get them again.</p> + +<p>In like manner I must confess that I am an Indian giver. In giving over +to Science all claim to the domain of Knowledge, and reserving to my<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> +friend the Gentle Reader only the right of way over the picturesque but +less fruitful fields of Ignorance, I was actuated by the purest motives. +At the time it seemed very magnanimous, and, moreover, it saved the +trouble of a doubtful contest.</p> + +<p>But now that so much has been given away, I am visited by compunctions, +and, if it is not too late, I will take back part of the too generous +gift. Let us make a distinction, and instead of treating knowledge as if +it were indivisible, let us speak, after the manner of Swedenborg, of +knowledges. The greater number of knowledges we will make over without +question to Science and Philosophy; the knowledges which are concerned +with laws and forces and with the multitudinous facts which are capable +of classification. But for the Gentle Reader and his kind let us reserve +the claim to a knowledge of some things which cannot be classified. I +hardly believe that they will be missed; they are not likely to be +included in any scientific inventory; their value is chiefly in personal +association.</p> + +<p>There is a knowledge of persons as well as of things, and in particular +there is a knowledge<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a> of certain persons to whom one is drawn in close +friendship. Emerson, in his essay on Milton, speaks of those who come to +the poet with "intimate knowledge and delight." It is, after all, +convenient to treat this feeling of delightful intimacy as a kind of +knowledge. If it is not that, what is it?</p> + +<p>The peculiarity of this kind of knowledge is that it is impossible to +formulate it; and that the very attempt to do so is an offence. The +unpardonable sin against friendship is to merge the person in a class. +Think of an individual as an adult Caucasian, "an inhabitant of North +America, belonging to the better classes," as to religion a moderate +churchman, in politics a Republican, and you may accumulate a number of +details interesting enough in a stranger. You may in this way "know +where to place him." But if you do actually place him there, and treat +him accordingly, he has ceased to be your friend.</p> + +<p>A friend is unique. He belongs to no categories. He is not a case, nor +the illustration of a thesis. Your interest is neither pathological nor +anthropological nor statistical. You are concerned not with what he is +like, but with what<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> he is. There is an element of jealous exclusiveness +in such knowledge.</p> + +<p>In the Song of Songs, after the ecstatic praise of the beloved, the +question is asked:—</p> + +<p class="c">"What is thy beloved more than any other beloved, that thou dost so adjure us?"</p> + +<p>The answer is a description of his personal perfections:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"My beloved is white and ruddy,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">His locks are bushy, and black as a raven.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">This is my beloved, and this is my friend,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">O daughters of Jerusalem."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Do you think that the daughters of Jerusalem would be so tactless as to +reply that they had seen a number of handsome youths with bushy black +hair and languishing eyes and fine forms, and that they represented an +admirable type of manly beauty? That would be to confess that they had +not seen the beloved, for he was unlike all others. "My beloved is +marked out with a banner among ten thousand."<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a></p> + +<p>The knowledge that is required is not contained in a catalogue of the +points in which he resembles the nine thousand nine hundred and +ninety-nine; it is a recognition of the incommunicable grace that is his +own.</p> + +<p>Even in ordinary social intercourse the most delicate compliment is to +treat the person with whom you are talking as an exception to all rules. +That he is a clergyman or a commercial traveler tells you nothing of his +inner life. That is left for him to reveal, if it so pleases him. Even a +king grows tired of being addressed in terms appropriate to royalty. It +is a relief to travel incognito, and he is flattered when he is assured +that no one suspects his station in life. It makes him feel that he is +not like the ordinary run of kings.</p> + +<p>No one likes to be pigeon-holed or reduced to a formula. We resent being +classed as old or middle-aged or young. Why should we be confounded with +our coevals? We may not be any better than they are; but we are +different. Nor is it pleasant to have our opinions treated as if they +were the necessary product of social forces. There is something +offensive in the curiosity of<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a> those who are all the time asking how we +came by our ideas. What if they do bear a general resemblance to those +of the honest people who belong to our party and who read the same +newspaper. We do not care to be reminded of these chance coincidences. +Because one has found it convenient and economical to buy a ready-made +suit of clothing, it does not follow that he is willing to wear the tag +which contains the statement of the price and size. These labels were +very useful so long as the garment was kept in stock by the dealer, but +the information that they convey is now irrelevant.</p> + +<p>This sensitiveness in regard to personal identity is strangely lacking +in many modern students of literature. They treat the man of genius as a +phenomenon, to be explained by other phenomena and used to illustrate a +general law. They love to deal in averages and aggregates. They describe +minutely the period to which a writer belongs, its currents of thought, +its intellectual limitations, and its generally received notions. With a +knowledge of antecedent conditions there is the expectancy of a certain +type of man as the result. Our minds are prepared for some one<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> who +resembles the composite photograph which is first presented to us. We +are, for example, given an elaborate account of the Puritan movement in +England. We form a conception of what the Puritan was, and then we are +introduced to Milton. Our preconceptions stand in the way of personal +sympathy.</p> + +<p>The method of the Gentle Reader is more direct. He is fortunate enough +to have read Milton before he has read much about him, and he returns to +the reading with ever fresh delight. He does not think of him as +belonging to a past age. He is a perpetual contemporary. The seventeenth +century gave color to his words, but it did not limit his genius.</p> + +<p>Seventeenth century Independency might be, as a general thing, lacking +in grace, but when we turn away from Praise-God-Barebones to John Milton +we find it transformed into a—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"divine philosophy,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">But musical as is Apollo's lute,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Into its austere beauty, into its wide free spaces, into its sensuous +charms, no one but Milton can<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a> conduct us. We must follow not as those +who know beforehand what is to be seen or heard, but as those who are +welcomed by a generous householder who brings out of his treasures +things new and old.</p> + +<p>We come upon a sublime spirit—</p> + +<p class="c">"Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free."</p> + +<p class="nind">That is Milton; but it is Milton also who can sing of—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Jest and youthful Jollity,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And love to live in dimple sleek,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Sport that wrinkled Care derides,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And Laughter holding both his sides."</span></td></tr> +</table> +<p>If this be Puritanism, it is Puritanism with a difference. Did any one +in a few words give such a picture of mirth—</p> + +<p class="c">"So buxom, blithe, and debonair?"</p> + +<p>Was this the real Milton? Why not? His radiant youth was as real as his +blindness and his old age. And Milton the political pamphleteer was real +too, though his language was not always that which might have been +expected<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a> from the author of "Paradise Lost." We pass lightly over pages +of vituperation which any one might have written, and then come upon +splendid passages which could have come from him alone. The sentiment of +democratic equality is invested with a dignity which makes all the +pretensions of privileged orders seem vulgar. Here is the Milton who is +invoked to—</p> + +<p class="c">"Give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!"</p> + +<p>In these moments we become aware of a man who was not to be explained by +any general rule.</p> + +<p>To one who takes delight in the personality of Milton, even "Paradise +Lost" is not a piece of unmitigated sublimity. It is full of +self-revelations. The reader who has come to share Milton's passion for +personal liberty and scorn for a "fugitive and cloistered virtue" is +curious to know how he will treat his new theme. In the "Areopagitica" +he had frankly treated the "Fall of Man" as a "fall upward." "Good and +evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost +inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven +with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly +to be discerned, that those<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche +as an increased labor to cull out and sort asunder, were not more +intermixt. And perhaps that is the doom which Adam fell into of knowing +good and evil; that is to say, of knowing good by evil. As therefore the +state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence +to forbear without the knowledge of evil.... That virtue, therefore, +which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the +utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a +blank virtue, not a pure.... Since, therefore, the knowledge and survey +of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human +virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can +we more safely and with less danger scout into the region of sin and +falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner +of reasons."</p> + +<p>What would such an adventurous spirit make</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Of man's first Disobedience and the Fruit</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Brought Death into the World and all our woe,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">With loss of Eden"?</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a></p> + +<p>What would Milton make of Adam in his sheltered Paradise? And what would +one whose whole life had been a passionate protest against the idea of +submission to mere arbitrary power do with the element of arbitrariness +which the theology of his day attributed to the Divine Ruler? And what +of Satan?</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"One who brings</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">A mind not to be changed by Place or Time.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The mind is its own place, and in itself</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">What matter where, if I be still the same?"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>There is a note in that proud creed that could not be altogether +uncongenial to one who in his blindness could—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"still bear up and steer</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Conscience, Friend, t' have lost them overplied</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">In liberty's defense, my noble task;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of which all Europe rings from side to side.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">This thought might lead me through this World's vain mask</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Content though blind, had I no better Guide."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>In its ostensible plot "Paradise Lost" is a tragedy; but did Milton +really feel it to be so? One fancies—though he may be mistaken—that as +Adam and Eve leave Paradise<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a> he hears a sigh of relief from the poet, +who was himself ever a lover of "the Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty." At +any rate, there is an undertone of cheer.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">The World was all before them where to choose</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Adam, when the old sheltered life is over, and the possibilities of the +new life of struggle were revealed,—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Replete with joy and wonder thus replied.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">O goodness infinite, goodness immense!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">That all this good of evil shall produce,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And evil turn to good; more wonderful</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Than that which by creation first brought forth</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Light out of darkness! full of doubt I stand,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Whether I should repent me now of sin</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">By me done and occasioned or rejoice</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Much more that much more good thereof shall spring."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>That Adam should treat the loss of Eden in such a casual manner, and +that he should express a doubt as to whether the estate into which his +fall plunged the race was not better than one in which no moral struggle +was necessary, was not characteristic of seventeenth-century +theology,—but it was just like Milton.<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a></p> + +<p>There is no knowledge so intimate as that possessed by the reader of one +book. It is an esoteric joy. The wisdom of the ages concentrated into +one personality and then graciously communicated to the disciple has a +flavor of which the multitudes of mere scholars know nothing. To them +Wisdom is a public character.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Doth not Wisdom cry,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">And understanding put forth her voice?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">In the top of high places</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Where the paths meet she standeth."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But the disciple is not content with such publicity. He shuns the +crowded highways, and delights to hear wisdom speaking in confidential +tones.</p> + +<p>In a little settlement in the far West I once met a somewhat +depressed-looking man who remained silent till a chance remark brought a +glow of enthusiasm to his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he cried, "you have been reading the Ruins."</p> + +<p>My remark had been of a kind that needed no special reading to account +for it. It merely expressed one of those obvious truths which are likely +to occur to the majority of persons. But<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a> to him it seemed so reasonable +that it could only come from the one source of wise thought with which +he was acquainted.</p> + +<p>"The Ruins" proved to be a translation of Volney's "Ruins of Empire." I +fear that I must have given the impression of greater familiarity with +that work than was warranted by the facts, for my new-found friend +received me as a member of the true brotherhood. His tongue was +unloosed, and his intellectual passions, so long pent up, were freed. +Had we not both read "The Ruins"! It was to him more than a book; it was +a symbol of the unutterable things of the mind. It was a passionate +protest against the narrow opinions of his neighbors. It stood for all +that was lifted above the petty gossip of the little community, and for +all that united him to an intellectual world of which he dreamed.</p> + +<p>As we talked I marveled at the amount of sound philosophy this lonely +reader had extracted from "The Ruins." Or had it been that he had +brought the wisdom from his own meditation and deposited it at this +shrine? One can never be sure whether a text has suggested the thought +or the thought has illuminated the text.<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a></p> + +<p>When it happens that the man of one book has chosen a work of intrinsic +value, the result is a kind of knowledge which is of inestimable worth. +It is deeply interfused with the whole imaginative life, it is involved +in every personal experience.</p> + +<p>The supreme example of such intimate knowledge was that which +generations of English speaking men had of the Bible. Apart from any +religious theory, this familiarity was a wonderful fact in the history +of culture. It meant that the ordinary man was not simply in his youth +but throughout his life brought into direct contact with great poetry, +sublime philosophy, vivid history. These were not reserved for state +occasions; they were the daily food of the mind. Into the plain fabric +of western thought was woven a thread of Oriental sentiment. Children +were as familiar with the names and incidents of remote ages and lands +as with their own neighborhood.</p> + +<p>The important things about this culture of the common people was that it +came through mere reading. The Bible was printed "without note or +comment." The lack of critical apparatus and<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a> of preliminary training +was the cause of many incidental mistakes; but it prevented the greatest +mistake of all,—that of obscuring the text by the commentary.</p> + +<p>In these days there has been a great advance in critical scholarship. +Much more is known about the Bible, at least by those who have made it +the object of special study; but there is a suspicion that fewer persons +know the Bible than in the days when there were no "study classes," but +only the habit of daily reading.</p> + +<p>The Protestant insistence upon publishing the Scriptures without note or +comment was an effort to do away with the middle-men who stood between +the Book and its readers. Private judgment, it was declared, was a +sufficient interpreter even of the profoundest utterances. This is a +doctrine that needs to be revived and extended till it takes in all +great literature.</p> + +<p>To come to a book as to a friend, to allow it to speak for itself, +without the intrusion of a third person, this is the substance of the +whole matter. There must be no hard and fast rules, no preconceived +opinions. Because the author has a reputation as a humorist, let him not +be received with<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> an expectant smile. Nothing can be more disconcerting +to his sensitive spirit; and besides, how can you know that he has not a +very serious message to communicate? Because he is said to be capable of +sublimity, do not await him with overstrained sensibilities. Perhaps you +may find him much less sublime and much more entertaining than you had +anticipated. If the sublime vision does come, you will appreciate it all +the more if it comes upon you unawares.</p> + +<p>"As cloud on cloud, as snow on snow, as the bird on the air, and the +planet on space in its flight, so do nations of men and their +institutions rest on thoughts."</p> + +<p>If this be so, can there be any knowledge more important than the +knowledge of what a man actually thinks. "A penny for your thoughts," we +say lightly, knowing well that this hidden treasure cannot be bought. +The world may be described in formal fashion as if it were an unchanging +reality; but how the world appears to each inhabitant of it he alone can +declare. Or perhaps he cannot declare it, for most of us find it +impossible to tell what we really think or feel. In attempting to do it +we fall into conventionality,<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a> and succeed only in telling what we think +other people would like to have us think. Only now and then is one born +with the gift of true self-expression. In his speech we recognize a real +person, and not the confused murmur of a multitude. Institutions and +traditions do not account for him; this thought is the more fundamental +fact. Here is a unique bit of knowledge. There is no other way of +getting at it than that of the Gentle Reader,—to shut out the rest of +the world and listen to the man himself.<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a></p> + +<p class="c"><b><span style="font-family:OLD ENGLISH TEXT MT;">The Riverside Press</span><br /> +<i>Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.<br /> +Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i></b></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" +style="border:2px dotted gray;padding:2%;"> +<tr><th align="center">The following typographical error was corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr> +<tr><td align="center">the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirate's immaculate attire.=>the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' immaculate attire.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/back_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/back.jpg" width="349" height="550" alt="image of the book's back cover" title="image of the book's back cover" /></a> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentle Reader, by Samuel McChord Crothers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE READER *** + +***** This file should be named 38873-h.htm or 38873-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/8/7/38873/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously available at The Internet +Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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mode 100644 index 0000000..ac514ac --- /dev/null +++ b/38873.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6949 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gentle Reader, by Samuel McChord Crothers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gentle Reader + +Author: Samuel McChord Crothers + +Release Date: February 14, 2012 [EBook #38873] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE READER *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously available at The Internet +Archive) + + + + + + + + +THE GENTLE READER + + + + +The Gentle Reader + +BY + +SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + +The Riverside Press, Cambridge + +1904 + +_Copyright, 1903 + +By Samuel McChord Crothers + +All rights reserved + +Published October, 1903_ + + + + +Preface + + +When Don Quixote was descanting on the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, +the Duchess interrupted him by expressing a doubt as to that lady's +existence. + +"Much may be said on that point," said Don Quixote. "God only knows +whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world. These are things the +proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths." + +But this admission does not in the least interfere with the habitual +current of his thoughts, or cool the ardor of his loyalty. He proceeds +after the momentary digression as if nothing had happened. "I behold her +as she needs must be, a lady who contains within herself all the +qualities to make her famous throughout the world; beautiful, without +blemish; dignified, without haughtiness; tender, and yet modest; +gracious from courtesy, and courteous from good breeding; and lastly of +illustrious birth." + +If in the following pages I begin by admitting that there is much to be +said in behalf of the popular notion that the Gentle Reader no longer +exists, let this pass simply as an evidence of my decent respect for the +opinion of mankind. To my mind the Gentle Reader is the most agreeable +of companions, and to make his acquaintance is one of the pleasures of +life. + +Of so elusive a personality it is not always possible to give a +consistent account. I have no doubt that I may have occasionally +attributed to him sentiments which are really my own; on the other hand, +I suspect that some views that I have set down as my own may have been +unconsciously derived from him. I have particular reference to the +opinions expressed on the subject of Ignorance. Such confusion of +mental properties the Gentle Reader will readily pardon, for there is no +one in all the world so careless of the distinctions between Meum and +Tuum. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +THE GENTLE READER 1 + +THE ENJOYMENT OF POETRY 35 + +THE MISSION OF HUMOR 64 + +CASES OF CONSCIENCE CONCERNING WITCHCRAFTS 101 + +THE HONORABLE POINTS OF IGNORANCE 135 + +THAT HISTORY SHOULD BE READABLE 167 + +THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENTLEMAN 201 + +THE HINTER-LAND OF SCIENCE 227 + +THE GENTLE READER'S FRIENDS AMONG THE CLERGY 243 + +QUIXOTISM 271 + +INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE AND DELIGHT 303 + + + + +The Gentle Reader + + +What has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he +has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that +henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the +Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a +generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were +dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were +their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer +would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle +Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate +of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved. + +"Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must have a chat with the Gentle +Reader, and find out what he thinks about it." + +And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the +Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature, +until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle +Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story." + +The thirteenth book of Tom Jones leaves the heroine in the greatest +distress. The last words are, "Nor did this thought once suffer her to +close her eyes during the whole succeeding night." Had Fielding been +addressing the Intelligent Modern Public he would have intensified the +interest by giving an analysis of Sophia's distress so that we should +all share her insomnia. But not at all! While the dear girl is +recovering her spirits it is such an excellent opportunity to have +uninterrupted discourse with the Gentle Reader, who doesn't take these +things too hard, having long since come to "the years that bring the +philosophic mind." So the next chapter is entitled An Essay to prove +that an author will write better for having some knowledge of the +subject on which he treats. The discussion is altogether irrelevant; +that is what the Gentle Reader likes. + +"It is a paradoxical statement you make," he says, trying to draw the +author out. "What are your arguments?" + +Then the author moderates his expressions. "To say the truth I require +no more than that an author should have some little knowledge of the +subject of which he treats." + +"That sounds more reasonable," says the Gentle Reader. "You know how +much I dislike extreme views. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, +that a writer may know a little about his subject. I hope that this may +not prove the opening wedge for erudition. By the way, where was it we +left the sweet Sophy; and do you happen to know anything more about that +scapegrace Jones?" + +That was the way books were written and read in the good old days before +the invention of the telephone and the short story. The generation that +delighted in Fielding and Richardson had some staying power. A book was +something to tie to. No one would say jauntily, "I have read Sir Charles +Grandison," but only, "I am reading." The characters of fiction were +not treated as transient guests, but as lifelong companions destined to +be a solace in old age. The short story, on the other hand, is invented +for people who want a literary "quick lunch." "Tell me a story while I +wait," demands the eager devourer of fiction. "Serve it hot, and be +mighty quick about it!" + +In rushes the story-teller with love, marriage, jealousy, disillusion, +and suicide all served up together before you can say Jack Robinson. +There is no time for explanation, and the reader is in no mood to allow +it. As for the suicide, it must end that way; for it is the quickest. +The ending, "They were happy ever after," cannot be allowed, for the +doting author can never resist the temptation to add another chapter, +dated ten years after, to show how happy they were. + +I sometimes fear that reading, in the old-fashioned sense, may become a +lost art. The habit of resorting to the printed page for information is +an excellent one, but it is not what I have in mind. A person wants +something and knows where to get it. He goes to a book just as he goes +to a department store. Knowledge is a commodity done up in a neat +parcel. So that the article is well made he does not care either for the +manufacturer or the dealer. + +Literature, properly so called, is quite different from this, and +literary values inhere not in things or even in ideas, but in persons. +There are some rare spirits that have imparted themselves to their +words. The book then becomes a person, and reading comes to be a kind of +conversation. The reader is not passive, as if he were listening to a +lecture on The Ethics of the Babylonians. He is sitting by his fireside, +and old friends drop in on him. He knows their habits and whims, and is +glad to see them and to interchange thought. They are perfectly at their +ease, and there is all the time in the world, and if he yawns now and +then nobody is offended, and if he prefers to follow a thought of his +own rather than theirs there is no discourtesy in leaving them. If his +friends are dull this evening, it is because he would have it so; that +is why he invited them. He wants to have a good, cosy, dull time. He has +had enough to stir him up during the day; now he wants to be let down. +He knows a score of good old authors who have lived long in the happy +poppy fields. + +In all good faith he invokes the goddess of the Dunciad:-- + + "Her ample presence fills up all the place, + A veil of fogs dilates her awful face. + Here to her Chosen all her works she shews, + Prose swelled to verse, verse loitering into prose." + +The Gentle Reader nods placidly and joins in the ascription:-- + + "Great tamer of all human art! + First in my care and ever at my heart; + Dullness whose good old cause I still defend. + + * * * * * + + O ever gracious to perplex'd mankind, + Still shed a healing mist before the mind; + And lest we err by wit's wild dancing light, + Secure us kindly in our native night." + +I would not call any one a gentle reader who does not now and then take +up a dull book, and enjoy it in the spirit in which it was written. + +Wise old Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, advises the restless +person to "read some pleasant author till he be asleep." Many persons +find the Anatomy of Melancholy to answer this purpose; though Dr. +Johnson declares that it was the only book that took him out of bed two +hours before he wished to rise. It is hard to draw the line between +stimulants and narcotics. + +This insistence on the test of the enjoyment of the dullness of a dull +book is not arbitrary. It arises from the characteristic of the Gentle +Reader. He takes a book for what it is and never for what it is not. If +he doesn't like it at all he doesn't read it. If he does read it, it is +because he likes its real quality. That is the way we do with our +friends. They are the people of whom we say that "we get at them." I +suppose every one of us has some friend of whom we would confess that as +thinker he is inferior to Plato. But we like him no less for that. We +might criticise him if we cared,--but we never care. We prefer to take +him as he is. It is the flavor of his individuality that we enjoy. +Appreciation of literature is the getting at an author, so that we like +what he is, while all that he is not is irrelevant. + +There are those who endeavor to reduce literary criticism to an exact +science. To this end they would eliminate the personal element, and +subject our admirations to fixed standards. In this way it is hoped +that we may ultimately be able to measure the road to Parnassus by +kilometers. All this is much more easily said than done. Personal +likings will not stay eliminated. We admire the acuteness of the critic +who reveals the unsuspected excellence of our favorite writer. It is a +pleasure like that which comes when a friend is received into a learned +society. We don't know much about his learning, but we know that he is a +good fellow, and we are glad to learn that he is getting on. We feel +also a personal satisfaction in having our tastes vindicated and our +enjoyment treated as if it were a virtue, just as Mr. Pecksniff was +pleased with the reflection that while he was eating his dinner, he was +at the same time obeying a law of the Universe. + +But the rub comes when the judgment of the critic disagrees with ours. +We discover that his laws have no penalties, and that if we get more +enjoyment from breaking than from obeying, then we are just that much +ahead. As for giving up an author just because the judgment of the +critic is against him, who ever heard of such a thing? The stanchest +canons of criticism are exploded by a genuine burst of admiration. + +That is what happens whenever a writer of original force appears. The +old rules do not explain him, so we must make new rules. We first enjoy +him, and then we welcome the clever persons who assure us that the +enjoyment is greatly to our credit. But-- + + "You must love him ere to you + He shall seem worthy of your love." + +I asked a little four-year-old critic, whose literary judgments I accept +as final, what stories she liked best. She answered, "I like Joseph and +Aladdin and The Forty Thieves and The Probable Son." + +It was a purely individual judgment. Some day she may learn that she has +the opinion of many centuries behind her. When she studies rhetoric she +may be able to tell why Aladdin is better than The Shaving of Shagpat, +and why the story of "The Probable Son" delights her, while the +half-hour homily on the parable makes not the slightest impression on +her mind. The fact is, she knows a good story just as she knows a good +apple. How the flavor got there is a scientific question which she has +not considered; but being there, trust the uncloyed palate to find it +out! She does not set up as a superior person having good taste; but she +says, "I can tell you what tastes good." + +The Gentle Reader is not greatly drawn to any formal treatises. He does +not enjoy a bare bit of philosophy that has been moulded into a fixed +form. Yet he dearly loves a philosopher, especially if he turns out to +be a sensible sort of man who doesn't put on airs. + +He likes the old Greek way of philosophizing. What a delight it was for +him to learn that the Academy in Athens was not a white building with +green blinds set upon a bleak hilltop, but a grove where, on pleasant +days, Plato could be found, ready to talk with all comers! That was +something like; no board of trustees, no written examinations, no +text-books--just Plato! You never knew what was to be the subject or +where you were coming out; all you were sure of was that you would come +away with a new idea. Or if you tired of the Academy, there were the +Peripatetics, gentlemen who were drawn together because they imagined +they could think better on their legs; or there were the Stoics, elderly +persons who liked to sit on the porch and discuss the "cosmic weather." +No wonder the Greeks got such a reputation as philosophers! They deserve +no credit for it. Any one would like philosophy were it served up in +that way. + +All that has passed. Were Socrates to come back and enter a downtown +office to inquire after the difference between the Good and the +Beautiful, he would be confronted with one of those neatly printed +cards, intended to discourage the Socratic method during business hours: +"This is our busy day." + +The Gentle Reader also has his business hours, and has learned to submit +to their inexorable requirements; but now and then he has a few hours to +himself. He declines an invitation to a progressive euchre party, on the +ground of a previous engagement he had made long ago, in his college +days, to meet some gentlemen of the fifth century B. C. The evening +passes so pleasantly, and the world seems so much fresher in interest, +that he wonders why he doesn't do that sort of thing oftener. Perhaps +there are some other progressive euchre parties he could cut, and the +world be none the worse. + +How many people there have been who have gone through the world with +their eyes open, and who have jotted down their impressions by the way! +How quickly these philosophers come to know their own. Listen to Izaak +Walton in his Epistle to the Reader: "I think it fit to tell thee these +following truths, that I did not undertake to write or publish this +discourse of Fish and Fishing to please myself, and that I wish it may +not displease others. And yet I cannot doubt but that by it some readers +may receive so much profit that if they be not very busy men, may make +it not unworthy the time of their perusal. And I wish the reader to take +notice that in the writing of it I have made a recreation of a +recreation; and that it might prove so to thee in the reading, and not +to read dully and tediously, I have in several places mixed some +innocent mirth; of which if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, +then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.... I am the willinger +to justify this innocent mirth because the whole discourse is a kind of +picture of my own disposition, at least of my disposition on such days +and times as I allow myself--when Nat and I go fishing together." How +cleverly he bows out the ichthyologists! How he rebukes the sordid +creature who has come simply to find out how to catch fish! That is the +very spirit of Simon Magus! "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this +matter!" + +The Gentle Reader has no ulterior aims. All he wants to know is how +Izaak Walton felt when he went fishing, and what he was thinking about. + +"A kind of picture of a man's own disposition," that is literature. Even +the most futile attempt at self-revelation evokes sympathy. I remember, +as a boy, gazing at an austere volume in my grandfather's library. It +was, as far as I could ascertain, an indigestible mixture of theology +and philology. But my eye was caught by the title, The Diversions of +Purley. I had not the slightest idea who Purley was, but my heart went +out to him at once. + +"Poor Purley!" I said. "If these were your diversions, what a dog's life +you must have led!" I could see Purley gazing vaguely through his +spectacles as he said: "Don't pity me! It's true I have had my +trials,--but then again what larks! See that big book; I did it!" Only +long after did I learn that my sympathy was un-called for, as Purley +was not a person but a place. + + * * * * * + +Of all the devices for promoting a good understanding the old-fashioned +Preface was the most excellent. It was not an introduction to the +subject, its purpose was personal. In these days the Preface, where it +survives, is reduced to the smallest possible space. It is like the +platform of an electric car which affords the passenger a precarious +foothold while he strives to obey the stern demand of the conductor that +he move forward. But time was when the Preface was the broad hospitable +porch on which the Author and Reader sat for an hour or so and talked +over the enterprise that was before them. Sometimes they would talk so +long that they almost forgot their ostensible subject. + +The very title of Sir William Davenant's "Preface before Gondibert" +suggests the hospitable leisure of the seventeenth century. Gondibert is +a poetical masterpiece not to be lightly adventured upon. The mind must +be duly prepared for it. Sir William, therefore, discourses about poetry +in general, and then takes up special instances. + +"I will (according as all times have applied their reverence) begin with +Homer." + +"Homer is an admirable point of departure, and I have no doubt but that +you will also tell what you think of Virgil," says the Gentle Reader, +who when he is asked to go a mile is glad to go twain. + +Then follows discourse on Lucan, Statius, Tasso, and the rest. + +"But I feel (sir) that I am falling into the dangerous Fit of a hot +writer; for instead of performing the promise which begins this Preface, +and doth oblige me (after I had given you the judgement of some upon +others), to present myself to your censure, I am wandering after new +thoughts; but I shall ask your pardon and return to my undertaking." + +"No apologies are necessary, I assure you. With new thoughts the rule is +first come, first served, while an immortal masterpiece can wait till +such time as we can enjoy it together." + +After some reflections on the fallibility of the clergy and the state of +the country, the author proceeds to describe the general structure of +his poem. + +"I have now given you an account of such provisions as I have made for +this new Building, and you may next please, having examined the +substance, to take a view of the form." He points out the "shadowings, +happy strokes, and sweet graces" of his work. This is done with an +intimacy of knowledge and fullness of appreciation that could not be +possible in a stranger. + +"'Tis now fit, after I have given you so long a survey of the Building, +to render you some account of the Builder, that you may know by what +times, pains, and assistance I have already proceeded." + +The time passes with much pleasure and profit until at last the host +says: "And now (sir) I shall after my busy vanitie in shewing and +describing my new Building, with great quietness, being almost as weary +as yourself, bring you to the Back-dore." + +It is all so handsomely done that the reader is prepared to begin upon +the poem itself, and would do so were it not that the distinguished +friend of the author, Mr. Hobbes, has prepared An Answer to the +Preface--a point of politeness which has not survived the seventeenth +century. Mr. Hobbes is of the opinion that there is only one point in +which Gondibert is inferior to the masterpieces of antiquity, and that +is that it is written in English instead of in Greek or Latin. The +Preface and Answer to the Preface having been read, the further +discovery is made that there is a Postscript. + +The Author, it appears, has fallen on evil days, and is in prison +charged with High Treason. + +"I am arrived here at the middle of the Third Book which makes an equal +half of the Poem, and I was now by degrees to present you (as I promised +in the Preface) the several keys to the Main Building, which should +convey you through such short walks as give you an easie view of the +whole Frame. But 'tis high time to strike sail and cast anchor (though I +have but run half my course), when at the Helme I am threatened with +Death, who though he can trouble us but once seems troublesome, and even +in the Innocent may beget such gravitie as diverts the Musick of Verse. +I beseech thee if thou art as civill as to be pleased with what is +written, not to take it ill that I run not till my last gasp.... If thou +art a malicious Reader thou wilt remember my Preface boldly confessed +that a main motive to this undertaking was a desire of Fame, and thou +maist likewise say that I may not possibly live to enjoy it.... If thou +(Reader) art one of those who has been warmed with Poetick Fire, I +reverence thee as my Judge, and whilst others tax me with Vanitie as if +the Preface argued my good Opinion of the Work, I appeal to thy +Conscience whether it be much more than such a necessary assurance as +thou hast made to thyself in like Undertakings." + +The Gentle Reader feels that whatever may be the merits of Gondibert, +Sir William Davenant is a gallant gentleman and worthy of his lasting +friendship. + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader has a warm place in his heart for those whom he calls +the paradisaical writers. These are the unfallen spirits who reveal +their native dispositions and are not ashamed. They write about that +which they find most interesting--themselves. They not only tell us what +happens, but what they think and how they feel. We are made partners of +their joys and sorrows. The first person singular is glorified by their +use. + +"But," says the Severe Moralist, "don't you frequently discover that +these persons are vain?" + +"Precisely so," answers the Gentle Reader, "and that's what I want to +find out. How are you going to discover what an author thinks about +himself if he hides behind a mask of impersonality? There is no getting +acquainted with such hypocrites. In five hundred pages you may not have +a glimpse of the man behind the book, though he may be bubbling over +with self-conceit. There was Alexander Cruden, one of the most eccentric +persons of the eighteenth century. Fully persuaded of his own greatness, +he called himself Alexander the Corrector and announced that he was +destined to be 'the second Joseph and a great man at court.' He haunted +the ante-chambers of the nobility, but found only one nobleman who would +listen to him, Earl Paulett, 'who being goutish in his feet could not +run away from the Corrector as other men are apt to do.' Cruden appears +to have spent his leisure moments in going about London with a large +piece of sponge with which he erased any offensive chalk marks on the +walls. 'This employment,' says his biographer, 'occasionally made his +walks very tedious.' Now one might consult Cruden's 'Concordance of the +Holy Scriptures' in vain for any hint of these idiosyncrasies of the +author. Perhaps the nature of the work made this impossible. But what +shall we say of writers who, having no such excuse, take pains to +conceal from us what manner of men they were. Even David Hume, whose +good opinion of himself is a credit to his critical sagacity, assumes an +apologetic tone when he ventures upon a sketch of his own life. 'It is +difficult,' he says, 'for a man to speak long about himself without +vanity; therefore I shall be brief.' What obtuseness that shows in a +philosopher who actually wrote a treatise on human nature! What did he +know about human nature if he thought anybody would read an +auto-biography that was without vanity? Vanity is one of the most +lovable of weaknesses. If in our contemporaries it sometimes troubles +us, that is only because two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the +same time. But when it is all put in a book and the pure juices of +self-satisfaction have been allowed to mellow for a few centuries, +nothing can be more delicious." + +His heart was won by a single sentence in one of Horace Walpole's +letters: "I write to you as I think." To the writer who gives him this +mark of confidence he is as faithful as is the Arab to the guest who has +eaten salt in his tent. The books which contain the results of thought +are common enough, but it is a rare privilege to share with a pleasant +gentleman the act of thinking. If the thoughts are those which arise +spontaneously out of the incidents of the passing day, so much the +better. He therefore warmly resents Wordsworth's remark about "that cold +and false-hearted, frenchified coxcomb, Horace Walpole." + +"What has Horace Walpole done except to give us a picture of his own +disposition and incidentally of the world he lived in? It is an instance +of the ingratitude of Republics--and the Republic of Letters is the most +ungrateful of them all--that this should be made the ground of a railing +accusation against him. Walpole might answer as Timoleon did, when, +after having restored the liberties of Syracuse, a citizen denounced him +in the popular assembly. The Liberator replied: 'I cannot sufficiently +express my gratitude to the gods for granting my request in permitting +me to see all the Syracusans enjoy the liberty of saying what they think +fit.' A man who could write letters for sixty-two years revealing every +phase of feeling for the benefit of posterity earns the right of making +as magnanimous a retort as that of any of Plutarch's men. He might well +thank the gods for permitting him to furnish future generations with +ample material for passing judgment upon him. For myself, I do not agree +with Wordsworth. I have summered and wintered with Horace Walpole and he +has never played me false; he has shown himself exactly as he is. To be +sure, he has his weaknesses, but he is always ready to share them with +his friends. I suppose that is the reason why he is accused of being +frenchified. A true born Englishman would have kept his faults to +himself as if they were incommunicable attributes. I am not going to +allow a bit of criticism to come between us at this late day. The +relation between Reader and Author is not to be treated so lightly. I +believe that there is no reason for separation in such cases except +incompatibility of temper." + +Then he makes his way to Strawberry Hill and listens to its master +describing his possession. "It is set in enameled meadows with filigree +hedges,-- + + 'A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled + And little finches wave their wings of gold.' + +Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually +with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as barons of the exchequer +move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospects; +but thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. +Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is +just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight." + +It is pleasant to sit in the Gothic villa on Strawberry Hill and see the +world pass by. The small Euphrates, the filigree hedges, and the +gossiping dowagers, being in the foreground, appear more important than +they do in the formal histories which have no perspective. But the great +world does pass by, and the master of the house is familiar with it and +recognizes every important person in the procession. Was he not a Prime +Minister's son, and were not his first letters written from Downing +Street? + +How rapidly the procession moves, giving only time for a nod and a word! +The reader is like a country cousin in the metropolis bewildered by a +host of new sensations. Now and then he smiles as some one whose name +has been long familiar is pointed out. The chief wonder is that there +are so many notabilities of whom he has never heard before. What an +unconscionable number of Duchesses there are, and each one has a +history! How different the Statesmen are from what he had imagined; not +nearly so wise but ever so much more amusing. Even the great William +Pitt appears to be only "Sir William Quixote," and a fantastic figure he +is! Strawberry Hill has its prejudices. It listens incredulously to the +stories illustrative of incorruptible political virtue. They are tales +to be told to Posterity. + +In regard to the historical drama that unfolds there is a pleasant +ambiguity. Which is it that sees behind the scenes,--the writer or the +present-day reader? The reader representing Posterity has a general +notion of the progress of events. He thinks he knows how things actually +came out and which were the more important. He is anxious to know how +they strike a contemporary. But he is chastened by the discovery of the +innumerable incidents which Posterity has forgotten, but which made a +great stir in their day. "The Tower guns have sworn through thick and +thin that Prince Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and city +bonfires all believe it." Prince Ferdinand "is the most fashionable man +in England. Have not the Tower guns and all the parsons in London been +ordered to pray for him?" + +The Gentle Reader is almost tempted to look up Prince Ferdinand, but is +diverted from this inquiry by a bit of gossip about the Duke of +Marlborough and the silver spoons. + +When he comes to the glorious year 1775 he is eager to learn the +sensations of Walpole when the echoes of the "shot heard round the +world" come to him. The shot is heard, but its effect is not so +startling as might have been imagined. "I did but put my head into +London on Thursday, and more bad news from America. I wonder when it +will be bad enough to make folks think it so, without going on?" Then +Walpole turns to something more interesting. "I have a great mind to +tell you a Twickenham story." + +It is about a certain Captain Mawhood who had "applied himself to learn +the classics and free-thinking and was always disputing with the parson +of the parish about Dido and his own soul." + +It is not just what the Gentle Reader was expecting, but he adapts +himself cheerfully to the situation. + +"I was about to inquire what you thought about the American war, but we +may come to that at some other time. Now let us have the Twickenham +story." + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader loves the writers who reveal their intellectual +limitations, but he does not care for those who insist upon telling him +their physical ailments. He is averse to the letters and journals which +are merely contributions to pathology. Indeed, he would, if he had his +own way, allow the mention of only one malady, the gout. This is +doubtless painful enough in the flesh, but in a book it has many +pleasant associations. Its intervals seem conducive to reminiscence, and +its twinges are the occasions of eloquent objurgations which light up +many an otherwise colorless page. + +With all his tolerance of vanity he dislikes that inverted kind which +induces certain morbid persons to write out painful confessions of their +own sins. He is willing to believe that they are far from perfect, but +he is sceptical in regard to their claims to be the chief of sinners. It +is hard to attain distinction in a line where there is so much +competition. + +When he finds a book of Life and Letters unreadable, he does not bring a +railing accusation against either the biographer or the biographee. + +They may both have been interesting persons, though the result in cold +print is not exhilarating. He knows how volatile is the charm of +personality, and how hard it is to preserve the best things. His friend, +who is a great diner-out, says: "Those were delightful people I met at +dinner yesterday, and what a capital story the judge told! I laugh every +time I think about it." + +"What story?" asks the Gentle Reader, eager for the crumbs that fall +from the witty man's table. + +"I can't remember just what it was about, or what was the point of it; +but it was a good story, and you would have thought so, too, if you had +heard the judge tell it." + +"I certainly should," replies the Gentle Reader, "and I shall always +believe, on your testimony, that the judge is one of the best +story-tellers in existence." + +In like manner he believes in interesting things that great men must +have done which unfortunately were not taken down by any one at the +time. + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader himself is not much at home in fashionable literary +society. He is a shy person, and his embarrassment is increased by the +consciousness that he seldom gets round to a book till after people are +through talking about it. Not that he prides himself on this fact; for +he is far from cherishing the foolish prejudice against new books. + +"'David Copperfield' was a new book once, and it was as good then as it +is now." It simply happens that there are so many good books that it is +hard to keep up with the procession. Besides, he has discovered that the +books that are talked about can be talked about just as well without +being read; this leaves him more time for his old favorites. + +"I have a sweet little story for you," says the charming authoress. "I +am sure you like sweet little stories." + +"Only one lump, if you please," says the Gentle Reader. + +In spite of his genial temperament there are some subjects on which he +is intolerant. When he picks up a story that turns out to be only a +Tract for the Times, he turns indignantly on the author. + +"Sirrah," he cries, under the influence of deep feeling, relapsing into +the vernacular of romance, "you gained access to me under the plea that +you were going to please me; and now that you have stolen a portion of +my time, you throw off all disguise, and admit that you entered with +intent to instruct, and that you do not care whether you please me or +not! I've a mind to have you arrested for obtaining my attention under +false pretenses! How villainously we are imposed upon! Only the other +day a man came to me highly recommended as an architect. I employed him +to build me a Castle in Spain, regardless of expense. When I suggested a +few pleasant embellishments, the wretch refused on the ground that he +never saw anything of the kind in the town he came from,--Toledo, Ohio. +If he had pleaded honest poverty of invention I should have forgiven +him, but he took a high and mighty tone with me, and said that it was +against his principles to allow any incident that was not probable. 'Who +said that it should be probable?' I replied. 'It is your business to +make it _seem_ probable.'" + +He highly disapproves of what he considers the cheese-paring economy on +the part of certain novelists in the endowment of their characters. +"Their traits are so microscopic, and require such minute analysis, that +I get half through the book before I know which is which. It seems as if +the writers were not sure that there was enough human nature to go +around. They should study the good old story of Aboukir and Abousir. + +"'There were in the city of Alexandria two men,--one was a dyer, and his +name was Aboukir; the other was a barber, and his name was Abousir. They +were neighbors, and the dyer was a swindler, a liar, and a person of +exceeding wickedness.' + +"Now, there the writer and reader start fair. There are no unnecessary +concealments. You know that the dyer is a villain, and you are on your +guard. You are not told in the first paragraph about the barber, but you +take it for granted that he is an excellent, well-meaning man, who is +destined to become enormously wealthy. And so it turns out. If our +writers would only follow this straightforward method we should hear +less about nervous prostration among the reading classes." He is very +severe on the whimsical notion, that never occurred to any one until the +last century, of saying that the heroine is not beautiful. + +"Such a remark is altogether gratuitous. When I become attached to a +young lady in fiction she always appears to me to be an extraordinarily +lovely creature. It's sheer impertinence for the author to intrude, +every now and then, just to call my attention to the fact that her +complexion is not good, and that her features are irregular. It's bad +manners,--and, besides, I don't believe that it's true." + +Nothing, however, so offends the Gentle Reader as the trick of +elaborating a plot and then refusing to elucidate it, and leaving +everything at loose ends. He feels toward this misdirected ingenuity as +Miss Edgeworth's Harry did toward the conundrum which his sister +proposed. + +"This is quite different," he said, "from the others. The worst of it is +that after laboring ever so hard at one riddle it does not in the least +lead to another. The next is always on some other principle." + +"Yes, to be sure," said Lucy. "Nobody who knows how to puzzle would give +two riddles of the same kind; that would be too easy." + +"But then, without something to guide one," said Harry, "there is no +getting on." + +"Not in your regular way," said Lucy. + +"That is the very thing I complain of," said Harry. + +"Complain! But my dear Harry, riddles are meant only to divert one." + +"But they do not divert me," said Harry; "they only puzzle me." + +The Gentle Reader is inclined to impute unworthy motives to the writer +whose work merely puzzles him. + +"The lazy unscrupulous fellow takes a job, and then throws it up and +leaves me to finish it for him. It's a clear breach of contract! That +sort of thing would never have been allowed in any well-governed +community. Fancy what would have happened in the court of Shahriar, +where story-telling was taken seriously." + +Sheherazade has got Sindbad on the moving island. + +"How did he get off?" asks the Sultan. + +"That's for your majesty to find out," answers Sheherazade archly. +"Maybe he got off, and maybe he didn't. That's the problem." + +"Off with her head!" says the Sultan. + +When sore beset by novelists who, under the guise of fiction, attempt to +saddle him with "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world," the +Gentle Reader takes refuge with one who has never deceived him. + +"What shall it be?" says Sir Walter. + +"As you please, Sir Walter." + +"No! As _you_ please, Gentle Reader. If you have nothing else in mind, +how would this do for a start?-- + + 'Waken! Lords and Ladies gay! + On the mountain dawns the day.' + +It's a fine morning, and it's a gallant company! +Let's go with them!" + +"Let's!" cries the Gentle Reader. + + + + +The Enjoyment of Poetry + + +Browning's description of the effect of +the recital of classic poetry upon a band of +piratical Greeks must seem to many persons to +be exaggerated:-- + +"Then, because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts, + And poetry is power, they all outbroke + In a great joyous laughter with much love." + +Because Americans are Americans, and business is business, and time is +money, and life is earnest, we take our poetry much more seriously than +that. We are ready to form classes to study it and to discuss it, but +these solemn assemblies are not likely to be disturbed by outbursts of +"great joyous laughter." + +We usually accept poetry as mental discipline. It is as if the poet +said, "Go to, now. I will produce a masterpiece." Thereupon the +conscientious reader answers, "Very well; I can stand it. I will apply +myself with all diligence, that by means of it I may improve my mind." +Who has not sometimes quailed before the long row of British Poets in +uniform binding, standing stiffly side by side, like so many British +grenadiers on dress parade? Who has not felt his courage ooze away at +the sight of those melancholy volumes labeled Complete Poetical Works? +Poetical Remains they used to call them, and there is something funereal +in their aspect. + +The old hymn says, "Religion never was designed to make our pleasures +less," and the same thing ought to be said about poetry. The distaste +for poetry arises largely from the habit of treating it as if it were +only a more difficult kind of prose. We are so much under the tyranny of +the scientific method that the habits of the school-room intrude, and we +try to extract instruction from what was meant to give us joy. The +prosaic commentary obscures the beauty of the text, so that + + "The glad old romance, the gay chivalrous story, + With its fables of faery, its legends of glory, + Is turned to a tedious instruction, not new, + To the children, who read it insipidly through." + +One of the most ruthless invasions of the prosaic faculties into the +realm of poetry comes from the thirst for general information. When this +thirst becomes a disease, it is not satisfied with census reports and +encyclopaedia articles, but values literature according to the number of +facts presented. Suppose these lines from "Paradise Lost" to be taken +for study:-- + + "Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks + In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades + High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge + Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed + Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew + Busiris and his Memphian chivalry." + +What an opportunity this presents to the schoolmaster! "Come now," he +cries with pedagogic glee, "answer me a few questions. Where is +Vallombrosa? What is the character of its autumnal foliage? Bound +Etruria. What is sedge? Explain the myth of Orion? Point out the +constellation on the map of the heavens. Where is the Red Sea? Who was +Busiris? By what other name was he known? Who were the Memphian +Chivalry?" + +Here is material for exhaustive research in geography, ancient and +modern, history, botany, astronomy, meteorology, chronology, and +archaeology. The industrious student may get almost as much information +out of "Paradise Lost" as from one of those handy compilations of useful +knowledge, which are sold on the railway cars for twenty-five cents. As +for the poetry of Milton, that is another matter. + + * * * * * + +Next to the temptation to use a poem as a receptacle for a mass of +collateral information is that to use it for the display of one's own +penetration. As in the one case it is treated as if it were an +encyclopaedia article, in the other it is treated as if it were a verbal +puzzle. It is taken for granted that the intention of the poet is to +conceal thought, and the game is for the reader to find it out. We are +hunting for hidden meanings, and we greet one another with the grim +salutation of the creatures in the jungle: "Good hunting!" "What is the +meaning of this passage?" Who has not heard this sudden question +propounded in regard to the most transparent sentence from an author who +is deemed worthy of study? The uninitiated, in the simplicity of his +heart, might answer that he probably means what he says. Not at all; if +that were so, "what are we here for?" We are here to find hidden +meanings, and one who finds the meaning simple must be stopped, as +Armado stops Moth, with + + "Define, define, well-educated infant." + +It is a verbal masquerade to which we have been invited. No knowing what +princes in disguise, as well as anarchists and nihilists and other +objectionably interesting persons, may be discovered when the time for +unmasking comes. + +Now, the effect of all this is that many persons turn away from the +poets altogether. Why should they spend valuable time in trying to +unravel the meaning of lines which were invented to baffle them? There +are plenty of things we do not understand, without going out of our way +to find them. Then, as Pope observes, + + "True No-meaning puzzles more than Wit." + +The poets themselves, as if conscious that they are objects of +suspicion, are inclined to be apologetic, and endeavor to show that +they are doing business on a sound prosaic basis. Wordsworth set the +example of such painstaking self-justification. His conscience compelled +him to make amends to the literal minded Public for poetic +indiscretions, and to offer to settle all claims for damages. What a +shame-faced excuse he makes for the noble lines on Rob Roy's grave. "I +have since been told that I was misinformed as to the burial-place of +Rob Roy; if so, I may plead in excuse that I wrote on apparently good +authority, namely that of a well-educated lady who lived at the head of +the lake." + +One is reminded of the preface to the works of The Sweet Singer of +Michigan: "This little book is composed of truthful pieces. All those +which speak of being killed, died, or drowned are truthful songs, others +are more truth than poetry." + +It is against this mistaken conscientiousness that the Gentle Reader +protests. He insists that the true "defense of poesy" is that it has an +altogether different function from prose. It is not to be appreciated by +the prosaic understanding; unless, indeed, that awkward faculty be +treated to some Delsartean decomposing exercises to get rid of its +stiffness. + +"When I want more truth than poetry," he says, "I will go directly to +The Sweet Singer of Michigan, or I will inquire of the well-educated +lady who lives at the head of the lake. I do not like to have a poet +troubled about such small matters." + +Then he reads with approval the remarks of one of his own order who +lived in the seventeenth century, who protests against those "who take +away the liberty of a poet and fetter his feet in the shackles of an +historian. For why should a poet doubt in story to mend the intrigues of +fortune by more delightful conveyances of probable fictions because +austere historians have entered into bond to truth; an obligation which +were in poets as foolish and unnecessary as is the bondage of false +martyrs, who lie in chains for a mistaken opinion. But by this I would +imply that truth, narrative and past, is the idol of historians (who +worship a dead thing), and truth operative and by effects continually +alive is the mistress of poets, who hath not her existence in matter but +in reason." + +I am well aware that the attitude of the Gentle Reader seems to many +strenuous persons to be unworthy of our industrial civilization. These +persons insist that we shall make hard work of our poetry, if for no +other reason than to preserve our self-respect. Here as elsewhere they +insist upon the stern law that if a man will not labor neither shall he +eat. Even the poems of an earlier and simpler age which any child can +understand must be invested with some artificial difficulty. The learned +guardians of these treasures insist that they cannot be appreciated +unless there has been much preliminary wrestling with a "critical +apparatus," and much delving among "original sources." This is the same +principle that makes the prudent householder provide a sharp saw and a +sufficient pile of cord wood as a test to be applied to the stranger who +asks for a breakfast. There is much academic disapproval of one who in +defiance of all law insists on enjoying poetry after his own "undressed, +unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or +ratherest unconfirmed fashion." I, however, so thoroughly sympathize +with the Gentle Reader that I desire to present his point of view. + +To understand poetry is a vain ambition. That which we fully understand +is the part that is not poetry. It is that which passes our +understanding which has the secret in itself. There is an incommunicable +grace that defies all attempts at analysis. Poetry is like music; it is +fitted, not to define an idea or to describe a fact, but to voice a +mood. The mood may be the mood of a very simple person,--the mood of a +shepherd watching his flocks, or of a peasant in the fields; or, on the +other hand, it may be the mood of a philosopher whose mind has been +engrossed with the most subtle problems of existence. But in each case +the mood, by some suggestion, must be communicated to us. Thoughts and +facts must be transfigured; they must come to us as through some finer +medium. As we are told that we must experience religion before we know +what religion is, so we must experience poetry. The poet is the +enchanter, and we are the willing victims of his spells:-- + + "Would'st thou see + A man i' th' clouds and hear him speak to thee? + Would'st thou be in a dream and yet not sleep? + Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep? + Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm? + And find thyself again without a charm? + + * * * * * + O then come hither + And lay my book, thy head and heart together." + +Only the reader who yields to the charm can dream the dream. The poet +may weave his story of the most common stuff, but "there's magic in the +web of it." If we are conscious of this magical power, we forgive the +lack of everything else. The poet may be as ignorant as Aladdin himself, +but he has a strange power over our imaginations. At his word they obey, +traversing continents, building palaces, painting pictures. They say, +"We are ready to obey as thy slaves, and the slaves of all that have +that lamp in their hands,--we and the other slaves of the lamp." + +This is the characteristic of the poet's power. He does not construct a +work of the imagination,--he makes our imaginations do that. That is why +the fine passages of elaborate description in verse are usually +failures. The verse-maker describes accurately and at length. The poet +speaks a word, and Presto! change! We are transported into a new land, +and our eyes are "baptized into the grace and privilege of seeing." +Many have taken in hand to write descriptions of spring; and some few +painstaking persons have nerved themselves to read what has been +written. I turn to the prologue of the "Canterbury Tales;" it is not +about spring, it is spring, and I am among those who long to go upon a +pilgrimage. A description of a jungle is an impertinence to one who has +come under the spell of William Blake's + + "Tiger! tiger! burning bright + In the forest of the night." + +Those fierce eyes glowing there in the darkness sufficiently illuminate +the scene. Immediately it is midsummer, and we feel all its delicious +languor when Browning's David sings of + + "The sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell + That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well." + +The first essential to the enjoyment of poetry is leisure. The demon +Hurry is the tempter, and knowledge is the forbidden fruit in the poet's +paradise. To enjoy poetry, you must renounce not only your easily +besetting sins, but your easily besetting virtues as well. You must not +be industrious, or argumentative, or conscientious, or strenuous. I do +not mean that you must be a person of unlimited leisure and without +visible means of support. I have known some very conscientious students +of literature who, when off duty, found time to enjoy poetry. I mean +that if you have only half an hour for poetry, for that half hour you +must be in a leisurely frame of mind. + +The poet differs from the novelist in that he requires us to rest from +our labors. The ordinary novel is easy reading, because it takes us as +we are, in the midst of our hurry. The mind has been going at express +speed all the day; what the novelist does is to turn the switch, and off +we go on another track. The steam is up, and the wheels go around just +the same. The great thing is still action, and we eagerly turn the pages +to see what is going to happen next,--unless we are reading some of our +modern realistic studies of character. Even then we are lured on by the +expectation that, at the last moment, something may happen. But when we +turn to the poets, we are in the land of the lotus-eaters. The +atmosphere is that of a perfect day, + + "Whereon it is enough for me + Not to be doing, but to be." + +Into this land our daily cares cannot follow us. It is an + + "enchanted land, we know not where, + But lovely as a landscape in a dream." + +Once in this enchanted country, haste seems foolish. Why should we toil +on as if we were walking for a wager? It is as if one had the privilege +of joining Izaak Walton as he loiters in the cool shade of a sweet +honeysuckle hedge, and should churlishly trudge on along the dusty +highway rather than accept the gentle angler's invitation: "Pray, let us +rest ourselves in this sweet, shady arbor of jessamine and myrtle; and I +will requite you with a bottle of sack, and when you have pledged me, I +will repeat the verses I promised you." One may, as a matter of strict +conscience, be both a pedestrian and a prohibitionist, and yet not find +it in his heart to decline such an invitation. + +The poets who delight us with their verses are not always serious-minded +persons with an important thought to communicate. When I read, + + "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan + A stately pleasure-dome decree," + +I am not a bit wiser than I was before, but I am a great deal happier; +although I have not the slightest idea where Xanadu was, and only the +vaguest notion of Kublai Khan. + +There are poems whose charm lies in their illusiveness. Fancy any one +trying to explain Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Yet when the mood is on +us we see her as she leans + + "From the gold bar of Heaven: + Her eyes were deeper than the depth + Of waters stilled at even; + She had three lilies in her hand + And the stars in her hair were seven." + +We look over the mystic ramparts and are dimly conscious that + + "the souls mounting up to God + Went by her like thin flames." + +This is not astronomy nor theology, nor any of the things we know all +about--it is only poetry. + +Let no one trouble me by attempting to elucidate "Childe Roland to the +Dark Tower came." I do not care for a Baedeker. I prefer to lose my way. +I love the darkness rather than light. I do not care for a topographical +chart of the hills that + + "like giants at a hunting lay, + Chin upon hand." + +The mood in which we enjoy such poetry is that described in Emerson's +"Forerunners." + + "Long I followed happy guides, + I could never reach their sides. + + * * * * * + + But no speed of mine avails + To hunt upon their shining trails. + + * * * * * + + On eastern hills I see their smokes, + Mixed with mist by distant lochs. + I met many travelers + Who the road had surely kept: + They saw not my fine revelers." + +If our thoughts make haste to join these "fine revelers," rejoicing in +the sense of freedom and mystery, delighting in the mist and the wind, +careless of attaining so that we may follow the shining trails, all is +well. + +As there are poems which are not meant to be understood, so there are +poems that are not meant to be read; that is, to be read through. There +is Keats's "Endymion," for instance. I have never been able to get on +with it. Yet it is delightful,--that is the very reason why I do not +care to get on with it. Wherever I begin, I feel that I might as well +stay where I am. It is a sweet wilderness into which the reader is +introduced. + + "Paths there were many, + Winding through palmy fern and rushes fenny + And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly + To a wide lawn... + Who could tell + The freshness of the space of heaven above, + Edged round with dark tree-tops?--through which a dove + Would often beat its wings, and often, too, + A little cloud would move across the blue." + +We are brought into the very midst of this pleasantness. Deep in the +wood we see fair faces and garments white. We see the shepherds coming +to the woodland altar. + + "A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks + As may be read of in Arcadian books; + Such as sat list'ning round Apollo's pipe + When the great deity, for earth too ripe, + Let his divinity o'erflowing die + In music, through the vales of Thessaly." + +We see the venerable priest pouring out the sweet-scented wine, and then +we see the young Endymion himself:-- + + "He seemed + To common lookers-on like one who dreamed + Of idleness in groves Elysian." + +What happened next? What did Endymion do? Really, I do not know. It is +so much pleasanter, at this point, to close the book, and dream "of +idleness in groves Elysian." The chances are that when one turns to the +poem again he will not begin where he left off, but at the beginning, +and read as if he had never read it before; or rather, with more +enjoyment because he has read it so many times:-- + + "A thing of beauty is a joy forever: + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness; but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing." + +Shelley describes a mood such as Keats brings to us:-- + + "My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim + Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing + Far away into regions dim + Of rapture, as a boat with swift sails winging + Its way adown some many-winding river." + +He who finds himself afloat upon the "many-winding river" throws aside +the laboring oar. It is enough to float on,--he cares not whither. + +What greater pleasure is there than in the "Idylls of the King" provided +we do not study them, but dream them. We must enter into the poet's own +mood:-- + + "I seemed + To sail with Arthur under looming shores, + Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams + Begin to feel the truth and stir of day." + +It is good to be there, in that far-off time, good to come to Camelot:-- + + "Built by old kings, age after age, + So strange and rich and dim." + +All we see of kings, and magicians, and ladies, and knights is "strange +and rich and dim." Over everything is a luminous haze. There are + + "hollow tramplings up and down, + And muffled voices heard, and shadows past." + +There is the flashing of swords, the weaving of spells, the seeing of +visions. All these things become real to us; not simply the stainless +king and the sinful queen, the prowess of Lancelot and the love of +Elaine, but the magic of Merlin and the sorceries of Vivien, with her +charms + + "Of woven paces and of waving hands." + +And we must stand at last with King Arthur on the shore of the mystic +sea, and see the barge come slowly with the three queens, "black-stoled, +black-hooded, like a dream;" and hear across the water a cry, + + "As it were one voice, an agony + Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills + All night in a waste land, where no one comes, + Or hath come, since the making of the world." + +But what good is there in all this? Why waste time on idle dreams? We +hear Walt Whitman's challenge to romantic poetry:-- + + "Arthur vanished with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot + and Galahad, all gone, dissolved utterly like an exhalation; + Embroidered, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous + legends, myths, + Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and + courtly dames, + Passed to its charnel vault, coffined with crown and armor on, + Blazoned with Shakspere's purple page + And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme." + +Away with the old romance! Make room for the modern bard, who is + + "Bluffed not a bit by drain-pipes, gasometers, + and artificial fertilizers." + +The Gentle Reader, also, is not to be bluffed by any useful things, +however unpleasant they may be, but he winces a little as he reads that +the "far superber themes for poets and for art" include the teaching by +the poet of how + + "To use the hammer and the saw (rip or cross-cut), + To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting, + To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter, + To invent a little something ingenious to aid the washing, + cooking, cleaning." + +The Muse of Poetry shrieks at the mighty lines in praise of +"leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making," and the rest. +Boiler-making, she protests, is a useful industry and highly to be +commended, but it is not music. When asked to give a reason why she +should not receive all these things as poetry, the Muse is much +embarrassed. "It's all true," she says. "Leather-dressing and +boiler-making are undoubted realities, while Arthur and Lancelot may be +myths." Yet she is not quite ready to be off with the old love and on +with the new,--it's all so sudden. + +Whitman himself furnishes the best illustrations of the difference +between poetry and prose. He comes like another Balaam to prophesy +against those who associate poetry with beauty of form and melody of +words; and then the poetic spirit seizes upon him and lifts him into the +region of harmony. In the Song of the Universal he declares that-- + + "From imperfection's murkiest cloud + Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, + One flash of heaven's glory. + To fashion's, customs discord, + To the mad Babel's din, the deafening orgies, + Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard + From some far shore, the final chorus sounding. + O the blest eyes, the happy hearts + That see, that know the guiding thread so fine + Along the mighty labyrinth." + +There speaks the poet declaring the true faith, which except a man +believe he is condemned everlastingly to the outer darkness. His task is +selective. No matter about the murkiness of the cloud he must make us +see the ray of perfect light. In the mad Babel-din he must hear and +repeat the strain of pure music. As to the field of choice, it may be as +wide as the world, but he must choose as a poet, and not after the +manner of the man with the muck-rake. + + "In this broad earth of ours + Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, + Inclosed and safe within the central heart + Nestles the seed perfection." + +When the poet delves in the grossness and the slag, he does so as one +engaged in the search for the perfect. + +"My feeling," says the Gentle Reader, "about the proper material for +poetry, is very much like that of Whitman in regard to humanity-- + + 'When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my + friendly companions, + I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as + I do of men and women like you.' + +"So I say, when drain pipes and cross-cut saws and the beef on the +butcher's stalls are invested with beautiful associations and thrill my +soul in some mysterious fashion, then I will make as much of these +things as I do of the murmuring pines and the hemlocks. When a poet +makes bank clerks and stevedores and wood-choppers to loom before my +imagination in heroic proportions, I will receive them as I do the +heroes of old. But, mind you, the miracle must be actually performed; I +will not be put off with a prospectus." + +Now and then the miracle is performed. We are made to feel the romance +that surrounds the American pioneer, we hear the + + "Crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven by strong arms." + +But, for the most part, Whitman, when under the influence of deep +feeling, forgets his theory, and uses as his symbols those things which +have already been invested with poetical associations. Turn to that +marvelous dirge, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard bloomed." There is +here no catalogue of facts or events, no parade of glaring realism. +Tennyson's "sweet sad rhyme" has nowhere more delicious music than we +find in the measured cadence of these lines. We are not told the news of +the assassination of Lincoln as a man on the street might tell it. It +comes to us through suggestion. We are made to feel a mood, not to +listen to the description of an event. There is symbolism, suggestion, +color mystery. We inhale the languorous fragrance of the lilacs; we see +the drooping star; in secluded recesses we hear "a shy and hidden bird" +warbling a song; there are dim-lit churches and shuddering organs and +tolling bells, and there is one soul heart-broken, seeing all and +hearing all. + + "Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to + keep, for the dead I loved so well, + For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and + this for his dear sake, + Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, + There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim." + +This is real poetry, and yet while we yield to the charm we are +conscious that it is made up of the old familiar elements. + +Tennyson's apology to a utilitarian age was not needed:-- + + "Perhaps some modern touches here and there + Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness." + +The "modern touches" we can spare. The modern life we have always with +us; but it is a rare privilege to enjoy the best things of the past. It +is the poet who is the minister of this fine grace. The historian tells +us what men of the past did, the philosopher tells us how their +civilizations developed and decayed; we smile at their superstitions, +and pride ourselves upon our progress. But the ethereal part has +vanished, that which made their very superstitions beautiful and cast a +halo over their struggles. These are the elements out of which the poet +creates his world, into which we may enter. In the order of historic +development chivalry must give way before democracy, and loyalty to the +king must fade before the increasing sense of liberty and equality; but +the highest ideals of chivalry may remain. Imaginative and romantic +poetry has this high mission to preserve what otherwise would be lost. +It lifts the mind above the daily routine into the region of pure joy. +Whatever necessary changes take place in the world we find, in + + "All lovely tales which we have heard or read, + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink." + +I have said that one may be a true poet without having any very +important thought to communicate, but it must be said that most of the +great poets have been serious thinkers as well. They have had their +philosophy of life, their thoughts about nature and about human duty and +destiny. It is the function of the poet not only to create for us an +ideal world and to fill it with ideal creatures, but also to reveal to +us the ideal element in the actual world. + +"I do not know what poetical is," says Audrey. "Is it honest in deed and +word? Is it a true thing?" We must not answer with Touchstone: "No, +truly! for the truest poetry is the most feigning." + +The poetical interpretation of the world is not feigning; it is a true +thing,--the truest thing of which we can know. The grace and sublimity +which we see through the poet's eyes are real. We must, however, still +insist on our main contention. The poet, if he is to hold us, must +always be a poet. His thought must be in solution, and not appear as a +dull precipitate of prose. He may be philosophical, but he must not +philosophize. He may be moral, but he must not moralize. He may be +religious, but let him spare his homilies. + +"Whatever the philosopher saith should be done," said Sir Philip Sidney; +"the peerless poet giveth a perfect picture of it. He yieldeth to the +power of the mind an image of that of which the philosopher bestoweth +but a wordish description.... The poet doth not only show the way, but +doth give so sweet a prospect unto the way as will entice any man to +enter it. Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a fair +vineyard, at first give you a cluster of grapes." + +We have a right to ask our poets to be pleasant companions even when +they discourse on the highest themes. Even when they have theories of +their own about what we should enjoy, let us not allow them to foist +upon us "wordish descriptions" of excellent things instead of poetry. +When the poet invites me to go with him I first ask, "Let me taste your +grapes." + +You remember Mr. By-ends in the "Pilgrim's Progress,"--how he said of +Christian and Hopeful, "They are headstrong men who think it their duty +to rush on in their journey in all weathers, while I am for waiting for +wind or tide. I am for Religion when he walks in his silver slippers in +the sunshine." That was very reprehensible in Mr. By-ends, and he richly +deserved the rebuke which was afterward administered to him. But when we +change the subject, and speak, not of religion, but of poetry, I confess +that I am very much of Mr. By-ends' way of thinking. There are literary +Puritans who, when they take up the study of a poet, make it a point of +conscience to go on to the bitter end of his poetical works. If they +start with Wordsworth on his "Excursion," they trudge on in all +weathers. They _do_ the poem, as when going abroad they do Europe in six +weeks. As the revival hymn says, "doing is a deadly thing." Let me say, +good Christian and Hopeful, that though I admire your persistence, I +cannot accompany you. I am for a poet only when he puts on his singing +robes and walks in the sunshine. As for those times when he goes on +prosing in rhyme from force of habit, I think it is more respectful as +well as more pleasurable to allow him to walk alone. + + * * * * * + +Shelley's definition of poetry as "the record of the best and happiest +moments of the happiest and best minds" suggests the whole duty of the +reader. All that is required of him is to obey the Golden Rule. There +must be perfect reciprocity and fraternal sympathy. The poet, being +human, has his unhappy hours, when all things are full of labor. Upon +such hours the Gentle Reader does not intrude. In their happiest moments +they meet as if by chance. In this encounter they are pleased with one +another and with the world they live in. How could it be otherwise? It +is indeed a wonderful world, transfigured in the light of thought. +Familiar objects lose their sharp outlines and become symbols of +universal realities. Likenesses, before unthought of, appear. Nature +becomes a mirror of the soul, and answers instantly to each passing +mood. Words are no longer chosen, they come unbidden as the poet and his +reader + + "mount to Paradise + By the stairway of surprise." + + + + +The Mission of Humor + + +In "The Last Tournament" we are told how + + "Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his moods + Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, + At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, + Danced like a withered leaf before the hall." + +That is the view which many worthy people take of the humorist. He is +Sir Dagonet. Among the serious persons who are doing the useful work of +the world, discovering its laws, classifying its facts, forecasting its +future, this light-minded, light-hearted creature comes with his +untimely jests. In their idle moments they tolerate the mock-knight, but +when important business is on hand they dismiss him, as did Sir +Tristram, with + + "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?" + +This half-contemptuous view is very painful to the Gentle Reader who, +though he may seem to some to take his poetry too lightly, is disposed +to take his humor rather seriously. Humor seems to him to belong to the +higher part of our nature. It is not the enjoyment of a grotesque image +in a convex mirror, but, rather, the recognition of fleeting forms of +truth. + +"I have brought you a funny book, Gentle Reader," says the Professional +Humorist. + +"Thank you," he answers, struggling against his melancholy forebodings. +"You will pardon me if I seem to take my pleasures sadly." + +It is hard for him to force a smile as he watches the procession of +jokes, each as broad as it is long. This ostentatious jocosity is not to +his liking. + +"Thackeray," he says, "defines humor as a mixture of love and wit. +Humor, therefore, being of the nature of love, should not behave itself +unseemly." + +He cannot bear to see it obtruding itself upon the public. Its proper +habit is to hide from observation "as if the wren taught it +concealment." When a Happy Thought ventures abroad it should be as a +royal personage traveling _incognito_. + +This is a big world, and it is serious business to live in it. It makes +many demands. It requires intensity of thought and strenuousness of will +and solidity of judgment. Great tasks are set before us. We catch +fugitive glimpses of beauty, and try to fix them forever in perfect +form,--that is the task of art. We see thousands of disconnected facts, +and try to arrange them in orderly sequence,--that is the task of +science. We see the ongoing of eternal force, and seek some reason for +it,--that is the task of philosophy. + +But when art and science and philosophy have done their best, there is a +great deal of valuable material left over. There are facts that will not +fit into any theory, but which keep popping up at us from the most +unexpected places. Nobody can tell where they come from or why they are +here; but here they are. Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net +result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectnesses. We are +surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many +different ways. Everything is under the reign of strict law; but many +queer things happen, nevertheless. What are we to do with all the waifs +and strays? What are we to do with all the sudden incongruities which +mock at our wisdom and destroy the symmetry of our ideas? + +The solemnly logical intelligence ignores their existence. It does not +trouble itself about anything which does not belong to its system. The +system itself has such perfect beauty that it is its own excuse for +being. + +More sensitive and less self-centred natures do not find the way so +easy. They allow themselves to be worried by the incongruities which +they cannot ignore. It seems to them that whenever they are in earnest +the world conspires to mock them. Continually they feel that intellect +and conscience are insulted by whipper-snappers of facts that have no +right to be in an orderly universe. They can expose a lie, and feel a +certain superiority in doing it; but a little unclassified, +irreconcilable truth drives them to their wit's end. There it stands in +all its shameless actuality asking, "What do you make of me?" + +Just here comes the beneficent mission of humor. It takes these +unassorted realities that are the despair of the sober intelligence, and +extracts from them pure joy. If life depends on the perpetual +adjustment of the organism to its environment, humor is the means by +which the intellectual life is sustained on those occasions when the +expected environment is not there. The adjustment must be made, without +a moment's warning, to an altogether new set of conditions. We are +called upon to swap horses while crossing the stream. It is a method +which the serious minded person does not approve. While arguing the +matter he is unhorsed, and finds himself floundering in the water. The +humorist accepts the situation instantly. As he scrambles upon his new +nag it is with a sense of triumph, for the moment at least, he feels +that he has the best of the bargain. + +One may have learned to enjoy the sublime, the beautiful, the useful, +the orderly, but he has missed something if he has not also learned to +enjoy the incongruous, the illusive, and the unexpected. Artistic +sensibility finds its satisfaction only in the perfect. Humor is the +frank enjoyment of the imperfect. Its objects are not so high,--but +there are more of them. + +Evolution is a cosmic game of Pussy wants a corner. Each creature has +its eye on some snug corner where it would rest in peace. Each corner +is occupied by some creature that is not altogether satisfied and that +is on the lookout for a larger sphere. There is much beckoning between +those who are desirous of making a change. Now and then some bold spirit +gives up his assured position and scrambles for something better. The +chances are that the adventurer finds it harder to attain the coveted +place than he had thought. For the fact is that there are not corners +enough to go around. If there were enough corners, and every one were +content to stay in the one where he found himself at the beginning, then +the game would be impossible. It is well that this never happens. Nature +looks after that. When things are too homogeneous she breaks them up +into new and amazing kinds of heterogeneity. It is a good game, and one +learns to like it after he enters into the spirit of it. + +If the Universe had a place for everything and everything was in its +place, there would be little demand for humor. As a matter of fact the +world is full of all sorts of people, and they are not all in their +proper places. There are amazing incongruities between station and +character. It is not a world that has been reduced to order; it is still +in the making. One may easily grow misanthropic and pessimistic by +dwelling upon the misfits. + + "As to behold desert a beggar born + And needy nothing trimmed in jollity. + + * * * * * + + And art made tongue-tied by authority, + And simple truth miscalled simplicity, + And folly doctor-like, controlling skill, + And captive good attending captive ill." + +But fortunately these incongruities are not altogether tragical. There +are certain moods when we rather enjoy seeing "needy nothing trimmed in +jollity." We are pleased when Justice Shallow slaps Sir John Falstaff on +the back and says, "Ha! it was a merry night, Sir John." We are not +irritated beyond endurance because in this world where so many virtuous +people have a hard time, such trifling fellows as Sir Toby and Sir +Andrew have their cakes and ale. When folly puts on doctor-like airs it +is not always disagreeable. We would not have Dogberry put off the watch +to give place to some one who could pass the civil service examination. + +The humorist, when asked what he thinks of the actual world, would turn +upon his questioner as Touchstone turned upon Corin when he was asked +how he liked the shepherd's life:-- + +"Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?" The world is not at all like +the descriptions of it, and yet he cannot take a very gloomy view of it. +In respect to itself it is a good world, and yet in respect that it is +not finished it leaves much to be desired. Yet in respect that it leaves +much to be desired, and much to be done by us, it is perhaps better _for +us_ than if it were finished. In respect that many things happen that +are opposed to our views of the eternal fitness of things, it is a +perplexing world. Yet in respect that we have a faculty for enjoying the +occasional unfitness of things, it is delightful. On the whole, he sums +up with Touchstone, "It suits my humor well." + +Humor is impossible to the man of one idea. There must be at least two +ideas moving in opposite directions, so that there may be a collision. +Such an accident does not happen in a mind under economical management +that runs only one train of thought a day. + +There are many ideas that have a very insecure tenure. They hold their +own as squatters. By and by Science will come along and evict them, but +in the mean time these homely folk make very pleasant neighbors. All +they ask is that we shall not take them too seriously. That a thing is +not to be taken too seriously does not imply that it is either unreal or +unimportant:--it only means that it is not to be taken that way. There +is, for example, a pickaninny on a Southern plantation. The +anthropologist measures his skull and calls it by a long Latin name. The +psychologist carefully records his nervous reactions. The pedagogical +expert makes him the victim of that form of inquisition known as "child +study." The missionary perplexes himself in vain attempting to get at +his soul. Then there comes along a person of another sort. At the first +look, a genial smile of recognition comes over the face of this new +spectator. He is the first one who has seen the pickaninny. The one +essential truth about a black, chubby, kinky-haired pickaninny is that, +when he rolls up his eyes till only the whites are visible, he is +irresistibly funny. This is what theologians term "the substance of +doctrine" concerning the pickaninny. + +When Charles Lamb slipped on the London pavement, he found delight in +watching the chimney sweep who stood laughing at his misfortune. "There +he stood irremovable, as though the jest were to last forever, with such +a maximum of glee and minimum of mischief in his mirth--for the grin of +a genuine sweep hath no malice in it--that I could have been content, if +the honor of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and +his mockery till midnight." There were many middle-aged London citizens +who could no more appreciate that kind of pleasure than a Hottentot +could appreciate an oratorio. That is only saying that the average +citizen and the average Hottentot have, as Wordsworth mildly puts it, +"faculties which they have never used." + +The high place that humor holds among our mental processes is evident +when we consider that it is almost the only one that requires that we +shall be thoroughly awake. In our dreams we have many aesthetic +enjoyments, as vague splendors pass before us. At other times there is +an abnormal sensitiveness to the sovereignty, not to say the despotism +of ethics. We feel burdened with the weight of unpardonable sins. We are +able also in our sleep to philosophize after a fashion which is, for the +time, quite satisfactory. At such times we are sure that we have made +important discoveries; if we could only remember what they were. A +thousand incongruities pass through our minds, but there is one thing +which we cannot do. We cannot recognize that they are incongruous. Such +a discovery would immediately awaken us. + +Tennyson tells how + + "half awake I heard + The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, + Now harping on the church commissioners, + Now hawking at Geology and schism." + +It would be possible for the parson and his congregation to keep on with +that sort of thing Sunday after Sunday. They would discover nothing +absurd in the performance, so long as they were in their usual +semi-somnolent condition. + +Humor implies mental alertness and power of discrimination. It also +implies a hospitality toward all the differences that are recognized. +Psychologists speak of the Association of Ideas. It is a pleasant +thought, but it is, in reality, difficult to induce Ideas to associate +in a neighborly way. In many minds the different groups are divided by +conventional lines, and there are aristocratic prejudices separating the +classes from the masses. The Working Hypothesis, honest son of toil that +he is, does not expect so much as a nod of recognition from the High +Moral Principle who walks by in his Sunday clothes. The steady Habit +does not associate with the high-bred Sentiment. They do not belong to +the same set. Only in the mind of the humorist is there a true +democracy. Here everybody knows everybody. Even the priggish Higher +Thought is not allowed to enjoy a sense of superiority. Plain Common +Sense slaps him on the back, calls him by his first name, and bids him +not make a fool of himself. + +Of the two ingredients which Thackeray mentions, the first, love, is +that which gives body; the addition of wit gives the effervescence. The +pleasure of wit lies in its unexpectedness. In humor there is the added +pleasure of really liking that which surprises us. It is like meeting an +old friend in an unexpected place. "What, you here?" we say. This is the +kind of pleasure we get from Dr. Johnson's reply to the lady who asked +why he had put a certain definition in his dictionary: "Pure ignorance, +madam." + +The fact is that long ago we made the acquaintance of one whom Bunyan +describes as "a brisk young lad named Ignorance." He is a dear friend of +ours, and we are on very familiar terms with him when we are at home; +but we do not expect to meet him in fine society. Suddenly we turn the +corner, and we see him walking arm in arm with so great a man as Dr. +Samuel Johnson. At once we are at our ease in the presence of the great +man; it seems we have a mutual acquaintance. + +Another element in real humor is a certain detachment of mind. We must +not be afraid, or jealous, or angry; in order to take a really humorous +view of any character, we must be in a position to see all around it. If +I were brought before Fielding's Squire Western on charge of poaching, +and if I had a pheasant concealed under my coat, I should not be able +to appreciate what an amusing person the squire is. I should be inclined +to take him very seriously. + +The small boy who pins a paper to the schoolmaster's coat tail imagines +that he has achieved a masterpiece of humor. But he is not really in a +position to reap the fruits of his perilous adventure. It is a fearful +and precarious joy which he feels. What if the schoolmaster should turn +around? That would be tragedy. Neither the small boy nor the +schoolmaster gets the full flavor of humor. But suppose an old friend of +the schoolmaster happens just then to look in at the door. His delight +in the situation has a mellowness far removed from the anxious, +ambiguous glee of the urchin. He knows that the small boy is not so +wicked as he thinks he is, and the schoolmaster is not so terrible as he +seems. He remembers the time when the schoolmaster was up to the same +pranks. So, from the assured position of middle age, he looks upon the +small boy that was and upon the small boy that is, and finds them both +very good,--much better, indeed, than at this moment they find each +other. + +It is this sense of the presence of a tolerant spectator, looking upon +the incidents of the passing hour, which we recognize in the best +literature. Books that are meant simply to be funny are very +short-lived. The first reception of a joke awakens false expectations. +It is received with extravagant heartiness. But when, encouraged by this +hospitality, it returns again and again, its welcome is worn out. There +is something melancholy in a joke deserted in its old age. + +The test of real literature is that it will bear repetition. We read +over the same pages again and again, and always with fresh delight. This +bars out all mere jocosity. A certain kind of wit, which depends for its +force on mere verbal brilliancy, has the same effect. The writers whom +we love are those whose humor does not glare or glitter, but which has +an iridescent quality. It is the perpetual play of light and color which +enchants us. We are conscious all the time that the light is playing on +a real thing. It is something more than a clever trick; there is an +illumination. + +Erasmus, in dedicating his "Praise of Folly" to Sir Thomas More, +says:-- + +"I conceived that this would not be least approved by you, inasmuch as +you are wont to be delighted with such kind of pleasantry as is neither +unlearned nor altogether insipid. Such is your sweetness of temper that +you can and like to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Unless +an overweening opinion of myself may have made me blind, I have praised +folly not altogether foolishly. I have moderated my style, that the +understanding reader may perceive that my endeavor is to make mirth +rather than to bite." + +Erasmus has here described a kind of humor that is consistent with +seriousness of purpose. The characteristics he notes are good temper, +insight into human nature, a certain reserve, and withal a gentle irony +that makes the praise of folly not unpleasing to the wise. It is a way +of looking at things characteristic of men like Chaucer and Cervantes +and Montaigne and Shakespeare, and Bunyan and Fielding and Addison, +Goldsmith, Charles Lamb and Walter Scott. In America, we have seen it in +Irving and Dr. Holmes and James Russell Lowell. + +I have left out of the list one whom nature endowed for the supreme man +of humor among Englishmen,--Jonathan Swift. Charles Lamb argues against +the common notion that it is a misfortune to a man to have a surly +disposition. He says it is not his misfortune; it is the misfortune of +his neighbors. It is our misfortune that the man who might have been the +English Cervantes had a surly disposition. Dean Swift's humor would have +been irresistible, if it had only been good humor. + +One of the best examples of humor pervading a work of the utmost +seriousness of purpose is Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The "Pilgrim's +Progress" is not a funny book; the humor is not tacked on as a moral is +tacked on to a fable, nor does it appear by way of an interlude to +relieve the tension of the mind. It is so deeply interfused, so a part +and parcel of the religious teaching, that many readers overlook it +altogether. One may read the book a dozen times without a smile, and +after that he may recognize the touch of the born humorist on every +page. Bunyan himself recognized the quality of his work:-- + + "Some there be that say he laughs too loud, + And some do say his head is in a cloud. + + * * * * * + + One may, I think, say both his laughs and cries + May well be guessed at by his wat'ry eyes. + Some things are of that nature as to make + One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." + +There speaks the real humorist; not the Merry Andrew laughing at his +meaningless pranks, but one whose quick imagination is at play when his +conscience is most overtasked. Even in the Valley of Humiliation, where +the fierce Apollyon was wont to fright the pilgrims, they heard a boy +singing cheerily,-- + + "He that is down need fear no fall." + +And Mr. Great Heart said: "Do you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a +merrier life, and wears more of the herb called heart's-ease in his +bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet." It is a fine spirit +that can find time, on such a strenuous pilgrimage, to listen to these +wayside songs. + +Take the character sketch of Mr. Fearing:-- + +"Now as they walked together, the guide asked the old gentleman if he +did not know one Mr. Fearing that came on a pilgrimage out of his +parts? + +"_Honest_. Yes, very well, said he. He was a man that had the root of +the matter in him, but he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims that +ever I met in all my days. + +"_Great Heart_. Why, he was always afraid he should come short of +whither he had a desire to go. Everything frightened him that he heard +anybody speak of that had but the least appearance of opposition in it. +I hear that he lay roaring in the Slough of Despond for about a month +together.... Well, after he had lain in the Slough of Despond a great +while, as I have told you, one sunshine morning, I do not know how, he +ventured and so got over; but when he was over he would scarce believe +it. He had, I believe, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough he +carried everywhere with him.... When he came to the Hill Difficulty he +made no stick at that; nor did he much fear the lions; for you must know +his trouble was not about such things as those.... When he was come at +Vanity Fair, I thought he would have fought with all the men at the +fair.... He was a man of choice spirit though he kept himself very low." + +Poor Mr. Fearing. We all have been made uncomfortable by him. But we +love Bunyan for that touch about the lions, for we know it is true. Easy +things go hard with Mr. Fearing; but give him something difficult, like +going up San Juan hill in the face of a withering fire, and Mr. Fearing +can keep up with the best Rough Rider of them all. It takes Mr. Great +Heart to do justice to Mr. Fearing. + +It is the mission of a kindly humor to take a person full of foibles and +weaknesses and suddenly to reveal his unsuspected nobleness. And there +is considerable room for this kind of treatment; for there are a great +many lovable people whose virtues are not chronic, but sporadic. These +virtues grow up, one knows not how, without visible means of support in +the general character, and in defiance of moral science; and yet it is a +real pleasure to see them. + +There are two very different kinds of humor. One we naturally describe +as a flavor, the other as an atmosphere. We speak of the flavor of the +essays of Charles Lamb. It is a discovery we make very much as Bobo made +the discovery of roast pig. The mind of Charles Lamb was like a +capacious kettle hanging from the crane in the fireplace; all sorts of +savory ingredients were thrown into it, and the whole was kept gently +simmering, but never allowed to come to the boil. + +Lamb says, "C. declares that a man cannot have a good conscience who +refuses apple dumpling, and I confess that I am of the same opinion." I +am inclined to pass that kind of judgment on the person who does not +have a comfortable feeling of satisfaction in reading for the twentieth +time The Complaint on the Decay of Beggars, and the Praise of Chimney +Sweepers. + +Charles Lamb is not jocose. He likes to theorize. Now, your prosaic +theorist has a very laborious task. He tries to get all the facts under +one formula. This is very ticklish business. It is like the game of Pigs +in Clover. He gets all the facts but one into the inner circle. By a +dexterous thrust he gets that one in, and the rest are out. + +Lamb is a philosopher who does not have this trouble. He does not try to +fit all the facts to one theory. That seems to him too economical, when +theories are so cheap. With large-hearted generosity he provides a +theory for every fact. He clothes the ragged exception with all the +decent habiliments of a universal law. He picks up a little ragamuffin +of a fact, and warms its heart and points out its great relations. He is +not afraid of generalizing from insufficient data; he has the art of +making a delightful summer out of a single swallow. When we turn to the +essay on the Melancholy of Tailors, we do not think of asking for +statistics. If one tailor was melancholy, that was enough to justify the +generalization. When we find a tailor who is not melancholy, it will be +time to make another theory to fit his case. + +This is the charm of Lamb's letter to the gentleman who inquired +"whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no more proficiency +than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of the English +alphabet amounts to, by dint of persevering application and good +masters, may hope to arrive within a presumable number of years at that +degree of attainment that would entitle the possessor to the character +of a _learned man_." The answer is candid, serious, and exhaustive. No +false hopes are encouraged. The difficulties are plainly set forth. +"However," it is said, "where all cannot be compassed, much may be +accomplished; but I must not, in fairness, conceal from you that you +have much to do." The question is thoroughly discussed as to whether it +would be well for him to enter a primary school. "You say that you stand +in need of emulation; that this incitement is nowhere to be had but in +the public school. But have you considered the nature of the emulation +belonging to those of tender years which you would come in competition +with?" + +Do you think these dissertations a waste of time? If you do, it is +sufficient evidence that you sadly need them; for they are the antitoxin +to counteract the bacillus of pedantry. Were I appointed by the school +board to consider the applicants for teachers' certificates, after they +had passed the examination in the arts and sciences, I should subject +them to a more rigid test. I should hand each candidate Lamb's essays on +The Old and New Schoolmaster and on Imperfect Sympathies. I should make +him read them to himself, while I sat by and watched. If his countenance +never relaxed, as if he were inwardly saying, "That's so," I should +withhold the certificate. I should not consider him a fit person to have +charge of innocent youth. + +Just as we naturally speak of the flavor of Charles Lamb, so we speak of +the atmosphere of Cervantes or of Fielding. We are out of doors in the +sunshine. All sorts of people are doing all sorts of things in all sorts +of ways; and we are glad that we are there to see them. It is one of the + + "charmed days + When the Genius of God doth flow; + The wind may alter twenty ways + But a tempest cannot blow." + +On such days it doesn't matter what happens. We are not "under the +weather," but consciously superior to it. We are in no mood to grumble +over mishaps,--the more the merrier. The master of the revels has made +the brave announcement that his programme shall be carried out "rain or +shine," and henceforth we have no anxieties. + +This diffused good-humor can only come from a mind which is free from +any taint of morbidness. It is that merry-heartedness that "doth good +like medicine." It is an overflowing friendliness, which brings a +laughter that is without scorn. + +This kind of humor is possible only among persons who are thoroughly +congenial, and who take mutual good-will for granted. It is for this +reason that it is so difficult to translate it or to carry it from one +community to another. It is customary for every nation to bring the +accusation against foreigners that they are destitute of the sense of +humor. Even peoples so near akin as the English and Americans cherish +such suspicions. The American is likely to feel that his English friends +do not receive his pleasantries with that punctuality which is the +politeness of kings. They are conscientious enough and eventually do the +right thing; but procrastination is the thief of wit as well as of time. +But we, on our side, are equally slow, and Mr. Punch often causes +anxious thoughts. + +The real difficulty is not in understanding what is said but in +appreciating that which should be taken for granted. The stranger does +not see the serious background of sober thought and genuine admiration, +into which the amusing figures suddenly intrude. The frontiersman would +see no point in a story that might delight a common room in Oxford. What +if a bishop did act in an undignified manner or commit a blunder? Why +shouldn't he--like the rest of us? To enjoy his foibles one must first +have a realizing sense of what a great man a bishop is, and how +surprising it is that, now and then, he should step down from his +pedestal. + +On the other hand, the real humor of the frontier is missed by one who +has not learned to take seriously the frontiersman's life and who has +not entered into his habitual point of view. + +Dickens is an example of the way in which a man's humor is limited to +the sphere of his sympathies. How genial is the atmosphere which +surrounds Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Sam Weller! Whatever they do, they can +never go wrong. But when we turn to the "American Notes" or to the +American part of "Martin Chuzzlewit," we are conscious of a difference. +There is no atmosphere to relieve the dreariness. Mr. Jefferson Brick is +not amusing; he is odious. The people on the Ohio River steamer do not +make us smile by their absurdities. Dickens lets us see how he despises +them all. He is fretful and peevish. He fails utterly to catch the +humor of the frontier. He is unable to follow out the hint which Mark +Tapley gave when, looking over the dreary waste of Eden on the +Mississippi, he said apologetically, "Eden ain't all built yet." + +To an Englishman that does not mean much, but to an American it is +wonderfully appealing. Martin Chuzzlewit saw only the ignominious +contrast between the prospectus and the present reality. Eden was a +vulgar fraud, and that was the whole of it. The American, with +invincible optimism, looking upon the same scene, sees something more! +He smiles, perhaps, a little cynically at the incongruity between the +prospectus and the present development, and then his fancy chuckles at +what his fancy sees in the future. "Eden ain't all built yet,"--that's a +fact. But just think what Eden will be when it is all built! + + * * * * * + +By the way, there is one particularly good thing about the atmosphere; +it prevents our being hit by meteors. The meteor, when it strikes the +upper air, usually ignites, and that is the end of it. There are some +minds that have not enough atmosphere to protect them. They are pelted +continually; whatever is unpleasant comes to them in solid chunks. There +are others more fortunately surrounded, who escape this impact. All that +is seen is a flash in the upper air. They are none the worse for passing +through a meteoric shower of petty misfortunes. + +The mind that is surrounded by an atmosphere of humorous suggestiveness +is also favored in its outlook upon the shortcomings of mankind. Their +angularities are softened and become less uniformly unpleasing. That +fine old English divine, Dr. South, has a sermon in which he defends the +thesis that it is a greater guilt to enjoy the contemplation of our +neighbor's sins than to commit the same offences in our proper persons. +That seems to me to be very hard doctrine. I am inclined to make a +distinction. There are some faults which ought to be taken seriously at +all times, but there are others which the neighbors should be allowed to +enjoy, if they can. + +Indeed, it is the genuine reformer who is seeking to right great wrongs +who most needs the capacity to distinguish between grave evils and +peccadillos. A measure of good-humored tolerance for human weakness is a +part of his equipment for effective work. Lacking in this, he is doomed +to perpetual irritation and disappointment. He mistakes friends for foes +and wages a losing battle. He is likely to be the victim of a moral +egoism which distorts the facts of experience and confuses his personal +whims with his disinterested purposes. His great ideal is lost sight of +in some petty strife. Above all, he loses the power of endurance in the +time of partial failure. + +The contest of wits between the inventors of projectiles and the makers +of armor plate seemed at one time settled by Harvey's process for +rendering the surface of the resisting steel so hard that the missiles +hurled against it were shattered. The answer of the gun-makers was made +by attaching a tip of softer metal to the shell. The soft tip received +the first shock of the impact, and it was found that the penetrating +power of the shell was increased enormously. The scientific explanation +I have forgotten. I may, however, hazard an anthropomorphic +explanation. If there is any human nature in the atoms of steel, I can +see a great advantage in having the softer particles go before the hard, +to have a momentary yielding before the inevitable crash. When they are +hurtling through the air, tense and strained by the initial velocity +till it seems that they must fly apart, it is a great thing to have a +group of good-humored, happy-go-lucky atoms in the front, who call out +cheerily: "Come along, boys! Don't take it too hard; we're in for it." +And sure enough, before they have time to fall apart they are in. Those +whose thoughts and purposes have most penetrated the hard prejudices of +their time have learned this lesson. + +Your unhumorous reformer, with painful intensity of moral +self-consciousness, cries out:-- + + "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, + That ever I was born to set it right!" + +He takes himself and his cause always with equal seriousness. He hurls +himself against the accumulated wrongs and the invincible ignorance of +the world, and there is a great crash; but somehow, the world seems to +survive the shock better than he does. It is a tough old world, and +bears a great deal of pounding. Indeed, it has been pounded so much and +so long that it has become quite solid. + +Now and then, however, there comes along a reformer whose zeal is tipped +with humor. His thought penetrates where another man's is only +shattered. That is what made Luther so effective. He struck heavy blows +at the idols men adored. But he was such a genial, whole-souled +iconoclast that those who were most shocked at him could not help liking +him--between times. He would give a smashing blow at the idol, and then +a warm hand grasp and a hearty "God bless you" to the idolater; and then +idolater and iconoclast would be down on the floor together, trying to +see if there were any pieces of the idol worth saving. It was all so +unexpected and so incongruous and so shocking, and yet so unaffectedly +religious and so surprisingly the right thing to do, that the upshot of +it all was that people went away saying, "Dr. Martin isn't such a bad +fellow, after all." + +Luther's "Table Talk" penetrated circles which were well protected +against his theological treatises. Men were conscious of a good humor +even in his invective; for he usually gave them time to see the kindly +twinkle in his eye before he knocked them down. + +In order to engage Karlstadt in a controversy, Luther drew out a florin +from his pocket and cried heartily, "Take it! Attack me boldly!" +Karlstadt took it, put it in his purse, and gave it to Luther. Luther +then drank to his health. Then Karlstadt pledged Luther. Then Luther +said, "The more violent your attacks, the more I shall be delighted." +Then they gave each other their hands and parted. One can almost be +reconciled to theological controversy, when it is conducted in a manner +so truly sportsmanlike. + +Luther had a way of characterizing a person in a sentence, that was much +more effective than his labored vituperation (in which, it must be +confessed, he was a master). Thus, speaking of the attitude of Erasmus, +he said, "Erasmus stands looking at creation like a calf at a new door." +It was very unjust to Erasmus, and yet the picture sticks in the mind; +for it is such a perfect characterization of the kind of mind that we +are all acquainted with, which looks at the marvels of creation with the +wide-eyed gaze of bovine youthfulness, curious, not to know how that +door came there, but only to know whether it leads to something to eat. + +The humor of Luther suggests that of Abraham Lincoln. Both were men of +the people, and their humor had a flavor of the soil. They were alike +capable of deep dejection, but each found relief in spontaneous +laughter. The surprise of the grave statesman when Lincoln would preface +a discussion with a homely anecdote of the frontier was of the same kind +felt by the sixteenth-century theologians when Luther turned aside from +his great arguments, which startled Europe, to tell a merry tale in +ridicule of the pretensions of the monks. + +If I were to speak of the humorist as a philosopher, some of the gravest +of the philosophers would at once protest. Humor, they say, has no place +in their philosophy; and they are quite right. Indeed, it is doubtful if +a humorist would ever make a good, systematic philosopher. He is a +modest person. He is only a gleaner following the reapers; but he +manages to pick up a great many grains of wisdom which they overlook. + +Dante pictures the sages of antiquity as forever walking on a verdant +mead, "with eyes slow and grave, and with great authority in their +looks;" as if, in the other world, they were continually oppressed by +the wisdom they had acquired in this. But I can imagine a gathering of +philosophers in a different fashion. Gravely they have come, each +bearing his ponderous volume, in which he has explained the universe and +settled the destiny of mankind. Then, suddenly, in contrast with their +theories, the reality is disclosed. The incorrigible pedants and +dogmatists turn away in sullen disappointment; but from all true lovers +of wisdom there arises a peal of mellow laughter, as each one realizes +the enormous incongruity between what he knew and what he thought he +knew. + +The discovery that things are not always as they seem is one that some +people make in this world. They get a glimpse of something that is going +on behind the scenes, and their smile is very disconcerting to the sober +spectators around them. + +Sometimes it is the bitter smile of disillusion. Matthew Arnold wrote of +Heine:-- + + "The Spirit of the world, + Beholding the absurdity of men,-- + Their vaunts, their feats,--let a sardonic smile, + For one short moment, wander o'er his lips. + That smile was Heine." + +But there is another kind of smile evoked by the incongruity between the +appearance and the reality. It is the smile that comes when behind some +mask that had affrighted us we recognize a familiar and friendly face. +There is a smile which is not one of disillusion. There is a philosophy +which is dissolved in humor. The wise man sees the incongruities +involved in the very nature of things. They are the result of the free +play of various forces. To his quick insight the actual world is no more +like the formal descriptions of it than the successive attitudes of a +galloping horse are like the pose of an equestrian statue. His mind +catches instantaneous views of this world as its elements are +continually dissolving and recombining. It is all very surprising, and +he smiles as he sees how much better they turn out than might be +expected. + + "Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say + Endless dirges to decay. + + * * * * * + + And yet it seemeth not to me + That the high gods love tragedy; + For Saadi sat in the sun. + + * * * * * + + Sunshine in his heart transferred, + Lighted each transparent word. + + * * * * * + + And thus to Saadi said the Muse: + 'Eat thou the bread which men refuse; + Flee from the goods which from thee flee; + Seek nothing,--Fortune seeketh thee. + + * * * * * + + On thine orchard's edge belong + All the brags of plume and song. + + * * * * * + + Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, + A poet or a friend to find: + Behold, he watches at the door! + Behold his shadow on the floor!'" + +In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom says, "I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence." +But there is another member of the household. It is Humor, sister of +serene Wisdom and of the heavenly Prudence. She does not often laugh, +and when she does it is mostly at her sister Wisdom, who cannot long +resist the infection. There is not one set smile upon her face, as if +she contemplated an altogether amusing world. The smiles that come and +go are shy, elusive things, but they cannot remain long in hiding. + +Wisdom, from her high house, takes wide views, and Prudence peers +anxiously into the future; but gentle Humor loves to take short views; +she delights in homely things, and continually finds surprises in that +which is most familiar. Wisdom goes on laborious journeys, and comes +home bringing her treasures from afar; and Humor matches them, every +one, with what she has found in the dooryard. + + + + +Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts + + +That was a curious state of things in Salem village. There was the +Meeting-House in plain sight, with sermons every Sunday and lectures on +week-days. There were gospel privileges for all, and the path of duty +was evident enough for the simplest understanding. Nevertheless, certain +persons who should have listened to the sermons, when they heard the +sound of a trumpet hied to the rendezvous of witches. When haled before +the court their only answer was that they couldn't help it. + +The ministers were disturbed, but being thorough-going men, they did not +rest content with academic discussion of the question of the falling-off +in church attendance. They inquired into its cause, and became +convinced that they were dealing with sorcery. All this is duly set down +in Increase Mather's treatise on "Cases of Conscience concerning +Witchcrafts." + +This method of inquisition is commended to those writers who look upon +the Gentle Reader's love of Romance as a deadly sin. The trouble, as I +understand it, is this. A number of gentlemen devoted to literature have +cultivated style till it is as near a state of utter perfection as human +nature will tolerate. Indeed, they emulate that classic writer of whom +Roger Ascham remarked that he labored "with uncontented care to write +better than he could." They have attained such accuracy of observation +and such skill in the choice of words that the man in the book is as +like to the man on the street as two peas. They are also skilled in +criticism and are able to prove that it is our duty not only to admire +but also to read their books. The complaint is that the readers, instead +of walking in the path of duty, troop off after some mere story-teller +who has never passed an examination in Pathology, and who is utterly +incapable of making an exhaustive analysis of motives. + +The Gentle Reader when he hears the accusations of the stern realists +makes no denial of the facts. He admits that he likes a good story +better than an involved study of character. He listens to the reproofs +with the helplessness of one who has only the frail barrier of a +personal taste to shield him from the direct blow of the categorical +imperative. If personal taste were to be accepted as a sufficient plea, +he is aware that the most besotted inebriate would go unwhipped of +justice. In this predicament he shields himself behind his favorite +authors. If there be a fault it is theirs, not his. They have bewitched +him by their spells. It is impossible for him to withstand the potent +enchantments of these wizards. + +I am inclined to think that there is much justice in this view of the +matter and that the militant realists should turn their attention from +the innocent reader to those who have power to bewitch him. + +The accepted signs of witchcraft, as enumerated by the Mathers, are +present. Thus we are told: "A famous Divine recites among other +Convictions of a Witch, the Testimony of the Party bewitched, together +with the joint Oaths of sufficient Persons that they have seen +Prodigious Pranks or Feats wrought by the Party accused." + +This was the kind of evidence relied upon in the case of G. B. in the +Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Salem in 1692. "He was accused by +Nine Persons for extraordinary Lifting and such Feats of Strength as +could not be done without Diabolical Assistance." It was said that +"though he was a Puny Man yet he had done things beyond the strength of +a Giant. A Gun of about seven foot Barrel, and so heavy that strong Men +could not steadily hold it out with both hands; there were several +Testimonies that he made nothing of taking up such a Gun behind the +Lock, with one hand, and holding it out like a Pistol at arm's end." Any +readers of romance can tell of many such prodigious pranks which, while +the spell was upon them, seemed altogether credible. + +The test which was looked upon as infallible by those judicious judges +who put little confidence in the flotation of witches on the mill pond, +was that of the lack of intellectual consistency. "Faltering, faulty, +inconstant, and contrary answers upon judicial and deliberate +Examination are accounted unlucky symptoms of guilt." + +Such inconsistencies may be found in all romantic fiction; yet the +magicians seem to have the power to make all things appear probable. I +might tell what a pleasant thrill is sometimes produced by these +sorceries, but I had better follow the policy of Cotton Mather, who +declined to tell all he knew about the Invisible World, lest he might +make witchcraft too attractive. "I will not speak plainly lest I should, +unaware, poison some of my Readers, as the pious Hermingius did one of +his Pupils when he only by way of Diversion recited a Spell." + +Cotton Mather makes a suggestion which is of value in regard to the +different grades of witches and other wonder-working spirits. His +remarks upon this head are so judicious that they should be quoted in +full. + +"Thirdly, 'tis to be supposed, that some _Devils_ are more peculiarly +_Commission'd_, and perhaps _Qualify'd_, for some Countries, while +others are for others. This is intimated when in _Mar_. 5. 10. The +Devils _besought_ our Lord much, _that he would not send them away out +of the Countrey_. Why was that? But in all probability, because _these +Devils_ were more able to _do the works of the Devil_, in such a +Countrey, than in another. It is not likely that every Devil does know +every _Language_; or that every Devil can do every _Mischief_. 'Tis +possible, that the _Experience_, or, if I may call it so, the +_Education_ of all Devils is not alike, and that there may be some +difference in their _Abilities_. If one might make an Inference from +what the Devils _do_, to what they _are_, One cannot forbear dreaming, +that there are _degrees_ of Devils. Who can allow, that such Trifling +_Demons_, as that of _Mascon_, or those that once infested our +New-berry, are of so much Grandeur, as those _Demons_, whose Games are +mighty Kingdoms? Yea, 'tis certain, that all Devils do not make a like +figure in the _Invisible World_. Nor does it look agreeably, That the +_Demons_, which were Familiars of such a Man as the old _Apollonius_, +differ not from those baser Goblins that chuse to Nest in the filthy and +loathsome Rags of a beastly Sorceress. Accordingly, why may not some +Devils be more accomplished for what is to be done in such and such +places, when others must be _detach'd_ for other Territories? Each +Devil, as he sees his advantage, cries out, _Let me be in this Countrey, +rather than another_." + +It is only on the theory of bewitchment by a trifling demon who belongs +to the lower orders of the literary world that I can account for the sad +fall of the reader whose confession follows. Carefully shielded in his +youth from all the enticements of the imagination, he yet fell from +grace. The unfortunate person seems to be lacking in strength of will, +and yet to have some good in him. In my opinion he was more sinned +against than sinning. But I will let him tell his story in his own way. + + +A CONFESSION + +One half the world does not know what the other half reads; but good +people are now taught that the first requisite of sociological virtue is +to interest themselves in the other half. I therefore venture to call +attention to a book that has pleased me, though my delight in it may at +once class me with the "submerged tenth" of the reading public. It is +"The Pirate's Own Book." + +By way of preface to a discussion of this volume, let me make a personal +explanation of the causes which led me to its perusal. My reading of +such a book cannot be traced to early habit. In my boyhood I had no +opportunity to study the careers of pirates, for I was confined to +another variety of literature. On Sunday afternoons I read aloud a book +called "The Afflicted Man's Companion." The unfortunate gentleman +portrayed in this work had a large assortment of afflictions,--if I +remember rightly, one for each day of the month,--but among them was +nothing so exciting as being marooned in the South Seas. Indeed, his +afflictions were of a generalized and abstract kind, which he could have +borne with great cheerfulness had it not been for the consolations which +were remorselessly administered to him. + +If I have become addicted to tales of piracy, I must attribute it to the +literary criticisms of too strenuous realists. Before I read them, I +took an innocent pleasure in romantic fiction. Without any compunction +of conscience I rejoiced in Walter Scott; and when he failed I was +pleased even with his imitators. My heart leaped up when I beheld a +solitary horseman on the first page, and I did not forsake the horseman, +even though I knew he was to be personally conducted through his journey +by Mr. G. P. R. James. Fenimore Cooper, in those days, before I was +awakened to the nature of literary sin, I found altogether pleasant. The +cares of the world faded away, and a soothing conviction of the +essential rightness of things came over me, as the pioneers and Indians +discussed in deliberate fashion the deepest questions of the universe, +between shots. As for stories of the sea, I never thought of being +critical. I was ready to take thankfully anything with a salty flavor, +from "Sindbad the Sailor" to Mr. Clark Russell. I had no inconvenient +knowledge to interfere with my enjoyment. All nautical language was +alike impressive, and all nautical manoeuvres were to me alike +perilous. It would have been a poor Ancient Mariner who could not have +enthralled me, when + + "He held me with his skinny hand; + 'There was a ship,' quoth he." + +And if the ship had raking masts and no satisfactory clearance papers, +that was enough; as to what should happen, I left that altogether to +the author. That the laws of probability held on the Spanish Main as on +dry land, I never dreamed. + +But after being awakened to the sin of romance, I saw that to read a +novel merely for recreation is not permissible. The reader must be put +upon oath, and before he allows himself to enjoy any incident must swear +that everything is exactly true to life as he has seen it. All vagabonds +and sturdy vagrants who have no visible means of support, in the present +order of things, are to be driven out of the realm of well-regulated +fiction. Among these are included all knights in armor; all rightful +heirs with a strawberry mark; all horsemen, solitary or otherwise; all +princes in disguise; all persons who are in the habit of saying +"prithee," or "Odzooks," or "by my halidome;" all fair ladies who have +no irregularities of feature and no realistic incoherencies of speech; +all lovers who fall in love at first sight, and who are married at the +end of the book and live happily ever after; all witches, +fortune-tellers, and gypsies; all spotless heroes and deep-dyed +villains; all pirates, buccaneers, North American Indians with a taste +for metaphysics; all scouts, hunters, trappers, and other individuals +who do not wear store clothes. According to this decree, all readers are +forbidden to aid and abet these persons, or to give them shelter in +their imagination. A reader who should incite a writer of fiction to +romance would be held as an accessory before the fact. + +After duly repenting of my sins and renouncing my old acquaintances, I +felt a preeminent virtue. Had I met the Three Guardsmen, one at a time +or all together, I should have passed them by without stopping for a +moment's converse. I should have recognized them for the impudent +Gascons that they were, and should have known that there was not a word +of truth in all their adventures. As for Stevenson's fine old pirate, +with his contemptible song about a "dead men's chest and a bottle of +rum," I should not have tolerated him for an instant. Instead, I should +have turned eagerly to some neutral-tinted person who never had any +adventure greater than missing the train to Dedham, and I should have +analyzed his character, and agitated myself in the attempt to get at his +feelings, and I should have verified his story by a careful reference +to the railway guide. I should have treated that neutral-tinted +character as a problem, and I should have noted all the delicate shades +in the futility of his conduct. When, on any occasion that called for +action, he did not know his own mind, I should have admired him for his +resemblance to so many of my acquaintances who do not know their own +minds. After studying the problem until I came to the last chapter, I +should suddenly have given it up, and agreed with the writer that it had +no solution. In my self-righteousness, I despised the old-fashioned +reader who had been lured on in the expectation that at the last moment +something thrilling might happen. + +But temptations come at the unguarded point. I had hardened myself +against romance in fiction, but I had not been sufficiently warned +against romance in the guise of fact. When in a book-stall I came upon +"The Pirate's Own Book," it seemed to answer a felt want. Here at least, +outside the boundaries of strict fiction, I could be sure of finding +adventure, and feel again with Sancho Panza "how pleasant it is to go +about in expectation of accidents." + +I am well aware that good literature--to use Matthew Arnold's phrase--is +a criticism of life. But the criticism of life, with its discriminations +between things which look very much alike, is pretty serious business. +We cannot keep on criticising life without getting tired after a while, +and longing for something a little simpler. There is a much-admired +passage in Ferishtah's Fancies, in which, after mixing up the beans in +his hands and speculating on their color, Ferishtah is not able to tell +black from white. Ferishtah, living in a soothing climate, could stand +an indefinite amount of this sort of thing; and, moreover, we must +remember that he was a dervish, and dervishry, although a steady +occupation, is not exacting in its requirements. In our more stimulating +climate, we should bring on nervous prostration if we gave ourselves +unremittingly to the discrimination between all the possible variations +of blackishness and whitishness. We must relieve our minds by +occasionally finding something about which there can be no doubt. When +my eyes rested on the woodcut that adorns the first page of "The +Pirate's Own Book," I felt the rest that comes from perfect certainty in +my own moral judgment. Ferishtah himself could not have mixed me up. +Here was black without a redeeming spot. On looking upon this pirate, I +felt relieved from any criticism of life; here was something beneath +criticism. I was no longer tossed about on a chop sea, with its +conflicting waves of feeling and judgment, but was borne along +triumphantly on a bounding billow of moral reprobation. + +As I looked over the headings of the chapters, I was struck by their +straightforward and undisguised character. When I read the chapter +entitled The Savage Appearance of the Pirates, and compared this with +the illustrations, I said, "How true!" Then there was a chapter on the +Deceitful Character of the Malays. I had always suspected that the +Malays were deceitful, and here I found my impressions justified by +competent authority. Then I dipped into the preface, and found the same +transparent candor. "A piratical crew," says the author, "is generally +formed of the desperadoes and renegades of every clime and nation." +Again I said, "Just what I should have expected. The writer is evidently +one who 'nothing extenuates.'" Then follows a further description of +the pirate: "The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, +when not cruising on the ocean, that great highway of nations, selects +the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or secretes himself +near the shores of bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited +countries." Just the places where I should have expected him to settle. + +"The pirate, when not engaged in robbing, passes his time in singing old +songs with choruses like,-- + + 'Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul! + Let the world wag as it will; + Let the heavens growl, let the devil howl, + Drain, drain the deep bowl and fill!' + +Thus his hours of relaxation are passed in wild and extravagant frolics, +amongst the lofty forests and spicy groves of the torrid zone, and +amidst the aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable products of that +region." + +Again: "With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich +plunder,--caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of +outlandish coins, secreted in lonely out-of-the-way places, or buried +about the wild shores of rivers and unexplored seacoasts, near rocks +and trees bearing mysterious marks, indicating where the treasure is +hid." "As it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his booty, +and from the perilous life he lives being often killed, he can never +revisit the spot again, immense sums remaining buried in these places +are irrevocably lost." Is it any wonder that, with such an introduction, +I became interested? + +After a perusal of the book, I am inclined to think that a pirate may be +a better person to read about than some persons who stand higher in the +moral scale. Compare, if you will, a pirate and a pessimist. As a +citizen and neighbor I should prefer the pessimist. A pessimist is an +excellent and highly educated gentleman, who has been so unfortunate as +to be born into a world which is inadequate to his expectations. +Naturally he feels that he has a grievance, and in airing his grievance +he makes himself unpopular; but it is certainly not his fault that the +universe is no better than it is. On the other hand, a pirate is a bad +character; yet as a subject of biography he is more inspiring than the +pessimist. In one case, we have the impression of one good man in a +totally depraved world; in the other case, we have a totally depraved +man in what but for him would be a very good world. I know of nothing +that gives one a more genial appreciation of average human nature, or a +greater tolerance for the foibles of one's acquaintances, than the +contrast with an unmitigated pirate. + +My copy of "The Pirate's Own Book" belongs to the edition of 1837. On +the fly-leaf it bore in prim handwriting the name of a lady who for many +years must have treasured it. I like to think of this unknown lady in +connection with the book. I know that she must have been an excellent +soul, and I have no doubt that her New England conscience pointed to the +moral law as the needle to the pole; but she was a wise woman, and knew +that if she was to keep her conscience in good repair she must give it +some reasonable relaxation. I am sure that she was a woman of versatile +philanthropy, and that every moment she had the ability to make two +duties grow where only one had grown before. After, however, attending +the requisite number of lectures to improve her mind, and considering in +committees plans to improve other people's minds forcibly, and going to +meetings to lament over the condition of those who had no minds to +improve, this good lady would feel that she had earned a right to a few +minutes' respite. So she would take up "The Pirate's Own Book," and feel +a creepy sensation that would be an effectual counter-irritant to all +her anxieties for the welfare of the race. Things might be going slowly, +and there were not half as many societies as there ought to be, and the +world might be in a bad way; but then it was not so bad as it was in the +days of Black Beard; and the poor people who did not have any societies +to belong to were, after all, not so badly off as the sailors whom the +atrocious Nicola left on a desert island, with nothing but a blunderbuss +and Mr. Brooks's Family Prayer Book. In fact, it is expressly stated +that the pirates refused to give them a cake of soap. To be on a desert +island destitute of soap made the common evils of life appear trifling. +She had been worried about the wicked people who would not do their +duty, however faithfully they had been prodded up to it, who would not +be life members on payment of fifty dollars, and who would not be +annual members on payment of a dollar and signing the constitution, and +who in their hard and impenitent hearts would not even sit on the +platform at the annual meeting; but somehow their guilt seemed less +extreme after she had studied again the picture of Captain Kidd burying +his Bible in the sands near Plymouth. A man who would bury his Bible, +using a spade several times too large for him, and who would strike such +a world-defying attitude while doing it, made the sin of not joining the +society appear almost venial. In this manner she gained a certain moral +perspective; even after days when the public was unusually dilatory +about reforms, and the wheels of progress had begun to squeak, she would +get a good night's sleep. Contrasting the public with the black +background of absolute piracy, she grew tolerant of its shortcomings, +and learned the truth of George Herbert's saying, that "pleasantness of +disposition is a great key to do good." + +Not only is a pirate a more comfortable person to read about than a +pessimist, but in many respects he is a more comfortable person to read +about than a philanthropist. The minute the philanthropist is +introduced, the author begins to show his own cleverness by discovering +flaws in his motives. You begin to see that the poor man has his +limitations. Perhaps his philanthropies are of a different kind from +yours, and that irritates you. Musical people, whom I have heard +criticise other musical people, seem more offended when some one flats +just a little than when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and +moralists are apt to have the same fastidiousness. The philanthropist is +made the victim of the most cruel kind of vivisection,--a +character-study. + +Here is a fragment of conversation from a study of character: "'That was +really heroic,' said Felix. 'That was what he wanted to do,' Gertrude +went on. 'He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral +pleasure; he made up his mind to do his duty; he felt sublime,--that's +how he likes to feel.'" + +This leaves the mind in a painful state of suspense. The first instinct +of the unsophisticated reader is that if the person has done a good +deed, we ought not to begrudge him a little innocent pleasure in it. If +he is magnanimous, why not let him feel magnanimous? But after Gertrude +has made these subtle suggestions we begin to experience something like +antipathy for a man who is capable of having a fine moral pleasure; who +not only does his duty, but really likes to do it. There is something +wrong about him, and it is all the more aggravating because we are not +sure just what it is. There is no trouble of that kind in reading about +pirates. You cannot make a character-study out of a pirate,--he has no +character. You know just where to place him. You do not expect anything +good of him, and when you find a sporadic virtue you are correspondingly +elated. + +For example, I am pleased to read of the pirate Gibbs that he was +"affable and communicative, and when he smiled he exhibited a mild and +gentle countenance. His conversation was concise and pertinent, and his +style of illustration quite original." If Gibbs had been a +philanthropist, it is doubtful whether these social and literary graces +would have been so highly appreciated. + +So our author feels a righteous glow when speaking of the natives of the +Malabar coasts, and accounting for their truthfulness: "For as they had +been used to deal with pirates, they always found them men of honor in +the way of trade,--a people enemies of deceit, and that scorned to rob +but in their own way." + +He is a very literal-minded person, and takes all his pirates seriously, +but often we are surprised by some touch of nature that makes the whole +world kin. There was the ferocious Benevedes, who flourished on the west +coast of South America, and who, not content with sea power, attempted +to gather an army. It is said that "a more finished picture of a pirate +cannot be conceived," and the description that follows certainly bears +out this assertion. Yet he had his own ideas of civilization, and a +power of adaptation that reminds us of the excellent and ingenious Swiss +Family Robinson. When he captures the American whaling-ship Herculia, we +are prepared for a wild scene of carnage; but instead we are told that +Benevedes immediately dismantled the ship, and "out of the sails made +trousers for half his army." After the trousers had been distributed, +Benevedes remarked that his army was complete except in one essential +particular,--he had no trumpets for the cavalry: whereupon, at the +suggestion of the New Bedford skipper, he ripped off the copper sheets +of the vessel, out of which a great variety of copper trumpets were +quickly manufactured, and soon "the whole camp resounded with the +warlike blasts." While the delighted pirates were enjoying their +instrumental music, the skipper and nine of the crew took occasion to +escape in a boat which had been imprudently concealed on the river bank. + +In the "Proverbial Philosophy" we are told that + + "Many virtues weighted by excess sink among the vices, + Many vices, amicably buoyed, float among the virtues." + +Had Mr. Tupper been acquainted with the career of Captain Davis of the +Spanish Main, he would have found many apt illustrations of his thesis. +Captain Davis had the vices incidental to a piratical career, but they +were amicably buoyed up by some virtues which would have adorned a +different station in life. He was a great stickler for parliamentary +law, and everything under his direction was done decently and in order. +Whenever it was possible, he made his demands in writing, a method which +was business-like and left no room for misunderstanding. After a sloop +had been seized and duly pillaged, we are informed that:-- + +"In full possession of the vessel and stores and goods, a large bowl of +punch was made. Under its exhilarating influence it was proposed to +choose a commander, and to form a future mode of policy. The election +was soon over and a large majority of legal voters were in favor of +Davis, and, no scrutiny being demanded, Davis was declared duly elected. +He then addressed them in a short and appropriate speech." + +The chief virtue of Davis seemed to be neatness, which on one occasion +he used to admirable advantage. "Encountering a French ship of +twenty-four guns, Davis proposed to the crew to attack her, assuring +them that she would prove a rich prize. This appeared to the crew such a +hazardous enterprise that they were adverse to the measure; but he +acquainted them that he had conceived a stratagem that he was confident +would succeed." + +This stratagem was worthy of the Beau Brummel of pirates. At the +critical moment, the crew "according to the direction of Davis appeared +on deck in white shirts, which making an appearance of numbers the +Frenchman was intimidated and struck." Why the white shirts should have +given the appearance of numbers it is difficult to understand, but we +can well understand the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' +immaculate attire. + +Most of the pirates seem to have conducted their lives on a highly +romantic, not to say sensational plan. This reprehensible practice, of +course, must shut them off from the sympathy of all realists of the +stricter school, who hold that there should be no dramatic situations, +and that even when a story is well begun it should not be brought to a +finish, but should "peter out" in the last chapters, no one knows how or +why. Sometimes, however, a pirate manages to come to an end sufficiently +commonplace to make a plot for a most irreproachable novel. There was +Captain Avery. He commenced the practice of his profession very +auspiciously by running away with a ship of thirty guns from Bristol. In +the Indian Ocean he captured a treasure-ship of the Great Mogul. In this +ship, it is said, "there were several of the greatest persons of the +court." There was also on board the daughter of the Great Mogul, who +was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The painstaking historian comments on this +very justly: "It is well known that the people of the East travel with +great magnificence, so that they had along with them all their slaves, +with a large quantity of vessels of gold and silver and immense sums of +money. The spoil, therefore, that Avery received from that ship was +almost incalculable." To capture the treasure-ship of the Great Mogul +under such circumstances would have turned the head of any ordinary +pirate who had weakened his mind by reading works tinged with +romanticism. His companions, when the treasure was on board, wished to +sail to Madagascar, and there build a small fort; but "Avery +disconcerted the plan and rendered it altogether unnecessary." We know +perfectly well what these wretches would have done if they had been +allowed to have their own way: they would have gathered in one of the +spicy groves, and would have taken up vociferously their song,-- + + "Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul! + Let the world wag as it will." + +Avery would have none of this, so when most of the men were away from +the ship he sailed off with the treasure, leaving them to their evil +ways, and to a salutary poverty. Here begins the realism of the story. +With the treasures of the Great Mogul in his hold, he did not follow the +illusive course of Captain Kidd, "as he sailed, as he sailed." He did +not even lay his course for the "coasts of Coromandel." Instead of that +he made a bee-line for America, with the laudable intention of living +there "in affluence and honor." When he got to America, however, he did +not know what to do with himself, and still less what to do with the +inestimable pearls and diamonds of the Great Mogul. An ordinary pirate +of romance would have escaped to the Spanish Main, but Avery did just +what any realistic gentleman would do: after he had spent a short time +in other cities--he concluded to go to Boston. The chronicler adds, +"Arriving at Boston, he almost resolved to settle there." It was in the +time of the Mathers. But in spite of its educational and religious +advantages, Boston furnished no market for the gems of the Orient, so +Captain Avery went to England. If he had in his youth read a few +detective stories, he might have known how to get his jewels exchanged +for the current coin of the realm; but his early education had been +neglected, and he was of a singularly confiding and unsophisticated +nature--when on land. After suffering from poverty he made the +acquaintance of some wealthy merchants of Bristol, who took his gems on +commission, on condition that they need not inquire how he came by them. +That was the last Avery saw of the gems of the Great Mogul. A plain +pirate was no match for financiers. Remittances were scanty, though +promises were frequent. What came of it all? Nothing came of it; things +simply dragged along. Avery was not hanged, neither did he get his +money. At last, on a journey to Bristol to urge the merchants to a +settlement, he fell sick and died. What became of the gems? Nobody +knows. What became of those merchants of Bristol? Nobody cares. A +novelist might, out of such material, make an ending quite clever and +dreary. + +To this realistic school of pirates belongs Thomas Veal, known in our +history as the "Pirate of Lynn." To turn from the chapter on the Life, +Atrocities, and Bloody Death of Black Beard to the chapter on the Lynn +Pirate, is a relief to the overstrained sensibilities. Lynn is in the +temperate zone, and we should naturally reason that its piracies would +be more calm and equable than those of the tropics, and so they were. +"On one pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen +to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently +lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the +river." It is needless to say that these men were pirates. In the +morning the vessel had disappeared, but a man found a paper whereon was +a statement that if a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and hatchets were +placed in a certain nook, silver would be deposited near by to pay for +them. The people of Lynn in those days were thrifty folk, and the +hardware was duly placed in the spot designated, and the silver was +found as promised. After some months four pirates came and settled in +the woods. The historian declares it to be his opinion (and he speaks as +an expert) that it would be impossible to select a place more convenient +for a gang of pirates. He draws particular attention to the fact that +the "ground was well selected for the cultivation of potatoes and common +vegetables." This shows that the New England environment gave an +industrial and agricultural cast to piracy which it has not had +elsewhere. In fact, after reading the whole chapter, I am struck by the +pacific and highly moral character of these pirates. The last of +them--Thomas Veal--took up his abode in what is described as a "spacious +cavern," about two miles from Lynn. "There the fugitive fixed his +residence, and practiced the trade of a shoemaker, occasionally coming +down to the village to obtain articles of sustenance." By uniting the +occupations of market-gardening, shoe-making, and piracy, Thomas Veal +managed to satisfy the demands of a frugal nature, and to live respected +by his neighbors in Lynn. It must have been a great alleviation in the +lot of the small boys, when now and then they escaped from the eyes of +the tithing-men, and in the cave listened to Mr. Veal singing his +pirate's songs. Of course a solo could give only a faint conception of +what the full chorus would have been in the tropical forests, but still +it must have curdled the blood to a very considerable extent. + +There is, I must confess, a certain air of vagueness about this +interesting narration. No overt act of piracy is mentioned. Indeed, the +evidence in regard to the piratical character of Mr. Veal, so far as it +is given in this book, is largely circumstantial. + +There is, first, the geographical argument. The Saugus River, being a +winding stream, was admirably adapted for the resort of pirates who +wished to prey upon the commerce of Boston and Salem. This establishes +the opportunity and motive, and renders it antecedently probable that +piracy was practiced. The river, it is said, was a good place in which +to secrete boats. This we know from our reading was the invariable +practice of pirates. + +Another argument is drawn from the umbrageous character of the Lynn +woods. We are told with nice particularity that in this tract of country +"there were many thick pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and places where the +rays of the sun at noon could not penetrate." Such a place would be just +the spot in which astute pirates would be likely to bury their treasure, +confident that it would never be discovered. The fact that nothing ever +has been discovered here seems to confirm this supposition. + +The third argument is that while a small cave still remains, the +"spacious cavern" in which Thomas Veal, the piratical shoemaker, is said +to have dwelt no longer exists. This clinches the evidence. For there +was an earthquake in 1658. What more likely than that, in the +earthquake, "the top of the rock was loosened and crushed down into the +mouth of the cavern, inclosing the unfortunate inmate in its unyielding +prison?" At any rate, there is no record of Mr. Veal or of his spacious +cavern after that earthquake. + +No one deserves to be called an antiquarian who cannot put two and two +together, and reconstruct from these data a more or less elaborate +history of the piracies of Mr. Thomas Veal. The only other explanation +of the facts presented, that I can think of as having any degree of +plausibility, is that possibly Mr. Veal may have been an Anabaptist, +escaped from Boston, who imposed upon the people of Lynn by making them +believe that he was only a pirate. + +I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more +edifying than entertaining. He can never resist the temptation to draw a +moral, and his dogmatic bias in favor of the doctrine of total +depravity is only too evident. But his book has the great advantage that +it is not devoid of incident. Take it all in all, there are worse books +to read--after one is tired of reading books that are better. + +I am inclined to think that our novelists must make home happy, or they +may drive many of their readers to "The Pirate's Own Book." The policy +of the absolute prohibition of romance, while excellent in theory, has +practical difficulties in the way of enforcement. Perhaps, under certain +restrictions, license might be issued to proper persons to furnish +stimulants to the imagination. Of course the romancer should not be +allowed to sell to minors, nor within a certain distance of a +schoolhouse, nor to habitual readers. My position is the conservative +one that commended itself to the judicious Rollo. + +"'Well, Rollo,' said Dorothy, 'shall I tell you a true story, or one +that is not true?' + +"'I think, on the whole, Dorothy, I would rather have it true.'" + +But there must have been times--though none are recorded--when Rollo +tired even of the admirable clear thinking and precise information of +Jonas. At such times he might have tolerated a story that was not so +very true, if only it were interesting. There are main thoroughfares +paved with hard facts where the intellectual traffic must go on +continually. There are tracks on which, if a heedless child of romance +should stray, he is in danger of being run down by the realists, those +grim motor-men of the literary world. But outside the congested +districts there should be some roadways leading out into the open +country where all things are still possible. At the entrance to each of +these roads there ought to be displayed the notice, "For pleasure only. +No heavy teaming allowed." I should not permit any modern improvements +in this district, but I should preserve all its natural features. There +should be not only a feudal castle with moat and drawbridge, but also a +pirate's cave. + + + + +The Honorable Points of Ignorance + + +I happen to live in a community where there is a deeply rooted prejudice +in favor of intelligence, with many facilities for its advancement. I +may, therefore, be looked upon as unmindful of my privileges when I +confess that my chief pleasures have been found in the more secluded +paths of ignorance. + +I am no undiscriminating lover of Ignorance. I do not like the +pitch-black kind which is the negation of all thought. What I prefer is +a pleasant intellectual twilight, where one sees realities through an +entrancing atmosphere of dubiety. + +In visiting a fine old Elizabethan mansion in the south of England our +host took us to a room where he had discovered the evidences of a secret +panel. "What is behind it?" we asked. "I do not know," he answered; +"while I live it shall never be opened, for then I should have no secret +chamber." + +There was a philosopher after my own heart. He was wise enough to resist +the temptation to sell his birthright of mystery for a mess of +knowledge. The rural New Englander expresses his interest by saying, "I +want to know!" But may one not have a real interest in persons and +things which is free from inquisitiveness? For myself, I frequently +prefer not to know. Were Bluebeard to do me the honor of intrusting me +with his keys, I should spend a pleasant half-hour speculating on his +family affairs. I might even put the key in the lock, but I do not think +I should turn it. Why should I destroy twenty exciting possibilities for +the sake of a single discovery? + +I like to watch certain impressive figures as they cross the College +Yard. They seem like the sages whom Dante saw:-- + + "People were there with solemn eyes and slow, + Of great authority in their countenance." + +Do I therefore inquire their names, and intrusively seek to know what +books they have written, before I admire their scholarship? No, to my +old-fashioned way of thinking, scholarship is not a thing to be +measured; it is a mysterious effluence. Were I to see-- + + "Democritus who puts the world on chance, + Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, + Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus, + + * * * * * + + Tully and Livy and moral Seneca, + Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy, + Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna," + +I should not care to ask, "Which is which?" still less should I venture +to interview Galen on the subject of medicine, or put leading questions +to Diogenes. The combined impression of ineffable wisdom would be more +to me than any particular information I might get out of them. + +But, as I said, I am not an enthusiast for Ignorance. Mine is not the +zeal of a new convert, but the sober preference of one to the manner +born. I do not look upon it as a panacea, nor, after the habit of +reformers, would I insist that it should be taught in the public +schools. There are important spheres wherein exact information is much +to be preferred. + +Because Ignorance has its own humble measure of bliss I would not jump +at the conclusion that it is folly to be wise. That is an extravagant +statement. If real wisdom were offered me I should accept it gratefully. +Wisdom is an honorable estate, and, doubtless, it has pleasures of its +own. I only have in mind the alternative that is usually presented to +us, conscious ignorance or a kind of knowingness. + +It is necessary, at this point, to make a distinction. A writer on the +use of words has a chapter on Ignorantism, which is a term he uses to +indicate Ignorance that mistakes itself, or seeks to make others mistake +it, for Knowledge. For Ignorantism I make no plea. If Ignorance puts on +a false uniform and is caught within the enemy's lines, it must suffer +the penalties laid down in the laws of war. + +Nor would I defend what Milton calls "the barbarous ignorance of the +schools." This scholastic variety consists of the scientific definition +and classification of "things that aren't so." It has no value except as +a sort of gelatine culture for the propagation of verbal bacteria. + +But the affectations of the pedants or the sciolists should not be +allowed to cast discredit on the fair name of Ignorance. It is only +natural Ignorance which I praise; not that which is acquired. It was a +saying of Landor that if a man had a large mind he could afford to let +the greater part of it lie fallow. Of course we small proprietors cannot +do things on such a generous scale; but it seems to me that if one has +only a little mind it is a mistake to keep it all under cultivation. + +I hope that this praise of Ignorance may not give offense to any +intelligent reader who may feel that he is placed by reason of his +acquirements beyond the pale of our sympathies. He need fear no such +exclusion. My Lady Ignorance is gracious and often bestows her choicest +gifts on those who scorn her. The most erudite person is intelligent +only in spots. Browning's Bishop Blougram questioned whether he should +be called a skeptic or believer, seeing that he could only exchange + + "a life of doubt diversified by faith, + For one of faith diversified by doubt: + We called the chess-board white,--we call it black." + +Whether a person thinks of his own intellectual state as one of +knowledge diversified by ignorance or one of ignorance diversified by +knowledge is a matter of temperament. We like him better when he frankly +calls his intellectual chess-board black. That, at any rate, was the +original color, the white is an afterthought. + +Let me, then, without suspicion of treasonable intent, be allowed to +point out what we may call in Shakespearean phrase "the honorable points +of ignorance." + +The social law against "talking shop" is an indication of the very +widespread opinion that the exhibition of unmitigated knowledge is +unseemly, outside of business hours. When we meet for pleasure we prefer +that it should be on the humanizing ground of not knowing. Nothing is so +fatal to conversation as an authoritative utterance. When a man who is +capable of giving it enters, + + "All talk dies, as in a grove all song + Beneath the shadow of a bird of prey." + +Conversation about the weather would lose all its easy charm in the +presence of the Chief of the Weather Bureau. + +It is possible that the fear of exhibiting unusual information in a +mixed company may be a survival of primitive conditions. Just as the +domesticated dog will turn around on the rug before lying down, for +hereditary reasons which I do not remember, so it is with civilized man. +Once ignorance was universal and enforced by penalties. In the progress +of the race the environment has been modified, but so strong is the +influence of heredity that The Man Who Knows no sooner enters the +drawing-room than he is seized by guilty fears. His ancestors for having +exhibited a moiety of his intelligence were executed as wizards. But +perhaps the ordinary working of natural selection may account for the +facts. The law of the survival of the fittest admits of no exceptions, +and the fittest to give us pleasure in conversation is the sympathetic +person who appears to know very little more than we do. + +In the commerce of ideas there must be reciprocity. We will not deal +with one who insists that the balance of trade shall always be in his +favor. Moreover there must be a spice of incertitude about the +transaction. The real joy of the intellectual traffic comes when we +sail away like the old merchant adventurers in search of a market. There +must be no prosaic bills of exchange: it must be primitive barter. We +have a choice cargo of beads which we are willing to exchange for +frankincense and ivory. If on some strange coast we should meet +simple-minded people who have only wampum, perhaps even then we might +make a trade. + +Have you never when engaged in such commerce felt something of the +spirit of the grave Tyrian trader who had sailed away from the +frequented marts, and held on + + "O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, + Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, + To where the Atlantic raves + Outside the western straits, and unbent sails + There where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, + Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; + And on the beach undid his corded bales." + +It is not every day that one meets with such shy traffickers, for the +world is becoming very sophisticated. One does not ask that those with +whom we converse should be ignorant of everything; it is enough that +they should not know what is in our bales before we undo them. + +One very serious drawback to our pleasure in conversation with a too +well-informed person is the nervous strain that is involved. We are +always wondering what will happen when he comes to the end of his +resources. After listening to one who discourses with surprising +accuracy upon any particular topic, we feel a delicacy in changing the +subject. It seems a mean trick, like suddenly removing the chair on +which a guest is about to sit down for the evening. With one who is +interested in a great many things he knows little about there is no such +difficulty. If he has passed the first flush of youth, it no longer +embarrasses him to be caught now and then in a mistake; indeed your +correction is welcomed as an agreeable interruption, and serves as a +starting point for a new series of observations. + +The pleasure of conversation is enhanced if one feels assured not only +of wide margins of ignorance, but also of the absence of uncanny +quickness of mind. + +I should not like to be neighbor to a wit. It would be like being in +proximity to a live wire. A certain insulating film of kindly stupidity +is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse. There are +certain minds whose processes convey the impression of alternating +currents of high voltage on a wire that is not quite large enough for +them. From such I would withdraw myself. + +One is freed from all such apprehensions in the companionship of people +who make no pretensions to any kind of cleverness. "The laughter of +fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot." What cheerful +sounds! The crackling of the dry thorns! and the merry bubbling of the +pot! + +There is an important part played by what I may call defensive +Ignorance. It was said of Robert Elsmere that he had a mind that was +defenseless against the truth. It is a fine thing to be thus open to +conviction, but the mental hospitality of one who is without prejudices +is likely to be abused. All sorts of notions importunately demand +attention, and he who thinks to examine all their credentials will find +no time left for his own proper affairs. + +For myself, I like to have a general reception-room in my mind for all +sorts of notions with which I desire to keep up only a calling +acquaintance. Here let them all be welcomed, good, bad, and +indifferent, in the spacious antechamber of my Ignorance. But I am not +able to invite them into my private apartments, for I am living in a +small way in cramped quarters, where there is only room for my own +convictions. There are many things that are interesting to hear about +which I do not care to investigate. If one is willing to give me the +result of his speculations on various esoteric doctrines I am ready to +receive them in the spirit in which they are offered, but I should not +think of examining them closely; it would be too much like looking a +gift horse in the mouth. + +I should like to talk with a Mahatma about the constitution of the +astral body. I do not know enough about the subject to contradict his +assertions, and therefore he would have it all his own way. But were he +to become insistent and ask me to look into the matter for myself, I +should beg to be excused. I would not take a single step alone. In such +a case I agree with Sir Thomas Browne that "it is better to sit down in +modest ignorance and rest contented with the natural blessings of our +own reasons." + +There are zealous persons of a proselyting turn of mind who insist upon +our accepting their ideas or giving reasons for our rejection of them. +When we see the flames of controversy sweeping upon us, the only safety +lies in setting a back fire which shall clear the ground of any fuel for +argument. If we can only surround ourselves with a bare space of +nescience we may rest in peace. I have seen a simple Chinese +laundry-man, by adopting this plan, resist a storm of argument and +invective without losing his temper or yielding his point. Serene, +imperturbable, inscrutable, he stood undisturbed by the strife of +tongues. He had one supreme advantage,--he did not know the language. + +It was thus in the sixteenth century, when religious strife waxed mad +around him, that Montaigne preserved a little spot of tolerant thought. +"O what a soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity +whereon to compose a well-contrived head!" + +This sounds like mere Epicureanism, but Montaigne had much to say for +himself: "Great abuse in the world is begot, or, to speak more boldly, +all the abuses of the world are begot by our being taught to be afraid +of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things +we are not able to refute.... They make me hate things that are likely +when they impose upon me for infallible. I love those words which +mollify and moderate the temerity of our propositions, 'Peradventure, in +some sort, 'tis said, I think,' and the like.... There is a sort of +ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honor and courage +to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge +than knowledge itself." + +Not only is protection needed from the dogmatic assaults of our +neighbors, but also from our own premature ideas. There are opinions +which we are willing to receive on probation, but these probationers +must be taught by judicious snubbing to know their place. The +plausibilities and probabilities that are pleasantly received must not +airily assume the place of certainties. Because you say to a stranger, +"I'm glad to see you," it is not certain that you are ready to sign his +note at the bank. + +When one happens to harbor any ideas of a radical character, he is +fortunate if he is so constituted that it is not necessary for his +self-respect that he should be cock-sure. The consciousness of the +imperfection of his knowledge serves as a buffer when the train of +progress starts with a jerk. + +Sir Thomas More was, it is evident, favorably impressed with many of the +sentiments of the gentleman from Utopia, but it was a great relief to +him to be able to give them currency without committing himself to them. +He makes no dogmatic assertion that the constitution of Utopia was +better than that of the England of Henry VIII. In fact, he professes to +know nothing about Utopia except from mere hearsay. He gracefully +dismisses the subject, allowing the seeds of revolutionary ideas to +float away on the thistle-down of polite Ignorance. + +"When Raphael had made an end of speaking, though many things occurred +to me both concerning the manners and laws of that country that seemed +very absurd ... yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary and I was +not sure whether he could bear contradiction ... I only commended their +constitution and the account he had given of it in general; and so, +taking him by the hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would +find some other time for examining this subject more particularly and +discoursing more copiously upon it." + + * * * * * + +One whose quiet tastes lead him away from the main traveled roads into +the byways of Ignorance is likely to retain a feeling in regard to books +which belongs to an earlier stage of culture. Time was when a book was a +symbol of intellectual mysteries rather than a tool to be used. When +Omar Khayyam sang of the delights of a jug of wine and a book, I do not +think he was intemperate in the use of either. The same book and the +same jug of wine would last him a long time. The chief thing was that it +gave him a comfortable feeling to have them within reach. + +The primitive feeling in regard to a book as a kind of talisman survives +chiefly among bibliophiles, but with them it is overlaid by matters of +taste which are quite beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. As +for myself, I know nothing of such niceties. + +I know nothing of rare bindings or fine editions. My heart is never +disturbed by coveting the contents of my neighbor's bookshelves. +Indeed, I have always listened to the tenth commandment with a tranquil +heart since I learned, in the Shorter Catechism, that "the tenth +commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying +or grieving at the good of our neighbor and all inordinate motions and +affections to anything that is his." If that be all, it is not aimed at +me, particularly in this matter of books. + +I feel no discontentment at the disorderly array of bound volumes that I +possess. I know that they are no credit either to my taste or to my +scholarship, but if that offends my neighbor, the misery is his, not +mine. If he should bring a railing accusation against me, let him +remember that there is a ninth commandment which "forbiddeth anything +that is injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name." As for any +inordinate motions or affections toward his literary treasures, I have +no more than toward his choice collection of stamps. + +Yet I have one weakness in common with the bibliophile; I have a liking +for certain books which I have neither time nor inclination to read. +Just as according to the mediaeval theory there was a sanctity about a +duly ordained clergyman altogether apart from his personal character, so +there is to my mind an impressiveness about some volumes which has +little to do with their contents, or at least with my knowledge of them. +Why should we be too curious in regard to such matters? There are books +which I love to see on the shelf. I feel that virtue goes out of them, +but I should think it undue familiarity to read them. + +The persons who have written on "Books that have helped me" have usually +confined their list to books which they have actually read. One book has +clarified their thoughts, another has stimulated their wills, another +has given them useful knowledge. But are there no Christian virtues to +be cultivated? What about humility, that pearl of great price? + +To be constantly reminded that you have not read Kant's "Critique of the +Pure Reason," and that therefore you have no right to express a final +opinion on philosophy, does not that save you from no end of unnecessary +dogmatism? The silent monitor with its accusing, uncut pages is a +blessed help to the meekness of wisdom. A book that has helped me is +"The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England," by Edward, +Earl of Clarendon. I am by nature and education a Cromwellian, of a +rather narrow type. I am more likely than not to think of Charles I. as +a man of sin. When, therefore, I brought home Clarendon's History I felt +a glow of conscious virtue; the volume was an outward and visible sign +of inward and spiritual grace,--the grace of tolerance; and so it has +ever been to me. + +Years have passed, and the days of leisure have not yet come when I +could devote myself to the reading of it. Perhaps the fact that I +discovered that the noble earl's second sentence contains almost three +hundred words may have had a discouraging influence,--but we will let +that pass. Because I have not crossed the Rubicon of the second chapter, +will you say that the book has not influenced me? "When in my sessions +of sweet, silent thought," with the Earl of Clarendon, "I summon up +remembrance of time past," is it necessary that I should laboriously +turn the pages? It is enough that I feel my prejudices oozing away, and +that I am convinced, when I look at the much prized volume, that there +are two sides to this matter of the English Commonwealth. Could the +most laborious reading do more for me? + +Indeed, it is dangerous, sometimes, not to let well-enough alone. +Wordsworth's fickle Muse gave him several pretty fancies about the +unseen banks of Yarrow. "Yarrow Unvisited" was so delightful that he was +almost tempted to be content with absent treatment. + + "We will not see them, will not go + To-day nor yet to-morrow, + Enough if in our hearts we know + There's such a place as Yarrow. + Be Yarrow's stream unseen, unknown, + It must, or we shall rue it, + We have a vision of our own, + Ah, why should we undo it?" + +Ah, why, indeed? the reader asks, after reading Yarrow Visited and +Yarrow Re-visited. The visits were a mistake. + +Perhaps Clarendon Unread is as good for my soul as Clarendon Read or +Clarendon Re-read. Who can tell? + + * * * * * + +There is another sphere in which the honorable points of ignorance are +not always sufficiently appreciated, that of Travel. The pleasure of +staying at home consists in being surrounded by things which are +familiar and which we know all about. The primary pleasure of going +abroad consists in the encounter with the unfamiliar and the unknown. + +That was the impulse which stirred old Ulysses to set forth once more +upon his travels. + + "For my purpose holds + To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths + Of all the western stars, until I die. + It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, + It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, + And see the great Achilles, whom we knew." + +"It may be"--there lay the charm. There was no knowing what might happen +on the dark, broad seas. Perhaps they might get lost, and then again +they might come upon the Happy Isles. And if as they sailed under their +looming shores they should see the great Achilles--why all the better! + +What joys the explorers of the New World experienced! The heart leaps up +at the very title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company. "Merchants +Adventurers of England for the discovery of lands, territories, isles +and signories, unknown." There was no knowing beforehand which was an +island and which the mainland. All they had to do was to keep on, sure +only of finding something which they had not expected. When they got to +the mainland they were as likely as not to stumble on the great Khan +himself. Of course they might not make a discovery of the first +magnitude like that of the Spaniards on the Peak in Darien,--but if it +was not one thing it was another! + +Two or three miles back of Plymouth, Mass., is a modest little pond +called Billington's Sea. Billington, an adventurous Pilgrim, had climbed +a tree, and looking westwards had caught sight of the shimmering water. +He looked at it with a wild surmise, and then the conviction flashed +upon him that he had discovered the goal of hardy mariners,--the great +South Sea. That was a great moment for Billington! + +Of course the Spaniards were more fortunate in their geographical +position. It turned out that it was the Pacific that they saw from their +Peak in Darien; while Billington's Sea does not grow on acquaintance. + +But my heart goes out to Billington. He also was a discoverer, +according to his lights. He belonged to a hardy breed, and could stare +on new scenes with the best of them. It was not his fault that the +Pacific was not there. If it had been, Billington would have discovered +it. We know perfectly well that the Pacific Ocean does not lave the +shores of Plymouth County, and so we should not go out into the woods on +a fine morning to look for it. There is where Billington had the +advantage of us. + +Is it not curious that while we profess to envy the old adventurers the +joys of discovery, yet before we set out on our travels we make it a +point of convenience to rob ourselves of these possibilities? Before we +set out for Ultima Thule we must know precisely where it is, and how we +are going to get there, and what we are to see and what others have said +about it. After a laborious course of reading the way is as familiar to +our minds as the road to the post office. After that there is nothing +more for us to do but to sally forth to verify the guide-books. We have +done all that we could to brush the bloom off our native Ignorance. + +Of course even then all the possibilities of discovery are not shut +out. The best-informed person cannot be completely guarded against +surprise. Accidents will happen, and there is always the chance that one +may have been misinformed. + +I remember a depressed looking lady whom I encountered as she trudged +through the galleries of the Vatican with grim conscientiousness. She +had evidently a stern duty to perform for the cause of Art. But in the +Sistine Chapel the stillness was broken by her voice, which had a note +of triumph as she spoke to her daughter. She had discovered an error in +Baedeker. It infused new life into her tired soul. + + "Some flowerets of Eden we still inherit + Though the trail of the serpent is over them all." + +Speaking of the Vatican, that suggests the weak point in my argument. It +suggests that there are occasions when knowledge is very convenient. On +the Peak in Darien the first comer, with the wild surmise of ignorance, +has the advantage in the quality of his sensation; but it is different +in Jerusalem or Rome. There the pleasure consists in the fact that a +great many interesting people have been there before and done many +interesting things, which it might be well to know about. + +At this point I am quite willing to grant an inch; with the +understanding that it shall not be lengthened into an ell. The Camel of +Knowledge may push his head into the tent, and we shall have to resist +his further encroachments as we may. + +What we call the historic sense is not consistent with a state of +nescience. The picture which the eye takes in is incomplete without the +thousand associations which come from previous thought. Still, it +remains true that the finest pleasure does not come when the mental +images are the most precise. Before entering Paradise the mediaeval +pilgrims tasted of the streams of Eunoe and Lethe,--the happy memory and +the happy forgetfulness. The most potent charm comes from the judicious +mingling of these waters. + +There is a feeling of antiquity that only comes now and then, but which +it is worth traveling far to experience. It is the thrill that comes +when we consciously stand in the presence of the remote past. Some scene +brings with it an impression of immemorial time. In almost every case +we find that it comes from being reminded of something which we have +once known and more than half forgotten. What are the "mists of time" +but imperfect memories? + +Modern psychologists have given tardy recognition to the "Subliminal +Self,"--the self that lodges under the threshold of consciousness. He is +a shy gnome, and loves the darkness rather than the light; not, as I +believe, because his deeds are evil, but for reasons best known to +himself. To all appearances he is the most ignorant fellow in the world, +and yet he is no fool. As for the odds and ends that he stores up under +the threshold, they are of more value than the treasures that the +priggish Understanding displays in his show windows upstairs. + +In traveling through historic lands the Subliminal Self overcomes his +shyness. There are scenes and even words that reach back into hoar +antiquity, and bring us into the days of eld. + +Each person has his own chronology. If I were to seek to bring to mind +the very ancientest time, I should not think of the cave-dwellers: I +should repeat, "The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the +Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the +Girgashites." + +There is antiquity! It is not only a long time since these tribes dwelt +in the land; it has been a long time since I first heard of them. + +My memory goes back to the time when a disconsolate little boy sat on a +bench in a Sunday-school and asked himself, "What is a Girgashite?" + +The habit of the Sunday-school of mingling the historical and ethical +elements in one inextricable moral had made it uncertain whether the +Girgashite was a person or a sin. In either case it happened a long time +ago. There upon the very verge of Time stood the Girgashite, like the +ghost in Ossian, "His spear was a column of mist, and the stars looked +dim through his form." + +Happily my studies have not led in that direction, and there is nothing +to disturb the first impression. If some day wandering over Oriental +hills I should come upon some broken monuments of the Girgashites, I am +sure that I should feel more of a thrill than could possibly come to my +more instructed companion. To him it would be only the discovery of +another fact, to fit into his scheme of knowledge: to me it would be +like stumbling unawares into the primeval world. + +What is more delightful than in a railway train in Italy to hear voices +in the night calling out names that recall the lost arts of our +childhood! There is a sense + + "Of something here like something there, + Of something done, I know not where, + Such as no language can declare." + +There is a bittersweet to it, for there is a momentary fear that you may +be called upon to construe; but when that is past it is pure joy. + +"Monte Soracte," said the Italian gentleman on the train between Foligno +and Rome, as he pointed out a picturesque eminence. My answering smile +was intended to convey the impression that one touch of the classics +makes the whole world kin. Had I indeed kept up my Horace, a host of +clean-cut ideas would have instantly rushed into my mind. "Is that +Soracte! It is not what I had reason to expect. As a mountain I prefer +Monadnock." + +Fortunately I had no such prepossessions. I had expected nothing. There +only came impressions of lessons years ago in a dingy school-room +presided over by a loved instructor whom we knew as "Prof. Ike." Looking +back through the mists of time, I felt that I had been the better for +having learned the lessons, and none the worse for having long since +forgotten them. In those days Soracte had been a noun standing in +mysterious relations to a verb unknown; but now it was evident that it +was a mountain. There it stood under the clear Italian sky just as it +had been in the days of Virgil and Horace. Thoughts of Horace and of the +old professor mingled pleasantly so long as the mountain was in sight. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some timid souls that this praise of Ignorance may have a +sinister motive, and may be intended to deter from the pursuit of +knowledge. On the contrary, it is intended to encourage those who are +"faint yet pursuing." + +It must have occurred to every serious person that the pursuit of +knowledge is not what it once was. Time was when to know seemed the +easiest thing in the world. All that a man had to do was to assert +dogmatically that a thing was so, and then argue it out with some one +who had even less acquaintance with the subject than he had. He was not +hampered by a rigid, scientific method, nor did he need to make +experiments, which after all might not strengthen his position. The +chief thing was a certain tenacity of opinion which would enable him, in +Pope's phrase, to "hold the eel of science by the tail." There were no +troublesome experts to cast discredit on this slippery sport. If a man +had a knack at metaphysics and a fine flow of technical language he +could satisfy all reasonable curiosity about the Universe. Or with the +minimum of effort he might attain a jovial scholarship adequate for all +convivial purposes, like Chaucer's pilgrim + + "Whan that he wel dronken had the win, + Than wold he speken no word but Latin." + +It was the golden age of the amateur, when certainty could be had for +the asking, and one could stake out any part of the wide domain of human +interest and hold it by the right of squatter sovereignty. But in these +days the man who aspires to know must do something more than assert his +conviction. He must submit to all sorts of mortifying tests, and at best +he can obtain a title to only the tiniest bit of the field he covets. + +With the severer definitions of knowledge and the delimitation of the +territory which any one may call his own there has come a curious +result. While the aggregate of intellectual wealth has increased, the +individual workers are being reduced to penury. It is a pathetic +illustration of Progress and Poverty. The old and highly respected class +of gentlemen and scholars is being depleted. Scholarship has become so +difficult that those who aspire after it have little time for the +amenities. It is not as it was in the "spacious times of great +Elizabeth." Enter any company of modern scholars and ask what they know +about any large subject, and you will find that each one hastens to take +the poor debtor's oath. How can they be expected to know so much? + +On this minute division of intellectual labor the exact sciences thrive, +but conversation, poetry, art, and all that belongs to the humanities +languish. + +Your man of highly specialized intelligence has often a morbid fear of +half-knowledge, and he does not dare to express an opinion that has not +been the result of original research. He shuns the innocent questioners +who would draw him out, as if they were so many dunning creditors. He +becomes a veritable Dick Swiveller as one conversational thoroughfare +after another is closed against him, until he no longer ventures abroad. +The worst of it is that he has a haunting apprehension that even the bit +of knowledge which he calls his own may be taken away from him by some +new discovery, and he may be cast adrift upon the Unknowable. + +It is then that he should remember the wisdom of the unjust steward, so +that when he is cast out of the House of Knowledge he may find congenial +friends in the habitations of Ignorance. + +There are a great many mental activities that stop short of strict +knowledge. Where we do not know, we may imagine, and hope, and dare; we +may laugh at our neighbor's mistakes, and occasionally at our own. We +may enjoy the delicious moments of suspense when we are on the verge of +finding out; and if it should happen that the discovery is postponed, +then we have a chance to go over the delightful process again. + +To say "I do not know" is not nearly as painful as it seems to those +who have not tried it. The active mind, when the conceit of absolute +knowledge has been destroyed, quickly recovers itself and cries out, +after the manner of Brer Rabbit when Brer Fox threw him into the brier +patch, "Bred en bawn in a brier patch, Brer Fox--bred en bawn in a brier +patch!" + + + + +That History should be Readable + + +That was a clever device which a writer of "mere literature" hit upon +when he boldly dedicated his book to a man of prodigious learning. "Who +so guarded," he says, "can suspect his safety even when he travels +through the Enemy's Country, for such is the vast field of Learning, +where the Learned (though not numerous enough to be an Army) lie in +small Parties, maliciously in Ambush, to destroy all New Men who look +into their Quarters." + +It is doubtful, however, whether in these days a lover of Ignorance--or, +if you prefer, an ignorant lover of good things--could be safe in the +enemy's country, even under the protection of such a Mr. Great Heart. +It is no longer true that the Learned are not numerous enough to be an +army and are content with guerrilla warfare; on the contrary, they have +increased to multitudes, and their well-disciplined forces hold all the +strategic points. As for those who love to read and consider, rather +than to enter into minute researches, it is as in the days of Shamgar, +the son of Anoth, when "the highways were unoccupied and the people +walked through byways." + +There is one field, however, that the Gentle Reader will not give up +without a struggle--it is that of history. He claims that it belongs to +Literature as much as to Science. History and Story are variations of +the same word, and the historian who is master of his art must be a +story-teller. Clio was not a school-mistress, but a Muse, and the +papyrus roll in her hand does not contain mere dates and statistics, it +is filled with the record of heroic adventures. The primitive form of +history was verbal tradition, as one generation told the story of the +past to the generation that followed. + +"There was a great advantage in that method," says the Gentle Reader, +"the irrelevant details dropped out. It is only the memorable things +that can be remembered. What a pleasant invitation that was in the +eighty-first psalm to the study of Hebrew History, in order to learn +what had happened when Israel went out through the land of Egypt:-- + + 'Take up the psalm and bring hither the timbrel, + The pleasant harp with the psaltery, + Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, + And the full moon on our solemn feast days.' + +"The Jews had a way of setting their history to music, and bringing in +the great events as a glorious refrain, which they never feared +repeating too often; perhaps that is one reason why their history has +lasted so long." + +The Gentle Reader's liking for histories that might be read to the +accompaniment of the "pleasant harp and psaltery," and which now and +then stir him as with the sound of a trumpet, brings upon him many a +severe rebuke. He is told that his favorite writers are frequently +inaccurate and one-sided. The true historian, he is informed, is a +prodigy of impartiality, who has divested himself of all human passions, +in order that he may set down in exact sequence the course of events. +The Gentle Reader turns to these highly praised volumes and finds +himself adrift, without human companionship, on a bottomless sea of +erudition,--writings, writings everywhere and not a page to read! +Returning from this perilous excursion, he ever after adheres to his +original predilection for histories that are readable. + +He is of the opinion that a history must be essentially a work of the +imagination. This does not mean that it must not be true, but it means +that the important truth about any former generation can only be +reproduced through the imagination. The important thing is that these +people were once alive. No critical study of their meagre memorials can +make us enter into their joys, their griefs, and their fears. The +memorials only suggest to the historic imagination what the reality must +have been. + +Peter Bell could recognize a fact when he saw it:-- + + "A primrose on the river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him, + And it was nothing more." + +As long as the primrose was there, he could be trusted to describe it +accurately enough. But set Peter Bell the task of describing last year's +primrose. "There aren't any last year's primroses on the river's brim," +says Peter, "so you must be content with a description of the one in my +herbarium. Last year's primroses, you will observe, are very much +flattened out." To Mr. Peter Bell, after he has spent many years in the +universities, a document is a document, and it is nothing more. When he +has compared a great many documents, and put them together in a +mechanical way, he calls his work a history. That's where he differs +from the Gentle Reader who calls it only the crude material out of which +a man of genius may possibly make a history. + +To the Gentle Reader it is a profoundly interesting reflection that +since this planet has been inhabited people have been fighting, and +working, and loving, and hating, with an intensity born of the +conviction that, if they went at it hard enough, they could finish the +whole business in one generation. He likes to get back into any one of +these generations just "to get the feel of it." He does not care so much +for the final summing up of the process, as to see it in the making. +Any one who can give him that experience is his friend. + +He is interested in the stirring times of the English Revolution, and +goes to the historical expert to find what it was all about. The +historical expert starts with the Magna Charta and makes a preliminary +survey. Then he begins his march down the centuries, intrenching every +position lest he be caught unawares by the critics. His intellectual +forces lack mobility, as they must wait for their baggage trains. At +last he comes to the time of the Stuarts, and there is much talk of the +royal prerogative, and ship money, and attainders, and acts of +Parliament. There are exhaustive arguments, now on the one side and now +on the other, which exactly balance one another. There are references to +bulky volumes, where at the foot of every page the notes run along, like +little angry dogs barking at the text. + +The Gentle Reader calls out: "I have had enough of this. What I want to +know is what it's all about, and which side, on the whole, has the right +of it. Which side are you on? Are you a Roundhead or a Cavalier? Are +your sympathies with the Whigs or the Tories?" + +"Sympathies!" says the expert. "Who ever heard of a historian allowing +himself to sympathize? I have no opinions of my own to present. My great +aim is not to prejudice the mind of the student." + +"Nonsense," says the Gentle Reader; "I am not a student, nor is this a +school-room. It's all in confidence; speak out as one gentleman to +another under a friendly roof! What do you think about it? No matter if +you make a mistake or two, I'll forget most that you say, anyway. All +that I care for is to get the gist of the matter. As for your fear of +warping my mind, there's not the least danger in the world. My mind is +like a tough bit of hickory; it will fly back into its original shape +the moment you let go. I have a hundred prejudices of my own,--one more +won't hurt me. I want to know what it was that set the people by the +ears. Why did they cut off the head of Charles I., and why did they +drive out James II.? I can't help thinking that there must have been +something more exciting than those discussions of yours about +constitutional theories. Do you know, I sometimes doubt whether most of +the people who went to the wars knew that there was such a thing as the +English Constitution; the subject hadn't been written up then. I suspect +that something happened that was not set down in your book; something +that made those people fighting mad." + +Then the Gentle Reader turns to his old and much criticised friend +Macaulay, and asks,-- + +"What do you think about it?" + +"Think about it!" says Macaulay. "I'll tell you what I think about it. +To begin with, that Charles I., though good enough as a family man, was +a consummate liar." + +"That's the first light I've had on the subject," says the Gentle +Reader. "Charles lied, and that made the people mad?" + +"Precisely! I perceive that you have the historic sense. We English +can't abide a liar; so at last when we could not trust the king's word +we chopped off his head. Mind you, I'm not defending the regicides, but +between ourselves I don't mind saying that I think it served him right. +At any rate our blood was up, and there was no stopping us. I wish I had +time to tell you all about Hampden, and Pym, and Cromwell, but I must +go on to the glorious year 1688, and tell you how it all came about, and +how we sent that despicable dotard, James, flying across the Channel, +and how we brought in the good and wise King William, and how the great +line of Whig statesmen began. I take for granted--as you appear to be a +sensible man--that you are a Whig?" + +"I'm open to conviction," says the Gentle Reader. + +In a little while he is in the very thick of it. He is an Englishman of +the seventeenth century. He has taken sides and means to fight it out. +He knows how to vote on every important question that comes before +Parliament. No Jacobite sophistry can beguile him. When William lands he +throws up his hat, and after that he stands by him, thick or thin. When +you tell him that he ought to be more dispassionate in his historical +judgments, he answers: "That would be all very well if we were not +dealing with living issues,--but with Ireland in an uproar and the +Papists ready to swarm over from France, there is a call for decision. A +man must know his own mind. You may stand off and criticise William's +policy; but the question is, What policy do you propose? You say that I +have not exhausted the subject, and that there are other points of view. +Very likely. Show me another point of view, only make it as clear to me +as Macaulay makes his. Let it be a real view, and not a smudge. Some +other day I may look at it, but I must take one thing at a time. What I +object to is the historian who takes both sides in the same paragraph. +That is what I call offensive bi-partisanship." + +The Gentle Reader is interested not only in what great men actually +were, but in the way they appeared to those who loved or hated them. He +is of the opinion that the legend is often more significant than the +colorless annals. When a legend has become universally accepted and has +lived a thousand years, he feels that it should be protected in its +rights of possession by some statute of limitation. It has come to have +an independent life of its own. He has, therefore, no sympathy with +Gibbon in his identification of St. George of England with George of +Cappadocia, a dishonest army contractor who supplied the troops of the +Emperor Julian with bacon. Says Gibbon: "His employment was mean; he +rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud +and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious that George was +compelled to escape from the pursuit of his enemies.... This odious +stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the +mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George +of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of +England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter." + +"That is a serious indictment," says the Gentle Reader. "I have no plea +to make for the Cappadocian; I can readily believe that his bacon was +bad. But why not let bygones be bygones? If he managed to transform +himself into a saint, and for many centuries avoid all suspicion, I +believe that it was a thorough reformation. St. George of England has +long been esteemed as a valiant gentleman,--and, at any rate, that +affair with the dragon was greatly to his credit." + +Sometimes the Gentle Reader is disturbed by finding that different lines +of tradition have been mixed, and his mind becomes the battleground +whereon old blood feuds are fought out. Thus it happens that as a child +he was brought up on the tales of the Covenanters and imbibed their +stern resentment against their persecutors. He learned to hate the very +name of Graham of Claverhouse who brought desolation upon so many +innocent homes. On the other hand, his heart beats high when he hears +the martial strains of Bonnie Dundee. "There was a man for you!" + + "Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, + The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat. + + * * * * * + + 'Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks-- + Ere I own as usurper, I'll couch with the fox! + And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee, + You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!' + + * * * * * + + He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown, + The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on, + Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermeston's lee + Died away the wild war notes of Bonnie Dundee." + +"When I see him wave his proud hand," says the Gentle Reader, "I am his +clansman, and I'm ready to be off with him." + +"I thought you were a Whig," says the student of history. + +"I thought so too,--but what's politics where the affections are +enlisted? Don't you hear those wild war notes?" + +"But are you aware that the Bonnie Dundee is the same man whom you have +just been denouncing under the name of Graham of Claverhouse?" + +"Are you sure they are the same?" sighs the Gentle Reader. "I cannot +make them seem the same. To me there are two of them: Graham of +Claverhouse, whom I hate, and the Bonnie Dundee, whom I love. If it's +all the same to you, I think I shall keep them separate and go on loving +and hating as aforetime." + + * * * * * + +But though the Gentle Reader has the defects of his qualities and is +sometimes led astray by his sympathies, do not think that he is +altogether lacking in solidity of judgment. He has a genuine love of +truth and finds it more interesting than fiction--when it is well +written. If he objects to the elimination of myth and fable it is +because he is profoundly interested in the history of human feeling. The +story that is the embodiment of an emotion is itself of the greatest +significance. In Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, before Jupiter himself +is revealed, the Phantasm of Jupiter appears and speaks. Prometheus +addresses him:-- + + "Tremendous Image, as thou art must be + He whom thou shadowest forth." + +On the stage of history each great personage has a phantasmal +counterpart; sometimes there are many of them. Each phantasm becomes a +centre of love and hate. + +The cold-blooded historian gives us what he calls the real Napoleon. He +is, he asserts, neither the Corsican Ogre of the British imagination nor +the Heroic Emperor for whom myriads of Frenchmen gladly died. Perhaps +not; but when the Napoleonic legend has been banished, what about the +Napoleonic wars? The Phantasms of Napoleon appear on every battlefield. +The men of that day saw them, and were nerved to the conflict. The +reader must, now and then, see them, or he can have no conception of +what was going on. He misses "the moving why they did it." And as for +the real Napoleon, what was the magic by which he was able to call such +phantasms from the vasty deep? + +The careful historian who would trace the history of Europe in the +centuries that followed the barbarian invasion is sorely troubled by the +intrusion of legendary elements. After purging his work of all that +savors of romance, he has a very neat and connected narrative. + +"But is it true?" asks the Gentle Reader. "I for one do not believe it. +The course of true history never did run so smooth. Here is a worthy +person who undertakes to furnish me with an idea of the Dark Ages, and +he forgets the principal fact, which is that it was dark. His picture +has all the sharp outlines of a noon-day street scene. I don't believe +he ever spent a night alone in a haunted house. If he had he would have +known that if you don't see ghosts, you see shapes that look like them. +At midnight mysterious forms loom large. The historian must have a +genius for depicting Chaos. He must make me dimly perceive 'the +fragments of forgotten peoples,' with their superstitions, their +formless fears, their vague desires. They were all fighting them in the +dark. + + "'For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, + And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; + And some had visions out of golden youth, + And some beheld the faces of old ghosts + Look in upon the battle; and in the mist + Was many a noble deed, and many a base + And chance and craft and strength in single fights, + And ever and anon with host to host + Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, + Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash + Of battle axes on shattered helms, and shrieks + After the Christ, of those who falling down + Looked up for heaven and only saw the mist.'" + +"But, Gentle Reader," says the Historian, "that is poetry, not history." + +"Perhaps it is, but it's what really happened." + + * * * * * + +He is of the opinion that many histories owe their quality of +unreadableness to the virtues of their authors. The kind-hearted +historians over-load their works through their desire to rescue as many +events and persons as possible from oblivion. When their better judgment +tells them that they should be off, they remain to drag in one more. +Alas, their good intention defeats itself; their frail craft cannot bear +the added burden, and all hands go to the bottom. There is no surer +oblivion than that which awaits one whose name is recorded in a book +that undertakes to tell all. + +The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. Here are +millions of happenings every day. Each one has its infinite series of +antecedents and consequents; and each takes longer in the telling than +in the doing. Evidently there must be some principle of selection. +Naturalists with a taste for mathematics tell us of the appalling +catastrophe which would impend if every codfish were to reach maturity. +It would be equaled by the state of things which would exist were every +incident duly chronicled. A foretaste of this calamity has been given in +our recent war,--and yet there were some of our military men who did not +write reminiscences. + +What the principle of selection shall be depends upon the predominant +interest of the writer. But there must be a clear sequence; one can +relate only what is related to the chosen theme. The historian must +reverse the order of natural evolution and proceed from the +heterogeneous to the homogeneous. Alas for the ill-fated pundit who, +forgetting his aim, flounders in the bottomless morass of heterogeneity. +The moment he begins to tell how things are he remembers some +incongruous incident which proves that they were quite otherwise. The +genius for narrative consists in the ability to pick out the facts which +belong together and which help each other along. The company must keep +step, and the stragglers must be mercilessly cut off. One cannot say of +any fact that it is important in itself. The important thing is that +which has a direct bearing on the subject. The definition of dirt as +matter in the wrong place is suggestive. All the details that throw +light on the main action are of value. Those that obscure it are but +petty dust. It is no sufficient plea that the dust is very real and that +it took a great deal of trouble to collect it. + +As vivid a bit of history as one may read is the Journal of Sally +Wister, a Quaker girl who lived near Philadelphia during the period of +the American Revolution. She gives a narrative of the things which +happened to her during those fateful years. In October, 1777, she says, +"Here, my dear, passes an interval of several weeks in which nothing +happened worth the time and paper it would take to write it." + +The editor is troubled at this remark, because during that very week the +Battle of Germantown and been fought not far away. But Sally Wister had +the true historical genius. The Battle of Germantown was an event, and +so was the coming of a number of gay young officers to the hospitable +country house; and this latter event was much more important to Sally +Wister. So omitting all irrelevant incidents, she gives a circumstantial +account of what was happening on the centre of the stage. + +"Cousin Prissa and myself were sitting at the door; I in my green skirt, +dark gown, etc. Two genteel men of the military order rode up to the +door. 'Your servant, ladies,' etc. Asked if they could have quarters for +General Smallwood." + +"I can see just how they did it," says the Gentle Reader, "and what a +commotion the visit made. Now when a person who is just as much absorbed +in the progress of the Revolutionary War as Sally Wister was in those +young officers writes about it I will read his history gladly." + + * * * * * + +Some otherwise excellent histories fall into the abyss of unreadableness +because of the author's unnecessary pains to justify his heroes to the +critical intelligence of the reader. He is continually making apologies +when he should be telling a story. He is comparing the deeds of one age +with the ethical standards of another; and the result is a series of +moral anachronisms. There is a running fire of more or less irrelevant +comment. + +What a delightful plan that was, which the author of the Book of Judges +hit upon to avoid this difficulty! He had a hard task. His worthies were +not persons of settled habits, and they did many things that might +appear shocking to later generations. They were called upon to do rough +work and they did it in their own way. If the author had undertaken to +justify their conduct by any conventional standard he would have made +sorry work of it. What he did was much better than that. Whenever he +came to a point where there was danger of the mind of the reader +becoming turbid with moral reflections that belonged to a later age, he +threw in the clarifying suggestion, "And there was no King in Israel, +and every man did what was right in his own eyes." This precipitated all +the disturbing elements, and the story ran on swift and clear. It was +as if when the reader was about to protest the author anticipated him +with, "What would you do, reader, if the Philistines were upon you and +there were no King in Israel?" Undoubtedly under such circumstances it +would be a great relief to catch sight of Gideon or Samson. It would not +be a time for fastidiousness about their shortcomings; they would be +hailed as strong deliverers. + +"That is just the point of it," cries the Gentle Reader. "They were on +our side. The important thing is to recognize our friends. To teach us +who our friends are is the purpose of history. Here is a conflict that +has been going on for ages. The men who have done valiant service are +not all smooth-spoken gentlemen in black coats--but what of it? They +have done what they could. We can't say that each act was absolutely +right, but they were moving in the right direction. When a choice was +offered they took the better part. The historian should not only know +what they did, but what was the alternative offered them. There was the +Prophet Samuel. Some persons will have no further respect for him after +they learn that he hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord. They think he +ought to have stood up for Free Religion. They take for granted that the +alternative offered him was religious toleration as we understand it. It +was nothing of the sort. The question for a man of that age was, Shall +Samuel hew Agag in pieces, or shall Agag hew Samuel in pieces, and my +sympathies are with Samuel." + +Having once made allowance for the differences of time and place, he +follows with eager interest the fortunes of the men who have made the +world what it is. What if they do have their faults? He does not care +for what he calls New England Primer style of History:-- + + "Young Obadias, David, Josias + All were pious." + +Such monotony of excellence wearies him, and the garment of praise is +accompanied by a spirit of heaviness. + +"I like saints best in the state of nature," he says; "the process of +canonization does not seem good for them. When too many of them are +placed together in a book their virtues kill one another, and at a +little distance all halos look very much alike." + +There are certain histories which he finds readable, not because he +cares very much for their ostensible subject, but because of the light +they throw on the author's personality. He, good man, thinks he is +telling the story of the Carlovingian Dynasty, or the rise of the +Phoenician sea power, while in reality he is giving an intimate +account of his own state of mind. The author is like a bee which wanders +far afield and visits many flowers, but always brings back the spoil to +one hollow tree. The Gentle Reader, like a practiced bee hunter, is +careless of the outward journeys, but watches closely the direction of +the return flight. + +"If you would know a person's limitations," he says, "induce him to +write on some large subject like the History of Civilization, or the +History of the Origin and Growth of the Moral Sentiment. You will find +his particular hobby writ large." + +He takes up a History of the Semites. "What a pertinacious fellow he +is," alluding not to any ancient Semite but to the Author, "how closely +he sticks to his point! He has discovered a new fact about the +Amalekites,--I wonder what he will do with it. Just as I expected! there +he is back with it to that controversy he is having with his +Presbytery. I notice that he calls the children of Israel the +Beni-Israel. He knows that that sort of thing irritates the conservative +party. It suggests that he is following Renan, and yet it may only prove +that he thinks in Hebrew." + + * * * * * + +The Gentle Reader regards ambitious works on the Philosophy of History +with mingled suspicion and curiosity. So much depends, in such cases, +upon the philosopher. In spite of many misadventures, curiosity +generally gets the better of caution. + +He opens Comte's "Positive Philosophy" and reads, "In order to +understand the true value and character of the 'Positive Philosophy' we +must take a brief, general view of the progressive course of the human +mind regarded as a whole." Then he is conducted through the three stages +of the theological or fictitious, the metaphysical or abstract, and the +scientific or positive; which last circle proves large enough only for +Comte's own opinions. He is caught in a trap and goes round and round +without finding the hole through which he came in. + +"When a learned person asks one," says the Gentle Reader, "to accompany +him on a brief general survey of the progressive course of the human +mind, regarded as a whole, I am apt to be wary. I want to know what he +is up to. I fear the philosopher bearing historical gifts." + +Yet where the trap is made of slighter fabric, and he feels that he can +break through at will, he enjoys watching the author and his work. How +marvelous are the powers of the human mind! How the facts of experience +can be bent to a sternly logical formula! And how the whole trend of +things seems to yield to an imperious will that is stronger than fate! + +Here is a book published in Wheeling, Virginia, in 1809. It is "A +Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity in Scotland, +before the Reformation; and the Progress of Religion since in Scotland +and America." We are told that the history was read paragraph by +paragraph at a meeting of the Reformed Dissenting Presbytery at the +Three Ridge Meeting House, and unanimously approved. At the beginning we +are taken into a wide place and given a comprehensive view of early +Christianity. Then we are shown how in the sixteenth century began a +series of godly reformations. Christianity, bursting through the +barriers of Popery, began its resistless flow toward the pure theology +of the Three Ridge Meeting House. As the articles of the true faith were +increased the number of persons who were able to hold correct opinions +upon them all diminished. The history, by perfectly logical processes, +brings us down to the year 1799, when secession had done its perfect +work and the true church had attained to an apostolic purity of doctrine +and a more than apostolic paucity of membership. It is with a fearful +joy that the historians proclaim the culmination of the age-long +evolution. "O! the times we live in! There were but two of us to defend +the doctrine of the Bible and the Westminster Confession." At the time +the history of the Progress of Christianity was written there were but +two ministers who held the uncorrupted faith; namely, Robert Warwick and +Alexander McCoy. These two brethren were the joint authors of the +history, and in their capacity as church council gave it ecumenical +authority. Had McCoy disagreed with Warwick about Preterition, or had +Warwick suspected McCoy of Sublapsarianism, then we should have had two +histories of Christianity instead of one. It would have appeared that +all the previous developments of Christianity were significant only as +preparing for the Great Schism. + +"There is a great deal of this Three Ridge Meeting House kind of +history," says the Gentle Reader, "and I confess I find it very +instructive. I like to find out what the writers think on the questions +of the day." + +The fact is that there is a great deal of human nature even in learned +people, and they cannot escape from the spell of the present moment. +They are like the rest of us, and feel that they are living at the +terminus of the road and not at a way station. The cynical reflection on +the way in which the decisions of the Supreme Court follow the election +returns suggests the way in which historical generalizations follow the +latest telegraphic dispatches. Something happens and then we look up its +historical antecedents. It seems as if everything had been pointing to +this one event from the beginning. + +"Here is a very readable History of Fans. The writer justly says that +the subject is one that has been much neglected. 'In England brief +sketches on the subject have occasionally appeared in the magazines, but +thus far a History of Fans has not been published in book form.... The +subject amply repays careful study, and will not fail to interest the +reader, provided the demands on both his patience and his time are not +too great.' I confess that it is a line of research I have never taken +up, but it is evident that there is ample material. The beginning +inspires confidence. 'The chain of tradition, followed as far as +possible into the past, carries us but to the time when the origin of +the fan is derived from tradition.' It appears that we come out upon +firm ground when we reach the Mahabharata. But the question which +arouses my curiosity is, How did it occur to any one that there should +be a history of fans? The author reveals the inciting cause,--'The Loan +Exhibition held at South Kensington in 1870 gave a great impulse to the +collection and decoration of fans.' I suspect that almost all readable +histories have some such origin." + +The title of Professor Freeman's "History of Federal Government from the +Foundation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United +States" was timely when the first volume was published in 1863. The +terminal points seemed closely connected in 1862 and the spring of 1863. +Gettysburg and Appomattox destroyed the line of communication. But there +was a time when the subject had great dramatic unity. + +One May morning the Gentle Reader saw in the newspapers the account of +the victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, and learned how the English +people rejoiced over the success of American arms. "This will remake a +great deal of history," he said, "and there will be a great revival of +interest in Hengist and Horsa. These primitive Anglo-Saxon expansionists +kept their own counsel, but it's evident that the movement they set on +foot must go on to its logical conclusion. When a competent scholar +takes hold of the history it will be seen that it couldn't stop with the +Heptarchy or the destruction of the Spanish Armada. It was a foregone +conclusion that these Anglo-Saxons would eventually take the +Philippines." + +When one by one the books began to come out he read them with eager +interest. That there should be histories of the triumphant progress of +Anglo-Saxondom, after the Spanish-American war, he looked upon as +something as inevitable as the history of fans, after the South +Kensington Exhibition. It was manifest destiny. + + * * * * * + +There is one page in the history books which the Gentle Reader looks +upon with a skeptical smile; it is that which contains the words, "The +End." + +"The writer may think that the subject has been exhausted, and that he +has said the last word; but in reality there is no end." + +He is well aware that at best he gets but a glimpse of what is going on. +The makers of history are for the most part unknown to the writers of +it. He loves now and then to catch sight of one of these unremembered +multitudes. For a moment the searchlight of history falls upon him, and +he stands blinking in the unaccustomed glare, and then the light shifts +and oblivion swallows him up. + +He stops to meditate when he comes upon this paragraph in Bishop +Burnet's "History of his Own Times." + +"When King James I. was in Scotland he erected a new Bishopric, and made +one Forbes Bishop. He was a very learned and pious man; he had a strange +faculty of preaching five or six hours at a time. His way of life and +devotion was thought monastic, and his learning lay in antiquity; he +studied to be a reconciler between Papists and Protestants, leaning +rather to the first; he was a simple-hearted man and knew little of the +world, so he fell into several errors of conduct, but died soon after +suspected of Popery." + +"That man Forbes," says the Gentle Reader, "doesn't cut much of a figure +on the pages of history. Indeed, that is all that is said of him, yet I +doubt not but that he was a much more influential man in his day than +many of those bishops and reformers that I have been reading about. A +learned man who has a faculty for preaching five or six hours at a time +is a great conservative force. He keeps things from going too fast. When +one reads about the Reformation of the sixteenth century, one wonders +that it didn't make a clean sweep. We must remember the number of good +Protestants who died suspected of Popery." + +But though he loves to get a glimpse of Forbes and men of his kind, he +knows that they are not of the stuff that readable histories are made +of. The retarding influences of the times must be taken into account, +but after all the historian is concerned with the people who are "in the +van of circumstance." They may be few in number, but their achievements +are the things worth telling. + +"Every history," says the Gentle Reader, "should be a Book of Genesis. I +want to see things in their beginnings and in their fresh growth. I do +not care to follow the processes of decay. Fortunately there is no +period when something is not beginning. 'Sweet is the genesis of +things.' History is a perpetual spring-time. New movements are always on +foot. Even when I don't approve of them I want to know what they are +like. When the band strikes up 'See the Conquering Hero come,' it's +sheer affectation not to look up. The conquering hero is always worth +looking at, even if you do not approve of him. The historian who +undertakes to tell what men at any period were about must be quick to +detect their real enthusiasms. He must join the victorious army and not +cling to a lost cause. I have always thought that it was a mistake for +Gibbon to call his great work, 'The History of the Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire.' The declining power of the Roman Empire was not the +great fact of those ten centuries. There were powers which were not +declining, but growing. How many things were in the +making,--Christianity, Mohammedanism, the new chivalry, the Germanic +civilization. As for the Roman Empire, one could see that _that_ game +was lost, and it wasn't worth while to play it out to the last move. I +couldn't make those shadowy Emperors at Constantinople seem like +Caesars--and, for that matter, they weren't." + +On this last point I think that the Gentle Reader is correct, and that +the great historian is one who has a certain prophetic gift. He is quick +to discern the signs of the times. He identifies himself so thoroughly +with the age of which he writes that he always seems to be at the +beginning of an era peering into the yet dim future. In this way he +shares the hopes and aspirations of the men of whom he writes. For there +was a day when all our familiar institutions were new. There was a time +when the Papacy was not an established fact, but a vague dream of +spiritual power and unity, a challenge to a barbarian world. It appealed +to young idealists as the federation of the world or a socialistic +commonwealth appeals to-day. There was a time when constitutional +government was a Utopian experiment which a few brave men were willing +to try. There was a time when Calvinism was a spiritual adventure. + +The historian whom we love is one who stands at the parting of the ways, +and sees ideals grow into actualities. He is not reminiscent. He is +forward-looking as he speaks to each age out of intimate acquaintance +with its new hopes, as one + + "Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones + For prophecies of thee, and for the sake + Of loveliness new born." + + + + +The Evolution of the Gentleman + + +"What is your favorite character, Gentle Reader?" "I like to read about +gentlemen," he answers; "it's a taste I have inherited, and I find it +growing upon me." + +And yet it is not easy to define a gentleman, as the multitudes who have +made the attempt can testify. It is one of the cases in which the +dictionary does not help one. Perhaps, after all, definitions are to be +looked upon as luxuries, not as necessities. When Alice told her name to +Humpty Dumpty, that intolerable pedant asked,-- + +"'What does it mean?' + +"'Must a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully. + +"'Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh. 'My name +means the shape I am,--and a good handsome shape it is, too.'" + +I suppose that almost any man, if he were asked what a gentleman is, +would answer with Humpty Dumpty, "It is the shape I am." I judge this +because, though the average man would not feel insulted if you were to +say, "You are no saint," it would not be safe to say, "You are no +gentleman." + +And yet the average man has his misgivings. For all his confident talk, +he is very humble minded. The astral body of the gentleman that he is +endeavoring to project at his neighbors is not sufficiently materialized +for his own imperfect vision. The word "gentleman" represents an ideal. +Above whatever coarseness and sordidness there may be in actual life, +there rises the ideal of a finer kind of man, with gentler manners and +truer speech and braver action. + +In every age we shall find the true gentleman--that is, the man who +represents the best ideal of his own time, and we shall find the mimicry +of him the would-be gentleman who copies the form while ignorant of the +substance. These two characters furnish the material, on the one hand +for the romancer, and on the other for the satirist. If there had been +no real gentlemen, the epics, the solemn tragedies, and the stirring +tales of chivalry would have remained unwritten; and if there had been +no pretended gentlemen, the humorist would have lost many a pleasure. +Always the contrasted characters are on the stage together; simple +dignity is followed by strutting pomposity, and after the hero the +braggart swaggers and storms. So ridicule and admiration bear rule by +turns. + +The idea of the gentleman involves the sense of personal dignity and +worth. He is not a means to an end; he is an end in itself. How early +this sense arose we may not know. Professor Huxley made merry over the +sentimentalists who picture the simple dignity of primitive man. He had +no admiration to throw away on "the dignified and unclothed savage +sitting in solitary meditation under trees." And yet I am inclined to +think that the gentleman must have appeared even before the advent of +tailors. The peasants who followed Wat Tyler sang,-- + + "When Adam delved and Eve span + Who was then the gentleman?" + +But a writer in the age of Queen Elizabeth published a book in which he +argued that Adam himself was a perfect gentleman. He had the advantage, +dear to the theological mind, that though affirmative proof might be +lacking, it was equally difficult to prove the negative. + +As civilization advances and literature catches its changing features, +the outlines of the gentleman grow distinct. + +In the Book of Genesis we see Abraham sitting at his tent door. Three +strangers appear. When he sees them, he goes to meet them, and bows, and +says to the foremost, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, +pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray +you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: +and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after +that ye shall pass on." + +There may have been giants in those days, and churls, and all manner of +barbarians, but as we watch the strangers resting under the oak we say, +"There were also gentlemen in those days." How simple it all is! It is +like a single palm tree out-lined against the desert and the sky. + +We turn to the Analects of Confucius and we see the Chinese gentleman. +Everything with him is exact. The disciples of Confucius are careful to +tell us how he adjusted the skirts of his robe before and behind, how he +insisted that his mince-meat should be cut quite small and should have +exactly the right proportion of rice, and that his mat must be laid +straight before he would sit on it. Such details of deportment were +thought very important. But we forget the mats and the mince-meat when +we read: "Three things the master had not,--he had no prejudices, he had +no obstinacy, he had no egotism." And we forget the fantastic garb and +the stiff Chinese genuflections, and come to the conclusion that the +true gentleman is as simple-hearted amid the etiquette of the court as +in the tent in the desert, when we hear the master saying: "Sincerity is +the way of Heaven; the wise are the unassuming. It is said of Virtue +that over her embroidered robe she puts a plain single garment." + +When we wish to see a masculine virtue which has no need of an +embroidered garment we go to Plutarch's portrait gallery of antique +gentlemen. What a breed of men they were! They were no holiday +gentlemen. With the same lofty dignity they faced life and death. How +superior they were to their fortunes. No wonder that men who had learned +to conquer themselves conquered the world. + +Most of Plutarch's worthies were gentlemen, though there were +exceptions. There was, for example, Cato the Censor, who bullied the +Roman youth into virtue, and got a statue erected to himself as the +restorer of the good old manners. Poor Plutarch, who likes to do well by +his heroes, is put to his wits' end to know what to do with testy, +patriotic, honest, fearless, parsimonious Cato. Cato was undoubtedly a +great man and a good citizen; but when we are told how he sold his old +slaves, at a bargain, when they became infirm, and how he left his +war-horse in Spain to save the cost of transportation, Plutarch adds, +"Whether such things be an evidence of greatness or littleness of soul +let the reader judge for himself." The judicious reader will conclude +that it is possible to be a great man and a reformer, and yet not be +quite a gentleman. + +When the Roman Empire was destroyed the antique type of gentleman +perished. The very names of the tribes which destroyed him have yet +terrible associations. Goths, Vandals, Huns--to the civilized man of the +fifth and sixth centuries these sounded like the names of wild beasts +rather than of men. You might as well have said tigers, hyenas, wolves. +The end had come of a civilization that had been the slow growth of +centuries. + +Yet out of these fierce tribes, destroyers of the old order, a new order +was to arise. Out of chaos and night a new kind of gentleman was to be +evolved. The romances of the Middle Ages are variations on a single +theme, the appearance of the finer type of manhood and its struggle for +existence. In the palace built by the enchantment of Merlin were four +zones of sculpture. + + "And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, + And in the second men are slaying beasts, + And on the third are warriors, perfect men, + And on the fourth are men with growing wings." + +Europe was in the second stage, when men were slaying beasts and what +was most brutal in humanity. If the higher manhood was to live, it must +fight, and so the gentleman appears, sword in hand. Whether we are +reading of Charlemagne and his paladins, or of Siegfried, or of Arthur, +the story is the same. The gentleman has appeared. He has come into a +waste land, + + "Thick with wet woods and many a beast therein, + And none or few to scare or chase the beast." + +He comes amid savage anarchy where heathen hordes are "reddening the sun +with smoke and earth with blood." The gentleman sends forth his clear +defiance. All this shall no longer be. He is ready to meet force with +force; he is ready to stake his life upon the issue, the hazard of new +fortunes for the race. + +It is as a pioneer of the new civilization that the gentleman has +pitched + + "His tent beside the forest. And he drave + The heathen, and he slew the beast, and felled + The forest, and let in the sun." + +The ballads and romances chronicle a struggle desperate in its beginning +and triumphant in its conclusion. They are in praise of force, but it is +a noble force. There is something better, they say, than brute force: it +is manly force. The giant is no match for the gentleman. + +If we would get at the mediaeval idea of the gentleman, we must not +listen merely to the romances as they are retold by men of genius in +our own day. Scott and Tennyson clothe their characters in the old +draperies, but their ideals are those of the nineteenth century rather +than of the Middle Ages. Tennyson expressly disclaims the attempt to +reproduce the King Arthur + + "whose name, a ghost, + Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, + And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him + Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one + Touched by the adulterous finger of a time + That hovered between war and wantonness." + +When we go back and read Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, we find +ourselves among men of somewhat different mould from the knights of +Tennyson's idylls. It is not the blameless King Arthur, but the +passionate Sir Launcelot, who wins admiration. We hear Sir Ector crying +over Launcelot's body, "Ah, Launcelot, thou wert the head of the +Christian knights. Thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare +shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode +horse; and thou wert the truest lover for a sinful man that ever loved +woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and +thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; +and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall +with ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that +ever put spear in the rest." + +We must take, not one of these qualities, but all of them together, to +understand the gentleman of those ages when good and evil struggled so +fiercely for the mastery. No saint was this Sir Launcelot. There was in +him no fine balance of virtues, but only a wild tumult of the blood. He +was proud, self-willed, passionate, pleasure-loving; capable of great +sin and of sublime expiation. What shall we say of this gentlest, +sternest, kindest, goodliest, sinfulest of knights,--this man who knew +no middle path, but who, when treading in perilous places and following +false lights, yet draws all men admiringly to himself? + +We can only say this: he was the prototype of those mighty men who were +the makers of the modern world. They were the men who fought with +Charlemagne, and with William the Conqueror, and with Richard; they were +the men who "beat down the heathen, and upheld the Christ;" they were +the men from whom came the crusades, and the feudal system, and the +great charter. As we read the history, we say at one moment, "These men +were mail-clad ruffians," and at the next, "What great-hearted +gentlemen!" + +Perhaps the wisest thing would be to confess to both judgments at once. +In this stage of his evolution the gentleman may boast of feats that +would now be rehearsed only in bar-rooms. This indicates that the +standard of society has improved, and that what was possible once for +the nobler sort of men is now characteristic of the baser sort. The +modern rowdy frequently appears in the cast-off manners of the old-time +gentleman. Time, the old-clothes man, thus furnishes his customers with +many strange misfits. What is of importance is that through these +transition years there was a ceaseless struggle to preserve the finer +types of manhood. + +The ideal of the mediaeval gentleman was expressed in the word +"gallantry." The essence of gallantry is courage; but it is not the +sober courage of the stoic. It is courage charged with qualities that +give it sparkle and effervescence. It is the courage that not only faces +danger, but delights in it. What suggestions of physical and mental +elasticity are in Shakespeare's description of the "springing, brave +Plantagenet"! Scott's lines express the gallant spirit:-- + + "One crowded hour of glorious life + Is worth an age without a name." + +Gallantry came to have another implication, equally characteristic. The +knight was gallant not only in war, but in love also. There had come a +new worship, the worship of woman. In the Church it found expression in +the adoration of the Madonna, but in the camp and the court it found its +place as well. Chivalry was the elaborate and often fantastic ritual, +and the gentleman was minister at the altar. The ancient gentleman stood +alone; the mediaeval gentleman offered all to the lady of his love. Here, +too, gallantry implied the same overflowing joy in life. If you are +anxious to have a test by which to recognize the time when you are +growing old,--so old that imagination is chilled within you,--I should +advise you to turn to the chapter in the Romance of King Arthur entitled +"How Queen Guenever went maying with certain Knights of the Table Round, +clad all in green." Then read: "So it befell in the month of May, Queen +Guenever called unto her knights and she gave them warning that early +upon the morrow she would ride maying into the woods and fields besides +Westminster, and I warn you that none of you but that he be well horsed +and that ye all be clothed in green.... I shall bring with me ten ladies +and every knight shall have a squire and two yeomen. So upon the morn +they took their horses with the Queen and rode on maying through the +woods and meadows in great joy and delights." + +If you cannot see them riding on, a gallant company over the meadows, +and if you hear no echoes of their laughter, and if there is no longer +any enchantment in the vision of that time when all were "blithe and +debonair," then undoubtedly you are growing old. It is time to close the +romances: perhaps you may still find solace in Young's "Night Thoughts" +or Pollok's "Course of Time." Happy are they who far into the seventies +still see Queen Guenever riding in the pleasant month of May: these are +they who have found the true fountain of youth. + +The gentleman militant will always be the hero of ballads and romances; +and in spite of the apostles of realism, I fancy he has not lost his +charm. There are Jeremiahs of evolution, who tell us that after a time +men will be so highly developed as to have neither hair nor teeth. In +that day, when the operating dentists have ceased from troubling, and +given way to the manufacturing dentists, and the barbers have been +superseded by the wig-makers, it is quite possible that the romances may +give place to some tedious department of comparative mythology. In that +day, Chaucer's knight who "loved chevalrie, trouthe and honour, fredom +and curtesie," will be forgotten, though his armor on the museum walls +will be learnedly described. But that dreadful day is still far distant; +before it comes, not only teeth and hair must be improved out of +existence, but a substitute must be found for good red blood. Till that +time "no laggard in love or dastard in war" can steal our hearts from +young Lochinvar. + +The sixteenth century marks an epoch in the history of the gentleman, as +in all else. Old ideas disappear, to come again in new combinations. +Familiar words take on meanings that completely transform them. The same +hands wielded the sword and the pen. The scholars, the artists, the +poets, began to feel a sense of personal worth, and carried the gallant +spirit of the gentleman into their work. They were not mere specialists, +but men of action. The artist was not only an instrument to give +pleasure to others, but he was himself a centre of admiration. Out of +this new consciousness how many interesting characters were produced! +There were men who engaged in controversies as if they were tournaments, +and who wrote books and painted pictures and carved statues, not in the +spirit of professionalism, but as those who would in this activity enjoy +"one crowded hour of glorious life." Very frequently, these gentlemen +and scholars, and gentlemen and artists, overdid the matter, and were +more belligerent in disposition than were the warriors with whom they +began to claim equality. + +To this self-assertion we owe the most delightful of +autobiographies,--that of Benvenuto Cellini. He aspired to be not only +an artist, but a fine gentleman. No one could be more certain of the +sufficiency of Humpty Dumpty's definition of a gentleman than was he. + +If we did not have his word for it, we could scarcely believe that any +one could be so valiant in fight and so uninterrupted in the pursuit of +honor without its interfering with his professional work. Take, for +example, that memorable day when, escaping from the magistrates, he +makes an attack upon the household of his enemy, Gherardo Guascanti. "I +found them at table; and Gherardo, who had been the cause of the +quarrel, flung himself upon me. I stabbed him in the breast, piercing +doublet and jerkin, but doing him not the least harm in the world." +After this attack, and after magnanimously pardoning Gherardo's father, +mother, and sisters, he says: "I ran storming down the staircase, and +when I reached the street, I found all the rest of the household, more +than twelve persons: one of them seized an iron shovel, another a thick +iron pipe; one had an anvil, some hammers, some cudgels. When I got +among them, raging like a mad bull, I flung four or five to the earth, +and fell down with them myself, continually aiming my dagger now at one, +and now at another. Those who remained upright plied with both hands +with all their force, giving it me with hammers, cudgels, and the +anvil; but inasmuch as God does sometimes mercifully intervene, he so +ordered that neither they nor I did any harm to one another." + +What fine old days those were, when the toughness of skin matched so +wonderfully the stoutness of heart! One has a suspicion that in these +degenerate times, were a family dinner-party interrupted by such an +avalanche of daggers, cudgels, and anvils, some one would be hurt. As +for Benvenuto, he does not so much as complain of a headache. + +There is an easy, gentleman-like grace in the way in which he recounts +his incidental homicides. When he is hiding behind a hedge at midnight, +waiting for the opportunity to assassinate his enemies, his heart is +open to all the sweet influences of nature, and he enjoys "the glorious +heaven of stars." He was not only an artist and a fine gentleman, but a +saint as well, and "often had recourse with pious heart to holy +prayers." Above all, he had the indubitable evidence of sainthood, a +halo. "I will not omit to relate another circumstance, which is perhaps +the most remarkable that ever happened to any one. I do so in order to +justify the divinity of God and of his secrets, who deigned to grant me +this great favor: forever since the time of my strange vision until now, +an aureole of glory (marvelous to relate) has rested on my head. This is +visible to every sort of man to whom I have chosen to point it out, but +these have been few." He adds ingenuously, "I am always able to see it." +He says, "I first became aware of it in France, at Paris; for the air in +those parts is so much freer from mists that one can see it far better +than in Italy." + +Happy Benvenuto with his Parisian halo, which did not interfere with the +manly arts of self-defense! His self-complacency was possible only in a +stage of evolution when the saint and the assassin were not altogether +clearly differentiated. Some one has said, "Give me the luxuries of +life, and I can get along without the necessities." Like many of his +time, Benvenuto had all the luxuries that belong to the character of a +Christian gentleman, though he was destitute of the necessities. An +appreciation of common honesty as an essential to a gentleman seems to +be more slowly developed than the more romantic sentiment that is called +honor. + +The evolution of the gentleman has its main line of progress where there +is a constant though slow advance; but, on the other hand, there are +arrested developments, and quaint survivals, and abortive attempts. + +In each generation there have been men of fashion who have mistaken +themselves for gentlemen. They are uninteresting enough while in the +flesh, but after a generation or two they become very quaint and +curious, when considered as specimens. Each generation imagines that it +has discovered a new variety, and invents a name for it. The dude, the +swell, the dandy, the fop, the spark, the macaroni, the blade, the +popinjay, the coxcomb,--these are butterflies of different summers. +There is here endless variation, but no advancement. One fashion comes +after another, but we cannot call it better. One would like to see +representatives of the different generations together in full dress. +What variety in oaths and small talk! What anachronisms in swords and +canes and eye-glasses, in ruffles, in collars, in wigs! What affluence +in powders and perfumes and colors! But "will they know each other +there"? The real gentlemen would be sure to recognize each other. +Abraham and Marcus Aurelius and Confucius would find much in common. +Launcelot and Sir Philip Sidney and Chinese Gordon would need no +introduction. Montaigne and Mr. Spectator and the Autocrat of the +Breakfast-Table would fall into delightful chat. But would a "swell" +recognize a "spark"? And might we not expect a "dude" to fall into +immoderate laughter at the sight of a "popinjay"? + +Fashion has its revenges. Nothing seems so ridiculous to it as an old +fashion. The fop has no toleration for the obsolete foppery. The +artificial gentleman is as inconceivable out of his artificial +surroundings as the waxen-faced gentleman of the clothing store outside +his show window. + +There was Beau Nash, for example,--a much-admired person in his day, +when he ruled from his throne in the pump-room in Bath. Everything was +in keeping. There was Queen Anne architecture, and Queen Anne furniture, +and Queen Anne religion, and the Queen Anne fashion in fine gentlemen. +What a curious piece of bricabrac this fine gentleman was, to be sure! +He was not fitted for any useful purpose under the sun, but in his place +he was quite ornamental, and undoubtedly very expensive. Art was as +self-complacent as if nature had never been invented. What multitudes of +the baser sort must be employed in furnishing the fine gentleman with +clothes! All Bath admired the way in which Beau Nash refused to pay for +them. Once when a vulgar tradesman insisted on payment, Nash compromised +by lending him twenty pounds,--which he did with the air of a prince. So +great was the impression he made upon his time that a statue was erected +to him, while beneath were placed the busts of two minor contemporaries, +Pope and Newton. This led Lord Chesterfield to write:-- + + "This statue placed the busts between + Adds to the satire strength, + Wisdom and wit are little seen, + But folly at full length." + +Lord Chesterfield himself had nothing in common with the absurd +imitation gentlemen, and yet the gentleman whom he described and +pretended to admire was altogether artificial. He was the Machiavelli of +the fashionable world. He saw through it, and recognized its +hollowness; but such as it was it must be accepted. The only thing was +to learn how to get on in it. "In courts you may expect to meet +connections without friendships, enmities without hatred, honor without +virtue, appearances saved and realities sacrificed, good manners and bad +morals." + +There is something earnestly didactic about Lord Chesterfield. He gives +line upon line, and precept upon precept, to his "dear boy." Never did a +Puritan father teach more conscientiously the shorter catechism than did +he the whole duty of the gentleman, which was to save appearances even +though he must sacrifice reality. "My dear boy," he writes +affectionately, "I advise you to trust neither man nor woman more than +is absolutely necessary. Accept proffered friendships with great +civility, but with great incredulity." + +No youth was more strenuously prodded up the steep and narrow path of +virtue than was little Philip Stanhope up the steep and narrow path of +fashion. Worldliness made into a religion was not without its +asceticism. "Though you think you dance well, do not think you dance +well enough. Though you are told that you are genteel, still aim at +being genteeler.... Airs, address, manners, graces, are of such infinite +importance and are so essentially necessary to you that now, as the time +of meeting draws near, I tremble for fear that I may not find you +possessed of them." + +Lord Chesterfield's gentleman was a man of the world; but it was, after +all, a very hard and empty world. It was a world that had no eternal +laws, only changing fashions. It had no broken hearts, only broken vows. +It was a world covered with glittering ice, and the gentleman was one +who had learned to skim over its dangerous places, not caring what +happened to those who followed him. + +It is a relief to get away from such a world, and, leaving the fine +gentleman behind, to take the rumbling stagecoach to the estates of Sir +Roger de Coverley. His is not the great world at all, and his interests +are limited to his own parish. But it is a real world, and much better +suited to a real gentleman. His fashions are not the fashions of the +court, but they are the fashions that wear. Even when following the +hounds Sir Roger has time for friendly greetings. "The farmers' sons +thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old +knight, which he requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry +after their fathers and uncles." + +But even dear old Roger de Coverley cannot rest undisturbed as an ideal +gentleman. He belonged, after all, to a privileged order, and there is a +force at work to destroy all social privileges. A generation of farmers' +sons must arise not to be so easily satisfied with a kindly nod and +smile. Liberty, fraternity, and equality have to be reckoned with. +Democracy has come with its leveling processes. + + "The calm Olympian height + Of ancient order feels its bases yield." + +In a revolutionary period the virtues of an aristocracy become more +irritating than their vices. People cease to attribute merit to what +comes through good fortune. No wonder that the disciples of the older +time cry:-- + + "What hope for the fine-nerved humanities + That made earth gracious once with gentler arts?" + +What becomes of the gentleman in an age of democratic equality? Just +what becomes of every ideal when the time for its fulfillment has come. +It is freed from its limitations and enters into a larger life. + +Let us remember that the gentleman was always a lover of equality, and +of the graces that can only grow in the society of equals. The gentleman +of an aristocracy is at his best only when he is among his peers. There +is a little circle within which there is no pushing, no assumption of +superiority. Each member seeks not his own, but finds pleasure in a +gracious interchange of services. + +But an aristocracy leaves only a restricted sphere for such good +manners. Outside the group to which he belongs the gentleman is +compelled by imperious custom to play the part of a superior being. It +has always been distasteful and humiliating to him. It is only an +essentially vulgar nature that can really be pleased with the servility +of others. + +An ideal democracy is a society in which good manners are universal. +There is no arrogance and no cringing, but social intercourse is based +on mutual respect. This ideal democracy has not been perfected, but the +type of men who are creating it has already been evolved. Among all the +crude and sordid elements of modern life, we see the stirring of a new +chivalry. It is based on a recognition of the worth and dignity of the +common man. + +Milton in memorable words points out the transition which must take +place from the gentleman of romance to the gentleman of enduring +reality. After narrating how, in his youth, he betook himself "to those +lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of +knighthood founded by our victorious kings and thence had in renown +through all Christendom," he says, "This my mind gave me that every free +and gentle spirit, without that oath ought to be born a knight, nor +needed to expect a gilt spur or the laying on of a sword upon his +shoulder." + + + + +The Hinter-land of Science + + +A genial critic detects a note of exaggeration in my praise of +Ignorance. It is, he declares, a bit of "Yellow Journalism." The +reader's attention is attracted by a glaring headline which leads him to +suppose that a crime has been committed, when in reality nothing out of +the ordinary has happened. That a person who has emerged from the state +of absolute illiteracy far enough to appear in print should express a +preference for Ignorance would be important if true. After perusing the +chapter, however, he is of the opinion that it is not Ignorance, at all, +that is described, but something much more respectable. It is akin to a +state of mind which literary persons have agreed to praise under the +name of Culture. + +It is very natural that these literary persons should prefer a +high-sounding name, and one free from vulgar associations, but I do not +think that their plea will stand the test of scientific analysis. +Science will not tolerate half knowledge nor pleasant imaginings, nor +sympathetic appreciations; it must have definite demonstration. The +knowledge of the best that has been said and thought may be very +consoling, but it implies an unscientific principle of selection. It can +be proved by statistics that the best things are exceptional. What about +the second best, not to speak of the tenth rate? It is only when you +have collected a vast number of commonplace facts that you are on the +road to a true generalization. + +In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington there is a children's room, +in which there is a case marked "Pretty Shells." The specimens fully +justify the inscription. The very daintiest shapes, and the most +intricate convolutions, and the most delicate tints are represented. +They are pretty shells, which have not left their beauty on the shore. +But the delight in all this loveliness is not scientific. The kind +gentleman who arranged the shells according to this classification +acted not in his capacity as a conchologist, but as the father of a +family. + +Nor does the enjoyment of the most beautiful thoughts or words satisfy +the requirements of those sciences which deal with humanity. The +distinction between Literature and Science is fundamental. What is a +virtue in one sphere is a vice in the other. After all that has been +said about the scientific use of the imagination it remains true that +the imagination is an intruder in the laboratory. Even if it were put to +use, that would only mean that it is reduced to a condition of slavery. +In its own realm it is accustomed to play rather than to work. It is +also true that the attempts to introduce the methods of the laboratory +into literature have been dismal failures. That way dullness lies. + +Now and then, indeed, Nature in a fit of prodigality endows one person +with both gifts.--Was not Oliver Wendell Holmes a Professor of Anatomy? +In such a case there is a perpetual effervescence. But even Dr. Holmes +could not insinuate a sufficient knowledge of Anatomy by means of a +series of discursive essays; nor could he give scientific value to the +reflections of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." + +There was a time when the ability to read was such a rare accomplishment +that it seemed to furnish the key to all knowledge. Men of the baser +sort had to learn by experience, but the reader followed a royal path to +the very fountain head of wisdom. Ordinary rules were not for him; he +could claim the benefit of clergy. Only a generation ago young men of +parts prepared themselves for the bar--and very good lawyers they +made--by "reading Blackstone." Blackstone is a pleasant author, with a +fund of wise observations, and many pleasant afternoons were spent in +his company. In like manner other young men "read medicine." + +It is now coming to be understood that one cannot read a science; it +must be studied in quite a different fashion. "Book-learning" in such +matters has been discredited. + +The Gentle Reader has learned this lesson. It may be that he has +cultivated some tiny field of his own, and has thus come to know how +different this laborious task is from the care-free wandering in which +at other hours he delights. But though he cannot read his way into the +domains of strict science, yet there is an adjacent territory which he +frequents. Into this territory, though he holds an ambiguous position, +and finds many to molest and make him afraid, he is drawn by an +insatiable curiosity. In a border-land danger has attractions and +mystery is alluring. There is pleasant reading in spite of many +threatening technicalities which seem to bar further progress. + +On the coasts of the Dark Continent of Ignorance the several sciences +have gained a foothold. In each case there is a well-defined country +carefully surveyed and guarded. Within its frontiers the laws are +obeyed, and all affairs are carried on in an orderly fashion. Beyond it +is a vague "sphere of influence," a Hinter-land over which ambitious +claims of suzerainty are made; but the native tribes have not yet been +exterminated, and life goes on very much as in the olden time. Into the +Hinter-land the Gentle Reader wanders, and he is known to the scientific +explorer as a friendly native, whose good-will is worth cultivating. He +is often confounded with the "General Reader," a very different person, +whose omnivorous appetite and intemperance in the use of miscellaneous +information are very offensive to him. Unscrupulous adventurers carry on +a thriving trade with the General Reader in damaged goods, which are +foisted on him under the name of Popular Science. + + * * * * * + +In the Hinter-land there is dense ignorance of the achievements and even +of the names of most of those who are recognized as authorities in their +several sciences. They are as unknown as is the Lord Mayor of London to +the natives on the banks of the Zambesi. The heroes of the Hinter-land +are the bold explorers who in militant fashion have made their way into +regions as yet unsubdued. + +In the middle of the nineteenth century there was an heroic period +during which scientific investigation took on all the color of romance. +The Gentle Reader turns to the lives and works of Darwin, Huxley, and +Tyndall, very much as he would turn to the tales of Charlemagne and his +Paladins. Here was a field of action. Something happened. As he reads he +is conscious that he has nothing of that impersonal attitude which +belongs to pure science. It is not scientific but human interest which +moves him. He is anxious to know what these men did, and what was the +result of their deeds. It is an intellectual adventure of which the +outcome is still uncertain. + +The new generation cannot fully realize what the word "Evolution" meant +to those who saw in it a portent of mysterious change. In its early +advocates there was a mingling of romantic daring and missionary zeal. +Its enemies resisted with the fortitude which belongs to those who never +know when they are beaten. In almost any old bookstores one may see a +counter labeled "Second-hand Theology, very cheap." It is a collection +of the spent ammunition which may still be found on the field of battle. +It is in an unfrequented corner. Now and then a theological student may +visit it, but even he seems rather to be a vague considerer of worthy +things than a bargain hunter. Yet once these volumes were eagerly read. + +Out of the border warfare between Science and certain types of Theology +and Philosophy there came a kind of literature that has a very real +value and which is not lacking in charm. What a sense of relief came to +the Gentle Reader when he stumbled upon John Fiske's "Excursions of an +Evolutionist." This was the very thing he had been looking for; not an +exhaustive survey, nor a strenuous campaign, but an excursion with a +competent guide and interpreter, a friendly person acquainted with the +country who would tell him the things he wanted to know, and not weary +him with irrelevant and confusing details. + +What an admirable interpreter Fiske was! Darwin, with characteristic +modesty, acknowledged his indebtedness to him for pointing out some of +the larger results of his own investigations. He had the instinct which +enabled him to seize the salient points; to open up new vistas, to make +clear a situation. His histories are always readable because he followed +the main stream and never lost himself in a sluggish bayou. The same +method applied to cosmic forces makes him see their dramatic movement. +It is the genius of a born man of letters using the facts discovered by +scientific methods for its own purpose. That purpose is always broad and +humanizing. + +The specialist is apt to speak patronizingly of such work, as if it were +necessarily inferior to his own. It seems to bear the marks of +superficiality. To appreciate it properly one must take it for what it +is. Man was interested in the Universe long before he began to study it +scientifically. He dreamed about it, he mused over its mysteries, he +talked about its more obvious aspects. And it is as interesting now as +it ever was and as fit an object of thought. The conceptions which +satisfied us in the days when ignorance had not arrived at +self-consciousness have to be given up; but we are anxious to know what +have taken their places. We want to get our bearings and to discern the +general trend of the forces which make the world. It is no mean order of +mind that is fitted to answer our needs by wise interpretation. + +There is often a conflict between private owners and the public over the +right to fish in certain waters. The landowners put up warning signs and +try to prevent trespass, while the public insists on its ancient +privileges. The law, with that admirable common sense for which it has +such a great reputation, makes a distinction. The small pond may be +privately owned and fenced in, but "boatable waters" are free to all. + +So we may concede to the specialist the exclusive right to have an +opinion on certain subjects--subjects let us say of a size suitable for +the thesis of a Doctor of Philosophy. But we are not to be shut off from +the pleasure of thinking on more sizable themes. We have all equal +rights on the "boatable waters." + + * * * * * + +Matthew Arnold retells the story of the Scholar-gypsy who, forsaking the +university, "took to the woods,"--so far as we can learn from the poem, +to his own spiritual and intellectual advantage. The combination of the +scholar and gypsy has a fascination. One likes to conceive of thought as +playing freely among the other forces of nature, and dealing directly +with all objects and not with those especially prepared for it. + +Across the border-land of the physical sciences one may meet many such +scholar-gypsies. They have taken to the wilderness and yet carried into +it a trained intelligence. Here may be found keen observers, who might +have written text-books on ornithology had they not fallen in love with +birds. They follow their friends into their haunts in the thickets, and +they love to gossip about their peculiarities. Here are botanists who +love the growing things in the fields and woods better than the +specimens in their herbariums. They love to describe better than to +analyze. Now and then one may meet a renegade who carries a geologist's +hammer. It is a sheer hypocrisy, like a fishing rod in the hands of a +contemplative rambler. It is merely an excuse for being out of doors and +among the mountains. + +The Gentle Reader finds unfailing delight in these wanderers. They open +up to him a leafy world. Thanks to them there are places where he feels +intimately at home: a certain English parish; a strip of woodland in +Massachusetts; the vicinity of a farm on the Hudson; an enchanted +country in the high Sierras. + +"I verily believe," he says, "there is more Natural History to be +learned in such places than in all the museums. Besides, I never liked a +museum." + +The fact is that he does learn a good many things in this way--and some +of them he remembers. + + * * * * * + +The native African who is capable of understanding the philosophy of +history may adjust his mind to the idea that his continent is intended +for exploitation by a superior race. The forests in which his ancestors +have hunted for generations form only a part of the Hinter-land of some +colony on the coast which he has never seen. After a time, by an +inevitable process of expansion, the colony will absorb and assimilate +all the adjoining country. But his perplexities are not over when he +has, in a general way, resigned himself to manifest destiny. He +discovers that all Europeans are not alike, though they certainly look +alike. There are conflicting claims. To whose sphere of influence does +he belong? It is not easy to answer such questions, and mistakes are +liable to bring down upon him punitive expeditions from different +quarters. + +A similar perplexity arises in the minds of the simple inhabitants of +the scientific Hinter-lands. They are ready to admit the superior claims +of the exact sciences, but they are puzzled to know to what particular +sphere they belong. + +In the absence of any generally received philosophy each special science +pushes out as far as it can and attempts to take in the whole of +existence. The specialist, forgetting his self-imposed limitations, and +fired with the ambition for wide generalization, which is the infirmity +of all active minds, becomes an intellectual tyrant. He is a veritable +Tamerlane, and if he rears no pyramids of skulls, he leaves behind him a +multitude of muddled brains. + +Wilberforce tells us of the havoc wrought in his day by the new science +of Political Economy. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was hailed as the +complete solution of all social problems. Forgetting the narrow scope of +the inquiry which had to do with only a single aspect of human life, the +maxims of trade were elevated into the place of the moral law. +Superstition magnified those useful twins, Demand and Supply, into two +all-powerful Genii who were quite capable of doing the work of +Providence. For any one in the spirit of brotherly kindness to interfere +with their autocratic operations was looked upon as an act of rebellion +against the nature of things. "A dismal science," indeed, as any science +is when it becomes an unlimited despotism. + +At the present time Geology is a very modest science, remaining +peacefully within its natural frontiers; but in the days of Hugh Miller +it was viewed with alarm. Elated with its victory in the affair with +Genesis, its adherents were filled with militant ardor and were in the +mood for universal conquest. In alliance with Chemistry it invaded the +sphere of morals. Was not even Ruskin induced to write of the "Ethics of +the Dust"? In the form of Physical Geography and with the auxiliary +forces of Meteorology, it was ready to recast human history. Books were +written to show that all civilization could be sufficiently explained by +one who took account only of such features of the world as soil and +climate. + +While learned men were geologizing through the successive +stratifications of humanity, a new claimant appeared. Biology became +easily the paramount power. Its fame spread far and wide among those who +knew nothing of its severer methods. In the Hinter-land the worship of +Protoplasm became a cult. The hopes and fears and spiritual powers of +humanity seemed illusory unless such phenomena were confirmed by +analogies drawn from "the psychic life of micro-organisms." Fortunately +at about this time the aggressive temper of "The New Psychology" did +much to restore the balance of power. Under its influence those who +still adhered to the belief that the proper study of mankind is man took +heart and ventured, though with caution, to move abroad. The new +Psychology in its turn has developed imperialistic ambitions. Its +conquests have not been without much devastation, especially in the fair +fields of education. A distinguished Psychologist has sounded a note of +warning. He would have psychological experiments confined to the +laboratory, leaving the school-room to the wholesome government of +common sense. It is doubtful, however, whether such protests will avail +any more than the eloquence of the Little Englanders has been able to +limit colonial expansion. + +The border-land between Psychology and Sociology is the scene of many a +foray. The Psychologist thinks nothing of following a fleeing idea +across the frontier. He deals confidently with the "Psychology of the +mob," and "the aggregate mind," and the hypnotic influence of the crowd. +There is such an air of authority about it all, that we forget that he +is dealing with figures of speech. On the other hand, the Sociologist +attempts to solve the most delicate problems of the individual soul by +the statistical method. + +The Hinter-land has not yet been reduced to order. The Gentle Reader +suspects that no one of the rival sciences is strong enough to impose +its own laws over so wide a region. Perhaps, after all, they may have to +call upon Philosophy to undertake the task of forming a responsible +government. + + + + +The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy + + +"There has been a sad falling off in clerical character," says the +Gentle Reader. "In the old books it is a pleasure to meet a parson. He +is so simple and hearty that you feel at home with him at once. You know +just where to find him, and he always takes himself and his profession +for granted. He may be a trifle narrow, but you make allowance for that, +and as for his charity it has no limits. You expect him to give away +everything he can lay hands on. As for his creed it is always the same +as the church to which he belongs, which is a great relief and saves no +end of trouble. But the clergyman I meet with in novels nowadays is in a +chronic state of fidgetiness. Nothing is as it seems or as it ought to +be. He is as full of problems as an egg is full of meat. Everything +resolves itself into a conflict of duties, and whichever duty he does he +wishes it had been the other one. When the poor man is not fretting +because of evil-doers he begins to fret because of the well-doers, who +do well in the old fashion without any proper knowledge of the Higher +Criticism or Sanitary Drainage. What with his creed and his congregation +and his love affairs, all of which need mending, he lives a distracted +life. Though the author in the first chapter praises his athletic +prowess, he seems to have no staying powers and his nerves give out +under the least strain. He is one of those trying characters of whom +some one has said that 'we can hear their souls scrape.' I prefer the +old-time parsons. They were much more comfortable and in more rugged +health. I like the phrase 'Bishops and other Clergy.' The bishops are +great personages whose lives are written like the lives of the Lord +Chancellors; and they are not always very readable. But my heart goes +out to the other clergy, the good sensible men who were neither great +scholars nor reformers nor martyrs, and who therefore did not get into +the Church Histories, but who kept things going." + +When he turns to the parson of "The Canterbury Tales" he finds the +refreshment that comes from contact with a perfectly wholesome nature. +Here is an enduring type of natural piety. In the person of the good man +the prayers of the church for the healthful spirit of grace had been +answered in full measure. In his ministry in his wide parish we cannot +imagine him as being worried or hurried. There could be for him no +conflict of duties; the duties plodded along one after another in sturdy +English fashion. And when the duties were well done that was the end of +them. Their pale uneasy ghosts did not disturb his slumbers, and point +with vague menace to the unattainable. The parson had his place and his +definite task. He trod the earth as firmly and sometimes as heavily as +did the ploughman. + +If the virtues of the fourteenth-century parson were of the enduring +order, so were his foibles. The Gentle Reader is familiar with his +weaknesses; for has he not "sat under his preaching?" The homiletic +habit is hard to break, and renders its victim strangely oblivious to +the passage of time. Every incident suggests a text and every text +suggests a new application. In the homiletic sphere perpetual motion is +an assured success. + +What sinking of heart must have come to laymen like the merchant and the +yeoman when the parson on the pleasant road to Canterbury called their +attention to the resemblance between their journey and + + "...thilke parfit, glorious pilgrymage, + That highte Jerusalem celestial." + +They knew the symptoms. When the homilist has got scent of an analogy he +will run it down, however long the chase. + +It would be interesting to discover the origin of the impression so +persistent in the lay mind that sermons are long. A sermon is seldom as +long as it seems. But it is always with trepidation that the listener +observes in a discourse a constitutional tendency to longevity. In his +opinion the good die young. As it is to-day so it was on the afternoon +when the host, with ill-concealed alarm, called upon the good parson to +take his turn. + + "Telleth," quod he, "youre meditacioun; + But hasteth yow, the sonne wole adoun. + Beth fructuous, and that in litel space." + +It is needless to say that what the parson called his "little tale in +prose" proved to be one of his old sermons which he delivered without +notes. He was very unskillful in concealing his text, which was Jeremiah +vi. 16. + +We are familiar with that interesting picture of the pilgrims as they +set out in the morning, each figure alert. I wonder that some one has +not painted a picture of them about sunset, as the parson was in the +middle of his discourse. It is said that in every battle there is a +critical moment when each side is almost exhausted. The side which at +this moment receives reinforcements or rallies for a supreme effort +gains the victory. So one must have noticed in every over-long discourse +a critical moment when the speaker and his hearers are equally +exhausted. If at that moment the speaker, who has apparently used up his +material, boldly announces a new head, the hearers' discomfiture is +complete. This point of strategy the parson, guileless as he was, +understood and so managed to get in the last word, so that "The +Canterbury Tales" end with the Canterbury sermon. + +By the way, there was one ministerial weakness from which Chaucer's +parson was free,--the love of alliteration. One is often struck, when +listening to a fervent discourse against besetting sins, with the +curious fact that all the transgressions begin with the same letter of +the alphabet. There is something suspicious in this circumstance. Not a +great many years ago a political party suffered severely because its +candidate received an address from a worthy clergyman who was addicted +to this habit, and instead of the usual three R's enumerated "Rum, +Romanism, and Rebellion." The chances are that he meant no offense to +his Roman Catholic fellow citizens; but once on the toboggan slide of +alliteration he could not stop. If instead of rum he had begun with +whiskey, his homiletic instinct would have led him to assert that the +three perils of the Republic were whiskey, war, and woman-suffrage. + +It is to the credit of Chaucer's parson that he distinctly repudiated +alliteration with all its allurements, especially in connection with the +seductive letter R. + + "I kan nat geeste '_rum_, _ram_, _ruf_,' by lettre; + Ne, God woot, rym holde I but litel bettre." + +When it came to plain prose without any rhetorical embellishments, he +was in his element. + +It must be confessed that the clergyman is not an eminently +Shakespearean character. The great high ecclesiastics, like Pandulph and +Wolsey, are great personages who make a fine show, but the other clergy +are not always in good and regular standing. They are sometimes little +better than hedge-priests. But what pleasant glimpses we get into the +unwritten history of the English Church in the days when it was still +Merry England. The Cranmers and the Ridleys made a great stir in those +days, but no rumors of it reached the rural parishes where Holofernes +kept school and Nathanael warmed over for his slumbering congregation +the scraps he had stolen in his youth from the feast of the languages. +As for the parishioners, they were doubtless well satisfied and could +speak after the fashion of Constable Dull when he was reproved for his +silence. + +"Goodman Dull, thou hast said no word all this while." + +Dull,--"Nor understood none neither, sir!" + +The innocent pedant whose learning lies in the dead languages and who +has a contempt for the living world is a type not extinct; but what +shall we say of the Welsh curate of Windsor, Hugh Evans? In Windsor Park +Mrs. Ford whispers, "Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and that +Welsh devil Sir Hugh?" + +That was her affectionate, though not respectful, way of referring to +her spiritual adviser. Curate Evans was certainly not an example of what +has been termed "the mild and temperate spirituality which has always +characterized the Church of England." The dignity of the cloth is not in +his mind as he cries, "Trib, fairies, trib, come and remember your +parts, pe pold, I pray you, ... when I give the watch'ords do as I pid +you." + +Yet though he seemed not to put so much emphasis on character in +religion as we in these more serious days think fitting, this Welsh +devil of a parson had enough of the professional spirit to wish to point +a moral on all proper occasions. Not too obtrusive or moral, nor +carrying it to the sweating point, but a good, sound approbation of +right sentiment. When Master Slender declares his resolution, "After +this trick I'll ne'er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, +godly company. If I be drunk I'll be drunk with those who fear God," the +convivial curate responds, "So God judge me that shows a virtuous mind." + +That Shakespeare intended any reflection on the Welsh clergy is not +probable; but so late as the eighteenth century a traveler in Wales +remarks that the ale house was usually kept by the parson. One wonders +whether with such manifest advantages the Welsh ministers' meetings were +given over to lugubrious essays on "Why we do not reach the masses." + +Shakespeare uses the word Puritan once, but Malvolio was a prig rather +than a true Puritan. His objection to cakes and ale was rather because +revelry disturbed his slumbers than because it troubled his conscience. +But when we turn to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and come across Tribulation +Wholesome, from Amsterdam, we know that the battle between the stage and +the conventicle has begun. We know the solid virtues of these sectaries +from whom came some of the best things in England and New England. But +we must not expect to find this side of their character in the +literature of the next two or three centuries. Unfortunately the +non-conformist conscience was offended at those innocent pleasures in +which amiable writers and readers have always taken satisfaction. + +Charles Lamb inclined to the opinion of his friend who held that "a man +cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumpling." The +gastronomic argument against Puritanism has always been a strong one +with the English mind. It was felt that a person must be a hypocrite who +could speak disrespectfully of the creature comforts. There was no +toleration for the miserable pretender who would "blaspheme custard +through the nose." Tribulation Wholesome was deserving only of the +pillory. There was no doubt but that the viands which were publicly +reprobated were privately enjoyed. + + "You rail against plays to please the alderman + Whose daily custard you devour. + ...You call yourselves + By names of Tribulation, Persecution, + Restraint, Long Patience and such-like, affected + Only for glory and to catch the ear + Of the disciple." + +In "Bartholomew Fair" we meet Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy, an unlicensed +exhorter, who has attained the liberty of prophesying, and is the leader +of a little flock. + +Did history keep on repeating itself, or did literary men keep on +repeating each other? At any rate Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy reappears +continually. He is in every particular the prototype of those painful +brethren who roused the wrath of honest Sam Weller. We recognize his +unctuous speech, his unfailing appetite, and even his offensive and +defensive alliance with the mother-in-law. + +Mr. Little-Wit introduces him as "An old elder from Banbury who puts in +here at meal times to praise the painful brethren and to pray that the +sweet singers may be restored; and he says grace as long as his breath +lasts." + +To which Mrs. Little-Wit responds, "Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious +time with him, what for his diet and his clothes too, he breaks his +buttons and cracks seams at every saying that he sobs out." + +In answer to the anxious inquiry of his mother-in-law, Dame Pure-Craft, +Little-Wit announces that he has found the good man "with his teeth +fast in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on +his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right." In Dame Pure-Craft +he finds a stanch supporter. "Slander not the brethren, wicked one," she +cries. + +Zeal of the Land Busy attempts to lead his flock through the perils of +Bartholomew Fair. "Walk in the middle of the way--turn neither to the +right nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside by vanity nor +your ears by noises." It was indeed a dangerous journey, for it was +nothing less than "a grove of hobby horses and trinkets; the wares are +the wares of devils, and the fair is the shop of Satan." + +But, alas, though the eyes and ears were guarded, another avenue of +temptation had been forgotten. The delicious odor of roast pig came from +one of the booths. It was a delicate little pig, cooked with fire of +juniper and rosemary branches. Mrs. Little-Wit longed for it and her +husband encouraged her weakness. Dame Pure-Craft rebukes him and bids +him remember the wholesome admonition of their leader. + +Zeal of the Land Busy is a casuist of no mean ability, and is equal to +the task of finding an exception to his own rule. + +"It may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, +which I think it doth in this place, huh! huh!--yes, it doth. And it +were a sin of obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to resist the +titillation of the famelic sense which is smell. Therefore be bold, +follow the scent; enter the tents of the unclean for this once, and +satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your +zealous mother and my suffering self will be satisfied also." + +Zeal of the Land Busy was like a certain English statesman of whom it +was said, "His conscience, instead of being his monitor, became his +accomplice." + +One characteristic of these unlicensed exhorters seems to be very +persistent,--their almost superhuman fluency. Despising preparation and +trusting to the inspiration of the moment, they are never left without +words. Preaching without notes is not particularly difficult if one has +something to say, but these exhorters attempt to preach without notes +and also without ideas. They require nothing but a word to begin with. +The speaker is like an army which, having broken away from its base of +supplies, lives on the country through which it is marching. The +hortatory guerrilla gets forage enough in one sentence to carry him on +through the next. This was the homiletical method which Zeal of the Land +used in his discourse at the fair. At a venture he cries out,-- + +"Down with Dagon!" + +Leather-Head, the hobby-horse seller, asks very imprudently,-- + +"What do you mean, sir!" + +That was enough; a torrent of impromptu eloquence is let loose. + +"I will remove Dagon there, I say; that idol, that heathenish idol, that +remains as I may say a beam, a very beam, not a beam of the sun, nor a +beam of the moon, nor a beam of the balance, neither a house beam, nor a +weaver's beam, but a beam in the eye, an exceeding great beam!" + +It was the same method employed long after by Mr. Chadband in his moving +address to little Joe. + +"My young friend, you are to us a pearl, a diamond, you are to us a +jewel. And why, my young friend?" + +"I don't know," replied Joe, "I don't know nothink." + +This gave Mr. Chadband his opportunity for continued speech. "My young +friend, it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem, a +jewel. For what are you? Are you a beast of the field? No! Are you a +fish of the river? No! You are a human boy! Oh, glorious to be a human +boy! And why glorious, my young friend?" + +Marvelous, to taciturn folk, is this flow of language. The little rill +becomes a torrent, and soon there are waters to swim in. It seems to +savor of the supernatural, being of the nature of creation out of +nothing. And yet like many other wonderful things, it is easy when one +knows how to do it. + +The churchmen of those days joined with the wits in laughter which +greeted the tinkers and the bakers who turned to prophesying on their +own account. But now and then one of the zealous independents could give +as keen a thrust as any which were received. It would be hard to find +more delicate satire than in the description of Parson Two Tongues of +the town of Fair Speech, who was much esteemed by his distinguished +parishioners, My Lord Time-Server, Mr. Facing Both-Ways, and Mr. +Anything. The parson was a man of good family, though his grandfather +had been a waterman, and had thus learned the art of looking one way and +rowing another. It is his parishioner Mr. Bye-Ends who propounds the +question of ministerial ethics. "Suppose a minister, a worthy man, +possessed of but a small benefice, has in his eye a greater, more fat +and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting it, yet so +as being more studious, by preaching more zealously, and because the +temper of the people requires it, by altering some of his principles, +for my part I see no reason but a man may do this (provided he has a +call), aye, and a great deal more besides, and be an honest man." As for +changing his principles to suit the times, Mr. Bye-Ends argues that it +shows that the minister "is of a self-sacrificing temper." + +The argument for conformity is put so plausibly that it is calculated to +deceive the very elect; and then as if by mere inadvertence we are +allowed a glimpse of the seamy side. It is evident that the wits were +not all banished from the conventicles. + + * * * * * + +To those who are acquainted only with the pale and interesting +tea-drinking parsons of nineteenth-century English fiction, there is +something surprising in the clergymen one meets in the pages of +Fielding. They are all in such rude health! There is not a suggestion of +nervous prostration nor of minister's sore throat. Not one of them seems +to be in need of a vacation; perhaps because they are out of doors all +the time. Their professional duties were doubtless done, but they are +not obtruded on the reader's attention. + +The odious Chaplain Thwackum is chiefly remembered for his argument with +the free-thinker Square. Square having asserted that honor might exist +independently of religion, Thwackum refutes him in a manner most +satisfactory. "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion, +and not only the Christian religion but the Protestant religion, and not +only the Protestant religion but the religion of the Church of England; +and when I mention honor I mean that mode of divine grace which is +dependent on that religion." + +"Thwackum," says the Gentle Reader, "was, after all, an unworldly man. +He was content to remain a mere hanger-on of the church when he was +capable of thoughts which were really in great demand. I have been +looking over a huge controversial volume by an author of that day, and I +found nothing but Thwackum argument expanded and illustrated. The author +was made a bishop for it." + +As for Parson Trulliber, the Falstaff of divines, the less said about +him the better. The curate Barnabas is a more pleasing character, though +hardly an example of spirituality. He reminds one of the good parson +who, in his desire for moderation, prayed that the Lord might lead his +people "in the safe middle path between right and wrong." + +When Joseph Andrews confessed his sins to him, Barnabas was divided +between his eagerness to do his professional duty to the sinner, and the +desire to prepare the punch for the company downstairs, a work in which +he particularly excelled. + +"Barnabas asked him if he forgave his enemies 'as a Christian ought.' + +"Joseph desired to know what that forgiveness was. + +"'That is,' answered Barnabas, 'to forgive them--as--it is to forgive +them as--in short, to forgive them as a Christian.' + +"Joseph replied 'He forgave them as much as he could.' + +"'Well! Well!' said Barnabas, 'that will do!' He then demanded of him if +he had any more sins unrepented of, and if he had, to repent of them as +fast as he could; ... for some company was waiting below in the parlor +where the ingredients for punch were all in readiness, for that no one +could squeeze the oranges till he came." + +Barnabas would have been shocked at the demands of the Methodists for +immediate repentance, but on this occasion he was led into almost equal +urgency. + +But Fielding more than atones for all the rest by the creation of Parson +Adams. Dear, delightful Parson Adams! to know him is to love him! In him +the Church of England appears a little out at the elbows, but in good +heart. With the appetite of a ploughman, and "a fist rather less than +the knuckle of an ox," he represents the true church militant. He has a +pipe in his mouth, and a short great coat which half conceals his +cassock, which he had "torn some ten years ago in passing over a stile." +But however uncanonical his attire, his heart is in the right place. + +What a different world Parson Adams lived in from that of George Eliot's +Amos Barton, bewildered with thoughts which he could not express. "'Mr. +Barton,' said his rural parishioner, 'can preach as good a sermon as +need be when he writes it down, but when he tries to preach without book +he rambles about, and every now and then flounders like a sheep as has +cast itself and can't get on its legs.'" + +One cannot imagine Parson Adams floundering about, under any +circumstances. There is a sturdy strength and directness about all he +says and does. His simplicity is endearing but never savors of weakness. + +He sets great store by his manuscript sermons, for which he seeks a +publisher. The curate Barnabas throws cold water on his plans. The age, +he says, is so wicked that nobody reads sermons; + +"'Would you think it, Mr. Adams, I intended to print a volume of +sermons, myself, and they had the approbation of three bishops, but what +do you think the bookseller offered me?' + +"'Twelve guineas,' cried Adams. + +"'Nay,' answered Barnabas, 'the dog refused me a concordance in +exchange.... To be concise with you, three bishops said they were the +best sermons that were ever writ; but indeed there are a pretty moderate +number printed already, and they are not all sold yet.'" + +The theology of Parson Adams was genially human. "'Can anything,' he +said, 'be more derogatory to the honor of God than for men to imagine +that the all-wise Being will hereafter say to the good and virtuous, +Notwithstanding the purity of thy life, notwithstanding the constant +rule of virtue and goodness in which thou walkedst upon earth; still, as +thou didst not believe everything in the true orthodox manner, thy want +of faith shall condemn thee? Or, on the other side, can any doctrine be +more pernicious in society than the persuasion that it will be a good +plea for a villain at the last day,--"Lord, it is true I never obeyed +any of Thy commandments; yet punish me not, for I believe in them +all?"'" + +This was not sound doctrine in the opinion of the itinerant bookseller. +"'I am afraid,' he said, 'that you will find a backwardness in the trade +to engage in a book which the clergy would be certain to cry down.'" + +The good parson had the clerical weakness for reading sermons in season +and out of season. At a festive gathering there was a call for speeches, +to which it was objected that no one was prepared for an address; +"'Unless,' turning to Adams, 'you have a sermon about you.' + +"'Sir,' said Adams, 'I never travel without one, for fear of what might +happen.'" + +Like other clergymen, he dabbled occasionally in politics. "'On all +proper seasons, such as at the approach of an election, I throw a +suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear +is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen, my +neighbors.'" + +At one time he actively labored for the election of young Sir Thomas +Booby, who had lately returned from his travels. He was elected, "'and +a fine Parliament man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour +long, and I have been told very fine ones; but he could never persuade +Parliament to be of his opinion.'" + +Estimable, eloquent Sir Thomas Booby! How many orators have found the +same result following their speeches of an hour long! + +To the returned traveler who had engaged in a controversy with him, +Parson Adams gave expression to his literary faith. + +"'Master of mine, perhaps I have traveled a great deal further than you, +without the assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different +cities or countries is traveling. I can go further in an afternoon than +you in a twelve-month. What, I suppose you have seen the pillars of +Hercules and perhaps the walls of Carthage?... You have sailed among the +Cyclades and passed the famous straits which took their name from the +unfortunate Helle, so sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have +passed the very spot where Daedalus fell into the sea; you have doubtless +traversed the Euxine, and called at Colchis to see if there was another +golden fleece.' + +"'Not I, truly,' said the gentleman. 'I never touched at any of these +places.' + +"'But I have been in all these,' replied Adams. + +"'Then you have been in the Indies, for there are no such places, I'll +be sworn, either in the West Indies or in the Levant.' + +"'Pray, where is the Levant?' quoth Adams. + +"'Oho! You're a pretty traveler and not to know the Levant. You must not +tip me for a traveler, it won't go here.' + +"'Since thou art so dull as to misunderstand me,' quoth Adams, 'I will +inform thee. The traveling I mean is in books, the only kind of +traveling by which any knowledge is acquired.'" + +"There is a great deal to be said in defense of that opinion," says the +Gentle Reader. + + * * * * * + +To turn from Parson Adams to the Vicar of Wakefield is to experience a +change of spiritual climate. Parson Adams was a good man, and so was Dr. +Primrose; otherwise they were quite different. Was piety ever made more +attractive to restless, over-driven people than in the person of the +dear, non-resistant vicar. Here was a man who might be reviled and +persecuted,--but he never could be hurried. + +The Gentle Reader rejoices in the peace of the opening chapters. "The +year was spent in moral and rural amusements. We had no revolutions to +fear, no fatigues to undergo, all our adventures were by the fireside, +and all our migrations were from the blue bed to the brown." And +good-natured Mrs. Primrose, absorbed in making pickles and gooseberry +wine, and with her ability to read any English book without much +spelling, was an ideal minister's wife, before the days of missionary +societies and general information. It was only her frivolous daughters +who were brought into society, where there was talk of "pictures, taste, +Shakespeare, and the musical glasses." These subjects not then being +supposed to have any esoteric, religious significance, which it was the +duty of the minister's wife to discover and disseminate, she busied +herself with her domestic concerns without any haunting sense that she +was neglecting the weightier matters. The vicar's favorite sermons were +in praise of matrimony, and he preached out of a happy experience. + +This peaceful scene bears the same relation to the trials that +afterwards befell the good man that the prologue to the Book of Job does +to the main part of it. Satan has his will with Job, so also it happened +with Dr. Primrose. His banker absconds to Amsterdam, his daughter elopes +with the wicked young squire who has the father thrown into prison, +where he hears of the death of his wretched daughter who has been cast +off by her betrayer. Troubles came thick and fast; yet did not the vicar +hurry, nor for a moment change the even tenor of his way. It was the +middle of the eighteenth century, when piety was not treated as an +elemental force. It did not lift up its voice and cry out against +injustice. The church was the patient Griselda married to the state, and +the clergyman was a teacher of resignation. + +Upon learning of his daughter's abduction, Dr. Primrose calls for his +Bible and his staff, but he does not indulge in any haste unbecoming a +clergyman. He finds time in his leisurely pursuit to discourse most +judiciously and at considerable length on the royal prerogative. He +remembers his duty to the landed gentry, and on his return from his +unsuccessful quest remains several days to enjoy the squire's +hospitality. + +Was ever poetical justice done with more placidity and completeness than +in the prison scene? The vicar, feeling that he is about to die, +proceeds to address his fellow wretches. He falls naturally into an old +sermon on the evils of free-thinking philosophy, that being the line of +the least resistance. The discourse being finished, it is without +surprise and yet with real pleasure that we learn that he does not die; +nor is his son, who was about to be hanged, hanged at all; on the +contrary, he appears not long after handsomely dressed in regimentals, +and makes a modest and distant bow to Miss Wilmot, the heiress. That +young lady had just arrived and was to be married next day to the wicked +young squire, but on learning that young gentleman's perfidy, "'Oh +goodness!' cried the lovely girl, 'how I have been deceived.'" The +vicar's son being on the spot in his handsome regimentals, they are +engaged in the presence of the company, and her affluent fortune is +assured to this hitherto impecunious youth. And the daughter Olivia at +the same time appears, it happening that she was not dead after all, +and that she has papers to show that she is the lawful wife of the young +squire. And the banker who ran away with the vicar's property has been +captured and the money restored. In the mean time--for happy accidents +never come singly--the wretch who was in the act of carrying off the +younger daughter Sophy has been foiled by the opportune arrival of Mr. +Burchell. And best of all, Mr. Burchell proves not to be Mr. Burchell at +all, but the celebrated Sir William Thornhill, who is loyal to the +constitution and a friend of the king. The Vicar is so far restored that +he leaves the jail and partakes of a bountiful repast, at which the +company is "as merry as affluence and innocence could make them." + +Affluence as the providential, though sometimes long delayed, reward of +innocence was a favorite thesis of eighteenth-century piety. + +"It may sound very absurd," says the Gentle Reader, "to those who insist +that all the happenings should be realistic; but the Vicar of Wakefield +is a very real character, nevertheless; and he is the kind of a person +for whom you would expect things to come out right in the end." + + + + +Quixotism + + +When Falstaff boasted that he was not only witty himself but the cause +of wit in other men, he thought of himself more highly than he ought to +have thought. The very fact that he was witty prevented him from the +highest efficiency in stimulating others in that direction. The +atmospheric currents of merriment move irresistibly toward a vacuum. +Create a character altogether destitute of humor and the most sluggish +intelligence is stirred in the effort to fill the void. + +When we seek one who is the cause of wit in other men we pass by the +jovial Falstaff and come to the preternaturally serious Don Quixote. +Here we have not the chance outcropping of "the lighter vein," but the +mother lode which the humorist finds inexhaustible. Don Quixote, with a +lofty gravity which never for an instant relaxes, sets forth upon his +mission. His is a soul impenetrable to mirth; but as he rides he +enlivens the whole country-side. Everywhere merry eyes are watching him; +boisterous laughter comes from the stables of village inns; from castle +windows high-born ladies smile upon him; the peasants in the fields +stand gaping and holding their sides; the countenances of the priests +relax, and even the robbers salute the knight with mock courtesy. The +dullest La Manchan is refreshed, and feels that he belongs to a choice +coterie of wits. + +Cervantes tells us that he intended only a burlesque on the books of +chivalry which were in vogue in his day. Had he done no more than he +intended, he would have amused his own generation and then have been +forgotten. It would be too much to ask that we should read the endless +tales about Amadis and Orlando, only that we might appreciate his clever +parody of them. A satire lasts no longer than its object. It must shoot +folly as it flies. To keep on shooting at a folly after it is dead is +unsportsmanlike. + +But though we have not read the old books of chivalry, we have all come +in contact with Quixotism. I say we have all come in contact with it; +but let no selfish, conventional persons be afraid lest they catch it. +They are immune. They may do many foolish things, but they cannot +possibly be quixotic. Quixotism is a malady possible only to generous +minds. + +Listen to Don Quixote as he makes his plea before the duke and duchess. +"I have redressed grievances, righted the injured, chastised the +insolent, vanquished giants. My intentions have all been directed toward +virtuous ends and to do good to all mankind. Now judge, most excellent +duke and duchess, whether a person who makes it his study to practice +all this deserves to be called a fool." + +Our first instinct is to answer confidently, "Of course not! Such a +character as you describe is what we call a hero or a saint." But the +person whose moral enthusiasm has been tempered with a knowledge of the +queer combinations of goodness and folly of which human nature is +capable is more wary, and answers, "That depends." + +In the case of Don Quixote it depends very much on the kind of world he +lives in. If it should happen that in this world there are giants +standing truculently at their castle doors, and forlorn maidens at every +cross-roads waiting to be rescued, we will grant him the laurels that +are due to the hero. But if La Mancha should not furnish these materials +for his prowess,--then we must take a different view of the case. + +The poor gentleman is mad, that is what the curate and the barber say; +but when we listen to his conversation we are in doubt. If the curate +could discourse half so eloquently he would have been a bishop long +before this. The most that can be said is that he has some notions which +are not in accordance with the facts, and that he acts accordingly; but +if that were a proof of madness there would not be enough sane persons +in the world to make strait-jackets for the rest. His chief peculiarity +is that he takes himself with a seriousness that is absolute. All of us +have thoughts which would not bear the test of strict examination. There +are vagrant fancies and random impulses which, fortunately for our +reputations, come to nothing. We are just on the verge of doing +something absurd when we recognize the character of our proposed +action; and our neighbors lose a pleasure. We comfort ourselves by the +reflection that their loss is our gain. Don Quixote has no such +inhibition; he carries out his own ideas to their logical conclusion. + +The hero of Cervantes had muddled his wits by the reading of romances. +Almost any kind of printed matter may have the same effect if one is not +able to distinguish between what he has read and what he has actually +experienced. One may read treatises on political economy until he +mistakes the "economic man" who acts only according to the rules of +enlightened self-interest for a creature of flesh and blood. One may +read so many articles on the Rights of Women that he mistakes a +hard-working American citizen who spends his summer in a down-town +office, in order that his wife and daughter may go to Europe, for that +odious monster the Tyrant Man. It is possible to read the Society +columns of the daily newspapers till the reader does not know good +society when he sees it. An estimable teacher in the public schools may +devote herself so assiduously to pedagogical literature that she +mistakes her school-room for a psychological laboratory, with results +that are sufficiently tragical. There are excellent divines so learned +in the history of the early church that they believe that +semi-pelagianism is still the paramount issue. There were few men whose +minds were, in general, better balanced than Mr. Gladstone's, yet what a +fine example of Quixotism was that suggested by Queen Victoria's remark: +"Mr. Gladstone always addresses me as if I were a public meeting." To +address a woman as if she were a public meeting is the mistake of one +who had devoted himself too much to political speeches. + +A thoroughly healthy mind can endure a good deal of reading and a +considerable amount of speculation with impunity. It does not take the +ideas thus derived too seriously. It is continually making allowances, +and every once in a while there is a general clearance. It is like a gun +which expels the old cartridge as the new shot is fired. When the +delicate mechanism for the expulsion of exploded opinions gets out of +order the mind becomes the victim of "fixed ideas." The best idea +becomes dangerous when it gets stuck. When the fixed ideas are of a +noble and disinterested character we have a situation which excites at +once the admiration of the moralist and the apprehension of the +alienist. Perhaps this border-land between spiritual reality and +intellectual hallucination belongs neither to the moralist nor to the +alienist, but to the wise humorist. He laughs, but there is no +bitterness or scorn in his laughter. It is mellow and human-hearted. + +The world is full of people who have a faculty which enables them to +believe whatever they wish. Thought is not, for them, a process which +may go on indefinitely, a work in which they are collaborating with the +universe. They do it all by themselves. It is the definite transaction +of making up their minds. When the mind is made up it closes with a +snap. After that, for an unwelcome idea to force an entrance would be a +well-nigh impossible feat of intellectual burglary. + +We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe +when compared with a stubborn theory. Let the theory, however +extravagant in its origin, choose its own ground, and intrench itself in +the mind of a well-meaning lady or gentleman of an argumentative turn, +and I'll warrant you it can hold its own against a whole regiment of +facts. + +Did you ever attend a meeting of the society for the--perhaps I had +better not mention the name of the society, lest I tread on your +favorite Quixotism. Suffice it to say that it has a noble purpose. It +aims at nothing less than the complete transformation of human society, +by the use of means which, to say the least, seem quite inadequate. + +After the minutes of the last meeting have been read, and the objects of +the society have been once more stated with much detail, there is an +opportunity for discussion from the floor. + +"Perhaps there is some one who may give some new suggestions, or who may +desire to ask a question." + +You have observed what happens to the unfortunate questioner. What a +sorry exhibition he makes of himself! No sooner does he open his mouth +than every one recognizes his intellectual feebleness. He seems unable +to grasp the simplest ideas. He stumbles at the first premise, and lies +sprawling at the very threshold of the argument. "If what I have taken +for granted be true," says the chairman, "do not all the fine things I +have been telling you about follow necessarily?" + +"But," murmurs the questioner, "the things you take for granted are just +what trouble me. They don't correspond to my experience." + +"Poor, feeble-minded questioner!" cry the members of the society, "to +think that he is not even able to take things for granted! And then to +set up his experience against our constitution and by-laws!" + +We sometimes speak of an inconsequent, harum-scarum person, who is +always going off after new ideas, as quixotic. But true Quixotism is +grave, self-contained, conservative. Within its own sphere it is +accurate and circumstantial. There is no absurdity in its mental +processes; all that is concealed in its assumptions. Granted the reality +of the scheme of knight-errantry, and Don Quixote becomes a solid, +dependable man who will conscientiously carry it out. There is no danger +of his going off into vagaries. He has a mind that will keep the +roadway. + +He is a sound critic, intolerant of minor incongruities. When the +puppet-player tells about the bells ringing in the mosques of the +Moorish town, the knight is quick to correct him. "There you are out, +boy; the Moors have no bells; they only use kettledrums. Your ringing +of bells in Sansuena is a mere absurdity." Such absurdities were not +amusing; they were offensive to his serious taste. + +The quixotic mind loves greatly the appearance of strict logic. It is +satisfied if one statement is consistent with another statement; whether +either is consistent with the facts of the case is a curious matter +which it does not care to investigate. So much does it love Logic that +it welcomes even that black sheep of the logical family, the Fallacy; +and indeed the impudent fellow, with all his irresponsible ways, does +bear a family resemblance which is very deceiving. Above all is there +delight in that alluring mental exercise known as the argument in a +circle. It is an intellectual merry-go-round. A hobby-horse on rockers +is sport for tame intelligences, but a hobby that can be made to go +round is exciting. You may see grave divines and astute metaphysicians +and even earnest sociologists rejoicing in the swift sequence of their +own ideas, as conclusion follows premise and premise conclusion, in +endless gyration. How the daring riders clutch the bridles and +exultingly watch the flying manes of their steeds! They have the sense +of getting somewhere, and at the same time the comfortable assurance +that that somewhere is the very place from which they started. + +"Didn't we tell you so!" they cry. "Here we are again. Our arguments +must be true, for we can't get away from them." + +Your ordinary investigator is a disappointing fellow. His opinions are +always at the mercy of circumstances over which he has no control. He +cuts his coat according to his cloth, and sometimes when his material +runs short his intellectual garments are more scanty than decency +allows. Sometimes after a weary journey into the Unknown he will return +with scarcely an opinion to his back. Not so with the quixotist. His +opinions not being dependent on evidence, he does not measure different +degrees of probability. Half a reason is as good as a whole one, for the +result in any case is perfect assurance. All things conspire, in most +miraculous fashion, to confirm him in his views. That other men think +differently he admits, he even welcomes their skepticism as a foil to +his faith. His imperturbable tolerance is like that of some knight who, +conscious of his coat of mail, good-humoredly exposes himself to the +assaults of the rabble. It amuses them, and does him no harm. + +When Don Quixote had examined Mambrino's enchanted helmet, his candor +compelled him to listen to Sancho's assertion that it was only a +barber's basin. He was not disposed to controvert the evidence of the +senses, but he had a sufficient explanation ready. "This enchanted +helmet, by some strange accident, must have fallen into the possession +of one who, ignorant of its true value as a helmet, and seeing it to be +of the purest gold, hath inconsiderately melted down the one half for +lucre's sake, and of the other half made this, which, as thou sayest, +doth indeed look like a barber's basin; but to me, who know what it +really is, its transformation is of no importance, for I will have it so +repaired in the first town where there is a smith that it shall not be +surpassed or even equaled. In the mean time I will wear it as I can, for +something is better than nothing, and it will be sufficient to defend me +from stones." + +Where have you heard that line of argument, so satisfying to one who has +already made up his mind? Yesterday, it runs, we had several excellent +reasons for the opinion which we hold. Since then, owing to +investigations which we imprudently entered into before we knew where we +were coming out, all our reasons have been overthrown. This, however, +makes not the slightest difference. It rather strengthens our general +position, as it is no longer dependent on any particular evidence for +its support. + +We prate of the teaching of Experience. But did you ever know Experience +to teach anything to a person whose ideas had set up an independent +government of their own? The stern old dame has been much overrated as +an instructor. Her pedagogical method is very primitive. Her instruction +is administered by a series of hard whacks which the pupil is expected +to interpret for himself. That something is wrong is evident; but what +is it? It is only now and then that some bright pupil says, "That means +that I made a mistake." As for persons of a quixotic disposition, the +most adverse experience only confirms their pre-conceptions. At most the +wisdom gained is prudential. After Don Quixote had made his first +unfortunate trial of his pasteboard visor, "to secure it against like +accidents in future he made it anew, and fenced it with thin plates of +iron so skillfully that he had reason to be satisfied with his work, and +so, without further experiment, resolved that it should pass for a good +and sufficient helmet." + +One is tempted to linger over that moment when Quixote ceased to +experiment and began to dogmatize. What was the reason of his sudden +dread of destructive criticism? Was he quite sincere? Did he really +believe that his helmet was now cutlass proof? + +For myself, I have no doubts of his knightly honor and of his +transparent candor. He certainly believed that he believed; though under +the circumstances he felt that it was better to take no further risks. + +In his admirable discourse with Don Fernando on the comparative merits +of arms and literature, he describes the effects of the invention of +gunpowder. + +"When I reflect on this I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I +repent of having adopted the profession of knight-errantry in so +detestable an age as we live in. For though no peril can make me fear, +still it gives me some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may rob +me of the opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout +the world by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword." + +There is here a bit of uneasiness, such as comes to any earnest person +who perceives that the times are out of joint. Still the doubt does not +go very deep. In an age of artillery knight-errantry is doubtless more +difficult, but it does not seem impossible. + +It is the same feeling that must come now and then to a gallant +twentieth-century Jacobite who meets with his fellow conspirators in an +American city, to lament the untimely taking off of the blessed martyr +King Charles, and to plot for the return of the House of Stuart. The +circumstances under which they meet are not congenial. The path of +loyalty is not what it once was. A number of things have happened since +1649; still they may be treated as negligible quantities. It is a fine +thing to sing about the king coming to his own again. + +"But what if there isn't any king to speak of?" + +"Well, at any rate, the principle is the same." + +I occasionally read a periodical devoted to the elevation of mankind by +means of a combination of deep breathing and concentrated thought. The +object is one in which I have long been interested. The means used are +simple. The treatment consists in lying on one's back for fifteen +minutes every morning with arms outstretched. Then one must begin to +exhale self and inhale power. The directions are given with such +exactness that no one with reasonably good lungs can go astray. The +treatment is varied according to the need. One may in this way breathe +in, not only health and love, but, what may seem to some more important, +wealth. + +The treatment for chronic impecuniosity is particularly interesting. The +patient, as he lies on his back and breathes deeply, repeats, "I am +Wealth." This sets the currents of financial success moving in his +direction. + +One might suppose that a theory of finance so different from that of the +ordinary workaday world would be surrounded by an air of weirdness or +strangeness. Not at all. Everything is most matter of fact. The Editor +is evidently a sensible person when it comes to practical details, and, +on occasion, gives admirable advice. + +A correspondent writes: "I have tried your treatment for six months, and +I am obliged to say that I am harder up than ever before. What do you +advise?" + +It is one of those obstinate cases which are met with now and then, and +which test the real character of the practitioner. The matter is treated +with admirable frankness, and yet with a wholesome optimism. The patient +is reminded that six months is a short time, and one must not expect too +quick results. A slow, sure progress is better, and the effects are more +lasting. This is not the first case that has been slow in yielding to +treatment. Still it may be better to make a slight change. The formula, +"I am Wealth," may be too abstract, though it usually has worked well. A +more concrete thought might possibly be more effective. Why not try, +remembering, of course, to continue the same breathings, "I am Andrew +Carnegie?" + +Then the practitioner adds a bit of advice which was certainly worth the +moderate fee charged: "When the exercises are over, ask yourself what +Andrew would do next. Andrew would hustle." + +A slight acquaintance with the pseudo sciences which are in vogue at the +present day reveals a world to which only the genius of Cervantes could +do justice. We see Absurdity clothed, and in its right mind. It is +formally correct, punctiliously exact, completely serious, and withal +high-minded. Until it comes in contact with the actual world we do not +realize that it is absurd. + +Religion and medicine have always furnished tempting fields for persons +of the quixotic temper. Perhaps it is because their professed objects +are so high, and perhaps also because their achievements fall so far +below what we have been led to expect. Neither spiritual nor mental +health is so robust as to satisfy us with the usual efforts in their +behalf. Sin and sickness are continual challenges. Some one ought to +abolish them. An eager hearing is given to any one who claims to be able +to do so. The temptation is great for those who do not perceive the +difference between words and things to answer the demands. + +It is not necessary to go for examples either to fanatics or quacks. Not +to take too modern an instance, there was Bishop Berkeley! He was a +true philosopher, an earnest Christian, and withal a man of sense, and +yet he was the author of "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections +and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar Water, and divers other +Subjects connected together, and arising One from Another." It is one of +those works which are the cause of wit in other men. It is so learned, +so exhaustive, so pious, and the author takes it with such utter +seriousness! + +Tar is the good bishop's Dulcinea. All his powers are enlisted in the +work of proclaiming the matchless virtues of this mistress of his +imagination, who is "black but comely." Our minds are prepared by a +lyric outburst:-- + + "Hail, vulgar Juice of never-fading Pine! + Cheap as thou art! thy virtues are divine, + To show them and explain (such is thy store), + There needs much modern and much ancient Lore." + +For this great work the author is well equipped. Plato, Aristotle, +Pliny, and the rest of the ancients appear as vanquished knights +compelled to do honor to my Lady Tar. + +Other specifics are allowed to have their virtues, but they grow pale +before this paragon. Common soap has its admirers; they are treated +magnanimously, but compelled to surrender at last. "Soap is allowed to +be cleansing, attenuating, opening, resolving, sweetening; it is +pectoral, vulnerary, diuretic, and hath other good qualities; which are +also found in tar water.... Tar water therefore is a soap, and as such +hath all the medicinal qualities of soaps." To those who put their faith +in vinegar a like argument is made. It is shown that tar water is not +only a superior kind of soap, but also a sublimated sort of vinegar; in +fact, it appears to be all things to all men. + +To those who incline to the philosophy of the ancient fire-worshipers a +special argument is made. "I had a long Time entertained an Opinion +agreeable to the Sentiments of many ancient Philosophers, that Fire may +be regarded as the Animal Spirit of this visible World. And it seemed to +me that the attracting and secreting of this Fire in the various Pores, +Tubes, and Ducts of Vegetables, did impart their specifick Virtues to +each kind, that this same Light, or Fire, was the immediate Cause of +Sense and Motion, and consequently of Life and Health to animals; that +on Account of this Solar Light or Fire, Phoebus was in the ancient +Mythology reputed the God of Medicine. Which Light as it is leisurely +introduced, and fixed in the viscid juice of old Firs and Pines, so +setting it free in Part, that is, the changing its viscid for a volatile +Vehicle, which may mix with Water, and convey it throughout the Habit +copiously and inoffensively, would be of infinite Use in Physic." It +appears therefore that tar water is not only a kind of soap, but also a +kind of fire. + +Yet is not Quixote himself more careful to avoid all appearance of +extravagance? The author shrinks from imposing conclusions on another. +After an elaborate argument which moves irresistibly to one conclusion, +he stops short. "This regards the Possibility of a Panacea in general; +as for Tar Water in particular, I do not say it is a Panacea, I only +suspect it to be so." Yet he must be a churlish reader who could go with +him so far and then refuse to take the next step. Nor can a right-minded +person be indifferent to the moral argument in favor of "Tar Water, +Temperance, and Early Hours." If tar water is to be known by the company +it keeps, it is to be commended. + +There is a great advantage in taking our example from another age than +ours. Our enjoyment of the bishop's Quixotism does not cast discredit on +any similar hobby of our own day. "However," as the author of Siris +remarked, "it is hoped they will not condemn one Man's Tar Water for +another Man's Pill or Drop, any more than they would hang one Man for +another's having stole a Horse." + +Indeed, of all quixotic notions the most extreme is that of those who +think that Quixotism can be overcome by any direct attack. It is a state +of mind which must be accepted as we accept any other curious fact. As +well tilt against a cloud as attempt to overcome it by argument. It is a +part of the myth-making faculty of the human mind. A myth is a quixotic +notion which takes possession of multitudes rather than of a single +person. Everybody accepts it; nobody knows why. You can nail a lie, but +you cannot nail a myth,--there is nothing to nail it to. It is of no use +to deny it, for that only gives it a greater vogue. + +I have great sympathy for all mythical characters. It is possible that +Hercules may have been an amiable Greek gentleman of sedentary habits. +Some one may have started the story of his labors as a joke. In the next +town it was taken seriously, and the tale set forth on its travels. +After it once had been generally accepted, what could Hercules do? What +good would it have been for him to say, "There's not a word of truth in +what everybody is saying about me. I am as averse to a hard day's work +as any gentleman of my social standing in the community. They are +turning me into a sun-myth, and mixing up my private affairs with the +signs of the zodiac! I won't stand it!" + +Bless me! he would have to stand it! His words would but add fuel to the +flame of admiration. What a hero he is; so strong and so modest! He has +already forgotten those feats of strength! It is ever so with greatness. +To Hercules it was all mere child's play. All the more need that we keep +the stories alive in order to hand them down to our children. Perhaps we +had better touch them up a bit so that they may be more interesting to +the little dears. And so would begin a new cycle of myths. + +After Socrates had once gained the reputation for superlative wisdom, +do you think it did any good for him to go about proclaiming that he +knew nothing? He was suspected of having some ulterior design. Nobody +would believe him except Xanthippe. + +When after hearing strange noises in the night Don Quixote sallies forth +only to discover that the sounds come from fulling hammers instead of +from giants, he rebukes the ill-timed merriment of his squire. "Come +hither, merry sir! Suppose these mill hammers had really been some +perilous adventure, have I not given proof of the courage requisite to +undertake and achieve it? Am I, being a knight, to distinguish between +sounds, and to know which are and which are not those of a fulling mill, +more especially as I have never seen any fulling mills in my life?" + +If the mill hammers could only be transformed into giants, how easy the +path of reform! for it would satisfy the primitive instinct to go out +and kill something. I have heard a temperance orator denounce the Demon +Drink so roundly that every one in the audience was ready to destroy the +monster on sight. The solution of the liquor problem, however, was +quite a different matter. The young patriot who conceives of the money +power under the terrifying image of an octopus resolves at once to give +it battle. When elected to the legislature he meets many smooth-spoken +gentlemen whose schemes are so plausible that he readily assents to +them,--but not an octopus does he see. Yet I believe that were he to see +an octopus he would slay it. + +Perhaps there is no better test of a person's nature than his attitude +toward Quixotism. The man of coarse, unfriendly humor sees in it nothing +but a broad farce. He greets the misadventures of Don Quixote with a +loud guffaw. What a fool he was not to know the difference between an +ordinary inn and a castle! + +There are persons of a sensitive and refined disposition to whom it is +all a tragedy, exquisitely painful to contemplate. Alas, poor gentleman, +with all his lofty ideals, to be so buffeted by a world unworthy of him! + +But this refinement of sentiment comes perilously near to +sentimentalism. Cervantes had the more wholesome attitude. He +appreciated the valor of Don Quixote. It was genuine, though the +knight, owing to circumstances beyond his own control, had been +compelled to make his visor out of pasteboard. He had heroism of soul; +but what of it! There was plenty more where it came from. A man who had +fought at Lepanto, and endured years of Algerine captivity, was not +inclined to treat manly virtue as if it were a rare and delicate fabric +that must be preserved in a glass case. It was amply able to take care +of itself. He knew that he couldn't laugh genuine chivalry away, even if +he tried. It could stand not only hard knocks from its foes, but any +amount of raillery from its friends. + +The bewildered soldier who mistakes a harmless camp follower for the +enemy must expect to endure the gibes of his comrades; yet no one doubts +that he would have acquitted himself nobly if the enemy had appeared. +The rough humor of the camp is a part of its wholesome discipline. + +Quixotism is a combination of goodness and folly. To enjoy it one must +be able to appreciate them both at the same time. It is a pleasure +possible only to one who is capable of having mixed feelings. + +When we consider the faculty which many good people have of believing +things that are not so, and ignoring the plainest facts and laws of +nature, we are sometimes alarmed over the future of society. If any of +the Quixotisms which are now in vogue should get themselves established, +what then? + +Fortunately there is small need of anxiety. When the landsman first +ventures on the waves he observes with alarm the keeling over of the +boat under the breeze, for he expects the tendency to be followed to its +logical conclusion. Fortunately for the equilibrium of society, +tendencies which are viewed with alarm are seldom carried to their +logical conclusion. They are met by other tendencies before the danger +point is reached, and the balance is restored. + +The factor which is overlooked by those who fear the ascendency of any +quixotic notion is the existence of the average man. This individual is +not a striking personality, but he holds the balance of power. Before +any extravagant idea can establish itself it must convert the average +man. He is very susceptible, and takes a suggestion so readily that it +seems to prophesy the complete overthrow of the existing order of +things. But was ever a conversion absolute? The best theologians say no. +A great deal of the old Adam is always left over. When the average man +takes up with a quixotic notion, only so much of it is practically +wrought out as he is able to comprehend. The old Adam of common sense +continually asserts itself. The natural corrective of Quixotism is +Sancho-Panzaism. The solemn knight, with his head full of visionary +plans, is followed by a squire who is as faithful as his nature will +permit. Sancho has no theories, and makes no demands on the world. He +leaves that sort of thing to his master. He has the fatalism which +belongs to ignorant good nature, and the tolerance which is found in +easy-going persons who have neither ideals nor nerves. He has no +illusions, though he has all the credulity of ignorance. + +He belongs to the established order of things, and can conceive no +other. When knight-errantry is proposed to him, he reduces that also to +the established order. He takes it up as an honest livelihood, and rides +forth in search of forlorn maidens with the same contented jog with +which he formerly went to the village mill. When it is explained that +faithful squires become governors of islands he approves of the idea, +and begins to cherish a reasonable ambition. Knight-errantry is brought +within the sphere of practical politics. Sancho has no stomach for +adventures. When his master warns him against attacking knights, until +such time as he has himself reached their estate, he answers:-- + +"Never fear, I'll be sure to obey your worship in that, I'll warrant +you; for I ever loved peace and quietness, and never cared to thrust +myself into frays and quarrels." + +When Sancho becomes governor of his snug, land-locked island, there is +not a trace of Quixotism in his executive policy. The laws of Chivalry +have no recognition in his administration; and everything is carried on +with most admirable common sense. + +It is an experience which is quite familiar to the readers of history. +"All who knew Sancho," moralizes the author, "wondered to hear him talk +so sensibly, and began to think that offices and places of trust inspire +some men with understanding, as they stupefy and confound others." + +Mother wit has a great way of evading the consequences of theoretical +absurdities. Natural law takes care of itself, and preserves the +balance. So long as Don Quixote can get no other follower than Sancho +Panza, we need not be alarmed. There is no call for a society for the +Preservation of Windmills. + +After all, there is an ambiguity about Quixotism. They laugh best who +laugh last; and we are not sure that satire has the last word. Was Don +Quixote as completely mistaken as he seemed? He mistook La Mancha for a +land of romance, and wandered through it as if it were an enchanted +country. + +The Commentator explains to us that in this lay the jest, for no part of +Spain was so vulgarly commonplace. Its villages were destitute of charm, +and its landscape of beauty. La Mancha was a name for all that was +unromantic. + +"I cannot make it appear so," says the Gentle Reader, who has come under +the spell of Cervantes. "Don Quixote seems to be wandering through the +most romantic country in the world. I can see + + 'The long, straight line of the highway, + The distant town that seems so near, + + * * * * * + + White crosses in the mountain pass, + Mules gay with tassels, the loud din + Of muleteers, the tethered ass + That crops the dusty wayside grass, + And cavaliers with spurs of brass + Alighting at the inn; + + White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat, + + * * * * * + + White sunshine flooding square and street, + Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet + The river-beds are dry with heat,-- + All was a dream to me.' + +"Through this enchanted country it is pleasant to wander about in +irresponsible fashion, climbing mountains, loitering in secluded +valleys, where shepherds and shepherdesses still make love in Arcadian +fashion, meeting with monks, merchants, muleteers, and fine gentlemen, +and coming in the evening to some castle where one is lulled to sleep by +the splash of fountains and the tinkle of guitars; and if it should turn +out that the castle is only an inn,--why, to lodge in an inn of La +Mancha would be a romantic experience!" + +The Spain of the sixteenth century is to us as truly a land of romance +as any over which a knight-errant roamed. It seems just suited for +heroic adventure. + +Some day our quixotic characters may appear to the future reader thus +magically conformed to the world they live in, or rather, the world may +be transformed by their ideals. + +"They do seem strange to us," the Gentle Reader of that day will say, +"but then we must remember that they lived in the romantic dawn of the +twentieth century." + + + + +Intimate Knowledge and Delight + + +IN the affairs of the mind we are all "Indian givers." We will part with +our most cherished convictions for a merely nominal consideration, such +as "for the sake of the argument,"--even when we do not really care for +arguments. But let no one be deceived into thinking that this is the +end. Renunciation usually has some mental reservation, or at least some +saving ambiguity. + +You may see a saint, in his enthusiasm for disinterested virtue, give up +all claim to personal happiness. But does he expect to be taken at his +word and to live miserably ever after? Not he! Already, if he be a true +saint, he has begun to enjoy the beatific vision. + +I know a teacher of religion who is inclined to rebel against what seems +to him to be the undue emphasis upon faith. For himself, it seems a +wholesome thing to do a little doubting now and then, and he looks upon +this as a religious exercise. He affirms that the characteristic +attitudes of the spiritual man can be expressed in terms of skepticism +as well as of belief. It is all one whether the matter be put positively +or negatively. Materialism he treats as a form of dogmatism based on the +appearance of things. The religious mind is incredulous of this +explanation of the universe and subjects it to a destructive criticism. +The soul of man is full of "obstinate questionings of sense and outward +things." Yet this same person, when he forgets his argument, is apt to +talk like the rest of us. After all, it is some kind of faith that he is +after, even when he pursues it by the methods of skepticism. In his most +radical moods he never lets his convictions slip away from him; at +least, they never go so far away that he cannot get them again. + +In like manner I must confess that I am an Indian giver. In giving over +to Science all claim to the domain of Knowledge, and reserving to my +friend the Gentle Reader only the right of way over the picturesque but +less fruitful fields of Ignorance, I was actuated by the purest motives. +At the time it seemed very magnanimous, and, moreover, it saved the +trouble of a doubtful contest. + +But now that so much has been given away, I am visited by compunctions, +and, if it is not too late, I will take back part of the too generous +gift. Let us make a distinction, and instead of treating knowledge as if +it were indivisible, let us speak, after the manner of Swedenborg, of +knowledges. The greater number of knowledges we will make over without +question to Science and Philosophy; the knowledges which are concerned +with laws and forces and with the multitudinous facts which are capable +of classification. But for the Gentle Reader and his kind let us reserve +the claim to a knowledge of some things which cannot be classified. I +hardly believe that they will be missed; they are not likely to be +included in any scientific inventory; their value is chiefly in personal +association. + +There is a knowledge of persons as well as of things, and in particular +there is a knowledge of certain persons to whom one is drawn in close +friendship. Emerson, in his essay on Milton, speaks of those who come to +the poet with "intimate knowledge and delight." It is, after all, +convenient to treat this feeling of delightful intimacy as a kind of +knowledge. If it is not that, what is it? + +The peculiarity of this kind of knowledge is that it is impossible to +formulate it; and that the very attempt to do so is an offence. The +unpardonable sin against friendship is to merge the person in a class. +Think of an individual as an adult Caucasian, "an inhabitant of North +America, belonging to the better classes," as to religion a moderate +churchman, in politics a Republican, and you may accumulate a number of +details interesting enough in a stranger. You may in this way "know +where to place him." But if you do actually place him there, and treat +him accordingly, he has ceased to be your friend. + +A friend is unique. He belongs to no categories. He is not a case, nor +the illustration of a thesis. Your interest is neither pathological nor +anthropological nor statistical. You are concerned not with what he is +like, but with what he is. There is an element of jealous exclusiveness +in such knowledge. + +In the Song of Songs, after the ecstatic praise of the beloved, the +question is asked:-- + + "What is thy beloved more than any other beloved, that thou dost so + adjure us?" + +The answer is a description of his personal perfections:-- + + "My beloved is white and ruddy, + + * * * * * + + His locks are bushy, and black as a raven. + His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks. + + * * * * * + + His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars, + His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. + This is my beloved, and this is my friend, + O daughters of Jerusalem." + +Do you think that the daughters of Jerusalem would be so tactless as to +reply that they had seen a number of handsome youths with bushy black +hair and languishing eyes and fine forms, and that they represented an +admirable type of manly beauty? That would be to confess that they had +not seen the beloved, for he was unlike all others. "My beloved is +marked out with a banner among ten thousand." + +The knowledge that is required is not contained in a catalogue of the +points in which he resembles the nine thousand nine hundred and +ninety-nine; it is a recognition of the incommunicable grace that is his +own. + +Even in ordinary social intercourse the most delicate compliment is to +treat the person with whom you are talking as an exception to all rules. +That he is a clergyman or a commercial traveler tells you nothing of his +inner life. That is left for him to reveal, if it so pleases him. Even a +king grows tired of being addressed in terms appropriate to royalty. It +is a relief to travel incognito, and he is flattered when he is assured +that no one suspects his station in life. It makes him feel that he is +not like the ordinary run of kings. + +No one likes to be pigeon-holed or reduced to a formula. We resent being +classed as old or middle-aged or young. Why should we be confounded with +our coevals? We may not be any better than they are; but we are +different. Nor is it pleasant to have our opinions treated as if they +were the necessary product of social forces. There is something +offensive in the curiosity of those who are all the time asking how we +came by our ideas. What if they do bear a general resemblance to those +of the honest people who belong to our party and who read the same +newspaper. We do not care to be reminded of these chance coincidences. +Because one has found it convenient and economical to buy a ready-made +suit of clothing, it does not follow that he is willing to wear the tag +which contains the statement of the price and size. These labels were +very useful so long as the garment was kept in stock by the dealer, but +the information that they convey is now irrelevant. + +This sensitiveness in regard to personal identity is strangely lacking +in many modern students of literature. They treat the man of genius as a +phenomenon, to be explained by other phenomena and used to illustrate a +general law. They love to deal in averages and aggregates. They describe +minutely the period to which a writer belongs, its currents of thought, +its intellectual limitations, and its generally received notions. With a +knowledge of antecedent conditions there is the expectancy of a certain +type of man as the result. Our minds are prepared for some one who +resembles the composite photograph which is first presented to us. We +are, for example, given an elaborate account of the Puritan movement in +England. We form a conception of what the Puritan was, and then we are +introduced to Milton. Our preconceptions stand in the way of personal +sympathy. + +The method of the Gentle Reader is more direct. He is fortunate enough +to have read Milton before he has read much about him, and he returns to +the reading with ever fresh delight. He does not think of him as +belonging to a past age. He is a perpetual contemporary. The seventeenth +century gave color to his words, but it did not limit his genius. + +Seventeenth century Independency might be, as a general thing, lacking +in grace, but when we turn away from Praise-God-Barebones to John Milton +we find it transformed into a-- + + "divine philosophy, + Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, + But musical as is Apollo's lute, + And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets." + +Into its austere beauty, into its wide free spaces, into its sensuous +charms, no one but Milton can conduct us. We must follow not as those +who know beforehand what is to be seen or heard, but as those who are +welcomed by a generous householder who brings out of his treasures +things new and old. + +We come upon a sublime spirit-- + + "Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free." + +That is Milton; but it is Milton also who can sing of-- + + "Jest and youthful Jollity, + Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, + Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles + Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, + And love to live in dimple sleek, + Sport that wrinkled Care derides, + And Laughter holding both his sides." + +If this be Puritanism, it is Puritanism with a difference. Did any one +in a few words give such a picture of mirth-- + + "So buxom, blithe, and debonair?" + +Was this the real Milton? Why not? His radiant youth was as real as his +blindness and his old age. And Milton the political pamphleteer was real +too, though his language was not always that which might have been +expected from the author of "Paradise Lost." We pass lightly over pages +of vituperation which any one might have written, and then come upon +splendid passages which could have come from him alone. The sentiment of +democratic equality is invested with a dignity which makes all the +pretensions of privileged orders seem vulgar. Here is the Milton who is +invoked to-- + + "Give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!" + +In these moments we become aware of a man who was not to be explained by +any general rule. + +To one who takes delight in the personality of Milton, even "Paradise +Lost" is not a piece of unmitigated sublimity. It is full of +self-revelations. The reader who has come to share Milton's passion for +personal liberty and scorn for a "fugitive and cloistered virtue" is +curious to know how he will treat his new theme. In the "Areopagitica" +he had frankly treated the "Fall of Man" as a "fall upward." "Good and +evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost +inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven +with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly +to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche +as an increased labor to cull out and sort asunder, were not more +intermixt. And perhaps that is the doom which Adam fell into of knowing +good and evil; that is to say, of knowing good by evil. As therefore the +state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence +to forbear without the knowledge of evil.... That virtue, therefore, +which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the +utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a +blank virtue, not a pure.... Since, therefore, the knowledge and survey +of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human +virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can +we more safely and with less danger scout into the region of sin and +falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner +of reasons." + +What would such an adventurous spirit make + + "Of man's first Disobedience and the Fruit + Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste + Brought Death into the World and all our woe, + With loss of Eden"? + +What would Milton make of Adam in his sheltered Paradise? And what would +one whose whole life had been a passionate protest against the idea of +submission to mere arbitrary power do with the element of arbitrariness +which the theology of his day attributed to the Divine Ruler? And what +of Satan? + + "One who brings + A mind not to be changed by Place or Time. + The mind is its own place, and in itself + Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. + What matter where, if I be still the same?" + +There is a note in that proud creed that could not be altogether +uncongenial to one who in his blindness could-- + + "still bear up and steer + Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? + The Conscience, Friend, t' have lost them overplied + In liberty's defense, my noble task; + Of which all Europe rings from side to side. + This thought might lead me through this World's vain mask + Content though blind, had I no better Guide." + +In its ostensible plot "Paradise Lost" is a tragedy; but did Milton +really feel it to be so? One fancies--though he may be mistaken--that as +Adam and Eve leave Paradise he hears a sigh of relief from the poet, +who was himself ever a lover of "the Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty." At +any rate, there is an undertone of cheer. + + "Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon, + The World was all before them where to choose + Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." + +Adam, when the old sheltered life is over, and the possibilities of the +new life of struggle were revealed,-- + + "Replete with joy and wonder thus replied. + O goodness infinite, goodness immense! + That all this good of evil shall produce, + And evil turn to good; more wonderful + Than that which by creation first brought forth + Light out of darkness! full of doubt I stand, + Whether I should repent me now of sin + By me done and occasioned or rejoice + Much more that much more good thereof shall spring." + +That Adam should treat the loss of Eden in such a casual manner, and +that he should express a doubt as to whether the estate into which his +fall plunged the race was not better than one in which no moral struggle +was necessary, was not characteristic of seventeenth-century +theology,--but it was just like Milton. + +There is no knowledge so intimate as that possessed by the reader of one +book. It is an esoteric joy. The wisdom of the ages concentrated into +one personality and then graciously communicated to the disciple has a +flavor of which the multitudes of mere scholars know nothing. To them +Wisdom is a public character. + + "Doth not Wisdom cry, + And understanding put forth her voice? + In the top of high places + Where the paths meet she standeth." + +But the disciple is not content with such publicity. He shuns the +crowded highways, and delights to hear wisdom speaking in confidential +tones. + +In a little settlement in the far West I once met a somewhat +depressed-looking man who remained silent till a chance remark brought a +glow of enthusiasm to his eyes. + +"Oh," he cried, "you have been reading the Ruins." + +My remark had been of a kind that needed no special reading to account +for it. It merely expressed one of those obvious truths which are likely +to occur to the majority of persons. But to him it seemed so reasonable +that it could only come from the one source of wise thought with which +he was acquainted. + +"The Ruins" proved to be a translation of Volney's "Ruins of Empire." I +fear that I must have given the impression of greater familiarity with +that work than was warranted by the facts, for my new-found friend +received me as a member of the true brotherhood. His tongue was +unloosed, and his intellectual passions, so long pent up, were freed. +Had we not both read "The Ruins"! It was to him more than a book; it was +a symbol of the unutterable things of the mind. It was a passionate +protest against the narrow opinions of his neighbors. It stood for all +that was lifted above the petty gossip of the little community, and for +all that united him to an intellectual world of which he dreamed. + +As we talked I marveled at the amount of sound philosophy this lonely +reader had extracted from "The Ruins." Or had it been that he had +brought the wisdom from his own meditation and deposited it at this +shrine? One can never be sure whether a text has suggested the thought +or the thought has illuminated the text. + +When it happens that the man of one book has chosen a work of intrinsic +value, the result is a kind of knowledge which is of inestimable worth. +It is deeply interfused with the whole imaginative life, it is involved +in every personal experience. + +The supreme example of such intimate knowledge was that which +generations of English speaking men had of the Bible. Apart from any +religious theory, this familiarity was a wonderful fact in the history +of culture. It meant that the ordinary man was not simply in his youth +but throughout his life brought into direct contact with great poetry, +sublime philosophy, vivid history. These were not reserved for state +occasions; they were the daily food of the mind. Into the plain fabric +of western thought was woven a thread of Oriental sentiment. Children +were as familiar with the names and incidents of remote ages and lands +as with their own neighborhood. + +The important things about this culture of the common people was that it +came through mere reading. The Bible was printed "without note or +comment." The lack of critical apparatus and of preliminary training +was the cause of many incidental mistakes; but it prevented the greatest +mistake of all,--that of obscuring the text by the commentary. + +In these days there has been a great advance in critical scholarship. +Much more is known about the Bible, at least by those who have made it +the object of special study; but there is a suspicion that fewer persons +know the Bible than in the days when there were no "study classes," but +only the habit of daily reading. + +The Protestant insistence upon publishing the Scriptures without note or +comment was an effort to do away with the middle-men who stood between +the Book and its readers. Private judgment, it was declared, was a +sufficient interpreter even of the profoundest utterances. This is a +doctrine that needs to be revived and extended till it takes in all +great literature. + +To come to a book as to a friend, to allow it to speak for itself, +without the intrusion of a third person, this is the substance of the +whole matter. There must be no hard and fast rules, no preconceived +opinions. Because the author has a reputation as a humorist, let him not +be received with an expectant smile. Nothing can be more disconcerting +to his sensitive spirit; and besides, how can you know that he has not a +very serious message to communicate? Because he is said to be capable of +sublimity, do not await him with overstrained sensibilities. Perhaps you +may find him much less sublime and much more entertaining than you had +anticipated. If the sublime vision does come, you will appreciate it all +the more if it comes upon you unawares. + +"As cloud on cloud, as snow on snow, as the bird on the air, and the +planet on space in its flight, so do nations of men and their +institutions rest on thoughts." + +If this be so, can there be any knowledge more important than the +knowledge of what a man actually thinks. "A penny for your thoughts," we +say lightly, knowing well that this hidden treasure cannot be bought. +The world may be described in formal fashion as if it were an unchanging +reality; but how the world appears to each inhabitant of it he alone can +declare. Or perhaps he cannot declare it, for most of us find it +impossible to tell what we really think or feel. In attempting to do it +we fall into conventionality, and succeed only in telling what we think +other people would like to have us think. Only now and then is one born +with the gift of true self-expression. In his speech we recognize a real +person, and not the confused murmur of a multitude. Institutions and +traditions do not account for him; this thought is the more fundamental +fact. Here is a unique bit of knowledge. There is no other way of +getting at it than that of the Gentle Reader,--to shut out the rest of +the world and listen to the man himself. + + * * * * * + +The Riverside Press +_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. +Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + + * * * * * + +The following typographical error was corrected by the etext +transcriber: + +the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirate's immaculate attire.=>the +surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' immaculate attire. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentle Reader, by Samuel McChord Crothers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE READER *** + +***** This file should be named 38873.txt or 38873.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/8/7/38873/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously available at The Internet +Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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