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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75456-0.txt b/75456-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c7fed0 --- /dev/null +++ b/75456-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4171 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75456 *** + + + + + + BOOKS AND MEN + + BY + + AGNES REPPLIER + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1899 + + + + + Copyright, 1888, + BY AGNES REPPLIER. + + _All rights reserved._ + + ELEVENTH IMPRESSION + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + +CHILDREN, PAST AND PRESENT 1 + +ON THE BENEFITS OF SUPERSTITION 33 + +WHAT CHILDREN READ 64 + +THE DECAY OF SENTIMENT 94 + +CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM 125 + +SOME ASPECTS OF PESSIMISM 157 + +THE CAVALIER 191 + + + + + BOOKS AND MEN. + + + + + CHILDREN, PAST AND PRESENT. + + +As a result of the modern tendency to desert the broad beaten roads of +history for the bridle-paths of biography and memoir, we find a great +many side lights thrown upon matters that the historian was wont to +treat as altogether beneath his consideration. It is by their help +that we study the minute changes of social life that little by little +alter the whole aspect of a people, and it is by their help that we +look straight into the ordinary every-day workings of the past, and +measure the space between its existence and our own. When we read, for +instance, of Lady Cathcart being kept a close prisoner by her husband +for over twenty years, we look with some complacency on the roving +wives of the nineteenth century. When we reflect on the dismal fate +of Uriel Freudenberger, condemned by the Canton of Uri to be burnt +alive in 1760, for rashly proclaiming his disbelief in the legend of +William Tell’s apple, we realize the inconveniences attendant on a too +early development of the critical faculty. We listen entranced while +the learned pastor Dr. Johann Geiler von Keyersperg gravely enlightens +his congregation as to the nature and properties of were-wolves; and we +turn aside to see the half-starved boys at Westminster boiling their +own batter-pudding in a stocking foot, or to hear the little John +Wesley crying softly when he is whipped, not being permitted even then +the luxury of a hearty bellow. + +Perhaps the last incident will strike us as the most pathetic of +all, this being essentially the children’s age. Women, workmen, and +skeptics all have reason enough to be grateful they were not born a +few generations earlier; but the children of to-day are favored beyond +their knowledge, and certainly far beyond their deserts. Compare +the modern schoolboy with any of his ill-fated predecessors, from +the days of Spartan discipline down to our grandfathers’ time. Turn +from the free-and-easy school-girl of the period to the miseries of +Mrs. Sherwood’s youth, with its steel collars, its backboards, its +submissive silence and rigorous decorum. Think of the turbulent and +uproarious nurseries we all know, and then go back in spirit to that +severe and occult shrine where Mrs. Wesley ruled over her infant brood +with a code of disciplinary laws as awful and inviolable as those of +the Medes and Persians. Of their supreme efficacy she plainly felt no +doubts, for she has left them carefully written down for the benefit +of succeeding generations, though we fear that few mothers of to-day +would be tempted by their stringent austerity. They are to modern +nursery rules what the Blue Laws of Connecticut are to our more languid +legislation. Each child was expected and required to commemorate its +fifth birthday by learning the entire alphabet by heart. To insure +this all-important matter, the whole house was impressively set in +order the day before; every one’s task was assigned to him; and Mrs. +Wesley, issuing strict commands that no one should penetrate into the +sanctuary while the solemn ordeal was in process, shut herself up for +six hours with the unhappy morsel of a child, and unflinchingly drove +the letters into its bewildered brain. On two occasions only was she +unsuccessful. “Molly and Nancy,” we are told, failed to learn in the +given time, and their mother comforts herself for their tardiness by +reflecting on the still greater incapacity of other people’s bairns. + +“When the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to +revere and stand in awe of its parents,” then, and then only, their +rigid judge considers that some little inadvertences and follies may +be safely passed over. Nor would she permit one of them to “be chid +or beaten twice for the same fault,”--a stately assumption of justice +that speaks volumes for the iron-bound code by which they were brought +into subjection. Most children nowadays are sufficiently amazed if a +tardy vengeance overtake them once, and a second penalty for the same +offense is something we should hardly deem it necessary to proscribe. +Yet nothing is more evident than that Mrs. Wesley was neither a cruel +nor an unloving mother. It is plain that she labored hard for her +little flock, and had their welfare and happiness greatly at heart. In +after years they with one accord honored and revered her memory. Only +it is not altogether surprising that her husband, whose ministerial +functions she occasionally usurped, should have thought his wife at +times almost too able a ruler, or that her more famous son should stand +forth as the great champion of human depravity. He too, some forty +years later, promulgated a system of education as unrelaxing in its +methods as that of his own childhood. In his model school he forbade +all association with outside boys, and would receive no child unless +its parents promised not to take it away for even a single day, until +removed for good. Yet after shutting up the lads in this hot-bed of +propriety, and carefully guarding them from every breath of evil, he +ended by expelling part as incorrigible, and ruefully admitting that +the remainder were very “uncommonly wicked.” + +The principle of solitary training for a child, in order to shield +it effectually from all outside influences, found other and vastly +different advocates. It is the key-note of Mr. and Miss Edgeworth’s +Practical Education, a book which must have driven over-careful and +scrupulous mothers to the verge of desperation. In it they are +solemnly counseled never to permit their children to walk or talk +with servants, never to let them have a nursery or a school-room, +never to leave them alone either with each other or with strangers, +and never to allow them to read any book of which every sentence has +not been previously examined. In the matter of books, it is indeed +almost impossible to satisfy such searching critics. Even Mrs. +Barbauld’s highly correct and righteous little volumes, which Lamb +has anathematized as the “blights and blasts of all that is human,” +are not quite harmless in their eyes. Evil lurks behind the phrase +“Charles wants his dinner,” which would seem to imply that Charles must +have whatever he desires; while to say flippantly, “The sun has gone +to bed,” is to incur the awful odium of telling a child a deliberate +untruth. + +In Miss Edgeworth’s own stories the didactic purpose is only veiled by +the sprightliness of the narrative and the air of amusing reality she +never fails to impart. Who that has ever read them can forget Harry and +Lucy making up their own little beds in the morning, and knocking down +the unbaked bricks to prove that they were soft; or Rosamond choosing +between the famous purple jar and a pair of new boots; or Laura forever +drawing the furniture in perspective? In all these little people say +and do there is conveyed to the young reader a distinct moral lesson, +which we are by no means inclined to reject, when we turn to the +other writers of the time and see how much worse off we are. Day, in +Sandford and Merton, holds up for our edification the dreariest and +most insufferable of pedagogues, and advocates a mode of life wholly +at variance with the instincts and habits of his age. Miss Sewell, in +her Principles of Education, sternly warns young girls against the +sin of chattering with each other, and forbids mothers’ playing with +their children as a piece of frivolity which cannot fail to weaken the +dignity of their position. + +To a great many parents, both in England and in France, such advice +would have been unnecessary. Who, for instance, can imagine Lady +Balcarras, with whom it was a word and a blow in quick succession, +stooping to any such weakness; or that august mother of Harriet +Martineau, against whom her daughter has recorded all the slights +and severities of her youth? Not that we think Miss Martineau to have +been much worse off than other children of her day; but as she has +chosen with signal ill-taste to revenge herself upon her family in +her autobiography, we have at least a better opportunity of knowing +all about it. “To one person,” she writes, “I was indeed habitually +untruthful, from fear. To my mother I would in my childhood assert or +deny anything that would bring me through most easily,”--a confession +which, to say the least, reflects as little to her own credit as +to her parent’s. Had Mrs. Martineau been as stern an upholder of +the truth as was Mrs. Wesley, her daughter would have ventured upon +very few fabrications in her presence. When she tells us gravely how +often she meditated suicide in these early days, we are fain to smile +at hearing a fancy so common among morbid and imaginative children +narrated soberly in middle life, as though it were a unique and +horrible experience. No one endowed by nature with so copious a fund +of self-sympathy could ever have stood in need of much pity from the +outside world. + +But for real and uncompromising severity towards children we must turn +to France, where for years the traditions of decorum and discipline +were handed down in noble families, and generations of boys and girls +suffered grievously therefrom. Trifling faults were magnified into +grave delinquencies, and relentlessly punished as such. We sometimes +wonder whether the youthful Bertrand du Guesclin were really the +wicked little savage that the old chroniclers delight in painting, or +whether his rude truculence was not very much like that of naughty +and neglected boys the world over. There is, after all, a pathetic +significance in those lines of Cuvelier’s which describe in barbarous +French the lad’s remarkable and unprepossessing ugliness:-- + + “Il n’ot si lait de Resnes à Disnant, + Camus estoit et noirs, malostru et massant. + Li père et la mère si le héoiant tant, + Que souvent en leurs cuers aloient desirant + Que fust mors, ou noiey en une eaue corant.” + +Perhaps, if he had been less flat-nosed and swarthy, his better +qualities might have shone forth more clearly in early life, and it +would not have needed the predictions of a magician or the keen-eyed +sympathy of a nun to evolve the future Constable of France out of +such apparently hopeless material. At any rate, tradition generally +representing him either as languishing in the castle dungeon, or +exiled to the society of the domestics, it is plain he bore but slight +resemblance to the cherished _enfant terrible_ who is his legitimate +successor to-day. + +Coming down to more modern times, we are met by such monuments of +stately severity as Madame Quinet and the Marquise de Montmirail, +mother of that fair saint Madame de Rochefoucauld, the trials of whose +later years were ushered in by a childhood of unremitting harshness +and restraint. The marquise was incapable of any faltering or weakness +where discipline was concerned. If carrots were repulsive to her little +daughter’s stomach, then a day spent in seclusion, with a plate of the +obnoxious vegetable before her, was the surest method of proving that +carrots were nevertheless to be eaten. When Augustine and her sister +kissed their mother’s hand each morning, and prepared to con their +tasks in her awful presence, they well knew that not the smallest +dereliction would be passed over by that inexorable judge. Nor might +they aspire, like Harriet Martineau, to shield themselves behind the +barrier of a lie. When from Augustine’s little lips came faltering some +childish evasion, the ten-year-old sinner was hurried as an outcast +from her home, and sent to expiate her crime with six months’ merciful +seclusion in a convent. “You have told me a falsehood, mademoiselle,” +said the marquise, with frigid accuracy; “and you must prepare to leave +my house upon the spot.” + +Faults of breeding were quite as offensive to this _grande dame_ as +faults of temper. The fear of her pitiless glance filled her daughters +with timidity, and bred in them a _mauvaise honte_, which in its turn +aroused her deadliest ire. Only a week before her wedding-day Madame +de Rochefoucauld was sent ignominiously to dine at a side table, as a +penance for the awkwardness of her curtsy; while even her fast-growing +beauty became but a fresh source of misfortune. The dressing of her +magnificent hair occupied two long hours every day, and she retained +all her life a most distinct and painful recollection of her sufferings +at the hands of her _coiffeuse_. + +To turn from the Marquise de Montmirail to Madame Quinet is to see the +picture intensified. More beautiful, more stately, more unswerving +still, her faith in discipline was unbounded, and her practice in +no wise inconsistent with her belief. It was actually one of the +institutions of her married life that a _garde de ville_ should pay +a domiciliary visit twice a week to chastise the three children. If +by chance they had not been naughty, then the punishment might be +referred to the account of future transgressions,--an arrangement +which, while it insured justice to the culprits, can hardly have +afforded them much encouragement to amend. Her son Jerome, who ran +away when a mere boy to enroll with the volunteers of ’92, reproduced +in later years, for the benefit of his own household, many of his +mother’s most striking characteristics. He was the father of Edgar +Quinet, the poet, a child whose precocious abilities seem never to +have awakened within him either parental affection or parental pride. +Silent, austere, repellent, he offered no caresses, and was obeyed +with timid submission. “The gaze of his large blue eyes,” says Dowden, +“imposed restraint with silent authority. His mockery, the play of an +intellect unsympathetic by resolve and upon principle, was freezing +to a child; and the most distinct consciousness which his presence +produced upon the boy was the assurance that he, Edgar, was infallibly +about to do something which would cause displeasure.” That this was a +common attitude with parents in the old _régime_ may be inferred from +Châteaubriand’s statement that he and his sister, transformed into +statues by their father’s presence, recovered their life only when he +left the room; and by the assertion of Mirabeau that even while at +school, two hundred leagues away from _his_ father, “the mere thought +of him made me dread every youthful amusement which could be followed +by the slightest unfavorable result.” + +Yet at the present day we are assured by Mr. Marshall that in France +“the art of spoiling has reached a development which is unknown +elsewhere, and maternal affection not infrequently descends to folly +and imbecility.” But then the clever critic of French Home Life had +never visited America when he wrote those lines, although some of +the stories he tells would do credit to any household in our land. +There is one quite delightful account of a young married couple, who, +being invited to a dinner party of twenty people, failed to make their +appearance until ten o’clock, when they explained urbanely that their +three-year-old daughter would not permit them to depart. Moreover, +being a child of great character and discrimination, she had insisted +on their undressing and going to bed; to which reasonable request they +had rendered a prompt compliance, rather than see her cry. “It would +have been monstrous,” said the fond mother, “to cause her pain simply +for our pleasure; so I begged Henri to cease his efforts to persuade +her, and we took off our clothes and went to bed. As soon as she was +asleep we got up again, redressed, and here we are with a thousand +apologies for being so late.” + +This sounds half incredible; but there is a touch of nature in the +mother’s happy indifference to the comfort of her friends, as compared +with the whims of her offspring, that closely appeals to certain past +experiences of our own. It is all very well for an Englishman to +stare aghast at such a reversal of the laws of nature; we Americans, +who have suffered and held our peace, can afford to smile with some +complacency at the thought of another great nation bending its head +beneath the iron yoke. + +To return, however, to the days when children were the ruled, and not +the rulers, we find ourselves face to face with the great question +of education. How smooth and easy are the paths of learning made now +for the little feet that tread them! How rough and steep they were +in bygone times, watered with many tears, and not without a line of +victims, whose weak strength failed them in the upward struggle! +We cannot go back to any period when school life was not fraught +with miseries. Classic writers paint in grim colors the harshness +of the pedagogues who ruled in Greece and Rome. Mediæval authors +tell us more than enough of the passionless severity that swayed the +monastic schools,--a severity which seems to have been the result of +an hereditary tradition rather than of individual caprice, and which +seldom interfered with the mutual affection that existed between master +and scholar. When St. Anselm, the future disciple of Lanfranc, and his +successor in the See of Canterbury, begged as a child of four to be +sent to school, his mother, Ermenberg,--the granddaughter of a king, +and the kinswoman of every crowned prince in Christendom,--resisted +his entreaties as long as she dared, knowing too well the sufferings +in store for him. A few years later she was forced to yield, and these +same sufferings very nearly cost her son his life. + +The boy was both studious and docile, and his teacher, fully +recognizing his precocious talents, determined to force them to the +utmost. In order that so active a mind should not for a moment be +permitted to relax its tension, he kept the little scholar a ceaseless +prisoner at his desk. Rest and recreation were alike denied him, while +the utmost rigors of a discipline, of which we can form no adequate +conception, wrung from the child’s over-worked brain an unflinching +attention to his tasks. As a result of this cruel folly, “the brightest +star of the eleventh century had been well-nigh quenched in its +rising.”[1] Mind and body alike yielded beneath the strain; and +Anselm, a broken-down little wreck, was returned to his mother’s hands, +to be slowly nursed back to health and reason. “Ah, me! I have lost +my child!” sighed Ermenberg, when she found that not all that he had +suffered could shake the boy’s determination to return; and the mother +of Guibert de Nogent must have echoed the sentiment when her little +son, his back purple with stripes, looked her in the face, and answered +steadily to her lamentations, “If I die of my whippings, I still mean +to be whipped.” + +The step from the monastic schools to Eton and Westminster is a long +one, but the gain not so apparent at first sight as might be supposed. +It is hard for the luxurious Etonian of to-day to realize that for +many years his predecessors suffered enough from cold, hunger, and +barbarous ill-treatment to make life a burden on their hands. The +system, while it hardened some into the desired manliness, must have +killed many whose feebler constitutions could ill support its rigor. +Even as late as 1834, we are told by one who had ample opportunity +to study the subject carefully that “the inmates of a workhouse or a +jail were better fed and lodged than were the scholars of Eton. Boys +whose parents could not pay for a private room underwent privations +that might have broken down a cabin-boy, and would be thought inhuman +if inflicted on a galley-slave.” Nor is this sentiment as exaggerated +as it sounds. To get up at five on freezing winter mornings; to sweep +their own floors and make their own beds; to go two by two to the +“children’s pump” for a scanty wash; to eat no mouthful of food until +nine o’clock; to live on an endless round of mutton, potatoes, and +beer, none of them too plentiful or too good; to sleep in a dismal cell +without chair or table; to improvise a candlestick out of paper; to be +starved, frozen, and flogged,--such was the daily life of the scions +of England’s noblest families, of lads tenderly nurtured and sent from +princely homes to win their Greek and Latin at this fearful cost. + +Moreover, the picture of one public school is in all essential +particulars the picture of the rest. The miseries might vary somewhat, +but their bulk remained the same. At Westminster the younger boys, hard +pushed by hunger, gladly received the broken victuals left from the +table of the senior election, and tried to supplement their scanty fare +with strange and mysterious concoctions, whose unsavory details have +been handed down among the melancholy traditions of the past. + +In 1847 a young brother of Lord Mansfield being very ill at school, +his mother came to visit him. There was but one chair in the room, +upon which the poor invalid was reclining; but his companion, seeing +the dilemma, immediately arose, and with true boyish politeness +offered Lady Mansfield the coal-scuttle, on which he himself had been +sitting. At Winchester, Sydney Smith suffered “many years of misery +and starvation,” while his younger brother, Courtenay, twice ran away, +in the vain effort to escape his wretchedness. “There was never enough +provided of even the coarsest food for the whole school,” writes Lady +Holland; “and the little boys were of course left to fare as well +as they could. Even in his old age my father used to shudder at the +recollections of Winchester, and I have heard him speak with horror of +the misery of the years he spent there. The whole system, he affirmed, +was one of abuse, neglect, and vice.” + +In the matter of discipline there was no shadow of choice anywhere. +Capricious cruelty ruled under every scholastic roof. On the one +side, we encounter Dean Colet, of St. Paul’s, whom Erasmus reported +as “delighting in children in a Christian spirit;” which meant that +he never wearied of seeing them suffer, believing that the more they +endured as boys, the more worthy they would grow in manhood. On the +other, we are confronted by the still more awful ghost of Dr. Keate, +who could and did flog eighty boys in succession without a pause; and +who, being given the confirmation list by mistake for the punishment +list, insisted on flogging every one of the catechumens, as a good +preparation for receiving the sacrament. Sir Francis Doyle, almost the +only apologist who has so far ventured to appear in behalf of this +fiery little despot, once remarked to Lord Blachford that Keate did +not much mind a boy’s lying to him. “What he hated was a monotony of +excuses.” “Mind your lying to him!” retorted Lord Blachford, with a +keen recollection of his own juvenile experiences; “why he exacted it +as a token of respect.” + +If, sick of the brutality of the schools, we seek those rare cases +in which a home education was substituted, we are generally rewarded +by finding the comforts greater and the cramming worse. It is simply +impossible for a pedagogue to try and wring from a hundred brains the +excess of work which may, under clever treatment, be extracted from +one; and so the Eton boys, with all their manifold miseries, were at +least spared the peculiar experiments which were too often tried upon +solitary scholars. Nowadays anxious parents and guardians seem to labor +under an ill-founded apprehension that their children are going to hurt +themselves by over-application to their books, and we hear a great deal +about the expedience of restraining this inordinate zeal. But a few +generations back such comfortable theories had yet to be evolved, and +the plain duty of a teacher was to goad the student on to every effort +in his power. + +Perhaps the two most striking instances of home training that have been +given to the world are those of John Stuart Mill and Giacomo Leopardi; +the principal difference being that, while the English boy was crammed +scientifically by his father, the Italian poet was permitted to +relentlessly cram himself. In both cases we see the same melancholy, +blighted childhood; the same cold indifference to the mother, as to +one who had no part or parcel in their lives; the same joyless routine +of labor; the same unboyish gravity and precocious intelligence. Mill +studied Greek at three, Latin at eight, the Organon at eleven, and Adam +Smith at thirteen. Leopardi at ten was well acquainted with most Latin +authors, and undertook alone and unaided the study of Greek, perfecting +himself in that language before he was fourteen. Mill’s sole recreation +was to walk with his father, narrating to him the substance of his +last day’s reading. Leopardi, being forbidden to go about Recanati +without his tutor, acquiesced with pathetic resignation, and ceased to +wander outside the garden gates. Mill had all boyish enthusiasm and +healthy partisanship crushed out of him by his father’s pitiless logic. +Leopardi’s love for his country burned like a smothered flame, and +added one more to the pangs that eat out his soul in silence. His was +truly a wonderful intellect; and whereas the English lad was merely +forced by training into a precocity foreign to his nature, and which, +according to Mr. Bain, failed to produce any great show of juvenile +scholarship, the Italian boy fed on books with a resistless and craving +appetite, his mind growing warped and morbid as his enfeebled body +sank more and more under the unwholesome strain. In the long lists +of despotically reared children there is no sadder sight than this +undisciplined, eager, impetuous soul, burdened alike with physical and +moral weakness, meeting tyrannical authority with a show of insincere +submission, and laying up in his lonely infancy the seeds of a sorrow +which was to find expression in the key-note of his work, Life is Only +Fit to be Despised. + +Between the severe mental training of boys and the education thought +fit and proper for girls, there was throughout the eighteenth century +a broad and purposeless chasm. Before that time, and after it, +too, the majority of women were happily ignorant of many subjects +which every school-girl of to-day aspires to handle; but during the +reigns of Queen Anne and the first three Georges, this ignorance +was considered an essential charm of their sex, and was displayed +with a pretty ostentation that sufficiently proves its value. Such +striking exceptions as Madame de Staël, Mrs. Montagu, and Anne Damer +were not wanting to give points of light to the picture; but they +hardly represent the real womanhood of their time. Femininity was then +based upon shallowness, and girls were solemnly warned not to try +and ape the acquirements of men, but to keep themselves rigorously +within their own ascertained limits. We find a famous school-teacher, +under whose fostering care many a court belle was trained for social +triumphs, laying down the law on this subject with no uncertain hand, +and definitely placing women in their proper station. “Had a _third +order_ been necessary,” she writes naively, “doubtless one would have +been created, a _midway_ kind of being.” In default, however, of this +recognized _via media_, she deprecates all impious attempts to bridge +over the chasm between the two sexes; and “accounts it a misfortune +for a female to be learned, a genius, or in any way a prodigy, as it +removes her from her natural sphere.” + +“Those were days,” says a writer in Blackwood, “when superficial +teaching was thought the proper teaching for girls; when every science +had its feminine language, as Hindu ladies talk with a difference +and with softer terminations than their lords: as The Young Ladies’ +Geography, which is to be read instead of novels; A Young Ladies’ Guide +to Astronomy; The Use of the Globes for Girls’ Schools; and the Ladies’ +Polite Letter-Writer.” What was really necessary for a girl was to +learn how to knit, to dance, to curtsy, and to carve; the last-named +accomplishment being one of her exclusive privileges. Lady Mary Wortley +Montagu received lessons from a professional carving-master, who taught +her the art scientifically; and during her father’s grand dinners her +labors were often so exhausting that translating the Enchiridion must +have seemed by comparison a light and easy task. Indeed, after that +brilliant baby entrance into the Kitcat Club, very little that was +pleasant fell to Lady Mary’s share; and years later she recalls the +dreary memories of her youth in a letter written to her sister, Lady +Mar. “Don’t you remember,” she asks, pathetically, “how miserable we +were in the little parlor at Thoresby?” + +Her own education she always protested was of the worst and flimsiest +character, and her girlish scorn at the restraints that cramped and +fettered her is expressed vigorously enough in the well-known letter +to Bishop Burnet. It was considered almost criminal, she complains, +to improve her reason, or even to fancy she had any. To be learned +was to be held up to universal ridicule, and the only line of conduct +open to her was to play the fool in concert with other women of +quality, “whose birth and leisure merely serve to make them the most +useless and worthless part of creation.” Yet viewed alongside of her +contemporaries, Lady Mary’s advantages were really quite unusual. She +had some little guidance in her studies, with no particular opposition +to overcome, and tolerance was as much at any time as a thoughtful +girl could hope for. Nearly a century later we find little Mary +Fairfax--afterwards Mrs. Somerville, and the most learned woman in +England--being taught how to sew, to read her Bible, and to learn the +Shorter Catechism; all else being considered superfluous for a female. +Moreover, the child’s early application to her books was regarded with +great disfavor by her relatives, who plainly thought that no good was +likely to come of it. “I wonder,” said her rigid aunt to Lady Fairfax, +“that you let Mary waste her time in reading!” + +“You cannot hammer a girl into anything,” says Ruskin, who has +constituted himself both champion and mentor of the sex; and perhaps +this was the reason that so many of these rigorously drilled and +kept-down girls blossomed perversely into brilliant and scholarly +women. Nevertheless, it is comforting to turn back for a moment, and +see what Holland, in the seventeenth century, could do for her clever +children. Mr. Gosse has shown us a charming picture of the three +daughters of Roemer Visscher, the poetess Tesselschade and her less +famous sisters,--three little girls, whose healthy mental and physical +training was happily free from either narrow contraction or hot-house +pressure. “All of them,” writes Ernestus Brink, “were practiced in +very sweet accomplishments. They could play music, paint, write, and +engrave on glass, make poems, cut emblems, embroider all manner of +fabrics, and swim well; which last thing they had learned in their +father’s garden, where there was a canal with water, outside the city.” +What wonder that these little maidens, with skilled fingers, and clear +heads, and vigorous bodies, grew into three keen-witted and charming +women, around whom we find grouped that rich array of talent which +suddenly raised Holland to a unique literary distinction! What wonder +that their influence, alike refining and strengthening, was felt on +every hand, and was repaid with universal gratitude and love! + +There is a story told of Professor Wilson, that one day, listening to +a lecture on education by Dr. Whately, he grew manifestly impatient at +the rules laid down, and finally slipped out of the room, exclaiming +irately to a friend who followed him, “I always thought God Almighty +made man, but _he_ says it was the schoolmaster.” + +In like manner many of us have wondered from time to time whether +children are made of such ductile material, and can be as readily +moulded to our wishes, as educators would have us believe. If it be +true that nature counts for nothing and training for everything, then +what a gap between the boys and girls of two hundred years ago and +the boys and girls we know to-day! The rigid bands that once bound +the young to decorum have dwindled to a silver thread that snaps +under every restive movement. To have “perfectly natural” children +seems to be the outspoken ambition of parents, who have succeeded in +retrograding their offspring from artificial civilization to that pure +and wholesome savagery which is too plainly their ideal. “It is assumed +nowadays,” declares an angry critic, “that children have come into the +world to make a noise; and it is the part of every good parent to put +up with it, and to make all household arrangements with a view to their +sole pleasure and convenience.” + +That the children brought up under this relaxed discipline acquire +certain merits and charms of their own is an easily acknowledged fact. +We are not now alluding to those spoiled and over-indulged little +people who are the recognized scourges of humanity, but merely to the +boys and girls who have been allowed from infancy that large degree +of freedom which is deemed expedient for enlightened nurseries, and +who regulate their own conduct on the vast majority of occasions. They +are as a rule light-hearted, truthful, affectionate, and occasionally +amusing; but it cannot be denied that they lack that nicety of breeding +which was at one time the distinguishing mark of children of the upper +classes, and which was in a great measure born of the restraints that +surrounded them. The faculty of sitting still without fidgeting, of +walking without rushing, and of speaking without screaming can be +acquired only under tuition; but it is worth some little trouble to +attain. When Sydney Smith remarked that the children of rank were +generally so much better bred than the children of the middle classes, +he recognized the greater need for self-restraint that entered into +their lives. They may have been less natural, perhaps, but they were +infinitely more pleasing to his fastidious eyes; and the unconscious +grace which he admired was merely the reflection of the universal +courtesy that surrounded them. Nor is this all. “The necessity of +self-repression,” says a recent writer in Blackwood, “makes room for +thought, which those children miss who have no formalities to observe, +no customs to respect, who blurt out every irrelevance, who interpose +at will with question and opinion as it enters the brain. Children +don’t learn to talk by chattering to one another, and saying what comes +uppermost. Mere listening with intelligence involves an exercise of +mental speech, and observant silence opens the pores of the mind as +impatient demands for explanation never do.” + +This is true, inasmuch as it is not the child who is encouraged to +talk continually who in the end learns how to arrange and express his +ideas. Nor does the fretful desire to be told at once what everything +means imply the active mind which parents so fondly suppose; but rather +a languid percipience, unable to decipher the simplest causes for +itself. Yet where shall we turn to look for the “observant silence,” +so highly recommended? The young people who observed and were silent +have passed away,--little John Ruskin being assuredly the last of the +species,--and their places are filled by those to whom observation +and silence are alike unknown. This is the children’s age, and all +things are subservient to their wishes. Masses of juvenile literature +are published annually for their amusement; conversation is reduced +steadily to their level while they are present; meals are arranged +to suit their hours, and the dishes thereof to suit their palates; +studies are made simpler and toys more elaborate with each succeeding +year. The hardships they once suffered are now happily ended, the +decorum once exacted is fading rapidly away. We accept the situation +with philosophy, and only now and then, under the pressure of some new +development, are startled into asking ourselves where it is likely to +end. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Life of St. Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury._ By Martin Rule. + + + + + ON THE BENEFITS OF SUPERSTITION. + + +“We in England,” says Mr. Kinglake, “are scarcely sufficiently +conscious of the great debt we owe to the wise and watchful press which +presides over the formation of our opinions, and which brings about +this splendid result, namely, that in matters of belief the humblest +of us are lifted up to the level of the most sagacious; so that really +a simple cornet in the Blues is no more likely to entertain a foolish +belief in ghosts, or witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, than +the Lord High Chancellor or the leader of the House of Commons.” This +delicate sarcasm, delivered with all the author’s habitual serenity +of mind, is quoted by Mr. Ruskin in his Art of England; assentingly, +indeed, but with a half-concealed dismay that any one could find it +in his heart to be funny upon such a distressing subject. When he, +Mr. Ruskin, hurls his satiric shafts against the spirit of modern +skepticism, the points are touched with caustic, and betray a deep +impatience darkening quickly into wrath. Is it not bad enough that we +ride in steam-cars instead of post-chaises, live amid brick houses +instead of green fields, and pass by some of the “most accomplished +pictures in the world” to stare gaping at the last new machine, with +its network of slow-revolving, wicked-looking wheels? If, in addition +to these too prominent faults, we are going to frown down the old +appealing superstitions, and threaten them, like naughty children, with +the corrective discipline of scientific research, he very properly +turns his back upon us forever, and distinctly says he has no further +message for our ears. + +Let us rather, then, approach the subject with the invaluable +humility of Don Bernal Dias del Castillo, that gallant soldier who +followed the fortunes of Cortés into Mexico, and afterwards penned +the Historia Verdadera, an ingenuous narrative of their discoveries, +their hardships, and their many battles. In one of these, it seems, +the blessed Saint Iago appeared in the thickest of the fray, mounted +on a snow-white charger, leading his beloved Spaniards to victory. Now +the _conquestador_ freely admits that he himself did not behold the +saint; on the contrary, what he _did_ see in that particular spot was +a cavalier named Francisco de Morla, riding on a chestnut horse. But +does he, on that account, puff himself up with pride, and declare that +his more fortunate comrades were mistaken? By no means! He is as firmly +convinced of the presence of the vision as if it had been apparent to +his eyes, and with admirable modesty lays all the blame upon his own +unworthiness. “Sinner that I am!” he exclaims devoutly, “why should I +have been permitted to behold the blessed apostle?” In the same spirit, +honest Peter Walker strained his sight in vain for a glimpse of the +ghostly armies that crossed the Clyde in the summer of 1686, and, +seeing nothing, was content to believe in them, all the same, on the +testimony of his neighbors. + +Sir Walter Scott, who appears to have wasted a good deal of time +in trying to persuade himself that he put no faith in spirits, +confesses quite humbly, in his old age, that “the tendency to belief +in supernatural agencies seems connected with and deduced from the +invaluable conviction of the certainty of a future state.” And beyond +a doubt this tendency was throughout his life the source of many +pleasurable emotions. So much so, in fact, that, according to Mr. +Pater’s theory of happiness, the loss of these emotions, bred in him +from childhood, would have been very inadequately repaid by a gain in +scientific knowledge. If it be the true wisdom to direct our finest +efforts towards multiplying our sensations, and so expanding the brief +interval we call life, then the old unquestioning credulity was a +more powerful motor in human happiness than any sentiment that fills +its ground to-day. In the first place it was closely associated with +certain types of beauty, and beauty is one of the tonics now most +earnestly recommended to our sick souls. “Les fions d’aut fais” were +charming to the very tips of their dewy, trembling wings; the elfin +people, who danced in the forest glades under the white moonbeams, +danced their way without any difficulty right into the hearts of +men; the swan-maiden, who ventured shyly in the fisher’s path, was +easily transformed into a loving wife; even the mara, most suspicious +and terrible of ghostly visitors, has often laid aside her darker +instincts, and developed into a cheerful spouse, with only a tinge of +mystery to make her more attractive in her husband’s eyes. Melusina +combing her golden hair by the bubbling fountain of Lusignan, Undine +playing in the rain-drenched forest, the nixie dancing at the village +feast with her handsome Flemish lad, and the mermaid reluctantly +leaving her watery home to wed the youth who captured her magic +seal-skin, all belong to the sisterhood of beauty, and their images did +good service in raising the vulgar mind from its enforced contemplation +of the sordid troubles, the droning vexations, of life. + +Next, the happy believers in the supernatural owed to their simplicity +delicious throbs of fear,--not craven cowardice, but that more refined +and complex feeling, which is of all sensations the most enthralling, +the most elusive, and the most impossible to define. Fear, like all +other treacherous gifts, must be handled with discrimination: a thought +too much, and we are brutalized and degraded; but within certain +limits it enhances all the pleasures of life. When Captain Forsyth +stood behind a tree on a sultry summer morning, and saw the tigress +step softly through the long jungle grass, and the affrighted monkeys +swing chattering overhead, there must have come upon him that sensation +of awe which alone makes courage possible.[2] He knew that his life +hung trembling in the balance, and that all depended upon the first +shot he fired. He respected, as a sane man would, the mighty strength +of his antagonist, her graceful limbs instinct with power, her cruel +eyes blinking in the yellow dawn. And born of the fear, which stirred +but could not conquer him, came the keen transport of the hunter, who +feels that one such supremely heroic moment is worth a year of ordinary +life. Without that dread, not only would the joy be lessened, and the +glad rebound from danger to a sense of safety lost forever, but the +disciplined and manly courage of the English soldier would degenerate +into a mere brutish audacity, hardly above the level of the beast he +slays. + +In children, this delicate emotion of fear, growing out of their +dependent condition, gives dignity and meaning to their courage when +they are brave, and a delicious zest to their youthful delinquencies. +Gray, in his chilly and melancholy manhood, years after he has resigned +himself to never again being “either dirty or amused” as long as he +lives, goes back like a flash to the unlawful delight of a schoolboy’s +stolen freedom:-- + + “Still as they run they look behind, + They hear a voice in every wind, + And snatch a fearful joy.” + +And who that has ever watched a party of children, listening with +bright eyes and parted lips to some weird, uncanny legend,--like that +group of little girls for instance, in Mr. Charles Gregory’s picture +Tales and Wonders,--can doubt for a moment the “fearful joy” that +terror lends them? Nowadays, it is true, their youthful ears are but +too well guarded from such indiscretions until they are old enough to +scoff at all fantastic folly, and the age at which they learn to scoff +is one of the most astonishing things about our modern progress. They +have ceased to read fairy stories, because they no longer believe in +fairies; they find Hans Andersen silly, and the Arabian Nights stupid; +and the very babies, “skeptics in long-coats,” scorn you openly if you +venture to hint at Santa Claus. “What did Kriss Kringle bring you this +Christmas?” I rashly asked a tiny mite of a girl; and her answer was as +emphatic as Betsey Prig’s, when, with folded arms and a contemptuous +mien, she let fall the ever memorable words, “I don’t believe there’s +no sich a person.” + +Yet the supernatural, provided it be not too horrible, is legitimate +food for a child’s mind, nourishes its imagination, inspires a +healthy awe, and is death to that precocious pedantry which is the +least pleasing trait that children are wont to manifest. While few +are willing to go as far as Mr. Ruskin, who, having himself been +brought up on fairy legends, confesses that his “first impulse would +be to insist upon every story we tell to a child being untrue, and +every scene we paint for it impossible,” yet a fair proportion of the +untrue and the impossible should enter into its education, and it +should be left to the enjoyment of them as long as may be. Those of +us who have been happy enough to believe that salamanders basked in +the fire and mermaids swam in the deeps, that were-wolves roamed in +the forests and witches rode in the storm, are richer by all these +unfading pictures and unforgotten memories than our more scrupulously +reared neighbors. And what if we could give such things the semblance +of reality once more,--could set foot in spirit within the enchanted +forest of Broceliande, and enjoy the tempestuous gusts of fear that +shook the heart-strings of the Breton peasant, as the great trees +drew their mysterious shadows above his head? On either side lurk +shadowy forms of elf and fairy, half hidden by the swelling trunks; the +wind whispers in the heavy boughs, and he hears their low, malicious +laughter; the dry leaves rustle beneath his feet,--he knows their +stealthy steps are close behind; a broken twig falls on his shoulder, +and he starts trembling, for unseen hands have touched him. Around +his neck hang a silver medal of Our Lady and a bit of ash wood given +him by a wise woman, whom many believe a witch; thus is he doubly +guarded from the powers of evil. Beyond the forest lies the open path, +where wife and children stand waiting by the cottage door. He is a +brave man to wander in the gloaming, and if he reaches home there will +be much to tell of all that he has seen, and heard, and felt. Should +he be devoured by wolves, however,--and there is always this prosaic +danger to be apprehended,--then his comrades will relate how he left +them and went alone into the haunted woods, and his sorrowing widow +will know that the fairies have carried him away, or turned him into +stone. And the wise woman, reproached, perhaps, for the impotence of +her charms, will say how with her own aged eyes she has three times +seen Kourigan, Death’s elder brother, flitting before the doomed man, +and knew that his fate was sealed. So while fresh tales of mystery +cluster round his name, and his children breathe them in trembling +whispers by the fireside, their mother will wait hopefully for the +spell to be broken, and the lost given back to her arms; until Pierrot, +the charcoal-burner, persuades her that a stone remains a stone until +the Judgment Day, and that in the mean time his own hut by the kiln is +empty, and he needs a wife. + +But superstition, it is claimed, begets cruelty, and cruelty is a +vice now most rigorously frowned down by polite society. Daring +spirits, like Mr. Besant, may still urge its claims upon our reluctant +consideration; Mr. Andrew Lang may pronounce it an essential element of +humor; or a purely speculative genius, like Mr. Pater, may venture to +show how adroitly it can be used as a help to religious sentiment; but +every age has pet vices of its own, and, being singularly intolerant +of those it has discarded, is not inclined to listen to any arguments +in their favor. Superstition burned old women for witches, dotards +for warlocks, and idiots for were-wolves; but in its gentler aspect +it often threw a veil of charity over both man and beast. The Greek +rustic, who found a water-newt wriggling in his gourd, tossed the +little creature back into the stream, remembering that it was the +unfortunate Ascalaphus, whom the wrath of Demeter had consigned to this +loathsome doom. The mediæval housewife, when startled by a gaunt wolf +gazing through her kitchen window, bethought her that this might be her +lost husband, roaming helpless and bewitched, and so gave the starving +creature food. + + “O was it war-wolf in the wood? + Or was it mermaid in the sea? + Or was it man, or vile woman, + My ain true love, that misshaped thee?” + +The West Indian negress still bestows chicken-soup instead of scalding +water on the invading army of black ants, believing that if kindly +treated they will show their gratitude in the only way that ants can +manifest it,--by taking their departure. + +Granted that in these acts of gentleness there are traces of fear and +self-consideration; but who shall say that all our good deeds are not +built up on some such trestle-work of foibles? “La vertu n’iroit pas +si loin, si la vanité ne lui tenoit pas compagnie.” And what universal +politeness has been fostered by the terror that superstition breeds, +what delicate euphemisms containing the very soul of courtesy! Consider +the Greeks, who christened the dread furies “Eumenides,” or “gracious +ones;” the Scotch who warily spoke of the devil as the “good man,” +lest his sharp ears should catch a more unflattering title; the Dyak +who respectfully mentions the small-pox as “the chief;” the East Indian +who calls the tiger “lord” or “grandfather;” and the Laplander, who +gracefully alludes to the white bear as “the fur-clad one,” and then +realize what perfection of breeding was involved in what we are wont to +call ignorant credulity. + +Again, in the stress of modern life, how little room is left for that +most comfortable vanity which whispers in our ears that failures are +not faults! Now we are taught from infancy that we must rise or fall +upon our own merits; that vigilance wins success, and incapacity means +ruin. But before the world had grown so pitilessly logical there was +no lack of excuses for the defeated, and of unflattering comments for +the strong. Did some shrewd Cornish miner open a rich vein of ore, then +it was apparent to his fellow-toilers that the knackers had been at +work, leading him on by their mysterious tapping to this more fruitful +field. But let him proceed warily, for the knacker, like its German +brother, the kobold, is but a capricious sprite, and some day may +beguile him into a mysterious passage or long-forgotten chamber in the +mine, whence he shall never more return. His bones will whiten in their +prison, while his spirit, wandering restlessly among the subterranean +corridors, will be heard on Christmas Eve, hammering wearily away till +the gray dawn brightens in the east. Or did some prosperous farmer save +his crop while his neighbors’ corn was blighted, and raise upon his +small estate more than their broader acres could be forced to yield, +there was no opportunity afforded him for pride or self-congratulation. +Only the witch’s art could bring about such strange results, and the +same sorceries that had aided him had, doubtless, been the ruin of his +friends. He was a lucky man if their indignation went no further than +muttered phrases and averted heads. Does not Pliny tell us the story of +Caius Furius Cresinus, whose heavy crops awoke such mingled anger and +suspicion in his neighbors’ hearts that he was accused in the courts of +conjuring their grain and fruit into his own scanty ground? If a woman +aspired to be neater than her gossips, or to spin more wool than they +were able to display, it was only because the pixies labored for her +at night; turning her wheel briskly in the moonlight, splitting the +wood, and drawing the water, while she drowsed idly in her bed. + + “And every night the pixies good + Drive round the wheel with sound subdued, + And leave--in this they never fail-- + A silver penny in the pail.” + +Even to the clergy this engaging theory brought its consolations. +When the Reverend Lucas Jacobson Debes, pastor of Thorshaven in 1670, +found that his congregation was growing slim, he was not forced, +in bitterness of spirit, to ask himself were his sermons dull, but +promptly laid all the blame upon the _biergen-trold_, the spectres +of the mountains, whom he angrily accused, in a lengthy homily, of +disturbing his flock, and even pushing their discourtesy so far as to +carry them off bodily before his discourse was completed. + +Indeed, it is to the clergy that we are indebted for much interesting +information concerning the habits of goblins, witches, and gnomes. +The Reverend Robert Kirke, of Aberfoyle, Perthshire, divided his +literary labors impartially between a translation of the Psalms into +Gaelic verse and an elaborate treatise on the “Subterranean and for the +most part Invisible People, heretofore going under the name of Elves, +Faunes, and Fairies, or the like,” which was printed, with the author’s +name attached, in 1691. Here, unsullied by any taint of skepticism, +we have an array of curious facts that would suggest the closest +intimacy between the rector and the “Invisible People,” who at any rate +concealed nothing from _his_ eyes. He tells us gravely that they marry, +have children, die, and are buried, very much like ordinary mortals; +that they are inveterate thieves, stealing everything, from the milk +in the dairy to the baby lying on its mother’s breast; that they can +fire their elfin arrow-heads so adroitly that the weapon penetrates to +the heart without breaking the skin, and he himself has seen animals +wounded in this manner; that iron in any shape or form is a terror to +them, not for the same reason that Solomon misliked it, but on account +of the proximity of the great iron mines to the place of eternal +punishment; and--strangest of all--that they can read and write, and +have extensive libraries, where light and toyish books alternate with +ponderous volumes on abstruse mystical subjects. Only the Bible may not +be found among them. + +How Mr. Kirke acquired all these particulars--whether, like John +Dietrich, he lived in the Elfin Mound and grew wise on elfin wisdom, +or whether he adopted a less laborious and secluded method--does not +transpire. But one thing is certain: he was destined to pay a heavy +price for his unhallowed knowledge. The fairies, justly irritated at +such an open revelation of their secrets, revenged themselves signally +by carrying off the offender, and imprisoning him beneath the dun-shi, +or goblin hill, where he has since had ample opportunity to pursue +his investigations. It is true, his parishioners supposed he had died +of apoplexy, and, under that impression, buried him in Aberfoyle +churchyard; but his successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, informs us of the +widespread belief concerning his true fate. An effort was even made +to rescue him from his captivity, but it failed through the neglect +of a kinsman, Grahame of Duchray; and Robert Kirke, like Thomas of +Ercildoune and the three miners of the Kuttenberg, still “drees his +weird” in the enchanted halls of elfland. + +When the unfortunate witches of Warbois were condemned to death, on +the testimony of the Throgmorton children, Sir Samuel Cromwell, as +lord of the manor, received forty pounds out of their estate; which +sum he turned into a rent-charge of forty shillings yearly, for the +endowment of an annual lecture on witchcraft, to be preached by a +doctor or bachelor of divinity, of Queen’s College, Cambridge. Thus +he provided for his tenants a good sound church doctrine on this +interesting subject, and we may rest assured that the sermons were +far from quieting their fears, or lulling them into a skeptical +indifference. Indeed, more imposing names than Sir Samuel Cromwell’s +appear in the lists to do battle for cherished superstitions. Did not +the devout and conscientious Baxter firmly believe in the powers of +witches, especially after “hearing their sad confessions;” and was +not the gentle and learned Addison more than half disposed to believe +in them, too? Does not Bacon avow that a “well-regulated” astrology +might become the medium of many beneficial truths; and did not the +scholarly Dominican, Stephen of Lusignan, expand the legend of Melusina +into so noble a history, that the great houses of Luxembourg, Rohan, +and Sassenaye altered their pedigrees, so as to claim descent from +that illustrious nymph? Even the Emperor Henry VII. was as proud of +his fishy ancestress as was Godfrey de Bouillon of his mysterious +grandsire, Helias, the Knight of the Swan, better known to us as the +Lohengrin of Wagner’s opera; while among more modest annals appear the +families of Fantome and Dobie, each bearing a goblin on their crest, in +witness of their claim to some shadowy supernatural kinship. + +There is often a marked contrast between the same superstition as +developed in different countries, and in the same elfin folk, who +please or terrify us according to the gay or serious bent of their +mortal interpreters. While the Keltic ourisk is bright and friendly, +with a tinge of malice and a strong propensity to blunder, the English +brownie is a more clever and audacious sprite, the Scottish bogle is a +sombre and dangerous acquaintance, and the Dutch Hudikin an ungainly +counterpart of Puck, with hardly a redeeming quality, save a lumbering +fashion of telling the truth when it is least expected. It was Hudikin +who foretold the murder of James I. of Scotland; though why he should +have left the dikes of Holland for the bleak Highland hills it is hard +to say, more especially as there were murders enough at home to keep +him as busy as Cassandra. So, too, when the English witches rode up the +chimney and through the storm-gusts to their unhallowed meetings, they +apparently confined their attention to the business in hand, having +perhaps enough to occupy them in managing their broomstick steeds. +But when the Scottish hags cried, “Horse and hattock in the devil’s +name!” and rushed fiercely through the tempestuous night, the unlucky +traveler crossed himself and trembled, lest in very wantonness they +aim their magic arrows at his heart. Isobel Gowdie confessed at her +trial to having fired in this manner at the Laird of the Park, as he +rode through a ford; but the influence of the running water turned her +dart aside, and she was soundly cuffed by Bessie Hay, another witch, +for her awkwardness in choosing such an unpropitious moment.[3] In +one respect alone this evil sisterhood were all in harmony. By charms +and spells they revenged themselves terribly on their enemies, and +inflicted malicious injuries on their friends. It was as easy for them +to sink a ship in mid-ocean as to dry the milk in a cow’s udder, or to +make a strong man pine away while his waxen image was consumed inch by +inch on the witch’s smouldering hearth. + +This instinctive belief in evil spells is the essence, not of +witchcraft only, but of every form of superstition, from the days of +Thessalian magic to the brutish rites of the Louisiana Voodoo. It has +brought to the scaffold women of gentle blood, like Janet Douglas, +Lady Glamis, and to the stake visionary enthusiasts like Jeanne d’Arc. +It confronts us from every page of history, it stares at us from the +columns of the daily press. It has provided an outlet for fear, hope, +love, and hatred, and a weapon for every passion that stirs the soul of +man. It is equally at home in all parts of the world, and has entered +freely into the religion, the traditions, and the folk-lore of all +nations. Actæon flying as a stag from the pursuit of his own hounds; +Circe’s swinish captives groveling at their troughs; Björn turned into +a bear through the malice of his stepmother, and hunted to death by +his father, King Hring; the Swans of Lir floating mournfully on the +icy waters of the Moyle; the _loup-garou_ lurking in the forests of +Brittany, and the _oborot_ coursing over the Russian steppes; Merlin +sleeping in the gloomy depths of Broceliande, and Raknar buried fifty +fathoms below the coast of Helluland, are alike the victims + + “Of woven paces and of waving hands.” + +whether the spell be cast by an outraged divinity, or by the cruel hand +of a malignant foe. + +In 1857, Mr. Newton discovered at Cnidos fragments of a buried and +ruined chapel, sacred to Demeter and Persephone. In it were three +marble figures of great beauty, some small votive images of baked +earth, several bronze lamps, and a number of thin leaden rolls, pierced +with holes for the convenience of hanging them around the chapel walls. +On these rolls were inscribed the diræ, or spells, devoting some enemy +to the infernal gods, and the motive for the suppliant’s ill-will was +given with great _naïveté_ and earnestness. One woman binds another who +has lured away her lover; a second, the enemy who has accused her of +poisoning her husband; a third, the thief who has stolen her bracelet; +a fourth, the man who has robbed her of a favorite drinking-horn; a +fifth, the acquaintance who has failed to return a borrowed garment; +and so on through a long list of grievances.[4] It is evident this +form of prayer was quite a common occurrence, and, as combining a +religious rite with a comfortable sense of retaliation, must have been +exceptionally soothing to the worshiper’s mind. Persephone was appeased +and their own wrongs atoned for by this simple act of devotion; and +would that it were given to us now to inscribe, and by inscribing doom, +all those who have borrowed and failed to return our books; would +that by scribbling some strong language on a piece of lead we could +avenge the lamentable gaps on our shelves, and send the ghosts of the +wrong-doers howling dismally into the eternal shades of Tartarus. + +The saddest thing about these faded superstitions is that the very +men who have studied them most accurately are often least susceptible +to their charms. In their eagerness to trace back every myth to a +common origin, and to prove, with or without reason, that they one +and all arose from the observation of natural phenomena, too many +writers either overlook entirely the beauty and meaning of the tale, +or treat it with a contemptuous indifference very hard to understand. +Mr. Baring-Gould, a most honorable exception to this evil rule, takes +occasion now and then to deal some telling blows at the extravagant +theorists who persist in maintaining that every tradition bears its +significance on its surface, and who, following up their preconceived +opinions, cruelly overtax the credulity of their readers. He himself +has shown conclusively that many Aryan myths are but allegorical +representations of natural forces; but in these cases the connection +is always distinctly traced and easily understood. It is not hard for +any of us to perceive the likeness between the worm Schamir, the hand +of glory, and the lightning, when their peculiar properties are so +much alike; or to behold in the Sleeping Beauty or Thorn-Rose the +ice-bound earth slumbering through the long winter months, until the +sun-god’s kisses win her back to life and warmth. But when we are +asked to believe that William Tell is the storm-cloud, with his arrow +of lightning and his iris bow bent against the sun, which is resting +like a coin or a golden apple on the edge of the horizon, we cannot +but feel, with the author of Curious Myths, that a little too much is +exacted from us. “I must protest,” he says, “against the manner in +which our German friends fasten rapaciously upon every atom of history, +sacred and profane, and demonstrate all heroes to represent the sun; +all villains to be the demons of night or winter; all sticks and spears +and arrows to be the lightning; all cows and sheep and dragons and +swans to be clouds.” + +But then it must be remembered that Mr. Baring-Gould is the most +tolerant and catholic of writers, with hardly a hobby he can call his +own. Sympathizing with the sad destruction of William Tell, he casts +a lance in honor of Saint George against Reynolds and Gibbon, and +manifests a lurking weakness for mermaids, divining-rods, and the +Wandering Jew. He is to be congratulated on his early training, for he +assures us he believed, on the testimony of his Devonshire nurse, that +all Cornishmen had tails, until a Cornish bookseller stoutly denied the +imputation, and enlightened his infant mind. He has the rare and happy +faculty of writing upon all mythical subjects with grace, sympathy, +and _vraisemblance_. Even when there can be no question of credulity +either with himself or with his readers, he is yet content to write as +though for the time he believes. Just as Mr. Birrell advises us to lay +aside our moral sense when we begin the memoirs of an attractive scamp, +and to recall it carefully when we have finished, so Mr. Baring-Gould +generously lays aside his enlightened skepticism when he undertakes to +tell us about sirens and were-wolves, and remembers that he is of the +nineteenth century only when his task is done. + +This is precisely what Mr. John Fiske is unable or unwilling to +accomplish. He cannot for a moment forget how much better he knows; +and instead of an indulgent smile at the delightful follies of our +ancestors, we detect here and there through his very valuable pages +something unpleasantly like a sneer. “Where the modern calmly taps +his forehead,” explains Mr. Fiske, “and says, ‘Arrested development!’ +the terrified ancient made the sign of the cross, and cried, +‘Were-wolf!’”[5] Now a more disagreeable object than the “modern” +tapping his forehead, like Dr. Blimber, and offering a sensible +elucidation of every mystery, it would be hard to find. The ignorant +peasant making his sign of the cross is not only more picturesque, +but he is more companionable,--in books, at least,--and it is of far +greater interest to try to realize how _he_ felt when the specimen +of “arrested development” stole past him in the shadow of the woods. +There is, after all, a mysterious horror about the lame boy,--some +impish changeling of evil parentage, foisted on hell, perhaps, as +Nadir thrust his earth-born baby into heaven,--who every Midsummer +Night and every Christmas Eve summoned the were-wolves to their secret +meeting, whence they rushed ravenously over the German forests. The +girdle of human skin, three finger-breadths wide, which wrought the +transformation; the telltale hairs in the hollow of the hand which +betrayed the wolfish nature; the fatality which doomed one of every +seven sisters to this dreadful enchantment, and the trifling accidents +which brought about the same undesirable result are so many handles +by which we grasp the strange emotions that swayed the mediæval man. +Jacques Roulet and Jean Grenier,[6] as mere maniacs and cannibals, fill +every heart with disgust; but as were-wolves an awful mystery wraps +them round, and the mind is distracted from pity for their victims to +a fascinated consideration of their own tragic doom. A blood-thirsty +idiot is an object that no one cares to think about; but a wolf-fiend, +urged to deeds of violence by an impulse he cannot resist, is one of +those ghastly creations that the folk-lore of every country has placed +sharply and persistently before our startled eyes. Yet surely there +is a touch of comedy in the story told by Van Hahn, of an unlucky +freemason, who, having divulged the secrets of his order, was pursued +across the Pyrenees by the master of his lodge in the form of a +were-wolf, and escaped only by taking refuge in an empty cottage, and +hiding under the bed. + +“To us who are nourished from childhood,” says Mr. Fiske again, “on +the truths revealed by science, the sky is known to be merely an +optical appearance, due to the partial absorption of the solar rays +in passing through a thick stratum of atmospheric air; the clouds are +known to be large masses of watery vapor, which descend in rain-drops +when sufficiently condensed; and the lightning is known to be a flash +of light accompanying an electric discharge.” But the blue sky-sea of +Aryan folk-lore, in which the cloud-flakes floated as stately swans, +drew many an eye to the contemplation of its loveliness, and touched +many a heart with the sacred charm of beauty. On that mysterious sea +strange vessels sailed from unknown shores, and once a mighty anchor +was dropped by the sky mariners, and fell right into a little English +graveyard, to the great amazement of the humble congregation just +coming out from church. The sensation of freedom and space afforded by +this conception of the heavens is a delicious contrast to the conceit +of the Persian poet,-- + + “That inverted Bowl they call the Sky, + Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die;” + +or to the Semitic legend, which described the firmament as made of +hammered plate, with little windows for rain,--a device so poor and +barbaric, that we wonder how any man could look up into the melting +blue and admit such a sordid fancy into his soul. + +“Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest men,” confesses Dr. +Oliver Wendell Holmes, “has mingled with it something which partakes of +insolence. Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep +company with them are apt to get a bullying habit of mind.” Such an +admission from so genial and kindly a source should suffice to put us +all on the defensive. It is not agreeable to be bullied even upon those +matters which are commonly classed as facts; but when we come to the +misty region of dreams and myths and superstitions, let us remember, +with Lamb, that “we do not know the laws of that country,” and with him +generously forbear to “set down our ancestors in the gross for fools.” +We have lost forever the fantasies that enriched them. Not for us are +the pink and white lions that gamboled in the land of Prester John, +nor his onyx floors, imparting courage to all who trod on them. Not for +us the Terrestrial Paradise, with its “Welle of Youthe, whereat thei +that drynken semen alle weys yongly, and lyven withouten sykeness;”[7] +nor the Fortunate Isles beyond the Western Sea, where spring was ever +green; where youths and maidens danced hand in hand on the dewy grass, +where the cows ungrudgingly gave milk enough to fill whole ponds +instead of milking-pails, and where wizards and usurers could never +hope to enter. The doors of these enchanted spots are closed upon us, +and their key, like Excalibur, lies hidden where no hand can grasp it. + + “The whole wide world is painted gray on gray, + And Wonderland forever is gone past.” + +All we can do is to realize our loss with becoming modesty, and now and +then cast back a wistful glance + + “where underneath + The shelter of the quaint kiosk, there sigh + A troup of Fancy’s little China Dolls, + Who dream and dream, with damask round their loins, + And in their hands a golden tulip flower.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] _The Highlands of Central India._ By Captain James Forsyth. + +[3] _Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_. By Sir Walter Scott. + +[4] _The Myth of Demeter and Persephone._ By Walter Pater. + +[5] _Myths and Mythmakers._ + +[6] _Book of Were-Wolves._ By Baring-Gould. + +[7] _Travels of Sir John Mandeville._ + + + + + WHAT CHILDREN READ. + + +It is part of the irony of life that our discriminating taste for books +should be built up on the ashes of an extinct enjoyment. We spend a +great deal of our time in learning what literature is good, and a great +deal more in attuning our minds to its reception, rightly convinced +that, by the training of our intellectual faculties, we are unlocking +one of the doors through which sweetness and light may enter. We are +fond of reading, too, and have always maintained with Macaulay that we +would rather be a poor man with books than a great king without, though +luckily for our resolution, and perhaps for his, such a choice has +never yet been offered. Books, we say, are our dearest friends, and so, +with true friendly acuteness, we are prompt to discover their faults, +and take great credit in our ingenuity. But all this time, somewhere +about the house, curled up, may be, in a nursery window, or hidden in +a freezing attic, a child is poring over The Three Musketeers, lost +to any consciousness of his surroundings, incapable of analyzing his +emotions, breathless with mingled fear and exultation over his heroes’ +varying fortunes, and drinking in a host of vivid impressions that are +absolutely ineffaceable from his mind. We cannot read in that fashion +any longer, but we only wish we could. Thackeray used to sigh in middle +age over the lost delights of five shillings’ worth of pastry; but +what was the pleasure of eating tarts to the glamour cast over us by +our first romance, to the enchanted hours we spent with Sintram by +the sea-shore, or with Nydia in the darkened streets of Pompeii, or +perhaps--if we were not too carefully watched--with Emily in those +dreadful vaults beneath Udolpho’s walls! + +Nor is it fiction only that strongly excites the imagination of a +child. History is not to him what it is to us, a tangle of disputed +facts, doubtful theories, and conflicting evidence. He grasps its +salient points with simple directness, absorbs them into his mind +with tolerable accuracy, and passes judgment on them with enviable +ease. To him, historical characters are at least as real as those of +romance, which they are very far from being to us, and he enters into +their impressions and motives with a facile sympathy which we rarely +feel. Not only does he firmly believe that Marcus Curtius leaped into +the gulf, but he has not yet learned to question the expediency of +the act; and, having never been enlightened by Mr. Grote, the black +broth of Lykurgus is as much a matter of fact to him as the bread and +butter upon his own breakfast table. Sir Walter Scott tells us that +even the dinner-bell--most welcome sound to boyish ears--failed to win +him from his rapt perusal of Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry; but +Gibbon, as a lad, found the passage of the Goths over the Danube just +as engrossing, and, stifling the pangs of hunger, preferred to linger +fasting in their company. The great historian’s early love for history +has furnished Mr. Bagehot with one more proof of the fascination of +such records for the youthful mind, and he bids us at the same time +consider from what a firm and tangible standpoint it regards them. +“Youth,” he writes, “has a principle of consolidation. In history, +the whole comes in boyhood; the details later, and in manhood. The +wonderful series going far back to the times of old patriarchs with +their flocks and herds, the keen-eyed Greek, the stately Roman, the +watchful Jew, the uncouth Goth, the horrid Hun, the settled picture of +the unchanging East, the restless shifting of the rapid West, the rise +of the cold and classical civilization, its fall, the rough, impetuous +Middle Ages, the vague warm picture of ourselves and home,--when did we +learn these? Not yesterday, nor to-day, but long ago, in the first dawn +of reason, in the original flow of fancy. What we learn afterwards are +but the accurate littlenesses of the great topic, the dates and tedious +facts. Those who begin late learn only these; but the happy first feel +the mystic associations and the progress of the whole.”[8] + +If this be true, and the child’s mind be not only singularly alive +to new impressions, but quick to concentrate its knowledge into a +consistent whole, the value and importance of his early reading can +hardly be overestimated. That much anxiety has been felt upon the +subject is proven by the cry of self-congratulation that rises on +every side of us to-day. We are on the right track at last, the press +and the publishers assure us; and with tons of healthy juvenile +literature flooding the markets every year, our American boys and girls +stand fully equipped for the intellectual battles of life. But if we +will consider the matter in a dispassionate and less boastful light, we +shall see that the good accomplished is mainly of a negative character. +By providing cheap and wholesome reading for the young, we have partly +succeeded in driving from the field that which was positively bad; +yet nothing is easier than to overdo a reformation, and, through the +characteristic indulgence of American parents, children are drugged +with a literature whose chief merit is its harmlessness. These little +volumes, nicely written, nicely printed, and nicely illustrated, are +very useful in their way; but they are powerless to awaken a child’s +imagination, or to stimulate his mental growth. If stories, they +merely introduce him to a phase of life with which he is already +familiar; if historical, they aim at showing him a series of detached +episodes, broken pictures of the mighty whole, shorn of its “mystic +associations,” and stirring within his soul no stronger impulse than +that of a cheaply gratified curiosity. + +Not that children’s books are to be neglected or contemned. On the +contrary, they are always helpful, and in the average nursery have +grown to be a recognized necessity. But when supplied with a too lavish +hand, a child is tempted to read nothing else, and his mind becomes +shrunken for lack of a vigorous stimulant to excite and expand it. +“Children,” wrote Sir Walter Scott, “derive impulses of a powerful +and important kind from hearing things that they cannot entirely +comprehend. It is a mistake to write down to their understanding. Set +them on the scent, and let them puzzle it out.” Sir Walter himself, be +it observed, in common with most little people of genius, got along +strikingly well without any juvenile literature at all. He shouted the +ballad of Hardyknute, to the great annoyance of his aunt’s visitors, +long before he knew how to read, and listened at his grandmother’s knee +to her stirring tales about Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood, +Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead, and a host of border heroes whose +picturesque robberies were the glory of their sober and respectable +descendants. Two or three old books which lay in the window-seat +were explored for his amusement in the dreary winter days. Ramsay’s +Tea-Table Miscellany, a mutilated copy of Josephus, and Pope’s +translation of the Iliad appear to have been his favorites, until, when +about eight years old, a happy chance threw him under the spell of the +two great poets who have swayed most powerfully the pliant imaginations +of the young. “I found,” he writes in his early memoirs, “within my +mother’s dressing-room (where I slept at one time) some odd volumes +of Shakespeare; nor can I easily forget the rapture with which I sate +up in my shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her apartment, +until the bustle of the family rising from supper warned me it was +time to creep back to my bed, where I was supposed to have been safely +deposited since nine o’clock.” And a little later he adds, “Spenser +I could have read forever. Too young to trouble myself about the +allegory, I considered all the knights, and ladies, and dragons, and +giants in their outward and exoteric sense, and Heaven only knows how +delighted I was to find myself in such society!” + +“How much of our poetry,” it has been asked, “owes its start to +Spenser, when the Fairy Queen was a household book, and lay in the +parlor window-seat?” And how many brilliant fancies have emanated +from those same window-seats, which Montaigne so keenly despised? +There, where the smallest child could climb with ease, lay piled up +in a corner, within the reach of his little hands, the few precious +volumes which perhaps comprised the literary wealth of the household. +Those were not days when over-indulgence and a multiplicity of books +robbed reading of its healthy zest. We know that in the window-seat +of Cowley’s mother’s room lay a copy of the Fairy Queen, which to her +little son was a source of unfailing delight, and Pope has recorded +the ecstasy with which, as a lad, he pored over this wonderful poem; +but then neither Cowley nor Pope had the advantage of following Oliver +Optic through the slums of New York, or living with some adventurous +“boy hunters” in the jungles of Central Africa. On the other hand, +there is a delicious account of Bentham, in his early childhood, +climbing to the height of a huge stool, and sitting there night after +night reading Rapin’s history by the light of two candles; a weird +little figure, whose only counterpart in literature is the small John +Ruskin propped up solemnly in his niche, “like an idol,” and hemmed +in from the family reach by the table on which his book reposed. It +is quite evident that Bentham found the mental nutrition he wanted +in Rapin’s rather dreary pages, just as Pope and Cowley found it in +Spenser, Ruskin in the Iliad, and Burns in the marvelous stories +told by that “most ignorant and superstitious old woman,” who made +the poet afraid of his own shadow, and who, as he afterwards freely +acknowledged, fanned within his soul the kindling flame of genius. + +Look where we will, we find the author’s future work reflected in the +intellectual pastimes of his childhood. Madame de Genlis, when but six +years old, perused with unflagging interest the ten solid volumes of +Clélie,--a task which would appall the most stout-hearted novel-reader +of to-day. Gibbon turned as instinctively to facts as Scott and Burns +to fiction. Macaulay surely learned from his beloved Æneid the art of +presenting a dubious statement with all the vigorous coloring of truth. +Wordsworth congratulated himself and Coleridge that, as children, they +had ranged at will + + “through vales + Rich with indigenous produce, open grounds + Of fancy;” + +Coleridge, in his turn, was wont to express his sense of superiority +over those who had not read fairy tales when they were young, and +Charles Lamb, who was plainly of the same way of thinking, wrote to him +hotly on the subject of the “cursed Barbauld crew,” and demanded how he +would ever have become a poet, if, instead of being fed with tales and +old wives’ fables in his infancy, he had been crammed with geography, +natural history, and other useful information. What a picture we have +of Cardinal Newman’s sensitive and flexible mind in these few words +which bear witness to his childish musings! “I used to wish,” he says +in the third chapter of the Apologia, “that the Arabian Nights were +true; my imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical powers +and talismans.... I thought life might be a dream, or I an angel, and +all the world a deception, my fellow angels, by a playful device, +concealing themselves from me, and deceiving me with the semblance of +a material world.” Alongside of this poetic revelation may be placed +Cobbett’s sketch of himself: a sturdy country lad of eleven, in a +blue smock and red garters, standing before the bookseller’s shop +in Richmond, with an empty stomach, three pence in his pocket, and +a certain little book called The Tale of a Tub contending with his +hunger for the possession of that last bit of money. In the end, mind +conquered matter: the threepence was invested in the volume, and the +homeless little reader curled himself under a haystack, and forgot all +about his supper in the strange, new pleasure he was enjoying. “The +book was so different,” he writes, “from anything that I had ever read +before, it was something so fresh to my mind, that, though I could not +understand some parts of it, it delighted me beyond description, and +produced what I have always considered a sort of birth of intellect. I +read on till it was dark, without any thought of food or bed. When I +could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket and tumbled down +by the side of the stack, where I slept till the birds of Kew Gardens +awakened me in the morning.... I carried that volume about with me +wherever I went; and when I lost it in a box that fell overboard in the +Bay of Fundy, the loss gave me greater pain than I have since felt at +losing thousands of pounds.” + +As for Lamb’s views on the subject of early reading, they are best +expressed in his triumphant vindication of Bridget Elia’s happily +neglected education: “She was tumbled by accident or design into a +spacious closet of good old English books, without much selection +or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome +pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should be brought up exactly in this +fashion.” It is natural that but few parents are anxious to risk so +hazardous an experiment, especially as the training of “incomparable +old maids” is hardly the recognized summit of maternal ambition; but +Bridget Elia at least ran no danger of intellectual starvation, while, +if we pursue a modern school-girl along the track of her self-chosen +reading, we shall be astonished that so much printed matter can yield +so little mental nourishment. She has begun, no doubt, with childish +stories, bright and well-written, probably, but following each other +in such quick succession that none of them have left any distinct +impression on her mind. Books that children read but once are of scant +service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations +and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that +they have become a portion of our thinking selves. At ten or twelve the +little girl aspires to something partly grown-up, to those nondescript +tales which, trembling ever on the brink of sentiment, seem afraid to +risk the plunge; and with her appetite whetted by a course of this +unsatisfying diet, she is soon ripe for a little more excitement and a +great deal more love-making, so graduates into Rhoda Broughton and the +“Duchess,” at which point her intellectual career is closed. She has +no idea, even, of what she has missed in the world of books. She tells +you that she “don’t care for Dickens,” and “can’t get interested in +Scott,” with a placidity that plainly shows she lays the blame for this +state of affairs on the two great masters who have amused and charmed +the world. As for Northanger Abbey, or Emma, she would as soon think +of finding entertainment in Henry Esmond. She has probably never read +a single masterpiece of our language; she has never been moved by a +noble poem, or stirred to the quick by a well-told page of history; she +has never opened the pores of her mind for the reception of a vigorous +thought, or the solution of a mental problem; yet she may be found +daily in the circulating library, and is seldom visible on the street +without a book or two under her arm. + +“In the love-novels all the heroines are very desperate,” wrote +little Marjorie Fleming in her diary, nearly eighty years ago, and +added somewhat plaintively, “Isabella will not allow me to speak of +lovers and heroins,”--yearning, as we can see, over the forbidden +topic, and mutable in her spelling, as befits her tender age. But +what books had _she_ read, this bright-eyed, healthy, winsome little +girl,--eight years old when she died,--the favorite companion of +Sir Walter Scott, and his comfort in many a moment of fatigue and +depression? We can follow her path easily enough, thanks to those +delicious, misspelt scrawls in which she has recorded her childish +verdicts. “Thomson is a beautiful author,” she writes at six, “and +Pope, but nothing to Shakespear, of which I have a little knolege. +Macbeth is a pretty composition, but awful one.... The Newgate Calender +is very instructive.” And again, “Tom Jones and Grey’s Elegy in a +country churchyard,” surely never classed together before, “are both +excellent, and much spoke of by both sex, particularly by the men.... +Doctor Swift’s works are very funny; I got some of them by heart.... +Miss Egward’s [Edgeworth’s] tails are very good, particularly some +that are much adapted for youth, as Laz Lawrance and Tarleton.” Then +with a sudden jump, “I am reading the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much +interested in the fate of poor poor Emily.... Morehead’s sermons are, +I hear, much praised, but I never read sermons of any kind; but I read +novelettes and my Bible, and I never forget it or my prayers.” + +It is apparent that she read a great deal which would now hardly +be considered desirable for little girls, but who can quarrel with +the result? Had the bright young mind been starved on Dotty Dimple +and Little Prudy books, we might have missed the quaintest bit of +autobiography in the English tongue, those few scattered pages which, +with her scraps of verse and tender little letters, were so carefully +preserved by a loving sister after Pet Maidie’s death. Far too young +and innocent to be harmed by Tom Jones or the “funny” Doctor Swift, +we may perhaps doubt whether she had penetrated very deeply into the +Newgate Calendar, notwithstanding a further assertion on her part that +“the history of all the malcontents as ever was hanged is amusing.” But +that she had the “little knolege” she boasted of Shakespeare is proven +by the fact that her recitations from King John affected Scott, to use +his own words, “as nothing else could do.” He would sob outright when +the little creature on his knee repeated, quivering with suppressed +emotion, those heart-breaking words of Constance:-- + + “For I am sick and capable of fears, + Oppressed with wrong, and therefore full of fears;” + +and, knowing the necessity of relaxing a mind so highly wrought, he +took good care that she should not be without healthy childish reading. +We have an amusing picture of her consoling herself with fairy tales, +when exiled, for her restlessness, to the foot of her sister’s bed; +and one of the first copies of Rosamond, and Harry and Lucy found its +way to Marjorie Fleming, with Sir Walter Scott’s name written on the +fly-leaf. + +Fairy tales, and Harry and Lucy! But the real, old-fashioned, earnest, +half-sombre fairy tales of our youth have slipped from the hands of +children into those of folk-lore students, who are busy explaining +all their flavor out of them; while as for Miss Edgeworth, the little +people of to-day cannot be persuaded that she is not dull and prosy. +Yet what keen pleasure have her stories given to generations of boys +and girls, who in their time have grown to be clever men and women! +Hear what Miss Thackeray, that loving student of children and of +childish ways, has to record about them. “When I look back,” she +writes, “upon my own youth, I seem to have lived in company with a +delightful host of little play-mates, bright, busy children, whose +cheerful presence remains more vividly in my mind than that of many +of the real little boys and girls who used to appear and disappear +disconnectedly, as children do in childhood, when friendship and +companionship depend almost entirely upon the convenience of grown-up +people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to share our +games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, ever to be relied +upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly companions: simple Susan, +lame Jervas, the dear little merchants, Jem, the widow’s son, with his +arms around old Lightfoot’s neck, the generous Ben, with his whip-cord +and his useful proverb of ‘Waste not, want not,’--all of these were +there in the window corner waiting our pleasure. After Parents’ +Assistant, to which familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, +came Popular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the lumber-room +of an apartment in an old house in Paris; and as we opened the books, +lo! creation widened to our view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, +the mines of Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travelers, +governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life were all laid +under contribution, and brought interest and adventure to our humdrum +nursery corner.”[9] + +And have these bright and varied pictures, “these immortal tales,” +as Mr. Matthew Arnold termed them, lost their power to charm, that +they are banished from our modern nursery corners; or is it because +their didactic purpose is too thinly veiled, or--as I have sometimes +fancied--because their authoress took so moderate a view of children’s +functions and importance? If we place Miss Edgeworth’s and Miss +Alcott’s stories side by side, we shall see that the contrast between +them lies not so much in the expected dissimilarity of style and +incident as in the utterly different standpoint from which their +writers regard the aspirations and responsibilities of childhood. +Take, for instance, Miss Edgeworth’s Rosamond and Miss Alcott’s Eight +Cousins, both of them books purporting to show the gradual development +of a little girl’s character under kindly and stimulating influences. +Rosamond, who is said to be a portrait of Maria Edgeworth herself, +is from first to last the undisputed heroine of the volume which +bears her name. Laura may be much wiser, Godfrey far more clever; but +neither of them usurps for a moment their sister’s place as the central +figure of the narrative, round whom our interest clings. But when we +come to consider her position in her own family, we find it strangely +insignificant. The foolish, warm-hearted, impetuous little girl is of +importance to the household only through the love they bear her. It is +plain her opinions do not carry much weight, and she is never called +on to act as an especial providence to any one. We do not behold her +winning Godfrey away from his cigar, or Orlando from fast companions, +or correcting anybody’s faults, in fact, except her own, which are +numerous enough, and give her plenty of concern. + +Now with Rose, the bright little heroine of Eight Cousins, and of its +sequel A Rose in Bloom, everything is vastly different. She is of the +utmost importance to all the grown-up people in the book, most of +whom, it must be acknowledged, are extremely silly and incapable. +Her aunts set the very highest value upon her society, and receive +it with gratified rapture; while among her male cousins she is from +the first like a missionary in the Feejees. It is she who cures them +of their boyish vices, obtaining in return from their supine mothers +“a vote of thanks, which made her feel as if she had done a service +to her country.” At thirteen she discovers that “girls are made to +take care of boys,” and with dauntless assurance sets about her +self-appointed task. “You boys need somebody to look after you,” she +modestly announces,--most of them are her seniors, by the way, and all +have parents,--“so I’m going to do it; for girls are nice peacemakers, +and know how to manage people.” Naturally, to a young person holding +these advanced views of life, Miss Edgeworth’s limited field of action +seems a very spiritless affair, and we find Rose expressing herself +with characteristic energy on the subject of the purple jar, declaring +that Rosamond’s mother was “regularly mean,” and that she “always +wanted to shake that woman, though she was a model mamma”! As we read +the audacious words, we half expect to see, rising from the mists +of story-book land, the indignant ghost of little English Rosamond, +burning to defend, with all her old impetuosity, the mother whom she +so dearly loved. It is true, she had no sense of a “mission,” this +commonplace but very amusing little girl. She never, like Rose, adopted +a pauper infant, or made friends with a workhouse orphan; she never +vetoed pretty frocks in favor of philanthropy, or announced that she +would “have nothing to do with love until she could prove that she was +something beside a housekeeper and a baby-tender.” In fact, she was +probably taught that love and matrimony and babies were not proper +subjects for discussion in the polite society for which she was so +carefully reared. The hints that are given her now and then on such +matters by no means encourage a free expression of any unconventional +views. “It is particularly amiable in a woman to be ready to yield, and +avoid disputing about trifles,” says Rosamond’s father, who plainly +does not consider his child in the light of a beneficent genius; while, +when she reaches her teens, she is described as being “just at that age +when girls do not join in conversation, but when they sit modestly +silent, and have leisure, if they have sense, to judge of what others +say, and to form by choice, and not by chance, their opinions of what +goes on in that great world into which they have not yet entered.” + +And is it really only ninety years since this delicious sentence was +penned in sober earnest, as representing an existing state of things! +There is an antique, musty, long-secluded flavor about it, that would +suggest a monograph copied from an Egyptian tomb with thirty centuries +of dust upon its hoary head. Yet Rosamond, sitting “modestly silent” +under the delusion that grown-up people are worth listening to, can +talk fluently enough when occasion demands it, though at all times her +strength lies rather in her heart than in her head. She represents that +tranquil, unquestioning, unselfish family love, which Miss Edgeworth +could describe so well because she felt it so sincerely. The girl who +had three stepmothers and nineteen brothers and sisters, and managed +to be fond of them all, should be good authority on the subject of +domestic affections; and that warm, happy, loving atmosphere which +charms us in her stories, and which brought tears to Sir Walter +Scott’s eyes when he laid down Simple Susan, is only the reflection of +the cheerful home life she steadfastly helped to brighten. + +Her restrictions as a writer are perhaps most felt by those who admire +her most. Her pet virtue--after prudence--is honesty; and yet how +poor a sentiment it becomes under her treatment!--no virtue at all, +in fact, but merely a policy working for its own gain. Take the long +conversation between the little Italian merchants on the respective +merits of integrity and sharpness in their childish traffic. Each +disputant exhausts his wits in trying to prove the superior wisdom +of his own course, but not once does the virtuous Francisco make use +of the only argument which is of any real value,--I do not cheat +because it is not right. There is more to be learned about honesty, +real unselfish, unrequited honesty, in Charles Lamb’s little sketch of +Barbara S---- than in all Miss Edgeworth has written on the subject in +a dozen different tales. + +“Taking up one’s cross does not at all mean having ovations at dinner +parties, and being put over everybody else’s head,” says Ruskin, +with visible impatience at the smooth and easy manner in which Miss +Edgeworth persists in grinding the mills of the gods, and distributing +poetical justice to each and every comer. It may be very nice to see +the generous Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, extolled to the +skies by a whole room full of company, “disturbed for the purpose,” +while “poor dear little Rosamond”--he too has a weakness for this small +blunderer--is left in the lurch, without either shoes or jar; but it +is not real generosity that needs so much commendation, and it is not +real life that can be depended on for giving it. Yet Ruskin admits +that Harry and Lucy were his earliest friends, to the extent even of +inspiring him with an ambitious desire to continue their history; and +he cannot say too much in praise of an authoress “whose every page is +so full and so delightful. I can read her over and over again, without +ever tiring. No one brings you into the company of pleasanter or wiser +people; no one tells you more truly how to do right.”[10] + +He might have added that no one ever was more moderate in her +exactions. The little people who brighten Miss Edgeworth’s pages are +not expected, like the children in more recent books, to take upon +their shoulders a load of grown-up duties and responsibilities. Life is +simplified for them by an old-fashioned habit of trusting in the wisdom +of their parents; and these parents, instead of being foolish and +wrong-headed, so as to set off more strikingly the child’s sagacious +energy, are apt to be very sensible and kind, and remarkably well +able to take care of themselves and their families. This is the more +refreshing because, after reading a few modern stories, either English +or American, one is troubled with serious doubts as to the moral +usefulness of adults; and we begin to feel that as we approach the age +of Mentor it behooves us to find some wise young Telemachus who will +consent to be our protector and our guide. There is no more charming +writer for the young than Flora Shaw; yet Hector and Phyllis Browne, +and even that group of merry Irish children in Castle Blair, are all +convinced it is their duty to do some difficult or dangerous work in +the interests of humanity, and all are afflicted with a premature +consciousness of social evils. + + “The time is out of joint; oh, cursed spite! + That ever I was born to set it right!” + +cries Hamlet wearily; but it is at thirty, and not at thirteen, that he +makes this unpleasant discovery. + +In religious stories, of which there are many hundreds published every +year, these peculiar views are even more defined, presenting themselves +often in the form of a spiritual contest between highly endowed, +sensitive children and their narrow-minded parents and guardians, who, +of course, are always in the wrong. The clever authoress of Thrown +Together is by no means innocent of this unwholesome tone; but the +chief offender, and one who has had a host of dismal imitators, is +Susan Warner,--Miss Wetherell,--who plainly considered that virtue, +especially in the young, was of no avail unless constantly undergoing +persecution. Her supernaturally righteous little girls, who pin +notes on their fathers’ dressing-tables, requesting them to become +Christians, and who endure the most brutal treatment--at their parents’ +hands--rather than sing songs on Sunday evening, are equaled only by +her older heroines, who divide their time impartially between flirting +and praying, between indiscriminate kisses and passionate searching for +light. A Blackwood critic declares that there is more kissing done in +The Old Helmet than in all of Sir Walter Scott’s novels put together, +and utters an energetic protest against the penetrating glances, and +earnest pressing of hands, and brotherly embraces, and the whole vulgar +paraphernalia of pious flirtation, so immeasurably hurtful to the +undisciplined fancy of the young. “They have good reason to expect,” +he growls, “from these pictures of life, that if they are very good, +and very pious, and very busy in doing grown-up work, when they reach +the mature age of sixteen or so, some young gentleman who has been +in love with them all along will declare himself at the very nick of +time; and they may then look to find themselves, all the struggles of +life over, reposing a weary head on his stalwart shoulder.... Mothers, +never in great favor with novelists, are sinking deeper and deeper in +their black books,--there is a positive jealousy of their influence; +while the father in the religious tale, as opposed to the moral or +sentimental, is commonly either a scamp or nowhere. The heroine has, +so to say, to do her work single-handed.” + +In some of these stories, moreover, the end justifies the means to +an alarming extent. Girls who steal money from their relatives in +order to go as missionaries among the Indians, and young women who +pretend to sit up with the sick that they may slip off unattended to +hear some inspired preacher in a barn, are not safe companions even +in books; while, if no grave indiscretion be committed, the lesson of +self-righteousness is taught on every page. Not very long ago I had +the pleasure of reading a tale in which the youthful heroine considers +it her mission in life to convert her grandparents; and while there +is nothing to prevent an honest girl from desiring such a thing, the +idea is not a happy one for a narrative, in view of certain homely +old adages irresistibly associated with the notion. “Girls,” wrote +Hannah More, “should be led to distrust their own judgment;” but if +they have the conversion of their grandparents on their hands, how can +they afford to be distrustful? Hannah More is unquestionably out of +date, and so, we fear, is that English humorist who said, “If all the +grown-up people in the world should suddenly fail, what a frightful +thing would society become, reconstructed by boys!” Evidently he had +in mind a land given over to toffy and foot-ball, but he was strangely +mistaken in his notions. Perhaps the carnal little hero of Vice Versâ +might have managed matters in this disgraceful fashion; but with Flora +Shaw’s earnest children at the helm, society would be reconstructed on +a more serious basis than it is already, and Heaven knows this is not +a change of which we stand in need. In fact, if the young people who +live and breathe around us are one third as capable, as strenuous, as +clear-sighted, as independent, as patronizing, and as undeniably our +superiors as their modern counterparts in literature, who can doubt +that the eternal cause of progress would be furthered by the change? +And is it, after all, mere pique which inclines us to Miss Edgeworth’s +ordinary little boys and girls, who, standing half dazed on the +threshold of life, stretch out their hands with childish confidence for +help? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] _Literary Studies_, vol. ii. + +[9] _A Book of Sibyls._ + +[10] _Ethics of the Dust._ + + + + + THE DECAY OF SENTIMENT. + + +That useful little phrase, “the complexity of modern thought,” has been +so hard worked of late years that it seems like a refinement of cruelty +to add to its obligations. Begotten by the philosophers, born of the +essayists, and put out to nurse among the novel-writers, it has since +been apprenticed to the whole body of scribblers, and drudges away at +every trade in literature. How, asks Vernon Lee, can we expect our +fiction to be amusing, when a psychological and sympathetic interest +has driven away the old hard-hearted spirit of comedy? How, asks Mr. +Pater, can Sebastian Van Stork make up his mind to love and marry and +work like ordinary mortals, when the many-sidedness of life has wrought +in him a perplexed envy of those quiet occupants of the churchyard, +“whose deceasing was so long since over”? How, asks George Eliot, +can Mrs. Pullet weep with uncontrolled emotion over Mrs. Sutton’s +dropsy, when it behooves her not to crush her sleeves or stain her +bonnet-strings? The problem is repeated everywhere, either in mockery +or deadly earnestness, according to the questioner’s disposition, and +the old springs of simple sentiment are drying fast within us. It is +heartless to laugh, it is foolish to cry, it is indiscreet to love, +it is morbid to hate, and it is intolerant to espouse any cause with +enthusiasm. + +There was a time, and not so many years ago, when men and women found +no great difficulty in making up their minds on ordinary matters, and +their opinions, if erroneous, were at least succinct and definite. +Nero was then a cruel tyrant, the Duke of Wellington a great soldier, +Sir Walter Scott the first of novelists, and the French Revolution +a villainous piece of business. Now we are equally enlightened and +confused by the keen researches and shifting verdicts with which +historians and critics seek to dispel this comfortable frame of +darkness. Nero, perhaps, had the good of his subjects secretly at +heart when he expressed that benevolent desire to dispatch them all at +a blow, and Robespierre was but a practical philanthropist, carried, +it may be, a little too far by the stimulating influences of the +hour. “We have palliations of Tiberius, eulogies of Henry VIII., and +devotional exercises to Cromwell,” observes Mr. Bagehot, in some +perplexity as to where this state of things may find an ending; and he +confesses that in the mean time his own original notions of right and +wrong are growing sadly hazy and uncertain. Moreover, in proportion +as the heavy villains of history assume a chastened and ascetic +appearance, its heroes dwindle perceptibly into the commonplace, and +its heroines are stripped of every alluring grace; while as for the +living men who are controlling the destinies of nations, not even +Macaulay’s ever useful schoolboy is too small and ignorant to refuse +them homage. Yet we read of Scott, in the zenith of his fame, standing +silent and abashed before the Duke of Wellington, unable, and perhaps +unwilling, to shake off the awe that paralyzed his tongue. “The Duke +possesses every one mighty quality of the mind in a higher degree than +any other man either does or has ever done!” exclaimed Sir Walter to +John Ballantyne, who, not being framed for hero-worship, failed to +appreciate his friend’s extraordinary enthusiasm. While we smile at +the sentiment,--knowing, of course, so much better ourselves,--we feel +an envious admiration of the happy man who uttered it. + +There is a curious little incident which Mrs. Lockhart used to relate, +in after years, as a proof of her father’s emotional temperament, +and of the reverence with which he regarded all that savored of past +or present greatness. When the long-concealed Scottish regalia were +finally brought to light, and exhibited to the public of Edinburgh, +Scott, who had previously been one of the committee chosen to unlock +the chest, took his daughter to see the royal jewels. She was then +a girl of fifteen, and her nerves had been so wrought upon by all +that she had heard on the subject that, when the lid was opened, she +felt herself growing faint, and withdrew a little from the crowd. +A light-minded young commissioner, to whom the occasion suggested +no solemnity, took up the crown, and made a gesture as if to place +it on the head of a lady standing near, when Sophia Scott heard her +father exclaim passionately, in a voice “something between anger and +despair,” “By G--, no!” The gentleman, much embarrassed, immediately +replaced the diadem, and Sir Walter, turning aside, saw his daughter, +deadly pale, leaning against the door, and led her at once into the +open air. “He never spoke all the way home,” she added, “but every +now and then I felt his arm tremble; and from that time I fancied he +began to treat me more like a woman than a child. I thought he liked me +better, too, than he had ever done before.” + +The whole scene, as we look back upon it now, is a quaint illustration +of how far a man’s emotions could carry him, when they were nourished +alike by the peculiarities of his genius and of his education. The +feeling was doubtless an exaggerated one, but it was at least nobler +than the speculative humor with which a careless crowd now calculates +the market value of the crown jewels in the Tower of London. “What +they would bring” was a thought which we may be sure never entered Sir +Walter’s head, as he gazed with sparkling eyes on the modest regalia +of Scotland, and conjured up every stirring drama in which they had +played their part. For him each page of his country’s history was the +subject of close and loving scrutiny. All those Davids, and Williams, +and Malcolms, about whom we have an indistinct notion that they spent +their lives in being bullied by their neighbors and badgered by their +subjects, were to his mind as kingly as Charlemagne on his Throne of +the West; and their crimes and struggles and brief glorious victories +were part of the ineffaceable knowledge of his boyhood. To _feel_ +history in this way, to come so close to the world’s actors that our +pulses rise and fall with their vicissitudes, is a better thing, after +all, than the most accurate and reasonable of doubts. I knew two little +English girls who always wore black frocks on the 30th of January, +in honor of the “Royal Martyr,” and tied up their hair with black +ribbons, and tried hard to preserve the decent gravity of demeanor +befitting such a doleful anniversary. The same little girls, it must +be confessed, carried Holmby House to bed with them, and bedewed their +pillows with many tears over the heart-rending descriptions thereof. +What to them were the “outraged liberties of England,” which Mr. Gosse +rather vaguely tells us tore King Charles to pieces? They saw him +standing on the scaffold, a sad and princely figure, and they heard +the frightened sobs that rent the air when the cruel deed was done. +It is not possible for us now to take this picturesque and exclusive +view of one whose shortcomings have been so vigorously raked to +light by indignant disciples of Carlyle; but the child who has ever +cried over any great historic tragedy is richer for the experience, +and stands on higher ground than one whose life is bounded by the +schoolroom walls, or who finds her needful stimulant in the follies of +a precocious flirtation. What a charming picture we have of Eugénie +de Guérin feeding her passionate little soul with vain regrets for +the unfortunate family of Louis XVI. and with sweet infantile plans +for their rescue. “Even as a child,” she writes in her journal, “I +venerated this martyr, I loved this victim whom I heard so much talked +of in my family as the 21st of January drew near. We used to be +taken to the funeral service in the church, and I gazed at the high +catafalque, the melancholy throne of the good king. My astonishment +impressed me with sorrow and indignation. I came away weeping over this +death, and hating the wicked men who had brought it about. How many +hours have I spent devising means for saving Louis, the queen, and the +whole hapless family,--if I only had lived in their day. But after much +calculating and contriving, no promising measure presented itself, and +I was forced, very reluctantly, to leave the prisoners where they were. +My compassion was more especially excited for the beautiful little +Dauphin, the poor child pent up between walls, and unable to play in +freedom. I used to carry him off in fancy, and keep him safely hidden +at Cayla, and Heaven only knows the delight of running about our fields +with a prince.” + +Here at least we see the imaginative faculty playing a vigorous and +wholesome part in a child’s mental training. The little solitary French +girl who filled up her lonely hours with such pretty musings as these, +could scarcely fail to attain that rare distinction of mind which all +true critics have been so prompt to recognize and love. It was with +her the natural outgrowth of an intelligence, quickened by sympathy +and fed with delicate emotions. The Dauphin in the Temple, the Princes +in the Tower, Marie Antoinette on the guillotine, and Jeanne d’Arc at +the stake, these are the scenes which have burned their way into many +a youthful heart, and the force of such early impressions can never +be utterly destroyed. A recent essayist, deeply imbued with this good +principle, has assured us that the little maiden who, ninety years +ago, surprised her mother in tears, “because the wicked people had cut +off the French queen’s head,” received from that impression the very +highest kind of education. But this is object-teaching carried to its +extremest limit, and even in these days, when training is recognized +to be of such vital importance, one feels that the death of a queen is +a high price to pay for a little girl’s instruction. It might perhaps +suffice to let her live more freely in the past, and cultivate her +emotions after a less costly and realistic fashion. + +On the other hand, Mr. Edgar Saltus, who is nothing if not melancholy, +would fain persuade us that the “gift of tears,” which Swinburne prized +so highly and Mrs. Browning cultivated with such transparent care, +finds its supreme expression in man, only because of man’s greater +capacity for suffering. Yet if it be true that the burden of life grows +heavier for each succeeding generation, it is no less apparent that +we have taught ourselves to stare dry-eyed at its blankness. An old +rabbinical legend says that in Paradise God gave the earth to Adam and +tears to Eve, and it is a cheerless doctrine which tells us now that +both gifts are equal because both are valueless, that the world will +never be any merrier, and that we are all tired of waxing sentimental +over its lights and shadows. But our great-grandfathers, who were +assuredly not a tender-hearted race, and who never troubled their +heads about those modern institutions, wickedly styled by Mr. Lang +“Societies for Badgering the Poor,” cried right heartily over poems, +and novels, and pictures, and plays, and scenery, and everything, in +short, that their great-grandsons would not now consider as worthy of +emotion. Jeffrey the terrible shed tears over the long-drawn pathos of +little Nell, and has been roundly abused by critics ever since for the +extremely bad taste he exhibited. Macaulay, who was seldom disposed +to be sentimental, confesses that he wept over Florence Dombey. Lord +Byron was strongly moved when Scott recited to him his favorite ballad +of Hardyknute; and Sir Walter himself paid the tribute of his tears to +Mrs. Opie’s dismal stories, and Southey’s no less dismal Pilgrimage to +Waterloo. When Marmion was first published, Joanna Baillie undertook to +read it aloud to a little circle of literary friends, and on reaching +those lines which have reference to her own poems, + + “When she the bold enchantress came, + With fearless hand, and heart in flame,” + +the “uncontrollable emotion” of her hearers forced the fair reader to +break down. In a modern drawing-room this uncontrollable emotion would +probably find expression in such gentle murmurs of congratulation as +“Very pretty and appropriate, I am sure,” or “How awfully nice in Sir +Walter to have put it in that way!” + +Turn where we will, however, amid the pages of the past, we see this +precious gift of tears poured out in what seems to us now a spirit of +wanton profusion. Sterne, by his own showing, must have gone through +life like the Walrus, in Through the Looking Glass, + + “Holding his pocket handkerchief + Before his streaming eyes;” + +and we can detect him every now and then peeping slyly out of the +folds, to see what sort of an impression he was making. “I am as weak +as a woman,” he sighs, with conscious satisfaction, “and I beg the +world not to smile, but pity me.” Burns, who at least never cried +for effect, was moved to sudden tears by a pathetic print of a dead +soldier, that hung on Professor Fergusson’s wall. Scott was always +visibly affected by the wild northern scenery that he loved; and +Erskine was discovered in the Cave of Staffa, “weeping like a woman,” +though, in truth, a gloomy, dangerous, slippery, watery cavern is +the last place on earth where a woman would ordinarily stop to be +emotional. She might perhaps cry with Sterne over a dead monk or a +dead donkey,--he has an equal allowance of tears for both,--but once +inside of a cave, her real desire is to get out again as quickly as +possible, with dry skirts and an unbroken neck. It may be, however, +that our degenerate modern impulses afford us no safe clue to those +halcyon days when sentiment was paramount and practical considerations +of little weight; when wet feet and sore throats were not suffered to +intrude their rueful warnings upon the majesty of nature; when ladies, +who lived comfortably and happily with the husbands of their choice, +poured forth impassioned prayers, in the Annual Register, for the boon +of indifference, and poets like Cowper rushed forward to remonstrate +with them for their cruelty. + + “Let no low thought suggest the prayer, + Oh! grant, kind Heaven, to me, + Long as I draw ethereal air, + Sweet sensibility.” + +wrote the author of The Task, in sober earnestness and sincerity. + + “Then oh! ye Fair, if Pity’s ray + E’er taught your snowy breasts to sigh, + Shed o’er my contemplative lay + The tears of sensibility,” + +wrote Macaulay as a burlesque on the prevailing spirit of bathos, +and was, I think, unreasonably angry because a number of readers, +his own mother included, failed to see that he was in fun. Yet all +his life this mocking critic cherished in his secret soul of souls a +real affection for those hysterical old romances which had been the +delight of his boyhood, and which were even then rapidly disappearing +before the cold scorn of an enlightened world. Miss Austen, in Sense +and Sensibility, had impaled emotionalism on the fine shafts of her +delicate satire, and Macaulay was Miss Austen’s sworn champion; but +nevertheless he contrived to read and reread Mrs. Meek’s and Mrs. +Cuthbertson’s marvelous stories, until he probably knew them better +than he did Emma or Northanger Abbey. When an old edition of Santa +Sebastiano was sold at auction in India, he secured it at a fabulous +price,--Miss Eden bidding vigorously against him,--and he occupied +his leisure moments in making a careful calculation of the number of +fainting-fits that occur in the course of the five volumes. There are +twenty-seven in all, so he has recorded, of which the heroine alone +comes in for eleven, while seven others are distributed among the male +characters. Mr. Trevelyan has kindly preserved for us the description +of a single catastrophe, and we can no longer wonder at anybody’s +partiality for the tale, when we learn that “one of the sweetest smiles +that ever animated the face of mortal man now diffused itself over the +countenance of Lord St. Orville, as he fell at the feet of Julia in a +death-like swoon.” Mr. Howells would doubtless tell us that this is +not a true and accurate delineation of real life, and that what Lord +St. Orville should have done was to have simply wiped the perspiration +off his forehead, after the unvarnished fashion of Mr. Mavering, in +April Hopes. But Macaulay, who could mop his own brow whenever he felt +so disposed, and who recognized his utter inability to faint with a +sweet smile at a lady’s feet, naturally delighted in Mrs. Cuthbertson’s +singularly accomplished hero. Swooning is now, I fear, sadly out of +date. In society we no longer look upon it as a pleasing evidence +of feminine propriety, and in the modern novel nothing sufficiently +exciting to bring about such a result is ever permitted to happen. +But in the good old impossible stories of the past it formed a very +important element, and some of Mrs. Radcliffe’s heroines can easily +achieve twenty-seven fainting-fits by their own unaided industry. They +faint at the most inopportune times and under the most exasperating +circumstances: when they are running away from banditti, or hiding +from cruel relatives, or shut up by themselves in gloomy dungeons, +with nobody to look after and resuscitate them. Their trembling limbs +are always refusing to support them just when a little activity is +really necessary for safety, and, though they live in an atmosphere +of horrors, the smallest shock is more than they can endure with +equanimity. In the Sicilian Romance, Julia’s brother, desiring to speak +to her for a minute, knocks gently at her door, whereupon, with the +most unexpected promptness, “she shrieked and fainted;” and as the key +happens to be turned on the inside, he is obliged to wait in the hall +until she slowly regains her consciousness. + +Nothing, however, can mar the decorous sentimentality which these +young people exhibit in all their loves and sorrows. Emily the +forlorn “touched the chords of her lute in solemn symphony,” when the +unenviable nature of her surroundings might reasonably have banished +all music from her soul; Theodore paused to bathe Adeline’s hand +with his tears, in a moment of painful uncertainty; and Hippolitus, +who would have scorned to be stabbed like an ordinary mortal, +“received a sword through his body,”--precisely as though it were a +present,--“and, uttering a deep sigh, fell to the ground,” on which, +true to her principles, “Julia shrieked and fainted.” We read of the +Empress Octavia swooning when Virgil recited to her his description +of the death of Marcellus; and we know that Shelley fainted when he +heard Cristabel read; but Mrs. Radcliffe’s heroines, though equally +sensitive, are kept too busy with their own disasters to show this +sympathetic interest in literature. Their adventures strike us now +as being, on the whole, more amusing than thrilling; but we should +remember that they were no laughing matter to the readers of fifty +years ago. People did not then object to the interminable length of a +story, and they followed its intricate windings and counter-windings +with a trembling zest which we can only envy. One of the earliest +recollections of my own childhood is a little book depicting the +awful results of Mrs. Radcliffe’s terror-inspiring romances upon +the youthful mind; a well-intentioned work, no doubt, but which +inevitably filled us with a sincere desire to taste for ourselves of +these pernicious horrors. If I found them far less frightful than I +had hoped, the loss was mine, and the fault lay in the matter-of-fact +atmosphere of the modern nursery; for does not the author of the now +forgotten Pursuits of Literature tell us that the Mysteries of Udolpho +is the work of an intellectual giant?--“a mighty magician, bred and +nourished by the Florentine muses in their sacred solitary caverns, +amid the pale shrines of Gothic superstition, and in all the dreariness +of enchantment.” + +That was the way that critics used to write, and nobody dreamed of +laughing at them. When Letitia Elizabeth Landon poured forth her soul +in the most melancholy of verses, all London stopped to listen and to +pity. + + “There is no truth in love, whate’er its seeming, + And Heaven itself could scarcely seem more true. + Sadly have I awakened from the dreaming + Whose charmed slumber, false one, was of you,” + +wrote this healthy and heart-whole young woman; and Lord Lytton has +left us an amusing account of the sensation that such poems excited. +He and his fellow-students exhausted their ingenuity in romantic +speculations concerning the unknown singer, and inscribed whole reams +of fervid but indifferent stanzas to her honor. “There was always,” +he says, “in the reading-room of the Union, a rush every Saturday +afternoon for the Literary Gazette, and an impatient anxiety to hasten +at once to that corner of the sheet which contained the three magical +letters L. E. L. All of us praised the verse, and all of us guessed +the author. We soon learned that it was a female, and our admiration +was doubled, and our conjectures tripled.” When Francesca Carrara +appeared, it was received with an enthusiasm never manifested for +Pride and Prejudice, or Persuasion, and romantic young men and women +reveled in its impassioned melancholy. What a pattering of tear-drops +on every page! The lovely heroine--less mindful of her clothes than +Mrs. Pullet--looks down and marks how the great drops have fallen like +rain upon her bosom. “Alas!” she sighs, “I have cause to weep. I must +weep over my own changefulness, and over the sweetest illusions of my +youth. I feel suddenly grown old. Never more will the flowers seem so +lovely, or the stars so bright. Never more shall I dwell on Erminia’s +deep and enduring love for the unhappy Tancred, and think that I too +could so have loved. Ah! in what now can I believe, when I may not even +trust my own heart?” Here, at least, we have unadulterated sentiment, +with no traces in it of that “mean and jocular life” which Emerson so +deeply scorned, and for which the light-minded readers of to-day have +ventured to express their cheerful and shameless preference. + +Emotional literature, reflecting as it does the tastes and habits of +a dead past, should not stand trial alone before the cold eyes of the +mocking present, where there is no sympathy for its weakness and no +clue to its identity. A happy commonplaceness is now acknowledged to +be, next to brevity of life, man’s best inheritance; but in the days +when all the virtues and vices flaunted in gala costume, people were +hardly prepared for that fine simplicity which has grown to be the +crucial test of art. Love, friendship, honor, and courage were as real +then as now, but they asserted themselves in fantastic ways, and with +an ostentation that we are apt to mistake for insincerity. When Mrs. +Katharine Philips founded her famous Society of Friendship, in the +middle of the seventeenth century, she was working earnestly enough +for her particular conception of sweetness and light. It is hard not +to laugh at these men and women of the world addressing each other +solemnly as the “noble Silvander” and the “dazzling Polycrete;” and it +is harder still to believe that the fervent devotion of their verses +represented in any degree the real sentiments of their hearts. But +Orinda, whose indefatigable exertions held the society together, meant +every word she said, and credited the rest with similar veracity. + + “Lucasia, whose harmonious state + The Spheres and Muses only imitate,” + +is for her but a temperate expression of regard; and we find her +writing to Mrs. Annie Owens--a most unresponsive young Welsh-woman--in +language that would be deemed extravagant in a lover:-- + + “I did not live until this time + Crowned my felicity, + When I could say without a crime, + I am not thine, but thee.” + +One wonders what portion of her heart the amiable Mr. Philips was +content to occupy. + +Frenchwomen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries found their +principal amusement in contracting, either with each other or with +men, those highly sentimental friendships which were presumably free +from all dross of earthly passion, and which rested on a shadowy basis +of pure intellectual affinity. Mademoiselle de Scudéry delighted in +portraying this rarefied intercourse between congenial souls, and the +billing and cooing of Platonic turtle-doves fill many pages of her +ponderous romances. Sappho and Phaon, in the Grand Cyrus, “told each +other every particular of their lives,” which must have been a little +tedious at times and altogether unnecessary, inasmuch as we are assured +that “the exchange of their thoughts was so sincere that all those in +Sappho’s mind passed into Phaon’s, and all those in Phaon’s came into +Sappho’s.” Conversation under these circumstances would be apt to lose +its zest for ordinary mortals, who value the power of speech rather as +a disguise than as an interpretation of their real convictions; but +it was not so with this guileless pair. “They understood each other +without words, and saw their whole hearts in each other’s eyes.” + +As for the great wave of emotionalism that followed in Rousseau’s +train, it was a pure make-believe, like every other sentiment that +bubbled on the seething surface of French society. Avarice and honor +alone were real. To live like a profligate and to die like a hero were +the two accomplishments common to every grand seigneur in the country. +For the rest, there was a series of fads,--simplicity, benevolence, +philosophy, passion, asceticism; Voltaire one day, Rousseau the next; +Arcadian virtues and court vices jumbled fantastically together; the +cause of the people on every tongue, and the partridges hatching in the +peasant’s corn; Marie Antoinette milking a cow, and the infant Madame +Royale with eighty nurses and attendants; great ladies, with jewels in +their hair, on their bosoms, and on their silken slippers, laboriously +earning a few francs by picking out gold threads from scraps of +tarnished bullion; everybody anxiously asking everybody else, “What +shall we do to be amused?” and the real answer to all uttered long +before by Louis XIII., “Venez, monsieur, allons-nous ennuyer ensemble.” +Day and night are not more different than this sickly hothouse +pressure and the pure emotion that fired Scott’s northern blood, as +he looked on the dark rain-swept hills till his eyes grew bright with +tears. “We sometimes weep to avoid the disgrace of not weeping,” says +Rochefoucauld, who valued at its worth the facile sentimentality of his +countrymen. Could he have lived to witness M. de Latour’s hysterical +transports on finding Rousseau’s signature and a crushed periwinkle +in an old copy of the Imitatio, the great moralist might see that his +bitter truths have in them a pitiless continuity of adjustment, and fit +themselves afresh to every age. What excitation of feeling accompanied +the bloody work of the French Revolutionists! What purity of purpose! +What nobility of language! What grandeur of device! What bottled +moonshine everywhere! The wicked old world was to be born anew, reason +was to triumph over passion; and self-interest, which had ruled men for +six thousand years, was to be suddenly eradicated from their hearts. +When the patriots had finished cutting off everybody else’s head, +then the reign of mutual tenderness would begin; the week--inestimable +privilege!--would hold ten days instead of seven; and Frimaire and +Floréal and Messidor would prove to the listening earth that the very +names of past months had sunk into merited oblivion. Father Faber says +that a sense of humor is a great help in the spiritual life; it is +an absolute necessity in the temporal. Had the Convention possessed +even the faintest perception of the ridiculous, this friendly instinct +would have lowered their sublime heads from the stars, stung them into +practical issues, and moderated the absurd delusions of the hour. + +At present, however, the new disciples of “earnestness” are trying +hard to persuade us that we are too humorous, and that it is the +spirit of universal mockery which stifles all our nobler and finer +emotions. We would like to believe them, but unhappily it is only to +exceedingly strenuous souls that this lawless fun seems to manifest +itself. The rest of us, searching cheerfully enough, fail to discover +its traces. If we are seldom capable of any sustained enthusiasm, +it is rather because we yawn than because we laugh. Unlike Emerson, +we are glad to be amused, only the task of amusing us grows harder +day by day; and Justin McCarthy’s languid heroine, who declines to +get up in the morning because she has so often been up before, is but +an exhaustive instance of the inconveniences of modern satiety. When +we read of the Oxford students beleaguering the bookshops in excited +crowds for the first copies of Rokeby and Childe Harold, fighting over +the precious volumes, and betting recklessly on their rival sales, +we wonder whether either Lord Tennyson’s or Mr. Browning’s latest +effusions created any such tumult among the undergraduates of to-day, +or wiled away their money from more legitimate subjects of speculation. +Lord Holland, when asked by Murray for his opinion of Old Mortality, +answered indignantly, “Opinion! We did not one of us go to bed last +night! Nothing slept but my gout.” Yet Rokeby and Childe Harold are +both in sad disgrace with modern critics, and Old Mortality stands +gathering dust upon our bookshelves. Mr. Howells, who ought to know, +tells us that fiction has become a finer art in our day than it was +in the days of our fathers, and that the methods and interests we +have outgrown can never hope to be revived. So if the masterpieces +of the present, the triumphs of learned verse and realistic prose, +fail to lift their readers out of themselves, like the masterpieces +of the past, the fault must be our own. We devote some conscientious +hours to Parleyings with Certain People of Importance, and we are +well pleased, on the whole, to find ourselves in such good company; +but it is a pleasure rich in the temperance that Hamlet loved, and +altogether unlikely to ruffle our composure. We read The Bostonians +and The Rise of Silas Lapham with a due appreciation of their minute +perfections; but we go to bed quite cheerfully at our usual hour, and +are content to wait an interval of leisure to resume them. Could Daisy +Miller charm a gouty leg, or Lemuel Barker keep us sleepless until +morning? When St. Pierre finished the manuscript of Paul and Virginia, +he consented to read it to the painter, Joseph Vernet. At first the +solitary listener was loud in his approbation, then more subdued, then +silent altogether. “Soon he ceased to praise; he only wept.” Yet Paul +and Virginia has been pronounced morbid, strained, unreal, unworthy +even of the tears that childhood drops upon its pages. But would Mr. +Millais or Sir Frederick Leighton sit weeping over the delightful +manuscripts of Henry Shorthouse or Mr. Louis Stevenson? Did the last +flicker of genuine emotional enthusiasm die out with George Borrow, +who lived at least a century too late for his own convenience? When +a respectable, gray-haired, middle-aged Englishman takes an innocent +delight in standing bare-headed in the rain, reciting execrable Welsh +verses on every spot where a Welsh bard might, but probably does not, +lie buried, it is small wonder that the “coarse-hearted, sensual, +selfish Saxon”--we quote the writer’s own words--should find the +spectacle more amusing than sublime. But then what supreme satisfaction +Mr. Borrow derived from his own rhapsodies, what conscious superiority +over the careless crowd who found life all too short to study the +beau ties of Iolo Goch or Gwilym ab Ieuan! There is nothing in the +world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania, especially if it be +of that peculiar literary order which insures a broad field and few +competitors. In a passionate devotion to Welsh epics or to Provençal +pastorals, to Roman antiquities or to Gypsy genealogy, to the most +confused epochs of Egyptian history or the most private correspondence +of a dead author,--in one or other of these favorite specialties our +modern students choose to put forth their powers, and display an +astonishing industry and zeal. + +There is a story told of a far too cultivated young man, who, after +professing a great love for music, was asked if he enjoyed the opera. +He did not. Oratorios were then more to his taste. He did not care +for them at all. Ballads perhaps pleased him by their simplicity. He +took no interest in them whatever. Church music alone was left. He had +no partiality for even that. “What is it you _do_ like?” asked his +questioner, with despairing persistency; and the answer was vouchsafed +her in a single syllable, “Fugues.” This exclusiveness of spirit may +be detrimental to that broad catholicity on which great minds are +nourished, but it has rare charms for its possessor, and, being within +the reach of all, grows daily in our favor. French poets, like Gautier +and Sully Prudhomme, have been content to strike all their lives upon a +single resonant note, and men of far inferior genius have produced less +perfect work in the same willfully restricted vein. The pressure of the +outside world sorely chafes these unresponsive natures; large issues +paralyze their pens. They turn by instinct from the coarseness, the +ugliness, the realness of life, and sing of it with graceful sadness +and with delicate laughter, as if the whole thing were a pathetic or +a fantastic dream. They are dumb before its riddles and silent in its +uproar, standing apart from the tumult, and letting the impetuous +crowd--“mostly fools,” as Carlyle said--sweep by them unperceived. +Herrick is their prototype, the poet who polished off his little +glittering verses about Julia’s silks and Dianeme’s ear-rings when all +England was dark with civil war. But even this armed neutrality, this +genuine and admirable indifference, cannot always save us from the +rough knocks of a burly and aggressive world. The revolution, which he +ignored, drove Herrick from his peaceful vicarage into the poverty and +gloom of London; the siege of Paris played sad havoc with Gautier’s +artistic tranquillity, and devoured the greater part of his modest +fortune. We are tethered to our kind, and may as well join hands in +the struggle. Vexation is no heavier than _ennui_, and “he who lives +without folly,” says Rochefoucauld, “is hardly so wise as he thinks.” + + + + + CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. + + +There is a growing tendency on the part of literary men to resent what +they are pleased to consider the unwarrantable interference of the +critic. His ministrations have probably never been sincerely gratifying +to their recipients; Marsyas could hardly have enjoyed being flayed by +Apollo, even though he knew his music was bad; and worse, far worse, +than the most caustic severity are the few careless words that dismiss +our cherished aspirations as not even worthy of the rueful dignity +of punishment. But in former days the victim, if he resented such +treatment at all, resented it in the spirit of Lord Byron, who, roused +to a healthy and vigorous wrath, + + “expressed his royal views + In language such as gentlemen are seldom known to use,” + +and by a comprehensive and impartial attack on all the writers of his +time proved himself both able and willing to handle the weapons that +had wounded him. On the other side, those authors whose defensive +powers were of a less prompt and efficient character ventured no nearer +to a quarrel than--to borrow a simile of George Eliot’s--a water-fowl +that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner can be said to quarrel +with a boy who throws stones. Southey, who of all men entertained the +most comfortable opinion of his own merits, must have been deeply +angered by the treatment Thalaba and Madoc received from the Edinburgh +Review; yet we cannot see that either he or his admirers looked upon +Jeffrey in any other light than that of a tyrannical but perfectly +legitimate authority. Far nobler victims suffered from the same bitter +sting, and they too nursed their wounds in a decorous silence. + +But it is very different to-day, when every injured aspirant to the +Temple of Fame assures himself and a sympathizing public, not that a +particular critic is mistaken in his particular case, which we may +safely take for granted, but that all critics are necessarily wrong +in all cases, through an abnormal development of what the catechism +terms “darkness of the understanding and a propensity to evil.” This +amiable theory was, I think, first advanced by Lord Beaconsfield, who +sorely needed some such emollient for his bruises. In Lothair, when +that truly remarkable artist Mr. Gaston Phœbus, accompanied by his +sister-in-law Miss Euphrosyne Cantacuzene,--Heaven help their unhappy +sponsors!--reveals to his assembled guests the picture he has just +completed, we are told that his air “was elate, and was redeemed from +arrogance only by the intellect of his brow. ‘To-morrow,’ he said, +‘the critics will commence. You know who the critics are? The men who +have failed in literature and art.’” If Lord Beaconsfield thought +to disarm his foes by this ingenious device, he was most signally +mistaken; for while several of the reviews were deferentially hinting +that perhaps the book might not be so very bad as it seemed, Blackwood +stepped alertly to the front, and in a criticism unsurpassed for +caustic wit and merciless raillery held up each feeble extravagance to +the inextinguishable laughter of the world. Even now, when few people +venture upon the palatial dreariness of the novel itself, there is no +better way of insuring a mirthful hour than by re-reading this vigorous +and trenchant satire. + +Quite recently two writers, one on either side of the Atlantic, have +echoed with superfluous bitterness their conviction of the total +depravity of the critic. Mr. Edgar Fawcett, in The House on High +Bridge, and Mr. J. R. Rees, in The Pleasures of a Book-Worm, seem +to find the English language painfully inadequate for the forcible +expression of their displeasure. Mr. Fawcett considers all critics +“inconsistent when they are not regrettably ignorant,” and fails to +see any use for them in an enlightened world. “It is marvelous,” he +reflects, “how long we tolerate an absurdity of injustice before +suddenly waking up to it. And what can be a more clear absurdity than +that some one individual caprice, animus, or even honest judgment +should be made to influence the public regarding any new book?” +Moreover, he has discovered that the men and women who write the +reviews are mere “underpaid vendors of opinions,” who earn their +breakfasts and dinners by saying disagreeable things about authors, +“their superiors beyond expression.” But it is only fair to remind +Mr. Fawcett that no particular disgrace is involved in earning one’s +breakfasts and dinners. On the contrary, hunger is a perfectly +legitimate and very valuable incentive to industry. “God help the bear, +if, having little else to eat, he must not even suck his own paws!” +wrote Sir Walter Scott, with good-humored contempt, when Lord Byron +accused him of being a mercenary poet; and we probably owe the Vicar +of Wakefield, The Library, and Venice Preserved to their authors’ +natural and unavoidable craving for food. Besides, if the reviewers are +underpaid, it is not so much their fault as that of their employers, +and their breakfasts and dinners must be proportionately light. When +Milton received five pounds for Paradise Lost, he was probably the +most underpaid writer in the whole history of literature, yet Mr. Mark +Pattison seems to think that this fact redounds to his especial honor. + +But there are even worse things to be learned about the critic +than that he sells his opinions for food. According to Mr. Fawcett +he is distinguished for “real, hysterical, vigilant, unhealthy +sensitiveness,” and nurses this unpleasant feeling to such a degree +that, should an author object to being ill-treated at his hands, the +critic is immediately offended into saying something more abominable +still. In fact, like an uncompromising mother I once knew, who always +punished her children till they looked pleasant, he requires his +smarting victims to smile beneath the rod. Happily there is a cure, +and a very radical one, too, for this painful state of affairs. Mr. +Fawcett proposes that all such offenders should be obliged to buy the +work which they dissect, rightly judging that the book notices would +grow beautifully less under such stringent treatment. Indeed, were it +extended a little further, and all readers obliged to buy the books +they read, the publishers, the sellers, and the reviewers might spare +the time to take a holiday together. + +Mr. Rees is quite as severe and much more ungrateful in his strictures; +for, after stating that the misbehavior of the critic is a source of +great amusement to the thoughtful student, he proceeds to chastise that +misbehavior, as though it had never entertained him at all. In his +opinion, the reviewer, being guided exclusively by a set of obsolete +and worthless rules, is necessarily incapable of recognizing genius +under any new development: “He usually is as little fitted to deal with +the tasks he sets himself as a manikin is to growl about the anatomy of +a star, setting forth at the same time his own thoughts as to how it +should be formed.” Vanity is the mainspring of his actions: “He fears +to be thought beneath his author, and so doles out a limited number +of praises and an unlimited quantity of slur.” Like the Welshman, he +strikes in the dark, thus escaping just retribution; and in his stupid +ignorance he seeks to “rein in the wingèd steed,” from having no +conception of its aerial powers. + +Now this is a formidable indictment, and some of the charges may be +not without foundation; but if, as too often happens, the “wingèd +steed” is merely a donkey standing ambitiously on its hind legs, who +but the critic can compel it to resume its quadrupedal attitude? If, +as Mr. Walter Bagehot warned us some years ago, “reading is about to +become a series of collisions against aggravated breakers, of beatings +with imaginary surf,” who but the critic can steer us safely through +the storm? Never, in fact, were his duties more sharply defined or +more sorely needed than at present, when the average reader, like the +unfortunate Mr. Boffin, stands bewildered by the Scarers in Print, and +finds life all too short for their elucidation. The self-satisfied who +“know what they prefer,” and read accordingly, are like the enthusiasts +who follow their own consciences without first accurately ascertaining +whither they are being taken. It has been well said that the object of +criticism is simply to clear the air about great work for the benefit +of ordinary people. We only waste our powers when we refuse a guide, +and by forcing our minds hither and thither, like navigators exploring +each new stream while ignorant of its course and current, we squander +in idle researches the time and thought which should send us steadily +forward on our road. Worse still, we vitiate our judgments by perverse +and presumptuous conclusions, and weaken our untrained faculties by +the very methods we hoped would speed their growth. If Mr. Ruskin and +Mr. Matthew Arnold resemble each other in nothing else, they have +both taught earnestly and persistently, through long and useful lives, +the supreme necessity of law, the supreme merit of obedience. Mr. +Arnold preached it with logical coldness, after his fashion, and Mr. +Ruskin with illogical impetuosity, after his; but the lesson remains +practically the same. “All freedom is error,” writes the author of +Queen of the Air, who is at least blessed with the courage of his +convictions. “Every line you lay down is either right or wrong: it may +be timidly and awkwardly wrong, or fearlessly and impudently wrong; the +aspect of the impudent wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons, and +is what they commonly call ‘free’ execution.... I have hardly patience +to hold my pen and go on writing, as I remember the infinite follies of +modern thought in this matter, centred in the notion that liberty is +good for a man, irrespectively of the use he is likely to make of it.” + +But he does go on writing, nevertheless, long after this slender stock +of patience is exhausted, and in his capacity of critic he lays down +Draconian laws which his disciples seem bound to wear as a heavy yoke +around their necks. “Who made Mr. Ruskin a judge or a nursery governess +over us?” asks an irreverent contributor to Macmillan; and why, after +all, should we abstain from reading Darwin, and Grote, and Coleridge, +and Kingsley, and Thackeray, and a host of other writers, who may or +may not be gratifying to our own tastes, because Mr. Ruskin has tried +and found them wanting? It is not the province of a critic to bar us in +a wholesale manner from all authors he does not chance to like, but to +aid us, by his practiced judgment, to extract what is good from every +field, and to trace, as far as in us lies, those varying degrees of +excellence which it is to our advantage to discern. It was in this way +that Mr. Arnold, working with conscientious and dispassionate serenity, +opened our eyes to new beauty, and strengthened us against vicious +influences; he added to our sources of pleasure, he helped us to enjoy +them, and not to recognize his kindly aid would be an ungracious form +of self-deception. If he were occasionally a little puzzling, as in +some parts of Celtic Literature, where the qualities he detected +fall meaningless on our ears, it is a wholesome lesson in humility to +acknowledge our bewilderment. Why should the lines + + “What little town by river or sea-shore, + Or mountain-built with quiet citadel, + Is emptied of its folk this pious morn?” + +be the expression of a purely Greek form of thought, “as Greek as a +thing from Homer or Theocritus;” and + + “In such a night + Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, + Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love + To come again to Carthage,” + +be as purely Celtic? Why should + + “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows” + +be Greek, and + + “Fast-fading violets cover’d up in leaves” + +be Celtic? That harmless nondescript, the general reader, be he ever +so anxious for enlightenment, is forced to confess he really does not +know; and if his ignorance be of the complacent order, he adds an +impatient doubt as to whether Mr. Arnold knew either, just as when he +“comes up gasping” from a sudden plunge into Browning, he is prompt to +declare his firm conviction that the poet never had the faintest idea +what he was writing about. + +But there is another style of enigma with which critics are wont to +harry and perplex us, and one has need of a “complication-proof mind,” +like Sir George Cornewall Lewis, to see clearly through the tangle. Mr. +Churton Collins, in his bitter attack on Mr. Gosse in the Quarterly +Review, objected vehemently to ever-varying descriptions of a single +theme. He did not think that if Drayton’s Barons’ Wars be a “serene and +lovely poem,” it could well have a “passionate music running through +it,” or possess “irregular force and sudden brilliance of style.” +Perhaps he was right; but there are few critics who can help us to know +and feel a poem like Mr. Gosse, and fewer still who write with such +consummate grace and charm. It is only when we pass from one reviewer +to another that the shifting lights thrown upon an author dazzle and +confuse us. Like the fifty-six different readings of the first line of +the Orlando Furioso, there are countless standpoints from which we are +invited to inspect each and every subject; and unless we follow the +admirable example of Mr. Courthope, who solves a difficulty by gently +saying, “The matter is one not for argument, but for perception,” we +are lost in the mazes of indecision. Thus Mr. Ruskin demonstrates most +beautifully the great superiority of Sir Walter Scott’s heroines over +his heroes, and by the time we settle our minds to this conviction +we find that Mr. Bagehot, that most acute and exhausting of critics, +thinks the heroines inferior in every way, and that Sir Walter was +truly felicitous only in his male characters. + +Happily, this is a point on which we should be able to decide for +ourselves without much prompting; but all disputed topics are not +equally intelligible. There is the vexed and vexing question of +romantic and classical, conservative and liberal poetry, about which +Mr. Courthope and Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Myers have had so much to +say of late, and which is, at best, but a dimly lighted path for the +uninitiated to travel. There is that perpetual problem, Mr. Walt +Whitman, the despair and the stumbling-block of critics, to whose +extraordinary effusions, as the Quarterly Review neatly puts it, +“existing standards cannot be applied with exactness.” There is Emily +Brontë, whose verses we were permitted for years to ignore, and in +whom we are now peremptorily commanded to recognize a true poet. +Miss Mary Robinson, who, in common with most female biographers, is +an enthusiast rather than a critic, never wearies of praising the +“splendid and vigorous movement” of Emily Brontë’s poems, “with their +surplus imagination, their sweeping impressiveness, their instinctive +music and irregular rightness of form.” On the other hand, Mr. Gosse, +while acknowledging in them a very high order of merit, laments that +such burning thoughts should be “concealed for the most part in the +tame and ambling measures dedicated to female verse by the practice of +Felicia Hemans and Letitia Landon.” So far, indeed, from recognizing +the “vigorous movement” and “irregular rightness of form” which Miss +Robinson so much admires, he describes A Death Scene, one of the finest +in point of conception, as “clothed in a measure that is like the +livery of a charitable institution.” “There’s allays two ’pinions,” +says Mr. Macey, in Silas Marner; but we cannot help sometimes wishing, +in the cause of perspicuity, that they were not so radically different. + +As for the pure absurdities of criticism, they may be culled like +flowers from every branch, and are pleasing curiosities for those +who have a liking for such relics. Were human nature less complacent +in its self-sufficiency, they might even serve as useful warnings to +the impetuous young reviewers of to-day, and so be not without their +salutary influence on literature. Whether the result of ignorance, +or dullness, or bad temper, of national or religious prejudices, or +of mere personal pique, they have boldly challenged the ridicule of +the world, and its amused contempt has pilloried them for all time. +When Voltaire sneered at the Inferno, and thought Hamlet the work of +a drunken savage, he at least made a bid for the approbation of his +countrymen, who, as Schlegel wittily observes, were in the habit of +speaking as though Louis XIV. had put an end to cannibalism in Europe. +But what did Englishmen think when Hume informed them that Shakespeare +was “born in a rude age, and educated in the lowest manner, without +instruction from the world or from books;” and that he could not uphold +for any time “a reasonable propriety of thought”? How did they feel +when William Maginn brutally declared that Keats + + “the doubly dead + In that he died so young,” + +was but a cockney poet, who wrote vulgar indecorums, “probably in +the indulgence of his social propensities”? How did they feel when +the same Maginn called the Adonais “dreary nonsense” and “a wild +waste of words,” and devoted bitter pages to proving that Shelley +was not only undeserving, but “hopeless of poetic reputation”? Yet +surely indignation must have melted into laughter, when this notable +reviewer--who has been recently reprinted as a shining light for the +new generation--added serenely that “a hundred or a hundred thousand +verses might be made, equal to the best in Adonais, without taking +the pen off the paper.” This species of sweeping assertion has been +repeated by critics more than once, to the annoyance of their friends +and the malicious delight of their enemies. Ruskin, who, with all his +gifts, seems cursed with what Mr. Bagehot calls “a mind of contrary +flexure, whose particular bent it is to contradict what those around +them say,” has ventured to tell the world that any head clerk of a +bank could write a better history of Greece than Mr. Grote, if he would +have the vanity to waste his time over it; and I have heard a man of +fair attainments and of sound scholarship contend that there were +twenty living authors who could write plays as fine as Shakespeare’s. + +Jeffrey’s extraordinary blunders are too well known to need repetition, +and Christopher North was not without his share of similar mishaps; +Walpole cheerfully sentenced Scandinavian poetry in the bulk as the +horrors of a Runic savage; Madame de Staël objected to the “commonness” +of Miss Austen’s novels; Wordsworth thought Voltaire dull, and Southey +complained that Lamb’s essays lacked “sound religious feeling;” George +Borrow, whose literary tastes were at least as erratic as they were +pronounced, condemned Sir Walter Scott’s Woodstock as “tiresome, +trashy, and unprincipled,” and ranked Shakespeare, Pope, Addison, +and the Welsh bard Huw Morris together as “great poets,” apparently +without recognizing any marked difference in their respective claims. +Then there is Taine, who finds Pendennis and Vanity Fair too full of +sermons; Mr. Dudley Warner, who compares the mild and genial humor of +Washington Irving to the acrid vigor of Swift; and Mr. Howells, who, +perhaps in pity for our sense of loss, would fain persuade us that +we could no longer endure either the “mannerisms” of Dickens or the +“confidential attitude” of Thackeray, were we happy enough to see these +great men still in our midst. + +Imagine, ye who can, the fiery Hazlitt’s wrath, if he but knew that +in punishment for his youthful admiration of the Nouvelle Héloïse a +close resemblance has been traced by friendly hands between himself +and its author. Think of Lord Byron’s feelings, if he could hear Mr. +Swinburne saying that it was greatly to his--Byron’s--credit that +he knew himself for a third-rate poet! Even though it be the only +thing to his credit that Swinburne has so far discovered, one doubts +whether it would greatly mollify his lordship, or reconcile him to +being classed as a “Bernesque poet,” and the companion of those two +widely different creatures, Southey and Offenbach. Perhaps, indeed, his +lively sense of humor would derive a more positive gratification from +watching his angry critic run amuck through adjectives with frenzied +agility. Such sentences as “the blundering, floundering, lumbering, and +stumbling stanzas of Childe Harold, ... the gasping, ranting, wheezing, +broken-winded verse, ... the hideous absurdities and jolter-headed +jargon,” must surely be less deeply offensive to Lord Byron’s admirers +than to Mr. Swinburne’s. They come as near to describing the noble +beauty of Childe Harold as does Southey’s senseless collection of +words to describing the cataract of Lodore, or any other cataract in +existence; and, since the days when Milton and Salmasius hurled “Latin +billingsgate” at each other’s heads, we have had no stronger argument +in favor of the comeliness of moderation. + +“The most part of Mr. Swinburne’s criticism,” hints a recent reviewer, +“is surely very much of a personal matter,--personal, one may say, +in expression as well as in sensation.” He has always a “neat hand +at an epithet,” and the “jolter-headed jargon” of Byron is no finer +in its way than the “fanfaronade and falsetto of Gray.” But even the +charms of alliteration, joined to the fish-wife’s slang which has +recently so tickled the fancy of Punch,[11] cannot wholly replace +that clear-headed serenity which is the true test of a critic’s worth +and the most pleasing expression of his genius. He should have no +visible inclination to praise or blame; it is not his business, as +Mr. Bagehot puts it, to be thankful, and neither is he the queen’s +attorney pleading for conviction. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who considered +that Byron was “the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary +power, which has appeared in our literature since Shakespeare,” +presented his arguments plainly and without the faintest show of +enthusiasm. He did not feel the need of reviling somebody else in order +to emphasize his views, and he did not care to advance opinions without +some satisfactory explanation of their existence. Mr. Courthope may +content himself with saying that a matter is one not for argument, but +for perception; but Mr. Arnold gave a reason for the faith that was +in him. Mere preference on the part of a critic is not a sufficient +sanction for his verdicts, or at least it does not warrant his +imparting them to the public. Swinburne may honestly think four lines +of Wordsworth to be of more value than the whole of Byron, but that +is no reason why we should think so too. When Mr. George Saintsbury +avows a strong personal liking for some favorite authors,--Borrow and +Peacock, for instance,--he modestly states that this fact is not in +itself a convincing proof of their merit; but when Mr. Ernest Myers +says that he would sacrifice the whole of Childe Harold to preserve one +of Macaulay’s Lays, he seems to be offering a really impressive piece +of evidence. The tendency of critics to rush into print with whatever +they chance to think has resulted in readers who naturally believe that +what they think is every bit as good. Macaulay and Walter Savage Landor +are both instances of men whose unusual powers of discernment were +too often dimmed by their prejudices. Macaulay knew that Montgomery’s +poetry was bad, but he failed to see that Fouqué’s prose was good; and +Landor hit right and left, amid friends and foes, like the blinded Ajax +scourging the harmless flocks. + +It is quite as amusing and far less painful to turn from the critics’ +indiscriminate abuse to their equally indiscriminate praise, and to +read the glowing tributes heaped upon authors whose mediocrity has +barely saved them from oblivion. Compare the universal rapture which +greeted “the majestick numbers of Mr. Cowley” to the indifference which +gave scant welcome to the Hesperides. Mr. Gosse tells us that for half +a century Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda, was an unquestioned +light in English song. “Her name was mentioned with those of Sappho and +Corinna, and language was used without reproach which would have seemed +a little fulsome if addressed to the Muse herself.” + + “For, as in angels, we + Do in thy verses see + Both improved sexes eminently meet; + They are than Man more strong, and more than Woman sweet.” + +So sang Cowley to this much admired lady; and the Earl of Roscommon, in +some more extravagant and amusing stanzas, asserted it to be his unique +experience that, on meeting a pack of angry wolves in Scythia, + + “The magic of Orinda’s name + Not only can their fierceness tame, + But, if that mighty word I once rehearse, + They seem submissively to roar in verse.” + +“It is easier to flatter than to praise,” says Jean Paul, but even +flattery is not always the facile work it seems. + +Sir Walter Scott, who was strangely disposed to undervalue his own +merit as a poet, preserved the most genuine enthusiasm for the work of +others. When his little daughter was asked by James Ballantyne what she +thought of The Lady of the Lake, she answered with perfect simplicity +that she had not read it. “Papa says there is nothing so bad for young +people as reading bad poetry.” Yet Sir Walter always spoke of Madoc +and Thalaba with a reverence that would seem ludicrous were it not so +frankly sincere. Southey himself could not have admired them more; and +when Jeffrey criticised Madoc with flippant severity in the Edinburgh +Review, we find Scott hastening to the rescue in a letter full of +earnest and soothing praise. “A poem whose merits are of that higher +tone,” he argues, “does not immediately take with the public at large. +It is even possible that during your own life you must be contented +with the applause of the few whom nature has gifted with the rare +taste for discriminating in poetry. But the mere readers of verse must +one day come in, and then Madoc will assume his real place, at the feet +of Milton.”[12] The mere readers of verse, being in no wise responsible +for Milton’s position in literature, have so far put no one at his +feet; nor have they even verified Sir Walter’s judgment when, writing +again to Southey, he says with astonishing candor, “I am not such an +ass as not to know that you are my better in poetry, though I have had, +probably but for a time, the tide of popularity in my favor.” The same +spirit of self-depreciation, rare enough to be attractive, made him +write to Joanna Baillie that, after reading some of her songs, he had +thrust by his own in despair. + +But if Sir Walter was an uncertain critic, his views on criticism +were marked by sound and kindly discretion, and his patience under +attack was the result of an evenly balanced mind, conscious of its +own strength, yet too sane to believe itself infallible. He had a +singular fancy for showing his manuscripts to his friends, and it is +quite delicious to see how doubtful and discouraging were their first +comments. Gray, when hard pressed by the “light and genteel” verses +of his companion, Richard West, was not more frugal of his doled-out +praises. But Scott exacted homage neither from his acquaintances nor +from the public. When it came--and it did come very soon in generous +abundance--he basked willingly in the sunshine; but he had no uneasy +vanity to be frightened by the shade. He would have been as sincerely +amused to hear Mr. Borrow call Woodstock “tiresome, trashy, and +unprincipled” as Matthew Arnold used to be when pelted with strong +language by the London newspapers. “I have made a study of the +Corinthian or leading-article style,” wrote the great critic, with +exasperating urbanity; “and I know its exigencies, and that they are no +more to be quarreled with than the law of gravitation.” In fact, the +most hopeless barrier to strife is the steady indifference of a man +who knows he has work to do, and who goes on doing it, irrespective of +anybody’s opinion. Lady Harriet Ashburton, who dearly loved the war of +words, in which she was sure to be a victor, was forced to confess that +where no friction was excited, even her barbed shafts fell harmless. +“It is like talking into a soft surface,” she sighed, with whimsical +despondency; “there is no rebound.” + +American critics have the reputation of being more kind-hearted than +discriminating. The struggling young author, unless overweeningly +foolish, has little to fear from their hands; and, if his reputation +be once fairly established, all he chooses to write is received with +a gratitude which seems excessive to the more exacting readers of +France and England. If he be a humorist, we are always alert and +straining to see the fun; if a story-teller, we politely smother +our yawns, and say something about a keen analysis of character, a +marked originality of treatment, or a purely unconventional theme; +if a scholar, no pitfalls are dug for his unwary feet by reviewers +like Mr. Collins. Such virulent and personal attacks we consider +very uncomfortable reading, as in truth they are, and we have small +appetite at any time for a sound kernel beneath a bitter rind. Yet +surely in these days, when young students turn impatiently from the +very fountain-heads of learning, too much stress cannot be laid on +the continuity of literature, and on the absolute importance of the +classics to those who would intelligently explore the treasure-house +of English verse. Moreover, Mr. Collins has aimed a few well-directed +shafts against the ingenious system of mutual admiration, by which +a little coterie of writers, modern Della Cruscans, help each other +into prominence, while an unsuspecting public is made “the willing +dupe of puffers.” This delicate game, which is now conducted with such +well-rewarded skill by a few enterprising players, consists, not so +much in open flattery, though there is plenty of that too, as in the +minute chronicling of every insignificant circumstance of each other’s +daily lives, from the hour at which they breakfast to the amount of +exercise they find conducive to appetite, and the shape and size of +their dining-room tables. We are stifled by the literary gossip which +fills the newspapers and periodicals. Nothing is too trivial, nothing +too irrelevant, to be told; and when, in the midst of an article on +any subject, from grand-dukes to gypsies, a writer gravely stops to +explain that a perfectly valueless remark was made to him on such an +occasion by his friend such a one, whose interesting papers on such a +topic will be well remembered by the readers of such a magazine, we are +forcibly reminded of the late Master of Trinity’s sarcasm as to the +many things that are too unimportant to be forgotten. + +People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite +for the black broth of honest criticism. There was a time, now happily +past, when the reviewer’s skill lay simply in the clever detection +of flaws; it was his business in life to find out whatever was weak +or absurd in an author, and to hold it up for the amusement of those +who were not quick enough to see such things for themselves. Now his +functions are of a totally different order, and a great many writers +seem to think it his sole duty to bring them before the public in an +agreeable light, to say something about their books which will be +pleasant for them to read and to pass over in turn to their friends. +If he cannot do this, it is plain he has no sanction to say anything +at all. That the critic has a duty to the public itself is seldom +remembered; that his work is of the utmost importance, and second in +value only to the original conception he analyzes, is a truth few +people take the pains to grasp. Coleridge thought him a mere maggot, +battening upon authors’ brains; yet how often has he helped us to +gain some clear insight into this most shapeless and shadowy of great +men! Wordsworth underrated his utility, yet Wordsworth’s criticisms, +save those upon his own poems, are among the finest we can read; and, +to argue after the fashion of Mr. Myers, the average student would +gladly exchange The Idiot Boy, or Goody Blake and Harry Gill, for +another letter upon Dryden. As a matter of fact, the labors of the true +critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader. It +is natural that poets and novelists should devoutly believe that the +creative faculty alone is of any true service to the world, and that +it cannot rightly be put to trial by those to whom this higher gift is +rigorously denied. But the critical power, though on a distinctly lower +level than the creative, is of inestimable help in its development. +Great work thrives best in a critical atmosphere, and the clear light +thrown upon the past is the surest of guides to the future. When the +standard of criticism is high, when the influence of classical and +foreign literature is understood and appreciated, when slovenly and +ill-digested work is promptly recognized as such, then, and then +only, may we look for the full expansion of a country’s genius. To be +satisfied with less is an amiable weakness rather than an invigorating +stimulant to perfection. + +Matthew Arnold’s definition of true criticism is familiar to all +his readers; it is simply “a disinterested endeavor to learn and +propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.” But by +disinterestedness he did not mean merely that a critic must have no +distinct design of flattering either his subject or his audience. He +meant that in order to recognize what is really the best a man must +free himself from every form of passion or prejudice, from every fixed +opinion, from every practical consideration. He must not look at things +from an English, or a French, or an American, standpoint. He has no +business with politics or patriotism. These things are excellent +in themselves, and may be allowed to control his actions in other +matters; but when the question at issue is the abstract beauty of a +poem, a painting, a statue, or a piece of architecture, he is expected +to stand apart from his every-day self, and to judge of it by some +higher and universal law. This is a difficult task for most men, who +do not respire easily in such exceedingly rarefied air, and who have +no especial taste for blotting out their individuality. With Macaulay, +for instance, political considerations frankly outweigh all others; he +gives us the good Whig and the wicked Tory on every page, after the +fashion of Hogarth’s idle and industrious apprentices. Mr. Bagehot, +while a far less transparent writer, manifests himself indirectly in +his literary preferences. When we have read his essay on Shakespeare, +we feel pretty sure we know his views on universal suffrage. Mr. Andrew +Lang has indeed objected vehemently to the intrusion of politics +into literature, perhaps because of a squeamish distaste for the +harsh wranglings of the political field. But Mr. Arnold was incapable +of confusing the two ideas. His taste for Celtic poetry and his +attitude towards home rule are both perfectly defined and perfectly +isolated sentiments; just as his intelligent admiration and merciless +condemnation of Heinrich Heine stand side by side, living witnesses +of a mind that held its own balance, losing nothing that was good, +condoning nothing that was evil, as far removed from weak enthusiasm on +the one hand as from frightened depreciation on the other. + +It is folly to rail at the critic until we have learned his value; it +is folly to ignore a help which we are not too wise to need. “The best +that is known and thought in the world” does not stand waiting for +admission on our door-steps. Like the happiness of Hesiod, it “abides +very far hence, and the way to it is long and steep and rough.” It is +hard to seek, hard to find, and not easily understood when discovered. +Criticism does not mean a random opinion on the last new novel, though +even the most dismal of light literature comes fairly within its scope. +It means a disinterested endeavor to learn and to teach whatever wisdom +or beauty has been added by every age and every nation to the great +inheritance of mankind. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] + + “But when poet Swinburne steps into the fray, + And slangs like a fish-wife, what, _what_ can one say?” + +[12] Compare Charles Lamb’s letter to Coleridge: “On the whole I expect +Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, +and superior to all living poets besides.” + + + + + SOME ASPECTS OF PESSIMISM. + + +When Mr. Matthew Arnold delivered his lecture on Emerson in this +country, several years ago, it was delightful to see how the settled +melancholy of his audience, who had come for a panegyric and did not +get it, melted into genial applause when the lecturer touched at last +upon the one responsive chord which bound his subject, his hearers, +and himself in a sympathetic harmony,--I mean Emerson’s lifelong, +persistent, and unconquerable optimism. This was perhaps the more +apparent because Mr. Arnold’s addresses were not precisely the kind +with which we Americans are best acquainted; they were singularly +deficient in the oratorical flights that are wont to arouse our +enthusiasm, and in the sudden descents to colloquial anecdote by which +we expect to be amused. For real enjoyment it was advisable to read +them over carefully after they were printed, and the oftener they were +so read the better they repaid perusal; but this not being the point +of view from which ordinary humanity is apt to regard a lecture, it +was with prompt and genuine relief that the audience hailed a personal +appeal to that cheerful, healthy hopefulness of disposition which we +like to be told we possess in common with greater men. It is always +pleasant to hear that happiness is “the due and eternal result of +labor, righteousness, and veracity,” and to have it hinted to us that +we have sane and wholesome minds because we think so; it is pleasanter +still to be assured that the disparaging tone which religion assumes +in relation to this earthly happiness arises from a well-intentioned +desire to wean us from it, and not at all from a clear-sighted +conviction of its feeble worth. When Mr. Arnold recited for our benefit +a cheerless little scrap of would-be pious verse which he had heard +read in a London schoolroom, all about the advantages of dying,-- + + “For the world at best is a dreary place, + And my life is getting low,”-- + +we were glad to laugh over such dismal philosophy, and to feel within +ourselves an exhilarating superiority of soul. + +But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of +collapsing when full-blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to +melt away in the sunshine of a smile. Mr. Arnold, like Mr. Emerson, +preached the gospel of compensation with much picturesqueness and +beauty; but his arguments would be more convincing if our own +observation and experience did not so mulishly stand in their way. +A recent writer in Cornhill, who ought to be editing a magazine for +Arcady, asserts with charming simplicity that man “finds a positive +satisfaction in putting himself on a level with others, and in +recognizing that he has his just share of life’s enjoyments.” But +suppose that he cannot reach the level of others, or be persuaded +that his share is just? The good things of life are not impartially +divided, like the spaces on a draught-board, and man, who is a covetous +animal, will never be content with a little, while his comrade enjoys +a great deal. Neither does he find the solace that is expected in the +contemplation of the unfortunate who has nothing; for this view of the +matter, besides being a singular plea for the compensation theory, +appeals too coarsely to that root of selfishness which we are none of +us anxious to exhibit. The average fustian-clad man is not too good to +envy his neighbor’s broadcloth, but he _is_ too good to take comfort +in his brother’s nakedness. The sight of it may quicken his gratitude, +but can hardly increase his happiness. Yet what did Mr. Arnold mean +in his poem of Consolation--which is very charming, but not in the +least consoling--save that the joys and sorrows of each hour balance +themselves in a just proportion, and that the lovers’ raptures and the +blind robber’s pain level the eternal scales. It is not a cheering bit +of philosophy, whatever might have been the author’s intention, for the +very existence of suffering darkens the horizon for thoughtful souls. +It would be an insult on the part of the lovers--lovers are odious +things at best--to offer their arrogant bliss as indemnification to the +wretch for his brimming cup of bitterness; but the vision of his seared +eyeballs and sin-laden soul might justly moderate their own expansive +felicity. Sorrow has a claim on all mankind, and when the utmost +that Mr. Arnold could promise for our consolation was that time, the +impartial, + + “Brings round to all men + Some undimm’d hours.” + +we did not feel that he afforded us any broad ground for +self-complacency. + +The same key is struck with more firmness in that strange poem, The +Sick King in Bokhara, where the vizier can find no better remedy for +his master’s troubled mind than by pointing out to him the vast burden +of misery which rests upon the world, and which he is utterly powerless +to avert. It is hardly worth while, so runs the vizier’s argument, for +the king to vex his soul over the sufferings of one poor criminal, whom +his pity could not save, when the same tragic drama is being played +with variations in every quarter of the globe. Behold, thousands are +toiling for hard masters, armies are laying waste the peaceful land, +robbers are harassing the mountain shepherds, and little children are +being carried into captivity. + + “The Kaffirs also (whom God curse!) + Vex one another night and day; + There are the lepers, and all sick; + There are the poor, who faint away. + + “All these have sorrow and keep still, + Whilst other men make cheer and sing. + Wilt thou have pity on all these? + No, nor on this dead dog, O king!” + +Whereupon the sick monarch, who does not seem greatly cheered by this +category, adds in a disconsolate sort of way that he too, albeit envied +of all men, finds his secret burdens hard to bear, and that not even to +him is granted the fulfillment of desire,-- + + “And what I would, I cannot do.” + +Unless the high priests of optimism shall find us some stouter +arguments than these with which to make merry our souls, it is to be +feared that their opponents, who have at least the knack of stating +their cases with pitiless lucidity, will hardly think our buoyancy +worth pricking. + +As for that small and compact band who steadfastly refuse to recognize +in “this sad, swift life” any occasion for self-congratulation, they +are not so badly off, in spite of their funereal trappings, as we are +commonly given to suppose. It is only necessary to read a page of +their writings--and few people care to read more--to appreciate how +thoroughly they enjoy the situation, and how, sitting with Hecate in +her cave, they weave delicate thoughts out of their chosen darkness. +They are full of the hopefulness of despair, and confident in the +strength of the world’s weakness. They assume that they not only +represent great fundamental truths, but that these truths are for the +first time being put forth in a concrete shape for the edification and +adherence of mankind. Mr. Edgar Saltus informs us that, while optimism +is as old as humanity, “systematic pessimism” is but a growth of the +last half century, before which transition period we can find only +individual expressions of discontent. Mr. Mallock claims that he is +the first who has ever inquired into the worth of life “in the true +scientific spirit.” But when we come to ask in what systematic or +scientific pessimism differs from the older variety which has found a +home in the hearts of men from the beginning, we do not receive any +very coherent answer. From Mr. Mallock, indeed, we hardly expect any. +It is his province in literature to propose problems which the reader, +after the fashion of The Lady or the Tiger? is permitted to solve +for himself. But does Mr. Saltus really suppose that Schopenhauer +and Hartmann have made much headway in reducing sadness to a science, +that love is in any danger of being supplanted by the “genius of +the species,” or that the “principle of the unconscious” is at all +likely to extinguish our controlling force? What have these two subtle +thinkers said to the world that the world has not practically known +and felt for thousands of years already? Hegesias, three centuries +before Christ, was quite as systematic as Schopenhauer, and his system +begot more definite results; for several of his disciples hanged +themselves out of deference for his teachings, whereas it may be +seriously doubted whether all the persuasive arguments of the Welt als +Wille und Vorstellung have ever made or are likely to make a single +celibate. Marcus Aurelius was as logically convinced of the inherent +worthlessness of life as Dr. Hartmann, and, without any scientific +apparatus whatever, he stamped his views on the face of a whole nation. +We are now anxiously warned by Mr. Saltus not to confound scientific +pessimism with that accidental melancholy which is the result of our +own personal misfortunes; but Leopardi, whose unutterable despair +arose solely from his personal misfortunes, or rather from his moral +inability to cope with them,--for Joubert, who suffered as much, has +left a trail of heavenly light upon his path,--Leopardi alone lays bare +for us the + + “Tears that spring and increase + In the barren places of mirth,” + +with an appalling accuracy from which we are glad to turn away our +shocked and troubled eyes. + +It is a humiliating fact that, notwithstanding our avaricious greed +for novelties, we are forced, when sincere, to confess that “_les +anciens ont tout dit_,” and that it is probable the contending schools +of thought have always held the same relative positions they do +now: optimism glittering in the front ranks as a deservedly popular +favorite; pessimism speaking with a still, persistent voice to those +who, unluckily for themselves, have the leisure and the intelligence +to attend. Schopenhauer hated the Jews with all his heart for being +such stubborn optimists, and it is true that their records bear ample +witness to the strong hold they took on the pleasures and the profits +of the world. But their noblest and clearest voices, Isaias, Jeremias, +Ezekiel, speak a different language; and Solomon, who, it must be +granted, enjoyed a wider experience than most men, renders a cheerless +verdict of vanity and vexation of spirit for “all things that are done +under the sun.” The Egyptians, owing chiefly to their tender solicitude +about their tombs, have taken rank in history as a people enamoured +rather of death than of life; and from the misty flower-gardens of +Buddha have been gathered for centuries the hemlock and nightshade that +adorn the funeral-wreaths of literature. + +But the Greeks, the blithe and jocund Greeks, who, as Mr. Arnold justly +observed, ought never to have been either sick or sorry,--to them, +at least, we can turn for that wholesome joy, that rational delight +in mere existence, which we have somehow let slip from our nerveless +grasp. Whether it was because this world gave him so much, such rare +perfection in all material things, or because his own conception of the +world to come promised him so exceedingly little,--for one or both of +these reasons, the average Greek preferred to cling tenaciously to the +good he had, to the hills, and the sea, and the sunshine, rather than to + + “Move among shadows, a shadow, and wail by impassable streams;” + +and his choice, under the circumstances, is perhaps hardly a matter for +amazement. That a people so richly endowed should be in love with life +seems to us right and natural; that amid their keen realization of its +fullness and beauty we find forever sounded--and not always in a minor +key--the same old notes of weariness and pain is a discouraging item, +when we would like to build up an exhaustive theory of happiness. Far, +far back, in the Arcadian days of Grecian piety and simplicity, the +devout agriculturist Hesiod looked sorrowfully over the golden fields, +searching vainly for a joy that remained ever out of reach. Homer, in a +passage which Mr. Peacock says is nearly always incorrectly translated, +has given us a summary of life which would not put a modern German to +the blush:-- + + “Jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill, + Gives ill unmixed to some, and good and ill + Mingled to many, good unmixed to none.” + +Sophocles says uncompromisingly that man’s happiest fate is not to be +born at all; and that, failing this good fortune, the next best thing +is to die as quickly as possible. Menander expresses the same thought +more sweetly:-- + + “Whom the gods love die young;” + +and Euripides, the most reverent soul ever saddened by the barrenness +of paganism, forces into one bitter line all the bleak hopelessness of +which the Greek tragedy alone is capable:-- + + “Life is called life, but it is truly pain.” + +Even as isolated sentiments, these ever-recurring reflections diminish +perceptibly the sum of a nation’s gayety, and, if we receive the drama +as the mouthpiece of the people, we are inclined to wonder now and then +how they ever could have been cheerful at all. It is easy, on the other +hand, to point to Admetos and Antigone as two standing examples of the +great value the Greeks placed upon life; for the sacrifice of Alkestis +was not in their eyes the sordid bargain it appears in ours, and the +daughter of Œdipus goes to her death with a shrinking reluctance +seemingly out of keeping with her heroic mould. But Admetos, excuse him +as we may, is but a refinement of a common type, old as mankind, and no +great credit to its ranks. He may be found in every page of the world’s +history, from the siege of Jerusalem to the siege of Paris. À Kempis +has transfixed him with sharp scorn in his chapter On the Consideration +of Human Misery, and a burning theatre or a sinking ship betray him, +shorn of poetical disguise, in all his unadorned brutality. But to +find fault with Antigone, the noblest figure in classical literature, +because she manifests a natural dislike for being buried alive is to +carry our ideal of heroism a little beyond reason. Flesh and blood +shrink from the sickening horror that lays its cold hand upon her +heart. She is young, beautiful, and beloved, standing on the threshold +of matrimony, and clinging with womanly tenderness to the sacred joys +that are never to be hers. She is a martyr in a just cause, but without +one ray of that divine ecstasy that sent Christian maidens smiling +to the lions. Beyond a chilly hope that she will not be unwelcome to +her parents, or to the brother she has vainly striven to save from +desecration, Antigone descends + + “Into the dreary mansions of the dead,” + +uncheered by any throb of expectation. Finally, the manner of her +death is too appalling to be met with stoicism. Juliet, the bravest of +Shakespeare’s heroines, quails before the thought of a few unconscious +hours spent in the darkness of the tomb; and if our more exalted views +demand indifference to such a fate, we must not look to the Greeks, nor +to him who + + “Saw life steadily, and saw it whole,” + +for the fulfillment of our idle fancy. + +Youth, health, beauty, and virtue were to the ancient mind the natural +requisites for happiness; yet even these favors were so far at best +from securing it, that “nature’s most pleasing invention, early death,” +was too often esteemed the rarest gift of all. When Schopenhauer says +of the fourth commandment, “‘Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy +days may be long in the land,’--ah! what a misfortune to hold out as a +reward for duty!” we feel both shocked and repulsed by this deliberate +rejection of what is offered us as a blessing; but it is at least +curious to note that the happy Greeks held much the same opinion. When +the sons of Cydippe--those models of filial devotion--shamed not to +yoke themselves like oxen to the cart, and with strong young arms to +drag their mother to the feast of Hera, the ancient priestess begged +of the dread goddess that she would grant them her best gift; and the +prayer was answered, not with length of days, nor with the regal power +and splendor promised of old to Paris, but with a boon more precious +still than all. + + “Whereat the statue from its jeweled eyes + Lightened, and thunder ran from cloud to cloud + In heaven, and the vast company was hushed. + But when they sought for Cleobis, behold, + He lay there still, and by his brother’s side + Lay Biton, smiling through ambrosial curls, + And when the people touched them they were dead.”[13] + +It is hard to assert in the face of a narrative like this that the +Greeks valued nothing as much as the mere delight of existence. + +As for the favorite theory that Christianity is responsible for +the weakening of earthly happiness, and that her ministers have +systematically disparaged the things of this world in order to +quicken our desire for things eternal, it might suffice to hint that +Christianity is a large word, and represents at present a great many +different phases of thought. Mr. Arnold objected, rationally enough, +to the lugubrious hymns from which the English middle classes are +wont to draw their spiritual refreshment; and Dr. Holmes, it will be +remembered, has spoken quite as strongly in regard to their depressing +influence upon New England households. But Christianity and the modern +hymn-book are by no means synonymous terms, and to claim that the +early church deliberately lowered the scale of human joy is a very +different and a very grave charge, and one which Mr. Pater, in Marius +the Epicurean, has striven valiantly to refute. With what clear and +delicate touches he paints for us the innocent gayety of that new +birth,--a gayety with no dark background, and no heart-breaking limits +of time and space. Compared to it, the sombre and multitudinous rites +of the Romans and the far-famed blitheness of the Greeks seem incurably +narrow and insipid. The Christians of the catacombs were essentially +a cheerful body, having for their favorite emblem the serene image of +the Good Shepherd, and believing firmly that “grief is the sister of +doubt and ill-temper, and beyond all spirits destroyeth man.” If in the +Middle Ages the Church apparently darkened earth to brighten heaven, +it was simply because she took life as she found it, and strove, as +she still strives, to teach the only doctrine of compensation that the +tyranny of facts cannot cheaply overthrow. The mediæval peasant may +have been less badly off, on the whole, than we are generally pleased +to suppose. He was, from all accounts, a robust, unreasoning creature, +who held his neck at the mercy of his feudal lord, and the rest of his +scanty possessions at the discretion of the tax-gatherer; but who had +not yet bared his back to the intolerable sting of that modern gadfly, +the professional agitator, and socialistic champion of the poor. Yet +even without this last and sorest infliction, it is probable that life +was to him but little worth the living, and that religion could not +well paint the world much blacker than he found it. There was scant +need, in his case, for disparaging the pleasures of the flesh; and +hope, lingering alone in his Pandora box of troubles, saved him from +utter annihilation by pointing steadily beyond the doors of death. + +As a matter of fact, the abstract question of whether our present +existence be enjoyable or otherwise is one which creeds do not +materially modify. A pessimist may be deeply religious like Pascal and +Châteaubriand, or utterly skeptical like Schopenhauer and Hartmann, +or purely philosophical like faint-hearted Amiel. He may agree with +Lamennais, that “man is the most suffering of all creatures;” or with +Voltaire, that “happiness is a dream, and pain alone is real.” He +may listen to Saint Theresa, “It is given to us either to die or to +suffer;” or to Leopardi, “Life is fit only to be despised.” He may read +in the diary of that devout recluse, Eugénie de Guérin that “dejection +is the ground-work of human life;” or he may turn over the pages of +Sir Walter Raleigh, and see how a typical man of the world, soldier, +courtier, and navigator, can find no words ardent enough in which to +praise “the workmanship of death, that finishes the sorrowful business +of a wretched life.” I do not mean to imply that Leopardi and Eugénie +de Guérin regarded existence from the same point of view, or found the +same solace for their pain; but that they both struck the keynote of +pessimistic philosophy by recognizing that, in this world at least, +sorrow outbalances joy, and that it is given to all men to eat their +bread in tears. On the other hand, if we are disinclined to take this +view, we shall find no lack of guides, both saints and sinners, ready +to look the Sphinx smilingly in the face, and puzzle out a different +answer to her riddle. + +Another curious notion is that poets have a prescriptive right to +pessimism, and should feel themselves more or less obliged, in virtue +of their craft, to take upon their shoulders the weight of suffering +humanity. Mr. James Sully, for instance, whose word, as a student of +these matters, cannot be disregarded, thinks it natural and almost +inevitable that a true poet should be of a melancholy cast, by reason +of the sensitiveness of his moral nature and his exalted sympathy for +pain. But it has yet to be proved that poets are a more compassionate +race than their obscurer brethren who sit in counting-houses or brew +beer. They are readier, indeed, to moralize over the knife-grinder, +but quite as slow to tip him the coveted sixpence. Shelley, whose soul +swelled at the wrongs of all mankind, did not hesitate to inflict +pain on the one human being whom it was his obvious duty to protect. +But then Shelley, like Carlyle, belonged to the category of reformers +rather than to the pessimists; believing that though the world as he +saw it was as bad as possible, things could be easily mended by simply +turning them topsy-turvy under his direction. Now the pessimist proper +is the most modest of men. He does not flatter himself for a moment +that he can alter the existing state of evil, or that the human race, +by its combined efforts, can do anything better than simply cease to +live. He may entertain with Novalis a shadowy hope that when mankind, +wearied of its own impotence, shall efface itself from the bosom of the +earth, a better and happier species shall fill the vacant land. Or he +may believe with Hartmann that there is even less felicity possible in +the coming centuries than in the present day; that humanity is already +on the wane; that the higher we stand in the physical and intellectual +scale the more inevitable becomes our suffering; and that when men +shall have thrown aside the last illusion of their youth, namely, the +hope of any obtainable good either in this world or in another, they +will then no longer consent to bear the burden of life, but, by the +supreme force of their united volition, will overcome the resistance +of nature, and achieve the destruction of the universe. But under no +circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, +can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate. + +To return to the poets, however, it is edifying to hear Mr. Leslie +Stephen assert that “nothing is less poetical than optimism,” or to +listen to Mr. John Addington Symonds, who, scanning the thoughtful soul +for a solution of man’s place in the order of creation, can find for +him no more joyous task than, Prometheus-like, + + “To dree life’s doom on Caucasus.” + +Even when a poem appears to the uninitiated to be of a cheerful, not to +say blithesome cast, the critics are busy reading unutterable sadness +between the lines; and while we smile at Puck, and the fairies, and +the sweet Titania nursing her uncouth love, we must remember that the +learned Dr. Ulrici has pronounced the Midsummer Night’s Dream to be +a serious homily, preached with grave heart to an unthinking world. +But is Robin Goodfellow really a missionary in disguise, and are the +poets as pessimistic in their teaching as their interpreters would +have us understand? Heine undoubtedly was, and Byron pretended to be. +Keats, with all the pathos of his shadowed young life, was nothing of +the sort, nor was Milton, nor Goethe, nor Wordsworth; while Scott, +lost, apparently, to the decent requirements of his art, confessed +unblushingly that fortune could not long play a dirge upon his buoyant +spirits. And Shakespeare? Why, he was all and everything. Day and +night, sunlight and starlight, were embraced in his affluent nature. He +laid his hand on the quivering pulses of the world, and, recognizing +that life was often in itself both pleasant and good, he yet knew, and +knew it without pain, that death was better still. Look only at the +character of Horatio, the very type of the blithe, sturdy, and somewhat +commonplace young student, to whom enjoyment seems a birthright,-- + + “A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards + Hast ta’en with equal thanks.” + +Yet it is to this man, of all others, that the dying Hamlet utters the +pathetic plea,-- + + “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, + Absent thee from felicity awhile, + And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain + To tell my story.” + +Here at last is a ray of real light, guiding us miles away from the +murky paths of modern French and English poetry, where we have stumbled +along, growing despondent in the gloom. To brave life cheerfully, to +welcome death gladly, are possible things, after all, and better worth +man’s courage and convictions than to dree on Caucasus forever. + +It is ludicrous to turn from the poets to the politicians, but nowadays +every question, even the old unanswered one, “Is life worth living?” +must needs be viewed from its political standpoint. What can be more +delightful than to hear Mr. Courthope assert that optimism is the +note of the Liberal party, while the Conservatives are necessarily +pessimistic?--especially when one remembers the genial utterance +of Mr. Walter Bagehot, contending that the very essence of Toryism +is enjoyment. “The way to be satisfied with existing things is to +enjoy them.” Yet Sir Francis Doyle bears witness in his memoirs that +the stoutest of Tories can find plenty to grumble at, which is not +altogether surprising in a sadly ill-regulated world; and while the +optimistic Liberal fondly believes that he is marching straight along +the chosen road to the gilded towers of El Dorado, the less sanguine +Conservative contents himself with trying, after his dull, practical +fashion, to step clear of some of the ruts and quagmires by the way. As +for the extreme Radicals,--and every nation has its full share of these +gentry,--their optimism is too glittering for sober eyes to bear. A +classical tradition says that each time Sisyphos rolls his mighty stone +up the steep mountain side he believes that it will reach the summit; +and, its ever-repeated falls failing to teach him any surer lesson, his +doom, like that of our reforming brothers, is softened into eternal +hope. But it may at least be questioned whether the other inhabitants +of Tartarus--none of whom, it will be remembered, are without their +private grievances--do not occasionally weary of the dust and racket, +and of the great ball forever thundering about their ears, as it rolls +impotently down to the level whence it came. + +The pessimist, however,--be it recorded to his credit,--is seldom an +agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he +does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced. We +have, indeed, an anecdote of Dr. Johnson, who broadly asserted upon +one occasion that no one could well be happy in this world, whereupon +an unreasonable old lady had the bad taste to contradict him, and to +insist that she, for one, was happy, and knew it. “Madam,” replied +the irate philosopher, “it is impossible. You are old, you are ugly, +you are sickly and poor. How, then, can you be happy?” But this, we +think, was rather a natural burst of indignation on the good doctor’s +part than a distinct attempt at proselytizing, though it is likely +that he somewhat damped the boasted felicity of his antagonist. +Schopenhauer, the great apostle of pessimism, while willing enough to +make converts on a grand scale, was scornfully unconcerned about the +every-day opinions of his every-day--I was going to say associates, but +the fact is that Schopenhauer was never guilty of really associating +with anybody. He had at all times the courage of his convictions, and +delighted in illustrating his least attractive theories. Teaching +asceticism, he avoided women; despising human companionship, he +isolated himself from men. A luminous selfishness guided him through +life, and saved him from an incredible number of discomforts. It was +his rule to expect nothing, to desire as little as possible, and to +learn all he could. Want, he held to be the scourge of the poor, as +_ennui_ is that of the rich; accordingly, he avoided the one by looking +sharply after his money, and the other by working with unremitting +industry. Pleasure, he insisted, was but a purely negative quality, +a mere absence from pain. He smiled at the sweet, hot delusions of +youth, and shrugged his shoulders over the limitless follies of +manhood, regarding both from the standpoint of a wholly disinterested +observer. If the test of happiness in the Arabian paradise be to hear +the measured beating of one’s own heart, Schopenhauer was certainly +qualified for admission. Even in this world he was so far from being +miserable, that an atmosphere of snug comfort surrounds the man whose +very name has become a synonym for melancholy; and to turn from +his cold and witty epigrams to the smothered despair that burdens +Leopardi’s pages is like stepping at once from a pallid, sunless +afternoon into the heart of midnight. It is always a pleasant task for +optimists to dwell as much as possible on the buoyancy with which every +healthy man regards his unknown future, and on the natural pleasure he +takes in recalling the brightness of the past; but Leopardi, playing +the trump card of pessimism, demonstrates with merciless precision the +insufficiency of such relief. We cannot in reason expect, he argues, +that, with youth behind us and old age in front, our future will be +any improvement on our past, for with increasing years come increasing +sorrows to all men; and as for the boasted happiness of that past, +which of us would live it over again for the sake of the joys it +contained? Memory cheats us no less than hope by hazing over those +things that we would fain forget; but who that has plodded on to middle +age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with +their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is +forever pretending to regret? + +Such thoughts are not cheerful companions; but if they stand the test +of application, it is useless to call them morbid. The pessimist does +not contend that there is no happiness in life, but that, for the +generality of mankind, it is outbalanced by trouble; and this flinty +assurance is all he has to offer in place of the fascinating theory +of compensation. It would seem as though no sane man could hesitate +between them, if he had the choice, for one pleasant delusion is worth +a hundred disagreeable facts; but in this serious and truth-hunting age +people have forgotten the value of fiction, and, like sulky children, +refuse to play at anything. Certainly it would be hard to find a more +dispiriting literature than we enjoy at present. Scientists, indeed, +are reported by those who have the strength of mind to follow them +as being exceedingly merry and complacent; but the less ponderous +illuminati, to whom feebler souls turn instinctively for guidance, are +shining just now with a severe and chastened light. When on pleasure +bent they are as frugal as Mrs. Gilpin, but they sup sorrow with a long +spoon, utterly regardless of their own or their readers’ digestions. +Germany still rings with Heine’s discordant laughter, and France, rich +in the poets of decadence, offers us Les Fleurs du Mal to wear upon +our bosoms. England listens, sighing, while Carlyle’s denunciations +linger like muttering thunder in the air; or while Mr. Ruskin, “the +most inspired of the modern prophets,” vindicates his oracular spirit +by crying, + + “Woe! woe! O earth! Apollo, O Apollo!” + +with the monotonous persistency of Cassandra. Mr. Mallock, proud +to kneel at Mr. Ruskin’s feet as “an intellectual debtor to a +public teacher,” binds us in his turn within the fine meshes of +his exhaustless subtleties, until we grow light-headed rather than +light-hearted under such depressing manipulation. Mr. Pater, who at +one time gave us to understand that he would teach us how to enjoy +life, has, so far, revealed nothing but its everlasting sadness. If +the old Cyrenaics were no gayer than their modern representatives, +Aristippus of Cyrene might just as well have been Diogenes sulking in +his tub, or Heraclitus adding useless tears to the trickling moisture +of his cave. + +Even our fiction has grown disconcertingly sad within the last few +years, and with a new order of sadness, invented apparently to keep +pace with the melancholy march of mind. The novelist of the past had +but two courses open to him: either to leave Edwin and Angelina clasped +in each other’s arms, or to provide for one of them a picturesque and +daisy-strewn grave. Ordinarily he chose the former alternative, as +being less harassing to himself, and more gratifying to his readers. +Books that end badly have seldom been really popular, though sometimes +a tragic conclusion is essential to the artistic development of the +story. When Tom and Maggie Tulliver go down, hand in hand, amid the +rushing waters of the Floss, we feel, even through our tears,--and +mine are fresh each time I read the page,--that the one possible +solution of the problem, has been reached; that only thus could the +widely contrasting natures of brother and sister meet in unison, and +the hard-fought battle be gained. Such an end is not sad, it is happy +and beautiful; and, moreover, it is in a measure inevitable, the +climax being shadowed from the beginning, as in the tragedy of the +Greeks, and the whole tale moving swiftly and surely to its appointed +close. If we compare a finely chiseled piece of work like this with +the flat, faintly colored sketches which are at present passing muster +for novels, we feel that beauty of form is something not compounded of +earthly materials only, and that neither the savage strength of French +and Russian realism, nor the dreary monotony of German speculative +fiction, can lift us any nearer the tranquil realms of art. + +Nor can we even claim that we have gained in cheerfulness what we have +lost in symmetry, for the latest device of the pessimistic story-writer +is to marry his pair of lovers, and then coldly inform us that, owing +to the inevitable evils of life, they were not particularly happy +after all. Now Lady Martin (Helen Faucit), that loving student and +impersonator of Shakespeare’s heroines, has expressed her melancholy +conviction that the gentle Hero was but ill-mated with one so fretful +and paltry-souled as Claudio; and that Imogen the fair was doomed to an +early death, the bitter fruit of her sad pilgrimage to Milford-Haven. +But be this as it may,--and we more than fear that Lady Martin is +rightly acquainted with the matter,--Shakespeare himself has whispered +us no word of such ill-tidings, but has left us free, an’ it please +us, to dream out happier things. So, too, Dorothea Brooke, wedded to +Will Ladislaw, has before her many long and weary hours of regretful +self-communings; yet, while we sigh over her doubtful future, we +are glad, nevertheless, to take our last look at her smiling in her +husband’s arms. But when Basil Ransom, in The Bostonians, makes a +brave fight for his young bride, and carries her off in triumph, we +are not for a moment permitted to feel elated at his victory. We want +to rejoice with Verena, and to congratulate her on her escape from Mr. +Filer and the tawdry music-hall celebrity; but we are forced to take +leave of her in tears, and to hear with unwilling ears that “these were +not the last she was destined to shed.” This hurts our best feelings, +and hurts them all the more because we have allowed our sympathies to +be excited. It reminds us of that ill-natured habit of the Romans, +who were ungrateful enough to spoil a conqueror’s triumph by hiring +somebody to stand in his chariot, and keep whispering in his ear that +he was only human, after all; and it speaks volumes for the stern +self-restraint of the Roman nature that the officious truth-teller +was not promptly kicked out in the dust. In the same grudging spirit, +Mr. Thomas Hardy, after conducting one of his heroines safely through +a great many trials, and marrying her at last to the husband of +her choice, winds up, by way of wedding-bells, with the following +consolatory reflections: “Her experience had been of a kind to teach +her, rightly or wrongly, that the doubtful honor of a brief transit +through a sorry world hardly called for effusiveness, even when the +path was suddenly irradiated at some half-way point by day-dreams rich +as hers.... And in being forced to class herself among the fortunate, +she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when +the one to whom such unbroken tranquillity had been accorded in the +adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was +but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.” “What should +a man do but be merry?” says Hamlet drearily; and, with this reckless +mirth pervading even our novels, we bid fair in time to become as +jocund as he. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] The Sons of Cydippe, by Edmund Gosse. + + + + + THE CAVALIER. + + +“An evil reputation is light to raise, but heavy to bear, and very +difficult to put aside. No Rumor which many people chatter of +altogether dieth away; she too is, after her kind, an immortal.” So +moralizes Hesiod over an exceedingly thankless truth, which, even in +the primitive simplicity of the golden age, had forced itself upon +man’s unwilling convictions; and while many later philosophers have +given caustic expression to the same thought, few have clothed it +with more delicate and agreeable irony. Rumor is, after her kind, +an immortal. Antæus-like, she gains new strength each time she is +driven to the ground, and it is a wholesome humiliation for our very +enlightened minds to see how little she has suffered from centuries +of analysis and research. Rumor still writes our histories, directs +our diplomacy, and controls our ethics, until we have grown to think +that this is probably what is meant by the _vox populi_, and that any +absurdity credited by a great many people becomes in some mysterious +way sacred to the cause of humanity, and infinitely more precious +than truth. When Wodrow, and Walker, and the author of The Cloud of +Witnesses, were compiling their interesting narratives, Rumor, in +the person of “ilka auld wife in the chimley-neuck,” gave them all +the information they desired; and this information, countersigned by +Macaulay, has passed muster for history down to the present day. As +a result, the introduction of Graham of Claverhouse into Mr. Lang’s +list of English Worthies has been received with severely qualified +approbation, and Mr. Mowbray Morris has written the biography of a +great soldier in the cautious tone of a lawyer pleading for a criminal +at the bar. + +If ever the words of Hesiod stood in need of an accurate illustration, +it has been furnished by the memory of Claverhouse; for his evil +reputation was not only raised with astonishing facility, but it has +never been put aside at all. In fact, it seems to have been a matter +of pride in the grim-visaged Scottish saints to believe that their +departed brethren were, one and all, the immediate victims of his +wrath; and to hint that they might perhaps have fallen by any meaner +hand was, as Aytoun wittily expressed it, “an insult to martyrology.” +The terror inspired by his inflexible severity gave zest to their +lurid denunciations, and their liveliest efforts of imagination were +devoted to conjuring up in his behalf some fresh device of evil. In +that shameless pasquinade, the Elegy, there is no species of wickedness +that is not freely charged, in most vile language, to the account of +every Jacobite in the land, from the royal house of Stuart down to its +humblest supporter; yet even amid such goodly company, Claverhouse +stands preëminent, and is the recipient of its choicest flowers of +speech. + + “He to Rome’s cause most firmly stood, + And drunken was with the saints’ blood. + He rifled houses, and did plunder + In moor and dale many a hunder; + He all the shires in south and west + With blood and rapine sore opprest.” + +It is needless to say that Claverhouse, though he served a Catholic +master, had about as much affinity for the Church of Rome as the +great Gustavus himself, and that the extent of his shortcomings in +this direction lay in his protesting against the insults offered by a +Selkirk preacher to King James through the easy medium of his religion. + +Now it is only natural that the Covenanters, who feared and hated +Dundee, should have found infinite comfort in believing that he was +under the direct protection of Satan. In those days of lively faith, +the charge was by no means an uncommon one, and the dark distinction +was shared by any number of his compatriots. On the death of Sir +Robert Grierson of Lag, the devil, who had waited long for his prey, +manifested his sense of satisfaction by providing an elaborate funeral +cortége, which came over the sea at midnight, with nodding plumes and +sable horses, to carry off in ostentatious splendor the soul of this +much-honored guest. Prince Rupert was believed by the Roundheads to +owe his immunity from danger to the same diabolic agency which made +Claverhouse proof against leaden bullets; and his white dog, Boy, +was regarded with as much awe as was Dundee’s famous black charger, +the gift of the evil one himself. As a fact, Boy was not altogether +unworthy of his reputation, for he could fight almost as well as his +master, though unluckily without sharing in his advantages; for the +poor brute was shot at Marston Moor, in the very act of pulling down +a rebel. Even the clergy, it would seem, were not wholly averse to +Satan’s valuable patronage; for Wodrow--to whose claims as an historian +Mr. Morris is strangely lenient--tells us gravely how the unfortunate +Archbishop of St. Andrew’s cowered trembling in the Privy Council, when +Janet Douglas, then on trial for witchcraft, made bold to remind him of +the “meikle black devil” who was closeted with him the last Saturday at +midnight. + +But even our delighted appreciation of these very interesting and +characteristic legends cannot altogether blind us to the dubious +quality of history based upon such testimony, and it is a little +startling to see that, as years rolled by, the impression they created +remained practically undimmed. Colonel Fergusson, in the preface to +his delightful volume on The Laird of Lag, confesses that in his youth +it was still a favorite Halloween game to dress up some enterprising +member of the household as a hideous beast with a preternaturally long +nose,--made, in fact, of a saucepan handle; and that this creature, +who went prowling stealthily around the dim halls and firelit kitchen, +frightening the children into shrieks of terror, was supposed to +represent the stout old cavalier searching for his ancient foes the +Covenanters. Lag’s memory appears to have been given up by universal +consent to every species of opprobrium, and his misdeeds have so far +found no apologist, unless, indeed, Macaulay may count as one, when +he gracefully transfers part of them to Claverhouse’s shoulders. Mr. +Morris coldly mentions Sir Robert Grierson as “coarse, cruel, and +brutal beyond even the license of those days;” Colonel Fergusson is +far too clever to weaken the dramatic force of his book by hinting +that his hero was not a great deal worse than other men; and Scott, in +that inimitable romance, Wandering Willie’s Tale, has thrown a perfect +glamour of wickedness around the old laird’s name. But in truth, when +we come to search for sober proven facts; when we discard--reluctantly, +indeed, but under compulsion--the spiked barrel in which he was +pleased to roll the Covenanters, in Carthaginian fashion, down the +Scottish hills; and the iron hook in his cellar, from which it was his +playful fancy to depend them; and the wine which turned to clotted +blood ere it touched his lips; and the active copartnership of Satan in +his private affairs,--when we lay aside these picturesque traditions, +there is little left save a charge, not altogether uncommon, of +indecorum in his cups, the ever-vexed question of the Wigtown martyrs, +and a few rebels who were shot, like John Bell, after scant trial, but +who, Heaven knows, would have gained cold comfort by having their cases +laid before the council. On the other hand, it might be worth while to +mention that Lag was brave, honest, not rapacious, and, above all, true +to his colors when the tide had turned, and he was left alone in his +old age to suffer imprisonment and disgrace. + +But if the memory of a minor actor in these dark scenes has come down +to us so artistically embellished, what may we not expect of one who +played a leading part through the whole stormy drama? “The chief of +this Tophet on earth,” is the temperate phrase applied to Claverhouse +by Macaulay, and it sufficiently illustrates the position popularly +assigned him by his foes. Rumor asserted in his behalf her triumphant +immortality, and crystallized into tradition every floating charge +urged by the Covenanters against his fame. So potent and far-reaching +was her voice that it became in time a virtuous necessity to echo it; +and we actually find Southey writing to Scott in 1807, and regretting +that Wordsworth should have thought fit to introduce the Viscount of +Dundee into the sonnet on Killiecrankie, without any apparent censure +of his conduct. Scott, who took a somewhat easier view of poetical +obligations, and who probably thought that Killiecrankie was hardly +the fitting spot on which to recall Dundee’s shortcomings, wrote back +very plainly that he thought there had been censure enough already; +and nine years later he startled the good people of Edinburgh, on his +own account, by the publication of that eminently heterodox novel, Old +Mortality. Lockwood tells us that the theme was suggested to Sir Walter +by his friend Mr. Joseph Train, who, when visiting at Abbotsford, was +much struck by the solitary picture in the poet’s library, a portrait +of Graham of Claverhouse. + +“He expressed the surprise with which every one who had known Dundee +only in the pages of the Presbyterian annalists must see for the +first time that beautiful and melancholy visage, worthy of the most +pathetic dreams of romance. Scott replied that no character had been +so foully traduced as the Viscount of Dundee; that, thanks to Wodrow, +Cruikshanks, and such chroniclers, he who was every inch a soldier +and a gentleman still passed among the Scottish vulgar for a ruffian +desperado, who rode a goblin horse, was proof against shot, and in +league with the devil. + +“‘Might he not,’ said Train, ‘be made, in good hands, the hero of a +national romance, as interesting as any about either Wallace or Prince +Charlie?’ + +“‘He might,’ said Scott, ‘but your western zealots would require to be +faithfully portrayed in order to bring him out with the right effect.’” + +Train then described to Sir Walter the singular character of Old +Mortality, and the result was that incomparable tale which took the +English reading world by storm, and provoked in Scotland a curious +fever of excitement, indignation, and applause. The most vigorous +protest against its laxity came from Thomas MacCrie, one of the +numerous biographers of John Knox, “who considered the representation +of the Covenanters in the story of Old Mortality as so unfair as +to demand, at his hands, a very serious rebuke.” This rebuke was +administered at some length in a series of papers published in +the Edinburgh Christian Instructor. Scott, the “Black Hussar of +Literature,” replied with much zest and spirit in the Quarterly Review; +cudgels were taken up on both sides, and the war went briskly on, until +Jeffrey the Great in some measure silenced the controversy by giving +it as his ultimatum that the treatment of an historical character in +a work of pure fiction was a matter of very trifling significance. It +is not without interest that we see the same querulous virtue that +winced under Sir Walter’s frank enthusiasm for Claverhouse uttering +its protest to-day against the more chilly and scrupulous vindications +of Mr. Morris’s biography. “An apology for the crimes of a hired +butcher,” one critic angrily calls the sober little volume, forgetting +in his heat that the term “hired butcher,” though most scathing in +sound, is equally applicable to any soldier, from the highest to the +lowest, who is paid by his government to kill his fellow-men. War is +a rough trade, and if we choose to call names, it is as easy any time +to say “butcher” as “hero.” Stronger words have not been lacking to +vilify Dundee, and many of these choice anathemas belong, one fears, +to Luther’s catalogue of “downright, infamous, scandalous lies.” +Their freshness, however, is as amazing as their ubiquity, and they +confront us every now and then in the most forlorn nooks and crannies +of literature. Not very long ago I was shut up for half an hour in a +boarding-house parlor, in company with a solitary little book entitled +Scheyichbi and the Strand, or Early Days along the Delaware. Its name +proved to be the only really attractive thing about it, and I was +speculating drearily as to whether Charles Lamb himself could have +extracted any amusement from its pages, when suddenly my eye lighted +on a sentence that read like an old familiar friend: “The cruelty, +the brutality, the mad, exterminating barbarity of Claverhouse, and +Lauderdale, and Jeffreys, the minions of episcopacy and the king.” +There it stood, venerably correct in sentiment, with a strangely +new location and surroundings. It is hard enough, surely, to see +Claverhouse pilloried side by side with the brute Jeffreys; but to meet +him on the banks of the Delaware is like encountering Ezzèlin Romano on +Fifth Avenue, or Julian the Apostate upon Boston Common. + +Much of this universal harmony of abuse may be fairly charged to +Macaulay, for it is he who in a few strongly written passages has +presented to the general reader that remarkable compendium of +wickedness commonly known as Dundee. “Rapacious and profane, of violent +temper and obdurate heart,” is the great historian’s description +of a man who sought but modest wealth, who never swore, and whose +imperturbable gentleness of manner was more appalling in its way than +the fiercest transports of rage. Under Macaulay’s hands Claverhouse +exhibits a degree of ubiquity and mutability that might well require +some supernatural basis to sustain it. He supports as many characters +as Saladin in the Talisman; appearing now as his brother David Graham, +in order to witness the trial of the Wigtown martyrs, and now as his +distant kinsman, Patrick Graham, when it becomes expedient to figure +as a dramatic feature of Argyle’s execution. He changes at will into +Sir Robert Grierson, and is thus made responsible for that highly +curious game which Wodrow and Howie impute to Lag’s troopers, and which +Macaulay describes with as much gravity as if it were the sacking +and pillage of some doomed Roman town. It is hard to understand the +precise degree of pleasure embodied in calling one’s self Apollyon and +one’s neighbor Beelzebub; it is harder still to be properly impressed +with the tremendous significance of the deed. I have known a bevy of +school-girls, who, after an exhaustive course of Paradise Lost, were +so deeply imbued with the sombre glories of the satanic court that +they assumed the names of its inhabitants; and, for the remainder of +that term, even the mysterious little notes that form so important an +element of boarding-school life began--heedless of grammar--with “Chère +Moloch,” and ended effusively with “Your ever-devoted Belial.” It is +quite possible that these children thought and hoped they were doing +something desperately wicked, only they lacked a historian to chronicle +their guilt. It is equally certain that Lag’s drunken troopers, if +they ever did divert themselves in the unbecoming manner ascribed +to them, might have been more profitably, and, it would seem, more +agreeably, employed. But, of one thing, at least, we may feel tolerably +confident. The pastime would have found scant favor in the eyes of +Claverhouse, who was a man of little imagination, of stern discipline, +and of fastidiously decorous habits. Why, even Wandering Willie does +him this much justice, when he describes him as alone amid the lost +souls, isolated in his contemptuous pride from their feasts and +dreadful merriment: “And there sat Claverhouse, as beautiful as when +he lived, with his long, dark, curled locks streaming down over his +laced buff-coat, and his left hand always on his right spule-blade, to +hide the wound that the silver bullet had made. He sat apart from them +all, and looked at them with a melancholy, haughty countenance.” If +history be, as Napoleon asserts, nothing but fiction agreed upon, let +us go straight to the fountain-head, and enjoy our draught of romance +unspoiled by any dubious taint of veracity. + +Mr. Walter Bagehot, that most keen and tolerant of critics, has pointed +out to us with his customary acumen that Macaulay never appreciated in +the highest degree either of the two great parties--the Puritans and +the Cavaliers--who through so many stirring events embodied all the +life and color of English history. In regard to the former, it may be +safely said that whatever slights they have received at the hands of +other historians have been amply atoned for by Carlyle. He has thrown +the whole weight of his powerful personality into their scale, and has +fairly frightened us into that earnestness of mind which is requisite +for a due appreciation of their merits. His fine scorn for the pleasant +vices which ensnare humanity extended itself occasionally to things +which are pleasant without being vicious; and under his leadership +we hardly venture to hint at a certain sneaking preference for the +gayer side of life. When Hazlitt, with a shameless audacity rare among +Englishmen, disencumbers himself lightly of his conscience, and +apostrophizes the reign of Charles II. as that “happy, thoughtless age, +when king and nobles led purely ornamental lives,” we feel our flesh +chilled at such a candid avowal of volatility. Surely Hazlitt must +have understood that it is precisely the fatal picturesqueness of that +period to which we, as moralists, so strenuously object. The courts of +the first two Hanoverians were but little better or purer, but they +were at least uglier, and we can afford to look with some leniency upon +their short-comings. His sacred majesty George II. was hardly, save in +the charitable eyes of Bishop Porteus, a shining example of rectitude; +but let us rejoice that it never lay in the power of any human being to +hint that he was in the smallest degree ornamental. + +The Puritan, then, has been wafted into universal esteem by the breath +of his great eulogist; but the Cavalier still waits for his historian. +Poets and painters and romancers have indeed loved to linger over +this warm, impetuous life, so rich in vigor and beauty, so full to +the brim of a hardy adventurous joy. Here, they seem to say, far more +than in ancient Greece, may be realized the throbbing intensity of +an unreflecting happiness. For the Greek drank deeply of the cup of +knowledge, and its bitterness turned his laughter into tears; the +Cavalier looked straight into the sunlight with clear, joyous eyes, +and troubled himself not at all with the disheartening problems of +humanity. How could a mind like Macaulay’s, logical, disciplined, +and gravely intolerant, sympathize for a moment with this utterly +irresponsible buoyancy! How was he, of all men, to understand this +careless zest for the old feast of life, this unreasoning loyalty to +an indifferent sovereign, this passionate devotion to a church and +easy disregard of her precepts, this magnificent wanton courage, this +gay prodigality of enjoyment! It was his loss, no less than ours, +that, in turning over the pages of the past, he should miss half of +their beauty and their pathos; for History, that calumniated muse, +whose sworn votaries do her little honor, has illuminated every inch +of her parchment with a strong, generous hand, and does not mean that +we should contemptuously ignore the smallest fragment of her work. The +superb charge of Rupert’s cavalry; that impetuous rush to battle, +before which no mortal ranks might stand unbroken; the little group +of heart-sick Cavaliers who turned at sunset from the lost field of +Marston Moor, and beheld their queen’s white standard floating over the +enemy’s ranks; the scaffolds of Montrose and King Charles; the more +glorious death of Claverhouse, pressing the blood-stained grass, and +listening for the last time to the far-off cries of victory; Sidney +Godolphin flinging away his life, with all its abundant promise and +whispered hopes of fame; beautiful Francis Villiers lying stabbed to +the heart in Surbiton lane, with his fair boyish face turned to the +reddening sky,--these and many other pictures History has painted +for us on her scroll, bidding us forget for a moment our formidable +theories and strenuous partisanship, and suffer our hearts to be simply +and wholesomely stirred by the brave lives and braver deaths of our +mistaken brother men. + +“Every matter,” observes Epictetus, “has two handles by which it +may be grasped;” and the Cavalier is no exception to the rule. We +may, if we choose, regard him from a purely moral point of view, +as a lamentably dissolute and profligate courtier; or from a purely +picturesque point of view, as a gallant and loyal soldier; or we may, +if we are wise, take him as he stands, making room for him cheerfully +as a fellow-creature, and not vexing our souls too deeply over his +brilliant divergence from our present standard. It is like a breath of +fresh air blown from a roughening sea to feel, even at this distance +of time, that strong young life beating joyously and eagerly against +the barriers of the past; to see those curled and scented aristocrats +who, like the “dandies of the Crimea,” could fight as well as dance, +facing pleasure and death, the ball-room and the battle-field, with the +same smiling front, the same unflagging enthusiasm. No wonder that Mr. +Bagehot, analyzing with friendly sympathy the strength and weakness +of the Cavalier, should find himself somewhat out of temper with an +historian’s insensibility to virtues so primitive and recognizable in a +not too merry world. + +“The greatness of this character is not in Macaulay’s way, and its +faults are. Its license affronts him, its riot alienates him. He is +forever contrasting the dissoluteness of Prince Rupert’s horse with +the restraint of Cromwell’s pikemen. A deep, enjoying nature finds in +him no sympathy. He has no tears for that warm life, no tenderness +for that extinct mirth. The ignorance of the Cavaliers, too, moves +his wrath: ‘They were ignorant of what every schoolgirl knows.’ Their +loyalty to their sovereign is the devotion of the Egyptians to the god +Apis: ‘They selected a calf to adore.’ Their non-resistance offends the +philosopher; their license is commented on in the tone of a precisian. +Their indecorum does not suit the dignity of the narrator. Their rich, +free nature is unappreciated; the tingling intensity of their joy is +unnoticed. In a word, there is something of the schoolboy about the +Cavalier; there is somewhat of a schoolmaster about the historian.”[14] + +That the gay gentlemen who glittered in the courts of the Stuarts +were enviably ignorant of much that, for some inscrutable reason, +we feel ourselves obliged to know to-day may be safely granted, and +scored at once to the account of their good fortune. It is probable +that they had only the vaguest notions about Sesostris, and could +not have defined an hypothesis of homophones with any reasonable +degree of accuracy. But they were possessed, nevertheless, of a +certain information of their own, not garnered from books, and not +always attainable to their critics. They knew life in its varying +phases, from the delicious trifling of a polished and witty society +to the stern realities of the camp and battle-field. They knew the +world, women, and song, three things as pleasant and as profitable +in their way as Hebrew, Euclid, and political economy. They knew how +to live gracefully, to fight stoutly, and to die honorably; and how +to extract from the gray routine of existence a wonderfully distinct +flavor of novelty and enjoyment. There were among them, as among the +Puritans, true lovers, faithful husbands, and tender fathers; and +the indiscriminate charge of dissoluteness on the one side, like the +indiscriminate charge of hypocrisy on the other, is a cheap expression +of our individual intolerance. + +The history of the Cavalier closes with Killiecrankie. The waning +prestige of a once powerful influence concentrated itself in +Claverhouse, the latest and strongest figure on its canvas, the +accepted type of its most brilliant and defiant qualities. Readers of +old-fashioned novels may remember a lachrymose story, in two closely +printed volumes, which enjoyed an amazing popularity some twenty years +ago, and which was called The Last of the Cavaliers. It had for its +hero a perfectly impossible combination of virtues, a cross between +the Chevalier Bayard and the Admirable Crichton, labeled Dundee, +and warranted proof against all the faults and foibles of humanity. +This automaton, who moved in a rarefied atmosphere through the whole +dreary tale, performing noble deeds and uttering virtuous sentiments +with monotonous persistency, embodied, we may presume, the author’s +conception of a character not generally credited with such superfluous +excellence. It was a fine specimen of imaginative treatment, and not +wholly unlike some very popular historic methods by which similar +results are reached to-day. Quite recently, a despairing English +critic, with an ungratified taste for realities, complained somewhat +savagely that “a more intolerable embodiment of unrelieved excellence +and monotonous success than the hero of the pious Gladstonian’s +worship was never moulded out of plaster of Paris.” He was willing +enough to yield his full share of admiration, but he wanted to see +the real, human, interesting Gladstone back of all this conventional +and disheartening mock-heroism; and, in the same spirit, we would +like sometimes to see the real Claverhouse back of all the dramatic +accessories in which he has been so liberally disguised. + +But where, save perhaps in the ever-delightful pages of Old Mortality, +shall we derive any moderate gratification from our search? Friends +are apt to be as ill advised as foes, and Dundee’s eulogists, from +Napier to Aytoun, have been distinguished rather for the excellence +of their intentions than for any great felicity of execution. The +“lion-hearted warrior,” for whom Aytoun flings wide the gates of +Athol, might be Cœur-de-Lion himself, or Marshal Ney, or Stonewall +Jackson, or any other brave fighter. There is no distinctive flavor of +the Graeme in the somewhat long-winded hero, with his “falcon eye,” +and his “war-horse black as night,” and his trite commonplaces about +foreign gold and Highland honor. On the other hand, the verdict of the +disaffected may be summed up in the extraordinary lines with which +Macaulay closes his account of Killiecrankie, and of Dundee’s brief, +glorious struggle for his king: “During the last three months of his +life he had proved himself a great warrior and politician, and his name +is therefore mentioned with respect by that large class of persons +who think that there is no excess of wickedness for which courage +and ability do not atone.” No excess of wickedness! One wonders what +more could be said if we were discussing Tiberius or Caligula, or if +colder words were ever used to chill a soldier’s fame. Mr. Mowbray +Morris, the latest historian in the field, seems divided between a +natural desire to sift the evidence for all this wickedness and a +polite disinclination to say anything rude during the process, “a +common impertinence of the day,” in which he declares he has no wish +to join. This is exceedingly pleasant and courteous, though hardly of +primary importance; for a biographer’s sole duty is, after all, to the +subject of his biography, and not to Macaulay, who can hold his own +easily enough without any assistance whatever. When Sir James Stephens +published, some years ago, his very earnest and accurate vindication +of Sir Elijah Impey from the charges so lavishly brought against him +in that matchless essay on Warren Hastings, he expressed at the same +time his serene conviction that the great world would go on reading +the essay and believing the charges just the same,--a new rendering +of “Magna est veritas et prævalebit,” which brings it very near to +Hesiod’s primitive experience. + +As for Mr. Morris’s book, it is a carefully dispassionate study of +a wild and stormy time, with a gray shadow of Claverhouse flitting +faintly through it. In his wholesome dislike for the easy confidence +with which historians assume to know everything, its author has touched +the opposite extreme, and manifests such conscientious indecision as +to the correctness of every document he quotes, that our heads fairly +swim with accumulated uncertainties. This method of narration has one +distinct advantage,--it cannot lead us far into error; but neither can +it carry us forward impetuously with the mighty rush of great events, +and make us feel in our hearts the real and vital qualities of history. +Mr. Morris proves very clearly and succinctly that Claverhouse has +been, to use his temperate expression, “harshly judged,” and that much +of the cruelty assigned to him may be easily and cheaply refuted. He +does full justice to the scrupulous decorum of his hero’s private life, +and to the wonderful skill with which, after James’s flight, he roused +and held together the turbulent Highland clans, impressing even these +rugged spirits with the charm and force of his vigorous personality. +In the field Claverhouse lived like the meanest of his men; sharing +their poor food and hard lodgings, marching by their side through the +bitter winter weather, and astonishing these hardy mountaineers by +a power of physical endurance fully equal to their own. The memory +of his brilliant courage, of his gracious tact, even of his rare +personal beauty, dwelt with them for generations, and found passionate +expression in that cry wrung from the sore heart of the old chieftain +at Culloden, “Oh, for one hour of Dundee!” + +But in the earlier portions of Mr. Morris’s narrative, in the scenes +at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge, at Ayrshire and Clydesdale, we +confess that we look in vain for the Claverhouse of our fancy. Can it +be that this energetic, modest, and rather estimable young soldier, +distinguished, apparently, for nothing save prompt and accurate +obedience to his orders, is the man who, in a few short years, made +himself so feared and hated that it became necessary to credit him with +the direct patronage of Satan? One is tempted to quote Mr. Swinburne’s +pregnant lines concerning another enigmatic character of Scottish +history:-- + + “Some faults the gods will give to fetter + Man’s highest intent, + But surely you were something better + Than innocent.” + +Of the real Dundee we catch only flying glimpses here and there,--on +his wedding night, for instance, when he is off and away after +the now daring rebels, leaving his bride of an hour to weep his +absence, and listen with what patience she might to her mother’s +assiduous reproaches. “I shall be revenged some time or other of the +unseasonable trouble these dogs give me,” grumbles the young husband +with pardonable irritation. “They might have let Tuesday pass.” It is +the real Dundee, likewise, who, in the gray of early morning, rides +briskly out of Edinburgh in scant time to save his neck, scrambles +up the castle rock for a last farewell to Gordon, and is off to the +north to raise the standard of King James, “wherever the spirit of +Montrose shall direct me.” In vain Hamilton and the convention send +word imperatively, “Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed.” The wily +bird declines the invitation, and has been censured with some asperity +for his unpatriotic reluctance to comply. For one short week of rest +he lingers at Dudhope, where his wife is awaiting her confinement, and +then flies further northward to Glen Ogilvy, whither a regiment is +quickly sent to apprehend him. There is a reward of twenty thousand +pounds sterling on his head, but he who thinks to win it must move, +like Hödr, with his feet shod in silence. By the time Livingstone +and his dragoons reach Glamis, Dundee is far in the Highlands, and +henceforth all the fast-darkening hopes of the loyalists are centred +in him alone. For him remain thirteen months of incredible hardships +and anxiety, a single stolen visit to his wife and infant son, +heart-sick appeals to James for some recognition of the desperate +efforts made in his behalf, a brilliant irregular campaign, a last +decisive victory, and a soldier’s death. “It is the less matter for +me, seeing the day goes well for my master,” he answers simply, when +told of his mortal hurt; and in this unfaltering loyalty we read the +life-long lesson of the Cavalier. If, as a recent poet tells us, the +memory of Nero be not wholly vile, because one human being was found to +weep for him, surely the memory of James Stuart may be forgiven much +because of this faithful service. It is hard to understand it now. + + “In God’s name, then, what plague befell us, + To fight for such a thing?” + +is our modern way of looking at the problem; but the mental processes +of the Cavalier were less inquisitorial and analytic. “I am no +politician, and I do not care about nice distinctions,” says Major +Bellenden bluntly, when requested to consider the insurgents’ side of +the case. “My sword is the king’s, and when he commands, I draw it in +his service.” + +As for that other and better known Claverhouse, the determined foe of +the Covenant, the unrelenting and merciless punisher of a disobedient +peasantry, he, too, is best taken as he stands; shorn, indeed, of +Wodrow’s extravagant embellishments, but equally free from the delicate +gloss of a too liberal absolution. He was a soldier acting under the +stringent orders of an angry government, and he carried out the harsh +measures entrusted to him with a stern and impartial severity. Those +were turbulent times, and the wild western Whigs had given decisive +proof on more than one occasion that they were ill disposed to figure +as mere passive martyrs to their cause. + + “For treason, d’ ye see, + Was to them a dish of tea, + And murder, bread and butter.” + +They were stout fighters, too, taking as kindly to their carnal +as to their spiritual weapons, and a warfare against them was as +ingloriously dangerous as the melancholy skirmishes of our own army +with the Indians, who, it would seem, were driven to the war-path by +a somewhat similar mode of treatment. There is not the slightest +evidence, however, that Claverhouse was averse either to the danger or +the cruelty of the work he was given to do. Religious toleration was +then an unknown quantity. The Church of England and her Presbyterian +neighbor persecuted each other with friendly assiduity, while Rome was +more than willing, should an opportunity offer, to lay a chastening +hand on both. If there were any new-fangled notions in the air about +private judgment and the rights of conscience, Claverhouse was the +last man in England to have been a pioneer in such a movement. He was +passionately attached to his church, unreservedly loyal to his king, +and as indifferent as Hamlet to his own life and the lives of other +people. It is strange to hear Mr. Morris excuse him for his share in +the death of the lad Hyslop, by urging in his behalf a Pilate-like +disinclination to quarrel with a powerful ally, and risk a censure from +court. Never was there a man who brooked opposition as impatiently, +when he felt that his interests or his principles were at stake; but +it is to be feared that the shooting of a Covenanter more or less was +hardly, in his eyes, a matter of vital importance. This attitude of +unconcern is amply illustrated in the letter written by Claverhouse to +Queensberry after the execution of John Brown, “the Christian carrier,” +for the sole crime of absenting himself from the public worship of +the Episcopalians, says Macaulay; for outlawry and resetting of +rebels, hint less impassioned historians. Be this as it may, however, +John Brown was shot in the Ploughlands; and his nephew, seeing the +soldiers’ muskets leveled next at him, consented, on the promise of +being recommended for mercy, to make “an ingenuous confession,” and +give evidence against his uncle’s associates. Accordingly, we find +Claverhouse detailing these facts to Queensberry, and adding in the +most purely neutral spirit,-- + +“I have acquitted myself when I have told your Grace the case. He [the +nephew] has been but a month or two with his halbert; and if your +Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him; for I, +having no commission of justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the +lieutenant-general, to be disposed of as he pleases.” + +Here, at least, is a sufficiently candid exposition of Claverhouse’s +habitual temper. He was, in no sense of the word, bloodthirsty. The +test oath was not of his contriving; the penalty for its refusal was +not of his appointing. He was willing enough to give his prisoner the +promised chance for life; but as for any real solicitude in the matter, +you might as well expect Hamlet to be solicitous because, by an awkward +misapprehension, a foolish and innocent old man has been stabbed like a +rat behind the arras. + +When Plutarch was asked why he did not oftener select virtuous +characters to write about, he intimated that he found the sinners more +interesting; and while his judgment is to be deprecated, it can hardly +be belied. We revere Marcus Aurelius, but we delight in Cæsar; we +admire Sir Robert Peel, but we enjoy Richelieu; we praise Wellington, +but we never weary of Napoleon. “Our being,” says Montaigne, “is +cemented with sickly qualities; and whoever should divest man of the +seeds of those qualities would destroy the fundamental conditions of +human life.” It is idle to look to Claverhouse for precisely the +virtues which we most esteem in John Howard; but we need not, on that +account, turn our eyes reproachfully from one of the most striking +and characteristic figures in English history. He was not merely a +picturesque feature of his cause, like Rupert of the Rhine, nor a +martyr to its fallen hopes, like the Marquis of Montrose; he was its +single chance, and, with his death, it died. In versatility and daring, +in diplomatic shrewdness and military acumen, he far outranked any +soldier of his day. “The charm of an engaging personality,” says a +recent critic, “belongs to Montrose, and the pity of his death deepens +the romance of his life; but the strong man was Dundee.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] _Literary Studies_, vol. ii. + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + +Page 12: “Marquis de Montmirail” changed to “Marquise de Montmirail” +“to the acount” changed to “to the account” + +Page 44: “La virtu n’iroit” changed to “La vertu n’iroit” + +Page 60: “Jacque Roulet” changed to “Jacques Roulet” + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75456 *** diff --git a/75456-h/75456-h.htm b/75456-h/75456-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3eefb74 --- /dev/null +++ b/75456-h/75456-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6688 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Books and men | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} +.p0 {text-indent: 0em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; width: 60%;} +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 4px; } +.x-ebookmaker table {width: 95%;} + +.tdr {text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} +.page {width: 8em; vertical-align: top;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +.w50 {width: 50%;} +.x-ebookmaker .w50 {width: 75%;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed; margin-top: 1em;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ + +.poetry { + display: block; + text-align: left; + margin-left: 0 + } +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry in browsers */ +/* .poetry {display: inline-block;} */ +/* large inline blocks don't split well on paged devices */ +@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5% + } +.poetry-container { + margin: 1.5em auto; + text-align: center; + font-size: 98%; + display: flex; + justify-content: center + } +.poetry .stanza { + padding: 0.5em 0; + page-break-inside: avoid + } +.poetry .verse { + text-indent: -3em; + padding-left: 3em + } + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + +.xbig {font-size: 2em;} +.big {font-size: 1.3em;} + +abbr[title] { + text-decoration: none; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 3em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} +.poetry .indent20 {text-indent: 7em;} +.poetry .indent22 {text-indent: 8em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;} +.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp58 {width: 58%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp58 {width: 100%;} + + + /* ]]> */ </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75456 ***</div> + + + + +<h1>BOOKS AND MEN</h1> + +<p class="center"> +BY<br><span class="big"> +AGNES REPPLIER</span> +</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp58" id="001" style="max-width: 29.3125em;"> + <img class="w50 p2" src="images/001.jpg" alt="colophon"> +</figure> + +<p class="center p4"> +BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br> +1899<br> +</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> +Copyright, 1888,<br> +<span class="smcap">By</span> AGNES REPPLIER.<br> +</p> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>All rights reserved.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="center p2"> +ELEVENTH IMPRESSION<br> +</p> + +<p class="center p2"> +<i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i><br> +Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.<br> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr><th></th><th class="tdr page">PAGE</th></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">Children, Past and Present</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">On the Benefits of Superstition</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">What Children Read</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">The Decay of Sentiment</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">Curiosities of Criticism</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">Some Aspects of Pessimism</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<span class="smcap">The Cavalier</span> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +</table> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="xbig center" id="BOOKS_AND_MEN">BOOKS AND MEN.</p> + + +<hr class="r5"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHILDREN_PAST_AND_PRESENT">CHILDREN, PAST AND PRESENT.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>As a result of the modern tendency to desert +the broad beaten roads of history for the +bridle-paths of biography and memoir, we find +a great many side lights thrown upon matters +that the historian was wont to treat as altogether +beneath his consideration. It is by their +help that we study the minute changes of social +life that little by little alter the whole aspect +of a people, and it is by their help that we look +straight into the ordinary every-day workings +of the past, and measure the space between its +existence and our own. When we read, for +instance, of Lady Cathcart being kept a close +prisoner by her husband for over twenty years, +we look with some complacency on the roving +wives of the nineteenth century. When we +reflect on the dismal fate of Uriel Freudenberger, +condemned by the Canton of Uri to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> +burnt alive in 1760, for rashly proclaiming his +disbelief in the legend of William Tell’s apple, +we realize the inconveniences attendant on a +too early development of the critical faculty. +We listen entranced while the learned pastor +Dr. Johann Geiler von Keyersperg gravely +enlightens his congregation as to the nature +and properties of were-wolves; and we turn +aside to see the half-starved boys at Westminster +boiling their own batter-pudding in +a stocking foot, or to hear the little John +Wesley crying softly when he is whipped, not +being permitted even then the luxury of a +hearty bellow.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the last incident will strike us as +the most pathetic of all, this being essentially +the children’s age. Women, workmen, and +skeptics all have reason enough to be grateful +they were not born a few generations earlier; +but the children of to-day are favored +beyond their knowledge, and certainly far +beyond their deserts. Compare the modern +schoolboy with any of his ill-fated predecessors, +from the days of Spartan discipline down +to our grandfathers’ time. Turn from the +free-and-easy school-girl of the period to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> +miseries of Mrs. Sherwood’s youth, with its +steel collars, its backboards, its submissive +silence and rigorous decorum. Think of the +turbulent and uproarious nurseries we all +know, and then go back in spirit to that severe +and occult shrine where Mrs. Wesley ruled +over her infant brood with a code of disciplinary +laws as awful and inviolable as those of +the Medes and Persians. Of their supreme +efficacy she plainly felt no doubts, for she has +left them carefully written down for the benefit +of succeeding generations, though we fear +that few mothers of to-day would be tempted +by their stringent austerity. They are to +modern nursery rules what the Blue Laws of +Connecticut are to our more languid legislation. +Each child was expected and required +to commemorate its fifth birthday by learning +the entire alphabet by heart. To insure this +all-important matter, the whole house was impressively +set in order the day before; every +one’s task was assigned to him; and Mrs. +Wesley, issuing strict commands that no one +should penetrate into the sanctuary while the +solemn ordeal was in process, shut herself up +for six hours with the unhappy morsel of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +child, and unflinchingly drove the letters into +its bewildered brain. On two occasions only +was she unsuccessful. “Molly and Nancy,” +we are told, failed to learn in the given time, +and their mother comforts herself for their +tardiness by reflecting on the still greater incapacity +of other people’s bairns.</p> + +<p>“When the will of a child is totally subdued, +and it is brought to revere and stand in +awe of its parents,” then, and then only, their +rigid judge considers that some little inadvertences +and follies may be safely passed over. +Nor would she permit one of them to “be chid +or beaten twice for the same fault,”—a +stately assumption of justice that speaks volumes +for the iron-bound code by which they +were brought into subjection. Most children +nowadays are sufficiently amazed if a tardy +vengeance overtake them once, and a second +penalty for the same offense is something we +should hardly deem it necessary to proscribe. +Yet nothing is more evident than that Mrs. +Wesley was neither a cruel nor an unloving +mother. It is plain that she labored hard for +her little flock, and had their welfare and happiness +greatly at heart. In after years they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +with one accord honored and revered her memory. +Only it is not altogether surprising that +her husband, whose ministerial functions she +occasionally usurped, should have thought his +wife at times almost too able a ruler, or that +her more famous son should stand forth as the +great champion of human depravity. He too, +some forty years later, promulgated a system +of education as unrelaxing in its methods as +that of his own childhood. In his model +school he forbade all association with outside +boys, and would receive no child unless its parents +promised not to take it away for even a +single day, until removed for good. Yet after +shutting up the lads in this hot-bed of propriety, +and carefully guarding them from every +breath of evil, he ended by expelling part as +incorrigible, and ruefully admitting that the +remainder were very “uncommonly wicked.”</p> + +<p>The principle of solitary training for a child, +in order to shield it effectually from all outside +influences, found other and vastly different +advocates. It is the key-note of Mr. and +Miss Edgeworth’s Practical Education, a book +which must have driven over-careful and scrupulous +mothers to the verge of desperation.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +In it they are solemnly counseled never to permit +their children to walk or talk with servants, +never to let them have a nursery or a +school-room, never to leave them alone either +with each other or with strangers, and never +to allow them to read any book of which every +sentence has not been previously examined. +In the matter of books, it is indeed almost +impossible to satisfy such searching critics. +Even Mrs. Barbauld’s highly correct and +righteous little volumes, which Lamb has anathematized +as the “blights and blasts of all +that is human,” are not quite harmless in their +eyes. Evil lurks behind the phrase “Charles +wants his dinner,” which would seem to imply +that Charles must have whatever he desires; +while to say flippantly, “The sun has gone to +bed,” is to incur the awful odium of telling +a child a deliberate untruth.</p> + +<p>In Miss Edgeworth’s own stories the didactic +purpose is only veiled by the sprightliness of +the narrative and the air of amusing reality +she never fails to impart. Who that has ever +read them can forget Harry and Lucy making +up their own little beds in the morning, and +knocking down the unbaked bricks to prove<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +that they were soft; or Rosamond choosing +between the famous purple jar and a pair of +new boots; or Laura forever drawing the furniture +in perspective? In all these little people +say and do there is conveyed to the young +reader a distinct moral lesson, which we are +by no means inclined to reject, when we turn +to the other writers of the time and see how +much worse off we are. Day, in Sandford +and Merton, holds up for our edification the +dreariest and most insufferable of pedagogues, +and advocates a mode of life wholly at variance +with the instincts and habits of his age. +Miss Sewell, in her Principles of Education, +sternly warns young girls against the sin of +chattering with each other, and forbids mothers’ +playing with their children as a piece of +frivolity which cannot fail to weaken the dignity +of their position.</p> + +<p>To a great many parents, both in England +and in France, such advice would have been +unnecessary. Who, for instance, can imagine +Lady Balcarras, with whom it was a word and +a blow in quick succession, stooping to any +such weakness; or that august mother of Harriet +Martineau, against whom her daughter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +has recorded all the slights and severities of +her youth? Not that we think Miss Martineau +to have been much worse off than other children +of her day; but as she has chosen with +signal ill-taste to revenge herself upon her family +in her autobiography, we have at least a +better opportunity of knowing all about it. +“To one person,” she writes, “I was indeed +habitually untruthful, from fear. To my +mother I would in my childhood assert or deny +anything that would bring me through most +easily,”—a confession which, to say the least, +reflects as little to her own credit as to her +parent’s. Had Mrs. Martineau been as stern +an upholder of the truth as was Mrs. Wesley, +her daughter would have ventured upon very +few fabrications in her presence. When she +tells us gravely how often she meditated suicide +in these early days, we are fain to smile +at hearing a fancy so common among morbid +and imaginative children narrated soberly in +middle life, as though it were a unique and +horrible experience. No one endowed by nature +with so copious a fund of self-sympathy +could ever have stood in need of much pity +from the outside world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> + +<p>But for real and uncompromising severity +towards children we must turn to France, +where for years the traditions of decorum +and discipline were handed down in noble +families, and generations of boys and girls +suffered grievously therefrom. Trifling faults +were magnified into grave delinquencies, and +relentlessly punished as such. We sometimes +wonder whether the youthful Bertrand du +Guesclin were really the wicked little savage +that the old chroniclers delight in painting, +or whether his rude truculence was not very +much like that of naughty and neglected boys +the world over. There is, after all, a pathetic +significance in those lines of Cuvelier’s which +describe in barbarous French the lad’s remarkable +and unprepossessing ugliness:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Il n’ot si lait de Resnes à Disnant,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Camus estoit et noirs, malostru et massant.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Li père et la mère si le héoiant tant,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que souvent en leurs cuers aloient desirant</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que fust mors, ou noiey en une eaue corant.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps, if he had been less flat-nosed and +swarthy, his better qualities might have shone +forth more clearly in early life, and it would +not have needed the predictions of a magician<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +or the keen-eyed sympathy of a nun to evolve +the future Constable of France out of such +apparently hopeless material. At any rate, +tradition generally representing him either as +languishing in the castle dungeon, or exiled to +the society of the domestics, it is plain he bore +but slight resemblance to the cherished <i>enfant +terrible</i> who is his legitimate successor to-day.</p> + +<p>Coming down to more modern times, we are +met by such monuments of stately severity as +Madame Quinet and the Marquise de Montmirail, +mother of that fair saint Madame de +Rochefoucauld, the trials of whose later years +were ushered in by a childhood of unremitting +harshness and restraint. The marquise was +incapable of any faltering or weakness where +discipline was concerned. If carrots were repulsive +to her little daughter’s stomach, then +a day spent in seclusion, with a plate of the +obnoxious vegetable before her, was the surest +method of proving that carrots were nevertheless +to be eaten. When Augustine and her +sister kissed their mother’s hand each morning, +and prepared to con their tasks in her awful +presence, they well knew that not the smallest +dereliction would be passed over by that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +inexorable judge. Nor might they aspire, like +Harriet Martineau, to shield themselves behind +the barrier of a lie. When from Augustine’s +little lips came faltering some childish +evasion, the ten-year-old sinner was hurried as +an outcast from her home, and sent to expiate +her crime with six months’ merciful seclusion +in a convent. “You have told me a falsehood, +mademoiselle,” said the marquise, with +frigid accuracy; “and you must prepare to +leave my house upon the spot.”</p> + +<p>Faults of breeding were quite as offensive to +this <i>grande dame</i> as faults of temper. The fear +of her pitiless glance filled her daughters with +timidity, and bred in them a <i>mauvaise honte</i>, +which in its turn aroused her deadliest ire. +Only a week before her wedding-day Madame +de Rochefoucauld was sent ignominiously to +dine at a side table, as a penance for the awkwardness +of her curtsy; while even her fast-growing +beauty became but a fresh source of +misfortune. The dressing of her magnificent +hair occupied two long hours every day, and +she retained all her life a most distinct and +painful recollection of her sufferings at the +hands of her <i>coiffeuse</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p> + +<p>To turn from the Marquise de Montmirail to +Madame Quinet is to see the picture intensified. +More beautiful, more stately, more unswerving +still, her faith in discipline was unbounded, +and her practice in no wise inconsistent with +her belief. It was actually one of the institutions +of her married life that a <i>garde de ville</i> +should pay a domiciliary visit twice a week to +chastise the three children. If by chance +they had not been naughty, then the punishment +might be referred to the account of future +transgressions,—an arrangement which, while +it insured justice to the culprits, can hardly +have afforded them much encouragement to +amend. Her son Jerome, who ran away when +a mere boy to enroll with the volunteers of ’92, +reproduced in later years, for the benefit of +his own household, many of his mother’s most +striking characteristics. He was the father of +Edgar Quinet, the poet, a child whose precocious +abilities seem never to have awakened +within him either parental affection or parental +pride. Silent, austere, repellent, he offered +no caresses, and was obeyed with timid submission. +“The gaze of his large blue eyes,” +says Dowden, “imposed restraint with silent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +authority. His mockery, the play of an intellect +unsympathetic by resolve and upon principle, +was freezing to a child; and the most +distinct consciousness which his presence produced +upon the boy was the assurance that he, +Edgar, was infallibly about to do something +which would cause displeasure.” That this +was a common attitude with parents in the old +<i>régime</i> may be inferred from Châteaubriand’s +statement that he and his sister, transformed +into statues by their father’s presence, recovered +their life only when he left the room; and +by the assertion of Mirabeau that even while +at school, two hundred leagues away from <i>his</i> +father, “the mere thought of him made me +dread every youthful amusement which could +be followed by the slightest unfavorable result.”</p> + +<p>Yet at the present day we are assured by +Mr. Marshall that in France “the art of +spoiling has reached a development which is unknown +elsewhere, and maternal affection not +infrequently descends to folly and imbecility.” +But then the clever critic of French Home Life +had never visited America when he wrote those +lines, although some of the stories he tells<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +would do credit to any household in our land. +There is one quite delightful account of a +young married couple, who, being invited to a +dinner party of twenty people, failed to make +their appearance until ten o’clock, when they +explained urbanely that their three-year-old +daughter would not permit them to depart. +Moreover, being a child of great character and +discrimination, she had insisted on their undressing +and going to bed; to which reasonable +request they had rendered a prompt compliance, +rather than see her cry. “It would +have been monstrous,” said the fond mother, +“to cause her pain simply for our pleasure; +so I begged Henri to cease his efforts to persuade +her, and we took off our clothes and +went to bed. As soon as she was asleep we +got up again, redressed, and here we are with +a thousand apologies for being so late.”</p> + +<p>This sounds half incredible; but there is +a touch of nature in the mother’s happy indifference +to the comfort of her friends, as compared +with the whims of her offspring, that +closely appeals to certain past experiences of +our own. It is all very well for an Englishman +to stare aghast at such a reversal of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +laws of nature; we Americans, who have suffered +and held our peace, can afford to smile +with some complacency at the thought of +another great nation bending its head beneath +the iron yoke.</p> + +<p>To return, however, to the days when children +were the ruled, and not the rulers, we find +ourselves face to face with the great question +of education. How smooth and easy are the +paths of learning made now for the little feet +that tread them! How rough and steep they +were in bygone times, watered with many +tears, and not without a line of victims, whose +weak strength failed them in the upward struggle! +We cannot go back to any period when +school life was not fraught with miseries. +Classic writers paint in grim colors the harshness +of the pedagogues who ruled in Greece +and Rome. Mediæval authors tell us more +than enough of the passionless severity that +swayed the monastic schools,—a severity +which seems to have been the result of an +hereditary tradition rather than of individual +caprice, and which seldom interfered with the +mutual affection that existed between master +and scholar. When St. Anselm, the future<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +disciple of Lanfranc, and his successor in the +See of Canterbury, begged as a child of four +to be sent to school, his mother, Ermenberg,—the +granddaughter of a king, and the kinswoman +of every crowned prince in Christendom,—resisted +his entreaties as long as she +dared, knowing too well the sufferings in store +for him. A few years later she was forced to +yield, and these same sufferings very nearly +cost her son his life.</p> + +<p>The boy was both studious and docile, and +his teacher, fully recognizing his precocious +talents, determined to force them to the utmost. +In order that so active a mind should +not for a moment be permitted to relax its +tension, he kept the little scholar a ceaseless +prisoner at his desk. Rest and recreation +were alike denied him, while the utmost rigors +of a discipline, of which we can form no adequate +conception, wrung from the child’s over-worked +brain an unflinching attention to his +tasks. As a result of this cruel folly, “the +brightest star of the eleventh century had been +well-nigh quenched in its rising.”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Mind and +body alike yielded beneath the strain; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> +Anselm, a broken-down little wreck, was returned +to his mother’s hands, to be slowly +nursed back to health and reason. “Ah, me! +I have lost my child!” sighed Ermenberg, +when she found that not all that he had suffered +could shake the boy’s determination to +return; and the mother of Guibert de Nogent +must have echoed the sentiment when her little +son, his back purple with stripes, looked her +in the face, and answered steadily to her lamentations, +“If I die of my whippings, I still +mean to be whipped.”</p> + +<p>The step from the monastic schools to Eton +and Westminster is a long one, but the gain +not so apparent at first sight as might be supposed. +It is hard for the luxurious Etonian +of to-day to realize that for many years his +predecessors suffered enough from cold, hunger, +and barbarous ill-treatment to make life +a burden on their hands. The system, while +it hardened some into the desired manliness, +must have killed many whose feebler constitutions +could ill support its rigor. Even as late +as 1834, we are told by one who had ample +opportunity to study the subject carefully that +“the inmates of a workhouse or a jail were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +better fed and lodged than were the scholars +of Eton. Boys whose parents could not pay +for a private room underwent privations that +might have broken down a cabin-boy, and +would be thought inhuman if inflicted on a +galley-slave.” Nor is this sentiment as exaggerated +as it sounds. To get up at five on +freezing winter mornings; to sweep their own +floors and make their own beds; to go two by +two to the “children’s pump” for a scanty +wash; to eat no mouthful of food until nine +o’clock; to live on an endless round of mutton, +potatoes, and beer, none of them too plentiful +or too good; to sleep in a dismal cell without +chair or table; to improvise a candlestick out +of paper; to be starved, frozen, and flogged,—such +was the daily life of the scions of England’s +noblest families, of lads tenderly nurtured +and sent from princely homes to win +their Greek and Latin at this fearful cost.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the picture of one public school +is in all essential particulars the picture of the +rest. The miseries might vary somewhat, but +their bulk remained the same. At Westminster +the younger boys, hard pushed by hunger, +gladly received the broken victuals left from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +the table of the senior election, and tried to +supplement their scanty fare with strange and +mysterious concoctions, whose unsavory details +have been handed down among the melancholy +traditions of the past.</p> + +<p>In 1847 a young brother of Lord Mansfield +being very ill at school, his mother came to +visit him. There was but one chair in the +room, upon which the poor invalid was reclining; +but his companion, seeing the dilemma, +immediately arose, and with true boyish politeness +offered Lady Mansfield the coal-scuttle, +on which he himself had been sitting. At +Winchester, Sydney Smith suffered “many +years of misery and starvation,” while his +younger brother, Courtenay, twice ran away, +in the vain effort to escape his wretchedness. +“There was never enough provided of even +the coarsest food for the whole school,” writes +Lady Holland; “and the little boys were of +course left to fare as well as they could. Even +in his old age my father used to shudder at the +recollections of Winchester, and I have heard +him speak with horror of the misery of the +years he spent there. The whole system, he +affirmed, was one of abuse, neglect, and vice.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p> + +<p>In the matter of discipline there was no +shadow of choice anywhere. Capricious cruelty +ruled under every scholastic roof. On +the one side, we encounter Dean Colet, of St. +Paul’s, whom Erasmus reported as “delighting +in children in a Christian spirit;” which +meant that he never wearied of seeing them +suffer, believing that the more they endured +as boys, the more worthy they would grow in +manhood. On the other, we are confronted +by the still more awful ghost of Dr. Keate, +who could and did flog eighty boys in succession +without a pause; and who, being given +the confirmation list by mistake for the punishment +list, insisted on flogging every one of +the catechumens, as a good preparation for +receiving the sacrament. Sir Francis Doyle, +almost the only apologist who has so far ventured +to appear in behalf of this fiery little +despot, once remarked to Lord Blachford that +Keate did not much mind a boy’s lying to +him. “What he hated was a monotony of +excuses.” “Mind your lying to him!” retorted +Lord Blachford, with a keen recollection +of his own juvenile experiences; “why +he exacted it as a token of respect.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> + +<p>If, sick of the brutality of the schools, we +seek those rare cases in which a home education +was substituted, we are generally rewarded +by finding the comforts greater and +the cramming worse. It is simply impossible +for a pedagogue to try and wring from a hundred +brains the excess of work which may, under +clever treatment, be extracted from one; +and so the Eton boys, with all their manifold +miseries, were at least spared the peculiar +experiments which were too often tried upon +solitary scholars. Nowadays anxious parents +and guardians seem to labor under an ill-founded +apprehension that their children are +going to hurt themselves by over-application +to their books, and we hear a great deal about +the expedience of restraining this inordinate +zeal. But a few generations back such comfortable +theories had yet to be evolved, and +the plain duty of a teacher was to goad the +student on to every effort in his power.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the two most striking instances of +home training that have been given to the +world are those of John Stuart Mill and Giacomo +Leopardi; the principal difference being +that, while the English boy was crammed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +scientifically by his father, the Italian poet +was permitted to relentlessly cram himself. +In both cases we see the same melancholy, +blighted childhood; the same cold indifference +to the mother, as to one who had no part or +parcel in their lives; the same joyless routine +of labor; the same unboyish gravity and precocious +intelligence. Mill studied Greek at +three, Latin at eight, the Organon at eleven, +and Adam Smith at thirteen. Leopardi at +ten was well acquainted with most Latin authors, +and undertook alone and unaided the +study of Greek, perfecting himself in that language +before he was fourteen. Mill’s sole recreation +was to walk with his father, narrating +to him the substance of his last day’s reading. +Leopardi, being forbidden to go about Recanati +without his tutor, acquiesced with pathetic +resignation, and ceased to wander outside +the garden gates. Mill had all boyish enthusiasm +and healthy partisanship crushed out of +him by his father’s pitiless logic. Leopardi’s +love for his country burned like a smothered +flame, and added one more to the pangs that +eat out his soul in silence. His was truly a +wonderful intellect; and whereas the English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +lad was merely forced by training into a precocity +foreign to his nature, and which, according +to Mr. Bain, failed to produce any +great show of juvenile scholarship, the Italian +boy fed on books with a resistless and craving +appetite, his mind growing warped and morbid +as his enfeebled body sank more and more under +the unwholesome strain. In the long lists +of despotically reared children there is no sadder +sight than this undisciplined, eager, impetuous +soul, burdened alike with physical and +moral weakness, meeting tyrannical authority +with a show of insincere submission, and +laying up in his lonely infancy the seeds of a +sorrow which was to find expression in the +key-note of his work, Life is Only Fit to be +Despised.</p> + +<p>Between the severe mental training of boys +and the education thought fit and proper for +girls, there was throughout the eighteenth century +a broad and purposeless chasm. Before +that time, and after it, too, the majority of +women were happily ignorant of many subjects +which every school-girl of to-day aspires +to handle; but during the reigns of Queen +Anne and the first three Georges, this ignorance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +was considered an essential charm of +their sex, and was displayed with a pretty +ostentation that sufficiently proves its value. +Such striking exceptions as Madame de Staël, +Mrs. Montagu, and Anne Damer were not +wanting to give points of light to the picture; +but they hardly represent the real womanhood +of their time. Femininity was then based +upon shallowness, and girls were solemnly +warned not to try and ape the acquirements of +men, but to keep themselves rigorously within +their own ascertained limits. We find a famous +school-teacher, under whose fostering +care many a court belle was trained for social +triumphs, laying down the law on this subject +with no uncertain hand, and definitely placing +women in their proper station. “Had a <i>third +order</i> been necessary,” she writes naively, +“doubtless one would have been created, a +<i>midway</i> kind of being.” In default, however, +of this recognized <i>via media</i>, she deprecates +all impious attempts to bridge over the chasm +between the two sexes; and “accounts it a +misfortune for a female to be learned, a genius, +or in any way a prodigy, as it removes +her from her natural sphere.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + +<p>“Those were days,” says a writer in Blackwood, +“when superficial teaching was thought +the proper teaching for girls; when every +science had its feminine language, as Hindu +ladies talk with a difference and with softer +terminations than their lords: as The Young +Ladies’ Geography, which is to be read instead +of novels; A Young Ladies’ Guide +to Astronomy; The Use of the Globes for +Girls’ Schools; and the Ladies’ Polite Letter-Writer.” +What was really necessary for +a girl was to learn how to knit, to dance, to +curtsy, and to carve; the last-named accomplishment +being one of her exclusive privileges. +Lady Mary Wortley Montagu received lessons +from a professional carving-master, who taught +her the art scientifically; and during her father’s +grand dinners her labors were often so +exhausting that translating the Enchiridion +must have seemed by comparison a light and +easy task. Indeed, after that brilliant baby +entrance into the Kitcat Club, very little that +was pleasant fell to Lady Mary’s share; and +years later she recalls the dreary memories of +her youth in a letter written to her sister, +Lady Mar. “Don’t you remember,” she asks,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +pathetically, “how miserable we were in the +little parlor at Thoresby?”</p> + +<p>Her own education she always protested was +of the worst and flimsiest character, and her +girlish scorn at the restraints that cramped and +fettered her is expressed vigorously enough +in the well-known letter to Bishop Burnet. It +was considered almost criminal, she complains, +to improve her reason, or even to fancy she +had any. To be learned was to be held up +to universal ridicule, and the only line of +conduct open to her was to play the fool in +concert with other women of quality, “whose +birth and leisure merely serve to make them +the most useless and worthless part of creation.” +Yet viewed alongside of her contemporaries, +Lady Mary’s advantages were really +quite unusual. She had some little guidance +in her studies, with no particular opposition to +overcome, and tolerance was as much at any +time as a thoughtful girl could hope for. +Nearly a century later we find little Mary +Fairfax—afterwards Mrs. Somerville, and +the most learned woman in England—being +taught how to sew, to read her Bible, and to +learn the Shorter Catechism; all else being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +considered superfluous for a female. Moreover, +the child’s early application to her books +was regarded with great disfavor by her relatives, +who plainly thought that no good was +likely to come of it. “I wonder,” said her +rigid aunt to Lady Fairfax, “that you let +Mary waste her time in reading!”</p> + +<p>“You cannot hammer a girl into anything,” +says Ruskin, who has constituted himself +both champion and mentor of the sex; +and perhaps this was the reason that so many +of these rigorously drilled and kept-down girls +blossomed perversely into brilliant and scholarly +women. Nevertheless, it is comforting to +turn back for a moment, and see what Holland, +in the seventeenth century, could do for +her clever children. Mr. Gosse has shown us +a charming picture of the three daughters of +Roemer Visscher, the poetess Tesselschade and +her less famous sisters,—three little girls, +whose healthy mental and physical training +was happily free from either narrow contraction +or hot-house pressure. “All of them,” +writes Ernestus Brink, “were practiced in very +sweet accomplishments. They could play music, +paint, write, and engrave on glass, make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +poems, cut emblems, embroider all manner of +fabrics, and swim well; which last thing they +had learned in their father’s garden, where +there was a canal with water, outside the +city.” What wonder that these little maidens, +with skilled fingers, and clear heads, and +vigorous bodies, grew into three keen-witted +and charming women, around whom we find +grouped that rich array of talent which suddenly +raised Holland to a unique literary distinction! +What wonder that their influence, +alike refining and strengthening, was felt on +every hand, and was repaid with universal +gratitude and love!</p> + +<p>There is a story told of Professor Wilson, +that one day, listening to a lecture on education +by Dr. Whately, he grew manifestly impatient +at the rules laid down, and finally +slipped out of the room, exclaiming irately to +a friend who followed him, “I always thought +God Almighty made man, but <i>he</i> says it was +the schoolmaster.”</p> + +<p>In like manner many of us have wondered +from time to time whether children are made +of such ductile material, and can be as readily +moulded to our wishes, as educators would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +have us believe. If it be true that nature +counts for nothing and training for everything, +then what a gap between the boys and +girls of two hundred years ago and the boys +and girls we know to-day! The rigid bands +that once bound the young to decorum have +dwindled to a silver thread that snaps under +every restive movement. To have “perfectly +natural” children seems to be the outspoken +ambition of parents, who have succeeded in +retrograding their offspring from artificial civilization +to that pure and wholesome savagery +which is too plainly their ideal. “It is assumed +nowadays,” declares an angry critic, +“that children have come into the world to +make a noise; and it is the part of every good +parent to put up with it, and to make all +household arrangements with a view to their +sole pleasure and convenience.”</p> + +<p>That the children brought up under this +relaxed discipline acquire certain merits and +charms of their own is an easily acknowledged +fact. We are not now alluding to those +spoiled and over-indulged little people who +are the recognized scourges of humanity, but +merely to the boys and girls who have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +allowed from infancy that large degree of +freedom which is deemed expedient for enlightened +nurseries, and who regulate their +own conduct on the vast majority of occasions. +They are as a rule light-hearted, truthful, +affectionate, and occasionally amusing; but it +cannot be denied that they lack that nicety of +breeding which was at one time the distinguishing +mark of children of the upper classes, +and which was in a great measure born of the +restraints that surrounded them. The faculty +of sitting still without fidgeting, of walking +without rushing, and of speaking without +screaming can be acquired only under tuition; +but it is worth some little trouble to attain. +When Sydney Smith remarked that the children +of rank were generally so much better +bred than the children of the middle classes, +he recognized the greater need for self-restraint +that entered into their lives. They may have +been less natural, perhaps, but they were infinitely +more pleasing to his fastidious eyes; and +the unconscious grace which he admired was +merely the reflection of the universal courtesy +that surrounded them. Nor is this all. “The +necessity of self-repression,” says a recent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +writer in Blackwood, “makes room for thought, +which those children miss who have no formalities +to observe, no customs to respect, who blurt +out every irrelevance, who interpose at will with +question and opinion as it enters the brain. +Children don’t learn to talk by chattering to +one another, and saying what comes uppermost. +Mere listening with intelligence involves +an exercise of mental speech, and observant +silence opens the pores of the mind as +impatient demands for explanation never do.”</p> + +<p>This is true, inasmuch as it is not the child +who is encouraged to talk continually who in +the end learns how to arrange and express his +ideas. Nor does the fretful desire to be told +at once what everything means imply the active +mind which parents so fondly suppose; +but rather a languid percipience, unable to +decipher the simplest causes for itself. Yet +where shall we turn to look for the “observant +silence,” so highly recommended? The young +people who observed and were silent have +passed away,—little John Ruskin being assuredly +the last of the species,—and their +places are filled by those to whom observation +and silence are alike unknown. This is the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +children’s age, and all things are subservient +to their wishes. Masses of juvenile literature +are published annually for their amusement; +conversation is reduced steadily to their level +while they are present; meals are arranged to +suit their hours, and the dishes thereof to suit +their palates; studies are made simpler and +toys more elaborate with each succeeding year. +The hardships they once suffered are now happily +ended, the decorum once exacted is fading +rapidly away. We accept the situation with +philosophy, and only now and then, under the +pressure of some new development, are startled +into asking ourselves where it is likely to end.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Life of St. Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury.</i> By Martin +Rule.</p> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ON_THE_BENEFITS_OF_SUPERSTITION">ON THE BENEFITS OF SUPERSTITION.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>“We in England,” says Mr. Kinglake, +“are scarcely sufficiently conscious of the +great debt we owe to the wise and watchful +press which presides over the formation of +our opinions, and which brings about this +splendid result, namely, that in matters of belief +the humblest of us are lifted up to the +level of the most sagacious; so that really a +simple cornet in the Blues is no more likely +to entertain a foolish belief in ghosts, or +witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, +than the Lord High Chancellor or the leader +of the House of Commons.” This delicate +sarcasm, delivered with all the author’s habitual +serenity of mind, is quoted by Mr. Ruskin +in his Art of England; assentingly, indeed, +but with a half-concealed dismay that any one +could find it in his heart to be funny upon +such a distressing subject. When he, Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +Ruskin, hurls his satiric shafts against the +spirit of modern skepticism, the points are +touched with caustic, and betray a deep impatience +darkening quickly into wrath. Is it +not bad enough that we ride in steam-cars instead +of post-chaises, live amid brick houses +instead of green fields, and pass by some of +the “most accomplished pictures in the +world” to stare gaping at the last new machine, +with its network of slow-revolving, +wicked-looking wheels? If, in addition to +these too prominent faults, we are going to +frown down the old appealing superstitions, +and threaten them, like naughty children, +with the corrective discipline of scientific research, +he very properly turns his back upon +us forever, and distinctly says he has no further +message for our ears.</p> + +<p>Let us rather, then, approach the subject +with the invaluable humility of Don Bernal +Dias del Castillo, that gallant soldier who followed +the fortunes of Cortés into Mexico, and +afterwards penned the Historia Verdadera, an +ingenuous narrative of their discoveries, their +hardships, and their many battles. In one +of these, it seems, the blessed Saint Iago<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +appeared in the thickest of the fray, mounted +on a snow-white charger, leading his beloved +Spaniards to victory. Now the <i>conquestador</i> +freely admits that he himself did not behold +the saint; on the contrary, what he <i>did</i> see +in that particular spot was a cavalier named +Francisco de Morla, riding on a chestnut +horse. But does he, on that account, puff +himself up with pride, and declare that his +more fortunate comrades were mistaken? By +no means! He is as firmly convinced of the +presence of the vision as if it had been apparent +to his eyes, and with admirable modesty +lays all the blame upon his own unworthiness. +“Sinner that I am!” he exclaims devoutly, +“why should I have been permitted to behold +the blessed apostle?” In the same spirit, +honest Peter Walker strained his sight in +vain for a glimpse of the ghostly armies that +crossed the Clyde in the summer of 1686, +and, seeing nothing, was content to believe in +them, all the same, on the testimony of his +neighbors.</p> + +<p>Sir Walter Scott, who appears to have +wasted a good deal of time in trying to persuade +himself that he put no faith in spirits,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +confesses quite humbly, in his old age, that +“the tendency to belief in supernatural agencies +seems connected with and deduced from +the invaluable conviction of the certainty of a +future state.” And beyond a doubt this tendency +was throughout his life the source of +many pleasurable emotions. So much so, in +fact, that, according to Mr. Pater’s theory of +happiness, the loss of these emotions, bred in +him from childhood, would have been very +inadequately repaid by a gain in scientific +knowledge. If it be the true wisdom to direct +our finest efforts towards multiplying our sensations, +and so expanding the brief interval +we call life, then the old unquestioning credulity +was a more powerful motor in human +happiness than any sentiment that fills its +ground to-day. In the first place it was closely +associated with certain types of beauty, and +beauty is one of the tonics now most earnestly +recommended to our sick souls. “Les +fions d’aut fais” were charming to the very +tips of their dewy, trembling wings; the elfin +people, who danced in the forest glades under +the white moonbeams, danced their way without +any difficulty right into the hearts of men;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +the swan-maiden, who ventured shyly in the +fisher’s path, was easily transformed into a +loving wife; even the mara, most suspicious +and terrible of ghostly visitors, has often laid +aside her darker instincts, and developed into +a cheerful spouse, with only a tinge of mystery +to make her more attractive in her husband’s +eyes. Melusina combing her golden +hair by the bubbling fountain of Lusignan, +Undine playing in the rain-drenched forest, +the nixie dancing at the village feast with her +handsome Flemish lad, and the mermaid reluctantly +leaving her watery home to wed the +youth who captured her magic seal-skin, all +belong to the sisterhood of beauty, and their +images did good service in raising the vulgar +mind from its enforced contemplation of the +sordid troubles, the droning vexations, of life.</p> + +<p>Next, the happy believers in the supernatural +owed to their simplicity delicious throbs +of fear,—not craven cowardice, but that more +refined and complex feeling, which is of all +sensations the most enthralling, the most elusive, +and the most impossible to define. Fear, +like all other treacherous gifts, must be +handled with discrimination: a thought too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +much, and we are brutalized and degraded; +but within certain limits it enhances all the +pleasures of life. When Captain Forsyth +stood behind a tree on a sultry summer morning, +and saw the tigress step softly through +the long jungle grass, and the affrighted +monkeys swing chattering overhead, there +must have come upon him that sensation of +awe which alone makes courage possible.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +He knew that his life hung trembling in the +balance, and that all depended upon the first +shot he fired. He respected, as a sane man +would, the mighty strength of his antagonist, +her graceful limbs instinct with power, her +cruel eyes blinking in the yellow dawn. And +born of the fear, which stirred but could not +conquer him, came the keen transport of the +hunter, who feels that one such supremely +heroic moment is worth a year of ordinary +life. Without that dread, not only would the +joy be lessened, and the glad rebound from +danger to a sense of safety lost forever, but +the disciplined and manly courage of the English +soldier would degenerate into a mere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +brutish audacity, hardly above the level of the +beast he slays.</p> + +<p>In children, this delicate emotion of fear, +growing out of their dependent condition, +gives dignity and meaning to their courage +when they are brave, and a delicious zest to +their youthful delinquencies. Gray, in his +chilly and melancholy manhood, years after +he has resigned himself to never again being +“either dirty or amused” as long as he lives, +goes back like a flash to the unlawful delight +of a schoolboy’s stolen freedom:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Still as they run they look behind,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They hear a voice in every wind,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And snatch a fearful joy.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>And who that has ever watched a party of +children, listening with bright eyes and parted +lips to some weird, uncanny legend,—like +that group of little girls for instance, in Mr. +Charles Gregory’s picture Tales and Wonders,—can +doubt for a moment the “fearful +joy” that terror lends them? Nowadays, it +is true, their youthful ears are but too well +guarded from such indiscretions until they are +old enough to scoff at all fantastic folly, and +the age at which they learn to scoff is one of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +the most astonishing things about our modern +progress. They have ceased to read fairy +stories, because they no longer believe in +fairies; they find Hans Andersen silly, and +the Arabian Nights stupid; and the very +babies, “skeptics in long-coats,” scorn you +openly if you venture to hint at Santa Claus. +“What did Kriss Kringle bring you this +Christmas?” I rashly asked a tiny mite of +a girl; and her answer was as emphatic as +Betsey Prig’s, when, with folded arms and a +contemptuous mien, she let fall the ever memorable +words, “I don’t believe there’s no sich +a person.”</p> + +<p>Yet the supernatural, provided it be not too +horrible, is legitimate food for a child’s mind, +nourishes its imagination, inspires a healthy +awe, and is death to that precocious pedantry +which is the least pleasing trait that children +are wont to manifest. While few are willing +to go as far as Mr. Ruskin, who, having himself +been brought up on fairy legends, confesses +that his “first impulse would be to insist +upon every story we tell to a child being +untrue, and every scene we paint for it impossible,” +yet a fair proportion of the untrue and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +the impossible should enter into its education, +and it should be left to the enjoyment of them +as long as may be. Those of us who have +been happy enough to believe that salamanders +basked in the fire and mermaids swam in +the deeps, that were-wolves roamed in the forests +and witches rode in the storm, are richer +by all these unfading pictures and unforgotten +memories than our more scrupulously reared +neighbors. And what if we could give such +things the semblance of reality once more,—could +set foot in spirit within the enchanted +forest of Broceliande, and enjoy the tempestuous +gusts of fear that shook the heart-strings +of the Breton peasant, as the great trees drew +their mysterious shadows above his head? +On either side lurk shadowy forms of elf and +fairy, half hidden by the swelling trunks; the +wind whispers in the heavy boughs, and he +hears their low, malicious laughter; the dry +leaves rustle beneath his feet,—he knows +their stealthy steps are close behind; a broken +twig falls on his shoulder, and he starts trembling, +for unseen hands have touched him. +Around his neck hang a silver medal of Our +Lady and a bit of ash wood given him by a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +wise woman, whom many believe a witch; +thus is he doubly guarded from the powers of +evil. Beyond the forest lies the open path, +where wife and children stand waiting by the +cottage door. He is a brave man to wander +in the gloaming, and if he reaches home there +will be much to tell of all that he has seen, +and heard, and felt. Should he be devoured +by wolves, however,—and there is always this +prosaic danger to be apprehended,—then his +comrades will relate how he left them and +went alone into the haunted woods, and his sorrowing +widow will know that the fairies have +carried him away, or turned him into stone. +And the wise woman, reproached, perhaps, for +the impotence of her charms, will say how +with her own aged eyes she has three times +seen Kourigan, Death’s elder brother, flitting +before the doomed man, and knew that his +fate was sealed. So while fresh tales of mystery +cluster round his name, and his children +breathe them in trembling whispers by the +fireside, their mother will wait hopefully for +the spell to be broken, and the lost given back +to her arms; until Pierrot, the charcoal-burner, +persuades her that a stone remains<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> +a stone until the Judgment Day, and that in +the mean time his own hut by the kiln is +empty, and he needs a wife.</p> + +<p>But superstition, it is claimed, begets cruelty, +and cruelty is a vice now most rigorously +frowned down by polite society. Daring spirits, +like Mr. Besant, may still urge its claims +upon our reluctant consideration; Mr. Andrew +Lang may pronounce it an essential element +of humor; or a purely speculative genius, like +Mr. Pater, may venture to show how adroitly +it can be used as a help to religious sentiment; +but every age has pet vices of its own, +and, being singularly intolerant of those it has +discarded, is not inclined to listen to any arguments +in their favor. Superstition burned +old women for witches, dotards for warlocks, +and idiots for were-wolves; but in its gentler +aspect it often threw a veil of charity over +both man and beast. The Greek rustic, who +found a water-newt wriggling in his gourd, +tossed the little creature back into the stream, +remembering that it was the unfortunate Ascalaphus, +whom the wrath of Demeter had consigned +to this loathsome doom. The mediæval +housewife, when startled by a gaunt wolf<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +gazing through her kitchen window, bethought +her that this might be her lost husband, roaming +helpless and bewitched, and so gave the +starving creature food.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“O was it war-wolf in the wood?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or was it mermaid in the sea?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or was it man, or vile woman,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">My ain true love, that misshaped thee?”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>The West Indian negress still bestows chicken-soup +instead of scalding water on the invading +army of black ants, believing that if kindly +treated they will show their gratitude in the +only way that ants can manifest it,—by taking +their departure.</p> + +<p>Granted that in these acts of gentleness +there are traces of fear and self-consideration; +but who shall say that all our good deeds are +not built up on some such trestle-work of +foibles? “La vertu n’iroit pas si loin, si la +vanité ne lui tenoit pas compagnie.” And +what universal politeness has been fostered by +the terror that superstition breeds, what delicate +euphemisms containing the very soul of +courtesy! Consider the Greeks, who christened +the dread furies “Eumenides,” or “gracious +ones;” the Scotch who warily spoke of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +the devil as the “good man,” lest his sharp +ears should catch a more unflattering title; +the Dyak who respectfully mentions the small-pox +as “the chief;” the East Indian who +calls the tiger “lord” or “grandfather;” and +the Laplander, who gracefully alludes to the +white bear as “the fur-clad one,” and then realize +what perfection of breeding was involved +in what we are wont to call ignorant credulity.</p> + +<p>Again, in the stress of modern life, how little +room is left for that most comfortable vanity +which whispers in our ears that failures are +not faults! Now we are taught from infancy +that we must rise or fall upon our own merits; +that vigilance wins success, and incapacity +means ruin. But before the world had grown +so pitilessly logical there was no lack of excuses +for the defeated, and of unflattering +comments for the strong. Did some shrewd +Cornish miner open a rich vein of ore, then it +was apparent to his fellow-toilers that the +knackers had been at work, leading him on by +their mysterious tapping to this more fruitful +field. But let him proceed warily, for the +knacker, like its German brother, the kobold, +is but a capricious sprite, and some day may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +beguile him into a mysterious passage or long-forgotten +chamber in the mine, whence he +shall never more return. His bones will +whiten in their prison, while his spirit, wandering +restlessly among the subterranean corridors, +will be heard on Christmas Eve, hammering +wearily away till the gray dawn +brightens in the east. Or did some prosperous +farmer save his crop while his neighbors’ +corn was blighted, and raise upon his small +estate more than their broader acres could be +forced to yield, there was no opportunity afforded +him for pride or self-congratulation. +Only the witch’s art could bring about such +strange results, and the same sorceries that +had aided him had, doubtless, been the ruin +of his friends. He was a lucky man if their +indignation went no further than muttered +phrases and averted heads. Does not Pliny +tell us the story of Caius Furius Cresinus, +whose heavy crops awoke such mingled anger +and suspicion in his neighbors’ hearts that he +was accused in the courts of conjuring their +grain and fruit into his own scanty ground? +If a woman aspired to be neater than her gossips, +or to spin more wool than they were able<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +to display, it was only because the pixies +labored for her at night; turning her wheel +briskly in the moonlight, splitting the wood, +and drawing the water, while she drowsed idly +in her bed.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“And every night the pixies good</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Drive round the wheel with sound subdued,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And leave—in this they never fail—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A silver penny in the pail.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Even to the clergy this engaging theory +brought its consolations. When the Reverend +Lucas Jacobson Debes, pastor of Thorshaven +in 1670, found that his congregation +was growing slim, he was not forced, in bitterness +of spirit, to ask himself were his sermons +dull, but promptly laid all the blame +upon the <i>biergen-trold</i>, the spectres of the +mountains, whom he angrily accused, in a +lengthy homily, of disturbing his flock, and +even pushing their discourtesy so far as to +carry them off bodily before his discourse was +completed.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it is to the clergy that we are indebted +for much interesting information concerning +the habits of goblins, witches, and +gnomes. The Reverend Robert Kirke, of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +Aberfoyle, Perthshire, divided his literary labors +impartially between a translation of the +Psalms into Gaelic verse and an elaborate +treatise on the “Subterranean and for the +most part Invisible People, heretofore going +under the name of Elves, Faunes, and Fairies, +or the like,” which was printed, with the author’s +name attached, in 1691. Here, unsullied +by any taint of skepticism, we have an +array of curious facts that would suggest the +closest intimacy between the rector and the +“Invisible People,” who at any rate concealed +nothing from <i>his</i> eyes. He tells us gravely +that they marry, have children, die, and are +buried, very much like ordinary mortals; that +they are inveterate thieves, stealing everything, +from the milk in the dairy to the baby +lying on its mother’s breast; that they can +fire their elfin arrow-heads so adroitly that the +weapon penetrates to the heart without breaking +the skin, and he himself has seen animals +wounded in this manner; that iron in any +shape or form is a terror to them, not for the +same reason that Solomon misliked it, but on +account of the proximity of the great iron +mines to the place of eternal punishment; and—strangest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +of all—that they can read and +write, and have extensive libraries, where light +and toyish books alternate with ponderous +volumes on abstruse mystical subjects. Only +the Bible may not be found among them.</p> + +<p>How Mr. Kirke acquired all these particulars—whether, +like John Dietrich, he lived +in the Elfin Mound and grew wise on elfin +wisdom, or whether he adopted a less laborious +and secluded method—does not transpire. +But one thing is certain: he was destined to +pay a heavy price for his unhallowed knowledge. +The fairies, justly irritated at such an +open revelation of their secrets, revenged themselves +signally by carrying off the offender, +and imprisoning him beneath the dun-shi, or +goblin hill, where he has since had ample opportunity +to pursue his investigations. It is +true, his parishioners supposed he had died +of apoplexy, and, under that impression, +buried him in Aberfoyle churchyard; but his +successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, informs us +of the widespread belief concerning his true +fate. An effort was even made to rescue him +from his captivity, but it failed through the +neglect of a kinsman, Grahame of Duchray;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +and Robert Kirke, like Thomas of Ercildoune +and the three miners of the Kuttenberg, still +“drees his weird” in the enchanted halls of +elfland.</p> + +<p>When the unfortunate witches of Warbois +were condemned to death, on the testimony of +the Throgmorton children, Sir Samuel Cromwell, +as lord of the manor, received forty +pounds out of their estate; which sum he +turned into a rent-charge of forty shillings +yearly, for the endowment of an annual lecture +on witchcraft, to be preached by a doctor +or bachelor of divinity, of Queen’s College, +Cambridge. Thus he provided for his +tenants a good sound church doctrine on this +interesting subject, and we may rest assured +that the sermons were far from quieting their +fears, or lulling them into a skeptical indifference. +Indeed, more imposing names than Sir +Samuel Cromwell’s appear in the lists to do +battle for cherished superstitions. Did not +the devout and conscientious Baxter firmly believe +in the powers of witches, especially after +“hearing their sad confessions;” and was not +the gentle and learned Addison more than +half disposed to believe in them, too? Does<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +not Bacon avow that a “well-regulated” astrology +might become the medium of many beneficial +truths; and did not the scholarly Dominican, +Stephen of Lusignan, expand the legend +of Melusina into so noble a history, that the +great houses of Luxembourg, Rohan, and Sassenaye +altered their pedigrees, so as to claim +descent from that illustrious nymph? Even +the Emperor Henry VII. was as proud of his +fishy ancestress as was Godfrey de Bouillon of +his mysterious grandsire, Helias, the Knight +of the Swan, better known to us as the Lohengrin +of Wagner’s opera; while among more +modest annals appear the families of Fantome +and Dobie, each bearing a goblin on their +crest, in witness of their claim to some shadowy +supernatural kinship.</p> + +<p>There is often a marked contrast between +the same superstition as developed in different +countries, and in the same elfin folk, who +please or terrify us according to the gay or serious +bent of their mortal interpreters. While +the Keltic ourisk is bright and friendly, with +a tinge of malice and a strong propensity to +blunder, the English brownie is a more clever +and audacious sprite, the Scottish bogle is a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +sombre and dangerous acquaintance, and the +Dutch Hudikin an ungainly counterpart of +Puck, with hardly a redeeming quality, save a +lumbering fashion of telling the truth when it +is least expected. It was Hudikin who foretold +the murder of James I. of Scotland; though +why he should have left the dikes of Holland +for the bleak Highland hills it is hard to say, +more especially as there were murders enough +at home to keep him as busy as Cassandra. +So, too, when the English witches rode up the +chimney and through the storm-gusts to their +unhallowed meetings, they apparently confined +their attention to the business in hand, having +perhaps enough to occupy them in managing +their broomstick steeds. But when the Scottish +hags cried, “Horse and hattock in the +devil’s name!” and rushed fiercely through +the tempestuous night, the unlucky traveler +crossed himself and trembled, lest in very +wantonness they aim their magic arrows at his +heart. Isobel Gowdie confessed at her trial +to having fired in this manner at the Laird of +the Park, as he rode through a ford; but the +influence of the running water turned her dart +aside, and she was soundly cuffed by Bessie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +Hay, another witch, for her awkwardness in +choosing such an unpropitious moment.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In +one respect alone this evil sisterhood were all +in harmony. By charms and spells they revenged +themselves terribly on their enemies, +and inflicted malicious injuries on their friends. +It was as easy for them to sink a ship in mid-ocean +as to dry the milk in a cow’s udder, or +to make a strong man pine away while his +waxen image was consumed inch by inch on +the witch’s smouldering hearth.</p> + +<p>This instinctive belief in evil spells is the +essence, not of witchcraft only, but of every +form of superstition, from the days of Thessalian +magic to the brutish rites of the Louisiana +Voodoo. It has brought to the scaffold +women of gentle blood, like Janet Douglas, +Lady Glamis, and to the stake visionary enthusiasts +like Jeanne d’Arc. It confronts us from +every page of history, it stares at us from the +columns of the daily press. It has provided an +outlet for fear, hope, love, and hatred, and a +weapon for every passion that stirs the soul of +man. It is equally at home in all parts of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +world, and has entered freely into the religion, +the traditions, and the folk-lore of all nations. +Actæon flying as a stag from the pursuit of +his own hounds; Circe’s swinish captives +groveling at their troughs; Björn turned into +a bear through the malice of his stepmother, +and hunted to death by his father, King +Hring; the Swans of Lir floating mournfully +on the icy waters of the Moyle; the <i>loup-garou</i> +lurking in the forests of Brittany, and +the <i>oborot</i> coursing over the Russian steppes; +Merlin sleeping in the gloomy depths of Broceliande, +and Raknar buried fifty fathoms below +the coast of Helluland, are alike the victims</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Of woven paces and of waving hands.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">whether the spell be cast by an outraged divinity, +or by the cruel hand of a malignant foe.</p> + +<p>In 1857, Mr. Newton discovered at Cnidos +fragments of a buried and ruined chapel, +sacred to Demeter and Persephone. In it +were three marble figures of great beauty, +some small votive images of baked earth, several +bronze lamps, and a number of thin leaden +rolls, pierced with holes for the convenience of +hanging them around the chapel walls. On +these rolls were inscribed the diræ, or spells,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +devoting some enemy to the infernal gods, and +the motive for the suppliant’s ill-will was given +with great <i>naïveté</i> and earnestness. One +woman binds another who has lured away her +lover; a second, the enemy who has accused +her of poisoning her husband; a third, the +thief who has stolen her bracelet; a fourth, +the man who has robbed her of a favorite +drinking-horn; a fifth, the acquaintance who +has failed to return a borrowed garment; and +so on through a long list of grievances.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It +is evident this form of prayer was quite a common +occurrence, and, as combining a religious +rite with a comfortable sense of retaliation, +must have been exceptionally soothing to the +worshiper’s mind. Persephone was appeased +and their own wrongs atoned for by this simple +act of devotion; and would that it were given +to us now to inscribe, and by inscribing doom, +all those who have borrowed and failed to return +our books; would that by scribbling some +strong language on a piece of lead we could +avenge the lamentable gaps on our shelves, +and send the ghosts of the wrong-doers howling +dismally into the eternal shades of Tartarus.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> +<p>The saddest thing about these faded superstitions +is that the very men who have studied +them most accurately are often least susceptible +to their charms. In their eagerness to +trace back every myth to a common origin, +and to prove, with or without reason, that they +one and all arose from the observation of +natural phenomena, too many writers either +overlook entirely the beauty and meaning of +the tale, or treat it with a contemptuous indifference +very hard to understand. Mr. Baring-Gould, +a most honorable exception to this +evil rule, takes occasion now and then to deal +some telling blows at the extravagant theorists +who persist in maintaining that every tradition +bears its significance on its surface, and who, +following up their preconceived opinions, +cruelly overtax the credulity of their readers. +He himself has shown conclusively that many +Aryan myths are but allegorical representations +of natural forces; but in these cases the +connection is always distinctly traced and +easily understood. It is not hard for any of us +to perceive the likeness between the worm +Schamir, the hand of glory, and the lightning, +when their peculiar properties are so much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +alike; or to behold in the Sleeping Beauty or +Thorn-Rose the ice-bound earth slumbering +through the long winter months, until the sun-god’s +kisses win her back to life and warmth. +But when we are asked to believe that William +Tell is the storm-cloud, with his arrow of +lightning and his iris bow bent against the sun, +which is resting like a coin or a golden apple +on the edge of the horizon, we cannot but feel, +with the author of Curious Myths, that a little +too much is exacted from us. “I must protest,” +he says, “against the manner in which +our German friends fasten rapaciously upon +every atom of history, sacred and profane, and +demonstrate all heroes to represent the sun; +all villains to be the demons of night or winter; +all sticks and spears and arrows to be the +lightning; all cows and sheep and dragons +and swans to be clouds.”</p> + +<p>But then it must be remembered that Mr. +Baring-Gould is the most tolerant and catholic +of writers, with hardly a hobby he can call his +own. Sympathizing with the sad destruction +of William Tell, he casts a lance in honor of +Saint George against Reynolds and Gibbon, +and manifests a lurking weakness for mermaids,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +divining-rods, and the Wandering Jew. +He is to be congratulated on his early training, +for he assures us he believed, on the testimony +of his Devonshire nurse, that all Cornishmen +had tails, until a Cornish bookseller stoutly +denied the imputation, and enlightened his infant +mind. He has the rare and happy faculty +of writing upon all mythical subjects with +grace, sympathy, and <i>vraisemblance</i>. Even +when there can be no question of credulity +either with himself or with his readers, he is +yet content to write as though for the time he +believes. Just as Mr. Birrell advises us to lay +aside our moral sense when we begin the memoirs +of an attractive scamp, and to recall it +carefully when we have finished, so Mr. Baring-Gould +generously lays aside his enlightened +skepticism when he undertakes to tell us about +sirens and were-wolves, and remembers that he +is of the nineteenth century only when his +task is done.</p> + +<p>This is precisely what Mr. John Fiske is unable +or unwilling to accomplish. He cannot +for a moment forget how much better he +knows; and instead of an indulgent smile at +the delightful follies of our ancestors, we detect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +here and there through his very valuable +pages something unpleasantly like a sneer. +“Where the modern calmly taps his forehead,” +explains Mr. Fiske, “and says, ‘Arrested +development!’ the terrified ancient made the +sign of the cross, and cried, ‘Were-wolf!’”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> +Now a more disagreeable object than the +“modern” tapping his forehead, like Dr. +Blimber, and offering a sensible elucidation of +every mystery, it would be hard to find. The +ignorant peasant making his sign of the cross +is not only more picturesque, but he is more +companionable,—in books, at least,—and it +is of far greater interest to try to realize how +<i>he</i> felt when the specimen of “arrested development” +stole past him in the shadow of the +woods. There is, after all, a mysterious +horror about the lame boy,—some impish +changeling of evil parentage, foisted on hell, +perhaps, as Nadir thrust his earth-born baby +into heaven,—who every Midsummer Night +and every Christmas Eve summoned the were-wolves +to their secret meeting, whence they +rushed ravenously over the German forests. +The girdle of human skin, three finger-breadths<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +wide, which wrought the transformation; the +telltale hairs in the hollow of the hand +which betrayed the wolfish nature; the fatality +which doomed one of every seven sisters to +this dreadful enchantment, and the trifling +accidents which brought about the same undesirable +result are so many handles by which +we grasp the strange emotions that swayed +the mediæval man. Jacques Roulet and Jean +Grenier,<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> as mere maniacs and cannibals, fill +every heart with disgust; but as were-wolves +an awful mystery wraps them round, and the +mind is distracted from pity for their victims +to a fascinated consideration of their own +tragic doom. A blood-thirsty idiot is an object +that no one cares to think about; but a +wolf-fiend, urged to deeds of violence by an +impulse he cannot resist, is one of those ghastly +creations that the folk-lore of every country +has placed sharply and persistently before our +startled eyes. Yet surely there is a touch of +comedy in the story told by Van Hahn, of an +unlucky freemason, who, having divulged the +secrets of his order, was pursued across the +Pyrenees by the master of his lodge in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +form of a were-wolf, and escaped only by +taking refuge in an empty cottage, and hiding +under the bed.</p> + +<p>“To us who are nourished from childhood,” +says Mr. Fiske again, “on the truths revealed +by science, the sky is known to be merely an +optical appearance, due to the partial absorption +of the solar rays in passing through a +thick stratum of atmospheric air; the clouds +are known to be large masses of watery vapor, +which descend in rain-drops when sufficiently +condensed; and the lightning is known to be +a flash of light accompanying an electric discharge.” +But the blue sky-sea of Aryan folk-lore, +in which the cloud-flakes floated as stately +swans, drew many an eye to the contemplation +of its loveliness, and touched many a heart +with the sacred charm of beauty. On that +mysterious sea strange vessels sailed from unknown +shores, and once a mighty anchor was +dropped by the sky mariners, and fell right +into a little English graveyard, to the great +amazement of the humble congregation just +coming out from church. The sensation of +freedom and space afforded by this conception +of the heavens is a delicious contrast to the +conceit of the Persian poet,—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent2">“That inverted Bowl they call the Sky,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die;”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">or to the Semitic legend, which described the +firmament as made of hammered plate, with +little windows for rain,—a device so poor and +barbaric, that we wonder how any man could +look up into the melting blue and admit such +a sordid fancy into his soul.</p> + +<p>“Scientific knowledge, even in the most +modest men,” confesses Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes, “has mingled with it something +which partakes of insolence. Absolute, peremptory +facts are bullies, and those who keep +company with them are apt to get a bullying +habit of mind.” Such an admission from so +genial and kindly a source should suffice to +put us all on the defensive. It is not agreeable +to be bullied even upon those matters +which are commonly classed as facts; but when +we come to the misty region of dreams and +myths and superstitions, let us remember, +with Lamb, that “we do not know the laws of +that country,” and with him generously forbear +to “set down our ancestors in the gross +for fools.” We have lost forever the fantasies +that enriched them. Not for us are the pink<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> +and white lions that gamboled in the land of +Prester John, nor his onyx floors, imparting +courage to all who trod on them. Not for us +the Terrestrial Paradise, with its “Welle of +Youthe, whereat thei that drynken semen alle +weys yongly, and lyven withouten sykeness;”<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +nor the Fortunate Isles beyond the Western +Sea, where spring was ever green; where +youths and maidens danced hand in hand on +the dewy grass, where the cows ungrudgingly +gave milk enough to fill whole ponds instead of +milking-pails, and where wizards and usurers +could never hope to enter. The doors of these +enchanted spots are closed upon us, and their +key, like Excalibur, lies hidden where no hand +can grasp it.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The whole wide world is painted gray on gray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And Wonderland forever is gone past.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>All we can do is to realize our loss with becoming +modesty, and now and then cast back +a wistful glance</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent22">“where underneath</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The shelter of the quaint kiosk, there sigh</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A troup of Fancy’s little China Dolls,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who dream and dream, with damask round their loins,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in their hands a golden tulip flower.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> <i>The Highlands of Central India.</i> By Captain James +Forsyth.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> <i>Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft</i>. By Sir Walter +Scott.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> <i>The Myth of Demeter and Persephone.</i> By Walter Pater.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Myths and Mythmakers.</i></p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> <i>Book of Were-Wolves.</i> By Baring-Gould.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> <i>Travels of Sir John Mandeville.</i></p> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="WHAT_CHILDREN_READ">WHAT CHILDREN READ.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It is part of the irony of life that our discriminating +taste for books should be built +up on the ashes of an extinct enjoyment. We +spend a great deal of our time in learning what +literature is good, and a great deal more in attuning +our minds to its reception, rightly convinced +that, by the training of our intellectual +faculties, we are unlocking one of the doors +through which sweetness and light may enter. +We are fond of reading, too, and have always +maintained with Macaulay that we would +rather be a poor man with books than a great +king without, though luckily for our resolution, +and perhaps for his, such a choice has +never yet been offered. Books, we say, are +our dearest friends, and so, with true friendly +acuteness, we are prompt to discover their +faults, and take great credit in our ingenuity. +But all this time, somewhere about the house, +curled up, may be, in a nursery window, or +hidden in a freezing attic, a child is poring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +over The Three Musketeers, lost to any consciousness +of his surroundings, incapable of analyzing +his emotions, breathless with mingled +fear and exultation over his heroes’ varying +fortunes, and drinking in a host of vivid impressions +that are absolutely ineffaceable from +his mind. We cannot read in that fashion +any longer, but we only wish we could. +Thackeray used to sigh in middle age over the +lost delights of five shillings’ worth of pastry; +but what was the pleasure of eating tarts to +the glamour cast over us by our first romance, +to the enchanted hours we spent with Sintram +by the sea-shore, or with Nydia in the darkened +streets of Pompeii, or perhaps—if we +were not too carefully watched—with Emily +in those dreadful vaults beneath Udolpho’s +walls!</p> + +<p>Nor is it fiction only that strongly excites +the imagination of a child. History is not to +him what it is to us, a tangle of disputed +facts, doubtful theories, and conflicting evidence. +He grasps its salient points with simple +directness, absorbs them into his mind +with tolerable accuracy, and passes judgment +on them with enviable ease. To him, historical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> +characters are at least as real as those of +romance, which they are very far from being +to us, and he enters into their impressions and +motives with a facile sympathy which we +rarely feel. Not only does he firmly believe +that Marcus Curtius leaped into the gulf, but +he has not yet learned to question the expediency +of the act; and, having never been enlightened +by Mr. Grote, the black broth of +Lykurgus is as much a matter of fact to him +as the bread and butter upon his own breakfast +table. Sir Walter Scott tells us that even +the dinner-bell—most welcome sound to boyish +ears—failed to win him from his rapt perusal +of Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry; +but Gibbon, as a lad, found the passage of the +Goths over the Danube just as engrossing, +and, stifling the pangs of hunger, preferred to +linger fasting in their company. The great +historian’s early love for history has furnished +Mr. Bagehot with one more proof of the fascination +of such records for the youthful mind, +and he bids us at the same time consider from +what a firm and tangible standpoint it regards +them. “Youth,” he writes, “has a principle +of consolidation. In history, the whole comes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> +in boyhood; the details later, and in manhood. +The wonderful series going far back to the +times of old patriarchs with their flocks and +herds, the keen-eyed Greek, the stately Roman, +the watchful Jew, the uncouth Goth, the horrid +Hun, the settled picture of the unchanging +East, the restless shifting of the rapid West, +the rise of the cold and classical civilization, +its fall, the rough, impetuous Middle Ages, +the vague warm picture of ourselves and home,—when +did we learn these? Not yesterday, +nor to-day, but long ago, in the first dawn of +reason, in the original flow of fancy. What +we learn afterwards are but the accurate littlenesses +of the great topic, the dates and tedious +facts. Those who begin late learn only these; +but the happy first feel the mystic associations +and the progress of the whole.”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>If this be true, and the child’s mind be not +only singularly alive to new impressions, but +quick to concentrate its knowledge into a consistent +whole, the value and importance of his +early reading can hardly be overestimated. +That much anxiety has been felt upon the subject +is proven by the cry of self-congratulation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +that rises on every side of us to-day. We are +on the right track at last, the press and the +publishers assure us; and with tons of healthy +juvenile literature flooding the markets every +year, our American boys and girls stand fully +equipped for the intellectual battles of life. +But if we will consider the matter in a dispassionate +and less boastful light, we shall +see that the good accomplished is mainly of a +negative character. By providing cheap and +wholesome reading for the young, we have +partly succeeded in driving from the field that +which was positively bad; yet nothing is easier +than to overdo a reformation, and, through +the characteristic indulgence of American parents, +children are drugged with a literature +whose chief merit is its harmlessness. These +little volumes, nicely written, nicely printed, +and nicely illustrated, are very useful in their +way; but they are powerless to awaken a +child’s imagination, or to stimulate his mental +growth. If stories, they merely introduce +him to a phase of life with which he is already +familiar; if historical, they aim at showing +him a series of detached episodes, broken pictures +of the mighty whole, shorn of its “mystic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +associations,” and stirring within his soul +no stronger impulse than that of a cheaply +gratified curiosity.</p> + +<p>Not that children’s books are to be neglected +or contemned. On the contrary, they are always +helpful, and in the average nursery have +grown to be a recognized necessity. But when +supplied with a too lavish hand, a child is +tempted to read nothing else, and his mind becomes +shrunken for lack of a vigorous stimulant +to excite and expand it. “Children,” +wrote Sir Walter Scott, “derive impulses of a +powerful and important kind from hearing +things that they cannot entirely comprehend. +It is a mistake to write down to their understanding. +Set them on the scent, and let +them puzzle it out.” Sir Walter himself, be +it observed, in common with most little people +of genius, got along strikingly well without +any juvenile literature at all. He shouted the +ballad of Hardyknute, to the great annoyance +of his aunt’s visitors, long before he knew how +to read, and listened at his grandmother’s +knee to her stirring tales about Watt of Harden, +Wight Willie of Aikwood, Jamie Telfer +of the fair Dodhead, and a host of border<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +heroes whose picturesque robberies were the +glory of their sober and respectable descendants. +Two or three old books which lay in the +window-seat were explored for his amusement +in the dreary winter days. Ramsay’s Tea-Table +Miscellany, a mutilated copy of Josephus, +and Pope’s translation of the Iliad appear to +have been his favorites, until, when about +eight years old, a happy chance threw him +under the spell of the two great poets who +have swayed most powerfully the pliant imaginations +of the young. “I found,” he writes +in his early memoirs, “within my mother’s +dressing-room (where I slept at one time) +some odd volumes of Shakespeare; nor can I +easily forget the rapture with which I sate up +in my shirt reading them by the light of a fire +in her apartment, until the bustle of the family +rising from supper warned me it was time to +creep back to my bed, where I was supposed +to have been safely deposited since nine +o’clock.” And a little later he adds, “Spenser +I could have read forever. Too young to +trouble myself about the allegory, I considered +all the knights, and ladies, and dragons, +and giants in their outward and exoteric sense,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +and Heaven only knows how delighted I was +to find myself in such society!”</p> + +<p>“How much of our poetry,” it has been +asked, “owes its start to Spenser, when the +Fairy Queen was a household book, and lay in +the parlor window-seat?” And how many +brilliant fancies have emanated from those +same window-seats, which Montaigne so keenly +despised? There, where the smallest child +could climb with ease, lay piled up in a corner, +within the reach of his little hands, the +few precious volumes which perhaps comprised +the literary wealth of the household. Those +were not days when over-indulgence and a +multiplicity of books robbed reading of its +healthy zest. We know that in the window-seat +of Cowley’s mother’s room lay a copy of +the Fairy Queen, which to her little son was a +source of unfailing delight, and Pope has recorded +the ecstasy with which, as a lad, he +pored over this wonderful poem; but then +neither Cowley nor Pope had the advantage +of following Oliver Optic through the slums +of New York, or living with some adventurous +“boy hunters” in the jungles of Central +Africa. On the other hand, there is a delicious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +account of Bentham, in his early childhood, +climbing to the height of a huge stool, +and sitting there night after night reading +Rapin’s history by the light of two candles; a +weird little figure, whose only counterpart in +literature is the small John Ruskin propped +up solemnly in his niche, “like an idol,” and +hemmed in from the family reach by the table +on which his book reposed. It is quite evident +that Bentham found the mental nutrition +he wanted in Rapin’s rather dreary pages, +just as Pope and Cowley found it in Spenser, +Ruskin in the Iliad, and Burns in the marvelous +stories told by that “most ignorant and +superstitious old woman,” who made the poet +afraid of his own shadow, and who, as +he afterwards freely acknowledged, fanned +within his soul the kindling flame of genius.</p> + +<p>Look where we will, we find the author’s +future work reflected in the intellectual pastimes +of his childhood. Madame de Genlis, +when but six years old, perused with unflagging +interest the ten solid volumes of +Clélie,—a task which would appall the most +stout-hearted novel-reader of to-day. Gibbon +turned as instinctively to facts as Scott and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> +Burns to fiction. Macaulay surely learned +from his beloved Æneid the art of presenting +a dubious statement with all the vigorous coloring +of truth. Wordsworth congratulated +himself and Coleridge that, as children, they +had ranged at will</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent20">“through vales</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rich with indigenous produce, open grounds</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of fancy;”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Coleridge, in his turn, was wont to express +his sense of superiority over those who had +not read fairy tales when they were young, +and Charles Lamb, who was plainly of the +same way of thinking, wrote to him hotly on +the subject of the “cursed Barbauld crew,” +and demanded how he would ever have become +a poet, if, instead of being fed with +tales and old wives’ fables in his infancy, he +had been crammed with geography, natural +history, and other useful information. What +a picture we have of Cardinal Newman’s sensitive +and flexible mind in these few words +which bear witness to his childish musings! +“I used to wish,” he says in the third chapter +of the Apologia, “that the Arabian Nights +were true; my imagination ran on unknown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +influences, on magical powers and talismans.... +I thought life might be a dream, or I +an angel, and all the world a deception, my +fellow angels, by a playful device, concealing +themselves from me, and deceiving me with +the semblance of a material world.” Alongside +of this poetic revelation may be placed +Cobbett’s sketch of himself: a sturdy country +lad of eleven, in a blue smock and red garters, +standing before the bookseller’s shop in +Richmond, with an empty stomach, three +pence in his pocket, and a certain little book +called The Tale of a Tub contending with his +hunger for the possession of that last bit of +money. In the end, mind conquered matter: +the threepence was invested in the volume, +and the homeless little reader curled himself +under a haystack, and forgot all about his +supper in the strange, new pleasure he was +enjoying. “The book was so different,” he +writes, “from anything that I had ever read +before, it was something so fresh to my mind, +that, though I could not understand some +parts of it, it delighted me beyond description, +and produced what I have always considered +a sort of birth of intellect. I read on till<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +it was dark, without any thought of food or +bed. When I could see no longer, I put my +little book in my pocket and tumbled down +by the side of the stack, where I slept till the +birds of Kew Gardens awakened me in the +morning.... I carried that volume about +with me wherever I went; and when I lost it +in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of +Fundy, the loss gave me greater pain than I +have since felt at losing thousands of pounds.”</p> + +<p>As for Lamb’s views on the subject of +early reading, they are best expressed in his +triumphant vindication of Bridget Elia’s happily +neglected education: “She was tumbled +by accident or design into a spacious closet of +good old English books, without much selection +or prohibition, and browsed at will upon +that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I +twenty girls they should be brought up exactly +in this fashion.” It is natural that but +few parents are anxious to risk so hazardous +an experiment, especially as the training of +“incomparable old maids” is hardly the recognized +summit of maternal ambition; but +Bridget Elia at least ran no danger of intellectual +starvation, while, if we pursue a modern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +school-girl along the track of her self-chosen +reading, we shall be astonished that so +much printed matter can yield so little mental +nourishment. She has begun, no doubt, with +childish stories, bright and well-written, +probably, but following each other in such +quick succession that none of them have left +any distinct impression on her mind. Books +that children read but once are of scant service +to them; those that have really helped +to warm our imaginations and to train our +faculties are the few old friends we know +so well that they have become a portion of +our thinking selves. At ten or twelve the +little girl aspires to something partly grown-up, +to those nondescript tales which, trembling +ever on the brink of sentiment, seem +afraid to risk the plunge; and with her appetite +whetted by a course of this unsatisfying +diet, she is soon ripe for a little more excitement +and a great deal more love-making, +so graduates into Rhoda Broughton and the +“Duchess,” at which point her intellectual +career is closed. She has no idea, even, of +what she has missed in the world of books. +She tells you that she “don’t care for Dickens,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> +and “can’t get interested in Scott,” +with a placidity that plainly shows she lays +the blame for this state of affairs on the two +great masters who have amused and charmed +the world. As for Northanger Abbey, or +Emma, she would as soon think of finding +entertainment in Henry Esmond. She has +probably never read a single masterpiece of +our language; she has never been moved by a +noble poem, or stirred to the quick by a well-told +page of history; she has never opened +the pores of her mind for the reception of a +vigorous thought, or the solution of a mental +problem; yet she may be found daily in the +circulating library, and is seldom visible on +the street without a book or two under her +arm.</p> + +<p>“In the love-novels all the heroines are very +desperate,” wrote little Marjorie Fleming in +her diary, nearly eighty years ago, and added +somewhat plaintively, “Isabella will not allow +me to speak of lovers and heroins,”—yearning, +as we can see, over the forbidden topic, +and mutable in her spelling, as befits her tender +age. But what books had <i>she</i> read, this +bright-eyed, healthy, winsome little girl,—eight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +years old when she died,—the favorite +companion of Sir Walter Scott, and his comfort +in many a moment of fatigue and depression? +We can follow her path easily enough, +thanks to those delicious, misspelt scrawls in +which she has recorded her childish verdicts. +“Thomson is a beautiful author,” she writes +at six, “and Pope, but nothing to Shakespear, +of which I have a little knolege. Macbeth is +a pretty composition, but awful one.... The +Newgate Calender is very instructive.” And +again, “Tom Jones and Grey’s Elegy in a +country churchyard,” surely never classed together +before, “are both excellent, and much +spoke of by both sex, particularly by the +men.... Doctor Swift’s works are very +funny; I got some of them by heart.... +Miss Egward’s [Edgeworth’s] tails are very +good, particularly some that are much adapted +for youth, as Laz Lawrance and Tarleton.” +Then with a sudden jump, “I am reading the +Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested +in the fate of poor poor Emily.... Morehead’s +sermons are, I hear, much praised, but +I never read sermons of any kind; but I read +novelettes and my Bible, and I never forget +it or my prayers.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p> + +<p>It is apparent that she read a great deal +which would now hardly be considered desirable +for little girls, but who can quarrel with +the result? Had the bright young mind been +starved on Dotty Dimple and Little Prudy +books, we might have missed the quaintest bit +of autobiography in the English tongue, those +few scattered pages which, with her scraps of +verse and tender little letters, were so carefully +preserved by a loving sister after Pet +Maidie’s death. Far too young and innocent +to be harmed by Tom Jones or the “funny” +Doctor Swift, we may perhaps doubt whether +she had penetrated very deeply into the Newgate +Calendar, notwithstanding a further assertion +on her part that “the history of all the +malcontents as ever was hanged is amusing.” +But that she had the “little knolege” she +boasted of Shakespeare is proven by the fact +that her recitations from King John affected +Scott, to use his own words, “as nothing else +could do.” He would sob outright when the +little creature on his knee repeated, quivering +with suppressed emotion, those heart-breaking +words of Constance:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“For I am sick and capable of fears,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oppressed with wrong, and therefore full of fears;”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">and, knowing the necessity of relaxing a mind +so highly wrought, he took good care that she +should not be without healthy childish reading. +We have an amusing picture of her consoling +herself with fairy tales, when exiled, +for her restlessness, to the foot of her sister’s +bed; and one of the first copies of Rosamond, +and Harry and Lucy found its way to Marjorie +Fleming, with Sir Walter Scott’s name +written on the fly-leaf.</p> + +<p>Fairy tales, and Harry and Lucy! But the +real, old-fashioned, earnest, half-sombre fairy +tales of our youth have slipped from the hands +of children into those of folk-lore students, +who are busy explaining all their flavor out of +them; while as for Miss Edgeworth, the little +people of to-day cannot be persuaded that she +is not dull and prosy. Yet what keen pleasure +have her stories given to generations of +boys and girls, who in their time have grown +to be clever men and women! Hear what +Miss Thackeray, that loving student of children +and of childish ways, has to record about +them. “When I look back,” she writes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +“upon my own youth, I seem to have lived in +company with a delightful host of little play-mates, +bright, busy children, whose cheerful +presence remains more vividly in my mind +than that of many of the real little boys and +girls who used to appear and disappear disconnectedly, +as children do in childhood, when +friendship and companionship depend almost +entirely upon the convenience of grown-up +people. Now and again came little cousins or +friends to share our games, but day by day, +constant and unchanging, ever to be relied +upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly +companions: simple Susan, lame Jervas, the +dear little merchants, Jem, the widow’s son, +with his arms around old Lightfoot’s neck, +the generous Ben, with his whip-cord and his +useful proverb of ‘Waste not, want not,’—all +of these were there in the window corner +waiting our pleasure. After Parents’ Assistant, +to which familiar words we attached no +meaning whatever, came Popular Tales in big +brown volumes off a shelf in the lumber-room +of an apartment in an old house in Paris; and +as we opened the books, lo! creation widened +to our view. England, Ireland, America,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +Turkey, the mines of Golconda, the streets of +Bagdad, thieves, travelers, governesses, natural +philosophy, and fashionable life were all laid +under contribution, and brought interest and +adventure to our humdrum nursery corner.”<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>And have these bright and varied pictures, +“these immortal tales,” as Mr. Matthew Arnold +termed them, lost their power to charm, +that they are banished from our modern +nursery corners; or is it because their didactic +purpose is too thinly veiled, or—as I have +sometimes fancied—because their authoress +took so moderate a view of children’s functions +and importance? If we place Miss Edgeworth’s +and Miss Alcott’s stories side by side, +we shall see that the contrast between them +lies not so much in the expected dissimilarity +of style and incident as in the utterly different +standpoint from which their writers regard the +aspirations and responsibilities of childhood. +Take, for instance, Miss Edgeworth’s Rosamond +and Miss Alcott’s Eight Cousins, both +of them books purporting to show the gradual +development of a little girl’s character under +kindly and stimulating influences. Rosamond,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> +who is said to be a portrait of Maria Edgeworth +herself, is from first to last the undisputed +heroine of the volume which bears her +name. Laura may be much wiser, Godfrey +far more clever; but neither of them usurps +for a moment their sister’s place as the central +figure of the narrative, round whom our +interest clings. But when we come to consider +her position in her own family, we find +it strangely insignificant. The foolish, warm-hearted, +impetuous little girl is of importance +to the household only through the love they +bear her. It is plain her opinions do not +carry much weight, and she is never called on +to act as an especial providence to any one. +We do not behold her winning Godfrey away +from his cigar, or Orlando from fast companions, +or correcting anybody’s faults, in fact, +except her own, which are numerous enough, +and give her plenty of concern.</p> + +<p>Now with Rose, the bright little heroine of +Eight Cousins, and of its sequel A Rose in +Bloom, everything is vastly different. She is +of the utmost importance to all the grown-up +people in the book, most of whom, it must be +acknowledged, are extremely silly and incapable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> +Her aunts set the very highest value +upon her society, and receive it with gratified +rapture; while among her male cousins she is +from the first like a missionary in the Feejees. +It is she who cures them of their boyish vices, +obtaining in return from their supine mothers +“a vote of thanks, which made her feel as if +she had done a service to her country.” At +thirteen she discovers that “girls are made to +take care of boys,” and with dauntless assurance +sets about her self-appointed task. “You +boys need somebody to look after you,” she +modestly announces,—most of them are her +seniors, by the way, and all have parents,—“so +I’m going to do it; for girls are nice +peacemakers, and know how to manage people.” +Naturally, to a young person holding +these advanced views of life, Miss Edgeworth’s +limited field of action seems a very spiritless +affair, and we find Rose expressing herself with +characteristic energy on the subject of the +purple jar, declaring that Rosamond’s mother +was “regularly mean,” and that she “always +wanted to shake that woman, though she was +a model mamma”! As we read the audacious +words, we half expect to see, rising from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +mists of story-book land, the indignant ghost +of little English Rosamond, burning to defend, +with all her old impetuosity, the mother whom +she so dearly loved. It is true, she had no +sense of a “mission,” this commonplace but +very amusing little girl. She never, like Rose, +adopted a pauper infant, or made friends with +a workhouse orphan; she never vetoed pretty +frocks in favor of philanthropy, or announced +that she would “have nothing to do with love +until she could prove that she was something +beside a housekeeper and a baby-tender.” In +fact, she was probably taught that love and +matrimony and babies were not proper subjects +for discussion in the polite society for +which she was so carefully reared. The hints +that are given her now and then on such matters +by no means encourage a free expression +of any unconventional views. “It is particularly +amiable in a woman to be ready to yield, +and avoid disputing about trifles,” says Rosamond’s +father, who plainly does not consider +his child in the light of a beneficent genius; +while, when she reaches her teens, she is described +as being “just at that age when girls +do not join in conversation, but when they sit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +modestly silent, and have leisure, if they have +sense, to judge of what others say, and to +form by choice, and not by chance, their opinions +of what goes on in that great world into +which they have not yet entered.”</p> + +<p>And is it really only ninety years since this +delicious sentence was penned in sober earnest, +as representing an existing state of things! +There is an antique, musty, long-secluded +flavor about it, that would suggest a monograph +copied from an Egyptian tomb with +thirty centuries of dust upon its hoary head. +Yet Rosamond, sitting “modestly silent” under +the delusion that grown-up people are +worth listening to, can talk fluently enough +when occasion demands it, though at all times +her strength lies rather in her heart than in +her head. She represents that tranquil, unquestioning, +unselfish family love, which Miss +Edgeworth could describe so well because she +felt it so sincerely. The girl who had three +stepmothers and nineteen brothers and sisters, +and managed to be fond of them all, should +be good authority on the subject of domestic +affections; and that warm, happy, loving atmosphere +which charms us in her stories, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> +which brought tears to Sir Walter Scott’s eyes +when he laid down Simple Susan, is only the +reflection of the cheerful home life she steadfastly +helped to brighten.</p> + +<p>Her restrictions as a writer are perhaps +most felt by those who admire her most. Her +pet virtue—after prudence—is honesty; and +yet how poor a sentiment it becomes under her +treatment!—no virtue at all, in fact, but +merely a policy working for its own gain. +Take the long conversation between the little +Italian merchants on the respective merits of +integrity and sharpness in their childish traffic. +Each disputant exhausts his wits in trying to +prove the superior wisdom of his own course, +but not once does the virtuous Francisco make +use of the only argument which is of any real +value,—I do not cheat because it is not right. +There is more to be learned about honesty, +real unselfish, unrequited honesty, in Charles +Lamb’s little sketch of Barbara S—— than in +all Miss Edgeworth has written on the subject +in a dozen different tales.</p> + +<p>“Taking up one’s cross does not at all mean +having ovations at dinner parties, and being +put over everybody else’s head,” says Ruskin,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +with visible impatience at the smooth and easy +manner in which Miss Edgeworth persists in +grinding the mills of the gods, and distributing +poetical justice to each and every comer. +It may be very nice to see the generous Laura, +who gave away her half sovereign, extolled to +the skies by a whole room full of company, +“disturbed for the purpose,” while “poor dear +little Rosamond”—he too has a weakness +for this small blunderer—is left in the lurch, +without either shoes or jar; but it is not real +generosity that needs so much commendation, +and it is not real life that can be depended on +for giving it. Yet Ruskin admits that Harry +and Lucy were his earliest friends, to the extent +even of inspiring him with an ambitious +desire to continue their history; and he cannot +say too much in praise of an authoress “whose +every page is so full and so delightful. I can +read her over and over again, without ever +tiring. No one brings you into the company +of pleasanter or wiser people; no one tells +you more truly how to do right.”<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>He might have added that no one ever was +more moderate in her exactions. The little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> +people who brighten Miss Edgeworth’s pages +are not expected, like the children in more recent +books, to take upon their shoulders a load +of grown-up duties and responsibilities. Life +is simplified for them by an old-fashioned habit +of trusting in the wisdom of their parents; +and these parents, instead of being foolish and +wrong-headed, so as to set off more strikingly +the child’s sagacious energy, are apt to be very +sensible and kind, and remarkably well able +to take care of themselves and their families. +This is the more refreshing because, after reading +a few modern stories, either English or +American, one is troubled with serious doubts +as to the moral usefulness of adults; and we +begin to feel that as we approach the age of +Mentor it behooves us to find some wise young +Telemachus who will consent to be our protector +and our guide. There is no more charming +writer for the young than Flora Shaw; +yet Hector and Phyllis Browne, and even that +group of merry Irish children in Castle Blair, +are all convinced it is their duty to do some +difficult or dangerous work in the interests of +humanity, and all are afflicted with a premature +consciousness of social evils.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The time is out of joint; oh, cursed spite!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That ever I was born to set it right!”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">cries Hamlet wearily; but it is at thirty, and +not at thirteen, that he makes this unpleasant +discovery.</p> + +<p>In religious stories, of which there are many +hundreds published every year, these peculiar +views are even more defined, presenting themselves +often in the form of a spiritual contest +between highly endowed, sensitive children +and their narrow-minded parents and guardians, +who, of course, are always in the wrong. +The clever authoress of Thrown Together is +by no means innocent of this unwholesome +tone; but the chief offender, and one who has +had a host of dismal imitators, is Susan Warner,—Miss +Wetherell,—who plainly considered +that virtue, especially in the young, was +of no avail unless constantly undergoing persecution. +Her supernaturally righteous little +girls, who pin notes on their fathers’ dressing-tables, +requesting them to become Christians, +and who endure the most brutal treatment—at +their parents’ hands—rather than sing +songs on Sunday evening, are equaled only by +her older heroines, who divide their time impartially<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +between flirting and praying, between +indiscriminate kisses and passionate searching +for light. A Blackwood critic declares that +there is more kissing done in The Old Helmet +than in all of Sir Walter Scott’s novels +put together, and utters an energetic protest +against the penetrating glances, and earnest +pressing of hands, and brotherly embraces, +and the whole vulgar paraphernalia of pious +flirtation, so immeasurably hurtful to the undisciplined +fancy of the young. “They have +good reason to expect,” he growls, “from these +pictures of life, that if they are very good, and +very pious, and very busy in doing grown-up +work, when they reach the mature age of sixteen +or so, some young gentleman who has +been in love with them all along will declare +himself at the very nick of time; and they +may then look to find themselves, all the struggles +of life over, reposing a weary head on his +stalwart shoulder.... Mothers, never in great +favor with novelists, are sinking deeper and +deeper in their black books,—there is a positive +jealousy of their influence; while the +father in the religious tale, as opposed to the +moral or sentimental, is commonly either a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +scamp or nowhere. The heroine has, so to +say, to do her work single-handed.”</p> + +<p>In some of these stories, moreover, the end +justifies the means to an alarming extent. +Girls who steal money from their relatives in +order to go as missionaries among the Indians, +and young women who pretend to sit up with +the sick that they may slip off unattended to +hear some inspired preacher in a barn, are not +safe companions even in books; while, if no +grave indiscretion be committed, the lesson of +self-righteousness is taught on every page. +Not very long ago I had the pleasure of reading +a tale in which the youthful heroine considers +it her mission in life to convert her +grandparents; and while there is nothing to +prevent an honest girl from desiring such a +thing, the idea is not a happy one for a narrative, +in view of certain homely old adages irresistibly +associated with the notion. “Girls,” +wrote Hannah More, “should be led to distrust +their own judgment;” but if they have +the conversion of their grandparents on their +hands, how can they afford to be distrustful? +Hannah More is unquestionably out of date, +and so, we fear, is that English humorist who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> +said, “If all the grown-up people in the world +should suddenly fail, what a frightful thing +would society become, reconstructed by boys!” +Evidently he had in mind a land given over to +toffy and foot-ball, but he was strangely mistaken +in his notions. Perhaps the carnal little +hero of Vice Versâ might have managed +matters in this disgraceful fashion; but with +Flora Shaw’s earnest children at the helm, society +would be reconstructed on a more serious +basis than it is already, and Heaven knows +this is not a change of which we stand in need. +In fact, if the young people who live and +breathe around us are one third as capable, as +strenuous, as clear-sighted, as independent, as +patronizing, and as undeniably our superiors as +their modern counterparts in literature, who +can doubt that the eternal cause of progress +would be furthered by the change? And is +it, after all, mere pique which inclines us to +Miss Edgeworth’s ordinary little boys and +girls, who, standing half dazed on the threshold +of life, stretch out their hands with childish +confidence for help?</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> <i>Literary Studies</i>, vol. ii.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> <i>A Book of Sibyls.</i></p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> <i>Ethics of the Dust.</i></p> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DECAY_OF_SENTIMENT">THE DECAY OF SENTIMENT.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>That useful little phrase, “the complexity +of modern thought,” has been so hard worked +of late years that it seems like a refinement of +cruelty to add to its obligations. Begotten by +the philosophers, born of the essayists, and +put out to nurse among the novel-writers, it +has since been apprenticed to the whole body +of scribblers, and drudges away at every trade +in literature. How, asks Vernon Lee, can we +expect our fiction to be amusing, when a psychological +and sympathetic interest has driven +away the old hard-hearted spirit of comedy? +How, asks Mr. Pater, can Sebastian Van Stork +make up his mind to love and marry and work +like ordinary mortals, when the many-sidedness +of life has wrought in him a perplexed +envy of those quiet occupants of the churchyard, +“whose deceasing was so long since +over”? How, asks George Eliot, can Mrs. +Pullet weep with uncontrolled emotion over +Mrs. Sutton’s dropsy, when it behooves her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +not to crush her sleeves or stain her bonnet-strings? +The problem is repeated everywhere, +either in mockery or deadly earnestness, according +to the questioner’s disposition, and the +old springs of simple sentiment are drying +fast within us. It is heartless to laugh, it is +foolish to cry, it is indiscreet to love, it is morbid +to hate, and it is intolerant to espouse any +cause with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>There was a time, and not so many years +ago, when men and women found no great +difficulty in making up their minds on ordinary +matters, and their opinions, if erroneous, were +at least succinct and definite. Nero was then +a cruel tyrant, the Duke of Wellington a +great soldier, Sir Walter Scott the first of +novelists, and the French Revolution a villainous +piece of business. Now we are equally +enlightened and confused by the keen researches +and shifting verdicts with which historians +and critics seek to dispel this comfortable +frame of darkness. Nero, perhaps, had +the good of his subjects secretly at heart when +he expressed that benevolent desire to dispatch +them all at a blow, and Robespierre was but a +practical philanthropist, carried, it may be, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +little too far by the stimulating influences of +the hour. “We have palliations of Tiberius, +eulogies of Henry VIII., and devotional exercises +to Cromwell,” observes Mr. Bagehot, in +some perplexity as to where this state of +things may find an ending; and he confesses +that in the mean time his own original notions +of right and wrong are growing sadly hazy +and uncertain. Moreover, in proportion as +the heavy villains of history assume a chastened +and ascetic appearance, its heroes dwindle +perceptibly into the commonplace, and its +heroines are stripped of every alluring grace; +while as for the living men who are controlling +the destinies of nations, not even Macaulay’s +ever useful schoolboy is too small and ignorant +to refuse them homage. Yet we read of Scott, +in the zenith of his fame, standing silent and +abashed before the Duke of Wellington, unable, +and perhaps unwilling, to shake off the +awe that paralyzed his tongue. “The Duke +possesses every one mighty quality of the +mind in a higher degree than any other man +either does or has ever done!” exclaimed Sir +Walter to John Ballantyne, who, not being +framed for hero-worship, failed to appreciate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> +his friend’s extraordinary enthusiasm. While +we smile at the sentiment,—knowing, of +course, so much better ourselves,—we feel +an envious admiration of the happy man who +uttered it.</p> + +<p>There is a curious little incident which Mrs. +Lockhart used to relate, in after years, as a +proof of her father’s emotional temperament, +and of the reverence with which he regarded +all that savored of past or present greatness. +When the long-concealed Scottish regalia were +finally brought to light, and exhibited to the +public of Edinburgh, Scott, who had previously +been one of the committee chosen to unlock +the chest, took his daughter to see the royal +jewels. She was then a girl of fifteen, and +her nerves had been so wrought upon by all +that she had heard on the subject that, when +the lid was opened, she felt herself growing +faint, and withdrew a little from the crowd. +A light-minded young commissioner, to whom +the occasion suggested no solemnity, took up +the crown, and made a gesture as if to place it +on the head of a lady standing near, when +Sophia Scott heard her father exclaim passionately, +in a voice “something between anger<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> +and despair,” “By G—, no!” The gentleman, +much embarrassed, immediately replaced +the diadem, and Sir Walter, turning aside, +saw his daughter, deadly pale, leaning against +the door, and led her at once into the open +air. “He never spoke all the way home,” +she added, “but every now and then I felt his +arm tremble; and from that time I fancied he +began to treat me more like a woman than a +child. I thought he liked me better, too, than +he had ever done before.”</p> + +<p>The whole scene, as we look back upon it +now, is a quaint illustration of how far a +man’s emotions could carry him, when they +were nourished alike by the peculiarities of +his genius and of his education. The feeling +was doubtless an exaggerated one, but it was +at least nobler than the speculative humor +with which a careless crowd now calculates +the market value of the crown jewels in the +Tower of London. “What they would bring” +was a thought which we may be sure never +entered Sir Walter’s head, as he gazed with +sparkling eyes on the modest regalia of Scotland, +and conjured up every stirring drama in +which they had played their part. For him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> +each page of his country’s history was the subject +of close and loving scrutiny. All those +Davids, and Williams, and Malcolms, about +whom we have an indistinct notion that they +spent their lives in being bullied by their +neighbors and badgered by their subjects, +were to his mind as kingly as Charlemagne +on his Throne of the West; and their crimes +and struggles and brief glorious victories were +part of the ineffaceable knowledge of his boyhood. +To <i>feel</i> history in this way, to come +so close to the world’s actors that our pulses +rise and fall with their vicissitudes, is a better +thing, after all, than the most accurate and +reasonable of doubts. I knew two little +English girls who always wore black frocks on +the 30th of January, in honor of the “Royal +Martyr,” and tied up their hair with black ribbons, +and tried hard to preserve the decent +gravity of demeanor befitting such a doleful +anniversary. The same little girls, it must +be confessed, carried Holmby House to bed +with them, and bedewed their pillows with +many tears over the heart-rending descriptions +thereof. What to them were the “outraged +liberties of England,” which Mr. Gosse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +rather vaguely tells us tore King Charles to +pieces? They saw him standing on the scaffold, +a sad and princely figure, and they heard +the frightened sobs that rent the air when the +cruel deed was done. It is not possible for +us now to take this picturesque and exclusive +view of one whose shortcomings have been so +vigorously raked to light by indignant disciples +of Carlyle; but the child who has ever +cried over any great historic tragedy is richer +for the experience, and stands on higher +ground than one whose life is bounded by the +schoolroom walls, or who finds her needful +stimulant in the follies of a precocious flirtation. +What a charming picture we have of +Eugénie de Guérin feeding her passionate little +soul with vain regrets for the unfortunate +family of Louis XVI. and with sweet infantile +plans for their rescue. “Even as a +child,” she writes in her journal, “I venerated +this martyr, I loved this victim whom I heard +so much talked of in my family as the 21st +of January drew near. We used to be taken +to the funeral service in the church, and I +gazed at the high catafalque, the melancholy +throne of the good king. My astonishment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> +impressed me with sorrow and indignation. I +came away weeping over this death, and hating +the wicked men who had brought it about. +How many hours have I spent devising means +for saving Louis, the queen, and the whole +hapless family,—if I only had lived in their +day. But after much calculating and contriving, +no promising measure presented itself, +and I was forced, very reluctantly, to leave +the prisoners where they were. My compassion +was more especially excited for the beautiful +little Dauphin, the poor child pent up +between walls, and unable to play in freedom. +I used to carry him off in fancy, and keep +him safely hidden at Cayla, and Heaven +only knows the delight of running about our +fields with a prince.”</p> + +<p>Here at least we see the imaginative faculty +playing a vigorous and wholesome part in a +child’s mental training. The little solitary +French girl who filled up her lonely hours +with such pretty musings as these, could +scarcely fail to attain that rare distinction of +mind which all true critics have been so +prompt to recognize and love. It was with +her the natural outgrowth of an intelligence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +quickened by sympathy and fed with delicate +emotions. The Dauphin in the Temple, the +Princes in the Tower, Marie Antoinette on the +guillotine, and Jeanne d’Arc at the stake, +these are the scenes which have burned their +way into many a youthful heart, and the force +of such early impressions can never be utterly +destroyed. A recent essayist, deeply imbued +with this good principle, has assured us that +the little maiden who, ninety years ago, surprised +her mother in tears, “because the +wicked people had cut off the French queen’s +head,” received from that impression the very +highest kind of education. But this is object-teaching +carried to its extremest limit, +and even in these days, when training is recognized +to be of such vital importance, one +feels that the death of a queen is a high price +to pay for a little girl’s instruction. It might +perhaps suffice to let her live more freely in +the past, and cultivate her emotions after a +less costly and realistic fashion.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Mr. Edgar Saltus, who +is nothing if not melancholy, would fain persuade +us that the “gift of tears,” which Swinburne +prized so highly and Mrs. Browning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> +cultivated with such transparent care, finds +its supreme expression in man, only because of +man’s greater capacity for suffering. Yet if +it be true that the burden of life grows heavier +for each succeeding generation, it is no less +apparent that we have taught ourselves to +stare dry-eyed at its blankness. An old rabbinical +legend says that in Paradise God gave +the earth to Adam and tears to Eve, and it is +a cheerless doctrine which tells us now that +both gifts are equal because both are valueless, +that the world will never be any merrier, +and that we are all tired of waxing sentimental +over its lights and shadows. But our +great-grandfathers, who were assuredly not a +tender-hearted race, and who never troubled +their heads about those modern institutions, +wickedly styled by Mr. Lang “Societies for +Badgering the Poor,” cried right heartily +over poems, and novels, and pictures, and +plays, and scenery, and everything, in short, +that their great-grandsons would not now consider +as worthy of emotion. Jeffrey the terrible +shed tears over the long-drawn pathos +of little Nell, and has been roundly abused +by critics ever since for the extremely bad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +taste he exhibited. Macaulay, who was seldom +disposed to be sentimental, confesses +that he wept over Florence Dombey. Lord +Byron was strongly moved when Scott recited +to him his favorite ballad of Hardyknute; +and Sir Walter himself paid the tribute of +his tears to Mrs. Opie’s dismal stories, and +Southey’s no less dismal Pilgrimage to Waterloo. +When Marmion was first published, +Joanna Baillie undertook to read it aloud to a +little circle of literary friends, and on reaching +those lines which have reference to her +own poems,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“When she the bold enchantress came,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With fearless hand, and heart in flame,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">the “uncontrollable emotion” of her hearers +forced the fair reader to break down. In +a modern drawing-room this uncontrollable +emotion would probably find expression in +such gentle murmurs of congratulation as +“Very pretty and appropriate, I am sure,” or +“How awfully nice in Sir Walter to have put +it in that way!”</p> + +<p>Turn where we will, however, amid the +pages of the past, we see this precious gift of +tears poured out in what seems to us now a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +spirit of wanton profusion. Sterne, by his own +showing, must have gone through life like +the Walrus, in Through the Looking Glass,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Holding his pocket handkerchief</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Before his streaming eyes;”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">and we can detect him every now and then +peeping slyly out of the folds, to see what sort +of an impression he was making. “I am as +weak as a woman,” he sighs, with conscious +satisfaction, “and I beg the world not to +smile, but pity me.” Burns, who at least never +cried for effect, was moved to sudden tears by +a pathetic print of a dead soldier, that hung +on Professor Fergusson’s wall. Scott was always +visibly affected by the wild northern +scenery that he loved; and Erskine was discovered +in the Cave of Staffa, “weeping like a +woman,” though, in truth, a gloomy, dangerous, +slippery, watery cavern is the last place +on earth where a woman would ordinarily stop +to be emotional. She might perhaps cry with +Sterne over a dead monk or a dead donkey,—he +has an equal allowance of tears for +both,—but once inside of a cave, her real +desire is to get out again as quickly as possible, +with dry skirts and an unbroken neck.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +It may be, however, that our degenerate modern +impulses afford us no safe clue to those +halcyon days when sentiment was paramount +and practical considerations of little weight; +when wet feet and sore throats were not suffered +to intrude their rueful warnings upon +the majesty of nature; when ladies, who +lived comfortably and happily with the husbands +of their choice, poured forth impassioned +prayers, in the Annual Register, for +the boon of indifference, and poets like Cowper +rushed forward to remonstrate with them +for their cruelty.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Let no low thought suggest the prayer,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh! grant, kind Heaven, to me,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Long as I draw ethereal air,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Sweet sensibility.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">wrote the author of The Task, in sober earnestness +and sincerity.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Then oh! ye Fair, if Pity’s ray</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E’er taught your snowy breasts to sigh,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shed o’er my contemplative lay</div> + <div class="verse indent4">The tears of sensibility,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">wrote Macaulay as a burlesque on the prevailing +spirit of bathos, and was, I think, unreasonably +angry because a number of readers, +his own mother included, failed to see that he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> +was in fun. Yet all his life this mocking +critic cherished in his secret soul of souls a +real affection for those hysterical old romances +which had been the delight of his boyhood, +and which were even then rapidly disappearing +before the cold scorn of an enlightened +world. Miss Austen, in Sense and Sensibility, +had impaled emotionalism on the fine shafts of +her delicate satire, and Macaulay was Miss +Austen’s sworn champion; but nevertheless he +contrived to read and reread Mrs. Meek’s and +Mrs. Cuthbertson’s marvelous stories, until he +probably knew them better than he did Emma +or Northanger Abbey. When an old edition +of Santa Sebastiano was sold at auction in +India, he secured it at a fabulous price,—Miss +Eden bidding vigorously against him,—and +he occupied his leisure moments in making a +careful calculation of the number of fainting-fits +that occur in the course of the five volumes. +There are twenty-seven in all, so he +has recorded, of which the heroine alone comes +in for eleven, while seven others are distributed +among the male characters. Mr. Trevelyan +has kindly preserved for us the description of +a single catastrophe, and we can no longer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> +wonder at anybody’s partiality for the tale, +when we learn that “one of the sweetest +smiles that ever animated the face of mortal +man now diffused itself over the countenance +of Lord St. Orville, as he fell at the feet of +Julia in a death-like swoon.” Mr. Howells +would doubtless tell us that this is not a +true and accurate delineation of real life, and +that what Lord St. Orville should have done +was to have simply wiped the perspiration +off his forehead, after the unvarnished fashion +of Mr. Mavering, in April Hopes. But +Macaulay, who could mop his own brow whenever +he felt so disposed, and who recognized +his utter inability to faint with a sweet smile +at a lady’s feet, naturally delighted in Mrs. +Cuthbertson’s singularly accomplished hero. +Swooning is now, I fear, sadly out of date. +In society we no longer look upon it as a +pleasing evidence of feminine propriety, and +in the modern novel nothing sufficiently exciting +to bring about such a result is ever permitted +to happen. But in the good old impossible +stories of the past it formed a very important +element, and some of Mrs. Radcliffe’s +heroines can easily achieve twenty-seven fainting-fits<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +by their own unaided industry. They +faint at the most inopportune times and +under the most exasperating circumstances: +when they are running away from banditti, or +hiding from cruel relatives, or shut up by +themselves in gloomy dungeons, with nobody +to look after and resuscitate them. Their +trembling limbs are always refusing to support +them just when a little activity is really necessary +for safety, and, though they live in an +atmosphere of horrors, the smallest shock is +more than they can endure with equanimity. +In the Sicilian Romance, Julia’s brother, desiring +to speak to her for a minute, knocks +gently at her door, whereupon, with the most +unexpected promptness, “she shrieked and +fainted;” and as the key happens to be turned +on the inside, he is obliged to wait in the hall +until she slowly regains her consciousness.</p> + +<p>Nothing, however, can mar the decorous sentimentality +which these young people exhibit +in all their loves and sorrows. Emily the forlorn +“touched the chords of her lute in solemn +symphony,” when the unenviable nature of her +surroundings might reasonably have banished +all music from her soul; Theodore paused to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +bathe Adeline’s hand with his tears, in a moment +of painful uncertainty; and Hippolitus, +who would have scorned to be stabbed like an +ordinary mortal, “received a sword through +his body,”—precisely as though it were a +present,—“and, uttering a deep sigh, fell to +the ground,” on which, true to her principles, +“Julia shrieked and fainted.” We read of +the Empress Octavia swooning when Virgil +recited to her his description of the death of +Marcellus; and we know that Shelley fainted +when he heard Cristabel read; but Mrs. Radcliffe’s +heroines, though equally sensitive, are +kept too busy with their own disasters to show +this sympathetic interest in literature. Their +adventures strike us now as being, on the whole, +more amusing than thrilling; but we should +remember that they were no laughing matter +to the readers of fifty years ago. People did +not then object to the interminable length of +a story, and they followed its intricate windings +and counter-windings with a trembling +zest which we can only envy. One of the earliest +recollections of my own childhood is a +little book depicting the awful results of Mrs. +Radcliffe’s terror-inspiring romances upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +youthful mind; a well-intentioned work, no +doubt, but which inevitably filled us with a +sincere desire to taste for ourselves of these +pernicious horrors. If I found them far less +frightful than I had hoped, the loss was mine, +and the fault lay in the matter-of-fact atmosphere +of the modern nursery; for does not the +author of the now forgotten Pursuits of Literature +tell us that the Mysteries of Udolpho +is the work of an intellectual giant?—“a +mighty magician, bred and nourished by the +Florentine muses in their sacred solitary +caverns, amid the pale shrines of Gothic superstition, +and in all the dreariness of enchantment.”</p> + +<p>That was the way that critics used to write, +and nobody dreamed of laughing at them. +When Letitia Elizabeth Landon poured forth +her soul in the most melancholy of verses, all +London stopped to listen and to pity.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“There is no truth in love, whate’er its seeming,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And Heaven itself could scarcely seem more true.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sadly have I awakened from the dreaming</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose charmed slumber, false one, was of you,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">wrote this healthy and heart-whole young woman; +and Lord Lytton has left us an amusing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> +account of the sensation that such poems excited. +He and his fellow-students exhausted +their ingenuity in romantic speculations concerning +the unknown singer, and inscribed +whole reams of fervid but indifferent stanzas +to her honor. “There was always,” he says, +“in the reading-room of the Union, a rush +every Saturday afternoon for the Literary +Gazette, and an impatient anxiety to hasten at +once to that corner of the sheet which contained +the three magical letters L. E. L. All +of us praised the verse, and all of us guessed +the author. We soon learned that it was a +female, and our admiration was doubled, and +our conjectures tripled.” When Francesca +Carrara appeared, it was received with an +enthusiasm never manifested for Pride and +Prejudice, or Persuasion, and romantic young +men and women reveled in its impassioned +melancholy. What a pattering of tear-drops +on every page! The lovely heroine—less +mindful of her clothes than Mrs. Pullet—looks +down and marks how the great drops +have fallen like rain upon her bosom. “Alas!” +she sighs, “I have cause to weep. I must +weep over my own changefulness, and over the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +sweetest illusions of my youth. I feel suddenly +grown old. Never more will the flowers +seem so lovely, or the stars so bright. Never +more shall I dwell on Erminia’s deep and enduring +love for the unhappy Tancred, and +think that I too could so have loved. Ah! in +what now can I believe, when I may not even +trust my own heart?” Here, at least, we have +unadulterated sentiment, with no traces in it +of that “mean and jocular life” which Emerson +so deeply scorned, and for which the light-minded +readers of to-day have ventured to express +their cheerful and shameless preference.</p> + +<p>Emotional literature, reflecting as it does the +tastes and habits of a dead past, should not +stand trial alone before the cold eyes of the +mocking present, where there is no sympathy +for its weakness and no clue to its identity. +A happy commonplaceness is now acknowledged +to be, next to brevity of life, man’s best +inheritance; but in the days when all the virtues +and vices flaunted in gala costume, people +were hardly prepared for that fine simplicity +which has grown to be the crucial test of art. +Love, friendship, honor, and courage were as +real then as now, but they asserted themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +in fantastic ways, and with an ostentation that +we are apt to mistake for insincerity. When +Mrs. Katharine Philips founded her famous +Society of Friendship, in the middle of the +seventeenth century, she was working earnestly +enough for her particular conception of +sweetness and light. It is hard not to laugh +at these men and women of the world addressing +each other solemnly as the “noble Silvander” +and the “dazzling Polycrete;” and it is +harder still to believe that the fervent devotion +of their verses represented in any degree +the real sentiments of their hearts. But +Orinda, whose indefatigable exertions held the +society together, meant every word she said, +and credited the rest with similar veracity.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Lucasia, whose harmonious state</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Spheres and Muses only imitate,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">is for her but a temperate expression of regard; +and we find her writing to Mrs. Annie +Owens—a most unresponsive young Welsh-woman—in +language that would be deemed +extravagant in a lover:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“I did not live until this time</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Crowned my felicity,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When I could say without a crime,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">I am not thine, but thee.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> +<p>One wonders what portion of her heart the +amiable Mr. Philips was content to occupy.</p> + +<p>Frenchwomen of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries found their principal amusement +in contracting, either with each other or +with men, those highly sentimental friendships +which were presumably free from all +dross of earthly passion, and which rested on +a shadowy basis of pure intellectual affinity. +Mademoiselle de Scudéry delighted in portraying +this rarefied intercourse between congenial +souls, and the billing and cooing of +Platonic turtle-doves fill many pages of her +ponderous romances. Sappho and Phaon, in +the Grand Cyrus, “told each other every particular +of their lives,” which must have been +a little tedious at times and altogether unnecessary, +inasmuch as we are assured that “the +exchange of their thoughts was so sincere that +all those in Sappho’s mind passed into Phaon’s, +and all those in Phaon’s came into Sappho’s.” +Conversation under these circumstances +would be apt to lose its zest for ordinary +mortals, who value the power of speech +rather as a disguise than as an interpretation +of their real convictions; but it was not so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +with this guileless pair. “They understood +each other without words, and saw their whole +hearts in each other’s eyes.”</p> + +<p>As for the great wave of emotionalism that +followed in Rousseau’s train, it was a pure +make-believe, like every other sentiment that +bubbled on the seething surface of French society. +Avarice and honor alone were real. +To live like a profligate and to die like a hero +were the two accomplishments common to +every grand seigneur in the country. For the +rest, there was a series of fads,—simplicity, +benevolence, philosophy, passion, asceticism; +Voltaire one day, Rousseau the next; Arcadian +virtues and court vices jumbled fantastically +together; the cause of the people on +every tongue, and the partridges hatching in +the peasant’s corn; Marie Antoinette milking +a cow, and the infant Madame Royale with +eighty nurses and attendants; great ladies, +with jewels in their hair, on their bosoms, and +on their silken slippers, laboriously earning a +few francs by picking out gold threads from +scraps of tarnished bullion; everybody anxiously +asking everybody else, “What shall we +do to be amused?” and the real answer to all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> +uttered long before by Louis XIII., “Venez, +monsieur, allons-nous ennuyer ensemble.” +Day and night are not more different than +this sickly hothouse pressure and the pure +emotion that fired Scott’s northern blood, as +he looked on the dark rain-swept hills till his +eyes grew bright with tears. “We sometimes +weep to avoid the disgrace of not weeping,” +says Rochefoucauld, who valued at its worth +the facile sentimentality of his countrymen. +Could he have lived to witness M. de Latour’s +hysterical transports on finding Rousseau’s +signature and a crushed periwinkle in an old +copy of the Imitatio, the great moralist might +see that his bitter truths have in them a pitiless +continuity of adjustment, and fit themselves +afresh to every age. What excitation +of feeling accompanied the bloody work of +the French Revolutionists! What purity of +purpose! What nobility of language! What +grandeur of device! What bottled moonshine +everywhere! The wicked old world was to +be born anew, reason was to triumph over +passion; and self-interest, which had ruled +men for six thousand years, was to be suddenly +eradicated from their hearts. When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +the patriots had finished cutting off everybody +else’s head, then the reign of mutual tenderness +would begin; the week—inestimable +privilege!—would hold ten days instead of +seven; and Frimaire and Floréal and Messidor +would prove to the listening earth that +the very names of past months had sunk into +merited oblivion. Father Faber says that a +sense of humor is a great help in the spiritual +life; it is an absolute necessity in the temporal. +Had the Convention possessed even the +faintest perception of the ridiculous, this +friendly instinct would have lowered their sublime +heads from the stars, stung them into +practical issues, and moderated the absurd delusions +of the hour.</p> + +<p>At present, however, the new disciples of +“earnestness” are trying hard to persuade us +that we are too humorous, and that it is the +spirit of universal mockery which stifles all +our nobler and finer emotions. We would +like to believe them, but unhappily it is only +to exceedingly strenuous souls that this lawless +fun seems to manifest itself. The rest of us, +searching cheerfully enough, fail to discover +its traces. If we are seldom capable of any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +sustained enthusiasm, it is rather because we +yawn than because we laugh. Unlike Emerson, +we are glad to be amused, only the task +of amusing us grows harder day by day; and +Justin McCarthy’s languid heroine, who declines +to get up in the morning because she +has so often been up before, is but an exhaustive +instance of the inconveniences of modern +satiety. When we read of the Oxford students +beleaguering the bookshops in excited +crowds for the first copies of Rokeby and +Childe Harold, fighting over the precious volumes, +and betting recklessly on their rival +sales, we wonder whether either Lord Tennyson’s +or Mr. Browning’s latest effusions created +any such tumult among the undergraduates +of to-day, or wiled away their money from +more legitimate subjects of speculation. Lord +Holland, when asked by Murray for his opinion +of Old Mortality, answered indignantly, +“Opinion! We did not one of us go to +bed last night! Nothing slept but my gout.” +Yet Rokeby and Childe Harold are both in +sad disgrace with modern critics, and Old +Mortality stands gathering dust upon our +bookshelves. Mr. Howells, who ought to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +know, tells us that fiction has become a finer +art in our day than it was in the days of our +fathers, and that the methods and interests we +have outgrown can never hope to be revived. +So if the masterpieces of the present, the triumphs +of learned verse and realistic prose, fail +to lift their readers out of themselves, like the +masterpieces of the past, the fault must be our +own. We devote some conscientious hours +to Parleyings with Certain People of Importance, +and we are well pleased, on the whole, +to find ourselves in such good company; but +it is a pleasure rich in the temperance that +Hamlet loved, and altogether unlikely to ruffle +our composure. We read The Bostonians +and The Rise of Silas Lapham with a due +appreciation of their minute perfections; but +we go to bed quite cheerfully at our usual +hour, and are content to wait an interval of +leisure to resume them. Could Daisy Miller +charm a gouty leg, or Lemuel Barker keep us +sleepless until morning? When St. Pierre +finished the manuscript of Paul and Virginia, +he consented to read it to the painter, Joseph +Vernet. At first the solitary listener was +loud in his approbation, then more subdued,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> +then silent altogether. “Soon he ceased to +praise; he only wept.” Yet Paul and Virginia +has been pronounced morbid, strained, +unreal, unworthy even of the tears that childhood +drops upon its pages. But would Mr. +Millais or Sir Frederick Leighton sit weeping +over the delightful manuscripts of Henry +Shorthouse or Mr. Louis Stevenson? Did +the last flicker of genuine emotional enthusiasm +die out with George Borrow, who lived +at least a century too late for his own convenience? +When a respectable, gray-haired, +middle-aged Englishman takes an innocent +delight in standing bare-headed in the rain, +reciting execrable Welsh verses on every spot +where a Welsh bard might, but probably does +not, lie buried, it is small wonder that the +“coarse-hearted, sensual, selfish Saxon”—we +quote the writer’s own words—should find +the spectacle more amusing than sublime. +But then what supreme satisfaction Mr. Borrow +derived from his own rhapsodies, what +conscious superiority over the careless crowd +who found life all too short to study the beau +ties of Iolo Goch or Gwilym ab Ieuan! +There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +a thorough-going monomania, especially if it +be of that peculiar literary order which insures +a broad field and few competitors. In a passionate +devotion to Welsh epics or to Provençal +pastorals, to Roman antiquities or to +Gypsy genealogy, to the most confused epochs +of Egyptian history or the most private correspondence +of a dead author,—in one or +other of these favorite specialties our modern +students choose to put forth their powers, +and display an astonishing industry and zeal.</p> + +<p>There is a story told of a far too cultivated +young man, who, after professing a great love +for music, was asked if he enjoyed the opera. +He did not. Oratorios were then more to his +taste. He did not care for them at all. Ballads +perhaps pleased him by their simplicity. +He took no interest in them whatever. +Church music alone was left. He had no partiality +for even that. “What is it you <i>do</i> +like?” asked his questioner, with despairing +persistency; and the answer was vouchsafed +her in a single syllable, “Fugues.” This exclusiveness +of spirit may be detrimental to +that broad catholicity on which great minds +are nourished, but it has rare charms for its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> +possessor, and, being within the reach of all, +grows daily in our favor. French poets, like +Gautier and Sully Prudhomme, have been content +to strike all their lives upon a single resonant +note, and men of far inferior genius +have produced less perfect work in the same +willfully restricted vein. The pressure of the +outside world sorely chafes these unresponsive +natures; large issues paralyze their pens. +They turn by instinct from the coarseness, the +ugliness, the realness of life, and sing of it +with graceful sadness and with delicate laughter, +as if the whole thing were a pathetic or a +fantastic dream. They are dumb before its +riddles and silent in its uproar, standing apart +from the tumult, and letting the impetuous +crowd—“mostly fools,” as Carlyle said—sweep +by them unperceived. Herrick is their +prototype, the poet who polished off his little +glittering verses about Julia’s silks and Dianeme’s +ear-rings when all England was dark +with civil war. But even this armed neutrality, +this genuine and admirable indifference, +cannot always save us from the rough knocks +of a burly and aggressive world. The revolution, +which he ignored, drove Herrick from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> +his peaceful vicarage into the poverty and +gloom of London; the siege of Paris played +sad havoc with Gautier’s artistic tranquillity, +and devoured the greater part of his modest +fortune. We are tethered to our kind, and +may as well join hands in the struggle. Vexation +is no heavier than <i>ennui</i>, and “he who +lives without folly,” says Rochefoucauld, “is +hardly so wise as he thinks.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CURIOSITIES_OF_CRITICISM">CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>There is a growing tendency on the part of +literary men to resent what they are pleased +to consider the unwarrantable interference of +the critic. His ministrations have probably +never been sincerely gratifying to their recipients; +Marsyas could hardly have enjoyed being +flayed by Apollo, even though he knew his +music was bad; and worse, far worse, than +the most caustic severity are the few careless +words that dismiss our cherished aspirations +as not even worthy of the rueful dignity of punishment. +But in former days the victim, if he +resented such treatment at all, resented it in +the spirit of Lord Byron, who, roused to a +healthy and vigorous wrath,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent20">“expressed his royal views</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In language such as gentlemen are seldom known to use,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">and by a comprehensive and impartial attack +on all the writers of his time proved himself +both able and willing to handle the weapons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +that had wounded him. On the other side, +those authors whose defensive powers were of +a less prompt and efficient character ventured +no nearer to a quarrel than—to borrow a +simile of George Eliot’s—a water-fowl that +puts out its leg in a deprecating manner can +be said to quarrel with a boy who throws +stones. Southey, who of all men entertained +the most comfortable opinion of his own merits, +must have been deeply angered by the +treatment Thalaba and Madoc received from +the Edinburgh Review; yet we cannot see that +either he or his admirers looked upon Jeffrey +in any other light than that of a tyrannical +but perfectly legitimate authority. Far nobler +victims suffered from the same bitter sting, +and they too nursed their wounds in a decorous +silence.</p> + +<p>But it is very different to-day, when every +injured aspirant to the Temple of Fame assures +himself and a sympathizing public, not +that a particular critic is mistaken in his particular +case, which we may safely take for +granted, but that all critics are necessarily +wrong in all cases, through an abnormal development +of what the catechism terms “darkness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> +of the understanding and a propensity to +evil.” This amiable theory was, I think, first +advanced by Lord Beaconsfield, who sorely +needed some such emollient for his bruises. +In Lothair, when that truly remarkable artist +Mr. Gaston Phœbus, accompanied by his +sister-in-law Miss Euphrosyne Cantacuzene,—Heaven +help their unhappy sponsors!—reveals +to his assembled guests the picture he +has just completed, we are told that his air +“was elate, and was redeemed from arrogance +only by the intellect of his brow. ‘To-morrow,’ +he said, ‘the critics will commence. +You know who the critics are? The men who +have failed in literature and art.’” If Lord +Beaconsfield thought to disarm his foes by this +ingenious device, he was most signally mistaken; +for while several of the reviews were +deferentially hinting that perhaps the book +might not be so very bad as it seemed, Blackwood +stepped alertly to the front, and in a +criticism unsurpassed for caustic wit and merciless +raillery held up each feeble extravagance +to the inextinguishable laughter of the world. +Even now, when few people venture upon the +palatial dreariness of the novel itself, there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +no better way of insuring a mirthful hour than +by re-reading this vigorous and trenchant +satire.</p> + +<p>Quite recently two writers, one on either +side of the Atlantic, have echoed with superfluous +bitterness their conviction of the total +depravity of the critic. Mr. Edgar Fawcett, +in The House on High Bridge, and Mr. J. R. +Rees, in The Pleasures of a Book-Worm, +seem to find the English language painfully +inadequate for the forcible expression of their +displeasure. Mr. Fawcett considers all critics +“inconsistent when they are not regrettably +ignorant,” and fails to see any use for them in +an enlightened world. “It is marvelous,” he +reflects, “how long we tolerate an absurdity +of injustice before suddenly waking up to it. +And what can be a more clear absurdity than +that some one individual caprice, animus, or +even honest judgment should be made to influence +the public regarding any new book?” +Moreover, he has discovered that the men and +women who write the reviews are mere “underpaid +vendors of opinions,” who earn their +breakfasts and dinners by saying disagreeable +things about authors, “their superiors beyond<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> +expression.” But it is only fair to remind +Mr. Fawcett that no particular disgrace is involved +in earning one’s breakfasts and dinners. +On the contrary, hunger is a perfectly +legitimate and very valuable incentive to industry. +“God help the bear, if, having little +else to eat, he must not even suck his own +paws!” wrote Sir Walter Scott, with good-humored +contempt, when Lord Byron accused +him of being a mercenary poet; and we probably +owe the Vicar of Wakefield, The Library, +and Venice Preserved to their authors’ +natural and unavoidable craving for food. +Besides, if the reviewers are underpaid, it is +not so much their fault as that of their employers, +and their breakfasts and dinners must +be proportionately light. When Milton received +five pounds for Paradise Lost, he was +probably the most underpaid writer in the +whole history of literature, yet Mr. Mark Pattison +seems to think that this fact redounds to +his especial honor.</p> + +<p>But there are even worse things to be +learned about the critic than that he sells his +opinions for food. According to Mr. Fawcett +he is distinguished for “real, hysterical, vigilant,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +unhealthy sensitiveness,” and nurses this +unpleasant feeling to such a degree that, +should an author object to being ill-treated at +his hands, the critic is immediately offended +into saying something more abominable still. +In fact, like an uncompromising mother I once +knew, who always punished her children till +they looked pleasant, he requires his smarting +victims to smile beneath the rod. Happily +there is a cure, and a very radical one, too, +for this painful state of affairs. Mr. Fawcett +proposes that all such offenders should be +obliged to buy the work which they dissect, +rightly judging that the book notices would +grow beautifully less under such stringent +treatment. Indeed, were it extended a little +further, and all readers obliged to buy the +books they read, the publishers, the sellers, +and the reviewers might spare the time to +take a holiday together.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rees is quite as severe and much more +ungrateful in his strictures; for, after stating +that the misbehavior of the critic is a source +of great amusement to the thoughtful student, +he proceeds to chastise that misbehavior, +as though it had never entertained him at all.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> +In his opinion, the reviewer, being guided exclusively +by a set of obsolete and worthless +rules, is necessarily incapable of recognizing +genius under any new development: “He +usually is as little fitted to deal with the tasks +he sets himself as a manikin is to growl about +the anatomy of a star, setting forth at the +same time his own thoughts as to how it +should be formed.” Vanity is the mainspring +of his actions: “He fears to be thought beneath +his author, and so doles out a limited +number of praises and an unlimited quantity +of slur.” Like the Welshman, he strikes in +the dark, thus escaping just retribution; and +in his stupid ignorance he seeks to “rein in +the wingèd steed,” from having no conception +of its aerial powers.</p> + +<p>Now this is a formidable indictment, and +some of the charges may be not without foundation; +but if, as too often happens, the +“wingèd steed” is merely a donkey standing +ambitiously on its hind legs, who but the +critic can compel it to resume its quadrupedal +attitude? If, as Mr. Walter Bagehot +warned us some years ago, “reading is about +to become a series of collisions against aggravated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +breakers, of beatings with imaginary +surf,” who but the critic can steer us safely +through the storm? Never, in fact, were his +duties more sharply defined or more sorely +needed than at present, when the average +reader, like the unfortunate Mr. Boffin, stands +bewildered by the Scarers in Print, and finds +life all too short for their elucidation. The +self-satisfied who “know what they prefer,” +and read accordingly, are like the enthusiasts +who follow their own consciences without first +accurately ascertaining whither they are being +taken. It has been well said that the object of +criticism is simply to clear the air about great +work for the benefit of ordinary people. We +only waste our powers when we refuse a guide, +and by forcing our minds hither and thither, +like navigators exploring each new stream +while ignorant of its course and current, we +squander in idle researches the time and +thought which should send us steadily forward +on our road. Worse still, we vitiate +our judgments by perverse and presumptuous +conclusions, and weaken our untrained faculties +by the very methods we hoped would +speed their growth. If Mr. Ruskin and Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> +Matthew Arnold resemble each other in nothing +else, they have both taught earnestly and +persistently, through long and useful lives, the +supreme necessity of law, the supreme merit +of obedience. Mr. Arnold preached it with +logical coldness, after his fashion, and Mr. +Ruskin with illogical impetuosity, after his; +but the lesson remains practically the same. +“All freedom is error,” writes the author of +Queen of the Air, who is at least blessed with +the courage of his convictions. “Every line +you lay down is either right or wrong: it may +be timidly and awkwardly wrong, or fearlessly +and impudently wrong; the aspect of the impudent +wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons, +and is what they commonly call ‘free’ +execution.... I have hardly patience to +hold my pen and go on writing, as I remember +the infinite follies of modern thought in +this matter, centred in the notion that liberty +is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he +is likely to make of it.”</p> + +<p>But he does go on writing, nevertheless, +long after this slender stock of patience is exhausted, +and in his capacity of critic he lays +down Draconian laws which his disciples seem<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +bound to wear as a heavy yoke around their +necks. “Who made Mr. Ruskin a judge or +a nursery governess over us?” asks an irreverent +contributor to Macmillan; and why, +after all, should we abstain from reading Darwin, +and Grote, and Coleridge, and Kingsley, +and Thackeray, and a host of other writers, +who may or may not be gratifying to our own +tastes, because Mr. Ruskin has tried and +found them wanting? It is not the province +of a critic to bar us in a wholesale manner +from all authors he does not chance to like, +but to aid us, by his practiced judgment, to +extract what is good from every field, and to +trace, as far as in us lies, those varying degrees +of excellence which it is to our advantage +to discern. It was in this way that Mr. +Arnold, working with conscientious and dispassionate +serenity, opened our eyes to new +beauty, and strengthened us against vicious +influences; he added to our sources of pleasure, +he helped us to enjoy them, and not to +recognize his kindly aid would be an ungracious +form of self-deception. If he were occasionally +a little puzzling, as in some parts +of Celtic Literature, where the qualities he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +detected fall meaningless on our ears, it is a +wholesome lesson in humility to acknowledge +our bewilderment. Why should the lines</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“What little town by river or sea-shore,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or mountain-built with quiet citadel,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is emptied of its folk this pious morn?”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">be the expression of a purely Greek form of +thought, “as Greek as a thing from Homer or +Theocritus;” and</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent22">“In such a night</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To come again to Carthage,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">be as purely Celtic? Why should</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">be Greek, and</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Fast-fading violets cover’d up in leaves”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">be Celtic? That harmless nondescript, the +general reader, be he ever so anxious for enlightenment, +is forced to confess he really does +not know; and if his ignorance be of the complacent +order, he adds an impatient doubt as +to whether Mr. Arnold knew either, just as +when he “comes up gasping” from a sudden +plunge into Browning, he is prompt to declare +his firm conviction that the poet never had the +faintest idea what he was writing about.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span></p> + +<p>But there is another style of enigma with +which critics are wont to harry and perplex us, +and one has need of a “complication-proof +mind,” like Sir George Cornewall Lewis, to +see clearly through the tangle. Mr. Churton +Collins, in his bitter attack on Mr. Gosse in +the Quarterly Review, objected vehemently to +ever-varying descriptions of a single theme. +He did not think that if Drayton’s Barons’ +Wars be a “serene and lovely poem,” it could +well have a “passionate music running through +it,” or possess “irregular force and sudden +brilliance of style.” Perhaps he was right; +but there are few critics who can help us to +know and feel a poem like Mr. Gosse, and +fewer still who write with such consummate +grace and charm. It is only when we pass +from one reviewer to another that the shifting +lights thrown upon an author dazzle and confuse +us. Like the fifty-six different readings +of the first line of the Orlando Furioso, there +are countless standpoints from which we are +invited to inspect each and every subject; and +unless we follow the admirable example of Mr. +Courthope, who solves a difficulty by gently +saying, “The matter is one not for argument,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> +but for perception,” we are lost in the mazes +of indecision. Thus Mr. Ruskin demonstrates +most beautifully the great superiority of Sir +Walter Scott’s heroines over his heroes, and +by the time we settle our minds to this conviction +we find that Mr. Bagehot, that most acute +and exhausting of critics, thinks the heroines +inferior in every way, and that Sir Walter +was truly felicitous only in his male characters.</p> + +<p>Happily, this is a point on which we should +be able to decide for ourselves without much +prompting; but all disputed topics are not +equally intelligible. There is the vexed and +vexing question of romantic and classical, +conservative and liberal poetry, about which +Mr. Courthope and Mr. Andrew Lang and +Mr. Myers have had so much to say of late, +and which is, at best, but a dimly lighted path +for the uninitiated to travel. There is that +perpetual problem, Mr. Walt Whitman, the +despair and the stumbling-block of critics, to +whose extraordinary effusions, as the Quarterly +Review neatly puts it, “existing standards +cannot be applied with exactness.” There is +Emily Brontë, whose verses we were permitted +for years to ignore, and in whom we are now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +peremptorily commanded to recognize a true +poet. Miss Mary Robinson, who, in common +with most female biographers, is an enthusiast +rather than a critic, never wearies of praising +the “splendid and vigorous movement” of +Emily Brontë’s poems, “with their surplus +imagination, their sweeping impressiveness, +their instinctive music and irregular rightness +of form.” On the other hand, Mr. Gosse, +while acknowledging in them a very high +order of merit, laments that such burning +thoughts should be “concealed for the most +part in the tame and ambling measures dedicated +to female verse by the practice of Felicia +Hemans and Letitia Landon.” So far, indeed, +from recognizing the “vigorous movement” +and “irregular rightness of form” +which Miss Robinson so much admires, he +describes A Death Scene, one of the finest in +point of conception, as “clothed in a measure +that is like the livery of a charitable institution.” +“There’s allays two ’pinions,” says +Mr. Macey, in Silas Marner; but we cannot +help sometimes wishing, in the cause of perspicuity, +that they were not so radically different.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span></p> + +<p>As for the pure absurdities of criticism, they +may be culled like flowers from every branch, +and are pleasing curiosities for those who have +a liking for such relics. Were human nature +less complacent in its self-sufficiency, they +might even serve as useful warnings to the impetuous +young reviewers of to-day, and so be +not without their salutary influence on literature. +Whether the result of ignorance, or +dullness, or bad temper, of national or religious +prejudices, or of mere personal pique, +they have boldly challenged the ridicule of the +world, and its amused contempt has pilloried +them for all time. When Voltaire sneered at +the Inferno, and thought Hamlet the work of +a drunken savage, he at least made a bid for +the approbation of his countrymen, who, as +Schlegel wittily observes, were in the habit of +speaking as though Louis XIV. had put an +end to cannibalism in Europe. But what did +Englishmen think when Hume informed them +that Shakespeare was “born in a rude age, +and educated in the lowest manner, without +instruction from the world or from books;” +and that he could not uphold for any time “a +reasonable propriety of thought”? How did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +they feel when William Maginn brutally declared +that Keats</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent8">“the doubly dead</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In that he died so young,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">was but a cockney poet, who wrote vulgar indecorums, +“probably in the indulgence of his +social propensities”? How did they feel when +the same Maginn called the Adonais “dreary +nonsense” and “a wild waste of words,” and +devoted bitter pages to proving that Shelley +was not only undeserving, but “hopeless of +poetic reputation”? Yet surely indignation +must have melted into laughter, when this +notable reviewer—who has been recently reprinted +as a shining light for the new generation—added +serenely that “a hundred or a +hundred thousand verses might be made, equal +to the best in Adonais, without taking the pen +off the paper.” This species of sweeping assertion +has been repeated by critics more than +once, to the annoyance of their friends and +the malicious delight of their enemies. Ruskin, +who, with all his gifts, seems cursed with +what Mr. Bagehot calls “a mind of contrary +flexure, whose particular bent it is to contradict +what those around them say,” has ventured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +to tell the world that any head clerk of +a bank could write a better history of Greece +than Mr. Grote, if he would have the vanity to +waste his time over it; and I have heard a man +of fair attainments and of sound scholarship +contend that there were twenty living authors +who could write plays as fine as Shakespeare’s.</p> + +<p>Jeffrey’s extraordinary blunders are too well +known to need repetition, and Christopher +North was not without his share of similar +mishaps; Walpole cheerfully sentenced Scandinavian +poetry in the bulk as the horrors of +a Runic savage; Madame de Staël objected +to the “commonness” of Miss Austen’s novels; +Wordsworth thought Voltaire dull, and +Southey complained that Lamb’s essays lacked +“sound religious feeling;” George Borrow, +whose literary tastes were at least as erratic as +they were pronounced, condemned Sir Walter +Scott’s Woodstock as “tiresome, trashy, and +unprincipled,” and ranked Shakespeare, Pope, +Addison, and the Welsh bard Huw Morris together +as “great poets,” apparently without +recognizing any marked difference in their respective +claims. Then there is Taine, who +finds Pendennis and Vanity Fair too full of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> +sermons; Mr. Dudley Warner, who compares +the mild and genial humor of Washington +Irving to the acrid vigor of Swift; and Mr. +Howells, who, perhaps in pity for our sense +of loss, would fain persuade us that we could +no longer endure either the “mannerisms” +of Dickens or the “confidential attitude” of +Thackeray, were we happy enough to see these +great men still in our midst.</p> + +<p>Imagine, ye who can, the fiery Hazlitt’s +wrath, if he but knew that in punishment for +his youthful admiration of the Nouvelle Héloïse +a close resemblance has been traced by +friendly hands between himself and its author. +Think of Lord Byron’s feelings, if he could +hear Mr. Swinburne saying that it was greatly +to his—Byron’s—credit that he knew himself +for a third-rate poet! Even though it be +the only thing to his credit that Swinburne +has so far discovered, one doubts whether it +would greatly mollify his lordship, or reconcile +him to being classed as a “Bernesque poet,” +and the companion of those two widely different +creatures, Southey and Offenbach. Perhaps, +indeed, his lively sense of humor would +derive a more positive gratification from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> +watching his angry critic run amuck through +adjectives with frenzied agility. Such sentences +as “the blundering, floundering, lumbering, +and stumbling stanzas of Childe Harold, +... the gasping, ranting, wheezing, +broken-winded verse, ... the hideous absurdities +and jolter-headed jargon,” must surely be +less deeply offensive to Lord Byron’s admirers +than to Mr. Swinburne’s. They come as near +to describing the noble beauty of Childe Harold +as does Southey’s senseless collection of +words to describing the cataract of Lodore, +or any other cataract in existence; and, since +the days when Milton and Salmasius hurled +“Latin billingsgate” at each other’s heads, +we have had no stronger argument in favor of +the comeliness of moderation.</p> + +<p>“The most part of Mr. Swinburne’s criticism,” +hints a recent reviewer, “is surely very +much of a personal matter,—personal, one +may say, in expression as well as in sensation.” +He has always a “neat hand at an epithet,” +and the “jolter-headed jargon” of Byron is +no finer in its way than the “fanfaronade and +falsetto of Gray.” But even the charms of +alliteration, joined to the fish-wife’s slang<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +which has recently so tickled the fancy of +Punch,<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> cannot wholly replace that clear-headed +serenity which is the true test of a critic’s +worth and the most pleasing expression of +his genius. He should have no visible inclination +to praise or blame; it is not his business, +as Mr. Bagehot puts it, to be thankful, and +neither is he the queen’s attorney pleading for +conviction. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who considered +that Byron was “the greatest natural +force, the greatest elementary power, which +has appeared in our literature since Shakespeare,” +presented his arguments plainly and +without the faintest show of enthusiasm. He +did not feel the need of reviling somebody +else in order to emphasize his views, and he +did not care to advance opinions without some +satisfactory explanation of their existence. +Mr. Courthope may content himself with saying +that a matter is one not for argument, but +for perception; but Mr. Arnold gave a reason +for the faith that was in him. Mere preference +on the part of a critic is not a sufficient +sanction for his verdicts, or at least it does not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +warrant his imparting them to the public. +Swinburne may honestly think four lines of +Wordsworth to be of more value than the +whole of Byron, but that is no reason why +we should think so too. When Mr. George +Saintsbury avows a strong personal liking for +some favorite authors,—Borrow and Peacock, +for instance,—he modestly states that this +fact is not in itself a convincing proof of their +merit; but when Mr. Ernest Myers says that +he would sacrifice the whole of Childe Harold +to preserve one of Macaulay’s Lays, he +seems to be offering a really impressive piece +of evidence. The tendency of critics to rush +into print with whatever they chance to think +has resulted in readers who naturally believe +that what they think is every bit as good. +Macaulay and Walter Savage Landor are both +instances of men whose unusual powers of discernment +were too often dimmed by their prejudices. +Macaulay knew that Montgomery’s +poetry was bad, but he failed to see that Fouqué’s +prose was good; and Landor hit right +and left, amid friends and foes, like the +blinded Ajax scourging the harmless flocks.</p> + +<p>It is quite as amusing and far less painful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> +to turn from the critics’ indiscriminate abuse +to their equally indiscriminate praise, and to +read the glowing tributes heaped upon authors +whose mediocrity has barely saved them from +oblivion. Compare the universal rapture which +greeted “the majestick numbers of Mr. Cowley” +to the indifference which gave scant welcome +to the Hesperides. Mr. Gosse tells us +that for half a century Katherine Philips, the +matchless Orinda, was an unquestioned light +in English song. “Her name was mentioned +with those of Sappho and Corinna, and language +was used without reproach which would +have seemed a little fulsome if addressed to +the Muse herself.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent12">“For, as in angels, we</div> + <div class="verse indent12">Do in thy verses see</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Both improved sexes eminently meet;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They are than Man more strong, and more than Woman sweet.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>So sang Cowley to this much admired lady; +and the Earl of Roscommon, in some more extravagant +and amusing stanzas, asserted it to +be his unique experience that, on meeting a +pack of angry wolves in Scythia,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The magic of Orinda’s name</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not only can their fierceness tame,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">But, if that mighty word I once rehearse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They seem submissively to roar in verse.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>“It is easier to flatter than to praise,” says +Jean Paul, but even flattery is not always the +facile work it seems.</p> + +<p>Sir Walter Scott, who was strangely disposed +to undervalue his own merit as a poet, +preserved the most genuine enthusiasm for the +work of others. When his little daughter was +asked by James Ballantyne what she thought +of The Lady of the Lake, she answered with +perfect simplicity that she had not read it. +“Papa says there is nothing so bad for young +people as reading bad poetry.” Yet Sir Walter +always spoke of Madoc and Thalaba with +a reverence that would seem ludicrous were it +not so frankly sincere. Southey himself could +not have admired them more; and when Jeffrey +criticised Madoc with flippant severity in the +Edinburgh Review, we find Scott hastening to +the rescue in a letter full of earnest and soothing +praise. “A poem whose merits are of that +higher tone,” he argues, “does not immediately +take with the public at large. It is even possible +that during your own life you must be contented +with the applause of the few whom nature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +has gifted with the rare taste for discriminating +in poetry. But the mere readers of +verse must one day come in, and then Madoc +will assume his real place, at the feet of Milton.”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> +The mere readers of verse, being in +no wise responsible for Milton’s position in literature, +have so far put no one at his feet; nor +have they even verified Sir Walter’s judgment +when, writing again to Southey, he says with +astonishing candor, “I am not such an ass as +not to know that you are my better in poetry, +though I have had, probably but for a time, +the tide of popularity in my favor.” The +same spirit of self-depreciation, rare enough to +be attractive, made him write to Joanna Baillie +that, after reading some of her songs, he +had thrust by his own in despair.</p> + +<p>But if Sir Walter was an uncertain critic, +his views on criticism were marked by sound +and kindly discretion, and his patience under +attack was the result of an evenly balanced +mind, conscious of its own strength, yet too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> +sane to believe itself infallible. He had a singular +fancy for showing his manuscripts to his +friends, and it is quite delicious to see how +doubtful and discouraging were their first comments. +Gray, when hard pressed by the “light +and genteel” verses of his companion, Richard +West, was not more frugal of his doled-out +praises. But Scott exacted homage neither +from his acquaintances nor from the public. +When it came—and it did come very soon in +generous abundance—he basked willingly +in the sunshine; but he had no uneasy vanity +to be frightened by the shade. He would have +been as sincerely amused to hear Mr. Borrow +call Woodstock “tiresome, trashy, and unprincipled” +as Matthew Arnold used to be when +pelted with strong language by the London +newspapers. “I have made a study of the +Corinthian or leading-article style,” wrote the +great critic, with exasperating urbanity; “and +I know its exigencies, and that they are no +more to be quarreled with than the law of +gravitation.” In fact, the most hopeless barrier +to strife is the steady indifference of a +man who knows he has work to do, and who +goes on doing it, irrespective of anybody’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +opinion. Lady Harriet Ashburton, who dearly +loved the war of words, in which she was sure +to be a victor, was forced to confess that where +no friction was excited, even her barbed shafts +fell harmless. “It is like talking into a soft +surface,” she sighed, with whimsical despondency; +“there is no rebound.”</p> + +<p>American critics have the reputation of being +more kind-hearted than discriminating. +The struggling young author, unless overweeningly +foolish, has little to fear from their +hands; and, if his reputation be once fairly +established, all he chooses to write is received +with a gratitude which seems excessive to the +more exacting readers of France and England. +If he be a humorist, we are always alert and +straining to see the fun; if a story-teller, we +politely smother our yawns, and say something +about a keen analysis of character, a marked +originality of treatment, or a purely unconventional +theme; if a scholar, no pitfalls are dug +for his unwary feet by reviewers like Mr. Collins. +Such virulent and personal attacks we +consider very uncomfortable reading, as in +truth they are, and we have small appetite at +any time for a sound kernel beneath a bitter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> +rind. Yet surely in these days, when young +students turn impatiently from the very fountain-heads +of learning, too much stress cannot +be laid on the continuity of literature, and on +the absolute importance of the classics to those +who would intelligently explore the treasure-house +of English verse. Moreover, Mr. Collins +has aimed a few well-directed shafts +against the ingenious system of mutual admiration, +by which a little coterie of writers, modern +Della Cruscans, help each other into prominence, +while an unsuspecting public is made +“the willing dupe of puffers.” This delicate +game, which is now conducted with such well-rewarded +skill by a few enterprising players, +consists, not so much in open flattery, though +there is plenty of that too, as in the minute +chronicling of every insignificant circumstance +of each other’s daily lives, from the hour at +which they breakfast to the amount of exercise +they find conducive to appetite, and the shape +and size of their dining-room tables. We are +stifled by the literary gossip which fills the +newspapers and periodicals. Nothing is too +trivial, nothing too irrelevant, to be told; and +when, in the midst of an article on any subject,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> +from grand-dukes to gypsies, a writer gravely +stops to explain that a perfectly valueless remark +was made to him on such an occasion +by his friend such a one, whose interesting papers +on such a topic will be well remembered +by the readers of such a magazine, we are +forcibly reminded of the late Master of Trinity’s +sarcasm as to the many things that are +too unimportant to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected +to feel an appetite for the black broth +of honest criticism. There was a time, now +happily past, when the reviewer’s skill lay +simply in the clever detection of flaws; it was +his business in life to find out whatever was +weak or absurd in an author, and to hold it up +for the amusement of those who were not +quick enough to see such things for themselves. +Now his functions are of a totally different order, +and a great many writers seem to think it +his sole duty to bring them before the public +in an agreeable light, to say something about +their books which will be pleasant for them to +read and to pass over in turn to their friends. +If he cannot do this, it is plain he has no sanction +to say anything at all. That the critic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> +has a duty to the public itself is seldom remembered; +that his work is of the utmost importance, +and second in value only to the original +conception he analyzes, is a truth few +people take the pains to grasp. Coleridge +thought him a mere maggot, battening upon +authors’ brains; yet how often has he helped +us to gain some clear insight into this most +shapeless and shadowy of great men! Wordsworth +underrated his utility, yet Wordsworth’s +criticisms, save those upon his own poems, are +among the finest we can read; and, to argue +after the fashion of Mr. Myers, the average +student would gladly exchange The Idiot +Boy, or Goody Blake and Harry Gill, for another +letter upon Dryden. As a matter of +fact, the labors of the true critic are more essential +to the author, even, than to the reader. +It is natural that poets and novelists should +devoutly believe that the creative faculty alone +is of any true service to the world, and that +it cannot rightly be put to trial by those to +whom this higher gift is rigorously denied. +But the critical power, though on a distinctly +lower level than the creative, is of inestimable +help in its development. Great work thrives<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +best in a critical atmosphere, and the clear +light thrown upon the past is the surest of +guides to the future. When the standard of +criticism is high, when the influence of classical +and foreign literature is understood and +appreciated, when slovenly and ill-digested +work is promptly recognized as such, then, and +then only, may we look for the full expansion +of a country’s genius. To be satisfied with +less is an amiable weakness rather than an invigorating +stimulant to perfection.</p> + +<p>Matthew Arnold’s definition of true criticism +is familiar to all his readers; it is simply +“a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate +the best that is known and thought in the +world.” But by disinterestedness he did not +mean merely that a critic must have no distinct +design of flattering either his subject or +his audience. He meant that in order to recognize +what is really the best a man must free +himself from every form of passion or prejudice, +from every fixed opinion, from every +practical consideration. He must not look at +things from an English, or a French, or an +American, standpoint. He has no business +with politics or patriotism. These things are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> +excellent in themselves, and may be allowed to +control his actions in other matters; but when +the question at issue is the abstract beauty of +a poem, a painting, a statue, or a piece of architecture, +he is expected to stand apart from +his every-day self, and to judge of it by some +higher and universal law. This is a difficult +task for most men, who do not respire easily +in such exceedingly rarefied air, and who have +no especial taste for blotting out their individuality. +With Macaulay, for instance, political +considerations frankly outweigh all others; he +gives us the good Whig and the wicked Tory +on every page, after the fashion of Hogarth’s +idle and industrious apprentices. Mr. Bagehot, +while a far less transparent writer, manifests +himself indirectly in his literary preferences. +When we have read his essay on +Shakespeare, we feel pretty sure we know his +views on universal suffrage. Mr. Andrew +Lang has indeed objected vehemently to the +intrusion of politics into literature, perhaps +because of a squeamish distaste for the harsh +wranglings of the political field. But Mr. +Arnold was incapable of confusing the two +ideas. His taste for Celtic poetry and his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +attitude towards home rule are both perfectly +defined and perfectly isolated sentiments; just +as his intelligent admiration and merciless condemnation +of Heinrich Heine stand side by +side, living witnesses of a mind that held its +own balance, losing nothing that was good, +condoning nothing that was evil, as far removed +from weak enthusiasm on the one hand +as from frightened depreciation on the other.</p> + +<p>It is folly to rail at the critic until we have +learned his value; it is folly to ignore a help +which we are not too wise to need. “The best +that is known and thought in the world” does +not stand waiting for admission on our door-steps. +Like the happiness of Hesiod, it +“abides very far hence, and the way to it is +long and steep and rough.” It is hard to seek, +hard to find, and not easily understood when +discovered. Criticism does not mean a random +opinion on the last new novel, though +even the most dismal of light literature comes +fairly within its scope. It means a disinterested +endeavor to learn and to teach whatever +wisdom or beauty has been added by every +age and every nation to the great inheritance +of mankind.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“But when poet Swinburne steps into the fray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And slangs like a fish-wife, what, <i>what</i> can one say?”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Compare Charles Lamb’s letter to Coleridge: “On the +whole I expect Southey one day to rival Milton; I already +deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living poets +besides.”</p> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SOME_ASPECTS_OF_PESSIMISM">SOME ASPECTS OF PESSIMISM.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>When Mr. Matthew Arnold delivered his +lecture on Emerson in this country, several +years ago, it was delightful to see how the +settled melancholy of his audience, who had +come for a panegyric and did not get it, +melted into genial applause when the lecturer +touched at last upon the one responsive chord +which bound his subject, his hearers, and himself +in a sympathetic harmony,—I mean +Emerson’s lifelong, persistent, and unconquerable +optimism. This was perhaps the more +apparent because Mr. Arnold’s addresses were +not precisely the kind with which we Americans +are best acquainted; they were singularly +deficient in the oratorical flights that are wont +to arouse our enthusiasm, and in the sudden +descents to colloquial anecdote by which we +expect to be amused. For real enjoyment it +was advisable to read them over carefully +after they were printed, and the oftener they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +were so read the better they repaid perusal; +but this not being the point of view from +which ordinary humanity is apt to regard a +lecture, it was with prompt and genuine relief +that the audience hailed a personal appeal +to that cheerful, healthy hopefulness of disposition +which we like to be told we possess in +common with greater men. It is always pleasant +to hear that happiness is “the due and +eternal result of labor, righteousness, and veracity,” +and to have it hinted to us that we +have sane and wholesome minds because we +think so; it is pleasanter still to be assured +that the disparaging tone which religion assumes +in relation to this earthly happiness +arises from a well-intentioned desire to wean +us from it, and not at all from a clear-sighted +conviction of its feeble worth. When Mr. +Arnold recited for our benefit a cheerless little +scrap of would-be pious verse which he had +heard read in a London schoolroom, all about +the advantages of dying,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“For the world at best is a dreary place,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And my life is getting low,”—</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">we were glad to laugh over such dismal philosophy, +and to feel within ourselves an exhilarating +superiority of soul.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p> + +<p>But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, +has an ugly trick of collapsing when full-blown, +and facts are stony things that refuse +to melt away in the sunshine of a smile. Mr. +Arnold, like Mr. Emerson, preached the gospel +of compensation with much picturesqueness +and beauty; but his arguments would be +more convincing if our own observation and +experience did not so mulishly stand in their +way. A recent writer in Cornhill, who ought +to be editing a magazine for Arcady, asserts +with charming simplicity that man “finds a +positive satisfaction in putting himself on a +level with others, and in recognizing that he +has his just share of life’s enjoyments.” But +suppose that he cannot reach the level of +others, or be persuaded that his share is just? +The good things of life are not impartially +divided, like the spaces on a draught-board, +and man, who is a covetous animal, will never +be content with a little, while his comrade +enjoys a great deal. Neither does he find the +solace that is expected in the contemplation of +the unfortunate who has nothing; for this +view of the matter, besides being a singular +plea for the compensation theory, appeals too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> +coarsely to that root of selfishness which we +are none of us anxious to exhibit. The average +fustian-clad man is not too good to envy +his neighbor’s broadcloth, but he <i>is</i> too good to +take comfort in his brother’s nakedness. The +sight of it may quicken his gratitude, but can +hardly increase his happiness. Yet what did +Mr. Arnold mean in his poem of Consolation—which +is very charming, but not in the least +consoling—save that the joys and sorrows of +each hour balance themselves in a just proportion, +and that the lovers’ raptures and the +blind robber’s pain level the eternal scales. It +is not a cheering bit of philosophy, whatever +might have been the author’s intention, for the +very existence of suffering darkens the horizon +for thoughtful souls. It would be an insult +on the part of the lovers—lovers are odious +things at best—to offer their arrogant bliss +as indemnification to the wretch for his brimming +cup of bitterness; but the vision of his +seared eyeballs and sin-laden soul might justly +moderate their own expansive felicity. Sorrow +has a claim on all mankind, and when the +utmost that Mr. Arnold could promise for our +consolation was that time, the impartial,</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Brings round to all men</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Some undimm’d hours.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">we did not feel that he afforded us any broad +ground for self-complacency.</p> + +<p>The same key is struck with more firmness +in that strange poem, The Sick King in +Bokhara, where the vizier can find no better +remedy for his master’s troubled mind than by +pointing out to him the vast burden of misery +which rests upon the world, and which he is +utterly powerless to avert. It is hardly worth +while, so runs the vizier’s argument, for the +king to vex his soul over the sufferings of one +poor criminal, whom his pity could not save, +when the same tragic drama is being played +with variations in every quarter of the globe. +Behold, thousands are toiling for hard masters, +armies are laying waste the peaceful land, +robbers are harassing the mountain shepherds, +and little children are being carried into captivity.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The Kaffirs also (whom God curse!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vex one another night and day;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There are the lepers, and all sick;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There are the poor, who faint away.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“All these have sorrow and keep still,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whilst other men make cheer and sing.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wilt thou have pity on all these?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No, nor on this dead dog, O king!”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Whereupon the sick monarch, who does not +seem greatly cheered by this category, adds in +a disconsolate sort of way that he too, albeit +envied of all men, finds his secret burdens +hard to bear, and that not even to him is +granted the fulfillment of desire,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“And what I would, I cannot do.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Unless the high priests of optimism shall find +us some stouter arguments than these with +which to make merry our souls, it is to be +feared that their opponents, who have at least +the knack of stating their cases with pitiless +lucidity, will hardly think our buoyancy worth +pricking.</p> + +<p>As for that small and compact band who +steadfastly refuse to recognize in “this sad, +swift life” any occasion for self-congratulation, +they are not so badly off, in spite of their +funereal trappings, as we are commonly given +to suppose. It is only necessary to read a +page of their writings—and few people care +to read more—to appreciate how thoroughly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> +they enjoy the situation, and how, sitting with +Hecate in her cave, they weave delicate +thoughts out of their chosen darkness. They +are full of the hopefulness of despair, and confident +in the strength of the world’s weakness. +They assume that they not only represent +great fundamental truths, but that these truths +are for the first time being put forth in a concrete +shape for the edification and adherence +of mankind. Mr. Edgar Saltus informs us +that, while optimism is as old as humanity, +“systematic pessimism” is but a growth of +the last half century, before which transition +period we can find only individual expressions +of discontent. Mr. Mallock claims that he is +the first who has ever inquired into the worth +of life “in the true scientific spirit.” But +when we come to ask in what systematic or +scientific pessimism differs from the older +variety which has found a home in the hearts +of men from the beginning, we do not receive +any very coherent answer. From Mr. Mallock, +indeed, we hardly expect any. It is his +province in literature to propose problems +which the reader, after the fashion of The +Lady or the Tiger? is permitted to solve for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> +himself. But does Mr. Saltus really suppose +that Schopenhauer and Hartmann have made +much headway in reducing sadness to a science, +that love is in any danger of being supplanted +by the “genius of the species,” or that +the “principle of the unconscious” is at all +likely to extinguish our controlling force? +What have these two subtle thinkers said to +the world that the world has not practically +known and felt for thousands of years already? +Hegesias, three centuries before Christ, was +quite as systematic as Schopenhauer, and his +system begot more definite results; for several +of his disciples hanged themselves out of deference +for his teachings, whereas it may be seriously +doubted whether all the persuasive arguments +of the Welt als Wille und Vorstellung +have ever made or are likely to make a single +celibate. Marcus Aurelius was as logically +convinced of the inherent worthlessness of life +as Dr. Hartmann, and, without any scientific +apparatus whatever, he stamped his views on +the face of a whole nation. We are now +anxiously warned by Mr. Saltus not to confound +scientific pessimism with that accidental +melancholy which is the result of our own personal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> +misfortunes; but Leopardi, whose unutterable +despair arose solely from his personal +misfortunes, or rather from his moral inability +to cope with them,—for Joubert, who suffered +as much, has left a trail of heavenly light upon +his path,—Leopardi alone lays bare for us the</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Tears that spring and increase</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the barren places of mirth,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">with an appalling accuracy from which we are +glad to turn away our shocked and troubled +eyes.</p> + +<p>It is a humiliating fact that, notwithstanding +our avaricious greed for novelties, we are +forced, when sincere, to confess that “<i>les +anciens ont tout dit</i>,” and that it is probable +the contending schools of thought have always +held the same relative positions they do now: +optimism glittering in the front ranks as a +deservedly popular favorite; pessimism speaking +with a still, persistent voice to those who, +unluckily for themselves, have the leisure and +the intelligence to attend. Schopenhauer +hated the Jews with all his heart for being +such stubborn optimists, and it is true that +their records bear ample witness to the strong +hold they took on the pleasures and the profits<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> +of the world. But their noblest and clearest +voices, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezekiel, speak a different +language; and Solomon, who, it must +be granted, enjoyed a wider experience than +most men, renders a cheerless verdict of vanity +and vexation of spirit for “all things that are +done under the sun.” The Egyptians, owing +chiefly to their tender solicitude about their +tombs, have taken rank in history as a people +enamoured rather of death than of life; and +from the misty flower-gardens of Buddha have +been gathered for centuries the hemlock and +nightshade that adorn the funeral-wreaths of +literature.</p> + +<p>But the Greeks, the blithe and jocund +Greeks, who, as Mr. Arnold justly observed, +ought never to have been either sick or sorry,—to +them, at least, we can turn for that +wholesome joy, that rational delight in mere +existence, which we have somehow let slip +from our nerveless grasp. Whether it was +because this world gave him so much, such +rare perfection in all material things, or because +his own conception of the world to come +promised him so exceedingly little,—for one +or both of these reasons, the average Greek<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> +preferred to cling tenaciously to the good he +had, to the hills, and the sea, and the sunshine, +rather than to</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Move among shadows, a shadow, and wail by impassable streams;”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">and his choice, under the circumstances, is +perhaps hardly a matter for amazement. That +a people so richly endowed should be in love +with life seems to us right and natural; that +amid their keen realization of its fullness and +beauty we find forever sounded—and not +always in a minor key—the same old notes +of weariness and pain is a discouraging item, +when we would like to build up an exhaustive +theory of happiness. Far, far back, in the +Arcadian days of Grecian piety and simplicity, +the devout agriculturist Hesiod looked sorrowfully +over the golden fields, searching vainly +for a joy that remained ever out of reach. +Homer, in a passage which Mr. Peacock says +is nearly always incorrectly translated, has +given us a summary of life which would not +put a modern German to the blush:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gives ill unmixed to some, and good and ill</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mingled to many, good unmixed to none.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p> +<p>Sophocles says uncompromisingly that man’s +happiest fate is not to be born at all; and +that, failing this good fortune, the next best +thing is to die as quickly as possible. Menander +expresses the same thought more sweetly:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Whom the gods love die young;”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">and Euripides, the most reverent soul ever +saddened by the barrenness of paganism, +forces into one bitter line all the bleak hopelessness +of which the Greek tragedy alone is +capable:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Life is called life, but it is truly pain.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Even as isolated sentiments, these ever-recurring +reflections diminish perceptibly the sum +of a nation’s gayety, and, if we receive the +drama as the mouthpiece of the people, we are +inclined to wonder now and then how they +ever could have been cheerful at all. It is +easy, on the other hand, to point to Admetos +and Antigone as two standing examples of the +great value the Greeks placed upon life; for +the sacrifice of Alkestis was not in their eyes +the sordid bargain it appears in ours, and the +daughter of Œdipus goes to her death with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> +shrinking reluctance seemingly out of keeping +with her heroic mould. But Admetos, excuse +him as we may, is but a refinement of a common +type, old as mankind, and no great credit +to its ranks. He may be found in every page +of the world’s history, from the siege of Jerusalem +to the siege of Paris. À Kempis has +transfixed him with sharp scorn in his chapter +On the Consideration of Human Misery, and +a burning theatre or a sinking ship betray +him, shorn of poetical disguise, in all his unadorned +brutality. But to find fault with +Antigone, the noblest figure in classical literature, +because she manifests a natural dislike +for being buried alive is to carry our ideal +of heroism a little beyond reason. Flesh and +blood shrink from the sickening horror that +lays its cold hand upon her heart. She is +young, beautiful, and beloved, standing on the +threshold of matrimony, and clinging with +womanly tenderness to the sacred joys that +are never to be hers. She is a martyr in a +just cause, but without one ray of that divine +ecstasy that sent Christian maidens smiling to +the lions. Beyond a chilly hope that she will +not be unwelcome to her parents, or to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> +brother she has vainly striven to save from +desecration, Antigone descends</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Into the dreary mansions of the dead,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">uncheered by any throb of expectation. Finally, +the manner of her death is too appalling +to be met with stoicism. Juliet, the bravest +of Shakespeare’s heroines, quails before the +thought of a few unconscious hours spent in +the darkness of the tomb; and if our more +exalted views demand indifference to such a +fate, we must not look to the Greeks, nor to +him who</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Saw life steadily, and saw it whole,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">for the fulfillment of our idle fancy.</p> + +<p>Youth, health, beauty, and virtue were to +the ancient mind the natural requisites for +happiness; yet even these favors were so +far at best from securing it, that “nature’s +most pleasing invention, early death,” was too +often esteemed the rarest gift of all. When +Schopenhauer says of the fourth commandment, +“‘Honor thy father and thy mother, +that thy days may be long in the land,’—ah! +what a misfortune to hold out as a reward for +duty!” we feel both shocked and repulsed by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> +this deliberate rejection of what is offered us +as a blessing; but it is at least curious to note +that the happy Greeks held much the same +opinion. When the sons of Cydippe—those +models of filial devotion—shamed not to yoke +themselves like oxen to the cart, and with +strong young arms to drag their mother to the +feast of Hera, the ancient priestess begged of +the dread goddess that she would grant them +her best gift; and the prayer was answered, +not with length of days, nor with the regal +power and splendor promised of old to Paris, +but with a boon more precious still than all.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Whereat the statue from its jeweled eyes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lightened, and thunder ran from cloud to cloud</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In heaven, and the vast company was hushed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But when they sought for Cleobis, behold,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He lay there still, and by his brother’s side</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lay Biton, smiling through ambrosial curls,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And when the people touched them they were dead.”<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>It is hard to assert in the face of a narrative +like this that the Greeks valued nothing +as much as the mere delight of existence.</p> + +<p>As for the favorite theory that Christianity +is responsible for the weakening of earthly +happiness, and that her ministers have systematically<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> +disparaged the things of this world in +order to quicken our desire for things eternal, +it might suffice to hint that Christianity is a +large word, and represents at present a great +many different phases of thought. Mr. Arnold +objected, rationally enough, to the lugubrious +hymns from which the English middle +classes are wont to draw their spiritual refreshment; +and Dr. Holmes, it will be remembered, +has spoken quite as strongly in regard to +their depressing influence upon New England +households. But Christianity and the modern +hymn-book are by no means synonymous +terms, and to claim that the early church deliberately +lowered the scale of human joy is +a very different and a very grave charge, and +one which Mr. Pater, in Marius the Epicurean, +has striven valiantly to refute. With +what clear and delicate touches he paints for +us the innocent gayety of that new birth,—a +gayety with no dark background, and no heart-breaking +limits of time and space. Compared +to it, the sombre and multitudinous rites of +the Romans and the far-famed blitheness of +the Greeks seem incurably narrow and insipid. +The Christians of the catacombs were essentially<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> +a cheerful body, having for their favorite +emblem the serene image of the Good Shepherd, +and believing firmly that “grief is the +sister of doubt and ill-temper, and beyond all +spirits destroyeth man.” If in the Middle +Ages the Church apparently darkened earth to +brighten heaven, it was simply because she +took life as she found it, and strove, as she +still strives, to teach the only doctrine of compensation +that the tyranny of facts cannot +cheaply overthrow. The mediæval peasant +may have been less badly off, on the whole, +than we are generally pleased to suppose. He +was, from all accounts, a robust, unreasoning +creature, who held his neck at the mercy of +his feudal lord, and the rest of his scanty +possessions at the discretion of the tax-gatherer; +but who had not yet bared his back to +the intolerable sting of that modern gadfly, +the professional agitator, and socialistic champion +of the poor. Yet even without this last +and sorest infliction, it is probable that life +was to him but little worth the living, and that +religion could not well paint the world much +blacker than he found it. There was scant +need, in his case, for disparaging the pleasures<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> +of the flesh; and hope, lingering alone in his +Pandora box of troubles, saved him from utter +annihilation by pointing steadily beyond the +doors of death.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the abstract question of +whether our present existence be enjoyable or +otherwise is one which creeds do not materially +modify. A pessimist may be deeply religious +like Pascal and Châteaubriand, or utterly +skeptical like Schopenhauer and Hartmann, +or purely philosophical like faint-hearted +Amiel. He may agree with Lamennais, +that “man is the most suffering of all +creatures;” or with Voltaire, that “happiness +is a dream, and pain alone is real.” He +may listen to Saint Theresa, “It is given to +us either to die or to suffer;” or to Leopardi, +“Life is fit only to be despised.” He may +read in the diary of that devout recluse, Eugénie +de Guérin that “dejection is the ground-work +of human life;” or he may turn over +the pages of Sir Walter Raleigh, and see how +a typical man of the world, soldier, courtier, +and navigator, can find no words ardent +enough in which to praise “the workmanship +of death, that finishes the sorrowful business<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span> +of a wretched life.” I do not mean to imply +that Leopardi and Eugénie de Guérin regarded +existence from the same point of view, +or found the same solace for their pain; but +that they both struck the keynote of pessimistic +philosophy by recognizing that, in this +world at least, sorrow outbalances joy, and +that it is given to all men to eat their bread +in tears. On the other hand, if we are disinclined +to take this view, we shall find no lack +of guides, both saints and sinners, ready to +look the Sphinx smilingly in the face, and +puzzle out a different answer to her riddle.</p> + +<p>Another curious notion is that poets have a +prescriptive right to pessimism, and should +feel themselves more or less obliged, in virtue +of their craft, to take upon their shoulders the +weight of suffering humanity. Mr. James +Sully, for instance, whose word, as a student +of these matters, cannot be disregarded, +thinks it natural and almost inevitable that a +true poet should be of a melancholy cast, by +reason of the sensitiveness of his moral nature +and his exalted sympathy for pain. But it +has yet to be proved that poets are a more +compassionate race than their obscurer brethren<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> +who sit in counting-houses or brew beer. +They are readier, indeed, to moralize over the +knife-grinder, but quite as slow to tip him the +coveted sixpence. Shelley, whose soul swelled +at the wrongs of all mankind, did not hesitate +to inflict pain on the one human being whom +it was his obvious duty to protect. But then +Shelley, like Carlyle, belonged to the category +of reformers rather than to the pessimists; +believing that though the world as he saw it +was as bad as possible, things could be easily +mended by simply turning them topsy-turvy +under his direction. Now the pessimist proper +is the most modest of men. He does not flatter +himself for a moment that he can alter the +existing state of evil, or that the human race, +by its combined efforts, can do anything better +than simply cease to live. He may entertain +with Novalis a shadowy hope that when mankind, +wearied of its own impotence, shall efface +itself from the bosom of the earth, a better +and happier species shall fill the vacant +land. Or he may believe with Hartmann that +there is even less felicity possible in the coming +centuries than in the present day; that +humanity is already on the wane; that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> +higher we stand in the physical and intellectual +scale the more inevitable becomes our suffering; +and that when men shall have thrown +aside the last illusion of their youth, namely, +the hope of any obtainable good either in this +world or in another, they will then no longer +consent to bear the burden of life, but, by the +supreme force of their united volition, will +overcome the resistance of nature, and achieve +the destruction of the universe. But under +no circumstances does he presume to imagine +that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree +change or soften the remorseless words of +fate.</p> + +<p>To return to the poets, however, it is edifying +to hear Mr. Leslie Stephen assert that +“nothing is less poetical than optimism,” or to +listen to Mr. John Addington Symonds, who, +scanning the thoughtful soul for a solution of +man’s place in the order of creation, can find +for him no more joyous task than, Prometheus-like,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“To dree life’s doom on Caucasus.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Even when a poem appears to the uninitiated +to be of a cheerful, not to say blithesome cast,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +the critics are busy reading unutterable sadness +between the lines; and while we smile at +Puck, and the fairies, and the sweet Titania +nursing her uncouth love, we must remember +that the learned Dr. Ulrici has pronounced +the Midsummer Night’s Dream to be a serious +homily, preached with grave heart to an unthinking +world. But is Robin Goodfellow +really a missionary in disguise, and are the +poets as pessimistic in their teaching as their +interpreters would have us understand? Heine +undoubtedly was, and Byron pretended to be. +Keats, with all the pathos of his shadowed +young life, was nothing of the sort, nor was +Milton, nor Goethe, nor Wordsworth; while +Scott, lost, apparently, to the decent requirements +of his art, confessed unblushingly that +fortune could not long play a dirge upon his +buoyant spirits. And Shakespeare? Why, +he was all and everything. Day and night, +sunlight and starlight, were embraced in his +affluent nature. He laid his hand on the +quivering pulses of the world, and, recognizing +that life was often in itself both pleasant +and good, he yet knew, and knew it without +pain, that death was better still. Look only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> +at the character of Horatio, the very type of +the blithe, sturdy, and somewhat commonplace +young student, to whom enjoyment seems a +birthright,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hast ta’en with equal thanks.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Yet it is to this man, of all others, that the +dying Hamlet utters the pathetic plea,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Absent thee from felicity awhile,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To tell my story.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Here at last is a ray of real light, guiding +us miles away from the murky paths of modern +French and English poetry, where we have +stumbled along, growing despondent in the +gloom. To brave life cheerfully, to welcome +death gladly, are possible things, after all, and +better worth man’s courage and convictions +than to dree on Caucasus forever.</p> + +<p>It is ludicrous to turn from the poets to the +politicians, but nowadays every question, even +the old unanswered one, “Is life worth living?” +must needs be viewed from its political +standpoint. What can be more delightful +than to hear Mr. Courthope assert that optimism<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> +is the note of the Liberal party, while +the Conservatives are necessarily pessimistic?—especially +when one remembers the genial +utterance of Mr. Walter Bagehot, contending +that the very essence of Toryism is enjoyment. +“The way to be satisfied with existing things +is to enjoy them.” Yet Sir Francis Doyle +bears witness in his memoirs that the stoutest +of Tories can find plenty to grumble at, which +is not altogether surprising in a sadly ill-regulated +world; and while the optimistic Liberal +fondly believes that he is marching straight +along the chosen road to the gilded towers of +El Dorado, the less sanguine Conservative +contents himself with trying, after his dull, +practical fashion, to step clear of some of the +ruts and quagmires by the way. As for the +extreme Radicals,—and every nation has its +full share of these gentry,—their optimism is +too glittering for sober eyes to bear. A classical +tradition says that each time Sisyphos +rolls his mighty stone up the steep mountain +side he believes that it will reach the summit; +and, its ever-repeated falls failing to teach him +any surer lesson, his doom, like that of our +reforming brothers, is softened into eternal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> +hope. But it may at least be questioned +whether the other inhabitants of Tartarus—none +of whom, it will be remembered, are +without their private grievances—do not occasionally +weary of the dust and racket, and +of the great ball forever thundering about +their ears, as it rolls impotently down to the +level whence it came.</p> + +<p>The pessimist, however,—be it recorded to +his credit,—is seldom an agitating individual. +His creed breeds indifference to others, and he +does not trouble himself to thrust his views +upon the unconvinced. We have, indeed, an +anecdote of Dr. Johnson, who broadly asserted +upon one occasion that no one could +well be happy in this world, whereupon an unreasonable +old lady had the bad taste to contradict +him, and to insist that she, for one, +was happy, and knew it. “Madam,” replied +the irate philosopher, “it is impossible. You +are old, you are ugly, you are sickly and poor. +How, then, can you be happy?” But this, +we think, was rather a natural burst of indignation +on the good doctor’s part than a distinct +attempt at proselytizing, though it is +likely that he somewhat damped the boasted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> +felicity of his antagonist. Schopenhauer, the +great apostle of pessimism, while willing +enough to make converts on a grand scale, +was scornfully unconcerned about the every-day +opinions of his every-day—I was going +to say associates, but the fact is that Schopenhauer +was never guilty of really associating +with anybody. He had at all times the courage +of his convictions, and delighted in illustrating +his least attractive theories. Teaching +asceticism, he avoided women; despising human +companionship, he isolated himself from +men. A luminous selfishness guided him +through life, and saved him from an incredible +number of discomforts. It was his rule to +expect nothing, to desire as little as possible, +and to learn all he could. Want, he held to +be the scourge of the poor, as <i>ennui</i> is that of +the rich; accordingly, he avoided the one by +looking sharply after his money, and the other +by working with unremitting industry. Pleasure, +he insisted, was but a purely negative +quality, a mere absence from pain. He smiled +at the sweet, hot delusions of youth, and +shrugged his shoulders over the limitless follies +of manhood, regarding both from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> +standpoint of a wholly disinterested observer. +If the test of happiness in the Arabian paradise +be to hear the measured beating of one’s +own heart, Schopenhauer was certainly qualified +for admission. Even in this world he +was so far from being miserable, that an atmosphere +of snug comfort surrounds the man +whose very name has become a synonym for +melancholy; and to turn from his cold and +witty epigrams to the smothered despair that +burdens Leopardi’s pages is like stepping at +once from a pallid, sunless afternoon into the +heart of midnight. It is always a pleasant +task for optimists to dwell as much as possible +on the buoyancy with which every healthy +man regards his unknown future, and on the +natural pleasure he takes in recalling the +brightness of the past; but Leopardi, playing +the trump card of pessimism, demonstrates +with merciless precision the insufficiency of +such relief. We cannot in reason expect, he +argues, that, with youth behind us and old +age in front, our future will be any improvement +on our past, for with increasing years +come increasing sorrows to all men; and as +for the boasted happiness of that past, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> +of us would live it over again for the sake of +the joys it contained? Memory cheats us no +less than hope by hazing over those things +that we would fain forget; but who that has +plodded on to middle age would take back +upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, +with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who +would return to the youth he is forever pretending +to regret?</p> + +<p>Such thoughts are not cheerful companions; +but if they stand the test of application, it is +useless to call them morbid. The pessimist +does not contend that there is no happiness in +life, but that, for the generality of mankind, it +is outbalanced by trouble; and this flinty assurance +is all he has to offer in place of the fascinating +theory of compensation. It would +seem as though no sane man could hesitate +between them, if he had the choice, for one +pleasant delusion is worth a hundred disagreeable +facts; but in this serious and truth-hunting +age people have forgotten the value of fiction, +and, like sulky children, refuse to play +at anything. Certainly it would be hard to +find a more dispiriting literature than we enjoy +at present. Scientists, indeed, are reported<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span> +by those who have the strength of mind to follow +them as being exceedingly merry and +complacent; but the less ponderous illuminati, +to whom feebler souls turn instinctively +for guidance, are shining just now with a severe +and chastened light. When on pleasure +bent they are as frugal as Mrs. Gilpin, but +they sup sorrow with a long spoon, utterly regardless +of their own or their readers’ digestions. +Germany still rings with Heine’s discordant +laughter, and France, rich in the +poets of decadence, offers us Les Fleurs du +Mal to wear upon our bosoms. England +listens, sighing, while Carlyle’s denunciations +linger like muttering thunder in the air; or +while Mr. Ruskin, “the most inspired of the +modern prophets,” vindicates his oracular +spirit by crying,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Woe! woe! O earth! Apollo, O Apollo!”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">with the monotonous persistency of Cassandra. +Mr. Mallock, proud to kneel at Mr. Ruskin’s +feet as “an intellectual debtor to a public +teacher,” binds us in his turn within the fine +meshes of his exhaustless subtleties, until we +grow light-headed rather than light-hearted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> +under such depressing manipulation. Mr. +Pater, who at one time gave us to understand +that he would teach us how to enjoy life, has, +so far, revealed nothing but its everlasting sadness. +If the old Cyrenaics were no gayer than +their modern representatives, Aristippus of +Cyrene might just as well have been Diogenes +sulking in his tub, or Heraclitus adding useless +tears to the trickling moisture of his cave.</p> + +<p>Even our fiction has grown disconcertingly +sad within the last few years, and with a new +order of sadness, invented apparently to keep +pace with the melancholy march of mind. The +novelist of the past had but two courses open +to him: either to leave Edwin and Angelina +clasped in each other’s arms, or to provide for +one of them a picturesque and daisy-strewn +grave. Ordinarily he chose the former alternative, +as being less harassing to himself, and +more gratifying to his readers. Books that +end badly have seldom been really popular, +though sometimes a tragic conclusion is essential +to the artistic development of the story. +When Tom and Maggie Tulliver go down, +hand in hand, amid the rushing waters of the +Floss, we feel, even through our tears,—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> +mine are fresh each time I read the page,—that +the one possible solution of the problem, +has been reached; that only thus could the +widely contrasting natures of brother and sister +meet in unison, and the hard-fought battle +be gained. Such an end is not sad, it is happy +and beautiful; and, moreover, it is in a measure +inevitable, the climax being shadowed +from the beginning, as in the tragedy of the +Greeks, and the whole tale moving swiftly and +surely to its appointed close. If we compare +a finely chiseled piece of work like this with +the flat, faintly colored sketches which are at +present passing muster for novels, we feel that +beauty of form is something not compounded +of earthly materials only, and that neither the +savage strength of French and Russian realism, +nor the dreary monotony of German speculative +fiction, can lift us any nearer the tranquil +realms of art.</p> + +<p>Nor can we even claim that we have gained +in cheerfulness what we have lost in symmetry, +for the latest device of the pessimistic +story-writer is to marry his pair of lovers, and +then coldly inform us that, owing to the inevitable +evils of life, they were not particularly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> +happy after all. Now Lady Martin (Helen +Faucit), that loving student and impersonator +of Shakespeare’s heroines, has expressed her +melancholy conviction that the gentle Hero +was but ill-mated with one so fretful and +paltry-souled as Claudio; and that Imogen +the fair was doomed to an early death, the +bitter fruit of her sad pilgrimage to Milford-Haven. +But be this as it may,—and we +more than fear that Lady Martin is rightly +acquainted with the matter,—Shakespeare +himself has whispered us no word of such ill-tidings, +but has left us free, an’ it please us, +to dream out happier things. So, too, Dorothea +Brooke, wedded to Will Ladislaw, has before +her many long and weary hours of regretful +self-communings; yet, while we sigh over +her doubtful future, we are glad, nevertheless, +to take our last look at her smiling in her husband’s +arms. But when Basil Ransom, in +The Bostonians, makes a brave fight for his +young bride, and carries her off in triumph, +we are not for a moment permitted to feel +elated at his victory. We want to rejoice +with Verena, and to congratulate her on her +escape from Mr. Filer and the tawdry music-hall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> +celebrity; but we are forced to take leave +of her in tears, and to hear with unwilling +ears that “these were not the last she was destined +to shed.” This hurts our best feelings, +and hurts them all the more because we have +allowed our sympathies to be excited. It reminds +us of that ill-natured habit of the +Romans, who were ungrateful enough to spoil +a conqueror’s triumph by hiring somebody to +stand in his chariot, and keep whispering in +his ear that he was only human, after all; and +it speaks volumes for the stern self-restraint of +the Roman nature that the officious truth-teller +was not promptly kicked out in the dust. In +the same grudging spirit, Mr. Thomas Hardy, +after conducting one of his heroines safely +through a great many trials, and marrying her +at last to the husband of her choice, winds up, +by way of wedding-bells, with the following +consolatory reflections: “Her experience had +been of a kind to teach her, rightly or wrongly, +that the doubtful honor of a brief transit +through a sorry world hardly called for effusiveness, +even when the path was suddenly +irradiated at some half-way point by day-dreams +rich as hers.... And in being forced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> +to class herself among the fortunate, she did +not cease to wonder at the persistence of the +unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken +tranquillity had been accorded in the +adult stage was she whose youth had seemed +to teach that happiness was but the occasional +episode in a general drama of pain.” “What +should a man do but be merry?” says Hamlet +drearily; and, with this reckless mirth pervading +even our novels, we bid fair in time to +become as jocund as he.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> The Sons of Cydippe, by Edmund Gosse.</p> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_CAVALIER">THE CAVALIER.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>“An evil reputation is light to raise, but +heavy to bear, and very difficult to put aside. +No Rumor which many people chatter of altogether +dieth away; she too is, after her kind, +an immortal.” So moralizes Hesiod over an +exceedingly thankless truth, which, even in +the primitive simplicity of the golden age, had +forced itself upon man’s unwilling convictions; +and while many later philosophers have given +caustic expression to the same thought, few +have clothed it with more delicate and agreeable +irony. Rumor is, after her kind, an immortal. +Antæus-like, she gains new strength +each time she is driven to the ground, and it +is a wholesome humiliation for our very enlightened +minds to see how little she has suffered +from centuries of analysis and research. +Rumor still writes our histories, directs our +diplomacy, and controls our ethics, until we +have grown to think that this is probably what +is meant by the <i>vox populi</i>, and that any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> +absurdity credited by a great many people +becomes in some mysterious way sacred to the +cause of humanity, and infinitely more precious +than truth. When Wodrow, and Walker, +and the author of The Cloud of Witnesses, +were compiling their interesting narratives, +Rumor, in the person of “ilka auld wife in +the chimley-neuck,” gave them all the information +they desired; and this information, +countersigned by Macaulay, has passed muster +for history down to the present day. As a +result, the introduction of Graham of Claverhouse +into Mr. Lang’s list of English Worthies +has been received with severely qualified +approbation, and Mr. Mowbray Morris has +written the biography of a great soldier in the +cautious tone of a lawyer pleading for a criminal +at the bar.</p> + +<p>If ever the words of Hesiod stood in need of +an accurate illustration, it has been furnished +by the memory of Claverhouse; for his evil +reputation was not only raised with astonishing +facility, but it has never been put aside at +all. In fact, it seems to have been a matter +of pride in the grim-visaged Scottish saints to +believe that their departed brethren were, one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> +and all, the immediate victims of his wrath; +and to hint that they might perhaps have +fallen by any meaner hand was, as Aytoun +wittily expressed it, “an insult to martyrology.” +The terror inspired by his inflexible +severity gave zest to their lurid denunciations, +and their liveliest efforts of imagination were +devoted to conjuring up in his behalf some +fresh device of evil. In that shameless pasquinade, +the Elegy, there is no species of wickedness +that is not freely charged, in most vile +language, to the account of every Jacobite in +the land, from the royal house of Stuart down +to its humblest supporter; yet even amid such +goodly company, Claverhouse stands preëminent, +and is the recipient of its choicest flowers +of speech.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“He to Rome’s cause most firmly stood,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And drunken was with the saints’ blood.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He rifled houses, and did plunder</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In moor and dale many a hunder;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He all the shires in south and west</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With blood and rapine sore opprest.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>It is needless to say that Claverhouse, +though he served a Catholic master, had about +as much affinity for the Church of Rome as +the great Gustavus himself, and that the extent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> +of his shortcomings in this direction lay +in his protesting against the insults offered by +a Selkirk preacher to King James through the +easy medium of his religion.</p> + +<p>Now it is only natural that the Covenanters, +who feared and hated Dundee, should have +found infinite comfort in believing that he was +under the direct protection of Satan. In those +days of lively faith, the charge was by no +means an uncommon one, and the dark distinction +was shared by any number of his +compatriots. On the death of Sir Robert +Grierson of Lag, the devil, who had waited +long for his prey, manifested his sense of satisfaction +by providing an elaborate funeral cortége, +which came over the sea at midnight, +with nodding plumes and sable horses, to carry +off in ostentatious splendor the soul of this +much-honored guest. Prince Rupert was believed +by the Roundheads to owe his immunity +from danger to the same diabolic agency which +made Claverhouse proof against leaden bullets; +and his white dog, Boy, was regarded +with as much awe as was Dundee’s famous +black charger, the gift of the evil one himself. +As a fact, Boy was not altogether unworthy of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span> +his reputation, for he could fight almost as +well as his master, though unluckily without +sharing in his advantages; for the poor brute +was shot at Marston Moor, in the very act of +pulling down a rebel. Even the clergy, it +would seem, were not wholly averse to Satan’s +valuable patronage; for Wodrow—to whose +claims as an historian Mr. Morris is strangely +lenient—tells us gravely how the unfortunate +Archbishop of St. Andrew’s cowered trembling +in the Privy Council, when Janet Douglas, +then on trial for witchcraft, made bold to remind +him of the “meikle black devil” who +was closeted with him the last Saturday at +midnight.</p> + +<p>But even our delighted appreciation of these +very interesting and characteristic legends +cannot altogether blind us to the dubious +quality of history based upon such testimony, +and it is a little startling to see that, as years +rolled by, the impression they created remained +practically undimmed. Colonel Fergusson, +in the preface to his delightful volume on The +Laird of Lag, confesses that in his youth it +was still a favorite Halloween game to dress +up some enterprising member of the household<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> +as a hideous beast with a preternaturally long +nose,—made, in fact, of a saucepan handle; +and that this creature, who went prowling +stealthily around the dim halls and firelit +kitchen, frightening the children into shrieks +of terror, was supposed to represent the stout +old cavalier searching for his ancient foes the +Covenanters. Lag’s memory appears to have +been given up by universal consent to every +species of opprobrium, and his misdeeds have +so far found no apologist, unless, indeed, +Macaulay may count as one, when he gracefully +transfers part of them to Claverhouse’s +shoulders. Mr. Morris coldly mentions Sir +Robert Grierson as “coarse, cruel, and brutal +beyond even the license of those days;” Colonel +Fergusson is far too clever to weaken the +dramatic force of his book by hinting that his +hero was not a great deal worse than other +men; and Scott, in that inimitable romance, +Wandering Willie’s Tale, has thrown a perfect +glamour of wickedness around the old +laird’s name. But in truth, when we come to +search for sober proven facts; when we discard—reluctantly, +indeed, but under compulsion—the +spiked barrel in which he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> +pleased to roll the Covenanters, in Carthaginian +fashion, down the Scottish hills; and the +iron hook in his cellar, from which it was his +playful fancy to depend them; and the wine +which turned to clotted blood ere it touched +his lips; and the active copartnership of Satan +in his private affairs,—when we lay aside +these picturesque traditions, there is little left +save a charge, not altogether uncommon, of +indecorum in his cups, the ever-vexed question +of the Wigtown martyrs, and a few rebels +who were shot, like John Bell, after scant +trial, but who, Heaven knows, would have +gained cold comfort by having their cases laid +before the council. On the other hand, it +might be worth while to mention that Lag +was brave, honest, not rapacious, and, above +all, true to his colors when the tide had turned, +and he was left alone in his old age to suffer +imprisonment and disgrace.</p> + +<p>But if the memory of a minor actor in these +dark scenes has come down to us so artistically +embellished, what may we not expect of one +who played a leading part through the whole +stormy drama? “The chief of this Tophet +on earth,” is the temperate phrase applied to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span> +Claverhouse by Macaulay, and it sufficiently +illustrates the position popularly assigned him +by his foes. Rumor asserted in his behalf her +triumphant immortality, and crystallized into +tradition every floating charge urged by the +Covenanters against his fame. So potent and +far-reaching was her voice that it became in +time a virtuous necessity to echo it; and we +actually find Southey writing to Scott in 1807, +and regretting that Wordsworth should have +thought fit to introduce the Viscount of Dundee +into the sonnet on Killiecrankie, without +any apparent censure of his conduct. Scott, +who took a somewhat easier view of poetical +obligations, and who probably thought that +Killiecrankie was hardly the fitting spot on +which to recall Dundee’s shortcomings, wrote +back very plainly that he thought there had +been censure enough already; and nine years +later he startled the good people of Edinburgh, +on his own account, by the publication +of that eminently heterodox novel, Old +Mortality. Lockwood tells us that the theme +was suggested to Sir Walter by his friend Mr. +Joseph Train, who, when visiting at Abbotsford, +was much struck by the solitary picture<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span> +in the poet’s library, a portrait of Graham of +Claverhouse.</p> + +<p>“He expressed the surprise with which +every one who had known Dundee only in the +pages of the Presbyterian annalists must see +for the first time that beautiful and melancholy +visage, worthy of the most pathetic +dreams of romance. Scott replied that no +character had been so foully traduced as the +Viscount of Dundee; that, thanks to Wodrow, +Cruikshanks, and such chroniclers, he who +was every inch a soldier and a gentleman still +passed among the Scottish vulgar for a ruffian +desperado, who rode a goblin horse, was proof +against shot, and in league with the devil.</p> + +<p>“‘Might he not,’ said Train, ‘be made, in +good hands, the hero of a national romance, as +interesting as any about either Wallace or +Prince Charlie?’</p> + +<p>“‘He might,’ said Scott, ‘but your western +zealots would require to be faithfully portrayed +in order to bring him out with the +right effect.’”</p> + +<p>Train then described to Sir Walter the singular +character of Old Mortality, and the result +was that incomparable tale which took<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> +the English reading world by storm, and provoked +in Scotland a curious fever of excitement, +indignation, and applause. The most +vigorous protest against its laxity came from +Thomas MacCrie, one of the numerous biographers +of John Knox, “who considered the +representation of the Covenanters in the story +of Old Mortality as so unfair as to demand, at +his hands, a very serious rebuke.” This rebuke +was administered at some length in a +series of papers published in the Edinburgh +Christian Instructor. Scott, the “Black Hussar +of Literature,” replied with much zest and +spirit in the Quarterly Review; cudgels were +taken up on both sides, and the war went +briskly on, until Jeffrey the Great in some +measure silenced the controversy by giving it +as his ultimatum that the treatment of an historical +character in a work of pure fiction was a +matter of very trifling significance. It is not +without interest that we see the same querulous +virtue that winced under Sir Walter’s +frank enthusiasm for Claverhouse uttering its +protest to-day against the more chilly and +scrupulous vindications of Mr. Morris’s biography. +“An apology for the crimes of a hired<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> +butcher,” one critic angrily calls the sober little +volume, forgetting in his heat that the term +“hired butcher,” though most scathing in sound, +is equally applicable to any soldier, from the +highest to the lowest, who is paid by his government +to kill his fellow-men. War is a +rough trade, and if we choose to call names, +it is as easy any time to say “butcher” as +“hero.” Stronger words have not been lacking +to vilify Dundee, and many of these choice +anathemas belong, one fears, to Luther’s catalogue +of “downright, infamous, scandalous +lies.” Their freshness, however, is as amazing +as their ubiquity, and they confront us every +now and then in the most forlorn nooks and +crannies of literature. Not very long ago I +was shut up for half an hour in a boarding-house +parlor, in company with a solitary little +book entitled Scheyichbi and the Strand, or +Early Days along the Delaware. Its name +proved to be the only really attractive thing +about it, and I was speculating drearily as to +whether Charles Lamb himself could have extracted +any amusement from its pages, when +suddenly my eye lighted on a sentence that +read like an old familiar friend: “The cruelty,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +the brutality, the mad, exterminating +barbarity of Claverhouse, and Lauderdale, +and Jeffreys, the minions of episcopacy and +the king.” There it stood, venerably correct +in sentiment, with a strangely new location +and surroundings. It is hard enough, surely, +to see Claverhouse pilloried side by side with +the brute Jeffreys; but to meet him on the +banks of the Delaware is like encountering +Ezzèlin Romano on Fifth Avenue, or Julian +the Apostate upon Boston Common.</p> + +<p>Much of this universal harmony of abuse +may be fairly charged to Macaulay, for it is +he who in a few strongly written passages has +presented to the general reader that remarkable +compendium of wickedness commonly +known as Dundee. “Rapacious and profane, +of violent temper and obdurate heart,” is the +great historian’s description of a man who +sought but modest wealth, who never swore, +and whose imperturbable gentleness of manner +was more appalling in its way than the fiercest +transports of rage. Under Macaulay’s hands +Claverhouse exhibits a degree of ubiquity and +mutability that might well require some supernatural +basis to sustain it. He supports as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> +many characters as Saladin in the Talisman; +appearing now as his brother David Graham, +in order to witness the trial of the Wigtown +martyrs, and now as his distant kinsman, Patrick +Graham, when it becomes expedient to +figure as a dramatic feature of Argyle’s execution. +He changes at will into Sir Robert Grierson, +and is thus made responsible for that +highly curious game which Wodrow and +Howie impute to Lag’s troopers, and which +Macaulay describes with as much gravity as +if it were the sacking and pillage of some +doomed Roman town. It is hard to understand +the precise degree of pleasure embodied +in calling one’s self Apollyon and one’s neighbor +Beelzebub; it is harder still to be properly +impressed with the tremendous significance +of the deed. I have known a bevy of school-girls, +who, after an exhaustive course of Paradise +Lost, were so deeply imbued with the +sombre glories of the satanic court that they +assumed the names of its inhabitants; and, +for the remainder of that term, even the mysterious +little notes that form so important an element +of boarding-school life began—heedless +of grammar—with “Chère Moloch,” and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> +ended effusively with “Your ever-devoted Belial.” +It is quite possible that these children +thought and hoped they were doing something +desperately wicked, only they lacked a historian +to chronicle their guilt. It is equally certain +that Lag’s drunken troopers, if they ever +did divert themselves in the unbecoming manner +ascribed to them, might have been more +profitably, and, it would seem, more agreeably, +employed. But, of one thing, at least, we may +feel tolerably confident. The pastime would +have found scant favor in the eyes of Claverhouse, +who was a man of little imagination, of +stern discipline, and of fastidiously decorous +habits. Why, even Wandering Willie does +him this much justice, when he describes him +as alone amid the lost souls, isolated in his +contemptuous pride from their feasts and +dreadful merriment: “And there sat Claverhouse, +as beautiful as when he lived, with his +long, dark, curled locks streaming down over +his laced buff-coat, and his left hand always +on his right spule-blade, to hide the wound that +the silver bullet had made. He sat apart +from them all, and looked at them with a melancholy, +haughty countenance.” If history<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> +be, as Napoleon asserts, nothing but fiction +agreed upon, let us go straight to the fountain-head, +and enjoy our draught of romance unspoiled +by any dubious taint of veracity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Walter Bagehot, that most keen and +tolerant of critics, has pointed out to us with +his customary acumen that Macaulay never +appreciated in the highest degree either of the +two great parties—the Puritans and the Cavaliers—who +through so many stirring events +embodied all the life and color of English history. +In regard to the former, it may be +safely said that whatever slights they have +received at the hands of other historians have +been amply atoned for by Carlyle. He has +thrown the whole weight of his powerful personality +into their scale, and has fairly frightened +us into that earnestness of mind which is +requisite for a due appreciation of their merits. +His fine scorn for the pleasant vices which +ensnare humanity extended itself occasionally +to things which are pleasant without being +vicious; and under his leadership we hardly +venture to hint at a certain sneaking preference +for the gayer side of life. When Hazlitt, +with a shameless audacity rare among Englishmen,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> +disencumbers himself lightly of his conscience, +and apostrophizes the reign of Charles +II. as that “happy, thoughtless age, when +king and nobles led purely ornamental lives,” +we feel our flesh chilled at such a candid +avowal of volatility. Surely Hazlitt must have +understood that it is precisely the fatal picturesqueness +of that period to which we, as +moralists, so strenuously object. The courts +of the first two Hanoverians were but little +better or purer, but they were at least uglier, +and we can afford to look with some leniency +upon their short-comings. His sacred majesty +George II. was hardly, save in the charitable +eyes of Bishop Porteus, a shining example of +rectitude; but let us rejoice that it never lay +in the power of any human being to hint that +he was in the smallest degree ornamental.</p> + +<p>The Puritan, then, has been wafted into +universal esteem by the breath of his great +eulogist; but the Cavalier still waits for his +historian. Poets and painters and romancers +have indeed loved to linger over this warm, +impetuous life, so rich in vigor and beauty, so +full to the brim of a hardy adventurous joy. +Here, they seem to say, far more than in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span> +ancient Greece, may be realized the throbbing +intensity of an unreflecting happiness. For +the Greek drank deeply of the cup of knowledge, +and its bitterness turned his laughter +into tears; the Cavalier looked straight into +the sunlight with clear, joyous eyes, and +troubled himself not at all with the disheartening +problems of humanity. How could a +mind like Macaulay’s, logical, disciplined, and +gravely intolerant, sympathize for a moment +with this utterly irresponsible buoyancy! +How was he, of all men, to understand this +careless zest for the old feast of life, this unreasoning +loyalty to an indifferent sovereign, +this passionate devotion to a church and easy +disregard of her precepts, this magnificent +wanton courage, this gay prodigality of enjoyment! +It was his loss, no less than ours, that, +in turning over the pages of the past, he should +miss half of their beauty and their pathos; for +History, that calumniated muse, whose sworn +votaries do her little honor, has illuminated +every inch of her parchment with a strong, +generous hand, and does not mean that we +should contemptuously ignore the smallest +fragment of her work. The superb charge of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span> +Rupert’s cavalry; that impetuous rush to +battle, before which no mortal ranks might +stand unbroken; the little group of heart-sick +Cavaliers who turned at sunset from the lost +field of Marston Moor, and beheld their +queen’s white standard floating over the enemy’s +ranks; the scaffolds of Montrose and +King Charles; the more glorious death of +Claverhouse, pressing the blood-stained grass, +and listening for the last time to the far-off +cries of victory; Sidney Godolphin flinging +away his life, with all its abundant promise +and whispered hopes of fame; beautiful Francis +Villiers lying stabbed to the heart in Surbiton +lane, with his fair boyish face turned to +the reddening sky,—these and many other +pictures History has painted for us on her +scroll, bidding us forget for a moment our formidable +theories and strenuous partisanship, +and suffer our hearts to be simply and wholesomely +stirred by the brave lives and braver +deaths of our mistaken brother men.</p> + +<p>“Every matter,” observes Epictetus, “has +two handles by which it may be grasped;” and +the Cavalier is no exception to the rule. We +may, if we choose, regard him from a purely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> +moral point of view, as a lamentably dissolute +and profligate courtier; or from a purely picturesque +point of view, as a gallant and loyal +soldier; or we may, if we are wise, take him +as he stands, making room for him cheerfully +as a fellow-creature, and not vexing our souls +too deeply over his brilliant divergence from +our present standard. It is like a breath of +fresh air blown from a roughening sea to feel, +even at this distance of time, that strong +young life beating joyously and eagerly against +the barriers of the past; to see those curled +and scented aristocrats who, like the “dandies +of the Crimea,” could fight as well as dance, +facing pleasure and death, the ball-room and +the battle-field, with the same smiling front, +the same unflagging enthusiasm. No wonder +that Mr. Bagehot, analyzing with friendly +sympathy the strength and weakness of the +Cavalier, should find himself somewhat out of +temper with an historian’s insensibility to virtues +so primitive and recognizable in a not too +merry world.</p> + +<p>“The greatness of this character is not in +Macaulay’s way, and its faults are. Its license +affronts him, its riot alienates him. He is forever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> +contrasting the dissoluteness of Prince +Rupert’s horse with the restraint of Cromwell’s +pikemen. A deep, enjoying nature +finds in him no sympathy. He has no tears +for that warm life, no tenderness for that +extinct mirth. The ignorance of the Cavaliers, +too, moves his wrath: ‘They were ignorant +of what every schoolgirl knows.’ Their +loyalty to their sovereign is the devotion of the +Egyptians to the god Apis: ‘They selected a +calf to adore.’ Their non-resistance offends +the philosopher; their license is commented +on in the tone of a precisian. Their indecorum +does not suit the dignity of the narrator. +Their rich, free nature is unappreciated; the +tingling intensity of their joy is unnoticed. In +a word, there is something of the schoolboy +about the Cavalier; there is somewhat of a +schoolmaster about the historian.”<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>That the gay gentlemen who glittered in +the courts of the Stuarts were enviably ignorant +of much that, for some inscrutable reason, +we feel ourselves obliged to know to-day may +be safely granted, and scored at once to the +account of their good fortune. It is probable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> +that they had only the vaguest notions about +Sesostris, and could not have defined an hypothesis +of homophones with any reasonable +degree of accuracy. But they were possessed, +nevertheless, of a certain information of their +own, not garnered from books, and not always +attainable to their critics. They knew life in +its varying phases, from the delicious trifling +of a polished and witty society to the stern +realities of the camp and battle-field. They +knew the world, women, and song, three things +as pleasant and as profitable in their way as +Hebrew, Euclid, and political economy. They +knew how to live gracefully, to fight stoutly, +and to die honorably; and how to extract +from the gray routine of existence a wonderfully +distinct flavor of novelty and enjoyment. +There were among them, as among the Puritans, +true lovers, faithful husbands, and tender +fathers; and the indiscriminate charge of dissoluteness +on the one side, like the indiscriminate +charge of hypocrisy on the other, is a +cheap expression of our individual intolerance.</p> + +<p>The history of the Cavalier closes with +Killiecrankie. The waning prestige of a once +powerful influence concentrated itself in Claverhouse,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> +the latest and strongest figure on its +canvas, the accepted type of its most brilliant +and defiant qualities. Readers of old-fashioned +novels may remember a lachrymose +story, in two closely printed volumes, which +enjoyed an amazing popularity some twenty +years ago, and which was called The Last of +the Cavaliers. It had for its hero a perfectly +impossible combination of virtues, a cross between +the Chevalier Bayard and the Admirable +Crichton, labeled Dundee, and warranted +proof against all the faults and foibles of +humanity. This automaton, who moved in a +rarefied atmosphere through the whole dreary +tale, performing noble deeds and uttering virtuous +sentiments with monotonous persistency, +embodied, we may presume, the author’s conception +of a character not generally credited +with such superfluous excellence. It was a +fine specimen of imaginative treatment, and +not wholly unlike some very popular historic +methods by which similar results are reached +to-day. Quite recently, a despairing English +critic, with an ungratified taste for realities, +complained somewhat savagely that “a more +intolerable embodiment of unrelieved excellence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> +and monotonous success than the hero +of the pious Gladstonian’s worship was never +moulded out of plaster of Paris.” He was +willing enough to yield his full share of admiration, +but he wanted to see the real, human, +interesting Gladstone back of all this conventional +and disheartening mock-heroism; and, +in the same spirit, we would like sometimes to +see the real Claverhouse back of all the dramatic +accessories in which he has been so liberally +disguised.</p> + +<p>But where, save perhaps in the ever-delightful +pages of Old Mortality, shall we derive +any moderate gratification from our search? +Friends are apt to be as ill advised as foes, +and Dundee’s eulogists, from Napier to +Aytoun, have been distinguished rather for +the excellence of their intentions than for any +great felicity of execution. The “lion-hearted +warrior,” for whom Aytoun flings wide the +gates of Athol, might be Cœur-de-Lion himself, +or Marshal Ney, or Stonewall Jackson, +or any other brave fighter. There is no distinctive +flavor of the Graeme in the somewhat +long-winded hero, with his “falcon eye,” and +his “war-horse black as night,” and his trite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> +commonplaces about foreign gold and Highland +honor. On the other hand, the verdict +of the disaffected may be summed up in the +extraordinary lines with which Macaulay +closes his account of Killiecrankie, and of +Dundee’s brief, glorious struggle for his king: +“During the last three months of his life he +had proved himself a great warrior and politician, +and his name is therefore mentioned +with respect by that large class of persons who +think that there is no excess of wickedness for +which courage and ability do not atone.” No +excess of wickedness! One wonders what +more could be said if we were discussing +Tiberius or Caligula, or if colder words were +ever used to chill a soldier’s fame. Mr. Mowbray +Morris, the latest historian in the field, +seems divided between a natural desire to sift +the evidence for all this wickedness and a +polite disinclination to say anything rude during +the process, “a common impertinence of +the day,” in which he declares he has no wish +to join. This is exceedingly pleasant and +courteous, though hardly of primary importance; +for a biographer’s sole duty is, after +all, to the subject of his biography, and not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> +to Macaulay, who can hold his own easily +enough without any assistance whatever. +When Sir James Stephens published, some +years ago, his very earnest and accurate vindication +of Sir Elijah Impey from the charges +so lavishly brought against him in that matchless +essay on Warren Hastings, he expressed +at the same time his serene conviction that the +great world would go on reading the essay and +believing the charges just the same,—a new +rendering of “Magna est veritas et prævalebit,” +which brings it very near to Hesiod’s +primitive experience.</p> + +<p>As for Mr. Morris’s book, it is a carefully +dispassionate study of a wild and stormy time, +with a gray shadow of Claverhouse flitting +faintly through it. In his wholesome dislike +for the easy confidence with which historians +assume to know everything, its author has +touched the opposite extreme, and manifests +such conscientious indecision as to the correctness +of every document he quotes, that our +heads fairly swim with accumulated uncertainties. +This method of narration has one +distinct advantage,—it cannot lead us far +into error; but neither can it carry us forward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> +impetuously with the mighty rush of +great events, and make us feel in our hearts +the real and vital qualities of history. Mr. +Morris proves very clearly and succinctly that +Claverhouse has been, to use his temperate +expression, “harshly judged,” and that much +of the cruelty assigned to him may be easily +and cheaply refuted. He does full justice to +the scrupulous decorum of his hero’s private +life, and to the wonderful skill with which, +after James’s flight, he roused and held +together the turbulent Highland clans, impressing +even these rugged spirits with the charm +and force of his vigorous personality. In the +field Claverhouse lived like the meanest of his +men; sharing their poor food and hard lodgings, +marching by their side through the bitter +winter weather, and astonishing these hardy +mountaineers by a power of physical endurance +fully equal to their own. The memory +of his brilliant courage, of his gracious tact, +even of his rare personal beauty, dwelt with +them for generations, and found passionate +expression in that cry wrung from the sore +heart of the old chieftain at Culloden, “Oh, +for one hour of Dundee!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p> + +<p>But in the earlier portions of Mr. Morris’s +narrative, in the scenes at Drumclog and Bothwell +Bridge, at Ayrshire and Clydesdale, we +confess that we look in vain for the Claverhouse +of our fancy. Can it be that this energetic, +modest, and rather estimable young soldier, +distinguished, apparently, for nothing +save prompt and accurate obedience to his +orders, is the man who, in a few short years, +made himself so feared and hated that it became +necessary to credit him with the direct +patronage of Satan? One is tempted to quote +Mr. Swinburne’s pregnant lines concerning +another enigmatic character of Scottish history:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Some faults the gods will give to fetter</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Man’s highest intent,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But surely you were something better</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than innocent.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Of the real Dundee we catch only flying +glimpses here and there,—on his wedding +night, for instance, when he is off and away +after the now daring rebels, leaving his bride +of an hour to weep his absence, and listen with +what patience she might to her mother’s assiduous +reproaches. “I shall be revenged some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span> +time or other of the unseasonable trouble these +dogs give me,” grumbles the young husband +with pardonable irritation. “They might +have let Tuesday pass.” It is the real Dundee, +likewise, who, in the gray of early morning, +rides briskly out of Edinburgh in scant +time to save his neck, scrambles up the castle +rock for a last farewell to Gordon, and is off +to the north to raise the standard of King +James, “wherever the spirit of Montrose shall +direct me.” In vain Hamilton and the convention +send word imperatively, “Dilly, dilly, +dilly, come and be killed.” The wily bird +declines the invitation, and has been censured +with some asperity for his unpatriotic reluctance +to comply. For one short week of rest +he lingers at Dudhope, where his wife is awaiting +her confinement, and then flies further +northward to Glen Ogilvy, whither a regiment +is quickly sent to apprehend him. There is a +reward of twenty thousand pounds sterling on +his head, but he who thinks to win it must +move, like Hödr, with his feet shod in silence. +By the time Livingstone and his dragoons +reach Glamis, Dundee is far in the Highlands, +and henceforth all the fast-darkening hopes of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> +the loyalists are centred in him alone. For +him remain thirteen months of incredible hardships +and anxiety, a single stolen visit to his +wife and infant son, heart-sick appeals to +James for some recognition of the desperate +efforts made in his behalf, a brilliant irregular +campaign, a last decisive victory, and a +soldier’s death. “It is the less matter for me, +seeing the day goes well for my master,” he +answers simply, when told of his mortal hurt; +and in this unfaltering loyalty we read the +life-long lesson of the Cavalier. If, as a recent +poet tells us, the memory of Nero be not +wholly vile, because one human being was +found to weep for him, surely the memory of +James Stuart may be forgiven much because +of this faithful service. It is hard to understand +it now.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“In God’s name, then, what plague befell us,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To fight for such a thing?”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="p0">is our modern way of looking at the problem; +but the mental processes of the Cavalier were +less inquisitorial and analytic. “I am no +politician, and I do not care about nice distinctions,” +says Major Bellenden bluntly, when +requested to consider the insurgents’ side of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> +the case. “My sword is the king’s, and when +he commands, I draw it in his service.”</p> + +<p>As for that other and better known Claverhouse, +the determined foe of the Covenant, +the unrelenting and merciless punisher of a +disobedient peasantry, he, too, is best taken as +he stands; shorn, indeed, of Wodrow’s extravagant +embellishments, but equally free from +the delicate gloss of a too liberal absolution. +He was a soldier acting under the stringent +orders of an angry government, and he carried +out the harsh measures entrusted to him with +a stern and impartial severity. Those were +turbulent times, and the wild western Whigs +had given decisive proof on more than one +occasion that they were ill disposed to figure +as mere passive martyrs to their cause.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“For treason, d’ ye see,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Was to them a dish of tea,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And murder, bread and butter.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>They were stout fighters, too, taking as kindly +to their carnal as to their spiritual weapons, +and a warfare against them was as ingloriously +dangerous as the melancholy skirmishes of our +own army with the Indians, who, it would +seem, were driven to the war-path by a somewhat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> +similar mode of treatment. There is not +the slightest evidence, however, that Claverhouse +was averse either to the danger or the +cruelty of the work he was given to do. Religious +toleration was then an unknown quantity. +The Church of England and her Presbyterian +neighbor persecuted each other with +friendly assiduity, while Rome was more than +willing, should an opportunity offer, to lay a +chastening hand on both. If there were any +new-fangled notions in the air about private +judgment and the rights of conscience, Claverhouse +was the last man in England to have +been a pioneer in such a movement. He was +passionately attached to his church, unreservedly +loyal to his king, and as indifferent as +Hamlet to his own life and the lives of other +people. It is strange to hear Mr. Morris excuse +him for his share in the death of the lad +Hyslop, by urging in his behalf a Pilate-like +disinclination to quarrel with a powerful ally, +and risk a censure from court. Never was +there a man who brooked opposition as impatiently, +when he felt that his interests or his +principles were at stake; but it is to be feared +that the shooting of a Covenanter more or less<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> +was hardly, in his eyes, a matter of vital importance. +This attitude of unconcern is amply +illustrated in the letter written by Claverhouse +to Queensberry after the execution of John +Brown, “the Christian carrier,” for the sole +crime of absenting himself from the public +worship of the Episcopalians, says Macaulay; +for outlawry and resetting of rebels, hint less +impassioned historians. Be this as it may, +however, John Brown was shot in the Ploughlands; +and his nephew, seeing the soldiers’ +muskets leveled next at him, consented, on the +promise of being recommended for mercy, to +make “an ingenuous confession,” and give +evidence against his uncle’s associates. Accordingly, +we find Claverhouse detailing these +facts to Queensberry, and adding in the most +purely neutral spirit,—</p> + +<p>“I have acquitted myself when I have told +your Grace the case. He [the nephew] has +been but a month or two with his halbert; and +if your Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, +justice will pass on him; for I, having no +commission of justiciary myself, have delivered +him up to the lieutenant-general, to be disposed +of as he pleases.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span></p> + +<p>Here, at least, is a sufficiently candid exposition +of Claverhouse’s habitual temper. He +was, in no sense of the word, bloodthirsty. The +test oath was not of his contriving; the penalty +for its refusal was not of his appointing. +He was willing enough to give his prisoner the +promised chance for life; but as for any real +solicitude in the matter, you might as well expect +Hamlet to be solicitous because, by an +awkward misapprehension, a foolish and innocent +old man has been stabbed like a rat +behind the arras.</p> + +<p>When Plutarch was asked why he did not +oftener select virtuous characters to write +about, he intimated that he found the sinners +more interesting; and while his judgment is +to be deprecated, it can hardly be belied. We +revere Marcus Aurelius, but we delight in +Cæsar; we admire Sir Robert Peel, but we +enjoy Richelieu; we praise Wellington, but +we never weary of Napoleon. “Our being,” +says Montaigne, “is cemented with sickly +qualities; and whoever should divest man of +the seeds of those qualities would destroy the +fundamental conditions of human life.” It is +idle to look to Claverhouse for precisely the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> +virtues which we most esteem in John Howard; +but we need not, on that account, turn +our eyes reproachfully from one of the most +striking and characteristic figures in English +history. He was not merely a picturesque +feature of his cause, like Rupert of the Rhine, +nor a martyr to its fallen hopes, like the Marquis +of Montrose; he was its single chance, +and, with his death, it died. In versatility and +daring, in diplomatic shrewdness and military +acumen, he far outranked any soldier of his +day. “The charm of an engaging personality,” +says a recent critic, “belongs to Montrose, +and the pity of his death deepens the +romance of his life; but the strong man was +Dundee.”</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> <i>Literary Studies</i>, vol. ii.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> + + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_12">12</a>: “Marquis de Montmirail” changed to “Marquise de Montmirail” “to the acount” changed to “to the account”</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_44">44</a>: “La virtu n’iroit” changed to “La vertu n’iroit”</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_60">60</a>: “Jacque Roulet” changed to “Jacques Roulet”</p> + +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75456 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75456-h/images/001.jpg b/75456-h/images/001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ad49c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/75456-h/images/001.jpg diff --git a/75456-h/images/cover.jpg b/75456-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4add15c --- /dev/null +++ b/75456-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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