Literary Essays - Forgotten Books

L I TE RARY E S SAY S

RICHARD HOLT HELI OS

ELA .

fi n n h o n

MA CMI LLAN AND CO .

A ND NE W Y O R K

1871.

S eco n d E ditio n , (B aldy an d I séister), 1576

( Tran sfi rred to Alaemz’

llan an d Co .

l ird E ditio n , R evised, Glo ée 1383. R eprin ted 1592

A D VE R T I S EMENT

I HAVE recast th e essay on Shelley an d h is Po etry an d th e

essay on “ Mr. Brown in g,”

so as to include th e newer workswhich have thrown a fresh light upon their genius. Otherwisethese essay s remain practically in th e same form in which theyappeared in th e second edition.

R . H. H .

CONT ENT S

GOETHE AND H IS INFLUENCE

T HE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORTH

SHELLEY AND H IS POETRY

MR . B IIOWNING

THE POETRY OF THE OLD T ESTAMENT

A RTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

v i CONTENTS

T HE POETRY OF MATTHEW A RNOLD

T ENNY S ON

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

GOETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE 1

GOET IIE tells us in his Autobiography,that whi le

his mind was wandering about in search of a religioussystem

,and thus passing over the intermediate areas

between the various regions of theological belie f,he

met with a certain phenomenon which seemed to h imto belong to none of them

,and which he used to cal l

therefore dcemon ie influence “ It was n o t divine, forit seemed unintellectual ; nor human, for it was noresult Of understanding ; nor diaboli c, for it was ofben eficen t tendency nor an gelic

,for y o u could Often

noti ce in it a certain mischievousness . It resembledchance, inasmuch as it demonstrated n othin g ; butwas l ike providence

,inasmuch as it showed symp

toms o i continuity. Everything which fetters humanagency seemed to yi eld before i t ; i t seem ed to dispose arbitrarily Oi the necessary elements of ourexistence. It i s not always

,says this great Observer

1 Th e L ife an d Works Qf Goethe with Sketch es of h is A ge

an d Co n temp oraries, from p ublish ed an d unp ublish ed sources.

By G. H. Lewes. 2vols. Nutt,1855.

“ Freun dseh aftlich e Briefe vo n Goethe un d seiner Frau an

NicolausMeyer,ausden Jahren 1800 Leipzig, Hartung,

1856. Friendly Letters from Goethe an dh isWife to NicolasMeyer, between th e years 1800 an d Leipzig

,

L 5 B

GOET IIE AND 1118 I NFLUENCE

of l ife,the first and best

,e ither in moral nature or

in ab i l i ties,

” who po ssess this magnetic influence,and

i t i s but rarely “ that they recomm end them selves bygoodness o f heart ; but a gigantic fo rce goes out Ofthem

,an d they exercise an incredible pow er ove r al l

c reatures,nay

,even over the elements themselves ;

and who can say how far this influence may reach ?All moral forces uni ted are pow erless against them .

The masses are fascinated by them . They are onlyto be conquered by the universe i tself

,

”w hen they

enter into confl i ct with it. Of course Goethe wasth inking mainly Of Napoleon

,and men like him

,as

he afterwards told Eckermann,when he wrote this

passage . Such men put forth,he says

,a power

,

“ i fnot exactly opp osile to , yet at least crossing, that ofthe general mo ral order of the world ; so that theone might be regarded as the woof

,the other as the

warp .

” He adds, that his l ifelong friend and patron ,the Duke of \Veimar

,had this magneti c influence to

such a degree that nobody could resist him,and no

work of art ever fai led in the poet’s hands which theduke had suggested or approved.

“ He would havebeen enviab le indeed if he could have possessed himsel f Of my ideas and higher strivings ; for when thedaemon forsook him ,

and only the human was left,he

knew not how to set to work,and was much troubled

at i t . In Byron this element was probably veryactive

,giving him such powers of fascination

,espe

cially with w omen. Eckermann,with his usual de

lightfully chi ldlike simpl ici ty,anxiously asks “ Has

not Mephi stopheles traits Of thi s nature ? ” NO,

”

replie s Goethe,

“ Mephistopheles i s too negative abeing . The daemonic manifests itself in posi tiveactive power among artists . It i s found Often inmusicians, more rarely among painters. In Paga

GOET IIE AND In s INFLUENCE 3

nin i i t shows i tself to a h igh degree,and i t i s by

means of i t that he produces such great effects.Of himself he says, “ i t does not lie i n my nature,but I am subj ect to i ts influence ” 5 by which Goetheprobably m eant modestly to disclaim having anypersonal fascination of this kind over other men , butto i ndicate

,what we know from other conversations

he really held to be true,that apparently arbitrary

and quite inexplicable impulses had Often exercisedthe most decisive and frequently fortunate influenceon hi s own career. But it i s quite clear that Goethedid possess in no common degree this capacity for,i n a certain sense

,fascinating men by his presence,

as well as by his writings . If Byron had more of itas a man

,Goethe succeeded in imparting far more of

i t to his works,and neither his l ife nor works can be

properly judged without reference to its influence .It i s something quite distinct from mere beauty

,

power,or general merit

,either of personal character

or Of l iterary creation . It i s a power which goesout from the individual man

,and which can imprint

itself only on such writings as carry with them thestamp o f individual character ; and not always evenon th ese

,i f,as for example in the case of Byron’s

earl ier works,the play Of characte r i s a good deal

merged in some exaggerated mood of sentiment. I tis not intensity : n umbers of writers have surpassedGoethe in the intensity both Of l iterary and personalcharacteristics . S chiller was a man of far keenerand intenser

,though narrower nature

,and yet he

could not help going into utter captivity to the calmand somewhat limply-constituted mi nd of hi s Weimarfriend. It i s not even in i tself independence orstrength Of will for though Goethe had this in aremarkable degree , many others, as probably Schi ller,

4 GOETHE AND H IS I NFLUENCE

possessed i t in as high a degree, wh o were quitedestitute of hi s fascinating talent . If i t be expressiblei n one phrase at all(which i t i s not), i t m ight becalled presence of mind in combination w i th a keenknow ledge o f men —I mean that absolute and complete adequacy to every emergency which gaveNapoleon his san g freid at the very turning-point ofh is great battles

,and which in the li terary world has

secured for Johnson h is Boswell, and for Goethe hisEckermann . Johnson

,indeed

,was immeasurably

Goethe’s inferior in the range of hi s experience , and,what is of more importance

,i n his knowledge of

man 5 but he was perhaps his superior in mere presence Ofmind , and hence was greater in conversation ,but less in fascination . The Duke Of Wellingtonhad nearly as much presence of mind as Napoleonhimself but he had immeasurably les s of the otherelement of fascination— instinctive knowledge of men ,and knowledge how to use them.

Goethe is almost unrivalled in the l i terary worldin the degree in which he combines these qual ities .Shakespeare may have had them equally , but hi sdramas are too impersonal to tell us clearly whatkind of individual influence he put forth . I shouldcon j ecture that his sympathy with men was too vividto have enabled him to keep

,as was the case with

Goe the,a part of h imself as a permanent reserve

fo rce outside the actual field of action,and ready to

turn the flank of any new emergency . Shakespearecan scarcely have been so uniformly able to detachhimself

,i f he would

,from the sympathies and pas

sions Of the moment as Goethe certainly was ; forGoethe

,l ike the l ittle three-eyed girl (Dreia

'

uglcin ) i nthe German tale, had alw ays an extra organ besidesth e eyes he slept and w ept w i th

,to take note Of his

COET IIE AND HIS I NFLUENCE 5

own sleep and h is own tears,and an extra wil l

,sub

j cet to the command of the third eye,ready to rescue

th e ordinary wil l from the intri cacies Of humanemotion . Shakespeare’s know ledge Of l i fe was

,I

should think,less drawn from constant vigilance and

presence Of mind in the passing moment (to which Iimagine him to have abandoned himself far morecompletely than Goethe), and more derived from thepower of memory and imagination to reproduce pastimpressions. However thi s may be

,Shakespeare has

himsel f sketched less perhaps thi s cool presence Of

mind i tsel f,than the effect w hich it produces on

other men,in hi s picture of Octavius Caesar. Caesar’s

cool self-possessed eye for every emergency , and forthe right use of human instruments

,and its paralysing

effect on Antony’s more attaching and passionatecharacter

,i s a striking example of what Goethe

would have called the daemonic element in humanaffairs—the element that fascinates men by at oncestanding out clear and quite independent Of theirsupport

,and yet indicating the power to read them

Off,and detect for them their ow n needs and uses .

There i s always i n thi s kind Ofmagneti c power something repulsive at first but if the repulsion be overcome

,the attraction becomes stronger than ever ;

there is a resistance while th e mind of the discipleis striving to keep its independence and conscious Ofthe spel l

,—an intense devotion after he has once

rel inquished i t,and consented to be a satel lite . SO

the soothsayer tells Antony,

T h y demon , that’s thy sp irit whi ch keeps thee

,i s

Noble,courageous

,h igh

,unmatchable

,

Where Caesar’s is not but near h im,thy angel

Becomes a fear,as being overpowered therefore

Make space enough between y o u .

”

G GOETHE AND H IS I NFLUENCE

And Goethe , who had , as he says , himsel f experiencedthe force of thi s blind fascination i n the Duke of\Vcimar

’

s i nfluence ove r him,as well as wielded it in

no sl ight degree,tel ls Eckermann (himself a captive),

“ The higher a man stands,the more he i s liable to

this daemonic influence ; an d he must take constan tcare that his guiding wil l be not diverted by i t fromthe straight way . This i s j ust the difficul tpoint

,— for our better nature stoutly to sustain

i tsel f,and yield to the daemoni c no more than i s

reasonable.In Goethe himself th is fascinating power existed

as strongly as i t i s wel l possible to conceive in a manw hose whole intellectual nature was of the sympatheti cand contemplative

,rather than of the practi cal cast

,

—who had no occasion to “ use men except asl iterary material

,— and who

,while he stood out

independent of them,and could at wil l shake Off

from his feet the dust of long association,yet fel t

with them as one who understood the ir n ature andhad entered into their experience . Goethe’s sympathetic and genial insight into man would h avebeen a pure embarrassment to a practical coldtempered tool - seeker like Napoleon

,who never

deciphered men through sympathy,but always by an

instinctive tact for detecting masterly and w orkmanlike instruments . And rice rers/i

,the imperturbable

self-possession and Napoleoni c san gfroid Ofj udgmentthat underlay in Goethe all storms of superficialemotion

,were no l ittle embarrassment to him in

many of h is l i terary moods. They prevented him,we

think,from ever becoming a great dramatist. He

could never lose himsel f sufficiently in his creations :yet they assuredly secured for him h is command ofthose minutely -accurate observation s of l ife with

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8 GOET IIE AND HIS INFLUENCE

pressing his avers ion,l ike a moth round a candle .

They invariably repel,at first

,English readers w i th

English view s of l ife and duty. As the characteristi catmosphere of the man disti ls into your life

,you find

the magnetic force coming strongly over you —youare as a man mesmerised —you feel his calm indepen den ce Of so much on which you helplessly lean ,combined with his thorough insight into that desireof yours to lean

,draw ing you i rresistibly towards the

invisible in tellectual centre at which such independentstrength and such gen ial breadth of thought w ere possible . And yet you feel that you would be in manyand various ways lowered in your own eyes if youcould think completely as he thought and act as heacted . It becomes a difficult problem

,in the presence

Of so much genius,and beneath so fascinating an eye

,

“ for our better nature stoutly to sustain i tself andyield to the deemo n ic no more than i s reasonable. ”

Let me attempt to contribute to the solution ofthi s diffi culty by some account and criti ci sm ofGoethe’s l ife and genius i n connection with that personal character which so subtly penetrates al l he haswritten . Carlyle mistook completely when he saidthat Goethe, l ike Shakespeare, leaves littl e trace ofhimsel f in his creations. T O a careful eye this i s noteven true of Shakespeare

,though Shakespeare leaves

no immediate stamp Of him sel f,an d critical inference

alone can discern him in his w orks but far less i s i ttrue o f Goethe . A rarefied self no doubt it i sa highly -disti l led gaseous essence ; but everywhere,penetrating al l he wri tes

,there i s the ethereal atmo

sphere which travelled about with Johann WolfgangGoethe .

Mr. Lewes’s volumes give us a. very able and

interesting biography,—a book

,indeed

,of permanen t

GOETHE AND HIS INFLUENCE 9

value the incidents i llustrating character,though not

quite exhausting his material s,are disposed w i th

skill,an d the artistic critici sm

,while thoroughly

appreciating Goethe’s transcendent poetical genius, i si ndependent

,sensible

,and En glish . From his moral

cri ticism Of Goethe , and sometimes, though not sofrequently

,from the poeti cal

,I very widely dissent

,

and hope to give the grounds Of my dissent . Something more too might have been done in the way Of

defining h is i ndividual posi tion both as a poet and asa man . But i t i s impossible to denyMr. Lewes highme ri t for the candour Of his biography. WhereGoethe has been most censured, he gives al l the factswithout reserve ; and he does not go into any helpless captivity to the poet and arti st. He gives hisreaders the elements for forming their own moraljudgments

,and he has shaken Off from his feet the

ponderous rubbish of the German scholiasts. HerrDiin tz er and his col leagues are ski lfully used in

.

Mr.

Lew es’

s book but they are also skilfully ignored .

Mr. Lewes has not submitted himself to Carlyle’ssomewhat undiscrim inatin g

,strained

,and lashed-up

furor of adoration for every word that the Germansage let drop . There is

,by the way

,nothing more

remarkably i llustrative of Goethe’s “ daemonic ” influen ce than Carlyle’s worship of him . Except in hi spermanent unfail ing self-possession

,Goethe lacked

almost al l the personal qualiti es which usually fascin ate that great writer’s eye. And accordingly thereruns through Carlyle’s essays on Goethe a tone ofarduous admiration

,—a helpless desire to fix on some

characteristic which he could infinitely adm i re,

betraying that he was in subjection to the “ eyesbehind the book

,not to the thing which i s said in i t.

There was nothing of the rugged thrustingpower Of

lo GOET IIE AND H IS I NFLUENCE

Johnson,Ofthe imperious practical fai th of Cromwell

,

Of the picturesque passion of Danton , Of the kinglyfanatici sm Of Mahomet ; nothing, i n short, of theintensity Ofnature which Carlyle always needs behindthe sagacity he worships . Mr. Lewes reports a ratheraffected piece of Carlylese

,del ivered by the Latter

day oracle in Piccadilly upon one Of the injuriousattacks that had been directed against Goethe. Car

lyle stopped suddenly,and with his peculiar look and

emphasis said,

“ Yes, i t i s the wi ld cry of amazementon th e part of al l spooneys that the Titan was not aspooney too ! Here is a godlike intellect, and yetyou see he i s not an idiot n o t i n the least a spooney !This was hardly true of Goethe ; and we stronglysuspect that Mr. Carlyle was resisting a secret feel ingthat there was a limpness and want of concentrationin Goethe’s whole nature intel lectual and moral

,from

the results o f which hi s imperturbable presence ofmind and great genius barely saved him ; that hedid in consequence go sometimes beyond the brinkOf spo o n eyish n ess i n early days, and across the vergeOf very unreal “ high art ” i n later l ife . These arejust the defects to which Mr. Car lyle i s most sensi tive.It i s true Goethe never was in danger o f permanentlysinking into either abyss ; for hi s head was alwayscool

,and his third eye

,at least

,always vigilan t. But

i t may perhaps account for the unusual fai lure Of ourgreat essayist in delineating Goethe

,that the poet’s

wonderful writings were less the real Obj ect of hi sadmi ration than the strange fascination Of the character behind. I n my very brie f sketch of the poet’sl ife

,I shal l

,so far as possibl e

,sel ect my illustrations

from passages or in cidents passed over in Mr. Lewes’s

volumes, wherever they seem to be equal ly characteristic.


Johann IVOlfgan g Goethe, born at noon on the28th August 1749, i n Frankfort-o n -the-Maine, seemsto have inherited his genial

,sens itive

,sensuous, and

j oyous temperament from his mother ; and from hisfather

,the pride

,self-dependence

,and magni ficent

formality,the nervous orderliness

,perseverance , and

the micro scOpic minuteness Of eye, by which , at leastafter the first rush Of youth was gone by, he wasalways distinguished. His mother was but eighteenwhen he was born . Sh e was a l ively girl, ful l o fGerman sentiment

,with warm impulses, by no means

much troubled with a conscience, exceedingly afraidof her husband

,who was near twenty years her

senior,and seemingly both will ing and skilful in the

invention of occas ional white lies adapted to screenher children from his minute

,fidgety , and rather

austere superintendence. Sh e “ spoi led ” her chi ldrenon principle

,and made no pretence of conducting a

systematic training which she abhorred . Sh e said ofherself in after years

,that she could “ educate n o

child, was quite unfit for it, gave them every wish solong as they laughed and were good

,and whipped

them if they cri ed or made wry faces,without ever

looking for any reason why they laughed or cried.

” 1

Her bel ie f in Providence was warm with Germansentiment

,and not a l ittle tinged with supersti tion .

She rejoiced greatly when her son published the Cowfessz

'

o n s of a Beautiful Soul, which she loved as amemorial o f a lost pietisti c friend . Her religion wasone Of emotion rather than Ofmoral reverence . Sh e

was generous and extravagant,and

,after her hus

band’s death , seems to have spent capital as well asincome. Sh e was passionately fond of the theatre ;

1 Letter to h er granddaughter—Diin tz er’s Frauen bilder, p.

12 C OET R E AND HIS I NFLUENCE

a taste which she tran smitted to her son . Herheartysimpli ci ty Ofnature made her universally loved . Her

servants loved and stayed with her to the last. She

seems to have had at least as much humour as herson

,w hich

,for Germans

,was not inconsiderable

,and

not much more sense Of awe . S he gave th e mostdetailed orders for her own funeral

,and even speci

fied the kind o f wine and the si ze of the cracknelsw i th which the mourners were to be regaled ordering the servants not to put too few raisins into thecakes

,as she never could endure that in her li fe

,and

i t would certainly chafe her i n her grave . Havingbeen i nvited to go to a party on the day on whi chshe died

,she sent for answ e r that “ Madam e Goethe

could not come,as she was engaged just then in

dying .

” 1 Yet her sensi tiveness was so great,that she

always made it a condition with her servants thatthey should never repeat to her painful news thatthey had picked up accidentally, as she wished tohear nothing sad w i thout absolute necessity. Andduring her son’s dangerous illness at “feimar, i n1805

,no one ventured to speak to her of i t til l i t

was past,though she affirmed that she had been con

scious al l th e time of hi s danger without the heart tomention i t.This latter pecul iari ty Goethe inherited. Coura

geous to the utmost degree in dan ger , he could neverbear to encounter mental pain which he could an yhow escape . He i nvented soft paraphrases to avoidspeaking Of the death of those he had loved

,and

indeed o f al l death . IVritin g to Z el ter of hi s ownson’s death

,he says

,

“ The staying-away (Aeussenbleiben) o f my son has weighed dreadfully upon mein many w ays .” And his feel ing was so wel l known

,

1 Diin tzer’

s Fraucrzbildcr, p . 583.


that his Old friend and mistress,the Frau von S tein

,

who died before him,directed that her funeral should

not pass his door,lest i t should impress him too pain

fully. N0 one dared to tel l h im of Schiller’s death ;and so i t was also at the death of his wife’s si ster

,

and in other cases . Indeed, his constant unwillingness man ful ly to face the secret of his own anguish

,

was a principal source of a shade of unreality in ageneral ly very real character . He habitually evadedthe task of fathoming the meaning and the depth Of

suffering. He avoided all contact with keen pain .

He could not bear,although in the neighbourhood

,to

visi t his brother—in -law at a time when h is si ster’schi ld was dying. It was not weakness—it was hi sprinciple of action ; and the effect remains in hisworks . He writes like a man who had not onlyexperienced but explored every real ity Of human li feexcept that of anguish and remorse. The iron thatenters into the soul had found him too but insteadof fronting i t as he fronted al l other real ities of life

,

and pondering its teaching to the last letter,he drew

back from it with what speed he might. This

experience even his Faust wants . R emorse,grief

,

agony,Goethe gently waived ; and, by averting his

thoughts,softened them gradually wi thout mastering

their lesson . Hence his passion never reaches thedeepest deep o f human life . It can glow and melt

,

but is never a consuming fire. His Werther,Tasso

,

Ottil ie, and Clarch en suffer“ keenly

,but never meet the

knife-edge . There i s nothing in his poems like thecourageous real ity Of suffering which vibrates throughsome of Shelley’s lyrics and his Ceuei. The fascination of pain he can paint

,but not the conquest of the

wil l over its deeper aspect of terror. The temperament he inherited from his mother. But to him was

14 GO ET IIE AND IIIS I NFLUENCE

granted a conspi cuously potent w i ll , which shouldhave enabled him to sound this depth also .

From his fathe r i t i s far more di fficult to say whatqualities Of mind Goethe inherited . The Old manhad always worried his family and i t became fashionable among the poet’s friends

,who we re enthusiasti c

about his mother,to ignore or depreciate the old

counsellor,and they seem to have regarded i t as a

“ mercy ” whe n “ Providence removed him .

” Thereare

,however

,one or two i ncidents in the Auto bio

graphy w hich convey an impression that his affection for his chi ld ren was as real and deep as eventhat Of his wife . He was a formal man

,with strong

ideas Of strait—laced education,passionately orderly

(he thought a good book nothing without a goodbinding), and never so much excited as by a necessarydeviation from the “ pre—established harmony ” ofhousehold rules. He could not submit to the in evitable . He was the kind Ofman who is so attached tohi s rules

,that i f he cannot shatter the Obstacles of

circumstance,he thinks i t next best to let the Oh

stacles of circumstance shatter him . He had n o n e Of

his son’s calm presence of mind. But whatever perseverance o f temper Goethe had, he probably gainedfrom his father. The latter could not bear to doanything superficial ly. He was as thorough (gruudlich ,as the Germans say) in preparing VVOlfgan g for thecoronation Of the emperor by an exhaustive investigation into the authori ties for every ceremony to beObserved , as in teaching h im the civil law. Ein leit

ung,Quellen

,etc .

,were al l raked carefully up ; for

was not the coronation a part o f the Entwickelungder Geschichte ” ? He had the formal notions abouteverything, considered rhyme the essence Ofpoetry ,and bel ieved that pictures, like wine, improved in

10 GOETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE

young ladies,and of a general sceptre over earth an d

ai r. The sun stood in th e sign of the Vi rgin,and

was culminating for the day .

” Jupiter and Venusw e re fri endly (little Pallas, undiscovered for anotherhalf cen tury

,must surely have lent a helping ray) ;

Mercury was not adverse ; Mars and Saturn in differen t ;

“ the moon alone,just full

,exerted the power

Ofher Opposition, al l the more as she had reached herplanetary hour ; she therefore resisted my birth ,which could not be accomplished ti l l this hour waspassed .

”

Frankfort was a busy Old-fashioned town, withOld walls and n ew walls

,ful l Of l ingering traditions

and gray customs stil l surviving,which served as

an antique poetic frame for i ts changing,

picturesOf motley German life . Goethe used to recal l hi schildish exploring expeditions about the Old walls

,

meats,to wers

,and posterns

,with vivid delight .

Di rectly behind hi s father’s house was a large area ofgardens

,to w hich the family had no access

,stretching

away to the walls Of the city. The boy used Oftento gaze on this forbidden Eden in evening hours froma room in the second storey called the garden-room .

Even after the lapse Of sixty years,the many

coloured picture Of these gardens,— the sol i tary

figures Of careful neighbours stooping to tend theirflowers

,the groups o f skittle-players

,and the bands

of merry child ren,—al l blended togethe r i n the warm

sunset—the floating sounds Of many voices,of the

rol ling balls,and the dropping ninepins—would

again beset his imagination,bringing with them

many a “ tale o f v isionary hours .”

Mr. Lewes remarks that the chi ld’s characterfrequently presents far more distinctly the groundplan of the matured man’s than the youth’s

,s ince

COET IIE AND IIIS INFLUENCE 17

the proportions Of the whole are often completelydisguised by the temporary caprices of newly -expan ded pass ions and newly-gained freedom . This is ,at al l events

,extremely true of Goethe, and is gener

ally true Of al l casts of character where the permanentinfluence of a manly conscience does not start forthinto l ife along with the new powers and new freedomit i s to control . The sense Of responsibility andmoral freedom

,once awakened

,does not again sub

side,and where searching moral convictions have

once taken hold on the character,the subsidence Of

youthful impetuousness does not give back again thecharacteristi c features of childhood ; but in Goethethi s element was always faint

,and the difference be

tween the child’s mind and the man’s was only a difference in maturity Of powers when the spring-tide ofyouth fel l back

,his inward l ife was as it had been

,

only that al l was stronger and riper. He was areflective

,Old-fashioned

,calmly -imaginative ch ild

,

always fascinated by a mystery, but never, properlyspeaking

,awed by it . It kindled hi s imagination ;

i t never subdued him . He was full of wonder,and

quite without veneration . In the “ altar to theLord which the child secretly built on a music-stando f his father’s at seven years Of age

,and on which

he burn t incense in the shape o f a pastil,unti l he

found that he was in danger o f injuring his altar,

he was innocently playing with a subj ect which toalmost any other child would have been too sacredfor imaginative amusement. He was evidentlycharmed with the picturesqueness o f the patriarchalsacrifices

,and thought with delight of the blue smoke

curling up to heaven beneath the first beam o f therising sun : Of the religious feel ing

,the desire to

give up anything of his o w n out of love to God, he

18 C OET IIE AND HIS INFLUENCE

had not of course any idea —that in a child o f sevenno one would expect. But what is characteristi c

,i s

the absen ce of any restraining aw e, in thus mingl ingthe thought OfGodwith his play, at an age when hehad already begun to th ink whether i t was just inGod to send earthquakes and storms . Religion wasalready to h im what i t ever continued to be

,—not

the communion with holiness,but at most a graceful

development of human li fe,a fountain Of cool mys

tery playing grate ful ly over a parched earth . Mr.

Lewes has translated a delightful i llustration ofGoethe’s relation to his mother, from Bettina vonArnim’s account. That bold young lady’s authorityi s generally more than questionable ; here, however,there is the strongest evidence Of internal truth

This genial,indulgent mother employed h er faculty

for story-tel l ing to h is an d h er ow n delight. ‘Ai r,fire

,

earth,and water I represented under the forms of prin

cesses and to al l n atural phenomena I gave a meaning,

i n wh ich I almost bel ieved more fervently than my l ittlehearers. As we thought of paths wh ich led from star tostar, and that we should one day inhabit the stars, andthought of the great sp irits we should meet there

,I was

as eager for the hours of story-tell ing as the ch il drenthemselves I was quite curious about th e future courseof my ow n improvisation, and any invitation wh ich interrupted these evenings was d isagreeable. There I sat

,an d

there Wolfgang held me w ith h is large black eyes ; andwhen the fate of o n e of h is favourites was not accord ingto h is fancy

,I saw th e angry veins swel l on h is temples

,

I saw h im repress his tears. He Often burst in with ,“ But

,mother, the princess won’t marry the nasty tailor,

even i f h e does k ill th e giant. And when I made apause for th e night

,promising to continue it on the mor

row , I was certain that h e would in th e meanwh ile thinki t o ut for himself

,and so h e Often stimulated my imagina


tion. When I turned th e story accordin g to h is plan,

and told h im that h e had found o ut the de’n ouemen t,then

was h e all fi re and flame, and o n e could see hi s l ittleheart beatin g underneath h is dress ! His grandmother

,

wh o made a great pet of h im,was th e confidant of al l h is

ideas as to h o w th e story w ould turn o ut ; and as sherepeated these to me

,and I turned the story according to

these h ints,there was a l ittle d iplomatic secrecy between

us,wh ich we never discl osed. I had the pleasure of

continuing my story to th e del ight and aston ishment ofmy hearers

,and \Volfgan g saw w ith glow ing eyes th e

fulfilment of h is o wn conceptions,and l istened w ith

enthusiastic applause.’

His self -command and sel f-importance showedthemselves early. He once waited resolutely formany minutes ti l l s chooltime was “ up

,

” though h isschoolfel lows were lashing his legs with switches ti l lthey bled

,before he would defend himsel f by a single

movement ; and then he fel l upon them with immense success. Like al l petted chi ldren

,he did not

like school ; his pride was hurt by the un respectin gself-assertion Of the republi c around him . His mostintimate fri ends were usually women and youngermen . He never could endure to be laughed at.Herder’s rather si lly pun on his name madein college days

,

Thou,th e descendant of gods

,or of Goths, or of

gutters,

” 1

was perhaps a l i ttle annoying but i t clearly rankledin his mind and he mentions it bitterly forty yearslater

,after Herder’s death

,in the course Of a very

kindly critici sm,as an instance of the sarcasm which

rendered Herder Often unamiable ; characteristieallysuggesting this most admirable rationale of true

1 In German Koth , literally “ mud.

20 C OET IIF. AND HIS IN FLUENCE

pol i teness in such matter s : “ The proper name Of aman i s not l ike a cl oak

,which only hangs about him

,

1n d at which o n e may at any rate be allowed to pul land twitch

,but i t is a close -fittin g garment, whi ch

has grown over and over h im,like h is skin

,and

which one cannot scrape and flay without injuringhim himself.” As a smal l boy he i s said to havewalked in an Old-fashioned way

,i n order to distin

guish himself from his schoolfel lows,and to have told

hi s mother,

“ I begin with thi s . Later on in l ife Ishall d istinguish myself i n far other ways .” On e

cannot help thinking a l ittl e j udicious whippingand uouehalauce at home might at this period havebeen of some service to him . Yet the “ oracular soentered into his nature

,that one could i ll spare i t

now from his essence ; i t lends a certain antiquegrandeur to the light leaves of poetry that are twinedround i t.His minute sel f -Observation early showed itself.

The following recollection in hi s A utobiograp hy i s extremely characteris ti c

We b oys held a Sunday assembly, where each Ofus

was to produce original verses, and here I was struck bysomething strange

,wh ich long caused me uneasiness.

My poems, whatever they m ight be, always seemed to meth e best. But I soon remarked that my competitors

,wh o

brought forth very lame affai rs,w ere in th e same cond i

tion,and thought no less of themselves. Nay , what ap

peared yet more susp icious, a good lad (though in suchmatters altogether unsk il ful), whom I l iked in otherrespects

,but wh o had h is rhymes made by h is tutor

,not

only regarded these as th e best,but was thoroughly per

suaded th ey were h is ow n,as h e always maintained in o ur

confidential intercourse . No w,as th is i llusion and error

was Obvious to me, th e question o n e day forced itsel f upon


me, whether I mysel f m ight not be in th e same statewhether th ese poems were not really better than m ine,In d whether I might not justly appear to th ese boys asmad as they to me ? This d isturbed me much and longfor it was altogether impossible for me to find any externalcriterion Of th e truth I even ceased from producing

,until

at length I was quieted by my own l ight temperament,and th e feel ing of my own powers.”

He could not see then that what real ly distinguish ed h im above his schoolfellows was not near somuch

,probably

,the excel lence of his verses

,as the

power Of detecting and applying to his own case thegeneral law of self—deception .

Goethe was,as he intimates in WilhelmMeister, in

a passage well known to be in fact autobiographi cal,

a very inquisitive child,and as unscrupulous as

spoiled children are in gratifying his i nquisitiveness.His chi ldish fondness for the “ store-room ” i s ratheruniversal and human than individual and personal.More than any other of the young ones I was i nthe habit of looking out attentively to see i f I couldnotice any cupboard left Open

,or key standing in its

lock .

” There are few minuter bits of life in hiswri tings than his description Of the predatory excurs ion into the store-room one Sunday morning

,when

the key had not been withdrawn .

“ I marked th i soversight

,

” he says . He pi lfered,however

,with less

than his usual self-possession the cook made a stiri n the kitchen ,

” and even Goethe was flurried. Buthe seems to have had none of the ordinary child ishshame and self -reproach connected with the adventure —his favourite puppets were always dearer tohim because of the “ French-plum fragrance whichthey had acquired in the scene of theft.His delight in the theatre was the same through


l i fe . He l iked the l i ttle mystery. He l iked stil lbetter to have the key to the mystery . He was asquick as any chi ld at a pantomime to find out “ theman in the bear but i t did not destroy his pleasure

,especially if he w ere able to be “ the man in the

bear himself and besides,h is heart was always in

his eyes . But what mainly fascinated him i n thetheatre

,I think

,was its condensation and concentra

tion o f l ife into one consecutive piece. His imagination was wandering

,digressive

,microscopic

,in co

herent ; he had the greatest difficulty in grasping i none vision a consecutive whole . He saw vivid pointsin succession

,and saw the continuity and growth ;

but his sight was like the passing of a microscopeover a surface

,—it laid bare the transi tion, but did

not give a connected vision . He saw too intenselyand too far at each point to be able to sweep his eyequickly over the whole. The theatre helped toremedy this defect

,and he was grateful to i t ; but

for that very reason he never could write successfullyfor the theatre. The boy’s passion for the theatrehad one very bad effect. During the French occupation OfFrankfort

,he (then a lad of ten to twelve

years old) had a free admission to the French theatre,which he used dai ly

,accompanied by no older fr iend.

His mother unwisely obtained the reluctant permiss ion Of his father that he should go and his cousequent quick progress in French reconciled his fatherto the habit. The lad had constant access behind thescenes and in the green-room along with h is youn gFrench compan ions . And here I have l ittle doubtthe natural delicacy Of his mind was fi rst rubbed Off.

Probably he was constitutionally deficient in thatelement Ofmind which shame and reverence have incommon (aiSuSg, as the Greeks cal l i t) ; and during

24 C OET IIE AND H IS I NFLUENCE

stone tablet,th e ornamental border of which I could per

fectly recogn ise, though I could not read th e inscription .

It rested on th e corbel of a niche, in wh ich a fin elyw rought fountain poured water from cup to cup into agreat basin

,that formed

, as it were, a l ittle pond , an dd isappeared in th e earth . F ountain

,inscription

,n ut

trees,all stood d irectly one above another I would paint

i t as I saw it.“ Now

,it may wel l be conceived h ow I passed th is

even ing and many following days,and h ow Often I re

peated to mysel f this story, wh ich even I could hardlybel ieve. As soon as it was in an y degree possible, I wentagai n to th e Bad I-Val l to refresh my remembrance atleast Of these signs

,and to l ook at th e precious door.

But,to my great amazement

,I found all changed. Nut

trees,indeed

,overtopped the wall

,but they d id not stand

immed iately in contact. A tablet also was inserted inth e wall

,but far to th e right Of th e trees

,w ithout orna

ment,and w i th a legible inscription . A n iche w ith a

fountain there was far to the left, but w ith no resemblancewhatever to that wh ich I had seen : so that I almostbel ieved that th e second adventure was, l ike th e first, adream ; for of the door there is not th e sl ightest trace.T h e only th ing that consoles me is th e Observation

,that

these three obj ects seem always to change their places .F or in repeated visits to the spot, I think I have noticedthat th e n ut-trees have moved somewhat nearer together

,

and that th e tablet an d th e fountain seem l ikewise toapproach each other . Probably

,when al l is brought

together again, th e door, too, w il l once more be visibleand I w il l d o my best to take up th e thread of th e adventure. Whether I shall be able to tell y o u whatfurther happens, or whether i t w il l be expressly forb iddenme

,I cannot say.

“ Th is tale , of th e truth Of wh i ch my playfell owsvehemently strove to convince themselves

, was receivedw ith great applause. Each Of them visited alone th e

GOET IIE AND HIS I NFLUENCE 25

place described,w ithout co n fidin g it to me or th e others,

and d iscovered th e n ut-trees,the tablet

,and th e spring,

though always at a distance from each other, as they atlast confessed to me

,because it is not easy to conceal a

secret at that early age. But here th e contest first arose.O n e asserted that th e objects did not stir from th e spot,and always maintained th e same distance ; a secondaverred that they d id move

,and that too away from each

other a th ird agreed w ith the latter as to th e fi rst pointof their movin g

,though i t seemed to him that the n ut

tree,tablet

,and fountain rather drew near together ;

wh ile a fourth had someth ing stil l more w onderful toannounce, wh ich was

,that th e n ut-trees were in th e

m iddle,but that th e tablet and the fountain were on sides

Opposite to those whi ch I had stated . With respect toth e traces of th e l ittle door they also varied . And thusthey furnished me an early instance of the contradictory views men can hold and maintain in regard tomatters quite simple and easily Cleared up . As I o b

stin ately refused the continuation Of my tale,a repeti

tion of th e fi rst part was Often desired . I was on myguard

,however

,n o t to change th e circumstances much ,

and by the uni formity Of th e narrative I converted th efable into truth in the m inds of my hearers.”

How vividly this reminds one Of his mysteriousconduct to Eckermann with regard to some portionso f the second part of Faust. In that dark composition Faust asks Mephistopheles to show himHelena and Mephi stopheles tells him it can only bemanaged by application “ to goddesses who l ive sublime in lonel iness

,but not in space

,sti ll less in time

—Oi whom to speak is embarrassment ” themothers ” ; a glowing tripod ” 1 i s to assure him

1 Th e passage is, it seems to me,a satire upon th e Hegelian

practice of deducing everything o ut of “th e pure nothing

,

” bywhat may be called th e tripartite cork-screw philosophy, which

2G COET IIE AND HIS I NFLUENCE

that he has attained the deepest point Of al l,and by

its shining he i s to see the mothers . But there isn o way there, as there can be no way into the “

un

trodden and untreadable,where he i s to be sur

rounded by lonel iness .” On hearing the “ mothersmentioned

,Faust starts back shuddering and when

asked why,only replies

,

Die Mutter Mutter ’s kl ingt so wunderl ich .

(“ T h e mothers mothers it has the strangest ring.

Poor Eckermann had been set to read this remarkablescene

,and was

,naturally

,a good deal puzzled . But

he shal l tel l hi s Ow n story.

This afternoon Goethe did me the great pleasure ofread ing th ese scenes in wh ich Faust visits th e mothers.T h e novelty and unexpectedness of th is subject

,w ith

h is manner of reading the scene,struck me so forcibly

,

that I felt myself translated into th e situation of Faust,

shuddering at the commun ication from Mephistopheles.Although I had heard and felt the whole, y et so muchremained an enigma to me that I felt mysel f compelledto ask Goethe for some explan ation. But h e, in h isusual manner

,w rapped h imsel f up in mystery, l ook ing on

me w ith w ide open eyes, and repeating the words,DieMutter! Mutter

’s klingt so wun derlich .

’

I can betray to you no more , except that I foundin Plutarch that in Ancient Greece the mothers werespoken of as d ivin ities. This is al l for wh ich I am in

debted to trad ition th e rest is my own invention . Taketh e manuscript home w ith y o u , study it carefully

,and

see to what conclusion y ou come.’

The good childlike Eckermann conscientiouslytasked himself to find th e riddle out quite as

do es every thing in logical triplets, but winds itself a littlehigher at each repetition.

COETHE AND HIS INFLUENCE 27

anxiously as Goethe’s boy -audience did with th e

door i n the old wal l perhaps i t was even less worthwhile . He elaborated a most complex and diflicult“ view on the subject Of these mothers ; but Goethelet nothing further transpire. Indeed i t might fairlywait at least ti l l the nut-trees

,the fountain

,and the

tablet in the old Fran kfort wall had drawn togetheragain .

There i s one other slight incident of Goethe’s boyhood so characteristi c of the man that it i s worthmention ing. The calm

,un abash ed

,self-fortifiedboy ap

pears in i t the very image of the man . Coming out ofthe theatre

,he remarked ponderingly to a companion,

with reference to one of the young actors,

“ How

handsomely the boy was dressed,and how well he

looked ! Who knows i n how tattered a j acket hemay sleep to-night ! ” The mother of the lad

,hap

pening to be beside him in the crowd,took great

umbrage,and read Goethe a long lecture .

“ As Icould neither excuse myself nor escape from her

,I

was really embarrassed and when she paused for amoment

,said

,without thinking

,

‘Well,why do you

make such a noise about i t Z—to-day red,to-morrow

dead.

’1 These words seemed to strike the ' womandumb. Sh e stared at me, and moved away from meas soon as i t was in any degree possible.” This wasnot meant to give pain ; i t was only that Goethehabitually cut short what annoyed him

,without

caring much how. He had the nerve and thepresence Of mind, and of other consequences hethought l ittle . There i s a like tale

,referring to

later years, of a fanatical admirer bursting into thebedroom Of an inn where Goethe was undressing

,

and throwing himself ecstatically at hi s feet,pouring

1 Heutc roth , morgen todt —aGerman proverb.

28 GOETHE AND HIS I NFLUEN CE

forth at th e same time a set speech of adoration .

Goethe blew out the candle and jumped into bed .

Thi s was truly a great inspiration ; 1 but the powerOf calmly warding off anything that did not suit h imwas exercised quite without reference to the moralelements Of the case . Goethe had at every periodOf his l i fe a thoroughly kindly nature ; but one, asi t seems to me

,quite unvisited by any profound

affection . The conception Of really l iving for anotherprobably never occurred to him. His attachmentsto women were numerous and violent

,never self

devoting. For his mother and sister he clearly feltwarmly

,but certainly he was neither a devoted

brother nor a fond son . After his transition toWeimar, he visited hi s mother only at very longintervals

,and never seems to have hastened to her

side in any time of special trouble,though he always

rej oiced to see her and wished to have her with him .

In the last eleven years of h er old age he neveronce visi ted Frankfort

,his summer holiday always

taking him in another direction— to Karlsbad orMarienbad . And his le tters were too few to keepher wel l informed even of his more important movements . He was

,in short

,a kind and hearty

,rather

than a deeply-attached brother and son . I f he nevergave himself up to an affection

,he never demanded

or even expected it from another. Never was the rea les s j ealous or exacting man. He seldom interfered with his o w n calm process Of self-culture forthe sake Of another. He never expected another todo i t for him. And i f this remark properly belongsto a later period Of his l ife

,yet the genial but pl iant

1 I do n o t know th e authority for this anecdote Of Goethe.

Mr. Emerson used to narrate it,n o t w ithout keen sympathy for

th e oppressed lio n .


and self-con sidering nature of h is relation to othe rsi s di stinctly visibl e in his childhood . He was alreadybeginning to accommodate himself to al l in evitabilities, and to ward Off

,wherever possible

,al l that

was foreign to his nature . The extent of his boyishstudies was not less wide than that of h is boyishexperience Of l i fe . To Latin

,Greek, Ital ian , German ,

English,and Hebrew

,together with drawing

,music

,

geography,and Roman law

,he had given much

time,and apparently made considerable progress i n

them before he went to col lege at sixteen . He

scattered his studies,and had “ alternate fits o f

Hebrew and draw ing, etc. but hi s retentive memorydid not easi ly lose what it had once laid hold of .In 1764 Goethe began that habit of fal ling in

love,of which he never broke himself for the n ext

s ixty years . Mr. Lewes makes light Of his love forGretchen

,and the s choliasts seem n ever to have

traced her history. But boyish as his passion was,

the separation clearly caused him no less inten sea suffering, and a more inconsolable despair, thanany subsequent adoration . His min d had not yetgot the stren gth to carry him through . His naturewas stil l the dependent nature of a home-bred boy.

He had as yet no intel lectual passion s,no penetrating

consciousness o f creative power . It i s probable thatthi s kind , s isterly Gretchen, was still l iving in hisimagination when he immortali sed her name inFaust.

The night of Joseph II.

’s coronation

,when he

forget his secret door-key, by means of which ,through his mother’s connivance

,he used to enter

long after h is father had supposed h im to be in bed,

was the last o f his childhood . With his separationfrom Gretchen there cam e upon h im the moody

30 GOETHE AND HIS IN FLUENCE

humours,the dark sentimental in fin itudes, the con

fusion Of energies, the thankless melanchol ies andboisterous capr i ce s pecul iar to that period o f lifewhen young men are most agreeable to themselvesand most obj ectionable to mankind. The passionfor Gretchen had involved him with a set n ot quiteharmless . And the stiff dignity of his father wassadly wounded by having hi s son’s nam e mixed innocen tly up in cases o f swindling, and even forgery .

Goethe was subj ected to the companionship of anaccommodating tutor ; and a year later, i n theautumn of 1765, went forth to see the world as astudent of the University of Leipzig.

Most poets’ youth is turbid, and apt to be ego tisti cal . Goethe’s i s not an exception . He seems tohave had generally

,when in good health

,buoyant

spirits . But the spiritual abysses are of course n u

fathomable . Mr. Lewes has given some very interesting letters concerning Goethe at thi s time fromhis college friends . At Leipzig Goethe got a gooddeal o f know ledge without much diligence

,and also

fell into diss ipation . The only pure influence overhim that he felt powerful ly was that of Gellert

,the

professor Of belles-lettres, and one lady friend , the wifeof a law professor . The latter died during hi sstudentship. Gellert’s mild influence became painfuland a reproach to him

,and he began to avoid it.

Perhaps i t was not very wisely exerted . Gellertused

,says Goethe, “ to hold hi s head down

,and ask

us with his weepin g, w inn ing voice, whether we wentregularly to church , who was our confessor, andwhether we attended the holy communion . I f wepassed this examination but i ll

,we were dismissed

with lamentations , we were more annoyed thancdified ; and yet we could not help loving the man


driacal conversation . His mother and sister paidhim

,as i s usual i n such cases

,something l ike divine

honours . They were moped, and delighted to havean i nval id to w orsh ip . He looked into al chemy

,and

began to think of Faust.In the spring of 1770 he went to the University

of S trasburg, where he fel l i n with Herder, whofirst introduced him to The Vicar of Wakefield, theloose awkward mach inery Of which Goethe (whonever had any power of constructing a plot) afterwards partly borrowed in h is novel o f lVilhelmMeistcr.

The exquisite humour and childlike simpl icity oftaste in that book are Goldsmith’s own . But in thestyle of representing nature and li fe Goethe is notat all unlike Goldsmith . Like him , he does not impartially paint

,but rather vaguely indi cates the

principal influences of the scene before him . He

sketches no outl ined picture, at least of men—butgives one or two figures , hovering too close to theeye to be caught complete ly in any one glance

,

an d which are presented, therefore, i n minute yetvery significant successive details

,to the closest

conceivable scrutiny ; and for th e rest, he indicatesonly the most important inlets o f accessory in fluen éein a few words of loose and spacious suggestion .

As Goldsmith del ineates Dr. Primrose and his wifeby such minute successive touches

,that not til l you

fal l back from the story can you see them as a whole,

and represents the daughters only by the generalstreams of influence they diffuse

,the rosy and violet

l ight their characters respectively reflect i n thevaguer distance, adding, too, th ese influences Of

external nature which most beset the senses,but no

clear landscape,—so also Goethe painted in hi s

three novels,lVert/ter, Meister, and finally

,though

GOETHE AND HIs INFLUENCE 33

with more distinctive outline,and with less attempt

at indicating a whole character or a whole landscapeby isolated samples

,in the Elective Afiin ities. We

do not wonder that he told Eckermann, i n lateryears

,that he found in SirWalter S cott the suggest

ion Of a wholly new school of art. That writer’sstrong

,masterly

,Often hard outlines, present the

most vivid possible contrast to the faint fringes o fthat luminous uimbus which usually involves his ownmost carefully finished figures.While at S trasburg, Goethe made the acquaintance

of the family which seemed to him the counterpartOfDr. Primrose’s, and in which he appeared first inthe character of Mr. Burchel l exchanging i t

,how

ever,not for Sir William Thornbil l’s

,but for his

own. Pastor Brion had a l ittle parsonage atDrusenheim

,sixteen miles north of S trasburg, into

which Goethe was introduced in the disguise of apoor and dilapidated theological student, by a fellowstudent. The latter was attached (or becoming so)to the eldest and most lively daughter, whom Goetheidentified as the O livia of Goldsmith’s tale . Thesecond daughter, Frederika, who took benign pityon the shabby theologian

,and captivated his fancy

by her s implicity and grace,reminded him of Sophia

but she l ittle knew that instead of giving rise toa novel

,she was starting a new epoch in German

criticism, and spinning the first thread of a veryponderous “ Frederike litteratur, i n which an erudition as yet unborn would discuss

,with prodigious

learning and subtlety, after collation of MS . letters,personal examination of the place

,and cross-ques

tio n in g of aged survivors, the precise point whereGoethe had crossed the S esenheim road

,the posi tion

of Frederika’s own arbour,the date of the first

L D

34 C OETHE AND In s INFLUENCE

kisses she bestowed,and many other matters o f

equal w eight. To have spurred on heavy-armedGerman commentators (of the class who discuss alost iota in fragments of Greek plays) into a cumbrous canter of exegeti cal sympathy with a littl eaffair of the heart, must have been about as farremoved from Frederika’s presentim ents

,as thi s

apparatus criticus i s from the light air o f the l ifei t “ expounds.” Imagine an Anthon’s “ edition ofTennyson’s ‘Mi ller’s Daughter

,

’ with critical notes,

”

and you have a faint picture of the “ Frederikelitteratur.

” 1 Goethe acted his part skilfully,and

promised “ to supply ” occasional ly for the pastor onweek-day occasions. But

,disgusted w i th hi s shabby

appearance,he fled the n ext day

,on ly to change one

disguise for another. He came back as the innkeeper’s boy

,with a “ christening cake ” and an

Alsatian patois ; and when thi s disguise was penetrated, he took his own character, and began seriouslyto fal l in love . The visi t was o ften repeated

,and

Frederika’s heart completely gained . Goethe nowbecame uneasy. The presence Of Frederika painedhim

,though he “ knew of nothing more pleasant

than to think o f h erwhile absent. ” He had to freehim self from this influence

,w hi ch threatened to

introduce something foreign to his natural development. He was leaving S trasburg, and once more he

1 There is a profoundly learned controv ersy,for example

, as

to whether o n e of Goethe’s letters to a friend at this time was

or was not written on th e piece of blue paper in wh ich somecomfits

,etc .

,h ad been sent to h im from Strasburg. T h e

question turns, to a considerable extent,on whether h e gave

th e paper-bag w ith th e comfits to th e young ladies,or only

th e eomfits o ut o f it. It is d iscussed w ith laborious go odfaith.

COETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE 35

visited the “ golden children at S esenheim,where

he found a gray desolate mist settling down over thel ittle parsonage

,instead of the fresh buoyant air of

days gone by .

“ I reached her (Frederika) my handfrom my horse ; the tears stood in her eyes, and Ifel t very uneasy. He fel t more than uneasy. Thesewords copy only the blanched pi cture that remainedin the old man’s memory. Frederika fel l i ll ; andGoethe, on hi s return to Frankfort l iving in bittersuspense as to the effect on her peace

,and yet knowing

that he could not comfort her without transforminghimself

,and exchanging a quiet sentiment for real

self-devotion of spirit,became restless and miserable .

That his final deci sion was wrong i s far fromclear . The thought of devoting himself to her gavehim n o j oy, but seemed to weigh him down . Yeti t seems that the reason lay

,not in the absence

of anything which any other attachment ever gave,

but in t h e reluctance which was now beginning tocreep upon him to devote himself and hi s inward lifeto anything outside of himself. The idea o f sel fdevelopment

,self-ideal isation

,as the only scope of

his conscious l ife, was beginning to fascinate him ,

and to gnaw at the roots of hi s nature. If he couldby one generous act of self-forgetfulness have devotedhimsel f to secure Frederika’s happiness

,there seems

some probability that he would have secured a farhappier and clearer life for himself also. It was

,

perhaps,les s the want of love

,—for he never seems

to have felt more love,—which prevented this

,than

the want of strength to cast away the mi serabledream of keeping the course of his inward development free from all foreign interference . It wasmuch later than this—when the self-idealising veinhad become more prominent—that he w rote to

0

OG GOETHE AND HIs I NFLUENCE

Lavater “ The desire to raise the pyramid o f myexistence—the bas e of which i s already laid—ashigh as possible in the air absorbs every other desire

,

and scarcely ever quits me 1 but the poison was

already working in him . Goethe never became aselfish man in the coarse sense of the term . He

always cultivated benignant unselfish sympathies asthe most grace ful elements in th is same fancypyramid of his existence . He was generous bynature

,and would give up

,from kindly feeling

,any

thing that was not of the essence of himself. Butit soon became his habit to cultivate disinterestedaffection only as a subordinate element

,needful to

the harmony of a universally experienced nature .

To have loved the goodness Of ei ther God or manmore devotedly than he loved its reflex image in hisown character, would have done him more goodthan all the sickly pottering with the “ pyramid ofhis existence ” with whi ch he was so much occupied .

It would be absurd to say all this about Goethe’syouthful conduct to Frederika , were i t not the typeof what was always happening in his after-li fe

,when

he knew by experience that he very much preferredto be passively hampered by a wounded heart tobein g actively hampered by an affectionate wife .

The essence of these tedious tortures was almostalways the same . He wished for love “ with limitedliabi li ty he did not wish to devote himself to anyone except himse lf. This l imited l iabi lity did notso well meet the vi ews o f the young ladies 2 them

1 Lewes’

s Life of Go eth e, vol. 11. chap. i.2 A distinct classification of Goethe’s lo ves h as n o t yet been

added by th e critics to th e chronology Of th e original ” of h iswritin gs. It would be a material help to head th e differentyears with th e name or names of th e ascendant star, an d some

GOETHE AND H IS I NFLUENCE 7

selves,wh o were sometimes , to his infinite embar

rassmen t, willing even to “ go to America ” w ith him ,

or anywhe re el se . This was meeting him a greatdeal more than hal f-way. He could not, of course,avail himself of the sacrifice .

Goethe returned to Frankfort,bringing with him

a little harper-lad whom he had picked up at Mannhein

,and with thoughtless kindness promised to

befriend . His mother, at first much perplexed ,found the boy lodging and employment out ofthe house . Gets eon Berlichingen was now inGoethe’s mind

,and

,spurred on by his sister’s in

creduli ty as to his l iterary perseverance,he completed

i t in its first form in six weeks. To me it seems farthe most noble as well as the most powerful ofGoethe’s dramas . I agree with Mr. Lewes, that inits first shape there are man y fine elements whichare lost in the later an d revi sed edition . No doubtsomething i s cut away that needed cutting away

,and

more appearance of unity i s given by the condensation of Adelheid’s episode. But this i s the part onwhich Goethe’s imagination had really worked withfinest effect, and the gain to unity is a loss to poetry.

It i s the on ly great production of Goethe’s in whicha real ly noble

,self -forgetful man stands out in the

foreground to give us a moral standard by which tomeasure the meaner characters . It i s the only greatproduction in which awful shadows o f remorse hauntthe selfish and the gui lty . On e reads in i t that

indication of its apparent brightness. There were about eightA 1’s

,heiss un d leidenschaftl ich geliebte, ! etc . five

,at least,

ZE 1’

s, with whom h e stood “ im innigsten Verhaltn iss derLiebe an d, finally , a great number of holde Wesen, ” some

of them already obscured by shadows of time, wh o were recipien ts of amore transient adoration .

38 GOETHE AND HIs I NFLUENCE

Goethe’s mind had as yet by no means finallyembraced the calm self-culture view of life—theview which looked upon women’s devotion

,human

life,indeed the whole universe itsel f, mainly as

artisti c material to be assimilated by the individualconstitution

,and at as little cost to the digestive

system as that constitution would al low. Fascin atin g as Egmo n t i s, Egmont himself i s the laterGoethe

,the conscious master -bui lder

,condescending

to accept from woman,and man and God, materials

for his “ pyramid of existence. GOtz i s a verydifferent figure ; and among all Goethe

’s masculinecreations he stands alone

,—the only one who did not

use th e w orld,but served i t. The play (in its early

form) will be thought gross ; but i t has little o f thattainting impuri ty w hich turns a microscope ful l uponthe subtler workings of physi cal passion

,to the great

di sfigurement o f some of his later works . In anotherrespect GOtz i s exceptional . It i s curious thatAdelh eid in Gotz eon Berlichin geu i s the only femininecharacter of the proud passionate class that Goetheever drew and that Maria

,much more l ike

his other characters in type,i s about the faintest

and poorest o f them . With all h is unmistakableweal th and inimitable grace i n producing women’scharacters

,each as distinct from the other as Adel

heid is from Maria,they are all

,Adelheid only

excepted , o f the dependent, tender, worshippingclass . Mr. Thackeray’s Beatri ce

,i n Esme/id

,i s

l ess completelv exceptional in his writings than

Adelheid i s 111 Goethe’s. Thackeray and Goetheare alike in this

,as i n some other respects—both of

them have drawn women as l iving as Shakespeare’s .And all three

,by one consent

,are disposed to make

their powerful queen-like women had. No doubt

40 C OETHE AND H IS I NFLUENCE

are shadows,and light is l ight. In Werthe r the

moral evi l introduced is far less—i s,indeed

,of a

quiet,subtle

,sentimental kind—the mere hear-t

eating rust and destructiveness of unmeasured selfindulgence ; but there is nothing noble to contrastwith it— nothing but the cold external phantomA lbert

,and the floating image of Charlotte , reflected

in such a mist of Wertherism that i t has no distinctness at al l . What i s the mere artisti c effect on thereader’s mind ? Almost un iversally this

,that the

picture, powerful as i t i s, misses its effect from theabsence of any fine moral contrasts by whi ch to

measure i t. It i s l ike the picture of a mist seenfrom inside . Nothing adds more to the beauty of alandscape than vapours rising round a mountain’sbrow but then you must stand out of the fog

,and

see the dark bold ridges round which the vapourscl imb. In Werther are painted wreath upon wreathof emotion

,of blinding doubts and shapeless pas

s ions ; no speck of firm land anywhere . This wi llprobably be conceded of Werther

,but the moral

part of the critici sm applies equally to Goethe’sother works . We believe the extraordinary want ofoutline in his characters to be greatly due to thi sentire absence of any attempt at moral proportionin all his later works. Werther is made, i n oneletter

,to say most characteristically

,

“ I scarce knowhow to express myself

,—my power of representing

things i s so weak,everything swims and wavers so

before my mind,that I can catch n o outlin e ; but I

fancy somehow that,i f I had clay or wax

,I could

succeed in modelling . If i t lasts longer, I shal l getsome clay

,and begin kneading

,even though i t be

only cakes after al l. VVerther’s mind i s so dissolved

,

that he can only feel and grope his way in the dark,

GOETHE AND HIs INFLUENCE 41

as i t were,to grace of form . This weakness is

partly the expression of an artistic difficulty Goethere ally felt in grasping in one glance any extensiveoutl ine of thought

,— a difficulty due to the micro

scopic n ature of his insight,which only travelled

very slowly over a large surface of l i fe : he oftenmodel led his groups figure by figure the outline ofthe whole grew up as he felt his way to i t. But apart reason of thi s was

,that he had no moral gradua

tion in his groups,— no natural admirations which

gave a unity to the whole and determined the l ineof the shadows . Outline is a result of comparison

,

moral outl ine of moral compari so n . You cannot compare without an implied standard . The heroesin Werther, Wilhelm Meister

,Tasso, Faust, are such

cloudy, shadowy pictures, because they are essentially sketches o f moral weakness without any rel iefin characters of corresponding power. Albert

,

Jarno, Antonio, are n ot foils to them— they have notthe force whi ch the others want

,but are simply de

ficien t in the moral qual ities wh i ch make the formercharacters problems Of some interest. Certainly

,

the former are soft,the latter hard . But the second

set do not give strength as opposed to weakness,but

rigidi ty as opposed to weakness .1 What is wanted1 Goethe well knew, in physical nature, that soft thin gs

should n o t be contrasted w ith hard but w ith firm. He h ad

( I am not Speaking ironically ) an exquisitely fin e sympathywith vegetable life. Consider this picture of a fruit-basketin A lexis and Dora (I quote th e graceful version giv enamong th e E nglish Hexameter Tran slatio n s published by Mr.Murray in 1847)

“ S ilen tly th ou arrayest th e fru it in th e comeliest o rder,Lay in g th e heav ier go ld-ball o fth e oran ge ben eathNext th e so ft-pulpt figs, that th e slightest pressure disfiguresLastly, th e myrtle at top ro o fin g th e wh ole with its green .

!


al l along i s some dim picture i n the minds of Werther,

Mei ster,Tasso

,and Faust o f w hat they would be,

what i t is which would lift them out of the imbecility of their purposeless career . This i s the element never suppl ied . We are presented with a setof contradictions i nstead of contrasts. Only inGotz is there any picture o f strength without hardness only in IVeislin gen i s there a picture o f fatalirresoluti on that has a real vision o f the career bywhich he might have been saved. The moral outl inewhich Goethe’s youthful remorse put into this picturehas raised it, considered merely as a work of art, inmany respects high above i ts fellows . S o far fromthe truth i s i t that the poet ought to have no moralpredi lections at heart

,that i f he has none such his

picture becomes feeble,watery

,wavering. Impar

tiality i n del ineation , not impartial ity in conception ,i s what is needed . Shakespeare frequently gives nofoi l to the character whose weakness he is delin eating but he always gives i t some clear vision o f thenobleness and the strength above it. Hamlet know swhat he could do and dare not. Lady Macbethknows what sh e should do, and wil l not. Antonyknows what he would do

,and cannot. But Faust

has no gl immering of salvation ; Werther has nogleam of w hat he might be Wilhelm is a milksoppure and simple and Tasso’s character i s then

,and

then only,a fine picture i f i t be granted that he i s

supposed insane . It seems to me that no moreremarkable breakdown of the theory o f the “ moralindiffe rence o f art can be suggested than Goethe’swritings . His poetry i s perfect until i t rises to

If, instead of th e orange, Dora h ad laid a cocoa-n ut under th efigs, sh e would never have made such an impression on th e

y ielding heart of Alexis.

GOET IIE AND HIS IN FLUENCE 43

the dramatic region,where moral actions are in

volved,and a moral faith therefore needed

,and then

it becomes blank,shadowy

,feeble . WilhelmMeister

would not have been A menagerie of tame animals,”

as Niebuhr called it with great truth,ifGoethe had

not lost the (never strong) moral predilections ofyounger days

,but had purified his eye and heart

for their insight into human weakness by reverentstudy of nobler strength.

Another critici sm which has a real connectionwith that just made i s suggested by the comparisono f Werther and Cole. Mr. Lewes truly says thatGoethe never gives enough importance to the action,the progress of events. He does not develop thecharacters essentially through the action, but on occasion of the action . You do not feel that Getz hascome in from that last scene it i s too much a serieso f pictures

,l ike Hogarth

’s pictorial biographies the

art i s much greater,no doubt

,i f you take them in

succession but the breath of the past has not passedinto the presen t scene

,each i s almost intelligible in

separation . A very great part of the skill inl/Verther consists in the gradual rise of the excitement,—the stages of passion ; stil l it i s a seri es o fpictures there is nothing to oblige you to look backto the past and forward to the future . I t mightbegin almos t anywhere

,and stop almost anywhere

,

and be intell igible stil l as a delineation of character .This is so also in Egmon t. It i s less so in Gotz vonBerlichingen , though it is too much so there, than inany other work . The past action i s much more workedinto the essence of the fol lowing scenes than i sthe case o f Egmo n t, Meister

, Iphigen ia, Tasso,or

Faust. A n d the obvious reason is,th at the actors

havemoral characters,and so the sense of what they had

14 GOETHE AND HIS IN FLUENCE

done or not done han gs upon them throughout theydo not turn up as complete i n relation to each distinct scene as i f they had had no previous l i fe : theyhave a sense of the past, a presentiment of the future .

The presence of an implicit moral estimate of thecharacters helps art in other ways than by addingoutline for moral responsibil ity forges many a strongl ink between the past

,present

,and future

,which i s

otherwise wanting. Is i t not,indeed

,the strongest o f

al l l inks between the past and the future in actuall ife ? IVerth er

’s uneasiness grows organically ; but

i t grow s as a tree puts out its branches,without

memory or reference to its past stages . Egmontdoes not grow at all. Faust does not grow . Tassoundergoes chan ges ; but only those Of a sensi tiveplant

,drawing in with every touch , expanding at

every sunbeam . All Goethe’s feminin e creation sgrow ; but usual ly i t is the growth of aflectio n only .

The only portion s o f a coherent drama that Goetheever wrote are the Gretchen elements in Faust. Thati s the highest drama in every sense

,and one of

the most essential e lements i n it i s a deep and trueremorse .After his return from Wetzlar, and publication

of Gb'tz and lVerthcr, Goethe became a famous man .

The effect of this fame upon himsel f was certainlyvery great . Not only are the letters to Kestnerclearly written under great excitement after the publicatio n

,but other correspondences which he then

began are far more dizzy than Werther i tsel f. His

letters to the Countess von S tolberg are mostlymystical emotional quavers. This young lady henever saw. They struck up an inarticulate attachm ent on the strength of lVerther. Goethe rushedinto a correspondence with her of thi s description :

COETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE 45

My dear one,—I will cal l you by no name —forwhat are the names—friend

, sister,lo ver,bride,wife , oreven a word that expresses a union o fallthese names—compared with the very feeling i tself to whichI can write no more your letter has come upon meat a strange moment— Adieu— (written at) the veryfirst moment.” 1 And some of these remarkableletters are more incoherent sti ll . SO greatly didGoethe err in afterwards representing Werther assetting his mind free from the fever of sentimentalism

,that not til l after its publication did he fully

succumb to i t.Introduced by his ce lebrity as a writer to many

eminent men,Goethe began to see and to study a far

wider and more various field of social l ife than heever attempted to delineate . It might be matter ofsurprise that in so freely-moving a plot as that oflVilhelm Meister Goethe should not have anticipated the easy sketches of character which Dickensand Thackeray have made so popular

,and thus

effectively used his large experience of social l ife ;for he never willingly let a grain of real experiencego unused . The reason obviously is

,that he had

so l ittle of the humour which makes sketches o f

superficial l ife and manners living and agreeable .His remarks on common men and manners

,and on

uncommon men and manners,are always subtle

,Often

amusing ; but you need to have his personal comments to give his descriptions of these trivial mattersany interest he has not the art of making his characters speak so as to explain thei r o wn folly ; hecannot give just that touch of caricature by whichDickens effected this ; he cannot introduce that1Q uoted by Dun tzerin h isFrauen bilder aus Goethe

’

s Leben ,

p. 271.


background of fine irony by which Thackerayturned men into critics of themselves. He understood everyday German l ife as well as either Dickensor Thackeray understood everyday English li fe .Nothing could be much more skilful than hisaccounts

,for instance, Of the propheti c Lavater

(whom Mr. Lewes most unchari tably an d untrulyterms a “ born hypocrite

,quite in contradiction to

Goethe’s latest and maturest estimate), and of Basedow

,the educational reformer

,— the one a man of

real power,spoiled by being a Lady’s preacher and

by the needful devices for keeping up popularitywhich this i nvolved —the other a coarse

,sel f-in dul

gent,unscrupulous

,and exceedingly dirty philan

thro pist, who characteristically enough had thegreatest horror of baptism .

1 The only elementwantin g in Goethe’s descriptions i s

,not a perception

o f that in them which is to us ridiculous,but a

thorough perception and enj oyment of the rid iculouspart. He can see a full-blown absurdity

,but not

the delicate transition by which real l ife passes intounreali ty. His “ Plun dersweilern Fair

,

” and otherthings of that description written at this time

,and

his subsequent comic works (such at least as I know ),of which Mr. Lewes thinks the “ Triumph of Susceptibility a fair specimen

,are mere farces

,laughable

on the stage,perhaps

,but tiresome to read. Bom

bastes Furi oso ” gives a good idea of thi s kind of

1 Schlosser, in h is History of th e Eigh teen th Cen tury , tells usthat Basedow h ad a long dispute w ith h is w ife an d th e clergyman

,ih which both of them used all possible arguments an d

entreaties to induce h im to gi ve up th e notion of having h isdaughter baptized l

’raen umeran tia Elemen taria Philan

th rOpia, partly , I suppose, in ridicule of th e ceremony , an dpartly as a puff o fh is Philanthropic Academy at Dessau.

48 COETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE

works. He used them but very little—owin g,I

think,to the un fitn ess for successful manners-painting

I have just indicated—in the really concre te del ineation Of the times he l ived in and the socie ty he hadhim se lf observed .

Soon after Goethe’s l iterary fame was established,

in the Christmas of the year 1774, he was introducedto Anna Elizabeth Sch On eman n

,whose mother

,the

widow of a rich Frankfort banker,was one of the

very few who at that time ever thought of assembling fashionable society in their houses so often asevery evening in the season . To this young lady

,

so famil iar in Goethe’s writings as Li li,the poet now

transferred his affections . His father and motherhad been anxious that he should marry a quiet girlin their o wn circle

,to whom he had been thrice

assigned by a marriage-lottery in the picnics of theprevious year— Anna S ibylla Miin ch— but he re

garded this parental v iew as one in which i t. wasimpossible to concur, although in the meantime hewas quite ready to be affectionate. To Lili

,on the

other hand,he was really warmly attached

,and for

a time betrothed ; but neither his father’s pride nor

hi s own found it easy to bear the reluctance felttowards the engagement by Lili’s friends

,who knew

that Goethe had nei ther that amount of money norof prestige to offer, for which, as i t i s said, not onlythe family

,but the bank itsel f

,had a craving. Poetry

was no obj ect. Goethe wrote many of his mostexquisite lyri cs under the inspiration of this attachment

,sending them s imultaneously to the young

lady and to the newspaper.1 It i s curious to note1 T h e lovely song

,Warum ziehst dumich unw iderstehlich ,

was, as Diin sterhas ascertained , composed in March 1775, an dsent to Jacobi forin seitio n in th e Iris at th e same time. S o of


h ow all Goethe’s finest lyrics cluster round hisattachments . Few things else seem ever to wakenin him the same tones of unconscious airy melody .

His other poetry, often exquisitely fine,has the

polish of high art upon it,—but his lyri cs seem toescape as unconsciously from the essence of the earthand air as the scent from a violet

,or the music from

a bird . Some of Goethe’s finest lyrics sprang upat Leipzig under the genial influence o f Kath ch enSch on ko pf others

,but scarcely of equal lovel iness,

owe their origin to Frederika th e third, and asyet the ri chest group

,belong to Li li ; but curiously

enough,the richest cluster

,I think

,of all

,—that

which most resembles a lapful of fresh w ildflowers,was written in 1803, when Goethe was fifty-four yearsold

,and i s due

,we imagine (from what Mr. Lewes

tells us concerning the origin of the Elective Afim‘

i

lies), as well as the sonnets written two or threeyears later

,to Minna Herzl ieb

,the ward of the Jena

bookseller . The engaged or married ladies he adoredappear to have had a more prosai c influence uponhim.

But to return to Lili . After a good deal of torture

,due to the elder representatives of both families

,

a worthy Fraulein Delf, much given to meditation ,

procured a tacit consent of the parents on both sides,

and Goethe was engaged to Lili . This seems to haveon the whole made h im unhappy. His si ster

,who

was married and at a distance,took a strong view

against the match,an d wrote letters about it ; the

old Rath,she thought

,would never so accommodate

himself to the arrangement as to make Lil i happy ;other songs. Of course names were n o t given but th e entireabsence o f an y reserve in th e sentimental life of that period isvery curious.

L


Goethe would be obliged stil l to l ive with his fatherand mother

,as the custom was

,and a young lady of

family and wealth would put the former out. Inshort

,h is sister was sure thatfor I/ili

’

s sake,he ought

to break o ff the engagement, intimating, in fact, asGoethe implies, that she found her own husband butdull company

,and that Goethe could never make up

to Li li for the splendour she would resign . S o,after

some agonies,he suddenly departed for Switzerland

with the two Counts von S tolberg,on a probationary

absence,on ly hinting to Lil i that he was going

,for

he could not bear to take leave . It appears to havebeen his intention

,i f he could have persuaded him

sel f to endure the pain,to break o ff the en gagement

by going on into Italy ; i f not, as proved to be thecase

,to return and see what fate should give . It i s

not easy to imagine,from the style of Goethe’s n ar

rative,that all this effort was made for Li li’s sake .

He admits that she never hazarded a doubt of herown happiness

,and was will ing to follow h im even

to America ; a solution whi ch distressed her loverextremely.

“ My father’s good house

,but a few

hundred yards from her own,was at al l events a

more tolerable condition to take up with than distantuncertain possibi lities beyond the sea. They wereactual ly engaged at this tim e and it does not seemvery generous in Goethe to have left Lili, w i thoutexplanation

,to fight his battles for h im w i th her

reluctant friends, i n order to try experiments on hiso wn fortitude .

This fl ight into Switzerland,while pursued by

Li li’s image, gave rise to one or two of his loveliestlyrics. As the heavy white masses of the distantAlps rose up in the early dawn

,at the foot of the

broad lake o f Z urich,bordered by its gently sloping

GOETHE AND H IS INFLUENCE 51

cornfield banks,he composed the lovely li ttle poem

of which I have attempted to produce an Englishversion . Goethe was at the time debating in hi smind his future relation to Lili . I must premise ,with Mr. Lewes

,that Goethe is untranslatable .

Some dim visi on of the beauty of the poem may,however

,glimmer through the fol lowing semi-trans

parent medium

I draw n ew m ilk o f l i fe,fresh blood

,

F rom th e free un iverse,

Ah,Nature

,it is all too good

Upon th y breast, sweet nurseWaves rock o ur boat in equal timeWith th e clear-plash ing oar

,

And cloudy Alps w ith head subl imeConfront us from the shore.

Eyes,have ye forgot your yearning ?

Golden dreams,are ye returnin g I

Gold as ye are, 0 ,stay above !

Here too is life—here too is love.

Hosts of stars are bl ink ingIn the lake’s crystal cup,

Flow ing m ists are drink ingT h e tow

’rin g d istance up.

Mornin g w inds are sk imm ingRound th e deep-shadowed bay,

In its clear m irror sw imm ingT h e ripening harvests play.

On the summit of St. Gothard Goethe felt thathis German home and love behind him were sweeterthan al l the wide warm loveliness into which thebright Ticino rushed eagerly before his eyes and hereturned, with hesitation in hi s heart, to Frankfort.Lili

,naturally hurt at h is

.

unexplained absence,was

52 GOETHE AND HIS INFLUENCE

soon as affectionate as ever, and the poet as happy ;but i t did not last long. The hurt pride at feelinghimsel f rather tole rated than welcomed by her fri ends

,

and the dread of domestic fetters,returned. Gradually

he broke the chain,and strove to fl irt with other

young ladies ; but he was miserable. In this statehe began Egmon t.An invitation to visi t the young Duke of \Veimar

was now very welcome to him . His father Opposedhi s going

,thinking i t would place him in a dependent

position . Moreover,the Weimar friend in whose

company he had been invited to make the j ourneynever appeared

,and his father treated the mistake

as an intentional slight. But Goethe’s portmanteauwas ready packed, his mind set upon change . His

father proposed to give him money for an Italianjourney. Goethe consented to go by Heidelberg andthe Tyrol to Italy

,i f in Heidelberg he found no

trace of the missing Weimar escort. There l ivedFraulein Delf, the mediating lady who had in vainsecured the consent o f the reluctant parents to hi sengagement with Li li . Her head was now busy withmediating a substitute scheme . She hoped to marryhim to a lady at the Mannheim Court

,and connect

him permanently with i t after his return from Italy.

A courier came from Frankfort in the middle o f thenight to announce the arrival of the ll’eimar friendand to recal l Goethe immediately. Fraulein Delfgave vehement counsel

,urging h im to decline

,and

go on into Italy . Goethe was in favour of Weimar,

and ordered the post-chaise. Long h e disputed bycandlelight with thi s lady

,while an impatient pos

til l ion fidgeted about. At length Goethe tore himself away, apostrophising his astonished friend in thewords of Egmont : “ Child

,child

,no more. Lashed


as by invisible spirits,the sun-s teeds of time whirl

on the light car of our destiny and for us i t onlyremains in calm self-possession to hold fas t the reins,and here to the right

,there to the left

,—here from

a rock,there from a precipice

,-to dire ct the wheels .

Whither we are going who can tel l ? S carcely canwe remember whence we came . The “ sun-steedso f time

,

” with the aid o f the vis ible posti ll ion,took

him safely to Weimar. Goethe,reluctant to talk of

Providence,i ntimates

,however

,that this epoch in

hi s l i fe was providential,and that the “ daemonic ”

element to which a man ought to concede “ no morethan is fitting ” was represented by his father

,his

own impatience,and good Fraulein Del f

,—al l eager

to shatter hi s Weimar prospects . I am not at al lsure that the reverse was not true—that the youngDuke of Weimar may not have been the “daemoni celement at this crisi s

,while the elderly lady may have

spoken'

th e voice of higher warning—ii not i n hermatch-making views

,at least so far as she resisted

the attraction to Weimar. Goethe had now reachedthe maturi ty of his powers

,and henceforth we shal l

find his character more distinctly written i n hisworks than in the monotonous incidents of hi sexternal l ife .

There i s no part of Mr. Lewes’s book which i s

more interesting and picturesque than the del ineationo f the Weimar locali ties and the new l ife the poetled . He has him selfvisited the place

,and surveyed

everything with a quick and thoughtful eye. Thegarden-house on the banks of the l lm—the largerhouse to which Goethe removed in the town—theopen-air theatricals at Ettersburg—and the life ofthe Court are al l gracefully and vividly sketched .

Far from convincing me,however

,that the new life

54 GOETHE AND In s I NFLUENCE

had no injurious effect on Goethe’s mind , even Mr.Lewes

’

s apologeti c narrative strengthens a strongimpression in the other direction . That i t madeGoethe into a “ servile courtier,

” no one with thefaintest in sight into the man could for a momentdream . Karl August

,the young duke of Weimar

,

was a lad of nineteen years—eight years youngerthan the poet ; and though possessed of a strongw i l l and a certain personal fascination

, Goethe wasfar too conscious of his own superiority of mind tobecome a courtier

,had even hi s temperament allowed

i t. But i t did not. He was a very proud man,and

one,moreover

,whose l ifelong principle i t was to

resist every encroachment of external influence onhis own individual ity of character. He never enduredinterference with himsel f ; but he frequently interfered with remonstrances in order to tranqui lli se themad humours of his young master. “

Then Goethesaid of himself in his old age that he had alwaysbeen conscious of an innate aristocracy which madehim feel perfectly on a level with princes

,and this

too i n its ful les t measure before as well as sincereceiving the diploma which ennobled him

,he spoke

no more than the truth . He could endure anycri ticism ; but he could not endure any assumptionof a right to influence and direct h im. When theold poet Klopstock wrote to remonstrate with him

,

during his first year at Weimar,for th e wild l ife he

was encouraging at Court,Goethe wrote back a

pol ite reply as brief and haughty in its reserve ashe could w el l have returned to a col lege companion .

And it i s as clear as day that the maj estic mannerismo f his later years was the sti ffness of princelinessi tsel f

,not the petrified ceremony o f a prince’s satellite .

But,nevertheless, i t seems clear enough that some of

5G GOETHE AND ms I NFLUENCE

an d purity were far less noble than passion in theeyes of the great poet of their nation . We knowwel l that thi s was the sin of the century

,and may

not be in any large measure attributed to the personallaxity of any one man’s conscience . But all themore i s i t to be lamented that Goethe left a socialatmosphere w here domestic virtue was he ld comparatively sacred

,for one where it was almost a

thing unknown . There was indefinitely more difference between Frankfort morals and “leimar moral sthan between the social virtue of a wholesome busycity l ike Manchester and that of an idle wateringplace cursed with barracks . \Veimar was a place

,

like al l idle places,eager for sel f-conscious stimulants

of enj oym ent. And it acted upon Goethe accordingly .

He became more devoted to that callus o f his owncharacter

,which w ould not

,perhaps

,have been hi s

w orst occupation in a Court where there was veryl ittle s o much worth attending to

,i f un fortunately i t

had not been the very w ors t thing possible for thatcharacter that he should thus affecti onately nurse it.He n ever becam e

,indeed

,at al l deeply infe cted ei ther

w i th the vulgar selfishness or with the frivol i ty ofCourt life . It did not act upon him in this way .

He had not been a year at Weimar before he fe lt i tsgenuine hol lowness

,and busied him self as much as

in h im lay with the regular di scharge o f official duty,

and the busy earnestness of artistic creati on . Alwaysgenerous by nature, always deeply touched with thesight of suffering

,i t i s pleasant

,but not surprising

,

to find him giving away a sixth part of his incomein chari ty , and stil l less surprising to find him doingi t in secre t

,so that his le ft hand knew not what his

right hand did. There never was a man less influen ced by the lo ve o f approbation : he never


through his whole l i fe seems even to have fel t th epassion strongly agitating him

,except perhaps in the

flush of the first months of hi s Werther-fame .

His pride alone would have rai sed him above i t, evenif he had not had so strong a feeling of contempt forthe publi c judgment that '

h e was scarcely shaken bydisapprobation

,and scarcely confirmed by appro ba

tion. He had a thorough contempt for ostentation .

When he was giving a poor man two hundred dollarsa year

,n o one knew of i t ; and morever he continued

to give it,i n spite of rather graceless and ungrateful

acceptance of hi s charity. He pointed out calmly tohis pensioner the un fitn ess of such conduct, and gaveon . The way in which Weimar affected him sounfavourably was not by the contagion of selfishness

,

but rather by giving him such an inferior world withwhich to compare himself—by the easy victory i tpermitted him in active goodness on the one hand

,

and by the contagion of impurity on the other.Goethe had no active religious conviction

,an d of al l

men most needed to look up to his companions : hewas in almost every direction

,at this time

,obliged

to look down .

“ The mind,

” he said,

“ i s driven backall the more in to itself

,the more one accommodates

oneself to other men’s modes o f l ife,instead of seek

ing to adapt them to one’s own : i t i s l ike therelation of the musi cian to his instrument —a

remarkable indication that these “ other men’s ” l i fewas on a platform below rather than above thespeaker . Goethe fel t that hi s companions were in asense his “ instruments, from whom he could bringforth fine music, —which was, however, his ownmusic after all

,not theirs . But he would not have

felt so amongst men an d women who,even in mere

practical power and domesti c virtue and devotedness

58 GOET IIE‘

AND HIS I NFLUENCE

cal led forth his reverence as standing higher thanhimsel f.The thing that jars upon the mind throughout

Goethe’s life, i n his letters , his books—every thinghe said and did— i s the absence of anything likedevotion to any being, human or divine, morallyabove himsel f. God he regarded as inscrutable, andas best left to reveal Himself. The future life wasnot yet. From al l men he withdrew himsel f in a sortof kindly i solation—sympathising with them

,aiding

them,helping them against themselves

,un derstanding

them,but never making any of them the obj ect of

his life. The obj ect of his l ife,so far as any man

can consciously and permanently have one,was the

completion of that ground-plan o f character presentedto the world in Johann Wolfgang Goethe . To perfeet this he denied himself much both of enjoymentand real happiness ; to keep this ground-plan intact,or to bui ld upon it

,he was always ready to sacrifice

e ither himsel f or anybody else. To thi s he sacrificedFrederika’s l ove

,Lil i’s love

,and his own love for

them—the friendship o f any who attempted to interfere with his own modes of self—development to this

,

he would at any time have sacrificed,had he supposed

i t needful,the favour of the duke and his position at

Court to this,i n fact

,h is life was o n e long offering.

There was nothing Goethe would not have given upfor others except any iota of what he considered tobe hi s own individuality. To tend that was hi sidolatry. And that thi s sel f-worship grew rapidlyupon h im at Weimar

,no one can doubt. Only com

pare the tone of Wilhelm Illeisler with that ofGo

'

lz eo n Bei‘lichingen . Compare even his lettersto the Frau von S tein with hi s letters to the Kestners .There is a real sense of humi lity and remorse gleamin g

GOETHE AND H IS I NFLUENCE 59

out at times in the latter : with all h i s susceptibi li tyto other persons’ sufferings

,there is nothin g but at

most a sense of error,regret at past mistakes,

generally merged in satis faction at hi s own steadyprogress towards clearness and self-rule ,

” pervadingthe former. Compare the picture of the cold

,self

absorbed,remorseless Lothario

,held up as i t i s to

admiration as a kind of ideal,with the ideal of

Goethe’s earlier days . Compare even WilhelmMeister himsel f

,who is meant

,we are told, to be a

progressive character,with Werthe r

,wh o is mean t to

be a deteriorating character. With al l his hysterics,

there i s far more trace of humility and sense of thewrong he is doing

,and even effort to undo i t

,in the

latter than in the former. Mr. Lewes discovers a“ healthy ” moral in Wilhelm Meister—that he i sraised from “ mere impulse to the subordination ofreason

,from dreaming self - i ndulgence to practical

duty,from self-culture to sympathy .

” This i s a meredream of Mr. Lewes

’s. Wilhelm seems to me to

become,so far as he changes at all , more selfish as he

goes on . He begins with a real deep affection , andends with the most cold and insipid of “ preferences

,

which he i s far from sure is a preference. He beginswith resisting

,and yet finally yields to

,mere physical

passion . He begins with an enthusiasm for at leastone art

,and ends with an enthusiasm for none . He

begins with a passionate love of fidelity,and en ds

with worshipping Lothario, whose only distinction iscalm superiority to such ideas . In short

,he begins

a kind-hearted enthusiasti c milksop,and ends a kind

hearted milksop,with rather more experience and

more judgment,but without any enthusiasm and

with far laxer moral ity. If th is be Goethe’s notionof progress, i t gives but a painful idea of Goethe.

60 GOETHE AND HIS I N FLUENCE

The only element in which Wilhelm is made to growbetter i s knowledge and coolness in every thing elsehe degrades. You can see that even ”feather

,much

more Gets,was written with a much distincter feel

ing of right and wrong,of the contrast between real

strength and real weakness,between domestic purity

and gui lt,than WilhelmMeister.

And in purity of thought the change i s moreremarkable stil l. Goethe was not infected with thecommonplace selfishness and frivol ity o f Court li fehe was only driven in upon himself. He was infectedwith its impurity. His former writings had beencoarse but they were not coarser than the day

,not

so coarse as Shakespeare, not near so coarse as Fieldin or. GetterHelden and lVieland and G'

o'

tz are del icateO

to many parts of Tom Jo n es. But while most of hi slater writings are perhaps less coarse than hi s earl ier

,

they are indefinitely more tainting. The fragmento f the “ Letters from Switzerland,

” at first intendedto be pieced on to the beginning of lVerther

,several

portions of Wilhelm Meister, not a few minor poems,an d parts of the Elective Afiiaities, emulate Rousseauin their prurience . “ The plague of microscopes ”

with which,as Emerson says

,Goethe was pursued

,

follows about everywhere that aweless mind . S chiller(quoted by Mr. Lewes) says, that

“ whatever i s permitted to innocent nature i s perm itted also tothe arti st ; but Goethe gazes away every shrinkingreserve of “ innocent nature ” with bold curious eye.

This he seems to have learnt in Weimar societyGoethe was i n his own li fe higher, I believe, than hewas i n his works—fuller in sympathy and generoussel f-denials for others’ sake than he ever makes hisheroes to be . But his works betray the moralstandard by which he consciously moulded himsel f

C OETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE 61

the absolute prominence in his mind of the aim ofself-cultivation—the infinite value he attached toimmoral self-mastery as an end, and as in i tself farhigher than any duty for the sake of which he mightmaster himself—the great deficiency of fidel ity ofnature

,and of the puri ty with whi ch fidel ity i s

usually associated,and the general absence of moral

reverence . They also reflect the geniality, the largechari ty

,the intellectual wisdom

,the complete in

dependence o f praise or blame, and the thoroughtruthfulness of mind which marked him throughoutlife . Goethe never deceived himself about him self.During the ten years of Weimar l i fe , before his

Italian j ourney,Goethe’s external l i fe had but few

recorded events . He was ennobled in 1782. He

carried on a correspondence of bil lets with the Frauvon S tein

,which are extremely tiresome reading

,

and were never meant for publication . Mr. Lewesi s very desirous to prove that all the trifling was onthe lady’s side

,and that whenever she drew back

from Goethe’s advances, i t was only in the spirit ofa fl irt. I t i s not a chari table view. In the completeabsence of her letters

,we know nothing about the

matter. It does not seem at all impossible thatvisitings of remorse and delicacy

,and real doubt of

the disinterested devotedness of a man who consideredso little her other domestic and social relations

,may

have led,in the earlier years of thi s con nection

,to

the vibrations of feel ing which are reflected inGoethe’s replies. There i s no need to judge thematter at all. It i s almost the only case in whichMr. Lewes paints another in dark colours

,without

justification, for his hero’s sake.

During these years Goethe wrote Iphigen ia anda part o f Tasso in their earliest shape ; an d worked

(32 GOETHE AND HIS I NFLUENCE

hard at Egmo n t, besides the composition of thefinest part of W'

dhelm illeistev. Nothing i s morestriking than the infinite di stance between Goethe’ssuccess in imagin ing women and men . The feminine characters in Goethe’s works are as l iv ing

,we

dare almost say more l iving,than Shakespeare’s

,

though there i s much less variety and range in hi sconceptions of them. His men are often creditable sketches ; sometimes faint, sometimes entirelyshadowy ; they are never so lifel ike that we cannotimagine them more so. But his women are like mostof hi s lyri cal poems—perfect. “My idea of womenis not one drawn from external real i ties

,

” saidGoethe to Eckermann , “ but it i s inborn in me

,or

else sprang up God knows h ow . My delineations ofw omen are therefore all successful . They are al lbetter than are to be met with in actual l ife . Themore incommensurable and incomprehensible for theunderstanding a poetic production i s

,so much the

better,

” he said on another occasion ; and judged bythis s tandard also, almost all his women (the dul lTheresa and Natal ia in the latter part of WilhelmMeister alone excepted) are better than almost anyo f his men . His men are conceptions badly outlinedhi s women spring up unconsciously out o f his nature

,

exactly like hi s smaller poems . Mariana,Phil ina

,

and Mignon in lVilhelm Meister, Clarch en i n Egmo n t,Gretchen in Faust

,and Ottilie in the Elective Afiaities,

are characters any one of which would immortal ise apoet. We think the reason of this l ies deep in thenature of Goethe’s genius .There i s a tiresome dispute whether he i s more

obj ective or subj ective . He i s really as much oneas the other ; for you find i n all his poems at once avague indefinite self

,reflecting a defined and clearly

64 C OETHE AND H IS I NFLUENCE

her existence,the shadowy Faust whom she impresses .

The point of sight of the pi cture requires the presenceo f Faust ; not because she i s del ineated through theeffe ct produced on Faust’s nature

,but because you

real ly only see that portion of her nature whi ch wasturned to Faust, and no other side . It may benoticed that

,perfect as Goethe’s women are

,they

are never very finely drawn in their mutual influenceon each other ; i t i s only i n the presence of the loverwho i s for the time Goethe’s representative that theyare so strikingly painted. Even their lovely songsonly express the same aspect of their character.Indeed i t i s o f the essence of Goethe’s femininecharacters to express themselves in song. Each ofthem is a distinct fountain of song. But the currento f al l these songs set straight towards the poethimself

,who is always in love with these creations

of his own genius . As an instance,take the lovely

l ittle song of Clarch en i n Egmo n t, of which Iattempt an English version for my non -Germanreaders

F reudvol l CheerfulUn d leidvol l

,And tearful

,

Gedank envoll sey n With quick busy brainLangen Swayed hitherUn d bangen And th itherIn schwebender Pein In fluttering painH immelh och jauchzend , Cast down unto deathZ um Tode betriibt Soaring gaily aboveGlueklich allein Oh

,happy al one

Ist die Seele,die l iebt.” Is th e heart that can love .

IfGoethe paints two women alone in each other’scompany

,the scene e ither fails, or they are both

talking away towards some imaginary masculin e


centre ; and instead of being a telling dialogue, i tfal ls into two monologues . Hence Goethe seldomattempts this at all . The scene between the twoLeonoras i s the worst in Tasso , and those betweenOttil ie and Charlotte are the worst in the ElectiveAfiuities; the scene between Clarch en and her motherin Egmo nt i s really only a soliloquy of Clarch en

’s

that between Elizabeth and Maria in Gotz paintsno mutual influence of the women on each otherthey are simply placed in juxtaposition.

And Goethe’s imaginative power i s not onlypassive

,—not only waits to be in fluen ced

,-but it

i s generally a sensuous influence that most easi lyand deeply impresses it. Hence

,he not merely

paints special women, but he can always give thevery essence of a feminine atmosphere to charactersnot at all individually well marked. He i s so sensitive to the general social influence diffused by women

,

that he makes you feel a feminine power at workalmost without copying the distinguishing peculiarities of any parti cular person ; he can make a womana very living woman without being what i s called acharacter at all . This is what few can do. Mignonand Philina and Adelheid and Ottil ie are womenand something more—they are characters

,and we

should know them when we met them among athousand. But all human beings are not thusmarked characters ; and when they are not, mostauthors in attempting to picture them become merelyfaint and vague . They depend on special peculiarities for the life of their pictures . Not so Goethe .Gretchen is l ittle more than a simple peasant girl .Sh e has not a single striking characteristic ; yet shei s his finest creation . Clarch en and Mariana are al ittle more distinctively moulded

,but very slightly ;

L

GO GOETHE AND HIS INFLUENCE

and yet they too l ive m o re in us than most of ourown acquaintances . The little play “ Die Gesch

w ister ” (The Brother and S ister) has a delightfulheroine

,who i s nothing at al l more than an

ordinary affectionate girl yet she has more li fe thanwould fi l l out a hundred “ characteri sti c sketches ”

of modern noveli s ts. It i s Goethe’s extreme sensitiven ess to al l feminine influence that gave him thispower. llleu exercised in general no such influenceover him—hence his imagination i s never impressedby them he has to string up his powers of observation to draw them by sheer effort

,and he seldom

succeeds conspi cuously even in delineating himself.\Verther i s scarcely so much a delineation of himselfas of a series of emotions by which he had beenagitated . Goethe needed to have some fascinatingpower taking hold of his imagination in order to cal lout its full strength . Nature could do i t ; womencould do i t ; but he could not without such externalhelp fascinate the eye of his own imagination . He

could picture the influences which touched him mostbut never

,as a whole

,the nature which they thus

stirred . You do indeed get som e notion of his men,

who are al l more or less quarried out of his own

nature ; but i t i s not by means of any unique influence which accompanies them everywhere

,but

only by a sort of secondary inference from th e successive states of emotion in which we are accustomedto see them . Tasso

,lVerth er

,etc .

,are never personally

known to us we have gathered up a very good notionof them

,but th e mark of organic unity which dis

tin guish cs l iving influence from the fullest descriptionhas not been set upo n them . Edward

,in the Elective

Aj/iuities, i s perhaps the most skilful portrai t amongstGoethe’s male figures. But Goethe could not outl ine


any character—did not even know the outlines ofhis o w n. Where he succeeded

,i t was not by outline

,

like S cott, but by a single keynote, usually a feminineundertone run ning through everything they say.

When that is wanting,the character may be true,

but does not hang together it i s a loosely-knit affair.That Goethe should be called by Mr. Lewesmore Greek than German ” struck me with astoni shment. But in the special criti ci sms on hi s worksMr. Lewes Virtually retracts altogether this generalverdict. Greek poetry i s never the product of thispassive imagination

,that waits for a distinct impres

sion and then reflects back the impressing power.And moreover i ts subj ects are as different fromGoethe’s as its intellectual process . It does notoccupy itself with character so much as events. Thecharacters are there more for the sake of the circumstance than the circum stance for the characters. Andso too with the gods themselves . There is no anxietyto display their personal characters ; they are notexplained as in later times ; their caprices or theirkindness i s only a part of the machinery for enli stinghuman interest. But Goethe makes a study of hisGreek gods and demigods, and takes his idea entirelyfrom the most godlike element he could feel in hisown character—his cool self - dependence, and hispower of shaking himself free at will from the acuteimpressions of pain or pleasure. There was nothingGreek at all about the character of Goethe’s in tellect.What Mr. Lewes had in his mind was the heathenelement (not specially Greek) in his character. Theentire superseding of personal trust by self-reliance

,

the absence of all trace of humility,the calm superior

glance which he cast into the mystery around butnever into the holiness above him

,gave often a


heathen colouring to hi s w orks ; but his cast of intellect i s strikingly

,distinctively German

,far more

so than S chi ller’s . For one w hose mind yie ldedfreely to any sensitive impression

,he had a w o n

derfulpower of shaking off voluntarily al l adheringemotions

,and raising his head high above the mists

they stirred . This power of assuming at wil l a cruelmoral indifference to that which he did not choose tohave agitating him

,i s the feeling he has so finely

embodied in the picture of the gods contained inthe song of the Fates in Iphigen ia,—far the finestthing in a poem rich in small beauties

,but without

any successful delineation of human character. Thislast has been so well translated by an Americanwriter

,

1 and represents so truly a characteristi c phaseof Goethe’s mind, that I will give i t as a pendantto Mr. Lewes

’s translation from the “ Prometheus .”

With in my car there rings that ancient song,

Forgotten was it,and forgotten gladly

,

S ong of th e Parcze, wh ich they shuddering sangWhen from h is golden seat fel l Tantalus.They suffered in h is wrongs their bosom boiledWithin them

,and thei r song was terrible.

T o me and to my sister in o uryouthT h e nurse w ould sing it, and I marked it well .

T h e gods be your terror,

Y e ch ild ren of men

They hold th e dom in ionIn hands everlasting

,

All free to exert itAs l isteth their w i ll .

1 Mr. N. L. Fro th in gh am. Mctrical Pieces, Tran slated and

Origin al. loston Crosby an dNichols, 1855. A word or twois altered .

GOETHE AND 1118 INFLUENCE 69

Let h im fear them doublyWh ome’er they

’ve exaltedOn crags and on cloud-p ilesT h e seats are made readyAround th e gold tables.

Dissension arisesThen tumble th e feastersReviled and d ishonouredTo gul fs of deep m idnigh tAnd look ever vainlyIn fetters of darknessFor judgment that’s just.

But THEY remained seatedAt feasts never failingAround th e gold tables.They stride at a footstepFrom mountain to mountainThrough jaws of abyssesS teams towards them the breath ingOf suffocate Titans.Like offerings of incenseA l ight-rising vapour.

They turn,th e proud masters

,

F rom whole generationsTh e eye of their blessingNo rwill in th e ch ildrenT h e once well belovedS till eloquent featuresOfancestor see.

’

S o sang th e dark sisters.T h e old exile hearethThat terr ible musicIn caverns of darkness

,

Remembereth h is children,

And shaketh h is head .

”

70 GOETlIE AND HIS INFLUENCE

The metre,l ike the thought

,has a heathen cast. It

speaks of cold elevation above all human prayers .In the autumn of 1786 Goethe stole away from

Carlsbad,having received secret permission from th e

duke for a lengthened journey in Italy, which hadlong been the dream of his l ife . Mr. Lewes hasmade no use of the many marvel lous and mostcharacteristi c touches whi ch Goethe’s j ournal-l ettersof this tour contain . He speaks of them as of littl einterest. To me they seem the most fascinating and ’

delightful of the prose works of Goethe . They notonly i llustrate his character

,as i t showed itself in the

quiet i solated study of beauty,but they exp lain more

than any other of his works the common ground inhis mind where s ci ence and poetry m et. I mustgi ve two very characteristi c glimpses into hi s character which the incidents of thi s j ourney furnish . O n

his way to Venice he turned aside to visi t the Lagodi Garda, and took his way down the lake in a boat.A strong south wind obliged them to put into Malsesina

,on the east side of the lake

,a little spot in the

Venetian territory close to the (then) boundary between the Venetian and Austrian S tates . Goethewent up to sketch the old dismantled castle . He

was absolutely alone and unknown— had not evenintroductions to any authoriti es in Venice. Thestranger was observed

,and soon many of the villagers

had assembled round h im w ith signs of displeasure .O n e man sei zed hi s drawing, and tore it up . Othersfetched the podesta. Goethe found that he wastaken for an Austrian spy sent to make drawings ofthe strong po ints on the boundary. The podesta’sclerk was threatening

,the podesta him self was a cap

tive to his clerk. Goethe was near being sent as aprisoner to Verona to account for his conduct. ln

72 C OET IIE AND HIS IN FLUENCE

a very slow but decided under-current was dri ftingthem straight on the rocks of Capri ; th e herdsmenwere vi sible on the rocks

,shouting that the ship

would strand o n deck was a crowd of Ital ian peasants—men

,women

,and chi ldren ; handkerchiefs

were held up to try and find a breath of air by whichthey m ight be saved ; the women screamed reproacheson the cap tain, and all was shrieking and confusion .

“ I,

” says Goethe, “ to w hom anarchy had ever beenmore hateful than death i tsel f

,found it impossible to

be longer si lent. I stood up,and represented to

them that their cries and shrieks w ere stunning theears and brains of those from whom alone help couldbe expected. As for you, I said, retire into yourselves

,and then put up your most fervent prayers to

the Mother of God, m’

th whom i t alone rests,whether

she w i l l intercede w i th her S o n to do for you w hatHe once did for the apostles, when , o n the stormylake of Tiberias

,the waves w ere already washing

into the ship whi le the Lord slept ; and yet, whenthe helpless di sciples awakened Him

,He immediately

commanded the w i nds to be still,as He can now com

mand the breeze to blow,i f i t be His holy wi ll .”

These words had the best effect. The women fellon their knees

,left off abusing th e captain

,and fell

to prayer. They were so near the rocks,that the

men seized hold of beams to stave the ship o ff,

directly they should be able to reach them .

“ Mysea-sickness

,which returned in spi te of al l thi s

,com

pelled m e to go dow n to the cabin. I threw myselfhal f-stunned on my mattress

,and yet with a certain

pleasant sensation , which seemed to emanate fromthe sea of Tiberias fo r the pi cture in Merian’s i llustrated Bible hovered quite clearly before my eyes .And thus the force of all sensuous-moral impression

C OET IIE AND HIS INFLUENCE 73

i s always strongest when men are quite thrown backinto them selves .” Goethe lay here “ half—asleep,

”

with death impending,til l hi s companion came down

to inform him that a light breeze had just sprung up tosave them. There i s no incident more characteristi cof the calm self-possessed artist in Goethe’s wholelife

,—the “ musician adapting himself to h is in stru

ment playing thus skilful ly on strings which weredeficient in his own mi n d

,in order to bring out tones

of feeling for which there were ulterior reasons thenlying down to dream so vividly of what he reallyheld to be but a picturesque legend

,that al l the awe

of death was held at a distance by the Vivid light ofthat “ inward eye which is the bliss of solitude .”

This one scene brings out the secret at once of th eman’s vast personal influence

,and of the poet’s yield

ing wax - like imagination,more vividly than any

incident of hi s l ife.It was in hi s Italian journey that his poeti c

powers culminated,and that science and art met in

hi s mind. You see the meetin g~

po in t in hi s descriptions of what he saw. He fi ts hi s mind so close tothe obj ects he studies, that he not only takes off aperfect impression of their present condition

,but

becomes conscious of their secrets of tendency,and

has often a glimpse back into what they have been .

Goethe discovered as i s well known , that al l theparts of a plant—stalk

,leaf

,stamen

,petal

,fruit—are

but various modifications of the same essential germ,

best exhibited in the leaf. It was a most characteristic discovery. But to understand the mental process by which i t was made—to prove that i t was not

,

i n him,due to a mere scientific tendency—just look

at this glance of hi s into the essence of a quite differen t thing—the amphitheatre, written at Verona :

74 GOE’

I‘

llE AND HIS INFLUENCE

It ought not to be seen empty,but quite ful l of

men ; for, properly speaking, such an amphitheatrei s made in order to give the people the imposingspectacle of themselves

,to amuse the people wi th

themselves. If anything worth looking at happenson a flat space

,the hindmost seek in every possible

way to get on higher ground than the foremost theyget on to benches

,rol l up casks

,bring up carriages

,

and plank them over,cover any hill i n the neighbour

hood,and thus a crater forms itself. I f the spectacle

i s often repeated,such a crater i s artificially con

structed,etc. Now this i llustrates the way in whi ch

Goethe became so great in criticism, so great inscience

,so great in description , and so great in the

more conscious and less inspired part of his poetry.

He moulded himself wi th such flexible mind to everything he studied that he caught not only the exi stingpresent

,but the state which had just preceded

,the

state which would follow he caught the thread as i tuntwined

,he caught not the “ being only (alas Seyn ),

but the “ becoming (clas lVerclen ). He had no giftfor experimental science . He could not even believe inlaws of nature that did not make themselves felt on thel iving surface of things. He rej ected “ refractionaltheories of light with scorn

,because the coincidence

that certain geometri cal and arithmeti cal propertiesattach to the laws of colour (and it really i s nothingmore than a coincidence) did not explain in any waythe l iving colours as they shine upon the eye . Whati s i t to the living perception that the l ength of thewave of the rod ray i s greater than that of th e violetray ; does length explain anything about colour ?It i s only a sort of i nward thread of order runningthrough the phenomena

,which i s quite independent

of th e essence of the phenomena as they affect the


l iving organs of man . Goethe had no faculty at allfor this experimental detection of aids to kn owledge,which are not in any way aids to l iving insight. He

thought i t a kind of mathematical backstair to optics,which i t was mean to desire ; you ought to look th ephenomenon livingly in the face

,and explore i ts

symptoms as you do the physiology of a plant or ananimal. He used the microscope to detect what i sreal ly going on ; but he despised an hypothesiswhich left the physiology of colour just where itwas .Indeed

,his sci ence and his poetry and his descrip

tions alike were of the microscopic order ; not thatthey had the confinement of the microscope

,for his

eye ranged freely but I mean,that he rather pierced

nature and li fe at many points in succession , lettingin gleams of an indefinite vista everywhere, thancombined all he conceived and saw in one co—existingwhole. Look at his finest poems and descriptions .It i s the intensely vivid gleam thrown on single spots

,

not the aspect of the whole,that makes you seem to

see with your own eyes what he describes . Thus,in

one of his finest poems,

“ Hermann and Dorothea,

”

every touch of description will i llustrate what I mean .

And the sense of breadth and freedom pervading i ti s given in the same way by transient glances sidewards and forwards, which open out little vistas oflife in many directions

,without completing them in

any

Un d die Hengste rannten nach Hause,begierig des

Stalles,

Aber dieVVolke des Staubes quo ll unter den mach tigenHufen.

Lange noch stand der Jtingl ing un d sah den S taubsich erheben

,

7G C OE'I‘

I-IE AND HIS IN FLUENCE

Sah den S taub sich z erstreu’

n ; so stand or ohneGedan ken .

” l

What a vi vid impression (i t i s only o n e or two strokesfor a picture

,not properly a picture) i s here given ,

by m eans of pursuing a littl e side-path of insight intothe feelin gs of horses

,and then fixing the eye in

torrsely j ust on that dreamy cloud of dust in the distance which would most catch th e eye of a man i n areverie It i s always by casting those i solatedpiercing glances in two or three dire ctions thatGoethe produces his vi vid impressions . When Her

mann and Dorothea,for instance

,are walking by

moonlight to the vi llage,there i s no attempt to paint

the scene ; but each obj ect, as i t comes in view,i s

made to flash on the eye of the reader. Thus

Ho w sweet is th e glorious moonsh ine,as clear it is as

th e daylightI can surely see in th e town th e houses and courtyards quite plainly

,

I n that gable a casement,— I fancy I count every

pane there.’Then they rose

,and went downwards through th e

cornfield together,

Dividing th e thick -stand ing corn,and enj oying th e

splen dour above themAnd thus they h ad reached th e vineyard , and passedfrom th e light into shadow .

”

1 “ And th e horses started off home, pricking their ears forth e stable ,

But a cloud of dust grew under th e rushing hoofs of theirgallop .

Long th e youth stood still,an d watched th e dustwhirling

upwards,

Watched th e dust settle dowu,—thus stood Ire vacant in

spirit.


When Goethe returned from Italy in 1788,his

genius had reached its highest maturity. Faust

(his greatest work) was Virtually written,though

afterwards modified,and not published for eighteen

years . Iphigen ia and Egmon t had received theirlast touches

,and Tasso was al l but finished. The

really fine part of Wilhelm Meister was in existence ; al l that he added afterwards was a drearysuperinduced element of “ high art

,a painful “ Hall

of the Past,—except indeed

,the religious episode

,

which i s a study from memory,a reproduction of the

religious “ experience of a gentle mystic whomboth he and his mother had dearly loved.

“ Her

mann und Dorothea i s the only great poem of anylength which he wrote afterwards—in 1796—and iti s the most perfect though not the richest of them all .During his Ital ian residence he had only fallen in

love once. He returned reluctantly to the north,

like a child from a Christmas Vi si t,feeling that

everything at home was old and slow,and that he

,

coming from the sweet south,was bringing “ gold

for brass,what was worth ahun dred oxen for what

was worth nine .” Even the Frau von S tein wastedious the Italian lady had displaced her. In thismood he fell in wi th Christiane Vulpius, a girl of noculture and considerably lower rank than himself

,

who,after being for seventeen years hi s mistress

,

became in 180 6 his wife. There can be no doubtthat he was passionately in love at first

,and that hi s

passion ripened afterwards into a real and deeperaffection , which had sufficient strength , when hefound his heart attracted to another

,to enable him

to resist the danger and remain faithful to themother of hi s child

,i n spite of the serious estranging

influences arising from her intemperance. Goethe’s


connection with Christiane,i f judged by the lax

moral ity of his age,—by which alone we can fairly

judge him,when we have once admitted

,as we must

do,that he was in no way moral ly purer than hi s

age—that,indeed

,in hi s estimate of these matters

he had becom e less pure since his residence i nVVeimar,—was surely not the worst of his li fe . Iti s i n i ts origin that it i s most offensive. That heshould either allow himsel f to encourage passionw ithout love

,and feel no horror

,no self-abasement

,

but rather immortal ise it by using i t as literarycapital for “ elegies ” ; or, on the other hand , i f hedid feel real love for this poor girl, that he could en

dure to write about her to fri ends in the tone of hisletters to the Frau von S tein

,—i s one of those facts

concerning Goethe which makes one feel that a widergulf divided his nature from purity and fideli ty thanany merely passionate sins could create. During thefirst months of his liaiso n he w rites, in answer to theFrau von S tein’s remonstrances, “ And what i s thisrelation ? Who is beggared by it ? t o lays anyclaim to the feelings I give to the poor creature ?Who to the hours I pass with her ? And again“ I wil l say nothing in excuse ; but I beg thee tohelp me

,so that the relation which is so obj ectionable

to thee may not become yet worse,but remain as i t

i s. G ive me thy confidence again ; look at thething in a natural light ; allow me to speak to theequietly and reasonably about i t

,and I may hope

that al l wil l be once more right between us.” Thata man should w r ite i n this tone about a woman hereally loved

,and keep her in so hum i liating a

posi tion in which he knew that she was a mark forthe contempt of his friends

,i s hardly credible . And

yet,i f he did not really love her

,that he should

80 GOETIIE AND HIS INFLUENCE

vated but not vulgar person ; and one or two showgreat depth of feeling. The editor intimates thatthey were poorly spelt and worse written ; but inthose days many ladies of rank had little knowledgeof this kind . The letters—both Goethe’s and hiswi fe’s—are mostly about herrings, butter, and portwine. Goethe’s letters are seldom very good. He.

saved up his best things for type . On e does notexpect l iterary merit from Christiane Vulpius. Buther letters are simple

,housew i fely

,and friendly. It

seems she had a genius for jams,which had in part

gained her Meyer’s esteem . Parts of one or twoletters

,written in 1805, during a dangerous i llness

of Goethe’s, gave a glimpse of the thread of pain inher li fe. Sh e tel ls Meyer that Goethe has “ now forth ree months back never had an hour of health, andfrequently periods when one fancies he must die.

Think only of me—who have not,excepting yourself

and him,a single friend in the world and you

,dear

friend,by reason of the distance

,are as good as

lost. Here there i s no friend to whom I couldtell all that lies on my heart. I might have manybut I cannot again form such a friendship with anyone

,and shal l be forced to tread my path alone .

S eldom,indeed

,in these letters, does she express

feeling of this kind,which gives i t more meaning

when it i s expressed . Sh e says again, “ I l ive a l ifeof pure anxi ety.

” Then she writes a better account,

adding,that though better

,she fears “ it i s but patch

work . 0 God, when I think a time may com e whenI may stand absolutely alone, many a cheerful houri s made wretched.

” 1 The sentence in which Goethe1 I have before alluded to th e fact, that Goethe’s passion for

MinnaHerzlieb gave rise to h is novel of th e Elective Afin ities,

an d is depicted in th e love of Edward for Ottilie. It seems

GOET IIE AND HIS INFLUENCE 81

announces to Meye r,in 180 6

,his own marriage, i s

characteristic. He speaks of the French occupationof Weimar

,and the misery i t caused, and adds

“ In order to cheer these sad days with a festivity,I and my little home-friend (Hausfreundin) yesterdayresolved to enter with ful l formality into the state ofholy matrimony

,with which notification, I entreat

you to send us a good supply of butter and otherprovisions that wil l bear carriage .”

Early in the new century,Goethe’s growing

attachment to Minna Herzlieb seems to have givenrise to one of the ri chest groups of minor poems thathe ever w rote ; and of one of these so beautiful atranslation has come into my hands

,

1 that I ventureto hepe it wi ll at least convey some feeling of thecharm of Goethe’s little balladsn ow, not improbable that Meyer’s friendship for ChristianeVulpius at least suggested th e relation of th e Captain to

Charlotte in th e same novel . Meyer must have been at leastsix or seven years younger than Christiane, as h e was born in1775. But it seems from these letters that th e friendshipbetween them had been strong

,an d n o t w ithout sentiment.

Christiane keepsMeyer’s picture in h er room,an d speaks of th e

constant pleasure an d comfort that sh e derived from looking atit. It was after

,an d immediately after , Meyer’s own marriage

in 1806, that Goethe determined to take this step, an d an

n oun ced it to h im in th e curious form given in th e text. Thereis no allusion at all to h er marriage in an y of Christiane’sletters to Meyer. Sh e speaks of h is own marriage thus —“ I

have been especially pleased to hear that y ou h ave at last resolved to enter th e state of holy matrimony

,in which I heartil y

wish you happiness, an d believe that y ou will also be convincedof these my sentiments. Meyer an d h is wife visited Weimaro n their wedding journey a great chasm in th e correspondenceoccurs immediately afterwards.

1 Translated by th e Ho n . J . G. Richmond, formerly th eNative Minister ofNew Z ealand.

L G

(I [O GOETH E AND HIS INFLUEN CE

THE HILL CASTLE .

Al oft stands a castle hoaryO n y onder craggy height,Where of old each gate and doorway\Vas guarded by horse and kn ight.

T h e doors and th e gates lie in ashes,

And silence broods over al lI clarn ber about unchal lengedO n th e ancient mouldering wall .

C lose here lay a cel lar,of yore

IVell filled w ith th e costliest w inelVith th e bottle and p itcher no moreS teps th e maiden merrily in .

No more in th e hall th e beakerS h e sets for the w elcome guestNo more for th e holy altarSh e fills th e flask of th e priest .

T o th e th irsty squi re in th e cou rtyardNo more the flago n sh e givesNo more for th e fleeting favou rTheir fleeting thanks sh e receives.

F or burnt are th e ceilings and floorsInto ashes long long ago passedAnd co rrrdo r

,chapel

,an d stairs

,

A re spl inters and rubbish an d dust.

Y et when on a merry morn ingF rom these crags I saw w ith del igh t

,

lVitlr lute and w ith w ine,my darl ing

Ascend ing th e stony height,

Seemed a gay entertainment to burstFrom th e dulrress of stil l decay

,

A n d it went as,in times l ong passed

,

O n a j oyous and festive day.

GOETH E AND HIS INFLUENCE 83

lt secured th e most stately roomsWere prepared for some guest of worthIt secured from those hearty old timesA l ovin g pair had stepped forth

And as i f stood th e holy fatherlVith in his chapel hard by,And asked

,Wil l ye have o n e another ?

And we sm ilingly answered A y .

”

And when o ur hearts’ deep emotionI n music broke forth aloud,Rang o ut th e mell ow-voiced echoI n answer—instead of th e crowd .

And when,at th e com ing of even ,

In silence al l was en tranced,

And th e sun from th e glow ing heavenOn th e craggy summ it glanced

,

T he squi re and th e maiden,l ike nobles,

Shine o ut in that golden blazeAgain th e goblet sh e proffers

,

And again his thanks h e pays.

Goethe seems ul timately to have battled fi rm lywith

,and finally subdued

,the affection which thus

renewed the freshness of his poetry with a secondspring of even greater beauty than the first ; but thewhole story

,as he has embodied it in the Elective

Afin ities, i s a thoroughly repulsive one, and nomind but one so destitute as Goethe’s of natural remorse from the most hum i liating class of sins

,could

have given such experience publicity in a work ofart. The book betrays

,in spite of i ts power

,some

of the diffusen ess of age ; a very great part of it i sdevoted to describing the laying down of a newgravel-walk and the making of a summer-house.


In 1816 his wife died and Goethe’s burst ofgrief was terr ibl e . \Ve are told 1 that he utterly losthis presence of mind

,kneeled down beside her death

bed,and seizing h er hands

,cried out “ Thou wi l t not

forsake me ! No, no ; thou durst not forsake me.

”

The verse he wrote on the day of her death has moretrue affection than all his poem s of passion together.The last sixteen years of Goethe’s l ife were passed

in tranqui l labour at the completion of his un finishedworks . Now and then he wrote a lovely little poem .

In 1818, when he was in his seventieth year, came oneof those little flashes of song—givi ng birth to a poemlike those which

,he tells us

,he w ould in his youth

often get up to scribble off in the middle of the night,

or write down on the first scrap of paper he foun d,

not even venturing to set the paper straight,lest the

little mechanical act should put to flight th e flow ofthe inspiration . Its beauty is quite as strange asthat of the poems of his youth . Goethe alwaysloved the song

,and said i t was of the very essence

of himself. Here is a faint version of i t, which Iinsert less as a poem than as a light on the old man’scharacter

AT DEAD OF NIGHT.

At dead of night I went,reluctant going

A w ee,wee boy

,across th e churchyard-way ,

T o father’s house,th e pastor’s heaven was glowing

With star on star—oh,sweetly twirrkled they

At dead of night.Then in broad l i fe

,when n ew impell ings drove me

T o seek my l ove—impell ings wh ich sh e sentT h e stars and Northern-l ights in stri fe ab o v me

I , going , com ing, drank in sweet contentAt dead of n ight.

1 Preface to Meyer’s Corresp o nden ce.

C OET IIF. AND HIS INFLUENCE 85

Til l the bright moon at last in h er h igh season,

S o pure , so clear, me in my darkness foundAnd w ith h er, w ill ing, thoughtful , v ivid ReasonHer l ight about my past and future w ound

At dead of night.

He fel l in love once or twice more ; and in 1823was said to be near mar rying again . The result, asusual

,was n ot marriage

,but an elegy—of beauty n o t

greatly inferior to that which the poems of earl ierdays can show

,and which

,as his youngest and dearest

poem,he copied out in Roman letters on fine vellum,

and tied with a si lk han d into a red morocco cover,in which glory Eckermann saw it. Mr. Lewes, i ndeference to physiology, unpleasantly and untrulycalls the story of an old man’s life a “ necrology.

As a man Goethe was never so complete as in hisold age.The only great addition to his fame which the last

twenty years of Goethe’s life produced was the conversatio n s with Eckermann—a book which gives tothe English reader a far clearer conception of hi spersonal influence than any other of his works. He

never runs an opponent through,l ike Dr. Johnson

indeed,he does not wi llingly talk with an opponent

at all . He rather flows round his disciple like anatmosphere

,leaks into you at every pore

,and en

velo ps you in such a calm wide mist of wisdom,that

you can only say what he means you to say so long asyou breathe that atmosphere . There is no possibil ityof a contest. There is no point to contest . He

credits you with a truth whenever you open yourmouth (lasst das gclten , as the Germans say) only hecircumvents i t with a whole mass of modifyingthought ; so that it would be easier to bring theair i tself to a point than to bring the question you

86 C OETHE AND IIIS INFLUENCE

are discussing to an issue . In hi s old age h e recurredagain frequently to his religious bel ief

,and som e of

his most fascinating conversations have relation to i t.Goethe had a taste for religion , and a shrewd guessat the next world but his mind seems to have beenquite devoid of personal trust. He was perhaps thewi sest man total ly without moral humility and personal faith whom the world has ever seen . He tookthe pantheistic view of God along w ith the personalvi ew of man .

1 He knew that man was a free andresponsible being

,but he could not attribute human

attributes of any kind to God ; he thought the Infinite would be best honoured by merely denying finitecharacter istics

,and leaving Him unapproached

Feel in g is all in al lName but an earthly smoke

,

Darken irrg th e glow of heaven.

And not only “ name but defin ite thought concerningGod he equally rej ected.

“ N0 one,

” he says,

“ nowdoubts the existence of God any more than his own ”

but what do we know of the idea of the divine,and

what shall our narrow conceptions say of the HighestBeing ?” And so of immortality also ; he believedin i t by a sort of extension of his insight into nature

,

but he put it aside as not bearing in any way on thi sl ife . “ I do not doubt of o ur future existen ce

,for

nature cannot afford to throw away any living principle But we are not al l i n the same

man n er immortal ; and in order to manifest ourselvesas a powerful l iving prin ciple in the future we mustbe one .

” Immortal ity was no present aid to him hethought we should wait to rest on it ti l l we hadgained i t To the able man this world i s not dumb

1 See, for instance, th e fin e little poem,Das Gottlich e.


In only one sentence do we catch a glimpse of atime when Goethe had looked to God for a Father’shelp

,and

,at least for a moment

,conceived the spiritual

world not as the mere unknown space beyond life,

but as the inspiring love which shines everywhereinto i t. “ lVe may lean for a while

,

” he says once,

i n speaking of his youth on our brothers and friends,

be amused by acquaintances,rendered happy by those

we love but in the end man is always driven backupon himself

,and it seems as if the Dirin ity had so

placedHimself in relation to man as n o talways to resp on dto hisreveren ce, trust, and love at least n ot in the terrible

momen t of n eed.

” There had, then, been a time whenthe easy familiarity w i th which the young manscrutinised the universe had been exchanged for thehumble glance of a heart-stricken chi ld and he hadshrunk away from that time (as he did from everyhour of life when pain would have probed to the verybottom the secrets of his nature), to take refuge inthe exercise of a faculty which would have been farstronger and purer had i t never helped h im to evadeth o se

D

awful pauses in exi stence when alone thedepths of our personal l ife lie bale before the inwardeye

,and we start to see both “ whither we me going

,

and whence we came .

”Goethe del iberately turned

hi s back upon those inroads whi ch sin and deathmake i nto our natural habits and routine . From thepleading griefs

,from the chal lenging gui lt

,from the

warning shadows of h is o w n past l ife,he turned

resolutely away,l ike hi s own Faust

,to the al leviating

occupations of the present. Inch by inch he contested the inroads o f age upon h is existence, strivingto banish the images o f new graves from h is thoughtslong before his n ature had ceased to quiver wi th theshock of parting ; never seemingly for a moment led


by grief to take conscious refuge in the love of Godand his hopes of an hereafter.And so

,wi th his eyes sti l l cl inging to the life he

left,on the 22dMarch 1832, he passed away himself,

while drawing w i th his finger pictures in the air andmurmuring a last cry for “ more l ight.” During th eyears which have intervened

,the influence of his

writings in England has steadily increased . He hasbeen held up as the wisest man of modern days

,and

by some half -worshipped as a demigod . And,in

truth,his was a light and spacious mind . I grant

that he was the wisest man of modern days who everlacked th e wisdom of a chi ld ; the deepest who neverknew what i t was to kneel in the dust with bowedhead and broken heart. And he was a demigod

,i f a

demigod be a being at once more and less thanordinary men

,having a power which few attain

,and

owing it,in part

,to a deficiency in qual ities in which

few are so deficient a being who puts forth a strongerfascination over the earth because expending none ofhi s strength in yearnings towards heaven. In thi ssense Goethe was a demigod

He took the suffering human raceHe read each w ound

,each weakness clear

He struck h is finger on the place,

And said , Thou ailest here, and here.He knew al l symptoms of di sease, a few alleviationsno rem edies . The earth was eloquent to him

,but the

skies were si lent. Next to Luther he was the greatestof the Germans ; next— but what a gulf between !“ Adequate to himself

,was written on that broad

calm forehead ; and therefore men thronged eagerlyabout him to learn the incommunicable secret. Itwas not told, and wi ll not be told . For man it i s aweary way to God, but a wearier far to any demigod .

THE GEN IUS OF WORDS\VORTH

THE commonplace modern criticism on Wordsworthis that he is too transcendental . On the other hand

,

the critici sm with which he was first assailed,which

Coleridge indignantly repelled,and which i s reflected in

the admirable parody published among the R ej ectedAddresses

,

” was that he was ridiculously simple,that

he made an unintelligible fuss about common feelingsand common things . The reconciliation of theseopposite criti ci sms i s not di fficult. He drew un

common delights from very common thin gs. His

circle of interests was,for a poet

,singularly narrow.

He was . a hardy Cumbrian mountaineer, with thetemperament of a thoroughly frugal peasant

,and a

unique personal gift for discovering the deepest secondary springs of j oy in what ordinary men either tookas matter of course

,or found uninteresting

,or even

full of pain . The sam e sort of power which scientifi cmen have of studiously fixing their minds on naturalphenomena

,til l they make these phenomena yield

lessons and law s of which no understanding, destituteof this capacity for detaching itself entirely from thecommonplace train of intellectual associati o ns, wouldhave dreamt

,Wordsworth had in relation to obj ects

of the imagination . He could detach his min d from

92 THE GENIUS orw oan sw o nrn n

poets—like Shel ley and Byron in their very differentways— pant for an unbroken succession of ardentfeelings . “lo rdsw orth , as I shall try to show,

wasalmost a miser in his reluctance to trench upon thespiritual capi tal at his disposal . He hoarded hisj oys

,and lived upon the interest which they paid in

the form of hope and expectation . This i s one ofthe most original parts of his poeti c character. I twas only the windfalls

,as one may say

,of hi s ima

gin atio n , the accidents on which he had never countedbeforehand

,the delight of which he dared thoroughly

to exhaust. He paused almost in awe at the threshold o f any promised enjoyment, as i f i t were aspendthrift policy to exchan ge the hepe for thereali ty . A delight once over, he multiplied i t athousandfold through the vi sion of “ that inwardeye which i s the bl iss of soli tude. Spiritual thriftwas at the very root of his soul

,and this was one of

hi s most remarkable distinctions among a race who,

i n Spiritual things,are too often prodigals and spend

thrifts . In these two character istics l ies sufficientexplanati on of the opposite views as to hi s simplici tyas a poet. No poet ever drew from simpler sourcesthan Wordsworth, but none ever made so much outof so l ittle . He stemmed the commonplace currentsof emotion

,and often succeeded in so reversing them

,

that men were puzzled when they saw weaknesstransformed into power and sorrow into rapture.He used up successful ly the waifs and strays of hisimaginative li fe

,reaped so much from opportunity

,

hope,and memory

,that men were as puzzled at the

simplici ty of his delights as they are when theyw atch th e occasions of a child’s laughter.Thus there is no poet who gives to his theme so

perfectly new a birth as lVordsw orth . He does not

11 THE GENIUS orwo n n swom‘

n 93

discern and revivi fy the n atural li fe which i s in i t ;he creates a new thing altogether

,namely, the life of

thought which i t has the power to generate in hisown brooding imagination . I have already said thathe uses human sorrow

,for example

,as an i n fluence

to stir up his own meditative spirit,til l i t loses its

ow n nature and becomes

S orrow that is not sorrow, but del ightAnd m iserable l ove

,that is not pain

T o hear of,for th e glory that redounds

Therefrom to human k ind and what we are.

And it is thi s strange transmuting power,which his

meditative spiri t exercises over all earthly and humanthemes

,that gives to Wordsworth’s poems the intense

air of soli tude which everywhere pervades them .

He i s the most solitary of poets . Of him,with

far more point than of Mi lton, may it be said, inWordsworth’s own words

,that “ his soul was like

a star,and dwelt apart.” Of all English poems, his

works are the most completely outside the sphere ofShakespeare’s un iversal genius . In solitude onlycould they have originated

,and in sol itude only can

they be perfectly enj oyed. It i s impossible not tofeel the loneliness of a mind which never surrendersitself to the natural and obvious currents of thoughtor feel ing in the theme taken

,but changes their

direction by cool sidewin ds from his own spiritualnature . Natural rays of feeling are refracted themoment they enter Wordsworth’s imagination . It i snot the theme acting on the man that you see

,but

the man acting on the theme. He himself conscio usly brings to it the spiritual forces which determine the lines of meditation ! he evades

,or

,as I

1 Prelude, book xm. p. 345.

94: THE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORT II I I

have insisted,even resists the inherent tendencies o f

em o tion belo nging to his subject ; catches it up intohis high spi ritual imaginatio n

,and makes i t yield a

totally d ifferent frui t of contemplation to any whichit seemed naturally likely to bear. It i s i n this thathe differs so co mpletely in manner fro m o ther sel fconscious po ets—Goethe

,for instance

,w h o in like

manner always left the shadow of him self on th e

field of his vision . But wi th Goethe i t i s a shadowof self in quite a , different sense. Goethe watcheshim self drifting along the tide of feel ing, and keepsan eye o pen outside hi s heart. But though he everhears him self

,he does not interfere with himself he

l istens breathlessly,and notes i t dow n. Wordsworth ,

on the other hand,refuses to listen to this natural

self at all . He knows another world of pure andbuoyant meditation and he knows that all which i stransplanted into i t bears there a new and noblerfruit. lVith fixed visionary purpose he snatchesaway his subj ect from the i n fluence of the low ercurrents i t i s beginning to obey

,and compels i t to

breathe i ts l ife into that si lent sky of conscious freedom and immortal hope in which his o w n spirit l ives .lVo rdsw o rth has himself explained thi s fixed purposeof hi s imagination to stay the dr i ft of commo nthoughts and common trains of feel ing, and li ft themup into the l ight of a higher m editative mo od , in apassage of a remarkable l etter to The Friend. Iti l lustrates so cm’io usly the deeper methods of hisgenius

,that I must quote i t

A fami l iar incident may render plain th e manner inwhi ch a proc ess of intellectual improvement, th e reverse ofthat wh ich n ature p ursues, is by reason introduced . Therenever

,perhaps

,existed a school-boy wh o , having, when

h e retired to rest, carelessly blown o ut his candle, and

96 THE GENIUS o r w o n n swo nrn u

value,—then truly are there such powers : and th e imag e

of th e dying taper may be recalled and contemplated,

though w ith no sadness in th e nerves, no d isposition totears

,no unconquerable sighs

, yet with a melan ch oly in the

soul,a sin kin g in ward in to o urselvesfrom th o ught to th ought,

a steady remo n stran ce, an d a high resolve. Let, then , th eyouth go back

,as occasion w i ll permit

,to nature and to

solitude,thus admonished by reason

,and rely in g upon

this newly-acquired support. A w orld of fresh sensationsw il l gradual ly open upon h im as h is mind puts off itsin firmities

,and as

,in stead of bein g p ropelled restlessly to

wards o thers in admiratio n,or to o hasty love, h e makes it

h is prime business to understand h imsel f. New sensations , I affirm ,

w i ll be opened o ut—pure,and sanctioned

by that reason wh ich i s their original author ; and precions feel ings of disinterested

,that is

,sel f-disregard ing j oy

and love may be regenerated and restored : and,in th is

sense,h e may be said to measure back th e track of l ife

h e has trod .

”

On e feels that the poet must live alone in orderthus consciously to bathe all that he touches wi th anew atmosphere not its own . lVe are most alonewhen we most distinctly feel the boundary-l ine between ourselves and the world beyond us. In actsof free-will the sense of human soli tude i s always ati ts height ; for in them we distinguish ourselves fromall things else. An d in the world -o f imaginationthis spiritual freedom is especially remarkable. There

one has always heard that freedom is not,that genius

i s undisputed master of the will . Wordsworth’s poetryis the living refutation of this assertion . He i s sosoli tary

,because his spirit consciously directs his

imagination,and imposes on it from w ithin influences

stronger than any it receives from without.T h e outward shows of sky and earth

,

Ofhill and valley, h e has viewed ”

I I THE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORTH 97

“ impulses of deeper bi rthHave come to h im in solitude.” 1

Reverie i s not, in thi s sense, sol itary, and Wordsworthis not the poet of reverie . In reverie the mindwholly loses the boundaries of its o wn l ife

,and wan

ders away unconsciously to the world’s end . Wordsworth’s musings are never reveries. He neither loseshimself nor the centre of hi s thought. He carrieshis ow n spiritual world with him ,

draws the thing orthought or feeling on which he intends to write

,from

its common orbi t,

fixes i t,l ike a new star

,i n his own

higher firmament,and there contemplates i t beneath

the gleaming lights and mysterious shadows of i tsnew sphere . It i s in this respect that he differs sowidely in habit of thought from Coleridge

,who was

also a muser in his way. All his thoughts in an yone poem flow as surely from a distinct centre as thefragrance from a flower. With Coleridge they fl itaway down every new avenue of vague suggestion, til lwe are lost in the inextri cable labyrinth of tangledassociations. The same spiritual freedom which setWordsw orth’s imagination in motion

,also control led

and fixed it on a single focus. And this he himsel fnoted in contrasting his own early mental l ife withhi s friend’s abstract and vagrant habits of fancy

I had forms d istinctT o steady me each airy thought revolvedRound a substantial centre

,wh ich at once

Incited it to motion and controlled .

I d id not p ine l ike one in cities bred,

As was thy melancholy lot,dear friend

,

1 “ A Poet’s Epitaph,

vol. v . o fWordsworth’s Poems, p . 24

(th e seven-volume edition).L

98 run GEN IUS orw o n n swo nrn n

Great spirit as thou art, in endless dreamsOf sickl iness

,d isj oining

,j oining

,th ings

Without the light of know ledge .” 1

That this hardy spiritual freedom,acting through the

imagination, and drawing the obj ect of the poet’s

contemplation voluntarily and purposely into hi s ownworld of thought

,i s the most distinguishing char

acteristic of Wordsworth’s poetry, may be bestverified by comparing h im with any other of o ur

great poets. Most other poets create their poetry,

and even their meditative poetry, in the act of throwin g themselves in to the li fe of the scene or train ofthought or feeling they are contemplating : Wordsworth deliberately withdraws his imagination fromthe heart of his picture to contemplate i t in itsSpiritual relations. Thus, for instance, Tennysonand Wordsworth start from the same mood

,the one

in the song “ Tears,idl e tears,

” the other in thepoem called “ The Fountain .

” Tennyson’s exquisitepoem is well known

Tears,idle tears

,I know not what they mean ;

Tears from the depth of some d ivine despairR ise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,In look ing on the happy Autumn-fields

,

And think in g of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam gl ittering on a sail,

That brings o ur friends up from th e underworldSad as the last which reddens over oneThat sinks w ith allwe love below th e vergeS o sad , so fresh , the days that are no more.

Ah,sad and strange

,as in dark summer dawns

The earl iest pipe of half-awaken ’d birds

1 “ Prelude, book viii . p. 224.

100 THE GEN IUS OF lVORDSWORTH n

speakable sadness with w hich we survey the irrecoverable past ; lVordsw o rth no sooner touches thesame theme than he checks the current of emotion

,

and,to use his o w n words, “ instead of being rest

lessly propelled ” by it,he makes it the obj ect of

contemplation,and

,

“ with no unconquerable sighs,

yet wi th a melancholy in the soul,sinks inward into

himself,from thought to thought

,to a steady re

monstrance and a high resolve.” And thus meditating,

he wrings from the temporary sadness fresh convictionthat the ebbing away

,both in spirit and in appearance

,

of the brightest past, sad as it must ever be, i s notso sad a thing as the weak yearning whi ch

,in

departing,i t often leaves stranded on the soul

,to

cling to the appearance when the spirit i s irreco verably lost. There i s no other great poet who thusredeems new ground for spiri tual meditation frombeneath the very sweep of the tides of the mostengrossing affections

,and quietly maintains it in

possession of the musing intellect. There i s noother but Wordsworth who has led us “ to thosesweet counsels between head and heart

” which flashupon the absorbing emotions of the moment thesteady light of a calm infinite world . None butWordsworth has ever so completely transmuted byan imaginative spi ri t

,unsatisfied yearnings into

eternal truth . No other poet ever brought out ashe has done

T h e sooth ing thoughts that springOut of human suffering ”

or so tenderly preserved thewal l-flower scents

F rom o ut th e crumbling ruins of fallen prideor taught us how,

u T I IE GEN IUS orw o n n swo nrn 101

By pain of heart, n ow checked, and n o w impel led,T h e intellectual power through w ords and th ingsWent sounding on a dim and perilous way .

”

He has himself described this self-determination ofhis genius to preserve and enlarge the freedom in

himself ” in lines so beautiful,that

,though I have

already lingered long on this point, I cannot forbearquoting them

“ Within the soul a faculty abidesThat

,w ith interpositions which w ould h ide

And darken,so can deal that they become

Contingencies of pomp , an d serve to exaltHer n ative brightness. As th e ample moon

,

I n th e deep stillness of a summer even,

R ising behind a thick an d lofty grove,

Burns l ike an unconsum ing fire of l ightIn th e green trees and

,k indl ing on al l sides

Their leafy umbrage, turns th e dusky veilInto a substan ce glorious as h er own

,

Y ea with h er o wn incorporated,by power

Capacious and serene. Like power ab idesIn man’s celestial spirit virtue thusSets forth and magn ifies hersel f thus feedsA calm

,a beautiful

,and silent fi re

F rom th e encumbrances of mortal l ife,

From error, d isappointment,—nay, from guiltAnd sometimes

,so relenting justice w ills

,

F rom palpable oppressions of despair .

” 1

Of other poets, Tennyson at least may seem in someof his more thoughtful poem s (the

“ In Memoriam ”

and “ The Two Voices to have approached Wordsworth’s domain in employing the spiritual imaginationto i lluminate the moods of human emotion In

1 “Excursion, ” book iv . p. 152.

102 THE GEN IUS OF I I

reali ty,how ever

,even these poems are quite distinct

in kind. They are more like glittering sparks flyingupwards from the flames of self-consuming aspirationsthan the quiet

,steadfast

,and spiritual lights of

Wordsworth’s insight.But i t i s by no means principally in treating

these deeper themes that Wordsworth brings themost of this conscious

,voluntary

,imaginative force

to bear upon his subj ects . Allhis most characteristicpoems bear vi vid traces of the sam e mental process.In his poems on subj ects of natural beauty i t i sperhaps even more remarkable than in his treatmentof mental subj ects where this contemplative withdrawal from the immediate tyranny of a presentemotion

,in order to gain a higher point of view

,

seems more natural . But in all his most characteristic poems on nature there i s just the samemethod : first a subjection of the mind to the sceneor obj ect of feeling studied then a withdrawing intohi s deeper self to exhaust its meaning. Thus

,in

the fine poems on Yarrow,the point of departure is

the craving of the mi nd to see an object long agopainted in the imagination ; but instead of yieldingto the current of that feeling, the poet checks himself,and asks whether the imaginative anticipation maynot in i tself be a ri cher wealth than any real ityw hi ch could take its place

“ Let beeves and homebred k ine partakeT h e sweets of Burn-m ill meadow,

T h e swan on stil l S t. Mary’s LakeF loat double swan and shadow

We w ill not see them,w il l not go

T o -day,nor yet to—morrow

Enough if in o ur hearts we knowThere’s such a place as Yarrow .

10 4 THE GENIUS orWORDSWORTH 11

And dearer still,as n ow I feel

,

T o memory’s shadowy moo nshin e.

As more strik ing illustrations of the same poeti cmethod—more striking simply because the subj ectsare apparently so purely descriptive that there wouldseem to be less room for thi s “ sinking inward intohimself from thought to thought —I may recallthose daffodils tran sfigured before the

“ inward eye,

which is the bli ss cf solitude ” ; the cuckoo, which ,though “ babbling only to the vale of sunshine andof flowers

,he spiritual ises into a “ wandering voice

that “ tellest unto me a tale of vi sionary hours ” ;the mountain echo

,whi ch sends her “ unsoli cited

reply to the same babbling wanderer the n ut ladenhazel—branches

,whose luxuriant feast first threw him

into “ that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay tribute to ease

,

” and whi ch then so “ patiently gave uptheir quiet being,

” that,haunted by remorse

,he is com

pelled to exclaim,

“ with gentle hand touch,for there

i s a spirit in the woods the dai sy, that recalls himfrom “ stately passions to “ the hom ely sympathythat heeds the common life our nature breeds andthe mists

,which “ magnify and spread the glories of

the sun’s bright head .

” But there is no finer instanceof Wordsworth’s self-withdrawing mood in gazing atexternal things than that of the lines on the Boy oflVin dermere who mocked the owls . For real loversof “lordsw orth , these lines have eflected more inhelping them adequately to imag ine the full depth ofthe human imagi nation

,and to feel the inexhaustibl e

wealth of Nature’s symbols,than any magnificence of

storm,or shipwreck

,or Alpine sol itude

There was a boy ye knew h im well, ye cliffs

And islands of Win an der many a time

11 THE GENIUS o rWORDSWORT I—I 105

At evening,when th e earliest stars began

T o move along th e edges of th e hills,R ising or setting, w ould h e stand al oneBeneath th e trees or by th e gl immering lakeAn d there

,w ith fingers interwoven

,both hands

Pressed closely palm to palm , an d to his mouthUpl ifted , h e, as through an instrument,Blew m imic h o o tin gs to the silent ow ls,That they m ight answer h im ; and they would shoutAcross the watery vale and sh oiit again ,Responsive to h is call

,w ith quivering peals

,

And long halloos and screams,and echoes l oud

Redoubled and redoubled concourse w ildOfmirth and j ocund d in : and when it chancedThat pauses of deep silence mocked h is sk ill

,

Then sometimes,in that silence wh ile he hung

Listenin g,a gen tle sh o ck ofmild surprise

Has carriedfar in to his heart the fvoice

Ofmoun tain torren ts ; or the visible sceneWould enter unawares into h is m ind ,With al l its solemn imagery, its rocks,Its w oods, and that uncertain heaven, receivedInto th e bosom of the steady lake.”

No other poet but Wordsworth that the world everproduced could have written this

,you feel in read

in g i t that the l ines“ a gentle shock of mild surprise

has carried farin to his heart the voice of mountain torrents

,

” had for him an exactness as well as a fulness ofmeaning —for he shows a curious power of carefullydiscriminating the degrees of depth in hi s poeti cimaginations : some he near the surface ; others li edeeper

,but still within the sphere of less meditative

minds 5 others spring from a depth far beyond thereach of any human soundings .Again

,the beauty of Wordsworth’s little ballads

is never properly understood by those who do not

106 THE GENIUS OF WORDSWORT II 1!

enter into the contemplative tone in which th ey arewritten . There i s none of them that can be appreached in a mood of sympathetic emotion w i thoutfailing to produce its ful l effect. “ Lucy Gray, forexample

,i s a continual disappointment to those who

look for an expression of the piteousness and desolation of the lost child’s fate.1 Wordsworth did notfeel i t thus he was contemplating a pure and lonelydeath as the natural completion of a pure and lonelyli fe. He calls i t not “ Desolation

,

” but “ Solitude.He strikes the keynote of the poem in speaking ofher in the first verse as “ the solitary child

,

” andthen

No mate,no comrade Lucy knew

Sh e dwelt on a w ide moor,

The sweetest thin g that ever grewBeside a human do o r.”

Wordsworth’s purpose evidently was to paint aperfectly lovely solitary flower snapped, for its verypurity

,in i ts earliest bud

,that i t might remain an

image of solitary beauty for ever. He in tended todissolve away all pain and pity in the loveliness ofthe picture . It was not the lot of Lucy Gray, butthe spiritualised meaning of that lot as it lived inhis imagination

,that he desired to paint. Again, in

the exquisite ballad “ We are S even ,” few discern

how every touch throughout the whole i s intendedto heighten the contrast between the natural healthand joy of l ife in the l iving child and the supernatural secret o i death . It i s not a mere tale of onelittle cottage girl

,who could not conceive the full

meaning of death : i t i s the poet’s contemplative

1 Such as Mr. Kin gsley , for instance, has so finely given inh is ballad on th e girl lost on th e sands of Dee.

108 THE GENIUS o rWORDSWORT I—I 11

rain,and whitened by the winter’s snow

,l ike any

other specks of common earth,and the buoyant

child’s unshaken fancy that they contain her si sterand her brother still . S o ful l is she of life herself

,

that though she can run and slide,

” the whitenedmounds sti l l seem to her to hide a life as vivid asher o wn .

The voluntary element that I have noticed in\Vordsworth

’

s genius— the preference for ch eckin gobvious and natural currents of thought or feeling inorder to brood over them meditatively and bring outa result of a higher order—leads to many of hisimperfections as well as beauties . He had

,as I have

noti ced,an em inently frugal mind. He l iked of al l

things to make the most of the smaller subj ect beforehe gave himself up to the greater. The sober,sparing

,free -W i ll wi th which he gathers up the

crumbs,and feeds his genius on them before he wi ll

break in on any whole leaf, i s eminently characteristic of him . Emotion does not hurry him into poetrynor into anything else. He

“ slackens his thoughtsby cho ice,

”1 when they grow eager ; he defers hisfeast of nuts that he may first enj oy expectation tothe full he will wear out the luxury of his imaginatio n s of Yarrow before he tries the reality ; he ismore wil ling by far to wait for the due seasons ofpoetry than the husbandman for the due seasonsof frui t

His m ind was keen,

Intense,and frugal apt for al l affairs

,

And watchful more than ord inary men .

T h e poem on the strawberry-blossom i s right fromthe heart of his own nature

1 “ Prelude, book i. 2 MiChaGL

I I THE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORTH 109

That is w ork of waste and ruinDo as Charles and I are doing .

S trawberry-blossoms o n e and all ,We must spare them— here are man yLook at it

,th e flower is smal l

Smal l and low,but fair as any

Do not touch it— summers twoI am older

,Anne

,than y o u.

Hither,soon as spring has fled,

Y ou and Charles and I w il l walkLurking berries ripe and redThen w ill hang on every stalk ,Each w ith in its leafy bowerAnd for that promise spare the flower.

And so Wordsworth himself would always havesaved up his strawberry-blossoms of poetry ti l l the“ lurking berries ripe and red ” lay in them

,had he

had the quick eye to distinguish surely between theun r1pe beauty and the ripe . But this he had not .As he himself tells us

,he found it almost impossible

to distingui sh “ a timorous capacity from prudence,

”

“ from circumspection,infinite delay.

”He had not

that swiftness and fusion of nature which helps aman to distinguish at once the fruit of his lower fromthat of his higher moods . He gathered in

the harvest of a quiet ey eThat breeds and sleeps on its own heart

,

with undiscriminating frugality,gathering in often

both tares and wheat. It was that same voluntarycharacter of his imaginative life

,which enabled him

to give so new an aspect to his themes,which also

rendered him unable to distinguish with any delicacybetween the various moods in which he wrote. A

110 THE GENIUS OF VVORDSWORT II I I

poet who i s the mere instrument,as it were

,of hi s

own impulses of genius, knows when the influenceis upon him ; but a poet whose visionary mood isalways half-voluntary, and a result of a gradual withdrawing o f the mind into its deeper self

,cannot

well have the same qui ck vision for the boundarybetween commonplace and living imagination whi chbelongs to natures of more spontaneous genius.Wordsworth seems to kindle his own poeti c flamelike a blind man kindling his own fire ; and often ,as it were, he goes through the process of lighting i twithout observing that the fuel i s damp and has notcaught the spark ; and thus, though he has left usmany a beacon of pure and everlasting glory flamingfrom the hill s

,he has left us also many a menu

mental pile o f fuel from which the poetic fire hasearly died away.

It i s clear that Wordsworth as a poet did,as he

tell s us himself,

“ feel the weight of too much liberty .

”

In his finest poem he declares

Me th is un chartered freedom ti res,I feel the w eight of chance desires .

An d no doubt he had even to o complete a masteryover himself. He could not distinguish the arbitraryin his poetry from the conscious conquests of insight.An d being, as we have seen, most frugal,—feeling,as he did

, to the very last day of his poetic life, thatit was the greatest of impieties to “ tax high Heavenwith prodigality

,

” 1 he made not only themost ofthese “ chance desires or suggestions, but often morethan the most

,using them as the pedestals to

thoughts in reali ty far to o bread for them. It i s1 See th e beautiful verses, Th e unremitting voice of nightly

streams, to which th e date 1846 is attached.

112 THE GENIUS OF IVORDSWORTH I I

tawny wanderers m ight probably have been tramp ing forweeks together through road and lane , over moor andmountain

,an d consequently must have been right glad to

rest themselves , thei r ch ildren , an d cattle for o n e w h oleday an d overlooking the obvious truth

,that such repose

m ight be quite as necessary for them as a walk of thesame continuance was pleasing or health ful for th e morefortunate poet,—expresses h is indignation in a series o fl ines

,th e d iction and imagery of wh ich w ould have been

rather above than below the mark had they been appl iedto th e immense empi re of China

,improgressive for th irty

cen turies

T h e weary sun betook himself to restThen issued Vesper from th e falgo ut west,Outshining like a v isible god,T h e glorious path in which h e trod .

And n ow ascending after o n e dark hour,

And o n e night’s diminution of h erpower,Behold th e mighty Moon This waySh e looks, as if at them but theyRegard n o t h er -0 , better wrong an d strife,Better vain deeds or ev il, than such lifeT h e silent heavens have goings onT h e stars have tasks —but th ese have none.

There is no structural power in Wordsworth’smin d . When he has to deal with things

,influences

,

living un ities, he is usually opulent and at ease forthe natural emanations which flowers and mountainsand children and simple rusti c natures breathearound them are homogeneous in themselves

,and

only need a poet who will open his whole spirit tothem w ith steady contemplative eye

,and draw in

their atmosphere. But when much incident entersinto poetry, the poet also needs high combiningpower ; he needs the art of rapidly changing hismental atti tude, and yet keeping the same tone and

11 THE GEN IUS orwo n n swo nrn 113

mood throughout ; and to this the voluntary, frugal ,contemplative character of Wordsworth’s intellectualnature i s quite unequal . Wherever there i s extendedsurface in his subj ect

,there there is want of unity in

the poem—inadequacy to blend a variety of elementsinto a single picture . There is no whole landscapein all Wordsworth’s exquisite studies of nature .There is no variety of moral influences in all hismany beautiful contemplations of character. Therei s no distinct centre of interest in any but his verysimplest narratives. Indeed

,he can deal with facts

successfully only when they are simple enough toembody but a single idea : as in the case of PeterBell and the Idiot Boy. If they have any characterof accident about them

,this reappears in hi s poems

in all the accidental, discontinuous, and stragglingform of its original existence. Almost any one ofWordworth

’s fact-poems wil l immediately occur to

the mind in illustration of this “ S imon Lee,”

“ Alice Fell,” the story of the traveller lost on

Helvel lyn, and many others . They are anecdotes,

with passages often of surpassing beauty,but stil l

untransmuted anecdotes,—here a bit of fact—therea gleam of natural loveliness—then a layer more offact, and so forth. He neither throws himself intothe narrative

,so as to give you the active spirit of

life in side it, as S cott did ; nor does he give solelythe contemplative vi ew of it

,as in his simplest

ballads he can do with so much beauty ; but hesprin kles a little macadam of stony fact along thefair upland path of his imagination. Thus

,in the

early edi tions of “ The Thorn,

” he anxiously recordedthe size of the infant’s grave

I’ve measured it from side to side

,

’Tis three feet long and two feet wide,

114 THE GEN IUS o rWORDSWORTH 11

—suggesting,of course, that the poet was an under

taker calculating accurately the measure of th e

coffin .

Yet these spots of prosiness are eminently characteristic of lVordsw orth . He had vividly acutesenses

,and delighted in the mere physical use of

them ; they both rel ieved him from the strain ofcontemplation

,and suggested new food for contem

platio n .

“ I speak,he says in “ The Prelude

,

”

“ in recollection of a timeIVh en the bodily eye

—in every stage of l ifeT h e most despotic of our senses—gainedSuch strength in me

,as often held my mind

I n absolute domin ion .

I roam’

d from h il l to bill, from rock to rock ,S til l craving combination of n ew forms ;New pleasure w ider empire for the sight

,

Proud of h er own endowments and rej oicedT o lay the in n er faculties asleep .

”

The truth of thi s s tatement i s obvious to any onewho reads his earliest poems and these vivid sensescontinued to the last to work quite in separationfrom the poeti c spiri t within him ; so that no poetgives us so strong a feeling of the contrast betweenthe inward and the outward as . Wordsworth ; hedives into himself between his respirations

,that he

may exclude for a li ttle while the tyranny of thesenses

,and so not waste his l ife in the mere animal

pleasure of breathing. A geometr ician would say,

that while most other poetry moves on the plane ofl i fe

,Wordsworth’s i s poetry of double curvature

,and

w inds in and out continually beneath and above i t.On e of “fordsw orth ’s biographers states, that thesense of hearing was the finest sense Wordsworthhad

,and gave rise to the finest poetry of Nature he

116 T I IE GEN IUS OF \VORDSWORTH I I

of incongruous material so often annoy us ; thesame thing occurs almost as often in his meditativepoem s. There was a rigidity in hi s mind

,the o ff

spring probably o f the intense meditation he waswont to concentrate on single centres of thought.Hazli tt has thus finely described the general expression of his personal appearance

T h e next day Wordsworth arrived from Bristolat Coleridge’s cottage. I th ink I see h im n ow. He

answered in some degree to his friend’s description ofh im

,but was more gaunt and Do n -Q uixote like. He was

quaintly dressed (accordin g to the costume of that un co n

strain ed period) in a brown fustian-jacket and stripedpan taloons. There was someth ing of a roll

,a lounge

,in

h is gait,not unlike h is o wn Peter Bell. There was a

severe,w orn pressure of thought about h is temples

,a

fire in h is eye (as if he saw something in objects morethan th e outward appearance), an intense high narrowforehead

,a Roman nose

,checks furrowed by strong pur

pose and feel ing, and a convulsive inclination to laughterabout the mouth

,a good deal at variance w ith th e solemn

stately expression of th e rest of h is face. Chan trey’s

bust wants the mark ing traits but he was teased intomak ing it regular and heavy. Hayden

’s head of him

,

introduced into the E n tran ce of C hrist in to Jerusalem,is

the mo st like h is droopin g w eight of thought and expression. He sat down , and talked very naturally andfreely

,w ith a m ixture of clear gush ing accents in h is

voice,a deep guttural intonation

,and a strong tincture of

the northern burr, l ike the crust o n w ine.”

Clearly in Wordsworth, as well as in Peterthere were many of

T h e unshaped hal f-human thoughts,Wh ich sol itary nature feeds’Mid summer storms or winter’s ice.

I I THE GENIUS OF WORDSWORTH 117

On e may almost apply to him that fine verse

There was a hardness in h is cheek ,There was a hardness in his eye,As though the man had fixed h is faceI n many a sol itary placeAgainst the wind and Open sky.

Indeed,he expressly tells us that this tendency to

hardness was the leaning of his mind ; but that hehad been led to more delicate and sensitive thoughtsby his sister’s in fluen ce

Sh e gave me eyes, she gave me ears,An d humble cares

,and del icate fears

A heart th e fountain of sweet tears,

An d love,and thought

,an d j oy.

”

The natural rigidity of his mind was great,and

hence,probably, his great deficiency in humour,

which cannot exist without a certain flexibili ty ofboth feeling and thought

,allowing of rapid transi

tions from one point of vi ew to another . It was notonly that he had “ fixed his face in many a solitaryplace, against the wind and open sky,

” but in theintellectual spaces it was the same . Against the infinite solitudes of the eternal world he had intentlyfixed his spirit, ti ll i t too had something of the rigidattitude of the mysti c, and was crossed at times bythe dark spots which constant gazing at a greatbrightness will always produce. He paid for thefrequency of

“ that blessed moodI n wh ich the burden of the mystery

,

In wh ich the heavy and the weary weightOfall th is unintelligible w o rldIs lightened—that serene an d blessed mood

,

In which th e affection s gently lead us o n,

118 THE GEN IUS OF \VORDS\VORTH 11

Until the breath of this corporeal frame,And even th e motion of o urhuman bloodAlmost suspended , w e are laid asleepI n body

,and become a living soul

Wh ile w ith an eye made quiet by th e powerOf harmony, and th e deep power of j oy,We see into th e l ife of things ”

he paid for the frequency of this mood by a wantof ease and deli cacy in the lesser movements of hi sintellectual nature

,w hi ch rendered him often unable

to bring the minutiae even of his finest poems intoharmony with their spiri t. Thus he often mistookth e commonplace observations of his superficialunderstanding for the deeper thoughts of hi s heart ;he had no li ving feel ing that told him when he wasdividing things with the blunt edge of commonsense

,and when he was wielding that fine sword of

the imagination by which to the discerning eye thepoet divides asunder soul and spirit as surely as thatgreater sword divides for judgment. He would fal land rise in the same poem from clear vision to theobscure gropings of common sense—from obscuregropings to clear vision—and not feel the in co ngruity . No one can help shrinking at th e suddendiscord

,when

,i n the lovely poem

,

“ Sh e was a phantom o f delight,

” we read

And n o w I see w ith eyes sereneT h e very pulse of th e machin e,A being breathing thoughtful breath

,

A travel ler between l ife and death .

”

It i s a jar to the mind,l ike coming down three

steps w i thout notice, to stumble over th is machine ”

i n th e midst of such a poem you think of an automaton at once

,or of Madame Tussaud’s breathing

120 THE GENIUS o r WORDSWORTH u

must say, says Wordsworth of this gently remonstrant admirer, “ that even she has something yet toreceive from me . I say this w i th confidence

,from

her thinking that I have fallen below myself i n thesonnet beginning, ‘With ships the sea was sprinkledfar and nigh.

’ It might h e replied,perhaps

,that

the same reasoning would prove him to be justifiedin using poetry to illustrate the simple conversion ofprepo sitio n s, or in writing a touching sonnet on theIlli ci t process of the Major.” The best and eventhe most poetical defence we can make for suchcaprices i s

,that they are venial egotisms for it i s

certainly more poeti c to exhibit life—even egotisti clife—in any fashion

,than to i llustrate merely formal

laws . I should not have alluded to thi s at all,but

that Hazlitt has set up a theory, founded in somemeasure

,perhaps

,on these little personal egoti sms

,

to prove that Wordsworth’s poeti c power i s born ofegotism

,and is part and parcel of his complete wan t

of universality.

Mr. Wordsworth is th e last man to ‘ l ook abroadinto universality

,

’ i f that alone constituted gen ius : helooks at home into h imself

,and is ‘ content with riches

fin eless.

’ He w ould in the other case be ‘ poor as winter,

’

i f he had noth ing but general capacity to trust to. He i sthe greatest

,that is

,the most original poet of th e present

day,only because h e is the greatest egotist. He is sel f

involved,not dark .

’ He sits in the centre of h is ow n

being,and there enj oys bright day.

’He does not waste

a thought on others. Whatever does not relate exclusivelyand wholly to h imsel f, is foreign to h is views. He contemplates a whole-length figure of h imsel f he looks al ongth e unbroken line of h is personal identity. He thrustsaside all other objects

,all other interests

,w ith scorn and

impatience,that he may repose on h is o wn being ; that

I I THE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORT II 121

h e may dig o ut the treasures of thought contained in itthat h e may unfold th e precious stores o f a mind for everbrood ing over itself. His genius is the effect of h is ind ividual character. He stamps that character—that deepindividual interest—o n whatever h e meets. Th e objectis noth ing but as it furnishes food for internal med itation

,

for old associations. If there had been no other being inthe un iverse

,Mr. Wordsw orth’s poetry w ould have been

just what it is. With a mind averse from outwardobjects

,but ever intent upon its o w n w ork ings

,he hangs

a weight of thought and feel ing upon every trifling circumstan ce connected w ith h is past history. The note ofth e cuckoo sounds in h is ear l ike the voice of other yearsthe daisy spreads it leaves in the rays of boyish delightthat stream from h is thoughtful eyes ; th e rainbow liftsits proud arch in heaven but to mark h is progress frominfancy to manhood an old thorn is buried

,bowed down

under th e mass of associations he has wound about it ;and to h im as he h imself beautifully says,

Th e meanest flow’

r that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie to o deep fortears.’

Hazlitt’s malicious genius delighted in this kind

of thorny praise. His criticisms are general ly ful lof insight ; and fall short of the truth mainly fromthe deep sceptici sm which always leaves him perfectly contented w ith his own paradox. He has noconviction that apparent paradox is not real . He i squite willing to believe that mere egotism can be theroot of genius or of anything else that is noble

,and

is not driven back to his facts by any aversion to sostartling a conclusion . He tells us farther on

,that

Wordsworth’s “ strength , as i t often happens, arisesfrom excess of weakness. This is but the scepti c’sbitter version of the truth, that weakness constantlyarises from excess of strength a form of the proposition not only more true in itself

,but far more

122 THE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORTH I I

applicable to “fo rdsw orth ’s poetry. Rare gifts ofmind almost always tend to some overbalance ofhabit

,or thought, or feeling—to some narrowness,

pride,or humour

,that i s in itsel f a weakness. But

no weakness ever ofitself tends to an opposite strength ,even though

,as Wordsworth so finely observes in a

passage I have already quoted,the free and volan

tary wisdom of man may transmute i t into an occasion for developing the highest strength ; but thisi s through the supernatural l ife

,not through an y

natural gravitation of weakness towards its Opposite .

S trong affections may tend to feebleness of purpose,but not feebleness of purpose to strong affections .Great contemplative power wil l tend to self-occupation

,but self -occupation does not tend to contem

plative power. Hazlitt saw that the egotism andthe genius in Wordsworth were closely related

,and

with half-mal icious pleasure hastily assumed that theworse quality had the deeper root. Wh en h e saysthat Wordsworth’s poetry i s mainly derived from“ looking at home into himself

,

” he says what I haveall along endeavoured to establish ; but when hemean s by this the contradictory of “ looking abroadinto universal ity

,

” he is certainly and wilfully w rong.

There are two selfs in every man—the private andthe universal — the source of personal crotchets, andthe humanity that i s o ur bond with our fellow—men ,and gives us o ur influence over them . Half VVordsworth’s weakness springs from the egotistical self, ash e himself implies when he says,

Or i s it that when human souls a j ourney l ong have h ad,And are returned into themselves

,they cannot but

be sad 1

1 “ S tar-gazers (Po etical ”forks, vol.

124 THE GENIUS or w o n n swo nrn 11

While on th e peril ous ridge I hun g alone,With what strange utterance did the l oud dry w in dBlow through my ear th e sky seemed not a skyOf earth

,and w ith what motion moved th e cl ouds

The difference lies in this,that in the former case

the s tatement i s a bare individual experience—whichadds nothing to the l iving expression of the poemthe bough of “

W i lding ” being entirely an accidentalgrace —while the whole verse breaks the unity ofthe subj ect by its abrupt transition to a differentperiod and point of vi ew ; whereas the latter, thoughalso a personal memory

,paints to the very life that

fresh wonder which the excitement of a li ttle physicaldanger w i l l spread for any watching eye over thewhole face of heaven and earth . There i s no egotismor caprice in delineating personal experience thathelps to widen or renew the whole experience ofothers . Wordsworth was much excited on one occasion at being told he had written a poem on “

a

daisy.

” “ No,he said

,

“ i t was on the daisy—a

very different thing.

” There was a difference, andit was a difference characteristi c of his best poetry.

His finest mood never descends to local or personalaccidents alien to the exp erience or imagination ofhi s readers . Coleridge truly says in one of hislectures

,that Shakespeare never copied a character

from a mere individual—never painted a uniquecharacter at al l ; each of hi s characters might represent a whole class ; and so too, in his very differentworld

,all Wordsworth’s higher poems have a certain

breadth of li fe and influence,without any of the

abstractness which, in inferior poets, accompaniesbreadth .

In what,then

,may one say

,in answer to Hazlitt’s

criti ci sm,that Wordsworth’s universal ity consists

,i f

u T I IE GEN IUS OF WORDSWORTH 125

high universal intelligence i s to be found in hispoems ? Not in any power of elaborating what i susual ly understood by universal Truth : indeed, forso contemplative a poet

,there is singularly little of

the comprehensive grasp of Reason in his mind .

S til l less in any remarkable power of expressinguniversal emotions, though Hazlitt does regard himas essentially lyrical . His especial poeti c facultylies

,I think

,in contemplatively sei zing the charac

teristic individual influen ces which al l living things,from the very smallest of earth or air

,up to man

and the Spiri t of God, radiate around them to everymind that wil l surrender itself to their expressivepower. It i s not true that Wordsworth’s genius laymainly in the region of mere Nature —rather say i tlay in detecting Nature’s influences just at the pointwhere they were stealing unobserved into the veryessence of the human soul. Nor i s this all. His

characteristic power lay no less in discovering divineinfluences

,as they fal l like dew upon the spirit. On e

may say that Wordsworth’s poetry is fed on sympathyless, and on influences from n atures difi

f

ering in kin d

from his own more, than any other poetry in theworld ; and that he delineates these influences justas they are entering into the very substance ofhumanity. S trike out the human element from hisNature poem s, and they lose all their meaning : hedid not paint Nature

,l ike Tennyson ; he arrested

and interpreted its spiritual expressions . He re

garded other men chiefly as natural influences actingon himself ; but he never was inclined to identi fyNature w ith either Man or God ; for freedom,

im

mortality, and a spiritual God were of the veryessence of his own meditative world . He i s notspecifically the poet of Nature, nor the poet of Man ,

126 THE GEN IUS orWORDSWORT II 11

nor the poet of Truth,nor the poet of R eli gion ;

he i s the poet of all separate livin g eman atio n s fromNature

,or from Man or God. Contemplative as he

i s,his mind was too concentrated and intense for

general Truth . He fixed his imagination and hislife too entirely and in tensely on sin gle centres ofinfluence. He could not pass from the one to theother

,and grasp many at once, so as to discern their

mutual relations,in the discrimination of which

Truth consists . He kept to single influences : sol itary contemplative communion with all forms of lifewhich did not disturb the contemplative freedom ofhis spirit

,was his strength . His genius was un i

versal,but was not comprehensive ; i t did not hold

many things,but i t held much . You see this

especially in his larger poem s : he is like one of hisown “ bees that mm~mur by the hour in foxglovebell s . He cannot move gradually through a trainof thought or a consecutive narrative . He fl ies fromh ell to h ell, and sucks all the honey deliberately outof each. Hence he was so fond of the sonn et

,be

cause it was just suited to embody one thought ; yeti t seldom exhausted for him one subj ect

,and there

is often an injury to h is genius in the transition fromsonnet to sonnet when he w rote a series on onetheme . His “ plain imagination and severe

,

” as hehim self called it

,i solated whatever it dealt with

,

brought it into immediate contact with his ownspirit, and so drew from i t slowly and patientlyevery drop of sweet or sad or stern influence thatit had th e pow er to give off. But i t i s with himconsciously influen ce, and influence only. He neverhumanises th e spirits of natural objects, as Shelleydid. He puts no fairy into th e flower,—no dryadinto the tree

,—no nymph into the river —h e i s too

128 T I IE GENIUS or wo n n swo nrn 11

meet them from God,do they fulfi l their simple

destiny. If any one chooses to deny that there i san absolute reality in the expressions of Nature tohuman min ds

,—that they are something as unalter

able as the meaning of a smile or a frown,—h e may

and must say with Hazlitt that \Vo rdsw orth “ neverlooks abroad into universality

,but overwhelm s

natural obj ects with the weight of his o w n arbitraryassociations . If the dancing daflodils are no realimage of simple j oy ; i f the “ power of hills ” be avague and mi sleading metaphor ; if the “ welcomesnowdrop

That ch ild of winter,prompting thoughts that cl imb

F rom desolation towards th e genial prime

can tell no true tale of immortal ity to the simplehearted when sink ing beneath the snows of age

,i f

i t be a mere confusion of ideas for a poet to beli eve

That one,the fairest of all r ivers

,l oved

To blend his murmurs w ith my nurse’s songAn d from h is alder shades and rocky falls

,

And from h is fords and shall ows,sent a voice

Thatflo wed alo ng my dreams”

i f there be nothing ghostly in the yew-tree,no

“ witchery ” in the sky, and no eternal voices in thesea i f

,in a word, the invisible things of Him from

the creation ” are n o t clearly seen,being un derstood

by the things that are made,

’ then indeed wasWordsworth “ vain in his imagination,

” and “ hisfooli sh heart was darkened.

”

But Wordsworth did not doubt about thesethings ; he kn ew them ; and he knew too well thek ind of human character they served to make or mar.His own nature was of this primitive humanity

n T I—IE GENIUS or wo n n swo nrn 129

Lon g have I l oved what I beholdT h e night that calms

,the day that cheers ;

T h e com mon growth of mother earthS ufficcs me—h er tears h er m irth ,Her humblest m irth and tears.

He knew how these simple influences could not bereceived into the heart without receiving also

a sp irit strong,

That gives to all the selfsame bentWhere life is wise and innocent

he knew that no heart which “ watches and receiveswhat quiet Nature gives can have any of the preoccupying restlessness which evi l brings ; he knewthat he

Who affronts the eye of sol itude,shall learn

That h erm ild nature can be terrible.

An d thus we have a set of: characters of simplegrain

,allof them fed by the li fe of Nature

,but all

religious,spiritual

,and free

,—in Mi chael

,the Leech

gatherer,and the Wanderer in “ The Excursion ”

;

while we have Peter Bell, and, in part, the Solitary,on th e other hand, whose personal strength had beenspent in affronting the eye of soli tude .”

The result of almost al l Wordsworth’s universalexperi ence of the influences of Nature acting alon eon man is gathered up into hi s three poems

,

“ Lucy,

”

“ Ruth , and “ The S ong at the Feast of BroughamCastle ” (the last, perhaps, the most perfect eflort ofhis genius) : the first containing his conception ofthe plasti c influences of Nature in moulding us intobeauty ; the second, of her exciting spells for awaken in g the passions ; th e last, of her tranquill i singinfluences on thought. If we take with these the

L K

130 TI IE GENIUS orWORDSWORTH n

poem on the lonely Leech -gatherer, i n which hecontrasts the instinctive j oy and life of Naturc withthe burden of human free-will ; the great “ Ode onImmortality

,

” in which he brings n atm'

al l ife in tocontrast w i th the supernatural, speaking of “ thosehigh instincts before which o ur mortal nature dothtremble like a guilty thing surprised ”

; and finally,

the lines in which he draws to gether Nature,free

wi ll,and God into one of the sublimest poems of our

lang uage, the“ Ode to Duty,

” we have in essencenearly all the truth that Wordsworth anxi ouslygleaned from a life of severe meditation

,though a

very s light epitome indeed of the innumerable livinginfluences from which that truth was learned. If

any one doubts the real affinity between the expressions written on the face of Nature and those humanexpressions which so early interpret themselves toeven infants that to accoun t for them except as anatural language seems impossible

,the exquisi te

poem on “ Lucy ” ought to convert him . The contrast i t illustrates between Wordsworth’s faith inreal emanations from all l iving or unl iving “ muteinsensate ” things

,and the humanised “ spirits ” of

life in the Greek mythological poetry, i s very striking.

Influences com e from all these l iving objects, butpersonified influences never

Th ree years sh e grew in sun and showerThen Nature said

,

‘A lovelier flowerOn earth was never sown.

Th is ch ild I to mysel f wi l l take,Sh e shall be mine, and I w ill makeA lady of my o wn .

Mysel f w ill to my darl ing beBoth law and impulse and w i th meT h e girl, in rock and plain,

132 THE GEN IUS orWORDSWOR’

I‘

H 11

Of the poetry of IVordsw orth,i t cannot

,perhaps

,

ever be said,as Wordsworth truly said of Burns

,

that “ deep in the general heart of man his powersurvi ves ” ; for his i s the poetry of sol itude, and the“ general heart of man cannot bear to be alone .But there are some sol itudes that cannot beevaded

Amid the groves,un der the shadowy h ills

The generations are prepared the pangs,

T h e internal pangs, are ready—the dread strifeOfpoor humanity’s afflicted w i ll

,

and then we leave the greatest poets of the greatworld

,and look to one who was ever glad to gaze

into the deepest depths of his own heart,of Nature

,

and of God. The pangs,the internal pangs

,

” werenot ready for him.

“ Bright,solemn

,and serene

,

”

perhaps he alone,of al l the great men of that day

,

had seen the light of the countenance of God shiningclear into the face of Duty

S tern Lawgiver Y et thou dost wearT h e Godhead’s most benignant grace

Nor know we anyth ing so fai rAs is the sm i le upon thy face.

F lowers laugh before thee in their bedsAnd fragrance in thy footing treads.

Thou dost preserve th e stars from w rongAnd the most ancient Heavens through theeare fresh and stron g.

And th erefore in his poems there wil l ever be aspring of som eth ing even fresher th an poeti c l i fe—a

pure, deep wel l o f so l i tary jo y .

SHELLEY AND HIS POETRYI

IT w ould be untrue to say that Shel ley’s life i s evenas much of a key to his poetry as Coleridge’s orWordswo rth’s or even Byron’s . For Shelley’s poetry isin a different plane from human li fe of any kind, andeven hi s strange story can only be said to throw somelight upon the singularity of his lyrical genius. Sucha light

,however

,i t certainly does shed ; and the lovers

of Sh elley’s poems have every reason to be thankfulto Professo r Dowden for clearing up finally most ofth e puz zles concerning Shelley’s character and career.Professor Dowden has a right to say

,as he does in

the closing sentence of th e preface to his excellentb iography :

“ If I have erred in matters of opinion,

I have tried to set before my reader materials asabimdan t as i t was in my power to exhibit

,by which

to correct my errors.” No doubt where ProfessorDowden condemns Shelley’s conduct, he condemns i tw i th great reluctance

,and is disposed to believe that

Shelley’s own conscience thoroughly acquitted him ofwrong-doing ; while where he sustains him ,

he sustainshim with the utmost warmth but if that be a fault

I Th e Life of Percy B ysshe Shelley . By Edward Dowden ,LL.D. , Professor of English Literature in th e University ofDublin. 2vols. London : Kegan Paul

,Trench

,8L Co .

134 S HELLEY AND HIS POETRY I I I

in a biographer,i t is probably a faul t on the right

s ide. Indeed, Shelley

’s natural disposition was soexceptional

,so far beyond th e range of ordinary

experience,that even those who feel most confident

that Shel ley wandered very far indeed from the righttrack

,may well feel utterly incompetent to determine

wi th the smallest confidence how far i t was a twi stof nature inborn

,and how far voluntary wilfulness

,

which led to that wandering. Hence,in his case

even more certainly than in that of less extraordinarymen

,i t is safer not to assume that the judgment

which we pass from our own point of vi ew on theman’s conduct, i s a fair judgment on one in whosemoral position i t i s simply impossible to place o ur

selves adequately at all .Perhaps there never was a more singular nature

or character than that of which Professor Dowdengives us the history. Even in physical quali tiesShel ley was a strange mixture of paradoxical contrasts. His voice, when i t was low,

was singularlysweet ; but when it rose, i t became so discordant asto be quite repulsive. “ With his grace of beari n g

,

”

says Professor Dowden,was strangely united a

certain awkwardness.” Quotin g, I imagin e, fromHogg, he states that Shelley would “ stumble instepping across the floor of a drawing - room ; hewould trip himself up on a smooth—shaven grass-plot,and he would tumble in the most inconceivablemanner in ascending the commodious

,faci le

,and

well-carpeted staircase of an elegant mansion,so as

to brui se his nose or hi s l ip on the upper steps, or totread upon his hands

,and even occasionally to dis

turb the composure of a well-bred footman on thecontrary

,he would often glide wi th out coll ision

through a crowded assembly, thread w i th unerring

136 SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY m

his difliculty in check ing the o verflowin gs of hisunbounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch .

”

But most strange of al l i s the mixture of that purityof feeling which everybody seems to have discernedin Shel ley, with that concentration of his imaginationon th e most revolting and unnatural subj ects vi siblein much of his poetry

,especially in The Cen ei, in

“ Laon and Cy th n a,” and even in a few of his minor

poems,—poems in which the thril l of lyrical rapture

and the thril l of delight in defying and confoundingthe natural instincts of human nature seem to blendin inextricable confusion . No wonder that Shel leywas by some of his friends called “ the snake

,a

creature for which he felt the warmest regard,i f we

may judge from the frequent references to i t in h ispoems. There was mingled wi th al l his beauty of mind

,

which was certainly unearthly,a vein of unearthly

and ghastly delight in vi olating natural in stincts,as

i l lustrated,for instance

,to take a very mi ld example

,

in the ghoul ish prescription whi ch he w rote out undera household recipe of Mary Godwin’s—a prescriptionin which he drew on hi s imagination for medicaments of horror. S o

,again

,Shelley’s reverence for

the higher disin terestedn css and courage of humanheroism

,and his awe before the beauty and splen

dour o f the intellectual and moral universe,are as

marvellously contrasted wi th the boastful i rreverencethat led to his expulsion from Oxford, to the tenorof hi s notes in “ Queen Mab

,

” and to the vu lgarcaprice of hi s publi cation of athei sm in thetravel lers’ book at Mo n tan vert, as i f he hadcombined in his o w n person the spi ri t of a lovingchi ld and the spirit of a tricksy fi end . Sometimeshi s heart seems to be bowed in awe and love

,

sometimes his irri table dislike of the tradi tions of

I I I SHELLEY AND IIIS POETRY 137

ages seems to burst forth in the shri l l revolt ofpetulant defiance.It i s Professor Dowden’s great meri t that he not

only does not conceal from us these strange paradoxesof Shelley’s nature

,but that he frankly reveals them .

He shows us plainly the grisly thread which i s intertwined with all the beauty of Shelley’s sin gularcharacter

,and gives us even fuller materials than

ever for our conviction that the poet,who was th e

first to originate the phrase which has since become sofamous

,

“ the enthusiasm of humanity,

” combined withthis enthusiasm (which was most genuine and deep),a habit of shallow bravado in the presence of allthose warning instincts in man which our race hasinherited from the teaching of an unanalysed butcumulative experience. His second wife called Shelley at one time her “

elfin knight,

” or her “ airy elf.And really it often seems as i f the elvish element inhim were at least as strong as the human element

,and

much stronger in him than that reverence and shameout of which th e h igher conventions of human societyhave grown , and by which the deeper modesties ofhuman nature have been preserved . There i s inShelley at once a singularly ethereal nature

,and a

singularly unshrinking defiance of everything inhuman emotion whi ch does not at once explain i tsel f.His poetry is as thin and clear as those “ horns ofelflan d faintly blow ing,

” of which Tennyson has toldus, and as shrill and defiant too. None of thesecharacteristics does Professor Dowden in any wayvei l from his readers but

,of course

,he dwells most

,

and quite rightly, on the higher side of Shelley’s

intel lect and character. Nor can I conceive a muchfiner sketch of his thin ethereal poeti c genius thanProfessor Dowden gives us in the study of Shelley’s

138 S IIELLEY AND 1118 POETRY m

m ind at th e time that he composed “ Alastor,his

first really great poem,though I think he finds too

little that i s morbid in i t, and too much that iscahn and clear

With calm and health and freedom from disin tegrat

ing cares,Shel ley’s higher and truer sel f expanded . T h e

poet w ithin h im wakened from th e oppression and th e

trance, and , when he n ow stood erect, h is stature was thatof manhood. The voi ce in wh ich his spi rit uttered itsel fwas no longer a boyish treble or th e broken voice of ayouth it had the ful ness and purity of early adult years

,

w ith some of th e violin’s lyr ic intensity. T h e happinessand calm had

,however

,followed hard upon a season of

pain,and d isappointment

,and melancholy forebod in g.

Already,at twenty-three

, Shelley was d isillusioned ofsome eager and exorb itant hopes ; the first great experiment of h is heart had proved a fai lure h is boy ish ardourfor th e enfranch isement of a people had been w ithoutresult h is l iterary efforts had met w ith l ittle sympathyor recognition an d

,during th e early months of th e year,

h e had felt h o w frail was h is hold on life,an dhad almost

confronted that mystery wh ich l ies beh ind th e vei l ofmortal existence. Therefore i f n ow h e sang

,there must

needs be something of exalted pain and melancholy w isdom m ingled w ith th e rapture of his song. In th e m idstof his vigorous row ing-enj oyment and the aboundinganimal spirits

,of wh ich Peacock tells us

,he had mused

on death,wh ile the stars came o ut above th e lessening

sp ire and the d im graves of Lechlade Churchyard.

Thus solemnised an dsoftened, death ismildAnd terrorless as this serenest night

Here could I hope, like some inquiring childSporting on graves, that death did hide from human

sightSweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleepThat loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.

140 S IIELLEY AND HIS POETRY I I I

m in ded,wh o attempts to exist w ithout human sympathy,

and h e would rebuke th e ever-un satisfied ideal ist in h isow n heart. Y et

,at the same time

,he would exh ibit

th e advantage possessed by such an one over th e w orldling

,blind and torpid for th e very fact that h e is punished

by an avenging fate, and thirsts for love, and d ies becauseh e cannot fin d i t

,constitutes h is purification and redemp

tion ; and as he rests w ith languid head upon th e iviedstone

,gazing westwards at th e great moon

,and about to

resign his being to the universal frame of th in gs,

Hope an d despair,

T he torturers,slept no mortal pain or fear

Marred h is repose’

and he l ies ‘ breathing there at peace and faintly sm iling.

’ Better th is,Shelley w ould say

,than to fatten in a

loveless lethargy,

‘ deluded by no generous error,insti

gated by no sacred thirst of doubtful knowledge,duped

by no illustrious superstition,loving noth ing on th e earth

and cherishing no hopes beyond .

’Such are

,indeed

,

al ready morally dead.

‘Thcy are n eithe r friends, norlovers

,nor fathers

,nor citizens of th e w orld

,nor bene

factors o f their country. Among those wh o attempt toexist w ithout human sympathy, th e pure an d tenderhearted perish through th e intensity an d passion of thei rsearch after its communities

,w hen th e vacancy of their

sp irit suddenly makes itsel f felt. All else,selfish

,bl ind ,

and torp id,are those unforeseeing multitudes, wh o consti

tute,together w ith their o wn

,th e lasting m isery and

lonel iness of th e w orld .

’ ‘Alastor h as been described ashectic and unhealthy in sentiment ; in truth , it was theproduct of cal mand happy hours, and th e mood wh ich itexpresses is o n e of h igh

,sad san ity. Its in lluen cin gs

upon us are l ike those of th e autumnal w ind,— not j oyous,but pure and Spiritual

,en larging th e horizons and reveal

ing to us th e boundaries of hepe and j oy.

”

I f Professor Dowden has missed any thing of grave

I II S IIELLEY AND HIS POETRY 141

importance in hi s estimate of Shelley’s life, i t i s th eimpressiveness of the lesson which that life embodiesagainst those loose Godwinian doctrines concerningmarriage wi th which he identified him self

,and by

which his li fe at every turn was poisoned and spoiled.

His separation from his first wife,which certainly

led to her suicide,and

,perhaps

,though the evidence

i s of extremely dubious character, to her moral ruinas well

,i s now shown to have been entirely due to

Shelley’s complete indifference to the sacredness ofmarriage for though there is no doubt that at onetime (not, indeed, at the time of the separation) hepersuaded himself that Harriet had been unfaithfulto him before the separation, we feel pretty sure thatProfessor Dowden him self regards that after-belief ofGodwin’s and Shelley’s as a complete i llusion, whileHarriet’s pathetic letter to Ho okham before theformal separation took place, seems to prove beyondall question that she was stil l wrapped up in herhusband

,and that a very l ittle effort on Shelley’s

part would have restored entirely the old tendernessbetween them .

But Shelley was not one to make any effort to revive an emotion which he had ceased to feel . Dwellingas he did in 1814 on “ the music of two voicesneither of which was his wife’s

,and “ the light of

o n e sweet sm i le which also was not hers,he was in

no humour to find happiness i n his “ sad and silenthome ” and he held no creed which imposed uponhim as a duty what was not the teaching of impulse

.

The story of hi s fl ight wi th Mary Godwin,and the

cold-blooded letter which he wrote to his w i fe,begging

her to come and reside under hi s friendly pro tectionin their neigh bourhood

,are as striking i llustrations

of the debasing effects of such a creed as his,con


cerning the authority of impulse,as we have ever

seen in connection with a li fe of so much nobi li tyas Shelley’s . And his own lawlessness no doubtfostered

,i f i t did not cause

,the lawlessness of others .

His w i fe’s step - sister,who fled with them to the

Continent in 1814,learned doubtless from his ex

ample to yield to passion without scruple,and thus

arose her disastrous intrigue with Lord Byron, whichrendered i t impossible for her to find a respectablehome except with Shelley

,and which for that reason

overshadowed the happiness of Shelley’s own subsequent li fe

,besides bringing upon it

,in th e constant

troubles and griefs concerning Miss Clairmo n t’s

daughter Allegra,disposed of at the w ill of a pro fli

gate father, a long series of anxieties whi ch did nottend to draw Shelley any closer to his second wife.Yet Shelley could never see in al l these

troubles any shadow of guilt. Southey made himvery angry by suggesting i t. Nay, Shel ley wasso resentful of any suggestion that he had notacted on the purest principles in running awayfrom his wi fe

,that he declared that poor Fanny

Godwin’s suicide, for which he was in no way re

sponsible, caused him far more grief than HarrietShelley’s, for which he was in the fullest senseresponsible

,since in leaving a kind-hearted but weak

woman to live alone and become the sport of resentfulj ealousy and bitter pique

,and that

,too

,with no

relatives in whose goodness and wisdom he himsel fhad the smallest confidence

,he might have fel t per

fectly certain how i t would end . There i s somethingl ike bravado in the boast that Fanny Godwin’s suicidecaused h im bitterer pain than h is w i fe’s—bravadowhich we can hardly help bel ieving to have beenpartly due to the pr icks of conscience . Yet even


We do not mean,of course

,that he ever lost hi s love

for his second wife as he did his love for his first ;he had at least virtue enough to remain fai thful toher in spite of the un dign ified confidences which bepoured out to friends, not the most intimate ortrusted

,concerning her shortcomings. And doubtless

he respected,and in a true sense loved her

,to the

end . But,undoubtedly

,he had in 1821 and 1822

ample opportunities,i f he would only have availed

himself of them,for testing and condemning that

antinomian theory of marriage to which he owed thetragedy of his l ife. Shelley’s experiences seem topresent us w i th as complete a refutation of theshal low theories of Godw in on the relations betweenthe sexes

,as it would be possible to find in actual

li fe . We may say that al l his worst griefs were dueto the lawlessness of love either as il lustrated byhimself or as taught to others by those who taughti t to him

,and that al l his consolations w ere due to

the better instincts which kept him from alwaysfol low ing out the drift of the same teaching to i tslogical results . Two terrible suicides

,one li felong

shame,and several years of painful shrinking from

publi c critici sm,were the direct fruits of those doc

trines . And when Shelley had to remonstrate w i thByron on Byron’s much more deliberate wickedness

,

he must have felt h is authority lessened,i f not ex

tin guish ed, by the knowledge that Byron in hiscy nici sm would regard hi s fri end’s remonstrances asdue rather to prudential than to moral feelings .No one can read Shell ey’s story without feel

ing th at there was a strange capriciousness noton ly in his love , but in his fri endship . He pardoued Hmm indeed

,much too easi ly for conduct

C D ,

which ought,I think

,to have made a permanent

I I I SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY 145

breach betwee n them. But the rapidi ty with whichhe would vibrate between dislike and the utmostwarm th of feeling

,was shown in his relations not

only to women,but to Godw in

,to Peacock, to

Medwin,to Mr. Gisborne , and even to Ho okham

and O llier. Nothing,indeed

,i s stranger than to

find him reproaching the Gisborn cs in the mostcordial fashion with “ cheatin g him by delay ”

in

relation to a promised visit, and then when theyarrive

,reporting to Miss Clairmont that h is own

manners had been gentle but cold,by way of

expressing resentment for the real or fancied injuriesconcerning which he had a few months earl ier expressed him sel f with great violence. It i s not verycold ” to reproach your friends wi th “ cheatingyou by “ delay ” in paying a visi t. There was, sofar as I can judge

,a genuine vein of caprice in

Shelley always obvious enough in his relations withwomen

,and brought out by Professor Dowden’s

story,even in his friendships w ith men .

There was,however

,a real improvement in Shel ley

,

instead of a falling-off,as he grew older. His capr i ce

was less serious,his generosity soberer and more

thoughtful,his political enthusiasms less windy and

bombastic, his nature less i rreverent, his forbearancemore constant

,his sympathy less relaxed and more

self-control led . He wrote to his wife from Ravennathat good impulses had been the cause of far moremischief to him than evi l impulses

,except so far as

she had been the obj ect of them . Nor in this senseof the were good

,

” —for by “ good ”Shelley only

meant “ loving, —need he have made so large anexception as that which excluded his feel ingsfor hi s second wife from the number

,for his first

and greatest sin was due to falling in love with

140 SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY I I I

her. How ever,i n th e latter part of his li fe he

learned to restrain those impulses,which

,though

they were impulses of love,were in no true sense

good,

” much more careful ly than he had restrainedthem in earlier l ife

,and it can hardly be doubted

that he learned even to bel ieve in God as hed rew towards the end. Yet to th e end he wouldtalk of the worst sins as mere errors . For example, his o wn language shows us that h e regardedthe imputation made against him that hi s secondw i fe’s step -sister had been his mistress as the imputation of a mere “ error

,

” and nothing more . He disclaimed it

,but expressed no kind of horror at such

an imputation . To the end,too

,i t must be adm i tted

that i n Shel ley reverence for truthfulness in smal lmatters was w hol ly wanting. He told and recom

mended whi te lies with the utmost freedom .

Professor Dowden’s criticisms on Shel ley’s poetryare always thoughtful and w ise ; but I th ink heattaches too much importance to Shel ley ’s longerpoems

,and too l ittle to the highest of his creations

—those exqui site lyrics in which h is genius wasmost completely embodied For instance he speaksof Goethe’s Faust as inferior in imaginativesplendour to Prometheus Un boun d

,

” whereas Ishould have said that while Faust as a whole i ssplendid

,Prometheus Un bo und as a whole i s both

obscure and weak,and splendid only in individual

elements .In the Prometheus Un bound, the parts are

greater than the whole,—the most lovely passages

far more beautiful out of their context than in i t.It i s in such bursts of song as th e song of the“ S ixth Spi ri t

,

” “ Ah, S ister ! Desolation i s a delicate

thing or the song,

“ Life of life,thy l ips enkindle

,

”

148 SH ELLEY AND His rOE'rn Y m

mysti cs but i t was the characteristi c of some ofShel ley s o w n contemporaries : in philo solmy , ofColeridge in poetry

,of \Vordsw orth . In this sense

,

how ever,mysticism is usual ly the characteris ti c of

a mature,not of a youthful

,mind ; and Shelley

’spoetical mystici sm is

,—in the quick throl) of i ts

pulses,in the flush and glow of i ts hecti c beauty

,

in the thril l of i ts exquisite anguish,and equally

exquisite delirium of imagined bliss,—essential ly and

to the last the mystici sm of intellectual youth . His

poetry i s the poetry of desire. He i s ever the homo (lasideriarum —always th irstin g, always yearning neverpouring forth the strai ns of a thankful satisfaction

,

but either the cravings of an expectant rapture,or

the agony of a severed nerve . This i s the greatd istinction which separates him from the o therpoetical mystics of hi s day. “lo rdsw orth , for instance ,i s always exulting in the ful n ess of nature Shel leyalways chasing its fal ling stars . Wordsworth grateful ly pierces the homely crust o f earth to fin d ther i ch fountains of l ife in the Eternal Mind ; Shelleyfollo w s w i th wi stful eye the fleeting stream of beautyas i t for ever escapes him into the illim itable void .

Hence Shel ley’s great admiration for Goethe’s Faust

as a poem expressive of i ll im i table desires. He says,

in one of his letters to Mr. Gisborne,that “ i t deepens

the glo om ,and augm ents the rapidity of ideas

”

5“ and

yet,

” he adds,

“ the pleasure of sympathising wi themotions known only to few

,although they derive

thei r sole charm from despair, and the scorn of thenarrow good we can attain in our presen t state

,

seem s more than to ease the pain w hich belongs tothem . Perhaps alldiscontent w i th the less (to use aPlato ni c soph ism) supposes the sense of a just claimto the greater, and that we admirers of Faust are

I I I SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY 149

on the right road to Paradise . Such a suppositioni s not more absurd

,and is certainly less demoniacal

,

than that of Wordsworth,where he says

,

This earthWh ich is the w orld of al l of us

,and where

Wefin d our happin ess, or n ot at all.’

As i f,after sixty years’ suffering here

,we were to

be roasted al ive for sixty million more in Hell, orcharitably annihilated by a coup -de-gmcc of the bunglerwho brought us into existence at fi rst.” This passage

,

written not in Shelley’s boyi sh days, but within afew months of his death

,when he was thirty years of

age,brings out with striking force

,in its utter blind

ness to Wordsworth’s meaning,how impossible it was

for the eager-souled poet of unsatisfied desire—thepoet of perpetual flux and reflux, the Heraclitus ofthe poeti c world—to enter into the mind of the poetof intellectual rest and “ lonely rapture . Of courseWordsworth had no such theological meaning asShelley indicates. He merely intended to affirm

,

that i f the springs of infinite joy are not to someextent discoverable in man here

,as he was sure that

th ey were, they can scarcely be inherent in humannature, and can hardly be confidently expected in theworld to come . But i t was so impossible for Shelleyto conceive any fulness of joy in the present world

,

that he supposed Wordsworth to be launching athunderbolt against the school of the Unsatisfied

,

the school who sang with himself,

Norwas there aughtTh e world contains the wh ich he could approve

,

when Wordsworth was in fact only testifying to thespi ri tual opulence of thi s homely earth . The sameextraordinary contrast comes out in two of th e most

150 S HELLEY AND HIS POETRY 11!

beauti ful poems which our lang uage contains—Shelley’s “ Skylark and IVo rdsw o rth ’s “ Skylark . Shelley’s Skylark i s a symbol of illim i table thirst drinking in i ll imitable sweetness

,—an image of that rapture

which no man can ever reach,because it soars so far

from earth,because it i s ever rising with un fiaggin g

wing, despising old delights . Shel ley w i ll not recognise its earthly form or abode at al l i t i s not a birdwhose nest is on the ground it i s a winged desire

,

always rising,aspiring

,singing,

“ l ike an unbodiedjoy

,whose race i s just begun

Hai l to thee,blithe sp irit

,

Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven,or near it

,

Po urest th y full heartI n profuse strains of unpremed itated art.

Higher still , and higher,F rom th e earth thou sprin gest

Like a cloud of fi reT h e blue deep thou w in gest

And singing still dost soar,and soarin g ever sin gest.

In th e golden lightningOf the sunken sun

,

O’erwh ich clouds are brigh t

’nin g,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an unbod ied j oy,whose race is just begun.

”1

Yet even thi s symbol of a thirst ever new, and everseeking to be slaked from sw eeter fountains, throws

1 Mr. Rossetti , in h is edition , adopts Professor Craik’samendment of “

embodied for “unbodied j oy .

” It seems tome amost unauthentic chan ge. Shelley was intending to suggest that th e Skylark represented in its fire an d music th e upward flight of a j o y that hadjust go t rid o fth e fetters of abody .


Shelley’s was a different creed, the creed of longingand of loss

,which sought to spring from earth and to

create i ts ow n heaven,—an enterprise in which i t i snot easy to succeed.

Shelley, then, was essentially the poet of intellectual desire, not of all emotion . The thrill of somefugitive feeling

,which he is either vainly pursuin g

,

or which has just slipped through his faint intellectualgrasp

,gives the keynote to every one of his finest

poems. His wonderful description of th e Hours inthe Prometheus Un bound,—one of the few passagesin which Shelley has found a great subj ect fora painter

,at least for one capable of entering into

him,

-i s a description in fact of the two poeti c attitudes of hi s ow n mind .

The rocks are cloven,and through th e purple night

I see cars drawn by rainbow-w inged steeds,

Wh ich trample the dim w inds in each there standsA w ild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.S ome look behind as fiends pursued them there

,

And yet I see no shapes but the keen starsOthers w ith burn ing eyes lean forth , and drin kWith eager l ips th e w ind of their own speed

,

As if the thing they l oved fled on before,And n ow

,even n ow

,they clasped it. Thei r bright locks

S tream l ike a comet’s flashing hair : they al lSweep onward.

”

As it seems to me, Shel ley himself, in one of hi s

moods of wild-eyed breathless inspiration , “ l’

In

glese malin colico ,” as the poor people called him at

Florence,—leaning passionately forward into the

future or backwards to the past, should be the impersonation of these Spirit chario teers of time . Eager

,

vi sionary,flashing forms

,

“ drinking the wind of theirown spect

,

” they are wonderful impersonations of

m SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY 153

his most characteristi c poetic moods. If we look atany Of the lyrics on which he has set the full stampOf his genius, we find that it images one Of these twoattitudes Of intellect

,-the keen exquisite sense Of

want,gazing wildly forward or w i ldly backward

,but

vainly striving tO close on something which eludesits grasp

T h e desire Of th e moth for the star,

Of the night for th e morrow,

Th e devotion to someth ing afarFrom th e sphere Of o ur sorrow

,

—that i s the true burden Of every song. Sometim esthe gaze i s fixed on the future

,and sometimes on the

past ; sometimes it i s,

Swiftly walk o’er the western wave

,

Spirit OfnightOut of the m isty eastern cave

,

Where all the long and lone dayl igh tThou w o vest dreams Ofj oy and fear

,

Wh ich make thee terrible and dear,

Sw ift be thy flight 1”

sometimes,When th e lamp is sh attered

,

T h e l ight in th e dust l ies deadWhen th e cloud is scattered

,

T h e rainbow’s glory is shed

When the lute is broken,

Sweet tones are remembered not ;When the lips have spoken

,

Loved accents are soon forget

but whether forward or backward gazing,the attitude

Of unsati sfied desire i s always the same,distinguish

i n g Shelley from the many great con temporaries who,

154 SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY 111

like Goethe himsel f,for instance

,—except in Faust

,

where he had set himself to delineate the pangs ofan insatiable heart and intellect

,—Sing out Of the

wealth Of happy possession even more melodiouslythan out Of the gn aw ing ardour Ofdesire. And evenbetween the an imating spiri t Of Faust and thepoetical moods Of Shelley’s poetry there is one verymarked distinction . Faust’s passion i s a hunger forexp erience,—human experience in the largest andmost un iversal sense 3 but the thirst which breathesthrough Shelley is a continual thirst for those raremoments Of tingling veins and flushing soul

,those

instants when the whole frame Of nature and humanl ife seems a transparency for sweet emotion

,which

are but one element in Faust’s pursui t. What th epassages i n Faust were which fascinated Shelleymost intensely he himself may tel l us . Speaking of some fine German etchings of Faust hesays : “ I never perfectly understood the HartzMountain scene un ti l I saw the etching ; and thenMargaret in the summer-house with Faust ! Theartist makes one envy his happiness that he cansketch such things with calmness, which I only daredlOOk upon once

,and which made my brain swim round

only to touch the leaf on the Opposite side OfwhichI knew that i t was figured .

” This i s Of the veryessence Of Shelley . He i s the poet, not Of humanyearning in general , but Of the yearning for thatyouthful ecstasy which bounds l ike fresh life throughevery nerve . He can not be satisfied without a thrillOf his whole soul. He knows nothing Of serene joy .

He thinks the whole universe should be ever thrill ingin every fibre with mysterious tenderness . Thenature Of thi s thirst cannot be better described thanin his own musical words


o ur heart that awakens th e spirits to a dance of breathless rapture

,and brings tears Of mysterious tenderness to

th e eyes , l ik e th e enthusiasm Of patriotic success,or the

voice Of o n e beloved singing to y o u alone. S terne says,

that if he w ere in a desert,he w ould love some cyp ress.

S o soon as this want, or power, is dead, man becomes th eliving sepulchre Of himself

,and what yet survives is the

mere w reck of what he was.”

It is this constant longing to have ever sweetpulsations Of feeling coursing through a transparentorgani sm Of li fe and nature which constitutes the“ lyrical cry

,as Mr. Arnold has SO admirably termed

the distinguishing note Of lyrical poetry,in Shelley’s

poems . S ometimes, after a long strain on the nervesOf intellectual desire, the cry rises almost to a shriek,as

,for instance

,in the closing lines of “ Epipsy

chidio n

Woe is meT h e win ged words on wh i ch my soul would pierceInto th e height Of love’s rare Un iverse

,

Are chain s of lead around its flight OffireI pant

,I S ink, I tremble, I expire !”

An d his most characteristi c poem,

“ Alastor,i s a

mere picture Of a mind pierced w i th sweet susceptibilities, rushing in mad pursui t Of some emptyvision of the night

,that has set those susceptibil i ties

throbbing with liquid fire. “

Q uaerebam quid amarem ,

amans amare,i s the motto that he takes for i t from

St. Aug ustine . O ther lyrical poets write Of whatthey feel

,but Shelley almost uni formly Of what he

wan ts to feel . The source Of his idealism and mysticism l ies in this constant protest against the manifold dross Of an Opaque exi stence, through the thickfilm Of which he could not discern—nay, could not

I ll SHELLEY AND HIS rOE'rn Y 157

well imagine that he discerned—any sweet fountainsOfwarm life .

And Shel ley’s idealism betrays i ts genuineness inthe sorrowl wail

,the even hoarsely discordant note,

which frequently rings through it. A true idealistnecessari ly becomes restless as he leaves the earthand finds that he i s getting into a drearier and colderatmosphere . There is a kind of faith or quietism

,

the very Opposite Of proper idealism,which is some

times confounded w i th it because i t i s always finding,

l ike Platonism,that earth is ful l Of the thoughts Of

God. Shelley thought him self a Platonist, but w i ththe least possible insight into Plato’s true faith . Inthat constant yearning which he fel t for a tinglingthril l Of new intellectual life, there was at times, asthere is in all profound love Of excitement

,a jarring

nerve,which even reflected i tself in his general

demeanour. Hazli tt,keenest Of Observers, describes

him as having the general p hysique Of a fanatic.He had “ a fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, amaggot in his brain

,a hectic flutter in his

speech,which mark out the phi losophic fanatic. He

i s sanguine - complexioned and shrill -voiced .

” Mr.

Hogg, tOO , tel ls us, as Professor Dowden has tOldus, that the voice, which, in poets at least, i s apt todenote some quality profoundly rooted in the character,1 was Often “ of the most cruel intension‘

;

1 Compare Hazlitt’s description Of Coleridge an d VVords~

worth’s v oices, both of them most expressive Of their poeticcharacter. When I got there, ” Hazlitt says, “

th e organ wasplaying th e Hundredth Psalm ; an d when it was don e

,Mr.

Coleridge rose an d gave o ut h is text : ‘ And h e went up intoth e mountain to pray , himself alo n e.’ As h e gave o ut this text,h is voice rose l ike a stream of rich distilled perfumes ; an d

when h e came to th e two last words, which h e pronounced loud,


i t was perpetual and without any remission,—it eat

eoriatect the ears.

” And Shel ley was quite aware Of

this hectic fever in hi s own nature . In On e Of hislatest letters he writes to Mr. Gisborne “ As toreal flesh and blood

,you know that I do not deal in

these articles ; and you might as w el l go to a ginsh Op for a leg Of mutton as expect anything humanor earthly from me .” There were many of h is contemporaries whose poetry had infinitely more in i t Ofmere stimulant than Shelley’s fo r the excitem ent hecraved was Of a highly distilled intellectual kind , astimulant for the finest sensibi l ities—never for th emere senses . What he loves to feel i s a new quiverthrough his soul

,—a quiver Of delicious flame

,i f i t

may be,but a shiver Of horror, i f i t may not. T h e

high treble key Of Shelley’s poetry is sometimes acry Of yearning but sometimes also a cry Of ghastlydread at a Spectre raised by himself. His earlypoem s especially are full of “ wormy horro rs ; andthe loathsomeness Of the incident o n which th e plotOf The Gen et turns, evidently had a d readful fascin atio n for h im. Mr. Hogg tel ls a playful l ittlestory Of Shel ley’s vegetarian days, which reflects thisside Of his nature :

He broke a quantity,often

,indeed

,a surprising

quantity,Of bread into a large basin , and poured boiling

deep,an ddistinct, it seemed to me

,wh o was then y o ung , as if

th e sounds h ad echoed from th e bottom o f th e human heart,an d as if that prayer might hav e floated in solemn Silencethrough th e univ erse.

” Wordsworth , say s th e same closeObserver, sat down an d talked very naturally an d freely , w itha mixture o f clear gush ing accents in h is v oice, a deepguttural intonation, an d a strong tincture of th e Northernburr, like th e crust on wine.

”—From [My First A cquain tan eew ith the Poets.

”


his hymn to Intellectual Beauty , how intimately conn ected in his min d was the first thrill Of his adoration for th e u niversal Beauty with these moods Of

startled and fascinated dread

Wh ile yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and spedThrough many a listening chamber, cave , and ruin,And starl ight w ood

,w ith fearful steps pursuing

Hopes Ofhigh talk w ith th e departed dead .

I called on poisonous names w ith wh ich our youth is

I was not heard , I saw them n o t

When musing deeply on th e lo tOf l ife at that sweet time w hen w inds are w ooin gAl l v ital th ings that wake tO bringNews of buds and blossoming ,Sudden th y shadow fel l on me

I shr'tehert,and claspedmy hands in ecstasy

I vowed that I w ould ded icate my powersT o thee and thine have I not kept th e vo w

With beating heart and streaming eyes even n o w

I cal l th e phantoms of a thousand hoursEach from his voiceless grave : they have

,in visioned

bowersOf stud ious zeal or love’s del ight

,

Outwatched w ith me the envious nightThey know that never j oy i llumed my browUnlinked w ith hope that thou would’st freeTh is w orld from i ts dark slavery

,

That thou,O aw ful LOVELINESS

,

lVo uld’st give whate’er these w ords cannot express.

Awful Lovel iness Shel ley calls this Object of hisadoration and there is

,I suppose

,no doubt that he

ascribed signifi cance to the term,but certainly not

the significance which most men assig n tO i t ; he didnot mean to refer to that bending of the humil iated

I I I SH ELLEY AND HIS POETRY 161

spirit before a holy Power from whom it cravesmuch

,from whom it can compel nothing, that cx

presses to most of us the essence Of“ awe .” The

lovel iness which he calle ( “ awful was one whichhe hoped tO uncover and take by storm,

the aweOnly whetting the force Of his desire— not a personalpower

,but a half-veiled source of anticipated rapture .

Profound awelessness,indeed

,characterises al l Shel

ley’s poetry,o n subj ects both Of human and Of divine

mystery. NO doubt the habi t Of tearing the vei lrudely from all subj ects over which the reverence Ofnature or custom had cast i t

,was pecul iar to the

revolutionary era in which Shelley was born,and it

cannot have been counteracted by either the companion Of his youth or the companion Of his maturity.

His college friend and biographer, Mr. Hogg, seems,by his own account

,tO have acted the part Of a very

conceited Mephistopheles to Shelley’s Faust,mock

ing his enthusiasm and encouraging all his wildestirreverence. Such an influence as i s shown by thefol lowing story—probably a little coloured up byHogg— cannot but have tended to render Shelleyeven less inclined to bow before the Object of others’

worship than he was by nature

Shel ley took me o n e S unday to d ine w ith h is father,

by invitation,at Miller’s hotel

,over Westm inster Bridge.

We breakfasted early,and sall ied forth

,tak ing as usual a

long walk . He told me that h is father w ould behavestrangely, and that I must be prepared for h im and hedescribed h is ord inary behaviour on such occasions. Ithought th e portrait was exaggerated

,and I told h im so

but he assured me that it was not.Shel ley had generally one volume at least in h is

pocket whenever he went o ut to walk. He produced al ittle book , and read various passages from i t aloud. It

L

162 S H ELLEY AND HIS POETRY 111

was an unfavourable an d unfai r criticism on th e Old

Testament—some w ork Of VOltaire’s,if I mistake not

,

wh ich h e had lately picked up on a stall . He found itamusing , an d read many pages al oud to me

,laugh ing

heartily at th e excessive and extravagant rid icule Of th eJew ish nation

,their theocracy

,laws

,and pecul iar usages.

“ We arrived at th e appointed hour Of five at th ehotel , but d inner had been postponed until six. Mr.

Graham,whom I had seen before

,was there. Mr.

Timothy Shel ley received me k indly ; but h e presentlybegan to talk in an Odd unconnected manner ; scold ing,cryin g

,swearing

,and then weeping again ; no doubt h e

went on strangely. What do y ou th ink of my father ? ’Shel ley wh ispered to me.

“ I had my head filled w ith th e book wh ich I hadheard read al oud al l the morning

,and I wh ispered

,in

answer, Oh,he is not y our father. It is th e God of th e

Jew s ; th e Jehovah you have been read ing about !’Shelley was sitting at th e moment

,as he often used to

sit,quite o n the edge Of h is chair. No t on ly did h e

laugh aloud , w ith a w ild demon iacal burst Of laughter,

but he sl ipped from h is seat and fel l on his back at fulllength on the floor.

“ Wh at is th e matter, Bysshe ? Are y o u il l ? Areyou dead 7 Are y o u mad Wh y do y o u laugh ?

It was n o t l ikely that a man who was thus earlyhelped to throw away in one cast the reverence Of

nature for an earthly and a heavenly father, couldhave ever perm itted the mere shrinking Of instinctto deter him from entering in imagination into thearcana Of any subj ect where the stream Of desire ledhim ; and the only wonder is that in later life heshould

,in comparison at least with Byron

,have

shown a spirit of something like reverence and selfrestraint.Shelley’s awelessness of nature curiosity, as

164 S HELLEY AND HIS POETHY m

bound tO what w e may cal l spiritual fan rz'

liarities,

whi ch the Jew s,the lomans

,an d the English have

in common,and in which Greeks an d Frenchmen

always seem to be comparatively deficient,which

Voltaire and Rousseau had almost eradicated fromthe minds Of thei r pupils

,and which i s not very easy

to define,but which we all recognise as existing at

once both in the spiri t Of worship,and in the re

pel ling shame which acts l ike a molecular fo rce tolimit the mutual approaches Of human bei n gs , andto guard the precincts of certai n subj ects from theinvasion even of imagination

,—to which we give this

name Of awe . I t i s flagrantly violated in the an ecdote we have quoted from Mr. Hogg. I t i s besti llustrated

,per

,haps by the spiri t which breathes in

the Old Hebrew tradition Of Jacob’s dream,or that

vision Of Moses which taught him to “ put Off theshoes from h is feet.” Wh en Jacob rises from thesleep in which he had seen the ladder connectingearth and heaven

,he says

,

“ How dreadful i s thi splace ! Behold the Lord was i n this place

,and I

knew i t not. This i s no other than the house Of

God. This i s th e gate Of heaven .

”

Here is thespiri t Of awe, which sees a shadow Of mystery castfrom above even on the colour of a dream . It i s aspiri t which may pass into slavish superstition

,but

which still gives us the true attitude both forworship

,and for adequately appreciating the fitting

reserves Of human character. The Opposite to i t i sthe spirit which i s incited by the very presenceof a vei l to pierce i t

,by a shadow Of power to

brave i t,by a secret recoi l Of nature to overcome it

,

by an in defin able reserve to defy i t. Shelley seemsto have been a shy man ; but, like many shy men ,he seems almost to have revelled in breaking, in


imaginatio n,th rough al l the boundary walls Of

nature,and fo l lowing the wave Of desire into the

penetralia Of li fe,both human and divine. “ Super

stitio n” was his one great foe .

“ Thou tain test allthou lOOk’st upon,

” he said,and forthw ith strove to

banish the attitude of reverence from h is spirit indealing with religious subjects. This was hi s usualstyle '

Gray Power was seatedSafely on her ancestral throneAnd Faith

,the Python undefeated

,

Even to its blood-stained step dragged onHer foul an d w ounded train

,and men

Were trampled on and deceived again.

And so on ad n auseam. Th e same spirit of almostmorbid fascination for anything positively n efas,penetrated into the human subj ects treated by hisimagination . In his delineations Of love

,he i s

always urging on passion to the impossible leap overthe boundaries Ofpersonality itself

T h e fountains Of o ur deepest l ife shall beConfused in passion’s golden purity,”

he sings ; and he can scarcely bear to admit anyvestige Of personal distinction at all

,—beating as i t

were almost franti cally at the barrier between mindand mind

We shal l become th e same, we shall be oneSpirit w ith in tw o frames oh

,wherefore two ?

O n e passion in twin hearts wh ich grows an d grew ,

Till,like tw o meteors Of expand in g flame

,

Those spheres instinct with it become the same,

Touch,m ingle

,are tran sfigured ever still

Burning, yet ever inconsumable

166 S HELLEY AND HIS POETRY m

I n o n e another’s substance find ing foo d,Like fl ames too pure and l igh t and unimbued

,

T O nourish their bright l ives w ith baser prey,

Wh ich point to Heaven and cannot pass awayO n e hope w ith in two w ills

,one w il l beneath

T wo overshadow ing minds , o n e life, one death ,On e Heaven

,o n e Hel l o n e Immortal ity

,

And one annih ilation .

I do not quote thi s as an instance Of th e vio lation Of

natural reserves,Of which I think Shel ley i s O ften

guilty,but to show the force Of the impulse which

led his imagination to violate such reserves,when

once he had ceased to respect them . That eagermind

,rushing breathlessly along the track Of ima

gin ative desire, would have needed much to convincei t that any precincts were inviolable .

Thus far i t would seem that Shelley’s genius wasalmost the Opposite Of mystical

,—that instead Of

halting on the edge Of the spiri tual world,and

bending before i ts mighty mysteries,he di ssipates

,

to his o w n satisfaction at least,a host Of illusions

,

by pursuing w i th frantic eagerness one or two hastytrains Of ardent personal impression

,which he does

not hesitate to spur into a region Of thought farbeyond their legitimate bounds. This i s the spiri tOf an enthusiast, no doubt, but certainly not Of amystic. When he to ld Mr. Hogg that there couldbe “ no entire regeneration Of mankind til l laughterwas put down

,

” he Spoke in the spi ri t not Of themysti c

,but Of the most doctrinaire enthusiasm

,

Of a man who had what seemed to him the mostdefinite notions

,and did not love to hear their

foundation Shaken by irony. And Shelley’s mysticism does certainly arise much more from a refusalto recognise some very large regions Of l i fe and

168 SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY

And feel ing ever—O too muchT h e soft vibration Ofh er touch

,

As i f h er gentle hand,even n ow ,

Lightly trembled on my browAnd thus, although she absent were,Memory gave me al l Of h erThat even Fancy dares to claim .

Her presence had made weak and tameAll passions

,and I l ived al one

I n th e time wh ich i s o ur ow nT h e past and future were forgot

,

As they had been,and would be not.

But soon,the guardian an gel gone

,

T h e daemon reassumed his throneIn my faint heart. I dared not speakMy thoughts but thus d isturbed an d weak

,

I sat and watched the vessels gl ideOver th e ocean bright and w ide

,

Like Sp irit-w inged chariots sentO’

er some serenest element,

For m inistrations strange and farA S i f to some E lysian starSailed for drink to med i cineSuch sweet and b itter pain as m ine.And the w ind that w inged their flightFrom the land came fresh and light

,

And the scent Of sleeping flowers,And th e coolness of the hoursOfdew

,and sweet warmth left by day ,

Was scattered over th e tw inkl ing bay.

And the fisher, w ith h is lamp,And spear

,about the lo w rocks’damp

C rept,and struck th e fish wh ich came

T O w orsh ip the delusive flame.T OO happy they

,whose pleasure sought

Extinguishes al l sense and thoughtOf the regret that pleasure leaves,Destroying l i fe alone

,not peace

I ll

I II SHELLEY AND IIIS POETRY 169

But thi s i s mo re tranqui l than i s usual withShel ley in poem s Of equal beauty. The feeling Of

want whi ch sighs through i t i s less bitter,the effer

vescen ce between the sense Of beauty and the longing for i t i s less vivid ; there i s more Of sti l lreflectiven ess

, Of patient thought,than is quite

characteristi c Of him . Generally,in the more per

fect minor poems,you almost see the angel troubling

the water,

- the very thril l Of in tcllectualised impulse,

- the fixed air Of thought bubbling up through theintermittent springs Of hot desire . Mr. Trelawnyhas given us a very graphi c account Of this

T h e day I found Shel ley in th e pine-forest,h e was

writing verses on a guitar. I p icked up a fragment, butcould only make out the first tw o l ines

‘A riel , to Miranda takeThis slave of music.

’

It was a frightful scraw l ; w ords smeared out with hisfinger, and one upon the other

,over and over in tiers

,

and all run together in most ‘admired d isorder ’ ; itmight have been taken for a sketch of a marsh overgrow nw ith bulrushes

,and the blots for w ild ducks ; such a

dashed-Off daub as sel f-conceited artists mistake for amanifestation Of gen ius. On my Observin g this to h im

,

he answered,

‘When my brain gets heated w ith thought,

it soon boils,and throws Off images and w ords faster than

I can skim them Off. In th e morning,when cooled down

,

o ut of the rude sketch , as you justly call it, I shal lattempt a draw ing.

’

This gives one key to Shelley’s mystici sm . Shelley’s mind was heated through at a much lower comparative temperature, i f I may be al lowed the image,than almost any other English poet’s . I would notsay, as Mr. Emerson has said Of some minor poet

,

170 SHELLEY um ms Pom r

the pro verb“ little pe t sm n ho t forSh elley stands

in the very fmn t rank of Eng lish poets, But sdll

to rapid excitatio n. I w ould rather my , that hisgen ius resembla the water taken to a mo nmain wp,

m ksfls with far less heat—o r in his a se rhat

men’s. Under the in fin en ee of a sentimen t whichwafld at nmet warm th e surfice of o th er po ets

’

hamd as ifumier the spe ll of an arden t pas-ziomis

like hearing a flo w of h o t. tho ught from the lips of

th e mo st-aager pmsuits of human fi ssio n ; and the

passi on, we shall find it partly due to the ideal

also to the habit h e had o f w riting down trains of


It would be impossible to describe th e poi sonoussubtlety of beautiful falsehood wi th more intensi ty ;this enchantress diffuses an atmosphere of kill ing excitemen t, which enters and blights at every pore . Butsti ll the poet fai ls to make the reader understand theintensity of hi s horror, because he does not presenteven a phantom to the mind

,does not give even a

gl impse of the cause,—only of the effect. O n e can

scarcely imagine that the glow of the poet’s o wn

feel ing i s purely ideal in origin but i f i t related toany painful personal experience

,nothing is told us

to betray this. It has,therefore

, all the mysticaleffect of a phantom passion

,the obj ect of i t

,if not

purely ideal, being beyond our View. And the sameis true of the other perso n ificatio n s in this remarkablepoem .

But assuredly no such clue of personal exp erienceruns through some of the most passionate of Shelley’spoems . “ Alastor

,

” for instance, embodies a purelyideal passion

,and yet one so ardent

,that i t draws

the hero,who is an imaginative copy of Shel ley,

across the Balkans, over the steppes of SouthernRussia, i nto a l ittle leaky boat on the Black Sea,where

,using his cloak for a sail , he drives for two

days,w ith hi s hair very naturally turning gray al l

the time ; and having sailed up one of the riversthat flow down from the Caucasus

,he dies i n

.

a spotof apparently impossible geography, in w i ld pursui tof an image presented to him in a dream

,the fascina

tion of which centres i n a pair of visionary eyes

When h is regardWas raised by intense pensiveness

, tw o eyes,T wo starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,And seemed

,w ith their serene and azure sm iles

,

T o beckon h im.

I I I S HELLEY AND HIS POETRY 173

No theory of the eyes can dispel the apparent incommensurabi lity between the cause and the effect.Had Lord Jcfl'

rcy reviewed the poem , he wouldassuredly have passed a very short and rude judgment o n the eyes

,and perhaps on th e poet too .

And yet this i s certainly one of Shelley’s mostcharacteri sti c and most beautiful poem s . It i s aghostly kind of passion that i s described , but theghostly passion throbs as high as ever did that ofman .

The truth seems to be,that Shelley’s mind was

not powerfully exci ted either by the merely spir i tualor by the merely physical world

,either by the

supernatural or by the natural,but by an ideal zone

peculiar to him self,where the uninteresting part

,as

he thought it,of reali ty was purged away

,and the

solemn mystery of unseen power was not yet reached .

His imagination does not seem to have been stron genough to weld together the invisible and visible

,

the spiritual causes and the earthly phenomena,into

a single imaginative whole “ Lift not the paintedveil

,

” he said,

“ which those who live call life,

” even“ though unreal shapes be pictured there . He hadtried to lift i t

,and i t only made him lose his hold

of life,without gaining any hold of unseen reali ties .

A nd this suggests the true sphere of his genius . He

recoiled from the world of living reali ty he had notpenetrated to the world of unseen stren gth ; hisimagination remained suspended between the two

,

wielding a wonderful power over ideal essences,but

neither giving him a strong hold on life nor reachingtheir root in God. His intell ect

,subtle as i t was

,

had no vigorous grasp in i t ; or, i f I may use asomewhat pedanti c expression

,i t had no integrating

power. It was swift, and infinite in ferti lity ; but


the only str ing by which he ever bound his thoughtsfirmly together was continui ty of desire . There wasbut the faintest measure of binding strength in h isthought

,the faintest possible vol i tion in i t. Hen ce

he had no enj oyment at all in reali ty as such . Theren ever was a poet wh o had less sympathy w i th thepre—Raphael i te school of art. Poets

,and artists

,and

thinkers,and politicians

,and theologians

,who hunger

after reali ty, hold, we suppose , that the actual combination of qual ities and substances and personalinfluences

,as God has made them

,contains some

thing much better worth knowing and imaginingaccurately

,than any recast they could effect of thei r

o wn . They bel ieve in the infinite significance ofactual ties . And those who feel this

,as all realists

do usually feel i t,must cherish a certain spirit of

faithful tenacity at the bottom of their minds,a

respect for the mere fact of existence,a w ish to see

good reason before they separate things j oinedtogether by nature and

,perhaps

,they w i l l think

,

by divine law ; a disposition to cl ing to the detailsof experience

,as having at least a presumptive

sacredness ; nay, they feel even a higher love forsuch beauty as is presented to them in the realun iverse

,than for any which is got by the dissolvi ng

and recomposing power of their o w n eclectic ideal ism .

Shelley shows no trace of this feel ing. He i sideal ist to the heart’s core . The root of much ofthe sort of feel ing I have described i s fidelity oftemperament

,and Shel ley had but very little of

this ; he did not instinctively cling to things orpersons as he had seen and known them, simplybecause he had so seen and kn own them . Again ,a good deal more of the same feeling is due toa spiri tual preference for that goodness which has

176 SHELLEY AND In s POETRY m

Nothing could express better the ideal of meltingbeauty ; the beauty which , l ike a rich odour, makesus “ faint

,

” according to Shelley’s own favouri te express1on .

Further again,as I have already said

,Shel ley’s

intel lect and imagination were not of a sort to mas tera complex whole. There was no grip in them . Infin itely subtle they were ; and i f they had had morevolition

,they m ight perhaps have been less subtle ;

but of volition th ey w ere almost destitute . His

imagination was Of one dimension only,—a point of

moving fire generating myriads of beautiful shapes,but never i lluminating anything beyond the singleseries of connected positions which the spark traversed between the moment Oi kindling and themoment of extinction . Hence the far greater perfectio n of his shorter lyri cs

,and the superiority

of The Deuce, which is constituted by one singl eth ri ll of preternatural horror

,to any o ther of his

longer poems . He never holds up either a subj ector a character steadi ly before his mind to examine i tin al l i ts parts ; even The Gen et i s a passion , nota drama

,—the si lver gleam of a winter torrent down

a terrific precipice,leaving a shudder behind

,and no

more .Thus Shelley’s intellectual, moral, and emotional

nature alike made him a pure ideali s t. There wasno moulding

,no subduing, no conquerin g element

in the Beauty he worshipped . It conquered byfascination alone

,not by any power Of character.

There was no inherent strength in his conception ofbeauty. He abstracted i t from the world, instead ofimpressing or imposing i t on the world . His in

tellect had no grappling-irons wherewi th to cl ing tothe existing order of things til l he had exhausted i ts


possibil ities his conscience showed the finest femininequalities of disin terestedn css and even fortitude, butrecoiled abruptly from all aggressive exploits againstthe coarse jumbled evi ls Of the world hi s affectionswere not dumb conservative things

,which fastened

on the forms consecrated by time and usage,but

swift gleams of chameleon-like rapture. His creedon this head he has versified for us

,though he was

perhaps higher than his creed . The passage throwsa considerable light on hi s whole cast Of intellect

I never was attached to that great sectWhose doctrine is

,that each one should select

Out Of the crowd a mistress or a friend,And al l th e rest, though fair and w ise, commendT O cold Obl ivion though it is the codeOfmodern morals, and the beaten roadWhich these poor slaves with weary footsteps treadWho travel to their home among the deadBy the broad highway Of the w orld

,and so

With one chained friend,perhaps a jeal ous foe,

T h e drear iest and the longest j ourney go.True l ove in th is d iffers from gold and clay

,

That to d ivide is not to take awayLove is l ike understand ing

,that grows brigh t

Gazing on many truths ’tis l ike thy l ight

,

Imagination wh ich from earth and sky,

And from the depths Ofhuman fantasy,As from a thousand prisms and m irrors, fi llsThe universe w ith glorious beams

,and kills

Error,the w orm, w ith many a sunl ik e arrow

Ofits reverberated l ightning. NarrowT h e heart that loves

,th e brain that contemplates,

T h e l ife that wears,th e spirit that creates

O n e Object and o n e form,and builds thereby

A sepulchre for its eternity.

”

This is the natural creed of an inconstant imagination .


Rapid change,strung together only by the con

tin uity of a flash of feeling, being thus the law ofShelley’s imagination , all hi s lon ger poems, exceptThe Cen ci

,are very defective in unity. Even

Adonais ” i s only a rainbow of beautiful regret,

ful l of arbi trary though harmonious and deli catecolours ; and the “ Witch of Atlas ” gauges for usthe spontaneous tendencies of Shel ley’s volatile andinconstant imagination when it happened to be entirely free from the spell Of any strong desire

,and

shows us how loose was the texture of his geniuswhen not dominated by such feelings . No otherpoet could make us take the slightest interest in thesubject. The witch i s the impersonation of Shelley’so wn fancy-free imaginati on

,and is said to be the

spirit of love,but exhibits i t only in the shape of

that pale gentleness of di sposition whi ch Shelley sooften confounded with love. She, l ike the poethimsel f

,has storehouses of al l essences of beauty

,

sounds of air,” “ folded in cells of crystal si lence ”

Such as we hear in youth,and think the feeling

Will never d ie yet,ere we are aware

,

The feel ing and the sound are fled and gone,

And th e regret they leave remains alone.”

And then,too

,she has essences of dreams

,swift

,

sweet,and quaint

,

” “ each in his thin sheath l ike aChrysalis and “ odours in a kind of aviary whichare commissioned “ to stir sweet thoughts or sad indestined minds ” ; and even “ l iquors clear and sweet

,

”

—an assortment of agreeable healing influences, thequintessence of a celestial apothecary’s shop withoutany of the unpleasant terrestrial alloys

,—in fact

,al l

the beauties which Shelley had disti l led in thoughtout of this miscel laneous world —and wonderfulatoms of detailed beauty they are, most exquisitely


This interlunar sphere,in which Shelley places

the activi ty of hi s \Vi tch of Atlas, i s th e region withwhich hi s o wn imagination was most familiar

,—the

sphere of ideal beauty lying midway between DivinePower and human life. His mysti ci sm arises qui teas much from his refusal to acknowledge the worldbeyond

,as from his reluctance to meddle with the

coarse details on this side of hi s chosen sphere . His

Witch of Atlas puts forth nothing which can becal led constraining power at all

,—she only removes

friction ; and it was a characteristi c of Shelley’s

mind that he could scarcely conceive either Poweror Government, properly so called, except as pureevi l and tyranny. This alone gives much of th eapparent mystici sm both to his poli tical and hisreligious poems . It i s obvious

,I suppose

,that

politi cs involve a faith in government,religion a

faith in the d ivine 7Vill. Shelley had no such faith .

He believed rather in the abolition of governmentthan in governm ent ; in the divinity of love, perhaps,but love of the thinnest naturalisti c type

,certainly

not in the love of infinite p ower. Hence there areno poems that seem more hazy to our own age thanhis pol itical and religious dreams. In both he i sstriving to delineate something to which ben eficen tpower i s essential

,and he does i t by omitting the

very idea. He paints a mere shadow of Influence ,a white symbol of Acquiescence, thinner and less realthan the W’itch of Atlas herself, and puts the reinsof this headstrong universe into i ts hands. In hispolitical poems

,indeed

,Shelley scarcely takes the

trouble to Sketch even a shadow of governm ent, whilehe carefully erases al l the distinctive features whichgive force and reali ty to the meaning of thew ord


'

T h e loathsome mask h as fallen , th e man remains,S ceptreless

,free

,unc i rcumscribed

,but man

Equal,unclassed

,tribeless

,and nationless

,

Exempt from awe,w orsh ip

,degree

,th e k ing

Over h imsel f, just, gentle, w ise.”

All that i s wanted to his imagi n ation is therej ection of th e tyrannical yoke

,not th e imposition

of a just one . Man would be greater i f sceptreless,free

,equal

,unclassed

,tribeless

,and nationless

,

” thanunder the laws w hich are the growth of history

,and

which reco gnise the actual d istinctions between nationand nation . From the sceptre on the one hand, fromthe vulgar details of national prejudice and pecul iari ties on the other

,his ideal mind alike recoiled .

t cn Shelley was writing his poem of “ Hellas,

Trelaw ny insisted on taking him to see actual Greekso n board the ships at Leghorn

,that he might better

know w hat he was wri ting of. They found thelreek crews “ squatting about the decks in smallknots

,shriekin fr e esticulatin g, smoking, eatin g, andD’ b

gambling,like savages .” ‘Docs this realise your

idea of Hellenism, Sh elley

‘

l’ I said .

‘No ; but i tdoes of Hell

,

’ he replied . The Skipper was opposedto the Greek revolution because it “ i nterruptedtrade .

” “ Come away,

” said Shel ley ; “ there is nota drop of the Old Hellenic blood here . These arenot the men to rekindle the ancient Greek fire theirsouls are exting uished by traffic and superstition .

Come away I had rather not have any more Of myhopes and i llusions mocked by sad reali ties . ” Thisi s a striking picture of the recoi l Of Shelley’s mindfrom the actual men concerning whose political statehe dreamed and poetised .

And of course he neglected to notice not only thevices and faults which render some government


necessary by way of remedy,but also many Virtues

and capacities for li fe in common,which render al l

such government valuable as a concentration of theenergies of a united race . A bstract man might l ive

,

perhaps “ sceptreless,tribeless

,and nationless but

with the actual qual i ties shared by the tribe and thenation the value of th e sceptre begins . O n e caneasi ly understand

,therefore

,the feeling which Shelley

i s said to have expressed to Mr. Hogg : “fith howunconquerable an aversion do I Sh rink from poli ti calarticles in newspapers and reviews ! I have heardpeople talk politics by th e hour, and how I hated i tand them ! I went with my father several times tothe House of Commons

,and what creatures did I see

there ! w hat faces ! what an expression of co un te

nance ! what wretched beings Here he raised hisvoice to a painful pitch with fervid disl ike. “ GoodGod ! what men did we meet about the House

,in

the lobbies and passages and my father was so civi lto al l of them—to animals that I regarded w i thunmitigated disgust ! ” Of course he did : here hefound the stringy fibre of real pol i ti cs

,—pow er in i ts

coarse form,wielding vulgar motives and machinery

—the gristle of government. Shel ley had no bel iefin such government. He wanted to see man tribeless and nationless

,

” follow ing gentle instincts withoutany friction or any yoke.But if Shelley’s poli tical vi ew of men is confusing,

because it ignores the governing power and the needof government in man, his religious view of theworld i s sti ll more so

,from a corresponding hiatus

in hi s Spiritual creed. It i s curious that both inpolitics and in rel igion h e has a tendency to give usfeminine softness as the sovereign power, wherehe will allow us any. In the “ Revolt of Islam,

”

184 S HELLEY AND HIS POETRY I II

T o suffer woes wh ich Hope th inks infinite,

T o forgive w rongs darker than death or night,

T o defy power which seems omnipotent,T o love and bear

,to hope til l Hope creates

F rom i ts o wn w reck th e th ing it contemplatesNeither to change

,nor flatter

,nor repent

,

Th is,l ike thy glory

,Titan

,is to be

Good , great, and j oyous, beautiful and freeThis is alone Life

,Joy

,Empi re

,and Victory .

In thi s fine poem Shelley in real ity puts n o personal power over Jupiter. Tyranny he representsas personal wil l ; but the power that dethronestyranny is a breath

,a Shadow,

nothing. In short,

\Vi l l falls from the throne of the Universe by itsown weight

,and there i s nothing to take i ts place .

To Shel ley all will i s obstructive ; the only beinghe can really worship i s the rich radiant spiri t offeminine loveliness

,through whom alone even

Prometheus can find his rest ; and even for herhe feels not worship

,but “ the desire of the moth

for the star.The characteristics

,then

,of Shel ley’s poeti cal

mysticism seem to me to be the spiri t of unsatisfieddesire which k indles i t, the in tcllectualised characterof that desire

,impregnated as i t i s everywhere with

the fixed air of subtle thought,and yet never domi

mated or control led by that thought,—a consequentawelessness of instinct

,which rushes on i ts way with

a craving whetted by the desultory stirrings of ahungry intellect into the curiosi ty of passion,—an

eclectic idealism which recoils from everything n u

attractive,—a love of beauty, which excludes the

attribute of strength,and includes only passive

virtues,—allculminating in the substi tution of e ither

Time or Nothingness in the place of the power of


God. I do not think that Shelley’s genius, trainedas i t was

,could have taken any other path of de

velopmen t. He received in his earliest days theseverest shock of repulsion from the world as i t was .His whole nature led him to the elaboration ofideal beauties . There was something of his own“ Sensi tive Plant in his mind

,w hich made him start

away from repulsive qual ities,and rendered him

incapable of reconcil ing contradictions,or holding

together with a strong hand the various elements of acomplex problem . Into one S ide of human perfectionhe had a far higher insight than most men of his day,—the passive nobili ty of beautiful instinct and en

durance. But the very idealising tendency whichrepelled him from human politi cs

,repel led him also

from all human creeds,and the very first obj ection

he took to them was to their demand of deferencefor a spiritual King. From all arbitrary authorityhe recoiled

,and n ever apparently conceived the

possibil ity Of authority properly so cal led, and yetnot arbitrary. Hence

,to save his faith in human

nature,he was almost compelled to seat a shadow on

the throne of the Universe . The only marvel i s,

that his imagination sti l l kept a throne of the Un i

verse at all,even for a shadow. His ideal world

was one “ where music and moonlight and feel ingare one

,

” and in such a world apparently no throneor sceptre would be needed . The result of hisidealism

,as of all such idealism

,was

,that he no

where found any true rest for his spirit,S ince he

never came upon any free and immutable will onwhich to lean . The sense of weakness

,of a long

ing to lean somewhere,without recognising any

strength on which to lean,runs through his whole

poems


Y et n o w despair itsel f is m ildEven as th e w inds and waters areI could lie dow n l ike a tired ch i ld

,

And weep away th e life of careWh ieh I have borne

,and yet must bear,

i s a burden that reappears habi tual ly in his poetry .

There i s but one passage in al l Shelley’s exquisitepoetry which rises into pure subl im ity

,—because

power is of the essence of sublimity,and Shel ley had

no true sense of power. But one does,and that is

,

characteristical ly enough,the passage in which he

puts into Beatrice Cenci’s heart the sudden doubtlest the spiri tual world be wi thout God after al l

c et Heaven,forgive weak thoughts ! If there

should beNO God

,no Heaven

,no Earth

,in th e void world

,

T h e w ide,gray

,lampless

,deep

,unpeopled world

A sublimer line was scarcely ever written . It

casts just a gleam on the infinite horror of an emptyeternity

,and then drops the vei l again

,l eaving the

in fin itude of weakness and emptiness intensified intoa sublimity. Yet here is the true root of Shelley’srestlessness—the suspicion that when desire fai ls

,the

obj ect of the heart’s desire may fail with it,

-that theOn e who “ remains i s a thinner

,fainter

,less l iving

thing than the “ many ” which “ change and pass,

—that there i s nothing substantial at the heart ofthe universe

,—no Will behind the fleeting beauty

,

no strength of self-sacrifice behind the melting love .Shel ley was no Atheist. His Pantheism was sincere

,

and at times no doubt a kind of faith to him ; butbelief in a universal essence gave no sol idity to theorder of the world

,no firm law to the flux and re

flux o i human desire, had no power to accept the

MR . BROWN ING 1

MR . BROWN I NG, though commanding a Wider intellectual sw eep of view than almost any artist of ourday

,i s hardly as yet a poet of European celebrity

,

though he is the prime favourite of an intel lectualsect. This arises not from any sectarian tendencyin his poetry

,—nothing could be more catholic

,—but

from the general absence of that atmosphere offascination about his verse

,that melody of mind and

speech,which i s the main attraction of poetry to ordi

nary men,and but for which

,imaginative power

,

however great,would scarcely arrest their attention

at al l . Coleridge once defined poetry—very badly Iconceive—as “ that species of composition which isopposed to works of science, by proposing for i tsimmediate Object pleasure, not truth ; and from al lother species (having this obj ect in common with i t)i t i s discriminated by proposing to i tself such delightfrom the whole as is compatible with a distinct gratificatio n from each component part.

” Now Coleridgecertainly did not in tend to exclude Mr. Browning’sworks by anticipation from all claim to th e ti tle of

1 The Poetical Works of R o bert Brown ing. 3 v ols. Thirdedition. Chapman 8: Hall. T h e Rin g an d the B o ok . 4 vols.

Smith Elder,1869.

xv MR. BROWNI NG 189

poem s ; i f he had l ived to read Mr. Browning,Coleridge’s profound

,ri ch

,and catholic imaginatio n

would scarcely have failed to appreciate fully thepower and insight of the younger poet ; but no defin itio n of a poem could have been contrived moreingeniously calculated to exclude Mr. Browning’sworks from that class of composition . Most of Mr.

Browning’s poem s might be described precisely “ asproposing for their immediale object truth, not pleasure

,and as aiming at such a satisfaction from the

whole as is by no means compatible w ith any verydistinct gratification from each component part.

” Inother words

,Mr. Browning’s poem s, though , when

clearly apprehended,they seldom fail to give that

higher kind of imaginative satisfaction which is oneof the most en viable intellectual states

,give a very

moderate amount of immediate sensitive pleasure.There is l ittle of the thri l l through the brain

,of the

vibrating melodious sweetness,of the tranquillising

harmony,of the atmosphere of loveliness

,which one

usually associates with the highest powers of poeticalexpression . And then

,as to the relation of the

whole to the part,which i s Coleridge’s second test of

a poem,Mr. Browning’s poems are not so organised

that the parts give you any high gratifi cation til lyou catch a view of his whole .Coleridge says

,that “ the reader should be carried

forward,not merely or chiefly by the mechanical

impulse of curiosity,or by a restless desire to arrive

at the solution , but by the pleasurable activity ofthe mind, excited by the attractions of the journeyi tself. Like the motion of a serpent

,which the

Egyptians made the emblem of intellectual power,

or l ike the path of sound through the air,at every

step he (the poet) pauses and half recedes, and from

190 MR. BROWNING [V

the retrogressive movement col lects the force whichagain carries him onward .

” Nothing could be fartherfrom describing the ordinary movement of Mr.

Browning’s poems . Instead of fascinating you withhis harmony of movement, and gradually in sin uating the spirit of the poem into your imagination

,

Mr. Browning rushes upon you with a sort of intellectual douche, half stuns you w i th the abruptnessof the shock

,repeats the application in a multitude

of sw i ft various j ets from unexpected points of thecompass

,and leaves you at last giddy and won

dering where you are,but with a vague sense that

,

were you but properly prepared beforehand,you

would discern a real unity and power i n thi s intellectual water -spout

,though its first descent only

drenched and bew ildered your imagination . Takethe fol lowing short poem for example—one of reallymarvellous force

,indeed of true genius

,but which I

purposely decline to present wi th any further introduction than Mr. Browning has himself accorded—inorder to i llustrate this characteristic of his

,that the

whole must be fairly grasped before any of the“ component parts ” are intel ligible ; the componentparts

,indeed

,being little more than diminutive

wholes,too diminutive in scale to be clearly legible

unti l you have seen the whole, whence you goback to the component parts again with a key totheir meaning that at last gradually deciphersthem

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER.

Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence

Water your damned flo wer-pots,do

Ifhate k illed men,Brother Lawrence,

God’s blood,would not m ine k il l y o u

192 MR. BROWN I NG xv

Oh,those melons Ifh e

’s able

lVe’

re to have a feast so ni ceO n e goes to th e Abbot’s table,All of us get each a slice .

How go o n your flowers ? None doubleNo t one fruit-sort can you spy

S trange —And I, too, at such trouble,Keep them close-nipped on the sly

There’s a great text in Galatians,

Once you trip o n i t entailsTwenty-nine d istinct damnations

,

On e sure, i f another failsIf I trip him just a-dying

,

Sure of Heaven as sure as can be,

Spin h im round and send h im flyingOff to Hell

,a Manichee

Or,my scrofulous F rench novelOn gray paper w ith blunt type

S imply glance at it, y o u grovel

Hand and foot in Belial’s gripeIf I double dow n i ts pagesAt the w oeful sixteenth print

,

W hen he gathers his greengages,

Ope a sieve and sl ip i t in’t ?

Or,there’s Satan —one m ight venturePledge one’s soul to h im

, yet leaveSuch a flaw in the indentureAs h e’d m iss till

,past retrieve,

Blasted lay that rose-acaciaWe’re so proud of Hy, Z y, Hin e

’S t, there’s Vespers Plend gratia,A ve

,Virgo ! Gr-r-r—yo u sw ine !

t en we have caught the idea that Mr. Brownin gis painting the jealous disgust and tricky spite fel tby a passionate, sensual, self-indulging, superstitious

IV MR. BROWNING 193

monk for the pale,blameless, vegetating, contented

sort of saint who takes kindly to gardening,and

“ talks crops at the monastery table,we see how

living and strongly conceived the picture is but th ewording

,though v igorous, and one verse at least

(that concerning San ch icha) highly picturesque, i sneither melodious nor even very lucid for its purpose and the parts

,as I said

,are dim inished images

of the whole,and hence enigmatic ti l l the whole has

been two or three times read . Yet the average ofthe versificatio n , and the verbal efiieien ey generally,in this l i ttle poem

,are in power a good deal above

those of most of the pieces called “ lyri cal,

” chieflybecause i t i s lyrical only in name

,and does not

attempt to be in form much more than it really is inessence

,a semi-dramatic fragment.

Mr. Browning’s deficiency in the power of sensuousexpression

,and in the art of giving an independent

interest and attractiveness to the component parts ofhis poems

,as distinguished from the whole

,i s of

course most strikingly seen in the deficiencies of hi smetre and rhyme

,which are the natural gauge of

poeti c expressiveness and harmony of poetic strueture . A metre that does not fit the movement of thethought gives the painful sense of a man rattling ina case of armour quite too large for him and rhymethat is only rhyme, and that does not bring with theregular beat of the rhythm something of n ew power tothe sense

,annoys with a sense of something artificial

,

ingenuity at best,interfering with the imaginative

effect instead of heightening i t. Mr. Browning i snever happy in his lyrical metres

,and his rhymes

have the careless wilful air of being cast off at random by one whom the half-whimsi cal effect of rhymestimulates and entertains . His versificatio n i s almost

L O

194 MR. BROWNING IV

always best where i t i s n earest to prose,where

,as in

the dramas, th e metre i s blank verse wi thout rhyme .

For example,where else is there in Mr. Brow ning

,

for what comes n ear to lyric fire,anything like that

apostrophe which ends the prologue to The Rin gand the B o ok, the first couplet of which has moreof the true ring of inspiration than anything else inthe whole range of his poems though in th e closingl ines he re-passes into that over-compressed thoughtwhich makes him at times so obscure

O lyric Love half-angel and half-bird ,And all a wonder and a wild desire

,

Boldest of hearts that ever braved th e sun,

Took sanctuary w ith in th e holier blue,

And san g a k indred soul o ut to h is face,

t human at the red-ripe of th e heartWhen the fi rst summons from th e darklin g earthReached thee am id th y chambers, blanched their blue,And bared them of th e glory—to drop dow n

,

To toil for man,to suffer or to die

,

This i s the same voice can thy soul know change ?Hail

,then

,and hearken from the realms of help

Never may I commence my song,my due

T o God wh o best taught song by gift of thee,Except w ith bent head and beseech ing handThat still

,desp ite the distance an d th e dark ,

What was,again may be some interchange

Ofgrace, some splendour once thy very though t,S ome benedi ction anciently thy smileNever conclude

,but raising hand and head

Th ither where eyes,that cannot reach yet yearn

For al l h ope,al l sustainment

,all reward ,

Thei r utmost up and o n ,—se blessing back

In those thy realms of hel p, that heaven th y home,S ome wh iteness wh ich , I judge, thy face makes proud,S ome wanness where, I th ink , thy foot may fall !

”

196 MR . BROWNING w

show,by the rasping and the fri ction of the style

,

that they have somehow got embodi ed in an unsui table poeti c form . T h e truth is

,I think

,that Mr.

Browning combines in his own person th e half of agreat dramatist wi th a large capacity for pure intellectual thought

,but has li ttle of that liability to

flashes of emotion tinging his whole creative powerwhich generates true lyric poetry. His mind seldomor never seems to fall under the dominion of a singlesentiment or passion

,without which poetry cannot

properly be lyri c. He can throw himsel f dramatically into such a mood

,but that has an altogether

different effect. A semi-dramatic picture and interpretatio n of emotion he can always give but thenthis has not the true lyri cal spontaneity

,ease

,single

ness of effect ; for almost always (usually even insoliloquies) i t has direct relation to the minds andactions of others .Mr. Browning is a dramatic thin ker, -general ly

thinking wi thin the imaginative fetters of monologue,

even when not throwing his thoughts into that external form ; writing with a Vi ew to a resistingmedium of thought or feeling foreign to that whichhe i s expressing at the moment. You feel that heinvariably contemplates some other phase of character

,

against which his thought has to justify i tself,or

into the heart of which i t has to force an entrance.He i s a great imaginative apologist, rather thaneither a lyric or dramati c poet. A genuine lyri c i snot written under the sense of external limits

,and

with direct reference to the presence of some otherform of thought or character. Lyrical poetry is “ alaw unto i tself

,

” defined by i ts own nature,but with

out defined end or purpose, falling into shapes dueonly to the inward harmony of the mind in which i t

iv MR. BROWN ING 197

originates,and essentially free from the control of

any immediate foreign in fluence . A lyric i s completein itself

,and should justify i tself by the perfect indi

vidual organisation of i ts versificatio n .

t y , then , i t may well be asked , does a mindwhich delights so much in these interpretations ofcharacter

,ever feel tempted to adopt the lyr i c form ?

The answ er I believe to be because Mr. Browning isonly half a dramatist an intellectual apologist forthe dramatic part of li fe rather than a dramatisthis dramatic powers being controlled entirely byspeculative interests

,and never hurryin g o n his imagi

nation deep into the play of those practical forcesw hich consti tute the life of a great drama. He doesnot enter into character as a prelude to the excitement of a confl ict

,but only describes the confl i ct

in order to i llustrate the character. He conceivesmen in their relation to each other

,and in mental

col lision with each other ; but, after all, he does notcare which way the battle goes

,except so far as that

is involved in his interpretation . There i s no n arrative force in him at all . He hardly enters into thestory

,and even in his dramas—even in The Rin g

an d the B o ole— evades a plot as far as he possiblycan . He has the keenest of all eyes for every qualify in g circumstance which alters the point of view ofeach age and each individual

,-but he i s never really

dramatic, for we never lose sight of the critical eyeof the poet himself

,who discriminates all these dif

feren t shades of thought,and tosses them o ff wi th a

hardness of outline,and sometimes a touch of intel

lectual cari cature,or a sharp sarcasm

,that could not

possibly have proceeded from the in side of the situation he is painting for us

,that could only have pre

ceeded from one outside it,but looking (very keenly)

198 MR. BRO\VNING lv

in to i t. He paints w i th w onde rful sw i ftness andbri l l iancy

,but also n ith a certain wil ful carelessness

and singular i ty,w i th some of the qual ities show n in

old David Cox’s fine water-colour sketches,—and w i th

a singular contempt for sw eetness and finish of styl e.In ferti lity of intellectual interests there i s no poetryanywhere l ike Mr. Browning’s in the br i ll iancy ofhis descriptions of character he has no rival but forbeauty of form he seems to me to have almost a disl ike .

The consequence is,that he i s constantly tempted

to threw his dramatic conceptions into a form whichrids him altogether of the necessity for a plot. An d

in order to disgui se more efi’

ectually the fragmentarycharacter of these pi eces torn from their dramaticconnection

,they are frequently forced into an arti

ficialmould of lyrical shape . Yet,as they are really

apologetic monologues addressed to a visionary buthalf-indicated auditor

,the lyrical metres and rhymes

are often the most awkward of artificial accompan iments

,which

,instead of setting them to a soft

melody,give them the easy

,fam i liar

,often jaunty

recitative,which ex presses a lively external cri tici sm .

A very short extract w il l show what I mean I takei t from a poem of fine conception

,The Grammarian’s

Funeral the aim of which is to bring out the stron gimplici t faith in an eternal career which there mustbe in any man who devotes thi s life wholly to thepreliminary to il of mastering the rudiments of language

Was it not great Did not h e throw on God(He loves th e burthen)

God’s task to make th e heavenly periodPerfect th e earthen

Did not h e mag ni fy th e m ind, show clearJust what it allmeant ?

200 MR. BROWN ING iv

jarring metre and j ingling rhymes,there Mr. Brow n

ing is attempting to disguise sharp or sympatheti ccriticisms on character in the flowing forms of lyri calmelody

,—to disguise a speech in a song

,to hide the

tight garment of apologetic monologue,by throw ing

over i t the easy undress of spontaneous feel ing—inshort

,to give the effect of “ wandering at i ts own

sweet w i l l to a stream of thought which is stronglyand pointedly directed

,through a sort of intellectual

hose, on a specific obj ect. Here, for instance , i s ayoung lady complaining of her lover for ceasing tocare for her

,because she had allowed him to see her

love for him too plainly . Sh e gives expression to avery clever criti cism and complaint

,but there is no

music in her pain and the attempt to put i t into alyrical form results in a funny compromise betweenthe beat of wings and a firm step

,a form which i s

rhetorical without being passionate, and critical without being calm

Never any moreWhile I l ive

,

Need I hope to see hi s faceAs before.

Once h is love grown ch ill,Mine may strive

Bitterly we re-embrace,

S ingle still.

Was it someth ing said,

S omething done,

Vexed him ? was it touch of hand ,Turn of head 7

Strange that very wayLove begun

I as l ittle understandLove’s decay .

IV MR. BROWN ING 20 1

When I sewed or drew ,

I recal lHow h e l ooked as if I sung

,

—Sweetly too .

If I spoke a w ord,

First of al lUp his cheek th e colour sprung,Then h e h eard .

S itting by my side,

At my feet,S o he breathed th e air I breathed

,

SatisfiedI,too

,at love’s brim

Touched th e sweetI w ould die i f death bequeathedSweet to h im.

Speak , I love thee bestHe exclaimed .

Let thy love my o wn foretell,

’

I confessedC lasp my heart on th ineNow unblamed

,

S ince upon th y soul as wellHangeth m ine

Was it w rong to own ,

Being truthWh y should al l the givin g proveHis al one ?

I had wealth and ease,

Beauty,youth

,

S ince my l over gave me love,

I gave these,

”etc.

This marked genius of Mr. Browning for interpretin g (in his own language however) character inp ositio n

—that is,in its most characteristic attitude

202 MR . BROWN ING w

towards the rest o f th e world—i s pro bably the secretnot only o f his lyrical faihu es

,but o f his generally

defective powers of poetical expression ; for i t implies a purely intel lectual basis for such dramaticpower as he has

,and suggests that Mr. Browning is

rather a highly—intellectual interpreter of action,

throw ing himself into a n ew part,and feeling i ts

characteristi c points,as a good rider just feels his

horse’s mouth with the bit— or,to use a better

image,perhaps

,throwing out all his nervous percep

tion into th e defining outline and moral profi le of hispart

,as a bl ind man wi l l finger the contour of a face

that is dear to him,to secure hi s image of the char

acteristic l ines,— rather than that he works, likeShakespeare or Goethe, by intense sympathy fromwithin

,leav ing the final outline to crystallise as it

may,according to th e internal law and nature of the

life thus germinating in his imagination .

And no doubt the basis of Mr. Brow ning’s wholegenius i s keenly intellectual

,—not meditatively in

tellectual, but, on the contrary, observingly, definin gly , speculatively intellectual,—o f which we maysee one great proof in the usually far superior character of his masculine to his feminine sketches

,

of his “ men ” to his “ women,

” though I mustexcept here the saint of The Rin g and the B ook.

Educated men ’s characters are naturally in p osition ,and most vigorous masculine characters of any kindhave a defined bearing on the rest of the world

,a

characteristic attitude,a personal latitude and longi

tude on the map of human affairs,whi ch an intellect

ual eye can seize and mark out at once . But i t i snot so usually with women’s characters . They arebest expressed not by attitude and outline

,but by

essence and indefinite to n e. As an odour expresses

20 4 MR. BROWN ING Iv

his “ spirit’s arbitress,magnifi cent in sin but the

picture i s painfully inflamed, an d though it impressesone as true

,i t i s because

,under such exceptional

circum stances, the pronounced attitude which Mr.

Browning loves to draw is to be found even moresharply defined in the passionate woman

,fearful that

the guilt may alienate love,than in the most mas

culine of men . And no one can m istake the peculiarabrupt Brown in gite style in which O ttima, like allMr. Browning’s characters, phrases her monologue :

Otti. “ Well,then

,I l ove y o u better n o w than ever,

And best (look at me wh ile I speak to y o u)Best for th e crime nor do I grieve

,in truth

,

This mask , th is simulated ignorance,This affectation of simpl icity

,

Fal ls o ff o ur crime th is naked crime of oursMay not, n ow ,

be looked over look i t down,then

Great ? let it be great but th e j oys it brought,Pay they or no its price ? C ome they or i tSpeak not T h e Past, would y o u give up th e PastSuch as it is

,pleasure and crime together

G ive up that noon I owned my love for you iT h e garden’s silence even th e single beePersisting in h is toil

,suddenly stopt

And where h e h id, y o u only could surm ise

By some campanula’s chal ice set a-sw in g

Who stammered Y es,I love you ’i”

It i s essentially an intellectual picture ; a passionateattitude

,with i ts swollen veins and starting muscles

,

delineated crisply by an abruptly intellectual mind .

An d of the only other feminine pictm'

es that strikeme at all

,

“ Pompilia excepted,of whom I must

speak separately,—those

,namely, i n the fine piece

called “ In a Balcony,

”-it may be equally said that

though they are not,perhaps, overdrawn, they are

w MR. BROWNING 205

drawn on the stretch,and not in the way in which

women most natural ly express themselves . Even“ I’ompilia

” i s in tcllectualised and over - sharplydefined in the monologue in which her criti c makesher speak. Mr. Browning’s power i s always mostnaturally expended in draw ing masculine charactersin sharply defined relations to the rest of the world.

And,again

,this defective

,because too intellectual,

basis of Mr. Brown ing’s powers of expression betraysitself clearly in his choice of language. In thatstrange freak of creative self-will

,Sordello

,—which

,

had i t not received special panegyrics as wel l aselaborate critici sms from members of the BrowningSociety, I should have supposed that no man orwoman except the author had ever understood

,

there are one or two flashes of intelligible thoughtwhich give one some insight into Mr. Browning’so w n troubles . Sordello is an ambitious poet of theancient Troubadour type and times

,divided with

him self whether he should try to influence the worlddirectly or only through his song. And it is thepsychological history of this confl i ct which Mr.

Browning apparently wishes to describe . On e ofSordello

’

s first difficulties,during his poetic period

,

i n getting at mankind,i s language. He i s oppressed

apparently (like our Lake poets of the end of thelast century) by the unreal character of the poeticphraseology

,and he leaves o ff imagining for a season

,

to see i f he can make something more effective ofthe medium through which his imaginations must bepresented to the world

“ He left imagining, to try the stuffThat held the imaged th ing

,and—let it writhe

Never so fiercely—scarcely allowed a titheT o reach the l ight

,—h is Language.”

206 MR. BROWNING lv

Certainly Sordello was quite righ t in supposing thatthis was the great obstacle to hi s fame

,i f we have

any measru e of his powers of expression in thispoem ; for a more completely opaque medium thanthe wording either of hi s own thoughts or of theauthor’s thoughts about him

,Talley rand himself

would have failed to invent. However,i t i s some

thing that Sordel lo so keenly felt the obscurity,while

the attempt to remedy it, and the reason of the failure,are instructive

How he soughtT h e cause, conceived a cure, and slow re-wroughtThat Language

,—welding words into the crude

Mass from the n ew speech round h im,till a rude

Armour was hammered o ut, in time to beApproved beyond th e Roman panoplyMelted to make it,— boots not. Th is obtainedWith some ado

,no obstacle remained

T o using it accordingly h e tookAn action w ith its actors

,quite forsook

H imsel f to l ive in each , returned anonWith th e result—a creature, and, by o n e

And o n e,proceeded leisurely to equip

Its limbs in harness of his w orkmansh ip.

‘Accompl ished ! Listen , Mantuans !’ F ond essay !Piece after piece that armour broke away

,

Because perceptions whole,l ike that h e sought

To cl othe,reject so pure a w ork of thought

As language thought may take perception’s place,

But hardly co -exist in any case,

Being its mere presentment—of th e wholeBy parts, th e simultaneous and th e soleBy th e successive and th e many.

Whether this expresses S ordello ’s process of poeticalconstruction or not

,I strongly suspect that i t ex

presses Mr. Browning’s . To cast his language,l ike

208 MR. BROWN ING iv

a thought. Thus,to open Mr. Carlyle at random :

“ To such length can transcendental moonshine, castby some morbidly radiating Coleridge into the chaosof a fermenting l ife

,act magical ly there, and produce

divu lsions and convulsions and diseased developments .S o dark and abstruse, w i thout lamp or authenti cfin ger

-post,i s the course of pious genius towards the

eternal kingdoms grown .

”Here we have the rather

ordinary thought that the “ high ph ilo sol)h y of agenius like Coleridge’s i s able to cast a charm overminds in difficul ty and doubt, and persuade themthis way and that, when they have no really safeguide to look to

,

”— i lluminated, l ike the old missals,by a l ittle seri es of images, in which vi sion i s madethe instrument for sharply emphasising thought.Here is a style crowded with stress, and making thesame kind of fatiguing impression on the mind whicha handwriting sloped the wrong way makes on theeye

,—an impression of strain and effort. It i s

therefore apt to be obscure, and certain not to bepoetical

,for one and the same reason,—namely, that

over - emphasis i s both exhausting and unnatural ;and while an exhausted attention is necessari ly en

veloped by a mist of obscurity, emphasis too crowdedfor nature misses the undertones and the neutraltints which are absolutely essential to the harmonyof poetry.

Now,of course

,I do not mean to say that Mr.

Browning’s style is the i lluminated style of Mr.

Carlyle. He is too near a poet for such dispro

portion of the picturesque, such fatigu ing gold-andcrimson . But i t i s true that hi s style also i selaborately fatiguing and destitute of lower tintsand under-tones

,and that when he i s pictorial, as he

very often i s,he crowds and emphasises the striking

Iv MR. BROWN ING 209

points,so as to miss the harmony of po etry. It

gives one the impression of a v igilant intellect notingal l the principal features of the scene acutely

,and

concentrating the perceptive faculties so completelyin the gaze of attention as to miss those numberlessundergrowths of half-dreamy observation which constitute

,perhaps

,the chief charm of poetic insight.

Mr. Browning’s styl e is too keen, too restless, to ostartling—his soul i s too much in his eyes, his m indtoo devoid of that lazy receptiveness which fi lls inand softens and warms the effect of th e whole

,

‘—fora true poetic style . Compare

,for instance

,his purely

descriptive talent, which i s highly picturesque , butnot poetical

,wi th Tennyson . Thus Mr. Browning

describes a lunar rainbow

F or 10,what th ink y ou ? suddenly

T h e rain and the w ind ceased, and the skyReceived at once th e full fruitionOf th e moon’s consummate apparition.

T he black cloud-barricade was riven,

Ruined beneath h er feet,and driven

Deep in th e West wh ile,bare and breathless

,

North and S outh and East lay readyF or a glorious Thing

,that

,dauntless

,deathless,

Sprang across them ,and stood steady.

’Twas a moon-rainbow,vast and perfect

,

From heaven to heaven extendin g,perfect

As th e mother-moon’s sel f,ful l in face.

I t rose, d istinctly at th e baseWith its seven proper colours chorded

,

Which stil l,in th e rising, were compressed ,

Until at last they coalesced,

And supreme the spectral creature lordedIn a triumph of wh itest wh ite

,

Above wh ich intervened th e night.L P

210 MR . BROWN I NG IV

But above n igh t too,l ike only th e next,

T h e second of a w ondrous sequence,

Reach in g in rare and rarer frequence ,Ti ll th e heaven of heavens w ere circumflext,Another rainbow rose

,a m ightier,

Fainter , flush ier, and fligh tier,Rapture dy ing along its vergeOh , whose foot shal l I see emerge,WHOSE , from th e straining topmost dark

,

On to th e keystone of that are iThis is powerful

,keen-eyed

,piercing—too much of

all these for the harmony of poetry. The style is tothe poetic style like the secondary rainbow to theprimary

,

“ fainter,flush ier

,and fligh tier

“ fainter,

”

because the colours are w ashed on with a thin has tyhand “ flush ier,

” because they come and go with acertain flush of attentive perception that subsidesback into pure thought ; and “ fligh tier,

” from theabrupt breathless air of the whole m etre . The senseof rest which a sti ll lunar rainbow after a stormshould produce on the heart is entirely absent.Tennyson also is one of the greatest of poeticpainters ; but how much of the stil l undergrow thof perception

,or rather reception

,which does not

,

nay cannot,come if you watch for it

, which steal sinto the breedin g mind when the attention is relaxedand the mind’s eye half shut

,i s there in every frag

ment of his descriptions ! Take a fragment from“ In Memoriam

,

” for instance

Doors,where my heart was used to beat

S o quickly, not as o n e that weepsI come once more th e city sleeps

I smel l th e meadow in th e street.

I hear a ch irp of bi rds I see

Betw ixt th e black fronts lo ng withdrawn

212 MR . n uownme lV

singulari ty of its attitude as by the suddenness of i tsappearance . He often seem s to reject purpo sely th eshading and the moral atmosphere which make thegrimmest subj ects seem natural when they are givenin connection w i th al l the conditions of their h istoryand origin

,his obj ect being to make you see the

w onder of the world,rather than i ts harmony

,or the

context which,partly at least

,explains i t.

Take for instance the fin e sto ry,remindin g us o f

Emily Bronte and the figu res in “ q th erin g Heights ,”

of the father and son, Halbert and Ho b , —two wild

North—England savages who agreed to live and growlat each other

,til l at last the passion in them broke

loose in the scene described in the follow ing idyl,

where Mr. Browning’s style seems expressly made toreflect the passing ferocity of the Yorkshire boors

Here is a th in g that happened . Like w ild beasts whelped,

for den,

In a w ild part of North England , there l ived once tw ow ild men

Inhabiting o n e homestead , neither a hovel nor h ut,Time o ut of m ind their birthright father and so n

,these

—butSuch a son

,such a father Most w ildness by degrees

S oftens away yet, last of their l ine, th e wildest and w orstwere these.

C riminals,th en

'.Z Why

,no : they d id not murder and

robBut

,give them a word

,they returned a blow —old Halbert

as young Ho b

Harsh and fierce ofword,rough and savage of deed

,

Hated or feared th e more—wh o knows —th e genuin ew ild-beast breed .

Thus were they found by th e few sparse folk of thecountry-side

Iv MR. BROWNING 213

But h ow fared each with other ? E’en beasts couch

,h ide

by h ide,

In a grow l ing,grudged agreement so

,father and son lay

curledT h e elo selierup in their den because th e last of their k ind

in th e world .

“ Still,beast irks beast on occasion. On e Christmas night

of snow,

Came father and son to words—such words ! more cruelbecause th e blow

T o crown each word was wanting,wh ile taun t matched

gibe,and curse

Competed w ith oath in wager, l ike pastime in hell,worse

For pastime turned to earnest,as up there sprang at last

T h e son at th e throat of the father, seized him and heldh im fast.

nay,

Out of th is house you go —(there followed a hideousoath)

This oven where n ow we bake,too hot to hold us both

If there’s snow outside,there’s coolness : out w ith y o u,

bide a spel lIn th e drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish

shell

No w,th e old trunk was tough

,was solid as stump of oak

Untouched at the core by a thousand years : much lesshad its seventy broke

On e whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck toshoulder-blade

Of th e mountainous man,whereon his child’s rash hand

l ike a feather weighed .

“ Nevertheless at once d id the mammoth shut h is eyes,

Drop ch in to breast,drop hands to sides

,stand stiffened

arms and thighsAll of a piece—struck mute

,much as a sentry stands

,

Patient to take the enemy’s fire : his captain so commands.

214 MR. BROWNI NG IV

Whereat th e son’s wrath flew to fury at such sheer scornOfh is puny strength by th e giant eld thus acting th e babe

n ew—bornAnd ‘Neither w ill th is turn serve ! ’ yel led he. ‘Out

w ith y o u Trundle,log

If y o u cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-foursl ike a dog

“ S till the old man stood mute . S o,logwise

,—down to

floorPulled from hi s fireside place

,dragged on from hearth to

door,

Was he pushed,a very l og

,staircase al ong

,unti l

A certain turn in th e steps was reached,a yard from th e

h ouse~do or-sill.

Then th e father opened h is eyesextinct

,

Temples,late black

,dead-blanched

,~—right-hand w ith left

hand linked,

He faced h is son subm issive when slow the accents came,

They were strangely m i ld , though his son’s rash hand onhis neck lay al l the same .

each spark of their rage

Halbert,on such a night of a Christmas long ago ,

F or such a cause,w ith such a gesture

,did I drag—so

My father down thus far but,soften ing here

,I heard

A voice in my heart,and stopped you wait for an outer

w ord .

For your own sake,not m ine

,soften y o u too Untrod

Leave this last step we reach,nor brave th e finger of

God

I dared not pass its l iftin g : I d id well. I nor blameNor praise y o u. I stopped here : Halbert, do y ou th e

same !’

S traightway the son relaxed his hold of the father’s throat.They mounted

,side by side

,to th e room again no note

216 MR. BROWN I NG Iv

his wife,th e pain ting is quite as startling and vehe

m ent in its effects , quite as destitute of those undertones and medium tints which give the effect ofharmony to what is otherw ise a series of discordantsounds. “ Tab

,

” the bad w i fe of the bad innkeeper,

tells us the story of her conversion in language whichshe could never have used, for it i s all of i t Mr.

Brow ning’s own peculiar rasping shorthand style,far

too terse and far too sharply outlined for any vulgarwoman of Tab’s type. But nothing could illustratebetter the savage conciseness w ith whi ch Mr. Browning loves to dash in his sketches in black and white

,

to sign alisc rather than to paint what strikes hi s eye .ll i s shorthand style, which i s so dreary and difficultin lo ng disquisi tions

,does not sui t badly vivid and

violent episodes such as those of the “ Dramati cIdyls .”

But I have devoted enough,perhaps more than

enough,space to the discussion of Mr. Brown ing’s

poetic deficiencies . They mark distinctly the limitsof his imaginative power

,which i s nevertheless very

high . In range of thought he certainly far surpassesmost of his poetic contemporaries, and in vividnessof conception he i s second to none but Tennyson

,

though certainly his inferior. To a considerableextent he has lost merited popularity by belongingnei ther to this country nor to thi s time . Saturatedwith foreign , and especially wi th Italian , culture,possessed by the human genius though keenly al iveto the errors of Roman Catholici sm

,and occupying

himself both wi th forms of character and w i th modesof thought that seem more native to the MiddleAges than to modern England,—Mr. Browning’spoems have naturally become famous as much for th ecuriosity they exci te as for the enjoyment they bestow.

IV MR. BROWN ING 217

I have said that Mr. drowning’s chief pow e r l iesin the intellectual side of drama

,—the semi-dramati c

delineation of characters,especial ly of masculine

characters,i n their most characteristi c relation to

the world,but that his interest in the dramatic

“ situation is purely intellectual,and fails therefore

to impart any vigorous movement or practical excitement to the plot. I must add

,that there is one

cardinal interest whi ch so greatly overpowers allothers in Mr. Browning’s creations, that it formsmore or less the staple interest of al l hi s best poem s

,

and not only explains hi s wonderful arti stic grasp ofthe genius of the Catholic Church , but gives anadditional reason why the living centre of hi s imaginative power i s generally in a man

’s mind,and

but seldom in a woman’s heart.It i s evident how much a long residence in the

country of Machiavelli and Cavour, and a closestudy of the ecclesiastical wisdom

,craft

,and sub

tlety produced by the system of the confessional, hasintensified hi s interest in the border land betweensupernatural and worldly wisdom . I had noted thi slong before the publi cation of The Rin g and the

B o olo, the crowning work of Mr. Brown ing’s genius,

to which,however, this remark especially applies.

He has that command of motives which is given bya constant study of the secrets of the heart

,ei ther

for saintly and mystical or for worldly and selfishreasons . And none knows better than Mr. Brownin ghow strangely they intertw ine . By far the greatestintellectual fascination of his poems consists in hismarvel lous mastery of the infinitely various compounds between the religious and the worldlywi sdom

,and of the deep awe that both alike

,i n their

higher degrees, whether pure or blended, inspire in

218 MR. BROWNING IV

the simpler minds over which they cast their influence . Every one of the greater poems includesin some shape—very seldom indeed involving arepeti tion

,for Mr. Browning’s power of dramatic

variation of thi s theme i s endless—a study of somestriking conflict or some stil l more striking combination between the craft of the visible world and thecraft of the invi sible

,and of the many threads of

connection between the two .

Mr. Browning’s early poem,

“ Paracel sus,which

bears al l the marks of youth,i s nothing but a study

of the cravin g for a knowledge of the absoluteprinciple of life in the mind of a mediaeval aspirantwho might have hoped eventually to attain suchkn owledge . The poem is one of the least successful

,

because i t wants the local colour peculiar to the lifeof the Middle Ages

,and is also deficient in that

intimate knowledge of the ambitious heart and intellect which the later poems abundantly show.

Paracelsus aspires at first only to absolute lmowledge ;when

,after long wanderings

,his heart i s beginning

to fai l him,he meets a true poet

,who in like manner

has aspired passionately to love,and has failed even

more bitterly than Paracelsus in attaining the fulfilment of his desire. From him Paracelsus learnsthat true li fe consists in seeking to blend love forman with knowledge (however incomplete) of thelaws of man’s life ; and accordingly begins to devote himself to teaching (at Basle) what little heknows . Then comes the temptation to affect moreknowledge than he has

,in order to gain a fi t audi

ence for what he has,and the consequent dabbling in

pretended magic. The only powerful part of thepoem consists in the delineation of the strange mixture of self-scorn and self-belief, —the compun ction

220 MR. BRO\VNING IV

del ineations o f the worldly force of ecclesiasti caldign i tie s struggling with , or flavo urin g, the Catholicfaith . Of thi s he has given us many and veryremarkable pi ctures

,ranging from the childish

,ful l

fed,superstitious

,sensual—creeded “ bishop

,who

orders his tomb at St. Praxed’s Church,” to the

diaboli c rat l ike craft of Count Guido—the highecclesiastical layman of The Ring an d the B o ok

or the passionate contrast draw n by Canon Caponsaceh i in the same great work, between the life ofthe fashionable preacher and the heart of the truesaint. And these are but three out of many studiesof the same genus

,though different species . I

scarcely know whether the S t. Praxed’s bishop’sflushed p hysical appetite for the splendid RomanCathol ic rites

,or the keen laughing twinkle that

glitters in the eyes of aged Legates and Nuncios,

whom Mr. Browning depicts in their deal ings withcaptio n s children of the Church , is the more powerfully painted . No painting can be more strikingthan the pleading of the dying bi shop wi th his ownnatural sons to fulfi l their pledge to him in givinghim a tomb of jasper handsomer than that of hisrival Gandolf

,who died before him

,w i th an in scrip

tion of purer Latinity

Nay , boys, ye love me—al l of jasper, then’T is jasper ye stand pledged to

,lest I grieve

My bath must needs be left behind , alasOn e block , pure green as a p istach io-n ut,There’s plenty jasper somewhere in th e w orldAnd have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to prayHorses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,And m istresses w ith great smoo th marbly l imbs—That’s i f ye carve my ep itaph aright,Choice Latin

,p icked phrase, Tul ly’s every word,

[0 LO

F—dlV MR . BROWN ING

No gaudy ware l ike Gan dolf’s second l ineTully

,my masters ? Ulpian serves h is need

And then h o w I shal l lie through centuries,

And hear th e blessed mutter of th e mass,

And see God made and eaten al l day long,

And feel th e steady candle-flame,and taste

Good strong th ick stupefyin g incense-smoke !

The piece is ful l of passionate superstition,volup

tuons and intellectually dramatic but the shades ofthought in i t are

,perhaps

,less del icate and difficult

to draw than in some other of Mr. Brow ning’secclesiastical sketch es . Perhaps the most strikingcontrast to it

,showing

,in its way

,equal art and

insight,i s the wonderful picture of the Gottingen

Professor and his Christmas Eve discourse,on the

mythical character of Christianity,in “ Christmas

Eve and Easter Day There you have the thinintellectual ghost

,or hardly distinguishable shadow

,

of Christian faith,in place of the high-fed body of

superstition we have just seen ; and each is paintedwith such strict intellectual truth

,that one scarcely

knows whether one is most fascinated by the pictureof the faith which steam s with the “ burnt offeringsof rams and the fat of fed beasts

,

” or of the fadedand pallid rationalism that seems just disappearinginto the inane

,

That sallow,virgin-m inded

,stud ious

Martyr to m ild enthusiasm,

As h e uttered a k ind of cough preludious,

That w oke my sympathetic spasm(Beside some sp itting that made me sorry),And stood surveying h is aud itoryWith a wan pure look w ell nigh celestial

,

Those blue eyes had survived so much .

”

222 MR. BROWNING IV

No theological student in a German university can

miss the type ; and the l ines which follow mightcertainly have been painted from personal experience :

He pushed back h igher h is spectacles,

Let th e eyes stream o ut like lamps from cel ls,

And giving h is head of hair—a hakeOfundressed to w for colour and qual ityO n e rap id an d impatient shake

,

T h e Professor’s grave voice,sweet though hoarse

,

Broke into h is Christmas Eve’s d iscourse.”

This discourse,no less than the portrai t

,i s a striking

pendant to the delirious address of the Bishop of S t.Praxed to his sons, as i t explains,

Ho w th e ineptitude of th e time,And th e penman’s prejud ice

,expand ing

Fact into fable,fit for the cl ime

,

Had by slow and sure degrees translated itInto this myth

,this Ind ividuum

,

Whi ch,when reason had strained and abated i t

Of foreign matter,gave for residuum

A Man l—a right true man, however,Whose w ork was worthy a man’s endeavour .

And Mr. Browning’s subtle and striking criticismo n h is Gottingen Professor’s mythological lecture,though apparently needless for the portrait

,really

adds its most effective touch,when he concludes i t

by saying to his lecturer

Go on , y o u shal l no more move my gravityThan

,when I see boys ride a-cockhorse

,

I find it in my heart to embarrass themBy h inting that their stick

’s a mock horse,

A nd they really carry what they say carries them.

224 mu. BROWN ING lV

Then steps a sweet angel ic sl ip of a th ingF orward

,puts o ut a soft palm No t so fast

Addresses th e celestial presence, ‘n ay

He made y o u and devised y o u, after all ,Though h e’s none of y ou ! Could Saint John

drawHis camel-hai r make up a painting-brushlVe come to brother Lippo for al l that

,

I sle perfccil opus ! S o , all smileI shuffle sideways w ith my blush ing faceUnder th e cover of a hundred wingsThrown l ike a spread of kirtles when you’re gayAnd play hot cockles

,allth e doors being shut

,

Till,wholly unexpected

,in there pops

T h e hothead husband

This,of course

,though a wholly different pictiu’

e, i sclosely akin to the St. Praxed bishop in inte llectualconception ; showing the same strong m ixture ofeager fleshly natural ism beneath the robe of superstitio us awe ; but it i s the infinitely varied transformations under which Mr. Browning can presentthe same elements

,which prove how great an intel

lectual i n terpreter of human nature he is .The intermediate place between the Bishop of S t.

Praxed and the Gottingen Professor, but embodyingalso some of the shrewd political instinct which Mr.

Browning so subtly and thoroughly penetrates,i s

Bishop Blo ugram,w h o gives us a rather too ex

tended apology for continuing to hold his place inthe Cathol ic hierarchy

,though adm itting that a large

part of its creed is either doubtful or false to him .

Nothing can exceed the tortuous sophistry of thi sadm i rable special pleading ; but for the subject of awork of art i t i s a bad one

,presenting too few points

of li ving interest,and lying wholly in the leaden

IV MR. BROWNING 225

coloured region where moral fallacies have theirroots. It ought to interest deeply clergymen in afalse position ; but few else wi ll recognise the marvellons minuteness and fidelity of thi s Denner-l ikepainting of every wrinkle on the ecclesiastic’s conscience

,and every pucker i n his understanding. Of

course i t i s all translated as usual by Mr. Browninginto his own dialect.The most wonderful picture of the ecclesiasti cal

politician and diplomatist i s certainly the po n tificallegate Ogn iben , in

“ A Soul’s Tragedy, who trotsinto a papal town to suppress a popular revolution

,

alone on muleback,humming Carfremuere gen tes

and saying,as he laughs gently to himself, “ I have

known three -and -twenty leaders of revolts. Theacute knowledge of human motives, and stil l acutermanipulation of them,

which this not unkindly oldi nan shows 3 the courage and the real spiritual power)ver man which the confessional has given him,

atthe expense of course of uprightness ; the Socrati caddress wi th which he draws out the selfish ambitionin the new leader of revolt, and lures him with i tinto renouncing the popular cause

,and finally dis

poses o f him in words curiously mingling a genuinekind of piety, not unascetic, with ecclesiastical craft,concluding with

,

“ I have known fo nr-and -twentyleaders of revolts

,— constitute one of the most

subtle and striking pictures of modern imagination .

The pity i s that all the subsidiary characters—evenChiappino, the leader of revolt, himself, who is notill-conceived —are as usual so far inferior to thi s figure

,

that,even w i thout regard to the Brown in gite dialect,

in which all alike speak, the drama is a poor one,though the intellectual conception i s inimitable .Nor is i t only the intersecting line between

Q

226 MR. BROWNING w

worldly and spiri tual wisdom that Mr. Brow ningtraces so finely. The jealous hatred of the Bishop ofSt. Praxed for hi s rival Gandolf, and the first extractI made for another purpose from his poems

,called

The Soli loquy of the Spanish Cloister,” both show

how finely he can conceive the union of earthly passions with monasti c and ri tual ideas. The samepower is shown ,

wi th much more of poeti c form andexpression

,i n the short piece called “ A Hereti c’s

Tragedy,

” though here the picture is of the blendingof inquisitorial cruelty with the passionate bigotry offaith . The triumphant j oy of vindicating the InfiniteJustice in those who apply the torture to the reensant heretic

,the pitiless gaiety which the natural

cruelty of savage nature engrafts thereon, directlythe belief that the suffering i s deserved absolves themfrom the duty of sympathy

,the fine shading-off of

the consciousness of wreaking a divine retribution,

into common human brutali ty,—mark a work of rare

skil l.But the most characteristic of all Mr. Browning’s

ecclesiasti cal poems i s that powerful picture of Romansociety and casuistry

,i n the days of Innocent XII

,

which he has given us in his longest and in manyrespects his finest poem

, The Rin g and the B ook.

The story i tself i s easi ly to ld. Mr. Browning foundon a bookstall in Florence, —the description of thescene of the discovery is one of the most graphi cpassages of the poem

,- am idst much rubbish

,an old

book,part print

,part MS ,

purporting to be theactual pleadings in a Roman murder case of the year1698

,in which one Coun t Guido Franceschini

,of

Arezzo,with four cut-throats in hi s pay

,murdered

his wi fe,a girl of seventeen years

,who had a fort

night ago borne him an heir,and wi th her the old

228 MR. BROWNING xv

the various influences at work in the Roman societyof the day of the provincial society in the countrytowns of the Pope’s dominions ; of the poor nobility,the hangers—o n of the Church , who danced attendanceon the Cardinals, hoping for profitable sinecures ; ofthe professional Roman lawyers

,deep in ecclesiastical

precedents and Ciceronian eloquence and in theverses of Horace and Ovid

,who pleaded in the case ;

of the eloquent and brilliant worldly Churchman o f

the time,part priest

,part fashionable poet ; and

finally,of the populace of Rome itself. Mr. Brown

ing gives us the view taken of this great case fromall sides . He gives the view favourable to CountGuido, taken by one -half of Rome, and the viewfavourable to his Vi ctim,

taken by the other half ofRome . He gives us the critical Cardinal’s Vi ew ofthe pending trial as developed in refined Romandrawing-rooms the criminal’s o wn defence ; thedying w ife’s statement of her own case ; the speechof the handsome young Canon who to ok her awayfrom Count Guido’s cruelty at Arezzo the lawyers’

pleadings on either side 5 finally, the working of theold Pepe’s mind on the day when he gives the finaljudgment : then Coun t Guido

’s confession ; and last,the poet’s own final presentation of the pure gold of

the tragedy,set free from all the al loys of accidental

one-sided criti ci sm .

I can remember nothing which has at once somuch force and fire

,and also so much of the subtlety

of intellectual drama,—intellectual rendering

,that i s

,

by Mr. Brownin g himself, of his own study of thecharacters of others

,—ia any other of his writings

,

as many parts of this great work,—especially those

painting Count Guido,Canon Capo n sacch i, the be

trayed Pompilia, and the broad-Church Pope Inno

IV MR . BROWNING 229

cent XII. Even the finest passion in Pippa Passesi s not so rich and eloquent as the defence poured outby Capo n sacchi of the murdered Pompilia, nor is theSoli loquy in the Spanish Cloi ster so expressive ofthe spite of venomous cunning

,as Count Guido

Fran cesch in i’

s defence of himself and malignant insinuations against his wife and her parents andCapo n sacchi. Of course

,there is an obvious defect

in dramatic keeping,in putting into the mouth of a

man just fresh from the torture,so astute

,elaborate,

and ecclesiastical a dissertation on the evidence whichhad been produced to which it may be added that,except as to passion and force

,the style (te. in con

struction and illustration) of Count Guido Franceschini is scarcely to be distinguished from that of theCanon Capo n sacchi. But this i s always so with Mr.

Brown ing. He only aims at giving a complete re

flectio n of his various characters in his own forms ofthought and as he only aims at this

,the mere cir

cumstan ce of putting a subtle speech of 200 0 linesinto the mouth of a man fresh from the torture is nofalsifi cation of the artisti c intention

,—which is

,to

give the drift of his defence, supposed to be confidedto Mr. Browning, in any form that his poeti c confidan t may deem most effective .What i s there in modern imaginations finer than

the contrast between the shifty ecclesiastical intrigue,

the rat-l ike veracity and cunning, the craft formedand trained in the attempt to squeeze promotion outof bishops and cardinals

,—in a word

,the half-tricky

,

half-subtle Pharisaism of the Tuscan Count,who had

been fam i liar with the Roman courts of justice al lhis life

,and knew the worst side at least of every

judge before him,and the passionate despair of the

ardent young priest who,summoned back to Rome

230 MR. BROWN ING xv

to hear that Pompilia was dying by the dagger ofher husband

,throws al l reserve to the winds

,pours

out his own loathing of his early life of fashionablefrivolity

,describes the awakening of a divine nature

in him through the influence of Pompilia’

s saintlysweetness and purity, and tells in burning words thestory of Guido’s loathsome attempt to force hi s wi feinto infidelity

,of her flight to Rome under hi s own

protection,and of the words which fell from her from

time to time during the j ourney,stamped as they

are for him o n the face of the different landscapesand different skies which his eye happened to take inas they were uttered ? Mr. Brown ing’s picture ofthis passionate human love stirring in the heart of afashionable

,frivolous

,and dissipated

,but still noble

unspoi led nature,and awakening i t at one and the

sam e time to the holiness of the priest’s desecratedfaith and calling, and to the unearthly beauty of herwhom he could not but half love with earthly raptureand half adore with a worship very like the trueCatholi c cultus of the Madonna, i s to me the finesteffort of Mr. Browning’s genius. But i t wouldscarcely produce the effect i t does upon one

,did i t

not so immediately succeed the exposition of thevenomous and cunning sleight-o f-mind with whichCount Guido tries to persuade his j udges thatwounded honour and burning sham e have instigatedal l his own coldly and craftily calculated actionstowards his wife and her parents

,and have left him

with a good and quiet conscience even after the triplemurder. As we fol low the intel lectual writhings ofCoun t Guido’s ingenious special pleadings, which skilfully evade the most critical tests of his guilt

,and

make i t their aim,instead

,to put the judges off the

scent and convince them beyond refutation of his

232 MR. BROWNING

Sublime in n ew impatience with th e fo eE ndure man and obey God plant fi rm footOn neck of man, tread man into the hellMeet for h im

,and obey God all th e more.

There i s alacrity,even valour

,at the bottom of Pom

pilia,in spite of what her husband called the “ timid

chalky ghost in her : she can seize his sword andpoint i t at his breast when his cruelty and malignitypass all bounds and even he feels this . Mr. Browning

,in what is perhaps the only purely dramatic

passage in his whole picture,makes Guido, when at

last the procession enters his cel l to lead him aw ayto execution

,cal l out in his last agony of terror

Abate—Cardinal , —Christ,—Maria, God.

Pompil ia w ill y ou let them murder me

—Pompilia standing at the very climax of his thoughtof everything Godlike, in spite of the fury of hishate. To her

,dead

,he appeals as to a power almost

beyond God’s to save him . A n d yet, w i th this highvalour at the bottom of her, no more simple womanchi ld

,

” as the old Pepe finely calls her, was everpainted than Pompilia

,—simple alike in her religious

maternal love for the boy to wh om she gave birthjust a fortnight before her own murder, and in theconfession of the pure depth and intensity of herdevotion to the young priest who saved her from herhusband

,and for whose purity of soul she fights as

for her own . The Pope speaks of her as of a wayside flower that

Breaks all in to blaze,

Spreads itsel f, one w ide glory of desireT o incorporate th e whole great sun it l oves,From th e inch-height whence it looks and lon gs.


An d then observe how finely the religious passion ofthe mother’s heart is expressed

I never real ised God’s b irth beforeHow h e grew l ikest God in being born.

This time I felt l ike Mary,had my babe

Lying a little on my breast l ike hers.”

And this,again

,for the spiritual perfection of mater

nal love,i s s carcely equalled in our language

Even for my babe,my boy

,there’s safety thence

F rom the sudden death of me,I mean w e poor

Weak souls,h ow we endeavour to be strong

I was ah *

eady using up my l ife,Th is portion

,n ow

,shou ld do h im such a good ,

This other go to keep off such an illT h e great life see, a breath and it is goneS o is detached

,so left al l by itsel f

Th e little life, th e fact wh ich means so much.

Shall not God steep the k indlier to His work,His marvel of creation , foot w ould crush ,Now that the hand He trusted to receiveAnd hold it

,lets the treasure fall perforce

T h e better He shal l have in orphanageHis o wn way all the clearlier : if my babeOutl ive th e hour— and he has l ived two weeksIt is through God wh o knows I am not by.

Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black,

And sets the tongue , m ight l ie so long at rest,Trying to talk ? Let us leave God aloneWhy should I doubt He wi ll explain in timeWhat I feel n ow ,

but fai l to find the w ords 22”

Taken as a whole,the figure of Pompilia seems to me

a masterpiece of deli cate power. Passionate tenderness with equally passionate puri ty

,submissiveness

to calamity with strenuousness against evi l,the trust

fulness of a child with the suffering of a martyr,

234 MR. BROWN ING xv

ch ildislmess of inte llect w i th the vi sionary insight ofa saint

,all tinged w ith the ineffably soft colouring of

an I talian heaven, breathe in every touch and strokeof this fine picture .

The old Pope affords a subject much easier,I

should suppose, for Mr. Brown ing to draw. It i s avery subtle study. There is in i t al l the mark ofvenerable age

,except any fai lure of intel lectual

power. The flashes of inte llectual and spiritual lightare of the thin

,bright

,auroral kind . Take

,for in

stance,the passage in which the gallant old man

del iberates whether he shall or shall n ot dare condemn the aristocrati c murderer to his rightful fate

As I know ,

I speak,—what should I know

,then , and h ow speak

Were there a w ild m istake of eye or brainIn th e recorded governance aboveIfmy own breath

,only

,blew coal al ight

,

I,cal led celestial and the morning star ?

I wh o in th is w orld act resolvedly,

Dispose of men,the body and th e soul

,

As they acknow ledge or gainsay th is lightI show them

,—shall I too lack courage l— leave

I,too

,th e post of me

,l ike those I blame

Refuse,w ith k indred inconsistency

,

Grapple w ith danger whereby souls grow strong ?I am near th e en d but stillnot at th e en d

All till th e very en d is trial in l ifeAt th is stage is th e trial of my soul

,

Danger to face,or dan ger to refuse !

I

Shall I dare try th e doubt n ow ,or not dare

S til l more striking i s the old Pope’s interpretation ofthe sense in which the “ weak things of this worldshal l “ confound the mighty . Here we have oneof the finest i llustrations of the restless intellectual

236 MR. BROWNING xv

office rest,which that hesitation stirs

,of the

plumbing of the most difficult problems of phi losophy and faith

,as his mind travels round the

intellectual horizon of his lonely eminence,—o i the

gratitude w i th which he fixes his glance on Pompilia’s spiritual loveliness as the o n e blossomvouchsafed unworthy me

,ten years a gardener of

the untoward ground,—o f the anxious and doubtful

adm iration with which he n o tes Capo n sacch i’

s im

pulsive nobleness,—and of the half anxiety and half

trust with which he observes the signs of moral decomposition—omens for those who are to come afterhim

,—all i s drawn so as to leave an indelible im

pression on the imagination . There is nothing in al lMr. Browning’s w orks that wil l bear deliberate comparison w ith the four great figures of Guide, Pompilia

, Capo n sacch i, and Innocent.Perhaps

,however

,the mo st characteristic, though

n o t the greatest, of Mr. Brown ing’s many poem s onthis class of semi-spiritual

,semi-intellectual subj ects

i s the “ Epistle containing the strange Medical Experien ce of Karshish , the Arab Physician whichis an attempt to bring such medical science, or ratherempirical skill

,as might have existed in the time of

Christ into direct contact with the “ case ” of therisen Lazarus

,whom the A rab physician encounters

in Bethany at the time when the siege of Jerusalemby Titus has just begun . Karshish

, questioninghimsel f and his friends as to the asserted resurrec

tion,reports his opinion on it to his master in a letter

vibrating helplessly between a gu ess that i t wasreally a cure of unusually prolonged epi lepsy whichhad left mania behind

,and a proudly-resisted in

clin atio n to believe that there was something divinein the matter

,as Lazarus himself asserted . The

xv MR. BROWNING 237

artist’s skill,however

,i s shown, as usual, in de

lin eatin g the influence of the two opposite sorts ofthirst for knowledge in this dignified Arabian leech ,the pride of human science and craft, which

makes him eager to penetrate the secret of a newand remarkable cure

,and the yearning for divine

knowledge,which thrills him with a humiliating

sense of awe and hepe at the very words he affectsto despise from the ignorant peasant. The letterbegins with stealthy Oriental subtlety— o f courseBro w n in gite in form far from his mark (for he isevidently bew i ldered and ashamed at the impressionmade upon him by the story of Lazarus), explaining,after compliments

,a few new recipes ; describing

hi s temporary abode at Bethany,which lies

,he says

,

from Jerusalemscarce th e distance thence

A man with plague-sores at the third degreeRuns till he drops down dead

chronicling his new pathological experiences avi scid ch eler i s observable in tertians

,

” “ scalpdisease confounds me, cro ssin g so with leprosy

,

” andso forth ; unti l at length he comes, with manyapologies

,on his “ case of mania subin duced by

epilepsy

Th e man,—it is o n e Lazarus a Jew

,

Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,T h e body’s habit wholly laudable

,

As much indeed beyond the common healthAs he were made and put aside to sh ow .

”

And then gradually the physician al lows it to beseen h ow much thought he has spent on his diargnosis of the mania, how i ts very simplicity subduesand bewilders his wisdom. The effect

, h e says, o n

238 MR. BROWNING xv

the mind of the patient i s as if some new and vastworld had been opened o ut to him

,making this

world worthless,though Lazarus i s forbidden to

leave i t. The patient has no measure of the trueproportions of things ; the armaments assembledround Jerusalem are trivial to him

,whi le h e i s lost

in wonder that others do not see th e value of themost triv ial facts with his “ opened eyes .” “ \Venderand doubt come wrongly in to play

,preposterously at

cross purposes .” Unbroken in cheerfulness i f hi schild be i ll or dying

,a word or gesture on i ts part

that he disapproves will startle him into an agony offear. In short

,the patient clings to “ a narrow and

dark thread of l ife,which runs across an orb of

glory into which he may n o t enter,though it gives

its law to his spirit. His notions of right andwrong

,instead of being adapted to the narrow con

ditio n s of this thread of life and its continuance , arealways taking into account a whole universe of invi sible and apparently imaginary facts

Se is th e man perplext w ith impulsesSudden to start off crossw ise, n o t straight o n ,Proclaimin g what is R ight and Wrong acrossAnd n o t along

,th is black thread through th e blaze

‘ It should be ’ balked by here it can n o t be.’An d oft the man’s soul springs into his face

,

As i f he saw again and heard againHis sage that bade h im rise, and h e d id rise

In thi s antique and painstaking enumeration of themental symptoms of the patient

,the most startl ing

and impressive i s reserved,with a sort of scien tific

shame,to the last

,and only then oozes out in volun

tarily with the half apology, th at,“ in writin g to a

leech,

’ti s well to keep back nothing of a case .”

240 MR . BROWN ING xv

times beneath the glory of the po or Syrian’s dream

and the strange consistency of simplici ty of his demean o ur, -but returning again with ful l elasti c forcewherever he can regain his complete assurance of theimpossibility of the story

,and the wholly un pro fes

sioual character of the explanation . It i s only hereand there that Mr. Browning has drawn worldlyskil l or wisdom

,thus half-worshipping

,with dazzled

eyes,a simplicity above i t. Generally in his poetry

,

as in the world,the prevalent type of sagacity freely

makes use of an established faith,but is not willing

to recognise i t so far as i t i s new and disturbing.

But this Oriental physician, who has evidently givenup his life to study all diseases and remedies withopen eyes

,i s one of the exceptions . When a light

shines upon him, if he can n o t gaze at it, i t i s hi snature not to ignore it. Mr. Browning finds a deeperhumili ty in science

,with all its pride

,than in the

shifty talent of worldly k nowledge .T o sum up in conclusion my conception of Mr.

Browning’s genius. He i s not a great dramatist,but

a great intellectual interpreter of the approaches toaction . His most striking characteristi c i s the vigourof his intel lectual and spiritual imagination, and ofhis carnal imagination (if I may be permitted a

technical S cripture phrase to express the imaginationof all the passions and perceptions), and the almostcomplete absence of the intermediate psychical ors entimental imagination

,which i s with most po ets

t h e principal spring of all their poetry, and perhapssh e only spring of lyrical poetry. I do not know apoem of Mr. Browning’s which can be said to expressa. mo od, as Shelley expresses so vividly moods ofpassionate yearning

,Wordsworth of meditative

rapture,Tennyson of infinite regret. Mr. Browning


has no moods. His mind seems to leap at o n ce fromits centre to its surface wi thout passing through themiddle states which l ie between the spirit and thesenses . Hence we may see from another side whyMr. Browning’s women are so imperfect, for theirtruest li fe i s usually in this middle region

,which

seems totally absent from his poems . The nearestapproach to a sentiment which he has drawn is, onthe one side a passion

,which he has drawn repeatedly

and powerfully,—o n the other a spiritual affection,

“ the devotion the heart li fts abo ve and the heavensrej ect n o t

,

” such as he has so finely painted inCapo n sacch i and “ Pompilia

,

” in “ Agnes,

” and inthat love of David for Jonathan

,which comes flowing

in in great waves,like a spring-tide

,till i t pours on

into his lo ve for God. This Mr. Browning has drawnas scarcely any o th erman could draw it. But theseare essentially different from what is properly denoted by sentiment

,which is apt to lean upon the

occasional,l ives on memory and association

,tinges

everything around it with a secondary glow of itsown ,

and has neither the immediate carnal origin ofa passion

,nor that absolute independence both of

circumstance and instinct,which characterises what

I have called a spir itual affection . It i s,as I have

said,in sentiment that the tempering moods are

rooted which give rise to so much of o ur highestpoetry

,and which touch with a sort of illuminating

magi c so much which would otherw i se have no intrin sic charm . Gray’s “ Elegy

,

” for instance,i s

popular solely for the tender melancholy that hangsaround it, and almost constitutes it an incarnationof evening regret. Now

,of these sentiments which

tune the imagination Mr. Browning’s poems seemdestitute, and the consequence is that he is apt to

L R

242 MR. BROWNING lv

plunge us from cold spiri tual or intel lectual powerinto the feve r of passion

,and back again from thi s

fever into the cold .

But I suspect that hi s interpreting intellect hasgain ed through thi s hiatus in his imagination . S entiment

,because i t i s lyrical

,because i t tempts the mind

into dwelling 0 11 i ts o wn moods,i s a great hindrance

to that strategic activity of the intel lect whichenables i t to pass easily from one intellectual andmo ral centre to another. Mr. Browning i s not agreat dramati st

,for in style he always remains him

self,but he is a great intel lectual interpreter of

human character,—in other words

,a great intellectual

and spiritual ventriloquist and nothing should,one

would think,more interfere with the ease of spiritual

ventriloquism than those clinging personal sentiments

,which never leave the creative mind real ly

free and sol i tary. For i t must require a habit notm erely of physical

,but

,i f I may so speak

,of spiri tual

sol itude,to migrate rapidly i n this way from your

o w n actual centre in the world of intellect and feeling to a total ly different centre

,where y o u n o t only

try to speak an alien language,but to think unac

customed thought and feel unaccustomed passions ;and yet to do this

,as Mr. Brown ing does, w i thout

really losing for a moment h is o w n centre of cri ticalli fe . Mr. Brown ing says very finely in one of hi sdramas

When is man stron g,unti l h e feels al one 7

It was some l onely strength at fi rst,be sure

,

C reated organs such as those y o u seekBy wh i ch to give its varied purpose shape,And

,nam ing th e selected m inistrants,

T o o k sword and sh ield and sceptre—each a man l”

This seems to me to describe Mr. Browning’s e

THE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

MAN Y attempts have been from time to time made togive to the devotional poems of the Old Testamentthe rhythmical harmony of modern verse. But hardlyw i th even the very best of these attempts

,hardly

with Mi lton’s fine versions of some of the Psalmsthemselves

,has there been much success ; and in

general readers of these versions fret at the un accustemed monotony and the ever -recurring chimes

,

something as they would if the sea should begin tomurmur sonatas

,or the w ind to whistle tunes. Nor

i s i t simply that any change of form,impressed by a

foreign cast of mind on poetry that has sunk deepin to the heart of ages, i s distressing and bewildering.

Unless I am making the mistake with which modernphilosophy so often reproaches modern thought

,—o i

confounding the “ second nature ” of constant association with the ori ginal nature of inherent constitution

,

there is something in most of the Hebrew poetrywhich is essentially inconsistent with the frameworkof defined metre or rhyme . No doubt there areHebrew lyrics which, had rhyme and fixed measurebeen a recognised form of poeti cal expression at thetime they were composed, would have been thrownin to that form. Such one may recognise in David’s

THE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 245

lament ever Saul and Jonathan ; and again, in thesePsalms which approach nearer in cast and co n ception to the religious poetry of our o wn day

,—that

i s,to an artisti c presentation of the devotional feel

ings of man,—than to the sublimer type of the more

characteristi c Hebrew poetry,which seems generally

to be busied with a direct delineation of God. Butin most of the grander Psalms

,and even more in the

wonderful poetry of Isaiah and the minor prophets,

there i s something that defies the laws of regularmetre or rhym e, —something that breaks through andrises up above them, when they are artificiallyimposed .

No t that I am of the number of th o se who regardthese natural forms of poetry as arbitrary and ornamental restrictions, observed only in order to enhancethe beauty of the essential thought ; rather, to thetrue poet, are they fresh powers, new media of expression

,enabling him to tell much which otherwise

must have remained for ever untold . Metri calbeauty is the inborn music

,as i t were

,which beats a

natural accompaniment to the creative toil of theimagination

,and vindicates the essential unity of the

li fe which runs through it. As the conception of thepo et gradually gets itself translated in to the languageof mankind

,the rhythm and harmony of the whole

afford a real test of the depth and power of thecreative genius, as distinguished from a faculty ofmere mechanical construction . But though this i strue of poeti c efforts in general

,i t do es not apply to

the greater works of the Hebrew poets . Marvellousas is the imaginative power which they display

,yet

,

for the mo st part, they are n o t, in the strict sense,works of imagination

,—works

,that is

,of which the

purpose,unity

,and proportions are seized before

246 THE POETRY or THE OLD TESTAMENT

hand by the overseeing imagination , and worked outby it into their full development. On the contrary

,

they seem expressly to renounce all claim to imaginative unity

,properly so called

,—nay

,to insist pas

sio n ately on the fragmentary and isolated characterof the glimpses which they gain into the Eternalsecret

,—to testi fy that the riddle of God’s Providence

is hidden from them,though the spiri t of His l ife i s

revealed. And while this i s the case,while the

greatest imaginative beauties of the Hebrew poetshave no living imaginative centre or unity of theirown ,

but are used as scattered symbols of spiritualtruths which pierce the natural and vi sible un iverseat isolated points

,rather than harmonise and explain

i t,it seems almost a mockery to round them o ff with

a rhythm and a rhyme which are the appropriate dressof finished creations. They are greater than otherpoems from the very sam e cause which renders themless complete. The plan of the universe was toogreat a plan to grasp

,though here and there i t was

given to the Hebrew poets to sh ed upon i t a bri ll iant l ight. And the fragmentary character of theirinsight is fitly mirrored in the broken music of ourprose versions .When

,indeed

,the mind of the poet dwelt directly

and exclusively on the spiritual perfection of God,the harmony of hi s th eme ensured a certain imagin ative unity in his work . But when , as was morecommon

,i t was hi s effort to afford some glimpse into

the mystery of Providence,i t was h is very aim to

maintain that what was visible to the imagination hadno independent uni ty or significance in itself ; andthen he appealed for the solution of the human dramato the undeclared counsels of God, and affirmed hisfai th in a heavenly music, inaudible as yet, lurking

248 THE POETRY OF T I IE OLD TESTAMENT

power,—i s absolutely essential to portray the in sup

portable burden of the mystery w eighing 0 11 the mindof the po et. And it i s not so much the deficiency inthe art of the follow ing lin es

,as the attempt at art at

all,—the mere efi

’

ert to run the thoughts of thePsalmist into smooth verse,—which repels me . Iquote from a poetical version

,made by Mr. Edgar

Brownin g,from the English Prayer Book of the Bo ok

of Psalms

Where from Thy spirit shall I go ? where from T hypresence hide

Climb I to heaven, T h eu’rt there or go to hell , T h ou’rt

by my side.Ifmorning’s w ings I take

,and dwell beside the farthest

sea,

E’en there T h y hand shall lead me, and T hy right handsuccour me.

Ifperadventure I shou ld say,T h e darkness shal l surroundme,

Then shal l my night h e turned to day,and utterly

confound me.

No darkness darkness is w ith Thee : as clear as day isnight

F or unto Thee al ike appear th e darkness and th e light.’

I wonder the mere attempt to rhyme such thoughtsas these did not at once convince any one who madethe attempt

,that there i s no discord like that which

fastens outward symbols of artisti c unity on thoseheavings of elemental thought w hich are expresslyconfessed as utterly beyond the control of the thinker.To rhyme the thunders of S inai would seem a scarcelyless appropriate task or

,to make what is perhaps a

fairer comparison,how would i t be possible to trans

late Jacob’s awe-struck exclamation,on awaking from

the dream in which he had seen th e ladder with

T n E POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 249

angels ascending and descending between heaven andearth

,

“ How dreadful i s thi s place ! thi s i s noneother than the house of God, this i s the gate ofheaven —into any more finished metrical form thatwould equally well express the inadequacy of theimagination to grasp the thoughts on which i tbrooded ? Yet this o n e sentence might be taken asa perfect condensation of the attitude in whi ch theimagination Of the Hebrew poet was left when mostdeeply stirred by the breath of Divine inspiration .

But I have no intention of dwel ling on the meritsof the attempt to reduce to metre and rhyme ourEnglish translations of the Hebrew poets. The oftenrepeated effort to exhibit some of them in a formadapted to certain exigencies of the popular taste

,

may afford sufficient excuse for these comments o n

their intrinsi c genius and literary character. It i s astrange thing that

,among all the various critici sms

of modern times,there Should have been so l ittle

effort to appreciate the special relation of the Hebrewpoetry to the poetry of other nations and other ages .However true i t may be that by far the highestvalue of the writings of the Hebrew poets is notliterary

,but spiritual and moral

,—that they are

generally read, and generally rightly read, for purposes from which any literary estimate of theirqualities and worth is far removed

,—sti ll

,to the

student Of national literatures,no phenomena can be

either more remarkable or more instructive than thoseof a literature produced in a moral climate so widelySeparated from that of al l other nations as the Hebrew.

The more profoundly we accept the spiritual inspiration of the Hebrew poets

,—only rej ecting

,of course

,

the absurd doctrine of absolute verbal dictation bythe Divine Spirit, through the mechanical in stru

250 THE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

mentality of certain chosen men,which obviously

degrades them from poets into amanuenses at once,

the more remarkable these phenomena must be forthe more completely new w i l l the conditions be underwhich the human imagination acts

,and the more

instructive w i ll be the contrast between literatureswhich

,like the Greek or the Teutonic

,seem the in dig

en ous development of human conditions of imagination

,acting without any consciousness at least of

supernatural constraint,and that which i s educed

,

from first to last, out of the creative germs of aDivine inspiration . What are the di stinctive featuresof such a literature ? Wh at are the characteristicswhich it has in common with allo th er l iteratures ?Perhaps we shal l get the distinctest conception of

the characteristic aspects of the Hebrew imagination,

i f we look first at what may be called its least un ique,

i ts least individual efforts,—these exquisite pastoral

and national tradi tions in which the imagination certain ly cannot be said to have been properly creative atall

,but only formative and selective evincin g its

Special characteristics rather by the details on whichit fixes and the prominence it gives to special featuresin the tradition

,than by any productive power of its

own . In such pastoral traditions as the book ofGenesis records, or in the later but equally simpleand lovely story of the book of Ruth, there i s moreof that common beauty and simplici ty which belongsto the early records of al l great nations,—more whichin its rural pictures and quiet naturalism reminds usat times of the Odyssey or the S candinavian poems

,

—more of that freshness of the early world whichbelongs to the childhood of humanity itself

,and there

fore contains fewer characteristically Hebrew features,

—than in any o th er part of the Bible li terature .


are the “ del icate ga rments which haunt Nausikaa’sdreams

,and which it i s her greatest delight to wash .

But the o n e tale i s largely embelli shed, i f not entirelycreated

,by a graceful fancy the other is a cherished

link in the national life . The one is full of simileand by -play, and the author evidently set as muchstore by the discursive i llustrations as by the storyitself

,—which

,indeed

,we can n o t but feel is li ttle

more than a framework invented for the sake of thepictures it contains the other runs directly andeagerly on to its conclusion . The crowd of Phaeacianmaidens striving gaily with each other while s tamping out the clothes in the water-troughs

,and after

wards dancing and singing and throwing the ball onthe banks of the stream

,are not more widely different

,

as a picture,from the grave Rebekah w i th the pitcher

on her shoulder coming from the city to draw,than

is the treatment of the theme in the Greek poemfrom that in the Hebrew narrative .

“ Sh e went, but followed by h er virgin train ,At the delightfu l rivulet arrived ,Where these perennial cisterns were prepared

,

With purest crystal of the fountain fedProfuse

,sufficient for th e deepest stains

Loosing th e mules,they drove them forth to browse

O n th e sweet herb beside th e d impled flood .

T h e carriage next light’ning, they bore in handT h e garments down to th e unsul l ied wave

,

And thrust them h eap’d into th e pools

,thei r task

Despatch ing brisk,and w ith an emulous haste.

“Then they had al l purified , and no spotCould n ew be seen or blem ish more , they spreadT h e raiment orderly along th e beachWhere dash ing tides had cleansed th e pebbles most

,

And laving,next

,and smooth ing o

’er w ith oi l

Their l imbs,al l seated 0 11 th e river’s bank,


They to ok repast, leaving th e garments stretchedI n noon-day fervo ur of th e sun to dry.

Their hunger satisfied,at o n ce aro se

T h e mistress and h er train,and putting Off

Their head attire,played wanton w ith th e ball ,

T h e princess singing to h ermaids the whi le.Such as shaft-armed Diana reams th e h ills,Taygetus sky-capt or Eryman th ,T h e w ild-boar chasing, or fleet-footed h ind,All j oy th e rural nymphs

,daughters of Jove

,

Sport with h er,and Latona’s heart exults

S h e high h er graceful head abo ve the rest,And features l ifts d ivine

,though al l be fair

,

With ease distinguishable from them allS o al l h er train she

,virgin pure

,surpassed.

T h e princess then , casting the ball towardA maiden of h er train

,erroneous threw

,

And plunged it deep into the d impling stream.

All shrieked Ulysses at the sound awoke,And sitting

,meditated thus the cause

Ah me what mortal race inhab it here ?Rude are they

,contumacious

,and unjust

Or hospitable and wh o fear the Gods etc.

1

Compare with this the interview between Abraham’s steward and R ebekah .

A n d the servant ran to meet h er, and said, Let me,I pray thee

,drink a li ttle water of thy p itcher. And she

said,Drin k

,my lord and Sh e hasted

,and let down h er

p itcher upon her hand, an d gave h im drink . An d when

she haddo n e giving h im drink,she said

,I w ill draw for

thy camels also,until they haveldo n e drink ing. An d the

man wondering at her held his peace,to wit whether th e

Lord had made h is j ourney prosperous or n o t. And itcame to pass

,as the camels had done drink ing, that the

1 Cowper’s translation of th e Odyssey.

254 THE POETRY OF T IIE OLD TESTAMENT

man took a golden earring of hal f a Shekel weight,and

two bracelets for h er hands of ten shekels weight of gold .

An d said,“T hose daughter art thou tell me

,I pray thee

,

is there room in thy father’s house for us to lodge in ?And sh e said to h im

,I am the daughter of Bethuel th e

son of Milcah,wh ich she bare unto Nahor. Sh e said

moreover unto h im, We have both straw and provenderenough

,and room to lodge in . An d the man bowed

down h is head and worshipped the Lord . And h e said,Blessed be t h e Lord God of my master Abraham ,

wh o

hath n o t left destitute my master of his mercy and truthI being in the way , the Lord led me to the house of mymaster’s brethren. And the damsel ran

,and told them

of her mother’s house these things. And Rebekah hada brother

,whose name was Laban : and Laban ran unto

the man unto the wel l. And it came to pass,when he

saw th e earring and bracelets upon h is sister’s hands, andwhen h e heard th e words of Rebekah h is sister, saying,Thus spake the man unto me, that h e came unto th e manand

,behold

,he stood by the camels at th e well . And

he said, Come in ,

thou blessed of th e Lord ; whereforestandest thou without ? for I have prepared the house,an d room for the camels.

Now,of course

,one does not expect in what pro

fesses to be true narrative anything like the sameplay of fancy

,the same plenti ful growth of subsidiary

life, as we may wel l look for in the confessedlylegendary poem s of Greece . But the remarkablepoint, as regards the Hebrew imagination , is this,that being so powerful and vivid as we know i t tohave been

,i t nevertheless clings so closely to past

reality,to ancestral traditions

,and never seems to

have exercised itsel f in creating or developing,from

existing germs,imaginative traditions such as abound

in the Greek and Teutonic literature . With numbcrless rude fragments of heroic story ready to its


imagination ,“ the check of the reason and senses

w ere w i thdrawn,fancy would become delirium

,and

imagination man ia.

” The Hebrew imagination wasof this latter ty pe . It was the pervading presenceof one or two great—sometimes perverted—spiritualimpressions, or convictions, which gave unity toHebrew traditions, and the characteristi c intensity toHebrew thought and language. The haunting powerof two great convictions

,National Unity and Super

natural Guidance , supplies at once the main connecting threads of Jewi sh tradi tion . But an imaginationthus haunted could not well be fertile or original ini ts dealings with human story ; for national pride i sconservative

,not inventive ; and the mind which

feeds eagerly on the evidences of an actual Providencewill not care to live in a world of its own creation .

These two great convi ctions, of national unity andsupernatural guidance, are, then , I beli eve, the twoprincipal centres of Jewish imagination

,wh i ch at

once precluded its being creative like the Greek,and

also governed the selection and arrangement of eveni ts simplest and most strictly human traditions. Allof them have one thread connecting them with thegrowth and glory of the national li fe

,and another

parallel thread i llustrating the wonderful Providenceof supernatural government. For example

,there is

no tradition in the Hebrew literature which i s atfirst sight less closely interwoven with either of thesethreads

,more purely composed of universal human

elements,than the story of Ruth . Hartley Coleridge

,

in verses comm enting on the mysterious “ tale ofbloodshed ” which constitutes the history of Israel

,

has cal led this story an oasis of human beauty inthe wi ld and waste of Bible truth .

” Yet the causeof its preservation and consecration amon g the

TUE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 257

chronicles of the nation is scarcely the loveliness ofthe rural picture of the young gleaner in the harvestfields of Bethlehem followed by the kindly eye of therich farmer bidding his young men drop ears onpurpose for her from the sheaves nor even the meredevotedness of heart which made Ruth “ cleave ” toNaom i . It is

,on the one side

,th e exultation in the

providential reward w hich was allotted to an alienwoman of Moab for her abandonment of her countryand gods in order to embrace the fai th

,and identify

herself with the fortunes, of Israel ; on th e otherside

,the fact

,that David

,the great king of Israel

,

was descended so directly from her,—which made

this beautiful narrative so precious to the Jews. AndNaomi said

,

“ Behold,thy sister—in—law is gone back

un to herp eoyvle, and un to her gods return thou afterthy sister-in—law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not toleave thee

,or to return from following after thee

for whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thoulodgest

,I will lodge thy people shal l be my people

,

and thy God my God. An d again, Boaz answeredand said unto her

,It hath fully been shown me all

that thou hast ( lone unto thy mother—in -law since thedeath of thine husband : and how thou hast left thyfather and thy mother

,and the land of thy nativity

,

and art come unto a people whi ch thou kn ewest notheretofore . The Lord recompense thy work

,and a

full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel,

under whose wings thou art come to trust.” An d

there the narrative ends, and as i t were justifies itselfby tracing the descent of David from the marriage ofBoaz and Ruth .

In fact, incidentally beautiful and tender as manyof the early traditions of Israel are

,the imagination

of the Jews dwelt chiefly,i f not entirely

,on the

L S

258 T 1115 POETRY o r THE OLD TESTAMENT

i llustrations they contain of the two great spiritualreali ties on w hich their hearts were fixed,—the divineunity of their nation

,and the supern atm'

alProvidencewhich watched over its chi ldren individually and itscol lective destini es . In saying thi s

,of course

,I do

not‘ pretend that this accounts for the imaginativebeauty and pow er wi th which these traditions aretold ; I merely indicate the kindling convictionswhich stirred the thoughts of the writers who firstembodied them in their present shape . The visionaryeye and ear must

,of course

,have been theirs

,or no

intensity of spiritual convictions could have enabledthem by a few simple touches to delineate scenesthat must li ve as long as the human race. But thisvisionary faculty would be entirely quiescent werenot some kindling faith or conception to excite i tsactivi ty. The v ividn ess of the outward picture mustdepend on the manner of the painter ; and if “ theeyes of them that see are not to “ be dim

,and the

ears of them that hear are to hearken,

” the vi sionsand sounds which pass before them must be conmoo ted and engraved upon the seer by some inw ardtrust or love . The spi ritual roots

,so to say

,of the

Hebrew traditionary poems are the faith in theglorious destiny of the nation

,and the overseeing

Providence of God as the power which had wroughtout that destiny and should further work i t out toits conclusion .

But i f i t i s easy to trace the main streams ofpopular tradition to those two closely al lied andindeed ultimately identical sources

,—the pride of

national unity and greatness,and th e delight in

tracing the movements of that guiding hand whichhad shaped the discipline of the nation in shapingthe lot of its fathers and its kings, —it is yet easier

260 T HE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

should hear and rejoice at that which the messengerhad cruel ly supposed might be welcome tidings tohim self

,—i s th e keynote of the lament .

And David said unto h im,How wast thou not afraid

to stretch forth th ine hand to destroy th e Lord’s anointedT h y blood be upon thy head for th y mouth hath testifiedagainst thee

,saying

,I have slain th e Lord’s anointed .

And David lamented w ith th is lamentation over Saul,

and over Jonathan h is so n . T h e beauty of Israel is slainupon thy high places h ow are the m ighty fal len Telli t not in Gath

,publ ish it not in th e streets of Askelon

lest th e daughters of the Philistines rej oice,lest th e

daughters of th e uncircumcised triumph . Ye mountainsof Gilboa

,let there be no dew

,neither rain upon y o u , nor

fields of offerings : for there th e shield of th e mighty isvilely cast away

,th e sh ield of Saul , as though not anoint ed

w ith o il . F rom th e blood of th e slain,from th e fat of

th e mighty, th e b ow of Jonathan turn ed not back , andth e sw ord of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathanw ere l ovely and pleasant in their l ives

,and in their death

they were not d ivided . They were sw ifter than eagles,

they were stronger than lions. Y e daughters of Israel,

weep over Saul,wh o cl othed y o u in scarlet, w ith other

delights wh o put on ornaments of gold on your apparel .How are the m ighty fallen in th e m idst of the battle !0 Jonathan

,thou wast slain in th y high places. I am

di stressed for thee,my brother Jonathan : very pleasant

hast thou been unto me thy love to me was w onderful,

passing th e love of w omen . Ho w are th e mighty fallen,

and the weapons of war perished

Personal grief i s only an episode in the lament,

though constituting its greatest beauty ; the reprosen tative character of the king and his son as thechiefs of Israel

,appointed by God, i s the prominent

thought ; and th e ignominy of the shield cast awaybefore the enemy constitutes th e burden of the song.

T I IE POETRY OF TI IE OLD TESTAMENT 26]

Again,in the greatest war-song of any age or

nation,the exultation of Deborah over Sisera’s com

plete defeat, and subsequent assassination by thehand of Jael

,the wi fe of Heber the Kenite, —no

doubt personal revenge might seem to blaze highabove Deborah’s faith in her nation and her God,as the kindling or exciting spiritual principle whichbrings the scene in such marvellous vividness beforeher eyes . But though this feeling may add perhapssome of the fire to the latter part of the poem, i t i sclear that her faith in the national unity

,and God,

as the source of the national unity, was th e great,binding thought of the whole. The song dwells

,

first,with th e most intense bitterness on the decay

of patriotism in the tribes that did not combineagainst the common foe : For the divi sions ofR euben , she says

,

“ there were great searchings ofheart. Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, tohear th e bleatings of the flocks ? For the divisionsof R euben there were great searchings of heart.Gi lead abode beyond Jordan

,and why did Dan

remain in ships ? Asher continued on the seashore,

and abode in his breaches with which she contraststhe nobler conduct of Z abulon and Naphtali

,who

“ j eoparded their lives unto the death in the highplaces of the field .

” Their kings came and fought,

she says,and “ took no gain of money ”

; and al lpowers of heaven and earth were on their side .

They fought from heaven ; the stars in theircourses fought against S isera the river of Kishonswept them away

,that ancient river

,the river

Kishon . O my soul,thou hast trodden down

strength . And th e transition by which she passesto her fierce exultation over Sisera’s terrible fateshows distinctly what was the main thought in her


mind .

“ There was peace,we are told

,between

the king of Hazor,whose forces S isera commanded

,

and Heber the Keni te the latter was only distantlyakin to the people of Israel ; the help of his tribewas not expected ; and yet, though the aid of manytrue Israelites was wanting

,from his house came

the blow, treacherous though i t was, which rid thenation of the dreaded and hated enemy.

Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord ; curseye bitterly the in habitants thereof

,because they came

not to the help of th e Lord , to the help of th e Lordagainst the m ighty. Blessed above w omen shal l Jael thew i fe of Heber the Kenite be blessed shal l sh e be abovew omen in th e tent. He asked for water

,and she gave

h im m ilk : she brought forth butter in a lordly dish ;sh e put h er hand to th e nail , and h er right hand to th ew orkmen’s hammer ; and w ith th e hammer she smoteS isera

,sh e smote o ff his head when she had pierced and

stricken through h is temples. At h er feet h e bowed,h e

fell,he lay down at h er feet he bowed

,h e fell where

he bowed,there he fell down dead . T h e mother of

S isera looked o ut at a w indow,and cried through th e

lattice,Why is his chariot so long in comin g

“

.Z Wh y

tarry the wheels of h is chariots ? Her wise lad iesanswered h er

, y ea, sh e returned answer to hersel f, Havethey not sped have they not d ivided th e prey to everyman a damsel or two to S isera a prey of d ivers colours

,

a prey of d ivers col ours of needlew ork , of d ivers coloursof needlew ork on both sides

,meet for th e necks of them

that take th e spoil ? S o let al l Th ine enem ies perish , OLord but let them that love Thee be as th e sun when h egoeth forth in his might.The ex ul tation with whi ch the poet dwell s on the

treachery of the act,on the helpless prostration of

the great captai n’s corpse before a mere woman’sknees the terrible minuteness w i th which she gloats

264 TIIE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

and the captivi ty treated as a source of spiri tualblessing

,rather than a curse . Even the heathens

,

i t te ll s us,confessed that the Lord had “ done great

things for them,

” and so it was ; for, as the wintertorrent returns again to i ts dry bed when the parching summer is past,—as the seed sown in grief returns in joy in the yellow sheaves of harvest

,—so ,

by one of those rapid and unreal changes of fatewhich make even the waking ask if they dream

,

the Israel ites found themselves returnin g to theirland ; once more a nation, and once again assuredof the unchangeable purposes of their God.

When the Lord turned again th e captivity of S ionthen were we l ike unto them that dream . Then was o ur

mouth filled w ith laughter : and o ur tongue w ith j oy.

Then said they among th e heathen, T h e Lord hath donegreat th ings for them . Y ea

,the Lord hath done great

things for us already : whereof we rej oice. Turn o ur

captivity, O Lord : as the rivers in the south . Theythat sow in tears Shall reap in j oy. He that n ow goethon his way weep ing

,and beareth forth good seed, shal l

doubtless come again w ith j oy, and bring h is sheaves w ithh im.

”

It i s,then

,I believe, a matter of fact that the

imagination of the Hebrew poets i s never thoroughlysti rred by more individual emotion . Nothing i smore striking than the tendency of their individualand solitary moods of thought to w iden , as the firekindles

,into meditations on the nation al history and

th e mysteries of its supernatural providence . Oftenthe turn i s so sudden and abrupt, that to our moderncars

,i n which history and poetry sound incompatible

terms,the transi tion seems harsh and grotesque . The

poet who i s S inking under the burden of disease andsorrow

,and is pouring forth what seems a weigh t of

TI IE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 205

stri ctly private trouble into the ear of God,has no

sooner confessed that i t i s “ hi s own infirmity,” and

not the neglect of the Most High, which makes hisweariness seem so intolerable

,than he plunges into

th e “ wonders of old,

” and ends his hymn with whatto modern cars sounds like a strange anti -climax“ Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the greatwaters

,and thy footsteps are not known . Tho u

leddest thy people like sheep , by the hands ofMoses andA aro n . Of lyrics proper, no doubt, there are manyin th e Book of Psalms ; but usually the clear visionof God summons up by a kind of necessity the imageof the nation

,and the story of th e nation’s fates .

Sometimes one understands better the characteristic moving power of a great literature by contrastin g i t w i th that of a different people or age,than by contemplating i t as it i s in itself. It wouldbe untrue to say that the Hebrew literature i s whollydevoid of any feeling of art ; for it must be confessed,that when a great faith has to be expressed

,or a

great problem stated,there is that powerful instinct

for comparison and contrast which is almost in separable from a vivid and

,so to say

,haunted imagination .

Art i s,after all, only a second nature ; and want of

artisti c power i s not felt unti l the first glow of poeticfire begins to fade. But certainly there is in theHebrew literature about as little conscious art as inany literature in the world . Let us look at it

,for

instance,in its pictorial aspect. Considering the

graph ic power with which i t abounds, how utterlydesti tute is i t of artisti c painting—o f colouring ordrawing, that is put in for the sake of the pictureitself

,rather than for any purpose which the picture

is to answer ! I may best i llustrate what I mean bya contrast between o n e of the poetical fragments of

266 THE POETRY o r THE OLD TESTAMENT

Jew i sh hi story,and the modern rendering of it by

Sir \Valter S cott. The kindling or germ inal thoughtwhich induced that great artist to versify the fragment to which I allude was the sense of mere externalpi cturesqueness while the purpose which was stirringin the heart of the Hebrew wri ter was the desire Ihave so often Spoken of to record the glory of thenational li fe

,and the might of the outstretched arm

of Jehovah, which made i t what i t was . Writing ofthe guidance of the people of Israel through thedesert

,the author of the Book of Exodus says :

An d the Lord went before them by day in a pi llarof a cloud

,to lead them the way ; and by night in a

pillar of fire,to give them light ; to go by day and

night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud byday

,nor the pi llar of fire by night

,from before the

people (xii i. 21,—which Sir Walter S cott

renders into thi s well-known verseWhen Israel

,of the Lord beloved

,

Out of the land of bondage came,

Her fathers’God befo re h ermoved,

An aw ful Guide,in smoke and flame.

By day,along the astonished lands

,

T h e cloudy pi llar glided slowBy night

,Arabia’s crimsoned sands

Returned the fiery column’s glow.

”

The occupation of mind w i th th e picture of thedesert scenery here indicated ; with the externaleffects of the pil lar of cloud and of fire ; w i th theastonishment with which th e solemn procession wouldbe regarded by th e Arabian tribes w ith th e reli ef ofthe dark object amid the noonday desert glare ; withthe brigh t patch of sand moving through the midnight ;—i s gi ven in a manner quite foreign to that of theHebrew poet. The modern artist delights in th e

268 THE POETRY o r TI IE OLD TESTAMENT

up seaweed and the soi l of many a neighbouringi sland under the lash of the west wind

,but for the

passing image : “ The wicked are like the troubledsea

,when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire

and dirt. There is no peace, sai th my God, to thewicked . We should never guess that he hadwatched the Tyrian sai lors trying to shake outcanvas under a light w ind, w i th a crippled ship tomanage, but for the metaphorical denunciationagainst the enemies of the Lord “ Thy tacklingsare loosed ; they could not well strengthen theirmast ; they could not spread their sail .” How

totally d ifferent from the spirit of the modernpoet

As some grave Ty rian trader from th e sea

Descried at sun r ise an emergin g prowLifting th e cool-haired creepers stealthily,T h e fringes of a southward-facing brow ,

Among th e JEgean islesAnd saw the merry Grecian coaster come,Freighted w ith amber grapes and Chian w ine,Green bursting figs and tunnies steeped in brine,And knew the intruders on his ancient home

,

T h e young l ighthearted master of th e wavesAnd snatched h is rudder

,and shook o ut more sail ,

And day and night held on indignantlyO’cr the blue Midland waters w ith th e gale,

” 1etc.

In every line here the poet l ingers wi th satisfied eyeon some fresh beauty ; while, however grand th e

scene before th e mind of the Hebrew poet,i t i s to

the meaning behind i t that he is hurryin g on .

Thus the Psalmist had certainly gazed with awe onthe grandeur of th e sudden “ white squal ls of theMediterranean and yet

,but for the passing al lusion

1 Poems by Matthew Arnold .

T llE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 209

to God’s power,—“ He commandeth and raiseth thestormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereofthey mount up to the heavens ; they go down to th edepths ; their soul i s melted because of troublethey reel to and fro

,and stagger like a drunken man ,

and are at their wi t’s end . Then they cry unto theLord in their trouble

,and He bringeth them out of

their distresses .,Ho maketh the storm a calm , so

that the waves thereof are sti ll . Then are they gladbecause they be quiet. S o he bringeth them to thehaven where th ey would be, he would never haveembodied what he had seen in a poem . Any modernpoet would have delighted to dwell upon the scene :the pale l ine of foam scudding nearer and nearerbefore the blast the blue sea suddenly turning blackbeneath the cloud

,and then lashed into whiteness

by the squall ; the cries of the sailors the quiveringof the Ship as the tempest strikes her —in Short, hewould have made a picture of it, and then, touchingon the despair of the passengers, would graduallyhave led up to the pity and power of God. But tothe Hebrew poet the thing is not interesting in itself,as a picture

,at all i t i s apassin g symbol of Almighty

goodness and discipl ine ; he uses i t only to expresshis intense sense of the omnipresence of providentialpower.S o , too, with the common imagery of modern

Christian poetry—mountains,

fields, trees . Thatthe Hebrew poets felt the stateliness of the cedar

,

knew,too

,when “ the power of hills was on them

,

were alive to the grateful shelter of the “ leafyspring

,

” no one who reads their pages can doubt.“ The trees of the Lord are full of sap, the cedars ofLebanon which he hath planted .

” “ He watereththe hills from his chambers, the earth is satisfied with


the frui t of his works . In the Lord put I mytrust : h o w say ye to my soul

,Flee as a bird to your

mountain ? For 10,th e w i cked bend their bow

,

”

etc . And yet we never find a single express delineation of the plains of Hebron

,or the snows of

Lebanon, of sunset in the Mediterranean as theprophets must have seen th e sun go down from Mou ntCarmel , of the valley of the Jordan, or of the desolate solitudes of the Dead Sea

,in all their w ri tings .

These things are alluded to,but only and purely to

express their higher thoughts of God—as a kind ofpictorial language of trust

,prophecy

,or prayer

,

never from the sense of their individual beauty.

“ He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains . ”

Fire and hail,snow and vapour

,sto rmy winds

,

are mentioned ; but only “as fulfi lling his word .

These th ings are not beautful for their o w n sakes,

but glorious only as th e instruments of His will .Hear ye mountains

,

” says the prophet Mi cah,

“ theLord’s controversy

,and ye strong foundations of the

earth ” ; and even there, alone with the hills and thesky

,he pours forth no w onder at the glory of nature

,

but,w hile uttering indignation at the sins of men

,

uses nature only allus ively, as the instrument toshadow forth h is thought. S o also

,to the shepherd

Amos,the mountain w inds and the midnight stars are

no study in themselves, but a fleeting glimpse of theEternal pow er Lo, he that formed the mountains ,and createth the wind

,and declareth to man w hat is

his thought,that maketh the morning darkness

,and

treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord ,the God of hosts , i s his name .

“ Ye wh o turnjudgments to w ormw ood

,and leave off righteousness

in the earth ; seek him that maketh the seven starsand Orion, and turneth the Shadow of Death into

272 T I IE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMEN T

they gather themselves together and lay them dow n

in their dens . Man goeth forth to his w ork and tohis labour til l the evening. 0 Lord

,how manifold

thy w orks in w i sdom hast thou made them all :the earth is full of thy riches . These al l waitupon thee

,that thou mayest give them their meat

in due season ; that thou givest them they gather .Thou openest thine hand

,they are fi lled wi th

good ; Thou hidest thy face, th ey are tro ubled ; Thoutakest away their breath

,they die and return to

their dust.” How different this from the imaginative care w ith which Homer

,for instance

,dwells on

the characteristic nature and individual habits of thelion

S o forth he w ent, as goes the li on forth ,Whom w inds have vexed

,and rains fire fi lls h is eyes

,

A n d whether herds of flocks or w oodland deerHe finds, h e rends them ,

and adust for blood,

Abstains not even from the guarded fold .

” 1

IVhat i s not seen to be essential to the moral andspir itual beauty and constitution of the universe

,

enters into the Hebrew poet’s thought only as il lustratin g the unsearchable riches of God and has noi ntrin sic interest and no fascination for the imagination apart from this view of it.Now this

,I need hardly say, puts a great gulf

between the Hebrew and ordinary literatures . Mani s usually interested in all varieties of human andfinite beauty or life

,without special or exclusive

reference at all events to their divine purpose . He

may recognise the necessary degradation which all

natural beauty undergoes when the divine light nolonger shines upon it ; but stil l, usually the first

1 Odyssey , vi. 130 , Cowper’

s translation .

T I IE POETRY or T I IE OLD TESTAMENT 273

poeti c instinct i s indicated by a capacity for enteringinto the heart of n atural li fe,—it may be the mentaland moral varieties of human nature, or i t may bethe simple life of the flower or the stream, and forrising

,i f he should so rise

,through this vividness of

sympathy w ith Nature to the spiritual meanings orsymbols it may suggest. He sees the daffodils flutteringand dancing in the breeze beside the lake , and says

T h e waves beside them danced, but theyOutdid the sparkl ing waves in gleeA poet could not but be gayIn such a j ocund company ”

and it i s not til l he has,as it were

,reached the very

essence of the natural loveliness before him,that he

dilates on the unsuspected stores of j oy they havebrought to “ that inward eye which is the bliss ofsoli tude . But this i s quite alien to the habit ofthe old Hebrew poet ; he saw the divine light Shining o n the world of nature and man

,but scarcely shin

ing through the world of nature and man , except inthe direction of man’s moral and spiritual life. He

took no pleasure in rising through the purely n atmal

to the supernatural ; he looked with awe on God’s

works,because he knew

,and entered into

,and wor

shipped God’s spirit but he did not care to explorethe non-spiritual aspects of the wisdom of God

,

through a life of patient and quiet sympathy w i ththe natural beauties of His works .The modes of thought most natural to a

modern poet,—such modes of thought as gaveShakespeare hi s genial insight into the varieties ofhuman passion and action

,or VVOPdSworth and

Tennyson their insight into those spi ri tual aspectsof Nature which only study and meditative sym

274 T I IE POETRY OF TIIE OLD TESTAMENT

pathy disclose,

-were , in general, quite foreign tothe poets of Israel . As the Jew i sh thinkers hadlittle share in forwarding that growth of science andthe arts which were due

,i n Greece, to a minute

intellectual study of the laws of physical creation,

so Jewish poets had little share in forwarding thatgrowth of epic and dramatic l iterature

,which also

arose in Greece,and was due to the growing insight

into the ways of man , and the affinities between manand the natural world around him . S o far

,indeed

,

as the Sp iritual nature of man was concerned, theHebrew poetry contains a delineation ful l of sym

pathetic insight. All the highest resources of thepoet are exhausted in describing the thirst for Godof which the soul of man is conscious . The “ hartpanting after the water-brooks,

”—the “ dry and thirstylandwhere no water is,

”—the tempest-driven bird seekin g refuge from the storm,

—do but serve to remindone of the many tender and characteri stic poems ofthi s class in which the Hebrew literature abounds .But go beyond the spiritual nature of man , and

the sympathy of the Hebrew poets is dried up atonce . Even into the varieties of moral temperamentno insight is shown . The line is drawn between th ewicked and the good ; but in all the contemplativepoetry of the Bible

,no interest i s betrayed in the

inward varieties of impulse,motive

,and affection

,

which distinguish the innumerable kinds of humanexcellence or frai lty from each other. Pride andhumility

,insincerity and uprightness, avarice and

generosity,are condemned and praised

,without one

trace of meditative or instinctive intelligence of th econstitutional frailties and gi fts which vary so infinitely the degrees of g ui l t or Vi rtue attaching tothem in d ifferent men and different circumstances ;


spring of eternal rest,as well as of creative energy

,

that we are enjoined to respect the law of rest aswell as the law of labour . In God i s to be foundthe ex planation of man’s being ; in man

’s being theexplanation of every descending stage of creation . Ihave paraphrased, in very awkward langu age , th esublime words to which I refer ; but this was n ecessary in order to draw attention to the point I w i shto illustrate . The stately succession of createdthings springing in to being beneath the l iving breathof God ; the evenings, which see each fresh workaccomplished

,the mornings

,which see the next

beg un ; the orderly separation of earth and sky, ofsea and land ; the growth of grass and trees ; thefirst circles of the sun

,moon

,and stars in the

heavens ; the new - born seasons ; the creation ofli ving creatures ; the birth of man in God

’s image ;the gift of the supremacy into his hands ; and thedivine sentence upon each new “ kind ” as i t arises

,

and finally upon the whole,that it i s good

,are all

so familiar to us,that we are apt to overlook the

characteristic thought contained that each lowernature refers upward to the next above it

,and the

highest created nature to,God : the light to the

heavens ; the heavens to the sun, moon, and stars ;these to the earth the earth to the vegetable worldthis

,again

,to the animal wor ld above i t ; this to

man,w h o rules over i t, and man to God. At what

link can you stop in such a chain What nature canyou study

,without seeking the key to i t in that

next superior ? And i f so,how shall i t be possible

to stop at the natural at all,or imagine that we can

study fitly any order that is not supernatural andeternal ? Earthly and human beauty can o nly berelative

,after al l

,and do not deserve a moment’s


attention,unless they symbolise a beauty that is

absolute,perfect

,and sel f-sustained .

This revelation of the natural law of subordination of things and creatin'es is actually and notmerely poetically true ; and yet i t natural ly leads,of course , to an effort which could only be partiallysuccessful— to study the secrets of the universe inGod, i n whose image man is made, and to supposeeverything absolutely hidden from us on which thisdirect communion wi th God throws no light. S o

far as spiri tual life i s concerned, this i s the trueorder of study. God reveals His spirit to us directly ;and without i t nothing spiritual i s intel ligible at all .A nd the method of the Hebrew poetry, therefore ,presents thus far not only the divine truth

,but the

only true approach to the spiritual secrets of humanli fe . But on other sides of our life this i s not so .

Though spiri tual truth is known first through theknowledge of God, and though , without knowingHim

,all other truth is misseen and misconstrued

,

yet, this key once gained, the range of its compreh en sio n i s indefinitely extended by studying Godin nature and humanity

,instead of contemplating

nature and humanity only in God. And as the lifeof the universe was regarded by the prophets ofIsrael only on this latter S ide

,there was necessari ly

a large field which their imagination never vi si tedand represented. The various works of creationwere pronounced Separately good

,

“ each after i tskind but what those ' “ kinds were in themselves

,

i t was left to Gentile nations and other ages to studyand describe. To the wri ter in the Book of Genesis

,

the life of each kind was merged in that of the kindabove it ; all the lower world in man, and man inGod. And the national poets uniformly pursued


this line Of thought : al l that was purely human,and al l which was below the human type

,was used

only as symbolic of something higher, i f not whollypassed by as existing exclusively for the sake of thatwhich was above it.And hence all the poetry of the Old Testament is

true and divine at the expense of variousness ofinsigh t and breadth of sympathy. It i s what onemight call a heliocentric

,as distingui shed from a geo

centri c, representation of life . The former gives thetrue and absolute standard but for that very reasoncannot enter into the natural history of human errorsand human individual ity . If you would study thelife of earth , you must leave your central position inthe sun . The strange habits and ways of man cannot be mastered by communion only with the spirito f God, though they cannot be understood at al lwithout it. But the prophets

,who were also the

poets of Israel,were sent to announce and reveal the

Light,not to study the winding avenues by which

alone i t could penetrate the human heart.Hence one does not see in the Hebrew poets’s trains

the upli fted eye of the suppliant,half SO vividly as

the searching glance of the Eternal . Fascinated bythe supernatural gaze of the Almighty

,the prophet

often so identifies himself with God that he forgetshis own person, and speaks in the very name ofJehovah . The Psalmists

,for example

,are always

vaci llating between the first person and the third,

when they deliver the purposes of God. As theywarm with their spiritual inspiration

,they lose them

selves in the person of Him who inspires them,and

then are again recal led to themselves . And th e

prophets habitually fall into the same changingmode of address . “ Behold

,

” says Isaiah,

“ I have

280 TI I E POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

excellency of your strength,th e desire of your eyes, and

that wh ich your soul p itieth and your sons and yourdaughters whom ye have left shall fal l by th e sword .

And ye shall do as I have done ye shal l not cover yourl ips

,nor eat th e bread of men . A nd your tires shall be

upon your heads,and your shoes upon your feet : y e

shal l not mourn nor weep ; but ye shal l pine away foryour iniquities

,and mourn o n e toward another. Thus

E zek iel is unto y o u a sign accord ing to all that h e hathdone shal l ye do and when th is cometh

, ye shall knowthat I am the Lord God. Also

,thou son of man , shal l

it not be in th e day when I take from them their strength ,th e j oy of their glory

,th e desire of their eyes

,and that

whereupon they set their m inds, their sons an d thei rdaughters

,That he that escapeth in that day shall come

unto thee,to cause thee to hear it w ith thine ears ? In

that day shal l thy mouth be opened to h im wh ich isescaped , and thou shalt speak and be no more dumb ;and thou shalt be a sign unto them and they shal l knowthat I am th e Lord .

”

There i s one great poem in the Hebrew S cripturesso remarkable and exceptional in every respect, thatto pass over i t without special comm ent would be tO '

disregard wilfully one of the principal phenomenafrom which every adequate appreciation of the characteristics of the Old Testament poetry should bederived— the drama of Job. I have reserved mynotice of i t to the last

,because i t seems to me that

the highest cri ti cal authorities must be right inthinking that i t i s nearly the latest

,as well as the

only formally artisti c,product of the poeti c genius of

the Jews. This,at least

,i s in in ten tion

,as well as in

fact,a literary effort,—an attempt to present

,and

perhaps more or less to solve,i n a dramatic form

some of the highest problems of man’s spiritual life .

I t i s the only important book in the Old Testament


which i s not closely interwoven with the real historyand life of th e nation ,—which stands apart as acon scious effort of imagination .

No doubt,the Book of Job marks in many ways

the culmination of th e national genius, and the transition from the exclusively divine centre of the Hebrewpoetic thought to the wider range of insight intoNature and Man

,from the natural as well as the

supernatural side,which was to succeed i t. The

very treatment of a divine theme under the humanconditions of an imaginary drama would alone appearto indi cate this . The confl ict wi th the narrowlyJewish conceptions of Providence which i t containswould also indicate it. The contemplative delightwhich the wonders of Nature and the mysteries ofanimal li fe arouse in the writer’s mind

,and the

naturali sti c minuteness with which they are painted,

as well as the delineation of the inward perplexitiesof the sp iritual life

,al l point to an origin in an age

when that more genial appreciation of Nature andMan which we perceive in the later prophecies bearing the name of Isaiah had been carried even further .

Moreover,as regards man himself

,the whole argu

ment turns on the subtle distinction between thatpart of h is nature which, finite and Shortsightedthough he is, yet gives him a right to claim a realaffinity with God, and that part which, finite andlimited as i t i s

,necessari ly obscures hi s power of

judgment. This is not a point which could wellhave been di scussed in an early period of the Jewishli terature .

There i s an evident effort throughout the dramato distinguish the “ creature in Job from that“Spirit ” in him which gives him a right to pleadwi th God. The drama is usually understood as a


more exposure of the false view which makes calamitya certain index of the wrath of God and therefore ofguil t. This

,no doubt

,i t i s ; but it i s also much

more . It i s a discussion of the mystery of God’srelation to man and to the lower universe . There isan effo rt, .

I bel ieve, in the poem to show that man isrelated to God in two ways

,—as a spiritual being

,

and as a creature. As a spiritual being,he may

justify himself and speak what God Himself cannotoverride

,and wi ll certainly affirm : as a creature, he

i s in complete ignorance of the lot i t may be rightfor the ruler of the universe to assign him ; since Heonly can judge who sees the universe as a whole

,

who moves the very springs of i ts life . Man cann otand ought not to accuse Providence of injusti ce inany external lot He may send, unless he could u ndertake to wield the whole scheme of Providence in Hisplace ; then , and then only, might he “ disannul ”

God’s judgment, and condemn Him i n order “ toestablish his own righteousness .” The ignorantcreature i s wrong in criticising the acts of the Creator ;but the sp irit of the man is right in asserting theabsolute character of his highest spiri tual convi ctionsagainst any array of external argument. Job issustained in his assertion that though his bodyShould be destroyed, yet a living Redeemer shouldvindicate his inward purity ; he i s sustained inreiterating

,

“ God forbid that I Should justi fy youtil l I die : I wil l not remove mine integri ty fromme my righteousness will I hold fast and w i l l notlet i t go ” ; he is sustained in holding fast by thejudgment of his spirit on his own actions

,for that i s

a judgment wi th full knowledge : but he is condemn ed for judging God’s outward conduct to himby any standard whatever ; since in doing so he


and beauty of the universe,and complete disavowal

of all pow er on the part of man to form any judgmentupon i t

,i s especial ly remarkable as compared with

the bold justification of the Spiritual parti cipation ofhuman nature in one of the attributes of God. Itproves that the Hebrew poet had already distingui shedbetween the direct knowledge of God’s Spiri t whichspi ri tual communion gives

,and the indirect know

ledge o f His mysterious ways which can only begained by a study of th ese ways . It shows that hehad mastered the convi ction

,that to neglect the

study of the natural mysteries of the universe leadsto an arrogant and i llici t intrusion of moral andspiritual assumptions into a different world

,—in a

word, to the false inferences of Job’s friends as to h is

gui lt, and his own equally false inference as to theinjustice of God.

Here,then

,we have the Hebrew imagination in

a state of transition . It i s stil l occupied,almost

entirely,with the divine side of creation

,— the

holiness and omnipotence of God,and the feebleness

of man but already a S incere admiration for naturall ife

,and power

,and beauty

,begins to be seen ; and

humanity asserts i ts own Share in the life of thedivine righteousness in clearer tones than in any Of

the O lder prophets. In short,that unique type of

poetry which i s expressed and symbolised in thetradition of Jacob’s dream is beginning to disappear.In al l the characteristi c poetry of Israel man seemsto l ie enveloped in the darkness of earth yet with astream of supernatural radiance cast upon him fromthat Opening in the heavens above, through whichforms of light ascend and descend . For the rest

,

the heaven is dark with the clouds which vei l Omnipotence

,and the earth has no proper radiance of its

T I IE POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

ow n ; whi le th e grandeur of the effect i s heightenedby the R embrandt-like contrast of light and shadow.

In the later prophecies of Isaiah,—generally attributed by modern criti cs to a later prophet,—and thegreat poem of Job

,this startling narrowness and

intensity of effect is visibly on the decline. Theclouds of Omnipotence begin to break ; the intrinsi cbeauty of Nature begins to be more closely associatedw i th the Spiritual lights of heaven, and humanityespecially to have a distinct standing point andradiance of its own . From this time the marvello usly unique poetry of Israel ceases, and ceasesnever to be revived . But the supernaturalism whichit discerned so vividly as brooding over the earlyworld does not cease with it. It has transmuted forever the pure naturalism of Greek poetry. Andnow no modern poet can ever become really great

,

who does not feel and reproduce in his writings thecharacteristic difference between that mild inner lightwhich “ lightens every man that cometh into theworld, which grows with our growth and strengthenswi th our strength

,and that which

,descending sud

den ly from God upon the startled conscience, makesus exclaim :

“ How dreadful i s this place ! thi s i snone other but the house of God ; thi s i s the gate ofheaven .

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 1

THESE two volumes,as they now stand

,contain as

adequate a pi cture of the singular but large,simple

,

and tender nature of the Oxford poet as is attainable,

and it i s one which no one can study wi thout muchprofi t

,and perhaps also some loss ; without feeling

the high exaltation of true poetry and the keenpleasure caused by the subtlety of true scholarship

,

at every turn ; nor also without feeling now andagain th ese “ blank misgivings of a creature movingabout in worlds not realised

,

” which are scattered soliberally among these buoyant ardours

,disappointed

longings,and moods of speculative suspense

,and

which characterise these singular letters of reticenttenderness and rough self-satire .Every one who knew Clough even slightly

,received

the strongest impression of the unusual breadth andmassiveness of his mind . S ingularly simple andgenial

,he was unfortunately cast upon a self-question

ing age,which led him to worry himself wi th con

stan tly testing the veraci ty of his own emotions . He

has delineated in four l ines the impression which h is1 The Poems an d Prose Remain s of A rthur Hugh Clough ,

w ith a Selectio n from h is Letters,an d a.Memoir. Edited by h is

Wife . 2vols. With a Portrait. Macmillan .

288 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH V1

from his residence in Massachusetts, was that theNew Englanders were much S impler than the English

,

and that this was the great charm of New Englandsociety. His own habits were of the same kind

,

Sometimes almost austere in their simplicity .

Luxury he disliked, and at times his friends thoughthim even ascetic .This almost morbid craving for a firm base on the

absolute realities of life was very wearying to a mindso self-conscious as Clough’s, and tended to paralysethe ex pression of a certainly great genius. As arule

,his lyrical poems fall Short of complete success

in del ineating the mood which they are really meantto delineate

,owing to this chronic state of in tro spec

tive criticism on himself in which he i s apt to w rite,

and which,characteristi c as it i s

,necessari ly di

minishes the li nearity and directness of the feelingexpressed

,refracting i t

,as it were

,through media of

very variable density. As he himself,—no doubt in

thi s stanza del ineating himsel f,—says of one of hi sheroes in the Clergyman’s first tale

With all h is eager motions still there wentA self-correcting and ascetic bent,That from the obvious good stillled astrayAnd set him travelling on th e longest way .

And in the same poem there are descriptive toucheswhich very skilfully portray the nature of those dispersive influences, as I may call them ,

in his character

,which

,while they may injure his lyri cal

,add

a great wealth of cri tici sm to his speculative andd isquisitional poems

Beside th e w ish ing-gate,wh i ch so they name

’MidNorthern h ills,to me th is fancy came

A wish I formed,my w ish I thus expressed

VI ARTHUR n uen eLo uo n 289

lVould I couldwish my wishes all to rest,A n d kn ow to wish the wish that were the bestOh

,for some wimiowin g w ind to th

’ empty airThis chaff of easy sympath ies to bearFar o ff

,and leave me of mysel f aware l’”

That is clearly self-portraiture , and it describes anelemen t in Clough’s nature which , no doubt, contributed greatly to diminish the number of his few butexquisite lyri cal poems

,and sometimes to confine

even those to the del ineation of feelings of a certainvagueness of drift. Yet there was

,besides this most

subtle and almost over-perfect intellectual culture inClough

,much of a boyish

,half-formed nature in him,

even to the last ; and this, when fully roused, contributed a great deal of the animation

,and

,when

least roused, contributed not a little of the embarrassed, shy, half—arti culate tone to some of the mostcritical passages of his finest poems. He describes thisside of boyish feeling admirably in one of his InMariMetgn o tales

How il l o ur boyhood understandsIncipient manhood’s strong demandsBoys have such trouble of their ownAs none

,they fancy

,e’er have known

,

Such as to speak of,or to tell

They hold were unendurableReligious

,social

,of allk inds,

That tear and agitate their m inds.A thousand thoughts with in me stirredOfwh ich I could not speak a w ordStrange efforts after someth ing n ew

Wh ich I was w retched not to d oPassions

,ambitions

,lay and lurked

,

Wants,counter-wants, obscurely w orked

Without their names and unexplained .

290 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH v1

A n d even in his latest and most finished poems yousee the traces of this hal f -developed element ofClough’s massive and rich but to some extent i nertimagination ; and you see, too, how powerful ly itOperated to discontent him w ith his own productions

,

to make him un derrate vastly their real worth .

Rapidly as his genius ripened at an age when,with

most men,the first flush of i t would have passed

over,there was something of conscious inertia

,not

unl ike immaturity,in i t to the last

,which gives a

tone of proud hesitation, a slowness of hand, to theliterary style of his finest poems. He calls himself

,

i n his “ Long Vacation Pastoral,

” “ the grave man,

nicknamed Adam,

” and there i s really something ofthe flavour of primeval earth, of i ts un ready vigourand crude laboriousness

,about his l iterary nature .

Even when he succeeds best,the reader seems to see

him “ wipe his honourable brows bedewed with toil .”

And yet he is impatient wi th himself for not succeedin g better, and despises his o w n work.

The “ Long Vacation Pastoral ” belongs to a classof poem s that i s scarcely natural ised in Englandthe class of which Goethe’s Hermann and Dorotheais

,perhaps

,the most perfect specimen

,though in

vigour and breadth of imagination,Clough’s pastoral

i s certainly superior. Goethe’s influence over theschool of poetry of which Matthew Arnold andClough have been the most considerable Englishdisciples

,i s very powerfully marked . There i s the

same longing after the old Homeric simplicity,—less

successful perhaps in a cultivated Englishman thanin the more childlike German

,the same love of

homely naturalness of manner,of the wholesome

flavour of earth , an even deeper desi re to tame orexercise al l romance that is alien to common sense

,

292 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII v 1

Mi lking th e k ine in the field ; l ike Rachel wateringcattle,

Rachel,when at the well the predestined beheld and

k issed h erOrw ith pail upon head, l ike Dora beloved of Alexis,Comely

,w ith wel l-poised pail over neck archin g soft

to the shoulders,

Comely in gracefullest act, one arm upl ifted to stay it,Home from the river or pump moving stately and

calm to the laundry

—yet all the imaginative form and framework ofClough’s poem are entirely his own ,

entirelyoriginal

,and marked strongly with the stamp of i ts

Oxford origin .

The almost Homeric vigour with which all thecharacteristics of the reading party are dashed o ff

,

the genial humour with which their personal pecul iarities are coloured-in ,

the buoyant l ife of the diseussions which arise among them

,the strength wi th

which the Highland scenery is conceived and rendered in a few brilliant touches

,the tenderness and

simpli ci ty with which now and then the deeperpathos of life i s allowed to be seen in glimpsesthrough the intellectual play of the poem

,are all

Clough’s own . He i s far more terse, far less prolix,than the great German poet in his style of paintinghomely nature. There is none of that relaxed fibrewhich makes scofi

‘

ers say that Goethe i s a li ttlespooney on his Charlotte’s bread-and-butter

,and his

Dorothea’s proficiency as a waggoner . Clough’spoem is masculine throughout

,though the sentiment

is,perhaps

,not entirely healthy

,and the humour

certainly is of a k ind of which Goethe had littletrace . Here

,for example

,i s Airlie

,the high dresser

of the party

VI ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 293

Airl ie descended th e last, efi'

ulgen t as god of OlympusBlue

,hal f-doubtfully blue

,was the coat that had wh ite

silk facingsWaistcoat blue

,coral buttoned

,the wh ite tie finely

adjusted,

Coral moreover the studs on a sh irt as of cro chet ofwomen

Wh en the fo urwh eel for ten m in utes already hadstood at th e gateway,

He,like a god

,came leavin g h is ample Olymp ian

chamber.

And here i s a Highland dance, in which Airl ie againfigures

, described with allthe humour and force of amodern Homer

Him rivalling, Hobbes, briefest ki lted of

heroes,

Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of aSaxon,

Sk i ll-less of phil ibeg,skil l-less of reel too

,the whirl and

the tw irl o ’tHim see I frisk ing and wh isk ing, and ever at swifter

gyrationUnder brief curtain revealing broad acres—not of broad

cl oth .

Him see I there and the Piper—the Piper What visionbeholds not

Him and h is Honour w ith Arthur, with Janet o urPiper,

and is it,

Is it,0 marvel of marvels ! he too in the maze of themazy

,

Skipp ing and tripp ing, though stately, though languid,w ith head on one shoulder,

Ai rlie,w ith sight of the waistcoat the golden -haired

Katie consolingKatie

,who simple and comely

,and smil in g and blush in g

as ever,

294 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH VI

What though sh e wear on that neck a blue kerch ief, remembered as Ph il ip’s,

S eems in h er maidenly freedom to need smal l consolement of waistcoats

Or take the description of Sir Hector’s speech at th eclan smen

’

s dinn er, which i s rich in Homeric metaphor,as well as modern humour

Bid me not,grammar defyin g, repeat from grammar

defiers

Long constructions strange,and plusquam-Thucyd idean

,

Tell h ow,as sudden torrent in time of speat in the

mountainHurries six ways at once, and takes at last to the

roughest,

Or as the practised rider at A stley’s or Fran co n i’s

,

Ski lfully,boldly bestrides many steeds at once in the

gallop .

Crossing from this to that, with one leg here, one yonder

,

S o,less sk ilful

,but equally bold and wild as the ter

rent,

All through sentences six at a time,unsuspecting of

syntax,Hurried the l ively good w ill and garrulous tale of Sir

Elector.

Not,however, by such passages as these can be

measured the depth and fulness of Clough’s poeti cnature. I have said that, in his dread of the romanti cschool

,and his longing for that antique type of

nobil ity in which the simpler and more homely tasksare associated with classi cal grace and dig nity, he hadborrowed much from Goethe . But his mind had beenalso deeply influenced by the very different poetry of\Vordsw orth in its strong love for a frugal

,hardy

,

and simple industry as th e highest school of human

296 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH V i

S ometimes I find mysel f dream ing at night about archesand bridges

,

Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand com ingdow n and

Dropping th e great key-stone in th e middle there inmy dream ing

There I felt th e great key-stone coming in,an d through

it

Feel th e other part,—al l the other stones of the archway,Joined into m in e

,w ith a strange happy sense of com

pleten ess. But,dear me

,

T his is confusion and nonsense. I mix al l the things Ican th ink of

,

And you won’t understand,Mr. Ph ilip.

This is a definite addition to the great doctrine ofthe poem

,that women

,like flowers

,must be “ rooted

in earth to be either beautiful or useful—a definiteaddition and a noble addition . Here we have something o i Wordsworth’s conception of the poet

T h e outward shows of sky and earth,

Of h il l and valley, he has viewed ,And impulses of deeper birthHave come to him in sol itude.

There are impulses of deeper birth struggling withthe natural ism of Clough’s chosen school of thought.S ti ll, the great sea, and the wide omnipresent sunl ight

,are hi s favourite symbols of what i s divine

,

what i s broad, bright, and simple, rather than Whati s lofty

,mysterious

,and dim .

Clough always seems to have needed externalstimulus

,something of excitement in the atmosphere

,

for hi s best poeti c success . Thus, the siege of Romeduring hi s residence there in 1849 was the stimuluswhich gave rise to his very original and striking

v i ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII 297

poem,Amours de Voyage

,—a poem brimful of th e

breath of hi s Oxford culture , of Cardinal Newman’s

metaphysi cs,of classical tradition

,of the politi cal en

thusiasm of the time, and of his own large, speculativehumour

,subtle hesitancy of brain

,and rich pictorial

sense . Yet so i ll-satisfied was he with this strikingpoem

,that he kept i t nine years in MS

,and pub

lish ed it apologetically at last only in an Americanmagazine

,the A tlan tic Mon thly. He himself says

that what he doubted about in it was not its truthof conception

,but its vigour and execution . Yet no

execution could have been more perfect of the picture—a picture of inchoacy, I admit—which he intendedto draw. Mr. Emerson has in some cases shownhim self a fine critic ; but he never made a moreegregious blunder than when he found fault w ithClough for not mak ing thi s poem end more satisfac

torily . The whole meaning and dri ft of i t wouldhave been spoiled if it had so ended. His idea wasto draw a mind so reluctant to enter on action

,

shrinking so morbidly from the effects of the “ ruinous force of the will

,that even when most desirous

of action i t would find a hundred trivial intellectualexcuses for shrinking back in spite of that desire .

His own explanation of the poem is contained in thefinal verse

S o go forth to the world , to th e good report and theevil

Go , l ittle book thy tale,is it n o t evi l and good ?

Go , and if strangers revi le, pass quietly by w i thoutanswer.

Go , and i f curious friends ask of thy rearing and age,Say , I am flitting about many years from brain unto

brain ofFeeble and restless youths born to inglorious days

298 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH v i

But,

’ so finish the word, ‘ I was w rit in a Ro manchamber

,

When from Jan iculan heights thundered the can o n ofFrance.”

An d i t i s this brain of what the author chooses tocall “ feeble and restless youths born to ingloriousdays that the poem is meant to delineate throughout,—its speculative discontent, its passion for theabstract, its dread of being committed to a course,i ts none th e less eager craving for action and for theli fe that can only be reached through action

,i ts

dri ftings and reactions —and all this i s artisticallycontrasted with the great Roman stage on which somany great dramas had been enacted in years goneby

,and whereon one great revolutionary drama was

going forward at that very moment. To my mind,the

poem would lose half its character and meaning if thehero’s incipiency of passion had been developed intoanything but incipiency, i f i t had not faded away,j ust as i t i s represented as doing, with the first dithculties, into a restless but sti ll half-relieved passiveness . The irony of the poem ,

with its backgroundofMazzinian and Garibaldian achievement, would havebeen utterly spoi led by any other conclusion . How

perfect a picture of the paralysis caused by too subtlyspeculative a nature i s there in such lines as these, forexample

,in whi ch the hero declares hi s intention to

abide by the indications of the first adverse throw offortune

Great is Fate,and is best. I believe in Providence

partly.

What is ordained is right, and all that happens isordered .

A h,n o

,that isn

’t it ! B ut yet I retain my co n clusio n .

300 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH v i

though the similarity of mere style may arise fromClough’s own familiari ty with the poet, and w ith thetales whose plan he was adopting

,the portrait is cer

tain ly studied from an ecclesiasti cal typ e quite foreignto Chaucer’s age

T h e vicar was of bulk and thews,S ix feet he stood w i th in his shoes

,

And every inch of al l a manE cclesiast

,on the ancient plan

,

Unforced by any party ruleHis native character to schoolIn ancient learning not unread

,

But had few doctrines in h is headDissenters truly he abhorredThey never had his gracious w ord.

He ne’er was bitter,or unk ind

,

But positively spoke h is m indT heir p iety he coul d not bear,A sneakin g

,snivellin g set they were .

Their tricks and meann ess fired his bloodUp for h is Church he stoutly stood.

No worldly aim had he in l ifeTo set h im w ith himself at strife.A spade

,a spade he freely named

,

An d of his j oke was not ashamedMade it

,and laughed at it

,be sure

,

With youn g and old,w ith rich and poor.

His sermons frequently h e tookOut of some standard reverend bookThey seemed a little stran ge indeed

,

But were not likely to m islead.

Others h e gave that were h is ow n,

T h e d ifference could be quickly knownThough sorry not to have a boy

,

His daughters were his perfect j oyHe plag ued them,

oft drew tears from each,

Was bold and hasty in h is speech ,

V I ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 30 1

Al l through the house y ou heard h imHe had h is vocatives for allPatty Patina

,Pat became,

Lyd ia took Languish w ith h er namePh il ippa was th e Gentle Q ueen ,And Ph cn be Madame ProsperineT h e pseudonyms for Mary GwenVaried w ith every week againBut Em ily, ofallth e set

,

Emil ia cal led,was most th e pet.

It i s not the mere subj ect here—it i s the simple , directmanner of painting which brings back a flavour ofChaucer to the memory as we read the more intellectual poet of modern days. Look

,again , at Clough

’sfeeling for women’s beauty the mingled breadth andtenderness of his drawing

,his keen sense of the

healthy simplicity of true womanliness,his constant

preference for the true woman rather than the truelady

,his evident bias for that which has its root in

the homely earth,though it attains a beauty which

earth alone could not give ; i t i s Chaucer becomeconscious of the difference between his own in nermind and the taste of our modern intellectual day.

Chaucer describes his ideas of feminine loveliness inthe person of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt,thus !

I sawgh h irdaun ce so comeley,Carole and synge so swetely ,Laugh e and pleye so w omanly,A n d loke so debonairlyS o go odely speke, and so friendlyThat

,certes

, I trow that evermoreNas[was not] seyne so blysful a tresore.For every b eer on h ir hede

,

Sethe to seyne, h yt Has not redc ,

302 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH V I

Ne nouther y elo we, n e browne, h y t n as,Me thought most lyke golde h y t was.

And wh ich e ey cn [eyes] my lady hadde !Debonaire

,goode

,glade

,and sadde[grave],

Symple, of goode mochel, nought to w ide.T h crto h ir lo oke was not asyde,Ne o vertwert

,but besette to welc

,

It drew and to ok everydelc ,

Alle that on h ir gonne beh o lde.

A n d now let me take an extract from one of Clough’stales to compare with thi s picture of Chaucer’s

“ A highland inn amongst th e western hil ls.

A single parlour,single bed

,that fi lls

With fisher or w ith tourist as may beA waitin g maid as fair as y o u can see

,

With hazel eyes and frequent blushi ng face,

And ample brow,and w ith a rustic grace

In al l h er easy ample motions seen,

Large of h er age, whi ch haply is nineteenChristian h er name , in full a pleasant name,Christian and Christie scarcely seem th e same.A college fel low who has sent awayT h e pupils h e h as taught for many a day,And comes for fishing and for sol itude

,

Perhaps a l ittle pensive in h is mood,

An aspiration and a thought have failed ,Wh ere h e had hoped

,another has prevailed

,

But to th e j oys of h ill and stream al ive,And in his boyhood yet at twenty-five.

A merry dance that made young people meet,And set them moving both w ith hands and feet :A dance in which he danced and nearer knewT h e soft brown eyes

,and found them tender too.

A dance that l it in two youn g hearts th e fire,T h e low soft flame of l oving sweet desi re,And made h im feel that h e could feel againT h e preface this what follows to explain.

”

30 4 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH \'l

Facts evi l—w ishes vain appear,

\Ve cannot go,wh y are we here i

0 may we for assurance’ sake,S ome arb itrary judgment take,And w ilfully pronounce it clearF or th is or that ’tis we are h ere ?

Or is it right,and w ill it do

,

T o pace the sad confusion through,

And say ‘ It doth not yet appear,What we shall be

,what we are h ere

Ah yet when al l is thought and said,T h e heart still overrules th e headS tillwhat we hope we must bel ieve

,

And what is given us,receive

Must still bel ieve for still we hopeThat in a w orld of larger scope

,

W hat here is faithfully begunWill be completed

,not un done.

My ch ild , we stil l must th ink, when we

That ampler life together see,

S ome true result wil l yet appearOfwhat we are, together, h ere.

”

This,l ike almost all Clough’s poems of this class

,

presents the effect of a hom ely, simple, humanbeauty

,half undermined by fundamental doubts

,

doubts suggested,indeed, only to be partially aban

do n ed, but also to be partially maintained, as a preservative against the blind eager confidence of presumptuous faith . The massive and genial sympathywhich Clough feels with the universal instincts ofhuman nature

,alike religious and social

,i s the first

marked feature that strikes us in al l his poemsthen the sifting process begins of tracing them to

V I ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 305

their roots,showing how much wider i s the trust

placed in them in the practical conduct of modernlife, than it is possible to justify intel lectually ; andthen when he has pared these instincts down to theirminimum of meaning

,and we have been shown how

impossible our whole li fe would be if they weregiven no greater validity than that

,they are per

mitted, though with hesitation and a doubtful orrather hypothetical confidence

,to take back some

thing o f their natural authority, now that i t i s fairlyshown to be liable to al l kinds of presumptuouserror.No doubt

,this sort of large

,half-genial suspense

of judgment,that looks upon natural instincts with

a sort of loving doubt,and yields with cautious hand

a carefully stinted authority to human yearnings inorder not wholly to lose a share in the moving forcesof life, is not likely to be widely popular. WithClough this suspense of human judgment was un fortun ately not supplemented by any confident belief ina divine answer to those vague yearnings

,and con

sequently his tone is almost always at once sweetand sad . It i s saturated with the deep but musicalmelancholy of such thoughts as the fol lowing

,whose

pathos shows how much more profoundly and deeplyClough thirsted for truth than many of even themost confident of those of us who believe that therei s a living water at which to slake our thirst

To spend uncounted years of pain,

Again,again

,and yet again ,

In w ork ing o ut in heart and brainT h e problem of o ur being here

To gather facts from far and near,

Upon th e m ind to hold them clear,

And,know ing more may yet appear ,

30 6 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH v i

Unto o n c’s latest breath to fearT h e premature result to drawIs this the object, en d, and law ,

And purp ose of our being hereYet even in poetry of this kind

,which abounds

in the volume, there i s something of the same largehesitating melancholy that we should exp ect, if oncea mind of homely Chaucer-like wisdom fell un der acloud of modern doubt. Instead of applyin g itself

,

like the ordinary scepticism, to particular riddles, i twould touch the whole substance of life, not un

kindly,with Clough’s questioning finger ; treat the

fundamental instincts which guide us into o ur humanrelations with the same half-co nfiden ce ; try to separate

,even in dealing with “ love

,

” the real affin ityof nature from the “ juxtaposition of habit

,and

show the problem to be indeterminate with thesame quaint humour. And in things divine i t wouldstate the problem as fairly

,and substitute a sigh of

patheti c hope for the solution,w ith the same sad

fidelity. It may be something of a fancy,but it i s

at al l events a fancy that touches the border oftruth

,if I recognise even in the typ e of Clough

’sgenial scepticism something not entirely unlike thescepticism which might pervade the mind of aChaucer

,watching, with the old homely shrewdness

as well as the rich modern culture,the swaying tides

of our theological debate, and clin ging too closelyi tself to the human forms of beauty and goodness

,to

come with any clear personal conviction out of thestri fe .However, Clough

’s great literary powers nevermanifested themselves even to his most intimatefriends by any outward sign at al l commensuratewith the profound belief they had in h is genius .

308 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH V I

buoyant,though very far

,of course, from its richest

or most musical and exquisite, poet. There is avery peculiar and unique attraction about what Imay cal l the physi cal and almost animal buoyancyof these subtly intellectual rhythms and verses

,when

once the mass of the poet’s mind—by no meanseasy to get in to motion—is fairly under weigh .

Matthew Arnold and Clough both represent thestream of the modern Oxford intellectual traditionin their poems

,but how different i s their genius .

With al l his intellectual precision,there i s something

of the boyishness,of the simplici ty, of the vascular

Saxon breadth of Chaucer’s poetry in Clough whileMr. Arnold’s poetical ancestor is certainly no earlierthan Wordsworth . There are both flesh and spirit

,

as wel l as emotion and speculation, in Cloughwhile

,i n Mr. Arnold, soul and sentiment guide the

emotion and the speculation . There is tenderness inboth ; but Clough

’s i s the tenderness of earthlysympathy

,and Mr. Arnold’s the lyrical cry of Vi r

gi lian compassion . Both fi l l half their poems withthe most subtle intel lectual meditations but Cloughleaves the problems he touches

,al l but where they

were,not half settled, reproaching himself for moon

ing over them so long ; while Mr. Arnold finds somesort of a delicate solution , or no-solution, for al l ofthem

,and sorts them w i th the finest nicety: Finally

,

when they both reach their highest poeti cal point,

Mr. Arnold is found painting lucidly in a region ofpure and exquisite sentiment

,Clough singing a sort

of pecan of buoyant and exultant strengthBut

,O,bl ithe breeze

,and 0 ,

great seas,

Though ne’er,that earl iest parting past

,

O n your w ide plain they j oin again ,Together lead them home at last

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

On e port,methought

,al ike they sough t

,

O n e purpose hold where’er they fare.O, bound ing breeze, O, rush ing seas,At last

,at last

,unite them there 1”

THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD

HAZ L ITT, writing of one of Wordsworth’s latest and

more classical poems,

“ Laodamia,

” descr ibes i t ashaving “ the sweetness

,the gravi ty

,the strength

,the

beauty, and the languor of death calm contemplationand majesti c pains. There also

,we have

,in one of

Hazlitt’s terse and sententious criticisms

,the aroma

of the finest poems of Wordsworth’s greate st poeti caldisciple—one

,too

,who is the disciple of Words

worth,emphatically in his later rather than in his

earl ier phase Wordsworth schooled into a grace andmajesty not wholly meditative

,but in part, at least,

critical ; Wordsworth the conscious artist as well aspoet ; not Wordsworth the rugged rhapsodist ofSpiritual simplici ty and natural j oy.

“ The sweetness

,the gravi ty, the strength, the beauty, and the

languor of death,—calm contemplation and maj esti c

pains,

” —al l these may be foun d in the most characteristic and most to uching of Mr. Arnold’s poemsin the melancholy with which the sick King ofBokhara broods over the fate of the wretc h whomhis pity and power could not save from the exp iationhe himself courted ; in the gloomy resentment ofMycerinus against the unjust gods who cut shorthis effort to reign justly over his people ; in the

312 THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD V II

all the edge off anguish and makes the poet’s pains“ majestic ” ; for Mr. Arnold’s poems are one longvariation on a single theme

,the divorce between the

soul and the intellect,and the depth of spiritual

regret and yearning which that divorce produces .Yet there i s a didacti c keenness w ith the languor,an eagerness of purpose with the despondency, whichgive half the individual flavour to hi s lyrics . Anote of confidence lends authority to his scepticism ;the tone of hi s sadness i s self-contained, sure, andeven imperious

,instead of showing the ordin ary

relaxation of loss and the reader of his poetry i sapt to rise from it with the same curious question ingin his mind which Mr. Arnold has put into themouth of Nature

,in the verses called “ Morality,

”

—a questioning after the origin of “ that severe, thatearnest air

,

” which breathes through poetry of all buthopeless yearning and all but unmixed regret.No doubt one kind of answer to this question is

,

that Mr. Arnold has inherited from the great teacherof Rugby and historian of the Punic War the loftydidacti c impulse which marks allhis prose and poetryalike

,although the substance of the lessons he i s so

eager to give has sadly dwindled in the descent fromfather to son . But that is but one sort of answer

,

explaining rather the source of the peculiar strainin his temperament which has impressed a certainnervous depth and moral “ distinction ” upon poetryof whi ch the drift i s uniformly a realisti c melancholy

,

than the source from which he has fed the flame ofhis genius

,and justified the calm egotism of its

l iterary rescripts . Intellectually, Mr. Arnold’s descent

,as he himself i s always foremost to acknow

ledge,i s to be derived in almost equal degree from

Goethe the criti c and artist, and from Wordsworth

vu THE POETRY orMATTHEW ARNOLD 313

the poet ; both of them,observe, marked by the

same character of clear,sel f-contained, thoughtful ,

heroic egotism . I say Goethe the criti c and artistfor I recognise but little

,in Goethe’s deepest and

most perfect vein of poetry,of that conscious self

culture and that lucidity of enthusiastic self-study,which lend the charm to his conversations, hisnovels

,and his criticisms. And Mr. Arnold, even

in his capacity of poet—I am not about to touch hisessays

,except so far as they throw a light on his

poetry—i s always aiming at self-culture and singing

,not songs of involuntary melody, but of care

fully -attuned aspiration or regret. From bothGoethe and Wordsworth, again, he has learned totreat his own individuality w i th a certain exaltationof touch

,an air of O lympian dignity and grace,

which lends the fascination of “ the grand style ” tolyri cs so sad that they might otherwise trai l uponth e

'

earth too slack and limp a growth . Mr. Arnoldhas always impressed on hi s poems that air of aristo cratic selectness and conscious exclusiveness whichGoethe

,even after being the popular poet of Ger

many,claimed for his own writings. Eckermann

tells how,going to dine wi th Goethe one day in

1828, and finding him dressed in “ the black frockcoat and star in which I (Eckermann) always likedbest to see him

,

” the stately old man took him asideinto the w indow

,apart from the rest of the dinner

company,only to make the following con fidence

Dear ch ild,’ he said, ‘ I wi ll confide someth ing toy o u, wh ich w il l at once give yo u a l ift over many puzzles,and whi ch may be an assistance to y ou throughout yourwhole life. lily writin gs can n ot become p opular any onewh o th inks they can

,and strives to make them so

,is in

error. They are not w ritten for the masses,but only for

314 T I IE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD Vll

individual men wh o themselves desire and seek someth ing analogous

,and wh o are pursuing sim ilar l in es of

thought ’”

On e can well imagine Mr. Arnold at the same age,

and dressed with similar care,wearing the order

conferred upon him many years ago by the Kingof Italy for his services to the Duke of Genoa

,

making a precisely similar confidence to some“ young lion of the Daily Telegraph engaged in thestudy of his writings

,and disturbed at finding that

his poems secure so much less recognition from thepeople than those of Tennyson or Morris . And hewould be far more in the right than Goethe

,for

Goethe’s songs are popular in their very essence ; i ti s only those of his writings where his cool reflectivespirit has found expression

,like Tasso , or Ip hi

gen ia, or l/Vilhelm Meister, or Faust, to which hi singenuous confidence to Eckermann can properlyapply. But a similar confession would apply to allMr. Arnold’s poems, for they draw their life entirelyfrom the proud self-conscious zone of modern experien ce, and have scarcely given forth one singlenote of popular grief or j oy. It would apply, too,for a different reason , to almost all Wordsworth

’spoems

,not because Wordsworth belonged to the

aristocratic school of modern culture—quite thereverse ; but because he steeped himself in therapture of a meditative solitude which puts him ata distance from all mankind

,and makes him loom

large,as i t were

,out of the magnify ing folds of one

of his o wn mountain mists.But Mr. Arnold

,in borrowing from Goethe the

artist and critic, and from Wordsworth the poet,something of what I have cal led their style of clearheroi c egotism

,has not borrowed from either of them

316 T I I E POETRY OF MATTH EW ARNOLD V I I

And o n e,th e strong, much -toi l ing sage

In German Weimar sleeps.

But Wordsw orth’s eyes avert their kenF rom hal f of human fate

And Goethe’s course few sons of menMay think to emulate.

For he pursued a lonely road,

His eyes on Nature’s planNeither made man too much a God,NorGod too much a man .

Strong was he, with a spirit freeF rom m ists

,and sane

,and clear

Clearer,h ow much than ours—yet we

Have a w orse course to steer.

But we brought forth and rear’d in hoursOf change

,alarm

,surprise

,

Wh at shelter to grow ripe i s ours 7What leisure to grow w ise ‘

I

T o o fast we l ive, too much are tried ,Too harass’d

,to attain

Wordsworth’s sweet calm,or Goethe’s w ide

And lum inous view to gain .

”

Nevertheless,that i s precisely the combination

which Mr. Arnold has tried to attain for himsel f,and which he aims at i llustrating

,through him self

,

for others . He tries to combine a spirit “ free frommists

,and sane

,and clear

,

”w ith Wordsworth’s

“ sweet calm ” and pleasure in the freshness ofNature. And if he has in any degree succeeded, heknows that the success wil l best be realised, as thosegreat masters’ greater successes were realised, in a

vrr THE POETRY o rMATTHEW ARNOLD 317

delineation of his own poeti c individuality. Accordin gly , i t i s real ly self-delineation of a kind like totheirs

,though self-delineation of aims and aspirations

about midway between theirs,which gives the charm

to his poems. In al l his poeti cal successes,i t is easy

to distinguish two distinct strands : first, the clearrecognition (with Goethe) of our spiritual unrest, andthe manful effort to control i t ; next, the clear recogn itio n (with Wordsworth) of the balm to be found insincere communion with Nature . To the treatmentof both these elements indeed he has given a certainfreshness and individuality of his own .

I will first indicate generally his treatment of theformer point. His characteristic effort on this sidehas been to introduce into a delineation, at once consistent and various in its aspects

,of the intellectual

difficulties,hesitations

,and distresses of cultivated

minds in the nineteenth century, a vein of imperiousserenity—what he himself calls “ sanity of treatment—which may stimulate the min d to bear thepain of constantly disappointed hope . Yet

,oddly

enough,his early theory of poetry would have

restrained him from giving us such a picture ofmoral and intellectual sufferings at all ; and he didfor a time suppress a poem

,

“ Empedocles on Etna,

which had already gained a certain reputation,and

w hich,beneath a thin disguise of antiquity

,discussed

half the religious difliculties of modern days,simply

because he declared it poetically faulty to choose asituation in which “ everything i s to be endured

,

nothing to be done .” It was a condemnation ofevery successful poem he has written

,emphatically

so of the long expositions of our modern spiritualparalysis and fever in the two poems to the authorof Obermann

,

” of the l ines at Heine’s grave,of th e

318 THE POETRY or MATTHEW ARNOLD vu

stanzas at the Grande Chartreuse ; i ndeed, we maysay

,of all hi s poems except the classic play Meropc,

which probably Mr. Arnold himself regarded as apartial fai lure, since, though now restored, he kept i tback for a long time from his complete editions .

Empedocles on Etna, according to Mr. A rnoldin his preface to the edition of 1853

,was poetically

faulty because it was a picture of “ a continuousstate of mental distress, unrel ieved by incident orhope

,

” which is quite true,and not less true of

almost all his other poems. But when he addedthat i t was also unrel ieved by “

resistan ce,he was

unjust to himself. What alone renders all thedelineation of Spiritual bewi lderment which pervadesthis poem endurable

,i s that there is a steady current

of resistance,a uniform “ sanity ” of self-control in

the treatment of the painful symptoms so subtlydescribed. Empedocles

,in the course of his medita

tions on suicide on the slopes of Etna,no doubt

dwells much on the feeble and false rel igious philosophy of the time

,the credulous self -flatteries of

human sophistry,and the sharp antagonism between

clear self-knowledge and the superstitions of the age ;but he also makes a vigorous appeal to the manliness

,

fortitude,and sobriety of spirit with which all the

disappointments and failures of humanity ought tobe met

,asserts that it is the part of a man of true

wi sdom to curb immoderate desires, to bow to themight of forces he cannot control

,and

,while nursing

no extravagant hope,” to yield to no despair. And

when,after thus completely justi fying his own “ sanity

of soul,he confesses himself unable to act as he

approves,and leaps into the fiery crater

,the reader

feels that the blunder of the poet has not been incolouring the suffering too highly—for it i s not highly

320 THE POETRY o rMATTHEW ARNOLD v n

faith,but by a kind of imperious temperance of

nature . This is the refrain of almost all his poems .HO yields much to this melancholy —intellectually

,

we should say,almost everything—but moral ly

,he

bids i t keep i ts distance,and forbids it to engulph

him .

It i s this singular equipoise between the doubtsthat devour him

,and the intrepid sobriety that ex

cites him to resistance,which gives the peculiar tone

to Mr. Arnold’s poems. He has not the impulse orabandon of nature for a pure lyri c melancholy

,such

as Shelley could pour forth in words that almostmake the heart weep

,as, for instance, in the “ Lines

Written in Dej ection in Naples.” Again,Mr. Arnold

has nothing of the proud faith that conquers melanch oly , and that gives to the poems of \Vordsw orththeir tone of rapture . Yet he hits a wonderfulmiddle note between the two. The “ lyri cal cry

,

”

as he himself has finely designated the voice inwhich the true poetic exaltation of feeling expressesi tself

,i s to be found in a multitude of places in his

poems ; but in him it neither utters the dej ectionof the wounded spirit

,nor the j oy of the victorious

spirit,but rather the calm of a steadfast equanimity

in confl i ct with an unconquerable, and yet also unconquering destiny—a firm mind

,without either

deep shadows of despair or high lights of faith,

only the lucid dusk of an intellectual tw i light. Perhaps there is no more characteristi c specimen of theexact note of Mr. A rnold’s “ lyri cal cry ” than theclose of the fine poem called “ Resignation

Enough , we l ive —and ifa li fe,With large results so little ri fe,Though bearable

,seem hardly w orth

Th is pomp of worlds,th is pain of bi rth

v n THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD 321

Y et,Fausta th e mute turf we tread ,

T he solemn h ills around us spread,

Th is stream wh ich falls incessantly,

T h e strange-scrawl’d rocks, th e lonely sky ,

If I might lend their l ife a voice,S eem to bear rather than rej oice.And even could th e intemperate prayerMan iterates

,wh ile these forbear,

F or movement,for an ampler sphere

,

Pierce Fate’s impenetrable ear,

No t m ilder is th e general lotBecause o ur spirits have forgo t

,

In action’s d izzying eddy wh irl’d,T h e someth in g that infects th e world.

Such is the general nature of the human strandin Mr. Arnold’s poetry, the restless spiritual melanch oly which he pictures, resists, and condemns . Butthere is another permanent strand in it

,that due

partly to hi s love for Wordsworth,and partly to hi s

love for Nature,of whom Wordsworth was the greatest

of modern priests . Mr. Arnold finds in the beautyand sublimity of natural scenes the best assuagementof intellectual unrest and moral perplexities . Natureis his balm for every woe . He does not find in her

,

as Wordsworth did, the key to any of life’s mysteries

,

or the source of hope,but only the best kind of dis

traction,which

,while it does not relax but rather

elevates the tone of the spirit,and even furnishes

i t w ith a certain number of symbols for its thoughtand emotion, also lightens the burden of the mystery by its cooling and refreshing influence . The“ languor of death

,of which Hazli tt speaks

,as

characterising Laodamia,” and of which I have said

that i t i s also character isti c of Mr. Arnold’s poetry,

drives him to Nature for rel ief ; and though i t

322 THE POETRY orMATTHEW ARNOLD v n

general ly haunts him even under Nature’s sweetestspell

,yet you can see that he finds the relief

,that

the languor is less,and the pulse stronger while he

dwells on Nature’s li fe . And it is this sense of purerefreshment in Nature

,this case of mind which she

brings him,thi s calm amid feverish stri fe

,this dew

after hot thought,that determines the style of his

studies of Nature . His poetry of this kind is thesweetest

,the most tranqui llising

,the most quieting

of its sort to be found in English literature . In\Vordsw orth

,Nature is the occasion

,but his own

mind always the obj ect, of thought, whether, in reculling the “ host of golden daffodils

,

” he exercises“ that inw ard eye that is the bli ss of solitude

,

” or findsin the teaching of a daisy the true medicine for di scontent. You cannot plunge yourself in the poetryof w i thout being mentally braced andrefreshed but then i t takes an effort to enter into aworld so unique

,so solemn and serene

,

” and so farremoved from that of ordinary life. Throw off theyoke of the world sufficiently to steep yourself inWordsworth

,and no doubt the refreshment is more

complete and the flow of new strength more fullthan you can expect from the verse of Mr. A rnold ;for Mr. Arnold’s poetry of Nature i s not like Wordsworth’s

,a newly-created meditative universe

,distilled

by the poet’s mind out of Nature ; i t i s a delicatetranscript of Nature

,painted in the clear

,dewy

water-colours of tranqui l memory. \Vhat he says ofhis own debt to Wordsworth would

,i f i t did not

imply a more vivi fying and animating influence thanMr. Arnold’s poetry ever really exerts, be more nearlyapplicable to most men’s debt to him

He laid us as we lay at birth ,On th e cool flowery lap of earth


the charm is far less in the song,of which he gives

so thri lling a conception,than in those grateful

“ impulses of deeper birth springing out of hiso w n heart

,of which he tells us a sti l l more thri ll

ing story. lVo rdsw orth i s the last poet of whom Ishould say that he makes us chi ldren again . He

gives us a new youth,not the old—a youth of

deeper serenity,and of a far more truly spiritual

j oy. But,for that very reason

,i t takes an effort

to plun ge into him the change from the busy andcrowded levels of human life to his poetry is toogreat and sudden to be easi ly taken ; i t requires aregeneration of our senses as well as a change ofscene. But with Mr. Arnold i t i s different. He

does not create for us a new world out of thesuggestions and influences of Nature : he only makesus feel keenly the beauty and deli cacy of the spectacle which Nature

,as she i s in her gentler and more

subdued moods,presents to us

,and her strange

power of resting and refreshing the mind weariedby small human responsibi li ties . His eye is alwayson the obj ect itself, not on the spiritual lesson i tdiscloses . And he paints in the most restful way .

He never concentrates, like Ten nyson , so that theimagination i s at some pain to follow allthe touchescrowded into little space he never disembodies

,like

Shelley, till i t becomes an effort to apprehend essencesso rare i t i s seldom that he paints, like Byron, witha brush dipped as deeply in the glowin g passions ofhis own heart as in the colours of the external world .

He paints Nature, like the author of “ The Elegy ina Country Churchyard

,with the cool, liquid, rather

w eary tone of one who comes to the scenery to takea heart from it

,instead of giving the heart to i t ; but

he does i t wi th infinitely more of the modern tender

V I I THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD 325

ness and insight for Nature than Gray possessed ,and wi th far more flowing and continuous descriptivepower—far less of that poli shed mosaic-work mannerwhich makes Gray’s verses read as if he had forgottenmost of the preceding links before completing andenamelling the next link in the chain . In Mr.

Arnold’s studies OfNature you see the quiet externalscene with exquisite lucidity, but you see also, insteadof a mirror of laborious and almost painful elaboration

,as you do in Gray

,a tranquillised Spirit

,which

reflects like a clear lake the features of the scene .

Take,for example

,this picture of a wet and stormy

English spring and a soft deep English summer,

from the lovely poem “ Thyrsis, written in commemoration of Mr. Arnold’s early friend

,Arthur

Hugh CloughS o

,some tempestuous morn in early June

,

When the year’s primal burst of bloom is o ’er,

Before the roses and th e longest dayWhen garden walks and all th e grassy floorWith blossoms, red and wh ite, of fallen MayA n d chestnut flowers are strew nS o have I heard th e cuckoo’s parting cry ,F rom the wet field , through th e vext garden-treesC ome

,w ith the volleying rain and tossin g breeze

The blo om is go n e an d with the blo om go I !

T o o quick despairer,wherefore w ilt th en go ?

S oon w ill the high Midsummer pomps come o n,

S oon w i ll the musk carnations break and swell,

S oon Shal l we have gold-dusted snapdragon,

Sweet-William w ith h is homely cottage-smell,

And stocks in fragrant blowRoses that down th e alleys Sh ine afar

,

And open,jasm ine-muffled lattices

,

And groups under th e dreamn garden-trees,

And th e ful l moon,and th e wh ite evening-star.

326 THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD VI I

It w ould be impossible to give with greater case asw el l as delicacy a true pi cture of these scenes

,and

w i th i t the subtler flavour of a real rest Of spirit inthem . The “ volleying ” rain

,the “ tossing ” breeze

,

the “ vext ” garden trees,and the grass strewn w i th

shed May and chestnut blossom,cal l up the very life

of a squally spring day in England,as do the high

Midsummer pomps, the “ roses that down the alleysshine afar

,

” the “ open,jasmine-muffled latti ces

,

” the“ groups under the dreaming garden-trees

,

” and thew hite moon and star

,the very li fe of an English

midsummer night ; and yet the whole has a tinge ofcareful tenderness and peace that tells you of therefreshment of these images to the writer. The“ vext garden trees ” could have been spoken of asvext only by one who had a true delight in theirair of tranquillity

,just as they could have been

described as “ dreaming ” in the midsummer moonlight only by one who had the deepest feeling forthe vi sionary beauty of contrast betw een the whitelight stream ing over them

,and the black shade

beneath . Again,

“ roses that down the al leys shineafar

,

” i s a l ine suffici ently betraying how deeply thefair perspective of an English garden is engraved onthe poet’s imagination

,while the reproaches lavi shed

on the “ too qui ck despairer for the hasty neglectof so rich a feast of beauty, strikes the keynote tothe feeling of the whole. Nor is this passage in anysense a peculiar instance of Mr. Arnold’s flowing,lucid

,and tender mode of painting Nature . In al l

his descriptive passages—and they are many andbeautiful—it i s the same. He i s never sanguine andbright indeed

,but the scene is always drawn wi th a

gentle ease and grace,suggesting that i t springs up

in the poet’s imagination with as rapid and n atural

328 THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD vu

T o h em h is watery march,and dam h is streams

,

And spl it h is currents that for many a leagueT h e shorn and parcell

’d Oxus strains al ong

Through beds of sand and matted rushy islesOxus

,forgetting the bright speed he had

I n h is high mountain cradle in PamereA fe il’d circuitous wanderer—til l at lastT h e lo n g

’d-for dash of waves is heard

,and w ide

His lum inous home of waters opens,bright

And tranquil , from whose floor the n ew -bathed starsEmerge

,and shine upon th e Aral Sea.

”

Of course the intention may have been to makethe flow of the Oxus

,out of the mist and hum of

that low land,i nto the frosty starlight

,and through

the “ beds of sand and matted rushy i sles,which

make him a “ foi led,circuitous wanderer

,

” ti l l at last,

his “ luminous home of w aters opens,bright and

tranquil,

” a sort of parable of the unhappy Rustum’

s

great career and the peace of his passing away butnothing of this i s so much as hinted

,and we should

rather say that, though the course of a great rivermay be selected rather than any other scene ofnatural beauty

,for the vague analogy it presents to

the chequered life of a great leader,the intention of

the poet is simply to refresh his o w n mind after thespectacle of misspent heroism and clouded destiny

,

w ith the image of one of Nature’s greater works inwhich there seems to be the same kind of vicissi tude

,

the same loss of pristine force and grandeur,and yet

a recovery of al l and more than al l the maj esti cvolume and triumphant strength of the earli er periodat the end . Mr. Arnold always seems to feel thatthe proper anodyne for the pain of lacerated heartsi s the contemplation of the healing and the peacewhich are to be found inherent in the vi tal en ergies

vn THE POETRY o rMATTH EW ARNOLD 329

of Nature ; but his view never seem s to be to usethese natural analogies as a vague augury Of happierfortunes for his characters than i t suits his purposeas a poet to paint

,but rather simply to recall that

there i s a great restorative power in the life of Natureto which we ought to turn for relief

,whenever the

Spectacle of disease and disorder and distress becomesoverpowering. It i s in this sense

,we suppose

,th at

Mr. Arnold ends the poem on that feeling of hopelessconfl i ct with his age which led Empedocles to plungeinto the crater of Etna

,by the following exquisite

pi cture of the classical haunt of the Greek Muses :

Through th e black,rush ing smoke-bursts

,

Thi ck breaks th e red flame

Al l Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.

No t here, 0 Apollo

Are haunts meet for thee,

But, where Hel icon breaks downIn cliff to th e sea.

Where th e moon -si lvered inletsSend far thei r light voiceUp th e still vale of Th isbe0 speed

,and rej oice I

On th e sward at th e cliff-topLie strewn the wh ite flocks

,

On th e cl iff-side th e pigeonsRoost deep in th e rocks.

In th e moonlight th e Shepherds,

S oft lulled by the rills,

Lie wrapt in thei r blankets,

Asleep on the h ills .


What forms are these comin gS o wh ite through th e gloomWhat garments o ut—gl isteningT h e gold-flowered broom

W hat sweet-breath ing presenceOut-perfumes th e thyme ?What voices enraptureT h e night’s balmy prime

T is Apollo comes leadingHis choir

,the Nine.

—T h e leader is fairest,

But all are d ivine.

They are l ost in th e hollowsThey stream up againWhat seeks on th is mountainT h e glorified train

They bathe on th is mountain,

In th e spring by their roadThen on to O lympus

,

Their endless abode—Whose praise do they mention ?Ofwhat is it told ?What w i l l be for everWhat was from of old.

F irst hymn they th e FatherOfall things -and then ,T h e rest of immortals,

‘

T h e action of men .

T h e day in h is hotness,

T he strife w ith th e palmT h e night in h er Silence,T h e stars in thei r calm .

”

A more perfect intel lectual anodyne for the pain

332 THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD vn

Who have lo n g’d deeply once

,and lo n g

’d in vain

But I w ill rather say that y o u remainA w orld above man’s head to let him see

Ho w boundless might h is soul’s horizons be,

How vast, yet of what clear transparency

How i t were good to l ive there,and breathe free

Ho w fair a lot to fillIs left to each man sti ll

I have now sketched slightly the two main strandsin Mr. A rnold’s poetry, and am in a position to consider better his specific power of poetic expressionand the degree of success and failure shown in themore striking of his poems. His power of poeti cexpression i s founded on a delicate simpli ci ty oftaste— such a simplici ty as we might fairly expectfrom the student of Goethe and Wordsworth ; fromone

,moreover

,who shows the finest insight into

Greek poetry,and who has a highly cultivated

appreciation both for the specific aroma of wordsand for the poetical atmosphere of thought. Sim

plicity i s the characteristi c frui t of al l these studiesand tastes

,and perhaps Mr. Arnold’s bitterest re

proach against thi s modern world of change,alarm,

surprise,

” i s the medley of unblest emotions, andturbid

,Obscure feel ings which i t thrusts upon us .

Hence his own poeti c style i s remarkable for itsscholarlike delicacy and genuine simplicity of touch(I doubt if more than one awkward or turgidword—I must except the word “ pullulating ” in thepoem on Dean S tanley— i s to be found in hispoems) ; and if his ear for rhythm i s not equalto his insight into the expressive power of words,i t i s only in the poems of recitative that this fault i sobse rvable . He has not caught from his fine studiesof Homer the exquisite music of the Hom eric wave

VI I THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD 333

of rhythm but he has caught hi s clearness of atmosphere

,what he himself has so finely termed “ the

pure lines of an Ionian horizon,the liquid clearness

of an Ionian sky .

S o much as I have yet said of Mr. Arnold’s powerof expression has relation only to form— to all whichis implied in delicacy of discernment of the force oflanguage

,and preference for simplicity of subj ect in

what he treats. But the special direction in whichMr. Arnold’s power of poeti c expression is chieflyshown is

,as what I have said of the burden of his

lyrical poems will of course imply, that of sedateand half-intellectual emotions, especially those whichturn towards Nature with tender and melancholyyearning. Now it is this purity and S impli city oftaste which give to Mr. Arnold’s style an open-airfreshness

,affording a delightful variety to that element

of sedate majesty which I have noted in him. Take,

for instance,the beautiful song already quoted

,in

which Callicles describes the haunt of the Muses,

and noti ce how limpid and fresh is the English aswell as the thought, and yet how sedate and statelythe general effect. I will recall only the two lovelyverses

What forms are ‘

these comingS o wh ite through the gloom 2What garments o ut-gl isteningTh e gold-flowered broom 2What sweet-breath ing presenceOut-perfumes th e thymeWhat voices enraptureT h e night’s balmy pr ime !

t”

Observe here the exquisitely classical Englishidiom “ out—glistening and “ out - perfume

,which

conveys with so much simpli ci ty,precision

,and grace


the rivalry between the charms of the Muses and ofNature, and the surpassingness of the former. Again

,

the use of the word “ enrapture, for the j oy whichthe divi ne voices difl

'

use through the moon-l i t air,i s

a stroke of genius in itself, so happily does it conveythe identification of the singer with the scene

,and

w i th so much S imple stateliness of effect. Or takethis lovely picture of Thames scenery near Oxfordin “ The S cholar Gipsy, —a picture that i s the perfectembodiment of “ sweetness and light

F or most,I know

,thou lo v’st retired ground

Thee,at the ferry

,Oxford riders bl ithe

,

Returnin g home on summer nights,have met

Crossing the stripl ing Thames at Bab-lock-h ithe,

Trai l ing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,

As the punt’s rope chops roun dAnd leaning backward in a pensive dream

,

And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowersPluck

’d in shy fields and distant Wychw ood bowers

,

And th ine eyes resting on th e moonl it stream

It would be impossible to express the tendernessof feeling which scenery long loved and studiedexcites in the heart—not by its mere beauty

,but by

its associations also—with more perfect S implicity,

and yet not without grandeur of movement anddignity of feeling. The latter effect is gained partlyby the cadence of the verse, which in this poem isalways perfectly musical and sedate

,and partly by

the character of the expression,for instance

,by a

tinge of gentle condescension (as in the expression“ the stripling and the careful benignityof the whole detail . The simpli ci ty is gained partlyby the perfectly poetical and yet technical naturalness of the l ine

,

“ As the punt’s rope chops round,which is poetical

,because i t brings the pecul iar motion


lead and the eerie cry of “ no soundings,i t recalls

that saltness of the sea which takes from water everyrefreshing association

,every quality that helps to

slake th irst or supply sap, and then it concentrates allthese dividing attributes, which strike a sort of lonelyterror into the soul, into the one w ord estranging.

It i s a line full of intensity, simplicity, and grandeur—a l ine to possess and haunt the imagination . An d

the sam e exceptional force of expression comes outnot unfrequently under the shadow of similar emotions.Nothing

,for instance

,can have more force of its

peculiar kind than the description of the blendeddelight in Nature and disappointment in Man felt bythe French recluse, the author of Obermann

,

” whofled from the world he disdained to breed over itsmaladies in French woods and Swiss huts

ln th e l one brakes of F ontain ebleau,

Or chalets near the Alpine snow .

”

There i s a mixed simplicity and exaltation offeeling in the follow ing lines, which few Englishpoets have surpassed

I turn thy leaves I feel thy breathOnce more upon me rol lThat ai r of languor

,cold

,and death

,

Whi ch brooded o’er th v soul .

A fever in these pages burnsBeneath th e calm they feignA w ounded human Spirit turns

,

Here,on its bed of pain .

Yes,though th e virgin mountain ai r

F resh through these pages blow s,

Though to these leaves th e glaciers spareT h e soul of thei r mute snows

vn THE POETRY orMATTHEW ARNOLD 337

Though here a mountain-murmur swellsOfmany a dark-bo ugh

’d pine

,

Though,as y o u read , y o u hear th e bel ls

Of th e h igh-pasturing kine

Y et,through th e h um of torrent lone

,

And brood ing mountain-bee,There sobs I know not what ground toneOf human agony

Nor is the opening of this poem at al l more characteristic of the special power of its author than itsclose . There is indeed something

,more almost of

p eroratio n than of the last swell of a lyri c emotion , inthe poet’s adieu to th e hero of his reverie

Farewel l Under the sky we part,In th is stern Alpine dell.O unstrung w il l O broken heart

,

A last,a last farewell

And that leads me to remark how very nearpoetry of this order— the predominant emotion ofwhich, however sad, i s always sedate and stately inits movement—often approaches to the nobler rhetoric

,—o i which, indeed, grandeur of total effect,

with simplicity of elementary structure,are the main

conditions. The obj ect of the verse I have justquoted seems to be almost as nearly one of persuasion, i.e. oratorical, as one of expression, i.e.

poeti cal . It reads more like an indirect but conscious effort to subdue the reader’s mind into a moodof compassionate admiration for the author of “ Ober

a mere utterance of the poet’s own feeling -it i s more eloquent than pathetic. And where

,

as often happens in other poems—in the very finecontinuation of this same poem

,for instance—Mr.

Arnold’s thread of sentiment i s much more directlyL Z

338 THE POETRY OF MATTH EW ARNOLD V I I

didactic than i t i s here (and thi s i s especially the casein hi s pieces of unrhymed recitative

,where the leading

idea i s usually a train of thought rather than feeling,and very frequently a train of very directly hortativeor argumentative thought), the rheto rical Often predom inates greatly over the poetical vein , and seemsto court direct comparison rather with the effusionsof the improvisatore than w ith those of the S inger.In such pieces the verse fails—when i t does fai l—asthe inspiration of the improvisatore fails

,more from

a subsidence of the initial impulse,than from artisti c

exhaustion of the theme,or inadequate command of

language to work out fully the conception of theimagination . Take

,for instance

,among the rhymed

pieces,the eloquent indictment brought against Death

,

as if i t involved a sort of breach of faith with theinstinctive youthful hope for some fulness of earthlyrapture

,in the piece called “ Youth an d Calm ” N0

one can read i t without noticing the regularly mounting steps of an impassioned speech, rather than the imperceptibly graduated concentration of feel ing naturalto a lyrical poem

But ah,though peace

,indeed

,is here

,

And ease from shame,and rest from fear

,

Though nothing can d ismarble n owT h e smoothness of that l impid brow

,

Y et is a calm l ike th is,in truth

,

T h e crown ing en d of l ife and youthAnd when this been rewards th e dead ,Are al l debts paid , has al l been said 7And is th e heart of youth so l igh t,Its step so fi rm ,

its eye so bright,Because on its h o t brow there blowsA w ind of promise and reposeF rom th e far grave , to wh i ch i t goes ?

340 THE POETRY orMATTHEW ARNOLD vu

of a troubled heart,descanting on the experience of

almost every home . When,however, Mr. Arnold

chooses the unrhymed dactylic or anapaestic metresfor hi s oratory

,though he i s often extremely eloquent

,

and sometimes even rich in pictorial effect,he i s apt

to be cold and grandiose, and now and then even tobe obscure—a sin of which he is rarely indeed guilty.

The contrast may be best seen,though it would be im

possible in any small space to illustrate it adequately,

in the comparison between the second poem addressedto the auth oro f“ Obermann (

“ Obermann OnceMore,vol. i i . p . and the poem which follows i t, andcloses the volumes

,called The Future. They are on

k indred subj ects,the first tracing the S i gns of the

immediate future of modern religion ; the second ,the relation generally of the tendencies of the Futureto those of the Past. The Pantheistic vein of thoughtand sentiment pervades both poems alike

,—and it i s

one which,as I need hardly say

,runs counter to my

own deepest convi ctions,—but there i s a vast difference between the two as poems . The former i s ful lof human yearning and pathos

,of definite picture

,

and clear imagery ; the latter is a dim vapour ofeloquent dissertation

,in which

,indeed

,there are

vaguely seen some of the bright tin ts of the rainbow,

but there is no warmth and no clearness ; i t i sgrandiose without grandeur, nebulous without mystery . Within moderate limits I do not know that Ican give a finer specimen at once of the frequentlyhigh oratory of these chori c outbursts of Mr. Arnold’sdidactic genius

,and also of the frequent tendency in

them to overpass the impulse which gave them birth,

than in the deservedly celebrated lines at Heine’s

grave,in which Mr. Arnold passes from criticism of

the bitter German poet into a grand image for this

vn THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD 341

Philistine nation of ours—for its blindness and itsstrength ; but unfortunately does not stop there,falling into bathos as he proceeds

I ch ide thee not,that thy sharp

Upbraid ings often assail’dEngland

,my country for we

,

Troublous and sad,for h er sons

,

Long since,deep in o ur hearts

,

Echo the blame of h erfees.

We,too

,sigh that she flags !

We,too

,say that she n ow ,

S carce comprehending the voiceOf h er greatest, golden-mo uth ’d sonsOfa former age an y more,S tupidly travels h er roundOfmechan ic business, and letsS low die o ut of her lifeGlory

,and gen ius

,and joy

S o thou arraign’st h er

,her foe .

S o we arraign h er, h er sons.Y es, we arraign h er but she

,

T h e weary Titan w ith deafEars

,and labour-dimm’

d eyes,Regarding neither to rightNor left, goes passively by,S taggering on to h er goalBearing on shoulders immense

,

Atlantean,the load

,

Wel l-nigh not to be borne,

Of the too vast orb of h er fate.But was it thou—I th inkSurely it was—that bardUnnamed , wh o , Goethe said ,Had every o ther gift, but wan ted loveLove

,w ithout which th e tongue

Even of angels sounds am iss

342 THE POETRY orMATTH EW ARNOLD vu

“ Charm i s th e glory wh ich makesS ong of th e poet d ivineLove is the fountain of charmHo w w ithout charm wilt thou draw

,

Poet the w orld to thy wayNo t by the lightnings of wit'No t by th e thunder of scornThese to the world

,too

,are given

Wit it po ssesses,and scorn

Charm is the poet’s alone .

Hollow an ddullare the great,A n d artists en vious, and the mob p rofan e.We know all this

,we know

Cam’st thou from heaven , 0 child

Of light but this to declareAlas to help us forgetSuch barren knowledge awh ile,God gave the poet h is song.

”

It would be hard to find a higher piece of purepictorial oratory than that description of Englandas regards style

,Mr. Bright

,i f he held with Mr.

A rnold,which of course he does not

,might almost

have delivered it in one of his greater speechesand hard

,too

,to find a bathos deeper than the flat

,

harsh,somewhat stilted prose

,not even rhythmical

,

though it i s printed in metre, which immediatelyfollows, especially the lines which Mr. Arnold italicises in the last two stanzas. The same may be saidof almost all his recitative pieces . They contain fragments of high orato ry, but they are coldly intellectual ,and tend to a grandiosity from which the fal l to flatprose i s not difficult.A n d i t i s, indeed, Mr. Arnold’s chief defect as a

poet and artist that the themes which interest h immost are seldom living and organic wholes, but arerather trains of thought sufficiently fascinating to the


Mr. Arnold borrows the Arthmian legend only togive a beautiful pictiu

'e of the shipwreck of unhappy

passions in a double form,in the feverish and restless

delirium of the dying knight,and in the hol low

disappointed youth of Iseult of Brittany after shehas survived her husband and her grander rival .Iseult of Ireland is hardly painted

,except in face

and form ; she only kneels beside her lover’s death

bed to die with him,and lend her outward image to

the poet’s picture. But i t would be difficult to speaktoo highly of the exquisite and lucid painting of thescene of Tristram’s death in the Breton Castle

,beneath

those ghost-like tapestries on which are figured thegreen huntsman, with his bugle and hounds, so dearto the sylvan kn ight in lifetime

,w i th the Irish queen

kneeling,also dead, at his bedside, both of them

Cold,cold as those wh o l ived and loved

A thousand years ago ”

or of Iseult of Brittany,of the w hite hands

,i n the

subsequent part, living, after her husband’s and rival’s

deaths,the j oyless life of one who had sought

,but

found not, the happiness of love, and who survives inthe happiness of her children as in a kind of moonli tdream“ Joy has not found h eryet

,nor ever w il l

IS it th is thought that makes h ermien so still,

Her features so fatigued, h er eyes, though sweet,S o sunk

,so rarely l ifted save to meet

Her chi ldren’s Sh e moves Slow h er voice al oneHath yet an infantine and silver tone,But even that comes languidly in truthSh e seems one dying in a mask of youth .

No picture could be sweeter or fairer. Mr.

Arnold has a special gift for the delineation of these

T I IE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD

moods of passionless pain—o i stil l moonli t cravingthat is never hot and never satisfied. But the beautyof the poem certainly does not lie in the strength ofits narrative

,but in its exquisite delineation of the

feel ings of death-chilled passion and of j oyless calm .

“ The ForsakenMerman -avery del icate little poemof its kind—i s again hardly in any sense a narrativepoem . It i s a pretty fanciful song full of picture, ofwhich the living pulse is the innocent childish heartlonging of a bew i ldered, instinctive, unmasterful loveconscious of the existence of a rivalry in the claimsof religious feelings into which i t cannot enter

,and

yet ful l of painful yearning. This i s always the typeof feeling whi ch Mr. Arnold paints most finely.

But far higher are the pretensions of “ The S i ckKing in Bokhara.

”S light as the subj ect is

,the poem

is full of life,and paints not merely a new phase of

that painful calm or placid suffering in which Mr.

Arnold so much excels,but the richness and stateli

ness,and also the prostration and fatalism

,of Oriental

li fe and it i s especially happy in portraying vividlythe concrete simplici ties of Eastern imagery whenexpressing desire and regret. The grave

,business-l ike

local colour of the opening is in itself full of promiseH ussein .

0 most just Vizier,send away

T h e cloth-merchants,and let them be

,

Them and their dues,this day l the K in g

Is i ll at ease,and calls for thee.

Vizier.O merchants

,tarry yet a day

Here in Bokhara but at noonT o -morrow

,come

,and ye shal l pay

Each fortieth web of cloth to me,

As the law is,and go your way .

”

346 THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD V I I

And then the story of the poor man who,in the

intensi ty of his thirst,during the long drought

,had

secreted a pitcher of water for his own use,and when

he found it drained had cursed those wh o drainedit,his o wn mother amongst them

,and wh o in hi s

remorse called upon the King to give judgment uponhim that he might be stoned and expiate his sin asthe law demanded

,and the delineation of the King’s

extreme reluctance,are given with the most genuine

force and simplici ty. The King’s great desire tospare the man

,and the orders gi ven for that purpose

,

of which it i s pith ily said ,As th e K ing said, so was it done ,

the man’s indignation at this hesitation to judge andpunish him

,the King’s loth consent at last

,and the

fanati cal j oy of the victim , are painted w ith something like the grand S impli city of the Hebrew S criptures

No w th e Kin g charged us secretly‘ Stoned must h e be, th e law stands so .

Y et,if h e seeks to fly, give way

Hinder h im not,but let h im go.

’

S o saying,the K ing took a stone

,

And cast it softly — but th e man,

With a great j oy upon h is face,

Kn eel’

d dow n,and cried not

,neither ran .

And,perhaps

,the most dramatic thing in the whole

range of Mr. A rnold’s poems is the scornful reproofadministered by th e old Vi zier

,when he has heard

the story,to the King’s weakness and softness of

heart

The Vizier.

0 K ing,in th is I praise thee not

No w must I call th y grief not w ise.

348 THE POETRY o r MATTHEW ARNOLD vu

And these all,labouring for 3 lord

,

Eat not the fruit of their own handsWhi ch i s th e heaviest of al l plagues

,

To that man’s m in d,wh o understands .

“ T h e kafiirs also (whom God curseVex one another

,night and day

There are the lepers,and al l sick

There are the poor,wh o faint alway.

Al l these have sorrow,and keep still

,

Whilst other men make cheer,and sin g.

Wilt thou have p ity o n al l these ?No , nor on th is dead dog , 0 King !

”

Mr. Arnold has never achieved anything so trulydramati c as this poem . The reasoning

,never in the

abstract,but always by examples

,which runs through

it,the profound abasement of mind before the de

mands of the admitted conditions of social existence,

the utter acqui escence of the sage old minister’sintel lect in the order of things as he kn ows i t

,the

wonder and distress of the young King that his ow n

urgent desire is of so l ittle account when he wouldalleviate the lot of one human being whom he pities,and the kicking of his nature against the pricks ofthe iron circle which limits his royal power

,are all

painted with a brightness and care which wouldalmost argue a special Oriental culture, though I do notsuppose that Mr. Arnold has had any exceptionalopportunities in that direction . Of the poems whichare cal led narrative

,this i s in my opinion the only

one,rightly so called

,that is perfectly successful .

And perhaps i ts perfect success i s due to the curiouscorrespondence between the elements of the storyand the peculiar tendencies I have already noticed inMr. Arnold’s genius. The stately egotism of manner

,

V I I THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD 349

which has here ful l swing and a great field, the dign ified remorse which breeds so resolute a spirit ofexpiation in the sinner’s mind

,the sedate dignities of

the King’s helplessness,the contemptuous criticism

of the Grand Vi zier on the unreasonable excess ofhis master’s sympathy with one who had no naturalclaims on him

,and the extreme simplicity of the

whole action,all seem to fi t the subject specially for

Mr. Arnold’s treatment. At all events,as to the brill

ian t clearness and rich colouring of the completedwhole

,there can be no two Opinions . It seems to me

nearly the only case in which Mr. Arnold has chosena subj ect distinct and perfect in . i ts parts

,and com

plete as a whole—a subj ect of which you cannot saythat he brought it to a conclusion chie fly because i tmust end somewhere

,and had exhausted hi s own

interest in i t. This piece is the one exception to therule that Mr. Arnold’s best poems are not artisti cwholes

,which come to a necessary and natural end

because their structure is organically perfect,but

rather fragments of imaginative reverie,which begin

where the poet begins to meditate,and end when he

has done .

It must not be supposed,however

,that I regard

the art of those of Mr. Arnold’s poems which areexpressly elegiac and lyrical as generally poor. On

the contrary,as i t i s of the essence of pieces of this

kind to reflect absolutely the mood of the poet,to

begin where he begins and end where he ends,the

only artistic demand which can possibly be appli cable to the structure of such pieces

,i s that i t shal l

show you the growth and subsidence of a vein ofthought and emotion

,and make no abrupt demands

on the sympathy of the reader. This,at al l events

in almost all his rhymed pieces of a lyrical and

350 T I IE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD VI I

elegiac nature,Mr. Arnold eflects with the greatest

delicacy and modulation of feeling ; in the othershe is not unfrequently stranded on bare prose

,and

compelled to leap back with a very j erky movementinto the tide of his emotion . But from his highestmoods of reverie he subsides

,by the help of some

beautiful picture of scenery in harmony wi th theemotions he i s delineating

,as in the lovely Alpine

sketches of his “ Obermann,

” or w ith some gracefulepisode of i llustration

,like the beautiful comparison

between the wanderin g S cholar Gipsy’s dread of thecontagion of our hesitating half-love of Nature

,

which hugs the shore of artificial civili sation,and

the old Tyrian skipper’s wrath against the Greekcoaster

,who troubled his realm by timid competition

,

and yet never dared to launch out into the sh 0 1eless

ocean . No art can be more peifect than that withw hich Mr. Arnold closes the finer of his lyrical andelegiac poems —poems

,however

,of which i t i s the

very essence to reflect his own reveries , not to pain tany continuous whole .Wh en I come to ask whatMr. Arnold’s poetry has

done for thi s generation,the answer must be that no

one has expressed more powerful ly and poeti cally i tsSpir itual weaknesses

,its craving for a passion that i t

cannot feel,its adm iration for a self—mastery that i t

cannot achieve,i ts desire for a creed that it fai ls to

accept,i ts sympathy with a faith that i t w i l l not

Share, i ts aspiration for a peace that i t does not know.

But Mr. Arnold does all this from the intellectualside

,—sincerely and delicately

,but from the surface

,

and never from the centre . It i s the same with hiscriticisms . They are fine

,they are keen

,they are

often true,but they are always too much lim ited to

the thin superficial layer of the moral nature of their


the experience of his contemporaries,a voice without

which their intel lectual li fe would be even moreobscure and confused than i t i s ; but still with acertain in tellectual superficiality of touch whichsuggests the sympatheti c observer rather than thewakeful sufferer

,and which leaves an unfathomed

depth beneath the layer of perturbed consciousnesswith which he deals— that is

,beneath that plane

wherein the spheres of the intelle ct and of the soulintersect

,of which he has so carefully studied the

currents and the tides . The S ign of this l imitation ,of this exclusion

,of this externality of touch

,i s the

tinge of conscious intellectual majesty rearing itshead above the storm with the “ Quos ego ” ofVirgil’s god

,that never forsakes these poems of Mr.

Arnold’s even when their “ lyrical cry” i s most

patheti c. It i s this which identifies him with thesceptics

,which renders his poems

,pathetic as they

often are,no adequate expression of the passionate

cravin g of the soul for faith . There is always atincture of pride in his confessed inabi lity to believe—a self -congratulation that he is too clear -eyed toyield to the temptations of the heart. He asks withcompassionate imperiousness for demonstration ratherthan conviction conviction he will not take withoutdemonstration . The true humility of the yearningfor faith i s far from Mr. Arnold’s conception . ThePoet Laureate’s picture of himself, as

“ Fal l ing w ith my weight of caresUpon the world’s great altar stai rsThat slope through darkness up to God,

i s a very great contrast indeed to Mr. Arnold’s grandair of tearful Virgilian regret as he gazes on the paleascetic faces of the Carthusian monks, and delivershimself thus

V I I T I IE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD 353

Wandering between two w orlds, one dead ,T h e other powerless to be born,With nowhere yet to rest my head,Like these

,on earth I wait forlorn .

Their faith,my tears

,th e w orld deride

I come to shed them at thei r side.”

His vision of Christ and Christianity even , i swholly taken from the same standing-point of genuine but condescending sympathy. He can see howmuch greater the Chri stian Church was than theRoman world it subdued ; but to him it is greaternot through the truth of its belief

,but through that

vast capacity of belief which enabled it to acceptwhat was not true

,—in short

,to feign a truth higher

than the naked facts. No passage in Mr. Arnold’spoems is

,perhaps

,so grand as the one which de

lin eates this contrast,with its maj esti c though false

and desolating assumption that i t was the mightydreaming power of the East, the power to create theobj ects of its own belief, which conquered the hardorganisation of the West ; and as no passage i s socharacteristic of Mr. Arnold’s whole relation to ‘ thethought of his day, with it, though it i s somewhatlong, I will close my too voluminous extracts from hisstately and fascinating poems

Wel ln igh two thousand years have broughtThei r load

,and gone away

,

S ince last on earth there l ived and wroughtA world like ours to-day.

Like ours it lo ok ’d in outward air!But of that inward prize

,

S oul,that w e take more count and care

,

Ah there o ur future l ies.1

1 This flat an d unfortunateverse,as it seems to me

,h as been

inserted by Mr. Arnold in h is second edition to make h isL 2A

354

doctrine of th e rel igion of th e future seem more hopeful.

THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD

Like ours it lo ok’d in outward airIts head was clear and true

,

Sumptuous its cloth ing,rich its fare

,

No pause its action knewStout was i ts arm

,each thew an d bone

Seem’d puissant and al ive

But, ah its heart

,its heart was stone

,

And so it could not thrive.On that hard Pagan world d isgustAnd secret l oath ing fellDeep w eariness and sated lustMade human life a hell .In h is cool hall

,w ith haggard eyes

,

Th e Roman noble layHe drove abroad

,in furious guise

,

Along the Appian wayHe made a feast

,drank fierce an d fast

,

And cro w n’d h is hair w ith fl owers

No easier nor no quicker pass’d

Th e impracticable hours.T h e brooding East w ith awe beheldHer imp ious youn ger w orld .

Th e Roman tempest swell’d and swell’d,

And on h er head was h url’d.

T h e East bow’d low before th e blast

I n patient,deep disdain

Sh e let th e legions thunder past,

And plunged in thought again .

S o wel l Sh e mused,a morn ing broke

Across h er spirit gray.

A conquering,n ew-born j oy aw oke

,

And fill’d h er l i fe w ith day .

a prosaic doctrinal graft unworthy o fth e poet.

VI I

It is

356 THE POETRY OF MATTH EW ARNOLD Vll

No thoughts that to th e w orld belongHad stood again st the waveOf l ove wh ich set so deep and stron gF rom Christ’s then open grave.

No lonely l ife had pass’

d too slowWhen I could hourly see

That wan,mail

’d F orm

,w ith head dro op

’d lo w

,

Upon the b itter tree

Could see th e Mother w ith th e ChildWhose tender w inning artsHave to h is little arms beguiledS o many w ounded hearts

And centuries came,and ran their course

,

And unspent all that timeS till

,still went forth that Child’s dear force

,

And still was at its prime.

A y , ages long endured h is spanOf life, ’tis true received ,That gracious Child , that thorn-crown ’dManHe lived while we believed .

Wh ile w e believed , on earth He w ent,

And open stood His graveMen call

’d from chamber

,church

,and tent

,

And Christ was by to save.

Now he is dead ! Far hence h e liesIn th e lorn Syrian town ,And on his grave

,w ith sh ining eyes

,

T he Syrian stars look down.

In vain men still , w ith hoping n ew,

Regard h is death-place dumb,

And say th e stone is n o t yet to ,And wait for words to come.

vn THE POETRY orMATTHEW ARNOLD 357

Ah , from that silent sacred land,

Of sun,and arid stone

,

An d crumbl ing wall,and sultry sand

,

Comes n ow o n e word alone

From David’s l ips th is w ord d id roll,

’T is true and l iving yetNo man can save his brother’s soul

,

Norpay his brother’

s debt.

Al one, sel f-poised , henceforward manMust labour must resignHis al l too human creeds

,and scan

S imply th e way d ivine.”

It would have been impossible to paint moregrandly the hard pageantry of Roman civi li sation

,

or more imaginatively the apparently magi c vi ctoryof the brooding mysti c over the armed conqueror .But when Mr. Arnold paints the “ patient deepdisdain of the East for physical might as the powerby which it won its miraculous victory

,he is invert

ing strangely the testimony of history,—indeed he isreading his own lofty intellectualism back into thepast. The East has always been accused of bowingwi th even too deep a prostration of soul before theomnipotent fiat of the Almighty. It was the Easterndelight in that semi-fatalism which gave Mah ommedhis stran ge spel l over the Eastern imagination ; nay,i t was the same fascinated submission to the fingerof sheer Power which is occasionally so intenselyexpressed even in the Hebrew prophets as to read toChristian ears as i f God were above righteousness

,

and as if responsibili ty could be merged in obedience .If there were any disdain in the Eastern feelingtowards the armies of Rome, i t was not disdain forthe Roman p ower, but for the Roman weakness

358 THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD V I I

that inaccessibi lity of the West to whispers of th esoul which seemed to the Eastern mysti c the oraclesof a power far greater than the R oman

,and of one

before which the Roman would be broken in pieces.In other words

,what the East disdained in Rome

was its want of listen in g power, not i ts want ofdream ing power, of which the Oriental world alwaysknew too wel l the relaxing and enervating influence .It was too much dreaming which had brought it intosubj ection to Rome

,and further dreaming would

only make subj ection more abje ct. Had Christ,or

rather His ideal image, “ received,as Mr. Arnold

here says,from the enthusiasti c reverie of the East

,

the gift of a spiritual ascendancy which there wasno real divine Christ to exerci se

,the peculiar

strength of the East must have been precisely identical with its peculiar weakness—namely, its facultyfor beli eving that to be due to a living Power

,o ut

side the mind,which was in truth only the unreal

image of the mind itself. The power whi ch couldbreak to pieces hosts of legions was not in thedreamer

,but in Him who awakened the dreamer and

dispelled the dream . And it was not “ disdain,

” buthumility,

” by which the East learned to thrill tothe authority of this imperious whisper of the soul—thi s “ foolishness ” of faith .

And for us,too

,i t i s not disdain

,but humility

,

which must h elp us to recover the loss which Mr.Arnold so pathetically bewails

,but which his poetry

implici tly expresses also a deep reluctance to supply.

The old paradox is as true to-day as it was when St.Paul proclaimed that the weak things of the worldshould confound the mighty

,and the things which

were not should bring to nought the things whichwere . Perhaps I may paraphrase the same truth,

300 THE POETRY or MATTHEW ARNOLD vn

food which the intellect provides for her cravings,

and yet also of her fastidious rej ection of moreheavenly nutriment

,Mr. Arnold w il l be read and

remembered by every generation in which faith contin ues to be daunted by reason, and reason to seek,not without pangs of inexplicable compunction

,to

call in question the transcendental certainties offaith ; in a word, he will be read and remembered,as I said in my opening sentence

,as the poet who

,

more than any other of his day, has embodied inhis verse “ the sweetness, the gravi ty, the strength ,the beauty

,and the languor of death .

TENNYSON

LORD TENNYSON was an artist even before he was apoet 5 i n other words, the eye for beauty, grace, andharmony of effect was even more emphatically one ofhi s original gifts than the voice for poetical utteranceitself. This probably it i s which makes his veryearliest pieces appear so full of effort

,and sometimes

even so full of affectation . They were elaborateattempts to embody what he saw

,before the natural

voice of the poet had come to him . Coleridgeremarks

,in his “ Table Talk

,

” that Tennysonhad begun to write poetry before he knew whatmetre was. The remark applied, of course, only tohis very earliest publication ; and of that i t was, Ithink

,true

,odd as i t now reads in relation to one

of the greatest masters of metre,both simple and

sonorous,that the English language has ever known .

It i s interesting as showing how laborious and fullof effort his early verse sounded to one of thefinest judges of English verse, and so confirming thesuspicion that this great poet’s vision of beauty hadripened earlier than his poetic faculty for shapingthat vision into words. I think i t i s possible totrace not only a pro -poeti c period in his art—theperiod of the Orianas, Owls, Mermans, etc. -a period

362 T sxxvsou vm

in whi ch the poem on Recollections of the ArabianNights ” seems to me the only one of real in terest

,

and that is a poem expressive of the luxurioussense of a gorgeous inward picture-gallery—but todate the period at which the soul was “ infused ”

into his poetry,and the brilliant external pictures

became the dwelling - places of germinating poeticthoughts creating the ir own mus ic . The Ro manCatholics have, I believe, a doctrine that at a certainstage in the growth of the embryo body the souli s “ in fused ” into it

,and from that stage i t shapes

and moulds all the structures of the body with avi ew to their subserviency to a moral and spiri tual growth . Apply that analogy to Tenn yson’spoems

,and the period before 1832 i s the peri od

before his vivid pictures had a soul in them,

and consequently before they had a music of theirown . He himself has told us very finely in oneof hi s new er poems

,when describing the building

of Arthur’s great capital, w hich,like Ilium

,was

rumoured to have been bui lt to a divine music,how the h ighest works of the human spirit arecreated

For an ye heard a music, like enowThey are bui ldin g still

,seeing the city is built

T o music, therefore never bui lt at all ,And therefore built for ever .”

There was no such music in Tenny son’searliest verses

,but he himself has all but told us

when the period in which his productiveness wasdue more to the “ In st of the eye ” than to anytrue poetic gi ft, ceased . Curiously enough , the firstpoem where there i s any trace of th ose musings onthe legends of the Round Table to which he has

364 TENNYSON vm

Orwhen the moon was overhead,

Came tw o young lovers lately wedI am hal f sick of shadows

,

’ saidT h e Lady of Shalo tt.”

And probably it was the vi sion of a “ funeral,

at least as much as that other vi sion which made thefai ry Lady of Shalo tt more than half si ck of shadows

,

that first led the author Of this beautiful l i ttle poeminto his true poeti c work .

But even after the embryo period is past,even

when Tennyson’s poems are uniformly mouldedby an “ infused ” soul

,one not unfrequently noti ces

the excess of the faculty of vi sion over the governingconception which moulds the Vi sion

,so that I think

he i s almost always most successful when hi s poembegins in a thought or a feeling rather than from apicture or a narrative, for then the thought or feelingdominates and controls hi s otherwise too lavi shfancy.

“ Ulysses ” and Tithonus are far superiorto (Enone

,exquisite as the pictorial workmanship

of “ (Enone i s ; “ The Palace of Art ” i s finer than“ The Dream of Fair Women ” ; “ the Death of Lncretius

,

” painful as the subj ect i s,than “ Enoch

Arden ” or“ Aylmer’s Field ” ; and, for the same

reason,

“ In Memoriam is perhaps an even moreperfect whole than the poem of greatest scope, andin some respects the noblest of his imaginativeefforts, the great Arthurian epi c whi ch he completedso much later. Whenever Tennyson’s pictorialfancy has had i t in any degree i n its power to runaway with the guiding and controlling mind , theri chness of the workmanship has to some extentovergrown the spiritual principle of h is poems .I suppose i t i s in som e respects thi s lavish

strength of what may be called the bodily element

vm TENNYSON 365

in poetry,as distinguished from the spiritual li fe

an d germ of i t,which has given Lord Tennyson at

once his delight in great variety and richness of n ia

torials,and his profound reverence for the principle

of spiritual order which can alone impress unity andpurpose on the tropical luxuriance of natural gifts .It i s Obvious

,for instance

,that even in relation to

natural scenery,what his poetical faculty delights in

most are rich,luxuriant landscapes in which either

Nature or man has accumulated a lavish variety ofeffects . There is nothing of Wordsworth’s passionfor the bare

,wi ld scenery of the rugged North in

his poems . For one picture of wild and barrengrandeur like the first of the two following in “ ThePalace of Art

,there are at least fifty variations on

the last,in his various poems

And o n e,a foreground black w ith stones and slags

,

Beyond,a l ine of heights

,and higher

All barr’d w ith long wh ite cloud the scornful crags,And highest

,snow and fire.

And o n e,an English home—gray twi light po ur’d

On dewy pastures,dewy trees

,

S ofter than sleep—all things in order stored,A haunt ofancient Peace .”

It i s in the scenery of the mill,the garden

,the

chase,the down

,the rich pastures

,the harvest-field

,

the palace pleasure-grounds, the Lord of Burleigh’

s

fair domains,the luxuriant sylvan beauty bearing

testimony to the careful hand of man, “ the summercrisp with shining woods

,that Tennyson most

delights. If he strays to rarer scenes it i s almostalways in search of ri cher and more luxuriant lovelin ess, like the tropical splendours of “ Enoch Arden ”

and the enervating skies which cheated the Lotus

366 TENNYSON vm

Eate rs of their longing for home . The re is alwayscomplexi ty in th e beauty which fascinates LordTennyson most .And w ith the love Of complexity comes, as a

matter Of course, in a born artist the love of theordering faculty which can give unity and harmonyto complexity of detail. Measure and order arefor Tennyson of the very essence Of beauty. His

strong fascination for the Arthurian legends resul tsno doubt from the mixture, i n the moral mate rialsOf the age of chivalry, of exuberant stateliness andrich poli sh with the imperious need for spiritualorder to control the dangerous elements of theperiod . His Arthurian epi c is a great attempt todepict the in fusion of a soul into a chaos of statelypassions . Even in relation to modern politics youalways see the same bias, a love of rich constitutionaltraditions welded together and ruled by wise forethought and temperate judgment. He cannot em

dure either spasmodi c violence on the one hand,or

bald simplicity on the other . “That he loves is aland

Where F reedom broadens slow ly downFrom precedent to precedent.

In “ In Memoriam he goes out of his way tocondemn French political anarchy

“ T h e schoo lboy heat,T h e blin d hysteri cs of th e Celt

and to throw scorn on the “ red fool-fury of theS eine .” S ti l l more curious is the parentheti c question

,interpolated almost angrily

,in the Opening of

an exquisite love poem,

“ Love and Duty0 shal l th e braggart shout

F or some bl ind gl impse of freedom,work itsel f

368 TENNYSON vm

poem on “ The S leeping Beauty in a draw ing-roomfram ew ork

,i.e. made the “ Lady Flora ” to whom it

is related “ take her broidery fram e and add a crimson to the quaint macaw.

” In the beautiful li ttleidyl l called “ The Mi ll er’s Daughter

, Mr. Tennysoneven injures the rusti c effect of the piece by introducin g an artificial element, a song about Alice

’searring and necklace

,a touch which

,however true

i t may be to l ife—(earrings and necklaces are justwhat mi llers’ daughters would most value)— i s idyllically false as destroying the simpli ci ty Of the picture

,j ust as i t might have been true to life

,but

w ould have been idylli cally false,to call the heroine

Juliana or Mati lda,instead of Alice . The simplest

and most lyrical heroines,heroines like Gretchen in

Faust or Mignon in Wilhelm M'

eister, are hardly inTennyson’s way. He loves something of the air andmanner which a fixed social status gives . His “ MayQueen ” has always seemed to me one of his fewfalsetto poems . There i s art

,in the sense of complex

harmony,in al l his greatest poem s.

The simplest though hardly the most characteristic form of that art i s no doubt the “ Idyll

,

” inwhich Tennyson has del ighted from the first ;so much so

,that he has appli ed the term

,somewhat

misleadingly I think,to one of hi s later

,and in many

respects his greatest,works. The “ idyll proper i s

,

I suppose,a p icture coloured by a single emotion ,

and intended to give a perfect i llustration of thatemotion . The power w hich makes Tennyson’sidylls so unique i n their beauty is

,I think

,his won

derful ski ll in creating a perfectly real and l ivingscene

,

1—such as always might, and perhaps some1 This criticism was first made in a very fin e essay o n Tenny

son’s genius,by th e late Mr. W'

. C. Roscoe. which will be found

vm TENNYSON 369

where does,exist in external Nature,—for the

theatre of th e feel ing he is about to embody, andyet a scene every feature of which helps to make theemotion delineated more real and vivid. For i llustratio n s of what I mean take the idylls of “ TheMi ller’s Daughter and “ The Gardener’s Daughter,

”

both stories of happy first love , told in their lateryears by old men who had married rusti c beauties .The former

,however, paints a boy

’s first unexpectedpassion

,which finds him a dreaming lad

,and break

ing upon his quiet suddenly transforms him into aman ; the latter paints the passion Of an artist whohad long played with the feeling Of love

,and who

had heard enough beforehand of the rustic beautyhe was going to visit, to be thril ling with hope andexpectation of hi s destiny Remembering this

,

noti ce the completely different key of the twopoems

,the simple brook - like musi c of the first

,

which seems to keep time to the mil l-stream,and its

cool April scenery,— the rich, full, conscious sweetness Of the second, and its fragrant scents ofMay

But,Al ice, what an hour was that,

When after roving in the woods(’Twas April then), I came and sat

Below the chestnuts, when their buds

Were gl istening to th e breezy blueAnd on the sl ope

,an absent fool

,

I cast me down , nor thought of y o u,But angled in the higher po ol .

A l ove-son g I had somewhere read,

An echo from a measured strain,

in h is volumes of posthumous poems an d essays,published by

Chapman Hall.L

370 TENNYSON vur

Beat time to noth ing in my headF rom some odd corner of th e brain.

It haunted me,the morning long

,

With w eary sameness in the rhymes,

T h e phantom of a silent song,

That w ent and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. I n lazy moodI watched the little circles d ie

They past into the level flood,

And there a vision caught my eye

T h e reflex of a beauteous form,

A glow ing arm , a gleaming neckAs when a sunbeam wavers warmWithin the dark and d impled beck.

F or y o u remember y o u had set,

That morning,on the casement’s edge

A long green box of mignonette,

An d you were leaning from th e ledgeAnd when I raised my eyes above

,

They met w ith two so ful l and brightSuch eyes I swear to y o u, my love,That these have never lost their l ight.

That i s Apri l love in the heart of April,keeping

time to the liquid rapids of the mil l -weir. Thevivid picture

,too, of the kindly, dusty miller, with

his smile that seemed “ half within and half without,

and full of dealings wi th the world, which introduces the piece, and suggests the inequality Of lotover which this boyish passion was to leap

,prepares

us for the sort of love—sudden, youthful, defyingObstacles of station—which the bubbling mill-streamwas to witness.Now turn to the fair, ri ch, elaborate, and sti l l

more lovely scene,by which the reader’s mind i s

prepared for the love-story Of an artist, who, as the

372 TENNYSON vm

stream in harmony w i th th e richer,riper passion of

the conscious love of beauty

News from th e humming city comes to itI n sound of funeral or Ofmarriage bellsAnd sitting muflied in dark leaves, you hearT h e w indy clanging Ofthe m inster clockAlthough between it and the garden l iesA league of grass

,wash

’d by a slow

,broad stream

,

That,stirr

’

d w ith languid pulses of the oar,

Waves al l its lazy lilies,and creeps on

,

Barge laden , to three arches of a bridgeCrown

’

d with the minster-towers.

Two more real scenes cannot be imagined thanthese. And yet how delicately their differences arefitted (whether calculated or not I cannot say) todeepen and enhance the impressions of the specialshade Of love which each poem delineates .But I should quote for ever were I to illustrate as

fully as might be Lord Tennyson’s wonderful powerof putting Nature under contribution to help him indelineating moods of feeling. It i s not l imited tohis idylls

,but i s equally marvellous in his pure

lyri cs. Especially wonderful i s this power in thei llustration of the sense Of loss. Not to touch “ InMemoriam,

” take the voi ce which Mr. Tennyson hasfound for a dumb

,wistful grief in the following

little lyri c. NO poet ever made the dumb speak soeffectually

Break,break

,break

0 11 thy cold gray stones, 0 SeaAnd I would that my tongue could utterT h e thoughts that arise in me.

0 wel l for th e fish erman ’s boy,

That h e shouts w ith h is sister at play

vm TENNYSON 373

0 wel l for th e sailor lad,

That h e sings in h is boat on th e bay l

And th e stately sh ips go onT o their haven under th e h ill

But O for th e touch of a van ish ’d hand,

And th e sound of a voice that is stil l

Break,break

,break

A t th e foot of th y crags, 0 Sea !But th e tender grace Ofa day that is deadWil l never come back to me

Observe how the wash of the sea on the cold graystones i s used to prepare the mind for the feeling ofhelplessness with which the deeper emotions breakagainst the hard and rigid element of human speechhow the picture is then widen ed out ti l l you see thebay w ith children laughing on its shore, and thesai lor-boy singing on its surface, and the stately shipspassing on in the offing to their unseen haven

,all

with the V i ew of helping us to feel the contrastbetween the satisfied and the unsatisfied yearningsof the human heart. Tennyson

,l ike every true

poet,has the strongest feeling of the spiritual and

almost mystic character of the associations attachingto the distant sai l whi ch takes the ship on its lonelyj ourney to an invisible port, and has more than onceused i t to lift the mind into the atti tude of hope ortrust. But then the song returns again to the helpless breaking Oi the sea at the foot of crags i t cannot climb

,not this time to express the inadequacy

of human speech to express human yearnings, butthe defeat of those very yearnings themselves . Thusdoes Lord Tennyson turn an ordinary sea-shore landscape into a means of finding a voice indescribablysweet for the dumb spirit of human loss. An other

374 TENNYSON vm

closely analogous i llustration,at least as signal of

the same magic power to press Nature into theservi ce of the heart in uttering the sense of loss

,will

be familiar to every one who loves Tennyson’sgenius in that wonderful song in “ The Princess ”

concerning the sad strange “ days that are no more,

i n which he likens the mingled fresh ness and sadnesswith which we contemplate them as they flash upono ur memory to a mixture Of the feel ings with whichwe see the light upon an approaching sai l that bringsus friends from the other hemisphere

,and the light

upon a retreating sai l which takes them away thither ;for does not the memory of those days both bringand take away 2 does it not restore us the vivi d j oyof the past only to make us feel that it i s vanishedNO poet has ever had a greater mastery thanTennyson over the power Of real things—with himthey are always real

,and not mere essences or

abstractions—to exp ress evanescent emotions thatalmost defy expression . I kn ow no other poet

,

except the author of A n ton y and Cleopatra himself

,who might have imagined CleOpatra

’s passionate

cry over the corpse of Antony

And there is noth ing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon .

”

Lord Tennyson’s power of compelling the externalworld to lend him a language for the noblest feelings is

,however, but the instrument of a sti ll higher

faculty,the power of apprehending those feelings

themselves with the vigour of a great dramatist ;and though his range i s not w ide

,they include some

Of the most delicate and intellectual, and some ofthe coarsest and most earthly. He i s not a greatdramatist

,for his delineations move almost wholly

376 TENNYSON V I I I

of Th orn aby waste ,—and finally for the far sordiderand more selfish farmer of the new style

,wh o w or

ships “

proputty , especially in land,with a devout

worship,and can tell his son w i th the most serious

and earnest assuranceTaake myword for it

,Sammy

,th e poor in a lo omp is bad .

All this he can do with marvellous finish but he hashardly succeeded

,except in “ Queen Mary ” and hi s

fine picture of Hen ry II . in “ Becket, in drawing acharacter in all its vari ety of attitudes ; and thoughthose poems are quite fine enough to show dramaticpower

,they are not sufficiently characteristic of his

genius to show any wealth of dramati c fancy ; andindeed “ Harold ” must be pronounced a decidedfailure . Hence his genius can hardly be calleddramatic

,though in relation to single moods he

finds an infinitely more characteristi c language fortheir expression than Mr. Brownin g, who wouldmake Tithonus

, Ulysses, St. S imeon S tylites, andthe Northern Farmers all talk Brow n in gese. Butadmitting the partial l imitation of Tennyson’s geniusto the interpretation of moods, admitting even thelimited number of moods he can interpret adequately ,

—for he seems to fai l through caricaturewhen he attempts

,as in “ Maud or “ The Vision

of Sin ,” to express misanthropical moods, —yet no

other poet has rivalled,in force and subtlety

,the

work he has thus achieved . “Then first published,“ The Northern Farmer (OldS tyle)

” and Tithonus ”

stood side by side,and i t i s hardly possible to find

specimens of wider-removed human emotion s on thesubj ect of death“ But summun

’n ll come arter mea mayhap wi

’ ’is k ittleo’ steam

vu r TENNYSON 377

lluz z in’an

’ maazim’th e blessed fealds wi’ th e Divil’s o anteam .

Gin I mun doy,I mun doy, an’lo ife they says is sweet,

But gin I mun doy,I mun doy

,for I couldn abear to

see it.

What atta stannin’ theer for,an’ doesn bring ma th e

yaaleDoctor’s a ’

to ttler, lass, an’ a’s hallus i’ the owd taaleI weant break rules for Doctor a kn aws n aw moor than

a fio yGet ma my yaale

,I tel l tha, an’ gin I mun doy, I mun

doy.

”

Now hear TithonusT h e woods decay

,th e woods decay and fall

,

T h e vapours weep their burthen to th e ground ,Man comes and tills the field an d l ies beneath

,

And after many a summer d ies the swan.

Me only cruel immortal ityConsumes I w ither slow ly in thine arms,Here at the quiet lim it of the w orld ,A white-hai red shadow

,roam ing l ike a dream

T h e ever silent spaces Of th e East,

Far-folded m ists and gleaming halls of morn .

Alas for th is gray shadow,once a man

S O glorious in his beauty and thy choice,

W ho madest h im thy chosen,that he seem’

d

To his great heart none o ther than a GodI asked thee, Give me immortal ity.

’

Then didst thou grant m ine ask ing with a smi le,

Like wealthy men wh o care not h ow they give.But thy strong Hours indign ant w ork’d their wills,A n d beat me down and marr’d and wasted me

,

And tho’ they could not en d me, left me maim’d

T o dwell in presence of immortal youth,

Immortal age beside immortal youth ,And al l I was in ash es.”

378 TENNYSON vm

The atom of common thought that connects the twopassages i s the feeling expressed in both that thereis a price at w hich life

,with its sweetness lost, i s

not w orth purchasing ; and though to the NorthernFarmer that price i s the sacrifice of what he callsbreak ing rules ” to please the docto r

,i.e. giving up

his accustomed draught Of ale,and to Tithonus i t i s

the loss Of al l that made up the vigour and gladnessof life , incurred to save an everdwin dlin g consciousness of personality stripped of al l command over theold springs of happiness

,stil l there is just enough

common to the two thoughts to make the range ofdialect and feeling the more startling and effective .I should certain ly have supposed

,til l “ The Grand

mother,the two “ Northern Farmers

,

” QueenMary

,

” and “ Becket ” were published,that Tenny

son’s power of poetical interpretation extended only tothe more refined

,i f not the more intellectual habits

of mind but that notion has been disposed Of. He

can furnish good grandmotherly remin i scences, or ahearty devotion to a narrow calling and a coarseobtuseness to everything beyond

,with a voice at

least as appropriate as he finds for that restlesscraving for ever new experience, and that contemptuous pity for plodding humdrum piety

,which he

attributes to his somewhat modernised but marvellously conceived Ulysses. But I think that whilethe latter class of poem s belong to him

,as i t were,

the former are the results Of study,though of a study

which only a poet’s imagin ation could have h armonised into wholes so perfect. It i s impossible to forget

,

i n reading the three studies of rural character I havejust referred to

,that Lord Tennyson’s powers of

Observation,though by no means rapid

,are exceed

in gly close and tenacious, and that he has the strong

380 TENNY SON VI I I

duced the three wonderful studies in English vern acular l ife . Just as Tennyson delights to chroniclethat at a given hour of the night the heron lets downhis other leg and stretches himself

,and as he con

jectru'es that the heron’s dream s then take a happier

turn,so he delights to chronicle that an Old woman

w i th her facul ties fai l ing,when she hears of the

death of her eldest-born,himself an Old man

,wi ll

muse on the beauty of his baby legs after thisfashionWilly

,my beauty

,my eldest-born

,th e flower of th e

flockNever a man coul d fling h im

,for Willy sto od like a

rock.

‘Here’s a leg for a babe of a week,’ says Doctor, andhe w ould be bound

There was not his lik e,that year, in twenty parishes

round .

”

And so precisely,too, he makes the property-wor

shipping “ Northern Farmer ” Of the new style putthe poor curate

,whose daughter hi s eldest son wishes

to marry,under the microscope

,as i f he were a kind

of insect,in this contemptuous way

“ Parson’s lass ’ant nowt, and she weant ’a nowt wh en

’e’s dead

,

Mun be a guvn ess, lad, or summut, and addle h er

breadWhy fur

’e’s nobbut a curate, an’weant n ivir git n aw

’igh erAn’ ’e maade th e bed as ’

e ligs on afo or’e co om’

d toth e sh ire.

And th in ’e co om’

d to th e parish wi’ lots 0 Varsity

debt,

S to ck to his taail they d id,an’ ’

e’an

’t got shut on ’

em

yet.

vm TENNYSON

An e l igs o n ’is back i’ th e grip, wi’ noan to lend ’

im

a shove,

Wo orse nor a far-welter’d yowe fur,Sammy, ’e married

furluvv .

”

It i s impossible not to see that it i s muchmore as naturalist than as poet that Tennyson hasmastered the materials for these three most remarkable poems

,though w ithout his imaginative

faculty he could never have harmonised them intothese wonderful wholes . When Shakespeare givesus a character like Juliet’s nurse, we feel somehowthat Juliet’s nurse was in him

,that he needed as

l ittle study to enter into her and appropriate heras Tennyson needed to enter into the full ripepassion which breathes through “ The Gardener’sDaughter or the gusty heroics of “ Locksley Hall .”

But his fine studies of those three rustics have beenlike the studies which the late Mr. Waterton devoted to the habits of birds, or which Mr. FrankBuckland bestows on the hippopotamuses of his heart.He has made them his own , and made them perfectly l iving and true ; and if he had time to giveto other types as large and simple, he could paintthem also as faithfully and impressively. But hisinsight into them does not come through his sympathy with active life, as Shakespeare

’s did it comesof the careful scrutinising eye of a naturali st feedingthe brooding heart Of a poet. And there are plentyof indications Of the same kind of close micrOSCOpicpower in the higher and purely spiritual sphere ofTennyson’s genius . What, for instance, can be finerthan the picture of the gloomy forecast of evi l whichhaunts Merlin before his l iving burial 1

S o dark a forethought rolled about h is brainAs on a dull day in an ocean cave


T h e bl ind wave feeling round his lon g sea-hal lI n silence .

”

In Memoriam is ful l Of such magn ifyin gglasses for secret feelings

,and doubts

,and fears

,and

hopes,and trusts . How true and pathetic

,yet how

like the effect of a brooding reverie under a microscope

,i s the passage in which Tennyson describes

his minute comparison of the path of the moonbeams in his bedroom with what he knows it mustbe in the chancel where the tablet to his friend i splaced

,and paints the half -superstitious anxiety

with which he watches them while they are lightingup the letters of the name

,and then passing away

,

leaving i t in darkness ti ll the glimmer of the dawnreturns upon it ! How large he makes the fear thatwhen he fol lows hi s friend into the other world hemay find h imself “ a life behin d him

,and doomed to

follow ever at the same distance How big seems thedoubt—one that we must all of us have felt in suchcases—that he is exaggerating the delight which thepast companionship Of his friend had caused him

,

that i t is but “ the haze of grief which made the“ former gladness loom so great. Clearly there i smuch Of the microscopi c naturalist in the spiritualas well as the physical part of Tennyson’s musings.Any mood

,however subtle, when submitted to hi s

eye, grows large beneath that close and minute

scrutiny,and reappears on a new and magnified

scale,like Plato’s moral law of the individual con

science when written out large in the structure andfunction of the perfect S tate .And yet it would be completely fal se to give the

impression that Lord Tennyson’s studies are studiesin “ stil l ” l ife

,studies of human nature as much at

rest as the fragment of a bat’s wing under a micro

384 TENNYSON v iii

feet ease and grace . If w e compare the lovelymodulation of “ The Brook,

” or the liquid notes of“ Blow

,bugle

,blow

,set the wild echoes flying

,

” orthe delicate rapture Of “ Come into the garden

,

Maud,” with the stately compression of “ The Palace

of Art or of most of the “ Ids of the King,

” weshal l at once see that it i s not want Of motion

,but

rather excessive compression,which gives to so many

Of Tennyson’s poems the air of moving througha resisting medium . There is nothing like “ stil lli fe to be found in his poems . When he puts a halfunderstood emotion or a new natural fact under hi spoeti c o bjectrglass, it may occupy a larger space than i tever did in the poems of other poets, but that i s onlybecause the scale Of li fe i s really larger. No poet i sless justly liable to the charge of making much of ali ttle or of pottering over his poetic discoveries.And

,indeed

,

“ In Memoriam is the only one OfTennyson’s poems of which even his most hostil ecritics could say that its movement is slow. Here

,

however,there is necessarily the brooding movement

of a haunting grief,for it i s of the very essence Of a

poem devoted to the exp ression of the pain, and fear,and doubt, and hope, and faith, which a great woundto the heart causes

,to hover perpetual ly over the

same theme,and to transform every seemingly

foreign subj ect of reflection into new food for suffering or new promise of peace . Mrs. Browning

,in

perhaps her finest sonnet,has said that

If to conquer love has tried,

To conquer grief tries more,as al l th ings prove

,

F or grief in deed is love,and grief beside.

Alas,I have grieved so

,I’m hard to l ove .

And Tennyson’s great poem is a comm ent

vm TENNYSON 385

on this text,a comment showing how much

more grief may be than love not only moreabsorbing

,which i t must be

,not only more task

ing and more urgent in pushing the sufferer onto seem ingly vain and thankless efforts to vindicatehis fidelity Of heart, from which he sinks back exhausted into himself, for that to a great extent i tmust be also—but also more fruitful of strength

,

of courage,of hope, and of peace. St. Paul has not

got much credit for poetic feeling amongst the manygreat poets of the Bible, and no doubt the passagesin which he rises into poetry are somewhat rare butof one of them

,I suspect

,we miss the beauty and

force rather for want of such a mental history asthat of “ In Memoriam to explain it

,than from any

want Of pathos, depth, and singular precision offeeling in the passage itself. It would injure “ InMemoriam to give it a Bibli cal motto

,for that

would tend to classify a great modern poem in thatdismal category of works kn own as “ Serious reading,

”

and so to diminish its just influence ; otherw ise i twould be hard to find a more exact and profoundsummary of its cycle of thought and emotion thanSt Paul’s reason (evidently an afterthought) forglorying in tribulation kn ow ing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience exp erience, andexperience hepe and hope maketh not ashamed

,

because the love of God i s shed abroad in our heartsby the Holy Ghost which is given un to us .” Thati s a true summary of the drift Of “ In Memoriam .

”

The poet sets out with a cry of desolation,of self

pitying numbness Ofheart -for the piece which nowstands first of the series

,and immediately follows the

grand apostrophe,

“ S trong So n of God, immortalLove

,

” i s evidently a poetical preface to the whole,

L 2 0

386 TENNYSON vm

and not even one of the first in point of time . Thefirst apostrophe to the tree of churchyards

,the

funeral yew,whose roots “ are wrapped about the

bones of the dead, i s a cry of life in death, a cry Of

horror at the prospect of death in l ife . And in al lthose which follow it

,ti ll the poet’s interest begins

to awaken as to the fate of the ship which was tobring home his friend’s body from the Adriatic

,we

hear, under the various restlessly changing forms of astun ned spirit

,the constant presence of the thought

Break,thou deep vase of chill ing tears

That grief hath shaken into frost.

Then h is imagin ation begins to fix itself,at inter

vals,with the fanciful fidelity which grief always

transfers from the dead to some half-living representative of the dead

,on the ship that is bringing home

all that remained of hi s friend,and some of th e most

beautiful reveries in the language describe how hefollows all its motions as i f they w ere the motions ofhi s friend himself

“ I hear the noise about thy keelI hear the bel l struck in th e nightI see the cabin w in dows bright

I see the sailor at th e wheel .”

He fl ies Off i n reverie, on vi sionary wings, a weightof nerves without a mind ”

(could there be a finerexpression for the acute sensation which rendersthought impossible l), to meet the vesse l on her way,and “ circles moaning in the air

,

‘ Is this the end ?Is this the end Then he tries to convince himself that he does not suffer “ in a dream ”

; records ,what every one has felt in such cases

,that if the dead

should prove to be al ive and exp ress compassion andgrief for the illusions that have given so much pain ,

388 TENNYSON vm

And then we know that patience is already workin g experience, and ex perience hope and hope thegreater and not the less, for that viv id insight intonot merely the thoughts, but the l iving facts thatare the food of Doubt

,which Tennyson has com

pressed into some Of these noble poems . There i shardly finer reflective poetry in exi stence than theser ies Of poems in which he adduces the evidencethat Nature

,as Nature

,cares for neither individual

nor type ; that

Sh e cries,

‘A thousand types are gone,

7”I care for nothin g al l shall go

D )

that she is utterly indifferent whether or not Man,

Who loved,wh o suffered countless ills

,

Who battled for th e True,the Just

,

Be blown about the desert dustOr sealed w ith in th e iron h i lls.”

And when he breasts al l these hosti le demonstrationsOf science with the unconquerable though tremblingfaith which man’s nature and God’s revelations Opposeto all the vestiges of the lower creation, and endswith the cry to what he feels i s “ Lord of all, andfaintly trusts “ the larger h Ope,

” we cannot help confessing that “ hope maketh not ashamed

,

” since it canface boldly even this dread array of dumb discouragements .From this point the poet’s grief passes more and

more into gentle memory, contemplation, and evenj oy. Here and there, before the anguish dies whollyaway

,we have exquisite bursts of returning l ife and

j oy,like that wonderful l ittle address to the n igh tin

gale,which seems to express the rapture at once of

pain and of victory over i t

vm TENNYSON 389

Wi ld b ird,whose warble

,l iquid sweet,

R ings Eden thro’ th e budded quick s,

0 tel l me where the senses m ix,0 tell me where th e passions meet,

Whence rad iate fierce extremes employT h y spirits in th e darkening leaf,And in the m idmost heart of grief

T h y passion clasps a secret j oy

And I—my harp w ould prelude w o e,I cannot all command the stringsT h e glory of the sum of th ings

lVill flash along th e chords and go.

With such alternations of j oy,and an always rising

note of love and faith,this great history of grief

comes to a triumphant end,“ With faith that comes of self-control

,

T h e truths that never can be provedUntil we close with al l we loved

And all we flow from ,soul in soul

,

”

—where, if ever in human poetry, we see the glow

of that “ love of God which is shed abroad in ourhearts by the Holy Ghost that i s given us .” I kn owOf no poem so great or so perfect which deals withgrief at all . The higher poetry has a tendency toshun grief—submissive grief at least ; for grief thatbows to the stroke is of al l emotions the one mostdepressing to the immediate store of mental vital ityand the higher poetry springs from the fullest well oflife. Pain Of al l other kinds

,including even that

defiant despair which fights against God, finds amplevoice in poetry ; but grave and quiet anguish underthe ackn owledged fact Of loss, angui sh which does notstrive to kick against the pricks

,and yet does not

390 TENNYSON v I I I

seek to quench i tself in mysti c passion ,has had few

and fragmentary representatives in our higher poetry.

Only a very strong spirit of poetry could have prevented so long a series of mournful poems as th isfrom becoming oppressively sombre. Even as i t i s

,

i t is only in one’s sadder moods that one turns to thisgreat poem ; and, indeed, i t i s on ly in one or two ofthe latter poems of the series that it i s possible forTennyson to embody the full strength and elasticityOf his poetic genius . There is a natural limitationOf power and vital ity imposed by the nature of thesubj ect in thi s respect.In one respect

,however

,I think “ In Memoriam

surpasses al l his other works—I mean in the exquisitetone of the pictures it contains . Elsewhere hi s pietures are apt to start out from the surface of hispoems with colours almost too brilliant and outlinesalmost too strongly defined

,so that one i s dazzled by

the detail,and the main subj ect Of the poem i s thrown

into the shade . It i s never so in “ In Memoriam ,

”

where the lowered key of grief and hesitating hope,

results in colours as liquid in tone as the mood theyillustrate . Is there in the whole range of Englishpoetry such a picture of a summer twilight, i tsel fdrawn in the very mood Of such a twi light, asthis ?

By night we lin ger’d on th e lawn

F or underfoot th e herb was dry,A n d genial warmth and o

’

er th e skyT h e silvery haze of summer drawn

And calm that let the tapers burnUnwaving not a cricket ch irr’dT h e brook alone far Offwas heard,

And on the board th e flutterin g urn

392 TENNYSON vm

heaviest burdens by i ts own inherent force,this poem

has never been rivalled in its kind by any Englishpoet. Its defects are few and very slight

,and mostly

what I Observe in all Lord Ten nyson’s poems . He

always shows a certain tendency to over-express anymorbid thought or feeling he wishes to resist

,and

thi s jars more on the ear in a poem of whi ch the veryessence is i ts sad self-possession and subm issive pain .

Thus,where he says that man tried to beli eve Love

to be Creation’s final law,

”

Th o’Nature

,red in tooth an d claw

With ravine, shriek

’

d against h is creed ,

the phrase sounds to me hysterical , for Nature i svery much besides the teeth and claws of beasts ofprey

,and the shrieks of her victims can hardly be

fairly represented as her voice . The significance ofthe Obj ection, which i s undeniable, loses, I think,instead of gaining in weight, from so excited a formof expression . I feel just the same jar at the phrasetwi ce used of sorrow

,

“ Sorrow with thy lying lip,”

which,as representing the illusions into which sorrow

betrays us,sounds harsh

,almost like the phrase of a

scold —yet nothing can be conceived less l ike thegeneral tenor of feeling in the poem than the scolding mood . Now and then

, to o , there i s a tone of“ effusion beyond what a perfectly simple tasteadmits

,as where the poet supposes that hi s friend

might come down alive from the ship in which hewas looking only for hi s corpse

,and strike a sudden

hand in mine,where “ strike ” i s surely too pro

n oun ced, too emphatic a word for the occasion ,especially as the idea i s conveyed by the word“ sudden .

” But when seeming faults,so “ infinitely

little as these, are the only ones to be perceived in

vm TENNYSON 393

such a poem as this,the poem must be great, unless

indeed the criti c be very blind . Certainly to me itseems the most beautiful and vivid of al l poems thatever grew out Of a grave.NO one can criticise “ In Memoriam and “ The

Idylls Of the King,” sti ll less pass from the one to

the other, without being conscious of the immense

influence which ethical principles have had inmoulding Tennyson’s work as an artist, or withoutreflecting in some form on the charge so commonlymade or implied again st him

,that he has injured the

character of his art for the sake Of the perfectlyirrelevant interests of morali ty . NO one can doubtthat i f a poem which is

,as it asserts i tself, the simple

outpouring of long years of grief,has what may be

called a moral teaching at all,the teaching of “ In

Memoriam ” is that Knowledge severed from Loveand Faith i s “ a child and vain ” ; that she shouldknow her place

,which is to be second, not the first ;

thatA h igher hand must make h erm ildIfal l be not in vain and guideHer footsteps

,moving side by side

With Wisdom,l ike the younger child .

If “ In Memoriam has a definite teaching at all,

as distingui shed from a lyrical burden,this i s i t.

And no doubt it expresses a conviction whichsprings from the very depths Of the poet’s soul .Whether i t injures h is poetry or not must dependon two conditions . First

,Is it obtruded didactical ly

instead of merely shaping and turning his song ? Inother words

,Does i t mar the music

,or is i t Of the

essence of the music ? For any one may spoil asong or a poem of any kind by incorporating with i tfragments of a sermon . The second question is

,

“ Is

394 TENNYSON vn r

i t true For i f the doctrine that Kn owledge severedfrom Love and Faith i s out of place

,be incorporated

into the very heart of the music,and be yet false

,

unmanly,enervating doctrine

,I at least should

admit at once that i t must injure the poem,as well

as the moral ity of the poem . Mr. Swinburne,—who

,

when he can lay aside petty resentments and clearhis essays from the intricate innuendoes inspired bya whole host of un intelligible literary animosities

,

always writes with the lucid beauty of genius,

though somewhat too much also with the “ highaction ” of complacent consciousness

,- appears to

think the first question alone relevant. He hasdeclared that “ the worth of a poem has properlynothing to do with its moral meaning or desi gn ”

;

that “ the only absolute duty of Art i s the duty sheowes to herself ” ; that “ she is dependent on herself alone

,and on nothing above or beneath .

”He

does not therefore prohibit Art from taking a moralaim, so long as the aim does not so protrude as toinjure the art. But he w i ll not admit that thecharacter of the morali ty involved is even an elementin the matter. Indeed

,

“ there is a value,

” he says,

“ beyond price and beyond thought,in the Lesbian

musi c which spends itself on the record of fleshlyfever and amorous malady.

”Unquestionably this i s

not Lord Tennyson’s doctrine . In verses which,had

they not been in all probability written long beforeMr. Swinburne was born , might have been supposedto bear som e reference to hi s genius, the Laureatehas said that the highest creative beauty, whether ofthe divine or Of the poeti c kind , must imply a morallaw .

My ow n d im l ife should teach me th is,

That life shall l ive for evermore,

396 TENNYSON v irr

or intell igence,or

,if i t must be so, greatness of evil

purpose i tself ? I agree wi th the general principle,

if not w i th its special application to Vivi en but whatdoes i t imply ? This fastidiousness of the highertaste i s not an accident of the artistic temperament.\Ve shrink from the meaner typ es of evi l in Art,because they are less representative of o ur nature

,

because they fai l to call out the deeper and moreennobling moral emotions ; because, whi le we candespise and loathe them

,we cannot dread or hate

them . Well , but this i s a virtual admission thatArt acknowledges the supremacy Of these moralemotions—in other words

, Of the conscience whichshapes them ; and, i f i t be so, then the poetry whichmakes the lower passions speak as i f there were nosuch moral emotions at all

,i s worse as p oetry for

its grovelling blindness . Mr. Sw inburne’s “ Lesbianmusic which spends i tself on the record of fleshlyfever and amorous malady,

” seems to me the musi cof the satyr

,not the music of human beings

,and to

be condemned by the very reasons which he assignsfor condemning “ Vivien .

” It i s wanting in all

dignity except the dignity of flame, or rather itrevels in indignity

,in what i s the disgrace and not

the honour of human nature. You might as wel lsay that it i s a fit subj ect for Art to paint themorbid ecstasy of cannibals over their horrid feasts

,

as to paint lust without love . If you are to delineate man at all, you must del ineate him w i th hi shuman nature

,and therefore you can never real ly

omit from any worthy picture that conscience whichis i ts crown . I believe

,myself

,that Tennyson i s

never gui lty of letting his moral purpose crop outostentatiously so as to injure his art ; indeed, I havenever seen i t even alleged that he i s so gui lty, except

vm TENNY SON 397

in relation to his picture of Arthur, of which I havepresently to speak . A n d as I believe that his intense conviction

,that Knowledge is “ the second, not

the first,

” i s true—that Art herself must walk bythe light Of Love and Faith, and must not painthuman nature in the monstrous and consciencelessshapes it sometimes really assumes

,unless with some

foi l which shall make the void where the moral lifeshould be

,painfully visible

,—I cannot think that in

any respect Lord Tennyson has shown himself ahigher artist than in the important but generallyunostentatious place which the conscience takes inhis greater poems.Of course the soundness Of this judgment on

Tennyson as a poet must depend on the real valueof the great poem called

,I think with somewhat

unfortunate modesty,

“ The Idylls of the King.

”

The title misled the publi c,and the fragmentary

mode in which the poem appeared misled it themore . I confess that when the first four Idylls firstappeared I did not enjoy them nearly so much asmany of the Laureate’s earlier poems . NO one

,I

suppose,w ith any taste for poetry at all could pos

sibly have read “ Elaine and “ Guinevere,” especially

the latter,without delight. But appearing

,as they

did, w ithout any notice of their fragmentary character

,and with

,I sti ll think

,a good deal in the first

of them,

“ Enid,

” to suggest that they were ri chpictorial fancies

,taken

,certainly not altogether at

random,but yet without any really coherent design

,

out of a great magazine Of romantic story,there was

some excuse,I think

,for the hasty impression that

they were four minutely finished cabinet pictures,

painted Of course to hang by and illustrate eachother

,but nevertheless with more view to the beauty


of the individual effects than to their relation to

each other. By the side of “ Ulysses,

” “ The TwoVoices

,and many others of T eimyso n

’

s earlie rpoems

,I certainly thought at first the four first

“ Idylls a little wanting in intellectual interest,a

little too dependent on their pictorial bri lliancy .

But as the poem put forth new shoots in both directions

,backwards and forwards

,and the noble portions

on “ The Comi ng Of Arthur,

” “ The Holy Grail,” and

“ The Passing Of Arthur,” appeared

,—poems in

which the gradual growth and fall of the idealkingdom of the spiritual chivalry were depicted

,

the grandeur of the new poem began,for me at

least,to eclipse in interest almost everything that

Tenn yson had written,and the first published

Idyll s themselves grew in intellectual fascination .

“ The Last Tournament,” and “ Gareth and Lynette

,

”

which furnished respectively almost the last and firstl in ks in the chain ,

except the “ Passing and “ Coming ” of Arthur themselves, seem to me to havewrought up the poet’s conceptions into a far completer expression, and to have put the final touchesto a very great, though not qui te perfect whole .Most readers seem to find much less of grace andfinish in the later than in the earlier publishedIdylls. As regards “ Pelleas and Ettarre ” and “ TheLast Tournament,

” this i s not only true,but was

necessary to the poet’s purpose,which was to give

the impression of rude storms, gloom ,and coming

ruin before th e tragi c close. I do not think myselfthat i t i s true at all of the other parts. The newadditions to “ The Passing of Arthur —which nowembodies Tennyson’s earliest as well as his latestw ork on this great poem—seem to me to contain thegrandest lines he has ever written

,l ines resonant

400 TENNYSON vm

epic l iterature ; and though T eimyso n does not ofcourse bring to its execution a voice of the mightyvolume of Mi lton’s

,he has not only written what i s

far more perfect as a work of art,though less impo s

i ng as a work of genius,than “ Paradise Lost

indeed,the former might eas ily be—but one which

shadows forth the ideal faith of his own time—a tim eof at least as sincere if much less definite faith

,and

of far higher moral and intellectual discriminationmore adequately.

In taking his subj ect from the great m ediaevalmyth Of English chivalry, i t was of course Opento Tennyson to adopt any treatment Of i t whichwould really incorporate the higher and granderaspects of the theme

,and also find an ideal unity for

a number of legends in which of un ity there wasnone. It i s Obvious that in dealing w i th the chivalricstory with which strange and grand fragments Of

mediaeval Christian mystici sm are closely interwoven,

i t was impossible to avoid the blendin g of the distinctthemes of ideal courage and honour

,ideal love and

purity,and the rapt visions of an ideal faith . This

could not have been avoided. But undoubtedlythese various elements might have blended in variousways and it would have been possible, no doubt, tomake the central figure of the poem one in which thehighest ideal aims were crossed by the tragi c cousequen ces of a youthful sin , so that everywhere hisown sin rose up against him til l it brought to ruinthe fair dream Of his li fe. This is the vi ew of thestory of Arthur which Mr. Sw inburne and his schoolmaintain to be the only natural and legitimate one .A n d there is no doubt that the treachery which finallyunderm ines and ruins A rthur’s work is the treacheryof Modred

,nor that

,according to the story Of the old

vm TENNYSON 401

legend,Modred is Arthur’s own son, the Offspring of

Arthur’s g uilty passion for one whom he did not

then know to be his half-sister Bellicen t. According to the Old story

,Merlin prophesied to him the

evi l destiny in store for him as the penalty of thissin

,and also forbade him to take part in the search

for the Holy Grail,as being rendered unworthy Of i t

by that sin . Nor can it be denied that there arevarious other traces in the early part of these legendsof the moral taint which Arthur’s nature had thus incurred . For instance

,the sword brought by the lady

of the isle of Avelyo n cann ot be drawn by Arthur,because i t can only be drawn by a knight in whomthere i s no hidden shame .For the rest

,the picture of Arthur as given in the

old legends i s exceedingly wavering and uncertain .

For the most part it i s the picture of a gracious andnoble figure of mysterious origin and mysterious destiny, Rex quondam

, Rexque futurus,” according

to the legendary inscription on his tomb, —whosenobility inspires a passion of love and fidelity in hisknights

,and the profoundest agony of remorse in his

unfaithful queen ; but also at times crafty, and attimes weak

,trying in the beginning of his reign, l ike

Herod, to exterminate the infants amongst whomMerlin’s lore pronounces that the cause of his ownruin and death i s to be found ; and yielding at theend of his reign

,against his own better mind, to the

bloody and vindictive counsels of his nephew Gawainin the war with Lancelot. I wil l venture to say thatif only those legends collected by SirThomas Malorywere to be taken as authorities (and though I do notprofess a knowledge Of the various other collections,i t i s quite clear that many Of them are far morefavourable to the ideal view of Arthur than Sir

L 2D

402 TENN YSON vrIr

Thomas Malory’s), and if everything they say ofArthur were put to gether, no coherent character atal l could be constructed out of them . It would havebeen impossible to draw any poetical portrai t of theking without the freest principle of selection . Had

Tennyson taken the vi ew which Mr. Swinburneaflirms

,—with a pert dogmatism quite unworthy of

the exquisite English in which he writes, and the frequent flashes of gen ius in the substance of what hewrites

,—to be the only possible one ; had the story

of Arthur been turned into that of a kind of mediaeval(Edipus, and the awful destiny which avenged hi svoluntary sin but involuntary incest

,that of death

by the hand Of his ow n son, been made the subj ectof it

,—there would have been no room at al l for the

spiritual halo which the mysterious stories of Arthur’sbirth and of his return from the i sland of his restshed round the subj ect. No Greek tragedian wouldhave dreamt of investing (Edipus with such a halo asthat. This vi ew of the sto ry i s a tragi c one in thetrue Old sense of a story purifying the heart by pityand by fear. The subj ect of so dread and dark adestiny may be enabled to answer Sphinx-riddles as astep to his own doom

,but he cannot be one whose

coming is preceded by heavenly portents, and whosepassing takes place amidst the wai ling of unearthlymourners

,the bitter grief and remorse of faithless

companions,and the mysti c presage of a glorious

return. It seems to me perfectly evident thatTenn yson

,as every true poet—Mr. Swinburne him

self,for example—had to choose between the various

inconsistent elements in the Arthurian legends, whichof them he would keep and which he would eliminate

,

that i t would have been simply impossible to keepthe element Of shame and retribution along with th e

40 4 TENNYSON vrrr

better than another ? he answers,

“ Yea, I loveGuinevere the King’s daughter, Leodegran ce Of theland of Camelyard, which Leodegran ce holdeth in hispower the Table R ound that yee told hee had of myfather Uther . An d this demo sell i s the most gentilest and fairest lady that I know living, or yet thatI ever could find .

” “ Sir, said Merlin, “ as of herbeautie and fairen esse, she i s one of the fairest thatlive but an yee loved her n ot so wellas yee doe, I would

finde yee a demosellofbeautie andofgoodn esse thatshouldlike yee andplease yee, and your heart were n ot set. But

there as a man’s heart is set

,he will be loth to return .

”

That i s truth,

” said Arthur —and here not only i sArthur’s passion for his queen represented as beyondresistance

,but Merlin treats the want Of love of

Guinevere as the root of the calamities that were tocome

,and intimates that by a happier choice these

calamities might have been avoided . And the simpletruth is

,that this i s the whole drift of the legends

,

from the date Of Arthur’s marriage to the close .

After Arthur’s mysterious death,Guinevere freely

takes upon herself and Lancelot the whole guil t ofthe ruin of Arthur’s kingdom.

“ Through this knightand mee al l these warres were wrought, and thedeath of the most noble knights of the world ; forthrough our love that we have loved together i s mymost noble lord slain e. For as well as I haveloved thee

, Sir Lancelot, now mine heart will notonce serve mee to see thee for through thee and meei s the floure of kings and knights destroyed.

” Andher last prayer i s not to see SirLancelot again withher bodily eyes

,lest her earthly and disloyal love

should return upon her, but that he should buryher beside her true lord and master, King Arthur.

No one can read Sir Thomas Malory’s book without

V I I I TENNYSON 405

being struck by th e complete disappearance, as itproceeds

,of al l trace of remorse or shame in King

Arthur, and by the weight of guilt thrown uponthe passionate love of Lancelot and Guinevere .

Obviously, i f Tennyson was to keep to the legendswhich cast so mysterious a halo of spiritual gloryarou nd King Arthur, he had no choice but to ignorethose which connected, OEdipus-fashion , his youthfulsin with the final catastrophe .But it has been said that Arthur’s exclusion from

the search for the San Grail i s only intel ligible on thegroun d of his youthful guilt. Here again, I think,Tennyson’s poetic instinct proves triumphant. Forin the story of i t as told by Sir Thomas Malory,there is not only no trace of this

,but a distin ct justifi

cation Oi the Poet Laureate’s view that Arthur lookedon this search for the San Grai l as almost a disloyaltyto the higher though humbler task that he had sethimself and his knights—Of restoring order on earthwhile

,on the other hand, kn ights, who, like Sir

Lancelot,are stained with far deeper and more volun

tary gui lt than any with which the King, even on Mr.

Swinburne’s view, i s chargeable, are allowed to joinin the search . I do not kn ow anything happier ormore true in its instinct, in English poetry, than th etone Tennyson has attributed to Arthur’s reluctantassent to the seareh

rfor the San Grai l. It i s amply

justified by the Old legends, and it just enables thepoet to exp ress through Arthur that spiritual distrustof signs and wonders which , while i t serves to linkhis faith closely with modern thought

,i s in no

way inconsi stent with the chivalric character Of thewhole story. In Sir Thomas Malory’s version

,after

the descent of the Holy Ghost,the vi sion of the holy

vessel,and that Pentecostal scene in whi ch al l the

406 TENNYSON vm

kn ights, amid profound silence, had beheld each otherinvested w i th a higher beauty than their own

,Arthur

yields thanks to God “ of hi s grace that hee hadsent them

,and for the vision hee had showed them

at the high feast of Pentecost,yet not only suggests

no quest,but imagines none ; nor is i t the holiest of

the knights, nor one of those who are to succeedwholly or partially in achieving i t

,who proposes it .

It i s Sir Gawain ; though Tennyson,who has

accepted for other reasons a lower conception of SirGawain than the Old chroniclers, puts the first oathinto the mouth of the mysti c-minded Percivale.Arthur at once expresses his displeasure in languageat least fairly interpretable as implying disapprobation of the surrender of a prior earthly duty for avi sionary spiritual aim .

‘Alas said King Arthurunto SirGawain

,

‘ yee have nigh slain e mee with thevow and promise yee have made ; for through youyee have bereft mee of the fairest fellowship and thetruest of knighthood that ever were seene togetherin any realme of the world. For when they shalldepart from hence

,I am sure that all shal l never

meete more in this world, for there shall many die inthe quest

,and so i t foreth in keth (repenteth) mee a

li ttle,for I have loved them as well as my li fe ; where

fore it shall grieve me right sore the separation ofthis fellowship

,for I have had an Old custome to have

them in my fellowship.

’ And again,more passion

ately : ‘ Ah, Sir Gawain

,Sir Gawain

,yee have

betraied mee, for never shal l my heart be amendedby you

,but yee wi ll never be sorry for mee as I am

for you ’; and therewith the teeres began to runnedowne by his vi sage . An d therewith the King said‘ Ah

,knight

, Sir Lancelot, I require thee that thouwil t co un saile mee , for I would this quest were un


quent deeds,and half that dim oracular testimony

which always seems to anticipate the higher ordersof greatness from their earliest days ! His knightsbelieve him to be of the old royal race

,the more that

his tones of command “ and simple words of greatauthority ” sink into them with a self-attesting power

,

soThat when they rose

,knighted from kneeling

,some

Were pale as at the passing of a ghost,

S ome flush ’d,and others dazed

,as one wh o wakes

Hal f-blinded at the com ing of a l ight.”

His sister, full of a deeper loyalty and a morefeminine faith, believes the rumour of a supernaturalorigin

,—that he came with portents

,borne a naked

babe upon the sea,the sign of the winged dragon

above him in heaven, and a lambent fire playinground him as the last and greatest of n ine greatwaves bore him to Merlin’s feet. Merl in him self

,

the great master of al l medizeval lore,could only say

of Arthur that though men might wound him,he

could never die,but “ pass

,again to come

,

” declaringof h im in words that haunt the mind of Guineverewhen she sees him depart to return to her no more

F rom th e great deep to th e great deep h e goes.Leodogran

’

s dream,when he is doubting whether

Arthur’s mysterious descent is truly royal,so that

he may give him Guinevere for his wi fe,or not

,—the

dream in which he mingles the story of the actualwars of Arthur against the heathen with the rumoursOf the sti l l struggl ing passions of his rebell ioussubj ects, and yet augurs that the grandeur of theKing will survive even the history of his deeds

,—i s

a splendid embodiment of Tennyson’s dri ft throughoutthe poem . Grant that a perfect king i s a phantom


of the human imagination,yet i t i s a phantom which

wil l haunt i t long after what we call the real earthshall have been dissolved

Sh e spake and King Leodogran rej oiced,But musing

,

‘ ShallI answer yea or nayDoubted, and drowsed, n odded and slept, and saw

,

Dream ing,a slope of land that ever grew ,

Field after field,up to a height, the peak

Haze-h idden,and thereon a phantom kin g

,

Now loom in g, and n ow lost and on the slopeT h e sw ord rose, th e h ind fell , th e herd was driven ,F ire gl impsed and all the land from ro of and rick ,In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind,S tream

’d to th e peak , and min gled w ith the haze

And made it th icker wh ile the phantom kingSent o ut at times a voice and here or thereS tood one wh o pointed toward the voi ce

,the rest

S lew on and burnt,crying

,N0 k ing of ours

,

No son of Uther, and no k ing of oursTill w ith a w ink h is dream was chan ged

,the haze

Descended,and th e solid earth became

As noth in g, and the king stood out in heaven,

Cro wn’d. And Leodogran aw oke, and sent

Ulfius,and Brastias and Bedivere

,

Back to th e court of Arthur answering yea.

Like all true authority, that of the ideal king ishidden in mystery, but the image of his glory in theheavens survives the crumbling of his kingdom onearth . Not in painting the restless hun ger Of

travel in his “ Ulysses,

” not in making us shudderat the immortal mortality of the weary “ Tithonus

,

”

has Tennyson displayed more power than in thiswonderful picture of the mystery which envelops

,

and the inspiration which seems to attend,the

exercise of spiritual authority over the wil ls of men,


—o f the spell which i t lays upon them,—Of the

certain failure of that spel l as passion and pleasureand selfish interest reassert thei r sway

,and yet of

the inevitable reassertion of its power in memory andits eternal triumph in faith .

The second of these poems,and the newest of

them,

“ Gareth and Lynette,

” i s meant to paint thegolden age of Arthur’s reign

,while as yet no germ

of guil t has sprung into vi sible life, while the ch ivahyof perfect courage

,perfect love

,and perfect faith i s

still dominant, and all Arthur’s knights are aiding

him in redeeming the earth and the souls of menfrom the tyranny of brutal instincts and the lawlesscaprice of human self—will . Gareth is the emb odi

ment of chi ldlike loyalty and buoyant youthful faith,

w i lling for any service, however seemingly ign o

min io n s, which is the serv i ce Of the true King whomakes us free

,and not only w illing for i t

,but happy

and radiant in it. He i s chosen for one which i srepresentative of the aims of Arthur’s whole kingdom

,

—to rescue her who is beset in “ Castle Perilous ”

by four strong but fooli sh and boastful knights,who

resist A rthur’s authority and wish to destroy theorder he has founded

,and who have challenged him

to send his bravest and most glorious knight toencounter them

,and del iver their fair captive i f he

may. Whom the fair captive of “ Castle Perilous ”

may represent,and of what fashion the knights who

there confine her,Tennyson has not left us to con

jecture, though the allegory must not be pushed sofar as to destroy the beauty of the poetic storyAnon th ey past a narrow comb whereinWere slabs of rock w ith figures, knights on horseS culptured

,and deckt in sl ow ly-waning hues.

‘ S irKnave,my knight

,a hermit once was here,

412 TENNYSON vm

before—the pass in g into an isle of rest, whence inhigher glory he should return again . The mixtureof buoyant li fe with symboli sm in this story of Gareth

,

and the delicacy with which Tennyson has used andyet quite transformed the old Arthurian story of thisrelief of “ Castle Perilous,

” seem to me to rank thispoem amongst his happiest efforts .In “ Enid

,where i t i s the purpose Of the poet

to picture the in fection of distrus t,the contagious

j ealousy which the rumour of Guinevere’s un faithfulness with Lancelot spread downwards amongst thekn ights of Arthur

,though as yet in but a compara

tively incipient and conquerable stage, Ten n yso n’s

delight in picture rather overpowers his main purpose ; and we approach nearer to the type of theVersified novelette—the type of “ Enoch Arden ”

and “ Aylmer’s Field —than in any other section ofthe Arthurian epic. lVe must remember

,however

,

that Enid i s painted as especially distinguished byGuinevere’s love that it i s her closeness to Guineverewhich alarms Geraint on her behalf when he hearsGuinevere’s virtue impugned ; and that i t i s theKing’s healing influence, no less than Enid

’s spotlesspurity

,which restores Gerain t to himself. Arthur’s

chivalry i s already attacked from the side of purity,

but the taint i s not yet deep . In “ Vivien ” andElaine the taint spreads . In the former

,which

Mr. Swinburne has assailed for vulgari ty and grossness

,we have certainly, in V ivien

’s wiles with Merlin,

the picture of a true harlot worming out of thattime-worn craft and intel lect—which , while it i s highenough to discern and serve will ingly the truespiritual king

,yet i s not itself of moral or spiritual

descent,—i ts secrets of power

,i n the very wanton

ness of selfish envy. Sh e had first tried her wi les


with the higher nature, with the King himself, andfailed. Sh e has heard of the sensual charm by whicha l iving death may be brought upon the highestmind

And Vivien ever sought to w ork th e charmUpon the great Enchanter of the Time,As fancying that h er glory w ould be greatAccord ing to h is greatness whom she quen ch

’d.

”

How the great Enchanter hears the foul libels ofher evil heart with loathing

,and then , overtalked

and overworn,

” yields to her al lurements, tells herthe charm

,and becomes its victim,

so robbingArthur’s kingdom of its shrewdest mind, Tennyson tells in one of his most powerful but certainlynot one of his most attractive poems . Yet I cannotsee that it would have been right

,as Mr. Swinburne

asserts,to clothe Vivien with some sort of dignity

,

“ human or diabolic .” Shakespeare himself neverclothes with dignity, even in tragedy, charactersagainst which he des ires to excite pure loathing,l ike Goneril and Regan . What is wanted is to showthe power which sensual natures

,partly because they

are without dignity, may attain over the highest andmost exp erienced intellects unprotected by somethinghigher yet. Any addition of dignity to Vivienwould have been a fault for the purposes of thepicture. But I do think that Vivien’s naked wickedness is insufficiently connected with the taint onArthur’s Court caused by Guinevere’s and Lancelot’ssin . Vivien should belong

,at all events

,to the last

and not to the earliest period . Sh e might be conceivable when Ettarre was the queen of beauty

,and

during the open shamelessness of “ The Last Tournament. Sh e i s before her time in the period when


even Guinevere’s fall has only just becom e thescandal of the time . V ivi en

,the type of those

who

In flate themselves w ith some insane delightAnd judge allNature from h er feet of clay,

i s surely prematureI do not suppose any one questions the exquisite

beauty of the poem in which Elain e’s pure first lovefor Lancelot, and her death on his behalf, i s contrasted with the Queen’s j ealous and gui lty passion .

The lurid picture of the crowned skeleton on whichArthur trod in a moonli t pass

,long before he became

king,when he broke from it that diadem all the

j ewels in which Lancelot was to win for the Obj ectof his guilty passion

,makes a fine Opening of evil

augury to this contrast between guilty and innocentlove

,just as the passage of Elaine’s corpse in the

boat to Camelot makes for i t a noble and tragicclose. The contrast between Guinevere and Elaine,imaged in that simple and exquisite passage wherethe Queen flin gs the diamonds that Lancelot offersher into the river

,

And down they flash ’d,and smote the stream

,

T hen from the smitten surfaceflash’das it were

,

Diamon ds to meet them,and they pass

’d away,

”

marks the turning point of the Arthurian story.

The King’s pure influence wanes,and the Queen’s

guilty passion grows . Sir Gawain,the ty pe of gay

and gallant pleasure-seeking, has already begun totrifle disloyal ly w i th his King’s orders . A nd theburst Of grand remorse in Lancelot

,with which the

poem ends, prepares the way for that morbid, selfi ntrospective cast of thought

,those fever-fits of

416 TENNYSON vm

Th is air that smites his forehead is not air,

But vision—yea, h is very hand and footIn moments when he feels he cannot die

,

An d knows h imself no vision to himsel f,

Nor the high God a vision,nor that On e

IVh o rose again ye have seen what ye have seen .

I have said I cannot greatly admire the poemwhich fol lows

,

“ Pelleas and Ettarre .” It has greatpower

,and delineates the growth of a sensual chaos

w i th terrible force,but there is no relieving element

in i t. Pelleas, who starts with an enthusiastic purity,deserves a better fate (which, indeed, in the oldlegends he obtains) than that of desperation andwild defiance of the kingdom in whose greatness hehad believed . We miss altogether A rthur’s presence .All i s sensual anarchy

,and the victory of the harlot

i s complete. The reader greatly needs a touch likethat which ends “ The Last Tournament

,

” where thefidel ity even of a fool turns horror into true tragedy

,

and opens a glimpse of love behin d the foul orgiesof v i ctorious lust. I think the Arthurian poemwould be a more perfect whole if “ Pelleas and Betarre were completely omitted.

“ The Last Tournament seems to me not only to give us over againal l that “ Pelleas and Ettarre gives

,but to give it

in a nobler form,in less harsh and grating discords.

“ Guinevere,” and “ The Passing of Arthur

,

” however

,heal al l wounds. The passage in which the

King,while shrinking from even the touch of the

Queen’s hand,tells her i t i s his doom to love her

still,and that he claims her in the eternal world

as his—one of those passages on which,I beli eve,

th e taun t has been founded,that Tennyson’s

“ Arthur ” i s “ an impeccable prig,—seems to me

one of the noblest and most moving in English


poetry. Do ubtless, in one V i ew,al l sinlessness i s

d idactic,and therefore jarring to those who are

not sinless . But Tennyson m eans Arthur for theimpersonation of spiritual authority from the first,as he m eans Guinevere for the impersonation of thathighest form of woman’s beauty

,which is the noblest

embodiment of purity,and therefore shows most

sadly the flaw of passionate sin . If the spirit ofholiness

,of mercy

,of love

,i s priggish because it i s

impeccable,then

,and only then

,could I see the

truth of that flippan t charge against language suchas this

I cannot take thy hand,that too is flesh

,

A n d in th e flesh thou hast simu’d and m ine own fleshHere look ing down on th ine polluted

,cries

I loathe thee yet not less, 0 Guinevere,F or I was ever virgin save for thee

,

My love thro’ flesh hath w rought into my l ife

SO far,that my doom is

,I love thee still .

Let no man dream but that I love thee still .Perchance

,and so thou purify th y soul ,

And so thou lean on o ur fair father Christ,

Hereafter in that world where al l are pureWe two may meet before h igh God

,and thou

Wilt spring to me,and claim me th ine

,an d know

I am thine husban d— not a smaller soul,

NorLancelot, nor another . Leave me that,

I charg e thee, my last hope. Now must I henceThro’ the thick night I hear the trumpet blowThey summon me their K ing to lead m ine hostsFar down to that great battle in th e west

,

Where I must strike against my sister’s son,

Leagued w ith th e lords of th eWhite Horse and knightsOnce m ine

,and strike h im dead

,and meet mysel f

Death,or I know not what mysterious doom .

An d thou remaining here w ilt learn the eventL 21:

4 18 TENNYSON v an

But h ither shal l I never come again ,Never lie by th y side

,See thee no more

,

Farewel lAnd wh i le sh e gro vell

’d at h is feet

,

S h e felt th e K ing’s breath wander o ’er h er neck ,And

,in th e darkness o ’er h er fallen head ,

Perceived th e waving of his hands that blest.

The Passing of Arthur,which contains som e

of Tennyson’s earli est,and also of his latest

,work ,

and all of i t in his best and highest and mostmascul ine strain

,i s a striking evidence of the singular

unity Of his genius . No single poem of his containsat once so much viv id colour and so much intel lectualand spiri tual magic. The wonderful pi cture Of th e

w eird and desolate hour of seeming spiritual fai lure,of the wounded heart

,of forsaken suffering

,of sinking

trust,but not of fail ing forti tude or shrinking w i l l

,

which precedes and fol lows the last great battle,

perhaps the highest Lord Tennyson has drawn .

Nothing in al l his poems gives me so strong a feel ingof his power as those which contain the d ream inwhich he seems to see the ghost of the pleasureloving

,pleasure-seeking Gawain

Before that last weird battle in th e westThere came on Arthur sleepin g, Gawain kill’dI n Lancelot’s war

,th e ghost of Gawain blown

Along a wandering w ind, and past h is earWent shrilling ‘Hollow

,hollow

,all del ight !

Hail,K ing to-morrow thou shalt pass away.

Farewell there is an isle of rest for thee.And I am blown along a wandering w ind,And h ollow

,holl ow

,hollow al l delight.’

And fainter onward,like w ild bi rds that change

Thei r season in th e night and wail thei r wayF rom cl oud to cloud

,down th e l ong w ind th e dream

420 TENN YSON V I I I

Thro’ this blind haze,which ever since I saw

On e ly ing in th e dust at Almesbury ,Hath folded in th e passes of th e w orld ,

i s alike clad in th e subl imity of that deepest kind ofdesolation from which a vesture of rich thought andhepe has suddenly been stripped away. The ve rygrandeur of the scenery from which Arthur passes to hisi sle of rest

,when

,after the long day’s battle wrapped

in mist,and the grievous w ound from the trai to r’s

hand,and the O n e remaining k night’s unfaithfulness

,

he i s borne to the margin of the mysti c water,

When on a sudden, l o ! th e level lakeAnd th e long glories of th e w inter moon ,

contributes,by the rich flash of its contrast

,to

enhance the impression of a ghostly solitude of spiri tand a trembling

,halting faith . The vision of Leodo

gran’s dream i s literally fulfi lled. The cloud has

rolled down upon the earth,and the King

,a mighty

phantom,stands out in heaven but stands out

crowned,for he has lost nothing in himself Of the

spir itual elements of his kingdom his courage i s n ushaken

,his honour unsullied

,his purity untarnished

,

and his faith,though wavering as

,in the hour of

deepest darkness,it wavers in the most perfect human

ity,i s stil l the life and blossom of his nature . And

as Merlin’s riddling prophecy rings in our ears,Where is h e wh o know s ?

F rom th e great deep to th e great deep h e go es,

we recognise in the drooping King, as the bargetakes him slowly to his i sle of rest

,the image of the

“ new order ” almost as much as of the Old—theelements of that true chivalry

,in which courage

,

truth,purity

,and faith are even more of spiri tual

vm TENNYSON 421

and inward than of outward gifts,and stretch out

arm s of yearning towards the life beyond the veil .If not the most perfectly finished of Tenny

son’s poems,

“ The Idylls of the King ” has a granderaim and larger scope than any

,and paints the waste

places Of the heart and the strength of the nakedsoul wi th a stronger and more nervous touch . Asthe ri ch colours Of the great story fade, the air fi l lswith low

,spiri tual rumours of that higher l ife of

which the order of the Round Table is but a symbol ;while Tennyson paints the stately passing of thespirit to its rest as he painted the greatness of itsrising

,but with added touches Of mystery and

beauty . The old Arthurian epic has been renderedby Tennyson significant to modern ears. In it he hasfound the common term between the ideas of chivalryand the ideas of an age Of hesitating trust, an age ofa probing intellect and of a trusting heart . Theconquests and the yearnings

,and the sad resolves of a

spi ri t far too kingly to rule successfully men who onlyhalf recognise the kingly voice

,have never before

been delineated by a poet who can use almost al l thewealth of colour belonging at once to the visible andth e invisible l ife

,with the reticent hand and sure eye

OfTennyson’s ri ch and patient and spiritual genius .Of Tennyson’s plays

,whether “ Queen Mary or

Becket ” or “ Harold,” no one will

,I think

,be 1n

clin ed to say that they are fully worthy of hi s genius .Though he has the dramatic mind

,yet his mind i s not

by instinct dramatic. On the contrary,you see that

drama is to a certain extent foreign to him,and puts th e

curb on hi s favourite modes Ofthought. S ti l l QueenMary ” is strong from end to end

,which could not be said

of ei ther “ Becket ” or “ Harold .

” It i s so thoroughlydramatic that it m ight

,wi th an adequate cast Ofactors

,


be produced with the highest effect on the stage andi f this has not been done

,i t i s chiefly that the number

of the actors,and of the good actors required

,i s too

great for the command of any manager. Almost al lthe characters who play a real part in the drama

,

however slightly to uched,are clearly defin ed—Philip ,

whose disgust for the Queen is powerfully painted,

but who remains otherwi se something of a cold,

cruel, and sensual shadow,being perhaps in some

degree an exception . Courtenay,Earl Of Devon

,

the vain and fligh ty Cathol ic Plantagenet, —“ this

Prince of fluff and feather,

” as Lord Howard inspeaking to Elizabeth calls him ; R eginald Pole, thefair weather Papal Legate

,who shrinks alike from

being persecuted and from persecuting,but i s easi ly

driven into the latter pol icy under fear of the former ;Bishop Gardiner

,with hi s fierce Romanising dog

matism and his English hatred of Italian interferencein Engli sh concerns

,

His big baldness,That irritable forelock wh ich h e rubs

,

His buzzard beak,and deep in cavern ’d eyes

Bonner and his moral brutali ty ; Lord Paget, w i ththe half -confessed Protestantism of his statesman’sintellect

,and yet that craving for English influence

abroad which makes him support the al liance withSpain ; Lord Howard , w i th hi s ari stocrati c Cath o licism,

his complete comtempt for the v ulgarity andignorance of the new schi smatics

,and yet his thor

oughly rooted antipathy to the bigotry of the sacerdotal spirit ; Sir Thomas Wyatt, with h is tastefull iterary cravings

,and the keen

,audacious so ldi er

beneath them ; Sir Ralph Bagen hall, w i th his bold ,m editative insubordination and his hopelessness of


one long menace to her,as to hal f-believe in her o 1m

reluctance to succeed her,and to be absorbed for the

moment,or think herself absorbed

,in pity for th e

sad fate whi ch had darkened steadily down to themiserable close . But while both had the Tudor instin ct i n emergencies, in Mary i t was, as a rule, entirely subordinated to personal emotions, like heri rrational passion for the Spanish prince she hadnever seen

,her fixed hatred for the counsellors who

were forward in advocating her mother’s divorce,and

her supersti tious craving for the blood of the enemiesof th e Church . On the contrary, in Eli zabeth , personal feeling was

,as a rule

,subordinated to her

strong instinct of poli cy,so that her personal wilful

ness flashed up almost as capri ciously in her asthe Tudor sagacity did in Mary’s less sober mind .

The masterly sketch of Eli zabeth which Tennysonputs into Cecil’s mouth at the close of the play

,—a

sketch which ends i t with a Shakespearian strengthand pithiness that make Cranmer

’s somewhat hyper

bo lic and certainly by no means discrim inating éloyeof Eli zabeth

,at the close Ofthe play of “ Henry VIII

,

”

sound flat as well as flattering in the comparison,

i s a key to Tennyson’s drift throughout hi s del ineation of Mary . I may be excused for giving theclosing passage of the play first

,on the ground that

the criti c wh o wants to point out the movement ofthe poet’s thought in the drama to those wh o haven o t yet read i t, cannot fol low the gradually openingpurpose of the play itself

,but must make the end

clear from the beginning. This i s Ceci l’s brief pi cture of Elizabeth

Much it isT o be n ormad

,n o r bigot—h ave a m ind

Nor let priests’ talk , or dream of w o rlds to be,

VI I I TENNYSON 425

Miscolour th ings about h er—sudden touchesF or h im

,or h im—sunk rocks no passionate faith

But- iflet be balance and compromiseBrave

,wary

,sane to th e heart of h er—a Tudor

S ch o ol’d by th e shadow of death—a Boleyn, too,

Glancing across th e Tudor—not so well .”

It i s against this background,as it were, of th e

ideal Tudor character,that Tennyson paints

,with

great power and many flashes of striking detail,the

breakdown of Mary’s reign,— the picture of th e

woman who,with momentary intervals of true Eng

lish feeling and true Tudor sagacity,yet sacrificed

her realm to a hopeless and capr i cious passion whi cheven her most devoted ecclesiastical advisers discouraged ; who was, in addition , mad with bigotrywho let “ priests’ talk miscolour things about herwhi le dreaming of worlds to be who had a passionate prejudice which she supposed to be faith forbidding all “ balance and compromise ” ; who, with al lher courage and self—devotion

,was neither “ sane

nor “ wary and who,instead of having been

“ schooled by the shadow of death,had been ren

dered by it fierce,wild

,and vindictive . The per

sonal caprices of the Tudors were almost alwaysdangerous and evil ; i t was only the power that layin them of subordinating the personal to the nationalfeeling on matters which most deeply affected th e

nation which made them great Sovereigns ; andMary Tudor either had not this power

,or cast i t

away from her in the heat of her Spanish passionand gloomy supersti tion . The fitful ascendancy ofthese personal impulses over the political instinctswhich were never quite wanting to Mary is finelydelineated in an early scene

426 TENNYSON V111

MARY with PH IL I P’S min iature. AL ICE .

flfary (kissin g the min iature). Most goodly,k ingl ike

and an Emperor’s son,

A k ing to be,—i s he not noble

,girl 1

A lice. Goodly enough,your Grace

,and yet, meth inks,

I have seen goodl ier.Mary. Ay , some waxen doll

Thy baby eyes have rested on,belike

All red and white, th e fash ion of o ur land.

But my good mother came (God rest h er soul)OfSpain

,and I am Spanish in myself

,

And in my l ik ings.A lice. By your Grace

’s leaveYour royal mother came of Spain

,but took

T o th e Engl ish red and wh ite. Your royal father(Fo r so they say) was al l pure lily and roseI n h is youth

,and l ike a lady.

Afary . 0,just God

Sweet mother, y ou had time and cause enough

To sicken of his lil ies and h is roses.Cast off

,betray

’d,defamed

,d ivorced

,forlorn

And then the k ing— that traitor past forgiveness,

T h e false archb ishop fawning on h im,married

T he mother of E lizabeth—a hereticEv

’n as she is but God hath sent me here

To take such order w ith allhereticsThat it shal l be

,before I die

,as tho’

My father and my brother had n o t lived .

What wast thou saying of this Lady Jane,

No w in the Tower 7A lice. Why

,Madam

,sh e was passin g

S ome chapel down in Essex, and w ith h erLady A n n e W harton

,and th e Lady Anne

B o w’

d to th e Pyx but Lady Janc stood upS tiff as th e very backbone of heresy.

And wherefore b o w ye not, says Lady An ne,T o h im w ith in there wh o made Heaven and Earth ?


any other change of character or pol icy,will bring

her Phi lip’s love,an d restore the nation’s pride in

her—the self-w i l l of the Tudor capri ce clouding herbrain more and more

,and the cool Tudor sympathy

with English pol icy showing itself less and less,

indeed,only when her advi sers urge her to some

thing conspicuously opposed to al l the currents ofnational feeling

,like the execution of Elizabeth

,or

w hen the open detestation felt for her proposed marriage and the perils of a great revolt call her out ofhersel f into that w orld of action in which she wasalways most of a Tudor

,and least of a broodin g

fanati c. On e of the finest scenes in the play i s theone in which the two morbid veins of Mary’s nature

,

her religi ous fanaticism and the passion for Philip,

including the pow er of persuading herself that herson i s quick within her

,beat with the fullest pulse

of hepe,and extin guish for the time all the latent

sagacity of the Tudor monarch . Cardinal Pole’s ingratiatin g professional quotation from th e Song ofS olomon , as he places Mary between himself andPhi lip

,and th e grim, i ll-omened jokes with which

he garnishes his conversation on the happy occasionof his inauguration at Lambeth, lend the additionalforce of a fine contrast to the fierce intensi ty ofMary’s brooding hopes

Ah,gentle cousin

,since your Herod’s death

,

How o ft hath Peter k n o ck’d at Mary’s gate

And Mary w ould have risen and let h im in ,But, Mary, there were those w ith in th e houseWho would not have it.

True,good cousin Pole

And there w ere also those w ithout th e house“1110 w ould n o t have it.P ole. I believe so

,cousin .


S tate-pol icy and church-pol icy are conj oint,But Janus-faces look ing d iverse way s .I fear th e Emperor much m isvalued me

,

But al l is w el l ’twas cv’n th e w i ll of God,

IVh O, waiting till th e time had ripen

’d,n ow

,

Makes me h is mouth of holy greeting . Hail,Daughter of God, and saver of th e faith .

Sit benedictus fructus ventris tuiMary. A11, heaven !P ole. Unwell

,your Grace

Mary. NO , cousin , happyHappy to see y ou never y et so happyS ince I was crown

’

d.

P ole. Sweet cousin, y o u forget

That long low m inster where y ou gave your handT o this great Cathol ic King.

Philip . Well said,Lord Legate .

Mary. Nay , not wel l said ; I thought of y ou , myl iege

,

Ev’n as I spoke.Philip . A y , Madam my Lord Paget

Waits to present o urCounci l to th e Legate.S it down h ere

,all Madam

,between us y o u .

Pole. LO, n ow y o u are enclosed w ith boards of cedar,Our l ittle sister of th e S ong of S on gsY o u are doubly fenced and sh ielded sittin g hereBetween th e tw o most high-set thrones 0 11 earth

,

T h e Emperor’s h ighness happily symb ol’

d byT h e K ing your husband

,the Pope’s Holiness

By m ine own sel f.True

,cousin

,I am happy.

When w il l y ou that we summon both o ur housesT o take th is absolution from your l ips,An d be regath er

’d to th e Papal fold ?

P ole. I n Britain’s calendar th e brightest dayBeheld o ur rough forefathers break their Gods

,

And clasp th e faith in Christ but after thatMight not St. Andrew ’s be h er happ iest day .


Illary . Then these shal l meet upon S t. Andrew’s day .

[E n tcrI’AGET,wh o p resen ts the Co un cil. Dumb show .

P ole. I am an old man wearied w ith my j ourney,

Ev’n w ith my j oy. Permit In c to w i thdraw .

T o LambethAy , Lambeth has ousted C ranmer.

It was not meet th e heretic sw ine should l iveI I I Lambeth .

M'

ary . There or anywhere,or at all .

Philip . We have had it swept and garnished after h im .

P ole. No t for th e seven devi ls to enter in ?Philip . NO, for we trust they parted in th e sw ine.Pole. True

,and I am th e Angel of the Pope .

Farewell,your Graces.

Ph ilip . Nay , not here—to meI w i ll go w ith yo u to th e waterside .

P ole. No t be my Charon to th e counte r side ?Philip . No

,myLord Legate , the Lord Chancellor goes.

P ole. And unto no dead w orld but Lambeth palace,

Henceforth a centre of th e l iving faith.

[Exeun t PH I LI P, POLE , PAGET , etc .

bfary (man et). He hath awaked h e hath awakedHe stirs w ithin th e darknessOh , Ph il ip, husband n ow th y love to m ineWill cling more close

,and those bleak mann ers thaw

,

That make me shamed and tongue-tied in my love.T h e second Prince of PeaceT h e great unborn defender of the Faith

,

Who w i ll avenge me of m ine enem iesHe comes

,and my star rises .

T h e stormy Wyatts and North umberlan ds,T he proud ambitions of E lizabeth,And all h erfieriest partisans—are paleBefore my starT h e l ight of th is n ew learning wanes and d iesT h e ghosts of Luther and Z uin glius fadeInto th e deathless hell wh ich is thei r doom

432 TENNYSON vm

even after his retractation,are scenes of a fair level

of power,but tame as compared w i th many in the

book. Especially i t i s not made clear why Philiptakes his wife’s part in urging and flatter ing CardinalPole into the policy of bitter persecution to whichthe Legate was opposed

,and to which i t seems

probable that,in England at least

,where he desired

popularity for the sake of the political help i t m‘ightbring him against his enemies abroad

,Philip also

was Opposed . Nor does Lord Paget,who is eager

for a poli cy of tolerance,though probably as much

from sympathy with the Protestants as from purestatesmanship

,give Cardinal Pole the sort of support

we might have expected,or avail himself

,as so

shrewd a statesman would,both of the Cardinal’s

influence and of his own former good servi ce in forwarding the Queen’s marriage

,to bring the Queen

to her senses as regards the violent pol icy proposed .

On the whole, the scene of the quarrel in the Coun ci las to the revival of the Lollard Acts i s the tamest inthe play

,and that in which Mary declines to spare

Cranmer i s,perhaps

,the next to it in deficiency of

colour . In that scene we should have expected signsof a fiercer struggle between th e Tudor Queen

,with

her keen instinct for the true policy,and the Spanish

fanatic,w i th her franti c thirst for revenge on the

author of her mother’s divorce,than any Tennyson

gives us . With the scenes of Cranmer’s martyrdomthe fire of the play revives

,though the Vi ew of

Cranmer is,we suspect

,a good deal too heroic.

Yet Tennyson permits himself,as we suppose

,one

sarcasm at Cranmer’s expenseCran mer. Last night, I dream’d the faggots wereal ight

,

And that myself was fastened to th e stake,

vm TENNYSON 433

And found it al l a visionary flame,

Cool as th e l ight in old decaying woodAnd then K ing Harry lo ok’d from o ut a cloud ,And hadme have good courage and I heardAn angel cry

,There is more j o y in heaven

And after that,the trumpet of th e dead.

”

That notion of the self-willed,bloody, and cruel

King Hen ry, as the mini stering angel who raises theold Archbishop’s courage

,even though i t was only

in hi s dreams,ought to be intended as a bitter satire

on the pliant ecclesiastic’s form er subservience . Nowhitewashing will ever turn Henry VIII. i nto anangel of light

,and it can hardly be doubted that

Tennyson here allows himself th e only sneer atCranmer

’

s worldliness and servi lity whi ch the playcontains . After Cranmer’s withdrawal of his re

tractation,there follows a dialogue between two

countrywomen,Tib and Joan

,which brings out the

popular feeling about Gardiner and the burning ofCranmer

,and which is admirably dramatic of its

kind— and after i t the gloom of the play growsrapidly towards its tragic end . The scene in whichMary—w i th her reason already on the verge ofdelirium—hears of the loss of Calais

,and in which

her despair pours itself forth in the one exquisitelyrical wai l of the drama

,i s as fine as anything in

modern l iterature . Take this passage,for instance

,

where Mary, among her ladies, picks up one of theseditious papers strewn about the palace

,which

Cardinal Pole had intended but failed to remove

Mary (seein g the paper dropt by P ole). There, there 'another paper ! said y ou not

Many of these were l oyal Shall I tryIf this be o n e of such

L

434 TENNYSON vm

Lady Claren ce. Let it be, let it be.

God pardon me I have never y et found o n e. [A sidaMary (reads). Your people hate y ou as your husba ndhates y o u .

’

Clarence, Clarence , what have I done ? what sinBeyond all grace

,all pardon Mother of God

,

Thou knewest never w oman meant so well,

And fared so il l in this disastrous w orld .

My people hate me and desire my death .

Lady Claren ce. No , Madam,no.

Mary . My husband hate s me, and desires my death .

Lady Claren ce. No , Madam ; these are l ibels.Mary . I hate myself

,and I desire my death .

Lady Clare n ce. Long l ive your Majesty ! Shal l Al icesing y o u

On e of h er pleasant songs Al ice,my ch ild

,

Bring us your lute (AL ICE go es). They say th e gloom ofSaul

Was ligh ten’d by young David’s harp.

T o o youngAnd never knew a Philip (re-e nter AL ICE). Give me th e

lute.He hates me (She sin gs.)

Hapless doom of w oman happy in betrothingBeauty passes l ike a breath , and love is l ost inloath ing

Low ,my lute ; speak lo w

,my lute

, but say thew orld is noth ing

Low,lute

,low !

Love w il l hover round the flowers when they firstawaken

Love w ill fly th e fallen leaf, and not be overtakenLow

,my lute ! oh lo w

, my lute ! we fade and are

forsakenLo w

,dear lute, low

Take it away not low enough for me

Alice. Your Grace hath a lo w voice.

436 TENNYSON v m

picture whi ch i t would be impossible for any onewho can enter into i t ever to forget.

“ Becket,

” quite the second of Tennyson’s poemsin dramati c pow er, i s not the equal of QueenMary .

”

The tw o main portions of the play are hardly fusedtogether. We pass from the one play

,—the play on

the great ecclesiastical hero,—to the other play

,

the play on the King’s mistress, Fair Rosamund ,whom Becket is made to save from the dagger andthe cup of poison without, we suppose , any histori calauthority for such an achievement

,—as if they were

distinct compositions added together rather thanblended into one. We are wel l aware that in thefine prologue

,—one of the finest scenes in the whole

,

—provision i s carefully made for connecting th e twothreads of interest. But even so the connectionbetween the two threads seems a rather arbitraryknot. The interest of “ Becket centres somewhatmore than it ought to do in Henry, and somewhatless than i t ought to do in Becket. The picturewhich Tennyson gives us of Henry

’s sudden Angevinefury

,and of the high imaginative statesmanship that

alternated with it,i s very striking

,and

,indeed

,

interests us far more deeply than the picture of thegreat ecclesiastical statesman to whom Henry wasopposed . But even “ Becket ” will not add to Tennyson’s reputation as a dramatic writer

,for, taken as a

whole,and in spite of some passages whi ch perhaps

surpass any in Queen Mary,

” i t falls considerablybelow that fine study of the most unfortunate ofthe Tudors . The great poet of the nineteenth century wi ll certainly never be regarded as a greatdramati st. But that

,being the great lyri c poet he

is,he should be so great as he i s even in d rama

,will

always be hi s singular distinction .

NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE

HAWTHORNE has been called a mystic, which he wasnot

,—and a psychological dreamer

,which he was in

very slight degree . He was really the ghost of NewEngland

,—I do not mean the “ spirit

,

” nor thephantom

,but the ghost in the older sense in

which that term is used,the thin

,rarefied essence

which is supposed to be found somewhere behindthe physical organisation embodied

,indeed

,and not

at all in a shadowy or diminutive earthly tabern acle

,but yet only half embodied in it

,endowed

w i th a certain painful sense of the gulf between hisnature and its organisation, always recognising thegulf

,always trying to bridge i t over

,and always

more or less unsuccessful in the attempt. His

writings are not exactly spiritual writings,for there

is no dominating spirit in them . They are ghostlywritings . Hawthorne was

,to my mind

,a sort of

sign to New England of the divorce that has beengoing on there (and not less perhaps in old England)between i ts people’s spiritual and earthly nature

,and

of the difficulty which they will soon feel,i f they

are to be absorbed more and more in that shrewdhard common sense which is one of the ir moststriking characteristics, in even commun icatin g with

438 NATHAN I EL HAWTHORNE 1x

thei r former self. Haw thorne, with all his shyness,and tenderness

,and literary reticence

,shows very

distinct traces also of understanding well the cold,

inquisi tive,and shrewd spirit which besets the

Yankees even more than other commercial peoples .His heroes have usually not a l ittle of thi s hardnessin them . Coverdale

,for instance

,in The Blyth

dale Roman ce,and Ho lgrave, in The House of the

Seven Gables,are of this class of shrewd

,cold in

quisitive heroes. Indeed there are few of hi s tal eswithout a character of this type. But though Hawthorne had a deep sympathy with the practical aswel l as the literary genius of New England

,i t was

always in a ghostly kind of way,as though he were

stricken by som e spell which half-paralysed him,and

so prevented h im from communicating with the lifearound him

,as though he saw it only by a reflected

light. His spi rit haunted rather than ruled his bodyhis body hampered his spirit.Yet his external career was not only not romantic

,

but identified with al l the dullest routine of commercial duties . That a man who consciously tele

graphed, as it were, with the world , transmittingmeagre messages through his material organisation,should have been first a custom -house officer inMassachusetts, and then the consul in Liverpool ,brings out into the strongest possible relief thecuriously representative character in which he stoodto New England as its l iterary or intellectual ghost.There i s nothing more ghostly in hi s writings thanhis account of the consulship in Liverpool

,—how he

began by trying to communicate frankly w ith hisfellow-countrymen

,how he found the task more and

more difficult,and gradually drew back into the

twilight of his reserve,how he shrewdly and some

440 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1x

bright transparency to spiri tuali se the burden thatbegan to weigh so heavi ly to seek resolute ly thetrue and indestructible value that lay hidden in thepetty and w earisome incidents and ordinary characters with which I was now conversant. The faultwas mine. The page of life that was spread outbefore me was so dull and commonplace only becauseI had not fathomed its deeper import. A betterbook than I shall ever write was there ; leaf afterleaf presenting i tself to me just as it was writtenout by the reali ty of the flitting hour

,and vanishing

as fast as w ritten,only because my brain wanted the

in sight and my hand the cunning to transcribe i t.At some future day

,i t may be

,I shal l remember a

few scattered fragments and broken paragraphs andwrite them down , and find the letters turn to goldupon the page .

”

An d yet that dissatisfaction with his own idealismwhich Hawthorne here expresses never actuallysufficed to divert his efforts into the channel indicated. In The Blithcdale Roman ce he tells usthat he chose the external scenery of the S ocial istcommunity at Brook Farm “ merely to establ ish atheatre

,a little removed from the highway of ordi

nary travel,where the creatures o f his brain may

play their phantasmagorical antics without exposing them to too close a comparison with theactual events of real l ives . In the old countries wi thwhich fiction has long been conversant

,a certain co n

ven tio n al privilege seems to be awarded to theromancer ; his work i s not put exactly side by sidew i th nature and he is allowed a l icense w i th regardto every-day probabili ty

,in view of the improved

effects whi ch he is bound to produce thereby .

Among ourselves, on the contrary, there i s as yet no

l x NATHANI EL HAWTHORNE 44 1

such Fai ry Land so like the real world that, in a suit~able remoteness

,one cannot well tel l the difference

,but

with an atmosphere of strange enchantment, beheldthrough w hich the inhabitants have a propriety oftheir own . This atmosphere is what the Americanromancer wants . In its absence

,the beings of imagi

nation are compelled to show themselves in the samecategory as actually living mortals

,—a necessity that

general ly renders the paint and pasteboard of theircomposition but too painful ly discernible.” Andonce more

,i n the preface to his last novel

, Tran s

formation,he reiterates as his excuse for laying the

scene in Italy,that “ no author wi thout a trial can

conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance abouta country where there is no shadow

,no antiquity

,no

mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity in broad andsimple daylight, as is happily the case w i th my dearnative land. It wi ll be very long

,I trust

,before

romance writers may find congenial and easi ly-handledthemes either in the annals of our stalwart republi c

,

or in any characteristic and probable event of ourindividual lives . Romance and poetry

,ivy

,li chens

,

and wall-flowers, need ruin to make them grow.

”

These passages throw much light on the secret affin ities o f Hawthorne’s genius. But it would be a mistake to conclude from them

,as he himself would ap

paren tly have us, that he is a mere romantic ideali st,i n the sense in which these words are commonly used

,

that he is one all whose dramatic conceptions arebut the unreal kaleidoscopic combinations of fanciesin his own brain .

I may,perhaps

,accept a phrase of which Haw

thorne himself was fond , the moonlight of ro

mance,

“ and compel it to explain something of th e


secret of his characteristic genius. There are writerschiefly poets

,but also occasional ly w ri ters of

fanciful romances like Longfel low’s Hyp erio n

whose productions are purely ideal, are not only seenby the light of their own imagination but constituted out of it, —made of moonshine,—and renderedvivid and beautiful

,so far as they are vivid and beau

tiful,with the vividness and beauty merely of the

poet’s own mind. In these cases there i s no distinotion between the delineating power and the delineated obj ect ; the dream is indistingui shable from themind of the dreamer

,and varies wholly w i th its

laws . Again,at the opposite extreme

,there i s a

ki nd of creative imagination which has its origin ina deep sympathy with

,and knowledge of

,the real

w orld. That which i t deals with is actual l ife as i thas existed

,or still exists, in forms so innumerable

that i t i s scarcely possible to assert that its range ismore lim ited than life itself. Of course the onlyadequate example of such an imagination i s Shakespeare’s

,and this kind of imaginative power resembles

sunlight,not only in its bri lliancy, but especially in

this,that it casts a light so ful l and equable over the

universe i t reveals,that we never think of its source

at all . We forget altogether,as we do by common

daylight,that the light by which we see is not part

and parcel of the world which i t presents to us. Thesunlight is so efficient that we forget the sun . Wefind so rich and various a world before us

,dressed in

its o wn proper colours,that no one i s reminded that

the medium by which those proper colours are seenis uniform and from a single source. We merge thedel ineative magic by which the scene is i lluminated,in the details of th e scene i tself.Between these two k inds of creative imagination

444 NATHAN IEL HA\VTHORNE Ix

strangeness and remoteness , though sti ll almost asvividly present as by daylight. Thus

,therefore

,the

floor of our familiar room has become a neutralterritory

,somewhere between the real world and

fairyland,where the Actual and the Imaginary may

meet,and each imbue i tself with the nature of th e

other .” Sir lValter S cott’s delineative pow er partakes both of this moonlight imagination and of theother more powerful

,brilliant

,and reali stic kin d .

O ften i t i s a wide genial sun shine,of which we

quite forget the source in the viv idness of the commonlife which it irradiates. At other times

,again

,when

S cott i s in his Black Douglas mood, as I may call i t, ithas al l the uniformity of tint and the exciting pallorof what Hawthorne terms the moonlight of romance .

At all events,there is no wri ter to whose crea

tions the phrase applies more closely than to Hawthorne’s own . His characters are by no means suchunreal webs of moonshine as the ideal ists properconstitute into the figures of their romance . Theyare real and definitely outlined, but they are all seenin a single light

,—the contemplative light of the

particular idea which has floated before him in each ofhis sto ries,—and they are seen , not ful ly and in theirintegri ty, as things are seen by daylight, but likethin gs to uched by moonlight,—only so far as theyare lighted up by the idea of the story. The threadof uni ty whi ch connects his tales i s always somepervading thought of his o wn they are not w rittenmainly to display character

,stil l less for the m ere

narrative interest,but for the i llustration they cast

on some idea or convi ction of their author’s .Amongst English writers of fiction

,we have many

besides Shakespeare whose stories are merely appropriate instruments for the portraiture of character,

IX NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 445

and who therefore never conceive themselves boundto confine them selves scrupulously to th e one aspectmost natural ly developed by the tale . Once introduced

,thei r characters are given in full,—both

that side of them which is,so to say, turned

towards the story, and others which are not. Otherwriters, again, make the characters quite subsidiaryto the epical interest of the plot

,using them only

to heighten the colourn of the action i t describes .Hawthorne’s tales belong to neither of these classes.Their unity is ideal. His characters are often realand disti n ct

,but they are illum inated only from one

centre of thought. S o strictly i s thi s true of themthat he has barely room for a novel in the ordinarysense of the word. If he were to take his characters through as many phases of life as are ordinari ly comprised in a novel

,he could not keep the

ideal unity of his tales unbroken ; he would beobliged to delineate them from many different pointsof view. Accordingly his novels are not novels inthe ordinary sense ; they are ideal si tuations, expan ded by minute study and trains of clear, palethought into the dimensions of novels. A verysmal l group of figures i s presented to the readerin some marked ideal relation ; or i f i t be in consoquen ce of some critical event, then it must be someevent which has struck the author as rich in idealor spiritual suggestion . But it i s not usually in hi sway

w th o ugh his last complete novel gives us oneremarkable exception to this observation—to seizeany glow ing crisi s of action when the passion is li tor the blow is struck that gives a new mould to life

,

for hi s delineation ; he prefers to assume the crisi spast

,and to delineate as fully as he can the ideal

situation to which i t has given rise,when it i s

446 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Ix

beginning to assume a fainter and more chroniccharacter.But

,however this may be

,almost all Hawthorne’s

tales embody single ideal situations,scarcely ever for

a moment varied in their course in any essentialrespect. For instance

,to take his shorter tales

,the

mockery of the attempt to renew in wasted agethe blasted hopes of youth i s crystallised into aghostly tableau cican t in “ The VVeddin g

-Knell .”

The absolute i solation of every man’s deepest life,

and the awe which any vi sible assertion of that i solation in spires

,even when made by the mildest of our

guilty race,i s translated into an eerie picture in

The Minister’s Black Veil .” S o in “ The GreatS tone Face we have an embodiment of the co n vic

tion that he i s best fitted to fulfi l any great humanhope or trust whose heart i s constantly fed upon theyearning to find the perfect fulfi lment of i t i n an

other. S o i n “ Roger Malvin’s Burial ” we are shownhow an innocent man

,who i s too cowardly to face

the mere appearance of guilt,may thereby incur a

remorse and gui lt as deep as that from the faintestsuspicion of which he shrank. And so we may runthrough almost all the tales properly so called.

I do not mean that in any of them the authorthought the thought first in its abstract form

,and

then condensed i t into a story. I should suppose,

on th e contrary, that the arti sti c form is the one inwhich the idea of the tale first flashed on him

,and

that the work of elaboration only gave more substance and greater variety of colour to the parts.But not the less was the essence originally ideal,since every touch and line in his imagined pictiu'

e

was cal culated to impress some leading thought onthe reader.

448 NATHANI EL HAWTHORNE Ix

every one of the group of characters studied i s seenin the lurid light of thi s sin , and in no other. Theonly failure i s in the case of the injured and vindictivehusband

,whose character is subordinated entirely to

the artistic development of the other three .In the same way, the predominant idea of The

Blithedale Roman ce i s to delin eate the deranging effectof an absorbing philanthropic idea on a powerfulmind

,—the unscrupulous sacrifices of personal claims

which it induces,and the misery in which i t ends.

There i s scarcely one in ciden t in the tale properly socal led except the catastrophe, and what there i s, i s soshrouded in mystery as to have the enigmati c character of a tableau vivan t

, not to o mysterious for a distinct(h 'ift, but of doubtful interpretation as to details .The author seems to say to the reader

,

“ Here i s agroup of characters in relations tending to i llustratehow much more sacred are personal affections thanany abstract cause

,however noble : what these rela

tions exactly are,except as they illustrate my idea

,

I wil l not say, as that i s quite non -essential ; youmay imagine them what you pleas e, -I tel l you onlyenough to impress you with my predominant co n viction .

”

Again,i n The House of the Seven Gables we have

a picture studied to impress on us that both personalcharacter, and the malign influences of evil action ,are transm i tted, sometimes with accumulating force,even through centuries, blighting every generationthrough which they pass. This subj ect would apparently involve a series of sketches

,but only two are

intro duced from the past,and the family charac

teristics are so anxiously preserved as to make eventhese seem slight modifications of some of the li vin ggroup. Hawthorne, with rare art, pictures the shadow

Ix NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 449

of the past as constantly hanging, like a banefulcloud

,over the heads Of his figures and every detail ,

even the minutest,i s made to point backwards to the

weary past from which i t has derived its co n stitu

tio n alpeculiarities . Even the little shop which oldmaid Py n ch eo n

” reopens in the dark old house is notnew. A miserly ancestor of the family had openedi t a century before

,who is supposed to haunt i t, and

the scales are rusty wi th the rust of generations.The half -effaced picture of the ancestral Py n ch eo nwhich hangs on the walls

,the garden-mould black

with the vegetable decay of centuries,the exhausted

breed of aristocratic fowls which inhabit the garden,—every touch is studied to condense the dark pastinto a cloud hanging over the living present

,and make

the reader feel its malign influence. The only incident ih the tale i s the light thrown upon a crime,which had been committed thirty years before thestory opens,—by the sudden death Of the principalrepresentative of the family

,from the same specifi c

disease,in the same chair

,and under the same circum

stances,as that o f the Old ancestor and founder of the

family whose picture hangs above the chair.The same criti ci sm may be made on Hawthorne’s

last complete novel . The sole idea of Tran sformationis to i l lustrate the intellectually and morally awakening power of a sudden impulsive sin

,committed by

a simple, j oyous, instinctive, “ natural ” man . Thewhole group of characters i s imagined solely with aview to the development of thi s idea. Hawthorneeven hints

,though rather hesitatingly

,that without

sin the higher humanity of man could not be takenup at all that sin may be essential to the first conscious awakening of moral freedom and the possibil ityof progress. The act of sin itself i s the on ly distinct

L 2G


incident of the tale all the rest i s either extraneousdissertation on Art

,or the elaboration and study of

the group of characters requisite to embody this leading idea. A tale containing the whole ideal essenceof the book

,and in this instance

,though only in this

instance, almost equally powerful, might have beentold in a few pages .And yet I am very far indeed from meaning to

say that the microscopic diffuseness with which Hawthorne enlarges these pale studies into the length ofan ordinary novel i s wasted . For the secret of hispower li es in the great art with whi ch he reduplicatesand reflects and re-reflects the main idea of the talefrom the countless faces of his ghostly imagination

,

un ti l the reader’s mind i s absolutely haunted by it.There are many among his shorter tales

,which now

occupy perhaps only five or ten pages,which would

have gained infinitely in power by similar treatment,

without the addition of a single fresh incident orscene . As they read now they have almost a feebleefleet they give the writer’s idea

,and no more they

do not fi ll the reader with it and Hawthorne’s pecul iar gen ius li es in the power he possesses to be haunted

,

and in hi s turn to haunt the reader,with hi s co n cep

tions,far more than in their intrinsic force . Look

at the central notion of his various minor tales,and

you wi ll perhaps be struck with a certain ideal simplicity , and a strange dash of lurid colour in themthat will impress you as promising

,but no more .

But let him summon this idea before you in the innumerable Protean shapes of his o wn imagination

,

with alterations of form just striking enough to makei t seem at once the same and something fresh

,and

before he has done wi th you you are pursued,you

are possessed, you are beset with his notion i t i s in


Author’s category at the time), the book is devoid of othersthat we should quite as naturally look for. T h e sketchesare not, it is hardly necessary to say, profound but it i srather more remarkable that they so seldom

,if ever

,show

an y design on th e w riter’s part to make them so . They

have none of th e abstruseness of idea,or obscurity of ex

pression,wh ich mark th e w ritten commun ications of a

sol itary m ind w ith in itsel f. They never need translation .

It is,in fact

,th e style of a man of society. Every sen

tence, so far as it embod ies thought or sensibility, may beunderstood and felt by anybody wh o w ill give h imsel f thetrouble to read it

,and w ill take up th e book in a proper

mood . Th is statement of apparently Opposite peculiaritiesleads us to a perception of what th e sketches truly are.

They are not the talk of a secluded man with h is ownm ind and heart (had it been so, they could hardly havefailed to be more deeply and permanently valuable) buthis attempts

,and very imperfectly successful ones

,to open

an intercourse w ith th e w orld.

”

This passage contains some of the truest and finesttouches in the way of literary self-criticism with whichI am acquainted but it does not

,as I said

,do justi ce

to the un developed germs of power in many of thepieces comprised in thi s and Hawthorne’s other collections of short tales . It i s true

,indeed

,that

,through

out almost all he wrote, sentiment takes the place ofpassion

,and it i s frequently true, though it by no

means holds Of the maj ority of his finished studies ofcharacter

,that

,i n the place of “ pictures of actual l ife

,

we have allegory not always so warmly dressed in i tshabiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken into thereader’s mind w i thout a shiver.” But there i s enougheven in the early tales of which Hawthorne here speaksto prove that the allegorical turn which his tales areapt to take was not with him , as it often is, a sign ofmeagre or shallow imaginative endowments—a proof

Ix NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 453

that fancy predominated in him rather than genuineimagination .

When a man sits down professing to paint humanlife and character

,and in place thereof succeeds only

in representing abstract virtues,vices

,passions

,and

the like, under human names, we may fairly say that

with him the al legorical vein proves the generalpoverty of his spiritual blood . He has peeled o ff theouter surface where he professed to model the substance . But when

,on the other hand

,the same truth

,

which by an ordinary intellect would be expressed ina purely abstract form, naturally takes shape in aman’s mind under an imaginative clothing whichsavours of al legory

,no inference of the kind i s legiti

mate . In the one case the allegory is a degenerateromance

,in the other it i s a thought expressing itself

in the language of the imagination . The weakness inthe former case is measured by the inabi li ty of theImagination to see the broad chasm between the reali tyand the allegorical shadow. In the latter case therei s no such inability, but the thought which wouldhave entered an ordinary mind in a purely abstractform presents itself to this in the form of a distinctshadow-picture .And it i s a sign that Hawthorne’s genius has not

the weakness usually belonging to al legori sts,that

the longer a subj ect rests in his mind,the more

certainly do the allegorical shadows of its first outl ine gather solidity of form and variety of colour

,

and gradually substantiate themselves into realthough dim ly-lighted figures. In the ideal si tuationas it first presents i tself to the author’s mind

,the

places of the human actors are perhaps occupied byappropriate symbols of some predominant sentimentor characteristic which each of the group subse


quently embodies . If written down in that faintearly form

,the tale seems allegorical . But i f allowed

to lie by in the imagination,i t deepens into a pal lid

dramati c si tuation ; a body of human life and character gathers round

,and clothes each of the ideal

skeletons in the original plan,turnin g the faint

allegory into a chapter of human experience . S o

clearly did Edgar Poe perceive this vein of genuineimaginative power in Hawthorne’s writings

,even at

a time when he had published only his shorter tales,

that he boldly asserted,—in this

,as I think

,over

leaping the truth,that the conspicuously ideal

seafloldin gs of Hawthorne’s stories were but the

monstrous fruits of the bad transcendental atmosphere which he had breathed so long

,—the sign of

the Emersonian school of thought in which he hadstudied .

“ He i s infinitely too fond of al legory,

said Edgar Poe, “ and can never hope for popularityso long as he persists in i t. This he wi ll n ot do, foral legory i s at war wi th the whole tone of his nature

,

which disports itself never so well as when escapingfrom the mysticism of his Goodman Browns and\Vhite Old Maids into the hearty

,genial

,but sti ll

Indian-summer sunshine of his VVakefields and LittleAn nie’s Rambles . Indeed

,his spirit of metaphor

run mad is clearly imbibed from the phalanx andphalanstery atmosphere in which he has been so longstruggling for truth . He has not half the materialfor the exclusiveness of authorship that he possessesfor i ts u niversality. He has the purest style

,the

finest taste,the most available scholarship

,the most

del icate humour,the most touching pathos

,the most

radiant imagination,the most consummate ingenuity

,

and with these varied good qualities he has donewell as a mystic. But i s there any one of these

456 NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE ix

s tartled men less because he was hidden from theirview than because he made them aware of their o w nsolitude .

“ Wh y do you tremble at me alon e saysthe mild old man on his deathbed

,from beneath his

black vei l,and with the glimmering smile on his

half-hidden lips ; “ tremble also at each other !Have men avoided me

,and women shown no pity

,

and children screamed and fled only from my blackveil ? What but the mystery which it obscurelytypifies has made this piece of crape so awful ?When the friend shows his inmost heart to hisfriend

,the lover to his best beloved

,when man does

not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator,loath

somely treasuring up the secret of his sin, then deemme a monster for the symbol beneath which I havelived and died ! I look around me

,and 10 ! on

every visage a black vei l ? ” Hawthorne,with the

pale melancholy smile that seems to be always onhi s lips

,speaks from a somewhat sim i lar solitude .

Indeed I suspect the story was a kind of parable ofhis o wn experien ce .But

,though Hawthorne’s imagination was a

solitary and tw i light one,there was nothing allegori

cal about his genius . Ifwe want to find his powerat the very highest

,we must look to his instinctive

knowledge of what we may cal l the laws,not exactly

of discordan t emotions,but of emotions which ought

to be mutually exclusive,and which combine with

the thri ll and the shudder of disease . This is almostthe antithesis of Allegory. And he makes hisdelineation of such “ unblest unions ” the morestriking

,because i t stands out from a background of

healthy life,of genial scenes and simple beauties

,

w hi ch renders the contrast the more thrilling. Ihave often heard th e term “

co bwcby applied to

Ix NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE 457

his romances ; and their most marking passagescertainly cause the same sense of unwelcome shrinking to the spirit whi ch a line of unexpected cobwebsuddenly drawn across the face causes physi callywhen one enters a deserted but familiar room .

Edgar Poe,indeed

,i s much fuller of un canny

terrors but then there i s nothing in his writings ofthe healthy

,simple

,and natural background which

gives sin and disease al l i ts horror. It i s the pureand severe New England simpli city which Hawthornepaints so delicately that brings out in full relief theadulterous mixture of emotions on which he spendshis main strength . I might almost say that he hascarried into human affairs the old Calvinisti c type ofimagination . The same strange combination of clearsimplicity

,high faith

,and reverential reali sm

,with a

reluctant, but for that very reason intense and devourin g, conviction of the large comprehensivenessof the Divine Damnation which that grim creedtaught its most honest believers to consider as thetrue trust in God’s providence

, Hawthorne copiesinto his pictures of human life . He presents us witha scene of pale severe beauty, ful l of truthful goodness

,and then he uncovers in some one point of i t a

plague-spot,that

,half-concealed as he keeps i t

,yet

runs away with the imagination ti l l one i s scarcelyconscious of anything else. Just as Calvinism

,with

al l i ts noble features, can never keep its eyes o ff thatone fact

,as it thinks i t

,of God’s calm foreknowledge

of a widespread damnation ; and thi s gradually en

croach es on the attention ti l l the mind is utterlyabsorbed in the fascinating terror of the problemhow to combine the clashing emotions of love andhorror which i ts image of Him inspires —so Haw

thorne’s finest tales, with al l the simplicity of their

458 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

general outline,never detain you long from some

uneasy mixture of emotions which only disease cancombine in the same subj ect

,unti l at last you ask

for nothing but the brushing clean away of the infected web .

There are many i llustrations of this peculiarity ofHawthorne’s genius in his earlier and shorter tales .In one of them he exclaims

,and i t i s the key to his

genius,

“ Blessed are all s imple emotions,be they

dark or bright ! It i s the lurid intermixture of thetwo that produces the illuminating blazes of the infern al regions.” The tale in which Hawthornemakes thi s remark

,

“ Rappacin i’

s Daughter,

” i tsel fexemplifies in a somewhat fanciful but striking formthis constant bent of his imagination . Dr. Rappacini i s a professor of medical science in the Universityof Padua. He has devoted himself to the study ofdeadly poisons, and learnt how to in fuse them sosubtly into both animal and vegetable natures as torender that which would be fatal in the ordinaryway essential to life and health

,and even productive

of unusual lustre and bloom . Hawthorne has eviden tly based his tale on the physiologi cal factwhich

,at least in the case of arsen ic, i s well attested

-that a malignant poi son, i f gradually admin i stered,may at length become a condition of li fe and conducive to beauty. Dr. Rappacin i has fi l led hisgarden with flowers so poisonous that he himselfdare not touch them

,and can scarcely venture to

breathe the air around them . But the li fe of hisdaughter Beatri ce has been imbued and fed wi th thesame poi sons which give so rich a bloom and sosweet but deadly a perfume to these rare plants ;and to her they are health and added loveliness.Her breath i s instantly fatal to the insect or the

460 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE xx

be arti sti cally treated at all,especially require

,and

for the ful ler development and j ustificatio n , so tosay

,of emotions so subtle and un healthy. In The

S carlet Letter he has a subj ect naturally so painfulas exactly to suit h is genius. He treats i t withperfect delicacy

,for his attention i s turned to the

morbid anatomy of the relations which have origin ated in the sin of adultery

,rather than to the sin

i tsel f. There are two points on which Hawthorneconcentrates h is power in this remarkable book.

The first i s the false position of the min i ster,who

gains fresh reverence and popularity as the veryfruit of the passionate angui sh with which his hearti s consumed. Frantic with the stings of un ackn owl edged guil t, he i s yet taught by those very stingsto understand the hearts and stir the consciences ofothers . His character i s a pre—Raphaelite pi cture ofthe tainted motives which fi l l a weak but fine andsensitive nature when placed in such a posi tion ; ofself-hatred quite too passionate to conquer selfloveof a quai l ing conscience smothered into insane crav

ings for blasphemy of the exquisite pain of gratifiedambition conscious of its shameful falsehood . Thesecond point on which Hawthorne concentrates hispower is the delineation of anomalous characteristicsin the child who is the offspring of thi s sinful passion .

He gives her an inheritance of a lawless,mischievous

,

and elfish nature,not devoid of strong afl'ectio n s

,but

delighting to probe the very sorest points of hermother’s heart

,induced in part by some mysterious

fascination to the subj ect,in part by wanton mischief.

The scarlet A,which i s the brand of her mother’s

shame,i s th e child’s del ight. She w i l l not approach

her mother unless the A be on her bosom and theunnatural complication of emotions thus excited in

1x NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 461

Hester Pry n n e’s heart presents one of the most

characteristi c features of the book,and is painfully

engraved on the reader’s mind .

The scene of most marvellous power which thebook contains

,contrives to draw to a focus all the

many clashing affections portrayed . Mr. Dimmes

dale,the unhappy minister

,eager to invent vain

penances in expiation of the gui lt which he dares notavow

,creeps out at midnight in his canonical robe

to stand for an hour on the scaffold on which Hesterand her child had been pi lloried years before . It i sthe night when many are watching by the dying-bedof the governor of Massachusetts

,and one of the

minister’s reverend col leagues, who has been prayingwith the governor

,passes under the scaffold

,lantern

in hand . In his nervous and excited mood,Dimmes

dale almost addresses him aloud,and then

,paralysed

by dread and his l imbs stiffened by cold,i t occurs

to him that he will never be able to descend thesteps of the scaffold

,and that morning wi ll break

to show him there to all his revering flock :

Morning would break and fin d h im there. T h e

neighbourhood w ould begin to rouse itsel f. T h e earl iestriser coming forth in th e dim twi light

,would perceive

a vaguely-defin ed figure aloft on the place of shame andhalf crazed betw ixt alarm and curiosity

,w ould go knock

i ng from door to door,summoning all the people to

behold the ghost—as he needs must think it—o f somedefunct transgressor. A dusky tumult would flap its

w ings from one house to another. Then— the morninglight still waxing stronger—old patriarchs w ould rise upin great haste

,each in h is flannel gown

,and matronly

dames w ithout pausin g to put off their night gear. T h e

whole tribe of decorous personages,wh o had never hereto

fore been scen with a single hair of their heads awry,


would start into publ ic view w ith th e d isorder o f a nightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham wouldcome grimly forth , w ith his K ing James

’ ruff fastenedaskew ; and Mistress Hibbin s, w ith some tw igs of th eforest cl inging to h er skirts

,and looking sourer than

ever,as having hardly got a win k of sleep after h ern ight

ride ; and good Father Wi lson too,after spending hal f

the night at a deathbed,and l iking ill to be d isturbed

thus early o ut of h is dreams about th e glorified saints.Hither likew ise w ould come the elders and deacons ofMr. Dimmesdale

’s church , and the young virgins wh o so

idol ised their min i ster,and had made a shrine for h im

in their wh ite bosoms ; wh ich n ow ,by

-the-by , in theirhurry and confusion

,they would scantily have given

themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs. Allpeople

,in a w ord

,would come stumbling over their

thresholds,and turning up their amazed and horror

stricken visages around the scafl'

old. Whom would theydiscern there

,w ith the red eastern light upon h is brow ”

t

Whom,but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale

,half-frozen

to death,overwhelmed w ith shame

,and standin g where

Hester Prynne had stoodCarried away by the grotesque horror of th is p icture

,

the m inister,unawares

,and to h is own infinite alarm

,

burst into a great peal of laughter. It was immed iatelyresponded to by a l ight, airy, childish laugh , in wh ich ,w ith a thril l of the heart—but h e knew not whether ofexquisite pain

,or pleasure as acute—h e recognised the

tones of little Pearl.“ ‘Pearl ! Little Pearl !’ cried h e, after a moment’s

pause ; then, suppressing h is voice,

‘ Hester ! HesterPrynne ! Are y ou there Y es it is Hester Prynneshe replied in a tone of surprise and th e minister heardh er footsteps approach ing from th e side walk

,along

wh ich sh e had been passing.

‘ It is I , and my littlePearl .’ Whence come y o u, Hester ?

’asked th e m inister.‘What sent y ou h ither ?

’ ‘ I have been watch in g at a


Mr. Dimmesdale’s psychological state at th is moment.

All th e time that he gazed upward to th e zenith,h e was

nevertheless perfectly aware that l ittle Pearl was pointingh er finger towards old Roger Ch illin gworth , wh o stoodat no great d istance from the scaffold . T h e m inisterappeared to see h im w ith th e same glance that d iscernedthe m iraculous letter. T o h is features

,as to all other

objects,the meteoric l ight imparted a n ew expression or

it m ight well be that th e physician was not careful then,

as all other times, to h ide the malevolence with which h elooked upon his vi ctim . Certainly

,if th e meteor k in dled

up the sky, and disclosed th e earth, with an aw fulnessthat admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of theday of judgment

,then m ight R oger Chillin gworth have

passed w ith them for the arch-fien d, stand ing there w itha smile and a scow l to claim h is ow n . S o vivid was theexpression

,or so intense the minister’s perception of it

,

that it seemed still to remain painted on th e darkness,after th e meteor had vanished

,w ith an efl

‘

ect as if thestreet and al l things else were at once an nih ilated .

Wh o is that man,Hester gasped Mr. Dimmesdale,

overcome w ith terror. ‘ I sh iver at him ! Dost thouknow the man ? I hate h im

,Hester

Sh e remembered h er oath and was silent.I tell thee

,my soul sh ivers at h im muttered the

m inister again. Who is he ? Who is he ? Canst thoudo noth ing for me ? I have a nameless horror of theman

Min ister,

’said little Pearl,I can tell thee wh o he is.

’

‘Q uickly, then , chi ld ! ’ said th e minister

,bend ing

h is ear close to h er lips. ‘

Q uickly ! and as low as thoucanst whisper.’

‘Pearl mumbled someth ing into h is ear that sounded,

indeed , like human language, but was only such gibberishas ch ildren may be heard amusing themselves with byth e hour together. At al l events, i f it involved anysecret information in regard to old Roger Ch illin gw orth ,

1x NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 465

i t was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman,

and d id but increase th e bewilderment of h is mind . T h e

elvish ch ild then laughed aloud .

”

This strange vigil,the grim hysteric humour of

the minister,the proud and si lent fortitude of Hester

,

the mocking laughter of the child as she detects herunknown father’s cowardice

,together make as weird

like a tangle of human elements as ever bubbledtogether in a witches’ caldron . Yet this scene

,

though probably the most powerful which Hawthorneever painted, scarcely exemplifi es his uncanny fashionof awakening the most mutually repellant feelings atthe same moment towards the same person so characteristically as many of his other tales .In the most striking chapter of The House of

the Seven Gables, Hawthorne makes Judge Fy n

cheon,who has died in hi s chair from a sudden

effusion of blood,holding his sti l l ti cking watch in

his hand,a subj ect at once for awe and scorn . He

recalls al l the judge’s engagements for the day,—the

bank-meeting at which he was to take the chair,

the business appointment he was to keep,—the

private purchases he was to make,—the little act of

charity which h e had thought of, time and pursepermitting—the half -formal call on hi s physi cianconcerning some trifl ing symptoms of indisposition

,

the politi cal dinner to discuss the election of the nextS tate governor and then he taunts the judge withhis forgetfulness . He had resolved to spend onlyhalf-an—hour in this house. “ Half-an—hour ! Why,judge

,i t i s already two hours by your own unde

viatin gly accurate chronometer. Glance your eyedown on it and see. Ah ! he will not give himselfthe trouble either to bend his head or elevate hishand so as to bring the faithful time-keeper within

2B

466 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ix

hi s range Of vision . Time al l at once appears tohave become a matter of no moment with the judge I”

And so Hawthorne goes on through the list Of hisengagements

,remin ding him separately of each as

the time comes for i t,recalling to the dead man the

importance he had attached to i t when he made hisplans in the morning. The private dinner would, inall probabili ty, determin e the next election,— andJudge Pyn ch eo n was a candidate

,and with rare

chances of success. “ Make haste,then ; do your

part ' Drink a glass or two of that noblewine —make your pledges in as low a whisper asyou will— and you rise up from table virtuallygovernor of the glorious old S tate—GovernorPy n ch eo n of Massachusetts ! And i s there nopotent and exhilarating cordial i n a certainty likethis ? It has been the grand purpose of half yourl ifetime to Obtain it. Now

,when there needs little

more than to signify your acceptance,why do you

sit so lumpishly in your great gran dfath er’

s Oldchair,as if preferring i t to the gubernatorial one ThusHawthorne goes on throughout the twenty-four hoursduring which the judge’s body remains undiscovered,—mingling with the most powerful pi cture of thesupernatural side of death, which he never ceases tokeep vi vidly before us

,the feelings that cluster round

petty business,the sarcasms that might sting the

sensitive,the urgency that might hasten the dilatory

,

the incentives that would spur the ambitious,fl inging

them all in cold irony at the corpse with an eerieeffect that only Hawthorne could produce.But the most characteristic instance of Hawthorne’s

power in studying combinations of emotions that areas i t were at once abhorrent to nature and trueto life

,i s in Tran sformation . The one powerful

468 NATHANI EL HAWTHORNE 11:

wh ich passion had developed in h im.

‘There was shorttime to weigh the matter ; but h e had h is trial in thatbreath or tw o

,while I held him over the cliff

,an d h is

sentence in that one glance, when your eyes responded to ‘

m ine ! Say that I have slain him against your w il lsay that he d ied w ithout your whole consent—an d inanother breath

, y o u shall see me lyin g beside h im .

’Oh ,

never ! ’ cried Mi riam .

‘My one ow n friend ! Never,

never,never ! ’ Sh e turned to him—the gui lty

,blood

stained, l onely woman—she turned to her fellow-crim inal,

the youth so lately in n ocent, whom she had draw n intoh er doom . Sh e pressed h im close, close to h er bosom ,

with a clin ging embrace that brought their two heartstogether

,till the horror and agony Of each was combined

into one emotion, and that a kind of rapture. ‘Y es,

Donatello,you speak the truth said sh e ;

‘my heartconsented to what y ou d id . We two slew yonder wretch .

Th e deed kn ots us together for time an d eternity,like

the coil Of a serpent They threw one other glance atthe heap of death below

,to assure themselves that it was

there so lik e a dream was the whole thing. Then theyturned from that fatal precip ice

,and came out of the

court-yard,arm in arm, heart in heart. Instinctively

,

they were heedful not to sever themselves so much as apace or tw o from o n e another

,for fear of the terror and

deadly chill that would henceforth wait for them in sol itude. Their deed—the crime wh ich Donatell o wrought

,

and Miriam accepted on th e instant—had w reathed itsel f,

as she said , l ike a serpent, in inextricable l ink s aboutboth their souls

,and drew them in to one by its terrible

contractile power . It was closer than a marriag e-bond .

S O intimate, in those first moments, was the un ion thatit seemed as if their n ew sympathy annihilated all otherties

,and that they were released from the chain of

humanity a n ew sphere,a special law

,had been created

for them alone. T h e w orld could not come near themthey were safe ! ‘ Oh

,friend

,

’ cried Miriam,so


putting h er soul into that w ord that it took a heavyrichness of meaning

,and seemed never to have been

spoken before, —‘Oh

,friend

,are y o u conscious

,as I

am , of this compan ionship that knits o ur heart stringstogether ? ’ ‘ I feel it

,Miriam

,

’ said Donatell o .

‘We

draw o n e breath ; we l ive o n e l ife ! ’ ‘Only yesterday,’continued Miriam ;

‘ nay,only a short hal f-hour ago

, I

sh ivered in an icy sol itude. NO friendsh ip,no sisterhood

,

could come near enough to keep the warmth w ith in myheart. I n an instant al l is changed ! There can be nomore loneliness ! ’ None, Miriam !’ said Donatell o.None, my beautiful one responded Miriam ,

gazing inh is face

,wh ich had taken a higher

,almost an heroi c

aspect from the strength of passion .

‘None, my innocentone ! Surely

,it is no crime that we have committed .

On e wretched and w orthless l ife has been sacrificed,to

cement two other l ives for evermore.’ ‘For evermore,

Miriam !’ said Donatello

,

‘ cemented w ith h is blood ! ’T h e young man started at th e word wh ich he had h imsel fspoken it may be that it brought home, to th e simpl icityof his imagination, what he had not before dreamed Of

the ever-increasing loathsomeness Of a un ion that consistsin gui lt. ‘ Cemented w ith blood

,wh ich w ould corrupt

and grow more noisome for ever and for ever,but bind

them not the less strictly for that ! ’ ‘ F orget it ! Castit al l beh ind y ou said Miriam

,detecting

,by h er sym

pathy,th e pang that was in h is heart. ‘ Th e deed has

done its Office,and h as no existence any more.’ They

flung th e past beh ind them , as sh e counselled,or else

d istil led from it a fiery intoxication,which sufficed to

carry them tr iumphantly through those first moments oftheir doom . F or guilt has its moment of rapture too.T h e foremost result of a broken law is over an ecstaticsense of freedom . And thus there exhaled upward (o utof thei r dark sympathy

,at th e base of wh ich lay a h u

corpse) a bl iss, or an insanity, wh ich th e unhappy pairimagined to be well w orth th e sleepy innocence that

470 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE TX

for ever l ost to them. As their sp irits rose to th e solemnmadness of th e occasion , they went onward—not stealthily,not fearfully—but w ith a stately gai t and aspect. Passionlent them (as it does to meaner shapes) its brief nob il ityOf carriage. They trode through the streets of R ome asi f they to o were among the majestic and gui lty shadowsthat

,from ages long gone by

,have haunted th e blood

stained city.

”

This i s very finely conceived and yet revolting.

Have I not reason for saying that Hawthorne’s chiefpower l ies in the delineation of unnatural alliancesof feelin g

,which are yet pain q y real,—Of curdling

emotions that may mix for a moment,but shrink

apart again qui ckly,as running water from clotted

blood 2But i t would be very un just to Hawthorne to

represent him as in any degree addicted,like Edgar

Poe,to the invention of monstrosities and horrors .

I only mean that his genius naturally leads h im tothe analysis and representation of certain outlyingmoral anomalies

,which are not the anomali es of

ordinary ev i l and sin,but have a certain chilling

unnaturalness of their own . But under Hawthorne’streatment these anomalies are only the subtle flawsor passionate taints of natures full of fine elements ;they are never superlatives of physi cal horror likeEdgar Poe’s . They are the dark spots in a finepicture

,never the very substance Of the whole.

There i s,for instance

,every palliation whi ch a

charitable imagination can invent for Hester’s sin

and Dimmesdale’s cowardice in The S carlet Letterand even the child’s elfish wantonness

,though in

some degree preternatural , i s not demoniacal, butthe mere lawless taint in an otherwi se warm andOpen heart. S o , too, in Tran sformation , there is

472 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ix

seems to connect him w i th hi s ancesto r the “ witchjudge . There seems to have been in him a considerable vein of what would probably very unjustlybe called superstition,—i.e. a special attraction towardsthe morbid s ide of mental phenomena

,with

,perhaps

,

an undue tendency to credulity. As to the credulity,

I am not sure. It may well be that Hawthornebelieved no more of the so -called scien ce of mesmericand spiritualistic phenomena than the most acute andincredulous men Of his society. But that he wasspecially fas cinated by these morbid phenomena

, as

by allmorbid phenomena Of human nature,is proved

by a vast number of passages in his various notebooks

,as well as by the subj ects o f his novels .

His notes are full Of suggestions for imaginativeinquis itions into morbid subj ects . In one page wefind a suggestion

,more cynical and less preternatural

than usual,that two persons might make their will s

in each other’s favour, and then wait impatiently forthe death of the other, till each was informed thatthe long-desired event had taken place , and hasteningto be present at the other’s funeral

,they might meet

each other in perfect health . In another page wefind noted down

,Curious to imagine what murmur

in gs and discontent would be excited if any of thegreat so -called calamities Of human beings were to beabolished,—as for instance, death .

” Again,we have

a suggestion for a new sort of reading of Boccaccio’sstory of Isabel

,that a girl, not kn owing her lover to

be dead and buried in her own garden,might yet

feel an indescribable impulse of attraction towards theflowers growing out of his grave

,might find them of

admirable splendour, beauty, and perfume, and re

j oi ce in keeping them in her bosom and scenting herroom w ith them . Again, on another page we have a


suggested sketch of a man who tries to be happy inlove

,but who cannot really give h is heart, or prevent

the aflair from seeming a pure dream —in domesticl ife, in pol itics, in every sphere it is to be the same,—h e i s to seem a patriot

,and care nothing real ly for

his country, only try to care ; he is to seem thekindest of sons and brothers

,but feel the whole rela

tion unreal in a word,he is to be wholly “ detached

from life,like a Roman Catholi c monk or nun

,but

without that life in another world at which theyaim . These are only a very few illustrations of thefascination with which Hawthorne’s fancy dwelt onmorbid psychology as his natural subj ect. There arebut few pages in his notebooks which do not affordexamples of the same interest. Hawthorne seems tohave illustrated his contemporary and friend Dr.Holmes’s theory that we are each of us a sort ofphysiological and psychological omnibus for bringingback o ur ancestors in new shapes and under differentconditions to this earth . The “ witch—judge

,associ

ating himself,perhaps

,with some more li terary

ancestor Of Hawthorne’s, reappeared in this mostoriginal of American novelists . Hawthorne was anovelist because he was an intellectual and moralinquisitor . Inquisitor and noveli st

,

” would describehim even better than “ novelist and inquisitor

,

”

always carefully exp ell ing, Of course, all notion Of

torture from the inquisitorial character of his imagin atio n .

Hawthorne’s genius, then, was ferti le, but in acold and restless way. It was used more to helphim to exp lore mysteries than in Obedience to theglowing creative impulse that cannot choose but paint.He stated to him self a problem, and set his imagination at work to solve it. How was i t the woman

474 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE IX

felt who wore publi cly the symbol Of her own sinand shame fancifully embroidered on her bosom ?What would be the state of mind of one who hadunhappi ly killed another, and could never clearlydetermine in his own conscience whether his willhadconsented to the deed or not ? What would be theresult of a wrongful life - imprisonment on a softaesthetic nature made for the enjoyment of the beantiful 2 How would a sin of passion work on a healthy

,

innocent,natural man Ofunawakened spirit ? These

are the kind of hypotheses on which Hawthorne’simagination worked ; and from the nature of thecase

,images summoned up in Obedience to such

questionings could not always be of a very wholesome k ind. The problems that Hawthorne startedwere usually connected with the deepest mysteries ofthe human mind and conscience ; and the imagination which attempts to keep pace with the inqui sitiveintellect cann ot but paint strange and thrilling anomalies in reply to its queries .

That cold tendency,

” saysMr. Coverdale, the heroof The Blithedale R oman ce, who has many pointsOf i n tellectual affinity with its author, —“ that coldtendency between instinct and intellect,which made mepry with a speculative interest into people’s passionsand impulses, appeared to have gone far towardsun humanising my heart. I do not suppose that itwent far

,or any way at all

,towards unhuman i sing

Hawthorne’s heart, which was evidently tender. Butno doubt

,he was led by the speculative bias of his

mind to steep hi s imagination in arcan a on which iti s scarcely good to gaze at al l.It i s remarkable

,and

,perhaps, a symptom of the

same imaginative constitution,that while Hawthorne

had the most eager desire to penetrate the secret

476 NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE xx

to remember I yet suspect may have been patchedtogether by my fancy in brooding over the matterafterwards. Again, in another part Of the samebook

,

“ The detail s of the interview that followedbeing unknown to me, while notw ithstanding it wouldbe a pity quite to lose the picturesqueness of thesituation

,I shall attempt to sketch it main ly from

fancy,although with some general grounds of sur

mise in regard to the Old man’s feelings .” But hecarried this preference for delineating states of mind

,

and obscurely suggesting the class of facts which mayhave given rise to them, to the furthest point in hi slast novel

, Tran sformation .

“ Owing, i t may be,” he

tel ls us,in a chapter justly headed “ Fragmentary

S entences,” at a critical j uncture in the tale

,

“ tothis moral estrangement,—this chi ll remoteness oftheir position

,—there have come to us but a few

vague whisperings of what passed in Miriam’s intervi ew that afternoon wi th the sinister personage whohad dogged her footsteps ever since her visit to thecatacomb . In weaving these mysti c utterances intoa continuous scene, we undertake a task resemblingin its perplexity that Of gatherin g up and piecing together the fragments Of a letter which has been tornand scattered to the winds. Many words of deepsign ifican ce,

-many entire sentences,and these prob

ably the most important ones,—have flown too faron the w inged breeze to be recovered. If we inserto ur own conj ectural amendments, we may perhapsgive a purport utterly at variance with the true one.”

And then he continues,

“ Of so much we are sure,that there seemed to be a sadly mysterious fascination in the influence of this i l l-omened person overMiriam ; i t was such as beasts and reptiles of subtleand evi l natures sometimes exercise over their vi ctims .

xx NATHANIEL HAWTIIORNE 477

Yet let us trust there may have been no crimein Miriam

,but only one Of those fatalities which are

among the insoluble riddles propounded to mortalcomprehension—the fatal doom by which every crimeis made to be the agony of many innocent persons,as wellas Of the single guilty one. In other words,Hawthorne w ishes us to picture a mind perturbed,flushed

,on the verge of despair

,but does not wish us

to know how far the exciting causes had involved herin real guilt

,or merely in misery. It i s not essential,

he thinks,to the purpose of the book, which i s rather

to trace the effects of the subsequent guilt on therelation between Miriam and Donatello than todevelop fully the previous character of the womanwho draws the poor young Count into crime. Asfar as regardsMiriam

,the problem set himself by the

author in this book is only to delineate the influenceexerted over her heart by Do n atello ’s plunge intogui lt on her behalf. He thinks it enough to indicatethat she who led Donatello into guil t was either herself gui lty, or at least intimately imbued with all theinfectious fever of a gui lty atmosphere. More i s notessential to the author’s purpose, and more he wi llnot tel l us. He seems to hint, perhaps truly, thatthe chasm between guilt and wretchedness in awoman’s mind is not always so wide as in a man’sand that, at al l events, there is as much power in anydeeply roused affection to extricate her from theone as from the other. For like reasons

,I suppose

,

the end Of the tale is as shadowy as the beginning.

The tran sformation i s accomplished the Faun is nolonger a Faun ; and all the author contemplated i stherefore attained . The wreath of mist which hangsover Miriam’s past is al lowed also to settle over herown and Do n atello ’s future . The problem has been


solved in the dissolving colours of two dimly-outl inedminds . And their earthly destiny i s nothing to thereader ; to know it might even divert his attentionfrom the artist’s true purpose

,and concentrate i t on

the derzouen ten t Of a commonplace story.

This predominance of moral colouring over thedefinite forms of actual fact in Hawthorne’s novels i sto me

,I confess

,unsatisfactory. And the degree to

which i t i s absent or prevails in his several works,seems to me a fair measure of their relative artisticworth . The Scarlet Letter, in whi ch there is by farthe most solid basis of fact

,i s,I think

,also con

siderably the finest and most powerful of his efforts .The House of the Seven Gables, in i tself nearly aperfect work of art

,i s yet composed of altogether

thinner materials. Yet the details are worked upwith so much care and fin ish

,—the whole external

scenery of this,as well as Of The S carlet Letter, i s

so sharply defined,so full of the clear air of New

England life,—that one can bear better the subtle

moral colouring and anatomy with which they bothabound. In The Blithedale Roman ce I Observe thefirst tendency to shroud certain portions of thenarrative in an inten tional veil

,and to attempt to

paint a distinct moral expressio n without giving adistinct outline Of fact. The effect i s powerful

,but

vague and not satisfying. The figures wandervagrant—l ike through the imagination of the reader.They seem to have no distinct place of their own

assigned to them . You know what sort of charactersyou have beheld

,but not when and under what

circumstances you have beheld them. In Tran s

formatio n these defects are at their maximum ; andthe evi l i s exaggerated by the mass of general padding—artisti c critici sms

, Often powerful , and always subtle,


scrutiny of the paradoxes of life,—the humour which

is qui te as much true criti ci sm as true humour . Take,

for example,this Observation on one of hi s children

“ On e of the children draw ing a cow on the blackboard says

,

‘ I’llkick thi s leg out a little more

,

’a very

h appy en ergy of expressio n , completely identify ing herself with the cow ; or p erhaps as the cow

’

s creator,

co n scious of fullp ower over its mo vemen ts.

”Or take

the remark, “ There i s a kind of ludicrous un fitn ess

in the idea Of a venerable rose-bush apple-trees,

on the other hand,grow old without reproach .

”Or

again,take the following

,apparently wri tten at a

tMe when his wife was away, and he had no servantto look after his house : “ The washing of dishesdoes seem to me the most absurd and unsatisfactorybusiness that I ever underto ok. If

,when once

w ashed,they would remain clean for ever and ever

(which they ought in all reason to do, consideringhow much trouble it i s) there would be less occasionto grumble but n o soon er is it don e than it requires tobe alon e again . On the whole, I have come to theresolution not to use more than one dish at eachmeal .” Or this

,on a piece of boiled beef which he

had boil ed himself at great pains and trouble “ I amat this moment superintendin g the corned beef

,which

has been on the fire, as it seems to me, ever since thebeginning Of time, and shows no symptoms of be ingdone before the crack of doom . The cornedbeef i s exquisitely done

,and as tender as a young

lady’s heart,al l owing to my skil ful cookery.

T O say the truth , I look upon it as such a masterpiecein its way that it seems irreverential to eat i t. ThingsOn which so much thought and labour are bestowedshould surely be immortal .” His humour arises

,as

it seems to me, in all these cases from the magnifying

[X NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 48!

glass under which he views a somewhat mi n utc phenomenon

,ti ll we see its characteristics exaggerated and

caricatured in relation to the proportions of ordinarylife ; and partly also from the humorous but determined resistance which his mind O ffers to everyattempt to subdue i t to uncongenial habits . Thushe says elsewhere : “ I went to George Hi llard’soffice

,and he spoke with immitigable resolution of

the necessity Of my going to dine with Longfellowbefore returning to Concord ; but I have an almostmiraculous power of escaping from necessities Of thiskind . Destin y itself has often been wo rstedin the attemp tto getme o ut to din n er

,

”which strikes me as a stroke

of true humour and true self-knowledge al l i n o n e.

His own shy,solitary nature was so averse to any

attempt to assim ilate it to the temper Of ordin arysociety

,that it might truly be said that destiny

itself had fai led in the attempt to get him to dine outlike other folks

,just as the most sol id masonry O ften

fails to crush a flow er,and will even be rent asunder

by the upward growth of a tender plant. But besidesthe truth of the application to him self

,there i s real

humour in the conception OfDestiny as trying to getany man out to dinner.” It real ly is what Destinyseems Oftenest to insist upon, and to succeed in , i nthese days

,i n spite of enormous obstacles. Haw

thorne seldom displayed his humour more finely thanin thus depicting the same Destiny which

,in the

Greek drama,devotes

,i tself to the most sublime

tasks,as engaging i tself

,in this flaccid

,and yet in

som e senses far more closely-knit,nineteen th century

,

in the ignoble task of bringing an i rresistible pressureto bear in order to get men to go out to dinnerThe most distinguishing deficiency in Haw thorne’s

mind,which is al so in close connection with i ts h ighest

Id

482 NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE 1x

power,i s his complete w ant of sympathy not only

with the world of voluntary action,but wi th the

next thing to action—namely,the w orld of impulsive

passion .

‘

With exceedingly rare exceptions— thescene Of crime and passion which I have quoted fromTran sformatio n i s the only exception I can recal l—the highest power of Hawthorne is al l spent onthe delineation of chron ic suffering or sentiment

,in

which al l des ire to act on others i s in a measureparalysed. He likes to get past the rapids any wayhe can —as we have seen

,he not seldom introduces

you to his tale with only the distant rush of themstil l audible behind you

,his delight being to trace

the more lasting perturbations which they effect forwinding miles below. But what he does paint foryou

,he l ikes to study thoroughly ; he loves to get

beneath the surface,to sound the deeper and mys

terious pools, measure the power Of the fretted waters ,and map carefully out the sandy shallows . The resulti s necessari ly a considerable l imitation in the field ofhis genius . The excitement which other wri ters findin delineating the swaying fortunes of an active career

,

he i s—I wi ll not say obliged to find,for of course the

positive capacity of his genius,not i ts incapacity for

other fields,leads him in this direction— but he is

obliged to find on ly in curious and often painfulpictures of unhealthy sentiment.Thi s i s what circles so closely the range Of Haw

thorne’s characters . They are necessarily very lim i tedboth in number and in moral attitude . We have buttwo studies

,i n his tales

,of characters with any active

bent Hol lingsworth in The Blithedale Roman ce,

and Phoebe in The House of the Seven Gables.

Both are carefully drawn,but both are far slighter

sketches,and more evidently taken from observation

484 NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE xx

social l i fe,he was one who deprecated all spasmodic

reforms,and attached little value to any reformato ry

efforts,except as the indispensable conditions of

gene rous hopes and youthful aspirations. Speakingof such an exp er iment of social reform,

he said,

“ After all,let us acknowledge it wise

,i f not more

sagacious,to follow out one’s day-dream to its natural

consummation,although

,i f the vision have been

worth the having,i t i s certain never to be co n sum

mated otherw i se than by a fai lure Again he said,

in another tale,and w ith much of true moral insight

,

though i t be the one - sided moral insight Of thequietist recluse

,

“ the haughty faith w i th which he[the enthusiastic practical reformer] began li fe w ouldbe wellbartered for a far humbler one at its close

,in

discerning that man’s best-directed effort accomplishesa kind Of dream,

while God i s the sole worker ofrealities .”

Nor should I find fault with him for hi s verydeeply-rooted conviction that

,so far as any real and

deep reform is accomplished,i t may in a certain sense

h e said to accomplish itself,instead of being forced on

soci ety by the enthusiasti c patronage of crusadingphi lanthropists

,had he but confined this theory

within modest lim its—had he not pressed i t into theserv i ce of what seems to me the grossest pol itical immorali ty. I can sympathise with him when he sofinely moralises at the end of The Blitheilale R oman ceon the dangers Of philanthropy

Admitting what is called ph ilanth ropy,when a dopted

as a profession,to be O ften useful by its energetic impulses

to society at large,it is peri lous to th e ind ividual Whose

rul ing passion,in o n e exclusive channel

,i t thus becomes.

I t ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin , th e heart, th e richjuices o f wh ich G o d never meant should be pressed vio

1x NATHAN IEL HAWTHORNE 485

len tly o ut and d isti lled into alcohol ic l iquor by an u n

natural process but should render l ife sweet,bland

,an d

gently ben eficen t,and insensibly influence other hearts

and other lives to th e same blessed en d.

”

Yet more I can even gO with him ,quite as far as h e

wishes his readers to go,when he ironically prescr ibes

a universal slumber as the one only cure for thew orld’s overstrained nerves

T h e w orld should recl ine its vast head on the firstconvenient pil low

,and take an age-long nap . It has gone

d istracted through a morbid activity,an d wh ile preter

naturally w ide awake is nevertheless tormented by visionsthat seem real to it n o w

,but w ould assume their true

aspect and character were al l th ings once set right by aninterval of sound repose . Th is is th e only method o f

getting rid Of Old delusions and avoiding n ew ones,—o f

regenerating o ur race so that it might in due time awakeas an infant o ut Ofdewy slumber

,—Of restoring to us th e

simple perception of what is right and th e single-hearteddesire to ach ieve it

,both of wh ich have long been lost in

consequence of this weary activity Of brain,and torpor or

passion of th e heart,that n ow afflict the universe

to which he characteristically added,in a different

passage of his wri tings,his o w n personal yearning fo r

a long and profound sleep of at least a thousand yearsbetween Death and R esurrection .

For none of these thoughts and sayings, howeverdepreciative Of effort

,or destructive of the sang uine

hopes w i th which effort spurs itself on, could I reproachHaw thorne. It is fitting that

,after the preacher of

one-sided action and over-strained vigilance has spoken ,this too restless age should also hear the invitation todistrust its own “ earnestness

,

” and renew its highlystrung energies by rest. Nay

,the function of the

contemplative man,who keeps clear of the many

486 NATHANI EL HAWTHORNE 1x

streams of human energy,and passes hi s soli tary

criticisms upon their tendency from some nook ofseemingly selfish retirement

,i s justified in the scheme

of Providence by the very existence of the phi lanthro pic class Of one-sided workers . But i t i s whenHaw thorne came to apply his quieti sti c creed to theactual pol itical world in which he lived

,that I find

his moral shortcomings painful ly evident,and see that

he had permitted a mere theory to confuse “ thatsimple perception Of what is right, and the singlehearted desire to achieve i t

,

” of which he speaks sowell

,as grievously as ever a professional philanthropist

was deceived by his On e dominant idea.

Little as Hawthorne was disposed to mix in thestrife of the political arena

,once at least he was not

wi lling to let that voa: p epuli in which he placed somuch confidence speak without a suggestion fromhimself. In the l ittle electioneering volume on thelife Of Frankl in Pierce, who was then (in 1852) acandidate

,and as i t proved a successful candidate

,for

the Presidency of the United S tates, HawthorneOffered his suggestion in the form Of an application ofhis theory to the subj ect Of spasmodic philanthropyas exhibited on the question of slavery. The contest

,

at the time of General Pierce’s election,turned

,as all

the contests then did,chiefly o n thi s question .

General Pierce represented the party of conci liationto the South,—the party of union at almost anysacrifice Of Northern principles. The fugitive-slavelaw had just passed

,and the high-minded politicians

of the Northern S tates were eager to get a reversalOf that disgra ceful Act. General Pierce had pledgedhim self to sustain that Act and the whole system ofwhich it was a part ; and it was Hawthorne

’s objectto justify the policy of his fr iend. After condemning

488 NATHAN I EL HAWTHORNE xx

tion,i t i s not too much to say, than had ever else

where existed betw een the taskmaster and the so rt. ! 1This i s the most immoral kind Ofpolitical fatali sm .

It i s true enough , and is O ften forgotten by philanthro pists, that men can do little enough for eachother’s highest good by any voluntary effort. Mostmen w h o undertake such efforts fall vi ctims

,not

,

perhaps,to the mistiness so much as to the narrow

definiten css“ of philanthropic theory .

” They forgetthat philanthropic tastes can only be safely humouredby those who keep constantly before the ir inmosthearts the exhortation

,

“ Physician,heal thyself. ”

But there is a wide distinction between a philanthro pic cause and a concession of the barest justi ceto th e oppressed . Measured by Hawthorne’s s tandard,there would be no criminal national custom

,how ever

oppressive,with whi ch i t would be our duty to pro

claim Open war. He might denounce the poli ticaladvocates of any such war as sacrificing the nationalpeace to the “ mistiness Of phi lanthropi c theory.

”

lVas there, then, no distinction in moral sacrednessbetween the claims Of schemes for doing good toothers

,—l ittle good Of the deeper kind as we can

do for any but ourselves,—and the duty of removing

obstructions which entirely blotted out the propervoluntary existence of other men IVas the duty ofresto ring moral freedom to a whole race to be classedas one Of the doubtful vi sionary philanthropies ofmodern times ? Is i t not Obvious that, li ttle as wemay be able to organise mutual spiritual help of th ehigher kind

,we are most fearfully competent to

organise mutual moral injury of the lowest kind,and

that slavery was one of the grandest Of diaboli cdevices for that end

L ife ofFran klin Pierce, pp. 111,112.

Ix NATHANIEL HAWTHORN E 489

I do not say that Haw thorne was bound to be ananti-slavery agitator. I do say that he prostitutedthe noblest speculative faculties

,when he attempted

to perpetuate a fearful national sin on the dishonestplea that those w h o strove to resist its extension andto lim i t i ts duration were endangering the Union forthe sake of a “ misty philanthropic theory .

”

T h e

fatalism which Hawthorne rather suggested thanadvocated in Tran sformatio n , when he presented sin asthe necessary condition of moral grow th

,received a

terrible elucidation when he calmly deprecated allimpatient criticism of the providential “ uses ofslavery as i f they were the affair of Providence alone .

In the great civi l war,his sympathies

,as might be

expected, were with the trimming Buchanans andDouglasses of the hour, not with Mr. Lincoln, ofWhom he spoke slightingly as a man incapable of truestatesmanship.

I need scarcely apologise for treating Hawthornesomething more than a mere writer Of fiction .

His writings have a very wide and justly deservedinfluence in Ameri ca ; for as a literary artist, i f notin mere rough genius

,he may safely be considered

almost the first,and quite the highest, frui t of

American culture . He himself recognised the closeconnection between the political and literary condition of nations

,i n his plea that America was too

happy,too prosperous

,too free “ from any pictur

esque and gloomy wrong,

” to be made the scene Ofaromance. Let me sum up my criti cism on his literarydeficiencies in a single sentence , by expressing myconviction , that if he had conceded less to his“ squeamish love of the beautiful

,

” i f he had cultivated a deeper sympathy with action and its responsibilities, he would not only have taken some interest

490 NAT IIANIEL H AWTHORNE Ix

in the removal of wrongs that were gloomy enough,

whether pi cturesque or not,but might have w idened

greatly the range of his artistic power,and deepened

considerably the spell Of the great fascination whichhe wielded over his countrymen.

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