Essays and Studies - Forgotten Books

ESSAYS AND STUDIES

PROSE SELECTIONS FOR COLLEGE READING’

CHOSEN AND ARRANG ED

FREDERICK M . SMITHASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENG L ISH. CORNELL UNIVERSITY

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANYBOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 5p: FRANCISCO

Eb: R ibetsib e firms Qtambribge

COPYRIGHT. 1922 , BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The selections repr inted in this book are usedbyperm issi on of and speci a l a rrangem entwith

the propri etors of thei r r espective copyr ights .

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PREFACE

IN a b ook of this kind a single name appears upon the titlepage only by a sort of custom ; for m any persons have ahand in its m ak ing . I am indebted to my publishers fo r theuse of much copyrighted material . Although due credit is

giv en in the proper places I should like to acknowledge thek indne ss of Charles Scr ib n e r ’s Sons ; Doub leday , PageCompany ; D . Appleton Company ; the Yale UniversityPress ; and The Macm illan Company in permitting me touse material of Which they control the Copyrights .To name those Who have made suggestions with regard

to the collection would be a lmost to print a directory of theEnglish Department of C orne ll University ; but am ong

those Wh o have giv en particular assistance in the choice ofsele ctions I must mention P rofe ssor J B . Re eves, of Westminster College, Missouri , and Mr . Seymour Long, Mr .

Manning Sm ith, and Profe s sor F. C. Pre scott, of Co rne ll.Mr . J H . Nelson has generously assisted me in re ading theproof. To Profe ssor Martin W. Sampson , of Co rne ll, I amindebted for adv ice and counsel on most matters connectedwith the b ook , and for pe rm ission to print his essay on

Poetry.

F.M. S.

ITHACA, N.Y.

Apri l 6, 1922

CONTENTS

BOOKS AND STUDY

OF STUDIES Francis Bacon

OF KING S’ TREASURIES John Ruskin

KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO LEARNINGJohn Henry Newman

THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATIONThom as Henry Hux ley

THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONThom as Henry Hux ley

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR Ra lph Waldo Emerson

A COLLEGE MAGAZINE RobertLouis Stevenson

TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE RobertLouis Stevenson

POETRY Ma rtin WrightSampson

THE CONDUCT OF LIFE

WHERE I LIVED, ANDWHAT I LIVED FORHenry David Thoreau

THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE John Ruskin

THE HERO AS DIVINITY Thom as Ca rlyle

E s TRIPLE! RobertLouis Stevenson

HOW TO OVERCOME THE OBSTACLES TO GOOD CITIZENSHIPJames Bryce

ABRAHAM LINCOLN Ra lph Wa ldo Emerson

A DEFIN ITION OF A GENTLEMAN John Henry Newman

THE OUTDOORS

THE SKY

ON GOIN G A JOURNEY

PHASES OF FARM LIFETHE INITIATIONA NIGHT AMONG THE PINES

A RIVER REVERIE

John Ruskin

Wi lliam Hazlitt

John Burroughs

Joseph Conrad

RobertLouis Stevenson

Lafcadio B eam

v i CONTENTS

CITIES AND MEN

OF TRAVELAN ENGLISH VILLAGEMY FIRST DAY IN THE ORIENTTOURSA VERANDA IN THE ALCAZARIA

FIFTH AVENUEPOLK STREETKNOW THYSELFTHE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTEROLD CHINA

A LITTLE GROUP

THE OLD GENTLEMANTHE OLD LADYROSALINDWOUTER VAN TWILLERTHE MICAWBERSAHAB

MRS. TOUCHETT

DofiA RITATHE MISERMR . HASTINGSBOSWELLTENNYSON

BOERHAAVE

Franci s BaconTichh ar Edwa rdes

Lafcadio Hea rn

Henry James

F. Hopkinson Sm i th

Frederick M Sm i th

Frank Narm'

s

Samuel Johnson

Cha rles Lam b

Cha rles Lam b

INTERESTING PEOPLE

Leigh Hunt

Le igh Hunt

Anna Jam ason

Washington Irm'

ng

Cha rles Dickens

Herm an Melville

Henry Jam es

Joseph Conrad

Fr ank Narm'

s

William Gi lpinThom as Ca r lyle

Thom as Ca r lyle

Samuel Johnson

AN E ! PLANATION

THE m an who presum es to add another to the myriad booksintended to aid the college student in his writing and readingmust, of course, preface his attem pt with an explanation ifnot with an apo logy . This is an e xplanation : it is addresse dparticularly to tho se who are inte re sted in the prob lem of

freshm an English and it tells how we have tried to solv ei t in Cornell University. Reduced to its sim plest terms theprob lem is, I take it, to teach young folk to think clearly, toWrite simple and correct English, and to like good boo ks .Like all others who have sought a solution we have made

many experim ents ; and it would be fair to say that we havenot had much success with those formal books on rhetoric orcom position designe d to lead the student gently but firm lyfrom description through exposition to narrative and argument ; books which, while laying down a multitude of rulesfor his guidance, seek to persuade him that writing is a delightful task. Many of these treatises are excellent, and canbe used to good purpose by m en who be lieve in them . Butthe very fact that there are so m any shows that no one is a ltogether satisfactory, shows what variety of Opinion thereis on this difficult m atter of te aching com position . And weall know that one man will have success with one method,and another with a system quite diffe rent . This suggestswhy, in a course handled by twenty or more instructors, wehave thought it better to give a ce rtain liberty to the teacher.Fo r , on the whole, we have come to belie ve that the be stway to teach compo sition is to le ad the student to read agood deal and to write a good deal . In supervising thewritten work it is for the instructor to emphasize a few

v iii AN E! PLANATION

fundamental rules, and to make further suggestions to suitindividual cases, referring repeatedly to some very simplemanual like Strunk’s Elem ents of Style .

It should be understood, then, that our freshm an coursecombines literature and com po sition . And while we arequite aware of the many fine things in modern pro se, we areso o ld-fashioned as to believe that such tried books as, say,the Bible and Shakespeare, give sounder training than themo st up-to-date of week ly periodicals . So , in the course ofthe year, the student studies the Bible and Shakespeare,and The Golden Tr ea sury and Browning and one o r two ofthe greater novelists . And, at the very outset, he has in hishands a v olume of selected e ssays which is in tended as aninduction to the study of English.

In assembling some e ssays fo r such use we have had twosorts in mind : first, essays which can be used in part o r inwhole as models ; second, essays which will stim ulate thestudent’s interest in books, and give him ideas about life.It is the happy thing about good literature that it willnearly always serve both purposes .Le tme speak fir st of the prose as it is intended to help thewriter. In his com positions he will , naturally, in the beginn ing, struggle wi th th e eternal character sketch and thefam iliar description . Why, indeed, should he not, so longas he deals with subjects ne ar to his own interests and ex

pe r ie nce ? If, then , he is aske d to portray a queer character,to write a description o f his own town or v illage, to tell thesto ry of a liv ely holiday, o r to discuss som e simple prob lemof his college l ife, it is wo r th while to send him to som e bit o fpro se on a sim ilar subject, by a traine d writer : this w ill suggest words and m ethod . When he is learning the moretechnical things about composition to outline an essay,to construct an argument, to arrange paragraphs so thatthey will fit into a nice and forcible whole he gets present

AN E! PLANATION ix

help by a careful study of the work ofmen who are clear andlogical .With the intention of providing such models we have in

cluded many descriptive sketches, character pieces, anddram atic bits, besides longer and more important essaysthat lend themselves to analysis . Fo r outdoor descriptionhe may go , among others, to Burroughs and Stevenson andConrad ; for city and village, to Norris and Henry James andHearn ; fo r construction , to Ruskin, Newm an and Hux ley.

This much for mere technique for essays which serveas models and enrich the stude nt’s somewhat meager vocabulary. Q uite apart from making h im read fo r expression

’ssake, we must, if such a thing is possible, waken his interestin books, and induce him to read for the pur e joy of reading :and we m ust direct his thoughts a little to the problems ofhis own life as a worker and a citizen . More than all wemust hope to inspire him with the unshakable belief thatlife is a thoughtful man’s job that must be faced cheerfullyand courageously.

These im portant things have very much guided the selection . We want first to prove to youth the value of readingRuskin’s “Of Kings’ Treasuries is a very clear appeal ; itshows the real riches in books, and how one must earn hisway to their treasures . Bacon enlarge s the View of studiesand suggests their practical value ; while Newm an andEm erson state the case fo r libe ral study from two points ofView that of an English scholar and a cleric, and that of aman nearer to our common life, a thinker and an American.

Hux ley speaks as a scientist . Professor Sam pson’s essaywas written to help the student to an unde rstanding of thevalue of poetry in life a thing that cannot be too m uchstressed in this day of m achinery and clam ant business.If there are a good many outdoor essays, it is not m erely

that they shall serve as models of description, but because

1: AN E! PLANATION

we believe there is real cultural value in the outdoors ; andthat perhaps Burroughs and Thoreau will open the reader’seyes to the charm of his own coun tryside and the poetry ofsim ple living ; o r that Conrad will inspire h im with a sense ofthe beauty and m ystery of the wide sea, and the natur alUniverse .But, when all is said, the chief business of books is to illus

trate human nature . Most students are interested in people, whether those friendly persons who are m e t in historyand novels and plays, o r in real folk who go up and down inthe world . They will do a good deal of writing about thesedifferent people ; and to help them in observing, to givethem a wider outlook, we have introduced a few of the morepersonal essays, and have hung a group of little portraits bymaster painte rs like Dickens and Melville and Leigh Hunt.Last and this m ost im portant of all we have tospeak of m aterial which touches somewhat the conduct oflife . Here we have grouped a few notable essays that, exce llent as lite rature, stress som e of the cardinal virtues .One reads Stevenson and is confirm ed in courage and faithone hears Thore au’s insistent call for simplicity . Em ersonis stur dily individual and Am e rican . Ruskin says in no uncertain tones that obedience to law either in art, or literature, or morals, is one of the foundat i on stones in any tem pleof righteousness . In “

How to Overcom e the Obstaclesto G ood Citizenship

” Jam es Bryce deals with some of thedifficultie s that confront the m odern citizen.

If I have made clear what we have tried to do, the reasonfo r the inclusion of every selection should be plain. Thegrouping, which is som ewhat loose, is only intended to makea little more defin ite the plan I have outlined .

There is a feeling just now very prevalent and noisythat colleges should keep upwith the tim es . And keepingup with the times means, to some apparently, that we must

AN E! PLANATION x i

discard all the old and tried lite ratur e, study newspapers,write “movie ” scenarios, and em brace the schemes of everygentleman who has a new fancy in education if so be he cancall it by a fine name . This is, of course, very exciting ; butmay it not also be a little supe rficia l and premature? Le t

me not be misunderstood. Keeping up with the tim es,testing new ideas fo r their truth o r falsity, is the excellentand main duty of a young man in the world ; but no youngman can make tests without standards ; o r , to put it in thepleasant vernacular of our environment, no man can jumpwith any certainty of landing unless he has a firm take—off.

It is the business of the college to show the students the oldand the good that they may go on to welcome and to makethings new and good . To follow a thing merely because it isnew is to be like the valetudinarian who tries every patentmedicine that is advertised . Standards standards of

taste, of right thinking, of ethics these our young menand women must get somehow if they are to make good citizens ; for good citizenship im plies something more than mereenthusiasm . For many ar dent reformers seem to overlookthe fact that the way, and the only way, to make good citizens is first to make good m en .

The world has not changed in fundamentals despite theUpheaval it has suffe red, and the sad face of it at present.If it is to be saved it will not be by the search for new andstrange Virtues, but by the practice of the old. Courageand honesty, unse lfishne ss and faith, charity and commonsense must still be the great stones of which we make ourfoundation .

“Taste,” said Goethe to Eckermann, 18 only to be edu

cated by contem plation, not of the tolerably good, but ofthe truly excellent . I therefore show you only the bestworks, and when you are grounded in these you will have astandard for the rest, which you will know how to value

x ii AN E! PLANATION

without overrating them . And I show you the best in eachclass, that you may perceive that no class is to be despised,but that each gives delight when a man of genius attain s thehighest point .It is because we believe this that we include in our first

year course the great English classics already mentioned.

In this book of essays, however, there are presented somevery modern writers (and som e few of these are masters) ;for it is obvious that there are many reasons for acquaintingstudents with some of the writing of their own time . Butthere is also a great weight of prose that has been triedby more than one generation and found good. The oldermen will not, on the whole, suffer by the comparison .

“We

are mighty fine fellows, nowadays, says Stevenson, butwe cannot write like Hazlitt.” We cannot, indeed, norlike Bacon, nor like Newm an, nor like Ruskin. And wemake no mistake in giving to such men the greatest space .Only by the study of great writers are we ourselves madeto strive fo r mastery.

ESSAYS AND STUDIES

OF STUDIES

FRANCIS BACON1561—1626

OF Studies, and OfTrav e l”(page 256) are from that se ries of ob se rv a

tions on life and cha racte r pub lished in 1597, and known as“Bacon

’

s Es

says.”Bacon

’

s work repays study ; he is a m ode l of concis ion and point ;his constant use of antithe sis o ften g iv e s a fine b a lance to h is sentence s, andmuch of h is prose is m ade b eautiful by an ev en m ore sub tle rhythm .

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.

Their chief use for delight is in privateness and re tiring ; forornament, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business . For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one but thegeneral counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs,come best from those that are learned . To spend too muchtime in studies is sloth ; to use them too much for ornamentis affecta tion ; to make judgement wholly by their rules isthe humour of the scholar. They perfect nature, and areperfected by experience ; fo r natural abilities are like naturalplants , that need proyning by study ; and studies themselvesdo give forth directions too much at large, except they bebounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies ;simple men admire them ; and wise men use them : for theyteach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom without themand above them , won by observation . Read not to contradict and confute ; nor to believe and take for granted ; nor tofind talk and discourse ; but to weigh and consider. Somebooks are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some

2 BOOKS AND STUDY

few to be ch ewed and digested : that is, some books are to beread only in parts ; others to be read, but not cur iously ; andsom e few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention . Som e books also may be read by deputy, and extractsmade of them by others ; but that would be only in the lessimportant arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; elsedistilled books are like common distilled waters, flashythings . Reading maketh a full man ; conference a readyman ; and writing an exact m an . And therefore, if a manwrite little, he had need have a great memory ; if he conferlittle, he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little, hehad need have much cunning, to seem to know that he dothnot. Histories make m e n wise ; poets witty ; the mathematicssubtile ; natural philosophy deep ; moral grave ; logic andrhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studi a in m ores. Nay,

there is no stond o r impediment in the wit but may bewrought out by fit studies : like as diseases of the body mayhave appropriate exercises . Bowling is good for the stoneand reins ; shooting for the lungs and breast ; gentle walkingfor the stomach ; riding for the head ; and the like: So if aman’s wit be wandering, let him study the m athematics ; forin demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little,he must begin again . If his wit be not apt to distinguish o rfind differences, let him study the schoolmen ; for they arecym im

’

sector es . If he be not apt to beat over matters, andto call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let himstudy the lawyers’ cases. So eve ry defect of the mi nd mayhave a special rece ipt.

OF KINGS’

TREASURIES 1

JOHN RUSKIN1819-1900

THIS is a part of the first of two lecture s wh ich appe ared unde r the titleSesam e and Li lies in 1865. Pro foundly inte re sted in a rt and life , particularly in the life of the wo rk ing-m a n, Rusk in wrote and lectured m uch on

the se sub jects. Modern P a inters, The Seven Lamps of Architectur e, TheStones of Ven ice, Tim e and Tide, Fon Clam

’

ger a , and P r cete r ita are am ongh is impo rtant bo ok s.

You sha ll e ach hav e a cak e of se sam e , and ten pound.

LUCIAN : The Fisherm an

1. MY fir st duty this evening is to ask your pardon fo r theambiguity of title under which the subject of lecture hasbeen announced : for indeed I am not going to talk of kings,known as regnant, nor of treasuries, understood to containwealth ; but of quite another order of royalty, and anothermaterial of riches, than those usually acknowledged . I hadeven intended to ask your attention fo r a little while ontrust, and (as sometim es one contrives, in taking a friend tosee a favorite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted mostto show, with such im perfect cunning as I might, until weunexpectedly reached the best point of View by windingpaths . But and as also I have heard it said, by menpractised in public addre ss, that hearers are never so muchfatigued as by the endeavor to follow a Speaker who givesthem no clue to his purpose I will take the slight mask offat once, and tell you plainly that I want to speak to youabout the treasures hidden in books ; and about the way we

1 Fo r th is e ssay the te x t o f The Riv e r side Lite ra ture Se r ie s editionis used. The paragraph num b e r ing is re ta ined to a id the student inanalysis.

4 BOOKS AND STUDY

find them, and the way we lose them . A grave subject, youwill say ; and a wide one ! Yes ; so wide that I shall make noeffort to touch the compass of it. I will try only to bringbefore you a few sim ple thoughts about reading, whichpress themselves upon me every day more deeply, as Iwatch the course of the public mind with respect to our

daily enlarging means of education ; and the answeringlyWider spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of literature .

2. It happens that I have practically some connectionwith schools for difl’e rent classes of youth ; and I re ceivemany letters from parents respecting the education of theirchildren. In the m ass of these letters I am always struck bythe precedence which the idea of a “pos ition in life ” takesabove all other thoughts in the parents’ more especiallyin the mothers’ minds . “The education b efitting suchand such a station in life ” this is the phrase, this the obje ct, always . 3They never seek, as far as I can make out, aneducation good in itself ; even the conception of abstractrightness in training rarely seems reached by the writers.But, an education whi ch shall keep a good coat on my son

’sback ; which shall enable him to ring with confidence theVisitors’ bell at double-belled doors ; which shall re sult ultimately in the establishment of a double-belled door to hisown house ; in a word, which shall lead to advancement inlife ; this we pray for on bent kn ees and this is all wepray for.” It never seems to occur to the parents thatthere may be an education which, in itself, is advancementin Life ; that any other than that may perhaps be ad

vancem ent in Death ; and that this essential educationmight be more easily got, o r given, than they fancy, if theyset about it in the right way ; while it is for no price, and byno favor, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong.

3. Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effectivein the mind of this busiest of countries, I suppose the first

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

6 BOOKS AND STUDY

The clergyman does not usually want to be made a bishoponly be cause he believes that no other hand can, as firm ly ashis, direct the diocese thro ugh its difficultie s . He wants tobe made bishop prim arily that he may be called

“MyLord .

”And a prince does not usually desire to enlarge, o r a

subject to gain, a kingdom , because he believes that no oneelse can as well serve the State, upon its throne ; but, b r iefly,

because he wishes to be addressed as YourMaje sty, by asmany lips as may be brought to such utterance.5. This, then, being the main idea of

“ advancement inlife, the force of it applies, for all of us, according to oursta tion , particularly to that se condary result of such ad

vancem ent which we call ge tting into good society .

” Wewant to get into good society not that we may have it, butthat we m ay be seen in it ; and our notion of its goodnessdepends prim ar i ly on its conspicuousness .Will you pardon me if I pause for a mom ent to put what I

fear you m ay think an im pertinent question ? I neve r cango on with an address unless I feel, or know, that my audience are either with me o r ag ainst me : I do not much carewhich, in beginning ; but I must know where they are ; and Iwould fain find out, at this instant, whether you think I amputting the m otives of popular action too low. I am re

solved, to—night, to state them low enough to be admitted asprobable ; for whenever, in m y writings on Political Econom y , I assum e that a little honesty, o r generosity o r

what use d to be called “virtue m ay be calculated uponas a hum an mo tive of action , people always answer m e , saying, You m ust not calculate on tha t : that is not in hum annature : you m ust not assum e anything to be com m on tom en but acquisitive ness and jealousy ; no other fe eling e ve rhas influe nce on them, except accidentally, and in m attersout of the way of business .” I begin, accordingly, to-nightlow in the scale of motives ; but I must know if you think me

OF KINGS’ TREASURIES 7

right in doing so . Therefore, let me ask those who admitthe love of praise to h e usually the strongest motive in men

’sminds in seeki ng advancem ent, and the honest desire of

doing any kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one , tohold up their hands . (A bout a dozen hands held up the

audience , partly, not being sur e the lectur er i s ser i ous, and,

partly, shy of expressing opinion .) I am quite serious Ireally do want to know what you think ; however, I canjudge by putting the reverse question . Will tho se whothink that duty is generally the fir st, and love of praise thesecond, motive, hold up their hands ? (One hand r eported toha ve been held up, behind the lectur e r .) Very good : I see youare with me, and that you think I have not begun too nearthe ground . Now , without teasing you by putting fartherquestion, I venture to assume that you will adm it duty as atleast a secondary or tertiary motive . You think that thedesire of doing something useful, o r obtaining some realgood, is indeed an existent collate ral idea, though a secondary one , in most men

’s desire of advancement . You willgrant that moderately honest men desire place and otfice , atleast in some measure, for the sake of b eneficent power ;and would wish to associate rather with sensible and wellinformed persons than with fools and ignorant persons,Whether they are seen in the company of the sensible ones o rnot . And fina lly, without being troubled by repetition of

any common truism s about the preciousness of friends, andthe influence of com panions, you will adm i t, doubtless, thataccording to the sincerity of our des ire that our friends maybe true, and our companions wise, and in proportion tothe earnestness and discretio n with which we choose both,will be the general chances of o ur happiness and useful

ness6 . But granting that we had both the will and the sense

to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power ! o r ,

8 BOOKS AND STUDY

at least, how limi ted, for most, is the sphere of choice !Nearly all our associations are de termined by chance, o r

necessity ; and restricted within a narrow circle. We cannotknow whom we would ; and those whom we know, we cannothave at our side when we m ost need them . All the highercircles of human intelligence are, to those beneath, onlym om e nta r ily and partial!y open . We may, by good fortune ,obtain a glimpse o f a great poe t, and hear the sound of hisvoice ; o r put a question to a man o f science, and be an

swe red good hum o redly. We may intrude ten minutes’ talkon a cabinet minister, answered probably with words worsethan s ilence, being deceptive ; o r snatch, once o r twice in ourlives, the privile ge of throwing a bouquet in the path of aprincess, o r arresting the kind glance o f a queen . And yetthese mom entary chances we covet ; and spend our years,and passions, and powers in pursuit of little more than these ;while, meantime, there is a society, continually open to us,o f people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever ourrank o r occupation ; talk to us in the best words they canchoose, and o f the things nearest their hearts . And thissocie ty, be cause it is so num erous and so ge ntle, and can bekept waiting round us a ll day long, kings and state sm enlinge ring patiently, no t to grant audience, but to gain it !in those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves, we make no account o f that com pany,perhaps never listen to a wo rd they would say, all day long !7. You may tell m e , perhaps, o r think within yourselves,

that the apathy with which we regard this com pany of thenoble, who are praying us to listen to them ; and the passion with which we pursue the company, probably of theignoble,wh o despise us, o r who have nothing to teach us , aregrounded in this , that we can se e the faces o f the livingmen, and it i s them selv es , and no t their sayings, with whichwe desire to become fam iliar. But it is not so . Suppose


you never were to see their faces suppose you could beput behind a screen in the statesman’s cabinet, or theprince’s cham ber, would you not be glad to listen to theirwords. though you were forbidden to advance beyond thescreen ? And when the screen is only a little less, folded intwo instead of four, and you can be hidden behind the coverof the two boards that bind a book, and listen all day long,not to the casual talk,but to the studied , determined, chosenaddresses of the wisest of men ; this station of audience,and honorable privy council, you despise !8. But perhaps you will say that it is because the living

people talk of things that are passing, and are of immediateinterest to you, that you desire to hear them . Nay ; thatcannot be so , for the living people will them selves tell youabout passing matters, much better in their writings than intheir careless talk. But I admit that this motive does influe nce you, so far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeralwritings to slow and enduring writings books , properlyso called. Fo r all books are divisible into two classes : thebooks of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark thisdistinction it is not one of quality only. It is notmerelythe bad book that does not last, and the good one that does.It is a distinction of species . There are good books for thehour, and good ones for all tim e ; bad books fo r the hour, andbad ones for all time . I must define the two kinds before I

go farther.9. The good book of the hour, then, I do not speak of

the bad ones, - is simply the use ful o r pleasant talk o f

some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with,printed fo r you. Very useful often , telling you what youneed to know ; very pleasant ofte n, as a sensible friend

’spresent talk would b e . These bright accounts of travels ;good-humored and witty discussions of question ; lively o r

pathetic story-telling in the form of novel ; firm fact-telling,

10 BOOKS AND STUDY

by the real agents concerned in the events ofpassing history ;all these books of the ho ur, multiplying among us as edu

cation becom es m ore general, are a peculiar possession of the

present age : we ought to be entirely thankful for them, andentirely ashame d of ourselv es if we make no good use ofthem . But we m ake the worst possible use if we allowthem to usurp the place of true books : for, strictly speaking,they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers ingood print. Our friend’s letter m ay be delightful, o r ne ce ssary, to-day : whether worth keeping o r not, is to be considered . The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfasttime, but assur edly it is not reading for a ll day. So , thoughbound up in a volum e, the long letter which gives you sopleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weathe r lastyear at such a place, o r which tells you that amusing story,o r gives you th e real circum stances of such and such events,however valuable for occa sion al reference, may not b e , inthe real sense of the word, a “book

” at all , nor in the realsense, to be

“ read. A book is essentially not a talkedthing, but a written thi ng ; and written not with a View of

m e re commun ication, but of permanence. The book of

talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once ; if he could, he would the volumeis mere m ultiplication of his voice . You cannot talk toyour friend in India ; if you could, you would ; you write instead : that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely,but to perpetuate it. The author h as som ething to sayWhich he perceives to be true and useful, o r helpful ly beautiful . So far as he knows, no one has ye t said it so far as heknows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearlyand melodiously if h e may ; clearly, at all events . In thesum of his life h e finds this to be the thing , o r group of

things,manifest to him ; this, the piece of true knowledge

,


o r sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has perm itted him to seize . He would fain set it down forever ; e ngrave it on rock, if he could ; saying, This is the best ofme ;for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated,like another ; my life was as the vapor, and is not ; but this Isaw and knew : this if anything of m ine, is worth your memo ry .

” That is his “writing ” ; i t is, in his small hum an way,and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, hisinscription, o r scripture . That is a

“Book .

”

10 . Perhaps you think no books were ever so written ?But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, o rat all in kindness ? o r do you think there is never any honesty o r benevolence in wise people ? None of us, I hope, areso unhappy as to think that . Well, whatever bit of a wiseman’s work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit ishis book, o r his piece of art. It is mixed always with evilfragm ents ill-done, redundant, affected work. But if youread rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and thosear e the book.

11. Now , books of this kind have been written in all agesby their greatest m en , by great readers, great statesm en,and great thinkers . These are all at your choice ; and Lifeis short. You have heard as m uch before ; yet, have youmeasured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities ? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot readthat that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow ? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, o r yourstable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings ; o rflatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousne ss ofyour own claim s to respect, that you jostle with the hungryand common crowd for entr e

’

e here, and audience there,when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with itssocie ty, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days , thechosen, and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that

12 BOOKS AND STUDYA

you may enter always ; in that you m ay take fellowship andrank according to your wish ; from that, once entered into it,you can neve r be an outcast but by your own faul t ; by youraristocracy of com panio nship there, your own inherentaristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives withwhich you strive to ta ke high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are inthem, by the place you desire to take in this company of the

Dead .

12. The place you desire, and the place youfityourselffor , I must also say ; because, observe, this court of the pastdiffers from all living aristocracy in this it is Open tolabor and to m erit, but to nothing else . No wealth willbribe, no nam e overawe, no a rtifice deceive, the guardian ofthose Elysian gates . In the deep sense, no Vile o r vulgarperson ever enters there . At the portieres of that silentFaubourg St. Germain , there is but brief question :

“Do you

deserve to enter ? Pass . Do you ask to be the companiono f nobles ? Make yourself noble, and you shall b e . Do you

long for the conversation of the wise ? Learn to understandit, and you shall hear it. But on other terms ? no . If

you will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The livinglord may assum e courtesy, the living philosopher explain histhought to you with con siderate pain ; but here we neitherfeign nor interpre t ; you must rise to the level of our thoughtsif you would be gladdened by them , and share our feelings ifyou would recognize our presence .”

13. This, then, i s what you have to do , and I admit thatit is m uch . You m ust, in a word, love these people, if youare to be among them . No am bition is of any use. Theyscorn your am bition . You must love them, and show yourlove in these two fo llowing ways .I. First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to

enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs, obse rve ;


14 BOOKS AND STUDY

When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself,“Am I inclined to work as an Australian m iner would ? Are

m y pickaxe s and shovels in good orde r, and am I in goodtrim m yse lf, m y sleeves well up to the e lbow, and my breathgo od, and my tem per ?

”And, ke eping the figure a little

longer, even at co st of tiresom eness, for it is a thoroughlyuseful one, the m etal you are in se arch of being the author’smind o r m eaning, his words are as the rock which you haveto crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxesare your own care, wit, and learning ; your sm elting furnaceis your own thoughtful soul . Do not h 0pe to get at anygood author’s m eaning without those tools and that fire ;often you will need sharpest, fine st chiselling, and patientestfusing, before you can gather one grain of the m etal .15. And, therefore, fir st of all, I tell you earnestly and

autho ritatively (I know I am right in this) , you must getinto the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuringyourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable nay, letterby letter . For though it is only by reason of the oppositionof letters in the function of signs, to sounds in the functiono f signs, that the study of books is called “ literature,” andthat a m an versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, aman of letters instead of a man o f books, o r of words, youm ay yet connect with that accidental nom enclature thisreal fact, that you m ight read all the books in the BritishMuseum (ii you could live long enough) , and rem ain an utte r ly

“ illiterate,” uneducated person ; but that if you read

ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, that is to say,with real accuracy, you are foreverm ore in som e measurean educated person . The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the m ere ly intellectual

par t of it) consists in this accuracy. A we ll—e ducated gentlem a n m ay no t know many languages, may not be ableto speak any but his own, may have read very few books.


But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely ;whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly ; aboveall, he is learned in the peer age ofwords ; knows the words oftrue descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words ofmodern canaille ; rem embers all their ancestry, the ir intermarriages, distant relationsh ips, and the extent to whichthey were admitted, and office s they held, am ong the nationa l noblesse of words at any time, and in any country.

But an uneducated person may know, by memory, manylanguages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not aword of any, not a word even of his own . Ah ordinarilyc lever and sensible seaman will be able to make his wayashore at m ost ports ; yet he has only to Speak a sentence ofany language to be known for an illiterate person ; so alsothe accent, o r turn of expression of a single sentence, will atonce mark a scholar . And this is so strongly felt, so conclusiv e ly admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent o ra mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliam ent of any civilized nation, to assign to a m an a certain degree of inferiorstanding forever .16 . And this is right ; but it is a pity that the accuracy

insisted on i s not greater, and required to a serious purpose.It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a sm ilein the House of Comm ons ; but it is wrong that a false English m ean ing should notexcite a frown there . Let the accentof words be watched, and closely ; let their meaning bewatched m ore closely still, and fewer will do the work. A

few words, well chosen and distinguished, will do work thata thousand cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, inthe function of another. Yes ; and words , if they are notwatched, will do deadly work som etim es . There aremasked words droning and skulking about us in Europe justnow (the re never we re so many, owing to the spread of ashallow, blotching, blundering, infectious inform ation,

”o r

16 BOOKS AND STUDY

rather deformation, everywhere, and to the teaching of

catechism s and phrases at schools instead of human meanings) there are masked words abroad, I say, which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and mostpeople will also fight for, live fo r , o r even die for, fancyingthey mean this o r that, o r the o ther, of things dear to them :

for such words wear chameleon cloaks “ ground-lion ”

cloaks, of the color of the ground of any man’s fancy : onthat ground they lie in wait, and rend him with a springfrom it. There never were creatures of prey so mischievous,never diplom atists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, asthese masked words ; they are the unjust stewards of allm en’s ideas :whatever fancy o r favorite instinct a man mostcherishes, he gives to his favorite masked word to take careo f fo r him ; the word at last come s to have an infin ite powerover him, you cannot get at him but by its ministry.

17. And in languages so mongrel in breed as the English,there is a fatal power of equivocation put into men’s hands,almost whether they will o r no, in being able to use Greek orLatin words for an idea when they want it to be awful ; andSaxon o r otherwise com m on words when they want it to bevulgar. What a singular and salutary effect, for instance ,would be produced on the minds of people who are in thehabit of taking the Form of the Word they live by, for the

Power of which that Word tells them , if we always eitherretained, o r refused, the Greek form

“biblos,”o r

“b ib lion ,

”

as the right expression for “book ” instead of employingit only in the one instance in which we wish to give dignityto the idea, and translating it into English everywhere else .How wholesome it would be for many sim ple persons if, insuch place s (for instance) as Acts xix. 19, we retained theGreek expression, instead of translating it, and they hadto read “Many of them also which used curious arts,brought their bibles together, and burnt them before all


men : and they counted the price of them, and found it fiftythousand pie ces of silver ” ' Or ii , on the other hand, wetranslated where we retain it, and always spoke of

“ theHoly Book,

” instead of “Holy Bible,” it might come into

more heads than it does at present, that the Word of G od,by which the heavens were, of old, and by which they arenow kept in store, cannot be made a present of to anybodyin morocco binding, nor sown on any wayside by help eitherof steam plough or steam press ; but is nevertheless beingoffered to us daily, and by us with contumely refused ; andsown in us daily, and by us, as instantly as may b e , choked .

18. So , again, consider what effect has be en produced onthe English vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous Latinform “damno,

” in translating the Greek x a Ta /cpi’

vw, when

people charitably wish to make it forcible ; and the sub stitution of the temperate condemn for it, when they chooseto keep it gentle ; and what notable sermons have beenpreached by illiterate clergymen on

“He that believeth

not shall be damned ” ; though they would shrink with horror from translating Heb . xi . 7,

“The saving of his house,by which he dam ned the world,

”o r John viii . 10 —11,

Woman, hath no man dam ned thee ? She saith, N0 man,Lord . Jesus answe red her, Neithe r do I dam n thee : go , andsin no more .” And divisions in the mind of Europe, whichhave cost seas of blood, and in the defence of which thenoblest souls of m e n have been cast away in frantic desolation, countless as forest leaves, though, in the heart ofthem , founded on deeper causes, have nevertheless beenrendered practically possible, mainly, by the Europeanadoption of the Greek word for a public meeting, “ecclesia,

”

to give peculiar respectability to such meetings, when heldfo r religious purposes ; and other collateral equivocations,such as the vulgar English one of using the word “priest ” asa contraction for “presbyter.”

18 BOOKS AND STUDY

19. Now, in order to de al with words rightly, this is thehabit you m ust fo rm . Nearly every word in your languagehas been first a word of som e other language of Saxon,G erm an, French, Latin, or Greek (not to speak of Easternand prim itive dialects) . And m any wo rds have been allthese ; that is to say, have be en G re ek fir st, Latin next,French or G erman next, and English last : undergoing a certain change of sense and use on the lips of each nation ; butretaining a deep vital meaning, which all good scholars feelin employing them , even at this day . If you do not knowthe Greek alphabet, learn it young or old girl o r boywhoever you may b e , if you think of reading seriously

(which, of course, implies that you have som e leisure atcom m and) , learn your Greek alphab et ; then get good dictiona r ie s of all these languages, and whene ver you are indoubt about a word, hunt it down patiently. Read Ma x

Muller’s lectures thoroughly, to begin with ; and, after that,nev er let a word escape you that looks suspicious . It issevere work ; but you will find it, even at fir st, interesting,and at last, endlessly amusing . And the general gain toyour char acter, in power and precision, will be quite incalculab le .

Mind, this does not im ply kn owing, or trying to know,

Greek, or Latin, or French . It takes a whole life to learnany language perfectly . But you can easily ascertain themeanings through which the English word has passed ; andthose which in a good writer’s work it m ust still bear .20 . And now, m erely for exam ple

’s sake, I will, with yourpermission , re ad a few lines of a true bo ok with you carefully ; and see what will com e out of them . I wil l takea book perfe ctly known to you all . No English wordsare mo re fam iliar to us, yet few perhaps have been readwith less sincerity . I will take these few following lines ofLycidas .


Last cam e , and last did go ,The Pilo t of the G a lile a n lak e .

Two m a ssy k eys he b o re o f m e tals twa in(The go lde n ope s, the iro n shuts am a in) .He sho ok h is m itred lock s, a nd stem b e spak e :

‘How we ll could I hav e spa r ed fo r the e , young Swa in,Anow of such a s, fo r the ir b e llie s’ sake ,Creep, and intrude , and clim b into the fold!Oi o the r ca re they little re ckon ing m ak e

Tha n how to scram b le a t the sh e a re rs’ fe ast,

And sho v e away the wor thy b idden gue st .Blind m onths ! tha t sca rce them se lv es know how to hold

A she ep-hook , o r ha v e le a rned aught e lse the le a stTha t to th e fa ithful He rdm an

’

s a rt b e longs !

Wha t re ck s it them ? Wha t ne ed they ? They are sped

And wh en they list, the ir le an and flashy songs

G ra te on the ir scranne l pipe s o f wre tched straw ;The hungry she eplook up, and are not fed,

But swo ln with wind and the rank m ist they draw.

Rot inwa rdly, and foul contag ion spre ad;

Be side s wha t the gr im Wo lf w ith pr ivy pawDa ily de v our s apace , and noth ing sa id.

’

Le t us think over this passage, and examine its words .First, i s it not singular to find Milton assigning to St.

Peter, not only his full episcopal function, but the verytypes of i t which Protestants usually refuse most passionately? His

“mitred ” locks ' Milton was no bishop-lover ;how comes St. Peter to be m itre d “Two massy keys hebore Is this, then, the power of th e keys claim ed by theBishops of Rom e, and is it acknowledged here by Miltononly in a poetical license, fo r the sake of its picturesqueness,that he may get the gleam of the golden keys to help hise ffect ?Do not think it. Great men do not play stage tricks

with the do ctrines of life and death : only little men do that .Milton means what he says ; and m eans it with his m ight toois going to put the whole strength o f his spirit presently

into the saying of it. Fo r though not a lover of false bishops,he was a lover of true ones ; and the Lake-pilot is here, in his

20 BOOKS AND STUDY

thoughts, th e type and head of true episcopal power. Fo r

Milton reads that text, I will give unto thee the keys of thekingdom of Heaven,

” quite honestly. Puritan though heb e , he would not blo t it out of the book because there havebeen bad bishops ; nay, in order to understand him , we mustunderstand that verse first; i t will not do to eye it askance,o r whisper it under our breath, as if it were a weapon of ana dverse sect. It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply tobe kept in mind by all sects . But perhaps we shall be betterable to reason on it if we go on a little farther, and comeback to it. Fo r clearly this m arked insistence on the powero f the true episcopate is to make us feel more weightilywhat is to be charged against the false claimants of episcopate ; o r generally, against false claimants ofpower and rankin the body of the clergy : they who,

“for their bellies’ sake,

creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold .

”

21. Never think Milton uses those three words to fill uphis verse, as a loose writer would . He needs all the three ;specially those three , and no more than those

“ cree p,”

and intrude,” and “ climb no other words would o r could

serve the turn , and no more could be added . Fo r they e x i

haustiv e ly comprehend the three classes, correspondent tothe three characters, ofmen who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who

“ creep into the fold ; who donot care for office , nor name, but for secret influence , and doall things occultly and cunningly, consenting to any servilityof otfice or conduct, so only that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct, the minds ofmen . Then thosewho “ intrude ” (thrust, that is) themselves into the fold,who by natural inso lence of heart, and stout eloquence oftongue, and fearlessly perseverant self—assertion, obtainhearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly,those who climb ,

”wh o , by labor and learning, both stout

and sound, but se lfishly exerted in the cause of their own


22 BOOKS AND STUDY

that back street, Bill and Nancy, knocking each other’steeth out ! Does the bishop know all about it? Ha s hehis eye upon them ? Ha s he had his eye upon them ? Canhe circum stantially explain to us how Bill got into the habitof beating Nancy about the head ? If he cannot, he is nobishop, though he had a m itre as high as Salisbury steeple ;he is no bishop, he has sought to be at the helm insteado f the mast-head ; he has no s ight of things .

“Nay,” you

say,“it is not his duty to look after Bill in the back street .”

What ! the fat sheep that have full fle e ce s you think it isonly tho se he should look after, while (go back to your Milton)

“ the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, besideswhat the grim Wolf, with privy paw

”

(bishops kn owingnothing about it) , daily devour s apace, and nothing said

”P

“But that ’s not our idea of a bishop .

” Pe rhaps not ; butit was St. Paul’s ; and it was Milton

’s . They may be right,or we may b e ; but we must not think we are reading eitherone or the other by putting our meaning into their words .23. I go ou .

“But swoln with wind and the rank m ist they draw.

This is to meet the vulgar answer that if the poor are notlooked afte r in their bodies, they are in their souls ; they haveSpiritual food .

”

And Milton says, They have no such thing as spiritualfood ; they are only swollen with wind .

”At fir st you may

think that is a coarse type, and an obscur e one. But again,it is a quite literally accurate one . Take up your Latin andGreek dictionarie s, and find out the meaning of

“Spirit .

It is on ly a contraction of th e Latin word “breath, and anindistinct translation of the Gre e k word for “wind .

”The

same word is used in writing, “The wind bloweth where itlisteth ” ; and in writing,

“So is every one that is born of th e

Spirit born of the breath, that is ; for it means the breath of


God, in soul and body. We have the true sense of it in ourwords “ inspiration and “

e xpire . Now, there a re twokinds of breath with which the flock may be filled; God

’sbreath and man’s . The br eath of God is health, and life,and pe ace to them, as the air of heaven is to the flock s on thehills ; but man

’s breath the word which he calls spiritualis disease and contagion to them, as the fog of the fen .

They r ot inwardly with it ; they are puffed up by it, as adead body by the vapors of its own decom position . This isliterally true of all false religious teaching ; the fir st, and last,and fata le st sign of it is that “putting up.

” Your convertedchildren, who teach the ir parents ; your converte d convicts,who teach honest men ; your conve rte d dunces, who, havinglived in cretinous stupefaction half their lives, suddenlyawaking to the fact of there b eing a God, fancy them selvestherefore his peculiar people and messengers ; your sectariansof every species, small and great, Catholic o r Protestant, ofhigh church or low, in so far as they think them selves exe lusively in the right and others wrong ; and pre

’

em inently,in every sect, those who hold that men can be saved byth inking rightly instead of doing rightly, by word instead ofact, and wish instead ofwork ; these are the true fog children clouds, these, without water ; bodies, these, of putresce nt vapor and skin, without blood or fle sh : blown bagp ipes for the fie nds to pipe with corrupt, and corrupting

“Swoln with wind and the rank mist they dr aw .

”

24 . Lastly, let us return to the lin es respecting the powerof the keys, for now we can understand them . Note thedifference between l\t[ilton and Dante in the ir interpretationof this power ; for once, the latte r is weaker in thought ; hesupposes both the keys to be of the gate of he aven ; one is ofgold, the other of silver : they are given by St. Peter to thesentine l angel ; and it is not easy to de term ine the m eaningeither of the substances of the three steps of the gate, o r of

24 BOOKS AND STUDY

the two keys . But Mi lton makes one , of gold, the key of

heaven ; the other, of iron, the key of the prison in which thewicked te achers are to be bound who “have taken away thekey of knowledge , ye t e nte re d not in them se lves .

”

We have seen that th e duties of bishop and pastor are tosee

,and fee d ; and of all wh o do so it is said,

“He that water

e th , shall be watered also him self.” But the reverse is truth

also . He that watere th not, shall be withhr ed him self ; andhe that seeth not, shall himse lf be shut out of sight shutinto the perpetual prison-house. And that prison openshe re, as we ll as hereafter ; he who is to be bound in heavenmust first be bound on earth . That com mand to the strongangels, of which the rock-apostle is the im age,

“Take h im ,

and bin d him hand and foot, and cast him out,” issues, in its

me asure, again st the teacher, for every helpwithheld, andfor eve ry truth refused, and for every falseho od enforce d ; sothat he is more strictly fettered the more he fe tters, andfarther outcast, as he m ore and m ore misleads, till at last thebars of the iron cage close upon him, and as “the goldenOpe s, the iron shuts amain .

”

25. We have got something out of the lin es, I think, andmuch more is yet to b e foun d in them ; but we have doneenough by way of exam ple of the kind of word-by—wordexam ination of your author which is rightly called reading

”; watching every accent and expression, and putting

our selve s always in the author’s place, annihilating our own

pe rsonality, and seeking to enter into hi s, so as to be ableassuredly to say, “Thus lVIi lton thought,

” not “Thus Ithought, in mis—readi ng lVIilton .

”And by this process you

will gradually com e to attach le ss weight to your own“Thus

I thought” at othe r tim es . You will beg in to perceive that

what you thought was a m atte r of no serious im portance ;that your thoughts on any subject are not perhaps the clearest and wisest that could be ar rived at thereupon : in fact,


that unless you are a very singular person, you cannot besaid to have any “ thoughts at all ; that you have no m aterials for them, in any serious matter s ; no right to “ think,

”

but only to try to learn m ore of the facts . Nay, most probably all your life (un less, as I said, you are a singular person)you will have no legitim ate right to an “Opinion ” on anybusiness, except that instantly under your hand . Whatmust of necessity be done, you can always find out, beyondquestion, how to do . Have you a house to keep in order, acommodity to sell, a fie ld to plough, a ditch to cleanse ?There need be no two Opinions about these proceedings ; it isat your peril if you have not m uch more than an “

opinion”

on the way to manage such matters . And also, outside ofyour own business, there are one or two subjects on which

you a re bound to have but one opinion . That roguery andlying are objectionable, and are instantly to be flogged out

of the way whenever discovered ; that covetousness and loveof quarrelling are dangerous dispositions even in children,and deadly dispositions in men and nations ; that in the end,the God of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and kindpeople, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones ; on

these general facts you are bound to have but one , and thata very strong Opinion . For the rest, respe cting re ligions,governments, sciences, arts, you will find that, on the whole,you can know NOTHING , judge nothing ; that the best youcan do, even though you may be a well-educated person, is tobe silent, and strive to be wiser every day, and to understanda little m ore of the thoughts of o thers, which so soon as youtry to do honestly, you will discover that the thoughts evenof the wisest are very little m o re than pertinent que stions .To put the difficulty into a clear shape, and exhibit to youthe grounds for indecision, that is all they can generally dofor you ! and well for them and for us, if indeed they areable “to mix the music with our thoughts, and sadden us

26 BOOKS AND STUDY

with heave nly doubts . This write r, from whom I havebeen reading to you, is not am ong the fir st o r wisest : he see sshrewdly as far as he sees, and there fore it is easy to find outhis full me aning ; but with the greater m e n , you cannotfathom their m eaning ; they do not eve n wholly m easure itthem se lve s, it is so wide . Suppose I had asked you, forinstance , to see k fo r Shake speare

’s Opinion, instead of lvIi lton’s

,on this m atter ofChurch authority ? or for Dante’s ?

Have any of you, at this instant, the le ast idea what eitherthought about it? Have you ever balanced the scene withthe bishops in Richard III . against the character of Cranm e r ? the de scription of St. Francis and St. Dom inic againstthat of h im who made Virgil wonder to gaze upon h im ,

“diste so, tanto Vilm ente, nell’ eterno esilio ” ; 1 o r of him

whom Dante stood beside,“com e ’

1 frate che confessa lo

pe rfido assassin”? 2 Shakespeare and Alighieri knew men

be tter than most of us. I presum e ! They were both in themidst of the m ain struggle between the tem poral and spiritual powe rs . They had an Opinion, we m ay guess . Butwhere is it? Bring it in to court ! Put Shakespeare’s orDante’s cree d into articles, and send it up for trial by theEccle siastical Courts !26. You will not be able, I tell you again, for many and

m any a day, to com e at the re al purposes and teachin g of

these great m e n ; but a very little honest study of them wille nable you to pe rceive that what you took for your own“ judgm ent was m ere chance pre judice, and drifted, helpless, entangled we e d o f castaway thought ; nay, you will see

[1 Dante ’

s Inferno , Ca nto x x iii . 125, 126.

“O

’

e r h im who wa s e x te nded on the cross

So v ile ly in e te rna l[2 The sam e , Canto x ix . 49, 50 .

“I stood e v e n a s the fr iar who is confe ssingThe false assassin .

”

Lo ngfe llow’

s transla tion !


that most men’s minds are indeed little better than roughhe ath wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren,partly overgrown with pestilent brakes, and venomous,wind-sown herbage of evil surmise ; that the fir st thing youhave to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfullyto set fire to thi s; burn all the jungle into wholesome ashheaps, and then plough and sow. All the true literary workbefore you, for life, must begin with ob edience to that order,“Break up your fallow ground, and sow not am ong thorns .

”

27. II . Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, that you may enter into their Thoughts, you have yetthis higher advance to make ; you have to enter into theirHearts . As you go to them first for clear sight, so you muststay with them, that you may share at last their just andmighty Passion . Passion, or

“ sensation .

” I am not afraidof the word ; still less of the thing. You have heard manyoutcries against sensation lately ; but, I can tell you, it is notless sensation we want, but more . The ennobling differencebetween one man and another betwee n one anim al andanother is precisely in this, that one feels more than an

other . Ifwe were sponges, perhaps sensation might not beeasily got for us ; if we were earth-worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us . But being hum an creatur es,it i s good for us ; nay, we are only human in so far as we aresensitive, and our honor is precisely in proportion to our

pa ssion .

28. You know I said of that great and pur e society of theDead, that it would allow no vain or vulgar pe rson to enterthere . What do you think I meant by a “vulgar ” person ? What do you yourselves m e an by vulgarity

”P You

w ill find it a fruitful subje ct of thought ; but, briefly, the e ssence of all vulgarity lie s in want o f sensation . Simple andinnocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped

28 BOOKS AND STUDY

bluntness of body and mind ; but in true inbred vulgarity,there is a deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becom escapable of every so rt of bestial habit and crime, withoutfear, without pleasure, without ho rror, and without pity.

It is in the blunt hand and th e dead heart, in the diseasedhabit, in the hardene d conscience, that m en b ecome vulgar ;they are forever vulgar, precise ly in proportion as they areincapable of sympathy of quick understanding, of a ll

that, in de ep insistence on the common but m ost accurateterm , may be calle d the

“ tact,” or “ touch-faculty,

” of bodyand soul : that tact which theMim osa has in tre es, which thepure wom an has above all creatures :finene ss and fulness ofsensation, beyond reason ; the guide and sanctifie r of reasonitse lf . Reason can but de te rm ine what is true : it is theGod-given passion of hum anity which alone can recognizewhat God has m ade good .

29. We com e then to that great concourse of the Dead,not me rely to know from them what is true, but chicfly tofeel with them what is just . Now, to fe el with them, wemust be like them ; and none of us can become that withoutpains . As the true knowledge is disciplined and testedknowledge, not the fir st thought that come s, so thetrue passion is disciplined and te sted passion

,— not the

first passion that come s . The first that com e are the vain,the false, the treache rous ; if you yield to them ,

they willlead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow e nthusi

a sm , till you have no true purpose and no true passion left .Not that any fe eling possible to hum anity is in itself wrong,but only wrong whe n undisciplined . Its nobility is in itsforce and justice ; it is wrong when it is we ak, and felt forpaltry cause . The re is a m ean wonder, as of a child whose e s a juggle r to ssing golde n balls, and this is base, if youwill. But do you think that the wonder is ignoble

, o r thesensation less, with which every human soul is called to


30 BOOKS AND STUDY

forget in an hour ,whe n the fit is past . But a gentleman’s, or a

gentle nation’s,passion s a re just,measure d, and continuous .

A gre at nation, fo r instance, does not spend its entir e nationalwits for a couple of months in weighing evidence of a singlerufi an

’

s having done a single murde r ; and for a couple ofye ars see its own children murder each other by their thousands or tens of thousands a day, considering only what theeffect is likely to b e on the price of cotton. and caring nowiseto de te rm ine which side of battle is in the wrong . Neitherdoe s a great nation send its po or little boys to jail for stealingsix walnuts ; and allow its bankrupts to steal their hundredsof thousands with a bow, and its bankers richwith poor men

’ssavings, to clo se their doors under circum stances over whichthey have no contro l,

” with a “by your leave

”; and large

landed estates to b e bought by m en who have made theirmoney by going with arm ed steam ers up and down the ChinaSeas, selling Opium at the cannon

’s m outh, and altering, forthe b e nefit of the fo reign nation, the com m on highwaym an

’sdemand of

“your m oney or your life ,” into that of “your

mone y and your life .

” Neither does a great nation allowthe lives of its innocen t po or to be parched out of them byfog fever, and rotted out of them by dunghill plague, fo r thesake of Six pence a life extra pe r week to its landlords ; andthen debate , with drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whe ther it ought not piously to save, and nursinglyche rish, the lives of its m urdere rs . Also, a great nation,having m ade up its m ind that hanging is quite the wholesom e st proce ss for its hom icide s in gene ral, can yet withm e rcy distinguish betwe e n the de gree s of guilt in hom icides ;and do e s not ye lp like a pack of fro st-pinched wolf-cubs onthe blo od—track of an unhappy crazed b oy, o r gray-haire dc lodpate Othe llo , pe rplexed i

’

the e x trem e,” at the ve ry

m om ent that it is sending a Minister of the Crown to m akepolite speeches to a man who is bayoneting young girls in


their fathers’ sight, and killing noble youths in cool blood,faster than a country butcher kills lam bs in Spring . And,

lastly, a great nation does not mock Heaven and its Powers,by pretending belie f in a revelation which asserts the love ofmoney to be the root of a ll evil, and declaring, at the sametim e, that it is actuated, and intends to be actuated, in allchief national deeds and measures, by no other love .31. My friends, I do not know why any of us should talkabout reading . We want some sharper discipline than thatof reading ; but, at all events, be assured, we cannot read .

N0 reading is possible for a people with its m ind in this state .No sentence of any great writer is intelligible to them . It issimply and sternly impossible for the English public, at thismoment, to understand any thoughtful writing, so incapable of thought has it becom e in its insanity of avarice .Happily, our disease is, as yet, little worse than this incapa city of thought ; it is not corruption of the inner nature ; wering true still when anything strikes home to us and thoughthe idea that everything should “pay ” has 1nfe cted ourevery purpose so deeply, that even when we would play thegood Sam aritan, we neve r take out our twopence and givethem to the host without saying,

“When I com e again, thoushalt give me fourpence,

” there is a capacity of noble passionleft in our hearts’ core . We show it in our work in ourwar even in those unjust dom e stic affections which makeus furious at a sm all private wrong, while we are polite to aboundless public one :we are still industrious to the last hourof the day, though w e add the gam ble r

’s fury to the laborer’spatience ; we are still brave to th e de ath, though incapableof discerning true cause for battle ; and a r e still true in affe ction to our own flesh, to the death, as the sea-m onsters a r e ,and the rock-eagle s . And there is hope fo r a nation whilethis can b e still said of it. As long as it holds its life in itshand, ready to give it for its honor (though a foolish honor),

32 BOOKS AND STUDY

for its love (though a se lfish love) , and for its business(though a base business) , there is hope for it. But hopeonly ; for this instinctive , re ckless Virtue cannot last . Nonation ca n last, which has m ade a m ob of itself, howevergene rous at heart , It m ust discipline its passions, and dire ct them , o r they will discipline i i , one day, with scorpionwhips . Above all, a nation cannot last as a money-makingmob : it cannot with im punity it cannot with existence

go on despising literature, despising science, despising art,despising nature, despising compassion, and concentratingits soul on Pence.

I

KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATIONTO LEARNING

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN1801—1890

THIS is the six th of the nine Discourses on University Teaching tha t CardinalNewm an de liv e red in 1852, on the founding of a Ca tholic Un iv e rsity inDub lin . In the e ar ly lectures he a rgued for the study of the o logy as prope r

to a univ e r sity ; -b ut ce r ta in of the discour se s we re de v o ted to a plea for

education as an end in itse lf, as a b r oaden ing influe nce and a builde r of

cha racte r . To th is group the follow ing e ssay b e longs. Newm a n’

s r ichand fine ly m e asured prose is characte r ized by logica l m e thod and de epsince r ity .

h were well if the English, like the Greek language, possessed some defin ite word to express, sim ply and generally,intellectual proficiency o r perfection, such as “health,

” asused with reference to the animal frame, and “virtue,

” withreference to our moral nature . I am not able to find such aterm ; talent, ability, genius, belong distinctly to the rawmaterial, which is the subject-matter, not to that excellencewhich is the result of exercise and training . Wh en we turn,indeed, to the particular kinds of intellectual perfection,words are forthcom ing for our purpose, as, for instance,judgment, taste, and skill ; yet even these belong, for themost part, to powers or habits bearing upon practice or uponart, and not to any perfect condition of the intelle ct, conside red in itself. Wisdom, again, is certainly a more comprehensive word than any other, but it has a direct relationto conduct and to hum an life . Knowle dge, indeed, andScience express purely intellectual ide as, but still not a stateo r quality of the intellect ; fo r knowledge, in its ordinary

34 BOOKS AND STUDY

sense, is but one of its circumstances, denoting a possessionor a habit ; and science has be en appropriated to the subjectmatter of the intelle ct, instead of belonging in English, as itought to do , to the intellect itself . The conse quence is that,on an occasion like this, many words are necessary, in order,fir st, to bring out and convey what surely is no difficult ideain itself, that of the cultivation of the intellect as an end ;next, in order to recom mend what surely is no unreasonableobject ; and lastly, to describe and make the mind realize theparticular perfe ction in which that object consists . Eve ryone knows practically what are the con stituents of healtho r of virtue ; and eve ry one recognizes health and Virtueas ends to b e pur sued ; it is otherwise with intellectual exce llence , and this must be my excuse, if I seem to any one

to be bestowing a good deal of labour on a prelim inarymatter .In default of a re cognized term, I have called the pe rfe c

tion or Vir tue of the intellect by the name of philosophy,philosophical knowledge, enlargem ent of mind, o r illum ination ; term s which are not uncommonly given to it by wr ite rsof this day ; but, whatever name we bestow on it, it is, I b elieve, as a m atte r of history, the busine ss of a University tomake this intellectual culture its direct scope, o r to em ployitself in the education of the intellect, just as the work ofa Hospital lies in healing the sick or wounded, of a Riding orFe ncing School, o r of a Gymnasium , in exe rcising the lim bs,of an Almshouse, in aiding and solacing the o ld, of an Orphanage , in protecting innocence, of a Pe nitentiary, in r e

storing the guilty . I say, a University, taken in its bareidea, and before we View it as an instrum ent of the Church,has this object and this mission ; it contemplates neithermoral impression nor mechanical production ; it pro fesse s toexercise the m ind neither in art nor in duty ; its function isintellectual culture ; here it may leave its scholars, and it has

KNOWLEDGE IN RELATION TO LEARNING 35

done its work when it has done as much as this . It educatesthe intelle ct to reason well in all m atte r s,

‘

to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.

This, I said in my forego ing Discourse, was the object of aUniversity, Viewed in itse lf, and apart from the CatholicChurch, o r from the State, or from any other power whichmay use it and I illustrated this in various ways . I saidthat the inte llect m ust have an ex cellence of its own , forthere was no thing which had not its spe cific good ; that theword “educate ” would not be use d of intelle ctual culture,as it is used, had not the inte lle ct had an end of its own ; that,had it not such an end, there would be no m e aning in calling certain intellectual e xercise s “ liberal,

” in contrast with“useful,

” as is com m only done ; that the very notion of aphilosophi cal tem per im plied it, for it thr ew us back uponresearch and system as ends in them se lves, distinct fromeffects and works of any kind ; that a philosophical schem eof knowledge, or system of sciences, could not, from the nature of the case, issue in any one definite art or pur suit, as itsend ; and that, on the other hand, the discovery and contemplation of truth, to which rese arch and system atizingled, were surely sufficie nt ends, though nothing beyondthem were adde d, and that they had ever be en accountedsufficient by mankind .

Here then I take up the subje ct ; and, having determinedthat the cultivation of the intellect is an end distinct andsufficient in itself, and that, so far as words go it is an eulargem ent or illum ination, I pro ceed to inquire what thismental breadth, or powe r o r light, or philosophy consists in .

A Hospital he als a broke n lim b o r cure s a fe ve r : what doesan Institution e ffe ct, which professe s the he alth, not of thebody, not o f the soul, but of th e inte lle ct ? What is thisgood, which in former times, as well as our own, has been

36 BOOKS AND STUDY

found worth the notice, the appropriation, of the CatholicChurch ?I have then to investigate , in the Discourses which follow,

those qualities and characteristics of the intellect in whichits cultivation issues or rather consists ; and, with a View ofassisting m yself in this undertaking, I shall recur to certainquestions which have already been touched upon . Thesequestions are thr ee : Viz . the relation of intellectual culture,first, to m ere knowledge ; secondly, toprofessiona l knowledge ;and thirdly, to r eligious knowledge . In other words, area cqui r em ents and atta inm ents the scope of a University Education ? or ex pertness in particular arts andpursuits? o r mora land r eligious profici ency? or something besides these three ?These que stions I shall exam ine in succession, with the purpose I have m entioned ; and I hope to be excused, ii , in thisanxious unde rtaking, I am led to repeat what, either in theseDiscourses or elsewhe re , I have already put upon paper.Andfir st, ofMere Knowledge, or Learning, and its connexionwith intellectual illum ination or Philosophy.

I suppose the pr imd—faci e view which the public at largewould take of a University, considering it as a place of Education, is nothing more or less than a place for acquiring agreat deal of knowledge on a great many subjects . Memoryis one of the fir st developed of the mental faculties ; a boy

’sbusine ss when h e goe s to school is to le arn, that is, to storeup things in his memory. For som e ye ars his intellect islittle m ore than an instrum ent for taking in facts, or a recepta cle for storing them ; he welcom es them as fast as theycom e to h im ; he live s on what is without ; he has his eyeseve r about h im ; he has a lively susceptibility of impressions ;he im bibes inform ation of every kind ; and little does hemake his own in a true sense of the word, l iving rather uponhis neighbour s all around him . He has Opinions, religious,


38 BOOKS AND STUDY

wide range of inform ation, to warrant us in putting forth ouropinions on any serious subje ct ; and without such learningthe most original m ind m ay b e able indeed to dazzle, toam use, to re fute. to perplex, but not to come to any usefulresult or any trustworthy conclusion . There are indeedpersons who profess a different view of the matter, and evena ct upon it. Every now and the n you will find a person ofvigorous or fe rtile mind, who re lies upon hi s own resources,despises all form er authors, and gives the world, wi th the utmost fearlessness

,his views upon religion, o r hi story, or any

othe r popular subject . And his works m ay sell for a whi le ;he m ay ge t a nam e in his day ; but this will b e all . His readers are sure to find in the long run that his doctrines areme re theories, and not the expression of facts, that they arechaff instead of bread, and then his popularity drops as suddenly as it rose .

Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of e x pansion of m ind, and the instrument of attaining to it; this cannot be denied, it is e ver to be insisted on ; I begin with it as afir st principle ; however, the very truth of it carries men toofar, and confirm s to them the notion that it is the whole ofthe matter . A narrow mind is thought to be that whichcontains little knowledge ; and an enlarged mind, that whichholds a gre at de al ; and what seems to put the m atter beyonddispute is, the fact of th e great num ber of studies which arepursued in a Unive rsity, by its very profession . Lecturesare g iven on every kind of subject ; examinations are held ;prizes awarded . There a re moral, me taphysical, physicalProfe ssors ; Professors of language s, of history, of mathematie s, of experim ental science . Lists of questions are published, wonderful fo r the ir range and depth, variety and

difficulty ; treatises are written, which carry upon their veryfa ce th e evidence of extensive reading or multifarious information ; what then is wanting for mental culture to a pe r

KNOWLEDGE IN RELATION TO LEARNING

son of large reading and scie ntific attainments ? what isgrasp of mind but acquirement ? where shall philosophi calrepose be found, but in the consciousness and enjoyment oflarge intellectual possessions ?And yet this notion is, I conceive, a mistake, and my

present business is to show that it is one , and that the end ofa Liberal Education is not mere knowledge, o r knowledgeconsidered in its m atter ; and I shall b est attain my objectby actually setting down some cases, which will be generallygranted to be instances of the process of enlightenment orenlargement of mind, and others whi ch are not, and thus, bythe comparison, you will be able to judge for yourselves,Gentlemen, whether Knowledge, that is, acqui rem ent, isafter a ll the real principle of the enlargement, or whetherthat principle is not rather something beyond it.

For instance,1 let a person, whose experience has hithertobeen confined to the more calm and unpretending scenery ofthese islands, whether here o r in England, go for the firsttim e into parts where physical natur e puts on her wilder andmore awful form s, whether at hom e or abroad, as intomoun tainous districts ; o r let one, who has ever lived in aquiet Village, go for the fir st tme to a great metropolis,then I suppose he will have a sensation which perhaps henever had before . He has a feeling not in addition or increase of fo rmer fe elings, but of som ething different in itsnature . He will perhaps be borne forward, and find for atime that he has lost his bearings . He has m ade a certainprogress, and he has a consciousne ss ofmental enlargem ent ;he does not stand where he did, he has a new centre, and arange of thoughts to which he was before a stranger.

1 The pages wh ich follow ar e ta ken a lm os t verbatim from the author’s14th (Ox fo rd) Un iv e rsity Se rm on, wh ich , at the tim e of writing th is Discour se , he did not e x pect e v e r to r eprint.

40 BOOKS AND STUDY

Again, the view of the heavens which the telescope opensupon us, if allowed to fill and possess the mind, may almostwhirl it round and make it dizzy. It brings in a flood ofideas

,and is rightly called an intellectual enlargement,

whatever is meant by the term .

And so again, the sight of be asts ofprey and other foreignanimals, their strangeness, the originality (ii I may use theterm) of their form s and gestures and habits and their variety and indepe ndence of each other, throw us out of our

selves into another creation, and as ifunder another Creator,if I may so express the tem ptation whi ch may come on themind . We seem to have new faculties, or a new exercise forour faculties, by thi s addition to our knowledge ; like a prisoner, who, having been accustomed to wear manacles orfetters, suddenly finds his arms and legs free .Hence Physical Science generally, in a ll its departments,

as bringing before us the exuberant riches and resources, yetthe orderly course, of the Universe, elevates and excites thestudent, and at fir st, I may say, almost takes away hisbreath, while in tim e it exercises a tranquilli zing influe nceupon him .

Again, the study of history is said to enlarge and enlightenthe mind and why ? be cause, as I conceive, it gives it apower of Judging of passing events, and of all events, and aconscious superiority over them, which before it did notpossess .And in like manner, what is called seeing the world, enter

ing into active life, going into society, travelling, gainingacquaintance with the various classes of the community,coming into contact with the principles and m odes of

thought of various partie s, interests, and races, their Views,aim s, habits and m anners, their religious creeds and formsofworship, gaining experience how various yet how alikemen are, h ow low-minded, how bad, how opposed, yet how


confident in their opinions ; all this exerts a perceptible influence upon the mind, which it is impossible to m istake, be itgood or be it bad, and is popularly called its enlargement .And then again, the fir st time the mind comes across thearguments and speculations of unbelievers, and feels what anovel light they cast upon what he has hitherto accoun tedsacred ; and still more, if it gives in to them and embracesthem, and thr owsoff as so much prejudice what it has hitherto held, and, as if waking from a dr eam, begins to realizeto its imagination that there is now no such thing as law andthe transgression of law that sin is a phantom, and punishment a bugb ear, that it 1s free to sin, free to enjoy the worldand the flesh ; and still further, when it does enjoy them, andrefle cts that it may think and hold just what it will, that“ the world is all before it where to choose, and what system to build up as its own private persuasion ; when this torrent of wilful thoughts rushes over and inundates it, whowill deny that the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or what themind takes for knowledge, has made it one of the gods, witha sense of expansion and elevation, an intoxication inreality, still, so far as the subjective state of the m ind goes,an illumination ? Hence the fanaticism of individuals ornations, who suddenly cast off their Maker . Their eyes areOpened ; and, lik e the judgment-stricken king in the Tragedy, they see two sun s, and a magic universe, out of whichthey look back upon their former state of faith and innocence with a sort of contempt and indignation, as if theywere then but fools, and the dupe s of imposture.Ou the other hand, Religion has its own enlargem ent, andan enlargem ent, not of tumult, but of peace . It is ofte n r emarked of uneducated persons, who have hitherto thoughtlittle of the unseen world, that, on their turning to G od,

looking into themselves, regulating their hearts, reformingtheir conduct, and meditating on death and judgm ent,

42 BOOKS AND STUDY

he aven and hell, they seem to becom e, in point of intellect,diffe rent beings from what they were . Before, they tookthings as they cam e, and thought no m ore of one thing thanano the r . But now every e vent has a meaning ; they havetheir own estim ate of whatever happens to them ; they arem indful of tim es and seasons, and com pare the present withthe past ; and the world, no longer dull, monotonous, unprofita b le , and hopeless, is a various and complicateddrama, with parts and an object, and an awful moral.

Now from these instances, to which many more might b eadded, it is plain, fir st, that the communication of knowledgecertainly is either a condition o r the means of that sense ofenlargem ent o r enlightenm ent, ofwhich at this day we hearso much in certain quarters : this cannot be denied ; but next,it is equally plain , that such com muni cation is not the wholeof the process . The enlargement cons ists, not m erely in thepassive reception into the m ind of a num ber of ideas hithe rto unknown to it, but in the mind

’s energetic and simultane ous action upon and towards and among those newideas, which are rushing in upon it. It is the action of aformative power, reducing to order and meaning the matterof our acquirem ents ; it is a m aking the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own , o r , to use a familiar word, it is adigestion of what we receive, into the substance of our previous state of thought ; and without thi s no enlargem ent issaid to follow. There is no enlargement, unless there be acomparison of ideas one with another, as they com e beforethe mind, and a system atizing of them . We feel our m indsto be growing and expanding then , when we not only learn,but refer what we learn to what we know already. It is notthe m ere addition to our knowledge that is th e illum inatio n ;but the locomotion , th e m ovement onwards, of that m entalce ntre, to which both what we know, and what we are learn


ing, the accumulating m ass of our acquirements, gravitates .And therefore a truly great intellect, and recognized to besuch by the comm on Opinion of m ankind, such as the intellect of Aristotle, or of St. Thomas, or of Newton, o r of

Goethe, (I purposely take instances within and without theCatholic pale, when I woul d speak of the intellect as such,)is one which takes a connected View of o ld and new, pastand present, far and near, and which has an insight into theinfluence of all these one on another ; without which there isno whole, and no centre. It possesses the kn owledge, notonly of things, but also of their mutual and true relations ;knowledge, not merely considered as acqui rement, but asphilosophy.

Accordingly, when this analytical, distributive, harmoniaing process is away, the m ind experiences no enlargement,and is not reckoned as enlightened o r comprehensive, whatever it may add to its knowledge. Fo r instance, a greatmemory, as I have already said, does not make a philo sopher, any more than a dictionary can be called a grammar.There are m en who em brace in their minds a vast multitudeof ideas, but with little sensibility about their real relationstowards each other . These m ay be antiquarians, annalists,naturalists ; they m ay be learned in the law ; they m ay beversed in statistics ; they are m ost useful in their own place ;I should shrink from speaking disrespectfully o f them ; still,there is nothing in such attainments to guarantee the absence of narrowness of m ind . If they are nothing m ore thanwell-read men, o r m en of information, they have not whatspecially de se rves the name of culture ofmind, or fulfils thetype of Liberal Education .

In like manner, we som etimes fall in with persons whohave seen m uch of the world, and of the m e n who, in theirday, have played a conspicuous part in it, but who gene ralize nothing, and have no observation, in the true sense of the

44 BOOKS AND STUDY

word. They abound in information in detail, curious andentertaining, about m en and things ; and, having lived underthe influence of no very clear o r settled principle s, religiouso r political, they speak of every one and every thing, only asso m any phenom ena, which are com plete in themselves, andlead to nothing, not discussing them, o r teaching any truth,o r instructing the bearer, but simply talking. No one

would say that these persons, well informed as they are, hadattained to any great culture of intellect o r to philosophy.

The case is the sam e still more strikingly where the persons in question are beyond dispute men of inferior powersand deficie nt education . Perhaps they have been much inforeign countries, and they receive, in a passive, otiose, unfruitful way, the various facts which are forced upon themthere. Seafaring m en , for example, range from one end of

the earth to the other but the multiplicity of external oh

je cts, which they have encountered, forms no symmetricaland consistent picture upon their imagination ; they see thetapestry of human life, as it were on the wrong side, and ittells no story. They sleep, and they rise up, and they findthemselves, now in Europe, now in Asia ; they see visions ofgreat cities and wild regions ; they are in the marts of commerce, o r amid the islands of the South ; they gaze on Pom

pey’

s Pillar, o r o n the Andes ; and nothing which m eets themcarries them forward or backward, to any idea beyond itself.Nothing has a drift o r relation ; nothing has a history o r aprom ise . Every thing stands by itself, and com es and goesin its turn, like the shifting scenes of a show,which leave thespectator where he was. Perhaps you are near such a manon a particular o ccasion, and expect him to be shocked o r

perplexed at som ething which occurs ; but one thing is muchthe same to h im as another, o r , if he is perple xed, it is as notknowing what to say, whether it is right to admire, o r tor idicule, o r to disapprove, while conscious that some expre s


46 BOOKS AND STUDY

fluence s of chance and necessity, above anxiety, suspense,unsettlement, and superstition, which is the lot of the many.

Me n, who se m inds are possessed with som e one object, takeexaggerate d v iews of its impo rtance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, m ake it the m easure of things which are utterlyforeign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens tofail them. They are ever in alarm or in transport. Those,on the other hand, who have no object o r principle whateverto hold b y, lose their way, every stepthey take. They arethrown out, and do not know what to think o r say, at everyfresh juncture ; they have no View ofpersons, o r occurrences,o r facts, which com e suddenly upon them , and they hangupon the opinion of others, for want of internal resources.But the intellect, which has be en disciplined to the perte etion of its powers, which knows, and thinks while it knows,which has learned to leaven the dense m ass of facts andevents with th e elastic fo rce of reason, such an intellect cannot be partial, cannot be exclusive, cannot be im petuous,cannot be at a loss, cannot but be patient, collected, andmaje stically calm, because it discerns the end in every be ginning, the origin in every end, the law in every interruption,the lim it in each de lay ; be cause it ever knows where itstands, and how its path lies from one point to another. Itis the Te

'rpaf'ycov os of the Peripatetic, and has the nil ad

mirari ” of the Stoic,Fe lix qui potuit re rum cognosce r e causas,

Atque m e tus om ne s, et ine x o rab ile fa tumSub je cit pedib us, strepitum que Ache rontis av an .

There are men who ,when in difficultie s, originate at the

m om ent vast ideas o r dazzling pro je cts ; wh o , unde r the influence of excitem ent, a re able to cast a light, alm ost as iffrom inspiration, on a subject or course of action whichcom es be fore them ; who have a sudde n presence of m indequal to any emergency, rising with the occasion, and an


undaunted m agnanim ous bearing, and an energy and keenness which is but m ade intense by opposition . This is genius

,this is heroism ; it is the exh ibition of a natural gift,

which no cultur e can teach, at which no Institution cana im ; here, on the contrary, we are concerned, not with m erenature, but with training and te aching . That perfection ofthe Intellect, which is the resul t of Education, and its beauidea l, to be imparted to individuals in their respective m easures, is the clear, calm, accurate Vision and com prehensionof all things, as fa r as the fin ite m ind can em brace them,

each in its place, and with its own characteristics upon it.It is almost prophetic from its knowle dge of history ; it is a lmost heart—se arching from its knowledge of hum an natur e ;it has alm ost supernatural charity from its freedom fromlittleness and prejudice ; i t has alm ost the repose of faith,because nothing can startle it; it has alm ost the beauty andharmony of he avenly contem plation, so intim ate is it withthe eternal order of things and the music of the spheres.

And now , if I m ay take for granted that the true and adequate end o f inte llectual training and of a University is notLearning o r Acquirem ent, but rather, is Thought or Reaso nexercised upon Knowledge, o r what m ay be called Ph ilo sophy, I shall be in a position to explain the various mistakeswhich at the present day beset the subject of UniversityEduca tion .

I say then, if we would improve the intellect, fir st of all,we must ascend ; we cannot gain real knowledge on a level ;we must generalize, we must reduce to method, we m usthave a grasp of principles, and group and shape our acquisitions by m e ans o f them . It m atters not whether our fie ld ofoperation b e wide o r l im ite d ; in every case, to com m and it,is to m ount above it. Who has no t fe lt the ir ritation of

mind and impatience created by a deep, rich country, visited

48 BOOKS AND STUDY

for the first time, with winding lanes, and high hedges, andgree n steeps, and tangled woods, and every thing smilinginde ed, but in a m aze? The same feeling comes upon us in astrange city, when we have no m ap of its stre ets. Hence

you hear of practised travellers, when they first come into aplace, mounting som e high hill o r church tower, by way of

reconnoitring its neighbourhood . In like manner,you

must be above your knowledge, not under it, or it will oppress you ; and the more you have of it, the greater will bethe load . The learning of a Sa lm asius or a Burman, unlessyou are its master, will be your tyrant. “

Impe rat aut serv it

”

; if you can wield it with a strong arm, it is a greatweapon ; otherwise,

Vis consili e xpers

Mo le ruit sua.

”

You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the heavywealth which you have exacted from tributary generations.Instances abound ; there a re authors who are as pointlessas they are inexhaustible in their literary resources. Theymeasure knowledge by bulk, as it lies in the rude block,witho ut sym m etry, without design . How many com m entators are there on the Classics, how many on Holy Scripture,from whom we rise up, wondering at the learning which haspasse d before us, and wondering why it passed ! How manywriters are there of Ecclesiastical History, such as Mosheimo r Du Pin, who, breaking up their subject into details, destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their anx ietyabout the parts ! The Serm ons, again, of the English Divines in the seventeenth century, how often are they mererepertories of miscellaneous and officious learning ! Of

course Catholics also may read without thinking ; and intheir case, equally as with Protestants, it holds good, thatsuch knowledge is unworthy of the name, knowledge which


they have not thought through, and thought out. Suchreaders are only possessed by their knowledge, not possessed of it; nay, in matter of fact they are often even carried away by it, without any volition of their own . Re co l

lect, the Memory can tyrannize, as well as the Im agination .

Derangement, I believe, has been considered as a loss ofcontrol over the

‘sequence of ideas. The mind, once set in

motion, is henceforth deprived of the power of initiation,and becomes the victim of a train of associations, one

thought suggesting another, in the way of cause and effect,as if by a mechanical process, o r some phys ical necessity.

No one , .who has had experience of m en of studious habits,but must recognize the existence of a parallel phenomenonin the case of those who have over-stimulated the Mem ory.

In such persons Reason acts almost as feebly and as impotently as in the madman ; once fairly started on any subjectWhatever, they have no power of self—control ; they passiv e ly endur e the succession of im pulses which are evolvedout of the original exciting cause ; they are passed on fromone idea to another and go steadily forward , plodding alongone line of thought in spite of the am plest concessions of theb earer, o r wandering from it in endless digression in spite ofhis remonstrances . Now, if. as is very certain, no one wouldenvy the madman the glow and originality of his conceptions, why must we extol the cultivation of that intellect,which is the prey, not inde ed of barren fancies but of barrenfacts, of random intrusions from without, though not of

morbid imaginations from within ? And in thus speaking, Iam not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itselfa real treasure ; I am not disparaging a well-stored mind,though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober, any morethan I would despise a bookseller’s sh0 p it is of greatvalue to others, even when not so to the owner. Nor am Ibanishing, far from it, the possessors of deep and m ultifari

50 BOOKS AND STUDY

ous learning from my ideal University ; they adorn it in theeyes ofm en ; I do but say that they constitute no type of theresults at which it aims ; that it is no great gain to the inte lle ct to have enlarged the m emory at the expense of faculties which are indisputably higher.

No r , indeed, am I supposing that there is any great danger, at least in this day, of over-education ; the danger is onthe other side. I will tell you , G entlem en, what has beenthe practical error of the last twenty years, not to loadthe memory of the student with a m ass of undigested knowledge, but to force upon him so much that he has rejected all.It has been the error of distracting and enfeebling the mindby an unmeaning profusion of subjects ; of 1mplying that asmattering in a dozen branches of study is not shallowness,which it really is, but enlargem ent, which it is not of conside r ing an acquaintance with the learned names of thingsand persons, and the possession of clever duodecimos, andattendance on eloquent lecturers, and mem bership wi thscientific institutions, and the sight of the experim ents of aplatform and the specim ens of a m useum , that all this wasnot dissipation of m ind, but progress . All things now areto be learned at once, not first one thing, then another, notone well , but many badly. Le arning is to be without e x e rtion, without attention, without toil ; without grounding,without advance, without fin ish ing . There is to be nothingindividual in it; and this, forsoo th, is the wonder of the age.What the steam engine does with m atter, the printing pressis to do with mind ; it is to act mechanically, and the population is to be passively, almost unconsciously enlightened,by the mere multiplication and dissem ination of volum e s .Whether it be the scho o l boy, o r the school girl, o r the yo uthat college, or the mechanic in th e town, o r the politician inthe senate, all have been the Victims in one way or other of


thi s most preposterous and pern ici ous of delusions . Wisemen have lifted up their voices in vain ; and at length, lesttheir own institutions should be outshone and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they have bee n obliged, as faras they could with a good conscience, to humour a spiritwhich they could not withstand, and make tem porizingconcessions at which they could not but inwardly sm ile .

It must not b e supposed that, because I so speak, therefore I have som e sort of fear of the education of the peopleon the contrary, the:more education they have, the better,so that it is re ally education . Nor am I an enem y to thecheap publication of scie ntific and literary works, which isnow in vogue : on the contrary, I consider it a great adv antage, convenience, and gain ; that is, to those to whom education has given a capacity for using them . Further, I consider such inno cent recreations as science and literature areable to furnish will be a very fit occupation of the thoughtsand the leisure of young persons, and m ay be made themeans of keeping them from bad employm ents and badcompanions . Moreover, as to that supe rficia l acquaintancewith chem istry, and ge ology, and astronom y, and politicaleconom y, and modern history, and biography, and otherbranches of knowledge, which periodical literature and occasioual lectures and scientific institutions diffuse through thecom m unity, I think it a graceful accomplishm ent, and asuitable, nay, in this day a necessary accom plishment, inthe case of educated m en . No r , lastly, am I disparaging o rdiscouraging the thorough acquisition of any one of thesestudies, o r denying that, as far as it goes, such thoroughacquisition is a real education of the mind . All I say is.call things by their right nam es, and do not confuse toge therideas which are essentially different . A thorough knowledgeof one science and a supe rficia l acquaintance with many, arenot the same thing ; a smattering of a hundred things o r a

52 BOOKS AND STUDY

memory for detail, is not a philo sophical o r comprehensiveview. Recreations are not education ; accomplishments arenot education . Do not say, the people must be educated,when, after all, you only m ean , amused, refreshed, soothed,put into good spirits and good humour, o r kept from Viciousexcesse s. I do not say that such amusements, such occupations ofmind, are not a great gain ; but they are not education . You may as well call drawing and fencing education,as a general knowledge of botany o r conchology. Stuffingbirds o r playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime,and a resource to the idle, but it is not education ; it doe s notform o r cultivate the intellect . Education is a high word ;it is the preparation fo r knowledge, and it is the impartingof knowledge in proportion to that preparation . We re

quire intellectual eyes to know withal, a s bodily eyes fors ight. We need both objects and organs intellectual ; wecannot gain them without setting about it ; we cannotgain them in our sleep, or by hap-hazard. The best telescope does not dispense with eyes ; the printing press o rthe lecture room will assist us greatly, but we must be trueto ourselv es, we must be parties in the work. A Universityis, according to the usual designation, an Alma Mater,knowing her children one by one , not a foundry, or a m int,or a treadmill .

I protest to'

yon, Gentlemen, that if I had to choose b etween a so-called University, which dispe nsed with residenceand tutorial superintendence, and gave its degrees to anyperson who passed an examination in a wide range of subjects, and a University which had no professors or examinations at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three o r four years, and then sent them away asthe University of Oxford is said to have done some sixtyyears since, if I were asked which of these two methods was


54. BOOKS AND STUDY

and observant, as youn g men are, come together and freelymix with each o ther, they are sure to learn one from an

other, even if there be no one to teach them ; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and they gain forthemselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought,and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day.

An infant has to learn the meaning of the inform ation whi chits senses convey to it, and this seem s to be its employment.It fancies all that the eye presents to it to be close to it, tillit actually learns the contrary, and thus by practice does itascertain

~the relations and uses of those first elements ofknowledge which are necessary for its animal existence . A

parallel teaching is necessary fo r our social being, and it issecured by a large school or a college ; and this effect m ay befairly called in its own departm ent an enlargement of m ind.

It is seeing the world on a sm all fie ld with little trouble ; forthe pupils o r students com e from very different places, andwith widely different notions, and there is much to generalize, much to adjust, much to eliminate, there are inter-relations to be defined, and conventional rules to be established,in the process, by which the whole assemblage is mouldedtogether, and gains one tone and one character.Let it be clearly understood, I repeat it, that I am not

taking into accoun t m oral o r religious considerations ; I ambut saying that that youthful community will constitute awhole, it will em body a specific idea, it will represent a doctrine, it w ill administer a code of conduct, and it will furnishprinciple s of thought and action . It will give birth to a living teaching, which in course of time will take the shape of aself—perpetuating tradition, o r a genius loci , as it is sometimes called ; which haunts the hom e where it has been born,and which imbues and forms, more o r less, and one by one ,every individual who is successively brought under itsshadow. Thus it is that, independent of direct instruction


on the part of Superiors, there is a sort of self—education inthe academ ic institutions of Protestant England ; a characte r istic tone of thought, a recognized standard of judgm entis found in them , which, as developed in the individual whois submitted to it, becom es a twofo ld source of strength tohim, both from the distinct stam p it impresses on his mind,and from the bond of union which it creates between h imand others, effects which are shared by the autho rities ofthe place

,for they them selves have been educated in it, and

at all times are exposed to the influe nce o f its ethical atmos

ph e re . Here then is a real teaching, whatever be its standards and principles, true o r false ; and it at least tends towards cultivation of the intellect ; it at least recognizes thatknowledge is som ething more than a sort of passive reception of scraps and details ; it is a something, and it does asom ething, which never will issue from the most strenuousefforts of a set of teachers, with no mutual sympathies andno inter-comm union, of a set of examiners with no opinionswhich they dare profess, and with no common principles,who are teaching or questioning a set of youths who do notknow them, and do not know each other, on a large numberof subjects, different in kind, and connected by no widephilosophy, three times a week, o r three times a year, o ronce in three years, in chill lecture-rooms or on a pompousanniversary.

Nay, self-education in any shape, in the most restrictedsense, is preferable to a system of teaching which, professingso much, really does so little for the mind . Shut your College gates against the votary of knowledge, throw h im backupon the searchings and the effo rts of his own m ind ; he willgain by being spared an entrance into your Babe l . Few,

indeed, there are who can dispense with the stim ulus andsupport of instructors, o r will do any thing at all, if left tothemselves . And fewer still (though such great minds are to

56 BOOKS AND STUDY

be found) , who will not, from such unassisted attempts,contract a self—reliance and a self—esteem, which a re not onlymoral evils, but serious hindrances to the attainm ent of

truth . And next to none, perhaps, o r none, who will not bereminded from tim e to tim e of the disadvantage under whichthey lie, by their imperfect grounding, by the breaks, deficiencie s, and irregularities of their knowledge, by the e ccentricity of Opinion and the confusion of principle whichthey exhibit . They will be too often ignorant ofwhat everyone knows and takes for granted, of that multitude of smalltruths which fall upon the mind like dust, impalpable ande ver accumulating ; they may be unable to converse, theym ay argue perversely, they may pride themselves on theirworst paradoxes or their grossest truism s, they may be fullof their own mode of Viewing things, unwilling to be put outof their way, slow to enter into the m inds of others ; but,with these and whatever other liabilities Upon th eir heads,they are likely to have more thought, more mind, more philosophy, more true enlargement, than those earnest but illused persons, wh o are forced to load their minds with a scoreof subjects against an examination, who have too much on

their hands to indulge themselves in thinking or investiga~tion, who devour premiss and conclusion together with ihdiscriminate greediness, who hold whole sciences on faith ,and commit demonstrations to m emory, and who too often,as might be expected, when their period of education ispassed, throw up all they have learned in disgust, havinggained nothing really by their anxious labours, except perhaps the habit of application .

Yet such is the better specimen of the fruit of that ambitious system which has of late years been making way amongus : for its result on o rdinary minds, and on the com m on runof students , is less satisfactory still ; they le ave their place of

education simply dissipated and relaxed by the m ultiplicityof subjects, which they have never really mastered, and so


shallow as not even to know their shallowness . How muchbetter, I say, is it for the active and thoughtful intellect,where such is to be found, to e schew the College and theUniversity altogether, than to submit to a drudgery so ignoble, a mockery so contumelious ! How much more pr ofita b lefor the independent mind, after the mere rudiments of education, to range through a library at random, taking downbooks as they meet him, and pursuing the trains of thoughtwhich his mother wit suggests ! How much healthier to wander into the fie lds, and there with the ex iled Prince to findtongues in the trees, books in the running brooks ! ” How

much more genuine an education is that of the poor boy inthe Poem 1 a Poem, whether in conception o r in e x ecu

tion, one of the most touching in our language who, notin the wide world, but rang ing day by day around his widowed mother’s home, “ a dexterous gleaner ” in a narrow‘

fie ld, and with only such slender outfitas the v illage school and book s a fewSupplied,”

contrived from the b each, and the quay, and the fishe r’

s

boat, and the inn’s fire side , and the tradesman

’s shop, andthe shepherd’s walk, and the smuggler

’s hut, and the mossymoor, and the screaming gulls, and the restless waves, tofashion for himself a philosophy and a poetry of his own !

But in a large subject, I am exceeding my necessary limits .Gentlem en, I must conclude abruptly ; and postpone anysumm ing up of my argument, should that be necessary, toanother day.

1 Crab b e’

s“Ta le s ofthe Hall. Th is Po em , le tm e say, I re ad on its first

pub lica tion, ab ov e th irty ye a rs ago , with e x trem e de light, a nd hav e ne v e r

lo st m y lov e of it; and on tak ing it upla te ly, found I was e v en m o re touchedb y it than he re to fo re . A wo rk wh ich can ple a se in youth a nd age , se em s to

fulfil (in log ica l language ) the accidenta l definition of a Classic. [A furthe rcourse of twenty ye ars has past, and I b ear the sam e witne ss in fav our ofthis Poem .!

THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OFEDUCATION1

THOMAS HENRY HU! LEY1825- 1895

THIS is an e x tract from the e ssay Scie nce and Art in Relation to Educartion,

”a sub je ct upon wh ich Hux ley one of the gre a t scie ntists of the

n ine te enth ce ntury — h ad v e ry de c ided opin ions. He wanted to te achm e n

“to th ink truly a nd to liv e r ightly ” ; and he b e lie v ed th is could b e st

b e done b y spre ading a knowledge of the na tura l science s and by inculca tinga scie ntific m e thod of study . In pr e senting h is v iews he took the gre a te stpa ins to b e cle a r ; h is b est e ssays a re m ode ls of fo rm , and his style is simpleand dire ct.

I KNOW quite well that launching myself into this discussionis a very dangerous operation ; that it is a very large subject,and one which is difficult to deal with, however much I maytrespass upon your patience in the tim e allotted to m e . Butthe discussion is so fundam ental, it is so com pletely impo ss ible to m ake up one’s m ind on these m atters until one hassettled the question, that I will even venture to make theexperiment . A gre at lawyer-statesm an and philosopher ofa form er age I mean Franci s Bacon said that truthcame out of error m uch m ore rapidly than it cam e out ofconfusion . There is a wonderful truth in that saying. Nextto being right in this world, the best of all things is to beclearly and defin ite ly wrong, because you will com e outsomewhere . If you go buzzing about between right andwrong

,Vibrating and fluctuating, you com e out nowhere ;

but if you are absolute ly and thoroughly and persistentlywrong

, you m ust, som e of these days, have the extrem e

1 Repr inted by cour te sy o fMe ssrs . D . Apple ton and Company, the au

thor ized pub lishe rs ofHux ley’

s Works.

THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION 59

good fortune of knocking your head against a fact, and thatsets you all straight again . So I will not trouble myself asto whether I may be right o r wrong in what I am about tosay, but at any rate I hope to be clear and defin ite ; and thenyou will be able to judge for yourselves whether, in followingout the train of thought I have to introduce, you knock yourheads against facts o r not.

I take it that the whole object of education is, in the fir stplace, to train the faculties of the young in such a manner asto give their possessors the best chance of being happy anduseful in their generation ; and, in the second place, to furnish them with the m ost important portions of that immensecapitalised experience of the human racewhich we call knowledge of various kinds. I am using the term knowledge inits widest possible sense ; and the question is, what subjectsto select by training and discipline, in which the objectI have just defined may be best attained.

I must call your attention further to this fact, that all thesubjects of our thoughts all feelings and propositions(leaving aside our sensations as the mere materials and oc

casions of thinking and feeling) , all our m ental furnituremay be classified under one of two heads as either withinthe province of the intellect, som ething that can be put intopropositions and affirm ed o r denied ; o r as within the province of feeling,or that which, before the name was defiled,was called the aesthetic side of our nature, and which can

neither be proved nor disproved, but only felt and known .

According to the cla ssification which I have put beforeyou, then, the subjects of all knowledge are divisible intothe two groups, m atters of science and matters of art ; forall things with which the reasoning faculty alone is occupied,com e under the province of science ; and in the broadestsense, and not in the narrow and technical sense in whichwe are now accustome d to use the word art, a ll things feel

60 BOOKS AND STUDY

able, all things which stir our emotions, come unde r theterm of art, in the sense of the subject-matter of the aestheticfaculty. So that we are shut up to this that the busin esso f education is, in the first place, to provide the yo ung withthe means and the habit of observation ; and, secondly, tosupply the subject-matter of knowledge either in the shapeof science o r of art, or of both combined .

Now, it is a very rem arkable fact but it is true ofmostthings in this world that there is hardly anything one

sided, or of one nature ; and it is not immediately obviouswhat of the things that interest us may be regarded a s purescience, and what may be regarded as pure art. It may b ethat there are some peculiarly constituted persons who , b e

fore they have advanced far into the depths of geometry,find artistic beauty about it; but, taking the generality ofmankind, I think it may be said that, when they begin tolearn m athematics, their whole souls are absorbed in tracingthe connection between the prem isses and the conclus ion,and that to them geometry is pure science. So I think itm ay be said that mechanics and osteology are pure science.Ou the other hand, melody in music is pure art. You cannot reason about it ; there is no proposition involved in it.So , again, in the pictorial art, an arabesque, or a

“harmonyin grey,

” touches none but the aesthetic faculty. But agreat mathem atician, and even many persons who are notgreat mathem aticians, will tell you that they derive immensepleasure from geom etrical reasonings . Everybody knowsmathem aticians speak of solutions and problems as “ ele

gant,” and they tell you that a certain m ass ofmystic sym

bo ls is “beautiful, quite lovely .

” Well, you do not see it.They do se e it, because the intellectual process, the processo f comprehending the reasons sym bolised by these figure sand these signs, confers upon them a sort of pleasure, suchas an artist has in visual symmetry. Take a science ofwhich


62 BOOKS AND STUDY

truth to nature is the intellectual element coming in, andtruth to nature depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the person to whom art is addressed. If you are inAustralia, you m ay get credit for being a good artist Im ean among the natives if you can draw a kangaroo aftera fashion . But, among men of higher civilisation, the intellectual knowledge we possess brings its criticism into our

appr eciation ofworks of art, and we are obliged to satisfy it,as well as the mere sense of beauty in colour and in outline .And so , the higher the culture and information of thosewhom art addresses, the more exact and precise must b ewhat we call its “ truth to nature .”

If we turn to literature, the sam e thing is true, and youfind works of literature which m ay be sai d to b e pure art.A little song of Shakespe are o r of Goethe is pure art ; it isexquisitely beautiful, although its intellectual content maybe nothing . A series of pictures is made to pass before yourmind by the m e aning ofwords, and the effect is a melody ofideas . Ne v e rthe le ss, the great mass of the literature weesteem is valued, notmerely because of having artistic form,

but because of its intellectual content ; and the value is thehigher the m ore precise, distinct, and true is that intellectualcontent . And, if you w ill let me fo r a moment speak of theve ry highest form s of literature, do we not regard them ashighest sim ply because the more we know the truer theyse em, and the more competent we are to appreciate beautythe more beautiful they are ? No m an ever understandsShakespeare until he is o ld, though the youngest m ay ad

mire him, the reason be ing that he satisfie s the artistic instinct of the youngest and harm onises with the ripest andriche st experience of the o ldest .I have said this much to draw your attention to what, in

my m ind, lies at the roo t of all this m atte r, and at the understanding of one anothe r by the m en o f science on the one


hand, and the men of literature, and hi story , and art, on theother. It is not a question whether one order of study or

another should predominate . It is a question ofwhat topicsof education you shall select which will combine all the needful elements in such due proportion as to give the greatestam oun t of food, support, and encouragement to those faculties which enable us to appreciate truth, and to profit bythose sources of innocent happiness which are open to us,and, at the same time, to avoid that which is bad, and coarse,and ugly, and keep clear of the multitude of pitfalls anddangers whi ch beset those who break through the natur al o rmoral laws .I address myself, in this Spirit, to the consideration of the

q uestion of the value of purely literary education . Is itgood and sufficient, or is it insufficient and bad ? Well, hereI ventur e to say that there are literary educations and literary educations . If I am to understand by that term the

education that was cur rent in the great majority of middleclass schools, and upper schools too, in this country when Iwas a boy, and which consisted absolutely and almost eutire ly in keeping boys for eight o r ten years at learning therules of Latin and Greek grammar, construing certain Latinand Gre ek authors, and possibly making verses which, hadthey been English verses, would have been condem ned asabom inable doggerel, if that is what you m ean by liberaleducation, then I say it is scandalously insufficie nt and a l

most worthless . My reason fo r saying so is not from thepoint of view of science at all, but from the point of view of

l iterature. I say the thing professes to be literary educationthat is not a literary education at all . It was not literatur eat all that was taught, but science in a very bad form . It isquite obvious that gram m ar is science and not literature.The analysis of a text by the he lpof the rules o f gram m ar isjust as m uch a scie ntific operation as the analysis of a chemi

64 BOOKS AND STUDY

cal compound by the help of the rules of chemical analysis.There is nothing that appeals to the aesthetic faculty in thatoperation ; and I ask multitudes ofmen of my own age, whowent through this process, whethe r they ever had a conception of art o r literature until they obtained it fo r themselvesafter leaving school ? Then you may say, “Ii that is so , ifthe education was scientific, why cannot you be satisfied

with it? I say, because although it is a scientific training,it is of the most inadequate and inappropriate kind. If

there is any good at all in scie ntific education it is that menshould be trained, as I said before, to know things for themselves at fir st hand, and that they should understand everystep of the reason of that which they do .

I desire to speak with the utm ost respect of that sciencephilology of which grammar is a part and parcel ; yeteverybody knows that gram mar, as it is usually learned atschool, affords no scie ntific training . It is taught just asyou would teach the rules of chess o r draughts . On theother hand, if I am to understand by a literary e ducationthe study of the literatures of either ancient or modern nations but especially those of antiquity, and especiallythat of ancient Greece ; if this literature is studied, notmerely from the point of View of philological science, and itspractical application to the interpretation of texts, but as ane x emplification of and commentary upon the principles ofart ; if you look upon the literature of a people as a chapterin the developm ent of the hum an m ind, if you work out thisin a broad spirit, and with such collate ral references to m o r

als and politics, and physical geography, and the like as areneedful to m ake you compre he nd what the m eaning of ancient lite rature and civilisation is, then, assuredly, itaffords a splendid and noble education . But I still think itis susceptible of improvem ent, and that no man will evercomprehend the re al secre t of the difference between the


ancient world and our present time, unless he has learned tosee the difference wh ich the late development of physicalscience has made between the thought of this day and thethought of that, and he will never see that dili e re nce , unlesshe has som e practical insight into som e branches of physicalscience ; and you must remem ber that a literary educationsuch as that which I have just referred to, is out o f the reachof those whose school life is cut short at sixte en o r seventeen .

But, you will say, all this i s fault-finding ; let us hear what

you have in the way of positive suggestion . Then I am

bound to tell you that, if I could make a clean sweep of

everything I am very glad I cannot because I might, andprobably should, make mistakes, but if I could make aclean sweep of everything and start afresh, I should, in thefirst place, secure that training of the young in reading andwr iting, and in the habit of attention and observation , bothto that which is told them, and that which they see, whicheverybody agrees to . But in addition to that, I should makeit absolutely necessary for everybody, fo r a longer o r shorter

period, to learn to draw . Now, you m ay say, there are somepeople who cannot draw, however much they may be taught .I deny that in toto , because I never yet met with anybodywho could not learn to write. Writing is a form of drawing ;therefore if you give the same attention and trouble todrawing as you do to writing, depend upon it, there is nobody who cannot be made to draw, more o r less well . Donot misapprehend me. I do not say for one mom ent youwould make an artistic draughtsman . Artists are notmade ;they grow. You may im prove the natural faculty in thatdirection, but you cannot m ake it ; but you can teach sim pledrawing, and you will find it an implement of learning ofextrem e value . I do not think its value can be exaggerated,because it gives you the means of training the young in at

tention and accuracy, which are the two things in which all

66 BOOKS AND STUDY

mankind are more deficie nt than in any other mental qualitywhatever. The whole of m y life has been spent in trying togive my proper attention to things and to be accurate

,and

I have not succeeded as well as I could wish ; and other people, I am afraid, are not much more fortunate. You cannotbegin this habit too early, and I consider there is nothing ofso great a value as the habit of drawing, to secure those twodesirable ends .Then we com e to the subject-matter, whether scientific

o r aesthetic, of education, and I should naturally have noquestion at all about teachin g the elem ents of physical science of the kind I have sketched, in a practical manner ; butam ong scie ntific topics, using the word scientific in thebroadest sense, I would also include the elements of thetheory ofm orals and of that of political and social life,which,strangely enough, it never seems to occur to anybody toteach a child . I would have the history of our own country,and of all the influence s which have been brought to bearupon it, with incidental geography, not as a mere chronicleof reigns and battles, but as a chapter in the development ofthe race, and the history of civilisation .

Then with respect to aesthetic kn owledge and discipline,we have happily in the English language one of the mostm agnifice nt storehouses of artistic beauty and of models ofliterary excellence which exists in the world at the presenttim e . I have said before, and I repe at it here, that if a mancannot get literary culture of the highest kind out of his Bible, and Chauce r,and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Hobbes ,and BishopBerkeley, to mention only a few of our illustriouswriters I say, if he cannot get it out of those writers hecannot get it out of anything ; and I would assuredly devotea very large portion of the time of every English child to thecareful study of the m ode ls ofEnglish writing of such variedand wonderful kind as we possess, and, what is still more


important and still more neglected, the habit of using thatlanguage with precision, with fo rce, and with art . I fancywe are alm ost th e only nation in the world who seem tothink that compo sition com es by nature . The French a t

tend to their own language, th e G e rm ans study theirs ; butEnglishmen do not seem to think it is worth their while .

Nor would I fail to include, in the course of study I am

sketching,translations of all the best works of antiquity, o r

of the m odern world . It is a very desirable thing to readHom er in G reek ; but if you don

’t happen to know Greek,the next best thing we can do is to read as good a translation of it as we have recently been furnishe d with in prose.You won’t ge t all you wo uld get from the o riginal , but youmay ge t a great de al ; and to refuse to know this great de albecause you cannot get all, se em s to be as sensible as for ahungry man to refuse bread be cause he cannot get partridge .

Finally, I would add instruction in either m usic o r painting,o r , if the child should be so unhappy, as som etim es happens,as to have no faculty fo r either of those, and no possibilityof doing anything in any artistic sense with them , then IWould see what co uld be done with literature alone ; but Iwould provide, in the fullest sense, for the developm ent ofthe aesthetic side of the m ind . In my judgm ent, those areall the essentials of education fo r an English child . Withthat outfit, such as it might be made in the tim e given toeducation which is within the reach of nine—tenths of thepopulation with that outfit, an Englishm an , within thelim its of English life, is fitted to go anywhere, to occupythe highest positions, to fill the highest office s o f the State ,and to becom e distinguished in practical pursuits, in sci

ence, o r in art . Fo r , if he have the oppo rtunity to learnall those things, and have his mind disciplined in thevario us directions the teaching of those topics would havenecessitated, then, assur edly, he will be able to pick up, on

68 BOOKS AND STUDY

his road through life, all the rest of the in tellectual baggagehe wants .If the educational tim e at our disposition were sufficient,

there are one o r two things I would add to those I have justnow calle d the esse ntials ; and perhaps you will be surprisedto he ar, though I hope you will no t, that I should add, notm ore science, but one , o r , if possible, two languages . Theknowledge of som e o ther language than one’s own is, in fact,of singular intellectual value . Many of the faults and mistakes of the ancient philosophers are traceable to the factthat they knew no language but their own , and were oftenled into confusing the symbol with the thought which item bodied . I think it i s Lo cke who says that one -half of themistakes of philosophers have arisen from questions aboutwo rds ; and one o f the safest ways of delivering your self fromthe bondage o fwords is, to know how ideas look in words towhich you are not accustom ed . That is one reason for thestudy of language ; another reason is, that it opens new fie ldsin art and in science . Another is the practical value of suchknowledge ; and yet another is this, that if your languagesare properly chosen , from the time of learning the additionallanguages you will know your own language better than everyou did . So , I say, if the time given to education permits,add Latin and German . Latin, because it is the key tonearly one-half of English and to all the Rom ance languages ;and Germ an, because it is the key to alm o st all the remainderof English, and helps you to understand a race from whommost of us have sprung, and who have a character and aliterature of a fateful force in the history of the world, suchas probably has been allo tted to those of no other people,except the Jews , th e Greeks, and ourse lves . Beyond these,the essential and the em inently desirable elem ents of alleducation, let each man take uphis special line the histo rian devote himself to his history, the man of science to


THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC

INVESTIGATION 1

THOMAS HENRY HU! LEY

THIS is an e x tract from the lecture “The Cause s of the Phenom ena of

Orgédanic Na ture , pr inted in Darwiniana .

THE method of scientific investigation is nothing but theexpression of the necessary mode of working of the humanmind . It is simply the m ode at which all phenom ena arereasoned about, rendered precise and exact . There is nomore differ ence, but there is just the same kind of difference,between the mental operations of a man of science and thoseof an ordinary person, as there is between the operations andmethods of a baker o r of a butcher weighing out his goods incommon scales, and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means o i -his balanceand fine ly graduated weights . It is not that the action of

the scales in the one case, and the balance in the othe r, differin the principles of their construction o r manner ofworking ;but the beam of one is set on an infin ite ly fine r axis than theother, and of course turns by the additi on of a much smallerweight.You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give yousome familiar example . You have all heard it repeated, Idare say, that men of science work by m eans of inductionand deduction, and that by the help of these operations,they, in a sort of sense, wring from Nature certain otherthings, which are called natural laws, and causes, and thatout of these, by some cunning skill of their own , they build

1 Repr inted by cour te sy of Me ssrs. D. Apple ton and Company, the au

thor izedpub lishe rs ofHux ley’

s Works.

THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 71

up hypotheses and theories . And it is imagined by many,that the operations of the com m on m ind can be by no m eanscompared with these processes, and that they have to beacquired by a sort of spe cial apprenticeship to the craft .To hear all these large words, you would think that the mindo f a man of science must be constituted differently from thatof his fellow men ; but if you will not be frightened by term s,you will discover that you are quite wrong, and that allthese terrible apparatus are being used by yourselves everyday and every hour of your lives .There is a well-known incident in one ofMoll ere’s plays,

where the author m akes the hero expressunbounded delighton being told that he had been talking prose during thewhole o f his life . In the same way, I trust, that you willtake comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on the disco v e ry that you have been acting on the principles of inductiv e and de ductive philosophy during the same period.

Probably there is no t o ne here who has not in the course ofthe day had o ccasion to set in m o tion a complex train of

reasoning, of the very same kind, though difie r ing of coursein degree, as that which a scie ntific man goes through intracing the causes of natural phenomena.A very trivial circumstance will serve to exemplify this.

Suppose you go into a fruiterer’s shop, wanting an apple,

you take up one, and, on biting it, you find it is sour ; youlook at it, and see that it is hard and green . You take upanother one , and that too i s hard, green, and sour . Theshopman offers you a third ; but, before biting it, you examine it, and find that it is hard and green, and you immediately say that you will not have it, as it mus t be sour,like those that you have already tried .

Nothing can be m ore sim ple than that, you think ; but ifyou will take the trouble to analyse and trace out into itslogical elements what has been done by th e mind, you will

72 BOOKS AND STUDY

be greatly surprised. In the first place you have performedthe operation of induction. You found that, in two e x pe r ience s, hardness and gre enness in apples went together withsour ness . It was so in the fir st case, and it was confirm ed

by the second. True, it is a very small basis, but still it isenough to make an induction from ; you generalise the facts,and you expect to find sourness in apples where you gethardness and greenness . You found upon that a general lawthat all hard and green apples are sour ; and that, so far asi t goes, is a perfect induction . Well, having got your naturallaw in this way, when you are offered another apple which

you find is hard and green, you say,“All hard and green

apples are sour ; this apple is hard and green, therefore thi sapple is sour.” That train of reasoning is what logicianscall a syllogism, and has all its various parts and terms,its major prem iss, its minor premiss and its conclus ion.

And, by the help of further reasoning, which, if drawn out,would have to be exhibited in two o r three other syllogisms,you arrive at your fina l determination,

“ I will not have thatapple .” So that, you see, you have, in the first place, established a law by induction, and upon that you have foundeda deduction, and reasoned out the special particular case.Well now, suppose, having got your conclusion of the law,

that at some time afterwards, you are discussing the qualities of apples with a friend : you will say to him,

“It is a very

curious thing, but I find that all hard and gree n applesa re sour ! Your friend says to you, But how do you knowthat? You at once reply,

“Oh, because I have tried themover and over again, and have always found them to be so .

”

Well, if we were talking science instead of common sense,we should call that an experimental v e r ification . And, ifstill Opposed, you go further, and say,

“I have heard fromthe people in Somersetshire and Devonshire, where a largenum ber of apples are grown, that they have observed the


same thing. It i s also found to b e the case in Normandy,and in North America. In short, I find it to be the universalexperience ofmankind wherever attention has been directedto the subject .” Whereupon, your friend, unless he is avery unreasonable man, agree s with you, and is convincedthat you are quite right in the conclusion you have drawn .

He believes, although perhaps he does no t know he believesit, that the more extensive v e r ifications are, that themore frequently experiments have been made, and results ofthe same kind arrived a t, that the more varied the conditions under which the same results are attained, the morecertain is the ultimate conclusion, and he disputes the question no further. He sees that the experiment has been triedunder all sorts of conditions, as to tim e, place, and people,with the same result ; and he says with you, therefore, thatthe law you have laid down must be a good one , and he mustbelieve it.In science we do the same thing ; the philosopher e x e r

cises precisely the same faculties, though in a much moredelicate manner. In scientific inquiry it becom es a matterof duty to expose a supposed law to every possible kin d ofv e r ification , and to take care, moreover, that this is doneintentionally, and not left to a mere accident, as in the caseof the apples . And in science, as in common life, our cone

fidence in a law is in exact proportion to the absence of variation in the result of our experimental v e r ifications. Fo r

instance, if you let go your graspof an article you may havein your hand, it will imm ediately fall to the ground . Thatis a very common v e r ification of one of the best establishedlaws of nature that of grav itation . The method bywhich men of science establish the existence of that law isexactly the sam e as that by which we have established thetrivial proposition about the sourness of hard and greenapples. But we believe it in such an extensive, thorough,

74 BOOKS AND STUDY

and unhesitating manner because the universal experienceo f m ankind v e r ifie s it, and we can verify it ourselves at anytim e ; and that is the strongest possible foundation on whi chany natur al law can rest .So much, then, by way of proof that the method of estab

lish ing laws in science is exactly the same as that pursued incom mon life . . Le t us now turn to another m atter (thoughreally it is but another phase of the same question) , and thatis, the method by which, from the relations of certain pheh omena, we prove that some stand in the position of causestowards the others.I want to put the case clearly before you, and I will there

fore show you what I mean by another familiar example.I will suppose that one of you, on com ing down in the morning to the parlor ofyour house,

‘

finds that a tea—pot and somespoons which had been left in the room on the previous e v ening are gone, the window is open, and you observe themark of a dirty hand on the window-frame, and perhaps, inaddition to that, you notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoeon the gravel outside . All these phenomena have struckyour attention instantly, and before two seconds have passed

you say,“Oh, somebody has broken Open the window, eu

tored the room, and run off with the spoons and the teapot ! ” That speech is out of your mouth in a moment.And you will probably add,

“ I know there has I am quitesure o f it'” You mean to say exactly what you know ; butin reality you are giving expression to what is, in all essentialparticulars, an hypothesis . You do not know it at all ; it isnothing but an hypothesis rapidly fram ed in your own mind.

And it is an hypothesis founded on a long train of inductionsand deductions .Wh at are those inductions and deductions, and how have

you got at this hypothesis ? You have observed in the firstplace, that the window is Open ; but by a train of reasoning


involvingmany inductions and deductions, you have probably arrived long before at the general law and a verygood one it is that windows do not open of themselves ;and you therefore conclude that som ething has opened thewindow. A second general law that you have arrived at inthe same way is, that tea-po ts and spoons do not go out of aWindow spontaneously, and you are satisfied that, as theyare not now where you left them, they have been removed.

In the third place, you look at the marks on the window-s ill,and the shoe-marks outside, and you say that in a ll previousexperience the former kind of mark has never been producedby anything else but the hand of a human being ; and thesame experience shows that no other animal but man atpresent wears shoes with hob -nails in them such as wouldproduce the marks in the gravel . I do not know, even if wecould discover any of those “missing links that are talkedabout, that they would help us to any other conclusion !At any rate the law which states our present experience isstrong enough fo r my present purpose. You next reach theconclusion that, as these kind of marks have not been leftby any other animal than man, o r are liable to be formed inany other way than a man’s hand and shoe, the marks inquestion have been formed by a man in that way. You

have, further, a general law, founded on observation andexperience, and that, too , is, I am sorry to say, a very universal and un impeachable one, that some men are thieves ;and you assume at once from all these prem isses and thatis what constitutes your hypothesis that the man whomade the marks outside and on the window-sill, opened thewindow, got into the room , and stole your tea-pot andSpo ons . You have now arrived at a ver a causa ; you haveassumed a cause which, it is plain, is competent to produceall the phenomena you have observed . You can explainall these phenomena only by the hypothesis of a thief. But

76 BOOKS AND STUDY

that is a hypothetical conclusion, of the justice ofwhich youhave no absolute proof at all ; it is only rendered highly probable by a ser ies of inductive and deductive reasonings.I suppo se your fir st action, assum ing that you are a man

of ordinary com m on se nse, and that you have establishedthis hypothesis to your own satisfaction, will very likely beto go off for the police, and set them on the track of the bur

glar, with the view to the re covery of your property. Butjust as you are starting with this object, some person comesin , and on learning what you are about, says,

“My goodfriend, you are going on a great deal too fast. How do youknow that the m an who really made the m arks took thespoons ? It might have been a monkey that to ok them , andthe m an may have merely looked in afterwards You

would probably reply,“Well, that is all very well, but you

see it is contrary to all experience of the way tea-pots andspo ons are abstracted ; so that, at any rate, your hypothesisis less probable than m ine.” While you are talking thething over in this way, another friend arrives, one of thegood kind of people that I was talking of a little while ago .

And he might say, Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly goingon a great deal too fast . You are most presumptuous. Youadm it that all these occurrences to ok place when you werefast asleep, at a tim e when you could not possibly haveknown anything about what was taking place . How do youknow that the laws of Nature are not suspended during thenight ? It may be that there has been some kind of supernatural inte rfe rence in this case .

” In point of fact, he declares that your hypo thesis is one of which you cannot at alldem onstrate the truth, and that you are by no m eans surethat the laws o f Nature are the same when you are asleepas when you are awake .

Well, now, you cannot at the mom ent answer that kind ofreasoning. You feel that your worthy friend has you some


78‘

BOOKS AND STUDY

as affecting the general correctness of the conclusions atwhich we may arrive ; but, in a scientific inquiry, a fallacy,great or sm all, is always of im portance, and is sure to be inthe long run constantly productive of mischievous if notfatal results .Do not allow yourselves to be misled by the common no

tion that an hypothesis is untrustworthy sim ply because it isan hypothesis . It is often urged, in respect to som e seientific conclusion, that, after all, it is only an hypothesis. Butwhat 'm o re have we to guide us in nine-tenths of the mostimportant affairs of daily life than hypotheses, and oftenvery ill-based ones ? So that in science, where the evidenceof an hypothesis is subje cted to the most rigid exam ination,we may rightly pursue the sam e cour se. You may havehypotheses, and hypotheses . A man m ay say, if he likes,that the moon is m ade of green cheese : that is an hypothesis .But ano ther m an , who has devoted a great deal of tim e andattention to the subject, and availed him self of the mostpowerful telescopes and the results of the observations ofothers, declares that in his Opinion it is probably composedofmaterials very similar to those of which our own earth ismade up: and that is also only an hypothesis . But I neednot tell yo u that there is an enorm ous difference in the valueof the two hypotheses . That one which is base d on soun dscientific knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value ;and that which is a mere hasty random guess is likely to havebut little value. Every great step in our progress in discovering causes has been made in exactly the same way asthat which I have detailed to you. A person observing theoccurrence of certain facts and phenom ena asks, naturallyeno ugh, what process, what kind of operation known to

occur in Nature applied to the particular case, will unraveland explain the mystery ? Hence you have the scientific

hypothesis ; and its value will be proportionate to the care

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 79

and completeness with which its basis had been tested andv e r ified. It is in these matters as in the com monest affairsof practical life : the guess of the fool will be folly, while theguess of the wise man will contain wisdom. In all cases,you see that the value of the result depends on the patienceand faithfulness with which the investigator applies to hishypothesis every poss ible kind of v e r ification .

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR l

RALPH WALDO EMERSON1803—1882

THIS lecture was de liv ered b e fore the Phi Be ta Kappa Socie ty, in Camb r idge ,Ma ssachuse tts, August 31, 1837. It has b een ca lled our inte llectualdeclara tion of indepe ndence . Em e rson

’

s simple , v igo rous language , w idesympa thy, lofty idea ls and sane Am e r ican ism m ak e th is e ssay, and the one

on Ab raham Linco ln, of spe cia l andpe rm anent v a lue to Am e r icans.

MR . PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,

I GREET you on the recom m encement of our literary year .Our anniversary is one of h 0pe , and, perhaps, not enough oflabor. We do not meet for games of strength or skill, forthe recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks ; fo r parliam ents of love and poesy, like theTroubadours ; nor for the advancement of science, like ourcontemporaries in the British and European capitals. Thusfar, our holiday has b een simply a friendly sign of the surv iv a l of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to giveto letters any more . As such it is pre cious as the sign of anindestructible instinct . Perhaps the time is already comewhen it ought to b e , and will b e , something else ; when thesluggard intellect of this continent will look from under itsiron lids and fill the postponed expectation of the world withsomething better than the exertions of mechanical skill .Our day ofdependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close . The millions thataround us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on thesere rem ains of foreign harvests . Events, actions arise, thatmust be sung, that will sing them selves . Who can doubtthat poetry will revive and lead in a new age , as the star inthe constellation Harp, which now flames in our zenith,

1Reprinted by arrangem ent with Houghton Mifii in Company.

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR 81

a stronomers announce , shall one day be the pole-star for athousand years ?In this hope I accept the topic which not only usage but

the nature of our association seem to prescribe to this day,the AMERICAN SCHOLAR . Year by year we come up

hither to read one more chapter of his biography. Le t us

inquire what light new days and events have thr own on hischaracter and his hopes .It is one of those fables which out ofan unknown antiquity

convey an unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpfulto himself ; just as the hand was divided into finge r s, theb etter to answer its end .

The o ld fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime ; thatthere is One Man, present to all particular men only partia lly, or through one faculty ; and that you must take thewhole society to find the whole man . Man is not a farmer,o r a professor, or an engineer, but he is all . Man is priest,and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. Inthe di vided o r social state these functions are parcelled out toindividuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the jointwork, whilst each other performs his . The fable im pliesthat the individual, to possess him self, must sometim es return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers .But, un fortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power,has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so m inutelysubdivided and peddled out, that it is spille d into drops, andcannot be gathered . The state of society is one in which themembers have suffered amputation from the trunk, andstrut about so many walking monsters, a good finge r ,; aneck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man .

Man is thus metamorphosed into a th ing, into manythings . The planter, who is Man sent out into the fie ld togather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dig

82 BOOKS AND STUDY

nity of his m i nistry. He sees his bushel and his cart, andnothing beyond, and sinks into the farm er, instead ofMan

on the farm . The tradesman scarcely e ver gives an idealworth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft,and the soul is subject to dollars . The priest becom es aform ; the attorney a statute-book ; the mechan ic a machine ;the sailor a rope of the ship .

In this distribution of functions the scholar is the dele

gated intellect . In the right state he is Man Thinking. Inthe degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends tobecome a mere thinker, or still worse, the par rot of othermen’s think ing.

In this View of him, as Man Thinking, the theory of h is

ofice is contained . Him Nature solicits with all her placid,all her monitory pictures ; him the past instructs ; him thefuture invites . Is not indeed every man a student, and donot all things exist for the student’s behoofP And, fina lly,

is not the true scholar the only true master ? But the o ldo racle said,

“All things have two handles : beware of the

wrong one .

” In life, too often, the scholar errs with man ;kind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school,and cons ider him in reference to the main influences he rece iv e s.

A

I. Thefirst in time and thefir st in importance of the influence s upon the mind is that of natur e . Every day, the sun ;and, after sunset, Night and her stars . Ever the windsblow ; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women,conversing, beholding and beholden . The scholar is he ofa ll men whom this spectacle most engages . He must settleits value in his mind . What is nature to him ? There isnever a beginn ing, there is never an end, to the inexplicablecontinuity of this web of God, but always circular powerreturning into itself. Therein it resembles his own Spirit,


whose beginning, whose ending, ll e never can find, so

e ntire, so boundless. Fa r too as her splendors shine, systemon system shooting like rays, upward, downward, withoutcentre, without circum ference, in the mass and in theparticle, Nature hastens to render account of herself to them ind. Cla ssification begins . To the young mind everything is individual, stands by itself. By and b y, it finds howto join two things and see in them one nature ; then three,then three thousand ; and so , tyrannized over by its ownunifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under groundwhereby contrary and rem ote things cohere and flower outfrom one stem . It presently learns that since the dawn ofhi story there has been a constant accum ulation and classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceivingthat these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, buthave a law which is also a law of the human mind ? Thea stronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction ofthe human mind, is the measure of planetary motion . Thechemist finds proportions and inte lligible m ethod throughoutmatter and science is nothing but thefinding ofanalogy,identity, in the most rem ote parts . The ambitious soul sitsdown before each refractory fact ; one after another reducesall strange constitutions, all new powers, to their class andtheir law, and goes on forever to anim ate the last fib re of

o rganization, the outskirts of nature, by insight .Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome

of day, is suggested that he and it proceed from one root ;one is leaf and one is flower ; relation, sympathy, stirring ine very vein . And what is that root ? Is not that the soul ofhis soul ? A thought to o bold ; a dream too wild. Yet whenthis spiritual light shall have revealed the law ofm ore earthlynatures, when he has learned to worship the soul , and tosee that the natural philosophy tha t now is, is only the first

84 BOOKS AND STUDY

gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall look forward to an everexpanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. He shallsee that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to itpart for part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty isthe beauty ofhis own mind. Its laws are the laws ofhis ownmind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his atta inm ents. So much of nature as he is ignorant o i , so muchof his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine , theancient precept,

“Know thyself, and the mode rn precept,“Study nature,

” become at last one maxim .

II. The next great influence into the Spirit of the scholaris the mind of the Past, in whatever form, whether of lite rature , of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. Booksare the best type of the influence of the past, and perhapswe shall get at the truth, learn the am ount of this influence more conveniently, by considering their value alone.The theory ofbooks is noble. The scholar of the first age

received into him the world around ; brooded there on ; gaveit the new arrangement ofhis own mind, and uttered it again.It came into him life ; it went out from him truth. It cameto him short-lived actions ; it went out from him immortalthoughts . It cam e to him business ; it went from him poe try . It was dead fact ; now, it is quick thought. It canstand, and it can go . It now endures, it now flies, it nowinspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth ofm ind fromwhich it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it singf

'

.

Or , I might say, it depends on how far the process hadgone, of transmuting life into truth. In proportion to thecompleteness of the distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product b e . But none is quite perfect.As no air-pump can by any m eans make a perfect vacuum,

so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional,the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of


86 BOOKS AND STUDY

instead of a system . The one thing in the world, ofvalue, isthe active soul . This every man is entitled to ; this e Ve ry‘

man contains within h im , although in alm ost all men ob

structed, and as yet unborn . The soul active sees absolutetruth and utters truth, o r creates . In this action it is genius ;not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the soundestate of every man . In its essence it is progressive. Thebook, the college, the school of art, the institution of anykind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good,say they, let us hold by this. They pin me down . Theylook backward and not forward . But genius looks forward :the eyes ofman are set in his forehead, not in his hindheadman hopes : genius creates . Whatever talents m ay b e , ifthe man create not, the pure e fflux of the Deity is not his ;cinders and smoke there may b e , but no t yet flam e . Thereare creative manners, there are creative actions, and creativewords ; manners, actions, wo rds, that is, indicative of nocustom o r authority, but springing spontaneous from themind’s own sense of good and fair.Ou the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it re

ce iv e from another mind its truth, though it were in torrentsof light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recov e ry, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficie ntly the enemy of genius by over-influence . The literature of every nation bears me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shak spe a r ized now for two hundred years.Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternlysubordinated. Man Thinking m ust not be subdued by hisinstrum ents . Books are for the scholar’s idle times . Whenhe can read God directly, the hour is too precious to bewasted in other m en’s transcripts of their readings. Butwhen the intervals of darkness com e, as com e they m ust,when the sun is hid and the stars withdraw their shining,we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to


guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. Wehear

,that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says,

“A

fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful .”

It is remarkable, the character o f the pleasure we derivefrom the best books . They impress us with the convictionthat one nature wrote and the sam e reads. We read theverses of one of the great English poets, ofChaucer, ofMa r

vell, ofDryden,with the most modern joy, with a pleas

ure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstractiono f all tim e from their verses . There is some awe mixed withthe joy o f o ur surprise, when this poet, who lived in somepast world, two o r three hundred years ago, says that whichlies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nighthought and said . But for the evidence thence afforded tothe philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, weshould suppose some preestablished harm ony, some foresight of souls that were to b e , and some preparation of storesfor their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, wholay up food before death for the young grub they shall neversee .I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book . We all know,

that as the hum an body can be nourished on any food, thoughit were boiled grass and the bro th of shoes, so the humanmind can be fed by any knowledge . And great and heroicmen have existed who had almost no other information thanbythe printed page . I only would say that it needs a stronghead to bear that diet . One m ust be an inventor to readwell . As the proverb says, “He that would bring home thewe alth of the Indies, m ust carry out the wealth o f the Indie s . There is then creative reading as well as creativewriting. When the mind is braced by labor and invention,th e page of whatever book we read becomes luminous withmanifold allusion . Every sentence is doubly significant

88 BOOKS AND STUDY

and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We

then see,What is always true, that as the seer’s hour ofvision

is short and rare among heavy days and months , so is itsrecord, perchance, the least part of his volum e. The discerning will read, in his Plato o r Sh ak spe are , only that leastpart, only the authentic utterances of the oracle ; allthe rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato

’s andShak speare

’

s.

Oi course there is a portion of reading quite indispensableto a wise man . History and exact science he must learn bylaborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable othee, to teach elements . But they can onlyhighly serve us when they a im not to drill, but to create ;when they gather from far every ray of various genius totheir hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fire s, set thehearts of their youth o n flame. Thought and knowledgeare natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing.Gowns and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold,can never countervail the least sentence o r syllable of wit.Forget this, and our American college s will recede in theirpublic importan ce, whilst they grow richer every year.

III . There goes in the world a notion that the scholarshould be a recluse, a valetudinarian, as unfit for anyhandiwork o r public labor as a penknife for an axe. Theso-called practical men ” snee r at speculative men, as ii ,because they speculate o r see, they could do nothing. Ihave heard it said that the clergy, who are always , moreuniversally than any other class, the scho lars of their day,are addre ssed as wom en ; that the rough, Spontaneous conversation of m en they do not hear, but only a mincing anddiluted spe e ch . They are often virtually disfranchised ; andindeed there are advocates for their celibacy. As far as thisis true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Ao


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the business which we now have in hand. Ou this we arequite unable to speculate . Our affections as yet circulatethrough it. We no more feel o r know it than we feel thefeet, o r the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deedis yet a part of life, remains for a time immersed in ourunconscious life. In some contemplative hour it de ta chesitself from the life like a ripe fruit, to become a thought ofthe mind. Instantly it is raised, transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption . Henceforth it is an object ofbeauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. Observetoo the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grubstate, it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. Butsuddenly, without observation, the selfsame thing unfur lsbeautiful wings, and is an angel of wisdom. So is there nofact, no event, in our private history, which shall not, soonero r later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us bysoaring from our body into the empyrean. Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fe ar of boys, and dogs,and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and m anyanother fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already ;friend and relative, profession and party, town and country,nation and world, must also soar and sing.

Oi course, he who has put forth his total strength in fitactions has the richest return of wisdom. I will not shutm yself out of this globe of action, and transplant an o ak

into a flower—pot, there to hunger and pine ; nor trust therevenue of some single faculty, and exhaust one vein of

thought, m uch like tho se Savoyards, wh o , getting their liveliho od by carving shephe rds, shepherdesses, and smokingDutchm en, for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and discovered that they had whittled upthe last of their pine-trees . Autho rs we have, in numbers,who have written out their vein, and who , moved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow the


trapper into the prairie, o r ramble round Algiers, to replenishtheir merchantable stock .

If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would becovetous of action . Life is our dictionary. Years are wellspent in country labors ; in town ; in the insight into tradesand manufactures ; in frank intercourse with many men andwomen ; in science ; in art ; to the one end ofmastering in alltheir facts a language by which to illustrate and embody ourperceptions . I learn immediately from any speaker howmuch he has already lived, through the poverty o r the splendor of his speech . Life lies behind us as the quarry fromwhence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to

day. This is the way to learn g rammar. Colleges andbooks only copy the language which the fie ld and the workyard made .But the fina l value of action, l ike that ofbooks, and better

than books, is that it is a resource . That great principle ofUndulation in nature, that shows itself in the inspiring andexpiring of the breath ; in desire and satiety ; in the ebb andflow of the sea ; in day and night ; in heat and cold ; and, asyet more deeply ingrained in every atom and every fluid, i sknown to us under the name of Polarity, these fits of

easy transmission and refle ction, as Newton called them,

are the law of nature because they are the law of spirit.The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit reproducesthe other. When the artist has exhausted his materials,when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no

longer apprehended and books are a weariness, -he hasalways the resource to live .

"

Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function . Living is the functionary.

The stream retreats to its source . A great soul will be strongto live, as well as strong to think . Does he lack organ ormedium to im part his truth? He can still fall back on thise lemental force of living them. This is a total act . Think

92 BOOKS AND STUDY

ing is a partial act. Le t the grandeur of justice shine in hisaffairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roo f.Those far from fame, who dwell and act with him, willfeel the force of his constitution in the doings and passagesof the day better than it can be measured by any public anddesigned display. Time shall teach him that the scholarloses no hour which the man lives. Herein he unfolds thesacred germ of his instinct, screened from influence . Whatis lost in seemliness is gained in strength. Not out of thoseon whom systems of education have exhausted their culture,comes the helpful giant to destroy the o ld o r to build thenew, but out of unhandselled savage nature ; out of terribleDruids and Berserkers come at last Alfred and Shakspea re .

I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be saidof the dignity and necessity of labor to every citize n. Thereis virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well asfor unlearned hands . And labor is everywhere welcome ;always we are invited to work ; only be this limitation ob

serve d, that a man shall not fo r the sake of wider activitysa cr ifice any opinion to the popular judgments andmodes ofaction .

I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, and by action. It remains to say somewhatof his duties .They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all

be comprised in self-trust. The office of the scholar is tocheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them factsam idst appearances . He plie

's the slow, unhonored, andunpaid task of observation. Flamsteed and Herschel, intheir glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars with thepraise of all men, and the results be ing splendid and useful,honor is sure. But he , in his private observatory, catalogaing obscure and nebulous stars of the hum an mind, which as


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fetish of a governm ent, some ephem eral trade, or war, orman, is cried up by half mankind and cried down by theother half, as if all depended on this particular up or down .

The odds are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to thecontroversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is apopgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth a i

firm it to be the crack of doom . In silence, in steadiness, insev ere abstraction, let him hold by himself add observationto observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach,and bide his own time, — happy enough if he can satisfyhimself alone that this day he has seen something truly.

Success treads on every right step . Fo r the instinct issure, that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks.He then learns that in going down into the secrets of hisown mind he has descended into the secrets of all m inds.He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts, is master to that extent of all men whoselanguage he speaks, and of all into whose language his owncan be translated . The poet, in utter solitude rememberinghis spontaneous thoughts and recording them, is found tohave recorded that which m en in crowded cities find truefo r them also. The orato r distrusts at fir st the fitne ss of hisfrank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons headdresses, until he finds that he is the com plement of hishearers ; that they drink his words because he fulfils forthem their own nature ; the deeper he dives into his priv ate st, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he finds thisis the m ost acceptable, m ost public, and universally true .The people delight in it ; the better part of every man feels,This is my music ; this is myself.In self-trust all the Virtues are comprehended. Freeshould the scholar b e , free and brave . Free even to thedefin ition of freedom, without any hindrance that does not


arise out ofhis own constitution . Brave ; for fear is a thingwhich a scholar by his very function puts behind him . Fearalways springs from ignorance . It is a shame to him if histranquillity, amid dangerous times, arise from the pre sumption that like children and women his is a protected class ; o rif he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughtsfrom politics or

.v e x ed questions, hiding his head like an o s

trich in the flowe r ing bushes, peeping into microscopes, andturning rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his courage up.

So is the danger a danger still ; so is the fear worse. Man

like let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye andsearch its nature, inspect its origin, see the whelping of

this l ion, which lies no great way back ; he will then findin himself a perfect comprehension of its natur e and extent ;he wil l have made his hands meet on the other side, and canhenceforth defy it and pass on superior. The world is hiswho can see through its pretension . What deafness, whatstone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold isthere only by sufferance, by your sufi

'

e rance . Se e it to bea lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

Yes, we are the cowed, we the trustless. It is a mischie v ous notion that we are come late into nature ; that theworld was finished a long time ago . As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much ofhis attributes as we bring to it. To ignorance and sin, it isflint. They adapt themselves to it as they may ; but in proportion as a man has any thing in him divine, the firm am ent

flows before him and takes his Signet and form . Not he isgreat who can alter m atter, but h e who can alter m y state ofmind. They are the kings of the world who give the color oftheir present thought to all nature and all art, and persuademen by the cheerful serenity o f their carrying the m atter,that this thing which they do is the apple which the ageshave desired to pluck, now at last ripe, and inviting na

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tions to the harvest. The great man makes the great thing.Wherever Macdonald s its, there is the head of the table .Linnaeus makes botany the most alluring of studies, andwins it from the farmer and the herb-wom an ; Davy, chemistry ; and Cuvier, fossils . The day is always his who worksin it with serenity and great aims . The unstable estimatesofmen crowd to him whose mind is filledwith a truth, as theheaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon.

Fo r this self—trust, the reason is deeper than can be fathomed, darker than can be enl ightened. I might not carrywith me the feeling of my audience in stating my own belief,but I have already shown the ground ofmy hope, in adverting to the doctrine that man is one . I believe man has beenwronged ; he has wr onged himself. He has almost lost thelight that can lead him back to his prerogatives. Men arebecome of no account. Men in history, men in the world ofto-day, are bugs, are spawn, and are called

“ the mass ” andthe herd.

” In a century, in a millennium, one o r two men ;that is to say, one o r two approximations to the right stateof every man . All the rest behold in the hero o r the poettheir own green and crude being, ripened ; yes, and arecontent to be less, so that may attain to its full stature .What a testimony, full of grandeur, full of pity, is borne tothe demands of his own nature, by the poor clansman, thepoor partisan, who rejoices in the glory of his chief. Thepoor and the low find some amends to their imm ense moralcapacity, for their acquiescence in a political and social infe r ior ity. They are content to be brushed like flie s from thepath of a gre at pe rson, so that justice shall be done by himto that com m on nature which it is the de arest de sire of all tosee enlarged and glo r ified. They sun them selves in thegreat man’s light, and feel it to be their own elem ent. Theycast the dignity of man from their downtrod selves upon theshoulders of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of blood


$98 BOOKS AND STUDY

But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstractionof the Scholar. I ought not to delay longer to add what Ihave to say of nearer reference to the time and to thiscountry.

Historically, there is thought to be a difference in theideas which predominate over successive epochs, and thereare data for marking the genius of the Classic, of the R0

mantic, and now of the Refle cti v e o r Philosophical age.With the Views I have intimated of the oneness o r the identity of the mind through all individuals, I do not much dwellon these differences . In fact, I believe each individualpasses through all three. The b oy is a Greek ; the youth,romantic ; the adult, r efle ctiv e . I deny not however that arevolution in the leading idea may be distinctly enoughtraced.

Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion. Mustthat needs be evil ? We , it seems, are critical ; we are emharrassed with second thoughts ; we cannot enjoy any thingfor hankering to know whereof the pleasure co nsists ; we arelined with eyes ; we see with our feet ; the time is infectedWith Hamlet’s unhappiness,

“Sick lied o

’

er with the pa le ca st of thought.

It is so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Wouldwe be blind ? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature andGod, and drink truth dry? I look upon the discontent ofthe literary class as a mere announcement of the fact thatthey find themselves not in the state ofm ind of their fathers,and regret the coming state as untried ; as a boy dreads thewater before he has lea rned that he can swim. If there isany period

“

one would desire to be born in, is it not the age ofRevolution ; when the o ld and the new stand side by side andadm it of being com pared ; when the energies of all men aresearched by fear and by hope ; when the historic glories ofthe old can be compensated by the rich possibil ities of the


new era? This time, like a ll times, is a very good one , if webut know what to do with it.

I read with som e joy of the auspicious signs of the comingdays, as they glimm er already through poetry and art,through philosophy and scie nce, through church and state .One of these signs is the fact that the same m ovement

Which affected the elevation o f what was called the lowestclass in the state, assum ed in literature a very marked and asbenign an aspect . Instead of the sublim e and beautiful ,the near, the low , the common, was explored and poetized .

That which had been negligently trodden under foot bythose who were harnessing and provisioning themselves forlong journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to beriche r than all foreign parts . The literature of the poor, thefeelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the m eaning ofhousehold life, are the topics of the time . It is a greatstride . It is a sign, is it not ? of new Vigor when the extrem itie s are made active, when currents of warm life runinto the hands and the feet . I ask not for the great, theremote, the romantic ; what is doing in Italy or Arabia ; whatis Greek art, o r Provencal minstrelsy ; I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low.

Give me insight into to—day, and you may have the antiqueand future worlds. What would we really know the m eaning ofP The meal in the firk in ; the milk in the pan ; the ballad in the street ; the news of the boat ; the glance of the eye ;the form and the gait of the body ; show me the ultimatereason of these m atters ; show m e the sublime presence ofthe highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lur k, inthese suburbs and extrem ities o f nature ; let m e see everytr ifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on aneternal law ; and the shop, the plough, and the ledger r eferred to the like cause by which light undulates and poetssing ; and the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and

100 BOOKS AND STUDY

lumber-room, but has form and order ; there is no tr ifle ,there is no puzzle, but one design un ites and animates thefarthest pinnacle and the lowest trench.

This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith, Burns.Cowper, and, in a newer time, of Goethe, Wordsworth, andCarlyle. This idea they have difie rently followed and withvarious success. In contrast with their writing, the style ofPope, of Johnson , ofGibbon, looks cold and pe dantic . Thiswriting is blood-warm. Man is surprised to find that thingsnear are not less beautiful and wondr ous than things remote.The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean . A

man is related to all nature. This perception of the worthof the vulgar is frui tful in discoveries. Goethe, in this verything the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, asnone ever did, the genius o f the ancients.There is one m an of genius who has done much fo r thi s

philosophy of life, whose literary value has never yet beenrightly estimated ; I me an Emanuel Swedenborg. Themost im aginative ofmen, yet writing with the precision of amathematician, he endeavored to engraft a purely philosophical Ethics on the popular Christianity of his time.Such an attempt of course must have difficulty which no

genius could surmount . But he saw and showed the conne ction between nature and the affections of the soul . He

pierced the em blematic o r spiritual character of the visible,audible, tangible world. Especially did his shade-lovingmuse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature ; heshowed the m ysterious bond that allies m oral evil to the foulm aterial forms, and has given in epical parables a theory ofinsanity, of beasts, of unclean and fearful things .Another sign of our tim es, also marked by an analogous

political movement, is the new importance given to thesingle person . Every thing that tends to insulate the individual, to sur round him with barriers ofnatural respect,


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him. Patience, patience ; with the shades of all the goodand great for company ; and for solace the perspective ofyour own infin ite life ; and for work the study and the comm unication of principles, the m aking those instincts pre v alent, the conv ersion of the world . Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit ; not to be reckonedone character ; not to yield that peculiar fruit which eachman was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, inthe hundred, o r the thousand, of the party, the section, towhich we belong ; and our opinion predicted geographically,as the north, or the south ? Not so , brothers and friends,please G od, ours shall not be so . We will walk on our ownfeet ; we will work with our own hands ; we will speak our

own m inds. The study of letters shall be no longer a namefor pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence . The dreadofman and the love of man shall be a wall of defence and awr eath of joy around all . A nation of m en will fo r the firsttime exist, because each believes him self inspired by theDivine Soul which also inspires all men.

A COLLEGE MAGAZINE 1

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON1850—1894

STEVENSON has tak en his place a s one of the English stylists. His suggestions in th is e ssay, pub lished in 1887, and in

“Truth o f Inte rcourse ,”

1879, are of par ticula r v a lue to wr ite rs b e cause he spe ak s a s o ne ha v ingauthor ity. Ste v enson wa s succe ssful in ne a r ly e v e ry form ofwr iting in

v e rse , the nov e l, the shor t sto ry , the e ssay, the tra v e l sk e tch : A Chi ld’

s

Ga rden of Verses, Trea sur e Island,“A Lodg ing fo r the Night,” “

E s Tri

plex ,”and Travels with a Donkey, a re m a ste rpiece s of the ir k ind.

IALL through my boyhood and youth, I was known andpointed out for the pattern of an idler ; and yet I was alwaysbusy on m y own private end, which was to learn to write .

I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, o ne towrite in . As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I sawwith appropriate words ; when I sat by the roadside , I wouldeither read, o r a pencil and a penny version-book would bein my hand, to note down the features of the scene o r commem orate some halting stanzas . Thus I lived with words .And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was writtenconsciously for practice. It was not so m uch that I wishedto be an author (though I wished that too) as that I h advowed that I would learn to write . That was a proficiencythat tempted me ; and I practised to acquire it, as men learnto whittle, in a wager with myself. De scription was th eprincipal fie ld o f m y exercise ; for to any one with sensesthere is always som ething worth describing, and town andcountry are but one continuous subject . But I worked inother ways also ; often accompanied m y walks with dramatic

1 From Memori es andPortra its, by perm ission ofthe pub lishe rs, Cha rlesScr ib ne r ’s So ns .

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dialogues, in which I played many parts ; and often exercisedmyse lf in writing down conversations from memory.

This was all excellent, no doubt ; so were the diaries Isom etimes tried to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, finding them a school of posturing and melancholyself-deception. And yet this was not the most efficient partofmy training. G ood though it was, it only taught me (sofar as I have learned them at all) the lower and less intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the essential noteand the right word : things that to a happier constitutionhad perhaps com e by nature. And regarded as training

,it

had one grave defect ; for it set me no standard of achievement. So that the re was perhaps more profit, as there wascertainly more effort, in m y secret labors at home. Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me,in which a thing was said o r an e li

'

e ct rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force o r

som e happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at onceand set m yself to ape that quality. I was un successful , andI knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful andalways un successful ; but at least in these vain bouts, I gotsome practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction, and inthe co—ordination of parts . I have thus played the sedulousape to Hazlitt, to Lam b, to Wordsworth, to Sir ThomasBrowne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire, and to Oberm ann . I remem ber one of these monkeytricks, whi ch was called The Van ity of Mora ls ; it was tohave had a second part, The Vanity of Knowledge ; and asI had neither m orality nor scholarship, the nam es were apt ;but the second part was never attempted, and the first partwas written (which is my reason fo r recalling it, ghostlike,from its ashe s) no le ss than three tim es : fir st in the mannerofHazlitt, se cond in the m anner ofRuskin, who had cast onme a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir


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anything in this training that shall clip the wings of youroriginality. There can be none more original than Mon

ta igne , neither could any be more unlike Cicero ; yet nocraftsman can fail to see how much the one must have triedin hi s time to imitate the other. Burns is the very type of aprime force in letters ; he was of all men the most imitative.Shakespeare himself, the im perial, proceeds directly from aschool. It is only from a school that we can expect to havegood writers ; it is almost invariably from a school that greatwriters, these lawless exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything here that should astonish the considerate . Before hecan tell what cadences he truly prefers, the student shouldhave tried all that are possible ; before he can choose andpreserve a fitting key of words, he should long have practised the literary scales ; and it is only after years of suchgymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of wordsswarm ing to his call, dozens of turns of phrase sim ultaneously bidding for his choice, and he him self knowing what hewants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man

’s ability)able to do it.And it is the great point of these imitations that there stillshines beyond the student’s reach hi s inimitable model. Let

him try as he please, he is still sure of failure ; and it is a veryo ld and a very true saying that failure is the only high roadto success. I must have had some disposition to learn ; for Iclear-sightedly condemned my own performances . I likeddo ing them indeed ; but when they were done, I could seethey were rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showedthem even to m y friends ; and such friends as I chose to bemy confidants I must have chosen well, fo r they had thefriendliness to be quite plain with me. “Padding,

” saidone . Another wrote : “ I cann ot unde rstand why you dolyrics so badly.

” No more could I ! Tb rice I put myself inthe way of a more authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper


to a magazine. These were returned ; and I was not surprised no r even pained. If they had not been looked at, as(like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, there was nogood in repeating the experim ent ; if they had been lookedat well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I mustkeep on learning and living . Lastly, I had a piece of goodfortune, which is the occasion of this paper, and by which Iwas able to see my literature in print, and to measure expe r im entally how far I stood from the favor of the public.

II

THE Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, andhas counted among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey,Horner, Benjamin Constant, Robert Emmet, and many alegal and local celebrity besides. By an accident, variouslyexplained, it has its rooms in the very buildings of the Un iversity of Edinburgh : a hall, Turkey—carpeted, hung withpictures, looking, when lighted up at night with fire andcandle, like some goodly dining—room ; a passage-like library,walled with books in their wire cages ; and a corridor with afireplace , benches, a table, many prints of famous members,and a mural tablet to the Virtues of a former secreta ry. Herea member can warm himself and loaf and read ; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatuslooks askance at these privileges ; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole society ; which argues alack of proportion in the learned mind, fo r the world, wemay be sure, will prize far higher thi s haunt of dead lionsthan all the living dogs of the professorate.I sat one Decem ber m orning in the library of the Spe cu

lative ; a very hum ble-m inded youth, though it was a virtueI never had much credit for ; yet proud ofm y privileges as amember of the Spec . ; proud of the pipe I was smoking in theteeth of the Senatus ; and in particular, proud ofbeing in the

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next room to three very distinguished students, who we rethen conversing beside the corridor fire . One of these hasnow his name on the back of several volum es, and his voice,I learn, is influentia l in the law courts. Of the death of thesecond, you have just been reading what I had to say. Andthe third also has escaped out of that battle of life in whichhe fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They were allthree, as I have said, notable students ; but this was the mostconspicuous . Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventur ous,diplomatic, a reader of Balzac, and of all men that I haveknown, the most like to one of Balzac

’s characters, he led alife, and was attended by an ill fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the Comédie Ham a ine . He had thenhis eye on Parliament ; and soon after the time of which Iwrite, he made a showy speech at a political dinner, was criedup to heaven next day in the Courant, and the day after wasdashed lower than earth with a charge of plagiarism in theScotsman . Re port would have it (I dare say, very wrongly)that hewas betrayed by one in whom he particularly trusted,and that the author of the charge had learned its truth fromhis own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a pinnacle , adm ired and envied by all ; and the next, though stillbut a boy, he was publicly disgraced . The blow would havebroken a less fine ly tempered spirit ; and even him I supposeit rendered reckless ; for he took flight to Lo ndon, and there,in a fast club, disposed of the bulk of hi s considerable patrimony in the space of one winter. Fo r years thereafter helived I know not how ; always well dressed, always in goodhotels and good society, always with empty pockets. Thecharm of his manner may have stood him in good stead ; butthough my own manners are very agreeable, I have neverfound in them a source of l ivelihood ; and to explain themiracle of his continued ex istence, I m ust fal l back uponthe theory of the philosopher, th at in hi s case , as in all of


110 BOOKS AND STUDY

have been a rare vein of courage, that he should thus hav edied at his em ployment ; and do ubtless ambition spokeloudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems therewas a m arriage in his View had he succeeded . But he died,and his paper died after him ; and of all this grace, and tact,and courage, it must seem to our blind eyes as if there hadcom e lite rally nothing.

These thr ee students sat, as I'

wa s saying, in the corridor,under the m ural tablet that records the Virtues ofMacbean,the former secretary. We would often smile at that ine loquent mem orial, and thought it a poor thing to come intothe world at all and leave no more behind one than Macbean.

And yet of these three, two are gone and have left less ; andthis book, perhaps, when it is o ld and foxy, and som e onepicks it up in a corner of a book-shop, and glances throughit, sm iling at the o ld, gracele ss turns of speech, and perhapsfor the love of A lm a Mater (which m ay be still extant andflour ishing) buys it, not without haggling, for som e pencethis book may alone preserve a memory of James WalterFe r r ie r and Robert Glasgow Brown .

Their thoughts ran very difie rently on that Decembermorning ; they were a ll on fire with ambition ; and when theyhad called me in to them, and made m e a Sharer in their design, I too became drunken with pride and hope. We wereto found a University magazine. A pair of little, activebrothers Livingstone by name, great skippers on thefoot, great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book-shop overagainst the University building had been debauched toplay the part of publishers . We four were to be conjuncteditors and, what was the m ain point of the concern, to printo ur own works ; while, by every rule o f arithm etic thatflatte r e r of credulity the adventure must succeed andbring great profit. We ll, well : it was a bright Vision . Iwent home that morning walking upon air. To have been


chosen by these thr ee distinguished students was to me themost unspeakable advance ; it was my first draught of consideration ; it reconciled m e to m yself and to my fellowmen ;and as I steered round the railings at the Tron, I could notwithh old my lips from smiling publicly. Yet, in the bottomofm y heart, I knew that m agazine would be a grim fia sco ; Iknew it would not be worth reading ; I knew, even if it were,that nobody would read it; and I kept wondering how Ishould be able, upon my compact in come of twelve poundsper annum, payable monthly, to meet my share in the expense. It was a comfortable thought to me that I had a

father.The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover which was the

best part of it, for at least it was unassum ing ; it ran fourmonths in undistur bed obscurity, and died without a gasp.

The first num ber was edited by all four of us with prodigiousbustle ; the second fell principally into the hands of Ferrierand me ; the third I edited alone ; and it has long been a solem n question who it was that edited the fourth. It wouldperhaps be still more difficult to say who read it. Poor ye llow sheet, that looked so hopefully in the Livingstones

’

win

dow ! Poor, harmless paper, that m ight have gone to printa Shakespeare ou, and was instead so clumsily defaced withnonsense ! And, shall I say, Poor Editors ? I cannot pitymyself, to whom it was all pure gain . It was no news to m e ,but only the wholesome confirm ation of my judgment, whenthe magazine struggled into half-birth, and instantly s ickened and subsided into night . I had sent a copy to the ladywith whom m y heart was at that tim e som ewhat engaged,and who did all that in her lay to break it; and she, withsome tact, passed over the gift and my cherished contr ib u

tions in silence. I will not say that I was pleased at this ;but I will tell her now, if by any chance she takes up theWork of her former servant, that I thought the better of her

112 Q BOOKS AND STUDY

taste. I cleare d the decks after this lost engagement ; hadthe necessary interview with m y father, which passed 03notam iss ; paid over my share of the expense to the two little,active brothers, who rubbed their hands as much, but methought skipped rather less than formerly, having perhaps,these two also, embarked upon the enterprise with som egraceful illusions ; and then, reviewing the whole episode, Itold myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor the manready ; and to work Ik went again with my penny versionbooks, having fallen back in one day from the printed authorto the manuscript student.


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certain sense even they may o r may not be false. The h ab itua l liar may be a very honest fellow, and live truly withhis wife and friends ; while another m an who never told aformal falsehood in his life may yet be him self one lieheart and face, from topto bottom . This is the kind of liewhich poisons intimacy. And, vice versa , veracity to sentiment, truth in a relation, truth to your own heart and yourfriends, never to feign o r falsify emotion that is the truthwhich makes love poss ible and mankind happy.

L’

a rt de bi en di r e is but a drawing-room accom plishmentunless it be pre ssed into the service of the truth . The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to wr ite what youmean ; not to affect your reader, but to affe ct him precisely asyou wish . This is commonly understood in the case of bookso r set orations ; even in making your will, or writing an e x

plicit letter, som e difficulty is admitted by the world .

But one thing you can never make Philistine natures understand ; one thing, which yet lies on the surface, remains asunseizable to their wits as a high flight of metaphysicsnam ely, that the business of life is m ainly carried on bymeans of this difficult art of literature , and according to aman’s proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and thefulness of his intercourse with other men . Anybody, it issupposed, can say what he means ; and, in spite of their noto r ious experience to the contrary, people so continue tosuppose . Now, I simply Open the last book I have beenreading Mr . Leland’s captivating Engli sh Gipsi es.

“It is

said,” I find on p. 7,

“ that those who can converse withIrish peasants in their own native tongue form far higherOpin ions of their appreciation of the beautiful, and of the

elem ents of hum or and pathos in thei r hea rts, than do thosewho know their thoughts only through the m edium of Eng

lish . I know from my own observations that this is quitethe case with the Indians of North America, and it is un

TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 115

questionably so with the gipsy. In short, where a man hasnot a full possession of the language, the most important,because the most amiable, qualities of his nature have to lieburied and fallow ; for the pleasure o f com radeship, and theintellectual part of love, rest upon these very

“ elements ofhumor and pathos . Here is a man opulent in both, andfo r lack of a medium he can put none of it out to interest inthe market of affection ! But what is thus made plain toour apprehens ions in the case of a foreign language is partially true even with the tongue we learned in childhood .

Indeed, we all speak different dialects ; one shall be copiousand exact, another loose and m eagre ; but the speech of theideal talker shall correspond and fit upon the truth of factnot clumsily, obscuring lineaments, like a mantle, but clearlyadhering, like an athlete

’s skin . And what is the result ?That the one can open himself more clearly to his friends,and can enjoy more of what makes life truly valuableintimacy with those he loves . Ah orator makes a false step ;he em ploys some trivial, som e absurd, some vulgar phrase ;in the turn of a sentence he insults, by a side wind, thosewhom he is laboring to charm ; in speaking to one sentimenthe unconsciously rutfle s anothe r in parenthesis ; and you arenot surprised, for you know his task to be de l icate and filledwith perils . O frivolous mind of man, light ignorance ! ”

As if yourself, when you seek to explain some m isunde rstanding o r excuse som e apparent fault, speaking swiftlya nd addressing a m ind still recently incensed, were not harh essing for a more perilous adventure ; as if yourself requiredless tact and eloquence ; as if an angry friend or a suspiciouslover were not more easy to offend than a meeting of indiife r ent politicians ! Nay, and the orator treads in a beatenround ; the m atters he discusses have been discussed a thousand tim es before ; language is ready-shaped to his purpose ;he speaks out of a cut and dry vocabulary. But you

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may it not be that your defence reposes on some subtlety offeeling, not so much as touched upon in Shakespeare, toexpress which, like a pioneer, you must venture forth intozones of thought still unsurveyed, and become yourself al iterary innovator ? For even in love there are unlovelyhumors ; ambiguous acts, unpardonable words, may yethave sprung from a kind sentiment . If the injured one

could read your heart, youmay be sure that he would understand and pardon ; but, alas ! the heart cannot be shownit h a s to be demonstrated in words . Do you think it is ahard thing to write po etry? Why, that is to write poe try,and of a high, if not the highest, order.I should even more admire the lifelong and heroic liter

ary labors of my fellowmen, patiently clearing up in wordstheir loves and their contentions, and speaking their autobiography daily to their wives, were it not for a circumstancewhich lessens their difficulty and m y admiration by equalparts. Fo r life, though largely, is not entirely carried on byliterature . We are subject to physical passions and contortions ; the voice breaks and changes, and speaks by uncon

scious and winning infle ctions ; we have legible countenances,like an open book ; things that cannot be said look eloquentlythrough the eyes ; and the soul, not locked into the body as adungeon, dwells eve r on the threshold with appealing signals. Groans and tears, looks and gestures, a flush o r a paleness, are often the most clear reporters of the heart, andspeak more directly to the hearts of others . The messageflie s by these interpre ters in the least space of tim e, and themisunderstanding is averted in the moment of its birth . Toexplain in words take s time and a just and patient hearing ;and in the critical epochs of a close relation, patience andjustice are not qualitie s on which we can rely. But the looko r the gesture explains things in a breath ; they tell theirmessage without ambiguity ; unlike speech, they cannot


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more desirable, after the possession of such radical qualitiesas honor and humor and patho s, than to have a lively andnot a stolid countenance ; to have looks to correspond wi thevery feeling ; to be elegant and delightful in person, so thatwe shall please even in the intervals of active pleasing, andmay never discredit speech with un couth manners o r b ecome unconsciously our own burlesques . But of all unfo rtunate s there is one creature (for I will not call him man)conspicuous in misfortune. This is he who has forfeited hisbirthright of expression, who has cultivated artful intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a pet monkey, andon every side perverted o r cut off his means of com m unication with his fellowm en . The body is a house of manywindows : there we a ll sit, showing ourselves and crying onthe passers-b y to come and love us. But this fellow hasfilled his windows with opaque glass, elegantly colored. His

house may be adm ired for its design, the crowd may pausebefore the stained windows, but meanwhile the poor propr ieto r must lie languishing within uncomforted, un changeably alone.Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to

refrain from open lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood andyet not tell the truth. It is not enough to answer form alquestions . To reach the truth by yea and nay com m unications implies a questioner with a share of inspiration, suchas is often found in mutual love. Yea and nay mean no

thing ; the meaning must have been related in the que stion .

Many words are often necessary to convey a very simplestatement ; for in this sort of exercise we never hit the gold ;the most that we can h0 pe is by many arrows, more o r lessfar off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of time,for what target we are aiming, and after an hour

’s talk, backand forward, to convey the purport of a single principle o ra s ingle thought. And yet while the cur t, pithy spe aker

TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 119

misses the pom t entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babblerwill often add three new offences in the process of excusingone . It is really a most delicate affair. The world wasmade before the English language, and seemingly upon adifferent design . Suppose we held our converse not inwords, but in music ; those who hav e a bad ear would findthemselves cut off from all near commerce, and no betterthan foreigners ln this big world. But we do not considerhow many have “ a bad ear ” fo r words, no r howoften themost eloquent find nothing to reply. I hate questionersand questions ; there are so few that can b e spoken to without a lie . “

Do you forgive m e ?” Madam and sweetheart,

so far as I have gone in life, I have never yet be en able todiscover what forgiveness means . “

Is it sti ll the sam e be

tween us ?” Why, how can it b e ? It is eternally different ;

and yet you are still the friend ofmy heart.“Do you under

stand m e ?”G od knows ; I should think it highly improb

able .The cruellest lies are often told in silence . A man mayhave sat in a room fo r hours and not Opened his teeth, andyet come out of that room a disloyal friend o r a vile calumniato r . And how many loves have perished because, frompride, o r Spite, o r difiide nce , o r that unmanly shame whichwithholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, atthe critical point of the relation, has but hung his head andheld his tongue ? And, again, a lie may be told by a truth,o r a truth conveyed through a lie . Truth to facts is not a lways truth to sentim ent ; and part o f the truth, as oftenhappens in answer to a question,may be the foulest calumny.

A fact may be an exception ; but the feeling is the law, and itis that which you must neither garble nor belie. The wholetenor of a conversation is a part of the meaning of each separate statement ; the beginning and the end define and travesty the intermediate conversation. You never speak to

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G od; you address a fellowm an, full of his own tempers ; andto tell truth, rightly understood, i s not to state the truefacts, but to convey a true im pression ; truth in spirit, nottruth to letter, is the true veracity. To reconcile avertedfriends a Jesuitical discre tion is often needful , not so muchto gain a kind hearing as to com municate sober truth.

Women have an ill name in this connection ; yet they livein as true tre lations ; the lie of a good woman is the trueindex of her heart.

“It takes, says Thoreau, in the noblest and most useful

passage I rem em ber to have read in any m odern author,1

two to speak truth one to speak and another to hear.”

He must be very little experienced, o r have no great zeal fortruth,who does not recognize the fact. A grain of anger o r agrain of suspicion produces strange acoustical effects, andmakes the ear greedy to rem ark offence . Hence we findthose who have once quarrelled carry themselves distantly,and are ever ready to break the truce. To speak truth theremust be moral equality o r else no respect ; and hence betweenparent and chi ld intercourse is apt to degenerate into averbal fencing bout, and misapprehensions to become in

grained . And there is another side to this, for the parentbegins wi th an imperfect notion of the child’s character,formed in early year s o r during the equinoctial gales ofyouth ; to thi s he adheres, noting only the facts which suitwith his preconception ; and wherever a person fancies himself un justly judged, he at once and fina lly gives up the cifort to speak truth. With our chosen friends, on the otherhand, and still more between lovers (fo r mutual understanding is love’s essence) , the truth is easily indicated by the oneand aptly com prehended by the other. A hint tak en, a lookunderstood, conveys the gist of long and delicate explana

i } A Week on the Concord andMerrimach Rivers.Wednesday.p. 283.


122 BOOKS AND STUDY .

slighter intimacies, and for a less stringent union ? Indeed,is it worth while? We are all incompris, only more o r lessconcerned for the mischance ; all trying wrongly to do right ;all fawning at each other’s feet like dum b, neglected lapdogs . Sometimes we catch an eye this is our Opportunityin the ages and we wag our tail with a poor smile . “

Is

that all ?” All ? If you only knew ! But how can they

know? They do not love us ; the more fools we to squanderlife on the indifferent.But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is

e xcellent ; for it is only by trying to understand others thatwe can get our own hearts understood ; and in matters ofhuman feeling the clement judge is the most successful

pleade r.

POETRY 1

MARTIN WRIGHT SAMPSONProfessor of English Literature, Corne ll Univer si ty

I REMEMBER that as a small b oy I used to wonder what the rewould be left to discover when the waste places on my mapswere dotted with names, when from pole to pole we shouldbe familiar with this round world of ours . The thought thatwe had not yet explored everything appealed to my sense ofadventure, when lifting my head out of the enchanting pagesof Jules Verne, I could see myself, larger and sterner thanlife, crossing vast deserts, penetrating mysterious jungles,scaling impending cliffs, and winning the fair daughter of anincredible king. I was boyishly glad that there were une xplored tracts in Africa and Australia and about the frozenlimits of the poles they were o ld Earth’s pledges to herlittle son that glory and loveliness had not passed away.

The vacant stretches were not vacant, fo r in them romancelay hid .

The childish notion of romance quietly fades, and in itsplace there com es the true romance . I did not need to growall the way to manhood to learn that if the wastes of theworld gave fewer and fewer opportunities for discovery, yetthere was before me the known world, more mysterious inwhat it had done than any wild expanse of land that had nohistory. The thought of the past made magical the present.Europe word of potent charm that sent visions racingthrough my brain was ready to be revealed to me. Whatif it had be en known through old centuries? to me it wouldbe new. What if mankind were older still ? to me it wasunspeakably new.

1 Condensed from a le cture at Corne ll Univ ersity . Pr inted by cour

tesy of th e author .

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After all, it was the child’s notion still, but real now and

lasting. Fo r what was, and what is, romance to me but thepossibility of discovering new things ? A dreaming b oymight look for them in the fantastic, in the remote, but aman shall find them in the things long since found out, andin his own heart . Romance does not pass, for man is a poet.Steeped in reverie, or thrilling with powe r, he yearns for thethings that are waiting to be discovered by him. I care notif this dream be of a Jaco b ’

s ladder from heaven, o r of a railroad from Cairo to the Cape, the dream is the romance oflife, and we cling to it by an instinct surer than reason . Certain men who could look within and without themselves andwr ite, have written a myriad of visions whose name ispoetry, and in behalf of this I speak.

What is poetry ? The question appears quick ly with noquick and cogent answer accom panying it. In the way ofthe Spirit we can reach a comm on m eaning ; in the way o f

the letter, probably not . Fo r poetry has as yet eluded definition . Those marks that comm only seem to distinguish itfail as touchstones when we make the final test . Poetry liesnot solely in the use of metre is not the English translation of Job a poem ? not in continuous felicity of style isnotWordsworth a poet ? not in a great them e no r in a deepconception is not som e of the most beautiful poetry asirresponsible as a flowe r ? Such qualities are, to be sure,oftenest present in poetry, but they do not separately ensur ethe name of poetry to the writings in which they appear.Po em s succeed by virtue of som ething other than the outward and visible sign, and each of us preserves it his hearthis criterion, the inward and spiritual grace . That whichindefinab ly to uches us is poetry to us, though to others it bedoggerel or rant . That which others proclaim great or beautiful is not poetry to us if it does not wind its way into oursouls . In the main, be cause we are like one another, we


126 BOOKS AND STUDY

be said against it. If it may seem at times to be no thingmore than beauty, it is always, assuredly, nothing less. Lifewould be poor without it.

Poetry, then, to which this profound element in us re

sponds, might seem to need no support o r defense. But weall know that poetry is not, on the whole, very widely read ;that when highly thought of, it is often respected rather thanmade to enter fully into daily life ; and that it is often comple te ly misunderstood .

One misunderstanding, which may stand for them all, isthat poetry is essentially oppo sed to common sense, an affairo f dreamers, a weak and rather maudlin thing. Now poetryis, to be sure , an affair of dr eamers ; but a ll dreamers are notmaudlin ; and dreams are chiefly of two classes, the silly andthe true, and poetry at bottom deals with the true . Insteadof being the Opposite of common sense, poetry is thereforethe superlative of common sense . The misconception of

poetry as a rather effeminate thing may have arisen in sev

eral ways : fo r instance, many poems deal with things thatat a given tim e may be uninteresting to mature men andwomen, and im patience lea ds to sweeping judgment. Thusa ll poetry sufi

‘

e r s in their minds from the casual inadequa cyof spe cific examples .Indifference is probably a more serious obsta cle than mis

conception, indifference of those who really apprehend poe try and who have at one time been genuinely fond of it.

The habit of reading poetry has not been kept up; and onecannot long rem ain susceptible to any art if the appreciationo f it is not habitual . The failure to keep on reading is partlydue to an ignorance of the scope of poetry . We read certainkinds of verse in school and suppose them to be entirelyrepresentative o f poetry, when indeed they are not. Andwe read certain kinds of poetry som ewhat ignorantly inyouth, and trusting our youthful judgment never recur to

POETRY 127

them again. Paradise Lost has often been sacr ificed to

immaturity.

The best way of remaining open to the appeal of poetry isto study it seriously. One who has mastered the fundamental laws of a process is unlikely to lose whatever enjoyment the result can give him . Out of continuous, thoughtful reading comes understa nding. Out of understandingcomes a renovation of heart and soul .Perhaps we are assum ing too easily that the thesis is e s

tab lished: that poetry has a peculiarly great value to us.

Let us consider some of the things that poetry may do for areader. Poetry makes external nature more delightful tous . The violet, the rose, the song-birds, clouds and streamsand mountains, mean more to us because poets have spokenof them . I do not mean that the poets may have seen morein nature than other men see . Some men see more than thepoets . It is not merely what the poet sees, but what hesays, that makes his comment on nature inspiring. To thedaffodil Shakespeare and Wordsworth add a charm : theirwords are as much a part of the flower as if they were petals.I cannot look at daffodils without seeing more than their yellow. They tell me Shakespeare’s words anew :

Da ffodils,Tha t com e b e fore the swa llow da re s, and takeThe winds ofMa rch wi th b eauty.

”

They sing again to me Wordsworth’s imperishable song,

And then m y h e a r t with ple asure fills.And dance s with the daffodils .

”

A brook under the trees makes me hear Coleridge as wellthe brook’s noise .

A no ise lik e of a h idden b rook ,In the le a fy m onth ofJune ,

Tha t to the sle eping wo ods a ll n ightSinge th a quie t tune .

”

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Natur e is richer to me because a poet has said the right wordfo r all tim e . Poetry is full o f these fle e ting secrets fastenedinto steadfast words . Shakespeare and Shelley, Keats andBrowning, have added to the music o f the lark, the nightingale, the thrush, true words that the unknowing birds carelessly sing to all who love poetry .

But what poetry does fo r external nature, that, in fargre ater degree, it does for hum an natur e . It reveals thehuman spirit, that means more than flowe rs o r mountains ,even when these arise before us through words of consummate tenderness o r majesty. And hum an nature mustmean more to us still, when we have heard poetry

’s wordabout it. I do not know in how m any ways, in how manyaccents , th is word may be spoken, but I do know that themessage is so large that even the m essage of nature seem ssm all beside it. In his own way the poe t tells us of life ; andI, his reader, com e away liking life be tter, feeling that itsjoys and sorrows have been made lucid to m e .

If a poet m ake individual men stand before us, his characters enter into the close circle of our acquaintance . Ourhorizon widens as we hear their stories , receive their confidence s, love, struggle, and suffer with them . We stepfrom out the cram ping present into some spacious hall whereHamlet o r Launcelot awaits our com ing and for a brief spaceis ours in spite of all th e world . The moving figure s do nottake the place of life , but they reveal endless possibilities oflife. It is hard to im agine a m ood in which the re shall be nopersonage from the high realm of poetry ready to speak tom e if I am willing to liste n . Thus I e scape my hereditaryand social lim itations and add to m y experience , e xperienceI neve r shall have ; and it m ay be with a stoute r heart I canface the co nflicts that m ust b e m ine, if I have held m y breathwhen hero e s flung their challenge, and have stared all eyeswhen they struggled with doubts o r passions o r dragons andcam e out with the glory of Victory on their brows.


"

136 BOOKS AND STUDY

what he shall b e . At his best he can do things Only to thelimit of what that best m ay b e . Now if there has enteredinto his life, as a valid part of it, the vision, the insight, thatpoetry m ay give, there will be a lift in his nature that willadd something to what used to be his best : and because ofh is assimilation of the spirit o f poetry ; because the happywords, the shining phrases, the glowing passion, o f poetryh ave many a time cleared up a dull hour and become part ofhis habit ; because day by day his brain will have been fittedw ith bette r thoughts and feelings than he could have crea ted for him self the man will have behind him an inspiredand strengthened character to guide his choosing mind, hiseager hand . To live with beauty is not only to give one selfa joy, it is

‘

to have the power of beauty at one’s call . A

man’s life would be in a deep and m anly way pur ified andsweetened if each day he could gain a little of the inspirationthat poets fuse into their verse and have it share his visionsfo r that day. The wise poet was right who advised us,

daily to see a beautiful picture, daily to read a beautiful

poem. He was right, he was practical .Continually to be a Sharer in the wholesome gifts of art,

of the most accessible and broadest of the arts, literature, to

partake freely of the bounty of our sage and gene rous brethren

,the poets of our race, this is to cherish well the im m ortal

part of us, this is to preserve the soul from the stupefyingcommonplace, this is to use wisely the talents the Masterhas lent us.

WHERE I LIVED, AND WHATI LIVED FOR

HENRY DAVID THOREAU1817— 1862

THOREAU’

s fr ie nd Chanm ng ca lled h im th e po et-na tura list, and the re isno b e tte r cha ra cte r iza tion o f th is sturdy indiv idua list and outdoor m an .

In 1845 he b uilt h im se lf a b ut on the sho r e s ofWa lde n Pond, ne a r Concord,

Ma ssa chuse tts, and liv ed the re a lone fo r ne a r ly two ye a rs. Wa lden g iv e sa n a ccount of th is e x pe r ience ; the e x tra ct h e r e is pa r t of the second chapte rof tha t b ook . Othe r no tab le b ook s by Tho re au a r e A Week on the Concord

andMerr im ack Rivers, Ex cursi ons, The Ma ine Woods, A Ya nhee in Canada ,

a nd h is Journals. The a utho r iz ed editions a re pub lished by Houghto nMitflin Compa ny.

WHEN fir stI took upm y abode in the woods , that is, beganto spend m y nights as well as days there, which, by accident ,was on Independence Day, o r the Fourth of July, 1845, myhouse was no t fin ished fo r winter, but was m erely a defenceagainst the rain , witho ut plastering o r chimney, the wallsbeing o f rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks,which made it cool at night . The upright white hewn studsand freshly planed do or and window casings gave it a cleanand airy lo ok, espe cially in the morning, when its timberswere saturated with dew, so that I fanc ied that by noonsome sweet gum would exude from them . To my im agination it retained througho ut the day mo re or less of this a u~

roral character, rem inding m e of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year befo re . This was an airyand unplastered cabin , fit to ente rtain a travelling god, andwhere a goddess m ight trail her garm ents . The winds whichpassed over m y dwelling we re such as sweep over the ridgesof mountain s, be aring the broken strains , or celestial partsonly, of terrestrial m usic . The m orning wind fo rever blows,the poem of creation is uninterrupted ; but few are the ears

132 THE CONDUCT OF LIFE

that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere .

The only house I had been the owner of be fore, if I excepta boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally when makingexcursions in the sum m e r, and this is still rolled up in mygarret ; but the boat, after passing from hand to hand, hasgone down the stream of tim e . With this more substantialshelter about m e , I had made som e progress toward settlingin the wo rld . This fram e, so slightly clad, was a sort ofcrystallization around me, and re acted on the builder. Itwas suggestive som ewhat as a picture in outlines . I did notneed to go outdoors to take the air, fo r the atmospherewithin had lost no ne of its freshness . It was not so m uchwithin—do o rs as behind a door where I sat, even in the rainiest weather . The Ha r iv ansa says,

“An abode without

birds is like a m eat without seasoning. Such was not m yabode, for I found m yse lf suddenly neighbor to the birds ;not by having im prisone d one , but having caged m yself nearthem . I was not only nearer to some of those which com

m only frequent the garden and the orchard, but to thosewilder and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never,o r rarely, serenade a villager, the wood thrush, the veery,the scarlet tanager, the fie ld sparrow, the whip-poor-will,and m any othe rs .I was seate d by the shore o f a small pond, about a mile

and a half south of the village of Concord and somewhathigher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood betweenthat town and Lincoln, and about two m iles south of thato ur only fie ld known to fam e, Concord Battle Ground ; butI was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mileoff, like the rest, covered with wood, was my m ost distanthorizon . Fo r the fir st week, whenever I looked out on the

pond it im presse d m e like a tarn high up on the side of amountain, its bottom far above the surface of other lakes,



When I looked across the pond from this peak toward theSudbury meadows, which in time of flood I distinguishedele vated perhaps by a mirage in their seething Valley, l ike acoin in a basin, a ll the earth beyond the pond appeared like athin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet ofintervening water, and I was reminded that thi s on which Idwelt was but dry la nd.

Though the view from my door was still more contracted,I did not feel crowded o r confined in the least. There waspasture enough for my imagination . The low shrub oakplateau to which the Opposite shore arose stretched awaytoward the prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary,affording ample room for all the roving families of men .

“There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoyfreely a vast horizon,

” said Dam odara , when his herdsrequired new and larger pastures .Both place and tim e were changed, and I dwelt nearer to

those parts of the universe and to those eras in history whichhad m ost attracted me . Where I lived was as far off asmany a region viewed nightly by astronom e rs . We are wontto im agine rare and delectable places in som e rem ote andmore ce lestial corner of the system, behind the constellationof Cassiopeia’s Chair, far from noise and disturbance . Idiscovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forev er new and unprofaned,part of the universe.If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to thePleiades o r the Hyades, to Aldebaran o r Altair, then I wasreally there, o r at an equal remoteness from the life which Ihad left be hi nd, dwindle d and twinkling with as fine a rayto my ne arest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonlessnights by him . Such was that part of creation where I hadsquatted

.

The re was a shephe rd tha t did liv e ,And he ld h is though ts a s h igh

As we re the m ounts whe r e on h is flocksDid hour ly feed him by .

”

WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 135

What should we think of the shepherd’s life if his flock salways wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts ?Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life

of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Natureherself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora asthe Gree ks . I got up early and bathed in the pond ; thatwas a religious exercise, and one of the best things which Idid. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching-thang to this effect : “Renew thyselfcompletely each day ; do it again, and again, and foreveragain .

” I can understand that . Morning brings back theheroic ages . I was as m uch affected by the faint hum of amosquito making its invisible and un im aginable tour throughmy apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with doorand windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that eversang of fame . It was Homer’s requiem ; itself an Iliad andOdyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wander ings.There was som ething cosmical about it ; a standing adv e r

tisem ent, till forbidden, of the everlasting Vigor and fertilityof the world . The morning, which is the most mem orableseason of the day, is the awakening hour . Then there isleast som no lence in us ; and for an hour, at least, some partofus awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night .Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day,to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by themechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened byour own newly acquired force and aspirations from within,accompanied by the undulations of cele stial music, insteadof factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air to a higherlife than we fe ll asleep from ; and thus the darkness bear itsfruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light.That m an who doe s not believe that each day contains anearlier, m ore sacred, and auro ral hour than he has yet protaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending


and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are r e inv igorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble lifeit can make . All memorable events, I shou ld say, transpirein morning time and in a morning atmosphere . The Vedassay, “All intelligences awake with the morning . Poetryand art, and the fairest and most memorable of the a ctionsofmen, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes

,like

Memn on, are the children ofAurora, and emit their music atsunrise . To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keepspace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say o r the attitudes and labors ofmen . Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn inme . Moral reform is the effort to thr ow off sleep . Why isit that men give so poor an accoun t of their day if they havenot been slumbering ? They are not such poor calculators .If they had not be en overcome with drowsiness, they wouldhave performed som ething. The millions are awake enoughfor physical labor ; but only one in a million is awake enoughfor effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundr ed millions to a poetic or divine life . To be awake is to b e alive .I have never yet m et a man who was quite awake . How

could I have looked him in the face ?We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,

not by mechanical aids, but by an infin ite expectation ofthe dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep .

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionableability of man to elevate his life by a conscious e ndeavor.It is som ething to be able to paint a particular picture, o r tocarve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful ; but itis far more glo rious to carve and paint the very atmosphereand medium through which we look, which morally we cando. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest ofarts . Every man is tasked to m ake his life, even in its de



and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowedfor, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go tothe bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning,and he must be a great calculator inde ed who succeeds .Sim plify, sim plify. Instead of three meals a day, if it benecessary eat but one ; instead of a hundr ed dishes, fiv e ; andre duce other thi ngs in proportion . Our life is like a G ermanConfederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundaryforever fluctuating, so that even a Germ an cannot tell youhow it is bounded at any moment . The nation itself, withall its so—called in ternal improvem ents, which, by the wayare a ll external and supe rficia l, is just such an unwieldy andovergrown establishm ent, c luttered with furniture andtripped up by its own traps, ruined by lux ury and heedlessexpense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as themillion househo lds in the land ; and the only cure for it, asfor them, is in a rigid econom y, a stem and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose . It lives toofast . Men think that it is essential that the Nation havecom m erce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, andride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they doo r no t; but whether we should live like baboons or like men,is a little uncertain . If we do not get out sleepers, and forgerails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go totinkering Upon our l ives to im prove them , who will buildrailroads ? And if railroads are not built, how shall we getto heaven in season ? But if we stay at home and mind ourbusiness, who will want railroads? We do not ride on therailroad ; it rides upon a s . Did you ever think what thosesleepers are that underlie the railroad ? Each one is a m an,

an Irishm an, o r a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them,

and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothlyover them . They a re sound slee pers, I assure you . And

e very few years a new lot is laid down and run over ; so that,


if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have themisfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run over aman that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper inthe wrong position, and wake h im up, they suddenly stopthe cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if th is were anexception . I am glad to know that it takes a gang of menfor every fiv e miles to ke ep the sleepers down and level intheir beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may sometime

get up again .

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life ?We are determined to be starved before we a re hungry.

Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they takea thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. As

for work , we have n’

t any of any consequence . We havethe Saint Vitus’ dance , and cannot possibly keep our headsstill. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope,as for a fire , that is, without setting the bell, there is hardlyaman on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so manytimes this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I m ight almostsay, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainlyto save property from the flames, but, if we will confess thetruth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we ,b e it known, did not set it on fire , o r to see it put out, andhave a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely ; yes, even ifit were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes a halfhour’s nap after dinne r, but when he wakes he holds up hishead and asks, “What ’s the news ? ” as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels . Some give directions to bewaked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose ; andthen, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed . Aftera night’s sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast“Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a mananywhere on this globe,

” and he reads it over his coffee


and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on theWachi to River ; never dreaming the while that helives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of thi s world,and has but the rudiment of an eye himself .For my part, I could easily do without the post-ofli ce .

I think that there a re very few important communicationsmade through it. To speak critically, I never received morethan one or two letters in my life I wrote this some yearsago that were worth the postage . The penny-post is,commonly, an institution thr ough which you seriously offera man that penny for hi s thoughts whi ch is so often safelyoffered in jest . And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper . If we read of one man robbed,o r murdered, o r killed by accident, o r one house bur ned, orone vessel wrecked, o r one steamboat blown up, or one cowrun over on the Western Railroad , or one mad dog k illed, orone lot of grasshoppers in the winter, we never need readof another . One is enough . If you are acquainted with theprinciple, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications ? To a philosopher a ll news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over theirtea. Yet not a few are gree dy after this gossip . There wassuch a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the office s tolearn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several largesquares of plate glass belonging to the establishment werebroken by the pressure, news which I seriously think aready wit might write a twelvemonth, o r twelve years, b eforehand with sufficie nt accuracy. As fo r Spain, fo r instance, if you kn ow how to thr ow in Don Carlos and theInfanta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from timeto time in the right proportions, they may have changedthe names a little since I saw the papers, and serve up abull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true tothe letter, and g ive us as good an idea of the ex act state or



petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the

reality . This is always exhi larating and sublim e . By closing the eyes and slum bering, and consenting to be deceivedby shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere , which still is built on pure lyillusory foundations . Childr en, who play life, discern itstrue law and relations more clearly than m en , who fail tolive it wo rthily, but who think that they are wiser by expe r ience , that is, by failure . I have read in a Hindoo book,that “ there was a king’s son, who, being expelled in infancyfrom his native city, was brought up by a forester, and,growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself tobelong to the barbarous race wi th which he live d . One ofhis father’s m inisters having discovered him, revea led to himwhat he was, and the misconception of his character wasrem oved, and he knew him self to be a prince . So soul,

”

continues the Hindoo philo sopher, “ from the circumstancesin which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until thetruth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then itknows itself to be Brahm e .

” I perceive that we inhabitantsof New England live thi s mean life that we do because ourVision does not penetrate the surface of things . We thinkthat that i s which appea rs to b e . If a man should walkthrough this town and see only the reality, where, think you,would the “ lWill-dam ”

go to? If he should give us an a o

count of the re alities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his description . Look at a mee ting-house,or a court-house, or a jail, o r a shop, or a dwelling-house, andsay what that thing really is before a true gaze, and theywould all go topieces in your account of them . Men esteemtruth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind thefarthest star, before Adam and after the last man . In etern ity there is indeed something true and sublime . But allthese times and places and occasions are now and here .


G od himself culminates in the present moment, and willnever be more divine in the lapse of all the ages . And weare enabled to apprehend at all what is sublim e and nobleonly by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the realitythat surrounds us . The universe constantly and obedientlyanswe rs to our conceptions ; whether we travel fast or slow,

the track is laid for us . Le t us spend our lives in conce iv

ing then . The poet or the artist never yet had so fair andnoble a design but some of his posterity at least couldaccom plish it.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and notbe thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’swing that falls on the rails . Let us rise early and fast, orbreak fast, gently and without perturbation ; let com panycome and let company go , let the bells ring and the childrencry; determined to make a day of it. Why should weknock under and go with the stream ? Let us not be upsetand overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool calleda dinner, situated in the m eridian shallows . Weather thisdange r and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill .With unrelaxed nerves, with morning Vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mas t like Ulysses . If the enginewhistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains . If thebell rings, why should we run ? We will consider what kindof music they are like . Le t us settle ourselves, and workand wedge our feet downward through the m ud and slush ofOpinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, andappearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, throughParis and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, thr ough Church and State, through poetry and philo s0phy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocksin place, which we can call r ea lity and say, This is, and nomistake ; and then begin, having a point d

’

appui , belowfreshe t and frost and fire , a place where you might found a


wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge,not a Nilometer, but a Re alom ete r , that future ages mightknow how deep a freshet of shams and appearances hadgathered from time to time . If you stand right frontingand face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer onboth its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweetedge dividing you thr ough the heart and mar row, and soyou wi ll happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life ordeath, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let ushear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities ;if we are alive, let us go about our business .Time is but the stream I go a-fish ing in . I drink at it ;

but while I drink I see the sandy bo ttom and detect howshallow it is . Its thin cur rent slides away, but eternityrem ains . I would drink deeper ; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars . I cannot count one. I know not

the first letter of the alphabet . I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born . The intellect is a cleaver ; it discerns and rifts its way into the secretof things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my handsthan is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all mybest faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me thatmy head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures usetheir snout and fore paws, and with it I would m ine andburrow my way through these hills . I think that the richestvein is somewhere hereabouts ; so by the divining-rod and thinrising vapors I judge and here I will begin to mine.



e arth has it not ; the sea has it not ; and we men have themockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment .In one of the noblest poems for its imagery and its music

be longing to the recent school of our literature, the writerhas sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expressionof that Liberty which, having once loved, he had seen amongmen in its true dyes of darkness . But with what strangefallacy of interpretation ! since in one nob le line of his invocation he has contradicted the assum ptions of the rest, andacknowledged the presence of a subjection, surely not lesssevere because eternal ? How could he otherwise ? since ifthere be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, o r more sternly than anotherimprinted on every atom, of the visible creation, that principle is not Liberty, but Law .

II. The enthusiast would reply that by Libe rty he meantthe Law of Liberty . Then why use the single and misunde r stoodword ? If by liberty you mean chastisement of thepassions, discipline of the intellect, subjection of the will ; ifyou mean the fear of inflicting, the shame of committing, awrong ; if you mean respect for all who are in authority, andconsideration for all who are in dependence ; veneration forthe good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak ; if youmean watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance in allpleasures, and perseverance in all toils ; if you mean, in aword, that Service which is defined in the liturgy of the English church to be perfect Freedom, why do you name this bythe same word by which the luxurious mean license, and thereckless mean change ; by which the rogue means rapine,and the fool, equality, by whi ch the proud mean anarchy,and the malignant mean violence ? Call it by any namerather than this, but its best and truest is, Obedience . Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would

THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE 147

b ecome mere subjugation, but that freedom is only grantedthat obedience may be more perfect ; and thus, whi le a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energiesof things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection ofthem all consist in their Restraint . Compare a river thathas burst its banks with one that is bound by them, and theclouds that are scattered over the face of the whole heavenwith those that are marshalled into ranks and orders by itswinds . So that though restraint, utter and unrelaxing, cannever b e comely, this is not because it is in itself an evil, butonly because, when too great, it overpowers the nature ofthe th ing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws ofwhich that nature is itself composed . And the balancewherein consists the fairness of creation is between the lawsof life and being in the things governed and the laws of general sway to which they are subjected ; and the suspension orinfringement of either kind of law, o r , literally, disorder, ise quivalent to, and synonymous with, disease ; while the increase of both honor and beauty is habitually on the side ofrestraint (or the action of superior law) rather than of character (o r the action of inherent law) . The noblest word inthe catalogue of social virtue is “Loyalty,

” and the sweetestwhich men have learned in the pastures of the wildernessis

“Fold .

”

III . Nor is this all ° but we may observe, that exactly inproportion to the m aJe sty of things in the scale of being, isthe completeness of their obedience to the laws that are setover them . Gravitation is less quietly, less instantly obeyedby a grain of dust than it is by the sun and moon ; and theocean falls and flows under influence s which the lake andriver do not recognize . So also in estimating the dignity ofany action or occupation of men, there is perhaps no bettertest than the question “are its laws strait ? ” Fo r theirse verity will probably be commensurate with the greatness

‘

THE CONDUCT or LIFE

of the numbers whose labor it concentrates or whose intere stit concerns .This severity must be singular, therefore, in the case of

that art, above all others, whose productions are the mostvast and the most common ; which requires for its practicethe co-operation ofbodies of men, and for its perfection theperseverance of successive generations . And taking intoaccount also what we have b efore so often observed of Arch ite cture , her continual influence over the emotions of

daily life, and her realism, as opposed to the two sister artswhich are in comparison but the picturing of stories and ofdreams, we might b eforehand expect that we should find herhealthy state and action dependent on far more severe lawsthan theirs : that the license which they extend to the workings of individual mind would be withdr awn by her ; andthat, in assertion of the relations which she holds with allthat is un iversally important to man, she would set forth,by her own majestic subjection, some likeness of that onwhich man’s social happiness and power depend . We might,therefore, without the light of experience, conclude, thatArchitecture never could flour ish except when it was subje cted to a national law as strict and as minutely auth or itative as the laws which regulate religion, policy, and socialrelations ; nay, even more authoritative than these, b ecauseboth capable of more enforcement, as over more passivematter ; and needing more enforcem ent, as the purest typenot of one law nor of another

,but of the common authority

of all . But in this matter experience speaks more loudlythan reason . If there be any one condition which, in watching the progress of architecture , we see distinct and general ;ii , amidst the counter evidence of success attending oppositeaccidents of character and circumstance, any one conclusionmay be constantly and indisputably drawn , it is this ; thatthe architecture of a nation is great only when it is as uni



thing whether we have an architecture truly so called or not ;that is, whether an architecture whose laws might be taughtat our schools from Cornwall to Northum berland, as weteach English spelling and English grammar, or an architecture which is to be invented fresh every time we build aworkhouse or a parish school . There seems to me to be awonderful misunderstanding among the majority of architeets at the present day as to the very nature and meaningof Originality, and of a ll wherein it consists . Originality inexpression does not depend on invention of new words ; nororiginality in poetry on invention of new measures ; nor, inpainting, on invention of new colors, o r new modes of usingthem . The chords of music, the harmonies of color, thegeneral principles of the arrangement of sculptural masses,have been determined long ago, and, in all probability, cannot be added to any m ore than they can be altered . Granting that they may b e , such additions or alterations are muchmore the work of time and of multitudes than of individualinventors . We may have one Van Eyck, who will be knownas the introducer of a new style once in ten centuries, but h ehimself will trace his invention to some accidental bye-playo r pursuit ; and the use of that invention will depend altogether on the popular necessities or instincts of the period.

Originality depends on nothing of the kind . A man whohas the gift, will take upany style that is going, the style ofhis day, and will work in that, and be great in that, and makeeve rything that he does in it look as fresh as if every thoughtof it had just come down from heaven . I do not say that hewill not take lib e rties with his materials, or with hi s rules :I do not say that strange changes will not sometimes bewrought by his efforts, o r hi s fancies, in both . But thosechanges will be instinctive, natural, facile, though sometimesmarvellous ; they will never be sought after as th ings ne ce ssary to his dignity or to his independence ; and those liberties


will b e like the liberties that a great speaker takes with thelanguage, not a defiance of its rule s for the sake of singularity ; but inevitable, uncalculated, and brilliant consequencesof an effort to express what th e language, without such infraction, could not . There may be tim es when, as I haveabove describ ed, the life of an art is manifested in its changes,and in its refusal of ancient limitations : so there are in thelife of an insect ; and there is great interest in the state ofboth the art and the insect at those periods when, by theirnatural progress and constitutional power, such changes areabout to b e wrought . But as that would be both an nu

comfortable and foolish caterpillar which, instead of beingcontented with a caterpillar’s life and feeding on cate rpil

lar’s food, was always striving to turn itself into a Chrysalis ;and as that would be an unhappy Chrysalis whi ch should lieawake at night and roll restlessly in its cocoon, in efforts toturn itself prematurely into a moth ; so w ill that art be unhappy and unprosperous which, instead of supporting itselfon the food, and contenting itself with the customs whichhave been enough for the support and guidance of otherarts before it and like it, is struggling and fretting under thenatural limitations of its existence, and striving to b ecomesomething other than it is . And though it is the nobilityof the highest creatures to look forward to, and partly tounderstand the changes which are appointed for them,

preparing for them beforehand ; and ii , as is usual withappointed changes, they be into a higher state, even desiringthem, and rejoicing in the hope of them, yet it is the strengthof every creature, be it changeful o r not, to rest for the timebeing, contented with the conditions of its existence, andstriving only to brin g about the changes which it desires, byfulfilling to the uttermost the duties for whi ch its presentstate is appointed and continued .

V. Neither originality, therefore, nor change, good though


both may b e , and this is commonly a most merciful andenthusiastic supposition with respect to either, are ever tobe sought in themselves, o r can ever b e healthily obtainedby any struggle or rebellion against common laws . Wewant neither the one o r the other . The forms of a rchite cture already kn own are good enough for us, and for far better than any of us : and it will be time enough to think of

changing them for better when we can use them as they are .But there are some things which we not only want, but cannot do without ; and which all the struggling and raving inthe world, nay more, whi ch all the real talent and resolutionin England, will never enable us to do without : and thesea re Obedience, Unity, Fellowship, and Order . And all ourschools of design, and com mittees of tastes ; all our academiesand lectures, and journalism s, and essays ; a ll the sacr ifice swhich we are beginn ing to make, a ll the truth which there isin our English nature, all the power of our English will, andthe life of our English intellect, will in this matter be as useless as efforts and emotions in a dr eam, unless we are contented to submit architecture and all art, l ike other things,to English law.

VI . I say architecture and a ll art ; for I believe ar chitecture must be the beginning of arts, and that the others mustfollow her in their time and order ; and I think the prosperityof our schools of painting and sculpture, in which no one

will deny the life, though many the health, depends uponthat of our architecture . I think that all will languish untilthat takes the lead, and (this I do not think, but I proclaim,

as confide ntly as I would assert the necessity, for the safetyof society, of an understood and strongly adm i nistered legalgovernment) our architectur e wi ll languish, and that in th eVery dust, until the fir st principle of common sense be manfully obeyed, and an universal system of form and workmanship b e everywhere adopted and enforced. It m ay b e



accepted style. We must first determine what buildings areto be considered Augustan in their authority ; their modesof construction and laws of proportion are to be studied withthe most penetrating care ; then the different forms and usesof their decorations are to be classed and catalogued, as aGerman grammarian classes the powers of prepo sitions ; andunder this absolute, irrefragable authority, we are to beginto work ; admitting not so much as an alteration in the depthof a cavetto, o r the breadth of a fillet. Then, when our

sight is once accustomed to the grammatical fo rms and arrangem ents, and our thoughts fam iliar with the expressionof them all ; when we can speak this dead language naturally,and apply it to whatever ideas we have to render, that is tosay, to every practical purpose of life ; then, and not tillthen, a license might be permitted ; and individual authority allowed to change or to add to the received forms, alwayswithin certain limits ; the decorations, especially, might bemade subjects of variable fancy, and enriched with ideaseither original o r taken from other schools . And thus inprocess of tim e and by a great national m ovement, it mightcome to pass, that a new style should arise, as language itself changes ; we might perhaps com e to speak Italian instead of Latin, o r to speak modern instead of old English ;but this would be a m atter of entire indifference, and a matter, b efide s, which no determination or desire could eitherhasten or prevent . That alone which it is in our power toobtain, and which it is our duty to desire, is an unanimousstyle of some kind, and such comprehension and practice ofit as would enable us to adapt its features to the pecul iarcharacter of every several building, large or small, domestic,civil, o r ecclesiastical .VIII . It is almost impossible fo r us to conceive, in our

present state of doubt and ignorance, the sudden dawn of

intelligence and fancy, the rapidly increas ing sense of power


and facility, and, in its proper sense, of Freedom, which suchwholesome restraint would instantly cause throughout thewhole circle of the arts . Fre ed from the agitation and emb a r ra ssm ent of that liberty of cho ice which is the ca use ofhalf the discomforts of the world ; freed from the accompanying necessity of studying all past, present, or even possiblestyles ; and enabled, by concentration of individual, andco-operation of multitudinous energy, to penetrate into theuttermost secrets of the adopted style, the architect wouldfind his whole understanding enlarged, his practical knowledge certain and ready to hand, and his imagination playfuland vigorous, as a child

’s would be within a walled garden,who would sit down and shudder if he were left free in afenceless plain . How many and how bright would be theresults in every direction of interest, not to the arts merely,but to national happiness and virtue, it would be as difficultto preconceive as it would seem extravagant to state : butthe first, perhaps the least, of them would be an increasedsense of fellowship among ourselves, a cementing of everypatriotic bond of union, a proud and happy recognition ofour affection for and sympathy with each other, and our

willingness in all th ings to submit ourselves to every lawthat would advance the interest of the community ; a barrier, also, the best conceivable, to the unhappy rivalry ofthe upper and middle classes, in houses, furniture, and e s

tab lishm ents ; and even a check to much ofwhat is as vain asit is painful in the oppositions of religious parties respectingmatters of ritual. These, I say, would be the fir st conseq uence s . Economy increased tenfold, as it would be by thesimplicity of practice ; dom estic comforts un inte rfe red withby the caprice and mistakes of architects ignorant of thecapacities of the styles they use, and all the symmetry andsightliness of our harmonized streets and public b uildings,are things of slighter account in the catalogue of b enefits.


I have paused, not once nor twice , as I wrote, and oftenhave checked the course of what might otherwise have beenimportunate persuasion, as the thought has crossed me, howsoon all Architecture may be vain, except that which is notmade with hands . There is something ominous in the lightwhich has enable d us to look back with disdain upon theage s among whose lovely vestiges we have been wandering .

I could smile when I hear the hopeful exultation ofmany, atthe new reach of worldly science, and vigor ofworldly effort ;as if we were again at the beginning ofdays . There is thunder on the horizon as well as dawn. The sun was risen uponthe earth when Lot entered into Zoar.



profitab le company . We cannot look, however imperfectly,upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He

is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant tobe near . The light which enlightens, which has enlightenedthe darkness of the world ; and this not as a kindled lamponly, but rather as a na tural luminary shining by the gift ofHeaven ; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native originalinsight, ofmanhood and heroic nobleness ; in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them . Ou any termswhatsoever, you will not grudge to wander in such neighb ourh ood for a while . These Six classes of Heroes, chosenout of widely-distant countries and epochs, and in mereexternal figure differing altogether, ought, if we look faithfully at them, to illustrate several things for us. Could wesee them well, we should get some glimpses into the verymarrow of the world’s history. How happy, could I but,in any measure, in such times as these, make manifest toyou the meanings ofHeroism ; the divi ne relation (for I maywell call it such) which in all times unites a Great Man toother men ; and thus, as it were, not exhaust my subject,but so much as break ground on it ! At a ll events, I mustmake the attempt.

It is well said, in every sense, that a man’s religion is the

chief fact with regard to him . Aman’s, o r a nation of men’s.

By religion I do not mean here the church-creed which heprofesses, the articles of faith which he will sign and, inwords or otherwise, assert ; not this wholly, in many casesnot this at all . We see men of all kinds of professed creedsattain to almost all degrees ofworth o r worthlessness undereach o r any of them . This is not what I call religion, thisprofession and assertion ; which is often only a professionand assertion from th e outworks of the man, from themere argumentative region of him, if even so deep as that.

THE HERO AS DIVINITY 159

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this isoften enough without asserting it even to himself, muchless to others) ; the thing a man does practically lay toheart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations tothis mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there,that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creativelydetermines a ll the rest . That is his r eligion; or , it may b e ,his mere scepticism and no-r eligion : the manner it is in whichhe feels himself to be spiritually related to the Unseen Worldo r No-World ; and I say, if you tell me what that is, you tellme to a very great extent what the man is, what the kind ofthings he will do is. Oi a man or of a nation we inquire,therefore, first of all, What religion they had? Was it Hearthen ism , plurality of gods, mere sensuous representationof this Mystery of Life, and for chief recognised elementtherein Physical Force ? Was it Christianism ; faith in anInvisible, not as real only, but as the only real ity ; Tim e,through every meanest moment of it, resting on EternityPagan empire of Force displaced by a nobler supremacy,that of Holiness ? Was it Scepticism, uncertainty and inqu iry whether there was an Unseen World, any Mystery ofLife except a mad one ; doubt as to all thi s, or perhapsunbelief and flat denial ? Answering of this question is giving us the soul of the history of the man or nation . Thethoughts they had were the parents of the actions they did ;their feelings were parents of their thoughts : it was the unseen and spiritual in them that determined the outward andactual ; their religion, as I say, was the great fact aboutthem . In these Discourses, limited as we are, it will be goodto direct our survey ch iefly to that religious phasis of thematter. That once known well, all is known . We havechosen as the firstHero in our series,Odin , the central figureof Scandinavian Paganism ; an emblem to us of a mostextensive province of things . Le t us look for a little


at the Hero as Divinity, the oldest prim ary form of

Heroism .

Surely it seems a very strange-looking thing this Paganism ; almost inconceivable to us in these days . A bewildering, inextricable jungle of delusions, confusions, falsehoods,and absurdities, covering the whole fie ld of Life ! A thingthat fills us with astonishment, almost, if it were possible,with incredulity, for truly it is not easy to understandthat sane men could ever calmly, with their eyes Open, b el ieve and live by such a set of doctrines. That men shouldhave worshipped their poor fellow-man as a God, and nothim only, but stocks and stones, and all manner of animateand inanimate objects ; and fashioned for themse lves such adistracted chaos of hallucinations by way of Theory of theUniverse : all this looks like an incredible fable . Ne v e rthe

less, it is a clear fact that they did it. Such hideous ine xtr ica b le jungle ofmisworships, misbeliefs, men, made as weare, did actually hold b y, and live at home in . This isstrange . Yes, we may pause in sorrow and silence over thedepths of darkness that are in man ; if we rejoice in theheights of purer vision he has attained to. Such things wereand are in man ; in all men ; in us too.

Some speculators have a short way of accounting for thePagan religion :mere quackery, priestcraft, and dupery, saythey ; no sane man ever did b elieve it, merely contrivedto persuade other men, not worthy of the name of sane, tob elieve it ! It will be often our duty to protest against thissort of hypothesis about men’s doings and history ; and Ihere, on the very threshold, protest against it in reference toPaganism, and to all other i sm s by which man has ever for alength of tim e striven to walk in this world . They have allhad a truth in them, o r men would not have taken them np.

Q uackery and dupery do abound ; in religions, above all inthe more advanced decaying stages of religions, they have



true . Le t us consider it very certain that men did believe inPaganism ; men with open eye s, sound senses, men made a ltogether like our selves ; that we , had we been there, shouldhave believed in it. Ask now, What Paganism could havebeen ?Another theory, somewhat more respectable, attributessuch things to Allegory. It was a play of poetic minds, saythese theorists ; a shadowing-forth, in allegorical fable, inpe rson ification and Visual form, of what such poetic m indshad known and felt of thisUniverse . Which agrees, add they,with a primary law of human nature, still everywhere ob

se rv ab ly at work, though in less im portant things . Thatwhat a man feels intensely, he struggles to speak-out of him,

to see represented before h im in Visual shape, and as if witha kind of life and historical reality in it. Now doubtlessthere is such a law, and it is one of the deepest in hum annature ; neither need we doubt that it did operate fundamentally in this business . The hypothesis which ascrib esPaganism wholly or mostly to this agency, I call a little morerespectable ; but I cannot yet call it the true hypothesis.Think, would we believe, and take with us as our life-guidance, an allegory, a poetic sport ? Not sport but earnest iswhat we should require . It is a most earnest thing to beal ive in this world ; to die is not sport for a man . Man’s lifenever was a sport to him ; it was a stern reality, altogether aserious matter to be alive !I hnd, therefore, that though these Allegory theorists are

o n the way towards truth in this matter, they have notreached it either . Pagan Religion is indeed an Allegory, aSymbol of what men felt and knew about the Universe ; andall Religions are Symbols of that, altering always as thatalters : but it se em s to me a radical perversion, and eveninversion, of the business, to put that forward as the originand mov ing ca use, when it was rather the re sult and ter


mination. To get beautiful allegories, a perfect poetic symbol, was not the want of men ; but to know what they wereto believe about this Universe, what course they were tosteer in it ; what, in this mysterious Life of theirs, they hadto hope and to fear, to do and to forbear doing . The P i l

grim’

s Progress is an Allegory, and a beautiful, just andserious one : but consider whether Bunyan’s Allegory couldhave pr eceded the Faith it symbolises ! The Faith had to bealready there, standing believed by everybody ; of whichthe Allegory could then become a shadow ; and, with all itsseriousness, we may say a sportful shadow, a mere play of

the Fancy, in comparison with that awful Fact and scientificcertainty which it poetically strives to emblem . The Alle gory is the product of the certainty, not the produce r of itnot in Bunyan’s nor in any other case . For Paganism, therefore, we have still to inquire, Whence came that scie ntificcertainty, the parent of such a bewildered heap of allegories,e rrors and confusions ? How was it, what was it?Sure ly it were a foolish attempt to pretend ‘ explaining,’

in this place, o r in any place, such a phenomenon as thatfar-distant distracted cloudy imbroglio of Paganism,

m ore like a cloudfie ld than a distant continent of firm landand facts ! It is no longer a reality, yet it was one . Weought to understand that this seeming cloudfie ld was once areality ; that not poetic allegory, least of all that dupery anddeception was the origin of it. Men, I say, never did b elieve idle songs, never risked their soul’s life on allegoriesmen in all times, especially in early earnest times, have hadan instinct for de tecting quacks, for detesting quacks . Letus try if, leaving out both the quack theory and the allegoryone , and listening with affectionate attention to that far-offconfused rumour of the Pagan ages, we cannot ascertainso much as this at least, That there was a kind of factat the heart of them ; that they too were not mendacious

164 3 j THE CONDUCT OF LIFE

and distracte d, but in their own poor way true and

sane !

You remembe r that fancy of Plato’s, of a m an who had

grown to matur ity in some dark distance, and was broughton a sudden into the upper air to see the sun rise. Whatwould his wonder b e , his rapt astonishment at the sight wedaily witness with indifference ! With the free Open se nse ofa chi ld, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole heartwould be kindled by that sight, he would discern it well tobe Godlike, his soul would fall down in worship before it.Now, just such a childl ike greatness was in the prim itivenations . The fir st Pagan Thinker among rude men, the firstman that began to think, was precisely this child-man of

Plato’s . Simple, open as a chi ld, yet with the depth andstrength of a man . Nature had as yet no name to him ; hehad not yet united under a nam e the infin ite variety of

sights, sounds, shapes and motions, which we now colleetiv e ly name Universe, Nature, or the like, and so with aname dismiss it from us. To the wild deep-hearted man a llwas yet new, not veiled under names o r formulas ; it stoodnaked, fla sh ing-in on him there, beautiful, awful, unspeakable . Nature was to this man, what to the Thinker andProphet it for ever is, pr eter

'

natural . This green flowe ryrock-built earth, the trees, the mountains, rivers, manysounding seas ; that great deep sea of azure that swimsoverhead ; the winds sweeping through it ; the black cloudfashi oning itself together, now pouring out fire , now hail andrain ; what i s it? Ay, what ? At bottom we do not yet know ;we can never know at all. It is not by our superior insightthat we escape the difficulty ; it is by our superior levity, ourinattention, our want of insight. It is by not thinking thatwe cease to wonder at it. Hardened round us, encasingwholly every notion we form , is a wrappage of traditions,



thing ; towards which the best attitude for us, after never somuch science, is awe, devout prostration and humility of

soul ; worship if not in words, then in silence .But now I remark further :What in such a time as ours it

requires a Prophet or Poet to teach us, namely, the stripping-ofi of those poor undevout wrappages, nomenclaturesand scientific hearsays, this, the ancient earnest soul, asyet unencumbered with these things, did for itself. Theworld, which is now divine only to the gifted, was then div ine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. He stoodbare before it face to face .

‘

All was Godlike or God ’

.

Jean Paul 1 still finds it so ; the giant Jean Paul, who haspower to escape out of hearsays : but there then were nohearsays . Canopus shining—down over the desert, with itsblue diamond brightness (that wild blue spirit-like brightness, far brighter than we ever witne ss here) , would pierceinto the heart of the wild Ishmaelitish man, whom it was

guiding through the solitary waste there . To his wild heart,with all feelings in it, with no speech for any feeling, it mightseem a little eye, that Canopus, glancing-out on h im fromthe great deep Ete rnity ; revealing the inner Splendour tohim. Cannot we understand how these men wor shippedCanopus ; becam e what we call Sabeans worshipping thestars ? Such is to me the secret of all forms of Paganism .

Worship is transce ndent wonder ; wonder for which there isnow no limit or measure ; that is worship. To these prim e v a l m en , all things and everything they saw exist besidethem were an em blem of the Godlike, of some G od.

And look what perennial fib re of truth was in that . Tous also, through every star, through eve ry blade of grass, isnot a God made Visible, if we will open our minds and eyes ?We do not worship in that way now : but is it not reckoned1 Je a n Paul Fr iedr ich Richte r (1763 the gre ate st hum or ist in

m ode rn G e rm an lite ra ture .


still a merit, proof of what we call a ‘poetic nature,’ that werecognise how every object has a divine beauty in it; howevery object still verily is ‘a window through which we maylook into Infinitude itself’? He that can discern the lo v e liness of things, we call him Poet, Painter, Man of Genius,gifted, lovable . These poor Sabeans did even what he does,in their own fashion . That they did it, in what fashion

soever, was a merit : be tter than what the entirely stupidman did, what the horse and camel did, namely, nothing !But now if all things whatsoever that we look upon are

emblems to us of the Highest God, I add that more so thanany of them is man such an em blem . You have heard of

St. Chrysostom’

s celebrated saying in reference to the Shekinah, o r Ark of Testimony, Visible Revelation of God, amongthe Hebrews : “The true Shekinah isMan !

” Yes, it is evenso zthis is no vain phrase ; it is veritably so . The essence ofour being, the mystery in us that calls itself I,

” ah, whatwords have we for such things ? is a breath of Heaven ;the Highest Being reveals himself in man . This body, thesefaculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for thatUnnam ed ? ‘There is but one Temple in the Universe,

’

says the devout Novalis, ‘and that is the Body of Man .

Nothing is holier than that high form . Bending before menis a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh . Wetouch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body ! ’

This sounds much like a mere flour ish of rhetoric ; but it isnot so . If well meditated, it will turn out to b e a scie ntificfact ; the expression, in such words as can be had, of theactual truth of the thi ng . We are the m iracle of miracle s,the great inscrutable mystery of God . We cannot understand it, we know not how to speak of it ; but we may feeland know, if we like, that it is verily so .

Well ; these truths were once more readily felt than now .

The young generations of the world,who had in them the


freshness of young children, and yet the depth of earnestmen, who did not think they had fin ish ed-ofl’ all things inHeaven and Earth by merely giving them scientific names,but had to gaze direct at them there, with awe and wonderthey felt better what of divinity is in man and Nature ;they, without being mad, could worshipNature, and m an

more than anything else in Nature . Worship, that is, as Isaid above, admire without limit : this, in the full use of theirfaculties, with all sincerity of heart, they could do. I cons ider Hero-worship to be the grand modifying element inthat ancient system of thought. What I called the perple x ed jungle ofPaganism sprang, we may say, out of manyr oots : every admiration, adoration of a star or natur al obje ct, was a root or fib re of a root ; but Hero-worship is thedeepest root of all the tap-root, from which in a great de greeal l the rest were nourished and grown .

And now if worship eve n of a star had some meaning in it,how much more m ight that of a Hero ! Worship of a Herois transcendent adm iration of a Great Man . I say greatmen are still admir able ! I say there is, at the bottom, nothing else admirable ! No nobler feeling than this of adm iration for one higher than him self dwells in the breast ofman .

It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influe nce inman’s life . Religion I find stand upon it; not Paganismonly, but far higher and truer religions, all religion h itherto known . Hero-worship, heartfelt prostrate admiration,subm ission, burning, boundless,

"

for a noblest godlike FormofMan , is not that the germ of Christianity itselfP Thegreate st of all Heroes is One whom we do not name here !Let sacred silence m editate that sacred matter ; you will findit the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughoutman’s whole history on earth .

Or coming into lower, less unspeakable provinces, i s notall Loyalty akin to relig ious Faith also? Faith is loyalty to



ture o f the Time,’ they say ; the Time called him forth, theTime did everything, he nothing but what we the littlecritic could have done too ! This seems to m e but melanch o ly work . The Time call forth ? Alas, we have knownTim es ca ll loudly enough for their great man ; but not findhim when they called ! He was not there ; Providence hadnot sent h im ; the Time, ca lling its loudest, had to go downto confusion and wreck because he would not come whencalled .

For if we will think of it, no Time need have gone to ruin,could it have found a man great enough, a man wise andgo od enough :wisdom to discern truly what the Time wanted,valour to lead it on the right road thither ; these are thesalvation of any Tim e . But I liken common langu id Times,with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their languiddoubting characte rs and embarrassed circum stances, impotently crum bling down into ever worse distress towardsfina l ruin ; all this I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for thelightning out of Heaven that shall kindle it. The greatman, with his free force direct out of God

’s own hand, is thelightning . His word is the wise healing word which all canbelieve in . All blazes round him now, when he has oncestruck on it, into fir e like his own . The dry moulderingsticks are thought to have called him forth . They did wanth im greatly ; but as to calling h im forth — Those ar e

critics of small vision, I think, who cry : Se e , is it not thesticks that made the fire ? ” No sadder proof can be givenby a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

There is no sadder sym ptom of a generation than such general blindness to the spiritual lightning, with faith only inth e heap of barren dead fuel . It is the last consumm ationof unbelief. In all e pochs of the world’s history, we shallfind the G reat Man to have been the indispensable saviouro f his epoch ; the lightning, without which the fuel never


would have burnt . The History of the World, I said a l

ready, was the Biography of Great Men .

Such small critics do what they can to promote unbeliefand universal spiritual paralysis : but happily they cann otalways com pletely succee d . In all times it is possible for aman to arise great enough to feel that they and their doctrines are chim eras and cobwebs . And what is notable, inno time whatever can they entirely eradicate out of livingmen’s hearts a certain altogether peculiar reverence forGreat Men ; genuine admiration, loyalty, adoration, however dim and perverted it may b e . Hero—worship enduresforever while man endur es . Boswell venerates his Johnson, right truly even in the Eighteenth century. The nubelieving French b elieve in their Voltaire ; and burst-outround him into very curious Hero-worship, in that last actof his life when they ‘

stifle h im under roses .’ It has alwaysseeme d to me extrem ely curious this of Voltaire . Truly, ifChristianity be the highest instance of Hero-worship, thenwe may find he re in Vo lta ire ism one of the lowest ! He

whose life was that of a kind ofAntich rist, does again on thisside exhibit a curious contrast . No people ever were so

little prone to adm ire at all as those French of Voltaire .P ersiflage was the character of their whole mind ; adorationhad nowhere a place in it. Yet see ! The old man of Ferneycomes up to Paris ; an o ld, tottering, infirm man of eightyfour years . They feel that he too is a kind of Hero ; that hehas spent his life in Opposing error and injustice, deliveringCalases, unmasking hypocrites in high places in shortthat he too, though in a strange way, has fought like a v a liant man . They feel withal that, if persiflage be the greatthing, there never was such a persifleur . He is the realisedideal of every one of them ; the thing they are all wanting tob e ; of all Fre nchm en the most French . He is properly theirgod, such god as they are fit for. Accordingly all per

172 THE CONDUCT OF“

LIFE

sons, from the Q ueen Antoinette to the Douanier at the

Porte St. Denis, do they not worship him ? People of quality disguise themselves as tavern-waiters . The Maitre dePoste, with a broad oath, orders his Postillion, “

Va bon

tra in; thou art driving M. de Voltaire .” At Paris hiscarriage is ‘the nucleus of a comet, whose train fills wholestreets .’ The ladies pluck a hair or two from his fur, to keepit as a sacred relic . There was nothing highest, beautifulest,noblest in all France, that did not feel this man to be higher,beautifuler, nobler.Yes, from Norse Odin to English Samuel Johnson, from

the divine Founder of Christianity to the withered PontifiofEncyclopedism, in all times and places, the Hero has beenworshipped . It will ever be so . We all love great men ; love,venerate and bow down submissive before great men : nay,can we honestly b ow down to anything else ? Ah, doe s notevery true man feel that he is himself made higher by doingreverence to what is really above him ? No nobler or moreblessed feeling dwells in man’s heart . And to me it is verycheering to consider that no sceptical logic, or general trivia lity, insincerity and aridity of any Time and its influe ncescan destroy this noble inborn loyalty and worship that is inman . In times of unbelief, which soon have to becometimes of revolution, much down-rushing, sorrowful decayand ruin is visible to everybody . Fo r myself, in these days,I seem to see in this indestructibility of Hero—worshiptheeverlasting adamant lower than which the confused wreckof revolutionary things cannot fall . The confused wre ck ofthings crumbling and even crashing and tumbling all roundus in these revolutionary ages, will get down so far ; no farther. It is an eternal corner-stone, from which they can

begin to build themselves up again. That man, in somesense o r other, worships Heroes ; that we all of us reverenceandmust ever reverence Great Men : this is, to me, the living


ZES TRIPLE! 1

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSONPUBLISHED as a m agaz ine article in 1878. Now included in the v olum e

Virgini bus Puerisque .

THE changes wrought by death are in them selves so sharpand final, and so terrible and melancholy in their cousequence s, that the thing stands alone in man

’s experience,and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them . Som etimes it leapssuddenly upon its Victim s, like a Thug ; som etimes it lays aregular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score ofyears . And when the business is done, there is sore havocmade in other pe ople

’s lives, and a pin knocked out by whichmany subsidiary friendships hung toge ther . There areempty chairs, solitary walks, and single be ds at night . Again,in taking away our friends, death does not take them awayutterly but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue,which m ust be hurriedly concealed . Hencea whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind,from the pyram ids ofEgypt to the gibbets and dule trees ofme diaeval Europe . The poorest persons have a bit of page ant going toward the tom b ; memorial stones are set up overthe least memorable ; and, in order to preserve some show ofrespect for what remains of our o ld loves and friendships,we m ust accom pany it with much grimly ludicrous ceremonial, and the hired undertaker parades before the door.All this, and much more of the same sort, accom panied bythe eloquence of poets, has gone a great way to put humanity in error ; nay, in many philosophies the error has been1 From Vi rgini bus Puen

'

sque. by pe rm ission of the pub lishers. Charles

Scrib ner’

s Sons.

E S TRIPLE! 175

embodied and laid down with every circumstance of logic ;although in real life the bustle and swiftness, in leaving people little tim e to think, have not left them time enough to godangerously wrong in practice .As a matter of fact, although few things are spoken of

with m ore fearful whisperings than this prospect of death,few have le ss influence on conduct under healthy circumstance s . We have all heard of cities in South America builtupon the side of fie ry mountains, and how, even in this trem e ndous neighborhood, the inhabitants are not a jot moreimpressed by the solem nity ofmortal conditions than if theywere delving gardens in the greenest corner of England .

There are serenades and suppers and much gallantry amongthe m yrtles overhe ad ; and meanwhile the foundation shudders underfoot, the bowels of the mountain growl, and atany moment living ruin m ay leap sky-high into the m oonlight, and tum ble man and his merry-m aking in the dust .In the eyes of very young people, and very dull old ones,there is som ething indescribably reckless and desperate insuch a picture . It seems not credible that respectable married people, with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit ofsupper within quite a long distance of a fie ry mountain ;ordinary life begins to smell ofhigh-handed debauch when itis carried on so close to a catastrophe ; and even cheese andsalad, it seems, could hardly be relished in such circumstances without som ething like a defiance of the Creator .It should be a place for nobody but hermits dwelling inprayer and maceration, or mere born-devils drowning carein a perpetual carouse .And yet, when one comes to think upon it calm ly, the

situation of these South Am erican citizens form s only a verypale figure for the state of ordinary mankind . This world,itself, travelling blindly and swiftly in overcrowded space,among a million other worlds travelling blindly and swiftly


in contrary directions, may very we ll come by a knock thatwould set it into explosion like a penny squib . And what,pathologically looked at, is the human body with all itsorgans, but a mere bagful of petards ? The least of these isas dangerous to the whole economy as the ship’s powdermagazine to the ship ; and with every breath we breathe, andevery meal we eat, we are putting one o r more of them inperil. If we clung as devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make out we are, for the subversive accidentthat ends it a ll, the trum pets might sound by the hour andno one would follow them into battle the blue-petermight fly at the truck, but who would clim b into a sea-goingship ? Think (if these philosophers were right) with what apreparation of spirit we should afl’ront the daily peril of thedinner-table : a deadlier spot than any battle-fie ld in history,where the far greater proportion of our ancestors have mise rab ly left their bones ! What wom an would ever be luredinto marriage, so much more dangerous than the wi ldestsea? And what would it be to grow o ld? Fo r , after a certain distance, every step we take in life we find the ice growing thinner below our feet, and all around us and behind uswe see our contem poraries going through . By the time aman gets well into the seventies, his continued existence is amere miracle ; and when he lays his o ld bones in bed for thenight, there is an overwhelming probability that he willnever see the day. Do the o ld men mind it, as a matter offact ? Why, no . They were never merrier ; they have theirgrog at night, and tell the raciest stories ; they hear of thede ath ofpeople about their own age, o r even younger, not asif it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleas~ure at having outlived some one else ; and when a draughtmight puff them out like a guttering candle, o r a bit of astumb le shatter them like so much glass, their old hearts



professional mariner or some landsman with shattered nerves,

every o ne of God’s cre atur e s m akes it fast. A strange instance of man’s unconcern and brazen boldness in the faceof death !We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases

,which

we im port into daily talk with noble inappropriateness .We have no idea of what death is, apart from its circumstance s

'

and som e of its consequences to others ; and althoughwe have some experience of living, there is not a man onearth who has flown so high into abstraction as to have anypractical guess at the m eaning of the word life . All literature, from Joh and Om ar Kh ayyam to Thomas Carlyle orWalt Whitman, is but an attempt to look upon the humanstate with such largeness of View as shall enable us to risefrom the consideration of living to the Defin ition of Life .And our sages give us about the best satisfaction in theirpower when they say that it is a vapor, or a show, or madeof the same stuff with dream s . Philosophy, in its morerigid sense, has been at the same work for ages ; and after amyriad bald heads have wagged over the problem, and pilesof words have be en heaped one upon another into dr y andcloudy volum es without end, philosophy has the honor oflaying before us, with modest pride, her contribution towardthe subject : that life is a Pe rm anent Possibility ofSensation .

Truly a fine result ! A man m ay very we ll love b eef, o r

hunting, o r a wom an ; but surely, surely, not a Perm anentPossibility o f Sensation ! He m ay be afraid of a precipice,o r a dentist, o r a large enem y with a club , or even an undertake r’s m an ; but not ce rtainly of abstract death . We maytrick with the word life in its dozen senses until we are w earyof tricking ; we may argue in terms of all th e philosophies onearth, but one fact rem ains true throughout that we donot love life, in the sense that we are greatly preoccupiedabout its conservation ; that we do not, properly speaking,

ZES TRIPLE! 179

love life at all, but living . Into the Views of the least carefulthere will enter som e de gree of providence ; no man

’s eyesare fix ed entirely on the passing hour ; but although we havesome anticipation of good health, good weather, wine, activeemployment, love, and self—approval, the sum of these a nticipations does not amount to anything like a general viewof life’s possibilities and issues ; nor are those who cherishthem most vividly, at all the most scrupulous of their personal safety . To be deeply interested in the accidents of ourexistence, to enjoy keenly the m ixed texture of hum an ex

pe r ie nce , rather leads a man to disregard precautions, andrisk his neck against a straw. For surely the love of livingis stronger in an Alpine clim ber roping over a peril, o r ahunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a creature wholives upon a diet and walks a measured distance in the intere st of his constitution .

There is a great deal of very vile nonsense talked uponboth sides of the matter : tearing divines reducing life to thedimensions of a mere funeral procession, so short as to behardly decent ; and melancholy unbelievers yearning for thetomb as if it were a world too far away . Both sides m ustfeel a little ashamed of their perform ances now and againwhe n they draw in their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a go odmeal and a bottle of wine is an answer to most standardworks upon the question . When a man’s heart warm s tohis Viands, he forgets a great deal of sophistry, and soarsinto a rosy zone of contem plation . Death m ay be knockingat the do or, like th e Commander

’s statue ; we have som ething else in hand, thank G od, and let him knock. Passingbells are ringing a ll the world over . All the world ove r, andevery hour, som e one is parting company with all his ache sand ecstasies . Fo r us also the trap is laid . But we are sofond of life that we have no le isure to entertain the te r ro r ofdeath . It is a honeymoon with us all through, and none of


the longest. Small blame to us if we give our whole heartsto this glowing bride of ours, to the appetites, to honor, tothe hungry cur iosity of the mind, to the pleasure of the eyesin nature, and the pride of our own nimble bodies .We all of us appreciate the sensations ; but as for caringabout the Perm anence of the Possibility, a man

’s head isgenerally very bald, and his senses very dull, before he comesto that . Whether we regard life as a lane leading to a deadwall a mere bag’s end, as the French say or whetherwe think of it as a vestibule o r gym nasium, where we waitour turn and prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny ; whether we thunde r

i

in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic poetry-books, about its vanity and brevity ; whether welook justly for years of health and vigor, or a re about tomount into a Bath-chair, as a step toward the hearse ; ineach and all of these views and situations there is but oneconclusion possible : that a man should st0 p hi s ears againstparalyzing terror, and run the race that is set before h imwith a single mind . No one surely could have re coiled withm ore heartache and terror from the thought of death thanour respected lexicographer ; and yet we kn ow how little itaffected his conduct, how wisely and boldly he walked, andin what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of life . Already anold man, he ventured on his Highland tour ; and his heart,bound with triple brass, did not recoil be fore twenty-sevenindividual cups of tea . As courage and intelligence are thetwo qualities best worth a good man’s cultivation, so it isthe first part of intelligence to recognize our precarious estatein life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashedbe fore the fact . A frank and somewhat headlong carriage,not looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlinregret ove r the past, stamps the man who is well armoredfor this world .

And not only well armored for himself, but a good friend,



he touch the goal . A peerage or Westminster Abbeycried Nelson in his bright, boyish, heroic manner . Thesea r e great incentives ; not for any of these, but for the plainsatisfaction of living, of being about their business in somesort or o ther, do the brave, service able men of every nationtread down the nettle danger, and pass flyingly over a ll thestum bling-blocks of prudence . Thi nk of the heroism of

Johnson , think of that superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon hi s dictionary, and carried himthr ough trium phantly until the end ! Who , if he werewisely considerate of things at large, would ever embarkupon any work m uch m ore conside rable than a halfpennypost card ? Who would project a serial novel, after Thackerayand Dickens had each fallen in mid-course ? Who wouldfind heart e nough to begin to live, if he dalli ed with theconsideration of death ?And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quibbling all this is !

To forego all the issues of living in a parlor with a regulated tem perature as if that were not to die a hundredtimes over, and for ten years at a stretch ! As if it were notto die in one’s own lifetime, and without even the sad imm un itie s of death ! As if it were not to die, and yet b e thepatient spectators of our own pitiable change ! The Permanent Possibility is preserved, but the sensations carefullyheld at arm’s length, as if one kept a photographic plate ina dark chamber . It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser . It is better to live andbe done with it, than to die daily in the sickroom . By allmeans begin your folio ; even if the doctor does not give youa year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one bravepush and see what can be accomplished in a week . It isnot only in finished undertakings that we ought to honoruse ful labor . A spirit goes out of the man who means execution , which outlives the most untimely ending . All who

E S TRIPLE! 183

have meant good work with their whole hearts, have donegood wo rk, although the y may die before they have thetim e to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world

,and

bettered the tradition of m ankind . And even if death catchpeople, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out

vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushedwith h em , and their mouths full of boastful language, theyshould be at once tripped up and silenced : is there not som ething brave and spirited in such a term ination ? and does notlife go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over aprecipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas ? When the Greeks made their fine saying that thosewhom the gods love die young, I cannot he lp believing theyhad this sort of death also in their eye . Fo r surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to die young . Deathhas not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from hisheart . In the hot-fit of life, a -tiptoe on the highest point ofbeing, he passes at a bound on to the other side . The noiseof the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trum petsare hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds ofglory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into thespiritual land.

HOW TO OVERCOME THE OBSTACLESTO GOOD CITIZENSHIP 1

JAMES BRYCE

THE le ctur es pub lished under the title The Hindrances to GoodCitizenshipwe re de liv e red at Ya le Un iv e rsity in 1909. As h indr ance s Lord Bryce conside red sepa ra te ly — Indo le nce , Pr iv a te Se lf-Inte re st, Party Spir it . In thefina l lectur e , ofwh ich th is e x tra ct form s the lastpar t, b e re v iewed the who leser ies and sugge sted how to o v e rcom e the ob sta cle s . Although the se lecture s we re de liv e red b e fore the G rea t Wa r , they apply with e qua l force tothe pre sent pe r iod of world re construction . Th e re wa s ne v e r a tim e when

it was so ne ce ssa ry to de ve lop in m en a se nse of civ ic and na tional andhum an responsib ility .

TO contrive plans by which the interest of the citizen in public affairs shall be arouse d and sustained, is far easier thanto induce the citizen to use and to go on using, year in andyear out, the contrivances and opportunities provided forhis b e nefit. Yet it is from the heart and will of the citizenthat all real and lasting im provem ents must proceed . Inthe words of the Gospel, it is the inside of the cup and platterthat must be made clean . The central problem of civ i cduty is the ethical problem . Indiffe rence, se lfish interests,the excesses of party spirit, will all begin to disappe ar ascivic life is lifted on to a higher plane, and as the num ber ofthose who, standing on that higher plane, will apply a strictte st to their own conduct and to that of their leade rs, realizing and striving to discharge their re sponsibilities, goes onsteadily increasing until they com e to fo rm the m ajo rity ofthe people . What we have calle d the bette r conscience ”

must be grafted on to the “wild stock of the natural Average Man .

How is this to be done ? The difficulty is the same as that1 Copyr ight, 1909, by Ya le Un iv e rs ity Pre ss.



We I say we b ecause this is our task in Europe no

less than it is yours here we m ay appe al to his enlightened self—interest, making self-interest so enlightened that itloses its se lfish quality. We can rem ind him of all the usefulwork which governments may accomplish when they areconducted by the right men in the right spirit . Take, forinstance, the work to be performed in those cities wherein solarge and increasing a part of the population now dwell .How much rem ains to be done to make cities healthier, tosecure be tter dwellings for the poor, to root out nests ofcrim e, to remove the tem ptations to intemperance and gambling, to bring within the reach of the poorest all possiblefacilities both for intellectual progress and for e njoying thepleasures of art and music. How much may we do so toadorn the city with parks and public buildings as to makeits external aspect instil the sense of beauty into its inhabitants and g ive them a fine pride in it ! These are some of thetasks which cannot be safely intrusted to a m unicipalityunless its governm ent is above suspicion, unless m e n of

probity and capacity are placed in power, unless the wholecommunity extends its sympathy to the work and keeps avigilant eye upon all the officia ls . Municipal governmentscannot b e encouraged to own public utilities so long as thereis a risk that som ebody m ay own municipal governments .Have we not here a strong m otive for securing purity ande fficiency in city administration ? Is it not the personalinterest of every one of us that the city we dwell in shouldbe such as I have sought to describe ? Nothing makes morefor happiness than to see others around one happy . Therich re sidents need not grudge nor indeed would yourrich residents grudge, fo r there is less grumbling am ong therich tax payers here than in Europe taxation which theycould se e was be ing honestly spent fo r th e b enefit of the city.

The interest each one of us has as a m ember of a city o r a

THE OBSTACLES TO GOOD CITIZENSHIP 187

nation in seeing our fellow-citizens healthy, peaceful , andhappy is a greater interest, if it be measured in terms of ourown real enjoym ent of life, than is that interest, ofwhich weso constantly are reminded, which we have in making theState either wealthy by the development of trade, or form idab le to foreign countries by its armaments .We may also appeal to eve ry citizen

’s sense of dignity andself—respect. We may bid him recolle ct that he is the heir ofrights and privileges which your and our ancestors foughtfor, and which place h im whatever his birth o r fortune,among the rulers ofhis country. He is unworthy of him self,unmindful of what he owes to the Constitution that hasgiven him these functions, if he doe s not try to dischargethem worthily. These considerations are no doubt familiarto usEnglishmen and Americans, though we may not alwaysfeel their force as deeply as we ought. To the new immigrants of whom I have already spoken they are unfamiliar ;yet to the be st among these also they have sometimes powe rfully appealed . You had, in the last generation, no morehigh-minded and patriotic citizen than the Ge rman exile of1849, the late Mr . Carl Schurz .When every motive has been invoked, and every expedi

ent applied that can stim ulate the se nse of civic duty, onenever can feel sure that the desired result will follow . Themoral reform er and the preacher of religion have the sam eexperience . The ebbs and flows of ethical life a re beyondthe reach of scientific prediction . There are tim es of awaken ing,

“times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,”

as your Puritan ance stors said, but we do not know whenthey will com e nor can we explain why they come just whenthey do . Every man can recall moments in his own l ifewhen the sky seem ed to open above h im , and when his visionwas so quickened that all things stood transfigured in a purerand brighter radiance, when duty, and even toil done forthe sake of duty, seemed beautiful and full of joy.

188

You remember Wordsworth’s lines“Hence , in a season of fa ir wea ther.Though inland far we be ,Our souls ha v e sight of tha t ce le stial sea ,

Tha t b rought us h ither .

If we survey the wide fie ld of European history; we shallfind that something like this happens with nations also.They, too, have moments of exaltation, moments of depression . Their ideals rise and fall . They are for a timefilled with a spirit which seeks truth, which loves honour,which is ready for self-sa cr ifice ; and after a time the light '

begins to fade from the hills and this spirit lingers onlyamong the best souls.Such a spirit is sometimes evoked by a great national

crisis which thrills all hearts . This happened to England o rat least to a large part o f the people ofEngland, in the se vente enth century. It happened to Ge rmany in the days of

the War of Liberation, and to Italy when she was striving‘

to

expel the Austrians and the petty princes who ruled byAustria’s help . You here felt it during the War of Secession.

Sometimes, and usually at one of these crises, a great m an

stands out who helps to raise the feeling of his people andinspire them with his own lofty thoughts and aims. Such aman was Mazzini, seventy years ago in Italy. Such wereWashington and Lincoln, the former more by his examplethan by his words, the latter by both, yet most by the quietpatience, dign ity, and hopefulness which he showed in thedarkest hours . Nations respond to the appe al which such aman makes to their best instincts . He typifie s for the m o

ment whatever is highest in them .

Unhappily, with nations as with individuals, there is aptto be a re lapse from these lo ftier moods into the old commonways when se lfish interest and trivial plea sures resume theirsway. There comes a sort of reaction from the stre ss of



upper class demoralized by wealth and power even morethan it was torn by discord, its lower classes corrupted bythe upper and looking on their suffrage as a means of gain,the ancient traditions died out . Whoever, studying theconditions of modern European dem ocracies, sees the infinite facilities which popular governm ent in large countriesfull of rich men and of opportunitie s for acquiring riches,offers for the perversion of governm ent to private selfishends, will often fe el that those Eur opean states which havemaintained the highest standard of c ivic pur ity have doneit in respect of their Traditions . Were these to be weakened,the fabric might crumble into dust.Every new generation as it comes up can make the tradi

tions which it finds better or worse . If its im agination istouche d and its emotions stirred by all that is fine st in thehistory of its country, it le arns to live up to the ideals setbefore it, and thus it strengthens the best standards of conduct it has inherited and prolongs th e reverence felt for them.

The responsibility for forming ideals and fix ing standardsdoes not belong to statesmen alone . It belongs, and nowperhaps more largely than ever before, to the intellectualleaders of the nation, and especially to those who addressthe people in the Universities and thr ough the press . Teachers, writers, journalists, are form ing the mind of modernnations to an extent previously unknown . Here they haveOpportunities such as have existed ne ver before, nor in anyother country, for trying to i nspi re the nation with a love oftruth and honour, with a sense of the high obligations ofc itizenshi p, and especially of those who hold public office .

Of the power which the daily press exerts upon thethoughts and the tastes of the people through the m atter itscatters among them, and of the grave import of the cho iceit has always and everywhe re to make be twee n the serioustreatment of public issues and that cheap cynicism which so

THE OBSTACLES TO GOOD CITIZENSHIP 191

many readers find amusing, the re is no need to speak here .You know better than I do how far those who direct thepress realize and try to discharge the responsibilities whichattach to their power .The observer who seeks to discern and estimate the forces

working for good o r evil that mark the spirit and tendenciesof an age, finds it easiest to do this by noting the changeswhich have occurred within his own memory . To~dayeveryone seems to dwell upon the growth not only of luxury, but of the passion for amusement, and most of thosewho can look back thi rty o r forty years find in this growthgrounds for discour agement . I deny neither the fact nor thesignificance of the augur ies that it suggests . But let us alsonote a hopeful sign manifest during the last twenty yearsboth here and in England . It is the diffusion among theeducated and richer classes of a warmer fee ling of sympathyand a stronger feeling of responsibility for the less fortunatesections of the community . There is more of a sense ofbrotherhood, more of a desire to help, more of a discontentwith those arrangements of society which press hardly onthe common man than there was forty years ago. This a ltruistic spirit which is now everywhere Visible in the fie ld ofprivate philanthropic work, seems likely to spread into thefie ld of civic action also, and may there be come a new motive power . It has already become a m ore e fficie nt force inlegislation than it eve r was before . We m ay well hope thatit w ill draw more and more of those who love and se ek tohelp their fellow-men into that legislative and administrative work whose Opportunities fo r grappling with economicand social problem s becom e every day greater .He re in Am erica I am told in ne arly every c ity I visit that

the young men are more and more caring for and bestirringthem selve s to discharge the ir civic duties . That is the b estnews one can hear. Surely no country makes so clear a call


upon her citizens to work for her as yours does . Think ofthe wide-spreading results which good solid work produceson so vast a com m unity, where everything achieved for goodin one place is quickly kn own and m ay be quickly im itatedin another . Think of the advantages for the development ofthe highest civ ilization which the boundless resources ofyour territory provide . Think of that principle of the Sowe re ignty of the People which you have carried further thanit was ever carried before and which requires and inspiresand, indeed, compels you to endeavour to make the wholepeople fit to bear a weight and discharge a task such as noother multitude of men ever yet undertook. Think of thesense of fraternity, also without precedent in any othergreat nation, which binds all Americans together and makesit easier here than elsewhere for each citizen to meet everyother citizen as an equal upon a common ground. One who,com ing from the Old World, remembers the greater difficulties the Old World has to face, rejoices to think how much,with all these advantages, the youth of America, such youthas I see here to-night in this venerable University, may ac

complish for the future of your country . Nature has doneher b est to provide a foundation whereon the fabric of anenlightened and steadily advancing civilization may b ere ared . It is for you to build upon that foundation . Freefrom many of the dangers that surround the states of Europe, you have unequalled opportunities for showing whata high spirit of citizenship zealous, intelligent, disintere sted may do for the happiness and dignity of a mightynation, enabling it to become what its founders hoped itmight be a model for other pe oples more lately em ergedinto the sunl ight of freedom .



tion ; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from theoak ; no aping of foreigne rs, no frivolous accomplishm ents,Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatb oatm an , a captain in the Black Hawk war, a country lawyer, a representative in the rural Legislature of Illinois ; on such modestfoundations the broad structure of his fame was laid . How

slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to hisplace. All of us remember it is only a history of fiv e o r

six years the surprise and the disappointment of the country at his first nomination by the Convention at Chicago .

Mr . Seward, then in the culm ination of his good fame, wasthe favo rite of the Eastern States . And when the new andcomparatively unknown nam e of Lincoln was announce d,(notwithstanding the report of the acclamations of thatConvention,) we heard the result coldly and sadly. Itseeme d too rash, on a purely local reputation, to build sograve a trust in such anxious tim es ; and m en naturallytalked of the chances in politics as incalculable . But itturned out not to be chance . The profound good opinionwhich the people of Illinois and of the West had conceivedof him, and which they had im parted to their colleagues thatthey also m ight justify them selves to their constituents athome, was not rash, though they did not begin to know theriches of his worth .

A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune attended him. He offered no shining qualities at the firstencoun ter ; he did not offend by supe riority. He had a faceand manner which disarm ed suspicion, which inspired confide nce , which confirm ed good—will . He was a man withoutvices . He had a strong se nse of duty, which it was ve ryeasy for h im to obey. Then, he had what farmers call along head ; was excellent in working out the sum for him self ;in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firm ly .

Then, it turned out that he was a great worker ; had

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 195

prodigious faculty of performance ; worked easily. A goodworker is so rare ; everybody has some disabling quality.

In a host of young men that start together and promise somany brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial ;o ne by bad health, one by conceit, o r by love of pleasure, o rlethargy, o r an ugly tem per, each has some disqualifyingfault that throws him out of the career. But this man wassound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor, andliked nothing so well .Then, he had a vast good-nature, which made him tolerantand accessible to all ; fair-minded, leaning to the claim of thepetitioner ; affable, and not sensible to the affliction whichthe innumerable Visits paid to h im when President wouldhave brought to any one else . And how this good-naturebecam e a noble hum anity, in many a tragic case which theevents o f the war brought to h im , every one will rem ember ;and with what increasing te nderness he dealt when a wholerace was thrown on his com passion . The poo r negro said ofhim

,on an impressive occasion,

“Massa Linkum am e b e ry

where .”

Then his broad good-hum or, running easily into joculartalk

,in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a

rich gift to this wise man . It enabled h im to keep his secret ;to meet every kind ofman and e very rank in society ; to takeoff the edge of the severest decisions ; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion ; and to catch with true instinct the tem per o fevery com pany he addressed. And,morethan all

,it is to aman of severe labor, in anxious and exhaust

ing crises,the natural restorative , good as sleep, and is the

protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and in t

sanity.

He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests ; and only later, by the very accept


ance and adoption they find in the mouths ofmillions, turnout to be the wisdom of the hour. I am sure if this man hadruled in a period of less facility of printing, he would havebecome mythological in a very few years, like [Esop or Pilpay, o r one of the Seven Wise Masters, by his fables andproverbs . But the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters, messages and speeches, hidden now bythe very closeness of their application to the moment, aredestined hereafter to wide fame. What pre gnant defin itions ; what unerring common sense ; what foresight ; and, ongreat occasion, what lofty, and more than national, whathumane tone ! His brief speech at Gettysburg will noteasily be surpassed by words on any reco rded occasion .

This, and one other American speech, that of John Brownto the court that tried him, and a part ofKo ssuth

’

s speechat Birmingham, can only be compared with each other, andwith no fourth .

His occupying the chair of State was a triumph of thegood-sense ofmankind, and of the public conscience . Th ismiddle-class country had got a middle-class President, atlast. Yes, in manners and sympathies, but not in powers,for his powers were superior. This man grew according tothe need . His mind mastered the problem of the day ; and,as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarelywas m an so fitted to the event . In the midst of fears andjealousies, in the Babel of counsels and parties, this m an

wrought incessantly with all his might and all his honesty,laboring to find what the peo ple wanted, and how to obtainthat. It cannot be said there is any exaggeration of hisworth . If ever a man was fairly tested, he was . There wasno lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. Thetim es have allowed no state secrets ; the nation has been insuch ferm ent, such multitudes had to be trusted, that nosecret could b e kept. Every doo r was ajar, and 'we knowall that be fell .



could no longer serve us ; that the rebellion had touched itsnatural conclusion, and what remained to be done requirednew and uncomm itted hands, a new spirit born out of

the ashes of the war ; and that Heaven, wishing to show theworld a completed benefactor, shall make him serve hi scountry even more by his death than by his life ? Nations,like kings, are not good by facility and com plaisance. “Thekindness of kings consists in justice and strength.

”Easy

good-nature has been the dangerous foible of the Republic,and it was necessary that its enemie s should outrage it, anddrive us to unwonted firm ne ss, to secur e the salvation of thiscountry in the ne xt ages .The ancients believed in a serene and be autiful Genius

which ruled in the affairs of nations ; which, with a slow b utstern justice, carried forward the fortunes of certain chosenhouses, weeding out single offenders or o ffending families,and securing at last the firm prosperity of the favorites ofHeaven . It was too narrow a View of the Eternal Nemesis .There is a serene Providence which rules the fate of nations,which m akes little account of tim e, little of one generationo r race, makes no account of disasters , conquers alike bywhat is called defeat or by what is called victory, thrustsaside enemy and obstruction, crushes everything immoral asinhum an, and obtains the ultimate trium ph of the best raceby the sacr ifice of everything which resists the moral lawso f the world. It makes its own instruments, creates theman for the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius,and arms him for his task . It has given every race its owntalent, and ordains that only that race whi ch combines pe rfe ctly with the virtues of a ll shall endure.

A DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN l

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

HENCE it is that it is almost a defin ition of a gentleman tosay he is one who never infl icts pain . This description isboth refined and, as far as it goes , accurate . He is mainlyoccupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder thefree and unembarrassed action of those about him ; and heconcurs with their movem ents rather than takes the initiative himself. His b enefits may be considered as parallel towhat are called com forts o r conveniences in arrangem ents ofa personal nature : like an easy chair or a good fire, which dotheir part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and anim al he at without them.

The true gentlem an in like manner careful!y avoids whatever may cause a jar o r a jolt in the m inds of those withwhom he is cast ; all clashing of opinion , o r collision of

feeling, all restraint, o r suspicion , or gloom, o r resentment ;his great concern being to make every one at their case andat home . He has his eyes on all his com pany ; he is tendertowards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd ; he can recollect to whom he isSpeaking ; he guards against un seasonable allusions, o r

topics which may irritate ; he is seldom prominent in con

versation,and never wearisome . He makes light of ia

y ours while he does them , and seems to be receiving whenhe is conferring. He never speaks of himself except whe ncom pelled, never defends himself by a m ere retort, he has noears for slander o r gossip, is scrupulous in imputing m otivesto those who interfere with him , and interprets every thing

1 From The Idea of a Uni versi ty.Discour se vm , Un iv ersityTeaching.


fo r the be st . He is never mean o r l ittle in his disputes,never takes unfair advantage, never m istakes personalitieso r sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which hedare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he ohserves the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should everconduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one dayto be our friend . He has too much good sense to be aifronted at insults, he is too well em ployed to rememberinjuries, and too indolent to bear malice . He is patient,forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles ; hesubmits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement,because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny . If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disci

plined intellect preserves him from the blundering di scourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds ; who, likeblunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, whomistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifle s, misconceive their adversary, and le ave the questionmore involved than they find it. He may be right o r wrongin his Opinion, but he is too clear-heade d to be unjust ; heis as simple as he is forcible , and as brief as he is decisive .Nowhere shall we find greater candour, consideration, indulgence : he throws himse lf into the minds of his Opponents,he accoun ts for their mistakes . He knows the weakness ofhum an reason as well as its strength, its province and itslimits . If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound andlarge-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it ; he is toowise to be a dogm atist or fanatic in his infide lity . He re

spe cts piety and dev otion ; he even supports institutions asvenerable, beautiful, or use ful, to which he does not assent ;he honours the m inisters of religion, and it contents him todecline its m ysteries without assailing or denouncing them .

He is a friend of re ligious toleration, and that, not onlybecause his philosophy has taught h im to look on all forms


THE SKY ‘

JOHN RUSKIN

IT is a strange thing how little in general people know aboutthe sky . It is the part of creation in which nature has donemore for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole andevident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than inany other of her works, and it is just the part in which weleast attend to her. There are not many of her other worksin which some more material or essential purpose than themere pleasing ofman is not answered by every part of theirorganization ; but every essential purpose of the sky might,so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, orthereabouts, a great ugly black rain cloud were brought upover the blue, and everything well watered, and so all leftblue again till next time, with perhaps a film ofmorning andevening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not amom ent of any day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory,and working still upon such exquisite and constant principle s of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it isall done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure .

And every man, where ver placed, however far from othersources of interest o r of beauty, has this doing for him constantly . The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen andkn own but by few ; it is not intended that man should livealways in the midst of them, he injures them by his presence,he ceases to feel them if he be always with them ; but thesky is for all bright as it is, it i s not “too bright, nor good,for human nature’s daily food ” ; it is fitted in all its func

1 From Modern Pa inters. Vol. 1. 1843.

THE SKY 203

tions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart,for the soothing it and purifying it from its dross and dust.Sometimes gentle, som etimes capricious, sometimes awful,never the same for two mom ents together ; almost human inits passions, almost Spiritual in its tenderness, almost divinein its infin ity , its appeal to what is imm o rtal in us, is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement o r of blessing to what ismortal is essential . Andyet we never attend to it, we nevermake it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with ouranimal sensations ; we look upon all by which it speaks to usmore clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears witness tothe intention of the Suprem e, that we are to receive morefrom the covering vault than the light and the dew whichwe share with the weed and the worm, only as a successionof meaningless and monotonous accident, too com m on andtoo vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness, or aglance of adm iration . If in our moments of utter idlenessand insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, whichof its phenom ena do we speak of One says it has been wet,and another it has been windy, and another it has beenwarm . Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tellme of the form s and the precipices of the chain of tall whitemountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday? Whosaw the narrow sunbeam that cam e out of the south andsmote upon the ir sum m its until they melted and m oulde re daway in a dust ofblue rain ? Who saw the dance of the deadclouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the westwind blew them before it like withered leaves ? All haspassed, unregretted as unseen ; or if the apathy be evershaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, orwhat is extraordinary ; and yet it is not in the broad andfie rce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in theclash of the hail, no r the drift of the whirlwind, that thehighest characters of the sublime ar e developed. God is not

204 THE OUTDOORS

in the earthquake, nor in the fire , but in the still small voice.They are but the blunt and low faculties ofour nature, whichcan only be addre sse d through lam pblack and lightning.It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty,the deep, and the calm , and the perpetual, that whichmust be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood,things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet

vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never repeated,which are to be found always yet each found but once ; it isthr ough these that the lesson of devotion is chicfly taught,and the blessing of beauty given . These are what the artistof highest aim m ust. study ; it is these, by the com bination ofwhich his ideal is to be created ; these, of which so little notice is ordinarily take n by common observers, that I fullybelieve, little as people in general are concerned with art,more of their ideas of sky are derived from pictures thanfrom reality, and that if we could examine the conceptionform ed in the m inds of most educated persons when we talkof clouds, it would frequently b e found composed of fragments of blue and white reminiscences of the old masters.

The chasm of sky ab ov e m y he ad

Is He av en’

s pro founde st a zure . N0 dom a in

Fo r fickle , sho rt-liv ed clouds, to Occupy,Or to pa ss thr ough ; b ut r a the r an a byss

In wh ich the e v e rla sting sta rs a b ide ,And whose so ft glo om , and b oundle ss depth, m ight temptThe cur ious eye to look fo r them by day.

And, in his Am erican Notes, I remember Dickens noticesthe sam e truth, de scribing him self as lying drowsily on thebarge deck, looking not at, but through the sky. And if youlook intensely at the pure blue of a serene sky, you will seethat there is a variety and fulness in its very repose. It isnot flat dead color, but a deep, quivering, transparent bodyofpenetrable air, in which you trace o r imagine short, fallingSpots of deceiving light, and dim shades, faint, v eiled v e stiges of dark vapor.


206 THE OUTDOORS

May plum e he r fe a the rs and let grow her wings,Tha t in the v a r ious bustle of re sortWe re a ll too rutfled, and som e tim e s impai r d,

that I absent m yself from the town for awhile, without feeling at a loss th e m oment I am left by m yself. Instead of afriend in a po st-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange goodthings with, and vary th e sam e stale topics over again, fo ronce let m e have a truce with impertinence . G ive m e theclear blue sky over m y head, and the green turf beneath m yfeet, a winding road before me, and a three hours

’ march todinner and then to thinking ! It is hard if I cannot startsom e game on these lone heaths . I laugh, I run, I leap, Ising for joy . From th e point of yonder rolling cloud, Iplunge into my past being, and revel the re, as the sun-burntIndian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to hisnative shore . Then long-forgotten things, like

“ sunkenwrack and sum less tr e asuries ,

” burst upon my eager sight,and I begin to feel, think, and be myse lf again . Instead ofan awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heartwhich alone is perfect eloquence . N0 one likes puns, a llite rations, antithese s, argume nt, and analysis bette r than I do ;but I sometim e s had rather be without them .

“Le ave, oh,leave me to my repose !

” I have just now othe r business inhand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me

“ verystuff of the conscience .” Is not this wild rose sweet withouta comment ? Does not. this daisy le ap to m y heart set inits coat of em erald ? Ye t if I we re to explain to you thecircum stance that has so endeare d it to m e , you would onlysm ile. Had I not better then ke ep it to myself, and le tit serve me to brood ov e r, from he re to yonder craggypoint, and from thence onward to the far distant horizon? Ishould be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you m ay, when

ON GOING A JOURNEY 07

the moody fit comes ou, walk o r ride on by yourself, andindulge your reveries . But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the timethat you ought to rejoin your party . Out upon such halffaced fellowship,

” say I. I like to be either entirely to m yself, o r entirely at the disposal of others ; to talk or be silent,to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary . I was pleasedwith an observation ofMr . Cob b e tt

’

s, that “he thought it abad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, andthat an Englishm an ought to do only one thing at a tim e .So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musingand lively conversation by fits and starts . Le t me have acompanion ofmy way,

” says Ste rne,“were it but to rem ark

how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines .” It is b eautifully said : but in m y opinion, this continual com paring ofnotes interferes with the involuntary impre ssion of thingsupon the mind, and hurts the se ntim ent. If you only hintwhat you feel in a kind of dum b show, it is insipid : if youhave to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure . You

cannot read the book of nature, without being perpetuallyput to the trouble of translating it for the b enefit of others .I am for the synthetical method on a journey, in preferenceto the analytical . I am content to lay in a stock of ideasthen

,and to examine and anatom ise them afterwards . I

want to see my vague notions float like the down of thethistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangle d inthe briars and thorns of controversy . For once, I like tohave it all my own way ; and this is im possible unle ss youare alone

, o r in such com pany as I do not covet . I have noobjection to argue a po int with any one for twenty m iles ofmeasured road, but not fo r

‘ple a sure . If you rem ark thescent of a be an-fie ld crossing th e road, perhaps your fe llowtrave ller has no sm e ll . If you point to a distant obje ct,

perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to

208 THE OUTDOORS

look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colourof a cloud which hits your fancy, but the effect ofwhich youare unable to account for. There is then no sym pathy, butan uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on th e way, and in the end probably produces illhumour . Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all myown conclus ions for granted till I find it necessary to defendthem against objections . It is not merely that you may notb e of accord on the objects and circum stances that presentthemselves before you these may recall a number of obje cts, and lead to associations too delicate and refined to bepossibly communicated to others . Yet the se I love to cherish, and som etimes still fondly clutch them, when I canescape from the throng to do so . To give way to our feelingsbefore company, seem s extravagance or affectation ; and on

the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our beingat every turn, and to m ake othe rs take an equal interest init (otherwise the end is not answered) is a task to which feware com petent . We must “give it an unde rstanding, butno tongue .” My old friend Coleridge, however, could doboth. He could go on in the most delightful explanatoryway over hill and dale, a summer

’s day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode “

He talkedfar above singing .

”If I could so clothe my ideas in sound

ing and flow ing words, I might perhaps wish to have som eone with me to admire the swelling theme ; or I could be morecontent, were it possible fo r me still to he ar his echoingvoice in the woods of All-Fox den . They had “ that finemadness in them which our fir st poets had ” ; and if theycould have b een caught by some rare instrument, wouldhave breathed such strains as the following

He re b e woods a s gre en

As any, a ir lik ewi se a s fr esh and swee tAs when sm oo th Zephyrus plays on the fleet


210 THE OUTDOORS

history are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felt happinessto b e frittered and dribble d away in imperfect sympathy . Iwould have them all to myself, and drain them to the lastdr 0p: they will do to talk of o r to write about afterwards.What a delicate speculation it is, after dr inking wholegoblets of tea,

The cups tha t chee r , b ut not ine b r iate ,and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what we shall have for supper eggs and a rasher, arabbit smothered in onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet !Sancho in such a situation once fix ed upon cow-heel ; andhis choice, though he could not help it, is not to be disparaged . Then in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir inthe kitchen Procul, 0 pr oca l e sie profani l These hoursare sacred to silence and to musing, to be treasured up inthe memory, and to feed the source of smiling thoughtshe re after. I would not waste them in idle talk ; o r if I musthave the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I would ratherit were by a stranger than a friend . A stranger takes hi shue and character from the time and place ; he is a part ofthe furniture and costume of an inn . If he is a Q uaker, orfrom the West Riding of Yorkshire, so much th e better. Ido not eve n try to sympathise with him, and he breaks nosquares . I associate nothing with my travelling companionbut present objects and passing events . In his ignorance ofme and my afia irs, I in a manner forget myself. But a friendreminds one of other things, rips up old grievances, a nddestroys the abstraction of the scene . He com es in ungraciously between us and our imaginary character . Something is dr opped in the course of conversation that gives ahint of your profession and pursuits ; or from having someone with you that knows the less sublime portions of yourhistory, it seems that other people do. You are no longer a


citizen of the world : but your unhoused free condition isput into circumscription and confine .

” The incognito of aninn is one of its striking privileges “ lord of one’s-self

,

uncum b e r’

d with a nam e . Oh ! it is great to shake off thetrammels of the world and of public Opinion to lose ourimportunate, torm enting, everlasting personal identity inthe elements of nature, and becom e the creature of the moment, clear of all ties to hold to the universe only by adish of sweet-breads, and to owe nothing but the score ofthe evening and no longer seeking for applause and mee ting with contempt, to be known by no othe r title than theGentlem an in the pa r lour ! One m ay take one

’s choice of allcharacters in this romantic state of uncertainty as to one’sreal pretensions, and become indefin ite ly respectable andnegatively right-worshipful . We baffle prejudice and disappoint conjecture ; and from being so to others, begin to beobjects of curiosity and wonder eve n to ourselve s . We areno more those hackneyed commonplace s that we appe ar inthe world : an inn restores us to th e level of nature, and quitsscores with society ! I have certainly spent some enviablehours at inns som etimes when I have be en left entirely tomyself, and have tried to solve som e metaphysical problem,

as once at Witham-com mon, where I found out the proofthat likeness is not a case of the association of idea s atother times, when there have been picture s in the room, asat St. Neot’s (I think it was) , where I fir st m e t with Gribelin’s engravings of the Cartoons, into which I e ntere d atonce, and at a little inn on the borders ofWale s, where the rehappened to be hanging som e of We stall

’

s drawings, whichI compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not forthe admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had fe rriedme over the Severn, standing upin the boat between me andthe twilight at other times I might mention luxuriatingin books, with a peculiar interest in this way, as I remem ber

212 THE OUTDOORS

sitting up half the night to read Paul and Vi rginia , which Ipicked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after being drenched inthe rain all day ; and at the sam e place I got through twovolumes of Madam e D’

Arb lay’

s Cam i lla . It was on thetenth of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New

Eloi se , at the in at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and acold chicken . The letter I chose was that in which St. Preuxdescribes his feelings as he fir st caught a glimpse from theheights of the Jur a of the Pays de Vaud, which I had broughtwi th me as a ban bouche to crown the evening with. It wasmy birth-day, and I had fo r the first tim e com e from a placein the neighbourhood to Visit this delightful spot. The roadto Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham ; andon passing a certain point, you com e all at once upon theValley, which Opens like an amphitheatre, broad, barrenhi lls rising in majestic state on either side, with

“green upland swells that echo to the bleat of flocks ” below, and theriver Dee babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them.

The valley at this tim e “glittered green with sunny showers,

” and a budding! ash-tree dipped its tender branches inthe chiding stream . How proud, how glad I was to walkalong the high road that overlooks the delicious prospect,repeating the lines which I have just quoted from Mr . Coleridge’s poem s . But besides the prospect which Openedbeneath my feet, another also Opened to my inward sight, aheavenly Vision, on which were written, in letters large asHope could make them , these four words, LIBERTY , G ENIUS,LOVE , VIRTUE ; which have since faded into the light of comm on day, o r mock my idle gaze .

“Th e b eautiful is v an ished, and r e turns not.

Still I would return some time o r other to this enchantedSpot ; but I would return to it alone . What other self couldI find to share that influx of thoughts, of regret, and delight,the fragments of which I could hardly conjure up to myself,


214 THE OUTDOORS

dom to kingdom, lands to seas, making an image v oluminousand vast ; the mind can form no larger idea of space thanthe eye can take in at a single glance . The rest is a namewritten in a m ap, a calculation of arithmetic . Fo r instance,what is the true sign ification of that im mense mass of terr ito ry and population, known by the nam e of China to us?An inch of paste-board on a wooden globe, of no more a ocount than a China orange ! Things near us a re seen of thesize of life : things at a distance are dim inished to the size ofthe understanding. We measure the universe by ourselves,and even comprehend the texture of our own being onlypiece-meal . In this way, however, we remem ber an infin ityof things and places . The mind is like a mechanical instrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must playthem in succession . One idea recalls another, but it at thesam e time excludes all others . In trying to renew old re co llections, we cannot as it were unfold the whole web of ourexistence ; we must pick out the single threads . So in coming to a place where we have form erly lived and with whichwe have intimate associations, every one m ust have foundthat the feeling grows more Vivid the nearer we approach thespot, from the mere anticipation of the actual im pression :we remember circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, names,that we had not thought of fo r years ; but for the time a llthe rest of the world is forgotten ! To return to the question I have qu itted above.I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures,

in company with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary , for the former reason reversed . They are intelligiblematters , and will bear talking about . The sentiment hereis not tacit, but com municable and overt . Salisbury Plainis barren of criticism, but Stonehenge wi ll bear a discussionantiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical . In setting outon a party ofpleasur e, thefirst consideration always is where


we sha ll go to : in taking a solitary ram ble, the question iswhat we shall meet with by the way .

“The mind is its ownplace ” ; nor are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey . I can myself do the honours indifi’e r e ntly well to worksof art and curiosity . I once took a party to Oxford with nomean éclat shewed them that seat of the Muses at a distance,

With gliste r ing spire s and pinnacle s adorn’

d

descanted on the learne d air that bre athe s from the grassyquadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges was athom e in the Bodleian ; and at Blenhe im quite supersededthe powdered Ciceroni that atte nded us, and that pointedin vain with his wand to com m on-place beauties in m atchless pictures . As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel confident in venturing on a journey ina foreign country without a com panion . I should want atintervals to hear the sound of m y own language . There isan involuntary antipathy in the mind of an Englishman toforeign manners and notions that requires the assistance ofsocial sym pathy to carry it off. As the distance from homeincreases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becom es apassion and an appetite . A person would almost feel stifledto find himself in the deserts of Arabia without friends andcountrym en : there m ust be allowed to be something in theview of Athens o r old Rome that claim s the utterance ofspeech ; and I own that the Pyram ids are too mighty for anysim ple contemplation . In such situations, so opposite toall one’s ordinary train of ideas , one seem s a species by one

’sself, a lim b torn off from society, unless one can meet withinstant fellowship and support . Yet I did not feel thiswan t or craving very pressing once, when I first set my footon the laughing shores of France . Calais was peopled withnovelty and delight . The confused, busy murm ur of theplace was like o il and wine poured into my ears ; nor did the

216 THE OUTDOORS

mariners’hymn,which was sim g from the top of an o ld crazyvessel in the harbour, as th e sun went down, send an aliensound into my soul . I only breathe the air of general humanity . I walked ove r “ the Vine -cove red hills and gayre gions of France,

” erect and satisfied ; for the im age of m an

was not cast down and chain e d to the foot of arbitrarythrones : I was at no loss for language, fo r that of all the greatschools ofpainting was open to m e . The whole is vanishedlike a shade . Pictures, hero e s, glory, freedom, all are fled :nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French people !There is undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into for

e ign parts that is to be had nowhere else :but it is more pleasing at the tim e than lasting . It is too rem ote from our

habitual association s to be a com m on topic of discourse o rrefe rence, and, like a dream or anothe r state of existence,does not piece into our daily m odes of life. It is an anim atedbut a m omentary hallucination . It demands an effort toexchange our actual for our ideal identity ; and to feel thepulse of our o ld transports revive very keenly, we must“ jump ” all our present com forts and connexions . Our

rom antic and itinerant character is not to be dom esticated .

Dr . Johnson rem arked how little fo reign travel added to thefacilities of conversation in those who had been abroad . Infact, the tim e we have spent there is both delightful and inone sense instructive ; but it appears to be cut out of oursubstantial , downright existence, and never to join kindly onto it. We are not the sam e, but another, and perhaps moreenviable individual , all the tim e we are out of our own country . We are lo st to our se lves, as well as our friends. So

the poet somewhat quaintly sings,“Out of m y country and m yse lf I go .

Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absentthem selves for a while from the ties and objects that recallthem : but we can be said only to fulfil our dest iny in the


PHASES OF FARM LIFE 1

JOHN BURROUGHS

1837—1921

PHASES of Farm Life 18 from tha t b ook of outdoor essays Signs andSeasons . The simplicity and since r ity with wh ich Burroughs wr ite s of na tureo r comm on life , g iv e quality to his style . He was m o re influentia l than any

o the r Am e r ican wr ite r ofhis tim e in awaken ing a hea lthy inte re st in outdoo rth ings . Am ong h is b est b ooks a re Wake Robin, Locusts andWild Honey,Pepacton, Riverby,Winter Sunshine.

IT is not of country life in general that I am to speak,but of some phases of farm life, and of farm life in my nativeState .Many

.

of the early settlers of New York were from NewEngland, Connecticut pe rhaps sending out the most. Myown ancestors were from the latter State . The Connecticutemigrant usually made his fir st stop in our river counties,Putnam, Dutchess, or Colum bia. If he failed to find hisplace there, he made another flight to Orange, to Delaware,or to Schoharie County, where he generally stuck . But theState early had one element introduced into its rural andfarm life not found farther East, namely, the Holland Dutch .

The se gave features more or less picturesque to the coun trythat are not observable in New England . The Dutch tookroot at various points along the Hudson, and about Albanyand in the Mohawk valley, and remnants of their rural anddom estic architecture may still be seen in these sections ofthe State . A Dutch barn becam e proverbial . “

As broadas a Dutch barn ” was a phrase that, when applied to thepe rson of a man o r wom an, left room for little more to besaid . The m ain feature of these barns was their enormousexpansion of roof. It was a com fo rt to look at them, they

Repr inted by ar rangem ent with Houghton Mitflin Company .


suggested such shelter and protection. The eaves werevery low and the ridge-pole very high . Long rafters andshort posts gave them a quaint, short-waisted, grandm oth

erly look . They were nearly square, and stood very broadupon the ground . Their form was doubtless suggested bythe damper clim ate of the Old World, where the grain andhay, instead of being packed in deep solid mows, used to bespread upon poles and exposed to the currents of air underthe roof. Surface and not cubic capacity is more importantin these matters in Holland than in this country. Our farmers have found that, in a climate whe re there is so muchweather as with us, the less roof you have the better. Roofswill leak, and cured hay will keep sweet in a mow of anydepth and size in our dry atmosphere.The Dutch barn was the most picturesque barn that has

been built, especially when thatched with straw, as theynearly all were, and forming one side of an inclosure of lowerroofs or sheds also covered with straw, beneath which thecattle took refuge from the winter storms. Its immense,unpainted gable

,cut with holes for the swallows, was like a

section of a respectable-sized hill, and its roof like its s10pe.Its great doors always had a hood projecting over them , andthe doors them selves were divided horizontally into upperand lower halves ; the upper halves very frequently beingleft Open

,through which you caught a glimpse of the mows

of hay, or the twinkle of flails when the grain was beingthreshed .

The old Dutch farmhouses, too, were always pleasing tolo ok upon . They we re low, o ften m ade of stone, with de epwindow-jam bs and great family fir eplace s . The outsidedoor, l ike that of the barn, was always divided into upperand lower halves . When the weather permitted, the upperhalf could stand Open, giving light and air without the colddr aught over the floor where the children were playing that

220 THE OUTDOORS

our wide-swung doors admit. This feature of the Dutchhouse and barn certainly merits preservation in our modernbuildi ngs .The large, unpain ted timber barns that succeeded the

first Yankee settlers’ log stable s were also picturesque, e specia lly when a lean-to for the cow-stable was added, andthe roof carried down with a long sweep over it ; or when ”

the

barn was flanked by an open shed with a hayloft above it,where the hens cackled and hid their nests, and from the

Open window of which the hay was always hanging.Then the great timbers of these barns and the Dutch barn,

hewn from maple o r birch o r oak trees from the primitivewoods, and put in place by the combined strength of all thebrawny arms in the neighborhood when the barn was raised,timbers strong enough and heavy enough for docks and

quays, and that have absorbed the odors of the hay and

grain until they look ripe and mellow and full of the pleasingsentiment of the great, sturdy, bountiful interior ! The“big beam ” has become sm ooth and polished from the haythat has been pitched over it, and the sweaty, sturdy formsthat have crossed it. One feels that he would like a piece offurniture a chair, o r a table, or a writing—desk, a bedstead, or a wainscoting made from these long—seasoned,long-tried, richly—toned timbers of the o ld barn . But thesm art-painted, natty barn that follows the humbler structure, with its glazed windows, its ornamented ventilator andgilded weather vane, who cares to contemplate it? Thewise hum an eye loves modesty and humility ; loves plain,simple structures ; loves the unpainted barn that took nothought of itself, or the dwelling that looks inward and notoutward ; is offended when the farm -buildings get above theirbusiness and aspire to be something on their own account,suggesting, not cattle and crops and plain living, but thevanities of the town and the pride of dress and equipage.


222 THE OUTDOORS

posed to be free to every American citizen, the pursuit ofhappiness . The humble o ld farm house is discarded, and asmart, modern country-house put up. Walks and roads aremade and graveled ; trees and hedges are planted ; the rusticold barn is rehabilitated ; and, after it is all fix ed, the uneasyproprietor stands off and looks, and calculates by how muchhe has missed the picturesque, at which he aim ed. Our newhouses undoubtedly have greater comforts and conveniencesthan the old ; and, if we could keep our pride and vanity inabeyance and forget that all the world is lookin g on,

theymight have beauty also .

The man that forgets himself, he is the man we like ; andthe dwelling that fo rgets itse lf, in its purpose to shelter andprotect its inm ates and m ake them fee l at home in it, is thedwelling that fills the eye . When you see one of the greatcathedrals, you know that it was not pride that animatedthese builders but fear and worship ; but when you see thehouse of the 11011 farmer, o r of the m illionaire from

‘the city,

you see the pride of money and the insolence of social power.Machinery, I say, has taken away some of the picturesque

features of farm life . How much soever we may adm iremachin ery and the faculty of mechan ical invention, there isno machine like a m an ; and the work done directly by hishands, the things m ade or fashioned by them, have a Virtueand a quality that cannot be im parted by machin e ry. Theline of mowers in th e m eadows, with the straight swathsbehind them , are more picturesque than the

“Clipper” or

Buckeye ” m ower, with its team and driver. So are thefla ils of th e threshers, chasing each othe r through the air,more pleasing to th e eye and the e ar than the machine, withits uproar, its choking clouds of dust, and its general hurlyburly.

Som etim es the threshing was done in the Open air, upon abroad rock, or a smooth, dry plat of greensward ; and it is


occasionally done there yet, especially the thresh ing of thebuckwheat crop by a farmer who has not a good barn floor,or who cannot afford to hire the machine. The fla il makesa louder thud in the fie lds than you would imagine ; and inthe splendid October weather it is a pleasing spectacle tobehold the gathering of the ruddy crop, and three o r fourlithe figure s beating out the grain with their fla ils in somesheltered nook, or some grassy lane lined with cedars . Whenthere are three fia ils beating together it makes lively music ;and when there are four they follow each other so fast thatit is a continuous roll of sound, and it requires a very steadystroke not to hit or get hit by the others . There is just roomand time to get your blow in, and that is all. Wh en onefla il is upon the straw, another has just left it, another is halfway down, and the fourth is high and straight in the air.It is like a swiftly revolving wheel that delivers four blowsat each revolution . Threshing, like mowing, goes mucheasier in company than when alone ; yet many a farmer o rlaborer spends nearly all the late fall and winter days shutin the barn, pounding doggedly upon the endless sheaves ofoats and rye .When the farm ers made bees, as they did a generation

o r two ago much more than they do now, a picturesqueelement was added There was the stone b e e , the huskingbee, the

“ raising, the “moving, etc . When the carpenters had got the timbers of the house or barn ready, and thefoundation was prepared, then the neighbors for miles aboutwere invited to come to the The afternoon wasthe time chosen . The fo re noon was occupied by the carpente r and farm hands in putting the sills and

“ sleepers”

in place what a good name for those rude hewntim bers that lie under the floor in the darkness and silence l) .When the hands arrived, the great beams and posts andjo ists and braces were carried to their place on the platform,

224 THE OUTDOORS

and the first be nt, as it was called, was put together andpinned by oak pins that the boys brought . Then pike polesa r e distributed, the men, fifte en o r twenty of them, arrangedin a line abreast of the be nt ; the boss carpenter ste adies andguides the corne r post and gives the word of com m and,“Take holt, boys !

” Now, set her up!” “

Upwith her !”

Up she goes !” When it gets shoulder high it becomes

heavy, and there is a pause . The pikes are brought intorequisition ; every man gets a good hold and braces himself,and waits for the words . “All toge ther now”

; shouts thecaptain,

“Heave her up!

”He -o-he !

”(heave all,

heave) , he-o-h e ,” at the top of his voice, every man doing

his best . Slowly the great timbers go up; louder grows theword of comm and, till the b e nt is up. Then it is plumbedand stay-lathed, and another is put toge ther and raised inthe same way, till they a r e all up. Then come s the puttingon the great plates, tim b ers that run lengthwise of thebuilding and match the sills be low. Then, if there is tim e,th e putting up of the rafters . In every neighborhood therewas always some man whowas especially use ful atHe was bold and strong and quick . He helped guide andsuperintend th e work . He was th e first one up on the bent,catching a pin or a brace and putting it in place . He walke dthe lofty and perilous plate, with the great beetle in hand ;put the pins in the holes, and, swinging the heavy instrument through the air, drove the pins home . He was asmuch at home upthe re as a squirrel .Now that balloon frames are mainly used for houses, and

lighte r sawed timbers for barns, the old-fashioned raising israrely witnesse d .

Then the moving was an event, too . A farmer had a barnto move, o r wanted to build a new house on the site of theold one , and the latter must be drawn to one side . Now thiswork is done w ith pulleys and rollers by a few men and a


226 THE OUTDOORS

strings or for gun-wadding, or some swingling-tow for a bonfir e ? The quill-wheel, and the spinning-wheel, and theloom are heard no more among us . The last I knew of acertain hetchel, it was nailed up behind the o ld sheep thatdid the churning ; and when he was disposed to Shirk or hangback and stop the machine, it was always ready to spurhim up in no uncertain manner. The o ld loom became ahen-roost in an out-building ; and the crackle upon whichthe fla x was broken, where, oh, where is it?When the produce of the farm was taken a long distance

to market, that was an event, too ; th e carrying away ofthe butte r in the fall, for instance, to the river, a journeythat occupied both ways four days . The n the family marketing was done in a few groceries . Some cloth, new capsand boots for the boys, and a dress, or a shawl, or a cloak forthe girls were brought back, besides news and adventure,and strange tidings of the distant world . The farm er wasdays in getting ready to start ; food was prepared and put ina box to stand him on the journey,

.so as to lessen the hotelexpenses, and oats put up for the horses . The butter wasloaded up overnight, and in the cold November morning,long before it was light, he was up and off. I seem to hearthe wagon yet, its slow rattle over the frozen ground diminish ing in the distance . On the fourth day toward night allgrew expectant of his return, but it was usually dark beforehis wagon was heard coming down the hill, o r his voice frombefore the door summ oning a light . When the boys got bigenough, one after the other accompanied him each year,until all had made the fam ous journey and seen the greatriver and the steam boats, and the thousand and one marvelsof the far-away town . When it came my tur n to go , I wasin a great state of excitem ent for a week beforehand, for fearmy clothes would not be ready, or else that it would be toocold, or else that the world would come to an end b efore the


time fix ed for starting . The day previous I roamed thewoods in quest of gam e to supply my bill of fare on the way,and was lucky enough to shoot a partridge and an owl,

though the latter I did not take . Perched high on a “ springboard I m ade the journey, and saw more sights and wonders than I have ever seen on a journey s ince, or ever expectto again .

But now all this is changed. The railroad has found itsway through or near every settlement, and marvels andwonders are cheap . Still, the essential charm of the farmremains and always will remain : the care of crops, and ofcattle, and of orchards, bees, and fowls ; the clearing andimproving of the ground ; the building of barns and houses ;the direct co ntact with the soil and with the elem ents ; thewatching of the clouds and of the weather ; the privacieswith nature, with bird, beast, and plant ; and the close acquaintance with the he art and Virtue of the world . Thefarmer should be the true naturalist ; the bo ok in which it isall written is open be fore h im night and day, and how sweetand wholesome all his knowledge is !The predominant feature of farm life in New York, as in

other States, is always given by som e local industry of onekind or another . In many of the high cold counties in theeastern centre of the State, this ruling industry is hop-growing ; in the western, it is grain and fru it growing ; in sectionsalong the Hudson, it is small-fruit growing, as berries, currants, grapes ; in other counties, it is m ilk and butter ; ino thers, quarrying flagging-stone . I recently Visited a section ofUlste r County, whe re eve rybody seemed getting outhoop-poles and making ho ops . The only talk was of hoops,hoops ! Every te am that went by had a load or was going fora load of hoops . The principal fuel was hoop-shavings ordiscarded ho op-poles . No man had any money until hesold his h0 0ps . When a farmer went to town to get some

228 THE OUTDOORS

grain, or a pair ofboots, or a dr ess for his wife, he took a loadof hoops. People stole hoops and poached for hoops

,and

bought, and sold, and speculated in hoops . If there was acorner it was in hoops ; big h0 0ps, little h0 0ps, hoops forkegs, and firk ins, and barrels, and hogsheads, and pipes ;hickory h0 0ps, birch hoops, ash hoops, chestnut hoops,h0 0ps enough to go around the world . Another place it wasshingle, shingle ; everybody was shaving hemlock shingle.In most of the eastern counties of the State, the interest

andprofit of the farm revolve about the cow. The dairy isthe one great matter, for milk, when milk can be shippe dto the New York market, and for butter when it cannot .Great barns and stables and milking-sheds, and immensemeadows and cattle on a thousand hills, are the prominentagricultural featur es of these sections of the country. Good

grass and good water are the two indispensables to successfuldairying. And the two generally go together . Where thereareplenty of COpious cold springs, there is no dearth of grass .When the cattle are com pelled to browse upon weeds and'

various wild growths, the milk and butter will betray it inthe fla v or . Tender, juicy grass, the ruddy blossoming clov e r , o r the fragrant, well-cured hay, make the delicious milkand the sweet butter . Then there is a charm about a natural pastoral country that belongs to no other. G o throughOrange County in May and see the vivid emerald of thesmooth fie lds and hills . It is a new experience of the b eautyand effectiveness of simple grass . And this grass has rareVirtues, too, and im parts a flav or to the milk and butter thathas m ade them famous .Along all the sources of the Delaware the land flows with

milk, if not with honey. The grass is excellent, except intim es of protracted drought, and then the browsings in thebeech and b irch woods are good substitute . Butter is thestaple product . Every housewife is or wants to be a famous


230 THE OUTDOORS

and take down their scythes and go in quest of a job in haying . Every man is expected to pitch his endeavors in alittle higher key than at any other kind of work. The wagesare extra, and the work must correspond . The m e n are inthe m eadow by half—past four or fiv e in the m orning, andmow an hour or two b efore breakfast . A good mower isproud of his skill . He does not “ lOpin , and his

“pointingout is perfe ct, and you can hardly see the ribs of his swath.

He stands up to his grass and strikes level and sure . He

will turn a double down through the stoutest grass, andwhen the hay is raked away you w ill not find a spear leftstanding. The Americans are or were the best m ow

ers . A fo reigne r could never quite give the m asterly touch.

The hayfie ld has its code . One man m ust not take another’sswath unless he expects to be crowded . Each expects totake his turn leading the band . The scythe may b e so whetas to ring out a saucy challenge to th e rest . It is not goodmanners to m ow up too close to your neighbor, unless youare trying to keep out of the way of the m an behind you.

Many a race has been brought on by som e one being a littleindiscreet in this respect . Two men m ay m ow all day together under the im pression that each is trying to put theother through . The one that leads strikes out briskly, andthe other, not to be outdone, follows close . Thus the bloodof each is soon up a little heat begets more heat, and it isfairly a race before long . It is a great ignominy to be m owedout of your swath . Hay

-gathering is clean, manly work allthrough . Young fe llows work in haying who do not do

another stroke on the farm the whole year . It is a gymna sium in the meadows and under the sum mer sky . How

full of pictures, too ! the smooth s10 pes dotted with cockswith lengthening shadows ; the great, broad-backed, softcheeked loads, moving along the lanes and brushing underthe trees ; the unfin ished stack with forkfuls of hay being


handed up its sides to the builder, and when finished theshape of a great pear, with a pole in the top for the stem .

Maybe in the fall and winter the calves and yearlings willhover around it and gnaw its base until it overhangs themand shelters them from the storm . Or the farmer will fodder ” his cows there, one of the most picturesque scenesto be witnessed on the farm, twenty or thirty or fortym ilche rs filing along toward the stack in the fie ld, or cluste r ed about it, waiting the promised bite . In great, greenflakes the hay is rolled oft, and distributed about in smallheaps upon the unspotted snow. After the cattle haveeaten, the birds snow buntings and red polls come andpick upthe crumbs, the seeds of the grasses and weeds. At

night the fox and the owl come for mice .

What a beautiful path the cows make through the snowto the stack or to the spring under the hill ! always moreo r less wayward, but broad and firm , and carved and indented by a multitude of rounded hoofs .In fact, the cow is the true pathfinde r and pathm ake r .

She has the leisurely, deliberate movement that insures aneasy and a safe way . Follow her trail through the woods,and you have the be st, if not the shortest, course . How shebeats down the brush and briers and wears away even theroots of the trees ! A herd of cows left to them selves fallnaturally into single file , and a hundr ed or more hoofs arenot long in sm oothing and compacting almost any surface .Indeed, all the ways and doings of cattle are pleasant to

look upon, whether grazing in the pasture, or browsing inthe woods, o r rum inating under the trees, o r feeding in thestall, or reposing upon the knolls . There is Virtue in thecow ; she is full of goodness ; a wholesome odor exhales fromhe r ; the whole landscape lo oks out of her soft eyes ; the quality and the aroma of miles of meadow and pasture lands arein her presence and products . I had rather have the care of

232 THE OUTDOORS

cattle than be the keeper of the great seal of the nation .

Where the cow is, there is Arcadia ; so far as her influenceprevails, there is contentm ent, humility, and sweet, homelylife !Blessed is he whose youth was passed upon the farm

,and

if it was a dairy farm his mem ories will b e all the more fragrant . The driving of the cows to and fr om the pasture,every day and every season for years, how much of summer and of nature he got into h im on these jour neys ! Whatrambles and excursions did thi s errand furnish the excusefor ! The birds and birds’ nests, the berries, the squirrels,the woodchucks, the beech woods with their treasures intowhich the cows loved so to wander and to browse, the fragrant w intergreens and a hundred nam eless adventures, allstrung upon that brief journey of half a mile to and fromthe remote pastures . Som etim es one cow or two will bemissing when the herd is brought home at night ; then tohunt them up is another adventure . My grandfather wentout one night to look up an absentee from the yard, when heheard som ething in the brush, and out stepped a bear intothe path before him .

Every Sunday m orning the cows were salted . The farmboy would take a pail with three or four quarts ofcoarse salt,and, followed by the eager herd, go to the fie ld and depositthe salt in handfuls upon sm ooth stones and rocks and uponclean places on the turf. If you want to know how good saltis, see a cow eat it. Sh e gives the true saline sm ack . How

she dwells upon it, and gnaws the sward and licks the stoneswhere it has been de posited ! The cow is the most delightfulfe eder among animals . It makes one’s m outh water to seeher eat pumpkins, and to see her at a pile of apples is distracting . How she swe eps off the de lectable grass ! Thesound of her grazing is appetizing ; the gr ass betrays all itssweetness and succulency in parting under her sickle .


234 THE OUTDOORS

get equal, and the sap mounts . A day that brings the beesout of the hive will bring the sap out of the maple-tree . Itis the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost . Whenthe frost is all out of the ground, and all the snow gone fromits surface, the flow stops . The thermomete r must not riseabove 38° o r 40

° by day, or sink b elow 24° or 25° at night,

with wind in the northwest ; a re laxing south wind, and therun is over fo r the present . Sugar we ather is crisp weather .How the tin buckets glisten in the gray woods ; how therobins laugh ; how the nuthatches call ; how lightly the thinblue sm oke rises am ong the trees ! The squirrels are out oftheir dens ; the m igrating wate r-fowls are stream ing northward ; the sheep and cattle look wistfully toward the barefie lds ; the tide of the se ason, in fact, is just beginning to rise .Sap—letting does not se em to be an exhaustive process tothe trees, as the trees of a sugar-bush appear to be as thriftyand as long-lived as other trees . They com e to have a maternal, large-waisted look, from the wounds of the ax e or

the auger, and that is about a ll .In my sugar-m aking days, the sap was carried to the

bo iling-place in pails by the aid of a neck-yoke and stored inhogshe ads, and boiled o r evaporated in immense kettles orcaldrons set in huge stone arche s ; now, the hogshead goesto the trees hauled upon a sled by a team, and the sap isevaporated in broad, shallow, sheet-iron pans, a greatsaving of fuel and of labor .Many a farmer sits up a ll night boiling his sap, when the

run has been an extra good one , and a lonely vigil he has ofit am id the silent trees and beside his wild hearth . If hehas a sap—house, as is now so common, he m ay make himselffairly comfortable ; and if a companion, he may have a goodtim e or a glorious wake .Maple—sugar in its perfection is rarely seen, perhaps never

se en, in the market. When made in large quantities and


indifie rently, it is dark and coarse ; but when made in smallquantities that is, quickly from the fir st run of sap andproperly treated it has a wild delicacy of fla v o r that noother sweet can match . What you smell in freshly cutmaple-wood, o r taste in the blossom of the tree , is in it. Itis then, indeed, the distilled essence of the tree. Made intosyrup, it is white and clear as clover-honey ; and crystallizedinto sugar, it is pure as the wax . The way to attain thisresult is to evaporate the sap under cover in an enameledkettle ; when reduced about twelve times, allow it to settlehalf a day o r more ; then clarify with milk o r the white of anegg . The product is v irgin syrup, o r sugar worthy the tableof the gods .Perhaps the most heavy and laborious work of the farm

in the section of the State of which I wr ite is fence-building.But it is not unproductive labor, as in the South o r West,for the fence is of stone, and the capacity of the soil for grasso r grain is, of course, increased by its construction. It iskilling two birds with one stone : a fence is had, the best inthe world, while the available area of the fie ld is enlarged.

In fact, if there are ever sermons in stones, it is when theyare built into a stone wall, turning your hindrances intohelps, shielding your crops behind the obstacles to yourhusbandry,making the enemies of the plow stand guard overits products . This is the kind of farming worth imitating.

A stone wall with a good rock bottom will stand as long as aman lasts . Its only enemy is the frost, and it wo rks sogently that it is not till after many years that its effect isperceptible . An old farm er will walk with you through hisfie lds and say,

“This wall I built at such and such a time, o r

the first year I came on the farm , or when I owned such andsuch a span of horses,

” indicating a period thir ty, forty, o rfifty year s back .

“This o ther, we built the sum mer so andso worked for me, and he relates some incident, o r mishap,

236 THE OUTDOORS

o r comical adventures that the memory calls up. Everyline of fence has a history ; the mark of his plow or his crowbar is upon the stones ; the sweat of his early manhood putthem in place ; in fact, the long black line covered wi th lichens and in places tottering to the fall revives long-gonescenes and events in the life of the farm .

The time for fence-buildin g is usually between seed—tim eand harvest, May and June ; o r in fall after the crops aregathered . The work has its pictur esque features theprying of rocks ; supple forms climbin g o r swinging from theend of the great levers, o r the blasting of the rocks wi thpowder ; the hauling of them in to position with oxen o r

horses, or with both ; the picking of the stone from the greensward ; the bending, athletic form of the wall-layers ; the snugnew fence creeping slowly up the hill o r across the fie ld, absorbing the windrow of lo ose stones ; and, when the work isdone, much ground re claimed to the plow and the grass, anda strong barrier erected .

It is a com mon complain t that the farm and farm life arenot appreciated by our people. We long for the more elegant pursuits, o r the ways and fashions of the town. Butthe farmer has the most sane and natural occupation, andought

n

to find life sweeter, if less highly seasoned, than anyother . He alone, strictly speaking, has a home . How cana man take root and thrive without land ? He writes hishistory upon his fie ld. How many ties, how many resources,he has his friendships wi th his cattle, his team, his dog,his trees, the satisfaction in his growing crops, in his improved fie lds ; his intim acy with nature, with bird and beast,and wi th the quickening elem ental forces ; his co-operationswith the cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain, frost !Nothing will take the various social distem pers which thecity and a rtificia l life breed out of a man like farming, likedir ect and loving contact with the soil. It draws out the


THE INITIATION 1

JOSEPH CONRAD1857

JOSEPH CONRAD, though by b irth a Po le , is one of the grea test of pre sentday wr ite r s in English . His nov e ls a nd ta le s picture with singular fascination the Sea and the Ea st . Th is se le ction is from a b ook ca lled The Mirrorof the Sea . Othe r good b ooks b y h im a re Youth, Lord Jim , The Nigger of theNarcissus , Nostromo , Typho on, Victory.

THE love that is given to ships is profoundly di fferent fromthe love men feel for every other work of their hands thelove they bear to their houses, fo r instance because it isuntainted by the pride of possession . The pride of skill,the pride of responsibility, th e pride of endurance there mayb e , but otherwise it is a disintereste d sentiment . N0 seaman ever cherished a ship, even if she be longed to him,

merely because of the profit she put in his pocket . No one ,I think, ever did ; for a ship—own er, even of the best, has always been outside the pale of that sentiment embracing ina feeling of in timate, equal fellowship the ship and the man,backing each other against the implacable, if sometim es dissembled, hostility of their world of waters . The sea thistruth must be confessed has no generosity . N0 displayof manly qualities courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness has ever been known to touch its irresponsibleconsciousness of power. The ocean has the consciencelesstemper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation .

He cannot brook the slightest appearance of defiance , andhas rem ained the irreconcilable enemy of ships and m en e versince ships and men had the unheard of audacity to go afloat

1 From The Mi rror of the Sea . Repr inted by perm ission ofDoubleday.Page Co .. the owners of the copyr ight.

THE INITIATION 239

together in the face of his frown . From that day he hasgone on swallowing up fle ets and men without his resentme nt being glutted by the numbe r of Victim s by so manywre cked ships and wrecked lives . To-day, as ever, he isready to beguile and betray, to smash and to drown theincorrigible optim ism ofmen who, backed by the fide lity ofships

,are trying to wr est from him the fortune of their house,

the dom inion of their world, o r only a dole of food for theirhunger . If not always in the hot mood to smash, he is a lways stealthily ready for a drowning. The most amazingwonder of the deep is its unfathomable cruelty.

I felt its dread for the fir st tim e in mid-Atlantic one day,many years ago , when we took off the crew of a Danish brighomeward-bound from the West Indies . A thin, silverymist softened the calm and majestic splendor of light without -shadows seemed to render the sky less remote andthe ocean less im m ense . It was one of the days when themight of the sea appears indeed lovable, like the nature of astrong man in moments of quiet intim acy. At sunrise wehad made out a black speck to the westward, apparentlysuspended high up in the void behind a stirring, shim meringveil of silvery blue gauze that seem e d at tim es to stir andflo at in the breeze which fanned us slowly along. The peaceof that enchanting forenoon was so profound, so untroubled,that it seem ed that every word pronounced loudly on our

deck would penetrate to the very heart of that infinite myste ry born from the conjunction of water and sky. We didnot raise our voices . “A water-logged derelict, I think,s ir, said the second ofli ce r , quietly, com ing down from aloftwith the binoculars in their case slung across his shoulders ;and our captain

,without a word, signed to the helm sm an

to steer for the black speck . Presently we made out a low,

jagged stum p sticking up forward a ll that remained ofher departed masts.

240 THE OUTDOORS

The captain was expatiating in a low, conversational toneto the chief mate upon the danger of these derelicts, andupon his dread of com ing upon them at night, when suddenly a man forward screamed out,

“There ’s people on

board of her, sir ! I see them !” in a most extraordi nary

Vo ice a voice never heard before in our ship ; the amazingvoice of a stranger. It gave the signal for a sudden tum ultof shouts . The watch below ran up the forecastle head in abody, the cook dashed out of the galley. Everybody sawthe poor fellows now. They were there . And all at onceour ship, which had the well-earned nam e of being withouta rival for speed in light winds, seemed to us to have lostthe power of motion, as if the sea, be com ing viscous, hadclung to h e r sides . And yet she m ove d . Im mensity

'

Ithe

inseparable com panion of a ship’s life, chose that day tobreathe upon her as gently as a sleeping child. The clam orof our excitem ent had died out, and our living. ship, fam ousfor never losing steerage way as long as the re was air enoughto float a feather, stole, without a ripple, silent and white asa ghost, towards her mutilated and wounded sister, comeupon at the point of death in the sunl it haze of a calm dayat sea .

With binoculars glued to his eyes, the captain said ina quavering tone : “They are waving to us with somethingaft there .” He put down the glasses on the skylightbrusquely, and began to walk about the poop.

“A shirt ora flag,

” he ejaculated, irritably. Can’t make it outSom e damn rag o r other '” He took a few more turns onthe poop, glancing down over the rail now and then to se ehow fast we were moving. His nervous fo o tsteps rangsharply in the quiet of the ship, where the o ther men, alllooking the sam e way, had forgotten them selves in a staringimmobility.

“This will neve r do ! ” he crie d out, suddenly.

“Lower the boats at once ! Down with them !


242 THE OUTDOORS

day for our regatta had we had the free choice of a ll the daysthat ever dawned upon the lonely struggles and solitaryagonies of ships since the Norse rovers first steered to thewestward against the run of Atlantic waves . It was a verygood race . At the fin ish there was not an oar’s-length b etween the first and second boat, with Death coming in agood third on the top of the very next smooth swell, for allone kn ew to the contrary . The scuppers of the brig gurgledsoftly all together when the water rising against her sidessubsided sleepily with a low wash , as if playing about animmovable rock. He r bulwarks were gone fore-and-aft,and one saw her bare deck low-lying like a raft and sweptclean of boats, spars, houses of everything except thering-bolts and the heads of the pumps . I had one dismalglim pse of it as I braced myself up to receive upon my breastthe last man to leave her, the captain, who literally let himself fall into my arms .It had been a weirdly silent rescue a rescue without a

hail, without a single uttered word, without a gesture or asign, without a conscious exchange of glances . Up to thevery last mom ent those on board stuck to their pumps,which spouted two clear streams of water upon their barefeet . Their brown skin showed through the rents of theirshirts ; and the two small bunches of half—naked, tattere dmen went on bowing from the waist to one another in theirback-breaking labo r, up and down , abso rbed, with no timefor a glance over the shoulder at the helpthat was com ing tothem . As we dashed, unregarded, alongside, a vo ice let outone , only one hoarse b owl of command, and then, just as theystood,without caps , with the salt drying gray in the wr inklesand folds of their hairy, haggard faces, blinking stupidly atus their red eyelids, they made a bolt away from the handles,tottering and jostling against one another, and positive lyflung themselves over upon our very heads. The clatter

THE INITIATION 243

they made tumbling into the boats had an extraordinarilydestructive effect upon the illusion of tragic dignity our selfesteem had thrown over the contests of mankind with thesea . Ou that exquisite day of gently breathing peace andveiled sunshine perished my rom antic love to what men’simagination had proclaimed the most august aspect of nature . The cynical indifference of the sea to the merits ofhuman suffering and courage, laid bare in this ridiculous,panic-tainted performance extorted from the dire extrem ityof nine good and honorable seamen, revolted me . I saw theduplicity of the sea’s most tender mood. It was so becauseit could not help itself, but the awed respect of the ea rlydays was gone. I felt ready to sm ile bitterly at its enchanting charm and glare viciously at its furies . In a mom entbefore we shoved off, I had looked coolly at the life of mychoice . Its illusions were gone, but its fascinations re

mained . I had become a seaman at last.We pulled hard for a quarter of an hour, then laid on our

oars waiting for our ship . She was coming down on us withswelling sails, looking delicately tall and exquisitely noblethrough the m ist . The captain of the brig, who sat in thestern-sheets by my side with his face in his hands, raised hishead and began to speak with a sort of som bre volubility.

They had lost their masts and sprung a leak in a hurricane ;drifted for weeks, always at the pum ps, met more badweather ; the ships they sighted failed to make them out,

the leak gained upon them slowly, and the seas had left themnothing to make a raft o i . It was very hard to see ship aftership pass by at a distance,

“ as if everybody had agreed thatwe m ust be left to drown, he added . But they went ontrying to keep the brig aflo at as long as possible, and working the pum ps constantly on insufficient food, mostly raw,

till yesterday evening, he continued, m onotonously,“ just

as the sun went down, the men’s hearts broke .

”

244 THE OUTDOORS

He made an almost im perceptible pause here , and wenton again with exactly the same intonation

“They told me the brig could not be saved, and theythought they had done enough for themselves . I said nothing to that. It was true . It was no mutiny. I had nothing to say to them . They lay about aft all night, as stillas so many dead men . I did not lie down . I kept a lookout .When the first light came I saw your shipat once . I waitedfor more light ; the breeze began to fail on my face. ThenI shouted out as loud as I was able,

‘Lo ok at that ship ! butonly two men got up very slowly and cam e to me . At first

only we three stood alone, for a long time, watching youcoming down to us, and feeling the breeze drop to a calmalm ost ; but afterwards others, too, rose, one after another,and by-and-b y I had all my crew behind me . I turnedround and said to them that they could see the ship wascoming our way, but in this small breeze she might come toolate after all, unless we turned to and tried to keep the brigafloat long enough to give you tim e to save us all . I spokelike that to them, and then I gave the command to man thepumps .”

He gave the command, and gave the example, too, bygoing him se lf to the handles, but it seems that these mendid actually hang back for a moment, looking at one anotherdubiously before they followed him .

“He ! h e ! he !

”He

broke out into a most une xpected, imbecile, pathetic, nervous little giggle .

“Their hearts were broken so ! They hadbeen played with too long,

” he explained apologetical ly,lowerin g his eyes, and became silent .Twenty-fiv e years is a long time a quarter of a centuryis a dim and distant past ; but to this day I remember thedark-brown feet, hands, and faces of two of these men whosehearts had been broken by the sea. They were lying verystill on their sides on the bottom boards between the thwarts,


246 THE OUTDOORS

what vision of evil had come to him . I was startled, andthe amazing energy of his im m obilized gesture made myheart beat faster with the anticipation of som ething monstrous and unsuspected. The stillness around us becamecrushing.

Fo r a mom ent the succession of silky undulations ran oninnocently. I saw each of them swell up the misty line ofthe horizon, far, far away beyond the derelict brig, and thenext moment, with a slight, friendly toss of our boat, it hadpassed unde r us and was gone . The lulling cadence of therise and fall, the invariable gentleness of this irresistibleforce, the great charm of the deep waters, warmed my bre astdeliciously, like the subtle poison of a love—potion . But allthis lasted only a few soothing seconds befo re I jumped up,too, making the boat roll like the ve riest landlubb er.Some thing startling, mysterious, hastily confused, wastaking place . I watched it with incredulous and fascinatedawe, as one watches the confused, swift movements of somedeed of Violence done in the dark. As if at a given signal,the run of the smooth undulations seem ed checked suddenlyaround the brig. By a strange optical delusion the wholesea appeared to rise upon her in one overwhelm ing heave ofits s ilky surface, where in one spot a smother of foam brokeout ferociously. And then the effort subsided. It was allover, and the smooth swell ran on as before from the horizonin uninterrupted cadence of motion, passing under us witha slight, friendly toss of our boat . Fa r away, where thebrig had been, an angry white stain undulating on the surface of steely-gray waters, shot with gleam s of green, diminish ed swiftly, without a hiss, like a patch of pure snow melting in the sun . And the great stillne ss after this initiationinto the sea’s implacable hate seemed full of dread thoughtsand shadows of disaster.

A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES 1

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

THIS is a chapte r from Travels with a Donkey 1879, a sm all b ook of

gre a t distinction wh ich de a ls de ligh tfully with the author’s wande r ings inthe m ounta ins of centra l France .

FROM Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late,I set out to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill-markedstony drove—road guided me forward ; and I met nearly halfa -dozen bullock-carts descending from the woods, each ladenwith a whole pine-tree fo r the winter’s fir ing. At the topofthe woods, which do not climb very high upon this coldridge, I struck leftward by a path among the pines, until Ihit on a dell of green turf, where a streamlet made a littlespout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap .

‘

In amore sacred o r sequestered bower nor nymph nor faunushaunted .

’ The trees were not old, but they grew thicklyround the glade : there was no outlook, except north-eastward upon distant hill-tops, o r straight upward to the sky ;and the encampment felt secure and private like a room .

By the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was alr eady beginning to decline . I buckledmyself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal ;and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over myeyes and fell asleep .

Night is a dead monotonous period un der a roof ; but inthe open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews andperfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the faceo fNature . What seems a kind of temporal death to peoplechoked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living

1 Repr inted from Tra vels with a Donkey by pe rm ission of the pub lish‘

e rs, Cha rles Scr ibne r’s Sons .

248 THE OUTDOORS

slumber to the man who sleeps afie ld. All night long he canhear Nature breathing deeply and freely ; even as she takesher rest, she turns and sm iles ; and there is one stirring hourunkn own to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influe nce goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and allthe outdoor world are on their feet . It is then that thecock first crows, not this time to ann ounce the dawn, butlike a cheerful watchman speeding the cour se of night. Cattle awake on the meadows ; sheep break their fast on dewyhillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns ; andhouseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, opentheir dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night .At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Na

ture, are a ll these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour tolife ? Do the stars rain down an influe nce , or do we sharesome thrill ofmother earth below our resting bodies ? Evenshepherds and o ld country-folk, who are the deepest readin these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purposeof this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morningthey declare the thing takes place ; and neither know norinquire further. And at least it is a pleasant incident. Weare disturbed in our slumber only, like the lux urious Monta igne ,

‘ that we may the better and more sensibly relish it.

’

We have a moment to look upon the stars . And there is aspecial pleasure fo r some m inds in the reflection that weshare the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighborhood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilisation,and are become, for the time being, a mere kindly animaland a sheep of Nature’s flock .

When that hour came to me among the pines, I wakenedthirsty. My tin was standing by me h alf

_

full of water. Iemptied it at a draught ; and feeling broad awake after thisinte rnal cold aspersion, sat upr ight to make a cigarette .The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty.


250 THE OUTDOORS

to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of alllives the mo st complete and free.As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noisestole towards me through the pines . I thought, at first, itwas the crowing of cocks o r the barking of dogs at some verydistant farm ; but steadily and gradually it took articulateshape in my ears, until I became aware that a passenger wasgoing by upon the high-road in the valley, and singin g loudlyas he went . There was more of good-will than grace in hisperform ance ; but he trolled with ample lungs ; and the soundof his voice took hold upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens . I have heard people passing by nightin sleeping cities ; some of them sang ; one , I remem ber,played loudly on the bagpipe s . I have heard the rattle of acart o r carriage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness,and pass, for some minutes, within the range ofmy hearingas I lay abed . There is a romance about all who are abroadin the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try toguess their business . But here the romance was double :first, this glad passenger, lit internally with w ine, who sentup h is voice in music through the night ; and then I, on theother hand, buckled into my sack, and smokin g alone in thepine-woods between four and fiv e thousand feet towardsthe stars .When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September) , many of

the stars had disappeared ; only the stronger companions ofthe night still burned visibly overhead ; and away towardsthe east I saw a faint haze of l ight upon the horizon, such ashad been the Milky Way when I was last awake . Day wasat hand . I lit my lantern, and by its glow-worm light puton my boots and gaiters ; then I broke up some bread forModestine, filledmy can at the water-tap, and lit my Spiritlamp to bo il m yself som e choco late . Th e blue darkness laylong in the glade where I had so sweetly slumbered ; but soon

A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES 251

there was a broad streak of orange melting into gold alongthe mountain-tops of Vivarais . A solem n glee possessedmy mind at this gradual and lovely coming in of day. Iheard the runnel with delight ; I looked round me for something beautiful and unexpected ; but the still black pine-trees,the hollow glade, the munching ass, remained unchangedin figure . Nothing had altered but the light, and that,indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of breathing peace,and moved me to a strange exhilaration .

I drank my water-chocolate, which was hot if it was notrich, and strolled here and there, and up and down aboutthe glade. While I was thus delayin g, a gush of steady wind,as long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of the quarter ofthe morning. It was cold, and set me sneezing. The treesnear at hand tossed their black plumes in its passage ; and Icould see the thin distant Spires of pine along the edge of thehill rock slightly to and fro against the golden east. Tenminutes after, the sunl ight spread at a gallop along the hillside, scattering shadows and sparkles, and the day had comecompletely.

I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep ascent that lay before me, but I had something on my mind.

It was only a fancy ; yet a fancy will som etimes be impo rtunate . I had been most hospitably received and punctuallyserved in my green caravanserai . The room was airy, thewater excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment.I say nothing of the tapestries or the inim itable ceiling, no ryet of the View which I commanded from the windows ; butI felt I was in some one’s debt for all this liberal entertainment . And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing way, toleave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, until Ihad left enough for my night’s lodging. I trust they did notfall to some rich and churlish dr over.

A RIVER REVERIE 1

LAFCAD IO HEARN1850—1904

A DESCRIPTIVE sk e tch wr itten in 1882 when Hearn was a reporter in NewOrlea ns, and late r pub lished in Fantastws andOther Fanci es . Hea rn

’

s pro se

is rem arkab le for its m ov em e nt a nd co lor . His tempe r and m e thod we reparticula rly adapted to the po rtraya l of v iv id b e auty and e x otic cha rm ; andhe was m ost at hom e in the wa rm South , o r in Japa n . Of his ea rlie r b ook sChita and Youm a a re no ta b le ; am ong the fruits of a Japane se r e sidence a reGlimpses of Unfam ili ar Japan, Outof the East, Gleanings in Buddha-Fie lds,In Ghostly Japan.

AN old Western river port, lying in a wrinkle of the hills,a sharp s10 pe down to the yellow water, glowing under thesun like molten bronze, a broken hollow square of buildings framing it in , whose basem ents had been made green bythe lipping of water during inundations periodical as therising of the Nile, a cannonade-rumble of drays over theboulders, and m uffled—drum thumping of cotton bales,white signs black-lettered with nam es of steamboat compan ie s, and the green latticework of saloon doors flank edby empty kegs, above, church spires cutting the blue,below, on the Slope, hogsheads, bales, drays, cases, boxes,barrels, kegs, m ules, wagons, po licemen, loungers, and m ustabouts, whose apparel is at once as picturesque, as ragged,and as colorless as the fronts of their favorite haunts on thewater-front . Westward the purple of softly-rolling hillsbeyond the flood, through a diaphanous veil of golden haze,a marshaled array of white boats w ith arabesque light

ness of painted woodwork, and a long and irregular line ofsmoking chim neys . The scene never varied save with thevarying tints of weather and season . Sometimes the hills

1 Repr inted by ar rangem ent with Houghton Mitflin Company .


254 THE OUTDOORS

ling of cordage, the rocking as of a mighty cradle. But it isperhaps sweeter. There is no perceptible motion of therive r vessel ; it is like the movement of a balloon, so steadythat not we but the world only seems to move. Under thestars there seems to unroll its endlessness like an im m e a sur

able ribbon of silver-purple . There is a noiseless ripple init, as of watered silk. There is a heavy, sweet smell of nature, of luxuriant verdure ; the fem inine outlines of the hills,dotted with the chrome-yellow of window-lights, are blueblack ; the vast arch of stars blossoms overhead there is nosound but the colossal breathing of the laboring engines ;the stream widens ; the banks le ssen ; the heavens seem togrow deeper, the stars whiter, the blue bluer. Under thenight it is all a blue world, as in a planet illuminated by acolored sun . The calls of the passing boats, sonorous asthe music of vast silver trumpets, ring out clear but echoless ; there are no hills to give ghostly answer. Days areborn in gold and die in rose-color ; and the stream widens,widens, broadens toward the eternity of the sea under theeternity of the sky. We sail out of Northern frosts intoSouthern lukewarmness, into the luxuriant and somnolentsm ell of magnolias and lemon-blossoms, the sugar-country exhales its incense of welcom e. And the giant crescentof lights, the stream—song of joyous boats, the world of chimneys, the forests of spars, the burst of morning glory overNew Orleans, viewed from the deck of a pilot-house.These may never be wholly forgotten ; after the lapse of

fifty years in som e dusty and dr eary inland city, an odor,an echo, a printe d name m ay resurrect their re collection,fre sh as one of those Gulf winds that leave sweet odors afterthem, like coquettish wom en, l ike Talm udic angels .So that we beheld all the se things yesterday and heard

all these dead voices once more saw the old Western portwith its water-beslimed warehouses, and the Kentucky hills

A RIVER REVERIE 255

beyond the river, and the o ld captain on h is folding stool,gazing wistfully at the boats ; so that we heard once more thesteam whistles of vessels that have long ceased to b e , o r

that, changed into floating wharv es, rise and fall with theflood, l ike corpses .And all because there came an illustrious visitor to us,

who reminded us of all these things ; having once himselfturned the pilot’s wheel, through weird starlight or magicalmoonshine, gray rain o r ghostly fog, golden sun or purplelight, down the great river from Northern frosts to tepidSouthern winds, and up the mighty stream into the mistyNorth again .

To-day his name is a household word in the Englishspeaking world ; his thoughts have been translated into othertongues ; his written wit creates mirth at once in Paris salonsand in New Zealand homes . Fortune has also extended tohim her stairway of gold ; and he has hobnobbed much withthe great ones of the world. But there is still something ofthe pilot’s cheery manner in his greeting, and the keennessof the pilot’s glance in his eyes, and a looking out and afaroff, as of the man who of old was wont to peer into the darkness of starless nights, with the care of a hundr ed lives on hishands .He has seen many strange cities since that day, sailedupon many seas, studied many peoples, written manywonderful books .Yet, now that he is in New Orleans again, one cannot helpwondering whether his heart does not sometimes prompt himto go to the river, like that o ld captain of the far Northwestern port, to watch the white boats panting at thewharves , and l isten to their cries of welcome o r farewell, anddream of nights beautiful, silver-blue, and silent, and thegreat Southern moon peering into a pilot-house.

OF TRAVEL

FRANCIS BACON

TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education ; in theelder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, go ethto school, and not to travel . That young men travel undersome tutor, o r grave servant, I allow well ; so that he be sucha one that hath the language and hath been in the countrybefore ; whereby he may be able to tell them what thingsare worthy to be seen in the country where they go ; whatacquaintances they are to see k ; what exercises or disciplinethe place yieldeth . Fo r else young men shall go hooded, andlook abroad little . It is a strange thing that in sea-voyages,where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea,men shouldmake diaries ; but in land—travel, wherein so much is to beobserved, for the most part they omit it ; as if chance werefitte r to be registered than observation . Let diaries, therefore, be brought in use . The things to be seen and observedare : the courts of princes, specially when they give audienceto ambassadors ; the courts of justice, while they sit and hearcauses ; and so of consistories ecclesiastic ; the churches andmonasteries, with the monum ents which are therein extant ;the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so thehavens and harbours ; antiquities and ruins ; libraries ; co llege s, disputations, and lectur e s, where any are ; shippingand navie s ; houses and gardens of state and pleasure, neargreat cities ; arm ories ; arsenals ; magazine s ; exchanges ;burses ; warehouses ; exercise s of horsemanship, fencing,training of soldiers, and the like ; comedies, such whereuntothe better sort of persons do resort ; treasuries of jewels and


258 CITIES AND MEN

eric and quarrelsome persons ; for they will engage him intotheir own quarrels . Wh en a trave lle r returneth home, lethim not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind h im , but maintain a correspondence by letterswith those of his acquaintance which are of m ost worth .

And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in hisapparel o r gesture ; and in his discourse, let him be ratheradvised in his answers than forwards to tell stories ; and let itappear that he doth not change his country manners forthose of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowe rs of thathe hath learned abroad into the custom s of his own coun try.

AN ENGLISH VILLAGE 1

TICKNER EDWARDES

1865

THIS e x tract is from Lift-Luck on Southern Roads, a v e ry ente rta in ing andsympathe tic a ccount of a wa lk ing tour through the southe rn counties of

England. Mr . Edwa rde s ha s a lso wr itten The Lore of the Honey—bee,Neighborhood, and The Honey

-Star .

To spend an hour in Winterslow, and never once think of

Hazlitt, o r the Lam bs , must seem little short of a crime toth e literary reader . But that is what happened to me, andwill probably happen again, if e ve r I retrace that day

’s to rtuous route . The truth is that Winterslow puts the wayfarer under an imm ediate and all-sufficing spell of its own .

There is a present-day enchantment in the place that annih ilate s all thought of tim e s foregone . The living peoplethere are so engrossingly attractive, that it never occurs toyou to ponder over the dead ones, fam ous o r obscure . It isa vorte x of rural peace and quie t, o r rather a dim ple in thepool, just serving to mark the vital difference between progress and stagnationI cam e into the beautiful , o ld-world settlement of Win

te rslow wellprepared , as the ove rture prepares one for grandopera . In a fie ld not far from the Village, som e sheep werefolded ; and, stopping to listen to the bells, I was im m ediatelystruck by the pureness of their tone . The ordinary sheepbell is a kind of inverted brazen can , but the bells of thisfold were real bells both in shape and quality . The be llson a farm usually belong to the shepherd, and are hande ddown fr om father to son in the com m on calling . Some se ts

1 From Lift-Luck on Southern Roads. Repr inted by arrangem ent withThe Macm illan Company .

260 CITIES AND MEN

are of great age, as I judged these to b e . But there was noshepherd to inquire o i . The fo ld was in charge of a shaggygrey dog, who, though he looke d as if he were full of information, failed to enlighten me, mainly because I could notunde rstand his thunderous speech . However, I made outthat he warned me to come no nearer, so I contented m yselfwith leaning over the gate, and listening to the waywardmelody of the fold .

Silvery and slow in the noontide sun , the sound crept overto me, and I thought I had never heard a sweeter strain .

The notes ran through a ful l octave, up and down ; now inclanging peals of a score together, and now in single toneslike bells moved at random by the inconstant breeze . And

there was a sort of rhythm thr ough it all, almost a meaning.

There were sudden, clear harmonies, and pell-mell discordsfollowing them . Once, and for a long time, it seemed, allthe bells stopped together, while one of the deepest tolled asregularly as if the sexton him se lf were at his rope . And thenall the bells came swinging in together, the rich quiet notesoverreaching one another like flo odtide ripples on a sandyshore . I turned at last, and went on to the Village . Butthe soft pealing stayed in m y ears : in fancy it returned to meall through the day. And again, in fancy, I heard it far off,as silvery and slow as ever, when I woke in the night, walledup in the queerest, cosiest nesting-place that ever poorvagrant chanced upon . But of that in its place .My fir st impression ofWinterslow was as of a wide-spread

ing flower-garden dotted over with gigantic brown toadstools, and here and there a bee-hive fancifully shaped likea house . But, on a nearer View, the toy-houses becameveritable human dwellings, and the toadstools real cottageshiding under their thatch . Yet m y early conception of theplace as a garden remained to the end . In the hour I spentthere, I saw more and fine r flowe rs than I looked upon at


262 CITIES AND MEN

he was glad of my assistance, by reaching me down a rosefrom a gla ss on the window—sill . “ I ne ver like to have themout of m ind,

” said he , polishing busily .

I looked in at cottage-doors, with discreet and private eye,in passing ; and browsed a while on the labels in the windowsof the village shop . There were few m en about, these beingat their labour in the fie lds ; but the women abounded, allthe older ones wearing the print sun-bonnet, last vestige ofthe national peasant costume . I have often wondered atthe strange coincide nce, yet it is neverthele ss a fact that Inever come into a village but I hit upon the one precioushalf-hour of the day, when the women lay by work for achat at the cottage-doo r, or flying interchange ofnews acrossthe street . So it again happened in Winterslow.

They were all m errily at it as I sauntered through, leaningout of window o r door, or gathered in little com panies bythe garden-gates . And while I stood listening to the murm ur of voices, soft or shrill, the school-do or burst open likea dam, and a rush ofpinafores, pink and white and blue, allbut swept me off m y feet . I turned eastward from Winte r slow at last, with my rose nodding from m y buttonhole,and in my ears a medley ofmusic bells and hammer, thechippering of sparrows and children, the sugared indolenceofWiltshire country-spe ech q '

MY FIRST DAY IN THE ORIENT 1

LAFCADIO HEARN

THE first charm of Japan is intangible and volatile as aperfume. It began for m e with m y first kuruma-ride out ofthe European quarter of Yokoham a into the Japane se townand so m uch as I can recall of it is hereafter set down .

It is with the delicious surprise of the first journey throughJapane se streets unable to m ake one’s kuruma-runnerunde rstand anything but gestures, frantic gestures to rollon anywhere, everywhere, since all is unspeakably ple a surable and new that one first receives the real sensation ofbeing in the Orient, in this Fa r East so m uch read o i , so longdream ed o i , yet, as the eyes bear witness, heretofore allunknown . There is a rom ance even in the fir st full consciousne ss of this rather com m onplace fact ; but for me thisconsciousne ss is transfigur ed inexpressibly by the divinebeauty of the day . There is some charm unutterable in themorning air, cool with the coolness of Japanese spring andwind-waves from the snowy cone of Fuji ; a charm perhapsdue rather to softest lucidity than to any positive tone,an atmospheric lim pidity extraordinary, with only a sugge stion of blue in it, through which the most distant objectsappear focussed with am azing sharpne ss . The sun is onlypleasantly warm ; the Jinrikisha, o r kuruma, is the most cosylittle vehicle imaginable ; and the street-vistas, as seen abovethe dancing white mushroom-shaped hat of my sandalledrunner, have an allur em ent of which I fancy that I couldnever weary.

1 From Glimpses of Unfam iliar Japart. Reprinted by arrangem ent withHoughton Mitflin Company.

264 CITIES AND MEN

Elfish everything seem s ; for everything as well as everybody is sm all, and queer, and mysterious : the little housesunder their blue roofs, the little shop-fronts hung with blue,and the smiling little people in their blue costumes . Thei llusion is only broken by the occasional passing of a tallforeigner, and by divers shOp-signs bearing announcementsin absurd attempts at English . Nevertheless such discordsonly serve to emphasize reality ; they never materially lessenthe fascination of the funny little streets .

’

T is at first a delightfully odd confusion only, as you lookdown one of them, through an interm inable flutte r of flagsand swaying of dark blue drapery, all made beautiful andmysterious with Japane se or Chinese lettering. For thereare no immediately discernible laws of construction or decoration : each building seems to have a fantastic prettiness ofits own ; nothing is exactly like anything else, and all is b ewilde r ingly novel . But gradually, after an hour passed inthe quarter, the eye begins to recognise in a vague way somegeneral plan in the construction of these low, light, queerlygabled wooden houses, mostly unpainted, with their firststoreys all open to the street, and thin strips of roofing

sloping above each shop-front, like awnings, back to theminiature balconies of paper-screened second storeys. Youbegin to understand the common plan of the tiny shops,with their matted floo rs well raised above the street level,and the general perpendicular arrangement of sign-lettering,whether undulating on drapery or glimm ering on gilded andlacquered sign-boards . You observe that the sam e richdark blue which dominates in popular co stume rules also inshop draperies, though there is a spr inkling of other tints,bright blue and white and red (no greens or yellows) . Andthen you note also that the dresses of the labourers are let“

te red with the same wonderful lettering as the sh0 p draperies . No arabesques could produce such an effect. As modi


266 CITIES AND MEN

shafts with all his hopes, mem ories, sentiments, and comprehensions, happens to have the gentlest smile, and thepower to return the least favour by an apparent display of

infin ite gratitude, this compassion becomes sympathy, andprovokes unreasoning im pul ses to self—sa cr ifice . I thinkthe sight of the profuse perspiration has also som ething todo with the feeling, for it makes one think of the cost ofheart-beats and muscle-contractions, likewise of chills, congestions, and pleurisy . Cha’s clothing is drench ed ; and hemops his face with a small sky-blue towel, with figur e s ofbamboo-sprays and sparrows in white upon it, which towelhe carries wrapped about his wrist as he runs .That, however, which attracts me in Cha Cha con

side r ed not as a m otive power at a ll, but as a personalityI am rapidly learning to discern in the multitudes of facesturne d toward us as we roll through these m iniature streets .And pe rhaps the supremely pleasurable im pression of thi smorning is that produced by the singular gentleness ofpopular scrutiny . Everybody looks at you curiously ; but thereis never anything disagreeable, much less hostile in the gaze :most commonly it is accompanied by a smile o r half smile.And the ultimate consequence of all these kindly curiouslooks and smiles is that the stranger finds himself thinkingof fairyland . Hackneyed to the de gree of provocation thisstatement no doubt is : everybody describing the sensationsof his fir st Japane se day talks of the land as fairyland, andof its people as fairyfolk. Yet there is a natural reason forthis unanimity in choice of term s to describe what is almostim possible to describe more accurately at the first essay.

To find one self suddenly in a world where everything isupon a sm aller and daintier scale than with us, a world oflesser and seem ingly k indlier beings, all sm iling at you as ifto wish you well, a world where all m ovement is slow andsoft, and voices are hushed, a world where land, l ife, and

MY FIRST DAY IN THE ORIENT 267

sky are unlike all that one has known elsewhere, this issur ely the realisation, for imaginations nourished with English fo lk lore, of the o ld dream of a World of Elves .The traveller who enters suddenly into a period of social

change especially change from a feudal past to a democratic present is likely to regret the decay of things beautiful and the ugliness of things new. What of both I mayyet discover in Japan I know not ; but to-day, in these exoticstreets, the o ld and the new mingle so well that one seems toset off the other . The line of tiny white telegraph polescarrying the world’s news to papers printed in a mixture ofChinese and Japane se characters ; an electric bell in sometea-house with an Oriental riddle of text pasted beside theivory button ; a shop of Am erican sewing—m achines next tothe shop of a maker of Buddhist im ages ; the establishmentof a photographer be side the establishment of a m anufac

turer of straw sandals ; all these present no striking incongruities, for each sam ple of Occidental innovation is set into anOriental frame that seem s adaptable to any picture. But

on the firstday, at least, the Old alone is new for the stranger,and suffices to absorb his attention . It then appears to h imthat everything Japane se is delicate, exquisite, admirable,even a pair of common wooden chopsticks in a paper bag

with a little drawing upon it; even a package of toothpicksof cherrywood, bound with a paper wrapper wonderfullylettered in thr ee different colours ; even the little sky-bluetowel, with designs of flying sparrows upon it, which thejinrikisha m an uses to wipe his face . The bank bills, thecom m one st copper coins, are things of beauty. Even thepiece of plaited coloured string used by the shopkeeper intying up your last purchase is a pretty curiosity . Curiositie s and dainty obje cts bewilder you by their very multitude : on either side of you, wherever you tur n yo ur eyes, arecountless wonderful things as yet incomprehensible ?

H

268 CITIES AND MEN

But it is perilous to look at them . Every time you dareto look, something obliges you to buy it, unless, as mayoften happen, the smiling vender invites your inspection ofso many varieties of one article, each specially and all unspeakably desirable, that you fle e away out of mere terrorat your own impulses . The shopkeeper never asks you tobuy ; but his wares are enchanted, and if you once beginbuying you are lost . Cheapness means only a temptationto com m it bankruptcy ; for the resources of irresistible artistic cheapness are inexhaustible . The largest steamer thatcrosses the Pacific could not contain what you wish to purchase . For , although you may not, perhaps, confess thefact to yourself, what you really want to buy is not the contents of a shop; you want the shop and the shopkeeper, andstreets of shops with their draperies and their inhabitants,the whole city and the bay and the mountains begirdling it,and Fujiyama’s white witchery overhanging it in the speckless sky, all Japan, in very truth, with all its m agical treesand luminous atmosphere, with all its cities and towns andtemples, and forty mi llions of the most lovable people in theuniverse.


270 CITIES AND MEN

social, architectural, culinary ; and he may have the satisfaction of fee ling that he is French to the core . No part ofhis admirable country is more characte ristically national .Norm andy is Norm andy, Burgundy is Burgundy, Provenceis Provence ; but Touraine is essentially France . It is theland ofRabelais, of Descartes, ofBalzac, of good books andgo od com pany, as well as good dinners and good houses .G eo rge Sand has somewhere a charm ing passage about themildness, the convenient quality, of the phy sical conditionsof central France,

“ son clim at souple e t chaud, ses pluiesabondantes e t courtes .” In the Autum n of 1882 the rainsperhaps were less sho rt than abundant , but when the dayswe re fine it was impo ssible that anything in the way of

we ather could be more charming . The Vineyards and o r

chards looked rich in the fre sh, gay light ; cultivation waseve rywhere, but everywhere it seem ed to be easy . Therewas no visible poverty ; thrift and succe ss presented themselves as m atters of good taste . The white caps of the wom e n glittered in the sunshine and their well-m ade sabotsclicked cheerfully on the hard, clean roads . Touraine is aland of o ld chateaux, a gallery of architectural specim ensand of large hereditary proper ties . The peasantry have lessofth e luxury of ownership than in m ost otherparts ofFrance ;though they have enough of it to give them quite the ir shareof that shrewdly conservative look which, in the little chaffe r ing pla ce of the m arket-town , the strange r observes soo ften in the wrinkled br own m asks that surm ount the agricultural blouse . This is, m o re ove r, the heart of the o ld

French m onarchy ; and as that monarchy was splendid andpicture sque, a r efle ction of the splendor still glitte rs in thecurrent of Lo ire . Som e of the m ost striking e vents ofFre nch history have occurred on the banks of that river,and the so il it waters blo om ed for a while with the flowe r ingof the Renaissance. The Loire gives a great “ style ” to a

TOURS 271

landscape of which the features are not, as the phrase is,prominent, and carries the eye to distances even more poetic than the green horizons of Touraine . It is a very fitfulstream, and is som etim es observed to run thin and exposeall the crudities of its channe l, a great defect certainly ina river which is so much depended upon to give an air tothe places it waters . But I speak of it as I saw it last ; full,tranquil, powerful, bending in large slow curves and sendingback half the light of the sky . Nothing can be fine r thanthe View of its course which you get from the battlementsand terraces of Amboise. As I looked down on it from thatelevation one lovely Sunday morning, through a mild glitterof autum n sunshine, it seeme d the very model of a gene rousb eneficent stream . The most charm ing part of Tour s isnaturally the shaded quay that overlooks it, a nd lo oks acro sstoo, at the friendly faubourg of Saint Symphorien and at theterraced he ights which rise above this . Indeed, throughoutTouraine, it is half the charm of the Lo ire that you can travelbeside it. The great dyke which protects it, or protects thecoun try from it, from Blois to Angers, is an adm irable road ;and on the other side, as well, the highway constantly ke epsit company . A wide river, as you follow a wide road, is exce llent com pany ; it heightens and shortens the way .

The inns at Tours are in another quarter, and one of them,

which is m idway between the town and the station, is verygood . It is worth mentioning for the fact that every onebelonging to it is extraordinarily po lite, so unnaturallypolite as at first to excite your suspicion that the hotel hassome hidden Vice, so that the waiters and cham berm aidsare trying to pacify you in advance . The re was one waiterin especial who was the most accom plished social be ing Ihave ever encountered ; from morning till night he kept upan inarticulate murm ur of urban ity ; like the hum of a spinning-top. I may add that I discovered no dark secrets at

‘

272 CITIES AND MEN

the Hotel de l’Univ e rs ; for it is not a secret to any traveller .

to-day that the obligation to partake of a lukewarm dinnerin an overheated room is as imperative as it is detestable.Fo r the rest, at Tours, there is a certain Rue Royale whichh as pretensions to the monumental ; it was constructed ahundred years ago, and the houses, all alike, have on a modcrate scale a pompous eighteenth—century look . It connectsthe Palais de Justice , the most important secular building inthe town, with the long bridge which spans the Loire,the spacious, solid bridge pronounced by Balzac, in

“Le

Curé de Tours,” “

one of the fine st monuments of Frencharchitecture .”

The most interesting fact, to my mind, about thehigh-street of Tours was that as you walked toward thebridge on the right-hand trottoi r you can look up at the house,on the other side of the way, in which Honoré de Balzac firstsaw the light. That violent and complicated genius was achild of the good-humored and succulent Touraine. Thereis something anomalous in this fact, though, if one thinksabout it a little, one may discover certain correspondencesbetwee n his character and that of his native province.Strenuous , laborious , constantly infelicitous in spite of hisgreat successes, he suggests at times a very different set ofinfluence s . But he had his jovial, full-feeding side, theside that comes out in the “Contes Drolatiques,

” which arethe rom antic and epicurean chr onicle of the old manors andabbeys of this region . And he was, moreover, the productof a soil into which a great deal of history had been trodden.

Balzac was genuinely as well as affectedly monarchical, andhe was saturated with a sense of the past. Num ber 39RueRoyale of which the basement, like all the basements intheRue Royale, is occupied by a shop is not shown to thepublic ; and I know not whether tradition designates thechambe r in which the author of “

Le Lys dans la Vallée”


A VERANDA IN THE ALCAZARIA‘

F. HOPKINSON SMITH

1838—1915

THIS picture sque little sk e tch is from Well-worn Roads of Spa in, Holland,and Italy. Be side s b e ing a pa inte r and a tra v e le r , Hopk inson Sm ith wa ssucce ssful a s a sto ry-wr iter . Othe r of h is inte r e sting tra v e l b ooks are AWhite Um br ella in Mex ico, and A Day atLaguerr e

’

s: am ong h is good nov e ls

a re Colonel Carter of Cartersvi lle, Oli ver Horn , a ndKennedy Squa re .

To really understand and appreciate Spanish life you mustlive in the streets . Not lounge through them , but sit downsom ewhere and keep still long enough for the ants to crawlover you, and so contem plate the people at your leisur e . If

you are a painter you will have every facility given you.

The balconies over your head will be full of senoritas fanning lazily and peering at you through the iron gratings ;the barber across the way will lay aside his half—moon basinand cross over to your side of the stre et and chat with youabout the bull-fight of yesterday and th e fie sta to-morrow,

and give you all the scandal of the neighborhood beforenoon . The som b r e re ro , whose awnings are hung with greatstrings of black hats of a ll shapes and size s, will leave hisshopand watch you by the hour ; and the fat, good-naturedpriest will stand quietly at your elbow and encourage youwith such appreciative criticism s as Muy bien .

” “Bonita,senor .” “

Bon isim a .

”

If you keepyour eyes about you, you will catch Figarocasting furtive glances at a shaded window above you, andlater on a scrap of paper will com e flutte r ing down at yourfeet, which the quick-witted barber covers with his fo ot,slyly picks up, and afterwards reads and kisses behind the

1 Repr inted by a rrangem ent w ith Houghton Miitlin Company.

A VERANDA IN THE ALCAZARIA 275

half-closed curtains of his shop. So m uch of this sort ofthing will go on during the day that you wonder what thenight may bring forth .

The Alcaza r ia in Seville, upon the broad flags of which Ispent the greater part of three days, is just such a stre et .It is a narrow, winding, crooked thoroughfare, shaded bygreat awnings stretched betwe en the overhanging roofs, andfilled with balconie s holding great tropical plants, strings ofblack hats, fe stoon s of gay-colored stuffs, sly peeping senoritas , fruit sellers, aguado res, donkeys ,beggars , and the thousand and one things that m ake up Spanish life .Before I finish ed m y picture I had becom e quite an o ld

settler, and knew what tim e the doctor cam e in , and whowas sick over the way, and the nam e of the boy with thecrutch, and the picador who lived in the rear and whostrutted about on the flagging in his buckskin leggings,padded with steel springs, on the day of the bull-fight,and the story about the sad-faced girl in the window overthe wine shop, whose lover was in prison .

But of course one cannot know a street at one sitting.

The Alca za r ia , on the m orning of the first day, was to meonly a Spanish street ; on the m o rning of the second day Ibegan to realize that it contained a window over m y shoulderopening on a sm all veranda half hidden in flowe r s and palm s ;and on the m orning of the third day I knew just the hour atwhich its occupant returned from mass, the shape of herhead and mantilla, and could recognize her duenna at sight .This charming Spanish beauty greatly interested m e .

If I accidentally caught her eye through the leaves and flowers

,she would drop her lashes so quickly, and with such a

half-frightened , tim id look, that I im m e diately lo oked theother way for full fiv e m inutes in lieu of an apology ; and Imust confess that after studying her m ovem ents for threedays I should as soon have thought of kissing my hand to the

276 CITIES AND MEN

Mother Superior of the convent as to this modest li ttlemaiden . I must also confess that no other sefio r ita ledmeto any such conclusion in any of the other balconies aboutme.On the afternoon of the third day I began final prepara

tions for my departure, and as everybody wanted to see thepicture, it was displayed in the sh0 p of the barber be cause hehad a good light . Then I sent his small boy for my big umbrella and for a large, unused canvas which I had stored inthe wine shop at the corner, and which, with my smallertraps, he agreed to take to my lodgings ; and then there wasa general hand-shaking and some slight waving of whi tehands and handkerchiefs from the balconies over the way

, in

which my tim id senorita did not join ; and so , lighting my'

cigarette, I made my adi os and stro lled down the street tothe church.

It was the hour for vespers, and the streets were fillingrapidly with penitents on their way to prayers. With no

defin ite object in View except to see the people and watchtheir movements, and with that sense of relief whi ch comesover one after his day’s work is done, I mingled in the throngand passed between the great swinging doors and into thewide incense-laden interior, and sat down near the door towatch the service . The dim light sifted in through thestained-glass windows and rested on the clouds of incenseswung from the censers . Every now and then I heard thetinkling of the altar-bell, and the deep tones of the organ .

Around me were the bowed heads of the pe nitents, silentlytelling their beads, and next me the upturned face andstreaming eyes of a grief-stricken woman, whispering he rsorrow to the Virgin . To the left of where I kneeled was asmall chapel, and, dividing me from this, an iron grating ofdelicate workmanship, behind which were gr ouped a number of people praying before a picture of the Christ. Sud


278 CITIES AND MEN

eyes upon me with her old saintly look, patted her attendanton the back, gently closed the gate upon the good woman,leaving her on the inside, then bent her own pretty head,pushed back her mantilla, showing her white throat, andflashing upon me from the corner ofher eye the most coquettish, daring, and mischievous of glances, touched her finge rtips to her lips, and vanished !I had made no m i stake except in human natur e. Surely

Mur illo must have gone to Italy for his Madonnas . Theywere not in Seville, if the times have not changed .

I crossed over and had a parting chat with the barber.What about the senorita Opposite who had just entered hergate ? Ah, seno r i She is most lovely . She is called ThePious ; but you need not look that way . She is the betrothedof the olive merchant who lives at San Juan, and who visitsher every Sunday . The wedding takes place next month .

”

Figaro believed it. I could see it in his face. So , perhaps,did the olive merchant.I did not.

FIFTH AVENUE 1

FREDERICK M. SMITH

THE world is adorned with cities ; and the imagination faringfarther, is tempted to linger on the shining half-circle of theBoulevards, on the green and jolly Prater, in the narrowCorso, or in the orange golden Sierpes in Seville . These areall fascinating thoroughfares, full of allurem ents, and if somehave less of the historic, they all have a great deal of thepicturesque . But fine as it is to saunter in deeply storiedstreets one has not to journey so far from home, and, formyself, I will place beside the best of them a ramble up FifthAvenue on a warm day in April, or in some mellow, ripeningOctober . The Strand, let a s say, is like red Burgundy, orstout brown ale, while our own Street is goldenRudesheimero r , at its top mom ents, a Vintage even more sparkling fromthe fie lds of No rthe rn France .Fo r a picture where is its equal ? The shops and suchshops ! with fine ladies going in and out of them andsom e who are not so fine ; the great stream of motor vehicles ;the errand boys and the clerks ; the hopeful young artistswith portfolios ; dandies with spats and boutonnieres; blonde,full-bosom ed females,with striking clothes and flinty,watchful eyes ; an occasional English-looking gentleman in loudtweeds ; father, mother, and the girls from Steubenville o rKokomo ; and an untold num ber of persons of an Israelitishcast .Now and then you will mark a spruce oldish gentlem an

with white hair and moustache, and you fancy a real New

1 From The Ple asant Ways of Saunte r ing” in The Unpopular Re view.

Octob e r—Decem be r. 1918. Repr inted by the courte sy ofHenry Holt.

280 CITIES AND MEN

Yorker who lives somewhere near Gramercy Park, or Washington Square, o r wherever real New Yorkers do live now.

Again, have you ever noticed how, at certain happy after!noon hours, and in certain up-town precincts, bevies ofyounggirls suddenly debouch upon the Avenue ? m isses of fourte en and sixteen , wide-eyed, milk-and-rose dam sels, allawake to the wonder of living ! They are from the privateschools in side streets ; and they always walk arm in arm,

some very lively and titillated, others very superior to aworld that is soon to be their oyster . And always they areshepherded carefully under the eye of an oldish young woman with pince-nez . Youth is always inspiriting, and al ittle more so when it is fem inine and innoce nt with a promise of beauty, and with an air of good bree ding .

Another adventure that often happens on the Avenue isthe seeing of a fam iliar face fam iliar because you haveseen it in the picture m agazines or on the stage . With athrill you discover that you can recognize Julia Marlowe instreet clothes, o r Miss Marie Tempest without grease paint.Or perhaps you see Mr . Winston Churchill leading a littleboy by the hand . It is alm ost as if you had begun to knowthese celebrities personally ; and you m ay even go the lengthof buyingMr . Churchill’s next nove l because you have onceseen him peering into a shop-window .

Men and women, yes ; but buildings too ! impressiveshops hotels m agn ificent clubs that seem forbiddingun til you become a m ember the gray pile of St. Patrick’s ;and,most beautiful ar chitectural sight of all, the lacey whitetower of St. Thom as’s !Hotels and shops ! the first quite beyond most of us ; thesecond, in part at least, for everybody .

Only the saunterer can appraise the wealth of shop-windows the displays at the great dry-goods sto res, and theflorists , where the coming seasons are colored forth, whether


282 CITIES AND MEN

sharp a look-out ; but it has an atmosphere very romantic,even edging the mysterious ; a savor of its own compoundedof sandal-wood and musty interiors ; it is gaudy and splendidand dingy by turns ; the children are as sweet as the dolls ina toy-shop ; the slant-eyed maidens, with their clear, faintlytinted, porcelain skins, have a certain reticent beauty andprovocation ; the men partake of the inward serenity of theEast.And what of Royal Street, New Orleans place of romantic balconies ? In fact, we have so many thoroughfareswhich make an especial appeal to the sauntere r that one doesnot willingly leave off talking of them.

If life is a great book in which to read, then a stroll in thestreet of a world’s city is a lively chapter ; o r , better, it is asort of preface, foretelling a large part of the varied contents.And, since nowadays we must show that everything wepraise has a use o r be set down as thoughtless cumberersof the ground I contend that the educational value ofsauntering is to be reckoned ou . To the inquiring mind itsuggests m any delectable bypaths and gives a nice stimulusto the fancy . I can im agine a man seeing a COpy of aNico la sMaes o r a Jan Steen in a window, and so getting curiousabout Dutch art . Or , who can note the cover designs ofcertain French masterpieces; bound in paper, without a desire to make an imm ediate acquaintance?Does all this sound as if the saunterer were occupied

merely with the iridescent surface of life ? That is, perhaps,in the main, very true . But any thinking idler in the world’slively thoroughfares will find a gre at deal that sobersthought . The moralist in Fifth Avenue canno t e scape knowing that its beauty and color are but inadequate cloaks forsome of the seven deadly sins . He will find vanity and sinful extravagance and much wisdom about the lusts of the

FIFTH AVENUE 283

flesh . He will see that Mammon is the god of many, andthat pleasure is their selfish aim . They pursue it regardle ssof the future, o r of others . They are grasshoppers wastingthe sunny season . They have time only for acquaintances,and do not know h ow to make friends . They do n ot relisho r unde rstand the quieter and more fundamental joys . Inshort they have forgotte n how to walk, speed and displaybeing the ir chief concerns . This moralist will see in thesumptuous caravansaries that line the street mere symbolsof the evils of our present-day life, its materiality, itsinstability, its love of luxury, its wastefulness, the gradualdimming of hearth fire s, its lack of the fine r culture . Eventhe hired men in uniforms, who open the doors of limousines,seem to sniff at simple folk and simple things . These hoste lr ie s are certainly very tempting, with their palatial foyersand their velvet-floor ed dining parlors, rich with silver, andshining with glass and white linen . But the people whofrequent them the silken women, nice a rtifice rs of be autyand the prodigal men how much of charity and simplicity is in their hearts ?In the distance, to the East, the moralist glimpses thespider-thread of the Third Avenue EL, and he remembersthe sort of people who mostly journey on it. The contrastbetween these avenues cannot but give him pause . Is itright that there should be two such planes of living side byside, the fir st wilfully ignoring or looking askance at theother ? So he asks himself. How specious, moreover, andinsincere, seems the first in comparison with the second .

Yet I doubt if the moral contrast is so much in favor ofThird Avenue . The rich a r e not always e vil, nor the poorvirtuous, as much of our sentim ental modern teaching wouldhave us be lieve . The poor to-day will probably be th e prodigals to-m orrow ; and , if you go deepenough into the heartsof both, there is very little to choose between them . We

284 CITIES AND MEN

are all cut from pretty much the same piece of cloth, anda shoddy piece it sometimes seems .A bad outlook, says the moralist ; and then, just as hebecomes depressed, if not cynical, the fine , sweet face of awom an, o r a happy o ld gentleman leading a child, makes thethoughtful one spy a kind of hope . Then a man in khaki,young, clean, straight, swings into sight and he must be avery despairing pe rson who does not see that under all thesupe rficia lity of the Avenue there is much good blood coursing .

So the saunterer who is not too stern a moralist, butrather inclined to kindliness in his philosophy, and doubtless, too , at heart a little indolent, finds that life is, atworst, a mixed business, tragic and humorous, fascinatingand inexplicable, but not necessarily despe rate ; and he goeso n calmly, thinking that one may as well trust life as doubtit. Very probably at this stage of his cogitation he will slipinto some comfortable and quiet refuge to pay extravagantlyfor te a or something stronger.


286 CITIES AND MEN

work about seven o’clock, at the time when the newsboysmade the ir appearance together with the day laborers . Thelaborers went trudging past in a straggling file plumbers

’

apprentices, their pocke ts stuffed with sections of lead pipe,tweezers, and pliers ; carpenters, carrying nothing but theirlittle pasteboard lunch baskets painted to imitate leather ;gangs of street workers, their overalls soiled with yellowclay, their picks and long-handled shovels over their shoulders ; plasterers, spotted with lim e from head to foot. Thislittle arm y of workers, tramping steadily in one direction,met and mingled with other toilers of a different de scr iption— conductors and “ swing men ” of the cable com panygoing on duty ; heavy-eyed night clerks from the drug storeson their way home to sleep ; roundsm en returning to theprecinct police station to make the ir night report, and Chinese market gardeners teetering past under their heavybaskets . The cable cars began to fill up; all along the streetcould be seen the shopkeepers taking down their shutters .Between seven and eight the street breakfasted . Nowand then a waiter from one of the cheap restaurants crossedfrom one sidewalk to the other, balancing on one palm a traycovered with a napkin . Everywhere was the sm ell of coffeeand of frying steaks . A little later, following in the path ofthe day laborers, came the clerks and sh0 p girls, dr essedwith a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancingapprehensively at the power-house clock . Their employersfollowed an hour o r so later on the cable cars for the m ostpart whiskered gentlem en with huge stom achs, readingthe morning papers with great gravity ; bank cashiers andinsurance clerks with flowe r s in their buttonholes .At the same tim e the school children invaded the stree t,

filling the air with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping at thestationers’ shops, or idling a mom e nt in the doorways of thecandy stores . Fo r over half an hour they held possession

POLK STREET 287

of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared, leaving behindone o r two stragglers who hurried along with great stridesof their little thin legs, very anxious and preoccupied .

Towards eleven o ’clock the ladies from the great avenuea block above Polk Street made their appearance, promenading the sidewalks leisurely, deliberately. They were attheir morning’s marketing. They were handsome women

,

beautifully dressed . They knew by name their butchersand grocers and vegetable men . From his window Mc

Teague saw them in front of the stalls, gloved and veiledand daintily shod, the subservient provision-men at theirelbows, scribbling hastily in the order books . They allseemed to know one another, these grand ladies from thefashionable avenue . Meetings took place here and there ;a conversation was begun ; others arrived ; groups wereformed ; little impromptu receptions were held be fore thechopping blocks of butchers’ stalls, o r on the sidewalk

,

around boxes of berries and fruit .From noon to evening the population of the street was ofa mixed character. The street was busiest at that tim e ; avast and prolonged murm ur arose the mingled shuffling

of fe et, the rattle of wheels , the heavy trundling of cablecars . At four o’clock the school children once more swarmedthe sidewalks, again disappearing with surprising suddenness . At six the great hom eward march commenced ; thecars were crowded, the laborers thronged the sidewalks, thenewsboys chanted the evening papers . Then all at oncethe stree t fell quiet ; hardly a soul was in sight ; the sidewalkswer e de se rted . It was supper hour . Eve ning began ; andone by one a m ultitude of lights, from th e dem oniac glare ofthe druggists’ windows to the dazzling blue whitene ss of theelectric globes, grew thick from street corner to stre et co rner.Once m ore the stree t was crowded . Now there was nothought but for amusement. The cable cars were loaded

288 CITIES AND MEN

with theatre—goers men in high hats and young girls infurred opera cloaks . On the sidewalks were groups andcouples — the plumbers

’ apprentices, the girls of the ribboncounters, the little families that lived on the second storiesover their shops, the dressmakers, the sm all doctors, theharness makers all the various inhabitants of the streetwere abroad, strolling idly from shop window to shop window, taking the air after the day

’s work . Groups of girlscollected on the corners, talking and laughing very loud,making rem arks upon the young men that passed them .

The tam a le m en appeared . A band of Salvationists beganto sing before a saloon .

Then, little by little, Polk Street dropped back to solitude . Eleven o ’

clock struck from the power-house clock .

Lights were extinguished . At one o ’clo ck the cable stopped,leaving an abrupt silence in the air . All at once it seem ed verystill . The only no ise s were the occasional footfalls of a policeman and the per sistent calling of ducks and geese in theclosed market . The street was asleep .

Day after day, McTe ague saw the same panorama unroll itself. The bay window of his Dental Parlors ” wasfor him a point of vantage from which he watched the worldgo past.


290 CITIES AND MEN

properly be inforced : for every e r r our in human conductmust arise from ignorance in ourse lve s , either perpetual o rtemporary ; and happen either because we do not know whatis best and fitte st, o r because our knowledge is at the time ofaction not present to the mind .

When a m an employs himself upon remote and unne c

essary subjects, and wastes his life upon questions whichcannot be resolved, and of whi ch the solution would conduce very little to the advancem ent of happiness ; when helavishes his hour s in calculating the weight of the terraqueousglobe, or in adjusting successive system s of worlds beyondthe reach of the telescope ; he may be very properly recalledfrom his excursions by this precept, and rem inded, thatthere is a nearer being with which it is his duty to be moreacquainted ; and from which his attention has hitherto be enwithheld by studies to which he has no other motive thanvanity or cur iosity .

The great praise of Socrates is, that he drew the wits ofGreece, by his instruction and example, from the vain pursuit of natural philosophy to mo ral inquiries, and turnedtheir thoughts from stars and tides, and m atter and motion,upon the various modes of virtue, and relations of life . Allhis lectures were but commentaries upon this saying ; if wesuppose the knowledge of ourselves recomm ended by Chilo,in opposition to other inquiries less suitable to the state ofman .

The great fault of men of learning is still, that they of

fend against this rule, and appear willing to study anything rather than themselves ; for which reason they areoften despised by those w ith whom they im agine themselvesabove comparison ; despised, as useless to com mon purposes,as unable to conduct the m ost trivial affairs, and unqua li

fied to perfo rm those office s by which the concatenation ofsociety is preserved, and mutual tenderness excited andmaintained.

KNOW THYSELF 291

G e lidus is a man of great penetration and deep researches .Having a mind naturally form ed fo r the abstruser sciences,he can comprehend intricate com binations without confusion, and be ing of a tempe r naturally cool and equal, he isse ldom interrupted by his passions in the pursuit of the longest chain of unexpected consequences . He has, therefore,a long time indulged hopes, that the solution of som e problem s, by which the professors of science have been hi thertob atfled, is rese rved fo r his genius and industry . He spendshis tim e in the highe st ro om of his house , into which none ofhis fam ily a re sufi

'

e r ed to e nter ; and when he comes down tohis dinne r o r his rest, he walks about like a stranger that isthere only for a day, without any tokens of regard or tenderness . He has to tally divested him self of all human sensations ; he has ne ither eye fo r beauty, no r ear for complainthe neither rejoices at the good fo rtune of his nearest friend,no r m ourn s for any publick or pr ivate calam ity . Havingonce received a lette r, and given it his servan t to read, hewas inform ed, that it was written by his br o ther , who, beingshipwrecked, had swum naked to land, and was destituteof necessaries in a foreign country . Naked and destitute !says G e lidus, reach down the last volum e of m e teorologicalobservations

,extract an exact account o f the wind, and note

it carefully in the diary of the we ather .The fam ily of G e lidus once br oke into his study, to shew

him that a town at a sm all distance was on fire ; and in afew mom ents a servant cam e to te ll h im , that the flame hadcaught so m any house s on bo th sides , that the inhabitantswere confounde d, and be gan to think of rathe r escaping withtheir lives

,than saving their dwe llings . What you tell m e ,

says G e lidus , is very probable, for fir e naturally acts in acircle .

Thus lives this great philosopher, insensible to everyspectacle of distress

,and unmoved by the loudest call of

292 CITIES AND MEN

social nature, for want of considering that menQ

are designedfo r the succo ur and com fort of each other ; that though thereare hours which may be laudably spent upon knowledge notimmediately useful, yet the first attention is due to practicalVirtue ; and that he may be justly driven out from the commerce of m ankind,who has so far abstracted him self from thespecies, as to partake neither of the joys nor griefs of others,but neglects the endearments of his wife and the caressesof his children, to count the drops of rain, note the changesof the wind, and calculate the eclipses of the moons ofJupite r .

I shall reserve to some future paper the religious and important meaning of this epitome of wisdom, and only re

m ark, that it may be applied to the gay and light, as well asto the grave and solem n parts of life ; and that not only thephilosopher m ay forfeit his pretences to real learning, butthe wit and beauty may miscarry in their schem es, by thewant of this universal requisite, the knowledge of them selves .It is surely for no other reason, that we see such numbers

resolutely struggling against nature, and contending for thatwhich they never can attain, endeavouring to unite contradictions, and determined to excel in characters inconsistentwith each other ; that stock-jobbers affect dress, gaiety, andelegance, and mathem aticians labour to be wits ; that thesoldier teazes his acquaintance with questions in theology,and the a cadem ick hope s to divert the ladies by a recital ofhis gallantries . That absurdity of pride could proceed onlyfrom ignorance of themselves, by which Garth attemptedcriticism, and Congreve waved his title to dram atick reputation , and desired to be considered only as a gentlem an .

Euphues, with great parts, and extensive knowledge, hasa clouded aspect, and ungracious form ; yet it has been hisam bition, from his first entrance into life, to distinguishhimself by particularities in his dress, to outvie be aux in em


THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOL

MASTER

CHARLES LAMB

1775—1834

LAMB is one of the gre a te st of the English e ssayists : he is the m ost wh imsica l, the m ost de lica te ly hum o rous, in a se nse , the w ise st. His fam e re stschiefly upon the Essays of Eli a from wh ich th is and the fo llowingpaper a retak e n. Th e first co lle ction of

“Elia ” was pub lished in 1823; the se cond

se r ies appea red in 1833.

MY reading has been lamentably desultory and im m ethodi

cal . Odd, out-o i-the—way, old English plays and treatises,have supplied me with mo st of my no tions and ways offeeling . In everything that relates to sci ence, I am a wholeEncyclopaedia behind the re st of the world . I should havescarcely cut a figur e among the franklins, or country gentlem en , in King John

’s days . I know less geography than aschoolboy of six weeks’ standing . To me a map of o ld

Ortelius is as authentic as Arrowsmith . I do not knowwhereabout Africa merges into Asia ; whether Ethiopia liein one or other of those great divisions ; nor can form therem otest conjecture of the position of New South Wales,o r Van Diem en

’

s Land . Yet do I hold a correspondence witha very dear friend in the fir st-named of these two TerraeIncogn itae . I have no astronomy . I do not know where tolook for the Bear, or Charles

’s Wain ; the place of any star ; orthe nam e of any ofthem at sight. I guess at Venus only by herbrightness and if the sun on some portentous morn wereto m ake his fir stappearance in the West, I verily believe that,while all the world were gasping in apprehension about me, Ialone should stand unte r r ified, from she e r incuriosity andwant of observation. Oi history and chronology I possess

THE OLD ANU THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 295

some vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in thecourse of miscellaneous study ; but I never deliberately sa t

down to a chronicle, even of m y own country . I have mostdim apprehensions of the four great monarchies ; and som etimes the Assyrian, som etim es the Persian, floa ts asfir st inmy fancy. I make the widest conjectures concerning Egypt,and her shephe rd kings . My friend M., with great pa instaking, got me to think I understood the fir st proposition inEuclid, but gave me over in despair at the second . I am e n

tire ly unaqua inted with the modern languages ; and, l ike abetter man than myself, have “sm all Latin and less Greek .

”

I am a stranger to the shapes and texture of the com m onesttrees, herb s, flowe r s not from the circum stance of mybeing town-born for I should have brought the same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I fir st seen it“on Devon’s leafy shores,” and am no less at a lossamong purely town objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes . Not that I affect ignorance but my he ad has notmany mansions

,nor spacious ; and I have be en obliged to fill

it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching.

I sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation withso little discre dit in the world, as I have done, upon so m eagrea stock . But the fact is, a man may do very well with a verylittle knowledge, and scarce be found out, in mixed com pany ;everybody is so m uch more ready to produce his own, than tocall for a display of your acquisitions . But in a tete-c‘i -tétethere is no shuffling . The truth will out. There is nothingwhich I dread so much, as the being left alone for a quarterof an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, that does notknow m e . I lately got into a dilem ma of this sort .In one of my daily jaunts be tweenBishopsgate andShackle

Well, the coach stoppe d to take up a staid—looking gentleman ,about the wrong side of thirty, who was giving his partingdirections (while the steps were adjusting) , in a tone of mild

296 CITIES AND MEN

authority, to a tall youth, who seemed to b e neither hisclerk, his son, nor hi s servant, but som ething partak ing ofa ll three. The youth was di smissed, and we drove on . Aswe were the sole passengers, he naturally enough addressedhis conversation to me ; and we discussed the merits of thefare, the civility and punctuality of the driver ; the circumstance of an opposition coach having been lately set up, withthe probabilities of its success to all which I was enabledto return pretty satisfactory answers, having been dr illedinto this ki nd of etiquette by some years’ daily practice ofr iding to and fro in the stage aforesaid when he suddenlya larm ed me by a startling question, whether I had seen theshow of prize cattle that morning in Sm ithfie ld? Now asI had not seen it, and do not greatly care for such sort ofexhibitions, I was obliged to return a cold negative. He

seemed a little m o rtified, as well as astonished, at my decla ration , as (it appeared) he was just come fresh from thesight, and doubtless had hoped to com pare notes on the subje ct. However he assured me that I had lost a fine treat, asit far exceeded the show of last year. We were now ap

proach ing Norton Folgate, when the sight of some sh0 pgoods ticketed freshened him up into a dissertation upon thecheapness of cottons this spring . I was now a little in heart,as the nature of my morning avocations had brought meinto some sort of familiarity with the raw material ; and Iwas surprised to find how eloquent I was becoming on thestate of the India market when, presently, he dashed myincipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whetherI had ever made any calculation as to the value of the rentalof all the retail shops in London . Had he asked of me, whatsong the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed whenhe hid himself among women, I might, with Sir ThomasBrowne, have hazarded a

“wide solution .

” My companionsaw my embarrassment, and, the almshouses beyond Shore


298 CITIES AND MEN

gave birth to some refle ctions on the difference betweenpe r~sons of his profession i n past and present tim es .Rest to the souls of those fine o ld Pedagogues ; the breed,

long since extinct, of the Lilys, and Linacr e s ; who believingthat all learning was contained in the languages which theytaught, and despising every other acquirement as supe rficial and useless, came to their task as to a Sport ! Passingfrom infancy to age, they dreame d away all their days as ina grammar-schoo l . Revolving in a perpetual cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies ; renewingconstantly the o ccupations which had charmed their studious childhood ; rehearsing continually the part of the past ;life must have slipped from them at last like one day . Theywere always in their fir st garden, reaping harvests of theirgolden time, am ong the ir Flor i and their Spiet—legia ; inArcadia still, but kings ; the ferule of their sway not muchharsher, but o f like dignity with that m ild sceptre attributed to King Basileus ; the Greek and Latin, their statelyPamela and their Ph ilo cle a ; with the occasional duncery of

som e untoward Tyro, serving for a refreshing interlude of aMopsa , or a clown Dam aetas !

With what a savour doth the Preface to Golet’s, o r (as itis som etimes called) Paul

’s Accidence, set forth !“To ex

hort every man to the learning of grammar, that intendethto attain the understanding of the tongues, wherein is conta ined a great treasury of wisdom and knowledge, it wouldseem but vain and lost labour ; for so much as it is known,that nothing can surely be ended, whose beginning is eitherfeeble o r faulty ; and no building be perfect, whereas thefoundation and ground-work is ready to fall, and unable touphold the burden of the frame.” How well doth thisstately pream ble (comparable to those which Milton com

m ende th as “having been the usage to pr efix to some solem nlaw, then first promulgated by Solon, o r Lycurgus

”) cor

THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 299

respond with and illustrate that pious zeal for conformity,expressed in a succeeding clause, which would fence aboutgrammar-rules with the severity of faith-articles ! “asfor the diversity of gramm ars, it is well profita b ly takenaway by the king’s majesties wisdom , who foreseeing theinconvenience, and favourably providing the remedie,caused one kind of gram m ar by sundry learned men to bediligently dr awn, and so to be set out, only everywhere tobe taught for the use of learners, and for the hurt in changing of sch oo lm a iste rs .

” What a gusto in that which fo llows“wherein it is profitab le that he (the pupil) can orderly decline his noun, and his verb . Hi s noun !The fine dream is fading away fast ; and the least concern

of a teacher in the present day is to inculcate grammar-rules.The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little of

everything, because his pupil is required not to be entirelyigno rant of anything. He m ust be supe rficia lly, if I may sosay, om niscient . He is to know som e thing of pneumatics ;of chemistry ; of whatever is curious, o r proper to excite theattention of the youthful mind ; an insight into mechanics isdesirable, with a touch of statistics ; the quality of soil s, &c. ;

botany ; the constitution of his country, cum m ultis a li is.

You may get a notion of some part of his expected duties byconsulting the famous Tractate on Education addressed toMr . Ha rtlib .

All these things these, or the desu e of them he isexpected to instil, not by set lessons from professors, whichhe may charge in the bill

,but at school—intervals, as he walks

the streets, o r saunters through green fie lds (those natural

instructors) with his pupils . The least part of what is ex

pe cted from him is to be done in school-hours . He m ustinsinuate knowledge at the m ollia tempora fa ndi . He mustsei7e every occasion the season of the year the tim e ofthe day a passing cloud a rainbow a waggon of hay

300 CITIES AND MEN

a regiment of soldiers going by to inculcate somethinguseful . He can receive no pleasure from a casual glimpse ofnature, but must catch at it as an object of instruction. He

must inte rpret beauty into the picturesque. He cannotrelish a beggar-man, o r a gipsy, for thinking of the suitableimprovement. Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by theSophisticating medium of moral uses . The Universethat Great Book, as it has been called is to him indeed,to all intents and purposes, a book, out of which he is doomedto read tedious homil ies to distasting schoolboys . Vacations them selves are none to him , he is only rather worse offthan before ; for com m only he has some intrusive upper-b oyfastened upon him at such tim es ; some cadet of a greatfam ily ; som e neglected lum p of nobility, o r gentry ; that h emust drag after him to the play, to the Panorama, to Mr .

Bartley’s Orrery, to the Panopticon, or into the country,to a friend’s house, or his favour ite watering—place. Whe rever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. A boy is athis board, and in his path, and in all his movements. Hé is

boy-ri d, sick of perpetual boy.

Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among theirmates ; but they are unwholesome companions for grownpeople . The restraint is felt no less on the one side, than onthe other. Even a child, that

“plaything for an hour,”

tires a lways . The noises of childr en, playing their own fancies as I now hearken to them by fits, sporting on thegreen before my window, while I am engaged in these gravespeculations at my neat suburban retreat at Shack lewe llb y distance made more sweet inexpressibly take from thelabour of my task. It is like wr iting to music. They seemto modulate my periods . They ought at least to do sofo r in the voice of that tender age there is a kind of poetry,far un like the harsh prose-accents of man

’s conversation,I should but spoil their sport, and diminish my own sym

pathy for them, by mingling in their pastime .


302 CITIES AND MEN

sem inary were taught to compose English themes. Thejests of a schoolm aster a re coarse, o r thin . They do not tellout of school . He is under the restraint of a formal anddidactive hypocrisy in com pany, as a clergyman is under amoral one . He can no more let his intellect loose in society,than the other can his inclinations . He is forlorn amonghis co-e v a ls ; his juniors cannot be his friends .

“ I take blame to myself,” said a sensible man of this

profession, writing to a friend respecting a youth who hadquitted his school abruptly, that your nephew was notmore attached to me . But persons in my situation are moreto be pitied, than can well be im agined . We a re surroundedby youn g, and, consequently, ardently affectionate hearts,but we can never hope to share an atom of their affections.The relation ofmaster and scholar forbids this . How plea s

ing thi s m ust be to you, how I envy your feelings, my friendswill som etim es say to me, when they se e young men, wh omI have educated, return after som e years

’ absence fromschool, their eyes shining with pleasure, while they shakehands with their o ld master, bringing a present of game tom e , o r a toy to my wife, and thanking me in the warmestterm s for my care of their education . A h oliday is beggedfor the boys ; the house is a scene of happiness ; I, only, amsad at heart . This fine —spirite d and warm-hearted youth,who fancies he repays his master with gratitude fo r the careof his boyish years — this young man in the eight longyears I watched over him wi th a parent’s anx iety, nevercould repay me with one look of genuine feeling. He was

proud, when I praised ; he was submissive, when I reprovedh im ; but he did never lov e me and what he now mistakesfor gratitude and kindness for me, is but a pleasant sensation,which all persons feel at revisiting the scene of their boyishhopes and fears ; and the seeing on equal terms the man theywere accustomed to look up to with reverence. My wife,

THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 303

too , this interesting correspondent goes on to say, myonce darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster. WhenI married her knowin g that the wife of a schoolm asterought to be a busy notable creature, and fearing that mygentle Ann a would ill supply the loss of my dear bustlingmother, just then dead, who never sat still, was in every partof the house in a moment, and whom I was obliged sometimes to threaten to fasten down in a chair, to save her fromfatiguing herself to death I expressed my fears, that I wasbringing her into a way of life unsuitable to her ; and she,who loved me tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself to perform the duties of her new situation . She promised, and she has kept her word . What wonders will not awom an’s love perfo rm P My house is managed with apropriety and decorum , unkn own in other schools ; my boysare well-fed, look healthy, and have every proper ae comm odation : and all this performed with a careful economy,that never descends to m eanness . But I have lost m y gentle,helpless Anna ! When we s it down to enjoy an hour ofrepose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to listento what have been her useful (and they are really useful)employments through the day, and what she proposes forher to-morrow’s task . He r heart and her features arechanged by the duties of her situation . To the boys, shenever appears other than the m a ster

’

s wife , and she looks upto me as the boys

’

m a ster ; to whom all show of love andaffection w ould be highly improper, and unbecoming thedignity of her situation and mine. Yet this my gratitudeforbids me to hint to her . Fo r my sake she submitted to bethis altered creature, and can I reproach her for it? For

the communication of this letter, I am indebted to mycousin Bridget.

OLD CHINA

CHARLES LAMB

I HAVE an almost femini ne partiality for old china. WhenI go to se e any great house, I enquire for the china-closet,and next for the picture gallery. I cannot defend the orderof preference, but by saying, that we have all some taste orother

, of too ancient a date to admit of our rememberingdistinctly that it was an acquired one . I can call to mindthe fir st play, and the first exhibition, that I was taken to ;but I am not conscious of a tim e when china jars and saucerswere introduced into my im agination .

I had no repugnance then why should I now have ?to those little, lawless, azure—tinctured grotesques, that underthe notion of men and wom en, float about, uncircumscribedby any element, in that world befor e perspective a chinatea—cup .

I like to see my o ld friends whom distance cannotdim inish figur ing up in the a ir (so they appear to our

Optics) , yet on term firm a still for so we must in courtesyinterpret that speck of deeper blue, which the decorousartist, to prevent absurdi ty, has made to spring up beneaththeir sandals .I love the men with women’s faces, and the women, if

possible, with still more womanish expressions .Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to alady from a salver two miles off. Se e how distance seemsto set off respect . And here the same lady, o r anotherfor likeness is identity on tea—cups is stepping into a littlefairy boat, moored on the hither side of this calm gardenr iver, with a dainty mincing foot, whi ch in a right angle of


306 CITIES AND MEN

mont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at nightfrom Barker’s in Covent Garden ? Do you remember howwe eyed it for weeks before we could m ake up our minds tothe purchase, and had not com e to a determination till it wasnear ten o’clock of the Saturday night, when you set off fromIslington, fearing you should be too late — and when theo ld bookseller with some grum bling opened his shop

,and by

the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted outthe relic from his dusty treasures and when you lugged ithome, wishing it were twice as cumbersome and when youpresented it to me and when we were exploring the perfe ctne ss of it (collating you called it) and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your im a

patience would not suffer to be left till daybreak wasthere no pleasure in being a poor man ? or can those neatblack clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keepbrushed, since we have become rich and fin ica l, give you halfthe honest vanity, with which you fiaunted it about in thatover-worn suit your old corbeau for four o r fiv e weekslonger than you should have done, to pacify your consciencefor the mighty sum of fifte en or six teen shillings was it?a great affair we thought it then which you had lav

ish ed on the old folio . Now you can afford to buy any bookthat pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring mehome any nice o ld purchases now.

“Wh en you came home with twenty apologies for layingout a less num ber of shillings upon that print after Lionardo,which we christened the ‘Lady Blanch ’

; when you lookedat the purchase, and thought of the money and thoughtof the money, and looked again at the picture — was thereno pleasure in being a poor man ? Now , you have nothingto do but to walk into Co lnaghi

’

s, and buy a wilderness ofLiona rdos . Yet do you ?

“Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfie ld,

OLD CHINA 307

and Potter’s Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holydayholydays, and all other fun , are gone, now we are rich andthe little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day’sfare of savoury cold lamb and salad and how you wouldpry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where wemight go in , and produce our store only paying for the alethat you must call for and speculate upon the looks of thelandlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a tablecloth and wish for such another honest hostess, as IzaakWalton has described m any a one on the pleasant banksof the Lea, when he went a-fish ing

— and sometimes theywould prove obliging enough , and sometim es they wouldlook grudgingly upon us — but we had cheerful looks stillfor one another, and would eat our plain food savorily,scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall ? Now, when we

go out a day’s pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we ride

part of the way and go into a fine inn , and order the bestof dinners, never debating the expense which, after all,never has half the relish of those chance country snaps, whenwe were at the mercy of uncertain usage, and a precariouswelcome .

“You are to o proud to see a play anywhere now but in thepit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when wesaw the Battle ofHexham, and the Surrender of Calais, andBann ister and Mrs . Bland in the Children in the Woodwhen we squeezed out our shillings a-piece to sit three o r fourtimes in a season in the one-shilling gallery where you feltall the time that you ought not to have brought me andmore strongly I felt obligation to you for having broughtme and the pleasure was the better for a little shameand when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our placein the house, or what mattered it where we were sitting,when our thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, o r withViola at the Court of Illyria ? You used to say, that the

308 CITIES AND MEN

gallery was the best place of all fo r enjoying a play sociallythat the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion

to the infrequency of going that the company we metthere, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged toattend the more, and did attend, to what was going on , on

the stage because a word lost would have been a chasm,

which it was impossible fo r them to fill up. With such re

fle ctions we consoled our pride then and I appeal to you,whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention anda ccommodation, than I have done since in more expensivesituations in the house ? The getting in indeed, and thecrowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,but there was still a law of civility to women recognised

to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the otherpassages and how a little difficulty overcome heightenedthe snug seat, and the play, afterwards . Now we can onlypay our money and walk in . You cannot see, you say, inthe galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too , wellenough then but sight, and all, I think, is gone with ourpoverty.

“There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before theybecame quite common in the first dish of peas, while theywere yet dear to have them fo r a nice supper, a treat.What treat can we have now? If we were to treat ourselvesnow that is, to have dainties a little above our means, itwould be se lfish and wicked. It is the very little more thatwe allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at,that makes what I call a treat when two people livingtogether, as we have done, now and then indulge themselvesin a cheap luxury,which both like ; while each apologises, andis willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share.I see no harm in people making much of themselves in thatsense of the word . It may give them a hint how to makemuch of others. But now what I mean by the word


310 CITIES AND MEN

had the sufficiency which you now complain o i . The resisting power those natural dilations of the youthful spirit,which circumstances cannot straighte n with us are longs ince passed away. Compe tence to age is supplementaryyouth, a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best thatis to be had . We must ride, where we formerly walked :live better, and lie softer and shall be wise to do sothan we had means to do in those good old days you speako i . Yet could those days return could you and I oncemore walk our thirty miles a-day could Bannister andMrs . Bland again be young, and you and I be young to seethem could the good o ld one-shilling gallery days returnthey are dream s, my cousin, now but could you and I

at this mom ent, instead of this quiet argum ent, by our

well-carpeted fire -side, sitting on this luxurious sofa — b e

once more struggling up those inconvenient stair-cases,pushed about, and squeezed, and elbowed by the poo restrabble of poor gallery scramblers could I once more hearthose anxious shrieks of yours and the delicious ThankGod, we a r e safe, which always followed when the topmoststair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerfultheatre down beneath us I know not the fathom line thate ver touched a descent so deep as I would b e willing tobury more wealth in than Croesus had, o r the great JewR is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now dojust look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding anum brella, big enough for a bed—tester, over the head of

that pretty insipid half-Madonnaish chit of a lady in thatvery blue summer-house.”

THE OLD GENTLEMAN 1

LEIGH HUNT

OUR Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself,must be either a widower o r a bachelor. Suppose thefo rmer . We do not mention his precise age, which wouldbe invidious ; nor whether he wears his own hair or a wig ;which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it isa compromise between the more modern scratch and thedeparted glory of the toupee . If his own hair, it is white,in spite of his favourite grandson, who used to get on

the chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs out, tenyears ago . If he is bald at top, the hairdresser, hoveringand breathing about him like a second youth, takes careto give the bald place as much powder as the covered ;in order that he may convey to the sensorium within a

pleasing indistinctness of idea respecting the exact lim itsof skin and hair . He is ve ry clean and neat ; and, inwarm weather, is proud of Opening his waistcoat half—waydown, and letting so much of his frill be seen, in orderto show his hardine ss as well as taste . His watch andshirt-buttons are of the best ; and h e does not care if hehas two rings on a finge r . If his watch ever failed himat the club or co ffe e-house, he would take a walk everyday to the nearest clock of go od character, purely to keepit right . He has a cane at hom e, but seldom uses it, o nfinding it out of fashion with his elderly juniors . He hasa sm all cocked hat for gala days, which he lifts higherfrom his head than the round one , when bowed to . Inhis pockets are two handkerchiefs (one fo r the neck at

1 From The Indicator. 1820.

312 A LITTLE GROUP OF INTERESTING PEOPLE

n ight-time) , his spectacles, and his pocket-book. The

pocket-book, among other things, contain s a receipt fora cough, and some verses cut out of an odd sheet of ano ld m agazine, on the lovely Duchess of A ., beginn ing

Wh en b e aute ous Mira walk s the pla in .

He intends this for a common-place book which hekeeps, consisting of passages in verse and prose, cut out

of newspapers and magazines, and pasted in columns ;some of them rather gay. His principal other books a reShakespe are

’s Plays and Milton’s Paradise Lo st ; the Spectator, the History of England, the Works of Lady M. W.

Montague, Pope and Churchill ; Middleton’s Geography

the Gentleman’s Magazine ; Sir John Sinclair on Longevityseveral plays wi th portraits in character ; Account of Elizab eth Canning, Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, PoeticalAmusements at Bath-Easton, Blair

’s Works, Elegant Extracts ; Junius as originally published ; a few pamphlets onthe American War and Lord George Gordon, etc ., and one

on the French Revolution. In his sitting—rooms are somee ngravings from Hogarth and Sir Jo shua ; an engraved portrait of the Mar quis of Granby ; ditto of M. le Comte deGrasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney ; a hum orous pieceafter Penny ; and a portrait ofhimself, painted by Sir Joshua .

His wife’s po rtrait is in his chamber, looking upon his bed.

She is a little girl, stepping forward with a smile, and a

pointed toe , as ifgoing to dance. He lost he r when she was

The Old Gentl eman is an early riser, because he intendsto live at least twenty year s longer. He continues totake tea for breakfast, in spite of what is said against itsnervous efl'

ects ; having been satisfied on that point someyears ago by Dr. John son’

s criticism on Hanway, and agreat lik ing for tea previously. His china cups and saucershave been broken since his wife ’s death, al l but one , which


314“

A LITTLE GROUP OF INTERESTING PEOPLE

them on his eyes, and drawing the candle close to him, so a sto stand sideways betwixt his ocular aim and the small type .He then holds the paper at arm’s length, and dropping hiseyelids half down and his mouth half open, takes cognizanceof the day’s information . If he leaves off, it is only when thedoor is opened by a new-comer, orwhen he suspects som ebodyis over-anxious to get the paper out ofhis hand . Ou these occasions he gives an important hem ! o r so ; and resumes.In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to

the theatre, o r of having a game of cards . If he enjoysthe latter at his own house o r lodgings, he likes to play withsome friends whom he has known for many years ; but anelderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet and scientific ;

and the privilege is extended to younger men of letters ;who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he is a miser,but to win money at cards is like proving his Victory bygetting the baggage ; and to win of a younger man is a substitute for his not being able to beat h im at rackets . He

breaks up early, whether at home o r abroad .

At the theatre, he like s a front row in the pit . He comesearly, if he can do so without getting into a squeeze, andsits patiently waiting fo r the drawing up of the curtain ,with his hands placidly lying one over the other on the top ofhis stick . He generously adm ires some of the best performers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, andClive . During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the littleboy should see.He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but

likes it still less than he did years back, and cannot bearit in com parison with Ranelagh He thinks everythinglooks poor, fla r ing, and jaded . Ah !

” says h e , with asort of triumphant sigh, Ranelagh was a noble place ! Suchtaste, such elegance, such beauty ! The re was the Duchessof A . , the fine st wom an in England, Sir ; and Mr s . L., amighty fine creatur e ; and Lady Susan what ’s her nam e,

THE OLD GENTLEMAN 315

that had that unfortunate affair with Sir Charles. Sir , theycam e swimming by you like the swans .”

The Old Gentlem an is very particular in having his slippers ready fo r him at the fire , when he comes hom e . He isalso extremely choice in his snufi', and delights to get a freshboxful in Tavistock-street, in his way to the theatre . His

box is a curiosity from India. He calls favourite youngladies by their Christian nam es, however slightly acquaintedwith them ; and has a privilege also of saluting all brides,mothers, and inde e d every species of lady, on the leastholiday occasion . If the husband for instance has met witha piece of luck, he instantly moves forward, and gravelykisses the wife on the cheek . The wife then says,

“My niece,Sir , from the country ; and he kisses the niece . The niece,seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says, “Mycousin Harriet, Sir ;

” and he kisses the cousin . He“never

recollects such weather,” except during the “Great Frost,”

or when he rode downwith JackSk r im shire to Ncwm ark e t.

He grows young again in his little grandchildren, especiallythe one which he thinks most like himself which is the handsom e st. Yet he likes best perhaps the one most resemblinghis wife ; and will sit with him on his lap, holding his handin silence , for a quarter of an hour together . He playsmost tricks with the fo rm er, and makes h im sneeze . He

asks little boys in general who was the father of Zebedee’schildren . If his grandsons are at school he often goes tosee them ; and makes them blush by tell ing the master o rthe upper-scholars , that they are fine boys, and of a precocions genius . He is much struck when an old acquaintancedies, but adds that he live d too fast ; and that poor Bob wasa sad dog in his youth ; “a very sad dog, Sir ; mightily setupon a short life and a merry one .

”

When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and say little o r nothing ; but informs you, that thereisMr s . Jones (the housekeeper)

“She

’

ll talk .

”

THE OLD LADY 1

LEIGH HUNT

IF the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the m annersof her condition and time of life are so much the more apparent . She generally dresses in plain silks, that make agentle rustling as she moves about the silence of her room ;and she wears a nice cap with a lace border, that comesunder the chin . In a placket at her side is an old enamelledwatch, unless it is locked up in a dr awer of her toilet, forfear of accidents . He r waist is rather tight and trim thanotherwise, and she had a fine one when young ; and she is notsorry if you see a pair of her stockings on a table, that youmay be aware of the neatness of her leg and foot . Contented with these and other evident indications of a goodshape, and le tting her young friends understand that she canafford to obscure it a little, she wears pockets, and uses themwell too. In the one is her handkerchief, and any heaviermatter that is not likely to come out with it, such as thechange of a Sixpence ; in the other is a miscellane ous assortment, consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of ke ys, a needlecase, a spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutm eg and grater,a smelling-bottle, and, according to the season, an orangeo r apple, which after many days she draws out, warm andglossy, to give to some little child that has well behaveditse lf. She generally occupies two rooms, in the neatestcondition possible . In the chambe r is a bed with a whitecoverlet, built up high and round, to look well, and withcurtains of a pastoral patte rn, consisting alternately of

large plants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the man1 From The Indicator .



ous, expressing it to be her work, Jan . 14, 1762. Therest of the furniture consists of a looking-glass with carvededges, perhaps a settee, a hassock for the feet, a mat for thelittle dog, and a sm all set of shelves, in which are the Spectator and Gua rdi an , the Turki sh Spy, a Bi ble and P rayer Book,Young’s Night Thoughts with a pie ce of lace in it to flatten,Mrs . Rowe’s Devout Ex ercises of the Hea rt, Mrs . Glasse’sCookery, and perhaps Si r Char les Gr andi son , and Cla r issa .

John Bunele is in the closet among the pickles and preserves .The clock is on the landing-place between the two roomdoors, where it ticks audibly but quietly ; and the landingplace is carpeted to a nicety. The house is most in character, and properly coeval, if it is in a retired suburb, andstrongly built, with Wainscot rather than paper inside,and lockers in the windows . Before the windows shouldbe some quivering poplars . Here the Old Lady receives afew quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game at cards :or you may see her going out on the same kind of Visit herself,with a light umbrella running up into a stick and crookedivory handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his loveto her and captions antipathy to strangers . He r grandchildren dislike him on holidays, and the boldest sometimesventures to give him a sly kick under the table . When shereturns at night, she appears, if the weather happens to bedoubtful

,in a calash ; and her servant in pattens, follows half

be hind and half at her side, with a lantern .

He r opinions are not many nor new . Sh e thinks the cler

gym an a nice man . The Duke ofWellington, in her Opinion,i s a very great man ; but she has a secret prefe rence for theMarquis of Granby . She thinks the young women of thepresent day too forward, and the m e n not respectful enough ;but hopes her grandchildren will b e better ; though she differswith her daughte r in several points respecting their management . She sets little value on the new accomplishments ; is

THE OLD LADY 319

a great though delicate connoisseur in butcher’s meat and all

sorts of housewifery ; and if you mention waltzes, expatiateson the grace and fine breeding of the minuet . She longs tohave seen one danced by Sir Charles Grandison, whom shealmost considers as a real person . She likes a walk of a sum‘

mer’s evening, but avoids the new streets, canals, etc ., andsometimes goes through the churchyard, where her otherchildren and her husband lie buried, serious, but not melancholy . She has had three great epochs in her life hermarriage her having b een at court, to see the King andQ ueen and Royal Family and a compliment on her figureshe once received, in passing, from Mr . Wilkes, whom shedescribes as a sad, loose man, but engaging . His plainnessshe thinks much exaggerated. If anything takes her at adistance from home, it is still the court ; but she seldom stirs,even for that . The last time but one that she went, was tosee the Duke ofWirtem b urg ; and most probably for the lasttime of all, to see the Princess Charlotte and Prince Le opold. From this b e atific vision she returned with the sameadmiration as ever for the fine comely appearance of theDuke of York and the rest of the family, and great delightat having had a near View of the Princess, whom she speaksof with smiling pomp and lifted mittens, clasping them aspassionately as she can together, and calling her, in a transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine royal youngcreature, and Daughter of England !

”

ANNA JAMESON

I COME now to Rosalind, whom I should have ranked before Beatrice, inasmuch as the greater degree of her sex’ssoftness and sensibility, united with equal wit and intellect,give her the superiority as a woman ; but that, as a dramaticcharacter, she is inferior in force . The portrait is one of

infinite ly more delicacy and variety, but of less strength anddepth . It is easy to seize on the prominent features in themind ofBeatrice, but extremely difficult to catch and fix themore fanciful graces of Rosalind . She is like a compoundof essences, so volatile in their nature, and so exquisitelyblended, that on any attempt to analyze them, they seemto escape us . To what else shall we compare her, all-e nchanting as she is ? to the silvery summer clouds which,even while we gaze on them, shift their hues and formsdissolving into air, and light, and rainbow showers ? to theMay-morning, flush wi th Ope ning blossoms and roseatedews, and “charm of earliest birds ? to some wild andbeautiful melody, such as some shepherd boy might pipeto Amarillis in the shade ? ” to a mountain streamlet,now smooth as a mirror in which the skies may glass themselves, and anon leaping and sparkling in the sunshine orrather to the very sunshine itself ? for so her genial spirittouches into life and beauty whatever it shines on iBut this impression, though produced by the complete

development of the character, and in the end possessing thewhole fancy, is not immediate . The first introduction ofRosalind is less striking than interesting ; we see her a de

1 Fr om Cha racteri stics ofWom en, 1832.



probability ; nay, have a certain reality and locality. Wefancy her a contemporary of the Rafi ae lle s and the Ar iostos ;the sea-wedded Venice, its merchants and Magn ifico s,

the Rialto, and the long canals, rise up before us when wethink of her. But Rosalind is surrounded with the purelyideal and imaginative ; the reality is in the characters and inthe sentiments, not in the cir cum stances or situation. Po r

tia is dign ified, splendid, and romantic ; Rosalind is playful,pastoral, and pictur esque ; both are in the highest degreepoe tical, but the one is epic and the other lyric .Every thing about Rosalind breathes of

“youth andyouth’s sweet prim e .

”She is fresh as the m orning, sweet as

the dew-awakened blossom s, and light as the b reeze thatplays among them . She is as witty, as voluble, as sprightlyas Beatrice ; but in a style altoge ther distinct. In both,the wit is equally unconscious ; but in Beatrice it playsabout us like the lightning, dazzling but also alarm ing ;while the wit of Rosalind bubbles up and sparkles likethe living fountain, refreshing all around . He r volubilityis like the bird’s song ; it is the outpouring of a heartfilled to ov e rflowing with life, love, and joy, and allsweet and affectionate im pulses . She has as much tenderness as mirth, and in her most petulant raillery there is atouch of softness “

By this hand, it will not hurt a fly !”

As her vivacity never lessens our impression of her sensib ility, so she wears her masculine attire without the slightestimpugnment of her delicacy . Shakspe a re did not make themodesty of his women depend on their dr ess, as we shall seefurther when we come to Viola and Imogen . Rosalind hasin truth “no doublet and hose in her disposition .

”How he i

heart seems to thr ob and flutte r under her page’s vest !What depth of love in her passion fo r Orlando ! whetherdisguised beneath a saucy playfulness, o r breaking forthwith a fond impatience, or half betrayed in that beautiful

ROSALIND 323

scene where she faints at the sight of his ’kerchief stainedwith his b lood ! Here her recovery of her self-possessionh e r fears lest she should have revealed her sex her presence of mind, and quick-witte d excuse

I pray you, te ll your b ro the r h ow we ll I counte r fe ited

and the characteristic playfulness which seems to return sonaturally with her recovered senses, are all as am usingas consistent . Then how beautifully is the dialogue manage dbetwe e n herse lf and Orlando ! how well sh e assumes theairs of a saucy page, without thr owing off her fem inineswe etness ! How her wit flutte r s free as air over every sub

je ct ! With what a careless grace, yet with what exquisitepropriety !

Fo r inno cence ha th a pr iv ilege in he rTo dign ify a rch je sts and laugh ing eye s.

And if the freedom of some of the expressions used byRosalind or Beatrice be objected to, le t it b e rem em beredthat this was not the fault of Sh ak spe a r e or the wom en, butgenerally of the a ge . Portia, Be atrice, Rosalind, and therest, lived in tim es when more impo rtance was attached tothings than to words ; now we think more of words than ofthings ; and happy are we in these later days of super-r efinement, if we are to be saved by our verbal morality . Butthis is meddling with the province of the melancholy Jaque sand our argument is Rosalind .

The impression left upon our hearts and minds by thecharacter of Rosalind by the mixture of playfulness,sensibility, and what the French (and we for lack of a betterexpression) call naivete is like a delicious strain ofmusic .

There is a depth of delight, and a subtlety of words to expressthat delight, which is enchanting . Yet when we call tomind particular speeches and passages, we find that theyhave a relative beauty and proprie ty, which renders it difficult to separate them from the context without injuring


their effect . She says some of the most charming thi ngs inthe world, and some of the most humorous : but we applythem as phrases rather than as maxims, and remember themrather for their pointed felicity of expression and fanciful application, than for their general truth and depth of

m eaning.



with all the attributes of wisdom . This , by the way, is amere casual rem ark, which I would not for the universe haveit thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller . Ou the contr a ry , he was a very wise Dutchm an, for he never said afoolish thing ; and of such invincible gravity that he wasnever known to laugh, or even to smile, through the courseof a long and prosperous life. Certain, however, it is, therenever was a matter proposed, however sim ple, and on whichyour common narrow-minded mortals would rashly determine at the first glance, but what the renown edWoute r puton a mighty mysterious, vacant kind of look, shook his ca

pacious head, and having sm oked for fiv e minutes with re

doubled earnestness, sagely obse rved, that“he had his

doubts about the matter : which, in process of time,gained him the character of a man slow of belief, and not

ea sily imposed on .

The person of this i llustrious o ld gentleman was as regularly formed, and nobly proportioned, as though it had beenmoulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary, as amodel of m ajesty and lordly grandeur . He was exactly fiv efeet six inches in height, and six feet fiv e inches in circumference . His head was a perfe ct Sphere, far excelling in magn itude that of the great Pericle s (who was thence waggishlycalled Schenocepha lus , o r onion he ad) indeed, of suchstupendous dim ensions was it, that dam e Nature herself,with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have been puzzled toconstruct a neck capable of supporting it ; wherefore shewisely declined the attempt, and settled it firm ly on the topof his back-bone, just between the shoulders ; where it remained, as snugly bedded as a ship of war in the mud ofPotowm ac. His body was of an oblong form, particularlycapacious at bottom ; which was wisely ordered by providence

,seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and

very averse to the idle labor of walking . His legs, though

WOUTER VAN TWILLER 327

e xcee ding short, were sturdy in proportion to the weightthey had to sustain ; so that when erect he had not a littlethe appearance of a robustious beer barrel, standing on

skids . His face, that infall ible index of the mind, presenteda vast expanse perfectly unfur rowed o r deformed by any of

those lines and angles which disfigur e the human counte

nance with what is termed expression . Two small gray eyestwinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude, in a hazy firm am ent ; and his full-fed chee ks whichseem ed to have taken toll of every thing that went into hismouth, were curiously mottled and streaked wi th dusky red,l ike a Spitzenberg apple .His habits were as regular as his person . He daily tookhis four stated m eals , appropriating exactly an hour to each ;he smoked and doubted eight hour s, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty . Such was the renownedWoute r Van Twiller a true philosopher, for his m ind waseither elevated above, o r tranquilly settled below, the caresand perplexities of this world . He had lived in it for years,without feeling the leas t curiosity to know whether the sunrevolved round it, or it round the sun ; and he had evenwatched for at least half a century, the sm oke curling fromhis pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head withany of those numerous theories, by which a philosopherwould have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its risingabove the surrounding atmosphere.In his council he presided with great state and solemnity.

He sat in a huge chair of solid oak hewn in the celebratedforest of the Hague, fabricated by an experience d Timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the armsand feet, into exact imitations of gigantic eagles’ claws .Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wroughtwith jasm in and amber,which had been presented to a stadtholder ofHolland, at the conclusion of a treaty with one of

328 A LITTLE GROUP or INTERESTING PEOPLE

the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would hesit, and this m agnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking h isright knee with a constant motion, and fix ing his eyes forhours together upon a little print of Am sterdam, which hungin a bla ck frame against the opposite wall of the councilchamber. Nay, it has even been said, that when any delibe ration of extraordinary length and intricacy was on thecarpet, the renownedWoute r would absolutely shut his eyesfor full two hours at a time, that he might not b e disturbedby ex ternal objects ; and at such times the interna l commotion of his m ind was evinced by certain regular gutturalsounds , whi ch his admirers declared were merely the noiseof conflict made by his contending doubts and Opinions.



ge r , with a smile , and in a b urst of confidence , as a bedroom the young beginner whom I have now the pleasureto and the stranger waved his hand, and se ttled his chinin hi s shir t-collar.“Thi s is Mr . lWicawb e r , said Mr . Q uinion to m e .

Ahem ! ” said the stranger, “ that is my nam e.Mr . lVIicawb e r ,

” said Mr . Q uin ion,

“ is known to'

lWr .

Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when hecan get any. He has be en wr itten to byMr . Murdstone, onthe subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a

lodger.“My address, saidMr . Micawber, is Windsor Terr ace ,

City Road. I in short,” said Mr . M cawb e r , with the

same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence I

live there .”

I m ade him a bow.

Under the impression, saidMr . Micawber, that yourperegrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty inpene tr ating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of theCityRoad in short,

” saidMr .Micawber, in another burstof confidence ,

“ that you might lose yourself I shall b ehappy to call this evening, and instal you in the knowledgeof the nearest way .

”

I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly inhim to offer to take that trouble .

“At what hour,” said Mr . Micawber, shall IAt about eight,

” said Mr . Q uin ion .

At about eight, said Mr . Micawber. I beg to wish

you a good day, Mr . Q uin ion . I will intrude no longer .”

So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under hisarm : very upright, and hum m ing a tune when he was clearof the counting-house .At the appointed time in th e evening, Mr . M cawb e r

THE MICAWBERS 831

reappeared . I washed my hands and face, to do the greaterhonour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, a s Isuppose I must now call it, together ; Mr . Micawber impre ssing the names of stre ets, and the shapes of corner housesupon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back,easily, in th e m orning .

Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticedwas shabby like himse lf, but also, like him self, made all theshow it could) , he presented m e to Mr s . Micawber, a thinand faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first flo or was altogether unfurnished, and theblinds were kept down to delude the neighbours) , with ababy at her breast . This baby was one of twins ; and I mayrem ark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of thefam ily, saw both the twins detached from Mrs . Mi cawberat the same time. One of them was always tak ing refreshment .There were two other children ; Master Micawber, agedabout four, and Miss M cawb e r , aged about three . These,and a dark-complexioned young wom an, with a habit ofsnorting, who was servant to the family, and inform ed me,before half-an-hour had expired, that sh e was

“ a Orfling,”

and came from St. Luke’s workhouse, in the neighbourhood,completed the establishment . My room was at the top of

the house, at the back : a close chamber ; stencilled all overwith an ornam ent which m y young im agination representedas a blue m uffin ; and very scantily furnished .

“ I neve r thought, said Mr s . Micawber, when she cameup, twin and all , to show me the apartment, and sat down totake breath,

“ before I was m arried , when I lived with papaand mam a, that I should ever find it necessary to take alodger . But Mr . Micawber being in difficultie s, all conside r ations of pr ivate fee ling must give way .

”

I said : “Yes, ma’am .

”


Mr . Micawber’s difficultie s are almost overwhelmingjust at present, said Mrs . Micawber ;

“and whether it is

possible to bring him through them, I don’t kn ow . When

I lived at hom e with papa and mam a, I really should havehardly understood what the word meant, in the sense inwhich I now employ it, but e x pe r ientia does it as papaused to say .

”

I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr .

Micawber had been an office r in the Marines, o r whether Ihave imagined it. I only know that I believe to this hourthat he was in the Marines once upon a time, without knowing why . He was a sort of town traveller for a number ofm iscellaneous houses, now ; but made little or nothing of it,I am afraid .

“If Mr . Micawber’s creditors wi ll not give him time,

said Mrs . Micawber,“ they must take the consequences ;

and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. Bloodcannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on

account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) from Mr . Micawber .”

I never can quite understand whether my precocious selfdependence confusedMrs .Micawber in reference to my age,o r whether she was so full of the subject that she would havetalked about it to the very twins if there had been nobodyelse to communicate with, but this was the strain in whichshe began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knewher .Poor Mrs . Micawber ! She said she had tried to exert

herself ; and so , I have no doubt, she had . The centre ofthe street-door was perfectly covered with a great brassplate, on which was engraved

“Mrs . Micawber’s BoardingEstablishm ent for Young Ladie s z” but I never found thatany young lady had ever been to school there ; or that anyyoung lady ever came, o r proposed to come ; or that the least


AHAB 1

HERMAN MELVILLE

FOR several days after leaving Nantuck et, nothing abovehatches was seen of Captain Ahab . The mates regularlyrelieved each other at the watches, and for aught that couldbe seen to the contrary, they seem ed to be the only com

manders of the ship ; only they som etim es issued from thecabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after a llit was plain they but comm anded vicariously . Yes, theirsuprem e lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseenby any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the now sacredretreat of the cabin .

Every tim e I ascended to the deck from m y watches b elow, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face werevisible ; for m y first vague disquietude touching the unknowncaptain, now in the seclusion of the se a , becam e alm ost aperturbation . This was strangely heightened at tim es bythe ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly re

curring to m e , with a subtle energy I could not have beforeconceived of. But poorly could I withstand them, much asin other moods I was alm ost re ady to sm ile at the solemnwhim sicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves .But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasiness tocall it so which I felt, yet whenever I cam e to look aboutme in the ship, it seem ed against all wa r rantry to cherishsuch em otions . Fo r though the harpooners , with the greatbody of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, andmotley set than any of the tam e merchant-ship companieswhich my previous experiences had made me acquainted

1 From Moby Dick 1851.

AHAB 335

with, still I ascribed this and rightly ascribed it to thefie rce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked .

But it was especially the aspect of the three chief office rs ofthe ship, the m ates, which was most forcibly calculated toallay these colorless m isgivings, and induce confidence andcheerfulness in every presentm ent of the voyage . Threebetter, more likely sea—ofli ce r s and men , each in his owndifferent way, could not readily be found , and they wereevery one of them Ame r icans ; a Nantuck ete r , a Vineyarde r,a Cape m an . Now, it being Christmas when the ship shotfrom out her harbour, for a space we had biting Polarweather, though all the time running away from it to thesouthward ; and by every degree and minute of latitudewhich we sailed, gradually leaving that m erciless winter, andall its into lerable weather behind us . It was one of tho seless lo wering, but still grey and gloom y enough mornings ofthe transition , when with a fair wind the ship was rushingthrough the water with a vindictive sort of leaping andmelancho ly rapidity, that as I m ounted to the deck at thecall of the forenoon watch , so soon as I levelled m y glancetoward the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me . Realityoutran apprehensions ; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter—deck .

There seemed no sign of comm on bodily illness about h im ,

nor of the recovery from any . He looke d like a man cutaway from the stake,when the fire has overrunningly wastedall the lim bs without consuming them , or taking away one

particle from their com pacted age d robustness . His wholehigh, broad form, seem ed m ade of solid bronze, and shapedin an unalterable mould, like Ce llin i

’

s cast Perse us . Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuingright down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, tillit disappe ared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like


mark, lividly whitish . It resembled that perpendicularseam som etimes made in the straight lofty trunk of a greattree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, andwithout wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out thebark from topto bottom, ere running 03 into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded . Whether thatmark was born with h im , or whether it was the scar left bysome desperate wound, no one could certainly say. By

some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little o r no a l

lusion was made to it, especially by the mates . But onceTashtego

’

s senior, an o ld Gay-Head Indian among the crew,

superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty yearso ld did Ahab becom e that way branded , and then it cameupon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an e lemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed infe rentia lly negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, ano ld sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out ofNantuck e t, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab .

Ne v e rth e le ss , the o ld sea—traditions, the immemorial credulitie s, popularly invested this o ld Manx man with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailorseriously contradicted him when he said that if ever CaptainAhab should be tranquilly laid out which might hardlycome to pass, so he muttered then, whoever should dothat last otfice for the dead, would find a birth-mar k on himfrom crown to sole .So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ah ab affect

me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the firstfew moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg uponwhich he partly stood . It had previously com e to me thatthis ivory leg had at se a been fashioned from the polishedbone of the spe rm whale

’s jaw.

“Aye , he was dism asted

off Japan,

”said the old G ay-Head Indian once ;

“but like



v al, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon hisbrow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pilethemselves upon .

Ne vertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemedgradually to charm him from his mood . For , as when thered-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to thewintry, m isanthrOpic woods ; even the barest, ruggedest,most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth somefew green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants ;so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful a llur ings of that girlish a ir . More than once did he put forththe faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, wouldsoon have flowe red out in a sm i le.

MRS. TOUCHETT 1

HENRY JAMES

MRS. TOUCHETT was certainly a person ofmany oddities, ofwhich her behaviour on returning to her husband’s houseafter many months was a noticeable specimen . She had herown way of doing all that she did, and this is the simplestdescription of a character which, although it was by nomeans without benevolence, rarely succeeded in giving an impression of softness . Mrs . Touchett m ight do a great dealof good, but she never pleased . This way of her own, of

which she was so fond, was not intrinsically offensive it

was simply very sharply distinguished from the ways of

others . The edges of her conduct we re so very clear-cutthat for susceptible persons it sometimes had a woundingeffect . Thi s purity of outline was Visible in her deportmentduring the first hours of her return from Ame rica, undercircumstances in whi ch it might have seemed that her firstact would have been to exchange greetings with her husbandand son . Mrs . Touche tt, for reasons which she deemedexce llent, always retired on such occasions into impenetrableseclusion, postponing the more sentimental ceremony untilshe had achieved a toilet which had the less reason to be ofhigh im portance as neither beauty nor vanity were concernedin it. She was a plain-faced old woman, without coquetryand without any great elegance, but with an extreme re

spect for her own motives . She was usually prepared toexplain these when the explanation was asked as a favour ; and in such a case they proved totally different fromthose that had been attributed to her. She was Virtually

1 From The Portra it of a Lady. Reprinted by arrangem ent with Houghton Mifli in Company.


separated from her husband, but she appeared to perceivenothing irregular in the situation . It had become apparent

,

at an ear ly stage o f the ir relations, that they should neverdesire the sam e thing at the same mom ent, and this fact hadprompted her to rescue disagreem ent from the vulgar realmof accident . Sh e did what she could to erect it into a lawa much more edifying aspect of it by going to live in Florence,where she bought a house and established herself ; leaving her husband in England to take care of his bank. Thisarrangem ent greatly pleased her ; it was so extremelydefinite .

It struck her husband in the same light, in a foggy square inLondon, where it was at tim es the most definite fact hediscerned ; but he would have preferred that discomfortshould have a greater vagueness . To agree to disagree hadcost him an effort ; he was ready to agree to almost anythingbut that, and saw no reason why either assent or dissentshould be so terribly consistent . Mrs. Touchett indulgedin no regrets nor Speculations, and usually came once a yearto spend a month with her husband, a period during whi chshe apparently took pains to convince him that she hadadopted the right system . She was not fond of England,and had three or four reasons for it to which she currentlyalluded ; they bore upon minor points of British civil ization,but for Mrs . Touche tt they amply justified non—residence .She detested bread-sauce, which, as she said, looked like apoultice and tasted like soap ; she objected to the consumption of beer by her maid-servants ; and she affirm ed thatthe British laun dress (Mrs . Touche tt was very particularabout the appearance of her linen) was not a mistress ofher art . At fix ed intervals she paid a visit to her own country ; but th is last one had been longer than any of its predece ssors.



myself) a vivid sense of her physical perfection in be auty oflimb and balance of nerves, and not so much of grace, probably, as of absolute harmony .

She said to us, “ I am sor ry I ke pt you waiting. He r

voice was low pitched, pe ne trating, and of the most seductive gentleness . She offe red her hand to lVIills very franklyas to an old friend . Withi n the e xtraordinary wide sleeve,lined with black silk, I could see the a rm , very white, witha pearly gleam in the shadow. But to me she extended herhand with a slight stiffening, as it we re a recoil of her person,

combined with an extrem ely straight glance . It was a

fine ly shaped, capable hand . I bowed over it, and we justtouched finge rs. I did not look then at her face .

THE MISER 1

FRANK NORRIS

THE interior of the junk sh0 p was dark and damp, and foulwith all manner of choking odo rs . On the walls, on theflo or , and hanging from the rafters was a world of débris,dust-blackened, rust-corroded . Everything was there,every trade was represented, every class of so cie ty ; thi ngs ofiron and cloth and wood ; all the detritus that a great citysloughs off in its daily life . Ze rk ow

’

s junk shop was thelast abiding-place, the alm shouse, of such articles as hadoutlived their usefulness .Maria found Zerkow himself in the back room, cookingsom e sort of a meal over an alcohol stove . Zerkow was aPolish Jew curiously enough his hair was fie ry red . He

was a dry, shr ive lled o ld man of six ty odd . He had thethin, eager, cat-like lips of the covetous ; e ye s that had grownke en as those of a lynx from long searching am idst m uck anddébris ; and claw—like , prehensile finge rs the finge r s of aman who accum ulates, but never disburse s . It was impo ssible to look at Zerkow and not know instantly that greedinordinate, insatiable greed was the dominant passion of

the man . He was the Man with the Rake , groping hour lyin the muck-heap of the city for gold, fo r gold, for gold . Itwas hi s dr eam, his passion ; at every instant h e seemed tofeel the gene rous solid weight of the crude fat metal in hispalms . The glint of it was constantly in his eye s ; the jangleof it sang forever in his cars as the jangling of cymbals .

1 m McTe ague . Repr inted by perm ission ofDoub leday, Page and

Company, the owners of the copyr ight.

MR. HASTING S 1'

WILLIAM G ILPIN

ME . HASTING S was low of statur e, but strong, and active ;of a ruddy complexion, wi th fla x en hair . His cloaths werealways of green cloth . His house was of the o ld fashion ; inthe midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits,and fish-ponds. He had a long narrow bowling-green, in it ;and used to play with round sand-bowls . Here too he had ab anquetting-room built, like a stand, in a large tree . He

kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, andbadger ; and had hawks of all kinds, both long, and shortwinged . His great hall was com mon ly strewed with marrow-bones ; and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, andterriers . The upper end of it was hung with fo x -skins ofthis, and the last year

’s ki lling. Here, and there a pole—catwas intermixed ; and hunter

’s poles in great abundance.The parlour was a large room, comple atly furnished in thesame stile . On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay someof the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels . One o r twoof the great chairs, had litters of cats in them, which werenot to be disturbed . Oi these three or four always attendedhim at dinner ; and a little white wand lay by his trencher,to defend it, if they were too troublesome . In the windows ,which were very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and otheraccoutrem ents . The corners of the room were filled withhis best hun ting and hawking poles . His o iste r-table stoodat the lower end of the room, which was in constant usetwice a day, all the year round ; for he never failed to eato iste rs both at dinner, and supper ; with which the neigh

1 From ForestScenery 1790.


JAMES BOSVVELL l

THOMAS CARLYLE

BOSWELL was a person whose mean o r bad qualities layOpen to the general eye ; visible, palpable to the dullest .‘

His good qualities, again, belonged not to the Time he livedin ; were far from common then ; indeed, in such a degree,were almost unexam pled ; not recognizable therefore byevery one ; nay, apt even (so strange had they grown) to beconfounded with the very Vices they lay contiguous to andhad sprung out o i . That he was a wine-bibber and grossl iver ; gluttonously fond of whatever would yield him a littlesolaceme nt, were it only of a stomachic character, is undeniable enough . That he was vain, heedless, a babbler ; hadmuch of the sycophant, alternating with the braggadocio,curiously spiced to o with an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb ; that he glo ried much when the Tailor, by a courtsuit, had made a new man of h im ; that he appeared at theSh ak spe a re Jub ile e with a riband, imprinted

“Corsica Boswell,

” round his hat ; and in short, if you will, lived no day ofhis life without doing and saying m ore than one pretentiousineptitude : all this unhappily is evident as the sun at noon.

The very look of Boswell seem s to have sign ified so much.

In that cocked nose, cocked partly in triumph over hisweaker fellow-creatures, partly to snuff up the sm ell of coming pleasure, and scent it from afar ; in those bag-cheeks,hanging like half-filledwine-skins, still able to contain more ;in that coarsely protruded shelf-mouth, that fat dewlappedchin : in all this, who sees not sensuality, pretension, b o iste rous im becility enough ; much that could not have been orna

1 From the essay Boswe ll’

s Life of Johnson

BOSWELL 347

mental in the temper of a great man’s overfed great man(what the Scotch name flunky) , though it had been morenatural there ? The under part of Boswell’s face is of a low,

alm ost brutish character .Unfortunately, on the othe r hand, what great and genuine

good lay in h im was nowise so self—e vide nt .The world, as we said, has been but unjust to him ; dis

cerning only the outer terrestrial and often sordid mass ;without eye, as it generally is, for his inner divine secret ;and thus figur ing him no wise as a god Pan, but sim ply ofthe bestial species, like the cattle on a thousand hills . Nay,sometim es a strange enough hypothesis has been started ofhim ; as if it were in Virtue even of these same bad qualitiesthat he did his good work ; as if it were the very fact of hisbeing among the worst men in this world that had enabledhim to write one of the best books therein ! Falser hypothesis, we may venture to say, never rose in human soul . Bad

is by its nature negative, and can do nothing; whatsoeverenables us to do any thing is by its ve ry nature good. Alas,that there should be teachers in Israel, or even learners, towhom this world-ancient fact is still problematical,

i

or evendeniable ! Boswell wrote a good Book because he had aheart and an eye to disce rn Wisdom, and an utterance torender it forth ; because of his free insight, his lively talent,above all, of his Love and childlike Open—mindedness . His

sneaking sycophancies, his greediness and forwardness,whatever was bestial and earthly in him , are so many blemishe s in his Book, which still disturb us in its clearness ;wholly hindrances, not helps . Towards Johnson , however,his fee ling was not Sc ph ancy , which is the lowest, butReve rence, which is the highest of human feelings . Nonebut a r ever ent man (which so unspeakably few are) couldhave found his way from Boswe ll’s environment to Johnson’s : if such worship for real God-made superiors showed


itself also as worship for apparent Tailor-made supe riors,even as hollow interested mouth-worship for such, the

case, in this com posite hum an nature of ours, was not miraculous, the more was the pity ! But for ourselves, let everyone of us cling to this last article of Faith, and know it asthe beginning of all knowledge worth the name :That neitherJam es Boswell’s good Book, nor any other good thing, inany time or in any place, was, is, or can be performed byany man in virtue of his badness, but always and solely inSpite thereof.

TENNYSON 1

THOMAS CARLYLE

I THINK he must be under forty, not much under . One of

the fine st looking men in the world. A gr eat shock of roughdusty-dark hair ; bright, laughing hazel eyes ; massive aquiline face, most massive yet most delicate ; of sallow-browncomplexion, alm ost Indian-looking ; clothes cyni cally loose,free-and-easy ; smokes infin ite tobacco. His voice is m usical metalli c fit for loud laughter and pi e rcm g wail,and all that may lie between ; speech and speculation freeand plenteous ; I do not meet, in these late decades, suchcompany over a pipe !

1 From a le tter to Emewon 1844.



He was not to be overawed or depressed by the presence,

frowns, or insolence of great men, but persisted, on all occasions, in the right, with a resolution always present and a l

ways calm . He was modest, but not timorous, and firmwithout rudeness .He could, with uncom mon readiness and certainty, make

a conjectur e of men’s inclinations and capacity by theiraspect .His method of life was to study in the morning and evening, and to allot the middle of the day to his publick business . His usual exe rcise was riding, till, in his latter years,his distempe rs made it more proper for him to walk : whenhe was weary, he amused himself with playing on theViolin .

His greatest pleasure was to retire to his house in thecountry, where he had a garden store d with all the herbs andtrees which the clim ate would he ar ; here he used to enjoyhis hours unmolested, and prosecute his studies withoutinte rruption .

The diligence with which he pursued his studies, is sufiici ently evident from his success . Statesmen and generalsmay grow gr eat by unexpected accidents, and a fortunateconcurrence of circumstances, neither procured nor foreseenby them selves ; but reputation in the learned world must bethe effect of industry and capacity. Boerhaave lost none ofhis hours, but, when he had attained one science, attem ptedanother ; he added physick to divinity, chymistry to them athem atick s, and anatom y to botany . He exam ined system s by experim ents, and formed experime nts into systems .He neither neglected the observations of othe rs, nor blindlysubmitted to celebrated names . He neither thought sohighly of himself, as to imagine he could receive no lightfrom books, nor so meanly, as to believe he could discovernothing but what was to be learned from them. He ex

BOERHAAVE 351

am ined the observations of other men, but trusted only tohis own .

Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommendingtruth by elegance, and embe llishing the philosopher withpolite literature : he knew that but a sm all part of mankindwill sacr ifice their pleasure to their improvem ent, and thoseauthors who would find many readers, must endeavor toplease while they instruct .He knew the im portance of his own writings to mankind,and lest he might, by a roughness and barbarity of style, toofrequent am ong m en of great learning, disappo int his ownintentions, and make his labours less useful, he did not ne glect the polite r arts of eloque nce and poetry . Thus was hislearning, at once, various and exact, profound and agreeable .But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds, in his

character, but the se cond place ; his Virtue was ye t muchmore uncom m on than his learning . He was an adm irableexam ple of tem pe rance, fortitude , hum ility, and devotion .

His piety, and a religious sense of his depe ndance on God,was the basis of all his Virtues, and the principle of his wholeconduct.


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THETUDORDRAMABy C . F. TUCKER BROOKE, Yale Un iv e rsity.

A h illum inating h isto ryo f th e de v e lopm e nt o fEnglish Dram a during th e Tudo r Pe riod, from 1485to th e close ofth e r e ign of Elizab e th .

CHIEF CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS, First SeriesEdited b y THOMA S H . D ICKINSON , fo rm e rly o f the Un iv e rsity ofWisco ns in.

CHIEF CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS. Second SeriesEdited b y THOMAS H D ICKINSON .

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Th is v o lum e co nta ins o n e typical play from e ach o f th e m as terdram atists of EurOpe ,wi th th e e x ception of th e English write rs .

A STUDY OFTHE DRAMABy BRANDER MATTHEWS.

De v o ted m a inly to an e x am ination of th e structural fram ewo rk

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THE.CHIEFELIZABETHAN DRAMATlSTSEdited b yW . A . NEILSON, Pre sident of Sm ith Co llege , form erlyPro fe sso r of English Lite r atur e in H a rv a rd Un iv e rsity.

Th is v o lum e p‘

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English dram a th rough its m o st b r illiantpe r iod.

A HISTORY OFTHE ELIZABETHANDRAMABy FELI! E . SCHELLING , Univ e rs ity of Pennsylv ania 2 v ols.

SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYHOUSESBy JOSEPH Q UINCY A DAMS, Co rne ll Un iv e rsity.

A H isto ry o f English Th e atr es from the Beginnings to the Resto ratio n. Fully illustrated.

SHAKESPEARE Q UESTIONSBy ODELL SHEPARD, T r ini ty Co llege . R iv . Lit. Se r ies. No . 246A h outline fo r the study o f th e le ading plays.

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Boswell’s Life ofJohnson. JENSEN.

Goldsm ith ’s Th e G ood-Natur ed Man, and She Stoops to Conquer. Drcx m son .

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