Chapter 19

But attempts thicken. In our century they group together like violets on a stream's bank fronting the sun in spring. Literary artists, knowing how difficulties hedge this attempt, hesitate. There are many hints of the gentleman. Let us be glad for that, seeing we are enriched thereby. "Rab and His Friends" gives so strong a picture of stolid strength in love's fidelity, which knows to serve and suffer and die without a moan or being well aware of aught save love. And Dr. MacLure is a dear addition to our company of manhood, shouldering his way through Scotland's winter's storm and cold because need calls him; serving as his Master had taught him so long ago; forgetting himself in absorbing thought for others; lonely as a fireless hearth; longing for friendship which would not fail; reaching for Drumsheugh's hand, and holding it when death was claiming the good physician's hand. We could easily conceive we had been seated at the deathbed of a gentleman. Deacon Phoebe stands as a character in Annie Trumbull Slosson's "Seven Dreamers," a book which, outside Cable's "Old Creole Days," is to me the most perfect series of brief character-sketches drawn by an American author, and entirely worthy to stand by "A Window in Thrums," and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and "In Ole Virginia." Deacon Phoebe has forgotten himself. Unselfishness does not often rise to such heights. This "dreamer" of "Francony Way" is full brother to Sidney Carton, born across the seas. Self-forgetfulness, so beautiful as that even name and sex become a memory dim as a distant sail upon an evening sea,--this must be a sight fitted to bring laughter to the heart of God. Deacon Phoebe is one trait in a gentleman. Sidney Carton is of the same sort, save that the hero element stands more apparent. His is a larger field, a more attractive background, thus throwing his figure into clearer relief. Deacon Phoebe was the self-abasement of humility, Sidney Carton is the supreme surrender of love; but the end of both is service. There ought to be a gallery in our earth from which men and women might lean and look on nobilities like Sidney Carton. That beatified face; that hand holding a woman's trembling hand, what time he whispered for her comfort, "I am the resurrection and the life," as the crowded tumbrel rattled on to the guillotine, and he faced death with smile as sweet as love upon his face, and love making a man thus divine,--this is Sidney Carton, who stirs our soul as storms stir the seas. Bonaventure, as drawn by Cable, is of similar design. He is unconscious as a flower; but had learned, as his schoolmaster-priest had taught him, to write "self" with a small "s;" so an untutored soul, lacerated with grief, pierced by suffering, gave himself over to goodness and help, becoming absorbed therein. Such is Bonaventure. He was what Tennyson has said of "the gardener's daughter," "A sight to make an old man young."

Love has learned to work miracles in character. Rains do not wash air so clean as love washes character, whiting "as no fuller on earth can white" it. And how constantly manhood neighbors with love is a beautiful and noteworthy circumstance. Here place Pete, in "The Manxman." You can not over-praise him. Some esteem him a fabulous character; but knowing his island and people well, I feel sure he is flesh and blood, though flesh and blood so uncommon and superior stagger our faith for a moment. It is the glory of our race that at rare springtime it bursts into such bloom that painter and poet are both bankrupt in attempting to copy this loveliness. Pete is such an effort of nature. His letters to himself, written as from his wife, to cover her shame and desertion, present a spectacle so magnanimous and pathetic as to upbraid us that we had never learned nobilities so sublime. Love made him great. And Macdonald, in Donal Grant, has shown us a strong, pure soul of moral strength, religious appetencies, determined goodness, of elevation of character, of strength and wisdom, so that in his accustomed walk he might have met Sir Percivale or Sir Launfal. Good, and given over to God, he was found out by love; and love did with him as with us all--love glorified him. In his clean life is something sturdy you might lean on, as on a staff, and have no fear. So is Enoch Arden made hero by love. In love, remembrance, and absence of self, he is manhood. We have all wept with Arden, finding our faces wet with tears, though not knowing we wept. His story never grows trite. Each time we read, new light breaks from this character as if it were a sun. The sight of him when he, like a poor thief, looking in at the window,

"Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and feared To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

And feeling all along the garden wall, Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, Crept to the gate, and open'd it and closed As lightly as a sick man's chamber door Behind him, and came out upon the waste;"

and when,

"Falling prone, he dug His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd,--"

the sight of him is as unforgettable as a man's first look upon the woman he loves. The poet was right. Arden was a "strong, heroic soul," and when he woke, arose, and cried, "A sail! a sail!" it was God's nobleman who sighted it.

"Daniel Deronda" and "John Halifax, Gentleman," may wisely be classed together as attempts of competent artists to sketch a gentleman. Whether they have failed in the attempt I would not make bold to say, but for some reason the characters impress me as being scarcely adequate. Both faces are open, and lit as by a lamp of truth; their lives are sweet as meadows scented with new-mown hay; we become sworn friends to both without our willing it; they have nothing to take back, because words and deeds are faithful to their best manhood; they are strong, and women lean on them, which, aside from God's confidence, is the highest compliment ever paid a man. Deronda is a man among aristocrats, Halifax a man among plebeians and commercial relations; but manhood is the same quality wherever found; for God has made all soils salubrious for such growth. But these do not compel, though they do charm us. Bayard, in "A Singular Life," may fall in with Deronda and Halifax. Tragedy darkens at "the far end of the avenue." Bayard is a social reformer in attempt, though of the safe and right type, meaning to change men, that there may be wrought a change in institutions. He runs a tilt with Calvinian orthodoxy as Methodism does, and loves God and his fellow-men and a good woman, and finds no toil burdensome if he may be of spiritual help and healing. "A singular life" he lives; but singular because it is the gospel life, and he merits the name the slums gave him, "The Christ-man." He is helpful, few more so, and knows power to stir us, which in the event is the superb quality in character. Captain Moray, in "The Seats of the Mighty," and Henry Esmond, in "Henry Esmond," are gentlemen of military mold, and we love them both because they make for lordly inspiration in the soul. Esmond must always keep his hold on men as a hero. These two soldiers need no one to remind us they know how to die; and know that other, larger thing--how to live. Esmond, over a long stretch of life lying in our sight, walked ever as a prince. Any national literature might be glad for one such as he. Our imagination takes wings when we think of him. Such cleanness, such lack of self, such self-poise and firmness, such singleness of love and devotion, such inaptitude for anything not noble, such tense heroic purposes, such stalwart intention to make himself a man! He is greatness, and his story to be read as a tonic. He recruits heroisms in the heart, and rests us when we grow weary. Thackeray is reported by Anthony Trollope to have called his creation, Esmond, "a prig." He might better have called him a gentleman; for such he is, or narrowly lacks of being. Indeed, did not Thackeray present another who is altogether gentleman, Esmond would be catalogued as this ideal character; for he misses it so little, if at all, and is by odds most magnetic of Thackeray's creations. And Browning's "Caponsacchi" and Hugo's "Valjean" have the true instincts of gentlemen. Valjean redeemed himself from worse than galley slavery--from debauched manhood to spiritual nobility, bewildering in holy audacity and achievement. Were there a pantheon for souls who have struggled up from the verge of hell to stand in the clear light of heaven, be sure Valjean would be there. Volumes are requisite for his portrait, and we have only room for words! Of Caponsacchi, take the pope's estimate as accurate, "Thou sprang'st forth hero." And Pompilia conceived him rightly, for he minded her of God. What farther need be said? Is not that panegyric enough for any man? Because he was so strong, so fearless, so pure, so gifted with great might to love, so keen to see Pompilia was pure as a babe's dreams, and the light on his forehead falls from the lattices overhead--the lattices of heaven--we love him. Had his figure been fully drawn we should have had a gentleman. Nor are we sure he ought not to be so catalogued; as he is, we find no fault in him. He minds us of the morning star.

Two characters in literature since Don Quixote are life-size gentlemen, and these are Colonel Newcome and King Arthur, as drawn by Thackeray and Tennyson, men of one era and pure souls. In these characters is evident deliberation of intent to create gentlemen. This article has given no heed to biography or history, because these concern themselves with truth as observed, and are therefore not imaginative. What we are considering is an ideal person, fashioned after the pattern discovered in good lives, which happily grow more and more plentiful as years multiply. Besides, biography can never get at the real man; for biography is a story of doing, while what we need is a story of soul. In Boswell's "Johnson" or in Anthony Trollope's "Autobiography" there is approach to what we care to know; but in the life of Jowett or Tennyson, though both are admirable specimens of biography, what man among us but closed those books with a sense of, not dissatisfaction, but unsatisfaction? What we were really hungry for was not there. What Jowett was, which made him a part of the life-blood of English thought and Englishmen--who found that out? Some things never can be told, unless the poets or prose dramatists tell them. Poetry and fiction do what history and biography fail to do--make us interior to a soul's true life.

Colonel Newcome is all gentleman. He hangs a curtain of silence over one room in his life. To his wife, mother of his beloved Clive, he will make no reference. Not bad, but frivolous and weak and querulous, she was; but Colonel Newcome never whispers it. What had made many misanthropes, made him a better man. No bitterness tainted his spirit. Pure women put him in a mood of worship, as they ought to put us all. He could, in conduct, if not in memory, forget hurts and wrongs, which is one mark of a large spirit. His was, his biographer affirms, "a tender and a faithful heart." In him paternity and maternity met, which is a conjunction we have not given heed to as we ought in thinking on the heart. Motherhood is in the best fatherhood. Not long since I met a minister who, on my mentioning a black and scrawny village, said, with lovelit face and ringing, jubilant voice, "O yes, that is where my boy was born!" How true hearts do remember! And Colonel Newcome loved his son with such sweet and wide fidelity as makes the heart covet him for father. All those days of separation from his son, he thought of him "with such a constant longing affection." And his joy on seeing his son once more is the joy of one getting home to heaven. "To ask a blessing on his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day is over. His first and last thought was always the child." He expects good of people, will say no ill of any, can not understand Sir Brian Newcome's frigid reception, and is hurt by it as by a poisoned arrow shot by the hill tribes in far India; he can not tolerate foul thought or speech, burns hot with righteous wrath against Captain Costigan when he sings a vile song, thundering, "Silence!" "'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must forgive other people's trespasses if we hope forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently." How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed him up not a trifle! How alert to love, how open to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure! What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particularly to women! How wide those windows of his soul open toward heaven! How magnanimous, how sad his face and heart, how sensitive his nature, to any lack of love on dear Clive's part! Though to his own heart he will not admit such lack exists, sitting above in his cheerless room, listening to his son's merry-making, that son glad to be left free of his father's presence,--how bravely he bore poverty when financial ruin came, not missing wealth for himself, but for him he loved, and how he grieved for those who had lost through him! He was not faultless. Men are not often that; but his anger rose from his heart. His indignation was for those he loved. We can see him now, as if he lived among us yet. His honest, melancholy face; his loose clothes hanging on his loose limbs; sitting silent, with his sad eyes; a bankrupt, giving over his pension for reimbursing those who had lost by him; and his eagerness for wealth for love's sake, always thinking of somebody else,--such is this gentleman who trusts in God. And thus simple, noble, unhumiliated:

"I chanced to look up from my book toward the swarm of blackcoated pensioners, and among them--among them--sat Thomas Newcome. His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book; there was no mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Grey Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood among the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. . . . His own wan face flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook in mine. 'I have found a home, Arthur,' said he; for save this he was homeless. As death came toward him his mind wandered, driven as a leaf is driven by wandering winds. He headed columns in Hindustan; he called the name of the one woman he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was for others, for Clive, dear, dear Clive. He said, 'Take care of him when I 'm in India;' and then, with a heartrending voice, he called out, 'Leonore, Leonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, 'Adsum!' and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; and lo! he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Master."

Small wonder if, in India, they called Thomas Newcome "Don Quixote."

And King Arthur is Alfred Tennyson's dream of a gentleman. Arthur is manhood at its prime. He was strong, a warrior, a self-made man, since the foolish questioned, "Is he Uther's son?" Mystery and miracle mix with his history, as is accurate, seeing no life grows tall without the advent of miracle. He is rescuer of a realm from anarchy, founder of the Round Table--an order of knighthood, purposed to include only pure knights--was not spectacular; for we read that others were greater in tournament than he, but he greater than all in battle, from which we see how great occasions called out his greatness. He measured up to needs. Though often deceived, he was optimist, hoping the best from men. He counted life to be a chance for service. There was a hidden quality in him, as when he, unknown to all, went out from Camelot to tilt with Balin and overthrew him. His life was pure as the heart of "the lily maid of Astolat," and demanded in man a purity as great as that of woman. His love was mighty, unsuspicious, tender. He was himself a king, born to rule, fitted to inspire. No littleness sapped his greatness. He rejoiced in others' strength, prowess, victory. His was an eye quick to discover merit in woman or man, as in Lynette. His heart was tender, and a cry for help awoke him from deep sleep. He hated foulness as he hated hell. He was like a sky, so high, pure, open. Himself makes an era, for his age clusters about him as if he were a sun to sway a system. Like Cordelia, in "Lear," he is a figure in the background; yet, despite his actual slight participancy in the "Idyls of the King," he always seems the one person of the poem. What is Lancelot matched with him, or pure Sir Galahad? If knighthood misconceived King Arthur then, men do not misconceive him now. A great spirit must not murmur if misconceived. The world will cluster to him hereafter, himself being God's hand to lift them to his Alp of nobleness. Arthur's life upbraids men for their sin. His very purity alienated Guinevere. Goodness has tempests in its sky, and storms make morning murk as night; and one true knight. King Arthur, goes sick at heart to battle with rebels in the West. Lancelot and Guinevere are fled; Modred has raised standard of rebellion; some knights are dead, slain in battle or searching for the Holy Grail; some have left off knighthood,--and King Arthur is defeated! Nay, this can not be. He rides into the battle, having forgiven Guinevere "as Eternal God forgives"--the battle where

"Host to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battle-axes on shatter's [shatter'd?] helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist."

And, the battle ended, Arthur moans, "My house hath seen my doom;" but he has not forgotten God, nor hath God forgotten him. God is his destination, and he trusts him now as in the golden yesterdays:

"I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure!"

And Arthur found, not sorrow nor defeat, but victory; for

"Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars."

And one of earth's gentlemen was welcomed home to heaven.

XII

The Drama of Job

The sun monopolizes the sky. Stars do not shine by day, not because they have lost their luster, but because the sun owns the heavens, and erases them as the tide erases footprints from the sands. In similar fashion a main truth monopolizes attention to the exclusion of subordinate truths. The Bible's main truth is its spiritual significancy, containing those ethical teachings which have revolutionized this world, and which are to be redemptive in all ages yet to come. The Bible, as God's Book for man's reading and redemption, has proven so amazing as a moral force, illuminating the mind; purifying the heart; freeing and firing the imagination; attuning life itself to melody; peopling history with new ideas; seeding continents with Magna Chartas of personal and political liberties; making for religious toleration; creating a new ideal of manhood and womanhood; presenting, in brief biographical sketches, perfect pictures of such men as the world has seen too few of; and portraying Christ, whose face once seen can never be forgotten, but casts all other faces and figures into shadow, leaving Him solitary, significant, sublime,--this is the Bible. So men have conceived the Scriptures as a magazine of moral might; and the conception has not been amiss. This is the Bible's chief merit and superior function, and this glory has blinded us to lesser glories, which, had they existed in any other literature, would have stung men to surprise, admiration, and delight. "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a pleasure simply as an expression of sensuous delight set to music. The poem is a bit of careless laughter, ringing glad and free as if it were a child's, and passing suddenly to a child's tears and sobbing. This solitary virtue has breathed into the Rubaiyat life. The Bible is a series of books bound in a single volume, because all relate to a single theme: history, biography, letters, proverbial philosophy, pure idyls, lofty eloquence, elegiac poetry, ethics, legal codes, memorabilia, commentaries on campaigns more influential on the world's destiny than Caesar's, epic poetry, lyrics, and a sublime drama. The Bible is not a book, but a library; not a literary effort, but a literature. It sums up the literature of the Hebrew race, aside from which that race produced nothing literary worthy of perpetuation. One lofty theme stung them to genius, their mission and literature converging in Christ and there ending. The Bible as literature marks the book as unique as a literary fact as it is as a religious fact; in either, standing solitary. That lovers of literature have passed these surprising literary merits by with comparative inattention is attributable, doubtless, to the over-shadowing moral majesty of the volume. The larger obscured the lesser glory. But, after all, can we feel other than shame in recalling how our college curricula contain the masterpieces of Greek, Latin, English, and German literature, and find no niche for the Bible, superior to all in moral elevation and literary charm and inspiration? "Ruth" is easily the superior of "Paul and Virginia" or "Vicar of Wakefield." "Lamentations" is as noble an elegy as sorrow has set to words; the Gospels are not surpassed by Boswell's "Johnson" in power of recreating the subject of the biography; the Psalms sing themselves without aid of harp or organ; "The Acts" is a history taking rank with Thucydides; and Job is the sublimest drama ever penned. If these encomiums are high, they must not be deemed extravagant, rather the necessary eulogy of truth.