Chapter 34

JUSTINA-- Saw you A man go forth from my apartment now?-- I scarce sustain myself!

LISANDER-- A man here!

JUSTINA--Have you not seen him?

LIVIA-- No, lady.

JUSTINA--I saw him.

LISANDER-- 'Tis impossible; the doors Which led to this apartment were all locked.

_Livia_ [_aside_]--I dare say it was Moscon whom she saw, For he was locked up in my room.

LISANDER-- It must Have been some image of thy phantasy. Such melancholy as thou feedest is Skillful in forming such in the vain air Out of the motes and atoms of the day.

LIVIA--My master's in the right.

JUSTINA-- Oh, would it were Delusion; but I fear some greater ill. I feel as if out of my bleeding bosom My heart was torn in fragments; ay, Some mortal spell is wrought against my frame. So potent was the charm, that had not God Shielded my humble innocence from wrong, I should have sought my sorrow and my shame With willing steps. Livia, quick, bring my cloak, For I must seek refuge from these extremes Even in the temple of the highest God Which secretly the faithful worship.

LIVIA-- Here.

_Justina_ [_putting on her cloak_]--In this, as in a shroud of snow, may I Quench the consuming fire in which I burn, Wasting away!

LISANDER-- And I will go with thee!

_Livia_ [_aside_]--When I once see them safe out of the house, I shall breathe freely.

JUSTINA-- So do I confide In thy just favor, Heaven!

LISANDER-- Let us go.

JUSTINA--Thine is the cause, great God! Turn, for my sake And for thine own, mercifully to me!

Translation of Shelley.

DREAMS AND REALITIES

From 'Such Stuff as Dreams are Made Of,' Edward Fitzgerald's version of 'La Vida Es Sueno'

[The scene is a tower. Clotaldo is persuading Segismund that his experiences have not been real, but dreams, and discusses the possible relation of existence to a state of dreaming. The play itself is based on the familiar _motif_ of which Christopher Sly furnishes a ready example.]

CLOTALDO--Princes and princesses and counselors, Fluster'd to right and left--my life made at-- But that was nothing-- Even the white-hair'd, venerable King Seized on--Indeed, you made wild work of it; And so discover'd in your outward action, Flinging your arms about you in your sleep, Grinding your teeth--and, as I now remember, Woke mouthing out judgment and execution, On those about you.

SEGISMUND-- Ay, I did indeed.

CLOTALDO--Ev'n your eyes stare wild; your hair stands up-- Your pulses throb and flutter, reeling still Under the storm of such a dream--

SEGISMUND-- A dream! That seem'd as swearable reality As what I wake in now.

CLOTALDO-- Ay--wondrous how Imagination in a sleeping brain Out of the uncontingent senses draws Sensations strong as from the real touch; That we not only laugh aloud, and drench With tears our pillow; but in the agony Of some imaginary conflict, fight And struggle--ev'n as you did; some, 'tis thought. Under the dreamt-of stroke of death have died.

SEGISMUND--And what so very strange, too--in that world Where place as well as people all was strange, Ev'n I almost as strange unto myself, You only, you, Clotaldo--you, as much And palpably yourself as now you are, Came in this very garb you ever wore; By such a token of the past, you said, To assure me of that seeming present.

CLOTALDO-- Ay?

SEGISMUND--Ay; and even told me of the very stars You tell me hereof--how in spite of them, I was enlarged to all that glory.

CLOTALDO-- Ay, By the false spirits' nice contrivance, thus A little truth oft leavens all the false, The better to delude us.

SEGISMUND-- For you know 'Tis nothing but a dream?

CLOTALDO-- Nay, you yourself Know best how lately you awoke from that You know you went to sleep on.-- Why, have you never dreamt the like before?

SEGISMUND--Never, to such reality.

CLOTALDO-- Such dreams Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations Of that ambition that lies smoldering Under the ashes of the lowest fortune: By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost The reins of sensible comparison, We fly at something higher than we are-- Scarce ever dive to lower--to be kings Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold; Nay, mounting heav'n itself on eagle wings,-- Which, by the way, now that I think of it, May furnish us the key to this high flight-- That royal Eagle we were watching, and Talking of as you went to sleep last night.

SEGISMUND--Last night? Last night?

CLOTALDO-- Ay; do you not remember Envying his immunity of flight, As, rising from his throne of rock, he sail'd Above the mountains far into the west, That burned about him, while with poising wings He darkled in it as a burning brand Is seen to smolder in the fire it feeds?

SEGISMUND--Last night--last night--Oh, what a day was that Between that last night and this sad to-day!

CLOTALDO-- And yet perhaps Only some few dark moments, into which Imagination, once lit up within And unconditional of time and space, Can pour infinities.

SEGISMUND-- And I remember How the old man they call'd the King, who wore The crown of gold about his silver hair, And a mysterious girdle round his waist, Just when my rage was roaring at its height, And after which it all was dark again, Bade me beware lest all should be a dream.

CLOTALDO--Ay--there another specialty of dreams, That once the dreamer 'gins to dream he dreams, His foot is on the very verge of waking.

SEGISMUND--Would that it had been on the verge of death That knows no waking-- Lifting me up to glory, to fall back, Stunned, crippled--wretcheder than ev'n before.

CLOTALDO--Yet not so glorious, Segismund, if you Your visionary honor wore so ill As to work murder and revenge on those Who meant you well.

SEGISMUND--Who meant me!--me! their Prince, Chain'd like a felon--

CLOTALDO-- Stay, stay--Not so fast. You dream'd the Prince, remember.

SEGISMUND-- Then in dream Revenged it only.

CLOTALDO-- True. But as they say Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul Yet uncorrected of the higher Will, So that men sometimes in their dream confess An unsuspected or forgotten self; One must beware to check--ay, if one may, Stifle ere born, such passion in ourselves As makes, we see, such havoc with our sleep, And ill reacts upon the waking day. And, by the by, for one test, Segismund, Between such swearable realities-- Since dreaming, madness, passion, are akin In missing each that salutary rein Of reason, and the guiding will of man: One test, I think, of waking sanity Shall be that conscious power of self-control To curb all passion, but much, most of all, That evil and vindictive, that ill squares With human, and with holy canon less, Which bids us pardon ev'n our enemies, And much more those who, out of no ill-will, Mistakenly have taken up the rod Which Heaven, they think, has put into their hands.

SEGISMUND--I think I soon shall have to try again-- Sleep has not yet done with me.

CLOTALDO-- Such a sleep! Take my advice--'tis early yet--the sun Scarce up above the mountain; go within, And if the night deceived you, try anew With morning; morning dreams they say come true.

SEGISMUND--Oh, rather pray for me a sleep so fast As shall obliterate dream and waking too.

[_Exit into the tower._

CLOTALDO--So sleep; sleep fast: and sleep away those two Night-potions, and the waking dream between, Which dream thou must believe; and if to see Again, poor Segismund! that dream must be.-- And yet--and yet--in these our ghostly lives, Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, How if our waking life, like that of sleep, Be all a dream in that eternal life To which we wake not till we sleep in death? How if, I say, the senses we now trust For date of sensible comparison,-- Ay, ev'n the Reason's self that dates with them, Should be in essence of intensity Hereafter so transcended, and awoke To a perceptive subtlety so keen As to confess themselves befool'd before, In all that now they will avouch for most? One man--like this--but only so much longer As life is longer than a summer's day, Believed himself a king upon his throne, And play'd at hazard with his fellows' lives, Who cheaply dream'd away their lives to him. The sailor dream'd of tossing on the flood: The soldier of his laurels grown in blood: The lover of the beauty that he knew Must yet dissolve to dusty residue: The merchant and the miser of his bags Of finger'd gold; the beggar of his rags: And all this stage of earth on which we seem Such busy actors, and the parts we play'd Substantial as the shadow of a shade, And Dreaming but a dream within a dream!

THE DREAM CALLED LIFE

Segismund's Speech Closing the 'Vida Es Sueno': Fitzgerald's Version

A dream it was in which I found myself, And you that hail me now, then hailed me king, In a brave palace that was all my own, Within, and all without it, mine; until, Drunk with excess of majesty and pride, Methought I towered so high and swelled so wide That of myself I burst the glittering bubble Which my ambition had about me blown, And all again was darkness. Such a dream As this, in which I may be walking now; Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows, Who make believe to listen: but anon, Kings, princes, captains, warriors, plume and steel, Ay, even with all your airy theatre, May flit into the air you seem to rend With acclamations, leaving me to wake In the dark tower; or dreaming that I wake From this, that waking is; or this and that Both waking or both dreaming;--such a doubt Confounds and clouds our mortal life about. But whether wake or dreaming, this I know,-- How dreamwise human glories come and go; Whose momentary tenure not to break, Walking as one who knows he soon may wake, So fairly carry the full cup, so well Disordered insolence and passion quell, That there be nothing after to upbraid Dreamer or doer in the part he played; Whether to-morrow's dawn shall break the spell, Or the last trumpet of the eternal Day, When dreaming with the night shall pass away.

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN

(1782-1850)

BY W. P. TRENT

John C. Calhoun's importance as a statesman has naturally stood in the way of his recognition as a writer, and in like manner his reputation as an orator has overshadowed his just claims to be considered our most original political thinker. The six volumes of his collected works, which unfortunately do not embrace his still inaccessible private correspondence, are certainly not exhilarating or attractive reading; but they are unique in the literature of America, if not of the world, as models of passionless logical analysis. Whether passionless logical analysis is ever an essential quality of true literature, is a matter on which opinions will differ; but until the question is settled in the negative, Calhoun's claims to be considered a writer of marked force and originality cannot be ignored. It is true that circumstances have invalidated much of his political teaching, and that it was always negative and destructive rather than positive and constructive; it is true also that much of the interest attaching to his works is historical rather than literary in character: but when all allowances are made, it will be found that the 'Disquisition on Government' must still be regarded as the most remarkable political treatise our country has produced, and that the position of its author as the head of a school of political thought is commanding, and in a way unassailable.

The precise character of Calhoun's political philosophy, the keynote of which was the necessity and means of defending the rights of minorities, cannot be understood without a brief glance at his political career. His birth in 1782 just after the Revolution, and in South Carolina, gave him the opportunity to share in the victory that the West and the far South won over the Virginians, headed by Madison. His training at Yale gave a nationalistic bias to his early career, and determined that search for the _via media_ between consolidation and anarchy which resulted in the doctrine of nullification. His service in Congress and as Secretary of War under Monroe gave him a practical training in affairs that was not without influence in qualifying his tendency to indulge in doctrinaire speculation. His service as Vice-President afforded the leisure and his break with Jackson the occasion, for his close study of the Constitution, to discover how the South might preserve slavery and yet continue in the Union. Finally, his position as a non-aristocratic leader of a body of aristocrats, and his Scotch-Irish birth and training, gave a peculiar strenuousness to his support of slavery, which is of course the corner-stone of his political philosophy; and determined his reliance upon logic rather than upon an appeal to the passions as the best means of inculcating his teaching and of establishing his policy. His political treatises, 'A Discourse on Government' and 'On the Constitution and Government of the United States,' written just before his death in 1850; his pamphlets like the 'South Carolina Exposition' and the 'Address to the People of South Carolina'; and the great speeches delivered in the Senate from 1832 to the end of his term, especially those in which he defended against Webster the doctrine of nullification, could have emanated only from an up-country South-Carolinian who had inherited the mantle of Jefferson, and had sat at the feet of John Taylor of Carolina and of John Randolph of Roanoke. Calhoun was, then, the logical outcome of his environment and his training; he was the fearless and honest representative of his people and section; and he was the master from whom rash disciples like Jefferson Davis broke away, when they found that logical analysis of the Constitution was a poor prop for slavery against the rising tide of civilization.

As a thinker Calhoun is remarkable for great powers of analysis and exposition. As a writer he is chiefly noted for the even dignity and general serviceableness of his style. He writes well, but rather like a logician than like an inspired orator. He has not the stateliness of Webster, and is devoid of the power of arousing enthusiasm. The splendor of Burke's imagination is utterly beyond him, as is also the epigrammatic brilliance of John Randolph,--from whom, however, he took not a few lessons in constitutional interpretation. Indeed, it must be confessed that for all his clearness and subtlety of intellect as a thinker, Calhoun is as a writer distinctly heavy. In this as in many other respects he reminds us of the Romans, to whom he was continually referring. Like them he is conspicuous for strength of practical intellect; like them he is lacking in sublimity, charm, and nobility. It follows then that Calhoun will rarely be resorted to as a model of eloquence, but that he will continue to be read both on account of the substantial additions he made to political philosophy, and of the interesting exposition he gave of theories and ideas once potent in the nation's history.

Notwithstanding the bitterness of accusation brought against him, he was not a traitor nor a man given over to selfish ambition, as Dr. von Holst, his most competent biographer and critic, has clearly shown. Calhoun believed both in slavery and in the Union, and tried to maintain a balance between the two, because he thought that only in this way could his section maintain its prestige or even its existence. He failed, as any other man would have done; and we find him, like Cassandra, a prophet whom we cannot love. But he did prophesy truly as to the fate of the South; and in the course of his strenuous labors to divert the ruin he saw impending, he gave to the world the most masterly analysis of the rights of the minority and of the best methods of securing them that has yet come from the pen of a publicist.

REMARKS ON THE RIGHT OF PETITION

Delivered in the Senate, February 13th, 1840

Mr. Calhoun said he rose to express the pleasure he felt at the evidence which the remarks of the Senator from Kentucky furnished, of the progress of truth on the subject of abolition. He had spoken with strong approbation of the principle laid down in a recent pamphlet, that two races of different character and origin could not coexist in the same country without the subordination of the one to the other. He was gratified to hear the Senator give assent to so important a principle in application to the condition of the South. He had himself, several years since, stated the same in more specific terms: that it was impossible for two races, so dissimilar in every respect as the European and African that inhabit the southern portion of this Union, to exist together in nearly equal numbers in any other relation than that which existed there. He also added that experience had shown that they could so exist in peace and happiness there, certainly to the great benefit of the inferior race; and that to destroy it was to doom the latter to destruction. But he uttered these important truths then in vain, as far as the side to which the Senator belongs is concerned.

He trusted the progress of truth would not, however, stop at the point to which it has arrived with the Senator, and that it will make some progress in regard to what is called the right of petition. Never was a right so much mystified and magnified. To listen to the discussion, here and elsewhere, you would suppose it to be the most essential and important right: so far from it, he undertook to aver that under our free and popular system it was among the least of all our political rights. It had been superseded in a great degree by the far higher right of general suffrage, and by the practice, now so common, of instruction. There could be no local grievance but what could be reached by these, except it might be the grievance affecting a minority, which could be no more redressed by petition than by them. The truth is, that the right of petition could scarcely be said to be the right _of a freeman_. It belongs to despotic governments more properly, and might be said to be the last right of slaves. Who ever heard of petition in the free States of antiquity? We had borrowed our notions in regard to it from our British ancestors, with whom it had a value for their imperfect representation far greater than it has with us; and it is owing to that that it has a place at all in our Constitution. The truth is, that the right has been so far superseded in a political point of view, that it has ceased to be what the Constitution contemplated it to be,--a shield to protect against wrongs; and has been perverted into a sword to attack the rights of others--to cause a grievance instead of the means of redressing grievances, as in the case of abolition petitions. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Tappan] has viewed this subject in its proper light, and has taken a truly patriotic and constitutional stand in refusing to present these firebrands, for which I heartily thank him in the name of my State. Had the Senator from Kentucky followed the example, he would have rendered inestimable service to the country....

It is useless to attempt concealment. The presentation of these incendiary petitions is itself an infraction of the Constitution. All acknowledge--the Senator himself--that the property which they are presented to destroy is guaranteed by the Constitution. Now I ask: If we have the right under the Constitution to hold the property (which none question), have we not also the right to hold it under the same sacred instrument _in peace and quiet_? Is it not a direct infraction then of the Constitution, to present petitions here in the common council of the Union, and to us, the agents appointed to carry its provisions into effect and to guard the rights it secures, the professed aim of which is to destroy the property guaranteed by the instrument? There can be but one answer to these questions on the part of those who present such petitions: that the right of such petition is higher and more sacred than the Constitution and our oaths to preserve and to defend it. To such monstrous results does the doctrine lead.