Part 17
From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; This he perched upon a tripod— Crouched beneath its dusky cover— Stretched his hand, enforcing silence— Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!” Mystic, awful was the process. All the family in order Sat before him for their pictures: Each in turn, as he was taken, Volunteered his own suggestions, His ingenious suggestions. First the Governor, the Father: He suggested velvet curtains Looped about a massy pillar; And the corner of a table, Of a rosewood dining-table. He would hold a scroll of something, Hold it firmly in his left-hand; He would keep his right-hand buried (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat; He would contemplate the distance With a look of pensive meaning, As of ducks that die in tempests. Grand, heroic was the notion: Yet the picture failed entirely: Failed, because he moved a little, Moved, because he couldn’t help it, Next, his better half took courage; _She_ would have her picture taken, She came dressed beyond description, Dressed in jewels and in satin Far too gorgeous for an empress. Gracefully she sat down sideways, With a simper scarcely human, Holding in her hand a bouquet Rather larger than a cabbage. All the while that she was sitting, Still the lady chattered, chattered, Like a monkey in the forest, “Am I sitting still?” she asked him “Is my face enough in profile? Shall I hold the bouquet higher? Will it come into the picture?” And the picture failed completely. Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab He suggested curves of beauty, Curves pervading all his figure, Which the eye might follow onward, Till they centered in the breast-pin, Centered in the golden breast-pin. He had learnt it all from Ruskin And perhaps he had not fully Understood his author’s meaning; But, whatever was the reason, All was fruitless, as the picture Ended in an utter failure. Next to him the eldest daughter: She suggested very little, Only asked if he would take her With her look of “passive beauty.” Her idea of passive beauty Was a squinting of the left-eye, Was a drooping of the right-eye, Was a smile that went up sideways To the corner of the nostrils. Hiawatha, when she asked him, Took no notice of the question, Looked as if he hadn’t heard it; But, when pointedly appealed to, Smiled in his peculiar manner, Coughed and said it “didn’t matter,” Bit his lip and changed the subject. Nor in this was he mistaken, As the picture failed completely. So in turn the other sisters. Last, the youngest son was taken: Very rough and thick his hair was, Very round and red his face was, Very dusty was his jacket, Very fidgety his manner. And his overbearing sisters Called him names he disapproved of: Called him Johnny, “Daddy’s Darling,” Called him Jacky, “Scrubby School-boy.” And, so awful was the picture, In comparison the others Seemed, to his bewildered fancy, To have partially succeeded. Finally my Hiawatha Tumbled all the tribe together, (“Grouped” is not the right expression). And, as happy chance would have it, Did at last obtain a picture Where the faces all succeeded: Each came out a perfect likeness. Then they joined and all abused it, Unrestrainedly abused it, As “the worst and ugliest picture They could possibly have dreamed of. Giving one such strange expressions— Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. Really any one would take us (Any one that did not know us) For the most unpleasant people!” (Hiawatha seemed to think so, Seemed to think it not unlikely). All together rang their voices, Angry, loud, discordant voices, As of dogs that howl in concert, As of cats that wail in chorus. But my Hiawatha’s patience, His politeness and his patience, Unaccountably had vanished, And he left that happy party. Neither did he leave them slowly, With the calm deliberation, The intense deliberation Of a photographic artist: But he left them in a hurry, Left them in a mighty hurry, Stating that he would not stand it, Stating in emphatic language What he’d be before he’d stand it. Thus departed Hiawatha.
LEWIS CARROLL (C. L. Dodgson) 1832-1898.
* * * * *
It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man’s death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too,—as if it were comparatively a light thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey.
GEORGE ELIOT (_Janet’s Repentance_).
* * * * *
It has been said by Schiller, in his letters on aesthetic culture, that the sense of beauty never farthered the performance of a single duty.
Although this gross and inconceivable falsity will hardly be accepted by any one in so many terms, seeing that there are few so utterly lost but that they receive, and know that they receive, at certain moments, strength of some kind, or rebuke from the appealings of outward things; and that it is not possible for a Christian man to walk across so much as a rood of the natural earth, with mind unagitated and rightly poised, without receiving strength and hope from stone, flower, leaf or sound, nor without a sense of a dew falling upon him out of the sky; though I say this falsity is not wholly and in terms admitted, yet it seems to be partly and practically so in much of the doing and teaching even of holy men, who in the recommending of the love of God to us, refer but seldom to those things in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown; though they insist much on his giving of bread, and raiment, and health (which he gives to all inferior creatures), they require us not to thank him for that glory of his works which he has permitted us alone to perceive: they tell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send us not, like Isaac, into the fields at even; they dwell on the duty of self-denial, but they exhibit not the _duty of delight_.[29]
JOHN RUSKIN (_Modern Painters_, III, I, XV).
* * * * *
Not on the vulgar mass Called “work” must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O’er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
But all, the world’s coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All, I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped,
So, take and use thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same.
ROBERT BROWNING (_Rabbi ben Ezra_).
“All (that) I could never be, All (that) man ignored in me.” All that the world could not know, a man’s thoughts, desires, and intentions, all that he wished or tried to be or do, although unknown to his fellows, have their value in God’s eyes. Man is the Cup, whose shape (i.e., character) has been formed by the wheel of the great Potter, God. See further as to this Eastern metaphor.
The late Mrs. A. W. Verrall, widow of Doctor Verrall and herself a brilliant scholar, pointed out in the _Proceedings_ of the Society for Psychical Research, June, 1911, a probable connection between “Rabbi ben Ezra,” and “Omar Khayyam,” and I do not think that her interesting views have been published elsewhere.
Both poems centre round the idea of man as a Cup, but treat the metaphor from very different standpoints. Omar’s cup (quoting from the first edition) is to be filled with “Life’s Liquor” (ii), with “Wine! _Red_ Wine!” (vi), with what “clears To-Day of past regrets” (xx); the object is to drown the memory of the fact that “without asking” we are “hurried hither” and “hurried hence” (xxx); the “Ruby Vintage” is to be drunk “with old Khayyam,” and “when the Angel with his darker Draught draws up” to us we are to take that draught without shrinking (xlviii). On the other hand Rabbi ben Ezra’s Cup is to be used by the great Potter. We are told to look “not down but up! to uses of a cup” (30). The Rabbi asks “God who mouldest men ... to take and use His work” (32) and the ultimate purpose of the Cup, when it has been made “perfect as planned,” is to slake the thirst of the Master.
The comparison of man to the Clay of the Potter in both poems is not sufficient in itself to show any connection between them. Such a comparison is found, as Fitzgerald reminds us, “in the Literature of the World from the Hebrew Prophets to the present time”[30]; and it is as appropriately employed by the Hebrew as by the Persian thinker. But Mrs. Verrall has other grounds:
The little pamphlet in its brown wrapper containing the _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ was first published by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859, and, as is well known, attracted so little attention that, although there were only 250 copies, it found its way into the two-penny boxes of the book-sellers, (It now sells for about £50!) But, nevertheless, the poem was eagerly read and enthusiastically praised by a small group, among whom were Swinburne and Rossetti. In 1861 Robert Browning came to live in London, and often saw Rossetti, who was his friend. It is, therefore, very improbable that he did not learn of the poem, which had so impressed Rossetti. In 1864 “Rabbi ben Ezra” was published in the volume called _Dramatis Personae_.
Again, there is intrinsic evidence that Browning intended a direct refutation of Omar’s theory of life. Compare verses 26 and 27 of “Rabbi ben Ezra” with verses xxxvi and xxxvii of “Omar Khayyam” (first edition).
Omar says that he “watched the Potter thumping his wet clay,” and, thereupon advises:
Ah, fill the Cup;—what boots it to repeat How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!
Rabbi ben Ezra says:
... Note that Potter’s wheel. That metaphor!
and proceeds:
Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, “Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize To-day!”
Fool! all that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
Although the “carpe diem” (“seize to-day”) theory of life is no doubt common to all literatures, the cumulative effect of Mrs. Verrall’s argument is strong, although not conclusive.
As regards the above verses, compare the next quotation.
* * * * *
From Thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, Thy dread Sabaoth: _I_ will?—the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth To look that, even that, in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? This:—’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
R. BROWNING (_Saul_).
_Sabaoth_, armies, hosts. “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.”
* * * * *
Let the thick curtain fall; I better know than all How little I have gained. How vast the unattained.
Not by the page word-painted Let life be banned or sainted; Deeper than written scroll The colours of the soul.
Sweeter than any sung My songs that found no tongue; Nobler than any fact My wish that failed of act.
J. G. WHITTIER (_My Triumph_).
* * * * *
Between the great things that we _cannot_ do, and the small things we _will_ not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing.
ADOLPH MONOD (1802-1856).
* * * * *
Reputation is what men and women think of us; Character is what God and the angels know of us.
THOMAS PAINE.
* * * * *
Love is the Amen of the Universe.
NOVALIS.
* * * * *
He (Dr. Johnson) would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. “Much,” said he, “may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.”
BOSWELL (_Life of Johnson_).
* * * * *
(A Mr. Strahan, a Scotchman, asked Dr. Johnson what he thought of Scotland) “That it is a very vile country to be sure, Sir,” returned for answer Dr. Johnson. “Well, Sir!” replied the other, somewhat mortified, “God made it.” “Certainly he did,” answered Mr. Johnson again, “but we must always remember that _he made it for Scotchmen_.”
MRS. PIOZZI (_Johnsoniana_).
These are the two best of Johnson’s chaffing jibes against Scotchmen. The neatness of the latter is, to my mind, spoilt by the words at the end, which I have omitted: “and—comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan,—but God made hell.” The following may also be quoted as showing both Johnson and that clever charlatan, Wilkes, quizzing Boswell (year 1781):
_Wilkes_: “Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an advocate at the Scotch bar?”
_Boswell_: “I believe two thousand pounds.”
_Wilkes_: “How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?”
_Johnson_: “Why, Sir, the money may be spent in _England_; but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?”
Many Scotchmen undoubtedly enjoy chaff against themselves and their country, and I think this was so with Boswell. It is a phase of social psychology that needs explaining.
In these jokes Johnson was, consciously or not, influenced by the fine Royalist poet, John Cleveland (1613-1658); but the latter was very much in earnest. He detested the Scotch for fighting against Charles I. His references to Scotland in _The Rebel Scot_ are wonderfully clever:—
A land that brings in question and suspense God’s omnipresence.
And again:—
Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom; Not forced him wander, but confined him home!
* * * * *
God is present by His essence; which, because it is infinite, cannot be contained within the limits of any place; and because He is of an essential purity and spiritual nature, He cannot be undervalued by being supposed present in the places of unnatural uncleanness: because, as the sun, reflecting upon the mud of strands and shores, is unpolluted in its beams, so is God not dishonoured when we suppose Him in every one of His creatures, and in every part of every one of them.
JEREMY TAYLOR (_Holy Living_, Ch. 1, Sec. 3).
There is an old Scottish proverb, “The sun is no waur for shining on the midden.”
* * * * *
I dare say Alexander the Great was somewhat staggered in his plans of conquest by Parmenio’s way of putting things. “After you have conquered Persia what will you do?” “Then I shall conquer India.” “After you have conquered India, what will you do?” “Conquer Scythia.” “And after you have conquered Scythia, what will you do?” “Sit down and rest.” “Well,” said Parmenio to the conqueror, “why not sit down and rest now?”
A. K. H. BOYD (_The Recreations of a Country Parson_).
I include this because it is a good short paraphrase of the actual story of Pyrrhus and Cineas (_Plutarch’s Lives_—“_Pyrrhus_”) and because of the curious absurdity of attributing such philosophic advice to the warrior, Parmenio. This general was the only one of Alexander’s old advisers who urged him to invade Asia! (_Plutarch’s Lives_—“_Alexander_”).
* * * * *
Sorrow and care and anxiety may quite well live in Elizabethan cottages, grown over with honeysuckle and jasmine; and very sad eyes may look forth from windows around which roses twine.
A. K. H. BOYD (_The Recreations of a Country Parson_).
This book had a great vogue, but not sufficient merit to preserve it from oblivion.
* * * * *
CANADIAN BOAT-SONG
_From the Gaelic._
Listen to me, as when ye heard our father Sing long ago the song of other shores— Listen to me, and then in chorus gather All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars:
CHORUS.
_Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;_ _But we are exiles from our father’s land._
From the lone sheiling of the misty island Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas— Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, And we in dreams behold the Hebrides: _Fair these broad meads, etc._
We ne’er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley, Where ’tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream, In arms around the patriarch banner rally, Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam: _Fair these broad meads, etc._
When the bold kindred, in the time long vanish’d, Conquered the soil and fortified the keep,— No seer foretold the children would be banish’d, That a degenerate Lord might boast his sheep; _Fair these broad meads, etc._
Come foreign rage—let Discord burst in slaughter! O then for clansmen true, and stern claymore— The hearts that would have given their blood like water, Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar. _Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;_ _But we are exiles from our fathers’ land._
The authorship of these verses is uncertain, but it probably lies between John Galt, author of _Annals of the Parish_, and Lockhart, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. The verses were quoted by Professor Wilson (Christopher North) in his _Noctes Ambrosianae_ in _Blackwood_, Sept., 1829, but, because Wilson was not the author, they are not reproduced in his collected works (_Blackwood_, 1855).
_A degenerate Lord_, &c. This refers to the eviction of the Highland crofters and cottars. In 1829 the Duke of Hamilton had just cleared the population out of the Isle of Arran.
_Sheiling_ or _Shealing_, a hut used by shepherds, fishermen, or others for shelter when at work at a distance from home.
* * * * *
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.
TENNYSON (_Locksley Hall_).
* * * * *
If thou wouldst have high God thy soul assure That she herself shall as herself endure, Shall in no alien semblance, thine and wise, Fulfil her and be young in Paradise, One way I know; forget, forswear, disdain Thine own best hopes, thine utmost loss and gain, Till when at last thou scarce rememberest now If on the earth be such a man as thou, Nor hast one thought of self-surrender,—no, For self is none remaining to forego,— If ever, then shall strong persuasion fall That in thy giving thou hast gained thine all, Given the poor present, gained the boundless scope, And kept thee virgin for the further hope.... When all base thoughts like frighted harpies flown In her own beauty leave the soul alone; When Love,—not rosy-flushed as he began, But Love, still Love, the prisoned God in man,— Shows his face glorious, shakes his banner free, Cries like a captain for Eternity:— O halcyon air across the storms of youth, O trust him, he is true, he is one with Truth! Nay, is he Christ? I know not; no man knows The right name of the heavenly Anterôs,— But here is God, whatever God may be, And whomsoe’er we worship, this is He.
F. W. MYERS (_The Implicit Promise of Immortality_).
Anterôs is the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not return the love of others, as otherwise his brother Erôs, god of love, will be unhappy.
The fine poem from which this is quoted represents one of the phases of Myers’ experience. It was published in 1882, but written about ten years before. He had then lost his faith in Christianity, but believed in a future life on grounds based partly upon philosophy and partly on “vision.” He had those moments of exaltation when, as he says:
The open secret flashes on the brain, As if one almost guessed it, almost knew Whence we have sailed and voyage whereunto.
For entrance into the future life, Love and complete Self-surrender are the best equipment for the soul.
* * * * *
But all through life I see a Cross, Where sons of God yield up their breath: There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death, There is no vision but by Faith. Nor glory but by bearing shame, Nor Justice but by taking blame; And that Eternal Passion saith, “Be emptied of glory and right and name.”
W. C. SMITH (_Olrig Grange_).
* * * * *
Life is short, and we have not too much time for gladdening the lives of those who are travelling the dark road with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
AMIEL’S _Journal_.
* * * * *
SELF-SACRIFICE
What though thine arm hath conquered in the fight,— What though the vanquished yield unto thy sway, Or riches garnered pave thy golden way,— Not therefore hast thou gained the sovran height Of man’s nobility! No halo’s light From these shall round thee shed its sacred ray; If these be all thy joy,—then dark thy day, And darker still thy swift approaching night!
But if in thee more truly than in others Hath dwelt Love’s charity;—if by thine aid Others have passed above thee, and if thou, Though victor, yieldest victory to thy brothers, Though conquering conquered, and a vassal made— Then take thy crown, well mayst thou wear it now.
SAMUEL WADDINGTON.
* * * * *
We bury decay in the earth; we plant in it the perishing; we feed it with offensive refuse: but nothing grows out of it that is not clean; it gives us back life and beauty.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (_My Summer in a Garden_).
* * * * *
SOUL’S BEAUTY
Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath. Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How passionately and irretrievably, In what fond flight, how many ways and days!
D. G. ROSSETTI.
Although Rossetti was not a classical student, he seems here to have arrived at the Platonic idea of an abstract Beauty, of whose essence are all beautiful things, “sea or sky or woman.” Love and death, terror and mystery guard her, as a goddess on her throne, and all lovers of the beautiful are worshippers at her shrine.
* * * * *
Thinking is only a dream of feeling; a dead feeling; a pale-grey, feeble life.
NOVALIS.
* * * * *
A whetstone cannot cut, but it makes iron sharp, and gives it a keen edge.
ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.).