Part 28

This is the direct answer to George Eliot, allowing her very important assumption _that we have a duty towards others_, including those who come after us. But this assumption is logically unwarranted, if at the end of our brief years we pass into nothingness and have no further concern with any living being. This brings us to a familiar train of argument. Why should we be irresistibly impelled to sacrifice ourselves for the good of others? And, apart from altruism, why should we develop _our own_ higher attributes—why seek to ennoble our own selves, since those selves disappear? Why fill with jewels the hollow log that is to be thrown on the fire? Why are we swayed by a sense of honour, a desire for justice, a love of purity and truth and beauty, a craving for affection, a thirst for knowledge, which persist up to the very gates of death? To take an illustration of Edward Caird’s, is not the path of life which is so traversed like the path of a star to the astronomer, which enables him to prophesy its future course—beyond the end which hides it from our eyes? Otherwise, to use another simile, it is as though Pheidias spent his life sculpturing in snow.

(This does not mean, as the sceptic usually sneers, that the virtuous man merely desires a reward for his virtuous conduct. It is an inquiry why he _is_ virtuous—what is a sane view of the scheme of the universe.)

In forming the conclusion that there was no possible future for man, George Eliot and an immense number of other thinkers of her time made also the vast assumption that there was nothing left to discover. Blanco White’s sonnet alone might have taught them the folly of such premature judgments. Or we may take an illustration, used by F. W. H. Myers, namely, the discovery that, far beyond the red and the violet of the spectrum or the rainbow, extend rays that have been (and will for ever be) invisible to our eyes. Since George Eliot’s time the Society for Psychical Research has during the last thirty-five years accumulated unanswerable evidence of survival after death.

* * * * *

Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, “There is no joy but calm!” Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?...

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea. Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

TENNYSON (_The Lotos-Eaters_).

See preceding quotation.

* * * * *

We may well begin to doubt whether the known and the natural can suffice for human life. No sooner do we try to think so than pessimism raises its head. The more our thoughts widen and deepen, as the universe grows upon us and we become accustomed to boundless space and time, the more petrifying is the contrast of our own insignificance, the more contemptible become the pettiness, shortness, fragility of the individual life. A moral paralysis creeps upon us. For awhile we comfort ourselves with the notion of self-sacrifice; we say, what matter if I pass, let me think of others! But the _other_ has become contemptible no less than the self; all human griefs alike seem little worth assuaging, human happiness too paltry at the best to be worth increasing. The whole moral world is reduced to a point; good and evil, right and wrong become infinitesimal ephemeral matters, while eternity and infinity remain attributes of that only which is outside the sphere of morality. Life becomes more intolerable the more we know and discover, so long as everything widens and deepens except our own duration, and that remains as pitiful as ever. The affections die away in a world where everything great and enduring is cold; they die of their own conscious feebleness and bootlessness.

SIR J. R. SEELEY (_Natural Religion_).

See the two preceding quotations.

* * * * *

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

W. S. LANDOR

* * * * *

LOVE-SWEETNESS

Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfall About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head In gracious fostering union garlanded; Her tremulous smiles; her glances’ sweet recall Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial; Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shed On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led Back to her mouth which answers there for all:— What sweeter than these things, except the thing In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:— The confident heart’s still fervour: the swift beat And soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing, Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring, The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?

D. G. ROSSETTI.

* * * * *

Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him. _Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and there am I._

(_Logia of Jesus_).

This is one of the Logia or Sayings of Jesus written on papyrus in the third century and discovered in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897. The italics, of course, are mine.

* * * * *

The first of all Gospels is this, that a Lie cannot endure for ever.

* * * * *

Meanwhile it is singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided you do not handle it roughly.

* * * * *

There are quarrels in which even Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly, might cover himself with glory—of a temporary nature.

* * * * *

... Nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.

* * * * *

Thou art bound hastily for the City of _Nowhere_; and wilt arrive!

CARLYLE (_French Revolution_).

It is interesting to learn from a correspondent of _The Spectator_ (Feb. 17, 1917) that Carlyle wrote two verses which he combined with Shakespeare’s “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” (Cymbeline iv, 2) to make a requiem, of which he was very fond:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.

Hurts thee now no harsh behest, Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger; Trouble’s storm has got to rest, To his place the wayworn stranger.

Want is done, and grief and pain, Done is all thy bitter weeping: Thou art safe from wind and rain In the Mother’s bosom sleeping.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages: Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

* * * * *

It takes two for a kiss, Only one for a sigh; Twain by twain we marry, One by one we die. Joy has its partnerships, Grief weeps alone; Cana had many guests, Gethsemane had none.

FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES.

Byron in “Don Juan” says:

All who joy would win must share it, Happiness was born a twin.

* * * * *

(Speaking of the rare and exalted nature of Dorothea, who has adopted the normal, domestic married life) Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me, as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_).

This passage, which finely expresses an important truth, is at the end of _Middlemarch_. The reference is to a story of Herodotus. He says that Cyrus, the Persian, was angry with the river Gyndes (Diyalah), because it had drowned one of the white horses, which, as being sacred to the sun, accompanied the expedition. He, therefore, employed his army to divert the river into 360 channels (representing the number of days in the year). The story was probably told to Herodotus as explaining the great irrigation system that existed in Mesopotamia. The Diyalah flows into the Tigris not far from Baghdad.

* * * * *

Any sort of meaning looks intense When all beside itself means and looks nought.

R. BROWNING (_Fra Lippo Lippi_).

* * * * *

Hold, Time, a little while thy glass, And, Youth, fold up those peacock wings! More rapture fills the years that pass Than any hope the future brings; Some for to-morrow rashly pray, And some desire to hold to-day. But I am sick for yesterday....

Ah! who will give us back the past? Ah! woe, that youth should love to be Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast, And is so fain to find the sea,— That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep, These creeks down which blown blossoms creep, For breakers of the homeless deep.

EDMUND GOSSE (_Desiderium_).

* * * * *

The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies, When love is done.

F. W. BOURDILLON.

See reference to this poem in Preface.

* * * * *

But to come again unto Apelles, this was his manner and custom besides, which he perpetually observed, that no day went over his head, but what businesse soever he had otherwise to call him away, he would make one draught or other (and never misse) for to exercise his hand and keepe it in use, inasmuch as from him grew the proverbe, _Nulla dies sine linea_, _i.e._ Be alwaies doing somewhat, though you doe but draw a line. His order was when he had finished a piece of work or painted table, and layd it out of his hand, to set it forth in some open gallerie or thorowfare, to be seen of folke that passed by, and himselfe would lie close behind it to hearken what faults were found therewith; preferring the judgment of the common people before his owne, and imagining they would spy more narrowly, and censure his doings sooner than himselfe: and as the tale is told, it fell out upon a time, that a shoomaker as he went by seemed to controlle his workmanship about the shoo or pantofle that he had made to a picture, and namely, that there was one latchet fewer than there should be: Apelles acknowledging that the man said true indeed, mended that fault by the next morning, and set forth his table as his manner was. The same shoomaker comming again the morrow after, and finding the want supplied which he noted the day before, took some pride unto himselfe, that his former admonition had sped so well, and was so bold as to cavil at somewhat about the leg. Apelles could not endure that, but putting forth his head from behind the painted table, and scorning thus to be checked and reproved, Sirrha (quoth hee) remember you are but a shoomaker, and therefore meddle no higher I advise you, than with shoos. Which words also of his came afterwards to be a common proverbe, _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_.

PLINY (_Natural History_).

_Apelles_, the greatest painter of antiquity. The two proverbs mean: “No day without a line,” “A cobbler should stick to his last.” _Pantofle_, sandal; _latchet_, the thong fastening the sandal; _painted table_, panel picture; _controlle_, find fault with.

* * * * *

Have you seen but a bright lily grow, Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall of the snow, Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of the beaver? Or swan’s down ever? Or have smelt o’ the bud of the briar, Or the nard in the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? O, so white! O, so soft! O, so sweet is she!

BEN JONSON (_A Celebration of Charis_).

* * * * *

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom—a third part bud; a third part past, a third part in full bloom—is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

JOHN RUSKIN (_Stones of Venice II_, vi, 25).

* * * * *

The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

GEORGE ELIOT (_Janet’s Repentance_).

* * * * *

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke. She did lie In her pavilion: on each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-coloured fans.... Her gentlewomen, like the Nereïdes, So many mermaids tended her. At the helm A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands.

SHAKESPEARE (_Antony and Cleopatra_).

This and the next three quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85).

* * * * *

Little round Pepíta, blondest maid In all Bedmar—Pepíta, fair yet flecked, Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red As breasts of robins stepping on the snow— Who stands in front with little tapping feet, And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets.

GEORGE ELIOT (_The Spanish Gypsy_).

* * * * *

And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday’s best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through.

Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he swished his long tail, As a gentleman swishes his cane.

S. T. COLERIDGE (_The Devil’s Thoughts_).

The stanzas are reversed in order.

* * * * *

We walked abreast all up the street, Into the market up the street; Our hair with marigolds was wound, Our bodices with love-knots laced, Our merchandise with tansy[48] bound....

And when our chaffering all was done, All was paid for, sold and done, We drew a glove on ilka hand, We sweetly curtsied, each to each, And deftly danced a saraband.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT (_The Witch’s Ballad_).

The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85).

* * * * *

ON THE NONPAREIL

_Naught but himself can be his parallel._

With marble-coloured shoulders—and keen eyes Protected by a forehead broad and white— And hair cut close, lest it impede the sight, And clenched hands, firm and of a punishing size, Steadily held, or motioned wary-wise To hit or stop—and kerchief, too, drawn tight O’er the unyielding loins, to keep from flight The inconstant wind, that all too often flies— The Nonpareil stands! Fame, whose bright eyes run o’er With joy to see a Chicken of her own, Dips her rich pen in _claret_, and writes down Under the letter R, first on the score, “Randall—John—Irish Parents—age not known— Good with both hands, and only ten stone four!”

PETER CORCORAN (_The Fancy, 1820_).

Randall was a pugilist of the time.

“None but himself can be his parallel” is a line from _The Double Falsehood_ of Louis Theobald (1691-1744), but it comes originally from Seneca (_Hercules Furens_, Act I, Sc. I):

Quaeris Alcidae parem? Nemo est nisi ipse.

(Do you seek the equal of Alcides? No one is except himself.)

I copied the above sonnet from _Gossip in a Library_ by Edmund Gosse (1891), partly because Mr. Gosse said of it, “Anthologies are not edited in a truly catholic spirit, or they would contain this very remarkable sonnet.” I hardly think this, but the lines seem sufficiently interesting to quote.

* * * * *

Le roi disait, en la voyant si belle, A son neveu: “Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d’elle, Pour un cheveu, Infant Don Ruy, je donnerais l’Espagne Et le Pérou!” _Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne_ _Me rendra fou._

(The King, seeing her so beautiful, said to his nephew, “For one kiss, for a smile, for one hair of her head, Infante Don Ruy, I would give Spain and Peru.” _The wind that blows over the mountain will drive me mad._)

VICTOR HUGO (_Gastibelza_).

This charmingly extravagant praise of a lady’s beauty recalls the story of another poet. The Eastern conqueror, Timur (or Tamerlane), sent for the Persian poet Hafiz and very angrily asked him, “Art thou he who offered to give my two great cities, Samarkand and Bokhara, for the black mole on thy mistress’s cheek?” Hafiz, however, cleverly escaped trouble by replying, “Yes, sire, I always give freely, and in consequence am now reduced to poverty. May I crave your kind assistance?” Timur was amused at the reply and made the poet a present. The story, however, is considered doubtful, because Timur did not conquer Persia until some years after 1388, which is supposed to be the date of the poet’s death.

* * * * *

Mere verbal insults (to a Roman Emperor) were not considered treason; for, said the Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, in language that is a standing rebuke to pusillanimous tyrants, if the words are uttered in a spirit of frivolity, the attack merits contempt; if from madness, they excite pity; if from malice, they are to be forgiven.

WILLIAM A. HUNTER (1844-1898) (_Roman Law, Appendix_).

This recalls to mind the numerous cases of _lèse-majesté_ for words spoken against the Kaiser before the war. The passage would make a pleasant retort to a rude opponent (a “pusillanimous tyrant”) in a debate.

* * * * *

I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great ones, is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular men feign themselves to be servants of others, to make these slaves to them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, etc., that they may be food for him.

BEN JONSON (_Mores Aulici_).

* * * * *

Ci-gît ma femme, ah! qu’elle est bien, Pour son repos—et pour le mien.

DU LORENS.

Paraphrased as:—

Here Abigail my wife doth lie; She’s at peace and so am I.

* * * * *

GLADSTONE AND THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH.

Mr. Gladstone’s relation to Psychical Research affords one more illustration of the width and force of his intellectual sympathies. Many men, even of high ability, if convinced as Mr. Gladstone was of the truth and sufficiency of the Christian revelation, permit themselves to ignore these experimental approaches to spiritual knowledge, as at best superfluous. They do not realize how profoundly the evidence, the knowledge, which we seek and which in some measure we find, must ultimately influence men’s views as to both the credibility and the adequacy of all forms of faith. Mr. Gladstone’s broad intellectual purview,—aided perhaps in this instance by something of the practical foresight of the statesman,—placed him in a quite different attitude towards our quest. “It is the most important work which is being done in the world,” he said in a conversation in 1885. “By far the most important,” he repeated, with a grave emphasis which suggested previous trains of thought, to which he did not care to give expression. He went on to apologize, in his courteous fashion, for his inability to render active help; and ended by saying “If you will accept sympathy without service, I shall be glad to join your ranks.” He became an Honorary Member, and followed with attention,—I know not with how much of study—the successive issues of our _Proceedings_. Towards the close of his life he desired that the _Proceedings_ should be sent to St. Deiniol’s Library, which he had founded at Hawarden; thus giving final testimony to his sense of the salutary nature of our work. From a man so immersed in other thought and labour that work could assuredly claim no more; from men profoundly and primarily interested in the spiritual world it ought, I think, to claim no less.

F. W. H. MYERS (_S.P.R. Journal, June, 1898_).

Apart from this interesting glimpse of Gladstone, it shows the importance he attached to the work of the Society for Psychical Research. To the severely orthodox, who think no evidence of life after death should be sought outside “Revelation,” his opinion should appeal. Every increase of knowledge is a further “Revelation.” In the Bible we are told of one resurrection, and there is certainly no reason why we should not seek the evidence of others. We should not shut our eyes and close our ears to new _Revelation_.

The Society has been thirty-eight years in existence and is still insufficiently appreciated. Hodgson said in _The Forum_, 1896 “There are so many ways of looking at the world. It may be a speck in space, or a huge cauldron with a graveyard for its crust, a place in which to get a hunger and satisfy it, the fighting ground for a while of dragon or ape, of Trojan or Turk, an evolutionary drama that must end in ice or fire. Many things it means to different men. One is busy with earthworms, another with stars, another with the splendour of the day or the strivings of the human soul. Numerous investigators are hunting for further proofs that we came out of the mud, but very few are seeking indications, in any scientific spirit, of what may follow the toil and turmoil of our individual existence here.”