Chapter 16

'Elsewhere,' says Longinus, 'I have written as follows: _"Sublimity is the echo of a great soul."_ Hence even a bare idea sometimes, by itself and without a spoken word will excite admiration, just because of the greatness of soul implied. Thus the silence of Ajax in the underworld is great and more sublime than words.'

You remember the passage, how Odysseus meets that great spirit among the shades and would placate it, would 'make up' their quarrel on earth now, with carneying words:

'Ajax, son of noble Telamon, wilt thou not then, even in death forget thine anger against me over that cursed armour.... Nay, there is none other to blame but Zeus: he laid thy doom on thee. Nay, come hither, O my lord, and hear me and master thine indignation:

So I spake, but he answered me not a word, but strode from me into the Darkness, following the others of the dead that be departed.

Longinus goes on:

It is by all means necessary to point this out--that the truly eloquent must be free from base and ignoble (or ill-bred) thoughts. For it is not possible that men who live their lives with mean and servile aims and ideas should produce what is admirable and worthy of immortality. Great accents we expect to fall from the lips of those whose thoughts are dignified.

Believe this and it surely follows, as concave implies convex, that by daily converse and association with these great ones we take their breeding, their manners, earn their magnanimity, make ours their gifts of courtesy, unselfishness, mansuetude, high seated pride, scorn of pettiness, wholesome plentiful jovial laughter.

He that of such a height hath built his mind, And rear'd the dwelling of his soul so strong As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolvèd powers, nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same; What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey!

And with how free an eye doth he look down Upon these lower regions of turmoil! Where all the storms of passions mainly beat On flesh and blood; where honour, power, renown, Are only gay afflictions, golden toil; Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet As frailty doth; and only great doth seem To little minds, who do it so esteem....

Knowing the heart of man is set to be The centre of this world, about the which These revolutions of disturbances Still roll; where all th' aspects of misery Predominate; whose strong effects are such As he must bear, being powerless to redress; And that, unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man![2]

IX

If the exhortation of these verses be somewhat too high and stoical for you, let me return to Longinus and read you, from his concluding chapter, a passage you may find not inapposite to these times, nor without a moral:

'It remains' [he says] 'to clear up, my dear Terentianus, a question which a certain philosopher has recently mooted. I wonder,' he says, 'as no doubt do many others, how it happens that in our time there are men who have the gift of persuasion to the utmost extent, and are well fitted for public life, and are keen and ready, and particularly rich in all the charms of language, yet there no longer arise really lofty and transcendent natures unless it be quite peradventure. So great and world-wide a dearth of high utterance attends our age. Can it be,' he continued, 'we are to accept the common cant that democracy is the nursing mother of genius, and that great men of letters flourish and die with it? For freedom, they say, has the power to cherish and encourage magnanimous minds, and with it is disseminated eager mutual rivalry and the emulous thirst to excel. Moreover, by the prizes open under a popular government, the mental faculties of orators are perpetually practised and whetted, and as it were, rubbed bright, so that they shine free as the state itself. Whereas to-day,' he went on, 'we seem to have learnt as an infant-lesson that servitude is the law of life; being all wrapped, while our thoughts are yet young and tender, in observances and customs as in swaddling clothes, bound without access to that fairest and most fertile source of man's speech (I mean Freedom) so that we are turned out in no other guise than that of servile flatterers. And servitude (it has been well said) though it be even righteous, is the cage of the soul and a public prison-house.'

But I answered him thus.--'It is easy, my good sir, and characteristic of human nature, to gird at the age in which one lives. Yet consider whether it may not be true that it is less the world's peace that ruins noble nature than this war illimitable which holds our aspirations in its fist, and occupies our age with passions as with troops that utterly plunder and harry it. The love of money and the love of pleasure enslave us, or rather, as one may say, drown us body and soul in their depths. For vast and unchecked wealth marches with lust of pleasure for comrade, and when one opens the gate of house or city, the other at once enters and abides. And in time these two build nests in the hearts of men, and quickly rear a progeny only too legitimate: and the ruin within the man is gradually consummated as the sublimities of his soul wither away and fade, and in ecstatic contemplation of our mortal parts we omit to exalt, and come to neglect in nonchalance, that within us which is immortal.'

I had a friend once who, being in doubt with what picture to decorate the chimney-piece in his library, cast away choice and wrote up two Greek words--[Greek: PSYCHES 'IATREION]; that is, the hospital--the healing-place--of the soul.

[Footnote 1: 'Well! ... my education is at last finished: indeed it would be strange, if, after five years' hard application, anything were left incomplete. Happily that is all over now; and I have nothing to do, but to exercise my various accomplishments.

'Let me see!--as to French, I am mistress of that, and speak it, if possible, with more fluency than English. Italian I can read with ease, and pronounce very well: as well at least, and better, than any of my friends; and that is all one need wish for in Italian. Music I have learned till I am perfectly sick of it. But ... it will be delightful to play when we have company. I must still continue to practise a little;--the only thing, I think, that I need now to improve myself in. And then there are my Italian songs! which everybody allows I sing with taste, and as it is what so few people can pretend to, I am particularly glad that I can.

'My drawings are universally admired; especially the shells and flowers; which are beautiful, certainly; besides this, I have a decided taste in all kinds of fancy ornaments.

'And then my dancing and waltzing! in which our master himself owned that he could take me no further! just the figure for it certainly; it would be unpardonable if I did not excel.

'As to common things, geography, and history, and poetry, and philosophy, thank my stars, I have got through them all! so that I may consider myself not only perfectly accomplished, but also thoroughly well-informed.

'Well, to be sure, how much have I fagged through--; the only wonder is that one head can contain it all.'

I found this in a little book "Thoughts of Divines and Philosophers," selected by Basil Montagu. The quotation is signed 'J. T.' I cannot trace it, but suspect Jane Taylor.]

[Footnote 2: Samuel Daniel, "Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland."]

INDEX

"Acts of the Apostles, The," 165 Addison, Joseph, 146, 192 "Adonais," Shelley's, 79 Adrian VI, Pope, 77 Aeschylus, 1, 121, 179, 183 "Aesop and Rhodopè," Landor's 117 "Agamemnon, The," 79 "Aims of Literary Study, The," 6 "Allegro,L'," 62, 63, 64 Ameipsias, 21 "Anatomy of Melancholy," Burton's, 155 "Ancient Mariner, The," 59 Andersen, Hans Christian, 46 "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The," 154 "Annual Register, The," 155 "Anti-Jacobin, The," 194 "Apologia," Newman's, 155 "Arabian Nights," M. Galland's, 43 "Arabian Nights, The," 139 Arber, 99 Aristophanes, 21, 147 Aristotle, 1, 25, 48, 51, 52, 58, 59, 60, 121, 129, 148, 150, 174, 207 Arnold, Matthew, 38, 99, 104, 124, 153, 205, 213 "Arraignment of Paris," Peele's, 80 "As You Like It," 71 Aulnoy, Madame D', 43 Aurispa, 209 Austen, Jane, 102, 194, 197

Bacon, Francis 21, 22, 23, 73, 94, 114, 126, 155, 205 Bagehot, Walter, 36, 113 Bailey, Philip James, 155 Baker, Sir William, 170 "Balder Dead" 163 Ballad. The, 55 Barboar, John, 155 Bede, 207. 209 Beethoven, 139 "Beginnings of Poetry," Dr Gummere's, 55, 56, 58 "Beowulf,". 99 Berkeley, George, 191 Berners, 193 "Bible, The," 97, 126 et seq. "Bible, The Geneva," 155 "Blackwood's Magazine," 80 Blair, Robert, 155 Blake, William, 33, 155 Boileau, 193 Bologna, University of, 73 "Book of Nonsense," Lear's, 111 Boswell, James, 93, 155 Bottomley, Horatio, 185 Brady, Nicholas, 170 Brooke, Stopford, 94 Brown, Dr John, 56 Browne, Sir Thomas, 145, 185, 189, 190 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 72 Browning, Robert, 5, 6, 7, 15, 152, 155, 205 "Bruce, The," Barbour's, 155 Bunyan, John, 97, 134, 135, 145, 152 Burke, Edmund, 94, 104, 116, 155, 192 Burns, Robert, 97, 132, 133 Burton, Robert, 155 Butcher, Professor, 129 Byron, Lord, 5, 80, 168

"Cabinet des Fées, Le," 43 "Cambridge Essays on Education," Inge's essay in, 112 "Cambridge History of English Literature, The," 5, 152, 208 Cambridge Platonists, The, 29, 193 Cambridge, University of, 1, 2 et seq., 57, 76, 77, 87, 88, 105, 121, 209 Campbell, John, 155 Canning, 193 "Canterbury Tales, The," 71, 161 "Canterbury Tales, The Prologue to the," 71, 94, 144, 161 Canton, William, 38 Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 38, 106 Casaubon, 70, 197 "Centuries of Meditations," Thomas Traherne's, 44 Chatham, Earl of, 115, 116, 192, 211 Chaucer, 4, 27, 65, 66, 71, 88, 94, 102, 164, 105, 124, 144, 164, 193 Chicago, University of, 154 "Choephori," 175 "Chronicles, Book of," 138 Clarendon, Lord, 155 Clark, William George, 94, 99 "Cloister and the Hearth, The," Charles Reade's, 189 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 65 Collins, William, 124 Colvin, Sir Sidney, 86 "Complaint of Deor, The," 155 Comte, Auguste, 51 Congreve, William, 192 "Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra," Landor's, 124, 125 "Corinthians, St Paul's First Epistle to the," 81, 82 Corson, Dr, 6, 66, 100 Cory, William (Johnson), 123 "Cotter's Saturday Night, The," Burns's, 132, 139 Coverdale, Miles, 97,145, 158 Cowper, William, 100, 115, 192 Cranmer, Thomas, 97 Crashaw, Richard, 193 Cuthbert, 207 "Cyrano de Bergerac," 111

Daniel, Samuel, 215 Dante, 27, 79, 104, 153, 164. 197 Darwin, Charles, 154 Davenant, Sir William, 151 "Death in the Desert, A," Browning's, 6, 7 "Descent of Man," Darwin's, 154 "Deserted Village, The," 155 Dickens, Charles, 5, 193 Dionysius, 212 "Divina Commedia," 52 "Doctor's Tale, The," 71 "Dolores," Swinburne's, 155 "Domesday Book," 155 "Don Quixote," 105 Donne, John, 82, 89, 105, 114, 155, 193 "Dream of Boccaccio," Landor's, 82 Dryden, John, 54 Dublin, University of, 131 Dunbar, William, 193 "Dutch Republic," Motley's, 82

Earle, John, 44, 49 "Ecclesiastes," 161 "Ecclesiastical Polity," Richard Hooker's, 155 "Ecclesiasticus" 144 Education, 35 et seq. Ehrenreich, Dr Paul, 55 "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," Gray's, 61, 144, 164 Eliot, George, 14 Ellis, A. J., 99 Elyot, Sir Thomas, 11 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 33, 203 "Eöthen," Kinglake's, 196 "Epipsychidion," Shelley's, 89 "Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland," Samuel Daniel's, 214, 215 Erasmus, 121, 209 "Erster Schulgang," 39 "Esmond," Thackeray's, 82, 83 "Essay on Comedy," Meredith's, 110 "Essay on Man," Pope's, 144 "Essays," Bacon's, 94, 155 "Esther," 161 "Ethics," Aristotle's, 1 Euclid, 93, 131 Euripides, 19, 21, 123, 157 "Everyman," 176 "Everyman's Library," 198 Ezekiel, 161

"Faerie Queene, The," 155 "Fairchild Family, The," 40 "Festus," Bailey's, 155 "Fetch a pail of water," 53 Fitzgerald, Edward, 118, 122, 155 Fort, Paul, 174 Fowler, F. G., 108 Fowler, H. W., 108 Franklin, Benjamin, 90 Frere, J. H., 193 "Friar's Tale, The," 71 "Friendship's Garland," Matthew Arnold's, 38 Froissart, 155 Furnivall, 99

Galileo, 27 Galland, M., 43 "Gammer Grethel," 43 Gautier, Théophile, 197 "Genesis, Book of," 213 "Geneva Bible, The," 155 Gibbon, Edward, 20, 21, 121, 131, 146, 149, 192 "Golden Treasury," Palgrave's, 155 Goldsmith, Oliver, 102, 105 "Gondibert," Sir William Davenant's, 151 "Grammarian's Funeral, A," Browning's, 15 Grave, Robert Blair's, 155 Gray, Thomas, 61, 144, 164 Gregory the Great, 207 Grimm, the brothers, 43 Grocyn, 121 Grosart, Alexander Balloch, 99 Gummere, Dr, 55, 56, 58

Hakluyt, Richard, 155 Hales, Dr, 99 Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 3, 41 11, 23, 24 "Hamlet," 71, 127, 144, 161, 163, 203 Hammond, Mr, 190 Hammond, Mrs, 190 Hay, 211 Hazlitt, William, 202 Hegel, 25, 26 Heidelberg, University of, 76 "Here Come Three Dukes a riding," 53 "Here we go Gathering Nuts in May," 53 Herodotus, 123 Hesiod, 197 Hobbes, Thomas, 197 Holmes, Mr, 47, 50, 51, 52 Homer, 83, 118, 146 147, 148, 149, 153, 164, 167, 195, 196 Hooker, Richard, 155 Hopkins, John, 170 Horace, 1 "Hound of Heaven, The," Thompson's, 155 "Household Tales," the Grimms; 43 Hugo, Victor, 164 Hume, David, 192 "Hymns Ancient and Modern," 170

"Idea of a University, The," Newman's, 114 "Iliad, The," 99, 147, 148 "Imitatione Christi, De," 138 "In Memoriam," Tennyson's, 58 Inge, Dean, 112 "Intellectual Life, The," Hamerton's, 3, 4, 23, 24 "Intimations of Immortality," Wordsworth's, 44 "Invisible Playmate, The," William Canton's, 38 "Irish R.M., The Adventures of an," Somerville's and Ross's, 135 Irwin, Sidney, 121 Isaiah, 138, 153, 156, 161 "Isaiah, Book of," 138, 144, 153, 161 "Isthmian Odes," Pindar's, 98

Jansen, 77, Jenkinson, Mr, 184, 185 Job, 166, 167, 168, 175 et seq. "Job, Book of," 139, 144, 161 et seq. "John Bull," Bottomley's, 185 John, St, of Patmos, 7, 130, 151 Johnson, Samuel, 61, 89, 93, 105, 131, 146, 192, 193 Jonson, Ben, 102 "Joshua, Book of," 47, 136, 137 Joubert, 117 Jowett, Benjamin, 186 Jusserand, J. J., 104

Keats, John, 84, 85, 87 Keble, John, 114 "King Henry IV," Part I, 71 "King John," 71 "King Lear," 16, 71, 163, 201 Kinglake, Alexander William, 196 "Kings, Book of," 138, 139, 141 "Kings' Treasuries, Of," Ruskin's, 195 "Knight's Tale, The," 71

Lamb, Charles, 102, 106, 156, 197, 200 Landor, Walter Savage, 82, 117, 124, 130 Latymer, Lord (F. B. Money-Coutts), 154, 162, 167, 183 Laus Veneris, Swinburne's, 155 Lear, Edward, 111 "Lectures on Poetry," Keble's, 114 Leipsic, University of, 76 "Letters on a Regicide Peace," Burke's, 155 "Life of Cowley," Johnson's, 193 "Life of Johnson," Boswell's, Lincoln, Abraham, 124 "Literary Study of the Bible," Moulton's, 162 "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," John Campbell's, 155 Longinus, 148, 149, 150, 151, 212 et seq. "Longinus on the Sublime," 149, 150, 212 et seq. Louvain, University of, 76 Lowell, James Russell, 211 Lucian, 108 "Luke, Gospel of St," 161 Lycidas, 164

Macaulay, Lord, 19, 155, 156 "Macbeth," 71 Macchiavelli, 197 Maeterlinck, 174, 175 Malherbe, 193 Malory, Sir Thomas, 193 "Man of Law's Tale, The," 71 "Manfred," 155 Map, Walter, 155, 156 Martin, Violet, 136 Marvell, Andrew, 201 "Matthew, Gospel of St," 137 "Memories, Irish," Somerville's and Ross's, 135 "Merchant of Venice, The," 71 Meredith, George, 5, 110 "Microcosmography," John Earle's, 44 Mill, John Stuart, 93, 155 Milton, John, 27, 62, 65, 93, 94, 111, 127, 131, 145, 162, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 188 Molière, 79 Money-Coutts, F. B. (Lord Latymer), 154, 162, 167, 183 Montagu, Basil, 211 Moore, Sturge, 124 More, Hannah, 192 More, Sir Thomas, 114 Morris, Richard, 99 "Morte d'Arthur, Le," 155 Motley, 82, 211 Moulton, Dr R. G., 154, 158, 162, 177 "Much Ado About Nothing," 71 Myers, F. W. H., 165, 166

Newman, John Henry, 113, 114, 131, 155, 206 Newton, Sir Isaac, 27, 114 Nicholas V, Pope (Tommaso Parentucelli), 209 North, Sir Thomas, 123 "Notes and Queries," 101 "Nun Priest's Tale, The," 71

"Ode to a Grecian Urn," Keats's, 85,86 "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats's, 85, 86 "Ode to Evening," Collins's, 124 "Ode to Psyche," Keats's, 85 "Odyssey, The," 42, 147, 148 "Of Studies," Bacon's, 21, 22, 23 Omar, 20 "Omar Khayyàm," FitzGerald's, 155 "On Liberty," John Stuart Mill's, 155 "On the Art of Writing," 1 "Ossian," 155 "Othello," 52, 71, 89 Oxford, University of, 9, 73, 75, 76, 77, 121

Page, 211 Paine, Thomas, 192 Paley, Frederick, 98, 123 Palgrave, Francis Turner, 15 5 "Pall Mall Gazette, The," 197, 198 "Paradise Lost," 56, 58, 59, 62, 127, 144, 154, 161, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 182, 188, 202 "Paradise Regained," 166, 170 "Paradiso, The," 201 "Pardoner's Tale, The," 71 Parentucelli Tommaso (Pope Nicholas V), 209 Paris, University of, 74, 75 "Parlement of Fowls, The," 27, 71 Pater, Walter, 99, 149 Patmore, Coventry, 33 Pattison, Mark, 70 Paul, St, 32, 60, 81, 82, 147, 161, 165 Peele, 80 Pericles, 124 Perrault, 43, 110 "Pervigilium Veneris, The," 124 "Phaedo, The," 147, 148, 201, 206 "Phaedrus, The," 118, 186 "Piers Ploughman," 155, 156 "Pilgrim's Progress, The," 68 Pindar, 57, 79, 98 Plato, 8, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36, 111, 118, 147, 150, 185 Plutarch, 123 "Poems and Ballads," Swinburne's, 155 "Poet's Charter, The," Lord Latymer's (Money-Coutts), 162 "Poetics," Aristotle's, 52, 58, 59, 129 "Polonius," FitzGerald's, 122 Pope, Alexander, 105, 131, 144, 164, 192, 196 "Prince Charming," Perrault's, 111 "Principia," Newton's, 114 Prior, Matthew, 102 "Prometheus Bound," Aeschylus's, 175, 179, 180, 183 "Prometheus Unbound," Shelley's, 59, 155, 164, 167, 168, 169 "Psalm of Life, The," 56 "Psalm cvii," 158, 159, 160 "Psalm cxiv," Milton's Paraphrase of, 169, "Psalm cxxxvi," Milton's Paraphrase of, 169, 170 "Psalms, The," 139, 144 142, 161 Pythagoras, 27 "Pythian Odes," Pindar's, 98

Quarles, Francis, 155

Rashdall, Hastings, 76 Reade, Charles, 189 "Reading without Tears," 38, 41 "Reason of Church Government," Milton's, 167 Reid, Captain Mayne, 138 "Religio Medici," Sir Thomas Browne's, 189, 190 "Republic," Plato's, 16, 26 "Revelation of St John the Divine, The," 151 "Revellers," Ameipsias's, 21 Rhoades, James, 11, 110, 202, 205 "Rifle Rangers, The," Mayne Reid's, 138 Roberts, Prof. W. Rhys, 150 Ronsard, 193 Ruskin, John, 93, 138, 155, 195 "Ruth," 139, 161

"Sally, Sally Waters," 53 Sainte-Beuve, 99, 199 "St Paul," Myers's, 165, 166 "Samson Agonistes," 170 "Sartor Resartus," Carlyle's, 38, 155 "Scalp Hunters, The," Mayne Reid's, 138 "School for Scandal, The," 89 Scott, Sir Walter, 43, 131 "Sermon on the Mount, The," 128 "Sermon II preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day, in the Evening." 1624, Donne's, 89 "Sermons," Donne's, 155 "Sesame and Lilies," Ruskin's, 138, 195 Sévigné, Madame de, 197 Shakespeare, William, 4, 33, 65, 66, 70, 71, 94, 97, 104, 116, 123, 131, 145, 155, 200, 203, 204, 205 Shelley, 79, 155, 167, 168, 169, 193, 194 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 192 "Sicilian Vine-Dresser, The," Sturge Moore's, 124 Skeat, Walter W., 99 Smiles, Samuel, 194 Smith, Adam, 56, 155, 156 Socrates, 118, 147, 148, 186, 187, 188, 206, 207 Solomon, 156, 157 "Song of Songs," 139, 156, 157, 161 Sophocles, 111 Spenser, 164 Stead, W. T., 197 Steele, Sir Richard, 102, 192 Sternhold, Thomas, 170 "Sthenoboea," Euripides's, 21 "Stradivarius," George Eliot's, 14 "Strayed Reveller," Matthew Arnold's, 124 Stubbs, 101 "Sublimitate, De," Longinus's, 149 Suckling, Sir John, 90 Swift, Jonathan, 105, 131 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 155

"Table Talk," Johnson's, 131 "Tale of a Tub, A," 89 "Task, The," Cowper's, 100 Tasso, 167 Tate, Nahum, 170 Taylor, Edgar, 43 Taylor, Jane, 211 "Tempest, The," 59, 71, 202, 203, 204, 205 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 5, 193, 194 Tertullian, 207 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 82, 146 Theocritus, 124 Thompson, Francis, 155 "Thoughts of Divines and Philosophers," Basil Montagu's, 211 "Thoughts on the Present Discontents," Burke's, 155 Thucydides, 121 "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth's, 152 Todhunter, Dr, 93 Traherne, Thomas, 29, 44 "Training of the Imagination, The," Rhoades's, 110 "Troilus," 71 Tyndale, William, 97, 145

"Utopia," More's, 114

Vaughan, Henry, 193 "Vicar of Wakefield, The," 144 Vienna, medical school of, 76 "Village Labourer, The," Mr and Mrs Hammond's, 190, 191 Villon, 193 Virgil, 12, 116, 167 "Voyages," Hakluyt's, 155 "Vulgate, The," 170

Walpole, Sir Spencer, 192 Walton, Isaak, 82, 145 "Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith's, 155 Wesley, John, 61 Wessobrunn, 208 "What is and What Might Be," Holmes's, 50, 51, 52 White, Blanco, 31, 112 Wilberforce, 192 "Wisdom, Book of," 144 Wolfe, General, 116 Wordsworth, William, 5, 28, 33, 37, 44, 61, 66, 73, 116, 123, 152, 155, 202, 207 "World's Classics, The," 138 Wright, Aldis, 94, 99 Wyclif, 145

Zadkiel, 139 Zenobia, 212

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY W. LEWIS. M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

End of Project Gutenberg's On The Art of Reading, by Arthur Quiller-Couch