Part 20

A common mind perceiveth not beyond his eyes and ears: The palings of the park of sense enthral this captured roebuck: And still, though fettered in the flesh, he doth not feel his chains, Externals are the world to him, and circumstance his atmosphere. Therefore tangible pleasures are enough for the animal man; He is swift to speak and slow to think, dreading his own dim conscience; And solitude is terrible, and exile worse than death, He cannot dwell apart, nor breathe at a distance from the crowd. But minds of nobler stamp, and chiefest the mint-marked of heaven, Walk independent, by themselves, freely manumitted of externals: They carry viands with them, and need no refreshment by the way, Nor drink of other wells than their own inner fountain. Strange shall it seem how little such a man will lean upon the accidents of life, He is winged and needeth not a staff; if it break, he shall not fall: And lightly perchance doth he remember the stale trivialities around him, He liveth in the realm of thought, beyond the world of things; These are but transient Matter, and himself enduring Spirit: And worldliness will laugh to scorn that sublimated wisdom. His eyes may open on a prison-cell, but the bare walls glow with imagery; His ears may be filled with execration, but are listening to the music of sweet thoughts; He may dwell in a hovel with a hero's heart, and canopy his penury with peace, For mind is a kingdom to the man, who gathereth his pleasure from Ideas.

OF NAMES.

Adam gave the name, when the Lord had made His creature, For God led them in review, to see what man would call them. As they struck his senses, he proclaimed their sounds, A name for the distinguishing of each, a numeral by which it should be known: He specified the partridge by her cry, and the forest prowler by his roaring, The tree by its use, and the flower by its beauty, and everything according to its truth.

There is an arbitrary name; whereunto the idea attacheth; And there is a reasonable name, linking its fitness to idea: Yet shall these twain run in parallel courses, Neither shall thou readily discern the habit from the nature. For mind is apt and quick to wed ideas and names together, Nor stoppeth its perception to be curious of priorities; And there is but little in the sound, as some have vainly fancied, The same tone in different tongues shall be suitable to opposite ideas: Yea, take an ensample in thine own; consider similar words: How various and contrary the thoughts those kindred names produce: A house shall seem a fitting word to call a roomy dwelling, Yet there is a like propriety in the small smooth sound, a mouse: Mountain, as if of a necessity, is a word both mighty and majestic,-- What heed ye then of Fountain?--flowing silver in the sun.

Many a fair flower is burdened with preposterous appellatives, Which the wiser simplicity of rustics entitled by its beauties; And often the conceit of science, loving to be thought cosmopolite, Shall mingle names of every clime, alike obscure to each. There is wisdom in calling a thing fitly; name should note particulars Through a character obvious to all men, and worthy of their instant acceptation. The herbalist had a simple cause for every word upon his catalogue, But now the mouth of Botany is filled with empty sound; And many a peasant hath an answer on his tongue, concerning some vexed flower, Shrewder than the centipede phrase, wherewithal philosophers invest it.

For that, the foolishness of pride, and flatteries of cringing homage, Strew with chaff the threshing-floors of science; names perplex them all: The entomologist, who hath pried upon an insect, straightway shall endow it with his name; It had many qualities and marks of note,--but in chief, a vain observer: The geographer shall journey to the pole, through biting frost and desolation, And, for some simple patron's sake, shall name that land, the happy: The fossilist hath found a bone, the rib of some huge lizard, And forthwith standeth to it sponsor, to tack himself on reptile immortalities: The sportsman, hunting at the Cape, found some strange-horned antelope, The spots are new, the fame is cheap, and so his name is added. Thus, obscurities encumber knowledge, even by the vanity of men Who play into each other's hand the game of giving names.

Various are the names of men, and drawn from different wells; Aspects of body, or characters of mind, the creature's first idea: And some have sprung of trades, and some of dignities or office; Other some added to a father's, and yet more growing from a place: Animal creation, with sciences, and things,--their composites, and near associations, Contributed their symbollings of old, wherewith to title men: And heraldry set upon its cresture the figured attributes as ensigns By which, as by a name concrete, its bearer should be known.

Egypt opened on the theme, dressing up her gods in qualities; Horns of power, feathers of the swift, mitres of catholic dominion, The sovereign asp, the circle everlasting, the crook and thong of justice, By many mystic shapes and sounds displayed the idol's name. Thereafter, high-plumed warriors, the chieftains of Etruria and Troy, And Xerxes, urging on his millions to the tomb of pride, Thermopylæ, And Hiero with his bounding ships, all figured at the prow, And Rome's Prætorian standards, piled with strange devices, And stout crusaders pressing to the battle, clad in sable mail; These all in their speaking symbols, earned, or wore, a name. Eve; the mother of all living, and Abraham, father of a multitude, Jacob, the supplanter, and David, the beloved, and all the worthies of old time, Noah, who came for consolation, and Benoni, son of sorrow, Kings and prophets, children of the East, owned each his title of significance.

There be names of high descent, and thereby storied honours; Names of fair renown, and therein characters of merit: But to lend the lowborn noble names, is to shed upon them ridicule and evil; Yea, many weeds run rank in pride, if men have dubbed them cedars. And to herald common mediocrity with the noisy notes of fame, Tendeth to its deeper scorn; as if it were to call the mole a mammoth. Yet shall ye find the trader's babe dignified with sounding titles, And little hath the father guessed the harm he did his child: For either may they breed him discontent, a peevish repining at his station, Or point the finger of despite at the mule in the trappings of an elephant: And it is a kind of theft to filch appellations from the famous, A soiling of the shrines of praise with folly's vulgar herd. Prudence hath often gone ashamed for the name they added to his father's, If minds of mark and great achievements bore it well before; For he walketh as the jay in the fable, though not by his own folly, Another's fault hath compassed his misfortune, making him a martyr to his name.

Who would call the tench a whale, or style a torch, Orion? Yet many a silly parent hath dealt likewise with his nurseling. Give thy child a fit distinguishment, making him sole tenant of a name, For it were a sore hindrance to hold it in common with a hundred: In the Babel of confused identities fame is little feasible, The felon shall detract from the philanthropist, and the sage share honours with the simple: Still, in thy title of distinguishment, fall not into arrogant assumption, Steering from caprice and affectations; and for all thou doest, have a reason. He that is ambitious for his son, should give him untried names, For those that have served other men, haply may injure by their evils; Or otherwise may hinder by their glories; therefore, set him by himself, To win for his individual name some clear specific praise. There were nine Homers, all goodly sons of song, but where is any record of the eight? One grew to fame, an Aaron's rod, and swallowed up his brethren: Who knoweth? more distinctly titled, those dead eight had lived; But the censers were ranged in a circle to mingle their sweets without a difference.

Art thou named of a common crowd, and sensible of high aspirings? It is hard for thee to rise,--yet strive: thou mayest be among them a Musæus. Art thou named of a family, the same in successive generations? It is open to thee still to earn for epithets, such an one, the good or great. Art thou named foolishly? Show that thou art wiser than thy fathers; Live to shame their vanity or sin by dutiful devotion to thy sphere. Art thou named discreetly? It is well, the course is free; No competitor shall claim thy colours, neither fix his faults upon thee: Hasten to the goal of fame between the posts of duty, And win a blessing from the world, that men may love thy name: Yea, that the unction of its praise, in fragrance well deserving, May float adown the stream of time, like ambergris at sea; So thy sons may tell their sons, and those may teach their children, He died in goodness, as he lived;--and left us his good name. And more than these: there is a roll whereon thy name is written; See that, in the Book of Doom, that name is fixed in light: Then, safe within a better home, where time and its titles are not found, God will give thee His new Name, and write it on thy heart: A Name better than of sons, a Name dearer than of daughters, A Name of union, peace, and praise, as numbered in thy God.

OF THINGS.

Taken separately from all substance, and flying with the feathered flock of thoughts, The idea of a thing hath the nature of its Soul, a separate seeming essence: Intimately linked to the idea, suggesting many qualities, The name of a thing hath the nature of its Mind, an intellectual recorder: And the matter of a thing, concrete, is a Body to the perfect creature, Compacted three in one, as all things else within the universe. Nothing canst thou add to them, and nothing take away, for all have these proportions, The thought, the word, the form, combining in the Thing: All separate, yet harmonizing well, and mingled each with other, One whole in several parts, yet each part spreading to a whole: The idea is a whole; and the meaning phrase that spake idea, a whole; And the matter, as ye see it, is a whole; the mystery of true triunity: Yea, there is even a deeper mystery,--which none, I wot, can fathom, Matter, different from properties whereby the solid substance is described; For, size and weight, cohesion and the like, live distinct from matter, Yet who can imagine matter, unendowed with size and weight? As in the spiritual, so in the material, man must rest with patience, And wait for other eyes wherewith to read the books of God.

Men have talked learnedly of atoms, as if matter could be ever indivisible; They talk, but ill are skilled to teach, and darken truth by fancies: An atom by our grosser sense was never yet conceived, And nothing can be thought so small, as not to be divided: For an atom runneth to infinity, and never shall be caught in space, And a molecule is no more indivisible than Saturn's belted orb. Things intangible, multiplied by multitudes, never will amass to substance, Neither can a thing which may be touched, be made of impalpable proportions; The sum of indivisibles must needs be indivisible, as adding many nothings, And the building up of atoms into matter is but a silly sophism; Lucretius, and keen Anaximander, and many that have followed in their thoughts, (For error hath a long black shadow, dimming light for ages,) In the foolishness of men without a God fancied to fashion Matter Of intangibles, and therefore uncohering, indivisibles, and therefore Spirit.

Things breed thoughts; therefore at Thebes and Heliopolis, In hieroglyphic sculptures are the priestly secrets written: Things breed thoughts; therefore was the Athens of idolatry Set with carved images, frequent as the trees of Academus: Things breed thoughts; therefore the Brahmin and the Burman With mythologic shapes adorn their coarse pantheon: Things breed thoughts; therefore the statue and the picture, Relics, rosaries, and miracles in act, quicken the Papist in his worship: Things breed thoughts; therefore the lovers at their parting, Interchanged with tearful smiles the dear reminding tokens: Things breed thoughts; therefore when the clansman met his foe, The bloodstained claymore in his hand revived the memories of vengeance.

Things teach with double force; through the animal eye, and through the mind, And the eye catcheth in an instant, what the ear shall not learn within an hour. Thence is the potency of travel, the precious might of its advantages To compensate its dissipative harm, its toil and cost and danger. Ulysses, wandering to many shores, lived in many cities, And thereby learnt the minds of men, and stored his own more richly: Herodotus, the accurate and kindly, spake of that he saw, And reaped his knowledge on the spot, in fertile fields of Egypt: Lycurgus culled from every clime the golden fruits of justice; And Plato roamed through foreign lands, to feed on truth in all. For travel, conversant with Things, bringeth them in contact with the mind; We breathe the wholesome atmosphere about ungarbled truth: Pictures of fact are painted on the eye, to decorate the house of intellect, Rather than visions of fancy, filling all the chambers with a vapour. For, in Ideas, the great mind will exaggerate, and the lesser extenuate truth; But in Things the one is chastened, and the other quickened, to equality: And in Names,--though a property be told, rather than some arbitrary accident, Still shall the thought be vague or false, if none have seen the Thing: For in Things the property with accident standeth in a mass concrete, These cannot cheat the sense, nor elude the vigilance of spirit. Travel is a ceaseless fount of surface education, But its wisdom will be simply superficial, if thou add not thoughts to things: Yet, aided by the varnish of society, things may serve for thoughts, Till many dullards that have seen the world shall pass for scholars: Because one single glance will conquer all descriptions, Though graphic, these left some unsaid, though true, these tended to some error; And the most witless eye that saw, had a juster notion of its object, Than the shrewdest mind that heard and shaped its gathered thoughts of Things.

OF FAITH.

Confidence was bearer of the palm; for it looked like conviction of desert: And where the strong is well assured, the weaker soon allow it. Majesty and Beauty are commingled, in moving with immutable decision, And well may charm the coward hearts that turn and hide for fear. Faith, firmness, confidence, consistency,--these are well allied; Yea, let a man press on in aught, he shall not lack of honour: For such an one seemeth as superior to the native instability of creatures; That he doeth, he doeth as a god, and men will marvel at his courage. Even in crimes, a partial praise cannot be denied to daring, And many fearless chiefs have won the friendship of a foe.

Confidence is conqueror of men; victorious both over them and in them; The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail: A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle, And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled; The tenderest child, unconscious of a fear, will shame the man to danger, And when he dared it, danger died, and faith had vanquished fear. Boldness is akin to power: yea, because ignorance is weakness, Knowledge with unshrinking might will nerve the vigorous hand: Boldness hath a startling strength; the mouse may fright a lion, And oftentimes the horned herd is scared by some brave cur. Courage hath analogy with faith, for it standeth both in animal and moral; The true is mindful of a God, the false is stout in self: But true or false, the twain are faith; and faith worketh wonders: Never was a marvel done upon the earth, but it had sprung of faith: Nothing noble, generous, or great, but faith was the root of the achievement; Nothing comely, nothing famous, but its praise is faith. Leonidas fought in human faith, as Joshua in divine: Xenophon trusted to his skill, and the sons of Mattathias to their cause: In faith Columbus found a path across those untried waters; The heroines of Arc and Saragossa fought in earthly faith: Tell was strong, and Alfred great, and Luther wise, by faith; Margaret by faith was valiant for her son, and Wallace mighty for his people: Faith in his reason made Socrates sublime, as faith in his science, Galileo: Ambassadors in faith are bold, and unreproved for boldness: Faith urged Fabius to delays, and sent forth Hannibal to Cannæ: Cæsar at the Rubicon, Miltiades at Marathon; both were sped by faith. I set not all in equal spheres: I number not the martyr with the patriot; I class not the hero with his horse, because the twain have courage; But only for ensample and instruction, that all things stand by faith; Albeit faith of divers kinds, and varying in degree. There is a faith towards men, and there is a faith towards God; The latter is the gold and the former is the brass; but both are sturdy metal: And the brass mingled with the gold floweth into rich Corinthian; A substance bright and hard and keen, to point Achilles' spear: So shall thou stop the way against the foes that hem thee; Trust in God to strengthen man;--be bold, for He doth help.

Yet more: for confidence in man, even to the worst and meanest, Hath power to overcome his ill, by charitable good. Fling thine unreserving trust even on the conscience of a culprit, Soon wilt thou shame him by thy faith, and he will melt and mend: The nest of thieves will harm thee not, if thou dost bear thee boldly; Boldly, yea and kindly, as relying on their honour: For the hand so stout against aggression, is quite disarmed by charity; And that warm sun will thaw the heart case-hardened by long frost. Treat men gently, trust them strongly, if thou wish their weal; Or cautious doubt and bitter thoughts will tempt the best to foil thee. Believe the well in sanguine hope, and thou shall reap the better; But if thou deal with men so ill, thy dealings make them worse; Despair not of some gleams of good still lingering in the darkest, And among veterans in crime, plead thou as with their children: So, astonied at humanities, the bad heart long estranged, Shall even weep to feel himself so little worth thy love; In wholesome sorrow will he bless thee; yea, and in that spirit may repent; Thus wilt thou gain a soul, in mercy given to thy Faith.

Look aside to lack of faith, the mass of ills it bringeth: All things treacherous, base, and vile, dissolving the brotherhood of men. Bonds break; the cement hath lost its hold; and each is separate from other; That which should be neighbourly and good, is cankered into bitterness and evil. O thou serpent, fell Suspicion, coiling coldly round the heart,-- O thou asp of subtle Jealousy, stinging hotly to the soul,-- O distrust, reserve, and doubt,--what reptile shapes are here, Poisoning the garden of a world with death among its flowers! No need of many words, the tale is easy to be told; A point will touch the truth, a line suggest the picture. For if, in thine own home, a cautious man and captious, Thou hintest at suspicion of a servant, thou soon wilt make a thief; Or if, too keen in care, thou dost evidently disbelieve thy child, Thou hast injured the texture of his honour, and smoothed to him the way of lying: Or if thou observest upon friends, as seeking thee selfishly for interest, Thou hast hurt their kindliness to thee, and shalt be paid with scorn; Or if, O silly ones of marriage, your foul and foolish thoughts, Harshly misinterpreting in each the levity of innocence for sin, Shall pour upon the lap of home pain where once was pleasure, And mix contentions in the cup, that mantled once with comforts, Bitterly and justly shall ye rue the punishment due to unbelief; Ye trust not each the other, nor the mutual vows of God; Take heed, for the pit may now be near, a pit of your own digging,-- Faith abused tempteth unto crime, and doubt may make its monster.

Man verily is vile, but more in capability than action; His sinfulness is deep, but his transgressions may be few, even from the absence of temptation: He is hanging in a gulf midway, but the air is breathable about him: Thrust him not from that slight hold, to perish in the vapours underneath. For, God pleadeth with the deaf, as having ears to hear, Christ speaketh to the dead, as those that are capable of living; And an evil teacher is that man, a tempter to much sin, Who looketh on his hearers with distrust, and hath no confidence in brethren. All may mend; and sympathies are healing: and reason hath its influence with the worst; And in those worst is ample hope, if only thou hast charity, and faith.

Somewhiles have I watched a man exchanging the sobriety of faith, Old lamps for new,--even for fanatical excitements. He gained surface, but lost solidity; heat, in lieu of health; And still with swelling words and thoughts he scorned his ancient coldness: But, his strength was shorn as Samson's; he walked he knew not whither; Doubt was on his daily path; and duties shewed not certain: Until, in an hour of enthusiasm, stung with secret fears, He pinned the safety of his soul on some false prophet's sleeve. And then, that sure word failed; and with it, failed his faith; It failed, and fell; O deep and dreadful was his fall in faith! He could not stop, with reason's rein, his coursers on the slope, And so they dashed him down the cliff of hardened unbelief. With overreaching grasp he had strained for visionary treasures, But a fiend had cheated his presumption, and hurled him to despair. So he lay in his blood, the victim of a credulous false faith, And many nights, and night-like days, he dwelt in outer darkness. But, within a while, his variable mind caught a new impression, A new impression of the good old stamp, that sealed him when a child: He was softened, and abjured his infidelity; he was wiser, and despised his credulity; And turned again to simple faith more simply than before. Experience had declared too well his mind was built of water, And so, renouncing strength in self, he fixed his faith in God.

It is not for me to stipulate for creeds; Bible, Church, and Reason, These three shall lead the mind, if any can, to truth. But I must stipulate for faith: both God and man demand it: Trust is great in either world, if any would be well. Verily, the sceptical propensity is an universal foe; Sneering Pyrrho never found, nor cared to find, a friend: How could he trust another? and himself, whom would he not deceive? His proper gains were all his aim, and interests clash with kindness. So, the Bedouin goeth armed, an enemy to all, The spear is stuck beside his couch, the dagger hid beneath his pillow. For society, void of mutual trust, of credit, and of faith, Would fall asunder as a waterspout, snapped from the cloud's attraction.