Part 8

Come, I will show thee an affliction, unnumbered among this world's sorrows, Yet real and wearisome and constant, embittering the cup of life. There be, who can think within themselves, and the fire burneth at their heart, And eloquence waiteth at their lips, yet they speak not with their tongue: There be, whom zeal quickeneth, or slander stirreth to reply, Or need constraineth to ask, or pity sendeth as her messengers, But nervous dread and sensitive shame freeze the current of their speech; The mouth is sealed as with lead, a cold weight presseth on the heart, The mocking promise of power is once more broken in performance, And they stand impotent of words, travailing with unborn thoughts; Courage is cowed at the portal; wisdom is widowed of utterance; He that went to comfort is pitied; he that should rebuke, is silent: And fools who might listen and learn, stand by to look and laugh; While friends, with kinder eyes, wound deeper by compassion: And thought, finding not a vent, smouldereth, gnawing at the heart, And the man sinketh in his sphere, for lack of empty sounds. There be many cares and sorrows thou hast not yet considered, And well may thy soul rejoice in the fair privilege of speech; For at every turn to want a word,--thou canst not guess that want; It is as lack of breath or bread: life hath no grief more galling.

Come, I will tell thee of a joy, which the parasites of pleasure have not known, Though earth and air and sea have gorged all the appetites of sense. Behold, what fire is in his eye, what fervour on his cheek! That glorious burst of winged words! how bound they from his tongue! The full expression of the mighty thought, the strong triumphant argument, The rush of native eloquence, resistless as Niagara, The keen demand, the clear reply, the fine poetic image, The nice analogy, the clenching fact, the metaphor bold and free, The grasp of concentrated intellect wielding the omnipotence of truth, The grandeur of his speech in his majesty of mind! Champion of the right,--patriot, or priest, or pleader of the innocent cause, Upon whose lips the mystic bee hath dropped the honey of persuasion, Whose heart and tongue have been touched, as of old, by the live coal from the altar, How wide the spreading of thy peace, how deep the draught of thy pleasures! To hold the multitude as one, breathing in measured cadence, A thousand men with flashing eyes, waiting upon thy will; A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated fire, Ten flaming spiritual hecatombs offered on the mount of God: And now a pause, a thrilling pause,--they live but in thy words,-- Thou hast broken the bounds of self, as the Nile at its rising, Thou art expanded into them, one faith, one hope, one spirit, They breathe but in thy breath, their minds are passive unto thine, Thou turnest the key of their love, bending their affections to thy purpose, And all, in sympathy with thee, tremble with tumultuous emotions: Verily, O man, with truth for thy theme, eloquence shall throne thee with archangels.

OF READING.

One drachma for a good book, and a thousand talents for a true friend;-- So standeth the market, where scarce is ever costly: Yea, were the diamonds of Golconda common as shingles on the shore, A ripe apple would ransom kings before a shining stone: And so, were a wholesome book as rare as an honest friend, To choose the book be mine: the friend let another take. For altered looks and jealousies and fears have none entrance there: The silent volume listeneth well, and speaketh when thou listest: It praiseth thy good without envy, it chideth thine evil without malice, It is to thee thy waiting slave, and thine unbending teacher. Need to humour no caprice, need to bear with no infirmity; Thy sin, thy slander, or neglect, chilleth not, quencheth not, its love: Unalterably speaketh it the truth, warped nor by error nor interest; For a good book is the best of friends, the same to-day and for ever.

To draw thee out of self, thy petty plans and cautions, To teach thee what thou lackest, to tell thee how largely thou art blest, To lure thy thought from sorrow, to feed thy famished mind, To graft another's wisdom on thee, pruning thine own folly, Choose discreetly, and well digest the volume most suited to thy case, Touching not religion with levity, nor deep things when thou art wearied. Thy mind is freshened by morning air, grapple with science and philosophy; Noon hath unnerved thy thoughts, dream for a while on fictions: Grey evening sobereth thy spirit, walk thou then with worshippers: But reason shall dig deepest in the night, and fancy fly most free.

O books, ye monuments of mind, concrete wisdom of the wisest; Sweet solaces of daily life; proofs and results of immortality; Trees yielding all fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; Groves of knowledge, where all may eat, nor fear a flaming sword: Gentle comrades, kind advisers; friends, comforts, treasures: Helps, governments, diversities of tongues; who can weigh your worth?-- To walk no longer with the just; to be driven from the porch of science; To bid long adieu to those intimate ones, poets, philosophers, and teachers; To see no record of the sympathies which bind thee in communion with the good; To be thrust from the feet of Him who spake as never man spake; To have no avenue to heaven but the dim aisle of superstition; To live as an Esquimaux, in lethargy; to die as the Mohawk, in ignorance: O what were life, but a blank? what were death, but a terror? What were man, but a burden to himself? what were mind, but misery? Yea, let another Omar burn the full library of knowledge, And the broad world may perish in the flames, offered on the ashes of its wisdom!

OF WRITING.

The pen of a ready writer, whereunto shall it be likened? Ask of the scholar, he shall know,--to the chains that bind a Proteus: Ask of the poet, he shall say,--to the sun, the lamp of heaven: Ask of thy neighbour, he can answer,--to the friend that telleth my thought: The merchant considereth it well, as a ship freighted with wares; The divine holdeth it a miracle, giving utterance to the dumb. It fixeth, expoundeth, and disseminateth sentiment; Chaining up a thought, clearing it of mystery, and sending it bright into the world. To think rightly, is of knowledge; to speak fluently, is of nature; To read with profit, is of care; but to write aptly, is of practice. No talent among men hath more scholars, and fewer masters: For to write is to speak beyond hearing, and none stand by to explain. To be accurate, write; to remember, write; to know thine own mind, write; And a written prayer is a prayer of faith: special, sure, and to be answered. Hast thou a thought upon thy brain, catch it while thou canst; Or other thoughts shall settle there, and this shall soon take wing: Thine uncompounded unity of soul, which argueth and maketh it immortal, Yieldeth up its momentary self to every single thought; Therefore, to husband thine ideas, and give them stability and substance, Write often for thy secret eye; so shalt thou grow wiser. The commonest mind is full of thoughts; some worthy of the rarest: And could it see them fairly writ, would wonder at its wealth.

O precious compensation to the dumb, to write his wants and wishes; O dear amends to the stammering tongue, to pen his burning thoughts! To be of the college of Eloquence, through these silent symbols; To pour out all the flowing mind without the toil of speech; To show the babbling world how it might discourse more sweetly; To prove that merchandize of words bringeth no monopoly of wisdom; To take sweet vengeance on a prating crew, for the tongue's dishonour, By the large triumph of the pen, the homage rendered to a writing. With such, that telegraph of mind is dearer than wealth or wisdom, Enabling to please without pain, to impart without humiliation.

Fair girl, whose eye hath caught the rustic penmanship of love, Let thy bright brow and blushing cheek confess in this sweet hour,-- Let thy full heart, poor guilty one, whom the scroll of pardon hath just reached,-- Thy wet glad face, O mother, with news of a far-off child,-- Thy strong and manly delight, pilgrim of other shores, When the dear voice of thy betrothed speaketh in the letter of affection,-- Let the young poet, exulting in his lay, and hope (how false) of fame, While watching at deep midnight, he buildeth up the verse,-- Let the calm child of genius, whose name shall never die, For that the transcript of his mind hath made his thoughts immortal,-- Let these, let all, with no faint praise, with no light gratitude, confess The blessings poured upon the earth from the pen of a ready writer.

Moreover, their preciousness in absence is proved by the desire of their presence: When the despairing lover waiteth day after day, Looking for a word in reply, one word writ by that hand, And cursing bitterly the morn ushered in by blank disappointment: Or when the long-looked-for answer argueth a cooling friend, And the mind is plied suspiciously with dark inexplicable doubts, While thy wounded heart counteth its imaginary scars, And thou art the innocent and injured, that friend the capricious and in fault: Or when the earnest petition, that craveth for thy needs, Unheeded, yea, unopened, tortureth with starving delay: Or when the silence of a son, who would have written of his welfare, Racketh a father's bosom with sharp-cutting fears. For a letter, timely writ, is a rivet to the chain of affection, And a letter, untimely delayed, is as rust to the solder. The pen, flowing with love, or dipped black in hate, Or tipped with delicate courtesies, or harshly edged with censure, Hath quickened more good than the sun, more evil than the sword, More joy than woman's smile, more woe than frowning fortune; And shouldst thou ask my judgment of that which hath most profit in the world, For answer take thou this, The prudent penning of a letter.

Thou hast not lost an hour, whereof there is a record; A written thought at midnight shall redeem the livelong day. Idea is as a shadow that departeth, speech is fleeting as the wind, Reading is an unremembered pastime; but a writing is eternal: For therein the dead heart liveth, the clay-cold tongue is eloquent, And the quick eye of the reader is cleared by the reed of the scribe. As a fossil in the rock, or a coin in the mortar of a ruin, So the symbolled thoughts tell of a departed soul: The plastic hand hath its witness in a statue, and exactitude of vision in a picture, And so, the mind that was among us, in its writings is embalmed.

OF WEALTH.

Prodigality hath a sister Meanness, his fixed antagonist heart-fellow, Who often outliveth the short career of the brother she despiseth: She hath lean lips and a sharp look, and her eyes are red and hungry; But he sloucheth in his gait, and his mouth speaketh loosely and maudlin. Let a spendthrift grow to be old, he will set his heart on saving, And labour to build up by penury that which extravagance threw down: Even so, with most men, do riches earn themselves a double curse; They are ill-got by tight dealing: they are ill-spent by loose squandering. Give me enough, saith Wisdom;--for he feareth to ask for more; And that by the sweat of my brow, addeth stout-hearted Independence: Give me enough, and not less, for want is leagued with the tempter; Poverty shall make a man desperate, and hurry him ruthless into crime: Give me enough, and not more, saving for the children of distress; Wealth ofttimes killeth, where want but hindereth the budding: There is green glad summer near the pole, though brief and after long winter, But the burnt breasts of the torrid zone yield never kindly nourishment. Wouldst thou be poor, scatter to the rich,--and reap the tares of ingratitude; Wouldst thou be rich, give unto the poor; thou shalt have thine own with usury: For the secret hand of Providence prospereth the charitable all ways, Good luck shall he have in his pursuits, and his heart shall be glad within him; Yet perchance he never shall perceive, that, even as to earthly gains, The cause of his weal as of his joy, hath been small givings to the poor.

In the plain of Benares is there found a root that fathereth a forest, Where round the parent banian-tree drop its living scions; Thirstily they strain to the earth, like stalactites in a grotto, And strike broad roots, and branch again, lengthening their cool arcades: And the dervish madly danceth there, and the faquir is torturing his flesh, And the calm brahmin worshippeth the sleek and pampered bull: At the base lean jackals coil, while from above depending With dull malignant stare watcheth the branch-like boa. Even so, in man's heart is a sin that is the root of all evil; Whose fibres strangle the affections, whose branches overgrow the mind: And oftenest beneath its shadow thou shalt meet distorted piety,-- The clenched and rigid fist, with the eyes upturned to heaven, Fanatic zeal with miserly severity, a mixture of gain with godliness, And him, against whom passion hath no power, kneeling to a golden calf: The hungry hounds of extortion are there, the bond, and the mortgage, and the writ, While the appetite for gold, unslumbering, watcheth to glut its maw:-- And the heart, so tenanted and shaded, is cold to all things else; It seeth not the sunshine of heaven, nor is warmed by the light of charity.

For covetousness disbelieveth God, and laugheth at the rights of men; Spurring unto theft and lying, and tempting to the poison and the knife; It sundereth the bonds of love, and quickeneth the flames of hate; A curse that shall wither the brain, and case the heart with iron. Content is the true riches, for without it there is no satisfying, But a ravenous all-devouring hunger gnaweth the vitals of the soul. The wise man knoweth where to stop, as he runneth in the race of fortune, For experience of old hath taught him, that happiness lingereth midway; And many in hot pursuit have hasted to the goal of wealth, But have lost, as they ran, those apples of gold,--the mind and the power to enjoy it.

There is no greater evil among men than a testament framed with injustice: Where caprice hath guided the boon, or dishonesty refused what was due. Generous is the robber on the highway, in the open daring of his guilt, To the secret coward, whose malice liveth and harmeth after him; Who smoothly sank into the tomb, with the smile of fraud upon his face, And the last black deed of his existence was injury without redress: For deaf is the ear of the dead, and can hear no palliating reasons; The smiter is not among the living, and Right pleadeth but in vain. Yet shall the curse of the oppressed be as blight upon the grave of the unjust; Yea, bitterly shall that handwriting testify against him at the judgment. I saw the humble relation that tended the peevishness of wealth, And ministered, with kind hand, to the wailings of disease and discontent: I noted how watchfulness and care were feeding on the marrow of her youth, How heavy was the yoke of dependence, loaded by petty tyranny; Yet I heard the frequent suggestion,--It can be but a little longer, Patience and mute submission shall one day reap a rich reward. So, tacitly enduring much, waited that humble friend, Putting off the lover of her youth until the dawn of wealth: And it came, that day of release, and the freed heart could not sorrow, For now were the years of promise to yield their golden harvest: Hope, so long deferred, sickly sparkled in her eye, The miserable past was forgotten, as she looked for the happier future, And she checked, as unworthy and ungrateful, the dark suspicious thought That perchance her right had been the safer, if not left alone with honour: But, alas, the sad knowledge soon came, that her stern task-master's will Hath rewarded her toil with a jibe, her patience with utter destitution!-- Shall not the scourge of justice lash that cruel coward, Who mingled the gall of ingratitude with the bitterness of disappointment? Shall not the hate of men, and vengeance, fiercely pursuing, Hunt down the wretched being that sinneth in his grave? He fancied his idol self safe from the wrath of his fellows, But Hades rose as he came in, to point at him the finger of scorn; And again must he meet that orphan-maid to answer her face to face, And her wrongs shall cling around his neck, to hinder him from rising with the just: For his last most solemn act hath linked his name with liar, And the crime of Ananias is branded on his brow!

A good man commendeth his cause to the one great Patron of innocence, Convinced of justice to the last, and sure of good meanwhile. He knoweth he hath a Guardian, wise and kind and strong, And can thank Him for giving, or refusing, the trust or the curse of riches: His confidence standeth as a rock; he dreadeth not malice nor caprice, Nor the whisperings of artful men, nor envious secret influence; He scorneth servile compromise, and the pliant mouthings of deceit; He maketh not a show of love, where he cannot concede esteem; He regardeth ill-got wealth, as the root most fruitful of wretchedness, So he walketh in straight integrity, leaning on God and his right.

No gain, but by its price: labour, for the poor man's meal, Ofttimes heart-sickening toil, to win him a morsel for his hunger: Labour, for the chapman at his trade, a dull unvaried round, Year after year, unto death; yea, what a weariness is it! Labour, for the pale-faced scribe, drudging at his hated desk, Who bartereth for needful pittance the untold gold of health; Labour, with fear, for the merchant, whose hopes are ventured on the sea; Labour, with care, for the man of law, responsible in his gains; Labour, with envy and annoyance, where strangers will thee wealth; Labour, with indolence and gloom, where wealth falleth from a father; Labour unto all, whether aching thews, or aching head, or spirit,-- The curse on the sons of men, in all their states, is labour. Nevertheless, to the diligent, labour bringeth blessing: The thought of duty sweeteneth toil, and travail is as pleasure; And time spent in doing hath a comfort that is not for the idle, The hardship is transmuted into joy by the dear alchemy of Mercy. Labour is good for a man, bracing up his energies to conquest, And without it life is dull, the man perceiving himself useless: For wearily the body groaneth, like a door on rusty hinges, And the grasp of the mind is weakened, as the talons of a caged vulture. Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery: Enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness: Enough is less than thy thought, O pampered creature of society, And he that hath more than enough, is a thief of the rights of his brother.

OF INVENTION.

Man is proud of his mind, boasting that it giveth him divinity, Yet with all its powers can it originate nothing; For the Great God into all His works hath largely poured out Himself, Saving one special property, the grand prerogative,--Creation. To improve and expand is ours, as well as to limit and defeat; But to create a thought or a thing is hopeless and impossible. Can a man make matter?--and yet this would-be god Thinketh to make mind, and form original idea: The potter must have his clay, and the mason his quarry, And mind must drain ideas from everything around it. Doth the soil generate herbs, or the torrid air breed flies, Or the water frame its monads, or the mist its swarming blight?-- Mediately, through thousand generations, having seed within themselves, All things, rare or gross, own one common Father. Truly spake Wisdom, There is nothing new under the sun: We only arrange and combine the ancient elements of all things. Invention is activity of mind, as fire is air in motion; A sharpening of the spiritual sight, to discern hidden aptitudes: From the basket and acanthus, is modelled the graceful capital; The shadowed profile on the wall helpeth the limner to his likeness; The footmarks, stamped in clay, lead on the thoughts to printing; The strange skin garments cast upon the shore suggest another hemisphere: A falling apple taught the sage pervading gravitation; The Huron is certain of his prey, from tracks upon the grass: And shrewdness, guessing out the hint, followeth on the trail; But the hint must be given, the trail must be there, or the keenest sight is as blindness.

Behold the barren reef, which an earthquake hath just left dry; It hath no beauty to boast of, no harvest of fair fruits: But soon the lichen fixeth there, and, dying, diggeth its own grave, And softening suns and splitting frosts crumble the reluctant surface; And cormorants roost there, and the snail addeth its slime, And efts, with muddy feet, bring their welcome tribute; And the sea casteth out her dead, wrapped in a shroud of weeds; And orderly nature arrangeth again the disunited atoms; Anon, the cold smooth stone is warm with feathery grass, And the light sporules of the fern are dropt by the passing wind, The wood-pigeon, on swift wing, leaveth its crop-full of grain, The squirrel's jealous care planteth the fir-cone and the filbert: Years pass, and the sterile rock is rank with tangled herbage; The wild-vine clingeth to the briar, and ivy runneth green among the corn, Lordly beeches are studded on the down, and willows crowd around the rivulet, And the tall pine and hazel-thicket shade the rambling hunter. Shall the rock boast of its fertility? shall it lift the head in pride?-- Shall the mind of man be vain of the harvest of its thoughts? The savage is that rock; and a million chances from without, By little and little acting on the mind, heap up the hot-bed of society; And the soul, fed and fattened on the thoughts and things around it, Groweth to perfection, full of fruit, the fruit of foreign seeds. For we learn upon a hint, we find upon a clue, We yield an hundred-fold; but the great sower is Analogy. There must be an acrid sloe before a luscious peach, A boll of rotting flax before the bridal veil, An egg before an eagle, a thought before a thing, A spark struck into tinder to light the lamp of knowledge, A slight suggestive nod to guide the watching mind, A half-seen hand upon the wall, pointing to the balance of Comparison. By culture man may do all things, short of the miracle,--Creation; Here is the limit of thy power,--here let thy pride be stayed: The soil may be rich, and the mind may be active, but neither yield unsown; The eye cannot make light, nor the mind make spirit. Therefore it is wise in man to name all novelty Invention; For it is to find out things that are, not to create the unexisting: It is to cling to contiguities, to be keen in catching likeness, And with energetic elasticity to leap the gulphs of contrast. The globe knoweth not increase, either of matter or spirit; Atoms and thoughts are used again, mixing in varied combinations; And though, by moulding them anew, thou makest them thine own, Yet have they served thousands, and all their merit is of God.

OF RIDICULE.