Chapter 19

"Not much, Lillo. The world was not always very kind to him, and he saw meaner men than himself put into higher places because they could flatter and say what was false. And then his dear son thought it right to leave him and become a monk; and after that, my father, being blind and lonely, felt unable to do the things that would have made his learning of greater use to men, so that he might still have lived in his works after he was in his grave."

"I should not like that sort of life," said Lillo, "I should like to be something that would make me a great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of pleasure."

"That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, only by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can tell it from pain only by its being what we would choose before everything, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than falsehood. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say, 'It would have been better for me if I had never been born.' I will tell you something, Lillo."

Romola paused for a moment. She had taken Lillo's cheeks between her hands, and his young eyes were meeting hers.

"There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great deal of his life, who made almost everyone fond of him, for he was young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle and kind. I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of doing anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds--such as make men infamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery; he betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him."

George Eliot: "Romola."

THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS

Last night among his fellows rough He jested, quaffed, and swore: A drunken private of the Buffs, Who never looked before. To-day, beneath the foeman's frown, He stands in Elgin's place, Ambassador from Britain's crown, And type of all her race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, Bewildered and alone, A heart, with English instinct fraught, He yet can call his own. Ay! tear his body limb from limb; Bring cord, or axe, or flame!-- He only knows that not through him Shall England come to shame.

Far Kentish hopfields round him seemed Like dreams to come and go; Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed One sheet of living snow: The smoke above his father's door In gray, soft eddyings hung:-- Must he then watch it rise no more, Doomed by himself, so young?

Yes, Honour calls!--with strength like steel He put the vision by: Let dusky Indians whine and kneel; An English lad must die! And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, With knee to man unbent, Unfaltering on its dreadful brink To his red grave he went.

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed; Vain, those all-shattering guns; Unless proud England keep, untamed, The strong heart of her sons! So, let his name through Europe ring-- A man of mean estate Who died, as firm as Sparta's king, Because his soul was great.

F. H. Doyle

HONOURABLE TOIL

Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman, that, with earth-made Implement, laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable, too, is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labour: and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: _thou_ art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread.

A second man I honour, and still more highly: him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread of Life. Is not he, too, in his duty; endeavouring towards inward Harmony; revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour are one; when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?--These two, in all their degrees, I honour: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth.

Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he, that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in great darkness.

Carlyle: "Sartor Resartus."

ON HIS BLINDNESS

When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide; "Doth God exact day labour, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work, or His own gifts. Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait."

Milton

So shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviour from the great, Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution.

Shakespeare

MYSTERIOUS NIGHT

Mysterious Night! When our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! Creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, Whilst flow'r and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind! Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

Joseph Blanco White

The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow: We press still thorow; Nought that abides in it Daunting us--Onward!

Goethe

VITAÏ LAMPADA

(The Torch of Life)

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night-- Ten to make and the match to win-- A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in. And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red,-- Red with the wreck of a square that broke;-- The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed his banks, And England's far, and Honour a name, But the voice of a school-boy rallies the ranks: "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year, While in her place the school is set, Every one of her sons must hear, And none that hears it dare forget. This they all with a joyful mind Bear through life like a torch in flame, And falling, fling to the host behind-- "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Henry Newbolt

THE IRREPARABLE PAST

("And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest; it is enough, the hour is come; behold the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." Mark, XIV. 41, 42)

The words of Christ are not like the words of other men. His sentences do not end with the occasion which called them forth: every sentence of Christ's is a deep principle of human life, and it is so with these sentences. The principle contained in "Sleep on now" is this, that the past is irreparable, and after a certain moment waking will do no good. You may improve the future, the past is gone beyond recovery. As to all that is gone by, so far as the hope of altering it goes, you may sleep on and take your rest: there is no power in earth or heaven that can undo what has once been done.

Let us proceed to give an illustration of this. This principle applies to a misspent youth. The young are by God's Providence, exempted in a great measure from anxiety; they are as the apostles were in relation to their Master: their friends stand between them and the struggles of existence. They are not called upon to think for themselves: the burden is borne by others. They get their bread without knowing or caring how it is paid for: they smile and laugh without a suspicion of the anxious thoughts of day and night which a parent bears to enable them to smile. So to speak, they are sleeping--and it is not a guilty sleep--while another watches.

My young brethren--youth is one of the precious opportunities of life--rich in blessing if you choose to make it so; but having in it the materials of undying remorse if you suffer it to pass unimproved. Your quiet Gethsemane is now. Do you know how you can imitate the apostles in their fatal sleep? You can suffer your young days to pass idly and uselessly away; you can live as if you had nothing to do but to enjoy yourselves: you can let others think for you, and not try to become thoughtful yourselves: till the business and difficulties of life come upon you unprepared, and you find yourselves like men waking from sleep, hurried, confused, scarcely able to stand, with all the faculties bewildered, not knowing right from wrong, led headlong to evil, just because you have not given yourselves in time to learn what is good. All that is sleep.

And now let us mark it. You cannot repair that in after-life. Oh! remember every period of human life has its own lesson, and you cannot learn that lesson in the next period. The boy has one set of lessons to learn, and the young man another, and the grown-up man another. Let us consider one single instance. The boy has to learn docility, gentleness of temper, reverence, submission. All those feelings which are to be transferred afterwards in full cultivation to God, like plants nursed in a hotbed and then planted out, are to be cultivated first in youth. Afterwards, those habits which have been merely habits of obedience to an earthly parent, are to become religious submission to a heavenly parent. Our parents stand to us in the place of God. Veneration for our parents is intended to become afterwards adoration for something higher. Take that single instance; and now suppose that _that_ is not learned in boyhood. Suppose that the boy sleeps to the duty of veneration, and learns only flippancy, insubordination, and the habit of deceiving his father,--can that, my young brethren, be repaired afterwards? Humanly speaking not. Life is like the transition from class to class in a school. The school-boy who has not learned arithmetic in the earlier classes, cannot secure it when he comes to mechanics in the higher: each section has its own sufficient work. He may be a good philosopher or a good historian, but a bad arithmetician he remains for life; for he cannot lay the foundation at the moment when he must be building the superstructure. The regiment which has not perfected itself in its manoeuvres on the parade ground, cannot learn them before the guns of the enemy. And just in the same way, the young person who has slept his youth away, and become idle, and selfish, and hard, cannot make up for that afterwards. He may do something, he may be religious--yes; but he cannot be what he might have been. There is a part of his heart which will remain uncultivated to the end. The apostles could share their Master's sufferings--they could not save him. Youth has its irreparable past.

And therefore, my young brethren, let it be impressed upon you,--now is a time, infinite in its value for eternity, which will never return again. Sleep not; learn that there is a very solemn work of heart which must be done while the stillness of the garden of Gethsemane gives you time. Now, or Never. The treasures at your command are infinite. Treasures of time--treasures of youth--treasures of opportunity that grown-up men would sacrifice everything they have to possess. Oh for ten years of youth back again with the added experience of age! But it cannot be: they must be content to sleep on now and take their rest.

Rev. F. W. Robertson: "Sermons."

A CHRISTMAS HYMN, 1837

It was the calm and silent night:-- Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was Queen of land and sea! No sound was heard of clashing wars; Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

'Twas in the calm and silent night! The senator of haughty Rome Impatient urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home! Triumphal arches gleaming swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor: A streak of light before him lay, Fallen through a half-shut stable door Across his path. He passed--for nought Told what was going on within; How keen the stars! his only thought; The air, how calm and cold and thin, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

O strange indifference!--low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares: The earth was still--but knew not why; The world was listening--unawares; How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world for ever! To that still moment none would heed, Man's doom was linked no more to sever In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

It is the calm and solemn night! A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, charmed and holy _now_! The night that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay new-born The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago.

A. Domett

THE QUARREL

_Enter_ Brutus _and_ Cassius Cas. That you have wrong'd me doth appear in this: You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella For taking bribes here of the Sardians; Wherein my letters, praying on his side, Because I knew the man, were slighted off.

Bru. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case.

Cas. In such a time as this it is not meet That every nice offence should bear his comment.

Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm; To sell and mart your offices for gold To undeservers.

Cas. I an itching palm! You know that you are Brutus that speak this, Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.

Bru. The name of Cassius honours this corruption, And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.

Cas. Chastisement!

Bru. Remember March, the ides of March remember: Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, And not for justice? What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers, shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty space of our large honours For so much trash as may be grasped thus? I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.

Cas. Brutus, bay not me; I'll not endure it: you forget yourself, To hedge me in; I am a soldier, I, Older in practice, abler than yourself To make conditions.

Bru. Go to; you are not, Cassius.

Cas. I am.

Bru. I say you are not.

Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; Have mind upon your health, tempt me no farther.

Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is't possible?

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

Cas. O ye gods, ye gods! must I endure all this?

Bru. All this! ay, more: fret till your proud heart break; Go show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? must I stand and crouch Under your testy humour? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, When you are waspish.

Cas. Is it come to this?

Bru. You say you are a better soldier: Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, And it shall please me well: for mine own part, I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Cas. You wrong me every way; you wrong me, Brutus; I said, an elder soldier, not a better: Did I say "better"?

Bru. If you did, I care not.

Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me.

Bru. Peace, peace! you durst not so have tempted him.

Cas. I durst not!

Bru. No.

Cas. What, durst not tempt him!

Bru. For your life you durst not.

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love; I may do that I shall be sorry for.

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, For I am arm'd so strong in honesty That they pass by me as the idle wind, Which I respect not. I did send to you For certain sums of gold, which you denied me: For I can raise no money by vile means: By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection: I did send To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius? Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts; Dash him to pieces!

Cas. I denied you not.

Bru. You did.

Cas. I did not: he was but a fool that brought My answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart: A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me.

Cas. You love me not.

Bru. I do not like your faults.

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults.

Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, For Cassius is aweary of the world; Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observ'd, Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote, To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger, And here my naked breast; within, a heart Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold; If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth; I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart; Strike, as thou didst at Cæsar; for, I know, When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Bru. Sheath your dagger: Be angry when you will, it shall have scope; Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour. O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb That carries anger as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief, and blood ill-temper'd, vexeth him?

Bru. When I spoke that I was ill-temper'd too.

Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

Bru. And my heart too.

Cas. O Brutus!

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have not you love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour which my mother gave me, Makes me forgetful?

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and, from henceforth, When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

Shakespeare: "Julius Cæsar," IV. 3

RECESSIONAL

(1897)

God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine-- Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law-- Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard, All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, For frantic boast and foolish word-- Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord! Amen.

Kipling