Part 5

In the last analysis it will always be found that it is the poet himself and not his poetry that has the greatest interest for us. Unless he is interesting in himself he will not interest us in his writings. No amount of study and pains will suffice to render the work of a shallow and commonplace personality interesting to us. From the strong only shall sweetnesss come forth. I do not know whether I have succeeded in any degree in convincing the reader that Traherne was, both as a man and as a poet, a very interesting character; but if I have not, the fault assuredly is mine, and not his. We may study him in two aspects: firstly, as a representative of the poetic temperament; and secondly, as a representative of the religious idiosyncrasy in conjunction with the poetic--for religion in many of its professors is often enough altogether disjoined from any tincture of poetry. In both aspects we have ample materials for studying him: and I cannot help thinking that few writers of his age are better worth studying.

Were Traherne a smaller man than he is, and therefore less able to afford to have the whole truth told about him, I should hesitate long before printing the following remarks on some of his shortcomings. It is the less needful to attempt to conceal his defects, since they are for the greater part the defects of his qualities, and therefore inseparable from them. Constituted as he was, it was not possible for him to see things in a wholly clear and uncoloured light. He is elevated so high above ordinary humanity that he is unable to see clearly what is so much beneath him. Nor is it always easy for us, the dwellers upon the plain, to ascend to his altitude. He is so exempt from the ordinary failings of humanity that we feel almost as if he belonged to a different race. He died a bachelor, and I do not find anything in his writings which shows that he ever experienced the passion of love in relation to the female sex. His love for the divine seems to have swallowed up all thought of sexual love, though not his love for humanity in the mass. He is sometimes so mystical or metaphysical that the ordinary reader finds it difficult to comprehend him. But, after all, if the reader will only exercise a little patience and be at the expense of a little thought, he will not find it hard to understand the poet, even in his most difficult passages. Those who are able to follow Browning through all his intricacies will find no knot in Traherne which they will not easily unravel.

The charge which is most likely to be pressed against Traherne is that he appears to have been a man of few ideas, and is consequently much given to repetition of thoughts and even of words and phrases. That there is some foundation for this charge may be admitted, but it is nevertheless unjust. No one, after the examination of his manuscripts and of his two published works, could believe it. A scholar so well versed in the classics, a student so eager for knowledge of all kinds, a thinker so acute, could not possibly be a man of narrow ideas and restricted sympathies. What is true, however, is that his mind dwelt with so much delight upon certain thoughts that it was continually recurring to them, setting them in different lights, and repeating them, even as a musician will execute ever-new variations upon a favourite theme. Those who care for Traherne's themes will not complain that he dwells too much upon them.

It must be owned, I think, that while Traherne is usually happy in the selection of his themes, he is sometimes less happy in developing and expressing them. Lines which leave something to be desired in smoothness (though he is not usually chargeable with this fault, his handling of the heroic couplet being particularly good), and now and then lines which to our modern ideas appear to be somewhat prosaic, are certainly to be found in his poems, and do, to a small extent, interfere with the reader's pleasure in them. But for such faults as these we ought surely to make large allowance. The reader should, and doubtless will, remember that he has before him a work for which the author himself has but a limited responsibility. Had he himself published the poems we should have been entitled to think that he deliberately chose to give them to the world with all their faults upon them. As it is, I think we may assume that had he lived to publish them they would have undergone a good deal of revision before they were sent forth to the world. Most of their defects are such as might be easily remedied, and such, indeed, as it was sometimes hard to refrain from remedying. But I have resisted all such temptations, and have confined myself to the task of making the printed text as nearly as possible a reproduction of the original manuscripts. The reader will gather from the facsimile of one of Traherne's poems, which I have given as a frontispiece to this volume, a good general idea as to the character of his handwriting, his spelling, and his punctuation. It would have been an interesting thing could the whole of Traherne's poems have been reproduced in the same style, for, as the reader will see, there is a picturesqueness, a beauty, and a life about the manuscripts which is lost in the cold regularity of type. Some readers may perhaps think that it would have been better to follow the author's original spelling and punctuation; but after giving full consideration to this point, it did not seem advisable to do this. Traherne's spelling is by no means uniform--Deity, for instance, is sometimes "Dietie" and sometimes "Deitie"--and his punctuation, which is, I think, quite peculiar to himself, differs so much from our modern practice, that if it had been reproduced without modification it would often have obscured his meaning and puzzled the reader without any compensating advantage.

Traherne, as will be perceived from the frontispiece, made much use of capital letters and occasionally of italics in his writings. This was the custom of the time, as any one who examines a seventeenth-century printed book will see. In the first edition of this book I preserved most of the author's capitals and italicised passages: but here I have thought it unnecessary to do so. Upon the whole there seemed to be no advantage in retaining them, since they look a little odd to eyes accustomed to the uniformity of modern typography. In the case of the poems taken from "Christian Ethicks," however, I have preserved the old spelling and the capitals very nearly as they appear in the book.

Traherne, so far as English authors were concerned, was very little indebted to his predecessors. He was, of course, greatly influenced by the writers of the Old and New Testaments, from whom he is continually quoting in his "Christian Ethicks." Next to the Scriptures, the book which seems most to have influenced him was that ancient mystical and philosophical work which is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Those who are well acquainted with that remarkable production will find frequent traces of its influence in the prose and verse of Traherne. He gives several extracts from it in "Christian Ethicks," and in his "Commonplace Book" there are continual references to it. It might almost be said that, after the Bible, it was his chief manual of philosophy and of divine wisdom.

That Traherne was well acquainted with the writings of Herbert is evident from the fact that in one of his manuscript books he has copied out that writer's poem, "To all Angels and Saints"; but I do not find any traces of Herbert's influence upon him either in prose or verse. Nor do I find any proof that he was acquainted with the writings of Vaughan. The resemblance between Traherne's line,

How, like an Angel came I down,

and Vaughan's reference to his "angel infancy" is probably no more than an accidental coincidence. Though their points of view were similar in many respects, Traherne possessed a much stronger personality than Vaughan, and therefore had little or nothing to learn from him. It is likely enough that he owed something to Donne, as most of the poets of his time did; but I do not find any clear indications of that poet's influence in his writings. Traherne's style, indeed, is that of his age, but as to his matter, few poets, I think, can boast of more originality.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Traherne's poetry is that it anticipates so much that seems to belong to much later periods of our literary history. Traherne, indeed, is likely to suffer to some extent in his reputation because ideas which with him were certainly original--or at least as much so as any ideas in any poets can be said to be original--have since become commonplaces in our literature. The praise of the beauty and innocence of childhood is familiar enough to us now, and has, perhaps, in some instances been carried to a rather ridiculous extreme. That certainly was not the case in Traherne's time. So far as I know, he was the first who dwelt upon those ideas in any other than an incidental and allusive manner. It is true that we find in Vaughan some passages of a similar tendency, but they are few and slight in comparison with those which we find in Traherne. If there are similar passages in other poets previous to, or contemporary with, the latter, I must confess that I am unacquainted with them. Nor were the poetical possibilities of the theme discovered until more than a century afterwards, when William Blake, who by the light of genius--or shall we say lunacy?--discovered so much else, discovered them. It was fitting, indeed, that Blake, whose youthful experiences seem to have more nearly resembled Traherne's than those of any other poet, should have followed all unknowingly in the elder writer's footsteps. Had he ever sat down to record the events of his infancy and childhood, Blake's narrative, I think, however different in detail, must have been like that of his predecessor in its chief features. I do not believe that there is any point out of all those which I have quoted respecting Traherne's childhood which Blake might not also have recorded of himself. Much as they differed in matters of faith, there was a deep and fundamental agreement in character and temperament between the two poets. To both of them the things seen by their imaginations were more real than the things seen with the eye, and to neither of them was there any dividing line between the natural and the supernatural. Their faiths were founded upon intuition rather than reason, and they were no more troubled by doubt or disbelief than a mountain is. Their capacity for faith was infinite, and stopped short only when their imagination failed them--if it ever did fail them.

Another poet with whom Traherne has some remarkable affinities is Wordsworth--not the Wordsworth of later life, when his poetic vein, if not exhausted, had at least grown thin and unproductive, but the Wordsworth of the magnificent ode "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." Let the reader once more peruse that poem, and note carefully the leading points in it. Then let him, bearing in mind the foregoing extracts from Traherne's "Centuries of Meditations," go carefully through the various poems in which the earlier poet celebrates the happiness of his infancy and childhood. When he has done this, let him ask himself if he would have believed that Wordsworth was unacquainted with Traherne's writings, supposing that they had been published before the later poet's time? I cannot think myself that it would have been easy in that case to think that the modern poet was entirely unindebted to the older one. It is hardly too much to say that there is not a thought of any value in Wordsworth's Ode which is not to be found in substance in Traherne. Of course, I do not say this with any view of disparaging Wordsworth, whose Ode, even if it had been, as we know it was not, derived from Traherne, would still have been a masterpiece. Its merit, like that of Gray's "Elegy," depends at least as much upon its form as upon its substance, and that, of course, was all Wordsworth's own. It is in a measure a testimony to the authentic character of their inspiration when two poets, unknown to each other, produce works which are so nearly identical in substance and spirit.

The reader will remember that Traherne in his youth determined to follow the bent of his own inclination at whatever cost of poverty or want of worldly success. That was the case also with Wordsworth. Another point in which, as it seems to me, they resembled each other was in the matter of poetic style. At first sight, indeed, there does not appear to be any likeness between them in this respect; yet, allowing for the difference in their times and their temperaments, I think we may find a good deal of similarity. Traherne's style, allowing for the nature of his subjects, is always simple and direct. His aim is to affect the minds of his readers by the weight of his thought and the enthusiasm of his utterance, not to astonish them by far-fetched metaphors or delight them with dulcet melodies. He has no ornament for ornament's sake, and he never attempts to clothe his "naked simple thought" in silken raiment or cloth of gold. He does not indulge in the metaphysical conceits and ingenuities with which the works of Donne and Cowley are so plentifully besprinkled. "Poetic diction" was as little sought for by him as by Wordsworth. He did not, however, fall into the error that Wordsworth sometimes did, of mistaking puerility for simplicity. I do not wish to press this point too far. I only desire to show that both poets were more solicitous about the substance than the form of their poetry. Wordsworth would have heartily endorsed the doctrine of Traherne that the best things are the commonest, and that natural objects and not artificial inventions are the true well-springs of delight.

Though the reader will, I hope, have agreed with my contention that Traherne anticipated a good many poetical ideas which have been thought to belong to much later dates, I can hardly expect him to accept without demur the claim I am now about to make on the poet's behalf. That Traherne had a considerable genius for metaphysics will be evident to any one who reads his "Christian Ethicks," or who studies at all carefully the contents of the present volume. But to claim that he was the originator of the metaphysical system which, since it was first made known, has created more discussion and exercised more influence than any other has done, will probably seem at first to be a very extravagant assertion. Yet that he had at least a clear prevision of that famous system which is known as the Berkeleian philosophy is, I think, incontestable. That theory, it seems to me, could hardly be stated in a clearer or more precise manner than it is in Traherne's poem entitled "My Spirit." I am much mistaken if the theory of "the non-existence of independent matter," which is the essence of Berkeley's system, is not to be found in this poem--not, it is true, stated as a philosophical dogma, but yet clearly implied, and not merely introduced as a flight of poetical fancy. It seems to me that if the following stanza from that poem is not altogether meaningless, no other construction can be placed upon it than that its author was a Berkeleian before Berkeley was born:

This made me present evermore With whatsoe'er I saw. An object, if it were before My eyes, was by Dame Nature's law Within my soul. Her store Was all at once within me: all Her treasures Were my immediate and internal pleasures, Substantial joys which did inform my Mind.

With all She wrought My Soul was fraught And every object in my Heart a Thought Begot or was; I could not tell Whether the things did there Themselves appear, Which in my Spirit truly seem'd to dwell; _Or whether my conforming Mind Were not even all that therein shin'd_.

The idea that matter has no existence, apart from its existence in the Spirit of the Eternal, or in the soul of man, is surely clearly, if not positively, advanced in the last six lines of the above stanza. The thought, so strangely fascinating to a poet--and Berkeley no less than Traherne was one--that the whole exterior universe is not really a thing apart from and independent of man's consciousness of it, but something which exists only as it is perceived, is undeniably to be found in "My Spirit." I have quoted only one stanza of it, but the whole poem should be carefully studied, for it is throughout an assertion of the supremacy of mind over matter, and an averment that it is the former and not the latter which has a real existence. If it be thought that it is going too far to say that the Berkeleian system is to be found in the poem--which of course it is not as a reasoned-out and complete theory--it yet cannot be denied that it is there in germ and in such a form that it only required to be seized upon by an acute intellect to be developed in the way Berkeley developed it. That the latter knew nothing of Traherne's poem is certain, and therefore I am not attempting to detract in any way from the credit which belongs to him. I am only anxious to give the poet his due as the first who caught a glimpse of so notable a truth or error--which ever it may be.[F]

Deeply as Traherne was penetrated with a sense of the glory of the universe, and of the infinite greatness of its Creator, it was with no sense of abasement that he contemplated them. He felt that in his own soul, so capable of the sublimest conceptions and the most exalted aspirations, there must needs be a divine element. He was no outcast thrust out of Eden into a wilderness of spiritual destitution, but the son of a loving Father, born to a splendid inheritance, and at least as necessary to the Deity as servants and dependents are to keep up the state and dignity of a king. If God confers benefits on man it is in order that He may witness man's delight in them and gratitude for them. To see this is a supreme delight to Him, and without it there would be something wanting to His felicity. But I must quote a stanza from "The Recovery," lest the reader should think that I am misrepresenting the poet:

For God enjoy'd is all His End. Himself He then doth comprehend When He is blessed, magnified, Extoll'd, exalted, prais'd and glorified, Honor'd, esteem'd, belov'd, enjoy'd, Admired, sanctified, obey'd, That is received. For _He_ Doth place His whole Felicity In that, _who is despised and defied, Undeified almost if once denied_.

Matthew Arnold said of Goethe that he

Neither made man too much a God Nor God too much a man.

That could hardly be said of Traherne. It is scarcely possible, I think, to deny that in the above-quoted passage he committed the fault of making "God too much a man." That, however, was a fault which he shared with most of the theologians of his time. Perhaps it is a fault which is almost inseparable from a sincere and fervent faith. Without refining away the conception of God to a mere abstraction, it is impossible to think of Him otherwise than as an infinitely magnified and glorified man. Since the human mind is so constituted, it is surely vain to attempt to set limits within which we are to think of Him. Every man will do this according to the law of his own temperament. The man of cool reason and well-controlled passions will form a very different conception of the Deity from the man of enthusiastic disposition and ardent emotions. To think of the Deity as "a power not ourselves which makes for righteousness" is no more possible for a Traherne, than it is for an Arnold to think of God as One

who is despised and defied, Undeified almost if once denied.

To make all men think alike, whether on political, moral, or theological subjects, is now seen by all but a very few reactionaries to be an impossible task. It is needless to defend Traherne for the views he took regarding the relations between God and man; I have only thought it expedient to show that the line he followed was that to which he was impelled by the character of his individuality.

An excellent poet, a prose-writer of equal or perhaps greater excellence, an exemplary preacher and teacher, who gave in his own person an example of the virtues which he inculcated, one with whom religion was not a garment to be put on, but the life of his life and the spring of all his actions--such was Thomas Traherne. Much as I dissent from his opinions, and much as my point of view as regards the meaning and the purpose of life differs from his, I have yet found it easy to appreciate the fineness of his character, and the charm of his writings. It is not necessary that we should believe as Traherne believed in order to derive benefit from his works. Men of all faiths may study them with profit, and derive from them a new impulse towards that "plain living and high thinking" by which alone happiness can be reached and peace of mind assured.

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