Chapter 5

One feels, as one reads Milton, that his ultimate view of the universe is a great chaotic battlefield, amid the confused elements of which rise up the portentous figures of "Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, and Powers," and in the struggle between these, the most arbitrary, the most tyrannical, the most despotic, conquers the rest, and, planting his creative Gonfalon further in the Abyss than any, becomes "God"; the God whose personal and unrestrained Caprice creates the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, out of Chaos; and Man out of the dust of the Earth. Thus it is brought about that what this God _wills_ is "Good," and what his strongest and most formidable antagonist wills is "Evil." Between Good and Evil there is no eternal difference, except in the eternal difference between the conquering Personality of Jehovah and the conquered Personality of Lucifer. So, far from it being true that Milton is the dull transcriber of mere traditional Protestantism, a very little investigation reveals the astounding fact that the current popular Evangelical view of the origin of things and the drama of things is based, not upon the Bible at all, but upon Milton's poem. In this respect he is a true Classic Poet--a Maker of Mythology--a Delphic Demiurge.

One of the most difficult questions in the world to answer would be the question how far Milton "believed" simply and directly, in the God he thus half-created. Probably he did "believe" more than his daring, arbitrary "creations" would lead us to suppose. His nature demanded positive and concrete facts. Scepticism and mysticism were both abhorrent to him; and it is more likely than not that, in the depths of his strange cold, unapproachable heart, a terrible and passionate prayer went up, day and night, to the God of Isaac and Jacob that the Lord should not forget his Servant.

The grandeur and granite-like weight of Milton's learning was fed by the high traditions of Greece and Rome; but, in his heart of hearts, far deeper than anything that moved him in Aeschylus or Virgil, was the devotion he had for the religion of Israel, and the Fear of Him who "sitteth between the Cherubims." It is often forgotten, amid the welter of modern ethical ideals and modern mystical theosophies, how grand and unique a thing is this Religion of Israel--a religion whose God is at once Personal and Invisible. After all, what do we know? A Prince of Righteousness, a King of Sion, a Shepherd of his People--such a "Living God" as David cries out upon, with those dramatic cries that remain until today the most human and tragic of all our race's wrestling with the Unknown--is this not a Faith quite as "possible" and far more moving, than all the "Over-Souls" and "Immanent All's Fathers" and "Streams of Tendency" which have been substituted for it by unimaginative modern "breadth of mind"? It is time that it was made clear that the alternative at present for all noble souls is between the reign of "crass Casuality" and the reign of Him "who maketh the clouds His chariot and walketh upon the wings of the wind." Those who, "with Democritus, set the world upon Chance" have a right to worship their Jesus of Nazareth, and, in him, the Eternal Protest against the Cruelty of Life. But if Life is to be deified, if Life is to be "accepted," if Life is to be worshipped; if Courage, not Love, be the secret of the cosmic system, then let us call aloud upon it, under personal and palpable symbols, in the old imaginative, _poetic_ way, rather than fool ourselves with thin mysticities, vague intuitions, and the "sounding brass" of "ethical ideals"!

The earlier poems of Milton are among the most lovely in the English language. Lycidas is, for those who understand what poetry means, the most lovely of all. There is nothing, anywhere, quite like this poem. The lingering, elaborate harmonies, interrupted in pause after pause, by lines of reverberating finality; and yet, sweetly, slowly leading on to a climax of such airy, lucid calm--it is one's "hope beyond hope" of what a poem should be.

The absence of vulgar sentiment, the classic reserve, the gentle melancholy, the delicate gaiety, the subtle interweaving of divine, rhythmic cadences, the ineffable lightness of touch, as of cunning fingers upon reluctant clay; is there anything in poetry to equal these things? One does not even regret the sudden devastating apparition of that "two-handed engine at the door." For one remembers how wickedly, how mercilessly, the beauty of life is even now being spoiled by these accursed "hirelings"--and now, as then, "nothing said."

The Nativity Hymn owes half the charm of its easy, natural grace to the fact that the victory of Mary's infant son over the rest is treated as if it were the victory of one pagan god over another--the final triumph being to him who is the most "gentle" and "beautiful" of all the gods. In the famous argument between the Lady and her Tempter, in Comus, we have an exquisite example of the sweet, grave refinement of virginal taste which shuns grossness as "a false note." The doctrine of Comus--if so airy a thing can be supposed to have a doctrine--is not very different from the doctrine of Marius the Epicurean. One were foolish to follow the bestial enchanter; not so much because it is "wrong" to do so, as because, then, one would lose the finer edge of that heavenly music which turns the outward shape "to the soul's essence."

Milton's Sonnets occupy a place by themselves in English Literature, and they may well be pondered upon by those who think that the relinquishing of the "old forms" makes it easier to express one's personality. It makes it, as a matter of fact, much harder, just as the stripping from human beings of their characteristic "outer garments" makes them so dreadfully, so devastatingly, alike! Nothing could be more personal than a Miltonic Sonnet. The rigid principles of form, adhered to so scrupulously in the medium used, intensify, rather than detract from, his individualistic character. That Miltonic wit, so granite-like and mordant, how well it goes with the magical whispers that "syllable men's names"!

All Milton's personal prejudices may be found in the Sonnets, from his hatred of those frightful Scotch appellations that would "make Quintlian gasp" to his longing for Classic companionship and "Attic wine" and "immortal notes" and "Tuscan airs"! As one reads on, laughing gently at the folly of those who have so misunderstood him, one is conscious more and more of that high, cold, clear, lonely tenderness, which found so little satisfaction in the sentiment of the rabble and still less in the endearments of women! As in the case of "sad Electra's poet," his own favorite, it is easy to grow angry about his "Misogyny" and take Christian exception to his preference for mistresses over wives. It is true that Milton's view of marriage is more than "heathen." But one has to remember that in these matters of purely personal taste no public opinion has right to intervene. When the well-married Brownings of our age succeed in writing poetry in the "grand style," it will be time--and, perhaps, not even then--to let the dogs of democratic domesticity loose upon this austere lover of the classic way.

What a retort was "Paradise Lost" to the lewd revellers who would have profaned his aristocratic isolation with howlings and brutalities and philistine uproar! Milton despised "priests and kings" from the heights of a pride loftier than their own--and he did not love the vulgar mob much better. In Paradise Lost he can "feel himself" into the sublime tyranny of God, as well as into the sublime revolt of Lucifer. Neither the one or other stoops to solicit "popular voices." The thing to avoid, as one reads this great poem, are the paraphrases from the book of Genesis. Here some odd scrupulousness of scholarly conscience seems to prevent him launching out into his native originality. But, putting this aside, what majestic Pandemoniums of terrific Imagination he has the power to call up! The opening Books are as sublime as the book of Job, and more arresting than Aeschylus. The basic secrets of his blank verse can never be revealed, but one is struck dumb with wonder in the presence of this Eagle of Poetry as we attempt to follow him, flight beyond flight, hovering beyond hovering, as he gets nearer and nearer to the Sun.

It is by single paragraphs, all the same, and by single lines, that I would myself prefer to see him judged. Long poems have been written before and will be written again, but no one will ever write--no one but Dante has ever written--such single lines as one reads in Milton. Curiously enough, some of the most staggering of these superb passages are interludes and allusions, rather than integral episodes in the story, and not only interludes, but interludes in the "pagan manner." Second only to those Luciferan defiances, which seem able to inspire even us poor worms with the right attitude towards Fate, I am tempted to place certain references to Astarte, Ashtoreth and Adonis.

"Astarte, queen of Heaven, with crescent horns, To whose bright Image nightly, by the moon, Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."

Or of Adonis:

"Whose annual wound, in Lebanon, allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a Summer's day--"

That single line, "Whose annual wound, in Lebanon, allured," seems to me better than any other that could be quoted, to evoke the awe and the thrill and the seduction of all true poetry.

Then those great mysterious allusions to the planetary orbits and the fixed stars and the primeval spaces of land and sea; what a power they have of spreading wide before us the huge horizons of the world's edge! Who can forget "the fleecy star that bears Andromeda far off Atlantic seas"? Or that phrase about the sailors "stemming mightly to the pole"? Or the sudden terror of that guarded Paradisic Gate--"with dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms"? The same extraordinary beauty of single passages may be found in "Paradise Regained," a poem which is much finer than many guess. The descriptions there of the world-cities, Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, have the same classic thrill of reserved awe and infinite reverence that some of Dante's lines possess--only, with Milton, the thing is longer drawn out and more grandiloquent. Satan's speech about his own implacable fatality, "his harbour, and his ultimate repose," and that allusion to Our Lord's gentleness, like "the cool intermission of a summer's cloud" are both in the manner we love.

It is only, however, when one comes to Samson Agonistes that the full power of Milton's genius is felt. Written in a style which the devotees of "free verse" in our time would do well to analyse, it is the most complete expression of his own individual character that he ever attained. Here the Captain of Jehovah, here the champion of Light against Darkness, of Pride against Humility, of Man against Woman, finds his opportunity and his hour. Out of his blindness, out of his loneliness, out of the welter of hedonists and amorists and feminists and fantasists who crowded upon him, the great, terrible egoist strikes his last blow! No one can read Samson Agonistes without being moved, and those who look deepest into our present age may well be moved the most! One almost feels as if some great overpowering tide of all the brutalities and crudities and false sentiments and cunning hypocrisies, and evil voluptuousness, of all the Philistias that have ever been, is actually rushing to overwhelm us! Gath and Askalon in gross triumph--must this thing be? Will the Lord of Hosts lift no finger to help his own? And then the end comes; and the Euripidean "messenger" brings the great news! He is dead, our Champion; but in his death he slew more than in his life. "Nothing is here" for unworthy sorrow; "nothing" that need make us "knock the breast;"--"No weakness, no contempt, dispraise or blame--nothing but well and fair, and what may quiet us in a death so noble."

And the end of Samson Agonistes is as the end of Milton's own life. Awaited in calm dignity, as a Roman soldier might wait for Caesar's word, Death has claimed its own. But let not the "daughters of the uncircumsized" triumph! Grandeur and nobility, beauty and heroism, live still; and while these live, what matter though our bravest and our fairest perish? It only remains to let the thunderbolt, when it does fall, find us prepared; find us in calm of mind, "all passion spent."

CHARLES LAMB

Charles Lamb occupies a very curious position in English literature and a very enviable one. He is, perhaps, the most widely known, and widely spoken of, of any stylist we possess, and the least understood. It was his humour, while living, to create misunderstanding, and he creates it still. And yet he is recognized on all sides as a Classic of the unapproachable breed. Charles Lamb has among his admirers more uninteresting people than any great artist has ever had except Thackeray. He has more academic people in his train than anyone has ever had except Shakespeare. And more severe, elderly, pedantic persons profess to love him than love any other mortal writer.

These people all read Lamb, talk Lamb, quote Lamb, but they do not _suggest_ Lamb; they do not "smack," as our ancestors used to say, of the true Elia vein.

But the immense humour of the situation does not stop here. Not only has this evasive City Clerk succeeded in fooling the "good people;" he has fooled the "wicked ones." I have myself in the circle of my acquaintance more than half a dozen charming people, of the type who enjoy Aubrey Beardsley, and have a mania for Oscar Wilde, and sometimes dip into Remy de Gourmont, and not one of them "can read" Charles Lamb. He has succeeded in fooling them; in making them suppose he is something quite different from what he is. He used to tell his friends that every day he felt himself growing more "official" and "moral." He even swore he had been taken for a Verger or a Church warden. Well, our friends of the "enclosed gardens" still take him for a Verger. But he is a more remarkable Verger than they dream. As a matter of fact, there were some extremely daring and modern spirits in Elia's "entourage," spirits who went further in an antinomian direction than--I devoutly pray--my friends are ever likely to go, and these scandalous ones adored him. And for his part, he seems to have liked them--more than he ought.

It is, indeed, very curious and interesting, the literary fate of Charles Lamb. Jocular Bishops, archly toying Rural Deans, Rectors with a "penchant" for anecdote, scholarly Canons with a weakness for Rum Punch, are all inclined to speak as if in some odd way he was of their own very tribe. He had absolutely nothing in common with them, except a talent for giving false impressions! With regard to the devotion to him which certain gentle and old-fashioned ladies have--one's great-aunts, for instance--I am inclined to think that much more might be said. There is a quality, a super-refined, exquisite quality, and one with a pinch of true ironic salt in it, which the more thick-skinned among us sensationalists may easily miss.

It is all very well for us to talk of "burning with a hard gem-like flame," when, as a matter of fact, we move along, dull as cave-men, to some of the finest aesthetic effects in the world. Not to appreciate the humour of that rarest and sweetest of all human types, the mischievous-tongued Great-Aunt, is to be nothing short of a profane fool.

But Charles Lamb is a very different person from our Goldsmiths and Cowpers and Austens, and their modern representatives. It needs something else in a Great-Aunt than old-fashioned irony to appreciate _him._ It needs an imagination that is very nearly "Shakespearean" and it needs a passion for beautiful style of which a Flaubert or an Anatole France might be proud.

So here we have the old sly Elia, fooling people now as he fooled them in his lifetime, and a riddle both to the godly and the ungodly. The great Goethe, whose Walpurgis Night "He-Apes" made Elia put out his tongue, read, we learn, with no little pleasure some fantastic skit of this incorrigible one. Did he discern--the sublime Olympian--what a cunning flute player lurked under the queer mask? "Something between a Jew, a Gentleman and an Angel" he liked to fancy he looked; and one must confess that in the subtlest of all senses of that word, a gentleman he was.

Lamb's "essays" were written at off hours, when he could escape from his office. Once completely freed from the necessity of office work, his writing lost its magic. His genius was of that peculiarly delicate texture which requires the stimulus of reaction. One cannot be too grateful that the incomparable Pater, after Lamb himself, perhaps, the greatest master of English prose, found it necessary to utter his appreciation. Pater, as usual, hits the mark with an infallible hand when he speaks of that overhanging Sophoclean tragedy which darkened Lamb's earlier days and never quite left him.

It is, of course, this, the sense of one living always on the edge of a precipice, that gives such piquancy and charm to Elia's mania for "little things." Well might he turn to "little things," when great things--his Sun and his Moon--had been turned for him to Blood! But, as Pater suggests, there is "Philosophy" in all this, and more Philosophy than many suppose. It is unfortunate that the unworldly Coleridge and the worldly Thackeray should have both pitched upon Lamb's "saintliness" to make copy of. Nothing infuriated him more than such a tone towards himself. And he was right to be infuriated. His "unselfishness," his "sweetness," of which these good men make so much, were only one aspect of the Philosophy of his whole life. Lamb was, in his life, a great epicurean philosopher, as, in all probability, many other "saints" have been. The things in him that fretted Carlyle, his fits of intoxication, his outbursts of capricious impishness, his perversity and his irony, were just as much part of the whole scheme as were his celibacy and his relation to his sister.

What one can really gather from Lamb is nothing less than a very wise and very subtle "way of life," a way that, amid many outrageous experiences, will be found singularly lucky.

In the first place, let it be noted, Lamb deliberately cultivates the art of "transforming the commonplace." It is as absurd to deny the existence of this element--from which we all suffer--as it is to maintain that it cannot be changed. It _can_ be changed. That is precisely what this kind of rare genius does. It is a miracle, of course, but everything in art is a miracle.

Nature tosses out indiscriminately her motley productions, and if you are born for such "universalism," you may swallow them wholesale. The danger of such a downright manner of going to work is that it blunts one's critical sense. If you swallow everything just as it is, you _taste_ very little. But Charles Lamb is nothing if not "critical," nothing if not an Epicure, and his manner of dealing with the "commonplace" sharpens rather than blunts the edge of one's taste.

And what is this manner? It is nothing less than an indescribable blending of Christianity and Paganism. Heine, another of Carlyle's "blackguards," achieves the same synthesis. It is this spiritual achievement--at once a religious and an aesthetic triumph--that makes Elia, for all his weaknesses, such a really great man. The Wordsworths and Coleridges who patronized him were too self-opiniated and individualistic to be able to enter into either tradition.

Wordsworth is neither a Christian or a Pagan. He is a moral philosopher. Elia is an artist, who understands the _importance of ritual_ in life--but of naturalness in ritual.

How difficult, whether as a thinker or a man, is it to be natural in one's loves and hates! How many quite authoritative Philistines never really let the world know how Bohemian at heart they are! And how much of our modern "artistic feeling" is a pure affectation! Now, whatever Elia was not, he was wantonly, wickedly, whimsically natural.

He never concealed his religious feelings, his superstitious feelings. He never concealed his fancies, his fads, his manias, his vices. He never concealed his emotion when he felt a thrill of passionate faith. He never concealed it when he felt a thrill of blasphemous doubt.

He accepted life's little pleasures as they appeared, and did not hesitate to make "cults" of the ones that appeared most appealing. If he had Philistine feelings, he indulged them without shame. If he had recondite and "artistic" feelings, he indulged them also without shame. He is one of the few great men not afraid to be un-original, and hence he is the most original of all. "I cannot," says he, "sit and think. Books think for me." Well, books did "think for him," for he managed to press the books of the great poets into his service, as no mortal writer has ever dared to do before. And he could do it without impairing his originality, because he was as original as the great poets he used. We say deliberately "poets," for, as Pater points out, to find Lamb's rivals in sheer imaginative genius, we have to leave the company of those who write prose.

Do the humorous ecclesiastics and scholarly tutors who profess to understand Elia ever peep into that Essay called "Witches," or that other Essay called "A Child-Angel"? There are things here that are written for a very different circle. Certain sentences in "Dream-children," too, have a beauty that takes a natural man's breath completely away. Touches of far-off romance, terrible and wistful as "anonymous ballads," alternate with gestures of Rabelaisian humour, such as generous souls love. Elia's style is the only thing in English prose that can be called absolutely perfect. Compared with the rich, capricious, wilful, lingering by the way of Lamb's manner, Pater's is precise, demure and over-grave, Wilde's fantastic and over-provocative, Ruskin's intolerably rhetorical.

Into what other prose style could the magic of Shakespeare's "little touches" be drawn, or the high melancholy of Milton's imagery be led, without producing a frightful sense of the incongruous? He can quote them both--or any other great old master--and if it were not for the "inverted commas" we should not be aware of the insertion.

Elia cannot say anything, not the simplest thing, without giving it a turn, a twist, a lift, a lightness, a grace, that would redeem the very grease-spots on a scullion's apron!

There is no style in the world like it. Germany, France, Italy, Russia have no Charles Lamb. Their Flauberts and D'Annunzios belong to a different tribe. Even Turgenieff, just because he has to "get on with his story" cannot do precisely this.

Every single one of the "essays" and most of the "letters" can be read over and over again, and their cadences caressed as if they were living people's features. And they are living. They are as living as those Japanese Prints so maddening to some among us, or as the drawings of Lionardo. They also--in their place--are "pure line" to use the ardent modern slang, and unpolluted "imaginative suggestion."