MY COMMONPLACE BOOK
 
 MY 
 
 COMMONPLACE 
 BOOK 
 
 J. T. HACKETT 
 
 " Omne meum, nihil meum 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 MOFFAT YARD & COMPANY 
 
 1921
 
 First publication in Great Britain, September, 1919. 
 Second English Edition, September, 1920. 
 Third English Edition, January, 1921. 
 
 (All Rights Reserved) 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
 
 O Memories ! 
 Past that is ! 
 
 GEORGE EWOT. 
 
 2021281
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO MY 
 DEAR FRIEXD 
 
 RICHARD HODGSON 
 
 WHO HAS PASSED OVER 
 TO THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Of wounds and sore defeat 
 
 I made my battle-stay ; 
 
 Winged sandals for my feet 
 
 I wove of my delay ; 
 
 Of weariness and fear 
 
 I made my shouting spear ; 
 
 Of loss, and doubt, and dread, 
 
 And swift oncoming doom 
 
 I made a helmet for my head 
 
 And a floating plume. 
 
 From the shutting mist of death, 
 
 From the failure of the breath 
 
 I made a battle-horn to blow 
 
 Across the vales of overthrow. 
 
 O hearken, love, the battle-horn I 
 
 The triumph clear, the silver scorn I 
 
 O hearken where the echoes bring. 
 
 Down the grey disastrous morn, 
 
 Laughter and rallying ! * 
 
 WITJJAM VAUGHN MOODY. 
 
 From Richard Hodgson's Christmas Card, 1904, the Christmas before his death.
 
 I cannot but remember such things were. 
 That were most precious to me. 
 
 MACBETH, IV, t,.
 
 PREFACE* 
 
 A lyARGE proportion of the most interesting quotations in this 
 book was collected between 1874 and 1886. During that period 
 I was under the influence of Richard Hodgson, who was my 
 close friend from childhood. To him directly and indirectly 
 this book is largely indebted. 
 
 Hodgson (1855-1905) had a remarkably pure, noble, and 
 lovable character, and was one of the most gifted men Australia 
 has produced. He is known in philosophic circles from some early 
 contributions to Mind and other journals, but is mainly known 
 from his work in psychical research, to which he devoted the best 
 years of his life. Apart from his great ability in other directions, 
 he was endowed, even in youth, with fine taste and a clear and 
 mature literary judgment. This will appear to some extent in 
 the quotations over his name, and the note on p. 208 will give 
 further particulars of his career. He was from two to three years 
 older than myself, and guided me in my early reading. There- 
 fore, indirectly, he has to do with most of the contents of this 
 book. 
 
 But, more than this, about one-third of the main quotations 
 (not including the notes which I have only now added) came direct 
 from Hodgson. He left Australia in 1877, but we maintained 
 a voluminous correspondence until 1886. This correspondence 
 contained most of the quotations referred to, and the remainder 
 
 * To the readers of the Adelaide edition (which was issued only in Australia) I 
 should explain why the book is now so much enlarged. The first issue was prepared 
 hastily and without sufficient care. (The proceeds were to go to the Australian Repa- 
 triation Fund, and the book was hurriedly put together and printed to be ready for a 
 Repatriation Day which was announced but actually was never held.) It was my first 
 experience in publishing, and I did not realize the care and consideration required in 
 issuing a book even of this character. Hence (i) part of my manuscript was entirely 
 overlooked ; (2) I failed to see that many quotations would be improved by adding theii 
 context ; (3) I did not go properly through the great mass of Hodgson's correspondence ; 
 and (4) I, wrongly, as I now think, excluded many quotations because I thought certain 
 subjects were unsuitable for the book. Besides extending the scope of the collection 
 by including those subjects I now have no longer restricted myself to the seventy-eighty 
 period. The notes also add materially to the size of this volume.
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 Hodgson gave me in London on the only occasion I met him after 
 he left Australia. (After 1886 he became so immersed in 
 psychical research, and I in legal work, that our correspondence 
 ceased to be of a literary character.) Thus directly and indirectly 
 Hodgson has much to do with the book and, if it had been 
 practicable, I would have placed his name on the title-page. 
 
 This book is simply one to be taken up at odd moments, like 
 any other collection of quotations. But there are two reasons 
 why it may have some special interest. One reason is that it 
 includes passages from a number of authors who appear to have 
 become forgotten, or, at any rate, to be passing Lethe-wards. 
 We, who dwell in the underworld,* cannot, of course, have a 
 complete knowledge of what is known or forgotten in the inner 
 literary circles of England. We can depend only on the books 
 and periodicals that happen to come to our hands, and perhaps 
 should not rely too much on su h sources of information. Yet 
 I cannot but think that Robert Buchanan, for example, has 
 become largely forgotten, and apparently this is the case also 
 with a number of other authors from whom I quote. Because of 
 this, I have retained all the passages I had from such authors. 
 
 It must be remembered that this book is not an anthology. 
 A commonplace book is usually a collection of reminders made 
 by a young man who cannot afford an extensive library. There 
 is no system in such a collection. A book is borrowed and 
 extracts made from it ; another book by the same author is bought 
 and no extract made from it. On the one hand a favourite verse, 
 although well known, is written out for some reason or other ; 
 en the other hand hundreds of beautiful poems are omitted. 
 So far from this being an anthology, I have, as a matter of course, 
 omitted many poems that since the seventy-eighty period have 
 become general favourites ; and, as regards the most beautiful 
 gems of our literature, they are almost all excluded. There are 
 for example, only a few lines from Shakespeare. 
 
 Some exceptions have, however, been made. In a series of 
 word-pictures, a few of the best-known passages will be found. 
 A few others have been included for reasons that will readily 
 appear ; they either form part of a series or the reason is apparent 
 from the notes. Apart from these I have retained Blanco 
 White's great sonnet and "The Night has a thousand eyes," 
 written by F. W. Bourdillon when an undergraduate at Worcester 
 College, Oxford, because with regard to these I had an interesting 
 and instructive experience. I accidentally discovered that of four 
 well-read men (two at least of them more thorough students 
 
 * See Tennyson's " Princess " : 
 
 Fresh as the first beam glittering on a. sail 
 That brings our friends up from the underworld
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 of poetry than myself) two were ignorant of the one poem and 
 two of the other. Seeking an explanation, I turned to the antho- 
 logies. I could not find in any of them Bourdillon's little gem 
 until I came to the comparatively recent Oxford Book of Victorian 
 Verse and The Spirit of Man. The Blanco White sonnet I could 
 find nowhere except in collections of sonnets, which in my opinion 
 are little read. It will be observed that in anthologies alone can 
 Blanco White's one and only poem be kept alive. 
 
 The second reason why this book may have a special interest is 
 that it may serve as a reminder to my contemporaries of our stirring 
 thoughts and experiences in the seventies and eighties. How 
 interesting this period was it is difficult to show in a few lines. 
 In pure literature, books of value simply poured from the press. 
 In the closing year, 1889, " One who never turned his back, 
 but marched breast forward " died on the day that his last book, 
 Asolando, was published, leaving Tennyson, an old man of eighty, 
 the sole survivor of the poets of a great period. At almost the 
 same moment " Crossing the Bar " was published. 
 
 Apart from literature, the seventies and eighties were an 
 eventful period in science and religion. Darwinism was still 
 causing its tremendous upheaval, and the supposed conflict 
 between religion and science exercised an enormous effect on the 
 minds of men. Evolution had explained so much of the processes 
 in the history of life, that the majority of \hinkers at that time 
 imagined that no room was left for the super-natural. Science 
 was supposed to have given a death-blow to religion, and the 
 greatest wave of materialism ever known in the history of the 
 world swept over England and Europe. It is strange how many 
 great thinkers missed what now appears so obvious a fact, that 
 causality still stood behind all law, and that Darwin, like Newton, 
 had merely helped to show the method by which the univeise 
 is governed. (It seems to me that J ames Martineau stood supreme 
 at that time as a man of genius who saw clearly the inherent 
 defect of the whole materialist movement.) 
 
 However, agnosticism, materialism, positivism flourished and 
 triumphed. Science, whose dignity had been so long unrecog- 
 nized, came into her own, and, in her turn, usurped the same 
 dogmatic superior attitude she had resented in ecclesiasticism. 
 On the one hand pessimistic literature and philosophy poured 
 from the press ; on the other hand new religions arose to take 
 the place of the old. Theosophy and spiritualism were in evidence 
 everywhere (leading in 1882 to the happy result that the Society 
 for Psychical Research was founded). Harrison, Clifford, Swin- 
 burne and others preached the deiiication of man. There were 
 discords within, as well as foes without the church. The severely 
 orthodox fought against the revelations of Colenso and the higher
 
 MI PREFACE 
 
 criticism ; Seeley's Ecce Homo and a host of other works 
 aroused fierce antagonism ; Pius IX, who had in 1864 published 
 his Syllabus which would have destroyed modern civilization, 
 proclaimed the infallibility of the Pope in 1870 and in 1872 
 was deprived of temporal power. Such questions as the literal 
 interpretation and inerrancy of the Bible were the subjects of 
 intense conflict and especially strange is it to remember the 
 dire struggle of well-intentioned men to maintain the horrible 
 doctrine of eternal punishment. I imagine that this book 
 will assist to some extent in recalling the atmosphere and aroma 
 of that remarkable period. 
 
 I have made very little attempt to arrange my quotations 
 and now wish I had done less in that direction. The book 
 is intended for casual reading, and to arrange it under headings 
 would tend to make it heavy. The element of surprise is more 
 calculated to make the book attractive. 
 
 I began the notes that are appended to some of the quotations 
 with the intention of giving only such short, necessary expla- 
 nations as would be of assistance to the inexperienced reader. 
 When, however, I began to write, I found my pen running away 
 with me. Apart from the usual, ineffectual efforts of one's 
 youth, I had never before attempted literary work, and for the 
 first time experienced the great pleasure there is in such writing. 
 With the immense variety of subjects in a collection of quotations, 
 one could continue to write over a series of years ; but it was 
 necessary to keep the book within reasonable bounds, and, there- 
 fore, I had arbitrarily to come to a stop. In the.se notes I do not 
 claim that there is much, if any, originality,* they are mostly 
 recollections of old reading. Still they may serve the important 
 purpose of revivifying old truths (see p. 78). 
 
 I have been astonished at the great deal of work this book 
 has involved and also how much I have needed the assistance 
 of my friends. There were some sixty or seventy quotations 
 in respect to which I had neglected to give any reference to the 
 authors (for the same reason as one did not put the names on 
 photographs of old friends it seemed impossible that the names 
 could be forgotten). The difficulty of finding even one such 
 quotation is enormous, and we havenoBritishMuseuminAdelaide, 
 but only some limited public libraries. However, with the help 
 of my friends I have succeeded in tracing the paternity of most 
 of these " orphans." In this and other directions I have had 
 the kind assistance of many gentlemen. Of these first and 
 
 * I occasionally thought I had hit on something new, but usually discovered that 1 
 had been anticipated and then deeply sympathized with St. Jerome's old tutor, Donatus. 
 It will be remembered that Jerome, in his commentary on " There is no new thing under 
 the sun," tells us that Donatus used to say, Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt, " Con- 
 found the fellows who anticipated us !"
 
 PREFACE xm 
 
 foremost conies Mr. G. F. Hassell, the publisher of the Adelaide 
 edition, who, in his devotion to literature as well as to his own 
 art of printing, is a worthy representative of the old Renaissance 
 printers. He has given me every assistance, has gone through 
 every line, and, as he is both an exceedingly well-read man and 
 also of a younger generation than myself, I have left it to him 
 to decide what should be omitted and what retained in this book 
 Professor Mitchell has also been so kind as to revise and make 
 suggestions concerning a number of notes on philosophic and 
 other subjects. Professor Darnley Naylor has been uniformly 
 good in revising any notes of a classical nature though he takes 
 no responsibility whatever for the views I express. Dr. E. 
 Harold Davies has also helped me with two notes on music, 
 in one instance correcting a serious mistake I had made. Sir 
 Langdon Bonython, my friend of many years, has assisted 
 me with practical as well as literary suggestions, and has thrown 
 open his library to me. Mr. Francis Edwards, of High Street, 
 Marylebone, has assisted in my search for references to quotations. 
 Mr. H. Rutherford Purnell, Public Librarian of Adelaide, and his 
 staff have helped me throughout, and Mr. E. La Touche Arm- 
 strong, Public Librarian of Melbourne, has gone to great trouble 
 on my account. Miss M. R. Walker has assisted me in various 
 ways, and especially in preparing the very difficult Index of 
 Subjects. Mr. Sydney Temple Thomas has lent me a number 
 of important books I specially required. Others who have 
 helped me in one way or another are two English friends, Mrs. 
 Caroline Sidgwick and Mrs. Rachael Bray, Messrs. J. R. Fowler, 
 H. W. Uffindell, S. Talbot Smith and Dr. J. W. Browne, of 
 Adelaide, Professor Dettmann of New Zealand, Professor Hyslop 
 of New York and Mr. F. C. Covers of the State War Council, 
 Sydney. 
 
 For permission to include quotations from their works I thank 
 the following authors : Rev. F. W. Boreham, Mr. F. W. Bour- 
 dillon, Mr. A. J. Edmunds, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Thomas 
 Hardy, O.M., Professor Hob house, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. 
 E- F" Knight, Mr. R. Le Gallienne, Mr. W. S. Lilly, Mr. Robert 
 Loveman, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, 
 Professor A. H. Sayce, Mrs. Cronwright Schreiner, Mr. J. C. 
 Squire, Mr. Herbert Trench, Mr. Samuel Waddington, Mrs. 
 Humphry Ward, Mr. F. A. Westbury, Mr. F. S. Williamson and 
 Sir Francis Younghusband. 
 
 For extracts from the writings of their relatives I am grateful 
 to Lady Arnold, Sir Francis Darwin, Mr. Henry James, The 
 Earl of Lytton, Dr. Greville McDonald, Miss Martineau, Miss 
 Massey, Mr. W. M. Meredith, Mrs. F. W. H. Myers, the Rev. 
 Conrad Noel, Mr. William M. Rossetti, Sir Herbert Stephen and 
 Lord Tennyson. Mr. Piddington has also given much assistance.
 
 xiv PREFACE 
 
 I am indebted to the following for quotations from the works 
 of the authors named : of Ruskin to the Ruskin Literary Trustees 
 and their publishers, Messrs. George Allen and Unwin ; of Brunton 
 Stephens to Messrs. Angus and Robertson ; of C. S. Calverley 
 to Messrs. G. Bell and vSons ; of George Eliot to Messrs. William 
 Blackwood & Sons ; of James Kenneth Stephen to Messrs. Bowes 
 and Bowes ; of Francis Thompson to Messrs. Burns and Gates ; 
 of R. L. Stevenson to Messrs. Chatto and Windus and to Messrs. 
 Charles Scribner's Sons ; of Robert Buchanan to Messrs. Chatto 
 and Windus and to Mr. W. E. Martyn ; of James Thomson 
 (B.V.) to Messrs. P. J. and A. E. Dobell ; of D. G. Rossetti 
 to Messrs. Ellis ; of Swinburne to Mr. W. Heinemann ; of Mr 
 Le Gallienne, H. D. Lowry, Stephen Phillips and J. B. Tabb 
 to Mr. John Lane ; of R. Loveman to the J. B. Lippincott Co.; 
 of A. K. H. Boyd, R. Jefferies, W. E. H. Lecky and the Rev. 
 James Martineau, to Messrs. Longmans Green & Co. ; of Alfred 
 Austin, T. E. Brown, Lewis Carroll, Edward Fitzgerald, F. W. H. 
 Myers, Walter Pater, I/3rd Tennyson and Charles Tennyson 
 Turner to Messrs. Macmillan & Co. ; of V. O'Sullivan to Mr. 
 Elkin Matthews ; of Mrs. Elizabeth Waterhouse to Messrs. 
 Methuen & Co. ; of Robert Browning to Mr. John Murray ; of 
 Dr. Moncure Conway and Sir Alfred Lyall to Messrs. Paul (Kegan) , 
 Trench Trubner & Co. ; of George Gissing to Mr. James B. 
 Pinker ; of John Payne to Mr. O. M. Pritchard, his executor, 
 and to Mr. Thomas Wright ; of Sir Edwin Arnold, P. J. Bailey 
 (Festus) and Coventry Patmore to Messrs. George Routledge & 
 Sons ; of G. Wliyte Melville to Messrs. Ward Lock & Co. (songs 
 and verses) ; of George MacDonald to Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son ; 
 Mr. Rudyard Kipling's " L'Envoi " is reprinted from Depart- 
 mental Ditties, by kind permission of the author and Messrs. 
 Methuen & Co. ; " To the True Romance " is published by Messrs. 
 Macmillan & Co., to whom I am deeply indebted, not only for 
 this and the permissions mentioned above, but also for much 
 assistance in tracing copyrights. Messrs. Longmans, Green & 
 Co.. Mr. John Murray and Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son have been 
 most helpful in this direction, as have also been Messrs. T. B. 
 Lippincott, the Oxford University Press and Messrs. Watts & Co. 
 Messrs. Constable & Co. have generously granted permission for 
 the quotations from George Meredith and, as the representatives 
 in London of the Houghton Mifflin Co. of Boston, Mass., have 
 secured the quotations from the works of American authors 
 published by that Firm, viz., T. B. Aldrich, R. W. Gilder. W. V. 
 Moody, S. M. B. Piatt, E. M. Thomas, C. D. Warner and the Classics 
 of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and WWttier. Messrs. G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons have also given much help ; the lines from Anna 
 Reeve Aldrich and R. C. Rogers are published by their New York 
 House. Mr. Martin Seeker joins in the consent given by Mr 
 Squire for the extract from his poems. I thank the Editor
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 of the Contemporary Review for quotations from the writings 
 of Professor A. Bain and the Rev. R. F. Littledale ; and the 
 Editor of the Nineteenth Century for some lines by W. M. 
 Hardinge (Greek Anthology) and an article on Multiplex 
 Personality. I thank also the Society for Psychical Research 
 for an obituary article by F. W. H. Myers on Gladstone, printed 
 in the Journal of that Society. 
 
 For any unintentional omissions, oversights, or failures to trace 
 rights I beg to tender my apologies. The distance of Adelaide 
 from the centre of publication may, in some measure, serve as 
 an excuse for such shortcomings. 
 
 All profits derived from the sale of this book will be paid to the 
 Red Cross Fund. 
 
 J. T. HACKETT. 
 Adelaide.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SECOND ENGLISH EDITION. 
 
 IN preparing this edition I have made a great number of more 
 or less important corrections, alterations and additions. Most of 
 these occupy only a few lines apiece and, although none call for 
 special mention, they should together add to the interest and 
 usefulness of this book. For a number of them I am indebted to 
 Mr. Vernon Kendall, formerly editor of the Athenaum and Notes 
 and Queries. With his wonderfully wide and exact knowledge of 
 English and classical literature, he gave me much assistance and 
 I am grateful to him. 
 
 The issue of a Second Edition enables me to thank my friend, 
 Sir John Cockburn, for his truly remarkable kindness to me. 
 When I sent this book home from Adelaide to be published, he 
 undertook the heavy work of seeking the consent of the numer- 
 ous copyright owners, negotiating with publishers, and seeing 
 the book through the press. Only those who are experienced in 
 such matters can realize the enormous amount of time and labour 
 that all this involved. It is impossible for me to express 
 adequately my obligations to my friend. He did not include any 
 reference to himself in the original Preface, in spite of my 
 insistence by letter and cable. 
 
 In associating his name with this book, I am bound to add 
 that Sir John disagrees with and, therefore, disapproves of much 
 that I have said in some notes on the Ancient Greeks. 
 
 London, J . T. HACKETT. 
 
 September. 1920.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 THIRD ENGLISH EDITION. 
 
 THIS has presumably to be called a new edition, rather than a 
 new issue, seeing that there are revisions and alterations. But 
 these are not numerous, and the only ones to which I need call 
 special attention are the substituted verses on pp. 153-5 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Denys Bray for permission to include 
 his daughter's verses. 
 
 J. T, HACKKTT. 
 Mentone, 
 
 December, 1920.
 
 YOUTH AND AGE 
 
 VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
 Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee 
 
 Both were mine ! Life went a-maying 
 With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
 When I ivas young ! 
 
 When / was young? Ah, woful When ! 
 Ah ! for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! 
 This breathing house not built with hands, 
 This body that does me grievous wrong, 
 O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands 
 How lightly then it flashed along : 
 Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
 On winding lakes and rivers wide, 
 That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
 That fear no spite of wind or tide ! 
 Nought cared this body for wind or weather 
 When Youth and I lived in't together. 
 
 Flowers are lovely : Love is flower-like , 
 Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
 I the joys, that came down shower-like, 
 Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 
 Ere I was old !
 
 YOUTH AND AGK 
 
 Ere / was old ? Ah, woful Ere, 
 Which tells me, Youth's no longer here ! 
 
 Youth ! for years so many and sweei 
 'Tis known that Thou and I were one, 
 I'll think it but a fond conceit 
 
 It cannot be, that thou art gone ! 
 Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd : 
 And thou wert aye a masker bold I 
 What strange disguise hast now put on 
 To make believe that Thou art gone ? 
 
 1 see these locks in silvery slips, 
 This drooping gait, this alter' d size : 
 But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, 
 And tears take sunshine from thine eyes ! 
 Life is but Thought : so think I will 
 That Youth and I are house-mates still. 
 
 Dew-drops are the gems of morning, 
 But the tears of mournful eve ! 
 Where no hope is, life's a warning 
 That only serves to make us grieve 
 
 When we are old : 
 
 That only serves to make us grieve 
 With oft and tedious taking-leave, 
 Like some poor nigh-related guest 
 That may not rudely be dismist, 
 Yet hath outstay' d his welcome while, 
 And tells the jest without the smile. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE.
 
 My Commonplace Book 
 
 OUR God and soldier we alike adore, 
 When at the brink of ruin, not before ; 
 After deli v' ranee both alike requited, 
 Our God forgotten, and our soldiers slighted. 
 
 FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644). 
 
 IN an age of fops and toys, 
 Wanting wisdom, void of right, 
 Who shall nerve heroic boys 
 To hazard all in Freedom's fight ? 
 
 So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
 So near is God to man, 
 When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
 The youth replies, I can. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON 
 
 (Voluntaries}. 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed 
 Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart 
 When men change swords for ledgers, and desert 
 The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed 
 I had, my Country am I to be blamed ? 
 Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art, 
 Verily, in the bottom of my heart, 
 Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. 
 
 (0
 
 WORDSWORTH LOWELL 
 
 For dearly must we prize thee ; we who find 
 In thee a bulwark for the cause of men ; 
 And I by my affection was beguiled : 
 What wonder if a Poet now and then, 
 Among the many movements of his mind, 
 Felt for thee as a lover or a child ! 
 
 WORDSWORTH (1803). 
 
 CARELESS seems the great Avenger ; history's pages 
 
 but record 
 One death struggle in the darkness 'twixt old systems 
 
 and the Word ; 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 
 
 throne, 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 
 
 unknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 
 
 His own. 
 
 J . R. LOWEM, 
 (The Present Crisis) . 
 
 MANY loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil 
 
 Amid the dust of books to find her, 
 Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, 
 
 With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. 
 Many in sad faith sought for her, 
 Many with crossed hands sighed for her ; 
 But these, our brothers, fought for her, 
 At life's dear peril wrought for her, 
 So loved her that they died for her. . . 
 They saw her plumed and mailed, 
 With sweet, stern face unveiled, 
 And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. 
 
 J. R. LOWEI.I, 
 (Ode at Harvard Commemoration, 1865). 
 
 This Ode was written in memory of the Harvard University men 
 who had died in the Secession war. Our own brave men are also fightir.;- 
 in the cause of Truth, against the hideous falsity of German teaching ann 
 morals.
 
 WHITTIER BUCHANAN 
 
 THE future's gain 
 
 Is certain as God's truth ; but, meanwhile, pain 
 Is bitter, and tears are salt : our voices take 
 A sober tone ; our very household songs 
 Are heavy with a nation's griefs and wrongs ; 
 And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake 
 Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat. 
 The eyes that smile no more, the uureturning feet ! 
 
 J. G. WHITTIER 
 (In War Time). 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 " THE glory of Man is his strength, 
 
 And the weak man must die," said the Lord. 
 
 CHORUS 
 Hark to the Song of the Sword ! 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 Uplift ! let it gleam in the sun 
 Uplift in the name of the Lord ! 
 
 KAISER 
 
 Lo ! how it gleams in the light, 
 Beautiful, bloody, and bright. 
 Yea, I uplift the Sword 
 Thus in the name of the Lord ! 
 
 THE CHIEFS 
 
 Form ye a circle of fire 
 Around him, our King and our Sire 
 While in the centre he stands, 
 Kneel with your swords in your hands, 
 Then with one voice deep and free 
 Echo like waves of the sea 
 " In the name of the Lord ! " 
 
 VOICES WITHOUT 
 
 Where is he ? he fades from our sight ! 
 Where the Sword ? all is blacker than night. 
 Is it finish'd, that loudly ye cry ? 
 Doth he sheathe the great Sword while we die ? 
 O bury us deep, most deep ; 
 Write o'er us, wherever we sleep, 
 " In the name of the Lord ! "
 
 BUCHANAN MORRIvS 
 
 While 1 uplift the Sword, 
 Thus in the name of the Lord, 
 Why, with mine eyes full of tears, 
 Am I sick of the song in mine ears ? 
 God of the Israelite, hear ; 
 God of the Teuton, be near ; 
 Strengthen my pulse lest I fail. 
 Shut out these slain while they wail 
 For they come with the voice of the grave 
 On the glory they give me and gave. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 In the name of the Lord ? Of what Lord ? 
 Where is He, this God of the Sword ? 
 Unfold Him ; where hath He His throne ? 
 Is He Lord of the Teuton alone ? 
 Doth He walk on the earth ? Doth He tread 
 On the limbs of the dying and dead ? 
 Unfold Him ! We sicken, and long 
 To look on this God of the strong ! 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 Hush ! In the name of the Lord, 
 Kneel ye, and bless ye the Sword ! 
 
 R. BUCHANAN. 
 (The Apotheosis of the Sword, 
 Versailles, 1871) 
 
 SHORT is mine errand to tell, and the end of my desire : 
 
 For peace I bear unto thee, and to all the kings of the earth, 
 
 Who bear the sword aright, and are crowned with the crown 
 
 of worth ; 
 
 But unpeace to the lords of evil, and the battle and the death ; 
 And the edge of the sword to the traitor and the flame to the 
 
 slanderous breath : 
 And I would that the loving were loved, and I would that the 
 
 weary should sleep, 
 And that man should hearken to man, and that he that soweth 
 
 should reap. 
 
 W. MORRIS 
 (Sigurd the Volsung, Book III).
 
 EMERSON THUCYD1DES 
 
 SACRIFICE 
 
 THOUGH love repine, and reason chafe, 
 There came a voice without reply, 
 " 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, 
 When for the truth he ought to die." 
 
 R. W. EMERSON. 
 
 GREEKS OR GERMANS ? 
 
 DO not imagine that you are fighting about a single issue, freedom 
 or slavery. You have an empire to lose, and are exposed to danger 
 by reason of the hatred which your imperial rule has inspired 
 in other states. And you cannot resign your power, although 
 some timid or unambitious spirits want you to act justly. For 
 now your empire has become a despotism, a thing which in the 
 opinion of mankind has been unjustly acquired yet cannot be 
 safely relinquished. The men of whom I speak, if they could 
 find followers, would soon ruin the state, and, if they were to 
 found a state of their own, would just as soon ruin that. 
 
 (Speech by Pericles.) 
 
 I have observed again and again that a democracy cannot 
 govern an empire ; and never more clearly than now, when I see 
 you regretting the sentence you pronounced on the Mityleneans. 
 Having no fear or suspicion of one another, you deal with your 
 allies on the same principle. You do not realize that, whenever 
 you yield to them out of pity, or are prevailed on by their pleas, 
 you are guilty of a weakness dangerous to yourselves and receive 
 no gratitude from them. You need to bear in mind that your 
 empire is a despotism exercised over unwilling subjects who are 
 ever conspiring against you. They do not obey because of any 
 kindness you show them : they obey just so far as you show your- 
 selves their masters. They have no love for you, but are held 
 down by force 
 
 You must not be misled by pity, or eloquent pleading or by 
 generosity. There are no three things more fatal to empire. 
 
 (Speech by Cleon.) 
 THUCYDIDES, n, 63 ; in, 37, 40. 
 
 It will be seen that these odious sentiments are attributed by the 
 impartial Thucydides to his hero Pericles as well as to the demagogue Cleon. 
 The Greeks were fervent supporters of Democracy and Equality, but not 
 when it came to dealing either with foreign states or with their own women 
 or slaves. (See also Socrates and Aristotle, p. 367.)
 
 6 PAINK 
 
 TH ESE are the times that try men's souls . The summer soldier 
 and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service 
 of their country ; but he, that stands it now, deserves the love 
 and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily- 
 conquered ; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder 
 the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain 
 too cheap, we esteem too lightly : it is dearness only that gives 
 any thins; its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price 
 upon its goods ; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial 
 an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE (1776). 
 
 Outside the Bible and other books of religion, I think it would be difficult 
 to find any single passage in the world's literature that produced so wonder- 
 ful a result as the above passage of Tom Paine's. It was the opening 
 paragraph of the first number of The Crisis, and was written by miserable, 
 flaring candle-light, when Paine was a private in Washington's ill-clad, 
 worn-out army at Trenton. The soldiers, who were then despairing from 
 hardship and defeat, were roused by these words to such enthusiasm that 
 next day they rushed bravely in and won the first American victory, which 
 turned the tide of the war of independence. 
 
 Previously to this, it was through Paine's pamphlet, Common Sense, 
 that the Americans first saw that separation was the only remedy for their 
 grievances. Conway tells an amusing story about Common Sense and The 
 Rights of Man. When the Bolton town cner was sent round to seize these 
 prohibited books, he reported that he could not find any Rights of Man 
 or Common Sense anywhere ! 
 
 For trying to save the life of Louis XVI during the revolution, Paine 
 was thrown into the Bastille, and only escaped death by a curious accident. 
 It was customary for chalk-marks to be made on the cell-doors of those 
 to be guillotined the following morning, and these doors opened outwards. 
 When Paine's door was marked, it happened to be open, and the mark 
 was made on the inside, so that, when the door was shut, the mark was not 
 visible. If Paine had not been a sceptic, this would have been described 
 in those days as a wonderful interposition of Providence ! 
 
 Conway lays a terrible indictment against Washington. When Paine, 
 whose services to America, and to Washington himself, had been so magni- 
 ficent, was thrown into the Bastille, Washington could have saved him by 
 a word but remained silent ! This was no doubt the reason why Paine, 
 after his liberation, was led to make an unjust attack on Washington's 
 military and Presidential work. It was due to this attack on Washington 
 and the bigotry of the time against the author of The Age of Reason, that 
 Paine fell utterly into disrepute. 
 
 : When the Centenary of American independence was celebrated by an 
 Exhibition at Philadelphia, a bust of Paine was offered to the city by his 
 admirers, but was promptly declined ! And yet Conway says that on the 
 day, whose centenary was then being celebrated, Paine was idolized in 
 America above all other men, Washington included.
 
 KIPLING 
 
 Paine by Moncure 
 fact mentioned 
 
 The foregoing notes were made on reading an article on Pai 
 D. Conway in The Fortnightly, March, 1879. * think the 1 
 in the last paragraph and the town-crier story do not appear in Conway's 
 subsequent Life of Paine. 
 
 Even at the present day bigotry seems to prevent any proper recog- 
 nition of Paine's fine character and important work. (The unpleasant 
 flippancy* with which he dealt with serious religious questions is no doubt 
 partly the cause of this.) I find very inadequate appreciation of him in 
 The Americana and The Biographical Dictionary of America and also in 
 our own Dictionary of National Biography. The general impression among 
 the public still probably is that Paine was an atheist ; as a matter of fact, 
 he was a Theist, and his will ends with the words, " I die in perfect composure 
 and resignation to the will of my Creator, God." 
 
 Carlyle's reference to Paine is amusing : " Nor is our England without 
 her missionaries. She has her Paine : rebellious staymaker ; unkempt ; 
 who feels that he, a single needleman, did, by his Common-Sense Pamphlet, 
 free America that he can and will free all this World ; perhaps even the 
 other." (French Revolution.) 
 
 BUY my English posies ! 
 
 You that will not turn- 
 Buy my hot-wood clematis, 
 
 Buy a frond o' fern 
 Gather 'd where the Erskine leaps 
 
 Down the road to Lome 
 Buy my Christmas creeper 
 
 And I'll say where you were born ! 
 West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin 
 They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn 
 Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South 
 
 Main 
 Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again ! . 
 
 Buy my English posies ! 
 
 Ye that have your own 
 Buy them for a brother's sake 
 
 Overseas, alone. 
 Weed ye trample underfoot 
 
 Floods his heart abrim 
 Bird ye never heeded. 
 
 O, she calls his dead to him ! 
 
 * The flippancy is at times amusing, as when he says : " The account of the whale 
 swallowing Jonah, though the whale may have been large enough to do so. borders greatly 
 on the marvellous ; but it would have approached nearer to the just idea of a miracle 
 if Jonah had swallowed the whale."
 
 8 KIPLING HARDINGE 
 
 t, 
 
 Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas ; 
 Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these ! 
 Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land 
 Masters of the Seven Seas, O, love and understand ! 
 
 RUDYARD KlPIJNG 
 
 (The Flowers). 
 
 Of the verses in this fine poem which speak for the various British 
 Dominions I take only the one that represents my own country. At the 
 time Kipling wrote, the inhabitants of our beloved mother-country did not 
 seem to fully realize that we were their kindred that our fern and clematis 
 made English posies but no doubt their feeling has altered since we 
 have fought side by side in mutual defence. However, to us England was 
 always " home," and when Kipling wrote this poem he entered straight 
 into our hearts. 
 
 FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY 
 
 RUFINUS 
 
 HERE lilies, here the rosebud, and here too 
 The windflower with her petals drenched in dew, 
 And daffodillies cool, and violets blue. 
 
 It's oh ! to be a wild wind when my lady's in the sun 
 
 She'd just unbind her neckerchief and take me breathing in, 
 
 It's oh ! to be a red rose just a faintly blushing one 
 
 So she'd pull me with her hand and to her snowy breast I'd 
 
 PLATO TO ASTER 
 
 Thou gazest on the stars a star to me 
 
 Thou* art but oh ! that I the heavens might be 
 
 And with a thousand eyes still gaze on thee ! 
 
 * Altered from " That," which may be a misprint. " Thou " gives the same 
 meaning and runs more smoothly.
 
 HARDINGE 
 
 PALI.ADAS 
 
 Breathing the thin breath through our nostrils, we 
 Live, and a little space the sunlight see 
 Even all that live each being an instrument 
 To which the generous air its life has lent. 
 If with the hand one quench our draught of breath, 
 He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death. 
 We, that are nothing on our pride are fed. 
 Seeing, but for a little air, we are as dead. 
 
 Is there no help from life save only death ? 
 " Life that such myriad sorrows harboureth 
 I dare not break, I cannot bear" one saith. 
 
 " Sweet are stars, sun, and moon, and sea, and earth, 
 For service and for beauty these had birth, 
 But all the rest of life is little worth 
 
 " Yea, all the rest is pain and grief " saith he 
 " For if it hap some good thing come to me 
 An evil end befalls it speedily ! "* 
 
 PHUODEMUS 
 
 I loved and you. I played who hath not been 
 Steeped in such play ? If I was mad, I ween 
 'Twas for a god and for no earthly queen. 
 
 Hence with it all ! Then dark my youthful head, 
 Where now scant locks of whitening hair instead, 
 Reminders of a grave old age, are shed. 
 
 I gathered roses while the roses blew, 
 Playtime is past, my play is ended too. 
 Awake, my heart ! and worthier aims pursue. 
 
 W. M. HARDINGE 
 (Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1878). 
 
 My notes tell me nothing of Hardinge, except that he was the " Leslie " 
 in Mallock's New Republic. Another version of Plato's beautiful epigram 
 (which was addressed to "Aster," or " Star ") is the following by Professor 
 Darnley Naylor : 
 
 Thou gazest on the stars, my Star; 
 
 Oh ! might I be 
 The starry sky with myriad eyes 
 To ga/.e on thee ! 
 
 * Compare " I never nursed a dear gazelle " (p. 18 1)
 
 io SHELLEY NAYLOR 
 
 The Greek Anthology is a collection of about 4,500 short poems by 
 about 300 Greek writers, extending over a period of one thousand seven 
 hundred years, from, say, 700 B.C. to 1000 A.D. At first these poems were 
 epigrams using the word " epigram " in its original sense, as a verse 
 intended to be inscribed on a tomb or tablet in memory of some dead 
 person or important event. Later they included poems on any subject, 
 so long as they contained one fine thought couched in concise language. 
 Still later any short lyric was included. 
 
 This wonderful collection forms a great treasure-house of poetry, 
 which gives much insight into the Greek life of the time, and it also largely 
 influenced English and European literature. For instance, the first verse 
 of Ben Jonson's " Drink to me only with thine eyes," is taken direct from the 
 Anthology (Agathias, Arab. Pal., V., 261). I may add that the second 
 verse, in which the poet sends the wreath, not as a compliment to the lady 
 but as a kindness to the roses which could not wither if worn by her, is 
 also borrowed from a Greek source. (Philostratus, Episiolai Erotikai.} 
 
 Numberless English and European scholars have attempted the diffi- 
 cult task of translating or paraphrasing these little poetic gems into corre- 
 spondingly poetic and concise language, but the beauty of the original 
 can never be fully retained. 
 
 PLATO TO STELLA 
 
 THOU wert the morning star among the living, 
 
 Ere thy fair light had fled : 
 Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 
 
 New splendour to the dead. 
 
 SHELBY'S VERSION. 
 
 PTOLEMY 
 
 I KNOW that we are mortal, the children of a day ; 
 But when I scan the circling spires, the serried stars' array, 
 I tread the earth no longer and soar where none hath trod, 
 To feast in Heaven's banquet-hall and drink the wine of God. 
 H. DARNI,EY NAYI,OR'S VERSION. 
 
 Although there cannot be absolute certainty, this Ptolemy is no doubt 
 the great Greek astronomer ; and the epigram would date fiom about 
 140 A.D.
 
 CORY PASCAL 1 1 
 
 HERACLEITUS. 
 
 THEY told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead, 
 They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. 
 I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I 
 Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. 
 
 And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, 
 A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, 
 Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake ; 
 For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take 
 
 WUJJAM (JOHNSON) CORY (1823-1892). 
 
 This is a paraphrase of verses written by Callimachus on hearing of 
 the death of his friend, the poet Heracleitus (not the philosopher of that 
 name). 
 
 Francis Thompson (Sister Songs) hoped that his " nightingales " 
 would continue to sing after his death, just as light would come from 
 a star long after it had ceased to exist : 
 
 Oh ! may this treasure-galleon of my verse, 
 
 Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme, 
 
 Set with a towering press of fantasies, 
 
 Drop safely down the time, 
 
 Leaving mine isled self behind it far 
 Soon to be sunk in the abysm of seas, 
 (As down the years the splendour voyages 
 
 From some long ruined and night-submerged star). 
 
 WHEN I consider the shortness of my life, lost in an eternity 
 before and behind, " passing away as the remembrance of a guest 
 who tarrieth but a day," the little space I fill or behold in the 
 infinite immensity of spaces, of which I know nothing and which 
 know nothing of me when I reflect this, I am filled with terror, 
 and wonder why I am here and not there, for there was no reason 
 why it should be the one rather than the other ; why now rather 
 than then. Who set me here ? By whose command and rule were 
 this time and place appointed me ? How many kingdoms 
 know nothing of us ! The eternal silence of those infinite spaces 
 terrifies me. 
 
 PASCAL 
 
 (Pen sees).
 
 BROWNING AND OTHERS 
 
 YE weep for those who weep ? she said, 
 Ah, fools ! I bid you pass them by. 
 
 Go weep for those whose hearts have bled 
 What time their eyes were dry. 
 
 Whom sadder can I say ? she said. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING 
 
 (The Mask). 
 
 See also Seneca (Hipp.), Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent 
 " Light sorrows speak, but deeper ones are dumb." 
 
 STAR unto star speaks light. 
 
 P. J. BAILEY 
 (Festus, Scene i, Heaven) 
 
 O LOVE, my love ! if I no more should see 
 Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, 
 
 Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, 
 How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope 
 The ground- whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, 
 
 The wind of Death's imperishable wing ! 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 
 (Lovesight) 
 
 OUR deeds are like children that are born to us ; they live and 
 act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, 
 but deeds never : they have an indestructible life both in and out 
 of our consciousness. 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 (Romola) .
 
 NOEL BROWNING 1 3 
 
 ROOM in all the ages 
 
 For our love to grow, 
 Prayers of both demanded 
 
 A little while ago : 
 
 And now a few poor moments, 
 
 Between life and death, 
 May be proven all too ample 
 For love's breath. 
 
 RODEN NOEI, 
 (The Pity of It). 
 
 THERE 1 See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining 
 Under those spider-webs lying ! 
 
 Is it your moral of Life ? 
 
 Such a web, simple and subtle, 
 Weave we on earth here in impotent strife, 
 
 Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle, 
 Death ending all with a knife ? 
 
 Over our heads truth and nature 
 
 Still our life's zigzags and dodges. 
 Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature 
 
 God's gold just showing its last where that lodges, 
 Palled beneath man's usurpature. 
 
 So we o'ershroud stars and roses, 
 
 Cherub and trophy and garland ; 
 Nothings grow something which quietly closes 
 
 Heaven's earnest eye ; not a glimpse of the far land 
 Gets through our comments and glozes. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha) . 
 
 Hugues of Saxe-Gotha is an imaginary name, but it probably indicates 
 the great Sebastian Bach, who came from that part of Germany. The 
 " masterpiece, hard number twelve," referred to in the poem, may be 
 (Dr. E. Harold Davies tells me) the great Organ Fugue in F Minor, which is 
 in " five part " counter-point.
 
 I 4 BROWNING 
 
 This very interesting poem is written in a half-humorous fashion, but 
 its intention is quite serious. In a wonderfully imitative manner,* it 
 describes the wrangling and disputing in a five-voiced fugue (where five per- 
 sons appear to be taking part) : 
 
 One is incisive, corrosive ; 
 
 Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant ; 
 Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive ; 
 
 Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant : 
 Five . . . . O Danaides, O Sieve! 
 
 (For killing their husbands the fifty Danai'des were doomed to pour 
 water everlastingly into a sieve.) 
 
 " Where in all this is the music ? " asks Browning. And, although 
 he is writing humorously, yet, however rank the heresy, he finds that the 
 fugue, with its elaborate counterpoint, is wanting in the essentials of true 
 art. He prefers Palestrina's simpler and more emotional mode of expres- 
 sion : 
 
 Hugues ! I advise meet poend^ 
 
 (Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon) 
 Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena ! 
 Say the word, straight I unstop the full-organ, 
 Blare out the mode Palestrina. 
 
 In the poem, where occurs the passage quoted, one can vividly follow 
 the poet's thought. Music is essentially the language of feeling, of emotion ; 
 the fugue is a triumph of invention, and, therefore, the result of intellect 
 Feeling is elemental, simple, and unanalysable. The subtleties of pure 
 harmony are the expression of deepness and richness of feeling ; the intri- 
 cacies of the fugue are artificially constructed and, therefore, unsuited 
 to the expression of pure emotion. They represent intellect as against 
 feeling. And essentially in the moral world, but also in our general out- 
 look upon truth and nature, the spiritual perception is derived from simple 
 human emotion rather than intellect ; " Thou hast hid these things from 
 the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them uuto babes." (The whole 
 of Browning's poetry teaches that love, not intellect, is the solution of all 
 moral problems, and the goal of the universe.) 
 
 In the poem the organist has been playing on the organ in an old church ; 
 and Browning suddenly sees an illustration of his thought in the fine gilded 
 ceiling covered by thick cobwebs. The cobwebs that obscure the gold 
 of the ceiling are the intellectual wranglings that destroy music in the fugue 
 and both are symbolical of what occurs in our lives. Truth and Nature, 
 " God's gold " the pure, simple truths of the higher life are over us, 
 bright and clear as the noon-day sun. But by doubts and disputations, 
 warring philosophies and contending creeds, by strife over non-essentials, 
 casuistries, self-deceptions, by questions of dogma (often as fine as any 
 spider's web), by endless " comments and glozes," we lose sight of the 
 elemental truths and clear principles that should guide our lives. The pure 
 and simple-hearted reach the Mount of Vision : to them comes the clear 
 sense of Love and Duty. Those of us who turn our intellects to a perverse 
 use and exclude the spiritual perception of the soul are like the spiders 
 
 * See Milton's Imitation of a fugue. Par. Lost XI. 
 t " I take the risk," or " Mine the risk."
 
 MARTINEAU 15 
 
 who cover up " stars and roses, Cherub and trophy and garland." We 
 obscure and forget all noble ideals, abolish God's high " legislature," and 
 follow a lawless life of selfish passion and sordid ambitions. The Good and 
 Beautiful and True have been obliterated and forgotten : " God's gold " 
 is tarnished, His harmonies lost in discord ; and we become morally dead. 
 
 So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. 
 Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air ; 
 Cold plashing past it, crystal waters roll ; 
 We visit it by moments, ah, too rare ! . . . 
 
 Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, 
 Upon our life a ruling effluence send ; 
 And when it fails, fight as we will, we die, 
 And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD (Palladium). 
 
 (REFERRING to the Gorham case) The future historian of 
 opinion will write of us in this strain : ' ' The people who spoke the 
 language of Shakespeare were great in the constructive arts : the 
 remains of their vast works evince an extraordinary power of com- 
 bining and economizing labour : their colonies were spread over 
 both hemispheres, and their industry penetrated to the remotest 
 tribes : they knew how to subjugate nature and to govern men : 
 but the weakness of their thought presented a strange contrast 
 to the vigour of their arm ; and though they were an earnest 
 people, their conceptions of Imman life and its Divine Author 
 seems to have been of the most puerile nature. Some orations 
 have been handed down apparently delivered before one of 
 their most dignified tribunals in which the question is discussed : 
 ' In what way the washing of new-born babes according to certain 
 rules prevented God's hating them.' The curious feature is, 
 that the discussion turns entirely upon the manner in which this 
 wetting operated ; and no doubt seems to have been entertained 
 by disputants, judges, or audience, that, without it, a child or 
 other person dying would fall into the hands of an angry Deity, and 
 be kept alive for ever to be tortured in a burning cave. Now, 
 all researches into the contemporary institutions of the island 
 show that its religion found its chief support among the classes 
 possessing no mean station or culture, and that the education 
 for the priesthood was the highest which the country afforded. 
 This strange belief must be taken, therefore, as the measure, 
 not of popular ignorance, but of their most intellectual faith. 
 A philosophy and worship embodying such a superstition can 
 present nothing to reward the labour of research." 
 
 JAMES ]\IARTINEAU 
 
 (Essay on " The^Church of England ").
 
 16 MORRIS 
 
 In the Gorham case, which went on appeal to the Privy Council, it 
 was decided that Mr. Gorham's beliefs, although unusual, were not repug- 
 nant to the doctrines of the Church of England. His views were that 
 baptism is generally necessary to salvation, that it is a sign of grace by which 
 God works in us, but only in those who worthily receive it. In others it 
 is not effectual. Infants baptized who die before actual sin are certainly 
 saved, but regeneration does not necessarily follow on baptism. 
 
 In such matters one question stands out very prominently. The 
 priest is consecrated to the high office of teaching the eternal truths of 
 Christ Love and Duty and Moral Aspiration. How can he keep those 
 truths in due perspective when his intellect is engaged in warfare over 
 miserable casuistries. 
 
 And as the strife waxes fiercer among the priests of the Most High, 
 they call in the aid of hired mercenaries. Think of the lawyers paid by 
 one side or the other to argue questions of baptism and prevenient grace ! 
 It was precisely this introduction into religion of legal formalism and tech- 
 nicality, the arguing from texts and ancient commentaries, the verbal 
 quibbling and hair-splitting, the " letter " that " killeth " as against the 
 " spirit " that " giveth life," which led to Christ's bitter invectives against 
 the " Scribes " or lawyers of His day. 
 
 Seeley, in Ecce Homo, points out that when Christ summoned the 
 disciples to him, he required from them only Faith, and not belief in any 
 specific doctrines. As it was not until later that they learnt He was to 
 suffer death and rise again, they could at first have held no belief in the 
 Atonement or the Resurrection. " Nor," says Seeley, " do we find Him 
 frequently examining His followers in their creed, and rejecting one as 
 
 a sceptic and another as an infidel Assuredly those who represent 
 
 Christ as presenting to man an abstruse theolosy, and saying to them peremp- 
 torily ' Believe or be damned,' have the coarsest conception of the Saviour 
 of the world." 
 
 As I have read somewhere, " From all barren Orthodoxy, good Lord, 
 deliver us."* 
 
 FOR while a youth is lost in soaring thought, 
 And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful, 
 And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth, 
 And while a child, and while a flower is born, 
 And while one wrong cries for redress and finds 
 A soul to answer, still the world is young ! 
 
 LEWIS MORRIS 
 (Epic of Hades). 
 
 * The above is a concrete illustration of Browning's meaning in the preceding quota- 
 tion, but a far wider illustration is seen in the terrible cruelties inflicted on the one side 
 by the Inquisition and on the other by the Protestants. This was again due to the intro- 
 duction of intelUctualism, which distorted the Religion of Love into a Religion of Hate.
 
 GOETHE QUILLER-COUCH 1 7 
 
 POEMS are painted window panes. 
 
 If one looks from the square into the church, 
 
 Dusk and dimness are his gains 
 
 Sir Philistine is left in the lurch ! 
 
 The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, 
 
 Nor anything henceforth assuage him. 
 
 But come just inside what conceals ; 
 Cross the holy threshold quite 
 All at once 'tis rainbow-bright, 
 Device and story flash to light, 
 A gracious splendour truth reveals. 
 This to God's children is full measure, 
 It edifies and gives you pleasure ! 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 This is George MacDonald's translation (but never can a translation 
 of poetry reproduce the original). MacDonald says of the poem : " This 
 is true concerning every form in which truth is embodied, whether 
 it be sight or sound, geometric diagram or scientific formula. Unintelligible, 
 it may be dismal enough regarded from the outside ; prismatic in its reve- 
 lation of truth from within." Among the arts this statement is most 
 applicable to poetry, and hence the reason why notes are often required 
 to assist many persons to " come inside," to enter into the heart of a poem 
 t.o reach the point of vision. 
 
 DE TEA FABULA 
 
 DO I sleep ? Do I dream ? 
 
 Am I hoaxed by a scout ? 
 
 Are things what they seem, 
 
 Or is Sophists about ? 
 
 Is our rb Tt ?jv ftva: a failure, or is Robert Brovaiing played 
 out ? 
 
 Which expressions like these 
 
 May be fairly applied 
 By a party who sees 
 
 A Society skied 
 
 Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with 
 legitimate pride.
 
 1 8 QUILLER-COUCH 
 
 'Twas November tlie third, 
 
 And I says to Bill Nye, 
 " Which it's true what I've heard : 
 
 If you're, so to speak, fly, 
 
 There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort 
 recommended as High." 
 
 Which I mentioned its name 
 And he ups and remarks : 
 " If dress-coats is the game 
 
 And pow-wow in the Parks, 
 
 Then I'm nuts on Sordello and Hohensteil-Schwangau and 
 similar Snarks." 
 
 Now the pride of Bill Nye 
 
 Cannot well be express'd ; 
 For he wore a white tie 
 
 And a cut-away vest : 
 
 Says I : " Solomon's lilies ain't in it, and they was reputed 
 well dress'd." 
 
 But not far did we wend, 
 
 When we saw Pippa pass 
 On the arm of a friend 
 Dr. Purnivall 'twas, 
 
 And he wore in his hat two half -tickets for London, 
 return, second-class. 
 
 " Well," I thought, " this is odd." 
 
 But we came pretty quick 
 To a sort of a quad 
 
 That was all of red brick, 
 
 And I says to the porter : " R. Browning : free passes 
 and kindly look slick." 
 
 But says he, dripping tears 
 
 In his check handkerchief, 
 " That symposium's career's 
 
 Been regrettably brief, 
 
 For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on gun- 
 powder leaf ! "
 
 QUILLER-COUCH 19 
 
 Then we tucked up the sleeves 
 
 Of our shirts (that were biled), 
 Which the reader perceives 
 
 That our feelings were riled. 
 
 And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the 
 traits of her child. 
 
 Which emotions like these 
 Must be freely indulged 
 By a party who sees 
 
 A Society bulged 
 
 On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never 
 divulged. 
 
 But I ask : Do I dream ? 
 
 Has it gone up the spout ; 
 Are things what they seem, 
 
 Or is Sophists about ? 
 
 Is our T& ri fa tlvai a failure, or is Robert Browning played 
 out ? 
 
 SIK ARTHUR QUIIAER-COUCH. 
 
 This parody on Bret Harte's " Plain Language from Truthful James '' 
 was written at the time when the Browning Society at Keble College,*Oxford, 
 came to an end apparently, according to these verses, because its funds 
 had been exhausted in afternoon teas ! 
 
 ri rl fa elvcii (pronounced toe tee ane einai). In Oxford special attention 
 is paid to Aristotle ; and Quiller-Couch, being an Oxford man, assumes 
 that his readers are familiar with this phrase. It means " the essential 
 nature of a thing," or, literally, " the question what a thing really is." 
 Such a Society would be engaged in discovering the true meaning of Brown- 
 ing's difficult poems, so that the phrase is as appropriate as it is amusing 
 in its application. 
 
 The title* " De Tea fabula " is a pun on Horace's " Quid rides ? Mutato 
 nomine de te Fabula narratur " (Sat. i, 69). " Wherefore do you laugh ? 
 Change but the name, of thee the tale is told." Oxford, which Matthew 
 Arnold called the home of lost causes, still refuses to pronounce Latin 
 correctly, and makes te rhyme with fee, see, bee. It ought of course 
 to rhyme with/<7y, say, bay. Or possibly Sir Arthur has reverted to the 
 pronunciation of ea which prevailed until the end of the Eighteenth Century. 
 See Pope's " Rape of the Lock " : 
 
 Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, 
 Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea. 
 Dr. FurnivaJl (1825-1^10), an eminent philologist, was the founder 
 of the society, the first society ever formed to study the works of a living 
 poet. From the context he may have specially admired, as he certainly 
 threw special light upon, Browning's Pippa Passes. 
 Scout at Oxford is a (male) college servant.
 
 20 BROWNING BUCHANAN 
 
 ONE fine frosty day, 
 My stomach being empty as your hat. 
 
 R. BROWNING, 
 
 (Fra Lippo Lipp%). 
 The " cheekiest " line I know. 
 
 TO THE MOON 
 
 THE wind is shrill on the hills, and the plover 
 
 Wheels up and down with a windy scream ; 
 The birch has loosen'd her bright locks over 
 
 The nut-brown pools of the mountain stream : 
 Yet here I linger in London City, 
 
 Thinking of meadows where I was born 
 And over the roofs, like a face of pity, 
 
 Up comes the Moon, with her dripping horn. 
 
 Moon, pale Spirit, with dim eyes drinking 
 The sheen of the Sun as he sweepeth by, 
 
 1 am looking long in those eyes, and thinking 
 
 Of one who hath loved thee longer than 1 ; 
 I am asking my heart if ye Spirits cherish 
 
 The souls that ye witch with a harvest call ? 
 If the dreams must die when the dreamer perish ?- 
 
 If it be idle to dream at all ? 
 
 The waves of the world roll hither and thither, 
 
 The tumult deepens, the days go by, 
 The dead men vanish we know not whither, 
 
 The live men anguish we know not why ; 
 The cry of the stricken is smothered never, 
 
 The Shadow passes from street to street ; 
 And o'er us fadeth, for ever and ever, 
 
 The still white gleam of thy constant feet. 
 
 The hard men struggle, the students ponder. 
 
 The world rolls round on its westward way ; 
 The gleam of the beautiful night up yonder 
 
 Is dim on the dreamer's cheek all day ; 
 The old earth's voice is a sound of weeping, 
 
 Round her the waters wash wild and vast, 
 There is no calm, there is little sleeping, 
 
 Yet nightly, brightly, thou glimmerest past !
 
 B UCH AN AN ELIOT 
 
 Another summer new dreams departed. 
 
 And yet we are lingering, thou and I ; 
 I on the earth, with my hope proud-hearted, 
 
 Thou, in the void of a violet sky ! 
 Thou art there ! I am here ! and the reaping and mowing 
 
 Of the harvest year is over and done. 
 And the hoary snow-drift will soon be blowing 
 
 Under the wheels of the whirling Sun. 
 
 While tower and turret lie silver'd under, 
 
 When eyes are closed and lips are dumb, 
 In the nightly pause of the human wonder, 
 
 From dusky portals I see thee come ; 
 And whoso wakes and beholds thee yonder, 
 
 Is witch'd like me till his days shall cease, 
 For in his eyes, wheresoever he wander, 
 
 Flashes the vision of God's white Peace,. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN. 
 
 THERE is no short cut, no patent tramroad, to wisdom : after 
 all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the 
 thorny wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with 
 bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them 
 of old time 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 (The Lifted Veil}. 
 
 LET us think less of men and more of God. 
 
 Sometimes the thought comes swiftening over us, 
 
 Like a small bird winging the still blue air ; 
 
 And then again, at other times, it rises 
 
 Slow, like a cloud, which scales the skies all breathless. 
 
 And just overhead lets itself down on us, 
 
 Sometimes we feel the wish across the mind 
 
 Rush like a rocket tearing up the sky, 
 
 That we should join with God, and give the world 
 
 The slip : but, while we wish, the world turns round
 
 BAILEY MASSEY 
 
 And peeps us in the face the wanton world ; 
 
 We feel it gently pressing down our arm 
 
 The arm we had raised to do for truth such wonders : 
 
 We feel it softly bearing on our side 
 
 We feel it touch and thrill us through the body, 
 
 And we are fools, and there's the end of us. 
 
 P. J. 
 
 IT fell upon a merry May morn, 
 
 I' the perfect prime of that sweet time 
 When daisies whiten, woodbines climb, 
 
 The dear Babe Christabel was born. 
 
 Look how a star of glory swims 
 Down aching silences of space, 
 Flushing the Darkness till its face 
 
 With beating heart of light o'erbrims ! 
 
 So brightening came Babe Christabel, 
 To touch the earth with fresh romance, 
 And light a Mother's countenance 
 
 With looking on her miracle. 
 
 With hands so flower-like soft, and fair, 
 She caught at life, with wcrds as sweet 
 As first spring violets, and feet 
 
 As faery-light as feet of air. 
 
 She grew, a sweet and sinless Child, 
 In shine and shower, calm and strife ; 
 A Rainbow on our dark of Life. 
 
 From Love's own radiant heaven down-smiled ! 
 
 In lonely loveliness she grew, 
 
 A shape all music, light, and love, 
 With startling looks, so eloquent of 
 
 The spirit burning into view.
 
 MASSE Y 23 
 
 Such mystic lore was in her eyes, 
 And light of other worlds than ours, 
 She looked as she had fed on flowers, 
 
 And drunk the dews of Paradise* 
 
 Ah ! she was one of those who come 
 With pledged promise not to stay 
 Long, ere the Angels let them stray 
 
 To nestle down in earthly home : 
 
 And, thro' the windows of her eyes, 
 We often saw her saintly soul, 
 Serene, and sad, and beautiful, 
 
 Go sorrowing for lost Paradise. 
 
 She came like music in the night 
 Floating as heaven in the brain, 
 A moment oped, and shut again, 
 
 And all is dark where all was light. 
 
 In this dim world of clouding cares, 
 We rarely know, till wildered eyes 
 See white wings lessening up the skies, 
 
 The Angels with us unawares. 
 
 Our beautiful Bird of light hath fled ; 
 
 Awhile she sat with folded wings 
 
 Sang round us a few hoverings 
 Then straightway into glory sped. 
 
 And white-wing'd Angels nurture her ; 
 
 With heaven's white radiance robed and crown 'd, 
 
 And all Love's purple glory round, 
 She summers on the Hills of Myrrh. 
 
 Thro' Childhood's morning-land, serene 
 She walked betwixt us twain, like Love ; 
 While, in a robe of light above, 
 
 Her better Angel walked imseen, 
 
 Till Life's highway broke bleak and wild ; 
 Then, lest her starry garments trail 
 In mire, heart bleed, and courage fail, 
 
 The Angel's arms caught up the child. 
 
 Cf. Coleridge p.
 
 24 MASSKY AND OTHERS 
 
 Her wave of lii'e hath backward roll'd 
 To the great ocean ; on whose shore 
 We wander up and down, to store 
 
 Some treasures of the times of old : 
 
 And aye we seek and hunger on 
 
 For precious pearls and relics rare, 
 Strewn on the sands for us to wear 
 At heart, for love of her that's gone. 
 
 GERALD MASSEY 
 (The- Ballad of Babe Christabel] 
 
 These exquisite verses appear to be forgotten. 
 
 IF you loved only what were worth your love, 
 Ivove were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 
 Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
 Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (James Lee's Wife). 
 
 .... HE knows with what strange fires He mixed this dust. 
 
 Hereditary bent 
 
 That hedges in intent 
 He knows, be sure, the God who shaped thy brain. 
 
 He loves the souls He made, 
 
 He knows His own hand laid 
 On each the mark of some ancestral stain. 
 
 ANNA REEVE AI,DRICH. 
 
 I HAVE lost the dream of Doing, 
 And the other dream of Done, 
 The first spring in the pursuing, 
 The first pride in the Begun, 
 First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what is won. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING 
 (The Lost Bower). 
 
 It is the saddest of things that we lose our early enthusiasms.
 
 SPENSER EMERSON 25 
 
 THE other (maiden) up arose* 
 
 And her fair lockes, which formerly were bound 
 
 Up in one knot, she low adowne did loose : 
 
 Which, flowing long and thick her clothed around, 
 
 And the ivorie in golden mantle gowned : 
 
 So that fair spectacle from him was reft, 
 
 Yet that, which reft it, no less faire was found : 
 
 So, hid in lockes and waves from looker's theft, 
 
 Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left. 
 
 Withall she laughed, and she blushed withall, 
 That blushing to her laughter gave more grace, 
 And laughter to her blushing. 
 
 SPENSER 
 
 (Faerie Oueene 2, XII, 67). 
 
 I LOVE and honour Epaminoudas, but I do not wish to be 
 Epaminondas. Nor can you excite me to the least uneasiness 
 by saying, " He acted, and thou sittest still." I see action to 
 be good, when the need is, and sitting still to be also good. One 
 piece of the tree is cut for a weathercock, and one for the sleeper 
 of a bridge ; the virtue of the wood is apparent in both. 
 
 R. w. EMERSON 
 
 (Spiritual Laws) . 
 
 YOU know what a sad and sombre decorum it is that outwardly 
 reigns through the lands oppressed by Moslem sway. By a 
 strange chance in these latter days, it happened that, alone of 
 all the places in the land, this Bethlehem, the native village of 
 our Lord, escaped the moral yoke of the Mussulmans, and heard 
 again, after ages of dull oppression, the cheering clatter of social 
 freedom, and the voices of laughing girls. When I was at Beth- 
 lehem, though long after the flight of the Mussulmans, the cloud 
 of Moslem propriety had not yet come back to cast its cold 
 shadow upon life. When you reach that gladsome village, 
 pray heaven there still may be heard there the voice of free inno- 
 cent girls. Distant at first, and then nearer and nearer the 
 timid flock will gather round you with their large burning eyes 
 
 * The girls are bathing.
 
 26 KINGLAKE 
 
 gravely fixed against yours, so that they see into your brain ; 
 and if you imagine evil against them they will know of your ill- 
 thought before it is yet well born, and will fly and be gone in the 
 moment. But presently if you will only look virtuous enough to 
 prevent alarm, and vicious enough to avoid looking silly, the 
 blithe maidens will draw nearer and nearer to you ; and soon there 
 will be one, the bravest of the sisters, who will venture right 
 up to your side, and touch the hem of your coat in playful defiance 
 of the danger ; and then the rest will follow the daring of their 
 youthful leader, and gather close round you, and hold a shrill 
 controversy on the wondrous formation that you call a hat, and 
 the cunning of the hands that clothed you with cloth so fine ; 
 and then, growing more profound in their researches, they will 
 pass from the study of your mere dress to a serious contemplation 
 of your stately height, and your nut-brown hair, and the ruddy 
 glow of your English cheeks. And if they catch a glimpse 
 of your ungloved fingers, then again will they make the air ring 
 with their sweet screams of delight and amazement, as they 
 compare the fairness of your hand with the hues of your sunburnt 
 face, or with their own warmer tints. Instantly the ringleader 
 of the gentle rioters imagines a new sin ; with tremulous boldness 
 she touches, then grasps your hand, and smoothes it gently 
 betwixt her own, and pries curiously into its make and colour, 
 as though it were silk of Damascus or shawl of Cashmere. And 
 when they see you, even then still sage and gentle, the joyous 
 girls will suddenly, and screamingly, and all at once, explain 
 to each other that you are surely quite harmless and innocent 
 a lion that makes no spring a bear that never hugs ; and upon 
 this faith, one after the other, they will take your passive hand, 
 and strive to explain it, and make it a theme and a controversy. 
 But the one the fairest and the sweetest of all is yet the most 
 timid : she shrinks from the daring deeds of her playmates, 
 and seeks shelter behind their sleeves, and strives to screen 
 her glowing consciousness from the eyes that look upon her. 
 But her laughing sisters will have none of this cowardice ; they 
 vow that the fair one shall be their complice shall share their 
 dangers shall touch the hand of the stranger ; they seize her 
 small wrist and draw her forward by force, and at last, whilst 
 yet she strives to turn away, and to cover up her whole soul under 
 the folds of downcast eyelids, they vanquish her utmost strength, 
 they vanquish her utmost modesty and marry her hand to 
 yours. The quick pulse springs from her fingers and throbs 
 like a whisper upon your listening palm. For an instant her 
 large timid eyes are upon you in an instant they are shrouded 
 again, and there comes a blush so burning, that the frightened 
 girls stay their shrill laughter as though they had played too 
 perilously and harmed their gentle sister. A moment, and all 
 with a sudden intelligence turn away and fly like deer ; yet soon
 
 C. ROSSETTI AND OTHERS 27 
 
 again like deer they wheel round, and return, and stand, and gaze 
 upon the danger, until they grow brave once more. 
 
 A. W. KlNGI,AKl 
 
 (Eothen}. 
 
 Let us hope that the present war will be a successful " Crusade " and 
 that the Turks will disappear from the land which is sacred to the memory 
 of our Lord. 
 
 DISCED ANT nunc amores ; maneat Amor. 
 (Loves, farewell ; let Love, the sole, remain.) 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 / REMEMBER me when I am gone away, 
 / Gone far away into the silent land ; 
 
 / When you can no more hold me by the hand, 
 
 Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 
 Remember me when no more day by day 
 You tell me of our future that you planned : 
 Only remember me ; you understand 
 \ It will be late to counsel then or pray. 
 Yet if you should forget me for a while 
 
 And afterwards remember, do not grieve : 
 For if the darkness and corruption leave 
 A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, 
 \ Better by far you should forget and smile 
 Than that you should remember and be sad. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 
 
 Compare Shakespeare's sonnet LXXI : 
 
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead, 
 
 for I love you so 
 
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, 
 If thinking on me then should make you woe. 
 
 I SAW a son weep o'er a mother's grave : 
 "Ay, weep, poor boy weep thy most bitter tears 
 That thou shalt smile so soon. ' We bury L/ove, 
 Forgetfulness grows over it like grass ; 
 That is the thing to weep for, not the dead." 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH 
 (A Boy's Poem)
 
 28 WESTBURY WHITTIER 
 
 UNTIL DEATH 
 
 IF thou canst love another, be it so. 
 I would not reach out of my quiet grave 
 To bind thy heart, if it should choose to go. 
 Love shall not be a slave 
 
 It would not make me sleep moie peacefully, 
 That thou wert waiting all thy life in woe 
 For my poor sake. What love thou hast for me 
 Bestow it ere I go. .... 
 
 Forget me when I die. The violets 
 Above my rest will blossom just as blue 
 Nor miss thy tears E'en Nature's self forgets 
 But while I live be true. 
 
 F. A. WESTBURY. 
 
 These verses are by a South Australian writer. " Forget me when I 
 die " is an unpleasing sentiment ; yet in " When I am dead, my dearest," 
 Christina Rossetti says : 
 
 If thou wilt, remember, 
 And if thou wilt, forget. 
 
 As regards the latter poem, the curious fact is that it is read as an exquisite 
 piece of wusic, and not for any poetic thought it contains. If it bos any 
 coherent meaning, it is that the speaker is indifferent whether or not " her 
 dearest " will remember her or she will remember him. Yet the haunting 
 music of the lines has made it a favourite poem, and it finds a place in all 
 the leading anthologies. Christina Rossetti is by no means a great poet. 
 (Mr. Gosse's estimate in the Britannica is exaggerated), but she had a wonder- 
 ful gift of language and metre. Take, for example, the pretty lilt contained 
 in the simplest words in " Maiden-Song " : 
 Long ago and long ago, 
 
 And long ago still, 
 There dwelt three merry maidens 
 
 Upon a distant hill. 
 One was tall Meggan, 
 
 And one was dainty May, 
 But one was fair Margaret, 
 
 More fair than I can say, 
 Long ago and long ago. 
 
 AND yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 
 
 Am I not richer than of old ? 
 Safe in thy immortality, 
 
 What change can reach the wealth I hold 
 What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
 
 Thy love hath left in trust for me ?
 
 WHITTIER AND OTHERS 29 
 
 And while in life's long afternoon, 
 
 Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
 I walk to meet the night that soon 
 
 Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
 I cannot feel that thou art far, 
 Since near at need the angels are ; 
 And when the sunset gates unbar, 
 
 Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 
 And, white against the evening star, 
 
 The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIKR. 
 
 (Snow-Bound) . 
 
 I HAVE a dream that some day I shall go 
 
 At break of dawn adown a rainy street, 
 
 A grey old street, and I shall come in the end 
 
 To the little house I have known, and stand ; and you, 
 
 Mother of mine, who watch and wait for me, 
 
 Will you not hear my footstep in the street, 
 
 And, as of old, be ready at the door, 
 
 To give me rest again ? . . . I shall come home. 
 
 H. D. LOWRY. 
 
 SURPRISED by joy impatient as the Wind 
 
 I turned to share the transport Oh ! with whom 
 
 But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, 
 
 That spot which no vicissitude can find ? 
 
 Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind 
 
 But how could I forget thee ? Through what power. 
 
 Even for the least division of an hour, 
 
 Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 
 
 To my most grievous loss ! That thought's return 
 
 Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 
 
 Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, 
 
 Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more ; 
 
 That neither present time, nor years unborn 
 
 Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
 
 30 HOOD MORRIS 
 
 Written of the poet's child Catherine, who died in 1812 at three years 
 of age, and of whom Wordsworth had also written, " Loving she is, and tract- 
 able, though wild." forty yean after the death of this child and her 
 brother, who died about the same time, the poet spoke of them to Aubrey 
 de Vcre with the same acute sense of bereavement as if they had only 
 recently died. 
 
 DEATH 
 
 IT is not death, that sometime in a sigh 
 
 This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight ; 
 
 That sometime these bright stars, that now reply 
 
 In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night : 
 
 That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 
 
 And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow ; 
 
 That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright 
 
 Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below ; 
 
 It is not death to know this, but to know 
 
 That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves 
 
 In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 
 
 So duly and so oft and when grass waves 
 
 Over the passed-away, there may be then 
 
 No resurrection in the minds of men. 
 
 THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 A LITTLE pain, a little fond regret, 
 A little shame, and we are living yet, 
 While love, that should outlive us, lieth dead. 
 
 W. MORRIS. 
 
 O NEVER rudely will I blame his faith 
 In the might of stars and angels! .... 
 
 . . . . For the stricken heart of Love 
 This visible nature, and this common world. 
 Is all too narrow : yea, a deeper import 
 Lurks in the legend told my infant years
 
 COLERIDGE 31 
 
 Than lies upon that truth, we live to learn, 
 
 For fable is Love's world, his home, his birth-place : 
 
 Delightedly dwells he 'raong fays and talismans, 
 
 And spirits ; and delightedly believes 
 
 Divinities, being himself divine. 
 
 The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 
 The fair humanities of old religion, 
 
 The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, 
 
 That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 
 
 Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
 
 Or chasms and wat'ry depths ; all these have vanished. 
 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason ! 
 
 But still the heart doth need a language, still 
 
 Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, 
 
 And to yon starry world they now are gone, 
 
 Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth 
 
 With man as with their friend ; and to the lover 
 
 Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky 
 
 Shoot influence down : and even at this day 
 
 'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great, 
 
 And Venus who brings everything that's fair. 
 
 S. T. COI.ERIDGE 
 (Wallenstein The Piccolomini) . 
 
 His faith. Wallenstein, the great German soldier and statesman 
 1583-1634) believed in astrology. 
 
 The " intelligible forms of ancient poets " and " fair humanities of 
 old religion " are the gods and inferior divinities that please our fancy. 
 Thus the Greeks peopled the heavens (not very distant heavens to them) 
 with their gods who visited earth and mingled with men. There were also 
 the lesser deities, as the Hours and the Graces ; and also the Nymphs 
 the Nereids, Naiads, Orcades and Dryads who inhabited seas, springs, 
 rivers, and trees respectively. The Nymphs would correspond somewhat 
 to the elves, gnomes and fairies of Northern religions. 
 
 Coleridge's translation of " Wallenstein " (of which " The Piccolomini " 
 is a portion) is considered a masterpiece. Schiller was fortunate in having 
 a finer poet than himself to translate his drama. In the above passage 
 Coleridge greatly improved on the original ; the seven splendid lines begin- 
 ning " The intelligible forms of ancient poets " are his and not Schiller's ; 
 and, therefore, this passage may fairly be ascribed to him as author. 
 
 BY rose-hung river and light-foot rill 
 There are who rest not ; who think long 
 
 Till they discern as from a hill 
 
 At the sun's hour of morning song,
 
 32 SWINBURNE MOLIERE 
 
 Known of souls only, and those souls free. 
 The sacred spaces ot the sea. 
 
 A. C. SWINBURNE 
 (Prelude Songs before Sunrise]. 
 
 The sea typifies the wider, nobler life of the soul. 
 
 JE prends mon bien ou je le trouve. 
 
 (I take my property wherever I find it.) 
 
 MoUERE (1622-1673). 
 
 This famous saying is quoted in French literature as though Moliere 
 had said, " I admit plagiarism, but 1 so improve what I borrow from others 
 that it becomes my own " (see Larousse, under " Bien "). 
 " Tho' old the thought and oft expressed, 
 'Tis his at last who says it best." 
 
 It is, however, an interesting question whether this was the true meaning 
 intended by Moliere. 
 
 The story is told by Grimarest, the first biographer of the great drama- 
 tist. In 1671 Moliere produced Les Fourberies de Scapin, in which he had 
 inserted two scenes taken from Le Pedant Joue, of Cyrano de Bergerac 
 (1619-1655). (They are the amusing scenes where Geronte repeatedly 
 says, Que diable allait-il faire dans celt e gale re, "What the deuce was he doing 
 in that Turkish galley ? ") Grimarest says that Cyrano had used in these 
 scenes what he had overheard from Moliere, and that the latter, when taxed 
 with the plagiarism, replied, " Je reprends mon bien ou je le trouve " (" I 
 take back my property, wherever I find it "). That is to say, he definitely 
 denied the plagiarism. 
 
 Voltaire, in a " Life of Moliere," makes a general assertion (not refer- 
 ring specially to this incident) that all Grimarest's stories are false. This 
 must, of course, be far too sweeping an assertion, and Grimarest is in fact 
 quoted as an authority. Voltaire himself (1694-1778) uses the saying in 
 the sense given by Gri'marest (La Pucette, Chant III.) : 
 
 Cette culotte est mienne ; et je prendrai 
 
 Ce que fut mien ou je le trouverai. 
 
 " These breeches are mine, and I shall take what was mine wherever I 
 find it.") Agnes Sorel had been captured dressed as a man and wearing 
 the garment in question, which had been previously stolen from the speaker. 
 
 It seems to me that Grimarest's story must be accepted, that Moliere 
 claimed the scenes as originally his and denied plagiarism. There is no 
 evidence to the contrary, and the saying is given its obvious meaning. (It 
 is word for word as in the Digest, Ubi rent meant invenio, ibi vindico, " Where 
 I find my own property, I appropriate it.") But the question then arises, 
 Why should so commonplace a statement have attained such notoriety ?
 
 El JOT 33 
 
 The explanation seems simple. Moliere had many jealous and bitter 
 enemies, who laid every charge they could against him. He was well known 
 to have borrowed ideas, characters and scenes in all directions and his 
 enemies constantly and persistently attacked him on this ground. Then 
 came his most glaring plagiarism from a comparatively recent play, written 
 by a man whose dare-devil exploits had made him a perfect hero of romance. 
 Moliere's story that Cyrano had previously stolen the scenes from him would 
 not been have accepted for a moment. Cyrano had never been known to 
 plagiarize, nor would it have been natural for a man of his character to do 
 anything clandestine. Also Moliere would have had nothing to support his 
 statement and Cyrano was not alive to contradict him. The conclusion, 
 therefore, seems to be that the dramatist's statement was received in Paris 
 with such incredulity, indignation, and ridicule that it became a byword. 
 
 But if this is so, why have the words been given an entirely fictitious 
 meaning ? The answer seems to lie in the fact that as Moliere's great 
 genius became realized the desire arose to remove a blemish from his 
 character. His is the greatest name in French literature, and almost 
 
 serious matter to Frenchmen that he should have borrowed from Cyrano, 
 but it was a distinct blemish on his character that he should have denied 
 the fact and also slandered a dead man. Ordinarily, in such a case, the 
 story is ignored and forgotten, just as the one improper act of Sir Walter 
 Scott, his borrowing from Coleridge of the " Christabel " metre, is usually 
 ignored or slurred over. But the saying had become rooted in literature 
 and this course was not practicable. However, there is little that enthu- 
 siasm cannot accomplish by some means or other, and the object in this 
 instance has been achieved by reversing the meaning of Moliere's words. 
 If this conjecture is correct, it is an illustration of wnat has occurred on a 
 far greater scale in connection with the Greeks (see Index of Subjects) 
 
 As regards the meaning now given to the saying, Seneca claimed the 
 same right to borrow at will. Quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est (Ep. 
 XVI). After advising his reader to consider the Epistle carefully and see 
 what value it had for him, he says, " You need not be surprised if I am still 
 free with other people's property. But why do I say ' other people's 
 property ' ? Whatever has Seen well said by anyone belongs to me."* 
 
 So also the late Samuel Butler said, " Appropriate things are meant 
 to be appropriated." 
 
 OUR finest hope is finest memory, 
 
 As they who love in age think youth is blest 
 
 Because it has a life to fill with love. 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 
 (A Minor Poet). 
 
 The information in this note comes partly from Notes and Queries.
 
 34 MARTINEAU AND OTHERS 
 
 THE disposition to judge every enterprise by its event, and 
 believe in no wisdom that is not endorsed by success, is apt 
 to grow upon us with years, till we sympathize with nothing 
 for which we cannot take out a policy of assurance. 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU 
 (Hours of Thought I, 87). 
 
 IF once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes 
 to think little of robbing ; and from robbing he comes next to 
 drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility 
 and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, 
 you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated 
 his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought 
 little of at the time. 
 
 De QUINCEY 
 
 (Murder, as one of the Fine Arts). 
 
 FOR when the mellow autumn flushed 
 
 The thickets, where the chestnut fell, 
 
 And in the vales the maple blushed, 
 
 Another came who knew her well, 
 
 Who sat with her below the pine 
 And with her through the meadow moved. 
 And underneath the purpling vine 
 She sang to him the song I loved. 
 
 N. G. SHEPHERD. 
 
 MRS. CRUPP had indignantly assured him that there wasn't 
 room to swing a cat there ; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to 
 me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, " You 
 know, Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing 
 a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to me ! " 
 
 DICKENS 
 (David Copper-field).
 
 CARROLL AND OTHERS 35 
 
 (AFTER looking at his watch) " Two days wrong ! " sighed 
 the Hatter. "I told you butter would not suit the works ! " 
 he added, looking angrily at the March Hare. 
 
 " It was the best butter," the March Hare replied. 
 
 LEWIS CARROU, 
 (Alice in Wonderland), 
 
 " THEY were learning to draw," the Dormouse went on, " and 
 they drew all manner of things everything that begins with an 
 M " 
 
 " Why with an M ? " said Alice. 
 " Why not ? " said the March Hare. 
 Alice was silent. 
 
 LEWIS CARROIA 
 (Alice in Wonderland). 
 
 , 
 
 PERHAPS, as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be 
 thought that two layers of moonshine might coalesce into one 
 pancake ; and two Barmecide banquets might be the square 
 root of one poached egg. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 IN a Dublin lunatic asylum one of the inmates peremptorily \ 
 ordered a visitor to take off his hat. Deferentially obeying 
 the order, the visitor asked why he should remove his hat. The 
 lunatic replied : " Do you not know, sir, that I am the Crown 
 Prince of Prussia ? " Having duly made his apologies, the 
 visitor proceeded on his round ; but, coming upon the same 
 lunatic, was met with the same demand. Again obeying the 
 order, he repeated the question : " May I ask why you wish me 
 to take off my hat ? " The lunatic replied : " Are you not aware, 
 sir, that I am the Prince of Wales ? " " But," said the visitor. 
 " you told me just now you were the Crown Prince of Prussia." 
 The lunatic, after scratching his head and deliberating for a 
 moment, replied : " Ah, but that was by a different mother." 
 
 (Another Irish lunatic always lost himself and insisted on looking 
 for himself under the bed.) 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 These are true stories but localized another injustice to Ireland !
 
 I 
 
 36 SHAKBSPBARE ROGERS 
 
 WHEN I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should 
 live till I were married. 
 
 (Much Ado About Nothing.) 
 
 Pointz. COME, your reason, Jack, your reason. 
 
 Falstaft. Give you a reason on compulsion ! If reasons 
 were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason 
 upon compulsion, I. 
 
 (i Henry IV, ii, 4.) 
 
 Reason needs to be given its old pronunciation, " raison " (or raisin) 
 in order to understand FalstafFs pun. 
 
 STIL,L> I cannot believe in clairvoyance because the thing is 
 impossible. 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS, 1763-1855 
 (Table Talk). 
 
 Rogers mentions some remarkable facts about the clairvoyant, Alexis, 
 and ends with this convincing argument. Apart from clairvoyance (of 
 which I know nothing), Rogers would no doubt have made a similar reply 
 if some prophet had foretold that men would one day communicate with 
 each other by wireless telegraphy ; and the same effective argument is to- 
 day opposed by many to the evidence that the dead communicate with 
 the living. 
 
 I might follow the eight preceding quotations (which illustrate " the 
 art of reasoning " ) with the well-known story of Charles Lamb, who, when 
 blamed for coming late to the office, excused himself on the ground that he 
 always left early. (He alto said, "A man could not have too little to do 
 and too much time to do it in.") There is also the reply of Lord 
 Rothschild, when the cabman told him that his son paid better fares than 
 he did, "Yes, but he has a rich father, and I haven't." 
 
 TO THE TRUE ROMANCE 
 
 THY face is far from this our war, 
 
 Our call and counter-cry, 
 I shall not find Thee quick and kind, 
 
 Nor know Thee till I die. 
 Enough for me in dreams to see 
 
 And touch Thy garments' hem : 
 Thy feet have trod so near to God 
 
 I may not follow them.
 
 KIPLING 37 
 
 Through wantonness if men profess 
 
 They weary of Thy parts, 
 E'en let them die at blasphemy 
 
 And perish with their arts ; 
 But we that love, but we that prove 
 
 Thine excellence august, 
 While we adore discover more 
 
 Thee perfect, wise, and just. 
 
 Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred 
 
 Beyond his belly-need, 
 What is is Thine of fair design 
 
 In thought and craft and deed ; 
 Each stroke aright of toil and fight, 
 
 That was and that shall be, 
 And hope too high, wherefore we die, 
 
 Has birth and worth in Thee. 
 
 Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee 
 
 To gild his dross thereby, 
 And knowledge sure that he endure 
 
 A child until he die 
 For to make plain that man's disdain 
 
 Is but new Beauty's birth 
 For to possess in loneliness 
 
 The joy of all the earth. 
 
 As thou didst teach all lovers speech 
 
 And Life all mystery, 
 So shalt Thou rule by every school 
 
 Till love and longing die, 
 Who wast or yet the Lights were set 
 
 A whisper in the Void, 
 Who shalt be sung through planets young 
 
 When this is clean destroyed. 
 
 Beyond the bounds our staring rounds, 
 
 Across the pressing dark, 
 The children wise of outer skies 
 
 Look hitherward and mark 
 A light that shifts, a glare that drifts. 
 
 Rekindling thus and thus, 
 Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne 
 
 Strange tales to them of us
 
 38 KIPLING 
 
 Time hath no tide but must abide 
 
 The servant of Thy will ; 
 Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme 
 
 The ranging stars stand still 
 Regent of spheres that lock our fears 
 
 Our hopes invisible, 
 Oh ! 'twas certes at Thy decrees 
 
 We fashioned Heaven and Hell ! 
 
 Pure Wisdom hath no certain path 
 
 That lacks thy morning-eyne, 
 And captains bold by Thee controlled 
 
 Most like to God's design ; 
 Thou art the Voice to kingly boys 
 
 To lift them through the fight, 
 And Comfortress of Unsuccess, 
 
 To give the dead good-night. 
 
 A veil to draw 'twixt God, His law, 
 
 And Man's infirmity, 
 A shadow kind to dumb and blind 
 
 The shambles where we die ; 
 A rule to trick th* arithmetic 
 
 Too base of leaguing odds 
 The spur of trust, the curb of lust, 
 
 Thou handmaid of the Gods ! 
 
 O Charity, all patiently 
 
 Abiding wrack and scaith ! 
 O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats 
 
 Yet drops no jot of faith ! 
 Devil and brute Thou dost transmute 
 
 To higher, lordlier show, 
 Who art in sooth that lovely Truth 
 
 The careless angels know ! 
 
 Thy face is far from this our war, 
 
 Our call and counter-cry, 
 I may not find Thee quick and kind, 
 
 Nor know Thee till I die. 
 
 Yet may I look with heart unshook 
 On blow brought home or missed 
 
 Yet may I hear with equal ear 
 The clarions down the List ;
 
 KIPLING ELIOT 39 
 
 Yet set my lance above mischance 
 
 And ride the barrier e 
 Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis. 
 
 My Lady is not there ! 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 All attempts to define poetic imagination, to determine its scope or 
 prescribe its limits, leave us cold and unsatisfied, for the simple reason 
 that its variety and range are unlimited. The aesthetic, moral and spiritual 
 faculties are all in essence identical, so that no definition of the aesthetic 
 can exclude the spiritual, and art and poetry spring from the same root as 
 religion. They all have what Wordsworth calls the " Spirit of Paradise."* 
 Imagination! in its larger sense includes all those higher faculties of man, 
 all that lifts him above his material existence. The " True Romance " 
 in this fine poem is imagination in this complete sense. By our lower 
 perceptive faculties we see the world of Nature in its material form ; by 
 our higher powers we apprehend its aesthetic, moral and spiritual beauty. 
 (Man with his consciousness, will, reason, and also his higher imaginative 
 faculties, is as much part of Nature as any star or clod, crystal or gas, 
 fly or flower.) Hence imagination gives us the vision of glory in earth and 
 sky, the sense of wonder and worship, the emotions of sympathy and love ; 
 it teaches us duty and self sacrifice 5 it awakens in us a sense of the 
 mystery of birth, life and death, directing our thoughts from the finite and 
 material world to the infinite realm of the spiritual. 
 
 Verse 4, lines 5, 6. Our faculties develop, and we realize, for example, 
 the beauty of Nature which was not apparent to the Greeks of Plato's 
 time (see p. 379 ; see also p. 283). Verse 9, I. 5, 6. Imagination teaches 
 us heroism. In the italicized verses, " our war " is, of course, the strife 
 of our material existence : we can face with courage the mischances of life, 
 seeing that " My Lady Romance," the soul which is our higher nature , 
 must persist through life and after death. ( "Barriere" barrier.) 
 
 WE are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively 
 at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent 
 into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. 
 
 ^EORGK 
 
 (Middlemarch] . 
 
 THE stars make no noise. 
 
 IRISH PROVERB. 
 
 * See p. 40. 
 
 t It is unfortunate that this word is often used in the sense of something unreal 
 iere idle fancy instead of an active creative faculty, see pp. 357. 358.
 
 4 o WORDSWORTH MACDONALD 
 
 WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT 
 
 WHO fancied what a pretty sight 
 This rock would be if edged around 
 With living snow-drops ? circlet bright ! 
 How glorious to this orchard ground ! 
 Who loved the little rock, and set 
 Upon its head this coronet ? 
 
 Was it the humour of a child ? 
 
 Or rather of some gentle maid, 
 
 Whose brows, the day that she was styled 
 
 The Shepherd-queen, were thus arrayed ? 
 
 Of man mature, or matron sage ? 
 
 Or old man toying with his age ? 
 
 I asked 'twas whispered, " The device 
 To each and all might well belong : 
 It is the Spirit of Paradise 
 That prompts such work, a Spirit strong 
 That gives to all the self-same bent 
 Where life is wise and innocent." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 THEY who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates 
 of men are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who 
 regard the heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a com- 
 mon obedience to an external law. All that man sees has to do 
 with man. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relation- 
 ship. The community of the centre of all creation suggests an 
 inter-radiating connection and dependence of the parts. Else 
 a grander idea is conceivable than that which is already embodied . 
 The blank, which is only a forgotten life lying behind the con- 
 sciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped 
 life lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other 
 connections with the worlds around us than those of science and 
 poetry. No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green 
 glory in a self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the 
 hidden things of a man's soul, and, it may be, with the secret 
 history of his body as well. They are portions of the living house 
 within which he abides. 
 
 G. MACDONAU) 
 
 (Phantasies).
 
 MORRIS AND OTHERS 41 
 
 O WEARY time, O life, 
 Consumed in endless, useless strife 
 To wash from out the hopeless clay 
 Of heavy day and heavy day 
 Some specks of golden love, to keep 
 Our hearts from madness ere we sleep ! 
 
 W. MORRIS 
 (The Earthly Paradise). 
 
 To an Australian, a metaphor taken from alluvial gold-mining is 
 interesting. 
 
 (DR. SLOP has been uttering terrible curses against Obadiah) 
 I declare, quoth my Uncle Toby, my heart would not let me 
 curse the devil himself with so much bitterness. He is the 
 father of curses, replied Dr. Slop. So am not I, replied my uncle. 
 But he is cursed and damned already to all eternity, replied 
 Dr. Slop. 
 
 I am sorry for it, quoth my Uncle Toby. 
 
 I/AURENCE STERNE 
 
 (Tristram Shandy). 
 
 Faust. IF heaven was made for man, 'twas made for me. 
 Good Angel. Faustus, repent; yet heaven will pity thee. 
 Bad Angel. Thou art a spirit, God cannot pity thee. 
 Faust. Be I a devil, yet God may pity me. 
 
 MARLOWE 
 (Doctor Faustus). 
 
 BUT fare-you-well, Auld Nickie-Ben ! 
 O, wad ye tak a thought and men' ! 
 Ye aiblins might I dinna ken 
 
 Still hae a stake : 
 I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 
 
 Ev'n for your sake ! 
 
 ROBERT BURNS 
 (Address to the Deil).
 
 42 MACDONALD SWINBURNE 
 
 " SHARGAR, what think ye ? Gin the deil war to repent, wad 
 God forgie him ? " 
 
 " There's no sayin' what folk wad dae till ance they're tried, ' 
 returned Shargar cautiously. 
 
 GEORGE MACDONALD 
 (Robert Falconer, ch. xii.) 
 
 There is a passage, I think in one of MacDonald's novels, where the ques- 
 tion is again put, " Gin the de'il war to repent ? " The reply is to the effect, 
 " Do not wish even him anything so dreadful. The agony of his repentance 
 would be far worse than anything he can suffer in hell." 
 
 Scotus Erigena, a very able Irish theologian and philosopher of the 
 9th century, believed that Satan himself must ultimately be reclaimed, 
 since otherwise God could not in the end conquer and extinguish sin. He 
 cites Origen and others in support of his contention. These old and very 
 serious discussions seem more remote than Plato, but the belief in a 
 personal devil was not uncommon even in my young days. 
 
 HOPE, whose eyes 
 
 Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies 
 Inaccessible of eyesight ; that can see 
 What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea 
 Hear not. and speak what all these crying in one 
 Can speak not to the sun. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (Thalassius). 
 
 AN EXCELENTE BAI.ADE OF CHARITIE 
 
 IN Virgo now the sultry sun did sheene, shine 
 
 And hot upon the meads did cast his ray ; 
 The apple reddened from its paly green, 
 And the soft pear did bend the leafy spray ; 
 The pied cheHndry sang the livelong day ; goldfinch 
 'Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year, 
 And eke the ground was decked in its most deft aumere. apparel 
 
 The sun was gleaming in the midst of day. 
 Dead-still the air, and eke the welkin blue, 
 When from the sea arose in drear array
 
 CHATTERTON 43 
 
 A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue, 
 The which full fast unto the woodland drew, 
 Hiding at once the sunnes festive face, 
 And the black tempest swelled, and gathered up apace. 
 
 Beneath a holm, fast by a pathway-side holm-oak 
 
 Wlu'ch did unto Saint Godwin's convent lead, 
 A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide, 
 Poor in his view, ungentle in his weed, clothing 
 
 Long brimful of the miseries of need. 
 Where from the hailstorm could the beggar fly ? 
 He had no houses there, nor any convent nigh. 
 
 Look in his gloomed face, his sprite there scan ; 
 How woe-begone, how withered, dwindled, dead ! 
 Haste to thy church-glebe-house, accursed man ! grave 
 Haste to thy shroud, thy only sleeping bed. 
 Cold as the clay which will grow on thy head 
 Are Charity and Love among high elves ; 
 For knights and barons live for pleasure and themselves. 
 
 The gathered storm is ripe ; the big drops fall, 
 The sunburnt meadows smoke, and drink the rain ; 
 The coming ghastness doth the cattle 'pall, gloom, 
 
 And the full flocks are driving o'er the plain ; appal 
 
 Dashed from the clouds, the waters fly again ; 
 The welkin opes ; the yellow lightning flies, 
 And the hot fiery steam in the wide flashings dies. 
 
 List ! now the thunder's rattling noisy sound 
 Moves slowly on, and then full-swollen clangs, 
 Shakes the high spire, and lost, expended, drowned. 
 Still on the frighted ear of terror hangs ; 
 The winds are up ; the lofty elmtree swangs ; swings 
 Again the lightning, and the thunder pours, 
 And the full clouds are burst at once in stony showers. 
 
 Spurring his palfrey o'er the watery plain, 
 The Abbot of Saint Godwin's convent came ; 
 His chapournette was drenched with the rain, small round 
 His painted girdle met with mickle shame ; hat 
 
 He aynewarde told his bederoll at the same ; told his beads 
 The storm increases, and he drew aside, backwards, 
 
 With the poor alms-craver near to the holm to bide. i-e-, cursed
 
 44 CHATTERTON 
 
 His cope was all of Lincoln cloth so fine, 
 With a gold button fastened near his chin, 
 His autremete was edged with golden twine, robe 
 
 And his shoe's peak a noble's might have been ; 
 Full well it shewed he thought cost no sin. 
 The trammels of his palfrey pleased his sight, 
 For the horse-milliner his head with roses dight. 
 
 " An alms, sir priest ! " the drooping pilgrim said. 
 " Oh ! let me wait within your convent-door, 
 Till the sun shineth high above our head, 
 And the loud tempest of the air is o'er. 
 Helpless and old am I, alas ! and poor. 
 No house, no friend, nor money in my pouch, 
 All that I call my own is this my silver crouche." crucifix 
 
 " Varlet ! " replied the Abbot, " cease your din ; 
 This is no season alms and prayers to give, 
 My porter never lets a beggar in ; 
 None touch my ring who not in honour live." 
 And now the sun with the black clouds did strive, 
 And shot upon the ground his glaring ray ; 
 The abbot spurred his steed, and eftsoons rode away. 
 
 Once more the sky was black, the thunder rolled. 
 Fast running o'er the plain a priest was seen ; 
 Not dight full proud, nor buttoned up in gold, 
 His cope and jape were grey, and eke were clean ; short surplice 
 A lyimitor he was of order seen ; Begging Friar 
 
 And from the pathway-side then turned he, 
 Where the poor beggar lay beneath the holmen tree. 
 
 " An alms, sir priest ! " the drooping pilgrim said. 
 " For sweet Saint Mary and your order's sake." 
 The I^mitor then loosened his pouch-thread, 
 And did thereout a groat of silver take : 
 The needy pilgrim did for gladness shake, 
 " Here, take this silver, it may ease thy care, 
 We are God's stewards all, naught of our own we bear. 
 
 " But all ! unhappy pilgrim, learn of me. 
 Scarce any give a rent-roll to their lord ; 
 Here, take my semicope, thou'rt bare, I see, shoit cloak 
 'Tis thine ; the saints will give me my reward." 
 He left the pilgrim, and his way aborde. went on his way 
 Virgin and holy Saints, who sit in gloure, glory 
 
 Or give the mighty will, or give the good man power ! 
 
 THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770).
 
 R. B. BROWNING 45 
 
 The sun would conventionally be said to be in Virgo in August. 
 
 It is sad and strange to think of the amazing story of this child-genius, 
 who lived in a world of romance but was driven by destitution to commit 
 suicide at seventeen years of age. The above was one of the " Rowley 
 forgeries," but, for the antique words which Chatterton used (often incor- 
 rectly) to imitate the language of the Fifteenth Century, modern words 
 have been substituted where possible. 
 
 I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung 
 
 Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, 
 
 Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
 
 To bear a gift for mortals, old or young : 
 
 And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
 
 I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 
 
 The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years. 
 
 Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 
 
 A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 
 
 So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 
 
 Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair ; 
 
 And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, 
 
 " Guess now who holds thee ? " " Death," I said. But there, 
 
 The silver answer rang." Not Death, but lyove." 
 
 1$. B. BROWNING 
 
 (Sonnets from the Portuguese}. 
 
 This is the first of the chain of sonnets, which Mrs. Browning called 
 " Sonnets from the Portuguese." They tell her own love-story, and were 
 written in secret and without thought of publication. Robert Browning 
 learnt of them only the year after the marriage, and then insisted on their 
 being published. They include some of the finest sonnets in our language. 
 
 To appreciate this and the other sonnets, it is necessary to know 
 the beautiful story of the two poets. Mrs. Browning was six years older 
 than her husband and a life-long invalid, expecting, as she says in this 
 sonnet, Death rather than Love. Their marriage was supremely happy, 
 and the great poet, when in England, used to visit the church in which they 
 were married to express his thankfulness. He tells the love-story in the 
 next quotation. 
 
 In these sonnets Mrs. Browning laid bare her innermost feelings. 
 
 Robert Browning, however, in several poems says the privacy of a 
 poet's life and feelings should not be bared to the public. Wordsworth 
 had written in 1827: 
 
 Scorn not the Sonnet With this key 
 
 Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
 
 46 BROWNING 
 
 Browning in 1876 (thirty years after the " Sonnets from the Portuguese " 
 were written ) wrote in his poem called House : 
 
 " With this same key 
 
 Shakespeare unlocked bis bean " . . . . 
 Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less Shakespeare he ! 
 
 Swinburne comments on these lines : " No whit the less like Shakes- 
 peare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning." 
 
 .... COME back with me to the first of all, 
 Let us lean and love it over again, 
 
 Let us now forget and now recall, 
 Break the rosary in a pearly rain, 
 
 And gather what we let fall ! . . . 
 
 Hither we walked then, side by side, 
 Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, 
 
 And still I questioned or replied, 
 
 While my heart, convulsed to really speak, 
 
 Lay choking in its pride. 
 
 Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, 
 And pity and praise the chapel sweet, 
 
 And care about the fresco's loss, 
 And wish for our souls a like retreat, 
 
 And wonder at the moss. 
 
 We stoop and look in through the grate, 
 See the little porch and rustic door, 
 
 Read duly the dead builder's date ; 
 
 Then cross the bridge that we crossed before, 
 
 Take the path again but wait ! 
 
 Oh moment, one and infinite ! 
 
 The water slips o'er stock and stone ; 
 The West is tender, hardly bright : 
 
 How grey at once is the evening grown 
 One star, its chrysolite ! 
 
 We two stood there with never a third, 
 But each by each, as each knew well : 
 
 The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, 
 The lights and the shades made up a spell 
 
 Till the trouble grew and stirred.
 
 BROWNING KINGSLEY 47 
 
 Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! 
 
 And the little less, and what worlds away ! 
 How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, 
 
 Or a breath suspend the blood's best play, 
 And life be a proof of this ! . . . 
 
 A moment after, and hands unseen 
 
 Were hanging the night around us fast ; 
 
 But we knew that a bar was broken between 
 L/ife and life : we were mixed at last 
 
 In spite of the mortal screen. . 
 
 How the world is made for each of us ! 
 
 How all we perceive and know in it 
 Tends to some moment's product thus, 
 
 When a soul declares itself to wit, 
 By its fruit, the thing it does ! . . 
 
 I am named and known by that moment's feat ; 
 
 There took my station and degree ; 
 So grew my own small life complete, 
 
 As nature obtained her best of me 
 One born to love you, sweet ! 
 
 And to watch you sink by the fire-side now 
 
 Back again, as you mutely sit 
 Musing by fire-light, that great brow 
 
 And the spirit-small hand propping it, 
 Yonder, my heart knows how ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (By the Fireside). 
 
 The last verse, describing Mrs. Browning, makes it clear that the poet 
 is speaking of his own love-story, although the scene is imaginary. The 
 last two verses are to be read literally, as an expression of the poet's firm 
 belief, and not as poetical exaggeration. 
 
 YOU must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary 
 to nature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do ; 
 and nobody knows. Wise men are afraid to say that there is 
 anything contrary to nature, except what is contrary to mathe- 
 matical truth, as that two and two cannot make five. There 
 are dozens and hundreds of things in the world which we should
 
 48 KINGSLEY BAILEY 
 
 certainly have said were contrary to nature, if we did not see 
 them going on under our eyes all day long. If people had never 
 seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite different 
 shapes from themselves, and these trees again produce fresh seeds, 
 they would have said, "The thing cannot be". . Suppose 
 that no human being had ever seen or heard of an elephant. 
 And suppose that you described him to people, and said, " This 
 is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast . . and this 
 is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom than a reasonable 
 skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast ; yet he is the wisest 
 of all beasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast 
 accounts." People would surely have said, "Nonsense; your 
 elephant is contrary to nature," and have thought you were 
 telling stories as the French thought of Le Vaillant when he came 
 back to Paris and said that he had shot a giraffe ; and as the 
 King of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor, when 
 he said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain fell 
 as feathers. The truth is that folks' fancy that such and such 
 things cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, 
 is worth no more than a savage's fancy that there cannot be 
 such a thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one running 
 wild in the forest. 
 
 CHARGES KINGSI.EY (1819-1875) 
 (Water-Babies). 
 
 This passage interested us greatly in the old days, and also another 
 passage drawing a not very satisfactory analogy between the transform- 
 ation of insects and our probable transformation at death. I do not know 
 whether the elephant's brain warrants Kingsley's deduction. 
 
 This book, published in 1863,* had a considerable effect in doing away 
 with the barbarous employment of young children in mines, factories, 
 brickfields, etc. It called attention particularly to the chimney-sweep 
 boys of four or five years of age who had to climb up the narrow chimneys, 
 and who were simply slaves, neglected and ill-treated by their drunken 
 masters. We are apt to forget how recently we emerged from barbarism 
 in many directions, and that we are only now becoming civilized in other 
 respects, as, for instance, with regard to the poor, suffering, and ignorant. 
 
 THE worst way to improve the world 
 Is to condemn it. 
 
 P. J. BAIUEY 
 
 (Festus) . 
 
 * In 1843 Mrs. Browning's fine appeal, "The Cry of the Children," appeared in 
 " Black wood." but I presume had little efiect. So also Hood's "Song of the Shirt," 
 " Bridge of Sighs," and " Song of the Labourer," were written about the same time, 
 but could have made little real impression.
 
 ROSSETTI TACITUS 49 
 
 THE DARK GLASS 
 
 NOT I myself know all my love for thee : 
 
 How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh 
 
 To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday ? 
 Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be 
 As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, 
 
 I/ash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray ; 
 
 And shall my sense pierce love, the last relay 
 And ultimate outpost of eternity ? 
 
 Ix> ! what am I to Love, the lord of all ? 
 
 One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, 
 One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. 
 Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call 
 And veriest touch of powers primordial 
 
 That any hour-girt life may understand. 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 y THE gods are on the side of the strongest. 
 
 TACITUS 
 (Hist. 4, 17)- 
 
 De Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, said in 1677, " God is on the side of the 
 heaviest battalions." Voltaire again said, in 1770, that there are far more 
 fools than wise men, " and they say that God always favours the heaviest 
 battalions " (Letter to Le Riche). Gibbon wrote, " The winds and waves 
 are always on the side of the ablest navigators "(Ch. LXVIII). (I owe 
 part of this note to King's Classical and Foreign Quotations.) 
 
 THE OCTOPUS 
 BY ALGERNON SINE URN 
 
 STRANGE beauty, eight- limbed and eight-handed. 
 
 Whence earnest to dazzle our eyes, 
 With thy bosom bespangled and banded, 
 
 With the hues of the seas and the skies ? 
 Is thy name European or Asian, 
 
 Oh mystical monster marine, 
 Part molluscous and partly crustacean, 
 Betwixt and between ?
 
 50 HILTON 
 
 Wast thou born to the sound of sea-trumpets ? 
 
 Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess 
 Of the sponges thy muffins and crumpets 
 
 Of the sea-weed thy mustard and cress ? 
 Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral, 
 
 Remote from reproof or restraint ? 
 Art thou innocent, art thou immoral, 
 Sinburnian or Saint ? 
 
 Lithe limbs curling free as a creeper, 
 That creeps in a desolate place, 
 
 To enrol and envelop the sleeper 
 In a silent and stealthy embrace ; 
 
 Cruel beak craning forward to bite us, 
 Our juices to drain and to drink, 
 
 Or to whelm as in waves of Cocytus, 
 Indelible ink ! 
 
 Oh, breast that 'twere rapture to writhe on ! 
 
 Oh, arms 'twere delicious to feel 
 Clinging close with the crush of the Python, 
 
 When she maketh her murderous meal ! 
 In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden 
 
 Let our empty existence escape : 
 Give us death that is glorious and golden, 
 Crushed all out of shape ! 
 
 Ah, thy red limbs lascivious and luscious, 
 
 With death in their amorous kiss ! 
 Cling round us and clasp us and crush us, 
 
 With bitings of agonized bliss ! 
 We are sick with the poison of pleasure, 
 
 Dispense us the potion of pain ; 
 Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure, 
 And bite us again ! 
 
 A. C. HII/TON (1851-1877) 
 
 This extraordinarily clever parody of Swinburne's " Dolores " was 
 written by Arthur Clement Hilton, when he was an undergraduate at 
 St. John's, Cambridge. It appeared in The Light Green, a clever but 
 short-lived magazine published in Cambridge in the early seventies as a 
 rival to The Dark Blue, published in London by Oxford men. Hilton was 
 the main contributor to The Light Green. He died when only twenty-six 
 years of age. This brilliant young author is not included in The 
 Dictionary of National Biography.
 
 COLERIDGE AND OTHERS 51 
 
 " The Octopus " is one of the best of English parodies. I bad not seen 
 it for forty years, until I recently found it in Adam and White's Parodies 
 and Imitations (1912). In that book, although the authors presumably 
 had The Light Green to print from, the punctuation is inferior to that in my 
 copy, and the word " Dispose " instead of " Dispense " in the third last 
 line must be a misprint. 
 
 HE seemed to me to be one of those men who have not very 
 extended minds, but who know what they know very well 
 shallow streams, and clear because they are shallow. 
 
 S. T. COLKRIDGK 
 (Table Talk}. 
 
 TO know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Ameil 
 to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept 
 your soul alive. 
 
 R. ly. STEVENSON 
 
 ( Virginibus Puerisque) . 
 
 TOUT comprendre c'est tout pardonner. 
 (^"o know all is forgive all.) 
 
 FRENCH PROVERB 
 
 This proverb is said to have originated from a sentence in Mme. de 
 de StaeFs Connne, Tout comfrendre rend tres-indulgent, " Understanding 
 everything makes one very forgiving." 
 
 THE true life of the human community is planted deep in the 
 private affections of its members ; in the greatness of its individual 
 minds ; in the pure severities of its domestic conscience ; in the 
 noble and transforming thoughts that fertilize its sacred nooks. 
 Who can observe, without astonishment, the durable action 
 of men truly great on the history of the world, and the evanes- 
 cence of vast military revolutions, once threatening all things 
 with destruction ? How often is it the fate of the former to be 
 invisible for an age, and then live for ever ; of the latter, to sweep 
 a generation from the earth, and then vanish with slight trace ? 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU 
 
 (The Outer and the Inner Temple}.
 
 52 BOREHAM LYNCH 
 
 Wars seem to leave little trace except where they result in the immi- 
 gration and settlement of a tribe or nation. Otherwise they appear to cancel 
 one another. The present war will probably destroy the only trace of the 
 Franco-Prussian war, and, with respect to Turkey, Poland, and other 
 countries, will no doubt cancel the effects of many tremendous conflicts 
 of past centuries. 
 
 A CENTURY ago men were following, with bated breath, the 
 march of Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for the 
 latest news of the wars. And all the while, in their own homes, 
 babies were being born. But who could think about babies } Every- 
 body was thinking about battles. In one year, lying midway 
 between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world 
 a host of heroes ! During that one year, 1809, Mr. Gladstone was 
 born in Liverpool ; Alfred Tennyson was born at the Somersby 
 rectory ; and Oliver Wendell Holmes made his first appear- 
 ance in Massachusetts. On the very self -same day of that 
 self -same year Charles Darwin made his debut at Shrewsbury, 
 and Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in old Kentucky. 
 Music was enriched by the advent of Frederic Chopin at Warsaw, 
 and of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg. Within the same year, 
 too, Samuel Morley was born in Homerton, Edward Fitzgerald 
 in Woodbridge, Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Durham, and 
 Frances Kemble in London. But nobody thought of babies. 
 Everybody was thinking of battles. Yet, viewing that age in the 
 truer perspective which the distance of a hundred years enables 
 us to command, we may well ask ourselves, " Which of the battles 
 of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809 ? " . . 
 
 We fancy that God can only manage His world by big bat- 
 talions abroad, when all the while He is doing it by beautiful 
 babies at home. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants 
 preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into 
 the world to do it. That is why, long, long ago, a babe was born 
 in Bethlehem. 
 
 FRANK W. BOREHAM 
 (Mountains in the Mist). 
 
 REINFORCEMENTS 
 
 WHEN little boys with merry noise 
 In the meadows shout and run ; 
 
 And little girls, sweet woman buds, 
 Brightly open in the sun ;
 
 LYNCH MARSTON 53 
 
 I may not of the world despair, 
 
 Our God despaireth not, I see ; 
 For blithesomer in Eden's air 
 
 These lads and maidens could not be. 
 
 Why were they born, if Hope must die ? 
 
 Wherefore this health, if Truth should fail ? 
 And why such Joy, if Misery 
 
 Be conquering us and must prevail ? 
 Arouse ! our spirit may not droop ! 
 
 These young ones fresh from Heaven are ; 
 Our God hath sent another troop. 
 
 And means to carry on the war. 
 
 THOMAS TOKE LYNCH (1818-1871). 
 
 O WIND, a word with you before you pass ; 
 What did you to the Rose that on the grass 
 Broken she lies and pale, who loved you so ? 
 
 THE WIND 
 Roses must live and love, and winds must blow. 
 
 PHIUP BOURKE MARSTON 
 (The Rose and the Wind) . 
 
 WHAT OF THE DARKNESS ? 
 
 WHAT of the Darkness ? Is it very fair ? 
 Are there great calms, and find ye silence there ? 
 lyike soft-shut lilies all your faces glow 
 With some strange peace our faces never know, 
 With some great faith our faces never dare : 
 Dwells it in Darkness ? Do ye find it there ? 
 
 Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie ? 
 Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry ? 
 Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap ? 
 Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep ? 
 Day shows us not such comfort anywhere : 
 Dwells it in Darkness ? Do ye find it there ?
 
 54 IyE GALLIENNE AND OTHERS 
 
 Out of the Day's deceiving light we call, 
 
 Day, that shows man so great and God so small. 
 
 That hides the stars and magnifies the grass ; 
 
 O is the Darkness too a lying glass 
 
 Or, undistracted, do ye find truth there ? 
 
 What of the Darkness ? Is it very fair ? 
 
 R. LE GAUJENNK. 
 
 These lines were written of the blind, but become even more beautiful 
 and true if applied to a different subject, the dead. 
 
 CONTINUING the work of creation, i.e., co-operating as instru- 
 ments of Providence in bringing order out of disorder ... is 
 only a part of the mission of mankind, and the time will come 
 again when its due rank will be assigned to contemplation and 
 the calm culture of reverence and love. Then poetry will resume 
 her equality with prose. ... But that time is not yet, and the 
 crowning glory of Wordsworth is that he has borne witness to 
 it and kept alive its traditions in an age, which, but for him, 
 would have lost sight of it entirely. 
 
 J. S. Mnj, 
 
 In that utilitarian period the figure of the great poet stands out in sheer 
 sublimity. *Apart from the depressing atmosphere of the time, one needs 
 to remember how serenely he continued to deliver his high message in 
 spite of the most deadly want of appreciation. At thirty he received 
 10 from his poems and nothing more until he was sixty-five ! The 
 quotation is from a letter in Caroline Fox'g Journals. 
 
 MY sarcastic friend says, with the utmost gravity, that no 
 man with less than a thousand pounds a year can afford to have 
 private opinions upon certain important subjects. He admits 
 that he has known it done upon eight hundred a year ; but only 
 by very prudent people with small families. 
 
 SIR A. HEI<PS 
 (Companions of my Solitude) 
 
 'TIS an old theme, this Divine Love, and it cannot be exhausted. 
 Men have not outlived it, angels cannot outlearn it. It swayed 
 the ancientworld by m any a fair god and goddess ; its light has 
 been cast over ages of Christian controversy and warfare ; it is 
 still the guiding Star of the Sea to each voyager after the nobler
 
 CONWAY KEBLE 55 
 
 faith. The youth leaves the old shore of belief, only because 
 love has left it. His starved affections will no longer accept 
 stone, though pulverized flour-like and artfully kneaded, for 
 bread. Their white sails fill the purple and the sombre seas, 
 and they hail each other to ask for the summer-land, where faith 
 climbs to beauty, and the lost bowers of childhood's trust may 
 be found again. 
 
 MONCURE DANIEI, CONWAY (1832-1907). 
 
 This fine writer was a Unitarian minister, but afterwards became a 
 " Free-thinker." 
 
 THERE are in this loud stunning tide 
 
 Of human care and crime, 
 With whom the melodies abide 
 
 Of th' everlasting chime ; 
 Who carry music in their heart 
 
 Through dusky lane and wrangling mart. 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet, 
 Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. 
 
 JOHN KEBI,E 
 (The Christian Year, " St. Matthew.") 
 
 THE DARK COMPANION 
 
 THERE is an orb that mocked the lore of sages 
 I/ong time with mystery of strange unrest ; 
 
 The steadfast law that rounds the starry ages 
 Gave doubtful token of supreme behest ; 
 
 But they who knew the ways of God unchanging, 
 Concluded some far influence unseen 
 
 Some kindred sphere through viewless others ranging, 
 Whose strong persuasions spanned the void between 
 
 And knowing it alone through perturbation 
 
 And vague disquiet of another star, 
 They named it, till the day of revelation, 
 
 " The Dark Companion " darkly guessed afar.
 
 56 STEPHENS 
 
 But when, through new perfection of appliance, 
 Faith merged at length in undisputed sight, 
 
 The mystic mover was revealed to science, 
 No Dark Companion, but a speck of light : 
 
 No Dark Companion, but a sun of glory : 
 No fell disturber, but a bright compeer : 
 
 The shining complement that crowned the story : 
 The golden link that made the meaning clear. 
 
 Oh, Dark Companion, journeying ever by us, 
 Oh, grim Perturber of our works and ways, 
 
 Oh, potent Dread, unseen, yet ever nigh us, 
 Disquieting all the tenor of our days 
 
 Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose wide embraces 
 O'ertake remotest change of clime and skies 
 
 Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose grievous traces 
 Are scattered shreds of riven enterprise 
 
 Thou, too, in this wise, when, our eyes unsealing, 
 The clearer day shall change our faith to sight, 
 
 Shalt show thyself, in that supreme revealing, 
 No Dark Companion, but a thing of light : 
 
 No ruthless wrecker of harmonious order : 
 No alien heart of discord and caprice : 
 
 A beckoning light upon the Blissful Border : 
 A kindred element of law and peace. 
 
 So, too, our strange unrest in this our dwelling, 
 The trembling that thou joinest with our mirth, 
 
 Are by thy magnet-communings compelling 
 Our spirits farther from the scope of earth. 
 
 So, doubtless, when beneath thy potence swerving. 
 
 'Tis that thou lead'st us by a path unknown, 
 Our seeming deviations all subserving 
 
 The perfect orbit round the central throne. 
 
 The night wind moans. The Austral wilds are round me. 
 
 The loved who live ah, God ! how few they are ! 
 I looked above ; and Heaven in mercy found me 
 
 This parable of comfort in a star. 
 
 J. BRUNTON STEPHENS 
 
 (Convict Once and other Poems)
 
 57 
 
 The " Dark Companion " is no doubt the star known as the " Com- 
 panion of Sinus." Certain peculiarities in the motion of Sirius led Bessel 
 in 1844 to the belief that it had an obscure companion, with which it wat 
 in revolution. The position of the companion having been ascertained 
 by calculation, it was at last found in 1862. It is equal in mass to our sun 
 but is obscured by the brilliancy of Sirius, which is the brightest of the fixed 
 stars. Brunton Stephens' poem was published in Melbourne in 1873. 
 
 SEQUEL TO " 
 " When and where shall 1 earliest meet her" etc. 
 
 YES, but the years run circling fleeter, 
 Ever they pass me I watch, I wait 
 
 Ever I dream, and awake to meet her ; 
 She cometh never, or comes too late, 
 
 Should I press on ? for the day grows shorter 
 Ought I to linger ? the far end nears ; 
 
 Ever ahead have I looked, and sought her 
 On the bright sky-line of the gathering years. 
 
 Now that the shadows are eastward sloping, 
 As I screen mine eyes from the slanting sun, 
 
 Cometh a thought It is past all hoping, 
 Look not ahead, she is missed and gone. 
 
 Here on the ridge of my upward travel, 
 
 Ere the life-line dips to the darkening vales, 
 
 vSadly I turn, and would fain unravel 
 
 The entangled maze of a search that fails. 
 
 When and where have I seen and passed her ? 
 
 What are the words I forgot to say ? 
 Should we have met had a boat rowed faster ? 
 
 Should we have loved, had I stayed that day ? 
 
 Was it her face that I saw, and started, 
 Gliding away in a train that crossed ? 
 
 Was it her form that I once, faint-hearted, 
 Followed awhile in a crowd and lost ? 
 
 Was it there she lived, when the train went sweeping 
 Under the moon through the landscape hushed ? 
 
 Somebody called me, I woke from sleeping, 
 Saw but a hamlet and on we rushed.
 
 58 I,YALL C. ROSSETTI 
 
 I/isten and linger She yet may find me 
 In the last faint flush of the waning light 
 
 Never a step on the path behind me ; 
 I must journey alone, to the lonely night. 
 
 But is there somewhere on earth, I wonder, 
 A fading figure, with eyes that wait, 
 
 Who says, as she stands in the distance yonder 
 " He cometh never, or comes too late ? " 
 
 SIR ALFRED 
 
 TOO late for love, too late for joy, 
 
 Too late, too late ! 
 You loitered on the road too long, 
 
 You trifled at the gate : 
 The enchanted dove upon her branch 
 
 Died without a mate ; 
 The enchanted princess in her tower 
 
 Slept, died, behind the grate ; 
 Her heart was starving all this while 
 
 You made it wait. 
 
 Ten years ago, five years ago, 
 
 One year ago, 
 Even then you had arrived in time, 
 
 Though somewhat slow ; 
 Then you had known her living face 
 
 Which now you cannot know : 
 The frozen fountain would have leaped, 
 
 The buds gone on to blow, 
 The warm south wind would have awaked 
 
 To melt the snow. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 
 
 (The Prince's Progress). 
 
 WHERE waitest thou, 
 Lady I am to love ? Thou comest not ! 
 Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot ; 
 
 I looked for thee ere now ! .
 
 ARNOLD AND OTHERS 59 
 
 Where art thou, sweet ? 
 I long for thee, as thirsty lips for streams ! 
 Oh, gentle promised Angel of my dreams, 
 
 Why do we never meet ? 
 
 Thou art as I, 
 
 Thy soul doth wait for mine, as mine for thee ; 
 We cannot live apart ; must meeting be 
 Never before we die . . ? 
 
 SIR EDWIN ARNOLD 
 (A Ma Future). 
 
 MILD is the parting year, and sweet 
 
 The odour of the falling spray ; 
 Life passes on more rudely fleet, 
 
 And balmless is its closing day. 
 
 I wait its close, I court its gloom, 
 But mourn that never must there fall 
 
 Or on my breast or on my tomb 
 
 The tear that would have sooth'd it all. 
 
 W. S. LANDOR. 
 
 THE devil has made the stuff of our life and God makes the 
 hem. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO 
 
 (By the King's Command). 
 
 I THINK, I said, I can make it plain that there are at least 
 six personalities distinctly to be recognized as taking part in a 
 dialogue between John and Thomas. 
 
 Three Johns : The real John known only to his Maker. 
 John's ideal John never the real one, and often very 
 unlike him. Thomas's ideal John never the real John, 
 nor John's John, but often very unlike either.
 
 60 HOLMES MORRIS 
 
 Three Thomases : The real Thomas. Thomas's ideal Thomas. 
 John's ideal Thomas. 
 
 Only one of the three Johns is taxed ; only one can be weighed 
 on a platform balance ; but the other two are just as important 
 in the conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, 
 dull, and ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not con- 
 ferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, 
 John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, 
 and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal. 
 Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say ; 
 therefore he is, so far as Thomas's attitude in the conversation 
 is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid. 
 The same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It follows 
 that, until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker 
 knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be 
 at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two. 
 Of these the least important, philosophically speaking, is the one 
 that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants 
 often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening 
 all at the same time. 
 
 (A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks 
 was made by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, 
 who sits near me at table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare 
 vegetable little known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me 
 via this unlettered Johannes. He appropriated the three that 
 remained in the basket, remarking that there was just one 
 apiece for him. I convinced him that his practical inference 
 was hasty and illogical, but in the meantime he had eaten the 
 peaches.) 
 
 O. W. 
 
 (Autocrat of the Breakfast Table) 
 
 aweary of your mirth, 
 From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, 
 And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, 
 Grudge every minute as it passes by, 
 Made the more mindful that the sweet days die 
 Remember me a little then, I pray, 
 The idle singer of an empty day. 
 
 W. MORRIS 
 
 (The Earthly Paradise).
 
 DONNE 6 1 
 
 A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. 
 
 WII/r Thou forgive that sin where I begun, 
 
 Which was my sin, though it were done before ? 
 Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run, 
 And do run still, though still I do deplore ? 
 When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done ; 
 For I have more. 
 
 Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won 
 
 Others to sin, and made my sins their door ? 
 Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun 
 A year or two, but wallowed in a score ? 
 When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done ; 
 For I have more. 
 
 I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun 
 
 My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ; 
 But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son 
 Shall shine, as He Shines now and heretofore ; 
 And having done that, Thou hast done : 
 I fear no more. 
 
 JOHN DONNE (1573-1631). 
 
 In line (i) the reference is to the old doctrine that the guilt of Adam 
 and Eve's " original sin " tainted all generations of man ; (3) " run," ran; 
 (8) his sin the example he has set is the door which opened to others 
 the way of sin. 
 
 In this fine poem there are puns. In the last verse one pun is on the 
 words " Son " and " Sun," Christ being the " Sun of righteousness who 
 arises with healing in his wings "(Malacbi iv, 2). Also in the fifth, eleventh, and 
 seventeenth lines, the play is on the last word " done " and the poet's name 
 Donne, which was pronounced dun.* (It was occasionlly written Dun, Dunne, 
 or Done : see Grierson's Poems of John Donne, Vol. II, pp. Ivii, Ixxvii, 
 Ixxxvii, 8 and 12. Contrariwise, the adjective " dun," dull-brown, 
 was spelt donne in the poet's time.) We are accustomed only to the jocular 
 use of puns, but here there is a serious intention to give two meanings to 
 one expression. Such a use of puns was one of the " quaint conceits " 
 of that period of our literature, and it is found also in serious Persian poetry. 
 
 * The family name is now apparently pronounced as it is spelt (see " An English 
 Pronouncing Dictionary," by Daniel Jones, and the " Century " and " Webster "). Such 
 a change must often happen. I have cousins named Colclough, who in Australia became 
 so tired of correcting people that they finally resigned themselves to the loss of the old 
 pronunciation " Cokely " and accepted the less euphonious " Colclo."
 
 62 THACKERAY ELIOT 
 
 VERY likely female pelicans like so to bleed under the selfish 
 little beaks of their young ones : it is certain that women do. 
 There must be some sort of pleasure, which we men don't under- 
 stand, which accompanies the pain of being scarified. 
 
 THACKERAY 
 (Pendennis) . 
 
 i 
 
 THE golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we 
 see nothing but sand ; the angels come to visit us, and we only 
 know them when they are gone. 
 
 GEORGE Euox 
 (Felix Holt}. 
 
 LET IT BE THERE. 
 
 NOT there, not there ! 
 Not in that nook, that ye deem so fair ; 
 Little reck I of the bright, blue sky, 
 And the stream that floweth so munnuringly, 
 And the bending boughs, and the breezy air 
 
 Not there, good friends, not there ! 
 
 In the city churchyard, where the grass 
 Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray 
 Of that self-same sun doth find its way 
 Through the heaped-up houses' serried mass 
 Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng, 
 And the clatter of wheels as they rush along 
 Or the plash of the rain, or the wind's hoarse cry, 
 Or the busy tramp of the passer-by, 
 Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air 
 Good friends, let it be there ! 
 
 I am old, my friends I am very old 
 Fdurscore and five and bitter cold 
 Were that air on the hill-side far away ; 
 Eighty full years, content, I trow, 
 Have I lived in the home where ye see me now, 
 And trod those dark streets "day by day, 
 Till my soul doth love them ; I love them all, 
 Each battered pavement, and blackened wall, 
 Each court and corner. Good sooth ! to me 
 They are all comely and fair to see
 
 WESTWOOD AND OTHERS 63 
 
 They have old faces each one doth tell 
 A tale of its own, that doth Like me well, 
 Sad or merry, as it may be, 
 From the quaint old book of my history. 
 And, friends, when this weary pain is past, 
 Fain would I lay me to rest at last 
 In their very midst ; full sure am I, 
 How dark soever be earth and sky, 
 I shall sleep softly I shall know 
 That the things I loved so here below 
 Are about me still so never care 
 That my last home looketh all bleak and bare 
 Good friends, let it be there I 
 
 THOMAS WESTWOOD (1814-1888). 
 
 EVERY man hath his gift, one a cup of wine, another heart's 
 blood. 
 
 HAFIZ 
 
 Some poets sing of wine or sensuous enjoyment, but Hafiz pours out his 
 heart's blood in song. Presumably wine and blood are contrasted because 
 of their similar appearance. 
 
 THE devil could drive woman out of Paradise ; but the devil 
 himself cannot drive the Paradise out of a woman. 
 
 G. MACDONAIJ) 
 
 (Robert Falconer). 
 
 THE PUUvEY 
 
 WHEN God at first made man, 
 Having a glass of blessings standing by, 
 " Let us," said He, " pour on him all we can ; 
 I^et the world's riches, which dispersed lie, 
 
 Contract into a span." 
 
 So strength first made a way, 
 
 Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure ; 
 When almost all was out, God made a stay, 
 Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, 
 
 Rest in the bottom lay.
 
 64 HERBERT TYNDALT, 
 
 " For if I should," said He, 
 " Bestow this jewel also on My creature, 
 He would adore My gifts instead of Me, 
 And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : 
 So both should losers be. 
 
 " Yet let him keep the rest, 
 But keep them with repining restlessness ; 
 Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 
 If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 
 
 May toss him to My breast." 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633). 
 
 " The Pulley " because by the desire for rest after toil and tribulation 
 God draws man up to Himself. 
 
 (DARWIN'S Origin of Species was published in November, 1859.) 
 At the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1 860 Huxley 
 had on Thursday, June 28, directly contradicted Professor 
 Owen's statement that a gorilla's brain differed more from a 
 man's than it did from the brain of the lowest of the Quadrumana 
 (apes, monkeys, and lemurs). He was thus marked out as the 
 champion of evolution. On the Saturday, although the public 
 were not admitted, the members crowded the room to suffocation, 
 anxious to hear the brilliant controversialist, Bishop Wilberforce. 
 take part in the debate. An unimportant paper was read 
 bearing upon Darwinism, and a discussion followed. The Bishop, 
 inspired by Owen, began his speech. He spoke in dulcet tones, 
 persuasive manner, and with well-turned periods, but ridiculing 
 Darwin badly and Huxley savagely. " In a light, scoffing 
 tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the 
 idea of evolution : rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had 
 always been. Then, turning to Huxley, with a smiling insolence, 
 he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grand- 
 mother that he claimed his descent from a monkey." 
 
 As he said this, Huxley turned to his neighbour and said, 
 " The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands ! " On rising 
 to speak, he first gave a forcible and eloquent reply to the scientific 
 part of the Bishop's argument. Then " he stood before us and 
 spoke those tremendous words words, which no one seems sure 
 of now, nor, I think, could remember just after they were spoken, 
 for their meaning took away our breath, though it left us in no 
 doubt as to what it was. " He was not ashamed to have a mon- 
 key for his ancestor : but he would be ashamed to be connected 
 with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth." No on
 
 TYNDAIyt 65 
 
 doubted his meaning, and the effect was tremendous. One 
 lady fainted and had to be carried out ; I, for one, jumped out 
 of my seat." (Macmillan's, 1898.) There is no verbatim 
 report of this incident, but the varying accounts agree in outline. 
 (Extracted from Life of Huxley) 
 
 One object of this book is to bring back the memories of the seventy- 
 eighties and of overwhelming interest at the time was the alleged conflict 
 between religion and science. Through Darwin's great discovery and 
 Herbert Spencer's world-wide extension of the evolution theory, so much 
 was found covered by law that men were blinded to the fact that the essential 
 question of causality, lying behind all law, was still untouched. 
 
 The important and thrilling incident referred to above took place 
 in 1860, when I was two years old, but it was still an absorbing topic thirteen 
 or fourteen years later, and is one of my most vivid recollections. 
 
 Wilberforce (1805-1873) was a great Churchman and, indeed, has 
 been said to be the greatest prelate of his age, although his nickname 
 " Soapy Sam " led to a popular depreciation of his merits. (This epithet 
 originally meant that he was evasive on certain questions, but it took a 
 further meaning from his persuasive eloquence.) In this instance he meddled 
 with a subject of which he was ignorant. Owen, who instigated him to 
 make this attack on Darwin and Huxley had at first welcomed the theory 
 of evolution, but quailed before the orthodox indignation against the neces- 
 sary extension of that theory to the origin of man. Huxley (1825-1895) 
 was thirty-five years of age when he thus showed himself a strong debater 
 and a power in the scientific world. 
 
 ON tracing the line of life backwards, we see it approaching 
 more and more to what we call the purely physical condition. 
 We come at length to those organisms which I have compared 
 to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water. We 
 reach the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have " a type 
 distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its finely 
 granular character." Can we pause here ? We break a magnet 
 and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue the 
 process of breaking ; but however small the parts, each carries 
 with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And when 
 we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision to the 
 polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something similar 
 in the case of life ? . . Believing, as I do, in the continuity of 
 nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to 
 be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supple- 
 ments the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and 
 justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental 
 evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance 
 of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence 
 for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the 
 promise and potency of all terrestrial Life. 
 
 i
 
 66 TYNDALL SAYCE 
 
 (REFERRING to the question of inquiring into the mystery 
 of our origin) . Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me 
 to handle, but which will assuredly be handled by the loftiest 
 minds, when you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have 
 melted into the infinite azure of the past. 
 
 JOHN TYNDAI,!,. 
 The italics are mine. 
 
 As in the preceding quotation the subject is the alleged conflict between 
 religion and science, which occupied so large a space in our life and thought 
 in the seventies and eighties. The above are the two passages from Tynd- 
 all's presidential address at the Belfast meeting of the British Association 
 in 1874, which caused an immense sensation. The Belfast Address, like 
 Huxley's smashing reply to Bishop Wilberforce, was useful in showing 
 that all scientific questions must be considered with an open mind, free of 
 theological bias, and also in adding testimony to the importance and value 
 of Darwin's investigation. Although fifteen years had passed since The 
 Origin of Species was published, this was still necessary. (At that very 
 time Professor McCoy, afterwards Sir Frederick McCoy, F.R.S., when 
 lecturing at the Melbourne University to his students, of whom I was one, 
 was still making inane jokes about evolution and our monkey cousins.) 
 
 But, while the world was in ferment over the question of man's alleged 
 kinship with the monkey, there came the further startling fact that the 
 President of the British Association also proclaimed his belief in materialism 
 and, inferentially, that there was no life after death. Englishmen had not 
 before realized how widely materialism had spread through England and 
 Europe. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that a majority at least 
 of the leading thinkers had become materialists. 
 
 In travelling outside science into metaphysics, Tyndall betrayed 
 a lamentable ignorance of the latter a parallel case to that of Bishop 
 Wilberforce when he attempted to meddle with science. Martineau, 
 referring to the first quotation above, wrote : " There is no magic in the 
 superlatively little to draw from the universe its last secret. Size is but 
 relative, magnified or dwindled by a glass, variable with the organ of per- 
 ception : to one being, the speck which only the microscope can show us 
 may be a universe ; to another, the solar system but a molecule ; and in 
 the passing from the latter to the former you reach no end of search or 
 beginning of things. You merely substitute a miniature of nature for its 
 life-size without at all showing whence the features arise." 
 
 THE NEW GOSPEL 
 HAECKELIUS loquitur : 
 
 The ages have passed and come with the beat of a measureless 
 
 tread 
 
 And piled up their palace-dome on the dust of the ageless dead. 
 Since the atom of life first glowed in the breast of eternal time, 
 And shaped for itself its abode in the womb of the shapeless 
 
 slime;
 
 SAYCE 67 
 
 And the years matured its form with slow, unwearying toil. 
 Moulded by sun and storm, and rich with the centuries' spoil, 
 Till the face of the earth was fair, and life grew up into mind, 
 And breathed its earliest prayer to its god in the dawn or wind, 
 And called itself by the name of man, the master and lord, 
 Who conquers the strength of flame and tempers the spear and 
 
 sword ; 
 
 For the world grows wiser by war, and death is the law of life. 
 The lowermost rock in the scar is red with the stains of strife. 
 Burst thro' the bounds of sight, and measure the least of things, 
 Plummet the infinite and make to thy fancy wings ; 
 From crystal, and coral, and weed, up to man in his noblest race, 
 The weaker shall fail in his need, and the stronger shall hold his 
 
 place ! 
 
 REN ANUS loquitur : 
 
 Ah ! leave me yet a little while, to watch 
 
 The golden glory of the dying day, 
 Till all the purple mountains gleam and catch 
 
 The last faint light that slowly steals away. 
 
 Too soon the night is on us ; aye, too soon 
 We know the cloud is born of blinding mist : 
 
 The throne, whereon the gods sate crowned at noon 
 With ruby rays and liquid amethyst, 
 
 Is but a vapour, dim and grey, a streak 
 Of hollow rain that freezes in its fall, 
 
 A dull, cold shape that settles on the peak, 
 Icy and stifling as a dead man's pall. 
 
 The world's old faith is fairest in its death, 
 For death is fairer oftentimes than life ; 
 
 No vulgar passion quivers in the breath : 
 The dead forget their weariness and strife. 
 
 Say not that death is even as decay, 
 
 A hideous charnel choked with rotting dust ; 
 
 The cold white lips are beautiful as spray 
 Cast on an iceberg by the northern gust. 
 
 The memories of the past are diadem 'd 
 About the brow and folded on the eyes ; 
 
 The weary lids beneath are bent and gemm'd 
 With charmed dreams and mystic reveries.
 
 68 SAYCE 
 
 Once more she sits in her imperial chair, 
 And kings and Caesars kneel before her feet, 
 
 And clouds of incense fill the heavy air, 
 
 And shouts of homage echo thro' the street. 
 
 Or yet, again, she stretches forth the hand, 
 And men are done to death at her desire ; 
 
 The smoke of burning cities dims the land, 
 And limbs are torn or shrivelled in the fire. 
 
 Once more the scene is shifted, and the gleam 
 Of eastern suns about her brow is curled ; 
 
 Once more she roams a maiden by the stream, 
 Despised of men, the Magdalen of the world. 
 
 So scene on scene floats lightly, as a haze 
 
 That comes and goes with sudden gust and lull : 
 Limned with the sunset hues of other days, 
 They are but dreams; yet dreams are beautiful. 
 
 ARCHIBALD HENRY SAYCE 
 (Academy, Dec. 5, 1885). 
 
 As in the two preceding quotations, the subject is the supposed conflict 
 of religion and science. Haeckel (born 1834, recently dead) was the most 
 ruthless of all the biologists in accounting for evolution and all progress by 
 a struggle for existence. Renan (1823-1892), the French writer, whose love 
 of Christianity survived his belief in it, speaks of the passing away of the 
 old faith as " the golden glory of the dying day," and says that in its death 
 it will be more beautiful than in its life, when it led to passion, persecu- 
 tion and war. The penultimate verse refers to the time when temporal power 
 was removed from the church, and she reverted to the humility, and also the 
 beauty, of primitive Christianity when it came in its morning glory from the 
 East. 
 
 The fact that these fine verses are by the great philologist and archae- 
 ologist, Professor Sayce, who has not publicly appeared in the role of a poet, 
 adds greatly to their interest. The few verses he has published have mostly 
 appeared over the initials " A.H.S." in the old Academy (the present 
 periodical is a different concern), and he was not known to the public 
 as the author. 
 
 Anything about Professor Sayce must be interesting to the reader, 
 and I, therefore, need not apologize for mentioning the following incidents, 
 which, I imagine, are known only among his friends. In 1870, during the 
 Franco-German War, Mr. Sayce was ordered to be shot at Nantes as a 
 German spy, and only escaped " by the skin of his teeth." It was just before 
 Gambetta had flown in his balloon out of Paris, and there was no recognized 
 Government in the country. Nantes was full of fugitives, and bands of 
 Uhlans were in the neighbourhood. Mr. Sayce was arrested when walking 
 round the old citadel examining its walls not realizing that it was occupied 
 by French troops. Fortunately, some ladies of the garrison came in during 
 his examination to see the interesting young prisoner and, after Mr. Sayce
 
 CALVERIyEY 69 
 
 had been placed against the wall and a soldier told off to shoot him, they 
 prevailed upon the Commandant to give him a second examination, which 
 ended in his acquittal. 
 
 Mr. Sayce was also among the Carlists in the Carlist war of 1873, and was 
 present at some of the so-called battles which, he says, were dangerous 
 only to the onlookers. He also once had a pitched battle with Bedouins 
 in Syria. 
 
 Professor Sayce (he became Professor in 1876) has also the proud 
 distinction of being the only person known to have survived the bite of the 
 Egyptian cerastes asp, which is supposed to have killed Cleopatra. He 
 accidentally trod on the reptile in the desert some three or four miles north 
 of Assouan and was bitten in the leg. Luckily, he happened to be just 
 outside the dahabieh in which he was travelling with three Oxford friends, 
 one of them the late Master of Balliol. The cook had a small pair of red- 
 hot tongs, with which he had been preparing lunch, and Professor Sayce 
 was able to burn the bitten leg down to the bone within two minutes after 
 the accident ; thus saving his life at the expense of a few weeks' lameness. 
 
 BUT hark ! a sound is stealing on my ear 
 A soft and silvery sound I know it well. 
 
 Its tinkling tells me that a time is near 
 Precious to me it is the Dinner Bell. 
 
 blessed Bell ! Thou bringest beef and beer, 
 
 Thou bringest good things more than tongue may tell : 
 Seared is, of course, my heart but unsubdued 
 Is, and shall be, my appetite for food. 
 
 1 go. Untaught and feeble is mv pen : 
 
 But on one statement I may safely venture : 
 That few of our most highly gifted men 
 
 Have more appreciation of the trencher. 
 I go. One pound of British beef, and then 
 
 What Mr. Swiveller called a " modest quencher " ; 
 That, " home-returning," I may " soothly say," 
 " Fate cannot toxich me : I have dined to-day." 
 
 C. S. CAI.VERWSY 
 (Beer}. 
 
 These are the two last verses of a parody on Byron. In each of the last 
 three lines there is a literary reference. The first, of course, is to the happy- 
 go-lucky Dick Swiveller of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop. 
 
 The next reference is to the amusing story about Sir Walter Scott 
 that became known about the time Calverley was writing (1862). Scott, 
 in his description of Melrose Abbey by moonlight (" Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel ") says : 
 
 If thou wouldst view fair Meirose aright, 
 
 Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
 
 For the gay beams of lightsome day 
 
 Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey
 
 70 MEREDITH CARROLL 
 
 Yet there can be no doubt that be himself bad never seen the Abbey by 
 moonlight ! He further tells his readers that they can 
 
 Home returning, soothly swear 
 
 Was never scene so sad and fair. 
 
 They, having seen it, can " soothly" (i.e., truthfully] swear to its beauty, 
 which was more than he himself could I 
 
 Calverley's last line is from Sydney Smith's " Recipe for a Salad " : 
 
 Oh, herbaceous treat ! 
 Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat ; 
 Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, 
 And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl ; 
 Serenely full the epicure would say, 
 " Fate cannot harm me I have dined to-day." 
 
 This again is an adaptation of Dryden's " Imitation of Horace " (Book 
 III, Ode 29) : 
 
 Happy the man, and happy he alone, 
 
 He who can call to-day his own ; 
 
 He who, secure within, can say, 
 
 To-morrow, do thy worst, for 1 have liv'd to-day. 
 
 WE may live without poetry, music and art ; 
 We may live without conscience, and live without heart : 
 We may live without friends ; we may live without books ; 
 But civilized man can not live without cooks. 
 
 He may live without books what is knowledge but grieving ? 
 He may live without hope what is hope but deceiving ? 
 He may live without love what is passion but pining ? 
 But where is the man that can live without dining ? 
 
 EARI, OF LYTTON, " OWEN MEREDITH " (1831-1891) 
 (Lutile). 
 
 " A LOAF of bread," the Walrus said, 
 
 " Is what we chiefly need : 
 Pepper and vinegar besides 
 
 Are very good indeed 
 Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, 
 We can begin to feed." 
 
 LEWIS CARROT^ 
 (The Walrus and the Carpenter).
 
 BYRON BROWNING 71 
 
 THAT all-softening, overpowering knell, 
 The tocsin of the soul the dinner bell. 
 
 BYRON 
 
 (Don Juan} . 
 
 FIRST of the first, 
 
 Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now 
 Perfect in whiteness : stoop thou down, my child. . 
 My rose, I gather for the breast of God. . 
 And surely not so very much apart, 
 Need I place thee, my warrior-priest. . 
 
 In thought, word and deed, 
 How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure, 
 I find it easy to believe : and if 
 At any fateful moment of the strange 
 Adventure, the strong passion of that strait, 
 Fear and surprise may have revealed too much, 
 As when a thundrous midnight, with black air 
 That burns, rain-drops that blister, breaks a spell, 
 Draws out the excessive virtue of some sheathed 
 Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides 
 Immensity of sweetness, so, perchance, 
 Might the surprise and fear release too much 
 The perfect beauty of the body and soul 
 Thou savedst in thy passion for God's sake, 
 He who is Pity. Was the trial sore ? 
 Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time ! 
 Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
 And master and make crouch beneath his feet, 
 And so be pedestaled in triumph ? 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Ring and the Book, X.) 
 
 A young handsome priest, who had led a gay life, was moved by pure 
 motives to rescue a beautiful young wife from a dreadful husband, and he 
 travelled with her for three days to Rome. The husband was following 
 with an armed band, the priest was risking disgrace, and the girl was risking 
 death. The mutual danger would in itself tend to draw the fugitives 
 too closely together ; but also the girl had shown herself doubly lovable, 
 for the strain and stress had revealed in her a very beautiful nature just 
 as a midnight thunder-storm opens and draws rich scent from 
 
 Some sheathed 
 
 Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides 
 Immensity of sweetness.
 
 72 SWIFT AND OTHERS 
 
 Coleridge has a similar illustration, " Quarrels of anger ending in tears 
 are favourable to love in its spring tide, as plants are found to grow very 
 rapidly after a thunderstorm with rain" (Allsop's Letters, etc., of Coleridge}. 
 Coleridge died in 1834, and " The Ring and the Book " was published 
 in 1868-9 : it is curious that both poets should have been impressed with a 
 fact that appears to have been only recently recognized. In the seventies 
 Lemstrom proved that plants thrive under electricity ; but I think it is only 
 a few years ago that in some agricultural experiments in Germany it was 
 found that electricity was of no benefit to the crops without rain or other 
 moisture. 
 
 The quotation is from the fine judgment which the Pope delivers. 
 
 HE had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun- 
 beams out of cucumbers, which were to be ptit in phials hermeti- 
 cally sealed and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. 
 
 SWIFT 
 
 (Gulliver's Travels). 
 
 A CHII/D of our grandmother Eve, a female, or, for thy more 
 sweet understanding, a woman. 
 
 (Love's Labour Lost, I, i.) 
 
 THE whole World was made for man, but the twelfth part 
 of man for woman : Man is the whole World, and the Breath of 
 God ; Woman the rib and crooked piece of man. 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) 
 (Religio Medici). 
 
 GIVE me but what this ribband bound, 
 Take all the rest the sun goes round ! 
 
 EDMUND WAITER (1606-1687 
 (On a Girdle) . 
 
 A WOMAN is the most inconsistent compound of obstinacy 
 and self-sacrifice that I am acquainted with. 
 
 J. P. F. RICHTER 
 
 (Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces.)
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND OTHERS 73 
 
 IF she be made of white and red 
 Her faults will ne'er be known. 
 
 (Love's Labour Lost, I, 2), 
 
 / GOD made the world in six days, and then he rested. He then 
 made man and rested again. He then made woman and, since 
 then, neither man, woman, nor anything else has rested. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 THOU art my life, my love, my heart, 
 The very eyes of me. 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK 
 (To Anthea), 
 
 AS perchance carvers do not faces make, 
 But that away, which hid them there, do take : 
 Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, 
 And be his Image, or not his, but He. 
 
 JOHN DONNE 
 
 (The Cross}. 
 
 As sculptors chisel away the marble that hides the statue within, 
 so let " crosses " or afflictions remove the impurities which hide the Christ 
 in us, so that we shall become His image, or not His image, but Himself. 
 
 WHAT is experience ? A little cottage made with the debris 
 of those palaces of gold and marble which we call our illusions. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 HE has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
 Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
 Can touch him not and torture not again ; 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain.
 
 74 SHELLEY COLERIDGE 
 
 He is secure, and now can never mourn 
 A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; 
 Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
 With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 
 
 (Adonais, an Elegy on Keats, XL). 
 
 This verse is engraved on Shelley's own monument in the Priory 
 Church at Christchurch, Hampshire. 
 
 A LOOSE, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr. Green and 
 myself in a lane near Highgate. Green knew him and spoke. It 
 was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute or so. 
 After he had left us a little way, he came back and said, " Let 
 me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed your 
 hand ! " " There is death in that hand," I said to Green, when 
 Keats was gone ; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption 
 showed itself distinctly. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 (Table Talk). 
 
 This was about 1819. It is pathetic, this meeting of two great poets, 
 Keats who was to die two years afterwards at the early age of twenty- 
 six, and Coleridge, whose few brilliant years of poetic life had long previously 
 ended in slavery to the opium-habit. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT 
 
 'TWAS the body of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Lay in the Field of Blood ; 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Beside the body stood. 
 
 Black was the earth by night, 
 
 And black was the sky ; 
 Black, black were the broken clouds, 
 
 Tho' the red Moon went by. .
 
 BUCHANAN 
 
 'Twos the soul of Judas Iscariot, 
 So grim, and gaunt, and gray, 
 Raised the body of Judas Iscariot, 
 And carried it away. 
 
 For days and nights he wandered on 
 
 Upon an open plain, 
 And the days went by like blinding mist, 
 And the nights like rushing rain. 
 
 He wandered east, he wandered west, 
 And heard no human sound ; 
 
 For months and years, in grief and tears, 
 He wandered round and round. . 
 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot, 
 
 Strange, and sad, and tall, 
 Stood all alone at dead of night 
 
 Before a lighted hall. 
 
 And the wold was white with snow, 
 And his foot-marks black and damp, 
 
 And the ghost of the silvern Moon arose, 
 Holding her yellow lamp. 
 
 And the icicles were on the eaves, 
 And the walls were deep with white. 
 
 And the shadows of the guests within 
 Pass'd on the window light. 
 
 The shadows of the wedding guests 
 Did strangely come and go, 
 
 And the body of Judas Iscariot 
 Lay stretch 'd along the snow. 
 
 The body of Judas Iscariot 
 Lay stretched along the snow ; 
 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 Ran swiftly to and fro. 
 
 To and fro, and up and down, 
 
 He ran so swiftly there, 
 As round and round the frozen Pole 
 
 Glideth the lean white bear. 
 
 75
 
 76 BUCHANAN 
 
 "Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head, 
 And the lights burnt bright and clear 
 
 " Oh, who is that," the Bridgroom said, 
 "Whose weary feet I hear ? " 
 
 'Twas one look'd from the lighted hall, 
 And answered soft and slow, 
 
 "It is a wolf runs up and down 
 With a black track in the snow." 
 
 The Bridegroom in his robe of white 
 
 Sat at the table-head 
 " Oh, who is that who moans without ? " 
 
 The blessed Bridegroom said. 
 
 'Twas one looked from the lighted hall, 
 
 And answered fierce and low 
 " Tis the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Gliding to and fro." 
 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Did hush itself and stand. 
 And saw the Bridegroom at the door 
 
 With a light in his hand. 
 
 The Bridegroom stood in the open door, 
 
 And he was clad in white, 
 And far within the Lord's Supper 
 
 Was spread so broad and bright. 
 
 The Bridegroom shaded his eyes and look'd, 
 And his face was bright to see 
 
 " What dost thou here at the lord's Supper 
 With thy body's sins ? " said he. 
 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 Stood black, and sad, and bare 
 
 " I have wandered many nights and days ; 
 There is no light elsewhere." 
 
 'Twas the wedding guests cried out within, 
 And their eyes were fierce and bright 
 
 " Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 Away into the night ! "
 
 BUCHANAN HESTER CHOI^MONDE&EY. 77 
 
 The Bridegroom stood in the open door, 
 
 And he waved hands still and slow, 
 And the third time that he waved his hands 
 
 The air was thick with snow. 
 
 And of every flake of falling snow, 
 Before it touched the ground, 
 
 There came a dove, and a thousand doves 
 Made sweet sound. 
 
 'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Floated away full fleet, 
 And the wings of the doves that bare it off 
 
 Were like its winding-sheet. 
 
 'Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door, 
 
 And beckon'd, smiling sweet ; 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Stole in, and fell at his feet. 
 
 " The Holy Supper is spread within, 
 And the many candles shine, 
 
 And I have waited long for thee 
 Before I poured the wine ! " 
 
 The supper wine is poured at last, 
 The lights burn bright and fair, 
 
 Iscariot washes the Bridegroom's feet, 
 And dries them with his hair. 
 
 ROBERT BUCHANAN. 
 
 See reference to Buchanan in the Preface. 
 
 , 
 
 NOW, as of old, 
 Man by himself is priced : 
 
 For thirty pieces Judas sold 
 Himself, not Christ. 
 
 HESTER 
 
 I learn from the New Statesman reviewer of the first English Edition 
 that these lines were by Hester, a gifted sister of Mary Cholmondeley. She 
 died at 22.
 
 78 SMITH COLERIDGE 
 
 THE world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when 
 thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current 
 coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh 
 and new. 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH 
 (On the Writing of Essays). 
 
 IT is the calling of great men, not so much to preach new truths, 
 as to rescue from oblivion those old truths which it is our wisdom 
 to remember and our weakness to forget. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 IN philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most 
 useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions 
 of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect 
 caused by the very circumstances of their universal admission. 
 Extremes meet. Truths, of all others the most awful and 
 interesting, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all 
 the power of truth, and he bed-ridden in the dormitory of the 
 soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 (Aids to Reflection). 
 
 I HAVE given no man of my fruit to eat, 
 
 I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine. 
 Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet, 
 
 This wild new growth of the corn and vine, 
 This wine and bread without lees or leaven, 
 We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven, 
 Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet, 
 One splendid spirit, your soul and mine. 
 
 In the change of years, in the coil of things, 
 In the clamour and rumour of life to be, 
 We, drinking love at the furthest springs, 
 
 Covered with love as a covering tree. 
 
 We had grown as gods, as the gods above, 
 
 Filled from the heart to the lips with love, 
 
 Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, 
 
 O love, my love, had you loved but me!
 
 SWINBURNE ROSSETTI 79 
 
 We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved 
 As the moon moves, loving the world ; and seen 
 
 Grief collapse as a thing disproved, 
 Death consume as a thing unclean, 
 
 Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast 
 
 Soul to soul while the years fell past ; 
 
 Had you loved me once, as you have not loved ; 
 Had the chance been with us that has not been. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (The Triumph of Time.) 
 
 BUT she is far away 
 Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar 
 Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door, 
 
 The wind-stirred robe of roseate grey 
 And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day 
 When we shall meet once more. 
 
 Oh sweet her bending grace 
 Then when I kneel beside her feet ; 
 And sweet her eyes o'erhanging heaven ; and sweet 
 
 The gathering folds of her embrace ; 
 And her i'all'n hair at last shed round my face 
 When breaths and tears shall meet. . 
 
 Ah ! by a colder wave 
 On deathlier airs the hour must come 
 Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home. 
 
 Between the lips of the low cave 
 Against that night the lapping waters lave, 
 And the dark lips are dumb. 
 
 But there Love's self doth stand, 
 And with Life's weary wings far-flown, 
 And with Death's eyes that make the water moan, 
 
 Gathers the water in his hand : 
 And they that drink know nought of sky or land 
 But only love alone. 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 (The Stream's Secret.)
 
 8o GASCOIGNE AND OTHERS 
 
 BEHOLD, my lord, what monsters muster here, 
 With Angels' faces, and harmful, hellish hearts, 
 With smiling looks, and deep deceitful thoughts, 
 With tender skins, and stony cruel minds. . . 
 The younger sort come piping on apace 
 In whistles made of fine enticing wood, 
 Till they have caught the birds for whom they brided. 
 The elder sort go stately stalking on, 
 And on their backs they bear both land and fee. 
 Castles and Towers, revenues and receipts, 
 Lordships and manors, fines, yea farms and all. 
 What should these be ? (Speak you, my lovely lord ! ) 
 They be not men : for why ? they have no beards. 
 They be no boys, which wear such side-long gowns. 
 What be they ? women, masking in men's weeds, 
 With dutchkin doublets and with jerkins jagged, 
 With Spanish spangs and ruffs set out of France. 
 They be so sure even Wo to Men indeed. 
 High time it were for my poor muse to wink, 
 Since all the hands, all paper, pen and ink, 
 Which ever yet this wretched world possessed, 
 Cannot describe this Sex in colours due. 
 
 GASCOIGNE 
 (The Steele Glas, 1576). 
 
 , 
 
 I'M not denying the women are foolish : God Almighty made 
 'em to match the men. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 
 (Adam Bede). 
 
 THEY are slaves who fear to speak 
 
 For the fallen and the weak ; 
 
 They are slaves who will not choose 
 
 Hatred, scoffing and abuse, 
 
 Rather than in silence shrink 
 
 From the truth they needs must think ; 
 
 They are slaves who dare not be 
 
 In the right with two or three. 
 
 J. R. LOWEI,!, 
 (Stamas on Freedom).
 
 THACKERAY STEVENSON 81 
 
 THE Baptist might be in the Wilderness shouting to the poor, 
 who were listening with all their might and faith to the preacher's 
 awful accents and denunciations of wrath or woe or salvation ; 
 and our friend the Sadducee would turn his sleek mule with a shrug 
 and a smile from the crowd, and go home to the shade of his 
 terrace, and muse, over preacher and audience, and turn to his 
 roll of Plato, or his pleasant Greek song-book babbling of honey 
 and Hybla, and nymphs and fountains and love. To what, 
 we say, does this scepticism lead ? It leads a man to a shameful 
 loneliness and selfishness., so to speak the more shameful, 
 because it is so good-humoured and conscienceless and serene. 
 Conscience ! What is conscience ? Why accept remorse ? What 
 is public or private faith ? Myths alike enveloped in enormous 
 tradition. If seeing and acknowledging the lies of the world, 
 Arthur, as see them you can with only too fatal a clearness, 
 you submit to them without any protest farther than a laugh : 
 if, plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you allow the whole 
 wretched world to pass groaning by you unmoved : if the fight 
 for the truth is taking place, and all men of honour are on the 
 ground armed on the one side or the other, and you alone are to 
 lie on your balcony and smoke your pipe out of the noise and 
 the danger, you had better have died, or never have been at 
 all, than such a sensual coward. 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY 
 
 (Pendennis, XXIII}. 
 
 WHAT a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease of the 
 agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with 
 slumber ; killing, feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies 
 of himself ; grown upon with hair like grass, fitted with eyes 
 that move and glitter in his face ; a thing to set children screaming ; 
 and yet looked at nearlier, known as his fellows know him, 
 how surprising are his attributes ! Poor soul, here for so little, 
 cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so incom- 
 mensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely 
 descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow 
 lives : who should have blamed him had he been of a piece with 
 his destiny and a being merely barbarous ? And we look and 
 behold him instead filled with imperfect virtues : infinitely 
 childish, often admirably valiant, often touchingly kind ; sitting 
 down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of right and wrong 
 and the attributes of the deity ; rising up to do battle for an egg or 
 die for an idea ; singling out his friends and his mate with cordial 
 affection ; bringing forth in pain, rearing with long-suffering 
 solicitude, his young. To touch the heart of his mystery, we find 
 in him one thought, strange to the point of lunacy : the thought 
 of duty ; the thought of something owing to himself, to his
 
 82 WORDSWORTH TRENCH 
 
 neighbour, to his God ; an ideal of decency, to "which he would 
 rise if it were possible ; a limit of shame, below which, if it be 
 possible, he will not stoop. 
 
 R. L. STEVENSON 
 
 (Pulvis et Umbra). 
 
 STERN Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
 The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face : 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
 
 And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (Ode to Duty}. 
 
 A CHARGE. 
 
 IF thou has squander'd years to grave a gem 
 Commission'd by thy absent Lord, and while 
 'Tis incomplete, 
 
 Others would bribe thy needy skill to them 
 Dismiss them to the street ! 
 
 Should'st thou at last discover Beauty's grove, 
 At last be panting on the fragrant verge, 
 But in the track, 
 
 Drunk with divine possession, thou meet Love 
 Turn at her bidding back. 
 
 When round thy ship in tempest Hell appears, 
 And every spectre mutters up more dire 
 
 To snatch control 
 
 And loose to madness thy deep-kennell'd Fears 
 Then to the helm, O Soul ! 
 
 Last ; if upon the cold green-mantling sea 
 Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar, 
 
 Both castaway, 
 
 And one must perish let it not be he 
 Whom thou art sworn to obey I 
 
 HERBERT TRENCH. 
 (Born 1865).
 
 MARTINEAU CARL,YI,E 83 
 
 HUMAN nature, trained in the School of Christianity, throws 
 away as false the delineation of piety in the disguise of Hebe, 
 and "declares that there is something higher than happiness 
 that thought which is ever full of care and truth is better far 
 that all true and disinterested affection, which often is called 
 to mourn, is better still that the devoted allegiance of conscience 
 to duty and to God which ever has in it more of penitence than 
 of joy is noblest of all. 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU 
 
 (Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 42). 
 
 THERE is in man a Higher than I^ove of Happiness ; he can do 
 without Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness ! Was 
 it not to preach forth this same Higher that sages and martyrs, 
 the poet and the priest, in all times have spoken and suffered ; 
 bearing testimony, through life and through death, of the God- 
 like that is in Man, and how in the Godlike only has he Strength 
 and Freedom ? Which God-inspired Doctrine art thou also 
 honoured to be taught ; O Heavens ! and broken with manifold 
 merciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite and learn it ! 
 O thank thy Destiny for these ; thankfully bear what yet remain ; 
 thou hadst need of them ; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. 
 . . Ivove not Pleasure ; love God. This is the EVERI/ASTING 
 YEA, wherein all contradiction is solved ; wherein whoso walks 
 and works, it is well with him. . . To the Worship of Sorrow, 
 ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has not that 
 Worship originated, and been generated ? Is it not here ? 
 Feel it in thy heart, and then say whether it is of God ! This is 
 Belief ; all else is Opinion. . . Do the Duty which liest nearest 
 thee, which thou knowest to be a Duty. The Situation that 
 has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes 
 here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, where- 
 in thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal : work 
 it out therefrom ; and working, believe, live, be free. The Ideal 
 is in thyself. 
 
 THOMAS CARI/VTI^E 
 (Sartor Resartus). 
 
 The belief that the sense of duty and moral aspiration arise from 
 within ourselves, and are the cause rather than the result of sociological 
 evolution is far more widespread to-day than in what Carlyle calls his 
 " atheistical century." The " Everlasting Yea " is opposed to the " Ever* 
 lasting No " of nescience.
 
 84 VAUGSAN AND OTHERS 
 
 HE that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know 
 
 At first sight, if the bird be flown ; 
 But what fair well or grove he sings in now 
 That is to him unknown. 
 
 HENRY VAUGHAN 
 
 (Friends Departed) 
 For the subject of the verse see title of poem. 
 
 MUST it last for ever, 
 
 The passionate endeavour, 
 Ah, have ye, there in heaven, hearts to throb and still aspire ? 
 
 In the life you know now, 
 
 Render'd white as snow now, 
 Do fresher glory -heights arise, and beckon higher higher ? 
 
 Are you dreaming, dreaming, 
 
 Is your soul still roaming, 
 Still gazing upward as we gazed, of old in the autumn gloaming ? . 
 
 But ah, that pale moon roaming 
 
 Thro' fleecy mists of gloaming, 
 Furrowing with pearly edge the jewel-powder'd sky, 
 
 And ah, the days departed 
 
 With your friendship gentle-hearted, 
 And ah, the dream we dreamt that night, together you and I ! 
 
 Is it fashioned wisely, 
 
 To help us or to blind us, 
 That at each height we gain we turn, and behold a heaven behind us ? 
 
 R. BUCHANAN 
 (To David in Heaven). 
 
 David Gray was a young poet and a great friend of Buchanan'i. 
 Another verse in the poem is : 
 
 In some heaven star-lighted, 
 
 Are you now united 
 Unto the poet-spirits that you loved of English race ? 
 
 Is Chatterton still dreaming ? 
 
 And, to give it stately seeming, 
 Has the music of his last strong song passed into Keats's face ? 
 
 Is Wordsworth there T and Spenser ? 
 
 Beyond the grave's black portals, 
 Can the grand eye of Milton see the glory he sang to mortals ? 
 
 WHAT would one have ? 
 
 In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance 
 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
 Meted on each side by the angel's reed, 
 For ^Leonard, Rafael, Angelo and me 
 To cover. ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 (Andrea del Sarto).
 
 TABB AND OTHERS 85 
 
 Andrea del Sarto says that, but for certain unfortunate circumstances, 
 he might have reached the high eminence of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, 
 and Michael Angelo. In heaven he may have another chance to compete 
 with them. 
 
 THEIR noon-day never knows 
 
 What names immortal are : 
 'Tis night alone that shows 
 How star surpasseth star. 
 
 J. B. TABB 
 (Fame) . 
 
 BUT O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
 Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 
 A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 
 As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 
 By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 (KublaKhari). 
 
 This and the five following quotations and others through the book are 
 from a small collection of word-pictures, that I had begun to put together. 
 They are mostly well-known. 
 
 the Nereids under the green sea. 
 Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, 
 Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair 
 With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns, 
 Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy. 
 
 SHEU.EY 
 (Prometheus Unbound). 
 
 AH, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 
 The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds 
 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square : 
 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more., 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (The Princess).
 
 86 MACDONAIJ) AND OTHERS 
 
 : " BUT show me the child thou callest mine, 
 Is she out to-night in the ghost's sunshine ? " 
 
 "In St. Peter's Church she is playing on, 
 At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John. 
 
 When the moonbeams right through the window go, 
 Where the twelve are standing in glorious show, 
 
 She says the rest of them do not stir, 
 But one comes down to play with her." 
 
 G. MACDONAU) 
 
 (Phantasies). 
 
 It is a ghost-child who is playing in the great cathedral. 
 
 GOI/DEN head by golden head, 
 Like two pigeons in one nest 
 Folded in each other's wings, 
 They lay down in their curtained bed. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 
 (Goblin Market) 
 
 UTTI/E Boy Blue, come blow your horn ; 
 The cow's in the meadow, the sheep in the corn ; 
 Is this the way you mind your sheep, 
 Under the haycock fast alseep ? 
 
 Nursery Rhyme. 
 
 Edward Fitzgerald, quoting this in " Euphranor," says the " meadow " is the grass 
 reserved for meadowing, or mowing. 
 
 THE FEAST OF ADONIS. 
 
 Gorgo. Is Praxinoe at home ? 
 
 Praxinoe. My dear Gorgo, at last ! Yes, here I am. Euno, 
 find a chair get a cushion for it. 
 Gorgo. It will do beautifully SUB it is. 
 Praxino'e. Do sit down.
 
 THEOCRITUS 87 
 
 Gorgo. Oh, this gad-about spirit ! I could hardly get to you, 
 Praxinoe, through all the crowd and all the carriages. Nothing 
 but heavy boots, nothing but men in uniform. And what 
 a journey it is ! My dear child, you really live too far off. 
 
 Praxinoe It, is all that insane husband of mine. He has 
 chosen to come out here to the end of the world, and take a hole 
 of a place for a house it is not on purpose that you and I 
 might not be neighbours. He is always just the same anything 
 to quarrel with one ! anything for spite ! 
 
 Gorgo. My dear, don't talk so of your husband before the 
 little fellow. Just see how astonished he looks at you. (Talking 
 to the child.) Never mind, Zopyrio my pet, she is not talking 
 about papa. (Good heavens, the child does really understand.) 
 Pretty papa ! 
 
 Praxinoe. That " pretty papa " of his the other day (though 
 I told him beforehand to mind what he was about) , when I sent 
 him to a shop to buy soap and rouge, brought me home salt 
 instead ; stupid, great, big, interminable animal ! 
 
 Gorgo. Mine is just the fellow to him. But never mind now, 
 get on your things and let us be off to the palace to see the Adonis. 
 I hear the Queen's decorations are something splendid. 
 
 Praxinoe. " In grand people's houses everything is grand." 
 What things you have seen in Alexandria ! What a deal you will 
 have to tell to anybody who has never been there ! 
 
 Gorgo. Come, we ought to be going 
 
 Praxinoe. " Every day is a holiday to people who have nothing 
 to do." Eunoe, pick up your work ; and take care, you lazy 
 girl, how you leave it lying about again ; the cats find it just 
 the bed they like. Come, stir yourself, fetch me some water, 
 quick ! I wanted the water first, and the girl brings me the soap, 
 Never mind ; give it me. Not all that, extravagant ! Now 
 pour out the water stupid ! Why don't you take care of my 
 dress ? That will do. I have got my hands washed as it pleased 
 God. Where is the key of the large wardrobe ? Bring it here 
 quick ! 
 
 Gorgo. Praxinoe, you can't think how well that dress, made 
 full, as you have got it, suits you. Tell me, how much did 
 it cost the dress by itself, I mean ? 
 
 Praxinoe. Don't talk of it, Gorgo : more than eight guineas 
 of good hard money. And about the work on it, I have almost 
 worn my life out. 
 
 Gorgo. Well, you couldn't have done better. 
 
 Praxino . Thank you. Bring me my shawl, and put my 
 hat properly on my head properly. No, child (to her little 
 boy,) I am not going to take you ; there's a bogey on horseback
 
 88 THEOCRITUS 
 
 who bites. Cry as much as you Like ; I'm not going to have you 
 lamed for life. Now we'll start. Nurse take the little one and 
 amuse him ; call the dog in, and shut the street door. (They 
 go out.} Good heavens ! what a crowd of people ! How on earth 
 are we ever to get through all this ? They are like ants : you 
 can't count them. My dearest Gorgo, what will become of us ? 
 Here are the Royal Horse Guards. My good man, don't ride 
 over me ! Look at that bay horse rearing bolt upright ; what 
 a vicious one ! Eunoe, you mad girl, do take care ! that horse 
 will certainly be the death of the man on his back. How glad 
 I am now, that I left the child safe at home 
 
 Gorgo. All right, Praxinoe, we are safe behind them ; and they 
 have gone on to where they are stationed. 
 
 Praxinoe. Well, yes, I begin to revive again, From the time 
 I was a little girl I have had more horror of horses and snakes 
 than of anything else in the world. Let us get on ; here's a great 
 crowd coming this way upon us. 
 
 Gorgo (to an old woman). Mother, are you from the palace ? 
 Old woman. Yes, my dears. 
 
 Gorgo. Has one a tolerable chance of getting there ? 
 Old woman. My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy 
 by dint of trying hard ; trying will do anything in this world. 
 
 Gorgo. The old creature has delivered an oracle and dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Praxinoe. Women can tell you everything about everything, 
 even about Jupiter's marriage with Juno ! 
 
 Gorgo. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates 
 
 Praxinoe. Tremendous ! Take hold of me, Gorgo ; and you, 
 Eunoe, take hold of Eutychis ! tight hold, or you'll be lost. 
 Here we go in all together. Hold tight to us, Eunoe ! Oh, dear ! 
 oh, dear ! Gorgo, there's my scarf torn right in two. For 
 heaven's sake, my good man, as you hope to be saved, take care 
 of my dress ! 
 
 Stranger. I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon me. 
 
 Praxinoe. What heaps of people ! They push like a drove 
 of pigs. 
 
 Stranger. Don't be frightened, ma'am, we are all right. 
 
 Praxinoe. May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day 
 you live, for the care you have taken of us ! What a kind, 
 considerate man ! There is Eunoe jammed in a squeeze. Push, 
 you goose, push ! Capital ! We are all of us the right side 
 of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked himself 
 in with the bride.
 
 THEOCRITUS 89 
 
 Gorgo. Praxinoe, come this way, Do but look at that work, 
 how delicate it is ! -how exquisite ! Why, the gods might wear 
 it in heaven. 
 
 Praxinoe. Goddess of Spinning, what hands were hired to 
 do that work ? Who designed those beautiful patterns ? They 
 seem to stand up and move about, as if they were real as if 
 they were living things, and not needlework. Well, man is a 
 wonderful creature ! And look, look, how charming he lies 
 there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his cheeks, 
 that beloved Adonis Adonis, whom one loves even though he 
 is dead ! 
 
 Another stranger. You wretched women, do stop your inces- 
 sant chatter ! Like turtles, you go on for ever. 
 
 Gorgo. Lord, where does the man come from ? What is it 
 to you if we are chatterboxes ? Order about your own servants ! 
 
 Praxinoe. Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more 
 masters than the one we've got ! We don't the least care for 
 you ; pray don't trouble yourself for nothing. 
 
 Gorgo. Be quiet, Praxinoe ! That first-rate singer, the 
 Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. 
 She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are 
 sure to have something first-rate from her. She is going through 
 her airs and graces ready to begin. 
 
 THEOCRITUS (Fifteenth Idyll). 
 
 This is Matthew Arnold's translation of a poem by Theocritus, who 
 lived in the Third Century B.C., 2,200 years ago, (see Arnold's Essay on 
 Pagan and Mediaeval Religious Sentiment]. I have altered a few words and 
 also omitted part because of its length. 
 
 Gorgo, a lady of Alexandria, calls on her friend Praxinoe, to take 
 her to the Festival of Adonis. Greek ladies were allowed to go out on 
 Festival days if veiled and attended, and, therefore, Gorgo and Praxinoe 
 take with them their respective maids, Eutychis and Eunoe, who would 
 no doubt be slave-girls. 
 
 Some curious facts may be noted. The wife is kept in seclusion and 
 the husband does the marketing, buying among other things her rouge* 
 Observe how perfunctory are the pretty lady's ablutions (the soap, by the 
 way, is in the form of paste). The little boy represents the ruling sex 
 and will be removed at an early age from her control. She is disposed 
 to rebel against her lord and master, but takes the utmost care of the 
 important boy-child. While the ladies with their slaves make up their 
 own dresses, the designs and the finest needlework are done by men. The 
 Greek woman in Athens was practically uneducated and regarded as an 
 inferior being ; but these ladies were Dorian Greeks and would no doubt 
 be better treated and have somewhat more freedom especially in Alexan- 
 dria, which was a colony and, therefore, probably less conservative. 
 Although no doubt veiled, their eyes would be visible and, as seen in the 
 East to-day, a pretty woman can always manage to show her beauty, if 
 she chooses. It will be seen that one man is polite to the two young,
 
 90 WORDSWORTH AND OTHERS 
 
 pretty, richly-dressed ladies, and saves them from being crushed by the 
 crowd, while another is a crusty, grumpy person, who treats them with 
 some rudeness and, in the original, ridicules their Dorian pronunciation. 
 Praxinoe is most grateful to the polite man for what would now be an 
 ordinary act of courtesy. 
 
 As regards the conversation Andrew Lang says : " Nothing can be 
 more gay and natural than the chatter of the women, which has changed 
 no more in two thousand years than the song of birds." 
 
 I HAVE seen 
 
 A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract 
 Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
 The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; 
 To which, in silence hushed, his very soul 
 Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon 
 Brightened with joy ; for from within were heard 
 Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed 
 Mysterious union with its native sea. 
 Even such a shell the universe itself 
 Is to the ear of Faith ; and there are times, 
 I doubt not, when to you it doth impart 
 Authentic tidings of invisible things ; 
 Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; 
 And central peace, subsisting at the heart 
 Of endless agitation. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (The Excursion). 
 
 MARRIAGE is a desperate thing ; the Frogs in Aesop were 
 extreme wise : they had a great mind to some Water, but they 
 would not leap into the Well, because they could not get out 
 again. 
 
 'TIS reason a Man that will have a Wife should be at the Charge 
 of her Trinkets, and pay all the Scores she sets on him. He 
 that will keep a Monkey, 'tis fit he should pay for the Glasses 
 he breaks. SELDEN 
 
 (Table Talk). 
 
 WHEN you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good 
 many things as you don't understand now ; but vether it's worth 
 while goin' through so much to learn so little, as the charity-boy 
 said wen he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste. 
 / rayther think it isn't. 
 
 CHARGES DICKENS 
 (Pickwick Papers).
 
 POPE AND OTHERS 91 
 
 MATRIMONY is the only game of chance the clergy favour. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED 
 
 A MAN, who admires a fine woman, has yet no more reason 
 to wish liimself her husband, than one, who admired the Hes- 
 perian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that 
 kept it. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE. 
 
 YOU wish, Paula, to marry Priscus. I am not surprised ; 
 You are wise ; Priscus will not marry you and he is wise. 
 
 MARTIAI, IX, 5. 
 
 IN THE TWILIGHT. 
 
 MEN say the sullen instrument. 
 That, from the Master's bow, 
 With pangs of joy or woe, 
 Feels music's soul through every fibre sent, 
 
 Whispers the ravished strings 
 More than he knew or meant ; 
 
 Old summers in its memory glow ; 
 The secrets of the wind it sings ; 
 It hears the April-loosened springs ; 
 And mixes with its mood 
 All it dreamed when it stood 
 In the murmurous pine- wood, 
 Long ago ! 
 
 The magical moonlight then 
 
 Steeped every bough and cone ; 
 The roar of the brook in the glen 
 
 Came dim from the distance blown ; 
 The wind through its glooms sang low. 
 And it swayed to and fro 
 With delight as it stood 
 In the wonderful wood, 
 Long ago !
 
 9 2 LOWELL 
 
 O my life, have we not had seasons 
 That only said, Live and rejoice ? 
 That asked not for causes and reasons, 
 
 But made us all feeling and voice ? 
 When we went with the winds in their blowing, 
 
 When Nature and we were peers, 
 And we seemed to share in the flowing 
 Of the inexhaustible years ? 
 Have we not from the earth drawn juices 
 Too fine for earth's sordid uses ? 
 Have I heard, have I seen 
 All I feel and I know ? 
 Doth my heart overween ? 
 Or could it have been 
 Long ago ? 
 
 Sometimes a breath floats by me, 
 
 An odour from Dreamland sent, 
 That makes the ghost seem nigh me 
 
 Of a splendour that came and went, 
 Of a life lived somewhere, I know not 
 
 In what diviner sphere, 
 Of memories that stay not and go not, 
 
 Like music heard once by an ear 
 
 That cannot forget or reclaim it, 
 A something so shy, it would shame it 
 
 To make it a show, 
 A something too vague, could I name it, 
 
 For others to know, 
 As if I had lived it or dreamed it, 
 As if I had acted or schemed it, 
 Long ago ! 
 
 And yet, could I live it over, 
 
 This life that stirs in my brain 
 Could I be both maiden and lover, 
 Moon and tide, bee and clover, 
 
 As I seem to have been, once again, 
 Could I but speak and show it, 
 
 This pleasure more sharp than pain, 
 
 That baffles and lures me so, 
 The world should not lack a poet, 
 Such as it had 
 In the ages glad, 
 Long ago. 
 
 J. R. LOWBU,.
 
 COLERIDGE THOMPSON 93 
 
 I AM especially pleased with their freundin (the German word 
 meaning a female friend), which unlike the arnica of the Romans. 
 is seldom used but in its best and purest sense. Now I know 
 it will be said that a friend is already something more than 
 a friend, when a man feels an anxiety to express to himself 
 that this friend is a female ; but this I deny in that sense at least 
 in which the objection will be made. I would hazard the impeach- 
 ment of heresy, rather than abandon my belief that there is a 
 sex in our souls as well as in their perishable garments ; and he 
 who does not feel it, never truly loved a sister nay, is not capable 
 even of loving a wife as she deserves to be loved, if she indeed be 
 worthy of that holy name. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 (Biogvaphia Literaria, letter to a I/ady). 
 
 Coleridge also says : " The qualities of the sexes correspond. The 
 man's courage is loved by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted 
 by the man. His vigorous intellect is answered by her infallible tact. 
 Can it be true what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls ? 
 I doubt it, I doubt it exceedingly." Table Talk. 
 
 But surely Coleridge might have found the best proof of his contention 
 in the nature of children, the small boy who rights with his fists, plays with 
 tin soldiers and despises " girls," and the girl-child who loves her doll and 
 her pretty clothes. See next quotation. 
 
 O THOU most dear ! 
 
 Who art thy sex's complex harmony 
 
 God-set more f acilely ; 
 
 To thee may love draw near 
 
 Without one blame or fear. 
 Unchidden save by his humility : 
 Thou Perseus' Shield wherein I view secure 
 The mirrored Woman's fateful-fair allure ! 
 Whom Heaven still leaves a twofold dignity, 
 As girlhood gentle, and as boyhood free ; 
 With whom no most diaphanous webs enwind 
 The bared limbs of the rebukeless mind. 
 Wild Dryad, all unconscious of thy tree, 
 
 With which indissolubly 
 
 The tyrannous time shall one day make thee whole ; 
 Whose frank arms pass unfretted through its bole 
 
 Who wear'st thy femineity 
 Ught as entrailed blossoms, that shalt find 
 It erelong silver shackles unto thee.
 
 94 THOMPSON POPE 
 
 Thou whose young sex is yet but in thy soul ; 
 
 As hoarded in the vine 
 Hang the gold skins of undelirious wine, 
 As air sleeps, till it toss its limbs in breeze : 
 
 In whom the mystery which lures and sunders ; 
 Grapples and thrusts apart; endears, estranges, 
 The dragon to its own Hesperides 
 
 Is gated under slow-revolving changes, 
 Manifold doors of heavy-hinged years. 
 
 So once, ere Heaven's eyes were filled with wonders 
 To see Laughter rise from Tears, 
 Lay in beauty not yet mighty, 
 
 Conched in translucencies, 
 The antenatal Aphodrite, 
 Caved magically under magic seas ; 
 Caved dreamlessly beneath the dreamful seas. 
 
 FRANCIS THOMPSON 
 
 (Sister Songs). 
 
 Francis Thompson is one of the " difficult " poets who repay study. 
 Here he says that, in the young girl, sex appears in a less complex form 
 than in the woman and, just as Perseus could safely look at the reflection 
 on his shield of the fatal Medusa's head, so we can freely view womanhood 
 in the girl-child. Nothing conceals her open, innocent, feminine nature. 
 She is the Dryad, the Nymph who lives in the tree and is born and dies 
 with it, but is as yet unconscious of the tree, that is, of her sex. Her 
 " young sex is yet but in her soul," and is like the juice of the grape which 
 has not yet fermented into wine, or the calm air which sleeps undisturbed. 
 The mystery of womanhood, which attracts and yet, in its own protection, 
 repulses man, will not come to her until after the changes of years. It is 
 the Aphrodite lying in unawakened beauty before she rises as a goddess 
 from the sea. (" Facilely " appears to have the strained meaning " easy- 
 to understand " or " simply " ; the word " gated," " confined," is a curious 
 use of a university word : the Oxford or Cambridge undergraduate, who has 
 misbehaved, may be " gated " for a period, i.e., confined to the precincts 
 of his own college. " The dragon to its own Hesperides " the Hesperides 
 were maidens who guarded the golden apples of love and fruitfulness, which 
 Earth had given to Hera on her marriage to Zeus. The maidens were 
 protected by a dragon. Here the dragon is the maiden's own sensitive 
 reserve and self-protecting nature, which enable her to protect herself. 
 (" Conched," Aphrodite is lying in her shell.) 
 
 WOMEN, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so 
 generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer 
 when once we know them. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE.
 
 SEELEY THOMSON 95 
 
 COMPARE the ancient with the modern world ; " Look on this 
 picture, and on that," One broad distinction in the characters 
 of men forces itself into prominence. Among all the men of the 
 ancient heathen world there were scarcely one or two to whom 
 we might venture to apply the epithet "holy." In other words, 
 there were not more than one or two, if any, who besides being 
 virtuous in their actions were possessed with an unaffected enthu- 
 siasm of goodness, and besides abstaining from vice regarded 
 even a vicious thought with horror. Probably no one will 
 deny that in Christian countries this higher-toned goodness, 
 which we call holiness, has existed. Few will maintain that it 
 has been exceedingly rare. Perhaps the truth is, that there has 
 scarcely been a town in any Christian country since the time 
 of Christ where a century has passed without exhibiting a character 
 of such elevation that his mere presence has shamed the bad 
 and made the good better, and has been felt at times like the 
 presence of God Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed ? 
 or can Christianity die ? 
 
 SIR J. R. SEEXEY 
 
 (Ecce Homo). 
 
 The quotation from Hamlet should read, " Look here, upon this 
 picture, and on this." 
 
 DAY 
 
 WAKING one morning 
 In a pleasant land, 
 By a river flowing 
 Over golden sand : 
 
 Whence flow ye, waters, 
 O'er your golden sand ? 
 We come flowing 
 From the Silent Land. 
 
 Whither flow ye, waters, 
 O'er your golden sand ? 
 We go flowing 
 To the Silent Land. 
 
 And what is this fair realm ? 
 A grain of golden sand 
 In the great darkness 
 Of the Silent Land. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON (" B.V.")
 
 
 o6 SMITH AND OTHERS 
 
 FOR there is not a lie, spite of God's high decree, 
 But has made its nest sure on some branch of our tree, 
 And has some vested right to exist in the land : 
 And many will have it the tree could not stand, 
 If the sticks, straws, and feathers, that sheltered the wrong, 
 Were swept from the boughs they have cumbered so long. 
 
 W. C. SMITH 
 (Borland Hall). 
 
 I SHALL be old and ugly one day, and I shall look for man's 
 chivalrous help, but I shall not find it. The bees are very 
 1 attentive to the flowers till their honey is done, and then they 
 fly over them. 
 
 OUVE SCHREINER 
 
 (The Story of an African Farm.) 
 
 THERE are some of us who in after years say to Fate " Now 
 deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will ; but let us 
 never again suffer as we suffered when we were children." 
 
 OUVE SCHREINER 
 
 (The Story of an African Farm). 
 
 IL n'a jamais fait couler larmes a personne sauf a sa mort. 
 (He never caused any one to shed tears, except at his death.) 
 B. Seebohm's Life of Grellet. 
 
 Epitapli on Petion, President of Hayti about 1816. 
 
 . . . THAT pleasureless yielding to the small solicitations 
 of circumstance, which is a commoner history of perdition than 
 any single momentous bargain. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 (Middlemarch) . 
 
 IF there are two things not to be hidden love and a cough 
 I say there is a third, and that is ignorance, when one is obliged 
 to do something besides wagging his head. 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 (Romola Nello speaking) .
 
 WORDSWORTH AND OTHERS 97 
 
 George Eliot is quoting the Latin proverb, Amor tusstsque non celantur, 
 It is also found in George Herbert's Jacula Prudentum, 1640. The same 
 proverb appears with all sorts of variations, " love and a sneeze," " love 
 and smoke," " love and a red nose," " love and poverty," etc., being the 
 things that cannot be hidden. " Love and murder will out " (Congreve, 
 The Double Dealer, Act IV, 2). (I took these instances from some collec- 
 tion of proverbs.) 
 
 WE Men, who in our morn of youth defied 
 The elements, must vanish ; be it so ! 
 
 Enough, if something from our hands have power 
 To live, and act, and serve the future hour : 
 And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, 
 
 Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, 
 We feel that we are greater than we know. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (After-Thought). 
 
 YOU can't turn curds to milk again, 
 Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then ; 
 And, having tasted stolen honey, 
 You can't buy innocence for money. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 (Felix Holt). 
 
 THE gods are brethren. Wlieresoe'er 
 They set their shrines of love or fear 
 In Grecian woods, by banks of Nile, 
 Where cold snows sleep or roses smile, 
 The gods are brethren. Zeus the Sire 
 Was fashioned of the self -same fire 
 As Odin, He, whom Ind brought forth, 
 Hath his pale kinsman east and north ; 
 And more than one, since life began, 
 Hath known Christ's agony for Man. 
 The gods are brethren. Kin by fate, 
 In gentleness as well as hate, 
 'Mid heights that only Thought may climb 
 
 They come, they go ; they are, or seem ; 
 Each, rainbow'd from the rack of Time, 
 
 Casts broken lights across God's Dream. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN 
 (Balder the Beautiful]. 
 
 7
 
 9 8 DICKENS LOWEI/L 
 
 " YOU remember Tom Martin, Neddy ? Bless my dear eyes," 
 said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from side to side, and 
 gazing abstractedly out of the grated window before him, as if 
 he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth ; 
 " it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down 
 Fox-under-the-hill, by the wharf there. I think I can see him 
 now, a-coming up the Strand between the two street-keepers, 
 a little sobered by his bruising, with a patch o' winegar and brown 
 paper over his right eyelid, and that 'ere lovely bull-dog, as pinned 
 the little boy arterwards, a-following at his heels. What a rum 
 thing Time "is, ain't it, Neddy ? " 
 
 CHARGES DICKENS 
 (Pickwick Papers). 
 
 Mr. Roker is a turnkey in the Fleet prison. 
 
 THE COURTIN' 
 
 GOD makes sech nights, all white an' still 
 
 Fur'z you can look or listen, 
 Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 
 
 All silence an' all glisten. 
 
 Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 
 An' peeked in thru' the winder, 
 
 An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
 'Ith no one nigh to hender. 
 
 A fireplace filled the room's one side 
 With half a cord o' wood in 
 
 There warn't no stoves (till comfort died) 
 To bake ye to a puddin'. 
 
 The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out 
 Towards the pootiest, bless her, 
 
 An' leetle flames danced all about 
 The chiny on the dresser. . . . 
 
 The very room, coz she was in. 
 
 Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 
 An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
 
 Ez the apples she was peelin'. . .
 
 LOWELL 99 
 
 He was six foot o' man, Ai, 
 Clear grit an' human natur ; 
 
 None couldn't quicker pitch a ton 
 Nor dror a furrer straighter. 
 
 He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, 
 He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, 
 
 Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells 
 All is, he couldn't love 'em. 
 
 But long o' her his veins 'ould run 
 All crinkly like curled maple, 
 
 The side she breshed felt full o' sun 
 Ez a south slope in Ap'il. 
 
 She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 
 
 Ez hisn in the choir ; 
 My ! when he made Ole Hundred ring, 
 
 She knowed the Lord was nigher. 
 
 An' she'd blush scarlit, right hi prayer, 
 When her new meetin'-bunnet 
 
 Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 
 O' blue eyes sot upon it. 
 
 Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some \ 
 She seemed to 've gut a new soul, 
 
 For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, 
 Down to her very shoe-sole. 
 
 She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, 
 
 A-raspin' on the scraper, 
 All ways to once her feelins flew 
 
 I/ike sparks in burnt-up paper. 
 
 He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat, 
 Some doubtfle o' the sekle, 
 
 His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, 
 But hern went pity Zekle. 
 
 An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk 
 Ez though she wished him furder. 
 
 An' on her apples kep' to work, 
 Parin' away like murder.
 
 LOWELL STERNE 
 
 ' You want to see my Pa, I s'ppse ? " 
 
 "Wai. . . no. . . I come designin' " 
 ' To see my Ma ? She's sprinklin' clo'es 
 Agin to-morrer's i'nin ' ." 
 
 To say why gals acts so or so, 
 Or don't, 'ould be presumin' ; 
 
 Mebby to mean yes an' say no 
 Comes nateral to women. 
 
 He stood a spell on one foot fust, 
 Then stood a spell on t'other, 
 
 An' on which one he felt the wust 
 He couldn't ha' told ye nuther 
 
 Sez he, "I'd better call agin ; " 
 Sez she, " Think likely. Mister ; " 
 
 Thet last word pricked him like a pin, 
 An' . . Wai he up an' kist her. 
 
 When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 
 
 Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
 All kin' o' smily roun' the lips 
 
 An' teary roun' the lashes. . . . 
 
 The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued 
 Too tight for all expressin', 
 
 Till mother see how metters stood, 
 An' gin 'em both her blessin'. 
 
 Then her red come back like the tide, 
 
 Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
 An' all I know is they was cried 
 
 In meetin' come nex' Sunday. 
 
 J. RUSSEU, 
 
 WHAT is the life of man ? Is it not to turn from side to side ? 
 From sorrow to sorrow ? To button up one cause of vexation 
 and unbutton another ? 
 
 STERNE 
 
 (Tristram Shandy).
 
 BAILEY AND OTHERS 
 
 I KNOW thy heart by heart. 
 
 P. J. BAILEY 
 (Festus). 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER'S " FIRST PRINCIPLES." 
 
 MR. SPENCER'S genesis of the universe from chaos to the 
 
 Crimean War For our own part, we must confess 
 
 that this new book of Genesis appears to us no more credible than 
 the old. 
 
 J . MARTINEAU 
 (Science, Nescience, and Faith). 
 
 JAMES MILL. 
 
 DID the facts of consciousness stand, as he represents them, 
 his method would work. He satisfactorily explains the wrong 
 human nature. 
 
 J. MARTINEAU 
 
 (Essay on John Stuart Mill). 
 
 (REFERRING to those who insist on the practical as against 
 the theoretical.) This solitary term ("practical ") serves a" large 
 number of persons as a substitute for all patient and steady 
 thought ; and, at all events, instead of meaning that wliich is 
 useful as opposed to that which is useless, it constantly signifies 
 that of which the use is grossly and immediately palpable, as 
 distinguished from that of which the usefulness can only be dis- 
 cerned after attention and exertion. 
 
 SIR HENRY MAINE. 
 
 (MEN are) dragged along the physiological history, because 
 easy to conceive, and baffled by the spiritual, because it has no 
 pictures to help it. 
 
 J. MARTINEAU 
 (Hours of Thought, I, 100).
 
 103 BAIN AND OTHERS 
 
 AS psychology comprises all our sensibilities, pleasures, 
 affections, aspirations, capacities, it is thought on that ground 
 to have a special nobility and greatness, and a special power 
 of evoking in the student the feelings themselves. The mathe- 
 matician, dealing with conic sections, spirals, and differential 
 equations, is in danger of being ultimately resolved into a function 
 or a co-efficient : the metaphysician, by investigating conscience, 
 must become conscientious ; driving fat oxen is the way to grow 
 fat. 
 
 ALEXANDER BAIN (1818-1903) 
 (Contemporary Review, April 1877). 
 
 THERE) is a crude absurd materialism abroad which hasn't 
 yet learned the fundamental difference between Mind and Matter. 
 It is altogether incomprehensible how any material processes 
 can beget sensations and feelings and thoughts ; it is altogether 
 incomprehensible how you arose or I arose. Listen to Spencer : 
 ' ' Were we compelled to choose between the alternatives of trans- 
 lating mental phenomena into physical phenomena, or of trans- 
 lating physical phenomena into mental phenomena, the latter 
 alternative would seem the more preferable oftthe two. . . Hence 
 though of the two it seems easier to translate so-called Matter 
 into so-called Spirit, than to translate so-called Spirit into so- 
 called Matter (which latter is, indeed, wholly impossible), yet no 
 translation can carry us beyond our symbols." 
 
 RICHARD HODGSOX 
 (Letter, March 21, 1880). 
 
 Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild- 
 fowl ? 
 
 Malvolio. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit 
 a bird. 
 
 Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion ? 
 
 Malvolio. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve 
 his opinion. 
 
 Clown. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 (Twelfth Night. IV, 2). 
 
 AS the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, 
 very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, " That, that is, is." 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 (Twelfth Night, IV, 2).
 
 SPENCER 103 
 
 WHAT IS LOVE ? 
 
 THE passion which unites the sexes . . is the most compound, 
 and therefore the most powerful of all the feelings. Added 
 to the purely physical elements of it are, first, those highly 
 
 complex impressions produced by personal beauty With 
 
 this there is united the complex sentiment which we term affection 
 a sentiment which, as it can exist between those of the same 
 sex, must be regarded as an independent sentiment. . . Then 
 there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence. . . 
 There comes next the feeling called love of approbation. To 
 be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired above 
 all others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in a degree 
 passing every previous experience. . . . Further, the allied 
 emotion of self-esteem comes into play. To have succeeded in 
 gaming such attachment from, and sway over, another is a 
 proof of power which cannot fail agreeably to excite the amour 
 propre. Yet again, the proprietary feeling has its share in the 
 general activity : there is the pleasure of possession the two 
 belong to each other. Once more, the relation allows of an 
 extended liberty of action. Towards other persons a restrained 
 behaviour is requisite. Round each there is a subtle boundary 
 that may not be crossed an individuality on which none may 
 trespass. But in this case the barriers are thrown down ; and thus 
 the love of unrestrained activity is gratified. Finally there is an 
 exaltation of the sympathies. Egoistic pleasures of all kinds 
 are doubled by another's sympathetic participation ; and the 
 pleasures of another are added to the egoistic pleasures. Thus, 
 round the physical feeling, forming the nucleus of the whole, are 
 gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that 
 constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love of 
 approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, 
 of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending 
 to reflect their excitements on one another, unite to form the 
 mental state we call lyove. 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER 
 (Principles of Psychology, 3rd Ed., Vol. I, 487). 
 
 The heading is, of course, mine not Spencer's. 
 
 WHAT AM I ? 
 
 THE aggregate of feelings and ideas, constituting the mental I, 
 have not in themselves the principle of cohesion holding them 
 together as a whole ; but the / which continuously survives 
 as the subject of these changing states is that portion of the
 
 104 BROWNING AND OTHERS 
 
 Unknowable Power, which is statically conditioned in (my 
 particular one of those) special nervous structures pervaded 
 by a dynamically -conditioned portion of the Unknowable Power 
 called energy. 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER 
 (Principles of Psychology, 3rd Ed., Vol. II, 504). 
 
 The heading and words in brackets are mine. As the reader may 
 at any time be asked " What are you ? " it would be well to be ready with 
 a simple reply. 
 
 NEW truths, old truths ! sirs, there is nothing new possible 
 to be revealed to us in the moral world ; we know all we shall 
 ever know : and it is for simply reminding us, by their various 
 respective expedients, how we do know this and the other matter, 
 that men get called prophets, poets, and the like. A philosopher's 
 life is spent in discovering that, of the half-dozen truths he knew 
 when a child, such an one is a lie, as the world states it in set 
 terms ; and then, after a weary lapse of years, and plenty of hard- 
 thinking, it becomes a truth again after all, as he happens to newly 
 consider it and view it in a different relation with the others : 
 and so he restates it, to the confusion of somebody else in good 
 time. As for adding to the original stock of truths impossible ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (A Soul's Tragedy). 
 
 WHEN Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, 
 And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said 
 
 BYRON. 
 (Don Juan, Canto XI) 
 
 THE law of equal freedom which Herbert Spencer deduces 
 is binding only upon those who admit both that human happiness 
 is the Divine Will, and that we should act in accordance with the 
 Divine Will. Why should I obey this law ? Because without 
 such obedience human happiness cannot be complete. Why 
 should I aim at human happiness ? Because human happiness 
 is the Divine Will. The inexorable why pursues us here Why 
 should I aim at the fulfilment of the Divine Will ? To this 
 question there seems no satisfactory reply but that it is for my 
 own happiness to do so. 
 
 RICHARD HODGSON 
 
 (Unpublished Essay, 1879).
 
 HODGSON AND OTHERS 105 
 
 I HAVE no ambition to wander into the inane and usurp the 
 sceptre of the dim Hegel, situated Nowhere, with pure Notlu'ng 
 behind him, and pure Being before him, steadfastly and vainly 
 endeavouring with his Werden to stop the sand-flowing of smiling 
 Time. RICHARD HODGSON 
 
 (Early Unpublished Essay) . 
 
 the 
 lange- 
 less, but tells and does nothing. 
 
 Werien in Hegel is usually translated " Becoming." To Hegel 
 truth of the world is found in life or movement, not in Being which is chai 
 
 EDWIN (afterwards Sir Edwin) Arnold was with Herbert 
 Spencer on a Nile steamer. Spencer was dyspeptic and irritable ; 
 Arnold was a nocturnal bird, pacing the deck alone in a long 
 
 fown and smoking a long pipe. Suddenly appeared a white 
 gure. Spencer in his night-shirt, who in the bad light took 
 Arnold for a sailor (and Arnold did not undeceive him). 
 ' Hi ! there ! " 
 ' Ay, ay, Sir." 
 
 ' What are the men making that noise there forward for ? " 
 ' Cleaning the engines, Sir." 
 
 'Just tell them not to make such a row, keeping good 
 Christians from their sleep at this time of night." 
 " Ay, Ay, Sir." 
 (Disappearance of ghost ; joke next morning,) 
 
 (Told by Arnold to Hodgson, June, 1884). 
 
 The great agnostic, usually most precise in his language, describes 
 himself as a " good Christian " ! 
 
 THE very law which moulds a tear 
 And bids it trickle from its source, 
 That law preserves the earth a sphere, 
 And guides the planets in their course. 
 
 SAMTJEI, ROGERS 
 (On a Tear). 
 
 WIIXIAM BI<AKE. 
 
 HE came to the desert of I/ondon town 
 
 Grey miles long ; 
 He wander 'd up and he wander 'd down, 
 
 Singing a quiet song, 
 
 He came to the desert of London Town, 
 
 Mirk miles broad ; 
 He wandered up and he wandered down. 
 
 Ever alone with God.
 
 106 THOMSON BLAKE; 
 
 There were thousands and thousands of human kind 
 
 In this desert of brick and stone : 
 But some were deaf and some were blind, 
 
 And he was there alone. 
 
 At length the good hour came ; he died 
 
 As he had lived, alone : 
 He was not miss'd from the desert wide, 
 
 Perhaps he was found at the Throne. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON ("B.V."). 
 
 Tbe desert 0} London T own Magna civitas, wagna solitudo : " a 
 great city is a great solitude." 
 
 It is strange to think that these verses (and especially the last verse) 
 were written by the pessimist who wrote in all sincerity the terrible lines 
 in Pt. VITI of " The City of Dreadful Night." 
 
 FAREWELL, green fields and happy grove, 
 Where flocks have ta'en delight ; 
 Where lambs have nibbled, silent move 
 The feet of angels bright ; 
 
 Unseen, they pour blessing 
 
 And joy without ceasing, 
 
 On each bud and blossom. 
 
 And each sleeping bosom. 
 
 They look in every thoughtless nest, 
 
 Where birds are covered warm ; 
 
 They visit caves of every beast, 
 
 To keep them all from harm : 
 If they see any weeping 
 That should have been sleeping, 
 They pour sleep on their head, 
 And sit down by their bed. 
 
 When wolves and tigers howl for prey, 
 They pitying stand and weep ; 
 Seeking to drive their thirst away, 
 , And keep them from the sheep, 
 But if they rush dreadful, 
 The angels, most heedful, 
 Receive each mild spirit, 
 New worlds to inherit. 
 
 Wow AM BLAKE 
 (Night).
 
 VIRGIL AND OTHERS 107 
 
 SIC vos non vobis nidificatis, aves, 
 Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis, oves, 
 Sic vos non vobis mellificatis, apes, 
 Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra, boves. 
 
 (So you, birds, build nests not for yourselves, 
 So you, sheep, grow fleeces not for yourselves, 
 So you, bees, make honey not for yourselves, 
 So you, oxen, draw the plough not for yourselves.) 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 According to Donatus, Virgil wrote a couplet in praise of Caesar and 
 posted it anonymously on the portals of the palace (3 1 B.C.). Bathyllus 
 gave himself out as the author of this couplet, and on that account received 
 a present from Caesar. Next night Sic vos non vobis (" So you not for 
 you") was found written four times in the same place. The Romans were 
 puzzled as to what was meant by these words, until Virgil came forward 
 and completed the verse adding a preliminary line, Hos ego versiculosfeci, 
 tulit alter bonores, " I wrote the lines, another wears the bays." 
 
 Shelley in Song to the Men of England wrote as a socialist : 
 The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 
 The wealth ye find, another keeps ; 
 The robes ye weave, another wears ; 
 The arms ye forge, another bears. 
 
 In previous verses he refers to bees, and, of course, the above quotation 
 was in his mind. 
 
 I KNOW, of late experience taught, that him 
 Who is my foe I must but hate as one 
 Whom I may yet call Friend : and him who loves me 
 Will I but serve and cherish as a man 
 Whose love is not abiding. Few be they 
 Who, reaching friendship's port, have there found rest. 
 
 SOPHOCIvES 
 (Ajax). 
 This is from C. S. Calverley's fine translation of the speech of Ajax. 
 
 A MAIDEN'S heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling 
 
 upwards, 
 And it needeth that its motions be checked by the silvered cork 
 
 of Propriety : 
 
 He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure, 
 Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth 
 
 of the cork. 
 
 C. S. CAI.VERI.EY. 
 
 Imitating the now-forgotten Martin Tupper.
 
 io8 BROWNE HODGSON 
 
 WHOSOEVER is harmonically composed delights in harmony . . 
 Even that vulgar and Tavern Musick, which makes one man 
 merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and 
 a profound contemplation of the First Composer. . There is 
 something in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers : it is an 
 Hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole World, and 
 creatures of God ; such a melody to the ear as the whole World, 
 well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief. 
 it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds 
 in the ears of God. SlR THO^ BROWNE 
 
 (Religio Medici}. 
 
 (SPEAKING of an Essay on Wordsworth he is about to write 
 for some Melbourne society) I purpose describing briefly the 
 poetic tendencies, or rather the nnpoetic tendencies, of the 
 1 8th Century, and the new school beginning to manifest itself 
 in Cowper. I shall then refer to W.'s principles shall banish 
 to a future time the working out of the psychological connection 
 between forms of nature and the human soul shall banish 
 also the feelings, the elementary feelings, of humanity, which 
 W. drew powerful attention to, and confine myself to pointing 
 out those characteristics in external nature which he took note 
 of. These produce corresponding feelings in the " human," 
 and some of them are beauty, silence and calm, joyousness, gener- 
 osity, freedom, grandeur, and Spirituality. These are found in 
 Nature, and W. saw them, and in the growing familiarity with 
 them a man's soul becomes beautiful, calm, joyous, generous, 
 free, grand, and spiritual. The first ones, of course, all depend on 
 and grow from the last, and the Spirituality is God immanent. 
 This last, as the root of all the others, will merit special attention 
 it exhibits W.'s poetico-philosophy so far as it regards the work 
 of Nature upon man ; and includes too the Platonic Reminis- 
 cence business. (Here follows personal chit-chat.) I think we 
 might add the " supreme loftiness of labour " to the foregoing 
 elements in Nature. In the Gipsies (I give both readings) 
 
 O better wrong and strife, 
 Better vain deeds or evil than such life ! 
 The silent heavens have goings-on ; 
 The stars have tasks but these have none ! 
 
 Oh, better wrong and strife 
 (By nature transient) than this torpid life : 
 Life which the very stars reprove 
 As on their silent tasks they move. 
 
 R. HODGSON 
 (Letter, 1877, when aged 21)
 
 WORDSWORTH GRAY 109 
 
 In 1877 Blake was little appreciated. (T remember only that in 
 our children's books we had " Tiger, Tiger burning bright "and it was a 
 strange thing to include in such books a poem which raises the problems of 
 the existence of evil and the nature of God). Hence it will be evident 
 why so keen a student of poetry as Hodgson did not couple Blake with 
 Cowper as a precursor of the Romantic Revival. As a matter of fact 
 Blake had more of the " Romantic " spirit than Cowper, and really preceded 
 him, for the poor verse that Cowper published the year before Blake's 
 Poetical Sketches need not be considered. While still in his teens Blake 
 wrote (" To the Muses ") : 
 
 . . Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry, 
 How have you left the ancient love 
 
 That bards of old enjoyed in you ! 
 The languid strings do scarcely move, 
 
 The sound is forced, the notes are few. 
 
 Curiously enough Gray also had in him an element of the Romantic 
 which he suppressed. It is very remarkable that in his Elegy (published 
 1751) he cut out the following verse: 
 
 There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
 
 By hands unseen are showers of violets found ; 
 The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
 And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 
 
 LOVE had he found in huts where poor men lie ; 
 His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle). 
 
 AMBITION tempts to rise, 
 Then whirls the wretch from high 
 To bitter Scorn a sacrifice 
 And grinning Infamy. 
 
 THOMAS GRAY 
 (On a Distant Prospect of Eton College). 
 
 Slightly altered verbally to admit of quotation.
 
 no LYALL 
 
 MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU PRINCE 
 
 ALL the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, 
 Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God ? 
 Westward across the ocean, and Northward across the snow, 
 Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know ? 
 
 Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swann 
 Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a 
 
 gathering storm ; 
 
 In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen, 
 Yet we all say, " Whence is the message, and what may the 
 
 wonders mean ? " 
 
 A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings. 
 
 As they bow to a mystic symbol, or the figures of ancient kings ; 
 
 And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry 
 
 Of those who are heavy-laden, and of cowards loth to die. 
 
 For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a pass of the hills, 
 Above is the sky, and around us the sound of the shot that kills ; 
 Pushed by a Power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown, 
 We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone. 
 
 The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow 
 
 and grim, 
 And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight 
 
 dim ; 
 
 And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest, 
 Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest ? 
 
 The path, ah ! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide ? 
 The haven, ah ! who has known it ? for steep is the mountain side. 
 Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath 
 Of the praying multitiide rises, whose answer is only death. 
 
 Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the fruit of an ancient name. 
 Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died 
 
 in flame ; 
 They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who 
 
 guard our race, 
 Ever I watch and worship they sit with a marble face.
 
 LYALL in 
 
 And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering 
 
 priests, 
 
 The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts ! 
 What have they wrung from the Silence ? Hath even a whisper 
 
 come 
 Of the secret, Whence and Whither ? Alas ! for the gods are 
 
 dumb. 
 
 Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the utter- 
 most sea ? 
 
 " The Secret, hath it been told you, and what is yoiir message 
 to me ? " 
 
 It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the 
 heavens began, 
 
 How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once was man. 
 
 I had thought, " Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India 
 
 dwell, 
 Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with 
 
 a spell, 
 They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the 
 
 unknown main" 
 Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. 
 
 Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer 
 
 awake ? 
 Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror 
 
 break ? 
 Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered 
 
 and gone 
 From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are 
 
 level and lone ? 
 
 Is there nought in the heaven above, whence the hail and the 
 
 levin are hurled, 
 But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling 
 
 world ? 
 The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and 
 
 sleep 
 With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and the voices 
 
 of women who weep. 
 
 SIR ALFRED
 
 112 ANONYMOUS 
 
 MEDITATION OF A HINDU PRINCE 
 AND SCEPTIC 
 
 I THINK till I weary with thinking, said the sad-eyed Hindu King, 
 But I see but shadows around me, illusion in everything. 
 
 How knowest thou aught of God, of his favour or his wrath ? 
 Can the little fish tell what the lion thinks, or map out the eagle's 
 path ? 
 
 Can the finite the infinite search, did the blind discover the 
 
 stars? 
 Is the thought that I think a thought, or a throb of the brain 
 
 in its bars ? 
 
 For aught that my eye can discern, your god is what you think 
 
 good, 
 Yourself flashed back from the glass when the light pours on it 
 
 in flood ! 
 
 You preach to me of his justice, and this is his realm, you say, 
 Where the good are dying of hunger, and the bad gorge every day. 
 
 You tell me he loveth mercy, but the famine is not yet gone, 
 That he hateth the shedder of blood, yet he slayeth us, everyone. 
 
 You tell me the soul must live, that spirit can never die, 
 
 If he was content when I was not, why not when I've passed by ? 
 
 You say that I must have a meaning ! So has dung, and its 
 
 meaning is flowers : 
 What if our lives are but nurtxire for souls that are higher than 
 
 ours ? 
 
 When the fish swims out of the water, when the bird soars out 
 
 of the blue, 
 Man's thought shall transcend man's knowledge, and your God 
 
 be no reflex of you ! 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 The preceding poem by Lyall had the same title as these verses, 
 " Meditation of a Hindu Prince and Sceptic" when first published in the 
 CornbUl, September, 1877. I was fully convinced, for reasons that would 
 take too long to set out here, that these verses were by Hodgson. But 
 Mrs. Piper, the well-known trance-medium, says that Hodgson gave her 
 a copy signed with other initials than his, and that she is sure he was not 
 the author. She has mislaid the copy she refers to. In view of this state- 
 ment I must not attribute the verses to Hodgson, although I cannot but 
 doubt whether Mrs. Piper's recollection is correct.
 
 1 1 3 
 
 ONE summer hour abides, what time I perched, 
 Dappled with noon-day, under simmering leaves,. 
 And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof 
 An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, 
 Denouncing me an alien and a thief. 
 
 J. R. LOWEU, 
 (The Cathedral). 
 
 THE present writer . . . was seated in a railway-carriage, 
 five minutes or so before starting, and had time to contemplate 
 certain waggons or trucks filled with cattle, drawn up on a parallel 
 line, and quite close to the window at which he sat. The cattle 
 wore a much-enduring aspect ; and, as he looked into their 
 large, patient, melancholy eyes, for, as before mentioned, there 
 was no space to speak of intervening, a feeling of puzzlement 
 arose in his mind. . . . The much-enduring animals in the trucks 
 opposite had unqiiestionably some rude twilight of a notion of a 
 world ; of objects they had some unknown cognizance ; but he 
 could not get behind the melancholy eye within a yard of him 
 and look through it. How, from that window, the world shaped 
 itself, he could not discover, could not even fancy ; and yet, 
 staring on the animals, he was conscious of a certain fascination 
 in which there lurked an element of terror. These wild, unkempt 
 brutes, with slavering muzzles, penned together, lived, could choose 
 between this thing and the other, could be frightened, could be 
 enraged, could even love and hate ; and gazing into a placid, heavy 
 countenance, and the depths of a patient eye, not a yard away, he 
 was conscious of an obscure and shuddering recognition of a life 
 akin so far with his own. But to enter into that life imaginatively , 
 and to conceive it, he found impossible. Eye looked upon eye, but 
 the one could not flash recognition on the other ; and, thinking 
 of this, he remembers, with what a sense of ludicrous horror, 
 the idea came, what, if looking on one another thus, some spark 
 of recognition could be elicited ; if some rudiment of thought 
 could be detected ; if there were indeed a point at which man 
 and ox could meet and compare notes ? Suppose some gleam 
 or scintillation of humour had lighted up the unwinking, amber 
 eye ? Heavens, the bellow of the weaning calf would be pathetic, 
 shoe-leather would be forsworn, the eating of roast meat, hot 
 or cold, would be cannibalism, the terrified world would make a 
 sudden dash into vegetarianism ! 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH 
 (On the Importance of Man to Himself) .
 
 II 4 MONTAIGNE AND OTHERS 
 
 Does not this give the reason why we do not eat dogs and horses ? 
 We, more than other nations, recognize in the horse, as well as in the dog, 
 a life and intelligence akin to our own. We also believe that both animals 
 reciprocate the affection we feel towards them. (Coleridge in Table Talk 
 says : " The dog alone, of all brute animals, has a vropy-i] or affection 
 upwards to man.") 
 
 WHEN I am playing with my Cat, who knowes whether she have 
 more sport in dallying with me, than I have in gaming with her ? 
 We entertaine one another with mutual apish trickes : If I have 
 my houre to begin or to refuse, so hath she hers. 
 
 MONTAIGNE 
 (Bk. II, ch. 12). 
 
 O WHAT are these Spirits that o'er us creep, 
 
 And touch our eyelids and drink our breath ? 
 The first, with a flower in his hand, is Sleep ; 
 The next, with a star on his brow, is Death. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN 
 (Balder the Beautiful). 
 
 -' PEACE, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep- 
 He hath awakened from the dream of life 
 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep 
 With phantoms an unprofitable life. 
 
 SHEIJ.EY 
 (Adonais XXXIX). 
 
 HAVE you found your life distasteful ? 
 
 My life did and does smack sweet. 
 Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ? 
 
 Mine I saved and hold complete. 
 Do your joys \vith age diminish ? 
 
 When mine fails me, I'll complain. 
 Must in death your daylight finish ? 
 
 My sun sets to rise again. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (At the Mermaid] 
 
 My life did and does smack sweet " see note p 236.
 
 BLAKE TUPPER 115 
 
 THE LAMB 
 
 LITTLE lamb, who made thee ? 
 
 Dost thou know who made thee, 
 Gave thee life, and bade thee feed 
 By the stream and o'er the mead ; 
 Gave thee clothing of delight, 
 Softest clothing, woolly, bright ; 
 Gave thee such a tender voice, 
 Making all the vales rejoice ? 
 
 Little lamb, who made thee ? 
 
 Dost thou know who made thee ? 
 
 Little lamb, I'll tell thee ; 
 
 Little lamb, I'll tell thee ; 
 He is called by thy name, 
 For He calls Himself a Lamb. 
 He is meek, and He is mild, 
 He became a little child. 
 I a child, and thou a lamb, 
 We are called by His name. 
 
 Little lamb," God bless thee ! 
 
 Little lamb, God bless thee ! 
 
 W. BI.AKR (1757-1827). 
 
 WHO can wrestle against Sleep ? Yet is that giant very 
 gentleneas. 
 
 MARTIN TUPPER. 
 
 (Of Beauty}. 
 
 ON A FINE MORNING 
 
 i. 
 
 WHENCE comes Solace ? Not from seeing 
 What is doing, suffering, being, 
 Not from noting Life's conditions, 
 Nor from heeding Time's monitions ; 
 But in cleaving to the Dream, 
 And in gazing at the Gleam 
 Whereby gray things golden seem.
 
 u 6 HARDY AND OTHERvS 
 
 ii. 
 
 Thus do I this heyday, holding 
 Shadows but as lights unfolding, 
 As no specious show this moment 
 With its iridized embowment ; 
 But as nothing other than 
 Part of a benignant plan ; 
 Proof that earth was made for man. 
 
 THOMAS HARDY. 
 
 This is not in the Selected Poems. It is interesting as showing Mr. 
 Hardy in an optimistic mood. 
 
 WITHOUT the smile from partial beauty won, 
 Oh, what were man ? a world without a sun ! 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBEU, 
 (Pleasures of Hope, Pi. II). 
 
 OF two opposite methods of action, do you desire to know 
 which should have the preference ? Calculate their effects in 
 pleasures and pains, and prefer that which promises the greater 
 sum of pleasures. 
 
 
 THINK not that a man will so much as lift up liis little finger 
 on your behalf, unless he sees his advantage in it. 
 
 JEREMY BKNTHAM (1748-1832). 
 
 These cold-blooded and repulsive aphorisms are typical of Bentham's 
 Utilitarian philosophy, from which all sense of duty and moral aspiration 
 were excluded. It is strange that these views should be held by a great 
 thinker who was himself of benevolent character. Such a doctrine could not 
 have survived to my time, had it not been supplemented by John Stuart 
 Mill (1806-1873), who gave a different place to the humanist element. While 
 still adhering to Bentham's doctrine that there is no good but pleasure and no 
 evil but pain, he introduced as the higher forms of pleasure those derived 
 from the wish for self-culture and the desire to satisfy our mental and moral 
 aims. He gave priority to all the sympathetic and altruistic motives that 
 govern our actions. Whereas Bentham held that all pleasures were equal and 
 could be counted in one column, Mill said that they differed in quality,
 
 PROCTER 117 
 
 that they could no more be added up in one column than pounds, shillings 
 and pence ; that, in fact, there is no equivalent for a higher pleasure in any 
 quantity of a lower one. This was typical of Mill's sincerity ; but he did 
 not see that his additions were fatal to Bentham's doctrine and to hedonism 
 generally. How, for instance, is a higher pleasure to be known for a higher ? 
 In what respect is an intellectual pleasure or the satisfaction of doing one's 
 duty of higher quality than the gratification of the senses ? To ascertain 
 this it is necessary to pass from the pleasure itself to the thing that gives 
 the pleasure or, in other words, to the character that finds the pleasure. 
 Many illustrations of this might be given. In one of Sir Alfred Lyall's 
 poems, which is founded on fact, an Englishman who has been captured by 
 Arabs has no religious belief ; his loved ones are waiting his return ; he can 
 save his life if he will only repeat the Mahomedan formula 5 if he dies no 
 one will know of his self-sacrifice : yet he decides to die for the honour of 
 England. However, Bentham's careful calculus of equal pleasures and 
 pains, " push-pin " being " worth as much as poetry,"* came to an end 
 through Mill, and Mill at once made way for Spencer on the one hand, and 
 T. H. Green on the other ; both of these rejected the calculation of pleasures 
 or happiness as the standard of right either for the individual or the greatest 
 number. In all directions the low moral stage of philosophic thought 
 represented by Benthamism has been passed through and forgotten. We 
 no longer hold the belief that the only sphere of Government is to protect 
 our persons and property, but follow loftier ideals ; and in art and poetry 
 we look for higher aims than mere luxury and sensuous pleasure. 
 
 LIFE 
 
 WE are born ; we laugh ; we weep ; 
 
 We love ; we droop ; we die ! 
 Ah ! wherefore do we laugh, or weep ? 
 
 Why do we live, or die ? 
 Who knows that secret deep ? 
 Alas, not I ! 
 
 Why doth the violet spring 
 
 Unseen by human eye ? 
 Why do the radiant seasons bring 
 
 Sweet thoughts that quickly fly ? 
 W T hy do our fond hearts cling 
 To things that die ? 
 
 We toil, through pain and wrong ; 
 
 We fight, and fly ; 
 We love ; we lose ; and then, ere long, 
 
 Stone dead we lie. 
 Life ! is all thy song 
 
 Endure and die ? 
 
 B. W. PROCTER (Barn 1 Cornwall). 
 
 Was a phrase of Cowper's in Bentham's mind ? Tha latter wrote to Christopher 
 Rowley, "We are strange creatures, my little friend ; everything that we do is in reality 
 important, though half that we do seems to be push-pin."
 
 1 1 8 KEATS DRYDEN 
 
 STOP and consider ! Life is but a day ; 
 
 A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way 
 
 From a tree's summit ; a poor Indian's sleep 
 
 While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep 
 
 Of Montmorenci, Why .so sad a moan ? 
 
 Life is the rose's hope while yet unblown ; 
 
 The reading of an ever-changing tale ; 
 
 The light uplifting of a maiden's veil ; 
 
 A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air ; 
 
 A laughing school boy, without grief or care, 
 
 Riding the spring}' branches of an elm. 
 
 KEATS 
 
 (Sleep and Poetry). 
 
 Life is compared to the brief fall of a dewdrop, the Indian's unconscious 
 sleep while his boat hastens to destruction ; but life also is Hope, Intellect, 
 Beauty, and Physical Enjoyment. 
 
 WHEN I consider life, 'tis all a cheat ; 
 Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit 
 Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay 
 To-morrow's falser than the former day ; 
 Lies worse and, while it says we shall be blessed 
 With some new joys, cuts off what we possesst. 
 Strange cozenage ! none would live past years again, 
 Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain ; 
 And, from the dregs of life, think to receive 
 What the first sprightly running would not give. 
 I'm tired with waiting for this chymic gold, 
 Which fools us young, and beggars us when old. 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN 
 
 (Aweng-sebe). 
 
 THAT'S the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over, 
 Lest you should think he never could recapture 
 The first fine careless rapture ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (Home-Thoughts from Abroad}.
 
 MONTENAEKEN 1 19 
 
 PEU DE CHOSE ET PRESQUE TROP. 
 
 LA vie est vaine : 
 
 Un peu d' amour, 
 Un peu de haine . . . 
 
 Et puis bonjour ! 
 
 La vie est breve : 
 
 Un peu d'espoir, 
 Un peu de reve . . . 
 
 Et puis bonsoir ! 
 
 (Life is vain : A little love, A little hate, .... And then good-day I ) 
 (Life is short : A little hope, A little dream, .... And then good 
 night !) 
 
 LEON MONTENAEKEN. 
 
 This haunting little lyric is a literary curiosity from one point of 
 view. In spite of expostulations from the author (a Belgian poet), and 
 repeated public statements by others from time to time, the poem is con- 
 stantly being wrongly attributed to one or another of the French poets. 
 It appeared in Le Parnasse de la Jeune Belgique, 1887, but had probably 
 been written and published some years before that date. In the Nine- 
 teenth Century, September, 1893, William Sharp pointed out that the poem 
 was always being attributed to the wrong author even Andrew Lang 
 being one of the culprits. The author himself wrote to The Literary World of 
 June 3, 1904, to the same effect. The subject was again spoken of in 
 Notes and Queries, January 5, 1907, when the author's letter was republished. 
 London Truth also brought the matter up at one time, and probably the 
 same fact has been publicly pointed out elsewhere a hundred times but 
 the poem continues to be attributed to the wrong author ! In the Dic- 
 tionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations, by H. P. Jones, pub- 
 lished so recently as 1913, the verses are ascribed to Alfred de Musset. 
 
 There is a third verse, which reads like an answer or retort to the other 
 two : 
 
 La vie est telle, 
 
 Que Dieu la fit 5 
 Et telle, quelle, 
 Elle suffit ! 
 
 (Life is such As God made it, And, just as it is, .... It suffices !) 
 
 One of the writers to Notes and Queries quotes the following lines : 
 On entre, on crie, 
 Et c'est la vie ! 
 On bailie, on sort, 
 Et c'est la mort ! 
 
 (Ausone de Chancel, 1836) 
 
 (You enter, you cry, and that is life ; you yawn, you go out, and that is 
 death.)
 
 120 ELIOT 
 
 A VERY strange, fantastic world where each one pursues 
 his own golden bubble, and laughs at his neighbour for doing 
 the same. I have been thinking how a moral Linnaeus would 
 classify our race. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 TWO LOVERS 
 
 TWO lovers by a moss-grown spring : 
 They leaned soft cheeks together there, 
 Mingled the dark and sxinny hair 
 And heard the wooing thrushes sing. 
 O budding time ! 
 O love's blest prime ! 
 
 Two wedded from the portal stept : 
 The bells made happy carollings, 
 The air was soft as tanning wings, 
 White petals on the pathway slept. 
 O pure-e3 r ed bride ! 
 O tender pride ! 
 
 Two faces o'er a cradle bent : 
 
 Two hands above the head were locked ; 
 These pressed each other while they rocked. 
 Those watched a life that love had sent. 
 O solemn hour ! 
 O hidden power ! 
 
 Two parents by the evening fire : 
 The red light fell about their knees 
 On heads that rose by slow degrees 
 Like buds upon the lily spire. 
 O patient life"! 
 O tender strife 
 
 The two still sat together there, 
 
 The red light shone about their knees : 
 But all the heads by slow degrees 
 Had gone and left that lonely pair. 
 O voyage fast ! 
 O vanished past !
 
 EUOT AND OTHERS 
 
 The red light shone upon the floor 
 
 And made the space between them wide ; 
 They drew their chairs up side by side, 
 Their pale cheeks joined, and said, " Once more ! 
 O memories ! 
 O past that is ! 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 SOME of your griefs you have cured, 
 
 And the sharpest you still have siirvived ; 
 / But what torments of pain you endured 
 From evils that never arrived ! 
 
 R. W. EMKRSON 
 (From the French). 
 
 This sentiment has been expressed by many different authors. Some 
 friends of mine have as their favourite motto, " I have had many troubles 
 in my life, and most of them never happened." 
 
 WITH him ther was his son, a yong Squyer, * Squire 
 A lovyere and a lusty bachelor, lover 
 
 With lokkes crulle, as they were leyd in presse. curly locks 
 
 Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse 
 
 Singinge lie was, or floytinge, al the day ; playing the 
 
 He was as fresh as is the month of May. flute 
 
 Short was his goune, with sieves long and wide, 
 Well coude he sitte on hors and faire ride, 
 
 CHAUCER 
 (Canterbury Tales Prologue] . 
 
 WITH a waist and with a side 
 White as Hebe's, when her zone 
 Slipt its golden clasp, and down 
 Fell her kirtle to her feet, 
 While she held her goblet sweet, 
 And Jove grew languid. 
 
 KEATS 
 (Fancy). 
 
 * "Squyer" is a dissyllable. The final e at the end of a line is always sounded 
 like a in " China." " Lokkes," " sieves " and " faire " are also dissyllables, because 
 e, ed, en, es are sounded as syllables, except before vowels and certain words beginning 
 with h.
 
 122 WORDSWORTH AND OTHERS 
 
 LIKE Angels stopped upon the wing by sound 
 Of harmony from heaven's remotest spheres. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (The Prelude, Bk. XIV.) 
 
 STEPPING down the hill with her fair companions, 
 
 Ann in arm, all against the raying West, 
 Boldly she sings, to the merry tune she marches, 
 Brave is her shape, and sweeter unpossess'd. 
 
 G. MEREDITH 
 (Love in the Valley}. 
 
 THE blessed Damozel leaned out 
 
 From the gold bar of Heaven ; 
 Her eyes were deeper than the depth 
 
 Of waters stilled at even ; 
 She had three lilies in her hand, 
 
 And the stars in her hair were seven. 
 
 Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, 
 
 No wrought flowers did adorn, 
 But a white rose of Mary's gift, 
 
 For service meetly worn ; 
 Her hair that lay along her back 
 Was yellow like ripe corn. 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 (The Blessed Damozel). 
 
 WHEN AS in silk my Julia goes, 
 Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows 
 The liquefaction of her clothes ! 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK 
 (Upon Julia's Clothes] 
 
 The six quotations above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85). 
 
 WHATEVER else may or may not work on through eternity, 
 we are bound to believe that the love, which moved the Father 
 to redeem the world at such infinite cost, must work on, while 
 there is one pang in the universe, born of sin, which can touch 
 the Divine pity, or one wretched prodigal in rags and hunger 
 far from the home and the heart of God. 
 
 REV. BALDWIN BROWS.
 
 IJTTLEDALE AND OTHERS 123 
 
 CANON FARRAR is not happy in his rejoinder to the argument 
 that to cast a doubt on the endlessness of punishment is to 
 invalidate the argument for the endlessness of bliss, since both 
 rest on exactly Ihe same Biblical sanction. There are three 
 replies, cumulatively exhaustive, which he has failed to adduce 
 . . .(Firstly, evil and temptation are banished from heaven ; 
 Second, the two arguments do not rest on the same Biblical 
 sanction) . . Thirdly, the difference of the two eternities, heaven 
 and hell, consists in the presence or absence of God. Let us put a 
 for each of those eternities or aeons, and 6 to denote Him. The 
 assertion of the equality of the two, then, is that a+d = a 6, 
 which can stand only if = 0, the postulate of atheism. 
 
 REV. R. F. LTTTXEDALE, D.C.L. 
 
 Both these passages come from an Article in the Contemporary for 
 April, 1878. 
 
 As this book is partly intended to revive the memories of forty years 
 ago, I include these out of the passages in my commonplace book which 
 refer to the intense struggle that then raged over the question of Eternal 
 Punishment. Surely no other word, since the world began, raised so 
 tremendous an issue, created such conflict and caused so much heart- 
 burning as the one word aldiviot. 
 
 (Liddeli and Scott, 1901, gives the following meanings for oWvtoi: 
 lasting for an age, perpetual, everlasting, eternal.) 
 
 I THANK God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid 
 of Hell, nor never grew pale at the description of that place. I 
 have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost 
 forgot the Idea of Hell, and am afraid ratlier to lose the joys 
 of the one, than endure the misery of the other : to be deprived 
 of them is a perfect Hell, and needs, methinks, no addition to 
 compleat our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained 
 me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. 
 I fear GOD, yet am not afraid of Him : His Mercies make me 
 ashamed of my sins, before His Judgments afraid thereof. 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) 
 (Religio Medici). 
 
 NE nous imaginons pas que 1'enfer consiste dans ces etangs 
 de feu et de soufre, dans ces flamines eternellement devorantes, 
 dans cette rage, dans ce desespoir, dans cet horrible grincement 
 de dents. I/enfer, si nous 1'entendons, c'est peche mme : 
 1'enfer, c'est d'etre eloigne de Dieu. 
 
 BOSSUET (1627-1704).
 
 124 BOSWELL AND OTHERS 
 
 (Let us not imagine that hell consists in those lakes of fire and brimstone, 
 in those eternally-devouring flames, in that rage, in that despair, in that 
 horrible gnashing of teeth. Hell, if we understand it aright, is sin itself : 
 hell consists in being banished from God.) 
 
 . . . SIR HENRY WOTTON'S celebrated answer to a priest in 
 Italy, who asked him, " Where was your religion to be found before 
 Luther ? " " My religion was to be found there where yours 
 is not to be found now in the written word of God . " In Selden 's 
 Table Talk we have the following more witty reply made to the 
 same question : " Where was America an hundred or six score 
 years ago ? " 
 
 BOSWEIJ/S Life of Johnson, VIII, 176. 
 
 I do not wish to introduce sectarian questions, but thes 
 interesting and clever. The next quotation is pro-Catholic. 
 
 DURING the horrible time of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, 
 a French priest and a Jew became very intimate friends. The 
 priest, very anxious for the future welfare of his friend, xirged 
 him to be received into the church : and the Jew promised 
 to earnestly consider this advice. The priest, however, gave up 
 all hope on learning that the Jew was called by his business to 
 Rome, where he would see the unutterably monstrous life of the 
 Pope and clergy. To his surprise the Jew on his return announced 
 that he wished to be baptized, saying that a religion, which could 
 still exist in spite of such abominations, must be the true religion. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 I noted this from an old French book, but the real story must be the 
 earlier one of Boccaccio (1315-1375)- Alexander Borgia was Pope, 1492- 
 
 I VERH/Y believe that, if the knife were put into my hand, 
 I should not have strength and energy enough to stick it into a 
 Dissenter. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Shortly before his death in 1844 he gave this as a singular proof of his 
 declining strength ! (See Memoir by his daughter, Lady Holland).
 
 WORDSWORTH MASSEY 1 2 5 
 
 A HUNDRED times when, roving high and low, 
 I have been harassed with the toil of verse, 
 Much pains and little progress, and at once 
 Some lovely Image in the song rose up 
 Full-formed like Venus rising from the sea. 
 
 W. WORDSWORTH 
 (Prelude, Bk. IV). 
 
 The " Prelude " is extremely interesting as a poet's autobiography. 
 
 LONG EXPECTED 
 
 MANY and many a day before we met, 
 
 1 knew some spirit walked the world alone, 
 Awaiting the Beloved from afar ; 
 
 And I was the anointed chosen one 
 
 Of all the world to crown her queenly brows 
 
 With the imperial crown of human love. 
 
 I knew my sunshine somewhere warmed the world, 
 
 And I should reach it, in His own good time 
 
 Who sendeth sun, and dew, and love for all. . . 
 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, talked of thee 
 
 Sweet winds, and whispering leaves, and piping birds, 
 
 The hum of happiness in summer woods, 
 
 And the light dropping of the silver rain ; 
 
 And standing as in God's own presence-chamber. 
 
 When silence lay like sleep upon the world, 
 
 And it seemed rich to die, alone with Night, 
 
 Like Moses 'neath the kisses of God's lips, 
 
 The stars have trembled thro' the holy hush, 
 
 And smiled down tenderly, and read to me 
 
 The love hid for me in a budding breast, 
 
 Like incense folded in a young flower's heart. 
 
 GRRAI.D MASSKY 
 
 " Rich to die " is reminiscent of Keats' Ode to a Nightingale : 
 Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain. 
 
 " COME back, come back " ; behold with straining mast 
 And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast ; 
 With one new sun to see her voyage o'er, 
 With morning light to touch her native shore, 
 " Come back, come back."
 
 126 CLOUGH CAMPION 
 
 " Come hack, come back " ; across the flying foam, 
 We hear faint far-off voices call us home, 
 " Come back," ye seem to say ; '' Ye seek in vain , 
 We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. 
 Come back, come back." 
 
 " Come back, come back " ; and whither back or why ? 
 To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try ; 
 Walk the old fields ; pace the familiar street ; 
 Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. 
 " Come back, come back." 
 
 "Come back, come back"; and whither and for what? 
 To finger idly some old Gordian knot, 
 Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, 
 And with much toil attain to half-believe. 
 "Come back, come back." 
 
 " Come back, come back " ; yea back, indeed, do go 
 Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow ; 
 Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, 
 And wishes idly struggle in the strings ; 
 "Come back, come back." . . . 
 
 ' Come back, come back ! " 
 
 Back flies the foam ; the hoisted flag streams back , 
 The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, 
 Back fly with winds things which the winds obey 
 The strong ship follows its appointed way. 
 
 A. H. CZOUGH 
 
 (Songs in Absence}. 
 
 I have ventured to put quotation marks in the above to make the 
 meaning clear at first view. Also but that italics seldom look well in 
 a poem I would have written the last two lines as follows : 
 
 Back fly with winds things which the winds obey 
 
 The strong ship follows its appointed way. 
 
 WHEN thou must home to shades of underground, 
 And there arrived, a new admired guest, 
 
 The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, 
 White lope, blithe Helen, and the rest, 
 
 To hear the stories of thy finished love 
 
 From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move
 
 CAMPION ARNOLD 127 
 
 Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, 
 
 Of masques and revels which sweet "youth did make, 
 
 Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, 
 And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake : 
 
 When thou hast told these honours done to thee, 
 
 Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me. 
 
 THOMAS CAMPION. 
 
 A QUESTION 
 To Fausta. 
 
 JOY comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows 
 
 Like the wave ; 
 
 Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men 
 I,ove lends life a little grace, 
 A few sad smiles ; and then, 
 Both are laid in one cold place, 
 In the grave. 
 
 Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die 
 
 Like spring flowers ; 
 Our vaunted life is one long funeral. 
 Men dig graves with bitter tears 
 For their dead hopes ; and all, 
 Mazed with doubts and sick with fears, 
 
 Count the hours. 
 
 We count the hours ! These dreams of ours, 
 
 False and hollow, 
 
 Do we go hence and find they are not dead ? 
 Joys we dimly apprehend, 
 Faces that smiled and fled, 
 Hopes born here, and born to end, 
 Shall we follow ? 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 DEAD ! that is the word 
 That rings through my brain till it crazes ! 
 Dead, while the mayflowers bud and blow, 
 While the green creeps over the white of the snow, 
 While the wild woods ring with the song of the bird, 
 And the fields are a-bloom with daisies.
 
 128 GOSSE XENOPHANES 
 
 See ! even the clod 
 
 Thrills, with life's glad passion shaken ! 
 
 The vagabond weeds, with their vagrant train, 
 Laugh in the sun, and weep in the rain, 
 
 The blue sky smiles like the eye of God, 
 Only ray dead do not waken. 
 
 Dead ! There is the word 
 That I sit in the darkness and ponder ! 
 Why should the river, the sky and the sea 
 Babble of summer and joy to me, 
 While a strong, tnie heart, with its pulse unstirred, 
 Lies hushed in the silence yonder ? 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 OUR voices one by one 
 Fail in the hymn begun ; 
 Our last sad song of Life is done, 
 Our first sweet song of Death. 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 (Encomium Mortis). 
 
 This poem appeared in early editions of On viol and Flute, but is now 
 omitted from Mr. Gosse's poems. 
 
 THERE is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals, 
 Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature ; 
 But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten, 
 With human sensations and voice and corporeal members ; 
 So, if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man's fashion, 
 And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead, 
 Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, 
 Each kind the divine with its own form and natiire endowing. 
 
 XENOPHANES OF COI.OPHON (About 570 B.C.). 
 
 I do not know whose paraphrase this is ; it was prefixed by Tyndall 
 to his Belfast Address, 1874. He probably imagined that these lines con- 
 tained an argument in favour of materialism ; but on the contrary the 
 Greek philosopher affirms the existence of a supreme God. All that he 
 says is that the conception of him as resembling a mortal in his physical 
 attributes is wrong. 
 
 At the back of Tyndall's mind was no doubt the prevalent idea that 
 any " anthropomorphic " conception of the nature of the Deity is necessarily 
 absurd. But there is nothing unreasonable in believing that His nature, 
 though immeasurably superior, is nevertheless akin to our own. The
 
 TENNYSON PlyATO 129 
 
 a rgument is that the source or power of the world must be greater than 
 the highest thing it has produced, the mind of man ; and that it must more 
 nearly resemble the higher than the lower of its products. In particular 
 it is impossible for us to believe that our moral ideas of truth, justice, right 
 and wrong, etc., can differ at all in kind, however much in degree, from 
 those of God. So also our reason must be akin to His insight. Such a 
 belief should be regarded, not as " anthropomorphic," but as (in a sense 
 different from that of Clifford and Harrison) a " deification of man " 
 the recognition of the Divine that is in him. 
 
 knee-deep lies the winter snow, 
 And the winter winds are wearily sighing : 
 
 Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
 
 And tread softly and speak low, 
 For the old year lies a-dying 
 
 Close up his eyes : tie up his chin : 
 
 Step from the corpse, and let him in 
 
 That standeth there alone, 
 And waiteth at the door. 
 There's a new foot on the floor, my friend 
 And a new face at the door, my friend, 
 A new face at the door. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (The Death of the Old Year]. 
 
 TO see the soul as she really is, not as we now behold her, 
 marred by comnumion with the body and other miseries, you 
 must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original 
 purity and then her beauty will be revealed. . . . We must 
 remember that we have seen her only in a condition which may 
 be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original 
 image can hardly be discerned because his natural members 
 are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all 
 sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed 
 and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than 
 his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a 
 similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, 
 Glaucon, not there must we look. 
 
 Where then ! 
 
 At her love of wisdom. I v et us see whom she affects, and what 
 society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with 
 the immortal and eternal and divine ; also how different she would 
 become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne
 
 130 PLATO AND OTHERS 
 
 by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and 
 disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and 
 rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds 
 upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as 
 they are termed : then you would see her as she is, and know . . . 
 what her nature is. 
 
 PLATO 
 
 (Republic, Bk. 10, Jowett's translation). 
 
 Apart from the intrinsic interest of such a passage, the picture of the 
 old sea-god, with long hair and long beard, his body ending in a scaly 
 tail, battered about by the waves, and overgrown with seaweed and shells, 
 is very curious. Without discussing how far the great philosopher himself 
 or some other advanced thinkers believed in such divinities, it must be 
 remembered that to the Greeks generally the gods were very real personages. 
 
 YOUTH'S quick and warm, old age is slow and tame, 
 And only Heaven can fairly halve their blame. 
 To-day the passionate roses breathe and blow 
 And ask no counsel from to-morrow's snow, 
 Whose fretwork sparkles to the winter moon 
 White, as if roses never flushed in June. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 AH, gracious powers ! I wish you would send me an old aunt 
 a maiden aunt an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and 
 a front of light, coffee-coloured hair how my children should 
 work work-bags for her, and my Julia and I would make her 
 comfortable ! Sweet sweet vision ! Foolish foolish dream ! 
 
 THACKERAY 
 (Vanity Fair). 
 
 IDENTITY. 
 
 SOMEWHERE in desolate wind-swept space 
 
 In Twilight-land in No-Man's land 
 Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, 
 And bade each other stand. 
 
 " And who are you ? " cried one a-gape, 
 
 Shuddering in the gloaming light. 
 " I know not," said the second Shape, 
 " I only died last night ! " 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY AI.DKICH.
 
 MANGAN AND OTHERS 131 
 
 not thy mirror, sweet Ainine, 
 Till night shall also veil each star ! 
 Thou seeest a twofold marvel there : 
 The only face so fair as thine, 
 The only eyes that, near or far, 
 Can gaze on thine without despair, 
 
 J. C. MANGAN. 
 
 HAS anyone ever pinched into its pillulous smallness the 
 cobweb of pre-matrimouial acquaintanceship ? 
 
 GEORGE Euox 
 
 (Mtddlemarch). 
 
 TO R.K. 
 
 AS long I dwell on some stupendous 
 
 And tremendous (Heaven defend us !) 
 
 Monstr' -inform' -ingens-horrendous 
 
 Demoniaco-seraphic 
 
 Penman's latest piece of graphic. 
 
 BROWNING. 
 
 there never come a season 
 
 Which shall rid us from the curse 
 Of a prose which knows no reason 
 
 And an unmelodious verse : 
 When the world shall cease to wonder 
 
 At the genius of an Ass, 
 And a boy's eccentric blunder 
 
 Shall not bring success to pass : 
 
 When mankind shall be delivered. 
 
 From the clash of magazines, 
 And the inkstand shall be shivered 
 
 Into countless smithereens : 
 When there stands a muzzled stripling, 
 
 Mute, beside a muzzled bore : 
 When the Rudy ar ds cease from Kipling 
 
 And the Haggards Ride no more. 
 
 JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN.
 
 I 3 2 RUSKIN 
 
 " R.K." is Rudyard Kipling, but what was the " boy's eccentric 
 blunder " that brought him success I do not know. Stephen in this instance 
 showed a want of judgment. The books Kipling had then produced, 
 Plain Tales from the Hills, Departmental Ditties, and the six little books, 
 Soldiers Three, etc., all written before the age of twenty-four, should have 
 been sufficient to show that the author was certainly not a stripling to be 
 " muzzled." Stephen's misjudgment was, however, trivial when we 
 remember how many important writers have failed to understand and appre- 
 ciate the most beautiful poems. Jeffrey (1773-1850) thought to the end 
 of his days that of the poets of his time Keats and Shelley would die and 
 Campbell and Rogers alone survive. Shelley was very unfortunate in his 
 critics. Matthew Arnold and Carlyle also disparaged him, Theodore Hook 
 said " Prometheus Unbound " was properly named as no one would think 
 of binding it ; and worst of all was Emerson. He said Shelley was not a 
 poet, had no imagination and his muse was uniformly imitative (" Thoughts 
 on Modern Literature ") ; his poetry was ' rhymed English ' which ' had 
 no charm' (" Poetry and Imagination "). Just as amazing was the article 
 in The Edinburgh Review, 1816, on Coleridge's volume containing " Christa- 
 bel," " Kubla Khan," etc. This article, usually attributed to Hazlitt, and 
 certainly having Jeffrey's sanction, said : " We look upon this publication 
 as one of the most notable pieces of impertinence of which the press has 
 lately been guilty ; and one of the boldest experiments that have as yet 
 been made upon the patience or understanding of the public." De Quincey 
 said the style of Keats " belonged essentially to the vilest collections of 
 waxwork filigree or gilt gingerbread." Other instances are Swinburne's 
 abuse of George Eliot and Walt Whitman, Carlyle's brutality towards 
 Lamb, Jeffrey's savage attack on Wordsworth (the famous " This will 
 never do " article although it was not so very inexcusable), Edward 
 Fitzgerald's letter that Mrs. Browning's death was a relief to him (" No 
 more Aurora Leighs, thank God ! "), Samuel Rogers' statement that he 
 " could not relish Shakepeare's sonnets," and Steevens' far worse condem- 
 nation of them, and indeed the list could be extended indefinitely. On the 
 other hand, unmerited praise was given by whole generations of writers 
 to poems which are now properly forgotten. In face of such facts it is 
 somewhat of a mystery why the best things do survive. See next quotation. 
 
 IF it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing 
 has been for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without 
 possessing in a high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it 
 is not because the average intellect and feeling of the majority 
 of the public are competent in any way to distinguish what is 
 really excellent, but because all erroneoiis opinion is inconsistent, 
 and all ungrounded opinion transitory ; so that while the fancies 
 and feelings which deny deserved honour, and award what is 
 undue, have neither root nor strength sufficient to maintain 
 consistent testimony for a length of time, the opinions formed 
 on right grounds by those few who are in reality competent 
 judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves 
 gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend 
 wider, until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absolute
 
 RUSK1N AND OTHERS 133 
 
 authority, even where the grounds and reasons for them cannot 
 be understood. On this gradual victory of what is consistent 
 over what is vacillating, depends the reputation of all that is highest 
 in art and literature. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 (Modern Painters, I, i). 
 
 This is an excellent suggestion in explanation of the question raised 
 in the preceding note. It is also interesting because of the youth of this 
 great writer at the time. Ruskin was born in 1819, and the volume was 
 published in 1843, when he was twenty-four. Because of his youth, it was 
 thought inadvisable to give his name as author, and, therefore, the book 
 was published as " by an Oxford Graduate." 
 
 THE ages have exulted in the manners of a youth, who owed 
 nothing to fortune, and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his 
 nation, who, by the pure quality of his nature, shed an epic 
 splendour around the facts of his death, which has transfigured 
 every particular into an universal symbol for the eyes of man- 
 kind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. 
 
 EMERSON 
 (Essay on Character}. 
 
 THE best of men 
 
 That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer ; 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ; 
 The first tme gentleman that ever breathed. 
 
 THOMAS DEKKER (1570-1641). 
 
 THOU with strong prayer and very much entreating 
 Wiliest be asked, and Thou shalt answer then, 
 
 Show the hid heart beneath creation beating, 
 Smile with kind eyes, and be a man with men. 
 
 Were it not thus, O King of my salvation, 
 Many would curse to Thee, and I for one, 
 
 Fling Thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation, 
 Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun. 
 
 Ring with a reckless shivering of laughter 
 
 Wroth at the woe which Thou hast seen so long ; 
 Question if any recompense hereafter 
 Waits to atone the intolerable wrong. 
 
 F. W.H.MYERS (1843-190;.) 
 (Saint Paul).
 
 134 PAINE AND OTHERS 
 
 Wiliest be asked, " requirest to be asked," as in " God willeth Samuel 
 to yield unto the importunity of the people " (i Sam. viii., in margin). 
 
 Saint Paul was written for the Seatonian prize for religious English 
 verse, Cambridge, about 1866, but failed to secure the prize ! 
 
 (SPEAKING of future state) " Those who are neither good nor 
 bad, or are too insignificant for notice, will be dropt entirely. This 
 is my opinion. It is consistent with my' idea of God's justice, 
 and with the reason that God has given me, and I gratefully 
 know that He has given me a large share of that Divine gift "(!) 
 
 THOMAS PAINE 
 (Age of Reason). 
 
 SIXTEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 LOVE (ArATTH). 
 
 It is long-suffering. 9. It thinketh no evil. 
 
 2. is kind. 10. rejoiceth not in iniquity. 
 
 3. envieth not. n. rejoiceth in the truth. 
 
 4. vaunteth not itself. 12. beareth all things. 
 
 5. is not puffed up. 13. belie veth all things. 
 
 6. doth not behave itself 14. hopeth all things. 
 
 unseemly. 15. endureth all things 
 
 7. seeketh not its own. 16. never faileth. 
 
 8. is not easily provoked. 
 
 ST. PAUI, 
 (i Cor. xiii.) 
 
 'Aycfo-17, brotherly love, " Though I have all knowledge and all faith, 
 though 1 bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to 
 be burned, and have not iydwri, it profited me nothing." (i Cor. xiii, 2). 
 
 IN the Eighth Century B.C., in the heart of a world of idola 
 trous pplytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception 
 of religion which appears to be as wonderful an inspiration of 
 genius as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. " And 
 what doth the I<ord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " * 
 
 T. H. HUXI.EY 
 (Essays, IV, \6\).
 
 WORDSWORTH AND OTHERS 135 
 
 THE) best of all we do and are, 
 Just God, forgive. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 (Thoughts near the Residence of Burns). 
 
 LOST DAYS. 
 
 THE) lost days of my life until to-day, 
 What were they, could I see them on the street 
 Ivie as they fell ? Would they be ears of wheat 
 
 Sown once for food but trodden into clay ? 
 
 Or golden coins squandered and still to pay ? 
 Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet ? 
 Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat 
 
 The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway ? 
 
 I do not see them there ; but after death 
 God knows I know the faces I shall see, 
 
 Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 
 
 " I am thyself, what hast thou done to me ? 
 
 " And I and I thyself," (lo ! each one saith,) 
 " And thou thyself to all eternity ! " 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 COUNT that day lost, whose low descending sun 
 Views from thy hand no worthy action done. 
 
 ANON. 
 
 BIRTHDAYS. 
 
 " TIME is the stuff of life" then spend not thy days while they 
 
 last 
 
 In dreams of an idle future, regrets for a vanished past ; 
 The tombstones He thickly behind thee, but. the stream still hurries 
 
 thee on, 
 New worlds of thought to be traversed, new fields to be fought 
 
 and won. 
 
 Let work be thy measure of life then only the end is well 
 The birthdays we hail so blithely are strokes of the passing bell. 
 
 W. E. H . 
 
 " Dost thou love life ? Then do not squander time, for that is the 
 stuff life is made of." (Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1757.)
 
 136 GOETHE AND OTHERS 
 
 NOTHING is of greater value than a single day. 
 
 GOETHE 
 (Spruche itn Prosa) 
 
 TEARS for the passionate hearts I might have won, 
 Tears for the age with which I might have striven, 
 
 Tears for a hundred years of work undone, 
 Crying like blood to Heaven. 
 
 WM. ALEXANDER. 
 
 MY life, my beautiful life, all wasted : 
 
 The gold days, the blue days, to darkness sunk ; 
 The bread was here, and I have not tasted : 
 
 The wine was here, and I have not drunk. 
 
 RICHARD MEDDLETON. 
 
 I do not find these lines in Middleton's collected works, but I think 
 they are his. 
 
 AND the nightingale thought, " I have sung many songs 
 
 But never a one so gay, 
 For he sings of what the world will be 
 When the years have died away." 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (The Poet's Song). 
 
 This often-quoted verse does not give the highest view of poetry, as 
 Tennyson's own poems show. The poet sings of a Universe, 
 
 Which moves with light and life informed, 
 Actual, divine and true. 
 
 He sings of Nature, Man, God, Immortality. (This note is from an early 
 letter of Hodgson's. His quotation is from The Prelude, Bk. XIV.) 
 
 WHY are Time's feet so swift and ours so slow ! 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED.
 
 LAT1MER ALDRICH 137 
 
 WHO is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, 
 that passeth all the rest in doing his office ? It is the Devil. 
 He is the most diligent preacher of all other, he is never out of 
 his diocese, ye shall never find him unoccupied, ye shall never 
 find him out of the way, call for him when you will ; he is ever 
 at home, the diligentest preacher in all the Realm ; ye shall never 
 
 find him idle, I warrant you He is no lordly loiterer, 
 
 but a bus}- ploughman, so that among all the pack of them the 
 Devil shall go for my money ! Therefore, ye prelates., learn of 
 the Devil to be diligent in doing of your office. If you will not 
 learn of God nor good men : for shame learn of the Devil. 
 
 BISHOP lyATlMER 
 
 (Sermon on the Ploughets, 1549). 
 
 APPRECIATION. 
 
 TO the sea-shell's spiral round 
 'Tis your heart that brings the sound : 
 The .soft sea-murmurs, that you hear 
 Within, are captured from your ear. 
 
 You do poets arid their song 
 
 A grievous wrong, 
 If your own soul does not bring 
 To their high imagining 
 As much beauty as they sing, 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY AI.DRICH. 
 
 IN the present day it is not easy to find a well-meaning man 
 among our more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself 
 to dispute the whole system of redemption, because he cannot 
 unravel the mystery of the punishment of sin. But can he 
 unravel the mystery of the punishment of NO sin ? Can he 
 entirely account for all that happens to a cab-horse ? Has he 
 ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is dying 
 measured the work it has done, and the reward it has got 
 put his hand upon the bloody wounds through which its bones 
 are piercing, and so looked up to Heaven with an entire under- 
 standing of Heaven's ways about the horse ? Yet the horse is 
 a fact no dream no revelation among the myrtle trees by night ;
 
 138 RUSKIN WORDSWORTH 
 
 and the dust it dies upon, and the dogs that eat it, are facts ; 
 and yonder happy person, whose the horse was, till its knees were 
 broken over the hiirdles ; who had an immortal soul to begin with, 
 and wealth and peace to help forward his immortality ; who 
 has also devoted the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, 
 and peace, to the spoiling of houses, the corruption of the innocent, 
 and the oppression of the poor ; and has, at this actual moment 
 of his prosperous life, as many curses waiting round about him in 
 calm shadow, with their death-eyes fixed upon him, biding their 
 time, as ever the poor cab-horse had launched at him in meaning- 
 leas blasphemies, when his failing feet stumbled at the stones, 
 this happy person shall have no stripes, shall have only 
 the horse's fate of annihilation ! Or, if other things are indeed 
 reserved for him, Heaven's kindness or omnipotence is to be 
 doubted therefore ! 
 
 We cannot reason of these things. But this I know and this 
 may by all men be known that no good or lovely thing exists 
 in this world without its correspondent darkness ; and that the 
 universe presents itself continually to mankind under the stern 
 aspect of warning, or of choice, the good and the evil set on the 
 right hand and the left. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 (Modern Painters, V, 19). 
 
 It is one of the arguments in Plato's Pbaedo that the soul must survive, 
 since otherwise terribly wicked and cruel men would escape retribution ; 
 annihilation would be a good thing for them. 
 
 creatures and all objects, in degree, 
 Are friends and patrons of humanity. 
 There are to whom the garden, grove and field 
 Perpetual lessons of forbearance yield ; 
 Who would not lightly violate the grace 
 The lowliest flower possesses in its place, 
 Nor shorten the sweet life, too fugitive, 
 Which nothing less than Infinite Power could give. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (Humanity). 
 
 EVERY man is not a proper Champion for Truth, nor fit to take 
 up the Gauntlet in the cause of Verity : many, from the ignorance 
 of these Maximes, and an inconsiderate Zeal unto Truth, have too 
 rashly charged the troops of Error, and remain as Trophies unto 
 the enemies of Truth. A man may be in as just possession of
 
 BROWNE AND OTHERS 139 
 
 Truth as of a City and yet be forced to surrender ; 'tis therefore 
 far better to enjoy her with peace than to hazzard her on a battle 
 
 SIR TIIOMAS BROWNE 
 
 (Religio Medici). 
 
 " VERY well," cried I, " that's a good girl ; I find you are 
 perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go help your 
 mother to make a gooseberry pye." 
 
 GOLDSMITH 
 
 (The Vicar of Wake field). 
 
 WHITE-HANDED Hope, 
 Thou hover ing Angel girt with golden wings. 
 
 MILTON 
 (Comus). 
 
 HOPE, folding her wings, looked backward and became Regret. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 (Silas Marner, ch. 15). 
 
 BY desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite 
 know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of 
 the divine power against evil widening the skirts of light 
 and making the struggle with darkness narrower. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 (Middlemarch, ch. 39) 
 
 WRINKL/ED ostler, grim and thin ! 
 
 Here is custom come your way ; 
 Take my brute, and lead him in, 
 
 Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. . .
 
 140 TENNYSON MARTINEAU 
 
 1 am old, but let me drink ; 
 
 Bring me spices, bring me wine ; 
 I remember, when I think, 
 
 That my youth was half divine. . . . 
 
 Fill the cup, and fill the can : 
 
 Have a rouse before the morn : 
 Every moment dies a man, 
 
 Every moment one is born. . . 
 
 Chant me now some wicked stave, 
 
 Till thy drooping courage rise, 
 And the glow-worm of the grave 
 
 Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. . . . 
 
 Change, reverting to the years, 
 
 When thy nerves could understand 
 
 What there is in loving tears, 
 
 And the warmth of hand in hand. . . . 
 
 Fill the can, and fill the cup : 
 
 All the windy days of men 
 Are but dust that rises up, 
 And is lightly laid again. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (The Vision of Sin). 
 
 Change i.e., change the subject. Many verses are omitted for the 
 sake of brevity. 
 
 A WORLD without a contingency or an agony could have no hero 
 and no saint, and enable no Son of Man to discover that he was a 
 Son of God. But for the suspended plot, that is folded in every 
 life, history is a dead chronicle of what was known before as well 
 as after ; art sinks into the photograph of a moment, that hints 
 at nothing else ; and poetry breaks the cords and throws the lyre 
 away. There is no Epic of the certainties ; and no lyric without 
 the surprise of sorrow and the sigh of fear. Whatever touches and 
 ennobles us in the lives and in the voices of the past is a divine 
 birth from human doubt and pain. I^et then the shadows lie, and 
 the perspective of the light still deepen beyond our view ; else, 
 while we walk together, our hearts will never burn within us as 
 we go, and the darkness as it falls, will deliver us into no hand 
 that is Divine. 
 
 JAS. MARTINEAU 
 (Hours of Thought, i, 328). 
 
 f
 
 MARTiNEAU 141 
 
 The subject of the sermon is the uncertainties of life, the perils and 
 catastrophies that cannot be foreseen or provided for, death, disease, 
 and other ills which may fall upon us at any moment, the crises that arise 
 in the history of men and nations. It is by reason of these that character 
 is formed. If everything happened by known rule, and could be predicted 
 as surely as the movements of the stars, we should have no affections or 
 emotions and would be mere creatures of habit. 
 
 From a recent book of poems, The Lily of Malud, by J. C. Squire, 
 I take the following musical verse. (" The" Stronghold " is where pain, 
 hate, and all unpleasant things are excluded and peace only reigns.) 
 
 But O, if you find that castle, 
 
 Draw back your foot from the gateway, 
 
 Let not its peace invite you, 
 
 Let not its offerings tempt you, 
 For faded and decayed like a garment, 
 Love to a dust will have fallen, 
 And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow, 
 And hope will have gone with pain ; 
 And of all the throbbing heart's high courage 
 
 Nothing will remain. 
 
 Martineau not only did important work in philosophy, but he was 
 also eminent as a moral teacher. Taking together his originality, sublimity 
 of soul, and beauty of expression, the sermons in Hours of Thought and 
 other similar writings are the finest product of modern religious thought. 
 They indeed stand among the best productions of our literature, and should 
 be read even by those (if there are any such persons) who love literature 
 and thought but are indifferent to religion. To illustrate this, I choose 
 almost at random a passage where the thought itself has no interest 
 outside religion (Hours of Thought, II. 334) : 
 
 Worship is the free offering of ourselves to God ; ever renewed, 
 because ever imperfect. It expresses the consciousness that we are 
 His by right, yet have not duly passed into His hand ; that the soul 
 has no true rest but in Him, yet has wandered in strange flights until 
 her wing is tired. It is her effort to return home, the surrender again 
 of her narrow self-will, her prayer to be merged in a life diviner than her 
 own. It is at once the lowliest and loftiest attitude of her nature : 
 we never hide ourselves in ravine so deep ; yet overhead we never 
 see the stars so clear and high. The sense of saddest estrangement, 
 yet the sense also of eternal affinity between us and God meet and 
 mingle in the act ; breaking into the strains, now penitential and now 
 jubilant, that, to the critic's reason, may sound at variance but melt 
 into harmony in the ear of a higher love. This twofold aspect devotion 
 must ever have, pale with weeping, flushed with joy ; deploring the 
 past, trusting for the future ; ashamed of what is, kindled bv what 
 is meant to be ; shadow behind, and light before. Were we haunted 
 by no presence of sin and want, we should only browse on the pasture 
 of nature ; were we stirred by no instinct of a holier kindred, we should 
 not be drawn towards the life of God,
 
 i 4 2 WATERHOUSE AND OTHERS 
 
 GROWN UP. 
 
 MY son is straight and strong, 
 Ready of lip and limb ; 
 
 'Twas the dream of my whole life long 
 To bear a son like him. 
 
 He has griefs I cannot guess, 
 He has joys I cannot know : 
 
 I love him none the less 
 With a man it should be so. 
 
 But where, where, where 
 
 Is the child so dear to me, 
 With the silken-golden hair 
 
 Who sobbed upon my knee ? 
 
 ELIZABETH WATERHOUSE. 
 
 FOR her alone the sea-breeze seemed to blow, 
 For her in music did the white surf fall, 
 For her alone the wheeling birds did call 
 Over the shallows, and the sky for her 
 Was set with white clouds far away and clear, 
 E'en as her love, this strong and lovely one, 
 Who held her hand, was but for her alone. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 (Perseus and Andromeda). 
 
 HE cometh not a king to reign ; 
 
 The world's long hope is dim ; 
 The weary centuries watch in vain 
 
 The clouds of heaven for Him. 
 
 And not for sign in heaven above 
 
 Or earth below they look, 
 Who know with John His smile of love. 
 
 With Peter His rebuke.
 
 WHITTIER MASSE Y 143 
 
 In joy of inward peace, or sense 
 
 Of sorrow over sin, 
 He is His own best evidence 
 
 His witness is within. 
 
 The healing of His seamless dress, 
 
 Is by our beds of pain ; 
 We touch Him in life's throng and press, 
 
 And we are whole again. 
 
 O Lord and Master of us all ! 
 
 Whate'er our name or sign, 
 We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, 
 
 We test our lives by Thine. . . . 
 
 Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, 
 
 What may Thy service be ? 
 Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, 
 
 But simply following Thee. 
 
 We faintly hear, we dimly see, 
 In differing phrase we pray ; 
 But, dim or clear, we own in Thee, 
 The I/ight, the Truth, the Way ! . 
 
 JOHN GREENT.EAF WHITTIER. 
 (Our Master). 
 
 Many verses are omitted from this poem for want of space, and the 
 la t two are transposed in order. 
 
 'TIS weary watching wave by wave, 
 
 And yet the Tide heaves onward, 
 We climb, like Corals, grave by grave. 
 
 That pave a pathway sunward ; 
 
 We are driven back, for our next fray 
 
 A newer strength to borrow, 
 And, where the Vanguard camps To-day, 
 The Rear shall rest To-morrow. 
 
 GERALD MASSEY 
 (To-day and To-morrow].
 
 144 NOVALIS AND OTHERS 
 
 WHERE) gods are not, spectres rule. 
 
 f WHERE children are is a golden age. 
 
 A PEOPLE, like a child, is a separate educational problem. 
 
 NOVAIJS. 
 
 ONCE in an age, God sends to some of us a friend who loves 
 in us, not a false imagining, an unreal character but, looking 
 through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine 
 ideal of our nature loves, not the man that we are, but the angel 
 that we may be. Such friends seem inspired by a divine gift 
 of prophecy like the mother of St. Augustine, who, in the midst 
 of the wayward, reckless youth of her son, beheld him in a vision, 
 standing, clothed in white, a ministering priest at the right hand 
 of God as he has stood for long ages since. Could a mysterious 
 foresight unveil to us this resurrection form of the friends with 
 whom we daily walk, compassed about with mortal infirmity, we 
 should follow them with faith and reverence through all the 
 disguises of human faults and weaknesses, " waiting for the 
 manifestation of the sons of God." 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 (The Minister's Wooing}. 
 
 BECAUSE thou hast the power and own'st the grace 
 
 To look through and behind this mask of me, 
 
 (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly 
 
 With their rains) and behold my soul's true face, 
 
 The dim and weary witness of life's race, 
 
 Because thou hast the faith and love to see, 
 
 Through that same soul's distracting lethargy. 
 
 The patient angel waiting for a place 
 
 In the new Heavens, because nor sin nor woe, 
 
 Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighbourhood, 
 
 Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, 
 
 Nor all which makes me tired of all, self -viewed, 
 
 Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so 
 
 To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good ! 
 
 E. B. BROWNIXG 
 (Sonnets from the Portuguese}.
 
 COLLINS 145 
 
 Here two fine thoughts of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Browning are inspired 
 by the vision of Monica, the saintly mother of the great St. Augustine 
 (354-43)- 
 
 This is a good illustration of the need of notes. Without a reference 
 to St. Monica's vision, I think that readers would be repelled, rather than 
 attracted, by Mrs. Browning's sonnet. It does not accord with one's sense 
 of modesty that a lady should say to her lover, " My unattractive person 
 and incurable illness turned other men away, but you saw that, behind all 
 this, I was 'a patient angel waiting for a place in the new Heavens.' " 
 I myself could not understand how Mrs. Browning could write and her 
 husband could publish this poem, until Hodgson, in one of his letters to 
 me, referred to " the use made by Mrs. Browning of St. Monica's vision in 
 one of her sonnets." 
 
 The sonnet is not quoted as one of the finest of the series. 
 
 I have placed Mrs. Stowe's quotation first for an obvious reason ; but 
 The Minister's Wooing was published in 1859, while the sonnet appeared 
 in 1847. 
 
 DEATH is the ocean of immortal rest ; . . . 
 
 Where shines 'mid laughing waves a far-off isle for me 
 
 Why fear ? The light wind whitens all the brine, 
 And throws fresh foam upon the marble shores; 
 Or it may be that strong and strenuous oars 
 
 Must force the shallop o'er the hyaline ; 
 But, welcome utter calm or bitter blast, 
 
 The voyage will be done, the island reached at last. 
 
 Will it be thus when the strange sleep of Death 
 Lifts from the brow, and lost eyes live again ? 
 Will morning dawn on the bewildered brain, 
 
 To cool and heal ? And shall I feel the breath 
 Of freshening winds that travel from the sea, 
 
 And meet thy loving, laughing eyes, Earine ? 
 
 O virgin world ! O marvellous far days ! 
 
 No more with dreams of grief doth love grow bitter 
 
 Nor troiible dim the lustre wont to glitter 
 In happy eyes. Decay alone decays ; 
 
 A moment death's dull sleep is o'er and we 
 Drink the immortal morning air, Earine. 
 
 MORTIMER COI.UNS.
 
 1 46 LICHTENBERG AND OTHERS 
 
 WE live in a world, where one fool makes many fools, 
 but one wise man only a few wise men. 
 
 LICHTENBERG. 
 
 C) LADY ! We receive but what we give, 
 
 And in our life alone does Nature live : 
 
 Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud ! 
 
 And would we aught behold, of higher worth, 
 Than that inanimate cold world allowed 
 To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, 
 
 Ah, from the soul itself must issue forth 
 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud 
 
 Enveloping the Earth 
 And from the soul itself must there be sent 
 
 A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, 
 Of all sweet sounds the life and element ! 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 (Dejection} . 
 See note to next quotation. 
 
 TELLING STORIES. 
 
 A LITTLE child He took for sign 
 To them that sought the way Divine. 
 
 And once a flower sufficed to show 
 The whole of that we need to know. 
 
 Now here we lie, the child and 1, 
 And watch the clouds go floating by, 
 
 Just telling stories turn by turn. . . . 
 Lord, which is teacher, which doth learn ? 
 
 H. D. LOWRY. 
 
 As Coleridge says in the last quotation, " We receive but what we give." 
 We bring with us the mind that sees, and the feelings and emotions" with 
 which we contemplate the universe ; and, so far as use, habit, and other 
 causes still the activity and lessen the receptivity of the mind and spirit, 
 the world around us becomes less instinct with life and beauty. 
 
 Putting aside the question whether, as Wordsworth says in his great 
 Ode, 
 
 Trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God, who is our home,
 
 PATMORE 147 
 
 it will be familiar to anyone who has a sympathetic, appraciative sense 
 that the child's outlook on the world around him is very different from our 
 own. It has in him a more intense emotional reaction. He sees it with 
 a freshness and wonder unfolt by us, because our sensibility is blunted and 
 less vivid. And for the same reason that we trust our faculties in their 
 prime rather than in their degeneration, so the fresh and clear emotional 
 response of a child's nature represents more truth/id appreciation than our 
 own. Our sensibility is blunted, not only by use and habit, but also by 
 the hardening and coarsening experiences of our lives ; and also again bj the 
 development of intellect, which grows largely at the expense of the emotions. 
 We lose the transparent soul of the child, his simple faith and trusting 
 nature. To anyone who cannot feel the difference between the child's 
 outlook and his own, this will convey no meaning and words cannot assist 
 him. It is as if one tried to describe love to a person who has never loved, 
 or a religious experience to one who has never had such an experience, 
 indeed, in both lore and religious experience, there is the same child-like 
 attitude of pure emotion ; and hence Christ's comparison of His true followers 
 to " little children." Poetry, music, love of nature, and the highest art 
 produce in us at times the same indefinable feeling and give us back for 
 evanescent periods the fresh, clear, emotional sensibility of a child. 
 
 In Edward Fitzgerald's Eupbranor, at the point where Wordsworth's 
 ode is being discussed, the following passage is interesting : 
 
 " I have heard tell of another poet's saying that he knew of no human 
 outlook so solemn as that from an infant's eyes ; and how it was from those 
 of his own he learned that those of the Divine Child in Raffaelle's Sistine 
 Madonna were not overcharged with expression, as he had previously 
 thought they might be." 
 
 " Yes," said I. " that was on the occasion, I think, of his having watched 
 his child one morning worshipping the sunbeam on the bedpost I suppose 
 the worship of wonder ..... If but the philosopher or poet could live 
 in the child's brain for a while ! " 
 
 (The poet referred to wa Tennyson, see Memoir by his son, the baby 
 in question, Vol. I., 357). 
 
 THE REVELATION 
 
 AN idle poet, here and there, 
 
 I/x>ks round him ; but. for all the rest, 
 
 The world, unfathomably fair, 
 Is duller than a witling's jest. 
 
 wakes men, once a life-time each ; 
 They lift their heavy heads and look ; 
 And, lo, what one sweet page can teach 
 They read with joy, then shut the book. 
 
 And some give thanks, and some blaspheme, 
 And most forget : but, either way, 
 
 That, and the Child's unheeded dream, 
 Is all the light of all their day. 
 
 COVENTRY PATMORK (1823-1896).
 
 i 4 8 JAMES POPE 
 
 THE normal process of life contains moments as bad as any 
 of those which insane melancholy is filled with. The lunatic's 
 visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. 
 Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual 
 existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you 
 protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself ! * To 
 believe in the carnivorous reptiles of geologic times is hard for our 
 imagination they seem too much like mere museum specimens. 
 Yet there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that 
 did not daily, through long years of the foretime, hold fast to 
 the body struggling in despair of some fated living victim. Forms 
 of horror just as dreadful to their victims, if on a smaller spatial 
 scale, fill the world about us to-day. Here on our very hearths and 
 in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or 
 holds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes 
 and pythons are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are ; 
 their loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that 
 drags its length along, and whenever they or other wild beasts 
 clutch their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitated 
 melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation. 
 
 WIGWAM JAMES 
 (The Varieties of Religions Experience] 
 
 ET in Arcadia ego. 
 
 (I too have been in Arcady.) 
 
 ANON. 
 
 Arcadia was a mountainous district in Greece which was taken to be 
 the deal of pastoral simplicity and rural happiness as in Sir Philip 
 Sidney's Arcadia and other literature. It was famous for its musicians and 
 a favourite haunt of Pan. 
 
 The saying is best known from the fine landscape in the Louvre by N. 
 Poussin (1594-1665). In part of the landscape is a tomb on which these 
 words are written, and some young people are seen reading them. I learn, 
 however, from King's Classical and Foreign Quotations that the words had 
 been previously written on a picture by Bart. Schidone (1570-1615), where 
 two young shepherds are looking at a skull. 
 
 The meaning intended was that death came even to the joyous shepherds 
 of Arcady. But the quotation is now used in a more general sense. " I 
 too had my golden days of youth and love and happiness." 
 
 IT often happens that those are the best people, whose characters 
 have been most injured by slanderers ; as we usually find that 
 to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been pecking at. 
 
 AJJEXANDER POPE. 
 
 * One certainly protests. There is a great mass of medical and other svidence to the 
 contrary. Sir William Osier made note* of about 500 cases, and says " To the great 
 majority their death, like their birth, was a leep and a forgetting."
 
 NOVALIS AND OTHERS 149 
 
 THERE are many flowers of heavenly origin in this world ; 
 they do not flourish in this climate but are properly heralds, 
 clear-voiced messengers of a better existence : Religion is one ; 
 I/ove is another. 
 
 NOVAUS. 
 
 ON DYING 
 
 I AIRWAYS made an awkward bow. 
 
 KEATS. 
 
 ON n'a pas d'antecedent pour cela. II faut improviser c'est 
 done si difficile. (Death admits of no rehearsal.) 
 
 AMIEI. 
 
 C'EST le maltre jour ; c'est le jour juge de tous les autres. (It 
 is the master-day ; the day that judges all the others.) 
 
 MONTAIGNE. 
 
 WIIyL she return, my lady ? Nay : 
 Love's feet, that once have learned to stray, 
 Turn never to the olden way. 
 
 Ah, heart of mine, where lingers she ? 
 By what live stream or saddened sea ? 
 What wild-flowered swath of sungilt lea 
 
 Do her feet press, and are her days 
 Sweet with new stress of love and praise, 
 Or sad with echoes of old lays ? 
 
 JOHN PAYNE 
 (Light o' Love). 
 
 I SEARCH but cannot see 
 
 What purpose serves the soul that strives, or world it tries 
 Conclusions with, unless the fruit of victories 
 Stay, one and all, stored up and guaranteed its own 
 For ever, by some mode whereby shall be made known 
 The gain of every life.
 
 ISO BROWNING AND OTHERS 
 
 I say, I cannot think that gains which will not be 
 
 Except a special soul had gained them that such gain 
 
 Can ever be estranged, do aught but appertain 
 
 Immortally, by right firm, indefeasible, 
 
 To who performed the feat, through God's grace and man's will. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (Fifine at the Fair). 
 
 NATURE, they say, doth dote 
 And cannot make a man 
 Save on some worn-out plan 
 Repeating us by rote. 
 
 J. R. 
 (Ode at Harvard Commemoration). 
 
 DIE when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew 
 ine best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower, 
 where I thought a flower would grow. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 WHY describe our life-history as a state of waking rather than 
 of sleep ? Why assume that sleep is the acquired, vigilance 
 the normal condition ? It would not be hard to defend the 
 opposite thesis. The newborn infant might urge with cogency 
 that his habitual state of slumber was primary, as regards the indi- 
 vidual, ancestral as regards the race ; resembling at least, far more 
 closely than does our adult life, a primitive or protozoic habit. 
 " Mine," he might say, " is a centrally stable state. It would 
 need only some change in external conditions (as the permanent 
 immersion in a nutritive fluid) to be safely and indefinitely 
 maintained. Your waking state, on the other hand, is centrally 
 unstable. While you talk and bustle around me you are living 
 on your physiological capital, and the mere prolongation of 
 vigilance is torture and death." 
 
 A paradox such as this forms no part of my argument ; but it 
 may remind us that physiology at any rate hardly warrants 
 us in speaking of our waking state as if that alone represented 
 our true selves, and every deviation from it must be at best 
 a mere interruption. Vigilance in reality is but one of two 
 co-ordinate phases of our personality, which we have acquired 
 or differentiated from each other during the stages of our long 
 evolution. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS 
 (Multiplex Personality).
 
 MYERS 151 
 
 This is from an article in The Nineteenth Century for November, 1886, 
 in which Myers urged the study of the trance-personalities that exhibit 
 themselves under hypnotism. In his Human Personality and Its Survival 
 of Bodily Death his views on sleep may be very briefly summarized as follows: 
 In the low forms of animal life there is an undifferentiated state, neither 
 sleep nor waking, and this is also seen in our prenatal and earliest infantile 
 life. In life generally the waking time can exist only for brief periods 
 continuously. We cannot continue life without resort to the fuller vitality 
 which sleep brings to us. Again, from the original undifferentiated state, 
 our waking life has been developed by practical needs ; the faculties required 
 for our earthly life then become intensified, but by natural selection other 
 faculties and sensations (including those which connect us with the spiritual 
 world) are dropped out of our consciousness. The state of sleep cannot be 
 regarded as the mere absence of waking faculties. In this state we have some 
 faint glimmer of the other faculties and sensations in various forms dreams, 
 somnambulism, etc. Myers then develops the theory that the relations 
 of hysteria and genius to ordinary life correspond to those of somnambulism 
 and hypnotic trance to sleep; and he arrives at the question of self- 
 suggestion and hypnotism generally. 
 
 Thus in sleep there art, first, certain physiological changes (including 
 a greater control of the physical organism, as seen in the muscular powers 
 of somnambulists) ; no length of time spent lying down awake in darkness 
 and silence will give the recuperative effect that even a few moments of 
 sleep will give. But also, secondly, we find existing in sleep the other 
 faculties withdrawn from use in ordinary waking life. Thus during sleep 
 we find memory revived, problems unexpectedly solved, poems like " Kubla 
 Khan " composed, and many intense sensations and emotions experienced. 
 Beyond these powers again Myers finds in sleep still higher powers which 
 seem to connect us with the spiritual world. Hence the advisability of 
 studying the phenomena of sleep and investigating it experimentally by 
 employing hypnotism. 
 
 William James adopted much the same view as Myers (see, for example, 
 The Varieties of Religious Experience}. But much has been written of late 
 about sub-consciousness and about dreams; and the tendency is rather 
 to follow Martineau's view of mental development that the lower nervous 
 centres are unconscious " habits " deposited from the old intelligence (see 
 p. 304). Thus, for instance, memories of the past would be recorded in the 
 sub-conscious, but there is nothing to be found there of a higher character 
 than in the conscious self. In sleep, the waking control being removed, 
 our dreams reveal impulses and desires that have been inhibited or kept 
 under in waking life, but do not reveal anything of the higher indicated 
 by Myers. However, although it is too large a subject to discuss here, there 
 is a vast deal yet to be explained, as, for example, inspiration, and what we 
 used to call " unconscious cerebration," and the amazing results of hypnotism 
 and suggestion. Also who or what is it that composes the dream-story, 
 or who or what makes us act or dream the story ? 
 
 WITHOUT good nature man is but a better kind of vermin. 
 
 EXTREME self -lovers will set a man's house on fire, though it 
 were but to roast their eggs. 
 
 BACQN.
 
 152 CLOUGH AND OTHERS 
 
 WHERE lies the land to which the ship would go ? 
 Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 
 And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
 Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 
 
 On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, 
 Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace ; 
 Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below 
 The foaming wake far widening as we go. 
 
 On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, 
 How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave ! 
 The dripping sailor on the reeling mast 
 Exults to hear, and scorns to wish it past. 
 
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go ? 
 Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 
 And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
 Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 
 
 A. H. CipUGH 
 (Songs in Absence) 
 
 The Ship is the ship of life. The first line is taken from Wordswoith's 
 sonnet, " Where lies the land to which yon Ship must go." 
 
 THE brooding East with awe beheld 
 Her impious younger world. 
 The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd, 
 And on her head was hurled. 
 
 The East bowed low before the blast 
 In patient, deep disdain ; 
 She let the legions thunder past, 
 And plunged in thought again. 
 
 M. ARNOLD 
 (Obermann Once More) 
 
 LEARN to win a lady's faith 
 
 Nobly as the thing is high, 
 Bravely as for life and death, 
 With a loyal gravity. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING 
 (The Lady's Yes).
 
 BRAY 153 
 
 THE; CORAI, REEF 
 
 IN my dreams I dreamt 
 
 Of a coral reef 
 Far away, far, far away, 
 Where seas were lulled and calm, 
 A place of silver sand. 
 
 Truly a lovely land, 
 
 Truly a lovely dream, 
 
 Truly a peaceful scene 
 When, like a flash, through all the sea 
 
 There shone a gleam. 
 Rising like Venus from her wat'ry bed 
 Rose a young mermaid with her hair unkempt, 
 Beautiful hair ! light as a golden leaf, 
 Shining like Phoebus at the break of day. 
 
 And she tossed and shook her lovely head, 
 Shook off drops more precious, far, than pearls. 
 
 To a coral rock she slowly went, 
 
 Slowly floated like a graceful swan ; 
 
 Combed her hair that hung in yellow curls 
 
 Till the evening shadows 'gan to fall ; 
 Then she gave one look round, that was all, 
 
 Rose and then, her figure curved, arms bent 
 Above her head a flash ! and she was gone ; 
 And ripples in wide circles rise and fall, 
 Spreading and spreading still, where she has been. 
 
 BETTY BRAY, January 1918. 
 Aged ii. 
 
 Se Note on page 155. 
 
 BENEATH MY WINDOW 
 
 BENEATH my window, roses red and white 
 Nod like a host of flitting butterflies ; 
 But, faded by the day, one ev'ry night 
 Shakes its soft petals to the ground, and dies. 
 And that is why I see, when night doth pass, 
 Tears in her sisters' eyes, and on the grass. 
 
 BETTY BRAY, 1920 
 Aged 1 3 .
 
 154 BRAY 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 THREE wondrous things there are upon the earth 
 Three gentle spirits, that I love full well, 
 Three glorious voices, which by far excel 
 Even the silver- throated Philomel. 
 
 For not in sound alone lies music's worth, 
 But rather in the feeling that it brings, 
 Whether of joy, or peace, or dreaminess 
 
 And when I hear the rain soft, softly beat, 
 Singing with low, sweet voice, and musical, 
 I think of all the tears that ever fell 
 In perfect happiness, or deep distress, 
 And so it brings a pang, half sad, half sweet, 
 Into my heart. 
 
 Then, when the sparkling rill 
 Dances between the sunny banks, and sings 
 For very joy, all dimpling with delight, 
 
 O all the happy laughter 'neath the sky 
 
 Rings sweet and clear, and makes the world more bright. 
 
 And, when the sun has sunk beneath the sea 
 And vanished from the glory of the west, 
 Tyeaving the peaceful eve to melt to night. 
 
 O then it is the loveliest voice of all, 
 
 The gentle night-wind softly sings to me, 
 
 Tender and low, as sweetest lullaby 
 
 As ever hushed a weary head to rest : 
 
 On, on it sings, until from drowsiness 
 
 My tired eyes softly close, and all is still. 
 
 BETTY BRAY. 1920 
 Aged 13.
 
 BRAY MIJVTOW 155 
 
 THE MARTYR 
 
 WHEN night fell softly on the silent city, 
 A little white moth thro' my window came 
 Out of the darkness and the shadows dim, 
 Seeking the brightness of my candle's flame. 
 Around and round the lighted wick he flew, 
 Winging his wonderful and curious flight ; 
 
 And near, and still more near, the circles grew 
 
 And then the flame no more was bright for him. 
 Then all my heart went out in sudden pity 
 To that small martyr, who had sought for light. 
 And found his death. O he was fair to die. 
 I rose and snuffed the candle with a sigh. 
 
 BETTY BRAY, September 26, 1920. 
 Aged 14 years. 
 
 These fresh, clear, spontaneous verses have a special value. They 
 bring us a promise of Spring the message that we may still hope for a 
 revival of English Poetry. 
 
 Therefore, I have included them (in this third edition) although they 
 are outside the general scope of my book. 
 
 Miss Betty Bray has been writing since she was seven years of age. 
 She writes with great facility and has already filled two manuscript books. 
 Her verses are entirely her own, no defects being pointed out or other 
 assistance or guidance given her. 
 
 She was born on June i ith, 1906. She is the daughter of Mr. Denys de 
 Saumarez Bray, C.S.I., and the grand-niece of my late partner the Hon. Sir 
 John Bray, K.C.M.G., who was Premier of South Australia. Her grand- 
 fathr was born in Adelaide. 
 
 THUS with the year 
 Seasons return ; but not to me returns 
 Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 
 Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rase, 
 Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 
 But cloud instead, and ever-during dark 
 Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
 Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair 
 Presented with a universal blank 
 Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd, 
 And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 
 
 MILTON 
 
 (Paradise Lost), 
 
 Milton refers to his blindness in this and other passages as in the well 
 known sonnet.
 
 156 PATMORE AND OTHERS 
 
 THE ATTAINMENT 
 
 YOU love ? That's high as you shall go ; 
 
 For 'tis as true as Gospel text, 
 Not noble then is never so, 
 
 Either in this world or the next. 
 
 COVENTRY PATMORE 
 (The Angel in the House). 
 
 FOR one fair Vision ever fled 
 
 Down the waste waters day and night, 
 And still we follow where she led, 
 
 In hope to gain upon her flight. 
 Her face was evermore unseen, 
 
 And fixt upon the far sea-line ; 
 But each man murmured, " O my Queen, 
 
 I follow till I make thee mine ! " 
 
 And now we lost her, now she gleamed 
 
 Like Fancy made of golden air, 
 Now nearer to the prow she seemed 
 
 Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge fair, 
 Now high on waves that idly burst 
 
 Like Heavenly Hope she crowned the sea, 
 And now, the bloodless point reversed, 
 
 She bore the blade of Liberty. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (The Voyage). 
 
 KING Stephen was a worthy peere, 
 
 His breeches cost him but a crowne ; 
 He held them sixpence all too deare 
 
 Therefore he called the taylor lowne, rascal 
 
 He was a wight of high renowne 
 
 And thouse but of a low degree, thou art 
 
 It's pride that putts the countrye downe, 
 
 Man, take thine old cloake about thee. 
 
 PERCY'S Rehques. 
 
 The poor man wants a new cloak, but his wife objects. 
 
 The verse is sung by lago (Othello, Act II., Sc. 3), the words being 
 a little different.
 
 BEDDOES BROWNING 157 
 
 LOVE'S LAST MESSAGES 
 
 MERRY, merry little stream, 
 
 Tell me, hast thou seen my dear ? 
 
 I left him with an azure dream, 
 Calmly sleeping on his bier 
 But he has fled ! 
 
 " I passed him in his churchyard bed 
 
 A yew is sighing o'er his head, 
 
 And grass-roots mingle with his hair." 
 
 What doth he there ? 
 O cruel, can he lie alone ? 
 Or in the arms of one more dear ? 
 Or hides he in that bower of stone, 
 
 To cause, and kiss away my fear .' 
 
 " He doth not speak, he doth not moan 
 
 Blind, motionless, he lies alone ; 
 
 But, ere the grave-snake fleshed his sting, 
 
 This one warm tear he bade me bring 
 And lay it at thy feet 
 Among the daisies sweet." 
 
 Moonlight whisperer, summer air, 
 
 Songster of the groves above, 
 Tell the maiden rose I wear 
 
 Whether thou hast seen my love. 
 
 " This night in heaven I saw him lie, 
 
 Discontented with his bliss ; 
 
 And on my lips he left this kiss, 
 For thee to taste and then to die." 
 
 T. Iv, BEDDOES (1803-1849). 
 
 Beddoes intended to destroy this poem, but it was published without 
 his knowledge. This is one of the cases where artists have shown themselves 
 incapable critics of their own work. 
 
 O EARTH so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men with wailing in your voices ! 
 O delved gold, the wailers heap ! 
 O strife, O curse that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all 
 And giveth His beloved sleep, 
 
 E. B. BROWNING 
 (The Sleep).
 
 1 5 8 EMERSON-SMITH 
 
 GIVE all to love ; 
 
 Obey thy heart; 
 
 Friends, kindred, days, 
 
 Estate, good-fame. 
 
 Plans, credit, and the Muse, 
 
 Nothing refuse. 
 
 Cling with life to the maid ; 
 
 But when the surprise, 
 
 First vague shadow of surmise 
 
 Flits across her bosom young 
 
 Of a joy apart from thee, 
 
 Free be she, fancy-free ; 
 
 Nor thou detain her vesture's hem 
 
 Nor the palest rose she flung 
 
 From her summer diadem. 
 
 Though thou loved her as thyself, 
 As a self of purer clay, 
 Though her parting dims the day, 
 Stealing grace from all alive ; 
 Heartily know, 
 When half-gods go 
 The gods arrive. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON 
 (Give all to Love) . 
 
 ON Dreamthorp centuries have fallen, and have left no more 
 trace than have last winter's snowflakes. This commonplace 
 sequence and flowing on of life is immeasurably affecting. That 
 winter morning when Charles lost his head in front of the 
 banqueting-hall of his own palace, the icicles hung from the eaves 
 of the houses here, and the clown kicked the snowballs from his 
 clouted shoon, and thought but of his supper when, at three 
 
 o'clock, the red sun set in the purple mist Battles 
 
 have been fought, kings have died, history has transacted itself ; 
 but, all unheeding and untouched, Dreamthorp has watched 
 apples-trees redden, and wheat ripen, and smoked its pipe, 
 and quaffed its mug of beer, and rejoiced over its newborn children, 
 and with proper solemnity carried its dead to the churchyard. 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH 
 (Dreamthorp).
 
 SIDNEY AND OTHERS 159 
 
 O MOON, tell me, 
 
 Is constant love deemed there but want of wit ? 
 Are beauties there as proud as here they be ? 
 Do they above love to be loved, and yet 
 Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess ? 
 Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ? 
 
 SIR P. SIDNEY. 
 
 " Do they call ungratefulness a virtue ? " 
 
 QUIXOTISM, or Utopianism : that is another of the devil's pet 
 words. I believe the quiet admission which we are all of us 
 so ready to make, that, because things have long been wrong, 
 it is impossible they should ever be right, is one of the most 
 fatal sources of misery and crime from which this world suffers. 
 Whenever you hear a man dissiiading you from attempting 
 to do well, on the ground that perfection is " Utopian," beware 
 ot that man. Cast the word out of your dictionary altogether. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 (Lectures on Architecture and Painting). 
 
 TWO angels guide 
 
 The path of man, both aged and yet young, 
 As angels are, ripening through endless years. 
 On one he leans : some call her Memory, 
 And some Tradition ; and her voice is sweet, 
 With deep mysterious accord : the other, 
 Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams 
 A light divine and searching on the earth, 
 Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, 
 Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew 
 Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp 
 Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked 
 But for Tradition ; we walk evermore 
 To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 (Spanish Gypsy). 
 
 COI/ERIDGE, I have not one truly elevated character among 
 my acquaintance : not one Christian : not one but undervalues 
 Christianity singly, what am I to do ? Wesley (have you read 
 his life ? ) was he not an elevated character ? Wesley has said 
 " Religion is not a solitary thing." Alas ! it necessarily is so 
 with me, or next to solitary. 
 
 CHARIES LAMB (1775-1834) 
 (Letter to S. T. Coleridge, Jan. 10, 1797).
 
 i6o KEATS AND OTHERS 
 
 Poor lovable Charles Lamb ! When he wrote this he was only twenty- 
 one years of age, he had already been himself confined in an asylum, and 
 now his sister in a moment of madness had killed her mother. When after- 
 wards he was allowed to take care of Mary, he had still to take her back to the 
 asylum from time to time, as a fresh attack of mania began to manifest 
 itself. The picture of the weeping brother and sister on their way to the 
 asylum is dreadfully sad. The passage seems interesting because of Lamb's 
 reference to Wesley. 
 
 BL/ISSFULI/Y haven'd both from joy and pain : 
 Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain : 
 As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. 
 
 KEATS 
 (The Eve of St. Agnes). 
 
 Madeline is lying asleep in bed but the last line could be used in quite 
 another sense as prettily expressing rejuvenation. 
 
 BENEATH the moonlight and the snow 
 
 Lies dead my latest year ; 
 The winter winds are wailing low 
 
 Its dirges in my ear. 
 
 I grieve not with the moaning wind 
 As if a loss befell ; 
 
 Before me, even as behind, 
 God is, and all is well ! 
 
 J. G. WHITHER 
 (My Birthday). 
 
 IF on my theme I rightly think, 
 There are five reasons why men drink : 
 Good wine ; a friend ; or being dry ; 
 Or lest we should be by and by ; 
 Or any other reason why. 
 
 HENRY AI.DRICH (1647-1710). 
 
 Autres temps, autres moeurs^ ! Aldrich was Dean of Christ Church, 
 Oxford, when he wrote these lines. 
 
 INSCRIPTION FOR A BUST OF CUPID 
 
 QUI que tu sois, voici ton maitre ; 
 
 II 1'est, le fut, ou le doit etre. 
 
 (Whatso'er thou art, thy master see I 
 He was, or is, or is to be.) 
 
 VOLTAIRE.
 
 ROSSETTI AND OTHERS i6r 
 
 UP-HII,L 
 
 DOES the road wind up-hill all the way ? 
 
 Yes, to the very end. 
 Will the day's journey take the whole long day ? 
 
 From morn to night, my friend. 
 
 But is there for the night a resting-place ? 
 
 A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 
 May not the darkness hide it from my face ? 
 
 You cannot miss that inn. 
 
 Shall I meet other wayfarers at night ? 
 
 Those who have gone before. 
 Then must I knock, or call when just in sight ? 
 
 They will not keep you standing at that door. 
 
 Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak ? 
 
 Of labour you shall find the sum* 
 Will there be beds for me and all who seek ? 
 
 Yea, beds for all who come. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 A PEBBLE in the streamlet scant 
 Has turned the course of many a river, 
 
 A dewdrop in the baby plant 
 Has warped the giant oak for ever. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 BUT now he walks the streets, 
 And he looks at all he meets 
 
 Sad and wan, 
 
 And he shakes his feeble head, 
 That it seems as if he said, 
 
 " They are gone." 
 
 The mossy marbles rest 
 On the Hps that he has prest 
 
 In their bloom, 
 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 
 On the tomb. 
 
 The "Summit," completion or end. 
 
 11
 
 162 HOLMES AND OTHERS 
 
 My grandmamma has said 
 Poor old lady, she is dead 
 
 Long ago, 
 
 That he had a Roman nose, 
 And his cheek was like a rose 
 
 In the snow. 
 
 But now his nose is thin. 
 And it rests upon his chin 
 
 Like a staff. 
 
 And a crook is in his back, 
 And a melancholy crack 
 In his laugh. . . . 
 
 (). W. HOLMES 
 
 (The Last Lea/} 
 
 " BEAUTY is truth, truth beauty," that is all 
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know ! 
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 (Ode on a Grecian Urn). 
 
 Matthew Arnold says of this : " No, it is not all ; but it is true, deeply 
 
 true, and we have deep need to know it To see things in their 
 
 beauty is to see things in their truth, and Keats knew it. ' What the 
 Imagination seizes on as Beauty must be Truth,' he says in prose." 
 
 WERE it not sadder, in the years to come, 
 To feel the hand-clasp slacken for long use, 
 The untuned heart-strings for long stress refuse 
 
 To yield old harmonies, the songs grow dumb 
 For weariness, and all the old spells lose 
 
 The first enchantment ? Yet this they must be : 
 
 Love is but mortal, save in memory. 
 
 JOHN PAYNE 
 (A Farewell], 
 
 AUX coeurs blesses 1'ombre et le silence. 
 
 (For the wounded heart shade and silence.) 
 
 BALZAC. 
 (Le Medecin de Campagne).
 
 KNIGHT- -PAYNE 163 
 
 THE huge mass of black crags that towered at the head of the 
 gloomy defile was exactly what one would picture as the enchanted 
 castle of the evil magician, within sight of which all vegetation 
 withered, looking from over the desolate valley of ruins to the 
 barren shore strewed with its sad wreckage, and the wild ocean 
 beyond 
 
 The land-crabs certainly looked their part of goblin guardians 
 of the approaches to the wicked magician's fastness. They were 
 fearful as the firelight fell on their yellow cynical faces, fixed 
 as that of the sphinx, but fixed in a horrid grin. Those who have 
 observed this foulest species of crab will know my meaning. 
 Smelling the fish we were cooking they came down the mountains 
 in thousands upon us. We threw them lumps of fish, which they 
 devoured with crab-like slowness, yet perseverance. 
 
 It is a ghastly sight, a land-crab at his dinner. A huge beast 
 was standing a yard from me ; I gave him a portion of fish, and 
 watched him. He looked at me straight in the face with his 
 outstarting eyes, and proceeded with his two front claws to tear 
 up his food, bringing bits of it to his mouth with one claw, as with 
 a fork. But all this while he never looked at what he was doing ; 
 his face was fixed in one position, staring at me. And when 
 I looked around, lo ! there were half a dozen others all steadily 
 feeding, but with immovable heads turned to me with that fixed 
 basilisk stare. It was indeed horrible, and the effect was night- 
 marish in the extreme. While we slept that night they attacked 
 us, and would certainly have devoured us, had we not awoke ; 
 and did eat holes in our clothes. One of us had to keep watch, 
 so as to drive them from the other two, otherwise we should have 
 had no sleep. 
 
 Imagine a sailor cast alone on this coast, weary, yet unable to 
 sleep a moment on account of these ferocious creatures. After a 
 few days of an existence full of horror he would die raving mad, 
 and then be consumed in an hour by his foes. In all Dante's 
 Inferno there is no more horrible a suggestion of punishment 
 than this. 
 
 E. F. KNIGHT 
 (The Cruise of the " Falcon "). 
 
 The scene is in the Island of Trinidad, off the coast of Brazil. 
 
 .... NOR the end of love is sure, 
 (Alas ! how much less sure than anything ! ) 
 Whether the little love-light shall endure 
 In the clear eyes of her we loved in Spring.
 
 164 PAYNE AND OTHERS 
 
 Or if the faint flowers of remembering 
 
 Shall blow, we know not : only this we know, 
 Afar Death comes with silent steps and slow. 
 
 JOHN PAYNE 
 (SaJvesitra). 
 
 THE stars of midnight shall be dear 
 
 To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
 
 In many a secret place 
 
 Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 
 And beauty born of murrmiring sound 
 
 Shall pass into her face. 
 
 W. WORDSWORTH 
 
 (Three Years She Creiv}. 
 
 AS the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely 
 things are also necessary : the wild flower by the wayside, as well 
 as the tended com ; and the wild birds and creatures of the 
 forest, as well as the tended cattle : because man doth not live by 
 bread alone, but also by the desert manna ; by every wondrous 
 word and unknowable work of God. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIX. 
 
 AI/AS ! the long gray years have vanquished me, 
 
 The shadow of the inexorable days ! 
 I am grown sad and silent : for the sea 
 
 Of Time has swallowed all my pleasant ways. 
 I am grown weary of the years that flee 
 And bring no light to set my bound hope free, 
 
 No sun to fill the promise of old Mays. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACKD. 
 
 LOVE 
 
 Get egoisme a deux. 
 
 DE STAEI,.
 
 IRVING JAMES 165 
 
 IT is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and 
 enmity of three. 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 I CONFESS that I do not see why the very existence of an in- 
 visible world may not in part depend on the personal response 
 which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God him- 
 self, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being 
 from our fidelity. For my own part, I do not know what the sweat 
 and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything 
 short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something 
 is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better 
 than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw 
 at will. But it feels like a real fight, as if there were something 
 really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and 
 f aithf ulnesses, are needed to redeem ; and first of all to redeem our 
 own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half -wild, 
 half -saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in 
 our nature is this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell 
 alone with our willingnesses and tuiwillingnesses, our faiths 
 and fears. ... In these depths of personality the sources of 
 all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise. Here is our 
 deepest organ of communication with the nature of things ; and 
 compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract 
 statements and scientific arguments the veto, for example, 
 which the strict positivist pronounces \\pon our faith sound to 
 us like mere chatterings of the teeth. 
 
 WIW.IAM JAMES 
 (Is Life Worth Living?}. 
 
 (Mr. T. R. Glover in The Jesus of History points put that when Christ 
 said " Ye are they that have continued with me in my temptations " 
 (Luke xxii, 26), He meant that the disciples had helped Him by their 
 fidelity.) 
 
 The following is from Professor Hobhouse's Questions of War and 
 Peace, repeating what he had set out at length in his Development and 
 Purpose (I take the quotation from The Spectator review, as the book 
 is not yet procurable in Australia) : 
 
 " I think, therefore, that we must go back into ourselves for faith, and 
 away from ourselves into the world for reason. The deeper we go into our- 
 selves the more we throw off forms and find the assurance not only that the 
 great things exist, but that they are the heart of our lives, and, since after 
 all we are of one stock, they must be at the heart of your lives as well as mine. 
 You say there are bad men and wars and cruelties and wrong, I say all
 
 166 THOMSON AND OTHERS 
 
 these are the collision of undeveloped forms. What is the German suffering 
 from but a great illusion that the State is something more than man, and 
 that power is more than justice ? Strip him of this and he is a man like your- 
 self, pouring out his blood for the cause that he loves, and that you and I 
 detest. Probe inwards, then, and you find the same spring of life everywhere 
 and it is good. Look outwards, and you find, as you yourself admit the 
 slow movement towards a harmony which just means that these impulses 
 of primeval energy come, so to say, to understand one another. Every 
 form they take as they grow will provoke conflict, perish, and be cast aside 
 until the whole unites, and there you have the secret of your successive 
 efforts and failures which yet leave something behind them. God is not the 
 creator who made the world in six days, rested on the seventh and saw 
 that it was good. He is growing in the actual evolution of the world." 
 
 AND since (man) cannot spend and use aright 
 
 The little time here given him in trust, 
 But wasteth it in weary undelight 
 
 Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust. 
 He naturally claimeth to inherit 
 The everlasting Future, that his merit 
 
 May have full scope ; as surely is most just. 
 
 JAMBS THOMSON 
 (The City of Dreadful Night.) 
 
 THE moving waters at their priest-like task 
 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores. 
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 (His Last Sonnet, 1820). 
 
 WITH sweet May dews my wings were wet, 
 
 And Phoebus fired my vocal rage : 
 Love caught me in his silken net, 
 
 And shut me in his golden cage. 
 
 He loves to sit and hear me sing. 
 
 Then, laughing, sports and plays with me ; 
 Then stretches out my golden wing, 
 And mocks mv loss of liberty. 
 
 W. P,I,AKE 
 
 (Song). 
 
 This poem was written before Blake was Jonrtcen years of age
 
 vSHAKESPEARK AND OTHERS 167 
 
 WHEN the fight was done, 
 When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, 
 Breathless and faint, leaning upon ray sword, 
 Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, 
 
 Fresh as a bridegroom 
 
 He was perfumed like a milliner ; 
 
 And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held 
 
 A pouncet-box. And still he smiled and talked ; 
 
 And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, 
 
 He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly, 
 
 To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 
 
 Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 (i Henry IV.. 1.3). 
 
 . . . HIGH-KILTED perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw 
 
 them, 
 Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, 
 
 above them 
 Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that 
 
 they trod in the wash-tub ! 
 
 ... IN a blue cotton print tucked up over striped lin- 
 sey-woolsey, 
 Barefoot, barelegged he beheld her, with anus bare 
 
 up to the elbows, 
 
 Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uproot- 
 ing potatoes ! 
 
 A. H. Ci.OUGir 
 (The Bothie of Tober-na Vuolich). 
 
 AS I came through the desert thus it was, 
 As I came through the desert : Eyes of fire 
 Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire ; 
 The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath 
 Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death ; 
 Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold 
 Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold : 
 
 But I strode on austere ; 
 
 No hope could have no fear. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON 
 (The City of Dreadful Itight). 
 
 The five quotations above are from a series of word-pictures (seepp. 85).
 
 168 WILLIAMSON 
 
 SHE COMES AS COMES THE SUMMER NIGHT 
 
 SHE comes as comes the summer night, 
 
 Violet, perfumed, clad with stars, 
 To heal the eyes hurt by the light 
 
 Flung by Day's brandish'd scimitars. 
 The parted crimson of her lips 
 
 Like sunset clouds that slowly die 
 When twilight with cool finger-tips 
 
 Unbraids her tresses in the sky. 
 
 The melody of waterfalls 
 
 Is in the music of her tongue, 
 Low chanted in dim forest halls 
 
 Ere Dawn's loud bugle-call has rung. 
 And as a bird with hovering wings 
 
 Halts o'er her young one in the nest, 
 Then droops to still his flutterings, 
 
 She takes me to her fragrant breast. 
 
 O star and bird at once thou art, 
 
 And Night, with purple-petall'd charm, 
 Shining and singing to my heart, 
 
 And soothing with a dewy calm. 
 Let Death assume this lovely guise, 
 
 So darkly beautiful and sweet, 
 And, gazing with those starry eyes, 
 
 Lead far away my weary feet. 
 
 And that strange sense of valleys fair 
 
 With birds and rivers making song 
 To lull the blossoms gleaming there, 
 
 Be with me as I pass along. 
 Ah ! lovely sisters, Night and Death, 
 
 And lovelier Woman wondrous three, 
 " Givers of Life," my spirit saith, 
 
 Unfolders of the mystery. 
 
 Ah ! only Love could teach me this, 
 
 In mentioned springtime long since flown ; 
 Red lips that trembled to my kiss, 
 
 That sighed farewell., and left me lone. 
 O Joy and Sorrow intertwined, 
 
 A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears, 
 Yet ever after in the wind, 
 
 The bird-like music of the spheres ! 
 
 FRANK S. WIW.IAMSON. 
 
 This is from the author's " Purple and Gold," a book of poems pub- 
 lished in Melbourne (Thomas C. Lothian, publisher).
 
 MACDONALD- BROWN 169 
 
 NO indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much 
 3 respectable selfishness. 
 
 G. MACDONAD 
 
 (Robert Falconer). 
 
 WHEN LOVE MEETS LOVE 
 
 WHEN love meets love, breast urged to breast, 
 
 God interposes, 
 An unacknowledged guest, 
 
 And leaves a little child among our roses. 
 
 O, gentle hap ! 
 
 O, sacred lap ! 
 
 O, brooding dove ! 
 
 But when he grows 
 
 Himself to be a rose, 
 
 God takes him Where is then our love ? 
 
 O, where is all our love ? 
 
 BETWEEN OUR FOLDING LIPS 
 
 BETWEEN our folding lips 
 
 God slips 
 
 An embryon life, and goes ; 
 
 And this becomes your rose. 
 
 We love, God makes : in our sweet mirth 
 
 God spies occasion for a birth. 
 
 Then is it His, or is it ours ? 
 
 I know not He is fond of flowers. 
 
 T. E. BROWN. 
 
 Compare the well-known lines by George MacDonald : 
 
 Where did you come from, baby dear ? 
 Out of the everywhere into here. . . . 
 
 How did they all* just come to be you ? 
 God thought about me, and so I grew. 
 
 The eyes, smile, etc., referred to in the intermediate verses.
 
 i/o ELIOT AND OTHER S 
 
 The suggestion that we are the result of God's thought appears else- 
 where in MacDonald, as in Robert Falconer : 
 
 If God were thinking me ah ! But if He be only dreaming 
 me, I shall go mad. 
 
 And in The Marquis of Losste. 
 
 I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be 
 when He thought of you first. 
 
 ^ SOME tilings are of that Nature as to make One's fancy 
 l\ checkle, while his Heart doth ake. | 
 
 JOHN BUN VAN. 
 
 \ 
 
 Checkle = chuckle. 
 
 MY days are in the yellow leaf ; 
 
 The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; 
 The worm, the canker, and the grief 
 Are mine alone ! 
 
 LORD BYRON 
 (On my Thirty-sixth Year}. 
 
 'TIS a very good world to live in, 
 To spend, and to lend, and to give in ; 
 But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own 
 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known. 
 
 J. BROMFIE^D. 
 
 Often ascribed to the Earl of Rochester. See Notes and Queries 
 July 18, 1896. 
 
 DEAD years have yet the fire 01 life 
 
 In Memory's holy urn ; 
 Her altars, heaped with frankincense 
 
 Of bygone summers, burn ; 
 And, when in everlasting night 
 
 We see yon sun decline, 
 Deep in the soul his purple flames 
 
 Eternally will shine. 
 
 ALBERT JOSEPH EDMUNDS (b. 1857) 
 (The Living Past).
 
 EDMUNDS 171 
 
 Mr. Edmunds, when this was written in 1880, was a young English 
 poet and spiritualist, but has since settled in Philadelphia. He has written 
 a number of works, the principal being Buddhist and Christian Gospels 
 now First Compared from the Originals. 
 
 In 1883 he was cataloguing a library at Sunderland, and came across 
 books on the Alps, etc., by a Rev. Leslie Stephen. He wrote to the pub- 
 lishers to find out if they were by the same writer as the Leslie Stephen 
 who had written on Ethics. Sir (then Mr.) Leslie Stephen had just been 
 appointed Clark Lecturer at Cambridge. He replied to Edmunds, " I am 
 one person," adding that he had given up holy orders. Edmunds replied : 
 
 To Mr. Leslie Stephen, Sir, 
 
 Confound your personality ; 
 I did, and now must here, aver 
 
 Belief was not reality. 
 
 I hope my slip may be excused, 
 
 And doom this time decided not, 
 For, though the persons I confused, 
 
 Your substance I divided not. 
 
 Now thanks to you, my mind's relieved 
 
 From mystified plurality, 
 For, in your courteous note received, 
 
 You've unified duality. 
 
 Your Alpine thoughts will elevate 
 
 Old Cantab' s flat vicinity, 
 And give her church another state 
 
 By unifying Trinity \ 
 
 You've left, you say, the fold of strife, 
 Where desperate charges never end ; 
 
 Not handsome living^ handsome life 
 Henceforth will make you reverend. 
 
 I'm Edmunds, Millfield, Sutherland, 
 
 Where souls in sulphur barter, sir ; 
 But, please excuse an ending grand 
 
 My name to rhyme's a Tartar, sir. 
 
 SPIRITUAL-ISM 
 
 ONLY a rising billow, 
 
 Only a deep sigh drawn 
 By the great sea of chaos 
 
 Before Creation's dawn. 
 
 Only a little princess 
 
 Spelling the words of kings ; 
 
 Only the Godhead's prattle 
 In Sinai mutterings !
 
 1 72 EDMUNDS AND OTHERS 
 
 The crowd mistakes and fears it, 
 
 And Aaron has ignored, 
 But Moses, far above them, 
 
 Is talking with the Lord ! 
 
 ALBERT JOSEPH KDMUXDS. 
 
 See note to previous quotation. This poem was written in 1883. 
 
 Although I preserved these verses, I may add that I had no interest 
 whatever in spiritualism, permeated as it was with childishness and fraud. 
 But, nevertheless, it (together with the so-called " Theosophy ") led to the 
 happy result that the Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. 
 Although spiritualism did good in this way, its unhappy associations do 
 harm to the Society and hamper it in the important work it has carried 
 on during the last thirty-eight years. Popular prejudice continues to 
 associate it witfrthe old spiritualism, and in consequence no proper attention 
 is paid to its intensely interesting and most valuable investigations. For 
 example, there are, apart from Public Libraries and Universities, only 
 six members or associates in the whole of Australia ! And yet, beside? 
 important work in other directions, it must be admitted by any open- 
 minded person that the evidence collected by the Society that the dead 
 (by telepathy or otherwise) communicate with the living is unanswerable. 
 
 HE had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to 
 wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed. 
 
 THOMAS FUU,ER. 
 
 This refers to the French proverb, " // nt fautpas venire la pcau de 
 V ours <want de T avoir tue," or, as we say, "Do not count your chickens 
 before they are hatched." 
 
 HABIT dulls the senses and puts the critical faculty to sleep. 
 The fierceness and hardness of ancient manners is apparent 
 to us, but the ancients themselves were not shocked by sights 
 which were familiar to them. To us it is sickening to think 
 of the gladiatorial show, of the massacres common in Roman 
 warfare, of the infanticide practised by grave and respectable 
 citizens, who did not merely condemn their children to death, 
 but often in practice, as they well knew, to what was still worse 
 a life of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded a 
 gladiatorial show as we regard a hunt ; the news ot the slaughter 
 of two hundred thousand Helvetians by Caesar or half a million 
 Jews by Titus excited in his mind a thrill of triumph ; infanticide 
 committed by a friend appeared to him a prudent measure of 
 household economy. 
 
 SIR J. R. SEP;LEY 
 (Ecce Homo).
 
 173 
 
 It is still more important to realize that the exposure of children was 
 a recognized practice also among the Greeks, and that no one, not even 
 Plato, their noblest philosopher, saw anything wrong in it. It is only 
 by letting the mind dwell on such facts as these, until their significance 
 is fully appreciated, that we can realize the width and depth of the great 
 gulf that separates the Pagan and the Christian, the ancient and the modern 
 world. Take this one fact only : imagine the Greek father looking at his 
 helpless babe and coldly deciding that to rear it will be inconvenient,* 
 or that there are already enough children to divide the inheritance, or 
 that the child is sickly or deformed, or that its person offends his idea of 
 beauty and then consigning his own offspring to slavery, prostitution, 
 or death ! (The child would either die or be picked up to be reared for 
 some such purpose.) Even in the very imperfect state of our own civiliza- 
 tion, we at least have children's hospitals and creches, and are inflamed 
 with righteous rage when even an unknown baby is ill-treated. (We, 
 indeed, go further, and have laws and societies for prevention of cruelty 
 to animals.} 
 
 The consideration of such a fact leads us also to inquire as to the 
 relations of husband and wife, seeing that the woman would have at least 
 the affection for her offspring that is common among the lower animals. 
 We then find that the modern chivalrous idea of womanhood was unknown 
 to the Greeks ; the wife was not educated, and was considered an inferior 
 being ; she was married mainly in order to provide sons to carry out certain 
 ritual observances necessary for the father's welfare after death ; she 
 was kept in an almost Eastern seclusion (and therefore had to improve 
 her pallid complexion by paint) ; she would associate mainly with the 
 children and slaves. We also find that fidelity of the husband to the wife 
 was neither required nor esteemed ; and that there was little marital love 
 or family life. (Plato in his model Republic would abolish both the latter, 
 for there was to be promiscuity of women, and all children were to be brought 
 up by the State.) 
 
 Considering further this practice of exposing children, we realize 
 that it indicates the want of pity for the helpless and suffering, which is 
 seen among the lower animals (but with exceptions even among them). 
 From this we may reasonably infer that the Greeks would show little 
 humanity in treating other helpless or suffering people, the sick or distressed, 
 dependents or slaves, conquered enemies or others in their power. (In 
 this respect, however, they, as an intellectual people, would subject them- 
 selves to and be controlled by necessary social laws and practical considera- 
 tions ; and also, as a fact, they at times showed generosity to a valiant 
 foe.) Again we can infer that, where even the spirit of mercy was so 
 wanting, the gospel of love could not possibly exist, and that the Greeks 
 lived on a far lower moral plane than ours. These questions are far too 
 large to discuss in this book, and I must leave them to be dealt with else- 
 where. 
 
 But, even from this very small portion of the available evidence, we 
 can arrive at three resulting facts : First, that when in translations from 
 the Greek we find such words as " kindness," " love," " morality," " purity," 
 
 No doubt one reason would be that given by the Australian black woman lor 
 leaving her baby in the bush, " him too much cry." The Greeks had numerous slaves, 
 and were fond of comfort ; and their houses were, of course, small and cramped compared 
 with our own.
 
 174 PROWSE 
 
 " virtue," " religion," ttc., they have for us a far larger and higher content 
 than the Greek words in the original ; secondly, that therefore, the reader 
 must get incorrect impressions of Greek literature and thought ; and, 
 thirdly, that truly marvellous as the Greeks were in art and literature, the 
 current conception of them as a noble-minded and refined people is erroneous. 
 
 Kina-neariea, oiners wouia nave anecuon lor ineir wives, ana so on. rui t 
 only be assumption, for there is little in their literature to support it. This will 
 if the evidence adduced by Mr. Livingstone (" The Greek Genius," pp. 117-122) 
 fully and critically examined. (His references to Homer, who lived in a far dist 
 
 In referring to the Greeks, one needs to limit the people and period, and I am referring 
 to the great age of the Attic or Athenian Greeks, say the Fifth Century, B.C. There 
 would, of course, be gradations of character among them, and, no doubt, some would be 
 kind-hearted, others would have affection for their wives, and so on._ But this can 
 
 " " i will be seen 
 z) is care- 
 stant age 
 
 must be omitted.) Also the fact that Herodotus, in the course of his narrative, tells us 
 that some men of another state had a moment of compassion for a baby whom they were 
 about to slay, does not prove in the slightest degree that he was himself humane. The 
 wording of Mr. Livingstone's translation, p. 118, " It happened by a divine chance that 
 the baby smiled, etc.," would appear to confirm this view of his ; but the Greek words 
 simply mean that a god by chance intervened. Knowing what we do of the Greek gods, 
 that intervention would certainly not be actuated by any kindly feeling towards the 
 infant the object presumably was that the child should live to fulfil the destiny pro- 
 phesied by the Delphic Oracle. (Herodotus was a typical Greek to whom the world was 
 peopled with gods, and he sees them constantly interposing in human affairs.) As regards 
 the exposure of children, the point is that it was a recognized and common practice, duly 
 sanctioned by law, and never condemned by any writer. Indeed Plato and Aristotle definitely 
 approve of it, and in Plato's Ideal Republic the weakly and deformed children were to 
 be killed by the State 
 
 As regards the current conception of the Greeks, Shelley in his Preface to Hellas ' 
 describes them as " those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure 
 to itself as belonging to our kind." Similar statements could be gathered from inmimer- 
 *ble English and European writers. 
 
 THE PACE THAT KILLS 
 
 THE gallop of life was once exciting, 
 
 Madly we dashed over pleasant plains, 
 And the joy, like the joy of a brave man fighting, 
 
 Poured in a flood through our eager veins, 
 Hot youth is the time for the splendid ardour. 
 
 That stamps and startles, that throbs and thrills 
 And ever we pressed our horses harder, 
 
 Galloping on at the pace that kills ! 
 
 So rapid the pace, so keen the pleasure, 
 
 Scarcely we paused to glance aside, 
 As we mocked the dullards, who watched at leisure 
 
 The frantic race that we chose to ride. 
 Yes, youth is the time when a master-passion, 
 
 Or love or ambition, our nature fills ; 
 And each of us rode in a different fashion 
 
 All of us rode at the pace that kills !
 
 PROWSE PlyUTARCH 1 7 5 
 
 And vainly, O friends, ye strive to bind us ; 
 
 Flippantly, gaily, we answer you : 
 " Should atra cura* jump up behind us, 
 
 Strong are our steeds and can carry two ! " 
 But we find the road, so smooth at morning, 
 
 Rugged at night 'mid the lonely hills ; 
 And all too late we recall the warning 
 
 Weary at last of the pace that kills 
 
 The gallop of life was just beginning ; 
 
 Strength we wasted in efforts vain ; 
 And now, when the prizes are worth the winning, 
 
 We've scarcely the spirit to ride again ! 
 The spirit, forsooth ! 'Tis our strength has failed us, 
 
 And sadly we ask, as we count our ills, 
 " What pitiful, pestilent folly ailed us ? 
 
 Why did we ride at the pace that kills ? " 
 
 W. J. PROWSK. 
 
 CATO said ' he had rather people should inquire why he had not 
 a statue erected to his memory, than why he had.' 
 
 PLUTARCH 
 
 (Political Precepts). 
 
 CHAMOUNI AND RYDAL. 
 
 I STOOD one shining morning, where 
 The last pines stand on Montanvert, 
 G a/.ing on giant spires that grow 
 From the great frozen gulfs below. 
 
 How sheer they soared, how pieicing rose 
 Above the mists, beyond the snows ! 
 No thinnest veil of vapour hid 
 Each sharp and airy pyramid. 
 
 No breeze moaned there, nor cooing bird, 
 Deep down the torrent raved, unheard, 
 Only the cow-bells' clang, subdued, 
 Shook in the fields below the wood. 
 
 Black care, Horace, Od. 3, i, 40.
 
 1 76 TRUMAN 
 
 The vision vast, the lone large sky, 
 The kingly charm of mountains high, 
 The boundless silence, woke in me 
 Abstraction, reverence, reverie. 
 
 Days dawned that felt as wide away 
 As the far peaks of silvery grey, 
 Life's lost ideal, love's last pain 
 In those full moments throbbed again. 
 
 And a much differing scene was born 
 In my mind's eye on that blue morn ; 
 No splintered snowy summits there 
 Shot arrowy heights in crystal air : 
 
 But a calm sunset slanted still 
 O'er hoary crag and heath -flushed hill, 
 And at their foot, by birchen brake 
 Dimpled and smiled an English lake. 
 
 I roamed where I had roamed before 
 
 With heart elate in years of yore, 
 
 Through the green glens by Rotha side, 
 
 Which Arnold loved, where Wordsworth died. 
 
 That flower of heaven, eve's tender star, 
 Trembled with light above Nab Scar ; 
 And from his towering throne aloft 
 Fairfield poured purple shadows soft. 
 
 The tapers twinkled through the trees 
 From Rydal's bower-bound cottages, 
 And gentle was the river's flow, 
 Like love's own quivering whisper low. 
 
 One held my arm will walk no more 
 On Loughrigg steeps by Rydall shore. 
 And a sweet voice was speaking clear 
 Earth had no other sound so dear. 
 
 Her words were, as we passed along, 
 Of noble sons of truth and song 
 Of Arnold brave, and Wordsworth pure. 
 And how their influences endure.
 
 TRUMAN 177 
 
 " They have not left us are not dead " 
 (The earnest voice beside me said,) 
 ' ' For teacher strong and poet sage 
 Are deeply working in the age. 
 
 " For aught we know they now may brood 
 O'er this enchanted solitude. 
 With thought and feeling more intense 
 Than we in the blind life of sense." .... 
 
 Those tones are hushed, that light is cold, 
 And we (but not the world) grow old ; 
 The joy, " the bloom of young desire," 
 The zest, the force, the strenuous fire, 
 
 Enthusiasms bright, sublime, 
 That heaven-like made that early time : 
 These all are gone : must faith go too ? 
 Is truth too lovely to be tnie ? 
 
 In nature dwells no kindling soul ? 
 Moves no vast life throughout the whole ? 
 Are riot thought, knowledge, love's sweet might. 
 Shadows of substance infinite ? 
 
 Shall rippling river, bow of rain, 
 Blue mountains, and the bluer main. 
 Red dawn, gold sundown, pearly star 
 Be fair, nor something fairer far ? 
 
 That awful hope, so deep, that swells 
 At the keen clash of Easter bells 
 Is it a waning moon, that dies 
 As morn-like lights of science rise ? 
 
 Bv all that yearns in art and song, 
 
 By the vague dreams that make men strong, 
 
 By memory's penance, by the glow 
 
 Of lifted mood poetic, No ! 
 
 No ! by the stately forms that stand 
 I,ike angels in yon snowy land ; 
 No ! by v the stars that, pure and pale, 
 Look down each night on Rydal-vale. 
 
 J. TRUMAN. 
 12
 
 178 BACON AND OTHERS 
 
 Wordsworth lived at Rydal Mount. These verses were published 
 in Macmdlan's, 1879. 
 
 " Nor something fairer far." In Sir F. Younghusband's Kashmir 
 (1911) there is another suggestion, supplementary to this: "There came 
 upon me this thought, which doubtless has occurred to many another 
 besides myself why the scene should so influence me and yet make no 
 impression on the men about me. Here were men with far keener eyesight 
 
 than my own, and around me were animals with eyesight keener still 
 
 Clearly it is not the eye, but the soul that sees. But then comes the still 
 furthe'r reflection : what may there not be staring me straight in the face 
 which I am as blind to as the Kashmir stags are to the beauties amidst 
 which they spend their entire lives ? The whole panorama may be vibrating 
 with beauties man has not yet the soul to see. Some already living, no 
 doubt, see beauties that we ordinary men cannot appreciate. It is only a 
 century ago that mountains were looked upon as hideous. And in the long 
 centuries to come may we not develop a soul for beauties unthought of 
 now ? Undoubtedly we must. And often in reverie on the mountains 
 I have tried to imagine what still further loveliness they may yet possess 
 for men." 
 
 HE that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded 
 in hot blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt ; and therefore 
 a mind, fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth best 
 avert the dolours of death. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 UNDERNEATH this stone doth lie 
 As much beauty as could die ; 
 Which in life did harbour give 
 To more virtue than doth five. 
 
 BEN JONSON 
 (Epigram CXXIV). 
 
 As Dr. Johnson said : " In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon 
 oath." 
 
 " EN Angleterre," said a cynical Dutch diplomatist, " numero 
 deux va chez numero un, pour s'en glorifier aupres de numero 
 trois." 
 
 (In England, Number Two goes to Number One's house in order to 
 boast about it to Number Three.) 
 
 IvAURENCE OWPHANT 
 
 (Piccadilly).
 
 MACDONALD LOCKE 179 
 
 LORD Jesus Clirist, I know not how 
 
 With this blue air, blue sea, 
 This yellow sand, that grassy brow, 
 
 All isolating me 
 
 Thy thoughts to mine themselves impart, 
 
 My thoughts to thine draw near ; 
 But thou canst fill who mad'st my heart, 
 
 Who gav'st me words must hear. 
 
 Thou mad'st the hand with which I write, 
 
 The eye that watches slow 
 Through rosy gates that rosy light 
 
 Across thy threshold go, 
 
 Those waves that bend in golden spray, 
 
 As if thy foot they bore : 
 I think I know thee, Lord, to-day, 
 
 Shall know thee evermore. 
 
 I know thy father, thine and mine : 
 
 Thou the great fact hast bared : 
 Master, the mighty words are thine 
 
 Such I had never dared ! 
 
 Lord, thou hast much to make me yet- 
 Thy father's infant still : 
 
 Thy mind, Son, in my bosom set, 
 That I may grow thy will. 
 
 My soul with truth clothe all about, 
 
 And I shall question free : 
 The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt, 
 In that fear doubteth thee. 
 
 G. MACDONALD 
 (The Disciple). 
 
 OUR ideas, like the children of our youth, often die before us, 
 and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are fast 
 approaching where, though the brass and marble may remain, 
 the inscriptions are effaced by time and the. imagery moulders 
 away. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704). 
 
 What makes such a passage attractive is its use of poetic imagery ; 
 and yet Locke had no regard for poetry. See next quotation.
 
 i8o LOCKE C. ROSSKTT1 
 
 IF these may be any reasons against children's making Latin 
 themes at school, I have much more to say, and of more weight, 
 against their making verses verses of any sort. For if he has 
 no genius to Poetry, 'tis the most unreasonable thing in the world 
 to torment a child and waste his time about that which can never 
 succeed ; and if he have a poetic vein, 'tis to me the strangest 
 thing in the world that the father should desire or suffer it to be 
 cherished or improved. Methinks the parents should labour 
 to have it stifled and suppressed as much as may be ; and I know 
 not what reason a father can have to wish his son a poet, who 
 does not desire to have him bid defiance to all other callings and 
 business. . For it is very seldom seen that any one discovers 
 mines of gold or silver in Parnassus. . Poetry and Gaming 
 usually go together. . . If, therefore, 3 r ou would not have 
 your son the fiddle to every jovial company, without whom the 
 Sparks could not relish their wine, nor know how to pass an 
 afternoon idly ; if you would not have him to waste his time 
 and estate to divert others, and contemn the dirty acres left 
 him by his ancestors, I do not think you will very much care he 
 should be a Poet. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) 
 (Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1693). 
 
 Locke was writing during the dreary Dryden period, when poetry 
 had so greatly degenerated since the brilliant Elizabethan epoch. He 
 himself evidently had no interest in poetry. We know that he did not 
 appreciate Milton (whose Paradise Lost appeared in 1667, when Locke 
 was in his prime). 
 
 Compare with the above quotation p. 357. 
 
 WEEPING, we hold Him fast, who wept 
 
 For us, we hold Him fast. 
 And will not let Him go, except 
 
 He bless us first or last. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 INDWELLING. 
 
 IF thou couldst empty all thyself of self, 
 
 Like to a shell dishabited, 
 
 Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf. 
 
 And say, " This is not dead," 
 
 And fill thee with Himself instead :
 
 BROWN AND OTHERS 181 
 
 But thou art all replete with very thou, 
 
 And hast such shrewd activity, 
 
 That, when He comes, He says, " This is enow 
 
 Unto itself 'Twere better let it be : 
 
 It is so small and full, there is no room for Me." 
 
 T. E. BROWN (1830-1897). 
 
 OH ! ever thus from childhood's hour, 
 
 I've seen my fondest hopes decay ; 
 I never loved a tree or flower, 
 
 But 'twas the first to fade away. 
 1 never nursed a dear gazelle 
 
 To glad me with its soft black eye, 
 But when it came to know me well, 
 
 And love me, it was sure to die ! 
 
 THOMAS MOORE 
 
 (Lalla Rookh). 
 
 As in other cases mentioned in the Preface, I find that these lines, 
 so familiar in my day, appear to be unknown to younger men. 
 
 ON BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES. 
 
 IN taking leave of our Author (Sir William Blackstone) I finish 
 gladly with this pleasing peroration : a scrutinizing judgment, 
 perhaps, would not be altogether satisfied with it ; but the ear 
 is soothed by it, and the heart is warmed. 
 
 JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832) 
 (A Fragment of Government}. 
 
 I think it worth while quoting from my notes this amusing piece 
 of sarcasm aimed by a young man of twenty-eight at the most renowned 
 legal writer of the time. A Fragment of Government (1776), the first of 
 Bentham's works, not only showed the utter folly of Blackstone' s praise 
 of the English constitution^ but also laid the foundation of political science. 
 (The passage, which the quotation refers to, is in Sec. 2 of the Introduction 
 to the Commentaries, " Thus far as to the right of the supreme power to 
 make law .... public tranquillity.") 
 
 Not only was the English constitution a subject of eulogy in Bentham's 
 day, but also English law, then in a most barbarous state, was alleged to 
 be the perfection of human reason ! Through the efforts of this great 
 and original thinker many dreadful abuses were removed, but it is a remark- 
 able illustration of the blind strength of English conservatism that his
 
 1 82 BROUGHAM LEIGH 
 
 wise counsel has not yet been followed in many exceedingly important 
 directions. 
 
 In the seventy-eighty period, with which this book mainly deals 
 there was a strong agitation for law reform, which had some results. 
 
 IT was the boast of Augustus, that he found Rome of brick 
 and left it of marble. But how much nobler will be our Sove- 
 reign's boast when he shall have it to say that he found law dear, 
 and left it cheap ; found it a sealed book left it a living letter ; 
 found it the patrimony of the rich left it the inheritance of the 
 poor ; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression left 
 it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence ! 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM (1778-1868) 
 (Speech in Parliament, 1828^. 
 
 It would indeed be a proud boast but not one of these object* has 
 yet been achieved. 
 
 WHEN Lord Ellenborough was trying one of the Government 
 charges against Home Tooke, he found occasion to praise the 
 impartial manner in which justice is administered. " In England, 
 Mr. Tooke, the law is open to all men, rich or poor." " Yes, 
 my lord," answered the prisoner, " and so is the London Tavern." 
 
 HENRY S. LEIGH 
 (Jeux d' Esprit). 
 
 The same story is told in Rogers' Table Talk, but a different judge is 
 named. (Probably both are wrong, but it is immaterial.) The London 
 Tavern was where Home Tooke's Constitutional Society met, and must 
 have been often referred to during the trial ; but of course the meaning 
 simply is that the throne of justice cannot be approached with an empty 
 purse. 
 
 REVENONS a nos moutons, 
 (Let us return to ottr sheep.) 
 (La Farce de Maistre Pierre Patelin, Anon. 15 Cent.). 
 
 In the farce, a cloth merchant, who is suing his shepherd for stolen 
 sheep, discovers also that the attorney on the other side is a man who had 
 robbed him of some cloth. Dropping the charge against the shepherd, 
 he begins accusing the lawyer of his offence ; and, to recall him to the point, 
 the judge impatiently interrupts him with Sus revenons ti nos moutons, 
 " Come, let us get back to our sheep."
 
 MAULE MARTIAL 183 
 
 Compare Martial VI, 19 : " My suit has nothing to do with assault, 
 or battery, or poisoning, but is about three goats, which, I complain, have 
 been stolen by my neighbour. This the judge desires to have proved to 
 him ; but you, with swelling words and extravagant gestures, dilate on the 
 Battle of Cannae, the Mithridatic war, and the perjuries of the insensate 
 Carthaginians, the Syllae, the Marii, and the Mucii. It is time, Postumus, 
 to say something about my three goats." 
 
 The reference to the French play I owe to King's Classical and Foreign 
 Quotations. 
 
 (THE wife of a poor man deserted him for another man, and he 
 married again. On being convicted for bigamy Mr. Justice 
 Maule sentenced him as follows :) Prisoner at the bar : You 
 have been convicted of the offence of bigamy, that is to say, 
 of marrying a woman while you had a wife still alive, though it 
 is true she has deserted you and is living in adultery with another 
 man. You have, therefore, committed a crime against the laws 
 of your country, and you have also acted under a very serious 
 misapprehension of the course which you ought to have pursued. 
 You should have gone to the ecclesiastical court and there 
 obtained against your wife a decree a mensa et thoro. You should 
 then have brought an action in the courts of common law and 
 recovered, as no doubt you would have recovered, damages against 
 your wife's paramour. Armed with these decrees, you should 
 have approached the legislature and obtained an Act of Parlia- 
 ment which would have rendered you free and legally competent 
 to marry the person whom you have taken on yourself to marry 
 with no such sanction. It is quite true that these proceedings 
 would have cost you many hundreds of pounds, whereas you 
 probably have not as many pence. But the law knows no dis- 
 tinction between rich and poor. The sentence of the court upon 
 you, therefore, is that you be imprisoned for one day, which period 
 has already been exceeded, as you have been in custody since 
 the commencement of the assizes. 
 
 SIR W. H. MAUU? (1788-1858). 
 
 This fine piece of irony, well known to lawyers, materially helped to 
 end the old bad state of the law of divorce. We need more men of the 
 same stamp to draw attention to other abuses. 
 
 IS this pleading causes, China ? Is this speaking eloquently 
 to say nine words in ten hours ? Just now you asked with a 
 loud voice for four more clepsydrae.* What a long time you take 
 to say nothing, Cinna ! 
 
 MARTIAI, VIII, 7. 
 
 Water-clocks, used like an hour-glass.
 
 184 BUCHANAN 
 
 In Racine's comedy, Les Ptaideurs, Act III, Sc. Ill, a prolix advocate 
 begins his speech by referring to the Creation of the world. "Avocat, passons 
 au deluge " (Let us get along to the Deluge), says the judge. See also 
 The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Sc. I: 
 
 Gratiano speaks an infinite deal or nothing ; more than any man in 
 all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels 
 of chaff : you shall seek all day ere you find them ; and, when you have 
 them, they are not worth the search. 
 
 " THERE'S nae place likehame," quoth thede'il. when he found 
 himself in the Court o' Session. 
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERB. 
 
 I understand that the original wording was " ' Hame's hamely,' 
 quoth the de'il, etc." Perhaps the only English Institution which the 
 Hindu appreciates is that of English Law but not as a system of Justice. 
 To his acute mind it is a remarkably clever and most ingenious gambling 
 game. It is said that two Hindus will even fabricate mutual complaints, 
 the one against the other, to bring before the Courts and that it is 
 almost equivalent to a patent of nobility to have had a case taken to the 
 Privy Council. The following incident actually happened to a friend of 
 mine who was Resident in a Native State. Sitting in his judicial capacity 
 he reproved a Hindu gentleman for his excessive litigiousness. The latter 
 retorted that it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black; that he had 
 seen the Resident put his rupees on the totalisator the day before ; and 
 the British race-course wasn't a bit more of a gamble than the British 
 Law Courts. For his part he preferred to have his flutter on the latter. 
 
 BANDER'S RETURN TO EARTH* 
 
 HE sat down in a lonely land 
 
 Of mountain, moor, and mere, 
 And watch 'd, with chin upon his hand, 
 
 Dark maids that milk'd the deer. 
 
 And while the sun set in the skies. 
 
 And stars shone in the blue. 
 They sang sweet songs, till B alder's eyes 
 
 Were sad with kindred dew. 
 
 He passed along the hamlets dim 
 
 With twilight's breath of balm, 
 And whatsoe'er was touch'd by him 
 
 Grew beautiful and calm 
 
 * When ' Balder the Beautiful " was published in the Contemporary (March- 
 May, 1877), Buchanan had the following note, which he has not repeated in his collected 
 works : " Balder (in this poem) is the divine spirit of earthly beauty and joy, and the only 
 one of the gods who loves and pities men. Sick of the darkness of heaven, he returns 
 to the earth which fostered him, and of which he is beloved, and now for the first time he 
 becomes conscious of that Shadow of Death which darkens the lot of all mortal things.'
 
 BUCHANAN 185 
 
 He came unto a hut forlorn 
 
 As evening shadows fell, 
 And saw the man among the corn, 
 
 The woman at the well. 
 
 And entering the darken'd place, 
 
 He found the cradled child ; 
 Stooping he lookt into its face, 
 
 Until it woke and smiled ! 
 
 Then Balder passed into the night 
 
 With soft and shining tread, 
 The cataract called upon the height, 
 
 The stars gleam'd overhead. 
 
 He raised his eyes to those cold skies 
 
 Which he had left behind, 
 And saw the banners of the gods 
 
 Blown back upon the wind. 
 
 He watched them as they came and fled , 
 
 Then his divine eyes fell. 
 " I love the green Earth best," he said, 
 
 " And I on Earth will dwell ! " . 
 
 Then Balder said," The Earth is fair, and fair 
 Yea fairer than the stormy lives of gods. 
 The lives of gentle dwellers on the Earth ; 
 For shapen are they in the likenesses 
 Of goddesses and gods, and on their limbs 
 Sunlight and moonlight mingle, and they lie 
 Happy and calm in one another's arms 
 O'er-canopied with greenness ; and their hands 
 Have fashioned fire that springeth beautiful 
 Straight as a silvern lily from the ground, 
 Wondrously blowing ; and they measure out 
 Glad seasons by the pulses of the stars." . . . 
 
 And Balder bends above them, glory-crown'd, 
 Marking them as they creep upon the ground, 
 Busy as ants that toil without a sound, 
 With only sods to mark. 
 
 But list ! O list ! what is that cry of pain, 
 Faint as the far-off murmur of the main ? 
 Stoop low and hearken. Balder ! I/ist again ! 
 " Lo ! Death makes all things dark ! "
 
 1 86 BUCHANAN 
 
 Ay me, it is the earthbom souls that sigh, 
 Coming and going underneath the sky ; 
 They move, they gather, clearer grows their cry 
 O Balder, bend, and hark ! . . . 
 
 (Oh, listen ! listen !) " Blessed is the light, 
 
 We love the golden day, the silvern night, . . . 
 
 " And yet though life is glad and love divine, 
 This Shape we fear is here i' the summer shine, 
 He blights the fruit we pluck, the wreath we twine, 
 
 And soon he leaves us stark. 
 
 " He haunts us fleetly on the snowy steep, 
 He finds us as we sow and as we reap, 
 He creepeth in to slay us as we sleep, 
 Ah, Death makes all things dark." 
 
 Bright Balder cried, " Curst be this thing 
 
 Which will not let man rest, 
 Slaying with swift and cruel sting 
 
 The very babe at breast ! 
 
 " On man and beast, on flower and bird, 
 
 He creepeth evermore ; 
 Unseen he haunts the Earth ; unheard 
 
 He crawls from door to door. 
 
 " I will not pause in any land, 
 
 Nor sleep beneath the skies, 
 Till I have held him by the hand 
 
 And gazed into his eyes ! " . . . 
 
 He sought him on the mountains bleak and bare 
 
 And on the windy moors ; 
 He found his secret footprints everywhere, 
 
 Yea, ev'n by human doors. 
 
 All round the deerfold on the shrouded height 
 
 The starlight glimmer 'd clear ; 
 Therein sat Death, wrapt round with vapours white 
 
 Touching the dove-eyed deer. 
 
 And thither Balder silent-footed flew, 
 
 But found the Phantom not ; 
 The rain-wash'd moon had risen cold and blue 
 
 Above that lonely spot.
 
 BUCHANAN TABB 187 
 
 Then as he stood and listen'd, gazing round 
 
 In the pale silvern glow, 
 He heard a wailing ancl a weeping sound 
 
 From the wild huts below. 
 
 He marked the sudden flashing of the lights 
 
 He heard cry answering cry 
 And lo ! he saw upon the silent heights 
 
 A shadowy form pass by. 
 
 Wan was the face, the eyeballs pale and wild, 
 The robes like rain wind-blown, 
 
 Arid as it fled it clasp'd a naked child 
 Unto its cold breast-bone. 
 
 And Balder clutch'd its robe with fingers weak 
 
 To stay it as it flew 
 A breath of ice blew chill upon his cheek, 
 
 Blinding his eyes of blue. 
 
 'Twas Death ! 'twas gone ! All night the shepherds 
 sped, 
 
 Searching the hills in fear ; 
 At dawn they found their lost one lying dead 
 
 Up by the lone black mere. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN 
 
 (Balder the Beautiful). 
 
 I retain this extract from Buchanan's poem for the reason set out in 
 the preface. 
 
 HOW many an acorn falls to die 
 
 For one that makes a tree ! 
 How many a heart must pass me by 
 
 For one that cleaves to me ! 
 
 How many a suppliant wave of sound 
 
 Must still unheeded roll, 
 For one low iitterance that found 
 
 An echo in my soul. 
 
 JOHN BANISTER TABB (b. 1845) 
 
 I have " Compensation " as the title of these verses, but it must 
 surely be incorrect. If a man passes through life unrecognised by kindred 
 souls, it is the reverse of ' compensation ' to him if he also fails to'recognise 
 other sympathetic natures. 
 
 The author is, or was, an American Catholic priest.
 
 i88 LF, GAIJJENNE VAUGHAN 
 
 WHAT we gave, we have ; 
 What we spent, we had ; 
 What we left, we lost. 
 
 (Epitaph on Earl of Devonshire, about 1200 A.D.) 
 
 AU< SUNG 
 
 WHAT shall I sing when all is sung 
 
 And every tale is told, 
 And in the world is nothing young 
 
 That was not long since old ? 
 
 Why should I fret unwilling ears 
 
 With old things sung anew 
 While voices from the old dead year 
 
 Still go on singing too ? 
 
 A dead man singing of his maid 
 Makes all my rhymes in vain, 
 Yet his poor lips must fade and fade, 
 
 ^And mine shall sing again. 
 Why should I strive thro' weary moons 
 To make my music true ? 
 Only the dead men know the tunes 
 The live world dances to. 
 
 R. 1,1? GAIJJENNK. 
 
 Mr. le Gallienne was not the first to complain that poetic subjects 
 were exhausted. A recent Spectator quotes the following from Choerilus, 
 a Samian poet of the Fifth Century, B.C. 2,000 years before Shakespeare) : 
 " Happy was the follower of the muses in that time, when the field was 
 still virgin soil. But now when all has been divided up and the arts have 
 reached their limits, we are left behind in the race, and, look where'er we 
 may, there is no room anywhere for a new-yoked chariot to make its way 
 to the front." (St. John Thackeray, Anthologia Graced]. 
 
 GO out into the woods and valleys, when your heart is rather 
 harassed than bruised, and when you suffer from vexation more 
 than grief. Then the trees all hold out their arms to you to relieve 
 you of the burthen of your heavy thoiights ; and the streams under 
 the trees glance at you as they run by, and will carry away your 
 trouble along with the fallen leaves ; and the sweet-breathing air
 
 VAUGHAN MASNAIR 189 
 
 will draw it off together with the silver multitudes of the dew. But 
 let it be with anguish or remorse in your heart that you go forth 
 iuto Nature, and instead of your speaking her language, you make 
 her speak yours. Your distress is then infused through all things 
 and clothes all tilings, and Nature only echoes and seems to 
 authenticate your self-loathing or your hopelessness. Then you 
 find the device of your sorrow on the argent shield of the moon, 
 and see all the trees of the field weeping and wringing their hands 
 with you, while the hills, seated at your side in sackcloth, look 
 down upon you prostrate, and reprove you like the comforters 
 of Job. 
 
 ROBERT ALFRED VAUGIIAN (1823-1857) 
 (Hours n-ith the Mystics). 
 
 If this fine writer had lived, much might have been expected of him. 
 He is one of the many instances of " the fatal thirty-fours and thirty- 
 sevens." 
 
 FIRST man appeared in the class of inorganic tilings, 
 
 Next he passed therefrom into that of plants, 
 
 For years he lived as one of the plants, 
 
 Remembering nought of his inorganic state so different ; 
 
 And, when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state, 
 
 He had no remembrance of his state as a plant, 
 
 Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants, 
 
 Especially at the time of spring and sweet flowers ; 
 
 Like the inclination of infants towards their mothers, 
 
 Which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast. 
 
 Again, the great Creator, as you know, 
 
 Drew man out of the animal into the human state. 
 
 Tims man passed from one order of nature to another, 
 
 Till he became wise and knowing and strong as he is now. 
 
 Of his first souls he has now no remembrance, 
 
 And he will be again changed from his present, soul.* 
 
 MASNAIR (Bk. IV) of Jalal ad Din (ijth century). 
 
 THE gases gather to the solid firmament ; the chemic lump 
 arrives at the plant and grows ; arrives at the quadruped and 
 walks ; arrives at the man and thinks. 
 
 KMKRSOX 
 (Uses of Great Men\ 
 
 Quoted iu E. Clodd's Story of Creation
 
 ipo CARROLL 
 
 HIAWATHA'S PHOTOGRAPHING 
 
 FROM his shoulder Hiawatha 
 Took the camera of rosewood, 
 Made of sliding, folding rosewood ; 
 This he perched upon a tripod 
 Crouched beneath its dusky cover 
 Stretched his hand, enforcing silence 
 Said, " Be motionless, I beg you ! " 
 Mystic, awful was the process. 
 
 All the family in order 
 Sat before him for their pictures : 
 Each in turn, as he was taken, 
 Volunteered his own suggestions, 
 His ingenious suggestions. 
 
 First the Governor, the Father : 
 He suggested velvet curtains 
 Looped about a massy pillar ; 
 And the corner of a table, 
 Of a rosewood dining-table. 
 He would hold a scroll of something, 
 Hold it firmly in his left-hand ; 
 He would keep his right-hand buried 
 (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat ; 
 He would contemplate the distance 
 With a look of pensive meaning, 
 As of ducks that die in tempests. 
 
 Grand, heroic was the notion : 
 Yet the picture failed entirely : 
 Failed, because he moved a little, 
 Moved, because he couldn't help it. 
 
 Next, his better half took courage ; 
 She would have her picture taken, 
 She came dressed beyond description, 
 Dressed in jewels and in satin 
 Far too gorgeous for an empress. 
 Gracefully she sat down sideways, 
 With a simper scarcely human, 
 Holding in her hand a bouquet 
 Rather larger than a cabbage. 
 All the while that she was sitting, 
 Still the lady chattered, chattered, 
 Lil.ce a monkey in the forest, 
 " Am I sitting still ? " she asked him 
 " Is my face enough in profile ? 
 Shall I hold the bouquet higher ? 
 Will it come into the picture ? " 
 And the picture failed completely. 
 
 Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab
 
 CARROLL 191 
 
 He suggested curves of beauty, 
 Curves pervading all his figure, 
 Which the eye might follow onward, 
 Till they centered in the breast-pin, 
 Centered in the golden breast-pin. 
 He had learnt it all from Riiskin 
 And perhaps he had not fully 
 Understood his author's meaning ; 
 But, whatever was the reason, 
 All was fruitless, as the picture 
 Ended in an utter failure. 
 
 Next to him the eldest daughter : 
 vShe suggested very little. 
 Only asked if he would take her 
 With her look of " passive beauty." 
 
 Her idea of passive beauty 
 Was a squinting of the left-eye, 
 Was a drooping of the right-eye, 
 Was a smile that went up sideways 
 To the corner of the nostrils. 
 
 Hiawatha, when she asked him, 
 Took no notice of the question, 
 Looked as if he hadn't heard it ; 
 But, when pointedly appealed to, 
 Smiled in his peculiar manner, 
 Coughed and said it " didn't matter," 
 Bit his lip and changed the subject. 
 
 Nor in this was he mistaken, 
 As the picture failed completely. 
 
 So in turn the other sisters. 
 
 Last, the youngest son was taken : 
 Very rough and thick his hair was, 
 Very round and red his face was, 
 Very dusty was his jacket, 
 Very fidgety his manner. 
 And his overbearing sisters 
 Called him names he disapproved of : 
 Called him Johnny, " Daddy's Darling," 
 Called him Jacky, "Scrubby School-boy." 
 And, so awful was the picture, 
 In comparison the others 
 Seemed, to his bewildered fancy, 
 To have partially succeeded. 
 
 Finally my Hiawatha 
 Tumbled all the tribe together, 
 (" Grouped " is not the right expression). 
 And, as happy chance would have it, 
 Did at last obtain a picture
 
 192 CARROLL ELIOT 
 
 Where the faces all succeeded : 
 Each came out a perfect likeness. 
 
 Then they joined and all abused it, 
 Unrestrainedly abused it, 
 As " the worst and ugliest picture 
 They could possibly have dreamed oh 
 Giving one such strange expressions- - 
 Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. 
 Really any one would take us 
 (Any one that did not know us) 
 For the most unpleasant people ! " 
 (Hiawatha seemed to think so, 
 Seemed to think it not unlikely). 
 All together rang their voices, 
 Angry, loud, discordant voices, 
 As of dogs that howl in concert, 
 As of cats that wail in chorus. 
 
 But my Hiawatha's patience, 
 His politeness and his patience. 
 Unaccountably had vanished, 
 And he left that happy party. 
 Neither did he leave them slowly, 
 With the calm deliberation, 
 The intense deliberation 
 Of a photographic artist : 
 But he left them in a hurry, 
 Left them in a mighty hurry, 
 Stating that he would not stand it, 
 Stating in emphatic language 
 What he'd be before he'd stand it. 
 Thus departed Hiawatha. 
 
 LEWIS CARROU, (C. L. Dodgson) 1832-1898. 
 
 IT is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man's 
 death hallows him anew to us ; as if life were not sacred too, 
 as if it were comparatively a light thing to fail in love and 
 reverence to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome 
 steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness were due to the 
 one who is spared that hard journey. 
 
 GKORGE EIJOT 
 
 (Janet's Repentance). 
 
 IT has been said by Schiller, in his letters on aesthetic culture, 
 that the sense of beauty never faithered the performance of a 
 single duty.
 
 RUSKIN BROWNING 193 
 
 Although this gross and inconceivable falsity will hardly be 
 accepted by any one in so many terms, seeing that there are few 
 so utterly lost but that they receive, and know that they receive, 
 at certain moments, strength of some kind, or rebuke from the 
 appealings of outward things ; and that it is not possible for a 
 Christian man to walk across so much as a rood of the natural 
 earth, with mind unagitated and rightly poised, without receiving 
 strength and hope from stone, flower, leaf or sound, nor with- 
 out a sense of a dew falling upon him out of the sky ; though I 
 say this falsity is not wholly and in terms admitted, yet it 
 seems to be partly and practically so in much of the doing and 
 teaching even of holy men, who in the recommending of the love 
 of God to us, refer but seldom to those things in which it is most 
 abundantly and immediately shown ; though they insist much on 
 his giving of bread, and raiment, and health (which he gives to 
 all inferior creatures), they require us not to thank him for that 
 glory of his works which he has permitted us alone to perceive : 
 they tell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send us not, 
 like Isaac, into the fields at even ; they dwell on the duty of 
 self-denial, but they exhibit not the duty of delight.* 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 (Modern Painters, III, I, XV). 
 
 NOT on the vulgar mass 
 
 Called " work " must sentence pass, 
 Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; 
 
 O'er which, from level stand, 
 
 The low world laid its hand, 
 Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice : 
 
 But all, the world's coarse thumb 
 
 And finger failed to plumb, 
 So passed in making up the main account ; 
 
 All instincts immature. 
 
 All purposes unsure. 
 That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount 
 
 Thoughts hardly to be packed 
 
 Into a narrow act, 
 Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 
 
 All, I could never be, 
 
 All, men ignored in me, 
 This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
 
 i 9 4 BROWNING 
 
 So, take and use thy work : 
 Amend, what flaws may lurk, 
 
 What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! 
 My times be in Thy hand ! 
 Perfect the c\\p as planned ! 
 L/et age approve of youth, and death complete the same. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 (Rabbi ben Ezra}. 
 
 " All (that) I could never be, All (that) man ignored in me." All 
 that the world could not know, a man's thoughts, desires, and intentions, 
 all that he wished or tried to be or do, although unknown to his fellows, 
 have their value in God's eyes. Man is the Cup, whose shape (i.e., character) 
 has been formed by the wheel of the great Potter, God. See further as to 
 this Eastern metaphor. 
 
 The late Mrs. A. W. Verrall, widow of Doctor Verrall and herself a 
 brilliant scholar, pointed out in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
 Research, June, 1911, a probable connection between " Rabbi ben Ezra," 
 and " Omar Khayyam," and I do not think that her interesting views 
 have been published elsewhere. 
 
 Both poems centre round the idea of man as a Cup, but treat the meta- 
 phor from very different standpoints. Omar's cup (quoting from the first 
 edition) is to be filled with " Life's Liquor " (ii), with " Wine ! Red Wine ! " 
 (vi), with what " clears To-Day of past regrets' ' (xx) ; the object is to drown 
 the memory of the fact that "without asking" we are "hurried hither" 
 and " hurried hence " (xxx) ; the " Ruby Vintage " is to be drunk " with 
 old Khayyam," and " when the Angel with his darker Draught draws 
 up " to us we are to take that draught without shrinking (xlviii). On the 
 other hand Rabbi ben Ezra's Cup is to be used by the great Potter. We 
 are told to look " not down but up ! to uses of a cup " (30). The Rabbi 
 asks " God who mouldest men .... to take and use His work " (32) and 
 the ultimate purpose of the Cup, when it has been made " perfect as planned," 
 is to slake the thirst of the Master. 
 
 The comparison of man to the Clay of the Potter in both poems is 
 not sufficient in itself to show any connection between them. Such a 
 comparison is found, as Fitzgerald reminds us, " in the Literature of the 
 World from the Hebrew Prophets to the present time "* ; and it is as 
 appropriately employed by the Hebrew as by the Persian thinker. But 
 Mrs. Verrall has other grounds : 
 
 The little pamphlet in its brown wrapper containing the Rubaiyat 
 of Omar Khayyam was first published by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859, and, 
 as is well known, attracted so little attention that, although there were 
 only 250 copies, it found its way into the two-penny boxes of the book- 
 sellers. (It now sells for about 50 !) But, nevertheless, the poem was 
 eagerly read and enthusiastically praised by a small group, among whom 
 were Swinburne and Rossetti. In 1861 Robert Browning came to live 
 
 * See, for instance, Kipling's beautiful poem " A Dedication " 
 The depth and dream of my desire, 
 
 The bitter paths wherein I stray, 
 Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, 
 
 Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.
 
 BROWNING WHITTIER 195 
 
 in London, and often saw Rossetti, who was his friend. It is, therefore, 
 very improbable that he did not learn of the poem, which had so impressed 
 Rossetti. In 1864 " Rabbi ben Ezra " was published in the volume 
 called Dramatis Personae. 
 
 Again, there is intrinsic evidence that Browning intended a direct 
 refutation of Omar's theory of life. Compare verses 26 and 27 of " Rabbi 
 ben Ezra " with verses xxxvi and xxxvii of " Omar Khayyam " (first 
 edition). 
 
 Omar says that he " watched the Potter thumping his wet clay," 
 and, thereupon advises : 
 
 Ah, fill the Cup ; what boots it to repeat 
 
 How Time is slipping underneath our Feet : 
 
 Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, 
 
 Why fret about them if To-day be sweet ! 
 
 Rabbi ben Ezra says : 
 
 . . . Note that Potter's wheel, 
 That metaphor ! 
 and proceeds : 
 
 Thou, to whom fools propound, 
 When the wine makes its round, 
 
 " Since life fleets, all is change ; the Past gone, seize To-day ! " 
 Fool ! all that is, at all, 
 Lasts ever, past recall ; 
 Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure. 
 
 Although the " carpe diem " (" seize to-day ") theory of life is no 
 doubt common to all literatures, the cumulative effect of Mrs. Verrall's 
 argument is strong, although not conclusive. 
 
 As regards the above verses, compare the next quotation. 
 
 FROM Thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, Thy dread 
 
 Sabaoth : 
 
 I will ? the mere atoms despise me ! Why am I not loth 
 To look that, even that, in the face too ? Why is it I dare 
 Think but lightly of such impuissance ? What stops my despair ? 
 This : 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what 
 man Would do ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Saul). 
 
 Sabaotb, armies, hosts. " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth." 
 
 LET the thick curtain fall ; 
 I better know than all 
 How little I have gained, 
 How vast the unattained.
 
 io6 WHITTIER AND OTHERS 
 
 Not by the page word-painted 
 Let life be banned or sainted ; 
 Deeper than written scroll 
 The colours of the soul. 
 
 Sweeter than any sung 
 
 My songs that found no tongue ; 
 
 Nobler than any fact 
 
 My wish that failed of act. 
 
 J. G. WHITTIER 
 (My Triumph). 
 
 BETWEEN the great things that we cannot do, and the small 
 things we will riot do, the danger is that we shall do nothing. 
 
 ADOLPH MONOD (1802-1856). 
 
 REPUTATION is what men and women think of us ; 
 Character is what God and the angels know of us. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 LOVE is the Amen of the Universe. 
 
 NOVAI.IS* 
 
 HE (Dr. Johnson) would not allow Scotland to derive any 
 credit from Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. 
 " Much," said he, " may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught 
 young." 
 
 BOSWKI.L 
 (Life of Johnson). 
 
 (A MR. STRAHAN, a Scotchman, asked Dr. Johnson what he 
 thought of Scotland) " That it is a very vile country to be sure, 
 Sir," returned for answer Dr. Johnson. " Well. Sir ! " replied 
 the other, somewhat mortified, " God made it." " Certainly 
 he did," answered Mr. Johnson again, " but we must always 
 remember that he made it for Scotchmen." 
 
 MRS. PIOZZI 
 (Johnsoniana). 
 
 These are the two best of Johnson's chaffing jibes against Scotchmen. 
 The neatness of the latter is, to my mind, spoilt by the words at the end, 
 which I have omitted : " and comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan, - 
 but God made hell." The following may also be quoted as showing both 
 Johnson and that clever charlatan, Wilkes, quizzing Boswell (year 1781):
 
 TAYLOR BOYD 197 
 
 Wilkes : " Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an 
 advocate at the Scotch bar ? " 
 
 Boswdl : " I believe two thousand pounds." 
 
 Wilkes -. " How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland ?' 
 
 Johnson : " Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England ; 
 but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of 
 two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation ? " 
 
 Many Scotchmen undoubtedly enjoy chaff against themselves and their 
 country, and I think this was so with Boswell. It is a phase of social 
 psychology that needs explaining. 
 
 In these jokes Johnson was, consciously or not, influenced by the fine 
 Royalist poet, John Cleveland (1613-1658); but the latter was very much 
 in earnest. He detested the Scotch for fighting against Charles I. His 
 references to Scotland in The Rebel Scot are wonderfully clever : 
 
 A land that brings in question and suspense 
 
 God's omnipresence. 
 
 And again: 
 
 Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom ; 
 Not forced him wander, but confined him home ! 
 
 GOD is present by His essence ; which, because it is infinite, 
 cannot be contained within the limits of any place ; and because 
 He is of an essential purity and spiritual nature, He cannot 
 be undervalued by being supposed present in the places oi 
 unnatural uncleanness : because, as the sun, reflecting upon the 
 mud of strands and shores, is unpolluted in its beams, so is God 
 not dishonoured when we suppose Him in every one of His 
 creatures, and in every part of every one of them. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR 
 (Holv Living, Ch. i, Sec. 3). 
 
 There is an old Scottish proverb, " The sun is no waur for shining 
 on the midden." 
 
 I DART? say Alexander the Great was somewhat staggered in 
 his plans of conquest by Parmenio's way of putting things. 
 " After you have conquered Persia what will you do ? " " Then 
 I shall conquer India." " After you have conquered India, 
 what will you do ? " " Conquer Scythia." " And after you have 
 conquered Scythia, what will you do ? " "Sit down and rest." 
 " Well," said Parmenio to the conqueror, " why not sit down 
 and rest now ? " 
 
 A. K. H. BOYD 
 (The Recreations of a Country Parson}.
 
 BOYD 
 
 I include this because it is a good short paraphrase of the actual story 
 of Pyrrhus and Cineas (Plutarch's Lives " Pyrrkus ") and because of the 
 curious absurdity of attributing such philosophic advice to the warrior, 
 Parmenio. This general was the only one of Alexander's old advisers who 
 urged him to invade Asia ! (Plutarch's Lives " Alexander "). 
 
 SORROW and care and anxiety may quite well live in 
 Kli/.abethan cottages, grown over with honeysuckle and jasmine ; 
 and very sad eyes may look forth from windows around which 
 roses twine. 
 
 A. K. H. BOYD 
 
 (The Recreations of a Country Parson}. 
 
 This book had a great vogue, but not sufficient merit to preserve it 
 from oblivion. 
 
 CANADIAN BOAT-SONG 
 
 From the Gaelic. 
 
 USTE)N to me, as when ye heard our father 
 
 Sing long ago the song of other shores 
 Listen to me, and then in chorus gather 
 
 All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars : 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Fair these broad meads these hoary woods are grand ; 
 But we are exiles from our father's land. 
 
 From the lone sheiling of the misty island 
 Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas 
 
 Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, 
 And we in dreams behold the Hebrides : 
 
 Fair these broad meads, etc. 
 
 We ne'er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley, 
 
 Where 'tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream, 
 
 In arms around the patriarch banner rally, 
 Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam : 
 
 Fair these broad meads, etc. 
 
 When the bold kindred, in the time long vanish 'd, 
 Conquered the soil and fortified the keep, 
 
 No seer foretold the children would be banish'd, 
 That a degenerate lyord might boast his sheep ; 
 
 Fair these broad mends, etc.
 
 TENNYSON MYERS IQQ 
 
 Come foreign rage let Discord burst in slaughter I 
 O then for clansmen true, and stern claymore 
 
 The hearts that would have given their blood like water. 
 Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar. 
 
 Fair these broad meads these hoary woods are grand ; 
 
 But we are exiles from our fathers' land. 
 
 The authorship of these verses is uncertain, but it probably lies between 
 John Gait, author of Annals of the Parish, and Lockhart, son-in-law of 
 Sir Walter Scott. The verses were cjuoted by Professor Wilson (Christopher 
 North) in his Nodes Ambrosianae in Black-wood, Sept., 1829, but, because 
 Wilson was not the author, they are not reproduced in his collected works 
 (Blackwood, 18515). 
 
 A degenerate Lord, &c. This refers to the eviction of the Highland 
 crofters and cottars. In 1829 the Duke of Hamilton had just cleared the 
 population out of the Isle of Arran. 
 
 Sheiling or Sbealing, a hut used by shepherds, fishermen, or others 
 for shelter when at work at a distance from home. 
 
 LOVE took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords 
 
 with might ; 
 
 Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out 
 of sight. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (Locksley Hall). 
 
 IF thou wouldst have high God thy soul assure 
 
 That she herself shall as herself endure, 
 
 Shall in no alien semblance, thine and wise, 
 
 Fulfil her and be young in Paradise, 
 
 One way I know ; forget, forswear, disdain 
 
 Thine own best hopes, thine utmost loss and gain, 
 
 Till when at last thou scarce rememberest now 
 
 If on the earth be such a man as thou, 
 
 Nor hast one thought of self-surrender, no, 
 
 For self is none remaining to forego, 
 
 If ever, then shall strong persuasion fall 
 
 That in thy giving thou hast gained thine all, 
 
 Given the poor present, gained the boundless scope, 
 
 And kept thee virgin for the further hope
 
 200 MYERS SMITH 
 
 When all base thoughts like frighted harpies flown 
 
 In her own beauty leave the soul alone ; 
 
 When I/ove, not rosy-flushed as he began. 
 
 But Love, still I<ove, the prisoned God in man,-- 
 
 Shows his face glorious, shakes his banner free, 
 
 Cries like a captain for Eternity : 
 
 O halcyon air across the storms of youth, 
 
 O trust him, he is true, he is one with Truth ! 
 
 Nay, is he Christ ? I know not ; no man knows 
 
 The right name of the heavenly Anteros, 
 
 But here is God, whatever God may be, 
 
 And whomsoe'er we worship, this is He. 
 
 F. W. MYERS 
 (The Implicit Promise of Immortality.} 
 
 Anter6s is the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not 
 return the love of others, as otherwise his brother Er&s, god of love, will 
 be unhappy. 
 
 The fine jJoem from which this is quoted represents one of the phases of 
 Myers* experience. It was published in 1882, but written about ten 
 years before. He had then lost his faith in Christianity, but believed in 
 a future life on grounds based partly upon philosophy and partly on 
 " vision." He had those moments of exaltation when, as he says : 
 
 The open secret flashes on the brain, 
 
 As if one almost guessed it, almost knew 
 
 Whence we have sailed and voyage whereunto. 
 
 For entrance into the future life, Love and complete Self-surrender 
 are the best equipment for the soul. 
 
 BUT all through lif e I see a Cross, 
 
 Where sons of God yield up their breath : 
 There is no gain except by loss, 
 
 There is no life except by death, 
 
 There is no vision but by Faith, 
 Nor glory but by bearing shame, 
 Nor Justice but bj r taking blame ; 
 
 And that Eternal Passion saith, 
 " Be emptied of glory and right and name." 
 
 W. C. SMITH 
 (Olrig Grange}.
 
 AMIEL AND OTHERS 201 
 
 LIFE is short, and we have not too much time tor gladdening 
 the lives of those who are travelling the dark road with us. Oh, 
 be swift to love, make haste to be kind. 
 
 AMIEI/S Journal. 
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 
 
 WHAT though thine arm hath conquered in the fight, 
 What though the vanquished yield unto thy sway, 
 Or riches garnered pave thy golden way, 
 
 Not therefore hast thou gained the scvran height 
 
 Of man's nobility ! No halo's light 
 
 From these shall round thee shed its sacred ray ; 
 If these be all thy joy, then dark thy day, 
 
 And darker still thy swift approaching night ! 
 
 But if in thee more truly than in others 
 
 Hath dwelt Love's charity ; if by thine aid 
 Others have passed above thee, and if thou, 
 
 Though victor, yieldest victory to thy brothers, 
 
 Though conquering conquered, and a vassal made 
 Then take thy crown, well mayst thou wear it now. 
 SAMUEI, WADDINGTON. 
 
 WE bury decay in the earth ; we plant in it the perishing ; 
 we feed it with offensive refuse : but nothing grows out of it 
 that is not clean ; it gives us back life and beauty. 
 
 CHARGES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 (My Summer in a Garden}. 
 
 SOUL'S BEAUTY 
 
 UNDER the arch of Life, where love and death, 
 Terror and mystery guard her shrine, I saw 
 Beauty enthroned ; and though her gaze struck awe, 
 
 I drew it in as simply as my breath. 
 
 Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, 
 The sky and sea bend on thee, which can draw, 
 By sea or sky or woman, to one law, 
 
 The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.
 
 202 ROSSETTI AND OTHERS 
 
 This is that lyady Beauty, in whose praise 
 
 Thy voice and hand shake still, long known to thee 
 By flying hair and fluttering hem, the beat 
 Following her daily of thy heart and feet, 
 How passionately and irretrievably, 
 In what fond flight, how many ways and days ! 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 Although Rossetti was not a classical student, he seems here to have 
 arrived at the Platonic idea of an abstract Beauty, of whose essence are all 
 beautiful things, " sea or sky or woman." Love and death, terror and 
 mystery guard her, as a goddess on her throne, and all lovers of the beautiful 
 are worshippers at her shrine. 
 
 THINKING is only a dream of feeling ; a dead feeling ; a pale- 
 grey, feeble life. 
 
 NOVAI.IS. 
 
 A WHETSTONE cannot cut, but it makes iron sharp, and 
 gives it a keen edge. 
 
 ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.). 
 
 This is quoted in Plutarch's Lives. Isocrates was asked why he taught 
 rhetoric so much and yet spoke so rarely ; and this was his reply. Horace 
 (Ars Poetica 304) playfully says that he is no longer able to write verses 
 but he will teach others to write, adding " a whetstone is not used for cutting, 
 but is used for sharpening steel nevertheless." 
 
 The career of Isocrates, " that old man eloquent,"* is extremely 
 interesting. He preserved his energy and his influence to the end of his 
 long life of 98 years. 
 
 FROM too much love of living, 
 
 From hope and fear set free, 
 We thank with brief thanksgiving 
 
 Whatever gods there be 
 That no life lives for ever ; 
 That dead men rise up never ; 
 That even the weariest river 
 
 Winds somewhere safe to sea. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (The Garden of Proserpine). 
 
 A very musical expression of a very ugly thought. 
 Milton's sonnet, "To the Lady Margaret Ley."
 
 EIJOT VAUGHAN 203 
 
 WOMEN never betray themselves to men as they do to 
 each other. 
 
 GEORGK EUOT 
 
 (Middlemarch) . 
 
 THE RETREAT 
 
 HAPPY those early days, when I 
 Shined in my Angel -infancy ! 
 Before I understood this place 
 Appointed for my second race. 
 Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
 But a white celestial thought : 
 When yet I had not walk'd above 
 A mile or two from my first Love, 
 And looking back, at that short space, 
 Could see a glimpse of His bright face : 
 When on some gilded cloud or flower 
 My gazing soiil would dwell an hour, 
 And in those, weaker glories spy 
 Some shadows of eternity : 
 Before I taught my tongue to wound 
 My Conscience with a sinful sound, 
 Or had the black art to dispense 
 A several sin to ev'ry sense, 
 But felt through all this fleshly dress 
 Bright shoots of everlastingness. 
 
 O how I long to travel back, 
 And tread again that ancient track ! 
 That I might once more reach that plain 
 Where first I left my glorious train ; 
 From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees 
 That shady City of Palm-trees ! 
 But ah ! my soul with too much stay 
 Is drunk, and staggers in the way ! 
 Some men a forward motion love, 
 But I by backward steps would move ; 
 And when this dust falls to the urn, 
 In that state I came, return. 
 
 HENRY VAUGIJAN (1621-1695). 
 
 I include this poem, although it is in the anthologies, because from my 
 own experience a young reader will not see its beauty without some words 
 of explanation. It is the precursor of the greatest ode ever written, Words-
 
 204 POPE BROWNING 
 
 worth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Child- 
 hood. Wordsworth, Vaughan, and many others believe that we had a 
 separate existence before we came into this world (and there is much in 
 the experience of each of us to warrant that belief). Wordsworth says : 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
 The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar. 
 
 But in order to appreciate either Wordsworth's or Vaughan's poem 
 it is not necessary to have this belief in a past separate existence it is 
 enough to realize that 
 
 Trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
 
 ONE may see the small value God has for riches by the people 
 He gives them to. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE. 
 
 THERE'S a fancy some lean to and others hate 
 That, when this life is ended, begins 
 New work for the soul in another state, 
 Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins : 
 Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries, 
 Repeat in large what they practised in small, 
 Through life after life in unlimited series ; 
 Only the scale's to be changed, that's all. 
 
 Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 
 
 By the means of Evil that Good is best, 
 
 And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene, 
 
 When our faith in the same has stood the test 
 
 Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, 
 
 The' uses of labour are surely done ; 
 
 There remaineth a rest for the people of God : 
 
 And I have had troubles enough, for one. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Old Pictures in Florence). 
 
 Browning in his last poem, the well-known " Epilogue," speaks with 
 another voice. He wishes his friends to think of him after death as he 
 was when alive :
 
 BOREHAM SPENSER 205 
 
 One who never turned his back but marched breast-forward. . 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake. 
 
 No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 
 
 Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
 
 Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
 " Strive and thrive I " cry, " Speed, fight on, fare ever, 
 
 There as here ! " 
 
 F. W. H. Myers wrote : 
 
 We need a summons to no houri-haunted paradise, no passionless 
 contemplation, no monotony of prayer and praise ; but to endless 
 advance by endless effort, and, if need be, by endless pain. Be it 
 mine, then, to plunge among the unknown Destinies to dare and still 
 to dare ! 
 
 Emerson's heaven also was 
 
 Built of furtherance and pursuing, 
 Not of spent deeds, but of doing. 
 
 (" Threnody.") 
 
 IN life, I^ove comes first. Indeed, we only come because 
 Love calls for us. We find it waiting with outstretched arms 
 on arrival. I/ove is the beginning of everything. 
 
 F. W. BOREHAM 
 
 (Faces in the Fire}. 
 
 OUR daies are full of dolor and disease, 
 Our life afflicted with incessant paine, 
 That nought on earth may lessen or appease, 
 Why then should I desire here to remaine ? 
 Or why should he that loves me, sorie bee 
 For my deliverence, or at all complaine 
 My good to hear, and toward joyes to see ? 
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 (Daphnaidd). 
 Toward, " approaching." 
 
 My closing remark is as to avoiding debates that are in their 
 very nature interminable. . . . There is a certain intensity of 
 emotion, interest, bias or prejudice if you will, that can neither
 
 206 BAIN BACON 
 
 reason nor be reasoned with. On the purely intellectual side, 
 the disqualifying circiunstances are complexity and vagueness. 
 If a topic necessarily hauls in numerous other topics of difficulty, 
 the essay may do something for it, but not the debate. \Yorst 
 of all is the presence of several large, ill-defined, and unsettled 
 terms. A not unfrequent case is a combination of the several 
 defects, each, perhaps, in a small degree. A tinge of predilection 
 or party, a double or triple complication of doctrines, and one 
 or two hazy terms will make a debate that is pretty sure to end 
 as it began. Thus it is that a question, plausible to appearance, 
 may contain within it capacities of misunderstanding, cross- 
 purposes, and pointless issues, sufficient to occupy the long 
 night of Pandemonium, or beguile the journey to the nearest 
 fixed star. 
 
 ALEXANDER BAIN 
 (Contemporary Review, April, 1877). 
 
 From an address to the Edinburgh University Philosophical Society. 
 
 DIOGENES, seeing Neptune's temple with votive pictures of 
 those saved from wreck, says. " Yea, but where are they painted, 
 that have been drowned ? " 
 
 BACON. 
 
 THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM 
 
 I SAW her at the County Ball : 
 
 There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle 
 Gave signal sweet in that old hall 
 
 Of hands across and down the middle, 
 Hers was the subtlest spell by far 
 
 Of all that set young hearts romancing ; 
 She was our queen, our rose, our star ; 
 
 And then she danced O Heaven, her dancing 
 
 Through sunny May, through sultry June, 
 
 I loved her with a love eternal ; 
 I spoke her praises to the moon, 
 
 I wrote them to the Sunday Journal : 
 My mother laugh 'd : I soon found out 
 
 That ancient ladies have no feeling ; 
 My father frown'd : but how should gout 
 
 See any happiness in kneeling ? . . . -
 
 PRAED I,II,I<Y 207 
 
 She smiled on many, just for fun, 
 
 I knew that there was nothing in it ; 
 I was the first the only one 
 
 Her heart had thought of for a minute. 
 I knew it, for she told me so, 
 
 In phrase which was divinely moulded ; 
 She wrote a charming hand, and oh ! 
 
 How sweetly all her notes were folded ! 
 
 We parted ; months and years roll'd by 
 
 We met again four summers after : 
 Our parting was all sob and sigh ; 
 
 Our meeting was all mirth and laughter : 
 For in my heart's most secret cell 
 
 There had been many other lodgers ; 
 And she was not the ball-room's Belle, 
 
 But only Mrs. Something Rogers ! 
 
 W. M. PRAED. 
 
 A CANON of my own in judging verses is that no man has a 
 right to put into metre what he can as well say out of metre. To 
 which I may add, as a corollary, that a fortiore he has no right 
 to put into metre what he can better say out of metre. 
 
 W. S. LiU.Y 
 (Essay on George Eliot). 
 
 AUJOURD'HUI, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'etre dit, on le 
 
 chante. 
 
 (Now-a-days when a thing is not worth saying they sing it i.e. put it in 
 
 a song.) 
 
 BEAUMARCHAIS. 
 (Le Barbier de Seville, Act I. Sc. I.) 
 
 I DO not know whether 1 gave you at any time the details of 
 my work here, or the principles upon which I have been proceeding 
 .... Some of the work set down includes Ancient Ethics 
 which is almost entirely grossly wrong and great rubbish also. 
 This part I have persistently refused to get Up, not because I 
 disliked it, but because it is decidedly injurious to warp and
 
 208 HODGSON 
 
 twist the brain by impressing it with wrong thoughts and systems 
 just as it would be insane in the polisher of a mirror to think it 
 would reflect the external world more truly, if he gave it a dint 
 here, a scratch there, a bulge in another place, and so forth. 
 It would take me too long to describe the details. Suffice it to 
 say that one of the examiners in Mental Philosophy and in Moral 
 and Political Philosophy is an old, blind (literally) man of the old 
 school, who gave a very abnormally large amount of questions 
 relating to Ancient Ethics, and an abnormally large amount 
 to the early part of English Ethics leaving hardly any marks 
 to be scored by thorough understanding and ability to use the 
 principles of the subjects. 
 
 The consequence was that those, who had crammed up the 
 earlier text-books and could reproduce them, had an enormous 
 advantage. This old fogey moreover is strongly anti-Spencerian. 
 Indeed I heard that he had objected to my answers because 
 " there was too much of Spencer and myself ! " So that instead 
 of criticism and originality, he avowedly preferred mere repro- 
 duction, a good example of the slavishness of that method of 
 examination predominant mostly, which, as Spencer wrote 
 to me some time ago, is devised for testing a man's " power 
 of acquisition instead of using that which has been acquired." 
 RICHARD HODGSON (1855-1905). 
 (Letter, Dec., 1881). 
 
 This letter was written to me from Cambridge, when Hodgson (see 
 Preface) had found his immediate prospects blasted by the results of the 
 Moral Science Tripos. No one was placed in the First Class and he 
 (although at the head of the Tripos) only in the Second Class. This meant 
 that he had no hope of a Fellowship, which would have enabled him to go 
 on with original work in philosophy, and he would have to employ his 
 time in earning a livelihood. Added to this was the cruel disappointment 
 to his family and friends. 
 
 Hodgson was one of the most gifted men that Australia has produced. 
 He had completed his M.A. and LL.D. courses in Melbourne by 1877, 
 when he was twenty-two years of age, and then, discarding the profession 
 of the law, left for Cambridge to read Mental and Moral Science. While 
 still an undergraduate there he had written an article in reply to T. H. 
 Green, and submitted it to Herbert Spencer, who highly approved of it, 
 and sent it to the Contemporary. However, as stated above, Hodgson's 
 immediate future depended on the result of the examination. (He was at 
 the time preparing one of the articles he contributed to Mind, and had in 
 view further original work.) 
 
 When the result of the Tripos appeared, Henry Sidgwick and Venn 
 who were then Lecturers and by far the best Moral Science men in Cam- 
 bridge, came to sympathize with Hodgson, on the unfair result. They 
 urged him to go to Germany so that he might acquire that perfect 
 command of the German language which was necessary for his philosophic 
 work. On learning that he was not in a position to do this, Sidgwick
 
 209 
 
 insisted as he said, " in the interests of philosophy " on defraying the 
 whole of the expenses of Hodgson's residence in Germany. As he insisted 
 strongly, Hodgson accepted the offer, and went to Jena, armed with a very 
 flattering letter of introduction from Herbert Spencer to Haeckel. 
 
 Almost immediately after his return from Germany the Society for 
 Psychical Research was founded, and Hodgson joined it. He came to the 
 conclusion that the work of this Society was more important than any 
 other study, while probably it would also be of fundamental assistance 
 to philosophy. He went out to India in 1884, and thoroughly exposed 
 Madame Blavatsky and her " Theosophy," and, from about 1886, devoted 
 the rest of his life to Psychical Research. Although maintaining his 
 reading and his intimacy with Henry Sidgwick, William James, and others, 
 his services practically became lost to philosophy. This, however, does 
 not affect the important fact illustrated by the Tripos incident. We 
 learn what ineptitude can exist in a great university, and what grave results 
 must necessarily follow therefrom. 
 
 Although Hodgson was writing under stress of a grievous calamity 
 (yet with a dauntless heart see verse on Dedication page), his remarks 
 on Ancient Ethics are not, in my opinion, exaggerated. 
 
 Herbert Spencer's remark to Hodgson about examinations may also 
 be noted. 
 
 Prometheus. AND thou, O Mother Earth ! 
 
 Earth. I hear, I feel 
 
 Thy lips are on me, and their touch runs down 
 Even to the adamantine central gloom 
 Along these marble nerves ; 'tis -life, 'tis joy, 
 And, through my withered, old, and icy frame 
 The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down 
 Circling. Henceforth the many children fair 
 Folded in my sustaining arms ; all plants, 
 And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged, 
 And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes. 
 Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom 
 Draining the poison of despair, shall take 
 And interchange sweet nutriment. 
 
 SHKU,EY 
 (Prometheus Unbound, III, 3) 
 
 In Shelley's great poem, Prometheus is not merely the Titan who, 
 having stolen fire from heaven to benefit man, was chained to a pillar while 
 an eagle tore at his vitals, he is the spirit of humanity. Man has (through 
 superstition) given the god, Zeus, great powers which he uses to enslave 
 and oppress man's own mind and body. Ultimately the god is overthrown, 
 Prometheus, the spirit of man, is released, and the world enters upon its 
 progress towards perfection. 
 
 This and the following quotations are from a collection of referencei to 
 Mother-Earth.
 
 210 COLERIDGE AND OTHERS 
 
 SAY, mysterious Earth ! O say, great mother and goddess, 
 Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, 
 Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and 
 
 won thee ! . . . 
 Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embrace- 
 
 ment. 
 Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold 
 
 instincts, 
 Filled, as a dream, the wide waters ; the rivers sang on their 
 
 channels ; 
 Laughed on their shores the wide seas ; the yearning ocean 
 
 swelled upward ; 
 Young hie lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the 
 
 echoing mountains, 
 Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming 
 
 branches. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 (Hymn to the Earth}. 
 An imitation of Stolberg's Hymne an die Erie, 
 
 FROM my wings are shaken the dews that waken 
 
 The sweet buds- every one, 
 When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 
 As she dances about the sun. 
 
 SHELLEY 
 
 (The Cloud}. 
 
 FOR Nature ever faithful is 
 
 To such as trust her faithfulness. 
 
 When the forest shall mislead me, 
 
 When the night and morning lie, 
 
 When sea and land refuse to feed me, 
 
 'Twill be time enough to die. 
 
 Then will yet my mother yield 
 
 A pillow in her greenest field 
 
 Nor the June flowers scorn to cover 
 
 The clay of their departed lover. 
 
 EMERSON 
 (Woodnotes).
 
 c 
 
 WORDSWORTH AND OTHERS 
 
 LONG have I loved what I behold. 
 The night that calms, the day that cheers ; 
 The common growth of mother-earth 
 Suffices me her tears, her mirth, 
 Her humblest mirth and tears. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (Peter Bell). 
 
 SO mayst thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop 
 Into thy mother's lap. 
 
 MII/TON 
 
 (Paradise Lost, XI, 535). 
 
 SONG OF PROSERPINE;. 
 
 SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth 
 Thou from whose immortal bosom 
 
 Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, 
 Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, 
 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 If with mists of evening dew 
 
 Thou dost nourish these young flowers 
 Till they grow, in scent and hue, 
 
 Fairest children of the Hours, 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, whilst gathering flowers with her play- 
 mates at Enna in Sicily, was carried off by Pluto, also called Dis, god of 
 the dead. (For two-thirds, or, according to later writers, one-half of 
 each year, she returns to the earth, bringing spring and summer.) 
 
 That fair field 
 
 Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, 
 Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis 
 Was gathered ; which cost Ceres all that pain 
 To seek her through the \vorid. 
 
 (Paradise Lost, IV, 269).
 
 MACDONALD AND OTHERvS 
 
 AND ... the rich winds blow, 
 
 And . . . the waters go, 
 
 And the birds for joy, and the trees for prayer, 
 
 Bowing their heads in the sunny air . . . 
 
 All make a music, gentle and strong, 
 
 Bound by the heart into one sweet song ; 
 
 And amidst them all, the mother Earth 
 
 Sits with the children of her birth . . . 
 
 Go forth to her from the dark and the dust 
 
 And weep beside her, if weep thou must ; 
 
 If she may not hold thee to her breast, 
 
 Like a weary infant, that cries for rest ; 
 
 At least she will press thee to her knee 
 
 And tell a low, sweet tale to thee, 
 
 Till the hue to thy cheek, and the light to thine eye 
 
 Strength to thy limbs, and courage high 
 
 To thy fainting heart return amain. 
 
 G. MACDONAU) 
 
 (Phantasies). 
 Hold thee to her breast, give rest in death. 
 
 NE deeth, alias ; ne wol nat han my life ; will not take 
 
 Thus walke I, lyk a restelees caityf, restless wretch 
 
 And on the ground, which is my modres gate, mother's 
 
 I knokke with my staf, both erly and late, 
 
 And seye, " leve moder, leet me in ! say, " Dear mother 
 
 Lo, how I vanish, flesh, and blood, and skin ! waste away " 
 
 Alias ! whan shul my bones be at reste ? " 
 
 CHAUCER (1340-1400). 
 
 (The Pardoner's Tale}. 
 
 a shadow thrown 
 Softly and lightly from a passing cloud, 
 Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay 
 For noontide solace on the summer grass. 
 The warm lap of his mother earth. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (Excursion VII, 286).
 
 MEREDITH BROWNING 213 
 
 AND O green bounteous Earth ! 
 Bacchante Mother ! stern to those 
 Who live not in thy heart of mirth ; 
 Death shall I shrink from, loving thee ? 
 Into the breast that gives the rose 
 Shall I with shuddering fall ? 
 
 G. MEREDITH 
 (Ode to the Spirit of Earth in Autumn}. 
 
 THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 
 
 HE tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 
 
 From the deep cool bed of the river : 
 The limpid water turbidly ran, 
 And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 
 And the dragon-fly had fled away, 
 
 Ere he brought it out of the river. 
 
 High on the shore sat the great god Pan, 
 
 While turbidly flowed the river ; 
 And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 
 With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, 
 Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed 
 
 To prove it fresh from the river. . . . 
 
 " This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, 
 (" lyaughed while he sat by the river,) 
 " The only way, since gods began 
 To make sweet music, they could succeed." 
 Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 
 He blew in power by the river. 
 
 Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan ! 
 
 Piercing sweet by the river ! 
 Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! 
 The sun on the hill forgot to die, 
 And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 
 
 Came back to dream on the river. 
 
 Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, 
 
 To laugh as he sits by the river, 
 Making a poet out of a man : 
 The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, 
 For the reed which grows nevermore again 
 
 As a reed with the reeds in the river. 
 
 E. B, BROWNING
 
 214 NIEBUHR AND OTHERS 
 
 THERE is little merit in inventing a happy idea, or attractive 
 situation, so long as it is only the author's voice which we hear. 
 As a being whom we have called into life by magic arts, as soon 
 as it has received existence, acts independently of the master's 
 impulse, so the poet creates his persons, and then watches and 
 relates what they do and say. Such creation is poetry in the 
 literal sense of the term, and its possibility is an unfathomable 
 enigma. The gushing fullness of speech belongs to the poet, 
 and it flows from the lips of each of his magic beings in the 
 thoughts and words peculiar to its nature. 
 
 NIEBUHR 
 
 (Letters, &c., Vol. Ill, 196). 
 
 POETRY is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according 
 to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, ' ' I will 
 compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it ; for 
 the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible 
 influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory bright- 
 ness ; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower 
 which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious 
 portions of our nature are unprophetic either of its approach or its 
 departure. Could this influence be durable in its original 
 purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the 
 results ; but., when composition begins, inspiration is already 
 on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been 
 communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the 
 original conceptions of the poet. 
 
 (A Defence of Poetry}. 
 
 WHO would loose, 
 
 Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
 Those thoughts that wander through eternity, 
 To perish rather, swallowed up and lost 
 In the wide womb of uncreated night ? 
 
 Mn/TON 
 
 (Paradise Lost ii., 146) 
 : Loose " by committing suicide. 
 
 WHEN the white block of marble shines so solid and so costly, 
 who remembers that it was once made up of decaying shell 
 and rotting bones and millions of dying insect-lives, pressed 
 to ashes ere the rare stone was ? 
 
 (Chandos).
 
 QUID A BUCHANAN 315 
 
 THE madness that starves and is silent for an idea is an insanity, 
 scouted by the world and the gods. For it is an insanity unfruit- 
 ful except to the future. And for the future, who cares save 
 those madmen themselves ? 
 
 . . . THE) gods that most of all have pity on man, the gods 
 of the Night and of the Grave. 
 
 OUR eyes are set to the light, but our feet are fixed in the mire. 
 
 (Folle-Farine). 
 
 " IF the cucumber be bitter, throw it away," says Antoninus : 
 
 do the same with a thought There is no cucumber 
 
 so heavy that one cannot throw it over some wall. 
 
 OUIDA 
 
 (Tricotrin). 
 
 Antoninus, 120-180 A.D., the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, 
 usually known by his first two names Marcus Aurelius, is the author of the 
 well-known Meditations. The quotation is from Bk. VIII., " The gourd 
 is bitter ; drop it, then ! There are brambles in the path ; then turn aside ! 
 It is enough. Do not go on to argue, Why pray have these things a place 
 in the world T " etc. 
 
 These quotations from Ouida may serve to illustrate the saying of 
 Pliny the Elder, " No book is so bad but some good may be got out of it " 
 (Pliny's Letters, III., 10) a saying which was no doubt true until printing 
 let loose on the world such a multitude of worthless writers. 
 
 WHEN WE AU, ARE ASLEEP 
 
 WHEN He returns, and finds the World so drear 
 All sleeping, young and old, unfair and fair, 
 
 Will He stoop down and whisper in each ear, 
 " Awaken ! " or for pity's sake forbear, 
 Saying, " How shall I meet their frozen stare
 
 216 BUCHANAN SWINBURNE; 
 
 Of wonder, and their eyes so full of fear ? 
 
 How shall I comfort them in their despair, 
 If they cry out, ' Too late ! let us sleep here ' ? " 
 Perchance He will not wake us up, but when 
 
 He sees us look so happy in our rest, 
 Will murmur, " Poor dead women and dead men ! 
 
 Dire was their doom, and weary was their quest. 
 Wherefore awake them into life again ? 
 
 I^et them sleep on untroubled it is best." 
 
 R. BUCHANAN. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 BEFORE the beginning of years 
 
 There came to the making of man 
 Time, with a gift of tears ; 
 
 Grief, with a glass that ran ; 
 Pleasure, with pain for leaven ; 
 
 Summer, with flowers that fell ; 
 Remembrance fallen from heaven, 
 
 And madness risen from hell ; 
 Strength without hands to sinite ; 
 
 I/ove that endures for a breath ; 
 Night, the 'shadow of light, 
 
 And life, the shadow of death. 
 
 And the high gods took in hand 
 
 Fire, and the falling of tears, 
 And a measure of sliding sand 
 
 From under the feet of the years ; 
 And froth and drift of the sea ; 
 
 And dust of the labouring earth ; 
 And bodies of things to be 
 
 In the houses of death and of birth ; 
 And wrought with weeping and laughter, 
 
 And fashioned with loathing and love, 
 With life before and after 
 
 And death beneath and above, 
 For a day and a night and a morrow, 
 
 That his strength might endure for a span 
 With travail and heavy sorrow, 
 
 The holy spirit of man.
 
 SWINBURNE ODYSSEY 2 1 7 
 
 From the winds of the north and the south 
 
 They gathered as unto strife ; 
 They breathed upon his mouth, 
 
 They rilled his body with life ; 
 Eyesight and speech they wrought 
 
 For the veils of the soul therein, 
 A time for labour and thought, 
 
 A time to serve and to sin ; 
 They gave him light in his ways, 
 
 And love, and a space for delight, 
 And beauty and length of days, 
 
 And night, and sleep in the night. 
 His speech is a burning fire ; 
 
 With his lips he travaileth ; 
 In his heart is a blind desire, 
 
 In his eyes foreknowledge of death , 
 He weaves, and is clothed with derision ; 
 
 Sows, and he shall not reap ; 
 His life is a watch or a vision 
 
 Between a sleep and a sleep. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 
 (Atalanta in Calydon) 
 
 SHE (the ship of Odysseus) came to the limits of the world, 
 to the deep flowing Oceanus. There is the land and the city 
 of the Cimmerians, shrouded in mist and cloud, and never does 
 the shining sun look down on them with his rays, neither when he 
 climbs up the starry heavens, nor when again he turns earthward 
 from the firmament, but deadly night is outspread over miserable 
 mortals. Thither we came and ran the ship ashore and took 
 out the sheep ; but for our part we held on our way along the 
 stream of Oceanus, till we came to the place which Circe had 
 declared to us. 
 
 There Perimedes and Euryiochus held the victims, but I drew 
 my sharp sword from my thigh, and dug a pit, as it were a cubit 
 in length and breadth, and about it poured a drink-offering 
 to all the dead, first with mead and thereafter with sweet wine 
 
 and for the third time with water When I had besought 
 
 the tribes of the dead with vows and prayers, I took the sheep and 
 cut their throats over the trench, and the dark blood flowed forth, 
 and lo. the spirits of the dead that be departed gathered them 
 from out of Erebus. Brides and youths unwed, and old men 
 of many and evil days, and tender maidens with griefs yet fresh
 
 218 ODYSSEY BROWNING 
 
 at heart ; and many there were, wounded with bronze-shod 
 spears, men slain in fight with their bloody mail about them. 
 And these many ghosts nocked together from every side about 
 the trench with a wondrous cry, and pale fear gat hold on me. 
 ... I drew the sharp sword from my thigh and sat there, suffering 
 not the strengthless heads of the dead to draw nigh to the blood, 
 ere I had word of Teiresias 
 
 Anon came up the soul of my mother dead, Anticleia, the 
 daughter of Autolycus, the great-hearted, whom I left alive 
 when I departed for sacred Ilios. At the sight of her I wept, 
 and was moved with compassion, yet even so, for all my sore 
 grief, I suffered her not to draw nigh to the blood, ere I had 
 word of Teiresias. 
 
 Anon came the soul of Theban Teiresias, with a golden sceptre 
 in his hand, and he knew me and spake unto me : " Son of Laertes 
 of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, what seekest 
 thc-u now, wretched man wherefore hast thou left the sunlight 
 and come hither to behold the dead and a land desolate of joy ? 
 Nay, hold off from the ditch and draw back thy sharp sword, 
 that I may drink of the blood and tell thee sooth." So spake he, 
 and I put up my silver-studded sword into the sheath, and 
 when he had drunk the dark blood, even then did the noble 
 
 seer speak unto me 
 
 ODYSSEY, Bk. XI. 
 (Butcher & Lang's translation}. 
 
 In this weird scene Odysseus is summoning the shade of Teiresias 
 from the under-world. He has with his sword to keep off the host of spirits, 
 including that of his own mother, whom the spilt blood has attracted 
 and the hero is himself terrified at the awful spectacle. 
 
 What adds to the interest of such a passage is that to the ancient Greeks 
 this was no imaginary picture but a statement of actual facts. It will 
 be observed that the dead live in a dark land, " desolate of joy." 
 
 To the little-travelled Greeks the ocean was a river. 
 
 FOR see your cellarage ! 
 
 There are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand 
 Some five or six are abroach : the rest 
 Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test 
 What yourselves call best of the very best ! 
 
 How comes it that still untouched they stand ? 
 Why don't you try tap, advance a stage 
 With the rest in cellarage ?
 
 BROWNING SWINBURNE 219 
 
 For see your cellarage ! 
 
 There are four big butts of Milton's brew, 
 How comes it you make old drips and drops 
 Do duty, and there devotion stops ? 
 I<eave such an abyss of malt and hops 
 
 Embellied in biitts which bungs still glue ? 
 You hate your bard ! A fig for your rage ! 
 Free him from cellarage ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Epilogue to Pacchiarotto and other Poems]. 
 
 THOUGH the seasons of man full of losses 
 
 Make empty the years full of youth, 
 If but one thing be constant in crosses, 
 
 Change lays not her hand upon truth ; 
 Hopes die, and their tombs are for token 
 
 That the grief as the joy of them ends 
 Ere time that breaks all men has broken 
 
 The faith between friends. 
 
 Though the many lights dwindle to one light. 
 
 There is help if the heaven has one ; 
 Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight 
 
 And the earth dispossessed of the sun, 
 The}' have moonlight and sleep for repayment, 
 
 When, refreshed as a bride and set free, 
 With stars and sea-winds in her raiment, 
 
 Night sinks on the sea. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (Dedication, 1865). 
 
 It is hardly possible for a younger generation to realize the almost 
 intoxicating effect produced upon us by Swinburne's new melodies. 
 Although the Poems and Ballads were largely erotic, the curious fact is 
 that we were too much carried away by the beauty and swing of his verse 
 to trouble about the sensual element in it. That element was in itself an 
 artificial production and not a reflection of the poet's own emotions, for 
 he was free from sensuality. It was with us more a question of music. 
 Swinburne himself preferred a musical word or line to one that would more 
 aptly express his meaning ; and in the " Dedication," from which the 
 above verses are quoted, several lines will not bear analysis. However, 
 this was one of our favourites among his poems. 
 
 O daughters of dreams and of stories 
 
 That life is not wearied of yet, 
 Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores, 
 
 Felise and Yolande and Juliette,
 
 SWINBURNE 
 
 Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you, 
 When sleep, that is true or that seems, 
 
 Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you, 
 O daughters of dreams ? 
 
 They are past as a slumber that passes, 
 
 As the dew of a dawn of old time ; 
 More frail than the shadows on glasses, 
 
 More fleet than a wave or a rhyme. 
 As the waves after ebb drawing seaward, 
 
 When their hollows are full of the night, 
 So the birds that flew singing to me-ward 
 
 Recede out of sight. 
 
 He asks that his wild " storm-birds of passion " may find a home in 
 our calmer world : 
 
 In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers, 
 
 Will you spare not a space for them there 
 Made green with the running of rivers 
 
 And gracious with temperate air ; 
 In the fields and the turreted cities, 
 
 That cover from sunshine and rain 
 Fair passions and bountiful pities 
 
 And loves without stain 1 
 
 In a land of clear colours and stories, 
 
 In a region of shadowless hours, 
 Where earth has a garment of glories 
 
 And a murmur of musical flowers ; 
 In woods where the spring half uncovers 
 
 The flush of her amorous face, 
 By the waters that listen for lovers 
 
 For these is there place ? 
 
 Though the world of your hands be more gracious 
 And lovelier in lordshii ' ' ' 
 
 Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious 
 Warm heaven of her imminent wings, 
 
 Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting, 
 For the love of old loves and lost times ; 
 
 And receive in your palace of painting 
 This revel of rhymes. 
 
 Then come the final verses quoted above. These are somewhat de- 
 tached in meaning from the rest, and form a sort of Envoi : " Whatever 
 changes or passes, there is always some beautiful thing that survives." 
 
 As might be expected Swinburne was much parodied (and indeed in 
 the Heptalogia and in the poems lately published he parodied himself). 
 The above poem has been cleverly parodied by a lawyer, Sir Frederick 
 Pollock. (Although parodies go as far back as the Fifth Century B.C.
 
 KINGSLEY EMERSON 221 
 
 I know of no other lawyer who, qua lawyer, has successfully taken a hand 
 in the game.) In his parody Pollock's subject was the great changes effected 
 by the Judicature Act, when the old Courts of Common Law, Chancery, 
 and others were consolidated into one Supreme Court, and the various 
 classes of business assigned to different " Divisions." Also owing to changes 
 in procedure, much of the old technical learning became obsolete. His 
 last verse is as follows (compare with the second verse quoted above) : 
 
 Though the Courts that were manifold dwindle 
 
 To divers Divisions of one, 
 And no fire from your face may rekindle 
 
 The light of old learning undone, 
 We have suitors and briefs for our payment, 
 
 While, so long as a Court shall hold pleas, 
 We talk moonshine with wigs for our raiment, 
 
 Not sinking the fees. 
 
 WULF died, as he had lived, a heathen. Placidia, who loved 
 him well, as she loved all righteous and noble souls, had succeeded 
 once in persuading him to accept baptism. Adolf himself 
 acted as one of his sponsors ; and the old warrior was hi the act 
 of stepping into the font, when he turned suddenly to the bishop 
 and asked, ' Where were the souls of his heathen ancestors ? ' 
 " In hell," replied the worthy prelate. Wulf drew back from 
 the font, and threw his bearskin cloak around him " He would 
 prefer, if Adolf had no objection, to go to his own people." And 
 so he died unbaptized, and went to his own place. 
 
 CHARGES 
 
 (Hypatia) 
 
 This story appears in several old chronicles (Notes and Queries, jtb Ser. X, 
 33), but the name should be Radbod. He was Duke or Chief of the Frisians, 
 and the episode probably occurred in Heligoland, from which island he 
 ruled his people. 
 
 I AM thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one 
 of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is 
 disappointed when anything is less than the best ; and I found 
 that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am 
 always full of thanks for moderate goods. ... In the morning
 
 222 EMERSON AND OTHERS 
 
 I awake, and find the old world, wife, babes and mother, Concord 
 and Boston, the dear old spiritual world, and even the dear old 
 devil not far off. If we will take the good we find, asking no 
 questions, we shall have heaping measures. The great gifts 
 are not got by analysis. Everything good is on the highway. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON 
 (Essay on Experience). 
 
 THE bee draws forth from fruit and flower 
 Sweet dews, that swell his golden dower ; 
 But never injures by his kiss 
 Those who have made him rich in bliss. 
 
 The moth, though tortured by the flame, 
 Still hovers round and loves the same : 
 Nor is his fond attachment less : 
 
 " Alas ! " he whispers, " can it be, 
 Spite of my ceaseless tenderness, 
 
 That I am doomed to death by thee ? " 
 
 AZY EDDIN EWKOGADESSI 
 (L. S. Costello's translation). 
 
 A PINE-TREE stands all lonely 
 
 On a northern hill- top bare. 
 And, wrapped in its snowy mantle, 
 
 It slumbers peacefully there. 
 
 Its dreams are of a palm-tree, 
 
 Far-off in the morning land, 
 Which in lone silence sorrows 
 
 On a burning, rocky strand. 
 
 HEINRICH HEINE (1797-1856) 
 
 MANY a time 
 
 At evening, when the earliest stars began 
 To move along the edges of the hills. 
 Rising or setting, would he stand alone 
 Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake.
 
 WORDSWORTH CANNING 223 
 
 . . . Then in that silence, while he hung 
 Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 
 Has carried far into his heart the voice 
 Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene 
 Would enter unawares into his mind, 
 With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, 
 Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 (The Prelude, Bk. V). 
 
 THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE 
 GRINDER 
 
 FRIEND OF HUMANITY. 
 
 " NEEDY Knife-grinder ! whither are you going ? 
 Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order ; 
 Bleak blows the blast your hat has got a hole in't, 
 So have your breeches ! 
 
 " Weary Knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones, 
 Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- 
 -road, what hard work 'tis crying all day ' Knives and 
 Scissors to grind O ! ' " 
 
 " Tell me, Knife-grinder, how }'ou came to grind knives ? 
 Did some rich man tyrannically use you ? 
 Was it the squire ? or parson of the parish ? 
 Or the attorney ? 
 
 " Was it the squire, for killing of his game ? or 
 Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining ? 
 Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little 
 All in a lawsuit ? 
 
 (" Have you not read the ' Rights of Man,' by Tom Paine ?) 
 Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, 
 Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your 
 Pitiful story." 
 
 KNIFE-GRINDER. 
 
 " Story ! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir, 
 Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, 
 This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
 Torn in a scuffle.
 
 224 CANNING BROWNING 
 
 " Constables came up, for to take me into 
 Custody ; they took me before the justice ; 
 Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish- 
 -stocks for a vagrant. 
 
 " I should be glad to drink your Honour's health in 
 A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ; 
 But for my part, I never love to meddle 
 With politics, sir." 
 
 FRIEND OF HUMANITY. 
 
 " / give thee sixpence ! I will see thee damn'd first- 
 Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance 
 Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, 
 Spiritless outcast ! " 
 
 (Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a 
 transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philan- 
 thropy.) 
 
 GEORGE CANNING 
 (The A nti- Jacobin) . 
 
 Written in Sapphics and said to be a parody of a poem of Southey's, 
 which was afterwards suppressed. 
 
 I I/OVED him , but my reason bade prefer 
 Duty to love, reject the tempter's bribe 
 Of rose and lily when each path diverged, 
 And either I must pace to life's far end 
 As love should lead me, or, as duty urged, 
 
 Plod the worn causeway arm-in-arm with friend 
 
 But deep within my heart of hearts there hid 
 Ever the confidence, amends for all, 
 That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did, 
 When love from life-long exile comes at call. 
 
 R. BROWNING. 
 
 (Bifurcation, 1876) 
 
 The lady prefers Duty to Love, but she will remain constant to her 
 lover, and reunion with him in heaven will make amends for all. (In the 
 remainder of the poem Browning puts the case of the lover who, although 
 deserted, is expected to remain constant through life- and who falls. The 
 lady had disobeyed Love, because of the hardship and trouble that would 
 follow, and Browning, whose own married life had been a most happy one, 
 says this was no excuse.)
 
 BROWNING AND OTHERS 2*5 
 
 WE are scratched, or we are bitten 
 
 By the pets to whom we cling ; 
 Oh, my Ix>ve she is a kitten. 
 
 And my heart's a ball of string. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED 
 
 SOME man of quality 
 
 Who breathing musk from lace-work and brocade, 
 His solitaire amid the flow of frill, 
 Powdered peruke on nose, and bag at back, 
 And cane dependent from the ruffled wrist, 
 Harangues in silvery and selectest phrase, 
 'Neath waxlight in a glorified saloon 
 Where mirrors multiply the girandole. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Ring and the Book, I). 
 
 This and the next five quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85). 
 
 " OH, what are you waiting for here, young man ? 
 
 What are you looking for over the bridge ? " 
 
 A little straw hat with streaming blue ribbons ; 
 
 And here it comes dancing over the bridge ! 
 
 JAMES THOMSON (B.V.) 
 (Sunday up the River). 
 
 DOWN in yonder greene field 
 There lies a knight slain under his shield ; 
 His hounds they lie down at his feet, 
 So well do they their master keep. 
 
 ANON. 
 (The Three Ravens). 
 
 WHEN we cam' in by Glasgow toun, 
 
 We were a comely sight to see ; 
 My Love was clad in the black velvet, 
 
 And I mysel' in cramasie. crimson 
 
 ANON. 
 
 (O waly, waly, up the bank). 
 
 15
 
 226 ARNOLD AND OTHERS 
 
 THEY see the Heroes 
 
 Sitting in the dark ship 
 
 On the foamless, long-heaving, 
 
 Violet sea, 
 
 At sunset nearing 
 
 The Happy Islands. 
 
 M. ARNOLD 
 
 (The Strayed Reveller] 
 
 LIKE one, that on a lonesome road 
 
 Doth walk in fear and dread, 
 And having once turned round, walks on 
 
 And turns no more his head : 
 
 Because he knows a frightful fiend 
 
 Doth close behind him tread. 
 
 COLERIDGE 
 (The Ancient Mariner] 
 
 The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85.) 
 
 WE take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom ; and certainly 
 there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise 
 man not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 CUNNING, being the ape of wisdom, is the most distant from 
 it that can be. And as an ape for the likeness it has to a man 
 wanting what really should make him so is by so much the uglier, 
 cunning is only the want of understanding, which, because it 
 cannot compass its ends by direct ways, would do it by a trick 
 and circumvention. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE 
 (Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1693). 
 
 A ROGUE is a roundabout fool ; a fool in circumbendibus. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE.
 
 ELIOT AND OTHERS 227 
 
 IT is only by a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full- 
 grown men can distinguish well-rolled barrels from more supernal 
 thunder. 
 
 GEORGE EXioT 
 
 (Mill on the Floss). 
 
 its teaching (the teaching of scientific and other books 
 of information, the " literature of knowledge ") be even 
 partially revised, let it be expanded, nay, even let its teaching 
 be but placed in a better order, and instantly it is superseded. 
 Whereas the feeblest works in the literature of power (poetry 
 and what is generally known as literature), surviving at all, 
 
 survive as finished and unalterable amongst men The 
 
 Iliad, the Prometheus of Aeschylus the Othello or King I^ear 
 the Hamlet or Macbeth and the Paradise Lost, are triumphant 
 for ever, as long as the languages exist in which they speak or 
 can be taught to speak. They never can transmigrate into new 
 incarnations. To reproduce these in new forms, or variations, even 
 if in some things they should be improved, would be to plagiarize. 
 A good steam engine is properly superseded by a better. But 
 one lovely pastoral valley is not superseded by another, nor a 
 statue of Praxiteles by a statue of Michael Angelo. 
 
 DE QUINCEY 
 (Alexander Pope). 
 
 De Quincey's division of literature into "literature of power" and 
 " literature of knowledge " still remains a useful classification. 
 
 A MAN should be able to render a reason for the faith that is 
 in him. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 HOW brew the brave drink, Life ? 
 Take of the herb hight morning joy, 
 
 Take of the herb hight evening rest, 
 Pour in pain, lest bliss should cloy, 
 Shake in sin to give it zest 
 Then down with the brave drink, Life ! 
 
 AUTHOR NO* TRACED.
 
 228 PENN AND OTHERS 
 
 I had this attributed to Robert Burton, but cannot find it in the 
 Anatomv of Melancholy, It may possibly be from Richard Brathwaite, 
 whose works I think were at one time attributed to Burton ; but I have 
 no opportunity of consulting them. 
 
 I EXPECT to pass through this world but once. Any good work, 
 therefore, I can do or show to any fellow creature, let me do it 
 now ! L/et me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this 
 way again. 
 
 WIUJAM PENN. 
 
 I find that there has been much discussion in Notes and Queries and 
 elsewhere as to the origin of this quotation, and it is now usually attributed 
 to the French-American Quaker, Stephen Grellet. As, however, Bartlett's 
 Familiar Quotations gives " I shall not pass this way again " as a favourite 
 saying of William Penn's, it seems more reasonable to consider him the 
 author of the above. 
 
 YOUTH is a blunder, Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret. 
 
 DlSRAEU 
 (Coningsby). 
 
 SHE went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple 
 pie. Just then, a great she-bear coming down the street poked 
 its nose into the shop- window. " What ! no soap ? " So 
 he died, and she (very imprudently) married the barber. And 
 there were present at the wedding the Joblillies, and the Piccannies, 
 and the Gobelites, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the 
 little button on top. So they all set to playing Catch- who-catch- 
 can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots. 
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE, 1720-1777. 
 
 Charles Macklin (1699-1797), actor and playwright, said in a lecture 
 on oratory that by practice he had brought his memory to such perfection 
 that he could learn anything by rote on once hearing or reading it. Foote 
 (a more important dramatist and actor) wrote out the above and handed 
 it up to Macklin to read and then repeat from memory I The passage was 
 very familiar to us from Miss Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy ; and also from 
 Verdant Green, by Cuthbert Bede (Edward Bradley) where it was set in 
 the bogus examination paper " To be turned into Latin after the manner 
 of the Animals of Tacitus.
 
 ! AND OTHERS 229 
 
 YOU feel o'er you stealing 
 
 The old familiar, warm, champagny, brandy-punchy, 
 feeling. 
 
 J. R. LOWEI,!, 
 (Old College Rooms). 
 
 THE first and worst of all frauds is to cheat 
 One's self. 
 
 P. J. BAILEY 
 
 (Festus, "Anywhere"]. 
 
 TRULY it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, 
 and should be regarded as their most serious actions. 
 
 MONTAIGNE. 
 
 BOYS and their pastimes are swayed by periodic forces in- 
 scrutable to man ; so that tops and marbles reappear in their 
 due season, regular like the sun and moon ; and the harmless 
 art of knucklebones has seen the fall of the Roman Empire and 
 the rise of the United States. 
 
 R. L. STEVENSON 
 (The Lantern-Bearers}. 
 
 SAYS Chloe, " Though tears it may cost, 
 It is time we should part, my dear Sue ; 
 
 For your character's totally lost, 
 And I've not sufficient for two ! " 
 
 ANON.
 
 AIJ3X. SMITH 
 
 I CANNOT say, in Eastern style, 
 Where'er she treads the pansy blows ; 
 Nor call her eyes twin-stars, her smile 
 A sunbeam, and her mouth a rose. 
 Nor can I, as your bridegrooms do, 
 Talk of my raptures. Oh, how sore 
 The fond romance of twenty-two 
 Is parodied ere thirty-four ! 
 
 To-night I shake hands with the past, 
 
 Familiar years, adieu, adieu ! 
 
 An unknown door is open cast, 
 
 An empty fxiture wide and new 
 
 Stands waiting. O ye naked rooms, 
 
 Void, desolate, without a charm, 
 
 Will Love's smile chase your lonely glooms, 
 
 And drape your walls, and make them warm ? 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH (1830-1867) 
 (The Night before the Wedding). 
 
 In my notes, this strange poem is stated to have been actually written 
 by Smith on the night before his wedding ; but it is difficult to believe 
 this. In the poem, the poet sits until dawn on his wedding-eve thinking 
 of the " long-lost passions of his youth," and comparing them with his 
 calm and unimpassioned love, " pale blossom of the snow," for the bride 
 of the morrow. He even fears that his wife's tenderness will keep alive 
 the memories of his youthful loves : 
 
 It may be that your loving wiles 
 Will call a sigh from far-off years 5 
 It may be that your happiest smiles 
 Will brim my eyes with hopeless tears ; 
 It may be that my sleeping breath 
 Will shake with painful visions wrung ; 
 And, in the awful trance of death, 
 A stranger's name be on my tongue. 
 
 This is sufficiently gruesome. However he finally comes to the conclusion 
 (although it seems dragged in to save a very difficult situation) that his 
 love for his future bride may become more satisfactory to him : 
 
 For, as the dawning sweet and fast 
 Through all the heaven spreads and flows, 
 Within life's discord rude and vast 
 Love's subtle music grows and grows. 
 
 My love, pale blossom of the snow, 
 
 Has pierced earth, wet with wintry showers 
 
 O may it drink the sun, and blow, 
 
 And be followed by all the year of flowers !
 
 MACPHERSON SHELLEY 231 
 
 Smith, with P. J. Bailey, Sydney Dobell and others, belonged to what 
 was called the " Spasmodic " school which the Briiannica says is " now 
 fallen into oblivion." I do not know what this means. Smith, Bailey, 
 and Dobell no doubt wrote extravagantly, but they have all written good 
 verses. Take for example the following from Smith's first poem, " A 
 Life Drama" written at twenty-two years of age : 
 
 All things have something more than barren use ; 
 
 There is a scent upon the brier, 
 A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews, 
 Cold morns are fringed with fire ; 
 
 The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath' d flowers, 
 
 In music dies poor human speech, 
 And into beauty blow those hearts of ours, 
 
 When Love is born in each. 
 
 Smith was also a charming essayist. See quotations elsewhere. 
 
 AND so on to the end (and the end draws nearer) 
 When our souls may be freer, our senses clearer, 
 ('Tis an old-world creed which is nigh forgot), 
 When the eyes of the sleepers may waken in wonder, 
 And hearts may be joined that were riven asunder, 
 And Time and Love shall be merged in what ? 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 SOFT music came to mine ear. It was like the rising breeze, 
 that whirls, at first, the thistle's beard ; then flies, dark-shadowy, 
 over the grass. It was the maid of Fuarfed wild : she raised the 
 nightly song ; for she knew that my soul was a stream, that flowed 
 at pleasant sounds. 
 
 JAMES MACPHERSON (1736-1796). 
 
 Macpherson alleged that he had discovered poems by the Gaelic bard, 
 Ossian, who lived in the Third Century, and he published translations of 
 them. Actually the poems were his own, but they were beautiful and had 
 a considerable effect upon literature. 
 
 I DARE not guess : but in this life 
 Of error, ignorance, and strife, 
 Where nothing is, but all things seem, 
 And we the shadows of the dream.
 
 aja SHELLEY AND OTHERS 
 
 It is a modest creed, and yet 
 Pleasant if one considers it, 
 To own that death itself must be, 
 Like all the rest, a mockery. 
 
 SHEIAEY 
 (The Sensitive Plant). 
 
 I SHOULD like to make every man, woman, and child disconten- 
 ted with themselves.even as I am discontented with myself. I should 
 like to waken in them, about their physical, their intellectual, 
 their moral condition, that divine discontent which is the parent, 
 first of upward aspiration and then of self-control, thought, 
 effort to fulfil that aspiration even in part. For to be discontented 
 with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble 
 shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue. 
 
 CHARGES KJNGSI,EY 
 (The Science of Health, 1872). 
 
 The origin of the expression " divine discontent." 
 
 HE first deceas'd ; she for a little tried 
 To live without him : liked it not, and died. 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 (Reliquiae Wottonianae, 1685). 
 
 IS the yellow bird dead ? 
 
 Lay your dear little head 
 Close, close to my heart, and weep, precious one, there, 
 
 While your beautiful hair 
 On my bosom lies light, like a sun-lighted cloud ; 
 
 No, you need not keep still, 
 
 You may sob as you will ; 
 There is some little comfort in crying aloud. 
 
 But the days they must come, 
 
 When your grief will be dumb : 
 Grown women like me must take care how they cry. 
 
 You will learn by and by 
 'Tis a womanly art to hide pain out of sight, 
 
 To look round with a smile, 
 
 Though your heart aches the while 
 And to keep back your tears till you've blown out the 
 light. 
 
 MARIAN 
 
 (Picture Poems for Young Folks)
 
 BACON AND OTHERS 233 
 
 MY Lord St. Albans said that wise nature did never put her 
 precious jewels into a garret four stories high ; and, therefore, 
 that exceeding tall men had ever empty heads. 
 
 BACON 
 
 (Apothegms). 
 
 THAT low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 Sees it and does it : 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 
 That low man goes on adding one to one, 
 
 His hundred's soon hit : 
 This high man, aiming at a million. 
 
 Misses a unit. 
 That, has the world here should he need the next, 
 
 Let the world mind him ! 
 This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed 
 
 Seeking shall find Him. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (A Grammarian's Funeral). 
 
 See The Inn Album (IV) where Browning makes his heroine say : 
 Better have failed in the high aim, as I, 
 Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed 
 As, God be thanked, I do not I 
 
 THERE is a secret belief among some men that God is displeased 
 with man's happiness ; and in consequence they slink about 
 creation, ashamed and afraid to enjoy anything. 
 
 SIR A. HEUPS 
 
 (Companions of my Solitude). 
 
 O ELOQUENT, just, and mightie Death! whom none could ad- 
 vise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast done ; 
 and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out 
 of the world and despised. Thou hast drawne together all the 
 farre stretched greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition 
 of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hie 
 jacet ! 
 
 SIR WAI/TER RAI^EIGH 
 (Historic of the World).
 
 234 THOMSON BROWNING 
 
 A REQUIEM 
 
 THOU hast lived in pain and woe, 
 Thou hast lived in grief and fear ; 
 
 Now thine heart can dread no blow, 
 Now thine eyes can shed no tear : 
 
 Storms round us shall beat and rave ; 
 
 Thou art sheltered in the grave. 
 
 Thou for long, long years hast borne, 
 Bleeding through I/ife's wilderness, 
 
 Heavy loss and wounding scorn ; 
 Now thine heart is burdenless : 
 
 Vainly rest for ours we crave ; 
 
 Thine is quiet in the grave. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON (" B.V."). 
 
 AMPHIBIAN 
 
 THE fancy I had to-day, 
 Fancy which turned a fear ! 
 
 I swam far out in the bay, 
 
 Since waves laughed warm and clear. 
 
 I lay and looked at the sun, 
 The noon-sun looked at me : 
 
 Between us two, no one 
 Live creature, that I could see. 
 
 Yes ! There came floating by 
 
 Me, who lay floating too, 
 Such a strange butterfly ! 
 
 Creature as dear as new : 
 
 Because the membraned wings 
 
 So wonderful, so wide, 
 So sun-suffused, were things 
 
 Like soul and nought beside 
 
 What if a certain soul 
 
 Which early slipped its sheath, 
 And has for its home the whole 
 
 Of heaven, thus look beneath.
 
 BROWNING 235 
 
 Thus watch one who, in the world, 
 
 But lives and likes life's way, 
 Nor wishes the wings unfurled 
 
 That sleep in the worm, they say ? 
 
 But sometimes when the weather 
 
 Is blue, and warm waves tempt 
 To free oneself of tether, 
 
 And try a life exempt 
 
 From worldly noise and dust, 
 
 In the sphere which overbrims 
 With passion and thought, why, just 
 
 Unable to fly, one swims ! . . . 
 
 Emancipate through passion 
 
 And thought, with sea for sky, 
 We substitute, in a fashion, 
 
 For heaven poetry : 
 
 Which sea, to all intent, 
 
 Gives flesh such noon-disport 
 As a finer element 
 
 Affords the spirit sort. 
 
 Whatever they are, we seem : 
 
 Imagine the thing they know ; 
 All deeds they do, we dream ; 
 
 Can heaven be else but so ? 
 
 And meantime, yonder streak 
 
 Meets the horizon's verge ; 
 That is the land, to seek 
 
 If we tire or dread the surge : 
 
 L/and the solid and safe 
 
 To welcome again (confess !) 
 When, high and dry, we chafe 
 
 The body, and don the dress. 
 
 Does she look, pity, wonder 
 At one who mimics flight, 
 Swims heaven above, sea under, 
 Yet always earth in sight ? 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Prologue to Fifine at the Fair}.
 
 236 PROWSE AND OTHERS 
 
 This is not one of Browning's best poems, but it is interesting. The 
 butterfly in the air over the poet swimming is compared to a ' certain soul,' 
 Mrs. Browning, looking down upon him from heaven. The ' flying,' free 
 and entirely released from the earth, is the life of the soul, to which the 
 poet cannot attain ; but during periods of inspiration he lives a life free 
 of ' worldly noise and dust,' which approaches that of the soul. Such 
 periods of inspiration are likened to ' swimming ' with the land always 
 in sight, as compared with the ' flying ' of the soul in the far-removed 
 celestial regions. " We substitute, in a fashion, For heaven poetry." 
 
 Whatever they are we seem : during inspiration the poet's life is a reflex 
 of or approach to the heavenly life. 
 
 Amphibian, because the poet is of earth and yet can " swim " in the 
 sea of imagination. Charles Lamb speaks of his charming Child Angel, 
 half-angel, half-human, as Amphibium. Browning's poem may have been 
 an unconscious development of a passage from Sir Thomas Browne's 
 Religio Medici : " Thus is Man that great and true Ampbibium, whose 
 nature is disposed to live, not only like other creatures in divers elements, 
 but in divided and distinguished worlds : for though there be but one to 
 sense, there are two to reason, the one visible, the other invisible." 
 
 The sixth and last verses are interesting. Browning, while in the 
 world " Both lives and likes life's way," nor is anxious that his " wings " 
 should be " unfurled " ; and he wonders how his angel-wife regards mm, 
 content with his " mimic flight." See p. 114. 
 
 WE work so hard, we age so soon, 
 
 We live so swiftly, one and all, 
 That ere our day be fairly noon, 
 
 The shadows eastward seem to fall. 
 Some tender light may gild them yet, 
 
 As yet, 'tis not so very cold, 
 And, on the whole, I won't regret 
 
 My slender chance of growing old. 
 
 W. J. PROWSE, (1836 1870). 
 
 (My Lost Old Age). 
 Prowse wrote excellent verses before he was 20 and he died at 34. 
 
 Soul of all things ! make it mine 
 To feel, amid the city's jar, 
 That there abides a peace of thine 
 Man did not make, and cannot mar. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 (Lines written in Kensington Gardens). 
 
 f 
 
 A WOMAN needs to be wooed long after she is won, and the 
 husband who ceases to court his wife is courting disaster. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED.
 
 ARNOLD 237 
 
 TO A GIPSY CHILD BY THE SEASHORE 
 
 WHO taught this pleading to unpractised eyes ? 
 Who hid such import in an infant's gloom ? 
 Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise ? 
 Who mass'd, round that slight brow, these clouds of 
 doom ? . . . 
 
 Glooms that go deep as thine I have not known : 
 Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth. 
 Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own : 
 Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth. 
 
 What mood wears like complexion to thy woe ? 
 His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day, 
 Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below ? 
 Ah ! thine was not the shelter, but the fray. 
 
 Some exile's, mindful how the past was glad ? 
 Some angel's, in an alien planet born ? 
 No exile's dream was ever half so sad, 
 Nor any angel's sorrow so forlorn. 
 
 Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh 
 
 Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore ; 
 
 But in disdainful silence turn away, 
 
 Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more ? . 
 
 Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope, 
 Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give 
 Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope, 
 Forseen thy harvest, yet proceed 'st to live. . . . 
 
 Ere the long night, whose stillness brooks no star, 
 Match that funereal aspect with her pall, 
 I think, thou wilt have fathom 'd life too far, 
 Have known too much or else forgotten all. 
 
 The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil 
 Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps ; 
 Hath sown with cloudless passages the tale 
 Of grief, and eased us with a thousand sleeps. 
 
 Ah ! not the nectarous poppy lovers use, 
 Not daily labour's dull, Lethaean spring, 
 Oblivion in lost angels can infuse 
 Of the soil'd glory, and the trailing wing ;
 
 238 ARNOLD AND OTHERS 
 
 And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners may, 
 In the throng'd fields where winning comes by strife ; 
 And though the just sun gild, as mortals pray. 
 Some reaches of thy storm-vext stream of life ; . . . . 
 
 Once, ere thy day go down, thou shalt discern, 
 Oh once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain ! 
 Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return, 
 And wear this majesty of grief again. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 ANIMTJLA, vagula, blandula. 
 Hospes, comesque corporis, 
 Quae nunc abibis in loca. 
 Pallidula, frigida, nudula ; 
 Nee, ut soles, dabis joca ! 
 
 SPARTIANUS 
 (Life of Hadrian). 
 
 These lines, put into the mouth of the dying Emperor, have been 
 translated by Vaughan, Prior, Byron and others. Mr. Clodd (The 
 Question // a Man Die) gives this version, without naming the 
 translator : 
 
 Soul of mine, thou fleeting, clinging thing, 
 Long my body's mate and guest, 
 Ah ! now whither wilt thou wing, 
 Pallid, naked, shivering, 
 Never more to speak and jest. 
 
 In all these versions pallidula, etc., are applied to animula, but, as 
 Mr. Alfred S. West points out to me, they appear to be epithets of loca, 
 thus: "Fleeting, winsome soul, my body's guest and comrade, that art 
 now about to set out for regions wan, cold and bare, no more to jest 
 according to thy wont." 
 
 THIS wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait, 
 
 We call our Dwelling-place : 
 But angels in their full enlightened state, 
 Angels, who Live, and know what 'tis to Be, 
 Who all the nonsense of our language see, 
 Who speak things, and our words their ill-drawn pictures 
 
 scorn, 
 
 When we, by a foolish figure, say, 
 
 " Behold an old man dead ! " then they 
 Speak properly, and cry, " Behold a man-child born ! " 
 
 , 1 6 1 8- 1 667 
 
 (Life).
 
 I.YNCH AND OTHERS 239 
 
 HERB now I am : the house is fast ; 
 I am shut in from all but Thee ; 
 Great witness of my privacy, 
 Dare I unshamed my soul undress, 
 And. like a child, seek Thy caress, 
 Thou Ruler of a realm so vast ? 
 
 T. T. lyYNCH. 
 
 THE dog walked off to play with a black beetle. The beetle 
 was hard at work trying to roll home a great ball of dung it had 
 been collecting all the morning ; but Doss broke the ball, and ate 
 the beetle's hind legs, and then bit off its head. And it was all 
 play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked for. 
 A striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing. 
 
 OLIVE SCHREINER 
 
 (The Story of an African Farm)- 
 
 The author is depicting the sadness of life. 
 
 GRACE FOR A CHILD 
 
 HERE a little child I stand, 
 
 Heaving up my either hand ; 
 Cold as Paddocks though they be, frogs 
 
 Here I lift them up to Thee, 
 
 For a benison to fall blessing 
 
 On our meat, and on us all. Amen. 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674). 
 
 AS the moon's soft splendour 
 O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven 
 
 Is thrown, 
 
 So your voice most tender 
 To the strings without soul had then given 
 Its own. . . . 
 
 Though the sound overpowers, 
 Sing again, with your dear voice revealing 
 
 A tone 
 
 Of some world far from ours, 
 Where music and moonlight and feeling 
 Are one. 
 
 SHRLI.HY 
 (To Jane}
 
 WALLER AND OTHERS 
 
 WHILE I listen to thy voice, 
 
 Chloris ! I feel my life decay : 
 That pow'rful noise 
 
 Calls my fleeting soul away. 
 Oh 1 suppress that magic sound, 
 Which destroys without a wound. 
 
 Peace, Chloris, peace ! or singing die ; 
 That, together, you and I 
 
 To heaven may go : 
 
 For all we know 
 Of what the Blessed do above 
 Is, that they sing, and that they love. 
 
 EDMUND WAITER (1606-1687). 
 
 TO be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful 
 and hopeful than to be forty years old. 
 
 O. W. 
 
 From letter to Julia Ward Howe in 1889 on her seventieth birthday. 
 Mrs. Howe wrote the fine " Battle Hymn of the American Republic," 
 beginning : 
 
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : 
 He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored : 
 He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword : 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 INSOMNIA 
 
 A HOUSE of sleepers, I alone unblest 
 
 Am still awake and empty vigil keep : 
 
 When those who share Life's day with me find rest, 
 
 Oh, let me not be last to fall, asleep. 
 
 ANNA REEVE AU>RICH. 
 
 She did " fall asleep " at the early age of twenty-six in June, 1892. 
 
 THE world is full of willing people : some willing to work, 
 and the rest willing to let them. 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED,
 
 CLOUGH IvYTTON 241 
 
 "THROUGH A GLASS DARKIyY " 
 
 WHAT we, when face to face we see 
 The Father of our souls, shall be, 
 John tells us, doth not yet appear ; 
 Ah ! did he tell what we are here ! 
 
 A mind for thoughts to pass into, 
 
 A heart for loves to travel through, 
 
 Five senses to detect things near, 
 
 Is this the whole that we are here ? . . 
 
 Ah yet, when all is thought and said 
 The heart still overrules the head ; 
 Still what w r e hope we must believe, 
 And what is given us receive ; 
 
 Must still believe, for still we hope 
 That in a world of larger scope, 
 What here is faithfully begun 
 Will be completed, not undone. 
 
 My child, we still must think, when we 
 That ampler life together see, 
 Some true result will yet appear 
 Of what we are, together, here. 
 
 A. H. CJ.OUGH. 
 
 PLUS je vois les homines, plus j 'admire les chiens. 
 (The more 1 see of men, the more I admire dogs.) 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 HF, who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or 
 refuseth himself the softest consolation next to that which cometh 
 from heaven. "What, softer than woman ? " whispers the young 
 reader. Young reader, woman teases as well as consoles. Woman 
 makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege of soothing. 
 On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that Jupiter ! 
 
 16
 
 242 LYTTON AND OTHERS 
 
 hang out thy balance and weigh them both ; and, if thou give the 
 preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno 
 ruffles thee, O Jupiter, try the weed ! 
 
 BUIAVER LYTTON 
 (What will He do with It ?) 
 
 Compare Kipling in " The Betrothed v : 
 
 A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke. 
 
 IL y a toujours 1'un qui baise, et 1'autre qui tend la joue. 
 (There is always one who kisses and the other who offers the cheek.) 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 AH, wasteful woman, she who may 
 
 On her sweet self set her own price, 
 Knowing he cannot choose but pay, 
 
 How has she cheapen'd paradise ; 
 How given for nought her priceless gift, 
 
 How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, 
 Which, spent with due respective thrift, 
 
 Had made brutes men, and men divine ! 
 
 C. PATMORE 
 (The Angel in the House). 
 
 NAY, Love, you did give all I asked, I think 
 
 More than I merit, yes, by many times. 
 
 But had you oh, with the same perfect brow, 
 
 And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 
 
 And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
 
 The fowler's pipe and follows to the snare 
 
 Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind ! 
 
 Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 
 
 " God and the glory ! never care for gain." 
 
 I might have done it for you. 
 
 R . BROWNING 
 
 (Andrea del Sarto}. 
 
 The painter says that his wife, instead of urging him to work for 
 immediate gain, might have incited him to nobler efforts.
 
 PRAED 343 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS 
 
 ONCE on a time, when sunny May 
 
 Was kissing up the April showers, 
 I saw fair Childhood hard at play 
 
 Upon a bank of blushing flowers ; 
 Happy he knew not whence or how 
 
 And smiling, who could choose but love him ? 
 For not more glad than Childhood's brow, 
 
 Was the blue heaven that beamed above him. 
 
 Old Time, in most appalling wrath, 
 
 That valley's green repose invaded ; 
 The brooks grew dry upon his path, 
 
 The birds were mute, the lilies faded. 
 But Time so swiftly winged his flight, 
 
 In haste a Grecian tomb to batter, 
 That Childhood watched his paper kite, 
 
 And knew just nothing of the matter 
 
 Then stepped a gloomy phantom up, 
 
 Pale, cypress-crowned, Night's awful daughter, 
 And proffered him a fearful cup 
 
 Full to the brim of bitter water : 
 Poor Childhood bade her tell her name ; 
 
 And when the beldame muttered, " Sorrow," 
 He said ," Don't interrupt my game ; 
 
 I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow." . . . 
 
 Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball, 
 
 And taught him with most sage endeavour, 
 Why bubbles rise and acorns fall, 
 
 And why no toy may last for ever. 
 She talked of all the wondrous laws 
 
 Which Nature's open book discloses, 
 And Childhood, ere she made a pause, 
 
 Was fast asleep among the roses. 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on ! Oh ! Manhood's dreams 
 
 Are all of earthly pain or pleasure, 
 Of Glory's toils, Ambition's schemes, 
 
 Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure : 
 But to the couch where Childhood lies 
 
 A more delicious trance is given, 
 Lit up by rays from seraph eyes, 
 
 And glimpses of remembered Heaven ! 
 
 W. M. PRAED.
 
 244 MACDONALD KIPLING 
 
 ALAS, how easily things go wrong ! 
 A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, 
 And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, 
 And life is never the same again. 
 
 G. MACDONAIJD 
 
 (Phantasies). 
 
 L'ENVOI 
 
 THERE'S a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield 
 
 And the ricks stand grey to the sun, 
 
 Singing : " Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover 
 And your English summer's done." 
 
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind 
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain ; 
 You have heard the song how long ! how long ! 
 Pull out on the trail again ! 
 
 Ha' done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass, 
 
 We've seen the seasons through, 
 
 And it's time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, 
 
 Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail the trail that is always new. 
 
 It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun 
 
 Or South to the blind Horn's hate ; 
 Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay, 
 Or West to the Golden Gate ; 
 Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass, 
 And the wildest tales are true, 
 And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the 
 
 out trail, 
 
 And life runs large on the Long Trail the trail that is 
 always new. 
 
 The days are sick and cold, and the skies are grey and old, 
 
 And the twice-breathed airs blow damp ; 
 And I'd sell my tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll 
 Of a black Bilboa tramp ; 
 
 With her load-line over her hatch, dear lass, 
 
 And a drunken Dago crew, 
 
 And her nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the 
 
 out trail 
 
 From Cadiz Bar on the Long Trail the trail that is always 
 new.
 
 KIPLING 245 
 
 There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, 
 
 Or the way of a man with a maid ; 
 But the sweetest way to me is a ship's upon the sea 
 In the heel of the North-East trade, 
 
 Can you hear the crash on her bows, dear lass, 
 
 And the drum of the racing screw, 
 
 As she ships it green on the old trail, our own trail, the 
 
 out trail, 
 
 As she lifts and 'scends on the Long Trail the trail that is 
 always new. 
 
 See the shaking funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore, 
 
 And the fenders grind and heave, 
 
 And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate, 
 And the fall-rope whines through the sheave ; 
 It's " Gang-plank up and in," dear lass, 
 It's " Hawsers warp her through ! " 
 And it's " All clear aft " on the old trail, our own trail, the 
 
 out trail, 
 
 . We're backing down on the Long Trail the trail that is 
 always new 
 
 O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied, 
 
 And the sirens hoot their dread ! 
 
 When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless viewless deep 
 To the sob of the questing lead ! 
 
 It's down bv the Lower Hope, dear lass, 
 
 With the Gunfleet Sands in view, 
 
 Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, 
 
 the out trail, 
 
 And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail the trail that is 
 always new. 
 
 O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light 
 
 That holds the hot sky tame, 
 And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powder'd 
 
 floors 
 Where the scared whale flukes in flame ! 
 
 Her plates are scarr'd by the sun, dear lass, 
 
 And her ropes are taut with the dew, 
 
 For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the 
 
 out trail, 
 
 We're sagging south on the Long Trail the trail that is 
 always new.
 
 246 KIPLING WORDSWORTH 
 
 Then home, get her home, when the drunken rollers comb, 
 
 And the shouting seas drive by, 
 
 And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing, 
 And the Southern Cross rides high ! 
 
 Yes, the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass. 
 
 That blaze in the velvet blue, 
 
 They're all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the 
 
 out trail, 
 
 They're God's own guides on the Long Trail the trail that 
 is always new. 
 
 Fly forward, O my heart, from the Foreland to the Start 
 We're steaming all too slow, 
 And it's twenty thousand mile to our little lazy isle 
 Where the trumpet-orchids blow ! 
 
 You have heard the call of the off-shore wind 
 And the voice of the deep-sea rain ; 
 You have heard the song how long ! how long ! 
 Pull out on the trail again ! 
 
 The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass. 
 
 And the deuce knows what we may do 
 
 But we're back once more on the old trail, our own trail, 
 
 the out trail, 
 We're down, hull down on the Long Trail the trail that is 
 
 always new. 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 A great sea-song ; we are on board passing through scene after scene 
 and feeling the very movement of the ship and its gear. 
 
 WISDOM and Spirit of the universe ! 
 Thou soul that art the eternity of thought 
 That givest to forms and images a breath 
 And everlasting motion, not in vain 
 By day or star-light thus from my first dawn 
 Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me 
 The passions that build up our human soul ; 
 Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, 
 But with high objects, with enduring things 
 With life and nature purifying thus 
 The elements of feeling and of thought, 
 And sanctifying, by such discipline, 
 Both pain and fear, until we recognize 
 A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (The Prelude, Bk. I).
 
 PAINE 247 
 
 THE Quakers have contracted themselves too much by leaving 
 the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their 
 philanthropy, I can not help srniling at the conceit, that, if the 
 taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, 
 what a silent and drab-coloured creation it would have been ! 
 Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been 
 permitted to sing. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE 
 (The Age of Reason}. 
 
 This quotation reminds me of an interesting passage in Professor 
 Bateson's Presidential Address to the British Association at Melbourne 
 in 1914. Although it has not a very close connection with the quotation 
 the reader will not object to my giving it a place here : 
 
 " Everyone must have a preliminary sympathy with the aims of 
 eugenists both abroad and at home. Their efforts at the least are doing 
 something to discover and spread truth as to the physiological structure 
 of society. The spread of such organisations, however, almost of necessity 
 suffers from a bias towards the accepted and the ordinary, and if they 
 had power it would go hard with many ingredients of society that could 
 be ill-spared. I notice an ominous passage in which even Galton, the 
 founder of eugenics, feeling perhaps some twinge of his Quaker ancestry, 
 remarks that ' as the Bohemianism in the nature of our race is destined to 
 perish, the sooner it goes, the happier for mankind.' It is not the eugenists 
 who will give us what Plato has called ' divine releases from the common 
 ways.' If some fancier with the catholicity of Shakespeare would take 
 us in hand, well and good ; but I would not trust Shakespeares, meeting 
 as a committee. Let us remember that Beethoven's father was an habitual 
 drunkard and that his mother died of consumption. From the genealogy 
 of the patriarchs also we learn what may very well be the truth that 
 the fathers of such as dwell in tents, and of all such as handle the harp 
 or organ, and the instructor of every artificer in brass or iron the founders, 
 that is to say, of the arts and the sciences came in direct descent from Cain, 
 and not in the posterity of the irreproachable Seth, who is to us, as he 
 probably was also in the narrow circle of his own contemporaries, what 
 naturalists call a nomen nudum." 
 
 Nomen nudum is a bare name without further particulars, but Donne, 
 no doubt on the authority of Josephus (I. 2.3), attributes Astronomy to 
 Seth (" The Progresse of the Soule ") : 
 
 Wonder with mee 
 
 Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, 
 Or most of those Arts whence our lives are blest, 
 By cursed Cain's race invented be, 
 And blest Seth vext us with Astronomic. 
 
 Donne (1573-1631) is "vext" with Astronomy, presumably because 
 at that time Kepler (1571-1630) and Galileo (1564-1642) were affirming the 
 Copernican system and making other discoveries supposed to be dangerous 
 to religion.
 
 248 ROSSETTI STEPHEN 
 
 SOME prize his blindfold sight ; and there be they 
 Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday 
 And thank his wings to-day that he is flown. 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 (Love's Lovers}. 
 
 A SONNET 
 
 TWO voices are there : one is of the deep ; 
 
 It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, 
 
 Now, roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, 
 
 Now bird-like pipes now closes soft in sleep : 
 
 And one is of an old half-witted sheep 
 
 Which bleats articulate monotony, 
 
 And indicates that two and one are three, 
 
 That grass is green, lakes damp and mountains steep 
 
 And, Wordsworth, both are thine : at certain times 
 
 Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes, 
 
 The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst : 
 
 At other times good Lord ! I'd rather be 
 
 Quite unacquainted with the A. B.C. 
 
 Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst. 
 
 JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN (1859-1893). 
 
 " Two Voices are there ; one is of the sea," is Wordsworth's fine 
 sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland. 
 
 It is certainly extraordinary how the great poet at times dropped 
 into the most prosaic language and commonplace verse. This, however, 
 was only in his earlier poems and only in a few of those poems. His theory 
 at that time was that poetic language should be natural, such as used by 
 ordinary men, and not essentially different from prose. Actually, however, 
 at the root of the matter was his want of any sense of humour. Only so 
 can we account for his beginning a poem " Spade ! with which Wilkinson 
 hath tilled his lands," or writing absurdly babyish verses. The one instance 
 on record in which he did apparently exhibit a grotesque kind of humour 
 was in a verse of Peter Bell : 
 
 Is it a party in a parlour ? 
 
 Cramm'd just as they on earth were cramm'd 
 Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, 
 But, as you by their faces see, 
 All silent and all damn'd. 
 
 But this he no doubt wrote quite seriously and without any idea that the 
 verse was humorous. Shelley placed this verse at the head of his parody 
 of Peter Bell, and Wordsworth omitted it from the poem after 1819.
 
 BROWNING AND OTHERS 249 
 
 AND, were I not, as a man may say, cautious 
 
 How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous. 
 
 I could favour you with sundry touches 
 
 Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess 
 
 Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness 
 
 (To get on faster) until at last her 
 
 Cheek grew to be one master-plaster 
 
 Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse ; 
 
 In short, she grew from scalp to udder 
 
 Just the object to make you shudder. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Flight of the Duchess). 
 
 DAY is dying ! Float, O Song, 
 
 Down the westward river, 
 Requiem chanting to the Day 
 
 Day, the mighty Giver. 
 
 Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds. 
 
 Melted rubies sending 
 Through the river and the sky, 
 
 Earth and heaven blending ; 
 
 All the long-drawn earthy banks 
 
 Up to cloud-land lifting : 
 vSlow between them drifts the swan, 
 
 'Twixt two heavens drifting. 
 
 Whigs half open, like a flow'r 
 
 Inly deeper flushing, 
 Neck and breast as virgin's pure 
 
 Virgin proudly blushing. 
 
 Day is dying ! Float, O swan, 
 
 Down the ruby river; 
 Follow, song, in requiem 
 
 To the mighty Giver. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 (The Spanish Gypsy). 
 
 NATURE, and nature's laws, lay hid in night : 
 God said, " I^et Newton be ! " and all was light. 
 
 POPE
 
 2jo TENNYSON AND OTHERS 
 
 WHATEVER crazy sorrow saith, 
 
 No life that breathes with human breath 
 
 Has ever truly longed for death. 
 
 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
 Oh, life, not death, for which we pant ; 
 More life, and fuller, that we want. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 (The Two Voices). 
 
 It is, perhaps, true that no one at any time longs for death ; and 
 that our desire is for " more life and fuller." But men have for various 
 reasons longed to die, though they may not have longed for death. There 
 are those to whom the remainder of life will be one torment of pain to them- 
 selves and a continuous mental distress to their friends ; and there have 
 been men of firm religious belief who desired to pass into a nobler life 
 beyond the grave. Again, Richard Hodgson definitely assured me in 
 1897 that he wished to die. He was absolutely satisfied with the evidence 
 of survival after death, which he had had in connection with the Society 
 for Psychical Research ; and his desire was to " pass over " and be with 
 the friends with whom for years he had been in communication. Hodgson 
 was incapable of saying anything insincere. 
 
 REMEMBER what Simonides said that he never repented 
 that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken. 
 
 Pl,UTARCH 
 
 (Morals). 
 
 NOT the truth of which a man is or believes himself to be pos- 
 sessed, but the earnest efforts which he has made to attain truth, 
 make the worth of the man. For it is not through the posses- 
 sion of, but through the search for truth, that he develops those 
 powers in which alone consists his ever-growing perfection. 
 Possession makes the mind stagnant, indolent, proud. 
 
 If God held in His right hand all truth, and in His left the ever- 
 living desire for truth although with the condition that I should 
 remain in error for ever and if He said to me " Choose," I should 
 humbly bow before His left hand, and say " Father, give ; pure 
 truth is for Thee alone." 
 
 LESSING (1729-1781) 
 
 Wolfenbiittel Fragments
 
 MEREDITH AND OTHERS 251 
 
 When Lessing wrote this famous passage he was contending that 
 criticism should be absolutely free in regard to religious, as to all other, 
 ubjects. " The argument on which he chiefly relies is that the Bible 
 cannot be considered necessary to a belief in Christianity, since Christianity 
 was a living and conquering power before the New Testament in its present 
 form was recognised by the church. The true evidence for what is essen- 
 tial in Christianity, he contends, is its adaptation to the wants of human 
 nature ; hence the religious spirit is undisturbed by the speculations of the 
 boldest thinkers." (Encyclopaedia Britannica). 
 
 THE light of every soul burns upward. Let us allow for atmos- 
 pheric disturbance. 
 
 G. MEREDITH 
 
 (Diana of the Crossways). 
 
 HUMAN life may be painted according to two methods. There 
 is the stage method. According to that, each character is duly 
 marshalled at first, and ticketed ; we know with an immutable 
 certainty that, at the right crises, each one will reappear and act 
 his part, and, when the curtain falls, all will stand before it 
 bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this and of com- 
 pleteness. But there is another method the method of the life 
 we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange 
 coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each 
 other, and pass away. When the crisis comes, the man who 
 would fit it does not return. When the curtain falls, no one is 
 ready. When the footlights are brightest they are blown out ; 
 and what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits 
 a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the 
 gaslight cannot hear his breathing. 
 
 OlJVE SCHREINER 
 (The Story of an African Farm). 
 
 This is from the preface to the second edition. This book must be 
 unique, for surely no other girl in her teens has written a book so brilliant 
 in itself and indicating such originality and genius. It is a great loss to 
 literature that the writer became entirely absorbed in South African politics 
 and controversy. 
 
 I NEVER knew any man in my life who could not bear another's 
 misfortunes perfectly like a Christian. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE-
 
 252 WHITE 
 
 NIGHT AND DEATH 
 
 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 fly 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 ? 
 
 J. BI.ANCO WHITE (1775-18411. 
 
 (See preface.) This sonnet, apart, from its great excellence, is a remark- 
 able literary curiosity. By this one poem alone Blanco White achieved 
 a lasting reputation as a poet. The point is that this is bis only 
 poem. He certainly had previously written a sonnet of little merit 
 on survival after death, but "Night and Death" was apparently an 
 inspired transfiguration of his earlier effort. It is a startling instance of 
 inspiration coming to a man once only in his life and then coming 
 in its very highest form. There are other poets, whose work is generally 
 of poor quality, but who have each produced one surprisingly good poem 
 which alone keeps their memory alive. An instance of this is Christopher 
 Smart (1722-1771), who wrote several volumes of verse but only one fine 
 poem, the " Song of David." Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) is also known 
 only by his " Burial of Sir John Moore," but has other poems, though 
 forgotten, are said to have had some merit. 
 
 The sonnet is also interesting for another reason. White's family 
 had settled in Spain for two generations, his grandfather having changed 
 his name to Blanco. His mother was Spanish, he was educated in Spain, 
 and became a Spanish priest, and he did not leave for England until 1810, 
 when thirty-five years of age. Yet White's beautiful thought could hardly 
 be expressed in finer language. There is, however, one defect in the words 
 " fly and leaf and insect." (William Sharp courageously altered " fly " 
 into " flower.") 
 
 Coleridge thought this " the finest and most grandly conceived sonnet 
 in our language." Leigh Hunt said that in point of thought it " stands 
 supreme, perhaps, above all in any language : nor can we ponder it too 
 deeply, or with too hopeful a reverence." 
 
 I SLEEP, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I walk in my 
 neighbour's pleasant fields and see the varieties of natural beauties, 
 and delight in all that in which God delights that is, in virtue
 
 TAYLOR AND OTHERS 253 
 
 and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God Himself. And he, 
 that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love 
 with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and 
 chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. 
 
 JEREMY TAYU)R. 
 
 IN my Progress travelling Northward, 
 Taking farewell of the vSouthward, 
 To B anbury came I, O prophane-One ! 
 Where I saw a Puritane-One 
 Hanging of his Cat on Monday, 
 For killing of a Mouse on Sunday. 
 
 R. BRATHWAITE (1638) 
 (Drunken Barnaby). 
 
 O THE Spring will come, 
 And once again the wind be in the West, 
 Breathing the odour of the sea ; and life, 
 Life that was ugly, and work that grew a curse, 
 Be God's best gifts again, and in your heart 
 You'll find once more the dreams you thought were dead. 
 
 H. D. LOWRY 
 (In Covent Garden). 
 
 OF such as he was, there be few on Earth ; 
 Of such as he is, there are many in Heaven ; 
 And Life is all the sweeter that he lived, 
 And all he loved more sacred for his sake : 
 And Death is all the brighter that he died, 
 And Heaven is all the happier that he's there. 
 
 GERALD MASSEY 
 (In Memoriam] . 
 
 ONLY SEVEN 
 (A Pastoral Story, after Wordsworth.} 
 
 I MARVELLED why a simple child 
 That lightly draws its breath 
 
 Should utter groans so very wild, 
 And look as pale as Death.
 
 254 LEIGH 
 
 Adopting a parental tone, 
 I asked her why she cried ; 
 
 The damsel answered, with a groan, 
 " I've got a pain inside. 
 
 " I thought it would have sent me mad 
 
 Last night about eleven." 
 Said I, " What is it makes you bad ? 
 How many apples have you had ? " 
 
 She answered, " Only seven ! " 
 
 " And are you sure you took no more, 
 My little maid ? " quoth I. 
 
 " Oh ! please sir, mother gave me four, 
 But they were in a pie !" 
 
 " If that's the case," I stammered out, 
 " Of course you've had eleven." 
 
 The maiden answered, with a pout, 
 " I ain't had more nor seven ! " 
 
 I wondered hugely what she meant, 
 And said, " I'm bad at riddles, 
 
 But I know where little girls are sent 
 For telling tarrididdles. 
 
 "Now, if you don't reform," said I, 
 " You'll never go to heaven." 
 
 But all in vain ; each time I try, 
 
 That little idiot makes reply, 
 " I ain't had more nor seven " ! 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 To borrow Wordsworth's name was wrong, 
 
 Or slightly misapplied ; 
 And so I'd better call my song, 
 
 " Lines after Ache-inside." 
 
 HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH. 
 
 It seems wicked to travesty Wordsworth's tender little poem, but 
 Leigh's verses amused us greatly when they appeared. Mark Akenside 
 1721-1770) is a poet now almost forgotten.
 
 ROSSETTI AND OTHERS 255 
 
 THE hour, which might have been, yet might not be, 
 Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore 
 Yet whereof life was barren, on what shore 
 
 Bides it the breaking of Time's weary sea ? 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 
 (Stillborn Love). 
 
 OUR delight ill the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day 
 might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, 
 if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in those far-off 
 days which live in us, and transfonn our perception into love. 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 (Mill on the Floss) 
 
 THE firmaments of daisies since to me 
 Have had those mornings in their opening eyes ; 
 The bunched cowslip's pale transparency 
 Carries that sunshine of sweet memories, 
 And wild-rose branches take their finest scent 
 From those blest hours of infantine content. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 (Brother and Sister.) 
 
 It will be observed that the thought is the same in both passages. 
 
 GET thee behind the man I am now, 
 You man that I used to be. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (Martin Relph). 
 
 FOR my own part, I could not look but with wonder and respect 
 on the Chinese. Their forefathers watched the stars before mine 
 had begun to keep pigs. Gunpowder and printing, which the 
 other day we imitated, and a school of manners which we never 
 had the delicacy so much as to desire to imitate, were theirs in a 
 long-past antiquity. They walk the earth with us. but it seems 
 they must be of different clay. They hear the clock strike the
 
 256 STEVENSON AND OTHERS 
 
 same hour, yet surely of a different epoch. They travel by steam 
 conveyance, yet with such baggage of old Asiatic thoughts and 
 superstitions as might check the locomotive in its course. What- 
 ever is thought within the circuit of the Great Wall ; what the 
 wry-eyed, spectacled schoolmaster teaches in the hamlets round 
 Pekin ; religions so old that our language looks a halfling boy 
 alongside ; philosophy so wise that our best philosophers find 
 things therein to wonder at ; all this travelled alongside of me 
 for thousands of miles over plain and mountain. Heaven 
 knows if we had one common thought or fancy all that way, 
 or whether our eyes, which yet were formed upon the same 
 design, beheld the same world out of the railway windows. And 
 when either of us turned his thoughts to home and childhood, 
 what a strange dissimilarity must there not have been in these 
 pictures of the mind when I beheld that old, gray, castled city, 
 high throned above the firth, with the flag of Britain flying, and 
 the red-coat sentry pacing over all ; and the man in the next car 
 to me would conjure up some junks and a pagoda and a fort 
 of porcelain, and call it, with the same affection, home. 
 
 R. L. STEVENSON 
 (Across the Plains). 
 
 I AI/WAYS wanted to make a clean breast of it ; 
 
 And now it is made why, my heart's blood, that went 
 
 trickle, 
 
 Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, 
 Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle, 
 And genially floats me about the giblets. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Flight of the Duchess). 
 
 A MAN should never be ashamed to own that he has been in 
 the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser to-day than he 
 was yesterday. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE. 
 
 WE have all of us considerable regard for our past self, and 
 are not fond of casting reflections on that respected individual 
 by a total negation of his opinions. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 
 (Scenes from Clerical Life).
 
 CHOUGH BAIL,EY 257 
 
 SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT 
 AVAILETH 
 
 SAY not, the struggle nought availeth, 
 
 The labour and the wounds are vain, 
 The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 
 
 And as things have been they remain. 
 
 If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; 
 
 It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 
 Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 
 
 And, but for you, possess the field. 
 
 For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 
 
 Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
 Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 
 
 Comes silent, flooding in, the main ; 
 
 And not by eastern windows only, 
 
 When daylight comes., comes in the light ; 
 
 In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly ! 
 But westward, look, the land is bright ! 
 
 A. H. Ci,OUCH. 
 
 THE gravest fish is an oyster, 
 The gravest bird is an owl, 
 The gravest beast is a donkey, 
 And the gravest man is a fool. 
 
 SCOTCH PROVERB. 
 
 . . . FEAR 
 
 No petty customs nor appearances ; 
 But think what others only dreamed about ; 
 And say what others did but think ; and do 
 What others did but say ; and glory in 
 What others dared but do. 
 
 Pimjp J. BAILEY 
 (My Lady). 
 
 THE Cynic in society becomes the Pessimist in religion. The 
 large embrace of sympathy, which fails him as interpreter of human 
 life, will no less be wanting when he reads the meaning of the 
 universe. The harmony of the great whole escapes him in his 
 
 17
 
 258 MARTINEAU AND OTHERS 
 
 hunt for little discords here and there. He is blind to the 
 august balance of nature, in his preoccupation with some 
 creaking show of defect. He misses the comprehensive march 
 of advancing purpose, because while he himself is in it, he has 
 found some halting member that seems to lag behind. He picks 
 holes in the universal order ; he winds through its tracks as a 
 detective, and makes scandals of all that is not to his mind ; 
 trusts nothing that he cannot see : and he sees chiefly the excep- 
 tional, the dubious, the harsh. The glory of the midnight 
 heavens affects him not, for thinking of a shattered planet or 
 the uninhabitable moon. He makes more of the flood which 
 sweeps the crop away, than of the perpetual river that feeds 
 it year by year. For him the purple bloom upon the hills, peering 
 through the young green woods, does but dress up a stony 
 desert with deceitful beauty ; and in the new birth of summer, 
 he cannot yield himself to the exuberance of glad existence for 
 wonder why insects tease and nettles sting. Nothing is so fair, 
 nothing so imposing, as to beguile him into faith and hope. . . . 
 In selfish minds the same temper resorts to the pettiest reasons 
 for the most desolating thoughts : "If God were good, why 
 should I be born with a club-foot ? If the world were justly 
 governed how could my merits be so long overlooked ? " 
 
 J. MARTINEAU 
 (Hours of Thought, I, 97). 
 
 Reverting to this subject later, Martineau says (Hours of Thought //., 
 354) " Wherever he moves, he empties the space around him of its purest 
 elements ; with his low thought he roofs it over from the heavenly light 
 and the sweet air; and then complains of the world as a close-breathed 
 and stifling place." 
 
 CYNICISM is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb's 
 feathers; and it seems to me that cynics are only happy in 
 making the world as barren to others as they have made it for 
 themselves. 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 (The Egoist). 
 
 AND there's none of them, but would as soon 
 
 Criticize the Almighty as not, 
 And see that the angels kept tune 
 And watch that the sun and the moon 
 Did not squander the light they have got. 
 W. C. SMITH 
 (Borland Hall).
 
 SWINBURNE AND OTHERS 259 
 
 LOVE, that is first and last of all things made, 
 
 The light that has the living world for shade, 
 
 The spirit that for temporal veil has on 
 
 The souls of all men woven in unison, 
 
 One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought 
 
 And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought . . . 
 
 Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime ; 
 
 Love, that is blood within the veins of time. . . . 
 
 Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears, 
 
 Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears, 
 
 That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings ; 
 
 Love, that is root and fruit of terrene tilings ; 
 
 Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown, 
 
 The whole world's fiery forces not burn down ; 
 
 Love, that what time his own hands guard his head 
 
 The whole world's wrath and strength shall not strike dead ; 
 
 I<ove, that if once his own hands make his grave 
 
 The whole world's pity and sorrow shall not save . . . 
 
 Love that is fire within thee and light above, 
 
 And lives by grace of nothing but of love. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (Tristram of Lyonesse). 
 
 MY tantalized spirit 
 
 Here blandly reposes, 
 Forgetting, or never 
 
 Regretting, its roses. 
 
 E. A. POE 
 
 (For Annie). 
 
 NOW, for myself, when once the wick is crushed, 
 
 I ask not where the light is, which is not, 
 
 Nor where the music, when the harp is hushed. 
 
 Nor where the memory, which is clean forgot. 
 
 W. C. SMITH 
 (Borland Hall.) 
 
 GOETHE says somewhere there is something in every man 
 for which, if we only knew it. we would hate him. I would prefer 
 to say that there is something in every man for which, if we only 
 knew it, we would love him. 
 
 R. HODGSON 
 
 (Letter).
 
 260 SEARS AND OTHERS 
 
 FOR us no shadow on Life's solemn dial 
 
 Goes back to give us peace ; 
 There is no resting-place in the stern trial 
 
 Until the heart-throbs cease ; 
 We cannot hold Time fast, and bid him bless us , 
 
 And not for us the sun, 
 
 . When shades fall fast, and doubts and woes oppress us, 
 Stands still in Gibeon. 
 
 E. H. SEARS. 
 
 HERE'S my case. Of old I used to love him 
 
 This same unseen friend, before I knew : 
 Dream there was none like him, none above him, 
 
 Wake to hope and trust my dream was true 
 
 All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier, 
 
 For that dream's sake ! How forget the thrill 
 Through and through me as I thought " The gladlier 
 Lives my friend because I love him still ! " 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Fears and Scruples). 
 
 The " Friend " is God. The lines " All my days, I'll go the softlier, 
 sadlier, For that dream's sake," seem to me very beautiful. In so few 
 words Browning, with dramatic insight, expresses the feeling of a Renan 
 or George Eliot after they had lost their faith in Christianity. 
 
 THE world is his, who can see through its pretension. What 
 deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you 
 behold, is there only by sufferance by your sufferance. See 
 it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow. . . . 
 
 In proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the fir- 
 mament flows before him and takes his signet and form. Not 
 he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state 
 of mind. They are the kings of the world who give the colour of 
 
 their present thought to all nature and all art The great 
 
 man makes the great thing. . . Linnaeus makes botany the most 
 alluring of studies, and wins it from the farmer and the herb- 
 woman ; Davy, chemistry; and Cuvier, fossils. The day is always 
 his, who works in it with serenity and great aims. The unstable 
 estimates of men crowd to him whose mind is filled with a truth, 
 as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon. 
 
 EMERSON 
 (The American Scholar.)
 
 STETSON 261 
 
 CANTAT Deo, qui vivit Deo. 
 (He sings to God, who lives to God.) 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 Jenny Lind used to say, " I sing to God." 
 A CONSERVATIVE 
 
 THE garden beds I wandered by 
 
 One bright and cheerful morn, 
 When I found a new-fledged butterfly, 
 
 A-sitting on a thorn, 
 A black and crimson butterfly, 
 
 All doleful and forlorn. 
 
 I thought that life could have no sting 
 
 To infant butterflies, 
 So I gazed on this unhappy thing 
 
 With wonder and surprise, 
 While sadly with his waving wing 
 
 He wiped his weeping eyes. 
 
 Said I, " What can the matter be ? 
 
 Why weepest thou so sore, 
 W T ith garden fair and sunlight free 
 
 And flowers in goodly store ? " 
 But he only turned away from me 
 
 And burst into a roar. 
 
 Cried he, " My legs are thin and few 
 
 Where once I had a swarm ! 
 Soft fuzzy fur a joy to view 
 
 Once kept my body warm, 
 Before these flapping wing-things grew, 
 
 To hamper and deform ! " 
 
 At that outrageous bug I shot 
 
 The fury of mine eye ; 
 Said I, in scorn all burning hot, 
 
 In rage and anger high, 
 " You ignominious idiot ! 
 
 Those wings are made to fly ! " 
 
 " 1 do not want to fly," said he, 
 
 " I only want to squirm ! " 
 And he dropped his wings dejectedly, 
 
 But still his voice was firm : 
 " I do not want to be a fly ! 
 
 I want to be a worm ! ''
 
 262 STETSON AND OTHERS 
 
 yesterday of unknown lack ! 
 To-day of unknown bliss ! 
 
 1 left my fool in red and black, 
 The last I saw was this, 
 
 The creature madly climbing back 
 Into his chrysalis. 
 
 CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON. 
 
 THE very fiends weave ropes of sand 
 Rather than taste pure hell in idleness. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (A Forgiveness). 
 
 HE had formed several ingenious plans by which he meant to 
 circumvent people of large fortune and small capacity ; but 
 then he never met with exactly the right people under exactly 
 the right circumstances. ... It is possible to pass a great 
 many bad half-pennies and bad half-crowns, but I believe there 
 has no instance been known of passing a half-penny or a half- 
 crown for a sovereign. GEORGE EUOT 
 
 (Brother Jacob). 
 
 IN the old times Death was a feverish sleep, 
 In which men walked. The other world was cold 
 And thinly-peopled, so life's emigrants 
 Came back to mingle with the crowds of earth : 
 But now great cities are transplanted thither, 
 Memphis, and Babylon, and either Thebes, 
 And Priam's towery town with its one beech. 
 The dead are most and merriest : so be sure 
 There will be no more haunting, till their towns 
 Are full to the garret ; then they'll shut their gates, 
 To keep the living out, and perhaps leave 
 A dead or two between both kingdoms. 
 
 T. L. BEDDOES 
 
 (Death's Jest-Book, III. 3). 
 This is one of the queer fancies in a curious poem. 
 
 EVERY ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in. 
 Embark and the romance quits our vessel, and hangs on every 
 other sail in the horizon. 
 
 EMERSON 
 
 (Essay on Experience).
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHERS 263 
 
 DE vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcannis, 
 
 (We make for ourselves a ladder of our vices, when we tread under 
 foot the vices themselves.) 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE 
 (De Ascensione). 
 
 I HELD it truth, with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (In Memoriarri). 
 
 SAINT Augustine ! well hast thou said, 
 
 That of our vices we can frame 
 A ladder, if we will but tread 
 
 Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 
 
 LONGFEU/OW 
 
 (The Ladder of St. Augustine). 
 
 THE trials that beset you, 
 
 The sorrows ye endure, 
 The manifold temptations 
 
 That death alone can cure, 
 
 What are they but His jewels 
 
 Of right celestial worth ? 
 What are they but the ladder 
 
 Set up to Heav'n on earth ? 
 
 j. M. NEAI.E 
 (O Happy Band of Pilgrims). 
 
 I CAN bear it no longer this diabolical invention of gentility, 
 which kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper 
 pride, indeed ! Rank and precedence, forsooth ! The table 
 of ranks and degrees is a lie, and should be flung into the
 
 264 THACKERAY AND OTHERS 
 
 fire. Organize rank and precedence! That was well for the 
 masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some 
 great marshal, and organize Equality in society. 
 
 THACKERAY 
 (Book of Snobs). 
 
 II 
 
 EARTH gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 
 
 The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
 The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives vis, 
 
 We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
 At the devil's booth are all things sold, 
 Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 
 
 For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
 Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 
 
 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
 'Tis only God may be had for the asking. 
 
 J. R. 
 (The Vision of Sir Launfal). 
 
 . . . THE too susceptible Tupman, who, to the wisdom and 
 experience of maturer years, superadded the enthusiasm and 
 ardour of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human 
 weaknesses, lo've. Time and feeding had expanded that once 
 romantic form ; the black silk waistcoat had become more and 
 more developed ; inch by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath 
 it disappeared from within the range of Tupman's vision ; and 
 gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders 
 of the white cravat ; but the soul of Tupman had known no 
 change. 
 
 CHARGES DICKENS 
 
 (Pickwick Papers). 
 
 THE globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has ; 
 you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all 
 the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the 
 poorest human personality. And the worst of all this is, that love 
 and friendship may be the outcome of a certain condition of know- 
 ledge ; increase the knowledge, and love and friendship beat their 
 wings and go. Every man's road in life is marked by the graves 
 of his personal likings. Intimacy is frequently the road to 
 indifference ; and marriage a parricide. 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH 
 (The Importance of a Man to Himself).
 
 GISSING ARNOLD 265 
 
 I THINK sometimes how good it were had I some one by me to 
 listen when I am tempted to read a passage aloud. Yes, but is 
 there any mortal in the whole world upon whom I could invariably 
 depend for sympathetic understanding nay, who would even 
 generally be at one with me in my appreciation ? Such harmony 
 of intelligences is the rarest thing. All through life we long for 
 it ... and, after all, we learn that the vision is illusory. To 
 every man is it decreed : Thou shalt live alone. 
 
 GEORGE GISSING 
 
 (The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft). 
 
 ISOLATION 
 
 YES ! in the sea of life enisled, 
 
 With echoing straits between us thrown, 
 
 Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 
 
 We mortal millions live alone. 
 
 The islands feel the enclasping flow, 
 
 And then their endless bounds they know. 
 
 But when the moon their hollows lights, 
 And they are swept by balms of spring, 
 And in their glens, on starry nights, 
 The nightingales divinely sing ; 
 And lovely notes, from shore to shore, 
 Across the sounds and channels pour 
 
 Oh ! then a longing like despair 
 
 Is to their farthest caverns sent ; 
 
 For surely once, they feel, we were 
 
 Parts of a single continent ! 
 
 Now round us spreads the watery plain 
 
 Oh might our marges meet again ! 
 
 Who ordered, that their longing's fire 
 Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled ? 
 Who renders vain their deep desire ? 
 A God, a God their severance ruled ! 
 And bade betwixt their shores to be 
 The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 266 THACKERAY 
 
 This fine poem is one of a series called " Switzerland," which was 
 written as the result of Arnold's meeting and falling in love with a lady at 
 Berne. The poem immediately preceding it in the series is entitled " Iso- 
 lation : To Marguerite," while this is called " To Marguerite, Continued " 
 but as it is now quoted separately, it is better entitled " Isolation." 
 
 In the preceding poems the lady has lost her affection while her lover 
 is still devoted ; and this leads to the subject of our isolation from each other 
 in our inner lives. In the second verse the poet describes the moments 
 when we most crave for love, sympathy, and mutual spiritual understanding 
 and union. 
 
 For an interesting fact connected with this poem, see next quotation 
 and note. 
 
 (THACKERAY has been describing how husband, wife, mother, 
 son each of the inmates of a household is interested in his 
 or her own separate world and looking at the same things from 
 a different point of view.) How lonely we are in the world ! 
 You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for forty years 
 and fancy yourselves united : pshaw ! does she cry out when 
 you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the tooth- 
 ache ? . . As for your wife O philosophic reader, answer 
 and say, Do you tell her all ? Ah, sir, a distinct universe walks 
 about under your hat and under mine all things in nature 
 are different to each the woman we look at has not the same 
 features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one 
 and the other you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with 
 some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us. 
 
 THACKERAY 
 (Pendennis, ch, XVI) 
 
 The similarity between this passage and the preceding poem, written 
 at about the same time, is very curious. Arnold's poem appeared in 1852 
 but was composed ten years earlier, while Pendennis was published in 
 monthly parts in 1849-50. Therefore, neither author would consciously 
 know at the time what the other had written. 
 
 The incident is probably an illustration of the mysterious way in 
 which minds influence one another and create the spirit of the particular 
 age. There is, I believe, a Chinese proverb to the effect that we are more 
 the product of our age than of our parents. This permeating quality of 
 thought and feeling is, no doubt, the explanation why the highest art and 
 literature, though often unappreciated at the time, become ultimately 
 recognized. It appears not to be sufficiently taken into account in other 
 directions. For instance, it is repeatedly stated that Blake, because of 
 the limited circulation of his poems, exercised no influence on the Romantic 
 Revival -see for example The Cambridge History of English Literature, 
 Vol. XI, 201. Yet we know that his work was known to and appreciated 
 by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, and Hayley. (Although little
 
 HODGSON SEELEY 267 
 
 regarded now, Hayley's fame was then so great that he was offered and 
 refused the poet-laureateship. (He appears to be the one man who was an 
 intimate friend of both Blake and Cowper.) While a very long period 
 went by before Blake's poems became generally known, their influence 
 may well have been very great, permeating unconsciously through other 
 minds. See reference on p. 194 to the similar case of Fitzgerald's " Omar 
 Khayyam." 
 
 Even if a poem were read by only one person, it might conceivably 
 influence a generation of authors. Suppose, if that had been possible, a 
 page of Swinburne's " Tristram of Lyonesse " or F. W. H. Myers' " Implicit 
 Promise " (both quoted elsewhere) had been read by Pope or Dryden ; 
 how the monotonous heroic couplet of their time might have been trans- 
 formed ! 
 
 A CHILD was playing on a summer strand 
 
 That fringed the wavelets of a sunny sea : 
 
 The mother looked in love. " Now build," said she, 
 
 " Your splendid golden castles where you stand ; 
 
 But when the wave has beaten all to sand, 
 
 You must go home." " Ah, not so soon," said he. 
 
 And now the night has darkened out his glee, 
 And sad-eyed Grief has grasped him by the hand. 
 No more the years shall find him free and wild 
 And madly merry as a bright brave bird : 
 For earth has nothing like the home he craves 
 And pauseless Time is beating bitter waves 
 On all his palaces. He waits the word 
 Away beyond the blue, " Come home, my child." 
 
 R.HODGSON, 1879. 
 
 An impromptu written when the mother and child incident happened 
 and not revised. 
 
 HUMANITY is neither a love for the whole human race, nor a love 
 for each individual of it, but a love for the race, or for the ideal 
 of man, in each individual. In other and less pedantic words, 
 he who is truly humane considers every human being as such 
 interesting and important, and without waiting to criticize each 
 individual specimen, pays in advance to all alike the tribute of 
 
 good wishes and sympathy If some human beings are 
 
 abject and contemptible, if it be incredible to us that they can 
 have any high dignity or destiny, do we regard them from so great 
 a height as Christ ? Are we likely to be more pained by their 
 faults and deficiencies than he was ? Is our standard higher than
 
 268 SEELEY AND OTHERS 
 
 his ? And yet he associated by preference with these meanest 
 of the race ; no contempt for them did he ever express, no sus- 
 picion that they might be less dear than the best and wisest to 
 the common Father, no doubt that they were naturally capable 
 of rising to a moral elevation like his own. There is nothing 
 of which a man may be prouder than of this ; it is the most hope- 
 ful and redeeming fact in history ; it is precisely what was wanting 
 to raise the love of man as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory 
 has been shed upon the human race by the love Christ bore to it. 
 
 SIR J. R. SEELEY 
 
 (Ecce Homo). 
 
 ON parent knees, a naked, new-born child, 
 Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled : 
 So live, that sinking to thy life's last sleep 
 Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep. 
 
 vSm WIUJAM JOXES (1746-1704) 
 (From the Persian). 
 
 CAN the earth where the harrow is driven 
 
 The sheaf of the furrow foresee ? 
 Or thou guess the harvest for heaven 
 
 When iron has entered in thee ? 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 This was quoted by Lord Lytton in an essay on The Influence of Love 
 upon Literature and Real Life. 
 
 THESE pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, 
 
 Each softly lucent as a rounded moon ; 
 The diver, Omar, plucked them from their bed, 
 Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread. 
 
 J. R. LOWELL 
 
 (On Omar Khayyam).
 
 EI4OT AND OTHERS 269 
 
 IT is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep 
 pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid 
 earth and are liable to heavy dining. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 (Daniel Deronda) . 
 
 SO, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever 
 have an end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught 
 else, is its affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there 
 abideth the darkness. The light doth but hollow a mine out of 
 the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon the steps 
 of the light treadeth the darkness ; yea, springeth in fountains 
 and wells amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. 
 Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid 
 the surrounding rest of night ; without which he yet could not 
 be, and whereof he is in part compounded. 
 
 G. MACDONAI.D 
 
 (Phantasies). 
 
 In the story an ogre is reading this passage from a book. Phantasies 
 is MacDonald's finest work. 
 
 THERE), on the fields around, 
 All men shall till the ground, 
 
 Corn shall wave yellow, and bright rivers stream ; 
 Daily, at set of sun, 
 All, when their work is done, 
 
 Shall watch the heavens yearn down and the strange 
 starlight gleam. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN. 
 (The City of Man). 
 
 This is the poet's vision of the city of the future, and will be interesting 
 to the allotment-holders in English cities to-day. 
 
 DEAR dead women, with such hair, too what's become of all 
 
 the gold 
 
 Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and 
 grown old. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (A Toccata of Galuppi's),
 
 270 CORNEIUvE AND OTHERS 
 
 QUAND on n'a pas ce que Ton aime, 
 II faut aimer ce que Ton a. 
 
 (When you have not what you love 
 You must love what you have.) 
 
 THOMAS CORNEIIJ.E 
 (L'Inconnu). 
 
 AT last methought that I had wandered far 
 In an old wood : fresh-washed in coolest dew 
 
 The maiden splendours of the morning star 
 Shook in the steadfast blue. . 
 
 At length I saw a lady within call, 
 
 Stiller than chiselled marble, standing there 
 
 A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
 And most divinely fair. 
 
 I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, 
 One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled ; 
 
 A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, 
 Brow-bound with burning gold 
 
 " I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found 
 Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, 
 A name for ever ! lying robed and crowned, 
 Worthy a Roman spouse." 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (A Dream of Fair Women) 
 
 Helen of Troy and Cleopatra but, as Peacock mentioned in Gryll 
 Grange^ Cleopatra was of pure Greek descent and could not have been a 
 " swarthy " lady. 
 
 ONE pond of water gleams ; 
 .... the trees bend 
 O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (Pauline).
 
 KEATS AND OTHERS 271 
 
 I MET a lady in the meads, 
 
 Full beautiful, a faery's child ; 
 Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
 
 And her eyes were wild. 
 
 I set her on my pacing steed, 
 
 And nothing* else saw all day long ; 
 For sideways would she lean, and sing 
 A faery's song. 
 
 KEATS 
 (La Belle Dame sans Merci), 
 
 HE put the hawthorn twigs apart, 
 And yet saw no more wondrous thing 
 
 Than seven white swans, who on wide wing 
 Went circling round, till one by one 
 They dropped the dewy grass upon. 
 
 W. MORRIS 
 (The Earthly Paradise, the Land East of the Sun). 
 
 QUOTH Christabel. So let it be ! 
 And, as the lady bade, did she. 
 Her gentle limbs did she undress 
 And lay down in her loveliness. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 (Christabel) 
 The six quotations above are word-pictures (see note p. 85). 
 
 IT is a mistake into which spiritually -minded men have fallen, 
 that God is apprehended and known by a special faculty. The 
 fact is that every faculty is serviceable in this noble work. 
 We reach the Divine through our aesthetic faculties when our 
 soul is stirred by a grand burst of music, or by the contemplation 
 of a magnificent landscape. We reach the Divine through our 
 purely intellectual faculties, when, by true reasoning, founded 
 on sound observation, we master any great law by which 
 God governs the world. We reach the Divine through our 
 emotional nature when pure grief or pure love, holy longing, 
 unselfish hope, righteous indignation, elevate us above the
 
 2j2 MENZIES 
 
 prosaic level of customary equanimity, and help us to realize 
 the incomparable beauty of holiness. 
 
 JUST as the weeping Magdalene* stood bewailing the loss 
 of what even to her was only sacred clay, all unconscious that 
 her Saviour had been given back to her without seeing corruption, 
 in a glorified and eternal form, not dead, but alive for evermore, 
 whom she could love with ever increasing ardour of devotion : 
 so, we say, there are not a few in our time whose lot it is to wring 
 their hands over the grave of lost ideas, which they loved and their 
 fathers loved, but for which God himself is substituting ideas 
 nobler and better far, which earlier ages failed to grasp only 
 because they were not in circumstances to feel their higher worth. 
 
 ONE cannot demonstrate on any physical or visible basis 
 whatever, that it is a nobler thing to suffer injustice than 
 to commit it, that truth-speaking is honourable, forgiveness of 
 injuries magnanimous, and loving self-sacrifice for others sublime. 
 Honour, purity, humility, reverence, tenderness, courtesy, 
 patience, these things cannot be weighed on physical scales, 
 cannot be handled or touched, or melted or frozen in any mechani- 
 cal or chemical laboratory. They belong to a different order 
 of realities from acids and vapours : they are denizens of what, 
 for want of any more definite or accurate expression, we are 
 accustomed to call the spiritual world. 
 
 ONE can see how religion should, to a young person, be 
 associated with repressive and prohibitive laws. Youth is the 
 time for the luxuriating of newborn, and, therefore, delicious vital 
 forces. But its very luxuriance is disorderly, and religion cannot co- 
 exist with disorder. Therefore, that which is so continually warning 
 the young against impulse, and passion, and irregularity, ought 
 not to be too greatly displeased if it should, by and by, come 
 to be regarded by the young as a synonym for mere repressive 
 
 * " They say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou ? She saith unto them, Because 
 they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him " (John xx. 
 13). The sermon is on the subject of the growth of religious ideas.
 
 MENZIES 273 
 
 force, and, therefore, as an unpleasant and unpopular thing. 
 I believe, too, that there is no exception to the uniformity of the 
 experience, that all young countries adopt freer systems of 
 religion, and divest religious bodies more completely of all political 
 and properly coercive power than older countries. It is all an 
 illustration of the same thing. Young life, which most needs 
 regulation, most dislikes it.* 
 
 AS the genius of the bard is in the poem, as the wisdom of the 
 legislator is in the law, as the skill of the mechanician is in the 
 engine, as the soul of the musician is in the harmony and melody, 
 as the words of a man's lips issue from the inner world of his 
 mental and spiritual character so every work of God, and con- 
 spicuously man, as the noblest of God's works, may truly be said 
 to shadow forth a portion of the mind of God. 
 
 WE talk of creation as a past thing. But the truth is, creation 
 is eternal. Creation never ceases. Every time the clouds 
 drop in rain, every time the waters freeze into new ice, every 
 time the juices of nature gather into another violet, every time 
 a new wail of life is heard upon a mother's breast, every time you 
 breathe another sigh, or shed another tear, there is God as truly 
 present in His miraculous creative capacity as on the day when 
 He said, " Let there be light," and there was light. 
 
 P. S. MENZIES 
 (Sermons). 
 
 Apart from their intrinsic value, the above extracts are given because 
 this book of sermons is of special interest to Australians and because it 
 has passed into oblivion. There are very few copies in existence. 
 
 Menzies came from Glasgow to Scots Church, Melbourne, in 1868 and 
 died at the early age of thirty-four in 1874. At the Glasgow University 
 he had been largely influenced mentally and spiritually by Principal Caird. 
 
 The sermons published in this book were selected by his widow after 
 his death. Although not revised by their gifted young author, the fine 
 thoughts expressed in chaste and beautiful language remind one of James 
 Martineau. 
 
 * This standing by itself may give a somewhat wrong impression of Menzies' thought. 
 As a matter of fact, the text of the sermon is : "I am come that they might have life, 
 and that they might have it more abundantly " (John x. 10).
 
 274 ELIOT AND OTHERS 
 
 OUR sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions like 
 effects of colour that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken 
 glass, and rags. 
 
 GEORGE Euox 
 
 (The Lifted Veil}. 
 
 MY Galligaskins that have long withstood 
 The Winter's Fury, and incroaching Frosts, 
 By Time subdued, (what will not Time subdue !) 
 An horrid Chasm disclose, with Orifice 
 Wide, discontinuous. 
 
 JOHN PHHjyirs (1676-1709) 
 (The Splendid Shilling). 
 
 Galligaskins, trunk-hose. " The Splendid Shilling " is a famous parody 
 on Milton. 
 
 WE would not pray that sorrow ne'er may shed 
 Her dews along the pathway they must tread ; 
 The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all, 
 If no least rain of tears did ever fall. 
 
 GERALD MASSEY 
 (Via Crucis, Via Lttcis). 
 
 BUT his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us ; 
 
 Morning is here in the joy of its might ; 
 
 With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us ; 
 Now let him pass and the myrtles make way for us ; 
 
 Love can but last in us here at his height 
 For a day and a night. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (At Parting}. 
 
 THAT element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, 
 has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind ; 
 and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had 
 a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be 
 like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we 
 should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. 
 As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 (Middlemarch) .
 
 MORRIS BROWNING 275 
 
 In the story Dorothea has found her husband to be a man of narrow 
 mind and unsympathetic nature. Such a disillusionment after marriage 
 frequently happens, and we are not deeply moved by what is not unusual, 
 although it may mean a real life-tragedy. Ruskin says " God gives the 
 disposition to every healthy human mind in some degree to pass over or 
 even harden itself against evil things, else the suffering would be too great 
 to be borne " (Modern Painters v., xix., 32). Only thus could we have lived 
 through the horrors of the present war. 
 
 George Eliot's analogy between intensity of the emotions and acuteness 
 of the senses reminds one of Pope's lines (" Essay on Man," Ep. I.) where 
 he says life would be insupportable, if we had the acute hearing, smell and 
 other senses of insects and other animals ; we should 
 Die of a rose in aromatic pain. 
 
 MAN that passes by 
 So like to God, so like the beasts that die. 
 
 W MORRIS 
 (The Earthly Paradise). 
 
 THERE shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall live as 
 before ; 
 
 The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; 
 What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ; 
 
 On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven a perfect round. 
 
 All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist ; 
 
 Not in semblance, but itself ; no beauty, nor good, nor power, 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 
 
 When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 
 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 
 
 Enough that He heard it once : we shall hear it by and bye. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Abt Vogler}. 
 
 Abt or Abbe Georg Joseph Vogler, 1749-1814, a German organist 
 and composer, is probably chosen by Browning because, although an 
 important musician, his compositions have perished. In this fine poem 
 Vogler has been extemporizing, and his inspired music has lifted him in 
 ecstasy to heaven. The sounds are his slaves who have built palaces of 
 music, as in the Arab legends angels and demons built magic structures for
 
 276 BROWNING 
 
 Solomon. He grieves that this wonderful music should apparently have 
 vanished for ever ; but is comforted by the thought that no good thing, 
 no fine aspiration, no great effort or noble impulse can really die, but 
 must exist for ever in the mind of God. 
 
 If Browning had known the evidence now afforded scientifically by 
 hypnotism and otherwise, he might have come to the conclusion that all 
 our thoughts and feelings, both good and bad, are recorded deep down in 
 our own consciousness. Moreover, the existence of thought-transference 
 leads to the somewhat dreadful suggestion that this record of all our inmost 
 thoughts and feelings may possibly become open to the inspection of 
 every one. 
 
 The quotation reminds one of Wordsworth's sonnet on the " Inside 
 of King's College Chapel, Cambridge." 
 
 Where music dwells 
 
 Lingering and wandering on as loth to die ; 
 Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 That they were born for immortality. 
 
 . . . HAD I painted the whole, 
 
 Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder- 
 worth : 
 Had I written the same, made verse still, effect proceeds from 
 
 cause, 
 
 Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told ; 
 It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, 
 
 Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled : 
 
 But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, 
 
 Bxistent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are ! 
 And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, 
 That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but 
 
 a star. 
 Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself is nought ; 
 
 It is everywhere in the world loud, soft, and all is said : 
 Give it to me to use ! I mix it with two in my thought : 
 
 And, there ! Ye have heard and seen : consider and bow the 
 head ! 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 (Abt Vogler}. 
 
 See the ^receding note. The poet says that Painting and Poetry are 
 " art in obedience to laws," but the musician exerts a higher creative will 
 akin to that of God. The painter has before him the pictures he repro-
 
 SAD1 277 
 
 duces, the poet borrows his imagery from visible things and has apt words 
 in which to express his thoughts : the musician has nothing visible, nothing 
 outside his own soul, to assist him, and can use only the meaningless sounds 
 which we hear everywhere around us. By combining, however, three of 
 those empty sounds (in a chord) he evolves a fourth sound, which so tran- 
 scends all that other arts can do in expressing emotion that Browning 
 compares it to a " star." 
 
 But this expresses only part of the poet's meaning. In using this 
 tremendous comparison to a star, as also in enthroning music supreme 
 above art and poetry, he means that it transcends their loftiest flights and 
 rises above our world to the heavens above. In the earlier part of the poem 
 the " pinnacled glory " built by the slaves of sound at the bidding of the 
 musician's soul is based " broad on the roots of things " and ascends until 
 it " attains to heaven." 
 
 F. W. H. Myers, in " The Renewal of Youth," has a passage on music. 
 His theme is that while music (as in Mozart's operas) may express human 
 passion, it also (as in Beethoven) rises to greater heights and appears to 
 voice the emotions of a world beyond our senses. In the lines I have 
 italicized in the following passage he no doubt refers to Browning's line, 
 " That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star !" the 
 " star " meaning that music ascends to a higher world than our own : 
 
 . . . Music is a creature bound, 
 A voice not ours, the imprisoned soul of sound, 
 Who fain would bend down hither and find her part 
 In the strong passion of a hero's heart, 
 Or one great hour constrains herself to sing 
 Pastoral peace and waters wandering ; 
 'Then bark boto on a chord sbe is rapt and flown 
 To that true world tbou seest not nor bast known, 
 Nor speech of thine can her strange thought unfold, 
 The bars' wild beat, and ripple of running gold. 
 
 Not only does Browning unselfishly assert that the sister- 
 art is superior to his own, but he goes further, and doubts if music is not the 
 greatest of all man's gifts. I do not discuss either contention leaving 
 musicians to rejoice in the tribute of a great poet. 
 
 ALTHOUGH a gem be cast away. 
 And lie obscured in heaps of clay, 
 
 Its precious worth is still the same ; 
 Although vile dust be whirled to heaven. 
 To it no dignity is given, 
 
 Still base as when from earth it came. 
 
 SADI 
 
 (L. 5. Costello's translation).
 
 278 TENNYSON AND OTHERS 
 
 DEATH closes all : but something ere the end, 
 Some work of noble note, may yet be done . . . 
 Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tlio' 
 We are not now that strength which in old days 
 Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 (Ulysses). 
 
 JENNY kissed me when we met, 
 
 Jumping from the chair she sat in ; 
 Time, you thief, who love to get 
 
 Sweets into your list, put that in ! 
 Say I'm weary, say I'm sad. 
 
 Say that health and wealth have missed me, 
 Say I'm growing old, but add 
 
 Jenny kissed me. 
 
 I/EIGH HUNT. 
 
 Jenny" was Mrs. Carlyle. 
 
 A GRACIOUS spirit o'er this earth presides 
 
 And o'er the heart of man : invisibly 
 
 It comes, to works of unreproved delight 
 
 And tendency benign, directing those 
 
 Who care not, know not, think not what they do. 
 
 The tales that charm away the wakeful night 
 
 In Araby ; romances ; legends penned 
 
 For solace by dim light of monkish lamps ; 
 
 Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised 
 
 By youthful squires ; adventures endless, spun 
 
 By the dismantled warrior in old age, 
 
 Out of the bowels of those very schemes 
 
 In which his youth did first extravagate ; 
 
 These spread like day, and something in the shape 
 
 Of these will live till man shall be no more. 
 
 Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours, 
 
 And they must have their food. Our childhood sits, 
 
 Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne 
 
 That hath more power than all the elements. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 (The Prelude, IJk. V.)
 
 ELIOT AND OTHERS 279 
 
 THE world is so inconveniently constituted, that the vague 
 consciousness of being a fine fellow is no guarantee of success 
 in any line of business. 
 
 GEORGE; EUOT 
 (Brother Jacob.) 
 
 WASTED, weary, wherefore stay 
 Wrestling thus with earth and clay ! 
 From the body pass away ! 
 Hark ! the mass is singing. 
 
 From thee doff thy mortal weed, 
 Mary Mother be thy speed, 
 Saints to help thee at thy need ! 
 Hark ! the knell is ringing. 
 
 Fear not snow-drift driving past, 
 Sleet, or hail, or levin blast ; 
 Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast, 
 And the sleep be on thee cast 
 That shall know no waking. 
 
 Haste thee, haste thee to be gone, 
 Earth flits past, and time draws on, 
 Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, 
 Day is near the breaking. 
 
 SIR WAI/TER SCOTT. 
 
 From Guy Mannering. Scott says it is a prayer or spell, which was 
 used in Scotland or Northern England to speed the passage of a parting 
 spirit, like the tolling of a bell in Catholic days. 
 
 THE world is full of Woodmen who expel 
 Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, 
 And vex the nightingales in even 7 dell. 
 
 SHEI,I<EY 
 (The Woodman and the Nightingale).
 
 280 MARTINEAU AND OTHERS 
 
 of every kind, being familiar to us as an object of appre- 
 hension, appears to be external to ourselves. And yet it is invested 
 with the greater part of its severity by the mind : it acts upon us 
 by the ideas it awakens, the affections it wounds, the aspirations 
 it disappoints. If its outward pressure were all, and it dealt 
 with us as beings of sense alone, it would lose most of its 
 poignancy and would dwindle down into a few animal pangs. . . . 
 It is our higher nature that creates immeasurably the greater 
 part of the ills we endure : they are ideal, not sensible : and it 
 is the privilege of reason to have tears instead of groans ; of love 
 to know grief instead of pain ; of conscience to replace un- 
 easiness with remorse. . . . Penury, disgrace, bereavement, 
 guilt, are evils which we must be human in order to feel ; and it 
 is the penalty of our nobleness, not only to be weighed down by 
 their occasional burthen, but to be perpetually haunted by the 
 phantom of their approach. 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU 
 (Hours of Thought, II, 150). 
 
 TWO or three of them got round me, and begged me for the 
 twentieth time to tell them the name of my country. Then, 
 as they could not pronounce it satisfactorily, they insisted that 
 I was deceiving them, and that it was a name of my own invention. 
 One funny old man, who bore a ludicroiis resemblance to a friend 
 qf mine at home, was almost indignant. " Unglung ! " said 
 he, "who ever heard of such a name ? anglang, angerlang 
 that can't be the name of your country; you are playing with us." 
 Then he tried to give a convincing illustration. " My country 
 is Wanumbai anybody can say Wanumbai. I'm an orang- 
 Wanumbai ; but N-glung ! who ever heard of such a name ? 
 Do tell us the real name of your country, and when you are gone 
 we shall know how to talk about you." To this luminous argument 
 and remonstrance I could oppose nothing but assertion, and the 
 whole party remained firmly convinced that I was for some 
 reason or other deceiving them. 
 
 A. R. 
 
 (The Malay Archipelago}. 
 
 SHIPS that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, 
 
 Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness ; 
 
 So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, 
 
 Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. 
 
 I/DNGFEIJ.OW 
 (Tales of a Wayside Inn}.
 
 CIvOUGH 281 
 
 This was written in 1863, but ten years earlier Alexander Smith, in 
 A Life Drama," had written : 
 
 We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, 
 Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet ; 
 One little hour 1 and then away they speed 
 On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, 
 To meet no more. 
 
 Other writers have also used the same simile. See next poem. 
 
 QUA CURSUM VENTUS 
 
 AS ships, becalmed at eve, that lay 
 With canvas drooping, side by side, 
 
 Two towers of sail at dawn of day 
 Are scarce long leagues apart descried ; 
 
 When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, 
 And all the darkling hours they plied, 
 
 Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas 
 By each was cleaving, side by side : 
 
 E'en so but why the tale reveal 
 
 Of those, whom year by year unchanged. 
 
 Brief absence joined anew to feel 
 
 Astounded, soul from soul estranged ? 
 
 At dead of night their sails were filled, 
 And onward each rejoicing steered 
 
 Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, 
 Or wist, what first with dawn appeared ! 
 
 To veer, how vain ! On, onward strain, 
 Brave barks ! In light, in darkness too, 
 
 Through winds and tides one compass guides 
 To that, and your own selves, be true. 
 
 But O blithe breeze ! and O great seas, 
 Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, 
 
 On your wide plain they join again, 
 Together lead them home at last. 
 
 One port, methought, alike they sought, 
 One purpose hold where'er they tare, 
 
 O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! 
 At last, at last, unite them there 1 
 
 A. H. CXouGH.
 
 282 TENNYSON AND OTHERS 
 
 Two friends, who through absence have become " soul from soul 
 estranged," are compared to two ships, which unconsciously draw apart 
 during the night and must continue a diverging course ; but, being both 
 bound for the same port, will at the end of their life-voyage be re-united. 
 
 SPEAK to Him thou, for He hears and Spirit with Spirit can 
 
 meet 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 (The Higher Pantheism}. 
 
 Tennyson, here and elsewhere (see, for example, the king's beautiful 
 speech in " The Passing of Arthur ") urges us to prayer^ and adds his belief 
 in a personal intercourse with an ever-present and loving God. Innumerable 
 men of the highest character during nineteen centuries have testified to 
 the same direct communion with the Almighty. 
 
 A THIRD in sugar with unscriptural hand 
 Traffics and builds a lasting house on sand. 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 (The Golden Age). 
 
 THOU canst not in life's city 
 
 Rule thy course as in a cell : 
 There are others, all thy brothers, 
 
 Who have work to do as well. 
 
 Some events that mar thy purpose 
 May light them upon their way ; 
 Our sun-shining in declining 
 Gives earth's other side the dav. 
 
 R. A. VAUGHAN. 
 (Hours with the Mystics). 
 
 MY little craft sails not alone ; 
 A thousand fleets from every zone 
 Are out upon a thousand seas ; 
 And what for me were favouring breeze 
 Might dash another, with the shock 
 Of doom, upon some hidden rock. 
 And so I do not dare to pray 
 For winds to waft me on my way. 
 
 CATHERINE ATHERTON MASON.
 
 STERNE BLANC 283 
 
 A MAN'S body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both 
 I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining : rumple 
 the one. you rumple the other. 
 
 STERNE 
 (Tristram Shandy). 
 
 IL (Boucher) trouvait la nature trop verte et mal eclairee. Et 
 son ami, Lancret, le peintre des salons a la mode, lui repondait : 
 " Je suis de votre sentiment, la nature manque d'harmonie 
 et de seduction." 
 
 (He, Boucher, found nature too green and badly lit. And his friend, 
 Lancret, the fashionable painter of the day, replied to him, " I am of your 
 opinion, nature is wanting in harmony and seductiveness.") 
 
 CHARGES BLANC. 
 See following quotation. 
 
 IF you examine the literature of the i;th and i8th centuries, 
 you will find that nearly all its expressions, having reference 
 to the country, show . . either a foolish sentimentality, or a 
 morbid fear, both of course coupled with the most curious ignor- 
 ance. Nothing is more remarkable than the general conception 
 of the country merely as a series of green fields, and the combined 
 ignorance and dread of more sublime scenery. The love of 
 fresh air and green grass forced itself upon the animal natures 
 of men ; but that of the sublimer features of scenery had no 
 place in minds whose chief powers had been repressed by the 
 formalisms of the age. And although in the second-rate writers 
 continually, and in the first-rate ones occasionally, you find 
 an affectation of interest in mountains, clouds, and forests, yet 
 whenever they write from their heart, you will find an utter 
 absence of feeling respecting anything beyond gardens and 
 grass. Examine, for instance, the novels of Smollett, Fielding, 
 and Sterne, the comedies of Moliere, and the writings of Johnson 
 and Addison, and I do not think you will find a single expression 
 of true delight in sublime nature in any one of them. Perhaps 
 Sterne's Sentimental Jotefncy, in its total absence of sentiment 
 on any subject but humanity, and its entire want of notice of 
 anything at Geneva which might not as well have been seen at
 
 284 RUSKIN AND OTHERS 
 
 Coxwold, is the most striking instance I could give you ; and if 
 you compare with this negation of feeling on one side, the inter- 
 ludes of Moliere, in which shepherds and shepherdesses are intro- 
 duced in court dress, you will have a very accurate conception 
 of the general spirit of the age. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 (Architecture and Painting). 
 
 "MY other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, 
 " you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure 
 nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty 
 pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result 
 misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God 
 of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and and in short, 
 you are for ever floored. As I am ! " 
 
 CHARGES DICKENS 
 (David Copperfield). 
 
 AND yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams 
 Call to the soul, when man doth sleep, 
 So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, 
 And into glory peep. 
 
 HENRY VAUGHAN 
 (Friends Departed). 
 This is Vision. 
 
 .... The trial-test 
 
 Appointed to all flesh at some one stage 
 Of soul's achievement when the strong man doubts 
 His strength, the good man whether goodness be, 
 The artist in the dark seeks, fails to find 
 Vocation, and the saint forswears his shrine. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Inn Album). 
 
 I SITS with my toes in a brook ; 
 
 If anyone asks me for why, 
 I hits him a rap with my crook 
 
 'Tis sentiment kills me, says I. 
 
 HORACE WAI,POI,K. 
 
 This was written in a game of bouts nines (rhymed ends). Four !in< 
 had to be composed ending with " brook," " why," " crook," " I."
 
 BROWNING HUGO 285 
 
 OH, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west. 
 And I said in underbreath, all our life is mixed with death. 
 And who knoweth which is best ? 
 
 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, 
 And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our 
 incoi npleteness 
 
 Round our restlessness, His rest. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING 
 (Rhyme of the Duchess Mav), 
 
 I GO to prove my soul ! 
 I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
 I shall arrive ! what time, what circuit first, 
 I ask not : but unless God send his hail 
 Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, 
 In some time, his good time, I shall arrive : 
 He guides me and the bird. In his good time ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Paracelsus). 
 
 Referring to Bryant's poem, " To a Waterfowl " : 
 
 He who from zone to zone 
 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone, 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
 SpUVENT femme varie, 
 Bien fol est qui s'y fie ! 
 
 (Woman is very fickle, 
 
 Great fool he who trusts in her !) 
 
 VICTOR HUGO 
 
 (Le Rot s'amtise). 
 
 In the play Francis I (1494-1547) enters singing these lines. (Francis 
 wrote on the walls of the royal apartments at Chambord Toute femme 
 varif, " Every woman is fickle.") One finds this never-ending theme 
 of poets and cynics in Virgil's Varium et mutabile semper Femina, " Woman 
 is a fickle and changeable thing " (Aenrid iv, 569), La donna & mobile (Rigo- 
 letto), and countless other passages.
 
 286 SHAKESPEARE DONNE 
 
 CROWNED with flowers I saw fair Amaryllis 
 By Thyrsis sit, hard by a fount of Chrystal, 
 
 And with her hand more white than snow or lilies, 
 On sand she wrote " My faith shall be immortal " : 
 
 And suddenly a storm of wind and weather 
 
 Blew all her faith and sand away together. 
 
 ANON. 
 
 FOR, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
 Our fancies are more giddy and infirm, 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, 
 Than women's are. 
 
 Twelfth Night, II, 4. 
 
 IF Thou be'st born to strange sights, 
 
 Things invisible to see, 
 Ride ten thousand days and nights 
 
 Till Age snow white hairs on thee ; 
 Thou, when thou return'st, will tell me 
 All strange wonders that befell thee, 
 And swear 
 No where 
 Ijves a woman true, and fair. 
 
 If thou find'st one, let me know : 
 Such a pilgrimage were sweet. 
 Yet do not ; I would not go, 
 
 Though at next door we might meet. 
 Though she were true when you met her, 
 And last till you write your letter, 
 Yet she 
 Will be 
 False, ere I come, to two or three. 
 
 JOHN DONNE 
 (Song). 
 
 IN his broken fashion Queequeg gave me to understand that, 
 in his land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, 
 the king, chiefs and great people generally were in the custom
 
 MELVILLE AND OTHERS 287 
 
 of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans ; and to furnish 
 a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight 
 or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. 
 Besides it was very convenient on an excursion much better than 
 those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking-sticks. 
 Upon occasion a chief would call his attendant, and desire him 
 to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree perhaps 
 in some damp marshy place. 
 
 HERMAN MEIA'II,I<E 
 (Moby Dick). 
 
 HERE lie I, Martin Elginbrodde : 
 Hae mercy o' my soul, Lord God ; 
 As I wad do, were I Lord God, 
 And ye were Martin Elginbrodde. 
 
 G. MACDONAI^D 
 
 (David Elginbrod). 
 
 DIEU me pardonnera ; c'est son metier. 
 
 (God will pardon me ; that is His business.) 
 
 HEINE. 
 
 LORD, it broke my heart to see his pain ! 
 
 1 thought I dared to think if I were God, 
 Poor Caird should never gang so dark a road ; 
 
 I thought ay, dared to think, the Lord forgie ! 
 The Lord was crueller than I could be ; 
 Forgetting God is just and knoweth best 
 What folk should burn in fire, what folk be blest. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN 
 
 (A Scottish Eclogue}.
 
 288 HODGSON 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEA. 
 
 THOUGHTS and tears as I turn away, 
 
 Tears for a long ago : 
 She looks out on a summer day, 
 
 I on a night of snow. 
 But I see some ferns and a rushing rill 
 
 And my love that promised me, 
 And a day we spent on God's great hill 
 
 On the other side of the sea, 
 My heart, 
 
 On the other side of the sea. 
 
 Ay ! the hill was green and the sky was blue, 
 
 And the path was dappled fair, 
 But a light from loving eyes shone through 
 
 Beyond the sunlight there. 
 And I gave my life and who's to blame ? 
 
 As over the hill went we : 
 But the sky and the hill and the way we came 
 
 Are the other side of the sea, 
 Sad heart, 
 
 Are the other side of the sea. . . 
 
 'Mid trees and grass and a tangled wall 
 
 We wandered merrily down, 
 Through the homeless boughs and the forest fall 
 
 Of the dead leaves thick and brown. 
 But faith is broken and life is pain 
 
 And oh ! it can never be 
 That I gather those golden hours again 
 
 On the other side of the sea, 
 Poor heart, 
 
 On the other side of the sea. 
 
 Though the sea is wild and the sea is dark, 
 
 It will sink and slip away 
 At the bounding scorn of my speeding bark 
 
 To the land of that dear day ; 
 But never the Love of my soul be seen, 
 
 The light of that day to me, 
 For I know there is lying our hearts between 
 
 A wilder and darker sea, 
 O God! 
 
 The depth of a bitterer sea. 
 
 RICHARD HODGSON. 
 
 This was written in March, 1879, after Hodgson had left Australia 
 for England. The love-episode is imaginary.
 
 LOCKER-IvAMPSON SHEIylyEY 289 
 
 THEY eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod, 
 
 And go to church on Sunday ; 
 And many are afraid of God 
 And more of Mrs. Grundy. 
 
 F. LOCKER-LAMPSON 
 (The Jester's Plea}. 
 
 GREECE and her foundations are 
 Built below the tide of war, 
 Based on the crystalline sea 
 Of thought and its eternity. 
 
 SHEU,EY 
 
 (Hellas). 
 
 It is very true that the amazing intellectual power of the Greeks 
 in a primitive age ensures them an immortality of fame ; and this is finely 
 expressed in the last two lines. But those two splendid lines are utterly 
 spoilt by the two that precede them. One asks, Why " Greece and her foun- 
 dations " ? One does not say " a house and its foundations " are built 
 somewhere or other. This by itself would be trivial, but next comes the 
 Question, What is the meaning of the second line ? We know what Shelley 
 intended that the memory and influence of Greece will withstand its 
 destruction by war but why in that case should she not be built above, 
 intead of submerged below the tide of war ? Later on, in lines 836-7, 
 the Emperor Palaeologus, at the siege of Constantinople, is said to have cast 
 himself " beneath the stream of war " ; that is to say, he was overwhelmed 
 and killed. The words, in fact, do not express the poet's meaning. The 
 third and fatal defect of the lines is the juxtaposition of " tide " and " sea " 
 the city is built below a tide, and also based on a sea. Not only is this 
 combination absurd in itself, but it also destroys the beauty of the last 
 two magnificent lines. The moving unstable water is scarcely a foundation 
 to build upon, yet this meaning is forcibly impressed upon the word " sea " 
 by the previous mention of a " tide." What Shelley meant was an immense 
 broad, deep, expanse of solid crystal the " sea of gjass like unto crystal " 
 of Revelations (iv, 6) and the Mer de Glace (" sea of ice " ), the great Alpine 
 glacier.* Therefore, anyone who had exactness of thought or perception 
 of poetry would omit the first two lines and give only the last two as a 
 quotation. 
 
 and we thus have an illustration of the curious fact that a great poet is 
 
 * So we speak of a " tea of heads " " sea of faces," "sea of sand," " ea of clouds," 
 ' ' sea of vegetation," etc. 
 
 10
 
 290 SHELLEY 
 
 often a poor judge of his own poetry. (Almost certainly Shakespeare 
 himself did not realize how god-like he stood above all other poets.) How- 
 ever, it is not only for this reason that I have included the above quotation, 
 but because with it I propose to make a flank attack upon Mr. R. W. Living- 
 stone, the author of The Greek Genius and its Meaning to us. I do this, 
 of course, with a special object in view. 
 
 Mr. Livingstone's book is important, valuable, and highly interesting 
 and is especially admirable because the author does not envelope his 
 subject in the usual glamour, born of enthusiasm. He is, indeed, most 
 exceptional in this respect, that he endeavours to look at the Greeks from 
 an ordinary commonsense point of view. But he makes the mistake, 
 not unusual with classical men, of supposing that he is a qualified critic 
 of poetry ; and he, therefore, gives us a special dissertation upon the compara- 
 tive values of English and Greek poetry. 
 
 Apart from this dissertation, he quotes three or four passages from 
 English poets in the course of the book. Of these the most prominent 
 is the above verse of Shelley's, and he quotes all four lines without comment. 
 Thus we see an able man, in whom classical study should have induced 
 exactness of thought, failing to analyse and understand what he is quoting. 
 But, more than this, the question is one of poetic perception. The imagery 
 in the last two lines is sublime in the four lines it is ludicrous. Therefore, 
 we begin with the fact that our literary critic was unable to see palpable 
 and grave defects in one of the few verses he himself quotes. (I might give 
 other illustrations, as where he admires poor verse of Dryden's, but I must 
 be brief.) 
 
 Mr. Livingstone's point is that the direct " and " truthful " character 
 of Greek poetry is superior to the " imaginative " quality of English 
 verse. He goes so far as to say that " Sappho and Simonides with four 
 words make him see a nightingale and give him a greater and far saner 
 pleasure" than Shelley's poem "To a Skylark." I take his quotation 
 from Simonides, as it involves less discussion than that from Sappho.* 
 It is (Fr, 73) a^Soves iro\vK(&rt\ot x A P a ^X'* fiaptval, " The warbling 
 nightingales with olive necks, the birds of spring." 
 
 As Mr. Livingstone is not discussing beauty of expression we can leave 
 this out of consideration.! He is discussing the substance of poetry, com- 
 paring the " directness " and " truthfulness " of Simonides (in this case) 
 with the imaginative element in Shelley's poem. He would apparently 
 discard the latter element altogether, and prefers a simple description 
 of the nightingale that it sings, has an olive neck, and appears in spring. 
 The first suggestion that occurs to one is that if, say, an auctioneer's catalogue 
 of farm stock without any addition whatever to its contents could be 
 worded prettily and made metrical, it would afford huge enjoyment to our 
 literary critic. 
 
 * See sub-note at the end of this note. 
 
 t We can, however, agree that the language of all three poets, Shelley, Sappho, and 
 Simonides, is exquisitely beautiful. Professor Naylor points out that it is a characteristic 
 of the early Greek poets to compress a description into a series of epithets full of expression, 
 without connecting words compare Tennyson (" The Passing of Arthur "). 
 
 But it lies 
 
 Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
 And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea.
 
 SHEIJvEY 291 
 
 The whole question is as to the value of the imaginative element which 
 to our minds makes Shelley's poem one of the most beautiful lyrics possibly 
 the most beautiful in all literature. In sweeping away this element, 
 Mr. Livingstone tells us how much of English poetry must be cast aside. 
 But he does not realize that much else has also to be flung on the scrap-heap. 
 Imagination, in its true sense, includes all those aesthetic, moral, and spiritual 
 faculties which are higher than the intellect all, in fact, that raises man above 
 his material existence. (See pp. 39, 40, 358.) With the immense deal of 
 English poetry which Mr. Livingstone proposes to " scrap " must go all 
 our most beautiful music, all that is great in painting (which is never " direct " 
 and " truthful " in this sense, or it would not be great), all Greek statuary, 
 and all that expresses high moral and spiritual truths in our literature. I do 
 not think that Mr. Livingstone will find many adherents to his new creed. 
 
 This critic also discusses style, and we find that he speaks of Pope 
 as a " great poet," and apparently revels in his monotonous verse ! 
 When pointing out that English verse, unlike what we have left of Greek 
 poetry, includes much unequal and ill-finished work, he says, " Of all our 
 great poets, perhaps only Milton and Pope can boast unfailing excellence 
 of style." 
 
 As regards this inequality in the work of English poets the answer 
 is very simple. Mr. Livingstone forgets the fact a very important fact 
 in any speculation upon the scheme of the universe that only the good 
 things ultimately survive. How very little we have left of many Greek 
 poets ! Of Sophocles only seven plays remain out of one hundred and 
 twenty-seven, and the Fragments collected are said to be very poor (many, 
 of course, are only grammatical illustrations) and more than half of Homer 
 must have been dropped. We probably still have everything that is best 
 in Greek literature. Again, it is not in fact desirable to restrict publi- 
 cation to work of the highest importance, and the facilities afforded by print- 
 ing have made it unnecessary thus to restrict it so that even My Common- 
 place Book is now, at least temporarily, part of English literature 1 
 
 Greatly as I admire Mr. Livingstone's book, I feel bound to call atten- 
 tion to a view of poetry that must do great harm to University students 
 and others. I am also bound to mention him as an illustration of the fact 
 that classical men usually imagine that their study of the Greek and Latin 
 languages and literature qualifies them to become literary critics.* This 
 fact has impressed itself upon me from youth upwards. One of my teachers, 
 a man of some weight in the classical world, was in the habit of saying 
 that only through study of Latin and Greek could a man learn to write good 
 English It His own English was simply execrable. 
 
 *As Professor Darnley Naylor's name appears at times in this book it is necessary 
 to mention that he is so qualified and, therefore, is not one of the gentlemen referred to. 
 I may mention here that Mr. Livingstone deserves censure for not giving us an 
 index to his valuable book. This neglect, being greatly provocative of profanity, is an 
 offence against morality. Much loss of time and irritation have been caused to me in 
 looking up passages I remembered in his book and I have at times given up the search 
 in despair. 
 
 tSee interesting remarks on Matthew Arnold and Addison in Herbert Spencsr's 
 " Study of Sociology." Note 20 to Ch. 10. Professor Naylor also in the preface to DM 
 Latin and English Idiom, points out that verbally accurate translation of the Classics tend< 
 to ruin the English of a student.
 
 292 SHELLEY 
 
 I will now give another instance where the classical enthusiast, as in 
 Mr. Livingstone's case, tends to exaggerate the value of his favourite literature 
 truly wonderful as it is. Gissing' s Private Papers of Henry Ryecrojt 
 is an interesting book of wide circulation, in which the author displays 
 great admiration for and familiarity with the classics. Speaking of Xeno- 
 phon's Anabasis, he says, " Were it the sole book existing in Greek, it would 
 be abundantly worth while to learn the language in order to read it." That 
 is to say, it would be worth while expending, out of our short lives, some 
 years of study for the sole purpose of reading in the original an extremely 
 simple, prose historical narrative, which has been excellently translated ! 
 (If Gissing had said Homer instead of Xenophon, no one would have quar- 
 relled with him.) Again, he says, " Many a single line presents a picture which 
 deeply stirs the emotions " ; and he gives us what he calls " a good instance 
 of such a line. A guide, who has led the Greeks through hostile country, 
 has to return through the same perilous district, and the wonderful 
 line is 'Ewel iaTttpa tyevero, yx T TIJJ VVKT^S a-iridv. This line Gissing 
 translates, " When evening came he took leave of us and went away by 
 night " a sentence which only by inadvertence could have appeared in, 
 say, a Times leader, seeing that the words " by night " are redundant. 
 As a matter of fact, the translation is incorrect ; there is nothing about 
 " taking leave of us," and the meaning is, " As soon as evening came, he 
 had slipped away into the darkness." 
 
 (Professor Naylor points out to me that the word XT in this line is 
 interesting. It conveys the idea of a swift or abrupt departure or disappear- 
 ance. It is used in connection with that most interesting man Alcibiades 
 (Xen, //<$., 2. i. 26) and gives a fine impression of his quick insolent temper. 
 The Greek admirals had put themselves in a position of extreme danger 
 and he came to warn them of their peril. Their reply was the usual expres- 
 sion of ineptitude, " We are the admirals, not you " ; and immediately 
 follows the one word yx (TO , "he turned on his heels and left " and with 
 this word Alcibiades disappears from contemporary history.) 
 
 In referring to Mr. Livingstone's remarks above I could not use the 
 Sappho quotation, because there are certain initial questions that need to 
 be first settled. (In briefly discussing these I must speak as though I were 
 expressing definite opinions, since otherwise the note could not be com- 
 pressed sufficiently, but I mean the following rather as suggestions which 
 may possibly be found useful.) 
 
 Sappho's line is (Fr, 39) *Hpoj fryytAoj intp6<t>t>i>os a^Sui/, which Mr. 
 Livingstone translates " The messenger of spring, the lovely-voiced night- 
 " 
 
 ingale." Now lutpos (bimeros) means animal passion, so that 
 (bimeropbonos) is a strong word meaning singing of, or with, passion 
 in this case the passion of the pairing-time. Why then does Mr. Living- 
 stone, following Liddell and Scott, give the totally different meaning 
 " lovely-voiced " ? Apparently it is because Theocritus (XXVIII, 7) applies 
 the expression " himerophonos " to the Charites, and, according to the 
 current conception, those deities were pure unimpassionate beings.* 
 
 For example : Miss Jane Harrison (Mythology of A ncient A thetts) says " all sweetness 
 and love " come to mortals from the " holy " Charites who " were in the fullest sense 
 ' givers of all grace.' " (That is to say, these deities have the attributes of God, who is, 
 of course, the sole giver of all grace ! Compare with this Professor Gilbert Murray on 
 the god Dionytus, p. 374)
 
 293 
 
 In questions of this character, seeing that the Greek gods were guilty 
 of every form of immorality and the Greeks themselves were one of the most 
 sensual nations that ever existed, the presumption is in favour of impurity : 
 the onus of proof is on those who allege purity. I have not undertaken 
 the heavy work of looking up the innumerable references to the Charites 
 in Greek literature, but I know of nothing that supports the prevalent 
 conception of those deities. Apart from the fact that Theocritus uses the 
 word himerophonos, Meleager (Anth. Pal, V, 195) speaks of himeros as con- 
 ferred by the Charites. There is nothing in the meaning of charts, or the 
 verb cbarizestbat to support the current idea (both being even used in an 
 immodest sense) ; Homer identifies Charis with Aphrodite, with whom 
 Hesiod also identifies Aglaia, since each is made the wife of Hephaestus ; 
 the Charites are constantly associated with Aphrodite and Eros (and con- 
 sequently with Himeros, the personification of passion) so that the maxim 
 Noscitur a sociis applies ; Sappho repeatedly claims them as her patrons ; 
 as regards the representation of the Charites in art, girl friendship would 
 be a subject quite alien to the Greek mind. 
 
 If the view suggested is correct our authorities with their precon- 
 ceived ideas presume to correct Theocritus and Sappho 1 They not only 
 give a wrong view of the Charites, but also hide the coarseness of the com- 
 pliment paid by Theocritus to his lady friend in each case distorting 
 the truth. 
 
 Mr. Livingstone may have another reason for altering the meaning of 
 " himerophonos." He appears to hold the opinion that a Greek writer 
 would not ascribe intelligence or emotion to a bird, as Mrs. Browning does in 
 " To a Seamew." (I quite agree with him as to the false, feminine sentiment 
 in this poem. It is mainly the " Sonnets from the Portuguese " that raise 
 Mrs. Browning above the minor poets.) Mr. Livingstone, for example, 
 translates 1infp6<j><v' k\ticr*p t " O cock that criest at dawn." This should 
 surely mean " that announceth the dawn ; " the attitude and the very crow 
 of the bird would suggest this to the Greeks ; and the fowl did, as a matter 
 of fact, serve in place of an alarm-clock to them (see, for instance, Aris- 
 tophanes' Birds, 488). Does not Mr. Livingstone forget that the Greeks 
 attributed not only intelligence but also miraculous powers to animals (see p. 
 370) ? If so, this illustrates another fact noticeable among classical authorities. 
 They often fail to consider all the premises before arriving at a conclusion. 
 Taking another illustration from Mr. Livingstone, he says that the Greeks 
 had little of the feeling of wonder, did not " muse on the strangeness of the 
 world," and would not have experienced the emotion Pascal felt when viewing 
 the starry heavens, " The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies 
 me." The premise he appears to omit here is the fact of the intense ignorance 
 of the Greeks. Their world was a very limited one, with its flat earth 
 and solid lid, certain bright objects conceived as gods or otherwise moving 
 in the intermediate space. To illustrate this, Herodotus (II, 24) believes 
 that the sun-god is forced by the cold winds in winter to move to the warm 
 sky above Libya ; and in 434 B.C. (about the same time) the great advanced 
 thinker, Anaxagoras, is arrested for blasphemy and exiled because he taught 
 that the sun must be a mass of blazing metal larger than the Peloponnesus ! 
 Every thing in nature had its god, whose action explained whatever happened. 
 If the Greeks had once realized the awful infinity of the universe their whole 
 outlook on nature would have changed, and I cannot think that so highly
 
 294 BUCHANAN- MEREDITH 
 
 intellectual a people would not have been moved by wonder. I cannot 
 see any element in " the Greek genius " that would indicate this. (Observe 
 Ptolemy's epigram on p. 10.) 
 
 Returning to the Sappho quotation, Mr. Livingstone translates 
 Ijpos &yyt\ot literally as " the messenger of spring." Does he mean the 
 messenger " sent by spring " or " announcing spring " ? Presumably he does 
 not mean the latter, as it would impute intelligence or emotion to the bird. 
 But, if we accept the former interpretation, it leads to the curious result 
 that the poet, not content with a Goddess of Spring and the Hours who 
 represent the seasons, intends still further to personify spring. Is not 
 the true meaning of Sappho's words "the nightingale with its passionate 
 song sent (by Proserpine) to let men know that spring is approaching " ? 
 This is not mere captious criticism. To Sappho the goddess Proserpine 
 was a concrete being with some sort of corporeal form, who brings a thing 
 called spring, and who actually does send the nightingale ahead to sing 
 of the passion of the pairing-time, and thus let men know that spring is 
 coming. There is no poetic imagery, no imaginative picture in the poet's 
 mind, but the statement of an actual fact. See also the reference to the 
 halcyon, p. 370. It seems to me that, in this as in other cases, our classical 
 authorities fail to place themselves in the position of the Greeks. Here they 
 interpret as imagination what was meant as reality. (However, as I have 
 said before, the above are merely suggestions which I myself hope to con- 
 sider further; but, until we knew exactly what Sappho's verse meant, 
 it could not be brought into the discussion of Mr. Livingstone's views.) 
 
 AH ! the weariness and weight of tears, 
 The crying out to God, the wish for slumber, 
 They lay so deep, so deep ! God heard them all ; 
 He set them unto music of his own. 
 
 R. BUCHANAN, 1866 
 
 (Bexhill). 
 
 Buchanan is speaking of the sad lives in the poor quarters of London 
 
 COLD as a mountain in its star-pitched tent 
 Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe : 
 Whom self -caged Passion, from its prison-bars, 
 Is always watching with a wondering hate. 
 Not till the fire is dying in the grate 
 Look we for any kinship with the stars. 
 
 G. MEREDITH 
 
 (Modern Love IV.)
 
 FOX SENECA 295 
 
 A fine expression of a familiar fact. Under the influence of love, 
 anger, or other strong passion, a man becomes an unreasoning animal, 
 and actually h&tes to be told the truth. Wild passion glares through the 
 bars of its self-constituted cage at philosophy standing calm, lofty, and 
 serene. Only " when the fire is dying in the grate " do we again become 
 akin to cold, dispassionate, star-like Philosophy. 
 
 triumph of machinery is when man wonders at his own 
 works ; thus, says Derwent Coleridge, all science begins in wonder 
 and ends in wonder, but the first is the wonder of ignorance, the 
 last that of adoration. 
 
 CAROLINE Fox's JOURNALS. 
 
 Evidently a comment on S. T. Coleridge's Aphorism IV. on "Spiritual 
 Religion" (Aids to Reflection). 
 
 NO one of himself can rise out of the depths, but must clasp 
 some outstretched hand. 
 
 SENKCA (? 3 B.C.-65 A.D.). 
 
 (Epistle 52). 
 
 THE RIME OF REDEMPTION 
 
 THE ways are white in the moon's light, 
 
 Under the leafless trees : 
 Strange shadows go across the snow 
 
 Before the tossing breeze 
 
 The burg stands grim upon the rim 
 Of the low wooded hill : 
 
 Sir lyoibich sits beside the hearth, 
 Fill'd with a thought of ill. 
 
 The knight sits bent with eyes intent 
 
 Upon the dying fire ; 
 Sad dreams and strange in sooth do range 
 
 Before the troubled sire.
 
 296 PAYNE 
 
 He sees the maid the past years laid 
 
 Upon his breast to sleep, 
 Long dead in sin. laid low within 
 
 The grave unblest and deep. 
 
 He hears her wail, with lips that fail, 
 
 To him to save her soul ; 
 He sees her laid, unhouseled,* 
 
 Under the crossless knoll. 
 
 " Ah ! would, dear Christ, my tears sufficed 
 
 To ransom her ! " he cries : 
 " Sweet Heaven, to win her back from sin, 
 
 I would renounce the skies. 
 
 " Could I but bring her suffering 
 
 To pardon and to peace, 
 I for my own sin would atone, 
 
 Where never pain doth cease ! 
 
 " I for my part would gnaw my heart, 
 Chain'd in the flames of hell ; 
 
 I would abide, unterrified, 
 
 More than a man shall tell." 
 
 The moon is pale, the night winds wail, 
 Weird whispers fill the night : 
 
 " Dear heart, what word was that I heard 
 Ring out in the moonlight ? " 
 
 'Twas but the blast that hurried past, 
 Shrieking among the pines ; 
 
 The souls that wail upon the gale, 
 When the dim starlight shines. 
 
 Great God ! the name ! once more it came 
 
 Ringing across the dark ! 
 " I^oibich ! " it cried. The night is wide, 
 
 The dim pines stand and hark. 
 
 " Loibich ! Loibich ! my soul is sick 
 With hungering for thee ! 
 
 The night fades fast, the hours fly past ; 
 Stay not, come forth to me ! " 
 
 LJnsbriven, without having received the sacrament.
 
 PAYNE 207 
 
 The clouchvrack grey did break away, 
 
 Out shone the ghostly moon ; 
 Down slid the ha/e from off the ways 
 
 Before her silver shoon. 
 
 Pale silver-ray'd, out shone the glade, 
 
 Before the castle wall, 
 And on the lea the knight could see 
 
 A maid both fair and tall. 
 
 Gold was her hair, her face was fair, 
 
 As fair as fair can be ; 
 But through the night the blue corpse-light 
 
 About her could he see. 
 
 She raised her face towards the place 
 
 Where Loibich stood adread ; 
 There was a sheen in her two een, 
 
 As one that long is dead. 
 
 She look'd at him in the light dim, 
 
 And beckon'd with her hand : 
 " Dear Knight," she said, " thy prayer hath sped 
 
 Unto the heavenly land. 
 
 " Come forth with me : the night is free 
 
 For us to work the thing 
 That is to do, before we two 
 
 Shall hear the dawn-bird sing. 
 
 " Saddle thy steed, Sir Knight, with speed, 
 Thy faithfullest," quoth she, 
 
 " For many a tide we twain must ride 
 Before the end shall be." 
 
 The steed is girt, black Dagobert, 
 
 Swift -footed as the wind ; 
 The knight leapt up upon his croup, 
 
 The maid sprang up behind. 
 
 The wind screams past ; they ride so fast, 
 
 Like troops of souls in pain 
 The snowdrifts spin, but none may win 
 
 To rest upon the twain.
 
 298 PAYNE 
 
 >So fast they ride, the blasts divide 
 
 To let them hurry on ; 
 The wandering ghosts troop past in hosts 
 
 Across the moonlight wan. 
 
 A singing light did cleave the night, 
 
 High up a hill rode they ; 
 The veils of Heaven for them were riven, 
 
 And all the skies pour'd day. 
 
 The golden gate did stand await, 
 
 The geld en town did lie 
 Before their sight, the realms of light 
 
 God builded in the sky. 
 
 The steed did wait before the gate, 
 Sheer up the street look'd they, 
 
 They saw the bliss in Heaven that is, 
 They saw the saints' array. 
 
 They saw the hosts upon the coasts 
 
 Of the clear crystal sea ; 
 They saw the blest' that in the rest 
 
 Of Christ for ever be. 
 
 The choirs of God pulsed full and broad 
 
 Upon the ravish'd twain ; 
 The angels' feet upon the street 
 
 Rang out like golden rain. 
 
 Then said the maid, " Be not afraid, 
 God giveth heaven to thee ; 
 
 Light down and rest with Christ His blest, 
 And think no more of me ! " 
 
 Sir Loibich gazed, as one sore dazed, 
 
 Awhile upon the place ; 
 Then, with a sigh, he turned his eye 
 
 Upon the maiden's face. 
 
 " By Christ His troth ! " he swore an oath, 
 " No heaven for me shall be, 
 
 Unless God give that thou shalt live 
 In heaven for aye with me."
 
 PAYNE 299 
 
 " Ah, curst am I ! " the maid did cry ; 
 
 " My place thou knowest well ; 
 I must begone before the dawn, 
 To harbour me in hell." 
 
 " By Christ His rest ! " he beat his breast, 
 
 " Then be it even so ; 
 With thee in hell I choose to dwell 
 
 And share with thee thy woe ! 
 
 " Thy sin was mine, By Christ His wine, 
 
 Mine too shall be thy doom ; 
 What part have I within the sky, 
 
 And thou in Hell's red gloom ? " 
 
 The vision broke, as thus he spoke, 
 
 The city waned away : 
 O'er hill and brake, o'er wood and lake 
 
 Once more the darkness lay. 
 
 O'er hill and plain they ride again, 
 
 Under the night's black spell, 
 Until there rise against the skies 
 
 The lurid lights of hell. 
 
 The dreadful cries they rend the skies, 
 
 The plain is ceil'd with fire : 
 The flames burst out, around, about, 
 
 The heats of hell draw nighe'r. 
 
 Unfear'd they ride ; against the side 
 
 Of the red flameful sky 
 Grim forms are thrown, strange shapes upgrown 
 
 From out Hell's treasury. 
 
 Fast rode the twain across the plain, 
 With hearts all undismay'd, 
 
 Until they came where all a-flame 
 Hell's gates were open laid. 
 
 The awful stead gaped wide and red, 
 To gulph them in its womb : 
 
 There could they see the fiery sea 
 And all the souls in doom.
 
 300 PAYNE 
 
 There came a breath, like living death, 
 
 Out of the gated way : 
 It scorched liis face with its embrace, 
 
 It turn'd his hair to grey. 
 
 Then said the maid, " Art not dismay 'd ? 
 
 Here is our course fulfill'd : 
 Wilt thou not tuna, nor rest to burn 
 
 With me, as God hath will'd ? " 
 
 " By Christ His troth !" he swore an oath, 
 " Thy doom with thee dree I ! 
 
 Here will we dwell, hand-link 'd in hell, 
 Unsevered for aye ! " 
 
 He spurr'd his steed ; the gates of dread 
 Gaped open for his course : 
 
 Sudden outrang a trumpet's clang, 
 And backwards fell the horse. 
 
 The ghostly maid did wane and fade, 
 
 The lights of hell did flee ; 
 Alone in night the mazed wight 
 
 Stood on the frozen lea. 
 
 Out shone the moon ; the mists were blown 
 
 Away before his sight 
 And through the dark he saw a spark, 
 
 A welcoming of light. 
 
 Thither he fared, with falchion bared, 
 
 Toward the friendly shine ; 
 Eftsoon he came to where a flame 
 
 Did burn within a shrine. . 
 
 Down on his knee low louted he 
 
 Before the cross of wood, 
 And for her spright he saw that m'ght 
 
 I<ong pray'd he to the Rood.* 
 
 And as he pray'd, with heart down-weigh'd, 
 
 A wondrous thing befell : 
 He saw a light, and through the night 
 
 There rang a silver bell.
 
 PAYNE COLERIDGE 301 
 
 The earth-mists drew from off his view. 
 
 He saw God's golden town ; 
 He saw the street, he saw the seat 
 
 From whence God looketh down. 
 
 He saw the gate transfigurate, 
 
 He saw the street of pearl, 
 And in the throng, the saints among, 
 
 He saw a gold-hair'd girl. 
 
 He saw a girl as white as pearl, 
 
 With hair as red as gold : 
 He saw her stand among the band 
 
 Of angels manifold. 
 
 He heard her smite the harp's delight, 
 
 Singing most joyfully, 
 And knew his love prevall'd above 
 
 Judgment and destiny. 
 
 Gone is the night, the morn breaks white 
 
 Across the eastward hill ; 
 The knightly sire by the dead fire 
 
 Sits in the dawning chill. 
 
 By the hearth white, there sits the knight, 
 
 Dead as the sunken fire ; 
 But on his face is writ the grace 
 
 Of his fulfill'd desire. 
 
 JOHN PAYNE (b. 1841). 
 
 This poem is cut down one-half and thereby loses much of its effect. 
 Two adventures, in which the Knight refuses temptation and adheres 
 to his oath, are entirely omitted. 
 
 ALAS ! they had been friends in youth ; 
 But whispering tongues can poison truth ; 
 And constancy lives in realms above ; 
 And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; 
 And to be wroth with one we love 
 Doth work like madness in the brain. 
 They parted ne'er to meet again !
 
 302 COLERIDGE AND OTHERS 
 
 But never either found another 
 
 To free the hollow heart from paining 
 
 They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
 
 Like cliffs which had been reft asunder ; 
 
 A dreary sea now flows between. 
 
 But neither heat., nor frost, nor thunder, 
 
 Shall wholly do away, I ween, 
 
 The marks of that which once hath been. 
 
 S. T. COI.ERDIGE 
 (Chfistabel) . 
 
 EVEN such a man, so faint, so spiritless, 
 
 So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, 
 
 Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, 
 
 And would have told him half his Troy was burnt. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 (2 Henry IV.) 
 
 This and the next five quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85). 
 
 THAT strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
 While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.* 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 (Tithonus). 
 
 COOL was the woodside ; cool as her white dairy 
 
 Keeping sweet the cream-pan ; and there the boys from 
 
 school, 
 Cricketing below, rush'd brown and red with sunshine ; 
 
 O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool ! 
 Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher 
 Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. 
 Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, 
 
 Said, " I will kiss you : " she laughed and lean'd her 
 cheek. 
 
 G. MEREDITH 
 
 (Love in the Valley). 
 
 * Homer tells us that Apollo and Poseidon " built " the walls of Troy ; the legend 
 that Apollo moved stones into their places by music is of a later date. See Ovid, JJeroid , 1 6 
 r8i ; Propertius 3, 9, 39. See also Tennyson's " Oenone."
 
 WORDSWORTH AND OTHERS 303 
 
 ONE there is, the loveliest of them all, 
 
 Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out 
 
 For gains, and who that sees her would not buy ? 
 
 Fruits of her father's orchard are her wares, 
 
 And with the ruddy produce she walks round 
 
 Among the crowd, halt pleased with, half ashamed 
 
 Of her new office, blushing restlessly. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 (The Prelude, Bk. VIII.} 
 
 OUT came the children running 
 
 All the little boys and girls, 
 
 With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls 
 
 And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls. 
 
 Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
 
 The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Pied Piper of Hameliri). 
 
 on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
 And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
 As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon ; 
 Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
 And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
 And on her hair a glory, like a saint. 
 
 KEATS. 
 
 (The Eve of St. Agnes). 
 The above are from a series of word-pictures (see pp. 86, 122). 
 
 IF the collective energies of the universe are identified with 
 Divine Will, and the system is thus animate with an eternal 
 consciousness as its moulding life, the conception we frame of 
 its history will conform itself to our experience of intellectual 
 volition. . It is in origination, in disposing of new conditions, 
 in setting up order by differentiation, that the mind exercises
 
 304 MARTINEAU 
 
 its highest function. When the product has been obtained, 
 and a definite method of procedure established, the strain upon 
 us is relaxed, habit relieves the constant demand for creation, 
 and at length the rules of a practised art almost execute themselves. 
 As the intensely voluntary thus works itself off into the auto- 
 matic, thought, liberated from this reclaimed and settled province 
 breaks into new regions, and ascends to ever higher problems : 
 its supreme life being beyond the conquered and legislated 
 realm, while a lower consciousness, if any at all, suffices for the 
 maintenance of its ordered mechanism. Yet all the while it 
 is one and the same mind that, under different modes of activity, 
 thinks the fresh thoughts and carries on the old usages. Does 
 anything forbid us to conceive similarly of the cosmical develop- 
 ment ; that it started from the freedom of indefinite possibilities 
 and the ubiquity of universal consciousness ; that, as intellectual 
 exclusions narrowed the field, and traced the definite lines of 
 admitted movement, the tension of purpose, less needed on these, 
 left them as the habits of the universe, and operated rather for 
 higher and ever higher ends not yet provided for ; that the more 
 mechanical, therefore, a natural law may be, the further is it 
 from its source ; and that the inorganic and unconscious portion 
 of the world, instead of being the potentiality of the organic 
 and conscious, is rather its residual precipitate, formed as the 
 Indwelling Mind of all concentrates an intenser aim on the upper 
 margin of the ordered whole, and especially on the inner life 
 of natures that can resemble him ? 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU (1805-1900) 
 (Modern Materialism) . 
 
 The remarkably fine and suggestive essay in which this passage occurs 
 was written in 1876, in the course of a discussion raised by Tyndall's Belfast 
 Address. It is not easy to appreciate the speculation that Martineau 
 offers in direct opposition to the theory of Darwinism without reading his 
 preceding argument. 
 
 It may be well to begin with a quotation from his sermon, " Perfection, 
 Divine and Human " : " However vast and majestic the uniformities of 
 nature, they are nevertheless finite : science counts them one by one ; a 
 completed science would count them all. God, however, is not finite ; 
 He lives out beyond the legislation He has made ; and His thought, which 
 defines the rules of matter, does not transmigrate into them and cease 
 else-how to be ; but merely flings out the law as an emanating act, and Himself 
 abides behind as Thinking Power." 
 
 In the present essay Martineau first develops the argument that 
 there is only one Power that exercises all the forces in the universe, whether 
 mechanical, chemical, or vital. That power is God, the Indwelling Mind 
 of the world. He is of like nature to (although infinitely higher than) 
 His highest product, which is conscious, thinking, and willing man. Seeing
 
 BEDDOES 305 
 
 that God and man are alike in their natures, Martineau proceeds to draw 
 an analogy between the history of the world and the history of man's own 
 development. The Divine Mind at first consciously exercises the forces 
 that we know as gravitation, cohesion, chemical attraction, etc. ; just 33, 
 to take a simple example, a baby has at first consciously to use its muscles 
 and balance its body in the process of walking. Later the baby, having 
 formed the habit, does all this unconsciously and, while walking, can pay 
 attention to other matters. So the Indwelling Mind of the world forms its 
 habits which we know as the laws of gravitation, etc., and is free to attend 
 to higher and higher objects. In this progress there is no evolution of the 
 organic from the inorganic, or of the higher from the lower forms of life. 
 Inorganic matter, having become subject to fixed laws, is precipitated and 
 dropped out of further conscious effort ; also each lower form of life is simi- 
 larly laid aside as the Indwelling Mind proceeds to the higher forms, until 
 finally man is reached. The highest result thus arrived at is the production 
 of conscious Mind. All this involves what is usually known as Special 
 Creation, and the idea of " God at His working-bench " creating one 
 species after another is regarded as absurd. But it is not absurd on Martin- 
 eau's argument, because the Indwelling Mind is constantly doing the whole 
 work of the world (and also because a fact to be accounted for by any 
 theory is that a higher form of existence appears whenever the environment 
 is suitable). In the present state of our knowledge Martineau's speculation 
 cannot be proved or disproved, but it may contain the germ of a true scheme 
 of the universe which scheme is yet far to seek. In any case, he makes 
 the important point that the nature of power in the world must be judged 
 from the best thing it has done namely, the minds it has produced. The 
 idea of a blind, unconscious force is incompatible with the fact that that 
 force has produced conscious mind. It is the same argument as the Psalmist 
 uses, " He that planted the ear, shall He not hear ? He that formed 
 the eye, shall He not see ? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not He 
 know T " (Ps. xciv, 9, 10.) The following (by whom written I do not know) 
 has the same idea : " Every thing is a thought, and bears a relation to 
 the thought that placed it there, and the thought that finds it there." It 
 is interesting to consider Martineau's suggestion with that of William 
 James on p. 165. 
 
 lifeless matter ; add the power of shaping. 
 And you've the crystal : add again the organs, 
 Wherewith to subdue sustenance to the form 
 And manner of one's self, and you've the plant : 
 Add power of motion, senses, and so forth, 
 And you've all kind of beasts ; suppose a pig : 
 To pig add reason, foresight, and such stuff, 
 Then you have man. What shall we add to man, 
 To bring him higher ? 
 
 T. Iy. BEDDOES (1803-1849) 
 (Death's Jest-Book, V. 2). 
 
 20
 
 306 HERBERT 
 
 Death's Jest-Book was published in 1850, after Beddoes' death; The 
 Origin of Species appeared in 1859 : the passage is, therefore, curious. In 
 suggesting, however, development by the addition of faculties, it affords 
 no explanation how those faculties came to be added. 
 
 " OUTLANDISH PROVERBS " 
 
 L/OVE rules his kingdom without a sword. 
 
 He plays well that wins. 
 
 The offender never pardons. 
 
 Nothing dries sooner than a tear. 
 
 Three women can hold their peace if two are away. 
 
 A woman conceals what she knows not. 
 
 Saint Luke was a Saint and a Physician, yet is dead.* 
 
 Were there no hearers, there would be no backbiters. 
 
 He will burn his house to warm his hands. 
 
 The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller not one. 
 
 Ill ware is never cheap. 
 
 Punishment is lame but it comes. 
 
 Gluttony kills more than the sword. f 
 
 The filth under the white snow the sun discovers. 
 
 You cannot know wine by the barrel. 
 
 At length the fox is brought to the furrier. 
 
 Love your neighbour, yet pull not down your hedge. 
 
 None is a fool always, every one sometimes. J 
 
 In a great river great fish are found, but take heed lest 
 
 you be drowned. 
 
 I wept when I was born, and every day shows why. 
 The honey is sweet, but the bee stings. 
 Gossips are frogs, they drink and talk. 
 He is a fool that thinks not that another thinks. 
 He that sows, trusts in God. 
 He that hath one hog makes him fat, and he that hath 
 
 one son makes him a fool. 
 
 * " Physician, heal thyself," Luke iv, 23. Also, although it is not very apropos, 
 see the following from Nicharchus in the Greek Anthology (G. B. Grundy's translation): 
 
 MEDICAL ATTENDANCE 
 
 Yesterday the Zeus of stone from the doctor had a call : 
 Though he's Zeus, and though he's stone, yet to-day's his funeral. 
 
 fThis probably came from Erasmusi Compare : 
 " Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune." 
 
 {Lincoln is alleged to have said, :1 You can fool some of the people all of the time, 
 and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of th 
 time."
 
 HERBERT ROGERS 307 
 
 Where your will is ready, your feet are light. 
 
 A fair death honours the whole hie. 
 
 To a good spender God is the treasurer. 
 
 The choleric man never wants woe. 
 
 Love makes a good eye squint. 
 
 He that would have what he hath not should do what 
 
 he doth not. 
 
 A wise man cares not for what he cannot have. 
 The fat man knoweth not what the lean thinketh. 
 In every country dogs bite. 
 None says his garner is full. 
 
 To a close-shorn sheep, God gives wind by measure.* 
 Silks and satins put out the fire in the chimney. 
 I/awyers' houses are built on the heads of fools. 
 It is better to have wings than horns. 
 We have more to do when we die than we have done. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT'S Jacula Prudentum. 
 
 The reader may not know of the " saintly Herbert's " collection of 
 " Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, etc." from which the few examples 
 above are taken. 
 
 AVAI<ON. 
 
 WE seek a land beneath the early beams 
 Of stars that rise beyond the sunset gate. 
 Where all the year the twilight lingers late, 
 Athwart whose coast the last-born sunray gleams. 
 Fair are the fields and full of pleasant streams, 
 Far sound the hedge-rows with the burgher bees, 
 Soft are the winds and taste of southern seas, 
 Night brings no longing there, and sleep no dreams. 
 O tillerman, steer true, while we, who bow 
 Above the oar -shafts, sing the land we seek, 
 I/and of the past, its rapture and its ruth ; 
 Future we ask none, we are memories now, 
 We bear the years whose lips no longer speak, 
 And round our galley's prow the name is Youth. 
 ROBERT CAMERON ROGERS (b. 1862). 
 
 An American author who wrote the well-known song, " The Rotary." 
 
 Showing that Sterne's " God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb " (Stntimtnlal. 
 Journty ) was his rendering of an older saying.
 
 3 o8 ANONYMOUS 
 
 IP I COULD HOIyD YOUR HANDS 
 
 IF I could hold your hands to-night, 
 
 Just for a little while, and know 
 That only I, of all the world, 
 Possessed them so : 
 
 A slender shape in that old chair, 
 If I could see you here to-night, 
 Between me and the twilight pale- 
 So light and frail, 
 
 Your cool white dress, its folding lost 
 In one broad sweep of shadow grey 
 Your weary head just drooped aside, 
 That sweet old way, 
 
 Bowed like a flower-cup dashed with rain, 
 
 The darkness crossing half your face, 
 And just the glimmer of a smile 
 For one to trace : 
 
 If I could see your eyes that reach 
 
 Far out into the farthest sky, 
 Where past the trail of dying suns 
 The old years lie : 
 
 Or touch your silent lips to-night, 
 
 And steal the sadness from their smile, 
 And find the last kiss they have kept 
 This weary while. : 
 
 If it could be Oh, all in vain 
 
 The restless trouble of my soul 
 
 Sets, as the great tides of the moon, 
 
 Toward your control ! 
 
 In vain the longings of the lips, 
 
 The eye's desire and the pain ; 
 The hunger of the heart O love, 
 Is it in vain ? 
 
 ANON.
 
 PATMORE--PATER 3 O9 
 
 A CIBO biscocto, 
 A medico indocto, 
 Ab inimico reconciliato, 
 A mala muliere 
 
 L,ibera nos, Domine. 
 
 (From twice-cooked food, from an ignorant doctor, from a reconciled 
 enemy, from a wicked woman, Lord, deliver us.) 
 
 Old Monkish Litany. 
 
 CONSTANCY REWARDED 
 
 I VOWED unvarying faith, and she, 
 
 To whom in full I pay that vow, 
 Rewards me with variety 
 
 Which men who change can never know. 
 
 COVENTRY PATMORE 
 
 (The Angel in the House}. 
 
 THE service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards 
 the human spirit is to rouse, to startle it into sharp and eager 
 observation. Every moment some form grows perfect in hand 
 or face ; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest ; 
 some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement 
 is irresistibly real and attractive for us for that moment only. 
 Not. the frnit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. 
 A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, 
 dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen 
 in them by the finest senses ? How shall we pass most swiftly 
 from point to point, and be present always at the focus where 
 the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy ? 
 
 To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain 
 this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be 
 said that our failure is to form habits : for, after all, habit 
 is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the 
 roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situa- 
 tions, seem alike. While all melts under our feet, we may catch 
 at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that 
 seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, 
 or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and 
 curious odours, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's 
 friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate
 
 3io PATER EARLE 
 
 attitude in those about us, and in the brilliancy of their gifts 
 some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short 
 
 day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening 
 
 We are all under sentence of death but with a sort of inde- 
 finite reprieve : we have an interval, and then our place knows 
 us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in 
 high passions, the wisest, at least among " the children of this 
 world," in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding 
 that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the 
 given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense 
 of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic 
 activity, disinterested or otherwise which come naturally to many 
 of us. Only be sure it is passion that it does yield you this 
 fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of this wisdom, 
 the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love for art's sake, 
 has most ; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing 
 but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply 
 for those moments' sake. 
 
 WAI/TER PATER (1839-1894) 
 
 (The Renaissance}. 
 
 In the Adelaide edition of this book this famous " pulsation " passage 
 appeared as originally written ; it is now given as Pater afterwards altered 
 it. 
 
 Pater was a Hellenist and preached the new paganism of last century. 
 The Greek ideal life was supposed to be one of purely aesthetic enjoyment, 
 divorced from religious problems or from any sense of the higher in our 
 nature. Pater, however, altered his views, Maritis, the Epicurean, being 
 intended as a recantation, and he became in effect an Anglo-Catholic. 
 (See p. 343 note.) 
 
 Pater was " Rose " in Mallock's New Republic. 
 
 A CHILD 
 
 IS a man in a small Letter, yet the best copy of Adam before 
 he tasted of the Apple. ... He is nature's fresh picture, newly 
 drawn in oil, which time and much handling dims and defaces. 
 His soul is yet a white paper, unscribbled with observations of 
 the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred note- book. 
 He is purelv happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath made means 
 by sin to be acquainted with misery. He kisses and loves all, 
 and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. . . 
 His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loth to use so deceitful 
 an organ. . . . We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game
 
 EARLE MII/TON 3 1 1 
 
 is our earnest : and his drums, rattles and hobby-horses but the 
 emblems and mocking- of man's business. His father hath writ 
 him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life 
 that he cannot remember ; and sighs to see what innocence he 
 has outlived. The older he grows, he is a stair lower from God ; 
 and, like liis first father, much worse in his breeches. . . Could 
 he put off his body with his little Coat, he had got eternity 
 without a burthen, and exchanged but one Heaven for another. 
 
 JOHN EART,E 
 (Micro- Cosmographie, 1628). 
 
 AS when a Gryphon through the wilderness 
 With winged course, o'er hill and moory dale, 
 Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth 
 Had from his wakeful custody purloined 
 The guarded gold. 
 
 MILTON 
 (Paradise Lost). 
 
 The Griffin, with head and wings of a bird and body of a lion, is pur- 
 suing, " half on foot, half flying," the one-eyed Arimaspian, who is fleeing 
 on horseback with the purloined gold. The Griffins guarded mines of gold 
 and hidden treasure. (Herodotus, iv, 27.) 
 
 f 
 
 A WOMAN'S THOUGHT 
 
 I AM a woman therefore I may not 
 
 Call to him, cry to him, 
 
 Fly to him, 
 
 Bid him delay not ! 
 
 Then when he comes to me, I must sit quiet 
 Still as a stone-- 
 All silent and cold. 
 If my heart riot 
 Crush and defy it ! 
 Should I grow bold, 
 Say one dear thing to him, 
 All my life fling to him, 
 Cling to him 
 What to atone 
 Is enough for my sinning ? 
 This were the cost to me, 
 This were my winning 
 That he were lost to tne.
 
 312 GILDER AND OTHERS 
 
 Not as a lover 
 
 At last if he part from me, 
 Tearing my heart from me, 
 Hurt beyond cure 
 Calm and demure 
 Then must I hold me, 
 In myself fold me, 
 Lest he discover ; 
 Showing no sign to him 
 By look of mine to him 
 What he has been to me 
 How my heart turns to him, 
 Follows him, yearns to him, 
 Prays him to love me. 
 
 Pity me, lean to me, 
 Thou God above me ! 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GIRDER (1844-1909), 
 
 OUT of lu's surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, 
 and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil. 
 
 MACAUI,AY 
 
 (On Niccolo MachiaveUi). 
 
 A wonderful record, if it were correct, but " Old Nick " is said to be 
 derived from Scandinavian mythology. 
 
 I SPEAK truth, not so much as 1 would, but as much as I 
 dare ; and I dare a little the more as I grow older. 
 
 MONTAIGNE 
 (Essay, Of Repentance] 
 
 COLERIDGE was holding forth on the effects produced by his 
 preaching, and appealed to Lamb : " You have heard me preach, 
 I think ? " "I have never heard you do anything else," was the 
 urbane reply.
 
 STERLING AND OTHERS 313 
 
 (JOHN STERLING said) Coleridge is best described in his 
 own words : 
 
 His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 
 Weave a circle round him thrice, 
 And close your eyes with holy dread, 
 For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise.* 
 
 MADAME DE STAEIv was by no means pleased with her inter- 
 course with him , saying spitefully and feelingly, " M. Coleridge a un 
 grand talent pour le monologue " (Mr. Coleridge has a great 
 talent for monologue " ). 
 
 CAROLINE Fox's JOURNALS. 
 
 Here we have different views of Coleridge's monologues. Mrae. de 
 Stael objected to his monopolizing the conversation, but his friends loved 
 to hear him. Lamb, of course, had to have his joke. 
 
 WHERE is the use of the lip's red charm, 
 The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, 
 And the blood that blues the inside arm 
 Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
 The earthly gift to an end divine ? 
 A lady of clay is as good, I trow. 
 
 R. BROWNING. 
 
 WHAT things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
 So nimble and so full of subtle flame, 
 As if that every one from whence they came 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life. 
 
 FRANCIS BEAUMONT 
 
 (Epistle to Ben Jonson). 
 
 What would one not give to have been present at the Mermaid Tavern 
 with the wonderful Elizabethans who met there ? Among them were 
 Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, 
 Carew, and John Selden. One is reminded of the Symposium of Plato. 
 
 * Kubla Khan."
 
 3 1 4 ELIOT WARNER 
 
 The poem of Keats is well known : 
 
 Souls of Poets dead and gone, 
 What Elysium have ye known, 
 Happy field or mossy cavern, 
 Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern T 
 
 ON a day like this, when the sun is hid, 
 
 And you and your heart are housed together, 
 
 If memories come to you all unhid, 
 
 And something suddenly wets your lid, 
 Like a gust of the out-door weather, 
 
 Why, who is in fault but the dim old day, 
 
 Too dark for labour, too dull for play ? 
 
 AUTHOR NOT TRACED. 
 
 A MAN can never do anything at variance with his own nature. 
 He carries with him the germ of his most exceptional actions ; 
 and, if we wise people make fools of ourselves on any particular 
 occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry 
 a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT. 
 
 I UNDERSTAND those women who say they don't want the 
 ballot. They purpose to hold the real power, while we go 
 through the mockery of making laws. They want the power 
 without the responsibility. 
 
 CHARGES DUDLEY WARNER 
 
 (My Summer in a Garden). 
 
 IF we cannot find God in your house or in mine ; upon the road- 
 side or the margin of the sea ; in the bvirsting seed or opening 
 flower ; in the day duty or the night musing ; in the general 
 laugh and the secret grief ; in the procession of life, ever entering
 
 MARTINEAU AND OTHERS 3*5 
 
 afresh, and solemnly passing by and dropping off ; I do not think 
 we should discern Him any more on the grass of Eden, 
 or beneath the moonlight of Gethsemane. Depend upon it, 
 it is not the want of greater miracles, but of the soul to perceive 
 such as are allowed us still, that makes us push all the sanctities 
 into the far spaces we cannot reach. The devout feel that wher- 
 ever God's hand is, there is miracle ; and it is simply undevoutness 
 which imagines that only where miracle is, can there be the real 
 hand of God. The customs of Heaven ought to be more sacred 
 in our eyes than its anomalies ; the dear old ways, of which the 
 Most High is never tired, than the strange things which He does 
 not love well enough ever to repeat. And he who will but 
 discern beneath the sun, as he rises any morning, the supporting 
 finger of the Almighty, may recover the sweet and reverent 
 surprise with which Adam gazed on the first dawn in Paradise. 
 
 JAMES MARTINEAU. 
 (Endeavours after the Christian Life). 
 
 ADVICE, like snow, the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon 
 and the deeper it sinks into the mind. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 MY burden bows me to the knee ; 
 
 O Lord, 'tis more than I can bear. 
 
 Didst Thou not come our load to share ? 
 My burden bows me to the knee : 
 Dear Jesus, let me lean on Thee ! . . . 
 
 Far off, so far, the Heavens be, 
 
 With their wide arms ! and I would prove 
 The close, warm-beating heart of Love. 
 
 But so far-off the Heavens be : 
 
 Dear Jesus, let me lean on Thee ! 
 
 GERALD MASSEY 
 (Out of the Depths}. 
 
 This poem is omitted from My Lyrical Life, Massey's collrcttd 
 poem*.
 
 316 TABB AND OTHERS 
 
 NIGHT dreams of day, and winter seems 
 In sleep to breathe the balm of May. 
 Their dreams are true anon ; but they, 
 
 The dreamers, then, alas, are dreams. 
 
 Thus, while our days the dreams renew 
 Of some forgotten sleeper, we, 
 The dreamers of futurity, 
 
 Shall vanish when our own are true. 
 
 J. B. TABB, 
 
 THE MOTHER WHO DIED TOO 
 
 SHE was so little little in her grave, 
 
 The wide earth all around so hard and cold 
 vShe was so little ! therefore did I crave 
 
 My arms might, still her tender form enfold. 
 She was so little, and her cry so weak 
 
 When she among the heavenly children came 
 She was so little I alone might speak 
 
 For her who knew no word nor her own name. 
 
 EDITH MATILDA THOMAS. 
 
 THE economy of Heaven is dark ; 
 And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, 
 Why human buds, like this, should fall, 
 More brief than fly ephemeral 
 That has his day ; while shrivell'd crones 
 Stiffen with age to stocks and stones ; 
 And crabbed use the conscience sears 
 In sinners ot an hundred years. 
 
 CHARGES LAMB 
 (On an infant dying as soon as bora). 
 
 OH dreadful thought, if all our sires and we 
 
 Are but foundations of a race to be. 
 
 Stones which one thrusts in earth, and builds thereon 
 
 A wiute delight, a Parian Parthenon, 
 
 And thither, long thereafter, youth and maid 
 
 Seek with glad brows the alabaster shade,
 
 MYERvS BROWNING 317 
 
 And in processions' pomp together bent 
 Still interchange their sweet words innocent, 
 Not caring that those mighty columns rest 
 Bach on the ruin of a human breast, 
 That to the shrine the victor's chariot rolls 
 Across the anguish of ten thousand souls ! 
 
 " Well was it that our fathers suffered thus," 
 I hear them say, " that all might end in us ; 
 Well was it here and there a bard should feel 
 Pains premature and hurt that none could heal ; 
 These were their preludes, thus the race began ; 
 So hard a matter was the birth of Man." 
 
 And yet these too shall pass and fade and flee, 
 And in their death shall be as vile as we, 
 Nor much shall profit with their perfect powers 
 To have lived a so much sweeter life than ours, 
 When at the last, with all their bliss gone by, 
 Ivike us those glorious creatures come to die, 
 With far worse woe, far more rebellious strife 
 Those mighty spirits drink the dregs of life. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS 
 (The Implicit Promise of Immortality}. 
 
 It will be observed that Myers, like Swinburne, handled the old heroic 
 couplet in a masterly manner, undreamt of by Pope, Dryden, and their 
 generation. 
 
 GOD'S works paint any one, and count it crime 
 
 To let a truth slip. Don't object, " His works 
 
 " Are here already ; nature is complete : 
 
 " Suppose you reproduce her (which you can't) 
 
 " There's no advantage ! You must beat her then." 
 
 For, don't you mark ? we're made so that we love 
 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; 
 
 And so they are better, painted better to us 
 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that ; 
 
 God uses us to help each other so, 
 
 lauding our minds out. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (Fra Lippo Lippi).
 
 3 1 8 PAYNE DARWIN 
 
 FOR the folk through the fretful hours are hurled 
 On the ruthless rush of the wondrous world, 
 
 And none has leisure to lie and cull 
 
 The blossoms, that made life beautiful 
 In that old season when men could sing 
 For dear delight in the risen Spring 
 
 And Summer ripening fruit and flower. 
 
 Now carefulness cankers every hour ; 
 We are too weary and sad to sing ; 
 Our pastime's poisoned with thought-taking. 
 
 JOHN PAYNE 
 
 (Tournesol). 
 
 I AM much engaged, an old man and out of health, and I can- 
 not spare time to answer your questions fully, nor indeed can 
 they be answered. Science has nothing to do with Christ, except 
 in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious 
 in admitting evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there 
 ever has been any Revelation. As for a future life every man 
 must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. 
 Wishing you happiness, I remain, &c. 
 
 CHARGES DARWIN 
 (Letter to von Muller, June 5, 1879). 
 
 This letter is reproduced in the Life and Letters, but evidently Francis 
 Darwin did not know that the " German youth " to whom he says it was 
 written was Baron Ferdinand von Muller, K.C.M.G. (1825-1896), then 
 fifty-three years of age 1 Von Muller was director of the Melbourne Botani- 
 cal Gardens from 1857 to 1873, and died in Melbourne in 1896. He did 
 important work in Australian botany. * 
 
 As regards Darwin's letter, it seems to me that a sufficient reason 
 why a great and lovable man, who was at first a convinced believer in the 
 immortality of the soul, became an agnostic is given in the next quotation. 
 The higher aesthetic part of his brain had become atrophied. 
 
 Darwin himself thought that he had not given sufficient consideration 
 to religious questions and was exceedingly anxious that his own agnostic 
 views should not influence others. 
 
 I HAVK said that in one respect my mind has changed during 
 the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or 
 beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, 
 Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great
 
 DARWIN AND OTHERS 319 
 
 pleasure, and even as a school-boy I took intense delight in Shakes- 
 peare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that 
 formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great 
 delight. But now tor many years I cannot endure to read a line 
 of poetry : I have tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it 
 so intolerably dull that it nauseates me. I have also almost lost 
 my taste for pictures or music. . . . My mind seems to have 
 become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large 
 collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy 
 of that (aesthetic) part of the brain alone, on which the higher 
 tastes depend, I cannot conceive. . . . The loss of these tastes 
 is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intel- 
 lect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling 
 the emotional part of our nature. 
 
 CHARGES DARWIN. 
 
 This is from autobiographical notes made by Darwin for his children, 
 and not intended for publication. 
 
 GOD be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
 Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
 One to show a woman when he loves her ! 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 
 (One Word More). 
 
 CHILDREN'S HYMN ON THE COAST OF BRITTANY, 
 
 AT length has come the twilight dim. 
 
 The sun has set, the day has died ; 
 And now we sing Thy holy hymn, 
 
 O Mary maid, at eventide. 
 
 To Jewry, to that far-off land, 
 
 Erstwhile there came a little Child : 
 
 You led Him softly by the hand, 
 He was so very small and mild. 
 
 Like us, He could not find his way, 
 Although He was Our Lord, the King : 
 
 And so we beg we may not stray, 
 Nor do a sad or foolish thing.
 
 .320 O'SULLIVAN WESLEY 
 
 Teach us the prayer that Jesus said, 
 The words you sang and murmured low, 
 
 When He was in His tiny bed, 
 
 And all the earth was dark and slow. 
 
 Hushed are the trees, and the small wise bees, 
 
 Our fathers are on the deep, 
 Little Mother, be good to us, please ! 
 
 It is time to go asleep. 
 
 VINCENT O'SUMJVAN. 
 
 WESLEY'S MEDICAL PRESCRIPTIONS 
 
 FOR an Ague : Make six middling pills of cobwebs. Take 
 one a little before the cold fit ; two a little before the next fit 
 (suppose the next day) ; the other three, if need be, a little before 
 the third fit. This seldom fails. 
 
 A Cut : Bind on toasted cheese. This will cure a deep cut. 
 
 A Fistula : Grind an ounce of sublimate mercury as fine as 
 possible. . . . (Two quarts of water to be added, then half a 
 spoonful with two spoonfuls of water to be taken fasting every 
 other day) ... In forty days this will also cure any cancer, any 
 old sore or King's evil. 
 
 The Iliac Passion : Hold a live puppy constantly on the belly. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY 
 (Primitive Physic. Ed. 1780). 
 
 The iliac passion, now known as ileus, is a severe colic due to intestina 
 obstruction. 
 
 It seems strange that so eminent a man should have believed in these 
 absurd prescriptions, but as a matter of fact the book generally is much 
 more sane and sound than one would expect from the habits and state of 
 knowledge of the time. For example, in his rules of health Wesley strongly 
 advises the practice of cold bathing, cleanliness, open-air exercise, modera- 
 tion of food, etc. Also these prescriptions are chosen for their absurdity 
 in each case other more sensible remedies are offered. But Wesley in his 
 preface says that he has omitted altogether from his book Cinchona bark, 
 oecause it is " extremely dangerous." This means that in regard to ague 
 he omitted the only efficient remedy which was much more unfortunate 
 than his prescribing cobweb pills. 
 
 This book went to thirty-six editions between 1747 and 1840.
 
 GASCOIGNE HUGO 321 
 
 " WHEN shall our prayers end ? " 
 I tell thee, priest, when shoemakers make shoes, 
 That are well sewed, with never a stitch amiss, 
 And use no craft in uttering of the same ; 
 When tinkers make no more holes than they found, 
 When thatchers think their wages worth their work, 
 When Davie Diker digs and dallies not, 
 When horsecorsers beguile no friends with jades, 
 When printers pass no errors in their books, 
 When pewterers infect no tin with lead, 
 When silver sticks not on the Teller's fingers, 
 When sycophants can find no place in Court, . . . 
 W T hen Lais lives not like a lady's peer 
 
 Nor useth art in dyeing of her hair 
 
 GEORGE GASCOIGNE (1525 P-is;;). 
 (The Steele Glas). 
 
 our life is a meeting of cross-roads, where the choice ol 
 directions is perilous. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 ROSE-CHEEKED Laura, come ; 
 Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's 
 Silent music, either other 
 
 Sweetly gracing. 
 Lovely forms do flow 
 From concent divinely framed ; 
 Heaven is music, and thy beauty's 
 
 Birth is heavenly. 
 These dull notes we sing 
 Discords need for helps to grace them, 
 Only beauty purely loving 
 
 Knows no discord, 
 But still moves delight, 
 Like clear springs renewed by flowing, 
 Ever perfect, ever in them- 
 
 Selves eternal. 
 
 THOMAS CAMPION (died 1619). 
 
 Richard Lovelace (1618-165;) subsequently wrote (Orpbeus to fieasls) : 
 O, could you view the melodic 
 Of ev'ry grace, 
 And musick of her face, 
 You'd drop a teare, 
 Seeing more harmonic 
 In her bright eye, 
 Then now you heare. 
 
 Then=rita. Sec next quotation.
 
 322 ELIOT LANDOR 
 
 I THINK the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded blossom- 
 like dark-eyed Hetty, of whose inward self he was really very 
 ignorant, came out of the very strength of his nature, and not out 
 of any inconsistent weakness. Is it any weakness, pray, to be 
 wrought on by exquisite music ? to feel its wondrous harmonies 
 searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres 
 of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together 
 your whole being past and present in one unspeakable vibration : 
 melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love 
 that has been scattered through the toilsome years : concentrating 
 in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard- 
 learnt lessons of self-renouncing sympathy : blending your present 
 joy with past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your past 
 joy ? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought 
 upon by the exquisite curves of a woman's cheek and neck and 
 arms, by the liquid depths of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet 
 childish pout of her lips. For the beauty of a lovely woman is 
 like music : what can one say more ? Beauty has an expression 
 beyond and far above the one woman's soul that it clothes, 
 as the words of genius have a wider meaning than the thought 
 that prompted them : it is more than a woman's love that moves 
 us in a woman's eyes it seems to be a far-off mighty love that 
 has come near to us, and made speech for itself there ; the rounded 
 neck, the dimpled arm, move us by something more than their 
 prettiness by their close kinship with all we have known of 
 tenderness and peace. The noblest nature sees the most of this 
 impersonal expression in beauty, and for this reason, the noblest 
 nature is often the most blinded to the character of the 
 woman's soul that the beauty clothes. Whence, I fear, the 
 tragedy of human life is likely to continue for a long time to 
 come in spite of mental philosophers who are ready with the 
 best receipts for avoiding all mistakes of the kind. 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 (Adam Bede). 
 
 George Eliot would not know the preceding poem by Campion, whose 
 lyrics had been forgotten until A. H. Bullen revived them in 1889; and 
 most probably also she did not know Lovelace's poem, as it is not one of the 
 two or three lyrics by which alone he is remembered. 
 
 AI^AS, how soon the hours are over 
 
 Counted us out to play the lover ! 
 
 And how much narrower is the stage 
 
 Allotted us to play the sage ! 
 
 But when we play the fool, how wide 
 
 The theatre expands ! beside, 
 
 How long the audience sits before us ! 
 
 How many prompters ! What a chorus ! 
 
 W. S. LANDOR.
 
 CARIyYl,E"PHII,UPS 323 
 
 THE degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure 
 of the man. If called to define Shakespeare's faculty, I should 
 say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all 
 under that. What indeed are faculties ? We talk of faculties 
 as if they were distinct, things separable ; as if a man had intellect, 
 imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet, and arms. That 
 is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's " intellectual 
 nature," and of his " moral nature," as if these again were divisible 
 and existed apart. . . . We ought to know, and to keep forever 
 in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names ; that man's 
 spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially 
 one and indivisible ; that what we call imagination, fancy, under- 
 standing, and so forth, are but different figures of the same 
 Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, 
 physiognomically related ; that if we knew one of them, we might 
 know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality 
 of a man, what is this but another side of the one vital 
 Force whereby he is and works ?. . . . Without hands a man 
 might have feet, and could still walk : but, consider it, without 
 morality, intellect were impossible for him ; a thoroughly immoral 
 man could not know anything at all ! To know a thing, what 
 we can call knowing, a man must first" love the thing, sympathize 
 with it ; that is, be virtuously related to it. ... iSTature, with 
 her truth, remains to the bad, to the selfish and the pusillanimous 
 forever a sealed book : what such can know of Nature is mean, 
 superficial, small. 
 
 CARI,YI,E 
 (Heroes and Hero Worship. III). 
 
 A UTTIvE I will speak. I love thee then 
 Not only for thy body packed with sweet 
 Of all this world. . . . 
 Not for this only do I love thee, but 
 Because Infinity upon thee broods ; 
 And thou art full of whispers and of shadows. 
 Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say 
 So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell ; 
 Thou art what all the winds have uttered not, 
 What the still night suggesteth to the heart. 
 Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth, 
 Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea ; 
 Thy face remembered is from other worlds, 
 It has been died for, though I know not when, 
 It has been sung of, though I know not where. 
 
 STEPHEN PHILIPS 
 
 (Marpessa] .
 
 SOMETIMES them seem'st not as thyself alone, 
 But as the meaning of all things that are. 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 (Heart's Compass] 
 
 " IMBUTA " 
 
 THE new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old, 
 The heart is all athirst again, 
 
 The drops are all of gold ; 
 We thought the cup was broken. 
 
 And we thought the tale was told, 
 But the new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old ! 
 
 The flower of life had faded, 
 
 The leaf was in its fall, 
 The winter seemed so early 
 
 To have reached us, once for all ; 
 But now the buds are breaking, 
 
 There is grass above the mould, 
 And the new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old ! 
 
 The earth had grown so dreary, 
 
 The sky so dull and grey ; 
 One was weeping in the darkness, 
 
 One was sorrowing through the day : 
 But a light from heaven gleams again, 
 
 On water, wood, and wold, 
 And the new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old ! 
 
 For the loving lips are laughing, 
 
 And the loving face is fair, 
 Though a phantom hand is on the board, 
 
 And phantom eyes are there ; 
 The phantom eyes are soft and sad, 
 
 The phantom hand is cold, 
 But the new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old !
 
 WHYTE-META'II/LE AND OTHER S 3*5 
 
 We dare not look, we turn away, 
 
 The precious draught to drain, 
 'Twere worse than madness, surely now, 
 
 To lose it all again ; 
 To quivering lip, with clinging grasp, 
 
 The fatal cup we hold, 
 For the new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old ! 
 And life is short, and love is life, 
 
 And so the tale is told, 
 Though the new wine, the new wine, 
 
 It tasteth like the old. 
 
 G. J. WiiYTR-M^vii.i.E. 
 
 The title evidently refers to Horace Ep. i, 2, 69, 70, Quo semel est 
 Imbuta recens servabit odorem testa diu. " The scent which once has 
 flavoured the fresh jar will be preserved in it for many a day." Moore 
 no doubt had the same passage in his mind when, speaking of the memories 
 of past joys, he wrote : 
 
 You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. 
 
 So Whyte-Melville says that when love is poured again into the heart of a 
 man who has lost his first love, " The new wine, the new wine, It tasteth 
 like the old." 
 
 I STROVE with none, for none was worth my strife, 
 Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art : 
 
 I warm'd both hands before the fire of Life ; 
 It sinks, and I am ready to depart. 
 
 W. vS. IvANDOR. 
 
 THE Toucan has an enormous bill, makes a noise like a puppy 
 dog, and lays his eggs in hollow trees. How astonishing are the 
 freaks and fancies of nature ! To what purpose, we say, is a bird 
 placed in the woods of Cayenne with a bill a yard long, making 
 a noise like a puppy dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees ? The 
 Toucans, to be sure, might retort, to what purpose were gentle- 
 men in Bond Street created ? To what purpose were certain 
 foolish prating Members of Parliament created ? pestering 
 the House of Commons with their ignorance and folly, and imped- 
 ing the business of the country ? There is no end of such questions. 
 So we will not enter into the metaphysics of the Toucan. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 (Review of " Waterlon's Travels in South America ").
 
 326 MEREDITH 
 
 ABOVE green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the 
 thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor 
 among the reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick 
 with weed and trailing bramble, and there also hung a daughter 
 of earth . Her face was shaded by a broad straw hat with a flexible 
 brim that left her lips and chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, 
 sent forth a light of promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and 
 behind, flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, almost golden 
 where the ray touched them. She was simply dressed, befitting 
 decency and the season. On a closer inspection you might 
 see that her lips were stained. This blooming young person was 
 regaling on dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water. 
 Apparently she found the fruit abundant, for her hand was 
 making pretty progress to her mouth. Fastidious youth, which 
 revolts at woman plumping her exquisite proportions on bread- 
 and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully have her 
 scraggy to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries. 
 Indeed the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. 
 The dewberry is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. 
 You eat : mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and the undrugged 
 mind free to roam. And so it was with the damsel who knelt 
 there. The little skylark went up above her, all song, to the 
 smooth southern cloud lying along the blue : from a dewy copse 
 dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to her 
 with thrice mellow note : the kingfisher flashed emerald out of 
 green osiers : a bow- winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude : 
 a boat slipped toward her, containing a dreamy youth ; and still 
 she plucked the fruit, and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were 
 invading; her territories, and as if she wished not for one, or knew 
 not her~ wishes. Surrounded by the green shaven meadows, 
 the pastoral summer buzz, the weirfall's thundering white, 
 amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she was a bit of 
 lovely human life in a fair setting ; a terrible attraction. The 
 Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the weir- 
 piles, and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew nature, 
 as at the meeting of two electric clouds.^ Her posture was so 
 graceful, that though he was making straight for the weir, he dared 
 not dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. 
 He was floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched 
 low, and could not gather what it sought. A stroke from his 
 right brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up dismayed, 
 and her whole shape trembled over the brink. Richard sprang 
 from his boat into the water. Pressing a hand beneath her 
 foot, which she had thrust against the crumbling wet sides of 
 the bank to save herself, he enabled her to recover her balance, 
 and gain safe earth, whither he followed her 
 
 To-morrow this place will have a memory the river and 
 the meadow, and the white falling weir : his heart will build a
 
 CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER 327 
 
 temple here ; and the skylark will be its high-priest, and the 
 old blackbird its glossy-gowned chorister, and there will be a 
 sacred repast of dewberries. 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 (The Ordeal of Richard Feverel). 
 
 LETTY'S GLOBE 
 
 " WHEN I/etty had scarce passed her third glad year, 
 And her young artless words began to flow, 
 
 One day we gave the child a coloured sphere 
 
 Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know, 
 
 By tint and outline, all its sea and land. 
 She patted all the world ; old empires peeped 
 
 Between her baby fingers ; her soft hand 
 
 Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leaped 
 And laughed and prattled in her world-wide bliss ; 
 
 But when we turned her sweet unlearned eye 
 
 On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry 
 
 " Oh i yes, I see it, I/etty's home is there ! " 
 And, while she hid all England with a kiss, 
 
 Bright over Europe fell her golden hair. 
 
 CHARGES TENNYSON TURNER. 
 
 Charles Tennyson, a brother of Lord Tennyson and author with him 
 of Poems by Two Brothers, took the name of Turner. 
 
 O MAY I join the choir invisible 
 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 
 In minds made better by their presence : live 
 
 In pulses stirred to generosity, 
 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 
 For miserable aims that end with self. 
 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
 
 And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
 
 To vaster issues. 
 
 So to live is heaven : 
 To make undying music in the world . . . 
 
 This is life to come,
 
 328 ELIOT 
 
 Which martyr'd men have made more glorious 
 
 For us who strive to follow. May I reach 
 
 That purest heaven, be to other souls 
 
 The cup of strength in some great agony. 
 
 Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love, 
 
 Beget the smiles that have no cruelty 
 
 Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, 
 
 And in diffusion ever more intense, 
 
 So shall 1 join the choir invisible 
 
 Whose music is the gladness of the world. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT. 
 
 There is an infinite pathos in these lines. Having lost her faith in a 
 future life, George Eliot tries to find consolation in the thought that, when 
 she has passed into nothingness when she "joins the choir invisible" 
 she will have done something to ennoble the minds of those who come after 
 her. But why should generation after generation of insect-lives waste 
 themselves in raising and purifying the minds of the generations that follow, 
 if all in turn pass into nothingness ? The higher and purer men became, 
 the more they would love their fellow-beings and the more they would 
 shudder at the insensate pain and cruelty in the world the physical 
 torture they themselves endure, and the mental torture both of losing for 
 ever those they love and of seeing the sufferings of others. One should 
 act in conformity with one's belief. Instead of thus adding greater pain 
 and sorrow to each succeeding generation, the effort should be to coarsen 
 and brutalize our natures, so that love, duty, and moral aspiration shall 
 disappear, and we shall cease to be saddened by the appalling cruelty of 
 our existence. Our lives should, in fact, correspond with the brutal, ugly 
 and stupid scheme of the universe. 
 
 This is the direct answer to George Eliot, allowing her very important 
 assumption that we have a duty towards others, including those who come 
 after us. But this assumption is logically unwarranted, if at the end of 
 our brief years we pass into nothingness and have no further concern with 
 any living being. This brings us to a familiar train of argument. Why 
 should we be irresistibly impelled to sacrifice ourselves for the good of 
 others ? And, apart from altruism, why should we develop our own 
 higher attributes why seek to ennoble our own selves, since those selves 
 disappear ? Why fill with jewels the hollow log that is to be thrown on the 
 fire ? Why are we swayed by a sense of honour, a desire for justice, a love 
 of purity and truth and beauty, a craving for affection, a thirst for know- 
 ledge, which persist up to the very gates of death ? To take an illustration 
 of Edward Caird's, is not the path of life which is so traversed like the 
 path of a star to the astronomer, which enables him to prophesy its future 
 course beyond the end which hides it from our eyes ? Otherwise, to use 
 another simile, it is as though Pheidias spent his life sculpturing in snow. 
 
 (This does not mean, as the sceptic usually sneers, that the virtuous 
 man merely desires a reward for his virtuous conduct. It is an inquiry 
 why he is virtuous what is a sane view of the scheme of the universe.)
 
 TENNYSON 329 
 
 In forming the conclusion that there was no possible future for man. 
 George Eliot and an immense number of other thinkers of her time made 
 also the vast assumption that there was nothing left to discover. Blanco 
 White's sonnet alone might have taught them the folly of such premature 
 judgments. Or we may take an illustration, used by F. W. H. Myers, 
 namely, the discovery that, far beyond the red and the violet of the spectrum 
 or the rainbow, extend rays that have been (and will for ever be) invisible 
 to our eyes. Since George Eliot's time the Society for Psychical Research 
 has during the last thirty-five years accumulated unanswerable evidence 
 of survival after death. 
 
 WHY are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 
 And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 
 While all things else have rest from weariness ? 
 All things have rest : why should we toil alone, 
 We only toil, who are the first of things, 
 And make perpetual moan, 
 Still from one sorrow to another thrown : 
 Nor ever fold our wings, 
 And cease from wanderings, 
 Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; 
 Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 
 " There is no joy but calm ! " 
 Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of 
 things ? . . . 
 
 Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 
 Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 
 Death is the end of life ; ah, why 
 Should life all labour be ? 
 Let us alone. Time drive th onward fast, 
 And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
 Let us alone. What is it that will last ? 
 All things are taken from us, and become 
 Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. 
 Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 
 To war with evil ? Is there any peace 
 In ever climbing up the climbing wave ? 
 All tilings have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
 In silence ; ripen, fall and cease : 
 Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful 
 ease. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 (The Lotos-Eaters}. 
 See preceding quotation.
 
 330 SEELEY LANDOR 
 
 WE may well begin to doubt whether the known and the natural 
 can suffice for human life. No sooner do we try to think so than 
 pessimism raises its head. The more our thoughts widen and 
 deepen, as the universe grows upon us and we become accustomed 
 to boundless space and time, the more petrifying is the contrast 
 of our own insignificance, the more contemptible become the pet- 
 tiness, shortness, fragility of the individual hie. A moral paralysis 
 creeps upon us. For awhile we comfort ourselves with the 
 notion of self-sacrifice ; we say, what matter if I pass, let me 
 think of others ! But the other has become contemptible no less 
 than the self ; all human griefs alike seem little worth assuaging, 
 human happiness too paltry at the best to be worth increasing. 
 The whole moral world is reduced to a point ; good and evil, 
 right and wrong become infinitesimal ephemeral matters, while 
 eternity and infinity remain attributes of that only which is 
 outside the sphere of morality. Life becomes more intolerable 
 the more we know and discover, so long as everything widens 
 and deepens except our own duration, and that remains as pitiful 
 as ever. The affections die away in a world where everything 
 great and enduring is cold ; they die of their own conscious 
 feebleness and bootlessness. 
 
 SIR J. R. SEEI.EY 
 
 (Natural Religion). 
 See the two preceding quotations. 
 
 DEATH stands above me, whispering low 
 
 I know not what into my ear : 
 Of his strange language all I know 
 
 Is, there is not a word of fear. 
 
 W. S. LANDOR 
 
 LOVE-SWEETNESS 
 
 SWEET dimness of her loosened hair's downfall 
 About thy face ; her sweet hands round thy head 
 In gracious fostering union garlanded ; 
 
 Her tremulous smiles ; her glances' sweet recall 
 
 Of love ; her murmuring sighs memorial ; 
 
 Her mouth's culled sweetness by thy kisses shed 
 On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led 
 
 Back to her mouth which answers there for all :
 
 ROSSETTI CARLYI,E 331 
 
 What sweeter than these things, except the thing 
 In lacking which all these would lose their sweet : 
 The confident heart's still fervour : the swift beat 
 And soft subsidence of the spirit's wing. 
 Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring, 
 The breath of kindred plumes against its feet ? 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 JESUS saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God ; 
 and wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him. Raise 
 the stone and there thoit shalt find me ; cleave the wood and there 
 am I. 
 
 (Logia of Jesus). 
 
 This is one of the Logia or Sayings of Jesus written on papyrus in the 
 third century and discovered in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897. The 
 italics, of course, are mine. 
 
 THE first of all Gospels is this, that a I^ie cannot endure for ever. 
 
 MEANWHILE it is singular how long the rotten will hold 
 together, provided you do not handle it roughly. 
 
 THERE are quarrels in which even Satan, bringing help, were 
 not unwelcome ; even Satan, fighting stiffly, might cover himself 
 with glory of a temporary nature. 
 
 > Nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head 
 
 vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.
 
 332 CARLYLE KNOWLES 
 
 THOU art bound hastily for the City of Nowhere ; and wilt 
 arrive ! 
 
 CARI.YLE 
 
 (French Revolution) . 
 
 It is interesting to learn from a correspondent of The Spectator (Feb. 
 17, 1917) that Carlyle wrote two verses which he combined with Shakes- 
 peare's " Fear no more the heat o' the sun " (Cymbeline iv, 2) to make a 
 requiem, of which he was very fond : 
 
 Fear no more the heat o' the sun, 
 
 Nor the furious winter's rages ; 
 Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
 
 Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. 
 
 Hurts thee now no harsh behest, 
 Toil, or shame, or sin, or danger ; 
 
 Trouble's storm has got to rest, 
 To his place the wayworn stranger. 
 
 Want is done, and grief and pain, 
 Done is all thy bitter weeping : 
 
 Thou art safe from wind and rain 
 In the Mother's bosom sleeping. 
 
 Fear no more the heat o' the sun, 
 Nor the furious winter's rages : 
 
 Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
 Home art gone and ta'en thy wages. 
 
 IT takes two for a kiss, 
 
 Only one for a sigh ; 
 Twain by twain we marry, 
 
 One by one we die. 
 Joy has its partnerships, 
 
 Grief weeps alone ; 
 Cana had many guests. 
 
 Gethsemane had none. 
 
 FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES. 
 
 Byron in " Don Juan " says : 
 
 All who joy would win must share it, 
 Happiness was born a twin.
 
 ELIOT AND OTHERS 333 
 
 (SPEAKING of the rare and exalted nature of Dorothea, who 
 has adopted the normal, domestic married life) Her finely- 
 touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely 
 visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the 
 strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on 
 the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was 
 incalculably diffusive ; for the growing good of the world is partly 
 dependent on unhistoric acts ; and that things are not so ill with 
 you and me, as they might have been, is half owing to the 
 number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited 
 tombs. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 (Middlemarch) . 
 
 This passage, which finely expresses an important truth, is at the 
 end of Middlemarch. The reference is to a story of Herodotus. He says 
 that Cyrus, the Persian, was angry with the river Gyndes (Diyalah), because 
 it had drowned one of the white horses, which, as being sacred to the sun, 
 accompanied the expedition. He, therefore, employed his army to divert 
 the river into 360 channels (representing the number of days in the year). 
 The story was probably told to Herodotus as explaining the great irrigation 
 system that existed in Mesopotamia. The Diyalah flows into the Tigris 
 not far from Baghdad. 
 
 ANY sort of meaning looks intense 
 
 When all beside itself means and looks nought. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Fra Lippo Uppi). 
 
 HOLD, Time, a little while thy glass, 
 
 And, Youth, fold up those peacock wings ! 
 
 More rapture fills the j^ears that pass 
 Than any hope the future brings ; 
 
 Some for to-morrow rashly pray, 
 
 And some desire to hold to-day. 
 
 But I am sick for yesterday. . 
 
 Ah ! who will give us back the past ? 
 
 Ah ! woe, that youth should love to be 
 Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast, 
 
 And is so fain to find the sea, 
 That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep, 
 These creeks down which blown blossoms creep, 
 For breakers of the homeless deep. 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 (Desiderium).
 
 334 BOURDIIvLON PUNY 
 
 THE night has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the day but one ; 
 Yet the light of the bright world dies 
 
 With the dying sun. 
 
 The mind has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the heart but one ; 
 Yet the light of a whole life dies, 
 When love is done. 
 
 F. W. BOURDUAON. 
 See reference to this poem in Preface. 
 
 BUT to come again unto Apelles, this was his manner and custom 
 besides, which he perpetually observed, that no day went over his 
 head, but what businesse soever he had otherwise to call him away, 
 he would make one draught or other (and never misse) for to 
 exercise his hand and keepe it in use, inasmuch as from him 
 grew the proverbe, Nulla dies sine linea, i.e. Be alwaies doing 
 somewhat, though you doe but draw a line. His order was when he 
 had finished a piece of work or painted table, and layd it out of his 
 hand, to set it forth in some open gallerie or thorowfare, to be 
 seen of folke that passed by, and himselfe would lie close behind 
 it to hearken what faults were found therewith ; preferring the 
 judgment of the common people before his owne, and imagining 
 they would spy more narrowly, and censure his doings sooner 
 than himselfe : and as the tale is told, it fell out upon a time, 
 that a shoemaker as he went by seemed to controlle his workman- 
 ship about the shoo or pantofle that he had made to a picture, 
 and namely, that there was one latchet fewer than there should 
 be : Apelles acknowledging that the man said true indeed, 
 mended that fault by the next morning, and set forth his table 
 as his manner was. The same shoemaker comming again 
 the morrow after, and finding the want supplied which he noted 
 the day before, took some pride unto himselfe, that his former 
 admonition had sped so well, and was so bold as to cavil at some- 
 what about the leg. Apelles could not endure that, but putting 
 forth his head from behind the painted table, and scorning thus 
 to be checked and reproved, Sirrha (quoth hee) remember you 
 are but a shoemaker , and therefore meddle no higher I advise you, 
 than with shoos. Which words also of his came afterwards 
 to be a common proverbe, Ne sutor ultra crepidam. 
 
 PI.INY 
 (Natural History).
 
 JONSON AND OTHERS 3.35 
 
 Apelles, the greatest painter of antiquity. The two proverbs mean : 
 " No day without a line," " A cobbler should stick to his last." Pantofle, 
 sandal ; latchet, the thong fastening the sandal ; painted table, panel picture ; 
 controlle^ find fault with. 
 
 HAVE you seen but a bright lily grow, 
 Before rude hands have touched it ? 
 Have you marked but the fall of the snow, 
 
 Before the soil hath smutched it ? 
 Have you felt the wool of the beaver ? 
 
 Or swan's down ever ? 
 Or have smelt o' the bud of the briar, 
 
 Or the nard in the fire ? 
 Or have tasted the bag of the bee ? 
 O, so white ! O, so soft ! O, so sweet is she ! 
 
 BEN JONSON 
 (A Celebration of Charts). 
 
 IMPERFECTION is in some sort essential to all that we know of 
 life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state 
 of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly 
 perfect ; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove 
 blossom a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in 
 full bloom is a type of the life of this world. And in all things 
 that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are 
 not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face 
 is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its 
 lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they 
 imply change ; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, 
 to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally 
 better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which 
 have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be 
 Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 (Stones of Venice II, vi, 25). 
 
 THE best of us are but poor wretches just saved from ship- 
 wreck : can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a 
 fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves ? 
 
 GEORGE EWOT 
 (Janet's Repentance).
 
 336 SHAKESPEARE AND OTHERS 
 
 THE barge she sat in, like a bumished throne, 
 Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
 The winds were love-sick with them ; the oars were silver, 
 Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke. She did lie 
 In her pavilion : on each side her 
 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
 
 With divers-coloured fans 
 
 Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, 
 So many mermaids tended her. At the helm 
 A seeming mermaid steers : the silken tackle 
 Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 (Antony and Cleopatra). 
 
 This and the next three quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85). 
 
 LITTLE round Pepita, blondest maid 
 In all Bedmar Pepita, fair yet flecked, 
 Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red 
 As breasts of robins stepping on the snow 
 Who stands in front with little tapping feet, 
 And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed 
 Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets. 
 
 GEORGE Euox 
 (The Spanish Gypsy}. 
 
 AND how then was the Devil drest ? 
 
 Oh ! he was in his Sunday's best : 
 
 His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, 
 
 And there was a hole where the tail came through. 
 
 Over the hill and over the dale, 
 
 And he went over the plain, 
 
 And backward and forward he swished his long tail, 
 
 As a gentleman swishes his cane. 
 
 The stanzas are reversed in order. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 (The Devil's Thoughts}.
 
 SCOTT CORCORAN 337 
 
 WE walked abreast all up the street, 
 
 Into the market up the street ; 
 Our hair with marigolds was wound, 
 Our bodices with love-knots laced, 
 Our merchandise with tansy* bound. . . . 
 
 And when our chaffering all was done, 
 
 All was paid for, sold and done, 
 We drew a glove on ilka hand, 
 We sweetly curtsied, each to each, 
 And deftly danced a saraband. 
 
 WIUJAM BEI<I, SCOTT 
 (The Witch's Ballad). 
 The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85). 
 
 ON THE NONPAREIL 
 
 Naught but himself can be his parallel. 
 
 WITH marble-coloured shoulders and keen eyes 
 Protected by a forehead broad and white 
 And hair cut close, lest it impede the sight, 
 
 And clenched hands, firm and of a punishing size, 
 
 Steadily held, or motioned wary -wise 
 
 To hit or stop and kerchief, too, drawn tight 
 O'er the unyielding loins, to keep from flight 
 
 The inconstant wind, that all too often flies 
 
 The Nonpareil stands ! Fame, whose bright eyes run 
 
 o'er 
 
 With joy to see a Chicken of her own, 
 Dips her rich pen in claret, and writes down 
 
 Under the letter R, first on the score, 
 
 " Randall John Irish Parents age not known 
 
 Good with both hands, and only ten stone four ! " 
 
 PETER CORCORAN 
 (The Fancy, 1820). 
 Randall was a pugilist of the time. 
 
 " None but himself can be his parallel " is a line from The Double 
 Falsehood of Louis Theobald (1691-1744), but it comes originally from 
 Seneca (Hercules Furens, Act i, Sc. i) : 
 
 * An aromatic herb with yellow flowers.
 
 338 HUGO HUNTER 
 
 Quaeris Alcidae parem ? 
 Nemo est nisi ipse. 
 (Do you seek the equal of Alcides ? 
 No one is except himself.) 
 
 I copied the above sonnet from Gossip in a Library by Edmund Gossc 
 (1891), partly because Mr. Gosse said of it, " Anthologies are not edited in 
 a truly catholic spirit, or they would contain this very remarkable sonnet." 
 I hardly think this, but the lines seem sufficiently interesting to quote. 
 
 LE roi disait, en la voyant si belle, 
 
 A son neveu : 
 " Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d'elle, 
 
 Pour un cheveu, 
 Infant Don Ruy, je donnerais 1'Espagne 
 
 Et le Perou ! " 
 Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 
 
 Me rendra fott. 
 
 (The King, seeing her so beautiful, said to his nephew, " For one kiss, 
 for a smile, for one hair of her head, Infante Don Ruy, I would give Spain 
 and Peru." The wind that blows over the mountain will drive me mad,} 
 
 VICTOR HUGO, 
 
 (Gastibelza.) 
 
 This charmingly extravagant praise of a lady's beauty recalls the 
 story of another poet. The Eastern conqueror, Timur (or Tamerlane), 
 sent for the Persian poet Hafiz and very angrily asked him, " Art thou 
 he who offered to give my two great cities, Samarkand and Bokhara, 
 for the black mole on thy mistress's cheek ? " Hafiz, however, cleverly 
 escaped trouble by replying, " Yes, sire, I always give freely, and in conse- 
 quence am now reduced to poverty. May I crave your kind assistance ! " 
 Timur was amused at the reply and made the poet' a present. The story, 
 however, is considered doubtful, because Timur did not conquer Persia 
 until some years after 1388, which is supposed to be the date of the poet's 
 death. 
 
 MERE verbal insults (to a Roman Emperor) were not considered 
 treason ; for, said the Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Hono- 
 rius, in language that is a standing rebuke to pusillanimous 
 tyrants, if the words are uttered in a spirit of frivolity, the attack 
 merits contempt ; if from madness, they excite pity ; if from 
 malice, they are to be forgiven. 
 
 WH&IAM A. HUNTER (1844- 1 898) 
 (Roman Law, Appendix). 
 
 This recalls to mind the numerous cases of lese-majeste for words 
 spoken against the Kaiser before the war. The passage would make a 
 pleasant retort to a rude opponent (a " pusillanimous tyrant ") in a debate.
 
 JONSON DU I,ORENS 339 
 
 I HAVE discovered that a feigned familiarity in great ones, 
 is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular 
 men feign themselves to be servants of others, to make these 
 slaves to them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, 
 dace, etc., that they may be food for hhu. 
 
 BEN JONSON 
 (Mores Aulicf]. 
 
 CI-GIT ma femme, ah ! qu'elle est bien, 
 Pour son repos et pour le mien. 
 
 Du LORENS. 
 
 Paraphrased as : 
 
 Here Abigail my wife doth lie ; 
 She's at peace and so am I. 
 
 GLADSTONE AND THE SOCIETY FOR 
 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S relation to Psychical Research affords one 
 more illustration of the width and force of his intellectual sympa- 
 thies. Many men, even of high ability, if convinced as Mr. Gladstone 
 was of the truth and sufficiency of the Christian revelation, 
 permit themselves to ignore these experimental approaches to 
 spiritual knowledge, as at best superfluous. They do not realize 
 how profoundly the evidence, the knowledge, which we seek 
 and which in some measure we find, must ultimately influence 
 men's views as to both the credibility and the adequacy of all 
 forms of faith. Mr. Gladstone's broad intellectual purview, 
 aided perhaps in this instance by something of the practical fore- 
 sight of the statesman, placed him in a quite different attitude 
 towards our quest. "It is the most important work which is 
 being done in the world," he said in a conversation in 1885. 
 " By far the most important," he repeated, with a grave emphasis 
 which suggested previous trains of thought, to which he did not 
 care to give expression. He went on to apologize, in his courteous 
 fashion, for his inability to render active help ; and ended by saying 
 " If you will accept sympathy without service, I shall be glad 
 to join your ranks." He became an Honorary Member, and 
 followed with attention, I know not with how much of study
 
 340 MYERS WORDSWORTH 
 
 the successive issues of our Proceedings. Towards the close of his 
 life he desired that the Proceedings should be sent to St. Deiniol's 
 Library, which he had founded at Hawarden ; thus giving 
 final testimony to his sense of the salutary nature of our work. 
 From a man so immersed in other thought and labour that work 
 could assuredly claim no more ; from men profoundly and 
 primarily interested in the spiritual world it ought, I think, to 
 claim no less. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS 
 
 (S.P.R. Journal, June, 1898). 
 
 Apart from this interesting glimpse of Gladstone, it shows the impor- 
 tance he attached to the work of the Society for Psychical Research. To the 
 severely orthodox, who think no evidence of life after death should be 
 sought outside " Revelation," his opinion should appeal. Every increase 
 of knowledge is a further " Revelation." In the Bible we are told of one 
 resurrection, and there is certainly no reason why we should not seek the 
 evidence of others. We should not shut our eyes and close our ears to new 
 Revelation. 
 
 The Society has been thirty-ei<rht years in existence and is still in- 
 sufficiently appreciated. Hodgson said in The Forum, 1896 " There are 
 so many ways of looking at the world. It may be a speck in space, or a 
 huge cauldron with a graveyard for its crust, a place in which to get a 
 hunger and satisfy it, the fighting ground for a while of dragon or ape, of 
 Trojan or Turk, an evolutionary drama that must end in ice or fire. Many 
 things it means to different men. One is busy with earthworms, another 
 with stars, another with the splendour of the day or the strivings of the 
 human soul. Numerous investigators are hunting for further proofs 
 that we came out of the mud, but very few are seeking indications, in any 
 scientific spirit, of what may follow the toil and turmoil of our individual 
 existence here." 
 
 Myers says : " The question of the survival of man is a branch of 
 experimental psychology. Is there, or is there not, evidence in the actual 
 observed phenomena of automatism, apparitions and the like, for a trans- 
 cendental energy in living men, or for an influence emanating from per- 
 sonalities which have overpassed the tomb ? This is the definite question, 
 which we can at least intelligibly discuss, and which either we or our descen- 
 dants may some day hope to answer." 
 
 LIKE clouds that rake the mountain-summits, 
 Or waves that own no curbing hand, 
 How fast has brother followed brother, 
 From sunshine to the sunless land ! 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 (On the Death of James Hogg] .
 
 MOL1ERE -SWINBURNE 341 
 
 CAR, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon niaitre, 
 Un certain animal difficile a conn.oit.re, 
 Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal. 
 
 (A woman, look you, is a certain animal hard to understand and 
 much inclined to mischief.) 
 
 MOUERE 
 
 (Le De-pit Amoureitx.} 
 
 HERE, where sharp the sea-bird shrills his ditty, 
 Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm, 
 
 Rose triumphal, crowning all a city, 
 
 Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm, 
 
 Built of hol) r hands for holy pity, 
 
 Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm. 
 
 Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion, 
 Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime, 
 
 Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion, 
 Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime, 
 
 Filled with spirit of prayer and thrilled with passion, 
 Hailed a God more merciful than Time. 
 
 Ah, less mighty, less than Time prevailing, 
 Shrunk, expelled, made nothing at his nod, 
 
 Less than clouds across the sea-line sailing 
 Lies he, stricken by his master's rod. 
 
 " Where is man ? " the cloister murmurs wailing ; 
 Back the mute shrine thunders " Where is God ? 
 
 Here is all the end of all his glory 
 
 Dust, and grass, and barren silent stones. 
 
 Dead, like him, one hollow tower and hoary 
 Naked in the sea-wind stands and moans, 
 
 Filled and thrilled with its perpetual story : 
 
 Here, where earth is dense with dead men's bones. 
 
 Low and loud and long, a voice for ever, 
 Sounds the wind's clear story like a song. 
 
 Tomb from tomb the waves devouring sever, 
 Dust from dust as years relapse along ; 
 
 Graves where men made sure to rest and never 
 I/ie dismantled by the seasons' wrong.
 
 342 SWINBURNE 
 
 Now displaced, devoured and desecrated, 
 Now by Time's hands darkly disinterred, 
 
 These poor dead that sleeping here awaited 
 Long the archangel's re-creating word, 
 
 Closed about with roofs and walls high- gated 
 Till the blast of judgment should be heard, 
 
 Naked, shamed, cast out of consecration, 
 Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves, 
 
 Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station, 
 Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves, 
 
 Desolate beyond man's desolation, 
 
 Shrink and sink into the waste of waves. 
 
 Tombs, with bare white piteous bones protruded, 
 Shroudless, down the loose collapsing banks, 
 
 Crumble, from their constant place detruded, 
 That the sea devours and gives not thanks. 
 
 Graves where hope and prayer and sorrow brooded 
 Gape and slide and perish, ranks on ranks. 
 
 Rows on rows and line by line they crumble, 
 They that thought for all time through to be. 
 
 Scarce a stone whereon a child might stumble 
 Breaks the grim field paced alone of me. 
 
 Earth, and man, and all their gods wax humble 
 Here, where Time brings pasture to the sea. 
 
 But afar 011 the headland exalted, 
 
 But beyond in the curl of the bay, 
 From the depth of his dome deep-vaulted 
 
 Our father is lord of the day. 
 Our father and lord that we follow. 
 
 For deathless and ageless is he : 
 And his robe is the whole sky's hollow, 
 
 His sandal the sea. 
 
 Where the horn of the headland is sharper, 
 
 And her green floor glitters with fire, 
 The sea has the sun for a harper, 
 
 The sun has the sea for a lyre. 
 The waves are a pavement of amber, 
 
 By the feel of the sea-winds trod 
 To receive in a god's presence-chamber 
 
 Our father, the God.
 
 SWINBURNE COLERIDGE 343 
 
 Time, haggard and changeful and hoary, 
 
 Is master and god of the land : 
 But the air is fulfilled of the glory 
 
 That is shed from our lord's right hand. 
 O father of all of us ever, 
 
 All glory be only to thee 
 From heaven, that is void of thee never, 
 
 And earth, and the sea. . . 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 (By the North Sea). 
 
 Swinburne introduced the new Hellenism or paganism, which was followed 
 by Pater and J. A. Symonds and ended with Oscar Wilde (see p. 310 note.) 
 Here Time is the supreme god who wrecks Christian Churches, etc. 
 
 Although Swinburne had no important message to deliver, yet by his 
 wonderful mastery of metre and language he was of tremendous service in 
 transforming English Poetry (see p. 219.) But in spite of the magical 
 effect of his new melodies, he was wanting in the art (of which Milton 
 is the supreme example) of varying his rhythm and accents. His extreme 
 regularity, notwithstanding the fine language and the splendid swing of his 
 verses, produces in his longer poems a certain effect of monotony. Swin- 
 burne spoke of the " spavined and spur-galled Pegasus " of George Eliot, 
 but although she lacked his wonderful lyric melody, she was more artistic 
 and effective than he in varying the rhythm of her verse. However, the 
 immense influence of Swinburne on all subsequent poetry can never be 
 forgotten. Even the dreary Iambic couplet in his hands was transformed 
 into music. 
 
 THERE is the love of the good for the good's sake, and the love 
 of the truth for the truth's sake. I have known many, especially 
 women, love the good for the good's sake ; but very few, indeed 
 and scarcely one woman love the truth for the truth's sake. 
 Yet without the latter, the f ormer may become, as it has a thousand 
 times been, the source of the persecution of the truth the pre- 
 text and motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry. To 
 see clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately 
 identical is given only to those who love both sincerely and 
 without any foreign ends. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 (Table Talk). 
 
 THE old creeds grew out of human nature as genuinely as 
 weeds and flowers out of the earth. It is well enough that the 
 gardener, whose business it is to pull them up, should despise 
 them as pigweed, wormwood, chickweed, shadblossom : so they
 
 344 CONWAY COJwENSO 
 
 are, out of their place ; but the botanist picks up the same and 
 recognizes them as Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchier, Amaranth. 
 Natura nihil agit frustra. I^et us coax each to yield its last bud. 
 
 MONCURE D. CONWAY. 
 
 I have not Conway's book An Earthward Pilgrimage to refer to. The 
 latter part of the above is apparently a quotation from Thoreau, as I remem- 
 ber it is so quoted by Emerson. 
 
 GOD is my witness, what hours of wretchedness I have spent 
 at times, while reading the Bible devoutly from day to day, 
 and reverencing every word of it as the Word of God , when petty 
 contradictions met me which seemed to my reason to conflict 
 with the notion of the absolute historical veracity of every part 
 of Scripture, and which, as I felt, in the study of any other book 
 we should honestly treat as errors or mis-statements, without in 
 the least detracting from the real value of the book ! But in those 
 days, I was taught that it was my duty to fling the suggestion 
 from me at. once, " as if it were a loaded shell shot into the fortress 
 of my soul," or to stamp out desperately, as with an iron heel, 
 each spark of honest doubt, which God's own gift, the love of 
 truth, had kindled in my bosom ... I thank God that I was not 
 able long to throw dust in the eyes of my own mind, and do 
 violence to the love of truth in this way. 
 
 BISHOP COI,ENSO (1814-1883) 
 (Pentateuch) . 
 
 (See G. W. Cox's Life of Colenso, 7, 493.) Colenso's quotation, " as 
 if it were a loaded shell," etc., is from Bishop Wilberforce. Cox mentions 
 elsewhere that in one of Wilberforce's published sermons he speaks of a 
 young man of great promise dying in darkness and despair, because he had 
 indulged in doubt as to whether the sun and moon stood still at Joshua's 
 bidding ! Who, that went through the experiences of those days, can ever 
 forget them ? We had been taught that we " must believe " every word 
 of the Bible to be divinely inspired or else be eternally damned. And yet 
 we realized that such belief was absolutely impossible ! 
 
 The horror with which Bishop Colenso's revelations were received in 
 orthodox circles would to-day be scarcely credible, and not until after 
 the eighties were the results of the Higher Criticism generally accepted. 
 
 I/KT a man be once fully persuaded that there is no difference 
 between the two positions, " The Bible contains the religion 
 revealed by God," and " Whatever is contained in the Bible 
 is religion, and was revealed by God" ; and that whatever can 
 be said of the Bible, collectively taken, may and must be said
 
 COLERIDGE AND OTHERS 345 
 
 of each and every sentence of the Bible, taken for and by itself, 
 and I no longer wonder at these paradoxes. I only object to the 
 inconsistency of those who profess the same belief, and yet affect 
 to look down with a contemptuous or compassionate smile on John 
 Wesley for rejecting the Copernican system as incompatible 
 therewith ; or who exclaim, " Wonderful ! " when they hear 
 that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to the gallows 
 in honour of the Witch of Endor. ... I challenge these divines 
 and their adherents to establish the compatibility of a belief 
 in the modern astronomy and natural philosophy with their 
 and Wesley's doctrine respecting the inspired Scriptures. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 FOR the Parsons are dumb dogs, turning round, 
 And scratching their hole in the warmest ground, 
 And laying them down in the sun to wink, 
 Drowsing, and dreaming, and thinking they think. 
 As they mumble the marrowless bones of morals, 
 Like toothless children gnawing their corals, 
 Gnawing their corals to soothe their gums 
 With a kind of watery thought that comes. 
 
 W. C. SMITH 
 (Borland Hall). 
 
 WHY do we respect some vegetables, and despise others ? 
 The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine ; but you never 
 can put beans in poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. Corn 
 which, in my garden, grows alongside the bean, and, so far 
 as I can see, with no affectation of superiority is, however, the 
 child of song. It " waves " in all literature. 
 
 CHARGES DUDLEY WARNER 
 (My Summer in a Garden). 
 
 Mr. Yeats has, however, rescued the bean from its invidious position 
 (The Lake Isle of Innisfree) : 
 
 I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, 
 And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made ; 
 Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, 
 And live alone in the bee-loud glade. 
 
 Lady Middleton, a friend of old days in Adelaide and now in England, 
 reminded me of these lines.
 
 346 MYERS 
 
 YET in my hid soul must a voice reply 
 
 Which knows not which may seem the viler gain. 
 To sleep for ever or be born again, 
 
 The blank repose or drear eternity. 
 
 A solitary thing it were to die 
 So late begotten and so early slain, 
 With sweet life withered to a passing pain. 
 
 Till nothing anywhere should still be I. 
 Yet if for evermore I must convey 
 These weary senses thro' an endless day 
 
 And gaze on God with these exhausted eyes, 
 I fear that howsoe'er the seraphs play 
 My life shall not be theirs nor I as they, 
 
 But homeless in the heart of Paradise. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS (1843-1901) 
 (Immortality) . 
 
 This is from Myers' Poems, 1870, and is one of a pair of sonnets. I do 
 not quote the first in full because its meaning seems obscure, but the last 
 six lines on the shortness of life as compared with eternity are as follow : 
 Lo, all that age is as a speck of sand 
 
 Lost on the long beach where the tides are free, 
 And no man metes it in his hollow hand 
 
 Nor cares to ponder it, how small it be ; 
 At ebb it lies forgotten on the land 
 And at full tide forgotten in the sea. 
 
 In the second sonnet quoted above, Myers is not merely referring to 
 the Biblical account of the future life in heaven as consisting in endless 
 worship which, if taken literally instead of symbolically, would certainly 
 mean a " drear eternity." The suggestion is that there must be some 
 equivalent to work, thought, activity, progress, and definite aims to make 
 eternal life preferable to annihilation. (I am reminded here of a curious 
 statement made by the great Adam Smith, " What can be added to the 
 happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear 
 conscience ! ") Myers ultimately came to the definite conclusion that the 
 future life will be one of continued progress. 
 
 His name, Myers, is purely English, not Jewish. This gifted man was 
 not only a fine poet, but also an important essayist and a remarkable classical 
 scholar. He, Hodgson, and others formed the small band of able men who 
 threw everything else aside and devoted their lives to Psychical Research. 
 Myers' best poems appeared in The Reneiual of Youth and other Poems, 
 1882, and it was no doubt a loss to poetry that during the remaining eighteen 
 years of his life he added little, if anything, more. However, he and Hodg- 
 son considered that the work to which they had devoted themselves was of 
 the very highest importance. Human Personality and its Survival of 
 Bodily Death, the important work in which Myers embodied his conclusions, 
 was left incomplete at his death, but Hodgson, with Miss Alice Johnson's 
 assistance, completed and edited it.
 
 ALEX. SMITH SWINBURNE 347 
 
 Myers was quite satisfied before his death, in 1901, that the evidence 
 collected by the Society for Psychical Research had already established in 
 itself the fact of survival after death. But the interesting fact is that 
 during the nineteen years since he " passed over to the other side" he has 
 apparently been the principal agent in adding greatly to that evidence. 
 There is every reason to believe that Myers has personally been communi- 
 cating and arranging and directing much of the evidence that has since 
 been given. 
 
 IT is not the essayist's duty to inform, to build pathways 
 through metaphysical morasses, to cancel abuses, any more than 
 it is the duty of the poet to do these things. Incidentally he may 
 do something in that way, just as the poet may, but it is not his 
 duty, and should not be expected of him. Skylarks are primarily 
 created to sing, although a whole choir of them may be baked 
 in pies and brought to table ; they were born to make music, 
 although they may incidentally stay the pangs of vulgar hunger 
 
 The essay should be pure literature as the poem is pure 
 
 literature. 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH 
 
 (On the Writing of Essays). 
 
 TIME takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous 
 To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death ; 
 
 But the flower of their souls he shall not take away to shame us, 
 Nor the lips lack song for ever that now lack breath ; 
 
 For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell, 
 
 Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell. 
 
 SWINBURNE 
 
 .- 
 
 (In Memory of Barry Cornwall) . 
 
 MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH 
 
 YOU promise heavens free from strife, 
 Pure truth, and perfect change of will ; 
 
 But sweet, sweet is this human life, 
 So sweet. I fain would breathe it still ; 
 
 Your chilly stars I can forego, 
 
 This warm kind world is all I know.
 
 348 CORY WADDINGTON 
 
 You say there is no substance here, 
 
 One great reality above : 
 Back from that void I shrink in fear, 
 
 And child-like hide myself in love : 
 Show me what angels feel. Till then, 
 I cling, a mere weak man, to men. 
 
 You bid me lift my mean desires 
 From faltering lips and fitful veins 
 
 To sexless souls, ideal quires, 
 
 Unwearied voices, wordless strains : 
 
 My mind with fonder welcome owns 
 
 One dear dead friend's remembered tones. 
 
 Forsooth the present we must give 
 To that which cannot pass away ; 
 
 All beauteous things for which we live 
 By laws of time and space decay. 
 
 But oh, the very reason why 
 
 I clasp them, is because they die. 
 
 WIUJAM (JOHNSON) CORY (1823-1892). 
 
 Mimnermus was a fine Greek elegiac poet about 630-600 B.C. 
 
 MORS ET VITA 
 
 WE know not yet what life shall be, 
 
 What shore beyond earth's shore be set ; 
 What grief awaits us, or what glee, 
 We know not yet. 
 
 Still, somewhere in sweet converse met, 
 
 Old friends, we say, beyond death's sea 
 Shall meet and greet us, nor forget 
 
 Those days of yore, those years when we 
 
 Were loved and true but will death let 
 Our eyes the longed-for vision see ? 
 We know not yet. 
 
 SAMUEI, WADDINGTON. 
 
 The evidence collected by the Society for Psychical Research indicates 
 that friends do certainly meet. See the remarkably convincing Ear of 
 Dionysius, lately published, where Dr. Verrall and Professor Butcher are 
 clearly having a great time together on the other side.
 
 BROWNING HOOD 349 
 
 ART which I may style the love of loving, rage 
 
 Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things 
 
 For truth's sake, whole and sole, nor any good, truth 
 
 brings 
 The knower, seer, feeler beside. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (Fifine at the Fair). 
 
 DE par le Roy defense a Dieu 
 De faire miracle en ce lieu. 
 
 (By order of the King, God is forbidden 
 To work miracles in this place.) 
 
 ANON. 
 
 The teaching of Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) led to an important 
 evangelical movement in the Roman Catholic Church. When, however, 
 the Jansenists became subjected to persecution, the usual result followed 
 that numbers of them became fanatics. The more corrupt the French 
 Court and Society became, the more frenzied became this fanaticism. 
 In 1727 the Jansenist deacon, Paris, a man of very holy life, was buried 
 in the St. Medard churchyard, and shortly afterwards miracles were said 
 to take place at his tomb. In consequence large crowds of convulsionnaires 
 assembled there and very shocking scenes were enacted, men and women in 
 hysterical and epileptic fits and ecstatic delirium, eating the earth of the 
 grave and inflicting frightful tortures on themselves and each other. When 
 in 1732 the Court interposed and closed the churchyard some wit wrote 
 the above couplet on the gate. 
 
 Mr. King in his Classical and Foreign Quotations has " De faire des 
 miracles," but the above version seems correct (See Larousse.) 
 
 AND Christians love in the turf to lie, 
 
 Not in watery graves to be 
 Nay, the very fishes would sooner die 
 
 On the land than in the sea. 
 
 THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 THERE are two things that fill my soul with a holy reverence 
 and an ever-growing wonder : the spectacle of the starry sky, 
 that virtually annihilates us as physical beings ; and the moral 
 law which raises us to infinite dignity as intelligent agents.
 
 350 KANT AND OTHERS 
 
 THE ought expresses a kind of necessity, a kind of connection 
 of actions with their grounds or reasons, such as is to be found 
 nowhere else in the whole natural world. For of the natural 
 world our understanding can know nothing except what is, 
 what has been, or what will be. We cannot say that anything 
 in it ought to be other than it actually was, is, or will be. In fact, 
 so long as we are considering the course of nature, the ought 
 has no meaning whatever. We can as little inquire what ought 
 to happen in nature as we can inquire what properties a circle 
 ought to have. 
 
 IMMANUET, KANT. 
 
 The first quotation (from the Kritik of Practical Reason] appears to 
 be the same passage that is often rendered in such words as these : " Two 
 things fill my soul with awe the starry heavens in the still night, and 
 the sense of dutv in man." 
 
 THE whole earth 
 
 The beauty wore of promise that which sets 
 The budding rose above the rose full-blown. 
 
 W. WORDSWORTH 
 (The Prelude, Bk. XI}. 
 
 ( ) is one of those men who go far to shake my faith 
 
 in a future state of existence ; I mean, on account of the difficulty 
 of knowing where to place him. I could not bear to roast him ; 
 he is not so bad as that comes to : but then, on the other hand, 
 to have to sit down with such a fellow in the very lowest pothouse 
 of heaven is utterly inconsistent with the belief of that place being 
 a place of happiness for me. 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 (Table Talk). 
 
 IT isn't raining rain to me, 
 
 It's raining daffodils. 
 In every dimpled drop I see 
 
 Wild flowers on the hills. 
 The clouds of grey engulf the day 
 
 And overwhelm the town : 
 It isn't raining rain to me, 
 
 It's raining roses down. 
 
 ROBERT IXWEMAN.
 
 HAWTHORNE AND OTHERS 351 
 
 LET us reflect that the highest path is pointed out by the pure 
 Ideal of those, who look up to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, 
 may never look so high again. 
 
 N. HAWTHORNE 
 (Transformation) . 
 
 ONE summer evening sitting by my window I watched for the 
 first star to appear, knowing the position of the brightest in the 
 southern sky. The dusk came on, grew deeper, but the star 
 did not shine. By and by, other stars less bright appeared, so 
 that it could not be the sunset which obscured the expected 
 one. Finally, I considered that I must have mistaken its position, 
 when suddenly a puff of air blew through the branch of a pear 
 tree which overhung the window, a leaf moved, and there was the 
 star behind the leaf. 
 
 At present the endeavour to make discoveries is like gazing 
 at the sky up through the boughs of an oak. Here a beautiful 
 star shines clearly ; here a constellation is hidden by a branch ; 
 a universe by a leaf. Some mental instrument or organon is 
 required to enable us to distinguish between the leaf which 
 may be removed and a real void ; when to cease to look in one 
 
 direction, and to work in another There are infinities 
 
 to be known, but they are hidden by a leaf. 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES 
 
 (The Story of My Heart). 
 
 OVER the winter glaciers 
 
 I see the summer glow, 
 And through the wild-piled snowdrift 
 
 The warm rosebuds below. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON 
 
 (The World-Soul). 
 Emerson is always an optimist. 
 
 PLACE thyself, oh, lovely fair ! 
 Where a thousand mirrors are ; 
 Though a thousand faces shine, 
 'Tia but one and that is thine.
 
 352 MOASI AND OTHERS 
 
 Then the Painter's skill allow, 
 Who could frame so fair a brow. 
 What are lustrous eyes of flame, 
 What are cheeks, the rose that shame, 
 What are glances wild and free, 
 Speech, and shape, and voice but He ? 
 
 MOASI 
 (L. S. Costello's translation). 
 
 AND here the Singer for his Art 
 
 Not all in vain may plead 
 ' The song that nerves a nation's heart 
 Is in itself a deed.' 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (Charge of the Heavy Brigade). 
 
 I KNEW a very wise man that believed that, if a man were per- 
 mitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make 
 the laws of a nation. 
 
 FLETCHER of Saltoun 
 {Letter to Montrose and others). 
 
 What would the wise man have said of " It's a long, long way to 
 Tipperary " ? 
 
 FIRST LOVE 
 
 O MY earliest love, who, ere I number 'd 
 Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill ! 
 
 Will a swallow or a swift, or some bird 
 Fly to her and say, I love her still ? 
 
 Say my life's a desert drear and arid, 
 
 To its one green spot I aye recur : 
 Never, never although three times married 
 
 Have I cared a jot for aught but her. 
 
 No, mine own ! though early forced to leave you, 
 Still my heart was there where first we met ; 
 
 In those " Lodgings with an ample sea- view," 
 Which were, forty years ago, " To let."
 
 353 
 
 There I saw her first, our landlord's oldest 
 Little daughter. On a thing so fair 
 
 Thou, O Sun, who (so they say) beholdest 
 Everything, hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er. 
 
 There she sat so near me, yet remoter 
 Than a star a blue-eyed bashful imp : 
 
 On her lap she held a happy bloater, 
 
 'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp. 
 
 And I loved her, and our troth we plighted 
 On the morrow by the shingly shore : 
 
 In a fortnight to be disunited 
 By a bitter fate for evermore. 
 
 O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed ! 
 
 To be young once more, and bite my thumb 
 At the world and all its cares with you, I'd 
 
 Give no inconsiderable sum. 
 
 Hand in hand we tramp'd the golden seaweed, 
 Soon as o'er the gray cliff peep'd the dawn : 
 
 Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we'd 
 Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn : 
 
 Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper, 
 
 That sweet mite with whom I loved to play ? 
 
 Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper, 
 That bright being who was always gay ? 
 
 Yes she has at least a dozen wee things ! 
 
 Yes 1 see her darning corduroys, 
 Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things 
 
 For a howling herd of hungry boys 
 
 In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil ! 
 
 But at intervals she thinks, I know, 
 Of those days which we, afar from turmoil, 
 
 Spent together forty years ago. 
 
 O my earliest love, still unforgotten, 
 
 With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue ! 
 
 Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton 
 To another as I did to you !
 
 354 OL/DYS AND OTHERS 
 
 ON A FLY DRINKING OUT OF A CUP OF 
 
 BUSY, curious, thirsty fly, 
 Drink with me, and drink as I ; 
 Freely welcome to my cup, 
 Couldst thou sip and sip it up. 
 Make the most of life you may , 
 Life is short and wears away. 
 
 Both alike, both thine and mine, 
 Hasten quick to their decline ; 
 Thine's a summer, mine's no more, 
 Though repeated to three-score : 
 Three-score summers, when they're gone, 
 Will appear as short as one. 
 
 WIUJAM OT,DYS (1696-1761). 
 
 This was first published in 1732 as " The Fly An Anachreontick " and 
 Mr. Gosse in the Encyc. Britt. gave the first six lines as an example of an 
 Anacreontic. He attributed the poem to Oldys, but the authorship is 
 doubtful. (See Notes and Queries, 3rd Ser., /, 27). Vincent Bourne in a copy 
 of his Poematid) 1734, in my possession, has written out and signed the two 
 verses, entitling them " A Song," the last line of each verse being repeated 
 as a refrain. From this it might appear that he claimed the authorship. 
 In 1743 he published a Latin version of the poem. Vincent Bourne, a 
 beautiful Latinist, was much loved by his pupils, Charles Lamb and 
 Cowper, who each translated into English some of his fine Latin verses. 
 
 THE Earth goeth on the Earth, glistening like gold, 
 The Earth goeth to the Earth, sooner than it wold, 
 The Earth builds on the Earth castles and towers 
 The Earth says to the Earth, all shall be ours. 
 
 Epitaph, 1 7th Century. 
 
 An inscription on a tomb in Melrose Abbey, but said to be a version 
 of lines by a Fourteenth Century poet, William Billing. 
 
 SHE never found fault with you, never implied 
 Your wrong by her right ; and yet men at her side 
 
 Grew nobler, girls purer - 
 
 None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall ; 
 They knelt more to God than they used that was all. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING 
 (My Kate).
 
 EIJOT AND OTHERS 355 
 
 IT takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish, 
 where it will find its world and paradise all in one, and never 
 have a presentiment of the dry bank. The fretted summer shade, 
 and stillness, and the gentle breathing of some loved life near 
 it would be paradise to us all, if eager thought, the strong 
 angel with the implacable brow, had not long since closed the gates. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 
 (Romola) . 
 
 true Work is religion ; and whatsoever religion is not 
 Work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, Antinomians, 
 Spinning Dervishes, or where it will ; with me it shall have no 
 harbour. 
 
 CARI,YI.E 
 (Reward). 
 
 NATURE., the old nurse, took 
 
 The child upon her knee, 
 Saying : ' Here is a story book 
 
 Thy Father has written for thee.' 
 
 ' Come, wander with me,' she said, 
 
 ' Into regions yet untrod ; 
 And read what is still unread 
 
 In the manuscripts of God.' 
 
 And he wandered away and away 
 
 With Nature, the dear old nurse, 
 Who sang to him night and day 
 
 The rhymes of the universe. 
 
 And whenever the way seemed long, 
 
 Or his heart began to fail, 
 She would sing a more wonderful song, 
 
 Or tell a more marvellous tale. 
 
 (Agassis). 
 
 DEEP, deep are loving eyes, 
 Flowed with naptha fiery sweet ; 
 And the point is paradise 
 Where their glances meet. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON 
 
 (The Daemonic and the Celestial Love).
 
 356 BROWNING AND OTHERS 
 
 . . . AS I lie here, hours of the dead night, 
 
 Dying in state and by such slow degrees, 
 
 I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, 
 
 And stretch my feet forth, straight as stone can point, 
 
 And let the bed-clothes, for a mortcloth, drop 
 
 Into great laps and folds of sculptor's work. 
 
 R. BROWNING 
 (The Bishop orders his Tomb), 
 
 FAIR Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, 
 I^ed the lorn traveller up the path, 
 
 Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle ; 
 And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, 
 
 Upon the parlour steps collected, 
 Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say, 
 " Our master knows you you're expected." 
 
 W. M. PRAED 
 (The Vicar}. 
 
 SOMETIMES a troop of damsels glad, 
 An abbot on an ambling pad, 
 Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, 
 Or long-haired page in crimson clad, 
 Goes by to towered Camelot. 
 
 TENNYSON 
 (The Lady of Shalott). 
 
 The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 167). 
 
 (PHANTASY or imagination may be true and clear or may be 
 disordered and unsound) . . . The phantastical part of men 
 (if it be not disordered) is a representer of the best, most comely 
 and bewtifull images or appearances of thinges to the soule 
 and according to their very truth. ... Of this sort of Phantasie 
 are all good Poets, notable Captaines stratagematique, all cunning 
 artificers and Engineers, all legislators, Politiciens and Counsellours 
 of estate, in whose exercises the inventive part is most employed 
 and is to the sound and true judgement of man most needful. 
 
 GEORGE PUTTENHAM 
 (TheArte of English Poesie, 1 589)*
 
 PUTTENHAM 357 
 
 Just as a poet, besides imagination, must have intellect or judgment 
 as a basis, so the higher imaginative faculty comes to the aid of intellect 
 in other departments of life. As Maudsley says, " it performs the initial 
 and essential functions in every branch of human development " (Body 
 and Will}. Ehrlich, seeking a substance that would destroy germs without 
 injuring the human tissues, plods through endless tedious processes, and 
 on his 6o6th experiment, discovers salvarsan, a cure for syphilis. Here 
 the higher faculty has had little to do but when, on the fall of an apple, 
 Newton's mind saw in a flash how the world was balanced, intellect soared 
 aloft on the wings of imagination. 
 
 AS well Poets as Poesie are despised, and the name become, 
 of honourable infamous, subject to scorne and derision, and rather 
 a reproach than a prayse to any that useth it : for commonly 
 whoso is studious in the Arte or shewes himself e excellent in it, 
 they call him in disdayne a phantasticall : and a light-headed 
 or phantasticall man (by conversion) they call a Poet. . . Of 
 such among the Nobilitie or gentrie as be very well scene in many 
 laudable sciences, and especially in Poesie, it is so come to passe 
 that they have no courage to write and if they have, yet are they 
 loath to be a known of their skill. So as I know very many notable 
 Gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably and 
 suppressed it agayne, or else suffred it to be publisht without 
 their owne names to it : as if it were a discredit for a gentleman 
 to seeme learned, and to shew himself e amorous of any good Arte. 
 
 GEORGE PUTTENHAM 
 (The Arte of English Poesie, 1589). 
 
 We do not always remember in what disheartening conditions the 
 great Elizabethan literature was produced the inferior position of the 
 writer, his wretched remuneration and his dependence on patrons. It is 
 strange to think that it was considered beneath the dignity of a gentleman 
 to write poetry or to acknowledge its authorship or apparently to show 
 proficiency in other arts or sciences. Such men as Sir Philip Sidney and 
 Sir Walter Raleigh were exceptions. The curious fact is that Puttenham 
 himself (assuming, as is probable, that he was the author) issued this 
 important book anonymously. He had, however, acknowledged his 
 Partheniades ten years before. 
 
 As Arber points out, the above passage, and another reference by 
 Puttenham to the same subject, indicate that, at least in the earlier Eliza- 
 bethan period, much talent must have been lost and much literature 
 never reached the printing press. The same feeling that then existed is 
 seen again in Locke's time (see p. 180), and, if we consider a moment, we 
 shall find that it has persisted to some extent to the present day. Think how 
 miserably inadequate is the attention paid to poetry in our educational 
 system, the methods employed being, indeed, calculated to make the
 
 358 MOORE 
 
 student loathe the subject. (When I was young (" Ah, woful When " *) 
 we had as a school text-book Palgrave's Golden Treasury a divine gift 
 to us in those days. As we had a sympathetic teacher, we read it as poetry, 
 and the consequence was that I and other boys knew the book practically 
 by heart from cover to cover.) 
 
 It is surprising that EnglishmenT^neglect the one great talent which 
 they possess. What distinguishes them above all other nations is their 
 superiority in the higher imaginative faculties.t This is shown in such a 
 national characteristic as the love of travel and adventure, which has 
 created the British Empire, and is proved concretely by the fact that England 
 has produced the greatest wealth of poetry which the world has ever seen. 
 This great treasure, which should be employed for encouraging the highest 
 of all faculties, is allowed to lie idle. The fact seems to be overlooked 
 that the study of poetry is not only of enormous intrinsic value in knowledge, 
 and culture, but that it is the finest of all mental training. By analysis 
 and paraphrase it gives knowledge of language, appreciation of style, 
 practice in literary expression, and, above all things, precision of thought. 
 In my opinion, poetry should form an essential part of education, beginning 
 in childhood and continuing throughout the Arts course. It may be found 
 that there are intelligent persons who are incapable of appreciating poetry, 
 and the subject may, therefore, not be made a compulsory one. But my 
 conviction is that, where men imagine themselves to be thus deficient, 
 it is the result of a bad system of education. There is great truth in Steven- 
 son's fine essay, " The Lantern-Bearers." 
 
 GO, wing thy flight from star to star, 
 From world to luminous world, as far 
 As the universe spreads its flaming wall : 
 Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, 
 And multiply each through endless years, 
 One minute of Heaven is worth them all. 
 
 THOMAS MOORE 
 (Lalla Rookh). 
 A Celtic flight of imagination. 
 
 * See p. XVIII. 
 
 t Curiously enough, they do not recognize this, but rather pride themselves upon 
 being shrewd, commonsense, practical business-men, "a nation of shopkeepers" 
 although their entire history shows the contrary. That history is epitomized in such an 
 expression as " England the Unready," or, in the King's appeal, " Wake up, England ! " 
 That they are idealists and dreamers can be shown by numberless facts. For example, 
 what have they supported in the sacred name of Liberty? The laissez-faire doctrine, 
 that law is an infringement of freedom, and, therefore, that cruelty, abuses, and absurdities 
 must not be interfered with ; the theory that England should be the home of freedom, 
 and, therefore, that the scum of Europe shall infect the nation ; the " Palladium of English 
 Liberty," Trial by Jury, which means the appointment of inexperienced, irresponsible, 
 and easily-biassed judges ; the economic policy, which, because it is falsely labelled Free 
 Trade, becomes a fetish against which no practical objection must be urged and no lesson 
 learned from the experience of other countries. On the other hand, our experience 
 in the present war is a proof that the imaginative faculties are more powerful than mere 
 intellect : for, when the Englishman bends his energies to the business of war, he soon 
 surpasses the German for all his fifty years' preparation. See p. 39.
 
 HODGSON AND OTHERS 359 
 
 AND on we roll the year goes by 
 
 As year by year must ever go, 
 And castles built of bits of sky 
 
 Must fall and lose their wondrous glow ; 
 
 But Hope with his wings is not yet old, 
 
 While every year like a summer day 
 Ends and begins with grey and gold, 
 
 Begins and ends with gold and grey. 
 
 RICHARD HODGSON. 
 
 WHEN none need broken meat, 
 How can our cake be sweet ? 
 When none want flannel and coals, 
 How shall we save our souls ? 
 
 Oh dear ! oh dear ! 
 The Christian virtues will disappear. 
 
 STETSON. 
 
 SINCE we parted yester eve, 
 
 I do love thee, love, believe 
 Twelve times dearer, twelve hours longer, 
 One dream deeper, one night stronger, 
 One sun surer thus much more 
 
 Than I loved thee, love, before. 
 
 OWEN MEREDITH (EARI, OF I,YTTON) 
 (Love Fancies). 
 
 THE Dahlia you brought to our Isle 
 Your praises for ever shall speak 
 'Mid gardens as sweet as your smile 
 And colours as bright as your cheek. 
 
 L>RD 
 
 A pretty compliment to his wife who in 1814 had introduced the dahlia 
 into England from Spain. Previous attempts had failed (Liechtenstein's 
 Holland House}.
 
 360 MUSSET AND OTHERS 
 
 C'EST imiter quelqu'un que de planter des clioux. 
 
 A. DE MUSSET. 
 
 Quoted by Austin Dobson : 
 
 . . . And you, whom we all so admire, 
 
 Dear Critics, whose verdicts are always so new ! 
 One word in your ear : There were Critics before . 
 
 And the man who plants cabbages imitates, loo \ 
 
 . . . THE great book of actual life, sad, diffuse, contradictory, 
 yet always full of depth and significance. 
 
 GEORGE SAND 
 (The Miller of Angibaull). 
 
 LIFE is mostly froth and bubble ; 
 
 Two things stand like stone : 
 Kindness in another's trouble, 
 
 Courage in your own. 
 
 ADAM LINDSAY GORDON (1833-1870 
 (Ye Weary Wayfarer). 
 
 A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER 
 
 A NOISELESS, patient spider, 
 
 I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated ; 
 
 Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, 
 
 It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself ; 
 
 Ever unreeling them ever tirelessly speeding them. 
 
 And you, O my Soul, where you stand, 
 
 Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, 
 
 Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres, 
 
 to connect them ; 
 Till the bridge you will need, be form'd till the ductile 
 
 anchor hold ; 
 Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my 
 
 Soul. 
 
 WAI/T WHITMAN 
 (Leaves of Grass).
 
 ELIOT AND OTHERS 361 
 
 THE Future, that bright land which swims 
 In western glory, isles and streams and bays, 
 Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze. 
 
 GEORGE EUOT 
 (Jubal). 
 
 NYMPH A pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit. 
 (The modest Nymph saw her God and blushed.) 
 
 THE conscious water saw its God and blushed. 
 
 RICHARD CRASHAW (1616-1650). 
 
 Referring to the miracle of Cana. Both Latin and English epigrams 
 aie by Crashaw. In the former the water is personified by its Nymph. 
 
 CALLED on the W. Molesworths. He is threatened with total 
 blindness, and his excellent wife is learning to work in the dark 
 in preparation for a darkened chamber. What things wives are ! 
 What a spirit of joyous suffering, confidence, and love was 
 incarnated in Eve ! 'Tis a pity they should eat apples. 
 
 CAROLINE Fox's JOURNAL^. 
 
 . . . EARTH and ocean, 
 Space, and the isles of life or light that gem 
 The sapphire floods of interstellar air, 
 This firmament pavilioned upon chaos, 
 With all its cressets of immortal fire. 
 
 SHELLEY 
 (Hellas). 
 
 VOX, et praeterea nihil. 
 [Words (literally voice) and nothing more.] 
 
 PROVERB.
 
 362 SHELLEY AND OTHERS 
 
 Plutarch, in his Apophthegm, Lacon. Incert. XIII, says that a man 
 after plucking a nightingale and finding little flesh on it, said 
 4>tava r6 ns iffa\, KO.\ ovttv &\*o, " Thou art voice and nothing more " 
 (King's Classical and Foreign Quotations'). No doubt this was the origin 
 of the saying. It was applied to the nightingale, and to Echo and then 
 used in Hamlet's sense, " Words, words, words." 
 
 , like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity. 
 
 (Adonais 1,11). 
 
 Two of the most marvellous lines in all literature. With them as a 
 text volumes might be written. 
 
 CAMPBELL the poet, who had always a bad razor, I suppose, 
 and was late of rising, said he believed the man of civilization 
 who lived to be sixty had suffered more pain in littles in shaving 
 every day than a woman with a large family had from her lyings- 
 in. 
 
 JOHN BROWN 
 (Horae Subsecivae I, 457). 
 
 BEAUTY is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder 
 and the beholder. 
 
 J. G. ZlMMERMANN 
 
 THE maid (and thereby hangs a tale) 
 For such a maid no Whitsun-ale 
 
 Could ever yet produce : 
 No grape, that's kindly ripe, could be 
 So round, so plump, so soft as she, 
 
 Nor half so full of juice. 
 
 Her feet beneath her petticoat 
 Like little mice stole in and out, 
 
 As if they fear'd the light : 
 But O, she dances such a way ! 
 No sun upon an Easter-day 
 
 Is half so fine a sight.
 
 SUCKLING MYERS 363 
 
 Her cheeks so rare a white was on, 
 No daisy makes comparison 
 
 (Who sees them is undone) ; 
 For streaks of red were mingled there. 
 Such as are on a Catherine pear, 
 
 The side that's next the sun. 
 
 Her lips were red, and one was thin 
 Compar'd to that was next her chin, 
 
 (Some bee had stung it newly), 
 But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face 
 I durst no more upon them gaze 
 
 Than on the sun in July. 
 
 SIR JOHN SUCKLING 
 
 (Ballad upon a Wedding.) 
 
 " Some bee had stung it." /*, of course, means the full underlip, as 
 against the less full upperlip. 
 
 SUCH is the ascendancy which the great works of the Greek 
 imagination have established over the mind of man that. . . . 
 he is tempted to ignore the real superiority of our own religion, 
 morality, civilization, and to re-shape in fancy an adult world 
 on an adolescent ideal. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS 
 
 (Essay on Greek Oracles). 
 
 THAT early burst of admiration for Virgil of which I have already 
 spoken was followed by a growing passion for one after another of 
 the Greek and Latin poets. From ten to sixteen I lived much 
 in the inward recital of Homer, Aeschylus, Lucretius, Horace, 
 and Ovid. The reading of Plato's Gorgias at fourteen was a 
 great event ; but the study of the Phaedo at sixteen affected 
 upon me a kind of conversion. At that time, too, I returned 
 to my worship of Virgil, whom Homer had for some years thrust 
 into the background. I gradually wrote out Bucolics, Georgics. 
 Aeneid from memory
 
 .S6 4 MYERS 
 
 The discovery at seventeen, in an old school book, of the poems 
 of Sappho, whom till then I had only known by name, brought an 
 access of intoxicating joy. Later on, the solitary decipherment 
 of Pindar made another epoch of the same kind. From the age 
 of sixteen to twenty-three there was no influence in my life 
 comparable to Hellenism in the fullest sense of the word. That 
 tone of thought came to me naturally ; the classics were but 
 intensifications of my own being. They drew from me and 
 fostered evil as well as good ; they might aid imaginative 
 impulse and detachment from sordid interests, but they had 
 no check for pride. 
 
 When pushed thus far, the " Passion of the Past " must 
 needs wear away sooner or later into an unsatisfied pain. In 
 1864 I travelled in Greece. I was mainly alone ; nor were the 
 traveller's facts and feelings mapped out for him then as now. 
 Ignorant as I was, according to modern standards, yet my 
 emotions were all my own : and few men can have drunk that de- 
 parted loveliness into a more passionate heart. It was the life 
 of about the sixth century before Christ, on the isles of the Aegean, 
 which drew me most ; that intensest and most unconscious 
 bloom of the Hellenic spirit. Here alone in the Greek story 
 do women play their due pait with men. What might the Greeks 
 have made of the female sex had they continued to care for it ! 
 Then it was that Mimnermus sang : 
 
 rtt &f 8i6v, rt 8* rtpirvbv Svev xP v(T (rjs 'A.<ppodiTrjs } 
 Tfdvalrjv, art ftoi ^irj/trr* ravra /tcAot. * 
 
 Then it was that Praxilla's cry rang out across the narrow 
 seas, that call to fellowship, reckless and lovely with stirring 
 joy. " Drink with me ! " she cried, " be young along with me ! 
 Love with me ! wear with me the garland crown ! Mad be thou 
 with my madness ; be wise when I am wise ! " 
 
 I looked through my open porthole close upon the Lesbian 
 shore. There rose the heathery promontories, and waves lapped 
 upon the rocks in dawning day : lapped upon those rocks 
 where Sappho's feet had trodden ; broke beneath the heather on 
 which had sat that girl unknown, nearness to whom made a 
 man the equal of the gods. I sat in Mytilene, to me a sacred city, 
 between the hill-crest and the sunny bay 
 
 Gazing thence on Delos on the Cyclades, and on those straits 
 and channels of purple sea, I felt that nowise could I come 
 closer still ; never more intimately than thus could embrace that 
 vanished beauty. Alas for an ideal which roots itself in the 
 past ! That longing cannot be allayed. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS 
 (Fragments of Prose and Poetry). 
 
 "What is lite, what gladness without the golden Aphrodite ? May death be 
 mine when these joys no longer please me ! "
 
 MYERS 365 
 
 The wonderful record of Myers in classical study will first be observed. 
 If we did not know him to be absolutely trustworthy, we would find it 
 practically impossible to believe his statement. Imagine, for instance, 
 a boy of sixteen learning by heart the whole of Virgil for his own pleasure ! 
 However, anything vouched for by Myers must be accepted as literally 
 true. 
 
 Extraordinary as this is, the above quotations introduce us to a subject 
 quite as extraordinary and far more interesting and important, namely, 
 the distortion of truth caused by extreme classical enthusiasm.* It is 
 perfectly easy to see how such enthusiasm arises. Greek art and literature 
 are not only intrinsically wonderful and valuable but, seeing that they 
 were produced by a comparatively small population in a barbaric age, they 
 constitute the greatest (secular) marvel in the history of the world. Every- 
 thing tends to excite enthusiasm for this remote, alien, primitive, but 
 most remarkable people. I need not speak of the art in which they stand 
 unrivalled throughout the ages. As regards their literature, apart from its 
 intrinsic excellence and the beauty of the language in which it is written, 
 it has an additional fascination and charm, because it is the speech and song 
 of the infancy of the world. Through it we see into the mind and realize 
 the life of the most interesting race that ever lived. Possessing astounding 
 intellect and intense originality, they were nevertheless the children of 
 nature. Their earth was peopled with fauns and nymphs, their gods lived 
 and moved and had their being in every natural object and they had 
 very little of our ideas of right and wrong. They had nothing of our wide 
 knowledge and experience, yet they constructed a world of life and thought 
 for themselves. It is absorbingly interesting to read their beautiful poetry, 
 fine literature, and philosophic thought, bearing in mind that it was produced 
 in the ignorant childhood and paganism of the human race, over two thou- 
 sand years ago. And one of the most astonishing things about them is 
 that essential product of civilization, a keen sense of humour. So curiously 
 " modern " is their literature that the writers speak to us across the ages 
 with as vivid a voice as if they were still alive. No other primitive race has 
 been able to leave us any such adequate conception of its life and thought. 
 Moreover, we can never forget how the Greek arose out of the tomb, where 
 he had slept for many centuries, to preside at the re-birth of our own modern 
 world that emergence of Europe from medieval darkness which we call 
 the Renaissance. It was largely Greek art and literature that stimulated 
 the mental activity of the world and made us what we are to-day. 
 
 Very great enthusiasm is, therefore, warranted in the Greek student 
 but there comes a point where enthusiasm may become pure fanaticism, 
 and lead to that most deadly of all things, the perversion of the truth. 
 
 . 
 
 e middle hall of the Fifth Century B.C. A large 
 d literature was produced by this tiny state in that 
 
 proportion of the finest lireek art and literature was produced by this tiny state in tna 
 short period. This is the miracle of antiquity. It is to Attica during this period that m; 
 remarks mainly refer. 
 
 The reader will not be able to follow this note properly, unless he has read the other 
 notes on the same subject (see Index of Subjects).
 
 366 MYERS 
 
 In the above quotations two Greek poems are quoted, and another is 
 referred to in the lines I have italicized. The first two* refer to vice, which 
 to us is revolting and criminal, but to the whole Greek nation was natural, 
 and recognised by law. The third expresses even more revolting passion. 
 It will be seen, therefore, that Myers, in order to illustrate the " departed 
 loveliness " of Greek life made a strange choice of quotations (which also, 
 standing alone, would give a very false notion of classic Greek poetry). 
 
 Seeing that Myers was one of the purest-minded of men, what is the 
 explanation of this very remarkable fact ? The explanation is simply 
 that Myers was a classical enthusiast. He had forgotten the warning 
 he himself gave in the first quotation. It is absolutely amazing how such 
 an enthusiast, however brilliant a scholar and capable a man in other 
 respects, can blind himself to the most obvious facts where anything 
 Greek is concerned. It is very certain that Myers read into each poem a 
 perfectly innocent meaning and he would not be alone in that respect. 
 Take, for instance, the third quotation which is from Sappho. In my 
 youth the great majority of classical men appeared to have convinced 
 themselves that a poem of terribly fierce passion was an expression of 
 mere friendship ! Even our leading reference-book, Smith's Dictionary 
 of Greek and Roman Biography, gave the same absurd view until about 
 1877^ However, we must get away from this ugly subject and seek 
 further illustrations elsewhere. 
 
 This perverted enthusiasm seems to permeate all books of the last 
 fifty or sixty years dealing with Greek life, art and literature that I have 
 met with. This is a very large statement to make, and, of course, I do not 
 mean that such flagrant instances as those above referred to are the rule. 
 But to me there seems always to be some bias which tends to exaggerate 
 or falsify the facts to some extent. We can trace this tendency back more 
 than eighteen hundred years to Plutarch. (On the Malice of Herodotus}. 
 He, as Mr. Livingstone^ says, " took the view that the Greeks of the great 
 age could do no wrong, and rates the historian for " needlessly describing 
 evil actions.' " And it is largely in this way that the enthusiast works 
 by omitting facts. I should think few readers unfamiliar with the classics 
 will have known all the facts already put before them in these notes 
 because such facts, although known to all classical scholars, are kept in 
 the background as much as possible. Again the tendency is to judge the 
 Greeks by their greatest men to imagine every Greek to have been a Plato ! 
 
 I might add greatly to what I have already said about the Greeks, 
 but I must confine myself to a few matters, repeating nothing that has 
 been said in previous notes. The Greeks had very little regard for truth- 
 fulness. An oath was a matter of religion and was supposed to be binding 
 upon them, but it was excusable to twist out of it. They also saw nothing 
 
 The ? second is not by Praxilla. It is to be found in Athenaeus (XV. 695), and is 
 written in the masculine. Most curiously the same mistake is made in the Parnasse dcs 
 Dames, an i8th Century French book in which Myers would not have been interested. 
 
 t One at least of the Sappho enthusiasts still survives. See Professor T. G. Tucker's 
 Sapphc. 
 
 " The Greek Genius and itsjneaning to us."
 
 MYERS 367 
 
 mmoral in theft. Hermes was the god of thieves, and " the wily Odysseus " 
 was a favourite hero of the Greeks. Autolycus, the grandfather of Odysseus, 
 was taught by Hermes himself to surpass all men in stealing and perjury. 
 (Od. XIX, 395.) Hence it was thought quite a proper thing to make war 
 for the purpose of robbing neighbours of territory or property. I need 
 quote only the truly " German " opinions of Socrates and Aristotle placed 
 by Mr. Zimmern at the head of his chapter on Warfare in The Greek Common- 
 wealth. " But, Socrates, it is possible to procure wealth for the State 
 from our foreign enemies." " Yes, certainly you may, if yon are the stronger 
 power " (Xen. Mem., Ill, 6, 7). " War is strictly a means of acquisition, 
 to be employed against wild animals and against inferior races of men who, 
 though intended by nature to be in subjection to us, are unwilling to submit [!], 
 for war of such a kind is just by nature" (Aristotle, Politics, 1256). 
 On considering that such sentiments are expressed by their greatest philoso- 
 phers, we are not surprised to find that the history of the Greeks is one of 
 lies, perfidy, and cruelty* It further illustrates their unsympathetic 
 pagan character when we find the Greek mother mourning for her dead 
 son because he will not " feed her old age," and Socrates valuing friendship 
 because friends were useful.f When the enthusiast is confronted with 
 the debased Greek religion he tells us, or leads us to think, that the people 
 did not believe in their dissolute gods. As regards this I cannot do better 
 than quote the terse statement of Mr. Livingstone. After pointing out that 
 there were some advanced thinkers among the Greeks who were more or 
 less sceptics (and that there were also some small sects who are said to have 
 had higher moral beliefs than their countrymen**) he says," We are concerned 
 with the state religion, which Athenians learnt to reverence as children, 
 which permeated the national literature, which crowned the high places 
 of the city with its temples, which consecrated peace and war and every- 
 thing solemn and ceremonial in civil life, which by its intimate connection 
 with these things acquired that support of instinctive sentiment which is 
 stronger than any moral or intellectual sanction."^: Something may be 
 added to this. Why was the Greek so greatly concerned about his tomb 
 and his burial rites ? The main reason why he burdened himself with a 
 wife and household was that a son should be left to see to those rites and 
 look after his tomb. He did not see his wife before marriage, and, however 
 beautiful he found her to be, the uneducated girl would be no companion 
 for him ; and her beauty would soon fade in the unwholesome confined life 
 she led. Her office was fulfilled when she had borne him sons and he 
 looked for his pleasures elsewhere. Surely this one fact alone proves that 
 the Greeks had a very real belief in their religion. Again why do we find 
 that only Socrates and a few other thinkers appear to have been charged 
 with impiety ? Mr. Livingstone, curiously enough, argues from this that 
 there was greater freedom of thought among the Greeks. Surely the simple 
 and natural explanation is far preferable, namely, that there were no 
 other pronounced sceptics than those few advanced thinkers. Imagine the 
 danger of declaring anything against the gods which would throw in doubt 
 
 * It should be remembered, however, that this is largely the history of Prussia also, 
 t See Mr. Livingstone's book. 
 ** But see p. 374 as to Dionysiac sect 
 
 * See an interesting passage in Plato's Republic, i, 350. See also p. 173 as 
 to Herodotus.
 
 368 MYERS 
 
 the divinity of the patron goddess Athena !* It is often argued that the 
 intelligent Greeks could no more have believed the monstrous stories of 
 their gods, than we believe some of the Old Testament stories of Jehovah. 
 But the position is entirely different. We disbelieve stories that offend 
 our moral sense : the gods of the Greeks had a character similar to their 
 own, and acted as they themselves would have acted if they had been gods. 
 Also they had no ethnology, no knowledge of purer religions to teach them 
 the falsity and depravity of their own nor, indeed, would the proud 
 Greeks have condescended to learn from barbarians (especially as they 
 believed themselves descended from heroes who were sprung from the gods). 
 Finally one has only to read the accounts of travellers in Greece to learn 
 that the religion even lingers on to-day see, for instance, S. C. Kaines 
 Smith's Greek An and National Life (pp. 153, 172), where the woodcutters, 
 when a tree is falling, throw themselves on the ground and hide their faces 
 in deadly fear of the Dryads,t and an eminent Greek gentleman crosses 
 himself at the name of the Nereids. (See also W. H. D. Rouse's Tales 
 from the Isles of Greece. I learn from the Spectator review of a book just 
 published, Balkan Home Life, by Lucy M. J. Garnett, that the religion 
 has a very strong hold on the people.) 
 
 My statement has been very one-sided so far, as I have said very little 
 of the virtues of the Greeks. These virtues were those of intelligent 
 primitive people, love of freedom, justice, and equality (but confined to 
 their own nation and not including their own women and slaves), personal 
 courage, great patriotism, fidelity to kinsfolk and guests ; they showed 
 at times generosity to a valiant enemy and recognized some such duties 
 as burying the dead. While I do not think we can carry the national 
 virtues much further than this, there would be gradations of character 
 among the Greeks, and probably many would be more or less kindly, 
 others have a true affection for their wives, others show private virtues 
 in various directions we can only conjecture as to something of which 
 there is very little evidence in their literature. On the one hand, we know 
 that Socrates suffered martyrdom for the truth,:}: and we may surmise that 
 there were other fine characters ; on the other hand, we know that this 
 highly intellectual nation put the philosopher to death as a blasphemer 
 against their profligate gods. 
 
 * This should be taken into account in interpreting the plays of Euripides, who was 
 probably a sceptic. The case of Aristophanes was different he was known to be orthodox 
 and almost any licence was permitted on the Comic Stage. 
 
 t Perhaps these woodcutters would not have entirely appreciated what Mr. G. 
 Lowes Dickinson (The Greek View of Life) says of the Greek divinities. He tells us 
 that the Greek originally felt " bewilderment and terror in the presence of the powers 
 of nature," but his religion developed " till at last from the womb of the dark enigma 
 that haunted him in the beginning there emerged into the charmed light of a world of 
 ideal grace a pantheon of fair and concrete personalities." (The italics are mine). The 
 classical enthusiast always pictures the Greeks as living m fairyland : actually the gods 
 and lesser divinities were to them for the most part objects of awe and dread. In this 
 ' world of ideal grace " there would be, for example, the horrible Furies who dwelt in 
 their grotto in Athens ! 
 
 } I think it correct to say this, although there were political reasons also for prose- 
 cuting Socrates and, if he had shown less contempt for his judges, he might have been 
 acquitted.
 
 MYKRS 369 
 
 But while we can give the Greeks credit for little of the morality of 
 modern civilization, on the other hand we would be thinking very absurdly 
 if we regarded their vices as though the people were on the same moral 
 plane as ourselves. (This is the fact to be recognised. The ridiculous 
 tendency of the modern enthusiast is to depict the Greeks as a highly 
 moral nation striving for righteousness 1) Strictly speaking, the Greek 
 practices and habits should not be called vices, because the Greeks had no 
 reason to believe that they were doing anything wrong. Their virtues 
 and their vices were those of ordinary primitive life.* The moral principle, 
 that highest product of creation, had not yet developed itself among the 
 people to any appreciable extent, but we see it gradually emerging in the 
 growing disbelief in the national religion among thinking men, and reaching 
 an advanced stage in Plato, the greatest philosopher of antiquity. But 
 to the average Greek, apart from religion (including respect for parents), 
 the patriotism which they had learnt from Homer, their one great book, 
 covered much of what th'ey meant by " virtue ".f Whatever was good 
 for the State was a virtue, whatever bad for the State a vice. We can 
 hardly realize what Athens stood for in the Greek mind. For instance, 
 /Eschylus tells us that the patron goddess Athena came to Athens to preside 
 over the balloting of the jurors and conduct the trial of Orestes, and also 
 that the Furies lived among the citizens in a sacred grotto. The Greeks 
 saw that they were immensely superior to the surrounding " barbarians," 
 and they regarded their State practically as an object of worship (as Rome 
 was also regarded by the Romans). 
 
 It would have been interesting to discuss here the ethical views of 
 the philosophers, but the subject is far too intricate for this note and 
 in any case they and their followers formed only a few exceptions among 
 the Greeks. It will be seen later that the use of such words as " virtue," 
 " holiness," etc., causes a vast deal of meaning to be read into Plato which 
 never entered that philosopher's mind. 
 
 The great outstanding fact about the Greeks is their astonishing 
 intellect, combined with sound commonsense (<r<a<ppoavvii) and a quite 
 modern gift of humour. Their powerful intellect, however, had very poor 
 material to work upon. In a previous note I have mentioned their remark- 
 ably limited idea of the world but, while knowing this to be a fact, we 
 still cannot realize the mental attitude of men who had even one false con- 
 ception of such magnitude as regards their general outlook and thought. 
 Let us take an instance of a different kind from the great philosopher 
 Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who came after Plato bearing in mind that the 
 average Greeks would be vastly more ignorant and superstitious than 
 their greatest thinkers. In his Mechanica Aristotle explains the power 
 of a lever to make a small weight lift a larger one. His explanation is that 
 a circle has a certain magical character. A very wonderful thing is a circle, 
 because it is both convex and concave; it is made by a fixed point and a 
 moving line, which are contradictory to each other ; and whatever has a 
 
 * I do not know how far unnatural vice extended among other peoples ; but the 
 statement in Plato's " Symposium " that the lonians and most of the barbarians held 
 it in evil repute is strongly condemnatory of the Greeks. 
 
 t See how this idea pervades the whole of the famous Funeral Speech of Pericles, 
 and how he defines what is " the good life " of a citizen.
 
 370 MYERS 
 
 circular movement moves in opposite directions. Also, Aristotle says, 
 movement in a circle is the most natural movement ! Hence we get the 
 result : the long arm of the lever moves in the larger circle and has the 
 greater amount of this magical natural motion, and so requires the lesser 
 force ! Again, let us take a story which was as firmly believed by Aristotle 
 as the most ignorant of his countrymen. Our word halcyon is the Greek 
 word Alkuon, meaning a bird, probably of the Kingfisher species. The 
 Greeks supposed the word to be formed of two words, hols kuon, meaning 
 " conceived in the sea " therefore they believed the bird was so conceived 
 and that it was bred in a nest floating on the sea and, as the sea must 
 then be smooth, they further believed that a period of fourteen days' calm 
 necessarily occurred about Christmas finding there was no such period 
 of calm around their own coasts they either thought that it must occur 
 (and the birds breed) elsewhere, or, like Theocritus, that the bird could 
 charm the sea into tranquillity.* 
 
 The Greeks believed queer things about animals. I take the following 
 instances of birds alone from Mr. Rogers' Introduction to his Birds of 
 Aristophanes, so that I need not give references. By looking at a plover, 
 who returns the look, a man is cured of jaundice. Penelope, the wife of 
 Odysseus, was said to have been so named because, having been cast into 
 the sea, she was rescued by widgeons (Greek, penelops}. The song of the 
 dying swan was a belief of the Greeks. The raven was the bird of augury 
 and had mysterious knowledge. The cranes fought the pygmies and 
 swallowed stones for ballast. The young storks fed their aged parents. 
 The sisken foresees the winter and snowstorms. Mr. Rogers has no need 
 to discuss the yet more extravagant stories of the phoenix, sirens, harpies, 
 etc. Plutarch (De Is. and Os. LXXI) tells us how the Greeks regarded 
 birds and other animals in relation to the gods ; he says that while they did 
 not, like the Egyptians, worship animals, " they said and believed rightly 
 that the dove was the sacred animal of Aphrodite, the raven of Apollo, 
 the dog of Artemis, and so on." (Possibly Aristophanes' comedy did not 
 win the prize, because the audience saw little humour in exaggerating the 
 powers which they really believed the birds to have. To the Greeks 
 the birds were greater and the gods smaller than we ourselves picture them. 
 Ruskin's translation of Od. V. 67,! the seabirds which " have care of the 
 works of the sea," seems much more likely to be correct than the accepted 
 version that the birds live by diving and fishing. Consider how the Greeks 
 would regard the birds that flew round and over their ships or fishing-nets 
 and over the waves and rocks, where the sea-gods lay beneath and compare 
 //. II, 614.)! 
 
 * See Theoc. VII, 57, and what the Scholiast says. As to the subject generally 
 see the references given by Mr. Rogers in The Birils of A ristophanes 
 
 t Modern Painters, IV, XIII, 17 
 
 } A few days after writing the above 1 was walking along the sea-beach with friends, 
 and we came to a man and boy who were drawing in a net. It was a beautifully clear day, 
 and no seagull or other bird could be seen anywhere. 1 pointed this out to my friends, 
 and said, " You'll see the patrol-bird arrive presently." In a few minutes a gull appeared 
 from nowhere, flew round the net, and then, as though the business was unimportant, 
 flew away. The net when drawn in was empty ! This is how the bird probably appeared 
 to the Greeks. When the net brought in a haul, and the birds clamoured round it for 
 theirjsbare, how very reasonable would this again appear to the Greeks.
 
 MYERS 371 
 
 All that has been said about the Greeks in this and previous notes is 
 intended, not so much to exhibit the character of that nation a matter 
 which does not greatly concern me but fpr other reasons. In one instance 
 the intention was to indicate how vast a gulf exists between Christianity 
 and the ancient world. Many classical enthusiasts do not seem to realize 
 this, and a definitely pagan tendency is very apparent in their habits of 
 thought. 
 
 But the main object of pointing out the inferior state of civilization 
 among the Greeks, their non-moral character in certain respects, their 
 ignorance and superstition, and their low standard of morality generally, 
 has to do with the important question of interpreting Greek literature and 
 philosophy. It would matter very little that the enthusiast should picture 
 the Greeks as a race of saints and demigods, if there were no beautiful and 
 valuable literature to be coloured and falsified by reason of such views. 
 It is only by realizing the actual life and thought of this primitive race that 
 we can understand their language, that is to say, we can learn what meanings 
 should be attached to the words they use. Only thus can we interpret 
 their literature. We have already had two simple illustrations of this. 
 In one case what appears to be a poetic fancy in Theocritus, when the 
 voyager hopes the halcyons will calm the sea for him, is seen to be a wish 
 that the birds will actually exercise the power that they possess. The other 
 instance appears on page 294. But much more important is it that, in 
 reading words of knowledge such as references to the starry heavens or 
 the constitution of matter, or mental or moral phenomena, we should not 
 attribute to the Greek writer conceptions far larger and higher than he 
 had in his mind. To amplify what I have said in a previous note, let 
 us take the words in Plato, Aristotle or, say, Euripides which are translated 
 by such English words as " morality," " purity," " virtue," " honour," 
 "religion," etc. It is clear that the original Greek expressions cannot 
 signify, for instance, either purity as we know it, or even abstention from 
 unnatural vice or from infanticide.* We are, therefore, mistranslating 
 when we use such English words (because they are the nearest equivalent 
 to the Greek expressions), and this fact needs to be steadily borne in mind. 
 Again when interpreting, say, a Greek play, it is necessary to bear in mind, 
 not only the supposed character of the dramatist, but also the actual, known 
 character of the audience to whom the play was addressed. I now propose 
 to give an illustration which will bring me on dangerous ground. 
 
 Is it reasonable to ask if the Athenians, some few of whose character- 
 istics have been outlined in these notes, would have flocked to hear, and 
 have greatly enjoyed, a play replete with high moral teaching, and containing 
 hymns that might have come out of a Church Hymnal ? Now the Baccbae 
 of Euripides, one of the most popular of Greek plays, and the Hippolytus 
 of the same dramatist, have been translated by one great Greek scholar, 
 Professor Gilbert Murray, in a manner that (at any rate, as regards the 
 Bacchae] received the " hearty admiration and approval " of another great 
 Greek scholar, Dr. Verrall. In this version, one after another of the debased 
 Greek gods is called " God." We also find such expressions as (note the 
 capitals) " God's grace," " Virgin of God," " Babe of God," "God's son," 
 and even " God's true son " (who is Dionysus or Bacchus), " Spirit of God," 
 " Child of the Highest," " Heaven," " Purity," " Saints " (who are the 
 Maenads 1), " righteous," " divine," " holy," and so on. 
 
 * See also as to the so-called " purification rites " in the mysteries, p. 374
 
 372 MYERS 
 
 Professor Murray is put in a difficulty when two or more gods are 
 referred to. In some cases he becomes illogical (and reminds us of the 
 Kaiser), as when Dionysus has to say " God and me." In others he has 
 to use the Greek name for one god, and then the words sound blasphemous, 
 as when he speaks of Dionysus who was " born from the thigh of Zeus 
 and now is God." These instances are taken quite at random and there 
 must be many others. 
 
 Take the following two lines as a short illustration of Professor Murray's 
 version : 
 
 Where a voice of living waters never ceaseth 
 In God's quiet garden by the sea. 
 
 The original reads : " Where the ambrosial fountains stream forth by 
 the couches of the palaces of Zeus," or, to give them a more musical turn, 
 Mr. A. S. Way's version is : 
 
 Where the fountains ambrosial sunward are leaping 
 By the couches where Zeus in his halls lieth sleeping. 
 
 In Professor Murray's two lines Zeus becomes " God," " living waters " 
 is taken from the Song of Solomon, and " God's quiet garden " from 
 Isaiah and Ezekiel. Such expressions, with their tender and beautiful 
 associations, do not in the least convey the sense of the original. 
 Used to describe the palace of a vicious, barbaric deity, they 
 are a mistranslation. Also every one of the expressions referred 
 to above is, wherever used, another mistranslation (although some 
 may be necessitated by the limitation of language). Again there are other 
 more pronounced mistranslations, some of which are pointed out by 
 Verrall (Bacchants of Euripides}. Thus where the very old man Cadmus, 
 setting out on an unusual journey, merely says to his ancient comrade, 
 "We have pleasantly forgotten that we are old" (Bacchae 184-9). 
 Professor Murray interpolates a stage direction, " A mysterious strength 
 and exaltation " (from the god Dionysus) " enters into him " and he alters 
 the words of Cadmus to conform with the miracle : 
 
 Sweetly and forgetfully 
 The dim years fall from off me ! 
 
 Here, therefore, we find an important episode deliberately introduced 
 into the play. 
 
 Take another instance which Verrall does not mention. In the very 
 enthusiastic "Introductory Essay," Professor Murray tells us that Euripides 
 longed to escape from the bad, hard, irreligious Athenians* of that day, 
 and proceeds as follows : 
 
 " What else is wisdom ? " he asks, in a marvellous passage : 
 
 What else is wisdom ? What of man's endeavour 
 Or God's high grace so lovely and so great ? 
 To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait 5 
 To hold a hand uplifted over Hate ; 
 
 And shall not loveliness be loved for ever ? 
 
 * The same pious Athenians who sc enjjyed the Bacchae!
 
 MYERS 373 
 
 There is nothing here, nor in the translation that follows, to indicate 
 that there has been any interference with the text. It is only upon turning 
 to the notes at the end of the translation (which the average reader would 
 hardly study) that we find the third line is " practically interpolated." 
 He gives reasons for this that are not easy to follow, and says " If I am 
 wrong, the refrain is probably a mere cry for revenge ; " I add that the latter 
 is the generally accepted meaning, and the only meaning I can see in the 
 original Greek. 
 
 Now Professor Murray's object in all this is to convey in words that appeal 
 to our minds his conception of the devout, religious and, therefore, highly 
 moral attitude of, not only Euripides, but also his Athenian audience. The 
 attitude of mind must be that of the audience, as well as the dramatist, 
 because none but devout, religious people go to a " Service of Song," 
 and, as stated above, the Bacchae was a very popular play among the Greeks. 
 If, however, Professor Murray thought that, by colouring, altering, and 
 adding to the play, he gave a more correct impression of it as it appeared 
 to the Greeks, he was perfectly at liberty with that object to mistranslate 
 as much as he pleased provided he told his readers and hearers that they 
 were not reading or bearing the words that Euripides wrote. 
 
 Has he told them this ? The book is entitled " Euripides translated 
 into English rhyming verse." In the Preface he also begins by telling us 
 definitely that it is a translation ; later on he says : " As to the method 
 of this translation . . my aim has been to build up something as like the 
 original as I possibly could, in form and what one calls ' Spirit.' To 
 do this, the first thing needed was a work of painstaking scholarship, a work 
 in which there should be no neglect of the letter in an attempt to snatch at 
 the spirit." He then goes on to tell us that " The remaining task " was to 
 reproduce the poetry of the original and (here is the only admission that he 
 has varied from the text) he 'has often changed metaphors, altered the shapes 
 
 of sentences, and the like On one occasion he has even omitted 
 
 a line and a half ' (because unnecessary) and he says, he ' has added, of course 
 by conjecture, a few stage directions.' Let the non-classical reader look 
 back over what has been said above and ask himself whether such words 
 however carefully studied would have given him the least impression of 
 what this " translation " actually amounts to. 
 
 Without entering into any long discussion as to the so called " purity 
 choruses " of the Bacchae, let us simply ask the question, Does this pious, 
 fervently-religious version represent the actual play that the cruel, lying, 
 treacherous and unspeakably sensual Greeks flocked to see and enjoy ? 
 Further comes a much more important question, Would such a " trans- 
 lation," put before English readers, or staged before an English audience, 
 give them a true or a false idea of the character of the Greeks ? 
 
 I might compare with this Ruskin's view of the Greek character 
 (The Crown of Wild Olive.} This is what he says the Greeks won from 
 their lives : " Free-heartedness, and graciousness, and undisturbed 
 trust, and requited love, and the sight of the peace of others, and the ministry 
 to their pain." (Italics mine.) This is truly amazing ! I am tempted 
 to go back again to Professor Murray's Euripides (p. Ixiii) and quote a like 
 passage :
 
 374 MYERS 
 
 "Love thou the day and the night," he (Euripides) says in another place. 
 '' It is only so that Life can be made what it really is, a Joy : by loving 
 not only your neighbour he is so vivid an element in life that, unless you do 
 love him, he will spoil all the rest ! but the actual details and processes of 
 living, etc., etc." 
 
 The italics are again mine but here it will be seen that Euripides 
 has, as a matter of course, anticipated the great evangel of Christ ! He has 
 even gone a step further but I must leave Professor Murray to his love 
 of the " details and processes of living," whatever that may mean. 
 
 Finally, in this extraordinary essay, I come to something which is 
 absolutely repulsive. I must first briefly premise that the Dionysiac 
 mystery cult was not sectarian. It was orthodox, believing in the plurality 
 and the profligacy of the gods. Its adherents had no more idea of morality 
 or purity than other Greeks. Its rites were indecent. The so-called 
 "purification rites," including regulations regarding continence, were simply 
 training rules preparatory to their hideous orgies. The essential rite of the 
 cult was practised by the Maenads or Bacchantes. They tore to pieces live 
 animals (and at one time human beings) and devoured their raw, quivering 
 flesh. As stated above, these horrible women are Professor Murray's 
 " Saints." He now proceeds to draw an analogy between their loathsome god 
 Dionysus and Jesus Christ! Thus Dionysus is born of God (Zeus) and a 
 human mother. He is the " twice-born'" having been hidden in Zffus's 
 thigh after birth ! He " comes to bis own people of Thebes, and bis 
 own receive him not." Again " It seemed to Euripides in that favourite 
 metaphor of his, which was always a little more than a metaphor, that a 
 God had been rejected by the world that he came from." Dionysus "gives 
 bis Wine to all men. . . .It is a mysticism which includes democracy, as it 
 includes the love of your neighbour." Dionysus " has given man Wine, 
 which is his Blood and a religious symbol." ' In the translation Dionysus 
 is called " God's son " and even " God's true son." Reading this and 
 such statements as Miss Jane Harrison's (see p. 292, n.), one stands amazed. 
 Apparently this fanatical enthusiasm destroys the critical faculties, so that 
 the enthusiast becomes utterly incapable of appreciating the beauty and 
 value of Our Lord's ethical teaching and its exemplification in His life. 
 
 For my last illustration of how enthusiasm affects our leading classical 
 authorities (and, therefore, leads to perversion of the truth] I take Mr. A. E. 
 Zimmern's Greek Commonwealth. This, like Mr. Livingstone's work, is a 
 very excellent book, which should be in all libraries. 
 
 ely endorses the well-known statement 
 which is as follows : " The average 
 
 ability of the Athenian race is, on the_ lowest possible estimate, very nearly 
 two grades higher than our own, that is, about as much as our race is above 
 that of the African Negro." (The italics are mine.} Here I have happened 
 by chancet upon an excellent illustration of classical enthusiasm, which is 
 worth while dwelling upon at some length. In the first place Galton's 
 statement is perhaps the most absurd utterance ever made by an important 
 thinker ; in the second place it appears to have been accepted by English and 
 European authorities for nearly half a century. 
 
 t It is necessary to emphasize this, lest the reader should think that these illus 
 
 Mr. Zimmern quotes and definit 
 Gallon's Hereditary Genius (1869), 
 
 trations are exceptional and the result of prolonged research. Actually I had no 
 began the many notes to this book, and those notes 
 
 iplj 
 Murray's and Mr. Zimmern's, to illustrate my thesis. I might have chosen far more 
 
 memoranda or other material when I began the many notes to tms DOOK, and tnose n 
 all completed in ten months. For this note I simply took two books, Prole 
 ly's and Mr. Zimmern's, to illustrate my thesis. I 
 
 "enthusiastic " works than Mr. Zimmem's excellent book.
 
 MYERS 375 
 
 Galton bases his argument on the number of great men produced by 
 a nation in proportion to its population. He states that between 530 and 
 430 B.C. the Athenian Greeks produced fourteen highly illustrious men : 
 Themistocles, Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles (statesmen and 
 commanders), Thucydides, Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato (literary and 
 scientific men), Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes 
 (poets), and Pheidias (sculptor). I take the minor objections to his state- 
 ment first. 
 
 He estimates the population of free-born Greeks in Attica at 90,000. 
 In this instance he was misled by the authorities of his time and is not to 
 blame ; but I take Mr. Zimmern's own figures, as be endorses Gallon's statement. 
 The 90,000 should have been, according to Mr. Zimmern's more correct 
 figures, 180,000 to 200,000. This alone cuts down Gallon's estimate of 
 the " average ability " of the Greeks to at least one-half. Galton also excludes 
 the resident aliens who, according to him, numbered 40,000, but according 
 to Mr. Zimmern 96,000. Yet both these and the outside aliens must be 
 considered, for there were intermarriages. Themistocles and Cimon had 
 alien mothers, Thucydides also probably had an alien mother, or at any 
 rate was partly of Thracian descent, and there would be some ground for 
 the charge of usurping citizenship repeatedly made by Cleon against Aris- 
 tophanes. Galton also takes no account of the slaves, the number of whom 
 he estimates at 400,000, but Zimmern at about 112,000. These cannot 
 be entirely omitted when we consider the life of the Greek women and the 
 habits of the men. It should be remembered that the slaves were often 
 Greeks of other States and also by reason of the practice of exposing children 
 some would be Athenians and even of the best families (Plato's Laws, 930, 
 deals with children of slaves and Greek men and women). However, on these 
 figures, it will be seen that Gallon's estimate has to be enormously reduced. 
 
 Next, the greatest of all the names in his list, Plato, has to be struck 
 out. There can be no reasonable doubt that he was not born until 428 or 
 427 B.C. (This appears to have been well recognised in 1869 and it is 
 unaccountable that Galton and his reviewers should not have known it.J 
 However, there is some evidence that he was born in 430, and let us assume 
 that this is so. But, if we are to include in the 100 (or rather 101) years 
 everyone who is born or died in that time, we are actually taking a period 
 of 200, not 100, years, and doubling the proper estimate ! Besides Plato, 
 I may mention that Aristophanes and Xenophon could have been only 
 about fourteen years of age in 430, Thucydides had not then begun to write, 
 and of the eighteen plays extant of Euripides two only were written before 
 430. Here again is another enormous reduction of Gallon's estimate. 
 
 Again let us take Gallon's opinion of the ability of these fourteen men. 
 It is amazingly high. It will be seen lhat there are only two grades between 
 ourselves and the African negro. Again, in Gallon's table, " eminent men " 
 are two grades above " the mass of men who obtain the ordinary prizes of 
 life." He now places the whole of these fourteen Greeks two grades above 
 the eminent men ! To what starry height he means to raise them, il is 
 impossible to say, for the whole slatement is exceedingly vague ; but he 
 tells us thai two of the fourteen, Socrates and Pheidias, stand alone as 
 the greatest men that ever lived. 
 
 It is clear then that the fourteen Greeks have to be placed at a tremen- 
 dous height in our estimalion. It is impossible here to take each man and
 
 376 MYERS 
 
 discuss his ability, but let us inquire what qualifications Galton had as 
 a critic. We turn to his list of great modern English and European literary 
 men. Although he goes back as far as the Fifteenth Century and his list 
 comprises only fifty-two writers, he finds room among them for such names 
 as John Aikin and Maria Edgeworth ! Again his ten great English poets are 
 Milton, Byron, Chaucer, Milman, Cowper, Dibdin (!), Dryden, Hook, 
 Coleridge, and Wordsworth. (Some names would no doubt be omitted 
 because they did not throw light on questions of heredity, but these lists 
 in any case are highly absurd.) 
 
 We need not greatly prolong this part of the discussion. We might 
 ask, however, what ground had Galton, for example, to place such men as 
 Miltiades, Aristides, or Cimon even on an equality with, say, Caesar, Alex- 
 ander, or Marlborough. How can he class Xenophon as even equal to 
 our great writers ? It is the interesting/acM he tells us of, not his literary 
 ability, that makes this somewhat monotonous writer so very interesting. 
 (The important point to remember is that Greek literature has a very special 
 interest and value for us, quite apart from its great intrinsic literary value. 
 Taking De Quincey's classification, see p. 227, it is both " literature of 
 power " and " literature of knowledge.") 
 
 Now take another point which I might illustrate from Gallon's own 
 pages. He tells us (in another connection) that about sixty years before 
 the time he is writing (1869) there were Senior Wranglers in Cambridge 
 who also obtained first classes in the Classical Tripos and even at a later 
 date men could take high rank in both departments. Is it then to be 
 argued that the earlier men were the greater ? Not so, but, as Galton says, 
 knowledge had become so far advanced that it was no longer possible for 
 a man to gain such a distinction in more than one of the two subjects. 
 Here we have the point the world of knowledge and activity is infinitely 
 wider to-day than when it formed the subject of Greek speculation. Their 
 great men were very original thinkers but in a very few subjects. More- 
 over, they had no books to read, no foreign languages to learn. Even 
 their social and political life was far less complicated and involved than 
 our own. 
 
 Again, where we speak of " average ability," it is not correct to compare 
 large populous countries, where great talents are often submerged (see 
 Gray's " Elegy ") with smaller communities that afford far ampler scope. 
 Take my own State, South Australia, with its huge territory and a popu- 
 lation of under half a million, less than that of one of the larger English 
 towns. We have our Premier, Government, Parliament, Town Councils, 
 Heads of Departments, University, schools, judges, lawyers, journalists 
 and literary men, financiers, merchants, men who design and construct 
 railways, irrigation and other important works, mining men, heads of 
 institutions and so on which means a large number of men of ability 
 and resource in all departments of life. If we compare ourselves with an 
 average half-million of Englishmen, how great our superiority would 
 apparently be ! And yet, we know that we are not actually more capable 
 our ability has been simply brought into play. Mr. W. M. Hughes might 
 himself have been a " flower to blush unseen," if he had not emigrated to 
 Australia.
 
 MYERS 377 
 
 We have so far dealt with minor matters, which have nevertheless 
 reduced Gallon's arithmetical estimate by, say, 75 per cent, at the very 
 least. Let us now take the one great misrepresentation that must have 
 immediately flashed upon the minds of all reviewers of Gallon's book, 
 if they had not been blinded by classical enthusiasm. It is truly remark- 
 able that not a single one of them seems to have called attention to the 
 obvious fact that Gallon takes the one great Athenian period, as though 
 it were an average period in their history ! From Homer's time to the Fifth 
 Century, B.C., would probably be about as long as from the Norman 
 Conquest to the present time, or from King Alfred to Shakespeare and 
 there are again the many centuries that followed. Is the " average ability " 
 of the Greeks during hundreds or ihousands of years lo be eslimaled on 
 their one mosl brillianl period ? The queslion needs no discussion. Gallon 
 mighl in ihe same way have taken our Elizabethan period when London 
 had a population of 150,000, and Great Britain of about three millions 
 and proved that our own ancestors were as far above ourselves as we are 
 above ihe negro.* 
 
 Mr. C. T. Whiting, of ihe Adelaide Public Library, knowing how 
 my lime was limiled, very kindly volunleered lo make an extensive search 
 for references to Gallon's statement in such of the lileralure of the time as 
 is available in Adelaide. In addition to a number of books, he has searched 
 through thirty-eight journals. He finds reviews of Gallon's book in ihe 
 following : Athenaeum, British Quarterly, Saturday Review, Edinburgh 
 Review, Fortnightly Review, Chambers' Journal, Journal of Anthropology, 
 Atlantic Monthly, Frazer's Magazine, Nature, Times, and Westminster Review. 
 The firsl seven do nol refer at all to the stalemenl ihey apparenlly accepl 
 il as a malter of course. Of the last five Frazer's mentions the stalemenl, 
 and says vaguely lhal the chapter in which it is contained " offers several 
 vulnerable points to the crilic ; " ihe Westminster^ slales ihe fad withoul 
 taking any exception to it ; the Atlantic Monthly raises the question whether 
 Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon, and Xenophon were so very illustrious, and 
 enters into an argumenl on Gallon's figures ; ihe Times considers lhat we 
 have had other men in different fields of human effort, who could be named 
 with Socrates and Pheidias, and lays stress on the enormous increase of 
 knowledge and activity in modern life ; in Nature A. R. Wallace, misreading 
 Gallon as referring only lo ihe age of Periclest admils ihe Irulh of the 
 slalement as applied to the Athenians of thai lime. None of ihem refer 
 lo ihe facl that Gallon lakes ihe mosl brilliant period of Greek history 
 as a normal period and the argumenls, laken logelher, amounl to very 
 little. As regards the twenly-six journals which appear lo have laken 
 no nolice of so slartling a stalemenl in an important book, the fact seems 
 
 * The whole argument seems to have little foundation. Are we to assume, for 
 example, that the " average ability " of the Greeks before and after their great period, 
 or of the English before and after the Elizabethan age, was enormously inferior because 
 the proportion of very illustrious men was so much less ? Why should not the average 
 be higher, the ability (through intermarriage) being more equally distributed ? 
 
 t If Gallon had referred only to the Athenians of the great period, as Wallace 
 imagined, the statement would have been even more absurd. It would then mean that 
 an African tribe of blacks might suddenly become as intelligent as ourselves, continue 
 so for two generations, and then relapse at once into their old barbarism. Yet Dr. 
 Verrall went some distance in this direction, for he says the Athenians of the great period 
 " had plainly an immense superiority of mind in comparison with their predecessors." 
 ( The Bacchants of Euripides, p. 168).
 
 378 MYERS 
 
 to indicate that to the writers for those journals the statement contained 
 nothing of a remarkable or dubious character ! (Even Punch missed the 
 chance of an amusing cartoon !) 
 
 It may be objected that the reviewers of the book would not be classical 
 men. But first it must be remembered that the writers of 1869 would 
 practically all have had a classical education and secondly it needed no 
 special classical knowledge to see the absurdity of the statement. Every 
 one without exception would know, for example, that the period taken 
 by Galton was the one great Greek period. The statement must also have 
 excited interest on all sides. I myself remember how it was talked of when 
 I was a boy in Melbourne, and I have heard it repeated as an acknowledged 
 fact up to the present time and, therefore, comment would have been 
 expected in every direction. But apparently the statement was generally 
 accepted. Mr. Whiting finds that in 1892, twenty-three years after, 
 Galton calmly repeated the statement word for word, without reference 
 to any criticisms. Again we find Mr. Zimmern accepting it as a matter of 
 course in his second edition in 1915. As it was in his first edition, which 
 would be reviewed in the classical journals, it must presumably have met 
 with no adverse comments. 
 
 But we have to go even further than this. Galton's was one of those 
 important books that are studied by all Europe. Seeing that he makes 
 no mention of adverse criticism in his second edition, and Mr. Zimmern 
 
 sees no reason to qualify the statement, it is tair to assume that no serious 
 
 objection has been made in England or Europe during nearly half a century. 
 
 So amazingly does classical enthusiasm pervade the thought of the world ! 
 
 T do not think I need say anything further on this subject.* 
 
 Mr. Zimmern heads one of his chapters " Happinc- ? or the Rule of 
 Love" the " Rule of Love " being his trnnslation of tvSatnovla I This 
 chapter is occupied exclusively by the famous Funeral Speech of Pericles. 
 I invite the reader to look through that terribly hard speech, and see 
 how much love it contains ! Again to another chapter the heading is 
 " Gentleness or the Rule of Relisrion," followed by two quotations which 
 are evidently intended to be read as parallel passages ; 
 
 irrepyot 5e u* ffuxppjffvva, 
 
 biupri/j.a. <foAAi<TToi' Cewj'.f Eur. Medea, 638. 
 
 Give unto us made lowly wise 
 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice. Wordsworth. 
 
 * I may add, however, one personal remark. I am quite well aware and my 
 friends persistently and painfully impress the fact upon me that this book will be re- 
 viewed by gentlemen who have been imbued from youth with even greater enthusiasm, 
 seeing that the tendency has grown stronger and stronger since that time. Those re- 
 viewers will probably feel shocked that the naked facts should be set before the general 
 public. I can quite understand this feeling, but I do not sympathize with it. Trutb 
 comes first, and I have no sympathy with the feminine view of truth (see p. 343), which 
 is the same as the Jesuitical view. I do, however, sympathize with them in one respect, 
 that the truth should be stated at an unfortunate time, when the beautiful Greek language 
 and its glorious literature seem Hkely to be put on a back shelf with Hebrew and Sanskrit. 
 It will be a sad thing if this should happen (I would much prefer to sacrifice the inferior 
 Latin, in spite of the special reasons for its study), but the first and last word always is 
 Truth. 
 
 t " May moderation befriend me, the finest gift of the gods."
 
 MYERS 379 
 
 Apart from the question whether the proud Greek could ever by any 
 possibility have become " lowly wise," the word ffuxppoavvii " temper- 
 ance," " moderation " or perhaps better still, " commonsense "- 
 becomes not only a " Rule of Religion " but even the highest conception 
 of Christianity, self-sacrifice. It is very extraordinary. Imagine the 
 Greeks - as we know them, and as Mr. Zimmern knows them- -having the 
 faintest conception of what we mean by self-sacrifice ! It reminds one 
 very much ol Hnmpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass : " When / 
 use a word " (tu5a.ijj.ovia or autypofiivn) " it means just what I choose it 
 to mean neither more nor less." 
 
 As this is my last note I am giving myself great latitude, but I must 
 not prolong it into a treatise. I shall, as briefly as I can, refer to only one 
 other matter, the Greek sense of beauty. I do not think it is an exaggera- 
 tion to say that we are given to believe that in this respect the Greeks are 
 exalted high as gods above the rest of mankind. What is the fact ? They 
 saw beauty in only one natural object, the human body. In a land of clear 
 skies, wonderful sunsets, starry nights, remarkable for its ranges of moun- 
 tains and extent of sea-coast, they were (with some tiny exceptions not 
 worth mentioning) absolutely blind to any beauty in inanimate nature. Nor 
 did any bird or beast or insect, tree or flower appeal to them to any appre- 
 ciable extent as a thing of beauty. They admired only what was useful 
 or added to their comfort the laden fruit tree, the shady grove, the clear 
 spring, the soft water-meadows. 
 
 Various explanations have been given for the Greek failure to appreciate 
 beauty in nature. Ruskin's theory is most often quoted, that the Greeks 
 were so familiar with beautiful scenes that they could not appreciate them. 
 In the first place he forgot that it was not always the bright tourist-season 
 in Greece ; they had their dark and wintry times. In the second place, 
 I have lived all my life in the southern part of Australia, which has much 
 the same climate as Greece, and I do not think there are any greater lovers 
 of nature than the Australians. 
 
 Is not the love of nature, as it came later.* also higher than love of the 
 human form (omitting that facial expression which is an index of the soul) ? 
 Our ideals of human beauty appear to be purely relative and depend on our 
 surroundings, while the same beauty in nature appeals to the most diverse 
 nations. Take for example the Japanese and Dutch artists who both loved 
 nature much as we do yet they admired very different types of the human 
 figure. I understand that the Japanese, originally at least, regarded with 
 positive disgust our tall English beauties. 
 
 The beauty the Greeks saw in one object only, the human body, they 
 reproduced in statues which have never been equalled in grace and charm, 
 and are the admiration of the world. Their pure white marble statues 
 and temples seem to be always present in our minds and to transfigure 
 
 * It would be interesting to trace the earliest references to love of Nature They 
 may, perhaps, be found in the Bible. In the Song of Solomon (which, however, in its 
 present form is now supposed to date back only to the Fourth Century, B.C., and, therefore 
 not to be by Solomon) we have the spring-song of love, with flowers and budding trees and 
 vines and the singing of birds (II, 10-13). Professor Naylor also reminds me of our 
 Lord's Sermon on the Mount, " Consider the lilies, etc." 
 
 1 repeat here what I say in the Preface that Professor Naylor takes no responsibility 
 for any of the views I express in my notes on the Greeks.
 
 3 8o MYERS 
 
 our conceptions of the Greeks. We unconsciously picture them as a 
 race of glorious men and beautiful women moving in a city of marble.* 
 We find ourselves forgetting what we know of their character and habits 
 and also forgetting the fact that both statues and temples were painted. 
 
 With the disappearance of colour through the effect of time, the flesh 
 effect has disappeared from their statues, and the chaste white marble 
 gives an idealized and spiritual conception of the utmost purity. As 
 stated before, this would be a conception quite alien to the Greek mind, 
 which saw no beauty in physical purity. If, when we stand in admiring 
 awe before that calm, majestic and exceedingly graceful and beautiful 
 Venus of Milo, we imagine her as the Greeks saw her, how different is the 
 picture ! To begin with, the Greeks had little sense of colour, as is seen 
 from their limited colour-vocabulary. For example, one word porpbureos 
 was used for dark-purple, red, rose, sea-blue, violet, and other shades even 
 to a shimmery white. Their colours were harsh, glaring, and put together 
 in shockingly bad taste (from our point of view). In temples and sculpture 
 reds and blues were the main colours used. In the Venus of Milo we must, 
 therefore, picture the hair painted red or red-brown, the lips a hard red, 
 eyebrows black, the eyes red or red-brown with black pupils, the dress 
 with borders and patterns of crude reds and greens or reds and blues. As 
 regards the flesh surfaces, we know they were wax-polished, but there 
 is no literary record or actual trace of any tinting or colouring. The effect 
 of the white marble would have been so horrible to us against the living 
 eyes and face, that Mr. Kaines Smith (being one of our enthusiasts) suggests 
 that the artist " might quite well " have used some colouring matter for 
 the nude parts of the figure ! We must further picture the statue 
 standing in a temple, which must of course also have been painted. The 
 structure would have its borders generally of harsh reds and blues, and the 
 decorative sculpture of the pediments, metopes and friezes would be painted 
 in most inconceivable colours. Thus in the metope relief of the slaying 
 of the Hydra at Olympia, the hydra is blue, the back ground red, and the hair, 
 lips, and eyes of Hercules are coloured. 'I might go on to the Elgin marbles, 
 the greatest sculptures that we possess in the world, and show them gorgeous 
 in bronze and colour. (Armour, horse-trappings, etc., were attached to 
 the marble in bronze or other metal.) The two masterpieces of Pheidias, 
 forty and sixty feet high respectively, which have not survived to us, were 
 much more admired by the Greeks than the sculptures of the Parthenon. 
 These were in barbaric ivory and gold, with the same living eyes, red lips, 
 and so on. The fact is that the Greek, " builded better than he knew." 
 He unintentionally produced objects whose spiritual beauty he was incapable 
 of appreciating and, therefore, he gave them a grosser form that appealed 
 to his own primitive sensual nature. 
 
 (Apart from this the Greek sculptor was very limited by the paucity 
 of hi? subjects. How tiresome are the never-ending Centaurs and Amazons!)! 
 
 Their actual life was of course indescribably squalid and filthy, as could only be 
 expected in a primitive race. 
 
 t Even as regards the human form Greek art is limited, as is seen in the Laocoon 
 where the boys are simply miniature men. (The Laocoon, although of very late date, is 
 nevertheless Greek with all the traditions of the art behind it.) I know very little on this 
 subject, but it seems to me that something of much importance yet remains to be dis- 
 covered about Greek sculpture.
 
 MYERS 381 
 
 A.S regards Greek architecture, its ornament is a question of sculpture, 
 its structure is the result of intellect combined with a certain amount of 
 design due to their artistic sense of proportion. The Greeks did great 
 service to humanity in working out the principles of building but, there- 
 after, there was no scope for originality. Apart from its sculptural ornament, 
 nothing more monotonous could well be imagined than a series of Greek 
 temples, all of the same type and subject to definite, rigid rules of measure- 
 ment.* 
 
 Finally there are two matters I am bound to refer to in connection with 
 these rough notes. First, in merely enumerating the salient features 
 of a nation's character, one gives no picture whatever of the life they led. 
 The Greek men led a highly intellectual, artistic, and on the whole a very 
 gay life. If we look around us to-day, we shall find among ourselves 
 Greeks, intellectual men who are moral sceptics, who simply do not under- 
 stand that moral motives exist, who do no act in their lives from a sense 
 of principle, and who live a purely material life (unless perhaps some great 
 crisis, the arrival of the angel of Death or some other overwhelming event, 
 awakens them to a sense of higher things). We can see something like a 
 parallel to the Greeks in the gay, immoral, artistic French aristocracy who 
 lived in the midst of a starving peasantry before the Revolution or in George 
 Eliot's fascinating renaissance story in Romola of the young Greek Tito 
 Melema. A man may be cruel, faithless and immoral, and yet live a gay 
 artistic and intellectual life but it is not such a life as would have appealed 
 to Myers or to ourselves. Secondly, a clear knowledge of the truth about 
 the Greek character does in no way detract from the miracle of their litera- 
 ture or of their art. It adds to the wonder of it all. (If one may with the 
 utmost reverence make another comparison, how can we fully appreciate 
 the wonder and beauty of Christ's teaching, if we forget the conditions 
 of the time ?) To find most beautiful poetry, fine literature, deep philo- 
 sophic thought, amazing grace and charm in art emanating from this primitive 
 race is purely astounding in itself. And it needs to be borne in mind that 
 even the men who took part in Plato's Symposium lived in a different atmos- 
 phere from our own, and had a very different conception of the physical 
 universe and the moral law. But this should add to our admiration, our 
 veneration, for a Plato who could rise to so great a sublimity of thought 
 in spite of such semi-barbarous conditions and surroundings. These men 
 also looked upon the world with younger and fresher eyes. We are two 
 thousand three hundred years older than they are. They knew very 
 little of the past history of the world and had only an insignificant fraction 
 of our scientific knowledge. If any religious doubts had begun to arise 
 in their minds, they still could not possibly have rid themselves of the belief 
 instilled into them since childhood and they lived among Nymphs and 
 Fauns, and saw a god in every star and under every wave. Never had they 
 heard or dreamt of any Love of God, or Love of Man. It is only the 
 enthusiast who, by picturing the Greeks as a modern moral nation, detracts 
 from our real interest in them and robs their literature of its fascination. 
 If knowledge of the true Greek character were to destroy all our enjoyment 
 in their art and literature, even then truth must prevail " though the heavens 
 fall " ; but the fact is far otherwise. The fuller our knowledge the more 
 we shall enjoy the greatness and beauty of their art and poetry and the more 
 absorbing will be our interest in their literature. 
 
 * An excessive importance is attached to the cold conventional foliated designs.
 
 383 
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Ability, Average. 374-78 
 Absurd Prescriptions. 320 
 Abt Vogler. 275 
 Acquaintanceship, Pre-matrimo- 
 
 nial. 131 
 
 Acquiring and Using. 208 
 Action and Inaction. 25 
 Adelaide Edition, ix 
 Adelaide Libraries, xii 
 Adonis, Feast of. 86 
 Advance, the Age's. 272 
 Adventure, Created Empire. 358 
 Advice, like Snow. 315 
 Advice, Micawber's. 284 
 Aestheticism. 310 
 Age, Men Product of Their. 266 
 Age, Old. 96, 164, 240 
 Age, Old, over Cautious. 34 
 Age, Spirit of The. 266 
 Agnostic. 110-12 
 Agnosticism, xi 
 Aims, Great. 260 
 Alcibiades. 292 
 Alexander and Parmenio. 197 
 Alice in Wonderland. 35 
 Allotment Holders. 269 
 Altruism. 116-7,328 
 Ambition. 109, 197 
 America. 2, 240 
 Amphibium. 236 
 Anacreontic. 354 
 Ancestral Stain. 24 
 Ancient and Modern World. 95 
 Ancients, Cruelty of. 172 
 Ancients, Ethics of The. 207 
 Angels. 106, 159, 348 
 Animal Intelligence. 113 
 Animals, Greeks and. 370 
 Anthology, Greek. 8-11, 306 
 
 Anthropomorphism. 112, 128 
 
 Anticipated Thoughts, xii 
 
 Anticipating Trouble. 121, 189, 
 305 
 
 Apelles. 334 
 
 Apelles, Proverbs of. 335 
 
 Apollo's Song. 302 
 
 Apothegms. 12, 21, 39, 48, 49, 
 51, 59, 62, 63, 72, 73, 78, 80, 
 90, 91, 94, 96, 97, 101, 107, 115, 
 116, 130, 131, 135, 139, 149, 150, 
 151,159,160,162,165,170,172, 
 175, 178, 179, 182, 184, 192, 196, 
 197, 19S, 202-5, 215, 226, 
 228, 229, 233, 236, 240, 242, 
 249-51,256-7,259,262,264,268-9, 
 272-4, 279-80, 282-5, 287, 295, 
 306-7, 312, 314-15, 319, 331-2, 
 335, 339, 341 
 
 Arcadia. 148 
 
 Arnold, Matthew. 19, 176, 265, 
 266, 291 
 
 Art. 317, 349 
 
 Ascendancy, Greek, Misleading. 
 363 
 
 Aspiration, Moral. 24, 139 
 
 Astrology. 31, 40 
 
 Athenian Ability. 374-5 
 
 Athenian Religion. 367 
 
 Athens. 365 
 
 Audience, the Poet's. 137 
 
 Aunt, an Old Maiden. 130 
 
 Australia and England. 7 
 
 Australia and Literature, x 
 
 " Avalon." 307 
 
 Babe Christabel. 22 
 
 Babies. 52, 169 
 
 Bacchus and Neptune. 306
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Backbiters. 306 
 Bait. 339 
 
 Balder and Death. 184 
 Ballad upon a Wedding. 363 
 Ballads and Legislation. 352 
 Banbury Puritans. 253 
 Baptism. 15 
 
 " Barren Orthodoxy." 16 
 Battle Hymn, America's. 240 
 Beans, Corn and Poetry. 345 
 Beauties, Proud. 159 
 Beauty, Divinity of. 352 
 Beauty, Divine use of. 193, 313 
 Beauty, Invisible. 178 
 Beauty, Inward. 17 
 Beauty, Is Truth. 162 
 Beauty, Necessity of. 164 
 Beauty, Praise of. 338 
 Beauty, Sense of. 178, 379 
 Beauty, Worse than Wine. 362 
 Beauty's Silent Music. 321-22 
 Bee, The. 222 
 Beef and Beer. 69 
 Belief, 83 
 
 Belief, Loss of. 260, 327-29 
 Belfast Address, The. 66 
 Bell, The Dinner. 69 
 Belle of the Ballroom. 206 
 Beloved Die. 181 
 Beneath My Window. 153 
 Benefactor, A. 150 
 Bentham, Jeremy. 116-7, 181-2 
 Bereavement. 29-30 
 Best, Imperfect. 135 
 Best People Slandered. 148 
 Bethlehem. 25 
 
 Bible, Literal Interpretation of. 344 
 Birth. 306 
 Birth, Death As. 238 
 Birthdays. 135, 160 
 Bishop, Most Diligent, The. 137 
 Blackstone. 181 
 Blake, William. 105, 109, 266-7 
 Blanco, White J. xi, 252 
 Blindness. 53-4, 155 
 Body and Mind. 283 
 Book of Snobs. 280 
 Bourdillon, F. W. x 
 Bouts Rimes. 284 
 Boys' Pastimes. 229 
 Brain, Atrophied. 319 
 British Dominions and "Home." 8 
 British Empire Created by Adven- 
 ture. 358 
 
 Browning, E. B. 293 
 Browning, R. xi, 19, 204 
 Browning, R., Heaven of. 204 
 Brownings' Love Story, The. 45,47 
 Browning Society, The. 19 
 Buchanan, R. x 
 Bulwark, England A. 2 
 Burial. 349 
 
 Butcher, Professor. 348 
 Butterfly, The Doleful. 26J 
 Buyer and Seller. 306 
 Byronic Gloom. 170 
 " By the North Sea." 341-3 
 
 Cabbages, Critics And. 360 
 Cain, Father of Art and Science. 
 
 247 
 Cambridge Examinations. 153-5, 
 
 208 
 
 Cana, Miracle of. 361 
 Canadian Boat Song. 198 
 Carlyle's French Revolution. 332 
 Carlyle's Requiem. 332 
 Carnivorous. 148 
 Carpe Diem. 195, 354. 
 Cat, Sabbatarian's. 253 
 Catholic and Protestant. 124 
 Cato and Public Honours. 175 
 Causality, xi 
 
 Causes Small, Events Great. 161 
 Celtic Imagination. 358 
 Cerebration, Unconscious. 151 
 " Chamouni and Rydal." 175 
 Champions, Incompetent. 138 
 Changeless. 90, 152, 158 
 Character. 141, 229, 260 
 Character and Reputation. 196 
 " Charge, A." 82 
 Charites, The. 292 
 " Charitie, An Excelente Balade 
 
 of." 42 
 Chatterton. 45 
 Child, A. 310 
 Child, Eyes of a. ' 147 
 Child, Grace for a. 239 
 Child, Mother and. 267 
 Child Slaves. 48 
 
 " Childhood and his Visitors." 243 
 Children. 143, 144, 146-7, 169-70 
 Children, Cruelty to. 48, 96 
 Children^ Death" of. 316 
 Children, Employment of. 48 
 
 Children, Games of. 229
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 38 5 
 
 Children, Sufferings of. 96 
 Children's Hymn. 319 
 Child's Outlook, The. 146-7 
 Chinese, The. 255 
 Chivalry. 96 
 Christ. ' 133, 142, 180, 318 
 Christ, Has He Failed ? 95 
 Christ's Love for Man, 268. 
 Christianity, Evidence for. 251 
 Church of England. 15, 16 
 Cigar Preferred to Woman. 242 
 City Ideal, The. 269 
 Civilization and Shambles. 148 
 Classical Enthusiasm. 290, 292, 
 
 364, 366, 374, 
 
 Classical Men as Critics. 291 
 Classics and English. 291 
 Cleopatra. 270 
 Cleon. 5 
 Clifford, xi 
 
 Coleridge, S. T. 74, 312, 313 
 Colenso. xi, 344 
 Committee of Shakespeares. 247 
 Communication from the Dead. 36, 
 
 172 
 
 Compensation. 158, 278 
 Compliment, A Pretty. 359 
 Composition, Inspiration and. 142 
 Conceit. 258, 279 
 Confession a Relief. 256 
 Conservative, A. 261 
 Conservatism. 181 
 Consolation, Tobacco's. 241-2 
 Constancy. 301, 309 
 Constitution, English, The. 181 
 Contemplation, Time for. 318 
 Content. 114 
 
 Contentedness, 22 J , 252, 270 
 Convulsionnaires. 349 
 Contingencies. 140-1 
 Coral Reef, The. 153 
 Cosmical Development. 303-4 
 Courage. 360 
 " Courtin', The." 98 
 Courting after Marriage. 236 
 Courts, Law, Satan's Home. 184 
 Cowardice. 80 
 Cowper. 108 
 
 " Creation," Story of, The. 189 
 Creation, Continuous. 273 
 Creeds, Beauty in Old. 343 
 " Crisis, The Present." 2 
 Critics and Cabbages. 360 
 Critics' Misjudgments. 132 
 Criticism, The Higher. 344 
 
 Crofter Exiles, The. 198 
 " Crossing the Bar." xi 
 Cruelty. 138, 172 
 Culture, Speculative. 309 
 Cunning. 226 
 Cupid, Bust of. 160 
 Cyclades, The. 364 
 Cynic, The. 257 
 Cyrus in Mesopotamia. 333 
 
 Dahlia, The. 359 
 
 " Dark Companion, The." 55 
 
 Darwin, Charles, xi, 318 
 
 Darwinism. 64, 65, 66, 68 
 
 Dauntlessness. vii, 257 
 
 Day. 95 
 
 Day is Dying. 249 
 
 Days Lost. 135 
 
 Dead, Communication from The. 
 
 36, 172 
 
 Dead, Most and Merriest. 262 
 Death, A Mockery. 232 
 Death and Fear. 330 
 Death as Birth. 238 
 Death as Sleep. 148 
 Death awakens. 114 
 Death, Painless. 148 
 Death, Shadow of. 184 
 Death, Survival after. 151, 250 
 
 329, 346-48 
 
 " Death's Jest Book." 305-6 
 Debate. 59, 205, 340 
 Decisions in Life. 321 
 Deeds, Indestructible. 12 
 Deities. 31 
 
 Deification of Man. xi, 129 
 Democracy and Empire. 5 
 Democracy, Greeks and. 5, 368 
 Dependence, Man's. 295 
 De Quincey. 227 
 Desert, London A. 105 
 Despair. 170 
 " De Tea Fabula." 17 
 Devil, The. 41, 42, 137, 159 
 Dickinson, G.Lowes. 368 
 Die, Longing to. 250 
 Dining. 69-71 
 Disciple, The. 179 
 Divine Birth. 140 
 Divine Discontent. 232 
 Divine Love. 55 
 Divine, The. 271 
 Divine Will, The. 104, 303-5 
 Divinities, Pleasing. 31
 
 386 
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Divinity. 351-2 
 
 Divinity and Harmony. 108 
 
 Divorce, Law of. 183 
 
 Dogs before Men. 241 
 
 Do it Now. 228 
 
 Doubt. 179, 
 
 Downward Path, The. 34 
 
 Drama. 214 
 
 Dream, A Child's. 147 
 
 " Dream of Fair Women, A." 270 
 
 Dreams, Analysis of. 151 
 
 Dreams, Unrealised in his Life. 
 
 316 
 
 Dreamthorp. 158 
 Drift, Letting Ourselves. 39 
 Drink. 160, 306 
 " Drink to me only with thine 
 
 Eyes." 10 
 
 Drinking, Five Reasons for. 160 
 Duchess, Painted, The. 249 
 Duty. 1, 80-3, 349-50 
 Duty of Delight. 192-3 
 Dying Day. 249 
 Dying Emperor. 238 
 Dying, On. 148, 149 
 
 Each for Each. 184 
 Each Man Three Personalities. 59 
 " Ear of Dionysius." 172, 348 
 Earth Dear, Heaven Free. 264 
 Earth Goeth to Earth, 354 
 Earth made for Man. 116 
 Earth, Mother. 209-12 
 Earth, Presiding Spirit of the. 278 
 Earth, The Wholesome. 201 
 East, The Unchanging. 152 
 " Ecce Homo." 16 
 Economy. 284 
 Education. 143, 180, 358 
 Effective Literature. 6, 48, 352 
 Effort. 250 
 
 Electricity and Plant Life. 72 
 Eliot, George. 327-8, 343 
 Elizabethan Authors. 357 
 Emerson's Heaven. 205 
 Emotion and Intellect. 202 
 Emotions, The Blunting of. 274-5 
 Empire and Adventure. 358 
 Empire and Democracy. 5 
 Empty Heads. 233 
 Enduring Literature. 227 
 England. 1, 2, 178 
 English and Classics. 291 
 English as Dreamers and Idealists. 
 358 
 
 English Characteristics. 358 
 
 English Conservatism. 181 
 
 English Constitution. 181 
 
 English Delusions. 358 
 
 English Faults. 358 
 
 English Superiority. 358 
 
 English Visitors. 178 
 
 English Wealth of Poetry. 358 
 
 Enough. 204 
 
 Enthusiasm, Early. 24 
 
 Epigrams. 144, 226-28, 251 
 
 Epitaphs. 96, 178, 287, 339, 354 
 
 Epitaphs, Exaggeration In. 178 
 
 Equality. 280 
 
 Error dies. 132 
 
 Essays. 347 
 
 Estrangement. 280-1, 301 
 
 Eternal Life. 214 
 
 Eternal Love. 122 
 
 Eternal Punishment. 123 
 
 Eternity. 166 
 
 Ethics, Ancient. 207-9 
 
 Et in Arcadia Ego. 148 
 
 Eugenics. 247 
 
 Events Great, Cause Small. 161 
 
 " Everlasting Yea," The. 83 
 
 Every Tale Told. 188 
 
 Evil chiefly Mental. 280 
 
 Evolution. 64-8, 189, 303-5, 306 
 
 Evolution, A Speculation Opposed 
 
 to. xi, 303-5 
 Exaggeration. 178, 338 
 Examinations. 153-55, 207-8 
 Example to Others. 61, 351 
 Excuses for Drinking. 160 
 Exemplary Life. 268 
 Exiles, Highland. 198-9 
 Existence, Previous. 92, 203-4 
 Experience. 73, 149-50, 256, 280, 
 
 309 
 Eyes, Infants', Solemnity of. 147 
 
 Faculties. 323 
 
 Fair Spectacle, A 25 
 
 Faith. 165, 
 
 Falsities, Rooted. 96 
 
 Fame. 85, 175 
 
 Familiarity destroys Romance. 
 
 280 
 
 Faust. 41 
 
 Fear and Death. 330 
 Fearlessness, vii, 267 
 Fear of Mrs. Grundy. 289 
 Fellow Feeling. 335 
 ' ' Feast of Adonis, The." 86
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 387 
 
 Few Wise. 146 
 
 Fickleness. 285-6 
 
 Fidelity. 221, 232 
 
 Fight On. 205 
 
 First Love 325, 352 
 
 Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam. 268 
 
 Flowers. 7, 149, 169 
 
 Folly, Proof of Our. 314 
 
 Fool, Gravest Man a. 257 
 
 Fools, One makes Many. 146 
 
 Fool, Playing The. 3.22 
 
 Fooling the People. 306 
 
 Fools, Majority Are. 146 
 
 Fools,We are. 22 
 
 Foresight. 351 
 
 Forestalled, xii 
 
 Forethought. 172 
 
 Forgeries, Literary. 45, 231 
 
 Forget Me. 28 
 
 Forgiveness. 51, 135 
 
 Franchise, Women and The. 314 
 
 Fraud, The Worst. 229 
 
 Freaks of Nature. 325 
 
 Freedom. 1, 6, 80 
 
 " Free Trade " Fetish. 358 
 
 Friend and Foe. 107 
 
 " Friend of Humanity, The." 223 
 
 Friends. 93 
 
 Friends, Breach Between. 301 
 
 Friends, Death of. 340 
 
 Friendship, Temporary. 107 
 
 Fugue. 13 
 
 Furnivall, Dr. 19 
 
 Future Life. 84, 127, 134, 204-5, 
 
 327-9, 346-8, 350 
 Future, The. 361 
 
 Gains. 195 
 
 Gallon, Sir F. 247, 374-8 
 
 Game of Chance Clergy Favour. 
 
 91 
 
 Gem, The. 277 
 Genealogy. 247 
 Genius and Thought. 78 
 Genius, Prerogative, of. 78 
 Genius, The Greek. 290, 366, 374 
 Gentleman, The First. 133 
 German Illusions. 166 
 German, Sword, The. 3 
 German Teaching. 2 
 Germans Surpassed. 358 
 Gethsemane, Solitude Of. 332 
 Giant, Sleep as a Gentle. 115 
 Gifts, Man's. 63 
 
 " Gipsy Child," To a. 237 
 Gissmg's " Henry Rycroft." 292 
 Giving and Having. 188 
 Giving is Receiving. 146 
 Gladstone, W. E. 339 
 Glaucus the Sea God. 129 
 " Globe, Letty's." 327 
 Gluttony. 306 
 God. 1, 2, 128, 160, 197, 233, 260, 
 
 God ever Present. 197, 285, 331 
 
 God, Evolution of. 166 
 
 God, Forgiveness Of. 287 
 
 God, Forgotten. 1 
 
 God, Guidance of. 285 
 
 God, Living To. 261 
 
 God, Man Like. 275 
 
 God, Man's Reflex. 128 
 
 God Watching. 2 
 
 Gods and Spectres. 144 
 
 Gods are Brethren. 97 
 
 Gods are Dumb. Ill 
 
 Gods, Greek. 293, 381 
 
 Gods, The on the side of the 
 
 Strongest. 49 
 God's Rest. 285 
 Gods that Pity. 215 
 Good, Doing. 150, 182, 201, 228 
 Good in every Man. 259 
 Good Nature. 151 
 Good never Lost. 275 
 Gorham Case, The. 15, 16 
 Grace for a Child. 239 
 Gravest Man a Fool. 257 
 Gray's Elegy. 109, 376 
 Great Man, The. 260 
 Great Men. 51 
 Greece, Foundations of. 289 
 Greece, Influence of. 289 
 Greek Anthology,The. 8-11, 306 
 Greek Civilization. 371 
 " Greek Genius, The." by R. W. 
 
 Livingstone. 290, 366-7, 374 
 Greek Glamour. 363-6 
 Greek Gods. 293 
 Greek Infanticide. 172-3 
 Greek, Incorrect Translation from 
 
 The. 173, 292-3, 372-3 
 Greek Intellect. 289, 369 
 Greek Life. 381 
 Greek Plays. 371 
 Greek Poetry. 290 
 Greek Religion. 217-18, 366-8. 
 
 370-2 
 
 25A
 
 3** 
 
 INDEX OP SUBJECTS 
 
 Greek Sense of Beauty. 379 
 Greek Sense of Colour. 380 
 Greek Sense of Humour. 365, 369 
 Greek Statesmen. 5, 375 
 Greek Statues and Temples. 380- 
 
 Greek Vice. 369 
 
 Greek Virtues. 368 
 
 Greek Want of Humanity. 173-4 
 
 Greek Women. 86-90, 173 
 
 Greeks, Falsehood, Theft, etc. 
 
 366-7 
 
 Greeks and Equality. 5 
 Greeks, Ignorance of The. 293, 
 
 369-71 
 
 Greeks or Germans ? 5, 367 
 Greeks, Shelley on the. 173, 289 
 Grief, Nation's. 3 
 Grief, Dry-eyed and Silent. 12 
 Grief, Solitary. 332 
 Griffin, The. 311 
 Grocer, The Fraudulent. 282 
 Grown Up. 142 
 Grundy, Mrs. 289 
 
 Habit. 172 
 
 Haeckel. 65-8 
 
 Hafiz and Tamerlane. 33? 
 
 Happiness. 83, 233 
 
 Harmony and Divinity. 108 
 
 Harrison F. xi 
 
 Harrison, Jane. 292 
 
 Harvard University Men. 2 
 
 Harvest of Pain. 213, 263, 268 
 
 Harvests, The Two. 233 
 
 Head, Heart Rules The. 241 
 
 Heart, A Wounded. 162 
 
 Heart's Compass. 324 
 
 Heaven. 84,123,358 
 
 Heaven alone Free. 264 
 
 Heaven and Hell. 123 
 
 Heaven, Browning's. 204 
 
 Heaven, Emerson's. 205 
 
 Heaven, Myers'. 205 
 
 Heaven Remembered. 243 
 
 Hebrides. 198 
 
 Hebrew Prophets. 134 
 
 Hegel's Philosophy. 105 
 
 Helen of Troy. 270 
 
 Hell. 123-4 
 
 Hellenism. 364 
 
 Herbert's Collection of Proverbs. 
 
 306 
 Herodotus. 173 
 
 Hero Worship. 323 
 
 Hidden, What Can't Be. 96 
 
 High Failure, Low Success. 233 
 
 Higher Criticism,The. 344 
 
 " Higher Mountain, The." 236 
 
 Highland Evictions. 198-9 
 
 Hilton, A. C. 50 
 
 History's Record. 2 
 
 Hodgson, Richard. vii, ix, x, 
 
 207-9, 346 
 Hogg, James. 340 
 Home is Homely. 184 
 Home, Satan At. 184 
 Home Thoughts. 345 
 Hope. 33, 42, 139, 359, 361 
 Homer. 292 
 Horrors. 148 
 Human Life. 251 
 Human Personality. 151, 346 
 Human Settees. 287 
 Humanity. 96, 138, 267 
 Humanity, The Spirit of. 209 
 Humour, Sense of. 248, 365 
 Huxley, T, H, 64-6 
 Hymn. 240, 319 
 " Hymn to God the Father, A." 61 
 Hypnotism. 151 
 Hysteria. 151 
 
 " I am Sick for Yesterday." 333 
 
 Ideal City. 269 
 
 Ideal Ills. 280 
 
 Ideals. 156 
 
 Ideals dragged to Earth. 269 
 
 Ideas Outgrown. 179 
 
 Ideas Superseded. 272 
 
 Idleness. 108, 262 
 
 " Identity." 130 
 
 Ills. 280 
 
 Illusions. 274 
 
 Imagination. 36-9, 146-7, 290, 
 
 357-8 
 
 Imagination aids Intellect. 357-8 
 Imagination, Characteristic of the 
 
 English. 358 
 Imagination, Practical Utility of, 
 
 The. 39, 356-8 
 " Imbuta." 324 
 Immortality. 346 
 Immortality, Promise of. 317 
 Immortality, Song and. 11, 
 
 Imperfection, Essential to Life.
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Impudence. 20 
 
 Inaction. 25 
 
 Independent Thinkers. 51, 54 
 
 Indexes, Want Ot. 291 
 
 Industry, Satan's. 137 
 
 Infant, Dead. 316 
 
 Infanticide. 172-74 
 
 Influence of undistinguished 
 
 Lives. 333 
 Influence of Women. 242, 333, 
 
 354 
 
 Influence of Wordsworth. 176-8 
 Ingratitude, Public. 1 
 " In Memoriam." 253 
 Innocence, Lost. 97 
 Insight. 323 
 Insomnia. 240 
 
 Inspiration. 10, 125, 214, 240 
 Insults, Emperors and. 338 
 Intellect and Morality. 323 
 Intention, Counts with God. 194 
 Interests Conflicting. 282 
 Interests, Vested. 96 
 Intimacy and Indifference. 264 
 Inventors. 72 
 
 Invisible, Tidings of the. 90 
 Inquisition, The. 16 
 Irony. 183 
 Irrevocable. 97 
 Iscariot, Judas. 74 
 Isocrates. 202 
 
 Isolation. 265-66, 280-1, 301-2, 
 I, What Am ? 103 
 
 Jansenists, The. 349 
 
 Jennie Kissed Me. 278 
 
 "Jest Book, Death's." 305-6 
 
 Jester's Plea, The. 289 
 
 "esus, Logia Of. 331 
 ohnson, Dr., and the Scots. 196-7 
 onah and the Whale. 7 
 udas Iscariot. 74-7 
 udges, Competent. 132 
 ustice and Empire. 5 
 ustice and Money. 182-3 
 ustice and Power. 166 
 'ustice of God, The. 287 
 
 Kaiser. 3, 338 
 Keats. 74 
 
 Kind, Make Haste to Be. 201 
 Kindred Souls, Failure to Recog- 
 nise. 187 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard. 131-2 
 Know, What do the Wisest ? 110 
 Knowledge. 101, 110-11 
 Knowledge, Obstacles To. 351 
 " Kritik of Practical Reason." 
 350 
 
 " La Belle Dame Sans Merci." 271 
 
 Labour, Loftiness of. 108 
 
 Labour, Uses of. 204 
 
 Ladder, Sorrows The. 263 
 
 Ladder, Vices as a. 262-3 
 
 " Lady's ' Yes ', The." 153 
 
 Lamb, Charles and Mary. 159-60 
 
 " Lamb, The." 115 
 
 Land Crabs. 163 
 
 Land, Silent The. 95 
 
 Laissez-Faire. 358 
 
 Laocoon, The. 380 
 
 Late, Too. 58 
 
 Latin, Pronunciation of. 19 
 
 Law, Court of, Satan's Home. 148 
 
 Law, English. 181 
 
 Law, Money and. 182-3 
 
 Law Reform. 181-4 
 
 Law Making, Ballad Making Before. 
 
 352 
 
 Lead, The. 267 
 
 Ledgers, Men change Swords for. 1 
 " L'Envoi." 244-6 
 Lese-majeste. 338 
 Let it be There. 62 
 " Letty's Globe." 327 
 Life. 13, 100, 114, 117-21, 152, 
 
 214, 227-8, 238-9, 251, 267-9, 
 
 310, 354, 360, 362 
 Life and Death. 250, 325 
 Life, Cruelty of. 148, 239 
 Life, is it Worth Living ? 165 
 Life, Memories of a Previous. 91-2 
 Life, Perilous. 321 
 Life, Prized. 250 
 Life, Sadness of. 239 
 Life, Secret of. 117 
 Life, Short. 201 
 Life, Struggle. 260 
 Life, Sweet. 347 
 Life, Tragedies of. 274-5, 294 
 Life, Uncertain. 140 
 Light, a Point in the Darkness. 
 
 269 
 
 Light and Life. 252 
 Light, the Speech between the 
 
 Stars. 12
 
 39<> 
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Lincoln, President. 306 
 
 Litany, Old Monkish. 309 
 
 Literature, Classification of. 227 
 
 Literature, Effective. 6, 48, 352 
 
 Literature of the 16th and 17th 
 Centuries. 283-4 
 
 Literature Superseded and Sur- 
 viving. 227 
 
 Literature, why the best Survives. 
 132 
 
 Literary Circles, Australia and 
 English, x 
 
 Lives^ Sad. 294 
 
 Living Past, The. 170 
 
 Living, Sympathy with the. 192 
 
 Locke, John, on Education. 180 
 
 Logia of Jesus. 331 
 
 London a Desert. 105-6 
 
 Long Expected. 125 
 
 Lost Days. 135 
 
 " Lotos Eaters, The." 329 
 
 Love. 12, 13, 24, 27, 41, 49, 78, 
 142, 158, 164-5, 196, 205, 222, 
 224, 244, 259, 306, 319, 355, 359 
 
 Love, Analysis of. 103 
 
 Love and a Cough. 96 
 
 Love and Duty. 224 
 
 Love and Life. 334 
 
 Love and Self. 199 
 
 Love, Brevity of. 13, 27, 30, 149, 
 162-3, 248, 274, 288 
 
 Love, Brotherly. 134 
 
 Love, Characteristics of. 134 
 
 Love Divine. 54, 315 
 
 Love Ennobles. 156 
 
 Love Episode, A. 326 
 
 Love, Eternal. 122 
 
 Love, First. 324-5, 352-3 
 
 "Love in the Valley." 302 
 
 Love, Mortal. 162 
 
 Love, Quest of. 41 
 
 Love, Second. 324 
 
 Love, Herbert Spencer, on. 103 
 
 Love Still-born. 255 
 
 " Love Sweetness." 330 
 
 Love, The meaning of the World. 
 323 
 
 Love, Wakes Men Once. 147 
 
 Love, What is ? 103 
 
 Loved Things Die. 181 
 
 Love's Cruelty. 126-7 
 
 Love's Delay. 57-9 
 
 " Love's Last Messages." 157 
 
 Love's Lovers. 248 
 
 Lover, Role of, Brief. 322 
 Lunacy. 35, 160, 215 
 
 Machiavelli. 312 
 
 Maiden Aunt, A. 130 
 
 Maiden's Heart, A. 107 
 
 Make Haste. 201 
 
 Making of Man, The. 216 
 
 Malays. 263 
 
 Mallock's " New Republic." 9, 310 
 
 Man. 81,275 
 
 Man, Loveable. 259 
 
 Man, Stereotyped. 150 
 
 Man's Dependence. 295 
 
 Man's Gains Remain his Own. 
 
 149-50 
 
 Man's Gifts. 63 
 Man's Greatness. 97 
 Man's Importance to Himself. 113 
 Man's Life. 100 
 Man's Perdition. 5 
 Man's Price. 77 
 Man's Vision. 323 
 Man's Work can help God. 165 
 Many Fools. 146 
 Marcus Aurelius. 215 
 Marriage. 90-1, 236 
 Marriage, only Game of Chance 
 
 Clergy Favour. 91 
 Marriage, Wife Requires to be 
 
 Courted, after. 236 
 Martineau, James, xi 
 Martyr, The. 155 
 Master of All. 160 
 Master, Our. 143 
 Marvel, A Two-fold. 131 
 Materialism, xi, 64-6, 102, 303-5, 
 
 316,327, 330 
 
 Materialism, Modern. 303-4 
 Matter. 104 
 Matter, Mind and. 102 
 Medical Prescriptions, Wesley's. 
 
 320 
 
 Meditations. 110-113 
 Melrose Abbey. 69 
 Memories. 161-2, 255, 314 
 Memories of This Life Hereafter. 
 
 170 
 
 Memories, Sweet. 255 
 Memory. 33, 159 
 Men and Beasts. 113 
 Men and Dogs. 241 
 Men before Angels. 348 
 Men, Great. 51-2
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Men, Sameness of. 150 
 
 Men, Tall. 233 
 
 Men, Women made Foolish to 
 
 Match. 80 
 
 Menzies, P. S. Sermons of. 271-3 
 Mercy. 287 
 
 Mercies, Small. 221, 222 
 Mermaid Tavern, The, 313-14 
 Micawber's Advice. 284 
 " Milk of Paradise." 313 
 Mill, James. 101 
 Mill, John Stuart. 116 
 Milton. 155, 343 
 Milton, Parody on. 274 
 Miltons, Mute. 357, 376 
 Mimnermus in Church. 347-8 
 Mind Affected by Age. 179 
 Mind and Body. 283 
 Mind and Matter. 102 
 Miracles. 315, 349 
 Miscellaneous. 48, 51, 60, 62-3, 
 
 182-4, 196-8, 268-70, 294-5, 
 
 332-5, 360-3 
 
 Misfortunes of Others. 251 
 Mistakes. 244 
 
 Modern Religious Thought. 141 
 Moliere. 32, 284 
 Money and Innocence. 97 
 Money and Law. 182 
 Money, God's Estimate of. 204 
 Monica's Vision. 144 
 Monkey, Man's Descent from. 64 
 Moon, The. 20 
 Morality and Intellect. 323 
 Mors et Vita. 348 
 Moslem Rule. 25 
 Moth, The. 222 
 Mother Earth. 209-13 
 Mother who -Died Too, The. 316 
 Miiller F. Von. 318 
 Multiplex Personality. 150-1 
 Murder. 34 
 
 Murray's, Gilbert, Euripides. 371-3 
 Music. 154 
 Music. 13-14, 108, 275-77, 302, 
 
 321-2 
 
 Music, Beauty like. 321-22 
 " Music in their Heart." 65 
 Muttons, Return to our. 182 
 " My Commonplace Book." 291 
 Myers, F. W. H. 205, 277, 316-1 7, 
 
 346-7, 363-81 
 Mythology, Greek. 292 
 
 Nakedness. 239 
 
 Nation's Ballads and Legislation. 
 
 352 
 Nation's Heart, Song that Nerves 
 
 a. 352 
 
 " Natural Religion." 330 
 Nature. 47, 90, 188, 240, 246, 
 
 252, 283-4 
 
 Nature, Contrary to. 47 
 Nature Echoes and Reflects. 189 
 Nature, Freaks of. 325 
 Nature, Good. 151 
 Nature, Intellectual and Moral 
 
 Inseparable. 323 
 Nature, Love of. 109, 164, 175-8 
 
 222-3, 283, 379 
 Nature, Love of, in 18th Century 
 
 and Earlier. 178, 283, 379 
 Nature the Old Nurse. 355 
 Necessity of Lovely Things. 164 
 Neither Good nor Bad. 134 
 Nescience. 202 
 New and Old Systems. 2 
 New Gospel, The. 66-8 
 Newton, Sir Isaac. 249 
 Night and Death. 252 
 Night, Death and Woman. 168 
 Night has a Thousand Eyes, x, 334 
 Night, Mysterious. 252 
 Night, Ships that Pass in the. 280-1 
 Nightingale, The. 11, 136, 279, 
 
 290, 292, 362 
 Nobleness. 280 
 Noblesse Oblige. 351 
 Nonsense Lines. 152-3, 228-9 
 Nostalgia. 203-4 
 Not One Christian. 159 
 Notes. The need for Author's, xii.71 
 
 Oblivion. 259 
 Object, A Common. 281 
 Objects, Good. 4 
 Obscurity, Browning's. 19 
 Octopus, The. 49-51 
 Odysseus, Ship of. 217 
 Old Age. 96, 164, 240 
 Old College Rooms. 229 
 Old Creeds. 343 
 Old Monkish Litany. 309 
 Old World Creed, An. 231 
 Old Year, The. 129 
 Omar Khayyam. 194, 268 
 " O May I Join the Choir In- 
 visible." 327-8
 
 392 
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 On a Fine Morning. 115-6 
 
 One Loves, the Other Submits. 
 242 
 
 One Poem, Fame for. 252 
 
 One Port Alike they Sought. 281 
 
 Opinion. 83, 102 
 
 Opinion, Private, Income Neces- 
 sary to. 54 
 
 Opinion, Change of. 256 
 
 Opportunities, Lost. 62 
 
 Opportunity. 262 
 
 Optimism. 350-1 
 
 " O, so White 1 O, so Soft ! O, so 
 Sweet is She ! " 335 
 
 Ossian. 231 
 
 " Ordeal of Richard Feverel." 
 326 
 
 Orthodoxy, xi, 16 
 
 Others' Misfortunes. 251 
 
 " Ought." 350 
 
 Ouida. 215 
 
 Ovid. 363 
 
 Owen, Professor. 64 
 
 Oxford. 19 
 
 " Pace that Kills," The. 174-5 
 
 Pagan and Christian. 173 
 
 Pain, The Harvest of. 213, 263, 
 
 268 
 
 Paine, Thomas. 6 
 Paradise, Milk of. 313 
 Paradise, Spirit of. 39, 40, 278 
 Paradise, Woman and. 63 
 Pardon, is God's Business. 287. 
 Pardons, Offender Never. 306 
 Parnassus and Poverty. 180 
 Parodies. 49, 220-1, 223-4, 248, 
 
 253, 274 
 
 Paronomasia. 61, 349 
 Parsons. 345 
 
 Passion and Philosophy. 294 
 Passions of Youth. 230 
 Past Self. 255-6 
 Past, The Living. 170 
 Pater's Philosophy. 309-10 
 Path to Wisdom, Thorny. 21 
 Paul, St. 133 
 Peace and War. 4 
 Peacefulness. 259-60 
 Pearls of Thought. 268 
 Pegasus, George Eliot's. 343 
 Penalty of Nobleness. 280 
 People, Plenty of Willing. 240 
 Perdition, Safety as. 5 
 
 ! Pericles. 5 
 
 Persian, From the 268 
 Personalities, each Man has Three. 
 
 59-60 
 
 Personality, Human. 151, 340 
 Pessimist. 257-8 
 Pets. 225 
 Pheidias. 380 
 Philosophy, Various. 101-5, 116, 
 
 165, 294, 309 
 Photography. 190. 
 Physician. 306 
 Pictures, Word. 85-6, 121-2, 
 
 166-7, 225-6, 270-1, 302-3, 
 
 336-7, 356 
 
 Pickwick Papers. 264 
 Plagiarism. 32, 360 
 Pleasure, Love Not. 83 
 Poem, Famous for One. 252 
 Poet alone Sees. 147 
 Poet and His Audience. 137 
 Poet, Autobiography of A. 125 
 Poet, Song of the. 136 
 Poet, The. 214,236 
 Poetic Imagination. 39, 40, 357-8 
 Poetic Passion. 310 
 Poets Condemned. 180 
 Poets Known for One Production. 
 
 252 
 Poets, poor Critics of their Own 
 
 Work. 57, 289-90, 
 Poetry. 63, 207, 214 
 Poetry and Poverty. 180 
 Poetry Creates. 214 
 Poetry Despised. 357-8 
 Poetry, England's Wealth of. 358 
 Poetry Immortal. 11, 347 
 Poetry, Important to Education. 
 
 358 
 
 Poetry, Insight into. 17, 137 
 Poetry, Legislation less Vital than. 
 
 352 
 
 Poetry, Neglect of. 218, 358 
 Poetry, Potent. 352 
 Poetry, Scope of. 136 
 Poetry, Subjects of, Alleged 
 
 Exhaustion. 188 
 Poetry Survives the Poet. 11,347 
 Poetry, Swinburne's. 219, 343 
 Poetry, Treasure-houses of. 10, 
 
 358 
 Points of View. 17, 204-5, 251, 
 
 265-6, 280, 340, 350 
 " Political Precepts." 175
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 393 
 
 Pollock, Sir F., Parodies by. 
 220-21 
 
 Pope Pius IX, xii 
 
 Popularity, Deferred. 132 
 
 Popularity, Seeking. 339 
 
 Possession Stagnates. 250 
 
 Positivism, xi 
 
 Posterity's Verdict. 132 
 
 Post-nuptial Courting. 236 
 
 Potter's Clay, The. 193-4 
 
 Poverty and Parnassus. 180 
 
 Power and Justice. 166 
 
 " Practical." 101 
 
 Praise of Beauty. 338 
 
 Praise of Tobacco. 241 
 
 Prayer. 133,282 
 
 Pre-raatrimonial Acquaintance- 
 ship. 131 
 
 Prescriptions, Absurd Medical. 
 320 
 
 Presiding Spirit, Earth's. 278 
 
 Pretence and Reality. 227, 262 
 
 Price, The. 200 
 
 Price, Man's. 77 
 
 Price, Wisdom's. 21 
 
 Pride. 156 
 
 Prize Fighter, The. 337 
 
 Progress or Lethargy . 125-6 
 
 Progress, Slow but Sure. 143, 257 
 
 Prometheus. 209 
 
 Promise. 350 
 
 Pronunciation. 19, 263-4 
 
 Prophets, The Hebrew. 134 
 
 Prosaic Person, The. 279 
 
 Proserpine. 211 
 
 Proverbs. 1S4, 197, 257, 306-7, 
 334-5 
 
 Prudent Scot, A. 197 
 
 Psychical Research, Society for. 
 xi, 172, 329, 339, 340, 347', 348 
 
 Psychology. 102 
 
 Public Servants. 339 
 
 " Pulley," The. 63 
 
 Pulsation Passage, Pater's. 310 
 
 Punishment, Eternal. 123 
 
 Puns. 6!, 349 
 
 Purification. 73 
 
 Puritan's Cat that broke the 
 Sabbath. 253 
 
 Pursuit more than Prize. 250 
 
 Puttenham, George. 356-7 
 
 Pyrrhus and Cineas. 197-8 
 
 Quakers. 247 
 
 " Queen, My, Sequel to." 57 
 Query. 215-16 
 Quest. 156 
 " Question, A." 127 
 Questions. 325, 328-9, 341, 350 
 Quixotism, One of Satan's Pet 
 Words. 159 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter. 357 
 Rank and Precedence. 280 
 Reapers, Sowers and. 107 
 Reason and Tradition. 159 
 Reasoning, The Art of. 34-6 
 Receptivity. 146 
 Record, History's. 2 
 Reform. 255 ' 
 Regret. 139 
 " Reinforcements," Children as. 
 
 52-3 
 
 Rejuvenation. 160 
 " Religio Medici." 108 
 Religion. 122-4, 134, 159, 227, 
 
 272-3 
 Religion and Love, Heralds of 
 
 Heaven. 149 
 Religion and Reason. 159 
 Religion and Science, Conflict 
 
 Between, xi, 64-8 
 Remember Me. 60 
 Remember or Forget. 27-30 
 Reminiscence of Past Existence. 
 
 203-4 
 
 Rennaissance, The. 365 
 Repentance. 41 
 
 Reputation, and Character. 196 
 " Requiem, A." 234 
 Requiem, Carlyle's. 332 
 Research, Society for Psychical. 
 
 xi, 172, 329, 339, 340, 347, 348 
 Rest. 63-4, 161, 285, 329 
 Reticence, Safety in. 250 
 Retribution. 137-8' 
 Reunion after Death. 348 
 " Revelation, The." 147 
 Reverence. 349 
 Rhymed Ends. 284 
 Riches. 188, 204 
 " Rights of Man, The." 6 
 " Rime of Redemption, The." 
 
 295 
 
 Rival, The. 34 
 Rogue, The, a Fool. 226 
 Roman Hardness. 172 
 Romance. 280
 
 .594 
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 " Romance, To the True." 36 
 Romantic Revival. 109 
 " Rose and the Wind, The." 53 
 Rossetti, Christina, 28 
 Rothschild, Lord. 36 
 Rowley Forgeries, The. 45 
 Ruskin, John. 133 
 
 Sabbatarian Puritan, The. 253 
 
 " Sacrifice." 5 
 
 Sacrifice-Self. 199-201, 272 
 
 Sacrifice-Self, Womans'. 62, 72 
 
 Sacrifice, Supreme. 2 
 
 Sad Old Age. 164 
 
 Sad Lines. 294 
 
 Safety as Perdition. 5 
 
 Sage, Narrow Stage for The. 322 
 
 Sand and Sugar. 282 
 
 Sand, Traced on. 286 
 
 St. Augustine's Ladder. 263 
 
 St. Monica's Vision. 144 
 
 St. Jerome's Tutor, xii 
 
 Sappho. 290, 292, 364, 366 
 
 Satan and Pardon. 41-2 
 
 Satan at Home. 184 
 
 Satan's Diligence. 137 
 
 Satan's Pet Words. 159 
 
 Sayce, A. H. 66-9 
 
 Saying Nothing. 183-4 
 
 Scaffold, Truth for Ever on the. 
 
 2 
 
 Scepticism. 64-8, 110-12, 206 
 Science and Wonder. 295 
 Science, Religion and. xi. 64-8 
 Scientist's Analysis of Love. 103 
 Scot, The Prudent. 197 
 Scotland, Dr. Johnson and. 1 96-7 
 Scotsman, Potentiality of The. 
 
 196 
 
 Scottj Sir Walter. 33, 69-70 
 Scottish Crofters, Song of The. 
 
 Scottish Washerwomen. 167 
 Scribes, The. 16 
 Scriptures, Veracity of the. 344-5 
 Search Perfects. 250. 
 Sea-song, A Great. 244-6 
 " Sea, The Other Side of the." 288 
 Sea, The Purifying. 166 
 Secret, Life's. 117 
 Security of Death. 73-4 
 Seeley's " Ecce Homo." xii 
 Self-Deception. 229 
 Selfishness. 151, 169, 180-1 
 
 Self-Reliance. 274 
 Self-Sacrifice. 5, 62, 72, 83, 378-9 
 Self-Surrender. 180, 199, 200-1 
 " Sentiment Kills, 'Tis." 284 
 Sermons, P.S. Menzie's. 271-3 
 Seth and Astronomy. 247 
 Settees, Human. 286-7 
 Seventies and Eighties, The. xi 
 Seventy Years Young. 240 
 Sex in Souls. 93-4 
 Sexes, Qualities of the. 93 
 Shade and Silence. 162 
 Shakespeare. 247, 290 
 Shambles, Civilization and the. 
 
 148 
 
 Shallow but Clear. 51 
 Shaving. 362 
 Shelley, 73-4, 289 
 Ship of Life. 152 
 Ships, all Romantic except our 
 
 Ow^i. 280 
 
 Ships Bound to same Port. 281 
 Ships that pass in the Night. 280-1 
 Sic vos non Vobis. 107 
 Sidgwick, Henry. 208 
 " Sigurd, the Volsung." 4 
 Silence Safe. 250 
 Silence Terrifying. 11 
 Silent Land, The. 95 
 Sin, Original. 61 
 " Sin, Vision of, The." 139-40 
 Singer's Plea, The. 352 
 Singing. 240 
 Skylark, Shelley's. 290 
 Slander. 148, 301, 306 
 Slaves, 48, 80, 375 
 Sleep. 115, 150-1, 157, 160 
 Sleep and Death. 114 
 Sleep, He Giveth His Beloved. 157 
 Sleep, Vigilance and. 150 
 Small Things, Neglect of. 196 
 Smile, Beauty's. 116 
 Snobbery, Social. 178 
 " Soapy Sam." 65 
 Society, the Browning. 19 
 Society for Psychical Research. 
 
 xi, 172, 329, 339, 340, 347, 348 
 Solace. 115 
 Soldiers Slighted. 1 
 Solitude, a City's. 106 
 Solitude of Grief. 332 
 Somnambulism. 151 
 Song that Nerves a Nation's 
 
 Heart, it a Deed. 352
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 395 
 
 Songs, A Nation's. 352 
 Sonnet, which Coleridge thought 
 
 the Finest. 252 
 " Sonnet, Scorn not the." 45 
 " Sonnets from the Portuguese." 
 
 45, 144, 293 
 Sorrow, 198, 213 
 Sorrow, The Worship of. 83 
 Sorrows, Light, Speak. 12 
 Soul, The. 15, 32, 51, 55, 129, 
 
 165-6, 178, 238, 251, 360 
 Soul's Aspiration. 251 
 Soul's Beauty. 201 
 Soul, Not the Eye, Sees. 178 
 Soul, The Crisis of the. 284 
 Soul, The Journey of the. 285 
 Sowing and Reaping. 107 
 Space, Terror of Infinite. 11 
 " Spasmodic School." 231 
 Special Creation. 303-5 
 Spell, for the Dying, A. 279 
 Spencer, Herbert. 101, 103-4, 105 
 *' Spider, Noiseless Patient, A." 
 
 360 
 Spirit, Adventurous, Created 
 
 Empire. 358 
 Spirit, A Parting. 279 
 Spirit of Paradise. 39, 40, 278 
 Spirit of the Age. 266 
 Spirit of the Universe. 246 
 Spiritualism. 171-2 
 " Spiritual Laws." 25 
 Spiritual World. 272 
 Spiritual World's Realities. 272 
 Spring. 253, 350 
 " Star, My." 8-10, 131 
 Star to Star. 12 
 Stars and Duty, The. 350 
 Stars and Fates. 40 
 Stars, Silence of. 39 
 Stars, Speech of. 12 
 Stars, Tasks of the. 108 
 State and Man. 166 
 Stephen, Sir Leslie. 171 
 Sterne's " Sentimental Journey." 
 
 283 
 
 Strange Verses. 230 
 Struggle, The, Availeth. 257 
 Struggle, Life's. 257, 260 
 Stupidity, as Protection. 274 
 Style. 291 
 
 Success, Wisdom and. 34 
 Sunshine to us is Darkness to 
 
 others. 282 
 Superstition. 15 
 
 Supreme Power Produces Mind, 
 
 The. 304-5 
 
 Surroundings, Familiar. 62 
 Survival after Death. 151, 250, 
 
 329, 346-8 
 Swinburne, xi. 49-51, 219-21, 
 
 259, 341-3, 347 
 Swiveller, Dick. 69 
 " Sword, Apotheosis of the." 3 
 Swords and Ledgers. 1 
 Sydney, Sir Philip. 357 
 Sympathy with the Living, not 
 
 " the Dead. 192 
 Symposium, Plato's. 381 
 Systems, Old and New. 2 
 
 Talent, Lost. 357, 376 
 
 Tall Men. 233 
 
 Taking Thought. 318 
 
 Tasks. 108 
 
 Tastes Differ. 265 
 
 Tavern, The Mermaid. 313-4 
 
 Teachers. 109 
 
 Tear Dries Soon. 306 
 
 Tearless Grief. 12 
 
 Tears, Harvest of. 213, 263, 268 
 
 Tears, Women's Secret. 232 
 
 Temptation. 71 
 
 Tennyson, xi 
 
 Teuton, God of the. 4 
 
 " The Night has a Thousand Eyes." 
 
 x, 334 
 
 " The Other Side of the Sea." 288 
 Theosophy. xi, 172, 209 
 " Thought, A Woman's." 311 
 Thought and Happiness. 354 
 Thought, Independence in. 51, 54 
 Thought, Modern Religious. 141 
 Thoughts Anticipated, Our. xii 
 Thoughts, Revivifying Old. 78 
 Three Personalities, Each Man has. 
 
 59 
 
 Throne, Wrong for ever on the. 2 
 Through a Glass Darkly. 241 
 Thrush, The Wise. 345 
 Thy Beauty's Silent Music. 321 
 Tidings of the Invisible. 90 
 Time, Allotted. 322 
 Time, All-powerful. 341-3 
 Time Swift and We Slow. 136 
 Time Wasted. 135-7, 166 
 Tobacco. 241-2 
 Tongue, Holding One's, Never 
 
 Repented. 250 
 Too Late. 58
 
 396 
 
 INDEX OP SUBJECTS 
 
 Torpor. 108 
 
 Toucan, The. 325 
 
 " Trade, Free," Fetish. 358 
 
 Tradition. 159 
 
 Training, Mental. 358 
 
 Travel and Empire. 358 
 
 Treason, Roman and German. 338 
 
 Trial by Jury. 358 
 
 Trial Test. 284 
 
 Trinidad, Island of. 163 
 
 Trivial Causes, and Great Events. 
 
 161 
 
 Trouble, Anticipating. 121 
 Troy, Helen of. 2tO 
 Troy, The Walls of. 302 
 Truth, 2, 104, 105 
 Truth, Champions of. 138-9 
 Truth, Daring to Speak the. 312 
 Truth for Truth's Sake, Love of. 
 
 343, 349 
 
 Truth, Marching on. 240 
 Truth, Pursuit of. 260 
 Truths. 104 
 
 Tucker, T. C., on Sappho. 366 
 Tupman, The Susceptible. 264 
 " Twilight, In the." 91 
 Twin, Happiness born a. 332 
 Two for a Kiss. 332 
 Two Lovers. 120 
 
 " Ulysses." 278 
 
 Unconscious Cerebration. 151 
 
 Under-world, The. x, 217 
 
 Universe, The Infinity of the. 11 
 
 Up-hill. 161 
 
 Utilitarianism. 116 
 
 Utility, Practical, of Imagination. 
 
 39, 291, 356-8 
 " Utopianism," one of Satan's 
 
 Pet Words. 159 
 
 Venus of Milo, The. 380 
 Veracity of the Scriptures, The. 
 
 344-5 
 
 Verrall, Dr. 348 
 Verses, Judging. 207 
 Verses, Strange Wedding Eve. 230 
 Vices as Ladders. 263 
 Vigilance and Sle^p. 150 
 View, Points of. 17, 204-5, 251, 
 
 265-6, 280, 340, 350 
 Virtue and Slander. 148 
 Virtue, Varying standards of. 174 
 
 Virtues, Christian. 359 
 Vision. 200, 284, 323 
 Vision of Sin, The. 139-40 
 Vision, Man's Degree of. 323 
 Visits made to Boast of. 178 
 Voice, Merely. 361-2 
 Voices, Two. 248 
 Von Miiller, Baron F. 318 
 Vox et Praeterea Nihil. 361 
 
 Waking, State Of. 150-1 
 Washerwomen, Scottish. 167 
 Washington and Thomas Paine. 6 
 War. 1, 2, 3, 6 
 Wars, Effect Of. 52 
 Wealth and Worth. 204 
 Wealth of Poetry, England's. 358 
 "Wedding, The Night before The." 
 
 230 
 
 Wesley's Character. 159 
 Wesley's Medical Prescriptions. 
 
 320 
 
 What am I ? 103-4, 241 
 What do the Wisest Know ? 110 
 " What of the Darkness ? " 53 
 " When shall our Prayers End ? " 
 
 321 
 
 When we are all Asleep. 215-16 
 Whence and Whither ? Ill, 152 
 Whetstone cannot cut but 
 
 Sharpens, A. 202 
 White, J. Blanco, xi, 252 
 Why not now ? 197 
 Wife must be Courted. 236 
 Wife, The Troublesome. 339 
 Wilberforce, Bishop. 64, 344 
 Will, Strong in. 278 
 Willing People. 240 
 " Wind and the Rose, The." 53 
 Wisdom. 246,310 
 Wisdom and Cunning. 226 
 Wisdom and Folly. 314 
 Wisdom and Success. 34 
 Wisdom, The Path Of. 21 
 Wise, Few. 146 
 Woman, 63, 72-3, 80, 94, 116, 203, 
 
 232, 242, 341, 343, 361 
 Woman and Tobacco. 241-2 
 Woman, Fickle. 34, 285-6 
 Woman, Paradise and. 63 
 Woman, Wasteful. 242 
 Woman's Influence. 242, 333, 
 
 354
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 397 
 
 " Woman's Thought, A." 311 
 Women, Cunning of. 314 
 Women Foolish, made to match 
 
 Men. 80 
 Women, Greek. 86-90, 173, 367, 
 
 375 
 
 Women, Tesuistical. 343 
 Women, Obstinate. 72 
 Women, Painted. 173, 249 
 Women, Paradise and. 63 
 Women Riddles. 94 
 Women's Chatter not changed in 
 
 Two Thousand Years. 90 
 Women's Self Sacrifice. 62, 72, 
 
 361 
 
 Wooing and Winning. 236 
 Words, Mere. 361-2 
 Wordsworth. 29-30, 54, 108-9, 
 
 175-8, 203-4, 248 
 Wordsworth, Defects of. 248 
 Wordsworth, Influence of. 54, 
 
 108, 177-8 
 Wordsworth, Parodies on. 248, 
 
 253 
 
 Work. 83, 108, 204, 240, 262, 278 
 Work and Worship. 355 
 
 Work Neglected, Remorse for. 
 
 136 
 World, Ancient and Modern, The. 
 
 95 
 
 World Creed, An Old. 231 
 World is Young, The. 16 
 World, Realities of the Spiritual. 
 
 272 
 
 World, Seduction of. 22 
 World, The Unjust. 170 
 World, The Wanton. 22 
 Worlds, Visible and Invisible. 
 
 236 
 
 Worship. 141, 261 
 Worth, Intrinsic. 277 
 
 Xenophon. 376 
 
 Yea, The Everlasting. 83 
 Young Life. 273 
 Young Seventy Years. 240 
 Youth and Age. xvi, 130, 267 
 Youth and Prohibition. 272-3 
 Youth, Ardent. 174 
 Youth, Heroic. 1 
 Zimmern, A. E. 374
 
 199 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 Aldrich, A. R. 24, 240 
 
 Aldrich, H. 160 
 
 Aldrich, T. B. 130, 137 
 
 Alexander, W. 136 
 
 Amiel. 149, 201 
 
 Anonymous. 77, 135, 148, 182, 
 
 198, 225, 229, 286, 308, 349 
 (See also Authors not traced). 
 Aristotle. 367, 369, 370 
 Arnold, E., Sir 58, 105 
 Arnold, M. 15, 127, 152, 162, 
 
 226, 236, 237, 265 
 Aurelius, Marcus. 215 
 Augustine, St. 263 
 Austin, A. 282 
 Authors not traced. 27, 35, 73, 
 
 91, 112, 120, 124, 127, 130, 
 
 136, 142, 161, 164, 226, 227, 
 
 231, 236, 240, 241, 242, 261, 
 
 268, 314 
 
 (Sec also Anonymous). 
 Bacon. 151, 178, 206, 226, 233 
 Bailey, P. J. 12, 21, 48, 101, 
 
 229, 257, 
 
 Bain, A. 102, 205 
 Balzac. 162 
 Bateson, W. 247 
 Beaumont, F. 313 
 Beddoes, T. L. 157, 262, 305 
 Bentham, Jeremy. 116, 181 
 Billing, W. 354 
 Blackstone, 181 
 
 Blake, W. 106, 109, 115, 166 
 Blanc, C. 283 
 Boreham, F. W. 52, 205 
 Bossuet. 123 
 Boswell. 124, 196, 197 
 Bourdillon, F. W. 334 
 Boyd, A. K. H. 197, 198 
 Brarhwaite, R. 228, 253 
 Bray. 153-155 
 Bromfield, J. 170 
 
 Brougham. 182 
 
 Brown, John. 362 
 
 Brown, T. E. 169, 180 
 
 Brown, B. 122 
 
 Browne, SirT. 72, 108, 123, 138, 236 
 
 Browning, E. B. 12, 24, 45, 144, 
 152, 157, 213, 285, 354 
 
 Browning, R. 13, 20, 24, 46, 
 71, 84, 104, 114, 118, 149, 193, 
 195, 204, 218, 224, 225, 233, 
 234, 242, 249, 255, 256, 260, 
 262, 269, 270, 275, 276, 284, 
 285, 303, 313, 317, 319, 333, 
 349, 356 
 
 Bryant, W. C. 285 
 
 Buchanan, R. 3, 20, 74, 84, 
 97, 114, 184, 215, 269, 287, 294 
 
 Burns, R. 41 
 
 Bunyan. 176 
 
 Byron. 71, 104, 170, 332 
 
 Calverley, C. S. 69, 107, 352 
 
 Campbell, T. 116 
 
 Campion, T. 126, 321 
 
 Canning, G. 223 
 
 Carlyle, T. 7, 83, 323, 331, 332, 
 
 355 
 
 Carroll, Lewis. 35, 70, 190 
 Chatterton, T. 42 
 Chaucer. 121, 212 
 Choenlus. 188 
 Cholmondeley, Hester. 77 
 Cleveland, John. 197 
 Clough, A. H. 125, 152, 167 
 
 24l, 257, 281 
 Colenso, Bishop. 344 
 Coleridge, D. 295 
 Coleridge, S. T. xvi, 30, 51, 72, 
 
 74, 78, 85, 93, 114, 146, 210, 
 
 226, 252, 271, 301, 312, 315, 
 
 336, 343, 344, 350
 
 400 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Colling, M. 146 
 Congreve. 97 
 Conway, M. D. 6, 64, 343 
 Corcoran, P. 337 
 Corneille, T. 270 
 Cory, W. 11, 347 
 Cowley, A. 238 
 Cowper, W. 117 
 Crashaw, Richard. 361 
 
 Darwin, C. 318 
 
 Dekker, T. 133 
 
 De Musset, A. 300 
 
 De Quincey. 34, 132, 227 
 
 De Rabutin. 49 
 
 De Stael, Mme. 61, 164, 313 
 
 Dickens, Chas. 34, 90, 98, 264, 
 
 284 
 
 Dickinson, G. Lowes. 368 
 Disraeli. 228 
 Dobson, A. 360 
 Donatus. xii 
 Donne, J. 61, 73, 247, 286 
 Douglas, M. 232 
 Dry den, J. 70, 118 
 Du Lorens. 339 
 
 Earle, J. 310 
 
 Edmunds, A. J. 170, 171 
 
 Eliot, George, iii, 12, 21, 33, 
 39, 62, 80, 96, 97, 120, 131, 
 139, 159, 170, 192, 203, 227, 
 249, 255, 256, 262, 269, 274, 
 279, 314, 322, 327, 333, 335, 
 336, 355, 361 
 
 Elmogadessi, A. E. 222 
 
 Emerson, R. W. 1, 5, 25, 121, 
 133, 158, 189, 205, 210, 221, 
 260, 280, 351, 355 
 
 Epitaphs. 96, 188, 232, 354 
 
 Euripides. 372, 374 
 
 Fitzgerald, E. 132, 147, 194 
 
 Fletcher of Saltoun. 352 
 
 Foote, S. 228 
 
 Fox, Caroline. 296, 313, 361 
 
 Franklin. 135 
 
 Fuller, T. 172 
 
 Galton, Sir F. 374 
 Gascoigne, G. 80, 321 
 Gibbon. 49 
 Gilder, R. W. 311 
 Gissing, G. 265, 292 
 
 Glover, T. R. 166 
 
 Goethe. 17, 136 
 
 Goldsmith, O. 139 
 
 Gordon, A. L. 360 
 
 Gosse, E. 128, 333, 338 
 
 Greek Anthology. 8, 9, 10, 11, 
 
 Gray, T. 109 
 
 Hafiz. 63 
 
 Hardinge, W. M. 8 
 Hardy, T. 115 
 Harrison, Jane. 292 
 Hawthorne, N. 361 
 Heine, H. 222, 287 
 Helps, A. 54, 233 
 Herbert, G. 63, 306 
 Herodotus. 311, 333 
 Herrick, R. 73, 122, 239 
 Hilton, A. C. 49 
 Hobhouse, Professor. 165 
 Hodgson, R. 102, 104, 105, 108, 
 136, 207, 259, 267, 288, 340, 359 
 Holland, Lord. 359 
 Holmes, O. W. 59, 161, 240 
 Homer. 218 
 Hood, T. 30, 349 
 Horace, 19, 202, 325 
 Howe, Mrs. J. W. 240 
 Hugo, Victor. 59, 285, 321, 338 
 Hunt, Leigh. 252, 278 
 Hunter, W. A. 338 
 Huxley, T. H. 64, 134 
 
 Irving, W. 165 
 Isocrates. 202 
 
 Tames, W. 148, 165 
 
 Jefferies, R. 351 
 
 Jeffrey, Lord. 132 
 
 Jerome, St. xii 
 
 Johnson, Dr. 178, 196 
 
 Jones, Sir W. 268 
 
 Jonson, Ben. 10, 178, 335, 339 
 
 Kant, I. 349, 350 
 Keats, J. 118, 121, 125, 149, 
 160, 162, 166, 271, 303, 314 
 Keble, J. 55 
 Kinglake, A. W. 25 
 Kingsley, Chas. 47, 221, 232 
 Kipling, R. 7, 36, 194, 242, 2 44 
 Knight, E. F. 163 
 Kjiowlea, F. L. 332
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS- 
 
 401 
 
 Lamb, Chas. 36, 159, 312, 316 
 
 Landor, W. S. 59, 322, 325, 330, 
 
 Lang, A. 90 
 
 Latimer, Bishop. 137 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H. 136 
 
 Le Galliene, R. 53, 188 
 
 Leigh, H. S. 182, 253 
 
 Lessing. 250 
 
 Lichtenberg. 146 
 
 Lilly, W. S. 207 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham. 150, 306 
 
 Lind, Jenny. 261 
 
 Litany, Monkish. 309 
 
 Littltdale, R. F. 123 
 
 Livingstone, R. W. 290 
 
 Locke, J. 179, 180, 226 
 
 Locker-Lampson, F. 289 
 
 Logia of Jesus. 331 
 
 Longfellow. 263, 280, 355 
 
 Lovelace, R. 321 
 
 Loveman, R. 350 
 
 Lowell, J. R. 2, 80, 91, 98, 113, 
 
 150, 229, 264, 268 
 Lowry, H. D. 29, 146, 253 
 Lyall, Sir A. 57, 110 
 Lynch, T. T. 52, 239 
 Lytton, Bulwer. 241 
 Lytton, Earl of. 70, 359 
 
 Macaulay, Lord. 312 
 MacDonald, G. 40, 42, 63, 86, 
 
 169, 179, 212, 244, 269, 287 
 Macpherson, J. 231 
 Maine, Sir Henry. 101 
 Mangan, J. C. 131 
 Marlowe. 41 
 Marston, P. B. 53 
 Martial. 91, 183 
 Martineau, J. 15, 34, 51, 66, 83 
 
 10 J, 140, 141, 257, 280, 303, 314 
 Masnair. 189 
 Mason, C. A. 282 
 Massey, G. 22, 125, 143, 253, ! 
 
 274, 315 
 
 Maule, W. H. 183 
 Melville, H. 286 
 Melville, G. S. Whyte-. 324 
 Menzies, P. S. 271 
 Meredith, George. 122, 213, 251, i 
 
 258, 294, 302, 326 
 Meredith, Owen. 70, 369 
 Middleton, R. 136 
 
 Mill, J. S. 54 
 
 Milton. 139, 155, 211, 214, 311 
 
 Moasi. 351 
 
 Moliere. 32, 341 
 
 Monod, A. 196 
 
 Montaigne. 114, 149, 229, 312 
 
 Montenaeken, L. 119 
 
 Moody, W. V. vii 
 
 Moore, T. 181, 325, 358 
 
 Morris, Lewis. 16 
 
 Morris, W. 4, 30. 41, 60, 271, 
 
 275 
 
 Murray, Gilbert. 372, 374 
 Myers, F. W. H. 133, 150, 199, 
 
 205, 277, 316, 339, 340, 346, 
 
 363 
 
 Navlor, H. D. 9, 10, 292 
 
 Neale, T. M. 263 
 
 Nicharchus. 306 
 
 Niebuhr. 214 
 
 Noel, Roden. 13 
 
 Novalis. 144, 149, 196, 202 
 
 Oldyg, W. 354 
 Oliphant, L. 178 
 Osier, W. 148 
 O'Sullivan, V. 319 
 Ouida. 214, 215 
 
 Paine, Thomas. 6, 134, 196, 247 
 
 Pascal. 11, 293 
 
 Pater, W. 309 
 
 Patmore, Coventry. 147, J56. 
 
 242, 309 
 Paul, St. 134 
 Payne, J. 149, 162, 163, 295, 
 
 318 
 
 Percy. 156 
 Penn, William. 228 
 Phillips, J. 274 
 Phillips, S. 323 
 Pioz/i, Mrs. 196 
 Plato. 129 
 Pliny. 215, 334 
 
 Plutarch. 175, 198, 250, 362, 370 
 Poe, E. A. 259 
 Pollock, Sir F. 221 
 Pope, A. 19, 91, 94, 148, 204, 
 
 249, 251, 256, 275 
 Praed, W. M. 206, 243, 356 
 Procter, B. W. (Barry Cornwall) 
 
 117
 
 402 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 Proverbs. 39, 51, 184, 197, 267, 
 
 306, 361 
 
 Prowse, W. J. 174, 236 
 Puttenham, G. 356, 357 
 
 Quarles, Francis. 1 
 Quiller-Couch, Sir A. 17 
 
 Raleigh, Sir W. 233 
 
 Kenan. 68 
 
 Richter, J. P. F. 72 
 
 Rogers, R. C. 307 
 
 Rogers, Samuel. 36, 105, 132 
 
 Rossetti, C. 27, 28, 58, 86, 161, 
 
 180 
 Rossetti, D. G. 12, 49, 79, 122, 
 
 135, 201, 248, 255, 324, 330 
 Ruskin, J. 132, 137, 159, 164, 
 
 192, 275, 283, 335, 370, 373 
 
 Sadi. 277 
 
 Sand, George. 360 
 
 Sappho. 292 
 
 Sayce, A. H. 66 
 
 Schreiner, Olive. 96, 239, 251 
 
 Scott, Sir W. 69, 279 
 
 Scott, W. B. 337 
 
 Scotus Erigena. 42 
 
 Sears, E. H. 260 
 
 Seebohm, B. 96 
 
 Seeley, Sir J. R. 16, 96, 172, 
 
 267, 330 
 Selden. 90 
 
 Seneca. 12, 33, 295, 337 
 Shakespeare, W. viii, 27, 36, 72, 
 
 73, 102, 167, 184, 286, 302, 336 
 Shelley. 10, 73, 85, 107, 114, 
 
 173, 209, 210, 211, 214, 231, 
 
 239, 279, 289, 361, 362 
 Shepherd, N. G. 34 
 Sidney, Sir Phillip. 159 
 Simonides. 290 
 Smith, Adam. 346 
 Smith, Alexander. 27, 78, 113, 
 
 158, 230, 264, 281, 347 
 Smith, S. C. Kaines. 368, 380 
 Smith, Sydney. 70, 78, 124, 
 
 227, 325 
 Smith, W. C. 96, 200, 268, 259, 
 
 345 
 
 Sophocles. 107 
 Spartianus. 238 
 Spenser, E. 26, 206 
 
 Spencer, Herbert. 101, 103, 
 
 291 
 
 Squire, J. C. 141 
 Sterling, John. 313 
 Sterne, L. 41, 100, 283, 307 
 Stephen, J. K. 131, 248 
 Stephens, J. B. 55 
 Stetson, C. P. 261, 359 
 Stevenson, R. L. 51, 8], 229, 
 
 255 
 
 Stowe, H. B. 144 
 Suckling, Sir John. 362 
 Swift, Jonathan. 72 
 Swinburne, A. C. 31, 42, 46, 78, 
 
 202, 216, 219, 220, 259, 274, 
 
 341, 347 
 
 Tabb, J. B. 85, 187, 316 
 
 Tacitus. 49 
 
 Tamerlane. 338 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy. 197, 252 
 
 Tennyson, A. x, 85, 129, 136, 
 
 139, 156, 199, 250, 263, 270, 
 
 278, 282, 290, 302, 329, 352, 
 
 356 
 Thackeray. 62, 81, 130, 263, 
 
 266 
 
 Theobald, L. 337 
 Theocritus. 86 
 Thomas, E. M. 316 
 Thompson, Francis. 11, 93 
 Thomson, J. 95, 105, 166, 167, 
 
 225, 234 
 
 Thoreau, H. D. 344 
 Thucydides. 5 
 Trench, H. 82 
 Truman, J. 175 
 Turner, C. Tennyson. 327 
 Tupper, M. 115 
 Tyndall, J. 65 
 
 Vaughan, H. 84, 203, 284 
 Vaughan, R. A. 188, 282 
 Verrall, A. W. 377 
 Verrall, Mrs. A. W. 194 
 Virgil. 107, 285 
 Voltaire. 32, 49, 160 
 
 Waddington, S. 201, 348 
 Wallace, A. R. 280, 377 
 Waller, E. 72, 240 
 Walpole, H. 284 
 Warner, C. D. 201, 314, 345
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 403 
 
 Waterhouse, E. 142 
 
 Way, A. S. 372 
 
 Wesley, J. 320 
 
 Westb'ury, F. A. 28 
 
 Westwood, T. 62 
 
 White, J. Blanco. 252 
 
 Whitman, Walt. 360 
 
 Whittier, T. G. 3, 28, 142, 160, 
 
 195 
 
 Whyte-Melville, G. J. 324 
 Wilberforce, Bishop. 344 
 Williamson, F. S. 168 
 
 Wordsworth, W. 1, 29, 40, 45, 
 82, 90, 97, 109, 122, 125, 135, 
 138, 146, 152, 164, 204, 211, 
 212, 223, 246, 248, 276, 278, 
 303, 340, 350, 378 
 
 Wotton, Sir H. 232 
 
 Xenophanes. 128 
 Xenophon. 292, 367 
 
 Yeats, W. B. 345 
 Younghusband,Sir F. 178 
 Zimmermann, J. G. 362 
 
 Zimmern, A. 
 
 374, 378
 
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