Leaders in Literature 
 
Leaders in Literature 
 
 Being Short Studies of 
 Great Authors in the 
 Nineteenth Century 
 
 
 
 By 
 
 P. Wilson, M.A. 
 
 Edinburgh & London 
 Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH 
 FOR 
 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FEREIER 
 
 EDINBURGH JLND LONDON 
 
To 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 I VENTURE to publish these Studies in the sincere 
 hope that they may become to the reader what 
 they have been to myself, a means of intellectual 
 and moral stimulus. 
 
 Owing to the recent and exhaustive " Memoir " 
 of the late Poet-Laureate, by his son, Lord Hallam 
 Tennyson, I have refrained from submitting any 
 estimate of mine of one who takes the first place 
 in the Poetical Literature of the Victorian Era. 
 
 Although the Leaders in Literature referred to 
 in this volume differ in many respects, they are 
 nevertheless at one in dealing with themes ever 
 interesting to the mind and heart of man. 
 
 P. W. 
 
 April 1898. 
 
 Vll 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 13 
 
 CARLYLE AND EMERSON : A COMPARISON .... 47 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 73 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 103 
 
 MRS. BROWNING 127 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 155 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 191 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER 219 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 251 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
"Man is a being of degrees ; there is nothing in the world which 
 is not repeated in his body ; his body being a sort of miniature or 
 summary of the world : there is nothing in his body which is not 
 repeated as in a celestial sphere in his mind : there is nothing in 
 his brain which is not repeated in a higher sphere in his moral 
 
 "All things ascend." EMERSON, Conduct of Life. 
 
 " We wake and find ourselves on a stair : there are stairs below 
 us, which we seem to have ascended ; there are stairs above us, 
 many a one, which go upward and out of sight." EMERSON, 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 EMERSON, leading easily in the Literature of America, 
 takes a high place amongst the best Authors any- 
 where. In harmony with his own saying, that 
 " great geniuses have the shortest biographies," the 
 main facts of his life may be told in few words. 
 
 Born at Boston in 1803, he was about four- 
 score years old when he died. His forefathers 
 were Puritan, many of them being preachers. 
 Emerson, following in their footsteps, became 
 minister in Boston of the Second Unitarian Church. 
 After a pastorate of three years, 1829 to 1832, he 
 resigned his charge, feeling, as John Morley puts 
 it, " the bondage of forms and of public prayer." 
 Thereafter, he took to Literature as his profession, 
 choosing to utter his thoughts from a platform, and 
 through the press, rather than from a pulpit. 
 
 It is easy to tell the story of Emerson's life, but 
 it is not by any means so easy to grasp his thoughts, 
 and it is as a great thinker that he ranks in 
 Literature. 
 
 For one thing, he lives, moves, and has his 
 being in a high and rare atmosphere ; and for 
 another thing, he is very sparing with his words. 
 
 13 
 
i 4 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Well has Emerson himself described his paragraphs 
 as " incompressible." 
 
 To use a simile which he applies to Truth, it 
 may be said that he is as difficult to catch as 
 Light. If anything, so far as intelligibility is 
 concerned, he ranks even worse than Hegel, the 
 celebrated German metaphysician. Eumour has it 
 that Hegel, on his deathbed, declared that there 
 was only one man in Germany who understood 
 his system, qualifying his admission by adding 
 " and he doesn't" But Emerson goes one more 
 than the famous German philosopher, for he is 
 frank enough to declare that he does not even 
 understand himself. " I could not," he says, " give 
 an account of myself, if challenged." 
 
 One of the peculiarities of a study of Emerson's 
 writings is, that although the student cannot well 
 tell what the gain has been, yet there is a latent 
 consciousness that there has been a gain in the 
 creation and increase of noble thoughts and moral 
 impulses. 
 
 Whatever else Emerson's writings may be, they 
 are genetic, and stimulating as mountain air. 
 
 It is not easy, as has been indicated, to say 
 in a word what Emerson really is from a literary 
 point of view. He is not a Poet, like Tennyson or 
 Browning, or like his own countrymen, Longfellow 
 or Lowell. His poetry is generally and justly 
 acknowledged to be a failure. There are not more 
 than a dozen living lines in all the verses that he 
 has written. 
 
 He is not a Novelist, like Scott, or Thackeray, 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 15 
 
 or Meredith. In fact, he is no Novelist at all, 
 looking with much scorn upon the whole of that 
 "juggling" tribe. 
 
 He is no Humorist, like Lowell or Mark Twain. 
 He has indeed an Essay on the Comic, but it is, if 
 anything, the dullest and saddest of all his Essays. 
 He is no Art-critic, like Ruskin. 
 
 One of the happiest descriptions of Emerson 
 is that of John Morley, who calls him "A great 
 interpreter of life." 
 
 In our opinion he is well characterised when 
 he is called a Moralist, for such he is, and that 
 of the intensest order. He glorifies two things, 
 and two things only Intellect and Virtue. 
 Without agreeing with him in his isolation of 
 Virtue, we most cordially agree with him in his 
 praises of it. Here he is always right and strong. 
 Whenever he comes to treat of Virtue his pen 
 runs, and his words are like thunder-peals from 
 Sinai. 
 
 Writing of Napoleon, he says that although 
 Napoleon did all that in him lay to live and thrive 
 without moral principles, yet he was ruined by the 
 eternal laws of man and of the world. As with 
 Napoleon, so, writes Emerson, is it with all like 
 him " where there is no moral principle, riches 
 will leave them sick ; there will be bitterness in 
 all laughter ; and wines will burn the mouth." 
 
 Emerson never for a moment loses sight of the 
 transcendental importance of morality. He is 
 neither dazed nor dazzled with our so-called 
 Civilisation, In the presence of the vital refine- 
 
16 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 ments of moral and intellectual steps, it is, he 
 thinks, frivolous to insist on the invention of 
 printing, or gunpowder, or steam-power, or gas 
 light, or percussion caps and rubber shoes. Vastly 
 before all these, he sets the appearing amongst 
 men of the Hebrew Moses, the Indian Buddha, 
 Socrates and Zeno, and the advent of Jesus. These 
 persons represent " causal facts," which carry forward 
 races to new convictions, and elevate the rule of 
 life. 
 
 II 
 
 So far as Keligion is concerned, the present 
 writer does not, and cannot, sail in the same boat 
 with Emerson. Not that his writings do not deal 
 with this great subject, for they are simply full of 
 it. It would, indeed, have been very surprising if 
 a writer like Emerson, a man of utmost sincerity 
 and intensest thought, had not written much on 
 the all-absorbing theme of Eeligion. He has, 
 however, very much to say here ; thereby putting 
 himself into line with the great writers of all the 
 ages. Nay, on his own principle, " that all things 
 ascend" he has reserved his last word for this great 
 theme. 
 
 Although it is difficult to define Keligion, perhaps 
 we are not far wrong in considering it to be man's 
 relation to the Highest. We somehow think that 
 Emerson himself would agree to such a definition, 
 although, amongst the many definitions of Eeligion 
 which he has given, the above does not find a place. 
 The definition of Eeligion just given is very simple ; 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 17 
 
 and yet it leaves room for variety of opinion as to 
 what the Highest may be with which a man must 
 be related if he be religious. 
 
 If it be possible to put a great matter like this 
 into a nutshell, we would say that Emerson differs 
 in his religious views from most, inasmuch as he 
 holds that the Highest is not personal, but im- 
 personal. Most people believe that Religion means 
 a personal relationship to a Personal God. Emerson, 
 however, believes that Religion means a personal 
 relationship to the Impersonal as the Highest; or 
 indeed, for he varies, a relationship to one's own 
 self. For reasons, which he considers sufficient, he 
 rigorously excludes from Religion the element of 
 the Personality of the Highest. 
 
 We do not remember if Emerson, anywhere in 
 his writings, calls himself a Pantheist ; and yet we 
 do not think that he is wrongly named when he is 
 named so, as he oftenest is. Many a time he em- 
 phasises the Impersonal as the Highest, and many 
 a time he insists upon trueness to one's self as the 
 very essence of all Religion worthy of the name. 
 
 In one of his Essays he writes of a distemper 
 called Chorea, in which the patient keeps spinning 
 slowly on one spot. We do not object to make 
 Religion the spinning round one centre, but we do 
 object to making this one centre that spot which is 
 called man's own self. In a single word, we consider 
 that the one grand defect in Emerson's Scheme of 
 Religion is his leaving out the element of the 
 Divine Personality, and man's relationship to a 
 Personal God. 
 
i8 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 It is because he has made the Impersonal the 
 Highest, or has made man's own self the centre in 
 Keligion, that he falls out of rank with such great 
 teachers as Browning, and Euskin, and Tennyson, 
 and even with Thomas Carlyle. Browning claims 
 to be written down as one who " believed in soul, 
 and was very sure of God." We gladly write down 
 Emerson as one who believed in soul, and that 
 with an intense belief; but we cannot claim him 
 as one who believed in the God of Browning, the 
 God of the Bible, or the God of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 Lowell speaks of him as having a Greek head 
 screwed on to Yankee shoulders, and such a de- 
 scription agrees well with actual facts, for Emerson 
 is more distinctively Greek than Christian. 
 
 As has just been said, he is very liberal in his 
 definitions of Eeligion they are indeed as plentiful 
 as blackberries in Autumn. Perhaps he never 
 came nearer a truer conception of Keligion from 
 the practical side than when he wrote of it as the 
 " doing of all good ; and, for its sake, the suffering 
 of all evil." Souffrir de tout le monde et ne faire 
 souffrir personne. Here are some of his definitions 
 of Keligion : " Man's public nature " ; " the moral 
 sentiment " ; " the flowering of human culture " ; 
 " the introduction of ideas into life " ; " putting an 
 affront on Nature by declaring, as its first and 
 last lesson, that the things which are seen are 
 temporal and the things which are unseen are 
 eternal." 
 
 We are quite sure that we do him no injustice 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 19 
 
 when we represent him as maintaining that Re- 
 ligion is faith in Laws for he is a great believer 
 in Laws. Once he cries out, with all the passion 
 of a devotee, " Law prevails for ever and ever." 
 Believing in cause and effect, he thinks that scepti- 
 cism justs means unbelief in this principle. A 
 passage like the following will indicate, better than 
 any words of another, what Emerson believes : 
 " A man does not see that as he eats so he thinks ; 
 as he deals, so he is, and so he appears. His son 
 is the son of his thought, and of his action. His 
 fortunes are not exceptions, but fruits, and what 
 comes out, that was put in. As we are, so we do ; 
 and as we do, so is it done to us. The dice are 
 loaded ; the colours are fast ; the globe is a battery, 
 because every atom is a magnet." 
 
 Following hard upon his Eeligion comes his 
 Creed. Emerson believes in the centre ; he loves 
 man ; he venerates the saints, although he is glad 
 that the old pagan world stands its ground, and 
 dies hard. He believes in a Divine Providence ; 
 he believes in the Immortality of the soul ; he 
 believes in thought, in intellect, in ideas. Once 
 we think only once he cries, " Oh, brethren, God 
 exists ! " It may be, as he himself has said, that 
 we are wiser than we know. 
 
 Morley has said that Emerson has not founded a 
 Church. And very likely he has refrained from 
 doing so, for the very good reason that one cannot 
 make bricks without straw. We can well excuse 
 him for not attempting to build a Church, whilst 
 we thank him with our whole heart for the good 
 
20 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 work which he has done in the world, work 
 that moves on lines which are moral rather than 
 ecclesiastical. Although we cannot claim him as 
 in harmony with those who regard Eeligion as a 
 personal relationship to a Personal God, it is well 
 to recognise that he is helpful in many ways to 
 those who have come to believe after this manner. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Emerson helps the cause of true Keligion by his 
 Idealism. He is an out-and-out Transcendentalist. 
 He is no Materialist, professing to discover in 
 matter the secret of the universe and of man, 
 will not allow, indeed, the Materialist to find a 
 rest for the soles of his feet in those atoms which 
 are the Materialist's unwise ultimate, for Emerson 
 insists that the atoms are not idealess, but, on the 
 other hand, that power and purpose ride upon each 
 of them. 
 
 Not only is he no Materialist, but he turns the 
 tables against the whole school. He is a great 
 believer in soul in soul, first ; in soul, second ; and 
 in soul, ever more. He believes, not that matter 
 generated, or generates mind or soul, but that mind 
 generates matter, that the soul makes the house, 
 that the world, indeed, is but the externisation of 
 soul. 
 
 Napoleon believed that the world was moved by 
 the pit of the stomach : Emerson looks in quite 
 another direction for the secret of the world's 
 government. He is sure that the world is moved 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 21 
 
 not by the pit of the stomach, but by the power of 
 Ideas and of Thought. 
 
 The grand old Book says, " In the beginning, 
 
 God " and Emerson would, we think, say 
 
 "Amen," if allowed to define God in his own 
 way. He is inexorable in his insistence on the 
 priority of Intellect ; the priority of Soul. Some- 
 where he says that the key to every man is his 
 thought, and would lend all his weight to the 
 doctrine, that a thought lies behind every thing. 
 
 One of his peculiar, and at the same time stimu- 
 lating, doctrines, is that of the Over-Soul that 
 Unity that Common Heart that great Nature in 
 which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms 
 of the atmosphere that unseen Source, whence 
 flows that wondrous river which brings to men 
 their best thoughts. 
 
 There need be no surprise that Emerson, living, 
 moving, and having his being in Idealism, is such 
 a worshipper of Plato that to him Plato is philo- 
 sophy, and philosophy is Plato. Neither should 
 there be surprise that he is in such sympathy with 
 the Idealism of Berkeley, and that he holds in still 
 greater admiration what he calls the Idealism of 
 Jesus, inasmuch as both Idealisms testify to the 
 fact, that all Nature is but the rapid efflux of 
 goodness executing and organising itself, not only 
 that God is, but that all things are shadows of 
 Him. 
 
 True to his Idealism, Emerson is not carried 
 away with the material display of a much-vaunted 
 Civilisation. Like Kuskin, he sets store on things 
 
22 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 better and deeper, questioning, indeed, whether 
 people are better, or wiser, or happier, for all 
 steam appliances and electrical apparatus. He 
 would prefer to have worse cotton and better 
 men. 
 
 That our age is so non-idealistic is, to Emerson, 
 one of its worst signs. Quoting, with approval, 
 the saying of Carlyle, that " that is bestial which 
 rests not on the Invisible," he greatly deplores the 
 fact, that whilst there is so much faith in chemistry, 
 meat, wine, wealth, machinery, steam engines, gal- 
 vanic batteries, turbine wheels, sewing machines, 
 and public opinion, there is none in the intellectual 
 and moral world, and in Divine causes. 
 
 A clear article in his Creed is that true man- 
 hood lives, moves, and has its being in another 
 current than the merely mechanical one. He regrets 
 that in our large cities the population is so Godless 
 and materialised, not men indeed, but hungers, 
 thirsts, and fevers, held together, after their 
 pepper-corn aims are gained, by the lime in their 
 bones, and not by any worthy purpose. He does 
 not forget that Columbus discovered the New World 
 in an undecked boat, and that Plato and Newton 
 were great men, even before the discovery of the 
 electric telegraph. 
 
 Emerson also helps the cause of true Religion by 
 his firm belief in the Immortality of Man. Were 
 we to put on record what we admire most in his 
 writings, we would single out his Essays on 
 " Compensation," on the " Over-Soul," and on 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 23 
 
 " Immortality." His Essay on " Immortality " 
 proved especially helpful. When Carlyle and he 
 the brightest stars in the literary firmaments of 
 two great countries, met together at Craigenputtock ; 
 after a walk over the long hills, they sat down 
 within sight of Criffel, and talked of the Immortality 
 of the soul. Very touching are the words of Carlyle 
 on that occasion, " Christ died on the tree that 
 built Dunscore Kirk yonder, that brought you and 
 me together. Time has only a relative existence." 
 
 Any writer who helps to a belief in the great 
 triad of subjects God, Freedom, Immortality, or to 
 a belief in any one of them, helps immensely the 
 cause of true Keligion. We deeply regret that 
 Emerson fails, so far as the belief in a Personal 
 God is concerned. We have a partial regret that 
 he makes so little of Freedom, and so much of 
 a crushing Fate. Yet we are grateful to him, 
 and greatly so, for his contribution on the funda- 
 mental truth of Man's Immortality. Here, he is 
 clear and sure as Tennyson ; clearer, indeed, than 
 Browning on natural grounds. 
 
 Without entering into anything like a full con- 
 sideration of the details in reasoning which led 
 Emerson to his conclusions on Immortality, it may 
 be said that whilst he maintains that this belief 
 cannot be proved by any kind of syllogism, he yet 
 holds that it cleaves so to the constitution of man, 
 that whenever we whisper his name we invariably 
 associate with it this immense belief in Immor- 
 tality. 
 
 Amongst other arguments advanced by him on 
 
24 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 behalf of Immortality, we have been struck with 
 the way in which he represents the unreasonable- 
 ness of thinking that a being, for whom so much 
 has been done, and on whom so much has been 
 spent, should pass into nothingness should drop, 
 to use the words of Tennyson, " into vacant darkness 
 and cease to be." There is something irresistible 
 in the way in which Emerson puts this thought in 
 the concrete. 
 
 Nature, he says, does not, like the Empress Ann 
 of Eussia, call together all the architectural genius 
 of the Empire to build, finish, and furnish a palace 
 of snow, to melt again to water at the first thaw. 
 Will you, he asked, with vast cost and pains, 
 educate your children to be adepts in their several 
 arts, and as soon as they are ready to produce a 
 masterpiece call out a file of soldiers to shoot 
 them down ? Only one answer can be returned 
 to such a question, and Emerson presses home 
 the argument, that our destiny may be inferred 
 from the preparation. 
 
 When dealing with this great theme of Immor- 
 tality, he presents with power such facts as these 
 that the soul does not age with the body ; that 
 we are just ready to be born when we come to 
 die ; that this world is for our education ; that 
 everything is prospective. 
 
 We have been much impressed with his assurance 
 that the " Creator keeps His word with us." 
 
 Not less convincing is his reference to our 
 delight in immense Time, and our devotion to the 
 Gracious Infinite that " Flying Ideal " which ever 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 25 
 
 leads onward and upward. Significant, in this 
 respect, are the words of the late Poet-Laureate, 
 as the shadows were gathering about him, proving 
 how the great thinker and the great poet are at 
 one in their belief in the Immortality of man 
 
 "When the dumb hour, clothed in black, 
 Brings the dreams about my bed, 
 Call me not so often back, 
 Silent voices of the dead, 
 Toward the lowland ways behind me, 
 And the sunlight that is gone ; 
 Call me rather, silent voices, 
 Forward to the starry tracts 
 Glimmering up the heights beyond me on, and always on." 
 
 Very helpful, too, in the cause of true Religion, 
 is the Individualism which permeates all his 
 writings. If he has missed the Personality of God, 
 and how he has missed it we fail to see, he has 
 certainly not failed to do justice to the personality 
 of man. This he acknowledges to the full, and 
 emphasises abundantly. He is quite sure that "you 
 are you, and I am I." Souls, he declares, are not 
 saved in bundles. The Spirit saith to the man, 
 " How is it with thee ? thee personally ? Is it 
 well? is it ill?" One would fancy that these 
 are not the words of Emerson at all, but of some 
 red-hot gospeller so germane are they to ordinary 
 religious teaching and language. 
 
 And very helpful, too, is his enthusiasm for 
 Virtue. We say enthusiasm, for Emerson's love 
 of Virtue could not be described by any weaker 
 
26 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 word. If, on the one hand, he has glorified 
 Intellect, on the other hand, he has glorified 
 Virtue. In this utter devotion to Virtue he is 
 more like a Hebrew prophet than a Greek sage. 
 He speaks of that " grand word ' ought/ " and 
 makes as surely in intention for righteousness as 
 the arrow for its mark. Whatsoever things are 
 true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, 
 find through him ample acknowledgment and 
 encouragement. 
 
 Meditating on Virtue, he cannot contain himself, 
 and exclaims : " When one loves the Eight ; then is 
 Truth beautiful within, and without, for ever more. 
 Virtue, I am thine : save me use me. Thee will 
 I serve day and night, in great and in small, that 
 I may be, not virtuous, but Virtue." 
 
 We claim him as an ally in the cause of true 
 Eeligion, when we remember his conception of 
 Human Life. Morley calls him "A great inter- 
 preter of life " ; and to a certain extent he deserves 
 the description given of him by one of his greatest 
 admirers. He is no Pessimist. To him life is 
 no vulgar joke. Holding life sacred, not cheap 
 he is terribly in earnest about it. He would have 
 people write on their hearts, that every day is 
 the best day, that every day, indeed, is doomsday. 
 " It is a gay and pleasant sound," he says, " to 
 hear the whetting of the scythe in the mornings 
 of June ; yet what is more lonesome and sad than 
 the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle, when it 
 is too late in the season to make hay ? " 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 27 
 
 He believes that life may be lived nobly, 
 although it be lived in poverty. He does not 
 forget that the Gods have come to earth in the 
 lowliest of guises, and quotes with approval the 
 words of Milton, that the epic Poet, he who shall 
 sing of the gods, and their descent unto man, must 
 drink water out of a wooden bowl." 
 
 Measuring life by its depth, rather than by its 
 length, he looks more up than down, more to 
 the end than to the beginning. One of his 
 favourite thoughts is " that all things ascend " 
 that we are on a stair, stairs below us, and stairs 
 above us. To his credit, he thinks most of all of 
 the stairs which go upward and out of sight. 
 
 Meanwhile, " we are only half human ; there is 
 no animal which has not got a footing in our 
 nature, and there is often an ebbing of the soul 
 downward into the animal nature." And so, like 
 Tennyson, he calls upon man, as with the blast of 
 a trumpet, to " work out the beast, and let the 
 ape and tiger die." The population of the world 
 a conditional population, is not at its best. 
 " There shall be a better, please God." 
 
 Still another thing, helpful to the cause of true 
 Keligion, is his unsparing criticism of what often 
 passes for Keligion. Here he plays the part of the 
 candid friend. Churches and Ministers come under 
 his lash. So far as we remember, he has not one 
 good thing to write either of the one or the 
 other. 
 
 When in Scotland, he was impressed with the 
 
28 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 insanity of dialectics among the intellectual. " By 
 taste, ye are saved " Is his summary of the Gospel 
 of the Church of England. Everything and every- 
 body seemed in a bad way. He heard Ministers 
 who could not preach, and Ministers who could not 
 pray ; Ministers who were ashamed to plead for 
 Missions, and to urge to a godly life ; Ministers 
 who were ashamed to rebuke blasphemies, and 
 so on. 
 
 The Church was tottering to its fall; Faith was 
 dead ; Keligion was almost gone. Instead of 
 sucking at the roots of right and wrong, the 
 Church almost encouraged a divorce between 
 Religion and Morality. And then he takes notice 
 of such a levity in all the creeds. " Witness," he 
 writes, " the heathenisms in Christianity the 
 periodic "revivals" the Millennium mathematics 
 the peacock ritualism the retrogression to 
 Popery, etc. . . . Not knowing what to do, the 
 Churches stagger backward to the mummeries of 
 the dark ages." 
 
 It is well to see ourselves as others see us, and 
 in so far as the lines in the picture drawn by 
 Emerson are true to fact, they deserve the most 
 careful attention ; and yet we may be allowed to 
 say, that there are lines awanting which ought 
 to have been in lines there which ought never 
 to have been, and lines which are all too dark. 
 
 In all conscience, the religious world is bad 
 enough, and yet we venture to think that it is 
 not anything like so bad as he makes it. There 
 are Ministers who can preach and pray, who are 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 29 
 
 as real as the " snowstorm," to which he so 
 graphically refers, Ministers who are not ashamed 
 to do each and all of the duties referred to in 
 his criticism. We are not aware that the right 
 kind of Religion has ever sought to proscribe 
 intelligence, or prevent the human mind from 
 orbing out. The Book which is the Supreme 
 Standard says " If ye will enquire, enquire ye." 
 
 IV 
 
 Whilst there is much in Emerson's writings 
 helpful to the cause of true Religion, we are 
 bound in all honesty to state that there is like- 
 wise much that is hurtful. 
 
 Perhaps the very head and front of his offending 
 lie in his notion of the Impersonal. The soul, he 
 writes, knows no persons ; it invites every man 
 to expand to the full circle of the Universe. 
 Persons themselves acquaint us with the Imper- 
 sonal. In all conversation between two persons, 
 tacit reference is made to a third party, as to a 
 common nature. That third party is not social: 
 it is Impersonal, it is God. When Emerson utters 
 his last word on the great theme of worship, he 
 says that the new Church will be founded on 
 moral science without shawms, or psaltery, or 
 sackbut, having science for symbol and illustration. 
 The nameless Thought, the nameless Power, the 
 superpersonal Heart, man shall repose alone on 
 that. The Laws are his consolers those simple 
 and terrible Laws. 
 
30 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 And he has the courage of his opinions. All 
 through his writings his tendency is to rest in 
 Fate, in Duty, in Law, in Intelligence, in the full 
 circle of the Universe, in the Over-Soul. It is 
 this which makes him so ill at ease with the 
 prominence given by Christians, and in the Chris- 
 tian Faith, to the Person of Jesus, leading him to 
 write of it as a " noxious exaggeration," and giving 
 him the hardihood to declare that the Person of 
 Jesus will yet retire before the sublimity of moral 
 laws. 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying that a theory 
 of the Universe, ending with such impersonal en- 
 tities, comes short of what is highest and best, even 
 in ourselves. In this he is the type of that large 
 class of theorists whose ultimate is not a Personal 
 God, but a World-Order, or Infinite Substance, or 
 a Persistent Force, or a Power, not ourselves, that 
 makes for righteousness. All such theories are 
 smitten with the unreasonableness of maintaining 
 that a thing is more than a thought, and that a 
 thought is more than a thinker. 
 
 We are aware that many shrink from accepting 
 the idea of a Personal God, because they think 
 that in doing so they would limit that which 
 ought to be Infinite, and also through a dread of 
 Anthropomorphism. As for the fear of limiting 
 the Infinite by ascribing to Him the element of 
 personality, it is surely well not to forget that 
 there may be degrees of perfection, in this very 
 matter of personality, ranging from the finite to 
 the infinite, and that we are warranted in concluding 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 3! 
 
 that God has absolutely that which man possesses 
 but imperfectly. As Lotze writes : " Perfect per- 
 sonality is in God only ; to all finite minds there is 
 allotted but a pale copy thereof." 
 
 And then, regarding the dread of Anthropo- 
 morphism, a ghost which many a philosopher calls 
 up from the vasty deep, it is well to remember that 
 a man may as easily seek to escape from his own 
 shadow as escape from being anthropomorphic in 
 his conceptions of the Universe and of God. There 
 is indeed no choice, for Emerson is as anthropo- 
 morphic when he speaks of the Over-Soul, as any 
 ordinary Christian is when he speaks of " our Father 
 in Heaven." 
 
 Having accepted the impersonal as the ultimate, 
 we are not surprised at his antagonism to Prayer, 
 although we deeply regret it. Kemembering how 
 he puts it on record that these words were written 
 on the gates of Busyrane " Be bold " ; and on 
 the second gate " Be bold, be bold, and ever more 
 be bold " ; and then again at the third gate " Be 
 not too bold " ; we venture to say that Emerson 
 is too bold in entering, as he does, into that Holy 
 of Holies called " Prayer." He utters many a word 
 on the duty of self-reliance, but never a word on 
 the duty of God-reliance, the very soul of prayer. 
 
 Are not these words a travesty of this sacred 
 exercise ? And yet they are Emerson's own 
 words : " Prayer is the contemplation of the facts 
 of life, from the highest point of view. It is the 
 soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul the 
 Spirit of God pronouncing His works good. To 
 
32 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 work is to pray. The prayer of the farmer kneel- 
 ing in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower 
 kneeling with the stroke of his oar, these are true 
 prayers heard throughout nature." 
 
 We are startled at definitions like these, but we 
 are shocked when he writes about prayer as a 
 means to effect a private end as neither brave nor 
 manly, as vicious, as meanness and theft, as a 
 disease of the will, etc. 
 
 Where now, we ask, are the oft-repeated counsels 
 which he gives, " Obey your own heart," and " Be 
 true to yourself " ? We believe, most assuredly, 
 that instead of Prayer being a " disease of will," there 
 is nothing more natural to the human heart all the 
 world over, and in all ages. We regret to utter it, 
 but utter it we must, that in so far as Emerson is 
 antagonistic to Prayer, he has failed sadly to fulfil 
 the function ascribed to him of being a " great in- 
 terpreter of human life," and has thereby cut himself 
 off from the company of the great revealers of the 
 human heart. In this he is quite at variance with 
 his adored Shakespeare, as he is also at variance 
 with those other poets who have laid bare human 
 nature as a nature which moves as readily to Prayer 
 as doves fly to their windows. Mrs. Browning 
 excels Emerson as an interpreter of life, and gets 
 nearer the true nature of our humanity when she 
 writes in " The Cry of the Human " 
 
 ' ' ' There is no God,' the foolish saith 
 
 But none, There is no sorrow. 
 And Nature, oft the cry of Faith 
 In bitter need will borrow : 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 33 
 
 Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 
 
 By wayside graves are raised, 
 And lips say, 'God be pitiful,' 
 
 Which ne'er said, 'God be praised.' 
 Be pitiful, God." 
 
 like many others in the present day, Emerson 
 maintains that Divine Eevelations are still going 
 on that God's Bible is not closed, that vision and 
 prophecy are not sealed. An opinion like this can, 
 of course, be vsry easily tested by taking the con- 
 tributions of a writer like Emerson himself to the 
 world's volume of wisdom. What new light, it 
 may be asked, has dawned upon the world since he 
 has come and gone ? And what is the answer but 
 this, that no new light has dawned upon the world 
 through Emerson's advent. He has restated with 
 power some few, precious, moral and spiritual truths, 
 but he has not originated any. 
 
 There is nothing new in telling people to be true 
 to themselves, in preaching a gospel of work, or 
 falling in love with Love. It is true that he 
 maintains, that the visible rests on the invisible, 
 that the soul is infinitely precious, and that duty 
 is a noble thing; but we have heard all this 
 before. 
 
 We are deeply indebted to him for recording his 
 assurance of man's Immortality, but we have the 
 conviction, that had not this truth shone so clearly 
 on another Page, and in another Place, it would not 
 have shone so clearly in the writings of Emerson. 
 It is the Divine Word alone that prevents us 
 writing again to-day the " IF " that was written on 
 3 
 
34 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 the portal of the Temple at Delphi, and that pre- 
 vents multitudes from saying with the dying Kabelais, 
 " I am going to see the great Perhaps." 
 
 Emerson relates a very touching anecdote about 
 two Materialistic Senators of the American Con- 
 gress, who, whilst attentive to the ordinary routine 
 of public duty, were yet deeply concerned with 
 such questions as the Immortality of the soul. 
 
 These friends, after being separated from each 
 other for some five-and-twenty years, met at a 
 crowded reception at the President's house, Wash- 
 ington. Their first words were questions : " Any 
 light, Albert?" "None," replied Albert. "Any 
 light, Lewis?" "None," replied Lewis. They 
 looked in silence in each other's eyes, gave one 
 more shake each to the hand he held, and thus 
 parted for the last time. 
 
 We do not tarry to consider Emerson's denuncia- 
 tion of Dogma and the Worship of the Past. If 
 Dogma be, as we think it is, religious truth stated 
 as scientifically as possible, then we fail to see how 
 anyone, more especially a writer like Emerson, is 
 entitled to speak so bitterly against it. It has 
 been said that " Athanasius defined, because Arius 
 shuffled." 
 
 As for the Worship of the Past, making Keligion 
 a quotation, as Emerson says so many do, never 
 thinking our own thoughts, nor uttering our own 
 words, nor going our own ways, all that we 
 have to say is this, that we are ready to change 
 our worship of the Past to a worship of the 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 35 
 
 Present, when it has been shown that the Present 
 is superior to the Past in wisdom or in worship- 
 fulness. 
 
 We do not blame him for his devotion to Plato, 
 but we question his right to blame anyone for 
 devotion to Jesus. Emerson sat at the feet of 
 Plato, because Plato was to him the incarnation of 
 Wisdom ; and we sit at the feet of Christ, because 
 He is to us, not only greater than Plato, but has a 
 Name which is above every Name. 
 
 Emerson hits out vehemently at some person 
 whom he calls the "vindictive theologian." And 
 when the matter is narrowly looked into, it does 
 not amount to much after all ; turns out, indeed, 
 to be another instance of the " Idolon Fori " the 
 writer being the victim of a word. We acknow- 
 ledge that the word " vindictive " sounds badly, 
 carrying along with it the idea of revengefulness 
 and malice. But, we ask, is there such a Theology, 
 or such a Theologian ? 
 
 Emerson fastens this name upon the Theologian 
 who maintains that there conies a time when the 
 heart of the sinner is so hard, the conscience so 
 seared, the character so confirmed, that his destiny 
 is fixed, and that for ever; and fixed for ever, 
 because it is impossible to lead him to repentance 
 and conversion. But surely it is possible for a 
 Theologian to maintain such opinions without being 
 at all " vindictive." 
 
 And here an appeal must be taken from Emerson 
 unwise to Emerson wise. It so happens, there is 
 no other writer who has preached with more 
 
36 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 earnestness and clearness the fearful doctrine of 
 Retribution. 
 
 If ever there was one who believed with his 
 whole heart and soul, that a man shall reap what 
 he has sown, that writer is Emerson. He believes, 
 with an intense belief, that what comes out is that 
 which was put in ; that for each offence there is a 
 several vengeance, that reaction is the rule of the 
 universe, that every secret is told, every crime 
 punished, in silence and certainty ; that crime and 
 punishment grow out of the same stem ; that you 
 cannot do wrong without suffering wrong; that 
 where there is an inlet of crime there is an outlet 
 of suffering. 
 
 Surely it ill becomes one who preaches Nemesis 
 after this fashion to fling stones at the Theologian, 
 who simply declares that character may be irre- 
 vocably fixed, that sowing the wind ends in reaping 
 the whirlwind, that sin is followed by punishment, 
 and eternal sin by eternal punishment. 
 
 We regret that Emerson did not say less or say 
 more about the Founder of the Christian Faith. 
 Honest enough, he does not withhold his tribute 
 of admiration for the character of Christ. He 
 considers that Jesus was both good and great, 
 worthy to be classed with the good and great of 
 Greece, and Kome, and Egypt, and Persia, and 
 India. 
 
 He speaks of Him as that sublime spirit, that 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 37 
 
 noble and good heart, as one who has not written 
 but ploughed His Name into the history of the world. 
 
 We do not quarrel with Emerson, in so far as 
 he, a Unitarian, did not acknowledge the Deity of 
 Christ; but when he says that we are afraid to 
 speak of Christ as a man, lest we degrade His 
 character, we have to say that our fear is not to 
 degrade His character if we speak of Him as a 
 man, but lest we take His character quite away Si 
 non Deus, non bonus. 
 
 It will scarcely be believed that Emerson con- 
 siders that Christ did not preach the personal 
 Immortality, and it will scarcely be believed that 
 when he handles the question of the Kesurrection, 
 whilst telling people to go and read Milton and 
 Shakespeare, or any truly ideal Poet to go and 
 read Plato or any seer of the interior realities 
 to go and read St. Augustine, Swedenborg, and 
 Immanuel Kant, he deliberately refrains from ad- 
 vising his readers to go to the Gospels, so full of 
 the words of Eternal life. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that whilst he often 
 refers to Christ as a Teacher, as One who had a 
 deep insight into the soul, and into the essential 
 worth of man, he never once, so far as we remember, 
 refers to Christ as a Saviour. And yet why should 
 we be surprised at this omission, when we discover 
 that he has entirely omitted any reference to the 
 terrible fact of sin. If there be no disease, there 
 is, of course, no need for a Physician. It is, how- 
 ever, surely a matter for wonder, how anyone can 
 either pose or be called " a great interpreter of 
 
38 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 human life" who is blind, at once to the deepest 
 and most awful fact of human existence and to the 
 gladsome truth that the Healer has come. Sings 
 Dora Greenwell 
 
 " He didn't come to judge the world, He didn't come to blame, 
 He didn't only come to seek, it was to save He came ; 
 And when we call Him, Saviour, then we call Him by His 
 Name." 
 
 VI 
 
 Emerson's sayings are like bits of broken glass. 
 His style has been called a " difficult staccato." 
 He is nothing if not epigrammatic. He is oracular, 
 and is so purposely. Let the following suffice as 
 illustrating his tendency to Epigram : 
 
 " Everyone can do his best things easiest." 
 
 " Right Ethics are central, and go from the soul outwards." 
 
 " We must not be sacks and stomachs." 
 
 " Life is a sincerity." 
 
 " Great is Drill." 
 
 " Hitch your waggon to a star." 
 
 " Difference from me is the measure of absurdity." 
 
 " Every hero becomes a bore at last." 
 
 " You are you, and I am I, and so we remain." 
 
 " Plato is philosophy, and philosophy is Plato." 
 
 " All things are double, one against another." 
 
 "The Devil is an ass." 
 
 VII 
 
 Emerson's works are full of thoughts on all sorts 
 of subjects. He has a delightful page on the 
 interesting and imperious ways of babies, and on 
 the charm of a schoolgirl's love. He tells of a 
 mistress who was in a sad plight because of her two 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 39 
 
 maidens ; one of whom was absent-minded, and the 
 other absent - bodied. He was, upon the whole, 
 favourably impressed with the people whom he saw 
 in England. He thinks that the Englishman, of all 
 men, stands firmest in his shoes ; and that by com- 
 parison, the American is a bag of bones. The 
 women in England are the finest in the world. 
 The English people are characterised by common 
 sense and thoroughness. 
 
 He quotes a story, which he says he heard every 
 day, about an Englishman and a Frenchman who 
 fought a duel, and who agreed to fight it in a dark 
 room so as to reduce the chance of fatality to the 
 minimum. The Englishman, in his magnanimity, 
 fired his pistol up the chimney, and brought down 
 the Frenchman who had fled there for refuge. 
 
 The English, he says, have a passion for utility. 
 The Frenchman invented the ruffle, but the English- 
 man added the shirt. The English kiss the dust 
 before a fact, have a terror of humbug, and pay an 
 absolute homage to wealth. 
 
 It will be a surprise to some to know that he 
 even sets himself up for an authority in matters of 
 Etiquette. A gentleman, he says, makes no noise ; 
 a lady is serene. A gentleman gives the law where 
 he is. He out-prays the saints in the chapel, out- 
 generals the veteran in the field, and outshines all 
 courtesy in the hall. He quotes approvingly the 
 words of Talleyrand: "Above all, gentlemen, no 
 heat." There should be no loud laughter, no call 
 beyond ten minutes, no exaggeration. We are to 
 beware of jokes, and never name sickness in society. 
 
40 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 VIII 
 
 His mode of using scientific data is not only 
 striking, but even startling. The unity of the 
 whole is a favourite idea of his. Perhaps he would 
 not go as far as to say that there is natural law in 
 the spiritual world, but he does go as far as to say 
 that natural law has its counterpart in the spiritual 
 world, or, as he himself puts it, the " laws above are 
 sisters to the laws below." 
 
 He has borrowed from Swedenborg the truth, that 
 nature exists entire in leasts, and that the mind is 
 a finer body. There are, he says, no straight lines 
 in nature. Everything there goes by indirection. 
 
 He refers to the agitation of Newton when his 
 hand so shook and the figures so danced, on the 
 verge of his great discovery of the Law of Gravita- 
 tion, that he was forced to call in an assistant to 
 finish the computations. And Emerson asks, Why 
 so agitated ? and answers himself by saying Why ? 
 but because Newton saw in the fall of an apple to 
 the ground, the fall of the earth to the sun, the fall 
 of the sun, and all suns, to the centre. His per- 
 ception was accompanied by the spasm of delight, 
 by which the intellect greeted a fact more immense 
 still a fact really universal holding in intellect 
 as in matter, in morals as in intellect " that atom 
 draws to atom throughout Nature, and truth to truth 
 throughout spirit." 
 
 One of his most suggestive chapters is a chapter 
 on " Circles," and one of his most suggestive state- 
 ments is, that " around every circle another one can 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 41 
 
 be drawn " a fact, used by Emerson, to indicate 
 the expansiveness of the human mind. He quotes 
 Augustine's definition of God as a " Being whose 
 centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is 
 nowhere " ; and we think that he would define man 
 as a being whose centre is here, but whose circum- 
 ference extends everywhere. 
 
 IX 
 
 Although Emerson quotes Talleyrand to the 
 effect that he finds nonsense singularly refreshing, 
 there is little of this in his own writings. Now 
 and again he is merciful enough to introduce an 
 incident or two fit to provoke a smile. His descrip- 
 tion of the atmosphere of London has the brevity of 
 wit " On a fine day it is like looking up a chimney, 
 and on a foul day it is like looking down one." 
 
 He tells of the poor woman who came from her 
 wretched garret for the first time to the seashore, and 
 was greatly delighted that for once in her life she 
 had seen something of which there was enough for 
 everybody. 
 
 He quotes the wise word of an Indian Chief, of 
 the Six Nations of New York, to one who was com- 
 plaining of the shortness of time, " Well," said Ked 
 Jacket, " I suppose you have all there is." 
 
 X 
 
 We are not surprised to learn that Emerson 
 has much to say on Development that idea 
 
42 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 which so holds the field in modern thought ; only, 
 his eye is fixed on man's goal, rather than on 
 man's starting-point. Of course, as an Idealist, 
 he has no sympathy whatever with those who 
 look for man's start in frog's spawn. When 
 Emerson begins, he begins with mind, with soul, 
 with God. 
 
 He does not account for soul by matter, but 
 rather accounts for matter by soul, and sees 
 opening out before man an endless vista for 
 progress. 
 
 He writes of the " Flying Ideal," and adopts 
 Swedenborg's forms, to the effect that the mental 
 series tallies with the material series ; that the 
 circular is the perpetual-angular ; the spiral, the per- 
 petual-circular ; the vortical, the perpetual- spiral ; 
 the celestial, the perpetual- vortical ; and the spiritual, 
 the perpetual-celestial. According to Emerson, all 
 things ascend everything in nature climbs to a 
 higher platform. Conscious of our insatiable demand 
 for more, and of our enormous ideal, he encourages 
 a Divine discontent. 
 
 He is sure that in presence of that Ideal, which 
 he calls the Gracious Infinite, we can never be 
 content with either things or persons. There is 
 no such critic and beggar as our own terrible 
 soul. Genius, counting all its miracles poor and 
 short, is never able to execute its own ideas. 
 The Iliad the Hamlet the Doric column 
 the Koman arch the Gothic minster, when 
 they are ended, the master casts them behind 
 him. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 43 
 
 Here we find the cue to that Optimism which is 
 so happily characteristic of him, and of his best 
 teaching, so far as life is concerned. He is pas- 
 sionately on the side of the higher nature. 
 
 He is a strong advocate of Education, looking 
 upon it, we fear too hopefully, as the Panacea for 
 all the ills of life. The best heads take, he says, 
 the best places. 
 
 Like Carlyle, he preaches incessantly and earnestly 
 the gospel of Work. " I say it," he writes, " but 
 Nature says it of tener, Work ' " " Stick to one 
 business, young man." He has a crown for the 
 head of him of whom it can be said that he " toils 
 terribly." He quotes what a brave painter once 
 said to him " There is no way to success in our 
 art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work 
 like a digger on the railroad, all day and every 
 day." 
 
 His sympathies are altogether on the side of 
 Freedom with man's heaven-born right to get on. 
 He regards self-government as the best of all govern- 
 ments, as the true end, indeed, to which all civic 
 government should tend. 
 
 " God said, I am tired of Kings, 
 
 I suffer them no more ; 
 Up to my ears the morning brings 
 The outrage of the poor. 
 
 I will have never a noble, 
 
 No lineage counted great ; 
 Fishers, and choppers, and ploughmen 
 
 Shall constitute a State. 
 
44 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 My angel his name is Freedom 
 Choose him to be your King. 
 
 He shall cut pathways, East and West, 
 And fend you with his wing. 
 
 And ye shall succour men ; 
 
 Tis nobleness to serve. 
 Help them who cannot help again, 
 
 Beware from right to swerve." 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON: 
 A COMPARISON 
 
"There is in man, a Higher than Love of Happiness ; he can 
 do without Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness." 
 
 " Love not Pleasure ; love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, 
 wherein all Contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and 
 works, it is well with him." CARLYLB, Sartor Rcsartiis. 
 
 " Virtue, I am thine : save me : use me : thee will I serve, day 
 and night, in great, in small, that I may be not virtuous, but 
 Virtue. " EMERSON, ' ' Miscellanies. " 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON: 
 A COMPARISON 
 
 IN one of his books, Lowell comes down very 
 heavily upon Carlyle for his deep disdain of human 
 nature and his Literature of Despair. In estimating 
 these two great writers, Carlyle and Emerson the 
 greatest of two great continents, Lowell not only 
 places Emerson superior to Carlyle, but insists that 
 Emerson should be compared, not with Carlyle, but 
 with Plato. 
 
 As the present writer felt aggrieved at this esti- 
 mate, on the score of a first love, and also on the 
 score of simple justice, he was constrained to look 
 into the matter a little more closely, and has ven- 
 tured to express his opinion on this subject. 
 
 There is much to be said in defence of Lowell's 
 partiality for Emerson, and his severity towards 
 Carlyle. As is well known, Lowell was a passionate 
 friend of the slave, and did much by his eloquent 
 and humorous pen to set the enslaved free. And, 
 alas ! Carlyle cannot be called a friend of the slave. 
 He was all wrong on the Nigger Question, and took 
 the wrong side in the American War. One is 
 shocked to read that he believed that the black 
 
 47 
 
48 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 gentleman was born a slave by appointment of God 
 Almighty, and therefore that slave he ought to be 
 to the end of the chapter. Of all heresies this is 
 surely the rankest, setting at defiance both of God's 
 Bibles; that Bible which we call Humanity, and 
 that other Bible which we call the Book of God. 
 There is little wonder that Lowell, the friend of the 
 slave, did not take kindly to Carlyle, who was no 
 friend of the slave. 
 
 And then, Lowell was devoted to America ; and 
 thought there was no land in the world to be com- 
 pared with it. Valuing its political independence, 
 he was as keen for its literary independence and 
 glory. This being so, we need not be surprised 
 that he was inclined to minimise a writer like 
 Carlyle, who was honest enough to say that he set 
 little value on America, or anything in it. 
 
 Carlyle acknowledged, without worshipping, 
 America's cotton crops, and Indian corn, and dol- 
 lars ; and it must have sorely vexed Lowell's 
 patriotic soul to read how Carlyle declared that he 
 knew of no great thing that ever came out of 
 America no great thought, no great soul. America's 
 vast population eighteen millions of people were 
 contemptuously spoken of by the Sage of Chelsea as 
 "Eighteen millions of the greatest bores in all God's 
 universe." 
 
 We are constrained, however, to reverse Lowell's 
 conclusions ; and, as the outcome of what we believe 
 to be a just comparison, to give Carlyle the superior 
 place. 
 
 With a single exception, we consider Carlyle to 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 49 
 
 be a greater man than' Emerson greater in genius, 
 in intellect, in force, in scholarship, and in influence. 
 We say, with a single exception, and that exception 
 is, that Emerson is much more optimistic than 
 Carlyle. He is sunny and cheerful, clinging to the 
 thought of melioration. Things may look bad, but 
 they shall be better, please God. 
 
 It would not be true to call Carlyle an out-and- 
 out Pessimist, for he is not that ; although, especially 
 in his latter days, his outlook was very gloomy. 
 He was fond of quoting his master, Goethe's poem, 
 ending with the words, "Work, and despair not." 
 His parting counsel to the students of Edinburgh 
 University was the word, "We bid you be of 
 hope." 
 
 And yet, these are but gleams in a great dark- 
 ness. Carlyle's picture of the age is painted in 
 blackest hues. He heaps words upon words, to tell 
 of its shams, and un veracity, and hypocrisy, an age 
 without God, without Soul, and without Religion 
 an age of Flunkeyism, and Mammonism, and Dilet- 
 tanteism an age of Scoundrelism an age of 
 Ballot-Boxes, and Counting Heads an age of Shoot- 
 ing Niagara. The whole head is sick, and the whole 
 heart is faint. 
 
 There is much that is wrong, says Carlyle, with 
 the Body Aristocratical. He is dissatisfied with our 
 Lords and Dukes, who care for nothing so much as 
 Game-preserving and Partridge-shooting. He would 
 have these gentlemen remember their duties, as well 
 as their privileges. There has been a French Revo- 
 lution ; there may be a British one as well. 
 
So LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 There is much that is wrong with the Body 
 Ecclesiastical Carlyle considers Bishops as but 
 poor Overseers of souls. This is No. 51, in his 
 brief Catechism, in Jesuitism, one of the Latter- 
 Day Pamphlets : " ' What are Bishops ? ' Overseers 
 of Souls. 'What is a Soul?' The Thing that 
 keeps the body alive. ' How do they oversee 
 that ? ' They tie on a kind of Apron, and publish 
 Charges." 
 
 He comes down heavily upon Bishops, and spares 
 not Ministers of any degree. Whilst he acknow- 
 ledges that it is a good thing to have a person 
 set apart to speak on spiritual things, he thinks 
 that Ministers have wandered terribly from the 
 point. 
 
 And there is much that is wrong with the Body 
 Social The age is too Democratic. The Suffrage 
 is too universal. There's too much counting of 
 heads, Judas Iscariot is considered to be as good 
 as Jesus Christ. There's too much beer and balder- 
 dash. There's too much talk the whole regiment, 
 indeed, has gone to drum. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Carlyle is pessimistic, 
 and that his pessimism is in contrast with Emerson's 
 optimism. 
 
 Of Carlyle's pessimism, this, however, must be 
 said, that he is at least sincere in his mood. If 
 he were pessimistic, it is because the burden did 
 indeed lie heavily on his soul No one will question 
 this, who remembers his portrait of later times 
 the face like that of Dante " the mournfullest face 
 that ever was painted." 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 51 
 
 With this single exception, that Emerson is 
 more optimistic than Carlyle, we are constrained 
 to place Carlyle superior to Emerson, and that all 
 along the line. 
 
 II 
 
 Perhaps the greatest difference between Carlyle 
 and Emerson is to be found in their political views, 
 meaning by that, their views regarding the best form 
 of National Government. 
 
 If we accept Abraham Lincoln's definition of 
 Democracy, as " Government of the people, by the 
 people, and for the people," we may regard Emerson 
 as favouring Democracy upon the whole ; although 
 he had the strong conviction that the less Govern- 
 ment the better. Emerson endorses the saying of 
 Fisher Amos, that Monarchy is a merchantman 
 which sails well, but which will sometimes strike 
 on a rock and go to the bottom ; whilst Eepublicanism 
 is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet 
 are always in the water. 
 
 Carlyle's views of the best form of National 
 Government are not very clear to the reader, very 
 likely because they were not quite clear to him- 
 self. One thing, however, is certain, that, like the 
 Irishman, he was " Agin' the Government." 
 
 He is terribly severe against Downing Street 
 against that talking apparatus called Parliament 
 against game-killing Dukes and Lords against 
 miraculous Premiers against Ballot-Boxes and Uni- 
 versal Suffrage against Democracy in general. 
 
 He is especially severe against Universal Suffrage 
 
52 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 counting of heads, as the way of getting the 
 ablest and wisest as Governors of the nation. He 
 would give the Suffrage to some to how many 
 we don't know and he would give to the others a 
 dog muzzle, and plenty of water on a summer's 
 day. 
 
 He cannot believe that out of our " Twenty-seven 
 millions, mostly fools," we can get any good thing. 
 He cannot believe that out of unwisdom we can get 
 wisdom, any more than we can get gold out of the 
 Thames mud. 
 
 Carlyle favoured an Aristocracy rather than a 
 Democracy as the best form of National Govern- 
 ment, the right kind of Aristocracy, however ; not 
 an aristocracy of King's clothes, but of Kings inside 
 the clothes real Kings, and not sham ones real 
 Captains, not phantom ones. 
 
 He believed that we should be governed by the 
 ablest that is, by the wisest a belief to which 
 all will say Amen. The difficulty is how to get 
 hold of them. A favourite illustration with Car- 
 lyle is a ship sailing round Cape Horn; and he 
 reminds his readers that all the voting of all 
 the crew will never take that ship round Cape 
 Horn, that only one thing will take that ship 
 round Cape Horn, and that is the wisdom that lies 
 in the head of the Captain. That, and that alone, 
 and not voting this way or that, will be of any 
 avail when the icebergs begin to come dangerously 
 near, and the storms begin to blow. 
 
 But Carlyle has not solved the Government 
 difficulty, with his illustration of the wise Captain 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 53 
 
 who alone can take the ship round Cape Horn, for 
 the difficulty of getting the good Captain still re- 
 mains. Very obviously, just as the owners of the 
 ship selected the Captain, so the owners of the 
 nation should select their Governor or Governors. 
 Carlyle simply says, they can't do it. To which the 
 remark may be made, the sooner they are helped to 
 do it the better. 
 
 In other words, the principle of a Democracy is 
 one which is sound and just, only all lovers of their 
 country should see to it that the Democracy is the 
 best that can be educated, sober, wise, moral, and 
 religious. 
 
 One is somewhat surprised that Carlyle, who 
 came himself from the people, should be so severe 
 on Democracy. Surely a source that has given to 
 the world such an one as Carlyle himself has in it 
 marvellous possibilities of good government, and of 
 good everything. 
 
 His little plan of securing the ablest as Governors 
 of the nation would vest in the Queen the power 
 to select the wisest of the land, and to say to this 
 wise man here, and that wise man there, " Come 
 thou, and thou, and govern, and help me to govern, 
 this great Empire." 
 
 No doubt Carlyle had the notion lying some- 
 where in his head, that the Queen could have found 
 at least one to help her in the government of this 
 great Empire, one who lived not far from Cheyne 
 Row, Chelsea. 
 
 And yet, things are better as they are. It was 
 better for this land and for all lands, for this age 
 
54 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 and for ages to come, that Carlyle toiled away at 
 his desk in Cheyne Eow over his French Revolution, 
 and his Frederick the Great, or even his Latter-Day 
 Pamphlets, than that he should have passed his time 
 drafting Parliamentary Bills. Although he may 
 have thought otherwise, Carlyle was more profitably 
 engaged writing his books, than if he had been a 
 Privy Councillor to her Majesty the Queen. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Whilst we consider Carlyle to be the greater of 
 the two, there are many interesting points of re- 
 semblance. 
 
 Carlyle and Emerson are much alike in their 
 pious ancestry and upbringing. We have not so 
 many details of Emerson's forebears as we would 
 like to have, but we know that he came of a good 
 Puritan stock. He was the son of a Unitarian 
 Minister, and was for a while a Unitarian Minister 
 himself. 
 
 On the other hand, there is perhaps no cele- 
 brated person of whom more is known than of 
 Thomas Carlyle. He had a good father and a good 
 mother, members of the Burgher Kirk in Eccle- 
 fechan. Of that Kirk, the Kirk of his childhood, 
 Carlyle thought much, thought more, indeed, of that 
 humble Meeting-house, thatched with heath, than 
 of the biggest Cathedral. There were " tongues 
 there of authentic flame." 
 
 He was proud of his peasant father ; would not 
 have exchanged him for all the Kings ever known 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 55 
 
 to him. If anything, he was prouder of his mother, 
 who, although neither rich nor learned, was one 
 whom he loved and revered " best of all mothers," 
 as he calls her. 
 
 After all that has been said of Carlyle's Keligion, 
 we cling to the hope that, as he himself has said, 
 his Keligion and that of his mother were essentially 
 one. 
 
 Both Carlyle and Emerson had thoughts of the 
 ministry as their profession. Emerson was for a 
 time a Minister, and Carlyle was on the threshold 
 of the ministry. He was a Divinity student at 
 Edinburgh University, but turned back because of 
 " grave prohibitory doubts," but not before he had 
 preached a sermon from the text, " Before I was 
 afflicted, I went astray." 
 
 Both became preachers; and let it be added, 
 good preachers too, because preachers of Righteous- 
 ness. It is true that they did not wholly find 
 their texts in that Book which we call the Bible. 
 They got texts elsewhere in the great books of 
 Nature the human heart conscience, and history. 
 Their books are their sermons, and their congrega- 
 tions are the peoples of every land, wherever English 
 Literature is known. 
 
 They were much alike in their resilement from 
 Creeds and Formulas. Emerson gave up his posi- 
 tion as a Unitarian Minister because of his uneasi- 
 ness under the bondage of Forms and of Public 
 Prayer; and Carlyle, as we have just said, drew 
 back from the ministry because of his " grave pro- 
 hibitory doubts." 
 
56 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Both Carlyle and Emerson deal hard blows 
 against Creeds and Formulas, and against those 
 who favour them. Mirabeau, one of Carlyle's 
 heroes, was, as he reminds us, a "Swallower of 
 Formulas." 
 
 All readers of Carlyle are familiar with his 
 abhorrence of " Cant," and we take the liberty of 
 remarking that this wholesale denunciation of all 
 Creeds makes one fear that Carlyle and Emerson 
 can " cant " with the worst. There are Creeds and 
 Creeds. It is indeed impossible to do without a 
 Creed of some sort or another. The Atheist and 
 the Materialist are on the same footing here with 
 the Calvinist. It may be granted that the Uni- 
 verse is not constructed altogether in accordance 
 with the Westminster " Confession of Faith," but 
 the Universe is constructed in some way ; and it is 
 surely the part of a wise man to see to it that he 
 has got some idea of how this matter stands. 
 Carlyle has a Creed, and Emerson has a Creed, 
 and everybody has a Creed. Nay, everybody who 
 is sincere considers his Creed the right one. 
 Orthodoxy, says Carlyle, means my Doxy, and 
 Heterodoxy means your Doxy. 
 
 Very likely, what Carlyle and Emerson mean to 
 insist upon is just this, that one's Creed should not 
 be a something that we put on and off, as we do 
 our clothes, but that it should be what one does really 
 believe, what one does really lay to heart about 
 the world and the Maker of it, and our duties and 
 interests here. 
 
 Emerson's greatest Commandment is, " Obey 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 57 
 
 your own heart " ; and Carlyle never ceases insisting 
 on a life-and-death certainty, on a belief which is 
 at least genuine. 
 
 As Carlyle reminds us, the Eomans believed in 
 Jupiter, and the Greeks believed at least in the fact 
 that all crimes against the law of God are most 
 certainly and awfully punished. And Oliver Crom- 
 well, Carlyle's greatest hero, was what he was, and 
 did what he did, because he believed in God. 
 
 Carlyle and Emerson are alike in their gravita- 
 tion to Literature. All the fame which has come 
 to both has come to them from their books, from 
 books dealing with the same kind of themes, 
 and with themes which lie close to the human 
 heart. 
 
 They treat of Freedom, Duty, Obedience, Work, 
 Keligion, and of God. Carlyle quotes a saying of 
 Novalis, that "Philosophy cannot bake bread for 
 us," but that it can bring to us God, and Freedom, 
 and Immortality. And it may truly be said, that 
 although we do not learn from the works of those 
 two great Authors how to bake bread, we learn 
 therefrom much about some of the greatest subjects 
 that can occupy the human mind, or influence 
 human hearts. 
 
 Carlyle thinks that the best University is a 
 collection of good books, and declares that all the 
 University did for him was to teach him to read 
 books, in various languages. 
 
 It is encouraging for many a youth to remember 
 that Carlyle rose to the highest pinnacle of literary 
 
58 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 fame from the very humblest position from run- 
 ning about, a barefooted lad, in the streets of 
 Ecclefechan. Perhaps his portrait has never been 
 better painted than in the words of Miss Welsh : 
 " He stood there as he had made himself, a peasant's 
 son who had run about bare foot in Ecclefechan 
 streets, with no outward advantage, worn with many 
 troubles, bodily and mental. His life had been 
 pure and without spot an admirable son a 
 faithful and an affectionate brother ; with splendid 
 talents which he felt rather than understood deter- 
 mined to use them well, as a trust committed to 
 him, and never never sell his soul by travelling the 
 primrose path to wealth and distinction." 
 
 We know that he determined he would never 
 sell his soul to the Devil never speak what he 
 did not wholly believe, and never do what in his 
 inmost heart he did not feel to be right. 
 
 Carlyle and Emerson were contemporaries. They 
 corresponded as friends, and have enriched Liter- 
 ature by the publishing of their correspondence. 
 When Emerson came to this country for the first 
 time, beyond meeting with such celebrities as 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge, he was anxious to meet 
 with Carlyle. They did meet at Craigenputtock, 
 and, as has been already noted, after their walk 
 on the long hills they sat down in sight of Criffel, 
 and talked about Immortality, and Carlyle, pointing 
 to Dunscore Kirk, said, " Christ died on the tree 
 that built Dunscore Kirk yonder, that brought you 
 and me together." 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 59 
 
 Not only were Carlyle and Emerson writers of 
 books, but it is simple justice to observe that both 
 have written their books well. There is no trace 
 anywhere of " shoddy." So far as we remember, 
 there is not a slovenly sentence in all " Emerson." 
 Nor in all " Carlyle." Carlyle put his life into 
 his books. As he told the students of Edinburgh 
 University, in his address to them as Lord Eector, 
 he never wrote a book " that did not make him ill." 
 
 He gave, as we know, fourteen years of his life 
 to his Frederick the Great. The labour spent on 
 Oliver Cromwell and the French Revolution is Hercu- 
 lean. He had to see the thing, cost what it might. 
 
 Both toiled terribly at their work, and they have 
 had great reward. 
 
 They are also alike in their universal sympathies. 
 They are men of colossal build large-minded and 
 large-hearted, intermeddling with great problems 
 with what concerns Man, the Universe, and God. 
 
 Were the present writer to express what he owes 
 most to Emerson, he would say that he is most 
 indebted for help received on the great theme of 
 Immortality, especially for the way in which Emer- 
 son has deciphered the handwriting on this great 
 thought in the book of Human Nature. 
 
 And were he to sum up in a word his indebted- 
 ness to Carlyle, it would be to make mention of 
 moral stimulus received from him. Carlyle is, 
 indeed, what Goethe called him long ago, a " Moral 
 Force." No one can read his writings sympatheti- 
 cally without rising from the study of them a better 
 moral man, dowered with his scorn of scorn, his 
 
60 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 hate of hate, and his love of love, his hate of all 
 that is false, and insincere, and low, and his love 
 of all that is virtuous, and true, and noble. In one 
 of his letters he writes : " Train little Jane to this, 
 as the corner-stone of all morality, to stand by the 
 truth, to abhor a lie, as she would Hell-fire." 
 
 IV 
 
 These writers differ widely in style. Emerson 
 leaves upon his readers the impression that he paid 
 a great deal of attention to style, whilst one is 
 led to think that Carlyle did not care a brass 
 farthing for what Purists consider a literary style. 
 With him, the great matter seems to be to get 
 something to say, and then to leave the saying of 
 it very much to itself. 
 
 We are of the opinion, that Carlyle would with 
 great wisdom reduce all rules of literary style to 
 these two First, Get something to say ; Second, 
 Say it in your own way. He says somewhere that 
 every man has his own style, like his own nose, 
 and so be it is his own nose, and not any other 
 body's, no person has a right to amputate it, al- 
 though it were as long as the " nose of Slawken- 
 bergius himself." 
 
 Emerson's style is one of condensation. He 
 courts the abstract. He writes as if he were 
 writing telegrams. He abounds in terse sentences, 
 and rarely condescends to the concrete. He favours 
 thoughts, ideas, contrasts, summaries. 
 
 It is this abstract, condensed style that makes 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 61 
 
 him so tough to read, and so difficult to understand. 
 Lowell declares that Emerson " begins nowhere, and 
 ends everywhere." 
 
 Carlyle's style, on the other hand, abounds in the 
 concrete. He loves men and delights in incident. 
 The minutest incident does not escape his attention. 
 He does not forget the vein on Mahomet's brow, 
 does not forget that all the powder had been rubbed 
 off the wig of Louis XVI., on the side on which 
 he had been lying during a snatched sleep in the 
 awful time of the Eeign of Terror. He excels 
 in description. There are passages in his writings 
 unmatched for vividness in the whole range of 
 Literature. He saw it all, and he makes us see it 
 too. 
 
 And then, we ought not to forget that Carlyle 
 has in abundance what Emerson almost completely 
 lacks, and that is humour. Emerson is barren 
 in this respect, as flat as a bottle of soda-water 
 long uncorked. He is stern, almost severe. There 
 is not a laugh, scarcely a smile in him, from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 It's all so different with Carlyle. There's 
 humour everywhere, even in his bursts of cynicism. 
 He puts things so amusingly, makes jokes even of 
 his wretched dyspepsia, telling us how he had, like 
 Kamdas, " too much fire in his belly." 
 
 We recall his description of the Dandiacal body, 
 " elegant vacuum," and of the man who was 
 deemed respectable " because he kept a gig." He 
 brings his great work, the French Bewlution, to 
 a close by declaring that all "respectability and 
 
62 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 collected gigs " were ordered thereby to take them- 
 selves off the face of the earth. 
 
 Carlyle and Emerson resemble each other as 
 Philosophers and Moralists. Both were Idealists 
 or Transcendentalists in Philosophy. The latter is 
 a great admirer of Plato, and the former of Im- 
 manuel Kant. The foundation-stone of their 
 Philosophy was the priority of intellect, of idea 
 the priority of God. 
 
 And so, both went dead against all Materialism 
 and Atheism. To them it was a " frightful theory " 
 to hold that mind and soul are generated by matter. 
 They maintained the very reverse to be the truth. 
 
 At anyrate, soul must be first. Emerson is a 
 great believer in soul. It is first, soul; second, 
 soul ; third, soul, soul for ever more. So also is 
 it with Carlyle. 
 
 According to Sceptics, when you come to the last 
 box of the Universe, you will find there nothing. 
 According to Materialists, when you come to the 
 last box of the Universe, you will find there atoms 
 atoms of matter. 
 
 But according to both Carlyle and Emerson, 
 when you come to the last box of the Universe, you 
 will find there Mind, Thought, Law, Soul. 
 
 It is surely a great gain to our age to have the 
 two greatest of its thinkers and writers on the 
 side of Spirit as against Matter, of Freedom as 
 against Necessity, of God as against Chance. 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 63 
 
 And both Carlyle and Emerson excel in the 
 sphere of a pure, lofty, uncompromising Morality. 
 Emerson has glorified Virtue, and Carlyle has done 
 likewise. According to Carlyle, right is right and 
 wrong is wrong, and are so eternally, because 
 made so by the Maker of the Universe and of 
 Man. These are not compatible, but are separate 
 from each other, as Heaven is from Hell. He 
 quotes with appreciation the well-known words of 
 Kant, that of all things in the world he is taken 
 most with " the starry Heavens above him, and the 
 Moral Law within him." 
 
 It is not difficult to give in a sentence or two 
 the essence of Carlyle's Moral Philosophy. To 
 him this is the conclusion of the whole matter, 
 " The Universe has Laws these Laws are there 
 by the Maker of the same. If you obey these 
 Laws, it shall be well with you ; and if you don't 
 obey them, it shall not be well with you." 
 
 We need not therefore be surprised that Carlyle 
 is very severe, not only on Materialists in Thought, 
 but also on Utilitarians in Morals. By Utilitarians 
 he means those who would whittle down the 
 eternal distinction between right and wrong, and 
 substitute what is known as the " Greatest Happi- 
 ness Principle," whose one dictum in morals is, 
 " Act so that you may be happy." 
 
 It would be hard to say whether Carlyle's 
 wrath or scorn is greater. Advising all to leave 
 happiness on its own basis, many a time he re- 
 minds his readers that the Maker of the Universe 
 means His creatures to aim at something else, 
 
64 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 and something better, than simply being happy. 
 According to his reading of history, the lives of 
 the gods have been a sublime sadness, and there 
 was One whose crown was a Crown of Thorns. 
 Soul, he declares, is not synonymous with stomach. 
 His Everlasting Yea is, " Love not pleasure, love 
 God." 
 
 Although his Pig's philosophy may be somewhat 
 coarse, and has greatly offended a Moralist like 
 Herbert Spencer, it is well to be reminded that, 
 however it may be with pigs, men and women ought 
 to realise their Paradise in a somewhat different 
 way than in an unlimited attainability of pig's 
 wash. Carlyle and Emerson would substitute for 
 this Greatest Happiness Principle a Greatest Noble- 
 ness Principle ; and in doing so, they strike into 
 the Eternities. 
 
 We are convinced that Carlyle is misunderstood 
 when he is represented as believing more in mights 
 than in rights. The fact of the matter is, in his 
 scheme of thinking these are one and the same. 
 Carlyle insists again and again that a person is 
 strong, and invincibly so, as his strength rests upon 
 what- is just and right. The strength on which 
 he insists so much is not brute strength, nor purse, 
 nor army, nor even intellectual strength, but always 
 moral strength. And so he declares that at the 
 Diet of Worms, Luther, the miner's son, was really 
 stronger than all the Dignitaries of the Koman 
 Catholic Church, with all their thrones, and tiaras, 
 and wealth, and learning, and position. This one 
 man was stronger than they all, simply because 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 65 
 
 he took his stand on Justice on Reason on 
 Conscience on Truth on the Word of God. 
 
 VI 
 
 Carlyle and Emerson closely conform in their 
 Religion, and by Religion we understand what they 
 did really believe, and lay to heart about God, the 
 Universe, and Man. We accept Carlyle's saying, 
 that Religion constitutes the most important factor 
 about any person. Although they had their own 
 way of thinking and expressing themselves on this 
 all-important subject, it is only fair to state that 
 they were both deeply and earnestly religious. If 
 it be necessary to designate Emerson from a religious 
 point of view, he may be called a Pantheist. He did 
 not believe in a Personal God, maintaining rather 
 that the impersonal was higher than the personal. 
 He believed in the Over- Soul, in Law, in the 
 sublimity of Moral Principle. Having discussed 
 this matter in a previous paper, we are only con- 
 cerned here and now to state the fact. 
 
 As for Carlyle, we think that he has a tendency 
 towards Pantheism but only a tendency. It is 
 true that he dwells much on the Immensities and 
 the Eternities. He writes often about the Ultimate 
 Power, all-wise, all-just, all-beautiful. Like Emer- 
 son, he makes much of the Laws of the Universe, 
 but, unlike him, he also makes much of the Maker 
 of these Laws, and thereby saves himself from a 
 thoroughgoing Pantheism. 
 
 In a well-known passage Carlyle has himself 
 5 
 
66 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 described his religious position. " Personal God 
 Impersonal God one three what meaning can 
 any mortal attach to these in reference to such an 
 object. I dare not and do not. Finally, assure 
 yourself, that I am neither Pagan, nor Turk, nor 
 circumcised Jew, but an unfortunate Christian indi- 
 vidual, residing at Chelsea, in this year of grace, 
 neither Pantheist nor Pot-theist nor any Theist 
 nor -ist whatsoever, having the most decided con- 
 tempt, for all such names of system builders, or 
 sect founders, feeling well beforehand that all such 
 are and ever must be wrong. By God's blessing 
 one has got two eyes to look with, also a mind 
 capable of knowing and believing. That is all the 
 creed I will at this time insist on." 
 
 From this and other passages we gather that, in 
 his opinion, God is so great, that all naming of Him 
 by creatures such as we are, comes far short of that 
 great Eeality of Kealities that great Fact of Facts 
 which we call God. Carlyle cries out with Faust, 
 " Why durst name Him ? " 
 
 Here we would simply ask, if it be a matter of 
 naming God, why not name Him by the best of 
 names ? Carlyle himself names Him, Power 
 Keality Fact All-wise All-just All-beautiful. 
 Why not also name Him, as the Christian Eeligion 
 has taught us, by the name of Father, the best of 
 all names ? 
 
 We fear that we must come to the conclusion 
 that we can claim neither Carlyle nor Emerson for 
 the Christian Eeligion as ordinarily understood. 
 
 There are, indeed, some passages of Carlyle's 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 67 
 
 writings in which he scarcely does justice to the 
 genius of the Christian Faith. There is, for 
 example, that notable passage in his famous In- 
 augural Address to the students of Edinburgh 
 University, in which he refers to the Three Rever- 
 ences in Goethe's Wilheim Meister, one of the most 
 remarkable bits of writing, as he says, that ever 
 was written. In fullest sympathy with Goethe, 
 he speaks of the Reverence for what is above us 
 as the soul of the Pagan Religion the Reverence 
 for what is around us as the soul of Culture and 
 the Reverence for what is beneath us as the soul of 
 the Christian Religion. He justifies this reference 
 to the Christian Religion from the fact that Chris- 
 tianity has discovered a blessing in sorrow in loss 
 and in contradiction. 
 
 We venture to question the above as a fair 
 description of the Christian Faith. The Christian 
 Faith has certainly the Reverence for what is 
 beneath us, but it has also as clearly the other two 
 Reverences, and ever so much more besides. 
 
 If we understand Carlyle aright, he chafes under 
 the Particularism or narrowness of the Hebrew 
 presentation of the Eternal Realities. He wants 
 to see a Heaven which is more than three ells broad. 
 He wants to get rid of the Hebrew " Old clo' 
 business." He wants an Exodus from Hounds- 
 ditch. 
 
 The Bible is to him neither final nor satisfactory. 
 He wants something broader, more rational, more 
 universal. And to their credit for boldness, both 
 Carlyle and Emerson have tried their best to give 
 
68 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 us a new Bible. Honesty, however, forces the con- 
 fession that they have made nothing of it. " The 
 old is better." 
 
 Heaven is broader far, and more beautiful by 
 far, in the old Hebrew Bible, than it is in that 
 new book called Bible, written by the sages of 
 Boston and Chelsea. 
 
 It is only just, however, to observe, that whilst 
 we cannot claim either Carlyle or Emerson for the 
 Christian Eeligion, we do not find that either of 
 them has written a single word against the Christian 
 Keligion, or against Him who is its Author. The 
 very reverse, indeed, is the truth. To Carlyle, the 
 Christian Eeligion is the highest ever attained ; 
 from which man cannot retrograde ; and Christ is 
 God, and Godlike the greatest Genius the Divine 
 Sorrow the Martyr Hero the Noble Labour the 
 Kevealer of the silent expanses of Eternity. And 
 Emerson, too, casts his crown at the Master's 
 feet. 
 
 And although we cannot claim these two great 
 writers as clearly Christian in their Eeligion, it is 
 a matter for thankfulness that the whole trend of 
 their writings is to strengthen religious foundations 
 to lead back to God, to Soul, and to Eeligion. 
 To Carlyle, God is not like a clockmaker, who 
 makes the clock, and then allows it to go as it 
 pleases; neither is the Soul "so much wind con- 
 tained in a capsule." He does not believe in 
 Puseyism, nor in kissing a closed Bible, nor in the 
 gospel of MacCroudy, nor in the cash-nexus be- 
 tween man and man. Whatever Eeligion is, Ee- 
 
CARLYLE AND EMERSON 69 
 
 ligion at least is not that. Religion is work; it 
 is reverence ; it is morality ; it is obedience. 
 
 There is a splendid robustness about Carlyle, 
 which braces the soul like the blast of a nor'- 
 easter. 
 
 We respect the Sage of Boston, as we would a 
 beautiful Greek statue, but we love the Sage of 
 Chelsea as we love a grand mountain, or a bold, 
 free, flowing river. 
 
 He is so thorough and so human, at times grim 
 and fierce, and yet withal so good, and true. Very 
 readily do we grant what he himself has claimed, 
 that he has not been an " unworthy labourer in the 
 vineyard." 
 
 We conclude with words which have come to us 
 as his own. " And this is what we have got to, 
 all things from frog's spawn the gospel of dirt 
 the order of the day. The older I grow, and I 
 now stand on the brink of eternity, the more comes 
 back to me the sentence in the Catechism which I 
 learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper it 
 becomes, ' What is the chief end of man ? ' 'To 
 glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever/" 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
" Though we break our father's promise, we have nobler duties 
 
 first; 
 
 The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed ; 
 Man is more than Constitutions ; better rot beneath the sod 
 Than be true to Church and State, while we are doubly false 
 to God." 
 
 LOWELL, "Capture of Fugitive Slaves." 
 
 " Nothing pays but God." 
 
 LOWELL, "The Cathedral." 
 
 " Ez for war, I call it murder, 
 There you have it, plain and flat." 
 
 LOWELL, Biglow Papers. 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 " WHO reads an American book ? " so once asked 
 Sydney Smith. Lowell, an American to the core, 
 stung to the quick, called this a scornful question. 
 Such a question would not be asked now, for the 
 readers of American books are many, and are 
 increasing in number. As Lowell himself would 
 have us consider, it is scarcely fair to expect so 
 much in the way of Literature from a new country 
 like America, as from an old country like our own. 
 People there are so busy making their Iliad, that 
 they have not as yet time to sing about it. In 
 America there is an Apotheosis of Work, and if 
 there be any Poetry, it is " like the waste of water 
 over the dam." 
 
 11 Those horn hands have as yet found small time, 
 For painting, and sculpture, and music, and rhyme ; 
 These will come in due order ; the need that pressed sorest, 
 Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, the forest." 
 
 The first thing that brought Lowell into notice 
 was the publication, in 1848, of the First Series of 
 the Biglow Papers. In these papers, altogether 
 unique in Literature, Lowell, in Yankee dialect, and 
 with gr.eat humour, expressed his indignation at the 
 
 73 
 
74 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Mexican War, which had arisen in the interests of 
 the slave-holders. Not only did these Papers make 
 him famous ; they also made him a factor of the 
 greatest importance and power in the political and 
 social life of his country. By means of them he set 
 the heather on fire. 
 
 They had an enormous circulation ; were recited 
 in the homes and workshops of the people, and 
 determined elections. These Papers were published 
 as Letters and Poems sent to the Boston Courier 
 and other newspapers, "By Mr. Hosea Biglow, Jaalam, 
 and Mr. Bird O'Freedom Sawin, Private in the 
 Massachusetts Eegiment, and all under the careful 
 supervision, with elaborate annotations, of the Eev. 
 Homer Wilbur, A.M., Minister of the Independent 
 Chapel, at Jaalam." There was, for a time, consider- 
 able controversy regarding the author of them, 
 Lowell himself having once heard the matter dis- 
 cussed, and the conclusion come to, that whoever 
 the Author might be, "it was not that fellow 
 Lowell," who, in the estimate of the speaker, was 
 quite unequal to their production. 
 
 For twenty years Lowell was Professor of Modern 
 Literature and " Belles Lettres " in the University 
 of Harvard, succeeding his friend, the Poet Long- 
 fellow. Afterwards he was appointed Minister of 
 the United States, proceeding first of all to Madrid, 
 and afterwards to London. He died in 1891. 
 
 It might be said of Lowell, as he himself said of 
 Agassiz, " His magic is not far to seek ; he is so 
 human." "He is so human" here, in a single 
 sentence, lies the secret of the charm, as well as of 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 75 
 
 the characteristics of Lowell's life and writings. 
 He can be written down as "one who loved his 
 fellowmen," perhaps, after all, the highest tribute 
 that can be paid to a human being. It is this 
 enthusiasm for humanity which explains, as we 
 think, the whole trend of Lowell's life his anti- 
 pathies, conflicts, and successes, his Essays, Poetry, 
 Politics, and Keligion. " There is," he writes, " one 
 institution to which we owe our first allegiance, 
 one that is more sacred and venerable than any 
 other, and that is the soul, and constitution of 
 Man" 
 
 " Though we break our father's promise, we have nobler duties 
 
 first; 
 
 The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed ; 
 Man is more than Constitutions ; better rot beneath the sod 
 Than be true to Church and State, while we are doubly false 
 
 to God." 
 
 Touring in Italy, Lowell declares that his 
 favourite gallery was just the street, the men 
 and women with whom he came into contact. 
 These he found to be always entertaining at least. 
 When in Edinburgh, at the Tercentenary of the 
 University, he was most deeply interested in " dear 
 old John Brown," the author of Rob. 
 
 We must not regard Lowell as a great genius, 
 scarcely, perhaps, as a genius at all. He is not an 
 Essayist like his own Emerson, nor a Poet like his 
 own Longfellow. He is neither a Thinker nor a 
 Moral force, like Carlyle, lacking, as he does, that 
 genetic faculty which goes along with genius of the 
 first order. 
 
76 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 There is, however, much in Lowell's life and 
 writings that is pure, noble, and admirable. 
 
 Perhaps he attempted too much, and would have 
 done more if he had done less. It is by no means 
 easy to succeed as Poet, Critic, Essayist, Editor, 
 Politician, Professor, Diplomatist, and also as Man 
 of the world ; and Lowell in his day played, as best 
 he could, all these parts. 
 
 II 
 
 We have the impression that, from whatever 
 source Lowell's fame comes, it does not come from 
 his Essays in Literature, and these are plentiful. 
 With the exception of our own countrymen, Scott 
 and Burns, there is scarcely a great name in the 
 Literature of any age which has not furnished a 
 theme for his pen. 
 
 There are Essays on Dante, Lessing, Eousseau, 
 Shakespeare, Pope, Dry den, Milton, Emerson, 
 Wordsworth, and Carlyle. These essays pedantic 
 and prolix lack the hall-mark of lucidity insisted 
 on so much by Matthew Arnold. Lowell's fame 
 comes rather from his Poetry. His Biglow Papers, 
 and a few of his Poems, must be classed with those 
 words which men will not willingly let die. 
 
 A well-known modern journalist records that 
 over against one of Lowell's poems, the poem 
 entitled " Extreme Unction," he wrote these words 
 when quite a young man " This poem changed 
 my life." 
 
 There can be no doubt that every word of this 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 77 
 
 Poem is worthy of being written in letters of gold, 
 quivering, as it does, with moral earnestness and 
 noble purpose. It is a poem fit, we should say, 
 to take its place side by side with Longfellow's 
 "Psalm of Life," or Browning's "Kabbi Ben 
 Ezra." 
 
 But not only does Lowell get the credit of 
 changing, and having power to change, a life for 
 good, he also gets the credit of being the Author of 
 what is known as the " New Journalism." This 
 " New Journalism " is said to be the fruit of seed 
 sown by Lowell, who insisted strenuously that the 
 Press should now take the place of the Pulpit, and 
 the Modern Editor become true preacher and 
 prophet. It may be well to give in full the Pious 
 Editor's Creed, as it appeared in the Biylow Papers, 
 and which is said to have borne such fruit. 
 
 "Ordinary clergymen are twitted as walking off 
 to the extreme edge of the world, and throwing 
 such seed as they have clear over into that dark- 
 ness, which they call the ' Next Life.' . . . 
 
 " So it has come to pass that the preacher, instead 
 of being a living force, has faded into an emblematic 
 figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals, or if 
 he exercise any other function, it is as a keeper and 
 feeder of certain theological dogmas, etc. . . . 
 
 " Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the Editor mounts 
 daily, sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand 
 within reach of his voice, and never so much as a 
 nodder amongst them. 
 
 " And from what a Bible he can choose his text, 
 ... the open volume of the world, upon which, 
 
78 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired 
 Present is even now writing the annals of God. 
 
 "Methinks the Editor, who should understand 
 his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly 
 deserve that title iroi^v \aa>v which Homer bestows 
 upon Princes. He would be the Moses of our Nine- 
 teenth Century ; and whereas the old Sinai, silent 
 now, is but a common mountain, stared at by the 
 elegant tourist, or crawled over by the hammering 
 ge9logist, he must find his Tables of the New Law, 
 here, amongst factories and cities, in this Wilderness 
 of Sin, called Progress of Civilisation, and be the 
 captain of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer 
 social order." 
 
 These wise words, clearly written in a vein of 
 humour, although true, are by no means new. We 
 have the very same thought expressed with more 
 earnestness and force in the pages of our own 
 Carlyle, who would resolve Universities and Churches 
 into Literature. " Books," writes the Sage of Chelsea, 
 " pamphlets, papers, these are your true University, 
 true Church." 
 
 Now that we have had some experience of the 
 New Journalism, we are coming to see that there is 
 room for all for the University and the Church 
 as well as for the New Journalism, and room for 
 the New Journalism as well as for the University 
 and the Church. Nay, we may go as far as to say, 
 that after seeing the new Moses, our reverence for 
 the old Moses has increased as well as for the old 
 Sinai, and for the old Way, through the old Wilder- 
 ness, into the old Canaan. 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 79 
 
 III 
 
 Almost all Lowell's writings manifest a distinctly 
 religious spirit, and are pervaded by a reverence 
 for sacred things. Even the Biglow Papers, full as 
 they are of drollery, are by no means irreverent, not 
 even the well-known couplet, " AJI you've gut to git 
 up airly, ef you want to take in God." 
 
 We regret that we have to except from this com- 
 mendation two of his poems, " Fitz Adam's Story " 
 and " Burns' Centennial," in which he has handled 
 the themes of Hell and of Heaven in a way, as 
 seems to us, verging on blasphemy. 
 
 In one of his most thoughtful and carefully con- 
 structed poems, " The Cathedral " a poem suggestive 
 of Browning's intellectual introspectiveness, Lowell 
 speaks out clearly on the importance of personal 
 Eeligion. Setting his seal on Spencer's dictum, that 
 " whilst Eeligions perish, Eeligion lives," he teaches 
 that man's chief difficulty does not lie in being relig- 
 ious, but in deciding to become and remain irreligious. 
 
 11 Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would, 
 Nor so abscond Him in the caves of sense ; 
 But Nature still shall search some crevice out, 
 With messages of splendour, from that Source, 
 Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still, and lures." 
 
 In that same poem Lowell declares that, although 
 he has become wearied of the forms of a traditional 
 Faith, yet he is not recreant to the Faith itself 
 
 " I, that still pray at morning, and at eve; 
 Loving these roots that feed us from the past, 
 And prizing, more than Plato, things I learned 
 At that best Academe a mother's knee." 
 
8o LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Amongst other personal experiences in the all- 
 important matter of Eeligion to which reference is 
 made in " The Cathedral," he expresses his abhorrence 
 of those who cruel-kind would turn him out naked 
 into speculation's " windy waste," and obscure 
 
 " With painted saints, and paraphrase of God, 
 The soul's east- window, of divine surprise." 
 
 He tells us how more than once he has felt that 
 " perfect disenthralment, which is God." 
 
 Like Tennyson, he rather welcomes than frowns 
 upon honest doubt, sure that 
 
 " Perhaps the deeper faith, that is to come, 
 Will see God, rather in the strenuous doubt ; 
 Than in the creed, held as an infant's hand, 
 Holds purposeless, whatso is placed therein." 
 
 In every sense Lowell's poem entitled " Extreme 
 Unction " is noble, throbbing through and through 
 with moral earnestness. The following extract may 
 give an idea of how vividly, how awfully, indeed, 
 the Poet gives voice to the irrevocable misery 
 and absolute loss which awaits unimproved oppor- 
 tunities 
 
 " God bends from out the deep, and says, 
 
 ' I gave thee the great gift of life. 
 Wast thou not called, in many ways ? 
 
 Are not my earth and heaven, at strife ? 
 I gave thee of my seed, to sow, 
 
 Bringst thou me an hundredfold ? ' 
 Can I look up with face, aglow 
 
 And answer, ' Father, here is gold. ' 
 
 Men think it is an awful sight, 
 
 To see a soul just set adrift, 
 On that drear voyage, from whose night 
 
 The ominous shadows never lift. 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 81 
 
 But 'tis more awful to behold 
 
 A helpless infant newly born, 
 Whose little hands, unconscious, hold 
 
 The keys of darkness and of morn. 
 
 Mine held them once ; I flung away 
 
 Those keys that might have open set 
 The golden sluices of the day, 
 
 But clutch the keys of darkness yet ; 
 I hear the reapers singing go 
 
 Into God's harvest ; I, that might 
 With them have chosen, here below, 
 
 Grope shuddering at the gates of night." 
 
 When we say that Lowell was an out-and-out 
 Humanitarian in his Eeligion, we express at once 
 his excellency and his deficiency in this respect. 
 There is excellency inasmuch as he lays so much 
 emphasis on the human and practical side of 
 Eeligion, a side unfortunately too much overlooked. 
 There is deficiency inasmuch as he is so blind to 
 the doctrinal and Godward side. 
 
 Whilst there is a tendency to separate what God 
 has put together, there can be no doubt that a 
 perfect Eeligion, such as the Bible reveals, includes 
 both sides. Although we consider Lowell and the 
 school to which he belongs to err by deficiency, we 
 cannot but thank him for what he has written 
 on the manward side of Eeligion, and could have 
 wished that he had written as much and as well 
 on its Godward side. With great power he exalts, 
 emphasises, and enriches the fact, that no one is 
 worthy of being called religious in any sense, or a 
 follower of Christ at all, unless, like the Master, he 
 is rich in humanity, going about like Him doing good. 
 6 
 
82 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Tired of discussions about Apostolic Succession, 
 Sacraments, and Keligious Dogmas, he is keenly 
 alive to the Christianity that shows itself in deeds 
 of beneficence. He has a deep insight into the far- 
 reaching power of the Christian Faith, or perhaps 
 we should rather say, into the influence of Christ 
 Himself. In the new life, and the new ideas of the 
 New World, he sees the incarnation of truths uttered 
 centuries ago by the Great Teacher. 
 
 The Spirit that brought about the overthrow of 
 the terrible curse of Slavery, was but the Spirit of 
 Christianity, "Elastic as air, penetrative as heat, 
 invulnerable as sunshine, against which creed after 
 creed had measured their strength and been con- 
 founded, a restless Spirit, which refuses to be 
 crystallised in any sect or form, but persists as 
 divinely commissioned, radical and reconstructive, 
 in trying every generation with a new dilemma, 
 between ease and interest on the one hand, and 
 duty on the other." 
 
 Here is a verse or two from " The Parable " 
 
 " ' Have ye founded your thrones and altars then, 
 On the bodies and souls of living men ? 
 And think ye that building shall endure 
 Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor ? 
 
 With gates of silver, and bars of gold, 
 
 Ye have fenced My sheep from their father's Fold ; 
 
 I have heard the dropping of their tears, 
 
 In heaven, those eighteen hundred years.'" 
 
 Lowell is a firm believer in Ketribution, on the 
 largest and smallest scale, as a law holding true 
 for an empire as for an individual. " Where empires 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 83 
 
 towered that were not just, lo, the skulking wild fox 
 scratches in a little heap of dust." 
 
 This is from one of his Sonnets " The 
 Street " 
 
 " They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love ; 
 
 They cast their hope of human-kind away, 
 With Heaven's clear messages, they madly strove 
 And conquered and their spirits turned to clay. 
 
 Alas ! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace 
 A dead soul's epitaph in every face ! " 
 
 Lowell preaches, and preaches earnestly, devotion 
 to duty, self-sacrifice, and consistency in life and 
 religion. He is of the opinion that more harm has 
 been done to the Christian Faith by inconsistency 
 than by anything else ; declaring that whilst no 
 human device has ever prevailed against it no 
 array of majorities or respectabilities ; yet neither 
 Caesar nor Flamen ever conceived a scheme so 
 cunningly adapted to neutralise the powers of the 
 Christian Eeligion as the fearful compromise " which 
 accepts it with the lip and denies it with the life, 
 which marries it at the altar and divorces it at the 
 church door." 
 
 The present writer does not at all see eye to 
 eye with Lowell in his poem entitled " Bibliolatres," 
 opening with the words, " Bowing thyself in dust 
 before a Book." If we make out his meaning 
 aright, he seeks to teach that the Canon of the 
 Book of God is not yet closed, and that God is still 
 revealing Himself to men, and sending new mes- 
 sages through His prophets. 
 
84 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 " Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 
 And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone ; 
 Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it, 
 Texts of despair, or hope, of joy, or moan. 
 While swings the sea, while mists the mountain shroud, 
 While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud ; 
 
 Still at the prophets' feet, the nations sit." 
 
 This certainly sounds well, but we are of the opinion 
 that there is not so much in it as many might suppose. 
 
 We ask, for example, what new verse Lowell 
 himself has added to the old Book, after all his 
 thinking and writing, extending over half a century ? 
 As has been said already, the highest tribute that 
 can be paid to him is to write him down as "one 
 who loved his fellowmen," and yet there is nothing 
 new in such a praiseworthy attitude. His message, 
 " Love thy neighbour as thyself," is indeed a great 
 message, and yet, as everyone knows, this is not a 
 message which can be called new. 
 
 The conviction indeed deepens, that not one of 
 our ablest thinkers or best singers has added one 
 iota in the moral and spiritual sphere to what has 
 been revealed in the Bible. Nay, it may be said 
 that our thinkers and singers only think and sing 
 to purpose when they are in touch with the thoughts 
 which breathe and the words which burn in that 
 old Book, to which we cannot yield too great a 
 homage, either of head or heart. 
 
 IV 
 
 Lowell's Biglovi Papers demand more than a 
 passing attention. It has been said, and it is surely 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 5 
 
 a marvellous tribute to the might of the pen, that 
 to the influence of these papers "eighty thousand 
 slaves owe their freedom, and twenty millions of 
 his fellow-citizens, their conscience." They consist 
 of two Series, of which the First, the better by 
 far, was written in connection with the outbreak 
 of the Mexican War in 1846, and the other, in 
 1864, in connection with the war of Secession 
 between the Northern and Southern States of 
 America. 
 
 He espoused with his whole soul the cause of the 
 North the cause of Freedom. The Biglow Papers 
 were written in Yankee dialect, and Lowell is 
 anxious that his readers should know that this 
 dialect is not at all slang, and that he does not put 
 on the cap and bells of the jester. He is giving 
 voice, in the language of the people, to views of the 
 people on such things as War, Slavery, Candidating, 
 etc. The three characters that figure in the Papers 
 are the Eev. Homer Wilbur, M.A., Minister of the 
 Independent Chapel of Jaalam ; Hosea Biglow, a 
 talented Parishioner; and Mr. B. Sawin, a Private 
 in the Massachusetts Eegiment ; and these three 
 imaginary persons are intended to be representative, 
 the Eev. Homer representing the cautious and 
 pedantic element in Yankee character ; Hosea Big- 
 low representing plain common-sense ; and Mr. B. 
 Sawin representing drollery. 
 
 These Papers are full of good things. Here, for 
 example, is one of them, so far as Literature is con- 
 cerned : " Mister Wilbur, sez he to me, onct, sez he, 
 ' Hosee,' sez he, ' in Litterytoor, the only good thing 
 
86 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 is Natur'. It's amasin' hard to come at/ sez he, 'but 
 onct get it, and you've got everythinY " 
 
 And this is how Hosea Biglow puts the matter 
 of War 
 
 " Ez for war, I call it murder, 
 
 There you have it, plain and flat ; 
 I don't want to go no furder, 
 Than my Testyment, fer that ; 
 
 God hez sed so, plump an' fairly ; 
 
 It's ez long, ez it is broad ; 
 An' you've gut to git up airly, 
 
 Ef you want to take in God. 
 
 Ef you take a sword, and dror it, 
 
 An' go stick a feller thru, 
 Guv'ment ain't to answer for it 
 
 God'll send the bill to you. 
 
 Wut's the use o' Meetin'-goin' 
 
 Every Sabbath, wet or dry, 
 Ef it's right to go amowin' 
 
 Feller-men, like oats an' rye. 
 
 I dunno but wut it's pooty, 
 Trainin' roun', in bobtail coats; 
 
 But it's curus Christian dooty, 
 This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats." 
 
 Well, yes, this cutting of folks' throats is curious 
 Christian duty. Euskin says that if our soldiers 
 were dressed in black like other executioners, 
 instead of in scarlet, the army would not be so 
 attractive. 
 
 Mr. B. Sawin, Private in the Massachusetts 
 Kegiment, sends home a letter, in which he says, 
 amongst other things 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 87 
 
 " This sort of thing aint jest like that, 
 
 I wish that I wuz furder ; 
 Ninepence a day fer killing folks 
 Conies kind o' low, for murder." 
 
 " It's glory but, in spite o' all my trying to get callous, 
 I feel a kind o' in a cart a-riodin' to the gallus." 
 
 Hosea adds as P.S. "Ef anythin's foolisher, and 
 moor dicklus than militerry gloary, it is milishy 
 gloary." And the Kev. Homer Wilbur inserts a 
 very wise reflection to the effect, that we ought to 
 fill our bombshells with copies of the Thirty- Nine 
 Articles, and to wrap up every cannon ball in a leaf 
 of the New Testament. 
 
 Here is a description of General C., a War 
 candidate 
 
 " General C. is a dreffle smart man : 
 
 He's ben on all sides that give places or pelf; 
 But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, 
 He's been true to one party an' that is himself, 
 So John P. 
 Eobinson he, 
 Sez he shall vote for General 0. 
 
 General C. he goes in for the war, 
 
 He didn't vally principle more'n an old cud. 
 Wut did God make us raytional creatures fer, 
 But glory an' gunpowder, plunder and blood, 
 So John P. 
 Robinson he, 
 Sez he shall vote for General C. 
 
 Parson Wilbur sez he never heard in his life 
 
 Thet the Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tailed coats 
 An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fyfe, 
 To get some on 'em office, and some on 'em votes, 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he, 
 Sez they didn't know everything down in Judee." 
 
88 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 It is the Biglow Papers that has given us the 
 couplet that has become so familiar, especially in 
 Political circles 
 
 " A marciful Providence fashioned us holler, 
 0' purpose that we might our principles swaller." 
 
 There is also much worldly wisdom in the 
 following 
 
 " I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong, 
 Agin' wrong in the abstract, for thet kind o' wrong 
 Is oilers unpop'lar, an' never gets pitied, 
 Because it's a crime no one ever committed, 
 But he musn't be hard on partickler sins, 
 Cos then, he'll be kickin' the people's own shins." 
 
 The opposition candidate speaks as follows 
 
 " Ez to my principles, I glory 
 
 In hevin' nothin' o' the sort ; 
 I ain't a Whig, I ain't a Tory ; 
 I'm jest a candidate in short." 
 
 Although the prevailing note of Lowell is his 
 earnestness, yet he is largely endowed with humour ; 
 not the grim humour of Carlyle, nor the laughter- 
 producing humour of Dickens, nor the genial humour 
 of Scott, but a humour of such a peculiar kind that 
 for want of a better name it may be called American. 
 It is smart saying well a good thing. 
 
 "Hez the bell fell yet ?" was the first question 
 which the farmer asked when he arrived, breathless, 
 on the scene, and saw the church on the hill 
 wrapped in flame. 
 
 Lowell tells of a deacon, very accommodating in 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 89 
 
 the matter of the apples which he sold. "Well, 
 deacon," asks A., "have you any sour apples?" 
 " Well, no," says the deacon, " I haven't any that 
 are exactly sour ; but there's the bellflower apple, 
 and folks that like a sour apple generally like 
 that." Exit A. Enter B. "Well, deacon, have 
 you any sweet apples?" "Well, no," says the 
 deacon, " I haven't any that are exactly sweet ; but 
 there's the bellflower apple, and folks that like a 
 sweet apple generally like that." Lowell calls the 
 deacon's apples " Laodicean," because they were 
 neither one thing nor another. 
 
 He tells of a Scotch gardener whom he knew, 
 Fraser by name, and who now and then got sub- 
 limed into a poet by means of whisky. He had 
 been an old soldier, and it seems that when the 
 whisky had warmed him up he was in the habit of 
 telling bloody histories of the "Forty-Twa," and 
 showing an imaginary bullet, sometimes in one leg, 
 sometimes in the other, and sometimes at night- 
 fall in both. 
 
 Describing a corps of volunteers, the Harvard 
 Washington Corps, he mentions that, after being 
 royally entertained by a maiden lady in the town, 
 they entered in their orderly-book, a vote that Miss 
 Blank " was a gentleman." " I see them now," says 
 Lowell, " returning from the deadly breach of the 
 law of Rechab, unable to form other than the ser- 
 pentine line of beauty, while their Officers, brotherly 
 rather than imperious, instead of reprimanding, tear- 
 fully embraced the more eccentric wanderers from 
 military precision." 
 
9 o LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Writing of the Italians, he says that they quarrel 
 as unaccountably as dogs who put their noses to- 
 gether dislike each other's smell, and instantly 
 tumble one over the other, with " noise enough to 
 draw the eyes of a whole street." He describes 
 Italian beggars as presenting a withered arm to 
 you as a highwayman would a pistol, a goitre is a 
 life annuity; a St. Vitus dance is as good as an 
 engagement as Prima Ballerina at the Apollo ; and 
 to have no legs at all is to stand on the best 
 footing with fortune. 
 
 One of his friends gave a very tiny coin to an 
 old woman who was begging, and the old woman 
 delicately expressed her resentment, by exclaiming, 
 " Thanks, Signora, God will reward even you." 
 
 Lowell makes a slight alteration on the well- 
 known lines : " One impulse from the vernal wood 
 will teach us more of man," etc., by suggesting 
 that it would be wise to substitute " birchen " for 
 " vernal," all, of course, in the purest humour. 
 
 VI 
 
 Lowell is American from head to foot, proud of 
 his country, proud of its institutions. According to 
 him, it is the country of the future. Next to the 
 fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, that little 
 shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth two 
 centuries and a half ago is destined to influence the 
 future of the world. He sums up the creed of 
 America, not in Thirty-Nine Articles, but in Three 
 Faith in God, in Man, and in Work. 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 91 
 
 " It is a New England and a better, no nobles, 
 either lay or cleric, no great landed estates, no 
 universal ignorance, as a seed-plot of vice, an 
 elective magistracy and clergy, land for all who 
 would till it, reading and writing, will ye nill 
 ye, honest dice, uncogged by prerogative, patri- 
 cianism, or priestcraft." 
 
 He sums up the characteristics of the American 
 as a certain capacity for enthusiasm, a devotion to 
 abstract principle, and an openness to ideas. The 
 American goes by Intuitions rather than by Syl- 
 logisms, and has a positive preference for the bird 
 in the bush an excellent quality of character, adds 
 our Author, before you have your bird in hand. 
 
 He feels keenly that Americans should be called 
 "vulgar"; that it should be said that although they 
 are in the West, they by no means form the West 
 end of the world. So far as he can see, the only 
 reason why they should be called vulgar is that 
 they vent their ideas through that organ by which 
 men come to be led, rather than take the place of 
 leaders. He acknowledges that the War had done 
 them good. Before it, as a nation, they were a 
 little loud and braggart, but the War sobered them 
 somewhat, making their thoughts, policy, and bear- 
 ing a little more manly. 
 
 " By God's grace," he says, " we are resolved to 
 Americanise you ; and America means, education 
 equality before the law, and every upward avenue 
 of life, made as free to one man as to another." 
 
 He refers with a justifiable pride to the fact, that 
 one of the characteristics of his fellow-countrymen 
 
92 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 is the custom of giving away money during their 
 lifetime, and giving it away to such good purposes 
 as the foundation of Colleges and the erection of 
 Libraries. There is, he writes, no country in 
 which wealth is so sensible of its obligations as 
 America. 
 
 Often Lowell lifts up his voice to emphasise the 
 fact that the true greatness of a country is moral 
 rather than material, is to be measured not by its 
 square miles, its number of yards woven, its hogs 
 packed, and bushels of wheat raised, not only by 
 its skill to feed and clothe the body, but also by its 
 power to feed and clothe the soul. 
 
 If all nations have their messages, the message 
 of the American nation is to preach and practise 
 before all the world the freedom and divinity of 
 man the glorious claims of brotherhood, and the 
 soul's fealty to none but God. 
 
 He has an intense admiration for Abraham 
 Lincoln, " the first American " new birth of a new 
 soil. Nothing of Europe here, he says ; a man 
 " whom America made, as God made Adam out of 
 the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, un- 
 known ; to show us how much truth, how much 
 majesty, how much statecraft await the call of 
 opportunity in simple manhood, when we believe 
 in the justice of God and the worth of man." 
 
 And Lowell had also an intense admiration for 
 the Puritans, who were the founders of New Eng- 
 land ; drawing a very sharp distinction between 
 the original Puritanism and the Puritanism which 
 has become traditional. Speaking of the latter, he 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 93 
 
 says, that it translates Jehovah by " I was " instead 
 of " I am." The Puritanism of bygone days meant 
 something when Captain Hodgson, riding out to 
 battle through the morning mist, turns the com- 
 mand of the troops over to a Lieutenant, and stays 
 to hear the prayer of a Cornet " There was so much 
 of God in it." 
 
 He distinctly traces the great stream of social, 
 political, and religious life in America to the 
 Puritan fountainhead. The English Puritans pulled 
 down Church and State to rebuild Zion on the 
 ruins ; and all the while it was not Zion but 
 America they were building. 
 
 The Puritans, he thinks, had their faults. They 
 did not understand the text, " I have piped to you, 
 and ye have not danced," nor consider that the 
 saving of one's soul should be the cheerfulest, and 
 not the dreariest of businesses. And their preachers 
 had a way, like the painful Mr. Perkins, of pro- 
 nouncing that word " Damn " with such emphasis 
 that it left a doleful echo. 
 
 Touching on the charge of intolerance and 
 narrow-mindedness, which is levelled against the 
 Puritan Fathers, he justly declares that these men 
 can scarcely be called narrow-minded, who gave 
 every man the chance of becoming a landholder, 
 who made the transfer of land easy, and put know- 
 ledge within the reach of all. 
 
 They were perhaps intolerant, but, Lowell asks, 
 Of what ? and answers, " What they believed to be 
 mischief, or dangerous nonsense." 
 
 He is, of course, a strenuous upholder of Demo- 
 
94 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 cracy, and writes clearly and wisely on this subject. 
 Democracy, he reminds us, does not attempt the 
 impossible making one man as good as another, 
 but rather the making of one man's manhood as 
 good as another. Democracy is the establishment 
 of the divine principle of authority, on the common 
 interest and the common consent, making a contri- 
 bution from the free will of all a power which 
 should curb and guide the free will of each for the 
 general good. 
 
 But Lowell is wise enough to know that, as a 
 form of Government, Democracy is no better than 
 any other form of Government, except, and in 
 so far as, the virtue and wisdom of the people 
 make it so. He reproduces the memorable defini- 
 tion of Democracy given by Abraham Lincoln : 
 " The Government of the people, by the people, and 
 for the people." He also quotes the saying of 
 Theodore Parker, that Democracy does not mean, 
 " I am as good as you are," but " You are as good as 
 me." He remembers that Christ Himself was the 
 first true Democrat that ever breathed, just as the 
 old dramatist Dekker said, " That He was the first 
 true gentleman." 
 
 Lowell is, of course, dead against Slavery. Ee- 
 calling the awful decision of the Supreme Court in 
 America, " That negroes are not men in the ordinary 
 meaning of the word," he utters for himself and 
 for his countrymen this other word, as high above 
 the decision of the Supreme Court as the heavens 
 are above the earth, " We shall count the negro a 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 95 
 
 There is, he writes, no question of white or 
 black, but simply of man, and the only way to get 
 rid of the negro is to do him justice. When the 
 question is asked, " Will you confer equality on the 
 negro ? " the answer is, " Equality cannot be con- 
 ferred upon any man, white or black; if he be 
 capable of it, his title is from God, and not from us." 
 
 One of Lowell's ambitions, with which we do not 
 at all sympathise, was to create a Literature in 
 America which should be independent of Europe. 
 One would have expected from such a thorough- 
 going Democrat a more hearty recognition of the 
 great Kepublic of Letters, in which all should be 
 equal, and all welcome who are loyal to the Good, 
 and the Beautiful, and the True. 
 
 He rates his countrymen roundly for having a 
 mental as well as a physical stoop in the shoulders. 
 He tells them that they steal Englishmen's books, 
 and think Englishmen's thoughts. America's wild 
 eagle is caught by their salt " on her tail." 
 
 ' ' Though you brag of your New World, you don't half believe 
 
 in it, 
 And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it." 
 
 We are astonished to find him counselling 
 Americans to 
 
 "Forget Europe wholly, your veins throb with blood 
 To which the dull current in hers is but mud." 
 
 It is this partiality for whatever is American 
 that explains to a large degree his scornful attitude 
 towards Carlyle, and his intense admiration for 
 Emerson. Emerson and Lincoln are his gods. 
 
96 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 " Emerson," he says, " awakened us, saved us, 
 brought us life, gave us ennobling impulses. He 
 has a Greek head on right Yankee shoulders. . . . 
 He is a Plotinus, a Montaigne." 
 
 VII 
 
 Many of Lowell's utterances are proverbial, full 
 of uncommon common sense. Here are a few 
 proverbs, picked out of his writings : 
 
 "One learns more Metaphysics from a single temptation 
 than from all the Philosophers." 
 
 " It needs good optics to see what is not to he seen." 
 
 " All Deacons are good, but there's odds in Deacons." 
 
 " To he misty, is not to be a mystic." 
 
 " Clerical unction in a vulgar nature easily degenerates into 
 greasiness." 
 
 " The world never neglects a man's power, but his weak- 
 nesses, and especially his publishing them." 
 
 "Real sorrows are uncomfortable things, but purely 
 aesthetic ones are by no means uncomfortable." 
 
 " Truth is the only unrepealable thing." 
 
 " Treason against the ballot-box, is as dangerous as treason 
 against a throne." 
 
 "The foolish and the dead alone, never change their 
 opinion." 
 
 " The only argument with an east wind, is to put on your 
 overcoat." 
 
 " It is cheaper in the long-run to lift men up, than to hold 
 them down." 
 
 " Don't never prophesy, unless you know." 
 
 " That is best blood that hath most iron in't." 
 
 "A world, made for whatever else, not made for mere 
 enjoyment." 
 
 " Nothing pays but God." 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 97 
 
 VIII 
 
 If Lowell live, he will live, as has been said, be- 
 cause of his Poetry. He has written a great deal 
 wrote, indeed, more or less for nearly fifty years. 
 Some of his poems, notably " The Changeling," are 
 very sweet, reminding one of Mrs. Browning in her 
 tenderest mood. And many of them are like 
 trumpet calls ; they are so earnest. He has 
 nothing but scorn for the bard environed with his 
 silken proprieties ; for " the empty rhymer " who 
 lies with idle elbow on the grass. He wants the 
 soul to break out in music-thunders, and the song 
 to rush forth " like molten iron, glowing." 
 
 There are, we think, about a dozen of his Poems 
 worthy of Immortality. Perhaps the first place 
 ought to be given to his " Extreme Unction." 
 
 There is the right Democratic ring about " The 
 Heritage," in which the Poet sides so heartily with 
 the " poor man's son," justifying one of his own say- 
 ings elsewhere, that the chief concern in social life is 
 not where a man goes in, but where a man comes out. 
 
 In "The Parting of the Ways" he takes the 
 side of Duty against Pleasure. These lines may 
 suffice as a specimen of the good things which 
 abound in " The Cathedral," the most thoughtful, 
 perhaps, of all his poems 
 
 " And find out, some day, that nothing pays but God, 
 Served whether in the smoke-shut battlefield, 
 In work obscure, done honestly, or vote 
 For truth unpopular, or Faith maintained, 
 To ruinous convictions, or good deeds 
 Wrought for good's sake, mindless of Heaven or Hell." 
 
 7 
 
98 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 In the three poems, " The Search," " A Parable," 
 and " The Vision of Sir Launfal," we have the ex- 
 pression of the Poet's mind regarding a genuine 
 Christianity. 
 
 In the first, he tells us how he found the 
 " Christ," for whom he searched, neither in Nature, 
 nor in the world, but by following in the footsteps 
 of Love, which he knew to be the footsteps of the 
 Lord 
 
 " I followed where they led, 
 And in a hovel rude, 
 
 With naught to fence the weather from his head, 
 The King I sought for meekly stood ; 
 A naked, hungry child 
 Hung round His gracious knee, 
 And a poor hunted slave looked up, and smiled, 
 To bless the smile that set him free. 
 
 I knelt, and wept my Christ no more I seek, 
 His throne is with the outcast and the weak." 
 
 In " The Parable " he gives voice to the thought 
 that genuine Christianity is absolutely inconsistent 
 with the neglect of the poor, the oppressed, or the 
 weak. " The Vision of Sir Launfal " teaches that 
 the " Holy Grail " is to be found at our very door, 
 in the act of kindness to the poor and needy, in 
 a Christian and sympathetic spirit. In the " leper " 
 Sir Launfal saw the " Christ" 
 
 * ' The leper no longer crouched at his side ; 
 But stood before him glorified, 
 Shining and tall and fair and straight." 
 
 The following words embody at once the spirit 
 of the Poet in his humanism and the spirit of the 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 99 
 
 Christian Faith in its genuine love for man, as the 
 outcome of a genuine love to God. The voice that 
 was " calmer than silence " said 
 
 " ' Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 
 In many climes without avail 
 Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 
 Behold, it is here this cup which thou 
 Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now, 
 This crust is my body broken for thee ; 
 This water His blood that died on the tree ; 
 
 The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
 
 In what so, we share, with another's need ; 
 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 
 For the gift without the giver is bare, 
 
 Who gives himself, with his alms, feeds three, 
 
 Himself, his hungry neighbour, and Me.'" 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 
 
"Conscience goes to the hammering in of nails." 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT'S "Gospel. ' 
 
 ' ' Men do not want books to make them think lightly of vice, as 
 if Life were a vulgar joke." GEORGE ELIOT, Romola. 
 
 " I am poor like you. I have to get my living with my hands, 
 but no lord or lady can be so happy as me, if they havn't got the 
 Love of God in their souls." GEORGE ELIOT, Dinah Morris in 
 Adam Bede. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 FOR the last forty years the name of " George 
 Eliot " has been amongst the best known in general 
 Literature. Her novels justly occupy the foremost 
 place in fictional writings, and maintain to this day 
 their supremacy. 
 
 Since her life has been written with so much 
 fulness by Mr. Cross, and all her books published, 
 we are in a favourable position for forming a right 
 estimate of George Eliot, both as a woman and as 
 an Authoress. 
 
 George Eliot was a nom-de-plume. She selected 
 this name because "George" was the Christian 
 name of Mr. Lewes, with whom, unfortunately, 
 she lived as wife for over twenty years ; and she 
 selected "Eliot" because it was a good, mouth- 
 filling, easily pronounced name. 
 
 Her own name was Mary Ann Evans. Born at 
 Arbury Farm, Warwickshire, in 1819, she spent 
 twenty-one years of her life at Griff, a house on 
 the Arbury estate, where her father was agent. 
 
 It is remarkable peculiar, indeed, that we learn 
 next to nothing about her mother. George Eliot 
 seems to have known nothing of a mother's loving 
 
io 4 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 care, a fact which may help somewhat to account 
 for her rather masculine traits of character. 
 
 Her father seems to have been an uncommon 
 person, somewhat after the type of " Adam Bede " 
 and " Caleb Garth " a Tory who had not exactly 
 a dislike to innovations and Dissenters, but a slight 
 opinion of them, as persons of ill-founded self- 
 confidence. As with the father, so with the 
 daughter. 
 
 Her own childhood was far from being a happy 
 one; and very rashly she ventures the assertion 
 that it is so with all childhood. Instead of child- 
 hood being the beautiful and happy time with 
 which it is associated in contemplations and 
 retrospect, it is full, she declares, of deep sorrows, 
 the meaning of which is unknown. What with 
 colic, and whooping-cough, and ghosts, and Hell, and 
 Satan, and an offended Deity in the sky, " who was 
 angry when she wanted too much plumcake," young 
 Mary Evans seems to have had quite a bad time 
 of it. 
 
 A most talented girl; clever, indeed, at most 
 things, she excelled in English Composition. 
 
 In one of her letters she says, " I love words." 
 
 Very early Miss Evans manifested those traits 
 of character which deepened as life went on the 
 religiousness of her nature, sympathy with moral 
 beneficence, and intellectual strength, feeling within 
 her " A man's force of genius ! " 
 
 In her early womanhood, so far as Eeligion was 
 concerned, she was ultra-evangelical ; her manners 
 were ascetic, and she delighted greatly in Hannah 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 105 
 
 More's Letters, " longing to do something for the re- 
 generation of this groaning and travailing creation." 
 
 All through her life she was an enormous 
 reader, tackling books of the severest type, and 
 in many languages ; taking a dose of Mathematics 
 every day to prevent her brain from becoming quite 
 soft. Her motto was, Cerium pete finem. 
 
 Mr. Cross says that the most important event 
 in her life was her union with Mr. Lewes. We 
 are rather of the opinion that the most important 
 event in her life took place when she changed her 
 religious beliefs. 
 
 This disastrous change was due to a book written 
 by her friend Mr. Charles Hennell, entitled, An 
 Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity. After 
 the reading of this nationalistic book George Eliot 
 changed in many ways. We do not say that she 
 ever got rid of the religiousness of her nature, or 
 her sympathy with the good, and the true, or her 
 interest in unseen spiritual realities ; but this has 
 to be said, that after this she cut herself adrift 
 from the anchorage of the Christian Faith, and so 
 went sadly and aimlessly on the mare magnum of 
 uncertainty, and on what was worse. 
 
 If after this she had any Faith at all, it was only 
 a faint Theism, or a kind of Eclecticism. She never, 
 however, became a scoffer at the Christian Faith. 
 She went to church and continued the practice, 
 loving her Bible as very sacred and precious. The 
 translating of Strauss's Leben Jesu made her sick, 
 and only the sight of the Crucifix on her study desk 
 enabled her to endure it. 
 
106 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 It is not easy to discover, in addition to her 
 antipathy to the miraculous, what George Eliot 
 objected to in the Christian Faith. Very unwisely, 
 she seemed to have longed for a certainty in 
 Eeligion, corresponding to that which prevails in 
 Mathematics, heedless that such a certainty would 
 prove the very death of the religious spirit. 
 
 And, then, in her opinion Christianity was not 
 final. She thought that something better, some- 
 thing higher, was forthcoming, a something that 
 would express less care for personal consolation, 
 and a more deeply awing sense of responsibility to 
 man, springing out of sympathy with that which of 
 all things is most certainly known to us, the diffi- 
 culty of the human lot. 
 
 She distinctly disclaimed any desire for Negative 
 propagandism, was horrified, indeed, at the thought 
 of being supposed to rob any man of his religious 
 beliefs, knowing the special blight that followed no 
 faith. 
 
 Instead of sympathising with Free Thinkers, or 
 being antagonistic to religious doctrine, she only 
 cared, she said, to know, if possible, the lasting 
 meaning that lies in all religious doctrine, from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 We are of the opinion that this talented woman 
 parted from the Christian Faith without fairly and 
 fully understanding what this Faith really is. We 
 take the liberty of saying that the heart and soul 
 of the Christian Eeligion does not lie, as George 
 Eliot thought it did, in a fear of vengeance ; 
 eternal gratitude for predestined salvation, and a 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 107 
 
 revelation of future glories as a reward. Two of 
 these Doctrines may be found on the fringes, but 
 they do not make up the pure and beautiful gar- 
 ment of the Christian Eeligion. 
 
 We have said that George Eliot's perversion 
 from the Christian Faith changed her in many ways. 
 For one thing, it determined her towards pessimistic 
 views of life, and gave to her own life and writings 
 that profound sadness with which they are charged. 
 She gives her address as " Grief Castle, Eiver of 
 Gloom, Valley of Dolour." 
 
 And for another thing, it introduced her to new 
 and strange companionships. Her first literary 
 work thereafter as usual, done thoroughly was 
 Strauss's Leben Jesu. By and by she translated 
 Spinoza, and was busy with Voltaire. In course of 
 time she became Assistant Editor of The Westminster 
 Review, and helped largely to make that Magazine 
 the most important means of enlightenment of a 
 literary nature then existing. 
 
 It was while she was connected with The West- 
 minster Review that she became acquainted with the 
 leading intellectual celebrities of the age, notably 
 with Herbert Spencer and with Lewes. 
 
 Here we must refer to George Eliot's relationship 
 to Lewes, which she herself calls, one that was 
 " profoundly serious." It was so, in all conscience. 
 There is, we think, only one word that can describe 
 it, and that is the word " immoral" for it was an 
 immoral relationship grossly so. George Eliot's 
 behaviour in this Lewes business shows how easy it 
 is to drift from the anchorage of ordinary morality, 
 
io8 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 when one has drifted from the anchorage of the 
 Christian Religion. So far as we know, George 
 Eliot nowhere expresses regret for her conduct, but 
 rather seeks to defend it; and, if we mistake not, 
 we come upon the shadow of her defence in the 
 words and conduct of some of the characters in her 
 novels. 
 
 It would be treachery to truth and morality to 
 palliate or condone this distressful side of George 
 Eliot's life. We frankly acknowledge that she 
 almost worshipped " George " ; and we as frankly 
 recognise the literary industry of both to keep, at 
 the outset, the wolf from the door and yet the 
 blot remains, black as ever. 
 
 On the death of Mr. Lewes she was married to 
 Mr. Cross, who has written her life. After a 
 married life of seven months she died suddenly, 
 December 1880; her spirit, as her biographer puts 
 it, "joining that choir invisible, whose music is the 
 gladness of the world." 
 
 II 
 
 As an Authoress, George Eliot is known in the 
 literary world as Essayist, Poetess, and Novelist. 
 There is nothing immortal about her Poetry or her 
 Essays. As an Essayist, she is perhaps at her best 
 in her last published volume, The Impressions of 
 Theophrastus Such, a work characterised as usual 
 by great intellectual ability, but at the same time 
 very uninteresting, and full of a caustic spirit. 
 
 Her fame rests on her Novels, and is, we think, 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 109 
 
 secure on this basis. A well-known authority, 
 Scherer, has said that for George Eliot was reserved 
 the honour of writing the "most perfect novels yet 
 known." 
 
 Of these, the most popular, and perhaps on the 
 whole the best, is Adam Bede. Adam Bede is 
 supposed to be a reproduction of her father ; whilst 
 Dinah Morris is like an aunt of the writer, a 
 Methodist, who told her how she once attended in 
 prison, and accompanied to the scaffold in a cart, a 
 poor girl who was condemned for child murder. 
 This incident supplied the germ of the novel, and of 
 poor " Hetty " as a character. 
 
 Eomola was the novel which took most out of 
 her; and she herself says that she could put her 
 finger on this book as marking a well-defined 
 transition in her life. " She began it a young 
 woman, and finished it an old one." She was 
 offered some ten thousand pounds for this novel. 
 
 The names of other novels are Scenes of 
 Clerical Life, The Mill on the Floss, Felix Holt, 
 Daniel Deronda, Silas Marner, and Middlemarch. 
 
 A marked characteristic of her style as a Novelist 
 is her thoroughness. In every one of her books 
 she acts out what is to her a gospel, that conscience 
 should go to the "hammering in of nails." She not 
 only grasps the character, but also the medium in 
 which the character moves. 
 
 Headers of Eomola will not be surprised to learn 
 that the writing of this book so ploughed into her, 
 for everything in it is so thoroughly delineated, 
 indicating a deep study of life in the city of 
 
no LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Florence, from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and 
 social point of view. 
 
 Believing in details, every scene in her novels is 
 minutely painted. George Eliot does not consider 
 it enough to tell the reader that the room was 
 furnished ; the reader is also told the colour of the 
 carpet and curtains, the number of the chairs and 
 how they were placed, and all about the statuary 
 and painting. She is not content with saying that 
 " Dinah Morris " had a very interesting face. She 
 describes Dinah's eyes, and cheeks, and mouth. 
 Hetty's beauty was like that of kittens, or " very 
 small downy ducks, making gentle rippling noises 
 with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to 
 toddle. Hetty's cheek was like the rose petals. 
 Dimples played about her pouting lips, whilst 
 her large dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under 
 the long eyelashes. . . . She was a Springtide 
 beauty." 
 
 Another characteristic of her novels is the variety 
 of life which they represent. George Eliot has 
 more than one string to her bow. She is equally 
 at home with the Aristocrat of the Grandcourt 
 type, and with the Eadical like Felix Holt. We 
 take very kindly to that shaggy -headed, large- eyed, 
 strong-limbed person, Felix Holt, " without waist- 
 coat or cravat, who, as his mother said of him, 
 c Used dreadful language, called most folks' Keligion 
 rottenness, and even said his dead father's medicines 
 were good for nothing.' " 
 
 In Felix Holt we have a characteristic interview 
 
GEORGE ELIOT in 
 
 between Harold and the Eector on the subject of 
 Kadicalism. 
 
 The Eector: "Calling yourself a Eadical, I've 
 been turning it over in after-dinner speeches, but it 
 looks awkward ; it's not what people are used to. 
 It wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down. 
 You'll not be attacking the Church, and the in- 
 stitutions of the country ; you'll be keeping up the 
 bulwarks, and so on." 
 
 Harold : " I shan't attack the Church, only the 
 incomes of the Bishops, to make them eke out the 
 incomes of the poor Clergy." 
 
 The Eector: "Well, well, I've no objection to 
 that, nobody likes your Bishop, he's all grab and 
 greediness, too proud to dine with his own father. 
 You may pepper the Bishops a little ; you'll respect 
 the Constitution, you'll rally round the Throne." 
 
 Harold : " Of course, of course, I am a Eadical ; 
 I only root out abuses." 
 
 " That's the word I wanted, my lad," said the 
 Eector, slapping Harold's knee. " That's a spool to 
 wind a speech on ; abuses, that's the very word." 
 
 Felix had very strong views about most things. 
 " You believe in conversion ? " said the Eev. Eufas 
 Lyon to Felix. " Yes, verily," said Felix. " I was 
 converted by six weeks' debauchery. I have looked 
 life fairly in the face, to see what can be done 
 with it, and I have made up my mind that the 
 world shan't be the worse for me, if I can help it." 
 
 Felix had not very much faith in Phrenology. 
 A Phrenologist in Glasgow told him once that he 
 had large veneration, but one there, who knew 
 
ii2 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 him, laughed, and said " that Felix was the most 
 blasphemous Iconoclast living." 
 
 " That," said the Phrenologist, " is because of 
 your large Ideality, which prevents you from find- 
 ing anything perfect enough to be venerated." 
 
 Felix hated your "gentlemanly" speakers, de- 
 claring that they shoot with boiled peas, instead 
 of bullets. 
 
 He favoured independence, even in Congrega- 
 tional singing, regarding with satisfaction the way 
 (as he puts it) that old-fashioned Presbyterians in 
 Glasgow do. The preacher gives out the Psalm, 
 and then everybody sings a different tune, as it 
 happens to turn up in their throats (sic). It's a 
 domineering sort of thing, according to Felix, a 
 denial even of private judgment, " to set a tune 
 and expect everybody to follow it." 
 
 Mike declared that Felix went " uncommon 
 against drink, and pitch-and-toss, and quarrelling, 
 and sich, and was all for school, and bringing up 
 the little chaps." 
 
 There are also in George Eliot's novels samples 
 of Doctors and Lawyers : the Lydgates, and 
 Wakems, and Matthew Germyn. 
 
 " Matthew " is described as a " fat-handed, glib- 
 tongued fellow, with a scented cambric handkerchief; 
 one of your educated, low-bred fellows, a foundling, 
 who got his Latin for nothing at Christ's Hospital ; 
 one of your middle-class upstarts, who want to 
 rank with gentlemen, and think they can do it 
 with kid gloves and new furniture. Matthew 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 113 
 
 chose always to dress in black, and was especially 
 addicted to black satin waistcoats, which carried 
 out the general sleekness of his appearance ; and 
 this, together with his white, fat, beautifully shaped 
 hands, which he was in the habit of rubbing 
 gently as he entered into a room, gave him very 
 much the air of a lady's physician." 
 
 George Eliot excels in her description of child 
 life. Headers will recall Totty, Mrs. Poyser's child, 
 Maggie Tulliver, Tom, and Bob Jakin. Totty " was 
 seen arduously clutching the handle of a miniature 
 iron with her tiny fat fist, and ironing rags with 
 an assiduity that required her to put her little red 
 tongue out as far as anatomy would allow." 
 
 Maggie Tulliver's father said of her, "I don't 
 like to fly in the face of Providence, but it seems 
 hard as I should have but one gell, and her so 
 comical." 
 
 Tom's opinion was that Maggie was a silly little 
 thing ; all girls were silly ; " they couldn't throw 
 a stone so as to hit anything"; couldn't do any- 
 thing with a pocket-knife, and were " frightened 
 at frogs." 
 
 As for Bob Jakin, Maggie felt sure that Bob 
 was wicked, without knowing very distinctly why. 
 Bob's trousers were always rolled up at the knee, 
 for the mere convenience of wading on the slightest 
 notice. 
 
 Neither does George Eliot forget animal lifei 
 She doesn't forget the dogs. Headers will re- 
 member Adam Bede's "Gyp," also "Yap" and 
 "Mumps." "If Gyp had had a tail, he would 
 8 
 
u 4 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of 
 that vehicle of emotion, he was, like many other 
 persons, destined to appear more phlegmatic than 
 nature had made him." " Yap, Yap," says Maggie, 
 " Tom's come home " ; whilst Yap danced and 
 barked round about her, as much as to say, if 
 there was any noise wanted, "he was the dog 
 for it." 
 
 Church and Dissent come in for a good deal of 
 attention. There is much of the "Kector," and 
 also of the " Methodist." Upon the whole, the 
 sympathies of the Authoress are with the Eectors ; 
 although she has atoned for much of her contempt 
 for Dissenters by the introduction of Dinah Morris, 
 the female Methodist preacher, one of the most 
 exquisite characters that has ever been portrayed 
 in fiction, and, in our opinion, the gem in por- 
 traiture of all George Eliot's writings. 
 
 If well bred, the Clergy are often dull. It is 
 unfortunate that Dissent is almost always held up 
 either to ridicule or contempt. Dissenters are sure 
 to be in the chandlery business, or are handloom 
 weavers, or miners. " They say folks always groan 
 when they's barkening to the Methodys, as if they 
 was bad in the inside ; I mean to groan like your 
 cow, and then the preacher'll think I'm all right." 
 
 George Eliot makes the Eev. Kufas Lyon, 
 Minister of Malthouse Yard, altogether too silly, 
 with his little legs and his large head, whom the 
 boys in the street called " Eevelations," and who, 
 in reply to questions about the weather, remarked 
 on the course of Providence, and " that remarkable 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 115 
 
 incident mentioned in the life of that eminent man, 
 Kichard Baxter." 
 
 It was this same Kev. Kufas who rebuked his 
 servant, Liddy, by saying, " If you are wrestling 
 with the enemy, let me refer you to Ezekiel xiii. 22, 
 and beg of you not to groan." It is a stumbling- 
 block of offence to my daughter, " She would take 
 no broth yesterday, because she said you had cried 
 into it." 
 
 And yet, as we have said, much in this line 
 may be forgiven to George Eliot, seeing she has 
 given to us that beautiful character, Dinah Morris. 
 Ben Granger said that " it would be a good while 
 before his head was full of the Methodys." Nay, 
 said Adam Bede, it's " often full of drink, and 
 that's worse." 
 
 " Come," says Seth, " and hear Dinah; you might 
 get religion, and that would be the best day's 
 earnings you ever made." And Seth sums up 
 the whole matter well, by saying to Adam Bede, 
 "Thee doesn't believe but what the Dissenters 
 and Methodys have got the root of the matter, as 
 weU as the Church folks." 
 
 As for Art, it may be truly said, that it is of 
 itself quite an education to read George Eliot's 
 Eomola. 
 
 It goes without saying, that the passion of Love 
 is to be found in all George Eliot's novels. There 
 is but one tune played with many variations the 
 course of true love never does run smooth. If 
 
u6 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 one, indeed, were to take the cue from the story 
 of the heroes and heroines who figure in these 
 novels, where it is so very difficult to get married, 
 and where married life is such a very uncertain 
 state of bliss, then, like Felix Holt, it were wisdom 
 to resolve never to get married at all. 
 
 Felix, however, broke through his own resolution, 
 as do so many, notwithstanding all that has been 
 written, said, or done. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Although there is a tone of sadness running 
 through George Eliot's works, it is only fair to 
 state, that there is also much humour, not, it may 
 be, of the side-splitting type, yet very pleasant, and 
 closely allied to wit. Mrs. Poyser, old Tulliver, and 
 Mrs. Cadwallader are her chief humorists. 
 
 Mrs. Poyser is not afraid to speak to her ser- 
 vants, "Why," she says, "you'd leave the dirt 
 in heaps in the corners; anybody would think 
 you'd never been brought up as Christians." "You 
 are never easy until you get some sweetheart, as 
 is as big a fool as yourself; you think you'll be 
 finely off when you're married, I daresay, and 
 have a three-legged stool to sit on, and never 
 a blanket to cover you, and a bit of oatcake for 
 your dinner, as three children are a-snatching at." 
 
 It is Mrs. Poyser who says that folks must 
 put up with their own kin, as they put up with 
 their own noses, " It's their own flesh and blood." 
 
 As for farming, " It's putting money into your 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 117 
 
 pocket with your right hand, and fetching it out 
 with your left." 
 
 " To see substantial-looking Ministers in the desk 
 o' a Sunday is," according to Mrs. Poyser, "like 
 looking at a full crop of wheat, or a pasture with 
 a fine dairy o' cows in it it makes you think the 
 world's comfortable-like." 
 
 It was Mrs. Poyser who remarked about Craig, 
 the Scotch gardener, " I think he's welly like a 
 cock as thinks the sun's rose i' purpose to hear 
 him crow." And Craig himself said not a bad 
 thing about Frenchmen, when he remarked, " They 
 pinched themselves in wi' stays, and it's easy enough, 
 for they've got nothing i' their inside." 
 
 It was said that the two little Poysers looked as 
 much like old Poyser as two small elephants are 
 like a large one. 
 
 Old Tulliver was very hard upon Lawyers, 
 believing that rats, weevils, and Lawyers, were 
 created by Old Harry. He wouldn't make a down- 
 right Lawyer of his son Tom, whom Mrs. Tulliver 
 declared to be " such a boy for pudding " as never 
 was, for he should be sorry for him to be a raskill, 
 but he would like to make him a sort o' engineer, 
 or a surveyor, or a valleyer like Kiley, or one of 
 those smartish businesses as are all profits and no 
 outlay, only for a big watch chain and a high 
 stool. 
 
 He would like Tom to know figures, and write 
 like print, and see things quick, and know what 
 folks mean, and how to wrap up things " in words 
 that aren't actionable." 
 
n8 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 It was Tulliver who said that "an over-cute 
 woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep, she'll 
 fetch none the bigger price for that." 
 
 Simple Mrs. Tulliver cried out once, "Maggie, 
 Maggie, you'll tumble into the water and be 
 drownded some day, and then you'll be sorry you 
 didn't do as mother told you." 
 
 Mrs. Tulliver never quarrelled with her sister 
 Glegg, any more than a waterfowl, who puts out 
 its leg in a deprecating manner, can be said to 
 quarrel with a boy who throws stones. 
 
 Aunt Pullet's cleanliness, so hateful to Tom, may 
 be guessed from the fact, that, when on a visit, Tom 
 had been compelled " to sit with towels wrapped 
 round his boots." 
 
 IV 
 
 There can be no doubt that the prevailing tone 
 of George Eliot's works is one which is healthy 
 and pure. At times she puts into the mouths of 
 her characters, words expressing principles of con- 
 duct based more upon the lower than upon the 
 higher nature, and depicts scenes which had better 
 been left undepicted ; and yet we have no hesitation 
 in saying, that the tone of the whole is morally 
 good. Her chief characters, Adam Bede, Felix 
 Holt, Daniel Deronda, Komola, Savonarola, Silas 
 Marner, and Dorothea, are distinctly of outstanding 
 goodness. 
 
 Dinah Morris, who has already been referred to 
 as the gem of all her characters, her Koh-i-noor, is 
 more than moral : she is a Christian woman of the 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 119 
 
 best sort. Mrs. Bede said that she had a face like 
 a lily ; Mrs. Poyser declared that Dinah was never 
 easy but when she was helping somebody. George 
 Eliot says, " her face was one of those faces that 
 make one think of white flowers, with light touches 
 of colour on their white petals." And Dinah is 
 made to speak of herself thus : " I work in a 
 cotton mill ; I am poor, like you ; I have got to 
 get my living with my hands, but no lord or lady 
 can be so happy as me, if they haven't got the love 
 of God in their souls. 
 
 " Think what it is, not to hate anything, but sin ; 
 to be full of love to every creature, to be frightened 
 at nothing, to be sure that all things will turn to 
 good, not to mind pain, to bear it because it is our 
 Father's will, to know that nothing, nothing, can 
 part us from God who loves us. All my peace and 
 joy have come from having no life of my own, no 
 wants, no wishes for myself, and living only in 
 God, and those of His creatures whose sorrows and 
 joys he has given me to know." 
 
 " I can," she says to Mrs. Poyser, " no more help 
 spending my life in trying to do what I can for the 
 souls of others, than you can help running if you 
 heard your little Totty crying at the other end of 
 the house." 
 
 We take the liberty of giving a bit of her sermon 
 to the villagers on the common. Turning to poor 
 Bessie Granger, Dinah said : " Poor child, poor child, 
 He is beseeching you, and you don't listen to Him. 
 You think of ear-rings, and gowns, and fine caps. 
 You never think of the Saviour who died to save 
 
120 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 your precious soul. Your cheeks will be shrivelled 
 one day, your hair will be grey, your poor body will 
 be thin and tottering, then you will begin to feel 
 that your soul is not saved ; you will have to stand 
 before God dressed in your sins. 
 
 " Ah, poor child, think if it should happen to you 
 as it once happened to a servant of God in the days 
 of her vanity. She thought of her lace caps, and 
 saved all her money to buy them ; she thought not 
 of the clean heart and the right spirit, but one day 
 when she looked into the glass, when she had put 
 on her new cap, she saw a ' Bleeding Face, crowned 
 with thorns.' That Face is looking at you now, 
 tear off your follies ; they are poisoning your soul ; 
 they are dragging you down to the bottomless pit, 
 where you shall sink for ever, and for ever, and for 
 ever, farther away from the light of God." 
 
 The darling virtues in George Eliot's code of morals 
 are Duty and Self-sacrifice. Duty she somewhere 
 calls the " Love of law," and she adorns all her chief 
 characters, notably the women, with self-sacrifice, 
 that grace of graces. Esther renounces Harold 
 Transome, with all his great estates, to marry Felix 
 Holt, who has just come out of prison. " Could 
 you share the life of a poor man, Esther ? " " If I 
 thought well enough of him," she said, her smile 
 coming again with the pretty saucy movement of 
 her head. " Have you considered well what it 
 would be a very bare, a simple life ? " " Yes," 
 said Esther, " without Attar of roses." 
 
 Self-sacrifice, too, was the grace of Eomola ; and 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 121 
 
 it will be remembered how Maggie Tulliver found 
 so much peace, at least for a time, in the adoption 
 of this same moral principle. 
 
 Maggie had been panting for happiness, and she 
 became ecstatic because now she thought she had 
 found the key of it. Her three chief books were 
 the Bible, Thomas & Kempis, and The Christian Year. 
 
 There is nothing more striking than George 
 Eliot's use of the great Law of Nemesis. Some- 
 how or another, it seems to have got burned into 
 her mind, that it shall be ill with the wicked. 
 Most certainly, she allows none, or next to none, of 
 her wicked characters to escape a frightful ending. 
 The Furies may walk with leaden foot, but they 
 strike with iron hand. That clever sinner, Mrs. 
 Transome, has to exclaim, that "for more than 
 twenty years she has not had an hour's happiness." 
 
 George Eliot seems very fond of finishing many 
 of her characters by drowning them. So she rounds 
 off Grandcourt, and Tito, and Dunstan Cass ; and 
 so, too, unfortunately, she ends Maggie and Tom 
 Tulliver. 
 
 As illustrating the use she makes of Retribution, 
 there is the sad end of Gwendolen, and the tragic 
 history of Hetty Sorrel, who was ruined by Captain 
 Donnithorne. 
 
 Poor Hetty Sorrel soliloquises at the edge of the 
 pool, whither she had gone to drown herself because 
 of her coming shame, and could not. " She set her 
 teeth, and cursed Arthur, wishing that he too might 
 know desolation and cold, and a life of shame, that 
 he dared not end by death." After the trial, 
 
122 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Hetty was condemned to death for the murder of 
 her child. The judge said, "Hester Sorrel" at 
 the words, " and to be hanged by the neck till you 
 be dead," a piercing shriek rang through the hall. 
 It was Hetty's shriek. Adam started to his feet, 
 and stretched out his arms towards her, but his 
 arms could not reach her. 
 
 In strict justice, George Eliot causes Captain 
 Donnithorne to suffer misery as well as Hetty, 
 whom he has ruined. "It was all wrong," he 
 says, " from the very first, and horrible wrong has 
 come of it; God knows, I'd give my life if I could 
 undo it." 
 
 Another characteristic of George Eliot as a 
 Novelist is her marvellous epigrammatic power. 
 Her writings are well mixed with Attic salt. We 
 close with some of them : 
 
 " A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams ; a shadow anni- 
 hilates them." 
 
 " Miss Jermyn is vulgarity personified, with large feet, and 
 the most odious scent on her handkerchief, and a bonnet that 
 looks like the fashion printed in capital letters." 
 
 " Esther went to meet Felix in prison ; they looked straight 
 into each other's eyes, as angels do when they tell the truth." 
 
 " I like to differ from everybody ; I think it is so stupid to 
 agree." 
 
 "He was short, just above my shoulder, but he tried to 
 make himself tall, by turning up his moustache, and keeping 
 his beard long." 
 
 "You let the Bible alone ; you have got a jest-book, haven't 
 you, as you read, and are proud on, keep your dirty fingers 
 to that." 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 123 
 
 " To hear some preachers, you'd think that a man must be 
 doing nothing all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's 
 a-going on inside him. I know a man must have the love of 
 God in his soul, and the Bible's God's word, but what does 
 the Bible say, it says that God put His sperrit into the work- 
 man as built the tabernacle, to make all the carved work, and 
 things as wanted a nice hand ; this is my way of looking at it. 
 There's the sperrit of God, in all things and all times, week- 
 day as well as Sunday, and in the great works and inventions, 
 and i' the figuring and mechanics." 
 
 " I'll stick up for the pretty woman preachers ; I know they'd 
 persuade me a deal sooner than ugly men." 
 
 " I am afraid the drink helped the brook to drown him." 
 
 "Both the sisters were old maids, for the prosaic reason that 
 they had never received an eligible offer." 
 
 " Two things cannot be hidden, love and a cough." 
 
 " If I am not as wise as the three kings, I know how many 
 legs go into one boot." 
 
 " Savonarola tells the people that God will not have silver 
 crucifixes and starving stomachs." 
 
 " If you want to step into a round hole, you must make a 
 ball of yourself." 
 
 "As Voltaire said, 'Incantations will destroy a flock of 
 sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic.'" 
 
 " Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one 
 can be pelted with." 
 
 " Men do not want books to make them think lightly of 
 vice, as if life were a vulgar joke." 
 
MRS. BROWNING 
 
"Let us love, let us live, 
 For the acts correspond." 
 
 MRS. BROWNING, 
 "A Rhapsody of Life's Progress." 
 
 '"Glory to God to God ! ' he saith : 
 
 'KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH, 
 AND LIFE is PERFECTED BY DEATH.'" 
 
 MRS. BROWNING, " A Vision of Poets." 
 
 " The truth which draws 
 
 Through all things upwards that a twofold world 
 Must go to a perfect Cosmos." 
 
 MRS. BROWNING, "Aurora Leigh." 
 
MRS. BROWNING 
 
 WHEN we remember that in the Victorian era more 
 than forty names of women are considered worthy 
 to rank as Poetesses, it may be well said of this era, 
 as Mrs. Browning said of the Elizabethan, that its 
 " Poets are as plentiful as birds in summer." 
 
 And yet, of all the Poetesses of the Victorian era, 
 Mrs. Browning is far and away the greatest. It 
 would not, indeed, be too much to say, that of the 
 women who have ever sung songs, there is no one 
 to place beside her, with the exception, it may be, 
 of the ancient Sappho. 
 
 Almost all the interest that gathers round this 
 gifted woman comes from her poems. 
 
 Born in 1805, she spent her childhood near 
 Ledbury, Herefordshire, the country seat of her 
 father, who was a wealthy Indian merchant. Along 
 with her brother, she received a superior classical 
 education from an excellent tutor. Never of robust 
 health, she was for many years a confirmed invalid, 
 almost confined to her room through an injury to 
 her spine. 
 
 The most important and romantic event in her 
 life took place in 1847, when, without either her 
 
 127 
 
128 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 father's knowledge or consent, she was secretly 
 married to the celebrated Poet, Kobert Browning, 
 subsequently escaping with him from her father's 
 house to the Continent, and settling finally in 
 Florence. It was a love marriage of the purest 
 kind. As Mrs. Browning herself has said, " I was 
 constrained to act clandestinely, and did not choose 
 to do so. God is witness, and will set it down as 
 my heavy misfortune, and not my fault." 
 
 There is something romantic in the story of her 
 flight, she stole away from her father's house, 
 attended by her maid and her dog, whilst the 
 family were at dinner. The only difficulty was 
 lest the dog in barking should betray the situation. 
 Mrs. Browning, taking the dog into her confidence, 
 said, " Oh Flush, if you make a sound, I'm lost." 
 Flush understood, and crept after her mistress in 
 silence. That same night Kobert Browning and 
 she took the boat to Havre, on their way to Paris. 
 
 It is not without interest, as explaining the 
 shadows which abound in Mrs. Browning's life and 
 poems, to remember that her father never forgave 
 her for marrying Kobert Browning, and remained, 
 to her great sorrow, unreconciled and irreconcilable 
 to his dying hour. 
 
 She died in 1862, leaving behind her one son, 
 and only child. 
 
 Mrs. Browning's appearance is disappointing. 
 We would have expected a more beautiful face, 
 to correspond with the soul of one of the greatest 
 " prophets of the beautiful." It is rather an earnest, 
 calm, sad, intellectual almost a masculine face. 
 
MRS. BROWNING 129 
 
 But if the face cannot be called beautiful, the 
 soul shining through the eyes certainly can be 
 called, as it has been, " crystalline " in its beauty. 
 
 Mrs. Browning has realised in her own life what 
 she devoutly desired for that large-brained woman 
 and large-hearted man, George Sand, "The angel 
 grace of a pure genius sanctified from blame." 
 
 It is to the undying honour of Mrs. Browning 
 that she has never written a word, and never 
 suggested a thought, which the purest of women 
 could wish unwritten or unsuggested. Larger in 
 brain, and larger in heart than George Sand, she 
 was what George Sand was not, pure in soul as 
 the Alpine snows. 
 
 Her Poetry not only makes the heart beat fast, 
 and that is much: it makes the heart beat pure, 
 and that is more. 
 
 Good, and good only, comes from the study of 
 Mrs. Browning's poems. Such a study may not 
 put more money into the pocket, nor make one 
 hold one's sides with laughter, nor add anything 
 at all to the stores of useful knowledge, and yet 
 it will do much good. One cannot walk long or 
 far in company with such a pure and lofty soul 
 without having " the smell of thyme upon the feet." 
 
 There is much in her Poetry to lift above the 
 enslaving Materialism of the age, and keep the 
 roads open between the seen and the unseen. 
 There is much to draw closer to the world of 
 Nature and of man, to awaken a deeper interest in 
 life and Art, and, what is perhaps best of all, to 
 confirm in the Christian Faith. 
 
130 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 II 
 
 It is no easy task to characterise Mrs. Browning's 
 Poetry. For one thing, there is plenty of it. Had 
 she written nothing but "Aurora Leigh," there 
 would have been material enough for our study, 
 and for her fame ; but " Aurora Leigh " fills but one 
 of six volumes of her poems. 
 
 There are amongst her poems, good, better, and 
 best. The present writer prefers her Sonnets, 
 including her " Sonnets from the Portuguese," her 
 " Casa Guidi Windows," and, of course, her " Aurora 
 Leigh/' It is likely that she will be remembered 
 longest by the last-named poem. She herself tells 
 us that she has put all her strength into this work, 
 and that it embodies her maturest convictions on 
 life and Art. " Aurora Leigh " is the ripe fruit of 
 her genius, and of her life's experiences. 
 
 Altogether it is a remarkable book, to be read 
 and reread, always yielding literary, intellectual, 
 and moral profit. 
 
 George Eliot has said that her Keligion went to 
 " the hammering in of nails," and Mrs. Browning 
 has been religious, in George Eliot's sense of the 
 word, in the writing of her books. She has put more 
 than Eeligion into " Aurora Leigh " : she put herself 
 into it, " fertilising every leaf of it with her life's 
 blood." There is no scamping of work here. Every 
 word is selected with the utmost care. Every simile, 
 and they are plentiful as stars, is wrought out with 
 marked brevity, and yet with the happiest of 
 insight. It is a book aglow with poetic fire, 
 
MRS. BROWNING 131 
 
 abounding with epigrams which have passed into 
 current coin, and teeming with wisest lessons on 
 the most pressing problems of our age. 
 
 We do not, of course, consider " Aurora Leigh " 
 perfect. There is a good deal of Simple Simon about 
 Komney Leigh, the " Christian Socialist." There is 
 a good deal of the impossible about Marian Earle, 
 that " daughter of the people." The best character 
 in the book is Aurora Leigh ; and the success of this 
 character no doubt lies in the fact, that, in accord- 
 ance with her own dictum, in which she expresses 
 her conception of the essence of the poetical art, Mrs. 
 Browning " wrote as she looked into her own heart." 
 
 No doubt George Eliot could have managed the 
 characters better than Mrs. Browning has handled 
 them in " Aurora Leigh," and yet George Eliot 
 could not come near the devoutness and wisdom 
 which abound in this poem. 
 
 Amongst other things, Mrs. Browning would 
 have us learn from this poem that Environment 
 (one of the catch-words of Evolution) has not that 
 effect upon character with which it is so often 
 credited. One of the most detestable characters 
 in the book, perhaps we ought to say the most 
 detestable, is Lady Waldemar, who, although mov- 
 ing in the highest society, has the spirit of one of 
 the devils, that would pull angels out of heaven. 
 One of the most lovable characters is Marian 
 Earle, who, although she was born in the lowest 
 stratum of society and of the lowest of low people 
 has in her much that is pure, noble, and self- 
 sacrificing. It is quite true that Marian Earle 
 
132 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 passes through a dreadful experience in Paris; 
 and yet Mrs. Browning takes care to let us know 
 that that was Marian's misfortune and not her 
 fault " She was murdered, not seduced." 
 
 And then, Mrs. Browning would have us learn 
 that Socialism, at least of the kind typified in 
 Eomney Leigh, is a distinct failure as a cure for 
 the evils of our time. 
 
 Poor Komney Leigh, beginning with the best 
 intentions as a reformer of the age, had to acknow- 
 ledge, in the end, that he had clearly failed 
 "slipping the ends of life." He had failed to 
 bridge the gulf between the rich and the poor, 
 failed even to get the return of gratitude for all 
 his lifelong efforts. At last the people whom he 
 had tried to help burned Leigh Hall to the ground, 
 calling it " Leigh HelL" The fire left standing a 
 stone staircase, typical of Bomney's own life, which 
 had led up to nothing at all. 
 
 And still another lesson is, that whilst Art is 
 much, Love is more. A great part of " Aurora 
 Leigh " is concerned with magnifying the office of 
 the Poet, as against that of the " Carpet-duster," or 
 of the " Social Reformer." And yet great as is the 
 office of the Poet in bearing witness to the soul and 
 God to all, indeed, "behind this show," Love is 
 more. Gifted as Aurora Leigh was as a Poetess, she 
 was only satisfied when deep answered to deep in 
 her love to Romney Leigh, and Romney Leigh's love 
 to her. Elsewhere Mrs. Browning writes 
 
 " Let us love, let us live, 
 For the acts correspond." 
 
MRS. BROWNING 133 
 
 III 
 
 In characterising Mrs. Browning from a literary 
 point of view, reference might be made to the wide 
 range of her poetical power. She has attempted 
 and adorned every form of Poetical Literature the 
 Drama, as in " The Drama of Exile " ; the Ballad, as 
 in " Little Ellie " ; the Lyric, as in the " Best Thing 
 in the World " ; and the Epic, as in her " Aurora 
 Leigh." As a writer of Sonnets, Mrs. Browning 
 takes rank beside Shakespeare himself. 
 
 To be convinced of her great and accurate 
 scholarship, we have only to read her " Wine of 
 Cyprus," or her " Vision of the Poets " 
 
 " Oh, our Aeschylus, the thunderous 
 How he drove the bolted breath." 
 
 " Oh, our Sophocles, the royal 
 
 Who was born to monarch's place." 
 
 " Our Euripides, the human, 
 
 With his droppings of warm tears, 
 And his touching of things common 
 
 Till they rose to touch the spheres. 
 Our Theocritus, our Bion, 
 
 And our Pindar's shining goals, 
 These were cupbearers undying 
 
 Of the wine that's meant for souls." 
 
 " And my Plato, the divine one." 
 
 It has been said that, compared with man, a 
 woman has one nerve more in her heart, and a cell 
 less in her brain. Such an Aphorism does not, 
 however, hold good with regard to Mrs. Browning, 
 for she has more than the ordinary share of nerves 
 
134 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 in the woman's heart, and clearly more than the 
 ordinary share of cells in the brain of either man 
 or woman. Her intellectualism is much in evidence 
 all through her writings. 
 
 As might have been expected, her Poetry abounds 
 in womanliness woman's best jewel. There are, 
 certainly, passages in her husband's Poetry which 
 Mrs. Browning could not have written : they are so 
 profound and intense ; but it is also true, that there 
 are many passages in Mrs. Browning's Poetry which 
 her husband could not have written touches, at 
 once simple and naive, which bespeak the woman's 
 heart and hand. 
 
 We must not enter on this inviting theme, but 
 we may give this from the " Drama of Exile," as in- 
 dicating a woman's sphere and work in the world 
 
 " Henceforward, arise, aspire 
 To all the calms, and magnanimities, 
 The lofty uses, and the noble ends, 
 The sanctified devotion, and full work, 
 To which thou art elect for ever more 
 First woman, wife, and mother. 
 
 Rise, woman, rise, 
 To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
 Of doing good, and of enduring ill. 
 
 But go to ! thy love 
 Shall chant itself its own beatitudes 
 After its own life working. A child's kiss, 
 Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad ; 
 A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich ; 
 A sick man helped by thee, shall make thee strong; 
 Thou shall be served thyself, by every sense 
 Of service which thou renderest. Such a crown 
 I set upon thy head." 
 
MRS. BROWNING 135 
 
 There is, perhaps, not a more touching poem in 
 the English language, and certainly not, so far as we 
 know, one more comforting to a mother bereaved 
 of her babe than " Isobel's Child." 
 
 At the outset the mother is tortured at the 
 thought, that the first who should teach her the 
 form of shrouds and of funerals should be her own 
 firstborn, and so she prays, and prays so earnestly, 
 that her babe should be spared. But against the 
 prayer of the mother rises the cry of her little child, 
 that the mother would lose her prayer, with its 
 most loving cruelty a prayer holding back the 
 child from the Better Land. 
 
 The prayer of the little child prevails, and by and 
 by the mother is seen, " at once God-satisfied and 
 
 earth-undone " 
 
 " Oh you, 
 
 Earth's tender and impassioned few, 
 Take courage to entrust your love 
 To Him so named, who guards above 
 
 Its ends, and shall fulfil ! 
 Breaking the narrow prayers that may 
 Befit your narrow hearts, away, 
 
 In His broad, loving will." 
 
 Perhaps none of Mrs. Browning's poems has been 
 more quoted than " The Cry of the Children " a 
 poem which proved of great service in bringing 
 about better times for the children who had to work 
 in factories and coal pits 
 
 " Do you hear the children weeping, Oh my brothers ! 
 
 Ere the sorrow comes with years? 
 
 They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, 
 And that cannot stop their tears. 
 
136 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 
 
 The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
 The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 
 
 The young flowers are blowing toward the west ; 
 But the young, young children, Oh my brothers ! 
 
 They are weeping bitterly, 
 They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
 
 In the country of the free." 
 
 It goes without gainsaying, that only a woman 
 could have written as Mrs. Browning has done in 
 " Aurora Leigh," " Women know the way to rear 
 up children, to be just " 
 
 " They know a simple, merry, tender knack 
 Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes ; 
 And stringing pretty words that make no sense, 
 And kissing full sense, into empty words." 
 
 . . . . '' Fathers love as well, 
 Mine did, I know, but still with heavier brains." 
 
 And we have this as a description of Marian 
 Earle's baby, as seen by Aurora in that sad tene- 
 ment in the outskirts of Paris 
 
 " There he lay upon his back, 
 The yearling creature, warm and moist with life 
 To the bottom of his dimples to the ends 
 Of the lovely tumbled curls about his face. 
 
 Both his cheeks 
 
 Were hot and scarlet as the first live rose 
 The shepherd's heart-blood ebbed away into 
 The faster for his love. And love was here 
 As instant ; in the pretty baby -mouth, 
 Shut close as if for dreaming that it sucked, 
 The little naked feet, drawn up the way 
 Of nestled birdlings ; everything so soft 
 And tender, to the tiny hold-fast hands, 
 Which, closing on a finger into sleep, 
 Had kept the mould of 't." 
 
MRS. BROWNING 137 
 
 IV 
 
 There are very few who excel Mrs. Browning as a 
 Literary Artist. In artistic excellence she is perhaps 
 next to Tennyson, and certainly superior to her 
 illustrious husband. Tennyson remarks of Kobert 
 Browning, that whilst he had music in him he could 
 not get it out. It was otherwise with Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, for she had both the rhythmic thought and the 
 rhythmic expression. Although Tennyson would 
 " kick the geese out of the boat," referring to the 
 trick of introducing in Poetry too much of the letter 
 " S," there is one line of Mrs. Browning's that is 
 effective in the highest degree. It is that line 
 where, in describing subdued speech in the church, 
 amongst the company who had gathered for Eomney 
 Leigh's marriage, she writes of " A spray of English 
 S's, soft as a silent hush." 
 
 The English language was plastic to her will, 
 answering perfectly every mood of thought and 
 shade of feeling. Now she writes verses, soft as the 
 zephyr, sweet as the sweetest lullaby that ever 
 mother sang to the child upon her knee ; and now 
 she writes verses that have in them the lightning's 
 flash, and all the force and rush of the torrent. 
 
 And, as Mrs. Browning is careful to teach, the 
 best way to secure good literary form is to let the 
 form take care of itself, once the soul is on fire. 
 Her watchword is, " Inward, ever more to Outward," 
 "Trust the Spirit, as sovran Nature does, to 
 make the form" 
 
 " Keep up the fire, 
 And leave the generous flames to shape themselves." 
 
138 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 This is what she says about rich people who 
 have been made rich out of the sufferings of little 
 children 
 
 " They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 
 
 And their look is dread to see, 
 For they mind you of their angels, in high places, 
 With eyes turned on Deity." 
 
 And they say 
 
 " Our blood splashes upward, Oh gold-heaper ! 
 
 And your purple shows your path ; 
 But the child's sob, in the silence, curses deeper 
 Than the strong man in his wrath." 
 
 She hurls a terrible curse on the selfish nation 
 which, after becoming itself free and prosperous, 
 yet utters no thought, and puts forth no effort, to 
 help other nations that are struggling after like 
 blessings 
 
 " Ye shall watch while kings conspire, 
 Round the people's smouldering fire ; 
 
 And warm for your part, 
 Shall never dare, Oh shame ! 
 To utter the thought into flame 
 Which burns at your heart. 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 Ye shall watch while nations strive 
 With the bloodhounds, die, or survive, 
 
 Drop faint from their jaws, 
 Or throttle them backward to death ; 
 And only under your breath 
 Shall favour the cause. 
 
 This is the curse. Write." 
 
 For perfect simplicity there is not much to match 
 the Komance of " The Swan's Nest," or that morceau, 
 " The Best Thing in the World " 
 
MRS. BROWNING 139 
 
 " What's the best thing in the world ? 
 June-rose by May dew impearled ; 
 Sweet South-Wind, that means no rain ; 
 Truth, not cruel to a friend ; 
 Pleasure, not in haste to end ; 
 Beauty, not self-decked and curled 
 Till its pride is over-plain ; 
 Light, that never makes you wink j 
 Memory, that gives no pain; 
 Love, when, so, you're loved again. 
 What's the best thing in the world ? 
 Something out of it, I think." 
 
 Mrs. Browning describes with rare power, not 
 only the scenery of the South of England, but also 
 people she has met with in Society. Her pen- 
 portraits of the most illustrious of the " Prophets of 
 the Beautiful " are given with strokes few but fit. 
 
 She writes of Wordsworth's " solemn-thoughted 
 idyll " ; of Tennyson's " enchanted reverie " ; of 
 Browning, " as some pomegranate which, if cut deep 
 down the middle, shows a heart within, blood- 
 tinctured of a veined humanity." 
 
 Here is a verse or two from her " Vision of 
 Poets" 
 
 " Here Homer, with the broad suspense. 
 Of thunderous brows, and lips intense, 
 Of garrulous God innocence. 
 
 There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb 
 The crowns o' the world ! Oh eyes sublime 
 With tears and laughters for all time. 
 
 And Burns with pungent passionings. 
 
 And Shelley in his white ideal, 
 All statue-blind. 
 
i 4 o LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 And poor, proud Byron, sad as grave, 
 
 And salt as life, forlornly brave, 
 
 And quivering with the dart he drave. 
 
 And visionary Coleridge." 
 
 This is how she hits off Lady Waldemar as a 
 type of the brilliant stuff of which Society is made, 
 the lady of the salon whose crinkling silks were so 
 impressive, who " took no thought of her garments 
 falling off," so different from those who keep their 
 bosom wholly to their babes 
 
 *' The woman looked immortal. How they told 
 Those alabaster shoulders and bare breasts ; 
 On which the pearls drowned out of sight, in milk 
 "Were lost, excepting for the ruby clasp ! 
 They split the amaranth velvet-boddice down 
 To the waist, or nearly, with the audacious press 
 Of full-breathed beauty. If the heart within 
 Were half as white ! but, if it were, perhaps 
 The breast were closer covered, and the sight 
 Less aspectable by half, too." 
 
 A touching and prevailing note of Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's Poetry is the note of sadness. The element 
 of sorrow in human experience is not only fully 
 recognised, but actually welcomed. Here, without 
 any doubt, she writes after looking into her own 
 heart. She could neither call her life nor her 
 song happy. She speaks of having wept all day 
 and night, of her sweet, sad, melancholy years, and 
 of her " sad perplexed minors." 
 
 It was, indeed, a firm element in her creed that 
 
MRS. BROWNING 141 
 
 no true Poet could avoid being sorrowful. " The 
 Poets on the tripod writhe." The vision comes only 
 when the head is on the stone. When she gathers 
 all the great Poets of the world into the Cathedral, 
 she has a verse startingly descriptive of the fact, 
 that each and all of them have been stricken with 
 sorrow 
 
 " But where the heart of each should beat, 
 There seemed a wound instead of it, 
 From whence the blood dropped to their feet, 
 
 Drop after drop dropped heavily. 
 As century follows century 
 Into the deep eternity." 
 
 We do not, of course, mean to say that there is 
 neither brightness nor happiness in Mrs. Browning's 
 poems, for there is much of both, and yet the pre- 
 vailing note is the note of sadness. Euskin speaks 
 of her as " weeping." It may be that the prevail- 
 ing sadness may be accounted for, to a certain 
 extent, by the fact that she was at no time of 
 robust health, that for long she was a confirmed 
 invalid, and also by the circumstances of estrange- 
 ment from the old home. But the real cause lies 
 deeper. 
 
 Mrs. Browning knew well enough that her books 
 were not lively; indeed, she purposely avoided 
 writing lively books, preferring the yew to the ash, 
 for the yew, as she said, " is green longer, and alone 
 found worthy of the holy Christmas time." 
 
 Her sorrow was a sorrow of heart, the sign of 
 her sympathy with an age low, selfish, covetous, and 
 materialistic an age in which people were eating 
 
1 42 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 clay by handfuls, like men of the West ; eating clay 
 by lumps, until they were filled up to the throat 
 with clay, and grew the grimy colour of the ground 
 on which they were feeding ; an age in which 
 there were many even whose names are written in 
 the Christian Church to no dishonour, " who diet 
 still on mud, and splash the altars with it " 
 
 "The plague of gold strikes far and near, 
 
 And deep and strong it enters ; 
 This purple chimar which we wear 
 
 Makes madder than the Centaur's : 
 Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange, 
 
 We cheer the pale gold-diggers, 
 Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, 
 And marked, like sheep, with figures. 
 Be pitiful, God ! " 
 
 Although there is an undertone of sadness in her 
 poems, yet they are not pessimistic. There may be 
 loss in the world ; there is no perdition. In " The 
 Drama of Exile " the last word is, " Exiled, but not 
 lost." 
 
 Her most welcome message is that purification, 
 not pain, is the fruit of pain that " saddest sighs 
 swell sweetest sounds." Tears may be plentiful, yet 
 they clear the vision. The drink may be bitter, 
 but it is wholesome. One of her prayers is that 
 God would bless our losses our losses, not our 
 gains. And so she concludes the whole matter by 
 praising God for the " anguish which has tried, and 
 the beauty which has satisfied " 
 
 " I know is all the mourner saith, 
 Knowledge by suffering entereth, 
 And life is perfected by death. 
 
MRS. BROWNING 143 
 
 1 Glory to God to God ! ' he saith : 
 ' KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH, 
 AND LirE is PERFECTED BY DEATH.'" 
 
 VI 
 
 It is of great value to discover what a gifted 
 woman like Mrs. Browning has to say on those 
 problems which perpetually haunt the human mind. 
 
 Kegarding Nature, she is an Idealist. She would 
 remind us that the crucial heresy is the heresy 
 of isolation, understanding our natural world too 
 insularly, as if no spiritual counterpart completed 
 it. She would teach as a cardinal truth, that there 
 is nothing single or alone, that the Great Below is 
 clenched by the Great Above, the body proving 
 spirit as the effect the cause. She teaches as a 
 doctrine, amounting almost to a revelation, that a 
 " twofold world must go to a perfect cosmos" It is 
 impossible, without recognising this quality the 
 twofold cosmos understood by a twofold creature, 
 to understand aright either Nature or Man. To go 
 wrong here is to go wrong in everything in Art, 
 Morals, and Life. 
 
 It is a great mistake to separate the natural from 
 the spiritual, or the spiritual from the natural. 
 Without the spiritual the natural is impossible, and 
 without the natural the spiritual is impotent. If 
 we remember aright, this is what Carlyle means 
 when he says that " matter exists spiritually." In 
 this direction also lies Tennyson's assurance that he 
 knows spirit better than he knows matter. 
 
 As Mrs. Browning says, the whole temporal show 
 
144 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 is " related royally," and has " eterne significance." 
 Perhaps her finest passage is that which illustrates 
 this great truth, that spiritual significance burns 
 through the hieroglyphic of material show 
 
 "Nothing's small! 
 
 No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee 
 But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ; 
 No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ; 
 No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim ; 
 
 Earth's crammed with heaven ; 
 And every common bush afire with God ; 
 But only he who sees, takes oft 7 his shoes." 
 
 So far as Art is concerned, Mrs. Browning sends 
 home the important lesson that truth is beauty 
 " the truest truth the fairest beauty." In her 
 estimation, only those Artists are great who are true 
 to Nature without, as sacramental, because witness- 
 ing to " what is behind the show," and who are also 
 true to Nature within. So far as Poets are concerned, 
 with the qualifying word that Art is selection, those 
 Poets are the greatest who are truest to themselves. 
 
 Mrs. Browning has an unqualified admiration for 
 the old saying, " Look into thine own heart and 
 write," adding, where " Nature is," God is. Art is 
 not the mere imitation of Nature, it is rather the 
 interpretation of Nature,, getting at the significance 
 through the symbol, past models to Nature, and 
 past Nature to God Himself. Hence also this 
 saying of hers " Where Poetry is, God is." 
 
 It is because Shakespeare is so true to himself, 
 and it is because Wordsworth threw himself, not at 
 Nature's feet, but on Nature's bosom, that they take 
 
MRS. BROWNING 145 
 
 rank as the greatest of Poets. There is no Poet so 
 individualistic as Shakespeare, and yet there is none 
 so universal, simply because he lays bare his own 
 heart, and so is kin to the whole world, for whom 
 he thus speaks. 
 
 Mrs. Browning preaches the gospel of Work with 
 as much intensity as Carlyle himself. She says, 
 in one of her Sonnets, that God has anointed us 
 with His odorous oil " to wrestle, not to reign." 
 Get work, she writes, 'tis better than what you 
 work to get. "Whoso fears God, fears to sit at 
 ease." " After Adam, work was curse ; but after 
 Christ, work has turned to privilege." 
 
 It is evident from the whole trend of her writings 
 that she has a deep reverence for man as man. 
 She quotes with true insight this word from the 
 Book of Revelation, " The measure of a man, that 
 is, of the angel." There are, she thinks, infidels to 
 Adam, as well as infidels to God. There is more 
 real interest in any beggar boy than in all the 
 streams or stars of the world. 
 
 Sure that man is not easily satisfied, she reminds 
 us, in one of her Sonnets, that the secret of his 
 torture lies in the " straitness of his place." 
 There are those who think that they will find relief 
 from the burden of unrest by travelling from place 
 to place, from country to country. Not so, writes 
 the Poetess. Relief is not to be found by travelling 
 from the town to the country, nor from the country 
 to the town, but only by travelling upward to the 
 Throne of God, the soul's true rest. 
 
 Without doubt, Mrs. Browning is much of a 
 
 TO 
 
146 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Democrat. She looks favourably on Democracy, as 
 she thinks all true Poets do, being not disloyal to 
 the high, but loyal to the low. 
 
 She is passionate for Liberty " Bella Liberta 
 Bella," as she makes the little girl sing in the 
 streets of Florence, in her " Casa Guidi Windows." 
 Gazing on the procession as the people passed waving 
 their flag, having for its motto, " II popolo, II popolo," 
 she writes: "That word means dukedom, empire, 
 majesty ; and kings in such an hour might read it so." 
 
 She cannot away with the mockery of the as- 
 sumption of lordship and privilege, when we must 
 come back to this at last, " that all's plain dirt " 
 u the first gravedigger proved it with his spade." 
 
 As might have been expected, full justice is done 
 by her to the Passion of Love. Than Love, accord- 
 ing to her teaching, there is nothing better in the 
 world. Where, in all Literature, is there anything 
 equal to her " Sonnets from the Portuguese," in 
 " Tolling Love's silver Iterance " ? 
 
 "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 
 
 I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height, 
 
 My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
 For the ends of Being, and ideal Grace. 
 I love thee to the level of every day's 
 
 Most quiet need, by sun, and candle light. 
 
 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 
 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise ; 
 
 I love thee with the passion put to use, 
 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
 
 I love thee with a love I seem to lose 
 With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, 
 
 Smiles, tears, of all my life ! and, if Good choose, 
 I shall but love thee better after death." 
 
MRS. BROWNING 147 
 
 Here is how she sings of the truth, that true 
 Love means the union of hearts 
 
 "Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to lie alone in thine? 
 As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and 
 
 pine. 
 
 Now drop the poor, pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with 
 thine. 
 
 II 
 
 Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, drawn closer to thine 
 
 own ? 
 My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, by many a tear run 
 
 down. 
 Now leave a little space, Dear, lest it should wet thine own. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy 
 
 soul? 
 Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand ; the part is in 
 
 the whole ; 
 Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to 
 
 soul." 
 
 Although Mrs. Browning is far from being an 
 advocate of peace at any price, she is distinctly a 
 lover and a singer of peace. In her estimation, the 
 method of settling quarrels by means of war is 
 unadvanced and unchristian, witnessing to the 
 Savagery, rather than the Civilisation, of mankind. 
 
 She says that children use the fist until they are 
 of age to use the brain. And she longs for the 
 time when people will fill the breach with olive 
 branches, quench a lie with truth, and smite a foe 
 upon the cheek with " Christ's most conquering 
 kiss," " when drums and battlecries will go out in 
 
148 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 the music of the morning star," and thinkers take 
 the place of fighters. 
 
 And yet, as has just been said, she will not have 
 peace at any price, for there are circumstances 
 when war is not only necessary, but an imperious 
 necessity. She loves peace ; would write that 
 word on Trees, on Trees, but not on Gibbets, nor 
 on Dungeons, nor on Chain-bolts, nor on starving 
 Homes. Rather than have such a peace, a peace 
 which is not fellowship, and includes not mercy, 
 she would have 
 
 "The raking of the guns across 
 The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave ; 
 Rather the struggle in the slippery fosse, 
 Of dying men, and horses, and the wave 
 Blood-bubbling. " 
 
 Mrs. Browning has much to say on the problem 
 called " Social," a problem which has been called 
 the problem of the age. Her best, and her last, 
 work, "Aurora Leigh," is full of this problem. 
 Bomney Leigh, who figures there so largely, who is 
 elbow-deep in social problems, is the type of a Chris- 
 tian Socialist. After doing his very best to solve 
 the problem, Eomney has to acknowledge utter 
 failure. The people whom he sought to raise by 
 his social methods turned upon him and rent him, 
 burning, as has been already said, Leigh Hall, 
 calling it " Leigh Hell." 
 
 One of the secrets of the worth of "Aurora 
 Leigh," as a poem, is the light which it casts on the 
 failure of Socialism to renovate Society. 
 
 For one thing, Socialism is too materialistic in 
 
MRS. BROWNING 149 
 
 its methods to satisfy human nature. Komney 
 Leigh looked upon the world as "a great car- 
 nivorous mouth," and to get worms to satisfy this 
 mouth he tore up the violets, but found that all 
 the worms he could supply could never satisfy that 
 mouth. 
 
 Mrs. Browning, dealing with this theme of 
 Socialism, has one sentence worthy of being written 
 in letters of gold, "The Soul's the way/'' No 
 amount of barley feeding, or of material ease, will 
 ever save or satisfy a human being : for a starved 
 man is superior to a fed beast. 
 
 If a human being is to be saved or satisfied, it is 
 only in Christ's way, and that is by " taking the 
 soul," and so possessing the whole man, body and 
 soul. "Not even Christ Himself can save man, 
 else than as he hold's man's soul " 
 
 "It takes a soul 
 
 To move a body, it takes a high-souled man 
 To move the masses, even to a cleaner stye. 
 It takes the ideal, to blow an inch inside 
 The dust of the actual ; and your Fouriers fail, 
 Because not Poets enough to understand 
 That life develops from within." 
 
 And then Socialism, in Mrs. Browning's estimate, 
 is too abstract ; there being too much talking by 
 aggregates, and thinking by systems, and facing evil 
 in statistics. After all, if Society is to be changed, 
 it must be changed by changing the units of which 
 it is composed. If you want a grove of oaks, you 
 must plant acorns. And if Society is to be changed, 
 it can only be changed by changing individual 
 
ISO LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 hearts and lives ; for what is Society but the ex- 
 pression of " men's single lives " the loud sum of 
 silent units. 
 
 And then, she does not fail to warn all who 
 would seek to refine and elevate the people, to 
 avoid going by any " pattern on their fingernails," 
 instead of going by the pattern on the Mount. It 
 is wise to leave room for God, and to work with 
 Him in all social work. And so the conclusion of 
 the whole matter is summed up thus 
 
 . . . . "Work humanly, 
 And raise men's bodies still, by raising souls 
 As God did first." 
 
 "Fourier's void, 
 
 And Comte absurd, and Cabet puerile. 
 Subsist no rules of life, outside of life, 
 No perfect manners, without Christian souls ; 
 The Christ Himself had been no Lawgiver 
 Unless He had given the life, too, with the law." 
 
 VII 
 
 Mrs. Browning is to be hailed as a powerful 
 ally of all those* who have the cause of true Eeligion 
 at heart. Neither atheistic nor sceptical, she is 
 heartily and devoutly Christian, and a helper of 
 many. 
 
 She knows too much of Church History, and of 
 her Bible, to have any sympathy with the Eoman 
 Catholic Church, as a Church. An Apostolical 
 Succession, filtering through the hands of Popes 
 like Joan and Borgia " a harlot and a devil " 
 " savours of the unclean." The Infallibility of a 
 
MRS. BROWNING 151 
 
 Pope is as nothing compared with a better Infalli- 
 bility still the Infallibility of those who speak 
 the truth. 
 
 Since the whole tribe of Levi has been dis- 
 possessed, there is now no special priestly caste. 
 There is but one Temple, and but one Priest, and 
 that is the great High Priest " He, He alone, He 
 alone for ever." 
 
 All Eitualism, juggling with the sleight of 
 surplice, candlestick, and altar-pall, is an ana- 
 chronism the revival of what has long since 
 served its day. It is " the old temple wall over- 
 looking the churches of Christ." 
 
 Like her illustrious husband, she was very sure 
 of God, and that not by way of proofs, not by 
 scaling painfully the logic ladder step by step, but 
 " by way of sight which goes faster." 
 
 Her highest conception of God was a God of 
 Love, His Crown Name, more than which can 
 never be. She believed in the articulated Gospels 
 which showed " Christ crucified on the Tree." To 
 her the dearest name of Christ was the " Saving 
 One." 
 
 She believed in the Immortality of the soul for 
 one great reason, that the soul, different from the 
 body, held its youth. The body falls from the 
 chariot in the race, both weak and cold. Not so 
 the soul ; and so she cries out rapturously, " On, 
 chariot ! on, soul ! " 
 
 " On the heaven- heights of truth, 
 Oh, the soul keeps its youth, 
 But the body faints sore." . , , 
 
152 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Prayer was very precious to her, because it 
 fastened the soul on high ; and as for the Church, 
 she considered that its chief function was to awe 
 " the times down from their sins." She loved all 
 who loved the truth. 
 
 Mrs. Browning longed to see on the Literature 
 of the age the Hand of Christ, a Hand whose 
 touch she herself had felt, and whose touch brings 
 blessing. 
 
 Like every Christian, her hands are lifted towards 
 the East. Her last word is a word of hope. The 
 work of God shall be done in the world. If by us, 
 good and well, yet whether by us or not, that work 
 shall be done. If God cannot work by us, He will 
 work over us, and work towards the dawning of the 
 new and dear day, and the coming of the " Perfect 
 Noon." She closes her great work, " Aurora Leigh," 
 with these words 
 
 " Jasper first, I said ; 
 And second, sapphire ; third, chalcedony ; 
 The rest in order: last, an amethyst." 
 
 The one word which Mrs. Browning uttered, 
 as she breathed her last in her husband's arms 
 in the old home at Casa Guidi, was the word 
 " Beautiful " fit word at once to close and 
 designate her own life. 
 
 Let us say of her as she said of Savonarola 
 
 " Bring violets rather. 
 And having strewn the violets, reap the corn ; 
 
 And having reaped and garnered, bring the plough, 
 And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn, 
 
 And plant the great Hereafter, in this Now," 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
"Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God.' 
 
 BROWNING, "La Saisiaz." 
 
 "Aspire, break bounds! I say, 
 Endeavour to be good, and better still, 
 And best ! Success is nought, endeavour's all." 
 
 BROWNING, 
 "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country." 
 
 ' ' The year's at the spring 
 And day's at the morn ; 
 Morning's at seven ; 
 The hill-side's dew-pearled ; 
 The lark's on the Wing; 
 The snail's on the thorn : 
 God's in His heaven 
 All's right with the world ! " 
 
 BROWNING, "Pippa Passes." 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 BROWNING'S life was not an eventful one, in the 
 usual sense of the word. It was rather a still, 
 studious life, the main facts of which are easily 
 recorded. He was born at Camberwell, London, 
 in 1812 ; died at Asolo, Venice, on December 
 12th, 1889, and was buried on the last day of 
 that year in the " Poet's Corner " in Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 We gather one or two interesting facts about 
 Browning from a volume recently published by 
 Mrs. Sutherland Orr, a book for which we are 
 upon the whole thankful, although it has been 
 very severely and justly condemned for much of 
 its spirit. 
 
 We learn from this source that his father was a 
 bank clerk, and that his mother had Scotch blood 
 in her veins. Carlyle calls Browning's mother " a 
 divine woman," and Browning revered her deeply 
 to the day of his death. Whatever Browning had 
 of evangelical Christianity, he got from his mother ; 
 and to her, it has been said, he owed the meta- 
 physical cast of his mind. The Brownings were 
 Dissenters, although Mrs. Orr seeks to qualify this 
 
 155 
 
156 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 fact by remarking that they " were not bigoted 
 ones," a very doubtful compliment. 
 
 We are told that Logic and Mathematics had no 
 place in Eobert Browning's education, and perhaps 
 this may account, to a certain extent, for that 
 tangledness which is so often laid to his charge. 
 There is, unfortunately, some foundation for this 
 charge ; at the same time, it has to be said that the 
 unintelligibility of his writings has been exaggerated. 
 
 Browning was evidently born a Poet. He could 
 make verses when his head was no higher than a 
 table, and was actually the Author of a volume of 
 verse at the age of twelve. From his youth 
 onwards he was an omnivorous reader, and came 
 very early under the influence of Byron, Shelley, 
 and Keats, notably under the influence of Shelley, 
 whom, in his first great poem, " Pauline," he calls 
 " Sun-treader." 
 
 For a time he was both a Vegetarian and an Atheist. 
 
 To qualify himself for the vocation of Poet, 
 Mrs. Orr, without any indication of poking fun 
 at Browning, says that he read and digested the 
 whole of Johnson's Dictionary. His way to popu- 
 larity and fame was long and hard. For twenty 
 years he had to suffer public neglect, owing, it has 
 been hinted, to a critic characterising his Poetry as 
 " balderdash." 
 
 It has been said that the most important thing 
 that Browning ever did was to marry Miss Eliza- 
 beth Barrett perhaps the very greatest of women- 
 poets. There is much that is romantic about the 
 courtship, the marriage, and the flight. 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 157 
 
 It was a case of love at first sight. Marriage 
 seemed an utter impossibility, from the state of 
 Miss Barrett's health, and at the same time her 
 father's face was set like a flint against his 
 daughter marrying Kobert Browning, or any other 
 person. Having refused his consent to allow his 
 daughter to spend the coming winter in the South, 
 there was before Miss Barrett but one course, and 
 that was to break with the old home, and travel 
 South as Mr. Browning's wife. 
 
 Browning's poems have been published in a 
 series of seventeen volumes, and it must be con- 
 fessed that they form very hard reading. As the 
 Poet himself has said, " He brews stiff drink." 
 They are not all of equal merit. There are 
 whole poems and many passages which we must 
 confess we do not understand ; and we make this 
 confession all the more readily, that Browning 
 himself acknowledged his own inability to under- 
 stand some of his own passages. 
 
 One or two of his tragedies must be pronounced 
 dreary to a degree. Of all his works, we admire 
 most "Pauline," the "King and the Book" (and 
 more particularly, in the " Eing and the Book," 
 the Pope's Summary); "Kabbi Ben Ezra," "La 
 Saisiaz," and the "Death in the Desert." 
 
 The " King and the Book " is deservedly regarded 
 as his masterpiece. It is the story of a Roman 
 murder case, told ten times over from different 
 points of view. It is a marvel of scholarship, of 
 intellectual discrimination of character, and of 
 poetic expression. 
 
158 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Browning excels in his delineation of " Pompilia," 
 perfect in whiteness " My flower, My rose I gather 
 for the breast of God," as the old Pope says. 
 One of the most interesting characters is the Pope 
 himself, and one of the most suggestive portions of 
 the book is the old Pope's Philosophy of Life, well 
 worthy of being pondered by everyone, Pope or 
 peasant, Catholic or Protestant. 
 
 Browning's style varies very much. Now it is 
 sweet and simple as a bird-note, and now of the 
 most painful and tortuous description subjects 
 divorced from predicates ; prepositions awanting ; 
 all sorts of involutions, parentheses, and qualify- 
 ing phrases ; the structure of the passage often 
 compelling the reader, crablike, to go sideways, 
 and even to go backwards to get the meaning. 
 He takes, at times, remarkable liberties with 
 the English language, and with the rules of 
 grammar. 
 
 We understand that, after the publication of 
 "Pauline," someone very foolishly complained of 
 his verbiage ; and it has been said that the young 
 Poet was so much stung by the criticism, that he 
 resolved that henceforward nobody would blame 
 him for being verbose. Hence, say some, the con- 
 densed, and obscure character of his style. 
 
 II 
 
 Browning has been called the "Poet of the 
 Soul " ; and when he is named thus he is, we 
 think, rightly named. It is not too much to say 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 159 
 
 that there is some great Soul-idea at the foundation 
 of all his greatest poems. 
 
 He closes " La Saisiaz," with these words : 
 " Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very 
 sure of God." In his preface to " Sordello," a 
 great mystery to many, he says that it contains 
 incidents in the " development of the Soul," and 
 declares that little else is worth study. In that 
 remarkable poem, "A Death in the Desert," in 
 a deep metaphysical mood he writes of three 
 Souls in every person What does, what knows, 
 what is. He looks upon the last Soul, What is, 
 as man's self. " The Soul holds God, and is upheld 
 by God." 
 
 When we designate Browning the " Poet of the 
 Soul," we mean that he has taken, as his sphere, 
 man's passion and man's mind. " Mine," he writes, 
 " be man's thoughts, and loves, and hates." In 
 " Ferishtah's Fancies," one of his latest poems, his 
 words are, " God is Soul Souls I and Thou ; with 
 Souls should Souls have place." 
 
 This Soul-passion accounts for many of the charac- 
 teristics of his Poetry. 
 
 Here lies the secret of its pervading Indi- 
 vidualism. He does not write upon man, but 
 upon men ; not upon woman, but upon women. 
 He is very concrete, making his studies for the 
 most part studies of individual character. In 
 his works we come across all sorts of men and 
 women, good and bad, and neither good nor 
 bad, just as they are to be met with in History 
 and in everyday life. In "Pauline," where we 
 
160 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 may trace Browning's spiritual autobiography, occur 
 these striking words 
 
 " I am singled out by God, 
 No sin must touch me." 
 
 Elsewhere he writes 
 
 " Thou, and God exist." 
 
 Probably we may find in the fact that Browning 
 concerns himself so much with man's Soul, which, 
 as compared with man's body, is under lock and 
 key, the secret of the innerness and obscurity which 
 are notes of his Poetry. 
 
 In a humorous jeu d'esprit he takes the edge off 
 any unreasonable demand for lucidity in the dis- 
 cussion of mental and spiritual states, at the same 
 time counselling carefulness in coming to con- 
 clusions 
 
 " You are sick, that's sure they say: 
 Sick of what? they disagree 
 "Tis the brain,' thinks Doctor A. ; 
 "Tis the heart,' holds Doctor B. 
 'The liver' my life I'd lay! 
 'The lungs! ''The lights.' 
 
 Ah me! 
 
 So ignorant of man's whole 
 Of bodily organs, plain to see ; 
 So sage and certain, frank and free, 
 About what's under lock and key 
 Man's soul ! " 
 
 It is this Soul-passion that gives to Browning's 
 Poetry its prevailing humanness. Unlike Scott or 
 Wordsworth, he cannot be called a Poet of Nature. 
 His song is not about the dark blue sea, not, indeed, 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 161 
 
 about Nature at all, in the ordinary acceptation of 
 the word. He goes straight for his theme to the 
 inmost chamber of the human heart " Love, hope, 
 fear, faith; these make humanity. These are its 
 signs, and note, and character." 
 
 We are of opinion that it is this master-passion 
 that likewise holds the secret of that seriousness 
 which characterises all his writings. It would be 
 wrong to think that there is no humour in Brown- 
 ing, for there are true touches of humour here 
 and there ; and yet it can scarcely be said of 
 him, as can be said of Burns and of Carlyle, that 
 humour is one of his notes. There is humour in 
 " Fra Lippo Lippi," and in " The Pied Piper of Ha- 
 melin." There is humour, and good sound moral 
 counsel as well, in a tripping little piece called " The 
 Twins " Date and Dabitur. " The Pied Piper of 
 Hamelin " concludes humorously, with a moral far 
 superior to the verse in which it is written 
 
 " So Willy, let me and you be wipers 
 Of scores out, with all men especially pipers ! 
 And, whether they pipe us from rats, or fr6m mice, 
 If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise ! " 
 
 And yet it is evident that Browning as a Poet 
 takes life seriously, although neither ascetic nor 
 sour. Full of intensest life, he is so concerned with 
 such great problems as God, Freedom, and Immor- 
 tality, that he has neither the desire nor the time 
 to give full play to the humorous mood. 
 
 And then, we are inclined to think that it is 
 because Browning has made the Soul the sphere of 
 his art that he is so universal in his sympathies. 
 ii 
 
i6a LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 With the exception of Shakespeare, there is no Poet 
 so many-sided as Browning. He offers food to 
 satisfy the hunger of every part of human nature. 
 He has literally made the earth his vineyard. 
 
 Hence we find him delineating all kinds of life 
 ancient and modern, eastern and western, simple 
 and profound. "Saul," " Eabbi Ben Ezra," and 
 " The Death in the Desert," speak to his sympathy 
 with Hebrew life. There are pictures of life purely 
 Eastern in "The Mulfykeh" and in "Ferishtah's 
 Fancies." The throbbings of Greek life find faith- 
 ful expression in " Balaustion's Adventure " and 
 " Aristophanes' Apology." Italian life finds ex- 
 pression in many a poem, but notably in his Opus 
 Magnum, "The Eing and the Book." We have 
 Parisian life in "Ked Cotton Night-cap Country," 
 and Eussian life in " Ivan Ivanovitch." We have, 
 of course, English life in abundance. Justice is 
 done to scholarly life, in " The Grammarian " ; to 
 Artistic life, in "The Pictures at Florence"; to 
 Musical life, as in " Abt Vogler " ; to Soldier life, in 
 " Clive " ; to Sailor life, in " nerve* Eiel " ; to Com- 
 mercial life, in " The Shop " ; and to Ecclesiastical 
 life, as in " Bishop Blougram's Apology." 
 
 A very distinctive note of Browning's Poetry, 
 due to his intense interest in the Soul, is its 
 religious tendency. He is, of course, too robust 
 and earnest in spirit to indulge in any cheap senti- 
 ment in this sacred sphere. 
 
 When we speak of the Eeligiousness of Brown- 
 ing's Poetry, we do not simply mean that his Poetry 
 is as a well which is undefiled, although it has to 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 163 
 
 be said to his praise that his Poetry is as pure as 
 the Alpine snows. There is not, in all his writings, 
 a thought or word which the purest could wish 
 unuttered. In this jasper quality of pureness he 
 makes for himself a place of honour side by side 
 with Wordsworth and Tennyson, neither of whom 
 " uttered anything base." 
 
 The Eeligiousness of Browning's Poetry manifests 
 itself in the fact that it gives a supreme place to 
 the two great realities, the Soul and God, and that 
 these are for each other, the Soul needing, seeking, 
 and finding God, the Soul loving and being beloved 
 by God. 
 
 The present writer cannot put into words what 
 he owes to Browning for strengthening him in the 
 Christian Faith, and encouraging him in the Chris- 
 tian life. Just as Browning himself says, that 
 neither frost nor fire will ever freeze or burn out 
 of him his thankfulness to God in Christ for truth 
 thus received, so the present writer desires to put 
 it on record that neither frost nor fire will ever 
 freeze or burn out of him thankfulness to Browning 
 for the help which he has given. 
 
 Browning thinks but little of the Kitualisms of 
 the Church, speaks, indeed, of the elaborate Cere- 
 monial in St. Peter's, Eome, as the " Earee Show of 
 St. Peter's Successors," and has ill-concealed disgust 
 for what he calls " To-day's Buffoonery of Posturings 
 and Pctticoatings." He believes that the best return 
 that one can make to God, and to His true Church, 
 for blessings received that " the best gifts where- 
 with to gift the Church," is to live a pure life. In 
 
164 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 "Bed Cotton Night-Cap Country" he tells of a 
 guilty pair, M. Le"once Miranda and Clara, who 
 sought to make amends for a guilty life by giving 
 to the Church a magnificent jewel, and by presenting 
 to the Virgin some rich lace. Says Browning 
 
 "Your jewel, brother, is a blotch; 
 Sister, your lace trails ordure. Leave your sins, 
 And so best gift with Crown, and grace with Kobe." 
 
 If we mistake not, Browning traces for us in 
 " Pauline " the development of his own Soul to 
 greater power. He there acknowledges the influ- 
 ence upon him of the Poet Shelley, " Sun-treader," 
 and likewise the influences of Greek Literature and 
 Philosophy, more particularly the Philosophy of 
 Plato and the Poetry of Euripides. The land of 
 Greece had then a great fascination for him, with 
 its " dim clustered isles in the blue sea." 
 
 In " Pauline " he tells what may be called the 
 story of his conversion. In a crisis of his life, with 
 all his powers full upon him, he was tempted to 
 accept worship rather than render it. His Soul 
 was like a temple ; " only God was gone." Shadows, 
 troops of shadows, came kneeling to him, proffering 
 to him their worship. Suddenly this searching 
 question rushed into his mind, " Should my heart 
 not worship too ? " In this crisis he was able, 
 happily, to answer affirmatively. Yes, his heart 
 would worship too and worship God. What was 
 he hungering for but God ? 
 
 " My God, my God, even from myself 
 I need Thee, 
 And I feel Thee, and I love Thee." 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 165 
 
 And then follows one of the most beautiful apos- 
 trophes to the Lord Jesus Christ that has ever been 
 penned, beginning with, " thou pale form." In 
 the course of it he says 
 
 "Let me die 
 Ages, so I see Thee ; 
 
 A mortal, sin's familiar friend, doth here 
 Avow, that he will give all earth's reward 
 But to believe, and humbly teach, the faith 
 In suffering, and poverty, and shame, 
 Only believing, he is not unloved." 
 
 As all readers of Browning will remember, the 
 Poet confesses more than once that he has " touched 
 the hem of His garment." And in his " Christmas- 
 Eve, and Easter-Day" he thus describes his re- 
 lationship to the Son of God 
 
 "I have looked to Thee from the beginning, 
 Straight up to Thee through all the world." 
 
 We cannot say that he has made any discovery 
 in the spiritual world. He says nothing that has 
 not been said before by writers like his gifted wife, 
 by Tennyson, and Kuskin, and Carlyle ; nevertheless, 
 he says what he has got to say with an originality, 
 a depth, and an intensity that endow truth with a 
 new worth. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We regard Browning as essentially a religious 
 man, and a religious writer. Neither unchristian 
 nor antichristian, he is at once a defender and a 
 strengthener of the Faith. 
 
 If he be otherwise, we must confess that, after 
 
1 66 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 a careful study, we are entirely unaware of it. 
 There is not a single Christian Doctrine or position 
 assailed by him, nay, the very opposite is the case, 
 for it is not too much to say that there is not a 
 single Christian position or Doctrine which is not 
 made stronger by his writings. 
 
 His creed is not only very definite, but, if we 
 compare " Pauline " with " Asolando," his first 
 volume and his last, with an interval of half a cen- 
 tury between them, it will be found that he has not 
 varied essentially in his religious views. This may 
 be taken as the summary of both these volumes, 
 " I believe in God, in truth, and love." He con- 
 cludes "La Saisiaz," one of the greatest and least 
 dramatic of his poems, with the confession, that he at 
 least " believed in Soul, and was very sure of God." 
 
 He was no Atheist, for God to him was the great 
 reality. He was no Materialist, for he believed in 
 Soul, believed, indeed, that matter was here for the 
 sake of Soul, and that man was only man in so far 
 as Soul obtained its right pre-eminence. In 
 " Sordello " he teaches that Joy comes when so 
 much of " Soul is wreaked in Time on Matter, and 
 that Sorrow comes by subliming Matter beyond the 
 scheme." In " Eabbi Ben Ezra " he asks 
 
 "What is he but a brute 
 
 Whose flesh has soul to suit 
 Whose spirit works, lest arms and legs want play ? 
 
 To man propose this test, 
 
 Thy body at its best, 
 How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?" 
 
 Browning was intensely earnest, too, with his 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 167 
 
 beliefs. "Strive" is one of his favourite words, 
 " Strive and thrive " being the very last words which 
 he uttered. It is the devil, that old stager, who 
 leads downwards, "fiddling all the way." His 
 words in " Kabbi Ben Ezra " are well known 
 
 "Then welcome each rebuff 
 
 That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
 Each sting, that bids nor sit, nor stand, but go ! 
 
 Be our joys three parts pain ! 
 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
 Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe." 
 
 As all readers of his " Paracelsus " will remember, 
 he is no worshipper of " poor intellect." 
 
 His Biographer, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, to whom 
 we have referred, comes, reluctantly it is true, yet 
 comes to the conclusion that Kobert Browning was 
 a " Christian in his own way" Well, the great 
 matter, as will be readily admitted, is that he was 
 a Christian at all, and by any way. So be it that 
 Browning got to the City, the way he took is 
 neither here nor there. It is said that he became 
 religious by " reading his own Soul." If so, this 
 testifies, surely, to the clearness of the writing in the 
 volume which is within. We recall one of his most 
 striking words, words of the Pope in the " Ring and 
 the Book," " Correct the portrait by the living face, 
 man's God with God's God in the mind of man." 
 
 Here we would only ask, which is the portrait 
 and which is the living face ? Browning may con- 
 sider, as we rather think he does, that the portrait 
 is in the Book, and that the living face is in the Soul, 
 and another may consider that the living face is in 
 
168 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 the Book, or, better still, in the Christ, and that the por- 
 trait is in the Soul; but surely it is wise to allow liberty. 
 
 It is said that Browning did not believe in 
 Dogma, which we take to mean that he did not 
 believe in Christian Doctrine, precisely or scientifi- 
 cally expressed. It may be granted, that he had no 
 sympathy with discussions about the names of God, 
 when there was so much more important work to 
 do ; and it may also be granted, that he would have 
 had difficulty in accepting the Thirty-Nine Articles ; 
 and yet it is well to remember, that if Browning did 
 not compress his religious beliefs into the mould of 
 the understanding, he most assuredly passed them 
 all through the furnace of his heart, trying them 
 there as gold is tried in the fire. 
 
 So far as we can make out, he believed in a Per- 
 sonal God, in a Personal Christ, in His Divinity and 
 Incarnation, and in the Immortality of man, quite a 
 precious bundle of Christian Doctrines, any one of 
 which, sincerely believed, is revolutionary in its power. 
 
 It is clear that Browning believed in the trans- 
 cendent importance of Christ. To him Christ was 
 the Crux of the whole world, spiritual, intellectual, 
 moral, and social. We believe that he was speak- 
 ing for himself, as well as for the Apostle John, 
 when -he put on record these words, in " A Death 
 in the Desert," " I say, the acknowledgment of God 
 in Christ, accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
 all questions in the earth, or out of it." We also 
 recall how he closes this remarkable poem " Call 
 Christ, then, the illimitable God, or lost." And in 
 that striking poem, "An Epistle/' which contains 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 169 
 
 the strange medical experiences of Karshish, The 
 Arab Physician, he concludes 
 
 " The very God ! 
 Think Abib ; dost thou think ? 
 So the All-great, were the All -Loving too, 
 So, through the thunder, conies a human roice, 
 Saying, ' heart, I made, a heart beats here ! 
 Face, my hands fashioned, see it in Myself! 
 Thou hast no power, nor may'st conceive of mine, 
 But love, I gave thee, with myself to love, 
 And thou must love me, who have died for thee.'" 
 
 Browning has sufficient insight to see somewhat 
 into the mystery of the Cross. To him the Crown 
 of Thorns, as a sign of divine love, suffering for those 
 who are loved, is more resplendent than all the 
 jewelled crowns of earth, " the topmost, ineffablest, 
 uttermost crown." 
 
 He believes, too, in Christ as beyond all Moralities. 
 With the look of genius he sees that it is one thing 
 to tell people what to do, and quite another thing 
 to get people to do it. And so he says with great 
 wisdom, that the real God-function a function 
 which God in Christ is always performing, is " to 
 furnish a motive, and an injunction for practising 
 what we know already." 
 
 With equal wisdom, Browning sees that the 
 glory of Christianity a glory which lifts it clean 
 above all schemes of Morality, ancient and modern 
 lies in the fact that Christianity shifts faith from 
 the region of the abstract to the region of the 
 personal. What is the point, asks the Poet, on 
 which Christ Himself lays stress ? His words do 
 not run " Believe in good, in justice, and in truth " ; 
 
170 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 but His words are " Believe in Me, who lived and 
 died, yet essentially am Lord of life." 
 
 Eef erring to Christ's claim to Divinity, he calls it 
 " an important stumble which none other in the world 
 ever seriously made." And so we venture to remark 
 that this element in Christianity, which centres all 
 things in the Person of Christ, is an important 
 stumble, a stumble which differentiates it, ethically 
 considered, from all the moral schemes of the world. 
 
 As all readers of Browning's works know, one 
 of the truths which shines through his pages with 
 the intensity of an Arctic sun, is the truth that 
 " God is love" Whether Browning got this Doctrine 
 by reading his own Soul, or in any other way, the 
 fact remains that he got hold of this truth, and that 
 he would not let it go. He believes that God is 
 Love, and that a loveless God is an impossibility 
 
 " God is good, and the rest is breath, 
 
 His love, the nobler dower. 
 For the loving worm, within its clod, 
 Were diviner than a loveless God 
 Amid His worlds " 
 
 Believing in those great verities, we are not sur- 
 prised that Browning also holds that the essential 
 feature in any man's Eeligion is the heart's response 
 to this Divine Love of God in Christ, love answer- 
 ing to love as deep calleth to deep. To him Love 
 is at once the truth of Life and of Keligion 
 
 " Whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! 
 
 Shut them in ; 
 
 With their triumphs, and their glories, and the rest I 
 Love is best." 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 171 
 
 Next to his insistence on the central Doctrine 
 that God is Love, is his hope in the Immortality 
 of man. We do not say that in this hope Brown- 
 ing is abreast of the Gospel, for he is not. We 
 welcome, however, his great poem on this subject 
 " La Saisiaz," as a preparation for the GospeL 
 
 We are not of those who think that in this 
 poem Browning culpably overlooks the teaching of 
 the Bible on the all-important theme of Man's 
 Immortality. It is the honest effort of an earnest 
 soul to solve this question for himself, and from 
 himself. 
 
 The circumstances in which it was written are 
 at once interesting and pathetic. Just as we owe 
 Tennyson's great poem, " In Memoriam," to the 
 loss of a great friend, so we owe Browning's great 
 poem, " La Saisiaz " to a similar cause. He had 
 arranged to climb with a lady friend to the plat- 
 form of Saleve, and thence survey "Mont Blanc 
 together." When the morning came, Browning was 
 ready and waiting for his companion, but no com- 
 panion appeared at the appointed hour. " For 
 once from no far mound, waved salute a tall white 
 figure." " All awaits us, ranged and ready, yet she 
 violates the bond, neither leans, nor looks, nor 
 listens, why is this ? " 
 
 The answer to the question was to be found in 
 the sad fact of the startlingly sudden death of his 
 lady friend. She was gone, and never again on 
 earth would he see that earnest face. Paying 
 piteous duty, Browning buried his friend, or rather 
 what seemed his friend, in a quiet spot at the foot 
 
172 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 of Saleve, where " low walls stopped the vine's 
 approach." Five days after this sad event he 
 made the ascent all alone, to " Saleve's own plat- 
 form, facing a glory which strikes greatness 
 small." 
 
 It was when he was on the platform of Saleve 
 that the idea of this poem, "La Saisiaz," came 
 into his mind. It was there, and during his 
 descent in the sunset, that he found and forged 
 this chain, finding afterwards that a something in 
 him would not rest until he had unravelled every 
 tangle, link by link. In this poem Browning, like 
 Tennyson, fights with death, and, we are pleased to 
 add, gets and claims the victory. 
 
 These are some of the forms in which he puts 
 the question, to which in his poem he sets himself 
 to give an answer " Does the soul survive the 
 body ? is there God's self, no or yes ? " " Was 
 ending, ending once, and always, when you died ? " 
 
 " Did the face, the form I lifted, as it lay, reveal the loss, 
 Not alone of life, but soul ? A tribute to yon flowers and 
 
 moss, 
 What of you remains beside." 
 
 Or again 
 
 " We who, darkling, timed the day's birth, struggling 
 
 testified to peace, 
 
 Earned, by dint of failure, triumph, we, creative thought, 
 must cease ! " 
 
 There is perhaps nothing in Literature to equal 
 the straightforwardness and the earnestness of this 
 questioning, unless it be that earnest cry of his 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 173 
 
 brother-poet Tennyson after the loss of his dear 
 friend, Arthur Hallam 
 
 "And saying; 'Comes he thus, my friend? 
 Is this the end of all my care ? ' 
 And circle moaning in the air : 
 Is this the end? Is this the end?" 
 
 Browning knows well that his answer will 
 be the answer of weakness, and yet he says that 
 weakness need not be falseness. He is going to 
 tell out to others what has been the " whisper of 
 his Soul " to him. He neither professes to utter 
 what the Bible contains nor what the Church 
 teaches on this great question ; but he does profess 
 to utter what has been the whisper which his Soul 
 has whispered to him. It is true that, after all, 
 the solution does not come to much, ending only in 
 the hope of Man's Immortality 
 
 "So, I hope, no more than hope, but hope, no less than 
 hope." 
 
 Yet the moral worth of this poem rests on the 
 fact, that the revelation of the Book of the human 
 Soul, as interpreted by the Poet, is in perfect 
 harmony with the revelation of the Bible. The 
 response of man's Soul, however, is inadequate and 
 feeble compared to the response of God 
 
 " Well, and wherefore, shall it daunt me, when 'tis I myself 
 
 am tasked, 
 When, by weakness, weakness questioned, weakly answers, 
 
 weakly asked ? 
 Weakness never needs be falseness ; truth is truth in each 
 
 degree, 
 Thunder-pealed by God to Nature, whispered by my soul, 
 
 to me : 
 
174 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Nay, the weakness turns to strength, and triumphs in a 
 
 truth beyond, 
 Mine is but man's truest answer, how were it, did God 
 
 respond ? " 
 
 The very fact that Browning draws such a con- 
 trast between the response of his Soul and the 
 response of God, opens not only a door for a Divine 
 Kevelation, but makes for that revelation a large 
 and a wealthy place. Instead of being hostile to 
 Kevelation, it is a true preparatio evangelica. " La 
 Saisiaz " prepares the way for a revelation from 
 God, because of its strenuous expression of the Soul's 
 longing and crying for a fuller light than that which 
 it possesses in itself. 
 
 " La Saisiaz " is the twilight, whilst Divine 
 Eevelation is the noontide. It is the whisper, 
 whilst Eevelation is the sphere song. It is the 
 clod, whilst Eevelation is the avalanche. Brown- 
 ing has asked, " How were it, did God respond ? " 
 and we can answer the question, It is well ; for 
 God has responded through the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 Who has abolished death, and brought Life and 
 Immortality to light through His Gospel. 
 
 Browning's problem was to solve, on a natural 
 basis, the certainty of man's personal Immortality. 
 But the Poet confesses that he has failed to reach 
 this certainty on such a basis. He cannot thus 
 attain to certainty; nay, he is very bold, for he 
 declares that such certainty is undesirable, and 
 would be indeed disastrous. 
 
 But whilst he confesses to a conclusion of un- 
 certainty as to Immortality, so far as he can 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 175 
 
 interpret the Soul of man, he at the same time 
 confesses to a Hope, a constant, arrowy Hope of 
 Man's Immortality. A large part of the poem is 
 taken up with the reasons why he cannot attain to 
 certainty, and how, nevertheless, he not only hopes, 
 but justifies his Hope of Immortality a Hope 
 which is to him, to use the well-known words of 
 Wordsworth, " A Presence which is not to be 
 put by." 
 
 Browning reminds us that the so-called " Proofs " 
 fail to bring about in him a certainty of Immortality. 
 He passes them in review very rapidly, and as 
 rapidly dismisses them as incapable of producing 
 assurance. 
 
 There are those who argue for the assurance of 
 Immortality, because God seems good and wise. In 
 dealing with this argument, he says that this is 
 just what he is not sure about on natural grounds. 
 Another argument is, that God seems potent. Brown- 
 ing replies, that if God be potent, why, then, are 
 right and wrong at strife ? Well, then, say others, 
 in dealing with this great question of Immortality, 
 we want it anyhow. Alas ! the Poet writes of many 
 wants and many hopes which in this life never 
 have complete fulfilment. 
 
 Others say, again, that the soul is not the body. 
 True, answers the Poet 
 
 " And the breath is not the flute ; 
 
 Both together make the music : 
 
 Either marred, and all is mute." 
 
 Last of all, there are many who say, when giving 
 the ground of their assurance in Immortality, " we 
 
176 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 ." But even here the Poet will not allow a 
 foundation for assurance. Why he does not, we 
 must confess we do not understand ; but the fact 
 remains, that he does not. Slow, sorrowful, yet 
 decided, Browning overturns this proffered cup of 
 comfort. 
 
 Although he has upon his side the support of 
 many able philosophical thinkers in dealing thus 
 with the proofs of Immortality, yet we would ven- 
 ture to make these two observations. 
 
 It seems that Browning has neither enumerated 
 all the arguments in favour of Immortality on the 
 natural basis, nor has he given the best of them. 
 He ought to have given a more prominent place 
 to the Maker of man, to the universal and quench- 
 less aspiration of man after Immortality, to the 
 Justice of God, or, as Emerson has put it, to the 
 fact that " The Creator will keep His word with 
 us." Neither has he given, as he ought to have 
 done, a place to the fact of human Personality, nor 
 to the fact of human Freedom, carrying along with 
 it moral Eesponsibility. 
 
 And then Browning evidently has forgotten that 
 whilst each argument, taken singly, may fail to 
 produce certainty, yet when argument is added to 
 argument certainty almost invariably arises from 
 their accumulation. As Newman has pointed out 
 in his Apologia, it is in this way through the 
 assemblage of probabilities, that certitude arises. 
 
 In justifying his Hope of Immortality, which is 
 the only conclusion that Browning declares he can 
 come to on a natural basis, he falls back on experi- 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 177 
 
 ence, and on his own experience. Nay, he falls 
 back on only one datum of experience, and that is 
 the fact of his own existence " The midway point," 
 " I am." 
 
 Of this he is sure. This fact is the foundation 
 of all knowledge, and the rest is but surmise. It 
 is, then, on this one fact that he bases his hope of 
 Immortality, not on Nature above him, nor around 
 him, nor beneath him ; not in his " deepest sentient 
 Self, not in Aspiration, Eeminiscence, plausibilities 
 of Trust," but on this one fact, that he is " caused 
 and a cause." 
 
 This fact of existence of which he is so sure 
 compels him to make certain presuppositions or 
 assumptions. It has been said, that in making 
 those assumptions Browning places himself at issue 
 with scientific thought. To this we cannot agree, 
 for Science is compelled to make assumption after 
 assumption before it can proceed a single step. 
 
 Browning assumes two facts to begin with " God 
 there is, and Soul there is." These he declares to 
 be facts, and to be, indeed, for him the only facts. 
 Should anyone call upon the Poet first of all to 
 prove his facts, then he replies, as if dowered with 
 the scorn of scorn 
 
 " Prove them facts ? that they o'erpass my power of proving, 
 
 proves them such : 
 
 Fact it is, I know, I know not something which is fact as 
 much." 
 
 Browning also assumed that this earth is but a 
 pupil's place ; and life and time, with all their 
 " chances, changes, just probation-space." He lays 
 
 12 
 
178 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 very great stress on this last fact, making it, indeed, 
 his sheet-anchor. He writes of Life as being 
 
 " My whole sole chance to prove, although at man's apparent 
 
 cost, 
 What is beauteous, and what ugly, right to strive for, right 
 
 to shun ; 
 
 Fit to help, and fit to hinder, prove my forces every one ; 
 Good and evil, learn life's lesson, hate of evil, love of good ; 
 As 'tis set me, understand so much as may be understood." 
 
 If we deny to the Poet this assumption, and if 
 we also deny to him the fact that the very concep- 
 tion of this life points to the realisation of a 
 higher and a better, then he declares that there 
 gathers around his Soul a darkness that may be 
 felt, and a sorrow that breaks out in an exceeding 
 bitter cry, forcing upon him the conviction that in 
 this world " sorrow has it over joy," and God is 
 dethroned. Browning gives expression to his feel- 
 ings on this matter in a passage of marvellous force 
 and vehemence - 
 
 " If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the 
 
 swell 
 Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain 
 
 for, if 
 Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last 
 
 of cliff, etc. 
 
 I must say or choke in silence 'Howsoever came my fate, 
 
 Sorrow did and joy did nowise, life well weighed, pre- 
 ponderate.' 
 
 By necessity ordained thus ? I shall bear as best I can ; 
 
 By a cause all-good, all-wise, all - potent ? No, as I am 
 man ! " 
 
 The conclusion, then, of the whole matter, so far 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 179 
 
 as the Poet's experience is concerned, is just this, 
 that the granting of the Second Life will not only 
 put him at perfect peace with this one, will not 
 only enable him to see in this present life a 
 wonderful meaning and power, but will likewise 
 lead him actually to glory, not only in this life, but 
 in all its misfortunes, its defeats, its sorrows, and 
 its trials 
 
 " Only grant my soul may carry high, through death, this 
 
 life unspilled; 
 Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss, drop by 
 
 drop, distilled ; 
 I shall boast it mine, the balsam, bless each kindly 
 
 wrench, that wrung 
 From life's tree its inmost virtue tapped the root, whence 
 
 pleasures sprung, 
 Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the 
 
 berry, left all grace, 
 Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place ! " 
 
 It is surely very significant, as showing the 
 attitude of Browning to this great theme of Im- 
 mortality, to remember that his very last words to 
 those who loved him, as recorded in his last Book 
 of Poems, Asolando, are 
 
 " One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break ; 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
 
 triumph, 
 
 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!' cry, 'Speed, fight on, fare ever,' 
 There as here!" 
 
i8o LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 IV 
 
 It is instructive to note what a thinker and 
 scholar, what a Humanist and Poet like Browning 
 has to say on those subjects which lie close to the 
 hearts of all. 
 
 He has much to say on the part which Doubting 
 plays in man's beliefs. It might have been ex- 
 pected that one who felt so fully the pressure of 
 the age would give a considerable space to this 
 matter of Doubting, this " malady of thought," as 
 someone has called it, so characteristic of our 
 time. And in this we are not disappointed, for 
 Browning, like Tennyson, looked the subject full 
 in the face and got the victory ; getting and giving 
 peace. 
 
 To him Doubting is simply inevitable in the 
 history of the development of every earnest and 
 thoughtful Soul. He has nothing but scorn for 
 the finished finite clods, " untroubled by a spark." 
 We are not, indeed, sure if Browning would not 
 go as far as to say, that it is impossible to have 
 Faith without having Doubt as well. Although 
 we cannot altogether agree with this, we are quite 
 ready to recognise that no one can have the joy 
 of Faith who has not also had the pain of Doubt. 
 
 It is, however, a clear element in Browning's 
 creed that Doubting is a stepping-stone to that 
 higher mood which we call Faith, and that Doubt- 
 ing is always more or less with us. 
 
 In the poem called " Kephan," where " all's at 
 most," where there is " no want, no growth, no 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 181 
 
 beginning, no ending, no distaste, no blessing, 
 no curse, no springs, no hope, no fear" 
 where there is a " standstill throughout eternity," 
 all happy all serene there life grows a-tremble 
 to turn to our human life, with all its hopes, and 
 fears, and loves, and hates. 
 
 The dweller there longs to exchange his resi- 
 dence in the star Eephan, for a residence in this 
 earth of ours, with all its unrest 
 
 "So wouldst thou strire, not rest? 
 
 Burn, and not smoulder, win by worth ; 
 
 Not rest content with a wealth, that's dearth? 
 
 Thou art past Rephan, thy place be Earth." 
 
 So, too, is it that in " Eabbi Ben Ezra " he de- 
 clares, " I prize the doubt." 
 
 In " Bishop Blougram's Apology," a poem almost 
 entirely devoted to reasoning on this matter, the 
 conclusion is, that the great difference between the 
 believer and the unbeliever may be thus expressed : 
 " The unbeliever lives a life of Doubt, diversified 
 by Faith ; whilst the believer lives a life of Faith, 
 diversified by Doubt." In that same poem there 
 is a fine passage, in which the writer shows the 
 great difficulty which the unbeliever has got in 
 guarding his unbelief, just when he thinks he is 
 safest 
 
 "There's a sunset touch, 
 A fancy from a flower-bell, someone's death ; 
 A chorus-ending from Euripides." 
 
 And ere the unbeliever is aware, fifty hopes and 
 
i82 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 fears not only enter into the Soul, but dance there 
 round that ancient idol The Grand Perhaps ! 
 
 Browning would seem to urge contentment upon 
 all who are able to say, that whilst Doubt is great, 
 Faith is greater still. "With me, says the Bishop, 
 Faith means "perpetual unbelief kept quiet, like 
 the snake 'neath Michael's foot, who stands calm 
 just because he feels it writhe." 
 
 Of this, however, he is sure, that there can 
 be no comparison between the blessings and the 
 peace which come of Faith, and the unrest and 
 barrenness which go along with unbelief. Positive 
 belief brings out the best of a man, and bears fruit 
 in power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days. 
 "Positive belief does this, and unbelief no whit 
 of this." 
 
 Browning has very worthy conceptions of man ; 
 he is not Byronic, to him man is neither a brute 
 nor an angel, but a " God in germ." 
 
 One of his fundamental beliefs, making him a 
 writer essentially optimistic, is that man has been 
 placed in this world, not to be miserable, but to be 
 joyful. He has, of course, to acknowledge that 
 there is much in life that is not only black, but 
 very black ; but then, he is also sure that there is 
 much in life that is not only white, but very white. 
 In his optimism, not only does the white pre- 
 dominate, but he is very sure that it will do so as 
 time goes on. This is the first and last of his 
 Philosophy " Blacks blur thy white ? not mine." 
 
 He holds that joy is the end of life that where- 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 183 
 
 ever enjoyment is, there God is ; that joy is gain, 
 and gain is gain, however small 
 
 " I find earth, not grey but rosy, 
 Heaven not grim, but fair of hue. 
 Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. 
 Do I stand and stare ? All's blue." 
 
 We have a similar note in that exquisite little 
 song which Pippa sings as she passes the villa on 
 New Year's morning 
 
 "The year's at the spring 
 And day's at the morn ; 
 Morning's at seven ; 
 The hill-side's dew-pearled ; 
 The lark's on the wing; 
 The snail's on the thorn ; 
 God's in His heaven, 
 All's right with the world." 
 
 We are not sure but that we may accept the 
 last two lines of Pippa's song, " God's in His heaven, 
 All's right with the world," as the shortest expression 
 of Browning's views regarding the course of Divine 
 Providence as directing human life and history. 
 
 Although he writes so distinctly about joy being 
 the end of life, he does not regard life as full of 
 sugarplums. Instead, he acknowledges to the full 
 the earnest, stern, probationary side of existence. 
 He knows well, and expresses forcibly the truth, 
 that life is pregnant with responsibility, disappoint- 
 ment, temptation, and sins. 
 
 He knows right well that there is much wicked- 
 ness in life, and gives ample utterance to the great 
 law of Ketribution. He furnishes a terrible illustra- 
 tion of this law in the poem just referred to, " Pippa 
 
184 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Passes," where he delineates the wicked loves of 
 Ottima and Sebald, Ottima, magnificent in sin, 
 and the horrible, awful ending of it all. These 
 are Sebald's words to Ottima, his guilty paramour, 
 " I'm proud to feel such torments ; I've done the 
 deed and pay its price. I hate, hate, curse you. 
 G-od's in His heaven." 
 
 Browning also gives expression to this same law 
 of Eetribution in that intensely interesting Tragedy, 
 " A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." It is poor, erring, 
 wicked Lady Mildred who says 
 
 "Sin has surprised us. So will punishment. 
 
 All our woeful story, 
 
 The love, the shame, and the despair, with them 
 Round ine, aghast, as round some cursed fount 
 That should spirt water, and spouts blood." 
 
 Lady Mildred speaks of the " brief madness and 
 the long despair" 
 
 " I was so young, I loved him so ; I had 
 No mother, God forgot me, and I fell." 
 
 And the outcome is of the saddest, ending in her 
 own death, the death of her young lover, and the 
 suicide of her brother 
 
 "A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth, 
 Both lips, where they're not bitten through, are black." 
 
 These are her brother's dying words 
 
 . . . "You see how blood 
 Must wash one blot away : the first blot came, 
 And the first blood came." 
 
 There is a clear sterling ring about Browning 
 when he comes to the motives which ought to govern 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 185 
 
 the life of man. Belonging to the school of Words- 
 worth, Carlyle, and Kant, he would have us " do our 
 duty, for duty's sake." " He looked beyond the world 
 for truth and beauty, sought, found, and did his duty." 
 Yes, Browning would have us look beyond the 
 world for the supply of motive forces, for he would 
 have us look up to God Himself. This is the 
 great theme of " Eabbi Ben Ezra," in which, in 
 harmony with the metaphor which he there adopts 
 of the Wheel and the Potter, he reminds us that 
 the great end of the cup that is, the great end 
 of life is to " slake the Thirst of God." This is 
 another way of answering the great question, 
 " What is Man's chief end ? " and it is just answer- 
 ing it in the familiar but deep words, " Man's 
 chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him 
 for ever" 
 
 " Look not thou down, but up 
 To uses of a cup." 
 
 Browning faces, and faces successfully, the problem 
 of Pain and Suffering. Although there are those who 
 affect to be terribly shocked because there is in life 
 so much pain and suffering, he is not at all amazed. 
 There is, he is sure, not only a purpose in it all, but 
 the purpose of a Mind both wise and good ; the 
 " blessed evil," as it has been called, being capable 
 of evolving in man the highest moral qualities, those 
 that lead to sympathy, love, and help, and to being 
 loved as well But for pain and suffering, what 
 room would there be " for thanks to God or man " ? 
 
 He is no Utilitarian ; does not keep his eye 
 constantly fixed on the matter of happiness. He 
 
1 86 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 would, indeed, be sorry for any human being who 
 had no care, no doubt, no aspiration, no pain and 
 no struggle. Such a state reduces man to the 
 level of the bird, with its crop full, and of the " maw- 
 crammed beast." Birds whose crops are full, and 
 beasts whose maws are crammed, have no cares, 
 and no doubts ; they are satisfied, but with a low, 
 sordid, animal satisfaction. 
 
 Such a satisfaction for man fills Browning with 
 loathing. He is sure that man is here not to 
 " feast on joy to solely seek, and find, and feast." 
 He does not think that getting, simply getting, and 
 always getting, satisfies man's true nature, and so 
 he rejoices when a " spark disturbs our clod." Man 
 holds, he believes, " nearer to God who gives, than 
 of His tribes who take." 
 
 He enters a strong protest against measuring 
 the worth of any man by the " vulgar mass called 
 work," by those things that take the eye and have 
 their price. He would rather measure a man's 
 worth by all the world's coarse thumb and finger 
 failed to plumb 
 
 " 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. 
 
 Was I aspired to be 
 
 And was not comforts me." 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 187 
 
 And so we find that Browning's look is onward 
 and forward. All things, and more particularly 
 Man, are moving towards perfection. " Progress is 
 indeed man's distinctive mark, man's, and not the 
 beast's." There is a movement in Nature up to 
 Man, and there is in Man himself a movement, ever 
 higher and higher, to the ideal of completeness. 
 And then, when man is at his best, there is a move- 
 ment higher still, and that is " a tendency to God " 
 
 " In completed man begins anew 
 A tendency to God. 
 
 Prognostics told man's near approach 
 . . . So in man's self arise 
 August anticipations, symbols, types 
 Of a dim splendour ever on before, 
 In that Eternal Circle life pursues." 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
" "We shall in general, in reading the Bible, get the surest hold 
 on the word ' God,' by giving it the sense of the Eternal Power, 
 not our selves t which makes for Righteousness" 
 
 "Religion is the solidest of realities, and Christianity the 
 greatest and happiest stroke ever yet made for human perfec- 
 tion." ARNOLD, Literature and Dogma. 
 
 "The two noblest of things, sweetness and light." 
 
 ARNOLD, Culture and Anarchy. 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD is well named the Apostle of 
 Culture. Whilst it can hardly be said that he has 
 deeply influenced modern thought, being more an 
 echo than a voice, yet there can be no doubt that 
 he has succeeded in making familiar many a word 
 and phrase. The word " Culture " is one of his 
 favourites " I am," he says, " above all a believer 
 in Culture." 
 
 To Arnold we owe the currency of such phrases 
 as " Sweetness and Light " (a couplet borrowed 
 from Swift), "Sweet Keasonableness," "the Dissi- 
 dence of Dissent," " Conduct, as three-fourths of 
 life," and, " the Eternal, not ourselves, that makes for 
 Kighteousness." 
 
 By Culture, Arnold means the study of perfection 
 and the love of it, the harmonious expansion of all 
 our powers, the acquainting ourselves with the 
 best that has been known or said in the world. 
 A cultured person is a person like Goethe, one 
 of his heroes, or perhaps a person like Arnold 
 himself; that is to say, a person who is neither 
 narrow nor provincial, not a Philistine, nor a Pro- 
 testant, nor a Puritan, nor a Dissenter especially 
 
 191 
 
i 9 2 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 not a Dissenter, for a Dissenter is Arnold's btte 
 noire. 
 
 It may be said of Arnold's face, to judge by the por- 
 trait given in one of the best editions of his poetical 
 works, as was said of Dante's, that it is one of the 
 saddest and mournfullest that has ever been painted ; 
 so sad and mournful is it that we feel inclined to 
 say, " Why, look ye, that man has been in Hell." 
 
 There is an undertone of sadness in his prose 
 writings, but this becomes an upper tone in his 
 poetical works, for these are, without exception, the 
 saddest of verses. In his poems he tells us that 
 his mood is that of melancholy, and distinctly 
 claims his right to tears. 
 
 The more one gets to know what Arnold thought 
 and felt, the less can there be surprise at his marr'd 
 aspect. To him this world was dead, and Christ 
 was also dead 
 
 "Now he is dead! Far hence he lies 
 
 In the lorn Syrian town ; 
 And on his grave, with shining eyes, 
 The Syrian stars looked down." 
 
 Poor Arnold had not where to cast his anchor : 
 he had not where to rest his head. To him God 
 was no loving God and Father, but a pitiless 
 Power. The Bible was to him no sure guide-book ; 
 it was honeycombed with legends. The Future 
 was to him no bright Hereafter, but " a Perhaps," 
 at best an absorption into the Eternal order. And 
 life was to him no time of joy, but a hard, helpless, 
 hopeless struggle. It was, to use his own figure, a 
 long steep journey through sunk gorges, over moun- 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 193 
 
 tains in snow, where on the heights "comes the 
 storm, and, at last, at nightfall the lonely inn mid 
 the rocks." 
 
 Surely with beliefs, or, as we should rather say, 
 with unbeliefs like those, there need be no surprise, 
 that he is the " last of the race of them that grieve." 
 
 Were we asked to say what gospel Arnold has 
 got to preach, or what message he has got to give 
 to the world, it would be hard to give an answer. 
 Good comes to the moral and spiritual side of our 
 nature from writers like Tennyson and Browning, 
 and there is moral stimulus to be had from writers 
 like Carlyle and Emerson. " There is a ray of real 
 Heaven in Kuskin"; but what can be said of Arnold ? 
 
 It must not be said that there is no good to be 
 got from him, for there is some. There is, of course, 
 the charm of his lucid style. But there is some- 
 thing better about Arnold than even his style ; 
 there is his intense devotion to Eighteousness. Just 
 as Emerson is said to have glorified Virtue, so it 
 may be said that Arnold has " glorified " Kighteous- 
 ness, for this word is written on his heart. And if 
 Arnold has done nothing else, he has at least done 
 something to guard people against a one-sided and 
 prepositional Keligion, and to direct attention, 
 almost to irritation, to Conduct as being the main 
 thing, the one thing necessary. 
 
 Although there is much that is morally worthy 
 in Arnold's writings, yet the balance of their in- 
 fluence is towards negation and unsettlement, sad- 
 ness and despair. In his " Rugby Chapel," he tells 
 how it was the glory of his father to save many as 
 '3 
 
194 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 well as himself, but Matthew Arnold, the son, issues 
 at last from the struggle all alone : 
 
 " Friends, Companions, and train 
 The Avalanche swept from our side." 
 
 He has been called an " elegant Jeremiah." We 
 think he might also be called a Daniel come to 
 judgment, and a very dogmatic one as well. To 
 quote a line from his " Bacchanalia," we may say, 
 " And a famous critic judges all." 
 
 Matthew Arnold has passed in review almost 
 everything under the sun, and there is nothing, or 
 almost next to nothing, on which he has not passed 
 a sweeping sentence of condemnation. 
 
 There may be a good deal of sweetness and light 
 in his creed, but there is more vitriol than honey in 
 his criticisms. 
 
 He has nothing to say against Wordsworth or 
 Goethe, and it is noteworthy that he is reverential 
 towards the Founder of the Christian Faith. It is 
 true that in one place he just ventures to suggest 
 that, perhaps, there is over much Hebraising in the 
 Christian system, yet, with this single stricture, he 
 is reverential to, almost worshipful of, the Founder 
 of the Christian Faith. To him Christ is an 
 " Absolute " ; you can't get above Him, nor beyond 
 Him. With these exceptions everything else and 
 everybody else is in a bad way. 
 
 As for the Age, it is a " hopeless tangle," with a 
 ground tone of human agony. The crowd to-day 
 who bluster and cringe make life " hideous, and arid, 
 and vile." " The complaining millions of men darken 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 195 
 
 in labour and pain." One world is dead ; the other 
 is powerless to be born. 
 
 The Bible it is full of errors and legends. As 
 a man of Culture, Arnold can so depend upon this 
 accomplishment for interpreting Scripture, that he 
 is sure that Jesus never uttered the words, " God 
 so loved the world," etc. 
 
 The Apostles do not escape his criticism : Paul, he 
 declares, is given to word-splitting like a pedantic 
 Kabbi, and John saddles Christ with Metaphysics. 
 
 The Creeds, all of them, the Apostle's Creed, 
 the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, are 
 founded on a blunder. 
 
 As for Doctrines, not only must they go, but 
 they are already all gone. Predestination, Original 
 Sin, Imputed Eighteousness, Justification by Faith, 
 Conversion, Sanctification, Witness of Spirit, they 
 are all gone. 
 
 As for Theologians, there is not one of them to be 
 trusted from Augustine down to the Bishop of 
 Gloucester ; whether they be Trinitarian or Uni- 
 tarian, they are all alike worthless. 
 
 He makes short work of favourite evangelical 
 Hymns, for he cavalierly dismisses them as doggerel. 
 
 The Classes and the Masses of the people are 
 likewise all in a bad way. The Aristocrats are 
 Barbarians; the Middle Classes are Philistines; 
 and the Working Classes are the Populace. 
 
 In one of Carlyle's works we read of a person 
 having the wildest notions about the world and all 
 in it and on it. The notions of this man were, 
 however, quite discounted when it was discovered 
 
196 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 that the secret of their extravagance and stupidity 
 lay in the fact that the man was standing on his 
 head, instead of standing on his feet. We are 
 inclined to think that it is not otherwise with 
 Matthew Arnold, and feel sure that there is some- 
 thing seriously wrong with his point of view. 
 
 It is always satisfactory when one is able to find the 
 key to a man's character and writings, and there can 
 be little doubt that the key to Matthew Arnold and 
 his writings is to be found in his " conception of God" 
 
 It was because Arnold went wrong here that he 
 went wrong all along the line. His conception of 
 God is Pantheistic. He is frantic with those who 
 think or speak of God as a Person ; this, he declares, 
 is no blessed truth, but an egregious blunder. God 
 is not a Person, but, as Arnold tells us times without 
 number, He is the " Eternal, not ourselves, that 
 makes for Kighteousness." 
 
 It would seem as if Arnold's own sad history is a 
 notable illustration of the importance of Dogma ; and 
 would almost lead one to reverse his famous dictum 
 about " Conduct being three-fourths of life," and to 
 put the word " Dogma " in the place of the word 
 " Conduct." 
 
 Arnold's conception of God as impersonal is the 
 hinge on which all his other views turn. 
 
 This explains his pronounced Anti-supernatural- 
 ism, his tilting against miracles, his girding at 
 such Doctrines as Election and Conversion and 
 Justification by Faith, his silence about Forgive- 
 ness of Sins and about Prayer. 
 
 In dealing, therefore, with Arnold as a thinker 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 197 
 
 and writer, the main thing is to concentrate atten- 
 tion on his conception of God. 
 
 Is God personal or impersonal ? that seems to be 
 the great question at stake. If God be impersonal, 
 then we could accept a great many of Arnold's con- 
 clusions. If, however, God be a Personal God, a 
 Being who thinks and loves, the Moral Governor 
 of the Universe, then Arnold himself is frank enough 
 to declare that he could accept the Bible, with all 
 that is said about its infallibility and inspiration, 
 its Doctrines of Predestination, Conversion, and all 
 the rest. All would then be to him legitimate, 
 scriptural, and reasonable. 
 
 Here, then, is the crux of the whole. Arnold main- 
 tains with a vehement pertinacity, that whatever else 
 God is, God is not a Person, and that we only think 
 rightly about God when we think of Him as the 
 "Eternal,not our selves, that makes for Righteousness." 
 
 One of the grounds on which he objects to the 
 Personality of God is that such a conception is 
 Anthropomorphic, that is to say, a conception of 
 God in accordance with which we make Him after 
 our own image. 
 
 Without entering at any length upon the examina- 
 tion of this objection, it is well to remember that 
 there is a poor Anthropomorphism and a rich An- 
 thropomorphism, and, as it happens, Arnold has 
 gone in for the poor kind. In the matter of 
 Anthropomorphism, there is really no choice, for 
 after this fashion we must think of God. The man 
 of Science is as much Anthropomorphic as the Poet 
 or the Theologian. Arnold tries to poke fun at the 
 
198 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Theologian, who has a conception of God which 
 amounts to nothing else than a conception of Him 
 as " a magnified and non-natural man." Without 
 considering whether Arnold is dealing as fairly by 
 the Theologian as he ought to do, it is surely better 
 to think of God as a " magnified and non-natural 
 Man " than to think of Him as a magnified natural 
 Force, or Power, or Tendency, or something or another 
 in that line. It is surely better to think of God as 
 " He," than to think of God as " It." 
 
 As there is nothing in the whole Universe so 
 wonderful as our own personality, with its charac- 
 teristics of unity, identity, and universality, with its 
 functions of thought, desire, and will, so it is no 
 degradation to think of God as having, in the 
 highest degree, those characteristics which we 
 possess, and as exercising perfectly those functions 
 which we exercise but feebly. As Lotze has re- 
 marked, " Our personality is but a faint copy of the 
 perfect Personality of God." We may indeed think 
 of God in another way ; but the conclusion is hard to 
 resist, that we cannot think of Him in a better way. 
 
 It is unfortunate that Arnold went wrong in his 
 conception of God, for, as he said of Clifford we 
 may say of himself, it has put him " all abroad in 
 Religion." As our own life might teach us " that 
 we can never die," so our own personality should 
 teach us to hold firmly fast by the Personality of 
 God. Writing of Goethe, Arnold says 
 
 " For he pursued a lonely road, 
 
 His eyes on Nature's plan ; 
 Neither made man, too much a God, 
 Nor God, too much a man," 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 199 
 
 Our grievance with Arnold is that he makes 
 God too little a Man, that he makes God, indeed, 
 so much less than man, for man is more than a 
 mere force, or power ; he is a person who thinks, 
 and loves, and wills. 
 
 One reason why Arnold objects to the Personality 
 of God is that such a view is Anthropomorphic ; but 
 this is not his chief ground of objection. His chief 
 ground of objection is that this view of God is 
 one which cannot be verified. And he boldly 
 declares that he will neither have a God, nor a 
 Doctrine, nor a Religion that cannot be verified. 
 He wants a Religion of which he is sure, as sure 
 as that fire burns, or that two and two make 
 four. Arnold advances this element of assurance 
 or certainty as one of the excellent features of his 
 own conception of the Supreme the " Eternal, not 
 ourselves, that makes for Righteousness," as against 
 the idea of a Personal God, which he avers is an 
 idea that cannot be verified. 
 
 Without entering fully into the consideration 
 of his demand for proofs, it may be sufficient to 
 observe, that one is rather surprised to find him 
 insisting so much on proofs when he himself seems 
 to look upon Religion as an Intuition. He writes 
 often of that Intuition of God which Israel pos- 
 sessed, and of Christianity as the restoration of the 
 Intuition. 
 
 Of course, it is as unnecessary to prove an intui- 
 tion as to prove that the sun is shining in the sky, 
 when we see it doing so. If Arnold only means 
 that there is room for experience in Religion, then 
 
Soo LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 no one will dispute his position. Experience has 
 undoubtedly a large place in assisting to the assur- 
 ance of the Personality of God, just as large a place, 
 indeed, as Arnold claims for the certainty which he 
 has of the " Power, not ourselves, that makes for 
 Kighteousness." 
 
 As Illingworth has pointed out in his Bampton 
 Lecture, the belief in a Personal God is an instinctive 
 judgment, and all proofs or arguments are just the 
 process by means of which this instinctive judgment 
 is intellectually justified. 
 
 Over against Arnold's demand for proofs in 
 Keligion we might set the saying of Tennyson, that 
 " nothing worthy can be proved " ; or these words 
 of Eobert Browning in " La Saisiaz," with this 
 remark, that whether as Poet or Metaphysician, 
 Browning will be found quite a match for Arnold 
 
 " Call this God, then, call that soul, and both the only facts 
 for me. 
 
 Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of prov- 
 ing, proves them such. 
 
 Fact it is. I know I know not something which is fact 
 as much." 
 
 II 
 
 Having glanced at Arnold's cardinal position, 
 which we consider to lie in his conception of God, 
 it may be well to notice some other aspects of his 
 life and writings. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that we have Arnold in 
 his best literary form in his Essays and Poetry, 
 and that there it is of the purest, as might have 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 201 
 
 been expected of one who filled for many years, 
 with distinction, the Chair of Poetry in Oxford 
 University. 
 
 And yet, apart from the excellence of the form, 
 reminding one constantly of the wise reserve of 
 Grecian Art, there is not much either of light 
 or leading. 
 
 In his Essays, Arnold passes in review most of 
 the best known names in Literature, Burns, 
 Milton, Goethe, Shelley, Amiel, Spinoza, etc., and 
 yet he says nothing about any one of them that is 
 either peculiarly penetrative or abiding. He finds 
 fault with Robert Burns, because, forsooth, he 
 was not "hearty enough in his Bacchanalian 
 Songs!" 
 
 We are greatly impressed with much of his 
 Poetry, particularly with some of his Sonnets, and 
 with such narrative poems as his " Balder " and 
 " St. Brandan." His " Rugby Chapel " is, we think, 
 the best of all, setting forth Arnold's strong point 
 excellence in description. 
 
 In attempting to read his " Sohrab and Rustum," 
 we were reminded of what Ruskin says regarding 
 his attempt to read Shelley's " Revolt of Islam," 
 that for the life of him he could not make out who 
 revolted, against whom or what. 
 
 All through Arnold's Poetry there runs that 
 upper tone of sadness to which we have already 
 referred, a feature which puts him to great dis- 
 advantage as a Poet when compared with his con- 
 temporaries Browning and Tennyson, with their 
 cheery optimism. 
 
202 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 III 
 
 Were we to offer any criticism on Arnold's special 
 theme of " Culture," we would be inclined to say 
 that the distinction which he draws between Heb- 
 raism and Hellenism is not so thoroughgoing as he 
 seems to think. The impression left upon the mind 
 by his writings is that one must go outside of the 
 Bible, and the Christian Faith, to obtain sanction for 
 Culture and impulse to Hellenism. 
 
 We do not think that this is the case. Accepting 
 at once the statement that we have an intellectual 
 side and a moral side, we observe that Arnold calls 
 the Culture of the former, Hellenism, and the 
 culture of the latter, Hebraism. A little reflection, 
 however, will make it plain that the Hebraism of 
 the Bible includes all the Hellenism that Arnold 
 pleads for, and a great deal more. It is interest- 
 ing to note that the motto which he himself has 
 selected for his Volume on Culture and Anarchy, 
 " Estote, ergo vos perfecti," is a text from the 
 New Testament Scriptures. 
 
 It is only fair, of course, to state that, with all 
 his love of Culture, he has a warm side to the 
 Hebraism of the Bible, with its stern discipline. 
 He believes that a Baptism unto death works 
 better things in the world than the Cult of the 
 Alma Venus, and leads to something infinitely purer 
 than gazing, as devotees did in Greece as part of 
 their worship, on a handsome Courtesan stepping 
 naked into the sea. He quotes, as significant of 
 much in the way of Morality, the saying of Carlyle, 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 203 
 
 that Socrates was " terribly at ease in Zion," 
 meaning by that, that this noted Greek teacher, the 
 wisest man amongst them all, cared little about his 
 own sins, and less about the sins of other people. 
 
 Arnold clings somehow to the fancy that Culture 
 is a sort of " Morrison's Pill " for the maladies of 
 the age. He considers, for one thing, that Culture 
 is necessary to interpret aright the Word of God. 
 He also thinks that if our country cared less for 
 coal, and iron, and steam, and electricity, less for 
 money making, and more for " Sweet Keasonable- 
 ness," for beauty and intelligence, for " Sweetness and 
 Light," the nation would be both greater and happier. 
 He quotes, with scorn, what the mother of one who 
 afterwards became a Knight, Sir Daniel Gooch, was 
 in the habit of saying, every morning to her boy, 
 " Ever remember, my dear Dan, that you should look 
 forward to being some day manager of the concern ! " 
 
 Arnold also believes that Politicians may find in 
 Culture the key that will open the door to the 
 right seat of authority in the State, for he thinks 
 that this is to be found neither in the classes, nor 
 in the masses, but in the exercise of right reason, 
 and in the discovery of our best self. 
 
 Alas ! however, for Arnold's " Pill " of Culture as 
 a regenerator of mankind by itself. It has been 
 weighed in the balances, and has been found 
 wanting. He himself has passed sentence of 
 condemnation on poor Heine, who did so much 
 to revive Hellenism, and it is the opinion of many 
 that Goethe, with all his culture, was far from 
 being a paragon of moral excellence. 
 
204 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 As indicating how far the Pagan world succeeded, 
 with all its culture, we quote those words of Froude 
 the Historian. Writing of the Greeks, he says : 
 " With a few rare exceptions, pollution, too detest- 
 able to be even named amongst ourselves, was of 
 familiar and daily occurrence amongst their greatest 
 men." As for the Komans, he writes : " The Eome 
 of the Caesars presents, in its later ages, a picture 
 of enormous sensuality, of the coarsest animal desire, 
 with means unlimited to gratify it." And perhaps 
 there are no lines of Arnold's better known than 
 these 
 
 " On that hard Pagan world, disgust 
 
 And secret loathing fell ; 
 Deep weariness, and sated lust, 
 Made human life a hell." 
 
 Our only remark would be, that the tree of Culture, 
 like all other trees, is known by its fruits. 
 
 We must not say that Arnold has been of no 
 service to Eeligion, a theme which so absorbed 
 the closing period of his life, and yet we have to 
 say that his service has been more of a negative 
 than of a positive kind. 
 
 We think that Arnold has been of service, 
 amongst other things, in uttering such a vigorous 
 protest against a too great devotion to the system- 
 atising of religious truths. It may be granted 
 that Metaphysics have played too great a part 
 in Keligion, without saying, as he does, that 
 Metaphysics " have nothing to do with Eeligion " ; 
 and it may also be granted, that systematising 
 religious truths has been overdone, without ad- 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 205 
 
 mitting with him that Dogma or Theology is alien 
 altogether to Keligion. It must never be forgotten 
 that Athanasius defined because Arius shuffled, and 
 that if we are to have a Theology at all, it is well 
 to have it of the best sort. 
 
 If Arnold has been of some service to Eeligion 
 from a negative point of view, we fear it has to be 
 said that positively he has been very injurious to 
 the Sacred cause, and that chiefly because he is so 
 far wrong in his conception of what Eeligion really 
 is. To him Eeligion is " Morality," "Conduct," 
 " Eighteousness," this, and this alone. 
 
 He is here very bold, and claims, indeed, to have 
 the Bible on his side. He declares that the master- 
 word of the Bible is " Eighteousness " ; that this is 
 the master-word of the Old Testament, and the 
 master-word of the New Testament as well. More 
 than once he defines Eeligion as that which " binds 
 to Eighteousness." He persistently maintains that 
 Eeligion is a something which is practical and 
 ethical, " morality lit up with feeling," " morality 
 plus emotion." 
 
 We are compelled to join issue with Arnold, in- 
 asmuch as we consider that such a conception of 
 Eeligion is not only defective, but seriously so. 
 We do not, of course, deny that Eeligion is practical 
 and ethical, but we take leave to say that this is 
 the second intention of Eeligion, and not the first. 
 The first intention of Eeligion is always upwards 
 towards God. As Joubert says, of whom Arnold 
 has written so well, Eeligion involves "an indis- 
 soluble engagement with God." So far as we 
 
206 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 understand Keligion, its leading injunctions are 
 not, " Cease to do evil, and learn to do well," but 
 they are injunctions such as those, " Fear Love, 
 and Obey God." 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that Arnold, designedly 
 or otherwise, is at once silent and blind towards 
 this side of Keligion. This defect, equal to leaving 
 Hamlet out of the play, proves fatal to any claim 
 which he puts forward, either as a Teacher or 
 Reformer, in this all-important sphere. 
 
 This very serious limitation on the part of Arnold 
 explains much in his writings regarding his attitude 
 to Miracles, his dislike to Theology, his severe 
 strictures against Calvinism, his repugnance to the 
 Doctrines of Grace, as associated, for example, with 
 the name of Wesley. 
 
 Wesley, Arnold says, attaches so much import- 
 ance not to what man brings, but to what God 
 gives. This, it has to be acknowledged, holds true 
 as a tenet both of Calvinism and of Wesleyanism ; 
 and this, of course, must seem all moonshine to a 
 person like Arnold, who leaves a living, loving God 
 out of count altogether. As well leave the key- 
 stone out of the arch, or the sun out of the heavens. 
 
 This defective conception of Religion also explains 
 a terrible falling away on Arnold's part, so far as 
 the great fact of personal Immortality is con- 
 cerned. Not only did he not believe in personal 
 Immortality, but we do not see how he could have 
 done so, seeing he did not believe in a Personal 
 God, for these two beliefs are riveted together by 
 indissoluble links. Arnold believed in an " Eternal 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 207 
 
 order which never dies," in absorption at death 
 into this " Eternal order," a belief, alas ! not one 
 grade above Buddhism, and altogether in line with 
 the rankest Materialism. 
 
 IV 
 
 AJS might have been expected, Arnold holds very 
 peculiar views about the Bible, views so peculiar 
 that the wonder is that he does not, once for all, 
 give it up, or only refer to it as he would to a book 
 of Fairy Tales. He does not, of course, believe in 
 any such thing as a Revelation from God. He holds 
 that the antithesis between natural and revealed is 
 a false antithesis, revealed truth being, as he puts 
 it, only natural truth received and acted upon with 
 earnestness. The Bible, in his view, is full of errors, 
 and teeming with Legends. 
 
 And yet, and this is the remarkable thing, he 
 declares that there is no Book in the world to be 
 compared with it. Here is a passage, for example, 
 from his Literature and Dogma : " As long as the 
 world lasts, all who want to make progress in 
 Righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as 
 to the people who have had the sense for Righteous- 
 ness most glowing and strongest. ... As well 
 imagine a man with a sense for Sculpture not 
 cultivating it by the help of the remains of Greek 
 Art, or a man with a sense for Poetry not culti- 
 vating it by the help of Homer and Shakespeare, as 
 a man with a sense for Conduct not cultivating it 
 by the help of the Bible." 
 
2o8 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 He is quite sure that the race will always return 
 to the Bible, and for this very good reason, that 
 they cannot do without it. It is, he says, " such 
 a grand book," not only a National Book, but " the 
 Book of the Nations." 
 
 He is very sorry that the working classes are 
 getting detached from it. This he considers a 
 pitiful business, for, in his opinion, a course of 
 the Bible is ever so much better for them than 
 a course of Herbert Spencer, or Universal Suffrage, 
 and so on. 
 
 Arnold therefore comes forward as a Eeformer, 
 proposing to recast the Bible and give to the 
 people a right view of it, putting aside all its 
 errors and Fairy Tales. Unfortunately, however, in 
 his reforming he takes away so much of the Bible 
 that we do not know what he has left, or what he 
 would leave behind. 
 
 " He wants the people to enjoy the Bible," but 
 we venture to ask, with all humility, what bit of it 
 would he allow them to enjoy ? If anyone takes 
 out of the Bible, as he does, all that is Supernatural, 
 what, then, is left behind ? And to this question 
 the answer must be returned, that not much is left 
 behind, neither Genesis, nor Exodus, nor the 
 Psalms, nor the Prophets, nor the Gospels, nor the 
 Epistles ; not, we should think, one single page of 
 the Bible, except perhaps a text like this, so con- 
 gruous to Arnold's own mood, " Vanity of vanities, 
 all is vanity." Arnold might, in his pruning, leave 
 a text here and a text there, but we are convinced 
 that even these would soon pass away with the 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 209 
 
 rest, leaving as residuum, simply nothing worthy of 
 being named the Word of God. 
 
 Before passing from this matter, we take the 
 liberty of directing attention, by way of speci- 
 men, to the arbitrary manner in which Arnold 
 ventures to handle the Divine Word. According to 
 him, the Churches are all wrong in the meaning 
 which they attach to the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper, inasmuch as they associate this Sacrament 
 with the " Forgiveness of sins." Now, Arnold tells 
 us that, in his opinion, an opinion which he sets 
 against the view of the Churches, the real meaning 
 of the Sacrament consists in what he calls the 
 " consecration of absolute individualism." In sup- 
 port of his view, he quotes from the New Covenant, 
 as written in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, in 
 which it is said that " God will write His law in 
 the hearts of the people." 
 
 This Covenant, quoted likewise in the New 
 Testament Scriptures, was, in all likelihood, in the 
 Saviour's mind at the Institution of the Ordinance, 
 and yet, and this is the point to which attention is 
 directed, whilst Arnold quotes one sentence of the 
 New Covenant, to which reference has been made, 
 the sentence about God writing His Law in the 
 hearts of the people, he deliberately refrains from 
 quoting another sentence which gives the essential 
 part of the Covenant, that part which reveals the 
 Grace of God in His promise to " forgive the sins 
 of His people." 
 
 The terms of the New Covenant, as given by the 
 Prophet Jeremiah, to whom Arnold refers, closes 
 
210 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 thus : " For I will forgive their iniquity, and I 
 will remember their sin no more." 
 
 Arnold has no hesitation whatever in stating his 
 position regarding the Miracles of the Bible. At 
 the touch of Ithuriel's spear, Miracles have dissolved. 
 With a bold brevity he says that they simply don't 
 happen ; and even if they did happen, they would 
 not possess any evidential worth in his eyes. Arnold 
 does not take upon him to say, like Spinoza and 
 Mill, that a Miracle, being a contradiction of the 
 Laws of Nature, is simply impossible, and cannot 
 therefore be established by any amount of evidence. 
 He would grant the possibility of Miracles nay, 
 Arnold would believe in them, if only he could 
 believe in a Personal God. 
 
 He declares that the reporters of the Miracles 
 were mistaken ; that they were liable to err, and did 
 err. Arnold, classing Church-Miracles and Bible- 
 Miracles together, says, that as we now in this 
 enlightened age have got to understand the former, 
 so we have also got to understand the latter. 
 
 Without attempting to enter fully upon this 
 qucestio vexata, we may be allowed to remark, that it 
 is more than bold for anyone to declare that all the 
 reporters of Miracles of all the Bible ages are 
 entirely mistaken. 
 
 It is, we think, quite easy to draw a sharp dis- 
 tinction between what are called Bible-Miracles and 
 what are called Church-Miracles. We do not 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 211 
 
 believe that Saint Patrick kindled a fire with 
 icicles ; although we believe that Christ fed mir- 
 aculously five thousand people with bread. We 
 believe the latter, and disbelieve the former, 
 because Saint Patrick was Saint Patrick, and 
 Christ was Christ. 
 
 In a well-known passage Arnold says : " Sup- 
 pose I could change the pen with which I write 
 this into a penwiper, I should not make what I 
 wrote any the truer or more convincing." This, no 
 doubt, is perfectly correct ; and yet it has to be 
 observed, that it is mere supposition, that he is 
 not able to do what he supposes that if he did so, 
 it- would savour much of the showman and that 
 we do not expect a mere man, like him, to do any- 
 thing of the kind. 
 
 We do not expect Arnold to turn his pen into a 
 penwiper, but we do expect One, who is the 
 Eternal Son of God, to speak and act like the 
 Eternal Son of God. The Miracles of Christ are 
 not at all supernatural to Him ; they are only super- 
 natural to us. This is the Bible view of Miracles, 
 and one, surely, reasonable in the highest degree. 
 Miracles are called there by the simplest of names 
 the works of Christ. It was as easy for Christ to 
 walk on the sea, as it is for us to walk on dry land. 
 
 VI 
 
 When Arnold touches on Nonconformity or 
 Dissent, which he does very frequently, then he 
 seems to lose all his " sweetness," and almost all his 
 
212 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 " light." Nonconformists or Dissenters are his pet 
 aversion. 
 
 Fortunately, they are, in his estimation, not alto- 
 gether without a redeeming good quality : they have 
 cultivated the art of preaching, and of free prayer. 
 They have a kind of Eighteousness, an Old Testament 
 kind, not the best kind certainly, yet a kind of Right- 
 eousness, that of smiting the Lord's enemies under 
 the fifth rib. Otherwise Dissenters are very bad. 
 
 Occasionally Arnold is simply outrageous in his 
 diatribes against them. He goes so far as to say 
 that their temper hinders Christianity, as much as 
 loose living, drunkenness, and beer shops. The 
 services of Nonconformists correspond to their own 
 crude culture. Dissenters, he says, are fond of this 
 way of it, inasmuch as their tastes are gratified 
 by such condescension, and their sense of self- 
 importance is thereby fostered. Their Religion, if 
 Religion it can be called, is a hole-and-corner sort 
 of thing. They have a fetish of separation. Like 
 the wild ass, they like to be alone, and are full 
 of strife and bitterness. They are animated by 
 jealousy of the Establishment, by disputes, tea- 
 meetings, openings of chapels, and sermons. 
 
 One can easily understand why Dissenters are 
 charged with jealousy of the Establishment, although 
 the charge is a most uncharitable one; but one 
 fails to see why Dissenters should be singled out 
 for opprobrium for the very innocent dissipation of 
 tea-drinking in a social capacity ; or for opening a 
 chapel, once it is built; or for preaching sermons, 
 so be it the sermons are worthy of that function. 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 213 
 
 He launches out against what he calls the " un- 
 blessed mixture " amongst Dissenters of Politics 
 and Keligion, because of which both Politics and 
 Religion are spoiled. Now, whilst we believe that 
 Politics, at times, get along well enough without 
 Religion, we as certainly believe that Religion is 
 bound to concern itself with Politics in the best sense 
 of the word. We are surprised that a writer like 
 Arnold, who makes so much of "Righteousness," 
 seems to have forgotten that there are departments 
 of it called civic and national. Surely no section 
 of Christians, Dissenters or otherwise, deserve to 
 be scourged for laying to heart the interests of the 
 community, municipal or national, of which they 
 form a part, or for endeavouring by word and deed 
 to advance in the nation the sacred and saving 
 cause of Righteousness. Instead of censure, praise 
 would be wiser. 
 
 Arnold is clearly on the side of the Church of 
 England as by Law established. Connection with 
 this Church leads into what he calls the "national 
 current of life," although what that means exactly 
 we do not quite understand. This, however, seems 
 clear, that if " the national current of life " be so 
 " hideous and vile " as he has declared it to be, the 
 more one keeps clear of it the better, unless for 
 the high purpose of changing it. 
 
 He lifts up his voice against the " Disestablish- 
 ment Crusade " by crying out, and this is almost 
 all that he has to say, that the Church is there 
 and that the clergyman, poor soul, cannot help being 
 the Parson of the parish. This argument, however, 
 
2i 4 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 proves too much, for once upon a time as much could 
 have been said on behalf of Feudalism and Slavery, 
 and as much could be said now of Popery and of the 
 Wicked One himself. It is not sufficient to justify 
 anything, simply to say that the thing is there ; we 
 must also be able to say that it is there in harmony 
 with the demands of right and justice. 
 
 One of Arnold's pleas on behalf of the Establish- 
 ment of the Church is, that such an arrangement 
 on the part of the State produces men who con- 
 tribute the best works in Literature and Art. We 
 neither can nor care to dispute the fact that there 
 have been and are great names in Literature and 
 Art associated with the Church Established by the 
 State, neither can we dispute the fact that the 
 names of great men have been more numerous in 
 connection with the Establishment than with Non- 
 conformity. Black-faced sheep eat more than 
 white-faced ones, simply because there are more 
 of them. 
 
 At the same time, it is undeniable that since 
 Nonconformity has had time to grow and consolidate, 
 the names associated with Nonconformity, in the 
 spheres of Literature, Scholarship, Theology, and 
 Mission enterprise, can at least hold their own with 
 honoured names in the Church Established by Law. 
 Arnold has been good enough to mention Hooker 
 and Butler. We take the liberty of referring to 
 the names of Milton and Bunyan in years gone 
 by ; and to such names in modern times as Carlyle, 
 Emerson, and the Brownings. 
 
:. MATTHEW ARNOLD 215 
 
 VII 
 
 We conclude with a reference to Arnold's atti- 
 tude to Christianity. We have already said that 
 he is reverential to the Founder of the Christian 
 Faith, and we have now to say that he is loud in 
 the praises of what he calls the " natural truths of 
 Christianity." We do not know what the " natural 
 truths" of Christianity really are, but we know 
 that to Arnold they mean Christianity cleared of 
 all that is miraculous or supernatural. 
 
 The world, he says, cannot do with Christianity 
 as it is, and yet the world cannot do without it ; 
 it is the " greatest and happiest stroke " ever made 
 for the advancement of mankind. Christianity has 
 a future which is unknown, and a possible develop- 
 ment which is immense. It has taught the world 
 the pre-eminence of " Kighteousness," and has en- 
 gaged for the conduct of men the mightiest of 
 forces, the forces of love, reverence, gratitude, hope, 
 pity, and awe. 
 
 He writes of the Infinite of the Eeligion of Jesus. 
 Headers of Arnold's works get familiar with the 
 words, " the Secret of Jesus " and " the Method of 
 Jesus." The Secret of Jesus is said to be " dying 
 to live," or self -renouncement ; and the Method of 
 Jesus, the " Method of inwardness," or self-exami- 
 nation. 
 
 Our chief objection to Arnold's attitude to 
 Christianity is that it comes so far short of what 
 it might be. When we read his answers to some 
 of the fundamental questions of the Christian Faith ? 
 
216 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 we are sure that the writer of them has entirely 
 missed the great and open secret. Arnold has 
 surely grossly misread the Christian Faith when 
 he says that " Easter " means that Jesus was vic- 
 torious over death by dying ; that " the kingdom of 
 God " means the " Ideal Society of the Future," and 
 that Immortality means to "live in the Eternal 
 order, which never dies." 
 
 Without saying a single word against his con- 
 tentions for self - renouncement, self - examination, 
 and righteousness each and all praiseworthy in 
 their own place, we take leave to say that the 
 " Arrow is beyond him " that he has failed utterly 
 either to mark or comprehend the " Infinite," as he 
 calls it, of the Eeligion of Jesus. 
 
 To complete his sketch of the Christian Faith, 
 much more than he attempted or accomplished 
 remains to be done. He must add Upwardness to 
 his inwardness, and self-changement to his self- 
 renouncement. The Master said much, it is true, 
 of dying to live, but He said more of receiving 
 Divine Life through the Spirit of God, thus making 
 the tree good. The Method of Jesus is simplicity 
 itself ; it is contained in these two words, " Follow 
 Me." We must look for the Secret of Jesus, not 
 in any rule, however good, but in Himself, very 
 man of very man, and very God of very God, in 
 Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge. " Thou art the King of Glory, 
 Christ." 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 
 
' ' Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant 
 dissipation of motion ; during which the matter passes from an 
 indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a ^definite, coherent he- 
 terogeneity ; and during which the retained motion undergoes a 
 parallel transformation." SPENCEE, First Principles. 
 
 " Pure egoism, and pure altruism, are both illegitimate. If 
 the maxim ' Live for self ' is wrong, so also is the maxim ' Live 
 for others.'" 
 
 ' ' General happiness is to be achieved mainly through the 
 adequate pursuit of their own happinesses by individuals ; while 
 reciprocally, the happinesses of individuals are to be achieved in 
 part by their pursuit of the general happiness." SPENCEB, The 
 Data of Ethics. 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER a name familiar to all inter- 
 ested in Science and Philosophy may well be called 
 the Apostle of Agnosticism, and of Evolution. 
 
 Although the term " Agnosticism " is the inven- 
 tion of Huxley, yet the theory is not only closely 
 identified with Spencer, but forms a very large 
 part of his philosophical system. Spencer's name, 
 closely identified with Agnosticism, is even more 
 closely identified with Evolution, for Spencer was 
 an Evolutionist before Darwin, and commits himself 
 to this theory in a way that leaves Darwin far 
 behind. 
 
 Not only has our era been called the era of 
 Evolution, but it has been said that this theory is 
 the great contribution of Science and Philosophy 
 to the thought of the age. Undoubtedly Evolution 
 is largely in evidence ; we hear about the Evolution 
 of this, and the Evolution of that, the Evolution of 
 the heavens, and of the earth ; of^ plants, animals, 
 man, mind, morals, religion, society, language, 
 science, art ; the Evolution of things inorganic, 
 organic, and superorganic. Evolution is in the air; 
 
 219 
 
220 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 and of all Evolutionists, Herbert Spencer is the 
 most thoroughgoing. 
 
 Although the present writer is neither an Ag- 
 nostic nor an Evolutionist, yet, in accordance with 
 Spencer's own saying, that there is " a soul of truth 
 lying in error," he believes that there is a measure 
 of truth in both theories. 
 
 Without concluding, as Spencer does, that the 
 riddle of the world is not only unsolved, but also 
 insoluble, it may be frankly acknowledged, that 
 there is much mystery both within and without us ; 
 much mystery about mind, matter, life, religion, 
 and God. And yet, granting mystery, it is surely 
 going too far to pronounce that the solution of the 
 problem is hid forever in a realm of impenetrable 
 darkness. It seems unscientific to declare so dog- 
 matically regarding the impossible. 
 
 It is bad enough to say that we have meanwhile no 
 key to open the door, but it is unwarrantable to de- 
 clare so oracularly that no key can be found to open it. 
 
 It may be true that there is great darkness 
 around many things, more particularly about their 
 origin ; yet there is that within us which creates 
 and fosters the hope, that more light will break. 
 The pressure of the problem has to be frankly con- 
 ceded ; still, the courage to face, and the hope to 
 solve it, are immortal in the human soul. 
 
 What, indeed, is every discovery in Science, but a 
 gain to the realm of light over the realm of dark- 
 ness ? As the old couplet puts it 
 
 "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night, 
 God said, 'Let Newton be,' and all was light." 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 221 
 
 Now, although it cannot be said that all is light 
 since Newton's day, yet it must be admitted that 
 since his great discovery there has been more light. 
 In Astronomy, for example, the system of Ptolemy 
 was an advance on the poetical conception that the 
 Sun was a chariot drawn by horses. The system 
 of Ptolemy was an advance on the old poetical 
 conception, and the system of Copernicus is a great 
 advance on the system of Ptolemy. And if we are 
 to believe Spencer himself, we must come to the 
 conclusion that he has brought to light in his Law 
 of Evolution, a principle that explains ever so 
 many things, in heaven and on earth, in the mind 
 and history of man. 
 
 All that we plead for is, that it is well to be 
 careful in pronouncing the enigma of the Universe 
 insoluble. An old Puritan said there was "more 
 light to break from the Word of God," and so we 
 venture to say, there is more light to break on ever 
 so many things, as the ages roll on. The Science 
 of the Nineteenth Century has made discoveries 
 altogether unknown to those who lived before this 
 age, and it is likely that those who corne after will 
 make discoveries of which we do not now even 
 dream 
 
 "The Veil 
 
 Is rending, and the Voices of the day, 
 Are heard across the Voices of the dark." 
 
 There is, we may be sure, a grain of truth in 
 Agnosticism " the sea is so great, and our boat is so 
 little " ; and there is also, we are convinced, some- 
 thing in Evolution. 
 
222 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Although we are unable to accept the theory of 
 Darwin, or the more thoroughgoing theory of 
 Spencer on Evolution, yet it has to be said that the 
 discussions in connection with this theory have 
 accentuated the fact that there are, to use Emerson's 
 phrase, " stairs in the world " and that we are on 
 one of them. Although it has yet to be proved that 
 the stair above has grown out of the stair below, the 
 fact has been made clear that there are grades of 
 being in the world ; and that whether or no there 
 has been any progress in the subhuman spheres, 
 there has been much, and continued progress in 
 the human sphere. 
 
 Spencer himself acknowledges that there are no 
 traces of development, so far as the ken of man has 
 gone, in the present flora and fauna of the world. 
 The foxglove of to-day is the same as the foxglove 
 of yesterday, and of past ages; and the bee of 
 to-day is the same as the bee of yesterday, and of 
 past ages. 
 
 Neither ought it to be forgotten, that much as 
 has been said and written about the Origin of 
 Species, no new species has ever been known to 
 have originated. Dr. Hutchison Stirling concludes 
 his volume on " Darwinianism " with these words : 
 " In the whole of Darwin's Origin of Species there 
 is not a single word of origin. The very species 
 which is to originate, never originates. Nay, as no 
 breeder ever yet made a new species, so the Darwins 
 confess, ' we cannot prove that a single species has 
 changed.' " 
 
 The only progress that comes within the ken of 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 223 
 
 history and of experience, is the progress of man 
 himself 
 
 "Progress is Man's distinctive mark alone ; 
 Not God's and not the beast's. God is, they are, 
 Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be." 
 
 But whatever may be the opinion of the present 
 writer, there can be no doubt that Herbert Spencer 
 is an Agnostic and Evolutionist of the most thorough- 
 going type ; and that through his writings he has 
 greatly influenced the thought of the age. 
 
 II 
 
 A few facts about Herbert Spencer may not be 
 uninteresting. He was born at Derby, 1820, 
 where his father was a teacher, and is still, fortun- 
 ately, with us busy thinking and writing. His father 
 and mother were Nonconformist, one a Methodist 
 and the other a Quaker. It was expected that 
 Spencer would have followed his father's occupa- 
 tion, but instead, after being engaged for a little 
 while as a Civil Engineer in the construction of a 
 new railway, for want of employment he drifted to 
 London, at the age of twenty-two. Eventually he 
 became sub-editor of the Economist newspaper, and 
 indicated his literary and philosophical ability by 
 contributing some splendid Essays to The West- 
 minster Eeview. 
 
 Gradually he settled down to Literary Life, choos- 
 ing as his sphere of thought subjects connected 
 with Science and Philosophy. The year 1860 is 
 memorable in Spencer's history, for it was in that 
 
224 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 year, in great weakness of bodily health, that he 
 issued the plan of his " Synthetic Philosophy," a 
 plan which involved the publication of some ten 
 volumes, demanding at least twenty years of thought 
 and effort, if not, as it then seemed, an entire 
 lifetime. 
 
 It is to the imperishable honour of Spencer that 
 he grappled heroically with the great scheme which 
 he had set before him, and he is to be sincerely 
 congratulated on the fact that he has been able 
 to finish the work which he so bravely set himself 
 to do. 
 
 However one may disagree with the conclusions 
 of his philosophical system, it is only right to 
 acknowledge the nobility of spirit which led to such 
 an undertaking, a notable instance of knowledge 
 loved for its own sake, and truth sought for in the 
 same pure mood. And our tribute of praise for 
 such a noble effort ought to be given more readily 
 when it is remembered, that after twenty-four years 
 of Herculean labour the profits from his books were 
 exactly nothing. 
 
 It cannot be said that Spencer's books form easy 
 reading, or that they are ever likely to become 
 popular, demanding, as they do, the closest study. 
 
 His chief works are First Principles, Principles 
 of Biology, Principles of Psychology, Principles of 
 Sociology, Data of Ethics, Essays, and his Study of 
 Sociology. 
 
 Although we consider that his favourite and 
 famous analogy between the individual and the 
 social organism is more fanciful than real, yet we 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 225 
 
 think that Spencer has done much service in point- 
 ing out that the character of Society depends on 
 the character of its units, inasmuch as Society is just 
 what those who compose it are. 
 
 People, says Spencer, stand too much in awe of 
 a State agency, made up of " a cluster of men, a few 
 clever ; many, ordinary ; and some, decidedly stupid." 
 
 One of his maxims is that the less the State 
 interferes with its citizens, the better; and we 
 certainly agree with him, when he points out that 
 Culture does not make people good, inasmuch as 
 there is no vital connection between knowledge and 
 good behaviour. 
 
 As is well known, Spencer condemns Gambling, 
 because the benefit received does not imply effort 
 put forth, and because the happiness of the winner 
 is the misery of the loser. 
 
 It may be well to observe, that although Spencer 
 has been called an Atheist, he neither likes to be 
 called so, nor does he deserve to be so called. Of 
 course, he does not believe in God as all true 
 Christians do ; and yet he believes in What is to 
 him as God an " Infinite and Eternal energy, 
 Unknown, and Unknowable, from Which all things 
 proceed." 
 
 Neither is he a Materialist, although he under- 
 takes to explain all things in the world and in man 
 in terms of Matter, Motion, and Force. 
 
 He is not a Materialist, because he is not pre- 
 pared to speak of Matter, Motion, and Force, as 
 purely material agencies, but rather as symbols of 
 
 15 
 
226 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 that inscrutable, unknown Eeality which is behind 
 them. He does not call them material, neither 
 does he call them spiritual. Although Spencer 
 may not be called a Materialist, yet he comes 
 perilously near Materialism, when he writes of 
 Thought as due to nervous shocks, and of the 
 physical face of moral phenomena. Spencer frankly 
 declares that Thought is contingent upon the size 
 of the mental apparatus, upon phosphorus, and 
 upon the blood that goes to the brain. 
 
 Every one, of course, acknowledges that mind 
 uses the brain as an instrument ; but if Spencer's 
 way of it be true, it would not be at all difficult to 
 manufacture, easily and abundantly, any quantity of 
 geniuses, and of thinkers like Spencer himself. If 
 he has discovered the secret of Thought, then instead 
 of sending young men and women to colleges, or to the 
 study of books, for the development of mind, the 
 wise thing would be to send them to the Druggist's 
 shop ; to Indian Clubs ; or to the Golf Course. 
 
 Without saying a word against the Druggist's shop, 
 as the store where Phosphorus is sold ; or against 
 physical exercise of any kind, as all might know, 
 Spencer himself did not come by his mental 
 superiority in this way ; and neither does any other 
 person. Mayhap the very reverse of Spencer's way 
 of accounting for the origin of Thought is the truth ; 
 that instead of mental life being due to organisation, 
 or to the transmutation of physical force, it is all 
 the other way ; organisation being due to mental life, 
 and physical force due to that which is intellectual 
 and spiritual. 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 227 
 
 Spencer casts ridicule upon what he calls the 
 " Insanities of Idealism." Now, whilst no one can 
 defend the " Insanities of Idealism/' or of anything 
 else, the question has still to be asked, whether 
 Idealism does not stand for the source of all reality, 
 and of all knowledge ? Even Spencer himself is in- 
 debted to Idealism for his own philosophical system ; 
 for where had that system origin except in his own 
 fertile mind? In the last box we find Thought, 
 Idea, God ; and so, with Carlyle, we fall back on the 
 priority of Intellect, and of SouL 
 
 If the question be asked, since Spencer is neither 
 Atheist, nor Materialist, nor Deist, nor Christian, 
 what then is he ? Perhaps the best answer to return 
 to this question is to say that Spencer is a Philo- 
 sopher a Philosopher first and last. He is a great 
 thinker, a great thinker about the Universe, cer- 
 tainly a great enough subject for Thought. He will 
 have the Universe to yield up to him its secret ; he 
 longs to get hold of some one principle, some one 
 Law that lies behind, and will explain everything 
 the heavens, the earth, plants, animals, man, mind, 
 morals, and society. To use his own words, he 
 seeks to "unify knowledge" and that not only 
 partially, as the Sciences do, but completely, as it is 
 the work of Philosophers and Philosophy to do. 
 
 Spencer claims that his efforts in this quest have 
 been crowned with success ; he is sure that he has 
 come to the one principle behind all things, and to 
 the one Law which explains them all. 
 
 That one Principle is the "Infinite or Eternal 
 energy, from which all things proceed an In- 
 
228 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 scrutable and Persistent Force, absolute, unknown, 
 and unknowable." This is the one Principle, and 
 the one Law is what he has formulated and sub- 
 mitted as the Law of Evolution. 
 
 It is necessary to look a little more closely into 
 the outcome of Spencer's philosophical system, 
 represented by this Principle and this Law. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Some one has said that another name for an 
 Agnostic is an " Ignoramus " ; but it must go 
 without gainsaying, that such a name cannot be 
 applied to a thinker and writer like Herbert 
 Spencer ; for, whatever else he is, he is no " Ignor- 
 amus." He has intermeddled with all knowledge, 
 is at home in the most difficult mathematical 
 calculations, and has made himself masterfully 
 conversant with every Science. 
 
 Spencer is not only an Agnostic, he is one on 
 principle ; for he has assured himself that the 
 Ultimates in Science, Philosophy, and Eeligion are 
 not only not known, but that they defy all powers 
 of knowledge to know them. 
 
 The " Absolute," says Spencer, cannot be known ; 
 nay, the very simplest fact is incomprehensible. 
 He is especially emphatic in declaring, that the 
 Power, or Force, behind all things, is utterly in- 
 scrutable, being Unknown and Unknowable. . So too 
 is it with ever so many things. He sweeps them 
 one after another into the realms of darkness, and 
 of the " unthinkable" to use one of his favourite 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 229 
 
 words. Space, motion, matter, mind, sensation, 
 self-cognition, each and all of them, according 
 to Spencer, are " unthinkable," and therefore un- 
 known. 
 
 Eemarking on such a thoroughgoing Agnosticism 
 as this, we take leave to express astonishment that 
 a writer who espouses so completely the side of 
 uncertainty, and ignorance, is so very sure of so 
 much. 
 
 It is somewhat strange that one who knows 
 nothing, and can know nothing, about the " Ab- 
 solute," is so sure about our absolute ignorance, the 
 absolute mystery, and the absolute Unknown. One 
 would imagine that a mind that is so certain on the 
 negative side, has power in it to make headway on 
 the positive side of things. 
 
 When Spencer writes about the " Incomprehensi- 
 bility of the simplest fact," we do not know what 
 he would like to be at ; for surely if the " fact be 
 the simplest," we have got as far back in the realm 
 of facts as there is any need to go. 
 
 Amongst other things, we are surprised that 
 Spencer dismisses, as "unthinkable," the fundamental 
 psychological fact known as " self-consciousness," 
 or the cognition of self. Instead of self -consciousness 
 being " unthinkable," it is rather, we should say, the 
 very secret and hinge of all thinking ; the one thing 
 that we do know, and are sure about. " We are," and 
 we know that we are. There is no other fact so 
 clear, or so sure, as this. If we are not sure, 
 absolutely sure, of this, we ask where do we get, 
 and where does Spencer himself get, that idea of 
 
230 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Force, and of the Persistence of Force, of which he 
 makes so much, and on which he builds his whole 
 philosophical system ? 
 
 We are of the opinion that Spencer shows more 
 of the Scholastic in his Philosophy than would 
 have been expected. One is astonished to find such 
 a powerful thinker defining the Absolute as a 
 "possible existence, independent of all relations," 
 and yet reminding us that we have a " vague con- 
 sciousness " of it. Is not this equivalent to saying 
 that the Absolute is in consciousness, and yet out of 
 it, in relation to consciousness, and yet not in 
 relation to consciousness ? 
 
 We somehow think that the root of Spencer's 
 perplexity, as of the perplexity of many, with " The 
 Absolute," is in thinking of it as if it were a 
 substantive, whilst it is really not a substantive, 
 but an adjective. We have been struck, at any- 
 rate, with the frequency with which Spencer him- 
 self uses the word " absolute " as an adjective. He 
 speaks of an " Absolute Mystery," of " Absolute 
 Ethics," and himself defines the word as meaning 
 " total," " complete," or " perfect." 
 
 And then, we also think that Spencer has put 
 himself too much under the bondage of the well- 
 known definition of Thought given by Hamilton 
 and Mansell. According to these writers, and so 
 according to Spencer, all Thought is " Limitation " ; 
 or, to use their favourite philosophical phrase, " To 
 think is to condition" 
 
 Coming to the concrete, in the discussion of this 
 crucial principle, we ask, is this so ? Take, for 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 231 
 
 example, Spencer's great Law of Evolution, thought 
 out by him with such immense labour and erudi- 
 tion. Looking to it, we ask, has Thinking been 
 " Limitation " here ? Surely the answer to be 
 returned is, that instead of Thinking being " Limita- 
 tion," it has been the very reverse. As the outcome 
 of Spencer's thought, we have submitted a some- 
 thing termed " Law " a something unlimited in its 
 sweep, and unconditioned in its character. Spencer 
 is as sure of this Law, the product of his thought, 
 as he is that two and two make four. 
 
 IV 
 
 Kegarding his application of the principle of 
 Agnosticism to Religion, he says that in Eeligion, 
 as in Science and Philosophy, the ultimate brings 
 face to face with mystery, with a mystery so im- 
 penetrable, that all that can be said about the 
 Reality behind all things is that that Reality that 
 Power or Force that manifests itself to us, is 
 absolutely Unknown, and Unknowable. 
 
 He is of the opinion, that it is in this recognition 
 of Absolute mystery that Science and Religion are 
 reconciled. They shake hands, in so far as they 
 acknowledge defeat, once we get back far enough. 
 
 We cannot, however, accept Spencer's views on 
 the all-important matter of Religion. We are 
 pleased to think that he frankly acknowledges the 
 necessity of Religion for the well-being of Society, 
 and yet we are surprised at some of the things 
 that he has written on this all- important subject. 
 
232 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 We are disappointed that one who has so much 
 of the scientific spirit should be so unfair when he 
 comes to write of Eeligion, as it is ordinarily under- 
 stood by the vast religious community of our own 
 and other lands. 
 
 We do not, as we dare not, judge Spencer from 
 a religious point of view, and yet we venture to say 
 that he does not represent fairly the tenets of the 
 Christian Eeligion, when he writes as if the Chris- 
 tian Religion committed itself, or is to be identified 
 with, the " Carpenter theory of Creation " as if the 
 Christian Eeligion taught as a leading characteristic 
 that punishment is a Divine Vengeance, that 
 Divine Vengeance is eternal, and that the motive 
 of the Christian Faith is Other-worldliness. 
 
 Every one who knows the Christian Eeligion must 
 recognise at once, that in Spencer's representation 
 of it essentials have been left out, and much has 
 been put in that ought not to be there. 
 
 The Bible Doctrine of Creation does not warrant 
 any Carpenter theory. It is more akin, in its 
 sublime simplicity and Idealism, to a Poetical 
 theory of Creation certainly the highest possible 
 conception. 
 
 And then, Punishment, in the Christian scheme, 
 is always represented as the sure outcome of im- 
 penitent wickedness, and as a penalty lasting as 
 long as impenitent wickedness lasts. 
 
 Surely the charge of Other-worldliness, as the 
 supreme motive of the Christian Faith, disappears 
 at once in the light of the Sermon on the Mount ; 
 or under the guidance of that text, said to be the 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 233 
 
 " finest summary of all Keligion," " What, man, 
 doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and 
 to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 
 
 In regard to Spencer's statement, that Science 
 and Keligion are reconciled in the acceptance by 
 each of Absolute Mystery as the ultimate, all that 
 we care to remark is, that before Spencer made a 
 statement like this, it would have been well to have 
 assured himself that Science and Keligion were at 
 variance, and that he was speaking about Keligion 
 as revealed and understood in the right and highest 
 quarter. 
 
 It is, we take the liberty of saying, not at all so 
 clear that Science and Keligion are at variance ; or 
 at anyrate, at such variance as they are and have 
 been declared to be. Science and Keligion are not 
 antithetic ; the opposite of Science is Nescience, or 
 Ignorance, and the opposite of Keligion is Irreligion. 
 
 Quite possibly, Keligion of a sort flourishes best 
 in the soil of ignorance, giving sanction to the old 
 saying, that " Ignorance is the mother of devotion," 
 yet it is simple truth, that Keligion also lives and 
 flourishes where the purest Science holds sway. 
 " The heaviest heads bend." 
 
 We venture the assertion, that Spencer is, to say 
 the least of it, peculiar, if not entirely wrong, in his 
 conception of Keligion. 
 
 It may be difficult to state what Keligion really 
 is, but we are convinced that they alone are on 
 right lines who associate Keligion with the Upward 
 look, with an "indissoluble engagement to God," 
 to use the words of Joubert, with a personal rela- 
 
234 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 tionship to the Supreme. It may be difficult to 
 point out what Religion really is, but it is not 
 difficult to show, that whatever it is, it is not what 
 Spencer makes it out to be. 
 
 To Spencer, Religion is only a " Theory of Causa- 
 tion," it has to do with solving in some way or 
 another the problem of the Universe ; its ultimate 
 is mystery the realm of the Unknown and Un- 
 knowable. Religion is to him a something academic, 
 philosophical, scientific. 
 
 Here, then, we venture to join issue with Spencer, 
 and ask this plain question What Religion cor- 
 responds to such a conception as this ? If we 
 take the highest Religion that the world has ever 
 witnessed, the Religion called " Absolute," the 
 Christian Religion, we ask, does the Christian Re- 
 ligion correspond to the definition just given, that 
 Religion is a "Theory of Causation"? Does the 
 Christian Religion land ultimately those who accept 
 it, in unpenetrated and impenetrable darkness ? 
 
 We have only to ask this question to get an 
 answer. The Christian Religion is no " Theory of 
 Causation," whatever else it is. The Christian 
 Religion reveals one God, named by the highest and 
 best of names, even by the name of " Father." This 
 Religion emphasises sin, and makes known the way 
 of salvation from sin, through faith in the Saviour- 
 Christ. The Christian Religion unfolds duty, de- 
 claring love to God and to man as its summary. The 
 Christian Religion offers Eternal Life, and reveals 
 the great Hereafter as a Hereafter of unutterable 
 splendours and terrors. 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 235 
 
 Instead of the Christian Religion landing those 
 who accept it in impenetrable darkness, it claims 
 and proclaims as a distinctive note, the power to 
 translate out of darkness into a great and marvel- 
 lous Light, a Light which grows stronger, purer, 
 and more lasting. 
 
 We do not, of course, here refer to the Christian 
 Religion as the true Religion, although we most 
 assuredly believe that it is so, but simply for the 
 purpose of indicating, however inadequately, that 
 Spencer's definition of Religion does not square 
 with the facts of the case when confronted with a 
 Religion which has been, and deserves to be, recog- 
 nised as the highest and best. 
 
 He is very severe on what is known as Anthro- 
 pomorphism in Religion ; that is, as he puts it, 
 "making the objects of worship like ourselves." 
 According to Spencer, this is what they do who 
 think of God as Personal, living, good, just, and 
 true. He declares that this is making God like 
 themselves, bigger perhaps, yet just like them- 
 selves. 
 
 He wants to make people give over thinking of 
 God after this fashion. Condescending to an illus- 
 tration, he writes, that in thinking thus about God, 
 people are simply doing what a watch would do if 
 it could think about the watchmaker. Were the 
 watch to think about the watchmaker, it would 
 think of him as made up of springs, and escapes, 
 like itself. 
 
 Spencer's illustration, however, proves a little too 
 much, for it brings the Scientist and the Philosopher 
 
236 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 into a like condemnation with the man of Religion 
 and the Theologian. When the man of Science 
 speaks of Law ; when a Philosopher, like Spencer, 
 speaks of a " Persistent and Inscrutable Force," what 
 can the man of Science and the Philosopher be 
 compared to, but just the watch thinking about the 
 watchmaker ? There is, however, this great differ- 
 ence, that whilst the watch, in the person of the 
 man of Religion, makes use of the ideas of person- 
 ality, life, and goodness, the same watch, in the 
 person of the man of Science, makes use of the ideas 
 of law and force, only, the ideas of the man of 
 Religion are infinitely higher than the ideas of the 
 man of Science and Philosophy. 
 
 Surely, if the watch is going to think at all, it is 
 well that it should think in the best way. 
 
 What we want to make clear is this, that man, 
 in his thinking about the Universe or about God, 
 can no more help being Anthropomorphic than he 
 can jump off his own shadow. 
 
 Although Spencer does not seem to see it, yet it 
 is obvious that he is as much Anthropomorphic in 
 his thinking about the Universe as Theologians are 
 in their thinking about God. The only difference 
 is that Spencer uses one set of ideas, and Theo- 
 logians use another, and a higher set. 
 
 The only other remark which we make on 
 Spencer's position as an Agnostic, is to observe 
 once again, what has often been remarked, that 
 although Spencer commits himself to a Philosophy 
 of the Unknown and the Unknowable, yet it is more 
 than surprising to note how much he claims to know 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 237 
 
 about the so-called " Unknown and Unknowable 
 Keality behind all Phenomena." 
 
 He knows that it is a Power, Force, or " Energy 
 from which all things proceed," that it is " Infinite, 
 Eternal, and Persistent," that it is Unknown and 
 Unknowable, that it manifests itself, and that it 
 manifests itself to us in the Universe. 
 
 Here there is not only knowledge, but a knowledge 
 which is at once precise, extensive, and spermatic. 
 Almost unbidden, the question arises, if so much 
 can be known about this Keality which is behind 
 all phenomena, why not more and more ? We can- 
 not resist the conclusion, that were Spencer to 
 develop further on his own lines, then, like Saul 
 among the Prophets, he would blossom into the 
 most orthodox of Theologians, and the most honoured 
 of Christian Teachers. 
 
 He is very thoroughgoing in his Agnosticism, 
 and he is as much so as an Evolutionist. Like 
 Aaron's rod, Spencer's swallows up all other Evolu- 
 tionary rods. He sees no reason for not thinking 
 that as an individual grows in twenty years, to what 
 he becomes, out of a single cell ; so the whole human 
 race, in millions of years, may have grown to what 
 it has become, also out of a single cell. 
 
 It has to be noted, that Spencer is an Evolu- 
 tionist on purely philosophical grounds. We do 
 not know that he has ever been called a Monist, 
 but Monist he clearly is in his endeavour to com- 
 
238 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 prehend the whole Universe under one Principle 
 and one Law. Such an effort is not only intellectu- 
 ally praiseworthy, but also permissible, as being in 
 harmony with rational ideas, and yet it is more 
 than doubtful if it can be crowned with success. 
 
 Instead of being Monistic, it is nearer the truth 
 to say that the Universe is Dualistic, for whenever 
 we are forced back upon Ultimates we are neces- 
 sitated to think of self and non-self, mind and 
 matter, soul and body, God and the world, persons 
 and things. 
 
 We are inclined to think that Spencer's radical 
 mistake here is his search after a Unity, which can 
 never be found. He has failed to show that the 
 various forces in the world physical, vital, mental, 
 moral, and social can be transmuted into each other, 
 and has also failed to show that these are governed 
 by one and the same Law. These forces are 
 acknowledged by scientific thinkers, as able as 
 Spencer himself, to be essentially different ; and, as 
 a matter of course, forces which are essentially 
 different must act in accordance with essentially 
 different laws. 
 
 As an Evolutionist, Spencer does not object to the 
 Doctrine of Primal Creation, although he has on this 
 subject little to affirm or deny, because the mystery 
 is so great. What he does object to is the Doctrine 
 of Special Creations, or " special divine interfer- 
 ences " (as it has been called) with the world pro- 
 cess, or processes. Like some other Evolutionists, 
 he objects to gaps, or interferences ; is fond of 
 growth and rhythm. 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 239 
 
 If we mistake not, one reason given by him to 
 sustain his objection against " Special Creations," 
 is that thereby so much more work is laid upon the 
 Creator ; but surely the idea of additional work is 
 altogether out of place when it is remembered that 
 the Creator, even according to Spencer himself, is in 
 possession of an Energy at once " Infinite and 
 Eternal." 
 
 The present writer has no difficulty in accepting 
 the Doctrine of " Special Creations," for he considers 
 that everything is granted once the Doctrine of 
 Creation is granted. If there be one " divine in- 
 terference," why not thousands upon thousands, 
 as may seem good to that Omnipotent, Omnipresent, 
 and Omniscient Power behind all things ? 
 
 Kegarding Spencer's attitude towards Evolution, 
 it may be noted that this attitude was, and still is, 
 only a theoretical one, a fact often overlooked by many. 
 He begins with what he calls, after Kant and La 
 Place, the Nebular Hypothesis; the theory which 
 supposes that once upon a time the world existed 
 as a diffused vapour, that this diffused vapour, 
 somehow or another, began to rotate, concentrate, 
 and so originate stars, planets, and their satellites. 
 
 Spencer was inclined to think that there is still 
 in the world masses of this primitive nebulous 
 matter, out of which worlds are being made, although 
 he got undeceived somewhat on finding, by means of 
 Lord Ross's Telescope, that what was supposed to 
 be nebulous matter was really groups of stars. 
 
 Spencer over-boldly considers it an insult to ask 
 any educated man to accept the Mosaic account of 
 
2 4 o LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Creation given in the Bible. We refrain from 
 characterising the theory associated with the names 
 of Spencer and others, which educated men are 
 expected to accept in place of the account recorded 
 in the Scriptures. 
 
 In all fairness, it ought to be remembered that 
 Spencer himself only advances in Evolution that 
 which is to him a " working hypothesis." He found 
 and left Evolution a theory. Virchow has voiced 
 the exact state of matters when he said regarding 
 the Evolution of man : " We cannot designate it as 
 a revelation of Science, that man descends from the 
 ape, or from any other animal." 
 
 Neither ought it to be forgotten that Evolutionists, 
 instead of agreeing amongst themselves, are arrayed 
 in hostile camps. We find Wallace attacking the 
 fundamental principles of Darwin, inasmuch as 
 Wallace maintains that there are " new departures 
 in Nature, at the introduction of life, consciousness, 
 and man ; and that therefore there is need of some 
 new power or cause, from an Unseen Universe." 
 We find Wallace attacking the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of Darwin ; and we find Weismann attacking 
 Spencer ; and Spencer, in defending himself from 
 Weismann, declaring, that if there be no trans- 
 mission of acquired characters, then " Evolution is a 
 dream." We find Eomanes and Wallace at logger- 
 heads about mental development. We find Mr. Kidd 
 and Professor Drummond at sixes-and-sevens as to 
 whether there is a natural basis for the altruistic 
 feeling. And then we find Professor Drummond 
 taking up the cudgels against Darwin, Spencer, and 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 241 
 
 all the rest, for maintaining, as he thinks they do, a 
 one-sided view of Nature. 
 
 Spencer's supposed great discovery is that Law of 
 Evolution which he considered capable of explaining 
 everything in the Universe, inorganic, organic, and 
 superorganic ; from the movement and rotation of 
 the primal mist, to the making of man in body, 
 mind, and conscience, with all his language, art, 
 society, etc. Here is Spencer's own statement of 
 this great Law of Evolution: "Evolution is an 
 integration of matter and concomitant dissipation 
 of motion ; during which the matter passes from an 
 indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite, 
 coherent heterogeneity ; and during which the 
 retained motion undergoes a parallel transfor- 
 mation." 
 
 Someone has well said that the Universe heaved 
 a sigh of relief after the above Law was uttered. 
 Without doubt, such a ponderous Law, in its crude 
 and undigested state, must have lain upon it as a 
 weary weight. 
 
 Kemarking on this Law of Evolution, we take 
 leave to say, that one of the most serious objections 
 against it is that Spencer, in his strong desire for 
 unity, has been led to apply to spheres and forces, 
 which are essentially different, a Law or Principle 
 which is applicable to only one of them. 
 
 Spencer's magic word is Evolution, and his 
 favourite idea, concentration or consolidation ; the 
 sun's substance gravitating to the sun's centre, and 
 the earth's substance gravitating to the earth's centre. 
 
 16 
 
242 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 There is, of course, no doubt that concentration 
 holds true in the material sphere, but we must not 
 say that what holds true of matter holds true of 
 mind, morals, and society. 
 
 Coming to vital forces, we find that there is not 
 only a new idea that of vitality, but that there is 
 likewise a new principle or law, better expressed 
 by the term " expansion " than by the term " con- 
 centration." 
 
 When mental forces come in, there is not only a 
 new idea that of consciousness, but there is likewise 
 a new principle or law, better expressed by " com- 
 prehension," gathering " the many into one," than 
 by " concentration." 
 
 So also is it with moral forces. There is not only 
 a new idea here the idea expressed by the word 
 " ought," but there is likewise a new principle or law, 
 best expressed by the term " self-determination." 
 
 Not only is Spencer's Law not equal to covering the 
 whole field under consideration, but we are convinced 
 that there is no one Law able to explain movements 
 which are so essentially different. Spencer's success 
 would have been greater had he divided more. 
 
 And then, we question whether it be the case 
 that, in accordance with the leading principle of 
 Spencer's Law, there is a universal movement from 
 a state of homogeneity to heterogeneity, or from 
 simplicity to complexity. Is, for example, Spencer's 
 " primal mist " so very simple as it seems to appear, 
 seeing that in that mist there was in germ the 
 entire Universe, with its suns and systems, earth, 
 with its plants and animals ; man, with his Science, 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 243 
 
 Art, and Religion ; even Spencer himself, and all his 
 Philosophy ? 
 
 Although Spencer has no love for Carlyle, yet 
 Carlyle seems to have hit the nail on the head 
 when he declared, that before there can be " Evolu- 
 tion " there must have been " Involution." 
 
 If so much comes out of that " primal mist," how 
 much must have been in it, to begin with ? 
 
 It is not otherwise with the original cell, which, 
 to Spencer, is so simple and structureless. The 
 more, however, one considers the " primal mist," or 
 the "original cell," the stronger is the conviction 
 sent home, that whatever else they may be they 
 are far enough from being simple. 
 * We have been struck with the way in which 
 the transition is made in Spencer's Philosophy from 
 the physical to the vital forces. "We owe," he 
 writes, " plant life to the light and heat of the 
 sun." Here he tries to cross the Kubicon so 
 quietly, that one almost fails to note that he has 
 tried to cross it. 
 
 The Rubicon, however, between the physical and 
 vital forces is not crossed quite so easily. If we re- 
 member aright, Spencer's illustration of this impor- 
 tant transition lies in the fact that we require heat 
 to hatch an egg ; and so, according to his teaching, 
 all life comes from the light and heat of the sun. 
 
 A moment's thought is enough to show, that 
 whilst it is true that heat is required to hatch an 
 egg, it is also true that we require the egg to begin 
 with, plus all the mystery of its composition. Were 
 anyone to put a round stone, instead of an egg, 
 
244 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 under the hen, all the heat of the hen, and all the 
 heat of the sun, would never get a chicken out of 
 that stone. 
 
 What we are contending for is, that instead of 
 the " primal mist " and the " original cell " being, 
 as Spencer's Law requires them to be, simple, in- 
 definite, and incoherent, they are instead complex, 
 definite, and coherent. 
 
 Although atoms may be very small, they are the 
 very reverse of simple. As an eminent Scientist 
 has said : " An atom of pure iron is probably a vastly 
 more complicated system than that of the planets 
 and their satellites." 
 
 There is a bit of unconscious humour in Spencer's 
 illustration of the movement from homogeneity to 
 heterogeneity, so far as the development of man is 
 concerned, inasmuch as he quotes the case of the 
 Papuan, with his short legs, and the European, with 
 his longer legs, to illustrate such a movement. It 
 is clear, however, that to support the principle laid 
 down by Spencer, the European would require to 
 have either something different from legs altogether, 
 and to have more than two, for legs are legs all the 
 world over. 
 
 Spencer has only failed, where success was im- 
 possible, in the attempt to bridge the chasms ; to 
 get life out of no-life, consciousness out of non- 
 consciousness, mind and morals from a source 
 where they do not exist. 
 
 We need not quote the oft-quoted words of 
 Tyndall regarding the unthinkableness of the 
 " passage from the physics of the brain to the 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 245 
 
 corresponding facts of consciousness." It is im- 
 possible, says Martineau, to establish that which 
 " shall link mind and matter into a single line." 
 
 VI 
 
 We conclude with a reference to Spencer's 
 ethical system, to which he attaches great im- 
 portance, regarding it, indeed, as the building, of 
 which the rest has been but the scaffolding. 
 
 He purposes, in his ethical investigations, to 
 discover a " scientific basis for Conduct." After 
 strenuous efforts he comes to the conclusion that 
 " the good is the pleasurable, and that the evil is 
 the painful." Although an advanced Utilitarian, 
 he is yet Utilitarian enough to hold that, in the 
 matter of morals, Pleasure must come in somewhere. 
 As Aristotle defined Happiness in terms of Virtue, 
 so Spencer defines " Virtue in terms of Happiness." 
 
 Although he writhes under Carlyle's comparison 
 of Utilitarianism to a Pig's philosophy of the 
 Universe, yet apparently his bitterness of spirit is 
 due to a suspicion that there is so much truth in 
 the comparison. 
 
 He retorts, with great unfairness upon Carlyle, 
 by calling him the " Apostle of Brute Force," in- 
 sinuating that Carlyle favours the power of might 
 more than the principle of right. It may be, of 
 course, that Carlyle, like all other emotional writers, 
 is chargeable with occasional inconsistencies and 
 extravagances, and yet, it is only just to acknow- 
 ledge, that the weight of his teaching is clearly on 
 
246 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 the side of the invincible power of a strength, 
 neither that of the brute, nor the purse, nor the 
 army, nor even of intellect, but a strength which 
 is moral the strength that lies in the conscious- 
 ness of being on the right side, and doing the right 
 thing. These are Carlyle's own words : " No son 
 of Adam is more contemptuous than I am, of 
 Might, except when it rests on the origin of Eight, 
 its eternal Symbol." 
 
 Whilst there is much that is suggestive in 
 Spencer's ethical system, we miss as elements and 
 motive powers in morality, the great ideas of con- 
 science, duty, obedience, struggle, aspiration, and 
 God. It may be something to condemn pure 
 Egoism, and pure Altruism, and it may be some- 
 thing to come to this as the conclusion of the whole 
 matter in morals, " Seek your own happiness, and 
 seek also the happiness of others " ; and yet we are 
 sure that this is neither the best conclusion, nor 
 the last word, on the great theme of Ethics. 
 
 With a brave, logical consistency, Spencer does 
 not hesitate to apply to Ethics his own Law of 
 Evolution, maintaining that in Ethics, as in all 
 else, there is development from the indefinite, the 
 incoherent, and the simple, to that which is definite, 
 coherent, and complex. 
 
 Were we to test this Evolutionary Law in Ethics, 
 by coming to the concrete, we suppose that Spencer 
 would grant that there was no developed morality, 
 in say, a determined villain ; and yet it will be 
 found that the conduct of this grossly immoral 
 person cannot be characterised as either indefinite, 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 247 
 
 or incoherent, or simple. The very opposite, indeed, 
 is true of this bad man's conduct, clearly indicative 
 of the fact, that conduct must be judged of by some 
 other Law than the Law of Evolution. In other 
 words, the important matter in all conduct is, not 
 what is, but what " ought " to be. 
 
 There is one noteworthy statement in Spencer's 
 Ethics which contains a germ in Morals out of which 
 he himself might have developed a truer system 
 than that with which he has identified himself. 
 The statement we refer to is, "that Happiness 
 ought to be made the supreme aim, because it is 
 the concomitant of the highest life." We are not 
 aware that he has uttered a wiser or truer word 
 than this, that " Happiness is the concomitant of 
 the highest life." Accepting this conclusion, surely 
 the all -important question comes to be, what is the 
 highest life ? and as surely the all-important duty 
 comes to be, to make for that highest life with all 
 one's heart, and soul, and strength, and mind. Well 
 did Carlyle say, " leave Happiness on its own basis." 
 Worthy also of being written in Letters of gold 
 is his Everlasting Yea "Love not pleasure, love 
 God." 
 
 " Altruism " is not the highest word in Ethics. 
 There is a greater word still, that grand word 
 " Ought," a word which grasps within its divine 
 embrace, not only "altruism," but ever so much 
 else in the sphere of Ethics. Morality thrives 
 best, not in the atmosphere of instinct, but in the 
 atmosphere of freedom, spirit, intelligence, law, and 
 intention, 
 
248 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 " There is nothing good in the world, except a 
 good will," so writes Kant. 
 
 " Stern daughter of the voice of God, Duty," 
 writes Wordsworth. 
 
 Spencer's system of Ethics is good enough, so far 
 as it goes ; but we miss in it the grandeur of a 
 system like that of Kant, where the bare sense of 
 duty plays such an important part, and we also 
 miss the simple grandeur and the compelling 
 warmth of a Scheme of Morals infinitely superior 
 to both, and that is the Scheme associated with the 
 Name and Spirit of the Founder of the Christian 
 Faith. 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 
 
"My work is amongst Stones and Clouds and Flowers." 
 RUSKIN, Political Economy. 
 
 "You can't paint or sing yourselves into good men ; you must 
 be good men before you can either paint or sing." RUSKIN, 
 " Inaugural Lecture at Oxford." 
 
 " 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it,' these words are the 
 sum of all that I have been permitted to speak in God's Name, 
 now, these seven years." RUSKIN, Fors Clavigera. 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 WHEN Buskin's name is mentioned, as it often and 
 deservedly is in the present day, he is referred to 
 as a beautiful writer of the English language, as 
 a celebrated Art-critic, or, it may be, as holding 
 peculiar views in Social and Political Economy. 
 
 Such notes of Euskin are justifiable he is a 
 beautiful writer of the English language none 
 more so ; he is an Art-critic of commanding in- 
 fluence, and he does hold peculiar views in Social 
 and Political economy ; and yet, when Euskin 
 names himself, he chooses significantly the name of 
 " Prophet/' 
 
 This self-chosen name of Prophet does justice 
 to what is perhaps the most important side of his 
 nature the moral and religious side. 
 
 John Euskin had "visions of the heart," and 
 these he has uttered faithfully and fearlessly : he is 
 intensely earnest about moral and spiritual verities. 
 His whole nature has its roots deeply set in Eeligion 
 and God. 
 
 Comparing himself to John the Baptist, he 
 delivers as his own message to the age the old 
 message of the Baptist, " And now also the axe 
 
 251 
 
252 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 is laid unto the root of the trees : therefore every 
 tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn 
 down, and cast into the fire." 
 
 When Carlyle, gifted beyond most with intuition 
 into character, wrote of Kuskin, it was as a " Prophet " 
 that he wrote of him. " Of all men now alive," 
 says Carlyle, "Kuskin has the best talent for 
 preaching," and again, " There is in Euskin a ray 
 of real heaven." 
 
 In these two sentences the Master hits off 
 admirably the essential characteristics of John 
 Euskin, who was pleased to consider himself one of 
 Carlyle's pupils. There is, indeed, a ray of real 
 heaven in Euskin ; nay, we may go further and say 
 of him, as was said of Spinoza, that he is a " God- 
 intoxicated man." He is essentially a preacher 
 a preacher of Eighteousness ; his books are his 
 sermons. 
 
 It is impossible to enter into fellowship with 
 him through his writings without receiving im- 
 pulses towards things that are true, things that 
 are lovely, and things that are good. 
 
 As is well known, Euskin holds many peculiar 
 notions. He is, for example, dead against Eail- 
 roads, Machinery, and Usury. He does not think 
 that the people of our day are either healthier, 
 wiser, or happier, because they are dragged from 
 place to place " behind a kettle," even at a mile a 
 minute. He is a strong believer in people using 
 their limbs to walk with, and their hands and 
 arms to work with ; and in such natural forces as 
 wind and water. 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 253 
 
 Ruskin gets wild about Usury, increasing Capital 
 by lending it ; declaring that Usury is God-for- 
 bidden guilt ; that it is worse than theft obtained 
 either by deceiving people, or by distressing them, 
 generally by both. According to his teaching, 
 all Usury is increase to one person, by decrease to 
 another ; " increment to the rich, and decrement to 
 the poor, the labourer's deficit, and the capitalist's 
 efficit." 
 
 In response to one who inquired, how it came 
 to pass that, holding such strong opinions about 
 Usury, he himself took rent from his houses, 
 and interest on his money lying in the Bank; 
 Ruskin requested that this correspondent and others 
 would meantime suspend their judgment regarding 
 him on this matter. And in response to one who 
 inquired, why he himself used the Railway, whilst 
 pouring out upon it the vials of his indignation, he 
 replied, that he would " use the Devil himself, as a 
 local black, if he were available." 
 
 The secret of Ruskin's severe denunciations of 
 railways, factories, and so on, is not far to seek; 
 it arises in a great measure from his intense love 
 of Nature, and his laudable desire that people 
 should get face to face with Nature as much as 
 possible. " He wants to keep the cheeks of England 
 red, and her fields green." He wants to keep the 
 air pure, and the rivers clean. 
 
 He is well aware that there are many sinners 
 against the light, beauty, and purity of Nature, 
 both in England and in Scotland. The " Water of 
 Leith" is "well, one can't say in civilised com- 
 
254 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 pany," writes Euskin, "what it is." "At Lin- 
 lithgow," he writes, " of all the palaces so fair, 
 built for royal dwellings, the oil floating on the 
 streams can be ignited ; burning with a large 
 flame." " Talk about the beauties of Nature, with 
 the Teviot as ' black as ink.' " " I saw," he goes on 
 to say, " the putrid carcase of a sheep lying in the 
 dry channel of the Jed, under Jedburgh Abbey 
 the stream being taken away to supply a single mill." 
 
 Peculiar in many things, he is also peculiar in 
 his notions of how houses should be built, and 
 towns constructed. He has a beautiful and preg- 
 nant passage, to the effect that we ought not to 
 forget that God dwells in our cottages, as well as 
 in our churches ; sending home the lesson, that we 
 should see to it that God is as well housed in the 
 one as in the other. This passage is fairly well 
 known : " I should like to destroy most of the Kail- 
 roads in England, and all the Eailroads in Wales. 
 I would destroy, and rebuild, the houses of Parlia- 
 ment, the National Gallery, and the East end of 
 London. I would destroy, without rebuilding, the 
 New Town of Edinburgh, the North Suburbs of 
 Geneva, and the City of New York." 
 
 Euskin, it may be observed, is no party man in 
 Politics. He confesses that he has a sincere love 
 of Kings, and that his chief desire is to see them, 
 although he holds strange ideas of what they really 
 ought to be. 
 
 He is neither a Liberal nor a Tory ; never voted 
 in his life for a Member of Parliament, and never 
 means to do so. Sometimes he calls himself a 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 255 
 
 Tory a Tory, that is to say, of " the old school," 
 the school of Walter Scott, and of Homer. 
 And sometimes he calls himself a Communist a 
 "reddest of the red." "We Communists," he 
 writes, " of the old school, think that our property 
 belongs to everybody, and that everybody's property 
 belongs to us." 
 
 As in Politics, so in Keligion ; Buskin belongs 
 to no Sect, or Church. He is neither Presbyterian, 
 nor Episcopalian, neither a Protestant, nor a 
 Eoman Catholic. He calls himself a " Catholic of 
 the Catholics." 
 
 There are two texts in the Bible, very dear to 
 him, which express best his religious beliefs. There 
 is that word of the Hebrew Prophet, Micah, in the 
 Old Testament " What doth the Lord require of 
 thee, man, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
 and to walk humbly with thy God ? " And there 
 is that word of Mary in the New Testament, 
 " Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." 
 
 He writes of what he calls that miserable question 
 the Schism between Catholic and Protestant ; 
 a "miserable question, in view of the Eternal 
 schism, cloven by the very sword of Michael, be- 
 tween him that serveth God, and him that serveth 
 Him not." 
 
 Euskin is peculiar also in the titles of his books ; 
 in the way in which he would have them pur- 
 chased, and in the price which he sets on them. 
 Many of his books have strange titles ; such as 
 Fors Clavigera, Sesame and Lilies, The Eagle's Nest, 
 Ethics of the Dust, " Unto this Last" Construction of 
 
256 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Sheep/olds, and so on. There is an amusing story 
 told of the misleading character of the title of the 
 last book referred to, The Construction of Sheep- 
 folds. It is said that a farmer, having purchased 
 this book, in the hope of finding therein informa- 
 tion that might be useful to him in his ordinary 
 employment, was greatly disappointed on discover- 
 ing that, instead of dealing with Sheepfolds for 
 ordinary sheep, this book was full of Letters on 
 the " Lord's Prayer " addressed to the " Clergy 
 of the Church of England." 
 
 In answer to a correspondent, who wrote to him 
 about the cost of his books, drawing his attention 
 to the fact that his Modern Painters had been sold 
 for 38, Kuskin replied, that he knew that his 
 Books were dear ; that he made nothing by them ; 
 that he will not consent to advertising ; that he 
 sees to it that everything about them paper, 
 printing, and illustrations is the best possible ; and 
 that he thinks that each of his Books is worth at 
 least a Doctor's fee. 
 
 We cannot but think that it is in many respects 
 unfortunate that Buskin's Books are so costly; a 
 fact particularly conspicuous in those days, when 
 Classics in Literature, ancient and modern, are, to 
 use a current phrase, marvels of cheapness, and, 
 begging Buskin's pardon " cheap without being 
 nasty." What a great boon Buskin would confer 
 on the millions of readers of the present day were 
 he to see his way to issue cheap editions of his 
 Books, than which none are more worthy of being 
 read and pondered. 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 257 
 
 II 
 
 Kuskin has told the story of his life, partly in 
 Fors Clavigera, and more fully in his Prceterita. 
 He was born in London in 1819. He was the 
 only child of his parents, and does not hesitate to 
 say that he was rather spoiled, inasmuch as his 
 upbringing was too luxurious, and he himself too 
 much indulged. 
 
 His father, a wine merchant in Billiter Street, 
 London, sold, so his son tells us, the " finest Sherry 
 in the world." The father must have been a suc- 
 cessful merchant, for he left his son a fortune of 
 over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Euskin 
 is loud in praise of his father's integrity; and 
 mentions it as a peculiar fact, that his father 
 selected his clerks more for their incapacity than 
 for their capacity, inasmuch as he could not bear 
 to be excelled in anything. 
 
 In course of time Kuskin took up with what he 
 calls his "Turner insanities," much to the disap- 
 pointment of his father, who meant him for the 
 Church, and who was sure that he would become 
 a Bishop by and by. 
 
 Like almost all great men, Kuskin was blest 
 with a good mother. Like Hannah of old, she 
 dedicated him to the Lord before he was born. 
 It was her earnest desire that he should become 
 an evangelical Clergyman; and it may be added, 
 that although both his father and mother were 
 disappointed in the particular form in which 
 Kuskin manifested his Religiousness, their desires, 
 '7 
 
258 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 if not fulfilled in the letter, have certainly been 
 fulfilled in the spirit. 
 
 There is not much more interesting reading in 
 the delightful Autobiography, with which Euskin 
 has favoured us, than the account of the efforts of 
 his mother to train up her son in the " nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord." Up till the time 
 that he went to Oxford, every morning, first thing 
 after breakfast, mother and son read the Bible 
 together, going through the whole Bible, from 
 Genesis to Eevelation, hard names and all. Every 
 morning young Kuskin learned a few verses by 
 heart ; learning in course of time, as he tells us, 
 the whole body of the fine old Scotch Paraphrases 
 characterised by him as " good, melodious, 
 forceful verse." 
 
 It is worthy of note, that Kuskin himself 
 attaches immense importance, every way, to these 
 Bible exercises with his mother, from morning to 
 morning, in the earlier years of his life. This de- 
 termined, as he says, " the best part of his taste 
 in Literature," and formed the "most precious, 
 and indeed the essential part of his education." 
 He is sure that no one will write superficial 
 English who knows by heart the 32nd chapter of 
 Deuteronomy, the 119th Psalm, the 15th chapter 
 of 1 Corinthians, the " Sermon on the Mount," 
 and the "Apocalypse." 
 
 Amongst the portions of the Bible for which 
 he has a special fondness, he singles out the 
 119th Psalm. Although it cost him so much to 
 learn this Psalm, and although, because of that it 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 259 
 
 was almost repulsive, yet it became to him the 
 most precious of all, in its overflowing and glow- 
 ing passion of love for the Law of God. He 
 tells how he and his mother had a struggle for 
 three weeks over accenting the " of " in the lines, 
 " Shall any following spring revive the ashes of 
 the urn " ; the mother wanting the accent to be 
 upon the " ashes," and young Buskin putting it on 
 the "of." 
 
 As a boy, he was given to preaching sermons, in 
 imitation of the Kev. Mr. Howell, over the red 
 sofa cushion, "eleven words long," and of the 
 purest gospel, beginning with the words, " People, 
 be good." Here the child was, indeed, father of 
 the man. 
 
 Ruskin takes us into confidence over a little 
 love affair with Adele Clotilde, daughter of Mr. 
 Domeq, his father's partner, and of French con- 
 nections, in which he considers himself to have 
 behaved rather foolishly. 
 
 Her usual name was Clotilde, but Ruskin called 
 her Adele, because this rhymed best with " shell," 
 "spell," and "knell." He wrote her a French 
 letter seven quarto pages long at the French of 
 which Clotilde laughed immensely. He also wrote 
 her a Story about Naples, and the bandit Leoni. 
 It was all, however, without success ; Clotilde re- 
 ceived it with rippling " ecstasies of derision." 
 
 About this time he came under the influence of 
 Byron and Shelley. He admired the veracity of 
 Byron, but got harm from Shelley, in attempting, 
 in imitation of him, to write lines like "prickly, 
 
260 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 and pulpous, and blistering, and blue." He went 
 perseveringly through Shelley's " Bevolt of Islam," 
 to find out who revolted against whom, or what. 
 This, he says, he did not find out, and does not 
 know till this day. 
 
 It may be observed, by the way, that the literary 
 judgments of Buskin are at once decisive and 
 valuable. To him, Scott is of the world, worldly ; 
 Burns, is of the flesh, fleshly ; and Byron, is of the 
 devil, damnable. Wordsworth, says Euskin, seems 
 to think that Nature could not get on without 
 him, and that, being a Philosopher, he " must say 
 something." 
 
 When Euskin entered as a Gentleman-Commoner 
 at Christ's Church, Oxford, the expectations about 
 him, more especially those of his father, were of the 
 highest order. His father hoped, so the son tells 
 us, that at College " he would enter into the best 
 society, take all the prizes every year, and a Double 
 First to finish with, marry Lady Clara Vere de 
 Vere, write Poetry as good as Byron's, only purer, 
 preach sermons as good as Bossuet's, only Pro- 
 testant, be made at forty, Bishop of Winchester, 
 and at fifty, Primate of all England." 
 
 This is how Euskin humorously describes him- 
 self at this period : " There was not the slightest 
 fear of my gambling, for I had never touched a 
 card, and looked upon dice as people now do on 
 dynamite. There was no fear of my being tempted 
 by the strange woman, for was I not in love ? and 
 besides, never allowed to be out after half-past 
 nine. There was no fear of my running into debt, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 261 
 
 for there were no " Turners " to be had at Oxford, 
 and I cared for nothing else in the world as 
 material possession. There was no fear of my 
 breaking my neck out hunting, for I could not 
 have ridden a hack down High Street. There was 
 no fear of my ruining myself at a race, for I 
 never had been at a race in my life, and had not 
 the least wish to win anybody else's money." 
 
 At College he once committed the terrible 
 mistake of writing, like a vulgar student, an 
 Essay of some length, and with some meaning in 
 it; forgetful of the fact, that it was the law 
 amongst Gentlemen - Commoners, that an Essay 
 should never contain "more than twelve lines 
 with four words in each." Student Buskin was 
 reminded, that if ever he did such a thing again, 
 " Coventry " wasn't the word for the place he 
 would be sent to. 
 
 By and by Ruskin took his Degree, although he 
 confesses, that had it not been for excellency in 
 other subjects, Philosophy, Divinity, and Mathe- 
 matics, he would have been ploughed for his 
 shortcomings in Classics ; he says he never could 
 distinguish between First and Second Futures, nor 
 tell where the " Pelasgi " lived. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Very interesting it is to learn the crises which 
 determined Euskin's history. 
 
 One day, on the road to Norwood, he noticed a 
 bit of ivy round a thorn-stem, which seemed to 
 
262 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 him not ill composed. He drew it, and liked it all 
 the more, the more he drew. 
 
 One day he drew a small aspen tree against the 
 blue sky. More and more beautiful the lines ap- 
 peared. Thus the thought came into his mind, 
 that God had made everything " beautiful in His 
 time," that the trees of the wood were more 
 beautiful than all Gothic tracery, than all " Greek 
 Vase " Imagery, than all the daintiest embroideries 
 of the East. 
 
 Simple as all this may seem, it yet reveals the 
 secret of Kuskin's determination to Pre-Raphaelitism, 
 his resolution to keep close, absolutely close, to 
 Nature, in all that concerned Art. This deter- 
 mination furnishes the key to his manifold Art- 
 critiques, and is the source of his great artistic 
 influence. 
 
 Another, and very important, crisis in Ruskin's 
 history took place on his receiving from Mr. Telford, 
 one of his father's partners, the present of a copy 
 of Rogers' Italy, with illustrations by Turner. This 
 formed his first introduction to Turner, a name 
 which must be for all time closely linked with his 
 own, for whose works of Art he had, and has, 
 literally a passion. 
 
 Ruskin wrote his greatest work, Modern Painters, 
 a work which occupied seventeen of the best 
 years of his life, necessitating the hardest study, 
 for the very purpose of defending the name and 
 fame of Turner, and of expounding his Artistic 
 merits. He says that Turner is " the greatest 
 landscape painter that the world has ever wit- 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 263 
 
 nessed," and does not hesitate to associate him with 
 Shakespeare and Verulam, the "greatest men of 
 genius in all history." 
 
 Whether he has succeeded in showing that 
 Turner is "the greatest landscape painter in the 
 world," worthy of ranking with the greatest men 
 of genius in all history, we do not take upon us 
 to say, but this has to be said, that the praise- 
 worthy attempt to do so led him into the most 
 searching studies both of Nature and Art. Finding 
 here his life-work, he has permanently enriched 
 the Literature of our country, and of the world. 
 " My work," he writes, " is amongst stones, and 
 clouds, and flowers." He has studied Nature 
 closely, originally, and reverently, in every aspect 
 of cloud, mountain, river, forest, earth, sea, and man. 
 He has studied Art, as represented in every school 
 and age ; and in all its varied forms of Faulting, 
 Sculpture, and Architecture. 
 
 Another crisis of Ruskin's life, which, fortunately, 
 did not prove too serious, took place on his hearing, 
 one Sunday morning, at Turin, in a Waldensian 
 Chapel, a little squeaking idiot preach to seventeen 
 old women and three louts, that they were "the 
 only children of God in Turin " ; and that all the 
 people in Turin " outside the Chapel, and that all 
 the people in the world out of sight of Monte 
 Viso," would be damned. Ruskin says, that he 
 came out of that Chapel an "unconverted man," 
 and bade farewell, for a time, to his mother-law of 
 Protestantism. 
 
 As all readers of Ruskiri's works know, the Alps 
 
264 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 became one of the passions of his life. It is 
 impressive to read his account of his first sight of 
 these mountains. He first saw them from the 
 garden terrace at Schaflhausen, one summer even- 
 ing, and this sight of the Alps formed still another 
 crisis of his life. "The Alps were infinitely beyond 
 all that had ever been thought or dreamed. The 
 seen walls of lost Eden could not have been more 
 beautiful, nor more awful round Heaven the walls 
 of Sacred Death." He went down that evening 
 from the garden terrace of Schaffhausen with his 
 destiny fixed, in all of it that was to be sacred 
 and useful. "Venice and Chamouni became his 
 two bournes of earth." 
 
 A fact or two about his Books, from his own 
 pen, may not be uninteresting. He wrote his 
 Modern Painters at twenty years of age ; the 
 Stones of Venice at thirty; " Unto this Last" at 
 forty ; the Inaugural Lectures at Oxford at fifty ; 
 the Fors Clavigera at sixty. 
 
 His best works are Modern Painters and 
 Stones of Venice. Written with utmost care, 
 they show marvellous patience, wonderful accuracy, 
 and profound scholarship. Of all his works, Fors 
 Clavigera is the most readable. This work 
 appeared in the form of Letters, some ninety-six 
 altogether, addressed to the " Labourers and work- 
 men of Great Britain." In these Letters Euskin 
 writes frankly, in the mood in which he chances 
 to be, and on subjects which may turn up, nailing 
 down many a truth which he longs to send home, 
 and exposing many follies which he wishes people 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 265 
 
 to avoid. These Letters are of the most varied 
 contents, from Goosepies, to Glaciers ; from the 
 works of Sir Walter Scott, to the founding of St. 
 George's Company; from Lectures on the 19th 
 Psalm, to Lecturings on Love and Courtship. 
 
 IV 
 
 All readers of Buskin's writings acknowledge 
 the charm of his Style. Although never dull, he 
 is occasionally prolix, taking a long time to tell his 
 story ; but then, he has a story to tell, and tells it 
 in a charming way. One of his natural gifts a 
 certain capacity for "rhythmic cadence" he has 
 made one of his conspicuous graces. He reminds 
 us that he wrote his Modern Painters after the 
 style of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity ; but whoever 
 or whatever was his model, it is not too much 
 to say, that he stands unapproached for the ex- 
 quisiteness of his Literary Style. 
 
 Although everybody confesses the charm of his 
 fine writing, it is instructive to note, that Kuskin 
 himself is getting somewhat tired of it. It is like 
 to drive him mad, to hear people, who pay no 
 heed to what he actually says, talk about his 
 " fine writing." There is a marked difference 
 between the style of Modern Painters and that 
 of Fors Clavigera, and of late his writings con- 
 tain more of the pungent than of the fine. " I 
 used," says Kuskin, " to be called a good writer 
 not so now. If anybody's house is on fire, I now 
 simply say, ' Sir, your house is on fire/ but I 
 
266 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 used to say, ' Sir, the abode in which you probably 
 passed the delightful days of your youth is in a 
 state of inflammation.' " 
 
 Kuskin lacks that vein of humour so charac- 
 teristic of his master, Carlyle, and has a tendency 
 to the serious fault of exaggeration, being apt to 
 overdo in praise and censure. Whatever be the 
 cause, unbelief, steam, railways, or factories, things 
 are certainly bad enough, socially, amongst us, but 
 no good comes from making things worse than 
 they really are. 
 
 Our social condition is bad enough, but surely 
 the picture is overdrawn when Kuskin writes that 
 the greater part of the labour of England is spent 
 unproductively, " Spent on iron plates, and iron 
 guns, and on gunpowder ; on infernal machines 
 infernal fortresses, standing still; infernal fortresses, 
 floating about ; infernal means of mischievous 
 locomotion ; infernal law-suits ; infernal parliamen- 
 tary elections ; infernal beer ; infernal gazettes, 
 and statues and pictures." 
 
 Things are bad enough, but surely Kuskin goes 
 far over the score when he says that our cities 
 are "a wilderness of spinning-wheels, instead of 
 palaces, yet the people have no clothes. We have 
 blackened every leaf of English green wood with 
 ashes, and the people die of cold ; our harbours 
 are a forest of merchant-ships, and the people die 
 of hunger." 
 
 Although there is not much in his writings 
 of the nature of humour, there are amusing inci- 
 dents here and there. He speaks very highly of 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 267 
 
 an old servant of the family, called Ann ; and 
 says that he never knew of Ann doing harm to 
 anybody, excepting that of saving some two hundred 
 pounds, and odd money, and leaving it to her 
 relations ; in consequence of which, some of them, 
 after her funeral, did not speak to the rest for 
 several months. 
 
 He has another story about this same Ann, 
 showing that she had a will of her own. It was 
 the desire of Kuskin's mother to have a certain 
 cup placed at her right hand every morning, at 
 the breakfast table ; but Ann, although told about 
 this from time to time, persistently placed the cup 
 on the other side. And Kuskin says that his 
 mother used to declare, as regularly as Ann did 
 this contumacious thing, that if ever there was a 
 woman possessed with the devil, that woman was 
 Ann. 
 
 Kuskin puts on record a remark made to him 
 by his Cousin Jessie, when, as a boy, he spent a 
 holiday at Perth. It seems that Jessie and John, 
 more boisterous on the Lord's Day than they 
 ought to have been, had to be rebuked by his 
 Aunt for jumping on, and jumping off, certain 
 boxes in the room. To comfort John, his Cousin 
 Jessie said : " Never mind, John, when we are 
 married we'll jump off boxes all day long, if we 
 like." 
 
 Kuskin's writings abound with a charming 
 opinionativeness. He has opinions, and most de- 
 cided ones too, on all sorts of persons and things 
 kings, bishops, capitalists, workers, artists, authors ; 
 
268 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 on pictures, cathedrals, churches, etc. ; and he is not 
 afraid to utter them. 
 
 Well aware that he is dogmatic in his judgments, 
 he justifies his manner by declaring that he never 
 writes a word about anything of which he is not 
 fully cognisant. As a rule, he finds that all other 
 people are wrong, and considers it his vocation and 
 burden to set them right. He had this opinion- 
 ativeness when a youth ; if anything, he is more 
 decided now. 
 
 When he was a youth, everybody told him to 
 look at the roof of the Sistine Chapel ; and he 
 looked at it, and liked it. Everybody also told 
 him to look at Kaphael's Transfiguration, and 
 Domenichino's Saint Jerome. He did as he was 
 bid, and without the smallest hesitation pronounced 
 Domenichino's a bad picture, and Kaphael's an 
 ugly one ; and thenceforth paid no more attention 
 to what anybody said on the subject of Painting. 
 
 In his St. George's Schools he would teach 
 children, not the three E's, but the elements of 
 Music, Astronomy, Botany, and Geology. Someone 
 having written to him, that by doing so he would 
 get into conflict with H.M. Inspectors of Schools, 
 he replied : "That although ten millions of In- 
 spectors of Schools were collected together at 
 Cader Idris, they should not make him teach in his 
 Schools a single thing he did not choose to teach." 
 
 Here are some of the Epigrams which shine in 
 his writings like stars in the heavens : 
 
 "The most beautiful tilings in the world, are the most 
 useless peacocks and lilies, for instance." 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 269 
 
 "There is material enough, in a single flower, for the 
 
 ornamenting of a score of cathedrals." 
 
 "To be baptized with fire, or to be cast into it, is the 
 
 choice set before all men." 
 " I believe that stars, and boughs, and leaves, and bright 
 
 colours, are everlastingly lovely." 
 "I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder at 
 
 what they lose." 
 
 "Nothing must come between Nature and the artist's 
 
 sight." 
 
 " Nothing must come between God and the artist's soul." 
 " To paint water, is like trying to paint a soul." 
 "To live is nothing, unless to live be to know Him by 
 
 whom we live." 
 
 " No royal road to anywhere worth going to." 
 
 " To see clearly, is Poetry, Prophecy, and Religion." 
 
 "The sky is not blue colour only; it is blue fire, and 
 
 cannot be painted." 
 
 " When you have got too much to do, don't do it." 
 " Women and clergy are in the habit of using pretty words, 
 
 without understanding them." 
 " If you can paint a leaf, you can paint the world." 
 "Anybody who makes Religion a second object, makes 
 
 Religion no object." 
 " He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place." 
 
 Before touching on the Message, or Messages, 
 which Kuskin delivers to our age, it may be well to 
 refer briefly to the three great principles Nature, 
 the Bible, and God, which form the rock-foun- 
 dation. 
 
 Ruskin's love of Nature is at the root of his Pre- 
 Raphaelitism in Painting, and also determines his 
 sympathies in Architecture. As all readers of his 
 
270 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 books know, he is a passionate admirer of Gothic 
 Architecture, and he is so because convinced that 
 Gothic Architecture is the Architecture of Nature. 
 " No leaves," he said, " are square-headed they 
 have all the pointed arch." 
 
 From his Modern Painters we learn that Kuskin 
 has never varied in this, as his main aim and 
 principle, to " declare the perfectness, and eternal 
 beauty of the work of God." 
 
 He would test all works of man by their con- 
 currence with, or subjection to, the work of God ; 
 and would submit as a criterion for all works of art, 
 this question " Has the artist been true to what 
 is most perfect in Nature ? " 
 
 Another of his fundamental principles is loyalty 
 to the Bible, carrying along with it faith in 
 Christ. There is, perhaps, no other great writer of 
 the present day who confesses Christ all through 
 his works as Ruskin does. Atheism is far away, 
 and cannot but be far away, from one who sees, like 
 him, into the inner soul of things. Like Carlyle, 
 he has an open contempt for Materialism and Dar- 
 winianism. He is surprised to hear people shrieking 
 because attacks are made upon their Bibles, and 
 their Christ ; and says, with great wisdom, that " if 
 People would obey their Bibles, and their Christ, 
 they would not care who attacked them." 
 
 These words of Mary, the mother of Jesus, 
 " Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it," sum up, 
 as he reminds us, all that he has been permitted to 
 speak in God's name for many years. He writes 
 as a Christian to Christians, in the hope of a literal, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 271 
 
 personal, perpetual life, with a "literal, personal, 
 perpetual God." 
 
 It may be remarked, that Euskin has but a poor 
 opinion of the age to which he delivers his message. 
 He thinks that a worse age than the present could 
 not be, and that in every sense, religious, artistic, 
 moral, and social This, he thinks, is the real age 
 of darkness. We are living " in the most perfectly 
 miscreant crowd that ever blasphemed creation, and 
 that, not with the old snapfinger blasphemy of the 
 wantonly profane, but with the deliberate blasphemy 
 of Adam Smith ' Thou shalt hate the Lord thy 
 God; damn His laws, and covet thy neighbour's 
 goods.' " 
 
 This is how he sketches the civilised nations of 
 modern Europe "A mass of half -taught, dis- 
 contented, mostly penniless populace, calling itself 
 The People ; a thing which is called a ' Govern- 
 ment/ that is, an apparatus for collecting and 
 spending money, a number of Capitalists, many of 
 them rogues, and most of them stupid, having no 
 other idea of existence than money-making, gam- 
 bling, and champagne-bibbing ; Literary men, saying 
 anything they can get paid for; Clergymen, saying 
 anything they have been taught to say ; Natural 
 Philosophers, saying anything that comes into their 
 heads ; and Nobility, saying nothing at all." 
 
 Kuskin maintains that the profoundest reason of 
 all this sadness and darkness of soul, in this age of 
 ennui, jaded intellect, and uncomfortableness in soul 
 and body, lies in the fact that it is an age having 
 " no hope, and without God in the world." A red 
 
272 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Indian or an Otaheitian savage, he maintains, has a 
 surer sense of a Divine existence round him, and 
 a God over him, than the plurality of refined 
 Londoners and Parisians. 
 
 Nearly all our powerful men, he notes, are 
 unbelievers ; the best, in doubt and misery ; and 
 the others, in reckless despair. Our best Poets and 
 Thinkers are doubtful and indignant ; one or two 
 anchored, but anxious and weeping. In Politics, he 
 considers that Religion is now a name ; in Art, an 
 hypocrisy, or affectation. There are but two classes 
 who believe the Romanist and the Puritan. 
 
 Ruskin declares that whilst the Classical age was 
 an age of Pagan faith, and the Middle age an age 
 of confessing Christ, the Modern age is an age of 
 denying Him, going on to say that this last 
 characteristic, that of " denying Christ," is intensely 
 and peculiarly modern. 
 
 To this age, dark and sad because of its unbelief, 
 he delivers his message, does so with fidelity, 
 and earnestness, and happily not without hope. 
 " I," he says, " a man clothed in soft raiment, I, a 
 reed shaken with the wind, have yet this message 
 to all men, entrusted to me, ' Behold the axe is laid 
 to the root of the tree ; whatsoever tree, therefore, 
 bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and 
 cast into the fire.' " 
 
 VI 
 
 Ruskin has a message to all engaged in Art. 
 This is the burden of that message " Be yourselves 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 273 
 
 good, if you would have good Art ; be yourselves 
 noble, if you would have noble Art." He is ab- 
 solutely sure that no supreme power in Art can be 
 attained by impious men, and would have this truth 
 written in letters of fire. He is anxious to im- 
 press upon all Artists the fact, that the end of Art 
 is not to amuse, but to interpret divine things. 
 He expresses himself finally thus in his " Oxford 
 Lectures " : ' You cannot paint or sing yourselves 
 into good men, you must be good men before 
 you can either paint or sing." 
 
 Without attempting to enter upon the manifold 
 artistic teaching of Euskin, we take the liberty of 
 quoting his opinion on the nude in Art, that 
 delicate and oft-discussed matter. Euskin is, as 
 usual, quite decided in his opinion, and healthful as 
 decided. He thinks that so much of the nude 
 body, as in the daily life of the nation, may be seen 
 with reverence, with modesty, and with delight ; so 
 much, and no more, ought to be shown by the 
 national arts, either of Painting or of Sculpture. 
 He writes of the Paris Salons, as " costly and 
 studious illuminations of the brothel," deploring that 
 so much of the stripped actress is in evidence 
 there. 
 
 Very interesting are his characteristic delinea- 
 tions of Artists, ancient and modern. 
 
 Easily first, as might have been expected, stands 
 the name of Joseph Mallard William Turner, the 
 "first and greatest of Landscape Painters." Not 
 only does Euskin class Turner with Bacon and 
 Shakespeare, but gives him the first place in 
 18 
 
274 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 essential greatness. Bacon did what Aristotle at- 
 tempted ; Shakespeare did perfectly what Aeschylus 
 did partially, but none before Turner had lifted 
 " the veil from the face of Nature." 
 
 He is a great admirer of the paintings of Fra 
 Angelico, declaring that the purest and brightest 
 colours are to be found there only ; and that in the 
 paintings of the old Friar, the glory of the human 
 countenance reaches actual transfiguration. Salvator 
 gives him the idea of a lost spirit. He writes of 
 Rubens' physical art-power, and of Eubens himself 
 as a healthy, worthy, kind-hearted, courtly phrased 
 animal, with no traces of a soul, except when he 
 paints children. 
 
 Kuskin is very severe on Dore*. Of a woman 
 who had gone to see one of Dore's pictures, he 
 remarked, that she had better have gone and seen 
 the devil. Dore's pictures, says Kuskin, are "fit 
 neither for the land nor yet for the dunghill." 
 Whistler's Studies, or Harmonies, he characterises 
 as " absolute rubbish." " I have seen," he writes, 
 " much Cockney impudence before now, but never 
 expected to hear a cockscomb ask two hundred 
 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's 
 face." 
 
 VII 
 
 Euskin has a Message to all concerned with 
 Religion. The substance of his message is a 
 passionate appeal to the individual and nation " to 
 be good" This, as has been pointed out, was the 
 burden of the sermons which he preached when a 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 275 
 
 boy, and this is also the burden of the more than 
 forty volumes which he has written. 
 
 It is surely fortunate for our age that it has, in 
 Kuskin, as a Teacher of the first rank, one whose 
 writings are saturated with the religious spirit. 
 He is no preacher of knowledge for the sake of 
 knowledge, nor of culture for the sake of culture, 
 nor of art for art's sake; but he is a preacher 
 who calls upon man to glorify God, the Giver, 
 sanctifying unto Him every power which he 
 possesses. 
 
 The perusal of Kuskin's writings adds a new 
 force to the well-known words, " Godliness is 
 profitable unto all things." As with a stroke of 
 lightning, he sketches the history of the once- 
 famed Venice, whose transitions were swift like 
 the falling of a star, from "pride to infidelity, 
 from infidelity to the insatiable pursuit of pleasure, 
 and from this to irremediable degradation." 
 
 His first article in the Creed of the St. George's 
 Company runs thus : " I believe in God " ; and 
 this is his first order to the children of St. 
 George's Company : " Always, and in whatever 
 you do, endeavour to please Christ. Say to your- 
 self after your prayers, ' Whoso forsaketh not all 
 that he hath, cannot be My disciple.' " 
 
 It is refreshing, in those days of a pitiful and 
 pitiless Naturalism, to come across such an out-and- 
 out believer in the Supernatural. Euskin wonders 
 at those who maintain so rigorously the stead- 
 fastness of the laws of the Universe, when it is 
 so evident that will our own will, breaks them 
 
276 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 every day ; and sends powerfully home the question, 
 If our wills can do so, how much more the Will 
 of God ? 
 
 He is not at all troubled about the miracle of 
 the sun standing still, when face to face with the 
 greater miracle of the sun going on. He fears that 
 there are some desolate souls, selfish, material, and 
 unbelieving, for whom " the sun beneath the horizon 
 stands still for ever," those souls, he means, who 
 are content, so that they eat and breathe their fill ; 
 content to eat like cattle and breathe like plants, 
 "regardless of the Spirit that makes the grass 
 to grow on the mountains." He writes of the 
 " Nebuchadnezzar-curse " that sends men to grass 
 like oxen. He cannot away with those who 
 think that this glorious world has been made 
 simply for the hewing of wood and the drawing 
 of water; who imagine that it is to give them 
 wood to hew and water to drink that " God has 
 made the pine forest to cover the mountains like 
 His own shadow, and the rivers to move like His 
 own Eternity, the poor vine-dressers and husband- 
 men, who love the corn they grind and the grapes 
 they crush better than the gardens of the angels 
 on the slopes of Eden." 
 
 Kuskin believes in Prayer, and is not ashamed to 
 say so. As a Christian man, he confesses that he 
 believes Prayer to be in the last sense sufficient for 
 the salvation of the town, and drainage in the last 
 sense insufficient for its salvation. Not that he is 
 unconcerned about drainage, but if, of the two, he 
 must choose between drainage and prayer, " why, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 277 
 
 look ye," he says, " whatever you may think of my 
 wild and whirling words, I will go pray." 
 
 Ruskin has also a Message to the Churches. 
 Although he has taken the trouble to tell us 
 that he is not an Evangelical, we do not remember 
 of ever seeing the very soul of evangelical teaching 
 put better than he himself has put it. We refer 
 to that sentence in which he says that the root of 
 every heresy and schism in the Christian Church 
 has been the effort of men " to earn, rather than 
 receive, their salvation." He is sure that preaching 
 would be more effective if people were called on, 
 not to work for God, but to behold God working 
 for them. 
 
 Amongst other things in the religious sphere, 
 Ruskin has- something to say on the desire to 
 beautify churches with architectural adornments, 
 painted windows, pictures, upholsteries, and so on. 
 Having no doubt whatever about the good that 
 Religion has done to Art, he distinctly questions 
 whether Art has ever done any good to Religion. 
 
 He would certainly like to see beautiful and 
 costly buildings erected for the Worship of God, 
 but then he is pleased with such, more as expressive 
 of the spirit of the worshippers than for any good 
 which they will do to the cause of Religion. He 
 is sure that more has always been done for God by 
 few words than by many pictures, and more by 
 few acts than by many words. 
 
 Attaching very little importance to Denomina- 
 tionalism, he says it does not matter a burnt stick- 
 
278 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 end from the altar, in heaven's sight, whether a 
 person is Catholic or Protestant, Eastern or Western, 
 but only whether a person be true. There is a 
 fine passage in which he says, that when " Venice 
 is true to St. Mark, her flag flies all over the 
 Eastern islands; when Florence is true to her 
 Lilies, her flag flies all over the Apennines ; when 
 Switzerland is true to her ' Notre Dame des Neiges,' 
 her pine club beats down all the Austrian lances ; 
 and when England is true to her Protestant virtue, 
 all the sea-winds ally themselves with her against 
 the Armada." 
 
 Euskin has something to say on a subject much 
 discussed at the present time the Union of the 
 Churches. For one thing, with much insight, he 
 deplores the violent combativeness of the sects of 
 the Christian Church, sure that such a spirit comes 
 nearer defying than confessing Christ. In the 
 Construction of Sheepfolds condescending on the 
 subject of the Union of the Episcopalian Church of 
 England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
 he writes of such a union as both desirable and 
 possible ; maintaining, at the same time, that if 
 such a union is to be accomplished at all, it must 
 come about not by absorption, but by compromise. 
 
 He uses great plainness of speech. He tells 
 those who belong to the Episcopalian Church, that 
 they must cut the word " Priest " entirely out of 
 the Prayer-Book, and that they must also throw 
 out the passages about " Absolution." Instead of 
 the word "Priest," he would substitute the word 
 " Minister " or " Elder," maintaining, wisely as we 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 279 
 
 think, that the authority of a Christian Minister is 
 that of a King's Messenger, and not of a King's 
 Representative. 
 
 He has also something in the way of counsel to 
 those who belong to the Presbyterian Church of 
 Scotland. He thinks that the Scottish Church has 
 no shadow of excuse for refusing Episcopacy, seeing 
 it is in the Bible, and no excuse for refusing a 
 written form of prayer. 
 
 We do not enter upon any discussion as to 
 whether the government of the Church by Episco- 
 pacy is more in harmony with the Divine Word 
 than government of the Church by Presbytery. 
 We content ourselves with remarking, that Ruskin 
 makes a larger assumption than he is entitled to 
 do, when he says that Episcopacy is warranted by 
 the Word of God. Something may be said for the 
 Episcopal form of Church government as a develop- 
 ment in the course of the Church's history, but the 
 claim is ill founded, and acknowledged by com- 
 petent scholars of the Church of England to be 
 so, when an appeal is made to the Law and to the 
 Testimony. 
 
 Were we to discuss the propriety or otherwise 
 of using liturgical forms in the Worship of God, we 
 would be inclined to take much the same line, con- 
 sidering that the Scriptural link, a very important 
 one, is the weakest in the whole chain. There is a 
 question asked by a Covenanter that keeps sounding 
 in our ears, " Where got Jacob his Liturgy, when 
 he wrestled all night in prayer with God ? " 
 
 One sentence of Ruskin's settles the question of 
 
280 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 Consecrated ground, as if, writes Euskin, "any 
 ground could be consecrated that had the bones of 
 rascals in it, or any ground profane where a good 
 man slept." 
 
 Eitualism is to him simply childish, a playing 
 with symbols when realities are so near. He tells 
 us that he has many friends amongst Priests, and 
 that he would have had more had he not long 
 been trying to make them see that " they have long 
 trusted too much in candlesticks not quite enough 
 in candles, not at all enough in the Sun, and, least 
 of all, enough in the Sun's Maker." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Kuskin has also a Message in Politics. Here he 
 is a Eadical, in the best sense of the word, caring 
 most of all, not for the forms or the fact of 
 government, but for the character of the citizens 
 who compose the nation. His wise counsel is, 
 " Make the people good ; get the good man, and so, 
 get the good citizen." 
 
 He has not much to say on the Eeform of the 
 House of Lords, one of the burning questions of 
 Politics, but what he has to say is worthy of note. 
 In his opinion, it will not do to say that the House 
 of Lords forms an impediment to business, for the 
 question must be asked, what is the use of them ? 
 they have a use, and that is, to govern the 
 country. If they do so well; and if not, why 
 then, they must go. "Will they," he asks, "be 
 Lords indeed, and give us laws ; Dukes indeed, and 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 281 
 
 give us guidance ; Princes indeed, and give a be- 
 ginning of a true dynasty, which shall not be soiled 
 by covetousness, nor disordered by iniquity ? " 
 
 On another burning question in Politics the 
 question of Home Eule for Ireland, he has nothing 
 to say, except this, that he assumes that the 
 purpose of this movement is to see to it that 
 " Ireland should belong to the Irishmen." This, he 
 concludes, is not only a most desirable, but ulti- 
 mately a quite inevitable condition of things, being 
 the assured intention of the Maker of Ireland, and 
 all other lands. 
 
 IX 
 
 Last of all, we have Buskin's Message in Social 
 Economics. His message, scattered up and down 
 his writings, is found in its fullest in Fors Clavigera, 
 and embraces almost every department of social life. 
 
 All through his words there runs, clear as crystal, 
 the great and saving principle, that man's good, or 
 happiness, does not lie in anything outside of himself. 
 Ruskin's gospel, and a veritable gospel it is, is 
 that man's true good, or essential happiness, lies 
 neither in money, nor railways, nor machinery, but 
 in something else ; something simpler, more natural, 
 a something which is divine. 
 
 No cheating or bargaining will ever get a single 
 thing out of Nature's establishment at half price. 
 Do we want to be strong ? we must work. Do 
 we want to be hungry ? we must starve. Do we 
 want to be happy ? we must be kind. Do we 
 want to be wise ? we must look and think. 
 
282 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 People are, he says, not one whit stronger, happier, 
 or wiser, by the making of stuff a thousand yards a 
 minute, or changing one's place at a hundred miles 
 an hour ; for a man's good lies not at all in going, 
 but in being. 
 
 The world's prosperity and adversity depend in 
 no wise on iron, glass, electricity, or steam. " To 
 watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set, to draw 
 hard breath over plough and spade; to read, to 
 think, to love, to hope, to pray, these are the 
 things that make men happy." Surely wiser 
 words have not been written in our day. 
 
 As has just been remarked, Euskin touches on a 
 great variety of topics in his Social teaching. He 
 has uttered wise words on Love, and Courtship, and 
 words as wise on the subject of Dress. So far as 
 Courtship is concerned, he thinks that when a youth 
 is fully in love with a girl, and feels that he is wise 
 in loving her, he should tell her so plainly, and take 
 his chance bravely with other suitors. He is of 
 the opinion that the orthodox time for courtship 
 is seven years, and should never be shorter than 
 three; and that a girl worth anything ought to 
 have at least half a dozen of suitors under vow to 
 her. He would have the courtship gone properly 
 about, not the mob-courtship of modern times, in a 
 miserable confusion of candlelight, moonlight, and 
 limelight, and anything but daylight. 
 
 So far as Dress is concerned, Euskin will have 
 young ladies dress as plainly as their parents will 
 allow them, but in bright colours, and the best of 
 material. They may wear broad stripes or narrow, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 283 
 
 bright colours or dark, but they must not buy yards 
 of useless stuff to make a knot or flounce of, and 
 they must not drag their dresses behind them on 
 the ground. Their walking dress must never, he 
 says, touch the ground at all ; adding, that he has 
 lost much of the faith that he once had in the 
 common sense, and even in the delicacy, of the 
 present race of English women, by seeing how they 
 will allow their dresses to sweep the streets, " if it 
 is the fashion to be scavengers." 
 
 Like Carlyle, he is an ardent preacher of the 
 gospel of Work; stoutly maintaining that all, 
 high and low, gentle and simple, should work with 
 their own hands at some sort of work or another. He 
 is indignant at those who think that it is neither 
 lady-like nor gentleman-like to work with one's 
 own hands, setting his seal to the truism, that there 
 is no degradation in the hardest labour. There is 
 degradation, as he remarks, in extravagance, bribery, 
 indolence, or pride. It degrades anyone to be a 
 knave or a thief, but it does not degrade a gentle- 
 man to become an errand-boy or a day-labourer. 
 
 He insists on ladies working with their own 
 hands. " You can," he writes, " make your own 
 bed, wash your own plate, brighten your own 
 furniture." To the objection that this is servant's 
 work, he replies, almost with vehemence, that of 
 course it is ; and asks, Why hopes a lady to be 
 better than a servant of servants ? 
 
 Is the statement forthcoming " But God made 
 me a lady"; then at once comes the reply 
 " Become one of Christ's ladies, and serve." 
 
284 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 But cry the ladies again " You don't expect us 
 to work with our hands, and make ourselves hot ? " 
 Why then, asks Euskin " Who, in the name of Him 
 who made you, are you, that you shouldn't ? " 
 " Have you got past the naming sword, back again 
 to Eden ? Forsooth, you will make slaves, accursed 
 slaves, of others, that you may slip your dainty 
 necks out of the collar." 
 
 But, once more say the ladies " We thought that 
 Christ's yoke had no collar." Then replies their 
 monitor " It is time that you knew better." 
 
 Euskin becomes literally fierce when he comes to 
 speak of War insisting that there is no physical 
 crime so far beyond pardon, so without parallel in 
 guilt, as the making of gunpowder and war machinery. 
 " Two nations," he writes, " go mad, and fight like 
 harlots." " May God have mercy on them " ; but 
 he cries out, " what mercy is there for you, who 
 hand them carving knives off your table for leave 
 to pick up a dropped sixpence ? " 
 
 If our soldiers were dressed in black, like other 
 executioners, instead of in scarlet and gold, the 
 game of War would not be so popular, in Euskin's 
 opinion. 
 
 He has much to say on the Land question. He 
 is appalled at the terrible overcrowding in our cities, 
 when there is so much land to be occupied, so much 
 of God's air to be breathed, and sunshine to be 
 enjoyed ; grouse and black-cock, " so many brace 
 to the acre ; and men and women, so many brace to 
 the garret." There is, in his opinion, but one prin- 
 
JOHN RUSKIN 285 
 
 ciple involved in the Land question, and that is 
 "Each man shall possess the ground he can use, 
 and no more." Take care, he writes, of your 
 Squires. The land belongs to them, because they 
 seized it by force, long since; and you have the 
 same right to seize it now, and that is, none : they 
 had no right then, neither have you now. The 
 land, by Divine right, is neither theirs nor yours, 
 except under conditions not ascertained by fighting. 
 
 In the meantime the Land is theirs, by the law 
 of England. The first duty is to obey the law, be it 
 just or unjust, until it is altered, if alteration be 
 needful, by due peaceful deliberation. His last 
 word on this subject is : " Become diminutive 
 Capitalists and Squires yourselves." 
 
 We have no space to dwell upon Kuskin's found- 
 ing of St. George's Company, the aim of which is to 
 buy land, and live upon it, and work it, in simple 
 ways. Suffice it to say, that this is one of his pet 
 schemes, giving him much trouble, and costing 
 immense money. 
 
 " We will," he writes, " make some small piece of 
 English ground, beautiful, and peaceful, and fruitful. 
 No steam engines, no railroads upon it, no un- 
 tended or unthought of creature about it, none 
 wretched, but the sick, none idle, but the dead, 
 no liberty, but instead, obedience to known laws 
 and appointed persons,-^-no equality, but recognition 
 of every betterness that we can find, and repudia- 
 tion of every worseness. All will go quietly, and 
 safely. There will be plenty of flowers, and veget- 
 ables, and corn, and grass. There will be Art. 
 
286 LEADERS IN LITERATURE 
 
 There will be Music and Poetry. The children will 
 learn to sing it, and to dance to it." 
 
 It is a lovely picture, a winsome social ideal, 
 John Kuskin's endeavour to realise, on this earth of 
 ours, a bit of that kingdom of Christ which is 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy. 
 
 " And the sucking child shall play on the hole 
 of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand 
 on the cockatrice* den. They shall not hurt nor 
 destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth 
 shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
 the waters cover the sea." 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE 
 "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES. 
 
 Of THOMAS CARLYLE, by H. C. MACPHERSON, the 
 British Weekly says : 
 
 "We congratulate the publishers on the in every way attractive 
 appearance of the first volume of their new series. The typography 
 is everything that could be wished, and the binding is most tasteful. 
 . . We heartily congratulate author and publishers on the happy 
 commencement of this admirable enterprise." 
 
 The Literary World says : 
 
 " One of the very best little books on Carlyle yet written, far out- 
 weighing in value some more pretentious works with which we are 
 familiar." 
 
 The Scotsman says : 
 
 " As an estimate of the Carlylean philosophy, and of Carlyle's place 
 in literature and his influence in the domains of morals, politics, and 
 social ethics, the volume reveals not only care and fairness, but insight 
 and a large capacity for original thought and judgment." 
 
 The Glasgow Daily Record says : 
 
 " Is distinctly creditable to the publishers, and worthy of a national 
 series such as they have projected." 
 
 The Educational News says : 
 
 "The book is written in an able, masterly, and painstaking manner." 
 
 Of ALLAN RAMSAY, by OLIPHANT SMEATON, the 
 Scotsman says : 
 
 " It is not a patchwork picture, but one in which the writer, taking 
 genuine interest in his subject, and bestowing conscientious pains on 
 Eis task, has his materials well in hand, and has used them to produce 
 a portrait that is both lifelike and well balanced." 
 
 The Peoples Friend says : 
 
 " Presents a very interesting sketch of the life of the poet, as well as 
 a well-balanced estimate and review of his works." 
 
 The Edinburgh Dispatch says : 
 
 " The author has shown scholarship and much enthusiasm in his task." 
 
 The Daily Record says : 
 
 " The kindly, vain, and pompous little wig-maker lives for us in Mr. 
 Smeaton's pages." 
 
 The Glasgow Herald says : 
 
 " A careful and intelligent study." 
 
 Of HUGH MILLER, by W. KEITH LEASK, the 
 Expository Times says : 
 
 " It is a right good book and a right true biography. . . . There is 
 a very fine sense of Hugh Miller's greatness as a man and a Scots- 
 man ; there is also a fine choice of language in making it ours." 
 
 The Bookseller says : 
 
 " Mr. Leask gives the reader a clear impression of the simplicity, and 
 yet the greatness, of his hero, and the broad result of his life's work 
 is very plainly and carefully set forth. A short appreciation of his 
 scientific labours, from the competent pen of Sir Archibald Geikie, 
 and a useful bibliography of his works, complete a volume which is 
 well worth reading for its own sake, and which forms a worthy instal- 
 ment in an admirable series." 
 
 The Daily News says : 
 
 " Leaves on us a very vivid impression." 
 
PRESS OPINIONS ON "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES cont. 
 
 Of JOHN KNOX, by A. TAYLOR INNES, Mr. Hay 
 Fleming, in the Bookman, says : 
 
 " A masterly delineation of those stirring times in Scotland, and of 
 that famous Scot who helped so much to shape them." 
 
 The Freeman says : 
 
 "It is a concise, well written, and admirable narrative of the great 
 Reformer's life, and in its estimate of his character and work it is 
 calm, dispassionate, and well balanced. ... It is a welcome addition 
 to our Knox literature." 
 
 The Speaker says : 
 
 " There is vision in this book, as well as knowledge." 
 
 The Sunday School Chronicle says : 
 
 " Everybody who is acquainted with Mr. Taylor Innes's exquisite 
 lecture on Samuel Rutherford will feel instinctively that he is just the 
 man to do justice to the great Reformer, who is more to Scotland 
 'than any million of unblameable Scotsmen who need no forgiveness." 
 His literary skill, his thorough acquaintance with Scottish ecclesiasti- 
 cal life, his religious insight, his chastened enthusiasm, have enabled 
 the author to produce an excellent piece of work. ... It is a noble 
 and inspiring theme, and Mr. Taylor Innes has handled it to per- 
 fection/' 
 
 Of ROBERT BURNS, by GABRIEL SETOUN, the 
 New Age says : 
 
 " It is the best thing on Burns we have yet had, almost as good as 
 Carlyle's Essay and the pamphlet published by Dr. Nichol of 
 Glasgow." 
 
 The Methodist Times says : 
 
 " We are inclined to regard it as the very best that has yet been pro- 
 duced. There is a proper perspective, and Mr. Setoun does neither 
 praise nor blame too copiously. ... A difficult bit of work has been 
 well done, and with fine literary and ethical discrimination." 
 
 Youth says : 
 
 " It is written with knowledge, judgment, and skill. . . . The 
 author's estimate of the moral character of Burns is temperate and 
 discriminating ; he sees and states his evil qualities, and beside these 
 he places his good ones in their fulness, depth, and splendour. The 
 exposition of the special features marking the genius of the poet is 
 able and penetrating. 
 
 Of THE BALLAD ISTS, by JOHN GEDDIE, the 
 Birmingham Daily Gazette says : 
 
 "As a popular sketch of an intensely popular theme, Mr. Geddie's 
 contribution to the ' Famous Scots Series ' is most excellent." 
 
 The Publisher? Circular says : 
 
 " It may be predicted that lovers of romantic literature will re-peruse 
 the old ballads with a quickened zest after reading Mr. Geddie's book. 
 We have not had a more welcome little volume for many a day." 
 
 The New Age says : 
 
 "One of the most delightful and eloquent appreciations of the ballad 
 literature of Scotland that has ever seen the light." 
 
 The Spectator says : 
 
 " The author has certainly made a contribution of remarkable value 
 to the literary history of Scotland. We do not know of a book in 
 which the subject has been treated with deeper sympathy or out of a 
 fuller knowledge." 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 270ct'52C B 
 OCT13195 
 
 OV5-1965 8 
 KEC'D LD 
 
 OCT 2 2'65 -2 P 
 
 LD 21-95m-ll,'50(2877sl6)476 
 
16595